Collected Works of

ZANE GREY

(1872-1939)

Contents

Historical Novels

Betty Zane

Spirit of the Border

The Westerns

The Last of the Plainsmen

The Last Trail

The Young Forester

The Heritage of the Desert

The Young Lion Hunter

Riders of the Purple Sage

Ken Ward in the Jungle

Desert Gold

The Light of Western Stars

The Rainbow Trail

The Lone Star Ranger

The Border Legion

Wildfire

The Up Trail

The Desert of Wheat

The Man of the Forest

The Trail Driver

To the Last Man

The Mysterious Rider

Wanderer of the Wasteland

Code of the West

Tappan’s Burro

The Call of the Canyon

Wild Horse Mesa

Captives of the Desert

The Vanishing American

The Thundering Herd

Under the Tonto Rim

Lost Pueblo

Forlorn River

Nevada

Avalanche

Fighting Caravans

The Shepherd of Guadaloupe

Raiders of Spanish Peaks

Sunset Pass

Arizona Ames

West of the Pecos

Wyoming

Robbers’ Roost

The Hash Knife Outfit

The Drift Fence

Thunder Mountain

Majesty’s Rancho

Knights of the Range

Twin Sombreros

Thirty Thousand on the Hoof

The Wilderness Trek

Valley of Wild Horses

Maverick Queen

The Baseball Stories

The Shortstop

The Young Pitcher

The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories

Adventure Novels

Tales of Lonely Trails

Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon

The Social Novel

The Day of the Beast

The Non-Fiction

Tales of Fishes

Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, New Zealand

An American Angler in Australia

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Collected Works of

ZANE GREY

By Delphi Classics, 2014

COPYRIGHT

Collected Works of Zane Grey

First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2014.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 9781910630242

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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Historical Novels

Grey’s birthplace in Zanesville, Ohio

Betty Zane

After graduating in dentistry in 1896, Grey established his practice in New York City under the name of Dr. Zane Grey. It was a competitive area, but he wanted to be close to publishers. He began to write in the evening to offset the tedium of his dental practice, but during this period he struggled financially and emotionally. Though Grey was a natural writer, his early efforts were rigid in style and grammatically weak. In writing, nevertheless, he found temporary escape from the harshness of his life and his troubles.

Grey often went camping with his brother R.C. in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where they fished in the upper Delaware River. When canoeing in 1900, Grey met seventeen year-old Lina Roth, who was known by the nickname "Dolly". She came from a family of physicians and was studying at the time to be a schoolteacher. After a passionate courtship, marked by frequent quarrels, Grey and Dolly married five years later in 1905 and Dolly gave up her teaching career. They moved to a farmhouse at the convergence of the Delaware and Lackawaxen rivers, in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where Grey's mother and sister joined them. Grey decided to end his dental practice to devote full-time to his promising literary pursuits, as Dolly’s inheritance provided short-term financial support.

While Dolly managed Grey's career and raised their three children, over the next two decades Grey often spent months away from the family. He fished, wrote and spent time with his many mistresses. Though Dolly knew of his behaviour, she seemed to view his actions as a weakness in his character, rather than a choice he could make. Throughout their life together, he highly valued her management of his writing career and their family, and her solid emotional support. With the help of Dolly's proofreading and copy editing, Grey gradually improved his writing. His first magazine article, "A Day on the Delaware", a human-interest story about a Grey brothers’ fishing expedition, was published in the May 1902 issue of Recreation magazine. Delighted by selling the article, Grey offered reprints to patients in his waiting room.

After reading Owen Wister’s great Western novel The Virginian, Grey studied its style and structure in depth, feeling inspired to write a full-length novel. He experienced difficulties in writing Betty Zane, his first novel, and in 1903, when it was rejected by Harper & Brothers, he lapsed into despair. Grey decided to self-publish the novel, aided with funds either provided by his wife or his brother R. C.’s wealthy girlfriend, Reba Smith. From the beginning of his literary career, vivid descriptive writing was to going to be the strongest aspect of his writing.

The novel dramatises the heroism of the author’s ancestor, the eponymous Betty Zane, who had saved Fort Henry. According to a historical marker in Wheeling, on September 11, 1782, the Zane family were under siege in Fort Henry by American Indian allies of the British. During the siege, while Betty was loading a Kentucky rifle, her father was wounded and fell from the top of the fort right before her. The captain of the fort exclaimed, "We have lost two men, one Mr. Zane and another gentlemen, and we need black gunpowder." Betty ran 40 to 50 yards to retrieve gunpowder from her house, where her brother had left it and returned safely. Due to her heroic actions, they held off the Native Americans and survived the siege.

A nineteenth century depiction of Elizabeth Zane's legendary feat of retrieving powder during the 1782 siege of Fort Henry

Fort Henry was located near the Ohio River, by modern day Wheeling, West Virginia.

CONTENTS

NOTE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

AFTERWORD.

The first edition

Grey, shortly before publication

TO THE BETTY ZANE CHAPTER

OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR

NOTE

IN A QUIET corner of the stately little city of Wheeling, West Va., stands a monument on which is inscribed:

“By authority of the State of West Virginia to commemorate the siege of Fort Henry, Sept 11, 1782, the last battle of the American Revolution, this tablet is here placed.”

Had it not been for the heroism of a girl the foregoing inscription would never have been written, and the city of Wheeling would never have existed. From time to time I have read short stories and magazine articles which have been published about Elizabeth Zane and her famous exploit; but they are unreliable in some particulars, which is owing, no doubt, to the singularly meagre details available in histories of our western border.

For a hundred years the stories of Betty and Isaac Zane have been familiar, oft-repeated tales in my family — tales told with that pardonable ancestral pride which seems inherent in every one. My grandmother loved to cluster the children round her and tell them that when she was a little girl she had knelt at the feet of Betty Zane, and listened to the old lady as she told of her brother’s capture by the Indian Princess, of the burning of the Fort, and of her own race for life. I knew these stories by heart when a child.

Two years ago my mother came to me with an old note book which had been discovered in some rubbish that had been placed in the yard to burn. The book had probably been hidden in an old picture frame for many years. It belonged to my great-grandfather, Col. Ebenezer Zane. From its faded and time-worn pages I have taken the main facts of my story. My regret is that a worthier pen than mine has not had this wealth of material.

In this busy progressive age there are no heroes of the kind so dear to all lovers of chivalry and romance. There are heroes, perhaps, but they are the patient sad-faced kind, of whom few take cognizance as they hurry onward. But cannot we all remember some one who suffered greatly, who accomplished great deeds, who died on the battlefield — some one around whose name lingers a halo of glory? Few of us are so unfortunate that we cannot look backward on kith or kin and thrill with love and reverence as we dream of an act of heroism or martyrdom which rings down the annals of time like the melody of the huntsman’s horn, as it peals out on a frosty October morn purer and sweeter with each succeeding note.

If to any of those who have such remembrances, as well as those who have not, my story gives an hour of pleasure I shall be rewarded.

PROLOGUE

ON JUNE 16, 1716, Alexander Spotswood, Governor of the Colony of Virginia, and a gallant soldier who had served under Marlborough in the English wars, rode, at the head of a dauntless band of cavaliers, down the quiet street of quaint old Williamsburg.

The adventurous spirits of this party of men urged them toward the land of the setting sun, that unknown west far beyond the blue crested mountains rising so grandly before them.

Months afterward they stood on the western range of the Great North mountains towering above the picturesque Shenandoah Valley, and from the summit of one of the loftiest peaks, where, until then, the foot of a white man had never trod, they viewed the vast expanse of plain and forest with glistening eyes. Returning to Williamsburg they told of the wonderful richness of the newly discovered country and thus opened the way for the venturesome pioneer who was destined to overcome all difficulties and make a home in the western world.

But fifty years and more passed before a white man penetrated far beyond the purple spires of those majestic mountains.

One bright morning in June, 1769, the figure of a stalwart, broad shouldered man could have been seen standing on the wild and rugged promontory which rears its rocky bluff high above the Ohio river, at a point near the mouth of Wheeling Creek. He was alone save for the companionship of a deerhound that crouched at his feet. As he leaned on a long rifle, contemplating the glorious scene that stretched before him, a smile flashed across his bronzed cheek, and his heart bounded as he forecast the future of that spot. In the river below him lay an island so round and green that it resembled a huge lily pad floating placidly on the water. The fresh green foliage of the trees sparkled with glittering dewdrops. Back of him rose the high ridges, and, in front, as far as eye could reach, extended an unbroken forest.

Beneath him to the left and across a deep ravine he saw a wide level clearing. The few scattered and blackened tree stumps showed the ravages made by a forest fire in the years gone by. The field was now overgrown with hazel and laurel bushes, and intermingling with them were the trailing arbutus, the honeysuckle, and the wild rose. A fragrant perfume was wafted upward to him. A rushing creek bordered one edge of the clearing. After a long quiet reach of water, which could be seen winding back in the hills, the stream tumbled madly over a rocky ledge, and white with foam, it hurried onward as if impatient of long restraint, and lost its individuality in the broad Ohio.

This solitary hunter was Colonel Ebenezer Zane. He was one of those daring men, who, as the tide of emigration started westward, had left his friends and family and had struck out alone into the wilderness. Departing from his home in Eastern Virginia he had plunged into the woods, and after many days of hunting and exploring, he reached the then far Western Ohio valley.

The scene so impressed Colonel Zane that he concluded to found a settlement there. Taking “tomahawk possession” of the locality (which consisted of blazing a few trees with his tomahawk), he built himself a rude shack and remained that summer on the Ohio.

In the autumn he set out for Berkeley County, Virginia, to tell his people of the magnificent country he had discovered. The following spring he persuaded a number of settlers, of a like spirit with himself, to accompany him to the wilderness. Believing it unsafe to take their families with them at once, they left them at Red Stone on the Monongahela river, while the men, including Colonel Zane, his brothers Silas, Andrew, Jonathan and Isaac, the Wetzels, McCollochs, Bennets, Metzars and others, pushed on ahead.

The country through which they passed was one tangled, most impenetrable forest; the axe of the pioneer had never sounded in this region, where every rod of the way might harbor some unknown danger.

These reckless bordermen knew not the meaning of fear; to all, daring adventure was welcome, and the screech of a redskin and the ping of a bullet were familiar sounds; to the Wetzels, McCollochs and Jonathan Zane the hunting of Indians was the most thrilling passion of their lives; indeed, the Wetzels, particularly, knew no other occupation. They had attained a wonderful skill with the rifle; long practice had rendered their senses as acute as those of the fox. Skilled in every variety of woodcraft, with lynx eyes ever on the alert for detecting a trail, or the curling smoke of some camp fire, or the minutest sign of an enemy, these men stole onward through the forest with the cautious but dogged and persistent determination that was characteristic of the settler.

They at length climbed the commanding bluff overlooking the majestic river, and as they gazed out on the undulating and uninterrupted area of green, their hearts beat high with hope.

The keen axe, wielded by strong arms, soon opened the clearing and reared stout log cabins on the river bluff. Then Ebenezer Zane and his followers moved their families and soon the settlement began to grow and flourish. As the little village commenced to prosper the redmen became troublesome. Settlers were shot while plowing the fields or gathering the harvests. Bands of hostile Indians prowled around and made it dangerous for anyone to leave the clearing. Frequently the first person to appear in the early morning would be shot at by an Indian concealed in the woods.

General George Rodgers Clark, commandant of the Western Military Department, arrived at the village in 1774. As an attack from the savages was apprehended during the year the settlers determined to erect a fort as a defense for the infant settlement. It was planned by General Clark and built by the people themselves. At first they called it Fort Fincastle, in honor of Lord Dunmore, who, at the time of its erection, was Governor of the Colony of Virginia. In 1776 its name was changed to Fort Henry, in honor of Patrick Henry.

For many years it remained the most famous fort on the frontier, having withstood numberless Indian attacks and two memorable sieges, one in 1777, which year is called the year of the “Bloody Sevens,” and again in 1782. In this last siege the British Rangers under Hamilton took part with the Indians, making the attack practically the last battle of the Revolution.

CHAPTER I.

THE ZANE FAMILY was a remarkable one in early days, and most of its members are historical characters.

The first Zane of whom any trace can be found was a Dane of aristocratic lineage, who was exiled from his country and came to America with William Penn. He was prominent for several years in the new settlement founded by Penn, and Zane street, Philadelphia, bears his name. Being a proud and arrogant man, he soon became obnoxious to his Quaker brethren. He therefore cut loose from them and emigrated to Virginia, settling on the Potomac river, in what was then known as Berkeley county. There his five sons, and one daughter, the heroine of this story, were born.

Ebenezer Zane, the eldest, was born October 7, 1747, and grew to manhood in the Potomac valley. There he married Elizabeth McColloch, a sister of the famous McColloch brothers so well known in frontier history.

Ebenezer was fortunate in having such a wife and no pioneer could have been better blessed. She was not only a handsome woman, but one of remarkable force of character as well as kindness of heart. She was particularly noted for a rare skill in the treatment of illness, and her deftness in handling the surgeon’s knife and extracting a poisoned bullet or arrow from a wound had restored to health many a settler when all had despaired.

The Zane brothers were best known on the border for their athletic prowess, and for their knowledge of Indian warfare and cunning. They were all powerful men, exceedingly active and as fleet as deer. In appearance they were singularly pleasing and bore a marked resemblance to one another, all having smooth faces, clear cut, regular features, dark eyes and long black hair.

When they were as yet boys they had been captured by Indians, soon after their arrival on the Virginia border, and had been taken far into the interior, and held as captives for two years. Ebenezer, Silas, and Jonathan Zane were then taken to Detroit and ransomed. While attempting to swim the Scioto river in an effort to escape, Andrew Zane had been shot and killed by his pursuers.

But the bonds that held Isaac Zane, the remaining and youngest brother, were stronger than those of interest or revenge such as had caused the captivity of his brothers. He was loved by an Indian princess, the daughter of Tarhe, the chief of the puissant Huron race. Isaac had escaped on various occasions, but had always been retaken, and at the time of the opening of our story nothing had been heard of him for several years, and it was believed he had been killed.

At the period of the settling of the little colony in the wilderness, Elizabeth Zane, the only sister, was living with an aunt in Philadelphia, where she was being educated.

Colonel Zane’s house, a two story structure built of rough hewn logs, was the most comfortable one in the settlement, and occupied a prominent site on the hillside about one hundred yards from the fort. It was constructed of heavy timber and presented rather a forbidding appearance with its square corners, its ominous looking portholes, and strongly barred doors and windows. There were three rooms on the ground floor, a kitchen, a magazine room for military supplies, and a large room for general use. The several sleeping rooms were on the second floor, which was reached by a steep stairway.

The interior of a pioneer’s rude dwelling did not reveal, as a rule, more than bare walls, a bed or two, a table and a few chairs — in fact, no more than the necessities of life. But Colonel Zane’s house proved an exception to this. Most interesting was the large room. The chinks between the logs had been plastered up with clay and then the walls covered with white birch bark; trophies of the chase, Indian bows and arrows, pipes and tomahawks hung upon them; the wide spreading antlers of a noble buck adorned the space above the mantel piece; buffalo robes covered the couches; bearskin rugs lay scattered about on the hardwood floor. The wall on the western side had been built over a huge stone, into which had been cut an open fireplace.

This blackened recess, which had seen two houses burned over it, when full of blazing logs had cheered many noted men with its warmth. Lord Dunmore, General Clark, Simon Kenton, and Daniel Boone had sat beside that fire. There Cornplanter, the Seneca chief, had made his famous deal with Colonel Zane, trading the island in the river opposite the settlement for a barrel of whiskey. Logan, the Mingo chief and friend of the whites, had smoked many pipes of peace there with Colonel Zane. At a later period, when King Louis Phillippe, who had been exiled from France by Napoleon, had come to America, during the course of his melancholy wanderings he had stopped at Fort Henry a few days. His stay there was marked by a fierce blizzard and the royal guest passed most of his time at Colonel Zane’s fireside. Musing by those roaring logs perhaps he saw the radiant star of the Man of Destiny rise to its magnificent zenith.

One cold, raw night in early spring the Colonel had just returned from one of his hunting trips and the tramping of horses mingled with the rough voices of the negro slaves sounded without. When Colonel Zane entered the house he was greeted affectionately by his wife and sister. The latter, at the death of her aunt in Philadelphia, had come west to live with her brother, and had been there since late in the preceding autumn. It was a welcome sight for the eyes of a tired and weary hunter. The tender kiss of his comely wife, the cries of the delighted children, and the crackling of the fire warmed his heart and made him feel how good it was to be home again after a three days’ march in the woods. Placing his rifle in a corner and throwing aside his wet hunting coat, he turned and stood with his back to the bright blaze. Still young and vigorous, Colonel Zane was a handsome man. Tall, though not heavy, his frame denoted great strength and endurance. His face was smooth, his heavy eyebrows met in a straight line; his eyes were dark and now beamed with a kindly light; his jaw was square and massive; his mouth resolute; in fact, his whole face was strikingly expressive of courage and geniality. A great wolf dog had followed him in and, tired from travel, had stretched himself out before the fireplace, laying his noble head on the paws he had extended toward the warm blaze.

“Well! Well! I am nearly starved and mighty glad to get back,” said the Colonel, with a smile of satisfaction at the steaming dishes a negro servant was bringing from the kitchen.

“We are glad you have returned,” answered his wife, whose glowing face testified to the pleasure she felt. “Supper is ready — Annie, bring in some cream — yes, indeed, I am happy that you are home. I never have a moment’s peace when you are away, especially when you are accompanied by Lewis Wetzel.”

“Our hunt was a failure,” said the Colonel, after he had helped himself to a plate full of roast wild turkey. “The bears have just come out of their winter’s sleep and are unusually wary at this time. We saw many signs of their work, tearing rotten logs to pieces in search of grubs and bees’ nests. Wetzel killed a deer and we baited a likely place where we had discovered many bear tracks. We stayed up all night in a drizzling rain, hoping to get a shot. I am tired out. So is Tige. Wetzel did not mind the weather or the ill luck, and when we ran across some Indian sign he went off on one of his lonely tramps, leaving me to come home alone.”

“He is such a reckless man,” remarked Mrs. Zane.

“Wetzel is reckless, or rather, daring. His incomparable nerve carries him safely through many dangers, where an ordinary man would have no show whatever. Well, Betty, how are you?”

“Quite well,” said the slender, dark-eyed girl who had just taken the seat opposite the Colonel.

“Bessie, has my sister indulged in any shocking escapade in my absence? I think that last trick of hers, when she gave a bucket of hard cider to that poor tame bear, should last her a spell.”

“No, for a wonder Elizabeth has been very good. However, I do not attribute it to any unusual change of temperament; simply the cold, wet weather. I anticipate a catastrophe very shortly if she is kept indoors much longer.”

“I have not had much opportunity to be anything but well behaved. If it rains a few days more I shall become desperate. I want to ride my pony, roam the woods, paddle my canoe, and enjoy myself,” said Elizabeth.

“Well! Well! Betts, I knew it would be dull here for you, but you must not get discouraged. You know you got here late last fall, and have not had any pleasant weather yet. It is perfectly delightful in May and June. I can take you to fields of wild white honeysuckle and May flowers and wild roses. I know you love the woods, so be patient a little longer.”

Elizabeth had been spoiled by her brothers — what girl would not have been by five great big worshippers? — and any trivial thing gone wrong with her was a serious matter to them. They were proud of her, and of her beauty and accomplishments were never tired of talking. She had the dark hair and eyes so characteristic of the Zanes; the same oval face and fine features: and added to this was a certain softness of contour and a sweetness of expression which made her face bewitching. But, in spite of that demure and innocent face, she possessed a decided will of her own, and one very apt to be asserted; she was mischievous; inclined to coquettishness, and more terrible than all she had a fiery temper which could be aroused with the most surprising ease.

Colonel Zane was wont to say that his sister’s accomplishments were innumerable. After only a few months on the border she could prepare the flax and weave a linsey dresscloth with admirable skill. Sometimes to humor Betty the Colonel’s wife would allow her to get the dinner, and she would do it in a manner that pleased her brothers, and called forth golden praises from the cook, old Sam’s wife who had been with the family twenty years. Betty sang in the little church on Sundays; she organized and taught a Sunday school class; she often beat Colonel Zane and Major McColloch at their favorite game of checkers, which they had played together since they were knee high; in fact, Betty did nearly everything well, from baking pies to painting the birch bark walls of her room. But these things were insignificant in Colonel Zane’s eyes. If the Colonel were ever guilty of bragging it was about his sister’s ability in those acquirements demanding a true eye, a fleet foot, a strong arm and a daring spirit. He had told all the people in the settlement, to many of whom Betty was unknown, that she could ride like an Indian and shoot with undoubted skill; that she had a generous share of the Zanes’ fleetness of foot, and that she would send a canoe over as bad a place as she could find. The boasts of the Colonel remained as yet unproven, but, be that as it may, Betty had, notwithstanding her many faults, endeared herself to all. She made sunshine and happiness everywhere; the old people loved her; the children adored her, and the broad shouldered, heavy footed young settlers were shy and silent, yet blissfully happy in her presence.

“Betty, will you fill my pipe?” asked the Colonel, when he had finished his supper and had pulled his big chair nearer the fire. His oldest child, Noah, a sturdy lad of six, climbed upon his knee and plied him with questions.

“Did you see any bars and bufflers?” he asked, his eyes large and round.

“No, my lad, not one.”

“How long will it be until I am big enough to go?”

“Not for a very long time, Noah.”

“But I am not afraid of Betty’s bar. He growls at me when I throw sticks at him, and snaps his teeth. Can I go with you next time?”

“My brother came over from Short Creek to-day. He has been to Fort Pitt,” interposed Mrs. Zane. As she was speaking a tap sounded on the door, which, being opened by Betty, disclosed Captain Boggs his daughter Lydia, and Major Samuel McColloch, the brother of Mrs. Zane.

“Ah, Colonel! I expected to find you at home to-night. The weather has been miserable for hunting and it is not getting any better. The wind is blowing from the northwest and a storm is coming,” said Captain Boggs, a fine, soldierly looking man.

“Hello, Captain! How are you? Sam, I have not had the pleasure of seeing you for a long time,” replied Colonel Zane, as he shook hands with his guests.

Major McColloch was the eldest of the brothers of that name. As an Indian killer he ranked next to the intrepid Wetzel; but while Wetzel preferred to take his chances alone and track the Indians through the untrodden wilds, McColloch was a leader of expeditions against the savages. A giant in stature, massive in build, bronzed and bearded, he looked the typical frontiersman. His blue eyes were like those of his sister and his voice had the same pleasant ring.

“Major McColloch, do you remember me?” asked Betty.

“Indeed I do,” he answered, with a smile. “You were a little girl, running wild, on the Potomac when I last saw you!”

“Do you remember when you used to lift me on your horse and give me lessons in riding?”

“I remember better than you. How you used to stick on the back of that horse was a mystery to me.”

“Well, I shall be ready soon to go on with those lessons in riding. I have heard of your wonderful leap over the hill and I should like to have you tell me all about it. Of all the stories I have heard since I arrived at Fort Henry, the one of your ride and leap for life is the most wonderful.”

“Yes, Sam, she will bother you to death about that ride, and will try to give you lessons in leaping down precipices. I should not be at all surprised to find her trying to duplicate your feat. You know the Indian pony I got from that fur trader last summer. Well, he is as wild as a deer and she has been riding him without his being broken,” said Colonel Zane.

“Some other time I shall tell you about my jump over the hill. Just now I have important matters to discuss,” answered the Major to Betty.

It was evident that something unusual had occurred, for after chatting a few moments the three men withdrew into the magazine room and conversed in low, earnest tones.

Lydia Boggs was eighteen, fair haired and blue eyed. Like Betty she had received a good education, and, in that respect, was superior to the border girls, who seldom knew more than to keep house and to make linen. At the outbreak of the Indian wars General Clark had stationed Captain Boggs at Fort Henry and Lydia had lived there with him two years. After Betty’s arrival, which she hailed with delight, the girls had become fast friends.

Lydia slipped her arm affectionately around Betty’s neck and said, “Why did you not come over to the Fort to-day?”

“It has been such an ugly day, so disagreeable altogether, that I have remained indoors.”

“You missed something,” said Lydia, knowingly.

“What do you mean? What did I miss?”

“Oh, perhaps, after all, it will not interest you.”

“How provoking! Of course it will. Anything or anybody would interest me to-night. Do tell me, please.”

“It isn’t much. Only a young soldier came over with Major McColloch.”

“A soldier? From Fort Pitt? Do I know him? I have met most of the officers.”

“No, you have never seen him. He is a stranger to all of us.”

“There does not seem to be so much in your news,” said Betty, in a disappointed tone. “To be sure, strangers are a rarity in our little village, but, judging from the strangers who have visited us in the past, I imagine this one cannot be much different.”

“Wait until you see him,” said Lydia, with a serious little nod of her head.

“Come, tell me all about him,” said Betty, now much interested.

“Major McColloch brought him in to see papa, and he was introduced to me. He is a southerner and from one of those old families. I could tell by his cool, easy, almost reckless air. He is handsome, tall and fair, and his face is frank and open. He has such beautiful manners. He bowed low to me and really I felt so embarrassed that I hardly spoke. You know I am used to these big hunters seizing your hand and giving it a squeeze which makes you want to scream. Well, this young man is different. He is a cavalier. All the girls are in love with him already. So will you be.”

“I? Indeed not. But how refreshing. You must have been strongly impressed to see and remember all you have told me.”

“Betty Zane, I remember so well because he is just the man you described one day when we were building castles and telling each other what kind of a hero we wanted.”

“Girls, do not talk such nonsense,” interrupted the Colonel’s wife who was perturbed by the colloquy in the other room. She had seen those ominous signs before. “Can you find nothing better to talk about?”

Meanwhile Colonel Zane and his companions were earnestly discussing certain information which had arrived that day. A friendly Indian runner had brought news to Short Creek, a settlement on the river between Fort Henry and Fort Pitt of an intended raid by the Indians all along the Ohio valley. Major McColloch, who had been warned by Wetzel of the fever of unrest among the Indians — a fever which broke out every spring — had gone to Fort Pitt with the hope of bringing back reinforcements, but, excepting the young soldier, who had volunteered to return with him, no help could he enlist, so he journeyed back post-haste to Fort Henry.

The information he brought disturbed Captain Boggs, who commanded the garrison, as a number of men were away on a logging expedition up the river, and were not expected to raft down to the Fort for two weeks.

Jonathan Zane, who had been sent for, joined the trio at this moment, and was acquainted with the particulars. The Zane brothers were always consulted where any question concerning Indian craft and cunning was to be decided. Colonel Zane had a strong friendly influence with certain tribes, and his advice was invaluable. Jonathan Zane hated the sight of an Indian and except for his knowledge as a scout, or Indian tracker or fighter, he was of little use in a council. Colonel Zane informed the men of the fact that Wetzel and he had discovered Indian tracks within ten miles of the Fort, and he dwelt particularly on the disappearance of Wetzel.

“Now, you can depend on what I say. There are Wyandots in force on the war path. Wetzel told me to dig for the Fort and he left me in a hurry. We were near that cranberry bog over at the foot of Bald mountain. I do not believe we shall be attacked. In my opinion the Indians would come up from the west and keep to the high ridges along Yellow creek. They always come that way. But of course, it is best to know surely, and I daresay Lew will come in to-night or to-morrow with the facts. In the meantime put out some scouts back in the woods and let Jonathan and the Major watch the river.”

“I hope Wetzel will come in,” said the Major. “We can trust him to know more about the Indians than any one. It was a week before you and he went hunting that I saw him. I went to Fort Pitt and tried to bring over some men, but the garrison is short and they need men as much as we do. A young soldier named Clarke volunteered to come and I brought him along with me. He has not seen any Indian fighting, but he is a likely looking chap, and I guess will do. Captain Boggs will give him a place in the block house if you say so.”

“By all means. We shall be glad to have him,” said Colonel Zane.

“It would not be so serious if I had not sent the men up the river,” said Captain Boggs, in anxious tones. “Do you think it possible they might have fallen in with the Indians?”

“It is possible, of course, but not probable,” answered Colonel Zane. “The Indians are all across the Ohio. Wetzel is over there and he will get here long before they do.”

“I hope it may be as you say. I have much confidence in your judgment,” returned Captain Boggs. “I shall put out scouts and take all the precaution possible. We must return now. Come, Lydia.”

“Whew! What an awful night this is going to be,” said Colonel Zane, when he had closed the door after his guests’ departure. “I should not care to sleep out to-night.”

“Eb, what will Lew Wetzel do on a night like this?” asked Betty, curiously.

“Oh, Lew will be as snug as a rabbit in his burrow,” said Colonel Zane, laughing. “In a few moments he can build a birch bark shack, start a fire inside and go to sleep comfortably.”

“Ebenezer, what is all this confab about? What did my brother tell you?” asked Mrs. Zane, anxiously.

“We are in for more trouble from the Wyandots and Shawnees. But, Bessie, I don’t believe it will come soon. We are too well protected here for anything but a protracted siege.”

Colonel Zane’s light and rather evasive answer did not deceive his wife. She knew her brother and her husband would not wear anxious faces for nothing. Her usually bright face clouded with a look of distress. She had seen enough of Indian warfare to make her shudder with horror at the mere thought. Betty seemed unconcerned. She sat down beside the dog and patted him on the head.

“Tige, Indians! Indians!” she said.

The dog growled and showed his teeth. It was only necessary to mention Indians to arouse his ire.

“The dog has been uneasy of late,” continued Colonel Zane “He found the Indian tracks before Wetzel did. You know how Tige hates Indians. Ever since he came home with Isaac four years ago he has been of great service to the scouts, as he possesses so much intelligence and sagacity. Tige followed Isaac home the last time he escaped from the Wyandots. When Isaac was in captivity he nursed and cared for the dog after he had been brutally beaten by the redskins. Have you ever heard that long mournful howl Tige gives out sometimes in the dead of night?”

“Yes I have, and it makes me cover up my head,” said Betty.

“Well, it is Tige mourning for Isaac,” said Colonel Zane

“Poor Isaac,” murmured Betty.

“Do you remember him? It has been nine years since you saw him,” said Mrs. Zane.

“Remember Isaac? Indeed I do. I shall never forget him. I wonder if he is still living?”

“Probably not. It is now four years since he was recaptured. I think it would have been impossible to keep him that length of time, unless, of course, he has married that Indian girl. The simplicity of the Indian nature is remarkable. He could easily have deceived them and made them believe he was content in captivity. Probably, in attempting to escape again, he has been killed as was poor Andrew.”

Brother and sister gazed with dark, sad eyes into the fire, now burned down to a glowing bed of coals. The silence remained unbroken save for the moan of the rising wind outside, the rattle of hail, and the patter of rain drops on the roof.

CHAPTER II.

FORT HENRY STOOD on a bluff overlooking the river and commanded a fine view of the surrounding country. In shape it was a parallelogram, being about three hundred and fifty-six feet in length, and one hundred and fifty in width. Surrounded by a stockade fence twelve feet high, with a yard wide walk running around the inside, and with bastions at each corner large enough to contain six defenders, the fort presented an almost impregnable defense. The blockhouse was two stories in height, the second story projecting out several feet over the first. The thick white oak walls bristled with portholes. Besides the blockhouse, there were a number of cabins located within the stockade. Wells had been sunk inside the inclosure, so that if the spring happened to go dry, an abundance of good water could be had at all times.

In all the histories of frontier life mention is made of the forts and the protection they offered in time of savage warfare. These forts were used as homes for the settlers, who often lived for weeks inside the walls.

Forts constructed entirely of wood without the aid of a nail or spike (for the good reason that these things could not be had) may seem insignificant in these days of great nasal and military garrisons. However, they answered the purpose at that time and served to protect many an infant settlement from the savage attacks of Indian tribes. During a siege of Fort Henry, which had occurred about a year previous, the settlers would have lost scarcely a man had they kept to the fort. But Captain Ogle, at that time in charge of the garrison, had led a company out in search of the Indians. Nearly all of his men were killed, several only making their way to the fort.

On the day following Major McColloch’s arrival at Fort Henry, the settlers had been called in from their spring plowing and other labors, and were now busily engaged in moving their stock and the things they wished to save from the destructive torch of the redskin. The women had their hands full with the children, the cleaning of rifles and moulding of bullets, and the thousand and one things the sterner tasks of their husbands had left them. Major McColloch, Jonathan and Silas Zane, early in the day, had taken different directions along the river to keep a sharp lookout for signs of the enemy. Colonel Zane intended to stay in his oven house and defend it, so he had not moved anything to the fort excepting his horses and cattle. Old Sam, the negro, was hauling loads of hay inside the stockade. Captain Boggs had detailed several scouts to watch the roads and one of these was the young man, Clarke, who had accompanied the Major from Fort Pitt.

The appearance of Alfred Clarke, despite the fact that he wore the regulation hunting garb, indicated a young man to whom the hard work and privation of the settler were unaccustomed things. So thought the pioneers who noticed his graceful walk, his fair skin and smooth hands. Yet those who carefully studied his clearcut features were favorably impressed; the women, by the direct, honest gaze of his blue eyes and the absence of ungentle lines in his face; the men, by the good nature, and that indefinable something by which a man marks another as true steel.

He brought nothing with him from Fort Pitt except his horse, a black-coated, fine limbed thoroughbred, which he frankly confessed was all he could call his own. When asking Colonel Zane to give him a position in the garrison he said he was a Virginian and had been educated in Philadelphia; that after his father died his mother married again, and this, together with a natural love of adventure, had induced him to run away and seek his fortune with the hardy pioneer and the cunning savage of the border. Beyond a few months’ service under General Clark he knew nothing of frontier life; but he was tired of idleness; he was strong and not afraid of work, and he could learn. Colonel Zane, who prided himself on his judgment of character, took a liking to the young man at once, and giving him a rifle and accoutrements, told him the border needed young men of pluck and fire, and that if he brought a strong hand and a willing heart he could surely find fortune. Possibly if Alfred Clarke could have been told of the fate in store for him he might have mounted his black steed and have placed miles between him and the frontier village; but, as there were none to tell, he went cheerfully out to meet that fate.

On this is bright spring morning he patrolled the road leading along the edge of the clearing, which was distant a quarter of a mile from the fort. He kept a keen eye on the opposite side of the river, as he had been directed. From the upper end of the island, almost straight across from where he stood, the river took a broad turn, which could not be observed from the fort windows. The river was high from the recent rains and brush heaps and logs and debris of all descriptions were floating down with the swift current. Rabbits and other small animals, which had probably been surrounded on some island and compelled to take to the brush or drown, crouched on floating logs and piles of driftwood. Happening to glance down the road, Clarke saw a horse galloping in his direction. At first he thought it was a messenger for himself, but as it neared him he saw that the horse was an Indian pony and the rider a young girl, whose long, black hair was flying in the wind.

“Hello! I wonder what the deuce this is? Looks like an Indian girl,” said Clarke to himself. “She rides well, whoever she may be.”

He stepped behind a clump of laurel bushes near the roadside and waited. Rapidly the horse and rider approached him. When they were but a few paces distant he sprang out and, as the pony shied and reared at sight of him, he clutched the bridle and pulled the pony’s head down. Looking up he encountered the astonished and bewildered gaze from a pair of the prettiest dark eyes it had ever been his fortune, or misfortune, to look into.

Betty, for it was she, looked at the young man in amazement, while Alfred was even more surprised and disconcerted. For a moment they looked at each other in silence. But Betty, who was scarcely ever at a loss for words, presently found her voice.

“Well, sir! What does this mean?” she asked indignantly.

“It means that you must turn around and go back to the fort,” answered Alfred, also recovering himself.

Now Betty’s favorite ride happened to be along this road. It lay along the top of the bluff a mile or more and afforded a fine unobstructed view of the river. Betty had either not heard of the Captain’s order, that no one was to leave the fort, or she had disregarded it altogether; probably the latter, as she generally did what suited her fancy.

“Release my pony’s head!” she cried, her face flushing, as she gave a jerk to the reins. “How dare you? What right have you to detain me?”

The expression Betty saw on Clarke’s face was not new to her, for she remembered having seen it on the faces of young gentlemen whom she had met at her aunt’s house in Philadelphia. It was the slight, provoking smile of the man familiar with the various moods of young women, the expression of an amused contempt for their imperiousness. But it was not that which angered Betty. It was the coolness with which he still held her pony regardless of her commands.

“Pray do not get excited,” he said. “I am sorry I cannot allow such a pretty little girl to have her own way. I shall hold your pony until you say you will go back to the fort.”

“Sir!” exclaimed Betty, blushing a bright-red. “You — you are impertinent!”

“Not at all,” answered Alfred, with a pleasant laugh. “I am sure I do not intend to be. Captain Boggs did not acquaint me with full particulars or I might have declined my present occupation: not, however, that it is not agreeable just at this moment. He should have mentioned the danger of my being run down by Indian ponies and imperious young ladies.”

“Will you let go of that bridle, or shall I get off and walk back for assistance?” said Betty, getting angrier every moment.

“Go back to the fort at once,” ordered Alfred, authoritatively. “Captain Boggs’ orders are that no one shall be allowed to leave the clearing.”

“Oh! Why did you not say so? I thought you were Simon Girty, or a highwayman. Was it necessary to keep me here all this time to explain that you were on duty?”

“You know sometimes it is difficult to explain,” said Alfred, “besides, the situation had its charm. No, I am not a robber, and I don’t believe you thought so. I have only thwarted a young lady’s whim, which I am aware is a great crime. I am very sorry. Goodbye.”

Betty gave him a withering glance from her black eyes, wheeled her pony and galloped away. A mellow laugh was borne to her ears before she got out of hearing, and again the red blood mantled her cheeks.

“Heavens! What a little beauty,” said Alfred to himself, as he watched the graceful rider disappear. “What spirit! Now, I wonder who she can be. She had on moccasins and buckskin gloves and her hair tumbled like a tomboy’s, but she is no backwoods girl, I’ll bet on that. I’m afraid I was a little rude, but after taking such a stand I could not weaken, especially before such a haughty and disdainful little vixen. It was too great a temptation. What eyes she had! Contrary to what I expected, this little frontier settlement bids fair to become interesting.”

The afternoon wore slowly away, and until late in the day nothing further happened to disturb Alfred’s meditations, which consisted chiefly of different mental views and pictures of red lips and black eyes. Just as he decided to return to the fort for his supper he heard the barking of a dog that he had seen running along the road some moments before. The sound came from some distance down the river bank and nearer the fort. Walking a few paces up the bluff Alfred caught sight of a large black dog running along the edge of the water. He would run into the water a few paces and then come out and dash along the shore. He barked furiously all the while. Alfred concluded that he must have been excited by a fox or perhaps a wolf; so he climbed down the steep bank and spoke to the dog. Thereupon the dog barked louder and more fiercely than ever, ran to the water, looked out into the river and then up at the man with almost human intelligence.

Alfred understood. He glanced out over the muddy water, at first making out nothing but driftwood. Then suddenly he saw a log with an object clinging to it which he took to be a man, and an Indian at that. Alfred raised his rifle to his shoulder and was in the act of pressing the trigger when he thought he heard a faint halloo. Looking closer, he found he was not covering the smooth polished head adorned with the small tuft of hair, peculiar to a redskin on the warpath, but a head from which streamed long black hair.

Alfred lowered his rifle and studied intently the log with its human burden. Drifting with the current it gradually approached the bank, and as it came nearer he saw that it bore a white man, who was holding to the log with one hand and with the other was making feeble strokes. He concluded the man was either wounded or nearly drowned, for his movements were becoming slower and weaker every moment. His white face lay against the log and barely above water. Alfred shouted encouraging words to him.

At the bend of the river a little rocky point jutted out a few yards into the water. As the current carried the log toward this point, Alfred, after divesting himself of some of his clothing, plunged in and pulled it to the shore. The pallid face of the man clinging to the log showed that he was nearly exhausted, and that he had been rescued in the nick of time. When Alfred reached shoal water he slipped his arm around the man, who was unable to stand, and carried him ashore.

The rescued man wore a buckskin hunting shirt and leggins and moccasins of the same material, all very much the worse for wear. The leggins were torn into tatters and the moccasins worn through. His face was pinched with suffering and one arm was bleeding from a gunshot wound near the shoulder.

“Can you not speak? Who are you?” asked Clarke, supporting the limp figure.

The man made several efforts to answer, and finally said something that to Alfred sounded like “Zane,” then he fell to the ground unconscious.

All this time the dog had acted in a most peculiar manner, and if Alfred had not been so intent on the man he would have noticed the animal’s odd maneuvers. He ran to and fro on the sandy beach; he scratched up the sand and pebbles, sending them flying in the air; he made short, furious dashes; he jumped, whirled, and, at last, crawled close to the motionless figure and licked its hand.

Clarke realized that he would not be able to carry the inanimate figure, so he hurriedly put on his clothes and set out on a run for Colonel Zane’s house. The first person whom he saw was the old negro slave, who was brushing one of the Colonel’s horses.

Sam was deliberate and took his time about everything. He slowly looked up and surveyed Clarke with his rolling eyes. He did not recognize in him any one he had ever seen before, and being of a sullen and taciturn nature, especially with strangers, he seemed in no hurry to give the desired information as to Colonel Zane’s whereabouts.

“Don’t stare at me that way, you damn nigger,” said Clarke, who was used to being obeyed by negroes. “Quick, you idiot. Where is the Colonel?”

At that moment Colonel Zane came out of the barn and started to speak, when Clarke interrupted him.

“Colonel, I have just pulled a man out of the river who says his name is Zane, or if he did not mean that, he knows you, for he surely said ‘Zane.’”

“What!” ejaculated the Colonel, letting his pipe fall from his mouth.

Clarke related the circumstances in a few hurried words. Calling Sam they ran quickly down to the river, where they found the prostrate figure as Clarke had left it, the dog still crouched close by.

“My God! It is Isaac!” exclaimed Colonel Zane, when he saw the white face. “Poor boy, he looks as if he were dead. Are you sure he spoke? Of course he must have spoken for you could not have known. Yes, his heart is still beating.”

Colonel Zane raised his head from the unconscious man’s breast, where he had laid it to listen for the beating heart.

“Clarke, God bless you for saving him,” said he fervently. “It shall never be forgotten. He is alive, and, I believe, only exhausted, for that wound amounts to little. Let us hurry.”

“I did not save him. It was the dog,” Alfred made haste to answer.

They carried the dripping form to the house, where the door was opened by Mrs. Zane.

“Oh, dear, another poor man,” she said, pityingly. Then, as she saw his face, “Great Heavens, it is Isaac! Oh! don’t say he is dead!”

“Yes, it is Isaac, and he is worth any number of dead men yet,” said Colonel Zane, as they laid the insensible man on the couch. “Bessie, there is work here for you. He has been shot.”

“Is there any other wound beside this one in his arm?” asked Mrs. Zane, examining it.

“I do not think so, and that injury is not serious. It is lose of blood, exposure and starvation. Clarke, will you please run over to Captain Boggs and tell Betty to hurry home! Sam, you get a blanket and warm it by the fire. That’s right, Bessie, bring the whiskey,” and Colonel Zane went on giving orders.

Alfred did not know in the least who Betty was, but, as he thought that unimportant, he started off on a run for the fort. He had a vague idea that Betty was the servant, possibly Sam’s wife, or some one of the Colonel’s several slaves.

Let us return to Betty. As she wheeled her pony and rode away from the scene of her adventure on the river bluff, her state of mind can be more readily imagined than described. Betty hated opposition of any kind, whether justifiable or not; she wanted her own way, and when prevented from doing as she pleased she invariably got angry. To be ordered and compelled to give up her ride, and that by a stranger, was intolerable. To make it all the worse this stranger had been decidedly flippant. He had familiarly spoken to her as “a pretty little girl.” Not only that, which was a great offense, but he had stared at her, and she had a confused recollection of a gaze in which admiration had been ill disguised. Of course, it was that soldier Lydia had been telling her about. Strangers were of so rare an occurrence in the little village that it was not probable there could be more than one.

Approaching the house she met her brother who told her she had better go indoors and let Sam put up the pony. Accordingly, Betty called the negro, and then went into the house. Bessie had gone to the fort with the children. Betty found no one to talk to, so she tried to read. Finding she could not become interested she threw the book aside and took up her embroidery. This also turned out a useless effort; she got the linen hopelessly twisted and tangled, and presently she tossed this upon the table. Throwing her shawl over her shoulders, for it was now late in the afternoon and growing chilly, she walked downstairs and out into the Yard. She strolled aimlessly to and fro awhile, and then went over to the fort and into Captain Bogg’s house, which adjoined the blockhouse. Here she found Lydia preparing flax.

“I saw you racing by on your pony. Goodness, how you can ride! I should be afraid of breaking my neck,” exclaimed Lydia, as Betty entered.

“My ride was spoiled,” said Betty, petulantly.

“Spoiled? By what — whom?”

“By a man, of course,” retorted Betty, whose temper still was high. “It is always a man that spoils everything.”

“Why, Betty, what in the world do you mean? I never heard you talk that way,” said Lydia, opening her blue eyes in astonishment.

“Well, Lyde, I’ll tell you. I was riding down the river road and just as I came to the end of the clearing a man jumped out from behind some bushes and grasped Madcap’s bridle. Imagine! For a moment I was frightened out of my wits. I instantly thought of the Girtys, who, I have heard, have evinced a fondness for kidnapping little girls. Then the fellow said he was on guard and ordered me, actually commanded me to go home.”

“Oh, is that all?” said Lydia, laughing.

“No, that is not all. He — he said I was a pretty little girl and that he was sorry I could not have my own way; that his present occupation was pleasant, and that the situation had its charm. The very idea. He was most impertinent,” and Betty’s telltale cheeks reddened again at the recollection.

“Betty, I do not think your experience was so dreadful, certainly nothing to put you out as it has,” said Lydia, laughing merrily. “Be serious. You know we are not in the backwoods now and must not expect so much of the men. These rough border men know little of refinement like that with which you have been familiar. Some of them are quiet and never speak unless addressed; their simplicity is remarkable; Lew Wetzel and your brother Jonathan, when they are not fighting Indians, are examples. On the other hand, some of them are boisterous and if they get anything to drink they will make trouble for you. Why, I went to a party one night after I had been here only a few weeks and they played a game in which every man in the place kissed me.”

“Gracious! Please tell me when any such games are likely to be proposed and I’ll stay home,” said Betty.

“I have learned to get along very well by simply making the best of it,” continued Lydia. “And to tell the truth, I have learned to respect these rugged fellows. They are uncouth; they have no manners, but their hearts are honest and true, and that is of much greater importance in frontiersmen than the little attentions and courtesies upon which women are apt to lay too much stress.”

“I think you speak sensibly and I shall try and be more reasonable hereafter. But, to return to the man who spoiled my ride. He, at least, is no frontiersman, notwithstanding his gun and his buckskin suit. He is an educated man. His manner and accent showed that. Then he looked at me so differently. I know it was that soldier from Fort Pitt.”

“Mr. Clarke? Why, of course!” exclaimed Lydia, clapping her hands in glee. “How stupid of me!”

“You seem to be amused,” said Betty, frowning.

“Oh, Betty, it is such a good joke.”

“Is it? I fail to see it.”

“But I can. I am very much amused. You see, I heard Mr. Clarke say, after papa told him there were lots of pretty girls here, that he usually succeeded in finding those things out and without any assistance. And the very first day he has met you and made you angry. It is delightful.”

“Lyde, I never knew you could be so horrid.”

“It is evident that Mr. Clarke is not only discerning, but not backward in expressing his thoughts. Betty, I see a romance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” retorted Betty, with an angry blush. “Of course, he had a right to stop me, and perhaps he did me a good turn by keeping me inside the clearing, though I cannot imagine why he hid behind the bushes. But he might have been polite. He made me angry. He was so cool and — and—”

“I see,” interrupted Lydia, teasingly. “He failed to recognize your importance.”

“Nonsense, Lydia. I hope you do not think I am a silly little fool. It is only that I have not been accustomed to that kind of treatment, and I will not have it.”

Lydia was rather pleased that some one had appeared on the scene who did not at once bow down before Betty, and therefore she took the young man’s side of the argument.

“Do not be hard on poor Mr. Clarke. Maybe he mistook you for an Indian girl. He is handsome. I am sure you saw that.”

“Oh, I don’t remember how he looked,” said Betty. She did remember, but would not admit it.

The conversation drifted into other channels after this, and soon twilight came stealing down on them. As Betty rose to go there came a hurried tap on the door.

“I wonder who would knock like that,” said Lydia, rising “Betty, wait a moment while I open the door.”

On doing this she discovered Clarke standing on the step with his cap in his hand.

“Why, Mr. Clarke! Will you come in?” exclaimed Lydia. “Thank you, only for a moment,” said Alfred. “I cannot stay. I came to find Betty. Is she here?”

He had not observed Betty, who had stepped back into the shadow of the darkening room. At his question Lydia became so embarrassed she did not know what to say or do, and stood looking helplessly at him.

But Betty was equal to the occasion. At the mention of her first name in such a familiar manner by this stranger, who had already grievously offended her once before that day, Betty stood perfectly still a moment, speechless with surprise, then she stepped quickly out of the shadow.

Clarke turned as he heard her step and looked straight into a pair of dark, scornful eyes and a face pale with anger.

“If it be necessary that you use my name, and I do not see how that can be possible, will you please have courtesy enough to say Miss Zane?” she cried haughtily.

Lydia recovered her composure sufficiently to falter out:

“Betty, allow me to introduce—”

“Do not trouble yourself, Lydia. I have met this person once before to-day, and I do not care for an introduction.”

When Alfred found himself gazing into the face that had haunted him all the afternoon, he forgot for the moment all about his errand. He was finally brought to a realization of the true state of affairs by Lydia’s words.

“Mr. Clarke, you are all wet. What has happened?” she exclaimed, noticing the water dripping from his garments.

Suddenly a light broke in on Alfred. So the girl he had accosted on the road and “Betty” were one and the same person. His face flushed. He felt that his rudeness on that occasion may have merited censure, but that it had not justified the humiliation she had put upon him.

These two persons, so strangely brought together, and on whom Fate had made her inscrutable designs, looked steadily into each other’s eyes. What mysterious force thrilled through Alfred Clarke and made Betty Zane tremble?

“Miss Boggs, I am twice unfortunate,” said Alfred, tuning to Lydia, and there was an earnest ring in his deep voice “This time I am indeed blameless. I have just left Colonel Zane’s house, where there has been an accident, and I was dispatched to find ‘Betty,’ being entirely ignorant as to who she might be. Colonel Zane did not stop to explain. Miss Zane is needed at the house, that is all.”

And without so much as a glance at Betty he bowed low to Lydia and then strode out of the open door.

“What did he say?” asked Betty, in a small trembling voice, all her anger and resentment vanished.

“There has been an accident. He did not say what or to whom. You must hurry home. Oh, Betty, I hope no one has been hurt! And you were very unkind to Mr. Clarke. I am sure he is a gentleman, and you might have waited a moment to learn what he meant.”

Betty did not answer, but flew out of the door and down the path to the gate of the fort. She was almost breathless when she reached Colonel Zane’s house, and hesitated on the step before entering. Summoning her courage she pushed open the door. The first thing that struck her after the bright light was the pungent odor of strong liniment. She saw several women neighbors whispering together. Major McColloch and Jonathan Zane were standing by a couch over which Mrs. Zane was bending. Colonel Zane sat at the foot of the couch. Betty saw this in the first rapid glance, and then, as the Colonel’s wife moved aside, she saw a prostrate figure, a white face and dark eyes that smiled at her.

“Betty,” came in a low voice from those pale lips.

Her heart leaped and then seemed to cease beating. Many long years had passed since she had heard that voice, but it had never been forgotten. It was the best beloved voice of her childhood, and with it came the sweet memories of her brother and playmate. With a cry of joy she fell on her knees beside him and threw her arms around his neck.

“Oh, Isaac, brother, brother!” she cried, as she kissed him again and again. “Can it really be you? Oh, it is too good to be true! Thank God! I have prayed and prayed that you would be restored to us.”

Then she began to cry and laugh at the same time in that strange way in which a woman relieves a heart too full of joy. “Yes, Betty. It is all that is left of me,” he said, running his hand caressingly over the dark head that lay on his breast.

“Betty, you must not excite him,” said Colonel Zane.

“So you have not forgotten me?” whispered Isaac.

“No, indeed, Isaac. I have never forgotten,” answered Betty, softly. “Only last night I spoke of you and wondered if you were living. And now you are here. Oh, I am so happy!” The quivering lips and the dark eyes bright with tears spoke eloquently of her joy.

“Major will you tell Captain Boggs to come over after supper? Isaac will be able to talk a little by then, and he has some news of the Indians,” said Colonel Zane.

“And ask the young man who saved my life to come that I may thank him,” said Isaac.

“Saved your life?” exclaimed Betty, turning to her brother, in surprise, while a dark red flush spread over her face. A humiliating thought had flashed into her mind.

“Saved his life, of course,” said Colonel Zane, answering for Isaac. “Young Clarke pulled him out of the river. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No,” said Betty, rather faintly.

“Well, he is a modest young fellow. He saved Isaac’s life, there is no doubt of that. You will hear all about it after supper. Don’t make Isaac talk any more at present.”

Betty hid her face on Isaac’s shoulder and remained quiet a few moments; then, rising, she kissed his cheek and went quietly to her room. Once there she threw herself on the bed and tried to think. The events of the day, coming after a long string of monotonous, wearying days, had been confusing; they had succeeded one another in such rapid order as to leave no time for reflection. The meeting by the river with the rude but interesting stranger; the shock to her dignity; Lydia’s kindly advice; the stranger again, this time emerging from the dark depths of disgrace into the luminous light as the hero of her brother’s rescue — all these thoughts jumbled in her mind making it difficult for her to think clearly. But after a time one thing forced itself upon her. She could not help being conscious that she had wronged some one to whom she would be forever indebted. Nothing could alter that. She was under an eternal obligation to the man who had saved the life she loved best on earth. She had unjustly scorned and insulted the man to whom she owed the life of her brother.

Betty was passionate and quick-tempered, but she was generous and tender-hearted as well, and when she realized how unkind and cruel she kind been she felt very miserable. Her position admitted of no retreat. No matter how much pride rebelled; no matter how much she disliked to retract anything she had said, she knew no other course lay open to her. She would have to apologize to Mr. Clarke. How could she? What would she say? She remembered how cold and stern his face had been as he turned from her to Lydia. Perplexed and unhappy, Betty did what any girl in her position would have done: she resorted to the consoling and unfailing privilege of her sex — a good cry.

When she became composed again she got up and bathed her hot cheeks, brushed her hair, and changed her gown for a becoming one of white. She tied a red ribbon about her throat and put a rosette in her hair. She had forgotten all about the Indians. By the time Mrs. Zane called her for supper she had her mind made up to ask Mr. Clarke’s pardon, tell him she was sorry, and that she hoped they might be friends.

Isaac Zane’s fame had spread from the Potomac to Detroit and Louisville. Many an anxious mother on the border used the story of his captivity as a means to frighten truant youngsters who had evinced a love for running wild in the woods. The evening of Isaac’s return every one in the settlement called to welcome home the wanderer. In spite of the troubled times and the dark cloud hanging over them they made the occasion one of rejoicing.

Old John Bennet, the biggest and merriest man in the colony, came in and roared his appreciation of Isaac’s return. He was a huge man, and when he stalked into the room he made the floor shake with his heavy tread. His honest face expressed his pleasure as he stood over Isaac and nearly crushed his hand.

“Glad to see you, Isaac. Always knew you would come back. Always said so. There are not enough damn redskins on the river to keep you prisoner.”

“I think they managed to keep him long enough,” remarked Silas Zane.

“Well, here comes the hero,” said Colonel Zane, as Clarke entered, accompanied by Captain Boggs, Major McColloch and Jonathan. “Any sign of Wetzel or the Indians?”

Jonathan had not yet seen his brother, and he went over and seized Isaac’s hand and wrung it without speaking.

“There are no Indians on this side of the river,” said Major McColloch, in answer to the Colonel’s question.

“Mr. Clarke, you do not seem impressed with your importance,” said Colonel Zane. “My sister said you did not tell her what part you took in Isaac’s rescue.”

“I hardly deserve all the credit,” answered Alfred. “Your big black dog merits a great deal of it.”

“Well, I consider your first day at the fort a very satisfactory one, and an augury of that fortune you came west to find.”

“How are you?” said Alfred, going up to the couch where Isaac lay.

“I am doing well, thanks to you,” said Isaac, warmly shaking Alfred’s hand.

“It is good to see you pulling out all right,” answered Alfred. “I tell you, I feared you were in a bad way when I got you out of the water.”

Isaac reclined on the couch with his head and shoulder propped up by pillows. He was the handsomest of the brothers. His face would have been but for the marks of privation, singularly like Betty’s; the same low, level brows and dark eyes; the same mouth, though the lips were stronger and without the soft curves which made his sister’s mouth so sweet.

Betty appeared at the door, and seeing the room filled with men she hesitated a moment before coming forward. In her white dress she made such a dainty picture that she seemed out of place among those surroundings. Alfred Clarke, for one, thought such a charming vision was wasted on the rough settlers, every one of whom wore a faded and dirty buckskin suit and a belt containing a knife and a tomahawk. Colonel Zane stepped up to Betty and placing his arm around her turned toward Clarke with pride in his eyes.

“Betty, I want to make you acquainted with the hero of the hour, Mr. Alfred Clarke. This is my sister.”

Betty bowed to Alfred, but lowered her eyes instantly on encountering the young man’s gaze.

“I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Zane twice today,” said Alfred.

“Twice?” asked Colonel Zane, turning to Betty. She did not answer, but disengaged herself from his arm and sat down by Isaac.

“It was on the river road that I first met Miss Zane, although I did not know her then,” answered Alfred. “I had some difficulty in stopping her pony from going to Fort Pitt, or some other place down the river.”

“Ha! Ha! Well, I know she rides that pony pretty hard,” said Colonel Zane, with his hearty laugh. “I’ll tell you, Clarke, we have some riders here in the settlement. Have you heard of Major McColloch’s leap over the hill?”

“I have heard it mentioned, and I would like to hear the story,” responded Alfred. “I am fond of horses, and think I can ride a little myself. I am afraid I shall be compelled to change my mind.”

“That is a fine animal you rode from Fort Pitt,” remarked the Major. “I would like to own him.”

“Come, draw your chairs up and he’ll listen to Isaac’s story,” said Colonel Zane.

“I have not much of a story to tell,” said Isaac, in a voice still weak and low. “I have some bad news, I am sorry to say, but I shall leave that for the last. This year, if it had been completed, would have made my tenth year as a captive of the Wyandots. This last period of captivity, which has been nearly four years, I have not been ill-treated and have enjoyed more comfort than any of you can imagine. Probably you are all familiar with the reason for my long captivity. Because of the interest of Myeerah, the Indian Princess, they have importuned me for years to be adopted into the tribe, marry the White Crane, as they call Myeerah, and become a Wyandot chief. To this I would never consent, though I have been careful not to provoke the Indians. I was allowed the freedom of the camp, but have always been closely watched. I should still be with the Indians had I not suspected that Hamilton, the British Governor, had formed a plan with the Hurons, Shawnees, Delawares, and other tribes, to strike a terrible blow at the whites along, the river. For months I have watched the Indians preparing for an expedition, the extent of which they had never before undertaken. I finally learned from Myeerah that my suspicions were well founded. A favorable chance to escape presented and I took it and got away. I outran all the braves, even Arrowswift, the Wyandot runner, who shot me through the arm. I have had a hard time of it these last three or four days, living on herbs and roots, and when I reached the river I was ready to drop. I pushed a log into the water and started to drift over. When the old dog saw me I knew I was safe if I could hold on. Once, when the young man pointed his gun at me, I thought it was all over. I could not shout very loud.”

“Were you going to shoot?” asked Colonel Zane of Clarke.

“I took him for an Indian, but fortunately I discovered my mistake in time,” answered Alfred.

“Are the Indians on the way here?” asked Jonathan.

“That I cannot say. At present the Wyandots are at home. But I know that the British and the Indians will make a combined attack on the settlements. It may be a month, or a year, but it is coming.”

“And Hamilton, the hair buyer, the scalp buyer, is behind the plan,” said Colonel Zane, in disgust.

“The Indians have their wrongs. I sympathize with them in many ways. We have robbed them, broken faith with them, and have not lived up to the treaties. Pipe and Wingenund are particularly bitter toward the whites. I understand Cornplanter is also. He would give anything for Jonathan’s scalp, and I believe any of the tribes would give a hundred of their best warriors for ‘Black Wind,’ as they call Lew Wetzel.”

“Have you ever seen Red Fox?” asked Jonathan, who was sitting near the fire and as usual saying but little. He was the wildest and most untamable of all the Zanes. Most of the time he spent in the woods, not so much to fight Indians, as Wetzel did, but for pure love of outdoor life. At home he was thoughtful and silent.

“Yes, I have seen him,” answered Isaac. “He is a Shawnee chief and one of the fiercest warriors in that tribe of fighters. He was at Indian-head, which is the name of one of the Wyandot villages, when I visited there last, and he had two hundred of his best braves with him.”

“He is a bad Indian. Wetzel and I know him. He swore he would hang our scalps up in his wigwam,” said Jonathan.

“What has he in particular against you?” asked Colonel Zane. “Of course, Wetzel is the enemy of all Indians.”

“Several years ago Wetzel and I were on a hunt down the river at the place called Girty’s Point, where we fell in with the tracks of five Shawnees. I was for coming home, but Wetzel would not hear of it. We trailed the Indians and, coming up on them after dark, we tomahawked them. One of them got away crippled, but we could not follow him because we discovered that they had a white girl as captive, and one of the red devils, thinking we were a rescuing party, had tomahawked her. She was not quite dead. We did all we could to save her life. She died and we buried her on the spot. They were Red Fox’s braves and were on their way to his camp with the prisoner. A year or so afterwards I learned from a friendly Indian that the Shawnee chief had sworn to kill us. No doubt he will be a leader in the coming attack.”

“We are living in the midst of terrible times,” remarked Colonel Zane. “Indeed, these are the times that try men’s souls, but I firmly believe the day is not far distant when the redmen will be driven far over the border.”

“Is the Indian Princess pretty?” asked Betty of Isaac.

“Indeed she is, Betty, almost as beautiful as you are,” said Isaac. “She is tall and very fair for an Indian. But I have something to tell about her more interesting than that. Since I have been with the Wyandots this last time I have discovered a little of the jealously guarded secret of Myeerah’s mother. When Tarhe and his band of Hurons lived in Canada their home was in the Muskoka Lakes region on the Moon river. The old warriors tell wonderful stories of the beauty of that country. Tarhe took captive some French travellers, among them a woman named La Durante. She had a beautiful little girl. The prisoners, except this little girl, were released. When she grew up Tarhe married her. Myeerah is her child. Once Tarhe took his wife to Detroit and she was seen there by an old Frenchman who went crazy over her and said she was his child. Tarhe never went to the white settlements again. So you see, Myeerah is from a great French family on her mother’s side, as this is old Frenchman was probably Chevalier La Durante, and Myeerah’s grandfather.”

“I would love to see her, and yet I hate her. What an odd name she has,” said Betty.

“It is the Indian name for the white crane, a rare and beautiful bird. I never saw one. The name has been celebrated among the Hurons as long as any one of them can remember. The Indians call her the White Crane, or Walk-in-the-Water, because of her love for wading in the stream.”

“I think we have made Isaac talk enough for one night,” said Colonel Zane. “He is tired out. Major, tell Isaac and Betty, and Mr. Clarke, too, of your jump over the cliff.”

“I have heard of that leap from the Indians,” said Isaac.

“Major, from what hill did you jump your horse?” asked Alfred.

“You know the bare rocky bluff that stands out prominently on the hill across the creek. From that spot Colonel Zane first saw the valley, and from there I leaped my horse. I can never convince myself that it really happened. Often I look up at that cliff in doubt. But the Indians and Colonel Zane, Jonathan, Wetzel and others say they actually saw the deed done, so I must accept it,” said Major McColloch.

“It seems incredible!” said Alfred. “I cannot understand how a man or horse could go over that precipice and live.”

“That is what we all say,” responded the Colonel. “I suppose I shall have to tell the story. We have fighters and makers of history here, but few talkers.”

“I am anxious to hear it,” answered Clarke, “and I am curious to see this man Wetzel, whose fame has reached as far as my home, way down in Virginia.”

“You will have your wish gratified soon, I have no doubt,” resumed the Colonel. “Well, now for the story of McColloch’s mad ride for life and his wonderful leap down Wheeling hill. A year ago, when the fort was besieged by the Indians, the Major got through the lines and made off for Short Creek. He returned next morning with forty mounted men. They marched boldly up to the gate, and all succeeded in getting inside save the gallant Major, who had waited to be the last man to go in. Finding it impossible to make the short distance without going under the fire of the Indians, who had rushed up to prevent the relief party from entering the fort, he wheeled his big stallion, and, followed by the yelling band of savages, he took the road leading around back of the fort to the top of the bluff. The road lay along the edge of the cliff and I saw the Major turn and wave his rifle at us, evidently with the desire of assuring us that he was safe. Suddenly, on the very summit of the hill, he reined in his horse as if undecided. I knew in an instant what had happened. The Major had run right into the returning party of Indians, which had been sent out to intercept our reinforcements. In a moment more we heard the exultant yells of the savages, and saw them gliding from tree to tree, slowly lengthening out their line and surrounding the unfortunate Major. They did not fire a shot. We in the fort were stupefied with horror, and stood helplessly with our useless guns, watching and waiting for the seemingly inevitable doom of our comrade. Not so with the Major! Knowing that he was a marked man by the Indians and feeling that any death was preferable to the gauntlet, the knife, the stake and torch of the merciless savage, he had grasped at a desperate chance. He saw his enemies stealthily darting from rock to tree, and tree to bush, creeping through the brush, and slipping closer and closer every moment. On three sides were his hated foes and on the remaining side — the abyss. Without a moment’s hesitation the intrepid Major spurred his horse at the precipice. Never shall I forget that thrilling moment. The three hundred savages were silent as they realized the Major’s intention. Those in the fort watched with staring eyes. A few bounds and the noble steed reared high on his hind legs. Outlined by the clear blue sky the magnificent animal stood for one brief instant, his black mane flying in the wind, his head thrown up and his front hoofs pawing the air like Marcus Curtius’ mailed steed of old, and then down with a crash, a cloud of dust, and the crackling of pine limbs. A long yell went up from the Indians below, while those above ran to the edge of the cliff. With cries of wonder and baffled vengeance they gesticulated toward the dark ravine into which horse and rider had plunged rather than wait to meet a more cruel death. The precipice at this point is over three hundred feet in height, and in places is almost perpendicular. We believed the Major to be lying crushed and mangled on the rocks. Imagine our frenzy of joy when we saw the daring soldier and his horse dash out of the bushes that skirt the base of the cliff, cross the creek, and come galloping to the fort in safety.”

“It was wonderful! Wonderful!” exclaimed Isaac, his eyes glistening. “No wonder the Indians call you the ‘Flying Chief.’”

“Had the Major not jumped into the clump of pine trees which grow thickly some thirty feet below the summit he would not now be alive,” said Colonel Zane. “I am certain of that. Nevertheless that does not detract from the courage of his deed. He had no time to pick out the best place to jump. He simply took his one chance, and came out all right. That leap will live in the minds of men as long as yonder bluff stands a monument to McColloch’s ride for life.”

Alfred had listened with intense interest to the Colonel’s recital. When it ended, although his pulses quickened and his soul expanded with awe and reverence for the hero of that ride, he sat silent. Alfred honored courage in a man more than any other quality. He marvelled at the simplicity of these bordermen who, he thought, took the most wonderful adventures and daring escapes as a matter of course, a compulsory part of their daily lives. He had already, in one day, had more excitement than had ever befallen him, and was beginning to believe his thirst for a free life of stirring action would be quenched long before he had learned to become useful in his new sphere. During the remaining half hour of his call on his lately acquired friends, he took little part in the conversation, but sat quietly watching the changeful expressions on Betty’s face, and listening to Colonel Zane’s jokes. When he rose to go he bade his host good-night, and expressed a wish that Isaac, who had fallen asleep, might have a speedy recovery. He turned toward the door to find that Betty had intercepted him.

“Mr. Clarke,” she said, extending a little hand that trembled slightly. “I wish to say — that — I want to say that my feelings have changed. I am sorry for what I said over at Lydia’s. I spoke hastily and rudely. You have saved my brother’s life. I will be forever grateful to you. It is useless to try to thank you. I — I hope we may be friends.”

Alfred found it desperately hard to resist that low voice, and those dark eyes which were raised shyly, yet bravely, to his. But he had been deeply hurt. He pretended not to see the friendly hand held out to him, and his voice was cold when he answered her.

“I am glad to have been of some service,” he said, “but I think you overrate my action. Your brother would not have drowned, I am sure. You owe me nothing. Good-night.”

Betty stood still one moment staring at the door through which he had gone before she realized that her overtures of friendship had been politely, but coldly, ignored. She had actually been snubbed. The impossible had happened to Elizabeth Zane. Her first sensation after she recovered from her momentary bewilderment was one of amusement, and she laughed in a constrained manner; but, presently, two bright red spots appeared in her cheeks, and she looked quickly around to see if any of the others had noticed the incident. None of them had been paying any attention to her and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was bad enough to be snubbed without having others see it. That would have been too humiliating. Her eyes flashed fire as she remembered the disdain in Clarke’s face, and that she had not been clever enough to see it in time.

“Tige, come here!” called Colonel Zane. “What ails the dog?”

The dog had jumped to his feet and ran to the door, where he sniffed at the crack over the threshold. His aspect was fierce and threatening. He uttered low growls and then two short barks. Those in the room heard a soft moccasined footfall outside. The next instant the door opened wide and a tall figure stood disclosed.

“Wetzel!” exclaimed Colonel Zane. A hush fell on the little company after that exclamation, and all eyes were fastened on the new comer.

Well did the stranger merit close attention. He stalked into the room, leaned his long rifle against the mantelpiece and spread out his hands to the fire. He was clad from head to foot in fringed and beaded buckskin, which showed evidence of a long and arduous tramp. It was torn and wet and covered with mud. He was a magnificently made man, six feet in height, and stood straight as an arrow. His wide shoulders, and his muscular, though not heavy, limbs denoted wonderful strength and activity. His long hair, black as a raven’s wing, hung far down his shoulders. Presently he turned and the light shone on a remarkable face. So calm and cold and stern it was that it seemed chiselled out of marble. The most striking features were its unusual pallor, and the eyes, which were coal black, and piercing as the dagger’s point.

“If you have any bad news out with it,” cried Colonel Zane, impatiently.

“No need fer alarm,” said Wetzel. He smiled slightly as he saw Betty’s apprehensive face. “Don’t look scared, Betty. The redskins are miles away and goin’ fer the Kanawha settlement.”

CHAPTER III.

MANY WEEKS OF quiet followed the events of the last chapter. The settlers planted their corn, harvested their wheat and labored in the fields during the whole of one spring and summer without hearing the dreaded war cry of the Indians. Colonel Zane, who had been a disbursing officer in the army of Lord Dunmore, where he had attained the rank of Colonel, visited Fort Pitt during the summer in the hope of increasing the number of soldiers in his garrison. His efforts proved fruitless. He returned to Fort Henry by way of the river with several pioneers, who with their families were bound for Fort Henry. One of these pioneers was a minister who worked in the fields every week day and on Sundays preached the Gospel to those who gathered in the meeting house.

Alfred Clarke had taken up his permanent abode at the fort, where he had been installed as one of the regular garrison. His duties, as well as those of the nine other members of the garrison, were light. For two hours out of the twenty-four he was on guard. Thus he had ample time to acquaint himself with the settlers and their families.

Alfred and Isaac had now become firm friends. They spent many hours fishing in the river, and roaming the woods in the vicinity, as Colonel Zane would not allow Isaac to stray far from the fort. Alfred became a regular visitor at Colonel Zane’s house. He saw Betty every day, but as yet, nothing had mended the breach between them. They were civil to each other when chance threw them together, but Betty usually left the room on some pretext soon after he entered. Alfred regretted his hasty exhibition of resentment and would have been glad to establish friendly relations with her. But she would not give him an opportunity. She avoided him on all possible occasions. Though Alfred was fast succumbing to the charm of Betty’s beautiful face, though his desire to be near her had grown well nigh resistless, his pride had not yet broken down. Many of the summer evenings found him on the Colonel’s doorstep, smoking a pipe, or playing with the children. He was that rare and best company — a good listener. Although he laughed at Colonel Zane’s stories, and never tired of hearing of Isaac’s experiences among the Indians, it is probable he would not have partaken of the Colonel’s hospitality nearly so often had it not been that he usually saw Betty, and if he got only a glimpse of her he went away satisfied. On Sundays he attended the services at the little church and listened to Betty’s sweet voice as she led the singing.

There were a number of girls at the fort near Betty’s age. With all of these Alfred was popular. He appeared so entirely different from the usual young man on the frontier that he was more than welcome everywhere. Girls in the backwoods are much the same as girls in thickly populated and civilized districts. They liked his manly ways; his frank and pleasant manners; and when to these virtues he added a certain deferential regard, a courtliness to which they were unaccustomed, they were all the better pleased. He paid the young women little attentions, such as calling on them, taking them to parties and out driving, but there was not one of them who could think that she, in particular, interested him.

The girls noticed, however, that he never approached Betty after service, or on any occasion, and while it caused some wonder and gossip among them, for Betty enjoyed the distinction of being the belle of the border, they were secretly pleased. Little hints and knowing smiles, with which girls are so skillful, made known to Betty all of this, and, although she was apparently indifferent, it hurt her sensitive feelings. It had the effect of making her believe she hated the cause of it more than ever.

What would have happened had things gone on in this way, I am not prepared to say; probably had not a meddling Fate decided to take a hand in the game, Betty would have continued to think she hated Alfred, and I would never have had occasion to write his story; but Fate did interfere, and, one day in the early fall, brought about an incident which changed the whole world for the two young people.

It was the afternoon of an Indian summer day — in that most beautiful time of all the year — and Betty, accompanied by her dog, had wandered up the hillside into the woods. From the hilltop the broad river could be seen winding away in the distance, and a soft, bluish, smoky haze hung over the water. The forest seemed to be on fire. The yellow leaves of the poplars, the brown of the white and black oaks, the red and purple of the maples, and the green of the pines and hemlocks flamed in a glorious blaze of color. A stillness, which was only broken now and then by the twittering of birds uttering the plaintive notes peculiar to them in the autumn as they band together before their pilgrimage to the far south, pervaded the forest.

Betty loved the woods, and she knew all the trees. She could tell their names by the bark or the shape of the leaves. The giant black oak, with its smooth shiny bark and sturdy limbs, the chestnut with its rugged, seamed sides and bristling burrs, the hickory with its lofty height and curled shelling bark, were all well known and well loved by Betty. Many times had she wondered at the trembling, quivering leaves of the aspen, and the foliage of the silver-leaf as it glinted in the sun. To-day, especially, as she walked through the woods, did their beauty appeal to her. In the little sunny patches of clearing which were scattered here and there in the grove, great clusters of goldenrod grew profusely. The golden heads swayed gracefully on the long stems Betty gathered a few sprigs and added to them a bunch of warmly tinted maple leaves.

The chestnuts burrs were opening. As Betty mounted a little rocky eminence and reached out for a limb of a chestnut tree, she lost her footing and fell. Her right foot had twisted under her as she went down, and when a sharp pain shot through it she was unable to repress a cry. She got up, tenderly placed the foot on the ground and tried her weight on it, which caused acute pain. She unlaced and removed her moccasin to find that her ankle had commenced to swell. Assured that she had sprained it, and aware of the serious consequences of an injury of that nature, she felt greatly distressed. Another effort to place her foot on the ground and bear her weight on it caused such severe pain that she was compelled to give up the attempt. Sinking down by the trunk of the tree and leaning her head against it she tried to think of a way out of her difficulty.

The fort, which she could plainly see, seemed a long distance off, although it was only a little way down the grassy slope. She looked and looked, but not a person was to be seen. She called to Tige. She remembered that he had been chasing a squirrel a short while ago, but now there was no sign of him. He did not come at her call. How annoying! If Tige were only there she could have sent him for help. She shouted several times, but the distance was too great for her voice to carry to the fort. The mocking echo of her call came back from the bluff that rose to her left. Betty now began to be alarmed in earnest, and the tears started to roll down her cheeks. The throbbing pain in her ankle, the dread of having to remain out in that lonesome forest after dark, and the fear that she might not be found for hours, caused Betty’s usually brave spirit to falter; she was weeping unreservedly.

In reality she had been there only a few minutes — although they seemed hours to her — when she heard the light tread of moccasined feet on the moss behind her. Starting up with a cry of joy she turned and looked up into the astonished face of Alfred Clarke.

Returning from a hunt back in the woods he had walked up to her before being aware of her presence. In a single glance he saw the wildflowers scattered beside her, the little moccasin turned inside out, the woebegone, tearstained face, and he knew Betty had come to grief.

Confused and vexed, Betty sank back at the foot of the tree. It is probable she would have encountered Girty or a member of his band of redmen, rather than have this young man find her in this predicament. It provoked her to think that of all the people at the fort it should be the only one she could not welcome who should find her in such a sad plight.

“Why, Miss Zane!” he exclaimed, after a moment of hesitation. “What in the world has happened? Have you been hurt? May I help you?”

“It is nothing,” said Betty, bravely, as she gathered up her flowers and the moccasin and rose slowly to her feet. “Thank you, but you need not wait.”

The cold words nettled Alfred and he was in the act of turning away from her when he caught, for the fleetest part of a second, the full gaze of her eyes. He stopped short. A closer scrutiny of her face convinced him that she was suffering and endeavoring with all her strength to conceal it.

“But I will wait. I think you have hurt yourself. Lean upon my arm,” he said, quietly.

“Please let me help you,” he continued, going nearer to her.

But Betty refused his assistance. She would not even allow him to take the goldenrod from her arms. After a few hesitating steps she paused and lifted her foot from the ground.

“Here, you must not try to walk a step farther,” he said, resolutely, noting how white she had suddenly become. “You have sprained your ankle and are needlessly torturing yourself. Please let me carry you?”

“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Betty, in evident distress. “I will manage. It is not so — very — far.”

She resumed the slow and painful walking, but she had taken only a few steps when she stopped again and this time a low moan issued from her lips. She swayed slightly backward and if Alfred had not dropped his rifle and caught her she would have fallen.

“Will you — please — for some one?” she whispered faintly, at the same time pushing him away.

“How absurd!” burst out Alfred, indignantly. “Am I then, so distasteful to you that you would rather wait here and suffer a half hour longer while I go for assistance? It is only common courtesy on my part. I do not want to carry you. I think you would be quite heavy.”

He said this in a hard, bitter tone, deeply hurt that she would not accept even a little kindness from him. He looked away from her and waited. Presently a soft, half-smothered sob came from Betty and it expressed such utter wretchedness that his heart melted. After all she was only a child. He turned to see the tears running down her cheeks, and with a suppressed imprecation upon the wilfulness of young women in general, and this one in particular, he stepped forward and before she could offer any resistance, he had taken her up in his arms, goldenrod and all, and had started off at a rapid walk toward the fort.

Betty cried out in angry surprise, struggled violently for a moment, and then, as suddenly, lay quietly in his arms. His anger changed to self-reproach as he realized what a light burden she made. He looked down at the dark head lying on his shoulder. Her face was hidden by the dusky rippling hair, which tumbled over his breast, brushed against his cheek, and blew across his lips. The touch of those fragrant tresses was a soft caress. Almost unconsciously he pressed her closer to his heart. And as a sweet mad longing grew upon him he was blind to all save that he held her in his arms, that uncertainty was gone forever, and that he loved her. With these thoughts running riot in his brain he carried her down the hill to Colonel Zane’s house.

The negro, Sam, who came out of the kitchen, dropped the bucket he had in his hand and ran into the house when he saw them. When Alfred reached the gate Colonel Zane and Isaac were hurrying out to meet him.

“For Heaven’s sake! What has happened? Is she badly hurt? I have always looked for this,” said the Colonel, excitedly.

“You need not look so alarmed,” answered Alfred. “She has only sprained her ankle, and trying to walk afterward hurt her so badly that she became faint and I had to carry her.”

“Dear me, is that all?” said Mrs. Zane, who had also come out. “We were terribly frightened. Sam came running into the house with some kind of a wild story. Said he knew you would be the death of Betty.”

“How ridiculous! Colonel Zane, that servant of yours never fails to say something against me,” said Alfred, as he carried Betty into the house.

“He doesn’t like you. But you need not mind Sam. He is getting old and we humor him, perhaps too much. We are certainly indebted to you,” returned the Colonel.

Betty was laid on the couch and consigned to the skillful hands of Mrs. Zane, who pronounced the injury a bad sprain.

“Well, Betty, this will keep you quiet for a few days,” said she, with a touch of humor, as she gently felt the swollen ankle.

“Alfred, you have been our good angel so often that I don’t see how we shall ever reward you,” said Isaac to Alfred.

“Oh, that time will come. Don’t worry about that,” said Alfred, jestingly, and then, turning to the others he continued, earnestly. “I will apologize for the manner in which I disregarded Miss Zane’s wish not to help her. I am sure I could do no less. I believe my rudeness has spared her considerable suffering.”

“What did he mean, Betts?” asked Isaac, going back to his sister after he had closed the door. “Didn’t you want him to help you?”

Betty did not answer. She sat on the couch while Mrs. Zane held the little bare foot and slowly poured the hot water over the swollen and discolored ankle. Betty’s lips were pale. She winced every time Mrs. Zane touched her foot, but as yet she had not uttered even a sigh.

“Betty, does it hurt much?” asked Isaac.

“Hurt? Do you think I am made of wood? Of course it hurts,” retorted Betty. “That water is so hot. Bessie, will not cold water do as well?”

“I am sorry. I won’t tease any more,” said Isaac, taking his sister’s hand. “I’ll tell you what, Betty, we owe Alfred Clarke a great deal, you and I. I am going to tell you something so you will know how much more you owe him. Do you remember last month when that red heifer of yours got away. Well, Clarke chased her away and finally caught her in the woods. He asked me to say I had caught her. Somehow or other he seems to be afraid of you. I wish you and he would be good friends. He is a mighty fine fellow.”

In spite of the pain Betty was suffering a bright blush suffused her face at the words of her brother, who, blind as brothers are in regard to their own sisters, went on praising his friend.

Betty was confined to the house a week or more and during this enforced idleness she had ample time for reflection and opportunity to inquire into the perplexed state of her mind.

The small room, which Betty called her own, faced the river and fort. Most of the day she lay by the window trying to read her favorite books, but often she gazed out on the quiet scene, the rolling river, the everchanging trees and the pastures in which the red and white cows grazed peacefully; or she would watch with idle, dreamy eyes the flight of the crows over the hills, and the graceful motion of the hawk as he sailed around and around in the azure sky, looking like a white sail far out on a summer sea.

But Betty’s mind was at variance with this peaceful scene. The consciousness of a change, which she could not readily define, in her feelings toward Alfred Clarke, vexed and irritated her. Why did she think of him so often? True, he had saved her brother’s life. Still she was compelled to admit to herself that this was not the reason. Try as she would, she could not banish the thought of him. Over and over again, a thousand times, came the recollection of that moment when he had taken her up in his arms as though she were a child. Some vague feeling stirred in her heart as she remembered the strong yet gentle clasp of his arms.

Several times from her window she had seen him coming across the square between the fort and her brother’s house, and womanlike, unseen herself, she had watched him. How erect was his carriage. How pleasant his deep voice sounded as she heard him talking to her brother. Day by day, as her ankle grew stronger and she knew she could not remain much longer in her room, she dreaded more and more the thought of meeting him. She could not understand herself; she had strange dreams; she cried seemingly without the slightest cause and she was restless and unhappy. Finally she grew angry and scolded herself. She said she was silly and sentimental. This had the effect of making her bolder, but it did not quiet her unrest. Betty did not know that the little blind God, who steals unawares on his victim, had marked her for his own, and that all this sweet perplexity was the unconscious awakening of the heart.

One afternoon, near the end of Betty’s siege indoors, two of her friends, Lydia Boggs and Alice Reynolds, called to see her.

Alice had bright blue eyes, and her nut brown hair hung in rebellious curls around her demure and pretty face. An adorable dimple lay hidden in her rosy cheek and flashed into light with her smiles.

“Betty, you are a lazy thing!” exclaimed Lydia. “Lying here all day long doing nothing but gaze out of the window.”

“Girls, I am glad you came over,” said Betty. “I am blue. Perhaps you will cheer me up.”

“Betty needs some one of the sterner sex to cheer her,” said Alice, mischievously, her eyes twinkling. “Don’t you think so, Lydia?”

“Of course,” answered Lydia. “When I get blue—”

“Please spare me,” interrupted Betty, holding up her hands in protest. “I have not a single doubt that your masculine remedies are sufficient for all your ills. Girls who have lost their interest in the old pleasures, who spend their spare time in making linen and quilts, and who have sunk their very personalities in a great big tyrant of a man, are not liable to get blue. They are afraid he may see a tear or a frown. But thank goodness, I have not yet reached that stage.”

“Oh, Betty Zane! Just you wait! Wait!” exclaimed Lydia, shaking her finger at Betty. “Your turn is coming. When it does do not expect any mercy from us, for you shalt never get it.”

“Unfortunately, you and Alice have monopolized the attentions of the only two eligible young men at the fort,” said Betty, with a laugh.

“Nonsense there plenty of young men all eager for our favor, you little coquette,” answered Lydia. “Harry Martin, Will Metzer, Captain Swearengen, of Short Creek, and others too numerous to count. Look at Lew Wetzel and Billy Bennet.”

“Lew cares for nothing except hunting Indians and Billy’s only a boy,” said Betty.

“Well, have it your own way,” said Lydia. “Only this, I know Billy adores you, for he told me so, and a better lad never lived.”

“Lyde, you forget to include one other among those prostrate before Betty’s charms,” said Alice.

“Oh, yes, you mean Mr. Clarke. To be sure, I had forgotten him,” answered Lydia. “How odd that he should be the one to find you the day you hurt your foot. Was it an accident?”

“Of course. I slipped off the bank,” said Betty.

“No, no. I don’t mean that. Was his finding you an accident?”

“Do you imagine I waylaid Mr. Clarke, and then sprained my ankle on purpose?” said Betty, who began to look dangerous.

“Certainly not that; only it seems so odd that he should be the one to rescue all the damsels in distress. Day before yesterday he stopped a runaway horse, and saved Nell Metzer who was in the wagon, a severe shaking up, if not something more serious. She is desperately in love with him. She told me Mr. Clarke—”

“I really do not care to hear about it,” interrupted Betty.

“But, Betty, tell us. Wasn’t it dreadful, his carrying you?” asked Alice, with a sly glance at Betty. “You know you are so — so prudish, one may say. Did he take you in his arms? It must have been very embarrassing for you, considering your dislike of Mr. Clarke, and he so much in love with—”

“You hateful girls,” cried Betty, throwing a pillow at Alice, who just managed to dodge it. “I wish you would go home.”

“Never mind, Betty. We will not tease anymore,” said Lydia, putting her arm around Betty. “Come, Alice, we will tell Betty you have named the day for your wedding. See! She is all eyes now.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The young people of the frontier settlements were usually married before they were twenty. This was owing to the fact that there was little distinction of rank and family pride. The object of the pioneers in moving West was, of course, to better their condition; but, the realization of their dependence on one another, the common cause of their labors, and the terrible dangers to which they were continually exposed, brought them together as one large family.

Therefore, early love affairs were encouraged — not frowned upon as they are to-day — and they usually resulted in early marriages.

However, do not let it be imagined that the path of the youthful swain was strewn with flowers. Courting or “sparking” his sweetheart had a painful as well as a joyous side. Many and varied were the tricks played on the fortunate lover by the gallants who had vied with him for the favor of the maid. Brave, indeed, he who won her. If he marched up to her home in the early evening he was made the object of innumerable jests, even the young lady’s family indulging in and enjoying the banter. Later, when he come out of the door, it was more than likely that, if it were winter, he would be met by a volley of water soaked snowballs, or big buckets of icewater, or a mountain of snow shoved off the roof by some trickster, who had waited patiently for such an opportunity. On summer nights his horse would be stolen, led far into the woods and tied, or the wheels of his wagon would be taken off and hidden, leaving him to walk home. Usually the successful lover, and especially if he lived at a distance, would make his way only once a week and then late at night to the home of his betrothed. Silently, like a thief in the dark, he would crawl through the grass and shrubs until beneath her window. At a low signal, prearranged between them, she would slip to the door and let him in without disturbing the parents. Fearing to make a light, and perhaps welcoming that excuse to enjoy the darkness beloved by sweethearts, they would sit quietly, whispering low, until the brightening in the east betokened the break of day, and then he was off, happy and lighthearted, to his labors.

A wedding was looked forward to with much pleasure by old and young. Practically, it meant the only gathering of the settlers which was not accompanied by the work of reaping the harvest, building a cabin, planning an expedition to relieve some distant settlement, or a defense for themselves. For all, it meant a rollicking good time; to the old people a feast, and the looking on at the merriment of their children — to the young folk, a pleasing break in the monotony of their busy lives, a day given up to fun and gossip, a day of romance, a wedding, and best of all, a dance. Therefore Alice Reynold’s wedding proved a great event to the inhabitants of Fort Henry.

The day dawned bright and clear. The sun, rising like a ball of red gold, cast its yellow beams over the bare, brown hills, shining on the cabin roofs white with frost, and making the delicate weblike coat of ice on the river sparkle as if it had been sprinkled with powdered diamonds. William Martin, the groom, and his attendants, met at an appointed time to celebrate an old time-honored custom which always took place before the party started for the house of the bride. This performance was called “the race for the bottle.”

A number of young men, selected by the groom, were asked to take part in this race, which was to be run over as rough and dangerous a track as could be found. The worse the road, the more ditches, bogs, trees, stumps, brush, in fact, the more obstacles of every kind, the better, as all these afforded opportunity for daring and expert horsemanship. The English fox race, now famous on three continents, while it involves risk and is sometimes dangerous, cannot, in the sense of hazard to life and limb, be compared to this race for the bottle.

On this day the run was not less exciting than usual. The horses were placed as nearly abreast as possible and the starter gave an Indian yell. Then followed the cracking of whips, the furious pounding of heavy hoofs, the commands of the contestants, and the yells of the onlookers. Away they went at a mad pace down the road. The course extended a mile straight away down the creek bottom. The first hundred yards the horses were bunched. At the ditch beyond the creek bridge a beautiful, clean limbed animal darted from among the furiously galloping horses and sailed over the deep furrow like a bird. All recognized the rider as Alfred Clarke on his black thoroughbred. Close behind was George Martin mounted on a large roan of powerful frame and long stride. Through the willows they dashed, over logs and brush heaps, up the little ridges of rising ground, and down the shallow gullies, unheeding the stinging branches and the splashing water. Half the distance covered and Alfred turned, to find the roan close behind. On a level road he would have laughed at the attempt of that horse to keep up with his racer, but he was beginning to fear that the strong limbed stallion deserved his reputation. Directly before them rose a pile of logs and matted brush, placed there by the daredevil settlers who had mapped out the route. It was too high for any horse to be put at. With pale cheek and clinched teeth Alfred touched the spurs to Roger and then threw himself forward. The gallant beast responded nobly. Up, up, up he rose, clearing all but the topmost branches. Alfred turned again and saw the giant roan make the leap without touching a twig. The next instant Roger went splash into a swamp. He sank to his knees in the soft black soil. He could move but one foot at a time, and Alfred saw at a glance he had won the race. The great weight of the roan handicapped him here. When Alfred reached the other side of the bog, where the bottle was swinging from a branch of a tree, his rival’s horse was floundering hopelessly in the middle of the treacherous mire. The remaining three horsemen, who had come up by this time, seeing that it would be useless to attempt further efforts, had drawn up on the bank. With friendly shouts to Clarke, they acknowledged themselves beaten. There were no judges required for this race, because the man who reached the bottle first won it.

The five men returned to the starting point, where the victor was greeted by loud whoops. The groom got the first drink from the bottle, then came the attendants, and others in order, after which the bottle was put away to be kept as a memento of the occasion.

The party now repaired to the village and marched to the home of the bride. The hour for the observance of the marriage rites was just before the midday meal. When the groom reached the bride’s home he found her in readiness. Sweet and pretty Alice looked in her gray linsey gown, perfectly plain and simple though it was, without an ornament or a ribbon. Proud indeed looked her lover as he took her hand and led her up to the waiting minister. When the whisperings had ceased the minister asked who gave this woman to be married. Alice’s father answered.

“Will you take this woman to be your wedded wife, to love, cherish and protect her all the days of her life?” asked the minister.

“I will,” answered a deep bass voice.

“Will you take this man to be your wedded husband, to love, honor and obey him all the days of your life?”

“I will,” said Alice, in a low tone.

“I pronounce you man and wife. Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder.”

There was a brief prayer and the ceremony ended. Then followed the congratulations of relatives and friends. The felicitations were apt to be trying to the nerves of even the best tempered groom. The hand shakes, the heavy slaps on the back, and the pommeling he received at the hands of his intimate friends were as nothing compared to the anguish of mind he endured while they were kissing his wife. The young bucks would not have considered it a real wedding had they been prevented from kissing the bride, and for that matter, every girl within reach. So fast as the burly young settlers could push themselves through the densely packed rooms they kissed the bride, and then the first girl they came to.

Betty and Lydia had been Alice’s maids of honor. This being Betty’s first experience at a frontier wedding, it developed that she was much in need of Lydia’s advice, which she had previously disdained. She had rested secure in her dignity. Poor Betty! The first man to kiss Alice was George Martin, a big, strong fellow, who gathered his brother’s bride into his arms and gave her a bearish hug and a resounding kiss. Releasing her he turned toward Lydia and Betty. Lydia eluded him, but one of his great hands clasped around Betty’s wrist. She tried to look haughty, but with everyone laughing, and the young man’s face expressive of honest fun and happiness she found it impossible. She stood still and only turned her face a little to one side while George kissed her. The young men now made a rush for her. With blushing cheeks Betty, unable to stand her ground any longer, ran to her brother, the Colonel. He pushed her away with a laugh. She turned to Major McColloch, who held out his arms to her. With an exclamation she wrenched herself free from a young man, who had caught her hand, and flew to the Major. But alas for Betty! The Major was not proof against the temptation and he kissed her himself.

“Traitor!” cried Betty, breaking away from him.

Poor Betty was in despair. She had just made up her mind to submit when she caught sight of Wetzel’s familiar figure. She ran to him and the hunter put one of his long arms around her.

“I reckon I kin take care of you, Betty,” he said, a smile playing over his usually stern face. “See here, you young bucks. Betty don’t want to be kissed, and if you keep on pesterin’ her I’ll have to scalp a few of you.”

The merriment grew as the day progressed. During the wedding feast great hilarity prevailed. It culminated in the dance which followed the dinner. The long room of the block-house had been decorated with evergreens, autumn leaves and goldenrod, which were scattered profusely about, hiding the blackened walls and bare rafters. Numerous blazing pine knots, fastened on sticks which were stuck into the walls, lighted up a scene, which for color and animation could not have been surpassed.

Colonel Zane’s old slave, Sam, who furnished the music, sat on a raised platform at the upper end of the hall, and the way he sawed away on his fiddle, accompanying the movements of his arm with a swaying of his body and a stamping of his heavy foot, showed he had a hearty appreciation of his own value.

Prominent among the men and women standing and sitting near the platform could be distinguished the tall forms of Jonathan Zane, Major McColloch and Wetzel, all, as usual, dressed in their hunting costumes and carrying long rifles. The other men had made more or less effort to improve their appearance. Bright homespun shirts and scarfs had replaced the everyday buckskin garments. Major McColloch was talking to Colonel Zane. The genial faces of both reflected the pleasure they felt in the enjoyment of the younger people. Jonathan Zane stood near the door. Moody and silent he watched the dance. Wetzel leaned against the wall. The black barrel of his rifle lay in the hollow of his arm. The hunter was gravely contemplating the members of the bridal party who were dancing in front of him. When the dance ended Lydia and Betty stopped before Wetzel and Betty said: “Lew, aren’t you going to ask us to dance?”

The hunter looked down into the happy, gleaming faces, and smiling in his half sad way, answered: “Every man to his gifts.”

“But you can dance. I want you to put aside your gun long enough to dance with me. If I waited for you to ask me, I fear I should have to wait a long time. Come, Lew, here I am asking you, and I know the other men are dying to dance with me,” said Betty, coaxingly, in a roguish voice.

Wetzel never refused a request of Betty’s, and so, laying aside his weapons, he danced with her, to the wonder and admiration of all. Colonel Zane clapped his hands, and everyone stared in amazement at the unprecedented sight Wetzel danced not ungracefully. He was wonderfully light on his feet. His striking figure, the long black hair, and the fancifully embroidered costume he wore contrasted strangely with Betty’s slender, graceful form and pretty gray dress.

“Well, well, Lewis, I would not have believed anything but the evidence of my own eyes,” said Colonel Zane, with a laugh, as Betty and Wetzel approached him.

“If all the men could dance as well as Lew, the girls would be thankful, I can assure you,” said Betty.

“Betty, I declare you grow prettier every day,” said old John Bennet, who was standing with the Colonel and the Major. “If I were only a young man once more I should try my chances with you, and I wouldn’t give up very easily.”

“I do not know, Uncle John, but I am inclined to think that if you were a young man and should come a-wooing you would not get a rebuff from me,” answered Betty, smiling on the old man, of whom she was very fond.

“Miss Zane, will you dance with me?”

The voice sounded close by Betty’s side. She recognized it, and an unaccountable sensation of shyness suddenly came over her. She had firmly made up her mind, should Mr. Clarke ask her to dance, that she would tell him she was tired, or engaged for that number — anything so that she could avoid dancing with him. But, now that the moment had come she either forgot her resolution or lacked the courage to keep it, for as the music commenced, she turned and without saying a word or looking at him, she placed her hand on his arm. He whirled her away. She gave a start of surprise and delight at the familiar step and then gave herself up to the charm of the dance. Supported by his strong arm she floated around the room in a sort of dream. Dancing as they did was new to the young people at the Fort — it was a style then in vogue in the east — and everyone looked on with great interest and curiosity. But all too soon the dance ended and before Betty had recovered her composure she found that her partner had led her to a secluded seat in the lower end of the hall. The bench was partly obscured from the dancers by masses of autumn leaves. “That was a very pleasant dance,” said Alfred. “Miss Boggs told me you danced the round dance.”

“I was much surprised and pleased,” said Betty, who had indeed enjoyed it.

“It has been a delightful day,” went on Alfred, seeing that Betty was still confused. “I almost killed myself in that race for the bottle this morning. I never saw such logs and brush heaps and ditches in my life. I am sure that if the fever of recklessness which seemed in the air had not suddenly seized me I would never have put my horse at such leaps.”

“I heard my brother say your horse was one of the best he had ever seen, and that you rode superbly,” murmured Betty.

“Well, to be honest, I would not care to take that ride again. It certainly was not fair to the horse.”

“How do you like the fort by this time?”

“Miss Zane, I am learning to love this free, wild life. I really think I was made for the frontier. The odd customs and manners which seemed strange at first have become very acceptable to me now. I find everyone so honest and simple and brave. Here one must work to live, which is right. Do you know, I never worked in my life until I came to Fort Henry. My life was all uselessness, idleness.”

“I can hardly believe that,” answered Betty. “You have learned to dance and ride and—”

“What?” asked Alfred, as Betty hesitated.

“Never mind. It was an accomplishment with which the girls credited you,” said Betty, with a little laugh.

“I suppose I did not deserve it. I heard I had a singular aptitude for discovering young ladies in distress.”

“Have you become well acquainted with the boys?” asked Betty, hastening to change the subject.

“Oh, yes, particularly with your Indianized brother, Isaac. He is the finest fellow, as well as the most interesting, I ever knew. I like Colonel Zane immensely too. The dark, quiet fellow, Jack, or John, they call him, is not like your other brothers. The hunter, Wetzel, inspires me with awe. Everyone has been most kind to me and I have almost forgotten that I was a wanderer.”

“I am glad to hear that,” said Betty.

“Miss Zane,” continued Alfred, “doubtless you have heard that I came West because I was compelled to leave my home. Please do not believe everything you hear of me. Some day I may tell you my story if you care to hear it. Suffice it to say now that I left my home of my own free will and I could go back to-morrow.”

“I did not mean to imply—” began Betty, coloring.

“Of course not. But tell me about yourself. Is it not rather dull and lonesome here for you?”

“It was last winter. But I have been contented and happy this summer. Of course, it is not Philadelphia life, and I miss the excitement and gayety of my uncle’s house. I knew my place was with my brothers. My aunt pleaded with me to live with her and not go to the wilderness. I had everything I wanted there — luxury, society, parties, balls, dances, friends — all that the heart of a girl could desire, but I preferred to come to this little frontier settlement. Strange choice for a girl, was it not?”

“Unusual, yes,” answered Alfred, gravely. “And I cannot but wonder what motives actuated our coming to Fort Henry. I came to seek my fortune. You came to bring sunshine into the home of your brother, and left your fortune behind you. Well, your motive has the element of nobility. Mine has nothing but that of recklessness. I would like to read the future.”

“I do not think it is right to have such a wish. With the veil rolled away could you work as hard, accomplish as much? I do not want to know the future. Perhaps some of it will be unhappy. I have made my choice and will cheerfully abide by it. I rather envy your being a man. You have the world to conquer. A woman — what can she do? She can knead the dough, ply the distaff, and sit by the lattice and watch and wait.”

“Let us postpone such melancholy thoughts until some future day. I have not as yet said anything that I intended. I wish to tell you how sorry I am that I acted in such a rude way the night your brother came home. I do not know what made me do so, but I know I have regretted it ever since. Will you forgive me and may we not be friends?”

“I — I do not know,” said Betty, surprised and vaguely troubled by the earnest light in his eyes.

“But why? Surely you will make some little allowance for a naturally quick temper, and you know you did not — that you were—”

“Yes, I remember I was hasty and unkind. But I made amends, or at least, I tried to do so.”

“Try to overlook my stupidity. I will not give up until you forgive me. Consider how much you can avoid by being generous.”

“Very well, then, I will forgive you,” said Betty, who had arrived at the conclusion that this young man was one of determination.

“Thank you. I promise you shall never regret it. And the sprained ankle? It must be well, as I noticed you danced beautifully.”

“I am compelled to believe what the girls say — that you are inclined to the language of compliment. My ankle is nearly well, thank you. It hurts a little now and then.”

“Speaking of your accident reminds me of the day it happened,” said Alfred, watching her closely. He desired to tease her a little, but he was not sure of his ground. “I had been all day in the woods with nothing but my thoughts — mostly unhappy ones — for company. When I met you I pretended to be surprised. As a matter of fact I was not, for I had followed your dog. He took a liking to me and I was extremely pleased, I assure you. Well, I saw your face a moment before you knew I was as near you. When you heard my footsteps you turned with a relieved and joyous cry. When you saw whom it was your glad expression changed, and if I had been a hostile Wyandot you could not have looked more unfriendly. Such a woeful, tear-stained face I never saw.”

“Mr. Clarke, please do not speak any more of that,” said Betty with dignity. “I desire that you forget it.”

“I will forget all except that it was I who had the happiness of finding you and of helping you. I cannot forget that. I am sure we should never have been friends but for that accident.”

“There is Isaac. He is looking for me,” answered Betty, rising.

“Wait a moment longer — please. He will find you,” said Alfred, detaining her. “Since you have been so kind I have grown bolder. May I come over to see you to-morrow?”

He looked straight down into the dark eyes which wavered and fell before he had completed his question.

“There is Isaac. He cannot see me here. I must go.”

“But not before telling me. What is the good of your forgiving me if I may not see you. Please say yes.”

“You may come,” answered Betty, half amused and half provoked at his persistence. “I should think you would know that such permission invariably goes with a young woman’s forgiveness.”

“Hello, here you are. What a time I have had in finding you,” said Isaac, coming up with flushed face and eyes bright with excitement. “Alfred, what do you mean by hiding the belle of the dance away like this? I want to dance with you, Betts. I am having a fine time. I have not danced anything but Indian dances for ages. Sorry to take her away, Alfred. I can see she doesn’t want to go. Ha! Ha!” and with a mischievous look at both of them he led Betty away.

Alfred kept his seat awhile lost in thought. Suddenly he remembered that it would look strange if he did not make himself agreeable, so he got up and found a partner. He danced with Alice, Lydia, and the other young ladies. After an hour he slipped away to his room. He wished to be alone. He wanted to think; to decide whether it would be best for him to stay at the fort, or ride away in the darkness and never return. With the friendly touch of Betty’s hand the madness with which he had been battling for weeks rushed over him stronger than ever. The thrill of that soft little palm remained with him, and he pressed the hand it had touched to his lips.

For a long hour he sat by his window. He could dimly see the broad winding river, with its curtain of pale gray mist, and beyond, the dark outline of the forest. A cool breeze from the water fanned his heated brow, and the quiet and solitude soothed him.

CHAPTER IV.

“GOOD MORNING, HARRY. Where are you going so early?” called Betty from the doorway.

A lad was passing down the path in front of Colonel Zane’s house as Betty hailed him. He carried a rifle almost as long as himself.

“Mornin’, Betty. I am goin’ ‘cross the crick fer that turkey I hear gobblin’,” he answered, stopping at the gate and smiling brightly at Betty.

“Hello, Harry Bennet. Going after that turkey? I have heard him several mornings and he must be a big, healthy gobbler,” said Colonel Zane, stepping to the door. “You are going to have company. Here comes Wetzel.”

“Good morning, Lew. Are you too off on a turkey hunt?” said Betty.

“Listen,” said the hunter, as he stopped and leaned against the gate. They listened. All was quiet save for the tinkle of a cow-bell in the pasture adjoining the Colonel’s barn. Presently the silence was broken by a long, shrill, peculiar cry.

“Chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug-chug.”

“Well, it’s a turkey, all right, and I’ll bet a big gobbler,” remarked Colonel Zane, as the cry ceased.

“Has Jonathan heard it?” asked Wetzel.

“Not that I know of. Why do you ask?” said the Colonel, in a low tone. “Look here, Lew, is that not a genuine call?”

“Goodbye, Harry, be sure and bring me a turkey,” called Betty, as she disappeared.

“I calkilate it’s a real turkey,” answered the hunter, and motioning the lad to stay behind, he shouldered his rifle and passed swiftly down the path.

Of all the Wetzel family — a family noted from one end of the frontier to the other — Lewis was as the most famous.

The early history of West Virginia and Ohio is replete with the daring deeds of this wilderness roamer, this lone hunter and insatiable Nemesis, justly called the greatest Indian slayer known to men.

When Lewis was about twenty years old, and his brothers John and Martin little older, they left their Virginia home for a protracted hunt. On their return they found the smoking ruins of the home, the mangled remains of father and mother, the naked and violated bodies of their sisters, and the scalped and bleeding corpse of a baby brother.

Lewis Wetzel swore sleepless and eternal vengeance on the whole Indian race. Terribly did he carry out that resolution. From that time forward he lived most of the time in the woods, and an Indian who crossed his trail was a doomed man. The various Indian tribes gave him different names. The Shawnees called him “Long Knife;” the Hurons, “Destroyer;” the Delawares, “Death Wind,” and any one of these names would chill the heart of the stoutest warrior.

To most of the famed pioneer hunters of the border, Indian fighting was only a side issue — generally a necessary one — but with Wetzel it was the business of his life. He lived solely to kill Indians. He plunged recklessly into the strife, and was never content unless roaming the wilderness solitudes, trailing the savages to their very homes and ambushing the village bridlepath like a panther waiting for his prey. Often in the gray of the morning the Indians, sleeping around their camp fire, were awakened by a horrible, screeching yell. They started up in terror only to fall victims to the tomahawk of their merciless foe, or to hear a rifle shot and get a glimpse of a form with flying black hair disappearing with wonderful quickness in the forest. Wetzel always left death behind him, and he was gone before his demoniac yell ceased to echo throughout the woods. Although often pursued, he invariably eluded the Indians, for he was the fleetest runner on the border.

For many years he was considered the right hand of the defense of the fort. The Indians held him in superstitious dread, and the fact that he was known to be in the settlement had averted more than one attack by the Indians.

Many regarded Wetzel as a savage, a man who was mad for the blood of the red men, and without one redeeming quality. But this was an unjust opinion. When that restless fever for revenge left him — it was not always with him — he was quiet and peaceable. To those few who knew him well he was even amiable. But Wetzel, although known to everyone, cared for few. He spent little time in the settlements and rarely spoke except when addressed.

Nature had singularly fitted him for his pre-eminent position among scouts and hunters. He was tall and broad across the shoulders; his strength, agility and endurance were marvelous; he had an eagle eye, the sagacity of the bloodhound, and that intuitive knowledge which plays such an important part in a hunter’s life. He knew not fear. He was daring where daring was the wiser part. Crafty, tireless and implacable, Wetzel was incomparable in his vocation.

His long raven-black hair, of which he was vain, when combed out reached to within a foot of the ground. He had a rare scalp, one for which the Indians would have bartered anything.

A favorite Indian decoy, and the most fatal one, was the imitation of the call of the wild turkey. It had often happened that men from the settlements who had gone out for a turkey which had been gobbling, had not returned.

For several mornings Wetzel had heard a turkey call, and becoming suspicious of it, had determined to satisfy himself. On the east side of the creek hill there was a cavern some fifty or sixty yards above the water. The entrance to this cavern was concealed by vines and foliage. Wetzel knew of it, and, crossing the stream some distance above, he made a wide circuit and came up back of the cave. Here he concealed himself in a clump of bushes and waited. He had not been there long when directly below him sounded the cry, “Chug-a-lug, Chug-a-lug, Chug-a-lug.” At the same time the polished head and brawny shoulders of an Indian warrior rose out of the cavern. Peering cautiously around, the savage again gave the peculiar cry, and then sank back out of sight. Wetzel screened himself safely in his position and watched the savage repeat the action at least ten times before he made up his mind that the Indian was alone in the cave. When he had satisfied himself of this he took a quick aim at the twisted tuft of hair and fired. Without waiting to see the result of his shot — so well did he trust his unerring aim — he climbed down the steep bank and brushing aside the vines entered the cave. A stalwart Indian lay in the entrance with his face pressed down on the vines. He still clutched in his sinewy fingers the buckhorn mouthpiece with which he had made the calls that had resulted in his death.

“Huron,” muttered the hunter to himself as he ran the keen edge of his knife around the twisted tuft of hair and tore off the scalp-lock.

The cave showed evidence of having been inhabited for some time. There was a cunningly contrived fireplace made of stones, against which pieces of birch bark were placed in such a position that not a ray of light could get out of the cavern. The bed of black coals between the stones still smoked; a quantity of parched corn lay on a little rocky shelf which jutted out from the wall; a piece of jerked meat and a buckskin pouch hung from a peg.

Suddenly Wetzel dropped on his knees and began examining the footprints in the sandy floor of the cavern. He measured the length and width of the dead warrior’s foot. He closely scrutinized every moccasin print. He crawled to the opening of the cavern and carefully surveyed the moss.

Then he rose to his feet. A remarkable transformation had come over him during the last few moments. His face had changed; the calm expression was replaced by one sullen and fierce: his lips were set in a thin, cruel line, and a strange light glittered in his eyes.

He slowly pursued a course lending gradually down to the creek. At intervals he would stop and listen. The strange voices of the woods were not mysteries to him. They were more familiar to him than the voices of men.

He recalled that, while on his circuit over the ridge to get behind the cavern, he had heard the report of a rifle far off in the direction of the chestnut grove, but, as that was a favorite place of the settlers for shooting squirrels, he had not thought anything of it at the time. Now it had a peculiar significance. He turned abruptly from the trail he had been following and plunged down the steep hill. Crossing the creek he took to the cover of the willows, which grew profusely along the banks, and striking a sort of bridle path he started on a run. He ran easily, as though accustomed to that mode of travel, and his long strides covered a couple of miles in short order. Coming to the rugged bluff, which marked the end of the ridge, he stopped and walked slowly along the edge of the water. He struck the trail of the Indians where it crossed the creek, just where he expected. There were several moccasin tracks in the wet sand and, in some of the depressions made by the heels the rounded edges of the imprints were still smooth and intact. The little pools of muddy water, which still lay in these hollows, were other indications to his keen eyes that the Indians had passed this point early that morning.

The trail led up the hill and far into the woods. Never in doubt the hunter kept on his course; like a shadow he passed from tree to tree and from bush to bush; silently, cautiously, but rapidly he followed the tracks of the Indians. When he had penetrated the dark backwoods of the Black Forest tangled underbrush, windfalls and gullies crossed his path and rendered fast trailing impossible. Before these almost impassible barriers he stopped and peered on all sides, studying the lay of the land, the deadfalls, the gorges, and all the time keeping in mind the probable route of the redskins. Then he turned aside to avoid the roughest travelling. Sometimes these detours were only a few hundred feet long; often they were miles; but nearly always he struck the trail again. This almost superhuman knowledge of the Indian’s ways of traversing the forest, which probably no man could have possessed without giving his life to the hunting of Indians, was the one feature of Wetzel’s woodcraft which placed him so far above other hunters, and made him so dreaded by the savages.

Descending a knoll he entered a glade where the trees grew farther apart and the underbrush was only knee high. The black soil showed that the tract of land had been burned over. On the banks of a babbling brook which wound its way through this open space, the hunter found tracks which brought an exclamation from him. Clearly defined in the soft earth was the impress of a white man’s moccasin. The footprints of an Indian toe inward. Those of a white man are just the opposite. A little farther on Wetzel came to a slight crushing of the moss, where he concluded some heavy body had fallen. As he had seen the tracks of a buck and doe all the way down the brook he thought it probable one of them had been shot by the white hunter. He found a pool of blood surrounded by moccasin prints; and from that spot the trail led straight toward the west, showing that for some reason the Indians had changed their direction.

This new move puzzled the hunter, and he leaned against the trunk of a tree, while he revolved in his mind the reasons for this abrupt departure — for such he believed it. The trail he had followed for miles was the devious trail of hunting Indians, stealing slowly and stealthily along watching for their prey, whether it be man or beast. The trail toward the west was straight as the crow flies; the moccasin prints that indented the soil were wide apart, and to an inexperienced eye looked like the track of one Indian. To Wetzel this indicated that the Indians had all stepped in the tracks of a leader.

As was usually his way, Wetzel decided quickly. He had calculated that there were eight Indians in all, not counting the chief whom he had shot. This party of Indians had either killed or captured the white man who had been hunting. Wetzel believed that a part of the Indians would push on with all possible speed, leaving some of their number to ambush the trail or double back on it to see if they were pursued.

An hour of patient waiting, in which he never moved from his position, proved the wisdom of his judgment. Suddenly, away at the other end of the grove, he caught a flash of brown, of a living, moving something, like the flitting of a bird behind a tree. Was it a bird or a squirrel? Then again he saw it, almost lost in the shade of the forest. Several minutes passed, in which Wetzel never moved and hardly breathed. The shadow had disappeared behind a tree. He fixed his keen eyes on that tree and presently a dark object glided from it and darted stealthily forward to another tree. One, two, three dark forms followed the first one. They were Indian warriors, and they moved so quickly that only the eyes of a woodsman like Wetzel could have discerned their movements at that distance.

Probably most hunters would have taken to their heels while there was yet time. The thought did not occur to Wetzel. He slowly raised the hammer of his rifle. As the Indians came into plain view he saw they did not suspect his presence, but were returning on the trail in their customary cautious manner.

When the first warrior reached a big oak tree some two hundred yards distant, the long, black barrel of the hunter’s rifle began slowly, almost imperceptibly, to rise, and as it reached a level the savage stepped forward from the tree. With the sharp report of the weapon he staggered and fell.

Wetzel sprang up and knowing that his only escape was in rapid flight, with his well known yell, he bounded off at the top of his speed. The remaining Indians discharged their guns at the fleeing, dodging figure, but without effect. So rapidly did he dart in and out among the trees that an effectual aim was impossible. Then, with loud yells, the Indians, drawing their tomahawks, started in pursuit, expecting soon to overtake their victim.

In the early years of his Indian hunting, Wetzel had perfected himself in a practice which had saved his life many tunes, and had added much to his fame. He could reload his rifle while running at topmost speed. His extraordinary fleetness enabled him to keep ahead of his pursuers until his rifle was reloaded. This trick he now employed. Keeping up his uneven pace until his gun was ready, he turned quickly and shot the nearest Indian dead in his tracks. The next Indian had by this time nearly come up with him and close enough to throw his tomahawk, which whizzed dangerously near Wetzel’s head. But he leaped forward again and soon his rifle was reloaded. Every time he looked around the Indians treed, afraid to face his unerring weapon. After running a mile or more in this manner, he reached an open space in the woods where he wheeled suddenly on his pursuers. The foremost Indian jumped behind a tree, but, as it did not entirely screen his body, he, too, fell a victim to the hunter’s aim. The Indian must have been desperately wounded, for his companion now abandoned the chase and went to his assistance. Together they disappeared in the forest.

Wetzel, seeing that he was no longer pursued, slackened his pace and proceeded thoughtfully toward the settlement.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That same day, several hours after Wetzel’s departure in quest of the turkey, Alfred Clarke strolled over from the fort and found Colonel Zane in the yard. The Colonel was industriously stirring the contents of a huge copper kettle which swung over a brisk wood fire. The honeyed fragrance of apple-butter mingled with the pungent odor of burning hickory.

“Morning, Alfred, you see they have me at it,” was the Colonel’s salute.

“So I observe,” answered Alfred, as he seated himself on the wood-pile. “What is it you are churning so vigorously?”

“Apple-butter, my boy, apple-butter. I don’t allow even Bessie to help when I am making apple-butter.”

“Colonel Zane, I have come over to ask a favor. Ever since you notified us that you intended sending an expedition up the river I have been worried about my horse Roger. He is too light for a pack horse, and I cannot take two horses.”

“I’ll let you have the bay. He is big and strong enough. That black horse of yours is a beauty. You leave Roger with me and if you never come back I’ll be in a fine horse. Ha, Ha! But, seriously, Clarke, this proposed trip is a hazardous undertaking, and if you would rather stay—”

“You misunderstand me,” quickly replied Alfred, who had flushed. “I do not care about myself. I’ll go and take my medicine. But I do mind about my horse.”

“That’s right. Always think of your horses. I’ll have Sam take the best of care of Roger.”

“What is the nature of this excursion, and how long shall we be gone?”

“Jonathan will guide the party. He says it will take six weeks if you have pleasant weather. You are to go by way of Short Creek, where you will help put up a blockhouse. Then you go to Fort Pitt. There you will embark on a raft with the supplies I need and make the return journey by water. You will probably smell gunpowder before you get back.”

“What shall we do with the horses?”

“Bring them along with you on the raft, of course.”

“That is a new way to travel with horses,” said Alfred, looking dubiously at the swift river. “Will there be any way to get news from Fort Henry while we are away?”

“Yes, there will be several runners.”

“Mr. Clarke, I am going to feed my pets. Would you like to see them?” asked a voice which brought Alfred to his feet. He turned and saw Betty. Her dog followed her, carrying a basket.

“I shall be delighted,” answered Alfred. “Have you more pets than Tige and Madcap?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. I have a bear, six squirrels, one of them white, and some pigeons.”

Betty led the way to an enclosure adjoining Colonel Zane’s barn. It was about twenty feet square, made of pine saplings which had been split and driven firmly into the ground. As Betty took down a bar and opened the small gate a number of white pigeons fluttered down from the roof of the barn, several of them alighting on her shoulders. A half-grown black bear came out of a kennel and shuffled toward her. He was unmistakably glad to see her, but he avoided going near Tige, and looked doubtfully at the young man. But after Alfred had stroked his head and had spoken to him he seemed disposed to be friendly, for he sniffed around Alfred’s knees and then stood up and put his paws against the young man’s shoulders.

“Here, Caesar, get down,” said Betty. “He always wants to wrestle, especially with anyone of whom he is not suspicious. He is very tame and will do almost anything. Indeed, you would marvel at his intelligence. He never forgets an injury. If anyone plays a trick on him you may be sure that person will not get a second opportunity. The night we caught him Tige chased him up a tree and Jonathan climbed the tree and lassoed him. Ever since he has evinced a hatred of Jonathan, and if I should leave Tige alone with him there would be a terrible fight. But for that I could allow Caesar to run free about the yard.”

“He looks bright and sagacious,” remarked Alfred.

“He is, but sometimes he gets into mischief. I nearly died laughing one day. Bessie, my brother’s wife, you know, had the big kettle on the fire, just as you saw it a moment ago, only this time she was boiling down maple syrup. Tige was out with some of the men and I let Caesar loose awhile. If there is anything he loves it is maple sugar, so when he smelled the syrup he pulled down the kettle and the hot syrup went all over his nose. Oh, his howls were dreadful to hear. The funniest part about it was he seemed to think it was intentional, for he remained sulky and cross with me for two weeks.”

“I can understand your love for animals,” said Alfred. “I think there are many interesting things about wild creatures. There are comparatively few animals down in Virginia where I used to live, and my opportunities to study them have been limited.”

“Here are my squirrels,” said Betty, unfastening the door of a cage. A number of squirrels ran out. Several jumped to the ground. One perched on top of the box. Another sprang on Betty’s shoulder. “I fasten them up every night, for I’m afraid the weasels and foxes will get them. The white squirrel is the only albino we have seen around here. It took Jonathan weeks to trap him, but once captured he soon grew tame. Is he not pretty?”

“He certainly is. I never saw one before; in fact, I did not know such a beautiful little animal existed,” answered Alfred, looking in admiration at the graceful creature, as he leaped from the shelf to Betty’s arm and ate from her hand, his great, bushy white tail arching over his back and his small pink eyes shining.

“There! Listen,” said Betty. “Look at the fox squirrel, the big brownish red one. I call him the Captain, because he always wants to boss the others. I had another fox squirrel, older than this fellow, and he ran things to suit himself, until one day the grays united their forces and routed him. I think they would have killed him had I not freed him. Well, this one is commencing the same way. Do you hear that odd clicking noise? That comes from the Captain’s teeth, and he is angry and jealous because I show so much attention to this one. He always does that, and he would fight too if I were not careful. It is a singular fact, though, that the white squirrel has not even a little pugnacity. He either cannot fight, or he is too well behaved. Here, Mr. Clarke, show Snowball this nut, and then hide it in your pocket, and see him find it.”

Alfred did as he was told, except that while he pretended to put the nut in his pocket he really kept it concealed in his hand.

The pet squirrel leaped lightly on Alfred’s shoulder, ran over his breast, peeped in all his pockets, and even pushed his cap to one side of his head. Then he ran down Alfred’s arm, sniffed in his coat sleeve, and finally wedged a cold little nose between his closed fingers.

“There, he has found it, even though you did not play fair,” said Betty, laughing gaily.

Alfred never forgot the picture Betty made standing there with the red cap on her dusky hair, and the loving smile upon her face as she talked to her pets. A white fan-tail pigeon had alighted on her shoulder and was picking daintily at the piece of cracker she held between her lips. The squirrels were all sitting up, each with a nut in his little paws, and each with an alert and cunning look in the corner of his eye, to prevent, no doubt, being surprised out of a portion of his nut. Caesar was lying on all fours, growling and tearing at his breakfast, while the dog looked on with a superior air, as if he knew they would not have had any breakfast but for him.

“Are you fond of canoeing and fishing?” asked Betty, as they returned to the house.

“Indeed I am. Isaac has taken me out on the river often. Canoeing may be pleasant for a girl, but I never knew one who cared for fishing.”

“Now you behold one. I love dear old Izaak Walton. Of course, you have read his books?”

“I am ashamed to say I have not.”

“And you say you are a fisherman? Well, you haste a great pleasure in store, as well as an opportunity to learn something of the ‘contemplative man’s recreation.’ I shall lend you the books.”

“I have not seen a book since I came to Fort Henry.”

“I have a fine little library, and you are welcome to any of my books. But to return to fishing. I love it, and yet I nearly always allow the fish to go free. Sometimes I bring home a pretty sunfish, place him in a tub of water, watch him and try to tame him. But I must admit failure. It is the association which makes fishing so delightful. The canoe gliding down a swift stream, the open air, the blue sky, the birds and trees and flowers — these are what I love. Come and see my canoe.”

Thus Betty rattled on as she led the way through the sitting-room and kitchen to Colonel Zane’s magazine and store-house which opened into the kitchen. This little low-roofed hut contained a variety of things. Boxes, barrels and farming implements filled one corner; packs of dried skins were piled against the wall; some otter and fox pelts were stretched on the wall, and a number of powder kegs lined a shelf. A slender canoe swung from ropes thrown over the rafters. Alfred slipped it out of the loops and carried it outside.

The canoe was a superb specimen of Indian handiwork. It had a length of fourteen feet and was made of birch bark, stretched over a light framework of basswood. The bow curved gracefully upward, ending in a carved image representing a warrior’s head. The sides were beautifully ornamented and decorated in fanciful Indian designs.

“My brother’s Indian guide, Tomepomehala, a Shawnee chief, made it for me. You see this design on the bow. The arrow and the arm mean in Indian language, ‘The race is to the swift and the strong.’ The canoe is very light. See, I can easily carry it,” said Betty, lifting it from the grass.

She ran into the house and presently came out with two rods, a book and a basket.

“These are Jack’s rods. He cut them out of the heart of ten-year-old basswood trees, so he says. We must be careful of them.”

Alfred examined the rods with the eye of a connoisseur and pronounced them perfect.

“These rods have been made by a lover of the art. Anyone with half an eye could see that. What shall we use for bait?” he said.

“Sam got me some this morning.”

“Did you expect to go?” asked Alfred, looking up in surprise.

“Yes, I intended going, and as you said you were coming over, I meant to ask you to accompany me.”

“That was kind of you.”

“Where are you young people going?” called Colonel Zane, stopping in his task.

“We are going down to the sycamore,” answered Betty.

“Very well. But be certain and stay on this side of the creek and do not go out on the river,” said the Colonel.

“Why, Eb, what do you mean? One might think Mr. Clarke and I were children,” exclaimed Betty.

“You certainly aren’t much more. But that is not my reason. Never mind the reason. Do as I say or do not go,” said Colonel Zane.

“All right, brother. I shall not forget,” said Betty, soberly, looking at the Colonel. He had not spoken in his usual teasing way, and she was at a loss to understand him. “Come, Mr. Clarke, you carry the canoe and follow me down this path and look sharp for roots and stones or you may trip.”

“Where is Isaac?” asked Alfred, as he lightly swung the canoe over his shoulder.

“He took his rifle and went up to the chestnut grove an hour or more ago.”

A few minutes’ walk down the willow skirted path and they reached the creek. Here it was a narrow stream, hardly fifty feet wide, shallow, and full of stones over which the clear brown water rushed noisily.

“Is it not rather risky going down there?” asked Alfred as he noticed the swift current and the numerous boulders poking treacherous heads just above the water.

“Of course. That is the great pleasure in canoeing,” said Betty, calmly. “If you would rather walk—”

“No, I’ll go if I drown. I was thinking of you.”

“It is safe enough if you can handle a paddle,” said Betty, with a smile at his hesitation. “And, of course, if your partner in the canoe sits trim.”

“Perhaps you had better allow me to use the paddle. Where did you learn to steer a canoe?”

“I believe you are actually afraid. Why, I was born on the Potomac, and have used a paddle since I was old enough to lift one. Come, place the canoe in here and we will keep to the near shore until we reach the bend. There is a little fall just below this and I love to shoot it.”

He steadied the canoe with one hand while he held out the other to help her, but she stepped nimbly aboard without his assistance.

“Wait a moment while I catch some crickets and grasshoppers.”

“Gracious! What a fisherman. Don’t you know we have had frost?”

“That’s so,” said Alfred, abashed by her simple remark.

“But you might find some crickets under those logs,” said Betty. She laughed merrily at the awkward spectacle made by Alfred crawling over the ground, improvising a sort of trap out of his hat, and pouncing down on a poor little insect.

“Now, get in carefully, and give the canoe a push. There, we are off,” she said, taking up the paddle.

The little bark glided slowly down stream at first hugging the bank as though reluctant to trust itself to the deeper water, and then gathering headway as a few gentle strokes of the paddle swerved it into the current. Betty knelt on one knee and skillfully plied the paddle, using the Indian stroke in which the paddle was not removed from the water.

“This is great!” exclaimed Alfred, as he leaned back in the bow facing her. “There is nothing more to be desired. This beautiful clear stream, the air so fresh, the gold lined banks, the autumn leaves, a guide who—”

“Look,” said Betty. “There is the fall over which we must pass.”

He looked ahead and saw that they were swiftly approaching two huge stones that reared themselves high out of the water. They were only a few yards apart and surrounded by smaller rocks, about high the water rushed white with foam.

“Please do not move!” cried Betty, her eyes shining bright with excitement.

Indeed, the situation was too novel for Alfred to do anything but feel a keen enjoyment. He had made up his mind that he was sure to get a ducking, but, as he watched Betty’s easy, yet vigorous sweeps with the paddle, and her smiling, yet resolute lips, he felt reassured. He could see that the fall was not a great one, only a few feet, but one of those glancing sheets of water like a mill race, and he well knew that if they struck a stone disaster would be theirs. Twenty feet above the white-capped wave which marked the fall, Betty gave a strong forward pull on the paddle, a deep stroke which momentarily retarded their progress even in that swift current, and then, a short backward stroke, far under the stern of the canoe, and the little vessel turned straight, almost in the middle of the course between the two rocks. As she raised her paddle into the canoe and smiled at the fascinated young man, the bow dipped, and with that peculiar downward movement, that swift, exhilarating rush so dearly loved by canoeists, they shot down the smooth incline of water, were lost for a moment in a white cloud of mist, and in another they coated into a placid pool.

“Was not that delightful?” she asked, with just a little conscious pride glowing in her dark eyes.

“Miss Zane, it was more than that. I apologize for my suspicions. You have admirable skill. I only wish that on my voyage down the River of Life I could have such a sure eye and hand to guide me through the dangerous reefs and rapids.”

“You are poetical,” said Betty, who laughed, and at the same time blushed slightly. “But you are right about the guide. Jonathan says ‘always get a good guide,’ and as guiding is his work he ought to know. But this has nothing in common with fishing, and here is my favorite place under the old sycamore.”

With a long sweep of the paddle she ran the canoe alongside a stone beneath a great tree which spread its long branches over the creek and shaded the pool. It was a grand old tree and must have guarded that sylvan spot for centuries. The gnarled and knotted trunk was scarred and seamed with the ravages of time. The upper part was dead. Long limbs extended skyward, gaunt and bare, like the masts of a storm beaten vessel. The lower branches were white and shining, relieved here and there by brown patches of bark which curled up like old parchment as they shelled away from the inner bark. The ground beneath the tree was carpeted with a velvety moss with little plots of grass and clusters of maiden-hair fern growing on it. From under an overhanging rock on the bank a spring of crystal water bubbled forth.

Alfred rigged up the rods, and baiting a hook directed Betty to throw her line well out into the current and let it float down into the eddy. She complied, and hardly had the line reached the circle of the eddy, where bits of white foam floated round and round, when there was a slight splash, a scream from Betty and she was standing up in the canoe holding tightly to her rod.

“Be careful!” exclaimed Alfred. “Sit down. You will have the canoe upset in a moment. Hold your rod steady and keep the line taut. That’s right. Now lead him round toward me. There,” and grasping the line he lifted a fine rock bass over the side of the canoe.

“Oh! I always get so intensely excited,” breathlessly cried Betty. “I can’t help it. Jonathan always declares he will never take me fishing again. Let me see the fish. It’s a goggle-eye. Isn’t he pretty? Look how funny he bats his eyes,” and she laughed gleefully as she gingerly picked up the fish by the tail and dropped him into the water. “Now, Mr. Goggle-eye, if you are wise, in future you will beware of tempting looking bugs.”

For an hour they had splendid sport. The pool teemed with sunfish. The bait would scarcely touch the water when the little orange colored fellows would rush for it. Now and then a black bass darted wickedly through the school of sunfish and stole the morsel from them. Or a sharp-nosed fiery-eyed pickerel — vulture of the water — rising to the surface, and, supreme in his indifference to man or fish, would swim lazily round until he had discovered the cause of all this commotion among the smaller fishes, and then, opening wide his jaws would take the bait with one voracious snap.

Presently something took hold of Betty’s line and moved out toward the middle of the pool. She struck and the next instant her rod was bent double and the tip under water.

“Pull your rod up!” shouted Alfred. “Here, hand it to me.”

But it was too late. A surge right and left, a vicious tug, and Betty’s line floated on the surface of the water.

“Now, isn’t that too bad? He has broken my line. Goodness, I never before felt such a strong fish. What shall I do?”

“You should be thankful you were not pulled in. I have been in a state of fear ever since we commenced fishing. You move round in this canoe as though it were a raft. Let me paddle out to that little ripple and try once there; then we will stop. I know you are tired.”

Near the center of the pool a half submerged rock checked the current and caused a little ripple of the water. Several times Alfred had seen the dark shadow of a large fish followed by a swirl of the water, and the frantic leaping of little bright-sided minnows in all directions. As his hook, baited with a lively shiner, floated over the spot, a long, yellow object shot from out that shaded lair. There was a splash, not unlike that made by the sharp edge of a paddle impelled by a short, powerful stroke, the minnow disappeared, and the broad tail of the fish flapped on the water. The instant Alfred struck, the water boiled and the big fish leaped clear into the air, shaking himself convulsively to get rid of the hook. He made mad rushes up and down the pool, under the canoe, into the swift current and against the rocks, but all to no avail. Steadily Alfred increased the strain on the line and gradually it began to tell, for the plunges of the fish became shorter and less frequent. Once again, in a last magnificent effort, he leaped straight into the air, and failing to get loose, gave up the struggle and was drawn gasping and exhausted to the side of the canoe.

“Are you afraid to touch him?” asked Alfred.

“Indeed I am not,” answered Betty.

“Then run your hand gently down the line, slip your fingers in under his gills and lift him over the side carefully.”

“Five pounds,” exclaimed Alfred, when the fish lay at his feet. “This is the largest black bass I ever caught. It is pity to take such a beautiful fish out of his element.”

“Let him go, then. May I?” said Betty.

“No, you have allowed them all to go, even the pickerel which I think ought to be killed. We will keep this fellow alive, and place him in that nice clear pool over in the fort-yard.”

“I like to watch you play a fish,” said Betty. “Jonathan always hauls them right out. You are so skillful. You let this fish run so far and then you checked him. Then you gave him a line to go the other way, and no doubt he felt free once more when you stopped him again.”

“You are expressing a sentiment which has been, is, and always will be particularly pleasing to the fair sex, I believe,” observed Alfred, smiling rather grimly as he wound up his line.

“Would you mind being explicit?” she questioned.

Alfred had laughed and was about to answer when the whip-like crack of a rifle came from the hillside. The echoes of the shot reverberated from hill to hill and were finally lost far down the valley.

“What can that be?” exclaimed Alfred anxiously, recalling Colonel Zane’s odd manner when they were about to leave the house.

“I am not sure, but I think that is my turkey, unless Lew Wetzel happened to miss his aim,” said Betty, laughing. “And that is such an unprecedented thing that it can hardly be considered. Turkeys are scarce this season. Jonathan says the foxes and wolves ate up the broods. Lew heard this turkey calling and he made little Harry Bennet, who had started out with his gun, stay at home and went after Mr. Gobbler himself.”

“Is that all? Well, that is nothing to get alarmed about, is it? I actually had a feeling of fear, or a presentiment, we might say.”

They beached the canoe and spread out the lunch in the shade near the spring. Alfred threw himself at length upon the grass and Betty sat leaning against the tree. She took a biscuit in one hand, a pickle in the other, and began to chat volubly to Alfred of her school life, and of Philadelphia, and the friends she had made there. At length, remarking his abstraction, she said: “You are not listening to me.”

“I beg your pardon. My thoughts did wander. I was thinking of my mother. Something about you reminds me of her. I do not know what, unless it is that little mannerism you have of pursing up your lips when you hesitate or stop to think.”

“Tell me of her,” said Betty, seeing his softened mood.

“My mother was very beautiful, and as good as she was lovely. I never had a care until my father died. Then she married again, and as I did not get on with my step-father I ran away from home. I have not been in Virginia for four years.”

“Do you get homesick?”

“Indeed I do. While at Fort Pitt I used to have spells of the blues which lasted for days. For a time I felt more contented here. But I fear the old fever of restlessness will come over me again. I can speak freely to you because I know you will understand, and I feel sure of your sympathy. My father wanted me to be a minister. He sent me to the theological seminary at Princeton, where for two years I tried to study. Then my father died. I went home and looked after things until my mother married again. That changed everything for me. I ran away and have since been a wanderer. I feel that I am not lazy, that I am not afraid of work, but four years have drifted by and I have nothing to show for it. I am discouraged. Perhaps that is wrong, but tell me how I can help it. I have not the stoicism of the hunter, Wetzel, nor have I the philosophy of your brother. I could not be content to sit on my doorstep and smoke my pipe and watch the wheat and corn grow. And then, this life of the borderman, environed as it is by untold dangers, leads me, fascinates me, and yet appalls me with the fear that here I shall fall a victim to an Indian’s bullet or spear, and find a nameless grave.”

A long silence ensued. Alfred had spoken quietly, but with an undercurrent of bitterness that saddened Betty. For the first time she saw a shadow of pain in his eyes. She looked away down the valley, not seeing the brown and gold hills boldly defined against the blue sky, nor the beauty of the river as the setting sun cast a ruddy glow on the water. Her companion’s words had touched an unknown chord in her heart. When finally she turned to answer him a beautiful light shone in her eyes, a light that shines not on land or sea — the light of woman’s hope.

“Mr. Clarke,” she said, and her voice was soft and low, “I am only a girl, but I can understand. You are unhappy. Try to rise above it. Who knows what will befall this little settlement? It may be swept away by the savages, and it may grow to be a mighty city. It must take that chance. So must you, so must we all take chances. You are here. Find your work and do it cheerfully, honestly, and let the future take care of itself. And let me say — do not be offended — beware of idleness and drink. They are as great a danger — nay, greater than the Indians.”

“Miss Zane, if you were to ask me not to drink I would never touch a drop again,” said Alfred, earnestly.

“I did not ask that,” answered Betty, flushing slightly. “But I shall remember it as a promise and some day I may ask it of you.”

He looked wonderingly at the girl beside him. He had spent most of his life among educated and cultured people. He had passed several years in the backwoods. But with all his experience with people he had to confess that this young woman was as a revelation to him. She could ride like an Indian and shoot like a hunter. He had heard that she could run almost as swiftly as her brothers. Evidently she feared nothing, for he had just seen an example of her courage in a deed that had tried even his own nerve, and, withal, she was a bright, happy girl, earnest and true, possessing all the softer graces of his sisters, and that exquisite touch of feminine delicacy and refinement which appeals more to men than any other virtue.

“Have you not met Mr. Miller before he came here from Fort Pitt?” asked Betty.

“Why do you ask?”

“I think he mentioned something of the kind.”

“What else did he say?”

“Why — Mr. Clarke, I hardly remember.”

“I see,” said Alfred, his face darkening. “He has talked about me. I do not care what he said. I knew him at Fort Pitt, and we had trouble there. I venture to say he has told no one about it. He certainly would not shine in the story. But I am not a tattler.”

“It is not very difficult to see that you do not like him. Jonathan does not, either. He says Mr. Miller was friendly with McKee, and the notorious Simon Girty, the soldiers who deserted from Fort Pitt and went to the Indians. The girls like him however.”

“Usually if a man is good looking and pleasant that is enough for the girls. I noticed that he paid you a great deal of attention at the dance. He danced three times with you.”

“Did he? How observing you are,” said Betty, giving him a little sidelong glance. “Well, he is very agreeable, and he dances better than many of the young men.”

“I wonder if Wetzel got the turkey. I have heard no more shots,” said Alfred, showing plainly that he wished to change the subject.

“Oh, look there! Quick!” exclaimed Betty, pointing toward the hillside.

He looked in the direction indicated and saw a doe and a spotted fawn wading into the shallow water. The mother stood motionless a moment, with head erect and long ears extended. Then she drooped her graceful head and drank thirstily of the cool water. The fawn splashed playfully round while its mother was drinking. It would dash a few paces into the stream and then look back to see if its mother approved. Evidently she did not, for she would stop her drinking and call the fawn back to her side with a soft, crooning noise. Suddenly she raised her head, the long ears shot up, and she seemed to sniff the air. She waded through the deeper water to get round a rocky bluff which ran out into the creek. Then she turned and called the little one. The fawn waded until the water reached its knees, then stopped and uttered piteous little bleats. Encouraged by the soft crooning it plunged into the deep water and with great splashing and floundering managed to swim the short distance. Its slender legs shook as it staggered up the bank. Exhausted or frightened, it shrank close to its mother. Together they disappeared in the willows which fringed the side of the hill.

“Was not that little fellow cute? I have had several fawns, but have never had the heart to keep them,” said Betty. Then, as Alfred made no motion to speak, she continued:

“You do not seem very talkative.”

“I have nothing to say. You will think me dull. The fact is when I feel deepest I am least able to express myself.”

“I will read to you.” said Betty taking up the book. He lay back against the grassy bank and gazed dreamily at the many hued trees on the little hillside; at the bare rugged sides of McColloch’s Rock which frowned down upon them. A silver-breasted eagle sailed slowly round and round in the blue sky, far above the bluff. Alfred wondered what mysterious power sustained that solitary bird as he floated high in the air without perceptible movement of his broad wings. He envied the king of birds his reign over that illimitable space, his far-reaching vision, and his freedom. Round and round the eagle soared, higher and higher, with each perfect circle, and at last, for an instant poising as lightly as if he were about to perch on his lonely crag, he arched his wings and swooped down through the air with the swiftness of a falling arrow.

Betty’s low voice, the water rushing so musically over the falls, the great yellow leaves falling into the pool, the gentle breeze stirring the clusters of goldenrod — all came softly to Alfred as he lay there with half closed eyes.

The time slipped swiftly by as only such time can.

“I fear the melancholy spirit of the day has prevailed upon you,” said Betty, half wistfully. “You did not know I had stopped reading, and I do not believe you heard my favorite poem. I have tried to give you a pleasant afternoon and have failed.”

“No, no,” said Alfred, looking at her with a blue flame in his eyes. “The afternoon has been perfect. I have forgotten my role, and have allowed you to see my real self, something I have tried to hide from all.”

“And are you always sad when you are sincere?”

“Not always. But I am often sad. Is it any wonder? Is not all nature sad? Listen! There is the song of the oriole. Breaking in on the stillness it is mournful. The breeze is sad, the brook is sad, this dying Indian summer day is sad. Life itself is sad.”

“Oh, no. Life is beautiful.”

“You are a child,” said he, with a thrill in his deep voice “I hope you may always be as you are to-day, in heart, at least.”

“It grows late. See, the shadows are falling. We must go.”

“You know I am going away to-morrow. I don’t want to go. Perhaps that is why I have been such poor company today. I have a presentiment of evil I am afraid I may never come back.”

“I am sorry you must go.”

“Do you really mean that?” asked Alfred, earnestly, bending toward her “You know it is a very dangerous undertaking. Would you care if I never returned?”

She looked up and their eyes met. She had raised her head haughtily, as if questioning his right to speak to her in that manner, but as she saw the unspoken appeal in his eyes her own wavered and fell while a warm color crept into her cheek.

“Yes, I would be sorry,” she said, gravely. Then, after a moment: “You must portage the canoe round the falls, and from there we can paddle back to the path.”

The return trip made, they approached the house. As they turned the corner they saw Colonel Zane standing at the door talking to Wetzel.

They saw that the Colonel looked pale and distressed, and the face of the hunter was dark and gloomy.

“Lew, did you get my turkey?” said Betty, after a moment of hesitation. A nameless fear filled her breast.

For answer Wetzel threw back the flaps of his coat and there at his belt hung a small tuft of black hair. Betty knew at once it was the scalp-lock of an Indian. Her face turned white and she placed a hand on the hunter’s arm.

“What do you mean? That is an Indian’s scalp. Lew, you look so strange. Tell me, is it because we went off in the canoe and have been in danger?”

“Betty, Isaac has been captured again,” said the Colonel.

“Oh, no, no, no,” cried Betty in agonized tones, and wringing her hands. Then, excitedly, “Something can be done; you must pursue them. Oh, Lew, Mr. Clarke, cannot you rescue him? They have not had time to go far.”

“Isaac went to the chestnut grove this morning. If he had stayed there he would not have been captured. But he went far into the Black Forest. The turkey call we heard across the creek was made by a Wyandot concealed in the cave. Lewis tells me that a number of Indians have camped there for days. He shot the one who was calling and followed the others until he found where they had taken Isaac’s trail.”

Betty turned to the younger man with tearful eyes, and with beseeching voice implored them to save her brother.

“I am ready to follow you,” said Clarke to Wetzel.

The hunter shook his head, but did not answer.

“It is that hateful White Crane,” passionately burst out Betty, as the Colonel’s wife led her weeping into the house.

“Did you get more than one shot at them?” asked Clarke.

The hunter nodded, and the slight, inscrutable smile flitted across his stern features. He never spoke of his deeds. For this reason many of the thrilling adventures which he must have had will forever remain unrevealed. That evening there was sadness at Colonel Zane’s supper table. They felt the absence of the Colonel’s usual spirits, his teasing of Betty, and his cheerful conversation. He had nothing to say. Betty sat at the table a little while, and then got up and left the room saying she could not eat. Jonathan, on hearing of his brother’s recapture, did not speak, but retired in gloomy silence. Silas was the only one of the family who was not utterly depressed. He said it could have been a great deal worse; that they must make the best of it, and that the sooner Isaac married his Indian Princess the better for his scalp and for the happiness of all concerned.

“I remember Myeerah very well,” he said. “It was eight years ago, and she was only a child. Even then she was very proud and willful, and the loveliest girl I ever laid eyes on.”

Alfred Clarke staid late at Colonel Zane’s that night. Before going away for so many weeks he wished to have a few more moments alone with Betty. But a favorable opportunity did not present itself during the evening, so when he had bade them all goodbye and goodnight, except Betty, who opened the door for him, he said softly to her:

“It is bright moonlight outside. Come, please, and walk to the gate with me.”

A full moon shone serenely down on hill and dale, flooding the valley with its pure white light and bathing the pastures in its glory; at the foot of the bluff the waves of the river gleamed like myriads of stars all twinkling and dancing on a bed of snowy clouds. Thus illumined the river wound down the valley, its brilliance growing fainter and fainter until at last, resembling the shimmering of a silver thread which joined the earth to heaven, it disappeared in the horizon.

“I must say goodbye,” said Alfred, as they reached the gate.

“Friends must part. I am sorry you must go, Mr. Clarke, and I trust you may return safe. It seems only yesterday that you saved my brother’s life, and I was so grateful and happy. Now he is gone.”

“You should not think about it so much nor brood over it,” answered the young man. “Grieving will not bring him back nor do you any good. It is not nearly so bad as if he had been captured by some other tribe. Wetzel assures us that Isaac was taken alive. Please do not grieve.”

“I have cried until I cannot cry any more. I am so unhappy. We were children together, and I have always loved him better than any one since my mother died. To have him back again and then to lose him! Oh! I cannot bear it.”

She covered her face with her hands and a low sob escaped her.

“Don’t, don’t grieve,” he said in an unsteady voice, as he took the little hands in his and pulled them away from her face.

Betty trembled. Something in his voice, a tone she had never heard before startled her. She looked up at him half unconscious that he still held her hands in his. Never had she appeared so lovely.

“You cannot understand my feelings.”

“I loved my mother.”

“But you have not lost her. That makes all the difference.”

“I want to comfort you and I am powerless. I am unable to say what — I—”

He stopped short. As he stood gazing down into her sweet face, burning, passionate words came to his lips; but he was dumb; he could not speak. All day long he had been living in a dream. Now he realized that but a moment remained for him to be near the girl he loved so well. He was leaving her, perhaps never to see her again, or to return to find her another’s. A fierce pain tore his heart.

“You — you are holding my hands,” faltered Betty, in a doubtful, troubled voice. She looked up into his face and saw that it was pale with suppressed emotion.

Alfred was mad indeed. He forgot everything. In that moment the world held nothing for him save that fair face. Her eyes, uplifted to his in the moonlight, beamed with a soft radiance. They were honest eyes, just now filled with innocent sadness and regret, but they drew him with irresistible power. Without realizing in the least what he was doing he yielded to the impulse. Bending his head he kissed the tremulous lips.

“Oh,” whispered Betty, standing still as a statue and looking at him with wonderful eyes. Then, as reason returned, a hot flush dyed her face, and wrenching her hands free she struck him across the cheek.

“For God’s sake, Betty, I did not mean to do that! Wait. I have something to tell you. For pity’s sake, let me explain,” he cried, as the full enormity of his offence dawned upon him.

Betty was deaf to the imploring voice, for she ran into the house and slammed the door.

He called to her, but received no answer. He knocked on the door, but it remained closed. He stood still awhile, trying to collect his thoughts, and to find a way to undo the mischief he had wrought. When the real significance of his act came to him he groaned in spirit. What a fool he had been! Only a few short hours and he must start on a perilous journey, leaving the girl he loved in ignorance of his real intentions. Who was to tell her that he loved her? Who was to tell her that it was because his whole heart and soul had gone to her that he had kissed her?

With bowed head he slowly walked away toward the fort, totally oblivious of the fact that a young girl, with hands pressed tightly over her breast to try to still a madly beating heart, watched him from her window until he disappeared into the shadow of the block-house.

Alfred paced up and down his room the four remaining hours of that eventful day. When the light was breaking in at the east and dawn near at hand he heard the rough voices of men and the tramping of iron-shod hoofs. The hour of his departure was at hand.

He sat down at his table and by the aid of the dim light from a pine knot he wrote a hurried letter to Betty. A little hope revived in his heart as he thought that perhaps all might yet be well. Surely some one would be up to whom he could intrust the letter, and if no one he would run over and slip it under the door of Colonel Zane’s house.

In the gray of the early morning Alfred rode out with the daring band of heavily armed men, all grim and stern, each silent with the thought of the man who knows he may never return. Soon the settlement was left far behind.

CHAPTER V.

DURING THE LAST few days, in which the frost had cracked open the hickory nuts, and in which the squirrels had been busily collecting and storing away their supply of nuts for winter use, it had been Isaac’s wont to shoulder his rifle, walk up the hill, and spend the morning in the grove.

On this crisp autumn morning he had started off as usual, and had been called back by Col. Zane, who advised him not to wander far from the settlement. This admonition, kind and brotherly though it was, annoyed Isaac. Like all the Zanes he had born in him an intense love for the solitude of the wilderness. There were times when nothing could satisfy him but the calm of the deep woods.

One of these moods possessed him now. Courageous to a fault and daring where daring was not always the wiser part, Isaac lacked the practical sense of the Colonel and the cool judgment of Jonathan. Impatient of restraint, independent in spirit, and it must be admitted, in his persistence in doing as he liked instead of what he ought to do, he resembled Betty more than he did his brothers.

Feeling secure in his ability to take care of himself, for he knew he was an experienced hunter and woodsman, he resolved to take a long tramp in the forest. This resolution was strengthened by the fact that he did not believe what the Colonel and Jonathan had told him — that it was not improbable some of the Wyandot braves were lurking in the vicinity, bent on killing or recapturing him. At any rate he did not fear it.

Once in the shade of the great trees the fever of discontent left him, and, forgetting all except the happiness of being surrounded by the silent oaks, he penetrated deeper and deeper into the forest. The brushing of a branch against a tree, the thud of a falling nut, the dart of a squirrel, and the sight of a bushy tail disappearing round a limb — all these things which indicated that the little gray fellows were working in the tree-tops, and which would usually have brought Isaac to a standstill, now did not seem to interest him. At times he stooped to examine the tender shoots growing at the foot of a sassafras tree. Then, again, he closely examined marks he found in the soft banks of the streams.

He went on and on. Two hours of this still-hunting found him on the bank of a shallow gully through which a brook went rippling and babbling over the mossy green stones. The forest was dense here; rugged oaks and tall poplars grew high over the tops of the first growth of white oaks and beeches; the wild grapevines which coiled round the trees like gigantic serpents, spread out in the upper branches and obscured the sun; witch-hopples and laurel bushes grew thickly; monarchs of the forest, felled by some bygone storm, lay rotting on the ground; and in places the wind-falls were so thick and high as to be impenetrable.

Isaac hesitated. He realized that he had plunged far into the Black Forest. Here it was gloomy; a dreamy quiet prevailed, that deep calm of the wilderness, unbroken save for the distant note of the hermit-thrush, the strange bird whose lonely cry, given at long intervals, pierced the stillness. Although Isaac had never seen one of these birds, he was familiar with that cry which was never heard except in the deepest woods, far from the haunts of man.

A black squirrel ran down a tree and seeing the hunter scampered away in alarm. Isaac knew the habits of the black squirrel, that it was a denizen of the wildest woods and frequented only places remote from civilization. The song of the hermit and the sight of the black squirrel caused Isaac to stop and reflect, with the result that he concluded he had gone much farther from the fort than he had intended. He turned to retrace his steps when a faint sound from down the ravine came to his sharp ears.

There was no instinct to warn him that a hideously painted face was raised a moment over the clump of laurel bushes to his left, and that a pair of keen eyes watched every move he made.

Unconscious of impending evil Isaac stopped and looked around him. Suddenly above the musical babble of the brook and the rustle of the leaves by the breeze came a repetition of the sound. He crouched close by the trunk of a tree and strained his ears. All was quiet for some moments. Then he heard the patter, patter of little hoofs coming down the stream. Nearer and nearer they came. Sometimes they were almost inaudible and again he heard them clearly and distinctly. Then there came a splashing and the faint hollow sound caused by hard hoofs striking the stones in shallow water. Finally the sounds ceased.

Cautiously peering from behind the tree Isaac saw a doe standing on the bank fifty yards down the brook. Trembling she had stopped as if in doubt or uncertainty. Her ears pointed straight upward, and she lifted one front foot from the ground like a thoroughbred pointer. Isaac knew a doe always led the way through the woods and if there were other deer they would come up unless warned by the doe. Presently the willows parted and a magnificent buck with wide spreading antlers stepped out and stood motionless on the bank. Although they were down the wind Isaac knew the deer suspected some hidden danger. They looked steadily at the clump of laurels at Isaac’s left, a circumstance he remarked at the time, but did not understand the real significance of until long afterward.

Following the ringing report of Isaac’s rifle the buck sprang almost across the stream, leaped convulsively up the bank, reached the top, and then his strength failing, slid down into the stream, where, in his dying struggles, his hoofs beat the water into white foam. The doe had disappeared like a brown flash.

Isaac, congratulating himself on such a fortunate shot — for rarely indeed does a deer fall dead in his tracks even when shot through the heart — rose from his crouching position and commenced to reload his rifle. With great care he poured the powder into the palm of his hand, measuring the quantity with his eye — for it was an evidence of a hunter’s skill to be able to get the proper quantity for the ball. Then he put the charge into the barrel. Placing a little greased linsey rag, about half an inch square, over the muzzle, he laid a small lead bullet on it, and with the ramrod began to push the ball into the barrel.

A slight rustle behind him, which sounded to him like the gliding of a rattlesnake over the leaves, caused him to start and turn round. But he was too late. A crushing blow on the head from a club in the hand of a brawny Indian laid him senseless on the ground.

When Isaac regained his senses he felt a throbbing pain in his head, and then he opened his eyes he was so dizzy that he was unable to discern objects clearly. After a few moments his sight returned. When he had struggled to a sitting posture he discovered that his hands were bound with buckskin thongs. By his side he saw two long poles of basswood, with some strips of green bark and pieces of grapevine laced across and tied fast to the poles. Evidently this had served as a litter on which he had been carried. From his wet clothes and the position of the sun, now low in the west, he concluded he had been brought across the river and was now miles from the fort. In front of him he saw three Indians sitting before a fire. One of them was cutting thin slices from a haunch of deer meat, another was drinking from a gourd, and the third was roasting a piece of venison which he held on a sharpened stick. Isaac knew at once the Indians were Wyandots, and he saw they were in full war paint. They were not young braves, but middle aged warriors. One of them Isaac recognized as Crow, a chief of one of the Wyandot tribes, and a warrior renowned for his daring and for his ability to make his way in a straight line through the wilderness. Crow was a short, heavy Indian and his frame denoted great strength. He had a broad forehead, high cheek bones, prominent nose and his face would have been handsome and intelligent but for the scar which ran across his cheek, giving him a sinister look.

“Hugh!” said Crow, as he looked up and saw Isaac staring at him. The other Indians immediately gave vent to a like exclamation.

“Crow, you caught me again,” said Isaac, in the Wyandot tongue, which he spoke fluently.

“The white chief is sure of eye and swift of foot, but he cannot escape the Huron. Crow has been five times on his trail since the moon was bright. The white chief’s eyes were shut and his ears were deaf,” answered the Indian loftily.

“How long have you been near the fort?”

“Two moons have the warriors of Myeerah hunted the pale face.”

“Have you any more Indians with you?”

The chief nodded and said a party of nine Wyandots had been in the vicinity of Wheeling for a month. He named some of the warriors.

Isaac was surprised to learn of the renowned chiefs who had been sent to recapture him. Not to mention Crow, the Delaware chiefs Son-of-Wingenund and Wapatomeka were among the most cunning and sagacious Indians of the west. Isaac reflected that his year’s absence from Myeerah had not caused her to forget him.

Crow untied Isaac’s hands and gave him water and venison. Then he picked up his rifle and with a word to the Indians he stepped into the underbrush that skirted the little dale, and was lost to view.

Isaac’s head ached and throbbed so that after he had satisfied his thirst and hunger he was glad to close his eyes and lean back against the tree. Engrossed in thoughts of the home he might never see again, he had lain there an hour without moving, when he was aroused from his meditations by low guttural exclamations from the Indians. Opening his eyes he saw Crow and another Indian enter the glade, leading and half supporting a third savage.

They helped this Indian to the log, where he sat down slowly and wearily, holding one hand over his breast. He was a magnificent specimen of Indian manhood, almost a giant in stature, with broad shoulders in proportion to his height. His head-dress and the gold rings which encircled his bare muscular arms indicated that he was a chief high in power. The seven eagle plumes in his scalp-lock represented seven warriors that he had killed in battle. Little sticks of wood plaited in his coal black hair and painted different colors showed to an Indian eye how many times this chief had been wounded by bullet, knife, or tomahawk.

His face was calm. If he suffered he allowed no sign of it to escape him. He gazed thoughtfully into the fire, slowly the while untying the belt which contained his knife and tomahawk. The weapons were raised and held before him, one in each hand, and then waved on high. The action was repeated three times. Then slowly and reluctantly the Indian lowered them as if he knew their work on earth was done.

It was growing dark and the bright blaze from the camp fire lighted up the glade, thus enabling Isaac to see the drooping figure on the log, and in the background Crow, holding a whispered consultation with the other Indians. Isaac heard enough of the colloquy to guess the facts. The chief had been desperately rounded; the palefaces were on their trail, and a march must be commenced at once.

Isaac knew the wounded chief. He was the Delaware Son-of-Wingenund. He married a Wyandot squaw, had spent much of his time in the Wyandot village and on warring expeditions which the two friendly nations made on other tribes. Isaac had hunted with him, slept under the same blanket with him, and had grown to like him.

As Isaac moved slightly in his position the chief saw him. He straightened up, threw back the hunting shirt and pointed to a small hole in his broad breast. A slender stream of blood issued from the wound and flowed down his chest.

“Wind-of-Death is a great white chief. His gun is always loaded,” he said calmly, and a look of pride gleamed across his dark face, as though he gloried in the wound made by such a warrior.

“Deathwind” was one of the many names given to Wetzel by the savages, and a thrill of hope shot through Isaac’s heart when he saw the Indians feared Wetzel was on their track. This hope was short lived, however, for when he considered the probabilities of the thing he knew that pursuit would only result in his death before the settlers could come up with the Indians, and he concluded that Wetzel, familiar with every trick of the redmen, would be the first to think of the hopelessness of rescuing him and so would not attempt it.

The four Indians now returned to the fire and stood beside the chief. It was evident to them that his end was imminent. He sang in a low, not unmusical tone the death-chant of the Hurons. His companions silently bowed their heads. When he had finished singing he slowly rose to his great height, showing a commanding figure. Slowly his features lost their stern pride, his face softened, and his dark eyes, gazing straight into the gloom of the forest, bespoke a superhuman vision.

“Wingenund has been a great chief. He has crossed his last trail. The deeds of Wingenund will be told in the wigwams of the Lenape,” said the chief in a loud voice, and then sank back into the arms of his comrades. They laid him gently down.

A convulsive shudder shook the stricken warrior’s frame. Then, starting up he straightened out his long arm and clutched wildly at the air with his sinewy fingers as if to grasp and hold the life that was escaping him.

Isaac could see the fixed, sombre light in the eyes, and the pallor of death stealing over the face of the chief. He turned his eyes away from the sad spectacle, and when he looked again the majestic figure lay still.

The moon sailed out from behind a cloud and shed its mellow light down on the little glade. It showed the four Indians digging a grave beneath the oak tree. No word was spoken. They worked with their tomahawks on the soft duff and soon their task was completed. A bed of moss and ferns lined the last resting place of the chief. His weapons were placed beside him, to go with him to the Happy Hunting Ground, the eternal home of the redmen, where the redmen believe the sun will always shine, and where they will be free from their cruel white foes.

When the grave had been filled and the log rolled on it the Indians stood by it a moment, each speaking a few words in a low tone, while the night wind moaned the dead chief’s requiem through the tree tops.

Accustomed as Isaac was to the bloody conflicts common to the Indians, and to the tragedy that surrounded the life of a borderman, the ghastly sight had unnerved him. The last glimpse of that stern, dark face, of that powerful form, as the moon brightened up the spot in seeming pity, he felt he could never forget. His thoughts were interrupted by the harsh voice of Crow bidding him get up. He was told that the slightest inclination on his part to lag behind on the march before them, or in any way to make their trail plainer, would be the signal for his death. With that Crow cut the thongs which bound Isaac’s legs and placing him between two of the Indians, led the way into the forest.

Moving like spectres in the moonlight they marched on and on for hours. Crow was well named. He led them up the stony ridges where their footsteps left no mark, and where even a dog could not find their trail; down into the valleys and into the shallow streams where the running water would soon wash away all trace of their tracks; then out on the open plain, where the soft, springy grass retained little impress of their moccasins.

Single file they marched in the leader’s tracks as he led them onward through the dark forests, out under the shining moon, never slacking his rapid pace, ever in a straight line, and yet avoiding the roughest going with that unerring instinct which was this Indian’s gift. Toward dawn the moon went down, leaving them in darkness, but this made no difference, for, guided by the stars, Crow kept straight on his course. Not till break of day did he come to a halt.

Then, on the banks of a narrow stream, the Indians kindled a fire and broiled some of the venison. Crow told Isaac he could rest, so he made haste to avail himself of the permission, and almost instantly was wrapped in the deep slumber of exhaustion. Three of the Indians followed suit, and Crow stood guard. Sleepless, tireless, he paced to and fro on the bank his keen eyes vigilant for signs of pursuers.

The sun was high when the party resumed their flight toward the west. Crow plunged into the brook and waded several miles before he took to the woods on the other shore. Isaac suffered severely from the sharp and slippery stones, which in no wise bothered the Indians. His feet were cut and bruised; still he struggled on without complaining. They rested part of the night, and the next day the Indians, now deeming themselves practically safe from pursuit, did not exercise unusual care to conceal their trail.

That evening about dusk they came to a rapidly flowing stream which ran northwest. Crow and one of the other Indians parted the willows on the bank at this point and dragged forth a long birch-bark canoe which they ran into the stream. Isaac recognized the spot. It was near the head of Mad River, the river which ran through the Wyandot settlements.

Two of the Indians took the bow, the third Indian and Isaac sat in the middle, back to back, and Crow knelt in the stern. Once launched on that wild ride Isaac forgot his uneasiness and his bruises. The night was beautiful; he loved the water, and was not lacking in sentiment. He gave himself up to the charm of the silver moonlight, of the changing scenery, and the musical gurgle of the water. Had it not been for the cruel face of Crow, he could have imagined himself on one of those enchanted canoes in fairyland, of which he had read when a boy. Ever varying pictures presented themselves at the range, impelled by vigorous arms, flew over the shining bosom of the stream. Here, in a sharp bend, was a narrow place where the trees on each bank interlaced their branches and hid the moon, making a dark and dim retreat. Then came a short series of ripples, with merry, bouncing waves and foamy currents; below lay a long, smooth reach of water, deep and placid, mirroring the moon and the countless stars. Noiseless as a shadow the canoe glided down this stretch, the paddle dipping regularly, flashing brightly, and scattering diamond drops in the clear moonlight.

Another turn in the stream and a sound like the roar of an approaching storm as it is borne on a rising wind, broke the silence. It was the roar of rapids or falls. The stream narrowed; the water ran swifter; rocky ledges rose on both sides, gradually getting higher and higher. Crow rose to his feet and looked ahead. Then he dropped to his knees and turned the head of the canoe into the middle of the stream. The roar became deafening. Looking forward Isaac saw that they were entering a dark gorge. In another moment the canoe pitched over a fall and shot between two high, rocky bluffs. These walls ran up almost perpendicularly two hundred feet; the space between was scarcely twenty feet wide, and the water fairly screamed as it rushed madly through its narrow passage. In the center it was like a glancing sheet of glass, weird and dark, and was bordered on the sides by white, seething foam-capped waves which tore and dashed and leaped at their stony confines.

Though the danger was great, though Death lurked in those jagged stones and in those black waits Isaac felt no fear, he knew the strength of that arm, now rigid and again moving with lightning swiftness; he knew the power of the eye which guided them.

Once more out under the starry sky; rifts, shallows, narrows, and lake-like basins were passed swiftly. At length as the sky was becoming gray in the east, they passed into the shadow of what was called the Standing Stone. This was a peculiarly shaped stone-faced bluff, standing high over the river, and taking its name from Tarhe, or Standing Stone, chief of all the Hurons.

At the first sight of that well known landmark, which stood by the Wyandot village, there mingled with Isaac’s despondency and resentment some other feeling that was akin to pleasure; with a quickening of the pulse came a confusion of expectancy and bitter memories as he thought of the dark eyed maiden from whom he had fled a year ago.

“Co-wee-Co-woe,” called out one of the Indians in the bow of the canoe. The signal was heard, for immediately an answering shout came from the shore.

When a few moments later the canoe grated softly on a pebbly beach. Isaac saw, indistinctly in the morning mist, the faint outlines of tepees and wigwams, and he knew he was once more in the encampment of the Wyandots.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Late in the afternoon of that day Isaac was awakened from his heavy slumber and told that the chief had summoned him. He got up from the buffalo robes upon which he had flung himself that morning, stretched his aching limbs, and walked to the door of the lodge.

The view before him was so familiar that it seemed as if he had suddenly come home after being absent a long time. The last rays of the setting sun shone ruddy and bright over the top of the Standing Stone; they touched the scores of lodges and wigwams which dotted the little valley; they crimsoned the swift, narrow river, rushing noisily over its rocky bed. The banks of the stream were lined with rows of canoes; here and there a bridge made of a single tree spanned the stream. From the camp fires long, thin columns of blue smoke curled lazily upward; giant maple trees, in them garb of purple and gold, rose high above the wigwams, adding a further beauty to this peaceful scene.

As Isaac was led down a lane between two long lines of tepees the watching Indians did not make the demonstration that usually marked the capture of a paleface. Some of the old squaws looked up from their work round the campfires and steaming kettles and grinned as the prisoner passed. The braves who were sitting upon their blankets and smoking their long pipes, or lounging before the warm blazes maintained a stolid indifference; the dusky maidens smiled shyly, and the little Indian boys, with whom Isaac had always been a great favorite, manifested their joy by yelling and running after him. One youngster grasped Isaac round the leg and held on until he was pulled away.

In the center of the village were several lodges connected with one another and larger and more imposing than the surrounding tepees. These were the wigwams of the chief, and thither Isaac was conducted. The guards led him to a large and circular apartment and left him there alone. This room was the council-room. It contained nothing but a low seat and a knotted war-club.

Isaac heard the rattle of beads and bear claws, and as he turned a tall and majestic Indian entered the room. It was Tarhe, the chief of all the Wyandots. Though Tarhe was over seventy, he walked erect; his calm face, dark as a bronze mask, showed no trace of his advanced age. Every line and feature of his face had race in it; the high forehead, the square, protruding jaw, the stern mouth, the falcon eyes — all denoted the pride and unbending will of the last of the Tarhes.

“The White Eagle is again in the power of Tarhe,” said the chief in his native tongue. “Though he had the swiftness of the bounding deer or the flight of the eagle it would avail him not. The wild geese as they fly northward are not swifter than the warriors of Tarhe. Swifter than all is the vengeance of the Huron. The young paleface has cost the lives of some great warriors. What has he to say?”

“It was not my fault,” answered Isaac quickly. “I was struck down from behind and had no chance to use a weapon. I have never raised my hand against a Wyandot. Crow will tell you that. If my people and friends kill your braves I am not to blame. Yet I have had good cause to shed Huron blood. Your warriors have taken me from my home and have wounded me many times.”

“The White Chief speaks well. Tarhe believes his words,” answered Tarhe in his sonorous voice. “The Lenapee seek the death of the pale face. Wingenund grieves for his son. He is Tarhe’s friend. Tarhe is old and wise and he is king here. He can save the White Chief from Wingenund and Cornplanter. Listen. Tarhe is old and he has no son. He will make you a great chief and give you lands and braves and honors. He shall not ask you to raise your hand against your people, but help to bring peace. Tarhe does not love this war. He wants only justice. He wants only to keep his lands, his horses, and his people. The White Chief is known to be brave; his step is light, his eye is keen, and his bullet is true. For many long moons Tarhe’s daughter has been like the singing bird without its mate. She sings no more. She shall be the White Chief’s wife. She has the blood of her mother and not that of the last of the Tarhes. Thus the mistakes of Tarhe’s youth come to disappoint his old age. He is the friend of the young paleface. Tarhe has said. Now go and make your peace with Myeerah.”

The chief motioned toward the back of the lodge. Isaac stepped forward and went through another large room, evidently the chief’s, as it was fitted up with a wild and barbaric splendor. Isaac hesitated before a bearskin curtain at the farther end of the chief’s lodge. He had been there many times before, but never with such conflicting emotions. What was it that made his heart beat faster? With a quick movement he lifted the curtain and passed under it.

The room which he entered was circular in shape and furnished with all the bright colors and luxuriance known to the Indian. Buffalo robes covered the smooth, hard-packed clay floor; animals, allegorical pictures, and fanciful Indian designs had been painted on the wall; bows and arrows, shields, strings of bright-colored beads and Indian scarfs hung round the room. The wall was made of dried deerskins sewed together and fastened over long poles which were planted in the ground and bent until the ends met overhead. An oval-shaped opening let in the light. Through a narrow aperture, which served as a door leading to a smaller apartment, could be seen a low couch covered with red blankets, and a glimpse of many hued garments hanging on the wall.

As Isaac entered the room a slender maiden ran impulsively to him and throwing her arms round his neck hid her face on his breast. A few broken, incoherent words escaped her lips. Isaac disengaged himself from the clinging arms and put her from him. The face raised to his was strikingly beautiful. Oval in shape, it was as white as his own, with a broad, low brow and regular features. The eyes were large and dark and they dilated and quickened with a thousand shadows of thought.

“Myeerah, I am taken again. This time there has been blood shed. The Delaware chief was killed, and I do not know how many more Indians. The chiefs are all for putting me to death. I am in great danger. Why could you not leave me in peace?”

At his first words the maiden sighed and turned sorrowfully and proudly away from the angry face of the young man. A short silence ensued.

“Then you are not glad to see Myeerah?” she said, in English. Her voice was music. It rang low, sweet, clear-toned as a bell.

“What has that to do with it? Under some circumstances I would be glad to see you. But to be dragged back here and perhaps murdered — no, I don’t welcome it. Look at this mark where Crow hit me,” said Isaac, passionately, bowing his head to enable her to see the bruise where the club had struck him.

“I am sorry,” said Myeerah, gently.

“I know that I am in great danger from the Delawares.”

“The daughter of Tarhe has saved your life before and will save it again.”

“They may kill me in spite of you.”

“They will not dare. Do not forget that I saved you from the Shawnees. What did my father say to you?”

“He assured me that he was my friend and that he would protect me from Wingenund. But I must marry you and become one of the tribe. I cannot do that. And that is why I am sure they will kill me.”

“You are angry now. I will tell you. Myeerah tried hard to win your love, and when you ran away from her she was proud for a long time. But there was no singing of birds, no music of the waters, no beauty in anything after you left her. Life became unbearable without you. Then Myeerah remembered that she was a daughter of kings. She summoned the bravest and greatest warriors of two tribes and said to them. ‘Go and bring to me the paleface, White Eagle. Bring him to me alive or dead. If alive, Myeerah will smile once more upon her warriors. If dead, she will look once upon his face and die. Ever since Myeerah was old enough to remember she has thought of you. Would you wish her to be inconstant, like the moon?’”

“It is not what I wish you to be. It is that I cannot live always without seeing my people. I told you that a year ago.”

“You told me other things in that past time before you ran away. They were tender words that were sweet to the ear of the Indian maiden. Have you forgotten them?”

“I have not forgotten them. I am not without feeling. You do not understand. Since I have been home this last time, I have realized more than ever that I could not live away from my home.”

“Is there any maiden in your old home whom you have learned to love more than Myeerah?”

He did not reply, but looked gloomily out of the opening in the wall. Myeerah had placed her hold upon his arm, and as he did not answer the hand tightened its grasp.

“She shall never have you.”

The low tones vibrated with intense feeling, with a deathless resolve. Isaac laughed bitterly and looked up at her. Myeerah’s face was pale and her eyes burned like fire.

“I should not be surprised if you gave me up to the Delawares,” said Isaac, coldly. “I am prepared for it, and I would not care very much. I have despaired of your ever becoming civilized enough to understand the misery of my sister and family. Why not let the Indians kill me?”

He knew how to wound her. A quick, shuddery cry broke from her lips. She stood before him with bowed head and wept. When she spoke again her voice was broken and pleading.

“You are cruel and unjust. Though Myeerah has Indian blood she is a white woman. She can feel as your people do. In your anger and bitterness you forget that Myeerah saved you from the knife of the Shawnees. You forget her tenderness; you forget that she nursed you when you were wounded. Myeerah has a heart to break. Has she not suffered? Is she not laughed at, scorned, called a ‘paleface’ by the other tribes? She thanks the Great Spirit for the Indian blood that keep her true. The white man changes his loves and his wives. That is not an Indian gift.”

“No, Myeerah, I did not say so. There is no other woman. It is that I am wretched and sick at heart. Do you not see that this will end in a tragedy some day? Can you not realize that we would be happier if you would let me go? If you love me you would not want to see me dead. If I do not marry you they will kill me; if I try to escape again they win kill me. Let me go free.”

“I cannot! I cannot!” she cried. “You have taught me many of the ways of your people, but you cannot change my nature.”

“Why cannot you free me?”

“I love you, and I will not live without you.”

“Then come and go to my home and live there with me,” said Isaac, taking the weeping maiden in his arms. “I know that my people will welcome you.”

“Myeerah would be pitied and scorned,” she said, sadly, shaking her head.

Isaac tried hard to steel his heart against her, but he was only mortal and he failed. The charm of her presence influenced him; her love wrung tenderness from him. Those dark eyes, so proud to all others, but which gazed wistfully and yearningly into his, stirred his heart to its depths. He kissed the tear-wet cheeks and smiled upon her.

“Well, since I am a prisoner once more, I must make the best of it. Do not look so sad. We shall talk of this another day. Come, let us go and find my little friend, Captain Jack. He remembered me, for he ran out and grasped my knee and they pulled him away.”

CHAPTER VI.

WHEN THE FIRST French explorers invaded the northwest, about the year 1615, the Wyandot Indians occupied the territory between Georgian Bay and the Muskoka Lakes in Ontario. These Frenchmen named the tribe Huron because of the manner in which they wore their hair.

At this period the Hurons were at war with the Iroquois, and the two tribes kept up a bitter fight until in 1649, when the Hurons suffered a decisive defeat. They then abandoned their villages and sought other hunting grounds. They travelled south and settled in Ohio along the south and west shores of Lake Erie. The present site of Zanesfield, named from Isaac Zane, marks the spot where the largest tribe of Hurons once lived.

In a grove of maples on the banks of a swift little river named Mad River, the Hurons built their lodges and their wigwams. The stately elk and graceful deer abounded in this fertile valley, and countless herds of bison browsed upon the uplands.

There for many years the Hurons lived a peaceful and contented life. The long war cry was not heard. They were at peace with the neighboring tribes. Tarhe, the Huron chief, attained great influence with the Delawares. He became a friend of Logan, the Mingo chief.

With the invasion of the valley of the Ohio by the whites, with the march into the wilderness of that wild-turkey breed of heroes of which Boone, Kenton, the Zanes, and the Wetzels were the first, the Indian’s nature gradually changed until he became a fierce and relentless foe.

The Hurons had sided with the French in Pontiac’s war, and in the Revolution they aided the British. They allied themselves with the Mingoes, Delawares and Shawnees and made a fierce war on the Virginian pioneers. Some powerful influence must have engendered this implacable hatred in these tribes, particularly in the Mingo and the Wyandot.

The war between the Indians and the settlers along the Pennsylvania and West Virginia borders was known as “Dunmore’s War.” The Hurons, Mingoes, and Delawares living in the “hunter’s paradise” west of the Ohio River, seeing their land sold by the Iroquois and the occupation of their possessions by a daring band of white men naturally were filled with fierce anger and hate. But remembering the past bloody war and British punishment they slowly moved backward toward the setting sun and kept the peace. In 1774 a canoe filled with friendly Wyandots was attacked by white men below Yellow Creek and the Indians were killed. Later the same year a party of men under Colonel Cresop made an unprovoked and dastardly massacre of the family and relatives of Logan. This attack reflected the deepest dishonor upon all the white men concerned, and was the principal cause of the long and bloody war which followed. The settlers on the border sent messengers to Governor Dunmore at Williamsburg for immediate relief parties. Knowing well that the Indians would not allow this massacre to go unavenged the frontiersmen erected forts and blockhouses.

Logan, the famous Mingo chief, had been a noted friend of the white men. After the murder of his people he made ceaseless war upon them. He incited the wrath of the Hurons and the Delawares. He went on the warpath, and when his lust for vengeance had been satisfied he sent the following remarkable address to Lord Dunmore:

“I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan’s cabin and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said: ‘Logan is the friend of the white man.’ I had even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of one man, Colonel Cresop, who, last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called upon me for vengeance. I have sought it: I have killed many; I have glutted my vengeance. For my country I will rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear; he could not turn upon his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

The war between the Indians and the pioneers was waged for years. The settlers pushed farther and farther into the wilderness. The Indians, who at first sought only to save their farms and their stock, now fought for revenge. That is why every ambitious pioneer who went out upon those borders carried his life in his hands; why there was always the danger of being shot or tomahawked from behind every tree; why wife and children were constantly in fear of the terrible enemy.

To creep unawares upon a foe and strike him in the dark was Indian warfare; to an Indian it was not dishonorable; it was not cowardly. He was taught to hide in the long grass like a snake, to shoot from coverts, to worm his way stealthily through the dense woods and to ambush the paleface’s trail. Horrible cruelties, such as torturing white prisoners and burning them at the stake were never heard of before the war made upon the Indians by the whites.

Comparatively little is known of the real character of the Indian of that time. We ourselves sit before our warm fires and talk of the deeds of the redman. We while away an hour by reading Pontiac’s siege of Detroit, of the battle of Braddock’s fields, and of Custer’s last charge. We lay the book down with a fervent expression of thankfulness that the day of the horrible redman is past. Because little has been written on the subject, no thought is given to the long years of deceit and treachery practiced upon Pontiac; we are ignorant of the causes which led to the slaughter of Braddock’s army, and we know little of the life of bitterness suffered by Sitting Bull.

Many intelligent white men, who were acquainted with the true life of the Indian before he was harassed and driven to desperation by the pioneers, said that he had been cruelly wronged. Many white men in those days loved the Indian life so well that they left the settlements and lived with the Indians. Boone, who knew the Indian nature, said the honesty and the simplicity of the Indian were remarkable. Kenton said he had been happy among the Indians. Col. Zane had many Indian friends. Isaac Zane, who lived most of his life with the Wyandots, said the American redman had been wrongfully judged a bloodthirsty savage, an ignorant, thieving wretch, capable of not one virtue. He said the free picturesque life of the Indians would have appealed to any white man; that it had a wonderful charm, and that before the war with the whites the Indians were kind to their prisoners, and sought only to make Indians of them. He told tales of how easily white boys become Indianized, so attached to the wild life and freedom of the redmen that it was impossible to get the captives to return to civilized life. The boys had been permitted to grow wild with the Indian lads; to fish and shoot and swim with them; to play the Indian games — to live idle, joyous lives. He said these white boys had been ransomed and taken from captivity and returned to their homes and, although a close watch has kept on them, they contrived to escape and return to the Indians, and that while they were back among civilized people it was difficult to keep the boys dressed. In summer time it was useless to attempt it. The strongest hemp-linen shirts, made with the strongest collar and wrist-band, would directly be torn off and the little rascals found swimming in the river or rolling on the sand.

If we may believe what these men have said — and there seems no good reason why we may not — the Indian was very different from the impression given of him. There can be little doubt that the redman once lived a noble and blameless life; that he was simple, honest and brave, that he had a regard for honor and a respect for a promise far exceeding that of most white men. Think of the beautiful poetry and legends left by these silent men: men who were a part of the woods; men whose music was the sighing of the wind, the rustling of the leaf, the murmur of the brook; men whose simple joys were the chase of the stag, and the light in the dark eye of a maiden.

If we wish to find the highest type of the American Indian we must look for him before he was driven west by the land-seeking pioneer and before he was degraded by the rum-selling French trader.

The French claimed all the land watered by the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The French Canadian was a restless, roaming adventurer and he found his vocation in the fur-trade. This fur-trade engendered a strange class of men — bush-rangers they were called — whose work was to paddle the canoe along the lakes and streams and exchange their cheap rum for the valuable furs of the Indians. To these men the Indians of the west owe their degradation. These bush-rangers or coureurs-des-bois, perverted the Indians and sank into barbarism with them.

The few travellers there in those days were often surprised to find in the wigwams of the Indians men who acknowledged the blood of France, yet who had lost all semblance to the white man. They lived in their tepee with their Indian squaws and lolled on their blankets while the squaws cooked their venison and did all the work. They let their hair grow long and wore feathers in it; they painted their faces hideously with ochre and vermilion.

These were the worthless traders and adventurers who, from the year 1748 to 1783, encroached on the hunting grounds of the Indians and explored the wilderness, seeking out the remote tribes and trading the villainous rum for the rare pelts. In 1784 the French authorities, realizing that these vagrants were demoralizing the Indians, warned them to get off the soil. Finding this course ineffectual they arrested those that could be apprehended and sent them to Canada. But it was too late: the harm had been done: the poor, ignorant savage had tasted of the terrible “fire-water,” as he called the rum and his ruin was inevitable.

It was a singular fact that almost every Indian who had once tasted strong drink, was unable to resist the desire for more. When a trader came to one of the Indian hamlets the braves purchased a keg of rum and then they held a council to see who was to get drunk and who was to keep sober. It was necessary to have some sober Indians in camp, otherwise the drunken braves would kill one another. The weapons would have to be concealed. When the Indians had finished one keg of rum they would buy another, and so on until not a beaver-skin was left. Then the trader would move or when the Indians sobered up they would be much dejected, for invariably they would find that some had been wounded, others crippled, and often several had been killed.

Logan, using all his eloquence, travelled from village to village visiting the different tribes and making speeches. He urged the Indians to shun the dreaded “fire-water.” He exclaimed against the whites for introducing liquor to the Indians and thus debasing them. At the same time Logan admitted his own fondness for rum. This intelligent and noble Indian was murdered in a drunken fight shortly after sending his address to Lord Dunmore.

Thus it was that the poor Indians had no chance to avert their downfall; the steadily increasing tide of land-stealing settlers rolling westward, and the insidious, debasing, soul-destroying liquor were the noble redman’s doom.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Isaac Zane dropped back not altogether unhappily into his old place in the wigwam, in the hunting parties, and in the Indian games.

When the braves were in camp, the greatest part of the day was spent in shooting and running matches, in canoe races, in wrestling, and in the game of ball. The chiefs and the older braves who had won their laurels and the maidens of the tribe looked on and applauded.

Isaac entered into all these pastimes, partly because he had a natural love for them, and partly because he wished to win the regard of the Indians. In wrestling, and in those sports which required weight and endurance, he usually suffered defeat. In a foot race there was not a brave in the entire tribe who could keep even with him. But it was with the rifle that Isaac won his greatest distinction. The Indians never learned the finer shooting with the ride. Some few of them could shoot well, but for the most part they were poor marksmen.

Accordingly, Isaac was always taken on the fall hunt. Every autumn there were three parties sent out to bring in the supply of meat for the winter. Because of Isaac’s fine marksmanship he was always taken with the bear hunters. Bear hunting was exciting and dangerous work. Before the weather got very cold and winter actually set in the bears crawled into a hole in a tree or a cave in the rocks, where they hibernated. A favorite place for them was in hollow trees. When the Indians found a tree with the scratches of a bear on it and a hole large enough to admit the body of a bear, an Indian climbed up the tree and with a long pole tried to punch Bruin out of his den. Often this was a hazardous undertaking, for the bear would get angry on being disturbed in his winter sleep and would rush out before the Indian could reach a place of safety. At times there were even two or three bears in one den. Sometimes the bear would refuse to come out, and on these occasions, which were rare, the hunters would resort to fire. A piece of dry, rotten wood was fastened to a long pole and was set on fire. When this was pushed in on the bear he would give a sniff and a growl and come out in a hurry.

The buffalo and elk were hunted with the bow and arrow. This effective weapon did not make a noise and frighten the game. The wary Indian crawled through the high grass until within easy range and sometimes killed several buffalo or elk before the herd became alarmed. The meat was then jerked. This consisted in cutting it into thin strips and drying it in the sun. Afterwards it was hung up in the lodges. The skins were stretched on poles to dry, and when cured they served as robes, clothing and wigwam-coverings.

The Indians were fond of honey and maple sugar. The finding of a hive of bees, or a good run of maple syrup was an occasion for general rejoicing. They found the honey in hollow trees, and they obtained the maple sugar in two ways. When the sap came up in the maple trees a hole was bored in the trees about a foot from the ground and a small tube, usually made from a piece of alder, was inserted in the hole. Through this the sap was carried into a vessel which was placed under the tree. This sap was boiled down in kettles. If the Indians had no kettles they made the frost take the place of heat in preparing the sugar. They used shallow vessels made of bark, and these were filled with water and the maple sap. It was left to freeze over night and in the morning the ice was broken and thrown away. The sugar did not freeze. When this process had been repeated several times the residue was very good maple sugar.

Isaac did more than his share toward the work of provisioning the village for the winter. But he enjoyed it. He was particularly fond of fishing by moonlight. Early November was the best season for this sport, and the Indians caught large numbers of fish. They placed a torch in the bow of a canoe and paddled noiselessly over the stream. In the clear water a bright light would so attract and fascinate the fish that they would lie motionless near the bottom of the shallow stream.

One cold night Isaac was in the bow of the canoe. Seeing a large fish he whispered to the Indians with him to exercise caution. His guides paddled noiselessly through the water. Isaac stood up and raised the spear, ready to strike. In another second Isaac had cast the iron, but in his eagerness he overbalanced himself and plunged head first into the icy current, making a great splash and spoiling any further fishing. Incidents like this were a source of infinite amusement to the Indians.

Before the autumn evenings grew too cold the Indian held their courting dances. All unmarried maidens and braves in the village were expected to take part in these dances. In the bright light of huge fires, and watched by the chiefs, the old men, the squaws, and the children, the maidens and the braves, arrayed in their gaudiest apparel, marched into the circle. They formed two lines a few paces apart. Each held in the right hand a dry gourd which contained pebbles. Advancing toward one another they sang the courting song, keeping time to the tune with the rattling of the pebbles. When they met in the center the braves bent forward and whispered a word to the maidens. At a certain point in the song, which was indicated by a louder note, the maidens would change their positions, and this was continued until every brave had whispered to every maiden, when the dance ended.

Isaac took part in all these pleasures; he entered into every phase of the Indian’s life; he hunted, worked, played, danced, and sang with faithfulness. But when the long, dreary winter days came with their ice-laden breezes, enforcing idleness on the Indians, he became restless. Sometimes for days he would be morose and gloomy, keeping beside his own tent and not mingling with the Indians. At such times Myeerah did not question him.

Even in his happier hours his diversions were not many. He never tired of watching and studying the Indian children. When he had an opportunity without being observed, which was seldom, he amused himself with the papooses. The Indian baby was strapped to a flat piece of wood and covered with a broad flap of buckskin. The squaws hung these primitive baby carriages up on the pole of a tepee, on a branch of a tree, or threw them round anywhere. Isaac never heard a papoose cry. He often pulled down the flap of buckskin and looked at the solemn little fellow, who would stare up at him with big, wondering eyes.

Isaac’s most intimate friend was a six-year-old Indian boy, whom he called Captain Jack. He was the son of Thundercloud, the war-chief of the Hurons. Jack made a brave picture in his buckskin hunting suit and his war bonnet. Already he could stick tenaciously on the back of a racing mustang and with his little bow he could place arrow after arrow in the center of the target. Knowing Captain Jack would some day be a mighty chief, Isaac taught him to speak English. He endeavored to make Jack love him, so that when the lad should grow to be a man he would remember his white brother and show mercy to the prisoners who fell into his power.

Another of Isaac’s favorites was a half-breed Ottawa Indian, a distant relative of Tarhe’s. This Indian was very old; no one knew how old; his face was seamed and scarred and wrinkled. Bent and shrunken was his form. He slept most of the time, but at long intervals he would brighten up and tell of his prowess when a warrior.

One of his favorite stories was of the part he had taken in the events of that fatal and memorable July 2, 1755, when Gen. Braddock and his English army were massacred by the French and Indians near Fort Duquesne.

The old chief told how Beaujeu with his Frenchmen and his five hundred Indians ambushed Braddock’s army, surrounded the soldiers, fired from the ravines, the trees, the long grass, poured a pitiless hail of bullets on the bewildered British soldiers, who, unaccustomed to this deadly and unseen foe, huddled under the trees like herds of frightened sheep, and were shot down with hardly an effort to defend themselves.

The old chief related that fifteen years after that battle he went to the Kanawha settlement to see the Big Chief, Gen. George Washington, who was travelling on the Kanawha. He told Gen. Washington how he had fought in the battle of Braddock’s Fields; how he had shot and killed Gen. Braddock; how he had fired repeatedly at Washington, and had killed two horses under him, and how at last he came to the conclusion that Washington was protected by the Great Spirit who destined him for a great future.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Myeerah was the Indian name for a rare and beautiful bird — the white crane — commonly called by the Indians, Walk-in-the-Water. It had been the name of Tarhe’s mother and grandmother. The present Myeerah was the daughter of a French woman, who had been taken captive at a very early age, adopted into the Huron tribe, and married to Tarhe. The only child of this union was Myeerah. She grew to be beautiful woman and was known in Detroit and the Canadian forts as Tarhe’s white daughter. The old chief often visited the towns along the lake shore, and so proud was he of Myeerah that he always had her accompany him. White men travelled far to look at the Indian beauty. Many French soldiers wooed her in vain. Once, while Tarhe was in Detroit, a noted French family tried in every way to get possession of Myeerah.

The head of this family believed he saw in Myeerah the child of his long lost daughter. Tarhe hurried away from the city and never returned to the white settlement.

Myeerah was only five years old at the time of the capture of the Zane brothers and it was at this early age that she formed the attachment for Isaac Zane which clung to her all her life. She was seven when the men came from Detroit to ransom the brothers, and she showed such grief when she learned that Isaac was to be returned to his people that Tarhe refused to accept any ransom for Isaac. As Myeerah grew older her childish fancy for the white boy deepened into an intense love.

But while this love tendered her inexorable to Isaac on the question of giving him his freedom, it undoubtedly saved his life as well as the lives of other white prisoners, on more than one occasion.

To the white captives who fell into the hands of the Hurons, she was kind and merciful; many of the wounded she had tended with her own hands, and many poor wretches she had saved from the gauntlet and the stake. When her efforts to persuade her father to save any one were unavailing she would retire in sorrow to her lodge and remain there.

Her infatuation for the White Eagle, the Huron name for Isaac, was an old story; it was known to all the tribes and had long ceased to be questioned. At first some of the Delawares and the Shawnee braves, who had failed to win Myeerah’s love, had openly scorned her for her love for the pale face. The Wyandot warriors to a man worshipped her; they would have marched straight into the jaws of death at her command; they resented the insults which had been cast on their princess, and they had wiped them out in blood: now none dared taunt her.

In the spring following Isaac’s recapture a very serious accident befell him. He had become expert in the Indian game of ball, which is a game resembling the Canadian lacrosse, and from which, in fact, it had been adopted. Goals were placed at both ends of a level plain. Each party of Indians chose a goal which they endeavored to defend and at the same time would try to carry the ball over their opponent’s line.

A well contested game of Indian ball presented a scene of wonderful effort and excitement. Hundreds of strong and supple braves could be seen running over the plain, darting this way and that, or struggling in a yelling, kicking, fighting mass, all in a mad scramble to get the ball.

As Isaac had his share of the Zane swiftness of foot, at times his really remarkable fleetness enabled him to get control of the ball. In front of the band of yelling savages he would carry it down the field, and evading the guards at the goal, would throw it between the posts. This was a feat of which any brave could be proud.

During one of these games Red Fox, a Wyandot brave, who had long been hopelessly in love with Myeerah, and who cordially hated Isaac, used this opportunity for revenge. Red Fox, who was a swift runner, had vied with Isaac for the honors, but being defeated in the end, he had yielded to his jealous frenzy and had struck Isaac a terrible blow on the head with his bat.

It happened to be a glancing blow or Isaac’s life would have been ended then and there. As it was he had a deep gash in his head. The Indians carried him to his lodge and the medicine men of the tribe were summoned.

When Isaac recovered consciousness he asked for Myeerah and entreated her not to punish Red Fox. He knew that such a course would only increase his difficulties, and, on the other hand, if he saved the life of the Indian who had struck him in such a cowardly manner such an act would appeal favorably to the Indians. His entreaties had no effect on Myeerah, who was furious, and who said that if Red Fox, who had escaped, ever returned he would pay for his unprovoked assault with his life, even if she had to kill him herself. Isaac knew that Myeerah would keep her word. He dreaded every morning that the old squaw who prepared his meals would bring him the news that his assailant had been slain. Red Fox was a popular brave, and there were many Indians who believed the blow he had struck Isaac was not intentional. Isaac worried needlessly, however, for Red Fox never came back, and nothing could be learned as to his whereabouts.

It was during his convalescence that Isaac learned really to love the Indian maiden. She showed such distress in the first days after his injury, and such happiness when he was out of danger and on the road to recovery that Isaac wondered at her. She attended him with anxious solicitude; when she bathed and bandaged his wound her every touch was a tender caress; she sat by him for hours; her low voice made soft melody as she sang the Huron love songs. The moments were sweet to Isaac when in the gathering twilight she leaned her head on his shoulder while they listened to the evening carol of the whip-poor-will. Days passed and at length Isaac was entirely well. One day when the air was laden with the warm breath of summer Myeerah and Isaac walked by the river.

“You are sad again,” said Myeerah.

“I am homesick. I want to see my people. Myeerah, you have named me rightly. The Eagle can never be happy unless he is free.”

“The Eagle can be happy with his mate. And what life could be freer than a Huron’s? I hope always that you will grow content.”

“It has been a long time now, Myeerah, since I have spoken with you of my freedom. Will you ever free me? Or must I take again those awful chances of escape? I cannot always live here in this way. Some day I shall be killed while trying to get away, and then, if you truly love me, you will never forgive yourself.”

“Does not Myeerah truly love you?” she asked, gazing straight into his eyes, her own misty and sad.

“I do not doubt that, but I think sometimes that it is not the right kind of love. It is too savage. No man should be made a prisoner for no other reason than that he is loved by a woman. I have tried to teach you many things; the language of my people, their ways and thoughts, but I have failed to civilize you. I cannot make you understand that it is unwomanly — do not turn away. I am not indifferent. I have learned to care for you. Your beauty and tenderness have made anything else impossible.”

“Myeerah is proud of her beauty, if it pleases the Eagle. Her beauty and her love are his. Yet the Eagle’s words make Myeerah sad. She cannot tell what she feels. The pale face’s words flow swiftly and smoothly like rippling waters, but Myeerah’s heart is full and her lips are dumb.”

Myeerah and Isaac stopped under a spreading elm tree the branches of which drooped over and shaded the river. The action of the high water had worn away the earth round the roots of the old elm, leaving them bare and dry when the stream was low. As though Nature had been jealous in the interest of lovers, she had twisted and curled the roots into a curiously shaped bench just above the water, which was secluded enough to escape all eyes except those of the beaver and the muskrat. The bank above was carpeted with fresh, dewy grass; blue bells and violets hid modestly under their dark green leaves; delicate ferns, like wonderful fairy lace, lifted their dainty heads to sway in the summer breeze. In this quiet nook the lovers passed many hours.

“Then, if my White Chief has learned to care for me, he must not try to escape,” whispered Myeerah, tenderly, as she crept into Isaac’s arms and laid her head on his breast. “I love you. I love you. What will become of Myeerah if you leave her? Could she ever be happy? Could she ever forget? No, no, I will keep my captive.”

“I cannot persuade you to let me go?”

“If I free you I will come and lie here,” cried Myeerah, pointing to the dark pool.

“Then come with me to my home and live there.”

“Go with you to the village of the pale faces, where Myeerah would be scorned, pointed at as your captors laughed at and pitied? No! No!”

“But you would not be,” said Isaac, eagerly. “You would be my wife. My sister and people will love you. Come, Myeerah save me from this bondage; come home with me and I will make you happy.”

“It can never be,” she said, sadly, after a long pause. “How would we ever reach the fort by the big river? Tarhe loves his daughter and will not give her up. If we tried to get away the braves would overtake us and then even Myeerah could not save your life. You would be killed. I dare not try. No, no, Myeerah loves too well for that.”

“You might make the attempt,” said Isaac, turning away in bitter disappointment. “If you loved me you could not see me suffer.”

“Never say that again,” cried Myeerah, pain and scorn in her dark eyes. “Can an Indian Princess who has the blood of great chiefs in her veins prove her love in any way that she has not? Some day you will know that you wrong me. I am Tarhe’s daughter. A Huron does not lie.”

They slowly wended their way back to the camp, both miserable at heart; Isaac longing to see his home and friends, and yet with tenderness in his heart for the Indian maiden who would not free him; Myeerah with pity and love for him and a fear that her long cherished dream could never be realized.

One dark, stormy night, when the rain beat down in torrents and the swollen river raged almost to its banks, Isaac slipped out of his lodge unobserved and under cover of the pitchy darkness he got safely between the lines of tepees to the river. He had just the opportunity for which he had been praying. He plunged into the water and floating down with the swift current he soon got out of sight of the flickering camp fires. Half a mile below he left the water and ran along the bank until he came to a large tree, a landmark he remembered, when he turned abruptly to the east and struck out through the dense woods. He travelled due east all that night and the next day without resting, and with nothing to eat except a small piece of jerked buffalo meat which he had taken the precaution to hide in his hunting shirt. He rested part of the second night and next morning pushed on toward the east. He had expected to reach the Ohio that day, but he did not and he noticed that the ground seemed to be gradually rising. He did not come across any swampy lands or saw grass or vegetation characteristic of the lowlands. He stopped and tried to get his bearings. The country was unknown to him, but he believed he knew the general lay of the ridges and the water-courses.

The fourth day found Isaac hopelessly lost in the woods. He was famished, having eaten but a few herbs and berries in the last two days; his buckskin garments were torn in tatters; his moccasins were worn out and his feet lacerated by the sharp thorns.

Darkness was fast approaching when he first realized that he was lost. He waited hopefully for the appearance of the north star — that most faithful of hunter’s guides — but the sky clouded over and no stars appeared. Tired out and hopeless he dragged his weary body into a dense laurel thicket end lay down to wait for dawn. The dismal hoot of an owl nearby, the stealthy steps of some soft-footed animal prowling round the thicket, and the mournful sough of the wind in the treetops kept him awake for hours, but at last he fell asleep.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHILLING RAINS of November and December’s flurry of snow had passed and mid-winter with its icy blasts had set in. The Black Forest had changed autumn’s gay crimson and yellow to the somber hue of winter and now looked indescribably dreary. An ice gorge had formed in the bend of the river at the head of the island and from bank to bank logs, driftwood, broken ice and giant floes were packed and jammed so tightly as to resist the action of the mighty current. This natural bridge would remain solid until spring had loosened the frozen grip of old winter. The hills surrounding Fort Henry were white with snow. The huge drifts were on a level with Col. Zane’s fence and in some places the top rail had disappeared. The pine trees in the yard were weighted down and drooped helplessly with their white burden.

On this frosty January morning the only signs of life round the settlement were a man and a dog walking up Wheeling hill. The man carried a rifle, an axe, and several steel traps. His snow-shoes sank into the drifts as he labored up the steep hill. All at once he stopped. The big black dog had put his nose high in the air and had sniffed at the cold wind.

“Well, Tige, old fellow, what is it?” said Jonathan Zane, for this was he.

The dog answered with a low whine. Jonathan looked up and down the creek valley and along the hillside, but he saw no living thing. Snow, snow everywhere, its white monotony relieved here and there by a black tree trunk. Tige sniffed again and then growled. Turning his ear to the breeze Jonathan heard faint yelps from far over the hilltop. He dropped his axe and the traps and ran the remaining short distance up the hill. When he reached the summit the clear baying of hunting wolves was borne to his ears.

The hill sloped gradually on the other side, ending in a white, unbroken plain which extended to the edge of the laurel thicket a quarter of a mile distant. Jonathan could not see the wolves, but he heard distinctly their peculiar, broken howls. They were in pursuit of something, whether quadruped or man he could not decide. Another moment and he was no longer in doubt, for a deer dashed out of the thicket. Jonathan saw that it was a buck and that he was well nigh exhausted; his head swung low from side to side; he sank slowly to his knees, and showed every indication of distress.

The next instant the baying of the wolves, which had ceased for a moment, sounded close at hand. The buck staggered to his feet; he turned this way and that. When he saw the man and the dog he started toward them without a moment’s hesitation.

At a warning word from Jonathan the dog sank on the snow. Jonathan stepped behind a tree, which, however, was not large enough to screen his body. He thought the buck would pass close by him and he determined to shoot at the most favorable moment.

The buck, however, showed no intention of passing by; in his abject terror he saw in the man and the dog foes less terrible than those which were yelping on his trail. He came on in a lame uneven trot, making straight for the tree. When he reached the tree he crouched, or rather fell, on the ground within a yard of Jonathan and his dog. He quivered and twitched; his nostrils flared; at every pant drops of blood flecked the snow; his great dark eyes had a strained and awful look, almost human in its agony.

Another yelp from the thicket and Jonathan looked up in time to see five timber wolves, gaunt, hungry looking beasts, burst from the bushes. With their noses close to the snow they followed the trail. When they came to the spot where the deer had fallen a chorus of angry, thirsty howls filled the air.

“Well, if this doesn’t beat me! I thought I knew a little about deer,” said Jonathan. “Tige, we will save this buck from those gray devils if it costs a leg. Steady now, old fellow, wait.”

When the wolves were within fifty yards of the tree and coming swiftly Jonathan threw his rifle forward and yelled with all the power of his strong lungs:

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Take ‘em, Tige!”

In trying to stop quickly on the slippery snowcrust the wolves fell all over themselves. One dropped dead and another fell wounded at the report of Jonathan’s rifle. The others turned tail and loped swiftly off into the thicket. Tige made short work of the wounded one.

“Old White Tail, if you were the last buck in the valley, I would not harm you,” said Jonathan, looking at the panting deer. “You need have no farther fear of that pack of cowards.”

So saying Jonathan called to Tige and wended his way down the hill toward the settlement.

An hour afterward he was sitting in Col. Zane’s comfortable cabin, where all was warmth and cheerfulness. Blazing hickory logs roared and crackled in the stone fireplace.

“Hello, Jack, where did you come from?” said Col. Zane, who had just come in. “Haven’t seen you since we were snowed up. Come over to see about the horses? If I were you I would not undertake that trip to Fort Pitt until the weather breaks. You could go in the sled, of course, but if you care anything for my advice you will stay home. This weather will hold on for some time. Let Lord Dunmore wait.”

“I guess we are in for some stiff weather.”

“Haven’t a doubt of it. I told Bessie last fall we might expect a hard winter. Everything indicated it. Look at the thick corn-husks. The hulls of the nuts from the shell-bark here in the yard were larger and tougher than I ever saw them. Last October Tige killed a raccoon that had the wooliest kind of a fur. I could have given you a dozen signs of a hard winter. We shall still have a month or six weeks of it. In a week will be ground-hog day and you had better wait and decide after that.”

“I tell you, Eb, I get tired chopping wood and hanging round the house.”

“Aha! another moody spell,” said Col. Zane, glancing kindly at his brother. “Jack, if you were married you would outgrow those ‘blue-devils.’ I used to have them. It runs in the family to be moody. I have known our father to take his gun and go into the woods and stay there until he had fought out the spell. I have done that myself, but once I married Bessie I have had no return of the old feeling. Get married, Jack, and then you will settle down and work. You will not have time to roam around alone in the woods.”

“I prefer the spells, as you call them, any day,” answered Jonathan, with a short laugh. “A man with my disposition has no right to get married. This weather is trying, for it keeps me indoors. I cannot hunt because we do not need the meat. And even if I did want to hunt I should not have to go out of sight of the fort. There were three deer in front of the barn this morning. They were nearly starved. They ran off a little at sight of me, but in a few moments came back for the hay I pitched out of the loft. This afternoon Tige and I saved a big buck from a pack of wolves. The buck came right up to me. I could have touched him. This storm is sending the deer down from the hills.”

“You are right. It is too bad. Severe weather like this will kill more deer than an army could. Have you been doing anything with your traps?”

“Yes, I have thirty traps out.”

“If you are going, tell Sam to fetch down another load of fodder before he unhitches.”

“Eb, I have no patience with your brothers,” said Col. Zane’s wife to him after he had closed the door. “They are all alike; forever wanting to be on the go. If it isn’t Indians it is something else. The very idea of going up the river in this weather. If Jonathan doesn’t care for himself he should think of the horses.”

“My dear, I was just as wild and discontented as Jack before I met you,” remarked Col. Zane. “You may not think so, but a home and pretty little woman will do wonders for any man. My brothers have nothing to keep them steady.”

“Perhaps. I do not believe that Jonathan ever will get married. Silas may; he certainly has been keeping company long enough with Mary Bennet. You are the only Zane who has conquered that adventurous spirit and the desire to be always roaming the woods in search of something to kill. Your old boy, Noah, is growing up like all the Zanes. He fights with all the children in the settlement. I cannot break him of it. He is not a bully, for I have never known him to do anything mean or cruel. It is just sheer love of fighting.”

“Ha! Ha! I fear you will not break him of that,” answered Col. Zane. “It is a good joke to say he gets it all from the Zanes. How about the McCollochs? What have you to say of your father and the Major and John McColloch? They are not anything if not the fighting kind. It’s the best trait the youngster could have, out here on the border. He’ll need it all. Don’t worry about him. Where is Betty?”

“I told her to take the children out for a sled ride. Betty needs exercise. She stays indoors too much, and of late she looks pale.”

“What! Betty not looking well! She was never ill in her life. I have noticed no change in her.”

“No, I daresay you have not. You men can’t see anything. But I can, and I tell you, Betty is very different from the girl she used to be. Most of the time she sits and gazes out of her window. She used to be so bright, and when she was not romping with the children she busied herself with her needle. Yesterday as I entered her room she hurriedly picked up a book, and, I think, intentionally hid her face behind it. I saw she had been crying.”

“Come to think of it, I believe I have missed Betty,” said Col. Zane, gravely. “She seems more quiet. Is she unhappy? When did you first see this change?”

“I think it a little while after Mr. Clarke left here last fall.”

“Clarke! What has he to do with Betty? What are you driving at?” exclaimed the Colonel, stopping in front of his wife. His faced had paled slightly. “I had forgotten Clarke. Bess, you can’t mean—”

“Now, Eb, do not get that look on your face. You always frighten me,” answered his wife, as she quietly placed her hand on his arm. “I do not mean anything much, certainly nothing against Mr. Clarke. He was a true gentleman. I really liked him.”

“So did I,” interrupted the Colonel.

“I believe Betty cared for Mr. Clarke. She was always different with him. He has gone away and has forgotten her. That is strange to us, because we cannot imagine any one indifferent to our beautiful Betty. Nevertheless, no matter how attractive a woman may be men sometimes love and ride away. I hear the children coming now. Do not let Betty see that we have been talking about her. She is as quick as a steel trap.”

A peal of childish laughter came from without. The door opened and Betty ran in, followed by the sturdy, rosy-checked youngsters. All three were white with snow.

“We have had great fun,” said Betty. “We went over the bank once and tumbled off the sled into the snow. Then we had a snow-balling contest, and the boys compelled me to strike my colors and fly for the house.”

Col. Zane looked closely at his sister. Her cheeks were flowing with health; her eyes were sparkling with pleasure. Failing to observe any indication of the change in Betty which his wife had spoken, he concluded that women were better qualified to judge their own sex than were men. He had to confess to himself that the only change he could see in his sister was that she grew prettier every day of her life.

“Oh, papa. I hit Sam right in the head with a big snow-ball, and I made Betty run into the house, and I slid down to all by myself. Sam was afraid,” said Noah to his father.

“Noah, if Sammy saw the danger in sliding down the hill he was braver than you. Now both of you run to Annie and have these wet things taken off.”

“I must go get on dry clothes myself,” said Betty. “I am nearly frozen. It is growing colder. I saw Jack come in. Is he going to Fort Pitt?”

“No. He has decided to wait until good weather. I met Mr. Miller over at the garrison this afternoon and he wants you to go on the sled-ride to-night. There is to be a dance down at Watkins’ place. All the young people are going. It is a long ride, but I guess it will be perfectly safe. Silas and Wetzel are going. Dress yourself warmly and go with them. You have never seen old Grandma Watkins.”

“I shall be pleased to go,” said Betty.

Betty’s room was very cozy, considering that it was in a pioneer’s cabin. It had two windows, the larger of which opened on the side toward the river. The walls had been smoothly plastered and covered with white birch-bark. They were adorned with a few pictures and Indian ornaments. A bright homespun carpet covered the floor. A small bookcase stood in the corner. The other furniture consisted of two chairs, a small table, a bureau with a mirror, and a large wardrobe. It was in this last that Betty kept the gowns which she had brought from Philadelphia, and which were the wonder of all the girls in the village.

“I wonder why Eb looked so closely at me,” mused Betty, as she slipped on her little moccasins. “Usually he is not anxious to have me go so far from the fort; and now he seemed to think I would enjoy this dance to-night. I wonder what Bessie has been telling him.”

Betty threw some wood on the smouldering fire in the little stone grate and sat down to think. Like every one who has a humiliating secret, Betty was eternally suspicious and feared the very walls would guess it. Swift as light came the thought that her brother and his wife had suspected her secret and had been talking about her, perhaps pitying her. With this thought came the fear that if she had betrayed herself to the Colonel’s wife she might have done so to others. The consciousness that this might well be true and that even now the girls might be talking and laughing at her caused her exceeding shame and bitterness.

Many weeks had passed since that last night that Betty and Alfred Clarke had been together.

In due time Col. Zane’s men returned and Betty learned from Jonathan that Alfred had left them at Ft. Pitt, saying he was going south to his old home. At first she had expected some word from Alfred, a letter, or if not that, surely an apology for his conduct on that last evening they had been together. But Jonathan brought her no word, and after hoping against hope and wearing away the long days looking for a letter that never came, she ceased to hope and plunged into despair.

The last few months had changed her life; changed it as only constant thinking, and suffering that must be hidden from the world, can change the life of a young girl. She had been so intent on her own thoughts, so deep in her dreams that she had taken no heed of other people. She did not know that those who loved her were always thinking of her welfare and would naturally see even a slight change in her. With a sudden shock of surprise and pain she realized that to-day for the first time in a month she had played with the boys. Sammy had asked her why she did not laugh any more. Now she understood the mad antics of Tige that morning; Madcap’s whinney of delight; the chattering of the squirrels, and Caesar’s pranks in the snow. She had neglected her pets. She had neglected her work, her friends, the boys’ lessons; and her brother. For what? What would her girl friends say? That she was pining for a lover who had forgotten her. They would say that and it would be true. She did think of him constantly.

With bitter pain she recalled the first days of the acquaintance which now seemed so long past; how much she had disliked Alfred; how angry she had been with him and how contemptuously she had spurned his first proffer of friendship; how, little by little, her pride had been subdued; then the struggle with her heart. And, at last, after he had gone, came the realization that the moments spent with him had been the sweetest of her life. She thought of him as she used to see him stand before her; so good to look at; so strong and masterful, and yet so gentle.

“Oh, I cannot bear it,” whispered Betty with a half sob, giving up to a rush of tender feeling. “I love him. I love him, and I cannot forget him. Oh, I am so ashamed.”

Betty bowed her head on her knees. Her slight form quivered a while and then grew still. When a half hour later she raised her head her face was pale and cold. It bore the look of a girl who had suddenly become a woman; a woman who saw the battle of life before her and who was ready to fight. Stern resolve gleamed from her flashing eyes; there was no faltering in those set lips.

Betty was a Zane and the Zanes came of a fighting race. Their blood had ever been hot and passionate; the blood of men quick to love and quick to hate. It had flowed in the veins of daring, reckless men who had fought and died for their country; men who had won their sweethearts with the sword; men who had had unconquerable spirits. It was this fighting instinct that now rose in Betty; it gave her strength and pride to defend her secret; the resolve to fight against the longing in her heart.

“I will forget him! I will tear him out of my heart!” she exclaimed passionately. “He never deserved my love. He did not care. I was a little fool to let him amuse himself with me. He went away and forgot. I hate him.”

At length Betty subdued her excitement, and when she went down to supper a few minutes later she tried to maintain a cheerful composure of manner and to chat with her old-time vivacity.

“Bessie, I am sure you have exaggerated things,” remarked Col. Zane after Betty had gone upstairs to dress for the dance. “Perhaps it is only that Betty grows a little tired of this howling wilderness. Small wonder if she does. You know she has always been used to comfort and many young people, places to go and all that. This is her first winter on the frontier. She’ll come round all right.”

“Have it your way, Ebenezer,” answered his wife with a look of amused contempt on her face. “I am sure I hope you are right. By the way, what do you think of this Ralfe Miller? He has been much with Betty of late.”

“I do not know the fellow, Bessie. He seems agreeable. He is a good-looking young man. Why do you ask?”

“The Major told me that Miller had a bad name at Pitt, and that he had been a friend of Simon Girty before Girty became a renegade.”

“Humph! I’ll have to speak to Sam. As for knowing Girty, there is nothing terrible in that. All the women seem to think that Simon is the very prince of devils. I have known all the Girtys for years. Simon was not a bad fellow before he went over to the Indians. It is his brother James who has committed most of those deeds which have made the name of Girty so infamous.”

“I don’t like Miller,” continued Mrs. Zane in a hesitating way. “I must admit that I have no sensible reason for my dislike. He is pleasant and agreeable, yes, but behind it there is a certain intensity. That man has something on his mind.”

“If he is in love with Betty, as you seem to think, he has enough on his mind. I’ll vouch for that,” said Col. Zane. “Betty is inclined to be a coquette. If she liked Clarke pretty well, it may be a lesson to her.”

“I wish she were married and settled down. It may have been no great harm for Betty to have had many admirers while in Philadelphia, but out here on the border it will never do. These men will not have it. There will be trouble come of Betty’s coquettishness.”

“Why, Bessie, she is only a child. What would you have her do? Marry the first man who asked her?”

“The clod-hoppers are coming,” said Mrs. Zane as the jingling of sleigh bells broke the stillness.

Col. Zane sprang up and opened the door. A broad stream of light flashed from the room and lighted up the road. Three powerful teams stood before the door. They were hitched to sleds, or clod-hoppers, which were nothing more than wagon-beds fastened on wooden runners. A chorus of merry shouts greeted Col. Zane as he appeared in the doorway.

“All right! all right! Here she is,” he cried, as Betty ran down the steps.

The Colonel bundled her in a buffalo robe in a corner of the foremost sled. At her feet he placed a buckskin bag containing a hot stone Mrs. Zane thoughtfully had provided.

“All ready here. Let them go,” called the Colonel. “You will have clear weather. Coming back look well to the traces and keep a watch for the wolves.”

The long whips cracked, the bells jingled, the impatient horses plunged forward and away they went over the glistening snow. The night was clear and cold; countless stars blinked in the black vault overhead; the pale moon cast its wintry light down on a white and frozen world. As the runners glided swiftly and smoothly onward showers of dry snow like fine powder flew from under the horses’ hoofs and soon whitened the black-robed figures in the sleds. The way led down the hill past the Fort, over the creek bridge and along the road that skirted the Black Forest. The ride was long; it led up and down hills, and through a lengthy stretch of gloomy forest. Sometimes the drivers walked the horses up a steep climb and again raced them along a level bottom. Making a turn in the road they saw a bright light in the distance which marked their destination. In five minutes the horses dashed into a wide clearing. An immense log fire burned in front of a two-story structure. Streams of light poured from the small windows; the squeaking of fiddles, the shuffling of many feet, and gay laughter came through the open door.

The steaming horses were unhitched, covered carefully with robes and led into sheltered places, while the merry party disappeared into the house.

The occasion was the celebration of the birthday of old Dan Watkins’ daughter. Dan was one of the oldest settlers along the river; in fact, he had located his farm several years after Col. Zane had founded the settlement. He was noted for his open-handed dealing and kindness of heart. He had loaned many a head of cattle which had never been returned, and many a sack of flour had left his mill unpaid for in grain. He was a good shot, he would lay a tree on the ground as quickly as any man who ever swung an axe, and he could drink more whiskey than any man in the valley.

Dan stood at the door with a smile of welcome upon his rugged features and a handshake and a pleasant word for everyone. His daughter Susan greeted the men with a little curtsy and kissed the girls upon the cheek. Susan was not pretty, though she was strong and healthy; her laughing blue eyes assured a sunny disposition, and she numbered her suitors by the score.

The young people lost no time. Soon the floor was covered with their whirling forms.

In one corner of the room sat a little dried-up old woman with white hair and bright dark eyes. This was Grandma Watkins. She was very old, so old that no one knew her age, but she was still vigorous enough to do her day’s work with more pleasure than many a younger woman. Just now she was talking to Wetzel, who leaned upon his inseparable rifle and listened to her chatter. The hunter liked the old lady and would often stop at her cabin while on his way to the settlement and leave at her door a fat turkey or a haunch of venison.

“Lew Wetzel, I am ashamed of you.” Grandmother Watkins was saying. “Put that gun in the corner and get out there and dance. Enjoy yourself. You are only a boy yet.”

“I’d better look on, mother,” answered the hunter.

“Pshaw! You can hop and skip around like any of then and laugh too if you want. I hope that pretty sister of Eb Zane has caught your fancy.”

“She is not for the like of me,” he said gently “I haven’t the gifts.”

“Don’t talk about gifts. Not to an old woman who has lived three times and more your age,” she said impatiently. “It is not gifts a woman wants out here in the West. If she does ‘twill do her no good. She needs a strong arm to build cabins, a quick eye with a rifle, and a fearless heart. What border-women want are houses and children. They must bring up men, men to drive the redskins back, men to till the soil, or else what is the good of our suffering here.”

“You are right,” said Wetzel thoughtfully. “But I’d hate to see a flower like Betty Zane in a rude hunter’s cabin.”

“I have known the Zanes for forty year’ and I never saw one yet that was afraid of work. And you might win her if you would give up running mad after Indians. I’ll allow no woman would put up with that. You have killed many Indians. You ought to be satisfied.”

“Fightin’ redskins is somethin’ I can’t help,” said the hunter, slowly shaking his head. “If I got married the fever would come on and I’d leave home. No, I’m no good for a woman. Fightin’ is all I’m good for.”

“Why not fight for her, then? Don’t let one of these boys walk off with her. Look at her. She likes fun and admiration. I believe you do care for her. Why not try to win her?”

“Who is that tall man with her?” continued the old lady as Wetzel did not answer. “There, they have gone into the other room. Who is he?”

“His name is Miller.”

“Lewis, I don’t like him. I have been watching him all evening. I’m a contrary old woman, I know, but I have seen a good many men in my time, and his face is not honest. He is in love with her. Does she care for him?”

“No, Betty doesn’t care for Miller. She’s just full of life and fun.”

“You may be mistaken. All the Zanes are fire and brimstone and this girl is a Zane clear through. Go and fetch her to me, Lewis. I’ll tell you if there’s a chance for you.”

“Dear mother, perhaps there’s a wife in Heaven for me. There’s none on earth,” said the hunter, a sad smile flitting over his calm face.

Ralfe Miller, whose actions had occasioned the remarks of the old lady, would have been conspicuous in any assembly of men. There was something in his dark face that compelled interest and yet left the observer in doubt. His square chin, deep-set eyes and firm mouth denoted a strong and indomitable will. He looked a man whom it would be dangerous to cross.

Little was known of Miller’s history. He hailed from Ft. Pitt, where he had a reputation as a good soldier, but a man of morose and quarrelsome disposition. It was whispered that he drank, and that he had been friendly with the renegades McKee, Elliott, and Girty. He had passed the fall and winter at Ft. Henry, serving on garrison duty. Since he had made the acquaintance of Betty he had shown her all the attention possible.

On this night a close observer would have seen that Miller was laboring under some strong feeling. A half-subdued fire gleamed from his dark eyes. A peculiar nervous twitching of his nostrils betrayed a poorly suppressed excitement.

All evening he followed Betty like a shadow. Her kindness may have encouraged him. She danced often with him and showed a certain preference for his society. Alice and Lydia were puzzled by Betty’s manner. As they were intimate friends they believed they knew something of her likes and dislikes. Had not Betty told them she did not care for Mr. Miller? What was the meaning of the arch glances she bestowed upon him, if she did not care for him? To be sure, it was nothing wonderful for Betty to smile, — she was always prodigal of her smiles — but she had never been known to encourage any man. The truth was that Betty had put her new resolution into effect; to be as merry and charming as any fancy-free maiden could possibly be, and the farthest removed from a young lady pining for an absent and indifferent sweetheart. To her sorrow Betty played her part too well.

Except to Wetzel, whose keen eyes little escaped, there was no significance in Miller’s hilarity one moment and sudden thoughtfulness the next. And if there had been, it would have excited no comment. Most of the young men had sampled some of old Dan’s best rye and their flushed faces and unusual spirits did not result altogether from the exercise of the dance.

After one of the reels Miller led Betty, with whom he had been dancing, into one of the side rooms. Round the dimly lighted room were benches upon which were seated some of the dancers. Betty was uneasy in mind and now wished that she had remained at home. They had exchanged several commonplace remarks when the music struck up and Betty rose quickly to her feet.

“See, the others have gone. Let us return,” she said.

“Wait,” said Miller hurriedly. “Do not go just yet. I wish to speak to you. I have asked you many times if you will marry me. Now I ask you again.”

“Mr. Miller, I thanked you and begged you not to cause us both pain by again referring to that subject,” answered Betty with dignity. “If you will persist in bringing it up we cannot be friends any longer.”

“Wait, please wait. I have told you that I will not take ‘No’ for an answer. I love you with all my heart and soul and I cannot give you up.”

His voice was low and hoarse and thrilled with a strong man’s passion. Betty looked up into his face and tears of compassion filled her eyes. Her heart softened to this man, and her conscience gave her a little twinge of remorse. Could she not have averted all this? No doubt she had been much to blame, and this thought made her voice very low and sweet as she answered him.

“I like you as a friend, Mr. Miller, but we can never be more than friends. I am very sorry for you, and angry with myself that I did not try to help you instead of making it worse. Please do not speak of this again. Come, let us join the others.”

They were quite alone in the room. As Betty finished speaking and started for the door Miller intercepted her. She recoiled in alarm from his white face.

“No, you don’t go yet. I won’t give you up so easily. No woman can play fast and loose with me! Do you understand? What have you meant all this winter? You encouraged me. You know you did,” he cried passionately.

“I thought you were a gentleman. I have really taken the trouble to defend you against persons who evidently were not misled as to your real nature. I will not listen to you,” said Betty coldly. She turned away from him, all her softened feeling changed to scorn.

“You shall listen to me,” he whispered as he grasped her wrist and pulled her backward. All the man’s brutal passion had been aroused. The fierce border blood boiled within his heart. Unmasked he showed himself in his true colors a frontier desperado. His eyes gleamed dark and lurid beneath his bent brows and a short, desperate laugh passed his lips.

“I will make you love me, my proud beauty. I shall have you yet, one way or another.”

“Let me go. How dare you touch me!” cried Betty, the hot blood coloring her face. She struck him a stinging blow with her free hand and struggled with all her might to free herself; but she was powerless in his iron grasp. Closer he drew her.

“If it costs me my life I will kiss you for that blow,” he muttered hoarsely.

“Oh, you coward! you ruffian! Release me or I will scream.”

She had opened her lips to call for help when she saw a dark figure cross the threshold. She recognized the tall form of Wetzel. The hunter stood still in the doorway for a second and then with the swiftness of light he sprang forward. The single straightening of his arm sent Miller backward over a bench to the floor with a crashing sound. Miller rose with some difficulty and stood with one hand to his head.

“Lew, don’t draw your knife,” cried Betty as she saw Wetzel’s hand go inside his hunting shirt. She had thrown herself in front of him as Miller got to his feet. With both little hands she clung to the brawny arm of the hunter, but she could not stay it. Wetzel’s hand slipped to his belt.

“For God’s sake, Lew, do not kill him,” implored Betty, gazing horror-stricken at the glittering eyes of the hunter. “You have punished him enough. He only tried to kiss me. I was partly to blame. Put your knife away. Do not shed blood. For my sake, Lew, for my sake!”

When Betty found that she could not hold Wetzel’s arm she threw her arms round his neck and clung to him with all her young strength. No doubt her action averted a tragedy. If Miller had been inclined to draw a weapon then he might have had a good opportunity to use it. He had the reputation of being quick with his knife, and many of his past fights testified that he was not a coward. But he made no effort to attack Wetzel. It was certain that he measured with his eye the distance to the door. Wetzel was not like other men. Irrespective of his wonderful strength and agility there was something about the Indian hunter that terrified all men. Miller shrank before those eyes. He knew that never in all his life of adventure had he been as near death as at that moment. There was nothing between him and eternity but the delicate arms of this frail girl. At a slight wave of the hunter’s hand towards the door he turned and passed out.

“Oh, how dreadful!” cried Betty, dropping upon a bench with a sob of relief. “I am glad you came when you did even though you frightened me more than he did. Promise me that you will not do Miller any further harm. If you had fought it would all have been on my account; one or both of you might have been killed. Don’t look at me so. I do not care for him. I never did. Now that I know him I despise him. He lost his senses and tried to kiss me. I could have killed him myself.”

Wetzel did not answer. Betty had been holding his hand in both her own while she spoke impulsively.

“I understand how difficult it is for you to overlook an insult to me,” she continued earnestly. “But I ask it of you. You are my best friend, almost my brother, and I promise you that if he ever speaks a word to me again that is not what it should be I will tell you.”

“I reckon I’ll let him go, considerin’ how set on it you are.”

“But remember, Lew, that he is revengeful and you must be on the lookout,” said Betty gravely as she recalled the malignant gleam in Miller’s eyes.

“He’s dangerous only like a moccasin snake that hides in the grass.”

“Am I all right? Do I look mussed or — or excited — or anything?” asked Betty.

Lewis smiled as she turned round for his benefit. Her hair was a little awry and the lace at her neck disarranged. The natural bloom had not quite returned to her cheeks. With a look in his eyes that would have mystified Betty for many a day had she but seen it he ran his gaze over the dainty figure. Then reassuring her that she looked as well as ever, he led her into the dance-room.

“So this is Betty Zane. Dear child, kiss me,” said Grandmother Watkins when Wetzel had brought Betty up to her. “Now, let me get a good look at you. Well, well, you are a true Zane. Black hair and eyes; all fire and pride. Child, I knew your father and mother long before you were born. Your father was a fine man but a proud one. And how do you like the frontier? Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” said Betty, smiling brightly at the old lady.

“Well, dearie, have a good time while you can. Life is hard in a pioneer’s cabin. You will not always have the Colonel to look after you. They tell me you have been to some grand school in Philadelphia. Learning is very well, but it will not help you in the cabin of one of these rough men.”

“There is a great need of education in all the pioneers’ homes. I have persuaded brother Eb to have a schoolteacher at the Fort next spring.”

“First teach the boys to plow and the girls to make Johnny cake. How much you favor your brother Isaac. He used to come and see me often. So must you in summertime. Poor lad, I suppose he is dead by this time. I have seen so many brave and good lads go. There now, I did not mean to make you sad,” and the old lady patted Betty’s hand and sighed.

“He often spoke of you and said that I must come with him to see you. Now he is gone,” said Betty.

“Yes, he is gone, Betty, but you must not be sad while you are so young. Wait until you are old like I am. How long have you known Lew Wetzel?”

“All my life. He used to carry me in his arm, when I was a baby. Of course I do not remember that, but as far back as I can go in memory I can see Lew. Oh, the many times he has saved me from disaster! But why do you ask?”

“I think Lew Wetzel cares more for you than for all the world. He is as silent as an Indian, but I am an old woman and I can read men’s hearts. If he could be made to give up his wandering life he would be the best man on the border.”

“Oh, indeed I think you are wrong. Lew does not care for me in that way,” said Betty, surprised and troubled by the old lady’s vehemence.

A loud blast from a hunting-horn directed the attention of all to the platform at the upper end of the hall, where Dan Watkins stood. The fiddlers ceased playing, the dancers stopped, and all looked expectantly. The scene was simple strong, and earnest. The light in the eyes of these maidens shone like the light from the pine cones on the walls. It beamed soft and warm. These fearless sons of the wilderness, these sturdy sons of progress, standing there clasping the hands of their partners and with faces glowing with happiness, forgetful of all save the enjoyment of the moment, were ready to go out on the morrow and battle unto the death for the homes and the lives of their loved ones.

“Friends,” said Dan when the hum of voices had ceased “I never thought as how I’d have to get up here and make a speech to-night or I might have taken to the woods. Howsomever, mother and Susan says as it’s gettin’ late it’s about time we had some supper. Somewhere in the big cake is hid a gold ring. If one of the girls gets it she can keep it as a gift from Susan, and should one of the boys find it he may make a present to his best girl. And in the bargain he gets to kiss Susan. She made some objection about this and said that part of the game didn’t go, but I reckon the lucky young man will decide that for hisself. And now to the festal board.”

Ample justice was done to the turkey, the venison, and the bear meat. Grandmother Watkins’ delicious apple and pumpkin pies for which she was renowned, disappeared as by magic. Likewise the cakes and the sweet cider and the apple butter vanished.

When the big cake had been cut and divided among the guests, Wetzel discovered the gold ring within his share. He presented the ring to Betty, and gave his privilege of kissing Susan to George Reynolds, with the remark: “George, I calkilate Susan would like it better if you do the kissin’ part.” Now it was known to all that George had long been an ardent admirer of Susan’s, and it was suspected that she was not indifferent to him. Nevertheless, she protested that it was not fair. George acted like a man who had the opportunity of his life. Amid uproarious laughter he ran Susan all over the room, and when he caught her he pulled her hands away from her blushing face and bestowed a right hearty kiss on her cheek. To everyone’s surprise and to Wetzel’s discomfiture, Susan walked up to him and saying that as he had taken such an easy way out of it she intended to punish him by kissing him. And so she did. Poor Lewis’ face looked the picture of dismay. Probably he had never been kissed before in his life.

Happy hours speed away on the wings of the wind. The feasting over, the good-byes were spoken, the girls were wrapped in the warm robes, for it was now intensely cold, and soon the horses, eager to start on the long homeward journey, were pulling hard on their bits. On the party’s return trip there was an absence of the hilarity which had prevailed on their coming. The bells were taken off before the sleds left the blockhouse, and the traces and the harness examined and tightened with the caution of men who were apprehensive of danger and who would take no chances.

In winter time the foes most feared by the settlers were the timber wolves. Thousands of these savage beasts infested the wild forest regions which bounded the lonely roads, and their wonderful power of scent and swift and tireless pursuit made a long night ride a thing to be dreaded. While the horses moved swiftly danger from wolves was not imminent; but carelessness or some mishap to a trace or a wheel had been the cause of more than one tragedy.

Therefore it was not remarkable that the drivers of our party breathed a sigh of relief when the top of the last steep hill had been reached. The girls were quiet, and tired out and cold they pressed close to one another; the men were silent and watchful.

When they were half way home and had just reached the outskirts of the Black Forest the keen ear of Wetzel caught the cry of a wolf. It came from the south and sounded so faint that Wetzel believed at first that he had been mistaken. A few moments passed in which the hunter turned his ear to the south. He had about made up his mind that he had only imagined he had heard something when the unmistakable yelp of a wolf came down on the wind. Then another, this time clear and distinct, caused the driver to turn and whisper to Wetzel. The hunter spoke in a low tone and the driver whipped up his horses. From out the depths of the dark woods along which they were riding came a long and mournful howl. It was a wolf answering the call of his mate. This time the horses heard it, for they threw back their ears and increased their speed. The girls heard it, for they shrank closer to the men.

There is that which is frightful in the cry of a wolf. When one is safe in camp before a roaring fire the short, sharp bark of a wolf is startling, and the long howl will make one shudder. It is so lonely and dismal. It makes no difference whether it be given while the wolf is sitting on his haunches near some cabin waiting for the remains of the settler’s dinner, or while he is in full chase after his prey — the cry is equally wild, savage and bloodcurdling.

Betty had never heard it and though she was brave, when the howl from the forest had its answer in another howl from the creek thicket, she slipped her little mittened hand under Wetzel’s arm and looked up at him with frightened eyes.

In half an hour the full chorus of yelps, barks and howls swelled hideously on the air, and the ever increasing pack of wolves could be seen scarcely a hundred yards behind the sleds. The patter of their swiftly flying feet on the snow could be distinctly heard. The slender, dark forms came nearer and nearer every moment. Presently the wolves had approached close enough for the occupants of the sleds to see their shining eyes looking like little balls of green fire. A gaunt beast bolder than the others, and evidently the leader of the pack, bounded forward until he was only a few yards from the last sled. At every jump he opened his great jaws and uttered a quick bark as if to embolden his followers.

Almost simultaneously with the red flame that burst from Wetzel’s rifle came a sharp yelp of agony from the leader. He rolled over and over. Instantly followed a horrible mingling of snarls and barks, and snapping of jaws as the band fought over the body of their luckless comrade.

This short delay gave the advantage to the horses. When the wolves again appeared they were a long way behind. The distance to the fort was now short and the horses were urged to their utmost. The wolves kept up the chase until they reached the creek bridge and the mill. Then they slowed up: the howling became desultory, and finally the dark forms disappeared in the thickets.

CHAPTER VIII.

WINTER DRAGGED BY uneventfully for Betty. Unlike the other pioneer girls, who were kept busy all the time with their mending, and linsey weaving, and household duties, Betty had nothing to divert her but her embroidery and her reading. These she found very tiresome. Her maid was devoted to her and never left a thing undone. Annie was old Sam’s daughter, and she had waited on Betty since she had been a baby. The cleaning or mending or darning — anything in the shape of work that would have helped pass away the monotonous hours for Betty, was always done before she could lift her hand.

During the day she passed hours in her little room, and most of them were dreamed away by her window. Lydia and Alice came over sometimes and whiled away the tedious moments with their bright chatter and merry laughter, their castle-building, and their romancing on heroes and love and marriage as girls always will until the end of time. They had not forgotten Mr. Clarke, but as Betty had rebuked them with a dignity which forbade any further teasing on that score, they had transferred their fun-making to the use of Mr. Miller’s name.

Fearing her brothers’ wrath Betty had not told them of the scene with Miller at the dance. She had learned enough of rough border justice to dread the consequence of such a disclosure. She permitted Miller to come to the house, although she never saw him alone. Miller had accepted this favor gratefully. He said that on the night of the dance he had been a little the worse for Dan Watkins’ strong liquor, and that, together with his bitter disappointment, made him act in the mad way which had so grievously offended her. He exerted himself to win her forgiveness. Betty was always tender-hearted, and though she did not trust him, she said they might still be friends, but that that depended on his respect for her forbearance. Miller had promised he would never refer to the old subject and he had kept his word.

Indeed Betty welcomed any diversion for the long winter evenings. Occasionally some of the young people visited her, and they sang and danced, roasted apples, popped chestnuts, and played games. Often Wetzel and Major McColloch came in after supper. Betty would come down and sing for them, and afterward would coax Indian lore and woodcraft from Wetzel, or she would play checkers with the Major. If she succeeded in winning from him, which in truth was not often, she teased him unmercifully. When Col. Zane and the Major had settled down to their series of games, from which nothing short of Indians could have diverted them, Betty sat by Wetzel. The silent man of the woods, an appellation the hunter had earned by his reticence, talked for Betty as he would for no one else.

One night while Col. Zane, his wife and Betty were entertaining Capt. Boggs and Major McColloch and several of Betty’s girls friends, after the usual music and singing, storytelling became the order of the evening. Little Noah told of the time he had climbed the apple-tree in the yard after a raccoon and got severely bitten.

“One day,” said Noah, “I heard Tige barking out in the orchard and I ran out there and saw a funny little fur ball up in the tree with a black tail and white rings around it. It looked like a pretty cat with a sharp nose. Every time Tige barked the little animal showed his teeth and swelled up his back. I wanted him for a pet. I got Sam to give me a sack and I climbed the tree and the nearer I got to him the farther he backed down the limb. I followed him and put out the sack to put it over his head and he bit me. I fell from the limb, but he fell too and Tige killed him and Sam stuffed him for me.”

“Noah, you are quite a valiant hunter,” said Betty. “Now, Jonathan, remember that you promised to tell me of your meeting with Daniel Boone.”

“It was over on the Muskingong near the mouth of the Sandusky. I was hunting in the open woods along the bank when I saw an Indian. He saw me at the same time and we both treed. There we stood a long time each afraid to change position. Finally I began to act tired and resorted to an old ruse. I put my coon-skin cap on my ramrod and cautiously poked it from behind the tree, expecting every second to hear the whistle of the redskin’s bullet. Instead I heard a jolly voice yell: ‘Hey, young feller, you’ll have to try something better’n that.’ I looked and saw a white man standing out in the open and shaking all over with laughter. I went up to him and found him to be a big strong fellow with an honest, merry face. He said: ‘I’m Boone.’ I was considerably taken aback, especially when I saw he knew I was a white man all the time. We camped and hunted along the river a week and at the Falls of the Muskingong he struck out for his Kentucky home.”

“Here is Wetzel,” said Col. Zane, who had risen and gone to the door. “Now, Betty, try and get Lew to tell us something.”

“Come, Lewis, here is a seat by me,” said Betty. “We have been pleasantly passing the time. We have had bear stories, snake stories, ghost stories — all kinds of tales. Will you tell us one?”

“Lewis, did you ever have a chance to kill a hostile Indian and not take it?” asked Col. Zane.

“Never but once,” answered Lewis.

“Tell us about it. I imagine it will be interesting.”

“Well, I ain’t good at tellin’ things,” began Lewis. “I reckon I’ve seen some strange sights. I kin tell you about the only redskin I ever let off. Three years ago I was takin’ a fall hunt over on the Big Sandy, and I run into a party of Shawnees. I plugged a chief and started to run. There was some good runners and I couldn’t shake ’em in the open country. Comin’ to the Ohio I jumped in and swum across, keepin’ my rifle and powder dry by holdin’ ’em up. I hid in some bulrushes and waited. Pretty soon along comes three Injuns, and when they saw where I had taken to the water they stopped and held a short pow-wow. Then they all took to the water. This was what I was waitin’ for. When they got nearly acrosst I shot the first redskin, and loadin’ quick got a bullet into the others. The last Injun did not sink. I watched him go floatin’ down stream expectin’ every minute to see him go under as he was hurt so bad he could hardly keep his head above water. He floated down a long ways and the current carried him to a pile of driftwood which had lodged against a little island. I saw the Injun crawl up on the drift. I went down stream and by keepin’ the island between me and him I got out to where he was. I pulled my tomahawk and went around the head of the island and found the redskin leanin’ against a big log. He was a young brave and a fine lookin strong feller. He was tryin’ to stop the blood from my bullet-hole in his side. When he saw me he tried to get up, but he was too weak. He smiled, pointed to the wound and said: ‘Deathwind not heap times bad shot.’ Then he bowed his head and waited for the tomahawk. Well, I picked him up and carried him ashore and made a shack by a spring. I staid there with him. When he got well enough to stand a few days’ travel I got him across the river and givin’ him a hunk of deer meat I told him to go, and if I ever saw him again I’d make a better shot.

“A year afterwards I trailed two Shawnees into Wingenund’s camp and got surrounded and captured. The Delaware chief is my great enemy. They beat me, shot salt into my legs, made me run the gauntlet, tied me on the back of a wild mustang. Then they got ready to burn me at the stake. That night they painted my face black and held the usual death dances. Some of the braves got drunk and worked themselves into a frenzy. I allowed I’d never see daylight. I seen that one of the braves left to guard me was the young feller I had wounded the year before. He never took no notice of me. In the gray of the early mornin’ when all were asleep and the other watch dozin’ I felt cold steel between my wrists and my buckskin thongs dropped off. Then my feet were cut loose. I looked round and in the dim light I seen my young brave. He handed me my own rifle, knife and tomahawk, put his finger on his lips and with a bright smile, as if to say he was square with me, he pointed to the east. I was out of sight in a minute.”

“How noble of him!” exclaimed Betty, her eyes all aglow. “He paid his debt to you, perhaps at the price of his life.”

“I have never known an Indian to forget a promise, or a kind action, or an injury,” observed Col. Zane.

“Are the Indians half as bad as they are called?” asked Betty. “I have heard as many stories of their nobility as of their cruelty.”

“The Indians consider that they have been robbed and driven from their homes. What we think hideously inhuman is war to them,” answered Col. Zane.

“When I came here from Fort Pitt I expected to see and fight Indians every day,” said Capt. Boggs. “I have been here at Wheeling for nearly two years and have never seen a hostile Indian. There have been some Indians in the vicinity during that time but not one has shown himself to me. I’m not up to Indian tricks, I know, but I think the last siege must have been enough for them. I don’t believe we shall have any more trouble from them.”

“Captain,” called out Col. Zane, banging his hand on the table. “I’ll bet you my best horse to a keg of gunpowder that you see enough Indians before you are a year older to make you wish you had never seen or heard of the western border.”

“And I’ll go you the same bet,” said Major McColloch.

“You see, Captain, you must understand a little of the nature of the Indian,” continued Col. Zane. “We have had proof that the Delawares and the Shawnees have been preparing for an expedition for months. We shall have another siege some day and to my thinking it will be a longer and harder one than the last. What say you, Wetzel?”

“I ain’t sayin’ much, but I don’t calkilate on goin’ on any long hunts this summer,” answered the hunter.

“And do you think Tarhe, Wingenund, Pipe, Cornplanter, and all those chiefs will unite their forces and attack us?” asked Betty of Wetzel.

“Cornplanter won’t. He has been paid for most of his land and he ain’t so bitter. Tarhe is not likely to bother us. But Pipe and Wingenund and Red Fox — they all want blood.”

“Have you seen these chiefs?” said Betty.

“Yes, I know ’em all and they all know me,” answered the hunter. “I’ve watched over many a trail waitin’ for one of ‘em. If I can ever get a shot at any of ’em I’ll give up Injuns and go farmin’. Good night, Betty.”

“What a strange man is Wetzel,” mused Betty, after the visitors had gone. “Do you know, Eb, he is not at all like any one else. I have seen the girls shudder at the mention of his name and I have heard them say they could not look in his eyes. He does not affect me that way. It is not often I can get him to talk, but sometimes he tells me beautiful thing about the woods; how he lives in the wilderness, his home under the great trees; how every leaf on the trees and every blade of grass has its joy for him as well as its knowledge; how he curls up in his little bark shack and is lulled to sleep by the sighing of the wind through the pine tops. He told me he has often watched the stars for hours at a time. I know there is a waterfall back in the Black Forest somewhere that Lewis goes to, simply to sit and watch the water tumble over the precipice.”

“Wetzel is a wonderful character, even to those who know him only as an Indian slayer and a man who wants no other occupation. Some day he will go off on one of these long jaunts and will never return. That is certain. The day is fast approaching when a man like Wetzel will be of no use in life. Now, he is a necessity. Like Tige he can smell Indians. Betty, I believe Lewis tells you so much and is so kind and gentle toward you because he cares for you.”

“Of course Lew likes me. I know he does and I want him to,” said Betty. “But he does not care as you seem to think. Grandmother Watkins said the same. I am sure both of you are wrong.”

“Did Dan’s mother tell you that? Well, she’s pretty shrewd. It’s quite likely, Betty, quite likely. It seems to me you are not so quick witted as you used to be.”

“Why so?” asked Betty, quickly.

“Well, you used to be different somehow,” said her brother, as he patted her hand.

“Do you mean I am more thoughtful?”

“Yes, and sometimes you seem sad.”

“I have tried to be brave and — and happy,” said Betty, her voice trembling slightly.

“Yes, yes, I know you have, Betty. You have done wonderfully well here in this dead place. But tell me, don’t be angry, don’t you think too much of some one?”

“You have no right to ask me that,” said Betty, flushing and turning away toward the stairway.

“Well, well, child, don’t mind me. I did not mean anything. There, good night, Betty.”

Long after she had gone up-stairs Col. Zane sat by his fireside. From time to time he sighed. He thought of the old Virginia home and of the smile of his mother. It seemed only a few short years since he had promised her that he would take care of the baby sister. How had he kept that promise made when Betty was a little thing bouncing on his knee? It seemed only yesterday. How swift the flight of time! Already Betty was a woman; her sweet, gay girlhood had passed; already a shadow had fallen on her face, the shadow of a secret sorrow.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

March with its blustering winds had departed, and now April’s showers and sunshine were gladdening the hearts of the settlers. Patches of green freshened the slopes of the hills; the lilac bushes showed tiny leaves, and the maple-buds were bursting. Yesterday a blue-bird — surest harbinger of spring — had alighted on the fence-post and had sung his plaintive song. A few more days and the blossoms were out mingling their pink and white with the green; the red-bud, the hawthorne, and the dog-wood were in bloom, checkering the hillsides.

“Bessie, spring is here,” said Col. Zane, as he stood in the doorway. “The air is fresh, the sun shines warm, the birds are singing; it makes me feel good.”

“Yes, it is pleasant to have spring with us again,” answered his wife. “I think, though, that in winter I am happier. In summer I am always worried. I am afraid for the children to be out of my sight, and when you are away on a hunt I am distraught until you are home safe.”

“Well, if the redskins let us alone this summer it will be something new,” he said, laughing. “By the way, Bess, some new people came to the fort last night. They rafted down from the Monongahela settlements. Some of the women suffered considerably. I intend to offer them the cabin on the hill until they can cut the timber and run up a house. Sam said the cabin roof leaked and the chimney smoked, but with a little work I think they can be made more comfortable there than at the block-house.”

“It is the only vacant cabin in the settlement. I can accommodate the women folks here.”

“Well, we’ll see about it. I don’t want you and Betty inconvenienced. I’ll send Sam up to the cabin and have him fix things up a bit and make it more habitable.”

The door opened, admitting Col. Zane’s elder boy. The lad’s face was dirty, his nose was all bloody, and a big bruise showed over his right eye.

“For the land’s sake!” exclaimed his mother. “Look at the boy. Noah, come here. What have you been doing?”

Noah crept close to his mother and grasping her apron with both hands hid his face. Mrs. Zane turned the boy around and wiped his discolored features with a wet towel. She gave him a little shake and said: “Noah, have you been fighting again?”

“Let him go and I’ll tell you about it,” said the Colonel, and when the youngster had disappeared he continued: “Right after breakfast Noah went with me down to the mill. I noticed several children playing in front of Reihart’s blacksmith shop. I went in, leaving Noah outside. I got a plow-share which I had left with Reihart to be repaired. He came to the door with me and all at once he said: ‘look at the kids.’ I looked and saw Noah walk up to a boy and say something to him. The lad was a stranger, and I have no doubt belongs to these new people I told you about. He was bigger than Noah. At first the older boy appeared very friendly and evidently wanted to join the others in their game. I guess Noah did not approve of this, for after he had looked the stranger over he hauled away and punched the lad soundly. To make it short the strange boy gave Noah the worst beating he ever got in his life. I told Noah to come straight to you and confess.”

“Well, did you ever!” ejaculated Mrs. Zane. “Noah is a bad boy. And you stood and watched him fight. You are laughing about it now. Ebenezer Zane, I would not put it beneath you to set Noah to fighting. I know you used to make the little niggers fight. Anyway, it serves Noah right and I hope it will be a lesson to him.”

“I’ll make you a bet, Bessie,” said the Colonel, with another laugh. “I’ll bet you that unless we lock him up, Noah will fight that boy every day or every time he meets him.”

“I won’t bet,” said Mrs. Zane, with a smile of resignation.

“Where’s Betts? I haven’t seen her this morning. I am going over to Short Creek to-morrow or next day, and think I’ll take her with me. You know I am to get a commission to lay out several settlements along the river, and I want to get some work finished at Short Creek this spring. Mrs. Raymer’ll be delighted to have Betty. Shall I take her?”

“By all means. A visit there will brighten her up and do her good.”

“Well, what on earth have you been doing?” cried the Colonel. His remark had been called forth by a charming vision that had entered by the open door. Betty — for it was she — wore a little red cap set jauntily on her black hair. Her linsey dress was crumpled and covered with hayseed.

“I’ve been in the hay-mow,” said Betty, waving a small basket. “For a week that old black hen has circumvented me, but at last I have conquered. I found the nest in the farthest corner under the hay.”

“How did you get up in the loft?” inquired Mrs. Zane.

“Bessie, I climbed up the ladder of course. I acknowledge being unusually light-hearted and happy this morning, but I have not as yet grown wings. Sam said I could not climb up that straight ladder, but I found it easy enough.”

“You should not climb up into the loft,” said Mrs. Zane, in a severe tone. “Only last fall Hugh Bennet’s little boy slid off the hay down into one of the stalls and the horse kicked him nearly to death.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks, Bessie, I am not a baby,” said Betty, with vehemence. “There is not a horse in the barn but would stand on his hind legs before he would step on me, let alone kick me.”

“I don’t know, Betty, but I think that black horse Mr. Clarke left here would kick any one,” remarked the Colonel.

“Oh, no, he would not hurt me.”

“Betty, we have had pleasant weather for about three days,” said the Colonel, gravely. “In that time you have let out that crazy bear of yours to turn everything topsy-turvy. Only yesterday I got my hands in the paint you have put on your canoe. If you had asked my advice I would have told you that painting your canoe should not have been done for a month yet. Silas told me you fell down the creek hill; Sam said you tried to drive his team over the bluff, and so on. We are happy to see you get back your old time spirits, but could you not be a little more careful? Your versatility is bewildering. We do not know what to look for next. I fully expect to see you brought to the house some day maimed for life, or all that beautiful black hair gone to decorate some Huron’s lodge.”

“I tell you I am perfectly delighted that the weather is again so I can go out. I am tired to death of staying indoors. This morning I could have cried for very joy. Bessie will soon be lecturing me about Madcap. I must not ride farther than the fort. Well, I don’t care. I intend to ride all over.”

“Betty, I do not wish you to think I am lecturing you,” said the Colonel’s wife. “But you are as wild as a March hare and some one must tell you things. Now listen. My brother, the Major, told me that Simon Girty, the renegade, had been heard to say that he had seen Eb Zane’s little sister and that if he ever got his hands on her he would make a squaw of her. I am not teasing you. I am telling you the truth. Girty saw you when you were at Fort Pitt two years ago. Now what would you do if he caught you on one of your lonely rides and carried you off to his wigwam? He has done things like that before. James Girty carried off one of the Johnson girls. Her brothers tried to rescue her and lost their lives. It is a common trick of the Indians.”

“What would I do if Mr. Simon Girty tried to make a squaw of me?” exclaimed Betty, her eyes flashing fire. “Why, I’d kill him!”

“I believe it, Betts, on my word I do,” spoke up the Colonel. “But let us hope you may never see Girty. All I ask is that you be careful. I am going over to Short Creek to-morrow. Will you go with me? I know Mrs. Raymer will be pleased to see you.”

“Oh, Eb, that will be delightful!”

“Very well, get ready and we shall start early in the morning.”

Two weeks later Betty returned from Short Creek and seemed to have profited much by her short visit. Col. Zane remarked with satisfaction to his wife that Betty had regained all her former cheerfulness.

The morning after Betty’s return was a perfect spring morning — the first in that month of May-days. The sun shone bright and warm; the mayflowers blossomed; the trailing arbutus scented the air; everywhere the grass and the leaves looked fresh and green; swallows flitted in and out of the barn door; the blue-birds twittered; a meadow-lark caroled forth his pure melody, and the busy hum of bees came from the fragrant apple-blossoms.

“Mis’ Betty, Madcap ‘pears powerfo’ skittenish,” said old Sam, when he had led the pony to where Betty stood on the hitching block. “Whoa, dar, you rascal.”

Betty laughed as she leaped lightly into the saddle, and soon she was flying over the old familiar road, down across the creek bridge, past the old grist-mill, around the fort and then out on the river bluff. The Indian pony was fiery and mettlesome. He pranced and side-stepped, galloped and trotted by turns. He seemed as glad to get out again into the warm sunshine as was Betty herself. He tore down the road a mile at his best speed. Coming back Betty pulled him into a walk. Presently her musings were interrupted by a sharp switch in the face from a twig of a tree. She stopped the pony and broke off the offending branch. As she looked around the recollection of what had happened to her in that very spot flashed into her mind. It was here that she had been stopped by the man who had passed almost as swiftly out of her life as he had crossed her path that memorable afternoon. She fell to musing on the old perplexing question. After all could there not have been some mistake? Perhaps she might have misjudged him? And then the old spirit, which resented her thinking of him in that softened mood, rose and fought the old battle over again. But as often happened the mood conquered, and Betty permitted herself to sink for the moment into the sad thoughts which returned like a mournful strain of music once sung by beloved voices, now forever silent.

She could not resist the desire to ride down to the old sycamore. The pony turned into the bridle-path that led down the bluff and the sure-footed beast picked his way carefully over the roots and stones. Betty’s heart beat quicker when she saw the noble tree under whose spreading branches she had spent the happiest day of her life. The old monarch of the forest was not one whit changed by the wild winds of winter. The dew sparkled on the nearly full grown leaves; the little sycamore balls were already as large as marbles.

Betty drew rein at the top of the bank and looked absently at the tree and into the foam covered pool beneath. At that moment her eyes saw nothing physical. They held the faraway light of the dreamer, the look that sees so much of the past and nothing of the present.

Presently her reflections were broken by the actions of the pony. Madcap had thrown up her head, laid back her ears and commenced to paw the ground with her forefeet. Betty looked round to see the cause of Madcap’s excitement. What was that! She saw a tall figure clad in brown leaning against the stone. She saw a long fishing-rod. What was there so familiar in the poise of that figure? Madcap dislodged a stone from the path and it went rattling down the rock, slope and fell with a splash into the water. The man heard it, turned and faced the hillside. Betty recognized Alfred Clarke. For a moment she believed she must be dreaming. She had had many dreams of the old sycamore. She looked again. Yes, it was he. Pale, worn, and older he undoubtedly looked, but the features were surely those of Alfred Clarke. Her heart gave a great bound and then seemed to stop beating while a very agony of joy surged over her and made her faint. So he still lived. That was her first thought, glad and joyous, and then memory returning, her face went white as with clenched teeth she wheeled Madcap and struck her with the switch. Once on the level bluff she urged her toward the house at a furious pace.

Col. Zane had just stepped out of the barn door and his face took on an expression of amazement when he saw the pony come tearing up the road, Betty’s hair flying in the wind and with a face as white as if she were pursued by a thousand yelling Indians.

“Say, Betts, what the deuce is wrong?” cried the Colonel, when Betty reached the fence.

“Why did you not tell me that man was here again?” she demanded in intense excitement.

“That man! What man?” asked Col. Zane, considerably taken back by this angry apparition.

“Mr. Clarke, of course. Just as if you did not know. I suppose you thought it a fine opportunity for one of your jokes.”

“Oh, Clarke. Well, the fact is I just found it out myself. Haven’t I been away as well as you? I certainly cannot imagine how any man could create such evident excitement in your mind. Poor Clarke, what has he done now?”

“You might have told me. Somebody could have told me and saved me from making a fool of myself,” retorted Betty, who was plainly on the verge of tears. “I rode down to the old sycamore tree and he saw me in, of all the places in the world, the one place where I would not want him to see me.”

“Huh!” said the Colonel, who often gave vent to the Indian exclamation. “Is that all? I thought something had happened.”

“All! Is it not enough? I would rather have died. He is a man and he will think I followed him down there, that I was thinking of — that — Oh!” cried Betty, passionately, and then she strode into the house, slammed the door, and left the Colonel, lost in wonder.

“Humph! These women beat me. I can’t make them out, and the older I grow the worse I get,” he said, as he led the pony into the stable.

Betty ran up-stairs to her room, her head in a whirl stronger than the surprise of Alfred’s unexpected appearance in Fort Henry and stronger than the mortification in having been discovered going to a spot she should have been too proud to remember was the bitter sweet consciousness that his mere presence had thrilled her through and through. It hurt her and made her hate herself in that moment. She hid her face in shame at the thought that she could not help being glad to see the man who had only trifled with her, the man who had considered the acquaintance of so little consequence that he had never taken the trouble to write her a line or send her a message. She wrung her trembling hands. She endeavored to still that throbbing heart and to conquer that sweet vague feeling which had crept over her and made her weak. The tears began to come and with a sob she threw herself on the bed and buried her head in the pillow.

An hour after, when Betty had quieted herself and had seated herself by the window a light knock sounded on the door and Col. Zane entered. He hesitated and came in rather timidly, for Betty was not to be taken liberties with, and seeing her by the window he crossed the room and sat down by her side.

Betty did not remember her father or her mother. Long ago when she was a child she had gone to her brother, laid her head on his shoulder and told him all her troubles. The desire grew strong within her now. There was comfort in the strong clasp of his hand. She was not proof against it, and her dark head fell on his shoulder.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Alfred Clarke had indeed made his reappearance in Fort Henry. The preceding October when he left the settlement to go on the expedition up the Monongahela River his intention had been to return to the fort as soon as he had finished his work, but what he did do was only another illustration of that fatality which affects everything. Man hopefully makes his plans and an inexorable destiny works out what it has in store for him.

The men of the expedition returned to Fort Henry in due time, but Alfred had been unable to accompany them. He had sustained a painful injury and had been compelled to go to Fort Pitt for medical assistance. While there he had received word that his mother was lying very ill at his old home in Southern Virginia and if he wished to see her alive he must not delay in reaching her bedside. He left Fort Pitt at once and went to his home, where he remained until his mother’s death. She had been the only tie that bound him to the old home, and now that she was gone he determined to leave the scene of his boyhood forever.

Alfred was the rightful heir to all of the property, but an unjust and selfish stepfather stood between him and any contentment he might have found there. He decided he would be a soldier of fortune. He loved the daring life of a ranger, and preferred to take his chances with the hardy settlers on the border rather than live the idle life of a gentleman farmer. He declared his intention to his step-father, who ill-concealed his satisfaction at the turn affairs had taken. Then Alfred packed his belongings, secured his mother’s jewels, and with one sad, backward glance rode away from the stately old mansion.

It was Sunday morning and Clarke had been two days in Fort Henry. From his little room in the block-house he surveyed the well-remembered scene. The rolling hills, the broad river, the green forests seemed like old friends.

“Here I am again,” he mused. “What a fool a man can be. I have left a fine old plantation, slaves, horses, a country noted for its pretty women — for what? Here there can be nothing for me but Indians, hard work, privation, and trouble. Yet I could not get here quickly enough. Pshaw! What use to speak of the possibilities of a new country. I cannot deceive myself. It is she. I would walk a thousand miles and starve myself for months just for one glimpse of her sweet face. Knowing this what care I for all the rest. How strange she should ride down to the old sycamore tree yesterday the moment I was there and thinking of her. Evidently she had just returned from her visit. I wonder if she ever cared. I wonder if she ever thinks of me. Shall I accept that incident as a happy augury? Well, I am here to find out and find out I will. Aha! there goes the church bell.”

Laughing a little at his eagerness he brushed his coat, put on his cap and went down stairs. The settlers with their families were going into the meeting house. As Alfred started up the steps he met Lydia Boggs.

“Why, Mr. Clarke, I heard you had returned,” she said, smiling pleasantly and extending her hand. “Welcome to the fort. I am very glad to see you.”

While they were chatting her father and Col. Zane came up and both greeted the young man warmly.

“Well, well, back on the frontier,” said the Colonel, in his hearty way. “Glad to see you at the fort again. I tell you, Clarke, I have taken a fancy to that black horse you left me last fall. I did not know what to think when Jonathan brought back my horse. To tell you the truth I always looked for you to come back. What have you been doing all winter?”

“I have been at home. My mother was ill all winter and she died in April.”

“My lad, that’s bad news. I am sorry,” said Col. Zane putting his hand kindly on the young man’s shoulder. “I was wondering what gave you that older and graver look. It’s hard, lad, but it’s the way of life.”

“I have come back to get my old place with you, Col. Zane, if you will give it to me.”

“I will, and can promise you more in the future. I am going to open a road through to Maysville, Kentucky, and start several new settlements along the river. I will need young men, and am more than glad you have returned.”

“Thank you, Col. Zane. That is more than I could have hoped for.”

Alfred caught sight of a trim figure in a gray linsey gown coming down the road. There were several young people approaching, but he saw only Betty. By some evil chance Betty walked with Ralfe Miller, and for some mysterious reason, which women always keep to themselves, she smiled and looked up into his face at a time of all times she should not have done so. Alfred’s heart turned to lead.

When the young people reached the steps the eyes of the rivals met for one brief second, but that was long enough for them to understand each other. They did not speak. Lydia hesitated and looked toward Betty.

“Betty, here is—” began Col. Zane, but Betty passed them with flaming cheeks and with not so much as a glance at Alfred. It was an awkward moment for him.

“Let us go in,” he said composedly, and they filed into the church.

As long as he lived Alfred Clarke never forgot that hour. His pride kept him chained in his seat. Outwardly he maintained his composure, but inwardly his brain seemed throbbing, whirling, bursting. What an idiot he had been! He understood now why his letter had never been answered. Betty loved Miller, a man who hated him, a man who would leave no stone unturned to destroy even a little liking which she might have felt for him. Once again Miller had crossed his path and worsted him. With a sudden sickening sense of despair he realized that all his fond hopes had been but dreams, a fool’s dreams. The dream of that moment when he would give her his mother’s jewels, the dream of that charming face uplifted to his, the dream of the little cottage to which he would hurry after his day’s work and find her waiting at the gate, — these dreams must be dispelled forever. He could barely wait until the end of the service. He wanted to be alone; to fight it out with himself; to crush out of his heart that fair image. At length the hour ended and he got out before the congregation and hurried to his room.

Betty had company all that afternoon and it was late in the day when Col. Zane ascended the stairs and entered her room to find her alone.

“Betty, I wish to know why you ignored Mr. Clarke this morning?” said Col. Zane, looking down on his sister. There was a gleam in his eye and an expression about his mouth seldom seen in the Colonel’s features.

“I do not know that it concerns any one but myself,” answered Betty quickly, as her head went higher and her eyes flashed with a gleam not unlike that in her brother’s.

“I beg your pardon. I do not agree with you,” replied Col. Zane. “It does concern others. You cannot do things like that in this little place where every one knows all about you and expect it to pass unnoticed. Martin’s wife saw you cut Clarke and you know what a gossip she is. Already every one is talking about you and Clarke.”

“To that I am indifferent.”

“But I care. I won’t have people talking about you,” replied the Colonel, who began to lose patience. Usually he had the best temper imaginable. “Last fall you allowed Clarke to pay you a good deal of attention and apparently you were on good terms when he went away. Now that he has returned you won’t even speak to him. You let this fellow Miller run after you. In my estimation Miller is not to be compared to Clarke, and judging from the warm greetings I saw Clarke receive this morning, there are a number of folk who agree with me. Not that I am praising Clarke. I simply say this because to Bessie, to Jack, to everyone, your act is incomprehensible. People are calling you a flirt and saying that they would prefer some country manners.”

“I have not allowed Mr. Miller to run after me, as you are pleased to term it,” retorted Betty with indignation. “I do not like him. I never see him any more unless you or Bessie or some one else is present. You know that. I cannot prevent him from walking to church with me.”

“No, I suppose not, but are you entirely innocent of those sweet glances which you gave him this morning?”

“I did not,” cried Betty with an angry blush. “I won’t be called a flirt by you or by anyone else. The moment I am civil to some man all these old maids and old women say I am flirting. It is outrageous.”

“Now, Betty, don’t get excited. We are getting from the question. Why are you not civil to Clarke?” asked Col. Zane. She did not answer and after a moment he continued. “If there is anything about Clarke that I do not know and that I should know I want you to tell me. Personally I like the fellow. I am not saying that to make you think you ought to like him because I do. You might not care for him at all, but that would be no good reason for your actions. Betty, in these frontier settlements a man is soon known for his real worth. Every one at the Fort liked Clarke. The youngsters adored him. Jessie liked him very much. You know he and Isaac became good friends. I think he acted like a man to-day. I saw the look Miller gave him. I don’t like this fellow Miller, anyway. Now, I am taking the trouble to tell you my side of the argument. It is not a question of your liking Clarke — that is none of my affair. It is simply that either he is not the man we all think him or you are acting in a way unbecoming a Zane. I do not purpose to have this state of affairs continue. Now, enough of this beating about the bush.”

Betty had seen the Colonel angry more than once, but never with her. It was quite certain she had angered him and she forgot her own resentment. Her heart had warmed with her brother’s praise of Clarke. Then as she remembered the past she felt a scorn for her weakness and such a revulsion of feeling that she cried out passionately:

“He is a trifler. He never cared for me. He insulted me.”

Col. Zane reached for his hat, got up without saying another word and went down stairs.

Betty had not intended to say quite what she had and instantly regretted her hasty words. She called to the Colonel, but he did not answer her, nor return.

“Betty, what in the world could you have said to my husband?” said Mrs. Zane as she entered the room. She was breathless from running up the stairs and her comely face wore a look of concern. “He was as white as that sheet and he stalked off toward the Fort without a word to me.”

“I simply told him Mr. Clarke had insulted me,” answered Betty calmly.

“Great Heavens! Betty, what have you done?” exclaimed Mrs. Zane. “You don’t know Eb when he is angry. He is a big fool over you, anyway. He is liable to kill Clarke.”

Betty’s blood was up now and she said that would not be a matter of much importance.

“When did he insult you?” asked the elder woman, yielding to her natural curiosity.

“It was last October.”

“Pooh! It took you a long time to tell it. I don’t believe it amounted to much. Mr. Clarke did not appear to be the sort of a man to insult anyone. All the girls were crazy about him last year. If he was not all right they would not have been.”

“I do not care if they were. The girls can have him and welcome. I don’t want him. I never did. I am tired of hearing everyone eulogize him. I hate him. Do you hear? I hate him! And I wish you would go away and leave me alone.”

“Well, Betty, all I will say is that you are a remarkable young woman,” answered Mrs. Zane, who saw plainly that Betty’s violent outburst was a prelude to a storm of weeping. “I don’t believe a word you have said. I don’t believe you hate him. There!”

Col. Zane walked straight to the Fort, entered the block-house and knocked on the door of Clarke’s room. A voice bade him come in. He shoved open the door and went into the room. Clarke had evidently just returned from a tramp in the hills, for his garments were covered with burrs and his boots were dusty. He looked tired, but his face was calm.

“Why, Col. Zane! Have a seat. What can I do for you?”

“I have come to ask you to explain a remark of my sister’s.”

“Very well, I am at your service,” answered Alfred slowly lighting his pipe, after which he looked straight into Col. Zane’s face.

“My sister informs me that you insulted her last fall before you left the Fort. I am sure you are neither a liar nor a coward, and I expect you to answer as a man.”

“Col. Zane, I am not a liar, and I hope I am not a coward,” said Alfred coolly. He took a long pull on his pipe and blew a puff of white smoke toward the ceiling.

“I believe you, but I must have an explanation. There is something wrong somewhere. I saw Betty pass you without speaking this morning. I did not like it and I took her to task about it. She then said you had insulted her. Betty is prone to exaggerate, especially when angry, but she never told me a lie in her life. Ever since you pulled Isaac out of the river I have taken an interest in you. That’s why I’d like to avoid any trouble. But this thing has gone far enough. Now be sensible, swallow your pride and let me hear your side of the story.”

Alfred had turned pale at his visitor’s first words. There was no mistaking Col. Zane’s manner. Alfred well knew that the Colonel, if he found Betty had really been insulted, would call him out and kill him. Col. Zane spoke quietly, ever kindly, but there was an undercurrent of intense feeling in his voice, a certain deadly intent which boded ill to anyone who might cross him at that moment. Alfred’s first impulse was a reckless desire to tell Col. Zane he had nothing to explain and that he stood ready to give any satisfaction in his power. But he wisely thought better of this. It struck him that this would not be fair, for no matter what the girl had done the Colonel had always been his friend. So Alfred pulled himself together and resolved to make a clean breast of the whole affair.

“Col. Zane, I do not feel that I owe your sister anything, and what I am going to tell you is simply because you have always been my friend, and I do not want you to have any wrong ideas about me. I’ll tell you the truth and you can be the judge as to whether or not I insulted your sister. I fell in love with her, almost at first sight. The night after the Indians recaptured your brother, Betty and I stood out in the moonlight and she looked so bewitching and I felt so sorry for her and so carried away by my love for her that I yielded to a momentary impulse and kissed her. I simply could not help it. There is no excuse for me. She struck me across the face and ran into the house. I had intended that night to tell her of my love and place my fate in her hands, but, of course, the unfortunate occurrence made that impossible. As I was to leave at dawn next day, I remained up all night, thinking what I ought to do. Finally I decided to write. I wrote her a letter, telling her all and begging her to become my wife. I gave the letter to your slave, Sam, and told him it was a matter of life and death, and not to lose the letter nor fail to give it to Betty. I have had no answer to that letter. Today she coldly ignored me. That is my story, Col. Zane.”

“Well, I don’t believe she got the letter,” said Col. Zane. “She has not acted like a young lady who has had the privilege of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to you. And Sam never had any use for you. He disliked you from the first, and never failed to say something against you.”

“I’ll kill that d — n nigger if he did not deliver that letter,” said Clarke, jumping up in his excitement. “I never thought of that. Good Heaven! What could she have thought of me? She would think I had gone away without a word. If she knew I really loved her she could not think so terribly of me.”

“There is more to be explained, but I am satisfied with your side of it,” said Col. Zane. “Now I’ll go to Sam and see what has become of that letter. I am glad I am justified in thinking of you as I have. I imagine this thing has hurt you and I don’t wonder at it. Maybe we can untangle the problem yet. My advice would be — but never mind that now. Anyway, I’m your friend in this matter. I’ll let you know the result of my talk with Sam.”

“I thought that young fellow was a gentleman,” mused Col. Zane as he crossed the green square and started up the hill toward the cabins. He found the old negro seated on his doorstep.

“Sam, what did you do with a letter Mr. Clarke gave you last October and instructed you to deliver to Betty?”

“I dun recollec’ no lettah, sah,” replied Sam.

“Now, Sam, don’t lie about it. Clarke has just told me that he gave you the letter. What did you do with it?”

“Masse Zane, I ain dun seen no lettah,” answered the old darkey, taking a dingy pipe from his mouth and rolling his eyes at his master.

“If you lie again I will punish you,” said Col. Zane sternly. “You are getting old, Sam, and I would not like to whip you, but I will if you do not find that letter.”

Sam grumbled, and shuffled inside the cabin. Col. Zane heard him rummaging around. Presently he came back to the door and handed a very badly soiled paper to the Colonel.

“What possessed you to do this, Sam? You have always been honest. Your act has caused great misunderstanding and it might have led to worse.”

“He’s one of dem no good Southern white trash; he’s good fer nuttin’,” said Sam. “I saw yo’ sistah, Mis’ Betty, wit him, and I seen she was gittin’ fond of him, and I says I ain’t gwinter have Mis’ Betty runnin’ off wif him. And I’se never gibbin de lettah to her.”

That was all the explanation Sam would vouchsafe, and Col. Zane, knowing it would be useless to say more to the well-meaning but ignorant and superstitious old negro, turned and wended his way back to the house. He looked at the paper and saw that it was addressed to Elizabeth Zane, and that the ink was faded until the letters were scarcely visible.

“What have you there?” asked his wife, who had watched him go up the hill to the negro’s cabin. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that her husband’s face had recovered its usual placid expression.

“It is a little letter for that young fire-brand up stairs, and, I believe it will clear up the mystery. Clarke gave it to Sam last fall and Sam never gave it to Betty.”

“I hope with all my heart it may settle Betty. She worries me to death with her love affairs.”

Col. Zane went up stairs and found the young lady exactly as he had left her. She gave an impatient toss of her head as he entered.

“Well, Madam, I have here something that may excite even your interest.” he said cheerily.

“What?” asked Betty with a start. She flushed crimson when she saw the letter and at first refused to take it from her brother. She was at a loss to understand his cheerful demeanor. He had been anything but pleasant a few moments since.

“Here, take it. It is a letter from Mr. Clarke which you should have received last fall. That last morning he gave this letter to Sam to deliver to you, and the crazy old nigger kept it. However, it is too late to talk of that, only it does seem a great pity. I feel sorry for both of you. Clarke never will forgive you, even if you want him to, which I am sure you do not. I don’t know exactly what is in this letter, but I know it will make you ashamed to think you did not trust him.”

With this parting reproof the Colonel walked out, leaving Betty completely bewildered. The words “too late,” “never forgive,” and “a great pity” rang through her head. What did he mean? She tore the letter open with trembling hands and holding it up to the now fast-waning light, she read

“Dear Betty:

“If you had waited only a moment longer I know you would not have been so angry with me. The words I wanted so much to say choked me and I could not speak them. I love you. I have loved you from the very first moment, that blessed moment when I looked up over your pony’s head to see the sweetest face the sun ever shone on. I’ll be the happiest man on earth if you will say you care a little for me and promise to be my wife.

“It was wrong to kiss you and I beg your forgiveness. Could you but see your face as I saw it last night in the moonlight, I would not need to plead: you would know that the impulse which swayed me was irresistible. In that kiss I gave you my hope, my love, my life, my all. Let it plead for me.

“I expect to return from Ft. Pitt in about six or eight weeks, but I cannot wait until then for your answer.

“With hope I sign myself,

“Yours until death,

“Alfred.”

Betty read the letter through. The page blurred before her eyes; a sensation of oppression and giddiness made her reach out helplessly with both hands. Then she slipped forward and fell on the floor. For the first time in all her young life Betty had fainted. Col. Zane found her lying pale and quiet under the window.

CHAPTER IX.

YANTWAIA, OR, AS he was more commonly called, Cornplanter, was originally a Seneca chief, but when the five war tribes consolidated, forming the historical “Five Nations,” he became their leader. An old historian said of this renowned chieftain: “Tradition says that the blood of a famous white man coursed through the veins of Cornplanter. The tribe he led was originally ruled by an Indian queen of singular power and beauty. She was born to govern her people by the force of her character. Many a great chief importuned her to become his wife, but she preferred to cling to her power and dignity. When this white man, then a very young man, came to the Ohio valley the queen fell in love with him, and Cornplanter was their son.”

Cornplanter lived to a great age. He was a wise counsellor, a great leader, and he died when he was one hundred years old, having had more conceded to him by the white men than any other chieftain. General Washington wrote of him: “The merits of Cornplanter and his friendship for the United States are well known and shall not be forgotten.”

But Cornplanter had not always been a friend to the palefaces. During Dunmore’s war and for years after, he was one of the most vindictive of the savage leaders against the invading pioneers.

It was during this period of Cornplanter’s activity against the whites that Isaac Zane had the misfortune to fall into the great chief’s power.

We remember Isaac last when, lost in the woods, weak from hunger and exposure, he had crawled into a thicket and had gone to sleep. He was awakened by a dog licking his face. He heard Indian voices. He got up and ran as fast as he could, but exhausted as he was he proved no match for his pursuers. They came up with him and seeing that he was unable to defend himself they grasped him by the arms and led him down a well-worn bridle-path.

“D — n poor run. No good legs,” said one of his captors, and at this the other two Indians laughed. Then they whooped and yelled, at which signal other Indians joined them. Isaac saw that they were leading him into a large encampment. He asked the big savage who led him what camp it was, and learned that he had fallen into the hands of Cornplanter.

While being marched through the large Indian village Isaac saw unmistakable indications of war. There was a busy hum on all sides; the squaws were preparing large quantities of buffalo meat, cutting it in long, thin strips, and were parching corn in stone vessels. The braves were cleaning rifles, sharpening tomahawks, and mixing war paints. All these things Isaac knew to be preparations for long marches and for battle. That night he heard speech after speech in the lodge next to the one in which he lay, but they were in an unknown tongue. Later he heard the yelling of the Indians and the dull thud of their feet as they stamped on the ground. He heard the ring of the tomahawks as they were struck into hard wood. The Indians were dancing the war-dance round the war-post. This continued with some little intermission all the four days that Isaac lay in the lodge rapidly recovering his strength. The fifth day a man came into the lodge. He was tall and powerful, his hair fell over his shoulders and he wore the scanty buckskin dress of the Indian. But Isaac knew at once he was a white man, perhaps one of the many French traders who passed through the Indian village.

“Your name is Zane,” said the man in English, looking sharply at Isaac.

“That is my name. Who are you?” asked Isaac in great surprise.

“I am Girty. I’ve never seen you, but I knew Col. Zane and Jonathan well. I’ve seen your sister; you all favor one another.”

“Are you Simon Girty?”

“Yes.”

“I have heard of your influence with the Indians. Can you do anything to get me out of this?”

“How did you happen to git over here? You are not many miles from Wingenund’s Camp,” said Girty, giving Isaac another sharp look from his small black eyes.

“Girty, I assure you I am not a spy. I escaped from the Wyandot village on Mad River and after traveling three days I lost my way. I went to sleep in a thicket and when I awoke an Indian dog had found me. I heard voices and saw three Indians. I got up and ran, but they easily caught me.”

“I know about you. Old Tarhe has a daughter who kept you from bein’ ransomed.”

“Yes, and I wish I were back there. I don’t like the look of things.”

“You are right, Zane. You got ketched at a bad time. The Indians are mad. I suppose you don’t know that Col. Crawford massacred a lot of Indians a few days ago. It’ll go hard with any white man that gits captured. I’m afraid I can’t do nothin’ for you.”

A few words concerning Simon Girty, the White Savage. He had two brothers, James and George, who had been desperadoes before they were adopted by the Delawares, and who eventually became fierce and relentless savages. Simon had been captured at the same time as his brothers, but he did not at once fall under the influence of the unsettled, free-and-easy life of the Indians. It is probable that while in captivity he acquired the power of commanding the Indians’ interest and learned the secret of ruling them — two capabilities few white men ever possessed. It is certain that he, like the noted French-Canadian Joucaire, delighted to sit round the camp fires and to go into the council-lodge and talk to the assembled Indians.

At the outbreak of the revolution Girty was a commissioned officer of militia at Ft. Pitt. He deserted from the Fort, taking with him the Tories McKee and Elliott, and twelve soldiers, and these traitors spread as much terror among the Delaware Indians as they did among the whites. The Delawares had been one of the few peacefully disposed tribes. In order to get them to join their forces with Governor Hamilton, the British commander, Girty declared that Gen. Washington had been killed, that Congress had been dispersed, and that the British were winning all the battles.

Girty spoke most of the Indian languages, and Hamilton employed him to go among the different Indian tribes and incite them to greater hatred of the pioneers. This proved to be just the life that suited him. He soon rose to have a great and bad influence on all the tribes. He became noted for his assisting the Indians in marauds, for his midnight forays, for his scalpings, and his efforts to capture white women, and for his devilish cunning and cruelty.

For many years Girty was the Deathshead of the frontier. The mention of his name alone created terror in any household; in every pioneer’s cabin it made the children cry out in fear and paled the cheeks of the stoutest-hearted wife.

It is difficult to conceive of a white man’s being such a fiend in human guise. The only explanation that can be given is that renegades rage against the cause of their own blood with the fury of insanity rather than with the malignity of a naturally ferocious temper. In justice to Simon Girty it must be said that facts not known until his death showed he was not so cruel and base as believed; that some deeds of kindness were attributed to him; that he risked his life to save Kenton from the stake, and that many of the terrible crimes laid at his door were really committed by his savage brothers.

Isaac Zane suffered no annoyance at the hands of Cornplanter’s braves until the seventh day of his imprisonment. He saw no one except the squaw who brought him corn and meat. On that day two savages came for him and led him into the immense council-lodge of the Five Nations. Cornplanter sat between his right-hand chiefs, Big Tree and Half Town, and surrounded by the other chiefs of the tribes. An aged Indian stood in the center of the lodge and addressed the others. The listening savages sat immovable, their faces as cold and stern as stone masks. Apparently they did not heed the entrance of the prisoner.

“Zane, they’re havin’ a council,” whispered a voice in Isaac’s ear. Isaac turned and recognized Girty. “I want to prepare you for the worst.”

“Is there, then, no hope for me?” asked Isaac.

“I’m afraid not,” continued the renegade, speaking in a low whisper. “They wouldn’t let me speak at the council. I told Cornplanter that killin’ you might bring the Hurons down on him, but he wouldn’t listen. Yesterday, in the camp of the Delawares, I saw Col. Crawford burnt at the stake. He was a friend of mine at Pitt, and I didn’t dare to say one word to the frenzied Indians. I had to watch the torture. Pipe and Wingenund, both old friends of Crawford, stood by and watched him walk round the stake on the red-hot coals five hours.”

Isaac shuddered at the words of the renegade, but did not answer. He had felt from the first that his case was hopeless, and that no opportunity for escape could possibly present itself in such a large encampment. He set his teeth hard and resolved to show the red devils how a white man could die.

Several speeches were made by different chiefs and then an impressive oration by Big Tree. At the conclusion of the speeches, which were in an unknown tongue to Isaac, Cornplanter handed a war-club to Half Town. This chief got up, walked to the end of the circle, and there brought the club down on the ground with a resounding thud. Then he passed the club to Big Tree. In a solemn and dignified manner every chief duplicated Half Town’s performance with the club.

Isaac watched the ceremony as if fascinated. He had seen a war-club used in the councils of the Hurons and knew that striking it on the ground signified war and death.

“White man, you are a killer of Indians,” said Cornplanter in good English. “When the sun shines again you die.”

A brave came forward and painted Isaac’s face black. This Isaac knew to indicate that death awaited him on the morrow. On his way back to his prison-lodge he saw that a war-dance was in progress.

A hundred braves with tomahawks, knives, and mallets in their hands were circling round a post and keeping time to the low music of a muffled drum. Close together, with heads bowed, they marched. At certain moments, which they led up to with a dancing on rigid legs and a stamping with their feet, they wheeled, and uttering hideous yells, started to march in the other direction. When this had been repeated three times a brave stepped from the line, advanced, and struck his knife or tomahawk into the post. Then with a loud voice he proclaimed his past exploits and great deeds in war. The other Indians greeted this with loud yells of applause and a flourishing of weapons. Then the whole ceremony was gone through again.

That afternoon many of the Indians visited Isaac in his lodge and shook their fists at him and pointed their knives at him. They hissed and groaned at him. Their vindictive faces expressed the malignant joy they felt at the expectation of putting him to the torture.

When night came Isaac’s guards laced up the lodge-door and shut him from the sight of the maddened Indians. The darkness that gradually enveloped him was a relief. By and by all was silent except for the occasional yell of a drunken savage. To Isaac it sounded like a long, rolling death-cry echoing throughout the encampment and murdering his sleep. Its horrible meaning made him shiver and his flesh creep. At length even that yell ceased. The watch-dogs quieted down and the perfect stillness which ensued could almost be felt. Through Isaac’s mind ran over and over again the same words. His last night to live! His last night to live! He forced himself to think of other things. He lay there in the darkness of his tent, but he was far away in thought, far away in the past with his mother and brothers before they had come to this bloodthirsty country. His thoughts wandered to the days of his boyhood when he used to drive the sows to the pasture on the hillside, and in his dreamy, disordered fancy he was once more letting down the bars of the gate. Then he was wading in the brook and whacking the green frogs with his stick. Old playmates’ faces, forgotten for years, were there looking at him from the dark wall of his wigwam. There was Andrew’s face; the faces of his other brothers; the laughing face of his sister; the serene face of his mother. As he lay there with the shadow of death over him sweet was the thought that soon he would be reunited with that mother. The images faded slowly away, swallowed up in the gloom. Suddenly a vision appeared to him. A radiant white light illumined the lodge and shone full on the beautiful face of the Indian maiden who had loved him so well. Myeerah’s dark eyes were bright with an undying love and her lips smiled hope.

A rude kick dispelled Isaac’s dreams. A brawny savage pulled him to his feet and pushed him outside of the lodge.

It was early morning. The sun had just cleared the low hills in the east and its red beams crimsoned the edges of the clouds of fog which hung over the river like a great white curtain. Though the air was warm, Isaac shivered a little as the breeze blew softly against his cheek. He took one long look toward the rising sun, toward that east he had hoped to see, and then resolutely turned his face away forever.

Early though it was the Indians were astir and their whooping rang throughout the valley. Down the main street of the village the guards led the prisoner, followed by a screaming mob of squaws and young braves and children who threw sticks and stones at the hated Long Knife.

Soon the inhabitants of the camp congregated on the green oval in the midst of the lodges. When the prisoner appeared they formed in two long lines facing each other, and several feet apart. Isaac was to run the gauntlet — one of the severest of Indian tortures. With the exception of Cornplanter and several of his chiefs, every Indian in the village was in line. Little Indian boys hardly large enough to sling a stone; maidens and squaws with switches or spears; athletic young braves with flashing tomahawks; grim, matured warriors swinging knotted war clubs, — all were there in line, yelling and brandishing their weapons in a manner frightful to behold.

The word was given, and stripped to the waist, Isaac bounded forward fleet as a deer. He knew the Indian way of running the gauntlet. The head of that long lane contained the warriors and older braves and it was here that the great danger lay. Between these lines he sped like a flash, dodging this way and that, running close in under the raised weapons, taking what blows he could on his uplifted arms, knocking this warrior over and doubling that one up with a lightning blow in the stomach, never slacking his speed for one stride, so that it was extremely difficult for the Indians to strike him effectually. Once past that formidable array, Isaac’s gauntlet was run, for the squaws and children scattered screaming before the sweep of his powerful arms.

The old chiefs grunted their approval. There was a bruise on Isaac’s forehead and a few drops of blood mingled with the beads of perspiration. Several lumps and scratches showed on his bare shoulders and arms, but he had escaped any serious injury. This was a feat almost without a parallel in gauntlet running.

When he had been tied with wet buckskin thongs to the post in the center of the oval, the youths, the younger braves, and the squaws began circling round him, yelling like so many demons. The old squaws thrust sharpened sticks, which had been soaked in salt water, into his flesh. The maidens struck him with willows which left red welts on his white shoulders. The braves buried the blades of their tomahawks in the post as near as possible to his head without actually hitting him.

Isaac knew the Indian nature well. To command the respect of the savages was the only way to lessen his torture. He knew that a cry for mercy would only increase his sufferings and not hasten his death, — indeed it would prolong both. He had resolved to die without a moan. He had determined to show absolute indifference to his torture, which was the only way to appeal to the savage nature, and if anything could, make the Indians show mercy. Or, if he could taunt them into killing him at once he would be spared all the terrible agony which they were in the habit of inflicting on their victims.

One handsome young brave twirled a glittering tomahawk which he threw from a distance of ten, fifteen, and twenty feet and every time the sharp blade of the hatchet sank deep into the stake within an inch of Isaac’s head. With a proud and disdainful look Isaac gazed straight before him and paid no heed to his tormentor.

“Does the Indian boy think he can frighten a white warrior?” said Isaac scornfully at length. “Let him go and earn his eagle plumes. The pale face laughs at him.”

The young brave understood the Huron language, for he gave a frightful yell and cast his tomahawk again, this time shaving a lock of hair from Isaac’s head.

This was what Isaac had prayed for. He hoped that one of these glittering hatchets would be propelled less skillfully than its predecessors and would kill him instantly. But the enraged brave had no other opportunity to cast his weapon, for the Indians jeered at him and pushed him from the line.

Other braves tried their proficiency in the art of throwing knives and tomahawks, but their efforts called forth only words of derision from Isaac. They left the weapons sticking in the post until round Isaac’s head and shoulders there was scarcely room for another.

“The White Eagle is tired of boys,” cried Isaac to a chief dancing near. “What has he done that he be made the plaything of children? Let him die the death of a chief.”

The maidens had long since desisted in their efforts to torment the prisoner. Even the hardened old squaws had withdrawn. The prisoner’s proud, handsome face, his upright bearing, his scorn for his enemies, his indifference to the cuts and bruises, and red welts upon his clear white skin had won their hearts.

Not so with the braves. Seeing that the pale face scorned all efforts to make him flinch, the young brave turned to Big Tree. At a command from this chief the Indians stopped their maneuvering round the post and formed a large circle. In another moment a tall warrior appeared carrying an armful of fagots.

In spite of his iron nerve Isaac shuddered with horror. He had anticipated running the gauntlet, having his nails pulled out, powder and salt shot into his flesh, being scalped alive and a host of other Indian tortures, but as he had killed no members of this tribe he had not thought of being burned alive. God, it was too horrible!

The Indians were now quiet. Their songs and dances would break out soon enough. They piled fagot after fagot round Isaac’s feet. The Indian warrior knelt on the ground the steel clicked on the flint; a little shower of sparks dropped on the pieces of punk and then — a tiny flame shot up, and slender little column of blue smoke floated on the air.

Isaac shut his teeth hard and prayed with all his soul for a speedy death.

Simon Girty came hurriedly through the lines of waiting, watching Indians. He had obtained permission to speak to the man of his own color.

“Zane, you made a brave stand. Any other time but this it might have saved you. If you want I’ll get word to your people.” And then bending and placing his mouth close to Isaac’s ear, he whispered, “I did all I could for you, but it must have been too late.”

“Try and tell them at Ft. Henry,” Isaac said simply.

There was a little cracking of dried wood and then a narrow tongue of red flame darted up from the pile of fagots and licked at the buckskin fringe on the prisoner’s legging. At this supreme moment when the attention of all centered on that motionless figure lashed to the stake, and when only the low chanting of the death-song broke the stillness, a long, piercing yell rang out on the quiet morning air. So strong, so sudden, so startling was the break in that almost perfect calm that for a moment afterward there was a silence as of death. All eyes turned to the ridge of rising ground whence that sound had come. Now came the unmistakable thunder of horses’ hoofs pounding furiously on the rocky ground. A moment of paralyzed inaction ensued. The Indians stood bewildered, petrified. Then on that ridge of rising ground stood, silhouetted against the blue sky, a great black horse with arching neck and flying mane. Astride him sat a plumed warrior, who waved his rifle high in the air. Again that shrill screeching yell came floating to the ears of the astonished Indians.

The prisoner had seen that horse and rider before; he had heard that long yell; his heart bounded with hope. The Indians knew that yell; it was the terrible war-cry of the Hurons.

A horse followed closely after the leader, and then another appeared on the crest of the hill. Then came two abreast, and then four abreast, and now the hill was black with plunging horses. They galloped swiftly down the slope and into the narrow street of the village. When the black horse entered the oval the train of racing horses extended to the top of the ridge. The plumes of the riders streamed gracefully on the breeze; their feathers shone; their weapons glittered in the bright sunlight.

Never was there more complete surprise. In the earlier morning the Hurons had crept up to within a rifle shot of the encampment, and at an opportune moment when all the scouts and runners were round the torture-stake, they had reached the hillside from which they rode into the village before the inhabitants knew what had happened. Not an Indian raised a weapon. There were screams from the women and children, a shouted command from Big Tree, and then all stood still and waited.

Thundercloud, the war chief of the Wyandots, pulled his black stallion back on his haunches not twenty feet from the prisoner at the stake. His band of painted devils closed in behind him. Full two hundred strong were they and all picked warriors tried and true. They were naked to the waist. Across their brawny chests ran a broad bar of flaming red paint; hideous designs in black and white covered their faces. Every head had been clean-shaven except where the scalp lock bristled like a porcupine’s quills. Each warrior carried a plumed spear, a tomahawk, and a rifle. The shining heads, with the little tufts of hair tied tightly close to the scalp, were enough to show that these Indians were on the war-path.

From the back of one of the foremost horses a slender figure dropped and darted toward the prisoner at the stake. Surely that wildly flying hair proved this was not a warrior. Swift as a flash of light this figure reached the stake, the blazing fagots scattered right and left; a naked blade gleamed; the thongs fell from the prisoner’s wrists; and the front ranks of the Hurons opened and closed on the freed man. The deliverer turned to the gaping Indians, disclosing to their gaze the pale and beautiful face of Myeerah, the Wyandot Princes.

“Summon your chief,” she commanded.

The tall form of the Seneca chief moved from among the warriors and with slow and measured tread approached the maiden. His bearing fitted the leader of five nations of Indians. It was of one who knew that he was the wisest of chiefs, the hero of a hundred battles. Who dared beard him in his den? Who dared defy the greatest power in all Indian tribes? When he stood before the maiden he folded his arms and waited for her to speak.

“Myeerah claims the White Eagle,” she said.

Cornplanter did not answer at once. He had never seek Myeerah, though he had heard many stories of her loveliness. Now he was face to face with the Indian Princess whose fame had been the theme of many an Indian romance, and whose beauty had been sung of in many an Indian song. The beautiful girl stood erect and fearless. Her disordered garments, torn and bedraggled and stained from the long ride, ill-concealed the grace of her form. Her hair rippled from the uncovered head and fell in dusky splendor over her shoulders; her dark eyes shone with a stern and steady fire: her bosom swelled with each deep breath. She was the daughter of great chiefs; she looked the embodiment of savage love.

“The Huron squaw is brave,” said Cornplanter. “By what right does she come to free my captive?”

“He is an adopted Wyandot.”

“Why does the paleface hide like a fox near the camp of Cornplanter?”

“He ran away. He lost the trail to the Fort on the river.”

“Cornplanter takes prisoners to kill; not to free.”

“If you will not give him up Myeerah will take him,” she answered, pointing to the long line of mounted warriors. “And should harm befall Tarhe’s daughter it will be avenged.”

Cornplanter looked at Thundercloud. Well he knew that chief’s prowess in the field. He ran his eyes over the silent, watching Hurons, and then back to the sombre face of their leader. Thundercloud sat rigid upon his stallion; his head held high; every muscle tense and strong for instant action. He was ready and eager for the fray. He, and every one of his warriors, would fight like a thousand tigers for their Princess — the pride of the proud race of Wyandots. Cornplanter saw this and he felt that on the eve of important marches he dared not sacrifice one of his braves for any reason, much less a worthless pale face; and yet to let the prisoner go galled the haughty spirit of the Seneca chief.

“The Long Knife is not worth the life of one of my dogs,” he said, with scorn in his deep voice. “If Cornplanter willed he could drive the Hurons before him like leaves before the storm. Let Myeerah take the pale face back to her wigwam and there feed him and make a squaw of him. When he stings like a snake in the grass remember the chief’s words. Cornplanter turns on his heel from the Huron maiden who forgets her blood.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When the sun reached its zenith it shone down upon a long line of mounted Indians riding single file along the narrow trail and like a huge serpent winding through the forest and over the plain.

They were Wyandot Indians, and Isaac Zane rode among them. Freed from the terrible fate which had menaced him, and knowing that he was once more on his way to the Huron encampment, he had accepted his destiny and quarreled no more with fate. He was thankful beyond all words for his rescue from the stake.

Coming to a clear, rapid stream, the warriors dismounted and rested while their horses drank thirstily of the cool water. An Indian touched Isaac on the arm and silently pointed toward the huge maple tree under which Thundercloud and Myeerah were sitting. Isaac turned his horse and rode the short distance intervening. When he got near he saw that Myeerah stood with one arm over her pony’s neck. She raised eyes that were weary and sad, which yet held a lofty and noble resolve.

“White Eagle, this stream leads straight to the Fort on the river,” she said briefly, almost coldly. “Follow it, and when the sun reaches the top of yonder hill you will be with your people. Go, you are free.”

She turned her face away. Isaac’s head whirled in his amazement. He could not believe his ears. He looked closely at her and saw that though her face was calm her throat swelled, and the hand which lay over the neck of her pony clenched the bridle in a fierce grasp. Isaac glanced at Thundercloud and the other Indians near by. They sat unconcerned with the invariable unreadable expression.

“Myeerah, what do you mean?” asked Isaac.

“The words of Cornplanter cut deep into the heart of Myeerah,” she answered bitterly. “They were true. The Eagle does not care for Myeerah. She shall no longer keep him in a cage. He is free to fly away.”

“The Eagle does not want his freedom. I love you, Myeerah. You have saved me and I am yours. If you will go home with me and marry me there as my people are married I will go back to the Wyandot village.”

Myeerah’s eyes softened with unutterable love. With a quick cry she was in his arms. After a few moments of forgetfulness Myeerah spoke to Thundercloud and waved her hand toward the west. The chief swung himself over his horse, shouted a single command, and rode down the bank into the water. His warriors followed him, wading their horses into the shallow creek, with never backward look. When the last rider had disappeared in the willows the lovers turned their horses eastward.

CHAPTER X.

IT WAS NEAR the close of a day in early summer. A small group of persons surrounded Col. Zane where he sat on his doorstep. From time to time he took the long Indian pipe from his mouth and blew great clouds of smoke over his head. Major McColloch and Capt. Boggs were there. Silas Zane half reclined on the grass. The Colonel’s wife stood in the door-way, and Betty sat on the lower step with her head leaning against her brother’s knee. They all had grave faces. Jonathan Zane had returned that day after an absence of three weeks, and was now answering the many questions with which he was plied.

“Don’t ask me any more and I’ll tell you the whole thing,” he had just said, while wiping the perspiration from his brow. His face was worn; his beard ragged and unkempt; his appearance suggestive of extreme fatigue. “It was this way: Colonel Crawford had four hundred and eighty men under him, with Slover and me acting as guides. This was a large force of men and comprised soldiers from Pitt and the other forts and settlers from all along the river. You see, Crawford wanted to crush the Shawnees at one blow. When we reached the Sandusky River, which we did after an arduous march, not one Indian did we see. You know Crawford expected to surprise the Shawnee camp, and when he found it deserted he didn’t know what to do. Slover and I both advised an immediate retreat. Crawford would not listen to us. I tried to explain to him that ever since the Guadenhutten massacre keen-eyed Indian scouts had been watching the border. The news of the present expedition had been carried by fleet runners to the different Indian tribes and they were working like hives of angry bees. The deserted Shawnee village meant to me that the alarm had been sounded in the towns of the Shawnees and the Delawares; perhaps also in the Wyandot towns to the north. Colonel Crawford was obdurate and insisted on resuming the march into the Indian country. The next day we met the Indians coming directly toward us. It was the combined force of the Delaware chiefs, Pipe and Wingenund. The battle had hardly commenced when the redskins were reinforced by four hundred warriors under Shanshota, the Huron chief. The enemy skulked behind trees and rocks, hid in ravines, and crawled through the long grass. They could be picked off only by Indian hunters, of whom Crawford had but few — probably fifty all told. All that day we managed to keep our position, though we lost sixty men. That night we lay down to rest by great fires which we built, to prevent night surprises.

“Early next morning we resumed the fight. I saw Simon Girty on his white horse. He was urging and cheering the Indians on to desperate fighting. Their fire became so deadly that we were forced to retreat. In the afternoon Slover, who had been out scouting, returned with the information that a mounted force was approaching, and that he believed they were the reinforcements which Col. Crawford expected. The reinforcements came up and proved to be Butler’s British rangers from Detroit. This stunned Crawford’s soldiers. The fire of the enemy became hotter and hotter. Our men were falling like leaves around us. They threw aside their rifles and ran, many of them right into the hands of the savages. I believe some of the experienced bordermen escaped but most of Crawford’s force met death on the field. I hid in a hollow log. Next day when I felt that it could be done safely I crawled out. I saw scalped and mutilated bodies everywhere, but did not find Col. Crawford’s body. The Indians had taken all the clothing, weapons, blankets and everything of value. The Wyandots took a northwest trail and the Delawares and the Shawnees traveled east. I followed the latter because their trail led toward home. Three days later I stood on the high bluff above Wingenund’s camp. From there I saw Col. Crawford tied to a stake and a fire started at his feet. I was not five hundred yards from the camp. I saw the war chiefs, Pipe and Wingenund; I saw Simon Girty and a British officer in uniform. The chiefs and Girty were once Crawford’s friends. They stood calmly by and watched the poor victim slowly burn to death. The Indians yelled and danced round the stake; they devised every kind of hellish torture. When at last an Indian ran in and tore off the scalp of the still living man I could bear to see no more, and I turned and ran. I have been in some tough places, but this last was the worst.”

“My God! it is awful — and to think that man Girty was once a white man,” cried Col. Zane.

“He came very near being a dead man,” said Jonathan, with grim humor. “I got a long shot at him and killed his big white horse.”

“It’s a pity you missed him,” said Silas Zane.

“Here comes Wetzel. What will he say about the massacre?” remarked Major McColloch.

Wetzel joined the group at that moment and shook hands with Jonathan. When interrogated about the failure of Col. Crawford’s expedition Wetzel said that Slover had just made his appearance at the cabin of Hugh Bennet, and that he was without clothing and almost dead from exposure.

“I’m glad Slover got out alive. He was against the march all along. If Crawford had listened to us he would have averted this terrible affair and saved his own life. Lew, did Slover know how many men got out?” asked Jonathan.

“He said not many. The redskins killed all the prisoners exceptin’ Crawford and Knight.”

“I saw Col. Crawford burned at the stake. I did not see Dr. Knight. Maybe they murdered him before I reached the camp of the Delawares,” said Jonathan.

“Wetzel, in your judgment, what effect will this massacre and Crawford’s death have on the border?” inquired Col. Zane.

“It means another bloody year like 1777,” answered Wetzel.

“We are liable to have trouble with the Indians any day. You mean that.”

“There’ll be war all along the river. Hamilton is hatchin’ some new devil’s trick with Girty. Col. Zane, I calkilate that Girty has a spy in the river settlements and knows as much about the forts and defense as you do.”

“You can’t mean a white spy.”

“Yes, just that.”

“That is a strong assertion, Lewis, but coming from you it means something. Step aside here and explain yourself,” said Col. Zane, getting up and walking out to the fence.

“I don’t like the looks of things,” said the hunter. “A month ago I ketched this man Miller pokin’ his nose round the block-house where he hadn’t ought to be. And I kep’ watchin’ him. If my suspicions is correct he’s playin’ some deep game. I ain’t got any proof, but things looks bad.”

“That’s strange, Lewis,” said Col. Zane soberly. “Now that you mention it I remember Jonathan said he met Miller near the Kanawha three weeks ago. That was when Crawford’s expedition was on the way to the Shawnee villages. The Colonel tried to enlist Miller, but Miller said he was in a hurry to get back to the Fort. And he hasn’t come back yet.”

“I ain’t surprised. Now, Col. Zane, you are in command here. I’m not a soldier and for that reason I’m all the better to watch Miller. He won’t suspect me. You give me authority and I’ll round up his little game.”

“By all means, Lewis. Go about it your own way, and report anything to me. Remember you may be mistaken and give Miller the benefit of the doubt. I don’t like the fellow. He has a way of appearing and disappearing, and for no apparent reason, that makes me distrust him. But for Heaven’s sake, Lew, how would he profit by betraying us?”

“I don’t know. All I know is he’ll bear watchin’.”

“My gracious, Lew Wetzel!” exclaimed Betty as her brother and the hunter rejoined the others. “Have you come all the way over here without a gun? And you have on a new suit of buckskin.”

Lewis stood a moment by Betty, gazing down at her with his slight smile. He looked exceedingly well. His face was not yet bronzed by summer suns. His long black hair, of which he was as proud as a woman could have been, and of which he took as much care as he did of his rifle, waved over his shoulders.

“Betty, this is my birthday, but that ain’t the reason I’ve got my fine feathers on. I’m goin’ to try and make an impression on you,” replied Lewis, smiling.

“I declare, this is very sudden. But you have succeeded. Who made the suit? And where did you get all that pretty fringe and those beautiful beads?”

“That stuff I picked up round an Injun camp. The suit I made myself.”

“I think, Lewis, I must get you to help me make my new gown,” said Betty, roguishly.

“Well, I must be getting’ back,” said Wetzel, rising.

“Oh, don’t go yet. You have not talked to me at all,” said Betty petulantly. She walked to the gate with him.

“What can an Injun hunter say to amuse the belle of the border?”

“I don’t want to be amused exactly. I mean I’m not used to being unnoticed, especially by you.” And then in a lower tone she continued: “What did you mean about Mr. Miller? I heard his name and Eb looked worried. What did you tell him?”

“Never mind now, Betty. Maybe I’ll tell you some day. It’s enough for you to know the Colonel don’t like Miller and that I think he is a bad man. You don’t care nothin’ for Miller, do you Betty?”

“Not in the least.”

“Don’t see him any more, Betty. Good-night, now, I must be goin’ to supper.”

“Lew, stop! or I shall run after you.”

“And what good would your runnin’ do?” said Lewis “You’d never ketch me. Why, I could give you twenty paces start and beat you to yon tree.”

“You can’t. Come, try it,” retorted Betty, catching hold of her skirt. She could never have allowed a challenge like that to pass.

“Ha! ha! We are in for a race, Betty. if you beat him, start or no start, you will have accomplished something never done before,” said Col. Zane.

“Come, Silas, step off twenty paces and make them long ones,” said Betty, who was in earnest.

“We’ll make it forty paces,” said Silas, as he commenced taking immense strides.

“What is Lewis looking at?” remarked Col. Zane’s wife.

Wetzel, in taking his position for the race, had faced the river. Mrs. Zane had seen him start suddenly, straighten up and for a moment stand like a statue. Her exclamation drew he attention of the others to the hunter.

“Look!” he cried, waving his hand toward the river.

“I declare, Wetzel, you are always seeing something. Where shall I look? Ah, yes, there is a dark form moving along the bank. By jove! I believe it’s an Indian,” said Col. Zane.

Jonathan darted into the house. When he reappeared second later he had three rifles.

“I see horses, Lew. What do you make out?” said Jonathan. “It’s a bold manoeuvre for Indians unless they have a strong force.”

“Hostile Injuns wouldn’t show themselves like that. Maybe they ain’t redskins at all. We’ll go down to the bluff.”

“Oh, yes, let us go,” cried Betty, walking down the path toward Wetzel.

Col. Zane followed her, and presently the whole party were on their way to the river. When they reached the bluff they saw two horses come down the opposite bank and enter the water. Then they seemed to fade from view. The tall trees cast a dark shadow over the water and the horses had become lost in this obscurity. Col. Zane and Jonathan walked up and down the bank seeking to find a place which afforded a clearer view of the river.

“There they come,” shouted Silas.

“Yes, I see them just swimming out of the shadow,” said Col. Zane. “Both horses have riders. Lewis, what can you make out?”

“It’s Isaac and an Indian girl,” answered Wetzel.

This startling announcement created a commotion in the little group. It was followed by a chorus of exclamations.

“Heavens! Wetzel, you have wonderful eyes. I hope to God you are right. There, I see the foremost rider waving his hand,” cried Col. Zane.

“Oh, Bessie, Bessie! I believe Lew is right. Look at Tige,” said Betty excitedly.

Everybody had forgotten the dog. He had come down the path with Betty and had pressed close to her. First he trembled, then whined, then with a loud bark he ran down the bank and dashed into the water.

“Hel-lo, Betts,” came the cry across the water. There was no mistaking that clear voice. It was Isaac’s.

Although the sun had long gone down behind the hills daylight lingered. It was bright enough for the watchers to recognize Isaac Zane. He sat high on his horse and in his hand he held the bridle of a pony that was swimming beside him. The pony bore the slender figure of a girl. She was bending forward and her hands were twisted in the pony’s mane.

By this time the Colonel and Jonathan were standing in the shallow water waiting to grasp the reins and lead the horses up the steep bank. Attracted by the unusual sight of a wildly gesticulating group on the river bluff, the settlers from the Fort hurried down to the scene of action. Capt. Boggs and Alfred Clarke joined the crowd. Old Sam came running down from the barn. All were intensely excited and Col. Zane and Jonathan reached for the bridles and led the horses up the slippery incline.

“Eb, Jack, Silas, here I am alive and well,” cried Isaac as he leaped from his horse. “Betty, you darling, it’s Isaac. Don’t stand staring as if I were a ghost.”

Whereupon Betty ran to him, flung her arms around his neck and clung to him. Isaac kissed her tenderly and disengaged himself from her arms.

“You’ll get all wet. Glad to see me? Well, I never had such a happy moment in my life. Betty, I have brought you home one whom you must love. This is Myeerah, your sister. She is wet and cold. Take her home and make her warm and comfortable. You must forget all the past, for Myeerah has saved me from the stake.”

Betty had forgotten the other. At her brother’s words she turned and saw a slender form. Even the wet, mud-stained and ragged Indian costume failed to hide the grace of that figure. She saw a beautiful face, as white as her own, and dark eyes full of unshed tears.

“The Eagle is free,” said the Indian girl in her low, musical voice.

“You have brought him home to us. Come,” said Betty taking the hand of the trembling maiden.

The settlers crowded round Isaac and greeted him warmly while they plied him with innumerable questions. Was he free? Who was the Indian girl? Had he run off with her? Were the Indians preparing for war?

On the way to the Colonel’s house Isaac told briefly of his escape from the Wyandots, of his capture by Cornplanter, and of his rescue. He also mentioned the preparations for war he had seen in Cornplanter’s camp, and Girty’s story of Col. Crawford’s death.

“How does it come that you have the Indian girl with you?” asked Col. Zane as they left the curious settlers and entered the house.

“I am going to marry Myeerah and I brought her with me for that purpose. When we are married I will go back to the Wyandots and live with them until peace is declared.”

“Humph! Will it be declared?”

“Myeerah has promised it, and I believe she can bring it about, especially if I marry her. Peace with the Hurons may help to bring about peace with the Shawnees. I shall never cease to work for that end; but even if peace cannot be secured, my duty still is to Myeerah. She saved me from a most horrible death.”

“If your marriage with this Indian girl will secure the friendly offices of that grim old warrior Tarhe, it is far more than fighting will ever do. I do not want you to go back. Would we ever see you again?”

“Oh, yes, often I hope. You see, if I marry Myeerah the Hurons will allow me every liberty.”

“Well, that puts a different light on the subject.”

“Oh, how I wish you and Jonathan could have seen Thundercloud and his two hundred warriors ride into Cornplanter’s camp. It was magnificent! The braves were all crowded near the stake where I was bound. The fire had been lighted. Suddenly the silence was shattered by an awful yell. It was Thundercloud’s yell. I knew it because I had heard it before, and anyone who had once heard that yell could never forget it. In what seemed an incredibly short time Thundercloud’s warriors were lined up in the middle of the camp. The surprise was so complete that, had it been necessary, they could have ridden Cornplanter’s braves down, killed many, routed the others, and burned the village. Cornplanter will not get over that surprise in many a moon.”

Betty had always hated the very mention of the Indian girl who had been the cause of her brother’s long absence from home. But she was so happy in the knowledge of his return that she felt that it was in her power to forgive much; more over, the white, weary face of the Indian maiden touched Betty’s warm heart. With her quick intuition she had divined that this was even a greater trial for Myeerah. Undoubtedly the Indian girl feared the scorn of her lover’s people. She showed it in her trembling hands, in her fearful glances.

Finding that Myeerah could speak and understand English, Betty became more interested in her charge every moment. She set about to make Myeerah comfortable, and while she removed the wet and stained garments she talked all the time. She told her how happy she was that Isaac was alive and well. She said Myeerah’s heroism in saving him should atone for all the past, and that Isaac’s family would welcome her in his home.

Gradually Myeerah’s agitation subsided under Betty’s sweet graciousness, and by the time Betty had dressed her in a white gown, had brushed the dark hair and added a bright ribbon to the simple toilet, Myeerah had so far forgotten her fears as to take a shy pleasure in the picture of herself in the mirror. As for Betty, she gave vent to a little cry of delight. “Oh, you are perfectly lovely,” cried Betty. “In that gown no one would know you as a Wyandot princess.”

“Myeerah’s mother was a white woman.”

“I have heard your story, Myeerah, and it is wonderful. You must tell me all about your life with the Indians. You speak my language almost as well as I do. Who taught you?”

“Myeerah learned to talk with the White Eagle. She can speak French with the Coureurs-des-bois.”

“That’s more than I can do, Myeerah. And I had French teacher,” said Betty, laughing.

“Hello, up there,” came Isaac’s voice from below.

“Come up, Isaac,” called Betty.

“Is this my Indian sweetheart?” exclaimed Isaac, stopping at the door. “Betty, isn’t she—”

“Yes,” answered Betty, “she is simply beautiful.”

“Come, Myeerah, we must go down to supper,” said Isaac, taking her in his arms and kissing her. “Now you must not be afraid, nor mind being looked at.”

“Everyone will be kind to you,” said Betty, taking her hand. Myeerah had slipped from Isaac’s arm and hesitated and hung back. “Come,” continued Betty, “I will stay with you, and you need not talk if you do not wish.”

Thus reassured Myeerah allowed Betty to lead her down stairs. Isaac had gone ahead and was waiting at the door.

The big room was brilliantly lighted with pine knots. Mrs. Zane was arranging the dishes on the table. Old Sam and Annie were hurrying to and fro from the kitchen. Col. Zane had just come up the cellar stairs carrying a mouldy looking cask. From its appearance it might have been a powder keg, but the merry twinkle in the Colonel’s eyes showed that the cask contained something as precious, perhaps, as powder, but not quite so dangerous. It was a cask of wine over thirty years old. With Col. Zane’s other effects it had stood the test of the long wagon-train journey over the Virginia mountains, and of the raft-ride down the Ohio. Col. Zane thought the feast he had arranged for Isaac would be a fitting occasion for the breaking of the cask.

Major McCullough, Capt. Boggs and Hugh Bennet had been invited. Wetzel had been persuaded to come. Betty’s friends Lydia and Alice were there.

As Isaac, with an air of pride, led the two girls into the room Old Sam saw them and he exclaimed, “For de Lawd’s sakes, Marsh Zane, dar’s two pippins, sure can’t tell ’em from one anudder.”

Betty and Myeerah did resemble each other. They were of about the same size, tall and slender. Betty was rosy, bright-eyed and smiling; Myeerah was pale one moment and red the next.

“Friends, this is Myeerah, the daughter of Tarhe,” said Isaac simply. “We are to be married to-morrow.”

“Oh, why did you not tell me?” asked Betty in great surprise. “She said nothing about it.”

“You see Myeerah has that most excellent trait in a woman — knowing when to keep silent,” answered Isaac with a smile.

The door opened at this moment, admitting Will Martin and Alfred Clarke.

“Everybody is here now, Bessie, and I guess we may as well sit down to supper,” said Col. Zane. “And, good friends, let me say that this is an occasion for rejoicing. It is not so much a marriage that I mean. That we might have any day if Lydia or Betty would show some of the alacrity which got a good husband for Alice. Isaac is a free man and we expect his marriage will bring about peace with a powerful tribe of Indians. To us, and particularly to you, young people, that is a matter of great importance. The friendship of the Hurons cannot but exert an influence on other tribes. I, myself, may live to see the day that my dream shall be realized — peaceful and friendly relations with the Indians, the freedom of the soil, well-tilled farms and growing settlements, and at last, the opening of this glorious country to the world. Therefore, let us rejoice; let every one be happy; let your gayest laugh ring out, and tell your best story.”

Betty had blushed painfully at the entrance of Alfred and again at the Colonel’s remark. To add to her embarrassment she found herself seated opposite Alfred at the table. This was the first time he had been near her since the Sunday at the meeting-house, and the incident had a singular effect on Betty. She found herself possessed, all at once, of an unaccountable shyness, and she could not lift her eyes from her plate. But at length she managed to steal a glance at Alfred. She failed to see any signs in his beaming face of the broken spirit of which her brother had hinted. He looked very well indeed. He was eating his dinner like any other healthy man, and talking and laughing with Lydia. This developed another unaccountable feeling in Betty, but this time it was resentment. Who ever heard of a man, who was as much in love as his letter said, looking well and enjoying himself with any other than the object of his affections? He had got over it, that was all. Just then Alfred turned and gazed full into Betty’s eyes. She lowered them instantly, but not so quickly that she failed to see in his a reproach.

“You are going to stay with us a while, are you not?” asked Betty of Isaac.

“No, Betts, not more than a day or so. Now, do not look so distressed. I do not go back as a prisoner. Myeerah and I can often come and visit you. But just now I want to get back and try to prevent the Delawares from urging Tarhe to war.”

“Isaac, I believe you are doing the wisest thing possible,” said Capt. Boggs. “And when I look at your bride-to-be I confess I do not see how you remained single so long.”

“That’s so, Captain,” answered Isaac. “But you see, I have never been satisfied or contented in captivity, I wanted nothing but to be free.”

“In other words, you were blind,” remarked Alfred, smiling at Isaac.

“Yes, Alfred, was. And I imagine had you been in my place you would have discovered the beauty and virtue of my Princess long before I did. Nevertheless, please do not favor Myeerah with so many admiring glances. She is not used to it. And that reminds me that I must expect trouble tomorrow. All you fellows will want to kiss her.”

“And Betty is going to be maid of honor. She, too, will have her troubles,” remarked Col. Zane.

“Think of that, Alfred,” said Isaac “A chance to kiss the two prettiest girls on the border — a chance of a lifetime.”

“It is customary, is it not?” said Alfred coolly.

“Yes, it’s a custom, if you can catch the girl,” answered Col. Zane.

Betty’s face flushed at Alfred’s cool assumption. How dared he? In spite of her will she could not resist the power that compelled her to look at him. As plainly as if it were written there, she saw in his steady blue eyes the light of a memory — the memory of a kiss. And Betty dropped her head, her face burning, her heart on fire with shame, and love, and regret.

“It’ll be a good chance for me, too,” said Wetzel. His remark instantly turned attention to himself.

“The idea is absurd,” said Isaac. “Why, Lew Wetzel, you could not be made to kiss any girl.”

“I would not be backward about it,” said Col. Zane.

“You have forgotten the fuss you made when the boys were kissing me,” said Mrs. Zane with a fine scorn.

“My dear,” said Col. Zane, in an aggrieved tone, “I did not make so much of a fuss, as you call it, until they had kissed you a great many times more than was reasonable.”

“Isaac, tell us one thing more,” said Capt. Boggs. “How did Myeerah learn of your capture by Cornplanter? Surely she could not have trailed you?”

“Will you tell us?” said Isaac to Myeerah.

“A bird sang it to me,” answered Myeerah.

“She will never tell, that is certain,” said Isaac. “And for that reason I believe Simon Girty got word to her that I was in the hands of Cornplanter. At the last moment when the Indians were lashing me to the stake Girty came to me and said he must have been too late.”

“Yes, Girty might have done that,” said Col. Zane. “I suppose, though he dared not interfere in behalf of poor Crawford.”

“Isaac, Can you get Myeerah to talk? I love to hear her speak,” said Betty, in an aside.

“Myeerah, will you sing a Huron love-song?” said Isaac “Or, if you do not wish to sing, tell a story. I want them to know how well you can speak our language.”

“What shall Myeerah say?” she said, shyly.

“Tell them the legend of the Standing Stone.”

“A beautiful Indian girl once dwelt in the pine forests,” began Myeerah, with her eyes cast down and her hand seeking Isaac’s. “Her voice was like rippling waters, her beauty like the rising sun. From near and from far came warriors to see the fair face of this maiden. She smiled on them all and they called her Smiling Moon. Now there lived on the Great Lake a Wyandot chief. He was young and bold. No warrior was as great as Tarhe. Smiling Moon cast a spell on his heart. He came many times to woo her and make her his wife. But Smiling Moon said: ‘Go, do great deeds, an come again.’

“Tarhe searched the east and the west. He brought her strange gifts from strange lands. She said: ‘Go and slay my enemies.’ Tarhe went forth in his war paint and killed the braves who named her Smiling Moon. He came again to her and she said: ‘Run swifter than the deer, be more cunning than the beaver, dive deeper than the loon.’

“Tarhe passed once more to the island where dwelt Smiling Moon. The ice was thick, the snow was deep. Smiling Moon turned not from her warm fire as she said: ‘The chief is a great warrior, but Smiling Moon is not easily won. It is cold. Change winter into summer and then Smiling Moon will love him.’

“Tarhe cried in a loud voice to the Great Spirit: ‘Make me a master.’

“A voice out of the forest answered: ‘Tarhe, great warrior, wise chief, waste not thy time, go back to thy wigwam.’

“Tarhe unheeding cried ‘Tarhe wins or dies. Make him a master so that he may drive the ice northward.’

“Stormed the wild tempest; thundered the rivers of ice; chill blew the north wind, the cold northwest wind, against the mild south wind; snow-spirits and hail-spirits fled before the warm raindrops; the white mountains melted, and lo! it was summer.

“On the mountain top Tarhe waited for his bride. Never wearying, ever faithful he watched many years. There he turned to stone. There he stands to-day, the Standing Stone of ages. And Smiling Moon, changed by the Great Spirit into the Night Wind, forever wails her lament at dusk through the forest trees, and moans over the mountain tops.”

Myeerah’s story elicited cheers and praises from all. She was entreated to tell another, but smilingly shook her head. Now that her shyness had worn off to some extent she took great interest in the jest and the general conversation.

Col. Zane’s fine old wine flowed like water. The custom was to fill a guest’s cup as soon as it was empty. Drinking much was rather encouraged than otherwise. But Col. Zane never allowed this custom to go too far in his house.

“Friends, the hour grows late,” he said. “To-morrow, after the great event, we shall have games, shooting matches, running races, and contests of all kinds. Capt. Boggs and I have arranged to give prizes, and I expect the girls can give something to lend a zest to the competition.”

“Will the girls have a chance in these races?” asked Isaac. “If so, I should like to see Betty and Myeerah run.”

“Betty can outrun any woman, red or white, on the border,” said Wetzel. “And she could make some of the men run their level best.”

“Well, perhaps we shall give her one opportunity to-morrow,” observed the Colonel. “She used to be good at running but it seems to me that of late she has taken to books and—”

“Oh, Eb! that is untrue,” interrupted Betty.

Col. Zane laughed and patted his sister’s cheek. “Never mind, Betty,” and then, rising, he continued, “Now let us drink to the bride and groom-to-be. Capt. Boggs, I call on you.”

“We drink to the bride’s fair beauty; we drink to the groom’s good luck,” said Capt. Boggs, raising his cup.

“Do not forget the maid-of-honor,” said Isaac.

“Yes, and the maid-of-honor. Mr. Clarke, will you say something appropriate?” asked Col. Zane.

Rising, Clarke said: “I would be glad to speak fittingly on this occasion, but I do not think I can do it justice. I believe as Col. Zane does, that this Indian Princess is the first link in that chain of peace which will some day unite the red men and the white men. Instead of the White Crane she should be called the White Dove. Gentlemen, rise and drink to her long life and happiness.”

The toast was drunk. Then Clarke refilled his cup and holding it high over his head he looked at Betty.

“Gentlemen, to the maid-of-honor. Miss Zane, your health, your happiness, in this good old wine.”

“I thank you,” murmured Betty with downcast eyes. “I bid you all good-night. Come, Myeerah.”

Once more alone with Betty, the Indian girl turned to her with eyes like twin stars.

“My sister has made me very happy,” whispered Myeerah in her soft, low voice. “Myeerah’s heart is full.”

“I believe you are happy, for I know you love Isaac dearly.”

“Myeerah has always loved him. She will love his sister.”

“And I will love you,” said Betty. “I will love you because you have saved him. Ah! Myeerah, yours has been wonderful, wonderful love.”

“My sister is loved,” whispered Myeerah. “Myeerah saw the look in the eyes of the great hunter. It was the sad light of the moon on the water. He loves you. And the other looked at my sister with eyes like the blue of northern skies. He, too, loves you.”

“Hush!” whispered Betty, trembling and hiding her face. “Hush! Myeerah, do not speak of him.”

CHAPTER XI.

HE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON the sun shone fair and warm; the sweet smell of the tan-bark pervaded the air and the birds sang their gladsome songs. The scene before the grim battle-scarred old fort was not without its picturesqueness. The low vine-covered cabins on the hill side looked more like picture houses than like real habitations of men; the mill with its burned-out roof — a reminder of the Indians — and its great wheel, now silent and still, might have been from its lonely and dilapidated appearance a hundred years old.

On a little knoll carpeted with velvety grass sat Isaac and his Indian bride. He had selected this vantage point because it afforded a fine view of the green square where the races and the matches were to take place. Admiring women stood around him and gazed at his wife. They gossiped in whispers about her white skin, her little hands, her beauty. The girls stared with wide open and wondering eyes. The youngsters ran round and round the little group; they pushed each other over, and rolled in the long grass, and screamed with delight.

It was to be a gala occasion and every man, woman and child in the settlement had assembled on the green. Col. Zane and Sam were planting a post in the center of the square. It was to be used in the shooting matches. Capt. Boggs and Major McColloch were arranging the contestants in order. Jonathan Zane, Will Martin, Alfred Clarke — all the young men were carefully charging and priming their rifles. Betty was sitting on the black stallion which Col. Zane had generously offered as first prize. She was in the gayest of moods and had just coaxed Isaac to lift her on the tall horse, from which height she purposed watching the sports. Wetzel alone did not seem infected by the spirit of gladsomeness which pervaded. He stood apart leaning on his long rifle and taking no interest in the proceedings behind him. He was absorbed in contemplating the forest on the opposite shore of the river.

“Well, boys, I guess we are ready for the fun,” called Col. Zane, cheerily. “Only one shot apiece, mind you, except in case of a tie. Now, everybody shoot his best.”

The first contest was a shooting match known as “driving the nail.” It was as the name indicated, nothing less than shooting at the head of a nail. In the absence of a nail — for nails were scarce — one was usually fashioned from a knife blade, or an old file, or even a piece of silver. The nail was driven lightly into the stake, the contestants shot at it from a distance as great as the eyesight permitted. To drive the nail hard and fast into the wood at one hundred yards was a feat seldom accomplished. By many hunters it was deemed more difficult than “snuffing the candle,” another border pastime, which consisted of placing in the dark at any distance a lighted candle, and then putting out the flame with a single rifle ball. Many settlers, particularly those who handled the plow more than the rifle, sighted from a rest, and placed a piece of moss under the rife-barrel to prevent its spring at the discharge.

The match began. Of the first six shooters Jonathan Zane and Alfred Clarke scored the best shots. Each placed a bullet in the half-inch circle round the nail.

“Alfred, very good, indeed,” said Col. Zane. “You have made a decided improvement since the last shooting-match.”

Six other settlers took their turns. All were unsuccessful in getting a shot inside the little circle. Thus a tie between Alfred and Jonathan had to be decided.

“Shoot close, Alfred,” yelled Isaac. “I hope you beat him. He always won from me and then crowed over it.”

Alfred’s second shot went wide of the mark, and as Jonathan placed another bullet in the circle, this time nearer the center, Alfred had to acknowledge defeat.

“Here comes Miller,” said Silas Zane. “Perhaps he will want a try.”

Col. Zane looked round. Miller had joined the party. He carried his rifle and accoutrements, and evidently had just returned to the settlement. He nodded pleasantly to all.

“Miller, will you take a shot for the first prize, which I was about to award to Jonathan?” said Col. Zane.

“No. I am a little late, and not entitled to a shot. I will take a try for the others,” answered Miller.

At the arrival of Miller on the scene Wetzel had changed his position to one nearer the crowd. The dog, Tige, trotted closely at his heels. No one heard Tige’s low growl or Wetzel’s stern word to silence him. Throwing his arm over Betty’s pony, Wetzel apparently watched the shooters. In reality he studied intently Miller’s every movement.

“I expect some good shooting for this prize,” said Col. Zane, waving a beautifully embroidered buckskin bullet pouch, which was one of Betty’s donations.

Jonathan having won his prize was out of the lists and could compete no more. This entitled Alfred to the first shot for second prize. He felt he would give anything he possessed to win the dainty trifle which the Colonel had waved aloft. Twice he raised his rifle in his exceeding earnestness to score a good shot and each time lowered the barrel. When finally he did shoot the bullet embedded itself in the second circle. It was a good shot, but he knew it would never win that prize.

“A little nervous, eh?” remarked Miller, with a half sneer on his swarthy face.

Several young settlers followed in succession, but their aims were poor. Then little Harry Bennet took his stand. Harry had won many prizes in former matches, and many of the pioneers considered him one of the best shots in the country.

“Only a few more after you, Harry,” said Col. Zane. “You have a good chance.”

“All right, Colonel. That’s Betty’s prize and somebody’ll have to do some mighty tall shootin’ to beat me,” said the lad, his blue eyes flashing as he toed the mark.

Shouts and cheers of approval greeted his attempt. The bullet had passed into the wood so close to the nail that a knife blade could not have been inserted between.

Miller’s turn came next. He was a fine marksman and he knew it. With the confidence born of long experience and knowledge of his weapon, he took a careful though quick aim and fired. He turned away satisfied that he would carry off the coveted prize. He had nicked the nail.

But Miller reckoned without his host. Betty had seen the result of his shot and the self-satisfied smile on his face. She watched several of the settlers make poor attempts at the nail, and then, convinced that not one of the other contestants could do so well as Miller, she slipped off the horse and ran around to where Wetzel was standing by her pony.

“Lew, I believe Miller will win my prize,” she whispered, placing her hand on the hunter’s arm. “He has scratched the nail, and I am sure no one except you can do better. I do not want Miller to have anything of mine.”

“And, little girl, you want me to shoot fer you,” said Lewis.

“Yes, Lew, please come and shoot for me.”

It was said of Wetzel that he never wasted powder. He never entered into the races and shooting-matches of the settlers, yet it was well known that he was the fleetest runner and the most unerring shot on the frontier. Therefore, it was with surprise and pleasure that Col. Zane heard the hunter say he guessed he would like one shot anyway.

Miller looked on with a grim smile. He knew that, Wetzel or no Wetzel, it would take a remarkably clever shot to beat his.

“This shot’s for Betty,” said Wetzel as he stepped to the mark. He fastened his keen eyes on the stake. At that distance the head of the nail looked like a tiny black speck. Wetzel took one of the locks of hair that waved over his broad shoulders and held it up in front of his eyes a moment. He thus ascertained that there was not any perceptible breeze. The long black barrel started slowly to rise — it seemed to the interested onlookers that it would never reach a level and when, at last, it became rigid, there was a single second in which man and rifle appeared as if carved out of stone. Then followed a burst of red flame, a puff of white smoke, a clear ringing report.

Many thought the hunter had missed altogether. It seemed that the nail had not changed its position; there was no bullet hole in the white lime wash that had been smeared round the nail. But on close inspection the nail was found to have been driven to its head in the wood.

“A wonderful shot!” exclaimed Col. Zane. “Lewis, I don’t remember having seen the like more than once or twice in my life.”

Wetzel made no answer. He moved away to his former position and commenced to reload his rifle. Betty came running up to him, holding in her hand the prize bullet pouch.

“Oh, Lew, if I dared I would kiss you. It pleases me more for you to have won my prize than if any one else had won it. And it was the finest, straightest shot ever made.”

“Betty, it’s a little fancy for redskins, but it’ll be a keepsake,” answered Lewis, his eyes reflecting the bright smile on her face.

Friendly rivalry in feats that called for strength, speed and daring was the diversion of the youth of that period, and the pioneers conducted this good-natured but spirited sport strictly on its merits. Each contestant strove his utmost to outdo his opponent. It was hardly to be expected that Alfred would carry off any of the laurels. Used as he had been to comparative idleness he was no match for the hardy lads who had been brought up and trained to a life of action, wherein a ten mile walk behind a plow, or a cord of wood chopped in a day, were trifles. Alfred lost in the foot-race and the sackrace, but by dint of exerting himself to the limit of his strength, he did manage to take one fall out of the best wrestler. He was content to stop here, and, throwing himself on the grass, endeavored to recover his breath. He felt happier today than for some time past. Twice during the afternoon he had met Betty’s eyes and the look he encountered there made his heart stir with a strange feeling of fear and hope. While he was ruminating on what had happened between Betty and himself he allowed his eyes to wander from one person to another. When his gaze alighted on Wetzel it became riveted there. The hunter’s attitude struck him as singular. Wetzel had his face half turned toward the boys romping near him and he leaned carelessly against a white oak tree. But a close observer would have seen, as Alfred did, that there was a certain alertness in that rigid and motionless figure. Wetzel’s eyes were fixed on the western end of the island. Almost involuntarily Alfred’s eyes sought the same direction. The western end of the island ran out into a long low point covered with briars, rushes and saw-grass. As Alfred directed his gaze along the water line of this point he distinctly saw a dark form flit from one bush to another. He was positive he had not been mistaken. He got up slowly and unconcernedly, and strolled over to Wetzel.

“Wetzel, I saw an object just now,” he said in a low tone. “It was moving behind those bushes at the head of the island. I am not sure whether it was an animal or an Indian.”

“Injuns. Go back and be natur’l like. Don’t say nothin’ and watch Miller,” whispered Wetzel.

Much perturbed by the developments of the last few moments, and wondering what was going to happen, Alfred turned away. He had scarcely reached the others when he heard Betty’s voice raised in indignant protest.

“I tell you I did swim my pony across the river,” cried Betty. “It was just even with that point and the river was higher than it is now.”

“You probably overestimated your feat,” said Miller, with his disagreeable, doubtful smile. “I have seen the river so low that it could be waded, and then it would be a very easy matter to cross. But now your pony could not swim half the distance.”

“I’ll show you,” answered Betty, her black eyes flashing. She put her foot in the stirrup and leaped on Madcap.

“Now, Betty, don’t try that foolish ride again,” implored Mrs. Zane. “What do you care whether strangers believe or not? Eb, make her come back.”

Col. Bane only laughed and made no attempt to detain Betty. He rather indulged her caprices.

“Stop her!” cried Clarke.

“Betty, where are you goin’?” said Wetzel, grabbing at Madcap’s bridle. But Betty was too quick for him. She avoided the hunter, and with a saucy laugh she wheeled the fiery little pony and urged her over the bank. Almost before any one could divine her purpose she had Madcap in the water up to her knees.

“Betty, stop!” cried Wetzel.

She paid no attention to his call. In another moment the pony would be off the shoal and swimming.

“Stop! Turn back, Betty, or I’ll shoot the pony,” shouted Wetzel, and this time there was a ring of deadly earnestness in his voice. With the words he had cocked and thrown forward the long rifle.

Betty heard, and in alarm she turned her pony. She looked up with great surprise and concern, for she knew Wetzel was not one to trifle.

“For God’s sake!” exclaimed Colonel Zane, looking in amazement at the hunter’s face, which was now white and stern.

“Why, Lew, you do not mean you would shoot Madcap?” said Betty, reproachfully, as she reached the shore.

All present in that watching crowd were silent, awaiting the hunter’s answer. They felt that mysterious power which portends the revelation of strange events. Col. Zane and Jonathan knew the instant they saw Wetzel that something extraordinary was coming. His face had grown cold and gray; his lips were tightly compressed; his eyes dilated and shone with a peculiar lustre.

“Where were you headin’ your pony?” asked Wetzel.

“I wanted to reach that point where the water is shallow,” answered Betty.

“That’s what I thought. Well, Betty, hostile Injuns are hidin’ and waitin’ fer you in them high rushes right where you were makin’ fer,” said Wetzel. Then he shouldered his rifle and walked rapidly away.

“Oh, he cannot be serious!” cried Betty. “Oh, how foolish am I.”

“Get back up from the river, everybody,” commanded Col. Zane.

“Col. Zane,” said Clarke, walking beside the Colonel up the bank, “I saw Wetzel watching the island in a manner that I thought odd, under the circumstances, and I watched too. Presently I saw a dark form dart behind a bush. I went over and told Wetzel, and he said there were Indians on the island.”

“This is most d — n strange,” said Col. Zane, frowning heavily. “Wetzel’s suspicions, Miller turns up, teases Betty attempting that foolhardy trick, and then — Indians! It may be a coincidence, but it looks bad.”

“Col. Zane, don’t you think Wetzel may be mistaken?” said Miller, coming up. “I came over from the other side this morning and I did not see any Indian sign. Probably Wetzel has caused needless excitement.”

“It does not follow that because you came from over the river there are no Indians there,” answered Col. Zane, sharply. “Do you presume to criticise Wetzel’s judgment?”

“I saw an Indian!” cried Clarke, facing Miller with blazing eyes. “And if you say I did not, you lie! What is more, I believe you know more than any one else about it. I watched you. I saw you were uneasy and that you looked across the river from time to time. Perhaps you had better explain to Col. Zane the reason you taunted his sister into attempting that ride.”

With a snarl more like that of a tiger than of a human being, Miller sprang at Clarke. His face was dark with malignant hatred, as he reached for and drew an ugly knife. There were cries of fright from the children and screams from the women. Alfred stepped aside with the wonderful quickness of the trained boxer and shot out his right arm. His fist caught Miller a hard blow on the head, knocking him down and sending the knife flying in the air.

It had all happened so quickly that everyone was as if paralyzed. The settlers stood still and watched Miller rise slowly to his feet.

“Give me my knife!” he cried hoarsely. The knife had fallen at the feet of Major McColloch, who had concealed it with his foot.

“Let this end right here,” ordered Col. Zane. “Clarke, you have made a very strong statement. Have you anything to substantiate your words?”

“I think I have,” said Clarke. He was standing erect, his face white and his eyes like blue steel. “I knew him at Ft. Pitt. He was a liar and a drunkard there. He was a friend of the Indians and of the British. What he was there he must be here. It was Wetzel who told me to watch him. Wetzel and I both think he knew the Indians were on the island.”

“Col. Zane, it is false,” said Miller, huskily. “He is trying to put you against me. He hates me because your sister—”

“You cur!” cried Clarke, striking at Miller. Col. Zane struck up the infuriated young man’s arm.

“Give us knives, or anything,” panted Clarke.

“Yes, let us fight it out now,” said Miller.

“Capt. Boggs, take Clarke to the block-house. Make him stay there if you have to lock him up,” commanded Col. Zane. “Miller, as for you, I cannot condemn you without proof. If I knew positively that there were Indians on the island and that you were aware of it, you would be a dead man in less time than it takes to say it. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and twenty-four hours to leave the Fort.”

The villagers dispersed and went to their homes. They were inclined to take Clarke’s side. Miller had become disliked. His drinking habits and his arrogant and bold manner had slowly undermined the friendships he had made during the early part of his stay at Ft. Henry; while Clarke’s good humor and willingness to help any one, his gentleness with the children, and his several acts of heroism had strengthened their regard.

“Jonathan, this looks like some of Girty’s work. I wish I knew the truth,” said Col. Zane, as he, his brothers and Betty and Myeerah entered the house. “Confound it! We can’t have even one afternoon of enjoyment. I must see Lewis. I cannot be sure of Clarke. He is evidently bitter against Miller. That would have been a terrible fight. Those fellows have had trouble before, and I am afraid we have not seen the last of their quarrel.”

“If they meet again — but how can you keep them apart?” said Silas. “If Miller leaves the Fort without killing Clarke he’ll hide around in the woods and wait for a chance to shoot him.”

“Not with Wetzel here,” answered Col. Zane. “Betty, do you see what your—” he began, turning to his sister, but when he saw her white and miserable face he said no more.

“Don’t mind, Betts. It wasn’t any fault of yours,” said Isaac, putting his arm tenderly round the trembling girl. “I for another believe Clarke was right when he said Miller knew there were Indians over the river. It looks like a plot to abduct you. Have no fear for Alfred. He can take care of himself. He showed that pretty well.”

An hour later Clarke had finished his supper and was sitting by his window smoking his pipe. His anger had cooled somewhat and his reflections were not of the pleasantest kind. He regretted that he lowered himself so far as to fight with a man little better than an outlaw. Still there was a grim satisfaction in the thought of the blow he had given Miller. He remembered he had asked for a knife and that his enemy and he be permitted to fight to the death. After all to have ended, then and there, the feud between them would have been the better course; for he well knew Miller’s desperate character, that he had killed more than one white man, and that now a fair fight might not be possible. Well, he thought, what did it matter? He was not going to worry himself. He did not care much, one way or another. He had no home; he could not make one without the woman he loved. He was a Soldier of Fortune; he was at the mercy of Fate, and he would drift along and let what came be welcome. A soft footfall on the stairs and a knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

“Come in,” he said.

The door opened and Wetzel strode into the room.

“I come over to say somethin’ to you,” said the hunter taking the chair by the window and placing his rifle over his knee.

“I will be pleased to listen or talk, as you desire,” said Alfred.

“I don’t mind tellin’ you that the punch you give Miller was what he deserved. If he and Girty didn’t hatch up that trick to ketch Betty, I don’t know nothin’. But we can’t prove nothin’ on him yet. Mebbe he knew about the redskins; mebbe he didn’t. Personally, I think he did. But I can’t kill a white man because I think somethin’. I’d have to know fer sure. What I want to say is to put you on your guard against the baddest man on the river.”

“I am aware of that,” answered Alfred. “I knew his record at Ft. Pitt. What would you have me do?”

“Keep close till he’s gone.”

“That would be cowardly.”

“No, it wouldn’t. He’d shoot you from behind some tree or cabin.”

“Well, I’m much obliged to you for your kind advice, but for all that I won’t stay in the house,” said Alfred, beginning to wonder at the hunter’s earnest manner.

“You’re in love with Betty, ain’t you?”

The question came with Wetzel’s usual bluntness and it staggered Alfred. He could not be angry, and he did not know what to say. The hunter went on:

“You needn’t say so, because I know it. And I know she loves you and that’s why I want you to look out fer Miller.”

“My God! man, you’re crazy,” said Alfred, laughing scornfully. “She cares nothing for me.”

“That’s your great failin’, young feller. You fly off’en the handle too easy. And so does Betty. You both care fer each other and are unhappy about it. Now, you don’t know Betty, and she keeps misunderstandin’ you.”

“For Heaven’s sake! Wetzel, if you know anything tell me. Love her? Why, the words are weak! I love her so well that an hour ago I would have welcomed death at Miller’s hands only to fall and die at her feet defending her. Your words set me on fire. What right have you to say that? How do you know?”

The hunter leaned forward and put his hand on Alfred’s shoulder. On his pale face was that sublime light which comes to great souls when they give up a life long secret, or when they sacrifice what is best beloved. His broad chest heaved: his deep voice trembled.

“Listen. I’m not a man fer words, and it’s hard to tell. Betty loves you. I’ve carried her in my arms when she was a baby. I’ve made her toys and played with her when she was a little girl. I know all her moods. I can read her like I do the moss, and the leaves, and the bark of the forest. I’ve loved her all my life. That’s why I know she loves you. I can feel it. Her happiness is the only dear thing left on earth fer me. And that’s why I’m your friend.”

In the silence that followed his words the door opened and closed and he was gone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Betty awoke with a start. She was wide awake in a second. The moonbeams came through the leaves of the maple tree near her window and cast fantastic shadows on the wall of her room. Betty lay quiet, watching the fairy-like figures on the wall and listening intently. What had awakened her? The night was still; the crow of a cock in the distance proclaimed that the hour of dawn was near at hand. She waited for Tige’s bark under her window, or Sam’s voice, or the kicking and trampling of horses in the barn — sounds that usually broke her slumbers in the morning. But no such noises were forthcoming. Suddenly she heard a light, quick tap, tap, and then a rattling in the corner. It was like no sound but that made by a pebble striking the floor, bounding and rolling across the room. There it was again. Some one was tossing stones in at her window. She slipped out of bed, ran, and leaned on the window-sill and looked out. The moon was going down behind the hill, but there was light enough for her to distinguish objects. She saw a dark figure crouching by the fence.

“Who is it?” said Betty, a little frightened, but more curious.

“Sh-h-h, it’s Miller,” came the answer, spoken in low voice.

The bent form straightened and stood erect. It stepped forward under Betty’s window. The light was dim, but Betty recognized the dark face of Miller. He carried a rifle in his hand and a pack on his shoulder.

“Go away, or I’ll call my brother. I will not listen to you,” said Betty, making a move to leave the window.

“Sh-h-h, not so loud,” said Miller, in a quick, hoarse whisper. “You’d better listen. I am going across the border to join Girty. He is going to bring the Indians and the British here to burn the settlement. If you will go away with me I’ll save the lives of your brothers and their families. I have aided Girty and I have influence with him. If you won’t go you’ll be taken captive and you’ll see all your friends and relatives scalped and burned. Quick, your answer.”

“Never, traitor! Monster! I’d be burned at the stake before I’d go a step with you!” cried Betty.

“Then remember that you’ve crossed a desperate man. If you escape the massacre you will beg on your knees to me. This settlement is doomed. Now, go to your white-faced lover. You’ll find him cold. Ha! Ha! Ha!” and with a taunting laugh he leaped the fence and disappeared in the gloom.

Betty sank to the floor stunned, horrified. She shuddered at the malignity expressed in Miller’s words. How had she ever been deceived in him? He was in league with Girty. At heart he was a savage, a renegade. Betty went over his words, one by one.

“Your white-faced lover. You will find him cold,” whispered Betty. “What did he mean?”

Then came the thought. Miller had murdered Clarke. Betty gave one agonized quiver, as if a knife had been thrust into her side, and then her paralyzed limbs recovered the power of action. She flew out into the passage-way and pounded on her brother’s door.

“Eb! Eb! Get up! Quickly, for God’s sake!” she cried. A smothered exclamation, a woman’s quick voice, the heavy thud of feet striking the floor followed Betty’s alarm. Then the door opened.

“Hello, Betts, what’s up?” said Col. Zane, in his rapid voice.

At the same moment the door at the end of the hall opened and Isaac came out.

“Eb, Betty, I heard voices out doors and in the house. What’s the row?”

“Oh, Isaac! Oh, Eb! Something terrible has happened!” cried Betty, breathlessly.

“Then it is no time to get excited,” said the Colonel, calmly. He placed his arm round Betty and drew her into the room. “Isaac, get down the rifles. Now, Betty, time is precious. Tell me quickly, briefly.”

“I was awakened by a stone rolling on the floor. I ran to the window and saw a man by the fence. He came under my window and I saw it was Miller. He said he was going to join Girty. He said if I would go with him he would save the lives of all my relatives. If I would not they would all be killed, massacred, burned alive, and I would be taken away as his captive. I told him I’d rather die before I’d go with him. Then he said we were all doomed, and that my white-faced lover was already cold. With that he gave a laugh which made my flesh creep and ran on toward the river. Oh! he has murdered Mr. Clarke.”

“Hell! What a fiend!” cried Col. Zane, hurriedly getting into his clothes. “Betts, you had a gun in there. Why didn’t you shoot him? Why didn’t I pay more attention to Wetzel’s advice?”

“You should have allowed Clarke to kill him yesterday,” said Isaac. “Like as not he’ll have Girty here with a lot of howling devils. What’s to be done?”

“I’ll send Wetzel after him and that’ll soon wind up his ball of yarn,” answered Col. Zane.

“Please — go — and find — if Mr. Clarke—”

“Yes, Betty, I’ll go at once. You must not lose courage, Betty. It’s quite probable that Miller has killed Alfred and that there’s worse to follow.”

“I’ll come, Eb, as soon as I have told Myeerah. She is scared half to death,” said Isaac, starting for the door.

“All right, only hurry,” said Col. Zane, grabbing his rifle. Without wasting more words, and lacing up his hunting shirt as he went he ran out of the room.

The first rays of dawn came streaking in at the window. The chill gray light brought no cheer with its herald of the birth of another day. For what might the morning sun disclose? It might shine on a long line of painted Indians. The fresh breeze from over the river might bring the long war whoop of the savage.

No wonder Noah and his brother, awakened by the voice of their father, sat up in their little bed and looked about with frightened eyes. No wonder Mrs. Zane’s face blanched. How many times she had seen her husband grasp his rifle and run out to meet danger!

“Bessie,” said Betty. “If it’s true I will not be able to bear it. It’s all my fault.”

“Nonsense! You heard Eb say Miller and Clarke had quarreled before. They hated each other before they ever saw you.”

A door banged, quick footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Isaac came rushing into the room. Betty, deathly pale, stood with her hands pressed to her bosom, and looked at Isaac with a question in her eyes that her tongue could not speak.

“Betty, Alfred’s badly hurt, but he’s alive. I can tell you no more now,” said Isaac. “Bessie, bring your needle, silk linen, liniment — everything you need for a bad knife wound, and come quickly.”

Betty’s haggard face changed as if some warm light had been reflected on it; her lips moved, and with a sob of thankfulness she fled to her room.

Two hours later, while Annie was serving breakfast to Betty and Myeerah, Col. Zane strode into the room.

“Well, one has to eat whatever happens,” he said, his clouded face brightening somewhat. “Betty, there’s been bad work, bad work. When I got to Clarke’s room I found him lying on the bed with a knife sticking in him. As it is we are doubtful about pulling him through.”

“May I see him?” whispered Betty, with pale lips.

“If the worst comes to the worst I’ll take you over. But it would do no good now and would surely unnerve you. He still has a fighting chance.”

“Did they fight, or was Mr. Clarke stabbed in his sleep?”

“Miller climbed into Clarke’s window and knifed him in the dark. As I came over I met Wetzel and told him I wanted him to trail Miller and find if there is any truth in his threat about Girty and the Indians. Sam just now found Tige tied fast in the fence corner back of the barn. That explains the mystery of Miller’s getting so near the house. You know he always took pains to make friends with Tige. The poor dog was helpless; his legs were tied and his jaws bound fast. Oh, Miller is as cunning as an Indian! He has had this all planned out, and he has had more than one arrow to his bow. But, if I mistake not he has shot his last one.”

“Miller must be safe from pursuit by this time,” said Betty.

“Safe for the present, yes,” answered Col. Zane, “but while Jonathan and Wetzel live I would not give a snap of my fingers for Miller’s chances. Hello, I hear some one talking. I sent for Jack and the Major.”

The Colonel threw open the door. Wetzel, Major McColloch, Jonathan and Silas Zane were approaching. They were all heavily armed. Wetzel was equipped for a long chase. Double leggins were laced round his legs. A buckskin knapsack was strapped to his shoulders.

“Major, I want you and Jonathan to watch the river,” said Col. Zane. “Silas, you are to go to the mouth of Yellow Creek and reconnoiter. We are in for a siege. It may be twenty-four hours and it may be ten days. In the meantime I will get the Fort in shape to meet the attack. Lewis, you have your orders. Have you anything to suggest?”

“I’ll take the dog,” answered Wetzel. “He’ll save time for me. I’ll stick to Miller’s trail and find Girty’s forces. I’ve believed all along that Miller was helpin’ Girty, and I’m thinkin’ that where Miller goes there I’ll find Girty and his redskins. If it’s night when I get back I’ll give the call of the hoot-owl three times, quick, so Jack and the Major will know I want to get back across the river.”

“All right, Lewis, we’ll be expecting you any time,” said Col. Zane.

“Betty, I’m goin’ now and I want to tell you somethin’,” said Wetzel, as Betty appeared. “Come as far as the end of the path with me.”

“I’m sorry you must go. But Tige seems delighted,” said Betty, walking beside Wetzel, while the dog ran on before.

“Betty, I wanted to tell you to stay close like to the house, fer this feller Miller has been layin’ traps fer you, and the Injuns is on the war-path. Don’t ride your pony, and stay home now.”

“Indeed, I shall never again do anything as foolish as I did yesterday. I have learned my lesson. And Oh! Lew, I am so grateful to you for saving me. When will you return to the Fort?”

“Mebbe never, Betty.”

“Oh, no. Don’t say that. I know all this Indian talk will blow over, as it always does, and you will come back and everything will be all right again.”

“I hope it’ll be as you say, Betty, but there’s no tellin’, there’s no tellin’.”

“You are going to see if the Indians are making preparations to besiege the Fort?”

“Yes, I am goin’ fer that. And if I happen to find Miller on my way I’ll give him Betty’s regards.”

Betty shivered at his covert meaning. Long ago in a moment of playfulness, Betty had scratched her name on the hunter’s rifle. Ever after that Wetzel called his fatal weapon by her name.

“If you were going simply to avenge I would not let you go. That wretch will get his just due some day, never fear for that.”

“Betty, ‘taint likely he’ll get away from me, and if he does there’s Jonathan. This mornin’ when we trailed Miller down to the river bank Jonathan points across the river and says: ‘You or me,’ and I says: ‘Me,’ so it’s all settled.”

“Will Mr. Clarke live?” said Betty, in an altered tone, asking the question which was uppermost in her mind.

“I think so, I hope so. He’s a husky young chap and the cut wasn’t bad. He lost so much blood. That’s why he’s so weak. If he gets well he’ll have somethin’ to tell you.”

“Lew, what do you mean?” demanded Betty, quickly.

“Me and him had a long talk last night and—”

“You did not go to him and talk of me, did you?” said Betty, reproachfully.

They had now reached the end of the path. Wetzel stopped and dropped the butt of his rifle on the ground. Tige looked on and wagged his tail. Presently the hunter spoke.

“Yes, we talked about you.”

“Oh! Lewis. What did — could you have said?” faltered Betty.

“You think I hadn’t ought to speak to him of you?”

“I do not see why you should. Of course you are my good friend, but he — it is not like you to speak of me.”

“Fer once I don’t agree with you. I knew how it was with him so I told him. I knew how it was with you so I told him, and I know how it is with me, so I told him that too.”

“With you?” whispered Betty.

“Yes, with me. That kind of gives me a right, don’t it, considerin’ it’s all fer your happiness?”

“With you?” echoed Betty in a low tone. She was beginning to realize that she had not known this man. She looked up at him. His eyes were misty with an unutterable sadness.

“Oh, no! No! Lew. Say it is not true,” she cried, piteously. All in a moment Betty’s burdens became too heavy for her. She wrung her little hands. Her brother’s kindly advice, Bessie’s warnings, and old Grandmother Watkins’ words came back to her. For the first time she believed what they said — that Wetzel loved her. All at once the scales fell from her eyes and she saw this man as he really was. All the thousand and one things he had done for her, his simple teaching, his thoughtfulness, his faithfulness, and his watchful protection — all came crowding on her as debts that she could never pay. For now what could she give this man to whom she owed more than her life? Nothing. It was too late. Her love could have reclaimed him, could have put an end to that solitary wandering, and have made him a good, happy man.

“Yes, Betty, it’s time to tell it. I’ve loved you always,” he said softly.

She covered her face and sobbed. Wetzel put his arm round her and drew her to him until the dark head rested on his shoulder. Thus they stood a moment.

“Don’t cry, little one,” he said, tenderly. “Don’t grieve fer me. My love fer you has been the only good in my life. It’s been happiness to love you. Don’t think of me. I can see you and Alfred in a happy home, surrounded by bright-eyed children. There’ll be a brave lad named fer me, and when I come, if I ever do, I’ll tell him stories, and learn him the secrets of the woods, and how to shoot, and things I know so well.”

“I am so wretched — so miserable. To think I have been so — so blind, and I have teased you — and — it might have been — only now it’s too late,” said Betty, between her sobs.

“Yes, I know, and it’s better so. This man you love rings true. He has learnin’ and edication. I have nothin’ but muscle and a quick eye. And that’ll serve you and Alfred when you are in danger. I’m goin’ now. Stand here till I’m out of sight.”

“Kiss me goodbye,” whispered Betty.

The hunter bent his head and kissed her on the brow. Then he turned and with a rapid step went along the bluff toward the west. When he reached the laurel bushes which fringed the edge of the forest he looked back. He saw the slender gray clad figure standing motionless in the narrow path. He waved his hand and then turned and plunged into the forest. The dog looked back, raised his head and gave a long, mournful howl. Then, he too disappeared.

A mile west of the settlement Wetzel abandoned the forest and picked his way down the steep bluff to the river. Here he prepared to swim to the western shore. He took off his buckskin garments, spread them out on the ground, placed his knapsack in the middle, and rolling all into a small bundle tied it round his rifle. Grasping the rifle just above the hammer he waded into the water up to his waist and then, turning easily on his back he held the rifle straight up, allowing the butt to rest on his breast. This left his right arm unhampered. With a powerful back-arm stroke he rapidly swam the river, which was deep and narrow at this point. In a quarter of an hour he was once more in his dry suit.

He was now two miles below the island, where yesterday the Indians had been concealed, and where this morning Miller had crossed. Wetzel knew Miller expected to be trailed, and that he would use every art and cunning of woodcraft to elude his pursuers, or to lead them into a death-trap. Wetzel believed Miller had joined the Indians, who had undoubtedly been waiting for him, or for a signal from him, and that he would use them to ambush the trail.

Therefore Wetzel decided he would try to strike Miller’s tracks far west of the river. He risked a great deal in attempting this because it was possible he might fail to find any trace of the spy. But Wetzel wasted not one second. His course was chosen. With all possible speed, which meant with him walking only when he could not run, he traveled northwest. If Miller had taken the direction Wetzel suspected, the trails of the two men would cross about ten miles from the Ohio. But the hunter had not traversed more than a mile of the forest when the dog put his nose high in the air and growled. Wetzel slowed down into a walk and moved cautiously onward, peering through the green aisles of the woods. A few rods farther on Tige uttered another growl and put his nose to the ground. He found a trail. On examination Wetzel discovered in the moss two moccasin tracks. Two Indians had passed that point that morning. They were going northwest directly toward the camp of Wingenund. Wetzel stuck close to the trail all that day and an hour before dusk he heard the sharp crack of a rifle. A moment afterward a doe came crashing through the thicket to Wetzel’s right and bounding across a little brook she disappeared.

A tree with a bushy, leafy top had been uprooted by a storm and had fallen across the stream at this point. Wetzel crawled among the branches. The dog followed and lay down beside him. Before darkness set in Wetzel saw that the clear water of the brook had been roiled; therefore, he concluded that somewhere upstream Indians had waded into the brook. Probably they had killed a deer and were getting their evening meal.

Hours passed. Twilight deepened into darkness. One by one the stars appeared; then the crescent moon rose over the wooded hill in the west, and the hunter never moved. With his head leaning against the log he sat quiet and patient. At midnight he whispered to the dog, and crawling from his hiding place glided stealthily up the stream. Far ahead from the dark depths of the forest peeped the flickering light of a camp-fire. Wetzel consumed a half hour in approaching within one hundred feet of this light. Then he got down on his hands and knees and crawled behind a tree on top of the little ridge which had obstructed a view of the camp scene.

From this vantage point Wetzel saw a clear space surrounded by pines and hemlocks. In the center of this glade a fire burned briskly. Two Indians lay wrapped in their blankets, sound asleep. Wetzel pressed the dog close to the ground, laid aside his rifle, drew his tomahawk, and lying flat on his breast commenced to work his way, inch by inch, toward the sleeping savages. The tall ferns trembled as the hunter wormed his way among them, but there was no sound, not a snapping of a twig nor a rustling of a leaf. The nightwind sighed softly through the pines; it blew the bright sparks from the burning logs, and fanned the embers into a red glow; it swept caressingly over the sleeping savages, but it could not warn them that another wind, the Wind-of-Death, was near at hand.

A quarter of an hour elapsed. Nearer and nearer; slowly but surely drew the hunter. With what wonderful patience and self-control did this cold-blooded Nemesis approach his victims! Probably any other Indian slayer would have fired his rifle and then rushed to combat with a knife or a tomahawk. Not so Wetzel. He scorned to use powder. He crept forward like a snake gliding upon its prey. He slid one hand in front of him and pressed it down on the moss, at first gently, then firmly, and when he had secured a good hold he slowly dragged his body forward the length of his arm. At last his dark form rose and stood over the unconscious Indians, like a minister of Doom. The tomahawk flashed once, twice in the firelight, and the Indians, without a moan, and with a convulsive quivering and straightening of their bodies, passed from the tired sleep of nature to the eternal sleep of death.

Foregoing his usual custom of taking the scalps, Wetzel hurriedly left the glade. He had found that the Indians were Shawnees and he had expected they were Delawares. He knew Miller’s red comrades belonged to the latter tribe. The presence of Shawnees so near the settlement confirmed his belief that a concerted movement was to be made on the whites in the near future. He would not have been surprised to find the woods full of redskins. He spent the remainder of that night close under the side of a log with the dog curled up beside him.

Next morning Wetzel ran across the trail of a white man and six Indians. He tracked them all that day and half of the night before he again rested. By noon of the following day he came in sight of the cliff from which Jonathan Zane had watched the sufferings of Col. Crawford. Wetzel now made his favorite move, a wide detour, and came up on the other side of the encampment.

From the top of the bluff he saw down into the village of the Delawares. The valley was alive with Indians; they were working like beavers; some with weapons, some painting themselves, and others dancing war-dances. Packs were being strapped on the backs of ponies. Everywhere was the hurry and bustle of the preparation for war. The dancing and the singing were kept up half the night.

At daybreak Wetzel was at his post. A little after sunrise he heard a long yell which he believed announced the arrival of an important party. And so it turned out. Amid thrill yelling and whooping, the like of which Wetzel had never before heard, Simon Girty rode into Wingenund’s camp at the head of one hundred Shawnee warriors and two hundred British Rangers from Detroit. Wetzel recoiled when he saw the red uniforms of the Britishers and their bayonets. Including Pipe’s and Wingenund’s braves the total force which was going to march against the Fort exceeded six hundred. An impotent frenzy possessed Wetzel as he watched the orderly marching of the Rangers and the proud bearing of the Indian warriors. Miller had spoken the truth. Ft. Henry vas doomed.

“Tige, there’s one of them struttin’ turkey cocks as won’t see the Ohio,” said Wetzel to the dog.

Hurriedly slipping from round his neck the bullet-pouch that Betty had given him, he shook out a bullet and with the point of his knife he scratched deep in the soft lead the letter W. Then he cut the bullet half through. This done he detached the pouch from the cord and running the cord through the cut in the bullet he bit the lead. He tied the string round the neck of the dog and pointing eastward he said: “Home.”

The intelligent animal understood perfectly. His duty was to get that warning home. His clear brown eyes as much as said: “I will not fail.” He wagged his tail, licked the hunter’s hand, bounded away and disappeared in the forest.

Wetzel rested easier in mind. He knew the dog would stop for nothing, and that he stood a far better chance of reaching the Fort in safety than did he himself.

With a lurid light in his eyes Wetzel now turned to the Indians. He would never leave that spot without sending a leaden messenger into the heart of someone in that camp. Glancing on all sides he at length selected a place where it was possible he might approach near enough to the camp to get a shot. He carefully studied the lay of the ground, the trees, rocks, bushes, grass, — everything that could help screen him from the keen eye of savage scouts. When he had marked his course he commenced his perilous descent. In an hour he had reached the bottom of the cliff. Dropping flat on the ground, he once more started his snail-like crawl. A stretch of swampy ground, luxuriant with rushes and saw-grass, made a part of the way easy for him, though it led through mud, and slime, and stagnant water. Frogs and turtles warming their backs in the sunshine scampered in alarm from their logs. Lizards blinked at him. Moccasin snakes darted wicked forked tongues at him and then glided out of reach of his tomahawk. The frogs had stopped their deep bass notes. A swamp-blackbird rose in fright from her nest in the saw-grass, and twittering plaintively fluttered round and round over the pond. The flight of the bird worried Wetzel. Such little things as these might attract the attention of some Indian scout. But he hoped that in the excitement of the war preparations these unusual disturbances would escape notice. At last he gained the other side of the swamp. At the end of the cornfield before him was the clump of laurel which he had marked from the cliff as his objective point. The Indian corn was now about five feet high. Wetzel passed through this field unseen. He reached the laurel bushes, where he dropped to the ground and lay quiet a few minutes. In the dash which he would soon make to the forest he needed all his breath and all his fleetness. He looked to the right to see how far the woods was from where he lay. Not more than one hundred feet. He was safe. Once in the dark shade of those trees, and with his foes behind him, he could defy the whole race of Delawares. He looked to his rifle, freshened the powder in the pan, carefully adjusted the flint, and then rose quietly to his feet.

Wetzel’s keen gaze, as he swept it from left to right, took in every detail of the camp. He was almost in the village. A tepee stood not twenty feet from his hiding-place. He could have tossed a stone in the midst of squaws, and braves, and chiefs. The main body of Indians was in the center of the camp. The British were lined up further on. Both Indians and soldiers were resting on their arms and waiting. Suddenly Wetzel started and his heart leaped. Under a maple tree not one hundred and fifty yards distant stood four men in earnest consultation. One was an Indian. Wetzel recognized the fierce, stern face, the haughty, erect figure. He knew that long, trailing war-bonnet. It could have adorned the head of but one chief — Wingenund, the sachem of the Delawares. A British officer, girdled and epauletted, stood next to Wingenund. Simon Girty, the renegade, and Miller, the traitor, completed the group.

Wetzel sank to his knees. The perspiration poured from his face. The mighty hunter trembled, but it was from eagerness. Was not Girty, the white savage, the bane of the poor settlers, within range of a weapon that never failed? Was not the murderous chieftain, who had once whipped and tortured him, who had burned Crawford alive, there in plain sight? Wetzel revelled a moment in fiendish glee. He passed his hands tenderly over the long barrel of his rifle. In that moment as never before he gloried in his power — a power which enabled him to put a bullet in the eye of a squirrel at the distance these men were from him. But only for an instant did the hunter yield to this feeling. He knew too well the value of time and opportunity.

He rose again to his feet and peered out from under the shading laurel branches. As he did so the dark face of Miller turned full toward him. A tremor, like the intense thrill of a tiger when he is about to spring, ran over Wetzel’s frame. In his mad gladness at being within rifle-shot of his great Indian foe, Wetzel had forgotten the man he had trailed for two days. He had forgotten Miller. He had only one shot — and Betty was to be avenged. He gritted his teeth. The Delaware chief was as safe as though he were a thousand miles away. This opportunity for which Wetzel had waited so many years, and the successful issue of which would have gone so far toward the fulfillment of a life’s purpose, was worse than useless. A great temptation assailed the hunter.

Wetzel’s face was white when he raised the rifle; his dark eye, gleaming vengefully, ran along the barrel. The little bead on the front sight first covered the British officer, and then the broad breast of Girty. It moved reluctantly and searched out the heart of Wingenund, where it lingered for a fleeting instant. At last it rested upon the swarthy face of Miller.

“Fer Betty,” muttered the hunter, between his clenched teeth as he pressed the trigger.

The spiteful report awoke a thousand echoes. When the shot broke the stillness Miller was talking and gesticulating. His hand dropped inertly; he stood upright for a second, his head slowly bowing and his body swaying perceptibly. Then he plunged forward like a log, his face striking the sand. He never moved again. He was dead even before he struck the ground.

Blank silence followed this tragic denouement. Wingenund, a cruel and relentless Indian, but never a traitor, pointed to the small bloody hole in the middle of Miller’s forehead, and then nodded his head solemnly. The wondering Indians stood aghast. Then with loud yells the braves ran to the cornfield; they searched the laurel bushes. But they only discovered several moccasin prints in the sand, and a puff of white smoke wafting away upon the summer breeze.

CHAPTER XII.

ALFRED CLARKE LAY between life and death. Miller’s knife-thrust, although it had made a deep and dangerous wound, had not pierced any vital part; the amount of blood lost made Alfred’s condition precarious. Indeed, he would not have lived through that first day but for a wonderful vitality. Col. Zane’s wife, to whom had been consigned the delicate task of dressing the wound, shook her head when she first saw the direction of the cut. She found on a closer examination that the knife-blade had been deflected by a rib, and had just missed the lungs. The wound was bathed, sewed up, and bandaged, and the greatest precaution taken to prevent the sufferer from loosening the linen. Every day when Mrs. Zane returned from the bedside of the young man she would be met at the door by Betty, who, in that time of suspense, had lost her bloom, and whose pale face showed the effects of sleepless nights.

“Betty, would you mind going over to the Fort and relieving Mrs. Martin an hour or two?” said Mrs. Zane one day as she came home, looking worn and weary. “We are both tired to death, and Nell Metzar was unable to come. Clarke is unconscious, and will not know you, besides he is sleeping now.”

Betty hurried over to Capt. Boggs’ cabin, next the blockhouse, where Alfred lay, and with a palpitating heart and a trepidation wholly out of keeping with the brave front she managed to assume, she knocked gently on the door.

“Ah, Betty, ’tis you, bless your heart,” said a matronly little woman who opened the door. “Come right in. He is sleeping now, poor fellow, and it’s the first real sleep he has had. He has been raving crazy forty-eight hours.”

“Mrs. Martin, what shall I do?” whispered Betty.

“Oh, just watch him, my dear,” answered the elder woman.

“If you need me send one of the lads up to the house for me. I shall return as soon as I can. Keep the flies away — they are bothersome — and bathe his head every little while. If he wakes and tries to sit up, as he does sometimes, hold him back. He is as weak as a cat. If he raves, soothe him by talking to him. I must go now, dearie.”

Betty was left alone in the little room. Though she had taken a seat near the bed where Alfred lay, she had not dared to look at him. Presently conquering her emotion, Betty turned her gaze on the bed. Alfred was lying easily on his back, and notwithstanding the warmth of the day he was covered with a quilt. The light from the window shone on his face. How deathly white it was! There was not a vestige of color in it; the brow looked like chiseled marble; dark shadows underlined the eyes, and the whole face was expressive of weariness and pain.

There are times when a woman’s love is all motherliness. All at once this man seemed to Betty like a helpless child. She felt her heart go out to the poor sufferer with a feeling before unknown. She forgot her pride and her fears and her disappointments. She remembered only that this strong man lay there at death’s door because he had resented an insult to her. The past with all its bitterness rolled away and was lost, and in its place welled up a tide of forgiveness strong and sweet and hopeful. Her love, like a fire that had been choked and smothered, smouldering but never extinct, and which blazes up with the first breeze, warmed and quickened to life with the touch of her hand on his forehead.

An hour passed. Betty was now at her ease and happier than she had been for months. Her patient continued to sleep peacefully and dreamlessly. With a feeling of womanly curiosity Betty looked around the room. Over the rude mantelpiece were hung a sword, a brace of pistols, and two pictures. These last interested Betty very much. They were portraits; one of them was a likeness of a sweet-faced woman who Betty instinctively knew was his mother. Her eyes lingered tenderly on that face, so like the one lying on the pillow. The other portrait was of a beautiful girl whose dark, magnetic eyes challenged Betty. Was this his sister or — someone else? She could not restrain a jealous twinge, and she felt annoyed to find herself comparing that face with her own. She looked no longer at that portrait, but recommenced her survey of the room. Upon the door hung a broad-brimmed hat with eagle plumes stuck in the band. A pair of hightopped riding-boots, a saddle, and a bridle lay on the floor in the corner. The table was covered with Indian pipes, tobacco pouches, spurs, silk stocks, and other articles.

Suddenly Betty felt that some one was watching her. She turned timidly toward the bed and became much frightened when she encountered the intense gaze from a pair of steel-blue eyes. She almost fell from the chair; but presently she recollected that Alfred had been unconscious for days, and that he would not know who was watching by his bedside.

“Mother, is that you?” asked Alfred, in a weak, low voice.

“Yes, I am here,” answered Betty, remembering the old woman’s words about soothing the sufferer.

“But I thought you were ill.”

“I was, but I am better now, and it is you who are ill.”

“My head hurts so.”

“Let me bathe it for you.”

“How long have I been home?”

Betty bathed and cooled his heated brow. He caught and held her hands, looking wonderingly at her the while.

“Mother, somehow I thought you had died. I must have dreamed it. I am very happy; but tell me, did a message come for me to-day?”

Betty shook her head, for she could not speak. She saw he was living in the past, and he was praying for the letter which she would gladly have written had she but known.

“No message, and it is now so long.”

“It will come to-morrow,” whispered Betty.

“Now, mother, that is what you always say,” said the invalid, as he began to toss his head wearily to and fro. “Will she never tell me? It is not like her to keep me in suspense. She was the sweetest, truest, loveliest girl in all the world. When I get well, mother, I ant going to find out if she loves me.”

“I am sure she does. I know she loves you,” answered Betty.

“It is very good of you to say that,” he went on in his rambling talk. “Some day I’ll bring her to you and we’ll make her a queen here in the old home. I’ll be a better son now and not run away from home again. I’ve given the dear old mother many a heartache, but that’s all past now. The wanderer has come home. Kiss me good-night, mother.”

Betty looked down with tear-blurred eyes on the haggard face. Unconsciously she had been running her fingers through the fair hair that lay so damp over his brow. Her pity and tenderness had carried her far beyond herself, and at the last words she bent her head and kissed him on the lips.

“Who are you? You are not my mother. She is dead,” he cried, starting up wildly, and looking at her with brilliant eyes.

Betty dropped the fan and rose quickly to her feet. What had she done? A terrible thought had flashed into her mind. Suppose he were not delirious, and had been deceiving her. Oh! for a hiding-place, or that the floor would swallow her. Oh! if some one would only come.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Betty ran to the door. To her great relief Mrs. Martin was coming up.

“You can run home now, there’s a dear,” said the old lady. “We have several watchers for to-night. It will not be long now when he will commence to mend, or else he will die. Poor boy, please God that he gets well. Has he been good? Did he call for any particular young lady? Never fear, Betty, I’ll keep the secret. He’ll never know you were here unless you tell him yourself.”

Meanwhile the days had been busy ones for Col. Zane. In anticipation of an attack from the Indians, the settlers had been fortifying their refuge and making the block-house as nearly impregnable as possible. Everything that was movable and was of value they put inside the stockade fence, out of reach of the destructive redskins. All the horses and cattle were driven into the inclosure. Wagon-loads of hay, grain and food were stored away in the block-house.

Never before had there been such excitement on the frontier. Runners from Ft. Pitt, Short Creek, and other settlements confirmed the rumor that all the towns along the Ohio were preparing for war. Not since the outbreak of the Revolution had there been so much confusion and alarm among the pioneers. To be sure, those on the very verge of the frontier, as at Ft. Henry, had heretofore little to fear from the British. During most of this time there had been comparative peace on the western border, excepting those occasional murders, raids, and massacres perpetrated by the different Indian tribes, and instigated no doubt by Girty and the British at Detroit. Now all kinds of rumors were afloat: Washington was defeated; a close alliance between England and the confederated western tribes had been formed; Girty had British power and wealth back of him. These and many more alarming reports travelled from settlement to settlement.

The death of Col. Crawford had been a terrible shock to the whole country. On the border spread an universal gloom, and the low, sullen mutterings of revengeful wrath. Crawford had been so prominent a man, so popular, and, except in his last and fatal expedition, such an efficient leader that his sudden taking off was almost a national calamity. In fact no one felt it more keenly than did Washington himself, for Crawford was his esteemed friend.

Col. Zane believed Ft. Henry had been marked by the British and the Indians. The last runner from Ft. Pitt had informed him that the description of Miller tallied with that of one of the ten men who had deserted from Ft. Pitt in 1778 with the tories Girth, McKee, and Elliott. Col. Zane was now satisfied that Miller was an agent of Girty and therefore of the British. So since all the weaknesses of the Fort, the number of the garrison, and the favorable conditions for a siege were known to Girty, there was nothing left for Col. Zane and his men but to make a brave stand.

Jonathan Zane and Major McColloch watched the river. Wetzel had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. Some pioneers said he would never return. But Col. Zane believed Wetzel would walk into the Fort, as he had done many times in the last ten years, with full information concerning the doings of the Indians. However, the days passed and nothing happened. Their work completed, the settlers waited for the first sign of an enemy. But as none came, gradually their fears were dispelled and they began to think the alarm had been a false one.

All this time Alfred Clarke was recovering his health and strength. The day came when he was able to leave his bed and sit by the window. How glad it made him feel to look out on the green woods and the broad, winding river; how sweet to his ears were the songs of the birds; how soothing was the drowsy hum of the bees in the fragrant honeysuckle by his window. His hold on life had been slight and life was good. He smiled in pitying derision as he remembered his recklessness. He had not been in love with life. In his gloomy moods he had often thought life was hardly worth the living. What sickly sentiment! He had been on the brink of the grave, but he had been snatched back from the dark river of Death. It needed but this to show him the joy of breathing, the glory of loving, the sweetness of living. He resolved that for him there would be no more drifting, no more purposelessness. If what Wetzel had told him was true, if he really had not loved in vain, then his cup of happiness was overflowing. Like a far-off and almost forgotten strain of music some memory struggled to take definite shape in his mind; but it was so hazy, so vague, so impalpable, that he could remember nothing clearly.

Isaac Zane and his Indian bride called on Alfred that afternoon.

“Alfred, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you up again,” said Isaac, earnestly, as he wrung Alfred’s hand. “Say, but it was a tight squeeze! It has been a bad time for you.”

Nothing could have been more pleasing than Myeerah’s shy yet eloquent greeting. She gave Alfred her little hand and said in her figurative style of speaking, “Myeerah is happy for you and for others. You are strong like the West Wind that never dies.”

“Myeerah and I are going this afternoon, and we came over to say good-bye to you. We intend riding down the river fifteen miles and then crossing, to avoid running into any band of Indians.”

“And how does Myeerah like the settlement by this time?”

“Oh, she is getting on famously. Betty and she have fallen in love with each other. It is amusing to hear Betty try to talk in the Wyandot tongue, and to see Myeerah’s consternation when Betty gives her a lesson in deportment.”

“I rather fancy it would be interesting, too. Are you not going back to the Wyandots at a dangerous time?”

“As to that I can’t say. I believe, though, it is better that I get back to Tarhe’s camp before we have any trouble with the Indians. I am anxious to get there before Girty or some of his agents.”

“Well, if you must go, good luck to you, and may we meet again.”

“It will not be long, I am sure. And, old man,” he continued, with a bright smile, “when Myeerah and I come again to Ft. Henry we expect to find all well with you. Cheer up, and good-bye.”

All the preparations had been made for the departure of Isaac and Myeerah to their far-off Indian home. They were to ride the Indian ponies on which they had arrived at the Fort. Col. Zane had given Isaac one of his pack horses. This animal carried blankets, clothing, and food which insured comparative comfort in the long ride through the wilderness.

“We will follow the old trail until we reach the hickory swale,” Isaac was saying to the Colonel, “and then we will turn off and make for the river. Once across the Ohio we can make the trip in two days.”

“I think you’ll make it all right,” said Col. Zane.

“Even if I do meet Indians I shall have no fear, for I have a protector here,” answered Isaac as he led Myeerah’s pony to the step.

“Good-bye, Myeerah; he is yours, but do not forget he is dear to us,” said Betty, embracing and kissing the Indian girl.

“My sister does not know Myeerah. The White Eagle will return.”

“Good-bye, Betts, don’t cry. I shall come home again. And when I do I hope I shall be in time to celebrate another event, this time with you as the heroine. Good-bye. Goodbye.”

The ponies cantered down the road. At the bend Isaac and Myeerah turned and waved their hands until the foliage of the trees hid them from view.

“Well, these things happen naturally enough. I suppose they must be. But I should much have preferred Isaac staying here. Hello! What the deuce is that? By Lord! It’s Tige!”

The exclamation following Col. Zane’s remarks had been called forth by Betty’s dog. He came limping painfully up the road from the direction of the river. When he saw Col. Zane he whined and crawled to the Colonel’s feet. The dog was wet and covered with burrs, and his beautiful glossy coat, which had been Betty’s pride, was dripping with blood.

“Silas, Jonathan, come here,” cried Col. Zane. “Here’s Tige, back without Wetzel, and the poor dog has been shot almost to pieces. What does it mean?”

“Indians,” said Jonathan, coming out of the house with Silas, and Mrs. Zane and Betty, who had heard the Colonel’s call.

“He has come a long way. Look at his feet. They are torn and bruised,” continued Jonathan. “And he has been near Wingenund’s camp. You see that red clay on his paws. There is no red clay that I know of round here, and there are miles of it this side of the Delaware camp.”

“What is the matter with Tige?” asked Betty.

“He is done for. Shot through, poor fellow. How did he ever reach home?” said Silas.

“Oh, I hope not! Dear old Tige,” said Betty as she knelt and tenderly placed the head of the dog in her lap. “Why, what is this? I never put that there. Eb, Jack, look here. There is a string around his neck,” and Betty pointed excitedly to a thin cord which was almost concealed in the thick curly hair.

“Good gracious! Eb, look! It is the string off the prize bullet pouch I made, and that Wetzel won on Isaac’s wedding day. It is a message from Lew,” said Betty.

“Well, by Heavens! This is strange. So it is. I remember that string. Cut it off, Jack,” said Col. Zane.

When Jonathan had cut the string and held it up they all saw the lead bullet. Col. Zane examined it and showed them what had been rudely scratched on it.

“A letter W. Does that mean Wetzel?” asked the Colonel.

“It means war. It’s a warning from Wetzel — not the slightest doubt of that,” said Jonathan. “Wetzel sends this because he knows we are to be attacked, and because there must have been great doubt of his getting back to tell us. And Tige has been shot on his way home.”

This called the attention to the dog, which had been momentarily forgotten. His head rolled from Betty’s knee; a quiver shook his frame; he struggled to rise to his feet, but his strength was too far spent; he crawled close to Betty’s feet; his eyes looked up at her with almost human affection; then they closed, and he lay still. Tige was dead.

“It is all over, Betty. Tige will romp no more. He will never be forgotten, for he was faithful to the end. Jonathan, tell the Major of Wetzel’s warning, and both of you go back to your posts on the river. Silas, send Capt. Boggs to me.”

An hour after the death of Tige the settlers were waiting for the ring of the meeting-house bell to summon them to the Fort.

Supper at Col. Zane’s that night was not the occasion of good-humored jest and pleasant conversation. Mrs. Zane’s face wore a distressed and troubled look; Betty was pale and quiet; even the Colonel was gloomy; and the children, missing the usual cheerfulness of the evening meal, shrank close to their mother.

Darkness slowly settled down; and with it came a feeling of relief, at least for the night, for the Indians rarely attacked the settlements after dark. Capt. Boggs came over and he and Col. Zane conversed in low tones.

“The first thing in the morning I want you to ride over to Short Creek for reinforcements. I’ll send the Major also and by a different route. I expect to hear tonight from Wetzel. Twelve times has he crossed that threshold with the information which made an Indian surprise impossible. And I feel sure he will come again.”

“What was that?” said Betty, who was sitting on the doorstep.

“Sh-h!” whispered Col. Zane, holding up his finger.

The night was warm and still. In the perfect quiet which followed the Colonel’s whispered exclamation the listeners heard the beating of their hearts. Then from the river bank came the cry of an owl; low but clear it came floating to their ears, its single melancholy note thrilling them. Faint and far off in the direction of the island sounded the answer.

“I knew it. I told you. We shall know all presently,” said Col. Zane. “The first call was Jonathan’s, and it was answered.”

The moments dragged away. The children had fallen asleep on the bearskin rug. Mrs. Zane and Betty had heard the Colonel’s voice, and sat with white faces, waiting, waiting for they knew not what.

A familiar, light-moccasined tread sounded on the path, a tall figure loomed up from the darkness; it came up the path, passed up the steps, and crossed the threshold.

“Wetzel!” exclaimed Col. Zane and Capt. Boggs. It was indeed the hunter. How startling was his appearance! The buckskin hunting coat and leggins were wet, torn and bespattered with mud; the water ran and dripped from him to form little muddy pools on the floor; only his rifle and powder horn were dry. His face was ghastly white except where a bullet wound appeared on his temple, from which the blood had oozed down over his cheek. An unearthly light gleamed from his eyes. In that moment Wetzel was an appalling sight.

“Col. Zane, I’d been here days before, but I run into some Shawnees, and they gave me a hard chase. I have to report that Girty, with four hundred Injuns and two hundred Britishers, are on the way to Ft. Henry.”

“My God!” exclaimed Col. Zane. Strong man as he was the hunter’s words had unnerved him.

The loud and clear tone of the church-bell rang out on the still night air. Only once it sounded, but it reverberated among the hills, and its single deep-toned ring was like a knell. The listeners almost expected to hear it followed by the fearful war-cry, that cry which betokened for many desolation and death.

CHAPTER XIII.

MORNING FOUND THE settlers, with the exception of Col. Zane, his brother Jonathan, the negro Sam, and Martin Wetzel, all within the Fort. Col. Zane had determined, long before, that in the event of another siege, he would use his house as an outpost. Twice it had been destroyed by fire at the hands of the Indians. Therefore, surrounding himself by these men, who were all expert marksmen, Col. Zane resolved to protect his property and at the same time render valuable aid to the Fort.

Early that morning a pirogue loaded with cannon balls, from Ft. Pitt and bound for Louisville, had arrived and Captain Sullivan, with his crew of three men, had demanded admittance. In the absence of Capt. Boggs and Major McColloch, both of whom had been dispatched for reinforcements, Col. Zane had placed his brother Silas in command of the Fort. Sullivan informed Silas that he and his men had been fired on by Indians and that they sought the protection of the Fort. The services of himself and men, which he volunteered, were gratefully accepted.

All told, the little force in the block-house did not exceed forty-two, and that counting the boys and the women who could handle rifles. The few preparations had been completed and now the settlers were awaiting the appearance of the enemy. Few words were spoken. The children were secured where they would be out of the way of flying bullets. They were huddled together silent and frightened; pale-faced but resolute women passed up and down the length of the block-house; some carried buckets of water and baskets of food; others were tearing bandages; grim-faced men peered from the portholes; all were listening for the war-cry.

They had not long to wait. Before noon the well-known whoop came from the wooded shore of the river, and it was soon followed by the appearance of hundreds of Indians. The river, which was low, at once became a scene of great animation. From a placid, smoothly flowing stream it was turned into a muddy, splashing, turbulent torrent. The mounted warriors urged their steeds down the bank and into the water; the unmounted improvised rafts and placed their weapons and ammunition upon them; then they swam and pushed, kicked and yelled their way across; other Indians swam, holding the bridles of the pack-horses. A detachment of British soldiers followed the Indians. In an hour the entire army appeared on the river bluff not three hundred yards from the Fort. They were in no hurry to begin the attack. Especially did the Indians seem to enjoy the lull before the storm, and as they stalked to and fro in plain sight of the garrison, or stood in groups watching the Fort, they were seen in all their hideous war-paint and formidable battle-array. They were exultant. Their plumes and eagle feathers waved proudly in the morning breeze. Now and then the long, peculiarly broken yell of the Shawnees rang out clear and strong. The soldiers were drawn off to one side and well out of range of the settlers’ guns. Their red coats and flashing bayonets were new to most of the little band of men in the block-house.

“Ho, the Fort!”

It was a strong, authoritative voice and came from a man mounted on a black horse.

“Well, Girty, what is it?” shouted Silas Zane.

“We demand unconditional surrender,” was the answer.

“You will never get it,” replied Silas.

“Take more time to think it over. You see we have a force here large enough to take the Fort in an hour.”

“That remains to be seen,” shouted some one through porthole.

An hour passed. The soldiers and the Indians lounged around on the grass and walked to and fro on the bluff. At intervals a taunting Indian yell, horrible in its suggestiveness came floating on the air. When the hour was up three mounted men rode out in advance of the waiting Indians. One was clad in buckskin, another in the uniform of a British officer, and the third was an Indian chief whose powerful form was naked except for his buckskin belt and legging.

“Will you surrender?” came in the harsh and arrogant voice of the renegade.

“Never! Go back to your squaws!” yelled Sullivan.

“I am Capt. Pratt of the Queen’s Rangers. If you surrender I will give you the best protection King George affords,” shouted the officer.

“To hell with lying George! Go back to your hair-buying Hamilton and tell him the whole British army could not make us surrender,” roared Hugh Bennet.

“If you do not give up, the Fort will be attacked and burned. Your men will be massacred and your women given to the Indians,” said Girty.

“You will never take a man, woman or child alive,” yelled Silas. “We remember Crawford, you white traitor, and we are not going to give up to be butchered. Come on with your red-jackets and your red-devils. We are ready.”

“We have captured and killed the messenger you sent out, and now all hope of succor must be abandoned. Your doom is sealed.”

“What kind of a man was he?” shouted Sullivan.

“A fine, active young fellow,” answered the outlaw.

“That’s a lie,” snapped Sullivan, “he was an old, gray haired man.”

As the officer and the outlaw chief turned, apparently to consult their companion, a small puff of white smoke shot forth from one of the portholes of the block-house. It was followed by the ringing report of a rifle. The Indian chief clutched wildly at his breast, fell forward on his horse, and after vainly trying to keep his seat, slipped to the ground. He raised himself once, then fell backward and lay still. Full two hundred yards was not proof against Wetzel’s deadly smallbore, and Red Fox, the foremost war chieftain of the Shawnees, lay dead, a victim to the hunter’s vengeance. It was characteristic of Wetzel that he picked the chief, for he could have shot either the British officer or the renegade. They retreated out of range, leaving the body of the chief where it had fallen, while the horse, giving a frightened snort, galloped toward the woods. Wetzel’s yell coming quickly after his shot, excited the Indians to a very frenzy, and they started on a run for the Fort, discharging their rifles and screeching like so many demons.

In the cloud of smoke which at once enveloped the scene the Indians spread out and surrounded the Fort. A tremendous rush by a large party of Indians was made for the gate of the Fort. They attacked it fiercely with their tomahawks, and a log which they used as a battering-ram. But the stout gate withstood their united efforts, and the galling fire from the portholes soon forced them to fall back and seek cover behind the trees and the rocks. From these points of vantage they kept up an uninterrupted fire.

The soldiers had made a dash at the stockade-fence, yelling derision at the small French cannon which was mounted on top of the block-house. They thought it a “dummy” because they had learned that in the 1777 siege the garrison had no real cannon, but had tried to utilize a wooden one. They yelled and hooted and mocked at this piece and dared the garrison to fire it. Sullivan, who was in charge of the cannon, bided his time. When the soldiers were massed closely together and making another rush for the stockade-fence Sullivan turned loose the little “bulldog,” spreading consternation and destruction in the British ranks.

“Stand back! Stand back!” Capt. Pratt was heard to yell. “By God! there’s no wood about that gun.”

After this the besiegers withdrew for a breathing spell. At this early stage of the siege the Indians were seen to board Sullivan’s pirogue, and it was soon discovered they were carrying the cannon balls from the boat to the top of the bluff. In their simple minds they had conceived a happy thought. They procured a white-oak log probably a foot in diameter, split it through the middle and hollowed out the inside with their tomahawks. Then with iron chains and bars, which they took from Reihart’s blacksmith shop, they bound and securely fastened the sides together. They dragged the improvised cannon nearer to the Fort, placed it on two logs and weighted it down with stones. A heavy charge of powder and ball was then rammed into the wooden gun. The soldiers, though much interested in the manoeuvre, moved back to a safe distance, while many of the Indians crowded round the new weapon. The torch was applied; there was a red flash — boom! The hillside was shaken by the tremendous explosion, and when the smoke lifted from the scene the naked forms of the Indians could be seen writhing in agony on the ground. Not a vestige of the wooden gun remained. The iron chains had proved terrible death-dealing missiles to the Indians near the gun. The Indians now took to their natural methods of warfare. They hid in the long grass, in the deserted cabins, behind the trees and up in the branches. Not an Indian was visible, but the rain of bullets pattered steadily against the block-house. Every bush and every tree spouted little puffs of white smoke, and the leaden messengers of Death whistled through the air.

After another unsuccessful effort to destroy a section of the stockade-fence the soldiers had retired. Their red jackets made them a conspicuous mark for the sharp-eyed settlers. Capt. Pratt had been shot through the thigh. He suffered great pain, and was deeply chagrined by the surprising and formidable defense of the garrison which he had been led to believe would fall an easy prey to the King’s soldiers. He had lost one-third of his men. Those who were left refused to run straight in the face of certain death. They had not been drilled to fight an unseen enemy. Capt. Pratt was compelled to order a retreat to the river bluff, where he conferred with Girty.

Inside the block-house was great activity, but no confusion. That little band of fighters might have been drilled for a king’s bodyguard. Kneeling before each porthole on the river side of the Fort was a man who would fight while there was breath left in him. He did not discharge his weapon aimlessly as the Indians did, but waited until he saw the outline of an Indian form, or a red coat, or a puff of white smoke; then he would thrust the rifle-barrel forward, take a quick aim and fire. By the side of every man stood a heroic woman whose face was blanched, but who spoke never a word as she put the muzzle of the hot rifle into a bucket of water, cooled the barrel, wiped it dry and passed it back to the man beside her.

Silas Zane had been wounded at the first fire. A glancing ball had struck him on the head, inflicting a painful scalp wound. It was now being dressed by Col. Zane’s wife, whose skilled fingers were already tired with the washing and the bandaging of the injuries received by the defenders. In all that horrible din of battle, the shrill yells of the savages, the hoarse shouts of the settlers, the boom of the cannon overhead, the cracking of rifles and the whistling of bullets; in all that din of appalling noise, and amid the stifling smoke, the smell of burned powder, the sickening sight of the desperately wounded and the already dead, the Colonel’s brave wife had never faltered. She was here and there; binding the wounds, helping Lydia and Betty mould bullets, encouraging the men, and by her example, enabling those women to whom border war was new to bear up under the awful strain.

Sullivan, who had been on top of the block-house, came down the ladder almost without touching it. Blood was running down his bare arm and dripping from the ends of his fingers.

“Zane, Martin has been shot,” he said hoarsely. “The same Indian who shot away these fingers did it. The bullets seem to come from some elevation. Send some scout up there and find out where that damned Indian is hiding.”

“Martin shot? God, his poor wife! Is he dead?” said Silas.

“Not yet. Bennet is bringing him down. Here, I want this hand tied up, so that my gun won’t be so slippery.”

Wetzel was seen stalking from one porthole to another. His fearful yell sounded above all the others. He seemed to bear a charmed life, for not a bullet had so much as scratched him. Silas communicated to him what Sullivan had said. The hunter mounted the ladder and went up on the roof. Soon he reappeared, descended into the room and ran into the west end of the block-house. He kneeled before a porthole through which he pushed the long black barrel of his rifle. Silas and Sullivan followed him and looked in the direction indicated by his weapon. It pointed toward the bushy top of a tall poplar tree which stood on the hill west of the Fort. Presently a little cloud of white smoke issued from the leafy branches, and it was no sooner seen than Wetzel’s rifle was discharged. There was a great commotion among the leaves, the branches swayed and thrashed, and then a dark body plunged downward to strike on the rocky slope of the bluff and roll swiftly out of sight. The hunter’s unnatural yell pealed out.

“Great God! The man’s crazy,” cried Sullivan, staring at Wetzel’s demon-like face.

“No, no. It’s his way,” answered Silas.

At that moment the huge frame of Bennet filled up the opening in the roof and started down the ladder. In one arm he carried the limp body of a young man. When he reached the floor he laid the body down and beckoned to Mrs. Zane. Those watching saw that the young man was Will Martin, and that he was still alive. But it was evident that he had not long to live. His face had a leaden hue and his eyes were bright and glassy. Alice, his wife, flung herself on her knees beside him and tenderly raised the drooping head. No words could express the agony in her face as she raised it to Mrs. Zane. In it was a mute appeal, an unutterable prayer for hope. Mrs. Zane turned sorrowfully to her task. There was no need of her skill here. Alfred Clarke, who had been ordered to take Martin’s place on top of the block-house, paused a moment in silent sympathy. When he saw that little hole in the bared chest, from which the blood welled up in an awful stream, he shuddered and passed on. Betty looked up from her work and then turned away sick and faint. Her mute lips moved as if in prayer.

Alice was left alone with her dying husband. She tenderly supported his head on her bosom, leaned her face against his and kissed the cold, numb lips. She murmured into his already deaf ear the old tender names. He knew her, for he made a feeble effort to pass his arm round her neck. A smile illumined his face. Then death claimed him. With wild, distended eyes and with hands pressed tightly to her temples Alice rose slowly to her feet.

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” she cried.

Her prayer was answered. In a momentary lull in the battle was heard the deadly hiss of a bullet as it sped through one of the portholes. It ended with a slight sickening spat as the lead struck the flesh. Then Alice, without a cry, fell on the husband’s breast. Silas Zane found her lying dead with the body of her husband clasped closely in her arms. He threw a blanket over them and went on his wearying round of the bastions.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The besiegers had been greatly harassed and hampered by the continual fire from Col. Zane’s house. It was exceedingly difficult for the Indians, and impossible for the British, to approach near enough to the Colonel’s house to get an effective shot. Col. Zane and his men had the advantage of being on higher ground. Also they had four rifles to a man, and they used every spare moment for reloading. Thus they were enabled to pour a deadly fire into the ranks of the enemy, and to give the impression of being much stronger in force than they really were.

About dusk the firing ceased and the Indians repaired to the river bluff. Shortly afterward their camp-fires were extinguished and all became dark and quiet. Two hours passed. Fortunately the clouds, which had at first obscured the moon, cleared away somewhat and enough light was shed on the scene to enable the watchers to discern objects near by.

Col. Zane had just called together his men for a conference. He suspected some cunning deviltry on part of the Indians.

“Sam, take what stuff to eat you can lay your hands on and go up to the loft. Keep a sharp lookout and report anything to Jonathan or me,” said the Colonel.

All afternoon Jonathan Zane had loaded and fired his rifles in sullen and dogged determination. He had burst one rifle and disabled another. The other men were fine marksmen, but it was undoubtedly Jonathan’s unerring aim that made the house so unapproachable. He used an extremely heavy, large bore rifle. In the hands of a man strong enough to stand its fierce recoil it was a veritable cannon. The Indians had soon learned to respect the range of that rifle, and they gave the cabin a wide berth.

But now that darkness had enveloped the valley the advantage lay with the savages. Col. Zane glanced apprehensively at the blackened face of his brother.

“Do you think the Fort can hold out?” he asked in a husky voice. He was a bold man, but he thought now of his wife and children.

“I don’t know,” answered Jonathan. “I saw that big Shawnee chief today. His name is Fire. He is well named. He is a fiend. Girty has a picked band.”

“The Fort has held out surprisingly well against such combined and fierce attacks. The Indians are desperate. You can easily see that in the way in which they almost threw their lives away. The green square is covered with dead Indians.”

“If help does not come in twenty-four hours not one man will escape alive. Even Wetzel could not break through that line of Indians. But if we can hold the Indians off a day longer they will get tired and discouraged. Girty will not be able to hold them much longer. The British don’t count. It’s not their kind of war. They can’t shoot, and so far as I can see they haven’t done much damage.”

“To your posts, men, and every man think of the women and children in the block-house.”

For a long time, which seemed hours to the waiting and watching settlers, not a sound could be heard, nor any sign of the enemy seen. Thin clouds had again drifted over the moon, allowing only a pale, wan light to shine down on the valley. Time dragged on and the clouds grew thicker and denser until the moon and the stars were totally obscured. Still no sign or sound of the savages.

“What was that?” suddenly whispered Col. Zane.

“It was a low whistle from Sam. We’d better go up,” said Jonathan.

They went up the stairs to the second floor from which they ascended to the loft by means of a ladder. The loft was as black as pitch. In that Egyptian darkness it was no use to look for anything, so they crawled on their hands and knees over the piles of hides and leather which lay on the floor. When they reached the small window they made out the form of the negro.

“What is it, Sam?” whispered Jonathan.

“Look, see thar, Massa Zane,” came the answer in a hoarse whisper from the negro and at the same time he pointed down toward the ground.

Col. Zane put his head alongside Jonathan’s and all three men peered out into the darkness.

“Jack, can you see anything?” said Col. Zane.

“No, but wait a minute until the moon throws a light.”

A breeze had sprung up. The clouds were passing rapidly over the moon, and at long intervals a rift between the clouds let enough light through to brighten the square for an instant.

“Now, Massa Zane, thar!” exclaimed the slave.

“I can’t see a thing. Can you, Jack?”

“I am not sure yet. I can see something, but whether it is a log or not I don’t know.”

Just then there was a faint light like the brightening of a firefly, or like the blowing of a tiny spark from a stick of burning wood. Jonathan uttered a low curse.

“D — n ‘em! At their old tricks with fire. I thought all this quiet meant something. The grass out there is full of Indians, and they are carrying lighted arrows under them so as to cover the light. But we’ll fool the red devils this time”

“I can see ‘em, Massa Zane.”

“Sh-h-h! no more talk,” whispered Col. Zane.

The men waited with cocked rifles. Another spark rose seemingly out of the earth. This time it was nearer the house. No sooner had its feeble light disappeared than the report of the negro’s rifle awoke the sleeping echoes. It was succeeded by a yell which seemed to come from under the window. Several dark forms rose so suddenly that they appeared to spring out of the ground. Then came the peculiar twang of Indian bows. There were showers of sparks and little streaks of fire with long tails like comets winged their parabolic flight toward the cabin. Falling short they hissed and sputtered in the grass. Jonathan’s rifle spoke and one of the fleeing forms tumbled to the earth. A series of long yells from all around the Fort greeted this last shot, but not an Indian fired a rifle.

Fire-tipped arrows were now shot at the block-house, but not one took effect, although a few struck the stockade-fence. Col. Zane had taken the precaution to have the high grass and the clusters of goldenrod cut down all round the Fort. The wisdom of this course now became evident, for the wily savages could not crawl near enough to send their fiery arrows on the roof of the block-house. This attempt failing, the Indians drew back to hatch up some other plot to burn the Fort.

“Look!” suddenly exclaimed Jonathan.

Far down the road, perhaps five hundred yards from the Fort, a point of light had appeared. At first it was still, and then it took an odd jerky motion, to this side and to that, up and down like a jack-o-lantern.

“What the hell?” muttered Col. Zane, sorely puzzled. “Jack, by all that’s strange it’s getting bigger.”

Sure enough the spark of fire, or whatever it was, grew larger and larger. Col. Zane thought it might be a light carried by a man on horseback. But if this were true where was the clatter of the horse’s hoofs? On that rocky blur no horse could run noiselessly. It could not be a horse. Fascinated and troubled by this new mystery which seemed to presage evil to them the watchers waited with that patience known only to those accustomed to danger. They knew that whatever it was, it was some satanic stratagem of the savages, and that it would come all too soon.

The light was now zigzagging back and forth across the road, and approaching the Fort with marvelous rapidity. Now its motion was like the wide swinging of a lighted lantern on a dark night. A moment more of breathless suspense and the lithe form of an Indian brave could be seen behind the light. He was running with almost incredible swiftness down the road in the direction of the Fort. Passing at full speed within seventy-five yards of the stockade-fence the Indian shot his arrow. Like a fiery serpent flying through the air the missile sped onward in its graceful flight, going clear over the block-house, and striking with a spiteful thud the roof of one of the cabins beyond. Unhurt by the volley that was fired at him, the daring brave passed swiftly out of sight.

Deeds like this were dear to the hearts of the savages. They were deeds which made a warrior of a brave, and for which honor any Indian would risk his life over and over again. The exultant yells which greeted this performance proclaimed its success.

The breeze had already fanned the smouldering arrow into a blaze and the dry roof of the cabin had caught fire and was burning fiercely.

“That infernal redskin is going to do that again,” ejaculated Jonathan.

It was indeed true. That same small bright light could be seen coming down the road gathering headway with every second. No doubt the same Indian, emboldened by his success, and maddened with that thirst for glory so often fatal to his kind, was again making the effort to fire the block-house.

The eyes of Col. Zane and his companions were fastened on the light as it came nearer and nearer with its changing motion. The burning cabin brightened the square before the Fort. The slender, shadowy figure of the Indian could be plainly seen emerging from the gloom. So swiftly did he run that he seemed to have wings. Now he was in the full glare of the light. What a magnificent nerve, what a terrible assurance there was in his action! It seemed to paralyze all. The red arrow emitted a shower of sparks as it was discharged. This time it winged its way straight and true and imbedded itself in the roof of the block-house.

Almost at the same instant a solitary rifle shot rang out and the daring warrior plunged headlong, sliding face downward in the dust of the road, while from the Fort came that demoniac yell now grown so familiar.

“Wetzel’s compliments,” muttered Jonathan. “But the mischief is done. Look at that damned burning arrow. If it doesn’t blow out the Fort will go.”

The arrow was visible, but it seemed a mere spark. It alternately paled and glowed. One moment it almost went out, and the next it gleamed brightly. To the men, compelled to look on and powerless to prevent the burning of the now apparently doomed block-house, that spark was like the eye of Hell.

“Ho, the Fort,” yelled Col. Zane with all the power of his strong lungs. “Ho, Silas, the roof is on fire!”

Pandemonium had now broken out among the Indians. They could be plainly seen in the red glare thrown by the burning cabin. It had been a very dry season, the rough shingles were like tinder, and the inflammable material burst quickly into great flames, lighting up the valley as far as the edge of the forest. It was an awe-inspiring and a horrible spectacle. Columns of yellow and black smoke rolled heavenward; every object seemed dyed a deep crimson; the trees assumed fantastic shapes; the river veiled itself under a red glow. Above the roaring and crackling of the flames rose the inhuman yelling of the savages. Like demons of the inferno they ran to and fro, their naked painted bodies shining in the glare. One group of savages formed a circle and danced hands-around a stump as gayly as a band of school-girls at a May party. They wrestled with and hugged one another; they hopped, skipped and jumped, and in every possible way manifested their fiendish joy.

The British took no part in this revelry. To their credit it must be said they kept in the background as though ashamed of this horrible fire-war on people of their own blood.

“Why don’t they fire the cannon?” impatiently said Col. Zane. “Why don’t they do something?”

“Perhaps it is disabled, or maybe they are short of ammunition,” suggested Jonathan.

“The block-house will burn down before our eyes. Look! The hell-hounds have set fire to the fence. I see men running and throwing water.”

“I see something on the roof of the block-house,” cried Jonathan. “There, down towards the east end of the roof and in the shadow of the chimney. And as I’m a living sinner it’s a man crawling towards that blazing arrow. The Indians have not discovered him yet. He is still in the shadow. But they’ll see him. God! What a nervy thing to do in the face of all those redskins. It is almost certain death!”

“Yes, and they see him,” said the Colonel.

With shrill yells the Indians bounded forward and aimed and fired their rifles at the crouching figure of the man. Some hid behind the logs they had rolled toward the Fort; others boldly faced the steady fire now pouring from the portholes. The savages saw in the movement of that man an attempt to defeat their long-cherished hope of burning the Fort. Seeing he was discovered, the man did not hesitate, nor did he lose a second. Swiftly he jumped and ran toward the end of the roof where the burning arrow, now surrounded by blazing shingles, was sticking in the roof. How he ever ran along that slanting roof and with a pail in his hand was incomprehensible. In moments like that men become superhuman. It all happened in an instant. He reached the arrow, kicked it over the wall, and then dashed the bucket of water on the blazing shingles. In that single instant, wherein his tall form was outlined against the bright light behind him, he presented the fairest kind of a mark for the Indians. Scores of rifles were levelled and discharged at him. The bullets pattered like hail on the roof of the block-house, but apparently none found their mark, for the man ran back and disappeared.

“It was Clarke!” exclaimed Col. Zane. “No one but Clarke has such light hair. Wasn’t that a plucky thing?”

“It has saved the block-house for to-night,” answered Jonathan. “See, the Indians are falling back. They can’t stand in the face of that shooting. Hurrah! Look at them fall! It could not have happened better. The light from the cabin will prevent any more close attacks for an hour and daylight is near.”

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SUN ROSE red. Its ruddy rays peeped over the eastern hills, kissed the tree-tops, glinted along the stony bluffs, and chased away the gloom of night from the valley. Its warm gleams penetrated the portholes of the Fort and cast long bright shadows on the walls; but it brought little cheer to the sleepless and almost exhausted defenders. It brought to many of the settlers the familiar old sailor’s maxim: “Redness ‘a the morning, sailor’s warning.” Rising in its crimson glory the sun flooded the valley, dyeing the river, the leaves, the grass, the stones, tingeing everything with that awful color which stained the stairs, the benches, the floor, even the portholes of the block-house.

Historians call this the time that tried men’s souls. If it tried the men think what it must have been to those grand, heroic women. Though they had helped the men load and fire nearly forty-eight hours; though they had worked without a moment’s rest and were now ready to succumb to exhaustion; though the long room was full of stifling smoke and the sickening odor of burned wood and powder, and though the row of silent, covered bodies had steadily lengthened, the thought of giving up never occurred to the women. Death there would be sweet compared to what it would be at the hands of the redmen.

At sunrise Silas Zane, bare-chested, his face dark and fierce, strode into the bastion which was connected with the blockhouse. It was a small shedlike room, and with portholes opening to the river and the forest. This bastion had seen the severest fighting. Five men had been killed here. As Silas entered four haggard and powder-begrimed men, who were kneeling before the portholes, looked up at him. A dead man lay in one corner.

“Smith’s dead. That makes fifteen,” said Silas. “Fifteen out of forty-two, that leaves twenty-seven. We must hold out. Len, don’t expose yourselves recklessly. How goes it at the south bastion?”

“All right. There’s been firin’ over there all night,” answered one of the men. “I guess it’s been kinder warm over that way. But I ain’t heard any shootin’ for some time.”

“Young Bennet is over there, and if the men needed anything they would send him for it,” answered Silas. “I’ll send some food and water. Anything else?”

“Powder. We’re nigh out of powder,” replied the man addressed. “And we might jes as well make ready fer a high old time. The red devils hadn’t been quiet all this last hour fer nothin’.”

Silas passed along the narrow hallway which led from the bastion into the main room of the block-house. As he turned the corner at the head of the stairway he encountered a boy who was dragging himself up the steps.

“Hello! Who’s this? Why, Harry!” exclaimed Silas, grasping the boy and drawing him into the room. Once in the light Silas saw that the lad was so weak he could hardly stand. He was covered with blood. It dripped from a bandage wound tightly about his arm; it oozed through a hole in his hunting shirt, and it flowed from a wound over his temple. The shadow of death was already stealing over the pallid face, but from the grey eyes shone an indomitable spirit, a spirit which nothing but death could quench.

“Quick!” the lad panted. “Send men to the south wall. The redskins are breakin’ in where the water from the spring runs under the fence.”

“Where are Metzar and the other men?”

“Dead! Killed last night. I’ve been there alone all night. I kept on shootin’. Then I gets plugged here under the chin. Knowin’ it’s all up with me I deserted my post when I heard the Injuns choppin’ on the fence where it was on fire last night. But I only — run — because — they’re gettin’ in.”

“Wetzel, Bennet, Clarke!” yelled Silas, as he laid the boy on the bench.

Almost as Silas spoke the tall form of the hunter confronted him. Clarke and the other men were almost as prompt.

“Wetzel, run to the south wall. The Indians are cutting a hole through the fence.”

Wetzel turned, grabbed his rifle and an axe and was gone like a flash.

“Sullivan, you handle the men here. Bessie, do what you can for this brave lad. Come, Bennet, Clarke, we must follow Wetzel,” commanded Silas.

Mrs. Zane hastened to the side of the fainting lad. She washed away the blood from the wound over his temple. She saw that a bullet had glanced on the bone and that the wound was not deep or dangerous. She unlaced the hunting shirt at the neck and pulled the flaps apart. There on the right breast, on a line with the apex of the lung, was a horrible gaping wound. A murderous British slug had passed through the lad. From the hole at every heart-beat poured the dark, crimson life-tide. Mrs. Zane turned her white face away for a second; then she folded a small piece of linen, pressed it tightly over the wound, and wrapped a towel round the lad’s breast.

“Don’t waste time on me. It’s all over,” he whispered. “Will you call Betty here a minute?”

Betty came, white-faced and horror-stricken. For forty hours she had been living in a maze of terror. Her movements had almost become mechanical. She had almost ceased to hear and feel. But the light in the eyes of this dying boy brought her back to the horrible reality of the present.

“Oh, Harry! Harry! Harry!” was all Betty could whisper.

“I’m goin’, Betty. And I wanted — you to say a little prayer for me — and say good-bye to me,” he panted.

Betty knelt by the bench and tried to pray.

“I hated to run, Betty, but I waited and waited and nobody came, and the Injuns was getting’ in. They’ll find dead Injuns in piles out there. I was shootin’ fer you, Betty, and every time I aimed I thought of you.”

The lad rambled on, his voice growing weaker and weaker and finally ceasing. The hand which had clasped Betty’s so closely loosened its hold. His eyes closed. Betty thought he was dead, but no! he still breathed. Suddenly his eyes opened. The shadow of pain was gone. In its place shone a beautiful radiance.

“Betty, I’ve cared a lot for you — and I’m dyin’ — happy because I’ve fought fer you — and somethin’ tells me — you’ll — be saved. Good-bye.” A smile transformed his face and his gray eyes gazed steadily into hers. Then his head fell back. With a sigh his brave spirit fled.

Hugh Bennet looked once at the pale face of his son, then he ran down the stairs after Silas and Clarke. When the three men emerged from behind Capt. Boggs’ cabin, which was adjacent to the block-house, and which hid the south wall from their view, they were two hundred feet from Wetzel. They heard the heavy thump of a log being rammed against the fence; then a splitting and splintering of one of the six-inch oak planks. Another and another smashing blow and the lower half of one of the planks fell inwards, leaving an aperture large enough to admit an Indian. The men dashed forward to the assistance of Wetzel, who stood by the hole with upraised axe. At the same moment a shot rang out. Bennet stumbled and fell headlong. An Indian had shot through the hole in the fence. Silas and Alfred sheered off toward the fence, out of line. When within twenty yards of Wetzel they saw a swarthy-faced and athletic savage squeeze through the narrow crevice. He had not straightened up before the axe, wielded by the giant hunter, descended on his head, cracking his skull as if it were an eggshell. The savage sank to the earth without even a moan. Another savage naked and powerful, slipped in. He had to stoop to get through. He raised himself, and seeing Wetzel, he tried to dodge the lightning sweep of the axe. It missed his head, at which it had been aimed, but struck just over the shoulders, and buried itself in flesh and bone. The Indian uttered an agonizing yell which ended in a choking, gurgling sound as the blood spurted from his throat. Wetzel pulled the weapon from the body of his victim, and with the same motion he swung it around. This time the blunt end met the next Indian’s head with a thud like that made by the butcher when he strikes the bullock to the ground. The Indian’s rifle dropped, his tomahawk flew into the air, while his body rolled down the little embankment into the spring. Another and another Indian met the same fate. Then two Indians endeavored to get through the aperture. The awful axe swung by those steel arms, dispatched both of than in the twinkling of an eye. Their bodies stuck in the hole.

Silas and Alfred stood riveted to the spot. Just then Wetzel in all his horrible glory was a sight to freeze the marrow of any man. He had cast aside his hunting shirt in that run to the fence and was now stripped to the waist. He was covered with blood. The muscles of his broad back and his brawny arms swelled and rippled under the brown skin. At every swing of the gory axe he let out a yell the like of which had never before been heard by the white men. It was the hunter’s mad yell of revenge. In his thirst for vengeance he had forgotten that he was defending the Fort with its women and its children; he was fighting because he loved to kill.

Silas Zane heard the increasing clamor outside and knew that hundreds of Indians were being drawn to the spot. Something must be done at once. He looked around and his eyes fell on a pile of white-oak logs that had been hauled inside the Fort. They had been placed there by Col. Zane, with wise forethought. Silas grabbed Clarke and pulled him toward the pile of logs, at the same time communicating his plan. Together they carried a log to the fence and dropped it in front of the hole. Wetzel immediately stepped on it and took a vicious swing at an Indian who was trying to poke his rifle sideways through the hole. This Indian had discharged his weapon twice. While Wetzel held the Indians at bay, Silas and Clarke piled the logs one upon another, until the hole was closed. This effectually fortified and barricaded the weak place in the stockade fence. The settlers in the bastions were now pouring such a hot fire into the ranks of the savage that they were compelled to retreat out of range.

While Wetzel washed the blood from his arms and his shoulders Silas and Alfred hurried back to where Bennet had fallen. They expected to find him dead, and were overjoyed to see the big settler calmly sitting by the brook binding up a wound in his shoulder.

“It’s nothin’ much. Jest a scratch, but it tumbled me over,” he said. “I was comin’ to help you. That was the wust Injun scrap I ever saw. Why didn’t you keep on lettin’ ’em come in? The red varmints would’a kept on comin’ and Wetzel was good fer the whole tribe. All you’d had to do was to drag the dead Injuns aside and give him elbow room.”

Wetzel joined them at this moment, and they hurried back to the block-house. The firing had ceased on the bluff. They met Sullivan at the steps of the Fort. He was evidently coming in search of them.

“Zane, the Indians and the Britishers are getting ready for more determined and persistent effort than any that has yet been made,” said Sullivan.

“How so?” asked Silas.

“They have got hammers from the blacksmith’s shop, and they boarded my boat and found a keg of nails. Now they are making a number of ladders. If they make a rush all at once and place ladders against the fence we’ll have the Fort full of Indians in ten minutes. They can’t stand in the face of a cannon charge. We must use the cannon.”

“Clarke, go into Capt. Boggs’ cabin and fetch out two kegs of powder,” said Silas.

The young man turned in the direction of the cabin, while Silas and the others ascended the stairs.

“The firing seems to be all on the south side,” said Silas, “and is not so heavy as it was.”

“Yes, as I said, the Indians on the river front are busy with their new plans,” answered Sullivan.

“Why does not Clarke return?” said Silas, after waiting a few moments at the door of the long room. “We have no time to lose. I want to divide one keg of that powder among the men.”

Clarke appeared at the moment. He was breathing heavily as though he had run up the stairs, or was laboring under a powerful emotion. His face was gray.

“I could not find any powder!” he exclaimed. “I searched every nook and corner in Capt. Boggs’ house. There is no powder there.”

A brief silence ensued. Everyone in the block-house heard the young man’s voice. No one moved. They all seemed waiting for someone to speak. Finally Silas Zane burst out:

“Not find it? You surely could not have looked well. Capt. Boggs himself told me there were three kegs of powder in the storeroom. I will go and find it myself.”

Alfred did not answer, but sat down on a bench with an odd numb feeling round his heart. He knew what was coming. He had been in the Captain’s house and had seen those kegs of powder. He knew exactly where they had been. Now they were not on the accustomed shelf, nor at any other place in the storeroom. While he sat there waiting for the awful truth to dawn on the garrison, his eyes roved from one end of the room to the other. At last they found what they were seeking. A young woman knelt before a charcoal fire which she was blowing with a bellows. It was Betty. Her face was pale and weary, her hair dishevelled, her shapely arms blackened with charcoal, but notwithstanding she looked calm, resolute, self-contained. Lydia was kneeling by her side holding a bullet-mould on a block of wood. Betty lifted the ladle from the red coals and poured the hot metal with a steady hand and an admirable precision. Too much or too little lead would make an imperfect ball. The little missile had to be just so for those soft-metal, smooth-bore rifles. Then Lydia dipped the mould in a bucket of water, removed it and knocked it on the floor. A small, shiny lead bullet rolled out. She rubbed it with a greasy rag and then dropped it in a jar. For nearly forty hours, without sleep or rest, almost without food, those brave girls had been at their post.

Silas Zane came running into the room. His face was ghastly, even his lips were white and drawn.

“Sullivan, in God’s name, what can we do? The powder is gone!” he cried in a strident voice.

“Gone?” repeated several voices.

“Gone?” echoed Sullivan. “Where?”

“God knows. I found where the kegs stood a few days ago. There were marks in the dust. They have been moved.”

“Perhaps Boggs put them here somewhere,” said Sullivan. “We will look.”

“No use. No use. We were always careful to keep the powder out of here on account of fire. The kegs are gone, gone.”

“Miller stole them,” said Wetzel in his calm voice.

“What difference does that make now?” burst out Silas, turning passionately on the hunter, whose quiet voice in that moment seemed so unfeeling. “They’re gone!”

In the silence which ensued after these words the men looked at each other with slowly whitening faces. There was no need of words. Their eyes told one another what was coming. The fate which had overtaken so many border forts was to be theirs. They were lost! And every man thought not of himself, cared not for himself, but for those innocent children, those brave young girls and heroic women.

A man can die. He is glorious when he calmly accepts death; but when he fights like a tiger, when he stands at bay his back to the wall, a broken weapon in his hand, bloody, defiant, game to the end, then he is sublime. Then he wrings respect from the souls of even his bitterest foes. Then he is avenged even in his death.

But what can women do in times of war? They help, they cheer, they inspire, and if their cause is lost they must accept death or worse. Few women have the courage for self-destruction. “To the victor belong the spoils,” and women have ever been the spoils of war.

No wonder Silas Zane and his men weakened in that moment. With only a few charges for their rifles and none for the cannon how could they hope to hold out against the savages? Alone they could have drawn their tomahawks and have made a dash through the lines of Indians, but with the women and the children that was impossible.

“Wetzel, what can we do? For God’s sake, advise us!” said Silas hoarsely. “We cannot hold the Fort without powder. We cannot leave the women here. We had better tomahawk every woman in the block-house than let her fall into the hands of Girty.”

“Send someone fer powder,” answered Wetzel.

“Do you think it possible,” said Silas quickly, a ray of hope lighting up his haggard features. “There’s plenty of powder in Eb’s cabin. Whom shall we send? Who will volunteer?”

Three men stepped forward, and others made a movement.

“They’d plug a man full of lead afore he’d get ten foot from the gate,” said Wetzel. “I’d go myself, but it wouldn’t do no good. Send a boy, and one as can run like a streak.”

“There are no lads big enough to carry a keg of powder. Harry Bennett might go,” said Silas. “How is he, Bessie?”

“He is dead,” answered Mrs. Zane.

Wetzel made a motion with his hands and turned away. A short, intense silence followed this indication of hopelessness from him. The women understood, for some of them covered their faces, while others sobbed.

“I will go.”

It was Betty’s voice, and it rang clear and vibrant throughout the room. The miserable women raised their drooping heads, thrilled by that fresh young voice. The men looked stupefied. Clarke seemed turned to stone. Wetzel came quickly toward her.

“Impossible!” said Sullivan.

Silas Zane shook his head as if the idea were absurd.

“Let me go, brother, let me go?” pleaded Betty as she placed her little hands softly, caressingly on her brother’s bare arm. “I know it is only a forlorn chance, but still it is a chance. Let me take it. I would rather die that way than remain here and wait for death.”

“Silas, it ain’t a bad plan,” broke in Wetzel. “Betty can run like a deer. And bein’ a woman they may let her get to the cabin without shootin’.”

Silas stood with arms folded across his broad chest. As he gazed at his sister great tears coursed down his dark cheeks and splashed on the hands which so tenderly clasped his own. Betty stood before him transformed; all signs of weariness had vanished; her eyes shone with a fateful resolve; her white and eager face was surpassingly beautiful with its light of hope, of prayer, of heroism.

“Let me go, brother. You know I can run, and oh! I will fly today. Every moment is precious. Who knows? Perhaps Capt. Boggs is already near at hand with help. You cannot spare a man. Let me go.”

“Betty, Heaven bless and save you, you shall go,” said Silas.

“No! No! Do not let her go!” cried Clarke, throwing himself before them. He was trembling, his eyes were wild, and he had the appearance of a man suddenly gone mad.

“She shall not go,” he cried.

“What authority have you here?” demanded Silas Zane, sternly. “What right have you to speak?”

“None, unless it is that I love her and I will go for her,” answered Alfred desperately.

“Stand back!” cried Wetzel, placing his powerful hard on Clarke’s breast and pushing him backward. “If you love her you don’t want to have her wait here for them red devils,” and he waved his hand toward the river. “If she gets back she’ll save the Fort. If she fails she’ll at least escape Girty.”

Betty gazed into the hunter’s eyes and then into Alfred’s. She understood both men. One was sending her out to her death because he knew it would be a thousand times more merciful than the fate which awaited her at the hands of the Indians. The other had not the strength to watch her go to her death. He had offered himself rather than see her take such fearful chances.

“I know. If it were possible you would both save me,” said Betty, simply. “Now you can do nothing but pray that God may spare my life long enough to reach the gate. Silas, I am ready.”

Downstairs a little group of white-faced men were standing before the gateway. Silas Zane had withdrawn the iron bar. Sullivan stood ready to swing in the ponderous gate. Wetzel was speaking with a clearness and a rapidity which were wonderful under the circumstances.

“When we let you out you’ll have a clear path. Run, but not very fast. Save your speed. Tell the Colonel to empty a keg of powder in a table cloth. Throw it over your shoulder and start back. Run like you was racin’ with me, and keep on comin’ if you do get hit. Now go!”

The huge gate creaked and swung in. Betty ran out, looking straight before her. She had covered half the distance between the Fort and the Colonel’s house when long taunting yells filled the air.

“Squaw! Waugh! Squaw! Waugh!” yelled the Indians in contempt.

Not a shot did they fire. The yells ran all along the river front, showing that hundreds of Indians had seen the slight figure running up the gentle slope toward the cabin.

Betty obeyed Wetzel’s instructions to the letter. She ran easily and not at all hurriedly, and was as cool as if there had not been an Indian within miles.

Col. Zane had seen the gate open and Betty come forth. When she bounded up the steps he flung open that door and she ran into his arms.

“Betts, for God’s sake! What’s this?” he cried.

“We are out of powder. Empty a keg of powder into a table cloth. Quick! I’ve not a second to lose,” she answered, at the same time slipping off her outer skirt. She wanted nothing to hinder that run for the block-house.

Jonathan Zane heard Betty’s first words and disappeared into the magazine-room. He came out with a keg in his arms. With one blow of an axe he smashed in the top of the keg. In a twinkling a long black stream of the precious stuff was piling up in a little hill in the center of the table. Then the corners of the table cloth were caught up, turned and twisted, and the bag of powder was thrown over Betty’s shoulder.

“Brave girl, so help me God, you are going to do it!” cried Col. Zane, throwing open the door. “I know you can. Run as you never ran in all your life.”

Like an arrow sprung from a bow Betty flashed past the Colonel and out on the green. Scarcely ten of the long hundred yards had been covered by her flying feet when a roar of angry shouts and yells warned Betty that the keen-eyed savages saw the bag of powder and now knew they had been deceived by a girl. The cracking of rifles began at a point on the bluff nearest Col. Zane’s house, and extended in a half circle to the eastern end of the clearing. The leaden messengers of Death whistled past Betty. They sped before her and behind her, scattering pebbles in her path, striking up the dust, and ploughing little furrows in the ground. A quarter of the distance covered! Betty had passed the top of the knoll now and she was going down the gentle slope like the wind. None but a fine marksman could have hit that small, flitting figure. The yelling and screeching had become deafening. The reports of the rifles blended in a roar. Yet above it all Betty heard Wetzel’s stentorian yell. It lent wings to her feet. Half the distance covered! A hot, stinging pain shot through Betty’s arm, but she heeded it not. The bullets were raining about her. They sang over her head; hissed close to her ears, and cut the grass in front of her; they pattered like hail on the stockade-fence, but still untouched, unharmed, the slender brown figure sped toward the gate. Three-fourths of the distance covered! A tug at the flying hair, and a long, black tress cut off by a bullet, floated away on the breeze. Betty saw the big gate swing; she saw the tall figure of the hunter; she saw her brother. Only a few more yards! On! On! On! A blinding red mist obscured her sight. She lost the opening in the fence, but unheeding she rushed on. Another second and she stumbled; she felt herself grasped by eager arms; she heard the gate slam and the iron bar shoot into place; then she felt and heard no more.

Silas Zane bounded up the stairs with a doubly precious burden in his arms. A mighty cheer greeted his entrance. It aroused Alfred Clarke, who had bowed his head on the bench and had lost all sense of time and place. What were the women sobbing and crying over? To whom belonged that white face? Of course, it was the face of the girl he loved. The face of the girl who had gone to her death. And he writhed in his agony.

Then something wonderful happened. A warm, living flush swept over that pale face. The eyelids fluttered; they opened, and the dark eyes, radiant, beautiful, gazed straight into Alfred’s.

Still Alfred could not believe his eyes. That pale face and the wonderful eyes belonged to the ghost of his sweetheart. They had come back to haunt him. Then he heard a voice.

“O-h! but that brown place burns!”

Alfred saw a bare and shapely arm. Its beauty was marred by a cruel red welt. He heard that same sweet voice laugh and cry together. Then he came back to life and hope. With one bound he sprang to a porthole.

“God, what a woman!” he said between his teeth, as he thrust the rifle forward.

It was indeed not a time for inaction. The Indians, realizing they had been tricked and had lost a golden opportunity, rushed at the Fort with renewed energy. They attacked from all sides and with the persistent fury of savages long disappointed in their hopes. They were received with a scathing, deadly fire. Bang! roared the cannon, and the detachment of savages dropped their ladders and fled. The little “bull dog” was turned on its swivel and directed at another rush of Indians. Bang! and the bullets, chainlinks, and bits of iron ploughed through the ranks of the enemy. The Indians never lived who could stand in the face of well-aimed cannon-shot. They fell back. The settlers, inspired, carried beyond themselves by the heroism of a girl, fought as they had never fought before. Every shot went to a redskin’s heart, impelled by the powder for which a brave girl had offered her life, guided by hands and arms of iron, and aimed by eyes as fixed and stern as Fate, every bullet shed the life-blood of a warrior.

Slowly and sullenly the red men gave way before that fire. Foot by foot they retired. Girty was seen no more. Fire, the Shawnee chief, lay dead in the road almost in the same spot where two days before his brother chief, Red Fox, had bit the dust. The British had long since retreated.

When night came the exhausted and almost famished besiegers sought rest and food.

The moon came out clear and beautiful, as if ashamed at her traitor’s part of the night before, and brightened up the valley, bathing the Fort, the river, and the forest in her silver light.

Shortly after daybreak the next morning the Indians, despairing of success, held a pow-wow. While they were grouped in plain view of the garrison, and probably conferring over the question of raising the siege, the long, peculiar whoop of an Indian spy, who had been sent out to watch for the approach of a relief party, rang out. This seemed a signal for retreat. Scarcely had the shrill cry ceased to echo in the hills when the Indians and the British, abandoning their dead, moved rapidly across the river.

After a short interval a mounted force was seen galloping up the creek road. It proved to be Capt. Boggs, Swearengen, and Williamson with seventy men. Great was the rejoicing. Capt. Boggs had expected to find only the ashes of the Fort. And the gallant little garrison, although saddened by the loss of half its original number, rejoiced that it had repulsed the united forces of braves and British.

CHAPTER XV.

PEACE AND QUIET reigned ones more at Ft. Henry. Before the glorious autumn days had waned, the settlers had repaired the damage done to their cabins, and many of them were now occupied with the fall plowing. Never had the Fort experienced such busy days. Many new faces were seen in the little meeting-house. Pioneers from Virginia, from Ft. Pitt, and eastward had learned that Fort Henry had repulsed the biggest force of Indians and soldiers that Governor Hamilton and his minions could muster. Settlers from all points along the river were flocking to Col. Zane’s settlement. New cabins dotted the hillside; cabins and barns in all stages of construction could be seen. The sounds of hammers, the ringing stroke of the axe, and the crashing down of mighty pines or poplars were heard all day long.

Col. Zane sat oftener and longer than ever before in his favorite seat on his doorstep. On this evening he had just returned from a hard day in the fields, and sat down to rest a moment before going to supper. A few days previous Isaac Zane and Myeerah had come to the settlement. Myeerah brought a treaty of peace signed by Tarhe and the other Wyandot chieftains. The once implacable Huron was now ready to be friendly with the white people. Col. Zane and his brothers signed the treaty, and Betty, by dint of much persuasion, prevailed on Wetzel to bury the hatchet with the Hurons. So Myeerah’s love, like the love of many other women, accomplished more than years of war and bloodshed.

The genial and happy smile never left Col. Zane’s face, and as he saw the well-laden rafts coming down the river, and the air of liveliness and animation about the growing settlement, his smile broadened into one of pride and satisfaction. The prophecy that he had made twelve years before was fulfilled. His dream was realized. The wild, beautiful spot where he had once built a bark shack and camped half a year without seeing a white man was now the scene of a bustling settlement; and he believed he would live to see that settlement grow into a prosperous city. He did not think of the thousands of acres which would one day make him a wealthy man. He was a pioneer at heart; he had opened up that rich new country; he had conquered all obstacles, and that was enough to make him content.

“Papa, when shall I be big enough to fight bars and bufflers and Injuns?” asked Noah, stopping in his play and straddling his father’s knee.

“My boy, did you not have Indians enough a short time ago?”

“But, papa, I did not get to see any. I heard the shooting and yelling. Sammy was afraid, but I wasn’t. I wanted to look out of the little holes, but they locked us up in the dark room.”

“If that boy ever grows up to be like Jonathan or Wetzel it will be the death of me,” said the Colonel’s wife, who had heard the lad’s chatter.

“Don’t worry, Bessie. When Noah grows to be a man the Indians will be gone.”

Col. Zane heard the galloping of a horse and looking up saw Clarke coming down the road on his black thoroughbred. The Colonel rose and walked out to the hitching-block, where Clarke had reined in his fiery steed.

“Ah, Alfred. Been out for a ride?”

“Yes, I have been giving Roger a little exercise.”

“That’s a magnificent animal. I never get tired watching him move. He’s the best bit of horseflesh on the river. By the way, we have not seen much of you since the siege. Of course you have been busy. Getting ready to put on the harness, eh? Well, that’s what we want the young men to do. Come over and see us.”

“I have been trying to come. You know how it is with me — about Betty, I mean. Col. Zane, I — I love her. That’s all.”

“Yes, I know, Alfred, and I don’t wonder at your fears. But I have always liked you, and now I guess it’s about time for me to put a spoke in your wheel of fortune. If Betty cares for you — and I have a sneaking idea she does — I will give her to you.”

“I have nothing. I gave up everything when I left home.”

“My lad, never mind about that,” said the Colonel, laying his hand on Clarke’s knee. “We don’t need riches. I have so often said that we need nothing out here on the border but honest hearts and strong, willing hands. These you have. That is enough for me and for my people, and as for land, why, I have enough for an army of young men. I got my land cheap. That whole island there I bought from Cornplanter. You can have that island or any tract of land along the river. Some day I shall put you at the head of my men. It will take you years to cut that road through to Maysville. Oh, I have plenty of work for you.”

“Col. Zane, I cannot thank you,” answered Alfred, with emotion. “I shall try to merit your friendship and esteem. Will you please tell your sister I shall come over in the morning and beg to see her alone.”

“That I will, Alfred. Goodnight.”

Col. Zane strode across his threshold with a happy smile on his face. He loved to joke and tease, and never lost an opportunity.

“Things seem to be working out all right. Now for some fun with Her Highness,” he said to himself.

As the Colonel surveyed the pleasant home scene he felt he had nothing more to wish for. The youngsters were playing with a shaggy little pup which had already taken Tige’s place in their fickle affections. His wife was crooning a lullaby as she gently rocked the cradle to and fro. A wonderful mite of humanity peacefully slumbered in that old cradle. Annie was beginning to set the table for the evening meal. Isaac lay with a contented smile on his face, fast asleep on the couch, where, only a short time before, he had been laid bleeding and almost dead. Betty was reading to Myeerah, whose eyes were rapturously bright as she leaned her head against her sister and listened to the low voice.

“Well, Betty, what do you think?” said Col. Zane, stopping before the girls.

“What do I think?” retorted Betty. “Why, I think you are very rude to interrupt me. I am reading to Myeerah her first novel.”

“I have a very important message for you.”

“For me? What! From whom?”

“Guess.”

Betty ran through a list of most of her acquaintances, but after each name her brother shook his head.

“Oh, well, I don’t care,” she finally said. The color in her cheeks had heightened noticeably.

“Very well. If you do not care, I will say nothing more,” said Col. Zane.

At this juncture Annie called them to supper. Later, when Col. Zane sat on the doorstep smoking, Betty came and sat beside him with her head resting against his shoulder. The Colonel smoked on in silence. Presently the dusky head moved restlessly.

“Eb, tell me the message,” whispered Betty.

“Message? What message?” asked Col. Zone. “What are you talking about?”

“Do not tease — not now. Tell me.” There was an undercurrent of wistfulness in Betty’s voice which touched the kindhearted brother.

“Well, to-day a certain young man asked me if he could relieve me of the responsibility of looking after a certain young lady.”

“Oh — —”

“Wait a moment. I told him I would be delighted.”

“Eb, that was unkind.”

“Then he asked me to tell her he was coming over to-morrow morning to fix it up with her.”

“Oh, horrible!” cried Betty. “Were those the words he used?”

“Betts, to tell the honest truth, he did not say much of anything. He just said: ‘I love her,’ and his eyes blazed.”

Betty uttered a half articulate cry and ran to her room. Her heart was throbbing. What could she do? She felt that if she looked once into her lover’s eyes she would have no strength. How dared she allow herself to be so weak! Yet she knew this was the end. She could deceive him no longer. For she felt a stir in her heart, stronger than all, beyond all resistance, an exquisite agony, the sweet, blind, tumultuous exultation of the woman who loves and is loved.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Bess, what do you think?” said Col. Zane, going into the kitchen next morning, after he had returned from the pasture. “Clarke just came over and asked for Betty. I called her. She came down looking as sweet and cool as one of the lilies out by the spring. She said: ‘Why, Mr. Clarke, you are almost a stranger. I am pleased to see you. Indeed, we are all very glad to know you have recovered from your severe burns.’ She went on talking like that for all the world like a girl who didn’t care a snap for him. And she knows as well as I do. Not only that, she has been actually breaking her heart over him all these months. How did she do it? Oh, you women beat me all hollow!”

“Would you expect Betty to fall into his arms?” asked the Colonel’s worthy spouse, indignantly.

“Not exactly. But she was too cool, too friendly. Poor Alfred looked as if he hadn’t slept. He was nervous and scared to death. When Betty ran up stairs I put a bug in Alfred’s ear. He’ll be all right now, if he follows my advice.”

“Humph! What did Colonel Ebenezer Zane tell him?” asked Bessie, in disgust.

“Oh, not much. I simply told him not to lose his nerve; that a woman never meant ‘no’; that she often says it only to be made say ‘yes.’ And I ended up with telling him if she got a little skittish, as thoroughbreds do sometimes, to try a strong arm. That was my way.”

“Col. Zane, if my memory does not fail me, you were as humble and beseeching as the proudest girl could desire.”

“I beseeching? Never!”

“I hope Alfred’s wooing may go well. I like him very much. But I’m afraid. Betty has such a spirit that it is quite likely she will refuse him for no other reason than that he built his cabin before he asked her.”

“Nonsense. He asked her long ago. Never fear, Bess, my sister will come back as meek as a lamb.”

Meanwhile Betty and Alfred were strolling down the familiar path toward the river. The October air was fresh with a suspicion of frost. The clear notes of a hunter’s horn came floating down from the hills. A flock of wild geese had alighted on the marshy ground at the end of the island where they kept up a continual honk! honk! The brown hills, the red forest, and the yellow fields were now at the height of their autumnal beauty. Soon the November north wind would thrash the trees bare, and bow the proud heads of the daisies and the goldenrod; but just now they flashed in the sun, and swayed back and forth in all their glory.

“I see you limp. Are you not entirely well?” Betty was saying.

“Oh, I am getting along famously, thank you,” said Alfred. “This one foot was quite severely burned and is still tender.”

“You have had your share of injuries. I heard my brother say you had been wounded three times within a year.”

“Four times.”

“Jonathan told of the axe wound; then the wound Miller gave you, and finally the burns. These make three, do they not?”

“Yes, but you see, all three could not be compared to the one you forgot to mention.”

“Let us hurry past here,” said Betty, hastening to change the subject. “This is where you had the dreadful fight with Miller.”

“As Miller did go to meet Girty, and as he did not return to the Fort with the renegade, we must believe he is dead. Of course, we do not know this to be actually a fact. But something makes me think so. Jonathan and Wetzel have not said anything; I can’t get any satisfaction on that score from either; but I am sure neither of them would rest until Miller was dead.”

“I think you are right. But we may never know. All I can tell you is that Wetzel and Jack trailed Miller to the river, and then they both came back. I was the last to see Lewis that night before he left on Miller’s trail. It isn’t likely I shall forget what Lewis said and how he looked. Miller was a wicked man; yes, a traitor.”

“He was a bad man, and he nearly succeeded in every one of his plans. I have not the slightest doubt that had he refrained from taking part in the shooting match he would have succeeded in abducting you, in killing me, and in leading Girty here long before he was expected.”

“There are many things that may never be explained, but one thing Miller did always mystify us. How did he succeed in binding Tige?”

“To my way of thinking that was not so difficult as climbing into my room and almost killing me, or stealing the powder from Capt. Boggs’ room.”

“The last, at least, gave me a chance to help,” said Betty, with a touch of her odd roguishness.

“That was the grandest thing a woman ever did,” said Alfred, in a low tone.

“Oh, no, I only ran fast.”

“I would have given the world to have seen you, but I was lying on the bench wishing I were dead. I did not have strength to look out of a porthole. Oh! that horrible time! I can never forget it. I lie awake at night and hear the yelling and shooting. Then I dream of running over the burning roofs and it all comes back so vividly I can almost feel the flames and smell the burnt wood. Then I wake up and think of that awful moment when you were carried into the blockhouse white, and, as I thought, dead.”

“But I wasn’t. And I think it best for us to forget that horrible siege. It is past. It is a miracle that any one was spared. Ebenezer says we should not grieve for those who are gone; they were heroic; they saved the Fort. He says too, that we shall never again be troubled by Indians. Therefore let us forget and be happy. I have forgotten Miller. You can afford to do the same.”

“Yes, I forgive him.” Then, after a long silence, Alfred continued, “Will you go down to the old sycamore?”

Down the winding path they went. Coming to a steep place in the rocky bank Alfred jumped down and then turned to help Betty. But she avoided his gaze, pretended to not see his outstretched hands, and leaped lightly down beside him. He looked at her with perplexity and anxiety in his eyes. Before he could speak she ran on ahead of him and climbed down the bank to the pool. He followed slowly, thoughtfully. The supreme moment had come. He knew it, and somehow he did not feel the confidence the Colonel had inspired in him. It had been easy for him to think of subduing this imperious young lady; but when the time came to assert his will he found he could not remember what he had intended to say, and his feelings were divided between his love for her and the horrible fear that he should lose her.

When he reached the sycamore tree he found her sitting behind it with a cluster of yellow daisies in her lap. Alfred gazed at her, conscious that all his hopes of happiness were dependent on the next few words that would issue from her smiling lips. The little brown hands, which were now rather nervously arranging the flowers, held more than his life.

“Are they not sweet?” asked Betty, giving him a fleeting glance. “We call them ‘black-eyed Susans.’ Could anything be lovelier than that soft, dark brown?”

“Yes,” answered Alfred, looking into her eyes.

“But — but you are not looking at my daisies at all,” said Betty, lowering her eyes.

“No, I am not,” said Alfred. Then suddenly: “A year ago this very day we were here.”

“Here? Oh, yes, I believe I do remember. It was the day we came in my canoe and had such fine fishing.”

“Is that all you remember?”

“I can recollect nothing in particular. It was so long ago.”

“I suppose you will say you had no idea why I wanted you to come to this spot in particular.”

“I supposed you simply wanted to take a walk, and it is very pleasant here.”

“Then Col. Zane did not tell you?” demanded Alfred. Receiving no reply he went on.

“Did you read my letter?”

“What letter?”

“The letter old Sam should have given you last fall. Did you read it?”

“Yes,” answered Betty, faintly.

“Did your brother tell you I wanted to see you this morning?”

“Yes, he told me, and it made me very angry,” said Betty, raising her head. There was a bright red spot in each cheek. “You — you seemed to think you — that I — well — I did not like it.”

“I think I understand; but you are entirely wrong. I have never thought you cared for me. My wildest dreams never left me any confidence. Col. Zane and Wetzel both had some deluded notion that you cared—”

“But they had no right to say that or to think it,” said Betty, passionately. She sprang to her feet, scattering the daisies over the grass. “For them to presume that I cared for you is absurd. I never gave them any reason to think so, for — for I — I don’t.”

“Very well, then, there is nothing more to be said,” answered Alfred, in a voice that was calm and slightly cold. “I’m sorry if you have been annoyed. I have been mad, of course, but I promise you that you need fear no further annoyance from me. Come, I think we should return to the house.”

And he turned and walked slowly up the path. He had taken perhaps a dozen steps when she called him.

“Mr. Clarke, come back.”

Alfred retraced his steps and stood before her again. Then he saw a different Betty. The haughty poise had disappeared. Her head was bowed. Her little hands were tightly pressed over a throbbing bosom.

“Well,” said Alfred, after a moment.

“Why — why are you in such a hurry to go?”

“I have learned what I wanted to know. And after that I do not imagine I would be very agreeable. I am going back. Are you coming?”

“I did not mean quite what I said,” whispered Betty.

“Then what did you mean?” asked Alfred, in a stern voice.

“I don’t know. Please don’t speak so.”

“Betty, forgive my harshness. Can you expect a man to feel as I do and remain calm? You know I love you. You must not trifle any longer. You must not fight any longer.”

“But I can’t help fighting.”

“Look at me,” said Alfred, taking her hands. “Let me see your eyes. I believe you care a little for me, or else you wouldn’t have called me back. I love you. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, I can; and I think you should love me a great deal to make up for what you made me suffer.”

“Betty, look at me.”

Slowly she raised her head and lifted the downcast eyes. Those telltale traitors no longer hid her secret. With a glad cry Alfred caught her in his arms. She tried to hide her face, but he got his hand under her chin and held it firmly so that the sweet crimson lips were very near his own. Then he slowly bent his head.

Betty saw his intention, closed her eyes and whispered.

“Alfred, please don’t — it’s not fair — I beg of you — Oh!”

That kiss was Betty’s undoing. She uttered a strange little cry. Then her dark head found a hiding place over his heart, and her slender form, which a moment before had resisted so fiercely, sank yielding into his embrace.

“Betty, do you dare tell me now that you do not care for me?” Alfred whispered into the dusky hair which rippled over his breast.

Betty was brave even in her surrender. Her hands moved slowly upward along his arms, slipped over his shoulders, and clasped round his neck. Then she lifted a flushed and tearstained face with tremulous lips and wonderful shining eyes.

“Alfred, I do love you — with my whole heart I love you. I never knew until now.”

The hours flew apace. The prolonged ringing of the dinner bell brought the lovers back to earth, and to the realization that the world held others than themselves. Slowly they climbed the familiar path, but this time as never before. They walked hand in hand. From the blur they looked back. They wanted to make sure they were not dreaming. The water rushed over the fall more musically than ever before; the white patches of foam floated round and round the shady pool; the leaves of the sycamore rustled cheerily in the breeze. On a dead branch a wood-pecker hammered industriously.

“Before we get out of sight of that dear old tree I want to make a confession,” said Betty, as she stood before Alfred. She was pulling at the fringe on his hunting-coat.

“You need not make confessions to me.”

“But this was dreadful; it preys on my conscience.”

“Very well, I will be your judge. Your punishment shall be slight.”

“One day when you were lying unconscious from your wound, Bessie sent me to watch you. I nursed you for hours; and — and — do not think badly of me — I — I kissed you.”

“My darling,” cried the enraptured young man.

When they at last reached the house they found Col. Zane on the doorstep.

“Where on earth have you been?” he said. “Wetzel was here. He said he would not wait to see you. There he goes up the hill. He is behind that laurel.”

They looked and presently saw the tall figure of the hunter emerge from the bushes. He stopped and leaned on his rifle. For a minute he remained motionless. Then he waved his hand and plunged into the thicket. Betty sighed and Alfred said:

“Poor Wetzel! ever restless, ever roaming.”

“Hello, there!” exclaimed a gay voice. The lovers turned to see the smiling face of Isaac, and over his shoulder Myeerah’s happy face beaming on them. “Alfred, you are a lucky dog. You can thank Myeerah and me for this; because if I had not taken to the river and nearly drowned myself to give you that opportunity you would not wear that happy face to-day. Blush away, Betts, it becomes you mightily.”

“Bessie, here they are!” cried Col. Zane, in his hearty voice. “She is tamed at last. No excuses, Alfred, in to dinner you go.”

Col. Zane pushed the young people up the steps before him, and stopping on the threshold while he knocked the ashes from his pipe, he smiled contentedly.

AFTERWORD.

BETTY LIVED ALL her after life on the scene of her famous exploit. She became a happy wife and mother. When she grew to be an old lady, with her grandchildren about her knee, she delighted to tell them that when a girl she had run the gauntlet of the Indians.

Col. Zane became the friend of all redmen. He maintained a trading-post for many years, and his dealings were ever kind and honorable. After the country got settled he received from time to time various marks of distinction from the State, Colonial, and National governments. His most noted achievement was completed about 1796. President Washington, desiring to open a National road from Fort Henry to Maysville, Kentucky, paid a great tribute to Col. Zane’s ability by employing him to undertake the arduous task. His brother Jonathan and the Indian guide, Tomepomehala, rendered valuable aid in blazing out the path through the wilderness. This road, famous for many years as Zane’s Trace, opened the beautiful Ohio valley to the ambitious pioneer. For this service Congress granted Col. Zane the privilege of locating military warrants upon three sections of land, each a square mile in extent, which property the government eventually presented to him. Col. Zane was the founder of Wheeling, Zanesville, Martin’s Ferry, and Bridgeport. He died in 1811.

Isaac Zane received from the government a patent of ten thousand acres of land on Mad river. He established his home in the center of this tract, where he lived with the Wyandot until his death. A white settlement sprang up, prospered, and grew, and today it is the thriving city of Zanesfield.

Jonathan Zane settled down after peace was declared with the Indians, found himself a wife, and eventually became an influential citizen. However, he never lost his love for the wild woods. At times he would take down the old rifle and disappear for two or three days. He always returned cheerful and happy from these lonely hunts.

Wetzel alone did not take kindly to the march of civilization; but then he was a hunter, not a pioneer. He kept his word of peace with his old enemies, the Hurons, though he never abandoned his wandering and vengeful quests after the Delawares.

As the years passed Wetzel grew more silent and taciturn. From time to time he visited Ft. Henry, and on these visits he spent hours playing with Betty’s children. But he was restless in the settlement, and his sojourns grew briefer and more infrequent as time rolled on. True to his conviction that no wife existed on earth for him, he never married. His home was the trackless wilds, where he was true to his calling — a foe to the redman.

Wonderful to relate his long, black hair never adorned the walls of an Indian’s lodge, where a warrior might point with grim pride and say: “No more does the Deathwind blow over the hills and vales.” We could tell of how his keen eye once again saw Wingenund over the sights of his fatal rifle, and how he was once again a prisoner in the camp of that lifelong foe, but that’s another story, which, perhaps, we may tell some day.

To-day the beautiful city of Wheeling rises on the banks of the Ohio, where the yells of the Indians once blanched the cheeks of the pioneers. The broad, winding river rolls on as of yore; it alone remains unchanged. What were Indians and pioneers, forts and cities to it? Eons of time before human beings lived it flowed slowly toward the sea, and ages after men and their works are dust, it will roll on placidly with its eternal scheme of nature.

Upon the island still stand noble beeches, oaks, and chestnuts — trees that long ago have covered up their bullet-scars, but they could tell, had they the power to speak, many a wild thrilling tale. Beautiful parks and stately mansions grace the island; and polished equipages roll over the ground that once knew naught save the soft tread of the deer and the moccasin.

McColloch’s Rock still juts boldly out over the river as deep and rugged as when the brave Major leaped to everlasting fame. Wetzel’s Cave, so named to this day, remains on the side of the bluff overlooking the creek. The grapevines and wild rose-bushes still cluster round the cavern-entrance, where, long ago, the wily savage was wont to lie in wait for the settler, lured there by the false turkey-call. The boys visit the cave on Saturday afternoons and play “Injuns.”

Not long since the writer spent a quiet afternoon there, listening to the musical flow of the brook, and dreaming of those who had lived and loved, fought and died by that stream one hundred and twenty years ago. The city with its long blocks of buildings, its spires and bridges, faded away, leaving the scene as it was in the days of Fort Henry — unobscured by smoke, the river undotted by pulling boats, and everywhere the green and verdant forest.

Nothing was wanting in that dream picture: Betty tearing along on her pony; the pioneer plowing in the field; the stealthy approach of the savage; Wetzel and Jonathan watching the river; the deer browsing with the cows in the pasture, and the old fort, grim and menacing on the bluff — all were there as natural as in those times which tried men’s souls.

And as the writer awoke to the realities of life, that his dreams were of long ago, he was saddened by the thought that the labor of the pioneer is ended; his faithful, heroic wife’s work is done. That beautiful country, which their sacrifices made ours, will ever be a monument to them.

Sad, too, is the thought that the poor Indian is unmourned. He is almost forgotten; he is in the shadow; his songs are sung; no more will he sing to his dusky bride: his deeds are done; no more will he boast of his all-conquering arm or of his speed like the Northwind; no more will his heart bound at the whistle of the stag, for he sleeps in the shade of the oaks, under the moss and the ferns.

THE END.

Spirit of the Border

This historical novel was first published in 1906 and is based on events occurring in the Ohio River Valley in the late eighteenth century. Spirit of the Border features the exploits of Lewis Wetzel, a historical personage that had dedicated his life to the destruction of Native Americans and to the protection of early white settlements in that region. The narrative deals with the attempt by Moravian Church missionaries to Christianise Indians and how two brothers' lives take different paths following their arrival on the border. A highly romanticised account, the novel is often considered the second in a trilogy, the first being Betty Zane and The Last Trail the final work, which focuses on the life of Jonathan Zane, another of Gray's ancestors.

Lewis Wetzel (1763-1808) was a frontiersman and Indian fighter, who roamed the hills of western Virginia and Ohio.

Grey, 1904

CONTENTS

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Chapter XIV.

Chapter XV.

Chapter XVI.

Chapter XVII.

Chapter XVIII.

Chapter XIX.

Chapter XX.

Chapter XXI.

Chapter XXII.

Chapter XXIII.

Chapter XXIV.

Chapter XXV.

Chapter XXVI.

Chapter XXVII.

Chapter XXVIII.

Chapter XXIX.

Chapter XXX.

The first edition

TO MY BROTHER

With many fond recollections of days spent in the solitude of the forests where only can be satisfied that wild fever of freedom of which this book tells; where to hear the whirr of a wild duck in his rapid flight is joy; where the quiet of an autumn afternoon swells the heart, and where one may watch the fragrant wood-smoke curl from the campfire, and see the stars peep over dark, wooded hills as twilight deepens, and know a happiness that dwells in the wilderness alone.

Introduction

The author does not intend to apologize for what many readers may call the “brutality” of the story; but rather to explain that its wild spirit is true to the life of the Western border as it was known only a little more than one hundred years ago.

The writer is the fortunate possessor of historical material of undoubted truth and interest. It is the long-lost journal of Colonel Ebenezer Zane, one of the most prominent of the hunter-pioneer, who labored in the settlement of the Western country.

The story of that tragic period deserves a higher place in historical literature than it has thus far been given, and this unquestionably because of a lack of authentic data regarding the conquering of the wilderness. Considering how many years the pioneers struggled on the border of this country, the history of their efforts is meager and obscure.

If the years at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century were full of stirring adventure on the part of the colonists along the Atlantic coast, how crowded must they have been for the almost forgotten pioneers who daringly invaded the trackless wilds! None there was to chronicle the fight of these sturdy, travelers toward the setting sun. The story of their stormy lives, of their heroism, and of their sacrifice for the benefit of future generations is too little known.

It is to a better understanding of those days that the author has labored to draw from his ancestor’s notes a new and striking portrayal of the frontier; one which shall paint the fever of freedom, that powerful impulse which lured so many to unmarked graves; one which shall show his work, his love, the effect of the causes which rendered his life so hard, and surely one which does not forget the wronged Indian.

The frontier in 1777 produced white men so savage as to be men in name only. These outcasts and renegades lived among the savages, and during thirty years harassed the border, perpetrating all manner of fiendish cruelties upon the settlers. They were no less cruel to the redmen whom they ruled, and at the height of their bloody careers made futile the Moravian missionaries’ long labors, and destroyed the beautiful hamlet of the Christian Indians, called Gnaddenhutten, or Village of Peace.

And while the border produced such outlaws so did it produce hunters Eke Boone, the Zanes, the McCollochs, and Wetzel, that strange, silent man whose deeds are still whispered in the country where he once roamed in his insatiate pursuit of savages and renegades, and who was purely a product of the times. Civilization could not have brought forth a man like Wetzel. Great revolutions, great crises, great moments come, and produce the men to deal with them.

The border needed Wetzel. The settlers would have needed many more years in which to make permanent homes had it not been for him. He was never a pioneer; but always a hunter after Indians. When not on the track of the savage foe, he was in the settlement, with his keen eye and ear ever alert for signs of the enemy. To the superstitious Indians he was a shadow; a spirit of the border, which breathed menace from the dark forests. To the settlers he was the right arm of defense, a fitting leader for those few implacable and unerring frontiersmen who made the settlement of the West a possibility.

And if this story of one of his relentless pursuits shows the man as he truly was, loved by pioneers, respected and feared by redmen, and hated by renegades; if it softens a little the ruthless name history accords him, the writer will have been well repaid.

Z. G.

The Spirit of the Border

Chapter I.

“NELL, I’M GROWING powerful fond of you.”

“So you must be, Master Joe, if often telling makes it true.”

The girl spoke simply, and with an absence of that roguishness which was characteristic of her. Playful words, arch smiles, and a touch of coquetry had seemed natural to Nell; but now her grave tone and her almost wistful glance disconcerted Joe.

During all the long journey over the mountains she had been gay and bright, while now, when they were about to part, perhaps never to meet again, she showed him the deeper and more earnest side of her character. It checked his boldness as nothing else had done. Suddenly there came to him the real meaning of a woman’s love when she bestows it without reservation. Silenced by the thought that he had not understood her at all, and the knowledge that he had been half in sport, he gazed out over the wild country before them.

The scene impressed its quietness upon the young couple and brought more forcibly to their minds the fact that they were at the gateway of the unknown West; that somewhere beyond this rude frontier settlement, out there in those unbroken forests stretching dark and silent before them, was to be their future home.

From the high bank where they stood the land sloped and narrowed gradually until it ended in a sharp point which marked the last bit of land between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. Here these swift streams merged and formed the broad Ohio. The new-born river, even here at its beginning proud and swelling as if already certain of its far-away grandeur, swept majestically round a wide curve and apparently lost itself in the forest foliage.

On the narrow point of land commanding a view of the rivers stood a long, low structure enclosed by a stockade fence, on the four corners of which were little box-shaped houses that bulged out as if trying to see what was going on beneath. The massive timbers used in the construction of this fort, the square, compact form, and the small, dark holes cut into the walls, gave the structure a threatening, impregnable aspect.

Below Nell and Joe, on the bank, were many log cabins. The yellow clay which filled the chinks between the logs gave these a peculiar striped appearance. There was life and bustle in the vicinity of these dwellings, in sharp contrast with the still grandeur of the neighboring forests. There were canvas-covered wagons around which curly-headed youngsters were playing. Several horses were grazing on the short grass, and six red and white oxen munched at the hay that had been thrown to them. The smoke of many fires curled upward, and near the blaze hovered ruddy-faced women who stirred the contents of steaming kettles. One man swung an axe with a vigorous sweep, and the clean, sharp strokes rang on the air; another hammered stakes into the ground on which to hang a kettle. Before a large cabin a fur-trader was exhibiting his wares to three Indians. A second redskin was carrying a pack of pelts from a canoe drawn up on the river bank. A small group of persons stood near; some were indifferent, and others gazed curiously at the savages. Two children peeped from behind their mother’s skirts as if half-curious, half-frightened.

From this scene, the significance of which had just dawned on him, Joe turned his eyes again to his companion. It was a sweet face he saw; one that was sedate, but had a promise of innumerable smiles. The blue eyes could not long hide flashes of merriment. The girl turned, and the two young people looked at each other. Her eyes softened with a woman’s gentleness as they rested upon him, for, broad of shoulder, and lithe and strong as a deer stalker, he was good to look at.

“Listen,” she said. “We have known each other only three weeks. Since you joined our wagon-train, and have been so kind to me and so helpful to make that long, rough ride endurable, you have won my regard. I — I cannot say more, even if I would. You told me you ran away from your Virginian home to seek adventure on the frontier, and that you knew no one in all this wild country. You even said you could not, or would not, work at farming. Perhaps my sister and I are as unfitted as you for this life; but we must cling to our uncle because he is the only relative we have. He has come out here to join the Moravians, and to preach the gospel to these Indians. We shall share his life, and help him all we can. You have been telling me you — you cared for me, and now that we are about to part I — I don’t know what to say to you — unless it is: Give up this intention of yours to seek adventure, and come with us. It seems to me you need not hunt for excitement here; it will come unsought.”

“I wish I were Jim,” said he, suddenly.

“Who is Jim?”

“My brother.”

“Tell me of him.”

“There’s nothing much to tell. He and I are all that are left of our people, as are you and Kate of yours. Jim’s a preacher, and the best fellow — oh! I cared a lot for Jim.”

“Then, why did you leave him?”

“I was tired of Williamsburg — I quarreled with a fellow, and hurt him. Besides, I wanted to see the West; I’d like to hunt deer and bear and fight Indians. Oh, I’m not much good.”

“Was Jim the only one you cared for?” asked Nell, smiling. She was surprised to find him grave.

“Yes, except my horse and dog, and I had to leave them behind,” answered Joe, bowing his head a little.

“You’d like to be Jim because he’s a preacher, and could help uncle convert the Indians?”

“Yes, partly that, but mostly because — somehow — something you’ve said or done has made me care for you in a different way, and I’d like to be worthy of you.”

“I don’t think I can believe it, when you say you are ‘no good,’” she replied.

“Nell,” he cried, and suddenly grasped her hand.

She wrenched herself free, and leaped away from him. Her face was bright now, and the promise of smiles was made good.

“Behave yourself, sir.” She tossed her head with a familiar backward motion to throw the chestnut hair from her face, and looked at him with eyes veiled slightly under their lashes. “You will go with Kate and me?”

Before he could answer, a cry from some one on the plain below attracted their attention. They turned and saw another wagon-train pulling into the settlement. The children were shooting and running alongside the weary oxen; men and women went forward expectantly.

“That must be the train uncle expected. Let us go down,” said Nell.

Joe did not answer; but followed her down the path. When they gained a clump of willows near the cabins he bent forward and took her hand. She saw the reckless gleam in his eyes.

“Don’t. They’ll see,” she whispered.

“If that’s the only reason you have, I reckon I don’t care,” said Joe.

“What do you mean? I didn’t say — I didn’t tell — oh! let me go!” implored Nell.

She tried to release the hand Joe had grasped in his broad palm, but in vain; the more she struggled the firmer was his hold. A frown wrinkled her brow and her eyes sparkled with spirit. She saw the fur-trader’s wife looking out of the window, and remembered laughing and telling the good woman she did not like this young man; it was, perhaps, because she feared those sharp eyes that she resented his audacity. She opened her mouth to rebuke him; but no words came. Joe had bent his head and softly closed her lips with his own.

For the single instant during which Nell stood transfixed, as if with surprise, and looking up at Joe, she was dumb. Usually the girl was ready with sharp or saucy words and impulsive in her movements; but now the bewilderment of being kissed, particularly within view of the trader’s wife, confused her. Then she heard voices, and as Joe turned away with a smile on his face, the unusual warmth in her heart was followed by an angry throbbing.

Joe’s tall figure stood out distinctly as he leisurely strolled toward the incoming wagon-train without looking backward. Flashing after him a glance that boded wordy trouble in the future, she ran into the cabin.

As she entered the door it seemed certain the grizzled frontiersman sitting on the bench outside had grinned knowingly at her, and winked as if to say he would keep her secret. Mrs. Wentz, the fur-trader’s wife, was seated by the open window which faced the fort; she was a large woman, strong of feature, and with that calm placidity of expression common to people who have lived long in sparsely populated districts. Nell glanced furtively at her and thought she detected the shadow of a smile in the gray eyes.

“I saw you and your sweetheart makin’ love behind the willow,” Mrs. Wentz said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I don’t see why you need hide to do it. We folks out here like to see the young people sparkin’. Your young man is a fine-appearin’ chap. I felt certain you was sweethearts, for all you allowed you’d known him only a few days. Lize Davis said she saw he was sweet on you. I like his face. Jake, my man, says as how he’ll make a good husband for you, and he’ll take to the frontier like a duck does to water. I’m sorry you’ll not tarry here awhile. We don’t see many lasses, especially any as pretty as you, and you’ll find it more quiet and lonesome the farther West you get. Jake knows all about Fort Henry, and Jeff Lynn, the hunter outside, he knows Eb and Jack Zane, and Wetzel, and all those Fort Henry men. You’ll be gettin’ married out there, won’t you?”

“You are — quite wrong,” said Nell, who all the while Mrs. Wentz was speaking grew rosier and rosier. “We’re not anything—”

Then Nell hesitated and finally ceased speaking. She saw that denials or explanations were futile; the simple woman had seen the kiss, and formed her own conclusions. During the few days Nell had spent at Fort Pitt, she had come to understand that the dwellers on the frontier took everything as a matter of course. She had seen them manifest a certain pleasure; but neither surprise, concern, nor any of the quick impulses so common among other people. And this was another lesson Nell took to heart. She realized that she was entering upon a life absolutely different from her former one, and the thought caused her to shrink from the ordeal. Yet all the suggestions regarding her future home; the stories told about Indians, renegades, and of the wild border-life, fascinated her. These people who had settled in this wild region were simple, honest and brave; they accepted what came as facts not to be questioned, and believed what looked true. Evidently the fur-trader’s wife and her female neighbors had settled in their minds the relation in which the girl stood to Joe.

This latter reflection heightened Nell’s resentment toward her lover. She stood with her face turned away from Mrs. Wentz; the little frown deepened, and she nervously tapped her foot on the floor.

“Where is my sister?” she presently asked.

“She went to see the wagon-train come in. Everybody’s out there.”

Nell deliberated a moment and then went into the open air. She saw a number of canvas-covered wagons drawn up in front of the cabins; the vehicles were dusty and the wheels encrusted with yellow mud. The grizzled frontiersman who had smiled at Nell stood leaning on his gun, talking to three men, whose travel-stained and worn homespun clothes suggested a long and toilsome journey. There was the bustle of excitement incident to the arrival of strangers; to the quick exchange of greetings, the unloading of wagons and unharnessing of horses and oxen.

Nell looked here and there for her sister. Finally she saw her standing near her uncle while he conversed with one of the teamsters. The girl did not approach them; but glanced quickly around in search of some one else. At length she saw Joe unloading goods from one of the wagons; his back was turned toward her, but she at once recognized the challenge conveyed by the broad shoulders. She saw no other person; gave heed to nothing save what was to her, righteous indignation.

Hearing her footsteps, the young man turned, glancing at her admiringly, said:

“Good evening, Miss.”

Nell had not expected such a matter-of-fact greeting from Joe. There was not the slightest trace of repentance in his calm face, and he placidly continued his labor.

“Aren’t you sorry you — you treated me so?” burst out Nell.

His coolness was exasperating. Instead of the contrition and apology she had expected, and which was her due, he evidently intended to tease her, as he had done so often.

The young man dropped a blanket and stared.

“I don’t understand,” he said, gravely. “I never saw you before.”

This was too much for quick-tempered Nell. She had had some vague idea of forgiving him, after he had sued sufficiently for pardon; but now, forgetting her good intentions in the belief that he was making sport of her when he should have pleaded for forgiveness, she swiftly raised her hand and slapped him smartly.

The red blood flamed to the young man’s face; as he staggered backward with his hand to his cheek, she heard a smothered exclamation behind her, and then the quick, joyous barking of a dog.

When Nell turned she was amazed to see Joe standing beside the wagon, while a big white dog was leaping upon him. Suddenly she felt faint. Bewildered, she looked from Joe to the man she had just struck; but could not say which was the man who professed to love her.

“Jim! So you followed me!” cried Joe, starting forward and flinging his arms around the other.

“Yes, Joe, and right glad I am to find you,” answered the young man, while a peculiar expression of pleasure came over his face.

“It’s good to see you again! And here’s my old dog Mose! But how on earth did you know? Where did you strike my trail? What are you going to do out here on the frontier? Tell me all. What happened after I left—”

Then Joe saw Nell standing nearby, pale and distressed, and he felt something was amiss. He glanced quickly from her to his brother; she seemed to be dazed, and Jim looked grave.

“What the deuce — ? Nell, this is my brother Jim, the one I told you about. Jim, this is my friend, Miss Wells.”

“I am happy to meet Miss Wells,” said Jim, with a smile, “even though she did slap my face for nothing.”

“Slapped you? What for?” Then the truth dawned on Joe, and he laughed until the tears came into his eyes. “She took you for me! Ha, ha, ha! Oh, this is great!”

Nell’s face was now rosy red and moisture glistened in her eyes; but she tried bravely to stand her ground. Humiliation had taken the place of anger.

“I — I — am sorry, Mr. Downs. I did take you for him. He — he has insulted me.” Then she turned and ran into the cabin.

Chapter II.

JOE AND JIM were singularly alike. They were nearly the same size, very tall, but so heavily built as to appear of medium height, while their grey eyes and, indeed, every feature of their clean-cut faces corresponded so exactly as to proclaim them brothers.

“Already up to your old tricks?” asked Jim, with his hand on Joe’s shoulder, as they both watched Nell’s flight.

“I’m really fond of her, Jim, and didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. But tell me about yourself; what made you come West?”

“To teach the Indians, and I was, no doubt, strongly influenced by your being here.”

“You’re going to do as you ever have — make some sacrifice. You are always devoting yourself; if not to me, to some other. Now it’s your life you’re giving up. To try to convert the redskins and influence me for good is in both cases impossible. How often have I said there wasn’t any good in me! My desire is to kill Indians, not preach to them, Jim. I’m glad to see you; but I wish you hadn’t come. This wild frontier is no place for a preacher.”

“I think it is,” said Jim, quietly.

“What of Rose — the girl you were to marry?”

Joe glanced quickly at his brother. Jim’s face paled slightly as he turned away.

“I’ll speak once more of her, and then, never again,” he answered. “You knew Rose better than I did. Once you tried to tell me she was too fond of admiration, and I rebuked you; but now I see that your wider experience of women had taught you things I could not then understand. She was untrue. When you left Williamsburg, apparently because you had gambled with Jewett and afterward fought him, I was not misled. You made the game of cards a pretense; you sought it simply as an opportunity to wreak your vengeance on him for his villainy toward me. Well, it’s all over now. Though you cruelly beat and left him disfigured for life, he will live, and you are saved from murder, thank God! When I learned of your departure I yearned to follow. Then I met a preacher who spoke of having intended to go West with a Mr. Wells, of the Moravian Mission. I immediately said I would go in his place, and here I am. I’m fortunate in that I have found both him and you.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t kill Jewett; I certainly meant to. Anyway, there’s some comfort in knowing I left my mark on him. He was a sneaking, cold-blooded fellow, with his white hair and pale face, and always fawning round the girls. I hated him, and gave it to him good.” Joe spoke musingly and complacently as though it was a trivial thing to compass the killing of a man.

“Well, Jim, you’re here now, and there’s no help for it. We’ll go along with this Moravian preacher and his nieces. If you haven’t any great regrets for the past, why, all may be well yet. I can see that the border is the place for me. But now, Jim, for once in your life take a word of advice from me. We’re out on the frontier, where every man looks after himself. Your being a minister won’t protect you here where every man wears a knife and a tomahawk, and where most of them are desperadoes. Cut out that soft voice and most of your gentle ways, and be a little more like your brother. Be as kind as you like, and preach all you want to; but when some of these buckskin-legged frontiermen try to walk all over you, as they will, take your own part in a way you have never taken it before. I had my lesson the first few days out with that wagon-train. It was a case of four fights; but I’m all right now.”

“Joe, I won’t run, if that’s what you mean,” answered Jim, with a laugh. “Yes, I understand that a new life begins here, and I am content. If I can find my work in it, and remain with you, I shall be happy.”

“Ah! old Mose! I’m glad to see you,” Joe cried to the big dog who came nosing round him. “You’ve brought this old fellow; did you bring the horses?”

“Look behind the wagon.”

With the dog bounding before him, Joe did as he was directed, and there found two horses tethered side by side. Little wonder that his eyes gleamed with delight. One was jet-black; the other iron-gray and in every line the clean-limbed animals showed the thoroughbred. The black threw up his slim head and whinnied, with affection clearly shining in his soft, dark eyes as he recognized his master.

“Lance, old fellow, how did I ever leave you!” murmured Joe, as he threw his arm over the arched neck. Mose stood by looking up, and wagging his tail in token of happiness at the reunion of the three old friends. There were tears in Joe’s eyes when, with a last affectionate caress, he turned away from his pet.

“Come, Jim, I’ll take you to Mr. Wells.”

They stated across the little square, while Mose went back under the wagon; but at a word from Joe he bounded after them, trotting contentedly at their heels. Half way to the cabins a big, raw-boned teamster, singing in a drunken voice, came staggering toward them. Evidently he had just left the group of people who had gathered near the Indians.

“I didn’t expect to see drunkenness out here,” said Jim, in a low tone.

“There’s lots of it. I saw that fellow yesterday when he couldn’t walk. Wentz told me he was a bad customer.”

The teamster, his red face bathed in perspiration, and his sleeves rolled up, showing brown, knotty arms, lurched toward them. As they met he aimed a kick at the dog; but Mose leaped nimbly aside, avoiding the heavy boot. He did not growl, nor show his teeth; but the great white head sank forward a little, and the lithe body crouched for a spring.

“Don’t touch that dog; he’ll tear your leg off!” Joe cried sharply.

“Say, pard, cum an’ hev’ a drink,” replied the teamster, with a friendly leer.

“I don’t drink,” answered Joe, curtly, and moved on.

The teamster growled something of which only the word “parson” was intelligible to the brothers. Joe stopped and looked back. His gray eyes seemed to contract; they did not flash, but shaded and lost their warmth. Jim saw the change, and, knowing what it signified, took Joe’s arm as he gently urged him away. The teamster’s shrill voice could be heard until they entered the fur-trader’s cabin.

An old man with long, white hair flowing from beneath his wide-brimmed hat, sat near the door holding one of Mrs. Wentz’s children on his knee. His face was deep-lined and serious; but kindness shone from his mild blue eyes.

“Mr. Wells, this is my brother James. He is a preacher, and has come in place of the man you expected from Williamsburg.”

The old minister arose, and extended his hand, gazing earnestly at the new-comer meanwhile. Evidently he approved of what he saw in his quick scrutiny of the other’s face, for his lips were wreathed with a smile of welcome.

“Mr. Downs, I am glad to meet you, and to know you will go with me. I thank God I shall take into the wilderness one who is young enough to carry on the work when my days are done.”

“I will make it my duty to help you in whatsoever way lies in my power,” answered Jim, earnestly.

“We have a great work before us. I have heard many scoffers who claim that it is worse than folly to try to teach these fierce savages Christianity; but I know it can be done, and my heart is in the work. I have no fear; yet I would not conceal from you, young man, that the danger of going among these hostile Indians must be great.”

“I will not hesitate because of that. My sympathy is with the redman. I have had an opportunity of studying Indian nature and believe the race inherently noble. He has been driven to make war, and I want to help him into other paths.”

Joe left the two ministers talking earnestly and turned toward Mrs. Wentz. The fur-trader’s wife was glowing with pleasure. She held in her hand several rude trinkets, and was explaining to her listener, a young woman, that the toys were for the children, having been brought all the way from Williamsburg.

“Kate, where’s Nell?” Joe asked of the girl.

“She went on an errand for Mrs. Wentz.”

Kate Wells was the opposite of her sister. Her motions were slow, easy and consistent with her large, full, form. Her brown eyes and hair contrasted sharply with Nell’s. The greatest difference in the sisters lay in that Nell’s face was sparkling and full of the fire of her eager young life, while Kate’s was calm, like the unruffled surface of a deep lake.

“That’s Jim, my brother. We’re going with you,” said Joe.

“Are you? I’m glad,” answered the girl, looking at the handsome earnest face of the young minister.

“Your brother’s like you for all the world,” whispered Mrs. Wentz.

“He does look like you,” said Kate, with her slow smile.

“Which means you think, or hope, that that is all,” retorted Joe laughingly. “Well, Kate, there the resemblance ends, thank God for Jim!”

He spoke in a sad, bitter tone which caused both women to look at him wonderingly. Joe had to them ever been full of surprises; never until then had they seen evidences of sadness in his face. A moment’s silence ensued. Mrs. Wentz gazed lovingly at the children who were playing with the trinkets; while Kate mused over the young man’s remark, and began studying his, half-averted face. She felt warmly drawn to him by the strange expression in the glance he had given his brother. The tenderness in his eyes did not harmonize with much of this wild and reckless boy’s behavior. To Kate he had always seemed so bold, so cold, so different from other men, and yet here was proof that Master Joe loved his brother.

The murmured conversation of the two ministers was interrupted by a low cry from outside the cabin. A loud, coarse laugh followed, and then a husky voice:

“Hol’ on, my purty lass.”’

Joe took two long strides, and was on the door-step. He saw Nell struggling violently in the grasp of the half-drunken teamster.

“I’ll jes’ hev’ to kiss this lassie fer luck,” he said in a tone of good humor.

At the same instant Joe saw three loungers laughing, and a fourth, the grizzled frontiersman, starting forward with a yell.

“Let me go!” cried Nell.

Just when the teamster had pulled her close to him, and was bending his red, moist face to hers, two brown, sinewy hands grasped his neck with an angry clutch. Deprived thus of breath, his mouth opened, his tongue protruded; his eyes seemed starting from their sockets, and his arms beat the air. Then he was lifted and flung with a crash against the cabin wall. Falling, he lay in a heap on the grass, while the blood flowed from a cut on his temple.

“What’s this?” cried a man, authoritatively. He had come swiftly up, and arrived at the scene where stood the grizzled frontiersman.

“It was purty handy, Wentz. I couldn’t hev’ did better myself, and I was comin’ for that purpose,” said the frontiersman. “Leffler was tryin’ to kiss the lass. He’s been drunk fer two days. That little girl’s sweetheart kin handle himself some, now you take my word on it.”

“I’ll agree Leff’s bad when he’s drinkin’,” answered the fur-trader, and to Joe he added, “He’s liable to look you up when he comes around.”

“Tell him if I am here when he gets sober, I’ll kill him,” Joe cried in a sharp voice. His gaze rested once more on the fallen teamster, and again an odd contraction of his eyes was noticeable. The glance was cutting, as if with the flash of cold gray steel. “Nell, I’m sorry I wasn’t round sooner,” he said, apologetically, as if it was owing to his neglect the affair had happened.

As they entered the cabin Nell stole a glance at him. This was the third time he had injured a man because of her. She had on several occasions seen that cold, steely glare in his eyes, and it had always frightened her. It was gone, however, before they were inside the building. He said something which she did not hear distinctly, and his calm voice allayed her excitement. She had been angry with him; but now she realized that her resentment had disappeared. He had spoken so kindly after the outburst. Had he not shown that he considered himself her protector and lover? A strange emotion, sweet and subtle as the taste of wine, thrilled her, while a sense of fear because of his strength was mingled with her pride in it. Any other girl would have been only too glad to have such a champion; she would, too, hereafter, for he was a man of whom to be proud.

“Look here, Nell, you haven’t spoken to me,” Joe cried suddenly, seeming to understand that she had not even heard what he said, so engrossed had she been with her reflections. “Are you mad with me yet?” he continued. “Why, Nell, I’m in — I love you!”

Evidently Joe thought such fact a sufficient reason for any act on his part. His tender tone conquered Nell, and she turned to him with flushed cheeks and glad eyes.

“I wasn’t angry at all,” she whispered, and then, eluding the arm he extended, she ran into the other room.

Chapter III.

JOE LOUNGED IN the doorway of the cabin, thoughtfully contemplating two quiet figures that were lying in the shade of a maple tree. One he recognized as the Indian with whom Jim had spent an earnest hour that morning; the red son of the woods was wrapped in slumber. He had placed under his head a many-hued homespun shirt which the young preacher had given him; but while asleep his head had rolled off this improvised pillow, and the bright garment lay free, attracting the eye. Certainly it had led to the train of thought which had found lodgment in Joe’s fertile brain.

The other sleeper was a short, stout man whom Joe had seen several times before. This last fellow did not appear to be well-balanced in his mind, and was the butt of the settlers’ jokes, while the children called him “Loorey.” He, like the Indian, was sleeping off the effects of the previous night’s dissipation.

During a few moments Joe regarded the recumbent figures with an expression on his face which told that he thought in them were great possibilities for sport. With one quick glance around he disappeared within the cabin, and when he showed himself at the door, surveying the village square with mirthful eyes, he held in his hand a small basket of Indian design. It was made of twisted grass, and simply contained several bits of soft, chalky stone such as the Indians used for painting, which collection Joe had discovered among the fur-trader’s wares.

He glanced around once more, and saw that all those in sight were busy with their work. He gave the short man a push, and chuckled when there was no response other than a lazy grunt. Joe took the Indians’ gaudy shirt, and, lifting Loorey, slipped it around him, shoved the latter’s arms through the sleeves, and buttoned it in front. He streaked the round face with red and white paint, and then, dexterously extracting the eagle plume from the Indian’s head-dress, stuck it in Loorey’s thick shock of hair. It was all done in a moment, after which Joe replaced the basket, and went down to the river.

Several times that morning he had visited the rude wharf where Jeff Lynn, the grizzled old frontiersman, busied himself with preparations for the raft-journey down the Ohio. Lynn had been employed to guide the missionary’s party to Fort Henry, and, as the brothers had acquainted him with their intention of accompanying the travelers, he had constructed a raft for them and their horses.

Joe laughed when he saw the dozen two-foot logs fastened together, upon which a rude shack had been erected for shelter. This slight protection from sun and storm was all the brothers would have on their long journey.

Joe noted, however, that the larger raft had been prepared with some thought for the comfort of the girls. The floor of the little hut was raised so that the waves which broke over the logs could not reach it. Taking a peep into the structure, Joe was pleased to see that Nell and Kate would be comfortable, even during a storm. A buffalo robe and two red blankets gave to the interior a cozy, warm look. He observed that some of the girls’ luggage was already on board.

“When’ll we be off?” he inquired.

“Sun-up,” answered Lynn, briefly.

“I’m glad of that. I like to be on the go in the early morning,” said Joe, cheerfully.

“Most folks from over Eastways ain’t in a hurry to tackle the river,” replied Lynn, eyeing Joe sharply.

“It’s a beautiful river, and I’d like to sail on it from here to where it ends, and then come back to go again,” Joe replied, warmly.

“In a hurry to be a-goin’? I’ll allow you’ll see some slim red devils, with feathers in their hair, slipping among the trees along the bank, and mebbe you’ll hear the ping which’s made when whistlin’ lead hits. Perhaps you’ll want to be back here by termorrer sundown.”

“Not I,” said Joe, with his short, cool laugh.

The old frontiersman slowly finished his task of coiling up a rope of wet cowhide, and then, producing a dirty pipe, he took a live ember from the fire and placed it on the bowl. He sucked slowly at the pipe-stem, and soon puffed out a great cloud of smoke. Sitting on a log, he deliberately surveyed the robust shoulders and long, heavy limbs of the young man, with a keen appreciation of their symmetry and strength. Agility, endurance and courage were more to a borderman than all else; a new-comer on the frontier was always “sized-up” with reference to these “points,” and respected in proportion to the measure in which he possessed them.

Old Jeff Lynn, riverman, hunter, frontiersman, puffed slowly at his pipe while he mused thus to himself: “Mebbe I’m wrong in takin’ a likin’ to this youngster so sudden. Mebbe it’s because I’m fond of his sunny-haired lass, an’ ag’in mebbe it’s because I’m gettin’ old an’ likes young folks better’n I onct did. Anyway, I’m kinder thinkin, if this young feller gits worked out, say fer about twenty pounds less, he’ll lick a whole raft-load of wild-cats.”

Joe walked to and fro on the logs, ascertained how the raft was put together, and took a pull on the long, clumsy steering-oar. At length he seated himself beside Lynn. He was eager to ask questions; to know about the rafts, the river, the forest, the Indians — everything in connection with this wild life; but already he had learned that questioning these frontiersmen is a sure means of closing their lips.

“Ever handle the long rifle?” asked Lynn, after a silence.

“Yes,” answered Joe, simply.

“Ever shoot anythin’?” the frontiersman questioned, when he had taken four or five puffs at his pipe.

“Squirrels.”

“Good practice, shootin’ squirrels,” observed Jeff, after another silence, long enough to allow Joe to talk if he was so inclined. “Kin ye hit one — say, a hundred yards?”

“Yes, but not every time in the head,” returned Joe. There was an apologetic tone in his answer.

Another interval followed in which neither spoke. Jeff was slowly pursuing his line of thought. After Joe’s last remark he returned his pipe to his pocket and brought out a tobacco-pouch. He tore off a large portion of the weed and thrust it into his mouth. Then he held out the little buckskin sack to Joe.

“Hev’ a chaw,” he said.

To offer tobacco to anyone was absolutely a borderman’s guarantee of friendliness toward that person.

Jeff expectorated half a dozen times, each time coming a little nearer the stone he was aiming at, some five yards distant. Possibly this was the borderman’s way of oiling up his conversational machinery. At all events, he commenced to talk.

“Yer brother’s goin’ to preach out here, ain’t he? Preachin’ is all right, I’ll allow; but I’m kinder doubtful about preachin’ to redskins. Howsumever, I’ve knowed Injuns who are good fellows, and there’s no tellin’. What are ye goin’ in fer — farmin’?”

“No, I wouldn’t make a good farmer.”

“Jest cum out kinder wild like, eh?” rejoined Jeff, knowingly.

“I wanted to come West because I was tired of tame life. I love the forest; I want to fish and hunt; and I think I’d like to — to see Indians.”

“I kinder thought so,” said the old frontiersman, nodding his head as though he perfectly understood Joe’s case. “Well, lad, where you’re goin’ seein’ Injuns ain’t a matter of choice. You has to see ‘em, and fight ‘em, too. We’ve had bad times for years out here on the border, and I’m thinkin’ wuss is comin’. Did ye ever hear the name Girty?”

“Yes; he’s a renegade.”

“He’s a traitor, and Jim and George Girty, his brothers, are p’isin rattlesnake Injuns. Simon Girty’s bad enough; but Jim’s the wust. He’s now wusser’n a full-blooded Delaware. He’s all the time on the lookout to capture white wimen to take to his Injun teepee. Simon Girty and his pals, McKee and Elliott, deserted from that thar fort right afore yer eyes. They’re now livin’ among the redskins down Fort Henry way, raisin’ as much hell fer the settlers as they kin.”

“Is Fort Henry near the Indian towns?” asked Joe.

“There’s Delawares, Shawnees and Hurons all along the Ohio below Fort Henry.”

“Where is the Moravian Mission located?”

“Why, lad, the Village of Peace, as the Injuns call it, is right in the midst of that Injun country. I ‘spect it’s a matter of a hundred miles below and cross-country a little from Fort Henry.”

“The fort must be an important point, is it not?”

“Wal, I guess so. It’s the last place on the river,” answered Lynn, with a grim smile. “There’s only a stockade there, an’ a handful of men. The Injuns hev swarmed down on it time and ag’in, but they hev never burned it. Only such men as Colonel Zane, his brother Jack, and Wetzel could hev kept that fort standin’ all these bloody years. Eb Zane’s got but a few men, yet he kin handle ’em some, an’ with such scouts as Jack Zane and Wetzel, he allus knows what’s goin’ on among the Injuns.”

“I’ve heard of Colonel Zane. He was an officer under Lord Dunmore. The hunters here speak often of Jack Zane and Wetzel. What are they?”

“Jack Zane is a hunter an’ guide. I knowed him well a few years back. He’s a quiet, mild chap; but a streak of chain-lightnin’ when he’s riled. Wetzel is an Injun-killer. Some people say as how he’s crazy over scalp-huntin’; but I reckon that’s not so. I’ve seen him a few times. He don’t hang round the settlement ‘cept when the Injuns are up, an’ nobody sees him much. At home he sets round silent-like, an’ then mebbe next mornin’ he’ll be gone, an’ won’t show up fer days or weeks. But all the frontier knows of his deeds. Fer instance, I’ve hearn of settlers gettin’ up in the mornin’ an’ findin’ a couple of dead and scalped Injuns right in front of their cabins. No one knowed who killed ‘em, but everybody says ‘Wetzel.’ He’s allus warnin’ the settlers when they need to flee to the fort, and sure he’s right every time, because when these men go back to their cabins they find nothin’ but ashes. There couldn’t be any farmin’ done out there but fer Wetzel.”

“What does he look like?” questioned Joe, much interested.

“Wetzel stands straight as the oak over thar. He’d hev’ to go sideways to git his shoulders in that door, but he’s as light of foot an’ fast as a deer. An’ his eyes — why, lad, ye kin hardly look into ‘em. If you ever see Wetzel you’ll know him to onct.”

“I want to see him,” Joe spoke quickly, his eyes lighting with an eager flash. “He must be a great fighter.”

“Is he? Lew Wetzel is the heftiest of ’em all, an’ we hev some as kin fight out here. I was down the river a few years ago and joined a party to go out an’ hunt up some redskins as had been reported. Wetzel was with us. We soon struck Injun sign, and then come on to a lot of the pesky varmints. We was all fer goin’ home, because we had a small force. When we started to go we finds Wetzel sittin’ calm-like on a log. We said: ‘Ain’t ye goin’ home?’ and he replied, ‘I cum out to find redskins, an’ now as we’ve found ‘em, I’m not goin’ to run away.’ An’ we left him settin’ thar. Oh, Wetzel is a fighter!”

“I hope I shall see him,” said Joe once more, the warm light, which made him look so boyish, still glowing in his face.

“Mebbe ye’ll git to; and sure ye’ll see redskins, an’ not tame ones, nuther.”

At this moment the sound of excited voices near the cabins broke in on the conversation. Joe saw several persons run toward the large cabin and disappear behind it. He smiled as he thought perhaps the commotion had been caused by the awakening of the Indian brave.

Rising to his feet, Joe went toward the cabin, and soon saw the cause of the excitement. A small crowd of men and women, all laughing and talking, surrounded the Indian brave and the little stout fellow. Joe heard some one groan, and then a deep, guttural voice:

“Paleface — big steal — ugh! Injun mad — heap mad — kill paleface.”

After elbowing his way into the group, Joe saw the Indian holding Loorey with one hand, while he poked him on the ribs with the other. The captive’s face was the picture of dismay; even the streaks of paint did not hide his look of fear and bewilderment. The poor half-witted fellow was so badly frightened that he could only groan.

“Silvertip scalp paleface. Ugh!” growled the savage, giving Loorey another blow on the side. This time he bent over in pain. The bystanders were divided in feeling; the men laughed, while the women murmured sympathetically.

“This’s not a bit funny,” muttered Joe, as he pushed his way nearly to the middle of the crowd. Then he stretched out a long arm that, bare and brawny, looked as though it might have been a blacksmith’s, and grasped the Indian’s sinewy wrist with a force that made him loosen his hold on Loorey instantly.

“I stole the shirt — fun — joke,” said Joe. “Scalp me if you want to scalp anyone.”

The Indian looked quickly at the powerful form before him. With a twist he slipped his arm from Joe’s grasp.

“Big paleface heap fun — all squaw play,” he said, scornfully. There was a menace in his somber eyes as he turned abruptly and left the group.

“I’m afraid you’ve made an enemy,” said Jake Wentz to Joe. “An Indian never forgets an insult, and that’s how he regarded your joke. Silvertip has been friendly here because he sells us his pelts. He’s a Shawnee chief. There he goes through the willows!”

By this time Jim and Mr. Wells, Mrs. Wentz and the girls had joined the group. They all watched Silvertip get into his canoe and paddle away.

“A bad sign,” said Wentz, and then, turning to Jeff Lynn, who joined the party at that moment, he briefly explained the circumstances.

“Never did like Silver. He’s a crafty redskin, an’ not to be trusted,” replied Jeff.

“He has turned round and is looking back,” Nell said quickly.

“So he has,” observed the fur-trader.

The Indian was now several hundred yards down the swift river, and for an instant had ceased paddling. The sun shone brightly on his eagle plumes. He remained motionless for a moment, and even at such a distance the dark, changeless face could be discerned. He lifted his hand and shook it menacingly.

“If ye don’t hear from that redskin ag’in Jeff Lynn don’t know nothin’,” calmly said the old frontiersman.

Chapter IV.

AS THE RAFTS drifted with the current the voyagers saw the settlers on the landing-place diminish until they had faded from indistinct figures to mere black specks against the green background. Then came the last wave of a white scarf, faintly in the distance, and at length the dark outline of the fort was all that remained to their regretful gaze. Quickly that, too, disappeared behind the green hill, which, with its bold front, forces the river to take a wide turn.

The Ohio, winding in its course between high, wooded bluffs, rolled on and on into the wilderness.

Beautiful as was the ever-changing scenery, rugged gray-faced cliffs on one side contrasting with green-clad hills on the other, there hovered over land and water something more striking than beauty. Above all hung a still atmosphere of calmness — of loneliness.

And this penetrating solitude marred somewhat the pleasure which might have been found in the picturesque scenery, and caused the voyagers, to whom this country was new, to take less interest in the gaily-feathered birds and stealthy animals that were to be seen on the way. By the forms of wild life along the banks of the river, this strange intruder on their peace was regarded with attention. The birds and beasts evinced little fear of the floating rafts. The sandhill crane, stalking along the shore, lifted his long neck as the unfamiliar thing came floating by, and then stood still and silent as a statue until the rafts disappeared from view. Blue-herons feeding along the bars, saw the unusual spectacle, and, uttering surprised “booms,” they spread wide wings and lumbered away along the shore. The crows circled above the voyagers, cawing in not unfriendly excitement. Smaller birds alighted on the raised poles, and several — a robin, a catbird and a little brown wren — ventured with hesitating boldness to peck at the crumbs the girls threw to them. Deer waded knee-deep in the shallow water, and, lifting their heads, instantly became motionless and absorbed. Occasionally a buffalo appeared on a level stretch of bank, and, tossing his huge head, seemed inclined to resent the coming of this stranger into his domain.

All day the rafts drifted steadily and swiftly down the river, presenting to the little party ever-varying pictures of densely wooded hills, of jutting, broken cliffs with scant evergreen growth; of long reaches of sandy bar that glistened golden in the sunlight, and over all the flight and call of wildfowl, the flitting of woodland songsters, and now and then the whistle and bellow of the horned watchers in the forest.

The intense blue of the vault above began to pale, and low down in the west a few fleecy clouds, gorgeously golden for a fleeting instant, then crimson-crowned for another, shaded and darkened as the setting sun sank behind the hills. Presently the red rays disappeared, a pink glow suffused the heavens, and at last, as gray twilight stole down over the hill-tops, the crescent moon peeped above the wooded fringe of the western bluffs.

“Hard an’ fast she is,” sang out Jeff Lynn, as he fastened the rope to a tree at the head of a small island. “All off now, and’ we’ll hev’ supper. Thar’s a fine spring under yon curly birch, an’ I fetched along a leg of deer-meat. Hungry, little ‘un?”

He had worked hard all day steering the rafts, yet Nell had seen him smiling at her many times during the journey, and he had found time before the early start to arrange for her a comfortable seat. There was now a solicitude in the frontiersman’s voice that touched her.

“I am famished,” she replied, with her bright smile. “I am afraid I could eat a whole deer.”

They all climbed the sandy slope, and found themselves on the summit of an oval island, with a pretty glade in the middle surrounded by birches. Bill, the second raftsman, a stolid, silent man, at once swung his axe upon a log of driftwood. Mr. Wells and Jim walked to and fro under the birches, and Kate and Nell sat on the grass watching with great interest the old helmsman as he came up from the river, his brown hands and face shining from the scrubbing he had given them. Soon he had a fire cheerfully blazing, and after laying out the few utensils, he addressed himself to Joe:

“I’ll tell ye right here, lad, good venison kin be spoiled by bad cuttin’ and cookin’. You’re slicin’ it too thick. See — thar! Now salt good, an’ keep outen the flame; on the red coals is best.”

With a sharpened stick Jeff held the thin slices over the fire for a few moments. Then he laid them aside on some clean white-oak chips Bill’s axe had provided. The simple meal of meat, bread, and afterward a drink of the cold spring water, was keenly relished by the hungry voyagers. When it had been eaten, Jeff threw a log on the fire and remarked:

“Seein’ as how we won’t be in redskin territory fer awhile yit, we kin hev a fire. I’ll allow ye’ll all be chilly and damp from river-mist afore long, so toast yerselves good.”

“How far have we come to-day?” inquired Mr. Wells, his mind always intent on reaching the scene of his cherished undertaking.

“‘Bout thirty-odd mile, I reckon. Not much on a trip, thet’s sartin, but we’ll pick up termorrer. We’ve some quicker water, an’ the rafts hev to go separate.”

“How quiet!” exclaimed Kate, suddenly breaking the silence that followed the frontiersman’s answer.

“Beautiful!” impetuously said Nell, looking up at Joe. A quick flash from his gray eyes answered her; he did not speak; indeed he had said little to her since the start, but his glance showed her how glad he was that she felt the sweetness and content of this wild land.

“I was never in a wilderness before,” broke in the earnest voice of the young minister. “I feel an almost overpowering sense of loneliness. I want to get near to you all; I feel lost. Yet it is grand, sublime!”

“Here is the promised land — the fruitful life — Nature as it was created by God,” replied the old minister, impressively.

“Tell us a story,” said Nell to the old frontiersman, as he once more joined the circle round the fire.

“So, little ‘un, ye want a story?” queried Jeff, taking up a live coal and placing it in the bowl of his pipe. He took off his coon-skin cap and carefully laid it aside. His weather-beaten face beamed in answer to the girl’s request. He drew a long and audible pull at his black pipe, and send forth slowly a cloud of white smoke. Deliberately poking the fire with a stick, as if stirring into life dead embers of the past, he sucked again at his pipe, and emitted a great puff of smoke that completely enveloped the grizzled head. From out that white cloud came his drawling voice.

“Ye’ve seen thet big curly birch over thar — thet ‘un as bends kind of sorrowful like. Wal, it used to stand straight an’ proud. I’ve knowed thet tree all the years I’ve navigated this river, an’ it seems natural like to me thet it now droops dyin’, fer it shades the grave of as young, an’ sweet, an’ purty a lass as yerself, Miss Nell. Rivermen called this island George’s Island, ‘cause Washington onct camped here; but of late years the name’s got changed, an’ the men say suthin’ like this: ‘We’ll try an’ make Milly’s birch afore sundown,’ jest as Bill and me hev done to-day. Some years agone I was comin’ up from Fort Henry, an’ had on board my slow old scow a lass named Milly — we never learned her other name. She come to me at the fort, an’ tells as how her folks hed been killed by Injuns, an’ she wanted to git back to Pitt to meet her sweetheart. I was ag’in her comin’ all along, an’ fust off I said ‘No.’ But when I seen tears in her blue eyes, an’ she puts her little hand on mine, I jest wilted, an’ says to Jim Blair, ‘She goes.’ Wal, jest as might hev been expected — an’ fact is I looked fer it — we wus tackled by redskins. Somehow, Jim Girty got wind of us hevin’ a lass aboard, an’ he ketched up with us jest below here. It’s a bad place, called Shawnee Rock, an’ I’ll show it to ye termorrer. The renegade, with his red devils, attacked us thar, an’ we had a time gittin’ away. Milly wus shot. She lived fer awhile, a couple of days, an’ all the time wus so patient, an’ sweet, an’ brave with thet renegade’s bullet in her — fer he shot her when he seen he couldn’t capture her — thet thar wusn’t a blame man of us who wouldn’t hev died to grant her prayer, which wus that she could live to onct more see her lover.”

There was a long silence, during which the old frontiersman sat gazing into the fire with sad eyes.

“We couldn’t do nuthin’, an’ we buried her thar under thet birch, where she smiled her last sad, sweet smile, an’ died. Ever since then the river has been eatn’ away at this island. It’s only half as big as it wus onct, an’ another flood will take away this sand-bar, these few birches — an’ Milly’s grave.”

The old frontiersman’s story affected all his listeners. The elder minister bowed his head and prayed that no such fate might overtake his nieces. The young minister looked again, as he had many times that day, at Nell’s winsome face. The girls cast grave glances at the drooping birch, and their bright tears glistened in the fire-glow. Once more Joe’s eyes glinted with that steely flash, and as he gazed out over the wide, darkening expanse of water his face grew cold and rigid.

“I’ll allow I might hev told a more cheerful story, an’ I’ll do so next time; but I wanted ye all, particular the lasses, to know somethin’ of the kind of country ye’re goin’ into. The frontier needs women; but jist yit it deals hard with them. An’ Jim Girty, with more of his kind, ain’t dead yit.”

“Why don’t some one kill him?” was Joe’s sharp question.

“Easier said than done, lad. Jim Girty is a white traitor, but he’s a cunnin’ an’ fierce redskin in his ways an’ life. He knows the woods as a crow does, an’ keeps outer sight ‘cept when he’s least expected. Then ag’in, he’s got Simon Girty, his brother, an’ almost the whole redskin tribe behind him. Injuns stick close to a white man that has turned ag’inst his own people, an’ Jim Girty hain’t ever been ketched. Howsumever, I heard last trip thet he’d been tryin’ some of his tricks round Fort Henry, an’ thet Wetzel is on his trail. Wal, if it’s so thet Lew Wetzel is arter him, I wouldn’t give a pinch o’ powder fer the white-redskin’s chances of a long life.”

No one spoke, and Jeff, after knocking the ashes from his pipe, went down to the raft, returning shortly afterward with his blanket. This he laid down and rolled himself in it. Presently from under his coon-skin cap came the words:

“Wal, I’ve turned in, an’ I advise ye all to do the same.”

All save Joe and Nell acted on Jeff’s suggestion. For a long time the young couple sat close together on the bank, gazing at the moonlight on the river.

The night was perfect. A cool wind fanned the dying embers of the fire and softly stirred the leaves. Earlier in the evening a single frog had voiced his protest against the loneliness; but now his dismal croak was no longer heard. A snipe, belated in his feeding, ran along the sandy shore uttering his tweet-tweet, and his little cry, breaking in so softly on the silence, seemed only to make more deeply felt the great vast stillness of the night.

Joe’s arm was around Nell. She had demurred at first, but he gave no heed to her slight resistance, and finally her head rested against his shoulder. There was no need of words.

Joe had a pleasurable sense of her nearness, and there was a delight in the fragrance of her hair as it waved against his cheek; but just then love was not uppermost in his mind. All day he had been silent under the force of an emotion which he could not analyze. Some power, some feeling in which the thought of Nell had no share, was drawing him with irresistible strength. Nell had just begun to surrender to him in the sweetness of her passion; and yet even with that knowledge knocking reproachfully at his heart, he could not help being absorbed in the shimmering water, in the dark reflection of the trees, the gloom and shadow of the forest.

Presently he felt her form relax in his arms; then her soft regular breathing told him she had fallen asleep and he laughed low to himself. How she would pout on the morrow when he teased her about it! Then, realizing that she was tired with her long day’s journey, he reproached himself for keeping her from the needed rest, and instantly decided to carry her to the raft. Yet such was the novelty of the situation that he yielded to its charm, and did not go at once. The moonlight found bright threads in her wavy hair; it shone caressingly on her quiet face, and tried to steal under the downcast lashes.

Joe made a movement to rise with her, when she muttered indistinctly as if speaking to some one. He remembered then she had once told him that she talked in her sleep, and how greatly it annoyed her. He might hear something more with which to tease her; so he listened.

“Yes — uncle — I will go — Kate, we must — go. . .”

Another interval of silence, then more murmurings. He distinguished his own name, and presently she called clearly, as if answering some inward questioner.

“I — love him — yes — I love Joe — he has mastered me. Yet I wish he were — like Jim — Jim who looked at me — so — with his deep eyes — and I. . . .”

Joe lifted her as if she were a baby, and carrying her down to the raft, gently laid her by her sleeping sister.

The innocent words which he should not have heard were like a blow. What she would never have acknowledged in her waking hours had been revealed in her dreams. He recalled the glance of Jim’s eyes as it had rested on Nell many times that day, and now these things were most significant.

He found at the end of the island a great, mossy stone. On this he climbed, and sat where the moonlight streamed upon him. Gradually that cold bitterness died out from his face, as it passed from his heart, and once more he became engrossed in the silver sheen on the water, the lapping of the waves on the pebbly beach, and in that speaking, mysterious silence of the woods.

* * *

When the first faint rays of red streaked over the eastern hill-tops, and the river mist arose from the water in a vapory cloud, Jeff Lynn rolled out of his blanket, stretched his long limbs, and gave a hearty call to the morning. His cheerful welcome awakened all the voyagers except Joe, who had spent the night in watching and the early morning in fishing.

“Wal, I’ll be darned,” ejaculated Jeff as he saw Joe. “Up afore me, an’ ketched a string of fish.”

“What are they?” asked Joe, holding up several bronze-backed fish.

“Bass — black bass, an’ thet big feller is a lammin’ hefty ‘un. How’d ye ketch ‘em?”

“I fished for them.”

“Wal, so it ‘pears,” growled Jeff, once more reluctantly yielding to his admiration for the lad. “How’d ye wake up so early?”

“I stayed up all night. I saw three deer swim from the mainland, but nothing else came around.”

“Try yer hand at cleanin’ ’em fer breakfast,” continued Jeff, beginning to busy himself with preparations for that meal. “Wal, wal, if he ain’t surprisin’! He’ll do somethin’ out here on the frontier, sure as I’m a born sinner,” he muttered to himself, wagging his head in his quaint manner.

Breakfast over, Jeff transferred the horses to the smaller raft, which he had cut loose from his own, and, giving a few directions to Bill, started down-stream with Mr. Wells and the girls.

The rafts remained close together for a while, but as the current quickened and was more skillfully taken advantage of by Jeff, the larger raft gained considerable headway, gradually widening the gap between the two.

All day they drifted. From time to time Joe and Jim waved their hands to the girls; but the greater portion of their attention was given to quieting the horses. Mose, Joe’s big white dog, retired in disgust to the hut, where he watched and dozed by turns. He did not fancy this kind of voyaging. Bill strained his sturdy arms all day on the steering-oar.

About the middle of the afternoon Joe observed that the hills grew more rugged and precipitous, and the river ran faster. He kept a constant lookout for the wall of rock which marked the point of danger. When the sun had disappeared behind the hills, he saw ahead a gray rock protruding from the green foliage. It was ponderous, overhanging, and seemed to frown down on the river. This was Shawnee Rock. Joe looked long at the cliff, and wondered if there was now an Indian scout hidden behind the pines that skirted the edge. Prominent on the top of the bluff a large, dead tree projected its hoary, twisted branches.

Bill evidently saw the landmark, for he stopped in his monotonous walk to and fro across the raft, and pushing his oar amidships he looked ahead for the other raft. The figure of the tall frontiersman could be plainly seen as he labored at the helm.

The raft disappeared round a bend, and as it did so Joe saw a white scarf waved by Nell.

Bill worked the clumsy craft over toward the right shore where the current was more rapid. He pushed with all his strength, and when the oar had reached its widest sweep, he lifted it and ran back across the raft for another push. Joe scanned the river ahead. He saw no rapids; only rougher water whirling over some rocks. They were where the channel narrowed and ran close to the right-hand bank. Under a willow-flanked ledge was a sand-bar. To Joe there seemed nothing hazardous in drifting through this pass.

“Bad place ahead,” said Bill, observing Joe’s survey of the river.

“It doesn’t look so,” replied Joe.

“A raft ain’t a boat. We could pole a boat. You has to hev water to float logs, an’ the river’s run out considerable. I’m only afeerd fer the horses. If we hit or drag, they might plunge around a bit.”

When the raft passed into the head of the bend it struck the rocks several times, but finally gained the channel safely, and everything seemed propitious for an easy passage.

But, greatly to Bill’s surprise, the wide craft was caught directly in the channel, and swung round so that the steering-oar pointed toward the opposite shore. The water roared a foot deep over the logs.

“Hold hard on the horses!” yelled Bill. “Somethin’s wrong. I never seen a snag here.”

The straining mass of logs, insecurely fastened together, rolled and then pitched loose again, but the short delay had been fatal to the steering apparatus.

Joe would have found keen enjoyment in the situation, had it not been for his horse, Lance. The thoroughbred was difficult to hold. As Bill was making strenuous efforts to get in a lucky stroke of the oar, he failed to see a long length of grapevine floating like a brown snake of the water below. In the excitement they heeded not the barking of Mose. Nor did they see the grapevine straighten and become taut just as they drifted upon it; but they felt the raft strike and hold on some submerged object. It creaked and groaned and the foamy water surged, gurgling, between the logs.

Jim’s mare snorted with terror, and rearing high, pulled her halter loose and plunged into the river. But Jim still held her, at risk of being drawn overboard.

“Let go! She’ll drag you in!” yelled Joe, grasping him with his free hand. Lance trembled violently and strained at the rope, which his master held with a strong grip.

CRACK!

The stinging report of a rifle rang out above the splashing of the water.

Without a cry, Bill’s grasp on the oar loosened; he fell over it limply, his head striking the almost submerged log. A dark-red fluid colored the water; then his body slipped over the oar and into the river, where it sank.

“My God! Shot!” cried Jim, in horrified tones.

He saw a puff of white smoke rising above the willows. Then the branches parted, revealing the dark forms of several Indian warriors. From the rifle in the foremost savage’s hand a slight veil of smoke rose. With the leap of a panther the redskin sprang from the strip of sand to the raft.

“Hold, Jim! Drop that ax! We’re caught!” cried Joe.

“It’s that Indian from the fort!” gasped Jim.

The stalwart warrior was indeed Silvertip. But how changed! Stripped of the blanket he had worn at the settlement, now standing naked but for his buckskin breech-cloth, with his perfectly proportioned form disclosed in all its sinewy beauty, and on his swarthy, evil face an expression of savage scorn, he surely looked a warrior and a chief.

He drew his tomahawk and flashed a dark glance at Joe. For a moment he steadily regarded the young man; but if he expected to see fear in the latter’s face he was mistaken, for the look was returned coolly.

“Paleface steal shirt,” he said in his deep voice. “Fool paleface play — Silvertip no forget.”

Chapter V.

SILVERTIP TURNED TO his braves, and giving a brief command, sprang from the raft. The warriors closed in around the brothers; two grasping each by the arms, and the remaining Indian taking care of the horse. The captives were then led ashore, where Silvertip awaited them.

When the horse was clear of the raft, which task necessitated considerable labor on the part of the Indians, the chief seized the grapevine, that was now plainly in sight, and severed it with one blow of his tomahawk. The raft dashed forward with a lurch and drifted downstream.

In the clear water Joe could see the cunning trap which had caused the death of Bill, and insured the captivity of himself and his brother. The crafty savages had trimmed a six-inch sapling and anchored it under the water. They weighted the heavy end, leaving the other pointing upstream. To this last had been tied the grapevine. When the drifting raft reached the sapling, the Indians concealed in the willows pulled hard on the improvised rope; the end of the sapling stuck up like a hook, and the aft was caught and held. The killing of the helmsman showed the Indians’ foresight; even had the raft drifted on downstream the brothers would have been helpless on a craft they could not manage. After all, Joe thought, he had not been so far wrong when he half fancied that an Indian lay behind Shawnee Rock, and he marveled at this clever trick which had so easily effected their capture.

But he had little time to look around at the scene of action. There was a moment only in which to study the river to learn if the unfortunate raftsman’s body had appeared. It was not to be seen. The river ran swiftly and hid all evidence of the tragedy under its smooth surface. When the brave who had gone back to the raft for the goods joined his companion the two hurried Joe up the bank after the others.

Once upon level ground Joe saw before him an open forest. On the border of this the Indians stopped long enough to bind the prisoners’ wrists with thongs of deerhide. While two of the braves performed this office, Silvertip leaned against a tree and took no notice of the brothers. When they were thus securely tied one of their captors addressed the chief, who at once led the way westward through the forest. The savages followed in single file, with Joe and Jim in the middle of the line. The last Indian tried to mount Lance; but the thoroughbred would have none of him, and after several efforts the savage was compelled to desist. Mose trotted reluctantly along behind the horse.

Although the chief preserved a dignified mien, his braves were disposed to be gay. They were in high glee over their feat of capturing the palefaces, and kept up an incessant jabbering. One Indian, who walked directly behind Joe, continually prodded him with the stock of a rifle; and whenever Joe turned, the brawny redskin grinned as he grunted, “Ugh!” Joe observed that this huge savage had a broad face of rather a lighter shade of red than his companions. Perhaps he intended those rifle-prods in friendliness, for although they certainly amused him, he would allow no one else to touch Joe; but it would have been more pleasing had he shown his friendship in a gentle manner. This Indian carried Joe’s pack, much to his own delight, especially as his companions evinced an envious curiosity. The big fellow would not, however, allow them to touch it.

“He’s a cheerful brute,” remarked Joe to Jim.

“Ugh!” grunted the big Indian, jamming Joe with his rifle-stock.

Joe took heed to the warning and spoke no more. He gave all his attention to the course over which he was being taken. Here was his first opportunity to learn something of Indians and their woodcraft. It occurred to him that his captors would not have been so gay and careless had they not believed themselves safe from pursuit, and he concluded they were leisurely conducting him to one of the Indian towns. He watched the supple figure before him, wondering at the quick step, light as the fall of a leaf, and tried to walk as softly. He found, however, that where the Indian readily avoided the sticks and brush, he was unable to move without snapping twigs. Now and then he would look up and study the lay of the land ahead; and as he came nearer to certain rocks and trees he scrutinized them closely, in order to remember their shape and general appearance. He believed he was blazing out in his mind this woodland trail, so that should fortune favor him and he contrive to escape, he would be able to find his way back to the river. Also, he was enjoying the wild scenery.

This forest would have appeared beautiful, even to one indifferent to such charms, and Joe was far from that. Every moment he felt steal stronger over him a subtle influence which he could not define. Half unconsciously he tried to analyze it, but it baffled him. He could no more explain what fascinated him than he could understand what caused the melancholy quiet which hung over the glades and hollows. He had pictured a real forest so differently from this. Here was a long lane paved with springy moss and fenced by bright-green sassafras; there a secluded dale, dotted with pale-blue blossoms, over which the giant cottonwoods leaned their heads, jealously guarding the delicate flowers from the sun. Beech trees, growing close in clanny groups, spread their straight limbs gracefully; the white birches gleamed like silver wherever a stray sunbeam stole through the foliage, and the oaks, monarchs of the forest, rose over all, dark, rugged, and kingly.

Joe soon understood why the party traveled through such open forest. The chief, seeming hardly to deviate from his direct course, kept clear of broken ground, matted thickets and tangled windfalls. Joe got a glimpse of dark ravines and heard the music of tumbling waters; he saw gray cliffs grown over with vines, and full of holes and crevices; steep ridges, covered with dense patches of briar and hazel, rising in the way. Yet the Shawnee always found an easy path.

The sun went down behind the foliage in the west, and shadows appeared low in the glens; then the trees faded into an indistinct mass; a purple shade settled down over the forest, and night brought the party to a halt.

The Indians selected a sheltered spot under the lee of a knoll, at the base of which ran a little brook. Here in this inclosed space were the remains of a camp-fire. Evidently the Indians had halted there that same day, for the logs still smouldered. While one brave fanned the embers, another took from a neighboring branch a haunch of deer meat. A blaze was soon coaxed from the dull coals, more fuel was added, and presently a cheerful fire shone on the circle of dusky forms.

It was a picture which Joe had seen in many a boyish dream; now that he was a part of it he did not dwell on the hopelessness of the situation, nor of the hostile chief whose enmity he had incurred. Almost, it seemed, he was glad of this chance to watch the Indians and listen to them. He had been kept apart from Jim, and it appeared to Joe that their captors treated his brother with a contempt which they did not show him. Silvertip had, no doubt, informed them that Jim had been on his way to teach the Indians of the white man’s God.

Jim sat with drooping head; his face was sad, and evidently he took the most disheartening view of his capture. When he had eaten the slice of venison given him he lay down with his back to the fire.

Silvertip, in these surroundings, showed his real character. He had appeared friendly in the settlement; but now he was the relentless savage, a son of the wilds, free as an eagle. His dignity as a chief kept him aloof from his braves. He had taken no notice of the prisoners since the capture. He remained silent, steadily regarding the fire with his somber eyes. At length, glancing at the big Indian, he motioned toward the prisoners and with a single word stretched himself on the leaves.

Joe noted the same changelessness of expression in the other dark faces as he had seen in Silvertip’s. It struck him forcibly. When they spoke in their soft, guttural tones, or burst into a low, not unmusical laughter, or sat gazing stolidly into the fire, their faces seemed always the same, inscrutable, like the depths of the forest now hidden in night. One thing Joe felt rather than saw — these savages were fierce and untamable. He was sorry for Jim, because, as he believed, it would be as easy to teach the panther gentleness toward his prey as to instill into one of these wild creatures a belief in Christ.

The braves manifested keen pleasure in anticipation as to what they would get out of the pack, which the Indian now opened. Time and again the big brave placed his broad hand on the shoulder of a comrade Indian and pushed him backward.

Finally the pack was opened. It contained a few articles of wearing apparel, a pair of boots, and a pipe and pouch of tobacco. The big Indian kept the latter articles, grunting with satisfaction, and threw the boots and clothes to the others. Immediately there was a scramble. One brave, after a struggle with another, got possession of both boots. He at once slipped off his moccasins and drew on the white man’s foot-coverings. He strutted around in them a few moments, but his proud manner soon changed to disgust.

Cowhide had none of the soft, yielding qualities of buckskin, and hurt the Indian’s feet. Sitting down, he pulled one off, not without difficulty, for the boots were wet; but he could not remove the other. He hesitated a moment, being aware of the subdued merriment of his comrades, and then held up his foot to the nearest one. This chanced to be the big Indian, who evidently had a keen sense of humor. Taking hold of the boot with both hands, he dragged the luckless brave entirely around the camp-fire. The fun, however, was not to be all one-sided. The big Indian gave a more strenuous pull, and the boot came off suddenly. Unprepared for this, he lost his balance and fell down the bank almost into the creek. He held on to the boot, nevertheless, and getting up, threw it into the fire.

The braves quieted down after that, and soon lapsed into slumber, leaving the big fellow, to whom the chief had addressed his brief command, acting, as guard. Observing Joe watching him as he puffed on his new pipe, he grinned, and spoke in broken English that was intelligible, and much of a surprise to the young man.

“Paleface — tobac’ — heap good.”

Then, seeing that Joe made no effort to follow his brother’s initiative, for Jim was fast asleep, he pointed to the recumbent figures and spoke again.

“Ugh! Paleface sleep — Injun wigwams — near setting sun.”

On the following morning Joe was awakened by the pain in his legs, which had been bound all night. He was glad when the bonds were cut and the party took up its westward march.

The Indians, though somewhat quieter, displayed the same carelessness: they did not hurry, nor use particular caution, but selected the most open paths through the forest. They even halted while one of their number crept up on a herd of browsing deer. About noon the leader stopped to drink from a spring; his braves followed suit and permitted the white prisoners to quench their thirst.

When they were about to start again the single note of a bird far away in the woods sounded clearly on the quiet air. Joe would not have given heed to it had he been less attentive. He instantly associated this peculiar bird-note with the sudden stiffening of Silvertip’s body and his attitude of intense listening. Low exclamations came from the braves as they bent to catch the lightest sound. Presently, above the murmur of the gentle fall of water over the stones, rose that musical note once more. It was made by a bird, Joe thought, and yet, judged by the actions of the Indians, how potent with meaning beyond that of the simple melody of the woodland songster! He turned, half expecting to see somewhere in the tree-tops the bird which had wrought so sudden a change in his captors. As he did so from close at hand came the same call, now louder, but identical with the one that had deceived him. It was an answering signal, and had been given by Silvertip.

It flashed into Joe’s mind that other savages were in the forest; they had run across the Shawnees’ trail, and were thus communicating with them. Soon dark figures could be discerned against the patches of green thicket; they came nearer and nearer, and now entered the open glade where Silvertip stood with his warriors.

Joe counted twelve, and noted that they differed from his captors. He had only time to see that this difference consisted in the head-dress, and in the color and quantity of paint on their bodies, when his gaze was attracted and riveted to the foremost figures.

The first was that of a very tall and stately chief, toward whom Silvertip now advanced with every show of respect. In this Indian’s commanding stature, in his reddish-bronze face, stern and powerful, there were readable the characteristics of a king. In his deep-set eyes, gleaming from under a ponderous brow; in his mastiff-like jaw; in every feature of his haughty face were visible all the high intelligence, the consciousness of past valor, and the power and authority that denote a great chieftain.

The second figure was equally striking for the remarkable contrast it afforded to the chief’s. Despite the gaudy garments, the paint, the fringed and beaded buckskin leggins — all the Indian accouterments and garments which bedecked this person, he would have been known anywhere as a white man. His skin was burned to a dark bronze, but it had not the red tinge which characterizes the Indian. This white man had, indeed, a strange physiognomy. The forehead was narrow and sloped backward from the brow, denoting animal instincts. The eyes were close together, yellowish-brown in color, and had a peculiar vibrating movement, as though they were hung on a pivot, like a compass-needle. The nose was long and hooked, and the mouth set in a thin, cruel line. There was in the man’s aspect an extraordinary combination of ignorance, vanity, cunning and ferocity.

While the two chiefs held a short consultation, this savage-appearing white man addressed the brothers.

“Who’re you, an’ where you goin’?” he asked gruffly, confronting Jim.

“My name is Downs. I am a preacher, and was on my way to the Moravian Mission to preach to the Indians. You are a white man; will you help us?”

If Jim expected the information would please his interrogator, he was mistaken.

“So you’re one of ‘em? Yes, I’ll do suthin’ fer you when I git back from this hunt. I’ll cut your heart out, chop it up, an’ feed it to the buzzards,” he said fiercely, concluding his threat by striking Jim a cruel blow on the head.

Joe paled deathly white at this cowardly action, and his eyes, as they met the gaze of the ruffian, contracted with their characteristic steely glow, as if some powerful force within the depths of his being were at white heat and only this pale flash came to the surface.

“You ain’t a preacher?” questioned the man, meeting something in Joe’s glance that had been absent from Jim’s.

Joe made no answer, and regarded questioner steadily.

“Ever see me afore? Ever hear of Jim Girty?” he asked boastfully.

“Before you spoke I knew you were Girty,” answered Joe quietly.

“How d’you know? Ain’t you afeared?”

“Of what?”

“Me — me?”

Joe laughed in the renegades face.

“How’d you knew me?” growled Girty. “I’ll see thet you hev cause to remember me after this.”

“I figured there was only one so-called white man in these woods who is coward enough to strike a man whose hands are tied.”

“Boy, ye’re too free with your tongue. I’ll shet off your wind.” Girty’s hand was raised, but it never reached Joe’s neck.

The big Indian had an hour or more previous cut Joe’s bonds, but he still retained the thong which was left attached to Joe’s left wrist. This allowed the young man free use of his right arm, which, badly swollen or not, he brought into quick action.

When the renegade reached toward him Joe knocked up the hand, and, instead of striking, he grasped the hooked nose with all the powerful grip of his fingers. Girty uttered a frightful curse; he writhed with pain, but could not free himself from the vise-like clutch. He drew his tomahawk and with a scream aimed a vicious blow at Joe. He missed his aim, however, for Silvertip had intervened and turned the course of the keen hatchet. But the weapon struck Joe a glancing blow, inflicting a painful, though not dangerous wound.

The renegade’s nose was skinned and bleeding profusely. He was frantic with fury, and tried to get at Joe; but Silvertip remained in front of his captive until some of the braves led Girty into the forest, where the tall chief had already disappeared.

The nose-pulling incident added to the gayety of the Shawnees, who evidently were pleased with Girty’s discomfiture. They jabbered among themselves and nodded approvingly at Joe, until a few words spoken by Silvertip produced a sudden change.

What the words were Joe could not understand, but to him they sounded like French. He smiled at the absurdity of imagining he had heard a savage speak a foreign language. At any rate, whatever had been said was trenchant with meaning. The Indians changed from gay to grave; they picked up their weapons and looked keenly on every side; the big Indian at once retied Joe, and then all crowded round the chief.

“Did you hear what Silvertip said, and did you notice the effect it had?” whispered Jim, taking advantage of the moment.

“It sounded like French, but of course it wasn’t,” replied Joe.

“It was French. ‘Le Vent de la Mort.’”

“By Jove, that’s it. What does it mean?” asked Joe, who was not a scholar.

“The Wind of Death.”

“That’s English, but I can’t apply it here. Can you?”

“No doubt it is some Indian omen.”

The hurried consultation over, Silvertip tied Joe’s horse and dog to the trees, and once more led the way; this time he avoided the open forest and kept on low ground. For a long time he traveled in the bed of the brook, wading when the water was shallow, and always stepping where there was the least possibility of leaving a footprint. Not a word was spoken. If either of the brothers made the lightest splash in the water, or tumbled a stone into the brook, the Indian behind rapped him on the head with a tomahawk handle.

At certain places, indicated by the care which Silvertip exercised in walking, the Indian in front of the captives turned and pointed where they were to step. They were hiding the trail. Silvertip hurried them over the stony places; went more slowly through the water, and picked his way carefully over the soft ground it became necessary to cross. At times he stopped, remaining motionless many seconds.

This vigilance continued all the afternoon. The sun sank; twilight spread its gray mantle, and soon black night enveloped the forest. The Indians halted, but made no fire; they sat close together on a stony ridge, silent and watchful.

Joe pondered deeply over this behavior. Did the Shawnees fear pursuit? What had that Indian chief told Silvertip? To Joe it seemed that they acted as if believing foes were on all sides. Though they hid their tracks, it was, apparently, not the fear of pursuit alone which made them cautious.

Joe reviewed the afternoon’s march and dwelt upon the possible meaning of the cat-like steps, the careful brushing aside of branches, the roving eyes, suspicious and gloomy, the eager watchfulness of the advance as well as to the rear, and always the strained effort to listen, all of which gave him the impression of some grave, unseen danger.

And now as he lay on the hard ground, nearly exhausted by the long march and suffering from the throbbing wound, his courage lessened somewhat, and he shivered with dread. The quiet and gloom of the forest; these fierce, wild creatures, free in the heart of their own wilderness yet menaced by a foe, and that strange French phrase which kept recurring in his mind — all had the effect of conjuring up giant shadows in Joe’s fanciful mind. During all his life, until this moment, he had never feared anything; now he was afraid of the darkness. The spectral trees spread long arms overhead, and phantom forms stalked abroad; somewhere out in that dense gloom stirred this mysterious foe — the “Wind of Death.”

Nevertheless, he finally slept. In the dull-gray light of early morning the Indians once more took up the line of march toward the west. They marched all that day, and at dark halted to eat and rest. Silvertip and another Indian stood watch.

Some time before morning Joe suddenly awoke. The night was dark, yet it was lighter than when he had fallen asleep. A pale, crescent moon shown dimly through the murky clouds. There was neither movement of the air nor the chirp of an insect. Absolute silence prevailed.

Joe saw the Indian guard leaning against a tree, asleep. Silvertip was gone. The captive raised his head and looked around for the chief. There were only four Indians left, three on the ground and one against the tree.

He saw something shining near him. He looked more closely, and made out the object to be an eagle plume Silvertip had worn, in his head-dress. It lay on the ground near the tree. Joe made some slight noise which awakened the guard. The Indian never moved a muscle; but his eyes roved everywhere. He, too, noticed the absence of the chief.

At this moment from out of the depths of the woods came a swelling sigh, like the moan of the night wind. It rose and died away, leaving the silence apparently all the deeper.

A shudder ran over Joe’s frame. Fascinated, he watched the guard. The Indian uttered a low gasp; his eyes started and glared wildly; he rose very slowly to his full height and stood waiting, listening. The dark hand which held the tomahawk trembled so that little glints of moonlight glanced from the bright steel.

From far back in the forest-deeps came that same low moaning:

“Um-m-mm-woo-o-o-o!”

It rose from a faint murmur and swelled to a deep moan, soft but clear, and ended in a wail like that of a lost soul.

The break it made in that dead silence was awful. Joe’s blood seemed to have curdled and frozen; a cold sweat oozed from his skin, and it was as if a clammy hand clutched at his heart. He tried to persuade himself that the fear displayed by the savage was only superstition, and that that moan was but the sigh of the night wind.

The Indian sentinel stood as if paralyzed an instant after that weird cry, and then, swift as a flash, and as noiseless, he was gone into the gloomy forest. He had fled without awakening his companions.

Once more the moaning cry arose and swelled mournfully on the still night air. It was close at hand!

“The Wind of Death,” whispered Joe.

He was shaken and unnerved by the events of the past two days, and dazed from his wound. His strength deserted him, and he lost consciousness.

Chapter VI.

ONE EVENING, SEVERAL day previous to the capture of the brothers, a solitary hunter stopped before a deserted log cabin which stood on the bank of a stream fifty miles or more inland from the Ohio River. It was rapidly growing dark; a fine, drizzling rain had set in, and a rising wind gave promise of a stormy night.

Although the hunter seemed familiar with his surroundings, he moved cautiously, and hesitated as if debating whether he should seek the protection of this lonely hut, or remain all night under dripping trees. Feeling of his hunting frock, he found that it was damp and slippery. This fact evidently decided him in favor of the cabin, for he stooped his tall figure and went in. It was pitch dark inside; but having been there before, the absence of a light did not trouble him. He readily found the ladder leading to the loft, ascended it, and lay down to sleep.

During the night a noise awakened him. For a moment he heard nothing except the fall of the rain. Then came the hum of voices, followed by the soft tread of moccasined feet. He knew there was an Indian town ten miles across the country, and believed some warriors, belated on a hunting trip, had sought the cabin for shelter.

The hunter lay perfectly quiet, awaiting developments. If the Indians had flint and steel, and struck a light, he was almost certain to be discovered. He listened to their low conversation, and understood from the language that they were Delawares.

A moment later he heard the rustling of leaves and twigs, accompanied by the metallic click of steel against some hard substance. The noise was repeated, and then followed by a hissing sound, which he knew to be the burning of a powder on a piece of dry wood, after which rays of light filtered through cracks of the unstable floor of the loft.

The man placed his eye to one of these crevices, and counted eleven Indians, all young braves, with the exception of the chief. The Indians had been hunting; they had haunches of deer and buffalo tongues, together with several packs of hides. Some of them busied themselves drying their weapons; others sat down listlessly, plainly showing their weariness, and two worked over the smouldering fire. The damp leaves and twigs burned faintly, yet there was enough to cause the hunter fear that he might be discovered. He believed he had not much to worry about from the young braves, but the hawk-eyed chief was dangerous.

And he was right. Presently the stalwart chief heard, or saw, a drop of water fall from the loft. It came from the hunter’s wet coat. Almost any one save an Indian scout would have fancied this came from the roof. As the chief’s gaze roamed everywhere over the interior of the cabin his expression was plainly distrustful. His eye searched the wet clay floor, but hardly could have discovered anything there, because the hunter’s moccasined tracks had been obliterated by the footprints of the Indians. The chief’s suspicions seemed to be allayed.

But in truth this chief, with the wonderful sagacity natural to Indians, had observed matters which totally escaped the young braves, and, like a wily old fox, he waited to see which cub would prove the keenest. Not one of them, however, noted anything unusual. They sat around the fire, ate their meat and parched corn, and chatted volubly.

The chief arose and, walking to the ladder, ran his hand along one of the rungs.

“Ugh!” he exclaimed.

Instantly he was surrounded by ten eager, bright-eyed braves. He extended his open palm; it was smeared with wet clay like that under his feet. Simultaneously with their muttered exclamations the braves grasped their weapons. They knew there was a foe above them. It was a paleface, for an Indian would have revealed himself.

The hunter, seeing he was discovered, acted with the unerring judgment and lightning-like rapidity of one long accustomed to perilous situations. Drawing his tomahawk and noiselessly stepping to the hole in the loft, he leaped into the midst of the astounded Indians.

Rising from the floor like the rebound of a rubber ball, his long arm with the glittering hatchet made a wide sweep, and the young braves scattered like frightened sheep.

He made a dash for the door and, incredible as it may seem, his movements were so quick he would have escaped from their very midst without a scratch but for one unforeseen circumstance. The clay floor was wet and slippery; his feet were hardly in motion before they slipped from under him and he fell headlong.

With loud yells of triumph the band jumped upon him. There was a convulsive, heaving motion of the struggling mass, one frightful cry of agony, and then hoarse commands. Three of the braves ran to their packs, from which they took cords of buckskin. So exceedingly powerful was the hunter that six Indians were required to hold him while the others tied his hands and feet. Then, with grunts and chuckles of satisfaction, they threw him into a corner of the cabin.

Two of the braves had been hurt in the brief struggle, one having a badly wrenched shoulder and the other a broken arm. So much for the hunter’s power in that single moment of action.

The loft was searched, and found to be empty. Then the excitement died away, and the braves settled themselves down for the night. The injured ones bore their hurts with characteristic stoicism; if they did not sleep, both remained quiet and not a sigh escaped them.

The wind changed during the night, the storm abated, and when daylight came the sky was cloudless. The first rays of the sun shone in the open door, lighting up the interior of the cabin.

A sleepy Indian who had acted as guard stretched his limbs and yawned. He looked for the prisoner, and saw him sitting up in the corner. One arm was free, and the other nearly so. He had almost untied the thongs which bound him; a few moments more and he would have been free.

“Ugh!” exclaimed the young brave, awakening his chief and pointing to the hunter.

The chief glanced at his prisoner; then looked more closely, and with one spring was on his feet, a drawn tomahawk in his hand. A short, shrill yell issued from his lips. Roused by that clarion call, the young braves jumped up, trembling in eager excitement. The chief’s summons had been the sharp war-cry of the Delawares.

He manifested as intense emotion as could possibly have been betrayed by a matured, experienced chieftain, and pointing to the hunter, he spoke a single word.

* * *

At noonday the Indians entered the fields of corn which marked the outskirts of the Delaware encampment.

“Kol-loo — kol-loo — kol-loo.”

The long signal, heralding the return of the party with important news, pealed throughout the quiet valley; and scarcely had the echoes died away when from the village came answering shouts.

Once beyond the aisles of waving corn the hunter saw over the shoulders of his captors the home of the redmen. A grassy plain, sloping gradually from the woody hill to a winding stream, was brightly beautiful with chestnut trees and long, well-formed lines of lodges. Many-hued blankets hung fluttering in the sun, and rising lazily were curling columns of blue smoke. The scene was picturesque and reposeful; the vivid hues suggesting the Indians love of color and ornament; the absence of life and stir, his languorous habit of sleeping away the hot noonday hours.

The loud whoops, however, changed the quiet encampment into a scene of animation. Children ran from the wigwams, maidens and braves dashed here and there, squaws awakened from their slumber, and many a doughty warrior rose from his rest in the shade. French fur traders came curiously from their lodges, and renegades hurriedly left their blankets, roused to instant action by the well-known summons.

The hunter, led down the lane toward the approaching crowd, presented a calm and fearless demeanor. When the Indians surrounded him one prolonged, furious yell rent the air, and then followed an extraordinary demonstration of fierce delight. The young brave’s staccato yell, the maiden’s scream, the old squaw’s screech, and the deep war-cry of the warriors intermingled in a fearful discordance.

Often had this hunter heard the name which the Indian called him; he had been there before, a prisoner; he had run the gauntlet down the lane; he had been bound to a stake in front of the lodge where his captors were now leading him. He knew the chief, Wingenund, sachem of the Delawares. Since that time, now five years ago, when Wingenund had tortured him, they had been bitterest foes.

If the hunter heard the hoarse cries, or the words hissed into his ears; if he saw the fiery glances of hatred, and sudden giving way to ungovernable rage, unusual to the Indian nature; if he felt in their fierce exultation the hopelessness of succor or mercy, he gave not the slightest sign.

“Atelang! Atelang! Atelang!” rang out the strange Indian name.

The French traders, like real savages, ran along with the procession, their feathers waving, their paint shining, their faces expressive of as much excitement as the Indians’ as they cried aloud in their native tongue:

“Le Vent de la Mort! Le Vent de la Mort! La Vent de la Mort!”

The hunter, while yet some paces distant, saw the lofty figure of the chieftain standing in front of his principal men. Well he knew them all. There were the crafty Pipe, and his savage comrade, the Half King; there was Shingiss, who wore on his forehead a scar — the mark of the hunter’s bullet; there were Kotoxen, the Lynx, and Misseppa, the Source, and Winstonah, the War-cloud, chiefs of sagacity and renown. Three renegades completed the circle; and these three traitors represented a power which had for ten years left an awful, bloody trail over the country. Simon Girty, the so-called White Indian, with his keen, authoritative face turned expectantly; Elliott, the Tory deserter, from Fort Pitt, a wiry, spider-like little man; and last, the gaunt and gaudily arrayed form of the demon of the frontier — Jim Girty.

The procession halted before this group, and two brawny braves pushed the hunter forward. Simon Girty’s face betrayed satisfaction; Elliott’s shifty eyes snapped, and the dark, repulsive face of the other Girty exhibited an exultant joy. These desperadoes had feared this hunter.

Wingenund, with a majestic wave of his arm, silenced the yelling horde of frenzied savages and stepped before the captive.

The deadly foes were once again face to face. The chieftain’s lofty figure and dark, sleek head, now bare of plumes, towered over the other Indians, but he was not obliged to lower his gaze in order to look straight into the hunter’s eyes.

Verily this hunter merited the respect which shone in the great chieftain’s glance. Like a mountain-ash he stood, straight and strong, his magnificent frame tapering wedge-like from his broad shoulders. The bulging line of his thick neck, the deep chest, the knotty contour of his bared forearm, and the full curves of his legs — all denoted a wonderful muscular development.

The power expressed in this man’s body seemed intensified in his features. His face was white and cold, his jaw square and set; his coal-black eyes glittered with almost a superhuman fire. And his hair, darker than the wing of a crow, fell far below his shoulders; matted and tangled as it was, still it hung to his waist, and had it been combed out, must have reached his knees.

One long moment Wingenund stood facing his foe, and then over the multitude and through the valley rolled his sonorous voice:

“Deathwind dies at dawn!”

The hunter was tied to a tree and left in view of the Indian populace. The children ran fearfully by; the braves gazed long at the great foe of their race; the warriors passed in gloomy silence. The savages’ tricks of torture, all their diabolical ingenuity of inflicting pain was suppressed, awaiting the hour of sunrise when this hated Long Knife was to die.

Only one person offered an insult to the prisoner; he was a man of his own color. Jim Girty stopped before him, his yellowish eyes lighted by a tigerish glare, his lips curled in a snarl, and from between them issuing the odor of the fir traders’ vile rum.

“You’ll soon be feed fer the buzzards,” he croaked, in his hoarse voice. He had so often strewed the plains with human flesh for the carrion birds that the thought had a deep fascination for him. “D’ye hear, scalp-hunter? Feed for buzzards!” He deliberately spat in the hunter’s face. “D’ye hear?” he repeated.

There was no answer save that which glittered in the hunter’s eye. But the renegade could not read it because he did not meet that flaming glance. Wild horses could not have dragged him to face this man had he been free. Even now a chill crept over Girty. For a moment he was enthralled by a mysterious fear, half paralyzed by a foreshadowing of what would be this hunter’s vengeance. Then he shook off his craven fear. He was free; the hunter’s doom was sure. His sharp face was again wreathed in a savage leer, and he spat once more on the prisoner.

His fierce impetuosity took him a step too far. The hunter’s arms and waist were fastened, but his feet were free. His powerful leg was raised suddenly; his foot struck Girty in the pit of the stomach. The renegade dropped limp and gasping. The braves carried him away, his gaudy feathers trailing, his long arms hanging inertly, and his face distorted with agony.

The maidens of the tribe, however, showed for the prisoner an interest that had in it something of veiled sympathy. Indian girls were always fascinated by white men. Many records of Indian maidens’ kindness, of love, of heroism for white prisoners brighten the dark pages of frontier history. These girls walked past the hunter, averting their eyes when within his range of vision, but stealing many a sidelong glance at his impressive face and noble proportions. One of them, particularly, attracted the hunter’s eye.

This was because, as she came by with her companions, while they all turned away, she looked at him with her soft, dark eyes. She was a young girl, whose delicate beauty bloomed fresh and sweet as that of a wild rose. Her costume, fringed, beaded, and exquisitely wrought with fanciful design, betrayed her rank, she was Wingenund’s daughter. The hunter had seen her when she was a child, and he recognized her now. He knew that the beauty of Aola, of Whispering Winds Among the Leaves, had been sung from the Ohio to the Great Lakes.

Often she passed him that afternoon. At sunset, as the braves untied him and led him away, he once more caught the full, intense gaze of her lovely eyes.

That night as he lay securely bound in the corner of a lodge, and the long hours wore slowly away, he strained at his stout bonds, and in his mind revolved different plans of escape. It was not in this man’s nature to despair; while he had life he would fight. From time to time he expanded his muscles, striving to loosen the wet buckskin thongs.

The dark hours slowly passed, no sound coming to him save the distant bark of a dog and the monotonous tread of his guard; a dim grayness pervaded the lodge. Dawn was close at hand — his hour was nearly come.

Suddenly his hearing, trained to a most acute sensibility, caught a faint sound, almost inaudible. It came from without on the other side of the lodge. There it was again, a slight tearing sound, such as is caused by a knife when it cuts through soft material.

Some one was slitting the wall of the lodge.

The hunter rolled noiselessly over and over until he lay against the skins. In the dim grayness he saw a bright blade moving carefully upward through the deer-hide. Then a long knife was pushed into the opening; a small, brown hand grasped the hilt. Another little hand followed and felt of the wall and floor, reaching out with groping fingers.

The, hunter rolled again so that his back was against the wall and his wrists in front of the opening. He felt the little hand on his arm; then it slipped down to his wrists. The contact of cold steel set a tremor of joy through his heart. The pressure of his bonds relaxed, ceased; his arms were free. He turned to find the long-bladed knife on the ground. The little hands were gone.

In a tinkling he rose unbound, armed, desperate. In another second an Indian warrior lay upon the ground in his death-throes, while a fleeing form vanished in the gray morning mist.

Chapter VII.

JOE FELT THE heavy lethargy rise from him like the removal of a blanket; his eyes became clear, and he saw the trees and the forest gloom; slowly he realized his actual position.

He was a prisoner, lying helpless among his sleeping captors. Silvertip and the guard had fled into the woods, frightened by the appalling moan which they believed sounded their death-knell. And Joe believed he might have fled himself had he been free. What could have caused that sound? He fought off the numbing chill that once again began to creep over him. He was wide-awake now; his head was clear, and he resolved to retain his senses. He told himself there could be nothing supernatural in that wind, or wail, or whatever it was, which had risen murmuring from out the forest-depths.

Yet, despite his reasoning, Joe could not allay his fears. That thrilling cry haunted him. The frantic flight of an Indian brave — nay, of a cunning, experienced chief — was not to be lightly considered. The savages were at home in these untracked wilds. Trained from infancy to scent danger and to fight when they had an equal chance they surely would not run without good cause.

Joe knew that something moved under those dark trees. He had no idea what. It might be the fretting night wind, or a stealthy, prowling, soft-footed beast, or a savage alien to these wild Indians, and wilder than they by far. The chirp of a bird awoke the stillness. Night had given way to morning. Welcoming the light that was chasing away the gloom, Joe raised his head with a deep sigh of relief. As he did so he saw a bush move; then a shadow seemed to sink into the ground. He had seen an object lighter than the trees, darker than the gray background. Again, that strange sense of the nearness of something thrilled him.

Moments, passed — to him long as hours. He saw a tall fern waver and tremble. A rabbit, or perhaps a snake, had brushed it. Other ferns moved, their tops agitated, perhaps, by a faint breeze. No; that wavering line came straight toward him; it could not be the wind; it marked the course of a creeping, noiseless thing. It must be a panther crawling nearer and nearer.

Joe opened his lips to awaken his captors, but could not speak; it was as if his heart had stopped beating. Twenty feet away the ferns were parted to disclose a white, gleaming face, with eyes that seemingly glittered. Brawny shoulders were upraised, and then a tall, powerful man stood revealed. Lightly he stepped over the leaves into the little glade. He bent over the sleeping Indians. Once, twice, three times a long blade swung high. One brave shuddered another gave a sobbing gasp, and the third moved two fingers — thus they passed from life to death.

“Wetzel!” cried Joe.

“I reckon so,” said the deliverer, his deep, calm voice contrasting strangely with what might have been expected from his aspect. Then, seeing Joe’s head covered with blood, he continued: “Able to get up?”

“I’m not hurt,” answered Joe, rising when his bonds had been cut.

“Brothers, I reckon?” Wetzel said, bending over Jim.

“Yes, we’re brothers. Wake up, Jim, wake up! We’re saved!”

“What? Who’s that?” cried Jim, sitting up and staring at Wetzel.

“This man has saved our lives! See, Jim, the Indians are dead! And, Jim, it’s Wetzel, the hunter. You remember, Jeff Lynn said I’d know him if I ever saw him and—”

“What happened to Jeff?” inquired Wetzel, interrupting. He had turned from Jim’s grateful face.

“Jeff was on the first raft, and for all we know he is now safe at Fort Henry. Our steersman was shot, and we were captured.”

“Has the Shawnee anythin’ ag’inst you boys?”

“Why, yes, I guess so. I played a joke on him — took his shirt and put it on another fellow.”

“Might jes’ as well kick an’ Injun. What has he ag’in you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he did not like my talk to him,” answered Jim. “I am a preacher, and have come west to teach the gospel to the Indians.”

“They’re good Injuns now,” said Wetzel, pointing to the prostrate figures.

“How did you find us?” eagerly asked Joe.

“Run acrost yer trail two days back.”

“And you’ve been following us?”

The hunter nodded.

“Did you see anything of another band of Indians? A tall chief and Jim Girty were among them.”

“They’ve been arter me fer two days. I was followin’ you when Silvertip got wind of Girty an’ his Delawares. The big chief was Wingenund. I seen you pull Girty’s nose. Arter the Delawares went I turned loose yer dog an’ horse an’ lit out on yer trail.’’

“Where are the Delawares now?”

“I reckon there nosin’ my back trail. We must be gittin’. Silvertip’ll soon hev a lot of Injuns here.”

Joe intended to ask the hunter about what had frightened the Indians, but despite his eager desire for information, he refrained from doing so.

“Girty nigh did fer you,” remarked Wetzel, examining Joe’s wound. “He’s in a bad humor. He got kicked a few days back, and then hed the skin pulled offen his nose. Somebody’ll hev to suffer. Wal, you fellers grab yer rifles, an’ we’ll be startin’ fer the fort.”

Joe shuddered as he leaned over one of the dusky forms to detach powder and bullet horn. He had never seen a dead Indian, and the tense face, the sightless, vacant eyes made him shrink. He shuddered again when he saw the hunter scalp his victims. He shuddered the third time when he saw Wetzel pick up Silvertip’s beautiful white eagle plume, dabble it in a pool of blood, and stick it in the bark of a tree. Bereft of its graceful beauty, drooping with its gory burden, the long leather was a deadly message. It had been Silvertip’s pride; it was now a challenge, a menace to the Shawnee chief.

“Come,” said Wetzel, leading the way into the forest.

* * *

Shortly after daylight on the second day following the release of the Downs brothers the hunter brushed through a thicket of alder and said: “Thar’s Fort Henry.”

The boys were on the summit of a mountain from which the land sloped in a long incline of rolling ridges and gentle valleys like a green, billowy sea, until it rose again abruptly into a peak higher still than the one upon which they stood. The broad Ohio, glistening in the sun, lay at the base of the mountain.

Upon the bluff overlooking the river, and under the brow of the mountain, lay the frontier fort. In the clear atmosphere it stood out in bold relief. A small, low structure surrounded by a high stockade fence was all, and yet it did not seem unworthy of its fame. Those watchful, forbidding loopholes, the blackened walls and timbers, told the history of ten long, bloody years. The whole effect was one of menace, as if the fort sent out a defiance to the wilderness, and meant to protect the few dozen log cabins clustered on the hillside.

“How will we ever get across that big river?” asked Jim, practically.

“Wade — swim,” answered the hunter, laconically, and began the descent of the ridge. An hour’s rapid walking brought the three to the river. Depositing his rifle in a clump of willows, and directing the boys to do the same with their guns, the hunter splashed into the water. His companions followed him into the shallow water, and waded a hundred yards, which brought them near the island that they now perceived hid the fort. The hunter swam the remaining distance, and, climbing the bank, looked back for the boys. They were close behind him. Then he strode across the island, perhaps a quarter of a mile wide.

“We’ve a long swim here,” said Wetzel, waving his hand toward the main channel of the river. “Good fer it?” he inquired of Joe, since Jim had not received any injuries during the short captivity and consequently showed more endurance.

“Good for anything,” answered Joe, with that coolness Wetzel had been quick to observe in him.

The hunter cast a sharp glance at the lad’s haggard face, his bruised temple, and his hair matted with blood. In that look he read Joe thoroughly. Had the young man known the result of that scrutiny, he would have been pleased as well as puzzled, for the hunter had said to himself: “A brave lad, an’ the border fever’s on him.”

“Swim close to me,” said Wetzel, and he plunged into the river. The task was accomplished without accident.

“See the big cabin, thar, on the hillside? Thar’s Colonel Zane in the door,” said Wetzel.

As they neared the building several men joined the one who had been pointed out as the colonel. It was evident the boys were the subject of their conversation. Presently Zane left the group and came toward them. The brothers saw a handsome, stalwart man, in the prime of life.

“Well, Lew, what luck?” he said to Wetzel.

“Not much. I treed five Injuns, an’ two got away,” answered the hunter as he walked toward the fort.

“Lads, welcome to Fort Henry,” said Colonel Zane, a smile lighting his dark face. “The others of your party arrived safely. They certainly will be overjoyed to see you.”

“Colonel Zane, I had a letter from my uncle to you,” replied Jim; “but the Indians took that and everything else we had with us.”

“Never mind the letter. I knew your uncle, and your father, too. Come into the house and change those wet clothes. And you, my lad, have got an ugly knock on the head. Who gave you that?”

“Jim Girty.”

“What?” exclaimed the colonel.

“Jim Girty did that. He was with a party of Delawares who ran across us. They were searching for Wetzel.”

“Girty with the Delawares! The devil’s to pay now. And you say hunting Wetzel? I must learn more about this. It looks bad. But tell me, how did Girty come to strike you?”

“I pulled his nose.”

“You did? Good! Good!” cried Colonel Zane, heartily. “By George, that’s great! Tell me — but wait until you are more comfortable. Your packs came safely on Jeff’s raft, and you will find them inside.”

As Joe followed the colonel he heard one of the other men say:

“Like as two peas in a pod.”

Farther on he saw an Indian standing a little apart from the others. Hearing Joe’s slight exclamation of surprise, he turned, disclosing a fine, manly countenance, characterized by calm dignity. The Indian read the boy’s thought.

“Ugh! Me friend,” he said in English.

“That’s my Shawnee guide, Tomepomehala. He’s a good fellow, although Jonathan and Wetzel declare the only good Indian is a dead one. Come right in here. There are your packs, and you’ll find water outside the door.”

Thus saying, Colonel Zane led the brothers into a small room, brought out their packs, and left them. He came back presently with a couple of soft towels.

“Now you lads fix up a bit; then come out and meet my family and tell us all about your adventure. By that time dinner will be ready.”

“Geminy! Don’t that towel remind you of home?” said Joe, when the colonel had gone. “From the looks of things, Colonel Zane means to have comfort here in the wilderness. He struck me as being a fine man.”

The boys were indeed glad to change the few articles of clothing the Indians had left them, and when they were shaved and dressed they presented an entirely different appearance. Once more they were twin brothers, in costume and feature. Joe contrived, by brushing his hair down on his forehead, to conceal the discolored bump.

“I think I saw a charming girl,” observed Joe.

“Suppose you did — what then?” asked Jim, severely.

“Why — nothing — see here, mayn’t I admire a pretty girl if I want?”

“No, you may not. Joe, will nothing ever cure you? I should think the thought of Miss Wells—”

“Look here, Jim; she don’t care — at least, it’s very little she cares. And I’m — I’m not worthy of her.”

“Turn around here and face me,” said the young minister sharply.

Joe turned and looked in his brother’s eyes.

“Have you trifled with her, as you have with so many others? Tell me. I know you don’t lie.”

“No.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“Nothing much, Jim, except I’m really not worthy of her. I’m no good, you know, and she ought to get a fellow like — like you.”

“Absurd! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Never mind me. See here; don’t you admire her?”

“Why — why, yes,” stammered Jim, flushing a dark, guilty red at the direct question. “Who could help admiring her?”

“That’s what I thought. And I know she admires you for qualities which I lack. Nell’s like a tender vine just beginning to creep around and cling to something strong. She cares for me; but her love is like the vine. It may hurt her a little to tear that love away, but it won’t kill her; and in the end it will be best for her. You need a good wife. What could I do with a woman? Go in and win her, Jim.”

“Joe, you’re sacrificing yourself again for me,” cried Jim, white to the lips. “It’s wrong to yourself and wrong to her. I tell you—”

“Enough!” Joe’s voice cut in cold and sharp. “Usually you influence me; but sometimes you can’t; I say this: Nell will drift into your arms as surely as the leaf falls. It will not hurt her — will be best for her. Remember, she is yours for the winning.”

“You do not say whether that will hurt you,” whispered Jim.

“Come — we’ll find Colonel Zane,” said Joe, opening the door.

They went out in the hallway which opened into the yard as well as the larger room through which the colonel had first conducted them. As Jim, who was in advance, passed into this apartment a trim figure entered from the yard. It was Nell, and she ran directly against him. Her face was flushed, her eyes were beaming with gladness, and she seemed the incarnation of girlish joy.

“Oh, Joe,” was all she whispered. But the happiness and welcome in that whisper could never have been better expressed in longer speech. Then slightly, ever so slightly, she tilted her sweet face up to his.

It all happened with the quickness of thought. In a single instant Jim saw the radiant face, the outstretched hands, and heard the glad whisper. He knew that she had a again mistaken him for Joe; but for his life he could not draw back his head. He had kissed her, and even as his lips thrilled with her tremulous caress he flushed with the shame of his deceit.

“You’re mistaken again — I’m Jim,” he whispered.

For a moment they stood staring into each other’s eyes, slowly awakening to what had really happened, slowly conscious of a sweet, alluring power. Then Colonel Zane’s cheery voice rang in their ears.

“Ah, here’s Nellie and your brother! Now, lads, tell me which is which?’

“That’s Jim, and I’m Joe,” answered the latter. He appeared not to notice his brother, and his greeting to Nell was natural and hearty. For the moment she drew the attention of the others from them.

Joe found himself listening to the congratulations of a number of people. Among the many names he remembered were those of Mrs. Zane, Silas Zane, and Major McColloch. Then he found himself gazing at the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life.

“My only sister, Mrs. Alfred Clarke — once Betty Zane, and the heroine of Fort Henry,” said Colonel Zane proudly, with his arm around the slender, dark-eyed girl.

“I would brave the Indians and the wilderness again for this pleasure,” replied Joe gallantly, as he bowed low over the little hand she cordially extended.

“Bess, is dinner ready?” inquired Colonel Zane of his comely wife. She nodded her head, and the colonel led the way into the adjoining room. “I know you boys must be hungry as bears.”

During the meal Colonel Zane questioned his guests about their journey, and as to the treatment they had received at the hands of the Indians. He smiled at the young minister’s earnestness in regard to the conversion of the redmen, and he laughed outright when Joe said “he guessed he came to the frontier because it was too slow at home.”

“I am sure your desire for excitement will soon be satisfied, if indeed it be not so already,” remarked the colonel. “But as to the realization of your brother’s hopes I am not so sanguine. Undoubtedly the Moravian missionaries have accomplished wonders with the Indians. Not long ago I visited the Village of Peace — the Indian name for the mission — and was struck by the friendliness and industry which prevailed there. Truly it was a village of peace. Yet it is almost to early to be certain of permanent success of this work. The Indian’s nature is one hard to understand. He is naturally roving and restless, which, however, may be owing to his habit of moving from place to place in search of good hunting grounds. I believe — though I must confess I haven’t seen any pioneers who share my belief — that the savage has a beautiful side to his character. I know of many noble deeds done by them, and I believe, if they are honestly dealt with, they will return good for good. There are bad ones, of course; but the French traders, and men like the Girtys, have caused most of this long war. Jonathan and Wetzel tell me the Shawnees and Chippewas have taken the warpath again. Then the fact that the Girtys are with the Delawares is reason for alarm. We have been comparatively quiet here of late. Did you boys learn to what tribe your captors belong? Did Wetzel say?”

“He did not; he spoke little, but I will say he was exceedingly active,” answered Joe, with a smile.

“To have seen Wetzel fight Indians is something you are not likely to forget,” said Colonel Zane grimly. “Now, tell me, how did those Indians wear their scalp-lock?”

“Their heads were shaved closely, with the exception of a little place on top. The remaining hair was twisted into a tuft, tied tightly, and into this had been thrust a couple of painted pins. When Wetzel scalped the Indians the pins fell out. I picked one up, and found it to be bone.”

“You will make a woodsman, that’s certain,” replied Colonel Zane. “The Indians were Shawnee on the warpath. Well, we will not borrow trouble, for when it comes in the shape of redskins it usually comes quickly. Mr. Wells seemed anxious to resume the journey down the river; but I shall try to persuade him to remain with us awhile. Indeed, I am sorry I cannot keep you all here at Fort Henry, and more especially the girls. On the border we need young people, and, while I do not want to frighten the women, I fear there will be more than Indians fighting for them.”

“I hope not; but we have come prepared for anything,” said Kate, with a quiet smile. “Our home was with uncle, and when he announced his intention of going west we decided our duty was to go with him.”

“You were right, and I hope you will find a happy home,” rejoined Colonel Zane. “If life among the Indians, proves to be too hard, we shall welcome you here. Betty, show the girls your pets and Indian trinkets. I am going to take the boys to Silas’ cabin to see Mr. Wells, and then show them over the fort.”

As they went out Joe saw the Indian guide standing in exactly the same position as when they entered the building.

“Can’t that Indian move?” he asked curiously.

“He can cover one hundred miles in a day, when he wants to,” replied Colonel Zane. “He is resting now. An Indian will often stand or sit in one position for many hours.”

“He’s a fine-looking chap,” remarked Joe, and then to himself: “but I don’t like him. I guess I’m prejudiced.”

“You’ll learn to like Tome, as we call him.”

“Colonel Zane, I want a light for my pipe. I haven’t had a smoke since the day we were captured. That blamed redskin took my tobacco. It’s lucky I had some in my other pack. I’d like to meet him again; also Silvertip and that brute Girty.”

“My lad, don’t make such wishes,” said Colonel Zane, earnestly. “You were indeed fortunate to escape, and I can well understand your feelings. There is nothing I should like better than to see Girty over the sights of my rifle; but I never hunt after danger, and to look for Girty is to court death.”

“But Wetzel—”

“Ah, my lad, I know Wetzel goes alone in the woods; but then, he is different from other men. Before you leave I will tell you all about him.”

Colonel Zane went around the corner of the cabin and returned with a live coal on a chip of wood, which Joe placed in the bowl of his pipe, and because of the strong breeze stepped close to the cabin wall. Being a keen observer, he noticed many small, round holes in the logs. They were so near together that the timbers had an odd, speckled appearance, and there was hardly a place where he could have put his thumb without covering a hole. At first he thought they were made by a worm or bird peculiar to that region; but finally lie concluded that they were bullet-holes. He thrust his knife blade into one, and out rolled a leaden ball.

“I’d like to have been here when these were made,” he said.

“Well, at the time I wished I was back on the Potomac,” replied Colonel Zane.

They found the old missionary on the doorstep of the adjacent cabin. He appeared discouraged when Colonel Zane interrogated him, and said that he was impatient because of the delay.

“Mr. Wells, is it not possible that you underrate the danger of your enterprise?”

“I fear naught but the Lord,” answered the old man.

“Do you not fear for those with you?” went on the colonel earnestly. “I am heart and soul with you in your work, but want to impress upon you that the time is not propitious. It is a long journey to the village, and the way is beset with dangers of which you have no idea. Will you not remain here with me for a few weeks, or, at least, until my scouts report?”

“I thank you; but go I will.”

“Then let me entreat you to remain here a few days, so that I may send my brother Jonathan and Wetzel with you. If any can guide you safely to the Village of Peace it will be they.”

At this moment Joe saw two men approaching from the fort, and recognized one of them as Wetzel. He doubted not that the other was Lord Dunmore’s famous guide and hunter, Jonathan Zane. In features he resembled the colonel, and was as tall as Wetzel, although not so muscular or wide of chest.

Joe felt the same thrill he had experienced while watching the frontiersmen at Fort Pitt. Wetzel and Jonathan spoke a word to Colonel Zane and then stepped aside. The hunters stood lithe and erect, with the easy, graceful poise of Indians.

“We’ll take two canoes, day after to-morrow,” said Jonathan, decisively, to Colonel Zane. “Have you a rifle for Wetzel? The Delawares got his.”

Colonel Zane pondered over the question; rifles were not scarce at the fort, but a weapon that Wetzel would use was hard to find.

“The hunter may have my rifle,” said the old missionary. “I have no use for a weapon with which to destroy God’s creatures. My brother was a frontiersman; he left this rifle to me. I remember hearing him say once that if a man knew exactly the weight of lead and powder needed, it would shoot absolutely true.”

He went into the cabin, and presently came out with a long object wrapped in linsey cloths. Unwinding the coverings, he brought to view a rifle, the proportions of which caused Jonathan’s eyes to glisten, and brought an exclamation from Colonel Zane. Wetzel balanced the gun in his hands. It was fully six feet long; the barrel was large, and the dark steel finely polished; the stock was black walnut, ornamented with silver trimmings. Using Jonathan’s powder-flask and bullet-pouch, Wetzel proceeded to load the weapon. He poured out a quantity of powder into the palm of his hand, performing the action quickly and dexterously, but was so slow while measuring it that Joe wondered if he were counting the grains. Next he selected a bullet out of a dozen which Jonathan held toward him. He examined it carefully and tried it in the muzzle of the rifle. Evidently it did not please him, for he took another. Finally he scraped a bullet with his knife, and placing it in the center of a small linsey rag, deftly forced it down. He adjusted the flint, dropped a few grains of powder in the pan, and then looked around for a mark at which to shoot.

Joe observed that the hunters and Colonel Zane were as serious regarding the work as if at that moment some important issue depended upon the accuracy of the rifle.

“There, Lew; there’s a good shot. It’s pretty far, even for you, when you don’t know the gun,” said Colonel Zane, pointing toward the river.

Joe saw the end of a log, about the size of a man’s head, sticking out of the water, perhaps an hundred and fifty yards distant. He thought to hit it would be a fine shot; but was amazed when he heard Colonel Zane say to several men who had joined the group that Wetzel intended to shoot at a turtle on the log. By straining his eyes Joe succeeded in distinguishing a small lump, which he concluded was the turtle.

Wetzel took a step forward; the long, black rifle was raised with a stately sweep. The instant it reached a level a thread of flame burst forth, followed by a peculiarly clear, ringing report.

“Did he hit?” asked Colonel Zane, eagerly as a boy.

“I allow he did,” answered Jonathan.

“I’ll go and see,” said Joe. He ran down the bank, along the beach, and stepped on the log. He saw a turtle about the size of an ordinary saucer. Picking it up, he saw a bullet-hole in the shell near the middle. The bullet had gone through the turtle, and it was quite dead. Joe carried it to the waiting group.

“I allowed so,” declared Jonathan.

Wetzel examined the turtle, and turning to the old missionary, said:

“Your brother spoke the truth, an’ I thank you fer the rifle.”

Chapter VIII.

“SO YOU WANT to know all about Wetzel?” inquired Colonel Zane of Joe, when, having left Jim and Mr. Wells, they returned to the cabin.

“I am immensely interested in him,” replied Joe.

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything singular in that. I know Wetzel better, perhaps, than any man living; but have seldom talked about him. He doesn’t like it. He is by birth a Virginian; I should say, forty years old. We were boys together, and and I am a little beyond that age. He was like any of the lads, except that he excelled us all in strength and agility. When he was nearly eighteen years old a band if Indians — Delawares, I think — crossed the border on a marauding expedition far into Virginia. They burned the old Wetzel homestead and murdered the father, mother, two sisters, and a baby brother. The terrible shock nearly killed Lewis, who for a time was very ill. When he recovered he went in search of his brothers, Martin and John Wetzel, who were hunting, and brought them back to their desolated home. Over the ashes of the home and the graves of the loved ones the brothers swore sleepless and eternal vengeance. The elder brothers have been devoted all these twenty years and more to the killing of Indians; but Lewis has been the great foe of the redman. You have already seen an example of his deeds, and will hear of more. His name is a household word on the border. Scores of times he has saved, actually saved, this fort and settlement. His knowledge of savage ways surpasses by far Boone’s, Major McColloch’s, Jonathan’s, or any of the hunters’.”

“Then hunting Indians is his sole occupation?”

“He lives for that purpose alone. He is very seldom in the settlement. Sometimes he stays here a few days, especially if he is needed; but usually he roams the forests.”

“What did Jeff Lynn mean when he said that some people think Wetzel is crazy?”

“There are many who think the man mad; but I do not. When the passion for Indian hunting comes upon him he is fierce, almost frenzied, yet perfectly sane. While here he is quiet, seldom speaks except when spoken to, and is taciturn with strangers. He often comes to my cabin and sits beside the fire for hours. I think he finds pleasure in the conversation and laughter of friends. He is fond of the children, and would do anything for my sister Betty.”

“His life must be lonely and sad,” remarked Joe.

“The life of any borderman is that; but Wetzel’s is particularly so.”

“What is he called by the Indians?”

“They call him Atelang, or, in English, Deathwind.”

“By George! That’s what Silvertip said in French— ‘Le Vent de la Mort.’”

“Yes; you have it right. A French fur trader gave Wetzel that name years ago, and it has clung to him. The Indians say the Deathwind blows through the forest whenever Wetzel stalks on their trail.”

“Colonel Zane, don’t you think me superstitious,” whispered Joe, leaning toward the colonel, “but I heard that wind blow through the forest.”

“What!” ejaculated Colonel Zane. He saw that Joe was in earnest, for the remembrance of the moan had more than once paled his cheek and caused beads of perspiration to collect on his brow.

Joe related the circumstances of that night, and at the end of his narrative Colonel Zane sat silent and thoughtful.

“You don’t really think it was Wetzel who moaned?” he asked, at length.

“No, I don’t,” replied Joe quickly; “but, Colonel Zane, I heard that moan as plainly as I can hear your voice. I heard it twice. Now, what was it?”

“Jonathan said the same thing to me once. He had been out hunting with Wetzel; they separated, and during the night Jonathan heard the wind. The next day he ran across a dead Indian. He believes Wetzel makes the noise, and so do the hunters; but I think it is simply the moan of the night wind through the trees. I have heard it at times, when my very blood seemingly ran cold.”

“I tried to think it was the wind soughing through the pines, but am afraid I didn’t succeed very well. Anyhow, I knew Wetzel instantly, just as Jeff Lynn said I would. He killed those Indians in an instant, and he must have an iron arm.”

“Wetzel excels in strength and speed any man, red or white, on the frontier. He can run away from Jonathan, who is as swift as an Indian. He’s stronger than any of the other men. I remember one day old Hugh Bennet’s wagon wheels stuck in a bog down by the creek. Hugh tried, as several others did, to move the wheels; but they couldn’t be made to budge. Along came Wetzel, pushed away the men, and lifted the wagon unaided. It would take hours to tell you about him. In brief, among all the border scouts and hunters Wetzel stands alone. No wonder the Indians fear him. He is as swift as an eagle, strong as mountain-ash, keen as a fox, and absolutely tireless and implacable.”

“How long have you been here, Colonel Zane?”

“More than twelve years, and it has been one long fight.”

“I’m afraid I’m too late for the fun,” said Joe, with his quiet laugh.

“Not by about twelve more years,” answered Colonel Zane, studying the expression on Joe’s face. “When I came out here years ago I had the same adventurous spirit which I see in you. It has been considerably quelled, however. I have seen many a daring young fellow get the border fever, and with it his death. Let me advise you to learn the ways of the hunters; to watch some one skilled in woodcraft. Perhaps Wetzel himself will take you in hand. I don’t mind saying that he spoke of you to me in a tone I never heard Lew use before.”

“He did?” questioned Joe, eagerly, flushing with pleasure. “Do you think he’d take me out? Dare I ask him?”

“Don’t be impatient. Perhaps I can arrange it. Come over here now to Metzar’s place. I want to make you acquainted with him. These boys have all been cutting timber; they’ve just come in for dinner. Be easy and quiet with them; then you’ll get on.”

Colonel Zane introduced Joe to five sturdy boys and left him in their company. Joe sat down on a log outside a cabin and leisurely surveyed the young men. They all looked about the same: strong without being heavy, light-haired and bronze-faced. In their turn they carefully judged Joe. A newcomer from the East was always regarded with some doubt. If they expected to hear Joe talk much they were mistaken. He appeared good-natured, but not too friendly.

“Fine weather we’re havin’,” said Dick Metzar.

“Fine,” agreed Joe, laconically.

“Like frontier life?”

“Sure.”

A silence ensued after this breaking of the ice. The boys were awaiting their turn at a little wooden bench upon which stood a bucket of water and a basin.

“Hear ye got ketched by some Shawnees?” remarked another youth, as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves. They all looked at Joe now. It was not improbably their estimate of him would be greatly influenced by the way he answered this question.

“Yes; was captive for three days.”

“Did ye knock any redskins over?” This question was artfully put to draw Joe out. Above all things, the bordermen detested boastfulness; tried on Joe the ruse failed signally.

“I was scared speechless most of the time,” answered Joe, with his pleasant smile.

“By gosh, I don’t blame ye!” burst out Will Metzar. “I hed that experience onct, an’ onct’s enough.”

The boys laughed and looked in a more friendly manner at Joe. Though he said he had been frightened, his cool and careless manner belied his words. In Joe’s low voice and clear, gray eye there was something potent and magnetic, which subtly influenced those with whom he came in contact.

While his new friends were at dinner Joe strolled over to where Colonel Zane sat on the doorstep of his home.

“How did you get on with the boys?” inquired the colonel.

“All right, I hope. Say, Colonel Zane, I’d like to talk to your Indian guide.”

Colonel Zane spoke a few words in the Indian language to the guide, who left his post and came over to them. The colonel then had a short conversation with him, at the conclusion of which he pointed toward Joe.

“How do — shake,” said Tome, extending his hand.

Joe smiled, and returned the friendly hand-pressure.

“Shawnee — ketch’um?” asked the Indian, in his fairly intelligible English.

Joe nodded his head, while Colonel Zane spoke once more in Shawnee, explaining the cause of Silvertip’s emnity.

“Shawnee — chief — one — bad — Injun,” replied Tome, seriously. “Silvertip — mad — thunder-mad. Ketch’um paleface — scalp’um sure.”

After giving this warning the chief returned to his former position near the corner of the cabin.

“He can talk in English fairly well, much better than the Shawnee brave who talked with me the other day,” observed Joe.

“Some of the Indians speak the language almost fluently,” said Colonel Zane. “You could hardly have distinguished Logan’s speech from a white man’s. Corn-planter uses good English, as also does my brother’s wife, a Wyandot girl.”

“Did your brother marry an Indian?” and Joe plainly showed his surprise.

“Indeed he did, and a most beautiful girl she is. I’ll tell you Isaac’s story some time. He was a captive among the Wyandots for ten years. The chief’s daughter, Myeerah, loved him, kept him from being tortured, and finally saved him from the stake.”

“Well, that floors me,” said Joe; “yet I don’t see why it should. I’m just surprised. Where is your brother now?”

“He lives with the tribe. He and Myeerah are working hard for peace. We are now on more friendly terms with the great Wyandots, or Hurons, as we call them, than ever before.”

“Who is this big man coming from the the fort?” asked Joe, suddenly observing a stalwart frontiersman approaching.

“Major Sam McColloch. You have met him. He’s the man who jumped his horse from yonder bluff.”

“Jonathan and he have the same look, the same swing,” observed Joe, as he ran his eye over the major. His faded buckskin costume, beaded, fringed, and laced, was similar to that of the colonel’s brother. Powder-flask and bullet-pouch were made from cow-horns and slung around his neck on deerhide strings. The hunting coat was unlaced, exposing, under the long, fringed borders, a tunic of the same well-tanned, but finer and softer, material. As he walked, the flaps of his coat fell back, showing a belt containing two knives, sheathed in heavy buckskin, and a bright tomahawk. He carried a long rifle in the hollow of his arm.

“These hunters have the same kind of buckskin suits,” continued Joe; “still, it doesn’t seem to me the clothes make the resemblance to each other. The way these men stand, walk and act is what strikes me particularly, as in the case of Wetzel.”

“I know what you mean. The flashing eye, the erect poise of expectation, and the springy step — those, my lad, come from a life spent in the woods. Well, it’s a grand way to live.”

“Colonel, my horse is laid up,” said Major McColloch, coming to the steps. He bowed pleasantly to Joe.

“So you are going to Short Creek? You can have one of my horses; but first come inside and we’ll talk over you expedition.”

The afternoon passed uneventfully for Joe. His brother and Mr. Wells were absorbed in plans for their future work, and Nell and Kate were resting; therefore he was forced to find such amusement or occupation as was possible in or near the stockade.

Chapter IX.

JOE WENT TO bed that night with a promise to himself to rise early next morning, for he had been invited to take part in a “raising,” which term meant that a new cabin was to be erected, and such task was ever an event in the lives of the settlers.

The following morning Joe rose early, dressing himself in a complete buckskin suit, for which he had exchanged his good garments of cloth. Never before had he felt so comfortable. He wanted to hop, skip and jump. The soft, undressed buckskin was as warm and smooth as silk-plush; the weight so light, the moccasins so well-fitting and springy, that he had to put himself under considerable restraint to keep from capering about like a frolicsome colt.

The possession of this buckskin outfit, and the rifle and accouterments which went with the bargain, marked the last stage in Joe’s surrender to the border fever. The silent, shaded glens, the mystery of the woods, the breath of this wild, free life claimed him from this moment entirely and forever.

He met the others, however, with a serene face, showing no trace of the emotion which welled up strongly from his heart. Nell glanced shyly at him; Kate playfully voiced her admiration; Jim met him with a brotherly ridicule which bespoke his affection as well as his amusement; but Colonel Zane, having once yielded to the same burning, riotous craving for freedom which now stirred in the boy’s heart, understood, and felt warmly drawn toward the lad. He said nothing, though as he watched Joe his eyes were grave and kind. In his long frontier life, where many a day measured the life and fire of ordinary years, he had seen lad after lad go down before this forest fever. It was well, he thought, because the freedom of the soil depended on these wild, light-footed boys; yet it always made him sad. How many youths, his brother among them, lay under the fragrant pine-needle carpet of the forest, in their last earthly sleep!

The “raising” brought out all the settlement — the women to look on and gossip, while the children played; the men to bend their backs in the moving of the heavy timbers. They celebrated the erection of a new cabin as a noteworthy event. As a social function it had a prominent place in the settlers’ short list of pleasures.

Joe watched the proceeding with the same pleasure and surprise he had felt in everything pertaining to border life.

To him this log-raising appeared the hardest kind of labor. Yet it was plain these hardy men, these low-voiced women, and merry children regarded the work as something far more significant than the mere building of a cabin. After a while he understood the meaning of the scene. A kindred spirit, the spirit of the pioneer, drew them all into one large family. This was another cabin; another home; another advance toward the conquering of the wilderness, for which these brave men and women were giving their lives. In the bright-eyed children’s glee, when they clapped their little hands at the mounting logs, Joe saw the progress, the march of civilization.

“Well, I’m sorry you’re to leave us to-night,” remarked Colonel Zane to Joe, as the young man came over to where he, his wife, and sister watched the work. “Jonathan said all was ready for your departure at sundown.”

“Do we travel by night?”

“Indeed, yes, my lad. There are Indians everywhere on the river. I think, however, with Jack and Lew handling the paddles, you will slip by safely. The plan is to keep along the south shore all night; then cross over at a place called Girty’s Point, where you are to remain in hiding during daylight. From there you paddle up Yellow Creek; then portage across country to the head of the Tuscarwawas. Another night’s journey will then bring you to the Village of Peace.”

Jim and Mr. Wells, with his nieces, joined the party now, and all stood watching as the last logs were put in place.

“Colonel Zane, my first log-raising is an education to me,” said the young minister, in his earnest manner. “This scene is so full of life. I never saw such goodwill among laboring men. Look at that brawny-armed giant standing on the topmost log. How he whistles as he swings his ax! Mr. Wells, does it not impress you?”

“The pioneers must be brothers because of their isolation and peril; to be brothers means to love one another; to love one another is to love God. What you see in this fraternity is God. And I want to see this same beautiful feeling among the Indians.”

“I have seen it,” said Colonel Zane, to the old missionary. “When I came out here alone twelve years ago the Indians were peaceable. If the pioneers had paid for land, as I paid Cornplanter, there would never have been a border war. But no; the settlers must grasp every acre they could. Then the Indians rebelled; then the Girtys and their allies spread discontent, and now the border is a bloody warpath.”

“Have the Jesuit missionaries accomplished anything with these war tribes?” inquired Jim.

“No; their work has been chiefly among the Indians near Detroit and northward. The Hurons, Delawares, Shawnees and other western tribes have been demoralized by the French traders’ rum, and incited to fierce hatred by Girty and his renegades. Your work at Gnaddenhutten must be among these hostile tribes, and it is surely a hazardous undertaking.”

“My life is God’s,” murmured the old minister. No fear could assail his steadfast faith.

“Jim, it strikes me you’d be more likely to impress these Indians Colonel Zane spoke of if you’d get a suit like mine and wear a knife and tomahawk,” interposed Joe, cheerfully. “Then, if you couldn’t convert, you could scalp them.”

“Well, well, let us hope for the best,” said Colonel Zane, when the laughter had subsided. “We’ll go over to dinner now. Come, all of you. Jonathan, bring Wetzel. Betty, make him come, if you can.”

As the party slowly wended its way toward the colonel’s cabin Jim and Nell found themselves side by side. They had not exchanged a word since the evening previous, when Jim had kissed her. Unable to look at each other now, and finding speech difficult, they walked in embarrassed silence.

“Doesn’t Joe look splendid in his hunting suit?” asked Jim, presently.

“I hadn’t noticed. Yes; he looks well,” replied Nell, carelessly. She was too indifferent to be natural.

“Are you angry with him?”

“Certainly not.”

Jim was always simple and frank in his relations with women. He had none of his brother’s fluency of speech, with neither confidence, boldness nor understanding of the intricate mazes of a woman’s moods.

“But — you are angry with — me?” he whispered.

Nell flushed to her temples, yet she did not raise her eyes nor reply.

“It was a terrible thing for me to do,” went on Jim, hesitatingly. “I don’t know why I took advantage — of — of your mistaking me for Joe. If you only hadn’t held up your mouth. No — I don’t mean that — of course you didn’t. But — well, I couldn’t help it. I’m guilty. I have thought of little else. Some wonderful feeling has possessed me ever since — since—”

“What has Joe been saying about me?” demanded Nell, her eyes burning like opals.

“Why, hardly anything,” answered Jim, haltingly. “I took him to task about — about what I considered might be wrong to you. Joe has never been very careful of young ladies’ feelings, and I thought — well, it was none of my business. He said he honestly cared for you, that you had taught him how unworthy he was of a good woman. But he’s wrong there. Joe is wild and reckless, yet his heart is a well of gold. He is a diamond in the rough. Just now he is possessed by wild notions of hunting Indians and roaming through the forests; but he’ll come round all right. I wish I could tell you how much he has done for me, how much I love him, how I know him! He can be made worthy of any woman. He will outgrow this fiery, daring spirit, and then — won’t you help him?”

“I will, if he will let me,” softly whispered Nell, irresistibly drawn by the strong, earnest love thrilling in his voice.

Chapter X.

ONCE MORE OUT under the blue-black vault of heaven, with its myriads of twinkling stars, the voyagers resumed their westward journey. Whispered farewells of new but sincere friends lingered in their ears. Now the great looming bulk of the fort above them faded into the obscure darkness, leaving a feeling as if a protector had gone — perhaps forever. Admonished to absolute silence by the stern guides, who seemed indeed to have embarked upon a dark and deadly mission, the voyagers lay back in the canoes and thought and listened. The water eddied with soft gurgles in the wake of the racing canoes; but that musical sound was all they heard. The paddles might have been shadows, for all the splash they made; they cut the water swiftly and noiselessly. Onward the frail barks glided into black space, side by side, close under the overhanging willows. Long moments passed into long hours, as the guides paddled tirelessly as if their sinews were cords of steel.

With gray dawn came the careful landing of the canoes, a cold breakfast eaten under cover of a willow thicket, and the beginning of a long day while they were lying hidden from the keen eyes of Indian scouts, waiting for the friendly mantle of night.

The hours dragged until once more the canoes were launched, this time not on the broad Ohio, but on a stream that mirrored no shining stars as it flowed still and somber under the dense foliage.

The voyagers spoke not, nor whispered, nor scarcely moved, so menacing had become the slow, listening caution of Wetzel and Zane. Snapping of twigs somewhere in the inscrutable darkness delayed them for long moments. Any movement the air might resound with the horrible Indian war-whoop. Every second was heavy with fear. How marvelous that these scouts, penetrating the wilderness of gloom, glided on surely, silently, safely! Instinct, or the eyes of the lynx, guide their course. But another dark night wore on to the tardy dawn, and each of its fearful hours numbered miles past and gone.

The sun was rising in ruddy glory when Wetzel ran his canoe into the bank just ahead of a sharp bend in the stream.

“Do we get out here?” asked Jim, seeing Jonathan turn his canoe toward Wetzel’s.

“The village lies yonder, around the bend,” answered the guide. “Wetzel cannot go there, so I’ll take you all in my canoe.”

“There’s no room; I’ll wait,” replied Joe, quietly. Jim noted his look — a strange, steady glance it was — and then saw him fix his eyes upon Nell, watching her until the canoe passed around the green-bordered bend in the stream.

Unmistakable signs of an Indian town were now evident. Dozens of graceful birchen canoes lay upon the well-cleared banks; a log bridge spanned the stream; above the slight ridge of rising ground could be seen the poles of Indian teepees.

As the canoe grated upon the sandy beach a little Indian boy, who was playing in the shallow water, raised his head and smiled.

“That’s an Indian boy,” whispered Kate.

“The dear little fellow!” exclaimed Nell.

The boy came running up to them, when they were landed, with pleasure and confidence shining in his dusky eyes. Save for tiny buckskin breeches, he was naked, and his shiny skin gleamed gold-bronze in the sunlight. He was a singularly handsome child.

“Me — Benny,” he lisped in English, holding up his little hand to Nell.

The action was as loving and trusting as any that could have been manifested by a white child. Jonathan Zane stared with a curious light in his dark eyes; Mr. Wells and Jim looked as though they doubted the evidence of their own sight. Here, even in an Indian boy, was incontestable proof that the savage nature could be tamed and civilized.

With a tender exclamation Nell bent over the child and kissed him.

Jonathan Zane swung his canoe up-stream for the purpose of bringing Joe. The trim little bark slipped out of sight round the bend. Presently its gray, curved nose peeped from behind the willows; then the canoe swept into view again. There was only one person in it, and that the guide.

“Where is my brother?” asked Jim, in amazement.

“Gone,” answered Zane, quietly.

“Gone! What do you mean? Gone? Perhaps you have missed the spot where you left him.”

“They’re both gone.”

Nell and Jim gazed at each other with slowly whitening faces.

“Come, I’ll take you up to the village,” said Zane, getting out of his canoe. All noticed that he was careful to take his weapons with him.

“Can’t you tell us what it means — this disappearance?” asked Jim, his voice low and anxious.

“They’re gone, canoe and all. I knew Wetzel was going, but I didn’t calkilate on the lad. Mebbe he followed Wetzel, mebbe he didn’t,” answered the taciturn guide, and he spoke no more.

In his keen expectation and wonder as to what the village would be like, Jim momentarily forgot his brother’s disappearance, and when he arrived at the top of the bank he surveyed the scene with eagerness. What he saw was more imposing than the Village of Peace which he had conjured up in his imagination. Confronting him was a level plain, in the center of which stood a wide, low structure surrounded by log cabins, and these in turn encircled by Indian teepees. A number of large trees, mostly full-foliaged maples, shaded the clearing. The settlement swarmed with Indians. A few shrill halloes uttered by the first observers of the newcomers brought braves, maidens and children trooping toward the party with friendly curiosity.

Jonathan Zane stepped before a cabin adjoining the large structure, and called in at the open door. A short, stoop-shouldered white man, clad in faded linsey, appeared on the threshold. His serious, lined face had the unmistakable benevolent aspect peculiar to most teachers of the gospel.

“Mr. Zeisberger, I’ve fetched a party from Fort Henry,” said Zane, indicating those he had guided. Then, without another word, never turning his dark face to the right or left, he hurried down the lane through the throng of Indians.

Jim remembered, as he saw the guide vanish over the bank of the creek, that he had heard Colonel Zane say that Jonathan, as well as Wetzel, hated the sight of an Indian. No doubt long years of war and bloodshed had rendered these two great hunters callous. To them there could be no discrimination — an Indian was an Indian.

“Mr. Wells, welcome to the Village of Peace!” exclaimed Mr. Zeisberger, wringing the old missionary’s hand. “The years have not been so long but that I remember you.”

“Happy, indeed, am I to get here, after all these dark, dangerous journeys,” returned Mr. Wells. “I have brought my nieces, Nell and Kate, who were children when you left Williamsburg, and this young man, James Downs, a minister of God, and earnest in his hope for our work.”

“A glorious work it is! Welcome, young ladies, to our peaceful village. And, young man, I greet you with heartfelt thankfulness. We need young men. Come in, all of your, and share my cabin. I’ll have your luggage brought up. I have lived in this hut alone. With some little labor, and the magic touch women bring to the making of a home, we can be most comfortable here.”

Mr. Zeisberger gave his own room to the girls, assuring them with a smile that it was the most luxurious in the village. The apartment contained a chair, a table, and a bed of Indian blankets and buffalo robes. A few pegs driven in the chinks between the logs completed the furnishings. Sparse as were the comforts, they appealed warmly to the girls, who, weary from their voyage, lay down to rest.

“I am not fatigued,” said Mr. Wells, to his old friend. “I want to hear all about your work, what you have done, and what you hope to do.”

“We have met with wonderful success, far beyond our wildest dreams,” responded Mr. Zeisberger. “Certainly we have been blessed of God.”

Then the missionary began a long, detailed account of the Moravian Mission’s efforts among the western tribes. The work lay chiefly among the Delawares, a noble nation of redmen, intelligent, and wonderfully susceptible to the teaching of the gospel. Among the eastern Delawares, living on the other side of the Allegheny Mountains, the missionaries had succeeded in converting many; and it was chiefly through the western explorations of Frederick Post that his Church decided the Indians of the west could as well be taught to lead Christian lives. The first attempt to convert the western redmen took place upon the upper Allegheny, where many Indians, including Allemewi, a blind Delaware chief, accepted the faith. The mission decided, however, it would be best to move farther west, where the Delawares had migrated and were more numerous.

In April, 1770, more than ten years before, sixteen canoes, filled with converted Indians and missionaries, drifted down the Allegheny to Fort Pitt; thence down the Ohio to the Big Beaver; up that stream and far into the Ohio wilderness.

Upon a tributary of the Muskingong, called the Tuscarwawas, a settlement was founded. Near and far the news was circulated. Redmen from all tribes came flocking to the new colony. Chiefs and warriors, squaws and maidens, were attracted by the new doctrine of the converted Indians. They were astonished at the missionaries’ teachings. Many doubted, some were converted, all listened. Great excitement prevailed when old Glickhican, one of the wisest chiefs of the Turtle tribe of the Delawares, became a convert to the palefaces’ religion.

The interest widened, and in a few years a beautiful, prosperous town arose, which was called Village of Peace. The Indians of the warlike tribes bestowed the appropriate name. The vast forests were rich in every variety of game; the deep, swift streams were teeming with fish. Meat and grain in abundance, buckskin for clothing, and soft furs for winter garments were to be had for little labor. At first only a few wigwams were erected. Soon a large log structure was thrown up and used as a church. Then followed a school, a mill, and a workshop. The verdant fields were cultivated and surrounded by rail fences. Horses and cattle grazed with the timid deer on the grassy plains.

The Village of Peace blossomed as a rose. The reports of the love and happiness existing in this converted community spread from mouth to mouth, from town to town, with the result that inquisitive savages journeyed from all points to see this haven. Peaceful and hostile Indians were alike amazed at the change in their brethren. The good-fellowship and industry of the converts had a widespread and wonderful influence. More, perhaps, than any other thing, the great fields of waving corn, the hills covered with horses and cattle, those evidences of abundance, impressed the visitors with the well-being of the Christians. Bands of traveling Indians, whether friendly or otherwise, were treated with hospitality, and never sent away empty-handed. They were asked to partake of the abundance and solicited to come again.

A feature by no means insignificant in the popularity of the village was the church bell. The Indians loved music, and this bell charmed them. On still nights the savages in distant towns could hear at dusk the deep-toned, mellow notes of the bell summoning the worshipers to the evening service. Its ringing clang, so strange, so sweet, so solemn, breaking the vast dead wilderness quiet, haunted the savage ear as though it were a call from a woodland god.

“You have arrived most opportunely,” continued Mr. Zeisberger. “Mr. Edwards and Mr. Young are working to establish other missionary posts. Heckewelder is here now in the interest of this branching out.”

“How long will it take me to learn the Delaware language?” inquired Jim.

“Not long. You do not, however, need to speak the Indian tongue, for we have excellent interpreters.”

“We heard much at Fort Pitt and Fort Henry about the danger, as well as uselessness, of our venture,” Jim continued. “The frontiersmen declared that every rod of the way was beset with savage foes, and that, even in the unlikely event of our arriving safely at the Village of Peace, we would then be hemmed in by fierce, vengeful tribes.”

“Hostile savages abound here, of course; but we do not fear them. We invite them. Our work is to convert the wicked, to teach them to lead good, useful lives. We will succeed.”

Jim could not help warming to the minister for his unswervable faith, his earnest belief that the work of God could not fail; nevertheless, while he felt no fear and intended to put all his heart in the work, he remembered with disquietude Colonel Zane’s warnings. He thought of the wonderful precaution and eternal vigilance of Jonathan and Wetzel — men of all men who most understood Indian craft and cunning. It might well be possible that these good missionaries, wrapped up in saving the souls of these children of the forest, so full of God’s teachings as to have little mind for aught else, had no knowledge of the Indian nature beyond what the narrow scope of their work invited. If what these frontiersmen asserted was true, then the ministers’ zeal had struck them blind.

Jim had a growing idea of the way in which the savages could be best taught. He resolved to go slowly; to study the redmen’s natures; not to preach one word of the gospel to them until he had mastered their language and could convey to their simple minds the real truth. He would make Christianity as clear to them as were the deer-trails on the moss and leaves of the forest.

“Ah, here you are. I hope you have rested well,” said Mr. Zeisberger, when at the conclusion of this long recital Nell and Kate came into the room.

“Thank you, we feel much better,” answered Kate. The girls certainly looked refreshed. The substitution of clean gowns for their former travel-stained garments made a change that called forth the minister’s surprise and admiration.

“My! My! Won’t Edwards and Young beg me to keep them here now!” he exclaimed, his pleased eyes resting on Nell’s piquant beauty and Kate’s noble proportions and rich coloring. “Come; I will show you over the Village of Peace.”

“Are all these Indians Christians?” asked Jim.

“No, indeed. These Indians you see here, and out yonder under the shade, though they are friendly, are not Christians. Our converts employ themselves in the fields or shops. Come; take a peep in here. This is where we preach in the evenings and during inclement weather. On pleasant days we use the maple grove yonder.”

Jim and the others looked in at the door of the large log structure. They saw an immense room, the floor covered with benches, and a raised platform at one end. A few windows let in the light. Spacious and barn-like was this apartment; but undoubtedly, seen through the beaming eyes of the missionary, it was a grand amphitheater for worship. The hard-packed clay floor was velvet carpet; the rude seats soft as eiderdown; the platform with its white-oak cross, an altar of marble and gold.

“This is one of our shops,” said Mr. Zeisberger, leading them to a cabin. “Here we make brooms, harness for the horses, farming implements — everything useful that we can. We have a forge here. Behold an Indian blacksmith!”

The interior of the large cabin presented a scene of bustling activity. Twenty or more Indians bent their backs in earnest employment. In one corner a savage stood holding a piece of red-hot iron on an anvil, while a brawny brave wielded a sledge-hammer. The sparks flew; the anvil rang. In another corner a circle of braves sat around a pile of dried grass and flags. They were twisting and fashioning these materials into baskets. At a bench three Indian carpenters were pounding and sawing. Young braves ran back and forth, carrying pails, rough-hewn boards and blocks of wood.

Instantly struck by two things, Jim voiced his curiosity:

“Why do these Indians all wear long hair, smooth and shiny, without adornment?”

“They are Christians. They wear neither headdress, war-bonnet, nor scalp-lock,” replied Mr. Zeisberger, with unconscious pride.

“I did not expect to see a blacksmith’s anvil out here in the wilderness. Where did you procure these tools?”

“We have been years getting them here. Some came by way of the Ohio River; others overland from Detroit. That anvil has a history. It was lost once, and lay for years in the woods, until some Indians found it again. It is called the Ringing Stone, and Indians come from miles around to see and hear it.”

The missionary pointed out wide fields of corn, now growing yellow, and hillsides doted with browsing cattle, droves of sturdy-limbed horses, and pens of fat, grunting pigs — all of which attested to the growing prosperity of the Village of Peace.

On the way back to the cabin, while the others listened to and questioned Mr. Zeisberger, Jim was silent and thoughtful, for his thoughts reverted to his brother.

Later, as he walked with Nell by the golden-fringed stream, he spoke of Joe.

“Joe wanted so much to hunt with Wetzel. He will come back; surely he will return to us when he has satisfied his wild craving for adventure. Do you not think so?”

There was an eagerness that was almost pleading in Jim’s voice. What he so much hoped for — that no harm had befallen Joe, and that he would return — he doubted. He needed the encouragement of his hope.

“Never,” answered Nell, solemnly.

“Oh, why — why do you say that?”

“I saw him look at you — a strange, intent glance. He gazed long at me as we separated. Oh! I can feel his eyes. No; he will never come back.”

“Nell, Nell, you do not mean he went away deliberately — because, oh! I cannot say it.”

“For no reason, except that the wilderness called him more than love for you or — me.”

“No, no,” returned Jim, his face white. “You do not understand. He really loved you — I know it. He loved me, too. Ah, how well! He has gone because — I can’t tell you.”

“Oh, Jim, I hope — he loved — me,” sobbed Nell, bursting into tears. “His coldness — his neglect those — last few days — hurt me — so. If he cared — as you say — I won’t be — so — miserable.”

“We are both right — you when you say he will never return, and I when I say he loved us both,” said Jim sadly, as the bitter certainty forced itself into his mind.

As she sobbed softly, and he gazed with set, stern face into the darkening forest, the deep, mellow notes of the church bell pealed out. So thrilled, so startled were they by this melody wondrously breaking the twilight stillness, that they gazed mutely at each other. Then they remembered. It was the missionary’s bell summoning the Christian Indians to the evening service.

Chapter XI.

THE, SULTRY, DROWSY, summer days passed with no untoward event to mar their slumbering tranquillity. Life for the newcomers to the Village of Peace brought a content, the like of which they had never dreamed of. Mr. Wells at once began active work among the Indians, preaching to them through an interpreter; Nell and Kate, in hours apart from household duties, busied themselves brightening their new abode, and Jim entered upon the task of acquainting himself with the modes and habits of the redmen. Truly, the young people might have found perfect happiness in this new and novel life, if only Joe had returned. His disappearance and subsequent absence furnished a theme for many talks and many a quiet hour of dreamy sadness. The fascination of his personality had been so impelling that long after it was withdrawn a charm lingered around everything which reminded them of him; a subtle and sweet memory, with perverse and half bitter persistence, returned hauntingly. No trace of Joe had been seen by any of the friendly Indian runners. He was gone into the mazes of deep-shadowed forests, where to hunt for him would be like striving to trail the flight of a swallow. Two of those he had left behind always remembered him, and in their thoughts followed him in his wanderings.

Jim settled down to his study of Indians with single-heartedness of purpose. He spent part of every morning with the interpreters, with whose assistance he rapidly acquired the Delaware language. He went freely among the Indians, endeavoring to win their good-will. There were always fifty to an hundred visiting Indians at the village; sometimes, when the missionaries had advertised a special meeting, there were assembled in the shady maple grove as many as five hundred savages. Jim had, therefore, opportunities to practice his offices of friendliness.

Fortunately for him, he at once succeeded in establishing himself in the good graces of Glickhican, the converted Delaware chief. The wise old Indian was of inestimable value to Jim. Early in their acquaintance he evinced an earnest regard for the young minister, and talked with him for hours.

From Glickhican Jim learned the real nature of the redmen. The Indian’s love of freedom and honor, his hatred of subjection and deceit, as explained by the good old man, recalled to Jim Colonel Zane’s estimate of the savage character. Surely, as the colonel had said, the Indians had reason for their hatred of the pioneers. Truly, they were a blighted race.

Seldom had the rights of the redmen been thought of. The settler pushed onward, plodding, as it were, behind his plow with a rifle. He regarded the Indian as little better than a beast; he was easier to kill than to tame. How little the settler knew the proud independence, the wisdom, the stainless chastity of honor, which belonged so truly to many Indian chiefs!

The redmen were driven like hounded deer into the untrodden wilds. From freemen of the forests, from owners of the great boundless plains, they passed to stern, enduring fugitives on their own lands. Small wonder that they became cruel where once they had been gentle! Stratagem and cunning, the night assault, the daylight ambush took the place of their one-time open warfare. Their chivalrous courage, that sublime inheritance from ancestors who had never known the paleface foe, degenerated into a savage ferocity.

Interesting as was this history to Jim, he cared more for Glickhican’s rich portrayal of the redmen’s domestic life, for the beautiful poetry of his tradition and legends. He heard with delight the exquisite fanciful Indian lore. From these romantic legends, beautiful poems, and marvelous myths he hoped to get ideas of the Indian’s religion. Sweet and simple as childless dreams were these quaint tales — tales of how the woodland fairies dwelt in fern-carpeted dells; how at sunrise they came out to kiss open the flowers; how the forest walks were spirit-haunted paths; how the leaves whispered poetry to the winds; how the rocks harbored Indian gods and masters who watched over their chosen ones.

Glickhican wound up his long discourses by declaring he had never lied in the whole course of his seventy years, had never stolen, never betrayed, never murdered, never killed, save in self-defence. Gazing at the chief’s fine features, now calm, yet showing traces of past storms, Jim believed he spoke the truth.

When the young minister came, however, to study the hostile Indians that flocked to the village, any conclusive delineation of character, or any satisfactory analysis of their mental state in regard to the paleface religion, eluded him. Their passive, silent, sphinx-like secretiveness was baffling. Glickhican had taught him how to propitiate the friendly braves, and with these he was successful. Little he learned, however, from the unfriendly ones. When making gifts to these redmen he could never be certain that his offerings were appreciated. The jewels and gold he had brought west with him went to the French traders, who in exchange gave him trinkets, baubles, bracelets and weapons. Jim made hundreds of presents. Boldly going up to befeathered and befringed chieftains, he offered them knives, hatchets, or strings of silvery beads. Sometimes his kindly offerings were repelled with a haughty stare; at other times they would be accepted coldly, suspiciously, as if the gifts brought some unknown obligation.

For a white man it was a never-to-be-forgotten experience to see eight or ten of these grim, slowly stepping forest kings, arrayed in all the rich splendor of their costume, stalking among the teepees of the Village of Peace. Somehow, such a procession always made Jim shiver. The singing, praying and preaching they heard unmoved. No emotion was visible on their bronzed faces; nothing changed their unalterable mien. Had they not moved, or gazed with burning eyes, they would have been statues. When these chieftains looked at the converted Indians, some of whom were braves of their nations, the contempt in their glances betrayed that they now regarded these Christian Indians as belonging to an alien race.

Among the chiefs Glickhican pointed out to Jim were Wingenund, the Delaware; Tellane, the Half-King; Shingiss and Kotoxen — all of the Wolf tribe of the Delawares.

Glickhican was careful to explain that the Delaware nation had been divided into the Wolf and Turtle tribes, the former warlike people, and the latter peaceable. Few of the Wolf tribe had gone over to the new faith, and those who had were scorned. Wingenund, the great power of the Delawares — indeed, the greatest of all the western tribes — maintained a neutral attitude toward the Village of Peace. But it was well known that his right-hand war-chiefs, Pipe and Wishtonah, remained coldly opposed.

Jim turned all he had learned over and over in his mind, trying to construct part of it to fit into a sermon that would be different from any the Indians had ever heard. He did not want to preach far over their heads. If possible, he desired to keep to their ideals — for he deemed them more beautiful than his own — and to conduct his teaching along the simple lines of their belief, so that when he stimulated and developed their minds he could pass from what they knew to the unknown Christianity of the white man.

His first address to the Indians was made one day during the indisposition of Mr. Wells — who had been over-working himself — and the absence of the other missionaries. He did not consider himself at all ready for preaching, and confined his efforts to simple, earnest talk, a recital of the thoughts he had assimilated while living here among the Indians.

Amazement would not have described the state of his feelings when he learned that he had made a powerful impression. The converts were loud in his praise; the unbelievers silent and thoughtful. In spite of himself, long before he had been prepared, he was launched on his teaching. Every day he was called upon to speak; every day one savage, at least, was convinced; every day the throng of interested Indians was augmented. The elder missionaries were quite overcome with joy; they pressed him day after day to speak, until at length he alone preached during the afternoon service.

The news flew apace; the Village of Peace entertained more redmen than ever before. Day by day the faith gained a stronger foothold. A kind of religious trance affected some of the converted Indians, and this greatly influenced the doubting ones. Many of them half believed the Great Manitou had come.

Heckewelder, the acknowledged leader of the western Moravian Mission, visited the village at this time, and, struck by the young missionary’s success, arranged a three days’ religious festival. Indian runners were employed to carry invitations to all the tribes. The Wyandots in the west, the Shawnees in the south, and the Delawares in the north were especially requested to come. No deception was practiced to lure the distant savages to the Village of Peace. They were asked to come, partake of the feasts, and listen to the white man’s teaching.

Chapter XII.

“THE GROVES WERE God’s First Temples.”

From dawn until noon on Sunday bands of Indians arrived at the Village of Peace. Hundreds of canoes glided down the swift stream and bumped their prows into the pebbly beach. Groups of mounted warriors rode out of the forests into the clearing; squaws with papooses, maidens carrying wicker baskets, and children playing with rude toys, came trooping along the bridle-paths.

Gifts were presented during the morning, after which the visitors were feasted. In the afternoon all assembled in the grove to hear the preaching.

The maple grove wherein the service was to be conducted might have been intended by Nature for just such a purpose as it now fulfilled. These trees were large, spreading, and situated far apart. Mossy stones and the thick carpet of grass afforded seats for the congregation.

Heckewelder — a tall, spare, and kindly appearing man — directed the arranging of the congregation. He placed the converted Indians just behind the knoll upon which the presiding minister was to stand. In a half circle facing the knoll he seated the chieftains and important personages of the various tribes. He then made a short address in the Indian language, speaking of the work of the mission, what wonders it had accomplished, what more good work it hoped to do, and concluded by introducing the young missionary.

While Heckewelder spoke, Jim, who stood just behind, employed the few moments in running his eye over the multitude. The sight which met his gaze was one he thought he would never forget. An involuntary word escaped him.

“Magnificent!” he exclaimed.

The shady glade had been transformed into a theater, from which gazed a thousand dark, still faces. A thousand eagle plumes waved, and ten thousand bright-hued feathers quivered in the soft breeze. The fantastically dressed scalps presented a contrast to the smooth, unadorned heads of the converted redmen. These proud plumes and defiant feathers told the difference between savage and Christian.

In front of the knoll sat fifty chiefs, attentive and dignified. Representatives of every tribe as far west as the Scioto River were numbered in that circle. There were chiefs renowned for war, for cunning, for valor, for wisdom. Their stately presence gave the meeting tenfold importance. Could these chiefs be interested, moved, the whole western world of Indians might be civilized.

Hepote, a Maumee chief, of whom it was said he had never listened to words of the paleface, had the central position in this circle. On his right and left, respectively, sat Shaushoto and Pipe, implacable foes of all white men. The latter’s aspect did not belie his reputation. His copper-colored, repulsive visage compelled fear; it breathed vindictiveness and malignity. A singular action of his was that he always, in what must have been his arrogant vanity, turned his profile to those who watched him, and it was a remarkable one; it sloped in an oblique line from the top of his forehead to his protruding chin, resembling somewhat the carved bowl of his pipe, which was of flint and a famed inheritance from his ancestors. From it he took his name. One solitary eagle plume, its tip stained vermilion, stuck from his scalp-lock. It slated backward on a line with his profile.

Among all these chiefs, striking as they were, the figure of Wingenund, the Delaware, stood out alone.

His position was at the extreme left of the circle, where he leaned against a maple. A long, black mantle, trimmed with spotless white, enveloped him. One bronzed arm, circled by a heavy bracelet of gold, held the mantle close about his lofty form. His headdress, which trailed to the ground, was exceedingly beautiful. The eagle plumes were of uniform length and pure white, except the black-pointed tips.

At his feet sat his daughter, Whispering Winds. Her maidens were gathered round her. She raised her soft, black eyes, shining with a wondrous light of surprise and expectation, to the young missionary’s face.

Beyond the circle the Indians were massed together, even beyond the limits of the glade. Under the trees on every side sat warriors astride their steeds; some lounged on the green turf; many reclined in the branches of low-spreading maples.

As Jim looked out over the sea of faces he started in surprise. The sudden glance of fiery eyes had impelled his gaze. He recognized Silvertip, the Shawnee chief. The Indian sat motionless on a powerful black horse. Jim started again, for the horse was Joe’s thoroughbred, Lance. But Jim had no further time to think of Joe’s enemy, for Heckewelder stepped back.

Jim took the vacated seat, and, with a far-reaching, resonant voice began his discourse to the Indians.

“Chieftains, warriors, maidens, children of the forest, listen, and your ears shall hear no lie. I am come from where the sun rises to tell you of the Great Spirit of the white man.

“Many, many moons ago, as many as blades of grass grow on yonder plain, the Great Spirit of whom I shall speak created the world. He made the sparkling lakes and swift rivers, the boundless plains and tangled forests, over which He caused the sun to shine and the rain to fall. He gave life to the kingly elk, the graceful deer, the rolling bison, the bear, the fox — all the beasts and birds and fishes. But He was not content; for nothing He made was perfect in His sight. He created the white man in His own image, and from this first man’s rib He created his mate — a woman. He turned them free in a beautiful forest.

“Life was fair in the beautiful forest. The sun shone always, the birds sang, the waters flowed with music, the flowers cast sweet fragrance on the air. In this forest, where fruit bloomed always, was one tree, the Tree of Life, the apple of which they must not eat. In all this beautiful forest of abundance this apple alone was forbidden them.

“Now evil was born with woman. A serpent tempted her to eat of the apple of Life, and she tempted the man to eat. For their sin the Great Spirit commanded the serpent to crawl forever on his belly, and He drove them from the beautiful forest. The punishment for their sin was to be visited on their children’s children, always, until the end of time. The two went afar into the dark forest, to learn to live as best they might. From them all tribes descended. The world is wide. A warrior might run all his days and not reach the setting sun, where tribes of yellow-skins live. He might travel half his days toward the south-wind, where tribes of black-skins abound. People of all colors inhabited the world. They lived in hatred toward one another. They shed each other’s blood; they stole each other’s lands, gold, and women. They sinned.

“Many moons ago the Great Spirit sorrowed to see His chosen tribe, the palefaces, living in ignorance and sin. He sent His only Son to redeem them, and said if they would listen and believe, and teach the other tribes, He would forgive their sin and welcome them to the beautiful forest.

“That was moons and moons ago, when the paleface killed his brother for gold and lands, and beat his women slaves to make them plant his corn. The Son of the Great Spirit lifted the cloud from the palefaces’ eyes, and they saw and learned. So pleased was the Great Spirit that He made the palefaces wiser and wiser, and master of the world. He bid them go afar to teach the ignorant tribes.

“To teach you is why the young paleface journeyed from the rising sun. He wants no lands or power. He has given all that he had. He walks among you without gun or knife. He can gain nothing but the happiness of opening the redmen’s eyes.

“The Great Spirit of whom I teach and the Great Manitou, your idol, are the same; the happy hunting ground of the Indian and the beautiful forest of the paleface are the same; the paleface and the redman are the same. There is but one Great Spirit, that is God; but one eternal home, that is heaven; but one human being, that is man.

“The Indian knows the habits of the beaver; he can follow the paths of the forests; he can guide his canoe through the foaming rapids; he is honest, he is brave, he is great; but he is not wise. His wisdom is clouded with the original sin. He lives in idleness; he paints his face; he makes his squaw labor for him, instead of laboring for her; he kills his brothers. He worships the trees and rocks. If he were wise he would not make gods of the swift arrow and bounding canoe; of the flowering ash and the flaming flint. For these things have not life. In his dreams he sees his arrow speed to the reeling deer; in his dreams he sees his canoe shoot over the crest of shining waves; and in his mind he gives them life. When his eyes are opened he will see they have no spirit. The spirit is in his own heart. It guides the arrow to the running deer, and steers the canoe over the swirling current. The spirit makes him find the untrodden paths, and do brave deeds, and love his children and his honor. It makes him meet his foe face to face, and if he is to die it gives him strength to die — a man. The spirit is what makes him different from the arrow, the canoe, the mountain, and all the birds and beasts. For it is born of the Great Spirit, the creator of all. Him you must worship.

“Redmen, this worship is understanding your spirit and teaching it to do good deeds. It is called Christianity. Christianity is love. If you will love the Great Spirit you will love your wives, your children, your brothers, your friends, your foes — you will love the palefaces. No more will you idle in winter and wage wars in summer. You will wear your knife and tomahawk only when you hunt for meat. You will be kind, gentle, loving, virtuous — you will have grown wise. When your days are done you will meet all your loved ones in the beautiful forest. There, where the flowers bloom, the fruits ripen always, where the pleasant water glides and the summer winds whisper sweetly, there peace will dwell forever.

“Comrades, be wise, think earnestly. Forget the wicked paleface; for there are many wicked palefaces. They sell the serpent firewater; they lie and steal and kill. These palefaces’ eyes are still clouded. If they do not open they will never see the beautiful forest. You have much to forgive, but those who forgive please the Great Spirit; you must give yourselves to love, but those who love are loved; you must work, but those who work are happy.

“Behold the Village of Peace! Once it contained few; now there are many. Where once the dark forest shaded the land, see the cabins, the farms, the horses, the cattle! Field on field of waving, golden grain shine there under your eyes. The earth has blossomed abundance. Idling and fighting made not these rich harvests. Belief made love; love made wise eyes; wise eyes saw, and lo! there came plenty.

“The proof of love is happiness. These Christian Indians are happy. They are at peace with the redman and the paleface. They till the fields and work in the shops. In days to come cabins and farms and fields of corn will be theirs. They will bring up their children, not to hide in the forest to slay, but to walk hand in hand with the palefaces as equals.

“Oh, open your ears! God speaks to you; peace awaits you! Cast the bitterness from your hearts; it is the serpent-poison. While you hate, God shuts His eyes. You are great on the trail, in the council, in war; now be great in forgiveness. Forgive the palefaces who have robbed you of your lands. Then will come peace. If you do not forgive, the war will go on; you will lose lands and homes, to find unmarked graves under the forest leaves. Revenge is sweet; but it is not wise. The price of revenge is blood and life. Root it out of your hearts. Love these Christian Indians; love the missionaries as they love you; love all living creatures. Your days are but few; therefore, cease the the strife. Let us say, ‘Brothers, that is God’s word, His law; that is love; that is Christianity!’ If you will say from your heart, brother, you are a Christian.

“Brothers, the paleface teacher beseeches you. Think not of this long, bloody war, of your dishonored dead, of your silenced wigwams, of your nameless graves, of your homeless children. Think of the future. One word from you will make peace over all this broad land. The paleface must honor a Christian. He can steal no Christian’s land. All the palefaces, as many as the stars of the great white path, dare not invade the Village of Peace. For God smiles here. Listen to His words: ‘Come unto me all that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”

Over the multitude brooded an impressive, solemn silence. Then an aged Delaware chief rose, with a mien of profound thought, and slowly paced before the circle of chiefs. Presently he stopped, turned to the awaiting Indians, and spoke:

“Netawatwees is almost persuaded to be a Christian.” He resumed his seat.

Another interval of penetrating quiet ensued. At length a venerable-looking chieftain got up:

“White Eyes hears the rumbling thunder in his ears. The smoke blows from his eyes. White Eyes is the oldest chief of the Lenni-Lenape. His days are many; they are full; they draw near the evening of his life; he rejoices that wisdom is come before his sun is set.

“White Eyes believes the young White Father. The ways of the Great Spirit are many as the fluttering leaves; they are strange and secret as the flight of a loon; White Eyes believes the redman’s happy hunting grounds need not be forgotten to love the palefaces’ God. As a young brave pants and puzzles over his first trail, so the grown warrior feels in his understanding of his God. He gropes blindly through dark ravines.

“White Eyes speaks few words to-day, for he is learning wisdom; he bids his people hearken to the voice of the White Father. War is wrong; peace is best. Love is the way to peace. The paleface advances one step nearer his God. He labors for his home; he keeps the peace; he asks but little; he frees his women. That is well. White Eyes has spoken.”

The old chief slowly advanced toward the Christian Indians. He laid aside his knife and tomahawk, and then his eagle plumes and war-bonnet. Bareheaded, he seated himself among the converted redmen. They began chanting in low, murmuring tones.

Amid the breathless silence that followed this act of such great significance, Wingenund advanced toward the knoll with slow, stately step. His dark eye swept the glade with lightning scorn; his glance alone revealed the passion that swayed him.

“Wingenund’s ears are keen; they have heard a feather fall in the storm; now they hear a soft-voiced thrush. Wingenund thunders to his people, to his friends, to the chiefs of other tribes: ‘Do not bury the hatchet!’ The young White Father’s tongue runs smooth like the gliding brook; it sings as the thrush calls its mate. Listen; but wait, wait! Let time prove his beautiful tale; let the moons go by over the Village of Peace.

“Wingenund does not flaunt his wisdom. He has grown old among his warriors; he loves them; he fears for them. The dream of the palefaces’ beautiful forest glimmers as the rainbow glows over the laughing falls of the river. The dream of the paleface is too beautiful to come true. In the days of long ago, when Wingenund’s forefathers heard not the paleface’s ax, they lived in love and happiness such as the young White Father dreams may come again. They waged no wars. A white dove sat in every wigwam. The lands were theirs and they were rich. The paleface came with his leaden death, his burning firewater, his ringing ax, and the glory of the redmen faded forever.

“Wingenund seeks not to inflame his braves to anger. He is sick of blood-spilling — not from fear; for Wingenund cannot feel fear. But he asks his people to wait. Remember, the gifts of the paleface ever contained a poisoned arrow. Wingenund’s heart is sore. The day of the redman is gone. His sun is setting. Wingenund feels already the gray shades of evening.”

He stopped one long moment as if to gather breath for his final charge to his listeners. Then with a magnificent gesture he thundered:

“Is the Delaware a fool? When Wingenund can cross unarmed to the Big Water he shall change his mind. When Deathwind ceases to blow his bloody trail over the fallen leaves Wingenund will believe.”

Chapter XIII.

AS THE SUMMER waned, each succeeding day, with its melancholy calm, its changing lights and shades, its cool, damp evening winds, growing more and more suggestive of autumn, the little colony of white people in the Village of Peace led busy, eventful lives.

Upwards of fifty Indians, several of them important chiefs, had become converted since the young missionary began preaching. Heckewelder declared that this was a wonderful showing, and if it could be kept up would result in gaining a hold on the Indian tribes which might not be shaken. Heckewelder had succeeded in interesting the savages west of the Village of Peace to the extent of permitting him to establish missionary posts in two other localities — one near Goshhocking, a Delaware town; and one on the Muskingong, the principal river running through central Ohio. He had, with his helpers, Young and Edwards, journeyed from time to time to these points, preaching, making gifts, and soliciting help from chiefs.

The most interesting feature, perhaps, of the varied life of the missionary party was a rivalry between Young and Edwards for the elder Miss Wells. Usually Nell’s attractiveness appealed more to men than Kate’s; however, in this instance, although the sober teachers of the gospel admired Nell’s winsome beauty, they fell in love with Kate. The missionaries were both under forty, and good, honest men, devoted to the work which had engrossed them for years. Although they were ardent lovers, certainly they were not picturesque. Two homelier men could hardly have been found. Moreover, the sacrifice of their lives to missionary work had taken them far from the companionship of women of their own race, so that they lacked the ease of manner which women like to see in men. Young and Edwards were awkward, almost uncouth. Embarrassment would not have done justice to their state of feeling while basking in the shine of Kate’s quiet smile. They were happy, foolish, and speechless.

If Kate shared in the merriment of the others — Heckewelder could not conceal his, and Nell did not try very hard to hide hers — she never allowed a suspicion of it to escape. She kept the easy, even tenor of her life, always kind and gracious in her quaint way, and precisely the same to both her lovers. No doubt she well knew that each possessed, under all his rough exterior, a heart of gold.

One day the genial Heckewelder lost, or pretended to lose, his patience.

“Say, you worthy gentlemen are becoming ornamental instead of useful. All this changing of coats, trimming of mustaches, and eloquent sighing doesn’t seem to have affected the young lady. I’ve a notion to send you both to Maumee town, one hundred miles away. This young lady is charming, I admit, but if she is to keep on seriously hindering the work of the Moravian Mission I must object. As for that matter, I might try conclusions myself. I’m as young as either of you, and, I flatter myself, much handsomer. You’ll have a dangerous rival presently. Settle it! You can’t both have her; settle it!”

This outburst from their usually kind leader placed the earnest but awkward gentlemen in a terrible plight.

On the afternoon following the crisis Heckewelder took Mr. Wells to one of the Indian shops, and Jim and Nell went canoeing. Young and Edwards, after conferring for one long, trying hour, determined on settling the question.

Young was a pale, slight man, very homely except when he smiled. His smile not only broke up the plainness of his face, but seemed to chase away a serious shadow, allowing his kindly, gentle spirit to shine through. He was nervous, and had a timid manner. Edwards was his opposite, being a man of robust frame, with a heavy face, and a manner that would have suggested self-confidence in another man.

They were true and tried friends.

“Dave, I couldn’t ask her,” said Young, trembling at the very thought. “Besides, there’s no hope for me. I know it. That’s why I’m afraid, why I don’t want to ask her. What’d such a glorious creature see in a poor, puny little thing like me?”

“George, you’re not over-handsome,” admitted Dave, shaking his head. “But you can never tell about women. Sometimes they like even little, insignificant fellows. Don’t be too scared about asking her. Besides, it will make it easier for me. You might tell her about me — you know, sort of feel her out, so I’d—”

Dave’s voice failed him here; but he had said enough, and that was most discouraging to poor George. Dave was so busy screwing up his courage that he forgot all about his friend.

“No; I couldn’t,” gasped George, falling into a chair. He was ghastly pale. “I couldn’t ask her to accept me, let alone do another man’s wooing. She thinks more of you. She’ll accept you.”

“You really think so?” whispered Dave, nervously.

“I know she will. You’re such a fine, big figure of a man. She’ll take you, and I’ll be glad. This fever and fretting has about finished me. When she’s yours I’ll not be so bad. I’ll be happy in your happiness. But, Dave, you’ll let me see her occasionally, won’t you? Go! Hurry — get it over!”

“Yes; we must have it over,” replied Dave, getting up with a brave, effort. Truly, if he carried that determined front to his lady-love he would look like a masterful lover. But when he got to the door he did not at all resemble a conqueror.

“You’re sure she — cares for me?” asked Dave, for the hundredth time. This time, as always, his friend was faithful and convincing.

“I know she does. Go — hurry. I tell you I can’t stand this any longer,” cried George, pushing Dave out of the door.

“You won’t go — first?” whispered Dave, clinging to the door.

“I won’t go at all. I couldn’t ask her — I don’t want her — go! Get out!”

Dave started reluctantly toward the adjoining cabin, from the open window of which came the song of the young woman who was responsible for all this trouble. George flung himself on his bed. What a relief to feel it was all over! He lay there with eves shut for hours, as it seemed. After a time Dave came in. George leaped to his feet and saw his friend stumbling over a chair. Somehow, Dave did not look as usual. He seemed changed, or shrunken, and his face wore a discomfited, miserable expression.

“Well?” cried George, sharply. Even to his highly excited imagination this did not seem the proper condition for a victorious lover.

“She refused — refused me,” faltered Dave. “She was very sweet and kind; said something about being my sister — I don’t remember just what — but she wouldn’t have me.”

“What did you say to her?” whispered George, a paralyzing hope almost rendering him speechless.

“I — I told her everything I could think of,” replied Dave, despondently; “even what you said.”

“What I said? Dave, what did you tell her I said?”

“Why, you know — about she cared for me — that you were sure of it, and that you didn’t want her—”

“Jackass!” roared George, rising out of his meekness like a lion roused from slumber.

“Didn’t you — say so?” inquired Dave, weakly.

“No! No! No! Idiot!”

As one possessed, George rushed out of the cabin, and a moment later stood disheveled and frantic before Kate.

“Did that fool say I didn’t love you?” he demanded.

Kate looked up, startled; but as an understanding of George’s wild aspect and wilder words dawned upon her, she resumed her usual calm demeanor. Looking again to see if this passionate young man was indeed George, she turned her face as she said:

“If you mean Mr. Edwards, yes; I believe he did say as much. Indeed, from his manner, he seemed to have monopolized all the love near the Village of Peace.”

“But it’s not true. I do love you. I love you to distraction. I have loved you ever since I first saw you. I told Dave that. Heckewelder knows it; even the Indians know it,” cried George, protesting vehemently against the disparaging allusion to his affections. He did not realize he was making a most impassioned declaration of love. When he was quite out of breath he sat down and wiped his moist brow.

A pink bloom tinged Kate’s cheeks, and her eyes glowed with a happy light; but George never saw these womanly evidences of pleasure.

“Of course I know you don’t care for me—”

“Did Mr. Edwards tell you so?” asked Kate, glancing up quickly.

“Why, yes, he has often said he thought that. Indeed, he always seemed to regard himself as the fortunate object of your affections. I always believed he was.”

“But it wasn’t true.”

“What?”

“It’s not true.”

“What’s not true?”

“Oh — about my — not caring.”

“Kate!” cried George, quite overcome with rapture. He fell over two chairs getting to her; but he succeeded, and fell on his knees to kiss her hand.

“Foolish boy! It has been you all the time,” whispered Kate, with her quiet smile.

* * *

“Look here, Downs; come to the door. See there,” said Heckewelder to Jim.

Somewhat surprised at Heckewelder’s grave tone, Jim got up from the supper-table and looked out of the door. He saw two tall Indians pacing to and fro under the maples. It was still early twilight and light enough to see clearly. One Indian was almost naked; the lithe, graceful symmetry of his dark figure standing out in sharp contrast to the gaunt, gaudily-costumed form of the other.

“Silvertip! Girty!” exclaimed Jim, in a low voice.

“Girty I knew, of course; but I was not sure the other was the Shawnee who captured you and your brother,” replied Heckewelder, drawing Jim into another room.

“What do they mean by loitering around the village? Inquired Jim, apprehensively. Whenever he heard Girty’s name mentioned, or even thought of him, he remembered with a shudder the renegade’s allusion to the buzzards. Jim never saw one of these carrion birds soaring overhead but his thoughts instantly reverted to the frontier ruffian and his horrible craving.

“I don’t know,” answered Heckewelder. “Girty has been here several times of late. I saw him conferring with Pipe at Goshhocking. I hope there’s no deviltry afoot. Pipe is a relentless enemy of all Christians, and Girty is a fiend, a hyena. I think, perhaps, it will be well for you and the girls to stay indoors while Girty and Silvertip are in the village.”

That evening the entire missionary party were gathered in Mr. Wells’ room. Heckewelder told stories of Indian life; Nell sang several songs, and Kate told many amusing things said and done by the little Indian boys in her class at the school. Thus the evening passed pleasantly for all.

“So next Wednesday I am to perform the great ceremony,” remarked Heckewelder, laying his hand kindly on Young’s knee. “We’ll celebrate the first white wedding in the Village of Peace.”

Young looked shyly down at his boots; Edwards crossed one leg over the other, and coughed loudly to hide his embarrassment. Kate wore, as usual, her pensive smile; Nell’s eyes twinkled, and she was about to speak, when Heckewelder’s quizzical glance in her direction made her lips mute.

“I hope I’ll have another wedding on my hands soon,” he said placidly.

This ordinary remark had an extraordinary effect. Nell turned with burning cheeks and looked out of the window. Jim frowned fiercely and bit his lips. Edwards began to laugh, and even Mr. Wells’ serious face lapsed into a smile.

“I mean I’ve picked out a nice little Delaware squaw for Dave,” said Heckewelder, seeing his badinage had somehow gone amiss.

“Oh-h!” suddenly cried Nell, in shuddering tones.

They all gazed at her in amazement. Every vestige of color had receded from her face, leaving it marblelike. Her eves were fixed in startled horror. Suddenly she relaxed her grasp on the windowsill and fell back limp and senseless.

Heckewelder ran to the door to look out, while the others bent over the unconscious girl, endeavoring to revive her. Presently a fluttering breath and a quivering of her dark lashes noted a return of suspended life. Then her beautiful eyes opened wide to gaze with wonder and fear into the grave faces bent so anxiously over her.

“Nell, dearest, you are safe. What was it? What frightened you so?” said Kate, tenderly.

“Oh, it was fearful!” gasped Nell, sitting up. She clung to her sister with one hand, while the other grasped Jim’s sleeve.

“I was looking out into the dark, when suddenly I beheld a face, a terrible face!” cried Nell. Those who watched her marveled at the shrinking, awful fear in her eyes. “It was right by the window. I could have touched it. Such a greedy, wolfish face, with a long, hooked nose! The eyes, oh! the eyes! I’ll never forget them. They made me sick; they paralyzed me. It wasn’t an Indian’s face. It belonged to that white man, that awful white man! I never saw him before; but I knew him.”

“Girty!” said Heckewelder, who had come in with his quiet step. “He looked in at the window. Calm yourself, Nellie. The renegade has gone.”

The incident worried them all at the time, and made Nell nervous for several days; but as Girty had disappeared, and nothing more was heard of him, gradually they forgot. Kate’s wedding day dawned with all the little party well and happy. Early in the afternoon Jim and Nell, accompanied by Kate and her lover, started out into the woods just beyond the clearing for the purpose of gathering wild flowers to decorate the cabin.

“We are both thinking of — him,” Jim said, after he and Nell had walked some little way in silence.

“Yes,” answered Nell, simply.

“I hope — I pray Joe comes back, but if he doesn’t — Nell — won’t you care a little for me?”

He received no answer. But Nell turned her face away.

“We both loved him. If he’s gone forever our very love for him should bring us together. I know — I know he would have wished that.”

“Jim, don’t speak of love to me now,” she whispered. Then she turned to the others. “Come quickly; here are great clusters of wild clematis and goldenrod. How lovely! Let us gather a quantity.”

The young men had almost buried the girls under huge masses of the beautiful flowers, when the soft tread of moccasined feet caused them all to turn in surprise. Six savages stood waist-deep in the bushes, where they had lain concealed. Fierce, painted visages scowled from behind leveled rifles.

“Don’t yell!” cried a hoarse voice in English. Following the voice came a snapping of twigs, and then two other figures came into view. They were Girty and Silvertip.

“Don’t yell, er I’ll leave you layin’ here fer the buzzards,” said the renegade. He stepped forward and grasped Young, at the same time speaking in the Indian language and pointing to a nearby tree. Strange to relate, the renegade apparently wanted no bloodshed. While one of the savages began to tie Young to the tree, Girty turned his gaze on the girls. His little, yellow eyes glinted; he stroked his chin with a bony hand, and his dark, repulsive face was wreathed in a terrible, meaning smile.

“I’ve been layin’ fer you,” he croaked, eyeing Nell. “Ye’re the purtiest lass, ‘ceptin’ mebbe Bet Zane, I ever seed on the border. I got cheated outen her, but I’ve got you; arter I feed yer Injun preacher to ther buzzards mebbe ye’ll larn to love me.”

Nell gazed one instant into the monster’s face. Her terror-stricken eyes were piteous to behold. She tried to speak; but her voice failed. Then, like stricken bird, she fell on the grass.

Chapter XIV.

NOT MANY MILES from the Village of Peace rose an irregular chain of hills, the first faint indications of the grand Appalachian Mountain system. These ridges were thickly wooded with white oak, poplar and hickory, among which a sentinel pine reared here and there its evergreen head. There were clefts in the hills, passes lined by gray-stoned cliffs, below which ran clear brooks, tumbling over rocks in a hurry to meet their majestic father, the Ohio.

One of these valleys, so narrow that the sun seldom brightened the merry brook, made a deep cut in the rocks. The head of this valley tapered until the walls nearly met; it seemed to lose itself in the shade of fern-faced cliffs, shadowed as they were by fir trees leaning over the brink, as though to search for secrets of the ravine. So deep and dark and cool was this sequestered nook that here late summer had not dislodged early spring. Everywhere was a soft, fresh, bright green. The old gray cliffs were festooned with ferns, lichens and moss. Under a great, shelving rock, damp and stained by the copper-colored water dripping down its side, was a dewy dell into which the sunshine had never peeped. Here the swift brook tarried lovingly, making a wide turn under the cliff, as though loth to leave this quiet nook, and then leaped once more to enthusiasm in its murmuring flight.

Life abounded in this wild, beautiful, almost inaccessible spot. Little brown and yellow birds flitted among the trees; thrushes ran along the leaf-strewn ground; orioles sang their melancholy notes; robins and flickers darted beneath the spreading branches. Squirrels scurried over the leaves like little whirlwinds, and leaped daringly from the swinging branches or barked noisily from woody perches. Rabbits hopped inquisitively here and there while nibbling at the tender shoots of sassafras and laurel.

Along this flower-skirted stream a tall young man, carrying a rifle cautiously stepped, peering into the branches overhead. A gray flash shot along a limb of a white oak; then the bushy tail of a squirrel flitted into a well-protected notch, from whence, no doubt, a keen little eye watched the hunter’s every movement.

The rifle was raised; then lowered. The hunter walked around the tree. Presently up in the tree top, snug under a knotty limb, he spied a little ball of gray fur. Grasping a branch of underbush, he shook it vigorously. The thrashing sound worried the gray squirrel, for he slipped from his retreat and stuck his nose over the limb. CRACK! With a scratching and tearing of bark the squirrel loosened his hold and then fell; alighting with a thump. As the hunter picked up his quarry a streak of sunshine glinting through the tree top brightened his face.

The hunter was Joe.

He was satisfied now, for after stowing the squirrel in the pocket of his hunting coat he shouldered his rifle and went back up the ravine. Presently a dull roar sounded above the babble of the brook. It grew louder as he threaded his way carefully over the stones. Spots of white foam flecked the brook. Passing under the gray, stained cliff, Joe turned around a rocky corner, and came to an abrupt end of the ravine. A waterfall marked the spot where the brook entered. The water was brown as it took the leap, light green when it thinned out; and below, as it dashed on the stones, it became a beautiful, sheeny white.

Upon a flat rock, so near the cascade that spray flew over him, sat another hunter. The roaring falls drowned all other sounds, yet the man roused from his dreamy contemplation of the waterfall when Joe rounded the corner.

“I heerd four shots,” he said, as Joe came up.

“Yes; I got a squirrel for every shot.”

Wetzel led the way along a narrow foot trail which gradually wound toward the top of the ravine. This path emerged presently, some distance above the falls, on the brink of a bluff. It ran along the edge of the precipice a few yards, then took a course back into densely wooded thickets. Just before stepping out on the open cliff Wetzel paused and peered keenly on all sides. There was no living thing to be seen; the silence was the deep, unbroken calm of the wilderness.

Wetzel stepped to the bluff and looked over. The stony wall opposite was only thirty feet away, and somewhat lower. From Wetzel’s action it appeared as if he intended to leap the fissure. In truth, many a band of Indians pursuing the hunter into this rocky fastness had come out on the bluff, and, marveling at what they thought Wetzel’s prowess, believed he had made a wonderful leap, thus eluding them. But he had never attempted that leap, first, because he knew it was well-nigh impossible, and secondly, there had never been any necessity for such risk.

Any one leaning over this cliff would have observed, perhaps ten feet below, a narrow ledge projecting from the face of the rock. He would have imagined if he were to drop on that ledge there would be no way to get off and he would be in a worse predicament.

Without a moment’s hesitation Wetzel swung himself over the ledge. Joe followed suit. At one end of this lower ledge grew a hardy shrub of the ironwood species, and above it a scrub pine leaned horizontally out over the ravine. Laying his rifle down, Wetzel grasped a strong root and cautiously slid over the side. When all of his body had disappeared, with the exception of his sinewy fingers, they loosened their hold on the root, grasped the rifle, and dragged it down out of sight. Quietly, with similar caution, Joe took hold of the same root, let himself down, and when at full length swung himself in under the ledge. His feet found a pocket in the cliff. Letting go of the root, he took his rifle, and in another second was safe.

Of all Wetzel’s retreats — for he had many — he considered this one the safest. The cavern under the ledge he had discovered by accident. One day, being hotly pursued by Shawnees, he had been headed off on this cliff, and had let himself down on the ledge, intending to drop from it to the tops of the trees below. Taking advantage of every little aid, he hung over by means of the shrub, and was in the act of leaping when he saw that the cliff shelved under the ledge, while within reach of his feet was the entrance to a cavern. He found the cave to be small with an opening at the back into a split in the rock. Evidently the place had been entered from the rear by bears, who used the hole for winter sleeping quarters. By crawling on his hands and knees, Wetzel found the rear opening. Thus he had established a hiding place where it was almost impossible to locate him. He provisioned his retreat, which he always entered by the cliff and left by the rear.

An evidence of Wetzel’s strange nature, and of his love for this wild home, manifested itself when he bound Joe to secrecy. It was unlikely, even if the young man ever did get safely out of the wilderness, that any stories he might relate would reveal the hunter’s favorite rendezvous. But Wetzel seriously demanded this secrecy, as earnestly as if the forest were full of Indians and white men, all prowling in search of his burrow.

Joe was in the seventh heaven of delight, and took to the free life as a wild gosling takes to the water. No place had ever appealed to him as did this dark, silent hole far up on the side of a steep cliff. His interest in Wetzel soon passed into a great admiration, and from that deepened to love.

This afternoon, when they were satisfied that all was well within their refuge, Joe laid aside his rifle, and, whistling softly, began to prepare supper. The back part of the cave permitted him to stand erect, and was large enough for comparative comfort. There was a neat, little stone fireplace, and several cooking utensils and gourds. From time to time Wetzel had brought these things. A pile of wood and a bundle of pine cones lay in one corner. Haunches of dried beef, bear and buffalo meat hung from pegs; a bag of parched corn, another of dried apples lay on a rocky shelf. Nearby hung a powder-horn filled with salt and pepper. In the cleft back of the cave was a spring of clear, cold water.

The wants of woodsmen are few and simple. Joe and Wetzel, with appetites whetted by their stirring outdoor life, relished the frugal fare as they could never have enjoyed a feast. As the shadows of evening entered the cave, they lighted their pipes to partake of the hunter’s sweetest solace, a quiet smoke.

Strange as it may appear, this lonely, stern Indian-hunter and the reckless, impulsive boy were admirably suited for companionship. Wetzel had taken a liking to the young man when he led the brothers to Fort Henry. Subsequent events strengthened his liking, and now, many days after, Joe having followed him into the forest, a strong attachment had been insensibly forged between them.

Wetzel understood Joe’s burning desire to roam the forests; but he half expected the lad would soon grow tired of this roving life, but exactly the opposite symptoms were displayed. The hunter had intended to take his comrade on a hunting trip, and to return with him, after that was over, to Fort Henry. They had now been in the woods for weeks and every day in some way had Joe showed his mettle. Wetzel finally admitted him into the secrets of his most cherished hiding place. He did not want to hurt the lad’s feelings by taking him back to the settlement; he could not send him back. So the days wore on swiftly; full of heart-satisfying incident and life, with man and boy growing closer in an intimacy that was as warm as it was unusual.

Two reasons might account for this: First, there is no sane human being who is not better off for companionship. An exile would find something of happiness in one who shared his misery. And, secondly, Joe was a most acceptable comrade, even for a slayer of Indians. Wedded as Wetzel was to the forest trails, to his lonely life, to the Nemesis-pursuit he had followed for eighteen long years, he was still a white man, kind and gentle in his quiet hours, and because of this, though he knew it not, still capable of affection. He had never known youth; his manhood had been one pitiless warfare against his sworn foes; but once in all those years had his sore, cold heart warmed; and that was toward a woman who was not for him. His life had held only one purpose — a bloody one. Yet the man had a heart, and he could not prevent it from responding to another. In his simple ignorance he rebelled against this affection for anything other than his forest homes. Man is weak against hate; what can he avail against love? The dark caverns of Wetzel’s great heart opened, admitting to their gloomy depths this stranger. So now a new love was born in that cheerless heart, where for so long a lonely inmate, the ghost of old love, had dwelt in chill seclusion.

The feeling of comradeship which Wetzel had for Joe was something altogether new in the hunter’s life. True he had hunted with Jonathan Zane, and accompanied expeditions where he was forced to sleep with another scout; but a companion, not to say friend, he had never known. Joe was a boy, wilder than an eagle, yet he was a man. He was happy and enthusiastic, still his good spirits never jarred on the hunter; they were restrained. He never asked questions, as would seem the case in any eager lad; he waited until he was spoken to. He was apt; he never forgot anything; he had the eye of a born woodsman, and lastly, perhaps what went far with Wetzel, he was as strong and supple as a young lynx, and absolutely fearless.

On this evening Wetzel and Joe followed their usual custom; they smoked a while before lying down to sleep. Tonight the hunter was even more silent than usual, and the lad, tired out with his day’s tramp, lay down on a bed of fragrant boughs.

Wetzel sat there in the gathering gloom while he pulled slowly on his pipe. The evening was very quiet; the birds had ceased their twittering; the wind had died away; it was too early for the bay of a wolf, the wail of a panther, or hoot of an owl; there was simply perfect silence.

The lad’s deep, even breathing caught Wetzel’s ear, and he found himself meditating, as he had often of late, on this new something that had crept into his life. For Joe loved him; he could not fail to see that. The lad had preferred to roam with the lonely Indian-hunter through the forests, to encounter the perils and hardships of a wild life, rather than accept the smile of fortune and of love. Wetzel knew that Colonel Zane had taken a liking to the boy, and had offered him work and a home; and, also, the hunter remembered the warm light he had seen in Nell’s hazel eyes. Musing thus, the man felt stir in his heart an emotion so long absent that it was unfamiliar. The Avenger forgot, for a moment his brooding plans. He felt strangely softened. When he laid his head on the rude pillow it was with some sense of gladness that, although he had always desired a lonely life, and wanted to pass it in the fulfillment of his vow, his loneliness was now shared by a lad who loved him.

Joe was awakened by the merry chirp of a chipmunk that every morning ran along the seamy side of the opposite wall of the gorge. Getting up, he went to the back of the cave, where he found Wetzel combing out his long hair. The lad thrust his hands into the cold pool, and bathed his face. The water was icy cold, and sent an invigorating thrill through him. Then he laughed as he took a rude comb Wetzel handed to him.

“My scalp is nothing to make an Indian very covetous, is it?” said he, eyeing in admiration the magnificent black hair that fell over the hunter’s shoulders.

“It’ll grow,” answered Wetzel.

Joe did not wonder at the care Wetzel took of his hair, nor did he misunderstand the hunter’s simple pride. Wetzel was very careful of his rifle, he was neat and clean about his person, he brushed his buckskin costume, he polished his knife and tomahawk; but his hair received more attention than all else. It required much care. When combed out it reached fully to his knees. Joe had seen him, after he returned from a long hunt, work patiently for an hour with his wooden comb, and not stop until every little burr was gone, or tangle smoothed out. Then he would comb it again in the morning — this, of course, when time permitted — and twist and tie it up so as to offer small resistance to his slipping through the underbush. Joe knew the hunter’s simplicity was such, that if he cut off his hair it would seem he feared the Indians — for that streaming black hair the Indians had long coveted and sworn to take. It would make any brave a famous chief, and was the theme of many a savage war tale.

After breakfast Wetzel said to Joe:

“You stay here, an’ I’ll look round some; mebbe I’ll come back soon, and we’ll go out an’ kill a buffalo. Injuns sometimes foller up a buffalo trail, an’ I want to be sure none of the varlets are chasin’ that herd we saw to-day.”

Wetzel left the cave by the rear. It took him fifteen minutes to crawl to the head of the tortuous, stony passage. Lifting the stone which closed up the aperture, he looked out and listened. Then, rising, he replaced the stone, and passed down the wooded hillside.

It was a beautiful morning; the dew glistened on the green leaves, the sun shone bright and warm, the birds warbled in the trees. The hunter’s moccasins pressed so gently on the moss and leaves that they made no more sound than the soft foot of a panther. His trained ear was alert to catch any unfamiliar noise; his keen eyes sought first the remoter open glades and glens, then bent their gaze on the mossy bluff beneath his feet. Fox squirrels dashed from before him into bushy retreats; grouse whirred away into the thickets; startled deer whistled, and loped off with their white-flags upraised. Wetzel knew from the action of these denizens of the woods that he was the only creature, not native to these haunts, who had disturbed them this morning. Otherwise the deer would not have been grazing, but lying low in some close thicket; fox squirrels seldom or never were disturbed by a hunter twice in one day, for after being frightened these little animals, wilder and shyer than gray squirrels, remained hidden for hours, and grouse that have been flushed a little while before, always get up unusually quick, and fly very far before alighting.

Wetzel circled back over the hill, took a long survey from a rocky eminence, and then reconnoitered the lowland for several miles. He located the herd of buffalo, and satisfying himself there were no Indians near — for the bison were grazing quietly — he returned to the cave. A soft whistle into the back door of the rocky home told Joe that the hunter was waiting.

“Coast clear?” whispered the lad, thrusting his head out of the entrance. His gray eyes gleamed brightly, showing his eager spirit.

The hunter nodded, and, throwing his rifle in the hollow of his arm, proceeded down the hill. Joe followed closely, endeavoring, as Wetzel had trained him, to make each step precisely in the hunter’s footprints. The lad had soon learned to step nimbly and softly as a cat. When half way down the bill Wetzel paused.

“See anythin’?” he whispered.

Joe glanced on all sides. Many mistakes had taught him to be cautious. He had learned from experience that for every woodland creature he saw, there were ten watching his every move. Just now he could not see even a little red squirrel. Everywhere were sturdy hickory and oak trees, thickets and hazelnuts, slender ash saplings, and, in the open glades, patches of sumach. Rotting trees lay on the ground, while ferns nodded long, slender heads over the fallen monarchs. Joe could make out nothing but the colors of the woods, the gray of the tree trunks, and, in the openings through the forest-green, the dead purple haze of forests farther on. He smiled, and, shaking his head at the hunter, by his action admitted failure.

“Try again. Dead ahead,” whispered Wetzel.

Joe bent a direct gaze on the clump of sassafras one hundred feet ahead. He searched the open places, the shadows — even the branches. Then he turned his eyes slowly to the right. Whatever was discernible to human vision he studied intently. Suddenly his eye became fixed on a small object protruding from behind a beech tree. It was pointed, and in color darker than the gray bark of the beech. It had been a very easy matter to pass over this little thing; but now that the lad saw it, he knew to what it belonged.

“That’s a buck’s ear,” he replied.

Hardly had he finished speaking when Wetzel intentionally snapped a twig. There was a crash and commotion in the thicket; branches moved and small saplings waved; then out into the open glade bounded a large buck with a whistle of alarm. Throwing his rifle to a level, Joe was trying to cover the bounding deer, when the hunter struck up his piece.

“Lad, don’t kill fer the sake of killin,” he said, quietly. “We have plenty of venison. We’ll go arter a buffalo. I hev a hankerin’ fer a good rump steak.”

Half an hour later, the hunters emerged from the forest into a wide plain of waving grass. It was a kind of oval valley, encircled by hills, and had been at one time, perhaps, covered with water. Joe saw a herd of large animals browsing, like cattle, in a meadow. His heart beat high, for until that moment the only buffalo he had seen were the few which stood on the river banks as the raft passed down the Ohio. He would surely get a shot at one of these huge fellows.

Wetzel bade Joe do exactly as he did, whereupon he dropped on his hands and knees and began to crawl through the long grass. This was easy for the hunter, but very bard for the lad to accomplish. Still, he managed to keep his comrade in sight, which was a matter for congratulation, because the man crawled as fast as he walked. At length, after what to Joe seemed a very long time, the hunter paused.

“Are we near enough?” whispered Joe, breathlessly.

“Nope. We’re just circlin’ on ‘em. The wind’s not right, an’ I’m afeered they’ll get our scent.”

Wetzel rose carefully and peeped over the top of the grass; then, dropping on all fours, he resumed the advance.

He paused again, presently and waited for Joe to come up.

“See here, young fellar, remember, never hurry unless the bizness calls fer speed, an’ then act like lightnin’.”

Thus admonishing the eager lad, Wetzel continued to crawl. It was easy for him. Joe wondered how those wide shoulders got between the weeds and grasses without breaking, or, at least, shaking them. But so it was.

“Flat now,” whispered Wetzel, putting his broad hand on Joe’s back and pressing him down. “Now’s yer time fer good practice. Trail yer rifle over yer back — if yer careful it won’t slide off — an’ reach out far with one arm an’ dig yer fingers in deep. Then pull yerself forrard.”

Wetzel slipped through the grass like a huge buckskin snake. His long, lithe body wormed its way among the reeds. But for Joe, even with the advantage of having the hunter’s trail to follow, it was difficult work. The dry reeds broke under him, and the stalks of saw-grass shook. He worked persistently at it, learning all the while, and improving with every rod. He was surprised to hear a swish, followed by a dull blow on the ground. Raising his head, he looked forward. He saw the hunter wipe his tomahawk on the grass.

“Snake,” whispered Wetzel.

Joe saw a huge blacksnake squirming in the grass. Its head had been severed. He caught glimpses of other snakes gliding away, and glossy round moles darting into their holes. A gray rabbit started off with a leap.

“We’re near enough,” whispered Wetzel, stopping behind a bush. He rose and surveyed the plain; then motioned Joe to look.

Joe raised himself on his knees. As his gaze reached the level of the grassy plain his heart leaped. Not fifty yards away was a great, shaggy, black buffalo. He was the king of the herd; but ill at ease, for he pawed the grass and shook his huge head. Near him were several cows and a half-grown calf. Beyond was the main herd, extending as far as Joe could see — a great sea of black humps! The lad breathed hard as he took in the grand sight.

“Pick out the little fellar — the reddish-brown one — an’ plug him behind the shoulder. Shoot close now, fer if we miss, mebbe I can’t hit one, because I’m not used to shootin’ at sich small marks.”

Wetzel’s rare smile lighted up his dark face. Probably he could have shot a fly off the horn of the bull, if one of the big flies or bees, plainly visible as they swirled around the huge head, had alighted there.

Joe slowly raised his rifle. He had covered the calf, and was about to pull the trigger, when, with a sagacity far beyond his experience as hunter, he whispered to Wetzel:

“If I fire they may run toward us.”

“Nope; they’ll run away,” answered Wetzel, thinking the lad was as keen as an Indian.

Joe quickly covered the calf again, and pulled the trigger. Bellowing loud the big bull dashed off. The herd swung around toward the west, and soon were galloping off with a lumbering roar. The shaggy humps bobbed up and down like hot, angry waves on a storm-blackened sea.

Upon going forward, Wetzel and Joe found the calf lying dead in the grass.

“You might hev did better’n that,” remarked the hunter, as he saw where the bullet had struck. “You went a little too fer back, but mebbe thet was ‘cause the calf stepped as you shot.”

Chapter XV.

SO THE DAYS passed swiftly, dreamily, each one bringing Joe a keener delight. In a single month he was as good a woodsman as many pioneers who had passed years on the border, for he had the advantage of a teacher whose woodcraft was incomparable. Besides, he was naturally quick in learning, and with all his interest centered upon forest lore, it was no wonder he assimilated much of Wetzel’s knowledge. He was ever willing to undertake anything whereby he might learn. Often when they were miles away in the dense forest, far from their cave, he asked Wetzel to let him try to lead the way back to camp. And he never failed once, though many times he got off a straight course, thereby missing the easy travelling.

Joe did wonderfully well, but he lacked, as nearly all white men do, the subtler, intuitive forest-instinct, which makes the Indian as much at home in the woods as in his teepee. Wetzel had this developed to a high degree. It was born in him. Years of training, years of passionate, unrelenting search for Indians, had given him a knowledge of the wilds that was incomprehensible to white men, and appalling to his red foes.

Joe saw how Wetzel used this ability, but what it really was baffled him. He realized that words were not adequate to explain fully this great art. Its possession required a marvelously keen vision, an eye perfectly familiar with every creature, tree, rock, shrub and thing belonging in the forest; an eye so quick in flight as to detect instantly the slightest change in nature, or anything unnatural to that environment. The hearing must be delicate, like that of a deer, and the finer it is, the keener will be the woodsman. Lastly, there is the feeling that prompts the old hunter to say: “No game to-day.” It is something in him that speaks when, as he sees a night-hawk circling low near the ground, he says: “A storm to-morrow.” It is what makes an Indian at home in any wilderness. The clouds may hide the guiding star; the northing may be lost; there may be no moss on the trees, or difference in their bark; the ridges may be flat or lost altogether, and there may be no water-courses; yet the Indian brave always goes for his teepee, straight as a crow flies. It was this voice which rightly bade Wetzel, when he was baffled by an Indian’s trail fading among the rocks, to cross, or circle, or advance in the direction taken by his wily foe.

Joe had practiced trailing deer and other hoofed game, until he was true as a hound. Then he began to perfect himself in the art of following a human being through the forest. Except a few old Indian trails, which the rain had half obliterated, he had no tracks to discover save Wetzel’s, and these were as hard to find as the airy course of a grosbeak. On soft ground or marshy grass, which Wetzel avoided where he could, he left a faint trail, but on a hard surface, for all the traces he left, he might as well not have gone over the ground at all.

Joe’s persistence stood him in good stead; he hung on, and the more he failed, the harder he tried. Often he would slip out of the cave after Wetzel had gone, and try to find which way he had taken. In brief, the lad became a fine marksman, a good hunter, and a close, persevering student of the wilderness. He loved the woods, and all they contained. He learned the habits of the wild creatures. Each deer, each squirrel, each grouse that he killed, taught him some lesson.

He was always up with the lark to watch the sun rise red and grand over the eastern hills, and chase away the white mist from the valleys. Even if he was not hunting, or roaming the woods, if it was necessary for him to lie low in camp awaiting Wetzel’s return, he was always content. Many hours he idled away lying on his back, with the west wind blowing softly over him, his eye on the distant hills, where the cloud shadows swept across with slow, majestic movement, like huge ships at sea.

If Wetzel and Joe were far distant from the cave, as was often the case, they made camp in the open woods, and it was here that Joe’s contentment was fullest. Twilight shades stealing down over the camp-fire; the cheery glow of red embers; the crackling of dry stocks; the sweet smell of wood smoke, all had for the lad a subtle, potent charm.

The hunter would broil a venison steak, or a partridge, on the coals. Then they would light their pipes and smoke while twilight deepened. The oppressive stillness of the early evening hour always brought to the younger man a sensation of awe. At first he attributed this to the fact that he was new to this life; however, as the days passed and the emotion remained, nay, grew stronger, he concluded it was imparted by this close communion with nature. Deep solemn, tranquil, the gloaming hour brought him no ordinary fullness of joy and clearness of perception.

“Do you ever feel this stillness?” he asked Wetzel one evening, as they sat near their flickering fire.

The hunter puffed his pipe, and, like an Indian, seemed to let the question take deep root.

“I’ve scalped redskins every hour in the day, ‘ceptin’ twilight,” he replied.

Joe wondered no longer whether the hunter was too hardened to feel this beautiful tranquillity. That hour which wooed Wetzel from his implacable pursuit was indeed a bewitching one.

There was never a time, when Joe lay alone in camp waiting for Wetzel, that he did not hope the hunter would return with information of Indians. The man never talked about the savages, and if he spoke at all it was to tell of some incident of his day’s travel. One evening he came back with a large black fox that he had killed.

“What beautiful, glossy fur!” said Joe. “I never saw a black fox before.”

“I’ve been layin’ fer this fellar some time,” replied Wetzel, as he began his first evening task, that of combing his hair. “Jest back here in a clump of cottonwoods there’s a holler log full of leaves. Happenin’ to see a blacksnake sneakin’ round, I thought mebbe he was up to somethin’, so I investigated, an’ found a nest full of young rabbits. I killed the snake, an’ arter that took an interest in ‘em. Every time I passed I’d look in at the bunnies, an’ each time I seen signs that some tarnal varmint had been prowlin’ round. One day I missed a bunny, an’ next day another; so on until only one was left, a peart white and gray little scamp. Somethin’ was stealin’ of ‘em, an’ it made me mad. So yistidday an’ to-day I watched, an’ finally I plugged this black thief. Yes, he’s got a glossy coat; but he’s a bad un fer all his fine looks. These black foxes are bigger, stronger an’ cunniner than red ones. In every litter you’ll find a dark one, the black sheep of the family. Because he grows so much faster, an’ steals all the food from the others, the mother jest takes him by the nape of the neck an’ chucks him out in the world to shift fer hisself. An’ it’s a good thing.”

The next day Wetzel told Joe they would go across country to seek new game fields. Accordingly the two set out, and tramped industriously until evening. They came upon a country no less beautiful than the one they had left, though the picturesque cliffs and rugged hills had given way to a rolling land, the luxuriance of which was explained by the abundant springs and streams. Forests and fields were thickly interspersed with bubbling springs, narrow and deep streams, and here and there a small lake with a running outlet.

Wetzel had said little concerning this region, but that little was enough to rouse all Joe’s eagerness, for it was to the effect that they were now in a country much traversed by Indians, especially runners and hunting parties travelling from north to south. The hunter explained that through the center of this tract ran a buffalo road; that the buffalo always picked out the straightest, lowest and dryest path from one range to another, and the Indians followed these first pathfinders.

Joe and Wetzel made camp on the bank of a stream that night, and as the lad watched the hunter build a hidden camp-fire, he peered furtively around half expecting to see dark forms scurrying through the forest. Wetzel was extremely cautious. He stripped pieces of bark from fallen trees and built a little hut over his firewood. He rubbed some powder on a piece of punk, and then with flint and steel dropped two or three sparks on the inflammable substance. Soon he had a blaze. He arranged the covering so that not a ray of light escaped. When the flames had subsided, and the wood had burned down to a glowing bed of red, he threw aside the bark, and broiled the strips of venison they had brought with them.

They rested on a bed of boughs which they had cut and arranged alongside a huge log. For hours Joe lay awake, he could not sleep. He listened to the breeze rustling the leaves, and shivered at the thought of the sighing wind he had once heard moan through the forest. Presently he turned over. The slight noise instantly awakened Wetzel who lifted his dark face while he listened intently. He spoke one word: “Sleep,” and lay back again on the leaves. Joe forced himself to be quiet, relaxed all his muscles and soon slumbered.

On the morrow Wetzel went out to look over the hunting prospects. About noon he returned. Joe was surprised to find some slight change in the hunter. He could not tell what it was.

“I seen Injun sign,” said Wetzel. “There’s no tellin’ how soon we may run agin the sneaks. We can’t hunt here. Like as not there’s Hurons and Delawares skulkin’ round. I think I’d better take you back to the village.”

“It’s all on my account you say that,” said Joe.

“Sure,” Wetzel replied.

“If you were alone what would you do?”

“I calkilate I’d hunt fer some red-skinned game.”

The supreme moment had come. Joe’s heart beat hard. He could not miss this opportunity; he must stay with the hunter. He looked closely at Wetzel.

“I won’t go back to the village,” he said.

The hunter stood in his favorite position, leaning on his long rifle, and made no response.

“I won’t go,” continued Joe, earnestly. “Let me stay with you. If at any time I hamper you, or can not keep the pace, then leave me to shift for myself; but don’t make me go until I weaken. Let me stay.”

Fire and fearlessness spoke in Joe’s every word, and his gray eyes contracted with their peculiar steely flash. Plain it was that, while he might fail to keep pace with Wetzel, he did not fear this dangerous country, and, if it must be, would face it alone.

Wetzel extended his broad hand and gave his comrade’s a viselike squeeze. To allow the lad to remain with him was more than he would have done for any other person in the world. Far better to keep the lad under his protection while it was possible, for Joe was taking that war-trail which had for every hunter, somewhere along its bloody course, a bullet, a knife, or a tomahawk. Wetzel knew that Joe was conscious of this inevitable conclusion, for it showed in his white face, and in the resolve in his big, gray eyes.

So there, in the shade of a towering oak, the Indian-killer admitted the boy into his friendship, and into a life which would no longer be play, but eventful, stirring, hazardous.

“Wal, lad, stay,” he said, with that rare smile which brightened his dark face like a ray of stray sunshine. “We’ll hang round these diggins a few days. First off, we’ll take in the lay of the land. You go down stream a ways an’ scout round some, while I go up, an’ then circle down. Move slow, now, an’ don’t miss nothin’.”

Joe followed the stream a mile or more. He kept close in the shade of willows, and never walked across an open glade without first waiting and watching. He listened to all sounds; but none were unfamiliar. He closely examined the sand along the stream, and the moss and leaves under the trees. When he had been separated from Wetzel several hours, and concluded he would slowly return to camp, he ran across a well-beaten path winding through the forest. This was, perhaps, one of the bridle-trails Wetzel had referred to. He bent over the worn grass with keen scrutiny.

CRACK!

The loud report of a heavily charged rifle rang out. Joe felt the zip of a bullet as it fanned his cheek. With an agile leap he gained the shelter of a tree, from behind which he peeped to see who had shot at him. He was just in time to detect the dark form of an Indian dart behind the foliage an hundred yards down the path. Joe expected to see other Indians, and to hear more shots, but he was mistaken. Evidently the savage was alone, for the tree Joe had taken refuge behind was scarcely large enough to screen his body, which disadvantage the other Indians would have been quick to note.

Joe closely watched the place where his assailant had disappeared, and presently saw a dark hand, then a naked elbow, and finally the ramrod of a rifle. The savage was reloading. Soon a rifle-barrel protruded from behind the tree. With his heart beating like a trip-hammer, and the skin tightening on his face, Joe screened his body as best he might. The tree was small, but it served as a partial protection. Rapidly he revolved in his mind plans to outwit the enemy. The Indian was behind a large oak with a low limb over which he could fire without exposing his own person to danger.

“Bang!” The Indian’s rifle bellowed; the bullet crumbled the bark close to Joe’s face. The lad yelled loudly, staggered to his knees, and then fell into the path, where he lay quiet.

The redskin gave an exultant shout. Seeing that the fallen figure remained quite motionless he stepped forward, drawing his knife as he came. He was a young brave, quick and eager in his movements, and came nimbly up the path to gain his coveted trophy, the paleface’s scalp.

Suddenly Joe sat up, raised his rifle quickly as thought, and fired point-blank at the Indian.

But he missed.

The redskin stopped aghast when he saw the lad thus seemingly come back to life. Then, realizing that Joe’s aim had been futile, he bounded forward, brandishing his knife, and uttering infuriated yells.

Joe rose to his feet with rifle swung high above his head.

When the savage was within twenty feet, so near that his dark face, swollen with fierce passion, could be plainly discerned, a peculiar whistling noise sounded over Joe’s shoulder. It was accompanied, rather than followed, by a clear, ringing rifleshot.

The Indian stopped as if he had encountered a heavy shock from a tree or stone barring his way. Clutching at his breast, he uttered a weird cry, and sank slowly on the grass.

Joe ran forward to bend over the prostrate figure. The Indian, a slender, handsome young brave, had been shot through the breast. He held his hand tightly over the wound, while bright red blood trickled between his fingers, flowed down his side, and stained the grass.

The brave looked steadily up at Joe. Shot as he was, dying as he knew himself to be, there was no yielding in the dark eye — only an unquenchable hatred. Then the eyes glazed; the fingers ceased twitching.

Joe was bending over a dead Indian.

It flashed into his mind, of course, that Wetzel had come up in time to save his life, but he did not dwell on the thought; he shrank from this violent death of a human being. But it was from the aspect of the dead, not from remorse for the deed. His heart beat fast, his fingers trembled, yet he felt only a strange coldness in all his being. The savage had tried to kill him, perhaps, even now, had it not been for the hunter’s unerring aim, would have been gloating over a bloody scalp.

Joe felt, rather than heard, the approach of some one, and he turned to see Wetzel coming down the path.

“He’s a lone Shawnee runner,” said the hunter, gazing down at the dead Indian. “He was tryin’ to win his eagle plumes. I seen you both from the hillside.”

“You did!” exclaimed Joe. Then he laughed. “It was lucky for me. I tried the dodge you taught me, but in my eagerness I missed.”

“Wal, you hadn’t no call fer hurry. You worked the trick clever, but you missed him when there was plenty of time. I had to shoot over your shoulder, or I’d hev plugged him sooner.”

“Where were you?” asked Joe.

“Up there by that bit of sumach!” and Wetzel pointed to an open ridge on a hillside not less than one hundred and fifty yards distant.

Joe wondered which of the two bullets, the death-seeking one fired by the savage, or the life-saving missile from Wetzel’s fatal weapon, had passed nearest to him.

“Come,” said the hunter, after he had scalped the Indian.

“What’s to be done with this savage?” inquired Joe, as Wetzel started up the path.

“Let him lay.”

They returned to camp without further incident. While the hunter busied himself reinforcing their temporary shelter — for the clouds looked threatening — Joe cut up some buffalo meat, and then went down to the brook for a gourd of water. He came hurriedly back to where Wetzel was working, and spoke in a voice which he vainly endeavors to hold steady:

“Come quickly. I have seen something which may mean a good deal.”

He led the way down to the brookside.

“Look!” Joe said, pointing at the water.

Here the steam was about two feet deep, perhaps twenty wide, and had just a noticeable current. Shortly before, it had been as clear as a bright summer sky; it was now tinged with yellow clouds that slowly floated downstream, each one enlarging and becoming fainter as the clear water permeated and stained. Grains of sand glided along with the current, little pieces of bark floated on the surface, and minnows darted to and fro nibbling at these drifting particles.

“Deer wouldn’t roil the water like that. What does it mean?” asked Joe.

“Injuns, an’ not fer away.”

Wetzel returned to the shelter and tore it down. Then he bent the branch of a beech tree low over the place. He pulled down another branch over the remains of the camp-fire. These precautions made the spot less striking. Wetzel knew that an Indian scout never glances casually; his roving eyes survey the forest, perhaps quickly, but thoroughly. An unnatural position of bush or log always leads to an examination.

This done, the hunter grasped Joe’s hand and led him up the knoll. Making his way behind a well-screened tree, which had been uprooted, he selected a position where, hidden themselves, they could see the creek.

Hardly had Wetzel, admonished Joe to lie perfectly still, when from a short distance up the stream came the sound of splashing water; but nothing could be seen above the open glade, as in that direction willows lined the creek in dense thickets. The noise grew more audible.

Suddenly Joe felt a muscular contraction pass over the powerful frame lying close beside him. It was a convulsive thrill such as passes through a tiger when he is about to spring upon his quarry. So subtle and strong was its meaning, so clearly did it convey to the lad what was coming, that he felt it himself; save that in his case it was a cold, chill shudder.

Breathless suspense followed. Then into the open space along the creek glided a tall Indian warrior. He was knee-deep in the water, where he waded with low, cautious steps. His garish, befrilled costume seemed familiar to Joe. He carried a rifle at a low trail, and passed slowly ahead with evident distrust. The lad believed he recognized that head, with its tangled black hair, and when he saw the swarthy, villainous countenance turned full toward him, he exclaimed:

“Girty! by—”

Wetzel’s powerful arm forced him so hard against the log that he could not complete the exclamation; but he could still see. Girty had not heard that stifled cry, for he continued his slow wading, and presently his tall, gaudily decorated form passed out of sight.

Another savage appeared in the open space, and then another. Close between them walked a white man, with hands bound behind him. The prisoner and guards disappeared down stream among the willows.

The splashing continued — grew even louder than before. A warrior came into view, then another, and another. They walked close together. Two more followed. They were wading by the side of a raft made of several logs, upon which were two prostrate figures that closely resembled human beings.

Joe was so intent upon the lithe forms of the Indians that he barely got a glimpse of their floating prize, whatever it might have been. Bringing up the rear was an athletic warrior, whose broad shoulders, sinewy arms, and shaved, polished head Joe remembered well. It was the Shawnee chief, Silvertip.

When he, too, passed out of sight in the curve of willows, Joe found himself trembling. He turned eagerly to Wetzel; but instantly recoiled.

Terrible, indeed, had been the hunter’s transformation. All calmness of facial expression was gone; he was now stern, somber. An intense emotion was visible in his white face; his eyes seemed reduced to two dark shining points, and they emitted so fierce, so piercing a flash, so deadly a light, that Joe could not bear their glittering gaze.

“Three white captives, two of ’em women,” uttered the hunter, as if weighing in his mind the importance of this fact.

“Were those women on the raft?” questioned Joe, and as Wetzel only nodded, he continued, “A white man and two women, six warriors, Silvertip, and that renegade, Jim Girty!”

Wetzel deigned not to answer Joe’s passionate outburst, but maintained silence and his rigid posture. Joe glanced once more at the stern face.

“Considering we’d go after Girty and his redskins if they were alone, we’re pretty likely to go quicker now that they’ve got white women prisoners, eh?” and Joe laughed fiercely between his teeth.

The lad’s heart expanded, while along every nerve tingled an exquisite thrill of excitement. He had yearned for wild, border life. Here he was in it, with the hunter whose name alone was to the savages a symbol for all that was terrible.

Wetzel evidently decided quickly on what was to be done, for in few words he directed Joe to cut up so much of the buffalo meat as they could stow in their pockets. Then, bidding the lad to follow, he turned into the woods, walking rapidly, and stopping now and then for a brief instant. Soon they emerged from the forest into more open country. They faced a wide plain skirted on the right by a long, winding strip of bright green willows which marked the course of the stream. On the edge of this plain Wetzel broke into a run. He kept this pace for a distance of an hundred yards, then stopped to listen intently as he glanced sharply on all sides, after which he was off again.

Half way across this plain Joe’s wind began to fail, and his breathing became labored; but he kept close to the hunter’s heels. Once he looked back to see a great wide expanse of waving grass. They had covered perhaps four miles at a rapid pace, and were nearing the other side of the plain. The lad felt as if his head was about to burst; a sharp pain seized upon his side; a blood-red film obscured his sight. He kept doggedly on, and when utterly exhausted fell to the ground.

When, a few minutes later, having recovered his breath, he got up, they had crossed the plain and were in a grove of beeches. Directly in front of him ran a swift stream, which was divided at the rocky head of what appeared to be a wooded island. There was only a slight ripple and fall of the water, and, after a second glance, it was evident that the point of land was not an island, but a portion of the mainland which divided the stream. The branches took almost opposite courses.

Joe wondered if they had headed off the Indians. Certainly they had run fast enough. He was wet with perspiration. He glanced at Wetzel, who was standing near. The man’s broad breast rose and fell a little faster; that was the only evidence of exertion. The lad had a painful feeling that he could never keep pace with the hunter, if this five-mile run was a sample of the speed he would be forced to maintain.

“They’ve got ahead of us, but which crick did they take?” queried Wetzel, as though debating the question with himself.

“How do you know they’ve passed?”

“We circled,” answered Wetzel, as he shook his head and pointed into the bushes. Joe stepped over and looked into the thicket. He found a quantity of dead leaves, sticks, and litter thrown aside, exposing to light a long, hollowed place on the ground. It was what would be seen after rolling over a log that had lain for a long time. Little furrows in the ground, holes, mounds, and curious winding passages showed where grubs and crickets had made their homes. The frightened insects were now running round wildly.

“What was here? A log?”

“A twenty-foot canoe was hid under thet stuff. The Injuns has taken one of these streams.”

“How can we tell which one?”

“Mebbe we can’t; but we’ll try. Grab up a few of them bugs, go below thet rocky point, an’ crawl close to the bank so you can jest peep over. Be keerful not to show the tip of your head, an’ don’t knock nothin’ off’en the bank into the water. Watch fer trout. Look everywheres, an’ drop in a bug now and then. I’ll do the same fer the other stream. Then we’ll come back here an’ talk over what the fish has to say about the Injuns.”

Joe walked down stream a few paces, and, dropping on his knees, crawled carefully to the edge of the bank. He slightly parted the grass so he could peep through, and found himself directly over a pool with a narrow shoal running out from the opposite bank. The water was so clear he could see the pebbly bottom in all parts, except a dark hole near a bend in the shore close by. He did not see a living thing in the water, not a crawfish, turtle, nor even a frog. He peered round closely, then flipped in one of the bugs he had brought along. A shiny yellow fish flared up from the depths of the deep hole and disappeared with the cricket; but it was a bass or a pike, not a trout. Wetzel had said there were a few trout living near the cool springs of these streams. The lad tried again to coax one to the surface. This time the more fortunate cricket swam and hopped across the stream to safety.

When Joe’s eyes were thoroughly accustomed to the clear water, with its deceiving lights and shades, he saw a fish lying snug under the side of a stone. The lad thought he recognized the snub-nose, the hooked, wolfish jaw, but he could not get sufficient of a view to classify him. He crawled to a more advantageous position farther down stream, and then he peered again through the woods. Yes, sure enough, he had espied a trout. He well knew those spotted silver sides, that broad, square tail. Such a monster! In his admiration for the fellow, and his wish for a hook and line to try conclusions with him, Joe momentarily forgot his object. Remembering, he tossed out a big, fat cricket, which alighted on the water just above the fish. The trout never moved, nor even blinked. The lad tried again, with no better success. The fish would not rise. Thereupon Joe returned to the point where he had left Wetzel.

“I couldn’t see nothin’ over there,” said the hunter, who was waiting. “Did you see any?’

“One, and a big fellow.”

“Did he see you?”

“No.”

“Did he rise to a bug?”

“No, he didn’t; but then maybe he wasn’t hungry” answered Joe, who could not understand what Wetzel was driving at.

“Tell me exactly what he did.”

“That’s just the trouble; he didn’t do anything,” replied Joe, thoughtfully. “He just lay low, stifflike, under a stone. He never batted an eye. But his side-fins quivered like an aspen leaf.”

“Them side-fins tell us the story. Girty, an’ his redskins hev took this branch,” said Wetzel, positively. “The other leads to the Huron towns. Girty’s got a place near the Delaware camp somewheres. I’ve tried to find it a good many times. He’s took more’n one white lass there, an’ nobody ever seen her agin.”

“Fiend! To think of a white woman, maybe a girl like Nell Wells, at the mercy of those red devils!”

“Young fellar, don’t go wrong. I’ll allow Injuns is bad enough; but I never hearn tell of one abusin’ a white woman, as mayhap you mean. Injuns marry white women sometimes; kill an’ scalp ’em often, but that’s all. It’s men of our own color, renegades like this Girty, as do worse’n murder.”

Here was the amazing circumstance of Lewis Wetzel, the acknowledged unsatiable foe of all redmen, speaking a good word for his enemies. Joe was so astonished he did not attempt to answer.

“Here’s where they got in the canoe. One more look, an’ then we’re off,” said Wetzel. He strode up and down the sandy beach; examined the willows, and scrutinized the sand. Suddenly he bent over and picked up an object from the water. His sharp eyes had caught the glint of something white, which, upon being examined, proved to be a small ivory or bone buckle with a piece broken out. He showed it to Joe.

“By heavens! Wetzel, that’s a buckle off Nell Well’s shoe. I’ve seen it too many times to mistake it.”

“I was afeared Girty hed your friends, the sisters, an’ mebbe your brother, too. Jack Zane said the renegade was hangin’ round the village, an’ that couldn’t be fer no good.”

“Come on. Let’s kill the fiend!” cried Joe, white to the lips.

“I calkilate they’re about a mile down stream, makin’ camp fer the night. I know the place. There’s a fine spring, an, look! D’ye see them crows flyin’ round thet big oak with the bleached top? Hear them cawin’? You might think they was chasin’ a hawk, or king-birds were arter ‘em, but thet fuss they’re makin’ is because they see Injuns.”

“Well?” asked Joe, impatiently.

“It’ll be moonlight a while arter midnight. We’ll lay low an’ wait, an’ then—”

The sharp click of his teeth, like the snap of a steel trap, completed the sentence. Joe said no more, but followed the hunter into the woods. Stopping near a fallen tree, Wetzel raked up a bundle of leaves and spread them on the ground. Then he cut a few spreading branches from a beech, and leaned them against a log. Bidding the lad crawl in before he took one last look around and then made his way under the shelter.

It was yet daylight, which seemed a strange time to creep into this little nook; but, Joe thought, it was not to sleep, only to wait, wait, wait for the long hours to pass. He was amazed once more, because, by the time twilight had given place to darkness, Wetzel was asleep. The lad said then to himself that he would never again be surprised at the hunter. He assumed once and for all that Wetzel was capable of anything. Yet how could he lose himself in slumber? Feeling, as he must, over the capture of the girls; eager to draw a bead on the black-hearted renegade; hating Indians with all his soul and strength, and lying there but a few hours before what he knew would be a bloody battle, Wetzel calmly went to sleep. Knowing the hunter to be as bloodthirsty as a tiger, Joe had expected he would rush to a combat with his foes; but, no, this man, with his keen sagacity, knew when to creep upon his enemy; he bided that time, and, while he waited, slept.

Joe could not close his eyes in slumber. Through the interstices in the branches he saw the stars come out one by one, the darkness deepened, and the dim outline of tall trees over the dark hill came out sharply. The moments dragged, each one an hour. He heard a whippoorwill call, lonely and dismal; then an owl hoot monotonously. A stealthy footed animal ran along the log, sniffed at the boughs, and then scurried away over the dry leaves. By and by the dead silence of night fell over all. Still Joe lay there wide awake, listening — his heart on fire. He was about to rescue Nell; to kill that hawk-nosed renegade; to fight Silvertip to the death.

The hours passed, but not Joe’s passionate eagerness. When at last he saw the crescent moon gleam silver-white over the black hilltop he knew the time was nigh, and over him ran thrill on thrill.

Chapter XVI.

WHEN THE WANING moon rose high enough to shed a pale light over forest and field, two dark figures, moving silently from the shade of the trees, crossed the moonlit patches of ground, out to the open plain where low on the grass hung silver mists.

A timber wolf, gray and gaunt, came loping along with lowered nose. A new scent brought the animal to a standstill. His nose went up, his fiery eyes scanned the plain. Two men had invaded his domain, and, with a short, dismal bark, he dashed away.

Like spectres, gliding swiftly with noiseless tread, the two vanished. The long grass had swallowed them.

Deserted once again seemed the plain. It became unutterably lonely. No stir, no sound, no life; nothing but a wide expanse bathed in sad, gray light.

The moon shone steadily; the silver radiance mellowed; the stars paled before this brighter glory.

Slowly the night hours wore away.

On the other side of the plain, near where the adjoining forest loomed darkling, the tall grass parted to disclose a black form. Was it only a deceiving shade cast by a leafy branch — only a shadow? Slowly it sank, and was lost. Once more the gray, unwavering line of silver-crested grass tufts was unbroken.

Only the night breeze, wandering caressingly over the grass, might have told of two dark forms gliding, gliding, gliding so softly, so surely, so surely toward the forest. Only the moon and the pale stars had eyes to see these creeping figures.

Like avengers they moved, on a mission to slay and to save!

On over the dark line where plain merged into forest they crawled. No whispering, no hesitating; but a silent, slow, certain progress showed their purpose. In single file they slipped over the moss, the leader clearing the path. Inch by inch they advanced. Tedious was this slow movement, difficult and painful this journey which must end in lightninglike speed. They rustled no leaf, nor snapped a twig, nor shook a fern, but passed onward slowly, like the approach of Death. The seconds passed as minutes; minutes as hours; an entire hour was spent in advancing twenty feet!

At last the top of the knoll was reached. The Avenger placed his hand on his follower’s shoulder. The strong pressure was meant to remind, to warn, to reassure. Then, like a huge snake, the first glided away.

He who was left behind raised his head to look into the open place called the glade of the Beautiful Spring. An oval space lay before him, exceedingly lovely in the moonlight; a spring, as if a pearl, gemmed the center. An Indian guard stood statuelike against a stone. Other savages lay in a row, their polished heads shining. One slumbering form was bedecked with feathers and frills. Near him lay an Indian blanket, from the border of which peered two faces, gleaming white and sad in the pitying moonlight.

The watcher quivered at the sight of those pale faces; but he must wait while long moments passed. He must wait for the Avenger to creep up, silently kill the guard, and release the prisoners without awakening the savages. If that plan failed, he was to rush into the glade, and in the excitement make off with one of the captives.

He lay there waiting, listening, wrought up to the intensest pitch of fierce passion. Every nerve was alert, every tendon strung, and every muscle strained ready for the leap.

Only the faint rustling of leaves, the low swish of swaying branches, the soft murmur of falling water, and over all the sigh of the night wind, proved to him that this picture was not an evil dream. His gaze sought the quiet figures, lingered hopefully on the captives, menacingly on the sleeping savages, and glowered over the gaudily arrayed form. His glance sought the upright guard, as he stood a dark blot against the gray stone. He saw the Indian’s plume, a single feather waving silver-white. Then it became riveted on the bubbling, refulgent spring. The pool was round, perhaps five feet across, and shone like a burnished shield. It mirrored the moon, the twinkling stars, the spectre trees.

An unaccountable horror suddenly swept over the watching man. His hair stood straight up; a sensation as of cold stole chillingly over him. Whether it was the climax of this long night’s excitement, or anticipation of the bloody struggle soon to come, he knew not. Did this boiling spring, shimmering in the sliver moon-rays, hold in its murky depths a secret? Did these lonesome, shadowing trees, with their sad drooping branches, harbor a mystery? If a future tragedy was to be enacted here in this quiet glade, could the murmuring water or leaves whisper its portent? No; they were only silent, only unintelligible with nature’s mystery.

The waiting man cursed himself for a craven coward; he fought back the benumbing sense; he steeled his heart. Was this his vaunted willingness to share the Avenger’s danger? His strong spirit rose up in arms; once more he was brave and fierce.

He fastened a piercing gaze on the plumed guard. The Indian’s lounging posture against the rock was the same as it had been before, yet now it seemed to have a kind of strained attention. The savage’s head was poised, like that of a listening deer. The wary Indian scented danger.

A faint moan breathed low above the sound of gently splashing water somewhere beyond the glade.

“Woo-o-oo.”

The guard’s figure stiffened, and became rigidly erect; his blanket slowly slid to his feet.

“Ah-oo-o,” sighed the soft breeze in the tree tops.

Louder then, with a deep wail, a moan arose out of the dark gray shadows, swelled thrilling on the still air, and died away mournfully.

“Um-m-mmwoo-o-o-o!”

The sentinel’s form melted into the shade. He was gone like a phantom.

Another Indian rose quickly, and glanced furtively around the glade. He bent over a comrade and shook him. Instantly the second Indian was on his feet. Scarcely had he gained a standing posture when an object, bounding like a dark ball, shot out of the thicket and hurled both warriors to the earth. A moonbeam glinted upon something bright. It flashed again on a swift, sweeping circle. A short, choking yell aroused the other savages. Up they sprang, alarmed, confused.

The shadow-form darted among them. It moved with inconceivable rapidity; it became a monster. Terrible was the convulsive conflict. Dull blows, the click of steel, angry shouts, agonized yells, and thrashing, wrestling sounds mingled together and half drowned by an awful roar like that of a mad bull. The strife ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Warriors lay still on the grass; others writhed in agony. For an instant a fleeting shadow crossed the open lane leading out of the glade; then it vanished.

Three savages had sprung toward their rifles. A blinding flash, a loud report burst from the thicket overhead. The foremost savage sank lifelessly. The others were intercepted by a giant shadow with brandished rifle. The watcher on the knoll had entered the glade. He stood before the stacked rifles and swung his heavy gun. Crash! An Indian went down before that sweep, but rose again. The savages backed away from this threatening figure, and circled around it.

The noise of the other conflict ceased. More savages joined the three who glided to and fro before their desperate foe. They closed in upon him, only to be beaten back. One savage threw a glittering knife, another hurled a stone, a third flung his tomahawk, which struck fire from the swinging rifle.

He held them at bay. While they had no firearms he was master of the situation. With every sweep of his arms he brought the long rifle down and knocked a flint from the firelock of an enemy’s weapon. Soon the Indians’ guns were useless. Slowly then he began to edge away from the stone, toward the opening where he had seen the fleeting form vanish.

His intention was to make a dash for life, for he had heard a noise behind the rock, and remembered the guard. He saw the savages glance behind him, and anticipated danger from that direction, but he must not turn. A second there might be fatal. He backed defiantly along the rock until he gained its outer edge. But too late! The Indians glided before him, now behind him; he was surrounded. He turned around and around, with the ever-circling rifle whirling in the faces of the baffled foe.

Once opposite the lane leading from the glade he changed his tactics, and plunged with fierce impetuosity into the midst of the painted throng. Then began a fearful conflict. The Indians fell before the sweep of his powerful arms; but grappled with him from the ground. He literally plowed his way through the struggling mass, warding off an hundred vicious blows. Savage after savage he flung off, until at last he had a clear path before him. Freedom lay beyond that shiny path. Into it he bounded.

As he left the glade the plumed guard stepped from behind a tree near the entrance of the path, and cast his tomahawk.

A white, glittering flash, it flew after the fleeing runner; its aim was true.

Suddenly the moonlight path darkened in the runner’s sight; he saw a million flashing stars; a terrible pain assailed him; he sank slowly, slowly down; then all was darkness.

Chapter XVII.

JOE AWOKE AS from a fearsome nightmare. Returning consciousness brought a vague idea that he had been dreaming of clashing weapons, of yelling savages, of a conflict in which he had been clutched by sinewy fingers. An acute pain pulsed through his temples; a bloody mist glazed his eyes; a sore pressure cramped his arms and legs. Surely he dreamed this distress, as well as the fight. The red film cleared from his eyes. His wandering gaze showed the stern reality.

The bright sun, making the dewdrops glisten on the leaves, lighted up a tragedy. Near him lay an Indian whose vacant, sightless eyes were fixed in death. Beyond lay four more savages, the peculiar, inert position of whose limbs, the formlessness, as it were, as if they had been thrown from a great height and never moved again, attested that here, too, life had been extinguished. Joe took in only one detail — the cloven skull of the nearest — when he turned away sickened. He remembered it all now. The advance, the rush, the fight — all returned. He saw again Wetzel’s shadowy form darting like a demon into the whirl of conflict; he heard again that hoarse, booming roar with which the Avenger accompanied his blows. Joe’s gaze swept the glade, but found no trace of the hunter.

He saw Silvertip and another Indian bathing a wound on Girty’s head. The renegade groaned and writhed in pain. Near him lay Kate, with white face and closed eyes. She was unconscious, or dead. Jim sat crouched under a tree to which he was tied.

“Joe, are you badly hurt?” asked the latter, in deep solicitude.

“No, I guess not; I don’t know,” answered Joe. “Is poor Kate dead?”

“No, she has fainted.”

“Where’s Nell?”

“Gone,” replied Jim, lowering his voice, and glancing at the Indians. They were too busy trying to bandage Girty’s head to pay any attention to their prisoners. “That whirlwind was Wetzel, wasn’t it?”

“Yes; how’d you know?”

“I was awake last night. I had an oppressive feeling, perhaps a presentiment. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep. I heard that wind blow through the forest, and thought my blood would freeze. The moan is the same as the night wind, the same soft sigh, only louder and somehow pregnant with superhuman power. To speak of it in broad daylight one seems superstitious, but to hear it in the darkness of this lonely forest, it is fearful! I hope I am not a coward; I certainly know I was deathly frightened. No wonder I was scared! Look at these dead Indians, all killed in a moment. I heard the moan; I saw Silvertip disappear, and the other two savages rise. Then something huge dropped from the rock; a bright object seemed to circle round the savages; they uttered one short yell, and sank to rise no more. Somehow at once I suspected that this shadowy form, with its lightninglike movements, its glittering hatchet, was Wetzel. When he plunged into the midst of the other savages I distinctly recognized him, and saw that he had a bundle, possibly his coat, wrapped round his left arm, and his right hand held the glittering tomahawk. I saw him strike that big Indian there, the one lying with split skull. His wonderful daring and quickness seemed to make the savages turn at random. He broke through the circle, swung Nell under his arm, slashed at my bonds as he passed by, and then was gone as he had come. Not until after you were struck, and Silvertip came up to me, was I aware my bonds were cut. Wetzel’s hatchet had severed them; it even cut my side, which was bleeding. I was free to help, to fight, and I did not know it. Fool that I am!”

“I made an awful mess of my part of the rescue,” groaned Joe. “I wonder if the savages know it was Wetzel.”

“Do they? Well, I rather think so. Did you not hear them scream that French name? As far as I am able to judge, only two Indians were killed instantly. The others died during the night. I had to sit here, tied and helpless, listening as they groaned and called the name of their slayer, even in their death-throes. Deathwind! They have named him well.”

“I guess he nearly killed Girty.”

“Evidently, but surely the evil one protects the renegade.”

“Jim Girty’s doomed,” whispered Joe, earnestly. “He’s as good as dead already. I’ve lived with Wetzel, and know him. He told me Girty had murdered a settler, a feeble old man, who lived near Fort Henry with his son. The hunter has sworn to kill the renegade; but, mind you, he did not tell me that. I saw it in his eyes. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him jump out of these bushes at any moment. I’m looking for it. If he knows there are only three left, he’ll be after them like a hound on a trail. Girty must hurry. Where’s he taking you?”

“To the Delaware town.”

“I don’t suppose the chiefs will let any harm befall you; but Kate and I would be better off dead. If we can only delay the march, Wetzel will surely return.”

“Hush! Girty’s up.”

The renegade staggered to an upright position, and leaned on the Shawnee’s arm. Evidently he had not been seriously injured, only stunned. Covered with blood from a swollen, gashed lump on his temple, he certainly presented a savage appearance.

“Where’s the yellow-haired lass?” he demanded, pushing away Silvertip’s friendly arm. He glared around the glade. The Shawnee addressed him briefly, whereupon he raged to and fro under the tree, cursing with foam-flecked lips, and actually howling with baffled rage. His fury was so great that he became suddenly weak, and was compelled to sit down.

“She’s safe, you villainous renegade!” cried Joe.

“Hush, Joe! Do not anger him. It can do no good,” interposed Jim.

“Why not? We couldn’t be worse off,” answered Joe.

“I’ll git her, I’ll git her agin,” panted Girty. “I’ll keep her, an’ she’ll love me.”

The spectacle of this perverted wretch speaking as if he had been cheated out of love was so remarkable, so pitiful, so monstrous, that for a moment Joe was dumbfounded.

“Bah! You white-livered murderer!” Joe hissed. He well knew it was not wise to give way to his passion; but he could not help it. This beast in human guise, whining for love, maddened him. “Any white woman on earth would die a thousand deaths and burn for a million years afterward rather than love you!”

“I’ll see you killed at the stake, beggin’ fer mercy, an’ be feed fer buzzards,” croaked the renegade.

“Then kill me now, or you may slip up on one of your cherished buzzard-feasts,” cried Joe, with glinting eye and taunting voice. “Then go sneaking back to your hole like a hyena, and stay there. Wetzel is on your trail! He missed you last night; but it was because of the girl. He’s after you, Girty; he’ll get you one of these days, and when he does — My God!—”

Nothing could be more revolting than that swarthy, evil face turned pale with fear. Girty’s visage was a ghastly, livid white. So earnest, so intense was Joe’s voice, that it seemed to all as if Wetzel was about to dart into the glade, with his avenging tomahawk uplifted to wreak an awful vengeance on the abductor. The renegade’s white, craven heart contained no such thing as courage. If he ever fought it was like a wolf, backed by numbers. The resemblance ceased here, for even a cornered wolf will show his teeth, and Girty, driven to bay, would have cringed and cowered. Even now at the mention of Wetzel’s enmity he trembled.

“I’ll shet yer wind,” he cried, catching up his tomahawk and making for Joe.

Silvertip intervened, and prevented the assault. He led Girty back to his seat and spoke low, evidently trying to soothe the renegade’s feelings.

“Silvertip, give me a tomahawk, and let me fight him,” implored Joe.

“Paleface brave — like Injun chief. Paleface Shawnee’s prisoner — no speak more,” answered Silvertip, with respect in his voice.

“Oh, where’s Nellie?”

A grief-stricken whisper caught Jim’s ear. He turned to see Kate’s wide, questioning eyes fixed upon him.

“Nell was rescued.”

“Thank God!” murmured the girl.

“Come along,” shouted Girty, in his harsh voice, as, grasping Kate’s arm, he pulled the girl violently to her feet. Then, picking up his rifle, he led her into the forest. Silvertip followed with Joe, while the remaining Indian guarded Jim.

* * *

The great council-lodge of the Delawares rang with savage and fiery eloquence. Wingenund paced slowly before the orators. Wise as he was, he wanted advice before deciding what was to be done with the missionary. The brothers had been taken to the chief, who immediately called a council. The Indians sat in a half circle around the lodge. The prisoners, with hands bound, guarded by two brawny braves, stood in one corner gazing with curiosity and apprehension at this formidable array. Jim knew some of the braves, but the majority of those who spoke bitterly against the palefaces had never frequented the Village of Peace. Nearly all were of the Wolf tribe of Delawares. Jim whispered to Joe, interpreting that part of the speeches bearing upon the disposal to be made of them. Two white men, dressed in Indian garb, held prominent positions before Wingenund. The boys saw a resemblance between one of these men and Jim Girty, and accordingly concluded he was the famous renegade, or so-called white Indian, Simon Girty. The other man was probably Elliott, the Tory, with whom Girty had deserted from Fort Pitt. Jim Girty was not present. Upon nearing the encampment he had taken his captive and disappeared in a ravine.

Shingiss, seldom in favor of drastic measures with prisoners, eloquently urged initiating the brothers into the tribe. Several other chiefs were favorably inclined, though not so positive as Shingiss. Kotoxen was for the death penalty; the implacable Pipe for nothing less than burning at the stake. Not one was for returning the missionary to his Christian Indians. Girty and Elliott, though requested to speak, maintained an ominous silence.

Wingenund strode with thoughtful mien before his council. He had heard all his wise chiefs and his fiery warriors. Supreme was his power. Freedom or death for the captives awaited the wave of his hand. His impassive face gave not the slightest inkling of what to expect. Therefore the prisoners were forced to stand there with throbbing hearts while the chieftain waited the customary dignified interval before addressing the council.

“Wingenund has heard the Delaware wise men and warriors. The white Indian opens not his lips; his silence broods evil for the palefaces. Pipe wants the blood of the white men; the Shawnee chief demands the stake. Wingenund says free the white father who harms no Indian. Wingenund hears no evil in the music of his voice. The white father’s brother should die. Kill the companion of Deathwind!”

A plaintive murmur, remarkable when coming from an assembly of stern-browed chiefs, ran round the circle at the mention of the dread appellation.

“The white father is free,” continued Wingenund. “Let one of my runners conduct him to the Village of Peace.”

A brave entered and touched Jim on the shoulder.

Jim shook his head and pointed to Joe. The runner touched Joe.

“No, no. I am not the missionary,” cried Joe, staring aghast at his brother. “Jim, have you lost your senses?”

Jim sadly shook his head, and turning to Wingenund made known in a broken Indian dialect that his brother was the missionary, and would sacrifice himself, taking this opportunity to practice the Christianity he had taught.

“The white father is brave, but he is known,” broke in Wingenund’s deep voice, while he pointed to the door of the lodge. “Let him go back to his Christian Indians.”

The Indian runner cut Joe’s bonds, and once more attempted to lead him from the lodge. Rage and misery shown in the lad’s face. He pushed the runner aside. He exhausted himself trying to explain, to think of Indian words enough to show he was not the missionary. He even implored Girty to speak for him. When the renegade sat there stolidly silent Joe’s rage burst out.

“Curse you all for a lot of ignorant redskins. I am not a missionary. I am Deathwind’s friend. I killed a Delaware. I was the companion of Le Vent de la Mort!”

Joe’s passionate vehemence, and the truth that spoke from his flashing eyes compelled the respect, if not the absolute belief of the Indians. The savages slowly shook their heads. They beheld the spectacle of two brothers, one a friend, the other an enemy of all Indians, each willing to go to the stake, to suffer an awful agony, for love of the other. Chivalrous deeds always stir an Indian’s heart. It was like a redman to die for his brother. The indifference, the contempt for death, won their admiration.

“Let the white father stand forth,” sternly called Wingenund.

A hundred somber eyes turned on the prisoners. Except that one wore a buckskin coat, the other a linsey one, there was no difference. The strong figures were the same, the white faces alike, the stern resolve in the gray eyes identical — they were twin brothers.

Wingenund once more paced before his silent chiefs. To deal rightly with this situation perplexed him. To kill both palefaces did not suit him. Suddenly he thought of a way to decide.

“Let Wingenund’s daughter come,” he ordered.

A slight, girlish figure entered. It was Whispering Winds. Her beautiful face glowed while she listened to her father.

“Wingenund’s daughter has her mother’s eyes, that were beautiful as a doe’s, keen as a hawk’s, far-seeing as an eagle’s. Let the Delaware maiden show her blood. Let her point out the white father.”

Shyly but unhesitatingly Whispering Winds laid her hand Jim’s arm.

“Missionary, begone!” came the chieftain’s command. “Thank Wingenund’s daughter for your life, not the God of your Christians!”

He waved his hand to the runner. The brave grasped Jim’s arm.

“Good-by, Joe,” brokenly said Jim.

“Old fellow, good-by,” came the answer.

They took one last, long look into each others’ eyes. Jim’s glance betrayed his fear — he would never see his brother again. The light in Joe’s eyes was the old steely flash, the indomitable spirit — while there was life there was hope.

“Let the Shawnee chief paint his prisoner black,” commanded Wingenund.

When the missionary left the lodge with the runner, Whispering Winds had smiled, for she had saved him whom she loved to hear speak; but the dread command that followed paled her cheek. Black paint meant hideous death. She saw this man so like the white father. Her piteous gaze tried to turn from that white face; but the cold, steely eyes fascinated her.

She had saved one only to be the other’s doom!

She had always been drawn toward white men. Many prisoners had she rescued. She had even befriended her nation’s bitter foe, Deathwind. She had listened to the young missionary with rapture; she had been his savior. And now when she looked into the eyes of this young giant, whose fate had rested on her all unwitting words, she resolved to save him.

She had been a shy, shrinking creature, fearing to lift her eyes to a paleface’s, but now they were raised clear and steadfast.

As she stepped toward the captive and took his hand, her whole person radiated with conscious pride in her power. It was the knowledge that she could save. When she kissed his hand, and knelt before him, she expressed a tender humility.

She had claimed questionable right of an Indian maiden; she asked what no Indian dared refuse a chief’s daughter; she took the paleface for her husband.

Her action was followed by an impressive silence. She remained kneeling. Wingenund resumed his slow march to and fro. Silvertip retired to his corner with gloomy face. The others bowed their heads as if the maiden’s decree was irrevocable.

Once more the chieftain’s sonorous command rang out. An old Indian, wrinkled and worn, weird of aspect, fanciful of attire, entered the lodge and waved his wampum wand. He mumbled strange words, and departed chanting a long song.

Whispering Winds arose, a soft, radiant smile playing over her face, and, still holding Joe’s hand, she led him out of the lodge, through long rows of silent Indians, down a land bordered by teepees, he following like one in a dream.

He expected to awaken at any minute to see the stars shining through the leaves. Yet he felt the warm, soft pressure of a little hand. Surely this slender, graceful figure was real.

She bade him enter a lodge of imposing proportions. Still silent, in amazement and gratitude, he obeyed.

The maiden turned to Joe. Though traces of pride still lingered, all her fire had vanished. Her bosom rose with each quick-panting breath; her lips quivered, she trembled like a trapped doe.

But at last the fluttering lashes rose. Joe saw two velvety eyes dark with timid fear, yet veiling in their lustrous depths an unuttered hope and love.

“Whispering Winds — save — paleface,” she said, in a voice low and tremulous. “Fear — father. Fear — tell — Wingenund — she — Christian.”

* * *

Indian summer, that enchanted time, unfolded its golden, dreamy haze over the Delaware village. The forests blazed with autumn fire, the meadows boomed in rich luxuriance. All day low down in the valleys hung a purple smoke which changed, as the cool evening shades crept out of the woodland, into a cloud of white mist. All day the asters along the brooks lifted golden-brown faces to the sun as if to catch the warning warmth of his smile. All day the plains and forests lay in melancholy repose. The sad swish of the west wind over the tall grass told that he was slowly dying away before his enemy, the north wind. The sound of dropping nuts was heard under the motionless trees.

For Joe the days were days of enchantment. His wild heart had found its mate. A willing captive he was now. All his fancy for other women, all his memories faded into love for his Indian bride.

Whispering Winds charmed the eye, mind, and heart. Every day her beauty seemed renewed. She was as apt to learn as she was quick to turn her black-crowned head, but her supreme beauty was her loving, innocent soul. Untainted as the clearest spring, it mirrored the purity and simplicity of her life. Indian she might be, one of a race whose morals and manners were alien to the man she loved, yet she would have added honor to the proudest name.

When Whispering Winds raised her dark eyes they showed radiant as a lone star; when she spoke low her voice made music.

“Beloved,” she whispered one day to him, “teach the Indian maiden more love for you, and truth, and God. Whispering Winds yearns to go to the Christians, but she fears her stern father. Wingenund would burn the Village of Peace. The Indian tribes tremble before the thunder of his wrath. Be patient, my chief. Time changes the leaves, so it will the anger of the warriors. Whispering Winds will set you free, and be free herself to go far with you toward the rising sun, where dwell your people. She will love, and be constant, as the northern star. Her love will be an eternal spring where blossoms bloom ever anew, and fresh, and sweet. She will love your people, and raise Christian children, and sit ever in the door of your home praying for the west wind to blow. Or, if my chief wills, we shall live the Indian life, free as two eagles on their lonely crag.”

Although Joe gave himself up completely to his love for his bride, he did not forget that Kate was in the power of the renegade, and that he must rescue her. Knowing Girty had the unfortunate girls somewhere near the Delaware encampment, he resolved to find the place. Plans of all kinds he resolved in his mind. The best one he believed lay through Whispering Winds. First to find the whereabouts of Girty; kill him if possible, or at least free Kate, and then get away with her and his Indian bride. Sanguine as he invariably was, he could not but realize the peril of this undertaking. If Whispering Winds betrayed her people, it meant death to her as well as to him. He would far rather spend the remaining days of his life in the Indian village, than doom the maiden whose love had saved him. Yet he thought he might succeed in getting away with her, and planned to that end. His natural spirit, daring, reckless, had gained while he was associated with Wetzel.

Meanwhile he mingled freely with the Indians, and here, as elsewhere, his winning personality, combined with his athletic prowess, soon made him well liked. He was even on friendly terms with Pipe. The swarthy war chief liked Joe because, despite the animosity he had aroused in some former lovers of Whispering Winds, he actually played jokes on them. In fact, Joe’s pranks raised many a storm; but the young braves who had been suitors for Wingenund’s lovely daughter, feared the muscular paleface, and the tribe’s ridicule more; so he continued his trickery unmolested. Joe’s idea was to lead the savages to believe he was thoroughly happy in his new life, and so he was, but it suited him better to be free. He succeeded in misleading the savages. At first he was closely watched, the the vigilance relaxed, and finally ceased.

This last circumstance was owing, no doubt, to a ferment of excitement that had suddenly possessed the Delawares. Council after council was held in the big lodge. The encampment was visited by runner after runner. Some important crisis was pending.

Joe could not learn what it all meant, and the fact that Whispering Winds suddenly lost her gladsome spirit and became sad caused him further anxiety. When he asked her the reason for her unhappiness, she was silent. Moreover, he was surprised to learn, when he questioned her upon the subject of their fleeing together, that she was eager to go immediately. While all this mystery puzzled Joe, it did not make any difference to him or in his plans. It rather favored the latter. He understood that the presence of Simon Girty and Elliott, with several other renegades unknown to him, was significant of unrest among the Indians. These presagers of evil were accustomed to go from village to village, exciting the savages to acts of war. Peace meant the downfall and death of these men. They were busy all day and far into the night. Often Joe heard Girty’s hoarse voice lifted in the council lodge. Pipe thundered incessantly for war. But Joe could not learn against whom. Elliott’s suave, oily oratory exhorted the Indians to vengeance. But Joe could not guess upon whom. He was, however, destined to learn.

The third day of the councils a horseman stopped before Whispering Winds’ lodge, and called out. Stepping to the door, Joe saw a white man, whose dark, keen, handsome face seemed familiar. Yet Joe knew he had never seen this stalwart man.

“A word with you,” said the stranger. His tone was curt, authoritative, as that of a man used to power.

“As many as you like. Who are you?”

“I am Isaac Zane. Are you Wetzel’s companion, or the renegade Deering?”

“I am not a renegade any more than you are. I was rescued by the Indian girl, who took me as her husband,” said Joe coldly. He was surprised, and did not know what to make of Zane’s manner.

“Good! I’m glad to meet you,” instantly replied Zane, his tone and expression changing. He extended his hand to Joe. “I wanted to be sure. I never saw the renegade Deering. He is here now. I am on my way to the Wyandot town. I have been to Fort Henry, where my brother told me of you and the missionaries. When I arrived here I heard your story from Simon Girty. If you can, you must get away from here. If I dared I’d take you to the Huron village, but it’s impossible. Go, while you have a chance.”

“Zane, I thank you. I’ve suspected something was wrong. What is it?”

“Couldn’t be worse,” whispered Zane, glancing round to see if they were overheard. “Girty and Elliott, backed by this Deering, are growing jealous of the influence of Christianity on the Indians. They are plotting against the Village of Peace. Tarhe, the Huron chief, has been approached, and asked to join in a concerted movement against religion. Seemingly it is not so much the missionaries as the converted Indians, that the renegades are fuming over. They know if the Christian savages are killed, the strength of the missionaries’ hold will be forever broken. Pipe is wild for blood. These renegades are slowly poisoning the minds of the few chiefs who are favorably disposed. The outlook is bad! bad!”

“What can I do?”

“Cut out for yourself. Get away, if you can, with a gun. Take the creek below, follow the current down to the Ohio, and then make east for Fort Henry.

“But I want to rescue the white girl Jim Girty has concealed here somewhere.”

“Impossible! Don’t attempt it unless you want to throw your life away. Buzzard Jim, as we call Girty, is a butcher; he has probably murdered the girl.”

“I won’t leave without trying. And there’s my wife, the Indian girl who saved me. Zane, she’s a Christian. She wants to go with me. I can’t leave her.”

“I am warning you, that’s all. If I were you I’d never leave without a try to find the white girl, and I’d never forsake my Indian bride. I’ve been through the same thing. You must be a good woodsman, or Wetzel wouldn’t have let you stay with him. Pick out a favorable time and make the attempt. I suggest you make your Indian girl show you where Girty is. She knows, but is afraid to tell you, for she fears Girty. Get your dog and horse from the Shawnee. That’s a fine horse. He can carry you both to safety. Take him away from Silvertip.”

“How?”

“Go right up and demand your horse and dog. Most of these Delawares are honest, for all their blood-shedding and cruelty. With them might is right. The Delawares won’t try to get your horse for you; but they’ll stick to you when you assert your rights. They don’t like the Shawnee, anyhow. If Silvertip refuses to give you the horse, grab him before he can draw a weapon, and beat him good. You’re big enough to do it. The Delawares will be tickled to see you pound him. He’s thick with Girty; that’s why he lays round here. Take my word, it’s the best way. Do it openly, and no one will interfere.”

“By Heavens, Zane, I’ll give him a drubbing. I owe him one, and am itching to get hold of him.”

“I must go now. I shall send a Wyandot runner to your brother at the village. They shall be warned. Good-by. Good luck. May we meet again.”

Joe watched Zane ride swiftly down the land and disappear in the shrubbery. Whispering Winds came to the door of the lodge. She looked anxiously at him. He went within, drawing her along with him, and quickly informed her that he had learned the cause of the council, that he had resolved to get away, and she must find out Girty’s hiding place. Whispering Winds threw herself into his arms, declaring with an energy and passion unusual to her, that she would risk anything for him. She informed Joe that she knew the direction from which Girty always returned to the village. No doubt she could find his retreat. With a cunning that showed her Indian nature, she suggested a plan which Joe at once saw was excellent. After Joe got his horse, she would ride around the village, then off into the woods, where she could leave the horse and return to say he had run away from her. As was their custom during afternoons, they would walk leisurely along the brook, and, trusting to the excitement created by the councils, get away unobserved. Find the horse, if possible rescue the prisoner, and then travel east with all speed.

Joe left the lodge at once to begin the working out of the plan. Luck favored him at the outset, for he met Silvertip before the council lodge. The Shawnee was leading Lance, and the dog followed at his heels. The spirit of Mose had been broken. Poor dog, Joe thought, he had been beaten until he was afraid to wag his tail at his old master. Joe’s resentment blazed into fury, but he kept cool outwardly.

Right before a crowd of Indians waiting for the council to begin, Joe planted himself in front of the Shawnee, barring his way.

“Silvertip has the paleface’s horse and dog,” said Joe, in a loud voice.

The chief stared haughtily while the other Indians sauntered nearer. They all knew how the Shawnee had got the animals, and now awaited the outcome of the white man’s challenge.

“Paleface — heap — liar,” growled the Indian. His dark eyes glowed craftily, while his hand dropped, apparently in careless habit, to the haft of his tomahawk.

Joe swung his long arm; his big fist caught the Shawnee on the jaw, sending him to the ground. Uttering a frightful yell, Silvertip drew his weapon and attempted to rise, but the moment’s delay in seizing the hatchet, was fatal to his design. Joe was upon him with tigerlike suddenness. One kick sent the tomahawk spinning, another landed the Shawnee again on the ground. Blind with rage, Silvertip leaped up, and without a weapon rushed at his antagonist; but the Indian was not a boxer, and he failed to get his hands on Joe. Shifty and elusive, the lad dodged around the struggling savage. One, two, three hard blows staggered Silvertip, and a fourth, delivered with the force of Joe’s powerful arm, caught the Indian when he was off his balance, and felled him, battered and bloody, on the grass. The surrounding Indians looked down at the vanquished Shawnee, expressing their approval in characteristic grunts.

With Lance prancing proudly, and Mose leaping lovingly beside him, Joe walked back to his lodge. Whispering Winds sprang to meet him with joyful face. She had feared the outcome of trouble with the Shawnee, but no queen ever bestowed upon returning victorious lord a loftier look of pride, a sweeter glance of love, than the Indian maiden bent upon her lover.

Whispering Winds informed Joe that an important council was to be held that afternoon. It would be wise for them to make the attempt to get away immediately after the convening of the chiefs. Accordingly she got upon Lance and rode him up and down the village lane, much to the pleasure of the watching Indians. She scattered the idle crowds on the grass plots, she dashed through the side streets, and let every one in the encampment see her clinging to the black stallion. Then she rode him out along the creek. Accustomed to her imperious will, the Indians thought nothing unusual. When she returned an hour later, with flying hair and disheveled costume, no one paid particular attention to her.

That afternoon Joe and his bride were the favored of fortune. With Mose running before them, they got clear of the encampment and into the woods. Once in the forest Whispering Winds rapidly led the way east. When they climbed to the top of a rocky ridge she pointed down into a thicket before her, saying that somewhere in this dense hollow was Girty’s hut. Joe hesitated about taking Mose. He wanted the dog, but in case he had to run it was necessary Whispering Winds should find his trail, and for this he left the dog with her.

He started down the ridge, and had not gone a hundred paces when over some gray boulders he saw the thatched roof of a hut. So wild and secluded was the spot, that he would never have discovered the cabin from any other point than this, which he had been so fortunate as to find.

His study and practice under Wetzel now stood him in good stead. He picked out the best path over the rough stones and through the brambles, always keeping under cover. He stepped as carefully as if the hunter was behind him. Soon he reached level ground. A dense laurel thicket hid the cabin, but he knew the direction in which it lay. Throwing himself flat on the ground, he wormed his way through the thicket, carefully, yet swiftly, because he knew there was no time to lose. Finally the rear of the cabin stood in front of him.

It was made of logs, rudely hewn, and as rudely thrown together. In several places clay had fallen from chinks between the timbers, leaving small holes. Like a snake Joe slipped close to the hut. Raising his head he looked through one of the cracks.

Instantly he shrank back into the grass, shivering with horror. He almost choked in his attempt to prevent an outcry.

Chapter XVIII.

THE SIGHT WHICH Joe had seen horrified him, for several moments, into helpless inaction. He lay breathing heavily, impotent, in an awful rage. As he remained there stunned by the shock, he gazed up through the open space in the leaves, trying to still his fury, to realize the situation, to make no hasty move. The soft blue of the sky, the fleecy clouds drifting eastward, the fluttering leaves and the twittering birds — all assured him he was wide awake. He had found Girty’s den where so many white women had been hidden, to see friends and home no more. He had seen the renegade sleeping, calmly sleeping like any other man. How could the wretch sleep! He had seen Kate. It had been the sight of her that had paralyzed him. To make a certainty of his fears, he again raised himself to peep into the hole. As he did so a faint cry came from within.

Girty lay on a buffalo robe near a barred door. Beyond him sat Kate, huddled in one corner of the cabin. A long buckskin thong was knotted round her waist, and tied to a log. Her hair was matted and tangled, and on her face and arms were many discolored bruises. Worse still, in her plaintive moaning, in the meaningless movement of her head, in her vacant expression, was proof that her mind had gone. She was mad. Even as an agonizing pity came over Joe, to be followed by the surging fire of rage, blazing up in his breast, he could not but thank God that she was mad! It was merciful that Kate was no longer conscious of her suffering.

Like leaves in a storm wavered Joe’s hands as he clenched them until the nails brought blood. “Be calm, be cool,” whispered his monitor, Wetzel, ever with him in spirit. But God! Could he be cool? Bounding with lion-spring he hurled his heavy frame against the door.

Crash! The door was burst from its fastenings.

Girty leaped up with startled yell, drawing his knife as he rose. It had not time to descend before Joe’s second spring, more fierce even than the other, carried him directly on top of the renegade. As the two went down Joe caught the villain’s wrist with a grip that literally cracked the bones. The knife fell and rolled away from the struggling men. For an instant they tumbled about on the floor, clasped in a crushing embrace. The renegade was strong, supple, slippery as an eel. Twice he wriggled from his foe. Gnashing his teeth, he fought like a hyena. He was fighting for life — life, which is never so dear as to a coward and a murderer. Doom glared from Joe’s big eyes, and scream after scream issued from the renegade’s white lips.

Terrible was this struggle, but brief. Joe seemingly had the strength of ten men. Twice he pulled Girty down as a wolf drags a deer. He dashed him against the wall, throwing him nearing and nearer the knife. Once within reach of the blade Joe struck the renegade a severe blow on the temple and the villain’s wrestling became weaker. Planting his heavy knee on Girty’s breast, Joe reached for the knife, and swung it high. Exultantly he cried, mad with lust for the brute’s blood.

But the slight delay saved Girty’s life.

The knife was knocked from Joe’s hand and he leaped erect to find himself confronted by Silvertip. The chief held a tomahawk with which he had struck the weapon from the young man’s grasp, and, to judge from his burning eyes and malignant smile, he meant to brain the now defenseless paleface.

In a single fleeting instant Joe saw that Girty was helpless for the moment, that Silvertip was confident of his revenge, and that the situation called for Wetzel’s characteristic advice, “act like lightnin’.”

Swifter than the thought was the leap he made past Silvertip. It carried him to a wooden bar which lay on the floor. Escape was easy, for the door was before him and the Shawnee behind, but Joe did not flee! He seized the bar and rushed at the Indian. Then began a duel in which the savage’s quickness and cunning matched the white man’s strength and fury. Silvertip dodged the vicious swings Joe aimed at him; he parried many blows, any one of which would have crushed his skull. Nimble as a cat, he avoided every rush, while his dark eyes watched for an opening. He fought wholly on the defensive, craftily reserving his strength until his opponent should tire.

At last, catching the bar on his hatchet, he broke the force of the blow, and then, with agile movement, dropped to the ground and grappled Joe’s legs. Long before this he had drawn his knife, and now he used it, plunging the blade into the young man’s side.

Cunning and successful as was the savage’s ruse, it failed signally, for to get hold of the Shawnee was all Joe wanted. Feeling the sharp pain as they fell together, he reached his hand behind him and caught Silvertip’s wrist. Exerting all his power, he wrenched the Indian’s arm so that it was not only dislocated, but the bones cracked.

Silvertip saw his fatal mistake, but he uttered no sound. Crippled, though he was, he yet made a supreme effort, but it was as if he had been in the hands of a giant. The lad handled him with remorseless and resistless fury. Suddenly he grasped the knife, which Silvertip had been unable to hold with his crippled hand, and thrust it deeply into the Indian’s side.

All Silvertip’s muscles relaxed as if a strong tension had been removed. Slowly his legs straightened, his arms dropped, and from his side gushed a dark flood. A shadow crept over his face, not dark nor white, but just a shadow. His eyes lost their hate; they no longer saw the foe, they looked beyond with gloomy question, and then were fixed cold in death. Silvertip died as he had lived — a chief.

Joe glared round for Girty. He was gone, having slipped away during the fight. The lad turned to release the poor prisoner, when he started back with a cry of fear. Kate lay bathed in a pool of blood — dead. The renegade, fearing she might be rescued, had murdered her, and then fled from the cabin.

Almost blinded by horror, and staggering with weakness, Joe turned to leave the cabin. Realizing that he was seriously, perhaps dangerously, wounded he wisely thought he must not leave the place without weapons. He had marked the pegs where the renegade’s rifle hung, and had been careful to keep between that and his enemies. He took down the gun and horns, which were attached to it, and, with one last shuddering glance at poor Kate, left the place.

He was conscious of a queer lightness in his head, but he suffered no pain. His garments were dripping with blood. He did not know how much of it was his, or the Indian’s. Instinct rather than sight was his guide. He grew weaker and weaker; his head began to whirl, yet he kept on, knowing that life and freedom were his if he found Whispering Winds. He gained the top of the ridge; his eyes were blurred, his strength gone. He called aloud, and then plunged forward on his face. He heard dimly, as though the sound were afar off, the whine of a dog. He felt something soft and wet on his face. Then consciousness left him.

When he regained his senses he was lying on a bed of ferns under a projecting rock. He heard the gurgle of running water mingling with the song of birds. Near him lay Mose, and beyond rose a wall of green thicket. Neither Whispering Winds nor his horse was visible.

He felt a dreamy lassitude. He was tired, but had no pain. Finding he could move without difficulty, he concluded his weakness was more from loss of blood than a dangerous wound. He put his hand on the place where he had been stabbed, and felt a soft, warm compress such as might have been made by a bunch of wet leaves. Some one had unlaced his hunting-shirt — for he saw the strings were not as he usually tied them — and had dressed the wound. Joe decided, after some deliberation, that Whispering Winds had found him, made him as comfortable as possible, and, leaving Mose on guard, had gone out to hunt for food, or perhaps back to the Indian encampment. The rifle and horns he had taken from Girty’s hut, together with Silvertip’s knife, lay beside him.

As Joe lay there hoping for Whispering Winds’ return, his reflections were not pleasant. Fortunate, indeed, he was to be alive; but he had no hope he could continue to be favored by fortune. Odds were now against his escape. Girty would have the Delawares on his trail like a pack of hungry wolves. He could not understand the absence of Whispering Winds. She would have died sooner than desert him. Girty had, perhaps, captured her, and was now scouring the woods for him.

“I’ll get him next time, or he’ll get me,” muttered Joe, in bitter wrath. He could never forgive himself for his failure to kill the renegade.

The recollection of how nearly he had forever ended Girty’s brutal career brought before Joe’s mind the scene of the fight. He saw again Buzzard Jim’s face, revolting, unlike anything human. There stretched Silvertip’s dark figure, lying still and stark, and there was Kate’s white form in its winding, crimson wreath of blood. Hauntingly her face returned, sad, stern in its cold rigidity.

“Poor girl, better for her to be dead,” he murmured. “Not long will she be unavenged!”

His thoughts drifted to the future. He had no fear of starvation, for Mose could catch a rabbit or woodchuck at any time. When the strips of meat he had hidden in his coat were gone, he could start a fire and roast more. What concerned him most was pursuit. His trail from the cabin had been a bloody one, which would render it easily followed. He dared not risk exertion until he had given his wound time to heal. Then, if he did escape from Girty and the Delawares, his future was not bright. His experiences of the last few days had not only sobered, but brought home to him this real border life. With all his fire and daring he new he was no fool. He had eagerly embraced a career which, at the present stage of his training, was beyond his scope — not that he did not know how to act in sudden crises, but because he had not had the necessary practice to quickly and surely use his knowledge.

Bitter, indeed, was his self-scorn when he recalled that of the several critical positions he had been in since his acquaintance with Wetzel, he had failed in all but one. The exception was the killing of Silvertip. Here his fury had made him fight as Wetzel fought with only his every day incentive. He realized that the border was no place for any save the boldest and most experienced hunters — men who had become inured to hardship, callous as to death, keen as Indians. Fear was not in Joe nor lack of confidence; but he had good sense, and realized he would have done a wiser thing had he stayed at Fort Henry. Colonel Zane was right. The Indians were tigers, the renegades vultures, the vast untrammeled forests and plains their covert. Ten years of war had rendered this wilderness a place where those few white men who had survived were hardened to the spilling of blood, stern even in those few quiet hours which peril allowed them, strong in their sacrifice of all for future generations.

A low growl from Mose broke into Joe’s reflections. The dog had raised his nose from his paws and sniffed suspiciously at the air. The lad heard a slight rustling outside, and in another moment was overjoyed at seeing Whispering Winds. She came swiftly, with a lithe, graceful motion, and flying to him like a rush of wind, knelt beside him. She kissed him and murmured words of endearment.

“Winds, where have you been?” he asked her, in the mixed English and Indian dialect in which they conversed.

She told him the dog had led her to him two evenings before. He was insensible. She had bathed and bandaged his wound, and remained with him all that night. The next day, finding he was ill and delirious, she decided to risk returning to the village. If any questions arose, she could say he had left her. Then she would find a way to get back to him, bringing healing herbs for his wound and a soothing drink. As it turned out Girty had returned to the camp. He was battered and bruised, and in a white heat of passion. Going at once to Wingenund, the renegade openly accused Whispering Winds of aiding her paleface lover to escape. Wingenund called his daughter before him, and questioned her. She confessed all to her father.

“Why is the daughter of Wingenund a traitor to her race?” demanded the chief.

“Whispering Winds is a Christian.”

Wingenund received this intelligence as a blow. He dismissed Girty and sent his braves from his lodge, facing his daughter alone. Gloomy and stern, he paced before her.

“Wingenund’s blood might change, but would never betray. Wingenund is the Delaware chief,” he said. “Go. Darken no more the door of Wingenund’s wigwam. Let the flower of the Delawares fade in alien pastures. Go. Whispering Winds is free!”

Tears shone brightly in the Indian girl’s eyes while she told Joe her story. She loved her father, and she would see him no more.

“Winds is free,” she whispered. “When strength returns to her master she can follow him to the white villages. Winds will live her life for him.”

“Then we have no one to fear?” asked Joe.

“No redman, now that the Shawnee chief is dead.”

“Will Girty follow us? He is a coward; he will fear to come alone.”

“The white savage is a snake in the grass.”

Two long days followed, during which the lovers lay quietly in hiding. On the morning of the third day Joe felt that he might risk the start for the Village of Peace. Whispering Winds led the horse below a stone upon which the invalid stood, thus enabling him to mount. Then she got on behind him.

The sun was just gilding the horizon when they rode out of the woods into a wide plain. No living thing could be seen. Along the edge of the forest the ground was level, and the horse traveled easily. Several times during the morning Joe dismounted beside a pile of stones or a fallen tree. The miles were traversed without serious inconvenience to the invalid, except that he grew tired. Toward the middle of the afternoon, when they had ridden perhaps twenty-five miles, they crossed a swift, narrow brook. The water was a beautiful clear brown. Joe made note of this, as it was an unusual circumstance. Nearly all the streams, when not flooded, were green in color. He remembered that during his wanderings with Wetzel they had found one stream of this brown, copper-colored water. The lad knew he must take a roundabout way to the village so that he might avoid Indian runners or scouts, and he hoped this stream would prove to be the one he had once camped upon.

As they were riding toward a gentle swell or knoll covered with trees and shrubbery, Whispering Winds felt something warm on her hand, and, looking, was horrified to find it covered with blood. Joe’s wound had opened. She told him they must dismount here, and remain until he was stronger. The invalid himself thought this conclusion was wise. They would be practically safe now, since they must be out of the Indian path, and many miles from the encampment. Accordingly he got off the horse, and sat down on a log, while Whispering Winds searched for a suitable place in which to erect a temporary shelter.

Joe’s wandering gaze was arrested by a tree with a huge knotty formation near the ground. It was like many trees, but this peculiarity was not what struck Joe. He had seen it before. He never forgot anything in the woods that once attracted his attention. He looked around on all sides. Just behind him was an opening in the clump of trees. Within this was a perpendicular stone covered with moss and lichens; above it a beech tree spread long, graceful branches. He thrilled with the remembrance these familiar marks brought. This was Beautiful Spring, the place where Wetzel rescued Nell, where he had killed the Indians in that night attack he would never forget.

Chapter XIX.

ONE EVENING A week or more after the disappearance of Jim and the girls, George Young and David Edwards, the missionaries, sat on the cabin steps, gazing disconsolately upon the forest scenery. Hard as had been the ten years of their labor among the Indians, nothing had shaken them as the loss of their young friends.

“Dave, I tell you your theory about seeing them again is absurd,” asserted George. “I’ll never forget that wretch, Girty, as he spoke to Nell. Why, she just wilted like a flower blasted by fire. I can’t understand why he let me go, and kept Jim, unless the Shawnee had something to do with it. I never wished until now that I was a hunter. I’d go after Girty. You’ve heard as well as I of his many atrocities. I’d rather have seen Kate and Nell dead than have them fall into his power. I’d rather have killed them myself!”

Young had aged perceptibly in these last few days. The blue veins showed at his temples; his face had become thinner and paler, his eyes had a look of pain. The former expression of patience, which had sat so well on him, was gone.

“George, I can’t account for my fancies or feelings, else, perhaps, I’d be easier in mind,” answered Dave. His face, too, showed the ravages of grief. “I’ve had queer thoughts lately, and dreams such as I never had before. Perhaps it’s this trouble which has made me so nervous. I don’t seem able to pull myself together. I can neither preach nor work.”

“Neither can I! This trouble has hit you as hard as it has me. But, Dave, we’ve still our duty. To endure, to endure — that is our life. Because a beam of sunshine brightened, for a brief time, the gray of our lives, and then faded away, we must not shirk nor grow sour and discontented.”

“But how cruel is this border life!”

“Nature itself is brutal.”

“Yes, I know, and we have elected to spend our lives here in the midst of this ceaseless strife, to fare poorly, to have no pleasure, never to feel the comfort of a woman’s smiles, nor the joy of a child’s caress, all because out in the woods are ten or twenty or a hundred savages we may convert.”

“That is why, and it is enough. It is hard to give up the women you love to a black-souled renegade, but that is not for my thought. What kills me is the horror for her — for her.”

“I, too, suffer with that thought; more than that, I am morbid and depressed. I feel as if some calamity awaited us here. I have never been superstitious, nor have I had presentiments, but of late there are strange fears in my mind.”

At this juncture Mr. Wells and Heckewelder came out of the adjoining cabin.

“I had word from a trustworthy runner to-day. Girty and his captives have not been seen in the Delaware towns,” said Heckewelder.

“It is most unlikely that he will take them to the towns,” replied Edwards. “What do you make of his capturing Jim?”

“For Pipe, perhaps. The Delaware Wolf is snapping his teeth. Pipe is particularly opposed to Christianity, and — what’s that?”

A low whistle from the bushes near the creek bank attracted the attention of all. The younger men got up to investigate, but Heckewelder detained them.

“Wait,” he added. “There is no telling what that signal may mean.”

They waited with breathless interest. Presently the whistle was repeated, and an instant later the tall figure of a man stepped from behind a thicket. He was a white man, but not recognizable at that distance, even if a friend. The stranger waved his hand as if asking them to be cautious, and come to him.

They went toward the thicket, and when within a few paces of the man Mr. Wells exclaimed:

“It’s the man who guided my party to the village. It is Wetzel!”

The other missionaries had never seen the hunter though, of course, they were familiar with his name, and looked at him with great curiosity. The hunter’s buckskin garments were wet, torn, and covered with burrs. Dark spots, evidently blood stains, showed on his hunting-shirt.

“Wetzel?” interrogated Heckewelder.

The hunter nodded, and took a step behind the bush. Bending over he lifted something from the ground. It was a girl. It was Nell! She was very white — but alive. A faint, glad smile lighted up her features.

Not a word was spoken. With an expression of tender compassion Mr. Wells received her into his arms. The four missionaries turned fearful, questioning eyes upon the hunter, but they could not speak.

“She’s well, an’ unharmed,” said Wetzel, reading their thoughts, “only worn out. I’ve carried her these ten miles.”

“God bless you, Wetzel!” exclaimed the old missionary. “Nellie, Nellie, can you speak?”

“Uncle dear — I’m — all right,” came the faint answer.

“Kate? What — of her?” whispered George Young with lips as dry as corn husks.

“I did my best,” said the hunter with a simple dignity. Nothing but the agonized appeal in the young man’s eyes could have made Wetzel speak of his achievement.

“Tell us,” broke in Heckewelder, seeing that fear had stricken George dumb.

“We trailed ’em an’ got away with the golden-haired lass. The last I saw of Joe he was braced up agin a rock fightin’ like a wildcat. I tried to cut Jim loose as I was goin’ by. I s’pect the wust fer the brothers an’ the other lass.”

“Can we do nothing?” asked Mr. Wells.

“Nothin’!”

“Wetzel, has the capturing of James Downs any significance to you?” inquired Heckewelder.

“I reckon so.”

“What?”

“Pipe an’ his white-redskin allies are agin Christianity.”

“Do you think we are in danger?”

“I reckon so.”

“What do you advise?”

“Pack up a few of your traps, take the lass, an’ come with me. I’ll see you back in Fort Henry.”

Heckewelder nervously walked up to the tree and back again. Young and Edwards looked blankly at one another. They both remembered Edward’s presentiment. Mr. Wells uttered an angry exclamation.

“You ask us to fail in our duty? No, never! To go back to the white settlements and acknowledge we were afraid to continue teaching the Gospel to the Indians! You can not understand Christianity if you advise that. You have no religion. You are a killer of Indians.”

A shadow that might have been one of pain flitted over the hunter’s face.

“No, I ain’t a Christian, an’ I am a killer of Injuns,” said Wetzel, and his deep voice had a strange tremor. “I don’t know nothin’ much ‘cept the woods an’ fields, an’ if there’s a God fer me He’s out thar under the trees an’ grass. Mr. Wells, you’re the first man as ever called me a coward, an’ I overlook it because of your callin’. I advise you to go back to Fort Henry, because if you don’t go now the chances are aginst your ever goin’. Christianity or no Christianity, such men as you hev no bisness in these woods.”

“I thank you for your advice, and bless you for your rescue of this child; but I can not leave my work, nor can I understand why all this good work we have done should be called useless. We have converted Indians, saved their souls. Is that not being of some use, of some good here?”

“It’s accordin’ to how you look at it. Now I know the bark of an oak is different accordin’ to the side we see from. I’ll allow, hatin’ Injuns as I do, is no reason you oughtn’t to try an’ convert ‘em. But you’re bringin’ on a war. These Injuns won’t allow this Village of Peace here with its big fields of corn, an’ shops an’ workin’ redskins. It’s agin their nature. You’re only sacrificin’ your Christian Injuns.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Wells, startled by Wetzel’s words.

“Enough. I’m ready to guide you to Fort Henry.”

“I’ll never go.”

Wetzel looked at the other men. No one would have doubted him. No one could have failed to see he knew that some terrible anger hovered over the Village of Peace.

“I believe you, Wetzel, but I can not go,” said Heckewelder, with white face.

“I will stay,” said George, steadily.

“And I,” said Dave.

Wetzel nodded, and turned to depart when George grasped his arm. The young missionary’s face was drawn and haggard; he fixed an intense gaze upon the hunter.

“Wetzel, listen;” his voice was low and shaken with deep feeling. “I am a teacher of God’s word, and I am as earnest in that purpose as you are in your life-work. I shall die here; I shall fill an unmarked grave; but I shall have done the best I could. This is the life destiny has marked out for me, and I will live it as best I may; but in this moment, preacher as I am, I would give all I have or hope to have, all the little good I may have done, all my life, to be such a man as you. For I would avenge the woman I loved. To torture, to kill Girty! I am only a poor, weak fellow who would be lost a mile from this village, and if not, would fall before the youngest brave. But you with your glorious strength, your incomparable woodcraft, you are the man to kill Girty. Rid the frontier of this fiend. Kill him! Wetzel, kill him! I beseech you for the sake of some sweet girl who even now may be on her way to this terrible country, and who may fall into Girty’s power — for her sake, Wetzel, kill him. Trail him like a bloodhound, and when you find him remember my broken heart, remember Nell, remember, oh, God! remember poor Kate!”

Young’s voice broke into dry sobs. He had completely exhausted himself, so that he was forced to lean against the tree for support.

Wetzel spoke never a word. He stretched out his long, brawny arm and gripped the young missionary’s shoulder. His fingers clasped hard. Simple, without words as the action was, it could not have been more potent. And then, as he stood, the softer look faded slowly from his face. A ripple seemed to run over his features, which froze, as it subsided, into a cold, stone rigidity.

His arm dropped; he stepped past the tree, and, bounding lightly as a deer, cleared the creek and disappeared in the bushes.

Mr. Wells carried Nell to his cabin where she lay for hours with wan face and listless languor. She swallowed the nourishing drink an old Indian nurse forced between her teeth; she even smiled weakly when the missionaries spoke to her; but she said nothing nor seemed to rally from her terrible shock. A dark shadow lay always before her, conscious of nothing present, living over again her frightful experience. Again she seemed sunk in dull apathy.

“Dave, we’re going to loose Nell. She’s fading slowly,” said George, one evening, several days after the girl’s return. “Wetzel said she was unharmed, yet she seems to have received a hurt more fatal than a physical one. It’s her mind — her mind. If we cannot brighten her up to make her forget, she’ll die.”

“We’ve done all within our power. If she could only be brought out of this trance! She lies there all day long with those staring eyes. I can’t look into them. They are the eyes of a child who has seen murder.”

“We must try in some way to get her out of this stupor, and I have an idea. Have you noticed that Mr. Wells has failed very much in the last few weeks?”

“Indeed I have, and I’m afraid he’s breaking down. He has grown so thin, eats very little, and doesn’t sleep. He is old, you know, and, despite his zeal, this border life is telling on him.”

“Dave, I believe he knows it. Poor, earnest old man! He never says a word about himself, yet he must know he is going down hill. Well, we all begin, sooner or later, that descent which ends in the grave. I believe we might stir Nellie by telling her Mr. Wells’ health is breaking.”

“Let us try.”

A hurried knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

“Come in,” said Edwards.

The door opened to admit a man, who entered eagerly.

“Jim! Jim!” exclaimed both missionaries, throwing themselves upon the newcomer.

It was, indeed, Jim, but no answering smile lighted his worn, distressed face while he wrung his friends’ hands.

“You’re not hurt?” asked Dave.

“No, I’m uninjured.”

“Tell us all. Did you escape? Did you see your brother? Did you know Wetzel rescued Nell?”

“Wingenund set me free in spite of many demands for my death. He kept Joe a prisoner, and intends to kill him, for the lad was Wetzel’s companion. I saw the hunter come into the glade where we camped, break through the line of fighting Indians and carry Nell off.”

“Kate?” faltered Young, with ashen face.

“George, I wish to God I could tell you she is dead,” answered Jim, nervously pacing the room. “But she was well when I last saw her. She endured the hard journey better than either Nell or I. Girty did not carry her into the encampment, as Silvertip did Joe and me, but the renegade left us on the outskirts of the Delaware town. There was a rocky ravine with dense undergrowth where he disappeared with his captive. I suppose he has his den somewhere in that ravine.”

George sank down and buried his face in his arms; neither movement nor sound betokened consciousness.

“Has Wetzel come in with Nell? Joe said he had a cave where he might have taken her in case of illness or accident.”

“Yes, he brought her back,” answered Edwards, slowly.

“I want to see her,” said Jim, his haggard face expressing a keen anxiety. “She’s not wounded? hurt? ill?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s a shock which she can’t get over, can’t forget.”

“I must see her,” cried Jim, moving toward the door.

“Don’t go,” replied Dave, detaining him. “Wait. We must see what’s best to be done. Wait till Heckewelder comes. He’ll be here soon. Nell thinks you’re dead, and the surprise might be bad for her.”

Heckewelder came in at that moment, and shook hands warmly with Jim.

“The Delaware runner told me you were here. I am overjoyed that Wingenund freed you,” said the missionary. “It is a most favorable sign. I have heard rumors from Goshocking and Sandusky that have worried me. This good news more than offsets the bad. I am sorry about your brother. Are you well?”

“Well, but miserable. I want to see Nell. Dave tells me she is not exactly ill, but something is wrong with her. Perhaps I ought not to see her just yet.”

“It’ll be exactly the tonic for her,” replied Heckewelder. “She’ll be surprised out of herself. She is morbid, apathetic, and, try as we may, we can’t interest her. Come at once.”

Heckewelder had taken Jim’s arm and started for the door when he caught sight of Young, sitting bowed and motionless. Turning to Jim he whispered:

“Kate?”

“Girty did not take her into the encampment,” answered Jim, in a low voice. “I hoped he would, because the Indians are kind, but he didn’t. He took her to his den.”

Just then Young raised his face. The despair in it would have melted a heart of stone. It had become the face of an old man.

“If only you’d told me she had died,” he said to Jim, “I’d have been man enough to stand it, but — this — this kills me — I can’t breathe!”

He staggered into the adjoining room, where he flung himself upon a bed.

“It’s hard, and he won’t be able to stand up under it, for he’s not strong,” whispered Jim.

Heckewelder was a mild, pious man, in whom no one would ever expect strong passion; but now depths were stirred within his heart that had ever been tranquil. He became livid, and his face was distorted with rage.

“It’s bad enough to have these renegades plotting and working against our religion; to have them sow discontent, spread lies, make the Indians think we have axes to grind, to plant the only obstacle in our path — all this is bad; but to doom an innocent white woman to worse than death! What can I call it!”

“What can we do?” asked Jim.

“Do? That’s the worst of it. We can do nothing, nothing. We dare not move.”

“Is there no hope of getting Kate back?”

“Hope? None. That villain is surrounded by his savages. He’ll lie low now for a while. I’ve heard of such deeds many a time, but it never before came so close home. Kate Wells was a pure, loving Christian woman. She’ll live an hour, a day, a week, perhaps, in that snake’s clutches, and then she’ll die. Thank God!”

“Wetzel has gone on Girty’s trail. I know that from his manner when he left us,” said Edwards.

“Wetzel may avenge her, but he can never save her. It’s too late. Hello—”

The exclamation was called forth by the appearance of Young, who entered with a rifle in his hands.

“George, where are you going with that gun?” asked Edwards, grasping his friend by the arm.

“I’m going after her,” answered George wildly. He tottered as he spoke, but wrenched himself free from Dave.

“Come, George, listen, listen to reason,” interposed Heckewelder, laying hold of Young. “You are frantic with grief now. So are all of us. But calm yourself. Why, man, you’re a preacher, not a hunter. You’d be lost, you’d starve in the woods before getting half way to the Indian town. This is terrible enough; don’t make it worse by throwing your life away. Think of us, your friends; think of your Indian pupils who rely so much on you. Think of the Village of Peace. We can pray, but we can’t prevent these border crimes. With civilization, with the spread of Christianity, they will pass away. Bear up under this blow for the sake of your work. Remember we alone can check such barbarity. But we must not fight. We must sacrifice all that men hold dear, for the sake of the future.”

He took the rifle away from George, and led him back into the little, dark room. Closing the door he turned to Jim and Dave.

“He is in a bad way, and we must carefully watch him for a few days.”

“Think of George starting out to kill Girty!” exclaimed Dave. “I never fired a gun, but yet I’d go too.”

“So would we all, if we did as our hearts dictate,” retorted Heckewelder, turning fiercely upon Dave as if stung. “Man! we have a village full of Christians to look after. What would become of them? I tell you we’ve all we can do here to outwit these border ruffians. Simon Girty is plotting our ruin. I heard it to-day from the Delaware runner who is my friend. He is jealous of our influence, when all we desire is to save these poor Indians. And, Jim, Girty has killed our happiness. Can we ever recover from the misery brought upon us by poor Kate’s fate?”

The missionary raised his hand as if to exhort some power above.

“Curse the Girty’s!” he exclaimed in a sudden burst of uncontrollable passion. “Having conquered all other obstacles, must we fail because of wicked men of our own race? Oh, curse them!”

“Come,” he said, presently, in a voice which trembled with the effort he made to be calm. “We’ll go in to Nellie.”

The three men entered Mr. Wells’ cabin. The old missionary, with bowed head and hands clasped behind his back, was pacing to and fro. He greeted Jim with glad surprise.

“We want Nellie to see him,” whispered Heckewelder. “We think the surprise will do her good.”

“I trust it may,” said Mr. Wells.

“Leave it to me.”

They followed Heckewelder into an adjoining room. A torch flickered over the rude mantle-shelf, lighting up the room with fitful flare. It was a warm night, and the soft breeze coming in the window alternately paled and brightened the flame.

Jim saw Nell lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed, and her long, dark lashes seemed black against the marble paleness of her skin.

“Stand behind me,” whispered Heckewelder to Jim.

“Nellie,” he called softly, but only a faint flickering of her lashes answered him.

“Nellie, Nellie,” repeated Heckewelder, his deep, strong voice thrilling.

Her eyes opened. They gazed at Mr. Wells on one side, at Edwards standing at the foot of the bed, at Heckewelder leaning over her, but there was no recognition or interest in her look.

“Nellie, can you understand me?” asked Heckewelder, putting into his voice all the power and intensity of feeling of which he was capable.

An almost imperceptible shadow of understanding shone in her eyes.

“Listen. You have had a terrible shock, and it has affected your mind. You are mistaken in what you think, what you dream of all the time. Do you understand? You are wrong!”

Nell’s eyes quickened with a puzzled, questioning doubt. The minister’s magnetic, penetrating voice had pierced her dulled brain.

“See, I have brought you Jim!”

Heckewelder stepped aside as Jim fell on his knees by the bed. He took her cold hands in his and bent over her. For the moment his voice failed.

The doubt in Nell’s eyes changed to a wondrous gladness. It was like the rekindling of a smoldering fire.

“Jim?” she whispered.

“Yes, Nellie, it’s Jim alive and well. It’s Jim come back to you.”

A soft flush stained her white face. She slipped her arm tenderly around his neck, and held her cheek close to his.

“Jim,” she murmured.

“Nellie, don’t you know me?” asked Mr. Wells, trembling, excited. This was the first word she had spoken in four days.

“Uncle!” she exclaimed, suddenly loosening her hold on Jim, and sitting up in bed, then she gazed wildly at the others.

“Was it all a horrible dream?”

Mr. Wells took her hand soothingly, but he did not attempt to answer her question. He looked helplessly at Heckewelder, but that missionary was intently studying the expression on Nell’s face.

“Part of it was a dream,” he answered,impressively.

“Then that horrible man did take us away?”

“Yes.”

“Oh-h! but we’re free now? This is my room. Oh, tell me?”

“Yes, Nellie, you’re safe at home now.”

“Tell — tell me,” she cried, shudderingly, as she leaned close to Jim and raised a white, imploring face to his. “Where is Kate? — Oh! Jim — say, say she wasn’t left with Girty?”

“Kate is dead,” answered Jim, quickly. He could not endure the horror in her eyes. He deliberately intended to lie, as had Heckewelder.

It was as if the tension of Nell’s nerves was suddenly relaxed. The relief from her worst fear was so great that her mind took in only the one impression. Then, presently, a choking cry escaped her, to be followed by a paroxysm of sobs.

Chapter XX.

EARLY ON THE following day Heckewelder, astride his horse, appeared at the door of Edwards’ cabin.

“How is George?” he inquired of Dave, when the latter had opened the door.

“He had a bad night, but is sleeping now. I think he’ll be all right after a time,” answered Dave.

“That’s well. Nevertheless keep a watch on him for a few days.”

“I’ll do so.”

“Dave, I leave matters here to your good judgment. I’m off to Goshocking to join Zeisberger. Affairs there demand our immediate attention, and we must make haste.”

“How long do you intend to be absent?”

“A few days; possibly a week. In case of any unusual disturbance among the Indians, the appearance of Pipe and his tribe, or any of the opposing factions, send a fleet runner at once to warn me. Most of my fears have been allayed by Wingenund’s attitude toward us. His freeing Jim in face of the opposition of his chiefs is a sure sign of friendliness. More than once I have suspected that he was interested in Christianity. His daughter, Whispering Winds, exhibited the same intense fervor in religion as has been manifested by all our converts. It may be that we have not appealed in vain to Wingenund and his daughter; but their high position in the Delaware tribe makes it impolitic for them to reveal a change of heart. If we could win over those two we’d have every chance to convert the whole tribe. Well, as it is we must be thankful for Wingenund’s friendship. We have two powerful allies now. Tarhe, the Wyandot chieftain, remains neutral, to be sure, but that’s almost as helpful as his friendship.”

“I, too, take a hopeful view of the situation,” replied Edwards.

“We’ll trust in Providence, and do our best,” said Heckewelder, as he turned his horse. “Good-by.”

“Godspeed!” called Edwards, as his chief rode away.

The missionary resumed his work of getting breakfast. He remained in doors all that day, except for the few moments when he ran over to Mr. Wells’ cabin to inquire regarding Nell’s condition. He was relieved to learn she was so much better that she had declared her intention of moving about the house. Dave kept a close watch on Young. He, himself, was suffering from the same blow which had prostrated his friend, but his physical strength and fortitude were such that he did not weaken. He was overjoyed to see that George rallied, and showed no further indications of breaking down.

True it was, perhaps, that Heckewelder’s earnest prayer on behalf of the converted Indians had sunk deeply into George’s heart and thus kept it from breaking. No stronger plea could have been made than the allusion to those gentle, dependent Christians. No one but a missionary could realize the sweetness, the simplicity, the faith, the eager hope for a good, true life which had been implanted in the hearts of these Indians. To bear it in mind, to think of what he, as a missionary and teacher, was to them, relieved him of half his burden, and for strength to bear the remainder he went to God. For all worry there is a sovereign cure, for all suffering there is a healing balm; it is religious faith. Happiness had suddenly flashed with a meteor-like radiance into Young’s life only to be snuffed out like a candle in a windy gloom, but his work, his duty remained. So in his trial he learned the necessity of resignation. He chaffed no more at the mysterious, seemingly brutal methods of nature; he questioned no more. He wondered no more at the apparent indifference of Providence. He had one hope, which was to be true to his faith, and teach it to the end.

Nell mastered her grief by an astonishing reserve of strength. Undoubtedly it was that marvelously merciful power which enables a person, for the love of others, to bear up under a cross, or even to fight death himself. As Young had his bright-eyed Indian boys and girls, who had learned Christianity from him, and whose future depended on him, so Nell had her aged and weakening uncle to care for and cherish.

Jim’s attentions to her before the deep affliction had not been slight, but now they were so marked as to be unmistakable. In some way Jim seemed changed since he had returned from the Delaware encampment. Although he went back to the work with his old aggressiveness, he was not nearly so successful as he had been before. Whether or not this was his fault, he took his failure deeply to heart. There was that in his tenderness which caused Nell to regard him, in one sense, as she did her uncle. Jim, too, leaned upon her, and she accepted his devotion where once she had repelled it. She had unconsciously betrayed a great deal when she had turned so tenderly to him in the first moments after her recognition, and he remembered it. He did not speak of love to her; he let a thousand little acts of kindness, a constant thoughtfulness of her plead his cause.

The days succeeding Heckewelder’s departure were remarkable for several reasons. Although the weather was enticing, the number of visiting Indians gradually decreased. Not a runner from any tribe came into the village, and finally the day dawned when not a single Indian from the outlying towns was present to hear the preaching.

Jim spoke, as usual. After several days had passed and none but converted Indians made up the congregation, the young man began to be uneasy in mind.

Young and Edwards were unable to account for the unusual absence from worship, yet they did not see in it anything to cause especial concern. Often there had been days without visitation to the Village of Peace.

Finally Jim went to consult Glickhican. He found the Delaware at work in the potato patch. The old Indian dropped his hoe and bowed to the missionary. A reverential and stately courtesy always characterized the attitude of the Indians toward the young white father.

“Glickhican, can you tell me why no Indians have come here lately?”

The old chief shook his head.

“Does their absence signify ill to the Village of Peace?”

“Glickhican saw a blackbird flitting in the shadow of the moon. The bird hovered above the Village of Peace, but sang no song.”

The old Delaware vouchsafed no other than this strange reply.

Jim returned to his cabin decidedly worried. He did not at all like Glickhican’s answer. The purport of it seemed to be that a cloud was rising on the bright horizon of the Christian village. He confided his fears to Young and Edwards. After discussing the situation, the three missionaries decided to send for Heckewelder. He was the leader of the Mission; he knew more of Indian craft than any of them, and how to meet it. If this calm in the heretofore busy life of the Mission was the lull before a storm, Heckewelder should be there with his experience and influence.

“For nearly ten years Heckewelder has anticipated trouble from hostile savages,” said Edwards, “but so far he has always averted it. As you know, he has confined himself mostly to propitiating the Indians, and persuading them to be friendly, and listen to us. We’ll send for him.”

Accordingly they dispatched a runner to Goshocking. In due time the Indian returned with the startling news that Heckewelder had left the Indian village days before, as had, in fact, all the savages except the few converted ones. The same held true in the case of Sandusky, the adjoining town. Moreover, it had been impossible to obtain any news in regard to Zeisberger.

The missionaries were now thoroughly alarmed, and knew not what to do. They concealed the real state of affairs from Nell and her uncle, desiring to keep them from anxiety as long as possible. That night the three teachers went to bed with heavy hearts.

The following morning at daybreak, Jim was awakened from a sound sleep by some one calling at his window. He got up to learn who it was, and, in the gray light, saw Edwards standing outside.

“What’s the matter?” questioned Jim, hurriedly.

“Matter enough. Hurry. Get into your clothes,” replied Edwards. “As soon as you are dressed, quietly awaken Mr. Wells and Nellie, but do not frighten them.”

“But what’s the trouble?” queried Jim, as he began to dress.

“The Indians are pouring into the village as thickly as flying leaves in autumn.”

Edwards’ exaggerated assertion proved to be almost literally true. No sooner had the rising sun dispelled the mist, than it shone on long lines of marching braves, mounted warriors, hundreds of packhorses approaching from the forests. The orderly procession was proof of a concerted plan on the part of the invaders.

From their windows the missionaries watched with bated breath; with wonder and fear they saw the long lines of dusky forms. When they were in the clearing the savages busied themselves with their packs. Long rows of teepees sprung up as if by magic. The savages had come to stay! The number of incoming visitors did not lessen until noon, when a few straggling groups marked the end of the invading host. Most significant of all was the fact that neither child, maiden, nor squaw accompanied this army.

Jim appraised the number at six or seven hundred, more than had ever before visited the village at one time. They were mostly Delawares, with many Shawnees, and a few Hurons among them. It was soon evident, however, that for the present, at least, the Indians did not intend any hostile demonstration. They were quiet in manner, and busy about their teepees and camp-fires, but there was an absence of the curiosity that had characterized the former sojourns of Indians at the peaceful village.

After a brief consultation with his brother missionaries, who all were opposed to his preaching that afternoon, Jim decided he would not deviate from his usual custom. He held the afternoon service, and spoke to the largest congregation that had ever sat before him. He was surprised to find that the sermon, which heretofore so strongly impressed the savages, did not now arouse the slightest enthusiasm. It was followed by a brooding silence of a boding, ominous import.

Four white men, dressed in Indian garb, had been the most attentive listeners to Jim’s sermon. He recognized three as Simon Girty, Elliott and Deering, the renegades, and he learned from Edwards that the other was the notorious McKee. These men went through the village, stalking into the shops and cabins, and acting as do men who are on a tour of inspection.

So intrusive was their curiosity that Jim hurried back to Mr. Well’s cabin and remained there in seclusion. Of course, by this time Nell and her uncle knew of the presence of the hostile savages. They were frightened, and barely regained their composure when the young man assured them he was certain they had no real cause for fear.

Jim was sitting at the doorstep with Mr. Wells and Edwards when Girty, with his comrades, came toward them. The renegade leader was a tall, athletic man, with a dark, strong face. There was in it none of the brutality and ferocity which marked his brother’s visage. Simon Girty appeared keen, forceful, authoritative, as, indeed, he must have been to have attained the power he held in the confederated tribes. His companions presented wide contrasts. Elliott was a small, spare man of cunning, vindictive aspect; McKee looked, as might have been supposed from his reputation, and Deering was a fit mate for the absent Girty. Simon appeared to be a man of some intelligence, who had used all his power to make that position a great one. The other renegades were desperadoes.

“Where’s Heckewelder?” asked Girty, curtly, as he stopped before the missionaries.

“He started out for the Indian towns on the Muskingong,” answered Edwards. “But we have had no word from either him or Zeisberger.”

“When d’ye expect him?”

“I can’t say. Perhaps to-morrow, and then, again, maybe not for a week.”

“He is in authority here, ain’t he?”

“Yes; but he left me in charge of the Mission. Can I serve you in any way?”

“I reckon not,” said the renegade, turning to his companions. They conversed in low tones for a moment. Presently McKee, Elliott and Deering went toward the newly erected teepees.

“Girty, do you mean us any ill will?” earnestly asked Edwards. He had met the man on more than one occasion, and had no hesitation about questioning him.

“I can’t say as I do,” answered the renegade, and those who heard him believed him. “But I’m agin this redskin preachin’, an’ hev been all along. The injuns are mad clear through, an’ I ain’t sayin’ I’ve tried to quiet ’em any. This missionary work has got to be stopped, one way or another. Now what I waited here to say is this: I ain’t quite forgot I was white once, an’ believe you fellars are honest. I’m willin’ to go outer my way to help you git away from here.”

“Go away?” echoed Edwards.

“That’s it,” answered Girty, shouldering his rifle.

“But why? We are perfectly harmless; we are only doing good and hurt no one. Why should we go?”

“‘Cause there’s liable to be trouble,” said the renegade, significantly.

Edwards turned slowly to Mr. Wells and Jim. The old missionary was trembling visibly. Jim was pale; but more with anger than fear.

“Thank you, Girty, but we’ll stay,” and Jim’s voice rang clear.

Chapter XXI.

“JIM, COME OUT here,” called Edwards at the window of Mr. Wells’ cabin.

The young man arose from the breakfast table, and when outside found Edwards standing by the door with an Indian brave. He was a Wyandot lightly built, lithe and wiry, easily recognizable as an Indian runner. When Jim appeared the man handed him a small packet. He unwound a few folds of some oily skin to find a square piece of birch bark, upon which were scratched the following words:

“Rev. J. Downs. Greeting.

“Your brother is alive and safe. Whispering Winds rescued him by taking him as her husband. Leave the Village of Peace. Pipe and Half King have been influenced by Girty.

“Zane.”

“Now, what do you think of that?” exclaimed Jim, handing the message to Edwards. “Thank Heaven, Joe was saved!”

“Zane? That must be the Zane who married Tarhe’s daughter,” answered Edwards, when he had read the note. “I’m rejoiced to hear of your brother.”

“Joe married to that beautiful Indian maiden! Well, of all wonderful things,” mused Jim. “What will Nell say?”

“We’re getting warnings enough. Do you appreciate that?” asked Edwards. “‘Pipe and Half King have been influenced by Girty.’ Evidently the writer deemed that brief sentence of sufficient meaning.”

“Edwards, we’re preachers. We can’t understand such things. I am learning, at least something every day. Colonel Zane advised us not to come here. Wetzel said, ‘Go back to Fort Henry.’ Girty warned us, and now comes this peremptory order from Isaac Zane.”

“Well?”

“It means that these border men see what we will not admit. We ministers have such hope and trust in God that we can not realize the dangers of this life. I fear that our work has been in vain.”

“Never. We have already saved many souls. Do not be discouraged.”

All this time the runner had stood near at hand straight as an arrow. Presently Edwards suggested that the Wyandot was waiting to be questioned, and accordingly he asked the Indian if he had anything further to communicate.

“Huron — go by — paleface.” Here he held up both hands and shut his fists several times, evidently enumerating how many white men he had seen. “Here — when — high — sun.”

With that he bounded lightly past them, and loped off with an even, swinging stride.

“What did he mean?” asked Jim, almost sure he had not heard the runner aright.

“He meant that a party of white men are approaching, and will be here by noon. I never knew an Indian runner to carry unreliable information. We have joyful news, both in regard to your brother, and the Village of Peace. Let us go in to tell the others.”

The Huron runner’s report proved to be correct. Shortly before noon signals from Indian scouts proclaimed the approach of a band of white men. Evidently Girty’s forces had knowledge beforehand of the proximity of this band, for the signals created no excitement. The Indians expressed only a lazy curiosity. Soon several Delaware scouts appeared, escorting a large party of frontiersmen.

These men turned out to be Captain Williamson’s force, which had been out on an expedition after a marauding tribe of Chippewas. This last named tribe had recently harried the remote settlers, and committed depredations on the outskirts of the white settlements eastward. The company was composed of men who had served in the garrison at Fort Pitt, and hunters and backwoodsmen from Yellow Creek and Fort Henry. The captain himself was a typical borderman, rough and bluff, hardened by long years of border life, and, like most pioneers, having no more use for an Indian than for a snake. He had led his party after the marauders, and surprised and slaughtered nearly all of them. Returning eastward he had passed through Goshocking, where he learned of the muttering storm rising over the Village of Peace, and had come more out of curiosity than hope to avert misfortune.

The advent of so many frontiersmen seemed a godsend to the perplexed and worried missionaries. They welcomed the newcomers most heartily. Beds were made in several of the newly erected cabins; the village was given over for the comfort of the frontiersmen. Edwards conducted Captain Williamson through the shops and schools, and the old borderman’s weather-beaten face expressed a comical surprise.

“Wal, I’ll be durned if I ever expected to see a redskin work,” was his only comment on the industries.

“We are greatly alarmed by the presence of Girty and his followers,” said Edwards. “We have been warned to leave, but have not been actually threatened. What do you infer from the appearance here of these hostile savages?”

“It hardly ‘pears to me they’ll bother you preachers. They’re agin the Christian redskins, that’s plain.”

“Why have we been warned to go?”

“That’s natural, seein’ they’re agin the preachin’.”

“What will they do with the converted Indians?”

“Mighty onsartin. They might let them go back to the tribes, but ‘pears to me these good Injuns won’t go. Another thing, Girty is afeered of the spread of Christianity.”

“Then you think our Christians will be made prisoners?”

“‘Pears likely.”

“And you, also, think we’d do well to leave here.”

“I do, sartin. We’re startin’ for Fort Henry soon. You’d better come along with us.”

“Captain Williamson, we’re going to stick it out, Girty or no Girty.”

“You can’t do no good stayin’ here. Pipe and Half King won’t stand for the singin’, prayin’ redskins, especially when they’ve got all these cattle and fields of grain.”

“Wetzel said the same.”

“Hev you seen Wetzel?”

“Yes; he rescued a girl from Jim Girty, and returned her to us.”

“That so? I met Wetzel and Jack Zane back a few miles in the woods. They’re layin’ for somebody, because when I asked them to come along they refused, sayin’ they had work as must be done. They looked like it, too. I never hern tell of Wetzel advisin’ any one before; but I’ll say if he told me to do a thing, by Gosh! I’d do it.”

“As men, we might very well take the advice given us, but as preachers we must stay here to do all we can for these Christian Indians. One thing more: will you help us?”

“I reckon I’ll stay here to see the thing out,” answered Williamson. Edwards made a mental note of the frontiersman’s evasive answer.

Jim had, meanwhile, made the acquaintance of a young minister, John Christy by name, who had lost his sweetheart in one of the Chippewa raids, and had accompanied the Williamson expedition in the hope he might rescue her.

“How long have you been out?” asked Jim.

“About four weeks now,” answered Christy. “My betrothed was captured five weeks ago yesterday. I joined Williamson’s band, which made up at Short Creek to take the trail of the flying Chippewas, in the hope I might find her. But not a trace! The expedition fell upon a band of redskins over on the Walhonding, and killed nearly all of them. I learned from a wounded Indian that a renegade had made off with a white girl about a week previous. Perhaps it was poor Lucy.”

Jim related the circumstances of his own capture by Jim Girty, the rescue of Nell, and Kate’s sad fate.

“Could Jim Girty have gotten your girl?” inquired Jim, in conclusion.

“It’s fairly probable. The description doesn’t tally with Girty’s. This renegade was short and heavy, and noted especially for his strength. Of course, an Indian would first speak of some such distinguishing feature. There are, however, ten or twelve renegades on the border, and, excepting Jim Girty, one’s as bad as another.”

“Then it’s a common occurrence, this abducting girls from the settlements?”

“Yes, and the strange thing is that one never hears of such doings until he gets out on the frontier.”

“For that matter, you don’t hear much of anything, except of the wonderful richness and promise of the western country.”

“You’re right. Rumors of fat, fertile lands induce the colonist to become a pioneer. He comes west with his family; two out of every ten lose their scalps, and in some places the average is much greater. The wives, daughters and children are carried off into captivity. I have been on the border two years, and know that the rescue of any captive, as Wetzel rescued your friend, is a remarkable exception.”

“If you have so little hope of recovering your sweetheart, what then is your motive for accompanying this band of hunters?”

“Revenge!”

“And you are a preacher?” Jim’s voice did not disguise his astonishment.

“I was a preacher, and now I am thirsting for vengeance,” answered Christy, his face clouding darkly. “Wait until you learn what frontier life means. You are young here yet; you are flushed with the success of your teaching; you have lived a short time in this quiet village, where, until the last few days, all has been serene. You know nothing of the strife, of the necessity of fighting, of the cruelty which makes up this border existence. Only two years have hardened me so that I actually pant for the blood of the renegade who has robbed me. A frontiersman must take his choice of succumbing or cutting his way through flesh and bone. Blood will be spilled; if not yours, then your foe’s. The pioneers run from the plow to the fight; they halt in the cutting of corn to defend themselves, and in winter must battle against cold and hardship, which would be less cruel if there was time in summer to prepare for winter, for the savages leave them hardly an opportunity to plant crops. How many pioneers have given up, and gone back east? Find me any who would not return home to-morrow, if they could. All that brings them out here is the chance for a home, and all that keeps them out here is the poor hope of finally attaining their object. Always there is a possibility of future prosperity. But this generation, if it survives, will never see prosperity and happiness. What does this border life engender in a pioneer who holds his own in it? Of all things, not Christianity. He becomes a fighter, keen as the redskin who steals through the coverts.”

* * *

The serene days of the Village of Peace had passed into history. Soon that depraved vagabond, the French trader, with cheap trinkets and vile whisky, made his appearance. This was all that was needed to inflame the visitors. Where they had been only bold and impudent, they became insulting and abusive. They execrated the Christian indians for their neutrality; scorned them for worshiping this unknown God, and denounced a religion which made women of strong men.

The slaughtering of cattle commenced; the despoiling of maize fields, and robbing of corn-cribs began with the drunkenness.

All this time it was seen that Girty and Elliott consulted often with Pipe and Half King. The latter was the only Huron chief opposed to neutrality toward the Village of Peace, and he was, if possible, more fierce in his hatred than Pipe. The future of the Christian settlement rested with these two chiefs. Girty and Elliott, evidently, were the designing schemers, and they worked diligently on the passions of these simple-minded, but fierce, warlike chiefs.

Greatly to the relief of the distracted missionaries, Heckewelder returned to the village. Jaded and haggard, he presented a travel-worn appearance. He made the astonishing assertions that he had been thrice waylaid and assaulted on his way to Goshocking; then detained by a roving band of Chippewas, and soon after his arrival at their camping ground a renegade had run off with a white woman captive, while the Indians west of the village were in an uproar. Zeisberger, however, was safe in the Moravian town of Salem, some miles west of Goshocking. Heckewelder had expected to find the same condition of affairs as existed in the Village of Peace; but he was bewildered by the great array of hostile Indians. Chiefs who had once extended friendly hands to him, now drew back coldly, as they said:

“Washington is dead. The American armies are cut to pieces. The few thousands who had escaped the British are collecting at Fort Pitt to steal the Indian’s land.”

Heckewelder vigorously denied all these assertions, knowing they had been invented by Girty and Elliott. He exhausted all his skill and patience in the vain endeavor to show Pipe where he was wrong. Half King had been so well coached by the renegades that he refused to listen. The other chiefs maintained a cold reserve that was baffling and exasperating. Wingenund took no active part in the councils; but his presence apparently denoted that he had sided with the others. The outlook was altogether discouraging.

“I’m completely fagged out,” declared Heckewelder, that night when he returned to Edwards’ cabin. He dropped into a chair as one whose strength is entirely spent, whose indomitable spirit has at last been broken.

“Lie down to rest,” said Edwards.

“Oh, I can’t. Matters look so black.”

“You’re tired out and discouraged. You’ll feel better to-morrow. The situation is not, perhaps, so hopeless. The presence of these frontiersmen should encourage us.”

“What will they do? What can they do?” cried Heckewelder, bitterly. “I tell you never before have I encountered such gloomy, stony Indians. It seems to me that they are in no vacillating state. They act like men whose course is already decided upon, and who are only waiting.”

“For what?” asked Jim, after a long silence.

“God only knows! Perhaps for a time; possibly for a final decision, and, it may be, for a reason, the very thought of which makes me faint.”

“Tell us,” said Edwards, speaking quietly, for he had ever been the calmest of the missionaries.

“Never mind. Perhaps it’s only my nerves. I’m all unstrung, and could suspect anything to-night.”

“Heckewelder, tell us?” Jim asked, earnestly.

“My friends, I pray I am wrong. God help us if my fears are correct. I believe the Indians are waiting for Jim Girty.”

Chapter XXII.

SIMON GIRTY LOLLED on a blanket in Half King’s teepee. He was alone, awaiting his allies. Rings of white smoke curled lazily from his lips as he puffed on a long Indian pipe, and gazed out over the clearing that contained the Village of Peace.

Still water has something in its placid surface significant of deep channels, of hidden depths; the dim outline of the forest is dark with meaning, suggestive of its wild internal character. So Simon Girty’s hard, bronzed face betrayed the man. His degenerate brother’s features were revolting; but his own were striking, and fell short of being handsome only because of their craggy hardness. Years of revolt, of bitterness, of consciousness of wasted life, had graven their stern lines on that copper, masklike face. Yet despite the cruelty there, the forbidding shade on it, as if a reflection from a dark soul, it was not wholly a bad countenance. Traces still lingered, faintly, of a man in whom kindlier feelings had once predominated.

In a moment of pique Girty had deserted his military post at Fort Pitt, and become an outlaw of his own volition. Previous to that time he had been an able soldier, and a good fellow. When he realized that his step was irrevocable, that even his best friends condemned him, he plunged, with anger and despair in his heart, into a war upon his own race. Both of his brothers had long been border ruffians, whose only protection from the outraged pioneers lay in the faraway camps of hostile tribes. George Girty had so sunk his individuality into the savage’s that he was no longer a white man. Jim Girty stalked over the borderland with a bloody tomahawk, his long arm outstretched to clutch some unfortunate white woman, and with his hideous smile of death. Both of these men were far lower than the worst savages, and it was almost wholly to their deeds of darkness that Simon Girty owed his infamous name.

To-day White Chief, as Girty was called, awaited his men. A slight tremor of the ground caused him to turn his gaze. The Huron chief, Half King, resplendent in his magnificent array, had entered the teepee. He squatted in a corner, rested the bowl of his great pipe on his knee, and smoked in silence. The habitual frown of his black brow, like a shaded, overhanging cliff; the fire flashing from his eyes, as a shining light is reflected from a dark pool; his closely-shut, bulging jaw, all bespoke a nature, lofty in its Indian pride and arrogance, but more cruel than death.

Another chief stalked into the teepee and seated himself. It was Pipe. His countenance denoted none of the intelligence that made Wingenund’s face so noble; it was even coarser than Half King’s, and his eyes, resembling live coals in the dark; the long, cruel lines of his jaw; the thin, tightly-closed lips, which looked as if they could relax only to utter a savage command, expressed fierce cunning and brutality.

“White Chief is idle to-day,” said Half King, speaking in the Indian tongue.

“King, I am waiting. Girty is slow, but sure,” answered the renegade.

“The eagle sails slowly round and round, up and up,” replied Half King, with majestic gestures, “until his eye sees all, until he knows his time; then he folds his wings and swoops down from the blue sky like the forked fire. So does White Chief. But Half King is impatient.”

“To-day decides the fate of the Village of Peace,” answered Girty, imperturbably.

“Ugh!” grunted Pipe.

Half King vented his approval in the same meaning exclamation.

An hour passed; the renegade smoked in silence; the chiefs did likewise.

A horseman rode up to the door of the teepee, dismounted, and came in. It was Elliott. He had been absent twenty hours. His buckskin suit showed the effect of hard riding through the thickets.

“Hullo, Bill, any sign of Jim?” was Girty’s greeting to his lieutenant.

“Nary. He’s not been seen near the Delaware camp. He’s after that chap who married Winds.”

“I thought so. Jim’s roundin’ up a tenderfoot who will be a bad man to handle if he has half a chance. I saw as much the day he took his horse away from Silver. He finally did fer the Shawnee, an’ almost put Jim out. My brother oughtn’t to give rein to personal revenge at a time like this.” Girty’s face did not change, but his tone was one of annoyance.

“Jim said he’d be here to-day, didn’t he?”

“To-day is as long as we allowed to wait.”

“He’ll come. Where’s Jake and Mac?”

“They’re here somewhere, drinkin’ like fish, an’ raisin’ hell.”

Two more renegades appeared at the door, and, entering the teepee, squatted down in Indian fashion. The little wiry man with the wizened face was McKee; the other was the latest acquisition to the renegade force, Jake Deering, deserter, thief, murderer — everything that is bad. In appearance he was of medium height, but very heavily, compactly built, and evidently as strong as an ox. He had a tangled shock of red hair, a broad, bloated face; big, dull eyes, like the openings of empty furnaces, and an expression of beastliness.

Deering and McKee were intoxicated.

“Bad time fer drinkin’,” said Girty, with disapproval in his glance.

“What’s that ter you?” growled Deering. “I’m here ter do your work, an’ I reckon it’ll be done better if I’m drunk.”

“Don’t git careless,” replied Girty, with that cool tone and dark look such as dangerous men use. “I’m only sayin’ it’s a bad time fer you, because if this bunch of frontiersmen happen to git onto you bein’ the renegade that was with the Chippewas an’ got thet young feller’s girl, there’s liable to be trouble.”

“They ain’t agoin’ ter find out.”

“Where is she?”

“Back there in the woods.”

“Mebbe it’s as well. Now, don’t git so drunk you’ll blab all you know. We’ve lots of work to do without havin’ to clean up Williamson’s bunch,” rejoined Girty. “Bill, tie up the tent flaps an’ we’ll git to council.”

Elliott arose to carry out the order, and had pulled in the deer-hide flaps, when one of them was jerked outward to disclose the befrilled person of Jim Girty. Except for a discoloration over his eye, he appeared as usual.

“Ugh!” grunted Pipe, who was glad to see his renegade friend.

Half King evinced the same feeling.

“Hullo,” was Simon Girty’s greeting.

“‘Pears I’m on time fer the picnic,” said Jim Girty, with his ghastly leer.

Bill Elliott closed the flaps, after giving orders to the guard to prevent any Indians from loitering near the teepee.

“Listen,” said Simon Girty, speaking low in the Delaware language. “The time is ripe. We have come here to break forever the influence of the white man’s religion. Our councils have been held; we shall drive away the missionaries, and burn the Village of Peace.”

He paused, leaning forward in his exceeding earnestness, with his bronzed face lined by swelling veins, his whole person made rigid by the murderous thought. Then he hissed between his teeth: “What shall we do with these Christian Indians?”

Pipe raised his war-club, struck it upon the ground; then handed it to Half King.

Half King took the club and repeated the action.

Both chiefs favored the death penalty.

“Feed ’em to ther buzzards,” croaked Jim Girty.

Simon Girty knitted his brow in thought. The question of what to do with the converted Indians had long perplexed him.

“No,” said he; “let us drive away the missionaries, burn the village, and take the Indians back to camp. We’ll keep them there; they’ll soon forget.”

“Pipe does not want them,” declared the Delaware.

“Christian Indians shall never sit round Half King’s fire,” cried the Huron.

Simon Girty knew the crisis had come; that but few moments were left him to decide as to the disposition of the Christians; and he thought seriously. Certainly he did not want the Christians murdered. However cruel his life, and great his misdeeds, he was still a man. If possible, he desired to burn the village and ruin the religious influence, but without shedding blood. Yet, with all his power, he was handicapped, and that by the very chiefs most nearly under his control. He could not subdue this growing Christian influence without the help of Pipe and Half King. To these savages a thing was either right or wrong. He had sown the seed of unrest and jealousy in the savage breasts, and the fruit was the decree of death. As far as these Indians were concerned, this decision was unalterable.

On the other hand, if he did not spread ruin over the Village of Peace, the missionaries would soon get such a grasp on the tribes that their hold would never be broken. He could not allow that, even if he was forced to sacrifice the missionaries along with their converts, for he saw in the growth of this religion his own downfall. The border must be hostile to the whites, or it could no longer be his home. To be sure, he had aided the British in the Revolution, and could find a refuge among them; but this did not suit him.

He became an outcast because of failure to win the military promotion which he had so much coveted. He had failed among his own people. He had won a great position in an alien race, and he loved his power. To sway men — Indians, if not others — to his will; to avenge himself for the fancied wrong done him; to be great, had been his unrelenting purpose.

He knew he must sacrifice the Christians, or eventually lose his own power. He had no false ideas about the converted Indians. He knew they were innocent; that they were a thousand times better off than the pagan Indians; that they had never harmed him, nor would they ever do so; but if he allowed them to spread their religion there was an end of Simon Girty.

His decision was characteristic of the man. He would sacrifice any one, or all, to retain his supremacy. He knew the fulfillment of the decree as laid down by Pipe and Half King would be known as his work. His name, infamous now, would have an additional horror, and ever be remembered by posterity in unspeakable loathing, in unsoftening wrath. He knew this, and deep down in his heart awoke a numbed chord of humanity that twinged with strange pain. What awful work he must sanction to keep his vaunted power! More bitter than all was the knowledge that to retain this hold over the indians he must commit a deed which, so far as the whites were concerned, would take away his great name, and brand him a coward.

He briefly reviewed his stirring life. Singularly fitted for a leader, in a few years he had risen to the most powerful position on the border. He wielded more influence than any chief. He had been opposed to the invasion of the pioneers, and this alone, without his sagacity or his generalship, would have given him control of many tribes. But hatred for his own people, coupled with unerring judgment, a remarkable ability to lead expeditions, and his invariable success, had raised him higher and higher until he stood alone. He was the most powerful man west of the Alleghenies. His fame was such that the British had importuned him to help them, and had actually, in more than one instance, given him command over British subjects.

All of which meant that he had a great, even though an infamous name. No matter what he was blamed for; no matter how many dastardly deeds had been committed by his depraved brothers and laid to his door, he knew he had never done a cowardly act. That which he had committed while he was drunk he considered as having been done by the liquor, and not by the man. He loved his power, and he loved his name.

In all Girty’s eventful, ignoble life, neither the alienation from his people, the horror they ascribed to his power, nor the sacrifice of his life to stand high among the savage races, nor any of the cruel deeds committed while at war, hurt him a tithe as much as did this sanctioning the massacre of the Christians.

Although he was a vengeful, unscrupulous, evil man, he had never acted the coward.

Half King waited long for Girty to speak; since he remained silent, the wily Huron suggested they take a vote on the question.

“Let us burn the Village of Peace, drive away the missionaries, and take the Christians back to the Delaware towns — all without spilling blood,” said Girty, determined to carry his point, if possible.

“I say the same,” added Elliott, refusing the war-club held out to him by Half King.

“Me, too,” voted McKee, not so drunk but that he understood the lightninglike glance Girty shot at him.

“Kill ’em all; kill everybody,” cried Deering in drunken glee. He took the club and pounded with it on the ground.

Pipe repeated his former performance, as also did Half King, after which he handed the black, knotted symbol of death to Jim Girty.

Three had declared for saving the Christians, and three for the death penalty.

Six pairs of burning eyes were fastened on the Deaths-head.

Pipe and Half King were coldly relentless; Deering awoke to a brutal earnestness; McKee and Elliott watched with bated breath. These men had formed themselves into a tribunal to decide on the life or death of many, and the situation, if not the greatest in their lives, certainly was one of vital importance.

Simon Girty cursed all the fates. He dared not openly oppose the voting, and he could not, before those cruel but just chiefs, try to influence his brother’s vote.

As Jim Girty took the war-club, Simon read in his brother’s face the doom of the converted Indians and he muttered to himself:

“Now tremble an’ shrink, all you Christians!”

Jim was not in a hurry. Slowly he poised the war-club. He was playing as a cat plays with a mouse; he was glorying in his power. The silence was that of death. It signified the silence of death. The war-club descended with violence.

“Feed the Christians to ther buzzards!”

Chapter XXIII.

“I HAVE BEEN here before,” said Joe to Whispering Winds. “I remember that vine-covered stone. We crawled over it to get at Girty and Silvertip. There’s the little knoll; here’s the very spot where I was hit by a flying tomahawk. Yes, and there’s the spring. Let me see, what did Wetzel call this spot?”

“Beautiful Spring,” answered the Indian girl.

“That’s it, and it’s well named. What a lovely place!”

Nature had been lavish in the beautifying of this inclosed dell. It was about fifty yards wide, and nestled among little, wooded knolls and walls of gray, lichen-covered stone. Though the sun shone brightly into the opening, and the rain had free access to the mossy ground, no stormy winds ever entered this well protected glade.

Joe reveled in the beauty of the scene, even while he was too weak to stand erect. He suffered no pain from his wound, although he had gradually grown dizzy, and felt as if the ground was rising before him. He was glad to lie upon the mossy ground in the little cavern under the cliff.

Upon examination his wound was found to have opened, and was bleeding. His hunting coat was saturated with blood. Whispering Winds washed the cut, and dressed it with cooling leaves. Then she rebandaged it tightly with Joe’s linsey handkerchiefs, and while he rested comfortable she gathered bundles of ferns, carrying them to the little cavern. When she had a large quantity of these she sat down near Joe, and began to weave the long stems into a kind of screen. The fern stalks were four feet long and half a foot wide; these she deftly laced together, making broad screens which would serve to ward off the night dews. This done, she next built a fireplace with flat stones. She found wild apples, plums and turnips on the knoll above the glade. Then she cooked strips of meat which had been brought with them. Lance grazed on the long grass just without the glade, and Mose caught two rabbits. When darkness settled down Whispering Winds called the dog within the cavern, and hung the screens before the opening.

Several days passed. Joe rested quietly, and began to recover strength. Besides the work of preparing their meals, Whispering Winds had nothing to do save sit near the invalid and amuse or interest him so that he would not fret or grow impatient, while his wound was healing.

They talked about their future prospects. After visiting the Village of Peace, they would go to Fort Henry, where Joe could find employment. They dwelt upon the cabin they would build, and passed many happy moments planning a new home. Joe’s love of the wilderness had in no wise diminished; but a blow on his head from a heavy tomahawk, and a vicious stab in the back, had lessened his zeal so far that he understood it was not wise to sacrifice life for the pleasures of the pathless woods. He could have the last without the danger of being shot at from behind every tree. He reasoned that it would be best for him to take his wife to Fort Henry, there find employment, and devote his leisure time to roaming in the forest.

“Will the palefaces be kind to an Indian who has learned to love them?” Whispering Winds asked wistfully of Joe.

“Indeed they will,” answered Joe, and he told her the story of Isaac Zane; how he took his Indian bride home; how her beauty and sweetness soon won all the white people’s love. “It will be so with you, my wife.”

“Whispering Winds knows so little,” she murmured.

“Why, you are learning every day, and even if such was not the case, you know enough for me.”

“Whispering Winds will be afraid; she fears a little to go.”

“I’ll be glad when we can be on the move,” said Joe, with his old impatient desire for action. “How soon, Winds, can we set off?”

“As many days,” answered the Indian girl, holding up five fingers.

“So long? I want to leave this place.”

“Leave Beautiful Spring?”

“Yes, even this sweet place. It has a horror for me. I’ll never forget the night I first saw that spring shining in the moonlight. It was right above the rock that I looked into the glade. The moon was reflected in the dark pool, and as I gazed into the shadowy depths of the dark water I suddenly felt an unaccountable terror; but I oughtn’t to have the same feeling now. We are safe, are we not?”

“We are safe,” murmured Whispering Winds.

“Yet I have the same chill of fear whenever I look at the beautiful spring, and at night as I awake to hear the soft babble of running water, I freeze until my heart feels like cold lead. Winds, I’m not a coward; but I can’t help this feeling. Perhaps, it’s only the memory of that awful night with Wetzel.”

“An Indian feels so when he passes to his unmarked grave,” answered Winds, gazing solemnly at him. “Whispering Winds does not like this fancy of yours. Let us leave Beautiful Spring. You are almost well. Ah! if Whispering Winds should lose you! I love you!”

“And I love you, my beautiful wild flower,” answered Joe, stroking the dark head so near his own.

A tender smile shone on his face. He heard a slight noise without the cave, and, looking up, saw that which caused the smile to fade quickly.

“Mose!” he called, sharply. The dog was away chasing rabbits.

Whispering Winds glanced over her shoulder with a startled cry, which ended in a scream.

Not two yards behind her stood Jim Girty.

Hideous was his face in its triumphant ferocity. He held a long knife in his hand, and, snarling like a mad wolf, he made a forward lunge.

Joe raised himself quickly; but almost before he could lift his hand in defense, the long blade was sheathed in his breast.

Slowly he sank back, his gray eyes contracting with the old steely flash. The will to do was there, but the power was gone forever.

“Remember, Girty, murderer! I am Wetzel’s friend,” he cried, gazing at his slayer with unutterable scorn.

Then the gray eyes softened, and sought the blanched face of the stricken maiden.

“Winds,” he whispered faintly.

She was as one frozen with horror.

The gray eyes gazed into hers with lingering tenderness; then the film of death came upon them.

The renegade raised his bloody knife, and bent over the prostrate form.

Whispering Winds threw herself upon Girty with the blind fury of a maddened lioness. Cursing fiercely, he stabbed her once, twice, three times. She fell across the body of her lover, and clasped it convulsively.

Girty gave one glance at his victims; deliberately wiped the gory knife on Wind’s leggins, and, with another glance, hurried and fearful, around the glade, he plunged into the thicket.

An hour passed. A dark stream crept from the quiet figures toward the spring. It dyed the moss and the green violet leaves. Slowly it wound its way to the clear water, dripping between the pale blue flowers. The little fall below the spring was no longer snowy white; blood had tinged it red.

A dog came bounding into the glade. He leaped the brook, hesitated on the bank, and lowered his nose to sniff at the water. He bounded up the bank to the cavern.

A long, mournful howl broke the wilderness’s quiet.

Another hour passed. The birds were silent; the insects still. The sun sank behind the trees, and the shades of evening gathered.

The ferns on the other side of the glade trembled. A slight rustle of dead leaves disturbed the stillness. The dog whined, then barked. The tall form of a hunter rose out of the thicket, and stepped into the glade with his eyes bent upon moccasin tracks in the soft moss.

The trail he had been following led him to this bloody spring.

“I might hev knowed it,” he muttered.

Wetzel, for it was he, leaned upon his long rifle while his keen eyes took in the details of the tragedy. The whining dog, the bloody water, the motionless figures lying in a last embrace, told the sad story.

“Joe an’ Winds,” he muttered.

Only a moment did he remain lost in sad reflection. A familiar moccasin-print in the sand on the bank pointed westward. He examined it carefully.

“Two hours gone,” he muttered. “I might overtake him.”

Then his motions became swift. With two blows of his tomahawk he secured a long piece of grapevine. He took a heavy stone from the bed of the brook. He carried Joe to the spring, and, returning for Winds, placed her beside her lover. This done, he tied one end of the grapevine around the stone, and wound the other about the dead bodies.

He pushed them off the bank into the spring. As the lovers sank into the deep pool they turned, exposing first Winds’ sad face, and then Joe’s. Then they sank out of sight. Little waves splashed on the shore of the pool; the ripple disappeared, and the surface of the spring became tranquil.

Wetzel stood one moment over the watery grave of the maiden who had saved him, and the boy who had loved him. In the gathering gloom his stalwart form assumed gigantic proportions, and when he raised his long arm and shook his clenched fist toward the west, he resembled a magnificent statue of dark menace.

With a single bound he cleared the pool, and then sped out of the glade. He urged the dog on Girty’s trail, and followed the eager beast toward the west. As he disappeared, a long, low sound like the sigh of the night wind swelled and moaned through the gloom.

Chapter XXIV.

WHEN THE FIRST ruddy rays of the rising sun crimsoned the eastern sky, Wetzel slowly wound his way down a rugged hill far west of Beautiful Spring. A white dog, weary and footsore, limped by his side. Both man and beast showed evidence of severe exertion.

The hunter stopped in a little cave under a projecting stone, and, laying aside his rifle, began to gather twigs and sticks. He was particular about selecting the wood, and threw aside many pieces which would have burned well; but when he did kindle a flame it blazed hotly, yet made no smoke.

He sharpened a green stick, and, taking some strips of meat from his pocket, roasted them over the hot flame. He fed the dog first. Mose had crouched close on the ground with his head on his paws, and his brown eyes fastened upon the hunter.

“He had too big a start fer us,” said Wetzel, speaking as if the dog were human. It seemed that Wetzel’s words were a protest against the meaning in those large, sad eyes.

Then the hunter put out the fire, and, searching for a more secluded spot, finally found one on top of the ledge, where he commanded a good view of his surroundings. The weary dog was asleep. Wetzel settled himself to rest, and was soon wrapped in slumber.

About noon he awoke. He arose, stretched his limbs, and then took an easy position on the front of the ledge, where he could look below. Evidently the hunter was waiting for something. The dog slept on. It was the noonday hour, when the stillness of the forest almost matched that of midnight. The birds were more quiet than at any other time during daylight.

Wetzel reclined there with his head against the stone, and his rifle resting across his knees.

He listened now to the sounds of the forest. The soft breeze fluttering among the leaves, the rain-call of the tree frog, the caw of crows from distant hilltops, the sweet songs of the thrush and oriole, were blended together naturally, harmoniously.

But suddenly the hunter raised his head. A note, deeper than the others, a little too strong, came from far down the shaded hollow. To Wetzel’s trained ear it was a discord. He manifested no more than this attention, for the birdcall was the signal he had been awaiting. He whistled a note in answer that was as deep and clear as the one which had roused him.

Moments passed. There was no repetition of the sound. The songs of the other birds had ceased. Besides Wetzel there was another intruder in the woods.

Mose lifted his shaggy head and growled. The hunter patted the dog. In a few minutes the figure of a tall man appeared among the laurels down the slope. He stopped while gazing up at the ledge. Then, with noiseless step, he ascended the ridge, climbed the rocky ledge, and turned the corner of the stone to face Wetzel. The newcomer was Jonathan Zane.

“Jack, I expected you afore this,” was Wetzel’s greeting.

“I couldn’t make it sooner,” answered Zane. “After we left Williamson and separated, I got turned around by a band of several hundred redskins makin’ for the Village of Peace. I went back again, but couldn’t find any sign of the trail we’re huntin’. Then I makes for this meetin’ place. I’ve been goin’ for some ten hours, and am hungry.”

“I’ve got some bar ready cooked,” said Wetzel, handing Zane several strips of meat.

“What luck did you have?”

“I found Girty’s trail, an old one, over here some eighteen or twenty miles, an’ follered it until I went almost into the Delaware town. It led to a hut in a deep ravine. I ain’t often surprised, but I wus then. I found the dead body of that girl, Kate Wells, we fetched over from Fort Henry. Thet’s sad, but it ain’t the surprisin’ part. I also found Silvertip, the Shawnee I’ve been lookin’ fer. He was all knocked an’ cut up, deader’n a stone. There’d been somethin’ of a scrap in the hut. I calkilate Girty murdered Kate, but I couldn’t think then who did fer Silver, though I allowed the renegade might hev done thet, too. I watched round an’ seen Girty come back to the hut. He had ten Injuns with him, an’ presently they all made fer the west. I trailed them, but didn’t calkilate it’d be wise to tackle the bunch single-handed, so laid back. A mile or so from the hut I came across hoss tracks minglin’ with the moccasin-prints. About fifteen mile or from the Delaware town, Girty left his buckskins, an’ they went west, while he stuck to the hoss tracks. I was onto his game in a minute. I cut across country fer Beautiful Spring, but I got there too late. I found the warm bodies of Joe and thet Injun girl, Winds. The snake hed murdered them.”

“I allow Joe won over Winds, got away from the Delaware town with her, tried to rescue Kate, and killed Silver in the fight. Girty probably was surprised, an’ run after he had knifed the girl.”

“‘Pears so to me. Joe had two knife cuts, an’ one was an old wound.”

“You say it was a bad fight?”

“Must hev been. The hut was all knocked in, an’ stuff scattered about. Wal, Joe could go some if he onct got started.”

“I’ll bet he could. He was the likeliest lad I’ve seen for many a day.”

“If he’d lasted, he’d been somethin’ of a hunter an’ fighter.”

“Too bad. But Lord! you couldn’t keep him down, no more than you can lots of these wild young chaps that drift out here.”

“I’ll allow he had the fever bad.”

“Did you hev time to bury them?”

“I hedn’t time fer much. I sunk them in the spring.”

“It’s a pretty deep hole,” said Zane, reflectively. “Then, you and the dog took Girty’s trail, but couldn’t catch up with him. He’s now with the renegade cutthroats and hundreds of riled Indians over there in the Village of Peace.”

“I reckon you’re right.”

A long silence ensued. Jonathan finished his simple repast, drank from the little spring that trickled under the stone, and, sitting down by the dog, smoothed out his long silken hair.

“Lew, we’re pretty good friends, ain’t we?” he asked, thoughtfully.

“Jack, you an’ the colonel are all the friends I ever hed, ‘ceptin’ that boy lyin’ quiet back there in the woods.”

“I know you pretty well, and ain’t sayin’ a word about your runnin’ off from me on many a hunt, but I want to speak plain about this fellow Girty.”

“Wal?” said Wetzel, as Zane hesitated.

“Twice in the last few years you and I have had it in for the same men, both white-livered traitors. You remember? First it was Miller, who tried to ruin my sister Betty, and next it was Jim Girty, who murdered our old friend, as good an old man as ever wore moccasins. Wal, after Miller ran off from the fort, we trailed him down to the river, and I points across and says, ‘You or me?’ and you says, ‘Me.’ You was Betty’s friend, and I knew she’d be avenged. Miller is lyin’ quiet in the woods, and violets have blossomed twice over his grave, though you never said a word; but I know it’s true because I know you.”

Zane looked eagerly into the dark face of his friend, hoping perhaps to get some verbal assurance there that his belief was true. But Wetzel did not speak, and he continued:

“Another day not so long ago we both looked down at an old friend, and saw his white hair matted with blood. He’d been murdered for nothin’. Again you and me trailed a coward and found him to be Jim Girty. I knew you’d been huntin’ him for years, and so I says, ‘Lew, you or me?’ and you says, ‘Me.’ I give in to you, for I knew you’re a better man than me, and because I wanted you to have the satisfaction. Wal, the months have gone by, and Jim Girty’s still livin’ and carryin’ on. Now he’s over there after them poor preachers. I ain’t sayin’, Lew, that you haven’t more agin him than me, but I do say, let me in on it with you. He always has a gang of redskins with him; he’s afraid to travel alone, else you’d had him long ago. Two of us’ll have more chance to get him. Let me go with you. When it comes to a finish, I’ll stand aside while you give it to him. I’d enjoy seein’ you cut him from shoulder to hip. After he leaves the Village of Peace we’ll hit his trail, camp on it, and stick to it until it ends in his grave.”

The earnest voice of the backwoodsman ceased. Both men rose and stood facing each other. Zane’s bronzed face was hard and tense, expressive of an indomitable will; Wetzel’s was coldly dark, with fateful resolve, as if his decree of vengeance, once given, was as immutable as destiny. The big, horny hands gripped in a viselike clasp born of fierce passion, but no word was spoken.

Far to the west somewhere, a befrilled and bedizened renegade pursued the wild tenor of his ways; perhaps, even now steeping his soul in more crime, or staining his hands a deeper red, but sleeping or waking, he dreamed not of this deadly compact that meant his doom.

The two hunters turned their stern faces toward the west, and passed silently down the ridge into the depths of the forest. Darkness found them within rifle-shot of the Village of Peace. With the dog creeping between them, they crawled to a position which would, in daylight, command a view of the clearing. Then, while one stood guard, the other slept.

When morning dawned they shifted their position to the top of a low, fern-covered cliff, from which they could see every movement in the village. All the morning they watched with that wonderful patience of men who knew how to wait. The visiting savages were quiet, the missionaries moved about in and out of the shops and cabins; the Christian indians worked industriously in the fields, while the renegades lolled before a prominent teepee.

“This quiet looks bad,” whispered Jonathan to Wetzel. No shouts were heard; not a hostile Indian was seen to move.

“They’ve come to a decision,” whispered Jonathan, and Wetzel answered him:

“If they hev, the Christians don’t know it.”

An hour later the deep pealing of the church bell broke the silence. The entire band of Christian Indians gathered near the large log structure, and then marched in orderly form toward the maple grove where the service was always held in pleasant weather. This movement brought the Indians within several hundred yards of the cliff where Zane and Wetzel lay concealed.

“There’s Heckewelder walking with old man Wells,” whispered Jonathan. “There’s Young and Edwards, and, yes, there’s the young missionary, brother of Joe. ‘Pears to me they’re foolish to hold service in the face of all those riled Injuns.”

“Wuss’n foolish,” answered Wetzel.

“Look! By gum! As I’m a livin’ sinner there comes the whole crowd of hostile redskins. They’ve got their guns, and — by Gum! they’re painted. Looks bad, bad! Not much friendliness about that bunch!”

“They ain’t intendin’ to be peaceable.”

“By gum! You’re right. There ain’t one of them settin’ down. ‘Pears to me I know some of them redskins. There’s Pipe, sure enough, and Kotoxen. By gum! If there ain’t Shingiss; he was friendly once.”

“None of them’s friendly.”

“Look! Lew, look! Right behind Pipe. See that long war-bonnet. As I’m a born sinner, that’s your old friend, Wingenund. ‘Pears to me we’ve rounded up all our acquaintances.”

The two bordermen lay close under the tall ferns and watched the proceedings with sharp eyes. They saw the converted Indians seat themselves before the platform. The crowd of hostile Indians surrounded the glade on all sides, except on, which, singularly enough, was next to the woods.

“Look thar!” exclaimed Wetzel, under his breath. He pointed off to the right of the maple glade. Jonathan gazed in the direction indicated, and saw two savages stealthily slipping through the bushes, and behind trees. Presently these suspicious acting spies, or scouts, stopped on a little knoll perhaps an hundred yards from the glade.

Wetzel groaned.

“This ain’t comfortable,” growled Zane, in a low whisper. “Them red devils are up to somethin’ bad. They’d better not move round over here.”

The hunters, satisfied that the two isolated savages meant mischief, turned their gaze once more toward the maple grove.

“Ah! Simon you white traitor! See him, Lew, comin’ with his precious gang,” said Jonathan. “He’s got the whole thing fixed, you can plainly see that. Bill Elliott, McKee; and who’s that renegade with Jim Girty? I’ll allow he must be the fellar we heard was with the Chippewas. Tough lookin’ customer; a good mate fer Jim Girty! A fine lot of border-hawks!”

“Somethin’ comin’ off,” whispered Wetzel, as Zane’s low growl grew unintelligible.

Jonathan felt, rather than saw, Wetzel tremble.

“The missionaries are consultin’. Ah! there comes one! Which? I guess it’s Edwards. By gum! who’s that Injun stalkin’ over from the hostile bunch. Big chief, whoever he is. Blest if it ain’t Half King!”

The watchers saw the chief wave his arm and speak with evident arrogance to Edwards, who, however, advanced to the platform and raised his hand to address the Christians.

“Crack!”

A shot rang out from the thicket. Clutching wildly at his breast, the missionary reeled back, staggered, and fell.

“One of those skulkin’ redskins has killed Edwards,” said Zane. “But, no; he’s not dead! He’s gettin’ up. Mebbe he ain’t hurt bad. By gum! there’s Young comin’ forward. Of all the fools!”

It was indeed true that Young had faced the Indians. Half King addressed him as he had the other; but Young raised his hand and began speaking.

“Crack!”

Another shot rang out. Young threw up his hands and fell heavily. The missionaries rushed toward him. Mr. Wells ran round the group, wringing his hands as if distracted.

“He’s hard hit,” hissed Zane, between his teeth. “You can tell that by the way he fell.”

Wetzel did not answer. He lay silent and motionless, his long body rigid, and his face like marble.

“There comes the other young fellar — Joe’s brother. He’ll get plugged, too,” continued Zane, whispering rather to himself than to his companion. “Oh, I hoped they’d show some sense! It’s noble for them to die for Christianity, but it won’t do no good. By gum! Heckewelder has pulled him back. Now, that’s good judgment!”

Half King stepped before the Christians and addressed them. He held in his hand a black war-club, which he wielded as he spoke.

Jonathan’s attention was now directed from the maple grove to the hunter beside him. He had heard a slight metallic click, as Wetzel cocked his rifle. Then he saw the black barrel slowly rise.

“Listen, Lew. Mebbe it ain’t good sense. We’re after Girty, you remember; and it’s a long shot from here — full three hundred yards.”

“You’re right, Jack, you’re right,” answered Wetzel, breathing hard.

“Let’s wait, and see what comes off.”

“Jack, I can’t do it. It’ll make our job harder; but I can’t help it. I can put a bullet just over the Huron’s left eye, an’ I’m goin’ to do it.”

“You can’t do it, Lew; you can’t! It’s too far for any gun. Wait! Wait!” whispered Jonathan, laying his hand on Wetzel’s shoulder.

“Wait? Man, can’t you see what the unnamable villain is doin’?”

“What?” asked Zane, turning his eyes again to the glade.

The converted Indians sat with bowed heads. Half King raised his war-club, and threw it on the ground in front of them.

“He’s announcin’ the death decree!” hissed Wetzel.

“Well! if he ain’t!”

Jonathan looked at Wetzel’s face. Then he rose to his knees, as had Wetzel, and tightened his belt. He knew that in another instant they would be speeding away through the forest.

“Lew, my rifle’s no good fer that distance. But mebbe yours is. You ought to know. It’s not sense, because there’s Simon Girty, and there’s Jim, the men we’re after. If you can hit one, you can another. But go ahead, Lew. Plug that cowardly redskin!”

Wetzel knelt on one knee, and thrust the black rifle forward through the fern leaves. Slowly the fatal barrel rose to a level, and became as motionless as the immovable stones.

Jonathan fixed his keen gaze on the haughty countenance of Half King as he stood with folded arms and scornful mien in front of the Christians he had just condemned.

Even as the short, stinging crack of Wetzel’s rifle broke the silence, Jonathan saw the fierce expression of Half King’s dark face change to one of vacant wildness. His arms never relaxed from their folded position. He fell, as falls a monarch of the forest trees, a dead weight.

Chapter XXV.

“PLEASE DO NOT preach to-day,” said Nell, raising her eyes imploringly to Jim’s face.

“Nellie, I must conduct the services as usual. I can not shirk my duty, nor let these renegades see I fear to face them.”

“I have such a queer feeling. I am afraid. I don’t want to be left alone. Please do not leave me.”

Jim strode nervously up and down the length of the room. Nell’s worn face, her beseeching eyes and trembling hands touched his heart. Rather than almost anything else, he desired to please her, to strengthen her; yet how could he shirk his duty?

“Nellie, what is it you fear?” he asked, holding her hands tightly.

“Oh, I don’t know what — everything. Uncle is growing weaker every day. Look at Mr. Young; he is only a shadow of his former self, and this anxiety is wearing Mr. Heckewelder out. He is more concerned than he dares admit. You needn’t shake your head, for I know it. Then those Indians who are waiting, waiting — for God only knows what! Worse than all to me, I saw that renegade, that fearful beast who made way with poor dear Kate!”

Nell burst into tears, and leaned sobbing on Jim’s shoulder.

“Nell, I’ve kept my courage only because of you,” replied Jim, his voice trembling slightly.

She looked up quickly. Something in the pale face which was bent over her told that now, if ever, was the time for a woman to forget herself, and to cheer, to inspire those around her.

“I am a silly baby, and selfish!” she cried, freeing herself from his hold. “Always thinking of myself.” She turned away and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Go, Jim, do you duty; I’ll stand by and help you all a woman can.”

* * *

The missionaries were consulting in Heckewelder’s cabin. Zeisberger had returned that morning, and his aggressive, dominating spirit was just what they needed in an hour like this. He raised the downcast spirits of the ministers.

“Hold the service? I should say we will,” he declared, waving his hands. “What have we to be afraid of?”

“I do not know,” answered Heckewelder, shaking his head doubtfully. “I do not know what to fear. Girty himself told me he bore us no ill will; but I hardly believe him. All this silence, this ominous waiting perplexes, bewilders me.”

“Gentlemen, our duty at least is plain,” said Jim, impressively. “The faith of these Christian Indians in us is so absolute that they have no fear. They believe in God, and in us. These threatening savages have failed signally to impress our Christians. If we do not hold the service they will think we fear Girty, and that might have a bad influence.”

“I am in favor of postponing the preaching for a few days. I tell you I am afraid of Girty’s Indians, not for myself, but for these Christians whom we love so well. I am afraid.” Heckewelder’s face bore testimony to his anxious dread.

“You are our leader; we have but to obey,” said Edwards. “Yet I think we owe it to our converts to stick to our work until we are forced by violence to desist.”

“Ah! What form will that violence take?” cried Heckewelder, his face white. “You cannot tell what these savages mean. I fear! I fear!”

“Listen, Heckewelder, you must remember we had this to go through once before,” put in Zeisberger earnestly. “In ‘78 Girty came down on us like a wolf on the fold. He had not so many Indians at his beck and call as now; but he harangued for days, trying to scare us and our handful of Christians. He set his drunken fiends to frighten us, and he failed. We stuck it out and won. He’s trying the same game. Let us stand against him, and hold our services as usual. We should trust in God!”

“Never give up!” cried Jim.

“Gentlemen, you are right; you shame me, even though I feel that I understand the situation and its dread possibilities better than any one of you. Whatever befalls we’ll stick to our post. I thank you for reviving the spirit in my cowardly heart. We will hold the service to-day as usual and to make it more impressive, each shall address the congregation in turn.”

“And, if need be, we will give our lives for our Christians,” said Young, raising his pale face.

* * *

The deep mellow peals of the church bell awoke the slumbering echoes. Scarcely had its melody died away in the forest when a line of Indians issued from the church and marched toward the maple grove. Men, women, youths, maidens and children.

Glickhican, the old Delaware chief, headed the line. His step was firm, his head erect, his face calm in its noble austerity. His followers likewise expressed in their countenances the steadfastness of their belief. The maidens’ heads were bowed, but with shyness, not fear. The children were happy, their bright faces expressive of the joy they felt in the anticipation of listening to their beloved teachers.

This procession passed between rows of painted savages, standing immovable, with folded arms, and somber eyes.

No sooner had the Christians reached the maple grove, when from all over the clearing appeared hostile Indians, who took positions near the knoll where the missionaries stood.

Heckewelder’s faithful little band awaited him on the platform. The converted Indians seated themselves as usual at the foot of the knoll. The other savages crowded closely on both sides. They carried their weapons, and maintained the same silence that had so singularly marked their mood of the last twenty-four hours. No human skill could have divined their intention. This coldness might be only habitual reserve, and it might be anything else.

Heckewelder approached at the same time that Simon Girty and his band of renegades appeared. With the renegades were Pipe and Half King. These two came slowly across the clearing, passed through the opening in the crowd, and stopped close to the platform.

Heckewelder went hurriedly up to his missionaries. He seemed beside himself with excitement, and spoke with difficulty.

“Do not preach to-day. I have been warned again,” he said, in a low voice.

“Do you forbid it?” inquired Edwards.

“No, no. I have not that authority, but I implore it. Wait, wait until the Indians are in a better mood.”

Edwards left the group, and, stepping upon the platform, faced the Christians.

At the same moment Half King stalked majestically from before his party. He carried no weapon save a black, knotted war-club. A surging forward of the crowd of savages behind him showed the intense interest which his action had aroused. He walked forward until he stood half way between the platform and the converts. He ran his evil glance slowly over the Christians, and then rested it upon Edwards.

“Half King’s orders are to be obeyed. Let the paleface keep his mouth closed,” he cried in the Indian tongue. The imperious command came as a thunderbolt from a clear sky. The missionaries behind Edwards stood bewildered, awaiting the outcome.

But Edwards, without a moment’s hesitation, calmly lifted his hand and spoke.

“Beloved Christians, we meet to-day as we have met before, as we hope to meet in—”

“Spang!”

The whistling of a bullet over the heads of the Christians accompanied the loud report of a rifle. All presently plainly heard the leaden missile strike. Edwards wheeled, clutching his side, breathed hard, and then fell heavily without uttering a cry. He had been shot by an Indian concealed in the thicket.

For a moment no one moved, nor spoke. The missionaries were stricken with horror; the converts seemed turned to stone, and the hostile throng waited silently, as they had for hours.

“He’s shot! He’s shot! Oh, I feared this!” cried Heckewelder, running forward. The missionaries followed him. Edwards was lying on his back, with a bloody hand pressed to his side.

“Dave, Dave, how is it with you?” asked Heckewelder, in a voice low with fear.

“Not bad. It’s too far out to be bad, but it knocked me over,” answered Edwards, weakly. “Give me — water.”

They carried him from the platform, and laid him on the grass under a tree.

Young pressed Edwards’ hand; he murmured something that sounded like a prayer, and then walked straight upon the platform, as he raised his face, which was sublime with a white light.

“Paleface! Back!” roared Half King, as he waved his war-club.

“You Indian dog! Be silent!”

Young’s clear voice rolled out on the quiet air so imperiously, so powerful in its wonderful scorn and passion, that the hostile savages were overcome by awe, and the Christians thrilled anew with reverential love.

Young spoke again in a voice which had lost its passion, and was singularly sweet in its richness.

“Beloved Christians, if it is God’s will that we must die to prove our faith, then as we have taught you how to live, so we can show you how to die—”

“Spang!”

Again a whistling sound came with the bellow of an overcharged rifle; again the sickening thud of a bullet striking flesh.

Young fell backwards from the platform.

The missionaries laid him beside Edwards, and then stood in shuddering silence. A smile shone on Young’s pale face; a stream of dark blood welled from his breast. His lips moved; he whispered:

“I ask no more — God’s will.”

Jim looked down once at his brother missionaries; then with blanched face, but resolute and stern, he marched toward the platform.

Heckewelder ran after him, and dragged him back.

“No! no! no! My God! Would you be killed? Oh! I tried to prevent this!” cried Heckewelder, wringing his hands.

One long, fierce, exultant yell pealed throughout the grove. It came from those silent breasts in which was pent up hatred; it greeted this action which proclaimed victory over the missionaries.

All eyes turned on Half King. With measured stride he paced to and fro before the Christian Indians.

Neither cowering nor shrinking marked their manner; to a man, to a child, they rose with proud mien, heads erect and eyes flashing. This mighty chief with his blood-thirsty crew could burn the Village of Peace, could annihilate the Christians, but he could never change their hope and trust in God.

“Blinded fools!” cried Half King. “The Huron is wise; he tells no lies. Many moons ago he told the Christians they were sitting half way between two angry gods, who stood with mouths open wide and looking ferociously at each other. If they did not move back out of the road they would be ground to powder by the teeth of one or the other, or both. Half King urged them to leave the peaceful village, to forget the paleface God; to take their horses, and flocks, and return to their homes. The Christians scorned the Huron King’s counsel. The sun has set for the Village of Peace. The time has come. Pipe and the Huron are powerful. They will not listen to the paleface God. They will burn the Village of Peace. Death to the Christians!”

Half King threw the black war-club with a passionate energy on the grass before the Indians.

They heard this decree of death with unflinching front. Even the children were quiet. Not a face paled, not an eye was lowered.

Half King cast their doom in their teeth. The Christians eyed him with unspoken scorn.

“My God! My God! It is worse than I thought!” moaned Heckewelder. “Utter ruin! Murder! Murder!”

In the momentary silence which followed his outburst, a tiny cloud of blue-white smoke came from the ferns overhanging a cliff.

Crack!

All heard the shot of a rifle; all noticed the difference between its clear, ringing intonation and the loud reports of the other two. All distinctly heard the zip of a bullet as it whistled over their heads.

All? No, not all. One did not hear that speeding bullet. He who was the central figure in this tragic scene, he who had doomed the Christians might have seen that tiny puff of smoke which heralded his own doom, but before the ringing report could reach his ears a small blue hole appeared, as if by magic, over his left eye, and pulse, and sense, and life had fled forever.

Half King, great, cruel chieftain, stood still for an instant as if he had been an image of stone; his haughty head lost its erect poise, the fierceness seemed to fade from his dark face, his proud plume waved gracefully as he swayed to and fro, and then fell before the Christians, inert and lifeless.

No one moved; it was as if no one breathed. The superstitious savages awaited fearfully another rifle shot; another lightning stroke, another visitation from the paleface’s God.

But Jim Girty, with a cunning born of his terrible fear, had recognized the ring of that rifle. He had felt the zip of a bullet which could just as readily have found his brain as Half King’s. He had stood there as fair a mark as the cruel Huron, yet the Avenger had not chosen him. Was he reserved for a different fate? Was not such a death too merciful for the frontier Deathshead? He yelled in his craven fear:

“Le vent de la Mort!”

The well known, dreaded appellation aroused the savages from a fearful stupor into a fierce manifestation of hatred. A tremendous yell rent the air. Instantly the scene changed.

Chapter XXVI.

IN THE CONFUSION the missionaries carried Young and Edwards into Mr. Wells’ cabin. Nell’s calm, white face showed that she had expected some such catastrophe as this, but she of all was the least excited. Heckewelder left them at the cabin and hurried away to consult Captain Williamson. While Zeisberger, who was skilled in surgery, attended to the wounded men, Jim barred the heavy door, shut the rude, swinging windows, and made the cabin temporarily a refuge from prowling savages.

Outside the clamor increased. Shrill yells rent the air, long, rolling war-cries sounded above all the din. The measured stamp of moccasined feet, the rush of Indians past the cabin, the dull thud of hatchets struck hard into the trees — all attested to the excitement of the savages, and the imminence of terrible danger.

In the front room of Mr. Wells’ cabin Edwards lay on a bed, his face turned to the wall, and his side exposed. There was a bloody hole in his white skin. Zeisberger was probing for the bullet. He had no instruments, save those of his own manufacture, and they were darning needles with bent points, and a long knife-blade ground thin.

“There, I have it,” said Zeisberger. “Hold still, Dave. There!” As Edwards moaned Zeisberger drew forth the bloody bullet. “Jim, wash and dress this wound. It isn’t bad. Dave will be all right in a couple of days. Now I’ll look at George.”

Zeisberger hurried into the other room. Young lay with quiet face and closed eyes, breathing faintly. Zeisberger opened the wounded man’s shirt and exposed the wound, which was on the right side, rather high up. Nell, who had followed Zeisberger that she might be of some assistance if needed, saw him look at the wound and then turn a pale face away for a second. That hurried, shuddering movement of the sober, practical missionary was most significant. Then he bent over Young and inserted on of the probes into the wound. He pushed the steel an inch, two, three, four inches into Young’s breast, but the latter neither moved nor moaned. Zeisberger shook his head, and finally removed the instrument. He raised the sufferer’s shoulder to find the bed saturated with blood. The bullet wound extended completely through the missionary’s body, and was bleeding from the back. Zeisberger folded strips of linsey cloth into small pads and bound them tightly over both apertures of the wound.

“How is he?” asked Jim, when the amateur surgeon returned to the other room, and proceeded to wash the blood from his hands.

Zeisberger shook his head gloomily.

“How is George?” whispered Edwards, who had heard Jim’s question.

“Shot through the right lung. Human skill can not aid him! Only God can save.”

“Didn’t I hear a third shot?” whispered Dave, gazing round with sad, questioning eyes. “Heckewelder?”

“Is safe. He has gone to see Williamson. You did hear a third shot. Half King fell dead with a bullet over his left eye. He had just folded his arms in a grand pose after his death decree to the Christians.”

“A judgment of God!”

“It does seem so, but it came in the form of leaden death from Wetzel’s unerring rifle. Do you hear all that yelling? Half King’s death has set the Indians wild.”

There was a gentle knock at the door, and then the word, “Open,” in Heckewelder’s voice.

Jim unbarred the door. Heckewelder came in carrying over his shoulder what apparently was a sack of meal. He was accompanied by young Christy. Heckewelder put the bag down, opened it, and lifted out a little Indian boy. The child gazed round with fearful eyes.

“Save Benny! Save Benny!” he cried, running to Nell, and she clasped him closely in her arms.

Heckewelder’s face was like marble as he asked concerning Edwards’ condition.

“I’m not badly off,” said the missionary with a smile.

“How’s George?” whispered Heckewelder.

No one answered him. Zeisberger raised his hands. All followed Heckewelder into the other room, where Young lay in the same position as when first brought in. Heckewelder stood gazing down into the wan face with its terribly significant smile.

“I brought him out here. I persuaded him to come!” whispered Heckewelder. “Oh, Almighty God!” he cried. His voice broke, and his prayer ended with the mute eloquence of clasped hands and uplifted, appealing face.

“Come out,” said Zeisberger, leading him into the larger room. The others followed, and Jim closed the door.

“What’s to be done?” said Zeisberger, with his practical common sense. “What did Williamson say? Tell us what you learned?”

“Wait — directly,” answered Heckewelder, sitting down and covering his face with his hands. There was a long silence. At length he raised his white face and spoke calmly:

“Gentlemen, the Village of Peace is doomed. I entreated Captain Williamson to help us, but he refused. Said he dared not interfere. I prayed that he would speak at least a word to Girty, but he denied my request.”

“Where are the converts?”

“Imprisoned in the church, every one of them except Benny. Mr. Christy and I hid the child in the meal sack and were thus able to get him here. We must save him.”

“Save him?” asked Nell, looking from Heckewelder to the trembling Indian boy.

“Nellie, the savages have driven all our Christians into the church, and shut them up there, until Girty and his men shall give the word to complete their fiendish design. The converts asked but one favor — an hour in which to pray. It was granted. The savages intend to murder them all.”

“Oh! Horrible! Monstrous!” cried Nell. “How can they be so inhuman?” She lifted Benny up in her arms. “They’ll never get you, my boy. We’ll save you — I’ll save you!” The child moaned and clung to her neck.

“They are scouring the clearing now for Christians, and will search all the cabins. I’m positive.”

“Will they come here?” asked Nell, turning her blazing eyes on Heckewelder.

“Undoubtedly. We must try to hide Benny. Let me think; where would be a good place? We’ll try a dark corner of the loft.”

“No, no,” cried Nell.

“Put Benny in Young’s bed,” suggested Jim.

“No, no,” cried Nell.

“Put him in a bucket and let him down in the well,” whispered Edwards, who had listened intently to the conversation.

“That’s a capital place,” said Heckewelder. “But might he not fall out and drown?”

“Tie him in the bucket,” said Jim.

“No, no, no,” cried Nell.

“But Nellie, we must decide upon a hiding place, and in a hurry.”

“I’ll save Benny.”

“You? Will you stay here to face those men? Jim Girty and Deering are searching the cabins. Could you bear it to see them? You couldn’t.”

“Oh! No, I believe it would kill me! That man! that beast! will he come here?” Nell grew ghastly pale, and looked as if about to faint. She shrunk in horror at the thought of again facing Girty. “For God’s sake, Heckewelder, don’t let him see me! Don’t let him come in! Don’t!”

Even as the imploring voice ceased a heavy thump sounded on the door.

“Who’s there?” demanded Heckewelder.

Thump! Thump!

The heavy blows shook the cabin. The pans rattled on the shelves. No answer came from without.

“Quick! Hide Benny! It’s as much as our lives are worth to have him found here,” cried Heckewelder in a fierce whisper, as he darted toward the door.

“All right, all right, in a moment,” he called out, fumbling over the bar.

He opened the door a moment later and when Jim Girty and Deering entered he turned to his friends with a dread uncertainty in his haggard face.

Edwards lay on the bed with wide-open eyes staring at the intruders. Mr. Wells sat with bowed head. Zeisberger calmly whittled a stick, and Jim stood bolt upright, with a hard light in his eyes.

Nell leaned against the side of a heavy table. Wonderful was the change that had transformed her from a timid, appealing, fear-agonized girl to a woman whose only evidence of unusual excitement were the flame in her eyes and the peculiar whiteness of her face.

Benny was gone!

Heckewelder’s glance returned to the visitors. He thought he had never seen such brutal, hideous men.

“Wal, I reckon a preacher ain’t agoin’ to lie. Hev you seen any Injun Christians round here?” asked Girty, waving a heavy sledge-hammer.

“Girty, we have hidden no Indians here,” answered Heckewelder, calmly.

“Wal, we’ll hev a look, anyway,” answered the renegade.

Girty surveyed the room with wolfish eyes. Deering was so drunk that he staggered. Both men, in fact, reeked with the vile fumes of rum. Without another word they proceeded to examine the room, by looking into every box, behind a stone oven, and in the cupboard. They drew the bedclothes from the bed, and with a kick demolished a pile of stove wood. Then the ruffians passed into the other apartments, where they could be heard making thorough search. At length both returned to the large room, when Girty directed Deering to climb a ladder leading to the loft, but because Deering was too much under the influence of liquor to do so, he had to go himself. He rummaged around up there for a few minutes, and then came down.

“Wal, I reckon you wasn’t lyin’ about it,” said Girty, with his ghastly leer.

He and his companion started to go out. Deering had stood with bloodshot eyes fixed on Nell while Girty searched the loft, and as they passed the girl on their way to the open air, the renegade looked at Girty as he motioned with his head toward her. His besotted face expressed some terrible meaning.

Girty had looked at Nell when he first entered, but had not glanced twice at her. As he turned now, before going out of the door, he fixed on her his baleful glance. His aspect was more full of meaning than could have been any words. A horrible power, of which he was boastfully conscious, shone from his little, pointed eyes. His mere presence was deadly. Plainly as if he had spoken was the significance of his long gaze. Any one could have translated that look.

Once before Nell had faced it, and fainted when its dread meaning grew clear to her. But now she returned his gaze with one in which flashed lightning scorn, and repulsion, in which glowed a wonderful defiance.

The cruel face of this man, the boastful barbarity of his manner, the long, dark, bloody history which his presence recalled, was, indeed, terrifying without the added horror of his intent toward her, but now the self-forgetfulness of a true woman sustained her.

Girty and Deering backed out of the door. Heckewelder closed it, and dropped the bar in place.

Nell fell over the table with a long, low gasp. Then with one hand she lifted her skirt. Benny walked from under it. His big eyes were bright. The young woman clasped him again in her arms. Then she released him, and, laboring under intense excitement, ran to the window.

“There he goes! Oh, the horrible beast! If I only had a gun and could shoot! Oh, if only I were a man! I’d kill him. To think of poor Kate! Ah! he intends the same for me!”

Suddenly she fell upon the floor in a faint. Mr. Wells and Jim lifted her on the bed beside Edwards, where they endeavored to revive her. It was some moments before she opened her eyes.

Jim sat holding Nell’s hand. Mr. Wells again bowed his head. Zeisberger continued to whittle a stick, and Heckewelder paced the floor. Christy stood by with every evidence of sympathy for this distracted group. Outside the clamor increased.

“Just listen!” cried Heckewelder. “Did you ever hear the like? All drunk, crazy, fiendish! They drank every drop of liquor the French traders had. Curses on the vagabond dealers! Rum has made these renegades and savages wild. Oh! my poor, innocent Christians!”

Heckewelder leaned his head against the mantle-shelf. He had broken down at last. Racking sobs shook his frame.

“Are you all right again?” asked Jim of Nell.

“Yes.”

“I am going out, first to see Williamson, and then the Christians,” he said, rising very pale, but calm.

“Don’t go!” cried Heckewelder. “I have tried everything. It was all of no use.”

“I will go,” answered Jim.

“Yes, Jim, go,” whispered Nell, looking up into his eyes. It was an earnest gaze in which a faint hope shone.

Jim unbarred the door and went out.

“Wait, I’ll go along,” cried Zeisberger, suddenly dropping his knife and stick.

As the two men went out a fearful spectacle met their eyes. The clearing was alive with Indians. But such Indians! They were painted demons, maddened by rum. Yesterday they had been silent; if they moved at all it had been with deliberation and dignity. To-day they were a yelling, running, blood-seeking mob.

“Awful! Did you ever see human beings like these?” asked Zeisberger.

“No, no!”

“I saw such a frenzy once before, but, of course, only in a small band of savages. Many times have I seen Indians preparing for the war-path, in search of both white men and redskins. They were fierce then, but nothing like this. Every one of these frenzied fiends is honest. Think of that! Every man feels it his duty to murder these Christians. Girty has led up to this by cunning, and now the time is come to let them loose.”

“It means death for all.”

“I have given up any thought of escaping,” said Zeisberger, with the calmness that had characterized his manner since he returned to the village. “I shall try to get into the church.”

“I’ll join you there as soon as I see Williamson.”

Jim walked rapidly across the clearing to the cabin where Captain Williamson had quarters. The frontiersmen stood in groups, watching the savages with an interest which showed little or no concern.

“I want to see Captain Williamson,” said Jim to a frontiersman on guard at the cabin door.

“Wal, he’s inside,” drawled the man.

Jim thought the voice familiar, and he turned sharply to see the sun-burnt features of Jeff Lynn, the old riverman who had taken Mr. Wells’ party to Fort Henry.

“Why, Lynn! I’m glad to see you,” exclaimed Jim.

“Purty fair to middlin’,” answered Jeff, extending his big hand. “Say, how’s the other one, your brother as wus called Joe?”

“I don’t know. He ran off with Wetzel, was captured by Indians, and when I last heard of him he had married Wingenund’s daughter.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” Jeff shook his grizzled head and slapped his leg. “I jest knowed he’d raise somethin’.”

“I’m in a hurry. Do you think Captain Williamson will stand still and let all this go on?”

“I’m afeerd so.”

Evidently the captain heard the conversation, for he appeared at the cabin door, smoking a long pipe.

“Captain Williamson, I have come to entreat you to save the Christians from this impending massacre.”

“I can’t do nuthin’,” answered Williamson, removing his pipe to puff forth a great cloud of smoke.

“You have eighty men here!”

“If we interfered Pipe would eat us alive in three minutes. You preacher fellows don’t understand this thing. You’ve got Pipe and Girty to deal with. If you don’t know them, you’ll be better acquainted by sundown.”

“I don’t care who they are. Drunken ruffians and savages! That’s enough. Will you help us? We are men of your own race, and we come to you for help. Can you withhold it?”

“I won’t hev nuthin’ to do with this bizness. The chiefs hev condemned the village, an’ it’ll hev to go. If you fellars hed been careful, no white blood would hev been spilled. I advise you all to lay low till it’s over.”

“Will you let me speak to your men, to try and get them to follow me?”

“Heckewelder asked that same thing. He was persistent, and I took a vote fer him just to show how my men stood. Eighteen of them said they’d follow him; the rest wouldn’t interfere.”

“Eighteen! My God!” cried Jim, voicing the passion which consumed him. “You are white men, yet you will stand by and see these innocent people murdered! Man, where’s your humanity? Your manhood? These converted Indians are savages no longer, they are Christians. Their children are as good, pure, innocent as your own. Can you remain idle and see these little ones murdered?”

Williamson made no answer, the men who had crowded round were equally silent. Not one lowered his head. Many looked at the impassioned missionary; others gazed at the savages who were circling around the trees brandishing their weapons. If any pitied the unfortunate Christians, none showed it. They were indifferent, with the indifference of men hardened to cruel scenes.

Jim understood, at last, as he turned from face to face to find everywhere that same imperturbability. These bordermen were like Wetzel and Jonathan Zane. The only good Indian was a dead Indian. Years of war and bloodshed, of merciless cruelty at the hands of redmen, of the hard, border life had rendered these frontiersmen incapable of compassion for any savage.

Jim no longer restrained himself.

“Bordermen you may be, but from my standpoint, from any man’s, from God’s, you are a lot of coldly indifferent cowards!” exclaimed Jim, with white, quivering lips. “I understand now. Few of you will risk anything for Indians. You will not believe a savage can be a Christian. You don’t care if they are all murdered. Any man among you — any man, I say — would step out before those howling fiends and boldly demand that there be no bloodshed. A courageous leader with a band of determined followers could avert this tragedy. You might readily intimidate yonder horde of drunken demons. Captain Williamson, I am only a minister, far removed from a man of war and leader, as you claim to be, but, sir, I curse you as a miserable coward. If I ever get back to civilization I’ll brand this inhuman coldness of yours, as the most infamous and dastardly cowardice that ever disgraced a white man. You are worse than Girty!”

Williamson turned a sickly yellow; he fumbled a second with the handle of his tomahawk, but made no answer. The other bordermen maintained the same careless composure. What to them was the raving of a mad preacher?

Jim saw it and turned baffled, fiercely angry, and hopeless. As he walked away Jeff Lynn took his arm, and after they were clear of the crowd of frontiersmen he said:

“Young feller, you give him pepper, an’ no mistake. An’ mebbe you’re right from your side the fence. But you can’t see the Injuns from our side. We hunters hevn’t much humanity — I reckon that’s what you called it — but we’ve lost so many friends an’ relatives, an’ hearn of so many murders by the reddys that we look on all of ’em as wild varmints that should be killed on sight. Now, mebbe it’ll interest you to know I was the feller who took the vote Williamson told you about, an’ I did it ‘cause I had an interest in you. I wus watchin’ you when Edwards and the other missionary got shot. I like grit in a man, an’ I seen you had it clear through. So when Heckewelder comes over I talked to the fellers, an’ all I could git interested was eighteen, but they wanted to fight simply fer fightin’ sake. Now, ole Jeff Lynn is your friend. You just lay low until this is over.”

Jim thanked the old riverman and left him. He hardly knew which way to turn. He would make one more effort. He crossed the clearing to where the renegades’ teepee stood. McKee and Elliott were sitting on a log. Simon Girty stood beside them, his hard, keen, roving eyes on the scene. The missionary was impressed by the white leader. There was a difference in his aspect, a wilder look than the others wore, as if the man had suddenly awakened to the fury of his Indians. Nevertheless the young man went straight toward him.

“Girty, I come—”

“Git out! You meddlin’ preacher!” yelled the renegade, shaking his fist at Jim.

Simon Girty was drunk.

Jim turned from the white fiends. He knew his life to them was not worth a pinch of powder.

“Lost! Lost! All lost!” he exclaimed in despair.

As he went toward the church he saw hundreds of savages bounding over the grass, brandishing weapons and whooping fiendishly. They were concentrating around Girty’s teepee, where already a great throng had congregated. Of all the Indians to be seen not one walked. They leaped by Jim, and ran over the grass nimble as deer.

He saw the eager, fire in their dusky eyes, and the cruelly clenched teeth like those of wolves when they snarl. He felt the hissing breath of many savages as they raced by him. More than one whirled a tomahawk close to Jim’s head, and uttered horrible yells in his ear. They were like tigers lusting for blood.

Jim hurried to the church. Not an Indian was visible near the log structure. Even the savage guards had gone. He entered the open door to be instantly struck with reverence and awe.

The Christians were singing.

Miserable and full of sickening dread though Jim was, he could not but realize that the scene before him was one of extraordinary beauty and pathos. The doomed Indians lifted up their voices in song. Never had they sung so feelingly, so harmoniously.

When the song ended Zeisberger, who stood upon a platform, opened his Bible and read:

“In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer.”

In a voice low and tremulous the venerable missionary began his sermon.

The shadow of death hovered over these Christian martyrs; it was reflected in their somber eyes, yet not one was sullen or sad. The children who were too young to understand, but instinctively feeling the tragedy soon to be enacted there, cowered close to their mothers.

Zeisberger preached a touching and impressive, though short, sermon. At its conclusion the whole congregation rose and surrounded the missionary. The men shook his hands, the women kissed them, the children clung to his legs. It was a wonderful manifestation of affection.

Suddenly Glickhican, the old Delaware chief, stepped on the platform, raised his hand and shouted one Indian word.

A long, low wail went up from the children and youths; the women slowly, meekly bowed their heads. The men, due to the stoicism of their nature and the Christianity they had learned, stood proudly erect awaiting the death that had been decreed.

Glickhican pulled the bell rope.

A deep, mellow tone pealed out.

The sound transfixed all the Christians. No one moved.

Glickhican had given the signal which told the murderers the Christians were ready.

“Come, man, my God! We can’t stay here!” cried Jim to Zeisberger.

As they went out both men turned to look their last on the martyrs. The death knell which had rung in the ears of the Christians, was to them the voice of God. Stern, dark visages of men and the sweet, submissive faces of women were uplifted with rapt attention. A light seemed to shine from these faces as if the contemplation of God had illumined them.

As Zeisberger and Jim left the church and hurried toward the cabins, they saw the crowd of savages in a black mass round Girty’s teepee. The yelling and leaping had ceased.

Heckewelder opened the door. Evidently he had watched for them.

“Jim! Jim!” cried Nell, when he entered the cabin. “Oh-h! I was afraid. Oh! I am glad you’re back safe. See, this noble Indian has come to help us.”

Wingenund stood calm and erect by the door.

“Chief, what will you do?”

“Wingenund will show you the way to the big river,” answered the chieftain, in his deep bass.

“Run away? No, never! That would be cowardly. Heckewelder, you would not go? Nor you, Zeisberger? We may yet be of use, we may yet save some of the Christians.”

“Save the yellow-hair,” sternly said Wingenund.

“Oh, Jim, you don’t understand. The chief has come to warn me of Girty. He intends to take me as he has others, as he did poor Kate. did you not see the meaning in his eyes to-day? How they scorched me! Ho! Jim, take me away! Save me! Do not leave me here to that horrible fate? Oh! Jim, take me away!”

“Nell, I will take you,” cried Jim, grasping her hands.

“Hurry! There’s a blanket full of things I packed for you,” said Heckewelder. “Lose no time. Ah! hear that! My Heavens! what a yell!” Heckewelder rushed to the door and looked out. “There they go, a black mob of imps; a pack of hungry wolves! Jim Girty is in the lead. How he leaps! How he waves his sledge! He leads the savages toward the church. Oh! it’s the end!”

“Benny? Where’s Benny?” cried Jim, hurriedly lacing the hunting coat he had flung about him.

“Benny’s safe. I’ve hidden him. I’ll get him away from here,” answered young Christy. “Go! Now’s your time. Godspeed you!”

“I’m ready,” declared Mr. Wells. “I — have — finished!”

“There goes Wingenund! He’s running. Follow him, quick! Good-by! Good-by! God be with you!” cried Heckewelder.

“Good-by! Good-by!”

Jim hurried Nell toward the bushes where Wingenund’s tall form could dimly be seen. Mr. Wells followed them. On the edge of the clearing Jim and Nell turned to look back.

They saw a black mass of yelling, struggling, fighting savages crowding around the church.

“Oh! Jim, look back! Look back!” cried Nell, holding hard to his hand. “Look back! See if Girty is coming!”

Chapter XXVII.

AT LAST THE fugitives breathed free under the gold and red cover of the woods. Never speaking, never looking back, the guide hurried eastward with long strides. His followers were almost forced to run in order to keep him in sight. He had waited at the edge of the clearing for them, and, relieving Jim of the heavy pack, which he swung slightly over his shoulder, he set a pace that was most difficult to maintain. The young missionary half led, half carried Nell over the stones and rough places. Mr. Wells labored in the rear.

“Oh! Jim! Look back! Look back! See if we are pursued!” cried Nell frequently, with many a earful glance into the dense thickets.

The Indian took a straight course through the woods. He leaped the brooks, climbed the rough ridges, and swiftly trod the glades that were free of windfalls. His hurry and utter disregard for the plain trail left behind, proved his belief in the necessity of placing many miles between the fugitives and the Village of Peace. Evidently they would be followed, and it would be a waste of valuable time to try to conceal their trail. Gradually the ground began to rise, the way become more difficult, but Wingenund never slackened his pace. Nell was strong, supple, and light of foot. She held her own with Jim, but time and time again they were obliged to wait for her uncle. Once he was far behind. Wingenund halted for them at the height of a ridge where the forest was open.

“Ugh!” exclaimed the chieftain, as they finished the ascent. He stretched a long arm toward the sun; his falcon eye gleamed.

Far in the west a great black and yellow cloud of smoke rolled heavenward. It seemed to rise from out the forest, and to hang low over the trees; then it soared aloft and grew thinner until it lost its distinct line far in the clouds. The setting sun stood yet an hour high over a distant hill, and burned dark red through the great pall of smoke.

“Is it a forest fire?” asked Nell, fearfully.

“Fire, of course, but—” Jim did not voice his fear; he looked closely at Wingenund.

The chieftain stood silent a moment as was his wont when addressed. The dull glow of the sun was reflected in the dark eyes that gazed far away over forest and field.

“Fire,” said Wingenund, and it seemed that as he spoke a sterner shadow flitted across his bronzed face. “The sun sets to-night over the ashes of the Village of Peace.”

He resumed his rapid march eastward. With never a backward glance the saddened party followed. Nell kept close beside Jim, and the old man tramped after them with bowed head. The sun set, but Wingenund never slackened his stride. Twilight deepened, yet he kept on.

“Indian, we can go no further to-night, we must rest,” cried Jim, as Nell stumbled against him, and Mr. Wells panted wearily in the rear.

“Rest soon,” replied the chief, and kept on.

Darkness had settled down when Wingenund at last halted. The fugitives could see little in the gloom, but they heard the music of running water, and felt soft moss beneath their feet.

They sank wearily down upon a projecting stone. The moss was restful to their tired limbs. Opening the pack they found food with which to satisfy the demands of hunger. Then, close under the stone, the fugitives sank into slumber while the watchful Indian stood silent and motionless.

Jim thought he had but just closed his eyes when he felt a gentle pressure on his arm.

“Day is here,” said the Indian.

Jim opened his eyes to see the bright red sun crimsoning the eastern hills, and streaming gloriously over the colored forests. He raised himself on his elbow to look around. Nell was still asleep. The blanket was tucked close to her chin. Her chestnut hair was tumbled like a schoolgirl’s; she looked as fresh and sweet as the morning.

“Nell, Nell, wake up,” said Jim, thinking the while how he would love to kiss those white eyelids.

Nell’s eyes opened wide; a smile lay deep in their hazel shadows.

“Where a I? Oh, I remember,” she cried, sitting up. “Oh, Jim, I had such a sweet dream. I was at home with mother and Kate. Oh, to wake and find it all a dream! I am fleeing for life. But, Jim, we are safe, are we not?”

“Another day, and we’ll be safe.”

“Let us fly,” she cried, leaping up and shaking out her crumpled skirt. “Uncle, come!”

Mr. Wells lay quietly with his mild blue eyes smiling up at her. He neither moved nor spoke.

“Eat, drink,” said the chief, opening the pack.

“What a beautiful place,” exclaimed Nell, taking the bread and meat handed to her. “This is a lovely little glade. Look at those golden flowers, the red and purple leaves, the brown shining moss, and those lichen-covered stones. Why! Some one has camped here. See the little cave, the screens of plaited ferns, and the stone fireplace.”

“It seems to me this dark spring and those gracefully spreading branches are familiar,” said Jim.

“Beautiful Spring,” interposed Wingenund.

“Yes, I know this place,” cried Nell excitedly. “I remember this glade though it was moonlight when I saw it. Here Wetzel rescued me from Girty.”

“Nell, you’re right,” replied Jim. “How strange we should run across this place again.”

Strange fate, indeed, which had brought them again to Beautiful Spring! It was destined that the great scenes of their lives were to be enacted in this mossy glade.

“Come, uncle, you are lazy,” cried Nell, a touch of her old roguishness making playful her voice.

Mr. Wells lay still, and smiled up at them.

“You are not ill?” cried Nell, seeing for the first time how pallid was his face.

“Dear Nellie, I am not ill. I do not suffer, but I am dying,” he answered, again with that strange, sweet smile.

“Oh-h-h!” breathed Nell, falling on her knees.

“No, no, Mr. Wells, you are only weak; you will be all right again soon,” cried Jim.

“Jim, Nellie, I have known all night. I have lain here wakeful. My heart never was strong. It gave out yesterday, and now it is slowly growing weaker. Put your hand on my breast. Feel. Ah! you see! My life is flickering. God’s will be done. I am content. My work is finished. My only regret is that I brought you out to this terrible borderland. But I did not know. If only I could see you safe from the peril of this wilderness, at home, happy, married.”

Nell bent over him blinded by her tears, unable to see or speak, crushed by this last overwhelming blow. Jim sat on the other side of the old missionary, holding his hand. For many moments neither spoke. They glanced at the pale face, watching with eager, wistful eyes for a smile, or listening for a word.

“Come,” said the Indian.

Nell silently pointed toward her uncle.

“He is dying,” whispered Jim to the Indian.

“Go, leave me,” murmured Mr. Wells. “You are still in danger.”

“We’ll not leave you,” cried Jim.

“No, no, no,” sobbed Nell, bending over to kiss him.

“Nellie, may I marry you to Jim?” whispered Mr. Wells into her ear. “He has told me how it is with him. He loves you, Nellie. I’d die happier knowing I’d left you with him.”

Even at that moment, with her heart almost breaking, Nell’s fair face flushed.

“Nell, will you marry me?” asked Jim, softly. Low though it was, he had heard Mr. Wells’ whisper.

Nell stretched a little trembling hand over her uncle to Jim, who inclosed it in his own. Her eyes met his. Through her tears shone faintly a light, which, but for the agony that made it dim, would have beamed radiant.

“Find the place,” said Mr. Wells, handing Jim a Bible. It was the one he always carried in his pocket.

With trembling hand Jim turned the leaves. At last he found the lines, and handed the book back to the old man.

Simple, sweet and sad was that marriage service. Nell and Jim knelt with hands clasped over Mr. Wells. The old missionary’s voice was faint; Nell’s responses were low, and Jim answered with deep and tender feeling. Beside them stood Wingenund, a dark, magnificent figure.

“There! May God bless you!” murmured Mr. Wells, with a happy smile, closing the Bible.

“Nell, my wife!” whispered Jim, kissing her hand.

“Come!” broke in Wingenund’s voice, deep, strong, like that of a bell.

Not one of them had observed the chief as he stood erect, motionless, poised like a stag scenting the air. His dark eyes seemed to pierce the purple-golden forest, his keen ear seemed to drink in the singing of the birds and the gentle rustling of leaves. Native to these haunts as were the wild creatures, they were no quicker than the Indian to feel the approach of foes. The breeze had borne faint, suspicious sounds.

“Keep — the — Bible,” said Mr. Wells, “remember — its — word.” His hand closely clasped Nell’s, and then suddenly loosened. His pallid face was lighted by a meaning, tender smile which slowly faded — faded, and was gone. The venerable head fell back. The old missionary was dead.

Nell kissed the pale, cold brow, and then rose, half dazed and shuddering. Jim was vainly trying to close the dead man’s eyes. She could no longer look. On rising she found herself near the Indian chief. He took her fingers in his great hand, and held them with a strong, warm pressure. Strangely thrilled, she looked up at Wingenund. His somber eyes, fixed piercingly on the forest, and his dark stern face, were, as always, inscrutable. No compassion shone there; no emotion unbefitting a chieftain would ever find expression in that cold face, but Nell felt a certain tenderness in this Indian, a response in his great heart. Felt it so surely, so powerfully that she leaned her head against him. She knew he was her friend.

“Come,” said the chief once more. He gently put Nell aside before Jim arose from his sad task.

“We can not leave him unburied,” expostulated Jim.

Wingenund dragged aside a large stone which formed one wall of the cavern. Then he grasped a log which was half covered by dirt, and, exerting his great strength, pulled it from its place. There was a crash, a rumble, the jar of a heavy weight striking the earth, then the rattling of gravel, and, before Nell and Jim realized what had happened, the great rock forming the roof of the cavern slipped down the bank followed by a small avalanche. The cavern was completely covered. Mr. Wells was buried. A mossy stone marked the old missionary’s grave.

Nell and Jim were lost in wonder and awe.

“Ugh!” cried the chief, looking toward the opening in the glade.

Fearfully Nell and Jim turned, to be appalled by four naked, painted savages standing with leveled rifles. Behind them stood Deering and Jim Girty.

“Oh, God! We are lost! Lost! Lost!” exclaimed Jim, unable to command himself. Hope died in his heart.

No cry issued from Nell’s white lips. She was dazed by this final blow. Having endured so much, this last misfortune, apparently the ruin of her life, brought no added suffering, only a strange, numb feeling.

“Ah-huh! Thought you’d give me the slip, eh?” croaked Girty, striding forward, and as he looked at Wingenund his little, yellow eyes flared like flint. “Does a wolf befriend Girty’s captives? Chief you hev led me a hard chase.”

Wingenund deigned no reply. He stood as he did so often, still and silent, with folded arms, and a look that was haughty, unresponsive.

The Indians came forward into the glade, and one of them quickly bound Jim’s hands behind his back. The savages wore a wild, brutish look. A feverish ferocity, very near akin to insanity, possessed them. They were not quiet a moment, but ran here and there, for no apparent reason, except, possibly, to keep in action with the raging fire in their hearts. The cleanliness which characterized the normal Indian was absent in them; their scant buckskin dress was bedraggled and stained. They were still drunk with rum and the lust for blood. Murder gleamed from the glance of their eyes.

“Jake, come over here,” said Girty to his renegade friend. “Ain’t she a prize?”

Girty and Deering stood before the poor, stricken girl, and gloated over her fair beauty. She stood as when first transfixed by the horror from which she had been fleeing. Her pale face was lowered, her hands clenched tightly in the folds of her skirt.

Never before had two such coarse, cruel fiends as Deering and Girty encumbered the earth. Even on the border, where the best men were bad, they were the worst. Deering was yet drunk, but Girty had recovered somewhat from the effects of the rum he had absorbed. The former rolled his big eyes and nodded his shaggy head. He was passing judgment, from his point of view, on the fine points of the girl.

“She cer’aintly is,” he declared with a grin. “She’s a little beauty. Beats any I ever seen!”

Jim Girty stroked his sharp chin with dirty fingers. His yellow eyes, his burnt saffron skin, his hooked nose, his thin lips — all his evil face seemed to shine with an evil triumph. To look at him was painful. To have him gaze at her was enough to drive any woman mad.

Dark stains spotted the bright frills of his gaudy dress, his buckskin coat and leggins, and dotted his white eagle plumes. Dark stains, horribly suggestive, covered him from head to foot. Blood stains! The innocent blood of Christians crimsoned his renegade’s body, and every dark red blotch cried murder.

“Girl, I burned the Village of Peace to git you,” growled Girty. “Come here!”

With a rude grasp that tore open her dress, exposing her beautiful white shoulder and bosom, the ruffian pulled her toward him. His face was transfixed with a fierce joy, a brutal passion.

Deering looked on with a drunken grin, while his renegade friend hugged the almost dying girl. The Indians paced the glade with short strides like leashed tigers. The young missionary lay on the moss with closed eyes. He could not endure the sight of Nell in Girty’s arms.

No one noticed Wingenund. He stood back a little, half screened by drooping branches. Once again the chief’s dark eyes gleamed, his head turned a trifle aside, and, standing in the statuesque position habitual with him when resting, he listened, as one who hears mysterious sounds. Suddenly his keen glance was riveted on the ferns above the low cliff. He had seen their graceful heads quivering. Then two blinding sheets of flame burst from the ferns.

Spang! Spang!

The two rifle reports thundered through the glade. Two Indians staggered and fell in their tracks — dead without a cry.

A huge yellow body, spread out like a panther in his spring, descended with a crash upon Deering and Girty. The girl fell away from the renegade as he went down with a shrill screech, dragging Deering with him. Instantly began a terrific, whirling, wrestling struggle.

A few feet farther down the cliff another yellow body came crashing down to alight with a thud, to bound erect, to rush forward swift as a leaping deer. The two remaining Indians had only time to draw their weapons before this lithe, threatening form whirled upon them. Shrill cries, hoarse yells, the clash of steel and dull blows mingled together. One savage went down, twisted over, writhed and lay still. The other staggered, warded off lightninglike blows until one passed under his guard, and crashed dully on his head. Then he reeled, rose again, but only to have his skull cloven by a bloody tomahawk.

The victor darted toward the whirling mass.

“Lew, shake him loose! Let him go!” yelled Jonathan Zane, swinging his bloody weapon.

High above Zane’s cry, Deering’s shouts and curses, Girty’s shrieks of fear and fury, above the noise of wrestling bodies and dull blows, rose a deep booming roar.

It was Wetzel’s awful cry of vengeance.

“Shake him loose,” yelled Jonathan.

Baffled, he ran wildly around the wrestlers. Time and time again his gory tomahawk was raised only to be lowered. He found no opportunity to strike. Girty’s ghastly countenance gleamed at him from the whirl of legs, and arms and bodies. Then Wetzel’s dark face, lighted by merciless eyes, took its place, and that gave way to Deering’s broad features. The men being clad alike in buckskin, and their motions so rapid, prevented Zane from lending a helping hand.

Suddenly Deering was propelled from the mass as if by a catapult. His body straightened as it came down with a heavy thud. Zane pounced upon it with catlike quickness. Once more he swung aloft the bloody hatchet; then once more he lowered it, for there was no need to strike. The renegade’s side was torn open from shoulder to hip. A deluge of blood poured out upon the moss. Deering choked, a bloody froth formed on his lips. His fingers clutched at nothing. His eyes rolled violently and then were fixed in an awful stare.

The girl lying so quiet in the woods near the old hut was avenged!

Jonathan turned again to Wetzel and Girty, not with any intention to aid the hunter, but simply to witness the end of the struggle.

Without the help of the powerful Deering, how pitifully weak was the Deathshead of the frontier in the hands of the Avenger!

Jim Girty’s tomahawk was thrown in one direction and his knife in another. He struggled vainly in the iron grip that held him.

Wetzel rose to his feet clutching the renegade. With his left arm, which had been bared in the fight, he held Girty by the front of his buckskin shirt, and dragged him to that tree which stood alone in the glade. He pushed him against it, and held him there.

The white dog leaped and snarled around the prisoner.

Girty’s hands pulled and tore at the powerful arm which forced him hard against the beech. It was a brown arm, and huge with its bulging, knotted, rigid muscles. A mighty arm, strong as the justice which ruled it.

“Girty, thy race is run!” Wetzel’s voice cut the silence like a steel whip.

The terrible, ruthless smile, the glittering eyes of doom seemed literally to petrify the renegade.

The hunter’s right arm rose slowly. The knife in his hand quivered as if with eagerness. The long blade, dripping with Deering’s blood, pointed toward the hilltop.

“Look thar! See ‘em! Thar’s yer friends!” cried Wetzel.

On the dead branches of trees standing far above the hilltop, were many great, dark birds. They sat motionless as if waiting.

“Buzzards! Buzzards!” hissed Wetzel.

Girty’s ghastly face became an awful thing to look upon. No living countenance ever before expressed such fear, such horror, such agony. He foamed at the mouth, he struggled, he writhed. With a terrible fascination he watched that quivering, dripping blade, now poised high.

Wetzel’s arm swung with the speed of a shooting star. He drove the blade into Girty’s groin, through flesh and bone, hard and fast into the tree. He nailed the renegade to the beech, there to await his lingering doom.

“Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!” shrieked Girty, in cries of agony. He fumbled and pulled at the haft of the knife, but could not loosen it. He beat his breast, he tore his hair. His screams were echoed from the hilltop as if in mockery.

The white dog stood near, his hair bristling, his teeth snapping.

The dark birds sat on the dead branches above the hilltop, as if waiting for their feast.

Chapter XXVIII.

ZANE TURNED AND cut the young missionary’s bonds. Jim ran to where Nell was lying on the ground, and tenderly raised her head, calling to her that they were saved. Zane bathed the girl’s pale face. Presently she sighed and opened her eyes.

Then Zane looked from the statuelike form of Wingenund to the motionless figure of Wetzel. The chief stood erect with his eyes on the distant hills. Wetzel remained with folded arms, his cold eyes fixed upon the writhing, moaning renegade.

“Lew, look here,” said Zane, unhesitatingly, and pointed toward the chief.

Wetzel quivered as if sharply stung; the cold glitter in his eyes changed to lurid fire. With upraised tomahawk he bounded across the brook.

“Lew, wait a minute!” yelled Zane.

“Wetzel! wait, wait!” cried Jim, grasping the hunter’s arm; but the latter flung him off, as the wind tosses a straw.

“Wetzel, wait, for God’s sake, wait!” screamed Nell. She had risen at Zane’s call, and now saw the deadly resolve in the hunter’s eyes. Fearlessly she flung herself in front of him; bravely she risked her life before his mad rush; frantically she threw her arms around him and clung to his hands desperately.

Wetzel halted; frenzied as he was at the sight of his foe, he could not hurt a woman.

“Girl, let go!” he panted, and his broad breast heaved.

“No, no, no! Listen, Wetzel, you must not kill the chief. He is a friend.”

“He is my great foe!”

“Listen, oh! please listen!” pleaded Nell. “He warned me to flee from Girty; he offered to guide us to Fort Henry. He has saved my life. For my sake, Wetzel, do not kill him! Don’t let me be the cause of his murder! Wetzel, Wetzel, lower your arm, drop your hatchet. For pity’s sake do not spill more blood. Wingenund is a Christian!”

Wetzel stepped back breathing heavily. His white face resembled chiseled marble. With those little hands at his breast he hesitated in front of the chief he had hunted for so many long years.

“Would you kill a Christian?” pleaded Nell, her voice sweet and earnest.

“I reckon not, but this Injun ain’t one,” replied Wetzel slowly.

“Put away your hatchet. Let me have it. Listen, and I will tell you, after thanking you for this rescue. Do you know of my marriage? Come, please listen! Forget for a moment your enmity. Oh! you must be merciful! Brave men are always merciful!”

“Injun, are you a Christian?” hissed Wetzel.

“Oh! I know he is! I know he is!” cried Nell, still standing between Wetzel and the chief.

Wingenund spoke no word. He did not move. His falcon eyes gazed tranquilly at his white foe. Christian or pagan, he would not speak one word to save his life.

“Oh! tell him you are a Christian,” cried Nell, running to the chief.

“Yellow-hair, the Delaware is true to his race.”

As he spoke gently to Nell a noble dignity shone upon his dark face.

“Injun, my back bears the scars of your braves’ whips,” hissed Wetzel, once more advancing.

“Deathwind, your scars are deep, but the Delaware’s are deeper,” came the calm reply. “Wingenund’s heart bears two scars. His son lies under the moss and ferns; Deathwind killed him; Deathwind alone knows his grave. Wingenund’s daughter, the delight of his waning years, freed the Delaware’s great foe, and betrayed her father. Can the Christian God tell Wingenund of his child?”

Wetzel shook like a tree in a storm. Justice cried out in the Indian’s deep voice. Wetzel fought for mastery of himself.

“Delaware, your daughter lays there, with her lover,” said Wetzel firmly, and pointed into the spring.

“Ugh!” exclaimed the Indian, bending over the dark pool. He looked long into its murky depths. Then he thrust his arm down into the brown water.

“Deathwind tells no lie,” said the chief, calmly, and pointed toward Girty. The renegade had ceased struggling, his head was bowed upon his breast. “The white serpent has stung the Delaware.”

“What does it mean?” cried Jim.

“Your brother Joe and Whispering Winds lie in the spring,” answered Jonathan Zane. “Girty murdered them, and Wetzel buried the two there.”

“Oh, is it true?” cried Nell.

“True, lass,” whispered Jim, brokenly, holding out his arms to her. Indeed, he needed her strength as much as she needed his. The girl gave one shuddering glance at the spring, and then hid her face on her husband’s shoulder.

“Delaware, we are sworn foes,” cried Wetzel.

“Wingenund asks no mercy.”

“Are you a Christian?”

“Wingenund is true to his race.”

“Delaware, begone! Take these weapons an’ go. When your shadow falls shortest on the ground, Deathwind starts on your trail.”

“Deathwind is the great white chief; he is the great Indian foe; he is as sure as the panther in his leap; as swift as the wild goose in his northern flight. Wingenund never felt fear.” The chieftain’s sonorous reply rolled through the quiet glade. “If Deathwind thirsts for Wingenund’s blood, let him spill it now, for when the Delaware goes into the forest his trail will fade.”

“Begone!” roared Wetzel. The fever for blood was once more rising within him.

The chief picked up some weapons of the dead Indians, and with haughty stride stalked from the glade.

“Oh, Wetzel, thank you, I knew—” Nell’s voice broke as she faced the hunter. She recoiled from this changed man.

“Come, we’ll go,” said Jonathan Zane. “I’ll guide you to Fort Henry.” He lifted the pack, and led Nell and Jim out of the glade.

They looked back once to picture forever in their minds the lovely spot with its ghastly quiet bodies, the dark, haunting spring, the renegade nailed to the tree, and the tall figure of Wetzel as he watched his shadow on the ground.

* * *

When Wetzel also had gone, only two living creatures remained in the glade — the doomed renegade, and the white dog. The gaunt beast watched the man with hungry, mad eyes.

A long moan wailed through the forest. It swelled mournfully on the air, and died away. The doomed man heard it. He raised his ghastly face; his dulled senses seemed to revive. He gazed at the stiffening bodies of the Indians, at the gory corpse of Deering, at the savage eyes of the dog.

Suddenly life seemed to surge strong within him.

“Hell’s fire! I’m not done fer yet,” he gasped. “This damned knife can’t kill me; I’ll pull it out.”

He worked at the heavy knife hilt. Awful curses passed his lips, but the blade did not move. Retribution had spoken his doom.

Suddenly he saw a dark shadow moving along the sunlit ground. It swept past him. He looked up to see a great bird with wide wings sailing far above. He saw another still higher, and then a third. He looked at the hilltop. The quiet, black birds had taken wing. They were floating slowly, majestically upward. He watched their graceful flight. How easily they swooped in wide circles. He remembered that they had fascinated him when a boy, long, long ago, when he had a home. Where was that home? He had one once. Ah! the long, cruel years have rolled back. A youth blotted out by evil returned. He saw a little cottage, he saw the old Virginia homestead, he saw his brothers and his mother.

“Ah-h!” A cruel agony tore his heart. He leaned hard against the knife. With the pain the present returned, but the past remained. All his youth, all his manhood flashed before him. The long, bloody, merciless years faced him, and his crimes crushed upon him with awful might.

Suddenly a rushing sound startled him. He saw a great bird swoop down and graze the tree tops. Another followed, and another, and then a flock of them. He saw their gray, spotted breasts and hooked beaks.

“Buzzards,” he muttered, darkly eyeing the dead savages. The carrion birds were swooping to their feast.

“By God! He’s nailed me fast for buzzards!” he screamed in sudden, awful frenzy. “Nailed fast! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h! Eaten alive by buzzards! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!”

He shrieked until his voice failed, and then he gasped.

Again the buzzards swooped overhead, this time brushing the leaves. One, a great grizzled bird, settled upon a limb of the giant oak, and stretched its long neck. Another alighted beside him. Others sailed round and round the dead tree top.

The leader arched his wings, and with a dive swooped into the glade. He alighted near Deering’s dead body. He was a dark, uncanny bird, with long, scraggy, bare neck, a wreath of white, grizzled feathers, a cruel, hooked beak, and cold eyes.

The carrion bird looked around the glade, and put a great claw on the dead man’s breast.

“Ah-h! Ah-h!” shrieked Girty. His agonized yell of terror and horror echoed mockingly from the wooded bluff.

The huge buzzard flapped his wings and flew away, but soon returned to his gruesome feast. His followers, made bold by their leader, floated down into the glade. Their black feathers shone in the sun. They hopped over the moss; they stretched their grizzled necks, and turned their heads sideways.

Girty was sweating blood. It trickled from his ghastly face. All the suffering and horror he had caused in all his long career was as nothing to that which then rended him. He, the renegade, the white Indian, the Deathshead of the frontier, panted and prayed for a merciful breath. He was exquisitely alive. He was human.

Presently the huge buzzard, the leader, raised his hoary head. He saw the man nailed to the tree. The bird bent his head wisely to one side, and then lightly lifted himself into the air. He sailed round the glade, over the fighting buzzards, over the spring, and over the doomed renegade. He flew out of the glade, and in again. He swooped close to Girty. His broad wings scarcely moved as he sailed along.

Girty tried to strike the buzzard as he sailed close by, but his arm fell useless. He tried to scream, but his voice failed.

Slowly the buzzard king sailed by and returned. Every time he swooped a little nearer, and bent his long, scraggy neck.

Suddenly he swooped down, light and swift as a hawk; his wide wings fanned the air; he poised under the tree, and then fastened sharp talons in the doomed man’s breast.

Chapter XXIX.

THE FLEETING HUMAN instinct of Wetzel had given way to the habit of years. His merciless quest for many days had been to kill the frontier fiend. Now that it had been accomplished, he turned his vengeance into its accustomed channel, and once more became the ruthless Indian-slayer.

A fierce, tingling joy surged through him as he struck the Delaware’s trail. Wingenund had made little or no effort to conceal his tracks; he had gone northwest, straight as a crow flies, toward the Indian encampment. He had a start of sixty minutes, and it would require six hours of rapid traveling to gain the Delaware town.

“Reckon he’ll make fer home,” muttered Wetzel, following the trail with all possible speed.

The hunter’s method of trailing an Indian was singular. Intuition played as great a part as sight. He seemed always to divine his victim’s intention. Once on the trail he was as hard to shake off as a bloodhound. Yet he did not, by any means, always stick to the Indian’s footsteps. With Wetzel the direction was of the greatest importance.

For half a mile he closely followed the Delaware’s plainly marked trail. Then he stopped to take a quick survey of the forest before him. He abruptly left the trail, and, breaking into a run, went through the woods as fleetly and noiselessly as a deer, running for a quarter of a mile, when he stopped to listen. All seemed well, for he lowered his head, and walked slowly along, examining the moss and leaves. Presently he came upon a little open space where the soil was a sandy loam. He bent over, then rose quickly. He had come upon the Indian’s trail. Cautiously he moved forward, stopping every moment to listen. In all the close pursuits of his maturer years he had never been a victim of that most cunning of Indian tricks, an ambush. He relied solely on his ear to learn if foes were close by. The wild creatures of the forest were his informants. As soon as he heard any change in their twittering, humming or playing — whichever way they manifested their joy or fear of life — he became as hard to see, as difficult to hear as a creeping snake.

The Delaware’s trail led to a rocky ridge and there disappeared. Wetzel made no effort to find the chief’s footprints on the flinty ground, but halted a moment and studied the ridge, the lay of the land around, a ravine on one side, and a dark impenetrable forest on the other. He was calculating his chances of finding the Delaware’s trail far on the other side. Indian woodcraft, subtle, wonderful as it may be, is limited to each Indian’s ability. Savages, as well as other men, were born unequal. One might leave a faint trail through the forest, while another could be readily traced, and a third, more cunning and skillful than his fellows, have flown under the shady trees, for all the trail he left. But redmen followed the same methods of woodcraft from tradition, as Wetzel had learned after long years of study and experience.

And now, satisfied that he had divined the Delaware’s intention, he slipped down the bank of the ravine, and once more broke into a run. He leaped lightly, sure-footed as a goat, from stone to stone, over fallen logs, and the brawling brook. At every turn of the ravine, at every open place, he stopped to listen.

Arriving on the other side of the ridge, he left the ravine and passed along the edge of the rising ground. He listened to the birds, and searched the grass and leaves. He found not the slightest indication of a trail where he had expected to find one. He retraced his steps patiently, carefully, scrutinizing every inch of the ground. But it was all in vain. Wingenund had begun to show his savage cunning. In his warrior days for long years no chief could rival him. His boast had always been that, when Wingenund sought to elude his pursuers, his trail faded among the moss and the ferns.

Wetzel, calm, patient, resourceful, deliberated a moment. The Delaware had not crossed this rocky ridge. He had been cunning enough to make his pursuer think such was his intention. The hunter hurried to the eastern end of the ridge for no other reason than apparently that course was the one the savage had the least reason to take. He advanced hurriedly because every moment was precious. Not a crushed blade of grass, a brushed leaf, an overturned pebble nor a snapped twig did he find. He saw that he was getting near to the side of the ridge where the Delaware’s trail had abruptly ended. Ah! what was there? A twisted bit of fern, with the drops of dew brushed off. Bending beside the fern, Wetzel examined the grass; it was not crushed. A small plant with triangular leaves of dark green, lay under the fern. Breaking off one of these leaves, he exposed its lower side to the light. The fine, silvery hair of fuzz that grew upon the leaf had been crushed. Wetzel knew that an Indian could tread so softly as not to break the springy grass blades, but the under side of one of these leaves, if a man steps on it, always betrays his passage through the woods. To keen eyes this leaf showed that it had been bruised by a soft moccasin. Wetzel had located the trail, but was still ignorant of its direction. Slowly he traced the shaken ferns and bruised leaves down over the side of the ridge, and at last, near a stone, he found a moccasin-print in the moss. It pointed east. The Delaware was traveling in exactly the opposite direction to that which he should be going. He was, moreover, exercising wonderful sagacity in hiding his trail. This, however, did not trouble Wetzel, for if it took him a long time to find the trail, certainly the Delaware had expended as much, or more, in choosing hard ground, logs or rocks on which to tread.

Wetzel soon realized that his own cunning was matched. He trusted no more to his intuitive knowledge, but stuck close to the trail, as a hungry wolf holds to the scent of his quarry.

The Delaware trail led over logs, stones and hard-baked ground, up stony ravines and over cliffs. The wily chief used all of his old skill; he walked backward over moss and sand where his footprints showed plainly; he leaped wide fissures in stony ravines, and then jumped back again; he let himself down over ledges by branches; he crossed creeks and gorges by swinging himself into trees and climbing from one to another; he waded brooks where he found hard bottom, and avoided swampy, soft ground.

With dogged persistence and tenacity of purpose Wetzel stuck to this gradually fading trail. Every additional rod he was forced to go more slowly, and take more time in order to find any sign of his enemy’s passage through the forests. One thing struck him forcibly. Wingenund was gradually circling to the southwest, a course that took him farther and farther from the Delaware encampment.

Slowly it dawned upon Wetzel that the chief could hardly have any reason for taking this circling course save that of pride and savage joy in misleading, in fooling the foe of the Delawares, in deliberately showing Deathwind that there was one Indian who could laugh at and loose him in the forests. To Wetzel this was bitter as gall. To be led a wild goose chase! His fierce heart boiled with fury. His dark, keen eyes sought the grass and moss with terrible earnestness. Yet in spite of the anger that increased to the white heat of passion, he became aware of some strange sensation creeping upon him. He remembered that the Delawares had offered his life. Slowly, like a shadow, Wetzel passed up and down the ridges, through the brown and yellow aisles of the forest, over the babbling brooks, out upon the golden-flecked fields — always close on the trail.

At last in an open part of the forest, where a fire had once swept away the brush and smaller timber, Wetzel came upon the spot where the Delaware’s trail ended.

There in the soft, black ground was a moccasin-print. The forest was not dense; there was plenty of light; no logs, stones or trees were near, and yet over all that glade no further evidence of the Indian’s trail was visible.

It faded there as the great chief had boasted it would.

Wetzel searched the burnt ground; he crawled on his hands and knees; again and again he went over the surroundings. The fact that one moccasin-print pointed west and the other east, showed that the Delaware had turned in his tracks, was the most baffling thing that had ever crossed the hunter in all his wild wanderings.

For the first time in many years he had failed. He took his defeat hard, because he had been successful for so long he thought himself almost infallible, and because the failure lost him the opportunity to kill his great foe. In his passion he cursed himself for being so weak as to let the prayer of a woman turn him from his life’s purpose.

With bowed head and slow, dragging steps he made his way westward. The land was strange to him, but he knew he was going toward familiar ground. For a time he walked quietly, all the time the fierce fever in his veins slowly abating. Calm he always was, except when that unnatural lust for Indians’ blood overcame him.

On the summit of a high ridge he looked around to ascertain his bearings. He was surprised to find he had traveled in a circle. A mile or so below him arose the great oak tree which he recognized as the landmark of Beautiful Spring. He found himself standing on the hill, under the very dead tree to which he had directed Girty’s attention a few hours previous.

With the idea that he would return to the spring to scalp the dead Indians, he went directly toward the big oak tree. Once out of the forest a wide plain lay between him and the wooded knoll which marked the glade of Beautiful Spring. He crossed this stretch of verdant meadow-land, and entered the copse.

Suddenly he halted. His keen sense of the usual harmony of the forest, with its innumerable quiet sounds, had received a severe shock. He sank into the tall weeds and listened. Then he crawled a little farther. Doubt became certainty. A single note of an oriole warned him, and it needed not the quick notes of a catbird to tell him that near at hand, somewhere, was human life.

Once more Wetzel became a tiger. The hot blood leaped from his heart, firing all his veins and nerves. But calmly noiseless, certain, cold, deadly as a snake he began the familiar crawling method of stalking his game.

On, on under the briars and thickets, across the hollows full of yellow leaves, up over stony patches of ground to the fern-covered cliff overhanging the glade he glided — lithe, sinuous, a tiger in movement and in heart.

He parted the long, graceful ferns and gazed with glittering eyes down into the beautiful glade.

He saw not the shining spring nor the purple moss, nor the ghastly white bones — all that the buzzards had left of the dead — nor anything, save a solitary Indian standing erect in the glade.

There, within range of his rifle, was his great Indian foe, Wingenund.

Wetzel sank back into the ferns to still the furious exultations which almost consumed him during the moment when he marked his victim. He lay there breathing hard, gripping tightly his rifle, slowly mastering the passion that alone of all things might render his aim futile.

For him it was the third great moment of his life, the last of three moments in which the Indian’s life had belonged to him. Once before he had seen that dark, powerful face over the sights of his rifle, and he could not shoot because his one shot must be for another. Again had that lofty, haughty figure stood before him, calm, disdainful, arrogant, and he yielded to a woman’s prayer.

The Delaware’s life was his to take, and he swore he would have it! He trembled in the ecstasy of his triumphant passion; his great muscles rippled and quivered, for the moment was entirely beyond his control. Then his passion calmed. Such power for vengeance had he that he could almost still the very beats of his heart to make sure and deadly his fatal aim. Slowly he raised himself; his eyes of cold fire glittered; slowly he raised the black rifle.

Wingenund stood erect in his old, grand pose, with folded arms, but his eyes, instead of being fixed on the distant hills, were lowered to the ground.

An Indian girl, cold as marble, lay at his feet. Her garments were wet, and clung to her slender form. Her sad face was frozen into an eternal rigidity.

By her side was a newly dug grave.

The bead on the front sight of the rifle had hardly covered the chief’s dark face when Wetzel’s eye took in these other details. He had been so absorbed in his purpose that he did not dream of the Delaware’s reason for returning to the Beautiful Spring.

Slowly Wetzel’s forefinger stiffened; slowly he lowered the black rifle.

Wingenund had returned to bury Whispering Winds.

Wetzel’s teethe clenched, an awful struggle tore his heart. Slowly the rifle rose, wavered and fell. It rose again, wavered and fell. Something terrible was wrong with him; something awful was awakening in his soul.

Wingenund had not made a fool of him. The Delaware had led him a long chase, had given him the slip in the forest, not to boast of it, but to hurry back to give his daughter Christian burial.

Wingenund was a Christian!

Had he not been, once having cast his daughter from him, he would never have looked upon her face again.

Wingenund was true to his race, but he was a Christian.

Suddenly Wetzel’s terrible temptation, his heart-racking struggle ceased. He lowered the long, black rifle. He took one last look at the chieftain’s dark, powerful face.

Then the Avenger fled like a shadow through the forest.

Chapter XXX.

IT WAS LATE afternoon at Fort Henry. The ruddy sun had already sunk behind the wooded hill, and the long shadows of the trees lengthened on the green square in front of the fort.

Colonel Zane stood in his doorway watching the river with eager eyes. A few minutes before a man had appeared on the bank of the island and hailed. The colonel had sent his brother Jonathan to learn what was wanted. The latter had already reached the other shore in his flatboat, and presently the little boat put out again with the stranger seated at the stern.

“I thought, perhaps, it might be Wetzel,” mused the colonel, “though I never knew of Lew’s wanting a boat.”

Jonathan brought the man across the river, and up the winding path to where Colonel Zane was waiting.

“Hello! It’s young Christy!” exclaimed the colonel, jumping off the steps, and cordially extending his hand. “Glad to see you! Where’s Williamson. How did you happen over here?”

“Captain Williamson and his men will make the river eight or ten miles above,” answered Christy. “I came across to inquire about the young people who left the Village of Peace. Was glad to learn from Jonathan they got out all right.”

“Yes, indeed, we’re all glad. Come and sit down. Of course you’ll stay over night. You look tired and worn. Well, no wonder, when you saw that Moravian massacre. You must tell me about it. I saw Sam Brady yesterday, and he spoke of seeing you over there. Sam told me a good deal. Ah! here’s Jim now.”

The young missionary came out of the open door, and the two young men greeted each other warmly.

“How is she?” asked Christy, when the first greetings had been exchanged.

“Nell’s just beginning to get over the shock. She’ll be glad to see you.”

“Jonathan tells me you got married just before Girty came up with you at Beautiful Spring.”

“Yes; it is true. In fact, the whole wonderful story is true, yet I cannot believe as yet. You look thin and haggard. When we last met you were well.”

“That awful time pulled me down. I was an unwilling spectator of all that horrible massacre, and shall never get over it. I can still see the fiendish savages running about with the reeking scalps of their own people. I actually counted the bodies of forty-nine grown Christians and twenty-seven children. An hour after you left us the church was in ashes, and the next day I saw the burned bodies. Oh! the sickening horror of the scene! It haunts me! That monster Jim Girty killed fourteen Christians with his sledge-hammer.”

“Did you hear of his death?” asked Colonel Zane.

“Yes, and a fitting end it was to the frontier ‘Skull and Cross-bones’.”

“It was like Wetzel to think of such a vengeance.”

“Has Wetzel come in since?”

“No. Jonathan says he went after Wingenund, and there’s no telling when he’ll return.”

“I hoped he would spare the Delaware.”

“Wetzel spare an Indian!”

“But the chief was a friend. He surely saved the girl.”

“I am sorry, too, because Wingenund was a fine Indian. But Wetzel is implacable.”

“Here’s Nell, and Mrs. Clarke too. Come out, both of you,” cried Jim.

Nell appeared in the doorway with Colonel Zane’s sister. The two girls came down the steps and greeted the young man. The bride’s sweet face was white and thin, and there was a shadow in her eyes.

“I am so glad you got safely away from — from there,” said Christy, earnestly.

“Tell me of Benny?” asked Nell, speaking softly.

“Oh, yes, I forgot. Why, Benny is safe and well. He was the only Christian Indian to escape the Christian massacre. Heckewelder hid him until it was all over. He is going to have the lad educated.”

“Thank Heaven!” murmured Nell.

“And the missionaries?” inquired Jim, earnestly.

“Were all well when I left, except, of course, Young. He was dying. The others will remain out there, and try to get another hold, but I fear it’s impossible.”

“It is impossible, not because the Indian does not want Christianity, but because such white men as the Girty’s rule. The beautiful Village of Peace owes its ruin to the renegades,” said Colonel Zane impressively.

“Captain Williamson could have prevented the massacre,” remarked Jim.

“Possibly. It was a bad place for him, and I think he was wrong not to try,” declared the colonel.

“Hullo!” cried Jonathan Zane, getting up from the steps where he sat listening to the conversation.

A familiar soft-moccasined footfall sounded on the path. All turned to see Wetzel come slowly toward them. His buckskin hunting costume was ragged and worn. He looked tired and weary, but the dark eyes were calm.

It was the Wetzel whom they all loved.

They greeted him warmly. Nell gave him her hands, and smiled up at him.

“I’m so glad you’ve come home safe,” she said.

“Safe an’ sound, lass, an’ glad to find you well,” answered the hunter, as he leaned on his long rifle, looking from Nell to Colonel Zane’s sister. “Betty, I allus gave you first place among border lasses, but here’s one as could run you most any kind of a race,” he said, with the rare smile which so warmly lighted his dark, stern face.

“Lew Wetzel making compliments! Well, of all things!” exclaimed the colonel’s sister.

Jonathan Zane stood closely scanning Wetzel’s features. Colonel Zane, observing his brother’s close scrutiny of the hunter, guessed the cause, and said:

“Lew, tell us, did you see Wingenund over the sights of your rifle?”

“Yes,” answered the hunter simply.

A chill seemed to strike the hearts of the listeners. That simple answer, coming from Wetzel, meant so much. Nell bowed her head sadly. Jim turned away biting his lip. Christy looked across the valley. Colonel Zane bent over and picked up some pebbles which he threw hard at the cabin wall. Jonathan Zane abruptly left the group, and went into the house.

But the colonel’s sister fixed her large, black eyes on Wetzel’s face.

“Well?” she asked, and her voice rang.

Wetzel was silent for a moment. He met her eyes with that old, inscrutable smile in his own. A slight shade flitted across his face.

“Betty, I missed him,” he said, calmly, and, shouldering his long rifle, he strode away.

* * *

Nell and Jim walked along the bluff above the river. Twilight was deepening. The red glow in the west was slowly darkening behind the boldly defined hills.

“So it’s all settled, Jim, that we stay here,” said Nell.

“Yes, dear. Colonel Zane has offered me work, and a church besides. We are very fortunate, and should be contented. I am happy because you’re my wife, and yet I am sad when I think of — him. Poor Joe!”

“Don’t you ever think we — we wronged him?” whispered Nell.

“No, he wished it. I think he knew how he would end. No, we did not wrong him; we loved him.”

“Yes, I loved him — I loved you both,” said Nell softly.

“Then let us always think of him as he would have wished.”

“Think of him? Think of Joe? I shall never forget. In winter, spring and summer I shall remember him, but always most in autumn. For I shall see that beautiful glade with its gorgeous color and the dark, shaded spring where he lies asleep.”

* * *

The years rolled by with their changing seasons; every autumn the golden flowers bloomed richly, and the colored leaves fell softly upon the amber moss in the glade of Beautiful Spring.

The Indians camped there no more; they shunned the glade and called it the Haunted Spring. They said the spirit of a white dog ran there at night, and the Wind-of-Death mourned over the lonely spot.

At long intervals an Indian chief of lofty frame and dark, powerful face stalked into the glade to stand for many moments silent and motionless.

And sometimes at twilight when the red glow of the sun had faded to gray, a stalwart hunter slipped like a shadow out of the thicket, and leaned upon a long, black rifle while he gazed sadly into the dark spring, and listened to the sad murmur of the waterfall. The twilight deepened while he stood motionless. The leaves fell into the water with a soft splash, a whippoorwill caroled his melancholy song.

From the gloom of the forest came a low sigh which swelled thrillingly upon the quiet air, and then died away like the wailing of the night wind.

Quiet reigned once more over the dark, murky grave of the boy who gave his love and his life to the wilderness.

The Westerns

Grey attended the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship, where he studied dentistry and graduated in 1896. The Ivy League was highly competitive and an excellent training ground for future pro baseball players. Grey was a solid hitter and an excellent pitcher, who relied on a sharply dropping curveball. He was an indifferent scholar, barely achieving a minimum average. Outside class he spent his time on baseball, pool and creative writing, especially poetry. Being shy and a teetotal set him apart from other students and he socialised little.

The Last of the Plainsmen

CONTENTS

PREFATORY NOTE

CHAPTER 1.

CHAPTER 2.

CHAPTER 3.

CHAPTER 4.

CHAPTER 5.

CHAPTER 6.

CHAPTER 7.

CHAPTER 8.

CHAPTER 9.

CHAPTER 10.

CHAPTER 11.

CHAPTER 12.

CHAPTER 13.

CHAPTER 14.

CHAPTER 15.

CHAPTER 16.

CHAPTER 17.

PREFATORY NOTE

BUFFALO JONES NEEDS no introduction to American sportsmen, but to these of my readers who are unacquainted with him a few words may not be amiss.

He was born sixty-two years ago on the Illinois prairie, and he has devoted practically all of his life to the pursuit of wild animals. It has been a pursuit which owed its unflagging energy and indomitable purpose to a singular passion, almost an obsession, to capture alive, not to kill. He has caught and broken the will of every well-known wild beast native to western North America. Killing was repulsive to him. He even disliked the sight of a sporting rifle, though for years necessity compelled him to earn his livelihood by supplying the meat of buffalo to the caravans crossing the plains. At last, seeing that the extinction of the noble beasts was inevitable, he smashed his rifle over a wagon wheel and vowed to save the species. For ten years he labored, pursuing, capturing and taming buffalo, for which the West gave him fame, and the name Preserver of the American Bison.

As civilization encroached upon the plains Buffalo Jones ranged slowly westward; and to-day an isolated desert-bound plateau on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of Arizona is his home. There his buffalo browse with the mustang and deer, and are as free as ever they were on the rolling plains.

In the spring of 1907 I was the fortunate companion of the old plainsman on a trip across the desert, and a hunt in that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep canyons and giant pines. I want to tell about it. I want to show the color and beauty of those painted cliffs and the long, brown-matted bluebell-dotted aisles in the grand forests; I want to give a suggestion of the tang of the dry, cool air; and particularly I want to throw a little light upon the life and nature of that strange character and remarkable man, Buffalo Jones.

Happily in remembrance a writer can live over his experiences, and see once more the moonblanched silver mountain peaks against the dark blue sky; hear the lonely sough of the night wind through the pines; feel the dance of wild expectation in the quivering pulse; the stir, the thrill, the joy of hard action in perilous moments; the mystery of man’s yearning for the unattainable.

As a boy I read of Boone with a throbbing heart, and the silent moccasined, vengeful Wetzel I loved.

I pored over the deeds of later men — Custer and Carson, those heroes of the plains. And as a man I came to see the wonder, the tragedy of their lives, and to write about them. It has been my destiny — what a happy fulfillment of my dreams of border spirit! — to live for a while in the fast-fading wild environment which produced these great men with the last of the great plainsmen.

ZANE GREY.

CHAPTER 1.

THE ARIZONA DESERT

ONE AFTERNOON, FAR out on the sun-baked waste of sage, we made camp near a clump of withered pinyon trees. The cold desert wind came down upon us with the sudden darkness. Even the Mormons, who were finding the trail for us across the drifting sands, forgot to sing and pray at sundown. We huddled round the campfire, a tired and silent little group. When out of the lonely, melancholy night some wandering Navajos stole like shadows to our fire, we hailed their advent with delight. They were good-natured Indians, willing to barter a blanket or bracelet; and one of them, a tall, gaunt fellow, with the bearing of a chief, could speak a little English.

“How,” said he, in a deep chest voice.

“Hello, Noddlecoddy,” greeted Jim Emmett, the Mormon guide.

“Ugh!” answered the Indian.

“Big paleface — Buffalo Jones — big chief — buffalo man,” introduced Emmett, indicating Jones.

“How.” The Navajo spoke with dignity, and extended a friendly hand.

“Jones big white chief — rope buffalo — tie up tight,” continued Emmett, making motions with his arm, as if he were whirling a lasso.

“No big — heap small buffalo,” said the Indian, holding his hand level with his knee, and smiling broadly.

Jones, erect, rugged, brawny, stood in the full light of the campfire. He had a dark, bronzed, inscrutable face; a stern mouth and square jaw, keen eyes, half-closed from years of searching the wide plains; and deep furrows wrinkling his cheeks. A strange stillness enfolded his feature the tranquility earned from a long life of adventure.

He held up both muscular hands to the Navajo, and spread out his fingers.

“Rope buffalo — heap big buffalo — heap many — one sun.”

The Indian straightened up, but kept his friendly smile.

“Me big chief,” went on Jones, “me go far north — Land of Little Sticks — Naza! Naza! rope musk-ox; rope White Manitou of Great Slave Naza! Naza!”

“Naza!” replied the Navajo, pointing to the North Star; “no — no.”

“Yes me big paleface — me come long way toward setting sun — go cross Big Water — go Buckskin — Siwash — chase cougar.”

The cougar, or mountain lion, is a Navajo god and the Navajos hold him in as much fear and reverence as do the Great Slave Indians the musk-ox.

“No kill cougar,” continued Jones, as the Indian’s bold features hardened. “Run cougar horseback — run long way — dogs chase cougar long time — chase cougar up tree! Me big chief — me climb tree — climb high up — lasso cougar — rope cougar — tie cougar all tight.”

The Navajo’s solemn face relaxed

“White man heap fun. No.”

“Yes,” cried Jones, extending his great arms. “Me strong; me rope cougar — me tie cougar; ride off wigwam, keep cougar alive.”

“No,” replied the savage vehemently.

“Yes,” protested Jones, nodding earnestly.

“No,” answered the Navajo, louder, raising his dark head.

“Yes!” shouted Jones.

“BIG LIE!” the Indian thundered.

Jones joined good-naturedly in the laugh at his expense. The Indian had crudely voiced a skepticism I had heard more delicately hinted in New York, and singularly enough, which had strengthened on our way West, as we met ranchers, prospectors and cowboys. But those few men I had fortunately met, who really knew Jones, more than overbalanced the doubt and ridicule cast upon him. I recalled a scarred old veteran of the plains, who had talked to me in true Western bluntness:

“Say, young feller, I heerd yer couldn’t git acrost the Canyon fer the deep snow on the north rim. Wal, ye’re lucky. Now, yer hit the trail fer New York, an’ keep goin’! Don’t ever tackle the desert, ‘specially with them Mormons. They’ve got water on the brain, wusser ‘n religion. It’s two hundred an’ fifty miles from Flagstaff to Jones range, an’ only two drinks on the trail. I know this hyar Buffalo Jones. I knowed him way back in the seventies, when he was doin’ them ropin’ stunts thet made him famous as the preserver of the American bison. I know about that crazy trip of his’n to the Barren Lands, after musk-ox. An’ I reckon I kin guess what he’ll do over there in the Siwash. He’ll rope cougars — sure he will — an’ watch ’em jump. Jones would rope the devil, an’ tie him down if the lasso didn’t burn. Oh! he’s hell on ropin’ things. An’ he’s wusser ‘n hell on men, an’ hosses, an’ dogs.”

All that my well-meaning friend suggested made me, of course, only the more eager to go with Jones. Where I had once been interested in the old buffalo hunter, I was now fascinated. And now I was with him in the desert and seeing him as he was, a simple, quiet man, who fitted the mountains and the silences, and the long reaches of distance.

“It does seem hard to believe — all this about Jones,” remarked Judd, one of Emmett’s men.

“How could a man have the strength and the nerve? And isn’t it cruel to keep wild animals in captivity? it against God’s word?”

Quick as speech could flow, Jones quoted: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, and give him dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, over all the cattle, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth’!”

“Dominion — over all the beasts of the field!” repeated Jones, his big voice rolling out. He clenched his huge fists, and spread wide his long arms. “Dominion! That was God’s word!” The power and intensity of him could be felt. Then he relaxed, dropped his arms, and once more grew calm. But he had shown a glimpse of the great, strange and absorbing passion of his life. Once he had told me how, when a mere child, he had hazarded limb and neck to capture a fox squirrel, how he had held on to the vicious little animal, though it bit his hand through; how he had never learned to play the games of boyhood; that when the youths of the little Illinois village were at play, he roamed the prairies, or the rolling, wooded hills, or watched a gopher hole. That boy was father of the man: for sixty years an enduring passion for dominion over wild animals had possessed him, and made his life an endless pursuit.

Our guests, the Navajos, departed early, and vanished silently in the gloom of the desert. We settled down again into a quiet that was broken only by the low chant-like song of a praying Mormon. Suddenly the hounds bristled, and old Moze, a surly and aggressive dog, rose and barked at some real or imaginary desert prowler. A sharp command from Jones made Moze crouch down, and the other hounds cowered close together.

“Better tie up the dogs,” suggested Jones. “Like as not coyotes run down here from the hills.”

The hounds were my especial delight. But Jones regarded them with considerable contempt. When all was said, this was no small wonder, for that quintet of long-eared canines would have tried the patience of a saint. Old Moze was a Missouri hound that Jones had procured in that State of uncertain qualities; and the dog had grown old over coon-trails. He was black and white, grizzled and battlescarred; and if ever a dog had an evil eye, Moze was that dog. He had a way of wagging his tail — an indeterminate, equivocal sort of wag, as if he realized his ugliness and knew he stood little chance of making friends, but was still hopeful and willing. As for me, the first time he manifested this evidence of a good heart under a rough coat, he won me forever.

To tell of Moze’s derelictions up to that time would take more space than would a history of the whole trip; but the enumeration of several incidents will at once stamp him as a dog of character, and will establish the fact that even if his progenitors had never taken any blue ribbons, they had at least bequeathed him fighting blood. At Flagstaff we chained him in the yard of a livery stable. Next morning we found him hanging by his chain on the other side of an eight-foot fence. We took him down, expecting to have the sorrowful duty of burying him; but Moze shook himself, wagged his tail and then pitched into the livery stable dog. As a matter of fact, fighting was his forte. He whipped all of the dogs in Flagstaff; and when our blood hounds came on from California, he put three of them hors de combat at once, and subdued the pup with a savage growl. His crowning feat, however, made even the stoical Jones open his mouth in amaze. We had taken Moze to the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, and finding it impossible to get over to the north rim, we left him with one of Jones’s men, called Rust, who was working on the Canyon trail. Rust’s instructions were to bring Moze to Flagstaff in two weeks. He brought the dog a little ahead time, and roared his appreciation of the relief it to get the responsibility off his hands. And he related many strange things, most striking of which was how Moze had broken his chain and plunged into the raging Colorado River, and tried to swim it just above the terrible Sockdolager Rapids. Rust and his fellow-workmen watched the dog disappear in the yellow, wrestling, turbulent whirl of waters, and had heard his knell in the booming roar of the falls. Nothing but a fish could live in that current; nothing but a bird could scale those perpendicular marble walls. That night, however, when the men crossed on the tramway, Moze met them with a wag of his tail. He had crossed the river, and he had come back!

To the four reddish-brown, high-framed bloodhounds I had given the names of Don, Tige, Jude and Ranger; and by dint of persuasion, had succeeded in establishing some kind of family relation between them and Moze. This night I tied up the bloodhounds, after bathing and salving their sore feet; and I left Moze free, for he grew fretful and surly under restraint.

The Mormons, prone, dark, blanketed figures, lay on the sand. Jones was crawling into his bed. I walked a little way from the dying fire, and faced the north, where the desert stretched, mysterious and illimitable. How solemn and still it was! I drew in a great breath of the cold air, and thrilled with a nameless sensation. Something was there, away to the northward; it called to me from out of the dark and gloom; I was going to meet it.

I lay down to sleep with the great blue expanse open to my eyes. The stars were very large, and wonderfully bright, yet they seemed so much farther off than I had ever seen them. The wind softly sifted the sand. I hearkened to the tinkle of the cowbells on the hobbled horses. The last thing I remembered was old Moze creeping close to my side, seeking the warmth of my body.

When I awakened, a long, pale line showed out of the dun-colored clouds in the east. It slowly lengthened, and tinged to red. Then the morning broke, and the slopes of snow on the San Francisco peaks behind us glowed a delicate pink. The Mormons were up and doing with the dawn. They were stalwart men, rather silent, and all workers. It was interesting to see them pack for the day’s journey. They traveled with wagons and mules, in the most primitive way, which Jones assured me was exactly as their fathers had crossed the plains fifty years before, on the trail to Utah.

All morning we made good time, and as we descended into the desert, the air became warmer, the scrubby cedar growth began to fail, and the bunches of sage were few and far between. I turned often to gaze back at the San Francisco peaks. The snowcapped tips glistened and grew higher, and stood out in startling relief. Some one said they could be seen two hundred miles across the desert, and were a landmark and a fascination to all travelers thitherward.

I never raised my eyes to the north that I did not draw my breath quickly and grow chill with awe and bewilderment with the marvel of the desert. The scaly red ground descended gradually; bare red knolls, like waves, rolled away northward; black buttes reared their flat heads; long ranges of sand flowed between them like streams, and all sloped away to merge into gray, shadowy obscurity, into wild and desolate, dreamy and misty nothingness.

“Do you see those white sand dunes there, more to the left?” asked Emmett. “The Little Colorado runs in there. How far does it look to you?”

“Thirty miles, perhaps,” I replied, adding ten miles to my estimate.

“It’s seventy-five. We’ll get there day after to-morrow. If the snow in the mountains has begun to melt, we’ll have a time getting across.”

That afternoon, a hot wind blew in my face, carrying fine sand that cut and blinded. It filled my throat, sending me to the water cask till I was ashamed. When I fell into my bed at night, I never turned. The next day was hotter; the wind blew harder; the sand stung sharper.

About noon the following day, the horses whinnied, and the mules roused out of their tardy gait. “They smell water,” said Emmett. And despite the heat, and the sand in my nostrils, I smelled it, too. The dogs, poor foot-sore fellows, trotted on ahead down the trail. A few more miles of hot sand and gravel and red stone brought us around a low mesa to the Little Colorado.

It was a wide stream of swiftly running, reddish-muddy water. In the channel, cut by floods, little streams trickled and meandered in all directions. The main part of the river ran in close to the bank we were on. The dogs lolled in the water; the horses and mules tried to run in, but were restrained; the men drank, and bathed their faces. According to my Flagstaff adviser, this was one of the two drinks I would get on the desert, so I availed myself heartily of the opportunity. The water was full of sand, but cold and gratefully thirst-quenching.

The Little Colorado seemed no more to me than a shallow creek; I heard nothing sullen or menacing in its musical flow.

“Doesn’t look bad, eh?” queried Emmett, who read my thought. “You’d be surprised to learn how many men and Indians, horses, sheep and wagons are buried under that quicksand.”

The secret was out, and I wondered no more. At once the stream and wet bars of sand took on a different color. I removed my boots, and waded out to a little bar. The sand seemed quite firm, but water oozed out around my feet; and when I stepped, the whole bar shook like jelly. I pushed my foot through the crust, and the cold, wet sand took hold, and tried to suck me down.

“How can you ford this stream with horses?” I asked Emmett.

“We must take our chances,” replied he. “We’ll hitch two teams to one wagon, and run the horses. I’ve forded here at worse stages than this. Once a team got stuck, and I had to leave it; another time the water was high, and washed me downstream.”

Emmett sent his son into the stream on a mule. The rider lashed his mount, and plunging, splashing, crossed at a pace near a gallop. He returned in the same manner, and reported one bad place near the other side.

Jones and I got on the first wagon and tried to coax up the dogs, but they would not come. Emmett had to lash the four horses to start them; and other Mormons riding alongside, yelled at them, and used their whips. The wagon bowled into the water with a tremendous splash. We were wet through before we had gone twenty feet. The plunging horses were lost in yellow spray; the stream rushed through the wheels; the Mormons yelled. I wanted to see, but was lost in a veil of yellow mist. Jones yelled in my ear, but I could not hear what he said. Once the wagon wheels struck a stone or log, almost lurching us overboard. A muddy splash blinded me. I cried out in my excitement, and punched Jones in the back. Next moment, the keen exhilaration of the ride gave way to horror. We seemed to drag, and almost stop. Some one roared: “Horse down!” One instant of painful suspense, in which imagination pictured another tragedy added to the record of this deceitful river — a moment filled with intense feeling, and sensation of splash, and yell, and fury of action; then the three able horses dragged their comrade out of the quicksand. He regained his feet, and plunged on. Spurred by fear, the horses increased their efforts, and amid clouds of spray, galloped the remaining distance to the other side.

Jones looked disgusted. Like all plainsmen, he hated water. Emmett and his men calmly unhitched. No trace of alarm, or even of excitement showed in their bronzed faces.

“We made that fine and easy,” remarked Emmett.

So I sat down and wondered what Jones and Emmett, and these men would consider really hazardous. I began to have a feeling that I would find out; that experience for me was but in its infancy; that far across the desert the something which had called me would show hard, keen, perilous life. And I began to think of reserve powers of fortitude and endurance.

The other wagons were brought across without mishap; but the dogs did not come with them. Jones called and called. The dogs howled and howled. Finally I waded out over the wet bars and little streams to a point several hundred yards nearer the dogs. Moze was lying down, but the others were whining and howling in a state of great perturbation. I called and called. They answered, and even ran into the water, but did not start across.

“Hyah, Moze! hyah, you Indian!” I yelled, losing my patience. “You’ve already swum the Big Colorado, and this is only a brook. Come on!”

This appeal evidently touched Moze, for he barked, and plunged in. He made the water fly, and when carried off his feet, breasted the current with energy and power. He made shore almost even with me, and wagged his tail. Not to be outdone, Jude, Tige and Don followed suit, and first one and then another was swept off his feet and carried downstream. They landed below me. This left Ranger, the pup, alone on the other shore. Of all the pitiful yelps ever uttered by a frightened and lonely puppy, his were the most forlorn I had ever heard. Time after time he plunged in, and with many bitter howls of distress, went back. I kept calling, and at last, hoping to make him come by a show of indifference, I started away. This broke his heart. Putting up his head, he let out a long, melancholy wail, which for aught I knew might have been a prayer, and then consigned himself to the yellow current. Ranger swam like a boy learning. He seemed to be afraid to get wet. His forefeet were continually pawing the air in front of his nose. When he struck the swift place, he went downstream like a flash, but still kept swimming valiantly. I tried to follow along the sand-bar, but found it impossible. I encouraged him by yelling. He drifted far below, stranded on an island, crossed it, and plunged in again, to make shore almost out of my sight. And when at last I got to dry sand, there was Ranger, wet and disheveled, but consciously proud and happy.

After lunch we entered upon the seventy-mile stretch from the Little to the Big Colorado.

Imagination had pictured the desert for me as a vast, sandy plain, flat and monotonous. Reality showed me desolate mountains gleaming bare in the sun, long lines of red bluffs, white sand dunes, and hills of blue clay, areas of level ground — in all, a many-hued, boundless world in itself, wonderful and beautiful, fading all around into the purple haze of deceiving distance.

Thin, clear, sweet, dry, the desert air carried a languor, a dreaminess, tidings of far-off things, and an enthralling promise. The fragrance of flowers, the beauty and grace of women, the sweetness of music, the mystery of life — all seemed to float on that promise. It was the air breathed by the lotus-eaters, when they dreamed, and wandered no more.

Beyond the Little Colorado, we began to climb again. The sand was thick; the horses labored; the drivers shielded their faces. The dogs began to limp and lag. Ranger had to be taken into a wagon; and then, one by one, all of the other dogs except Moze. He refused to ride, and trotted along with his head down.

Far to the front the pink cliffs, the ragged mesas, the dark, volcanic spurs of the Big Colorado stood up and beckoned us onward. But they were a far hundred miles across the shifting sands, and baked day, and ragged rocks. Always in the rear rose the San Francisco peaks, cold and pure, startlingly clear and close in the rare atmosphere.

We camped near another water hole, located in a deep, yellow-colored gorge, crumbling to pieces, a ruin of rock, and silent as the grave. In the bottom of the canyon was a pool of water, covered with green scum. My thirst was effectually quenched by the mere sight of it. I slept poorly, and lay for hours watching the great stars. The silence was painfully oppressive. If Jones had not begun to give a respectable imitation of the exhaust pipe on a steamboat, I should have been compelled to shout aloud, or get up; but this snoring would have dispelled anything. The morning came gray and cheerless. I got up stiff and sore, with a tongue like a rope.

All day long we ran the gauntlet of the hot, flying sand. Night came again, a cold, windy night. I slept well until a mule stepped on my bed, which was conducive to restlessness. At dawn, cold, gray clouds tried to blot out the rosy east. I could hardly get up. My lips were cracked; my tongue swollen to twice its natural size; my eyes smarted and burned. The barrels and kegs of water were exhausted. Holes that had been dug in the dry sand of a dry streambed the night before in the morning yielded a scant supply of muddy alkali water, which went to the horses.

Only twice that day did I rouse to anything resembling enthusiasm. We came to a stretch of country showing the wonderful diversity of the desert land. A long range of beautifully rounded clay stones bordered the trail. So symmetrical were they that I imagined them works of sculptors. Light blue, dark blue, clay blue, marine blue, cobalt blue — every shade of blue was there, but no other color. The other time that I awoke to sensations from without was when we came to the top of a ridge. We had been passing through red-lands. Jones called the place a strong, specific word which really was illustrative of the heat amid those scaling red ridges. We came out where the red changed abruptly to gray. I seemed always to see things first, and I cried out: “Look! here are a red lake and trees!”

“No, lad, not a lake,” said old Jim, smiling at me; “that’s what haunts the desert traveler. It’s only mirage!”

So I awoke to the realization of that illusive thing, the mirage, a beautiful lie, false as stairs of sand. Far northward a clear rippling lake sparkled in the sunshine. Tall, stately trees, with waving green foliage, bordered the water. For a long moment it lay there, smiling in the sun, a thing almost tangible; and then it faded. I felt a sense of actual loss. So real had been the illusion that I could not believe I was not soon to drink and wade and dabble in the cool waters. Disappointment was keen. This is what maddens the prospector or sheep-herder lost in the desert. Was it not a terrible thing to be dying of thirst, to see sparkling water, almost to smell it and then realize suddenly that all was only a lying track of the desert, a lure, a delusion? I ceased to wonder at the Mormons, and their search for water, their talk of water. But I had not realized its true significance. I had not known what water was. I had never appreciated it. So it was my destiny to learn that water is the greatest thing on earth. I hung over a three-foot hole in a dry stream-bed, and watched it ooze and seep through the sand, and fill up — oh, so slowly; and I felt it loosen my parched tongue, and steal through all my dry body with strength and life. Water is said to constitute three fourths of the universe. However that may be, on the desert it is the whole world, and all of life.

Two days passed by, all hot sand and wind and glare. The Mormons sang no more at evening; Jones was silent; the dogs were limp as rags.

At Moncaupie Wash we ran into a sandstorm. The horses turned their backs to it, and bowed their heads patiently. The Mormons covered themselves. I wrapped a blanket round my head and hid behind a sage bush. The wind, carrying the sand, made a strange hollow roar. All was enveloped in a weird yellow opacity. The sand seeped through the sage bush and swept by with a soft, rustling sound, not unlike the wind in the rye. From time to time I raised a corner of my blanket and peeped out. Where my feet had stretched was an enormous mound of sand. I felt the blanket, weighted down, slowly settle over me.

Suddenly as it had come, the sandstorm passed. It left a changed world for us. The trail was covered; the wheels hub-deep in sand; the horses, walking sand dunes. I could not close my teeth without grating harshly on sand.

We journeyed onward, and passed long lines of petrified trees, some a hundred feet in length, lying as they had fallen, thousands of years before. White ants crawled among the ruins. Slowly climbing the sandy trail, we circled a great red bluff with jagged peaks, that had seemed an interminable obstacle. A scant growth of cedar and sage again made its appearance. Here we halted to pass another night. Under a cedar I heard the plaintive, piteous bleat of an animal. I searched, and presently found a little black and white lamb, scarcely able to stand. It came readily to me, and I carried it to the wagon.

“That’s a Navajo lamb,” said Emmett. “It’s lost. There are Navajo Indians close by.”

“Away in the desert we heard its cry,” quoted one of the Mormons.

Jones and I climbed the red mesa near camp to see the sunset. All the western world was ablaze in golden glory. Shafts of light shot toward the zenith, and bands of paler gold, tinging to rose, circled away from the fiery, sinking globe. Suddenly the sun sank, the gold changed to gray, then to purple, and shadows formed in the deep gorge at our feet. So sudden was the transformation that soon it was night, the solemn, impressive night of the desert. A stillness that seemed too sacred to break clasped the place; it was infinite; it held the bygone ages, and eternity.

More days, and miles, miles, miles! The last day’s ride to the Big Colorado was unforgettable. We rode toward the head of a gigantic red cliff pocket, a veritable inferno, immeasurably hot, glaring, awful. It towered higher and higher above us. When we reached a point of this red barrier, we heard the dull rumbling roar of water, and we came out, at length, on a winding trail cut in the face of a blue overhanging the Colorado River. The first sight of most famous and much-heralded wonders of nature is often disappointing; but never can this be said of the blood-hued Rio Colorado. If it had beauty, it was beauty that appalled. So riveted was my gaze that I could hardly turn it across the river, where Emmett proudly pointed out his lonely home — an oasis set down amidst beetling red cliffs. How grateful to the eye was the green of alfalfa and cottonwood! Going round the bluff trail, the wheels had only a foot of room to spare; and the sheer descent into the red, turbid, congested river was terrifying.

I saw the constricted rapids, where the Colorado took its plunge into the box-like head of the Grand Canyon of Arizona; and the deep, reverberating boom of the river, at flood height, was a fearful thing to hear. I could not repress a shudder at the thought of crossing above that rapid.

The bronze walls widened as we proceeded, and we got down presently to a level, where a long wire cable stretched across the river. Under the cable ran a rope. On the other side was an old scow moored to the bank.

“Are we going across in that?” I asked Emmett, pointing to the boat.

“We’ll all be on the other side before dark,” he replied cheerily.

I felt that I would rather start back alone over the desert than trust myself in such a craft, on such a river. And it was all because I had had experience with bad rivers, and thought I was a judge of dangerous currents. The Colorado slid with a menacing roar out of a giant split in the red wall, and whirled, eddied, bulged on toward its confinement in the iron-ribbed canyon below.

In answer to shots fired, Emmett’s man appeared on the other side, and rode down to the ferry landing. Here he got into a skiff, and rowed laboriously upstream for a long distance before he started across, and then swung into the current. He swept down rapidly, and twice the skiff whirled, and completely turned round; but he reached our bank safely. Taking two men aboard he rowed upstream again, close to the shore, and returned to the opposite side in much the same manner in which he had come over.

The three men pushed out the scow, and grasping the rope overhead, began to pull. The big craft ran easily. When the current struck it, the wire cable sagged, the water boiled and surged under it, raising one end, and then the other. Nevertheless, five minutes were all that were required to pull the boat over.

It was a rude, oblong affair, made of heavy planks loosely put together, and it leaked. When Jones suggested that we get the agony over as quickly as possible, I was with him, and we embarked together. Jones said he did not like the looks of the tackle; and when I thought of his by no means small mechanical skill, I had not added a cheerful idea to my consciousness. The horses of the first team had to be dragged upon the scow, and once on, they reared and plunged.

When we started, four men pulled the rope, and Emmett sat in the stern, with the tackle guys in hand. As the current hit us, he let out the guys, which maneuver caused the boat to swing stern downstream. When it pointed obliquely, he made fast the guys again. I saw that this served two purposes: the current struck, slid alongside, and over the stern, which mitigated the danger, and at the same time helped the boat across.

To look at the river was to court terror, but I had to look. It was an infernal thing. It roared in hollow, sullen voice, as a monster growling. It had voice, this river, and one strangely changeful. It moaned as if in pain — it whined, it cried. Then at times it would seem strangely silent. The current as complex and mutable as human life. It boiled, beat and bulged. The bulge itself was an incompressible thing, like a roaring lift of the waters from submarine explosion. Then it would smooth out, and run like oil. It shifted from one channel to another, rushed to the center of the river, then swung close to one shore or the other. Again it swelled near the boat, in great, boiling, hissing eddies.

“Look! See where it breaks through the mountain!” yelled Jones in my ear.

I looked upstream to see the stupendous granite walls separated in a gigantic split that must have been made by a terrible seismic disturbance; and from this gap poured the dark, turgid, mystic flood.

I was in a cold sweat when we touched shore, and I jumped long before the boat was properly moored.

Emmett was wet to the waist where the water had surged over him. As he sat rearranging some tackle I remarked to him that of course he must be a splendid swimmer, or he would not take such risks.

“No, I can’t swim a stroke,” he replied; “and it wouldn’t be any use if I could. Once in there a man’s a goner.”

“You’ve had bad accidents here?” I questioned.

“No, not bad. We only drowned two men last year. You see, we had to tow the boat up the river, and row across, as then we hadn’t the wire. Just above, on this side, the boat hit a stone, and the current washed over her, taking off the team and two men.”

“Didn’t you attempt to rescue them?” I asked, after waiting a moment.

“No use. They never came up.”

“Isn’t the river high now?” I continued, shuddering as I glanced out at the whirling logs and drifts.

“High, and coming up. If I don’t get the other teams over to-day I’ll wait until she goes down. At this season she rises and lowers every day or so, until June then comes the big flood, and we don’t cross for months.”

I sat for three hours watching Emmett bring over the rest of his party, which he did without accident, but at the expense of great effort. And all the time in my ears dinned the roar, the boom, the rumble of this singularly rapacious and purposeful river — a river of silt, a red river of dark, sinister meaning, a river with terrible work to perform, a river which never gave up its dead.

CHAPTER 2.

THE RANGE

AFTER A MUCH-NEEDED rest at Emmett’s, we bade good-by to him and his hospitable family, and under the guidance of his man once more took to the wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterly course now, following the lead of the craggy red wall that stretched on and on for hundreds of miles into Utah. The desert, smoky and hot, fell away to the left, and in the foreground a dark, irregular line marked the Grand Canyon cutting through the plateau.

The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, and meeting an obstacle in the red wall, turned north and raced past us. Jones’s hat blew off, stood on its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling, thirty miles an hour, more or less; so fast, at least, that we were a long time catching up to it with a team of horses. Possibly we never would have caught it had not a stone checked its flight. Further manifestation of the power of the desert wind surrounded us on all sides. It had hollowed out huge stones from the cliffs, and tumbled them to the plain below; and then, sweeping sand and gravel low across the desert floor, had cut them deeply, until they rested on slender pedestals, thus sculptoring grotesque and striking monuments to the marvelous persistence of this element of nature.

Late that afternoon, as we reached the height of the plateau, Jones woke up and shouted: “Ha! there’s Buckskin!”

Far southward lay a long, black mountain, covered with patches of shining snow. I could follow the zigzag line of the Grand Canyon splitting the desert plateau, and saw it disappear in the haze round the end of the mountain. From this I got my first clear impression of the topography of the country surrounding our objective point. Buckskin mountain ran its blunt end eastward to the Canyon — in fact, formed a hundred miles of the north rim. As it was nine thousand feet high it still held the snow, which had occasioned our lengthy desert ride to get back of the mountain. I could see the long slopes rising out of the desert to meet the timber.

As we bowled merrily down grade I noticed that we were no longer on stony ground, and that a little scant silvery grass had made its appearance. Then little branches of green, with a blue flower, smiled out of the clayish sand.

All of a sudden Jones stood up, and let out a wild Comanche yell. I was more startled by the yell than by the great hand he smashed down on my shoulder, and for the moment I was dazed.

“There! look! look! the buffalo! Hi! Hi! Hi!”

Below us, a few miles on a rising knoll, a big herd of buffalo shone black in the gold of the evening sun. I had not Jones’s incentive, but I felt enthusiasm born of the wild and beautiful picture, and added my yell to his. The huge, burly leader of the herd lifted his head, and after regarding us for a few moments calmly went on browsing.

The desert had fringed away into a grand rolling pastureland, walled in by the red cliffs, the slopes of Buckskin, and further isolated by the Canyon. Here was a range of twenty-four hundred square miles without a foot of barb-wire, a pasture fenced in by natural forces, with the splendid feature that the buffalo could browse on the plain in winter, and go up into the cool foothills of Buckskin in summer.

From another ridge we saw a cabin dotting the rolling plain, and in half an hour we reached it. As we climbed down from the wagon a brown and black dog came dashing out of the cabin, and promptly jumped at Moze. His selection showed poor discrimination, for Moze whipped him before I could separate them. Hearing Jones heartily greeting some one, I turned in his direction, only to be distracted by another dog fight. Don had tackled Moze for the seventh time. Memory rankled in Don, and he needed a lot of whipping, some of which he was getting when I rescued him.

Next moment I was shaking hands with Frank and Jim, Jones’s ranchmen. At a glance I liked them both. Frank was short and wiry, and had a big, ferocious mustache, the effect of which was softened by his kindly brown eyes. Jim was tall, a little heavier; he had a careless, tidy look; his eyes were searching, and though he appeared a young man, his hair was white.

“I shore am glad to see you all,” said Jim, in slow, soft, Southern accent.

“Get down, get down,” was Frank’s welcome — a typically Western one, for we had already gotten down; “an’ come in. You must be worked out. Sure you’ve come a long way.” He was quick of speech, full of nervous energy, and beamed with hospitality.

The cabin was the rudest kind of log affair, with a huge stone fireplace in one end, deer antlers and coyote skins on the wall, saddles and cowboys’ traps in a corner, a nice, large, promising cupboard, and a table and chairs. Jim threw wood on a smoldering fire, that soon blazed and crackled cheerily.

I sank down into a chair with a feeling of blessed relief. Ten days of desert ride behind me! Promise of wonderful days before me, with the last of the old plainsmen. No wonder a sweet sense of ease stole over me, or that the fire seemed a live and joyously welcoming thing, or that Jim’s deft maneuvers in preparation of supper roused in me a rapt admiration.

“Twenty calves this spring!” cried Jones, punching me in my sore side. “Ten thousand dollars worth of calves!”

He was now altogether a changed man; he looked almost young; his eyes danced, and he rubbed his big hands together while he plied Frank with questions. In strange surroundings — that is, away from his Native Wilds, Jones had been a silent man; it had been almost impossible to get anything out of him. But now I saw that I should come to know the real man. In a very few moments he had talked more than on all the desert trip, and what he said, added to the little I had already learned, put me in possession of some interesting information as to his buffalo.

Some years before he had conceived the idea of hybridizing buffalo with black Galloway cattle; and with the characteristic determination and energy of the man, he at once set about finding a suitable range. This was difficult, and took years of searching. At last the wild north rim of the Grand Canyon, a section unknown except to a few Indians and mustang hunters, was settled upon. Then the gigantic task of transporting the herd of buffalo by rail from Montana to Salt Lake was begun. The two hundred and ninety miles of desert lying between the home of the Mormons and Buckskin Mountain was an obstacle almost insurmountable. The journey was undertaken and found even more trying than had been expected. Buffalo after buffalo died on the way. Then Frank, Jones’s right-hand man, put into execution a plan he had been thinking of — namely, to travel by night. It succeeded. The buffalo rested in the day and traveled by easy stages by night, with the result that the big herd was transported to the ideal range.

Here, in an environment strange to their race, but peculiarly adaptable, they thrived and multiplied. The hybrid of the Galloway cow and buffalo proved a great success. Jones called the new species “Cattalo.” The cattalo took the hardiness of the buffalo, and never required artificial food or shelter. He would face the desert storm or blizzard and stand stock still in his tracks until the weather cleared. He became quite domestic, could be easily handled, and grew exceedingly fat on very little provender. The folds of his stomach were so numerous that they digested even the hardest and flintiest of corn. He had fourteen ribs on each side, while domestic cattle had only thirteen; thus he could endure rougher work and longer journeys to water. His fur was so dense and glossy that it equaled that of the unplucked beaver or otter, and was fully as valuable as the buffalo robe. And not to be overlooked by any means was the fact that his meat was delicious.

Jones had to hear every detail of all that had happened since his absence in the East, and he was particularly inquisitive to learn all about the twenty cattalo calves. He called different buffalo by name; and designated the calves by descriptive terms, such as “Whiteface” and “Crosspatch.” He almost forgot to eat, and kept Frank too busy to get anything into his own mouth. After supper he calmed down.

“How about your other man — Mr. Wallace, I think you said?” asked Frank.

“We expected to meet him at Grand Canyon Station, and then at Flagstaff. But he didn’t show up. Either he backed out or missed us. I’m sorry; for when we get up on Buckskin, among the wild horses and cougars, we’ll be likely to need him.”

“I reckon you’ll need me, as well as Jim,” said Frank dryly, with a twinkle in his eye. “The buffs are in good shape an’ can get along without me for a while.”

“That’ll be fine. How about cougar sign on the mountain?”

“Plenty. I’ve got two spotted near Clark Spring. Comin’ over two weeks ago I tracked them in the snow along the trail for miles. We’ll ooze over that way, as it’s goin’ toward the Siwash. The Siwash breaks of the Canyon — there’s the place for lions. I met a wild-horse wrangler not long back, an’ he was tellin’ me about Old Tom an’ the colts he’d killed this winter.”

Naturally, I here expressed a desire to know more of Old Tom.

“He’s the biggest cougar ever known of in these parts. His tracks are bigger than a horse’s, an’ have been seen on Buckskin for twelve years. This wrangler — his name is Clark — said he’d turned his saddle horse out to graze near camp, an’ Old Tom sneaked in an’ downed him. The lions over there are sure a bold bunch. Well, why shouldn’t they be? No one ever hunted them. You see, the mountain is hard to get at. But now you’re here, if it’s big cats you want we sure can find them. Only be easy, be easy. You’ve all the time there is. An’ any job on Buckskin will take time. We’ll look the calves over, an’ you must ride the range to harden up. Then we’ll ooze over toward Oak. I expect it’ll be boggy, an’ I hope the snow melts soon.”

“The snow hadn’t melted on Greenland point,” replied Jones. “We saw that with a glass from the El Tovar. We wanted to cross that way, but Rust said Bright Angel Creek was breast high to a horse, and that creek is the trail.”

“There’s four feet of snow on Greenland,” said Frank. “It was too early to come that way. There’s only about three months in the year the Canyon can be crossed at Greenland.”

“I want to get in the snow,” returned Jones. “This bunch of long-eared canines I brought never smelled a lion track. Hounds can’t be trained quick without snow. You’ve got to see what they’re trailing, or you can’t break them.”

Frank looked dubious. “‘Pears to me we’ll have trouble gettin’ a lion without lion dogs. It takes a long time to break a hound off of deer, once he’s chased them. Buckskin is full of deer, wolves, coyotes, and there’s the wild horses. We couldn’t go a hundred feet without crossin’ trails.”

“How’s the hound you and Jim fetched in las’ year? Has he got a good nose? Here he is — I like his head. Come here, Bowser — what’s his name?”

“Jim named him Sounder, because he sure has a voice. It’s great to hear him on a trail. Sounder has a nose that can’t be fooled, an’ he’ll trail anythin’; but I don’t know if he ever got up a lion.”

Sounder wagged his bushy tail and looked up affectionately at Frank. He had a fine head, great brown eyes, very long ears and curly brownish-black hair. He was not demonstrative, looked rather askance at Jones, and avoided the other dogs.

“That dog will make a great lion-chaser,” said Jones, decisively, after his study of Sounder. “He and Moze will keep us busy, once they learn we want lions.”

“I don’t believe any dog-trainer could teach them short of six months,” replied Frank. “Sounder is no spring chicken; an’ that black and dirty white cross between a cayuse an’ a barb-wire fence is an old dog. You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.”

Jones smiled mysteriously, a smile of conscious superiority, but said nothing.

“We’ll shore hev a storm to-morrow,” said Jim, relinquishing his pipe long enough to speak. He had been silent, and now his meditative gaze was on the west, through the cabin window, where a dull afterglow faded under the heavy laden clouds of night and left the horizon dark.

I was very tired when I lay down, but so full of excitement that sleep did not soon visit my eyelids. The talk about buffalo, wild-horse hunters, lions and dogs, the prospect of hard riding and unusual adventure; the vision of Old Tom that had already begun to haunt me, filled my mind with pictures and fancies. The other fellows dropped off to sleep, and quiet reigned. Suddenly a succession of queer, sharp barks came from the plain, close to the cabin. Coyotes were paying us a call, and judging from the chorus of yelps and howls from our dogs, it was not a welcome visit. Above the medley rose one big, deep, full voice that I knew at once belonged to Sounder. Then all was quiet again. Sleep gradually benumbed my senses. Vague phrases dreamily drifted to and fro in my mind: “Jones’s wild range — Old Tom — Sounder — great name — great voice — Sounder! Sounder! Sounder—”

Next morning I could hardly crawl out of my sleeping-bag. My bones ached, my muscles protested excruciatingly, my lips burned and bled, and the cold I had contracted on the desert clung to me. A good brisk walk round the corrals, and then breakfast, made me feel better.

“Of course you can ride?” queried Frank.

My answer was not given from an overwhelming desire to be truthful. Frank frowned a little, as it wondering how a man could have the nerve to start out on a jaunt with Buffalo Jones without being a good horseman. To be unable to stick on the back of a wild mustang, or a cayuse, was an unpardonable sin in Arizona. My frank admission was made relatively, with my mind on what cowboys held as a standard of horsemanship.

The mount Frank trotted out of the corral for me was a pure white, beautiful mustang, nervous, sensitive, quivering. I watched Frank put on the saddle, and when he called me I did not fail to catch a covert twinkle in his merry brown eyes. Looking away toward Buckskin Mountain, which was coincidentally in the direction of home, I said to myself: “This may be where you get on, but most certainly it is where you get off!”

Jones was already riding far beyond the corral, as I could see by a cloud of dust; and I set off after him, with the painful consciousness that I must have looked to Frank and Jim much as Central Park equestrians had often looked to me. Frank shouted after me that he would catch up with us out on the range. I was not in any great hurry to overtake Jones, but evidently my horse’s inclinations differed from mine; at any rate, he made the dust fly, and jumped the little sage bushes.

Jones, who had tarried to inspect one of the pools — formed of running water from the corrals — greeted me as I came up with this cheerful observation.

“What in thunder did Frank give you that white nag for? The buffalo hate white horses — anything white. They’re liable to stampede off the range, or chase you into the canyon.”

I replied grimly that, as it was certain something was going to happen, the particular circumstance might as well come off quickly.

We rode over the rolling plain with a cool, bracing breeze in our faces. The sky was dull and mottled with a beautiful cloud effect that presaged wind. As we trotted along Jones pointed out to me and descanted upon the nutritive value of three different kinds of grass, one of which he called the Buffalo Pea, noteworthy for a beautiful blue blossom. Soon we passed out of sight of the cabin, and could see only the billowy plain, the red tips of the stony wall, and the black-fringed crest of Buckskin. After riding a while we made out some cattle, a few of which were on the range, browsing in the lee of a ridge. No sooner had I marked them than Jones let out another Comanche yell.

“Wolf!” he yelled; and spurring his big bay, he was off like the wind.

A single glance showed me several cows running as if bewildered, and near them a big white wolf pulling down a calf. Another white wolf stood not far off. My horse jumped as if he had been shot; and the realization darted upon me that here was where the certain something began. Spot — the mustang had one black spot in his pure white — snorted like I imagined a blooded horse might, under dire insult. Jones’s bay had gotten about a hundred paces the start. I lived to learn that Spot hated to be left behind; moreover, he would not be left behind; he was the swiftest horse on the range, and proud of the distinction. I cast one unmentionable word on the breeze toward the cabin and Frank, then put mind and muscle to the sore task of remaining with Spot. Jones was born on a saddle, and had been taking his meals in a saddle for about sixty-three years, and the bay horse could run. Run is not a felicitous word — he flew. And I was rendered mentally deranged for the moment to see that hundred paces between the bay and Spot materially lessen at every jump. Spot lengthened out, seemed to go down near the ground, and cut the air like a high-geared auto. If I had not heard the fast rhythmic beat of his hoofs, and had not bounced high into the air at every jump, I would have been sure I was riding a bird. I tried to stop him. As well might I have tried to pull in the Lusitania with a thread. Spot was out to overhaul that bay, and in spite of me, he was doing it. The wind rushed into my face and sang in my ears. Jones seemed the nucleus of a sort of haze, and it grew larger and larger. Presently he became clearly defined in my sight; the violent commotion under me subsided; I once more felt the saddle, and then I realized that Spot had been content to stop alongside of Jones, tossing his head and champing his bit.

“Well, by George! I didn’t know you were in the stretch,” cried my companion. “That was a fine little brush. We must have come several miles. I’d have killed those wolves if I’d brought a gun. The big one that had the calf was a bold brute. He never let go until I was within fifty feet of him. Then I almost rode him down. I don’t think the calf was much hurt. But those blood-thirsty devils will return, and like as not get the calf. That’s the worst of cattle raising. Now, take the buffalo. Do you suppose those wolves could have gotten a buffalo calf out from under the mother? Never. Neither could a whole band of wolves. Buffalo stick close together, and the little ones do not stray. When danger threatens, the herd closes in and faces it and fights. That is what is grand about the buffalo and what made them once roam the prairies in countless, endless droves.”

From the highest elevation in that part of the range we viewed the surrounding ridges, flats and hollows, searching for the buffalo. At length we spied a cloud of dust rising from behind an undulating mound, then big black dots hove in sight.

“Frank has rounded up the herd, and is driving it this way. We’ll wait,” said Jones.

Though the buffalo appeared to be moving fast, a long time elapsed before they reached the foot of our outlook. They lumbered along in a compact mass, so dense that I could not count them, but I estimated the number at seventy-five. Frank was riding zigzag behind them, swinging his lariat and yelling. When he espied us he reined in his horse and waited. Then the herd slowed down, halted and began browsing.

“Look at the cattalo calves,” cried Jones, in ecstatic tones. “See how shy they are, how close they stick to their mothers.”

The little dark-brown fellows were plainly frightened. I made several unsuccessful attempts to photograph them, and gave it up when Jones told me not to ride too close and that it would be better to wait till we had them in the corral.

He took my camera and instructed me to go on ahead, in the rear of the herd. I heard the click of the instrument as he snapped a picture, and then suddenly heard him shout in alarm: “Look out! look out! pull your horse!”

Thundering hoof-beats pounding the earth accompanied his words. I saw a big bull, with head down, tail raised, charging my horse. He answered Frank’s yell of command with a furious grunt. I was paralyzed at the wonderfully swift action of the shaggy brute, and I sat helpless. Spot wheeled as if he were on a pivot and plunged out of the way with a celerity that was astounding. The buffalo stopped, pawed the ground, and angrily tossed his huge head. Frank rode up to him, yelled, and struck him with the lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of his horns, and then returned to the herd.

“It was that darned white nag,” said Jones. “Frank, it was wrong to put an inexperienced man on Spot. For that matter, the horse should never be allowed to go near the buffalo.”

“Spot knows the buffs; they’d never get to him,” replied Frank. But the usual spirit was absent from his voice, and he glanced at me soberly. I knew I had turned white, for I felt the peculiar cold sensation on my face.

“Now, look at that, will you?” cried Jones. “I don’t like the looks of that.”

He pointed to the herd. They stopped browsing, and were uneasily shifting to and fro. The bull lifted his head; the others slowly grouped together.

“Storm! Sandstorm!” exclaimed Jones, pointing desert-ward. Dark yellow clouds like smoke were rolling, sweeping, bearing down upon us. They expanded, blossoming out like gigantic roses, and whirled and merged into one another, all the time rolling on and blotting out the light.

“We’ve got to run. That storm may last two days,” yelled Frank to me. “We’ve had some bad ones lately. Give your horse free rein, and cover your face.”

A roar, resembling an approaching storm at sea, came on puffs of wind, as the horses got into their stride. Long streaks of dust whipped up in different places; the silver-white grass bent to the ground; round bunches of sage went rolling before us. The puffs grew longer, steadier, harder. Then a shrieking blast howled on our trail, seeming to swoop down on us with a yellow, blinding pall. I shut my eyes and covered my face with a handkerchief. The sand blew so thick that it filled my gloves, pebbles struck me hard enough to sting through my coat.

Fortunately, Spot kept to an easy swinging lope, which was the most comfortable motion for me. But I began to get numb, and could hardly stick on the saddle. Almost before I had dared to hope, Spot stopped. Uncovering my face, I saw Jim in the doorway of the lee side of the cabin. The yellow, streaky, whistling clouds of sand split on the cabin and passed on, leaving a small, dusty space of light.

“Shore Spot do hate to be beat,” yelled Jim, as he helped me off. I stumbled into the cabin and fell upon a buffalo robe and lay there absolutely spent. Jones and Frank came in a few minutes apart, each anathematizing the gritty, powdery sand.

All day the desert storm raged and roared. The dust sifted through the numerous cracks in the cabin burdened our clothes, spoiled our food and blinded our eyes. Wind, snow, sleet and rainstorms are discomforting enough under trying circumstances; but all combined, they are nothing to the choking stinging, blinding sandstorm.

“Shore it’ll let up by sundown,” averred Jim. And sure enough the roar died away about five o’clock, the wind abated and the sand settled.

Just before supper, a knock sounded heavily o the cabin door. Jim opened it to admit one of Emmett’s sons and a very tall man whom none of us knew. He was a sand-man. All that was not sand seemed a space or two of corduroy, a big bone-handled knife, a prominent square jaw and bronze cheek and flashing eyes.

“Get down — get down, an’ come in, stranger, said Frank cordially.

“How do you do, sir,” said Jones.

“Colonel Jones, I’ve been on your trail for twelve days,” announced the stranger, with a grim smile. The sand streamed off his coat in little white streak. Jones appeared to be casting about in his mind.

“I’m Grant Wallace,” continued the newcomer. “I missed you at the El Tovar, at Williams and at Flagstaff, where I was one day behind. Was half a day late at the Little Colorado, saw your train cross Moncaupie Wash, and missed you because of the sandstorm there. Saw you from the other side of the Big Colorado as you rode out from Emmett’s along the red wall. And here I am. We’ve never met till now, which obviously isn’t my fault.”

The Colonel and I fell upon Wallace’s neck. Frank manifested his usual alert excitation, and said: “Well, I guess he won’t hang fire on a long cougar chase.” And Jim — slow, careful Jim, dropped a plate with the exclamation: “Shore it do beat hell!” The hounds sniffed round Wallace, and welcomed him with vigorous tails.

Supper that night, even if we did grind sand with our teeth, was a joyous occasion. The biscuits were flaky and light; the bacon fragrant and crisp. I produced a jar of blackberry jam, which by subtle cunning I had been able to secrete from the Mormons on that dry desert ride, and it was greeted with acclamations of pleasure. Wallace, divested of his sand guise, beamed with the gratification of a hungry man once more in the presence of friends and food. He made large cavities in Jim’s great pot of potato stew, and caused biscuits to vanish in a way that would not have shamed a Hindoo magician. The Grand Canyon he dug in my jar of jam, however, could not have been accomplished by legerdemain.

Talk became animated on dogs, cougars, horses and buffalo. Jones told of our experience out on the range, and concluded with some salient remarks.

“A tame wild animal is the most dangerous of beasts. My old friend, Dick Rock, a great hunter and guide out of Idaho, laughed at my advice, and got killed by one of his three-year-old bulls. I told him they knew him just well enough to kill him, and they did. My friend, A. H. Cole, of Oxford, Nebraska, tried to rope a Weetah that was too tame to be safe, and the bull killed him. Same with General Bull, a member of the Kansas Legislature, and two cowboys who went into a corral to tie up a tame elk at the wrong time. I pleaded with them not to undertake it. They had not studied animals as I had. That tame elk killed all of them. He had to be shot in order to get General Bull off his great antlers. You see, a wild animal must learn to respect a man. The way I used to teach the Yellowstone Park bears to be respectful and safe neighbors was to rope them around the front paw, swing them up on a tree clear of the ground, and whip them with a long pole. It was a dangerous business, and looks cruel, but it is the only way I could find to make the bears good. You see, they eat scraps around the hotels and get so tame they will steal everything but red-hot stoves, and will cuff the life out of those who try to shoo them off. But after a bear mother has had a licking, she not only becomes a good bear for the rest of her life, but she tells all her cubs about it with a good smack of her paw, for emphasis, and teaches them to respect peaceable citizens generation after generation.

“One of the hardest jobs I ever tackled was that of supplying the buffalo for Bronx Park. I rounded up a magnificent ‘king’ buffalo bull, belligerent enough to fight a battleship. When I rode after him the cowmen said I was as good as killed. I made a lance by driving a nail into the end of a short pole and sharpening it. After he had chased me, I wheeled my broncho, and hurled the lance into his back, ripping a wound as long as my hand. That put the fear of Providence into him and took the fight all out of him. I drove him uphill and down, and across canyons at a dead run for eight miles single handed, and loaded him on a freight car; but he came near getting me once or twice, and only quick broncho work and lance play saved me.

“In the Yellowstone Park all our buffaloes have become docile, excepting the huge bull which led them. The Indians call the buffalo leader the ‘Weetah,’ the master of the herd. It was sure death to go near this one. So I shipped in another Weetah, hoping that he might whip some of the fight out of old Manitou, the Mighty. They came together head on, like a railway collision, and ripped up over a square mile of landscape, fighting till night came on, and then on into the night.

“I jumped into the field with them, chasing them with my biograph, getting a series of moving pictures of that bullfight which was sure the real thing. It was a ticklish thing to do, though knowing that neither bull dared take his eyes off his adversary for a second, I felt reasonably safe. The old Weetah beat the new champion out that night, but the next morning they were at it again, and the new buffalo finally whipped the old one into submission. Since then his spirit has remained broken, and even a child can approach him safely — but the new Weetah is in turn a holy terror.

“To handle buffalo, elk and bear, you must get into sympathy with their methods of reasoning. No tenderfoot stands any show, even with the tame animals of the Yellowstone.”

The old buffalo hunter’s lips were no longer locked. One after another he told reminiscences of his eventful life, in a simple manner; yet so vivid and gripping were the unvarnished details that I was spellbound.

“Considering what appears the impossibility of capturing a full-grown buffalo, how did you earn the name of preserver of the American bison?” inquired Wallace.

“It took years to learn how, and ten more to capture the fifty-eight that I was able to keep. I tried every plan under the sun. I roped hundreds, of all sizes and ages. They would not live in captivity. If they could not find an embankment over which to break their necks, they would crush their skulls on stones. Failing any means like that, they would lie down, will themselves to die, and die. Think of a savage wild nature that could will its heart to cease beating! But it’s true. Finally I found I could keep only calves under three months of age. But to capture them so young entailed time and patience. For the buffalo fight for their young, and when I say fight, I mean till they drop. I almost always had to go alone, because I could neither coax nor hire any one to undertake it with me. Sometimes I would be weeks getting one calf. One day I captured eight — eight little buffalo calves! Never will I forget that day as long as I live!”

“Tell us about it,” I suggested, in a matter of fact, round-the-campfire voice. Had the silent plainsman ever told a complete and full story of his adventures? I doubted it. He was not the man to eulogize himself.

A short silence ensued. The cabin was snug and warm; the ruddy embers glowed; one of Jim’s pots steamed musically and fragrantly. The hounds lay curled in the cozy chimney corner.

Jones began to talk again, simply and unaffectedly, of his famous exploit; and as he went on so modestly, passing lightly over features we recognized as wonderful, I allowed the fire of my imagination to fuse for myself all the toil, patience, endurance, skill, herculean strength and marvelous courage and unfathomable passion which he slighted in his narrative.

CHAPTER 3.

THE LAST HERD

OVER GRAY NO-MAN’S-LAND stole down the shadows of night. The undulating prairie shaded dark to the western horizon, rimmed with a fading streak of light. Tall figures, silhouetted sharply against the last golden glow of sunset, marked the rounded crest of a grassy knoll.

“Wild hunter!” cried a voice in sullen rage, “buffalo or no, we halt here. Did Adams and I hire to cross the Staked Plains? Two weeks in No-Man’s-Land, and now we’re facing the sand! We’ve one keg of water, yet you want to keep on. Why, man, you’re crazy! You didn’t tell us you wanted buffalo alive. And here you’ve got us looking death in the eye!”

In the grim silence that ensued the two men unhitched the team from the long, light wagon, while the buffalo hunter staked out his wiry, lithe-limbed racehorses. Soon a fluttering blaze threw a circle of light, which shone on the agitated face of Rude and Adams, and the cold, iron-set visage of their brawny leader.

“It’s this way,” began Jones, in slow, cool voice; “I engaged you fellows, and you promised to stick by me. We’ve had no luck. But I’ve finally found sign — old sign, I’ll admit the buffalo I’m looking for — the last herd on the plains. For two years I’ve been hunting this herd. So have other hunters. Millions of buffalo have been killed and left to rot. Soon this herd will be gone, and then the only buffalo in the world will be those I have given ten years of the hardest work in capturing. This is the last herd, I say, and my last chance to capture a calf or two. Do you imagine I’d quit? You fellows go back if you want, but I keep on.”

“We can’t go back. We’re lost. We’ll have to go with you. But, man, thirst is not the only risk we run. This is Comanche country. And if that herd is in here the Indians have it spotted.”

“That worries me some,” replied the plainsman, “but we’ll keep on it.”

They slept. The night wind swished the grasses; dark storm clouds blotted out the northern stars; the prairie wolves mourned dismally.

Day broke cold, wan, threatening, under a leaden sky. The hunters traveled thirty miles by noon, and halted in a hollow where a stream flowed in wet season. Cottonwood trees were bursting into green; thickets of prickly thorn, dense and matted, showed bright spring buds.

“What is it?” suddenly whispered Rude.

The plainsman lay in strained posture, his ear against the ground.

“Hide the wagon and horses in the clump of cottonwoods,” he ordered, tersely. Springing to his feet, he ran to the top of the knoll above the hollow, where he again placed his ear to the ground.

Jones’s practiced ear had detected the quavering rumble of far-away, thundering hoofs. He searched the wide waste of plain with his powerful glass. To the southwest, miles distant, a cloud of dust mushroomed skyward. “Not buffalo,” he muttered, “maybe wild horses.” He watched and waited. The yellow cloud rolled forward, enlarging, spreading out, and drove before it a darkly indistinct, moving mass. As soon as he had one good look at this he ran back to his comrades.

“Stampede! Wild horses! Indians! Look to your rifles and hide!”

Wordless and pale, the men examined their Sharps, and made ready to follow Jones. He slipped into the thorny brake and, flat on his stomach, wormed his way like a snake far into the thickly interlaced web of branches. Rude and Adams crawled after him. Words were superfluous. Quiet, breathless, with beating hearts, the hunters pressed close to the dry grass. A long, low, steady rumble filled the air, and increased in volume till it became a roar. Moments, endless moments, passed. The roar filled out like a flood slowly released from its confines to sweep down with the sound of doom. The ground began to tremble and quake: the light faded; the smell of dust pervaded the thicket, then a continuous streaming roar, deafening as persistent roll of thunder, pervaded the hiding place. The stampeding horses had split round the hollow. The roar lessened. Swiftly as a departing snow-squall rushing on through the pines, the thunderous thud and tramp of hoofs died away.

The trained horses hidden in the cottonwoods never stirred. “Lie low! lie low!” breathed the plainsman to his companions.

Throb of hoofs again became audible, not loud and madly pounding as those that had passed, but low, muffled, rhythmic. Jones’s sharp eye, through a peephole in the thicket, saw a cream-colored mustang bob over the knoll, carrying an Indian. Another and another, then a swiftly following, close-packed throng appeared. Bright red feathers and white gleamed; weapons glinted; gaunt, bronzed savage leaned forward on racy, slender mustangs.

The plainsman shrank closer to the ground. “Apache!” he exclaimed to himself, and gripped his rifle. The band galloped down to the hollow, and slowing up, piled single file over the bank. The leader, a short, squat chief, plunged into the brake not twenty yards from the hidden men. Jones recognized the cream mustang; he knew the somber, sinister, broad face. It belonged to the Red Chief of the Apaches.

“Geronimo!” murmured the plainsman through his teeth.

Well for the Apache that no falcon savage eye discovered aught strange in the little hollow! One look at the sand of the stream bed would have cost him his life. But the Indians crossed the thicket too far up; they cantered up the slope and disappeared. The hoof-beats softened and ceased.

“Gone?” whispered Rude.

“Gone. But wait,” whispered Jones. He knew the savage nature, and he knew how to wait. After a long time, he cautiously crawled out of the thicket and searched the surroundings with a plainsman’s eye. He climbed the slope and saw the clouds of dust, the near one small, the far one large, which told him all he needed to know.

“Comanches?” queried Adams, with a quaver in his voice. He was new to the plains.

“Likely,” said Jones, who thought it best not to tell all he knew. Then he added to himself: “We’ve no time to lose. There’s water back here somewhere. The Indians have spotted the buffalo, and were running the horses away from the water.”

The three got under way again, proceeding carefully, so as not to raise the dust, and headed due southwest. Scantier and scantier grew the grass; the hollows were washes of sand; steely gray dunes, like long, flat, ocean swells, ribbed the prairie. The gray day declined. Late into the purple night they traveled, then camped without fire.

In the gray morning Jones climbed a high ride and scanned the southwest. Low dun-colored sandhills waved from him down and down, in slow, deceptive descent. A solitary and remote waste reached out into gray infinitude. A pale lake, gray as the rest of that gray expanse, glimmered in the distance.

“Mirage!” he muttered, focusing his glass, which only magnified all under the dead gray, steely sky. “Water must be somewhere; but can that be it? It’s too pale and elusive to be real. No life — a blasted, staked plain! Hello!”

A thin, black, wavering line of wild fowl, moving in beautiful, rapid flight, crossed the line of his vision. “Geese flying north, and low. There’s water here,” he said. He followed the flock with his glass, saw them circle over the lake, and vanish in the gray sheen.

“It’s water.” He hurried back to camp. His haggard and worn companions scorned his discovery. Adams siding with Rude, who knew the plains, said: “Mirage! the lure of the desert!” Yet dominated by a force too powerful for them to resist, they followed the buffalo-hunter. All day the gleaming lake beckoned them onward, and seemed to recede. All day the drab clouds scudded before the cold north wind. In the gray twilight, the lake suddenly lay before them, as if it had opened at their feet. The men rejoiced, the horses lifted their noses and sniffed the damp air.

The whinnies of the horses, the clank of harness, and splash of water, the whirl of ducks did not blur out of Jones’s keen ear a sound that made him jump. It was the thump of hoofs, in a familiar beat, beat, beat. He saw a shadow moving up a ridge. Soon, outlined black against the yet light sky, a lone buffalo cow stood like a statue. A moment she held toward the lake, studying the danger, then went out of sight over the ridge.

Jones spurred his horse up the ascent, which was rather long and steep, but he mounted the summit in time to see the cow join eight huge, shaggy buffalo. The hunter reined in his horse, and standing high in his stirrups, held his hat at arms’ length over his head. So he thrilled to a moment he had sought for two years. The last herd of American bison was near at hand. The cow would not venture far from the main herd; the eight stragglers were the old broken-down bulls that had been expelled, at this season, from the herd by younger and more vigorous bulls. The old monarchs saw the hunter at the same time his eyes were gladdened by sight of them, and lumbered away after the cow, to disappear in the gathering darkness. Frightened buffalo always make straight for their fellows; and this knowledge contented Jones to return to the lake, well satisfied that the herd would not be far away in the morning, within easy striking distance by daylight.

At dark the storm which had threatened for days, broke in a fury of rain, sleet and hail. The hunters stretched a piece of canvas over the wheels of the north side of the wagon, and wet and shivering, crawled under it to their blankets. During the night the storm raged with unabated strength.

Dawn, forbidding and raw, lightened to the whistle of the sleety gusts. Fire was out of the question. Chary of weight, the hunters had carried no wood, and the buffalo chips they used for fuel were lumps of ice. Grumbling, Adams and Rude ate a cold breakfast, while Jones, munching a biscuit, faced the biting blast from the crest of the ridge. The middle of the plain below held a ragged, circular mass, as still as stone. It was the buffalo herd, with every shaggy head to the storm. So they would stand, never budging from their tracks, till the blizzard of sleet was over.

Jones, though eager and impatient, restrained himself, for it was unwise to begin operations in the storm. There was nothing to do but wait. Ill fared the hunters that day. Food had to be eaten uncooked. The long hours dragged by with the little group huddled under icy blankets. When darkness fell, the sleet changed to drizzling rain. This blew over at midnight, and a colder wind, penetrating to the very marrow of the sleepless men, made their condition worse. In the after part of the night, the wolves howled mournfully.

With a gray, misty light appearing in the east, Jones threw off his stiff, ice-incased blanket, and crawled out. A gaunt gray wolf, the color of the day and the sand and the lake, sneaked away, looking back. While moving and threshing about to warm his frozen blood, Jones munched another biscuit. Five men crawled from under the wagon, and made an unfruitful search for the whisky. Fearing it, Jones had thrown the bottle away. The men cursed. The patient horses drooped sadly, and shivered in the lee of the improvised tent. Jones kicked the inch-thick casing of ice from his saddle. Kentuck, his racer, had been spared on the whole trip for this day’s work. The thoroughbred was cold, but as Jones threw the saddle over him, he showed that he knew the chase ahead, and was eager to be off. At last, after repeated efforts with his benumbed fingers, Jones got the girths tight. He tied a bunch of soft cords to the saddle and mounted.

“Follow as fast as you can,” he called to his surly men. “The buffs will run north against the wind. This is the right direction for us; we’ll soon leave the sand. Stick to my trail and come a-humming.”

From the ridge he met the red sun, rising bright, and a keen northeasterly wind that lashed like a whip. As he had anticipated, his quarry had moved northward. Kentuck let out into a swinging stride, which in an hour had the loping herd in sight. Every jump now took him upon higher ground, where the sand failed, and the grass grew thicker and began to bend under the wind.

In the teeth of the nipping gale Jones slipped close upon the herd without alarming even a cow. More than a hundred little reddish-black calves leisurely loped in the rear. Kentuck, keen to his work, crept on like a wolf, and the hunter’s great fist clenched the coiled lasso. Before him expanded a boundless plain. A situation long cherished and dreamed of had become a reality. Kentuck, fresh and strong, was good for all day. Jones gloated over the little red bulls and heifers, as a miser gloats over gold and jewels. Never before had he caught more than two in one day, and often it had taken days to capture one. This was the last herd, this the last opportunity toward perpetuating a grand race of beasts. And with born instinct he saw ahead the day of his life.

At a touch, Kentuck closed in, and the buffalo, seeing him, stampeded into the heaving roll so well known to the hunter. Racing on the right flank of the herd, Jones selected a tawny heifer and shot the lariat after her. It fell true, but being stiff and kinky from the sleet, failed to tighten, and the quick calf leaped through the loop to freedom.

Undismayed the pursuer quickly recovered his rope. Again he whirled and sent the loop. Again it circled true, and failed to close; again the agile heifer bounded through it. Jones whipped the air with the stubborn rope. To lose a chance like that was worse than boy’s work.

The third whirl, running a smaller loop, tightened the coil round the frightened calf just back of its ears. A pull on the bridle brought Kentuck to a halt in his tracks, and the baby buffalo rolled over and over in the grass. Jones bounced from his seat and jerked loose a couple of the soft cords. In a twinkling; his big knee crushed down on the calf, and his big hands bound it helpless.

Kentuck neighed. Jones saw his black ears go up. Danger threatened. For a moment the hunter’s blood turned chill, not from fear, for he never felt fear, but because he thought the Indians were returning to ruin his work. His eye swept the plain. Only the gray forms of wolves flitted through the grass, here, there, all about him. Wolves! They were as fatal to his enterprise as savages. A trooping pack of prairie wolves had fallen in with the herd and hung close on the trail, trying to cut a calf away from its mother. The gray brutes boldly trotted to within a few yards of him, and slyly looked at him, with pale, fiery eyes. They had already scented his captive. Precious time flew by; the situation, critical and baffling, had never before been met by him. There lay his little calf tied fast, and to the north ran many others, some of which he must — he would have. To think quickly had meant the solving of many a plainsman’s problem. Should he stay with his prize to save it, or leave it to be devoured?

“Ha! you old gray devils!” he yelled, shaking his fist at the wolves. “I know a trick or two.” Slipping his hat between the legs of the calf, he fastened it securely. This done, he vaulted on Kentuck, and was off with never a backward glance. Certain it was that the wolves would not touch anything, alive or dead, that bore the scent of a human being.

The bison scoured away a long half-mile in the lead, sailing northward like a cloud-shadow over the plain. Kentuck, mettlesome, over-eager, would have run himself out in short order, but the wary hunter, strong to restrain as well as impel, with the long day in his mind, kept the steed in his easy stride, which, springy and stretching, overhauled the herd in the course of several miles.

A dash, a swirl, a shock, a leap, horse and hunter working in perfect accord, and a fine big calf, bellowing lustily, struggled desperately for freedom under the remorseless knee. The big hands toyed with him; and then, secure in the double knots, the calf lay still, sticking out his tongue and rolling his eyes, with the coat of the hunter tucked under his bonds to keep away the wolves.

The race had but begun; the horse had but warmed to his work; the hunter had but tasted of sweet triumph. Another hopeful of a buffalo mother, negligent in danger, truant from his brothers, stumbled and fell in the enmeshing loop. The hunter’s vest, slipped over the calf’s neck, served as danger signal to the wolves. Before the lumbering buffalo missed their loss, another red and black baby kicked helplessly on the grass and sent up vain, weak calls, and at last lay still, with the hunter’s boot tied to his cords.

Four! Jones counted them aloud, add in his mind, and kept on. Fast, hard work, covering upward of fifteen miles, had begun to tell on herd, horse and man, and all slowed down to the call for strength. The fifth time Jones closed in on his game, he encountered different circumstances such as called forth his cunning.

The herd had opened up; the mothers had fallen back to the rear; the calves hung almost out of sight under the shaggy sides of protectors. To try them out Jones darted close and threw his lasso. It struck a cow. With activity incredible in such a huge beast, she lunged at him. Kentuck, expecting just such a move, wheeled to safety. This duel, ineffectual on both sides, kept up for a while, and all the time, man and herd were jogging rapidly to the north.

Jones could not let well enough alone; he acknowledged this even as he swore he must have five. Emboldened by his marvelous luck, and yielding headlong to the passion within, he threw caution to the winds. A lame old cow with a red calf caught his eye; in he spurred his willing horse and slung his rope. It stung the haunch of the mother. The mad grunt she vented was no quicker than the velocity with which she plunged and reared. Jones had but time to swing his leg over the saddle when the hoofs beat down. Kentuck rolled on the plain, flinging his rider from him. The infuriated buffalo lowered her head for the fatal charge on the horse, when the plainsman, jerking out his heavy Colts, shot her dead in her tracks.

Kentuck got to his feet unhurt, and stood his ground, quivering but ready, showing his steadfast courage. He showed more, for his ears lay back, and his eyes had the gleam of the animal that strikes back.

The calf ran round its mother. Jones lassoed it, and tied it down, being compelled to cut a piece from his lasso, as the cords on the saddle had given out. He left his other boot with baby number five. The still heaving, smoking body of the victim called forth the stern, intrepid hunter’s pity for a moment. Spill of blood he had not wanted. But he had not been able to avoid it; and mounting again with close-shut jaw and smoldering eye, he galloped to the north.

Kentuck snorted; the pursuing wolves shied off in the grass; the pale sun began to slant westward. The cold iron stirrups froze and cut the hunter’s bootless feet.

When once more he came hounding the buffalo, they were considerably winded. Short-tufted tails, raised stiffly, gave warning. Snorts, like puffs of escaping steam, and deep grunts from cavernous chests evinced anger and impatience that might, at any moment, bring the herd to a defiant stand.

He whizzed the shortened noose over the head of a calf that was laboring painfully to keep up, and had slipped down, when a mighty grunt told him of peril. Never looking to see whence it came, he sprang into the saddle. Fiery Kentuck jumped into action, then hauled up with a shock that almost threw himself and rider. The lasso, fast to the horse, and its loop end round the calf, had caused the sudden check.

A maddened cow bore down on Kentuck. The gallant horse straightened in a jump, but dragging the calf pulled him in a circle, and in another moment he was running round and round the howling, kicking pivot. Then ensued a terrible race, with horse and bison describing a twenty-foot circle. Bang! Bang! The hunter fired two shots, and heard the spats of the bullets. But they only augmented the frenzy of the beast. Faster Kentuck flew, snorting in terror; closer drew the dusty, bouncing pursuer; the calf spun like a top; the lasso strung tighter than wire. Jones strained to loosen the fastening, but in vain. He swore at his carelessness in dropping his knife by the last calf he had tied. He thought of shooting the rope, yet dared not risk the shot. A hollow sound turned him again, with the Colts leveled. Bang! Dust flew from the ground beyond the bison.

The two charges left in the gun were all that stood between him and eternity. With a desperate display of strength Jones threw his weight in a backward pull, and hauled Kentuck up. Then he leaned far back in the saddle, and shoved the Colts out beyond the horse’s flank. Down went the broad head, with its black, glistening horns. Bang! She slid forward with a crash, plowing the ground with hoofs and nose — spouted blood, uttered a hoarse cry, kicked and died.

Kentuck, for once completely terrorized, reared and plunged from the cow, dragging the calf. Stern command and iron arm forced him to a standstill. The calf, nearly strangled, recovered when the noose was slipped, and moaned a feeble protest against life and captivity. The remainder of Jones’s lasso went to bind number six, and one of his socks went to serve as reminder to the persistent wolves.

“Six! On! On! Kentuck! On!” Weakening, but unconscious of it, with bloody hands and feet, without lasso, and with only one charge in his revolver, hatless, coatless, vestless, bootless, the wild hunter urged on the noble horse. The herd had gained miles in the interval of the fight. Game to the backbone, Kentuck lengthened out to overhaul it, and slowly the rolling gap lessened and lessened. A long hour thumped away, with the rumble growing nearer.

Once again the lagging calves dotted the grassy plain before the hunter. He dashed beside a burly calf, grasped its tail, stopped his horse, and jumped. The calf went down with him, and did not come up. The knotted, blood-stained hands, like claws of steel, bound the hind legs close and fast with a leathern belt, and left between them a torn and bloody sock.

“Seven! On! Old Faithfull! We MUST have another! the last! This is your day.”

The blood that flecked the hunter was not all his own.

The sun slanted westwardly toward the purpling horizon; the grassy plain gleamed like a ruffled sea of glass; the gray wolves loped on.

When next the hunter came within sight of the herd, over a wavy ridge, changes in its shape and movement met his gaze. The calves were almost done; they could run no more; their mothers faced the south, and trotted slowly to and fro; the bulls were grunting, herding, piling close. It looked as if the herd meant to stand and fight.

This mattered little to the hunter who had captured seven calves since dawn. The first limping calf he reached tried to elude the grasping hand and failed. Kentuck had been trained to wheel to the right or left, in whichever way his rider leaned; and as Jones bent over and caught an upraised tail, the horse turned to strike the calf with both front hoofs. The calf rolled; the horse plunged down; the rider sped beyond to the dust. Though the calf was tired, he still could bellow, and he filled the air with robust bawls.

Jones all at once saw twenty or more buffalo dash in at him with fast, twinkling, short legs. With the thought of it, he was in the air to the saddle. As the black, round mounds charged from every direction, Kentuck let out with all there was left in him. He leaped and whirled, pitched and swerved, in a roaring, clashing, dusty melee. Beating hoofs threw the turf, flying tails whipped the air, and everywhere were dusky, sharp-pointed heads, tossing low. Kentuck squeezed out unscathed. The mob of bison, bristling, turned to lumber after the main herd. Jones seized his opportunity and rode after them, yelling with all his might. He drove them so hard that soon the little fellows lagged paces behind. Only one or two old cows straggled with the calves.

Then wheeling Kentuck, he cut between the herd and a calf, and rode it down. Bewildered, the tously little bull bellowed in great affright. The hunter seized the stiff tail, and calling to his horse, leaped off. But his strength was far spent and the buffalo, larger than his fellows, threshed about and jerked in terror. Jones threw it again and again. But it struggled up, never once ceasing its loud demands for help. Finally the hunter tripped it up and fell upon it with his knees.

Above the rumble of retreating hoofs, Jones heard the familiar short, quick, jarring pound on the turf. Kentuck neighed his alarm and raced to the right. Bearing down on the hunter, hurtling through the air, was a giant furry mass, instinct with fierce life and power — a buffalo cow robbed of her young.

With his senses almost numb, barely able to pull and raise the Colt, the plainsman willed to live, and to keep his captive. His leveled arm wavered like a leaf in a storm.

Bang! Fire, smoke, a shock, a jarring crash, and silence!

The calf stirred beneath him. He put out a hand to touch a warm, furry coat. The mother had fallen beside him. Lifting a heavy hoof, he laid it over the neck of the calf to serve as additional weight. He lay still and listened. The rumble of the herd died away in the distance.

The evening waned. Still the hunter lay quiet. From time to time the calf struggled and bellowed. Lank, gray wolves appeared on all sides; they prowled about with hungry howls, and shoved black-tipped noses through the grass. The sun sank, and the sky paled to opal blue. A star shone out, then another, and another. Over the prairie slanted the first dark shadow of night.

Suddenly the hunter laid his ear to the ground, and listened. Faint beats, like throbs of a pulsing heart, shuddered from the soft turf. Stronger they grew, till the hunter raised his head. Dark forms approached; voices broke the silence; the creaking of a wagon scared away the wolves.

“This way!” shouted the hunter weakly.

“Ha! here he is. Hurt?” cried Rude, vaulting the wheel.

“Tie up this calf. How many — did you find?” The voice grew fainter.

“Seven — alive, and in good shape, and all your clothes.”

But the last words fell on unconscious ears.

CHAPTER 4.

THE TRAIL

“FRANK, WHAT’LL WE do about horses?” asked Jones. “Jim’ll want the bay, and of course you’ll want to ride Spot. The rest of our nags will only do to pack the outfit.”

“I’ve been thinkin’,” replied the foreman. “You sure will need good mounts. Now it happens that a friend of mine is just at this time at House Rock Valley, an outlyin’ post of one of the big Utah ranches. He is gettin’ in the horses off the range, an’ he has some crackin’ good ones. Let’s ooze over there — it’s only thirty miles — an’ get some horses from him.”

We were all eager to act upon Frank’s suggestion. So plans were made for three of us to ride over and select our mounts. Frank and Jim would follow with the pack train, and if all went well, on the following evening we would camp under the shadow of Buckskin.

Early next morning we were on our way. I tried to find a soft place on Old Baldy, one of Frank’s pack horses. He was a horse that would not have raised up at the trumpet of doom. Nothing under the sun, Frank said, bothered Old Baldy but the operation of shoeing. We made the distance to the outpost by noon, and found Frank’s friend a genial and obliging cowboy, who said we could have all the horses we wanted.

While Jones and Wallace strutted round the big corral, which was full of vicious, dusty, shaggy horses and mustangs, I sat high on the fence. I heard them talking about points and girth and stride, and a lot of terms that I could not understand. Wallace selected a heavy sorrel, and Jones a big bay; very like Jim’s. I had observed, way over in the corner of the corral, a bunch of cayuses, and among them a clean-limbed black horse. Edging round on the fence I got a closer view, and then cried out that I had found my horse. I jumped down and caught him, much to my surprise, for the other horses were wild, and had kicked viciously. The black was beautifully built, wide-chested and powerful, but not heavy. His coat glistened like sheeny black satin, and he had a white face and white feet and a long mane.

“I don’t know about giving you Satan — that’s his name,” said the cowboy. “The foreman rides him often. He’s the fastest, the best climber, and the best dispositioned horse on the range.

“But I guess I can let you have him,” he continued, when he saw my disappointed face.

“By George!” exclaimed Jones. “You’ve got it on us this time.”

“Would you like to trade?” asked Wallace, as his sorrel tried to bite him. “That black looks sort of fierce.”

I led my prize out of the corral, up to the little cabin nearby, where I tied him, and proceeded to get acquainted after a fashion of my own. Though not versed in horse-lore, I knew that half the battle was to win his confidence. I smoothed his silky coat, and patted him, and then surreptitiously slipped a lump of sugar from my pocket. This sugar, which I had purloined in Flagstaff, and carried all the way across the desert, was somewhat disreputably soiled, and Satan sniffed at it disdainfully. Evidently he had never smelled or tasted sugar. I pressed it into his mouth. He munched it, and then looked me over with some interest. I handed him another lump. He took it and rubbed his nose against me. Satan was mine!

Frank and Jim came along early in the afternoon. What with packing, changing saddles and shoeing the horses, we were all busy. Old Baldy would not be shod, so we let him off till a more opportune time. By four o’clock we were riding toward the slopes of Buckskin, now only a few miles away, standing up higher and darker.

“What’s that for?” inquired Wallace, pointing to a long, rusty, wire-wrapped, double-barreled blunderbuss of a shotgun, stuck in the holster of Jones’s saddle.

The Colonel, who had been having a fine time with the impatient and curious hounds, did not vouchsafe any information on that score. But very shortly we were destined to learn the use of this incongruous firearm. I was riding in advance of Wallace, and a little behind Jones. The dogs — excepting Jude, who had been kicked and lamed — were ranging along before their master. Suddenly, right before me, I saw an immense jack-rabbit; and just then Moze and Don caught sight of it. In fact, Moze bumped his blunt nose into the rabbit. When it leaped into scared action, Moze yelped, and Don followed suit. Then they were after it in wild, clamoring pursuit. Jones let out the stentorian blast, now becoming familiar, and spurred after them. He reached over, pulled the shotgun out of the holster and fired both barrels at the jumping dogs.

I expressed my amazement in strong language, and Wallace whistled.

Don came sneaking back with his tail between his legs, and Moze, who had cowered as if stung, circled round ahead of us. Jones finally succeeded in gettin him back.

“Come in hyah! You measly rabbit dogs! What do you mean chasing off that way? We’re after lions. Lions! understand?”

Don looked thoroughly convinced of his error, but Moze, being more thick-headed, appeared mystified rather than hurt or frightened.

“What size shot do you use?” I asked.

“Number ten. They don’t hurt much at seventy five yards,” replied our leader. “I use them as sort of a long arm. You see, the dogs must be made to know what we’re after. Ordinary means would never do in a case like this. My idea is to break them of coyotes, wolves and deer, and when we cross a lion trail, let them go. I’ll teach them sooner than you’d think. Only we must get where we can see what they’re trailing. Then I can tell whether to call then back or not.”

The sun was gilding the rim of the desert rampart when we began the ascent of the foothills of Buckskin. A steep trail wound zigzag up the mountain We led our horses, as it was a long, hard climb. From time to time, as I stopped to catch my breath I gazed away across the growing void to the gorgeous Pink Cliffs, far above and beyond the red wall which had seemed so high, and then out toward the desert. The irregular ragged crack in the plain, apparently only a thread of broken ground, was the Grand Canyon. How unutterably remote, wild, grand was that world of red and brown, of purple pall, of vague outline!

Two thousand feet, probably, we mounted to what Frank called Little Buckskin. In the west a copper glow, ridged with lead-colored clouds, marked where the sun had set. The air was very thin and icy cold. At the first clump of pinyon pines, we made dry camp. When I sat down it was as if I had been anchored. Frank solicitously remarked that I looked “sort of beat.” Jim built a roaring fire and began getting supper. A snow squall came on the rushing wind. The air grew colder, and though I hugged the fire, I could not get warm. When I had satisfied my hunger, I rolled out my sleeping-bag and crept into it. I stretched my aching limbs and did not move again. Once I awoke, drowsily feeling the warmth of the fire, and I heard Frank say: “He’s asleep, dead to the world!”

“He’s all in,” said Jones. “Riding’s what did it You know how a horse tears a man to pieces.”

“Will he be able to stand it?” asked Frank, with as much solicitude as if he were my brother. “When you get out after anythin’ — well, you’re hell. An’ think of the country we’re goin’ into. I know you’ve never seen the breaks of the Siwash, but I have, an’ it’s the worst an’ roughest country I ever saw. Breaks after breaks, like the ridges on a washboard, headin’ on the south slope of Buckskin, an’ runnin’ down, side by side, miles an’ miles, deeper an’ deeper, till they run into that awful hole. It will be a killin’ trip on men, horses an’ dogs. Now, Mr. Wallace, he’s been campin’ an’ roughin’ with the Navajos for months; he’s in some kind of shape, but—”

Frank concluded his remark with a doubtful pause.

“I’m some worried, too,” replied Jones. “But he would come. He stood the desert well enough; even the Mormons said that.”

In the ensuing silence the fire sputtered, the glare fitfully merged into dark shadows under the weird pinyons, and the wind moaned through the short branches.

“Wal,” drawled a slow, soft voice, “shore I reckon you’re hollerin’ too soon. Frank’s measly trick puttin’ him on Spot showed me. He rode out on Spot, an’ he rode in on Spot. Shore he’ll stay.”

It was not all the warmth of the blankets that glowed over me then. The voices died away dreamily, and my eyelids dropped sleepily tight. Late in the night I sat up suddenly, roused by some unusual disturbance. The fire was dead; the wind swept with a rush through the pinyons. From the black darkness came the staccato chorus of coyotes. Don barked his displeasure; Sounder made the welkin ring, and old Moze growled low and deep, grumbling like muttered thunder. Then all was quiet, and I slept.

Dawn, rosy red, confronted me when I opened my eyes. Breakfast was ready; Frank was packing Old Baldy; Jones talked to his horse as he saddled him; Wallace came stooping his giant figure under the pinyons; the dogs, eager and soft-eyed, sat around Jim and begged. The sun peeped over the Pink Cliffs; the desert still lay asleep, tranced in a purple and golden-streaked mist.

“Come, come!” said Jones, in his big voice. “We’re slow; here’s the sun.”

“Easy, easy,” replied Frank, “we’ve all the time there is.”

When Frank threw the saddle over Satan I interrupted him and said I would care for my horse henceforward. Soon we were under way, the horses fresh, the dogs scenting the keen, cold air.

The trail rolled over the ridges of pinyon and scrubby pine. Occasionally we could see the black, ragged crest of Buckskin above us. From one of these ridges I took my last long look back at the desert, and engraved on my mind a picture of the red wall, and the many-hued ocean of sand. The trail, narrow and indistinct, mounted the last slow-rising slope; the pinyons failed, and the scrubby pines became abundant. At length we reached the top, and entered the great arched aisles of Buckskin Forest. The ground was flat as a table. Magnificent pine trees, far apart, with branches high and spreading, gave the eye glad welcome. Some of these monarchs were eight feet thick at the base and two hundred feet high. Here and there one lay, gaunt and prostrate, a victim of the wind. The smell of pitch pine was sweetly overpowering.

“When I went through here two weeks ago, the snow was a foot deep, an’ I bogged in places,” said Frank. “The sun has been oozin’ round here some. I’m afraid Jones won’t find any snow on this end of Buckskin.”

Thirty miles of winding trail, brown and springy from its thick mat of pine needles, shaded always by the massive, seamy-barked trees, took us over the extremity of Buckskin. Then we faced down into the head of a ravine that ever grew deeper, stonier and rougher. I shifted from side to side, from leg to leg in my saddle, dismounted and hobbled before Satan, mounted again, and rode on. Jones called the dogs and complained to them of the lack of snow. Wallace sat his horse comfortably, taking long pulls at his pipe and long gazes at the shaggy sides of the ravine. Frank, energetic and tireless, kept the pack-horses in the trail. Jim jogged on silently. And so we rode down to Oak Spring.

The spring was pleasantly situated in a grove of oaks and Pinyons, under the shadow of three cliffs. Three ravines opened here into an oval valley. A rude cabin of rough-hewn logs stood near the spring.

“Get down, get down,” sang out Frank. “We’ll hang up here. Beyond Oak is No-Man’s-Land. We take our chances on water after we leave here.”

When we had unsaddled, unpacked, and got a fire roaring on the wide stone hearth of the cabin, it was once again night.

“Boys,” said Jones after supper, “we’re now on the edge of the lion country. Frank saw lion sign in here only two weeks ago; and though the snow is gone, we stand a show of finding tracks in the sand and dust. To-morrow morning, before the sun gets a chance at the bottom of these ravines, we’ll be up and doing. We’ll each take a dog and search in different directions. Keep the dog in leash, and when he opens up, examine the ground carefully for tracks. If a dog opens on any track that you are sure isn’t lion’s, punish him. And when a lion-track is found, hold the dog in, wait and signal. We’ll use a signal I have tried and found far-reaching and easy to yell. Waa-hoo! That’s it. Once yelled it means come. Twice means comes quickly. Three times means come — danger!”

In one corner of the cabin was a platform of poles, covered with straw. I threw the sleeping-bag on this, and was soon stretched out. Misgivings as to my strength worried me before I closed my eyes. Once on my back, I felt I could not rise; my chest was sore; my cough deep and rasping. It seemed I had scarcely closed my eyes when Jones’s impatient voice recalled me from sweet oblivion.

“Frank, Frank, it’s daylight. Jim — boys!” he called.

I tumbled out in a gray, wan twilight. It was cold enough to make the fire acceptable, but nothing like the morning before on Buckskin.

“Come to the festal board,” drawled Jim, almost before I had my boots laced.

“Jones,” said Frank, “Jim an’ I’ll ooze round here to-day. There’s lots to do, an’ we want to have things hitched right before we strike for the Siwash. We’ve got to shoe Old Baldy, an’ if we can’t get him locoed, it’ll take all of us to do it.”

The light was still gray when Jones led off with Don, Wallace with Sounder and I with Moze. Jones directed us to separate, follow the dry stream beds in the ravines, and remember his instructions given the night before.

The ravine to the right, which I entered, was choked with huge stones fallen from the cliff above, and pinyons growing thick; and I wondered apprehensively how a man could evade a wild animal in such a place, much less chase it. Old Moze pulled on his chain and sniffed at coyote and deer tracks. And every time he evinced interest in such, I cut him with a switch, which, to tell the truth, he did not notice. I thought I heard a shout, and holding Moze tight, I waited and listened.

“Waa-hoo — waa-hoo!” floated on the air, rather deadened as if it had come from round the triangular cliff that faced into the valley. Urging and dragging Moze, I ran down the ravine as fast as I could, and soon encountered Wallace coming from the middle ravine. “Jones,” he said excitedly, “this way — there’s the signal again.” We dashed in haste for the mouth of the third ravine, and came suddenly upon Jones, kneeling under a pinyon tree. “Boys, look!” he exclaimed, as he pointed to the ground. There, clearly defined in the dust, was a cat track as big as my spread hand, and the mere sight of it sent a chill up my spine. “There’s a lion track for you; made by a female, a two-year-old; but can’t say if she passed here last night. Don won’t take the trail. Try Moze.”

I led Moze to the big, round imprint, and put his nose down into it. The old hound sniffed and sniffed, then lost interest.

“Cold!” ejaculated Jones. “No go. Try Sounder. Come, old boy, you’ve the nose for it.”

He urged the reluctant hound forward. Sounder needed not to be shown the trail; he stuck his nose in it, and stood very quiet for a long moment; then he quivered slightly, raised his nose and sought the next track. Step by step he went slowly, doubtfully. All at once his tail wagged stiffly.

“Look at that!” cried Jones in delight. “He’s caught a scent when the others couldn’t. Hyah, Moze, get back. Keep Moze and Don back; give him room.”

Slowly Sounder paced up the ravine, as carefully as if he were traveling on thin ice. He passed the dusty, open trail to a scaly ground with little bits of grass, and he kept on.

We were electrified to hear him give vent to a deep bugle-blast note of eagerness.

“By George, he’s got it, boys!” exclaimed Jones, as he lifted the stubborn, struggling hound off the trail. “I know that bay. It means a lion passed here this morning. And we’ll get him up as sure as you’re alive. Come, Sounder. Now for the horses.”

As we ran pell-mell into the little glade, where Jim sat mending some saddle trapping, Frank rode up the trail with the horses.

“Well, I heard Sounder,” he said with his genial smile. “Somethin’s comin’ off, eh? You’ll have to ooze round some to keep up with that hound.”

I saddled Satan with fingers that trembled in excitement, and pushed my little Remington automatic into the rifle holster.

“Boys, listen,” said our leader. “We’re off now in the beginning of a hunt new to you. Remember no shooting, no blood-letting, except in self-defense. Keep as close to me as you can. Listen for the dogs, and when you fall behind or separate, yell out the signal cry. Don’t forget this. We’re bound to lose each other. Look out for the spikes and branches on the trees. If the dogs split, whoever follows the one that trees the lion must wait there till the rest come up. Off now! Come, Sounder; Moze, you rascal, hyah! Come, Don, come, Puppy, and take your medicine.”

Except Moze, the hounds were all trembling and running eagerly to and fro. When Sounder was loosed, he led them in a bee-line to the trail, with us cantering after. Sounder worked exactly as before, only he followed the lion tracks a little farther up the ravine before he bayed. He kept going faster and faster, occasionally letting out one deep, short yelp. The other hounds did not give tongue, but eager, excited, baffled, kept at his heels. The ravine was long, and the wash at the bottom, up which the lion had proceeded, turned and twisted round boulders large as houses, and led through dense growths of some short, rough shrub. Now and then the lion tracks showed plainly in the sand. For five miles or more Sounder led us up the ravine, which began to contract and grow steep. The dry stream bed got to be full of thickets of branchless saplings, about the poplar — tall, straight, size of a man’s arm, and growing so close we had to press them aside to let our horses through.

Presently Sounder slowed up and appeared at fault. We found him puzzling over an open, grassy patch, and after nosing it for a little while, he began skirting the edge.

“Cute dog!” declared Jones. “That Sounder will make a lion chaser. Our game has gone up here somewhere.”

Sure enough, Sounder directly gave tongue from the side of the ravine. It was climb for us now. Broken shale, rocks of all dimensions, pinyons down and pinyons up made ascending no easy problem. We had to dismount and lead the horses, thus losing ground. Jones forged ahead and reached the top of the ravine first. When Wallace and I got up, breathing heavily, Jones and the hounds were out of sight. But Sounder kept voicing his clear call, giving us our direction. Off we flew, over ground that was still rough, but enjoyable going compared to the ravine slopes. The ridge was sparsely covered with cedar and pinyon, through which, far ahead, we pretty soon spied Jones. Wallace signaled, and our leader answered twice. We caught up with him on the brink of another ravine deeper and craggier than the first, full of dead, gnarled pinyon and splintered rocks.

“This gulch is the largest of the three that head in at Oak Spring,” said Jones. “Boys, don’t forget your direction. Always keep a feeling where camp is, always sense it every time you turn. The dogs have gone down. That lion is in here somewhere. Maybe he lives down in the high cliffs near the spring and came up here last night for a kill he’s buried somewhere. Lions never travel far. Hark! Hark! There’s Sounder and the rest of them! They’ve got the scent; they’ve all got it! Down, boys, down, and ride!”

With that he crashed into the cedar in a way that showed me how impervious he was to slashing branches, sharp as thorns, and steep descent and peril.

Wallace’s big sorrel plunged after him and the rolling stones cracked. Suffering as I was by this time, with cramp in my legs, and torturing pain, I had to choose between holding my horse in or falling off; so I chose the former and accordingly got behind.

Dead cedar and pinyon trees lay everywhere, with their contorted limbs reaching out like the arms of a devil-fish. Stones blocked every opening. Making the bottom of the ravine after what seemed an interminable time, I found the tracks of Jones and Wallace. A long “Waa-hoo!” drew me on; then the mellow bay of a hound floated up the ravine. Satan made up time in the sandy stream bed, but kept me busily dodging overhanging branches. I became aware, after a succession of efforts to keep from being strung on pinyons, that the sand before me was clean and trackless. Hauling Satan up sharply, I waited irresolutely and listened. Then from high up the ravine side wafted down a medley of yelps and barks.

“Waa-hoo, waa-hoo!” ringing down the slope, pealed against the cliff behind me, and sent the wild echoes flying. Satan, of his own accord, headed up the incline. Surprised at this, I gave him free rein. How he did climb! Not long did it take me to discover that he picked out easier going than I had. Once I saw Jones crossing a ledge far above me, and I yelled our signal cry. The answer returned clear and sharp; then its echo cracked under the hollow cliff, and crossing and recrossing the ravine, it died at last far away, like the muffled peal of a bell-buoy. Again I heard the blended yelping of the hounds, and closer at hand. I saw a long, low cliff above, and decided that the hounds were running at the base of it. Another chorus of yelps, quicker, wilder than the others, drew a yell from me. Instinctively I knew the dogs had jumped game of some kind. Satan knew it as well as I, for he quickened his pace and sent the stones clattering behind him.

I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no tracks in the dust of ages that had crumbled in its shadow, nor did I hear the dogs. Considering how close they had seemed, this was strange. I halted and listened. Silence reigned supreme. The ragged cracks in the cliff walls could have harbored many a watching lion, and I cast an apprehensive glance into their dark confines. Then I turned my horse to get round the cliff and over the ridge. When I again stopped, all I could hear was the thumping of my heart and the labored panting of Satan. I came to a break in the cliff, a steep place of weathered rock, and I put Satan to it. He went up with a will. From the narrow saddle of the ridge-crest I tried to take my bearings. Below me slanted the green of pinyon, with the bleached treetops standing like spears, and uprising yellow stones. Fancying I heard a gunshot, I leaned a straining ear against the soft breeze. The proof came presently in the unmistakable report of Jones’s blunderbuss. It was repeated almost instantly, giving reality to the direction, which was down the slope of what I concluded must be the third ravine. Wondering what was the meaning of the shots, and chagrined because I was out of the race, but calmer in mind, I let Satan stand.

Hardly a moment elapsed before a sharp bark tingled in my ears. It belonged to old Moze. Soon I distinguished a rattling of stones and the sharp, metallic clicks of hoofs striking rocks. Then into a space below me loped a beautiful deer, so large that at first I took it for an elk. Another sharp bark, nearer this time, told the tale of Moze’s dereliction. In a few moments he came in sight, running with his tongue out and his head high.

“Hyah, you old gladiator! hyah! hyah!” I yelled and yelled again. Moze passed over the saddle on the trail of the deer, and his short bark floated back to remind me how far he was from a lion dog.

Then I divined the meaning of the shotgun reports. The hounds had crossed a fresher trail than that of the lion, and our leader had discovered it. Despite a keen appreciation of Jones’s task, I gave way to amusement, and repeated Wallace’s paradoxical formula: “Pet the lions and shoot the hounds.”

So I headed down the ravine, looking for a blunt, bold crag, which I had descried from camp. I found it before long, and profiting by past failures to judge of distance, gave my first impression a great stretch, and then decided that I was more than two miles from Oak.

Long after two miles had been covered, and I had begun to associate Jim’s biscuits with a certain soft seat near a ruddy fire, I was apparently still the same distance from my landmark crag. Suddenly a slight noise brought me to a halt. I listened intently. Only an indistinct rattling of small rocks disturbed the impressive stillness. It might have been the weathering that goes on constantly, and it might have been an animal. I inclined to the former idea till I saw Satan’s ears go up. Jones had told me to watch the ears of my horse, and short as had been my acquaintance with Satan, I had learned that he always discovered things more quickly than I. So I waited patiently.

From time to time a rattling roll of pebbles, almost musical, caught my ear. It came from the base of the wall of yellow cliff that barred the summit of all those ridges. Satan threw up his head and nosed the breeze. The delicate, almost stealthy sounds, the action of my horse, the waiting drove my heart to extra work. The breeze quickened and fanned my cheek, and borne upon it came the faint and far-away bay of a hound. It came again and again, each time nearer. Then on a stronger puff of wind rang the clear, deep, mellow call that had given Sounder his beautiful name. Never it seemed had I heard music so blood-stirring. Sounder was on the trail of something, and he had it headed my way. Satan heard, shot up his long ears, and tried to go ahead; but I restrained and soothed him into quiet.

Long moments I sat there, with the poignant consciousness of the wildness of the scene, of the significant rattling of the stones and of the bell-tongued hound baying incessantly, sending warm joy through my veins, the absorption in sensations new, yielding only to the hunting instinct when Satan snorted and quivered. Again the deep-toned bay rang into the silence with its stirring thrill of life. And a sharp rattling of stones just above brought another snort from Satan.

Across an open space in the pinyons a gray form flashed. I leaped off Satan and knelt to get a better view under the trees. I soon made out another deer passing along the base of the cliff. Mounting again, I rode up to the cliff to wait for Sounder.

A long time I had to wait for the hound. It proved that the atmosphere was as deceiving in regard to sound as to sight. Finally Sounder came running along the wall. I got off to intercept him. The crazy fellow — he had never responded to my overtures of friendship — uttered short, sharp yelps of delight, and actually leaped into my arms. But I could not hold him. He darted upon the trail again and paid no heed to my angry shouts. With a resolve to overhaul him, I jumped on Satan and whirled after the hound.

The black stretched out with such a stride that I was at pains to keep my seat. I dodged the jutting rocks and projecting snags; felt stinging branches in my face and the rush of sweet, dry wind. Under the crumbling walls, over slopes of weathered stone and droppings of shelving rock, round protruding noses of cliff, over and under pinyons Satan thundered. He came out on the top of the ridge, at the narrow back I had called a saddle. Here I caught a glimpse of Sounder far below, going down into the ravine from which I had ascended some time before. I called to him, but I might as well have called to the wind.

Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more turned Satan toward camp. I lay forward on his neck and let him have his will. Far down the ravine I awoke to strange sounds, and soon recognized the cracking of iron-shod hoofs against stone; then voices. Turning an abrupt bend in the sandy wash, I ran into Jones and Wallace.

“Fall in! Line up in the sad procession!” said Jones. “Tige and the pup are faithful. The rest of the dogs are somewhere between the Grand Canyon and the Utah desert.”

I related my adventures, and tried to spare Moze and Sounder as much as conscience would permit.

“Hard luck!” commented Jones. “Just as the hounds jumped the cougar — Oh! they bounced him out of the rocks all right — don’t you remember, just under that cliff wall where you and Wallace came up to me? Well, just as they jumped him, they ran right into fresh deer tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now that’s too much for any hounds, except those trained for lions. I shot at Moze twice, but couldn’t turn him. He has to be hurt, they’ve all got to be hurt to make them understand.”

Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones’s wake, and of sundry knocks and bruises he had sustained, of pieces of corduroy he had left decorating the cedars and of a most humiliating event, where a gaunt and bare pinyon snag had penetrated under his belt and lifted him, mad and kicking, off his horse.

“These Western nags will hang you on a line every chance they get,” declared Jones, “and don’t you overlook that. Well, there’s the cabin. We’d better stay here a few days or a week and break in the dogs and horses, for this day’s work was apple pie to what we’ll get in the Siwash.”

I groaned inwardly, and was remorselessly glad to see Wallace fall off his horse and walk on one leg to the cabin. When I got my saddle off Satan, had given him a drink and hobbled him, I crept into the cabin and dropped like a log. I felt as if every bone in my body was broken and my flesh was raw. I got gleeful gratification from Wallace’s complaints, and Jones’s remark that he had a stitch in his back. So ended the first chase after cougars.

CHAPTER 5.

OAK SPRING

MOZE AND DON and Sounder straggled into camp next morning, hungry, footsore and scarred; and as they limped in, Jones met them with characteristic speech: “Well, you decided to come in when you got hungry and tired? Never thought of how you fooled me, did you? Now, the first thing you get is a good licking.”

He tied them in a little log pen near the cabin and whipped them soundly. And the next few days, while Wallace and I rested, he took them out separately and deliberately ran them over coyote and deer trails. Sometimes we heard his stentorian yell as a forerunner to the blast from his old shotgun. Then again we heard the shots unheralded by the yell. Wallace and I waxed warm under the collar over this peculiar method of training dogs, and each of us made dire threats. But in justice to their implacable trainer, the dogs never appeared to be hurt; never a spot of blood flecked their glossy coats, nor did they ever come home limping. Sounder grew wise, and Don gave up, but Moze appeared not to change.

“All hands ready to rustle,” sang out Frank one morning. “Old Baldy’s got to be shod.”

This brought us all, except Jones, out of the cabin, to see the object of Frank’s anxiety tied to a nearby oak. At first I failed to recognize Old Baldy. Vanished was the slow, sleepy, apathetic manner that had characterized him; his ears lay back on his head; fire flashed from his eyes. When Frank threw down a kit-bag, which emitted a metallic clanking, Old Baldy sat back on his haunches, planted his forefeet deep in the ground and plainly as a horse could speak, said “No!”

“Sometimes he’s bad, and sometimes worse,” growled Frank.

“Shore he’s plumb bad this mornin’,” replied Jim.

Frank got the three of us to hold Baldy’s head and pull him up, then he ventured to lift a hind foot over his line. Old Baldy straightened out his leg and sent Frank sprawling into the dirt. Twice again Frank patiently tried to hold a hind leg, with the same result; and then he lifted a forefoot. Baldy uttered a very intelligible snort, bit through Wallace’s glove, yanked Jim off his feet, and scared me so that I let go his forelock. Then he broke the rope which held him to the tree. There was a plunge, a scattering of men, though Jim still valiantly held on to Baldy’s head, and a thrashing of scrub pinyon, where Baldy reached out vigorously with his hind feet. But for Jim, he would have escaped.

“What’s all the row?” called Jones from the cabin. Then from the door, taking in the situation, he yelled: “Hold on, Jim! Pull down on the ornery old cayuse!”

He leaped into action with a lasso in each hand, one whirling round his head. The slender rope straightened with a whiz and whipped round Baldy’s legs as he kicked viciously. Jones pulled it tight, then fastened it with nimble fingers to the tree.

“Let go! let go! Jim!” he yelled, whirling the other lasso. The loop flashed and fell over Baldy’s head and tightened round his neck. Jones threw all the weight of his burly form on the lariat, and Baldy crashed to the ground, rolled, tussled, screamed, and then lay on his back, kicking the air with three free legs. “Hold this,” ordered Jones, giving the tight rope to Frank. Whereupon he grabbed my lasso from the saddle, roped Baldy’s two forefeet, and pulled him down on his side. This lasso he fastened to a scrub cedar.

“He’s chokin’!” said Frank.

“Likely he is,” replied Jones shortly. “It’ll do him good.” But with his big hands he drew the coil loose and slipped it down over Baldy’s nose, where he tightened it again.

“Now, go ahead,” he said, taking the rope from Frank.

It had all been done in a twinkling. Baldy lay there groaning and helpless, and when Frank once again took hold of the wicked leg, he was almost passive. When the shoeing operation had been neatly and quickly attended to and Baldy released from his uncomfortable position he struggled to his feet with heavy breaths, shook himself, and looked at his master.

“How’d you like being hog-tied?” queried his conqueror, rubbing Baldy’s nose. “Now, after this you’ll have some manners.”

Old Baldy seemed to understand, for he looked sheepish, and lapsed once more into his listless, lazy unconcern.

“Where’s Jim’s old cayuse, the pack-horse?” asked our leader.

“Lost. Couldn’t find him this morning, an’ had a deuce of a time findin’ the rest of the bunch. Old Baldy was cute. He hid in a bunch of pinyons an’ stood quiet so his bell wouldn’t ring. I had to trail him.”

“Do the horses stray far when they are hobbled?” inquired Wallace.

“If they keep jumpin’ all night they can cover some territory. We’re now on the edge of the wild horse country, and our nags know this as well as we. They smell the mustangs, an’ would break their necks to get away. Satan and the sorrel were ten miles from camp when I found them this mornin’. An’ Jim’s cayuse went farther, an’ we never will get him. He’ll wear his hobbles out, then away with the wild horses. Once with them, he’ll never be caught again.”

On the sixth day of our stay at Oak we had visitors, whom Frank introduced as the Stewart brothers and Lawson, wild-horse wranglers. They were still, dark men, whose facial expression seldom varied; tall and lithe and wiry as the mustangs they rode. The Stewarts were on their way to Kanab, Utah, to arrange for the sale of a drove of horses they had captured and corraled in a narrow canyon back in the Siwash. Lawson said he was at our service, and was promptly hired to look after our horses.

“Any cougar signs back in the breaks?” asked Jones.

“Wal, there’s a cougar on every deer trail,” replied the elder Stewart, “An’ two for every pinto in the breaks. Old Tom himself downed fifteen colts fer us this spring.”

“Fifteen colts! That’s wholesale murder. Why don’t you kill the butcher?”

“We’ve tried more’n onct. It’s a turrible busted up country, them brakes. No man knows it, an’ the cougars do. Old Tom ranges all the ridges and brakes, even up on the slopes of Buckskin; but he lives down there in them holes, an’ Lord knows, no dog I ever seen could follow him. We tracked him in the snow, an’ had dogs after him, but none could stay with him, except two as never cum back. But we’ve nothin’ agin Old Tom like Jeff Clarke, a hoss rustler, who has a string of pintos corraled north of us. Clarke swears he ain’t raised a colt in two years.”

“We’ll put that old cougar up a tree,” exclaimed Jones.

“If you kill him we’ll make you all a present of a mustang, an’ Clarke, he’ll give you two each,” replied Stewart. “We’d be gettin’ rid of him cheap.”

“How many wild horses on the mountain now?”

“Hard to tell. Two or three thousand, mebbe. There’s almost no ketchin’ them, an’ they regrowin’ all the time We ain’t had no luck this spring. The bunch in corral we got last year.”

“Seen anythin’ of the White Mustang?” inquired Frank. “Ever get a rope near him?”

“No nearer’n we hev fer six years back. He can’t be ketched. We seen him an’ his band of blacks a few days ago, headin’ fer a water-hole down where Nail Canyon runs into Kanab Canyon. He’s so cunnin’ he’ll never water at any of our trap corrals. An’ we believe he can go without water fer two weeks, unless mebbe he hes a secret hole we’ve never trailed him to.”

“Would we have any chance to see this White Mustang and his band?” questioned Jones.

“See him? Why, thet’d be easy. Go down Snake Gulch, camp at Singin’ Cliffs, go over into Nail Canyon, an’ wait. Then send some one slippin’ down to the water-hole at Kanab Canyon, an’ when the band cums in to drink — which I reckon will be in a few days now — hev them drive the mustangs up. Only be sure to hev them get ahead of the White Mustang, so he’ll hev only one way to cum, fer he sure is knowin’. He never makes a mistake. Mebbe you’ll get to see him cum by like a white streak. Why, I’ve heerd thet mustang’s hoofs ring like bells on the rocks a mile away. His hoofs are harder’n any iron shoe as was ever made. But even if you don’t get to see him, Snake Gulch is worth seein’.”

I learned later from Stewart that the White Mustang was a beautiful stallion of the wildest strain of mustang blue blood. He had roamed the long reaches between the Grand Canyon and Buckskin toward its southern slope for years; he had been the most sought-for horse by all the wranglers, and had become so shy and experienced that nothing but a glimpse was ever obtained of him. A singular fact was that he never attached any of his own species to his band, unless they were coal black. He had been known to fight and kill other stallions, but he kept out of the well-wooded and watered country frequented by other bands, and ranged the brakes of the Siwash as far as he could range. The usual method, indeed the only successful way to capture wild horses, was to build corrals round the waterholes. The wranglers lay out night after night watching. When the mustangs came to drink — which was always after dark — the gates would be closed on them. But the trick had never even been tried on the White Mustang, for the simple reason that he never approached one of these traps.

“Boys,” said Jones, “seeing we need breaking in, we’ll give the White Mustang a little run.”

This was most pleasurable news, for the wild horses fascinated me. Besides, I saw from the expression on our leader’s face that an uncapturable mustang was an object of interest for him.

Wallace and I had employed the last few warm sunny afternoons in riding up and down the valley, below Oak, where there was a fine, level stretch. Here I wore out my soreness of muscle, and gradually overcame my awkwardness in the saddle. Frank’s remedy of maple sugar and red pepper had rid me of my cold, and with the return of strength, and the coming of confidence, full, joyous appreciation of wild environment and life made me unspeakably happy. And I noticed that my companions were in like condition of mind, though self-contained where I was exuberant. Wallace galloped his sorrel and watched the crags; Jones talked more kindly to the dogs; Jim baked biscuits indefatigably, and smoked in contented silence; Frank said always: “We’ll ooze along easy like, for we’ve all the time there is.” Which sentiment, whether from reiterated suggestion, or increasing confidence in the practical cowboy, or charm of its free import, gradually won us all.

“Boys,” said Jones, as we sat round the campfire, “I see you’re getting in shape. Well, I’ve worn off the wire edge myself. And I have the hounds coming fine. They mind me now, but they’re mystified. For the life of them they can’t understand what I mean. I don’t blame them. Wait till, by good luck, we get a cougar in a tree. When Sounder and Don see that, we’ve lion dogs, boys! we’ve lion dogs! But Moze is a stubborn brute. In all my years of animal experience, I’ve never discovered any other way to make animals obey than by instilling fear and respect into their hearts. I’ve been fond of buffalo, horses and dogs, but sentiment never ruled me. When animals must obey, they must — that’s all, and no mawkishness! But I never trusted a buffalo in my life. If I had I wouldn’t be here to-night. You all know how many keepers of tame wild animals get killed. I could tell you dozens of tragedies. And I’ve often thought, since I got back from New York, of that woman I saw with her troop of African lions. I dream about those lions, and see them leaping over her head. What a grand sight that was! But the public is fooled. I read somewhere that she trained those lions by love. I don’t believe it. I saw her use a whip and a steel spear. Moreover, I saw many things that escaped most observers — how she entered the cage, how she maneuvered among them, how she kept a compelling gaze on them! It was an admirable, a great piece of work. Maybe she loves those huge yellow brutes, but her life was in danger every moment while she was in that cage, and she knew it. Some day, one of her pets likely the King of Beasts she pets the most will rise up and kill her. That is as certain as death.”

CHAPTER 6.

THE WHITE MUSTANG

FOR THIRTY MILES down Nail Canyon we marked, in every dusty trail and sandy wash, the small, oval, sharply defined tracks of the White Mustang and his band.

The canyon had been well named. It was long, straight and square sided; its bare walls glared steel-gray in the sun, smooth, glistening surfaces that had been polished by wind and water. No weathered heaps of shale, no crumbled piles of stone obstructed its level floor. And, softly toning its drab austerity, here grew the white sage, waving in the breeze, the Indian Paint Brush, with vivid vermilion flower, and patches of fresh, green grass.

“The White King, as we Arizona wild-hoss wranglers calls this mustang, is mighty pertickler about his feed, an’ he ranged along here last night, easy like, browsin’ on this white sage,” said Stewart. Inflected by our intense interest in the famous mustang, and ruffled slightly by Jones’s manifest surprise and contempt that no one had captured him, Stewart had volunteered to guide us. “Never knowed him to run in this way fer water; fact is, never knowed Nail Canyon had a fork. It splits down here, but you’d think it was only a crack in the wall. An’ thet cunnin’ mustang hes been foolin’ us fer years about this water-hole.”

The fork of Nail Canyon, which Stewart had decided we were in, had been accidentally discovered by Frank, who, in search of our horses one morning had crossed a ridge, to come suddenly upon the blind, box-like head of the canyon. Stewart knew the lay of the ridges and run of the canyons as well as any man could know a country where, seemingly, every rod was ridged and bisected, and he was of the opinion that we had stumbled upon one of the White Mustang’s secret passages, by which he had so often eluded his pursuers.

Hard riding had been the order of the day, but still we covered ten more miles by sundown. The canyon apparently closed in on us, so camp was made for the night. The horses were staked out, and supper made ready while the shadows were dropping; and when darkness settled thick over us, we lay under our blankets.

Morning disclosed the White Mustang’s secret passage. It was a narrow cleft, splitting the canyon wall, rough, uneven, tortuous and choked with fallen rocks — no more than a wonderful crack in solid stone, opening into another canyon. Above us the sky seemed a winding, flowing stream of blue. The walls were so close in places that a horse with pack would have been blocked, and a rider had to pull his legs up over the saddle. On the far side, the passage fell very suddenly for several hundred feet to the floor of the other canyon. No hunter could have seen it, or suspected it from that side.

“This is Grand Canyon country, an’ nobody knows what he’s goin’ to find,” was Frank’s comment.

“Now we’re in Nail Canyon proper,” said Stewart; “An’ I know my bearin’s. I can climb out a mile below an’ cut across to Kanab Canyon, an’ slip up into Nail Canyon agin, ahead of the mustangs, an’ drive ’em up. I can’t miss ‘em, fer Kanab Canyon is impassable down a little ways. The mustangs will hev to run this way. So all you need do is go below the break, where I climb out, an’ wait. You’re sure goin’ to get a look at the White Mustang. But wait. Don’t expect him before noon, an’ after thet, any time till he comes. Mebbe it’ll be a couple of days, so keep a good watch.”

Then taking our man Lawson, with blankets and a knapsack of food, Stewart rode off down the canyon.

We were early on the march. As we proceeded the canyon lost its regularity and smoothness; it became crooked as a rail fence, narrower, higher, rugged and broken. Pinnacled cliffs, cracked and leaning, menaced us from above. Mountains of ruined wall had tumbled into fragments.

It seemed that Jones, after much survey of different corners, angles and points in the canyon floor, chose his position with much greater care than appeared necessary for the ultimate success of our venture — which was simply to see the White Mustang, and if good fortune attended us, to snap some photographs of this wild king of horses. It flashed over me that, with his ruling passion strong within him, our leader was laying some kind of trap for that mustang, was indeed bent on his capture.

Wallace, Frank and Jim were stationed at a point below the break where Stewart had evidently gone up and out. How a horse could have climbed that streaky white slide was a mystery. Jones’s instructions to the men were to wait until the mustangs were close upon them, and then yell and shout and show themselves.

He took me to a jutting corner of cliff, which hid us from the others, and here he exercised still more care in scrutinizing the lay of the ground. A wash from ten to fifteen feet wide, and as deep, ran through the canyon in a somewhat meandering course. At the corner which consumed so much of his attention, the dry ditch ran along the cliff wall about fifty feet out; between it and the wall was good level ground, on the other side huge rocks and shale made it hummocky, practically impassable for a horse. It was plain the mustangs, on their way up, would choose the inside of the wash; and here in the middle of the passage, just round the jutting corner, Jones tied our horses to good, strong bushes. His next act was significant. He threw out his lasso and, dragging every crook out of it, carefully recoiled it, and hung it loose over the pommel of his saddle.

“The White Mustang may be yours before dark,” he said with the smile that came so seldom. “Now I placed our horses there for two reasons. The mustangs won’t see them till they’re right on them. Then you’ll see a sight and have a chance for a great picture. They will halt; the stallion will prance, whistle and snort for a fight, and then they’ll see the saddles and be off. We’ll hide across the wash, down a little way, and at the right time we’ll shout and yell to drive them up.”

By piling sagebrush round a stone, we made a hiding-place. Jones was extremely cautious to arrange the bunches in natural positions. “A Rocky Mountain Big Horn is the only four-footed beast,” he said, “that has a better eye than a wild horse. A cougar has an eye, too; he’s used to lying high up on the cliffs and looking down for his quarry so as to stalk it at night; but even a cougar has to take second to a mustang when it comes to sight.”

The hours passed slowly. The sun baked us; the stones were too hot to touch; flies buzzed behind our ears; tarantulas peeped at us from holes. The afternoon slowly waned.

At dark we returned to where we had left Wallace and the cowboys. Frank had solved the problem of water supply, for he had found a little spring trickling from a cliff, which, by skillful management, produced enough drink for the horses. We had packed our water for camp use.

“You take the first watch to-night,” said Jones to me after supper. “The mustangs might try to slip by our fire in the night and we must keep a watch or them. Call Wallace when your time’s up. Now, fellows, roll in.”

When the pink of dawn was shading white, we were at our posts. A long, hot day — interminably long, deadening to the keenest interest — passed, and still no mustangs came. We slept and watched again, in the grateful cool of night, till the third day broke.

The hours passed; the cool breeze changed to hot; the sun blazed over the canyon wall; the stones scorched; the flies buzzed. I fell asleep in the scant shade of the sage bushes and awoke, stifled and moist. The old plainsman, never weary, leaned with his back against a stone and watched, with narrow gaze, the canyon below. The steely walls hurt my eyes; the sky was like hot copper. Though nearly wild with heat and aching bones and muscles and the long hours of wait — wait — wait, I was ashamed to complain, for there sat the old man, still and silent. I routed out a hairy tarantula from under a stone and teased him into a frenzy with my stick, and tried to get up a fight between him and a scallop-backed horned-toad that blinked wonderingly at me. Then I espied a green lizard on a stone. The beautiful reptile was about a foot in length, bright green, dotted with red, and he had diamonds for eyes. Nearby a purple flower blossomed, delicate and pale, with a bee sucking at its golden heart. I observed then that the lizard had his jewel eyes upon the bee; he slipped to the edge of the stone, flicked out a long, red tongue, and tore the insect from its honeyed perch. Here were beauty, life and death; and I had been weary for something to look at, to think about, to distract me from the wearisome wait!

“Listen!” broke in Jones’s sharp voice. His neck was stretched, his eyes were closed, his ear was turned to the wind.

With thrilling, reawakened eagerness, I strained my hearing. I caught a faint sound, then lost it.

“Put your ear to the ground,” said Jones. I followed his advice, and detected the rhythmic beat of galloping horses.

“The mustangs are coming, sure as you’re born!” exclaimed Jones.

“There I see the cloud of dust!” cried he a minute later.

In the first bend of the canyon below, a splintered ruin of rock now lay under a rolling cloud of dust. A white flash appeared, a line of bobbing black objects, and more dust; then with a sharp pounding of hoofs, into clear vision shot a dense black band of mustangs, and well in front swung the White King.

“Look! Look! I never saw the beat of that — never in my born days!” cried Jones. “How they move! yet that white fellow isn’t half-stretched out. Get your picture before they pass. You’ll never see the beat of that.”

With long manes and tails flying, the mustangs came on apace and passed us in a trampling roar, the white stallion in the front. Suddenly a shrill, whistling blast, unlike any sound I had ever heard, made the canyon fairly ring. The white stallion plunged back, and his band closed in behind him. He had seen our saddle horses. Then trembling, whinnying, and with arched neck and high-poised head, bespeaking his mettle, he advanced a few paces, and again whistled his shrill note of defiance. Pure creamy white he was, and built like a racer. He pranced, struck his hoofs hard and cavorted; then, taking sudden fright, he wheeled.

It was then, when the mustangs were pivoting, with the white in the lead, that Jones jumped upon the stone, fired his pistol and roared with all his strength. Taking his cue, I did likewise. The band huddled back again, uncertain and frightened, then broke up the canyon.

Jones jumped the ditch with surprising agility, and I followed close at his heels. When we reached our plunging horses, he shouted: “Mount, and hold this passage. Keep close in by that big stone at the turn so they can’t run you down, or stampede you. If they head your way, scare them back.”

Satan quivered, and when I mounted, reared and plunged. I had to hold him in hard, for he was eager to run. At the cliff wall I was at some pains to check him. He kept champing his bit and stamping his feet.

From my post I could see the mustangs flying before a cloud of dust. Jones was turning in his horse behind a large rock in the middle of the canyon, where he evidently intended to hide. Presently successive yells and shots from our comrades blended in a roar which the narrow box-canyon augmented and echoed from wall to wall. High the White Mustang reared, and above the roar whistled his snort of furious terror. His band wheeled with him and charged back, their hoofs ringing like hammers on iron.

The crafty old buffalo-hunter had hemmed the mustangs in a circle and had left himself free in the center. It was a wily trick, born of his quick mind and experienced eye.

The stallion, closely crowded by his followers, moved swiftly I saw that he must pass near the stone. Thundering, crashing, the horses came on. Away beyond them I saw Frank and Wallace. Then Jones yelled to me: “Open up! open up!”

I turned Satan into the middle of the narrow passage, screaming at the top of my voice and discharging my revolver rapidly.

But the wild horses thundered on. Jones saw that they would not now be balked, and he spurred his bay directly in their path. The big horse, courageous as his intrepid master, dove forward.

Then followed confusion for me. The pound of hoofs, the snorts, a screaming neigh that was frightful, the mad stampede of the mustangs with a whirling cloud of dust, bewildered and frightened me so that I lost sight of Jones. Danger threatened and passed me almost before I was aware of it. Out of the dust a mass of tossing manes, foam-flecked black horses, wild eyes and lifting hoofs rushed at me. Satan, with a presence of mind that shamed mine, leaped back and hugged the wall. My eyes were blinded by dust; the smell of dust choked me. I felt a strong rush of wind and a mustang grazed my stirrup. Then they had passed, on the wings of the dust-laden breeze.

But not all, for I saw that Jones had, in some inexplicable manner, cut the White Mustang and two of his blacks out of the band. He had turned them back again and was pursuing them. The bay he rode had never before appeared to much advantage, and now, with his long, lean, powerful body in splendid action, imbued with the relentless will of his rider, what a picture he presented! How he did run! With all that, the White Mustang made him look dingy and slow. Nevertheless, it was a critical time in the wild career of that king of horses. He had been penned in a space two hundred by five hundred yards, half of which was separated from him by a wide ditch, a yawning chasm that he had refused, and behind him, always keeping on the inside, wheeled the yelling hunter, who savagely spurred his bay and whirled a deadly lasso. He had been cut off and surrounded; the very nature of the rocks and trails of the canyon threatened to end his freedom or his life. Certain it was he preferred to end the latter, for he risked death from the rocks as he went over them in long leaps.

Jones could have roped either of the two blacks, but he hardly noticed them. Covered with dust and splotches of foam, they took their advantage, turned on the circle toward the passage way and galloped by me out of sight. Again Wallace, Frank and Jim let out strings of yells and volleys. The chase was narrowing down. Trapped, the White Mustang King had no chance. What a grand spirit he showed! Frenzied as I was with excitement, the thought occurred to me that this was an unfair battle, that I ought to stand aside and let him pass. But the blood and lust of primitive instinct held me fast. Jones, keeping back, met his every turn. Yet always with lithe and beautiful stride the stallion kept out of reach of the whirling lariat.

“Close in!” yelled Jones, and his voice, powerful with a note of triumph, bespoke the knell of the king’s freedom.

The trap closed in. Back and forth at the upper end the White Mustang worked; then rendered desperate by the closing in, he circled round nearer to me. Fire shone in his wild eyes. The wily Jones was not to be outwitted; he kept in the middle, always on the move, and he yelled to me to open up.

I lost my voice again, and fired my last shot. Then the White Mustang burst into a dash of daring, despairing speed. It was his last magnificent effort. Straight for the wash at the upper end he pointed his racy, spirited head, and his white legs stretched far apart, twinkled and stretched again. Jones galloped to cut him off, and the yells he emitted were demoniacal. It was a long, straight race for the mustang, a short curve for the bay.

That the white stallion gained was as sure as his resolve to elude capture, and he never swerved a foot from his course. Jones might have headed him, but manifestly he wanted to ride with him, as well as to meet him, so in case the lasso went true, a terrible shock might be averted.

Up went Jones’s arm as the space shortened, and the lasso ringed his head. Out it shot, lengthened like a yellow, striking snake, and fell just short of the flying white tail.

The White Mustang, fulfilling his purpose in a last heroic display of power, sailed into the air, up and up, and over the wide wash like a white streak. Free! the dust rolled in a cloud from under his hoofs, and he vanished.

Jones’s superb horse, crashing down on his haunches, just escaped sliding into the hole.

I awoke to the realization that Satan had carried me, in pursuit of the thrilling chase, all the way across the circle without my knowing it.

Jones calmly wiped the sweat from his face, calmly coiled his lasso, and calmly remarked:

“In trying to capture wild animals a man must never be too sure. Now what I thought my strong point was my weak point — the wash. I made sure no horse could ever jump that hole.”

CHAPTER 7.

SNAKE GULCH

NOT FAR FROM the scene of our adventure with the White Streak as we facetious and appreciatively named the mustang, deep, flat cave indented the canyon wall. By reason of its sandy floor and close proximity to Frank’s trickling spring, we decided to camp in it. About dawn Lawson and Stewart straggled in on spent horse and found awaiting them a bright fire, a hot supper and cheery comrades.

“Did yu fellars git to see him?” was the ranger’s first question.

“Did we get to see him?” echoed five lusty voice as one. “We did!”

It was after Frank, in his plain, blunt speech had told of our experience, that the long Arizonian gazed fixedly at Jones.

“Did yu acktully tech the hair of thet mustang with a rope?”

In all his days Jones never had a greater complement. By way of reply, he moved his big hand to button of his coat, and, fumbling over it, unwound a string of long, white hairs, then said: “I pulled these out of his tail with my lasso; it missed his left hind hoof about six inches.”

There were six of the hairs, pure, glistening white, and over three feet long. Stewart examined then in expressive silence, then passed them along; and when they reached me, they stayed.

The cave, lighted up by a blazing fire, appeared to me a forbidding, uncanny place. Small, peculiar round holes, and dark cracks, suggestive of hidden vermin, gave me a creepy feeling; and although not over-sensitive on the subject of crawling, creeping things, I voiced my disgust.

“Say, I don’t like the idea of sleeping in this hole. I’ll bet it’s full of spiders, snakes and centipedes and other poisonous things.”

Whatever there was in my inoffensive declaration to rouse the usually slumbering humor of the Arizonians, and the thinly veiled ridicule of Colonel Jones, and a mixture of both in my once loyal California friend, I am not prepared to state. Maybe it was the dry, sweet, cool air of Nail Canyon; maybe my suggestion awoke ticklish associations that worked themselves off thus; maybe it was the first instance of my committing myself to a breach of camp etiquette. Be that as it may, my innocently expressed sentiment gave rise to bewildering dissertations on entomology, and most remarkable and startling tales from first-hand experience.

“Like as not,” began Frank in matter-of-fact tone. “Them’s tarantuler holes all right. An’ scorpions, centipedes an’ rattlers always rustle with tarantulers. But we never mind them — not us fellers! We’re used to sleepin’ with them. Why, I often wake up in the night to see a big tarantuler on my chest, an’ see him wink. Ain’t thet so, Jim?”

“Shore as hell,” drawled faithful, slow Jim.

“Reminds me how fatal the bite of a centipede is,” took up Colonel Jones, complacently. “Once I was sitting in camp with a hunter, who suddenly hissed out: ‘Jones, for God’s sake don’t budge! There’s a centipede on your arm!’ He pulled his Colt, and shot the blamed centipede off as clean as a whistle. But the bullet hit a steer in the leg; and would you believe it, the bullet carried so much poison that in less than two hours the steer died of blood poisoning. Centipedes are so poisonous they leave a blue trail on flesh just by crawling over it. Look there!”

He bared his arm, and there on the brown-corded flesh was a blue trail of something, that was certain. It might have been made by a centipede.

“This is a likely place for them,” put in Wallace, emitting a volume of smoke and gazing round the cave walls with the eye of a connoisseur. “My archaeological pursuits have given me great experience with centipedes, as you may imagine, considering how many old tombs, caves and cliff-dwellings I have explored. This Algonkian rock is about the right stratum for centipedes to dig in. They dig somewhat after the manner of the fluviatile long-tailed decapod crustaceans, of the genera Thoracostraca, the common crawfish, you know. From that, of course, you can imagine, if a centipede can bite rock, what a biter he is.”

I began to grow weak, and did not wonder to see Jim’s long pipe fall from his lips. Frank looked queer around the gills, so to speak, but the gaunt Stewart never batted an eye.

“I camped here two years ago,” he said, “An’ the cave was alive with rock-rats, mice, snakes, horned-toads, lizards an’ a big Gila monster, besides bugs, scorpions’ rattlers, an’ as fer tarantulers an’ centipedes — say! I couldn’t sleep fer the noise they made fightin’.”

“I seen the same,” concluded Lawson, as nonchalant as a wild-horse wrangler well could be. “An’ as fer me, now I allus lays perfickly still when the centipedes an’ tarantulers begin to drop from their holes in the roof, same as them holes up there. An’ when they light on me, I never move, nor even breathe fer about five minutes. Then they take a notion I’m dead an’ crawl off. But sure, if I’d breathed I’d been a goner!”

All of this was playfully intended for the extinction of an unoffending and impressionable tenderfoot.

With an admiring glance at my tormentors, I rolled out my sleeping-bag and crawled into it, vowing I would remain there even if devil-fish, armed with pikes, invaded our cave.

Late in the night I awoke. The bottom of the canyon and the outer floor of our cave lay bathed in white, clear moonlight. A dense, gloomy black shadow veiled the opposite canyon wall. High up the pinnacles and turrets pointed toward a resplendent moon. It was a weird, wonderful scene of beauty entrancing, of breathless, dreaming silence that seemed not of life. Then a hoot-owl lamented dismally, his call fitting the scene and the dead stillness; the echoes resounded from cliff to cliff, strangely mocking and hollow, at last reverberating low and mournful in the distance.

How long I lay there enraptured with the beauty of light and mystery of shade, thrilling at the lonesome lament of the owl, I have no means to tell; but I was awakened from my trance by the touch of something crawling over me. Promptly I raised my head. The cave was as light as day. There, sitting sociably on my sleeping-bag was a great black tarantula, as large as my hand.

For one still moment, notwithstanding my contempt for Lawson’s advice, I certainly acted upon it to the letter. If ever I was quiet, and if ever I was cold, the time was then. My companions snored in blissful ignorance of my plight. Slight rustling sounds attracted my wary gaze from the old black sentinel on my knee. I saw other black spiders running to and fro on the silver, sandy floor. A giant, as large as a soft-shell crab, seemed to be meditating an assault upon Jones’s ear. Another, grizzled and shiny with age or moonbeams I could not tell which — pushed long, tentative feelers into Wallace’s cap. I saw black spots darting over the roof. It was not a dream; the cave was alive with tarantulas!

Not improbably my strong impression that the spider on my knee deliberately winked at me was the result of memory, enlivening imagination. But it sufficed to bring to mind, in one rapid, consoling flash, the irrevocable law of destiny — that the deeds of the wicked return unto them again.

I slipped back into my sleeping-bag, with a keen consciousness of its nature, and carefully pulled the flap in place, which almost hermetically sealed me up.

“Hey! Jones! Wallace! Frank! Jim!” I yelled, from the depths of my safe refuge.

Wondering cries gave me glad assurance that they had awakened from their dreams.

“The cave’s alive with tarantulas!” I cried, trying to hide my unholy glee.

“I’ll be durned if it ain’t!” ejaculated Frank.

“Shore it beats hell!” added Jim, with a shake of his blanket.

“Look out, Jones, there’s one on your pillow!” shouted Wallace.

Whack! A sharp blow proclaimed the opening of hostilities.

Memory stamped indelibly every word of that incident; but innate delicacy prevents the repetition of all save the old warrior’s concluding remarks: “! ! ! place I was ever in! Tarantulas by the million — centipedes, scorpions, bats! Rattlesnakes, too, I’ll swear. Look out, Wallace! there, under your blanket!”

From the shuffling sounds which wafted sweetly into my bed, I gathered that my long friend from California must have gone through motions creditable to a contortionist. An ensuing explosion from Jones proclaimed to the listening world that Wallace had thrown a tarantula upon him. Further fearful language suggested the thought that Colonel Jones had passed on the inquisitive spider to Frank. The reception accorded the unfortunate tarantula, no doubt scared out of its wits, began with a wild yell from Frank and ended in pandemonium.

While the confusion kept up, with whacks and blows and threshing about, with language such as never before had disgraced a group of old campers, I choked with rapture, and reveled in the sweetness of revenge.

When quiet reigned once more in the black and white canyon, only one sleeper lay on the moon-silvered sand of the cave.

At dawn, when I opened sleepy eyes, Frank, Slim, Stewart and Lawson had departed, as pre-arranged, with the outfit, leaving the horses belonging to us and rations for the day. Wallace and I wanted to climb the divide at the break, and go home by way of Snake Gulch, and the Colonel acquiesced with the remark that his sixty-three years had taught him there was much to see in the world. Coming to undertake it, we found the climb — except for a slide of weathered rock — no great task, and we accomplished it in half an hour, with breath to spare and no mishap to horses.

But descending into Snake Gulch, which was only a mile across the sparsely cedared ridge, proved to be tedious labor. By virtue of Satan’s patience and skill, I forged ahead; which advantage, however, meant more risk for me because of the stones set in motion above. They rolled and bumped and cut into me, and I sustained many a bruise trying to protect the sinewy slender legs of my horse. The descent ended without serious mishap.

Snake Gulch had a character and sublimity which cast Nail Canyon into the obscurity of forgetfulness. The great contrast lay in the diversity of structure. The rock was bright red, with parapet of yellow, that leaned, heaved, bulged outward. These emblazoned cliff walls, two thousand feet high, were cracked from turret to base; they bowled out at such an angle that we were afraid to ride under them. Mountains of yellow rock hung balanced, ready to tumble down at the first angry breath of the gods. We rode among carved stones, pillars, obelisks and sculptured ruined walls of a fallen Babylon. Slides reaching all the way across and far up the canyon wall obstructed our passage. On every stone silent green lizards sunned themselves, gliding swiftly as we came near to their marble homes.

We came into a region of wind-worn caves, of all sizes and shapes, high and low on the cliffs; but strange to say, only on the north side of the canyon they appeared with dark mouths open and uninviting. One, vast and deep, though far off, menaced us as might the cave of a tawny-maned king of beasts; yet it impelled, fascinated and drew us on.

“It’s a long, hard climb,” said Wallace to the Colonel, as we dismounted.

“Boys, I’m with you,” came the reply. And he was with us all the way, as we clambered over the immense blocks and threaded a passage between them and pulled weary legs up, one after the other. So steep lay the jumble of cliff fragments that we lost sight of the cave long before we got near it. Suddenly we rounded a stone, to halt and gasp at the thing looming before us.

The dark portal of death or hell might have yawned there. A gloomy hole, large enough to admit a church, had been hollowed in the cliff by ages of nature’s chiseling.

“Vast sepulcher of Time’s past, give up thy dead!” cried Wallace, solemnly.

“Oh! dark Stygian cave forlorn!” quoted I, as feelingly as my friend.

Jones hauled us down from the clouds.

“Now, I wonder what kind of a prehistoric animal holed in here?” said he.

Forever the one absorbing interest! If he realized the sublimity of this place, he did not show it.

The floor of the cave ascended from the very threshold. Stony ridges circled from wall to wall. We climbed till we were two hundred feet from the opening, yet we were not half-way to the dome.

Our horses, browsing in the sage far below, looked like ants. So steep did the ascent become that we desisted; for if one of us had slipped on the smooth incline, the result would have been terrible. Our voices rang clear and hollow from the walls. We were so high that the sky was blotted out by the overhanging square, cornice-like top of the door; and the light was weird, dim, shadowy, opaque. It was a gray tomb.

“Waa-hoo!” yelled Jones with all the power of his wide, leather lungs.

Thousands of devilish voices rushed at us, seemingly on puffs of wind. Mocking, deep echoes bellowed from the ebon shades at the back of the cave, and the walls, taking them up, hurled them on again in fiendish concatenation.

We did not again break the silence of that tomb, where the spirits of ages lay in dusty shrouds; and we crawled down as if we had invaded a sanctuary and invoked the wrath of the gods.

We all proposed names: Montezuma’s Amphitheater being the only rival of Jones’s selection, Echo cave, which we finally chose.

Mounting our horses again, we made twenty miles of Snake Gulch by noon, when we rested for lunch. All the way up we had played the boy’s game of spying for sights, with the honors about even. It was a question if Snake Gulch ever before had such a raking over. Despite its name, however, we discovered no snakes.

From the sandy niche of a cliff where we lunched Wallace espied a tomb, and heralded his discovery with a victorious whoop. Digging in old ruins roused in him much the same spirit that digging in old books roused in me. Before we reached him, he had a big bowie-knife buried deep in the red, sandy floor of the tomb.

This one-time sealed house of the dead had been constructed of small stones, held together by a cement, the nature of which, Wallace explained, had never become clear to civilization. It was red in color and hard as flint, harder than the rocks it glued together. The tomb was half-round in shape, and its floor was a projecting shelf of cliff rock. Wallace unearthed bits of pottery, bone and finely braided rope, all of which, to our great disappointment, crumbled to dust in our fingers. In the case of the rope, Wallace assured us, this was a sign of remarkable antiquity.

In the next mile we traversed, we found dozens of these old cells, all demolished except a few feet of the walls, all despoiled of their one-time possessions. Wallace thought these depredations were due to Indians of our own time. Suddenly we came upon Jones, standing under a cliff, with his neck craned to a desperate angle.

“Now, what’s that?” demanded he, pointing upward.

High on the cliff wall appeared a small, round protuberance. It was of the unmistakably red color of the other tombs; and Wallace, more excited than he had been in the cougar chase, said it was a sepulcher, and he believed it had never been opened.

From an elevated point of rock, as high up as I could well climb, I decided both questions with my glass. The tomb resembled nothing so much as a mud-wasp’s nest, high on a barn wall. The fact that it had never been broken open quite carried Wallace away with enthusiasm.

“This is no mean discovery, let me tell you that,” he declared. “I am familiar with the Aztec, Toltec and Pueblo ruins, and here I find no similarity. Besides, we are out of their latitude. An ancient race of people — very ancient indeed lived in this canyon. How long ago, it is impossible to tell.”

“They must have been birds,” said the practical Jones. “Now, how’d that tomb ever get there? Look at it, will you?”

As near as we could ascertain, it was three hundred feet from the ground below, five hundred from the rim wall above, and could not possibly have been approached from the top. Moreover, the cliff wall was as smooth as a wall of human make.

“There’s another one,” called out Jones.

“Yes, and I see another; no doubt there are many of them,” replied Wallace. “In my mind, only one thing possible accounts for their position. You observe they appear to be about level with each other. Well, once the Canyon floor ran along that line, and in the ages gone by it has lowered, washed away by the rains.”

This conception staggered us, but it was the only one conceivable. No doubt we all thought at the same time of the little rainfall in that arid section of Arizona.

“How many years?” queried Jones.

“Years! What are years?” said Wallace. “Thousands of years, ages have passed since the race who built these tombs lived.”

Some persuasion was necessary to drag our scientific friend from the spot, where obviously helpless to do anything else, he stood and gazed longingly at the isolated tombs. The canyon widened as we proceeded; and hundreds of points that invited inspection, such as overhanging shelves of rock, dark fissures, caverns and ruins had to be passed by, for lack of time.

Still, a more interesting and important discovery was to come, and the pleasure and honor of it fell to me. My eyes were sharp and peculiarly farsighted — the Indian sight, Jones assured me; and I kept them searching the walls in such places as my companions overlooked. Presently, under a large, bulging bluff, I saw a dark spot, which took the shape of a figure. This figure, I recollected, had been presented to my sight more than once, and now it stopped me. The hard climb up the slippery stones was fatiguing, but I did not hesitate, for I was determined to know. Once upon the ledge, I let out a yell that quickly set my companions in my direction. The figure I had seen was a dark, red devil, a painted image, rude, unspeakably wild, crudely executed, but painted by the hand of man. The whole surface of the cliff wall bore figures of all shapes — men, mammals, birds and strange devices, some in red paint, mostly in yellow. Some showed the wear of time; others were clear and sharp.

Wallace puffed up to me, but he had wind enough left for another whoop. Jones puffed up also, and seeing the first thing a rude sketch of what might have been a deer or a buffalo, he commented thus: “Darn me if I ever saw an animal like that? Boys, this is a find, sure as you’re born. Because not even the Piutes ever spoke of these figures. I doubt if they know they’re here. And the cowboys and wranglers, what few ever get by here in a hundred years, never saw these things. Beats anything I ever saw on the Mackenzie, or anywhere else.”

The meaning of some devices was as mystical as that of others was clear. Two blood-red figures of men, the larger dragging the smaller by the hair, while he waved aloft a blood-red hatchet or club, left little to conjecture. Here was the old battle of men, as old as life. Another group, two figures of which resembled the foregoing in form and action, battling over a prostrate form rudely feminine in outline, attested to an age when men were as susceptible as they are in modern times, but more forceful and original. An odd yellow Indian waved aloft a red hand, which striking picture suggested the idea that he was an ancient Macbeth, listening to the knocking at the gate. There was a character representing a great chief, before whom many figures lay prostrate, evidently slain or subjugated. Large red paintings, in the shape of bats, occupied prominent positions, and must have represented gods or devils. Armies of marching men told of that blight of nations old or young — war. These, and birds unnamable, and beasts unclassable, with dots and marks and hieroglyphics, recorded the history of a bygone people. Symbols they were of an era that had gone into the dim past, leaving only these marks, {Symbols recording the history of a bygone people.} forever unintelligible; yet while they stood, century after century, ineffaceable, reminders of the glory, the mystery, the sadness of life.

“How could paint of any kind last so long? asked Jones, shaking his head doubtfully.

“That is the unsolvable mystery,” returned Wallace. “But the records are there. I am absolutely sure the paintings are at least a thousand years old. I have never seen any tombs or paintings similar to them. Snake Gulch is a find, and I shall some day study its wonders.”

Sundown caught us within sight of Oak Spring, and we soon trotted into camp to the welcoming chorus of the hounds. Frank and the others had reached the cabin some hours before. Supper was steaming on the hot coals with a delicious fragrance.

Then came the pleasantest time of the day, after a long chase or jaunt — the silent moments, watching the glowing embers of the fire; the speaking moments when a red-blooded story rang clear and true; the twilight moments, when the wood-smoke smelled sweet.

Jones seemed unusually thoughtful. I had learned that this preoccupation in him meant the stirring of old associations, and I waited silently. By and by Lawson snored mildly in a corner; Jim and Frank crawled into their blankets, and all was still. Wallace smoked his Indian pipe and hunted in firelit dreams.

“Boys,” said our leader finally, “somehow the echoes dying away in that cave reminded me of the mourn of the big white wolves in the Barren Lands.”

Wallace puffed huge clouds of white smoke, and I waited, knowing that I was to hear at last the story of the Colonel’s great adventure in the Northland.

CHAPTER 8.

NAZA! NAZA! NAZA!

IT WAS A waiting day at Fort Chippewayan. The lonesome, far-northern Hudson’s Bay Trading Post seldom saw such life. Tepees dotted the banks of the Slave River and lines of blanketed Indians paraded its shores. Near the boat landing a group of chiefs, grotesque in semi-barbaric, semicivilized splendor, but black-browed, austere-eyed, stood in savage dignity with folded arms and high-held heads. Lounging on the grassy bank were white men, traders, trappers and officials of the post.

All eyes were on the distant curve of the river where, as it lost itself in a fine-fringed bend of dark green, white-glinting waves danced and fluttered. A June sky lay blue in the majestic stream; ragged, spear-topped, dense green trees massed down to the water; beyond rose bold, bald-knobbed hills, in remote purple relief.

A long Indian arm stretched south. The waiting eyes discerned a black speck on the green, and watched it grow. A flatboat, with a man standing to the oars, bore down swiftly.

Not a red hand, nor a white one, offered to help the voyager in the difficult landing. The oblong, clumsy, heavily laden boat surged with the current and passed the dock despite the boatman’s efforts. He swung his craft in below upon a bar and roped it fast to a tree. The Indians crowded above him on the bank. The boatman raised his powerful form erect, lifted a bronzed face which seemed set in craggy hardness, and cast from narrow eyes a keen, cool glance on those above. The silvery gleam in his fair hair told of years.

Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only to the rattle of camping paraphernalia, which the voyager threw to a level, grassy bench on the bank. Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar, and his boat, sunk deep into the water with its load of barrels, boxes and bags, indicated that the journey had only begun. Significant, too, were a couple of long Winchester rifles shining on a tarpaulin.

The cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit the passage of a tall, thin, gray personage of official bearing, in a faded military coat.

“Are you the musk-ox hunter?” he asked, in tones that contained no welcome.

The boatman greeted this peremptory interlocutor with a cool laugh — a strange laugh, in which the muscles of his face appeared not to play.

“Yes, I am the man,” he said.

“The chiefs of the Chippewayan and Great Slave tribes have been apprised of your coming. They have held council and are here to speak with you.”

At a motion from the commandant, the line of chieftains piled down to the level bench and formed a half-circle before the voyager. To a man who had stood before grim Sitting Bull and noble Black Thunder of the Sioux, and faced the falcon-eyed Geronimo, and glanced over the sights of a rifle at gorgeous-feathered, wild, free Comanches, this semi-circle of savages — lords of the north — was a sorry comparison. Bedaubed and betrinketed, slouchy and slovenly, these low-statured chiefs belied in appearance their scorn-bright eyes and lofty mien. They made a sad group.

One who spoke in unintelligible language, rolled out a haughty, sonorous voice over the listening multitude. When he had finished, a half-breed interpreter, in the dress of a white man, spoke at a signal from the commandant.

“He says listen to the great orator of the Chippewayan. He has summoned all the chiefs of the tribes south of Great Slave Lake. He has held council. The cunning of the pale-face, who comes to take the musk-oxen, is well known. Let the pale-face hunter return to his own hunting-grounds; let him turn his face from the north. Never will the chiefs permit the white man to take musk-oxen alive from their country. The Ageter, the Musk-ox, is their god. He gives them food and fur. He will never come back if he is taken away, and the reindeer will follow him. The chiefs and their people would starve. They command the pale-face hunter to go back. They cry Naza! Naza! Naza!”

“Say, for a thousand miles I’ve heard that word Naza!” returned the hunter, with mingled curiosity and disgust. “At Edmonton Indian runners started ahead of me, and every village I struck the redskins would crowd round me and an old chief would harangue at me, and motion me back, and point north with Naza! Naza! Naza! What does it mean?”

“No white man knows; no Indian will tell,” answered the interpreter. “The traders think it means the Great Slave, the North Star, the North Spirit, the North Wind, the North Lights and the musk-ox god.”

“Well, say to the chiefs to tell Ageter I have been four moons on the way after some of his little Ageters, and I’m going to keep on after them.”

“Hunter, you are most unwise,” broke in the commandant, in his officious voice. “The Indians will never permit you to take a musk-ox alive from the north. They worship him, pray to him. It is a wonder you have not been stopped.”

“Who’ll stop me?”

“The Indians. They will kill you if you do not turn back.”

“Faugh! to tell an American plainsman that!” The hunter paused a steady moment, with his eyelids narrowing over slits of blue fire. “There is no law to keep me out, nothing but Indian superstition and Naza! And the greed of the Hudson’s Bay people. I am an old fox, not to be fooled by pretty baits. For years the officers of this fur-trading company have tried to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an Englishman, could not buy food of them. The policy of the company is to side with the Indians, to keep out traders and trappers. Why? So they can keep on cheating the poor savages out of clothing and food by trading a few trinkets and blankets, a little tobacco and rum for millions of dollars worth of furs. Have I failed to hire man after man, Indian after Indian, not to know why I cannot get a helper? Have I, a plainsman, come a thousand miles alone to be scared by you, or a lot of craven Indians? Have I been dreaming of musk-oxen for forty years, to slink south now, when I begin to feel the north? Not I.”

Deliberately every chief, with the sound of a hissing snake, spat in the hunter’s face. He stood immovable while they perpetrated the outrage, then calmly wiped his cheeks, and in his strange, cool voice, addressed the interpreter.

“Tell them thus they show their true qualities, to insult in council. Tell them they are not chiefs, but dogs. Tell them they are not even squaws, only poor, miserable starved dogs. Tell them I turn my back on them. Tell them the paleface has fought real chiefs, fierce, bold, like eagles, and he turns his back on dogs. Tell them he is the one who could teach them to raise the musk-oxen and the reindeer, and to keep out the cold and the wolf. But they are blinded. Tell them the hunter goes north.”

Through the council of chiefs ran a low mutter, as of gathering thunder.

True to his word, the hunter turned his back on them. As he brushed by, his eye caught a gaunt savage slipping from the boat. At the hunter’s stern call, the Indian leaped ashore, and started to run. He had stolen a parcel, and would have succeeded in eluding its owner but for an unforeseen obstacle, as striking as it was unexpected.

A white man of colossal stature had stepped in the thief’s passage, and laid two great hands on him. Instantly the parcel flew from the Indian, and he spun in the air to fall into the river with a sounding splash. Yells signaled the surprise and alarm caused by this unexpected incident. The Indian frantically swam to the shore. Whereupon the champion of the stranger in a strange land lifted a bag, which gave forth a musical clink of steel, and throwing it with the camp articles on the grassy bench, he extended a huge, friendly hand.

“My name is Rea,” he said, in deep, cavernous tones.

“Mine is Jones,” replied the hunter, and right quickly did he grip the proffered hand. He saw in Rea a giant, of whom he was but a stunted shadow. Six and one-half feet Rea stood, with yard-wide shoulders, a hulk of bone and brawn. His ponderous, shaggy head rested on a bull neck. His broad face, with its low forehead, its close-shut mastiff under jaw, its big, opaque eyes, pale and cruel as those of a jaguar, marked him a man of terrible brute force.

“Free-trader!” called the commandant “Better think twice before you join fortunes with the musk-ox hunter.”

“To hell with you an’ your rantin’, dog-eared redskins!” cried Rea. “I’ve run agin a man of my own kind, a man of my own country, an’ I’m goin’ with him.”

With this he thrust aside some encroaching, gaping Indians so unconcernedly and ungently that they sprawled upon the grass.

Slowly the crowd mounted and once more lined the bank.

Jones realized that by some late-turning stroke of fortune, he had fallen in with one of the few free-traders of the province. These free-traders, from the very nature of their calling, which was to defy the fur company, and to trap and trade on their own account — were a hardy and intrepid class of men. Rea’s worth to Jones exceeded that of a dozen ordinary men. He knew the ways of the north, the language of the tribes, the habits of animals, the handling of dogs, the uses of food and fuel. Moreover, it soon appeared that he was a carpenter and blacksmith.

“There’s my kit,” he said, dumping the contents of his bag. It consisted of a bunch of steel traps, some tools, a broken ax, a box of miscellaneous things such as trappers used, and a few articles of flannel. “Thievin’ redskins,” he added, in explanation of his poverty. “Not much of an outfit. But I’m the man for you. Besides, I had a pal onct who knew you on the plains, called you ‘Buff’ Jones. Old Jim Bent he was.”

“I recollect Jim,” said Jones. “He went down in Custer’s last charge. So you were Jim’s pal. That’d be a recommendation if you needed one. But the way you chucked the Indian overboard got me.”

Rea soon manifested himself as a man of few words and much action. With the planks Jones had on board he heightened the stern and bow of the boat to keep out the beating waves in the rapids; he fashioned a steering-gear and a less awkward set of oars, and shifted the cargo so as to make more room in the craft.

“Buff, we’re in for a storm. Set up a tarpaulin an’ make a fire. We’ll pretend to camp to-night. These Indians won’t dream we’d try to run the river after dark, and we’ll slip by under cover.”

The sun glazed over; clouds moved up from the north; a cold wind swept the tips of the spruces, and rain commenced to drive in gusts. By the time it was dark not an Indian showed himself. They were housed from the storm. Lights twinkled in the teepees and the big log cabins of the trading company. Jones scouted round till pitchy black night, when a freezing, pouring blast sent him back to the protection of the tarpaulin. When he got there he found that Rea had taken it down and awaited him. “Off!” said the free-trader; and with no more noise than a drifting feather the boat swung into the current and glided down till the twinkling fires no longer accentuated the darkness.

By night the river, in common with all swift rivers, had a sullen voice, and murmured its hurry, its restraint, its menace, its meaning. The two boat-men, one at the steering gear, one at the oars, faced the pelting rain and watched the dim, dark line of trees. The craft slid noiselessly onward into the gloom.

And into Jones’s ears, above the storm, poured another sound, a steady, muffled rumble, like the roll of giant chariot wheels. It had come to be a familiar roar to him, and the only thing which, in his long life of hazard, had ever sent the cold, prickling, tight shudder over his warm skin. Many times on the Athabasca that rumble had presaged the dangerous and dreaded rapids.

“Hell Bend Rapids!” shouted Rea. “Bad water, but no rocks.”

The rumble expanded to a roar, the roar to a boom that charged the air with heaviness, with a dreamy burr. The whole indistinct world appeared to be moving to the lash of wind, to the sound of rain, to the roar of the river. The boat shot down and sailed aloft, met shock on shock, breasted leaping dim white waves, and in a hollow, unearthly blend of watery sounds, rode on and on, buffeted, tossed, pitched into a black chaos that yet gleamed with obscure shrouds of light. Then the convulsive stream shrieked out a last defiance, changed its course abruptly to slow down and drown the sound of rapids in muffling distance. Once more the craft swept on smoothly, to the drive of the wind and the rush of the rain.

By midnight the storm cleared. Murky cloud split to show shining, blue-white stars and a fitful moon, that silvered the crests of the spruces and sometimes hid like a gleaming, black-threaded peak behind the dark branches.

Jones, a plainsman all his days, wonderingly watched the moon-blanched water. He saw it shade and darken under shadowy walls of granite, where it swelled with hollow song and gurgle. He heard again the far-off rumble, faint on the night. High cliff banks appeared, walled out the mellow, light, and the river suddenly narrowed. Yawning holes, whirlpools of a second, opened with a gurgling suck and raced with the boat.

On the craft flew. Far ahead, a long, declining plane of jumping frosted waves played dark and white with the moonbeams. The Slave plunged to his freedom, down his riven, stone-spiked bed, knowing no patient eddy, and white-wreathed his dark shiny rocks in spume and spray.

CHAPTER 9.

THE LAND OF THE MUSK-OX

A FAR CRY it was from bright June at Port Chippewayan to dim October on Great Slave Lake.

Two long, laborious months Rea and Jones threaded the crooked shores of the great inland sea, to halt at the extreme northern end, where a plunging rivulet formed the source of a river. Here they found a stone chimney and fireplace standing among the darkened, decayed ruins of a cabin.

“We mustn’t lose no time,” said Rea. “I feel the winter in the wind. An’ see how dark the days are gettin’ on us.”

“I’m for hunting musk-oxen,” replied Jones.

“Man, we’re facin’ the northern night; we’re in the land of the midnight sun. Soon we’ll be shut in for seven months. A cabin we want, an’ wood, an’ meat.”

A forest of stunted spruce trees edged on the lake, and soon its dreary solitudes rang to the strokes of axes. The trees were small and uniform in size. Black stumps protruded, here and there, from the ground, showing work of the steel in time gone by. Jones observed that the living trees were no larger in diameter than the stumps, and questioned Rea in regard to the difference in age.

“Cut twenty-five, mebbe fifty years ago,” said the trapper.

“But the living trees are no bigger.”

“Trees an’ things don’t grow fast in the north land.”

They erected a fifteen-foot cabin round the stone chimney, roofed it with poles and branches of spruce and a layer of sand. In digging near the fireplace Jones unearthed a rusty file and the head of a whisky keg, upon which was a sunken word in unintelligible letters.

“We’ve found the place,” said Rea. “Frank built a cabin here in 1819. An’ in 1833 Captain Back wintered here when he was in search of Captain Ross of the vessel Fury. It was those explorin’ parties thet cut the trees. I seen Indian sign out there, made last winter, I reckon; but Indians never cut down no trees.”

The hunters completed the cabin, piled cords of firewood outside, stowed away the kegs of dried fish and fruits, the sacks of flour, boxes of crackers, canned meats and vegetables, sugar, salt, coffee, tobacco — all of the cargo; then took the boat apart and carried it up the bank, which labor took them less than a week.

Jones found sleeping in the cabin, despite the fire, uncomfortably cold, because of the wide chinks between the logs. It was hardly better than sleeping under the swaying spruces. When he essayed to stop up the crack, a task by no means easy, considering the lack of material — Rea laughed his short “Ho! Ho!” and stopped him with the word, “Wait.” Every morning the green ice extended farther out into the lake; the sun paled dim and dimmer; the nights grew colder. On October 8th the thermometer registered several degrees below zero; it fell a little more next night and continued to fall.

“Ho! Ho!” cried Rea. “She’s struck the toboggan, an’ presently she’ll commence to slide. Come on, Buff, we’ve work to do.”

He caught up a bucket, made for their hole in the ice, rebroke a six-inch layer, the freeze of a few hours, and filling his bucket, returned to the cabin. Jones had no inkling of the trapper’s intention, and wonderingly he soused his bucket full of water and followed.

By the time he had reached the cabin, a matter of some thirty or forty good paces, the water no longer splashed from his pail, for a thin film of ice prevented. Rea stood fifteen feet from the cabin, his back to the wind, and threw the water. Some of it froze in the air, most of it froze on the logs. The simple plan of the trapper to incase the cabin with ice was easily divined. All day the men worked, easing only when the cabin resembled a glistening mound. It had not a sharp corner nor a crevice. Inside it was warm and snug, and as light as when the chinks were open.

A slight moderation of the weather brought the snow. Such snow! A blinding white flutter of grey flakes, as large as feathers! All day they rustle softly; all night they swirled, sweeping, seeping brushing against the cabin. “Ho! Ho!” roared Rea. “’Tis good; let her snow, an’ the reindeer will migrate. We’ll have fresh meat.” The sun shone again, but not brightly. A nipping wind came down out of the frigid north and crusted the snows. The third night following the storm, when the hunters lay snug under their blankets, a commotion outside aroused them.

“Indians,” said Rea, “come north for reindeer.”

Half the night, shouting and yelling, barking dogs, hauling of sleds and cracking of dried-skin tepees murdered sleep for those in the cabin. In the morning the level plain and edge of the forest held an Indian village. Caribou hides, strung on forked poles, constituted tent-like habitations with no distinguishable doors. Fires smoked in the holes in the snow. Not till late in the day did any life manifest itself round the tepees, and then a group of children, poorly clad in ragged pieces of blankets and skins, gaped at Jones. He saw their pinched, brown faces, staring, hungry eyes, naked legs and throats, and noted particularly their dwarfish size. When he spoke they fled precipitously a little way, then turned. He called again, and all ran except one small lad. Jones went into the cabin and came out with a handful of sugar in square lumps.

“Yellow Knife Indians,” said Rea. “A starved tribe! We’re in for it.”

Jones made motions to the lad, but he remained still, as if transfixed, and his black eyes stared wonderingly.

“Molar nasu (white man good),” said Rea.

The lad came out of his trance and looked back at his companions, who edged nearer. Jones ate a lump of sugar, then handed one to the little Indian. He took it gingerly, put it into his mouth and immediately jumped up and down.

“Hoppiesharnpoolie! Hoppiesharnpoolie!” he shouted to his brothers and sisters. They came on the run.

“Think he means sweet salt,” interpreted Rea. “Of course these beggars never tasted sugar.”

The band of youngsters trooped round Jones, and after tasting the white lumps, shrieked in such delight that the braves and squaws shuffled out of the tepees.

In all his days Jones had never seen such miserable Indians. Dirty blankets hid all their person, except straggling black hair, hungry, wolfish eyes and moccasined feet. They crowded into the path before the cabin door and mumbled and stared and waited. No dignity, no brightness, no suggestion of friendliness marked this peculiar attitude.

“Starved!” exclaimed Rea. “They’ve come to the lake to invoke the Great Spirit to send the reindeer. Buff, whatever you do, don’t feed them. If you do, we’ll have them on our hands all winter. It’s cruel, but, man, we’re in the north!”

Notwithstanding the practical trapper’s admonition Jones could not resist the pleading of the children. He could not stand by and see them starve. After ascertaining there was absolutely nothing to eat in the tepees, he invited the little ones into the cabin, and made a great pot of soup, into which he dropped compressed biscuits. The savage children were like wildcats. Jones had to call in Rea to assist him in keeping the famished little aborigines from tearing each other to pieces. When finally they were all fed, they had to be driven out of the cabin.

“That’s new to me,” said Jones. “Poor little beggars!”

Rea doubtfully shook his shaggy head.

Next day Jones traded with the Yellow Knives. He had a goodly supply of baubles, besides blankets, gloves and boxes of canned goods, which he had brought for such trading. He secured a dozen of the large-boned, white and black Indian dogs, huskies, Rea called them — two long sleds with harness and several pairs of snowshoes. This trade made Jones rub his hands in satisfaction, for during all the long journey north he had failed to barter for such cardinal necessities to the success of his venture.

“Better have doled out the grub to them in rations,” grumbled Rea.

Twenty-four hours sufficed to show Jones the wisdom of the trapper’s words, for in just that time the crazed, ignorant savages had glutted the generous store of food, which should have lasted them for weeks. The next day they were begging at the cabin door. Rea cursed and threatened them with his fists, but they returned again and again.

Days passed. All the time, in light and dark, the Indians filled the air with dismal chant and doleful incantations to the Great Spirit, and the tum! tum! tum! tum! of tomtoms, a specific feature of their wild prayer for food.

But the white monotony of the rolling land and level lake remained unbroken. The reindeer did not come. The days became shorter, dimmer, darker. The mercury kept on the slide.

Forty degrees below zero did not trouble the Indians. They stamped till they dropped, and sang till their voices vanished, and beat the tomtoms everlastingly. Jones fed the children once each day, against the trapper’s advice.

One day, while Rea was absent, a dozen braves succeeded in forcing an entrance, and clamored so fiercely, and threatened so desperately, that Jones was on the point of giving them food when the door opened to admit Rea.

With a glance he saw the situation. He dropped the bucket he carried, threw the door wide open and commenced action. Because of his great bulk he seemed slow, but every blow of his sledge-hammer fist knocked a brave against the wall, or through the door into the snow. When he could reach two savages at once, by way of diversion, he swung their heads together with a crack. They dropped like dead things. Then he handled them as if they were sacks of corn, pitching them out into the snow. In two minutes the cabin was clear. He banged the door and slipped the bar in place.

“Buff, I’m goin’ to get mad at these thievin’ red, skins some day,” he said gruffly. The expanse of his chest heaved slightly, like the slow swell of a calm ocean, but there was no other indication of unusual exertion.

Jones laughed, and again gave thanks for the comradeship of this strange man.

Shortly afterward, he went out for wood, and as usual scanned the expanse of the lake. The sun shone mistier and warmer, and frost feathers floated in the air. Sky and sun and plain and lake — all were gray. Jones fancied he saw a distant moving mass of darker shade than the gray background. He called the trapper.

“Caribou,” said Rea instantly. “The vanguard of the migration. Hear the Indians! Hear their cry: “Aton! Aton!” they mean reindeer. The idiots have scared the herd with their infernal racket, an’ no meat will they get. The caribou will keep to the ice, an’ man or Indian can’t stalk them there.”

For a few moments his companion surveyed the lake and shore with a plainsman’s eye, then dashed within, to reappear with a Winchester in each hand. Through the crowd of bewailing, bemoaning Indians; he sped, to the low, dying bank. The hard crust of snow upheld him. The gray cloud was a thousand yards out upon the lake and moving southeast. If the caribou did not swerve from this course they would pass close to a projecting point of land, a half-mile up the lake. So, keeping a wary eye upon them, the hunter ran swiftly. He had not hunted antelope and buffalo on the plains all his life without learning how to approach moving game. As long as the caribou were in action, they could not tell whether he moved or was motionless. In order to tell if an object was inanimate or not, they must stop to see, of which fact the keen hunter took advantage. Suddenly he saw the gray mass slow down and bunch up. He stopped running, to stand like a stump. When the reindeer moved again, he moved, and when they slackened again, he stopped and became motionless. As they kept to their course, he worked gradually closer and closer. Soon he distinguished gray, bobbing heads. When the leader showed signs of halting in his slow trot the hunter again became a statue. He saw they were easy to deceive; and, daringly confident of success, he encroached on the ice and closed up the gap till not more than two hundred yards separated him from the gray, bobbing, antlered mass.

Jones dropped on one knee. A moment only his eyes lingered admiringly on the wild and beautiful spectacle; then he swept one of the rifles to a level. Old habit made the little beaded sight cover first the stately leader. Bang! The gray monarch leaped straight forward, forehoofs up, antlered head back, to fall dead with a crash. Then for a few moments the Winchester spat a deadly stream of fire, and when emptied was thrown down for the other gun, which in the steady, sure hands of the hunter belched death to the caribou.

The herd rushed on, leaving the white surface of the lake gray with a struggling, kicking, bellowing heap. When Jones reached the caribou he saw several trying to rise on crippled legs. With his knife he killed these, not without some hazard to himself. Most of the fallen ones were already dead, and the others soon lay still. Beautiful gray creatures they were, almost white, with wide-reaching, symmetrical horns.

A medley of yells arose from the shore, and Rea appeared running with two sleds, with the whole tribe of Yellow Knives pouring out of the forest behind him.

“Buff, you’re jest what old Jim said you was,” thundered Rea, as he surveyed the gray pile. “Here’s winter meat, an’ I’d not have given a biscuit for all the meat I thought you’d get.”

“Thirty shots in less than thirty seconds,” said Jones, “An’ I’ll bet every ball I sent touched hair. How many reindeer?”

“Twenty! twenty! Buff, or I’ve forgot how to count. I guess mebbe you can’t handle them shootin’ arms. Ho! here comes the howlin’ redskins.”

Rea whipped out a bowie knife and began disemboweling the reindeer. He had not proceeded far in his task when the crazed savages were around him. Every one carried a basket or receptacle, which he swung aloft, and they sang, prayed, rejoiced on their knees. Jones turned away from the sickening scenes that convinced him these savages were little better than cannibals. Rea cursed them, and tumbled them over, and threatened them with the big bowie. An altercation ensued, heated on his side, frenzied on theirs. Thinking some treachery might befall his comrade, Jones ran into the thick of the group.

“Share with them, Rea, share with them.”

Whereupon the giant hauled out ten smoking carcasses. Bursting into a babel of savage glee and tumbling over one another, the Indians pulled the caribou to the shore.

“Thievin’ fools,” growled Rea, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Said they’d prevailed on the Great Spirit to send the reindeer. Why, they’d never smelled warm meat but for you. Now, Buff, they’ll gorge every hair, hide an’ hoof of their share in less than a week. Thet’s the last we do for the damned cannibals. Didn’t you see them eatin’ of the raw innards? — faugh! I’m calculatin’ we’ll see no more reindeer. It’s late for the migration. The big herd has driven southward. But we’re lucky, thanks to your prairie trainin’. Come on now with the sleds, or we’ll have a pack of wolves to fight.”

By loading three reindeer on each sled, the hunters were not long in transporting them to the cabin. “Buff, there ain’t much doubt about them keepin’ nice and cool,” said Rea. “They’ll freeze, an’ we can skin them when we want.”

That night the starved wolf dogs gorged themselves till they could not rise from the snow. Likewise the Yellow Knives feasted. How long the ten reindeer might have served the wasteful tribe, Rea and Jones never found out. The next day two Indians arrived with dog-trains, and their advent was hailed with another feast, and a pow-wow that lasted into the night.

“Guess we’re goin’ to get rid of our blasted hungry neighbors,” said Rea, coming in next morning with the water pail, “An’ I’ll be durned, Buff, if I don’t believe them crazy heathen have been told about you. Them Indians was messengers. Grab your gun, an’ let’s walk over and see.”

The Yellow Knives were breaking camp, and the hunters were at once conscious of the difference in their bearing. Rea addressed several braves, but got no reply. He laid his broad hand on the old wrinkled chief, who repulsed him, and turned his back. With a growl, the trapper spun the Indian round, and spoke as many words of the language as he knew. He got a cold response, which ended in the ragged old chief starting up, stretching a long, dark arm northward, and with eyes fixed in fanatical subjection, shouting: “Naza! Naza! Naza!”

“Heathen!” Rea shook his gun in the faces of the messengers. “It’ll go bad with you to come Nazain’ any longer on our trail. Come, Buff, clear out before I get mad.”

When they were once more in the cabin, Rea told Jones that the messengers had been sent to warn the Yellow Knives not to aid the white hunters in any way. That night the dogs were kept inside, and the men took turns in watching. Morning showed a broad trail southward. And with the going of the Yellow Knives the mercury dropped to fifty, and the long, twilight winter night fell.

So with this agreeable riddance and plenty of meat and fuel to cheer them, the hunters sat down in their snug cabin to wait many months for daylight.

Those few intervals when the wind did not blow were the only times Rea and Jones got out of doors. To the plainsman, new to the north, the dim gray world about him was of exceeding interest. Out of the twilight shone a wan, round, lusterless ring that Rea said was the sun. The silence and desolation were heart-numbing.

“Where are the wolves?” asked Jones of Rea.

“Wolves can’t live on snow. They’re farther south after caribou, or farther north after musk-ox.”

In those few still intervals Jones remained out as long as he dared, with the mercury sinking to -sixty degrees. He turned from the wonder of the unreal, remote sun, to the marvel in the north — Aurora borealis — ever-present, ever-changing, ever-beautiful! and he gazed in rapt attention.

“Polar lights,” said Rea, as if he were speaking of biscuits. “You’ll freeze. It’s gettin’ cold.”

Cold it became, to the matter of -seventy degrees. Frost covered the walls of the cabin and the roof, except just over the fire. The reindeer were harder than iron. A knife or an ax or a steel-trap burned as if it had been heated in fire, and stuck to the hand. The hunters experienced trouble in breathing; the air hurt their lungs.

The months dragged. Rea grew more silent day by day, and as he sat before the fire his wide shoulders sagged lower and lower. Jones, unaccustomed to the waiting, the restraint, the barrier of the north, worked on guns, sleds, harness, till he felt he would go mad. Then to save his mind he constructed a windmill of caribou hides and pondered over it trying to invent, to put into practical use an idea he had once conceived.

Hour after hour he lay under his blankets unable to sleep, and listened to the north wind. Sometimes Rea mumbled in his slumbers; once his giant form started up, and he muttered a woman’s name. Shadows from the fire flickered on the walls, visionary, spectral shadows, cold and gray, fitting the north. At such times he longed with all the power of his soul to be among those scenes far southward, which he called home. For days Rea never spoke a word, only gazed into the fire, ate and slept. Jones, drifting far from his real self, feared the strange mood of the trapper and sought to break it, but without avail. More and more he reproached himself, and singularly on the one fact that, as he did not smoke himself, he had brought only a small store of tobacco. Rea, inordinate and inveterate smoker, had puffed away all the weed in clouds of white, then had relapsed into gloom.

CHAPTER 10.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

AT LAST THE marvel in the north dimmed, the obscure gray shade lifted, the hope in the south brightened, and the mercury climbed reluctantly, with a tyrant’s hate to relinquish power.

Spring weather at twenty-five below zero! On April 12th a small band of Indians made their appearance. Of the Dog tribe were they, an offcast of the Great Slaves, according to Rea, and as motley, starring and starved as the Yellow Knives. But they were friendly, which presupposed ignorance of the white hunters, and Rea persuaded the strongest brave to accompany them as guide northward after musk-oxen.

On April 16th, having given the Indians several caribou carcasses, and assuring them that the cabin was protected by white spirits, Rea and Jones, each with sled and train of dogs, started out after their guide, who was similarly equipped, over the glistening snow toward the north. They made sixty miles the first day, and pitched their Indian tepee on the shores of Artillery Lake. Traveling northeast, they covered its white waste of one hundred miles in two days. Then a day due north, over rolling, monotonously snowy plain; devoid of rock, tree or shrub, brought them into a country of the strangest, queerest little spruce trees, very slender, and none of them over fifteen feet in height. A primeval forest of saplings.

“Ditchen Nechila,” said the guide.

“Land of Sticks Little,” translated Rea.

An occasional reindeer was seen and numerous foxes and hares trotted off into the woods, evincing more curiosity than fear. All were silver white, even the reindeer, at a distance, taking the hue of the north. Once a beautiful creature, unblemished as the snow it trod, ran up a ridge and stood watching the hunters. It resembled a monster dog, only it was inexpressibly more wild looking.

“Ho! Ho! there you are!” cried Rea, reaching for his Winchester. “Polar wolf! Them’s the white devils we’ll have hell with.”

As if the wolf understood, he lifted his white, sharp head and uttered a bark or howl that was like nothing so much as a haunting, unearthly mourn. The animal then merged into the white, as if he were really a spirit of the world whence his cry seemed to come.

In this ancient forest of youthful appearing trees, the hunters cut firewood to the full carrying capacity of the sleds. For five days the Indian guide drove his dogs over the smooth crust, and on the sixth day, about noon, halting in a hollow, he pointed to tracks in the snow and called out: “Ageter! Ageter! Ageter!”

The hunters saw sharply defined hoof-marks, not unlike the tracks of reindeer, except that they were longer. The tepee was set up on the spot and the dogs unharnessed.

The Indian led the way with the dogs, and Rea and Jones followed, slipping over the hard crust without sinking in and traveling swiftly. Soon the guide, pointing, again let out the cry: “Ageter!” at the same moment loosing the dogs.

Some few hundred yards down the hollow, a number of large black animals, not unlike the shaggy, humpy buffalo, lumbered over the snow. Jones echoed Rea’s yell, and broke into a run, easily distancing the puffing giant.

The musk-oxen squared round to the dogs, and were soon surrounded by the yelping pack. Jones came up to find six old bulls uttering grunts of rage and shaking ram-like horns at their tormentors. Notwithstanding that for Jones this was the cumulation of years of desire, the crowning moment, the climax and fruition of long-harbored dreams, he halted before the tame and helpless beasts, with joy not unmixed with pain.

“It will be murder!” he exclaimed. “It’s like shooting down sheep.”

Rea came crashing up behind him and yelled, “Get busy. We need fresh meat, an’ I want the skins.”

The bulls succumbed to well-directed shots, and the Indian and Rea hurried back to camp with the dogs to fetch the sleds, while Jones examined with warm interest the animals he had wanted to see all his life. He found the largest bull approached within a third of the size of a buffalo. He was of a brownish-black color and very like a large, woolly ram. His head was broad, with sharp, small ears; the horns had wide and flattened bases and lay flat on the head, to run down back of the eyes, then curve forward to a sharp point. Like the bison, the musk ox had short, heavy limbs, covered with very long hair, and small, hard hoofs with hairy tufts inside the curve of bone, which probably served as pads or checks to hold the hoof firm on ice. His legs seemed out of proportion to his body.

Two musk-oxen were loaded on a sled and hauled to camp in one trip. Skinning them was but short work for such expert hands. All the choice cuts of meat were saved. No time was lost in broiling a steak, which they found sweet and juicy, with a flavor of musk that was disagreeable.

“Now, Rea, for the calves,” exclaimed Jones, “And then we’re homeward bound.”

“I hate to tell this redskin,” replied Rea. “He’ll be like the others. But it ain’t likely he’d desert us here. He’s far from his base, with nothin’ but thet old musket.” Rea then commanded the attention of the brave, and began to mangle the Great Slave and Yellow Knife languages. Of this mixture Jones knew but few words. “Ageter nechila,” which Rea kept repeating, he knew, however, meant “musk-oxen little.”

The guide stared, suddenly appeared to get Rea’s meaning, then vigorously shook his head and gazed at Jones in fear and horror. Following this came an action as singular as inexplicable. Slowly rising, he faced the north, lifted his hand, and remained statuesque in his immobility. Then he began deliberately packing his blankets and traps on his sled, which had not been unhitched from the train of dogs.

“Jackoway ditchen hula,” he said, and pointed south.

“Jackoway ditchen hula,” echoed Rea. “The damned Indian says ‘wife sticks none.’ He’s goin’ to quit us. What do you think of thet? His wife’s out of wood. Jackoway out of wood, an’ here we are two days from the Arctic Ocean. Jones, the damned heathen don’t go back!”

The trapper coolly cocked his rifle. The savage, who plainly saw and understood the action, never flinched. He turned his breast to Rea, and there was nothing in his demeanor to suggest his relation to a craven tribe.

“Good heavens, Rea, don’t kill him!” exclaimed Jones, knocking up the leveled rifle.

“Why not, I’d like to know?” demanded Rea, as if he were considering the fate of a threatening beast. “I reckon it’d be a bad thing for us to let him go.”

“Let him go,” said Jones. “We are here on the ground. We have dogs and meat. We’ll get our calves and reach the lake as soon as he does, and we might get there before.”

“Mebbe we will,” growled Rea.

No vacillation attended the Indian’s mood. From friendly guide, he had suddenly been transformed into a dark, sullen savage. He refused the musk-ox meat offered by Jones, and he pointed south and looked at the white hunters as if he asked them to go with him. Both men shook their heads in answer. The savage struck his breast a sounding blow and with his index finger pointed at the white of the north, he shouted dramatically: “Naza! Naza! Naza!”

He then leaped upon his sled, lashed his dogs into a run, and without looking back disappeared over a ridge.

The musk-ox hunters sat long silent. Finally Rea shook his shaggy locks and roared. “Ho! Ho! Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood!”

On the day following the desertion, Jones found tracks to the north of the camp, making a broad trail in which were numerous little imprints that sent him flying back to get Rea and the dogs. Muskoxen in great numbers had passed in the night, and Jones and Rea had not trailed the herd a mile before they had it in sight. When the dogs burst into full cry, the musk-oxen climbed a high knoll and squared about to give battle.

“Calves! Calves! Calves!” cried Jones.

“Hold back! Hold back! Thet’s a big herd, an’ they’ll show fight.”

As good fortune would have it, the herd split up into several sections, and one part, hard pressed by the dogs, ran down the knoll, to be cornered under the lee of a bank. The hunters, seeing this small number, hurried upon them to find three cows and five badly frightened little calves backed against the bank of snow, with small red eyes fastened on the barking, snapping dogs.

To a man of Jones’s experience and skill, the capturing of the calves was a ridiculously easy piece of work. The cows tossed their heads, watched the dogs, and forgot their young. The first cast of the lasso settled over the neck of a little fellow. Jones hauled him out over the slippery snow and laughed as he bound the hairy legs. In less time than he had taken to capture one buffalo calf, with half the escort, he had all the little musk-oxen bound fast. Then he signaled this feat by pealing out an Indian yell of victory.

“Buff, we’ve got ‘em,” cried Rea; “An’ now for the hell of it gettin’ ’em home. I’ll fetch the sleds. You might as well down thet best cow for me. I can use another skin.”

Of all Jones’s prizes of captured wild beasts — which numbered nearly every species common to western North America — he took greatest pride in the little musk-oxen. In truth, so great had been his passion to capture some of these rare and inaccessible mammals, that he considered the day’s world the fulfillment of his life’s purpose. He was happy. Never had he been so delighted as when, the very evening of their captivity, the musk-oxen, evincing no particular fear of him, began to dig with sharp hoofs into the snow for moss. And they found moss, and ate it, which solved Jones’s greatest problem. He had hardly dared to think how to feed them, and here they were picking sustenance out of the frozen snow.

“Rea, will you look at that! Rea, will you look at that!” he kept repeating. “See, they’re hunting, feed.”

And the giant, with his rare smile, watched him play with the calves. They were about two and a half feet high, and resembled long-haired sheep. The ears and horns were undiscernible, and their color considerably lighter than that of the matured beasts.

“No sense of fear of man,” said the life-student of animals. “But they shrink from the dogs.”

In packing for the journey south, the captives were strapped on the sleds. This circumstance necessitated a sacrifice of meat and wood, which brought grave, doubtful shakes of Rea’s great head.

Days of hastening over the icy snow, with short hours for sleep and rest, passed before the hunters awoke to the consciousness that they were lost. The meat they had packed had gone to feed themselves and the dogs. Only a few sticks of wood were left.

“Better kill a calf, an’ cook meat while we’ve got little wood left,” suggested Rea.

“Kill one of my calves? I’d starve first!” cried Jones.

The hungry giant said no more.

They headed southwest. All about them glared the grim monotony of the arctics. No rock or bush or tree made a welcome mark upon the hoary plain Wonderland of frost, white marble desert, infinitude of gleaming silences!

Snow began to fall, making the dogs flounder, obliterating the sun by which they traveled. They camped to wait for clearing weather. Biscuits soaked in tea made their meal. At dawn Jones crawled out of the tepee. The snow had ceased. But where were the dogs? He yelled in alarm. Then little mounds of white, scattered here and there became animated, heaved, rocked and rose to dogs. Blankets of snow had been their covering.

Rea had ceased his “Jackoway out of wood,” for a reiterated question: “Where are the wolves?”

“Lost,” replied Jones in hollow humor.

Near the close of that day, in which they had resumed travel, from the crest of a ridge they descried a long, low, undulating dark line. It proved to be the forest of “Little sticks,” where, with grateful assurance of fire and of soon finding their old trail, they made camp.

“We’ve four biscuits left, an’ enough tea for one drink each,” said Rea. “I calculate we’re two hundred miles from Great Slave Lake. Where are the wolves?”

At that moment the night wind wafted through the forest a long, haunting mourn. The calves shifted uneasily; the dogs raised sharp noses to sniff the air, and Rea, settling back against a tree, cried out: “Ho! Ho!” Again the savage sound, a keen wailing note with the hunger of the northland in it, broke the cold silence. “You’ll see a pack of real wolves in a minute,” said Rea. Soon a swift pattering of feet down a forest slope brought him to his feet with a curse to reach a brawny hand for his rifle. White streaks crossed the black of the tree trunks; then indistinct forms, the color of snow, swept up, spread out and streaked to and fro. Jones thought the great, gaunt, pure white beasts the spectral wolves of Rea’s fancy, for they were silent, and silent wolves must belong to dreams only.

“Ho! Ho!” yelled Rea. “There’s green-fire eyes for you, Buff. Hell itself ain’t nothin’ to these white devils. Get the calves in the tepee, an’ stand ready to loose the dogs, for we’ve got to fight.”

Raising his rifle he opened fire upon the white foe. A struggling, rustling sound followed the shots. But whether it was the threshing about of wolves dying in agony, or the fighting of the fortunate ones over those shot, could not be ascertained in the confusion.

Following his example Jones also fired rapidly on the other side of the tepee. The same inarticulate, silently rustling wrestle succeeded this volley.

“Wait!” cried Rea. “Be sparin’ of cartridges.”

The dogs strained at their chains and bravely bayed the wolves. The hunters heaped logs and brush on the fire, which, blazing up, sent a bright light far into the woods. On the outer edge of that circle moved the white, restless, gliding forms.

“They’re more afraid of fire than of us,” said Jones.

So it proved. When the fire burned and crackled they kept well in the background. The hunters had a long respite from serious anxiety, during which time they collected all the available wood at hand. But at midnight, when this had been mostly consumed, the wolves grew bold again.

“Have you any shots left for the 45-90, besides what’s in the magazine?” asked Rea.

“Yes, a good handful.”

“Well, get busy.”

With careful aim Jones emptied the magazine into the gray, gliding, groping mass. The same rustling, shuffling, almost silent strife ensued.

“Rea, there’s something uncanny about those brutes. A silent pack of wolves!”

“Ho! Ho!” rolled the giant’s answer through the woods.

For the present the attack appeared to have been effectually checked. The hunters, sparingly adding a little of their fast diminishing pile of fuel to the fire, decided to lie down for much needed rest, but not for sleep. How long they lay there, cramped by the calves, listening for stealthy steps, neither could tell; it might have been moments and it might have been hours. All at once came a rapid rush of pattering feet, succeeded by a chorus of angry barks, then a terrible commingling of savage snarls, growls, snaps and yelps.

“Out!” yelled Rea. “They’re on the dogs!”

Jones pushed his cocked rifle ahead of him and straightened up outside the tepee. A wolf, large as a panther and white as the gleaming snow, sprang at him. Even as he discharged his rifle, right against the breast of the beast, he saw its dripping jaws, its wicked green eyes, like spurts of fire and felt its hot breath. It fell at his feet and writhed in the death struggle. Slender bodies of black and white, whirling and tussling together, sent out fiendish uproar. Rea threw a blazing stick of wood among them, which sizzled as it met the furry coats, and brandishing another he ran into the thick of the fight. Unable to stand the proximity of fire, the wolves bolted and loped off into the woods.

“What a huge brute!” exclaimed Jones, dragging the one he had shot into the light. It was a superb animal, thin, supple, strong, with a coat of frosty fur, very long and fine. Rea began at once to skin it, remarking that he hoped to find other pelts in the morning.

Though the wolves remained in the vicinity of camp, none ventured near. The dogs moaned and whined; their restlessness increased as dawn approached, and when the gray light came, Jones founds that some of them had been badly lacerated by the fangs of the wolves. Rea hunted for dead wolves and found not so much as a piece of white fur.

Soon the hunters were speeding southward. Other than a disposition to fight among themselves, the dogs showed no evil effects of the attack. They were lashed to their best speed, for Rea said the white rangers of the north would never quit their trail. All day the men listened for the wild, lonesome, haunting mourn. But it came not.

A wonderful halo of white and gold, that Rea called a sun-dog, hung in the sky all afternoon, and dazzlingly bright over the dazzling world of snow circled and glowed a mocking sun, brother of the desert mirage, beautiful illusion, smiling cold out of the polar blue.

The first pale evening star twinkled in the east when the hunters made camp on the shore of Artilery Lake. At dusk the clear, silent air opened to the sound of a long, haunting mourn.

“Ho! Ho!” called Rea. His hoarse, deep voice rang defiance to the foe.

While he built a fire before the tepee, Jones strode up and down, suddenly to whip out his knife and make for the tame little musk-oxen, now digging the snow. Then he wheeled abruptly and held out the blade to Rea.

“What for?” demanded the giant.

“We’ve got to eat,” said Jones. “And I can’t kill one of them. I can’t, so you do it.”

“Kill one of our calves?” roared Rea. “Not till hell freezes over! I ain’t commenced to get hungry. Besides, the wolves are going to eat us, calves and all.”

Nothing more was said. They ate their last biscuit. Jones packed the calves away in the tepee, and turned to the dogs. All day they had worried him; something was amiss with them, and even as he went among them a fierce fight broke out. Jones saw it was unusual, for the attacked dogs showed craven fear, and the attacking ones a howling, savage intensity that surprised him. Then one of the vicious brutes rolled his eyes, frothed at the mouth, shuddered and leaped in his harness, vented a hoarse howl and fell back shaking and retching.

“My God! Rea!” cried Jones in horror. “Come here! Look! That dog is dying of rabies! Hydrophobia! The white wolves have hydrophobia!”

“If you ain’t right!” exclaimed Rea. “I seen a dog die of thet onct, an’ he acted like this. An’ thet one ain’t all. Look, Buff! look at them green eyes! Didn’t I say the white wolves was hell? We’ll have to kill every dog we’ve got.”

Jones shot the dog, and soon afterward three more that manifested signs of the disease. It was an awful situation. To kill all the dogs meant simply to sacrifice his life and Rea’s; it meant abandoning hope of ever reaching the cabin. Then to risk being bitten by one of the poisoned, maddened brutes, to risk the most horrible of agonizing deaths — that was even worse.

“Rea, we’ve one chance,” cried Jones, with pale face. “Can you hold the dogs, one by one, while muzzle them?”

“Ho! Ho!” replied the giant. Placing his bowie knife between his teeth, with gloved hands he seized and dragged one of the dogs to the campfire. The animal whined and protested, but showed no ill spirit. Jones muzzled his jaws tightly with strong cords. Another and another were tied up, then one which tried to snap at Jones was nearly crushed by the giant’s grip. The last, a surly brute, broke out into mad ravings the moment he felt the touch of Jones’s hands, and writhing, frothing, he snapped Jones’s sleeve. Rea jerked him loose and held him in the air with one arm, while with the other he swung the bowie. They hauled the dead dogs out on the snow, and returning to the fire sat down to await the cry they expected.

Presently, as darkness fastened down tight, it came — the same cry, wild, haunting, mourning. But for hours it was not repeated.

“Better rest some,” said Rea; “I’ll call you if they come.”

Jones dropped to sleep as he touched his blankets. Morning dawned for him, to find the great, dark, shadowy figure of the giant nodding over the fire.

“How’s this? Why didn’t you call me?” demanded Jones.

“The wolves only fought a little over the dead dogs.”

On the instant Jones saw a wolf skulking up the bank. Throwing up his rifle, which he had carried out of the tepee, he took a snap-shot at the beast. It ran off on three legs, to go out of sight over the hank. Jones scrambled up the steep, slippery place, and upon arriving at the ridge, which took several moments of hard work, he looked everywhere for the wolf. In a moment he saw the animal, standing still some hundred or more paces down a hollow. With the quick report of Jones’s second shot, the wolf fell and rolled over. The hunter ran to the spot to find the wolf was dead. Taking hold of a front paw, he dragged the animal over the snow to camp. Rea began to skin the animal, when suddenly he exclaimed:

“This fellow’s hind foot is gone!”

“That’s strange. I saw it hanging by the skin as the wolf ran up the bank. I’ll look for it.”

By the bloody trail on the snow he returned to the place where the wolf had fallen, and thence back to the spot where its leg had been broken by the bullet. He discovered no sign of the foot.

“Didn’t find it, did you?” said Rea.

“No, and it appears odd to me. The snow is so hard the foot could not have sunk.”

“Well, the wolf ate his foot, thet’s what,” returned Rea. “Look at them teeth marks!”

“Is it possible?” Jones stared at the leg Rea held up.

“Yes, it is. These wolves are crazy at times. You’ve seen thet. An’ the smell of blood, an’ nothin’ else, mind you, in my opinion, made him eat his own’ foot. We’ll cut him open.”

Impossible as the thing seemed to Jones — and he could not but believe further evidence of his own’ eyes — it was even stranger to drive a train of mad dogs. Yet that was what Rea and he did, and lashed them, beat them to cover many miles in the long day’s journey. Rabies had broken out in several dogs so alarmingly that Jones had to kill them at the end of the run. And hardly had the sound of the shots died when faint and far away, but clear as a bell, bayed on the wind the same haunting mourn of a trailing wolf.

“Ho! Ho! where are the wolves?” cried Rea.

A waiting, watching, sleepless night followed. Again the hunters faced the south. Hour after hour, riding, running, walking, they urged the poor, jaded, poisoned dogs. At dark they reached the head of Artillery Lake. Rea placed the tepee between two huge stones. Then the hungry hunters, tired, grim, silent, desperate, awaited the familiar cry.

It came on the cold wind, the same haunting mourn, dreadful in its significance.

Absence of fire inspirited the wary wolves. Out of the pale gloom gaunt white forms emerged, agile and stealthy, slipping on velvet-padded feet, closer, closer, closer. The dogs wailed in terror.

“Into the tepee!” yelled Rea.

Jones plunged in after his comrade. The despairing howls of the dogs, drowned in more savage, frightful sounds, knelled one tragedy and foreboded a more terrible one. Jones looked out to see a white mass, like leaping waves of a rapid.

“Pump lead into thet!” cried Rea.

Rapidly Jones emptied his rifle into the white fray. The mass split; gaunt wolves leaped high to fall back dead; others wriggled and limped away; others dragged their hind quarters; others darted at the tepee.

“No more cartridges!” yelled Jones.

The giant grabbed the ax, and barred the door of the tepee. Crash! the heavy iron cleaved the skull of the first brute. Crash! it lamed the second. Then Rea stood in the narrow passage between the rocks, waiting with uplifted ax. A shaggy, white demon, snapping his jaws, sprang like a dog. A sodden, thudding blow met him and he slunk away without a cry. Another rabid beast launched his white body at the giant. Like a flash the ax descended. In agony the wolf fell, to spin round and round, running on his hind legs, while his head and shoulders and forelegs remained in the snow. His back was broken.

Jones crouched in the opening of the tepee, knife in hand. He doubted his senses. This was a nightmare. He saw two wolves leap at once. He heard the crash of the ax; he saw one wolf go down and the other slip under the swinging weapon to grasp the giant’s hip. Jones’s heard the rend of cloth, and then he pounced like a cat, to drive his knife into the body of the beast. Another nimble foe lunged at Rea, to sprawl broken and limp from the iron. It was a silent fight. The giant shut the way to his comrade and the calves; he made no outcry; he needed but one blow for every beast; magnificent, he wielded death and faced it — silent. He brought the white wild dogs of the north down with lightning blows, and when no more sprang to the attack, down on the frigid silence he rolled his cry: “Ho! Ho!”

“Rea! Rea! how is it with you?” called Jones, climbing out.

“A torn coat — no more, my lad.”

Three of the poor dogs were dead; the fourth and last gasped at the hunters and died.

The wintry night became a thing of half-conscious past, a dream to the hunters, manifesting its reality only by the stark, stiff bodies of wolves, white in the gray morning.

“If we can eat, we’ll make the cabin,” said Rea. “But the dogs an’ wolves are poison.”

“Shall I kill a calf?” asked Jones.

“Ho! Ho! when hell freezes over — if we must!”

Jones found one 45-90 cartridge in all the outfit, and with that in the chamber of his rifle, once more struck south. Spruce trees began to show on the barrens and caribou trails roused hope in the hearts of the hunters.

“Look in the spruces,” whispered Jones, dropping the rope of his sled. Among the black trees gray objects moved.

“Caribou!” said Rea. “Hurry! Shoot! Don’t miss!”

But Jones waited. He knew the value of the last bullet. He had a hunter’s patience. When the caribou came out in an open space, Jones whistled. It was then the rifle grew set and fixed; it was then the red fire belched forth.

At four hundred yards the bullet took some fraction of time to strike. What a long time that was! Then both hunters heard the spiteful spat of the lead. The caribou fell, jumped up, ran down the slope, and fell again to rise no more.

An hour of rest, with fire and meat, changed the world to the hunters; still glistening, it yet had lost its bitter cold its deathlike clutch.

“What’s this?” cried Jones.

Moccasin tracks of different sizes, all toeing north, arrested the hunters.

“Pointed north! Wonder what thet means?” Rea plodded on, doubtfully shaking his head.

Night again, clear, cold, silver, starlit, silent night! The hunters rested, listening ever for the haunting mourn. Day again, white, passionless, monotonous, silent day. The hunters traveled on — on — on, ever listening for the haunting mourn.

Another dusk found them within thirty miles of their cabin. Only one more day now.

Rea talked of his furs, of the splendid white furs he could not bring. Jones talked of his little muskoxen calves and joyfully watched them dig for moss in the snow.

Vigilance relaxed that night. Outworn nature rebelled, and both hunters slept.

Rea awoke first, and kicking off the blankets, went out. His terrible roar of rage made Jones fly to his side.

Under the very shadow of the tepee, where the little musk-oxen had been tethered, they lay stretched out pathetically on crimson snow — stiff stone-cold, dead. Moccasin tracks told the story of the tragedy.

Jones leaned against his comrade.

The giant raised his huge fist.

“Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood!”

Then he choked.

The north wind, blowing through the thin, dark, weird spruce trees, moaned and seemed to sigh, “Naza! Naza! Naza!”

CHAPTER 11.

ON TO THE SIWASH

“WHO ALL WAS doin’ the talkin’ last night?” asked Frank next morning, when we were having a late breakfast. “Cause I’ve a joke on somebody. Jim he talks in his sleep often, an’ last night after you did finally get settled down, Jim he up in his sleep an’ says: ‘Shore he’s windy as hell! Shore he’s windy as hell’!”

At this cruel exposure of his subjective wanderings, Jim showed extreme humiliation; but Frank’s eyes fairly snapped with the fun he got out of telling it. The genial foreman loved a joke. The week’s stay at Oak, in which we all became thoroughly acquainted, had presented Jim as always the same quiet character, easy, slow, silent, lovable. In his brother cowboy, however, we had discovered in addition to his fine, frank, friendly spirit, an overwhelming fondness for playing tricks. This boyish mischievousness, distinctly Arizonian, reached its acme whenever it tended in the direction of our serious leader.

Lawson had been dispatched on some mysterious errand about which my curiosity was all in vain. The order of the day was leisurely to get in readiness, and pack for our journey to the Siwash on the morrow. I watered my horse, played with the hounds, knocked about the cliffs, returned to the cabin, and lay down on my bed. Jim’s hands were white with flour. He was kneading dough, and had several low, flat pans on the table. Wallace and Jones strolled in, and later Frank, and they all took various positions before the fire. I saw Frank, with the quickness of a sleight-of-hand performer, slip one of the pans of dough on the chair Jones had placed by the table. Jim did not see the action; Jones’s and Wallace’s backs were turned to Frank, and he did not know I was in the cabin. The conversation continued on the subject of Jones’s big bay horse, which, hobbles and all, had gotten ten miles from camp the night before.

“Better count his ribs than his tracks,” said Frank, and went on talking as easily and naturally as if he had not been expecting a very entertaining situation.

But no one could ever foretell Colonel Jones’s actions. He showed every intention of seating himself in the chair, then walked over to his pack to begin searching for something or other. Wallace, however, promptly took the seat; and what began to be funnier than strange, he did not get up. Not unlikely this circumstance was owing to the fact that several of the rude chairs had soft layers of old blanket tacked on them. Whatever were Frank’s internal emotions, he presented a remarkably placid and commonplace exterior; but when Jim began to search for the missing pan of dough, the joker slowly sagged in his chair.

“Shore that beats hell!” said Jim. “I had three pans of dough. Could the pup have taken one?”

Wallace rose to his feet, and the bread pan clattered to the floor, with a clang and a clank, evidently protesting against the indignity it had suffered. But the dough stayed with Wallace, a great white conspicuous splotch on his corduroys. Jim, Frank and Jones all saw it at once.

“Why — Mr. Wal — lace — you set — in the dough!” exclaimed Frank, in a queer, strangled voice. Then he exploded, while Jim fell over the table.

It seemed that those two Arizona rangers, matured men though they were, would die of convulsions. I laughed with them, and so did Wallace, while he brought his one-handled bowie knife into novel use. Buffalo Jones never cracked a smile, though he did remark about the waste of good flour.

Frank’s face was a study for a psychologist when Jim actually apologized to Wallace for being so careless with his pans. I did not betray Frank, but I resolved to keep a still closer watch on him. It was partially because of this uneasy sense of his trickiness in the fringe of my mind that I made a discovery. My sleeping-bag rested on a raised platform in one corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed a string turning out through a chink between the logs. I found it came from a thick layer of straw under my bed, and had been tied to the end of a flatly coiled lasso. Leaving the thing as it was, I went outside and carelessly chased the hounds round the cabin. The string stretched along the logs to another chink, where it returned into the cabin at a point near where Frank slept. No great power of deduction was necessary to acquaint me with full details of the plot to spoil my slumbers. So I patiently awaited developments.

Lawson rode in near sundown with the carcasses of two beasts of some species hanging over his saddle. It turned out that Jones had planned a surprise for Wallace and me, and it could hardly have been a more enjoyable one, considering the time and place. We knew he had a flock of Persian sheep on the south slope of Buckskin, but had no idea it was within striking distance of Oak. Lawson had that day hunted up the shepherd and his sheep, to return to us with two sixty-pound Persian lambs. We feasted at suppertime on meat which was sweet, juicy, very tender and of as rare a flavor as that of the Rocky Mountain sheep.

My state after supper was one of huge enjoyment and with intense interest I awaited Frank’s first spar for an opening. It came presently, in a lull of the conversation.

“Saw a big rattler run under the cabin to-day,” he said, as if he were speaking of one of Old Baldy’s shoes. “I tried to get a whack at him, but he oozed away too quick.”

“Shore I seen him often,” put in Jim. Good, old, honest Jim, led away by his trickster comrade! It was very plain. So I was to be frightened by snakes.

“These old canyon beds are ideal dens for rattle snakes,” chimed in my scientific California friend. “I have found several dens, but did not molest them as this is a particularly dangerous time of the year to meddle with the reptiles. Quite likely there’s a den under the cabin.”

While he made this remarkable statement, he had the grace to hide his face in a huge puff of smoke. He, too, was in the plot. I waited for Jones to come out with some ridiculous theory or fact concerning the particular species of snake, but as he did not speak, I concluded they had wisely left him out of the secret. After mentally debating a moment, I decided, as it was a very harmless joke, to help Frank into the fulfillment of his enjoyment.

“Rattlesnakes!” I exclaimed. “Heavens! I’d die if I heard one, let alone seeing it. A big rattler jumped at me one day, and I’ve never recovered from the shock.”

Plainly, Frank was delighted to hear of my antipathy and my unfortunate experience, and he proceeded to expatiate on the viciousness of rattlesnakes, particularly those of Arizona. If I had believed the succeeding stories, emanating from the fertile brains of those three fellows, I should have made certain that Arizona canyons were Brazilian jungles. Frank’s parting shot, sent in a mellow, kind voice, was the best point in the whole trick. “Now, I’d be nervous if I had a sleepin’ bag like yours, because it’s just the place for a rattler to ooze into.”

In the confusion and dim light of bedtime I contrived to throw the end of my lasso over the horn of a saddle hanging on the wall, with the intention of augmenting the noise I soon expected to create; and I placed my automatic rifle and .38 S. and W. Special within easy reach of my hand. Then I crawled into my bag and composed myself to listen. Frank soon began to snore, so brazenly, so fictitiously, that I wondered at the man’s absorbed intensity in his joke; and I was at great pains to smother in my breast a violent burst of riotous merriment. Jones’s snores, however, were real enough, and this made me enjoy the situation all the more; because if he did not show a mild surprise when the catastrophe fell, I would greatly miss my guess. I knew the three wily conspirators were wide-awake. Suddenly I felt a movement in the straw under me and a faint rustling. It was so soft, so sinuous, that if I had not known it was the lasso, I would assuredly have been frightened. I gave a little jump, such as one will make quickly in bed. Then the coil ran out from under the straw. How subtly suggestive of a snake! I made a slight outcry, a big jump, paused a moment for effectiveness in which time Frank forgot to snore — then let out a tremendous yell, grabbed my guns, sent twelve thundering shots through the roof and pulled my lasso.

Crash! the saddle came down, to be followed by sounds not on Frank’s programme and certainly not calculated upon by me. But they were all the more effective. I gathered that Lawson, who was not in the secret, and who was a nightmare sort of sleeper anyway, had knocked over Jim’s table, with its array of pots and pans and then, unfortunately for Jones had kicked that innocent person in the stomach.

As I lay there in my bag, the very happiest fellow in the wide world, the sound of my mirth was as the buzz of the wings of a fly to the mighty storm. Roar on roar filled the cabin.

When the three hypocrites recovered sufficiently from the startling climax to calm Lawson, who swore the cabin had been attacked by Indians; when Jones stopped roaring long enough to hear it was only a harmless snake that had caused the trouble, we hushed to repose once more — not, however, without hearing some trenchant remarks from the boiling Colonel anent fun and fools, and the indubitable fact that there was not a rattlesnake on Buckskin Mountain.

Long after this explosion had died away, I heard, or rather felt, a mysterious shudder or tremor of the cabin, and I knew that Frank and Jim were shaking with silent laughter. On my own score, I determined to find if Jones, in his strange make-up, had any sense of humor, or interest in life, or feeling, or love that did not center and hinge on four-footed beasts. In view of the rude awakening from what, no doubt, were pleasant dreams of wonderful white and green animals, combining the intelligence of man and strength of brutes — a new species creditable to his genius — I was perhaps unjust in my conviction as to his lack of humor. And as to the other question, whether or not he had any real human feeling for the creatures built in his own image, that was decided very soon and unexpectedly.

The following morning, as soon as Lawson got in with the horses, we packed and started. Rather sorry was I to bid good-by to Oak Spring. Taking the back trail of the Stewarts, we walked the horses all day up a slowly narrowing, ascending canyon. The hounds crossed coyote and deer trails continually, but made no break. Sounder looked up as if to say he associated painful reminiscences with certain kinds of tracks. At the head of the canyon we reached timber at about the time dusk gathered, and we located for the night. Being once again nearly nine thousand feet high, we found the air bitterly cold, making a blazing fire most acceptable.

In the haste to get supper we all took a hand, and some one threw upon our tarpaulin tablecloth a tin cup of butter mixed with carbolic acid — a concoction Jones had used to bathe the sore feet of the dogs. Of course I got hold of this, spread a generous portion on my hot biscuit, placed some red-hot beans on that, and began to eat like a hungry hunter. At first I thought I was only burned. Then I recognized the taste and burn of the acid and knew something was wrong. Picking up the tin, I examined it, smelled the pungent odor and felt a queer numb sense of fear. This lasted only for a moment, as I well knew the use and power of the acid, and had not swallowed enough to hurt me. I was about to make known my mistake in a matter-of-fact way, when it flashed over me the accident could be made to serve a turn.

“Jones!” I cried hoarsely. “What’s in this butter?”

“Lord! you haven’t eaten any of that. Why, I put carbolic acid in it.”

“Oh — oh — oh — I’m poisoned! I ate nearly all of it! Oh — I’m burning up! I’m dying!” With that I began to moan and rock to and fro and hold my stomach.

Consternation preceded shock. But in the excitement of the moment, Wallace — who, though badly scared, retained his wits made for me with a can of condensed milk. He threw me back with no gentle hand, and was squeezing the life out of me to make me open my mouth, when I gave him a jab in his side. I imagined his surprise, as this peculiar reception of his first-aid-to-the-injured made him hold off to take a look at me, and in this interval I contrived to whisper to him: “Joke! Joke! you idiot! I’m only shamming. I want to see if I can scare Jones and get even with Frank. Help me out! Cry! Get tragic!”

From that moment I shall always believe that the stage lost a great tragedian in Wallace. With a magnificent gesture he threw the can of condensed milk at Jones, who was so stunned he did not try to dodge. “Thoughtless man! Murderer! it’s too late!” cried Wallace, laying me back across his knees. “It’s too late. His teeth are locked. He’s far gone. Poor boy! poor boy! Who’s to tell his mother?”

I could see from under my hat-brim that the solemn, hollow voice had penetrated the cold exterior of the plainsman. He could not speak; he clasped and unclasped his big hands in helpless fashion. Frank was as white as a sheet. This was simply delightful to me. But the expression of miserable, impotent distress on old Jim’s sun-browned face was more than I could stand, and I could no longer keep up the deception. Just as Wallace cried out to Jones to pray — I wished then I had not weakened so soon — I got up and walked to the fire.

“Jim, I’ll have another biscuit, please.”

His under jaw dropped, then he nervously shoveled biscuits at me. Jones grabbed my hand and cried out with a voice that was new to me: “You can eat? You’re better? You’ll get over it?”

“Sure. Why, carbolic acid never phases me. I’ve often used it for rattlesnake bites. I did not tell you, but that rattler at the cabin last night actually bit me, and I used carbolic to cure the poison.”

Frank mumbled something about horses, and faded into the gloom. As for Jones, he looked at me rather incredulously, and the absolute, almost childish gladness he manifested because I had been snatched from the grave, made me regret my deceit, and satisfied me forever on one score.

On awakening in the morning I found frost half an inch thick covered my sleeping-bag, whitened the ground, and made the beautiful silver spruce trees silver in hue as well as in name.

We were getting ready for an early start, when two riders, with pack-horses jogging after them, came down the trail from the direction of Oak Spring. They proved to be Jeff Clarke, the wild-horse wrangler mentioned by the Stewarts, and his helper. They were on the way into the breaks for a string of pintos. Clarke was a short, heavily bearded man, of jovial aspect. He said he had met the Stewarts going into Fredonia, and being advised of our destination, had hurried to come up with us. As we did not know, except in a general way, where we were making for, the meeting was a fortunate event.

Our camping site had been close to the divide made by one of the long, wooded ridges sent off by Buckskin Mountain, and soon we were descending again. We rode half a mile down a timbered slope, and then out into a beautiful, flat forest of gigantic pines. Clarke informed us it was a level bench some ten miles long, running out from the slopes of Buckskin to face the Grand Canyon on the south, and the ‘breaks of the Siwash on the west. For two hours we rode between the stately lines of trees, and the hoofs of the horses gave forth no sound. A long, silvery grass, sprinkled with smiling bluebells, covered the ground, except close under the pines, where soft red mats invited lounging and rest. We saw numerous deer, great gray mule deer, almost as large as elk. Jones said they had been crossed with elk once, which accounted for their size. I did not see a stump, or a burned tree, or a windfall during the ride.

Clarke led us to the rim of the canyon. Without any preparation — for the giant trees hid the open sky — we rode right out to the edge of the tremendous chasm. At first I did not seem to think; my faculties were benumbed; only the pure sensorial instinct of the savage who sees, but does not feel, made me take note of the abyss. Not one of our party had ever seen the canyon from this side, and not one of us said a word. But Clarke kept talking.

“Wild place this is hyar,” he said. “Seldom any one but horse wranglers gits over this far. I’ve hed a bunch of wild pintos down in a canyon below fer two years. I reckon you can’t find no better place fer camp than right hyar. Listen. Do you hear thet rumble? Thet’s Thunder Falls. You can only see it from one place, an’ thet far off, but thar’s brooks you can git at to water the hosses. Fer thet matter, you can ride up the slopes an’ git snow. If you can git snow close, it’d be better, fer thet’s an all-fired bad trail down fer water.”

“Is this the cougar country the Stewarts talked about?” asked Jones.

“Reckon it is. Cougars is as thick in hyar as rabbits in a spring-hole canyon. I’m on the way now to bring up my pintos. The cougars hev cost me hundreds I might say thousands of dollars. I lose hosses all the time; an’ damn me, gentlemen, I’ve never raised a colt. This is the greatest cougar country in the West. Look at those yellow crags! Thar’s where the cougars stay. No one ever hunted ‘em. It seems to me they can’t be hunted. Deer and wild hosses by the thousand browse hyar on the mountain in summer, an’ down in the breaks in winter. The cougars live fat. You’ll find deer and wild-hoss carcasses all over this country. You’ll find lions’ dens full of bones. You’ll find warm deer left for the coyotes. But whether you’ll find the cougars, I can’t say. I fetched dogs in hyar, an’ tried to ketch Old Tom. I’ve put them on his trail an’ never saw hide nor hair of them again. Jones, it’s no easy huntin’ hyar.”

“Well, I can see that,” replied our leader. “I never hunted lions in such a country, and never knew any one who had. We’ll have to learn how. We’ve the time and the dogs, all we need is the stuff in us.”

“I hope you fellars git some cougars, an’ I believe you will. Whatever you do, kill Old Tom.”

“We’ll catch him alive. We’re not on a hunt to kill cougars,” said Jones.

“What!” exclaimed Clarke, looking from Jones to us. His rugged face wore a half-smile.

“Jones ropes cougars, an’ ties them up,” replied Frank.

“I’m —— if he’ll ever rope Old Tom,” burst out Clarke, ejecting a huge quid of tobacco. “Why, man alive! it’d be the death of you to git near thet old villain. I never seen him, but I’ve seen his tracks fer five years. They’re larger than any hoss tracks you ever seen. He’ll weigh over three hundred, thet old cougar. Hyar, take a look at my man’s hoss. Look at his back. See them marks? Wal, Old Tom made them, an’ he made them right in camp last fall, when we were down in the canyon.”

The mustang to which Clarke called our attention was a sleek cream and white pinto. Upon his side and back were long regular scars, some an inch wide, and bare of hair.

“How on earth did he get rid of the cougar?” asked Jones.

“I don’t know. Perhaps he got scared of the dogs. It took thet pinto a year to git well. Old Tom is a real lion. He’ll kill a full-grown hoss when he wants, but a yearlin’ colt is his especial likin’. You’re sure to run acrost his trail, an’ you’ll never miss it. Wal, if I find any cougar sign down in the canyon, I’ll build two fires so as to let you know. Though no hunter, I’m tolerably acquainted with the varmints. The deer an’ hosses are rangin’ the forest slopes now, an’ I think the cougars come up over the rim rock at night an’ go back in the mornin’. Anyway, if your dogs can follow the trails, you’ve got sport, an’ more’n sport comin’ to you. But take it from me — don’t try to rope Old Tom.”

After all our disappointments in the beginning of the expedition, our hardship on the desert, our trials with the dogs and horses, it was real pleasure to make permanent camp with wood, water and feed at hand, a soul-stirring, ever-changing picture before us, and the certainty that we were in the wild lairs of the lions — among the Lords of the Crags!

While we were unpacking, every now and then I would straighten up and gaze out beyond. I knew the outlook was magnificent and sublime beyond words, but as yet I had not begun to understand it. The great pine trees, growing to the very edge of the rim, received their full quota of appreciation from me, as did the smooth, flower-decked aisles leading back into the forest.

The location we selected for camp was a large glade, fifty paces or more from the precipice far enough, the cowboys averred, to keep our traps from being sucked down by some of the whirlpool winds, native to the spot. In the center of this glade stood a huge gnarled and blasted old pine, that certainly by virtue of hoary locks and bent shoulders had earned the right to stand aloof from his younger companions. Under this tree we placed all our belongings, and then, as Frank so felicitously expressed it, we were free to “ooze round an’ see things.”

I believe I had a sort of subconscious, selfish idea that some one would steal the canyon away from me if I did not hurry to make it mine forever; so I sneaked off, and sat under a pine growing on the very rim. At first glance, I saw below me, seemingly miles away, a wild chaos of red and buff mesas rising out of dark purple clefts. Beyond these reared a long, irregular tableland, running south almost to the extent of my vision, which I remembered Clarke had called Powell’s Plateau. I remembered, also, that he had said it was twenty miles distant, was almost that many miles long, was connected to the mainland of Buckskin Mountain by a very narrow wooded dip of land called the Saddle, and that it practically shut us out of a view of the Grand Canyon proper. If that was true, what, then, could be the name of the canyon at my feet? Suddenly, as my gaze wandered from point to point, it was attested by a dark, conical mountain, white-tipped, which rose in the notch of the Saddle. What could it mean? Were there such things as canyon mirages? Then the dim purple of its color told of its great distance from me; and then its familiar shape told I had come into my own again — I had found my old friend once more. For in all that plateau there was only one snow-capped mountain — the San Francisco Peak; and there, a hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred miles away, far beyond the Grand Canyon, it smiled brightly at me, as it had for days and days across the desert.

Hearing Jones yelling for somebody or everybody, I jumped up to find a procession heading for a point farther down the rim wall, where our leader stood waving his arms. The excitement proved to have been caused by cougar signs at the head of the trail where Clarke had started down.

“They’re here, boys, they’re here,” Jones kept repeating, as he showed us different tracks. “This sign is not so old. Boys, to-morrow we’ll get up a lion, sure as you’re born. And if we do, and Sounder sees him, then we’ve got a lion-dog! I’m afraid of Don. He has a fine nose; he can run and fight, but he’s been trained to deer, and maybe I can’t break him. Moze is still uncertain. If old Jude only hadn’t been lamed! She would be the best of the lot. But Sounder is our hope. I’m almost ready to swear by him.”

All this was too much for me, so I slipped off again to be alone, and this time headed for the forest. Warm patches of sunlight, like gold, brightened the ground; dark patches of sky, like ocean blue, gleamed between the treetops. Hardly a rustle of wind in the fine-toothed green branches disturbed the quiet. When I got fully out of sight of camp, I started to run as if I were a wild Indian. My running had no aim; just sheer mad joy of the grand old forest, the smell of pine, the wild silence and beauty loosed the spirit in me so it had to run, and I ran with it till the physical being failed.

While resting on a fragrant bed of pine needles, endeavoring to regain control over a truant mind, trying to subdue the encroaching of the natural man on the civilized man, I saw gray objects moving under the trees. I lost them, then saw them, and presently so plainly that, with delight on delight, I counted seventeen deer pass through an open arch of dark green. Rising to my feet, I ran to get round a low mound. They saw me and bounded away with prodigiously long leaps. Bringing their forefeet together, stiff-legged under them, they bounced high, like rubber balls, yet they were graceful.

The forest was so open that I could watch them for a long way; and as I circled with my gaze, a glimpse of something white arrested my attention. A light, grayish animal appeared to be tearing at an old stump. Upon nearer view, I recognized a wolf, and he scented or sighted me at the same moment, and loped off into the shadows of the trees. Approaching the spot where I had marked him I found he had been feeding from the carcass of a horse. The remains had been only partly eaten, and were of an animal of the mustang build that had evidently been recently killed. Frightful lacerations under the throat showed where a lion had taken fatal hold. Deep furrows in the ground proved how the mustang had sunk his hoofs, reared and shaken himself. I traced roughly defined tracks fifty paces to the lee of a little bank, from which I concluded the lion had sprung.

I gave free rein to my imagination and saw the forest dark, silent, peopled by none but its savage denizens, The lion crept like a shadow, crouched noiselessly down, then leaped on his sleeping or browsing prey. The lonely night stillness split to a frantic snort and scream of terror, and the stricken mustang with his mortal enemy upon his back, dashed off with fierce, wild love of life. As he went he felt his foe crawl toward his neck on claws of fire; he saw the tawny body and the gleaming eyes; then the cruel teeth snapped with the sudden bite, and the woodland tragedy ended.

On the spot I conceived an antipathy toward lions. It was born of the frightful spectacle of what had once been a glossy, prancing mustang, of the mute, sickening proof of the survival of the fittest, of the law that levels life.

Upon telling my camp-fellows about my discovery, Jones and Wallace walked out to see it, while Jim told me the wolf I had seen was a “lofer,” one of the giant buffalo wolves of Buckskin; and if I would watch the carcass in the mornings and evenings, I would “shore as hell get a plunk at him.”

White pine burned in a beautiful, clear blue flame, with no smoke; and in the center of the campfire left a golden heart. But Jones would not have any sitting up, and hustled us off to bed, saying we would be “blamed” glad of it in about fifteen hours. I crawled into my sleeping-bag, made a hood of my Navajo blanket, and peeping from under it, watched the fire and the flickering shadows. The blaze burned down rapidly. Then the stars blinked. Arizona stars would be moons in any other State! How serene, peaceful, august, infinite and wonderfully bright! No breeze stirred the pines. The clear tinkle of the cowbells on the hobbled horses rang from near and distant parts of the forest. The prosaic bell of the meadow and the pasture brook, here, in this environment, jingled out different notes, as clear, sweet, musical as silver bells.

CHAPTER 12.

OLD TOM

AT DAYBREAK OUR leader routed us out. The frost mantled the ground so heavily that it looked like snow, and the rare atmosphere bit like the breath of winter. The forest stood solemn and gray; the canyon lay wrapped in vapory slumber.

Hot biscuits and coffee, with a chop or two of the delicious Persian lamb meat, put a less Spartan tinge on the morning, and gave Wallace and me more strength — we needed not incentive to leave the fire, hustle our saddles on the horses and get in line with our impatient leader. The hounds scampered over the frost, shoving their noses at the tufts of grass and bluebells. Lawson and Jim remained in camp; the rest of us trooped southwest.

A mile or so in that direction, the forest of pine ended abruptly, and a wide belt of low, scrubby old trees, breast high to a horse, fringed the rim of the canyon and appeared to broaden out and grow wavy southward. The edge of the forest was as dark and regular as if a band of woodchoppers had trimmed it. We threaded our way through this thicket, all peering into the bisecting deer trails for cougar tracks in the dust.

“Bring the dogs! Hurry!” suddenly called Jones from a thicket.

We lost no time complying, and found him standing in a trail, with his eyes on the sand. “Take a look, boys. A good-sized male cougar passed here last night. Hyar, Sounder, Don, Moze, come on!”

It was a nervous, excited pack of hounds. Old Jude got to Jones first, and she sang out; then Sounder opened with his ringing bay, and before Jones could mount, a string of yelping dogs sailed straight for the forest.

“Ooze along, boys!” yelled Frank, wheeling Spot.

With the cowboy leading, we strung into the pines, and I found myself behind. Presently even Wallace disappeared. I almost threw the reins at Satan, and yelled for him to go. The result enlightened me. Like an arrow from a bow, the black shot forward. Frank had told me of his speed, that when he found his stride it was like riding a flying feather to be on him. Jones, fearing he would kill me, had cautioned me always to hold him in, which I had done. Satan stretched out with long graceful motions; he did not turn aside for logs, but cleared them with easy and powerful spring, and he swerved only slightly to the trees. This latter, I saw at once, made the danger for me. It became a matter of saving my legs and dodging branches. The imperative need of this came to me with convincing force. I dodged a branch on one tree, only to be caught square in the middle by a snag on another. Crack! If the snag had not broken, Satan would have gone on riderless, and I would have been left hanging, a pathetic and drooping monition to the risks of the hunt. I kept ducking my head, now and then falling flat over the pommel to avoid a limb that would have brushed me off, and hugging the flanks of my horse with my knees. Soon I was at Wallace’s heels, and had Jones in sight. Now and then glimpses of Frank’s white horse gleamed through the trees.

We began to circle toward the south, to go up and down shallow hollows, to find the pines thinning out; then we shot out of the forest into the scrubby oak. Riding through this brush was the cruelest kind of work, but Satan kept on close to the sorrel. The hollows began to get deeper, and the ridges between them narrower. No longer could we keep a straight course.

On the crest of one of the ridges we found Jones awaiting us. Jude, Tige and Don lay panting at his feet. Plainly the Colonel appeared vexed.

“Listen,” he said, when we reined in.

We complied, but did not hear a sound.

“Frank’s beyond there some place,” continued Jones, “but I can’t see him, nor hear the hounds anymore. Don and Tige split again on deer trails. Old Jude hung on the lion track, but I stopped her here. There’s something I can’t figure. Moze held a beeline southwest, and he yelled seldom. Sounder gradually stopped baying. Maybe Frank can tell us something.”

Jones’s long drawn-out signal was answered from the direction he expected, and after a little time, Frank’s white horse shone out of the gray-green of a ledge a mile away.

This drew my attention to our position. We were on a high ridge out in the open, and I could see fifty miles of the shaggy slopes of Buckskin. Southward the gray, ragged line seemed to stop suddenly, and beyond it purple haze hung over a void I knew to be the canyon. And facing west, I came, at last, to understand perfectly the meaning of the breaks in the Siwash. They were nothing more than ravines that headed up on the slopes and ran down, getting steeper and steeper, though scarcely wider, to break into the canyon. Knife-crested ridges rolled westward, wave on wave, like the billows of a sea. I appreciated that these breaks were, at their sources, little washes easy to jump across, and at their mouths a mile deep and impassable. Huge pine trees shaded these gullies, to give way to the gray growth of stunted oak, which in turn merged into the dark green of pinyon. A wonderful country for deer and lions, it seemed to me, but impassable, all but impossible for a hunter.

Frank soon appeared, brushing through the bending oaks, and Sounder trotted along behind him.

“Where’s Moze?” inquired Jones.

“The last I heard of Moze he was out of the brush, goin’ across the pinyon flat, right for the canyon. He had a hot trail.”

“Well, we’re certain of one thing; if it was a deer, he won’t come back soon, and if it was a lion, he’ll tree it, lose the scent, and come back. We’ve got to show the hounds a lion in a tree. They’d run a hot trail, bump into a tree, and then be at fault. What was wrong with Sounder?”

“I don’t know. He came back to me.”

“We can’t trust him, or any of them yet. Still, maybe they’re doing better than we know.”

The outcome of the chase, so favorably started was a disappointment, which we all felt keenly. After some discussion, we turned south, intending to ride down to the rim wall and follow it back to camp. I happened to turn once, perhaps to look again at the far-distant pink cliffs of Utah, or the wave-like dome of Trumbull Mountain, when I saw Moze trailing close behind me. My yell halted the Colonel.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” ejaculated he, as Moze hove in sight. “Come hyar, you rascal!”

He was a tired dog, but had no sheepish air about him, such as he had worn when lagging in from deer chases. He wagged his tail, and flopped down to pant and pant, as if to say: “What’s wrong with you guys?”

“Boys, for two cents I’d go back and put Jude on that trail. It’s just possible that Moze treed a lion. But — well, I expect there’s more likelihood of his chasing the lion over the rim; so we may as well keep on. The strange thing is that Sounder wasn’t with Moze. There may have been two lions. You see we are up a tree ourselves. I have known lions to run in pairs, and also a mother keep four two-year-olds with her. But such cases are rare. Here, in this country, though, maybe they run round and have parties.”

As we left the breaks behind we got out upon a level pinyon flat. A few cedars grew with the pinyons. Deer runways and trails were thick.

“Boys, look at that,” said Jones. “This is great lion country, the best I ever saw.”

He pointed to the sunken, red, shapeless remain of two horses, and near them a ghastly scattering of bleached bones. “A lion-lair right here on the flat. Those two horses were killed early this spring, and I see no signs of their carcasses having been covered with brush and dirt. I’ve got to learn lion lore over again, that’s certain.”

As we paused at the head of a depression, which appeared to be a gap in the rim wall, filled with massed pinyons and splintered piles of yellow stone, caught Sounder going through some interesting moves. He stopped to smell a bush. Then he lifted his head, and electrified me with a great, deep sounding bay.

“Hi! there, listen to that!” yelled Jones “What’s Sounder got? Give him room — don’t run him down. Easy now, old dog, easy, easy!”

Sounder suddenly broke down a trail. Moze howled, Don barked, and Tige let out his staccato yelp. They ran through the brush here, there, every where. Then all at once old Jude chimed in with her mellow voice, and Jones tumbled off his horse.

“By the Lord Harry! There’s something here.”

“Here, Colonel, here’s the bush Sounder smelt and there’s a sandy trail under it,” I called.

“There go Don an’ Tige down into the break!” cried Frank. “They’ve got a hot scent!”

Jones stooped over the place I designated, to jerk up with reddening face, and as he flung himself into the saddle roared out: “After Sounder! Old Tom! Old Tom! Old Tom!”

We all heard Sounder, and at the moment of Jones’s discovery, Moze got the scent and plunged ahead of us.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” yelled the Colonel. Frank sent Spot forward like a white streak. Sounder called to us in irresistible bays, which Moze answered, and then crippled Jude bayed in baffled impotent distress.

The atmosphere was charged with that lion. As if by magic, the excitation communicated itself to all, and men, horses and dogs acted in accord. The ride through the forest had been a jaunt. This was a steeplechase, a mad, heedless, perilous, glorious race. And we had for a pacemaker a cowboy mounted on a tireless mustang.

Always it seemed to me, while the wind rushed, the brush whipped, I saw Frank far ahead, sitting his saddle as if glued there, holding his reins loosely forward. To see him ride so was a beautiful sight. Jones let out his Comanche yell at every dozen jumps and Wallace sent back a thrilling “Waa-hoo-o!” In the excitement I had again checked my horse, and when Jones remembered, and loosed the bridle, how the noble animal responded! The pace he settled into dazed me; I could hardly distinguish the deer trail down which he was thundering. I lost my comrades ahead; the pinyons blurred in my sight; I only faintly heard the hounds. It occurred to me we were making for the breaks, but I did not think of checking Satan. I thought only of flying on faster and faster.

“On! On! old fellow! Stretch out! Never lose this race! We’ve got to be there at the finish!” I called to Satan, and he seemed to understand and stretched lower, farther, quicker.

The brush pounded my legs and clutched and tore my clothes; the wind whistled; the pinyon branches cut and whipped my face. Once I dodged to the left, as Satan swerved to the right, with the result that I flew out of the saddle, and crashed into a pinyon tree, which marvelously brushed me back into the saddle. The wild yells and deep bays sounded nearer. Satan tripped and plunged down, throwing me as gracefully as an aerial tumbler wings his flight. I alighted in a bush, without feeling of scratch or pain. As Satan recovered and ran past, I did not seek to make him stop, but getting a good grip on the pommel, I vaulted up again. Once more he raced like a wild mustang. And from nearer and nearer in front pealed the alluring sounds of the chase.

Satan was creeping close to Wallace and Jones, with Frank looming white through the occasional pinyons. Then all dropped out of sight, to appear again suddenly. They had reached the first break. Soon I was upon it. Two deer ran out of the ravine, almost brushing my horse in the haste. Satan went down and up in a few giant strides. Only the narrow ridge separated us from another break. It was up and down then for Satan, a work to which he manfully set himself. Occasionally I saw Wallace and Jones, but heard them oftener. All the time the breaks grew deeper, till finally Satan had to zigzag his way down and up. Discouragement fastened on me, when from the summit of the next ridge I saw Frank far down the break, with Jones and Wallace not a quarter of a mile away from him. I sent out a long, exultant yell as Satan crashed into the hard, dry wash in the bottom of the break.

I knew from the way he quickened under me that he intended to overhaul somebody. Perhaps because of the clear going, or because my frenzy had cooled to a thrilling excitement which permitted detail, I saw clearly and distinctly the speeding horsemen down the ravine. I picked out the smooth pieces of ground ahead, and with the slightest touch of the rein on his neck, guided Satan into them. How he ran! The light, quick beats of his hoofs were regular, pounding. Seeing Jones and Wallace sail high into the air, I knew they had jumped a ditch. Thus prepared, I managed to stick on when it yawned before me; and Satan, never slackening, leaped up and up, giving me a new swing.

Dust began to settle in little clouds before me; Frank, far ahead, had turned his mustang up the side of the break; Wallace, within hailing distance, now turned to wave me a hand. The rushing wind fairly sang in my ears; the walls of the break were confused blurs of yellow and green; at every stride Satan seemed to swallow a rod of the white trail.

Jones began to scale the ravine, heading up obliquely far on the side of where Frank had vanished, and as Wallace followed suit, I turned Satan. I caught Wallace at the summit, and we raced together out upon another flat of pinyon. We heard Frank and Jones yelling in a way that caused us to spur our horses frantically. Spot, gleaming white near a clump of green pinyons, was our guiding star. That last quarter of a mile was a ringing run, a ride to remember.

As our mounts crashed back with stiff forelegs and haunches, Wallace and I leaped off and darted into the clump of pinyons, whence issued a hair-raising medley of yells and barks. I saw Jones, then Frank, both waving their arms, then Moze and Sounder running wildly, airlessly about.

“Look there!” rang in my ear, and Jones smashed me on the back with a blow, which at any ordinary time would have laid me flat.

In a low, stubby pinyon tree, scarce twenty feet from us, was a tawny form. An enormous mountain lion, as large as an African lioness, stood planted with huge, round legs on two branches; and he faced us gloomily, neither frightened nor fierce. He watched the running dogs with pale, yellow eyes, waved his massive head and switched a long, black tufted tail.

“It’s Old Tom! sure as you’re born! It’s Old Tom!” yelled Jones. “There’s no two lions like that in one country. Hold still now. Jude is here, and she’ll see him, she’ll show him to the other hounds. Hold still!”

We heard Jude coming at a fast pace for a lame dog, and we saw her presently, running with her nose down for a moment, then up. She entered the clump of trees, and bumped her nose against the pinyon Old Tom was in, and looked up like a dog that knew her business. The series of wild howls she broke into quickly brought Sounder and Moze to her side. They, too, saw the big lion, not fifteen feet over their heads.

We were all yelling and trying to talk at once, in some such state as the dogs.

“Hyar, Moze! Come down out of that!” hoarsely shouted Jones.

Moze had begun to climb the thick, many-branched, low pinyon tree. He paid not the slightest attention to Jones, who screamed and raged at him.

“Cover the lion!” cried he to me. “Don’t shoot unless he crouches to jump on me.”

The little beaded front-sight wavered slightly as I held my rifle leveled at the grim, snarling face, and out of the corner of my eye, as it were, I saw Jones dash in under the lion and grasp Moze by the hind leg and haul him down. He broke from Jones and leaped again to the first low branch. His master then grasped his collar and carried him to where we stood and held him choking.

“Boys, we can’t keep Tom up there. When he jumps, keep out of his way. Maybe we can chase him up a better tree.”

Old Tom suddenly left the branches, swinging violently; and hitting the ground like a huge cat on springs, he bounded off, tail up, in a most ludicrous manner. His running, however, did not lack speed, for he quickly outdistanced the bursting hounds.

A stampede for horses succeeded this move. I had difficulty in closing my camera, which I had forgotten until the last moment, and got behind the others. Satan sent the dust flying and the pinyon branches crashing. Hardly had I time to bewail my ill-luck in being left, when I dashed out of a thick growth of trees to come upon my companions, all dismounted on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

“He’s gone down! He’s gone down!” raged Jones, stamping the ground. “What luck! What miserable luck! But don’t quit; spread along the rim, boys, and look for him. Cougars can’t fly. There’s a break in the rim somewhere.”

The rock wall, on which we dizzily stood, dropped straight down for a thousand feet, to meet a long, pinyon-covered slope, which graded a mile to cut off into what must have been the second wall. We were far west of Clarke’s trail now, and faced a point above where Kanab Canyon, a red gorge a mile deep, met the great canyon. As I ran along the rim, looking for a fissure or break, my gaze seemed impellingly drawn by the immensity of this thing I could not name, and for which I had as yet no intelligible emotion.

Two “Waa-hoos” in the rear turned me back in double-quick time, and hastening by the horses, I found the three men grouped at the head of a narrow break.

“He went down here. Wallace saw him round the base of that tottering crag.”

The break was wedge-shaped, with the sharp end off toward the rim, and it descended so rapidly as to appear almost perpendicular. It was a long, steep slide of small, weathered shale, and a place that no man in his right senses would ever have considered going down. But Jones, designating Frank and me, said in his cool, quick voice:

“You fellows go down. Take Jude and Sounder in leash. If you find his trail below along the wall, yell for us. Meanwhile, Wallace and I will hang over the rim and watch for him.”

Going down, in one sense, was much easier than had appeared, for the reason that once started we moved on sliding beds of weathered stone. Each of us now had an avalanche for a steed. Frank forged ahead with a roar, and then seeing danger below, tried to get out of the mass. But the stones were like quicksand; every step he took sunk him in deeper. He grasped the smooth cliff, to find holding impossible. The slide poured over a fall like so much water. He reached and caught a branch of a pinyon, and lifting his feet up, hung on till the treacherous area of moving stones had passed.

While I had been absorbed in his predicament, my avalanche augmented itself by slide on slide, perhaps loosened by his; and before I knew it, I was sailing down with ever-increasing momentum. The sensation was distinctly pleasant, and a certain spirit, before restrained in me, at last ran riot. The slide narrowed at the drop where Frank had jumped, and the stones poured over in a stream. I jumped also, but having a rifle in one hand, failed to hold, and plunged down into the slide again. My feet were held this time, as in a vise. I kept myself upright and waited. Fortunately, the jumble of loose stone slowed and stopped, enabling me to crawl over to one side where there was comparatively good footing. Below us, for fifty yards was a sheet of rough stone, as bare as washed granite well could be. We slid down this in regular schoolboy fashion, and had reached another restricted neck in the fissure, when a sliding crash above warned us that the avalanches had decided to move of their own free will. Only a fraction of a moment had we to find footing along the yellow cliff, when, with a cracking roar, the mass struck the slippery granite. If we had been on that slope, our lives would not have been worth a grain of the dust flying in clouds above us. Huge stones, that had formed the bottom of the slides, shot ahead, and rolling, leaping, whizzed by us with frightful velocity, and the remainder groaned and growled its way down, to thunder over the second fall and die out in a distant rumble.

The hounds had hung back, and were not easily coaxed down to us. From there on, down to the base of the gigantic cliff, we descended with little difficulty.

“We might meet the old gray cat anywheres along here,” said Frank.

The wall of yellow limestone had shelves, ledges, fissures and cracks, any one of which might have concealed a lion. On these places I turned dark, uneasy glances. It seemed to me events succeeded one another so rapidly that I had no time to think, to examine, to prepare. We were rushed from one sensation to another.

“Gee! look here,” said Frank; “here’s his tracks. Did you ever see the like of that?”

Certainly I had never fixed my eyes on such enormous cat-tracks as appeared in the yellow dust at the base of the rim wall. The mere sight of them was sufficient to make a man tremble.

“Hold in the dogs, Frank,” I called. “Listen. I think I heard a yell.”

From far above came a yell, which, though thinned out by distance, was easily recognized as Jones’s. We returned to the opening of the break, and throwing our heads back, looked up the slide to see him coming down.

“Wait for me! Wait for me! I saw the lion go in a cave. Wait for me!”

With the same roar and crack and slide of rocks as had attended our descent, Jones bore down on us. For an old man it was a marvelous performance. He walked on the avalanches as though he wore seven-league boots, and presently, as we began to dodge whizzing bowlders, he stepped down to us, whirling his coiled lasso. His jaw bulged out; a flash made fire in his cold eyes.

“Boys, we’ve got Old Tom in a corner. I worked along the rim north and looked over every place I could. Now, maybe you won’t believe it, but I heard him pant. Yes, sir, he panted like the tired lion he is. Well, presently I saw him lying along the base of the rim wall. His tongue was hanging out. You see, he’s a heavy lion, and not used to running long distances. Come on, now. It’s not far. Hold in the dogs. You there with the rifle, lead off, and keep your eyes peeled.”

Single file, we passed along in the shadow of the great cliff. A wide trail had been worn in the dust.

“A lion run-way,” said Jones. “Don’t you smell the cat?”

Indeed, the strong odor of cat was very pronounced; and that, without the big fresh tracks, made the skin on my face tighten and chill. As we turned a jutting point in the wall, a number of animals, which I did not recognize, plunged helter-skelter down the canyon slope.

“Rocky Mountain sheep!” exclaimed Jones. “Look! Well, this is a discovery. I never heard of a bighorn in the Canyon.”

It was indicative of the strong grip Old Tom had on us that we at once forgot the remarkable fact of coming upon those rare sheep in such a place.

Jones halted us presently before a deep curve described by the rim wall, the extreme end of which terminated across the slope in an impassable projecting corner.

“See across there, boys. See that black hole. Old Tom’s in there.”

“What’s your plan?” queried the cowboy sharply.

“Wait. We’ll slip up to get better lay of the land.”

We worked our way noiselessly along the rim-wall curve for several hundred yards and came to a halt again, this time with a splendid command of the situation. The trail ended abruptly at the dark cave, so menacingly staring at us, and the corner of the cliff had curled back upon itself. It was a box-trap, with a drop at the end, too great for any beast, a narrow slide of weathered stone running down, and the rim wall trail. Old Tom would plainly be compelled to choose one of these directions if he left his cave.

“Frank, you and I will keep to the wall and stop near that scrub pinyon, this side of the hole. If I rope him, I can use that tree.”

Then he turned to me:

“Are you to be depended on here?”

“I? What do you want me to do?” I demanded, and my whole breast seemed to sink in.

“You cut across the head of this slope and take up your position in the slide below the cave, say just by that big stone. From there you can command the cave, our position and your own. Now, if it is necessary to kill this lion to save me or Frank, or, of course, yourself, can you be depended upon to kill him?”

I felt a queer sensation around my heart and a strange tightening of the skin upon my face! What a position for me to be placed in! For one instant I shook like a quivering aspen leaf. Then because of the pride of a man, or perhaps inherited instincts cropping out at this perilous moment, I looked up and answered quietly:

“Yes. I will kill him!”

“Old Tom is cornered, and he’ll come out. He can run only two ways: along this trail, or down that slide. I’ll take my stand by the scrub pinyon there so I can get a hitch if I rope him. Frank, when I give the word, let the dogs go. Grey, you block the slide. If he makes at us, even if I do get my rope on him, kill him! Most likely he’ll jump down hill — then you’ll HAVE to kill him! Be quick. Now loose the hounds. Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!”

I jumped into the narrow slide of weathered stone and looked up. Jones’s stentorian yell rose high above the clamor of the hounds. He whirled his lasso.

A huge yellow form shot over the trail and hit the top of the slide with a crash. The lasso streaked out with arrowy swiftness, circled, and snapped viciously close to Old Tom’s head. “Kill him! Kill him!” roared Jones. Then the lion leaped, seemingly into the air above me. Instinctively I raised my little automatic rifle. I seemed to hear a million bellowing reports. The tawny body, with its grim, snarling face, blurred in my sight. I heard a roar of sliding stones at my feet. I felt a rush of wind. I caught a confused glimpse of a whirling wheel of fur, rolling down the slide.

Then Jones and Frank were pounding me, and yelling I know not what. From far above came floating down a long “Waa-hoo!” I saw Wallace silhouetted against the blue sky. I felt the hot barrel of my rifle, and shuddered at the bloody stones below me — then, and then only, did I realize, with weakening legs, that Old Tom had jumped at me, and had jumped to his death.

CHAPTER 13.

SINGING CLIFFS

OLD TOM HAD rolled two hundred yards down the canyon, leaving a red trail and bits of fur behind him. When I had clambered down to the steep slide where he had lodged, Sounder and Jude had just decided he was no longer worth biting, and were wagging their tails. Frank was shaking his head, and Jones, standing above the lion, lasso in hand, wore a disconsolate face.

“How I wish I had got the rope on him!”

“I reckon we’d be gatherin’ up the pieces of you if you had,” said Frank, dryly.

We skinned the old king on the rocky slope of his mighty throne, and then, beginning to feel the effects of severe exertion, we cut across the slope for the foot of the break. Once there, we gazed up in disarray. That break resembled a walk of life — how easy to slip down, how hard to climb! Even Frank, inured as he was to strenuous toil, began to swear and wipe his sweaty brow before we had made one-tenth of the ascent. It was particularly exasperating, not to mention the danger of it, to work a few feet up a slide, and then feel it start to move. We had to climb in single file, which jeopardized the safety of those behind the leader. Sometimes we were all sliding at once, like boys on a pond, with the difference that we were in danger. Frank forged ahead, turning to yell now and then for us to dodge a cracking stone. Faithful old Jude could not get up in some places, so laying aside my rifle, I carried her, and returned for the weapon. It became necessary, presently, to hide behind cliff projections to escape the avalanches started by Frank, and to wait till he had surmounted the break. Jones gave out completely several times, saying the exertion affected his heart. What with my rifle, my camera and Jude, I could offer him no assistance, and was really in need of that myself. When it seemed as if one more step would kill us, we reached the rim, and fell panting with labored chests and dripping skins. We could not speak. Jones had worn a pair of ordinary shoes without thick soles and nails, and it seemed well to speak of them in the past tense. They were split into ribbons and hung on by the laces. His feet were cut and bruised.

On the way back to camp, we encountered Moze and Don coming out of the break where we had started Sounder on the trail. The paws of both hounds were yellow with dust, which proved they had been down under the rim wall. Jones doubted not in the least that they had chased a lion.

Upon examination, this break proved to be one of the two which Clarke used for trails to his wild horse corral in the canyon. According to him, the distance separating them was five miles by the rim wall, and less than half that in a straight line. Therefore, we made for the point of the forest where it ended abruptly in the scrub oak. We got into camp, a fatigued lot of men, horses and dogs. Jones appeared particularly happy, and his first move, after dismounting, was to stretch out the lion skin and measure it.

“Ten feet, three inches and a half!” he sang out.

“Shore it do beat hell!” exclaimed Jim in tones nearer to excitement than any I had ever heard him use.

“Old Tom beats, by two inches, any cougar I ever saw,” continued Jones. “He must have weighed more than three hundred. We’ll set about curing the hide. Jim, stretch it well on a tree, and we’ll take a hand in peeling off the fat.”

All of the party worked on the cougar skin that afternoon. The gristle at the base of the neck, where it met the shoulders, was so tough and thick we could not scrape it thin. Jones said this particular spot was so well protected because in fighting, cougars were most likely to bite and claw there. For that matter, the whole skin was tough, tougher than leather; and when it dried, it pulled all the horseshoe nails out of the pine tree upon which we had it stretched.

About time for the sun to set, I strolled along the rim wall to look into the canyon. I was beginning to feel something of its character and had growing impressions. Dark purple smoke veiled the clefts deep down between the mesas. I walked along to where points of cliff ran out like capes and peninsulas, all seamed, cracked, wrinkled, scarred and yellow with age, with shattered, toppling ruins of rocks ready at a touch to go thundering down. I could not resist the temptation to crawl out to the farthest point, even though I shuddered over the yard-wide ridges; and when once seated on a bare promontory, two hundred feet from the regular rim wall, I felt isolated, marooned.

The sun, a liquid red globe, had just touched its under side to the pink cliffs of Utah, and fired a crimson flood of light over the wonderful mountains, plateaus, escarpments, mesas, domes and turrets or the gorge. The rim wall of Powell’s Plateau was a thin streak of fire; the timber above like grass of gold; and the long slopes below shaded from bright to dark. Point Sublime, bold and bare, ran out toward the plateau, jealously reaching for the sun. Bass’s Tomb peeped over the Saddle. The Temple of Vishnu lay bathed in vapory shading clouds, and the Shinumo Altar shone with rays of glory.

The beginning of the wondrous transformation, the dropping of the day’s curtain, was for me a rare and perfect moment. As the golden splendor of sunset sought out a peak or mesa or escarpment, I gave it a name to suit my fancy; and as flushing, fading, its glory changed, sometimes I rechristened it. Jupiter’s Chariot, brazen wheeled, stood ready to roll into the clouds. Semiramis’s Bed, all gold, shone from a tower of Babylon. Castor and Pollux clasped hands over a Stygian river. The Spur of Doom, a mountain shaft as red as hell, and inaccessible, insurmountable, lured with strange light. Dusk, a bold, black dome, was shrouded by the shadow of a giant mesa. The Star of Bethlehem glittered from the brow of Point Sublime. The Wraith, fleecy, feathered curtain of mist, floated down among the ruins of castles and palaces, like the ghost of a goddess. Vales of Twilight, dim, dark ravines, mystic homes of specters, led into the awful Valley of the Shadow, clothed in purple night.

Suddenly, as the first puff of the night wind fanned my cheek, a strange, sweet, low moaning and sighing came to my ears. I almost thought I was in a dream. But the canyon, now blood-red, was there in overwhelming reality, a profound, solemn, gloomy thing, but real. The wind blew stronger, and then I was to a sad, sweet song, which lulled as the wind lulled. I realized at once that the sound was caused by the wind blowing into the peculiar formations of the cliffs. It changed, softened, shaded, mellowed, but it was always sad. It rose from low, tremulous, sweetly quavering sighs, to a sound like the last woeful, despairing wail of a woman. It was the song of the sea sirens and the music of the waves; it had the soft sough of the night wind in the trees, and the haunting moan of lost spirits.

With reluctance I turned my back to the gorgeously changing spectacle of the canyon and crawled in to the rim wall. At the narrow neck of stone I peered over to look down into misty blue nothingness.

That night Jones told stories of frightened hunters, and assuaged my mortification by saying “buck-fever” was pardonable after the danger had passed, and especially so in my case, because of the great size and fame of Old Tom.

“The worst case of buck-fever I ever saw was on a buffalo hunt I had with a fellow named Williams,” went on Jones. “I was one of the scouts leading a wagon-train west on the old Santa Fe trail. This fellow said he was a big hunter, and wanted to kill buffalo, so I took him out. I saw a herd making over the prairie for a hollow where a brook ran, and by hard work, got in ahead of them. I picked out a position just below the edge of the bank, and we lay quiet, waiting. From the direction of the buffalo, I calculated we’d be just about right to get a shot at no very long range. As it was, I suddenly heard thumps on the ground, and cautiously raising my head, saw a huge buffalo bull just over us, not fifteen feet up the bank. I whispered to Williams: ‘For God’s sake, don’t shoot, don’t move!’ The bull’s little fiery eyes snapped, and he reared. I thought we were goners, for when a bull comes down on anything with his forefeet, it’s done for. But he slowly settled back, perhaps doubtful. Then, as another buffalo came to the edge of the bank, luckily a little way from us, the bull turned broadside, presenting a splendid target. Then I whispered to Williams: ‘Now’s your chance. Shoot!’ I waited for the shot, but none came. Looking at Williams, I saw he was white and trembling. Big drops of sweat stood out on his brow his teeth chattered, and his hands shook. He had forgotten he carried a rifle.”

“That reminds me,” said Frank. “They tell a story over at Kanab on a Dutchman named Schmitt. He was very fond of huntin’, an’ I guess had pretty good success after deer an’ small game. One winter he was out in the Pink Cliffs with a Mormon named Shoonover, an’ they run into a lammin’ big grizzly track, fresh an’ wet. They trailed him to a clump of chaparral, an’ on goin’ clear round it, found no tracks leadin’ out. Shoonover said Schmitt commenced to sweat. They went back to the place where the trail led in, an’ there they were, great big silver tip tracks, bigger’n hoss-tracks, so fresh thet water was oozin’ out of ‘em. Schmitt said: ‘Zake, you go in und ged him. I hef took sick right now.’”

Happy as we were over the chase of Old Tom, and our prospects for Sounder, Jude and Moze had seen a lion in a tree — we sought our blankets early. I lay watching the bright stars, and listening to the roar of the wind in the pines. At intervals it lulled to a whisper, and then swelled to a roar, and then died away. Far off in the forest a coyote barked once. Time and time again, as I was gradually sinking into slumber, the sudden roar of the wind startled me. I imagined it was the crash of rolling, weathered stone, and I saw again that huge outspread flying lion above me.

I awoke sometime later to find Moze had sought the warmth of my side, and he lay so near my arm that I reached out and covered him with an end of the blanket I used to break the wind. It was very cold and the time must have been very late, for the wind had died down, and I heard not a tinkle from the hobbled horses. The absence of the cowbell music gave me a sense of loneliness, for without it the silence of the great forest was a thing to be felt.

This oppressiveness, however, was broken by a far-distant cry, unlike any sound I had ever heard. Not sure of myself, I freed my ears from the blanketed hood and listened. It came again, a wild cry, that made me think first of a lost child, and then of the mourning wolf of the north. It must have been a long distance off in the forest. An interval of some moments passed, then it pealed out again, nearer this time, and so human that it startled me. Moze raised his head and growled low in his throat and sniffed the keen air.

“Jones, Jones,” I called, reaching over to touch the old hunter.

He awoke at once, with the clear-headedness of the light sleeper.

“I heard the cry of some beast,” I said, “And it was so weird, so strange. I want to know what it was.”

Such a long silence ensued that I began to despair of hearing the cry again, when, with a suddenness which straightened the hair on my head, a wailing shriek, exactly like a despairing woman might give in death agony, split the night silence. It seemed right on us.

“Cougar! Cougar! Cougar!” exclaimed Jones.

“What’s up?” queried Frank, awakened by the dogs.

Their howling roused the rest of the party, and no doubt scared the cougar, for his womanish screech was not repeated. Then Jones got up and gatherered his blankets in a roll.

“Where you oozin’ for now?” asked Frank, sleepily.

“I think that cougar just came up over the rim on a scouting hunt, and I’m going to go down to the head of the trail and stay there till morning. If he returns that way, I’ll put him up a tree.”

With this, he unchained Sounder and Don, and stalked off under the trees, looking like an Indian. Once the deep bay of Sounder rang out; Jones’s sharp command followed, and then the familiar silence encompassed the forest and was broken no more.

When I awoke all was gray, except toward the canyon, where the little bit of sky I saw through the pines glowed a delicate pink. I crawled out on the instant, got into my boots and coat, and kicked the smoldering fire. Jim heard me, and said:

“Shore you’re up early.”

“I’m going to see the sunrise from the north rim of the Grand Canon,” I said, and knew when I spoke that very few men, out of all the millions of travelers, had ever seen this, probably the most surpassingly beautiful pageant in the world. At most, only a few geologists, scientists, perhaps an artist or two, and horse wranglers, hunters and prospectors have ever reached the rim on the north side; and these men, crossing from Bright Angel or Mystic Spring trails on the south rim, seldom or never get beyond Powell’s Plateau.

The frost cracked under my boots like frail ice, and the bluebells peeped wanly from the white. When I reached the head of Clarke’s trail it was just daylight; and there, under a pine, I found Jones rolled in his blankets, with Sounder and Moze asleep beside him. I turned without disturbing him, and went along the edge of the forest, but back a little distance from the rim wall.

I saw deer off in the woods, and tarrying, watched them throw up graceful heads, and look and listen. The soft pink glow through the pines deepened to rose, and suddenly I caught a point of red fire. Then I hurried to the place I had named Singing Cliffs, and keeping my eyes fast on the stone beneath me, trawled out to the very farthest point, drew a long, breath, and looked eastward.

The awfulness of sudden death and the glory of heaven stunned me! The thing that had been mystery at twilight, lay clear, pure, open in the rosy hue of dawn. Out of the gates of the morning poured a light which glorified the palaces and pyramids, purged and purified the afternoon’s inscrutable clefts, swept away the shadows of the mesas, and bathed that broad, deep world of mighty mountains, stately spars of rock, sculptured cathedrals and alabaster terraces in an artist’s dream of color. A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born life of another day.

I sat there for a long time and knew that every second the scene changed, yet I could not tell how. I knew I sat high over a hole of broken, splintered, barren mountains; I knew I could see a hundred miles of the length of it, and eighteen miles of the width of it, and a mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and rays of rose light on a million glancing, many-hued surfaces at once; but that knowledge was no help to me. I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to myself, and I found words inadequate and superfluous. The spectacle was too elusive and too great. It was life and death, heaven and hell.

I tried to call up former favorite views of mountain and sea, so as to compare them with this; but the memory pictures refused to come, even with my eyes closed. Then I returned to camp, with unsettled, troubled mind, and was silent, wondering at the strange feeling burning within me.

Jones talked about our visitor of the night before, and said the trail near where he had slept showed only one cougar track, and that led down into the canyon. It had surely been made, he thought, by the beast we had heard. Jones signified his intention of chaining several of the hounds for the next few nights at the head of this trail; so if the cougar came up, they would scent him and let us know. From which it was evident that to chase a lion bound into the canyon and one bound out were two different things.

The day passed lazily, with all of us resting on the warm, fragrant pine-needle beds, or mending a rent in a coat, or working on some camp task impossible of commission on exciting days.

About four o’clock, I took my little rifle and walked off through the woods in the direction of the carcass where I had seen the gray wolf. Thinking it best to make a wide detour, so as to face the wind, I circled till I felt the breeze was favorable to my enterprise, and then cautiously approached the hollow were the dead horse lay. Indian fashion, I slipped from tree to tree, a mode of forest travel not without its fascination and effectiveness, till I reached the height of a knoll beyond which I made sure was my objective point. On peeping out from behind the last pine, I found I had calculated pretty well, for there was the hollow, the big windfall, with its round, starfish-shaped roots exposed to the bright sun, and near that, the carcass. Sure enough, pulling hard at it, was the gray-white wolf I recognized as my “lofer.”

But he presented an exceedingly difficult shot. Backing down the ridge, I ran a little way to come up behind another tree, from which I soon shifted to a fallen pine. Over this I peeped, to get a splendid view of the wolf. He had stopped tugging at the horse, and stood with his nose in the air. Surely he could not have scented me, for the wind was strong from him to me; neither could he have heard my soft footfalls on the pine needles; nevertheless, he was suspicious. Loth to spoil the picture he made, I risked a chance, and waited. Besides, though I prided myself on being able to take a fair aim, I had no great hope that I could hit him at such a distance. Presently he returned to his feeding, but not for long. Soon he raised his long, fine-pointed head, and trotted away a few yards, stopped to sniff again, then went back to his gruesome work.

At this juncture, I noiselessly projected my rifle barrel over the log. I had not, however, gotten the sights in line with him, when he trotted away reluctantly, and ascended the knoll on his side of the hollow. I lost him, and had just begun sourly to call myself a mollycoddle hunter, when he reappeared. He halted in an open glade, on the very crest of the knoll, and stood still as a statue wolf, a white, inspiriting target, against a dark green background. I could not stifle a rush of feeling, for I was a lover of the beautiful first, and a hunter secondly; but I steadied down as the front sight moved into the notch through which I saw the black and white of his shoulder.

Spang! How the little Remington sang! I watched closely, ready to send five more missiles after the gray beast. He jumped spasmodically, in a half-curve, high in the air, with loosely hanging head, then dropped in a heap. I yelled like a boy, ran down the hill, up the other side of the hollow, to find him stretched out dead, a small hole in his shoulder where the bullet had entered, a great one where it had come out.

The job I made of skinning him lacked some hundred degrees the perfection of my shot, but I accomplished it, and returned to camp in triumph.

“Shore I knowed you’d plunk him,” said Jim very much pleased. “I shot one the other day same way, when he was feedin’ off a dead horse. Now thet’s a fine skin. Shore you cut through once or twice. But he’s only half lofer, the other half in plain coyote. Thet accounts fer his feedin’ on dead meat.”

My naturalist host and my scientific friend both remarked somewhat grumpily that I seemed to get the best of all the good things. I might have retaliated that I certainly had gotten the worst of all the bad jokes; but, being generously happy over my prize, merely remarked: “If you want fame or wealth or wolves, go out and hunt for them.”

Five o’clock supper left a good margin of day, in which my thoughts reverted to the canyon. I watched the purple shadows stealing out of their caverns and rolling up about the base of the mesas. Jones came over to where I stood, and I persuaded him to walk with me along the rim wall. Twilight had stealthily advanced when we reached the Singing Cliffs, and we did not go out upon my promontory, but chose a more comfortable one nearer the wall.

The night breeze had not sprung up yet, so the music of the cliffs was hushed.

“You cannot accept the theory of erosion to account for this chasm?” I asked my companion, referring to a former conversation.

“I can for this part of it. But what stumps me is the mountain range three thousand feet high, crossing the desert and the canyon just above where we crossed the river. How did the river cut through that without the help of a split or earthquake?”

“I’ll admit that is a poser to me as well as to you. But I suppose Wallace could explain it as erosion. He claims this whole western country was once under water, except the tips of the Sierra Nevada mountains. There came an uplift of the earth’s crust, and the great inland sea began to run out, presumably by way of the Colorado. In so doing it cut out the upper canyon, this gorge eighteen miles wide. Then came a second uplift, giving the river a much greater impetus toward the sea, which cut out the second, or marble canyon. Now as to the mountain range crossing the canyon at right angles. It must have come with the second uplift. If so, did it dam the river back into another inland sea, and then wear down into that red perpendicular gorge we remember so well? Or was there a great break in the fold of granite, which let the river continue on its way? Or was there, at that particular point, a softer stone, like this limestone here, which erodes easily?”

“You must ask somebody wiser than I.”

“Well, let’s not perplex our minds with its origin. It is, and that’s enough for any mind. Ah! listen! Now you will hear my Singing Cliffs.”

From out of the darkening shadows murmurs rose on the softly rising wind. This strange music had a depressing influence; but it did not fill the heart with sorrow, only touched it lightly. And when, with the dying breeze, the song died away, it left the lonely crags lonelier for its death.

The last rosy gleam faded from the tip of Point Sublime; and as if that were a signal, in all the clefts and canyons below, purple, shadowy clouds marshaled their forces and began to sweep upon the battlements, to swing colossal wings into amphitheaters where gods might have warred, slowly to enclose the magical sentinels. Night intervened, and a moving, changing, silent chaos pulsated under the bright stars.

“How infinite all this is! How impossible to understand!” I exclaimed.

“To me it is very simple,” replied my comrade. “The world is strange. But this canyon — why, we can see it all! I can’t make out why people fuss so over it. I only feel peace. It’s only bold and beautiful, serene and silent.”

With the words of this quiet old plainsman, my sentimental passion shrank to the true appreciation of the scene. Self passed out to the recurring, soft strains of cliff song. I had been reveling in a species of indulgence, imagining I was a great lover of nature, building poetical illusions over storm-beaten peaks. The truth, told by one who had lived fifty years in the solitudes, among the rugged mountains, under the dark trees, and by the sides of the lonely streams, was the simple interpretation of a spirit in harmony with the bold, the beautiful, the serene, the silent.

He meant the Grand Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold promise, a beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted away in its dust, yet the canyon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be humble. This cataclysm of the earth, this playground of a river was not inscrutable; it was only inevitable — as inevitable as nature herself. Millions of years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under a half moon; it would bask silent under a rayless sun, in the onward edge of time.

It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that saw only the strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or only the glory and the tragedy, saw not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words were grand: “My spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of God. Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow he shall be gone. Peace! Peace!”

CHAPTER 14.

ALL HEROES BUT ONE

AS WE RODE up the slope of Buckskin, the sunrise glinted red-gold through the aisles of frosted pines, giving us a hunter’s glad greeting.

With all due respect to, and appreciation of, the breaks of the Siwash, we unanimously decided that if cougars inhabited any other section of canyon country, we preferred it, and were going to find it. We had often speculated on the appearance of the rim wall directly across the neck of the canyon upon which we were located. It showed a long stretch of breaks, fissures, caves, yellow crags, crumbled ruins and clefts green with pinyon pine. As a crow flies, it was only a mile or two straight across from camp, but to reach it, we had to ascend the mountain and head the canyon which deeply indented the slope.

A thousand feet or more above the level bench, the character of the forest changed; the pines grew thicker, and interspersed among them were silver spruces and balsams. Here in the clumps of small trees and underbrush, we began to jump deer, and in a few moments a greater number than I had ever seen in all my hunting experiences loped within range of my eye. I could not look out into the forest where an aisle or lane or glade stretched to any distance, without seeing a big gray deer cross it. Jones said the herds had recently come up from the breaks, where they had wintered. These deer were twice the size of the Eastern species, and as fat as well-fed cattle. They were almost as tame, too. A big herd ran out of one glade, leaving behind several curious does, which watched us intently for a moment, then bounded off with the stiff, springy bounce that so amused me.

Sounder crossed fresh trails one after another; Jude, Tige and Ranger followed him, but hesitated often, barked and whined; Don started off once, to come sneaking back at Jones’s stern call. But surly old Moze either would not or could not obey, and away he dashed. Bang! Jones sent a charge of fine shot after him. He yelped, doubled up as if stung, and returned as quickly as he had gone.

“Hyar, you white and black coon dog,” said Jones, “get in behind, and stay there.”

We turned to the right after a while and got among shallow ravines. Gigantic pines grew on the ridges and in the hollows, and everywhere bluebells shone blue from the white frost. Why the frost did not kill these beautiful flowers was a mystery to me. The horses could not step without crushing them.

Before long, the ravines became so deep that we had to zigzag up and down their sides, and to force our horses through the aspen thickets in the hollows. Once from a ridge I saw a troop of deer, and stopped to watch them. Twenty-seven I counted outright, but there must have been three times that number. I saw the herd break across a glade, and watched them until they were lost in the forest. My companions having disappeared, I pushed on, and while working out of a wide, deep hollow, I noticed the sunny patches fade from the bright slopes, and the golden streaks vanish among the pines. The sky had become overcast, and the forest was darkening. The “Waa-hoo,” I cried out returned in echo only. The wind blew hard in my face, and the pines began to bend and roar. An immense black cloud enveloped Buckskin.

Satan had carried me no farther than the next ridge, when the forest frowned dark as twilight, and on the wind whirled flakes of snow. Over the next hollow, a white pall roared through the trees toward me. Hardly had I time to get the direction of the trail, and its relation to the trees nearby, when the storm enfolded me. Of his own accord Satan stopped in the lee of a bushy spruce. The roar in the pines equaled that of the cave under Niagara, and the bewildering, whirling mass of snow was as difficult to see through as the tumbling, seething waterfall.

I was confronted by the possibility of passing the night there, and calming my fears as best I could, hastily felt for my matches and knife. The prospect of being lost the next day in a white forest was also appalling, but I soon reassured myself that the storm was only a snow squall, and would not last long. Then I gave myself up to the pleasure and beauty of it. I could only faintly discern the dim trees; the limbs of the spruce, which partially protected me, sagged down to my head with their burden; I had but to reach out my hand for a snowball. Both the wind and snow seemed warm. The great flakes were like swan feathers on a summer breeze. There was something joyous in the whirl of snow and roar of wind. While I bent over to shake my holster, the storm passed as suddenly as it had come. When I looked up, there were the pines, like pillars of Parian marble, and a white shadow, a vanishing cloud fled, with receding roar, on the wings of the wind. Fast on this retreat burst the warm, bright sun.

I faced my course, and was delighted to see, through an opening where the ravine cut out of the forest, the red-tipped peaks of the canyon, and the vaulted dome I had named St. Marks. As I started, a new and unexpected after-feature of the storm began to manifest itself. The sun being warm, even to melt the snow, and under the trees a heavy rain fell, and in the glades and hollows a fine mist blew. Exquisite rainbows hung from white-tipped branches and curved over the hollows. Glistening patches of snow fell from the pines, and broke the showers.

In a quarter of an hour, I rode out of the forest to the rim wall on dry ground. Against the green pinyons Frank’s white horse stood out conspicuously, and near him browsed the mounts of Jim and Wallace. The boys were not in evidence. Concluding they had gone down over the rim, I dismounted and kicked off my chaps, and taking my rifle and camera, hurried to look the place over.

To my surprise and interest, I found a long section of rim wall in ruins. It lay in a great curve between the two giant capes; and many short, sharp, projecting promontories, like the teeth of a saw, overhung the canyon. The slopes between these points of cliff were covered with a deep growth of pinyon, and in these places descent would be easy. Everywhere in the corrugated wall were rents and rifts; cliffs stood detached like islands near a shore; yellow crags rose out of green clefts; jumble of rocks, and slides of rim wall, broken into blocks, massed under the promontories.

The singular raggedness and wildness of the scene took hold of me, and was not dispelled until the baying of Sounder and Don roused action in me. Apparently the hounds were widely separated. Then I heard Jim’s yell. But it ceased when the wind lulled, and I heard it no more. Running back from the point, I began to go down. The way was steep, almost perpendicular; but because of the great stones and the absence of slides, was easy. I took long strides and jumps, and slid over rocks, and swung on pinyon branches, and covered distance like a rolling stone. At the foot of the rim wall, or at a line where it would have reached had it extended regularly, the slope became less pronounced. I could stand up without holding on to a support. The largest pinyons I had seen made a forest that almost stood on end. These trees grew up, down, and out, and twisted in curves, and many were two feet in thickness. During my descent, I halted at intervals to listen, and always heard one of the hounds, sometimes several. But as I descended for a long time, and did not get anywhere or approach the dogs, I began to grow impatient.

A large pinyon, with a dead top, suggested a good outlook, so I climbed it, and saw I could sweep a large section of the slope. It was a strange thing to look down hill, over the tips of green trees. Below, perhaps four hundred yards, was a slide open for a long way; all the rest was green incline, with many dead branches sticking up like spars, and an occasional crag. From this perch I heard the hounds; then followed a yell I thought was Jim’s, and after it the bellowing of Wallace’s rifle. Then all was silent. The shots had effectually checked the yelping of the hounds. I let out a yell. Another cougar that Jones would not lasso! All at once I heard a familiar sliding of small rocks below me, and I watched the open slope with greedy eyes.

Not a bit surprised was I to see a cougar break out of the green, and go tearing down the slide. In less than six seconds, I had sent six steel-jacketed bullets after him. Puffs of dust rose closer and closer to him as each bullet went nearer the mark and the last showered him with gravel and turned him straight down the canyon slope.

I slid down the dead pinyon and jumped nearly twenty feet to the soft sand below, and after putting a loaded clip in my rifle, began kangaroo leaps down the slope. When I reached the point where the cougar had entered the slide, I called the hounds, but they did not come nor answer me. Notwithstanding my excitement, I appreciated the distance to the bottom of the slope before I reached it. In my haste, I ran upon the verge of a precipice twice as deep as the first rim wall, but one glance down sent me shatteringly backward.

With all the breath I had left I yelled: “Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo!” From the echoes flung at me, I imagined at first that my friends were right on my ears. But no real answer came. The cougar had probably passed along this second rim wall to a break, and had gone down. His trail could easily be taken by any of the hounds. Vexed and anxious, I signaled again and again. Once, long after the echo had gone to sleep in some hollow canyon, I caught a faint “Wa-a-ho-o-o!” But it might have come from the clouds. I did not hear a hound barking above me on the slope; but suddenly, to my amazement, Sounder’s deep bay rose from the abyss below. I ran along the rim, called till I was hoarse, leaned over so far that the blood rushed to my head, and then sat down. I concluded this canyon hunting could bear some sustained attention and thought, as well as frenzied action.

Examination of my position showed how impossible it was to arrive at any clear idea of the depth or size, or condition of the canyon slopes from the main rim wall above. The second wall — a stupendous, yellow-faced cliff two thousand feet high — curved to my left round to a point in front of me. The intervening canyon might have been a half mile wide, and it might have been ten miles. I had become disgusted with judging distance. The slope above this second wall facing me ran up far above my head; it fairly towered, and this routed all my former judgments, because I remembered distinctly that from the rim this yellow and green mountain had appeared an insignificant little ridge. But it was when I turned to gaze up behind me that I fully grasped the immensity of the place. This wall and slope were the first two steps down the long stairway of the Grand Canyon, and they towered over me, straight up a half-mile in dizzy height. To think of climbing it took my breath away.

Then again Sounder’s bay floated distinctly to me, but it seemed to come from a different point. I turned my ear to the wind, and in the succeeding moments I was more and more baffled. One bay sounded from below and next from far to the right; another from the left. I could not distinguish voice from echo. The acoustic properties of the amphitheater beneath me were too wonderful for my comprehension.

As the bay grew sharper, and correspondingly more significant, I became distracted, and focused a strained vision on the canyon deeps. I looked along the slope to the notch where the wall curved and followed the base line of the yellow cliff. Quite suddenly I saw a very small black object moving with snail-like slowness. Although it seemed impossible for Sounder to be so small, I knew it was he. Having something now to judge distance from, I conceived it to be a mile, without the drop. If I could hear Sounder, he could hear me, so I yelled encouragement. The echoes clapped back at me like so many slaps in the face. I watched the hound until he disappeared among broken heaps of stone, and long after that his bay floated to me.

Having rested, I essayed the discovery of some of my lost companions or the hounds, and began to climb. Before I started, however, I was wise enough to study the rim wall above, to familiarize myself with the break so I would have a landmark. Like horns and spurs of gold the pinnacles loomed up. Massed closely together, they were not unlike an astounding pipe-organ. I had a feeling of my littleness, that I was lost, and should devote every moment and effort to the saving of my life. It did not seem possible I could be hunting. Though I climbed diagonally, and rested often, my heart pumped so hard I could hear it. A yellow crag, with a round head like an old man’s cane, appealed to me as near the place where I last heard from Jim, and toward it I labored. Every time I glanced up, the distance seemed the same. A climb which I decided would not take more than fifteen minutes, required an hour.

While resting at the foot of the crag, I heard more baying of hounds, but for my life I could not tell whether the sound came from up or down, and I commenced to feel that I did not much care. Having signaled till I was hoarse, and receiving none but mock answers, I decided that if my companions had not toppled over a cliff, they were wisely withholding their breath.

Another stiff pull up the slope brought me under the rim wall, and there I groaned, because the wall was smooth and shiny, without a break. I plodded slowly along the base, with my rifle ready. Cougar tracks were so numerous I got tired of looking at them, but I did not forget that I might meet a tawny fellow or two among those narrow passes of shattered rock, and under the thick, dark pinyons. Going on in this way, I ran point-blank into a pile of bleached bones before a cave. I had stumbled on the lair of a lion and from the looks of it one like that of Old Tom. I flinched twice before I threw a stone into the dark-mouthed cave. What impressed me as soon as I found I was in no danger of being pawed and clawed round the gloomy spot, was the fact of the bones being there. How did they come on a slope where a man could hardly walk? Only one answer seemed feasible. The lion had made his kill one thousand feet above, had pulled his quarry to the rim and pushed it over. In view of the theory that he might have had to drag his victim from the forest, and that very seldom two lions worked together, the fact of the location of the bones as startling. Skulls of wild horses and deer, antlers and countless bones, all crushed into shapelessness, furnished indubitable proof that the carcasses had fallen from a great height. Most remarkable of all was the skeleton of a cougar lying across that of a horse. I believed — I could not help but believe that the cougar had fallen with his last victim.

Not many rods beyond the lion den, the rim wall split into towers, crags and pinnacles. I thought I had found my pipe organ, and began to climb toward a narrow opening in the rim. But I lost it. The extraordinarily cut-up condition of the wall made holding to one direction impossible. Soon I realized I was lost in a labyrinth. I tried to find my way down again, but the best I could do was to reach the verge of a cliff, from which I could see the canyon. Then I knew where I was, yet I did not know, so I plodded wearily back. Many a blind cleft did I ascend in the maze of crags. I could hardly crawl along, still I kept at it, for the place was conducive to dire thoughts. A tower of Babel menaced me with tons of loose shale. A tower that leaned more frightfully than the Tower of Pisa threatened to build my tomb. Many a lighthouse-shaped crag sent down little scattering rocks in ominous notice.

After toiling in and out of passageways under the shadows of these strangely formed cliffs, and coming again and again to the same point, a blind pocket, I grew desperate. I named the baffling place Deception Pass, and then ran down a slide. I knew if I could keep my feet I could beat the avalanche. More by good luck than management I outran the roaring stones and landed safely. Then rounding the cliff below, I found myself on a narrow ledge, with a wall to my left, and to the right the tips of pinyon trees level with my feet.

Innocently and wearily I passed round a pillar-like corner of wall, to come face to face with an old lioness and cubs. I heard the mother snarl, and at the same time her ears went back flat, and she crouched. The same fire of yellow eyes, the same grim snarling expression so familiar in my mind since Old Tom had leaped at me, faced me here.

My recent vow of extermination was entirely forgotten and one frantic spring carried me over the ledge.

Crash! I felt the brushing and scratching of branches, and saw a green blur. I went down straddling limbs and hit the ground with a thump. Fortunately, I landed mostly on my feet, in sand, and suffered no serious bruise. But I was stunned, and my right arm was numb for a moment. When I gathered myself together, instead of being grateful the ledge had not been on the face of Point Sublime — from which I would most assuredly have leaped — I was the angriest man ever let loose in the Grand Canyon.

Of course the cougars were far on their way by that time, and were telling neighbors about the brave hunter’s leap for life; so I devoted myself to further efforts to find an outlet. The niche I had jumped into opened below, as did most of the breaks, and I worked out of it to the base of the rim wall, and tramped a long, long mile before I reached my own trail leading down. Resting every five steps, I climbed and climbed. My rifle grew to weigh a ton; my feet were lead; the camera strapped to my shoulder was the world. Soon climbing meant trapeze work — long reach of arm, and pull of weight, high step of foot, and spring of body. Where I had slid down with ease, I had to strain and raise myself by sheer muscle. I wore my left glove to tatters and threw it away to put the right one on my left hand. I thought many times I could not make another move; I thought my lungs would burst, but I kept on. When at last I surmounted the rim, I saw Jones, and flopped down beside him, and lay panting, dripping, boiling, with scorched feet, aching limbs and numb chest.

“I’ve been here two hours,” he said, “and I knew things were happening below; but to climb up that slide would kill me. I am not young any more, and a steep climb like this takes a young heart. As it was I had enough work. Look!” He called my attention to his trousers. They had been cut to shreds, and the right trouser leg was missing from the knee down. His shin was bloody. “Moze took a lion along the rim, and I went after him with all my horse could do. I yelled for the boys, but they didn’t come. Right here it is easy to go down, but below, where Moze started this lion, it was impossible to get over the rim. The lion lit straight out of the pinyons. I lost ground because of the thick brush and numerous trees. Then Moze doesn’t bark often enough. He treed the lion twice. I could tell by the way he opened up and bayed. The rascal coon-dog climbed the trees and chased the lion out. That’s what Moze did! I got to an open space and saw him, and was coming up fine when he went down over a hollow which ran into the canyon. My horse tripped and fell, turning clear over with me before he threw me into the brush. I tore my clothes, and got this bruise, but wasn’t much hurt. My horse is pretty lame.”

I began a recital of my experience, modestly omitting the incident where I bravely faced an old lioness. Upon consulting my watch, I found I had been almost four hours climbing out. At that moment, Frank poked a red face over the rim. He was in shirt sleeves, sweating freely, and wore a frown I had never seen before. He puffed like a porpoise, and at first could hardly speak.

“Where were — you — all?” he panted. “Say! but mebbe this hasn’t been a chase! Jim and Wallace an’ me went tumblin’ down after the dogs, each one lookin’ out for his perticilar dog, an’ darn me if I don’t believe his lion, too. Don took one oozin’ down the canyon, with me hot-footin’ it after him. An’ somewhere he treed thet lion, right below me, in a box canyon, sort of an offshoot of the second rim, an’ I couldn’t locate him. I blamed near killed myself more’n once. Look at my knuckles! Barked em slidin’ about a mile down a smooth wall. I thought once the lion had jumped Don, but soon I heard him barkin’ again. All thet time I heard Sounder, an’ once I heard the pup. Jim yelled, an’ somebody was shootin’. But I couldn’t find nobody, or make nobody hear me. Thet canyon is a mighty deceivin’ place. You’d never think so till you go down. I wouldn’t climb up it again for all the lions in Buckskin. Hello, there comes Jim oozin’ up.”

Jim appeared just over the rim, and when he got up to us, dusty, torn and fagged out, with Don, Tige and Ranger showing signs of collapse, we all blurted out questions. But Jim took his time.

“Shore thet canyon is one hell of a place,” he began finally. “Where was everybody? Tige and the pup went down with me an’ treed a cougar. Yes, they did, an’ I set under a pinyon holdin’ the pup, while Tige kept the cougar treed. I yelled an’ yelled. After about an hour or two, Wallace came poundin’ down like a giant. It was a sure thing we’d get the cougar; an’ Wallace was takin’ his picture when the blamed cat jumped. It was embarrassin’, because he wasn’t polite about how he jumped. We scattered some, an’ when Wallace got his gun, the cougar was humpin’ down the slope, an’ he was goin’ so fast an’ the pinyons was so thick thet Wallace couldn’t get a fair shot, an’ missed. Tige an’ the pup was so scared by the shots they wouldn’t take the trail again. I heard some one shoot about a million times, an’ shore thought the cougar was done for. Wallace went plungin’ down the slope an’ I followed. I couldn’t keep up with him — he shore takes long steps — an’ I lost him. I’m reckonin’ he went over the second wall. Then I made tracks for the top. Boys, the way you can see an’ hear things down in thet canyon, an’ the way you can’t hear an’ see things is pretty funny.”

“If Wallace went over the second rim wall, will he get back to-day?” we all asked.

“Shore, there’s no tellin’.”

We waited, lounged, and slept for three hours, and were beginning to worry about our comrade when he hove in sight eastward, along the rim. He walked like a man whose next step would be his last. When he reached us, he fell flat, and lay breathing heavily for a while.

“Somebody once mentioned Israel Putnam’s ascent of a hill,” he said slowly. “With all respect to history and a patriot, I wish to say Putnam never saw a hill!”

“Ooze for camp,” called out Frank.

Five o’clock found us round a bright fire, all casting ravenous eyes at a smoking supper. The smell of the Persian meat would have made a wolf of a vegetarian. I devoured four chops, and could not have been counted in the running. Jim opened a can of maple syrup which he had been saving for a grand occasion, and Frank went him one better with two cans of peaches. How glorious to be hungry — to feel the craving for food, and to be grateful for it, to realize that the best of life lies in the daily needs of existence, and to battle for them!

Nothing could be stronger than the simple enumeration and statement of the facts of Wallace’s experience after he left Jim. He chased the cougar, and kept it in sight, until it went over the second rim wall. Here he dropped over a precipice twenty feet high, to alight on a fan-shaped slide which spread toward the bottom. It began to slip and move by jerks, and then started off steadily, with an increasing roar. He rode an avalanche for one thousand feet. The jar loosened bowlders from the walls. When the slide stopped, Wallace extricated his feet and began to dodge the bowlders. He had only time to jump over the large ones or dart to one side out of their way. He dared not run. He had to watch them coming. One huge stone hurtled over his head and smashed a pinyon tree below.

When these had ceased rolling, and he had passed down to the red shale, he heard Sounder baying near, and knew a cougar had been treed or cornered. Hurdling the stones and dead pinyons, Wallace ran a mile down the slope, only to find he had been deceived in the direction. He sheered off to the left. Sounder’s illusive bay came up from a deep cleft. Wallace plunged into a pinyon, climbed to the ground, skidded down a solid slide, to come upon an impassable the obstacle in the form of a solid wall of red granite. Sounder appeared and came to him, evidently having given up the chase.

Wallace consumed four hours in making the ascent. In the notch of the curve of the second rim wall, he climbed the slippery steps of a waterfall. At one point, if he had not been six feet five inches tall he would have been compelled to attempt retracing his trail — an impossible task. But his height enabled him to reach a root, by which he pulled himself up. Sounder he lassoed a la Jones, and hauled up. At another spot, which Sounder climbed, he lassoed a pinyon above, and walked up with his feet slipping from under him at every step. The knees of his corduroy trousers were holes, as were the elbows of his coat. The sole of his left boot, which he used most in climbing — was gone, and so was his hat.

CHAPTER 15.

JONES ON COUGARS

THE MOUNTAIN LION, or cougar, of our Rocky Mountain region, is nothing more nor less than the panther. He is a little different in shape, color and size, which vary according to his environment. The panther of the Rockies is usually light, taking the grayish hue of the rocks. He is stockier and heavier of build, and stronger of limb than the Eastern species, which difference comes from climbing mountains and springing down the cliffs after his prey.

In regions accessible to man, or where man is encountered even rarely, the cougar is exceedingly shy, seldom or never venturing from cover during the day. He spends the hours of daylight high on the most rugged cliffs, sleeping and basking in the sunshine, and watching with wonderfully keen sight the valleys below. His hearing equals his sight, and if danger threatens, he always hears it in time to skulk away unseen. At night he steals down the mountain side toward deer or elk he has located during the day. Keeping to the lowest ravines and thickets, he creeps upon his prey. His cunning and ferocity are keener and more savage in proportion to the length of time he has been without food. As he grows hungrier and thinner, his skill and fierce strategy correspondingly increase. A well-fed cougar will creep upon and secure only about one in seven of the deer, elk, antelope or mountain sheep that he stalks. But a starving cougar is another animal. He creeps like a snake, is as sure on the scent as a vulture, makes no more noise than a shadow, and he hides behind a stone or bush that would scarcely conceal a rabbit. Then he springs with terrific force, and intensity of purpose, and seldom fails to reach his victim, and once the claws of a starved lion touch flesh, they never let go.

A cougar seldom pursues his quarry after he has leaped and missed, either from disgust or failure, or knowledge that a second attempt would be futile. The animal making the easiest prey for the cougar is the elk. About every other elk attacked falls a victim. Deer are more fortunate, the ratio being one dead to five leaped at. The antelope, living on the lowlands or upland meadows, escapes nine times out of ten; and the mountain sheep, or bighorn, seldom falls to the onslaught of his enemy.

Once the lion gets a hold with the great forepaw, every movement of the struggling prey sinks the sharp, hooked claws deeper. Then as quickly as is possible, the lion fastens his teeth in the throat of his prey and grips till it is dead. In this way elk have carried lions for many rods. The lion seldom tears the skin of the neck, and never, as is generally supposed, sucks the blood of its victim; but he cuts into the side, just behind the foreshoulder, and eats the liver first. He rolls the skin back as neatly and tightly as a person could do it. When he has gorged himself, he drags the carcass into a ravine or dense thicket, and rakes leaves, sticks or dirt over it to hide it from other animals. Usually he returns to his cache on the second night, and after that the frequency of his visits depends on the supply of fresh prey. In remote regions, unfrequented by man, the lion will guard his cache from coyote and buzzards.

In sex there are about five female lions to one male. This is caused by the jealous and vicious disposition of the male. It is a fact that the old Toms kill every young lion they can catch. Both male and female of the litter suffer alike until after weaning time, and then only the males. In this matter wise animal logic is displayed by the Toms. The domestic cat, to some extent, possesses the same trait. If the litter is destroyed, the mating time is sure to come about regardless of the season. Thus this savage trait of the lions prevents overproduction, and breeds a hardy and intrepid race. If by chance or that cardinal feature of animal life — the survival of the fittest — a young male lion escapes to the weaning time, even after that he is persecuted. Young male lions have been killed and found to have had their flesh beaten until it was a mass of bruises and undoubtedly it had been the work of an old Tom. Moreover, old males and females have been killed, and found to be in the same bruised condition. A feature, and a conclusive one, is the fact that invariably the female is suckling her young at this period, and sustains the bruises in desperately defending her litter.

It is astonishing how cunning, wise and faithful an old lioness is. She seldom leaves her kittens. From the time they are six weeks old she takes them out to train them for the battles of life, and the struggle continues from birth to death. A lion hardly ever dies naturally. As soon as night descends, the lioness stealthily stalks forth, and because of her little ones, takes very short steps. The cubs follow, stepping in their mother’s tracks. When she crouches for game, each little lion crouches also, and each one remains perfectly still until she springs, or signals them to come. If she secures the prey, they all gorge themselves. After the feast the mother takes her back trail, stepping in the tracks she made coming down the mountain. And the cubs are very careful to follow suit, and not to leave marks of their trail in the soft snow. No doubt this habit is practiced to keep their deadly enemies in ignorance of their existence. The old Toms and white hunters are their only foes. Indians never kill a lion. This trick of the lions has fooled many a hunter, concerning not only the direction, but particularly the number.

The only successful way to hunt lions is with trained dogs. A good hound can trail them for several hours after the tracks have been made, and on a cloudy or wet day can hold the scent much longer. In snow the hound can trail for three or four days after the track has been made.

When Jones was game warden of the Yellowstone National Park, he had unexampled opportunities to hunt cougars and learn their habits. All the cougars in that region of the Rockies made a rendezvous of the game preserve. Jones soon procured a pack of hounds, but as they had been trained to run deer, foxes and coyotes he had great trouble. They would break on the trail of these animals, and also on elk and antelope just when this was farthest from his wish. He soon realized that to train the hounds was a sore task. When they refused to come back at his call, he stung them with fine shot, and in this manner taught obedience. But obedience was not enough; the hounds must know how to follow and tree a lion. With this in mind, Jones decided to catch a lion alive and give his dogs practical lessons.

A few days after reaching this decision, he discovered the tracks of two lions in the neighborhood of Mt. Everett. The hounds were put on the trail and followed it into an abandoned coal shaft. Jones recognized this as his opportunity, and taking his lasso and an extra rope, he crawled into the hole. Not fifteen feet from the opening sat one of the cougars, snarling and spitting. Jones promptly lassoed it, passed his end of the lasso round a side prop of the shaft, and out to the soldiers who had followed him. Instructing them not to pull till he called, he cautiously began to crawl by the cougar, with the intention of getting farther back and roping its hind leg, so as to prevent disaster when the soldiers pulled it out. He accomplished this, not without some uneasiness in regard to the second lion, and giving the word to his companions, soon had his captive hauled from the shaft and tied so tightly it could not move.

Jones took the cougar and his hounds to an open place in the park, where there were trees, and prepared for a chase. Loosing the lion, he held his hounds back a moment, then let them go. Within one hundred yards the cougar climbed a tree, and the dogs saw the performance. Taking a forked stick, Jones mounted up to the cougar, caught it under the jaw with the stick, and pushed it out. There was a fight, a scramble, and the cougar dashed off to run up another tree. In this manner, he soon trained his hounds to the pink of perfection.

Jones discovered, while in the park, that the cougar is king of all the beasts of North America. Even a grizzly dashed away in great haste when a cougar made his appearance. At the road camp, near Mt. Washburn, during the fall of 1904, the bears, grizzlies and others, were always hanging round the cook tent. There were cougars also, and almost every evening, about dusk, a big fellow would come parading past the tent. The bears would grunt furiously and scamper in every direction. It was easy to tell when a cougar was in the neighborhood, by the peculiar grunts and snorts of the bears, and the sharp, distinct, alarmed yelps of coyotes. A lion would just as lief kill a coyote as any other animal and he would devour it, too. As to the fighting of cougars and grizzlies, that was a mooted question, with the credit on the side of the former.

The story of the doings of cougars, as told in the snow, was intensely fascinating and tragic! How they stalked deer and elk, crept to within springing distance, then crouched flat to leap, was as easy to read as if it had been told in print. The leaps and bounds were beyond belief. The longest leap on a level measured eighteen and one-half feet. Jones trailed a half-grown cougar, which in turn was trailing a big elk. He found where the cougar had struck his game, had clung for many rods, to be dashed off by the low limb of a spruce tree. The imprint of the body of the cougar was a foot deep in the snow; blood and tufts of hair covered the place. But there was no sign of the cougar renewing the chase.

In rare cases cougars would refuse to run, or take to trees. One day Jones followed the hounds, eight in number, to come on a huge Tom holding the whole pack at bay. He walked to and fro, lashing his tail from side to side, and when Jones dashed up, he coolly climbed a tree. Jones shot the cougar, which, in falling, struck one of the hounds, crippling him. This hound would never approach a tree after this incident, believing probably that the cougar had sprung upon him.

Usually the hounds chased their quarry into a tree long before Jones rode up. It was always desirable to kill the animal with the first shot. If the cougar was wounded, and fell or jumped among the dogs, there was sure to be a terrible fight, and the best dogs always received serious injuries, if they were not killed outright. The lion would seize a hound, pull him close, and bite him in the brain.

Jones asserted that a cougar would usually run from a hunter, but that this feature was not to be relied upon. And a wounded cougar was as dangerous as a tiger. In his hunts Jones carried a shotgun, and shells loaded with ball for the cougar, and others loaded with fine shot for the hounds. One day, about ten miles from the camp, the hounds took a trail and ran rapidly, as there were only a few inches of snow. Jones found a large lion had taken refuge in a tree that had fallen against another, and aiming at the shoulder of the beast, he fired both barrels. The cougar made no sign he had been hit. Jones reloaded and fired at the head. The old fellow growled fiercely, turned in the tree and walked down head first, something he would not have been able to do had the tree been upright. The hounds were ready for him, but wisely attacked in the rear. Realizing he had been shooting fine shot at the animal, Jones began a hurried search for a shell loaded with ball. The lion made for him, compelling him to dodge behind trees. Even though the hounds kept nipping the cougar, the persistent fellow still pursued the hunter. At last Jones found the right shell, just as the cougar reached for him. Major, the leader of the hounds, darted bravely in, and grasped the leg of the beast just in the nick of time. This enabled Jones to take aim and fire at close range, which ended the fight. Upon examination, it was discovered the cougar had been half-blinded by the fine shot, which accounted for the ineffectual attempts he had made to catch Jones.

The mountain lion rarely attacks a human being for the purpose of eating. When hungry he will often follow the tracks of people, and under favorable circumstances may ambush them. In the park where game is plentiful, no one has ever known a cougar to follow the trail of a person; but outside the park lions have been known to follow hunters, and particularly stalk little children. The Davis family, living a few miles north of the park, have had children pursued to the very doors of their cabin. And other families relate similar experiences. Jones heard of only one fatality, but he believes that if the children were left alone in the woods, the cougars would creep closer and closer, and when assured there was no danger, would spring to kill.

Jones never heard the cry of a cougar in the National Park, which strange circumstance, considering the great number of the animals there, he believed to be on account of the abundance of game. But he had heard it when a boy in Illinois, and when a man all over the West, and the cry was always the same, weird and wild, like the scream of a terrified woman. He did not understand the significance of the cry, unless it meant hunger, or the wailing mourn of a lioness for her murdered cubs.

The destructiveness of this savage species was murderous. Jones came upon one old Tom’s den, where there was a pile of nineteen elk, mostly yearlings. Only five or six had been eaten. Jones hunted this old fellow for months, and found that the lion killed on the average three animals a week. The hounds got him up at length, and chased him to the Yellowstone River, which he swam at a point impassable for man or horse. One of the dogs, a giant bloodhound named Jack, swam the swift channel, kept on after the lion, but never returned. All cougars have their peculiar traits and habits, the same as other creatures, and all old Toms have strongly marked characteristics, but this one was the most destructive cougar Jones ever knew.

During Jones’s short sojourn as warden in the park, he captured numerous cougars alive, and killed seventy-two.

CHAPTER 16.

KITTY

IT SEEMED MY eyelids had scarcely touched when Jones’s exasperating, yet stimulating, yell aroused me. Day was breaking. The moon and stars shone with wan luster. A white, snowy frost silvered the forest. Old Moze had curled close beside me, and now he gazed at me reproachfully and shivered. Lawson came hustling in with the horses. Jim busied himself around the campfire. My fingers nearly froze while I saddled my horse.

At five o’clock we were trotting up the slope of Buckskin, bound for the section of ruined rim wall where we had encountered the convention of cougars. Hoping to save time, we took a short cut, and were soon crossing deep ravines.

The sunrise coloring the purple curtain of cloud over the canyon was too much for me, and I lagged on a high ridge to watch it, thus falling behind my more practical companions. A far-off “Waa-hoo!” brought me to a realization of the day’s stern duty and I hurried Satan forward on the trail.

I came suddenly upon our leader, leading his horse through the scrub pinyon on the edge of the canyon, and I knew at once something had happened, for he was closely scrutinizing the ground.

“I declare this beats me all hollow!” began Jones. “We might be hunting rabbits instead of the wildest animals on the continent. We jumped a bunch of lions in this clump of pinyon. There must have been at least four. I thought first we’d run upon an old lioness with cubs, but all the trails were made by full-grown lions. Moze took one north along the rim, same as the other day, but the lion got away quick. Frank saw one lion. Wallace is following Sounder down into the first hollow. Jim has gone over the rim wall after Don. There you are! Four lions playing tag in broad daylight on top of this wall! I’m inclined to believe Clarke didn’t exaggerate. But confound the luck! the hounds have split again. They’re doing their best, of course, and it’s up to us to stay with them. I’m afraid we’ll lose some of them. Hello! I hear a signal. That’s from Wallace. Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo! There he is, coming out of the hollow.”

The tall Californian reached us presently with Sounder beside him. He reported that the hound had chased a lion into an impassable break. We then joined Frank on a jutting crag of the canyon wall.

“Waa-hoo!” yelled Jones. There was no answer except the echo, and it rolled up out of the chasm with strange, hollow mockery.

“Don took a cougar down this slide,” said Frank. “I saw the brute, an’ Don was makin’ him hump. A — ha! There! Listen to thet!”

From the green and yellow depths soared the faint yelp of a hound.

“That’s Don! that’s Don!” cried Jones. “He’s hot on something. Where’s Sounder? Hyar, Sounder! By George! there he goes down the slide. Hear him! He’s opened up! Hi! Hi! Hi!”

The deep, full mellow bay of the hound came ringing on the clear air.

“Wallace, you go down. Frank and I will climb out on that pointed crag. Grey, you stay here. Then we’ll have the slide between us. Listen and watch!”

From my promontory I watched Wallace go down with his gigantic strides, sending the rocks rolling and cracking; and then I saw Jones and Frank crawl out to the end of a crumbling ruin of yellow wall which threatened to go splintering and thundering down into the abyss.

I thought, as I listened to the penetrating voice of the hound, that nowhere on earth could there be a grander scene for wild action, wild life. My position afforded a commanding view over a hundred miles of the noblest and most sublime work of nature. The rim wall where I stood sheered down a thousand feet, to meet a long wooded slope which cut abruptly off into another giant precipice; a second long slope descended, and jumped off into what seemed the grave of the world. Most striking in that vast void were the long, irregular points of rim wall, protruding into the Grand Canyon. From Point Sublime to the Pink Cliffs of Utah there were twelve of these colossal capes, miles apart, some sharp, some round, some blunt, all rugged and bold. The great chasm in the middle was full of purple smoke. It seemed a mighty sepulcher from which misty fumes rolled upward. The turrets, mesas, domes, parapets and escarpments of yellow and red rock gave the appearance of an architectural work of giant hands. The wonderful river of silt, the blood-red, mystic and sullen Rio Colorado, lay hidden except in one place far away, where it glimmered wanly. Thousands of colors were blended before my rapt gaze. Yellow predominated, as the walls and crags lorded it over the lower cliffs and tables; red glared in the sunlight; green softened these two, and then purple and violet, gray, blue and the darker hues shaded away into dim and distinct obscurity.

Excited yells from my companions on the other crag recalled me to the living aspect of the scene. Jones was leaning far down in a niche, at seeming great hazard of life, yelling with all the power of his strong lungs. Frank stood still farther out on a cracked point that made me tremble, and his yell reenforced Jones’s. From far below rolled up a chorus of thrilling bays and yelps, and Jim’s call, faint, but distinct on that wonderfully thin air, with its unmistakable note of warning.

Then on the slide I saw a lion headed for the rim wall and climbing fast. I added my exultant cry to the medley, and I stretched my arms wide to that illimitable void and gloried in a moment full to the brim of the tingling joy of existence. I did not consider how painful it must have been to the toiling lion. It was only the spell of wild environment, of perilous yellow crags, of thin, dry air, of voice of man and dog, of the stinging expectation of sharp action, of life.

I watched the lion growing bigger and bigger. I saw Don and Sounder run from the pinyon into the open slide, and heard their impetuous burst of wild yelps as they saw their game. Then Jones’s clarion yell made me bound for my horse. I reached him, was about to mount, when Moze came trotting toward me. I caught the old gladiator. When he heard the chorus from below, he plunged like a mad bull. With both arms round him I held on. I vowed never to let him get down that slide. He howled and tore, but I held on. My big black horse with ears laid back stood like a rock.

I heard the pattering of little sliding rocks below; stealthy padded footsteps and hard panting breaths, almost like coughs; then the lion passed out of the slide not twenty feet away. He saw us, and sprang into the pinyon scrub with the leap of a scared deer.

Samson himself could no longer have held Moze. Away he darted with his sharp, angry bark. I flung myself upon Satan and rode out to see Jones ahead and Frank flashing through the green on the white horse.

At the end of the pinyon thicket Satan overhauled Jones’s bay, and we entered the open forest together. We saw Frank glinting across the dark pines.

“Hi! Hi!” yelled the Colonel.

No need was there to whip or spur those magnificent horses. They were fresh; the course was open, and smooth as a racetrack, and the impelling chorus of the hounds was in full blast. I gave Satan a loose rein, and he stayed neck and neck with the bay. There was not a log, nor a stone, nor a gully. The hollows grew wider and shallower as we raced along, and presently disappeared altogether. The lion was running straight from the canyon, and the certainty that he must sooner or later take to a tree, brought from me a yell of irresistible wild joy.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” answered Jones.

The whipping wind with its pine-scented fragrance, warm as the breath of summer, was intoxicating as wine. The huge pines, too kingly for close communion with their kind, made wide arches under which the horses stretched out long and low, with supple, springy, powerful strides. Frank’s yell rang clear as a bell. We saw him curve to the right, and took his yell as a signal for us to cut across. Then we began to close in on him, and to hear more distinctly the baying of the hounds.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” bawled Jones, and his great trumpet voice rolled down the forest glades.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” I screeched, in wild recognition of the spirit of the moment.

Fast as they were flying, the bay and the black responded to our cries, and quickened, strained and lengthened under us till the trees sped by in blurs.

There, plainly in sight ahead ran the hounds, Don leading, Sounder next, and Moze not fifty yards, behind a desperately running lion.

There are all-satisfying moments of life. That chase through the open forest, under the stately pines, with the wild, tawny quarry in plain sight, and the glad staccato yelps of the hounds filling my ears and swelling my heart, with the splendid action of my horse carrying me on the wings of the wind, was glorious answer and fullness to the call and hunger of a hunter’s blood.

But as such moments must be, they were brief. The lion leaped gracefully into the air, splintering the bark from a pine fifteen feet up, and crouched on a limb. The hounds tore madly round the tree.

“Full-grown female,” said Jones calmly, as we dismounted, “and she’s ours. We’ll call her Kitty.”

Kitty was a beautiful creature, long, slender, glossy, with white belly and black-tipped ears and tail. She did not resemble the heavy, grim-faced brute that always hung in the air of my dreams. A low, brooding menacing murmur, that was not a snarl nor a growl, came from her. She watched the dogs with bright, steady eyes, and never so much as looked at us.

The dogs were worth attention, even from us, who certainly did not need to regard them from her personally hostile point of view. Don stood straight up, with his forepaws beating the air; he walked on his hind legs like the trained dog in the circus; he yelped continuously, as if it agonized him to see the lion safe out of his reach. Sounder had lost his identity. Joy had unhinged his mind and had made him a dog of double personality. He had always been unsocial with me, never responding to my attempts to caress him, but now he leaped into my arms and licked my face. He had always hated Jones till that moment, when he raised his paws to his master’s breast. And perhaps more remarkable, time and time again he sprang up at Satan’s nose, whether to bite him or kiss him, I could not tell. Then old Moze, he of Grand Canyon fame, made the delirious antics of his canine fellows look cheap. There was a small, dead pine that had fallen against a drooping branch of the tree Kitty had taken refuge in, and up this narrow ladder Moze began to climb. He was fifteen feet up, and Kitty had begun to shift uneasily, when Jones saw him.

“Hyar! you wild coon hyar! Git out of that! Come down! Come down!”

But Jones might have been in the bottom of the canyon for all Moze heard or cared. Jones removed his coat, carefully coiled his lasso, and began to go hand and knee up the leaning pine.

“Hyar! dad-blast you, git down!” yelled Jones, and he kicked Moze off. The persistent hound returned, and followed Jones to a height of twenty feet, where again he was thrust off.

“Hold him, one of you!” called Jones.

“Not me,” said Frank, “I’m lookin’ out for myself.”

“Same here,” I cried, with a camera in one hand and a rifle in the other. “Let Moze climb if he likes.”

Climb he did, to be kicked off again. But he went back. It was a way he had. Jones at last recognized either his own waste of time or Moze’s greatness, for he desisted, allowing the hound to keep close after him.

The cougar, becoming uneasy, stood up, reached for another limb, climbed out upon it, and peering down, spat hissingly at Jones. But he kept steadily on with Moze close on his heels. I snapped my camera on them when Kitty was not more than fifteen feet above them. As Jones reached the snag which upheld the leaning tree, she ran out on her branch, and leaped into an adjoining pine. It was a good long jump, and the weight of the animal bent the limb alarmingly.

Jones backed down, and laboriously began to climb the other tree. As there were no branches low down, he had to hug the trunk with arms and legs as a boy climbs. His lasso hampered his progress. When the slow ascent was accomplished up to the first branch, Kitty leaped back into her first perch. Strange to say Jones did not grumble; none of his characteristic impatience manifested itself. I supposed with him all the exasperating waits, vexatious obstacles, were little things preliminary to the real work, to which he had now come. He was calm and deliberate, and slid down the pine, walked back to the leaning tree, and while resting a moment, shook his lasso at Kitty. This action fitted him, somehow; it was so compatible with his grim assurance.

To me, and to Frank, also, for that matter, it was all new and startling, and we were as excited as the dogs. We kept continually moving about, Frank mounted, and I afoot, to get good views of the cougar. When she crouched as if to leap, it was almost impossible to remain under the tree, and we kept moving.

Once more Jones crept up on hands and knees. Moze walked the slanting pine like a rope performer. Kitty began to grow restless. This time she showed both anger and impatience, but did not yet appear frightened. She growled low and deep, opened her mouth and hissed, and swung her tufted tail faster and faster.

“Look out, Jones! look out!” yelled Frank warningly.

Jones, who had reached the trunk of the tree, halted and slipped round it, placing it between him and Kitty. She had advanced on her limb, a few feet above Jones, and threateningly hung over.

Jones backed down a little till she crossed to another branch, then he resumed his former position.

“Watch below,” called he.

Hardly any doubt was there as to how we watched. Frank and I were all eyes, except very high and throbbing hearts. When Jones thrashed the lasso at Kitty we both yelled. She ran out on the branch and jumped. This time she fell short of her point, clutched a dead snag, which broke, letting her through a bushy branch from where she hung head downward. For a second she swung free, then reaching toward the tree caught it with front paws, ran down like a squirrel, and leaped off when thirty feet from the ground. The action was as rapid as it was astonishing.

Like a yellow rubber ball she bounded up, and fled with the yelping hounds at her heels. The chase was short. At the end of a hundred yards Moze caught up with her and nipped her. She whirled with savage suddenness, and lunged at Moze, but he cunningly eluded the vicious paws. Then she sought safety in another pine.

Frank, who was as quick as the hounds, almost rode them down in his eagerness. While Jones descended from his perch, I led the two horses down the forest.

This time the cougar was well out on a low spreading branch. Jones conceived the idea of raising the loop of his lasso on a long pole, but as no pole of sufficient length could be found, he tried from the back of his horse. The bay walked forward well enough; when, however, he got under the beast and heard her growl, he reared and almost threw Jones. Frank’s horse could not be persuaded to go near the tree. Satan evinced no fear of the cougar, and without flinching carried Jones directly beneath the limb and stood with ears back and forelegs stiff.

“Look at that! look at that!” cried Jones, as the wary cougar pawed the loop aside. Three successive times did Jones have the lasso just ready to drop over her neck, when she flashed a yellow paw and knocked the noose awry. Then she leaped far out over the waiting dogs, struck the ground with a light, sharp thud, and began to run with the speed of a deer. Frank’s cowboy training now stood us in good stead. He was off like a shot and turned the cougar from the direction of the canyon. Jones lost not a moment in pursuit, and I, left with Jones’s badly frightened bay, got going in time to see the race, but not to assist. For several hundred yards Kitty made the hounds appear slow. Don, being swiftest, gained on her steadily toward the close of the dash, and presently was running under her upraised tail. On the next jump he nipped her. She turned and sent him reeling. Sounder came flying up to bite her flank, and at the same moment fierce old Moze closed in on her. The next instant a struggling mass whirled on the ground. Jones and Frank, yelling like demons, almost rode over it. The cougar broke from her assailants, and dashing away leaped on the first tree. It was a half-dead pine with short snags low down and a big branch extending out over a ravine.

“I think we can hold her now,” said Jones. The tree proved to be a most difficult one to climb. Jones made several ineffectual attempts before he reached the first limb, which broke, giving him a hard fall. This calmed me enough to make me take notice of Jones’s condition. He was wet with sweat and covered with the black pitch from the pines; his shirt was slit down the arm, and there was blood on his temple and his hand. The next attempt began by placing a good-sized log against the tree, and proved to be the necessary help. Jones got hold of the second limb and pulled himself up.

As he kept on, Kitty crouched low as if to spring upon him. Again Frank and I sent warning calls to him, but he paid no attention to us or to the cougar, and continued to climb. This worried Kitty as much as it did us. She began to move on the snags, stepping from one to the other, every moment snarling at Jones, and then she crawled up. The big branch evidently took her eye. She tried several times to climb up to it, but small snags close together made her distrustful. She walked uneasily out upon two limbs, and as they bent with her weight she hurried back. Twice she did this, each time looking up, showing her desire to leap to the big branch. Her distress became plainly evident; a child could have seen that she feared she would fall. At length, in desperation, she spat at Jones, then ran out and leaped. She all but missed the branch, but succeeded in holding to it and swinging to safety. Then she turned to her tormentor, and gave utterance to most savage sounds. As she did not intimidate her pursuer, she retreated out on the branch, which sloped down at a deep angle, and crouched on a network of small limbs.

When Jones had worked up a little farther, he commanded a splendid position for his operations. Kitty was somewhat below him in a desirable place, yet the branch she was on joined the tree considerably above his head. Jones cast his lasso. It caught on a snag. Throw after throw he made with like result. He recoiled and recast nineteen times, to my count, when Frank made a suggestion.

“Rope those dead snags an’ break them off.”

This practical idea Jones soon carried out, which left him a clear path. The next fling of the lariat caused the cougar angrily to shake her head. Again Jones sent the noose flying. She pulled it off her back and bit it savagely.

Though very much excited, I tried hard to keep sharp, keen faculties alert so as not to miss a single detail of the thrilling scene. But I must have failed, for all of a sudden I saw how Jones was standing in the tree, something I had not before appreciated. He had one hand hold, which he could not use while recoiling the lasso, and his feet rested upon a precariously frail-appearing, dead snag. He made eleven casts of the lasso, all of which bothered Kitty, but did not catch her. The twelfth caught her front paw. Jones jerked so quickly and hard that he almost lost his balance, and he pulled the noose off. Patiently he recoiled the lasso.

“That’s what I want. If I can get her front paw she’s ours. My idea is to pull her off the limb, let her hang there, and then lasso her hind legs.”

Another cast, the unlucky thirteenth, settled the loop perfectly round her neck. She chewed on the rope with her front teeth and appeared to have difficulty in holding it.

“Easy! Easy! Ooze thet rope! Easy!” yelled the cowboy.

Cautiously Jones took up the slack and slowly tightened the nose, then with a quick jerk, fastened it close round her neck.

We heralded this achievement with yells of triumph that made the forest ring.

Our triumph was short-lived. Jones had hardly moved when the cougar shot straight out into the air. The lasso caught on a branch, hauling her up short, and there she hung in mid-air, writhing, struggling and giving utterance to sounds terribly human. For several seconds she swung, slowly descending, in which frenzied time I, with ruling passion uppermost, endeavored to snap a picture of her.

The unintelligible commands Jones was yelling to Frank and me ceased suddenly with a sharp crack of breaking wood. Then crash! Jones fell out of the tree. The lasso streaked up, ran over the limb, while the cougar dropped pell-mell into the bunch of waiting, howling dogs.

The next few moments it was impossible for me to distinguish what actually transpired. A great flutter of leaves whirled round a swiftly changing ball of brown and black and yellow, from which came a fiendish clamor.

Then I saw Jones plunge down the ravine and bounce here and there in mad efforts to catch the whipping lasso. He was roaring in a way that made all his former yells merely whispers. Starting to run, I tripped on a root, fell prone on my face into the ravine, and rolled over and over until I brought up with a bump against a rock.

What a tableau rivited my gaze! It staggered me so I did not think of my camera. I stood transfixed not fifteen feet from the cougar. She sat on her haunches with body well drawn back by the taut lasso to which Jones held tightly. Don was standing up with her, upheld by the hooked claws in his head. The cougar had her paws outstretched; her mouth open wide, showing long, cruel, white fangs; she was trying to pull the head of the dog to her. Don held back with all his power, and so did Jones. Moze and Sounder were tussling round her body. Suddenly both ears of the dog pulled out, slit into ribbons. Don had never uttered a sound, and once free, he made at her again with open jaws. One blow sent him reeling and stunned. Then began again that wrestling whirl.

“Beat off the dogs! Beat off the dogs!” roared Jones. “She’ll kill them! She’ll kill them!”

Frank and I seized clubs and ran in upon the confused furry mass, forgetful of peril to ourselves. In the wild contagion of such a savage moment the minds of men revert wholly to primitive instincts. We swung our clubs and yelled; we fought all over the bottom of the ravine, crashing through the bushes, over logs and stones. I actually felt the soft fur of the cougar at one fleeting instant. The dogs had the strength born of insane fighting spirit. At last we pulled them to where Don lay, half-stunned, and with an arm tight round each, I held them while Frank turned to help Jones.

The disheveled Jones, bloody, grim as death, his heavy jaw locked, stood holding to the lasso. The cougar, her sides shaking with short, quick pants, crouched low on the ground with eyes of purple fire.

“For God’s sake, get a half-hitch on the saplin’!” called the cowboy.

His quick grasp of the situation averted a tragedy. Jones was nearly exhausted, even as he was beyond thinking for himself or giving up. The cougar sprang, a yellow, frightful flash. Even as she was in the air, Jones took a quick step to one side and dodged as he threw his lasso round the sapling. She missed him, but one alarmingly outstretched paw grazed his shoulder. A twist of Jones’s big hand fastened the lasso — and Kitty was a prisoner. While she fought, rolled, twisted, bounded, whirled, writhed with hissing, snarling fury, Jones sat mopping the sweat and blood from his face.

Kitty’s efforts were futile; she began to weaken from the choking. Jones took another rope, and tightening a noose around her back paws, which he lassoed as she rolled over, he stretched her out. She began to contract her supple body, gave a savage, convulsive spring, which pulled Jones flat on the ground, then the terrible wrestling started again. The lasso slipped over her back paws. She leaped the whole length of the other lasso. Jones caught it and fastened it more securely; but this precaution proved unnecessary, for she suddenly sank down either exhausted or choked, and gasped with her tongue hanging out. Frank slipped the second noose over her back paws, and Jones did likewise with a third lasso over her right front paw. These lassoes Jones tied to different saplings.

“Now you are a good Kitty,” said Jones, kneeling by her. He took a pair of clippers from his hip pocket, and grasping a paw in his powerful fist he calmly clipped the points of the dangerous claws. This done, he called to me to get the collar and chain that were tied to his saddle. I procured them and hurried back. Then the old buffalo hunter loosened the lasso which was round her neck, and as soon as she could move her head, he teased her to bite a club. She broke two good sticks with her sharp teeth, but the third, being solid, did not break. While she was chewing it Jones forced her head back and placed his heavy knee on the club. In a twinkling he had strapped the collar round her neck. The chain he made fast to the sapling. After removing the club from her mouth he placed his knee on her neck, and while her head was in this helpless position he dexterously slipped a loop of thick copper wire over her nose, pushed it back and twisted it tight Following this, all done with speed and precision, he took from his pocket a piece of steel rod, perhaps one-quarter of an inch thick, and five inches long. He pushed this between Kitty’s jaws, just back of her great white fangs, and in front of the copper wire. She had been shorn of her sharp weapons; she was muzzled, bound, helpless, an object to pity.

Lastly Jones removed the three lassoes. Kitty slowly gathered her lissom body in a ball and lay panting, with the same brave wildfire in her eyes. Jones stroked her black-tipped ears and ran his hand down her glossy fur. All the time he had kept up a low monotone, talking to her in the strange language he used toward animals. Then he rose to his feet.

“We’ll go back to camp now, and get a pack, saddle and horse,” he said. “She’ll be safe here. We’ll rope her again, tie her up, throw her over a pack-saddle, and take her to camp.”

To my utter bewilderment the hounds suddenly commenced fighting among themselves. Of all the vicious bloody dog-fights I ever saw that was the worst. I began to belabor them with a club, and Frank sprang to my assistance. Beating had no apparent effect. We broke a dozen sticks, and then Frank grappled with Moze and I with Sounder. Don kept on fighting either one till Jones secured him. Then we all took a rest, panting and weary.

“What’s it mean?” I ejaculated, appealing to Jones.

“Jealous, that’s all. Jealous over the lion.”

We all remained seated, men and hounds, a sweaty, dirty, bloody, ragged group. I discovered I was sorry for Kitty. I forgot all the carcasses of deer and horses, the brutality of this species of cat; and even forgot the grim, snarling yellow devil that had leaped at me. Kitty was beautiful and helpless. How brave she was, too! No sign of fear shone in her wonderful eyes, only hate, defiance, watchfulness.

On the ride back to camp Jones expressed himself thus: “How happy I am that I can keep this lion and the others we are going to capture, for my own. When I was in the Yellowstone Park I did not get to keep one of the many I captured. The military officials took them from me.”

When we reached camp Lawson was absent, but fortunately Old Baldy browsed near at hand, and was easily caught. Frank said he would rather take Old Baldy for the cougar than any other horse we had. Leaving me in camp, he and Jones rode off to fetch Kitty.

About five o’clock they came trotting up through the forest with Jim, who had fallen in with them on the way. Old Baldy had remained true to his fame — nothing, not even a cougar bothered him. Kitty, evidently no worse for her experience, was chained to a pine tree about fifty feet from the campfire.

Wallace came riding wearily in, and when he saw the captive, he greeted us with an exultant yell. He got there just in time to see the first special features of Kitty’s captivity. The hounds surrounded her, and could not be called off. We had to beat them. Whereupon the six jealous canines fell to fighting among themselves, and fought so savagely as to be deaf to our cries and insensible to blows. They had to be torn apart and chained.

About six o’clock Lawson loped in with the horses. Of course he did not know we had a cougar, and no one seemed interested enough to inform him. Perhaps only Frank and I thought of it; but I saw a merry snap in Frank’s eyes, and kept silent. Kitty had hidden behind the pine tree. Lawson, astride Jones’ pack horse, a crochety animal, reined in just abreast of the tree, and leisurely threw his leg over the saddle. Kitty leaped out to the extent of her chain, and fairly exploded in a frightful cat-spit.

Lawson had stated some time before that he was afraid of cougars, which was a weakness he need not have divulged in view of what happened. The horse plunged, throwing him ten feet, and snorting in terror, stampeded with the rest of the bunch and disappeared among the pines.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell a feller?” reproachfully growled the Arizonian. Frank and Jim held each other upright, and the rest of us gave way to as hearty if not as violent mirth.

We had a gay supper, during which Kitty sat her pine and watched our every movement.

“We’ll rest up for a day or two,” said Jones “Things have commenced to come our way. If I’m not mistaken we’ll bring an old Tom alive into camp. But it would never do for us to get a big Tom in the fix we had Kitty to-day. You see, I wanted to lasso her front paw, pull her off the limb, tie my end of the lasso to the tree, and while she hung I’d go down and rope her hind paws. It all went wrong to-day, and was as tough a job as I ever handled.”

Not until late next morning did Lawson corral all the horses. That day we lounged in camp mending broken bridles, saddles, stirrups, lassoes, boots, trousers, leggins, shirts and even broken skins.

During this time I found Kitty a most interesting study. She reminded me of an enormous yellow kitten. She did not appear wild or untamed until approached. Then she slowly sank down, laid back her ears, opened her mouth and hissed and spat, at the same time throwing both paws out viciously. Kitty may have rested, but did not sleep. At times she fought her chain, tugging and straining at it, and trying to bite it through. Everything in reach she clawed, particularly the bark of the tree. Once she tried to hang herself by leaping over a low limb. When any one walked by her she crouched low, evidently imagining herself unseen. If one of us walked toward her, or looked at her, she did not crouch. At other times, noticeably when no one was near, she would roll on her back and extend all four paws in the air. Her actions were beautiful, soft, noiseless, quick and subtle.

The day passed, as all days pass in camp, swiftly and pleasantly, and twilight stole down upon us round the ruddy fire. The wind roared in the pines and lulled to repose; the lonesome, friendly coyote barked; the bells on the hobbled horses jingled sweetly; the great watch stars blinked out of the blue.

The red glow of the burning logs lighted up Jones’s calm, cold face. Tranquil, unalterable and peaceful it seemed; yet beneath the peace I thought I saw a suggestion of wild restraint, of mystery, of unslaked life.

Strangely enough, his next words confirmed my last thought.

“For forty years I’ve had an ambition. It’s to get possession of an island in the Pacific, somewhere between Vancouver and Alaska, and then go to Siberia and capture a lot of Russian sables. I’d put them on the island and cross them with our silver foxes. I’m going to try it next year if I can find the time.”

The ruling passion and character determine our lives. Jones was sixty-three years old, yet the thing that had ruled and absorbed his mind was still as strong as the longing for freedom in Kitty’s wild heart.

Hours after I had crawled into my sleeping-bag, in the silence of night I heard her working to get free. In darkness she was most active, restless, intense. I heard the clink of her chain, the crack of her teeth, the scrape of her claws. How tireless she was. I recalled the wistful light in her eyes that saw, no doubt, far beyond the campfire to the yellow crags, to the great downward slopes, to freedom. I slipped my elbow out of the bag and raised myself. Dark shadows were hovering under the pines. I saw Kitty’s eyes gleam like sparks, and I seemed to see in them the hate, the fear, the terror she had of the clanking thing that bound her!

I shivered, perhaps from the cold night wind which moaned through the pines; I saw the stars glittering pale and far off, and under their wan light the still, set face of Jones, and blanketed forms of my other companions.

The last thing I remembered before dropping into dreamless slumber was hearing a bell tinkle in the forest, which I recognized as the one I had placed on Satan.

CHAPTER 17.

CONCLUSION

KITTY WAS NOT the only cougar brought into camp alive. The ensuing days were fruitful of cougars and adventure. There were more wild rides to the music of the baying hounds, and more heart-breaking canyon slopes to conquer, and more swinging, tufted tails and snarling savage faces in the pinyons. Once again, I am sorry to relate, I had to glance down the sights of the little Remington, and I saw blood on the stones. Those eventful days sped by all too soon.

When the time for parting came it took no little discussion to decide on the quickest way of getting me to a railroad. I never fully appreciated the inaccessibility of the Siwash until the question arose of finding a way out. To return on our back trail would require two weeks, and to go out by the trail north to Utah meant half as much time over the same kind of desert. Lawson came to our help, however, with the information that an occasional prospector or horse hunter crossed the canyon from the Saddle, where a trail led down to the river.

“I’ve heard the trail is a bad one,” said Lawson, “an’ though I never seen it, I reckon it could be found. After we get to the Saddle we’ll build two fires on one of the high points an’ keep them burnin’ well after dark. If Mr. Bass, who lives on the other side, sees the fires he’ll come down his trail next mornin’ an’ meet us at the river. He keeps a boat there. This is takin’ a chance, but I reckon it’s worth while.”

So it was decided that Lawson and Frank would try to get me out by way of the canyon; Wallace intended to go by the Utah route, and Jones was to return at once to his range and his buffalo.

That night round the campfire we talked over the many incidents of the hunt. Jones stated he had never in his life come so near getting his “everlasting” as when the big bay horse tripped on a canyon slope and rolled over him. Notwithstanding the respect with which we regarded his statement we held different opinions. Then, with the unfailing optimism of hunters, we planned another hunt for the next year.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Jones. “Up in Utah there’s a wild region called Pink Cliffs. A few poor sheep-herders try to raise sheep in the valleys. They wouldn’t be so poor if it was not for the grizzly and black bears that live on the sheep. We’ll go up there, find a place where grass and water can be had, and camp. We’ll notify the sheep-herders we are there for business. They’ll be only too glad to hustle in with news of a bear, and we can get the hounds on the trail by sun-up. I’ll have a dozen hounds then, maybe twenty, and all trained. We’ll put every black bear we chase up a tree, and we’ll rope and tie him. As to grizzlies — well, I’m not saying so much. They can’t climb trees, and they are not afraid of a pack of hounds. If we rounded up a grizzly, got him cornered, and threw a rope on him — there’d be some fun, eh, Jim?”

“Shore there would,” Jim replied.

On the strength of this I stored up food for future thought and thus reconciled myself to bidding farewell to the purple canyons and shaggy slopes of Buckskin Mountain.

At five o’clock next morning we were all stirring. Jones yelled at the hounds and untangled Kitty’s chain. Jim was already busy with the biscuit dough. Frank shook the frost off the saddles. Wallace was packing. The merry jangle of bells came from the forest, and presently Lawson appeared driving in the horses. I caught my black and saddled him, then realizing we were soon to part I could not resist giving him a hug.

An hour later we all stood at the head of the trail leading down into the chasm. The east gleamed rosy red. Powell’s Plateau loomed up in the distance, and under it showed the dark-fringed dip in the rim called the Saddle. Blue mist floated round the mesas and domes.

Lawson led the way down the trail. Frank started Old Baldy with the pack.

“Come,” he called, “be oozin’ along.”

I spoke the last good-by and turned Satan into the narrow trail. When I looked back Jones stood on the rim with the fresh glow of dawn shining on his face. The trail was steep, and claimed my attention and care, but time and time again I gazed back. Jones waved his hand till a huge jutting cliff walled him from view. Then I cast my eyes on the rough descent and the wonderful void beneath me. In my mind lingered a pleasing consciousness of my last sight of the old plainsman. He fitted the scene; he belonged there among the silent pines and the yellow crags.

The Last Trail

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER I

TWILIGHT OF A certain summer day, many years ago, shaded softly down over the wild Ohio valley bringing keen anxiety to a traveler on the lonely river trail. He had expected to reach Fort Henry with his party on this night, thus putting a welcome end to the long, rough, hazardous journey through the wilderness; but the swift, on-coming dusk made it imperative to halt. The narrow, forest-skirted trail, difficult to follow in broad daylight, apparently led into gloomy aisles in the woods. His guide had abandoned him that morning, making excuse that his services were no longer needed; his teamster was new to the frontier, and, altogether, the situation caused him much uneasiness.

“I wouldn’t so much mind another night in camp, if the guide had not left us,” he said in a low tone to the teamster.

That worthy shook his shaggy head, and growled while he began unhitching the horses.

“Uncle,” said a young man, who had clambered out from the wagon, “we must be within a few miles of Fort Henry.”

“How d’ye know we’re near the fort?” interrupted the teamster, “or safe, either, fer thet matter? I don’t know this country.”

“The guide assured me we could easily make Fort Henry by sundown.”

“Thet guide! I tell ye, Mr. Sheppard — —”

“Not so loud. Do not alarm my daughter,” cautioned the man who had been called Sheppard.

“Did ye notice anythin’ queer about thet guide?” asked the teamster, lowering his voice. “Did ye see how oneasy he was last night? Did it strike ye he left us in a hurry, kind of excited like, in spite of his offhand manner?”

“Yes, he acted odd, or so it seemed to me,” replied Sheppard. “How about you, Will?”

“Now that I think of it, I believe he was queer. He behaved like a man who expected somebody, or feared something might happen. I fancied, however, that it was simply the manner of a woodsman.”

“Wal, I hev my opinion,” said the teamster, in a gruff whisper. “Ye was in a hurry to be a-goin’, an’ wouldn’t take no advice. The fur-trader at Fort Pitt didn’t give this guide Jenks no good send off. Said he wasn’t well-known round Pitt, ‘cept he could handle a knife some.”

“What is your opinion?” asked Sheppard, as the teamster paused.

“Wal, the valley below Pitt is full of renegades, outlaws an’ hoss-thieves. The redskins ain’t so bad as they used to be, but these white fellers are wusser’n ever. This guide Jenks might be in with them, that’s all. Mebbe I’m wrong. I hope so. The way he left us looks bad.”

“We won’t borrow trouble. If we have come all this way without seeing either Indian or outlaw — in fact, without incident — I feel certain we can perform the remainder of the journey in safety.” Then Mr. Sheppard raised his voice. “Here, Helen, you lazy girl, come out of that wagon. We want some supper. Will, you gather some firewood, and we’ll soon give this gloomy little glen a more cheerful aspect.”

As Mr. Sheppard turned toward the canvas-covered wagon a girl leaped lightly down beside him. She was nearly as tall as he.

“Is this Fort Henry?” she asked, cheerily, beginning to dance around him. “Where’s the inn? I’m so hungry. How glad I am to get out of that wagon! I’d like to run. Isn’t this a lonesome, lovely spot?”

A camp-fire soon crackled with hiss and sputter, and fragrant wood-smoke filled the air. Steaming kettle, and savory steaks of venison cheered the hungry travelers, making them forget for the time the desertion of their guide and the fact that they might be lost. The last glow faded entirely out of the western sky. Night enveloped the forest, and the little glade was a bright spot in the gloom.

The flickering light showed Mr. Sheppard to be a well-preserved old man with gray hair and ruddy, kindly face. The nephew had a boyish, frank expression. The girl was a splendid specimen of womanhood. Her large, laughing eyes were as dark as the shadows beneath the trees.

Suddenly a quick start on Helen’s part interrupted the merry flow of conversation. She sat bolt upright with half-averted face.

“Cousin, what is the matter?” asked Will, quickly.

Helen remained motionless.

“My dear,” said Mr. Sheppard sharply.

“I heard a footstep,” she whispered, pointing with trembling finger toward the impenetrable blackness beyond the camp-fire.

All could hear a soft patter on the leaves. Then distinct footfalls broke the silence.

The tired teamster raised his shaggy head and glanced fearfully around the glade. Mr. Sheppard and Will gazed doubtfully toward the foliage; but Helen did not change her position. The travelers appeared stricken by the silence and solitude of the place. The faint hum of insects, and the low moan of the night wind, seemed accentuated by the almost painful stillness.

“A panther, most likely,” suggested Sheppard, in a voice which he intended should be reassuring. “I saw one to-day slinking along the trail.”

“I’d better get my gun from the wagon,” said Will.

“How dark and wild it is here!” exclaimed Helen nervously. “I believe I was frightened. Perhaps I fancied it — there! Again — listen. Ah!”

Two tall figures emerged from the darkness into the circle of light, and with swift, supple steps gained the camp-fire before any of the travelers had time to move. They were Indians, and the brandishing of their tomahawks proclaimed that they were hostile.

“Ugh!” grunted the taller savage, as he looked down upon the defenseless, frightened group.

As the menacing figures stood in the glare of the fire gazing at the party with shifty eyes, they presented a frightful appearance. Fierce lineaments, all the more so because of bars of paint, the hideous, shaven heads adorned with tufts of hair holding a single feather, sinewy, copper-colored limbs suggestive of action and endurance, the general aspect of untamed ferocity, appalled the travelers and chilled their blood.

Grunts and chuckles manifested the satisfaction with which the Indians fell upon the half-finished supper. They caused it to vanish with astonishing celerity, and resembled wolves rather than human beings in their greediness.

Helen looked timidly around as if hoping to see those who would aid, and the savages regarded her with ill humor. A movement on the part of any member of the group caused muscular hands to steal toward the tomahawks.

Suddenly the larger savage clutched his companion’s knee. Then lifting his hatchet, shook it with a significant gesture in Sheppard’s face, at the same time putting a finger on his lips to enjoin silence. Both Indians became statuesque in their immobility. They crouched in an attitude of listening, with heads bent on one side, nostrils dilated, and mouths open.

One, two, three moments passed. The silence of the forest appeared to be unbroken; but ears as keen as those of a deer had detected some sound. The larger savage dropped noiselessly to the ground, where he lay stretched out with his ear to the ground. The other remained immovable; only his beady eyes gave signs of life, and these covered every point.

Finally the big savage rose silently, pointed down the dark trail, and strode out of the circle of light. His companion followed close at his heels. The two disappeared in the black shadows like specters, as silently as they had come.

“Well!” breathed Helen.

“I am immensely relieved!” exclaimed Will.

“What do you make of such strange behavior?” Sheppard asked of the teamster.

“I’spect they got wind of somebody; most likely thet guide, an’ll be back again. If they ain’t, it’s because they got switched off by some signs or tokens, skeered, perhaps, by the scent of the wind.”

Hardly had he ceased speaking when again the circle of light was invaded by stalking forms.

“I thought so! Here comes the skulkin’ varmints,” whispered the teamster.

But he was wrong. A deep, calm voice spoke the single word: “Friends.”

Two men in the brown garb of woodsmen approached. One approached the travelers; the other remained in the background, leaning upon a long, black rifle.

Thus exposed to the glare of the flames, the foremost woodsman presented a singularly picturesque figure. His costume was the fringed buckskins of the border. Fully six feet tall, this lithe-limbed young giant had something of the wild, free grace of the Indian in his posture.

He surveyed the wondering travelers with dark, grave eyes.

“Did the reddys do any mischief?” he asked.

“No, they didn’t harm us,” replied Sheppard. “They ate our supper, and slipped off into the woods without so much as touching one of us. But, indeed, sir, we are mighty glad to see you.”

Will echoed this sentiment, and Helen’s big eyes were fastened upon the stranger in welcome and wonder.

“We saw your fire blazin’ through the twilight, an’ came up just in time to see the Injuns make off.”

“Might they not hide in the bushes and shoot us?” asked Will, who had listened to many a border story at Fort Pitt. “It seems as if we’d make good targets in this light.”

The gravity of the woodsman’s face relaxed.

“You will pursue them?” asked Helen.

“They’ve melted into the night-shadows long ago,” he replied. “Who was your guide?”

“I hired him at Fort Pitt. He left us suddenly this morning. A big man, with black beard and bushy eyebrows. A bit of his ear had been shot or cut out,” Sheppard replied.

“Jenks, one of Bing Legget’s border-hawks.”

“You have his name right. And who may Bing Legget be?”

“He’s an outlaw. Jenks has been tryin’ to lead you into a trap. Likely he expected those Injuns to show up a day or two ago. Somethin’ went wrong with the plan, I reckon. Mebbe he was waitin’ for five Shawnees, an’ mebbe he’ll never see three of ’em again.”

Something suggestive, cold, and grim, in the last words did not escape the listeners.

“How far are we from Fort Henry?” asked Sheppard.

“Eighteen miles as a crow flies; longer by trail.”

“Treachery!” exclaimed the old man. “We were no more than that this morning. It is indeed fortunate that you found us. I take it you are from Fort Henry, and will guide us there? I am an old friend of Colonel Zane’s. He will appreciate any kindness you may show us. Of course you know him?”

“I am Jonathan Zane.”

Sheppard suddenly realized that he was facing the most celebrated scout on the border. In Revolutionary times Zane’s fame had extended even to the far Atlantic Colonies.

“And your companion?” asked Sheppard with keen interest. He guessed what might be told. Border lore coupled Jonathan Zane with a strange and terrible character, a border Nemesis, a mysterious, shadowy, elusive man, whom few pioneers ever saw, but of whom all knew.

“Wetzel,” answered Zane.

With one accord the travelers gazed curiously at Zane’s silent companion. In the dim background of the glow cast by the fire, he stood a gigantic figure, dark, quiet, and yet with something intangible in his shadowy outline.

Suddenly he appeared to merge into the gloom as if he really were a phantom. A warning, “Hist!” came from the bushes.

With one swift kick Zane scattered the camp-fire.

The travelers waited with bated breaths. They could hear nothing save the beating of their own hearts; they could not even see each other.

“Better go to sleep,” came in Zane’s calm voice. What a relief it was! “We’ll keep watch, an’ at daybreak guide you to Fort Henry.”

CHAPTER II

COLONEL ZANE, A rugged, stalwart pioneer, with a strong, dark face, sat listening to his old friend’s dramatic story. At its close a genial smile twinkled in his fine dark eyes.

“Well, well, Sheppard, no doubt it was a thrilling adventure to you,” he said. “It might have been a little more interesting, and doubtless would, had I not sent Wetzel and Jonathan to look you up.”

“You did? How on earth did you know I was on the border? I counted much on the surprise I should give you.”

“My Indian runners leave Fort Pitt ahead of any travelers, and acquaint me with particulars.”

“I remembered a fleet-looking Indian who seemed to be asking for information about us, when we arrived at Fort Pitt. I am sorry I did not take the fur-trader’s advice in regard to the guide. But I was in such a hurry to come, and didn’t feel able to bear the expense of a raft or boat that we might come by river. My nephew brought considerable gold, and I all my earthly possessions.”

“All’s well that ends well,” replied Colonel Zane cheerily. “But we must thank Providence that Wetzel and Jonathan came up in the nick of time.”

“Indeed, yes. I’m not likely to forget those fierce savages. How they slipped off into the darkness! I wonder if Wetzel pursued them? He disappeared last night, and we did not see him again. In fact we hardly had a fair look at him. I question if I should recognize him now, unless by his great stature.”

“He was ahead of Jonathan on the trail. That is Wetzel’s way. In times of danger he is seldom seen, yet is always near. But come, let us go out and look around. I am running up a log cabin which will come in handy for you.”

They passed out into the shade of pine and maples. A winding path led down a gentle slope. On the hillside under a spreading tree a throng of bearded pioneers, clad in faded buckskins and wearing white-ringed coonskin caps, were erecting a log cabin.

“Life here on the border is keen, hard, invigorating,” said Colonel Zane. “I tell you, George Sheppard, in spite of your gray hair and your pretty daughter, you have come out West because you want to live among men who do things.”

“Colonel, I won’t gainsay I’ve still got hot blood,” replied Sheppard; “but I came to Fort Henry for land. My old home in Williamsburg has fallen into ruin together with the fortunes of my family. I brought my daughter and my nephew because I wanted them to take root in new soil.”

“Well, George, right glad we are to have you. Where are your sons? I remember them, though ’tis sixteen long years since I left old Williamsburg.”

“Gone. The Revolution took my sons. Helen is the last of the family.”

“Well, well, indeed that’s hard. Independence has cost you colonists as big a price as border-freedom has us pioneers. Come, old friend, forget the past. A new life begins for you here, and it will be one which gives you much. See, up goes a cabin; that will soon be your home.”

Sheppard’s eye marked the sturdy pioneers and a fast diminishing pile of white-oak logs.

“Ho-heave!” cried a brawny foreman.

A dozen stout shoulders sagged beneath a well-trimmed log.

“Ho-heave!” yelled the foreman.

“See, up she goes,” cried the colonel, “and to-morrow night she’ll shed rain.”

They walked down a sandy lane bounded on the right by a wide, green clearing, and on the left by a line of chestnuts and maples, outposts of the thick forests beyond.

“Yours is a fine site for a house,” observed Sheppard, taking in the clean-trimmed field that extended up the hillside, a brook that splashed clear and noisy over the stones to tarry in a little grass-bound lake which forced water through half-hollowed logs into a spring house.

“I think so; this is the fourth time I’ve put up a’ cabin on this land,” replied the colonel.

“How’s that?”

“The redskins are keen to burn things.”

Sheppard laughed at the pioneer’s reply. “It’s not difficult, Colonel Zane, to understand why Fort Henry has stood all these years, with you as its leader. Certainly the location for your cabin is the finest in the settlement. What a view!”

High upon a bluff overhanging the majestic, slow-winding Ohio, the colonel’s cabin afforded a commanding position from which to view the picturesque valley. Sheppard’s eye first caught the outline of the huge, bold, time-blackened fort which frowned protectingly over surrounding log-cabins; then he saw the wide-sweeping river with its verdant islands, golden, sandy bars, and willow-bordered shores, while beyond, rolling pastures of wavy grass merging into green forests that swept upward with slow swell until lost in the dim purple of distant mountains.

“Sixteen years ago I came out of the thicket upon yonder bluff, and saw this valley. I was deeply impressed by its beauty, but more by its wonderful promise.”

“Were you alone?”

“I and my dog. There had been a few white men before me on the river; but I was the first to see this glorious valley from the bluff. Now, George, I’ll let you have a hundred acres of well-cleared land. The soil is so rich you can raise two crops in one season. With some stock, and a few good hands, you’ll soon be a busy man.”

“I didn’t expect so much land; I can’t well afford to pay for it.”

“Talk to me of payment when the farm yields an income. Is this young nephew of yours strong and willing?”

“He is, and has gold enough to buy a big farm.”

“Let him keep his money, and make a comfortable home for some good lass. We marry our young people early out here. And your daughter, George, is she fitted for this hard border life?”

“Never fear for Helen.”

“The brunt of this pioneer work falls on our women. God bless them, how heroic they’ve been! The life here is rough for a man, let alone a woman. But it is a man’s game. We need girls, girls who will bear strong men. Yet I am always saddened when I see one come out on the border.”

“I think I knew what I was bringing Helen to, and she didn’t flinch,” said Sheppard, somewhat surprised at the tone in which the colonel spoke.

“No one knows until he has lived on the border. Well, well, all this is discouraging to you. Ah! here is Miss Helen with my sister.”

The colonel’s fine, dark face lost its sternness, and brightened with a smile.

“I hope you rested well after your long ride.”

“I am seldom tired, and I have been made most comfortable. I thank you and your sister,” replied the girl, giving Colonel Zane her hand, and including both him and his sister in her grateful glance.

The colonel’s sister was a slender, handsome young woman, whose dark beauty showed to most effective advantage by the contrast with her companion’s fair skin, golden hair, and blue eyes.

Beautiful as was Helen Sheppard, it was her eyes that held Colonel Zane irresistibly. They were unusually large, of a dark purple-blue that changed, shaded, shadowed with her every thought.

“Come, let us walk,” Colonel Zane said abruptly, and, with Mr. Sheppard, followed the girls down the path. He escorted them to the fort, showed a long room with little squares cut in the rough-hewn logs, many bullet holes, fire-charred timbers, and dark stains, terribly suggestive of the pain and heroism which the defense of that rude structure had cost.

Under Helen’s eager questioning Colonel Zane yielded to his weakness for story-telling, and recited the history of the last siege of Fort Henry; how the renegade Girty swooped down upon the settlement with hundreds of Indians and British soldiers; how for three days of whistling bullets, flaming arrows, screeching demons, fire, smoke, and attack following attack, the brave defenders stood at their posts, there to die before yielding.

“Grand!” breathed Helen, and her eyes glowed. “It was then Betty Zane ran with the powder? Oh! I’ve heard the story.”

“Let my sister tell you of that,” said the colonel, smiling.

“You! Was it you?” And Helen’s eyes glowed brighter with the light of youth’s glory in great deeds.

“My sister has been wedded and widowed since then,” said Colonel Zane, reading in Helen’s earnest scrutiny of his sister’s calm, sad face a wonder if this quiet woman could be the fearless and famed Elizabeth Zane.

Impulsively Helen’s hand closed softly over her companion’s. Out of the girlish sympathetic action a warm friendship was born.

“I imagine things do happen here,” said Mr. Sheppard, hoping to hear more from Colonel Zane.

The colonel smiled grimly.

“Every summer during fifteen years has been a bloody one on the border. The sieges of Fort Henry, and Crawford’s defeat, the biggest things we ever knew out here, are matters of history; of course you are familiar with them. But the numberless Indian forays and attacks, the women who have been carried into captivity by renegades, the murdered farmers, in fact, ceaseless war never long directed at any point, but carried on the entire length of the river, are matters known only to the pioneers. Within five miles of Fort Henry I can show you where the laurel bushes grow three feet high over the ashes of two settlements, and many a clearing where some unfortunate pioneer had staked his claim and thrown up a log cabin, only to die fighting for his wife and children. Between here and Fort Pitt there is only one settlement, Yellow Creek, and most of its inhabitants are survivors of abandoned villages farther up the river. Last summer we had the Moravian Massacre, the blackest, most inhuman deed ever committed. Since then Simon Girty and his bloody redskins have lain low.”

“You must always have had a big force,” said Sheppard.

“We’ve managed always to be strong enough, though there never were a large number of men here. During the last siege I had only forty in the fort, counting men, women and boys. But I had pioneers and women who could handle a rifle, and the best bordermen on the frontier.”

“Do you make a distinction between pioneers and bordermen?” asked Sheppard.

“Indeed, yes. I am a pioneer; a borderman is an Indian hunter, or scout. For years my cabins housed Andrew Zane, Sam and John McCollock, Bill Metzar, and John and Martin Wetzel, all of whom are dead. Not one saved his scalp. Fort Henry is growing; it has pioneers, rivermen, soldiers, but only two bordermen. Wetzel and Jonathan are the only ones we have left of those great men.”

“They must be old,” mused Helen, with a dreamy glow still in her eyes.

“Well, Miss Helen, not in years, as you mean. Life here is old in experience; few pioneers, and no bordermen, live to a great age. Wetzel is about forty, and my brother Jonathan still a young man; but both are old in border lore.”

Earnestly, as a man who loves his subject, Colonel Zane told his listeners of these two most prominent characters of the border. Sixteen years previously, when but boys in years, they had cast in their lot with his, and journeyed over the Virginian Mountains, Wetzel to devote his life to the vengeful calling he had chosen, and Jonathan to give rein to an adventurous spirit and love of the wilds. By some wonderful chance, by cunning, woodcraft, or daring, both men had lived through the years of border warfare which had brought to a close the careers of all their contemporaries.

For many years Wetzel preferred solitude to companionship; he roamed the wilderness in pursuit of Indians, his life-long foes, and seldom appeared at the settlement except to bring news of an intended raid of the savages. Jonathan also spent much time alone in the woods, or scouting along the river. But of late years a friendship had ripened between the two bordermen. Mutual interest had brought them together on the trail of a noted renegade, and when, after many long days of patient watching and persistent tracking, the outlaw paid an awful penalty for his bloody deeds, these lone and silent men were friends.

Powerful in build, fleet as deer, fearless and tireless, Wetzel’s peculiar bloodhound sagacity, ferocity, and implacability, balanced by Jonathan’s keen intelligence and judgment caused these bordermen to become the bane of redmen and renegades. Their fame increased with each succeeding summer, until now the people of the settlement looked upon wonderful deeds of strength and of woodcraft as a matter of course, rejoicing in the power and skill with which these men were endowed.

By common consent the pioneers attributed any mysterious deed, from the finding of a fat turkey on a cabin doorstep, to the discovery of a savage scalped and pulled from his ambush near a settler’s spring, to Wetzel and Jonathan. All the more did they feel sure of this conclusion because the bordermen never spoke of their deeds. Sometimes a pioneer living on the outskirts of the settlement would be awakened in the morning by a single rifle shot, and on peering out would see a dead Indian lying almost across his doorstep, while beyond, in the dim, gray mist, a tall figure stealing away. Often in the twilight on a summer evening, while fondling his children and enjoying his smoke after a hard day’s labor in the fields, this same settler would see the tall, dark figure of Jonathan Zane step noiselessly out of a thicket, and learn that he must take his family and flee at once to the fort for safety. When a settler was murdered, his children carried into captivity by Indians, and the wife given over to the power of some brutal renegade, tragedies wofully frequent on the border, Wetzel and Jonathan took the trail alone. Many a white woman was returned alive and, sometimes, unharmed to her relatives; more than one maiden lived to be captured, rescued, and returned to her lover, while almost numberless were the bones of brutal redmen lying in the deep and gloomy woods, or bleaching on the plains, silent, ghastly reminders of the stern justice meted out by these two heroes.

“Such are my two bordermen, Miss Sheppard. The fort there, and all these cabins, would be only black ashes, save for them, and as for us, our wives and children — God only knows.”

“Haven’t they wives and children, too?” asked Helen.

“No,” answered Colonel Zane, with his genial smile. “Such joys are not for bordermen.”

“Why not? Fine men like them deserve happiness,” declared Helen.

“It is necessary we have such,” said the colonel simply, “and they cannot be bordermen unless free as the air blows. Wetzel and Jonathan have never had sweethearts. I believe Wetzel loved a lass once; but he was an Indian-killer whose hands were red with blood. He silenced his heart, and kept to his chosen, lonely life. Jonathan does not seem to realize that women exist to charm, to please, to be loved and married. Once we twitted him about his brothers doing their duty by the border, whereupon he flashed out: ‘My life is the border’s: my sweetheart is the North Star!’”

Helen dreamily watched the dancing, dimpling waves that broke on the stones of the river shore. All unconscious of the powerful impression the colonel’s recital had made upon her, she was feeling the greatness of the lives of these bordermen, and the glory it would now be for her to share with others the pride in their protection.

“Say, Sheppard, look here,” said Colonel Zane, on the return to his cabin, “that girl of yours has a pair of eyes. I can’t forget the way they flashed! They’ll cause more trouble here among my garrison than would a swarm of redskins.”

“No! You don’t mean it! Out here in this wilderness?” queried Sheppard doubtfully.

“Well, I do.”

“O Lord! What a time I’ve had with that girl! There was one man especially, back home, who made our lives miserable. He was rich and well born; but Helen would have none of him. He got around me, old fool that I am! Practically stole what was left of my estate, and gambled it away when Helen said she’d die before giving herself to him. It was partly on his account that I brought her away. Then there were a lot of moon-eyed beggars after her all the time, and she’s young and full of fire. I hoped I’d marry her to some farmer out here, and end my days in peace.”

“Peace? With eyes like those? Never on this green earth,” and Colonel Zane laughed as he slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, old fellow. You can’t help her having those changing dark-blue eyes any more than you can help being proud of them. They have won me, already, susceptible old backwoodsman! I’ll help you with this spirited young lady. I’ve had experience, Sheppard, and don’t you forget it. First, my sister, a Zane all through, which is saying enough. Then as sweet and fiery a little Indian princess as ever stepped in a beaded moccasin, and since, more than one beautiful, impulsive creature. Being in authority, I suppose it’s natural that all the work, from keeping the garrison ready against an attack, to straightening out love affairs, should fall upon me. I’ll take the care off your shoulders; I’ll keep these young dare-devils from killing each other over Miss Helen’s favors. I certainly — Hello! There are strangers at the gate. Something’s up.”

Half a dozen rough-looking men had appeared from round the corner of the cabin, and halted at the gate.

“Bill Elsing, and some of his men from Yellow Creek,” said Colonel Zane, as he went toward the group.

“Hullo, Kurnel,” was the greeting of the foremost, evidently the leader. “We’ve lost six head of hosses over our way, an’ are out lookin’ ’em up.”

“The deuce you have! Say, this horse-stealing business is getting interesting. What did you come in for?”

“Wal, we meets Jonathan on the ridge about sunup, an’ he sent us back lickety-cut. Said he had two of the hosses corralled, an’ mebbe Wetzel could git the others.”

“That’s strange,” replied Colonel Zane thoughtfully.

“‘Pears to me Jack and Wetzel hev some redskins treed, an’ didn’t want us to spile the fun. Mebbe there wasn’t scalps enough to go round. Anyway, we come in, an’ we’ll hang up here to-day.”

“Bill, who’s doing this horse-stealing?”

“Damn if I know. It’s a mighty pert piece of work. I’ve a mind it’s some slick white fellar, with Injuns backin’ him.”

Helen noted, when she was once more indoors, that Colonel Zane’s wife appeared worried. Her usual placid expression was gone. She put off the playful overtures of her two bright boys with unusual indifference, and turned to her husband with anxious questioning as to whether the strangers brought news of Indians. Upon being assured that such was not the case, she looked relieved, and explained to Helen that she had seen armed men come so often to consult the colonel regarding dangerous missions and expeditions, that the sight of a stranger caused her unspeakable dread.

“I am accustomed to danger, yet I can never control my fears for my husband and children,” said Mrs. Zane. “The older I grow the more of a coward I am. Oh! this border life is sad for women. Only a little while ago my brother Samuel McColloch was shot and scalped right here on the river bank. He was going to the spring for a bucket of water. I lost another brother in almost the same way. Every day during the summer a husband and a father fall victim to some murderous Indian. My husband will go in the same way some day. The border claims them all.”

“Bessie, you must not show your fears to our new friend. And, Miss Helen, don’t believe she’s the coward she would make out,” said the colonel’s sister smilingly.

“Betty is right, Bess, don’t frighten her,” said Colonel Zane. “I’m afraid I talked too much to-day. But, Miss Helen, you were so interested, and are such a good listener, that I couldn’t refrain. Once for all let me say that you will no doubt see stirring life here; but there is little danger of its affecting you. To be sure I think you’ll have troubles; but not with Indians or outlaws.”

He winked at his wife and sister. At first Helen did not understand his sally, but then she blushed red all over her fair face.

Some time after that, while unpacking her belongings, she heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs on the rocky road, accompanied by loud voices. Running to the window, she saw a group of men at the gate.

“Miss Sheppard, will you come out?” called Colonel Zane’s sister from the door. “My brother Jonathan has returned.”

Helen joined Betty at the door, and looked over her shoulder.

“Wal, Jack, ye got two on ‘em, anyways,” drawled a voice which she recognized as that of Elsing’s.

A man, lithe and supple, slipped from the back of one of the horses, and, giving the halter to Elsing with a single word, turned and entered the gate. Colonel Zane met him there.

“Well, Jonathan, what’s up?”

“There’s hell to pay,” was the reply, and the speaker’s voice rang clear and sharp.

Colonel Zane laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder, and thus they stood for a moment, singularly alike, and yet the sturdy pioneer was, somehow, far different from the dark-haired borderman.

“I thought we’d trouble in store from the look on your face,” said the colonel calmly. “I hope you haven’t very bad news on the first day, for our old friends from Virginia.”

“Jonathan,” cried Betty when he did not answer the colonel. At her call he half turned, and his dark eyes, steady, strained like those of a watching deer, sought his sister’s face.

“Betty, old Jake Lane was murdered by horse thieves yesterday, and Mabel Lane is gone.”

“Oh!” gasped Betty; but she said nothing more.

Colonel Zane cursed inaudibly.

“You know, Eb, I tried to keep Lane in the settlement for Mabel’s sake. But he wanted to work that farm. I believe horse-stealing wasn’t as much of an object as the girl. Pretty women are bad for the border, or any other place, I guess. Wetzel has taken the trail, and I came in because I’ve serious suspicions — I’ll explain to you alone.”

The borderman bowed gravely to Helen, with a natural grace, and yet a manner that sat awkwardly upon him. The girl, slightly flushed, and somewhat confused by this meeting with the man around whom her romantic imagination had already woven a story, stood in the doorway after giving him a fleeting glance, the fairest, sweetest picture of girlish beauty ever seen.

The men went into the house; but their voices came distinctly through the door.

“Eb, if Bing Legget or Girty ever see that big-eyed lass, they’ll have her even if Fort Henry has to be burned, an’ in case they do get her, Wetzel an’ I’ll have taken our last trail.”

CHAPTER III

SUPPER OVER, COLONEL Zane led his guests to a side porch, where they were soon joined by Mrs. Zane and Betty. The host’s two boys, Noah and Sammy, who had preceded them, were now astride the porch-rail and, to judge by their antics, were riding wild Indian mustangs.

“It’s quite cool,” said Colonel Zane; “but I want you to see the sunset in the valley. A good many of your future neighbors may come over to-night for a word of welcome. It’s the border custom.”

He was about to seat himself by the side of Mr. Sheppard, on a rustic bench, when a Negro maid appeared in the doorway carrying a smiling, black-eyed baby. Colonel Zane took the child and, holding it aloft, said with fatherly pride:

“This is Rebecca Zane, the first girl baby born to the Zanes, and destined to be the belle of the border.”

“May I have her?” asked Helen softly, holding out her arms. She took the child, and placed it upon her knee where its look of solemnity soon changed to one of infantile delight.

“Here come Nell and Jim,” said Mrs. Zane, pointing toward the fort.

“Yes, and there comes my brother Silas with his wife, too,” added Colonel Zane. “The first couple are James Douns, our young minister, and Nell, his wife. They came out here a year or so ago. James had a brother Joe, the finest young fellow who ever caught the border fever. He was killed by one of the Girtys. His was a wonderful story, and some day you shall hear about the parson and his wife.”

“What’s the border fever?” asked Mr. Sheppard.

“It’s what brought you out here,” replied Colonel Zane with a hearty laugh.

Helen gazed with interest at the couple now coming into the yard, and when they gained the porch she saw that the man was big and tall, with a frank, manly bearing, while his wife was a slender little woman with bright, sunny hair, and a sweet, smiling face. They greeted Helen and her father cordially.

Next came Silas Zane, a typical bronzed and bearded pioneer, with his buxom wife. Presently a little group of villagers joined the party. They were rugged men, clad in faded buckskins, and sober-faced women who wore dresses of plain gray linsey. They welcomed the newcomers with simple, homely courtesy. Then six young frontiersmen appeared from around a corner of the cabin, advancing hesitatingly. To Helen they all looked alike, tall, awkward, with brown faces and big hands. When Colonel Zane cheerily cried out to them, they stumbled forward with evident embarrassment, each literally crushing Helen’s hand in his horny palm. Afterward they leaned on the rail and stole glances at her.

Soon a large number of villagers were on the porch or in the yard. After paying their respects to Helen and her father they took part in a general conversation. Two or three girls, the latest callers, were surrounded by half a dozen young fellows, and their laughter sounded high above the hum of voices.

Helen gazed upon this company with mingled feelings of relief and pleasure. She had been more concerned regarding the young people with whom her lot might be cast, than the dangers of which others had told. She knew that on the border there was no distinction of rank. Though she came of an old family, and, during her girlhood, had been surrounded by refinement, even luxury, she had accepted cheerfully the reverses of fortune, and was determined to curb the pride which had been hers. It was necessary she should have friends. Warm-hearted, impulsive and loving, she needed to have around her those in whom she could confide. Therefore it was with sincere pleasure she understood how groundless were her fears and knew that if she did not find good, true friends the fault would be her own. She saw at a glance that the colonel’s widowed sister was her equal, perhaps her superior, in education and breeding, while Nellie Douns was as well-bred and gracious a little lady as she had ever met. Then, the other girls, too, were charming, with frank wholesomeness and freedom.

Concerning the young men, of whom there were about a dozen, Helen had hardly arrived at a conclusion. She liked the ruggedness, the signs of honest worth which clung to them. Despite her youth, she had been much sought after because of her personal attractions, and had thus added experience to the natural keen intuition all women possess. The glances of several of the men, particularly the bold regard of one Roger Brandt, whom Colonel Zane introduced, she had seen before, and learned to dislike. On the whole, however, she was delighted with the prospect of new friends and future prosperity, and she felt even greater pleasure in the certainty that her father shared her gratification.

Suddenly she became aware that the conversation had ceased. She looked up to see the tall, lithe form of Jonathan Zane as he strode across the porch. She could see that a certain constraint had momentarily fallen upon the company. It was an involuntary acknowledgment of the borderman’s presence, of a presence that worked on all alike with a subtle, strong magnetism.

“Ah, Jonathan, come out to see the sunset? It’s unusually fine to-night,” said Colonel Zane.

With hardly more than a perceptible bow to those present, the borderman took a seat near the rail, and, leaning upon it, directed his gaze westward.

Helen sat so near she could have touched him. She was conscious of the same strange feeling, and impelling sense of power, which had come upon her so strongly at first sight of him. More than that, a lively interest had been aroused in her. This borderman was to her a new and novel character. She was amused at learning that here was a young man absolutely indifferent to the charms of the opposite sex, and although hardly admitting such a thing, she believed it would be possible to win him from his indifference. On raising her eyelids, it was with the unconcern which a woman feigns when suspecting she is being regarded with admiring eyes. But Jonathan Zane might not have known of her presence, for all the attention he paid her. Therefore, having a good opportunity to gaze at this borderman of daring deeds, Helen regarded him closely.

He was clad from head to foot in smooth, soft buckskin which fitted well his powerful frame. Beaded moccasins, leggings bound high above the knees, hunting coat laced and fringed, all had the neat, tidy appearance due to good care. He wore no weapons. His hair fell in a raven mass over his shoulders. His profile was regular, with a long, straight nose, strong chin, and eyes black as night. They were now fixed intently on the valley. The whole face gave an impression of serenity, of calmness.

Helen was wondering if the sad, almost stern, tranquility of that face ever changed, when the baby cooed and held out its chubby little hands. Jonathan’s smile, which came quickly, accompanied by a warm light in the eyes, relieved Helen of an unaccountable repugnance she had begun to feel toward the borderman. That smile, brief as a flash, showed his gentle kindness and told that he was not a creature who had set himself apart from human life and love.

As he took little Rebecca, one of his hands touched Helen’s. If he had taken heed of the contact, as any ordinary man might well have, she would, perhaps, have thought nothing about it, but because he did not appear to realize that her hand had been almost inclosed in his, she could not help again feeling his singular personality. She saw that this man had absolutely no thought of her. At the moment this did not awaken resentment, for with all her fire and pride she was not vain; but amusement gave place to a respect which came involuntarily.

Little Rebecca presently manifested the faithlessness peculiar to her sex, and had no sooner been taken upon Jonathan’s knee than she cried out to go back to Helen.

“Girls are uncommon coy critters,” said he, with a grave smile in his eyes. He handed back the child, and once more was absorbed in the setting sun.

Helen looked down the valley to behold the most beautiful spectacle she had ever seen. Between the hills far to the west, the sky flamed with a red and gold light. The sun was poised above the river, and the shimmering waters merged into a ruddy horizon. Long rays of crimson fire crossed the smooth waters. A few purple clouds above caught the refulgence, until aided by the delicate rose and blue space beyond, they became many hued ships sailing on a rainbow sea. Each second saw a gorgeous transformation. Slowly the sun dipped into the golden flood; one by one the clouds changed from crimson to gold, from gold to rose, and then to gray; slowly all the tints faded until, as the sun slipped out of sight, the brilliance gave way to the soft afterglow of warm lights. These in turn slowly toned down into gray twilight.

Helen retired to her room soon afterward, and, being unusually thoughtful, sat down by the window. She reviewed the events of this first day of her new life on the border. Her impressions had been so many, so varied, that she wanted to distinguish them. First she felt glad, with a sweet, warm thankfulness, that her father seemed so happy, so encouraged by the outlook. Breaking old ties had been, she knew, no child’s play for him. She realized also that it had been done solely because there had been nothing left to offer her in the old home, and in a new one were hope and possibilities. Then she was relieved at getting away from the attentions of a man whose persistence had been most annoying to her. From thoughts of her father, and the old life, she came to her new friends of the present. She was so grateful for their kindness. She certainly would do all in her power to win and keep their esteem.

Somewhat of a surprise was it to her, that she reserved for Jonathan Zane the last and most prominent place in her meditations. She suddenly asked herself how she regarded this fighting borderman. She recalled her unbounded enthusiasm for the man as Colonel Zane had told of him; then her first glimpse, and her surprise and admiration at the lithe-limbed young giant; then incredulity, amusement, and respect followed in swift order, after which an unaccountable coldness that was almost resentment. Helen was forced to admit that she did not know how to regard him, but surely he was a man, throughout every inch of his superb frame, and one who took life seriously, with neither thought nor time for the opposite sex. And this last brought a blush to her cheek, for she distinctly remembered she had expected, if not admiration, more than passing notice from this hero of the border.

Presently she took a little mirror from a table near where she sat. Holding it to catch the fast-fading light, she studied her face seriously.

“Helen Sheppard, I think on the occasion of your arrival in a new country a little plain talk will be wholesome. Somehow or other, perhaps because of a crowd of idle men back there in the colonies, possibly from your own misguided fancy, you imagined you were fair to look at. It is well to be undeceived.”

Scorn spoke in Helen’s voice. She was angry because of having been interested in a man, and allowed that interest to betray her into a girlish expectation that he would treat her as all other men had. The mirror, even in the dim light, spoke more truly than she, for it caught the golden tints of her luxuriant hair, the thousand beautiful shadows in her great, dark eyes, the white glory of a face fair as a star, and the swelling outline of neck and shoulders.

With a sudden fiery impetuosity she flung the glass to the floor, where it was broken into several pieces.

“How foolish of me! What a temper I have!” she exclaimed repentantly. “I’m glad I have another glass. Wouldn’t Mr. Jonathan Zane, borderman, Indian fighter, hero of a hundred battles and never a sweetheart, be flattered? No, most decidedly he wouldn’t. He never looked at me. I don’t think I expected that; I’m sure I didn’t want it; but still he might have — Oh! what am I thinking, and he a stranger?”

Before Helen lost herself in slumber on that eventful evening, she vowed to ignore the borderman; assured herself that she did not want to see him again, and, rather inconsistently, that she would cure him of his indifference.

* * * * *

When Colonel Zane’s guests had retired, and the villagers were gone to their homes, he was free to consult with Jonathan.

“Well, Jack,” he said, “I’m ready to hear about the horse thieves.”

“Wetzel makes it out the man who’s runnin’ this hoss-stealin’ is located right here in Fort Henry,” answered the borderman.

The colonel had lived too long on the frontier to show surprise; he hummed a tune while the genial expression faded slowly from his face.

“Last count there were one hundred and ten men at the fort,” he replied thoughtfully. “I know over a hundred, and can trust them. There are some new fellows on the boats, and several strangers hanging round Metzar’s.”

“‘Pears to Lew an’ me that this fellar is a slick customer, an’ one who’s been here long enough to know our hosses an’ where we keep them.”

“I see. Like Miller, who fooled us all, even Betty, when he stole our powder and then sold us to Girty,” rejoined Colonel Zane grimly.

“Exactly, only this fellar is slicker an’ more desperate than Miller.”

“Right you are, Jack, for the man who is trusted and betrays us, must be desperate. Does he realize what he’ll get if we ever find out, or is he underrating us?”

“He knows all right, an’ is matchin’ his cunnin’ against our’n.”

“Tell me what you and Wetzel learned.”

The borderman proceeded to relate the events that had occurred during a recent tramp in the forest with Wetzel. While returning from a hunt in a swamp several miles over the ridge, back of Fort Henry, they ran across the trail of three Indians. They followed this until darkness set in, when both laid down to rest and wait for the early dawn, that time most propitious for taking the savage by surprise. On resuming the trail they found that other Indians had joined the party they were tracking. To the bordermen this was significant of some unusual activity directed toward the settlement. Unable to learn anything definite from the moccasin traces, they hurried up on the trail to find that the Indians had halted.

Wetzel and Jonathan saw from their covert that the savages had a woman prisoner. A singular feature about it all was that the Indians remained in the same place all day, did not light a camp-fire, and kept a sharp lookout. The bordermen crept up as close as safe, and remained on watch during the day and night.

Early next morning, when the air was fading from black to gray, the silence was broken by the snapping of twigs and a tremor of the ground. The bordermen believed another company of Indians was approaching; but they soon saw it was a single white man leading a number of horses. He departed before daybreak. Wetzel and Jonathan could not get a clear view of him owing to the dim light; but they heard his voice, and afterwards found the imprint of his moccasins. They did, however, recognize the six horses as belonging to settlers in Yellow Creek.

While Jonathan and Wetzel were consulting as to what it was best to do, the party of Indians divided, four going directly west, and the others north. Wetzel immediately took the trail of the larger party with the prisoner and four of the horses. Jonathan caught two of the animals which the Indians had turned loose, and tied them in the forest. He then started after the three Indians who had gone northward.

“Well?” Colonel Zane said impatiently, when Jonathan hesitated in his story.

“One got away,” he said reluctantly. “I barked him as he was runnin’ like a streak through the bushes, an’ judged that he was hard hit. I got the hosses, an’ turned back on the trail of the white man.”

“Where did it end?”

“In that hard-packed path near the blacksmith shop. An’ the fellar steps as light as an Injun.”

“He’s here, then, sure as you’re born. We’ve lost no horses yet, but last week old Sam heard a noise in the barn, and on going there found Betty’s mare out of her stall.”

“Some one as knows the lay of the land had been after her,” suggested Jonathan.

“You can bet on that. We’ve got to find him before we lose all the fine horse-flesh we own. Where do these stolen animals go? Indians would steal any kind; but this thief takes only the best.”

“I’m to meet Wetzel on the ridge soon, an’ then we’ll know, for he’s goin’ to find out where the hosses are taken.”

“That’ll help some. On the way back you found where the white girl had been taken from. Murdered father, burned cabin, the usual deviltry.”

“Exactly.”

“Poor Mabel! Do you think this white thief had anything to do with carrying her away?”

“No. Wetzel says that’s Bing Legget’s work. The Shawnees were members of his gang.”

“Well, Jack, what’ll I do?”

“Keep quiet an’ wait,” was the borderman’s answer.

Colonel Zane, old pioneer and frontiersman though he was, shuddered as he went to his room. His brother’s dark look, and his deadly calmness, were significant.

CHAPTER IV

TO THOSE FEW who saw Jonathan Zane in the village, it seemed as if he was in his usual quiet and dreamy state. The people were accustomed to his silence, and long since learned that what little time he spent in the settlement was not given to sociability. In the morning he sometimes lay with Colonel Zane’s dog, Chief, by the side of a spring under an elm tree, and in the afternoon strolled aimlessly along the river bluff, or on the hillside. At night he sat on his brother’s porch smoking a long Indian pipe. Since that day, now a week past, when he had returned with the stolen horses, his movements and habits were precisely what would have been expected of an unsuspicious borderman.

In reality, however, Jonathan was not what he seemed. He knew all that was going on in the settlement. Hardly a bird could have entered the clearing unobserved.

At night, after all the villagers were in bed, he stole cautiously about the stockade, silencing with familiar word the bristling watch-hounds, and went from barn to barn, ending his stealthy tramp at the corral where Colonel Zane kept his thoroughbreds.

But all this scouting by night availed nothing. No unusual event occurred, not even the barking of a dog, a suspicious rustling among the thickets, or whistling of a night-hawk had been heard.

Vainly the borderman strained ears to catch some low night-signal given by waiting Indians to the white traitor within the settlement. By day there was even less to attract the sharp-eyed watcher. The clumsy river boats, half raft, half sawn lumber, drifted down the Ohio on their first and last voyage, discharged their cargoes of grain, liquor, or merchandise, and were broken up. Their crews came back on the long overland journey to Fort Pitt, there to man another craft. The garrison at the fort performed their customary duties; the pioneers tilled the fields; the blacksmith scattered sparks, the wheelwright worked industriously at his bench, and the housewives attended to their many cares. No strangers arrived at Fort Henry. The quiet life of the village was uninterrupted.

Near sunset of a long day Jonathan strolled down the sandy, well-trodden path toward Metzar’s inn. He did not drink, and consequently seldom visited the rude, dark, ill-smelling bar-room. When occasion demanded his presence there, he was evidently not welcome. The original owner, a sturdy soldier and pioneer, came to Fort Henry when Colonel Zane founded the settlement, and had been killed during Girty’s last attack. His successor, another Metzar, was, according to Jonathan’s belief, as bad as the whiskey he dispensed. More than one murder had been committed at the inn; countless fatal knife and tomahawk fights had stained red the hard clay floor; and more than one desperate character had been harbored there. Once Colonel Zane sent Wetzel there to invite a thief and outlaw to quit the settlement, with the not unexpected result that it became necessary the robber be carried out.

Jonathan thought of the bad name the place bore all over the frontier, and wondered if Metzar could tell anything about the horse-thieves. When the borderman bent his tall frame to enter the low-studded door he fancied he saw a dark figure disappear into a room just behind the bar. A roughly-clad, heavily-bearded man turned hastily at the same moment.

“Hullo,” he said gruffly.

“H’ are you, Metzar. I just dropped in to see if I could make a trade for your sorrel mare,” replied Jonathan. Being well aware that the innkeeper would not part with his horse, the borderman had made this announcement as his reason for entering the bar-room.

“Nope, I’ll allow you can’t,” replied Metzar.

As he turned to go, Jonathan’s eyes roamed around the bar-room. Several strangers of shiftless aspect bleared at him.

“They wouldn’t steal a pumpkin,” muttered Jonathan to himself as he left the inn. Then he added suspiciously, “Metzar was talkin’ to some one, an’ ‘peared uneasy. I never liked Metzar. He’ll bear watchin’.”

The borderman passed on down the path thinking of what he had heard against Metzar. The colonel had said that the man was prosperous for an innkeeper who took pelts, grain or meat in exchange for rum. The village gossips disliked him because he was unmarried, taciturn, and did not care for their company. Jonathan reflected also on the fact that Indians were frequently coming to the inn, and this made him distrustful of the proprietor. It was true that Colonel Zane had red-skinned visitors, but there was always good reason for their coming. Jonathan had seen, during the Revolution, more than one trusted man proven to be a traitor, and the conviction settled upon him that some quiet scouting would show up the innkeeper as aiding the horse-thieves if not actually in league with them.

“Good evening, Jonathan Zane.”

This greeting in a woman’s clear voice brought Jonathan out from his reveries. He glanced up to see Helen Sheppard standing in the doorway of her father’s cabin.

“Evenin’, miss,” he said with a bow, and would have passed on.

“Wait,” she cried, and stepped out of the door.

He waited by the gate with a manner which showed that such a summons was novel to him.

Helen, piqued at his curt greeting, had asked him to wait without any idea of what she would say. Coming slowly down the path she felt again a subtle awe of this borderman. Regretting her impulsiveness, she lost confidence.

Gaining the gate she looked up intending to speak; but was unable to do so as she saw how cold and grave was his face, and how piercing were his eyes. She flushed slightly, and then, conscious of an embarrassment new and strange to her, blushed rosy red, making, as it seemed to her, a stupid remark about the sunset. When he took her words literally, and said the sunset was fine, she felt guilty of deceitfulness. Whatever Helen’s faults, and they were many, she was honest, and because of not having looked at the sunset, but only wanting him to see her as did other men, the innocent ruse suddenly appeared mean and trifling.

Then, with a woman’s quick intuition, she understood that coquetries were lost on this borderman, and, with a smile, got the better of her embarrassment and humiliation by telling the truth.

“I wanted to ask a favor of you, and I’m a little afraid.”

She spoke with girlish shyness, which increased as he stared at her.

“Why — why do you look at me so?”

“There’s a lake over yonder which the Shawnees say is haunted by a woman they killed,” he replied quietly. “You’d do for her spirit, so white an’ beautiful in the silver moonlight.”

“So my white dress makes me look ghostly,” she answered lightly, though deeply conscious of surprise and pleasure at such an unexpected reply from him. This borderman might be full of surprises. “Such a time as I had bringing my dresses out here! I don’t know when I can wear them. This is the simplest one.”

“An’ it’s mighty new an’ bewilderin’ for the border,” he replied with a smile in his eyes.

“When these are gone I’ll get no more except linsey ones,” she said brightly, yet her eyes shone with a wistful uncertainty of the future.

“Will you be happy here?”

“I am happy. I have always wanted to be of some use in the world. I assure you, Master Zane, I am not the butterfly I seem. I have worked hard all day, that is, until your sister Betty came over. All the girls have helped me fix up the cabin until it’s more comfortable than I ever dreamed one could be on the frontier. Father is well content here, and that makes me happy. I haven’t had time for forebodings. The young men of Fort Henry have been — well, attentive; in fact, they’ve been here all the time.”

She laughed a little at this last remark, and looked demurely at him.

“It’s a frontier custom,” he said.

“Oh, indeed? Do all the young men call often and stay late?”

“They do.”

“You didn’t,” she retorted. “You’re the only one who hasn’t been to see me.”

“I do not wait on the girls,” he replied with a grave smile.

“Oh, you don’t? Do you expect them to wait on you?” she asked, feeling, now she had made this silent man talk, once more at her ease.

“I am a borderman,” replied Jonathan. There was a certain dignity or sadness in his answer which reminded Helen of Colonel Zane’s portrayal of a borderman’s life. It struck her keenly. Here was this young giant standing erect and handsome before her, as rugged as one of the ash trees of his beloved forest. Who could tell when his strong life might be ended by an Indian’s hatchet?

“For you, then, is there no such thing as friendship?” she asked.

“On the border men are serious.”

This recalled his sister’s conversation regarding the attentions of the young men, that they would follow her, fight for her, and give her absolutely no peace until one of them had carried her to his cabin a bride.

She could not carry on the usual conventional conversation with this borderman, but remained silent for a time. She realized more keenly than ever before how different he was from other men, and watched closely as he stood gazing out over the river. Perhaps something she had said caused him to think of the many pleasures and joys he missed. But she could not be certain what was in his mind. She was not accustomed to impassive faces and cold eyes with unlit fires in their dark depths. More likely he was thinking of matters nearer to his wild, free life; of his companion Wetzel somewhere out beyond those frowning hills. Then she remembered that the colonel had told her of his brother’s love for nature in all its forms; how he watched the shades of evening fall; lost himself in contemplation of the last copper glow flushing the western sky, or became absorbed in the bright stars. Possibly he had forgotten her presence. Darkness was rapidly stealing down upon them. The evening, tranquil and gray, crept over them with all its mystery. He was a part of it. She could not hope to understand him; but saw clearly that his was no common personality. She wanted to speak, to voice a sympathy strong within her; but she did not know what to say to this borderman.

“If what your sister tells me of the border is true, I may soon need a friend,” she said, after weighing well her words. She faced him modestly yet bravely, and looked him straight in the eyes. Because he did not reply she spoke again.

“I mean such a friend as you or Wetzel.”

“You may count on both,” he replied.

“Thank you,” she said softly, giving him her hand. “I shall not forget. One more thing. Will you break a borderman’s custom, for my sake?”

“How?”

“Come to see me when you are in the settlement?”

Helen said this in a low voice with just a sob in her breath; but she met his gaze fairly. Her big eyes were all aglow, alight with girlish appeal, and yet proud with a woman’s honest demand for fair exchange. Promise was there, too, could he but read it, of wonderful possibilities.

“No,” he answered gently.

Helen was not prepared for such a rebuff. She was interested in him, and not ashamed to show it. She feared only that he might misunderstand her; but to refuse her proffered friendship, that was indeed unexpected. Rude she thought it was, while from brow to curving throat her fair skin crimsoned. Then her face grew pale as the moonlight. Hard on her resentment had surged the swell of some new emotion strong and sweet. He refused her friendship because he did not dare accept it; because his life was not his own; because he was a borderman.

While they stood thus, Jonathan looking perplexed and troubled, feeling he had hurt her, but knowing not what to say, and Helen with a warm softness in her eyes, the stalwart figure of a man loomed out of the gathering darkness.

“Ah, Miss Helen! Good evening,” he said.

“Is it you, Mr. Brandt?” asked Helen. “Of course you know Mr. Zane.”

Brandt acknowledged Jonathan’s bow with an awkwardness which had certainly been absent in his greeting to Helen. He started slightly when she spoke the borderman’s name.

A brief pause ensued.

“Good night,” said Jonathan, and left them.

He had noticed Brandt’s gesture of surprise, slight though it was, and was thinking about it as he walked away. Brandt may have been astonished at finding a borderman talking to a girl, and certainly, as far as Jonathan was concerned, the incident was without precedent. But, on the other hand, Brandt may have had another reason, and Jonathan tried to study out what it might be.

He gave but little thought to Helen. That she might like him exceedingly well, did not come into his mind. He remembered his sister Betty’s gossip regarding Helen and her admirers, and particularly Roger Brandt; but felt no great concern; he had no curiosity to know more of her. He admired Helen because she was beautiful, yet the feeling was much the same he might have experienced for a graceful deer, a full-foliaged tree, or a dark mossy-stoned bend in a murmuring brook. The girl’s face and figure, perfect and alluring as they were, had not awakened him from his indifference.

On arriving at his brother’s home, he found the colonel and Betty sitting on the porch.

“Eb, who is this Brandt?” he asked.

“Roger Brandt? He’s a French-Canadian; came here from Detroit a year ago. Why do you ask?”

“I want to know more about him.”

Colonel Zane reflected a moment, first as to this unusual request from Jonathan, and secondly in regard to what little he really did know of Roger Brandt.

“Well, Jack, I can’t tell you much; nothing of him before he showed up here. He says he has been a pioneer, hunter, scout, soldier, trader — everything. When he came to the fort we needed men. It was just after Girty’s siege, and all the cabins had been burned. Brandt seemed honest, and was a good fellow. Besides, he had gold. He started the river barges, which came from Fort Pitt. He has surely done the settlement good service, and has prospered. I never talked a dozen times to him, and even then, not for long. He appears to like the young people, which is only natural. That’s all I know; Betty might tell you more, for he tried to be attentive to her.”

“Did he, Betty?” Jonathan asked.

“He followed me until I showed him I didn’t care for company,” answered Betty.

“What kind of a man is he?”

“Jack, I know nothing against him, although I never fancied him. He’s better educated than the majority of frontiersmen; he’s good-natured and agreeable, and the people like him.”

“Why don’t you?”

Betty looked surprised at his blunt question, and then said with a laugh: “I never tried to reason why; but since you have spoken I believe my dislike was instinctive.”

After Betty had retired to her room the brothers remained on the porch smoking.

“Betty’s pretty keen, Jack. I never knew her to misjudge a man. Why this sudden interest in Roger Brandt?”

The borderman puffed his pipe in silence.

“Say, Jack,” Colonel Zane said suddenly, “do you connect Brandt in any way with this horse-stealing?”

“No more than some, an’ less than others,” replied Jonathan curtly.

Nothing more was said for a time. To the brothers this hour of early dusk brought the same fullness of peace. From gray twilight to gloomy dusk quiet reigned. The insects of night chirped and chorused with low, incessant hum. From out the darkness came the peeping of frogs.

Suddenly the borderman straightened up, and, removing the pipe from his mouth, turned his ear to the faint breeze, while at the same time one hand closed on the colonel’s knee with a warning clutch.

Colonel Zane knew what that clutch signified. Some faint noise, too low for ordinary ears, had roused the borderman. The colonel listened, but heard nothing save the familiar evening sounds.

“Jack, what’d you hear?” he whispered.

“Somethin’ back of the barn,” replied Jonathan, slipping noiselessly off the steps, lying at full length with his ear close to the ground. “Where’s the dog?” he asked.

“Chief must have gone with Sam. The old nigger sometimes goes at this hour to see his daughter.”

Jonathan lay on the grass several moments; then suddenly he arose much as a bent sapling springs to place.

“I hear footsteps. Get the rifles,” he said in a fierce whisper.

“Damn! There is some one in the barn.”

“No; they’re outside. Hurry, but softly.”

Colonel Zane had but just risen to his feet, when Mrs. Zane came to the door and called him by name.

Instantly from somewhere in the darkness overhanging the road, came a low, warning whistle.

“A signal!” exclaimed Colonel Zane.

“Quick, Eb! Look toward Metzar’s light. One, two, three, shadows — Injuns!”

“By the Lord Harry! Now they’re gone; but I couldn’t mistake those round heads and bristling feathers.”

“Shawnees!” said the borderman, and his teeth shut hard like steel on flint.

“Jack, they were after the horses, and some one was on the lookout! By God! right under our noses!”

“Hurry,” cried Jonathan, pulling his brother off the porch.

Colonel Zane followed the borderman out of the yard, into the road, and across the grassy square.

“We might find the one who gave the signal,” said the colonel. “He was near at hand, and couldn’t have passed the house.”

Colonel Zane was correct, for whoever had whistled would be forced to take one of two ways of escape; either down the straight road ahead, or over the high stockade fence of the fort.

“There he goes,” whispered Jonathan.

“Where? I can’t see a blamed thing.”

“Go across the square, run around the fort, an’ head him off on the road. Don’t try to stop him for he’ll have weapons, just find out who he is.”

“I see him now,” replied Colonel Zane, as he hurried off into the darkness.

During a few moments Jonathan kept in view the shadow he had seen first come out of the gloom by the stockade, and thence pass swiftly down the road. He followed swiftly, silently. Presently a light beyond threw a glare across the road. He thought he was approaching a yard where there was a fire, and the flames proved to be from pine cones burning in the yard of Helen Sheppard. He remembered then that she was entertaining some of the young people.

The figure he was pursuing did not pass the glare. Jonathan made certain it disappeared before reaching the light, and he knew his eyesight too well not to trust to it absolutely. Advancing nearer the yard, he heard the murmur of voices in gay conversation, and soon saw figures moving about under the trees.

No doubt was in his mind but that the man who gave the signal to warn the Indians, was one of Helen Sheppard’s guests.

Jonathan had walked across the street then down the path, before he saw the colonel coming from the opposite direction. Halting under a maple he waited for his brother to approach.

“I didn’t meet any one. Did you lose him?” whispered Colonel Zane breathlessly.

“No; he’s in there.”

“That’s Sheppard’s place. Do you mean he’s hiding there?”

“No!”

Colonel Zane swore, as was his habit when exasperated. Kind and generous man that he was, it went hard with him to believe in the guilt of any of the young men he had trusted. But Jonathan had said there was a traitor among them, and Colonel Zane did not question this assertion. He knew the borderman. During years full of strife, and war, and blood had he lived beside this silent man who said little, but that little was the truth. Therefore Colonel Zane gave way to anger.

“Well, I’m not so damned surprised! What’s to be done?”

“Find out what men are there?”

“That’s easy. I’ll go to see George and soon have the truth.”

“Won’t do,” said the borderman decisively. “Go back to the barn, an’ look after the hosses.”

When Colonel Zane had obeyed Jonathan dropped to his hands and knees, and swiftly, with the agile movements of an Indian, gained a corner of the Sheppard yard. He crouched in the shade of a big plum tree. Then, at a favorable opportunity, vaulted the fence and disappeared under a clump of lilac bushes.

The evening wore away no more tediously to the borderman, than to those young frontiersmen who were whispering tender or playful words to their partners. Time and patience were the same to Jonathan Zane. He lay hidden under the fragrant lilacs, his eyes, accustomed to the dark from long practice, losing no movement of the guests. Finally it became evident that the party was at an end. One couple took the initiative, and said good night to their hostess.

“Tom Bennet, I hope it’s not you,” whispered the borderman to himself, as he recognized the young fellow.

A general movement followed, until the merry party were assembled about Helen near the front gate.

“Jim Morrison, I’ll bet it’s not you,” was Jonathan’s comment. “That soldier Williams is doubtful; Hart an’ Johnson being strangers, are unknown quantities around here, an’ then comes Brandt.”

All departed except Brandt, who remained talking to Helen in low, earnest tones. Jonathan lay very quietly, trying to decide what should be his next move in the unraveling of the mystery. He paid little attention to the young couple, but could not help overhearing their conversation.

“Indeed, Mr. Brandt, you frontiersmen are not backward,” Helen was saying in her clear voice. “I am surprised to learn that you love me upon such short acquaintance, and am sorry, too, for I hardly know whether I even so much as like you.”

“I love you. We men of the border do things rapidly,” he replied earnestly.

“So it seems,” she said with a soft laugh.

“Won’t you care for me?” he pleaded.

“Nothing is surer than that I never know what I am going to do,” Helen replied lightly.

“All these fellows are in love with you. They can’t help it any more than I. You are the most glorious creature. Please give me hope.”

“Mr. Brandt, let go my hand. I’m afraid I don’t like such impulsive men.”

“Please let me hold your hand.”

“Certainly not.”

“But I will hold it, and if you look at me like that again I’ll do more,” he said.

“What, bold sir frontiersman?” she returned, lightly still, but in a voice which rang with a deeper note.

“I’ll kiss you,” he cried desperately.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I though? You don’t know us border fellows yet. You come here with your wonderful beauty, and smile at us with that light in your eyes which makes men mad. Oh, you’ll pay for it.”

The borderman listened to all this love-making half disgusted, until he began to grow interested. Brandt’s back was turned to him, and Helen stood so that the light from the pine cones shone on her face. Her eyes were brilliant, otherwise she seemed a woman perfectly self-possessed. Brandt held her hand despite the repeated efforts she made to free it. But she did not struggle violently, or make an outcry.

Suddenly Brandt grasped her other hand, pulling her toward him.

“These other fellows will kiss you, and I’m going to be the first!” he declared passionately.

Helen drew back, now thoroughly alarmed by the man’s fierce energy. She had been warned against this very boldness in frontiersmen; but had felt secure in her own pride and dignity. Her blood boiled at the thought that she must exert strength to escape insult. She struggled violently when Brandt bent his head. Almost sick with fear, she had determined to call for help, when a violent wrench almost toppled her over. At the same instant her wrists were freed; she heard a fierce cry, a resounding blow, and then the sodden thud of a heavy body falling. Recovering her balance, she saw a tall figure beside her, and a man in the act of rising from the ground.

“You?” whispered Helen, recognizing the tall figure as Jonathan’s.

The borderman did not answer. He stepped forward, slipping his hand inside his hunting frock. Brandt sprang nimbly to his feet, and with a face which, even in the dim light, could be seen distorted with fury, bent forward to look at the stranger. He, too, had his hand within his coat, as if grasping a weapon; but he did not draw it.

“Zane, a lighter blow would have been easier to forget,” he cried, his voice clear and cutting. Then he turned to the girl. “Miss Helen, I got what I deserved. I crave your forgiveness, and ask you to understand a man who was once a gentleman. If I am one no longer, the frontier is to blame. I was mad to treat you as I did.”

Thus speaking, he bowed low with the grace of a man sometimes used to the society of ladies, and then went out of the gate.

“Where did you come from?” asked Helen, looking up at Jonathan.

He pointed under the lilac bushes.

“Were you there?” she asked wonderingly. “Did you hear all?”

“I couldn’t help hearin’.”

“It was fortunate for me; but why — why were you there?”

Helen came a step nearer, and regarded him curiously with her great eyes now black with excitement.

The borderman was silent.

Helen’s softened mood changed instantly. There was nothing in his cold face which might have betrayed in him a sentiment similar to that of her admirers.

“Did you spy on me?” she asked quickly, after a moment’s thought.

“No,” replied Jonathan calmly.

Helen gazed in perplexity at this strange man. She did not know how to explain it; she was irritated, but did her best to conceal it. He had no interest in her, yet had hidden under the lilacs in her yard. She was grateful because he had saved her from annoyance, yet could not fathom his reason for being so near.

“Did you come here to see me?” she asked, forgetting her vexation.

“No.”

“What for, then?”

“I reckon I won’t say,” was the quiet, deliberate refusal.

Helen stamped her foot in exasperation.

“Be careful that I do not put a wrong construction on your strange action,” said she coldly. “If you have reasons, you might trust me. If you are only — —”

“Sh-s-sh!” he breathed, grasping her wrist, and holding it firmly in his powerful hand. The whole attitude of the man had altered swiftly, subtly. The listlessness was gone. His lithe body became rigid as he leaned forward, his head toward the ground, and turned slightly in a manner that betokened intent listening.

Helen trembled as she felt his powerful frame quiver. Whatever had thus changed him, gave her another glimpse of his complex personality. It seemed to her incredible that with one whispered exclamation this man could change from cold indifference to a fire and force so strong as to dominate her.

Statue-like she remained listening; but hearing no sound, and thrillingly conscious of the hand on her arm.

Far up on the hillside an owl hooted dismally, and an instant later, faint and far away, came an answer so low as to be almost indistinct.

The borderman raised himself erect as he released her.

“It’s only an owl,” she said in relief.

His eyes gleamed like stars.

“It’s Wetzel, an’ it means Injuns!”

Then he was gone into the darkness.

CHAPTER V

IN THE MISTY morning twilight Colonel Zane, fully armed, paced to and fro before his cabin, on guard. All night he had maintained a watch. He had not considered it necessary to send his family into the fort, to which they had often been compelled to flee. On the previous night Jonathan had come swiftly back to the cabin, and, speaking but two words, seized his weapons and vanished into the black night. The words were “Injuns! Wetzel!” and there were none others with more power to affect hearers on the border. The colonel believed that Wetzel had signaled to Jonathan.

On the west a deep gully with precipitous sides separated the settlement from a high, wooded bluff. Wetzel often returned from his journeying by this difficult route. He had no doubt seen Indian signs, and had communicated the intelligence to Jonathan by their system of night-bird calls. The nearness of the mighty hunter reassured Colonel Zane.

When the colonel returned from his chase of the previous night, he went directly to the stable, there to find that the Indians had made off with a thoroughbred, and Betty’s pony. Colonel Zane was furious, not on account of the value of the horses, but because Bess was his favorite bay, and Betty loved nothing more than her pony Madcap. To have such a march stolen on him after he had heard and seen the thieves was indeed hard. High time it was that these horse thieves be run to earth. No Indian had planned these marauding expeditions. An intelligent white man was at the bottom of the thieving, and he should pay for his treachery.

The colonel’s temper, however, soon cooled. He realized after thinking over the matter, that he was fortunate it passed off without bloodshed. Very likely the intent had been to get all his horses, perhaps his neighbor’s as well, and it had been partly frustrated by Jonathan’s keen sagacity. These Shawnees, white leader or not, would never again run such risks.

“It’s like a skulking Shawnee,” muttered Colonel Zane, “to slip down here under cover of early dusk, when no one but an Indian hunter could detect him. I didn’t look for trouble, especially so soon after the lesson we gave Girty and his damned English and redskins. It’s lucky Jonathan was here. I’ll go back to the old plan of stationing scouts at the outposts until snow flies.”

While Colonel Zane talked to himself and paced the path he had selected to patrol, the white mists cleared, and a rosy hue followed the brightening in the east. The birds ceased twittering to break into gay songs, and the cock in the barnyard gave one final clarion-voiced salute to the dawn. The rose in the east deepened into rich red, and then the sun peeped over the eastern hilltops to drench the valley with glad golden light.

A blue smoke curling lazily from the stone chimney of his cabin, showed that Sam had made the kitchen fire, and a little later a rich, savory odor gave pleasing evidence that his wife was cooking breakfast.

“Any sign of Jack?” a voice called from the open door, and Betty appeared.

“Nary sign.”

“Of the Indians, then?”

“Well, Betts, they left you a token of their regard,” and Colonel Zane smiled as he took a broken halter from the fence.

“Madcap?” cried Betty.

“Yes, they’ve taken Madcap and Bess.”

“Oh, the villains! Poor pony,” exclaimed Betty indignantly. “Eb, I’ll coax Wetzel to fetch the pony home if he has to kill every Shawnee in the valley.”

“Now you’re talking, Betts,” Colonel Zane replied. “If you could get Lew to do that much, you’d be blessed from one end of the border to the other.”

He walked up the road; then back, keeping a sharp lookout on all sides, and bestowing a particularly keen glance at the hillside across the ravine, but could see no sign of the bordermen. As it was now broad daylight he felt convinced that further watch was unnecessary, and went in to breakfast. When he came out again the villagers were astir. The sharp strokes of axes rang out on the clear morning air, and a mellow anvil-clang pealed up from the blacksmith shop. Colonel Zane found his brother Silas and Jim Douns near the gate.

“Morning, boys,” he cried cheerily.

“Any glimpse of Jack or Lew?” asked Silas.

“No; but I’m expecting one of ’em any moment.”

“How about the Indians?” asked Douns. “Silas roused me out last night; but didn’t stay long enough to say more than ‘Indians.’”

“I don’t know much more than Silas. I saw several of the red devils who stole the horses; but how many, where they’ve gone, or what we’re to expect, I can’t say. We’ve got to wait for Jack or Lew. Silas, keep the garrison in readiness at the fort, and don’t allow a man, soldier or farmer, to leave the clearing until further orders. Perhaps there were only three of those Shawnees, and then again the woods might have been full of them. I take it something’s amiss, or Jack and Lew would be in by now.”

“Here come Sheppard and his girl,” said Silas, pointing down the lane. “‘Pears George is some excited.”

Colonel Zane had much the same idea as he saw Sheppard and his daughter. The old man appeared in a hurry, which was sufficient reason to believe him anxious or alarmed, and Helen looked pale.

“Ebenezer, what’s this I hear about Indians?” Sheppard asked excitedly. “What with Helen’s story about the fort being besieged, and this brother of yours routing honest people from their beds, I haven’t had a wink of sleep. What’s up? Where are the redskins?”

“Now, George, be easy,” said Colonel Zane calmly. “And you, Helen, mustn’t be frightened. There’s no danger. We did have a visit from Indians last night; but they hurt no one, and got only two horses.”

“Oh, I’m so relieved that it’s not worse,” said Helen.

“It’s bad enough, Helen,” Betty cried, her black eyes flashing, “my pony Madcap is gone.”

“Colonel Zane, come here quick!” cried Douns, who stood near the gate.

With one leap Colonel Zane was at the gate, and, following with his eyes the direction indicated by Douns’ trembling finger, he saw two tall, brown figures striding down the lane. One carried two rifles, and the other a long bundle wrapped in a blanket.

“It’s Jack and Wetzel,” whispered Colonel Zane to Jim. “They’ve got the girl, and by God! from the way that bundle hangs, I think she’s dead. Here,” he added, speaking loudly, “you women get into the house.”

Mrs. Zane, Betty and Helen stared.

“Go into the house!” he cried authoritatively.

Without a protest the three women obeyed.

At that moment Nellie Douns came across the lane; Sam shuffled out from the backyard, and Sheppard arose from his seat on the steps. They joined Colonel Zane, Silas and Jim at the gate.

“I wondered what kept you so late,” Colonel Zane said to Jonathan, as he and his companion came up. “You’ve fetched Mabel, and she’s — —”. The good man could say no more. If he should live an hundred years on the border amid savage murderers, he would still be tender-hearted. Just now he believed the giant borderman by the side of Jonathan held a dead girl, one whom he had danced, when a child, upon his knee.

“Mabel, an’ jest alive,” replied Jonathan.

“By God! I’m glad!” exclaimed Colonel Zane. “Here, Lew, give her to me.”

Wetzel relinquished his burden to the colonel.

“Lew, any bad Indian sign?” asked Colonel Zane as he turned to go into the house.

The borderman shook his head.

“Wait for me,” added the colonel.

He carried the girl to that apartment in the cabin which served the purpose of a sitting-room, and laid her on a couch. He gently removed the folds of the blanket, disclosing to view a fragile, white-faced girl.

“Bess, hurry, hurry!” he screamed to his wife, and as she came running in, followed no less hurriedly by Betty, Helen and Nellie, he continued, “Here’s Mabel Lane, alive, poor child; but in sore need of help. First see whether she has any bodily injury. If a bullet must be cut out, or a knife-wound sewed up, it’s better she remained unconscious. Betty, run for Bess’s instruments, and bring brandy and water. Lively now!” Then he gave vent to an oath and left the room.

Helen, her heart throbbing wildly, went to the side of Mrs. Zane, who was kneeling by the couch. She saw a delicate girl, not over eighteen years old, with a face that would have been beautiful but for the set lips, the closed eyelids, and an expression of intense pain.

“Oh! Oh!” breathed Helen.

“Nell, hand me the scissors,” said Mrs. Zane, “and help me take off this dress. Why, it’s wet, but, thank goodness! ’tis not with blood. I know that slippery touch too well. There, that’s right. Betty, give me a spoonful of brandy. Now heat a blanket, and get one of your linsey gowns for this poor child.”

Helen watched Mrs. Zane as if fascinated. The colonel’s wife continued to talk while with deft fingers she forced a few drops of brandy between the girl’s closed teeth. Then with the adroitness of a skilled surgeon, she made the examination. Helen had heard of this pioneer woman’s skill in setting broken bones and treating injuries, and when she looked from the calm face to the steady fingers, she had no doubt as to the truth of what had been told.

“Neither bullet wound, cut, bruise, nor broken bone,” said Mrs. Zane. “It’s fear, starvation, and the terrible shock.”

She rubbed Mabel’s hands while gazing at her pale face. Then she forced more brandy between the tightly-closed lips. She was rewarded by ever so faint a color tinging the wan cheeks, to be followed by a fluttering of the eyelids. Then the eyes opened wide. They were large, soft, dark and humid with agony.

Helen could not bear their gaze. She saw the shadow of death, and of worse than death. She looked away, while in her heart rose a storm of passionate fury at the brutes who had made of this tender girl a wreck.

The room was full of women now, sober-faced matrons and grave-eyed girls, yet all wore the same expression, not alone of anger, nor fear, nor pity, but of all combined.

Helen instinctively felt that this was one of the trials of border endurance, and she knew from the sterner faces of the maturer women that such a trial was familiar. Despite all she had been told, the shock and pain were too great, and she went out of the room sobbing.

She almost fell over the broad back of Jonathan Zane who was sitting on the steps. Near him stood Colonel Zane talking with a tall man clad in faded buckskin.

“Lass, you shouldn’t have stayed,” said Colonel Zane kindly.

“It’s — hurt — me — here,” said Helen, placing her hand over her heart.

“Yes, I know, I know; of course it has,” he replied, taking her hand. “But be brave, Helen, bear up, bear up. Oh! this border is a stern place! Do not think of that poor girl. Come, let me introduce Jonathan’s friend, Wetzel!”

Helen looked up and held out her hand. She saw a very tall man with extremely broad shoulders, a mass of raven-black hair, and a white face. He stepped forward, and took her hand in his huge, horny palm, pressing it, he stepped back without speaking. Colonel Zane talked to her in a soothing voice; but she failed to hear what he said. This Wetzel, this Indian-hunter whom she had heard called “Deathwind of the Border,” this companion, guide, teacher of Jonathan Zane, this borderman of wonderful deeds, stood before her.

Helen saw a cold face, deathly in its pallor, lighted by eyes sloe-black but like glinting steel. Striking as were these features, they failed to fascinate as did the strange tracings which apparently showed through the white, drawn skin. This first repelled, then drew her with wonderful force. Suffering, of fire, and frost, and iron was written there, and, stronger than all, so potent as to cause fear, could be read the terrible purpose of this man’s tragic life.

“You avenged her! Oh! I know you did!” cried Helen, her whole heart leaping with a blaze to her eyes.

She was answered by a smile, but such a smile! Kindly it broke over the stern face, giving a glimpse of a heart still warm beneath that steely cold. Behind it, too, there was something fateful, something deadly.

Helen knew, though the borderman spoke not, that somewhere among the grasses of the broad plains, or on the moss of the wooded hills, lay dead the perpetrators of this outrage, their still faces bearing the ghastly stamp of Deathwind.

CHAPTER VI

HAPPIER DAYS THAN she had hoped for, dawned upon Helen after the first touch of border sorrow. Mabel Lane did not die. Helen and Betty nursed the stricken girl tenderly, weeping for very joy when signs of improvement appeared. She had remained silent for several days, always with that haunting fear in her eyes, and then gradually came a change. Tender care and nursing had due effect in banishing the dark shadow. One morning after a long sleep she awakened with a bright smile, and from that time her improvement was rapid.

Helen wanted Mabel to live with her. The girl’s position was pitiable. Homeless, fatherless, with not a relative on the border, yet so brave, so patient that she aroused all the sympathy in Helen’s breast. Village gossip was in substance, that Mabel had given her love to a young frontiersman, by name Alex Bennet, who had an affection for her, so it was said, but as yet had made no choice between her and the other lasses of the settlement. What effect Mabel’s terrible experience might have on this lukewarm lover, Helen could not even guess; but she was not hopeful as to the future. Colonel Zane and Betty approved of Helen’s plan to persuade Mabel to live with her, and the latter’s faint protestations they silenced by claiming she could be of great assistance in the management of the house, therefore it was settled.

Finally the day came when Mabel was ready to go with Helen. Betty had given her a generous supply of clothing, for all her belongings had been destroyed when the cabin was burned. With Helen’s strong young arm around her she voiced her gratitude to Betty and Mrs. Zane and started toward the Sheppard home.

From the green square, where the ground was highest, an unobstructed view could be had of the valley. Mabel gazed down the river to where her home formerly stood. Only a faint, dark spot, like a blur on the green landscape, could be seen. Her soft eyes filled with tears; but she spoke no word.

“She’s game and that’s why she didn’t go under,” Colonel Zane said to himself as he mused on the strength and spirit of borderwomen. To their heroism, more than any other thing, he attributed the establishing of homes in this wilderness.

In the days that ensued, as Mabel grew stronger, the girls became very fond of each other. Helen would have been happy at any time with such a sweet companion, but just then, when the poor girl’s mind was so sorely disturbed she was doubly glad. For several days, after Mabel was out of danger, Helen’s thoughts had dwelt on a subject which caused extreme vexation. She had begun to suspect that she encouraged too many admirers for whom she did not care, and thought too much of a man who did not reciprocate. She was gay and moody in turn. During the moody hours she suspected herself, and in her gay ones, scorned the idea that she might ever care for a man who was indifferent. But that thought once admitted, had a trick of returning at odd moments, clouding her cheerful moods.

One sunshiny morning while the May flowers smiled under the hedge, when dew sparkled on the leaves, and the locust-blossoms shone creamy-white amid the soft green of the trees, the girls set about their much-planned flower gardening. Helen was passionately fond of plants, and had brought a jar of seeds of her favorites all the way from her eastern home.

“We’ll plant the morning-glories so they’ll run up the porch, and the dahlias in this long row and the nasturtiums in this round bed,” Helen said.

“You have some trailing arbutus,” added Mabel, “and must have clematis, wild honeysuckle and golden-glow, for they are all sweet flowers.”

“This arbutus is so fresh, so dewy, so fragrant,” said Helen, bending aside a lilac bush to see the pale, creeping flowers. “I never saw anything so beautiful. I grow more and more in love with my new home and friends. I have such a pretty garden to look into, and I never tire of the view beyond.”

Helen gazed with pleasure and pride at the garden with its fresh green and lavender-crested lilacs, at the white-blossomed trees, and the vine-covered log cabins with blue smoke curling from their stone chimneys. Beyond, the great bulk of the fort stood guard above the willow-skirted river, and far away over the winding stream the dark hills, defiant, kept their secrets.

“If it weren’t for that threatening fort one could imagine this little hamlet, nestling under the great bluff, as quiet and secure as it is beautiful,” said Helen. “But that charred stockade fence with its scarred bastions and these lowering port-holes, always keep me alive to the reality.”

“It wasn’t very quiet when Girty was here,” Mabel replied thoughtfully.

“Were you in the fort then?” asked Helen breathlessly.

“Oh, yes, I cooled the rifles for the men,” replied Mabel calmly.

“Tell me all about it.”

Helen listened again to a story she had heard many times; but told by new lips it always gained in vivid interest. She never tired of hearing how the notorious renegade, Girty, rode around the fort on his white horse, giving the defenders an hour in which to surrender; she learned again of the attack, when the British soldiers remained silent on an adjoining hillside, while the Indians yelled exultantly and ran about in fiendish glee, when Wetzel began the battle by shooting an Indian chieftain who had ventured within range of his ever fatal rifle. And when it came to the heroic deeds of that memorable siege Helen could not contain her enthusiasm. She shed tears over little Harry Bennet’s death at the south bastion where, though riddled with bullets, he stuck to his post until relieved. Clark’s race, across the roof of the fort to extinguish a burning arrow, she applauded with clapping hands. Her great eyes glowed and burned, but she was silent, when hearing how Wetzel ran alone to a break in the stockade, and there, with an ax, the terrible borderman held at bay the whole infuriated Indian mob until the breach was closed. Lastly Betty Zane’s never-to-be-forgotten run with the powder to the relief of the garrison and the saving of the fort was something not to cry over or applaud; but to dream of and to glorify.

“Down that slope from Colonel Zane’s cabin is where Betty ran with the powder,” said Mabel, pointing.

“Did you see her?” asked Helen.

“Yes, I looked out of a port-hole. The Indians stopped firing at the fort in their eagerness to shoot Betty. Oh, the banging of guns and yelling of savages was one fearful, dreadful roar! Through all that hail of bullets Betty ran swift as the wind.”

“I almost wish Girty would come again,” said Helen.

“Don’t; he might.”

“How long has Betty’s husband, Mr. Clarke, been dead?” inquired Helen.

“I don’t remember exactly. He didn’t live long after the siege. Some say he inhaled the flames while fighting fire inside the stockade.”

“How sad!”

“Yes, it was. It nearly killed Betty. But we border girls do not give up easily; we must not,” replied Mabel, an unquenchable spirit showing through the sadness of her eyes.

Merry voices interrupted them, and they turned to see Betty and Nell entering the gate. With Nell’s bright chatter and Betty’s wit, the conversation became indeed vivacious, running from gossip to gowns, and then to that old and ever new theme, love. Shortly afterward the colonel entered the gate, with swinging step and genial smile.

“Well, now, if here aren’t four handsome lasses,” he said with an admiring glance.

“Eb, I believe if you were single any girl might well suspect you of being a flirt,” said Betty.

“No girl ever did. I tell you I was a lady-killer in my day,” replied Colonel Zane, straightening his fine form. He was indeed handsome, with his stalwart frame, dark, bronzed face and rugged, manly bearing.

“Bess said you were; but that it didn’t last long after you saw her,” cried Betty, mischief gleaming in her dark eye.

“Well, that’s so,” replied the colonel, looking a trifle crest-fallen; “but you know every dog has his day.” Then advancing to the porch, he looked at Mabel with a more serious gaze as he asked, “How are you to-day?”

“Thank you, Colonel Zane, I am getting quite strong.”

“Look up the valley. There’s a raft coming down the river,” said he softly.

Far up the broad Ohio a square patch showed dark against the green water.

Colonel Zane saw Mabel start, and a dark red flush came over her pale face. For an instant she gazed with an expression of appeal, almost fear. He knew the reason. Alex Bennet was on that raft.

“I came over to ask if I can be of any service?”

“Tell him,” she answered simply.

“I say, Betts,” Colonel Zane cried, “has Helen’s cousin cast any more such sheep eyes at you?”

“Oh, Eb, what nonsense!” exclaimed Betty, blushing furiously.

“Well, if he didn’t look sweet at you I’m an old fool.”

“You’re one anyway, and you’re horrid,” said Betty, tears of anger glistening in her eyes.

Colonel Zane whistled softly as he walked down the lane. He went into the wheelwright’s shop to see about some repairs he was having made on a wagon, and then strolled on down to the river. Two Indians were sitting on the rude log wharf, together with several frontiersmen and rivermen, all waiting for the raft. He conversed with the Indians, who were friendly Chippewas, until the raft was tied up. The first person to leap on shore was a sturdy young fellow with a shock of yellow hair, and a warm, ruddy skin.

“Hello, Alex, did you have a good trip?” asked Colonel Zane of the youth.

“H’are ye, Colonel Zane. Yes, first-rate trip,” replied young Bennet. “Say, I’ve a word for you. Come aside,” and drawing Colonel Zane out of earshot of the others, he continued, “I heard this by accident, not that I didn’t spy a bit when I got interested, for I did; but the way it came about was all chance. Briefly, there’s a man, evidently an Englishman, at Fort Pitt whom I overheard say he was out on the border after a Sheppard girl. I happened to hear from one of Brandt’s men, who rode into Pitt just before we left, that you had new friends here by that name. This fellow was a handsome chap, no common sort, but lordly, dissipated and reckless as the devil. He had a servant traveling with him, a sailor, by his gab, who was about the toughest customer I’ve met in many a day. He cut a fellow in bad shape at Pitt. These two will be on the next boat, due here in a day or so, according to river and weather conditions, an’ I thought, considerin’ how unusual the thing was, I’d better tell ye.”

“Well, well,” said Colonel Zane reflectively. He recalled Sheppard’s talk about an Englishman. “Alex, you did well to tell me. Was the man drunk when he said he came west after a woman?”

“Sure he was,” replied Alex. “But not when he spoke the name. Ye see I got suspicious, an’ asked about him. It’s this way: Jake Wentz, the trader, told me the fellow asked for the Sheppards when he got off the wagon-train. When I first seen him he was drunk, and I heard Jeff Lynn say as how the border was a bad place to come after a woman. That’s what made me prick up my ears. Then the Englishman said: ‘It is, eh? By God! I’d go to hell after a woman I wanted.’ An’ Colonel, he looked it, too.”

Colonel Zane remained thoughtful while Alex made up a bundle and forced the haft of an ax under the string; but as the young man started away the colonel suddenly remembered his errand down to the wharf.

“Alex, come back here,” he said, and wondered if the lad had good stuff in him. The boatman’s face was plain, but not evil, and a close scrutiny of it rather prepossessed the colonel.

“Alex, I’ve some bad news for you,” and then bluntly, with his keen gaze fastened on the young man’s face, he told of old Lane’s murder, of Mabel’s abduction, and of her rescue by Wetzel.

Alex began to curse and swear vengeance.

“Stow all that,” said the colonel sharply. “Wetzel followed four Indians who had Mabel and some stolen horses. The redskins quarreled over the girl, and two took the horses, leaving Mabel to the others. Wetzel went after these last, tomahawked them, and brought Mabel home. She was in a bad way, but is now getting over the shock.”

“Say, what’d we do here without Wetzel?” Alex said huskily, unmindful of the tears that streamed from his eyes and ran over his brown cheeks. “Poor old Jake! Poor Mabel! Damn me! it’s my fault. If I’d ‘a done right an’ married her as I should, as I wanted to, she wouldn’t have had to suffer. But I’ll marry her yet, if she’ll have me. It was only because I had no farm, no stock, an’ only that little cabin as is full now, that I waited.”

“Alex, you know me,” said Colonel Zane in kindly tones. “Look there, down the clearing half a mile. See that green strip of land along the river, with the big chestnut in the middle and a cabin beyond. There’s as fine farming land as can be found on the border, eighty acres, well watered. The day you marry Mabel that farm is yours.”

Alex grew red, stammered, and vainly tried to express his gratitude.

“Come along, the sooner you tell Mabel the better,” said the colonel with glowing face. He was a good matchmaker. He derived more pleasure from a little charity bestowed upon a deserving person, than from a season’s crops.

When they arrived at the Sheppard house the girls were still on the porch. Mabel rose when she saw Alex, standing white and still. He, poor fellow, was embarrassed by the others, who regarded him with steady eyes.

Colonel Zane pushed Alex up on the porch, and said in a low voice: “Mabel, I’ve just arranged something you’re to give Alex. It’s a nice little farm, and it’ll be a wedding present.”

Mabel looked in a bewildered manner from Colonel Zane’s happy face to the girls, and then at the red, joyous features of her lover. Only then did she understand, and uttering a strange little cry, put her trembling hands to her bosom as she swayed to and fro.

But she did not fall, for Alex, quick at the last, leaped forward and caught her in his arms.

* * * * *

That evening Helen denied herself to Mr. Brandt and several other callers. She sat on the porch with her father while he smoked his pipe.

“Where’s Will?” she asked.

“Gone after snipe, so he said,” replied her father.

“Snipe? How funny! Imagine Will hunting! He’s surely catching the wild fever Colonel Zane told us about.”

“He surely is.”

Then came a time of silence. Mr. Sheppard, accustomed to Helen’s gladsome spirit and propensity to gay chatter, noted how quiet she was, and wondered.

“Why are you so still?”

“I’m a little homesick,” Helen replied reluctantly.

“No? Well, I declare! This is a glorious country; but not for such as you, dear, who love music and gaiety. I often fear you’ll not be happy here, and then I long for the old home, which reminds me of your mother.”

“Dearest, forget what I said,” cried Helen earnestly. “I’m only a little blue to-day; perhaps not at all homesick.”

“Indeed, you always seemed happy.”

“Father, I am happy. It’s only — only a girl’s foolish sentiment.”

“I’ve got something to tell you, Helen, and it has bothered me since Colonel Zane spoke of it to-night. Mordaunt is coming to Fort Henry.”

“Mordaunt? Oh, impossible! Who said so? How did you learn?”

“I fear ’tis true, my dear. Colonel Zane told me he had heard of an Englishman at Fort Pitt who asked after us. Moreover, the fellow answers the description of Mordaunt. I am afraid it is he, and come after you.”

“Suppose he has — who cares? We owe him nothing. He cannot hurt us.”

“But, Helen, he’s a desperate man. Aren’t you afraid of him?”

“Not I,” cried Helen, laughing in scorn. “He’d better have a care. He can’t run things with a high hand out here on the border. I told him I would have none of him, and that ended it.”

“I’m much relieved. I didn’t want to tell you; but it seemed necessary. Well, child, good night, I’ll go to bed.”

Long after Mr. Sheppard had retired Helen sat thinking. Memories of the past, and of the unwelcome suitor, Mordaunt, thronged upon her thick and fast. She could see him now with his pale, handsome face, and distinguished bearing. She had liked him, as she had other men, until he involved her father, with himself, in financial ruin, and had made his attention to her unpleasantly persistent. Then he had followed the fall of fortune with wild dissipation, and became a gambler and a drunkard. But he did not desist in his mad wooing. He became like her shadow, and life grew to be unendurable, until her father planned to emigrate west, when she hailed the news with joy. And now Mordaunt had tracked her to her new home. She was sick with disgust. Then her spirit, always strong, and now freer for this new, wild life of the frontier, rose within her, and she dismissed all thoughts of this man and his passion.

The old life was dead and buried. She was going to be happy here. As for the present, it was enough to think of the little border village, now her home; of her girl friends; of the quiet borderman: and, for the moment, that the twilight was somber and beautiful.

High up on the wooded bluff rising so gloomily over the village, she saw among the trees something silver-bright. She watched it rise slowly from behind the trees, now hidden, now white through rifts in the foliage, until it soared lovely and grand above the black horizon. The ebony shadows of night seemed to lift, as might a sable mantle moved by invisible hands. But dark shadows, safe from the moon-rays, lay under the trees, and a pale, misty vapor hung below the brow of the bluff.

Mysterious as had grown the night before darkness yielded to the moon, this pale, white light flooding the still valley, was even more soft and strange. To one of Helen’s temperament no thought was needed; to see was enough. Yet her mind was active. She felt with haunting power the beauty of all before her; in fancy transporting herself far to those silver-tipped clouds, and peopling the dells and shady nooks under the hills with spirits and fairies, maidens and valiant knights. To her the day was as a far-off dream. The great watch stars grew wan before the radiant moon; it reigned alone. The immensity of the world with its glimmering rivers, pensive valleys and deep, gloomy forests lay revealed under the glory of the clear light.

Absorbed in this contemplation Helen remained a long time gazing with dreamy ecstasy at the moonlit valley until a slight chill disturbed her happy thoughts. She knew she was not alone. Trembling, she stood up to see, easily recognizable in the moonlight, the tall buckskin-garbed figure of Jonathan Zane.

“Well, sir,” she called, sharply, yet with a tremor in her voice.

The borderman came forward and stood in front of her. Somehow he appeared changed. The long, black rifle, the dull, glinting weapons made her shudder. Wilder and more untamable he looked than ever. The very silence of the forest clung to him; the fragrance of the grassy plains came faintly from his buckskin garments.

“Evenin’, lass,” he said in his slow, cool manner.

“How did you get here?” asked Helen presently, because he made no effort to explain his presence at such a late hour.

“I was able to walk.”

Helen observed, with a vaulting spirit, one ever ready to rise in arms, that Master Zane was disposed to add humor to his penetrating mysteriousness. She flushed hot and then paled. This borderman certainly possessed the power to vex her, and, reluctantly she admitted, to chill her soul and rouse her fear. She strove to keep back sharp words, because she had learned that this singular individual always gave good reason for his odd actions.

“I think in kindness to me,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “you might tell me why you appear so suddenly, as if you had sprung out of the ground.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. Father is in bed; so is Mabel, and Will has not yet come home. Why?”

“Has no one else been here?”

“Mr. Brandt came, as did some others; but wishing to be alone, I did not see them,” replied Helen in perplexity.

“Have you seen Brandt since?”

“Since when?”

“The night I watched by the lilac bush.”

“Yes, several times,” replied Helen. Something in his tone made her ashamed. “I couldn’t very well escape when he called. Are you surprised because after he insulted me I’d see him?”

“Yes.”

Helen felt more ashamed.

“You don’t love him?” he continued.

Helen was so surprised she could only look into the dark face above her. Then she dropped her gaze, abashed by his searching eyes. But, thinking of his question, she subdued the vague stirrings of pleasure in her breast, and answered coldly:

“No, I do not; but for the service you rendered me I should never have answered such a question.”

“I’m glad, an’ hope you care as little for the other five men who were here that night.”

“I declare, Master Zane, you seem exceedingly interested in the affairs of a young woman whom you won’t visit, except as you have come to-night.”

He looked at her with his piercing eyes.

“You spied upon my guests,” she said, in no wise abashed now that her temper was high. “Did you care so very much?”

“Care?” he asked slowly.

“Yes; you were interested to know how many of my admirers were here, what they did, and what they said. You even hint disparagingly of them.”

“True, I wanted to know,” he replied; “but I don’t hint about any man.”

“You are so interested you wouldn’t call on me when I invited you,” said Helen, with poorly veiled sarcasm. It was this that made her bitter; she could never forget that she had asked this man to come to see her, and he had refused.

“I reckon you’ve mistook me,” he said calmly.

“Why did you come? Why do you shadow my friends? This is twice you have done it. Goodness knows how many times you’ve been here! Tell me.”

The borderman remained silent.

“Answer me,” commanded Helen, her eyes blazing. She actually stamped her foot. “Borderman or not, you have no right to pry into my affairs. If you are a gentleman, tell me why you came here?”

The eyes Jonathan turned on Helen stilled all the angry throbbing of her blood.

“I come here to learn which of your lovers is the dastard who plotted the abduction of Mabel Lane, an’ the thief who stole our hosses. When I find the villain I reckon Wetzel an’ I’ll swing him to some tree.”

The borderman’s voice rang sharp and cold, and when he ceased speaking she sank back upon the step, shocked, speechless, to gaze up at him with staring eyes.

“Don’t look so, lass; don’t be frightened,” he said, his voice gentle and kind as it had been hard. He took her hand in his. “You nettled me into replyin’. You have a sharp tongue, lass, and when I spoke I was thinkin’ of him. I’m sorry.”

“A horse-thief and worse than murderer among my friends!” murmured Helen, shuddering, yet she never thought to doubt his word.

“I followed him here the night of your company.”

“Do you know which one?”

“No.”

He still held her hand, unconsciously, but Helen knew it well. A sense of his strength came with the warm pressure, and comforted her. She would need that powerful hand, surely, in the evil days which seemed to darken the horizon.

“What shall I do?” she whispered, shuddering again.

“Keep this secret between you an’ me.”

“How can I? How can I?”

“You must,” his voice was deep and low. “If you tell your father, or any one, I might lose the chance to find this man, for, lass, he’s desperate cunnin’. Then he’d go free to rob others, an’ mebbe help make off with other poor girls. Lass, keep my secret.”

“But he might try to carry me away,” said Helen in fearful perplexity.

“Most likely he might,” replied the borderman with the smile that came so rarely.

“Oh! Knowing all this, how can I meet any of these men again? I’d betray myself.”

“No; you’ve got too much pluck. It so happens you are the one to help me an’ Wetzel rid the border of these hell-hounds, an’ you won’t fail. I know a woman when it comes to that.”

“I — I help you and Wetzel?”

“Exactly.”

“Gracious!” cried Helen, half-laughing, half-crying. “And poor me with more trouble coming on the next boat.”

“Lass, the colonel told me about the Englishman. It’ll be bad for him to annoy you.”

Helen thrilled with the depth of meaning in the low voice. Fate surely was weaving a bond between her and this borderman. She felt it in his steady, piercing gaze; in her own tingling blood.

Then as her natural courage dispelled all girlish fears, she faced him, white, resolute, with a look in her eyes that matched his own.

“I will do what I can,” she said.

CHAPTER VII

WESTWARD FROM FORT Henry, far above the eddying river, Jonathan Zane slowly climbed a narrow, hazel-bordered, mountain trail. From time to time he stopped in an open patch among the thickets and breathed deep of the fresh, wood-scented air, while his keen gaze swept over the glades near by, along the wooded hillsides, and above at the timber-strewn woodland.

This June morning in the wild forest was significant of nature’s brightness and joy. Broad-leaved poplars, dense foliaged oaks, and vine-covered maples shaded cool, mossy banks, while between the trees the sunshine streamed in bright spots. It shone silver on the glancing silver-leaf, and gold on the colored leaves of the butternut tree. Dewdrops glistened on the ferns; ripples sparkled in the brooks; spider-webs glowed with wondrous rainbow hues, and the flower of the forest, the sweet, pale-faced daisy, rose above the green like a white star.

Yellow birds flitted among the hazel bushes caroling joyously, and cat-birds sang gaily. Robins called; bluejays screeched in the tall, white oaks; wood-peckers hammered in the dead hard-woods, and crows cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffed grouse rose with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the wilder scream of an eagle.

Wilderness music such as all this fell harmoniously on the borderman’s ear. It betokened the gladsome spirit of his wild friends, happy in the warm sunshine above, or in the cool depths beneath the fluttering leaves, and everywhere in those lonely haunts unalarmed and free.

Familiar to Jonathan, almost as the footpath near his home, was this winding trail. On the height above was a safe rendezvous, much frequented by him and Wetzel. Every lichen-covered stone, mossy bank, noisy brook and giant oak on the way up this mountain-side, could have told, had they spoken their secrets, stories of the bordermen. The fragile ferns and slender-bladed grasses peeping from the gray and amber mosses, and the flowers that hung from craggy ledges, had wisdom to impart. A borderman lived under the green tree-tops, and, therefore, all the nodding branches of sassafras and laurel, the grassy slopes and rocky cliffs, the stately ash trees, kingly oaks and dark, mystic pines, together with the creatures that dwelt among them, save his deadly red-skinned foes, he loved. Other affection as close and true as this, he had not known. Hearkening thus with single heart to nature’s teachings, he learned her secrets. Certain it was, therefore, that the many hours he passed in the woods apart from savage pursuits, were happy and fruitful.

Slowly he pressed on up the ascent, at length coming into open light upon a small plateau marked by huge, rugged, weather-chipped stones. On the eastern side was a rocky promontory, and close to the edge of this cliff, an hundred feet in sheer descent, rose a gnarled, time and tempest-twisted chestnut tree. Here the borderman laid down his rifle and knapsack, and, half-reclining against the tree, settled himself to rest and wait.

This craggy point was the lonely watch-tower of eagles. Here on the highest headland for miles around where the bordermen were wont to meet, the outlook was far-reaching and grand.

Below the gray, splintered cliffs sheered down to meet the waving tree-tops, and then hill after hill, slope after slope, waved and rolled far, far down to the green river. Open grassy patches, bright little islands in that ocean of dark green, shone on the hillsides. The rounded ridges ran straight, curved, or zigzag, but shaped their graceful lines in the descent to make the valley. Long, purple-hued, shadowy depressions in the wide expanse of foliage marked deep clefts between ridges where dark, cool streams bounded on to meet the river. Lower, where the land was level, in open spaces could be seen a broad trail, yellow in the sunlight, winding along with the curves of the water-course. On a swampy meadow, blue in the distance, a herd of buffalo browsed. Beyond the river, high over the green island, Fort Henry lay peaceful and solitary, the only token of the works of man in all that vast panorama.

Jonathan Zane was as much alone as if one thousand miles, instead of five, intervened between him and the settlement. Loneliness was to him a passion. Other men loved home, the light of woman’s eyes, the rattle of dice or the lust of hoarding; but to him this wild, remote promontory, with its limitless view, stretching away to the dim hazy horizon, was more than all the aching joys of civilization.

Hours here, or in the shady valley, recompensed him for the loss of home comforts, the soft touch of woman’s hands, the kiss of baby lips, and also for all he suffered in his pitiless pursuits, the hard fare, the steel and blood of a borderman’s life.

Soon the sun shone straight overhead, dwarfing the shadow of the chestnut on the rock.

During such a time it was rare that any connected thought came into the borderman’s mind. His dark eyes, now strangely luminous, strayed lingeringly over those purple, undulating slopes. This intense watchfulness had no object, neither had his listening. He watched nothing; he hearkened to the silence. Undoubtedly in this state of rapt absorption his perceptions were acutely alert; but without thought, as were those of the savage in the valley below, or the eagle in the sky above.

Yet so perfectly trained were these perceptions that the least unnatural sound or sight brought him wary and watchful from his dreamy trance.

The slight snapping of a twig in the thicket caused him to sit erect, and reach out toward his rifle. His eyes moved among the dark openings in the thicket. In another moment a tall figure pressed the bushes apart. Jonathan let fall his rifle, and sank back against the tree once more. Wetzel stepped over the rocks toward him.

“Come from Blue Pond?” asked Jonathan as the newcomer took a seat beside him.

Wetzel nodded as he carefully laid aside his long, black rifle.

“Any Injun sign?” continued Jonathan, pushing toward his companion the knapsack of eatables he had brought from the settlement.

“Nary Shawnee track west of this divide,” answered Wetzel, helping himself to bread and cheese.

“Lew, we must go eastward, over Bing Legget’s way, to find the trail of the stolen horses.”

“Likely, an’ it’ll be a long, hard tramp.”

“Who’s in Legget’s gang now beside Old Horse, the Chippewa, an’ his Shawnee pard, Wildfire? I don’t know Bing; but I’ve seen some of his Injuns an’ they remember me.”

“Never seen Legget but onct,” replied Wetzel, “an’ that time I shot half his face off. I’ve been told by them as have seen him since, that he’s got a nasty scar on his temple an’ cheek. He’s a big man an’ knows the woods. I don’t know who all’s in his gang, nor does anybody. He works in the dark, an’ for cunnin’ he’s got some on Jim Girty, Deerin’, an’ several more renegades we know of lyin’ quiet back here in the woods. We never tackled as bad a gang as his’n; they’re all experienced woodsmen, old fighters, an’ desperate, outlawed as they be by Injuns an’ whites. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that it’s him an’ his gang who are runnin’ this hoss-thievin’; but bad or no, we’re goin’ after ‘em.”

Jonathan told of his movements since he had last seen his companion.

“An’ the lass Helen is goin’ to help us,” said Wetzel, much interested. “It’s a good move. Women are keen. Betty put Miller’s schemin’ in my eye long ‘afore I noticed it. But girls have chances we men’d never get.”

“Yes, an’ she’s like Betts, quicker’n lightnin’. She’ll find out this hoss-thief in Fort Henry; but Lew, when we do get him we won’t be much better off. Where do them hosses go? Who’s disposin’ of ’em for this fellar?”

“Where’s Brandt from?” asked Wetzel.

“Detroit; he’s a French-Canadian.”

Wetzel swung sharply around, his eyes glowing like wakening furnaces.

“Bing Legget’s a French-Canadian, an’ from Detroit. Metzar was once thick with him down Fort Pitt way ‘afore he murdered a man an’ became an outlaw. We’re on the trail, Jack.”

“Brandt an’ Metzar, with Legget backin’ them, an’ the horses go overland to Detroit?”

“I calkilate you’ve hit the mark.”

“What’ll we do?” asked Jonathan.

“Wait; that’s best. We’ve no call to hurry. We must know the truth before makin’ a move, an’ as yet we’re only suspicious. This lass’ll find out more in a week than we could in a year. But Jack, have a care she don’t fall into any snare. Brandt ain’t any too honest a lookin’ chap, an’ them renegades is hell for women. The scars you wear prove that well enough. She’s a rare, sweet, bloomin’ lass, too. I never seen her equal. I remember how her eyes flashed when she said she knew I’d avenged Mabel. Jack, they’re wonderful eyes; an’ that girl, however sweet an’ good as she must be, is chain-lightnin’ wrapped up in a beautiful form. Aren’t the boys at the fort runnin’ arter her?”

“Like mad; it’d make you laugh to see ‘em,” replied Jonathan calmly.

“There’ll be some fights before she’s settled for, an’ mebbe arter thet. Have a care for her, Jack, an’ see that she don’t ketch you.”

“No more danger than for you.”

“I was ketched onct,” replied Wetzel.

Jonathan Zane looked up at his companion. Wetzel’s head was bowed; but there was no merriment in the serious face exposed to the borderman’s scrutiny.

“Lew, you’re jokin’.”

“Not me. Some day, when you’re ketched good, an’ I have to go back to the lonely trail, as I did afore you an’ me become friends, mebbe then, when I’m the last borderman, I’ll tell you.”

“Lew, ‘cordin’ to the way settlers are comin’, in a few more years there won’t be any need for a borderman. When the Injuns are all gone where’ll be our work?”

“‘Tain’t likely either of us’ll ever see them times,” said Wetzel, “an’ I don’t want to. Wal, Jack, I’m off now, an’ I’ll meet you here every other day.”

Wetzel shouldered his long rifle, and soon passed out of sight down the mountain-side.

Jonathan arose, shook himself as a big dog might have done, and went down into the valley. Only once did he pause in his descent, and that was when a crackling twig warned him some heavy body was moving near. Silently he sank into the bushes bordering the trail. He listened with his ear close to the ground. Presently he heard a noise as of two hard substances striking together. He resumed his walk, having recognized the grating noise of a deer-hoof striking a rock. Farther down he espied a pair grazing. The buck ran into the thicket; but the doe eyed him curiously.

Less than an hour’s rapid walking brought him to the river. Here he plunged into a thicket of willows, and emerged on a sandy strip of shore. He carefully surveyed the river bank, and then pulled a small birch-bark canoe from among the foliage. He launched the frail craft, paddled across the river and beached it under a reedy, over-hanging bank.

The distance from this point in a straight line to his destination was only a mile; but a rocky bluff and a ravine necessitated his making a wide detour. While lightly leaping over a brook his keen eye fell on an imprint in the sandy loam. Instantly he was on his knees. The footprint was small, evidently a woman’s, and, what was more unusual, instead of the flat, round moccasin-track, it was pointed, with a sharp, square heel. Such shoes were not worn by border girls. True Betty and Nell had them; but they never went into the woods without moccasins.

Jonathan’s experienced eye saw that this imprint was not an hour old. He gazed up at the light. The day was growing short. Already shadows lay in the glens. He would not long have light enough to follow the trail; but he hurried on hoping to find the person who made it before darkness came. He had not traveled many paces before learning that the one who made it was lost. The uncertainty in those hasty steps was as plain to the borderman’s eyes, as if it had been written in words on the sand. The course led along the brook, avoiding the rough places; and leading into the open glades and glens; but it drew no nearer to the settlement. A quarter of an hour of rapid trailing enabled Jonathan to discern a dark figure moving among the trees. Abandoning the trail, he cut across a ridge to head off the lost woman. Stepping out of a sassafras thicket, he came face to face with Helen Sheppard.

“Oh!” she cried in alarm, and then the expression of terror gave place to one of extreme relief and gladness. “Oh! Thank goodness! You’ve found me. I’m lost!”

“I reckon,” answered Jonathan grimly. “The settlement’s only five hundred yards over that hill.”

“I was going the wrong way. Oh! suppose you hadn’t come!” exclaimed Helen, sinking on a log and looking up at him with warm, glad eyes.

“How did you lose your way?” Jonathan asked. He saw neither the warmth in her eyes nor the gladness.

“I went up the hillside, only a little way, after flowers, keeping the fort in sight all the time. Then I saw some lovely violets down a little hill, and thought I might venture. I found such loads of them I forgot everything else, and I must have walked on a little way. On turning to go back I couldn’t find the little hill. I have hunted in vain for the clearing. It seems as if I have been wandering about for hours. I’m so glad you’ve found me!”

“Weren’t you told to stay in the settlement, inside the clearing?” demanded Jonathan.

“Yes,” replied Helen, with her head up.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t choose.”

“You ought to have better sense.”

“It seems I hadn’t,” Helen said quietly, but her eyes belied that calm voice.

“You’re a headstrong child,” Jonathan added curtly.

“Mr. Zane!” cried Helen with pale face.

“I suppose you’ve always had your own sweet will; but out here on the border you ought to think a little of others, if not of yourself.”

Helen maintained a proud silence.

“You might have run right into prowlin’ Shawnees.”

“That dreadful disaster would not have caused you any sorrow,” she flashed out.

“Of course it would. I might have lost my scalp tryin’ to get you back home,” said Jonathan, beginning to hesitate. Plainly he did not know what to make of this remarkable young woman.

“Such a pity to have lost all your fine hair,” she answered with a touch of scorn.

Jonathan flushed, perhaps for the first time in his life. If there was anything he was proud of, it was his long, glossy hair.

“Miss Helen, I’m a poor hand at words,” he said, with a pale, grave face. “I was only speakin’ for your own good.”

“You are exceedingly kind; but need not trouble yourself.”

“Say,” Jonathan hesitated, looking half-vexed at the lovely, angry face. Then an idea occurred to him. “Well, I won’t trouble. Find your way home yourself.”

Abruptly he turned and walked slowly away. He had no idea of allowing her to go home alone; but believed it might be well for her to think so. If she did not call him back he would remain near at hand, and when she showed signs of anxiety or fear he could go to her.

Helen determined she would die in the woods, or be captured by Shawnees, before calling him back. But she watched him. Slowly the tall, strong figure, with its graceful, springy stride, went down the glade. He would be lost to view in a moment, and then she would be alone. How dark it had suddenly become! The gray cloak of twilight was spread over the forest, and in the hollows night already had settled down. A breathless silence pervaded the woods. How lonely! thought Helen, with a shiver. Surely it would be dark before she could find the settlement. What hill hid the settlement from view? She did not know, could not remember which he had pointed out. Suddenly she began to tremble. She had been so frightened before he had found her, and so relieved afterward; and now he was going away.

“Mr. Zane,” she cried with a great effort. “Come back.”

Jonathan kept slowly on.

“Come back, Jonathan, please.”

The borderman retraced his steps.

“Please take me home,” she said, lifting a fair face all flushed, tear-stained, and marked with traces of storm. “I was foolish, and silly to come into the woods, and so glad to see you! But you spoke to me — in — in a way no one ever used before. I’m sure I deserved it. Please take me home. Papa will be worried.”

Softer eyes and voice than hers never entreated man.

“Come,” he said gently, and, taking her by the hand, he led her up the ridge.

Thus they passed through the darkening forest, hand in hand, like a dusky redman and his bride. He helped her over stones and logs, but still held her hand when there was no need of it. She looked up to see him walking, so dark and calm beside her, his eyes ever roving among the trees. Deepest remorse came upon her because of what she had said. There was no sentiment for him in this walk under the dark canopy of the leaves. He realized the responsibility. Any tree might hide a treacherous foe. She would atone for her sarcasm, she promised herself, while walking, ever conscious of her hand in his, her bosom heaving with the sweet, undeniable emotion which came knocking at her heart.

Soon they were out of the thicket, and on the dusty lane. A few moments of rapid walking brought them within sight of the twinkling lights of the village, and a moment later they were at the lane leading to Helen’s home. Releasing her hand, she stopped him with a light touch and said:

“Please don’t tell papa or Colonel Zane.”

“Child, I ought. Some one should make you stay at home.”

“I’ll stay. Please don’t tell. It will worry papa.”

Jonathan Zane looked down into her great, dark, wonderful eyes with an unaccountable feeling. He really did not hear what she asked. Something about that upturned face brought to his mind a rare and perfect flower which grew in far-off rocky fastnesses. The feeling he had was intangible, like no more than a breath of fragrant western wind, faint with tidings of some beautiful field.

“Promise me you won’t tell.”

“Well, lass, have it your own way,” replied Jonathan, wonderingly conscious that it was the first pledge ever asked of him by a woman.

“Thank you. Now we have two secrets, haven’t we?” she laughed, with eyes like stars.

“Run home now, lass. Be careful hereafter. I do fear for you with such spirit an’ temper. I’d rather be scalped by Shawnees than have Bing Legget so much as set eyes on you.”

“You would? Why?” Her voice was like low, soft music.

“Why?” he mused. “It’d seem like a buzzard about to light on a doe.”

“Good-night,” said Helen abruptly, and, wheeling, she hurried down the lane.

CHAPTER VIII

“JACK,” SAID COLONEL Zane to his brother next morning, “to-day is Saturday and all the men will be in. There was high jinks over at Metzar’s place yesterday, and I’m looking for more to-day. The two fellows Alex Bennet told me about, came on day-before-yesterday’s boat. Sure enough, one’s a lordly Englishman, and the other, the cussedest-looking little chap I ever saw. They started trouble immediately. The Englishman, his name is Mordaunt, hunted up the Sheppards and as near as I can make out from George’s story, Helen spoke her mind very plainly. Mordaunt and Case, that’s his servant, the little cuss, got drunk and raised hell down at Metzar’s where they’re staying. Brandt and Williams are drinking hard, too, which is something unusual for Brandt. They got chummy at once with the Englishman, who seems to have plenty of gold and is fond of gambling. This Mordaunt is a gentleman, or I never saw one. I feel sorry for him. He appears to be a ruined man. If he lasts a week out here I’ll be surprised. Case looks ugly, as if he were spoiling to cut somebody. I want you to keep your eye peeled. The day may pass off as many other days of drinking bouts have, without anything serious, and on the other hand there’s liable to be trouble.”

Jonathan’s preparations were characteristic of the borderman. He laid aside his rifle, and, removing his short coat, buckled on a second belt containing a heavier tomahawk and knife than those he had been wearing. Then he put on his hunting frock, or shirt, and wore it loose with the belts underneath, instead of on the outside. Unfastened, the frock was rather full, and gave him the appearance of a man unarmed and careless.

Jonathan Zane was not so reckless as to court danger, nor, like many frontiersmen, fond of fighting for its own sake. Colonel Zane was commandant of the fort, and, in a land where there was no law, tried to maintain a semblance of it. For years he had kept thieves, renegades and outlaws away from his little settlement by dealing out stern justice. His word was law, and his bordermen executed it as such. Therefore Jonathan and Wetzel made it their duty to have a keen eye on all that was happening. They kept the colonel posted, and never interfered in any case without orders.

The morning passed quietly. Jonathan strolled here or loitered there; but saw none of the roisterers. He believed they were sleeping off the effects of their orgy on the previous evening. After dinner he smoked his pipe. Betty and Helen passed, and Helen smiled. It struck him suddenly that she had never looked at him in such a way before. There was meaning in that warm, radiant flash. A little sense of vexation, the source of which he did not understand, stirred in him against this girl; but with it came the realization that her white face and big, dark eyes had risen before him often since the night before. He wished, for the first time, that he could understand women better.

“Everything quiet?” asked Colonel Zane, coming out on the steps.

“All quiet,” answered Jonathan.

“They’ll open up later, I suspect. I’m going over to Sheppard’s for a while, and, later, will drop into Metzar’s. I’ll make him haul in a yard or two. I don’t like things I hear about his selling the youngsters rum. I’d like you to be within call.”

The borderman strolled down the bluff and along the path which overhung the river. He disliked Metzar more than his brother suspected, and with more weighty reason than that of selling rum to minors. Jonathan threw himself at length on the ground and mused over the situation.

“We never had any peace in this settlement, an’ never will in our day. Eb is hopeful an’ looks at the bright side, always expectin’ to-morrow will be different. What have the past sixteen years been? One long bloody fight, an’ the next sixteen won’t be any better. I make out that we’ll have a mix-up soon. Metzar an’ Brandt with their allies, whoever they are, will be in it, an’ if Bing Legget’s in the gang, we’ve got, as Wetzel said, a long, hard trail, which may be our last. More’n that, there’ll be trouble about this chain-lightnin’ girl, as Wetzel predicted. Women make trouble anyways; an’ when they’re winsome an’ pretty they cause more; but if they’re beautiful an’ fiery, bent on havin’ their way, as this new lass is, all hell couldn’t hold a candle to them. We don’t need the Shawnees an’ Girtys, an’ hoss thieves round this here settlement to stir up excitin’ times, now we’ve got this dark-eyed lass. An’ yet any fool could see she’s sweet, an’ good, an’ true as gold.”

Toward the middle of the afternoon Jonathan sauntered in the direction of Metzar’s inn. It lay on the front of the bluff, with its main doors looking into the road. A long, one-story log structure with two doors, answered as a bar-room. The inn proper was a building more pretentious, and joined the smaller one at its western end. Several horses were hitched outside, and two great oxen yoked to a cumbersome mud-crusted wagon stood patiently by.

Jonathan bent his tall head as he entered the noisy bar-room. The dingy place reeked with tobacco smoke and the fumes of vile liquor. It was crowded with men. The lawlessness of the time and place was evident. Gaunt, red-faced frontiersmen reeled to and fro across the sawdust floor; hunters and fur-traders, raftsmen and farmers, swelled the motley crowd; young men, honest-faced, but flushed and wild with drink, hung over the bar; a group of sullen-visaged, serpent-eyed Indians held one corner. The black-bearded proprietor dealt out the rum.

From beyond the bar-room, through a door entering upon the back porch, came the rattling of dice. Jonathan crossed the bar-room apparently oblivious to the keen glance Metzar shot at him, and went out upon the porch. This also was crowded, but there was more room because of greater space. At one table sat some pioneers drinking and laughing; at another were three men playing with dice. Colonel Zane, Silas, and Sheppard were among the lookers-on at the game. Jonathan joined them, and gazed at the gamesters.

Brandt he knew well enough; he had seen that set, wolfish expression in the riverman’s face before. He observed, however, that the man had flushed cheeks and trembling hands, indications of hard drinking. The player sitting next to Brandt was Williams, one of the garrison, and a good-natured fellow, but garrulous and wickedly disposed when drunk. The remaining player Jonathan at once saw was the Englishman, Mordaunt. He was a handsome man, with fair skin, and long, silken, blond mustache. Heavy lines, and purple shades under his blue eyes, were die unmistakable stamp of dissipation. Reckless, dissolute, bad as he looked, there yet clung something favorable about the man. Perhaps it was his cool, devil-may-care way as he pushed over gold piece after gold piece from the fast diminishing pile before him. His velvet frock and silken doublet had once been elegant; but were now sadly the worse for border roughing.

Behind the Englishman’s chair Jonathan saw a short man with a face resembling that of a jackal. The grizzled, stubbly beard, the protruding, vicious mouth, the broad, flat nose, and deep-set, small, glittering eyes made a bad impression on the observer. This man, Jonathan concluded, was the servant, Case, who was so eager with his knife. The borderman made the reflection, that if knife-play was the little man’s pastime, he was not likely to go short of sport in that vicinity.

Colonel Zane attracted Jonathan’s attention at this moment. The pioneers had vacated the other table, and Silas and Sheppard now sat by it. The colonel wanted his brother to join them.

“Here, Johnny, bring drinks,” he said to the serving boy. “Tell Metzar who they’re for.” Then turning to Sheppard he continued: “He keeps good whiskey; but few of these poor devils ever see it.” At the same time Colonel Zane pressed his foot upon that of Jonathan’s.

The borderman understood that the signal was intended to call attention to Brandt. The latter had leaned forward, as Jonathan passed by to take a seat with his brother, and said something in a low tone to Mordaunt and Case. Jonathan knew by the way the Englishman and his man quickly glanced up at him, that he had been the subject of the remark.

Suddenly Williams jumped to his feet with an oath.

“I’m cleaned out,” he cried.

“Shall we play alone?” asked Brandt of Mordaunt.

“As you like,” replied the Englishman, in a tone which showed he cared not a whit whether he played or not.

“I’ve got work to do. Let’s have some more drinks, and play another time,” said Brandt.

The liquor was served and drank. Brandt pocketed his pile of Spanish and English gold, and rose to his feet. He was a trifle unsteady; but not drunk.

“Will you gentlemen have a glass with me?” Mordaunt asked of Colonel Zane’s party.

“Thank you, some other time, with pleasure. We have our drink now,” Colonel Zane said courteously.

Meantime Brandt had been whispering in Case’s ear. The little man laughed at something the riverman said. Then he shuffled from behind the table. He was short, his compact build gave promise of unusual strength and agility.

“What are you going to do now?” asked Mordaunt, rising also. He looked hard at Case.

“Shiver my sides, cap’n, if I don’t need another drink,” replied the sailor.

“You have had enough. Come upstairs with me,” said Mordaunt.

“Easy with your hatch, cap’n,” grinned Case. “I want to drink with that ther’ Injun killer. I’ve had drinks with buccaneers, and bad men all over the world, and I’m not going to miss this chance.”

“Come on; you will get into trouble. You must not annoy these gentlemen,” said Mordaunt.

“Trouble is the name of my ship, and she’s a trim, fast craft,” replied the man.

His loud voice had put an end to the convention. Men began to crowd in from the bar-room. Metzar himself came to see what had caused the excitement.

The little man threw up his cap, whooped, and addressed himself to Jonathan:

“Injun-killer, bad man of the border, will you drink with a jolly old tar from England?”

Suddenly a silence reigned, like that in the depths of the forest. To those who knew the borderman, and few did not know him, the invitation was nothing less than an insult. But it did not appear to them, as to him, like a pre-arranged plot to provoke a fight.

“Will you drink, redskin-hunter?” bawled the sailor.

“No,” said Jonathan in his quiet voice.

“Maybe you mean that against old England?” demanded Case fiercely.

The borderman eyed him steadily, inscrutable as to feeling or intent, and was silent.

“Go out there and I’ll see the color of your insides quicker than I’d take a drink,” hissed the sailor, with his brick-red face distorted and hideous to look upon. He pointed with a long-bladed knife that no one had seen him draw, to the green sward beyond the porch.

The borderman neither spoke, nor relaxed a muscle.

“Ho! ho! my brave pirate of the plains!” cried Case, and he leered with braggart sneer into the faces of Jonathan and his companions.

It so happened that Sheppard sat nearest to him, and got the full effect of the sailor’s hot, rum-soaked breath. He arose with a pale face.

“Colonel, I can’t stand this,” he said hastily. “Let’s get away from that drunken ruffian.”

“Who’s a drunken ruffian?” yelled Case, more angry than ever. “I’m not drunk; but I’m going to be, and cut some of you white-livered border mates. Here, you old masthead, drink this to my health, damn you!”

The ruffian had seized a tumbler of liquor from the table, and held it toward Sheppard while he brandished his long knife.

White as snow, Sheppard backed against the wall; but did not take the drink.

The sailor had the floor; no one save him spoke a word. The action had been so rapid that there had hardly been time. Colonel Zane and Silas were as quiet and tense as the borderman.

“Drink!” hoarsely cried the sailor, advancing his knife toward Sheppard’s body.

When the sharp point all but pressed against the old man, a bright object twinkled through the air. It struck Case’s wrist, knocked the knife from his fingers, and, bounding against the wall, fell upon the floor. It was a tomahawk.

The borderman sprang over the table like a huge catamount, and with movement equally quick, knocked Case with a crash against the wall; closed on him before he could move a hand, and flung him like a sack of meal over the bluff.

The tension relieved, some of the crowd laughed, others looked over the embankment to see how Case had fared, and others remarked that for some reason he had gotten off better than they expected.

The borderman remained silent. He leaned against a post, with broad breast gently heaving, but his eyes sparkled as they watched Brandt, Williams, Mordaunt and Metzar. The Englishman alone spoke.

“Handily done,” he said, cool and suave. “Sir, yours is an iron hand. I apologize for this unpleasant affair. My man is quarrelsome when under the influence of liquor.”

“Metzar, a word with you,” cried Colonel Zane curtly.

“Come inside, kunnel,” said the innkeeper, plainly ill at ease.

“No; listen here. I’ll speak to the point. You’ve got to stop running this kind of a place. No words, now, you’ve got to stop. Understand? You know as well as I, perhaps better, the character of your so-called inn. You’ll get but one more chance.”

“Wal, kunnel, this is a free country,” growled Metzar. “I can’t help these fellars comin’ here lookin’ fer blood. I runs an honest place. The men want to drink an’ gamble. What’s law here? What can you do?”

“You know me, Metzar,” Colonel Zane said grimly. “I don’t waste words. ‘To hell with law!’ so you say. I can say that, too. Remember, the next drunken boy I see, or shady deal, or gambling spree, out you go for good.”

Metzar lowered his shaggy head and left the porch. Brandt and his friends, with serious faces, withdrew into the bar-room.

The borderman walked around the corner of the inn, and up the lane. The colonel, with Silas and Sheppard, followed in more leisurely fashion. At a shout from some one they turned to see a dusty, bloody figure, with ragged clothes, stagger up from the bluff.

“There’s that blamed sailor now,” said Sheppard. “He’s a tough nut. My! What a knock on the head Jonathan gave him. Strikes me, too, that tomahawk came almost at the right time to save me a whole skin.”

“I was furious, but not at all alarmed,” rejoined Colonel Zane.

“I wondered what made you so quiet.”

“I was waiting. Jonathan never acts until the right moment, and then — well, you saw him. The little villain deserved killing. I could have shot him with pleasure. Do you know, Sheppard, Jonathan’s aversion to shedding blood is a singular thing. He’d never kill the worst kind of a white man until driven to it.”

“That’s commendable. How about Wetzel?”

“Well, Lew is different,” replied Colonel Zane with a shudder. “If I told him to take an ax and clean out Metzar’s place — God! what a wreck he’d make of it. Maybe I’ll have to tell him, and if I do, you’ll see something you can never forget.”

CHAPTER IX

ON SUNDAY MORNING under the bright, warm sun, the little hamlet of Fort Henry lay peacefully quiet, as if no storms had ever rolled and thundered overhead, no roistering ever disturbed its stillness, and no Indian’s yell ever horribly broke the quiet.

“’Tis a fine morning,” said Colonel Zane, joining his sister on the porch. “Well, how nice you look! All in white for the first time since — well, you do look charming. You’re going to church, of course.”

“Yes, I invited Helen and her cousin to go. I’ve persuaded her to teach my Sunday-school class, and I’ll take another of older children,” replied Betty.

“That’s well. The youngsters don’t have much chance to learn out here. But we’ve made one great stride. A church and a preacher means very much to young people. Next shall come the village school.”

“Helen and I might teach our classes an hour or two every afternoon.”

“It would be a grand thing if you did! Fancy these tots growing up unable to read or write. I hate to think of it; but the Lord knows I’ve done my best. I’ve had my troubles in keeping them alive.”

“Helen suggested the day school. She takes the greatest interest in everything and everybody. Her energy is remarkable. She simply must move, must do something. She overflows with kindness and sympathy. Yesterday she cried with happiness when Mabel told her Alex was eager to be married very soon. I tell you, Eb, Helen is a fine character.”

“Yes, good as she is pretty, which is saying some,” mused the colonel. “I wonder who’ll be the lucky fellow to win her.”

“It’s hard to say. Not that Englishman, surely. She hates him. Jonathan might. You should see her eyes when he is mentioned.”

“Say, Betts, you don’t mean it?” eagerly asked her brother.

“Yes, I do,” returned Betty, nodding her head positively. “I’m not easily deceived about those things. Helen’s completely fascinated with Jack. She might be only a sixteen-year-old girl for the way she betrays herself to me.”

“Betty, I have a beautiful plan.”

“No doubt; you’re full of them.”

“We can do it, Betty, we can, you and I,” he said, as he squeezed her arm.

“My dear old matchmaking brother,” returned Betty, laughing, “it takes two to make a bargain. Jack must be considered.”

“Bosh!” exclaimed the colonel, snapping his fingers. “You needn’t tell me any young man — any man, could resist that glorious girl.”

“Perhaps not; I couldn’t if I were a man. But Jack’s not like other people. He’d never realize that she cared for him. Besides, he’s a borderman.”

“I know, and that’s the only serious obstacle. But he could scout around the fort, even if he was married. These long, lonely, terrible journeys taken by him and Wetzel are mostly unnecessary. A sweet wife could soon make him see that. The border will be civilized in a few years, and because of that he’d better give over hunting for Indians. I’d like to see him married and settled down, like all the rest of us, even Isaac. You know Jack’s the last of the Zanes, that is, the old Zanes. The difficulty arising from his extreme modesty and bashfulness can easily be overcome.”

“How, most wonderful brother?”

“Easy as pie. Tell Jack that Helen is dying of love for him, and tell her that Jack loves — —”

“But, dear Eb, that latter part is not true,” interposed Betty.

“True, of course it’s true, or would be in any man who wasn’t as blind as a bat. We’ll tell her Jack cares for her; but he is a borderman with stern ideas of duty, and so slow and backward he’d never tell his love even if he had overcome his tricks of ranging. That would settle it with any girl worth her salt, and this one will fetch Jack in ten days, or less.”

“Eb, you’re a devil,” said Betty gaily, and then she added in a more sober vein, “I understand, Eb. Your idea is prompted by love of Jack, and it’s all right. I never see him go out of the clearing but I think it may be for the last time, even as on that day so long ago when brother Andrew waved his cap to us, and never came back. Jack is the best man in the world, and I, too, want to see him happy, with a wife, and babies, and a settled occupation in life. I think we might weave a pretty little romance. Shall we try?”

“Try? We’ll do it! Now, Betts, you explain it to both. You can do it smoother than I, and telling them is really the finest point of our little plot. I’ll help the good work along afterwards. He’ll be out presently. Nail him at once.”

Jonathan, all unconscious of the deep-laid scheme to make him happy, soon came out on the porch, and stretched his long arms as he breathed freely of the morning air.

“Hello, Jack, where are you bound?” asked Betty, clasping one of his powerful, buckskin-clad knees with her arm.

“I reckon I’ll go over to the spring,” he replied, patting her dark, glossy head.

“Do you know I want to tell you something, Jack, and it’s quite serious,” she said, blushing a little at her guilt; but resolute to carry out her part of the plot.

“Well, dear?” he asked as she hesitated.

“Do you like Helen?”

“That is a question,” Jonathan replied after a moment.

“Never mind; tell me,” she persisted.

He made no answer.

“Well, Jack, she’s — she’s wildly in love with you.”

The borderman stood very still for several moments. Then, with one step he gained the lawn, and turned to confront her.

“What’s that you say?”

Betty trembled a little. He spoke so sharply, his eyes were bent on her so keenly, and he looked so strong, so forceful that she was almost afraid. But remembering that she had said only what, to her mind, was absolutely true, she raised her eyes and repeated the words:

“Helen is wildly’in love with you.”

“Betty, you wouldn’t joke about such a thing; you wouldn’t lie to me, I know you wouldn’t.”

“No, Jack dear.”

She saw his powerful frame tremble, even as she had seen more than one man tremble, during the siege, under the impact of a bullet.

Without speaking, he walked rapidly down the path toward the spring.

Colonel Zane came out of his hiding-place behind the porch and, with a face positively electrifying in its glowing pleasure, beamed upon his sister.

“Gee! Didn’t he stalk off like an Indian chief!” he said, chuckling with satisfaction. “By George! Betts, you must have got in a great piece of work. I never in my life saw Jack look like that.”

Colonel Zane sat down by Betty’s side and laughed softly but heartily.

“We’ll fix him all right, the lonely hill-climber! Why, he hasn’t a ghost of a chance. Wait until she sees him after hearing your story! I tell you, Betty — why — damme! you’re crying!”

He had turned to find her head lowered, while she shaded her face with her hand.

“Now, Betty, just a little innocent deceit like that — what harm?” he said, taking her hand. He was as tender as a woman.

“Oh, Eb, it wasn’t that. I didn’t mind telling him. Only the flash in his eyes reminded me of — of Alfred.”

“Surely it did. Why not? Almost everything brings up a tender memory for some one we’ve loved and lost. But don’t cry, Betty.”

She laughed a little, and raised a face with its dark cheeks flushed and tear-stained.

“I’m silly, I suppose; but I can’t help it. I cry at least once every day.”

“Brace up. Here come Helen and Will. Don’t let them see you grieved. My! Helen in pure white, too! This is a conspiracy to ruin the peace of the masculine portion of Fort Henry.”

Betty went forward to meet her friends while Colonel Zane continued talking, but now to himself. “What a fatal beauty she has!” His eyes swept over Helen with the pleasure of an artist. The fair richness of her skin, the perfect lips, the wavy, shiny hair, the wondrous dark-blue, changing eyes, the tall figure, slender, but strong and swelling with gracious womanhood, made a picture he delighted in and loved to have near him. The girl did not possess for him any of that magnetism, so commonly felt by most of her admirers; but he did feel how subtly full she was of something, which for want of a better term he described in Wetzel’s characteristic expression, as “chain-lightning.”

He reflected that as he was so much older, that she, although always winsome and earnest, showed nothing of the tormenting, bewildering coquetry of her nature. Colonel Zane prided himself on his discernment, and he had already observed that Helen had different sides of character for different persons. To Betty, Mabel, Nell, and the children, she was frank, girlish, full of fun and always lovable; to her elders quiet and earnestly solicitous to please; to the young men cold; but with a penetrating, mocking promise haunting that coldness, and sometimes sweetly agreeable, often wilful, and changeable as April winds. At last the colonel concluded that she needed, as did all other spirited young women, the taming influence of a man whom she loved, a home to care for, and children to soften and temper her spirit.

“Well, young friends, I see you count on keeping the Sabbath,” he said cheerily. “For my part, Will, I don’t see how Jim Douns can preach this morning, before this laurel blossom and that damask rose.”

“How poetical! Which is which?” asked Betty.

“Flatterer!” laughed Helen, shaking her finger.

“And a married man, too!” continued Betty.

“Well, being married has not affected my poetical sentiment, nor impaired my eyesight.”

“But it has seriously inconvenienced your old propensity of making love to the girls. Not that you wouldn’t if you dared,” replied Betty with mischief in her eye.

“Now, Will, what do you think of that? Isn’t it real sisterly regard? Come, we’ll go and look at my thoroughbreds,” said Colonel Zane.

“Where is Jonathan?” Helen asked presently. “Something happened at Metzar’s yesterday. Papa wouldn’t tell me, and I want to ask Jonathan.”

“Jack is down by the spring. He spends a great deal of his time there. It’s shady and cool, and the water babbles over the stones.”

“How much alone he is,” said Helen.

Betty took her former position on the steps, but did not raise her eyes while she continued speaking. “Yes, he’s more alone than ever lately, and quieter, too. He hardly ever speaks now. There must be something on his mind more serious than horse-thieves.”

“What?” Helen asked quickly.

“I’d better not tell — you.”

A long moment passed before Helen spoke.

“Please tell me!”

“Well, Helen, we think, Eb and I, that Jack is in love for the first time in his life, and with you, you adorable creature. But Jack’s a borderman; he is stern in his principles, thinks he is wedded to his border life, and he knows that he has both red and white blood on his hands. He’d die before he’d speak of his love, because he cannot understand that would do any good, even if you loved him, which is, of course, preposterous.”

“Loves me!” breathed Helen softly.

She sat down rather beside Betty, and turned her face away. She still held the young woman’s hand which she squeezed so tightly as to make its owner wince. Betty stole a look at her, and saw the rich red blood mantling her cheeks, and her full bosom heave.

Helen turned presently, with no trace of emotion except a singular brilliance of the eyes. She was so slow to speak again that Colonel Zane and Will returned from the corral before she found her voice.

“Colonel Zane, please tell me about last night. When papa came home to supper he was pale and very nervous. I knew something had happened. But he would not explain, which made me all the more anxious. Won’t you please tell me?”

Colonel Zane glanced again at her, and knew what had happened. Despite her self-possession those tell-tale eyes told her secret. Ever-changing and shadowing with a bounding, rapturous light, they were indeed the windows of her soul. All the emotion of a woman’s heart shone there, fear, beauty, wondering appeal, trembling joy, and timid hope.

“Tell you? Indeed I will,” replied Colonel Zane, softened and a little remorseful under those wonderful eyes.

No one liked to tell a story better than Colonel Zane. Briefly and graphically he related the circumstances of the affair leading to the attack on Helen’s father, and, as the tale progressed, he became quite excited, speaking with animated face and forceful gestures.

“Just as the knife-point touched your father, a swiftly-flying object knocked the weapon to the floor. It was Jonathan’s tomahawk. What followed was so sudden I hardly saw it. Like lightning, and flexible as steel, Jonathan jumped over the table, smashed Case against the wall, pulled him up and threw him over the bank. I tell you, Helen, it was a beautiful piece of action; but not, of course, for a woman’s eyes. Now that’s all. Your father was not even hurt.”

“He saved papa’s life,” murmured Helen, standing like a statue.

She wheeled suddenly with that swift bird-like motion habitual to her, and went quickly down the path leading to the spring.

* * * * *

Jonathan Zane, solitary dreamer of dreams as he was, had never been in as strange and beautiful a reverie as that which possessed him on this Sabbath morning.

Deep into his heart had sunk Betty’s words. The wonder of it, the sweetness, that alone was all he felt. The glory of this girl had begun, days past, to spread its glamour round him. Swept irresistibly away now, he soared aloft in a dream-castle of fancy with its painted windows and golden walls.

For the first time in his life on the border he had entered the little glade and had no eye for the crystal water flowing over the pebbles and mossy stones, or the plot of grassy ground inclosed by tall, dark trees and shaded by a canopy of fresh green and azure blue. Nor did he hear the music of the soft rushing water, the warbling birds, or the gentle sighing breeze moving the leaves.

Gone, vanished, lost to-day was that sweet companionship of nature. That indefinable and unutterable spirit which flowed so peacefully to him from his beloved woods; that something more than merely affecting his senses, which existed for him in the stony cliffs, and breathed with life through the lonely aisles of the forest, had fled before the fateful power of a woman’s love and beauty.

A long time that seemed only a moment passed while he leaned against a stone. A light step sounded on the path.

A vision in pure white entered the glade; two little hands pressed his, and two dark-blue eyes of misty beauty shed their light on him.

“Jonathan, I am come to thank you.”

Sweet and tremulous, the voice sounded far away.

“Thank me? For what?”

“You saved papa’s life. Oh! how can I thank you?”

No voice answered for him.

“I have nothing to give but this.”

A flower-like face was held up to him; hands light as thistledown touched his shoulders; dark-blue eyes glowed upon him with all tenderness.

“May I thank you — so?”

Soft lips met his full and lingeringly.

Then came a rush as of wind, a flash of white, and the patter of flying feet. He was alone in the glade.

CHAPTER X

JUNE PASSED; JULY opened with unusually warm weather, and Fort Henry had no visits from Indians or horse-thieves, nor any inconvenience except the hot sun. It was the warmest weather for many years, and seriously dwarfed the settlers’ growing corn. Nearly all the springs were dry, and a drouth menaced the farmers.

The weather gave Helen an excuse which she was not slow to adopt. Her pale face and languid air perplexed and worried her father and her friends. She explained to them that the heat affected her disagreeably.

Long days had passed since that Sunday morning when she kissed the borderman. What transports of sweet hope and fear were hers then! How shame had scorched her happiness! Yet still she gloried in the act. By that kiss had she awakened to a full consciousness of her love. With insidious stealth and ever-increasing power this flood had increased to full tide, and, bursting its bonds, surged over her with irresistible strength.

During the first days after the dawning of her passion, she lived in its sweetness, hearing only melodious sounds chiming in her soul. The hours following that Sunday were like long dreams. But as all things reach fruition, so this girlish period passed, leaving her a thoughtful woman. She began to gather up the threads of her life where love had broken them, to plan nobly, and to hope and wait.

Weeks passed, however, and her lover did not come. Betty told her that Jonathan made flying trips at break of day to hold council with Colonel Zane; that he and Wetzel were on the trail of Shawnees with stolen horses, and both bordermen were in their dark, vengeful, terrible moods. In these later days Helen passed through many stages of feeling. After the exalting mood of hot, young love, came reaction. She fell into the depths of despair. Sorrow paled her face, thinned her cheeks and lent another shadow, a mournful one, to her great eyes. The constant repression of emotion, the strain of trying to seem cheerful when she was miserable, threatened even her magnificent health. She answered the solicitude of her friends by evasion, and then by that innocent falsehood in which a sensitive soul hides its secrets. Shame was only natural, because since the borderman came not, nor sent her a word, pride whispered that she had wooed him, forgetting modesty.

Pride, anger, shame, despair, however, finally fled before affection. She loved this wild borderman, and knew he loved her in return although he might not understand it himself. His simplicity, his lack of experience with women, his hazardous life and stern duty regarding it, pleaded for him and for her love. For the lack of a little understanding she would never live unhappy and alone while she was loved. Better give a thousand times more than she had sacrificed. He would return to the village some day, when the Indians and the thieves were run down, and would be his own calm, gentle self. Then she would win him, break down his allegiance to this fearful border life, and make him happy in her love.

While Helen was going through one of the fires of life to come out sweeter and purer, if a little pensive and sad, time, which waits not for love, nor life, nor death, was hastening onward, and soon the golden fields of grain were stored. September came with its fruitful promise fulfilled.

Helen entered once more into the quiet, social life of the little settlement, taught her class on Sundays, did all her own work, and even found time to bring a ray of sunshine to more than one sick child’s bed. Yet she did not forget her compact with Jonathan, and bent all her intelligence to find some clew that might aid in the capture of the horse-thief. She was still groping in the darkness. She could not, however, banish the belief that the traitor was Brandt. She blamed herself for this, because of having no good reasons for suspicion; but the conviction was there, fixed by intuition. Because a man’s eyes were steely gray, sharp like those of a cat’s, and capable of the same contraction and enlargement, there was no reason to believe their owner was a criminal. But that, Helen acknowledged with a smile, was the only argument she had. To be sure Brandt had looked capable of anything, the night Jonathan knocked him down; she knew he had incited Case to begin the trouble at Metzar’s, and had seemed worried since that time. He had not left the settlement on short journeys, as had been his custom before the affair in the bar-room. And not a horse had disappeared from Fort Henry since that time.

Brandt had not discontinued his attentions to her; if they were less ardent it was because she had given him absolutely to understand that she could be his friend only. And she would not have allowed even so much except for Jonathan’s plan. She fancied it was possible to see behind Brandt’s courtesy, the real subtle, threatening man. Stripped of his kindliness, an assumed virtue, the iron man stood revealed, cold, calculating, cruel.

Mordaunt she never saw but once and then, shocking and pitiful, he lay dead drunk in the grass by the side of the road, his pale, weary, handsome face exposed to the pitiless rays of the sun. She ran home weeping over this wreck of what had once been so fine a gentleman. Ah! the curse of rum! He had learned his soft speech and courtly bearing in the refinement of a home where a proud mother adored, and gentle sisters loved him. And now, far from the kindred he had disgraced, he lay in the road like a log. How it hurt her! She almost wished she could have loved him, if love might have redeemed. She was more kind to her other admirers, more tolerant of Brandt, and could forgive the Englishman, because the pangs she had suffered through love had softened her spirit.

During this long period the growing friendship of her cousin for Betty had been a source of infinite pleasure to Helen. She hoped and believed a romance would develop between the young widow and Will, and did all in her power, slyly abetted by the matchmaking colonel, to bring the two together.

One afternoon when the sky was clear with that intense blue peculiar to bright days in early autumn, Helen started out toward Betty’s, intending to remind that young lady she had promised to hunt for clematis and other fall flowers.

About half-way to Betty’s home she met Brandt. He came swinging round a corner with his quick, firm step. She had not seen him for several days, and somehow he seemed different. A brightness, a flash, as of daring expectation, was in his face. The poise, too, of the man had changed.

“Well, I am fortunate. I was just going to your home,” he said cheerily. “Won’t you come for a walk with me?”

“You may walk with me to Betty’s,” Helen answered.

“No, not that. Come up the hillside. We’ll get some goldenrod. I’d like to have a chat with you. I may go away — I mean I’m thinking of making a short trip,” he added hurriedly.

“Please come.”

“I promised to go to Betty’s.”

“You won’t come?” His voice trembled with mingled disappointment and resentment.

“No,” Helen replied in slight surprise.

“You have gone with the other fellows. Why not with me?” He was white now, and evidently laboring under powerful feelings that must have had their origin in some thought or plan which hinged on the acceptance of his invitation.

“Because I choose not to,” Helen replied coldly, meeting his glance fully.

A dark red flush swelled Brandt’s face and neck; his gray eyes gleamed balefully with wolfish glare; his teeth were clenched. He breathed hard and trembled with anger. Then, by a powerful effort, he conquered himself; the villainous expression left his face; the storm of rage subsided. Great incentive there must have been for him thus to repress his emotions so quickly. He looked long at her with sinister, intent regard; then, with the laugh of a desperado, a laugh which might have indicated contempt for the failure of his suit, and which was fraught with a world of meaning, of menace, he left her without so much as a salute.

Helen pondered over this sudden change, and felt relieved because she need make no further pretense of friendship. He had shown himself to be what she had instinctively believed. She hurried on toward Betty’s, hoping to find Colonel Zane at home, and with Jonathan, for Brandt’s hint of leaving Fort Henry, and his evident chagrin at such a slip of speech, had made her suspicious. She was informed by Mrs. Zane that the colonel had gone to a log-raising; Jonathan had not been in for several days, and Betty went away with Will.

“Where did they go?” asked Helen.

“I’m not sure; I think down to the spring.”

Helen followed the familiar path through the grove of oaks into the glade. It was quite deserted. Sitting on the stone against which Jonathan had leaned the day she kissed him, she gave way to tender reflection. Suddenly she was disturbed by the sound of rapid footsteps, and looking up, saw the hulking form of Metzar, the innkeeper, coming down the path. He carried a bucket, and meant evidently to get water. Helen did not desire to be seen, and, thinking he would stay only a moment, slipped into a thicket of willows behind the stone. She could see plainly through the foliage. Metzar came into the glade, peered around in the manner of a man expecting to see some one, and then, filling his bucket at the spring, sat down on the stone.

Not a minute elapsed before soft, rapid footsteps sounded in the distance. The bushes parted, disclosing the white, set face and gray eyes of Roger Brandt. With a light spring he cleared the brook and approached Metzar.

Before speaking he glanced around the glade with the fugitive, distrustful glance of a man who suspects even the trees. Then, satisfied by the scrutiny he opened his hunting frock, taking forth a long object which he thrust toward Metzar.

It was an Indian arrow.

Metzar’s dull gaze traveled from this to the ominous face of Brandt.

“See there, you! Look at this arrow! Shot by the best Indian on the border into the window of my room. I hadn’t been there a minute when it came from the island. God! but it was a great shot!”

“Hell!” gasped Metzar, his dull face quickening with some awful thought.

“I guess it is hell,” replied Brandt, his face growing whiter and wilder.

“Our game’s up?” questioned Metzar with haggard cheek.

“Up? Man! We haven’t a day, maybe less, to shake Fort Henry.”

“What does it mean?” asked Metzar. He was the calmer of the two.

“It’s a signal. The Shawnees, who were in hiding with the horses over by Blueberry swamp, have been flushed by those bordermen. Some of them have escaped; at least one, for no one but Ashbow could shoot that arrow across the river.”

“Suppose he hadn’t come?” whispered Metzar hoarsely.

Brandt answered him with a dark, shuddering gaze.

A twig snapped in the thicket. Like foxes at the click of a trap, these men whirled with fearsome glances.

“Ugh!” came a low, guttural voice from the bushes, and an Indian of magnificent proportions and somber, swarthy features, entered the glade.

CHAPTER XI

THE SAVAGE HAD just emerged from the river, for his graceful, copper-colored body and scanty clothing were dripping with water. He carried a long bow and a quiver of arrows.

Brandt uttered an exclamation of surprise, and Metzar a curse, as the lithe Indian leaped the brook. He was not young. His swarthy face was lined, seamed, and terrible with a dark impassiveness.

“Paleface-brother-get-arrow,” he said in halting English, as his eyes flashed upon Brandt. “Chief-want-make-sure.”

The white man leaned forward, grasped the Indian’s arm, and addressed him in an Indian language. This questioning was evidently in regard to his signal, the whereabouts of others of the party, and why he took such fearful risks almost in the village. The Indian answered with one English word.

“Deathwind!”

Brandt drew back with drawn, white face, while a whistling breath escaped him.

“I knew it, Metz. Wetzel!” he exclaimed in a husky voice.

The blood slowly receded from Metzar’s evil, murky face, leaving it haggard.

“Deathwind-on-Chief’s-trail-up-Eagle Rock,” continued the Indian. “Deathwind-fooled-not-for-long. Chief-wait-paleface-brothers at Two Islands.”

The Indian stepped into the brook, parted the willows, and was gone as he had come, silently.

“We know what to expect,” said Brandt in calmer tone as the daring cast of countenance returned to him. “There’s an Indian for you! He got away, doubled like an old fox on his trail, and ran in here to give us a chance at escape. Now you know why Bing Legget can’t be caught.”

“Let’s dig at once,” replied Metzar, with no show of returning courage such as characterized his companion.

Brandt walked to and fro with bent brows, like one in deep thought. Suddenly he turned upon Metzar eyes which were brightly hard, and reckless with resolve.

“By Heaven! I’ll do it! Listen. Wetzel has gone to the top of Eagle Mountain, where he and Zane have a rendezvous. Even he won’t suspect the cunning of this Indian; anyway it’ll be after daylight to-morrow before he strikes the trail. I’ve got twenty-four hours, and more, to get this girl, and I’ll do it!”

“Bad move to have weight like her on a march,” said Metzar.

“Bah! The thing’s easy. As for you, go on, push ahead after we’re started. All I ask is that you stay by me until the time to cut loose.”

“I ain’t agoin’ to crawfish now,” growled Metzar. “Strikes me, too, I’m losin’ more’n you.”

“You won’t be a loser if you can get back to Detroit with your scalp. I’ll pay you in horses and gold. Once we reach Legget’s place we’re safe.”

“What’s yer plan about gittin’ the gal?” asked Metzar.

Brandt leaned forward and spoke eagerly, but in a low tone.

“Git away on hoss-back?” questioned Metzar, visibly brightening. “Wal, that’s some sense. Kin ye trust ther other party?”

“I’m sure I can,” rejoined Brandt.

“It’ll be a good job, a good job an’ all done in daylight, too. Bing Legget couldn’t plan better,” Metzar said, rubbing his hands,

“We’ve fooled these Zanes and their fruit-raising farmers for a year, and our time is about up,” Brandt muttered. “One more job and we’ve done. Once with Legget we’re safe, and then we’ll work slowly back towards Detroit. Let’s get out of here now, for some one may come at any moment.”

The plotters separated, Brandt going through the grove, and Metzar down the path by which he had come.

* * * * *

Helen, trembling with horror of what she had heard, raised herself cautiously from the willows where she had lain, and watched the innkeeper’s retreating figure. When it had disappeared she gave a little gasp of relief. Free now to run home, there to plan what course must be pursued, she conquered her fear and weakness, and hurried from the glade. Luckily, so far as she was able to tell, no one saw her return. She resolved that she would be cool, deliberate, clever, worthy of the borderman’s confidence.

First she tried to determine the purport of this interview between Brandt and Metzar. She recalled to mind all that was said, and supplied what she thought had been suggested. Brandt and Metzar were horse-thieves, aids of Bing Legget. They had repaired to the glade to plan. The Indian had been a surprise. Wetzel had routed the Shawnees, and was now on the trail of this chieftain. The Indian warned them to leave Fort Henry and to meet him at a place called Two Islands. Brandt’s plan, presumably somewhat changed by the advent of the red-man, was to steal horses, abduct a girl in broad daylight, and before tomorrow’s sunset escape to join the ruffian Legget.

“I am the girl,” murmured Helen shudderingly, as she relapsed momentarily into girlish fears. But at once she rose above selfish feelings.

Secondly, while it was easy to determine what the outlaws meant, the wisest course was difficult to conceive. She had promised the borderman to help him, and not speak of anything she learned to any but himself. She could not be true to him if she asked advice. The point was clear; either she must remain in the settlement hoping for Jonathan’s return in time to frustrate Brandt’s villainous scheme, or find the borderman. Suddenly she remembered Metzar’s allusion to a second person whom Brandt felt certain he could trust. This meant another traitor in Fort Henry, another horse-thief, another desperado willing to make off with helpless women.

Helen’s spirit rose in arms. She had their secret, and could ruin them. She would find the borderman.

Wetzel was on the trail at Eagle Rock. What for? Trailing an Indian who was then five miles east of that rock? Not Wetzel! He was on that track to meet Jonathan. Otherwise, with the redskins near the river, he would have been closer to them. He would meet Jonathan there at sunset to-day, Helen decided.

She paced the room, trying to still her throbbing heart and trembling hands.

“I must be calm,” she said sternly. “Time is precious. I have not a moment to lose. I will find him. I’ve watched that mountain many a time, and can find the trail and the rock. I am in more danger here, than out there in the forest. With Wetzel and Jonathan on the mountain side, the Indians have fled it. But what about the savage who warned Brandt? Let me think. Yes, he’ll avoid the river; he’ll go round south of the settlement, and, therefore, can’t see me cross. How fortunate that I have paddled a canoe many times across the river. How glad that I made Colonel Zane describe the course up the mountains!”

Her resolution fixed, Helen changed her skirt for one of buckskin, putting on leggings and moccasins of the same serviceable material. She filled the pockets of a short, rain-proof jacket with biscuits, and, thus equipped, sallied forth with a spirit and exultation she could not subdue. Only one thing she feared, which was that Brandt or Metzar might see her cross the river. She launched her canoe and paddled down stream, under cover of the bluff, to a point opposite the end of the island, then straight across, keeping the island between her and the settlement. Gaining the other shore, Helen pulled the canoe into the willows, and mounted the bank. A thicket of willow and alder made progress up the steep incline difficult, but once out of it she faced a long stretch of grassy meadowland. A mile beyond began the green, billowy rise of that mountain which she intended to climb.

Helen’s whole soul was thrown into the adventure. She felt her strong young limbs in accord with her heart.

“Now, Mr. Brandt, horse-thief and girl-snatcher, we’ll see,” she said with scornful lips. “If I can’t beat you now I’m not fit to be Betty Zane’s friend; and am unworthy of a borderman’s trust.”

She traversed the whole length of meadowland close under the shadow of the fringed bank, and gained the forest. Here she hesitated. All was so wild and still. No definite course through the woods seemed to invite, and yet all was open. Trees, trees, dark, immovable trees everywhere. The violent trembling of poplar and aspen leaves, when all others were so calm, struck her strangely, and the fearful stillness awed her. Drawing a deep breath she started forward up the gently rising ground.

As she advanced the open forest became darker, and of wilder aspect. The trees were larger and closer together. Still she made fair progress without deviating from the course she had determined upon. Before her rose a ridge, with a ravine on either side, reaching nearly to the summit of the mountain. Here the underbrush was scanty, the fallen trees had slipped down the side, and the rocks were not so numerous, all of which gave her reason to be proud, so far, of her judgment.

Helen, pressing onward and upward, forgot time and danger, while she reveled in the wonder of the forestland. Birds and squirrels fled before her; whistling and wheezing of alarm, or heavy crashings in the bushes, told of frightened wild beasts. A dull, faint roar, like a distant wind, suggested tumbling waters. A single birch tree, gleaming white among the black trees, enlivened the gloomy forest. Patches of sunlight brightened the shade. Giant ferns, just tinging with autumn colors, waved tips of sculptured perfection. Most wonderful of all were the colored leaves, as they floated downward with a sad, gentle rustle.

Helen was brought to a realization of her hazardous undertaking by a sudden roar of water, and the abrupt termination of the ridge in a deep gorge. Grasping a tree she leaned over to look down. It was fully an hundred feet deep, with impassable walls, green-stained and damp, at the bottom of which a brawling, brown brook rushed on its way. Fully twenty feet wide, it presented an insurmountable barrier to further progress in that direction.

But Helen looked upon it merely as a difficulty to be overcome. She studied the situation, and decided to go to the left because higher ground was to be seen that way. Abandoning the ridge, she pressed on, keeping as close to the gorge as she dared, and came presently to a fallen tree lying across the dark cleft. Without a second’s hesitation, for she knew such would be fatal, she stepped upon the tree and started across, looking at nothing but the log under her feet, while she tried to imagine herself walking across the water-gate, at home in Virginia.

She accomplished the venture without a misstep. When safely on the ground once more she felt her knees tremble and a queer, light feeling came into her head. She laughed, however, as she rested a moment. It would take more than a gorge to discourage her, she resolved with set lips, as once again she made her way along the rising ground.

Perilous, if not desperate, work was ahead of her. Broken, rocky ground, matted thicket, and seemingly impenetrable forest, rose darkly in advance. But she was not even tired, and climbed, crawled, twisted and turned on her way upward. She surmounted a rocky ledge, to face a higher ridge covered with splintered, uneven stones, and the fallen trees of many storms. Once she slipped and fell, spraining her wrist. At length this uphill labor began to weary her. To breathe caused a pain in her side and she was compelled to rest.

Already the gray light of coming night shrouded the forest. She was surprised at seeing the trees become indistinct; because the shadows hovered over the thickets, and noted that the dark, dim outline of the ridges was fading into obscurity.

She struggled on up the uneven slope with a tightening at her heart which was not all exhaustion. For the first time she doubted herself, but it was too late. She could not turn back. Suddenly she felt that she was on a smoother, easier course. Not to strike a stone or break a twig seemed unusual. It might be a path worn by deer going to a spring. Then into her troubled mind flashed the joyful thought, she had found a trail.

Soft, wiry grass, springing from a wet soil, rose under her feet. A little rill trickled alongside the trail. Mossy, soft-cushioned stones lay imbedded here and there. Young maples and hickories grew breast-high on either side, and the way wound in and out under the lowering shade of forest monarchs.

Swiftly ascending this path she came at length to a point where it was possible to see some distance ahead. The ascent became hardly noticeable. Then, as she turned a bend of the trail, the light grew brighter and brighter, until presently all was open and clear. An oval space, covered with stones, lay before her. A big, blasted chestnut stood near by. Beyond was the dim, purple haze of distance. Above, the pale, blue sky just faintly rose-tinted by the setting sun. Far to her left the scraggly trees of a low hill were tipped with orange and russet shades. She had reached the summit.

Desolate and lonely was this little plateau. Helen felt immeasurably far away from home. Yet she could see in the blue distance the glancing river, the dark fort, and that cluster of cabins which marked the location of Fort Henry. Sitting upon the roots of the big chestnut tree she gazed around. There were the remains of a small camp-fire. Beyond, a hollow under a shelving rock. A bed of dry leaves lay packed in this shelter. Some one had been here, and she doubted not that it was the borderman.

She was so tired and her wrist pained so severely that she lay back against the tree-trunk, closed her eyes and rested. A weariness, the apathy of utter exhaustion, came over her. She wished the bordermen would hurry and come before she went to sleep.

Drowsily she was sinking into slumber when a long, low rumble aroused her. How dark it had suddenly become! A sheet of pale light flared across the overcast heavens.

“A storm!” exclaimed Helen. “Alone on this mountain-top with a storm coming. Am I frightened? I don’t believe it. At least I’m safe from that ruffian Brandt. Oh! if my borderman would only come!”

Helen changed her position from beside the tree, to the hollow under the stone. It was high enough to permit of her sitting upright, and offered a safe retreat from the storm. The bed of leaves was soft and comfortable. She sat there peering out at the darkening heavens.

All beneath her, southward and westward was gray twilight. The settlement faded from sight; the river grew wan and shadowy. The ruddy light in the west was fast succumbing to the rolling clouds. Darker and darker it became, until only one break in the overspreading vapors admitted the last crimson gleam of sunshine over hills and valley, brightening the river until it resembled a stream of fire. Then the light failed, the glow faded. The intense blackness of night prevailed.

Out of the ebon west came presently another flare of light, a quick, spreading flush, like a flicker from a monster candle; it was followed by a long, low, rumbling roll.

Helen felt in those intervals of unutterably vast silence, that she must shriek aloud. The thunder was a friend. She prayed for the storm to break. She had withstood danger and toilsome effort with fortitude; but could not brave this awful, boding, wilderness stillness.

Flashes of lightning now revealed the rolling, pushing, turbulent clouds, and peals of thunder sounded nearer and louder.

A long swelling moan, sad, low, like the uneasy sigh of the sea, breathed far in the west. It was the wind, the ominous warning of the storm. Sheets of light were now mingled with long, straggling ropes of fire, and the rumblings were often broken by louder, quicker detonations.

Then a period, longer than usual, of inky blackness succeeded the sharp flaring of light. A faint breeze ruffled the leaves of the thicket, and fanned Helen’s hot cheek. The moan of the wind became more distinct, then louder, and in another instant like the far-off roar of a rushing river. The storm was upon her. Helen shrank closer against the stone, and pulled her jacket tighter around her trembling form.

A sudden, intense, dazzling, blinding, white light enveloped her. The rocky promontory, the weird, giant chestnut tree, the open plateau, and beyond, the stormy heavens, were all luridly clear in the flash of lightning. She fancied it was possible to see a tall, dark figure emerging from the thicket. As the thunderclap rolled and pealed overhead, she strained her eyes into the blackness waiting for the next lightning flash.

It came with brilliant, dazing splendor. The whole plateau and thicket were as light as in the day. Close by the stone where she lay crept the tall, dark figure of an Indian. With starting eyes she saw the fringed clothing, the long, flying hair, and supple body peculiar to the savage. He was creeping upon her.

Helen’s blood ran cold; terror held her voiceless. She felt herself sinking slowly down upon the leaves.

CHAPTER XII

THE SUN HAD begun to cast long shadows the afternoon of Helen’s hunt for Jonathan, when the borderman, accompanied by Wetzel, led a string of horses along the base of the very mountain she had ascended.

“Last night’s job was a good one, I ain’t gainsayin’; but the redskin I wanted got away,” Wetzel said gloomily.

“He’s safe now as a squirrel in a hole. I saw him dartin’ among the trees with his white eagle feathers stickin’ up like a buck’s flag,” replied Jonathan. “He can run. If I’d only had my rifle loaded! But I’m not sure he was that arrow-shootin’ Shawnee.”

“It was him. I saw his bow. We ought’er taken more time an’ picked him out,” Wetzel replied, shaking his head gravely. “Though mebbe that’d been useless. I think he was hidin’. He’s precious shy of his red skin. I’ve been after him these ten year, an’ never ketched him nappin’ yet. We’d have done much toward snuffin’ out Legget an’ his gang if we’d winged the Shawnee.”

“He left a plain trail.”

“One of his tricks. He’s slicker on a trail than any other Injun on the border, unless mebbe it’s old Wingenund, the Huron. This Shawnee’d lead us many a mile for nuthin’, if we’d stick to his trail. I’m long ago used to him. He’s doubled like an old fox, run harder’n a skeered fawn, an’, if needs be, he’ll lay low as cunnin’ buck. I calkilate once over the mountain, he’s made a bee-line east. We’ll go on with the hosses, an’ then strike across country to find his trail.”

“It ‘pears to me, Lew, that we’ve taken a long time in makin’ a show against these hoss-thieves,” said Jonathan.

“I ain’t sayin’ much; but I’ve felt it,” replied Wetzel.

“All summer, an’ nothin’ done. It was more luck than sense that we run into those Injuns with the hosses. We only got three out of four, an’ let the best redskin give us the slip. Here fall is nigh on us, with winter comin’ soon, an’ still we don’t know who’s the white traitor in the settlement.”

“I said it’s be a long, an’ mebbe, our last trail.”

“Why?”

“Because these fellars red or white, are in with a picked gang of the best woodsmen as ever outlawed the border. We’ll get the Fort Henry hoss-thief. I’ll back the bright-eyed lass for that.”

“I haven’t seen her lately, an’ allow she’d left me word if she learned anythin’.”

“Wal, mebbe it’s as well you hain’t seen so much of her.” In silence they traveled and, arriving at the edge of the meadow, were about to mount two of the horses, when Wetzel said in a sharp tone:

“Look!”

He pointed to a small, well-defined moccasin track in the black earth on the margin of a rill.

“Lew, it’s a woman’s, sure’s you’re born,” declared Jonathan.

Wetzel knelt and closely examined the footprint; “Yes, a woman’s, an’ no Injun.”

“What?” Jonathan exclaimed, as he knelt to scrutinize the imprint.

“This ain’t half a day old,” added Wetzel. “An’ not a redskin’s moccasin near. What d’you reckon?”

“A white girl, alone,” replied Jonathan as he followed the trail a short distance along the brook. “See, she’s makin’ upland. Wetzel, these tracks could hardly be my sister’s, an’ there’s only one other girl on the border whose feet will match ‘em! Helen Sheppard has passed here, on her way up the mountain to find you or me.”

“I like your reckonin’.”

“She’s suddenly discovered somethin’, Injuns, hoss-thieves, the Fort Henry traitor, or mebbe, an’ most likely, some plottin’. Bein’ bound to secrecy by me, she’s not told my brother. An’ it must be call for hurry. She knows we frequent this mountain-top; said Eb told her about the way we get here.”

“I’d calkilate about the same.”

“What’ll you do? Go with me after her?” asked Jonathan.

“I’ll take the hosses, an’ be at the fort inside of an hour. If Helen’s gone, I’ll tell her father you’re close on her trail. Now listen! It’ll be dark soon, an’ a storm’s comin’. Don’t waste time on her trail. Hurry up to the rock. She’ll be there, if any lass could climb there. If not, come back in the mornin’, hunt her trail out, an’ find her. I’m thinkin’, Jack, we’ll find the Shawnee had somethin’ to do with this. Whatever happens after I get back to the fort, I’ll expect you hard on my trail.”

Jonathan bounded across the brook and with an easy lope began the gradual ascent. Soon he came upon a winding path. He ran along this for perhaps a quarter of an hour, until it became too steep for rapid traveling, when he settled down to a rapid walk. The forest was already dark. A slight rustling of the leaves beneath his feet was the only sound, except at long intervals the distant rumbling of thunder.

The mere possibility of Helen’s being alone on that mountain seeking him, made Jonathan’s heart beat as it never had before. For weeks he had avoided her, almost forgot her. He had conquered the strange, yearning weakness which assailed him after that memorable Sunday, and once more the silent shaded glens, the mystery of the woods, the breath of his wild, free life had claimed him. But now as this evidence of her spirit, her recklessness, was before him, and he remembered Betty’s avowal, a pain, which was almost physical, tore at his heart. How terrible it would be if she came to her death through him! He pictured the big, alluring eyes, the perfect lips, the haunting face, cold in death. And he shuddered.

The dim gloom of the woods soon darkened into blackness. The flashes of lightning, momentarily streaking the foliage, or sweeping overhead in pale yellow sheets, aided Jonathan in keeping the trail.

He gained the plateau just as a great flash illumined it, and distinctly saw the dark hollow where he had taken refuge in many a storm, and where he now hoped to find the girl. Picking his way carefully over the sharp, loose stones, he at last put his hand on the huge rock. Another blue-white, dazzling flash enveloped the scene.

Under the rock he saw a dark form huddled, and a face as white as snow, with wide, horrified eyes.

“Lass,” he said, when the thunder had rumbled away. He received no answer, and called again. Kneeling, he groped about until touching Helen’s dress. He spoke again; but she did not reply.

Jonathan crawled under the ledge beside the quiet figure. He touched her hands; they were very cold. Bending over, he was relieved to hear her heart beating. He called her name, but still she made no reply. Dipping his hand into a little rill that ran beside the stone, he bathed her face. Soon she stirred uneasily, moaned, and suddenly sat up.

“’Tis Jonathan,” he said quickly; “don’t be scared.”

Another illuminating flare of lightning brightened the plateau.

“Oh! thank Heaven!” cried Helen. “I thought you were an Indian!”

Helen sank trembling against the borderman, who enfolded her in his long arms. Her relief and thankfulness were so great that she could not speak. Her hands clasped and unclasped round his strong fingers. Her tears flowed freely.

The storm broke with terrific fury. A seething torrent of rain and hail came with the rushing wind. Great heaven-broad sheets of lightning played across the black dome overhead. Zigzag ropes, steel-blue in color, shot downward. Crash, and crack, and boom the thunder split and rolled the clouds above. The lightning flashes showed the fall of rain in columns like white waterfalls, borne on the irresistible wind.

The grandeur of the storm awed, and stilled Helen’s emotion. She sat there watching the lightning, listening to the peals of thunder, and thrilling with the wonder of the situation.

Gradually the roar abated, the flashes became less frequent, the thunder decreased, as the storm wore out its strength in passing. The wind and rain ceased on the mountain-top almost as quickly as they had begun, and the roar died slowly away in the distance. Far to the eastward flashes of light illumined scowling clouds, and brightened many a dark, wooded hill and valley.

“Lass, how is’t I find you here?” asked Jonathan gravely.

With many a pause and broken phrase, Helen told the story of what she had seen and heard at the spring.

“Child, why didn’t you go to my brother?” asked Jonathan. “You don’t know what you undertook!”

“I thought of everything; but I wanted to find you myself. Besides, I was just as safe alone on this mountain as in the village.”

“I don’t know but you’re right,” replied Jonathan thoughtfully. “So Brandt planned to make off with you to-morrow?”

“Yes, and when I heard it I wanted to run away from the village.”

“You’ve done a wondrous clever thing, lass. This Brandt is a bad man, an’ hard to match. But if he hasn’t shaken Fort Henry by now, his career’ll end mighty sudden, an’ his bad trails stop short on the hillside among the graves, for Eb will always give outlaws or Injuns decent burial.”

“What will the colonel, or anyone, think has become of me?”

“Wetzel knows, lass, for he found your trail below.”

“Then he’ll tell papa you came after me? Oh! poor papa! I forgot him. Shall we stay here until daylight?”

“We’d gain nothin’ by startin’ now. The brooks are full, an’ in the dark we’d make little distance. You’re dry here, an’ comfortable. What’s more, lass, you’re safe.”

“I feel perfectly safe, with you,” Helen said softly.

“Aren’t you tired, lass?”

“Tired? I’m nearly dead. My feet are cut and bruised, my wrist is sprained, and I ache all over. But, Jonathan, I don’t care. I am so happy to have my wild venture turn out successfully.”

“You can lie here an’ sleep while I keep watch.”

Jonathan made a move to withdraw his arm, which was still between Helen and the rock but had dropped from her waist.

“I am very comfortable. I’ll sit here with you, watching for daybreak. My! how dark it is! I cannot see my hand before my eyes.”

Helen settled herself back upon the stone, leaned a very little against his shoulder, and tried to think over her adventure. But her mind refused to entertain any ideas, except those of the present. Mingled with the dreamy lassitude that grew stronger every moment, was a sense of delight in her situation. She was alone on a wild mountain, in the night, with this borderman, the one she loved. By chance and her own foolhardiness this had come about, yet she was fortunate to have it tend to some good beyond her own happiness. All she would suffer from her perilous climb would be aching bones, and, perhaps, a scolding from her father. What she might gain was more than she had dared hope. The breaking up of the horse-thief gang would be a boon to the harassed settlement. How proudly Colonel Zane would smile! Her name would go on that long roll of border honor and heroism. That was not, however, one thousandth part so pleasing, as to be alone with her borderman.

With a sigh of mingled weariness and content, Helen leaned her head on Jonathan’s shoulder and fell asleep.

The borderman trembled. The sudden nestling of her head against him, the light caress of her fragrant hair across his cheek, revived a sweet, almost-conquered, almost-forgotten emotion. He felt an inexplicable thrill vibrate through him. No untrodden, ambushed wild, no perilous trail, no dark and bloody encounter had ever made him feel fear as had the kiss of this maiden. He had sternly silenced faint, unfamiliar, yet tender, voices whispering in his heart; and now his rigorous discipline was as if it were not, for at her touch he trembled. Still he did not move away. He knew she had succumbed to weariness, and was fast asleep. He could, gently, without awakening her, have laid her head upon the pillow of leaves; indeed, he thought of doing it, but made no effort. A woman’s head softly lying against him was a thing novel, strange, wonderful. For all the power he had then, each tumbling lock of her hair might as well have been a chain linking him fast to the mountain.

With the memory of his former yearning, unsatisfied moods, and the unrest and pain his awakening tenderness had caused him, came a determination to look things fairly in the face, to be just in thought toward this innocent, impulsive girl, and be honest with himself.

Duty commanded that he resist all charm other than that pertaining to his life in the woods. Years ago he had accepted a borderman’s destiny, well content to be recompensed by its untamed freedom from restraint; to be always under the trees he loved so well; to lend his cunning and woodcraft in the pioneer’s cause; to haunt the savage trails; to live from day to day a menace to the foes of civilization. That was the life he had chosen; it was all he could ever have.

In view of this, justice demanded that he allow no friendship to spring up between himself and this girl. If his sister’s belief was really true, if Helen really was interested in him, it must be a romantic infatuation which, not encouraged, would wear itself out. What was he, to win the love of any girl? An unlettered borderman, who knew only the woods, whose life was hard and cruel, whose hands were red with Indian blood, whose vengeance had not spared men even of his own race. He could not believe she really loved him. Wildly impulsive as girls were at times, she had kissed him. She had been grateful, carried away by a generous feeling for him as the protector of her father. When she did not see him for a long time, as he vowed should be the case after he had carried her safely home, she would forget.

Then honesty demanded that he probe his own feelings. Sternly, as if judging a renegade, he searched out in his simple way the truth. This big-eyed lass with her nameless charm would bewitch even a borderman, unless he avoided her. So much he had not admitted until now. Love he had never believed could be possible for him. When she fell asleep her hand had slipped from his arm to his fingers, and now rested there lightly as a leaf. The contact was delight. The gentle night breeze blew a tress of hair across his lips. He trembled. Her rounded shoulder pressed against him until he could feel her slow, deep breathing. He almost held his own breath lest he disturb her rest.

No, he was no longer indifferent. As surely as those pale stars blinked far above, he knew the delight of a woman’s presence. It moved him to study the emotion, as he studied all things, which was the habit of his borderman’s life. Did it come from knowledge of her beauty, matchless as that of the mountain-laurel? He recalled the dark glance of her challenging eyes, her tall, supple figure, and the bewildering excitation and magnetism of her presence. Beauty was wonderful, but not everything. Beauty belonged to her, but she would have been irresistible without it. Was it not because she was a woman? That was the secret. She was a woman with all a woman’s charm to bewitch, to twine round the strength of men as the ivy encircles the oak; with all a woman’s weakness to pity and to guard; with all a woman’s wilful burning love, and with all a woman’s mystery.

At last so much of life was intelligible to him. The renegade committed his worst crimes because even in his outlawed, homeless state, he could not exist without the companionship, if not the love, of a woman. The pioneer’s toil and privation were for a woman, and the joy of loving her and living for her. The Indian brave, when not on the war-path, walked hand in hand with a dusky, soft-eyed maiden, and sang to her of moonlit lakes and western winds. Even the birds and beasts mated. The robins returned to their old nest; the eagles paired once and were constant in life and death. The buck followed the doe through the forest. All nature sang that love made life worth living. Love, then, was everything.

The borderman sat out the long vigil of the night watching the stars, and trying to decide that love was not for him. If Wetzel had locked a secret within his breast, and never in all these years spoke of it to his companion, then surely that companion could as well live without love. Stern, dark, deadly work must stain and blot all tenderness from his life, else it would be unutterably barren. The joy of living, of unharassed freedom he had always known. If a fair face and dark, mournful eyes were to haunt him on every lonely trail, then it were better an Indian should end his existence.

The darkest hour before dawn, as well as the darkest of doubt and longing in Jonathan’s life, passed away. A gray gloom obscured the pale, winking stars; the east slowly whitened, then brightened, and at length day broke misty and fresh.

The borderman rose to stretch his cramped limbs. When he turned to the little cavern the girl’s eyes were wide open. All the darkness, the shadow, the beauty, and the thought of the past night, lay in their blue depths. He looked away across the valley where the sky was reddening and a pale rim of gold appeared above the hill-tops.

“Well, if I haven’t been asleep!” exclaimed Helen, with a low, soft laugh.

“You’re rested, I hope,” said Jonathan, with averted eyes. He dared not look at her.

“Oh, yes, indeed. I am ready to start at once. How gray, how beautiful the morning is! Shall we be long? I hope papa knows.”

In silence the borderman led the way across the rocky plateau, and into the winding, narrow trail. His pale, slightly drawn and stern, face did not invite conversation, therefore Helen followed silently in his footsteps. The way was steep, and at times he was forced to lend her aid. She put her hand in his and jumped lightly as a fawn. Presently a brawling brook, over-crowding its banks, impeded further progress.

“I’ll have to carry you across,” said Jonathan.

“I’m very heavy,” replied Helen, with a smile in her eyes.

She flushed as the borderman put his right arm around her waist. Then a clasp as of steel enclosed her; she felt herself swinging easily into the air, and over the muddy brook.

Farther down the mountain this troublesome brook again crossed the trail, this time much wider and more formidable. Helen looked with some vexation and embarrassment into the borderman’s face. It was always the same, stern, almost cold.

“Perhaps I’d better wade,” she said hesitatingly.

“Why? The water’s deep an’ cold. You’d better not get wet.”

Helen flushed, but did not answer. With downcast eyes she let herself be carried on his powerful arm.

The wading was difficult this time. The water foamed furiously around his knees. Once he slipped on a stone, and nearly lost his balance. Uttering a little scream Helen grasped at him wildly, and her arm encircled his neck. What was still more trying, when he put her on her feet again, it was found that her hair had become entangled in the porcupine quills on his hunting-coat.

She stood before him while with clumsy fingers he endeavored to untangle the shimmering strands; but in vain. Helen unwound the snarl of wavy hair. Most alluring she was then, with a certain softness on her face, and light and laughter, and something warm in her eyes.

The borderman felt that he breathed a subtle exhilaration which emanated from her glowing, gracious beauty. She radiated with the gladness of life, with an uncontainable sweetness and joy. But, giving no token of his feeling, he turned to march on down through the woods.

From this point the trail broadened, descending at an easier angle. Jonathan’s stride lengthened until Helen was forced to walk rapidly, and sometimes run, in order to keep close behind him. A quick journey home was expedient, and in order to accomplish this she would gladly have exerted herself to a greater extent. When they reached the end of the trail where the forest opened clear of brush, finally to merge into the broad, verdant plain, the sun had chased the mist-clouds from the eastern hill-tops, and was gloriously brightening the valley.

With the touch of sentiment natural to her, Helen gazed backward for one more view of the mountain-top. The wall of rugged rock she had so often admired from her window at home, which henceforth would ever hold a tender place of remembrance in her heart, rose out of a gray-blue bank of mist. The long, swelling slope lay clear to the sunshine. With the rays of the sun gleaming and glistening upon the variegated foliage, and upon the shiny rolling haze above, a beautiful picture of autumn splendor was before her. Tall pines, here and there towered high and lonely over the surrounding trees. Their dark, green, graceful heads stood in bold relief above the gold and yellow crests beneath. Maples, tinged from faintest pink to deepest rose, added warm color to the scene, and chestnuts with their brown-white burrs lent fresher beauty to the undulating slope.

The remaining distance to the settlement was short. Jonathan spoke only once to Helen, then questioning her as to where she had left her canoe. They traversed the meadow, found the boat in the thicket of willows, and were soon under the frowning bluff of Fort Henry. Ascending the steep path, they followed the road leading to Colonel Zane’s cabin.

A crowd of boys, men and women loitering near the bluff arrested Helen’s attention. Struck by this unusual occurrence, she wondered what was the cause of such idleness among the busy pioneer people. They were standing in little groups. Some made vehement gestures, others conversed earnestly, and yet more were silent. On seeing Jonathan, a number shouted and pointed toward the inn. The borderman hurried Helen along the path, giving no heed to the throng.

But Helen had seen the cause of all this excitement. At first glance she thought Metzar’s inn had been burned; but a second later it could be seen that the smoke came from a smoldering heap of rubbish in the road. The inn, nevertheless, had been wrecked. Windows stared with that vacantness peculiar to deserted houses. The doors were broken from their hinges. A pile of furniture, rude tables, chairs, beds, and other articles, were heaped beside the smoking rubbish. Scattered around lay barrels and kegs all with gaping sides and broken heads. Liquor had stained the road, where it had been soaked up by the thirsty dust.

Upon a shattered cellar-door lay a figure covered with a piece of rag carpet. When Helen’s quick eyes took in this last, she turned away in horror. That motionless form might be Brandt’s. Remorse and womanly sympathy surged over her, for bad as the man had shown himself, he had loved her.

She followed the borderman, trying to compose herself. As they neared Colonel Zane’s cabin she saw her father, Will, the colonel, Betty, Nell, Mrs. Zane, Silas Zane, and others whom she did not recognize. They were all looking at her. Helen’s throat swelled, and her eyes filled when she got near enough to see her father’s haggard, eager face. The others were grave. She wondered guiltily if she had done much wrong.

In another moment she was among them. Tears fell as her father extended his trembling hands to clasp her, and as she hid her burning face on his breast, he cried: “My dear, dear child!” Then Betty gave her a great hug, and Nell flew about them like a happy bird. Colonel Zane’s face was pale, and wore a clouded, stern expression. She smiled timidly at him through her tears. “Well! well! well!” he mused, while his gaze softened. That was all he said; but he took her hand and held it while he turned to Jonathan.

The borderman leaned on his long rifle, regarding him with expectant eyes.

“Well, Jack, you missed a little scrimmage this morning. Wetzel got in at daybreak. The storm and horses held him up on the other side of the river until daylight. He told me of your suspicions, with the additional news that he’d found a fresh Indian trail on the island just across from the inn. We went down not expecting to find any one awake; but Metzar was hurriedly packing some of his traps. Half a dozen men were there, having probably stayed all night. That little English cuss was one of them, and another, an ugly fellow, a stranger to us, but evidently a woodsman. Things looked bad. Metzar told a decidedly conflicting story. Wetzel and I went outside to talk over the situation, with the result that I ordered him to clean out the place.”

Here Colonel Zane paused to indulge in a grim, meaning laugh.

“Well, he cleaned out the place all right. The ugly stranger got rattlesnake-mad, and yanked out a big knife. Sam is hitching up the team now to haul what’s left of him up on the hillside. Metzar resisted arrest, and got badly hurt. He’s in the guardhouse. Case, who has been drunk for a week, got in Wetzel’s way and was kicked into the middle of next week. He’s been spitting blood for the last hour, but I guess he’s not much hurt. Brandt flew the coop last night. Wetzel found this hid in his room.”

Colonel Zane took a long, feathered arrow from where it lay on a bench, and held it out to Jonathan.

“The Shawnee signal! Wetzel had it right,” muttered the borderman.

“Exactly. Lew found where the arrow struck in the wall of Brandt’s room. It was shot from the island at the exact spot where Lew came to an end of the Indian’s trail in the water.”

“That Shawnee got away from us.”

“So Lew said. Well, he’s gone now. So is Brandt. We’re well rid of the gang, if only we never hear of them again.”

The borderman shook his head. During the colonel’s recital his face changed. The dark eyes had become deadly; the square jaw was shut, the lines of the cheek had grown tense, and over his usually expressive countenance had settled a chill, lowering shade.

“Lew thinks Brandt’s in with Bing Legget. Well, d — his black traitor heart! He’s a good man for the worst and strongest gang that ever tracked the border.”

The borderman was silent; but the furtive, restless shifting of his eyes over the river and island, hill and valley, spoke more plainly than words.

“You’re to take his trail at once,” added Colonel Zane. “I had Bess put you up some bread, meat and parched corn. No doubt you’ll have a long, hard tramp. Good luck.”

The borderman went into the cabin, presently emerging with a buckskin knapsack strapped to his shoulder. He set off eastward with a long, swinging stride.

The women had taken Helen within the house where, no doubt, they could discuss with greater freedom the events of the previous day.

“Sheppard,” said Colonel Zane, turning with a sparkle in his eyes. “Brandt was after Helen sure as a bad weed grows fast. And certain as death Jonathan and Wetzel will see him cold and quiet back in the woods. That’s a border saying, and it means a good deal. I never saw Wetzel so implacable, nor Jonathan so fatally cold but once, and that was when Miller, another traitor, much like Brandt, tried to make away with Betty. It would have chilled your blood to see Wetzel go at that fool this morning. Why did he want to pull a knife on the borderman? It was a sad sight. Well, these things are justifiable. We must protect ourselves, and above all our women. We’ve had bad men, and a bad man out here is something you cannot yet appreciate, come here and slip into the life of the settlement, because on the border you can never tell what a man is until he proves himself. There have been scores of criminals spread over the frontier, and some better men, like Simon Girty, who were driven to outlaw life. Simon must not be confounded with Jim Girty, absolutely the most fiendish desperado who ever lived. Why, even the Indians feared Jim so much that after his death his skeleton remained unmolested in the glade where he was killed. The place is believed to be haunted now, by all Indians and many white hunters, and I believe the bones stand there yet.”

“Stand?” asked Sheppard, deeply interested.

“Yes, it stands where Girty stood and died, upright against a tree, pinned, pinned there by a big knife.”

“Heavens, man! Who did it?” Sheppard cried in horror.

Again Colonel Zane’s laugh, almost metallic, broke grimly from his lips.

“Who? Why, Wetzel, of course. Lew hunted Jim Girty five long years. When he caught him — God! I’ll tell you some other time. Jonathan saw Wetzel handle Jim and his pal, Deering, as if they were mere boys. Well, as I said, the border has had, and still has, its bad men. Simon Girty took McKee and Elliott, the Tories, from Fort Pitt, when he deserted, and ten men besides. They’re all, except those who are dead, outlaws of the worst type. The other bad men drifted out here from Lord only knows where. They’re scattered all over. Simon Girty, since his crowning black deed, the massacre of the Christian Indians, is in hiding. Bing Legget now has the field. He’s a hard nut, a cunning woodsman, and capable leader who surrounds himself with only the most desperate Indians and renegades. Brandt is an agent of Legget’s and I’ll bet we’ll hear from him again.”

CHAPTER XIII

JONATHAN TRAVELED TOWARD the east straight as a crow flies. Wetzel’s trail as he pursued Brandt had been left designedly plain. Branches of young maples had been broken by the borderman; they were glaring evidences of his passage. On open ground, or through swampy meadows he had contrived to leave other means to facilitate his comrade’s progress. Bits of sumach lay strewn along the way, every red, leafy branch a bright marker of the course; crimson maple leaves served their turn, and even long-bladed ferns were scattered at intervals.

Ten miles east of Fort Henry, at a point where two islands lay opposite each other, Wetzel had crossed the Ohio. Jonathan removed his clothing, and tying these, together with his knapsack, to the rifle, held them above the water while he swam the three narrow channels. He took up the trail again, finding here, as he expected, where Brandt had joined the waiting Shawnee chief. The borderman pressed on harder to the eastward.

About the middle of the afternoon signs betokened that Wetzel and his quarry were not far in advance. Fresh imprints in the grass; crushed asters and moss, broken branches with unwithered leaves, and plots of grassy ground where Jonathan saw that the blades of grass were yet springing back to their original position, proved to the borderman’s practiced eye that he was close upon Wetzel.

In time he came to a grove of yellow birch trees. The ground was nearly free from brush, beautifully carpeted with flowers and ferns, and, except where bushy windfalls obstructed the way, was singularly open to the gaze for several hundred yards ahead.

Upon entering this wood Wetzel’s plain, intentional markings became manifest, then wavered, and finally disappeared. Jonathan pondered a moment. He concluded that the way was so open and clear, with nothing but grass and moss to mark a trail, that Wetzel had simply considered it waste of time for, perhaps, the short length of this grove.

Jonathan knew he was wrong after taking a dozen steps more. Wetzel’s trail, known so well to him, as never to be mistaken, sheered abruptly off to the left, and, after a few yards, the distance between the footsteps widened perceptibly. Then came a point where they were so far apart that they could only have been made by long leaps.

On the instant the borderman knew that some unforeseen peril or urgent cause had put Wetzel to flight, and he now bent piercing eyes around the grove. Retracing his steps to where he had found the break in the trail, he followed up Brandt’s tracks for several rods. Not one hundred paces beyond where Wetzel had quit the pursuit, were the remains of a camp fire, the embers still smoldering, and moccasin tracks of a small band of Indians. The trail of Brandt and his Shawnee guide met the others at almost right angles.

The Indian, either by accident or design, had guided Brandt to a band of his fellows, and thus led Wetzel almost into an ambush.

Evidence was not clear, however, that the Indians had discovered the keen tracker who had run almost into their midst.

While studying the forest ahead Jonathan’s mind was running over the possibilities. How close was Wetzel? Was he still in flight? Had the savages an inkling of his pursuit? Or was he now working out one of his cunning tricks of woodcraft? The borderman had no other idea than that of following the trail to learn all this. Taking the desperate chances warranted under the circumstances, he walked boldly forward in his comrade’s footsteps.

Deep and gloomy was the forest adjoining the birch grove. It was a heavy growth of hardwood trees, interspersed with slender ash and maples, which with their scanty foliage resembled a labyrinth of green and yellow network, like filmy dotted lace, hung on the taller, darker oaks. Jonathan felt safer in this deep wood. He could still see several rods in advance. Following the trail, he was relieved to see that Wetzel’s leaps had become shorter and shorter, until they once again were about the length of a long stride. The borderman was, moreover, swinging in a curve to the northeast. This was proof that the borderman had not been pursued, but was making a wide detour to get ahead of the enemy. Five hundred yards farther on the trail turned sharply toward the birch grove in the rear.

The trail was fresh. Wetzel was possibly within signal call; surely within sound of a rifle shot. But even more stirring was the certainty that Brandt and his Indians were inside the circle Wetzel had made.

Once again in sight of the more open woodland, Jonathan crawled on his hands and knees, keeping close to the cluster of ferns, until well within the eastern end of the grove. He lay for some minutes listening. A threatening silence, like the hush before a storm, permeated the wilderness. He peered out from his covert; but, owing to its location in a little hollow, he could not see far. Crawling to the nearest tree he rose to his feet slowly, cautiously.

No unnatural sight or sound arrested his attention. Repeatedly, with the acute, unsatisfied gaze of the borderman who knew that every tree, every patch of ferns, every tangled brush-heap might harbor a foe, he searched the grove with his eyes; but the curly-barked birches, the clumps of colored ferns, the bushy windfalls kept their secrets.

For the borderman, however, the whole aspect of the birch-grove had changed. Over the forest was a deep calm. A gentle, barely perceptible wind sighed among the leaves, like rustling silk. The far-off drowsy drum of a grouse intruded on the vast stillness. The silence of the birds betokened a message. That mysterious breathing, that beautiful life of the woods lay hushed, locked in a waiting, brooding silence. Far away among the somber trees, where the shade deepened into impenetrable gloom, lay a menace, invisible and indefinable.

A wind, a breath, a chill, terribly potent, seemed to pass over the borderman. Long experience had given him intuition of danger.

As he moved slightly, with lynx-eyes fixed on the grove before him, a sharp, clear, perfect bird-note broke the ominous quiet. It was like the melancholy cry of an oriole, short, deep, suggestive of lonely forest dells. By a slight variation in the short call, Jonathan recognized it as a signal from Wetzel. The borderman smiled as he realized that with all his stealth, Wetzel had heard or seen him re-enter the grove. The signal was a warning to stand still or retreat.

Jonathan’s gaze narrowed down to the particular point whence had come the signal. Some two hundred yards ahead in this direction were several large trees standing in a group. With one exception, they all had straight trunks. This deviated from the others in that it possessed an irregular, bulging trunk, or else half-shielded the form of Wetzel. So indistinct and immovable was this irregularity, that the watcher could not be certain. Out of line, somewhat, with this tree which he suspected screened his comrade, lay a huge windfall large enough to conceal in ambush a whole band of savages.

Even as he gazed a sheet of flame flashed from this covert.

Crack!

A loud report followed; then the whistle and zip of a bullet as it whizzed close by his head.

“Shawnee lead!” muttered Jonathan.

Unfortunately the tree he had selected did not hide him sufficiently. His shoulders were so wide that either one or the other was exposed, affording a fine target for a marksman.

A quick glance showed him a change in the knotty tree-trunk; the seeming bulge was now the well-known figure of Wetzel.

Jonathan dodged as some object glanced slantingly before his eyes.

Twang. Whizz. Thud. Three familiar and distinct sounds caused him to press hard against the tree.

A tufted arrow quivered in the bark not a foot from his head.

“Close shave! Damn that arrow-shootin’ Shawnee!” muttered Jonathan. “An’ he ain’t in that windfall either.” His eyes searched to the left for the source of this new peril.

Another sheet of flame, another report from the windfall. A bullet sang, close overhead, and, glancing on a branch, went harmlessly into the forest.

“Injuns all around; I guess I’d better be makin’ tracks,” Jonathan said to himself, peering out to learn if Wetzel was still under cover.

He saw the tall figure straighten up; a long, black rifle rise to a level and become rigid; a red fire belch forth, followed by a puff of white smoke.

Spang!

An Indian’s horrible, strangely-breaking death yell rent the silence.

Then a chorus of plaintive howls, followed by angry shouts, rang through the forest. Naked, painted savages darted out of the windfall toward the tree that had sheltered Wetzel.

Quick as thought Jonathan covered the foremost Indian, and with the crack of his rifle saw the redskin drop his gun, stop in his mad run, stagger sideways, and fall. Then the borderman looked to see what had become of his ally. The cracking of the Indian’s rifle told him that Wetzel had been seen by his foes.

With almost incredible fleetness a brown figure with long black hair streaming behind, darted in and out among the trees, flashed through the sunlit glade, and vanished in the dark depths of the forest.

Jonathan turned to flee also, when he heard again the twanging of an Indian’s bow. A wind smote his cheek, a shock blinded him, an excruciating pain seized upon his breast. A feathered arrow had pinned his shoulder to the tree. He raised his hand to pull it out; but, slippery with blood, it afforded a poor hold for his fingers. Violently exerting himself, with both hands he wrenched away the weapon. The flint-head lacerating his flesh and scraping his shoulder bones caused sharpest agony. The pain gave away to a sudden sense of giddiness; he tried to run; a dark mist veiled his sight; he stumbled and fell. Then he seemed to sink into a great darkness, and knew no more.

When consciousness returned to Jonathan it was night. He lay on his back, and knew because of his cramped limbs that he had been securely bound. He saw the glimmer of a fire, but could not raise his head. A rustling of leaves in the wind told that he was yet in the woods, and the distant rumble of a waterfall sounded familiar. He felt drowsy; his wound smarted slightly, still he did not suffer any pain. Presently he fell asleep.

Broad daylight had come when again he opened his eyes. The blue sky was directly above, and before him he saw a ledge covered with dwarfed pine trees. He turned his head, and saw that he was in a sort of amphitheater of about two acres in extent enclosed by low cliffs. A cleft in the stony wall let out a brawling brook, and served, no doubt, as entrance to the place. Several rude log cabins stood on that side of the enclosure. Jonathan knew he had been brought to Bing Legget’s retreat.

Voices attracted his attention, and, turning his head to the other side, he saw a big Indian pacing near him, and beyond, seven savages and three white men reclining in the shade.

The powerful, dark-visaged savage near him he at once recognized as Ashbow, the Shawnee chief, and noted emissary of Bing Legget. Of the other Indians, three were Delawares, and four Shawnees, all veterans, with swarthy, somber faces and glistening heads on which the scalp-locks were trimmed and tufted. Their naked, muscular bodies were painted for the war-path with their strange emblems of death. A trio of white men, nearly as bronzed as their savage comrades, completed the group. One, a desperate-looking outlaw, Jonathan did not know. The blond-bearded giant in the center was Legget. Steel-blue, inhuman eyes, with the expression of a free but hunted animal; a set, mastiff-like jaw, brutal and coarse, individualized him. The last man was the haggard-faced Brandt.

“I tell ye, Brandt, I ain’t agoin’ against this Injun,” Legget was saying positively. “He’s the best reddy on the border, an’ has saved me scores of times. This fellar Zane belongs to him, an’ while I’d much rather see the scout knifed right here an’ now, I won’t do nothin’ to interfere with the Shawnee’s plans.”

“Why does the redskin want to take him away to his village?” Brandt growled. “All Injun vanity and pride.”

“It’s Injun ways, an’ we can’t do nothin’ to change ‘em.”

“But you’re boss here. You could make him put this borderman out of the way.”

“Wal, I ain’t agoin’ ter interfere. Anyways, Brandt, the Shawnee’ll make short work of the scout when he gits him among the tribe. Injuns is Injuns. It’s a great honor fer him to git Zane, an’ he wants his own people to figger in the finish. Quite nat’r’l, I reckon.”

“I understand all that; but it’s not safe for us, and it’s courting death for Ashbow. Why don’t he keep Zane here until you can spare more than three Indians to go with him? These bordermen can’t be stopped. You don’t know them, because you’re new in this part of the country.”

“I’ve been here as long as you, an’ agoin’ some, too, I reckon,” replied Legget complacently.

“But you’ve not been hunted until lately by these bordermen, and you’ve had little opportunity to hear of them except from Indians. What can you learn from these silent redskins? I tell you, letting this fellow get out of here alive, even for an hour is a fatal mistake. It’s two full days’ tramp to the Shawnee village. You don’t suppose Wetzel will be afraid of four savages? Why, he sneaked right into eight of us, when we were ambushed, waiting for him. He killed one and then was gone like a streak. It was only a piece of pure luck we got Zane.”

“I’ve reason to know this Wetzel, this Deathwind, as the Delawares call him. I never seen him though, an’ anyways, I reckon I can handle him if ever I get the chance.”

“Man, you’re crazy!” cried Brandt. “He’d cut you to pieces before you’d have time to draw. He could give you a tomahawk, then take it away and split your head. I tell you I know! You remember Jake Deering? He came from up your way. Wetzel fought Deering and Jim Girty together, and killed them. You know how he left Girty.”

“I’ll allow he must be a fighter; but I ain’t afraid of him.”

“That’s not the question. I am talking sense. You’ve got a chance now to put one of these bordermen out of the way. Do it quick! That’s my advice.”

Brandt spoke so vehemently that Legget seemed impressed. He stroked his yellow beard, and puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. Presently he addressed the Shawnee chief in the native tongue.

“Will Ashbow take five horses for his prisoner?”

The Indian shook his head.

“How many will he take?”

The chief strode with dignity to and fro before his captive. His dark, impassive face gave no clew to his thoughts; but his lofty bearing, his measured, stately walk were indicative of great pride. Then he spoke in his deep bass:

“The Shawnee knows the woods from the Great Lakes where the sun sets, to the Blue Hills where it rises. He has met the great paleface hunters. Only for Deathwind will Ashbow trade his captive.”

“See? It ain’t no use,” said Legget, spreading out his hands, “Let him go. He’ll outwit the bordermen if any redskin’s able to. The sooner he goes the quicker he’ll git back, an’ we can go to work. You ought’er be satisfied to git the girl — —”

“Shut up!” interrupted Brandt sharply.

“‘Pears to me, Brandt, bein’ in love hes kinder worked on your nerves. You used to be game. Now you’re afeerd of a bound an’ tied man who ain’t got long to live.”

“I fear no man,” answered Brandt, scowling darkly. “But I know what you don’t seem to have sense enough to see. If this Zane gets away, which is probable, he and Wetzel will clean up your gang.”

“Haw! haw! haw!” roared Legget, slapping his knees. “Then you’d hev little chanst of gittin’ the lass, eh?”

“All right. I’ve no more to say,” snapped Brandt, rising and turning on his heel. As he passed Jonathan he paused. “Zane, if I could, I’d get even with you for that punch you once gave me. As it is, I’ll stop at the Shawnee village on my way west — —”

“With the pretty lass,” interposed Legget.

“Where I hope to see your scalp drying in the chief’s lodge.”

The borderman eyed him steadily; but in silence. Words could not so well have conveyed his thought as did the cold glance of dark scorn and merciless meaning.

Brandt shuffled on with a curse. No coward was he. No man ever saw him flinch. But his intelligence was against him as a desperado. While such as these bordermen lived, an outlaw should never sleep, for he was a marked and doomed man. The deadly, cold-pointed flame which scintillated in the prisoner’s eyes was only a gleam of what the border felt towards outlaws.

While Jonathan was considering all he had heard, three more Shawnees entered the retreat, and were at once called aside in consultation by Ashbow. At the conclusion of this brief conference the chief advanced to Jonathan, cut the bonds round his feet, and motioned for him to rise. The prisoner complied to find himself weak and sore, but able to walk. He concluded that his wound, while very painful, was not of a serious nature, and that he would be taken at once on the march toward the Shawnee village.

He was correct, for the chief led him, with the three Shawnees following, toward the outlet of the enclosure. Jonathan’s sharp eye took in every detail of Legget’s rendezvous. In a corral near the entrance, he saw a number of fine horses, and among them his sister’s pony. A more inaccessible, natural refuge than Legget’s, could hardly have been found in that country. The entrance was a narrow opening in the wall, and could be held by half a dozen against an army of besiegers. It opened, moreover, on the side of a barren hill, from which could be had a good survey of the surrounding forests and plains.

As Jonathan went with his captors down the hill his hopes, which while ever alive, had been flagging, now rose. The long journey to the Shawnee town led through an untracked wilderness. The Delaware villages lay far to the north; the Wyandot to the west. No likelihood was there of falling in with a band of Indians hunting, because this region, stony, barren, and poorly watered, afforded sparse pasture for deer or bison. From the prisoner’s point of view this enterprise of Ashbow’s was reckless and vainglorious. Cunning as the chief was, he erred in one point, a great warrior’s only weakness, love of show, of pride, of his achievement. In Indian nature this desire for fame was as strong as love of life. The brave risked everything to win his eagle feathers, and the matured warrior found death while keeping bright the glory of the plumes he had won.

Wetzel was in the woods, fleet as a deer, fierce and fearless as a lion. Somewhere among those glades he trod, stealthily, with the ears of a doe and eyes of a hawk strained for sound or sight of his comrade’s captors. When he found their trail he would stick to it as the wolf to that of a bleeding buck’s. The rescue would not be attempted until the right moment, even though that came within rifle-shot of the Shawnee encampment. Wonderful as his other gifts, was the borderman’s patience.

CHAPTER XIV

“GOOD MORNING, COLONEL Zane,” said Helen cheerily, coming into the yard where the colonel was at work. “Did Will come over this way?”

“I reckon you’ll find him if you find Betty,” replied Colonel Zane dryly.

“Come to think of it, that’s true,” Helen said, laughing. “I’ve a suspicion Will ran off from me this morning.”

“He and Betty have gone nutting.”

“I declare it’s mean of Will,” Helen said petulantly. “I have been wanting to go so much, and both he and Betty promised to take me.”

“Say, Helen, let me tell you something,” said the colonel, resting on his spade and looking at her quizzically. “I told them we hadn’t had enough frost yet to ripen hickory-nuts and chestnuts. But they went anyhow. Will did remember to say if you came along, to tell you he’d bring the colored leaves you wanted.”

“How extremely kind of him. I’ve a mind to follow them.”

“Now see here, Helen, it might be a right good idea for you not to,” returned the colonel, with a twinkle and a meaning in his eye.

“Oh, I understand. How singularly dull I’ve been.”

“It’s this way. We’re mighty glad to have a fine young fellow like Will come along and interest Betty. Lord knows we had a time with her after Alfred died. She’s just beginning to brighten up now, and, Helen, the point is that young people on the border must get married. No, my dear, you needn’t laugh, you’ll have to find a husband same as the other girls. It’s not here as it was back east, where a lass might have her fling, so to speak, and take her time choosing. An unmarried girl on the border is a positive menace. I saw, not many years ago, two first-rate youngsters, wild with border fire and spirit, fight and kill each other over a lass who wouldn’t choose. Like as not, if she had done so, the three would have been good friends, for out here we’re like one big family. Remember this, Helen, and as far as Betty and Will are concerned you will be wise to follow our example: Leave them to themselves. Nothing else will so quickly strike fire between a boy and a girl.”

“Betty and Will! I’m sure I’d love to see them care for each other.” Then with big, bright eyes bent gravely on him she continued, “May I ask, Colonel Zane, who you have picked out for me?”

“There, now you’ve said it, and that’s the problem. I’ve looked over every marriageable young man in the settlement, except Jack. Of course you couldn’t care for him, a borderman, a fighter and all that; but I can’t find a fellow I think quite up to you.”

“Colonel Zane, is not a borderman such as Jonathan worthy a woman’s regard?” Helen asked a little wistfully.

“Bless your heart, lass, yes!” replied Colonel Zane heartily. “People out here are not as they are back east. An educated man, polished and all that, but incapable of hard labor, or shrinking from dirt and sweat on his hands, or even blood, would not help us in the winning of the West. Plain as Jonathan is, and with his lack of schooling, he is greatly superior to the majority of young men on the frontier. But, unlettered or not, he is as fine a man as ever stepped in moccasins, or any other kind of foot gear.”

“Then why did you say — that — what you did?”

“Well, it’s this way,” replied Colonel Zane, stealing a glance at her pensive, downcast face. “Girls all like to be wooed. Almost every one I ever knew wanted the young man of her choice to outstrip all her other admirers, and then, for a spell, nearly die of love for her, after which she’d give in. Now, Jack, being a borderman, a man with no occupation except scouting, will never look at a girl, let alone make up to her. I imagine, my dear, it’d take some mighty tall courting to fetch home Helen Sheppard a bride. On the other hand, if some pretty and spirited lass, like, say for instance, Helen Sheppard, would come along and just make Jack forget Indians and fighting, she’d get the finest husband in the world. True, he’s wild; but only in the woods. A simpler, kinder, cleaner man cannot be found.”

“I believe that, Colonel Zane; but where is the girl who would interest him?” Helen asked with spirit. “These bordermen are unapproachable. Imagine a girl interesting that great, cold, stern Wetzel! All her flatteries, her wiles, the little coquetries that might attract ordinary men, would not be noticed by him, or Jonathan either.”

“I grant it’d not be easy, but woman was made to subjugate man, and always, everlastingly, until the end of life here on this beautiful earth, she will do it.”

“Do you think Jonathan and Wetzel will catch Brandt?” asked Helen, changing the subject abruptly.

“I’d stake my all that this year’s autumn leaves will fall on Brandt’s grave.”

Colonel Zane’s calm, matter-of-fact coldness made Helen shiver.

“Why, the leaves have already begun to fall. Papa told me Brandt had gone to join the most powerful outlaw band on the border. How can these two men, alone, cope with savages, as I’ve heard they do, and break up such an outlaw band as Legget’s?”

“That’s a question I’ve heard Daniel Boone ask about Wetzel, and Boone, though not a borderman in all the name implies, was a great Indian fighter. I’ve heard old frontiersmen, grown grizzled on the frontier, use the same words. I’ve been twenty years with that man, yet I can’t answer it. Jonathan, of course, is only a shadow of him; Wetzel is the type of these men who have held the frontier for us. He was the first borderman, and no doubt he’ll be the last.”

“What have Jonathan and Wetzel that other men do not possess?”

“In them is united a marvelously developed woodcraft, with wonderful physical powers. Imagine a man having a sense, almost an animal instinct, for what is going on in the woods. Take for instance the fleetness of foot. That is one of the greatest factors. It is absolutely necessary to run, to get away when to hold ground would be death. Whether at home or in the woods, the bordermen retreat every day. You wouldn’t think they practiced anything of the kind, would you? Well, a man can’t be great in anything without keeping at it. Jonathan says he exercises to keep his feet light. Wetzel would just as soon run as walk. Think of the magnificent condition of these men. When a dash of speed is called for, when to be fleet of foot is to elude vengeance-seeking Indians, they must travel as swiftly as the deer. The Zanes were all sprinters. I could do something of the kind; Betty was fast on her feet, as that old fort will testify until the logs rot; Isaac was fleet, too, and Jonathan can get over the ground like a scared buck. But, even so, Wetzel can beat him.”

“Goodness me, Helen!” exclaimed the colonel’s buxom wife, from the window, “don’t you ever get tired hearing Eb talk of Wetzel, and Jack, and Indians? Come in with me. I venture to say my gossip will do you more good than his stories.”

Therefore Helen went in to chat with Mrs. Zane, for she was always glad to listen to the colonel’s wife, who was so bright and pleasant, so helpful and kindly in her womanly way. In the course of their conversation, which drifted from weaving linsey, Mrs. Zane’s occupation at the tune, to the costly silks and satins of remembered days, and then to matters of more present interest, Helen spoke of Colonel Zane’s hint about Will and Betty.

“Isn’t Eb a terror? He’s the worst matchmatcher you ever saw,” declared the colonel’s good spouse.

“There’s no harm in that.”

“No, indeed; it’s a good thing, but he makes me laugh, and Betty, he sets her furious.”

“The colonel said he had designs on me.”

“Of course he has, dear old Eb! How he’d love to see you happily married. His heart is as big as that mountain yonder. He has given this settlement his whole life.”

“I believe you. He has such interest, such zeal for everybody. Only the other day he was speaking to me of Mr. Mordaunt, telling how sorry he was for the Englishman, and how much he’d like to help him. It does seem a pity a man of Mordaunt’s blood and attainments should sink to utter worthlessness.”

“Yes,’tis a pity for any man, blood or no, and the world’s full of such wrecks. I always liked that man’s looks. I never had a word with him, of course; but I’ve seen him often, and something about him appealed to me. I don’t believe it was just his handsome face; still I know women are susceptible that way.”

“I, too, liked him once as a friend,” said Helen feelingly. “Well, I’m glad he’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes, he left Fort Henry yesterday. He came to say good-bye to me, and, except for his pale face and trembling hands, was much as he used to be in Virginia. Said he was going home to England, and wanted to tell me he was sorry — for — for all he’d done to make papa and me suffer. Drink had broken him, he said, and surely he looked ‘a broken man. I shook hands with him, and then slipped upstairs and cried.”

“Poor fellow!” sighed Mrs. Zane.

“Papa said he left Fort Pitt with one of Metzar’s men as a guide.”

“Then he didn’t take the ‘little cuss,’ as Eb calls his man Case?”

“No, if I remember rightly papa said Case wouldn’t go.”

“I wish he had. He’s no addition to our village.”

Voices outside attracted their attention. Mrs. Zane glanced from the window and said: “There come Betty and Will.”

Helen went on the porch to see her cousin and Betty entering the yard, and Colonel Zane once again leaning on his spade.

“Gather any hickory-nuts from birch or any other kind of trees?” asked the colonel grimly.

“No,” replied Will cheerily, “the shells haven’t opened yet.”

“Too bad the frost is so backward,” said Colonel Zane with a laugh. “But I can’t see that it makes any difference.”

“Where are my leaves?” asked Helen, with a smile and a nod to Betty.

“What leaves?” inquired that young woman, plainly mystified.

“Why, the autumn leaves Will promised to gather with me, then changed his mind, and said he’d bring them.”

“I forgot,” Will replied a little awkwardly.

Colonel Zane coughed, and then, catching Betty’s glance, which had begun to flash, he plied his spade vigorously.

Betty’s face had colored warmly at her brother’s first question; it toned down slightly when she understood that he was not going to tease her as usual, and suddenly, as she looked over his head, it paled white as snow.

“Eb, look down the lane!” she cried.

Two tall men were approaching with labored tread, one half-supporting his companion.

“Wetzel! Jack! and Jack’s hurt!” cried Betty.

“My dear, be calm,” said Colonel Zane, in that quiet tone he always used during moments of excitement. He turned toward the bordermen, and helped Wetzel lead Jonathan up the walk into the yard.

From Wetzel’s clothing water ran, his long hair was disheveled, his aspect frightful. Jonathan’s face was white and drawn. His buckskin hunting coat was covered with blood, and the hand which he held tightly against his left breast showed dark red stains.

Helen shuddered. Almost fainting, she leaned against the porch, too horrified to cry out, with contracting heart and a chill stealing through her veins.

“Jack! Jack!” cried Betty, in agonized appeal.

“Betty, it’s nothin’,” said Wetzel.

“Now, Betts, don’t be scared of a little blood,” Jonathan said with a faint smile flitting across his haggard face.

“Bring water, shears an’ some linsey cloth,” added Wetzel, as Mrs. Zane came running out.

“Come inside,” cried the colonel’s wife, as she disappeared again immediately.

“No,” replied the borderman, removing his coat, and, with the assistance of his brother, he unlaced his hunting shirt, pulling it down from a wounded shoulder. A great gory hole gaped just beneath his left collar-bone.

Although stricken with fear, when Helen saw the bronzed, massive shoulder, the long, powerful arm with its cords of muscles playing under the brown skin, she felt a thrill of admiration.

“Just missed the lung,” said Mrs. Zane. “Eb, no bullet ever made that hole.”

Wetzel washed the bloody wound, and, placing on it a wad of leaves he took from his pocket, bound up the shoulder tightly.

“What made that hole?” asked Colonel Zane.

Wetzel lifted the quiver of arrows Jonathan had laid on the porch, and, selecting one, handed it to the colonel. The flint-head and a portion of the shaft were stained with blood.

“The Shawnee!” exclaimed Colonel Zane. Then he led Wetzel aside, and began conversing in low tones while Jonathan, with Betty holding his arm, ascended the steps and went within the dwelling.

Helen ran home, and, once in her room, gave vent to her emotions. She cried because of fright, nervousness, relief, and joy. Then she bathed her face, tried to rub some color into her pale cheeks, and set about getting dinner as one in a trance. She could not forget that broad shoulder with its frightful wound. What a man Jonathan must be to receive a blow like that and live! Exhausted, almost spent, had been his strength when he reached home, yet how calm and cool he was! What would she not have given for the faint smile that shone in his eyes for Betty?

The afternoon was long for Helen. When at last supper was over she changed her gown, and, asking Will to accompany her, went down the lane toward Colonel Zane’s cabin. At this hour the colonel almost invariably could be found sitting on his doorstep puffing a long Indian pipe, and gazing with dreamy eyes over the valley.

“Well, well, how sweet you look!” he said to Helen; then with a wink of his eyelid, “Hello, Willie, you’ll find Elizabeth inside with Jack.”

“How is he?” asked Helen eagerly, as Will with a laugh and a retort mounted the steps.

“Jack’s doing splendidly. He slept all day. I don’t think his injury amounts to much, at least not for such as him or Wetzel. It would have finished ordinary men. Bess says if complications don’t set in, blood-poison or something to start a fever, he’ll be up shortly. Wetzel believes the two of ’em will be on the trail inside of a week.”

“Did they find Brandt?” asked Helen in a low voice.

“Yes, they ran him to his hole, and, as might have been expected, it was Bing Legget’s camp. The Indians took Jonathan there.”

“Then Jack was captured?”

Colonel Zane related the events, as told briefly by Wetzel, that had taken place during the preceding three days.

“The Indian I saw at the spring carried that bow Jonathan brought back. He must have shot the arrow. He was a magnificent savage.”

“He was indeed a great, and a bad Indian, one of the craftiest spies who ever stepped in moccasins; but he lies quiet now on the moss and the leaves. Bing Legget will never find another runner like that Shawnee. Let us go indoors.”

He led Helen into the large sitting-room where Jonathan lay on a couch, with Betty and Will sitting beside him. The colonel’s wife and children, Silas Zane, and several neighbors, were present.

“Here, Jack, is a lady inquiring after your health. Betts, this reminds me of the time Isaac came home wounded, after his escape from the Hurons. Strikes me he and his Indian bride should be about due here on a visit.”

Helen forgot every one except the wounded man lying so quiet and pale upon the couch. She looked down upon him with eyes strangely dilated, and darkly bright.

“How are you?” she asked softly.

“I’m all right, thank you, lass,” answered Jonathan.

Colonel Zane contrived, with inimitable skill, to get Betty, Will, Silas, Bessie and the others interested in some remarkable news he had just heard, or made up, and this left Jonathan and Helen comparatively alone for the moment.

The wise old colonel thought perhaps this might be the right time. He saw Helen’s face as she leaned over Jonathan, and that was enough for him. He would have taxed his ingenuity to the utmost to keep the others away from the young couple.

“I was so frightened,” murmured Helen.

“Why?” asked Jonathan.

“Oh! You looked so deathly — the blood, and that awful wound!”

“It’s nothin’, lass.”

Helen smiled down upon him. Whether or not the hurt amounted to anything in the borderman’s opinion, she knew from his weakness, and his white, drawn face, that the strain of the march home had been fearful. His dark eyes held now nothing of the coldness and glitter so natural to them. They were weary, almost sad. She did not feel afraid of him now. He lay there so helpless, his long, powerful frame as quiet as a sleeping child’s! Hitherto an almost indefinable antagonism in him had made itself felt; now there was only gentleness, as of a man too weary to fight longer. Helen’s heart swelled with pity, and tenderness, and love. His weakness affected her as had never his strength. With an involuntary gesture of sympathy she placed her hand softly on his.

Jonathan looked up at her with eyes no longer blind. Pain had softened him. For the moment he felt carried out of himself, as it were, and saw things differently. The melting tenderness of her gaze, the glowing softness of her face, the beauty, bewitched him; and beyond that, a sweet, impelling gladness stirred within him and would not be denied. He thrilled as her fingers lightly, timidly touched his, and opened his broad hand to press hers closely and warmly.

“Lass,” he whispered, with a huskiness and unsteadiness unnatural to his deep voice.

Helen bent her head closer to him; she saw his lips tremble, and his nostrils dilate; but an unutterable sadness shaded the brightness in his eyes.

“I love you.”

The low whisper reached Helen’s ears. She seemed to float dreamily away to some beautiful world, with the music of those words ringing in her ears. She looked at him again. Had she been dreaming? No; his dark eyes met hers with a love that he could no longer deny. An exquisite emotion, keen, strangely sweet and strong, yet terrible with sharp pain, pulsated through her being. The revelation had been too abrupt. It was so wonderfully different from what she had ever dared hope. She lowered her head, trembling.

The next moment she felt Colonel Zane’s hand on her chair, and heard him say in a cheery voice:

“Well, well, see here, lass, you mustn’t make Jack talk too much. See how white and tired he looks.”

CHAPTER XV

IN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS Jonathan Zane was up and about the cabin as though he had never been wounded; the third day he walked to the spring; in a week he was waiting for Wetzel, ready to go on the trail.

On the eighth day of his enforced idleness, as he sat with Betty and the colonel in the yard, Wetzel appeared on a ridge east of the fort. Soon he rounded the stockade fence, and came straight toward them. To Colonel Zane and Betty, Wetzel’s expression was terrible. The stern kindliness, the calm, though cold, gravity of his countenance, as they usually saw it, had disappeared. Yet it showed no trace of his unnatural passion to pursue and slay. No doubt that terrible instinct, or lust, was at white heat; but it wore a mask of impenetrable stone-gray gloom.

Wetzel spoke briefly. After telling Jonathan to meet him at sunset on the following day at a point five miles up the river, he reported to the colonel that Legget with his band had left their retreat, moving southward, apparently on a marauding expedition. Then he shook hands with Colonel Zane and turned to Betty.

“Good-bye, Betty,” he said, in his deep, sonorous voice.

“Good-bye, Lew,” answered Betty slowly, as if surprised. “God save you,” she added.

He shouldered his rifle, and hurried down the lane, halting before entering the thicket that bounded the clearing, to look back at the settlement. In another moment his dark figure had disappeared among the bushes.

“Betts, I’ve seen Wetzel go like that hundreds of times, though he never shook hands before; but I feel sort of queer about it now. Wasn’t he strange?”

Betty did not answer until Jonathan, who had started to go within, was out of hearing.

“Lew looked and acted the same the morning he struck Miller’s trail,” Betty replied in a low voice. “I believe, despite his indifference to danger, he realizes that the chances are greatly against him, as they were when he began the trailing of Miller, certain it would lead him into Girty’s camp. Then I know Lew has an affection for us, though it is never shown in ordinary ways. I pray he and Jack will come home safe.”

“This is a bad trail they’re taking up; the worst, perhaps, in border warfare,” said Colonel Zane gloomily. “Did you notice how Jack’s face darkened when his comrade came? Much of this borderman-life of his is due to Wetzel’s influence.”

“Eb, I’ll tell you one thing,” returned Betty, with a flash of her old spirit. “This is Jack’s last trail.”

“Why do you think so?”

“If he doesn’t return he’ll be gone the way of all bordermen; but if he comes back once more he’ll never get away from Helen.”

“Ugh!” exclaimed Zane, venting his pleasure in characteristic Indian way.

“That night after Jack came home wounded,” continued Betty, “I saw him, as he lay on the couch, gaze at Helen. Such a look! Eb, she has won.”

“I hope so, but I fear, I fear,” replied her brother gloomily. “If only he returns, that’s the thing! Betts, be sure he sees Helen before he goes away.”

“I shall try. Here he comes now,” said Betty.

“Hello, Jack!” cried the colonel, as his brother came out in somewhat of a hurry. “What have you got? By George! It’s that blamed arrow the Shawnee shot into you. Where are you going with it? What the deuce — Say — Betts, eh?”

Betty had given him a sharp little kick.

The borderman looked embarrassed. He hesitated and flushed. Evidently he would have liked to avoid his brother’s question; but the inquiry came direct. Dissimulation with him was impossible.

“Helen wanted this, an’ I reckon that’s where I’m goin’ with it,” he said finally, and walked away.

“Eb, you’re a stupid!” exclaimed Betty.

“Hang it! Who’d have thought he was going to give her that blamed, bloody arrow?”

As Helen ushered Jonathan, for the first time, into her cosy little sitting-room, her heart began to thump so hard she could hear it.

She had not seen him since the night he whispered the words which gave such happiness. She had stayed at home, thankful beyond expression to learn every day of his rapid improvement, living in the sweetness of her joy, and waiting for him. And now as he had come, so dark, so grave, so unlike a lover to woo, that she felt a chill steal over her.

“I’m so glad you’ve brought the arrow,” she faltered, “for, of course, coming so far means that you’re well once more.”

“You asked me for it, an’ I’ve fetched it over. To-morrow I’m off on a trail I may never return from,” he answered simply, and his voice seemed cold.

An immeasurable distance stretched once more between them. Helen’s happiness slowly died.

“I thank you,” she said with a voice that was tremulous despite all her efforts.

“It’s not much of a keepsake.”

“I did not ask for it as a keepsake, but because — because I wanted it. I need nothing tangible to keep alive my memory. A few words whispered to me not many days ago will suffice for remembrance — or — or did I dream them?”

Bitter disappointment almost choked Helen. This was not the gentle, soft-voiced man who had said he loved her. It was the indifferent borderman. Again he was the embodiment of his strange, quiet woods. Once more he seemed the comrade of the cold, inscrutable Wetzel.

“No, lass, I reckon you didn’t dream,” he replied.

Helen swayed from sick bitterness and a suffocating sense of pain, back to her old, sweet, joyous, tumultuous heart-throbbing.

“Tell me, if I didn’t dream,” she said softly, her face flashing warm again. She came close to him and looked up with all her heart in her great dark eyes, and love trembling on her red lips.

Calmness deserted the borderman after one glance at her. He paced the floor; twisted and clasped his hands while his eyes gleamed.

“Lass, I’m only human,” he cried hoarsely, facing her again.

But only for a moment did he stand before her; but it was long enough for him to see her shrink a little, the gladness in her eyes giving way to uncertainty and a fugitive hope. Suddenly he began to pace the room again, and to talk incoherently. With the flow of words he gradually grew calmer, and, with something of his natural dignity, spoke more rationally.

“I said I loved you, an’ it’s true, but I didn’t mean to speak. I oughtn’t have done it. Somethin’ made it so easy, so natural like. I’d have died before letting you know, if any idea had come to me of what I was sayin’. I’ve fought this feelin’ for months. I allowed myself to think of you at first, an’ there’s the wrong. I went on the trail with your big eyes pictured in my mind, an’ before I’d dreamed of it you’d crept into my heart. Life has never been the same since — that kiss. Betty said as how you cared for me, an’ that made me worse, only I never really believed. Today I came over here to say good-bye, expectin’ to hold myself well in hand; but the first glance of your eyes unmans me. Nothin’ can come of it, lass, nothin’ but trouble. Even if you cared, an’ I don’t dare believe you do, nothin’ can come of it! I’ve my own life to live, an’ there’s no sweetheart in it. Mebbe, as Lew says, there’s one in Heaven. Oh! girl, this has been hard on me. I see you always on my lonely tramps; I see your glorious eyes in the sunny fields an’ in the woods, at gray twilight, an’ when the stars shine brightest. They haunt me. Ah! you’re the sweetest lass as ever tormented a man, an’ I love you, I love you!”

He turned to the window only to hear a soft, broken cry, and a flurry of skirts. A rush of wind seemed to envelop him. Then two soft, rounded arms encircled his neck, and a golden head lay on his breast.

“My borderman! My hero! My love!”

Jonathan clasped the beautiful, quivering girl to his heart.

“Lass, for God’s sake don’t say you love me,” he implored, thrilling with contact of her warm arms.

“Ah!” she breathed, and raised her head. Her radiant eyes darkly wonderful with unutterable love, burned into his.

He had almost pressed his lips to the sweet red ones so near his, when he drew back with a start, and his frame straightened.

“Am I a man, or only a coward?” he muttered. “Lass, let me think. Don’t believe I’m harsh, nor cold, nor nothin’ except that I want to do what’s right.”

He leaned out of the window while Helen stood near him with a hand on his quivering shoulder. When at last he turned, his face was colorless, white as marble, and sad, and set, and stern.

“Lass, it mustn’t be; I’ll not ruin your life.”

“But you will if you give me up.”

“No, no, lass.”

“I cannot live without you.”

“You must. My life is not mine to give.”

“But you love me.”

“I am a borderman.”

“I will not live without you.”

“Hush! lass, hush!”

“I love you.”

Jonathan breathed hard; once more the tremor, which seemed pitiful in such a strong man, came upon him. His face was gray.

“I love you,” she repeated, her rich voice indescribably deep and full. She opened wide her arms and stood before him with heaving bosom, with great eyes dark with woman’s sadness, passionate with woman’s promise, perfect in her beauty, glorious in her abandonment.

The borderman bowed and bent like a broken reed.

“Listen,” she whispered, coming closer to him, “go if you must leave me; but let this be your last trail. Come back to me, Jack, come back to me! You have had enough of this terrible life; you have won a name that will never be forgotten; you have done your duty to the border. The Indians and outlaws will be gone soon. Take the farm your brother wants you to have, and live for me. We will be happy. I shall learn to keep your home. Oh! my dear, I will recompense you for the loss of all this wild hunting and fighting. Let me persuade you, as much for your sake as for mine, for you are my heart, and soul, and life. Go out upon your last trail, Jack, and come back to me.”

“An’ let Wetzel go always alone?”

“He is different; he lives only for revenge. What are those poor savages to you? You have a better, nobler life opening.”

“Lass, I can’t give him up.”

“You need not; but give up this useless seeking of adventure. That, you know, is half a borderman’s life. Give it up, Jack, it not for your own, then for my sake.”

“No-no-never-I can’t-I won’t be a coward! After all these years I won’t desert him. No-no — —”

“Do not say more,” she pleaded, stealing closer to him until she was against his breast. She slipped her arms around his neck. For love and more than life she was fighting now. “Good-bye, my love.” She kissed him, a long, lingering pressure of her soft full lips on his. “Dearest, do not shame me further. Dearest Jack, come back to me, for I love you.”

She released him, and ran sobbing from the room.

Unsteady as a blind man, he groped for the door, found it, and went out.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LONGEST DAY in Jonathan Zane’s life, the oddest, the most terrible and complex with unintelligible emotions, was that one in which he learned that the wilderness no longer sufficed for him.

He wandered through the forest like a man lost, searching for, he knew not what. Rambling along the shady trails he looked for that contentment which had always been his, but found it not. He plunged into the depths of deep, gloomy ravines; into the fastnesses of heavy-timbered hollows where the trees hid the light of day; he sought the open, grassy hillsides, and roamed far over meadow and plain. Yet something always eluded him. The invisible and beautiful life of all inanimate things sang no more in his heart. The springy moss, the quivering leaf, the tell-tale bark of the trees, the limpid, misty, eddying pools under green banks, the myriads of natural objects from which he had learned so much, and the manifold joyous life around him, no longer spoke with soul-satisfying faithfulness. The environment of his boyish days, of his youth, and manhood, rendered not a sweetness as of old.

His intelligence, sharpened by the pain of new experience, told him he had been vain to imagine that he, because he was a borderman, could escape the universal destiny of human life. Dimly he could feel the broadening, the awakening into a fuller existence, but he did not welcome this new light. He realized that men had always turned, at some time in their lives, to women even as the cypress leans toward the sun. This weakening of the sterner stuff in him; this softening of his heart, and especially the inquietude, and lack of joy and harmony in his old pursuits of the forest trails bewildered him, and troubled him some. Thousands of times his borderman’s trail had been crossed, yet never to his sorrow until now when it had been crossed by a woman.

Sick at heart, hurt in his pride, darkly savage, sad, remorseful, and thrilling with awakened passion, all in turn, he roamed the woodland unconsciously visiting the scenes where he had formerly found contentment.

He paused by many a shady glen, and beautiful quiet glade; by gray cliffs and mossy banks, searching with moody eyes for the spirit which evaded him.

Here in the green and golden woods rose before him a rugged, giant rock, moss-stained, and gleaming with trickling water. Tangled ferns dressed in autumn’s russet hue lay at the base of the green-gray cliff, and circled a dark, deep pool dotted with yellow leaves. Half-way up, the perpendicular ascent was broken by a protruding ledge upon which waved broad-leaved plants and rusty ferns. Above, the cliff sheered out with many cracks and seams in its weather-beaten front.

The forest grew to the verge of the precipice. A full foliaged oak and a luxuriant maple, the former still fresh with its dark green leaves, the latter making a vivid contrast with its pale yellow, purple-red, and orange hues, leaned far out over the bluff. A mighty chestnut grasped with gnarled roots deep into the broken cliff. Dainty plumes of goldenrod swayed on the brink; red berries, amber moss, and green trailing vines peeped over the edge, and every little niche and cranny sported fragile ferns and pale-faced asters. A second cliff, higher than the first, and more heavily wooded, loomed above, and over it sprayed a transparent film of water, thin as smoke, and iridescent in the sunshine. Far above where the glancing rill caressed the mossy cliff and shone like gleaming gold against the dark branches with their green and red and purple leaves, lay the faint blue of the sky.

Jonathan pulled on down the stream with humbler heart. His favorite waterfall had denied him. The gold that had gleamed there was his sweetheart’s hair; the red was of her lips; the dark pool with its lights and shades, its unfathomable mystery, was like her eyes.

He came at length to another scene of milder aspect. An open glade where the dancing, dimpling brook raced under dark hemlocks, and where blood-red sumach leaves, and beech leaves like flashes of sunshine, lay against the green. Under a leaning birch he found a patch of purple asters, and a little apart from them, by a mossy stone, a lonely fringed gentian. Its deep color brought to him the dark blue eyes that haunted him, and once again, like one possessed of an evil spirit, he wandered along the merry water-course.

But finally pain and unrest left him. When he surrendered to his love, peace returned. Though he said in his heart that Helen was not for him, he felt he did not need to torture himself by fighting against resistless power. He could love her without being a coward. He would take up his life where it had been changed, and live it, carrying this bitter-sweet burden always.

Memory, now that he admitted himself conquered, made a toy of him, bringing the sweetness of fragrant hair, and eloquent eyes, and clinging arms, and dewy lips. A thousand-fold harder to fight than pain was the seductive thought that he had but to go back to Helen to feel again the charm of her presence, to see the grace of her person, to hear the music of her voice, to have again her lips on his.

Jonathan knew then that his trial had but begun; that the pain and suffering of a borderman’s broken pride and conquered spirit was nothing; that to steel his heart against the joy, the sweetness, the longing of love was everything.

So a tumult raged within his heart. No bitterness, nor wretchedness stabbed him as before, but a passionate yearning, born of memory, and unquenchable as the fires of the sun, burned there.

Helen’s reply to his pale excuses, to his duty, to his life, was that she loved him. The wonder of it made him weak. Was not her answer enough? “I love you!” Three words only; but they changed the world. A beautiful girl loved him, she had kissed him, and his life could never again be the same. She had held out her arms to him — and he, cold, churlish, unfeeling brute, had let her shame herself, fighting for her happiness, for the joy that is a woman’s divine right. He had been blind; he had not understood the significance of her gracious action; he had never realized until too late, what it must have cost her, what heartburning shame and scorn his refusal brought upon her. If she ever looked tenderly at him again with her great eyes; or leaned toward him with her beautiful arms outstretched, he would fall at her feet and throw his duty to the winds, swearing his love was hers always and his life forever.

So love stormed in the borderman’s heart.

Slowly the melancholy Indian-summer day waned as Jonathan strode out of the woods into a plain beyond, where he was to meet Wetzel at sunset. A smoky haze like a purple cloud lay upon the gently waving grass. He could not see across the stretch of prairie-land, though at this point he knew it was hardly a mile wide. With the trilling of the grasshoppers alone disturbing the serene quiet of this autumn afternoon, all nature seemed in harmony with the declining season. He stood a while, his thoughts becoming the calmer for the silence and loneliness of this breathing meadow.

When the shadows of the trees began to lengthen, and to steal far out over the yellow grass, he knew the time had come, and glided out upon the plain. He crossed it, and sat down upon a huge stone which lay with one shelving end overhanging the river.

Far in the west the gold-red sun, too fiery for his direct gaze, lost the brilliance of its under circle behind the fringe of the wooded hill. Slowly the red ball sank. When the last bright gleam had vanished in the dark horizon Jonathan turned to search wood and plain. Wetzel was to meet him at sunset. Even as his first glance swept around a light step sounded behind him. He did not move, for that step was familiar. In another moment the tall form of Wetzel stood beside him.

“I’m about as much behind as you was ahead of time,” said Wetzel. “We’ll stay here fer the night, an’ be off early in the mornin’.”

Under the shelving side of the rock, and in the shade of the thicket, the bordermen built a little fire and roasted strips of deer-meat. Then, puffing at their long pipes they sat for a long time in silence, while twilight let fall a dark, gray cloak over river and plain.

“Legget’s move up the river was a blind, as I suspected,” said Wetzel, presently. “He’s not far back in the woods from here, an’ seems to be waitin’ fer somethin’ or somebody. Brandt an’ seven redskins are with him. We’d hev a good chance at them in the mornin’; now we’ve got ’em a long ways from their camp, so we’ll wait, an’ see what deviltry they’re up to.”

“Mebbe he’s waitin’ for some Injun band,” suggested Jonathan.

“Thar’s redskins in the valley an’ close to him; but I reckon he’s barkin’ up another tree.”

“Suppose we run into some of these Injuns?”

“We’ll hev to take what comes,” replied Wetzel, lying down on a bed of leaves.

When darkness enveloped the spot Wetzel lay wrapped in deep slumber, while Jonathan sat against the rock, watching the last flickerings of the camp-fire.

CHAPTER XVII

WILL AND HELEN hurried back along the river road. Beguiled by the soft beauty of the autumn morning they ventured farther from the fort than ever before, and had been suddenly brought to a realization of the fact by a crackling in the underbrush. Instantly their minds reverted to bears and panthers, such as they had heard invested the thickets round the settlement.

“Oh! Will! I saw a dark form stealing along in the woods from tree to tree!” exclaimed Helen in a startled whisper.

“So did I. It was an Indian, or I never saw one. Walk faster. Once round the bend in the road we’ll be within sight of the fort; then we’ll run,” replied Will. He had turned pale, but maintained his composure.

They increased their speed, and had almost come up to the curve in the road, marked by dense undergrowth on both sides, when the branches in the thicket swayed violently, a sturdy little man armed with a musket appeared from among them.

“Avast! Heave to!” he commanded in a low, fierce voice, leveling his weapon. “One breeze from ye, an’ I let sail this broadside.”

“What do you want? We have no valuables,” said Will, speaking low.

Helen stared at the little man. She was speechless with terror. It flashed into her mind as soon as she recognized the red, evil face of the sailor, that he was the accomplice upon whom Brandt had told Metzar he could rely.

“Shut up! It’s not ye I want, nor valuables, but this wench,” growled Case. He pushed Will around with the muzzle of the musket, which action caused the young man to turn a sickly white and shrink involuntarily with fear. The hammer of the musket was raised, and might fall at the slightest jar.

“For God’s sake! Will, do as he says,” cried Helen, who saw murder in Case’s eyes. Capture or anything was better than sacrifice of life.

“March!” ordered Case, with the musket against Will’s back.

Will hurriedly started forward, jostling Helen, who had preceded him. He was forced to hurry, because every few moments Case pressed the gun to his back or side.

Without another word the sailor marched them swiftly along the road, which now narrowed down to a trail. His intention, no doubt, was to put as much distance between him and the fort as was possible. No more than a mile had been thus traversed when two Indians stepped into view.

“My God! My God!” cried Will as the savages proceeded first to bind Helen’s arms behind her, and then his in the same manner. After this the journey was continued in silence, the Indians walking beside the prisoners, and Case in the rear.

Helen was so terrified that for a long time she could not think coherently. It seemed as if she had walked miles, yet did not feel tired. Always in front wound the narrow, leaf-girt trail, and to the left the broad river gleamed at intervals through open spaces in the thickets. Flocks of birds rose in the line of march. They seemed tame, and uttered plaintive notes as if in sympathy.

About noon the trail led to the river bank. One of the savages disappeared in a copse of willows, and presently reappeared carrying a birch-bark canoe. Case ordered Helen and Will into the boat, got in himself, and the savages, taking stations at bow and stern, paddled out into the stream. They shot over under the lee of an island, around a rocky point, and across a strait to another island. Beyond this they gained the Ohio shore, and beached the canoe.

“Ahoy! there, cap’n,” cried Case, pushing Helen up the bank before him, and she, gazing upward, was more than amazed to see Mordaunt leaning against a tree.

“Mordaunt, had you anything to do with this?” cried Helen breathlessly.

“I had all to do with it,” answered the Englishman.

“What do you mean?”

He did not meet her gaze, nor make reply; but turned to address a few words in a low tone to a white man sitting on a log.

Helen knew she had seen this person before, and doubted not he was one of Metzar’s men. She saw a rude, bark lean-to, the remains of a camp-fire, and a pack tied in blankets. Evidently Mordaunt and his men had tarried here awaiting such developments as had come to pass.

“You white-faced hound!” hissed Will, beside himself with rage when he realized the situation. Bound though he was, he leaped up and tried to get at Mordaunt. Case knocked him on the head with the handle of his knife. Will fell with blood streaming from a cut over the temple.

The dastardly act aroused all Helen’s fiery courage. She turned to the Englishman with eyes ablaze.

“So you’ve at last found your level. Border-outlaw! Kill me at once. I’d rather be dead than breathe the same air with such a coward!”

“I swore I’d have you, if not by fair means then by foul,” he answered, with dark and haggard face.

“What do you intend to do with me now that I am tied?” she demanded scornfully.

“Keep you a prisoner in the woods till you consent to marry me.”

Helen laughed in scorn. Desperate as was the plight, her natural courage had arisen at the cruel blow dealt her cousin, and she faced the Englishman with flashing eyes and undaunted mien. She saw he was again unsteady, and had the cough and catching breath habitual to certain men under the influence of liquor. She turned her attention to Will. He lay as he had fallen, with blood streaming over his pale face and fair hair. While she gazed at him Case whipped out his long knife, and looked up at Mordaunt.

“Cap’n, I’d better loosen a hatch fer him,” he said brutally. “He’s dead cargo fer us, an’ in the way.”

He lowered the gleaming point upon Will’s chest.

“Oh-h-h!” breathed Helen in horror. She tried to close her eyes but was so fascinated she could not.

“Get up. I’ll have no murder,” ordered Mordaunt. “Leave him here.”

“He’s not got a bad cut,” said the man sitting on the log. “He’ll come to arter a spell, go back to ther fort, an’ give an alarm.”

“What’s that to me?” asked Mordaunt sharply. “We shall be safe. I won’t have him with us because some Indian or another will kill him. It’s not my purpose to murder any one.”

“Ugh!” grunted one of the savages, and pointed eastward with his hand. “Hurry-long-way-go,” he said in English. With the Indians in the lead the party turned from the river into the forest.

Helen looked back into the sandy glade and saw Will lying as they had left him, unconscious, with his hands still bound tightly behind him, and blood running over his face. Painful as was the thought of leaving him thus, it afforded her relief. She assured herself he had not been badly hurt, would recover consciousness before long, and, even bound as he was, could make his way back to the settlement.

Her own situation, now that she knew Mordaunt had instigated the abduction, did not seem hopeless. Although dreading Brandt with unspeakable horror, she did not in the least fear the Englishman. He was mad to carry her off like this into the wilderness, but would force her to do nothing. He could not keep her a prisoner long while Jonathan Zane and Wetzel were free to take his trail. What were his intentions? Where was he taking her? Such questions as these, however, troubled Helen more than a little. They brought her thoughts back to the Indians leading the way with lithe and stealthy step. How had Mordaunt associated himself with these savages? Then, suddenly, it dawned upon her that Brandt also might be in this scheme to carry her off. She scouted the idea; but it returned. Perhaps Mordaunt was only a tool; perhaps he himself was being deceived. Helen turned pale at the very thought. She had never forgotten the strange, unreadable, yet threatening, expression which Brandt had worn the day she had refused to walk with him.

Meanwhile the party made rapid progress through the forest. Not a word was spoken, nor did any noise of rustling leaves or crackling twigs follow their footsteps. The savage in the lead chose the open and less difficult ground; he took advantage of glades, mossy places, and rocky ridges. This careful choosing was, evidently, to avoid noise, and make the trail as difficult to follow as possible. Once he stopped suddenly, and listened.

Helen had a good look at the savage while he was in this position. His lean, athletic figure resembled, in its half-clothed condition, a bronzed statue; his powerful visage was set, changeless like iron. His dark eyes seemed to take in all points of the forest before him.

Whatever had caused the halt was an enigma to all save his red-skinned companion.

The silence of the wood was the silence of the desert. No bird chirped; no breath of wind sighed in the tree-tops; even the aspens remained unagitated. Pale yellow leaves sailed slowly, reluctantly down from above.

But some faint sound, something unusual had jarred upon the exquisitely sensitive ears of the leader, for with a meaning shake of the head to his followers, he resumed the march in a direction at right angles with the original course.

This caution, and evident distrust of the forest ahead, made Helen think again of Jonathan and Wetzel. Those great bordermen might already be on the trail of her captors. The thought thrilled her. Presently she realized, from another long, silent march through forest thickets, glades, aisles, and groves, over rock-strewn ridges, and down mossy-stoned ravines, that her strength was beginning to fail.

“I can go no further with my arms tied in this way,” she declared, stopping suddenly.

“Ugh!” uttered the savage before her, turning sharply. He brandished a tomahawk before her eyes.

Mordaunt hurriedly set free her wrists. His pale face flushed a dark, flaming red when she shrank from his touch as if he were a viper.

After they had traveled what seemed to Helen many miles, the vigilance of the leaders relaxed.

On the banks of the willow-skirted stream the Indian guide halted them, and proceeded on alone to disappear in a green thicket. Presently he reappeared, and motioned for them to come on. He led the way over smooth, sandy paths between clumps of willows, into a heavy growth of alder bushes and prickly thorns, at length to emerge upon a beautiful grassy plot enclosed by green and yellow shrubbery. Above the stream, which cut the edge of the glade, rose a sloping, wooded ridge, with huge rocks projecting here and there out of the brown forest.

Several birch-bark huts could be seen; then two rough bearded men lolling upon the grass, and beyond them a group of painted Indians.

A whoop so shrill, so savage, so exultant, that it seemingly froze her blood, rent the silence. A man, unseen before, came crashing through the willows on the side of the ridge. He leaped the stream with the spring of a wild horse. He was big and broad, with disheveled hair, keen, hard face, and wild, gray eyes.

Helen’s sight almost failed her; her head whirled dizzily; it was as if her heart had stopped beating and was become a cold, dead weight. She recognized in this man the one whom she feared most of all — Brandt.

He cast one glance full at her, the same threatening, cool, and evil-meaning look she remembered so well, and then engaged the Indian guide in low conversation.

Helen sank at the foot of a tree, leaning against it. Despite her weariness she had retained some spirit until this direful revelation broke her courage. What worse could have happened? Mordaunt had led her, for some reason that she could not divine, into the clutches of Brandt, into the power of Legget and his outlaws.

But Helen was not one to remain long dispirited or hopeless. As this plot thickened, as every added misfortune weighed upon her, when just ready to give up to despair she remembered the bordermen. Then Colonel Zane’s tales of their fearless, implacable pursuit when bent on rescue or revenge, recurred to her, and fortitude returned. While she had life she would hope.

The advent of the party with their prisoner enlivened Legget’s gang. A great giant of a man, blond-bearded, and handsome in a wild, rugged, uncouth way, a man Helen instinctively knew to be Legget, slapped Brandt on the shoulder.

“Damme, Roge, if she ain’t a regular little daisy! Never seed such a purty lass in my life.”

Brandt spoke hurriedly, and Legget laughed.

All this time Case had been sitting on the grass, saying nothing, but with his little eyes watchful. Mordaunt stood near him, his head bowed, his face gloomy.

“Say, cap’n, I don’t like this mess,” whispered Case to his master. “They ain’t no crew fer us. I know men, fer I’ve sailed the seas, an’ you’re goin’ to get what Metz calls the double-cross.”

Mordaunt seemed to arouse from his gloomy reverie. He looked at Brandt and Legget who were now in earnest council. Then his eyes wandered toward Helen. She beckoned him to come to her.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

“Brandt understood my case. He planned this thing, and seemed to be a good friend of mine. He said if I once got you out of the settlement, he would give me protection until I crossed the border into Canada. There we could be married,” replied Mordaunt unsteadily.

“Then you meant marriage by me, if I could be made to consent?”

“Of course. I’m not utterly vile,” he replied, with face lowered in shame.

“Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

“Done? I don’t understand.”

“You have ruined yourself, lost your manhood, become an outlaw, a fugitive, made yourself the worst thing on the border — a girl-thief, and all for nothing.”

“No, I have you. You are more to me than all.”

“But can’t you see? You’ve brought me out here for Brandt!”

“My God!” exclaimed Mordaunt. He rose slowly to his feet and gazed around like a man suddenly wakened from a dream. “I see it all now! Miserable, drunken wretch that I am!”

Helen saw his face change and lighten as if a cloud of darkness had passed away from it. She understood that love of liquor had made him a party to this plot. Brandt had cunningly worked upon his weakness, proposed a daring scheme; and filled his befogged mind with hopes that, in a moment of clear-sightedness, he would have seen to be vain and impossible. And Helen understood also that the sudden shock of surprise, pain, possible fury, had sobered Mordaunt, probably for the first time in weeks.

The Englishman’s face became exceedingly pale. Seating himself on a stone near Case, he bowed his head, remaining silent and motionless.

The conference between Legget and Brandt lasted for some time. When it ended the latter strode toward the motionless figure on the rock.

“Mordaunt, you and Case will do well to follow this Indian at once to the river, where you can strike the Fort Pitt trail,” said Brandt.

He spoke arrogantly and authoritatively. His keen, hard face, his steely eyes, bespoke the iron will and purpose of the man.

Mordaunt rose with cold dignity. If he had been a dupe, he was one no longer, as could be plainly read on his calm, pale face. The old listlessness, the unsteadiness had vanished. He wore a manner of extreme quietude; but his eyes were like balls of blazing blue steel.

“Mr. Brandt, I seem to have done you a service, and am no longer required,” he said in a courteous tone.

Brandt eyed his man; but judged him wrongly. An English gentleman was new to the border-outlaw.

“I swore the girl should be mine,” he hissed.

“Doomed men cannot be choosers!” cried Helen, who had heard him. Her dark eyes burned with scorn and hatred.

All the party heard her passionate outburst. Case arose as if unconcernedly, and stood by the side of his master. Legget and the other two outlaws came up. The Indians turned their swarthy faces.

“Hah! ain’t she sassy?” cried Legget.

Brandt looked at Helen, understood the meaning of her words, and laughed. But his face paled, and involuntarily his shifty glance sought the rocks and trees upon the ridge.

“You played me from the first?” asked Mordaunt quietly.

“I did,” replied Brandt.

“You meant nothing of your promise to help me across the border?”

“No.”

“You intended to let me shift for myself out here in this wilderness?”

“Yes, after this Indian guides you to the river-trail,” said Brandt, indicating with his finger the nearest savage.

“I get what you frontier men call the double-cross’?”

“That’s it,” replied Brandt with a hard laugh, in which Legget joined.

A short pause ensued.

“What will you do with the girl?”

“That’s my affair.”

“Marry her?” Mordaunt’s voice was low and quiet.

“No!” cried Brandt. “She flaunted my love in my face, scorned me! She saw that borderman strike me, and by God! I’ll get even. I’ll keep her here in the woods until I’m tired of her, and when her beauty fades I’ll turn her over to Legget.”

Scarcely had the words dropped from his vile lips when Mordaunt moved with tigerish agility. He seized a knife from the belt of one of the Indians.

“Die!” he screamed.

Brandt grasped his tomahawk. At the same instant the man who had acted as Mordaunt’s guide grasped the Englishman from behind.

Brandt struck ineffectually at the struggling man.

“Fair play!” roared Case, leaping at Mordaunt’s second assailant. His long knife sheathed its glittering length in the man’s breast. Without even a groan he dropped. “Clear the decks!” Case yelled, sweeping round in a circle. All fell back before that whirling knife.

Several of the Indians started as if to raise their rifles; but Legget’s stern command caused them to desist.

The Englishman and the outlaw now engaged in a fearful encounter. The practiced, rugged, frontier desperado apparently had found his match in this pale-faced, slender man. His border skill with the hatchet seemed offset by Mordaunt’s terrible rage. Brandt whirled and swung the weapon as he leaped around his antagonist. With his left arm the Englishman sought only to protect his head, while with his right he brandished the knife. Whirling here and there they struggled across the cleared space, plunging out of sight among the willows. During a moment there was a sound as of breaking branches; then a dull blow, horrible to hear, followed by a low moan, and then deep silence.

CHAPTER XVIII

A BLACK WEIGHT was seemingly lifted from Helen’s weary eyelids. The sun shone; the golden forest surrounded her; the brook babbled merrily; but where were the struggling, panting men? She noticed presently, when her vision had grown more clear, that the scene differed entirely from the willow-glade where she had closed her eyes upon the fight. Then came the knowledge that she had fainted, and, during the time of unconsciousness, been moved.

She lay upon a mossy mound a few feet higher than a swiftly running brook. A magnificent chestnut tree spread its leafy branches above her. Directly opposite, about an hundred feet away, loomed a gray, ragged, moss-stained cliff. She noted this particularly because the dense forest encroaching to its very edge excited her admiration. Such wonderful coloring seemed unreal. Dead gold and bright red foliage flamed everywhere.

Two Indians stood near by silent, immovable. No other of Legget’s band was visible. Helen watched the red men.

Sinewy, muscular warriors they were, with bodies partially painted, and long, straight hair, black as burnt wood, interwoven with bits of white bone, and plaited around waving eagle plumes. At first glance their dark faces and dark eyes were expressive of craft, cunning, cruelty, courage, all attributes of the savage.

Yet wild as these savages appeared, Helen did not fear them as she did the outlaws. Brandt’s eyes, and Legget’s, too, when turned on her, emitted a flame that seemed to scorch and shrivel her soul. When the savages met her gaze, which was but seldom, she imagined she saw intelligence, even pity, in their dusky eyes. Certain it was she did not shrink from them as from Brandt.

Suddenly, with a sensation of relief and joy, she remembered Mordaunt’s terrible onslaught upon Brandt. Although she could not recollect the termination of that furious struggle, she did recall Brandt’s scream of mortal agony, and the death of the other at Case’s hands. This meant, whether Brandt was dead or not, that the fighting strength of her captors had been diminished. Surely as the sun had risen that morning, Helen believed Jonathan and Wetzel lurked on the trail of these renegades. She prayed that her courage, hope, strength, might be continued.

“Ugh!” exclaimed one of the savages, pointing across the open space. A slight swaying of the bushes told that some living thing was moving among them, and an instant later the huge frame of the leader came into view. The other outlaw, and Case, followed closely. Farther down the margin of the thicket the Indians appeared; but without the slightest noise or disturbance of the shrubbery.

It required but a glance to show Helen that Case was in high spirits. His repulsive face glowed with satisfaction. He carried a bundle, which Helen saw, with a sickening sense of horror, was made up of Mordaunt’s clothing. Brandt had killed the Englishman. Legget also had a package under his arm, which he threw down when he reached the chestnut tree, to draw from his pocket a long, leather belt, such as travelers use for the carrying of valuables. It was evidently heavy, and the musical clink which accompanied his motion proclaimed the contents to be gold.

Brandt appeared next; he was white and held his hand to his breast. There were dark stains on his hunting coat, which he removed to expose a shirt blotched with red.

“You ain’t much hurt, I reckon?” inquired Legget solicitously.

“No; but I’m bleeding bad,” replied Brandt coolly. He then called an Indian and went among the willows skirting the stream.

“So I’m to be in this border crew?” asked Case, looking up at Legget.

“Sure,” replied the big outlaw. “You’re a handy fellar, Case, an’ after I break you into border ways you will fit in here tip-top. Now you’d better stick by me. When Eb Zane, his brother Jack, an’ Wetzel find out this here day’s work, hell will be a cool place compared with their whereabouts. You’ll be safe with me, an’ this is the only place on the border, I reckon, where you can say your life is your own.”

“I’m yer mate, cap’n. I’ve sailed with soldiers, pirates, sailors, an’ I guess I can navigate this borderland. Do we mess here? You didn’t come far.”

“Wal, I ain’t pertikuler, but I don’t like eatin’ with buzzards,” said Legget, with a grin. “Thet’s why we moved a bit.”

“What’s buzzards?”

“Ho! ho! Mebbe you’ll hev ’em closer’n you’d like, some day, if you’d only know it. Buzzards are fine birds, most particular birds, as won’t eat nothin’ but flesh, an’ white man or Injun is pie fer ‘em.”

“Cap’n, I’ve seed birds as wouldn’t wait till a man was dead,” said Case.

“Haw! haw! you can’t come no sailor yarns on this fellar. Wal, now, we’ve got ther Englishman’s gold. One or t’other of us might jest as well hev it all.”

“Right yer are, cap’n. Dice, cards, anyways, so long as I knows the game.”

“Here, Jenks, hand over yer clickers, an’ bring us a flat stone,” said Legget, sitting on the moss and emptying the belt in front of him. Case took a small bag from the dark blue jacket that had so lately covered Mordaunt’s shoulders, and poured out its bright contents.

“This coat ain’t worth keepin’,” he said, holding it up. The garment was rent and slashed, and under the left sleeve was a small, blood-stained hole where one of Brandt’s blows had fallen. “Hullo, what’s this?” muttered the sailor, feeling in the pocket of the jacket. “Blast my timbers, hooray!”

He held up a small, silver-mounted whiskey flask, unscrewed the lid, and lifted the vessel to his mouth.

“I’m kinder thirsty myself,” suggested Legget.

“Cap’n, a nip an’ no more,” Case replied, holding the flask to Legget’s lips.

The outlaw called Jenks now returned with a flat stone which he placed between the two men. The Indians gathered around. With greedy eyes they bent their heads over the gamblers, and watched every movement with breathless interest. At each click of the dice, or clink of gold, they uttered deep exclamations.

“Luck’s again’ ye, cap’n,” said Case, skilfully shaking the ivory cubes.

“Hain’t I got eyes?” growled the outlaw.

Steadily his pile of gold diminished, and darker grew his face.

“Cap’n, I’m a bad wind to draw,” Case rejoined, drinking again from the flask. His naturally red face had become livid, his skin moist, and his eyes wild with excitement.

“Hullo! If them dice wasn’t Jenks’s, an’ I hadn’t played afore with him, I’d swear they’s loaded.”

“You ain’t insinuatin’ nothin’, cap’n?” inquired Case softly, hesitating with the dice in his hands, his evil eyes glinting at Legget.

“No, you’re fair enough,” growled the leader. “It’s my tough luck.”

The game progressed with infrequent runs of fortune for the outlaw, and presently every piece of gold lay in a shining heap before the sailor.

“Clean busted!” exclaimed Legget in disgust.

“Can’t you find nothin’ more?” asked Case.

The outlaw’s bold eyes wandered here and there until they rested upon the prisoner.

“I’ll play ther lass against yer pile of gold,” he growled. “Best two throws out ‘en three. See here, she’s as much mine as Brandt’s.”

“Make it half my pile an’ I’ll go you.”

“Nary time. Bet, or give me back what yer win,” replied Legget gruffly.

“She’s a trim little craft, no mistake,” said Case, critically surveying Helen. “All right, cap’n, I’ve sportin’ blood, an’ I’ll bet. Yer throw first.”

Legget won the first cast, and Case the second. With deliberation the outlaw shook the dice in his huge fist, and rattled them out upon the stone. “Hah!” he cried in delight. He had come within one of the highest score possible. Case nonchalantly flipped the little white blocks. The Indians crowded forward, their dusky eyes shining.

Legget swore in a terrible voice which re-echoed from the stony cliff. The sailor was victorious. The outlaw got up, kicked the stone and dice in the brook, and walked away from the group. He strode to and fro under one of the trees. Gruffly he gave an order to the Indians. Several of them began at once to kindle a fire. Presently he called Jenks, who was fishing the dice out of the brook, and began to converse earnestly with him, making fierce gestures and casting lowering glances at the sailor.

Case was too drunk now to see that he had incurred the enmity of the outlaw leader. He drank the last of the rum, and tossed the silver flask to an Indian, who received the present with every show of delight.

Case then, with the slow, uncertain movements of a man whose mind is befogged, began to count his gold; but only to gather up a few pieces when they slipped out of his trembling hands to roll on the moss. Laboriously, seriously, he kept at it with the doggedness of a drunken man. Apparently he had forgotten the others. Failing to learn the value of the coins by taking up each in turn, he arranged them in several piles, and began to estimate his wealth in sections.

In the meanwhile Helen, who had not failed to take in the slightest detail of what was going on, saw that a plot was hatching which boded ill to the sailor. Moreover, she heard Legget and Jenks whispering.

“I kin take him from right here ‘atwixt his eyes,” said Jenks softly, and tapped his rifle significantly.

“Wal, go ahead, only I ruther hev it done quieter,” answered Legget. “We’re yet a long ways, near thirty miles, from my camp, an’ there’s no tellin’ who’s in ther woods. But we’ve got ter git rid of ther fresh sailor, an’ there’s no surer way.”

Cautiously cocking his rifle, Jenks deliberately raised it to his shoulder. One of the Indian sentinels who stood near at hand, sprang forward and struck up the weapon. He spoke a single word to Legget, pointed to the woods above the cliff, and then resumed his statue-like attitude.

“I told yer, Jenks, that it wouldn’t do. The redskin scents somethin’ in the woods, an’ ther’s an Injun I never seed fooled. We mustn’t make a noise. Take yer knife an’ tomahawk, crawl down below the edge o’ the bank an’ slip up on him. I’ll give half ther gold fer ther job.”

Jenks buckled his belt more tightly, gave one threatening glance at the sailor, and slipped over the bank. The bed of the brook lay about six feet below the level of the ground. This afforded an opportunity for the outlaw to get behind Case without being observed. A moment passed. Jenks disappeared round a bend of the stream. Presently his grizzled head appeared above the bank. He was immediately behind the sailor; but still some thirty feet away. This ground must be covered quickly and noiselessly. The outlaw began to crawl. In his right hand he grasped a tomahawk, and between his teeth was a long knife. He looked like a huge, yellow bear.

The savages, with the exception of the sentinel who seemed absorbed in the dense thicket on the cliff, sat with their knees between their hands, watching the impending tragedy.

Nothing but the merest chance, or some extraordinary intervention, could avert Case’s doom. He was gloating over his gold. The creeping outlaw made no more noise than a snake. Nearer and nearer he came; his sweaty face shining in the sun; his eyes tigerish; his long body slipping silently over the grass. At length he was within five feet of the sailor. His knotty hands were dug into the sward as he gathered energy for a sudden spring.

At that very moment Case, with his hand on his knife, rose quickly and turned round.

The outlaw, discovered in the act of leaping, had no alternative, and spring he did, like a panther.

The little sailor stepped out of line with remarkable quickness, and as the yellow body whirled past him, his knife flashed blue-bright in the sunshine.

Jenks fell forward, his knife buried in the grass beneath him, and his outstretched hand still holding the tomahawk.

“Tryin’ ter double-cross me fer my gold,” muttered the sailor, sheathing his weapon. He never looked to see whether or no his blow had been fatal. “These border fellars might think a man as sails the seas can’t handle a knife.” He calmly began gathering up his gold, evidently indifferent to further attack.

Helen saw Legget raise his own rifle, but only to have it struck aside as had Jenks’s. This time the savage whispered earnestly to Legget, who called the other Indians around him. The sentinel’s low throaty tones mingled with the soft babbling of the stream. No sooner had he ceased speaking than the effect of his words showed how serious had been the information, warning or advice. The Indians cast furtive glances toward the woods. Two of them melted like shadows into the red and gold thicket. Another stealthily slipped from tree to tree until he reached the open ground, then dropped into the grass, and was seen no more until his dark body rose under the cliff. He stole along the green-stained wall, climbed a rugged corner, and vanished amid the dense foliage.

Helen felt that she was almost past discernment or thought. The events of the day succeeding one another so swiftly, and fraught with panic, had, despite her hope and fortitude, reduced her to a helpless condition of piteous fear. She understood that the savages scented danger, or had, in their mysterious way, received intelligence such as rendered them wary and watchful.

“Come on, now, an’ make no noise,” said Legget to Case. “Bring the girl, an’ see that she steps light.”

“Ay, ay, cap’n,” replied the sailor. “Where’s Brandt?”

“He’ll be comin’ soon’s his cut stops bleedin’. I reckon he’s weak yet.”

Case gathered up his goods, and, tucking it under his arm, grasped Helen’s arm. She was leaning against the tree, and when he pulled her, she wrenched herself free, rising with difficulty. His disgusting touch and revolting face had revived her sensibilities.

“Yer kin begin duty by carryin’ thet,” said Case, thrusting the package into Helen’s arms. She let it drop without moving a hand.

“I’m runnin’ this ship. Yer belong to me,” hissed Case, and then he struck her on the head. Helen uttered a low cry of distress, and half staggered against the tree. The sailor picked up the package. This time she took it, trembling with horror.

“Thet’s right. Now, give ther cap’n a kiss,” he leered, and jostled against her.

Helen pushed him violently. With agonized eyes she appealed to the Indians. They were engaged tying up their packs. Legget looked on with a lazy grin.

“Oh! oh!” breathed Helen as Case seized her again. She tried to scream, but could not make a sound. The evil eyes, the beastly face, transfixed her with terror.

Case struck her twice, then roughly pulled her toward him.

Half-fainting, unable to move, Helen gazed at the heated, bloated face approaching hers.

When his coarse lips were within a few inches of her lips something hot hissed across her brow. Following so closely as to be an accompaniment, rang out with singular clearness the sharp crack of a rifle.

Case’s face changed. The hot, surging flush faded; the expression became shaded, dulled into vacant emptiness; his eyes rolled wildly, then remained fixed, with a look of dark surprise. He stood upright an instant, swayed with the regular poise of a falling oak, and then plunged backward to the ground. His face, ghastly and livid, took on the awful calm of death.

A very small hole, reddish-blue round the edges, dotted the center of his temple.

Legget stared aghast at the dead sailor; then he possessed himself of the bag of gold.

“Saved me ther trouble,” he muttered, giving Case a kick.

The Indians glanced at the little figure, then out into the flaming thickets. Each savage sprang behind a tree with incredible quickness. Legget saw this, and grasping Helen, he quickly led her within cover of the chestnut.

Brandt appeared with his Indian companion, and both leaped to shelter behind a clump of birches near where Legget stood. Brandt’s hawk eyes flashed upon the dead Jenks and Case. Without asking a question he seemed to take in the situation. He stepped over and grasped Helen by the arm.

“Who killed Case?” he asked in a whisper, staring at the little blue hole in the sailor’s temple.

No one answered.

The two Indians who had gone into the woods to the right of the stream, now returned. Hardly were they under the trees with their party, when the savage who had gone off alone arose out of the grass in the left of the brook, took it with a flying leap, and darted into their midst. He was the sentinel who had knocked up the weapons, thereby saving Case’s life twice. He was lithe and supple, but not young. His grave, shadowy-lined, iron visage showed the traces of time and experience. All gazed at him as at one whose wisdom was greater than theirs.

“Old Horse,” said Brandt in English. “Haven’t I seen bullet holes like this?”

The Chippewa bent over Case, and then slowly straightened his tall form.

“Deathwind!” he replied, answering in the white man’s language.

His Indian companions uttered low, plaintive murmurs, not signifying fear so much as respect.

Brandt turned as pale as the clean birch-bark on the tree near him. The gray flare of his eyes gave out a terrible light of certainty and terror.

“Legget, you needn’t try to hide your trail,” he hissed, and it seemed as if there was a bitter, reckless pleasure in these words.

Then the Chippewa glided into the low bushes bordering the creek. Legget followed him, with Brandt leading Helen, and the other Indians brought up the rear, each one sending wild, savage glances into the dark, surrounding forest.

CHAPTER XIX

A DENSE WHITE fog rose from the river, obscuring all objects, when the bordermen rolled out of their snug bed of leaves. The air was cool and bracing, faintly fragrant with dying foliage and the damp, dewy luxuriance of the ripened season. Wetzel pulled from under the protecting ledge a bundle of bark and sticks he had put there to keep dry, and built a fire, while Jonathan fashioned a cup from a green fruit resembling a gourd, filling it at a spring near by.

“Lew, there’s a frosty nip in the water this mornin’,” said Jonathan.

“I reckon. It’s gettin’ along into fall now. Any clear, still night’ll fetch all the leaves, an’ strip the trees bare as burned timber,” answered Wetzel, brushing the ashes off the strip of meat he had roasted. “Get a stick, an’ help me cook the rest of this chunk of bison. The sun’ll be an hour breakin’ up thet mist, an’ we can’t clear out till then. Mebbe we won’t have no chance to light another fire soon.”

With these bordermen everything pertaining to their lonely lives, from the lighting of a fire to the trailing of a redskin, was singularly serious. No gladsome song ever came from their lips; there was no jollity around their camp-fire. Hunters had their moments of rapturous delight; bordermen knew the peace, the content of the wilderness, but their pursuits racked nerve and heart. Wetzel had his moments of frenzied joy, but they passed with the echo of his vengeful yell. Jonathan’s happiness, such as it was, had been to roam the forests. That, before a woman’s eyes had dispelled it, had been enough, and compensated him for the gloomy, bloody phantoms which haunted him.

The bordermen, having partaken of the frugal breakfast, stowed in their spacious pockets all the meat that was left, and were ready for the day’s march. They sat silent for a time waiting for the mist to lift. It broke in places, rolled in huge billows, sailed aloft like great white clouds, and again hung tenaciously to the river and the plain. Away in the west blue patches of sky shone through the rifts, and eastward banks of misty vapor reddened beneath the rising sun. Suddenly from beneath the silver edge of the rising pall the sun burst gleaming gold, disclosing the winding valley with its steaming river.

“We’ll make up stream fer Two Islands, an’ cross there if so be we’ve reason,” Wetzel had said.

Through the dewy dells, avoiding the wet grass and bushes, along the dark, damp glades with their yellow carpets, under the thinning arches of the trees, down the gentle slopes of the ridges, rich with green moss, the bordermen glided like gray shadows. The forest was yet asleep. A squirrel frisked up an oak and barked quarrelsomely at these strange, noiseless visitors. A crow cawed from somewhere overhead. These were the only sounds disturbing the quiet early hour.

As the bordermen advanced the woods lightened and awoke to life and joy. Birds sang, trilled, warbled, or whistled their plaintive songs, peculiar to the dying season, and in harmony with the glory of the earth. Birds that in earlier seasons would have screeched and fought, now sang and fluttered side by side, in fraternal parade on their slow pilgrimage to the far south.

“Bad time fer us, when the birds are so tame, an’ chipper. We can’t put faith in them these days,” said Wetzel. “Seems like they never was wild. I can tell, ‘cept at this season, by the way they whistle an’ act in the woods, if there’s been any Injuns along the trails.”

The greater part of the morning passed thus with the bordermen steadily traversing the forest; here, through a spare and gloomy wood, blasted by fire, worn by age, with many a dethroned monarch of bygone times rotting to punk and duff under the ferns, with many a dark, seamed and ragged king still standing, but gray and bald of head and almost ready to take his place in the forest of the past; there, through a maze of young saplings where each ash, maple, hickory and oak added some new and beautiful hue to the riot of color.

“I just had a glimpse of the lower island, as we passed an opening in the thicket,” said Jonathan.

“We ain’t far away,” replied Wetzel.

The bordermen walked less rapidly in order to proceed with more watchfulness. Every rod or two they stopped to listen.

“You think Legget’s across the river?” asked Jonathan.

“He was two days back, an’ had his gang with him. He’s up to some bad work, but I can’t make out what. One thing, I never seen his trail so near Fort Henry.”

They emerged at length into a more open forest which skirted the river. At a point still some distance ahead, but plainly in sight, two small islands rose out of the water.

“Hist! What’s that?” whispered Wetzel, slipping his hand in Jonathan’s arm.

A hundred yards beyond lay a long, dark figure stretched at full length under one of the trees close to the bank.

“Looks like a man,” said Jonathan.

“You’ve hit the mark. Take a good peep roun’ now, Jack, fer we’re comin’ somewhere near the trail we want.”

Minutes passed while the patient bordermen searched the forest with their eyes, seeking out every tree within rifle range, or surveyed the level glades, scrutinized the hollows, and bent piercing eyes upon the patches of ferns.

“If there’s a redskin around he ain’t big enough to hold a gun,” said Wetzel, moving forward again, yet still with that same stealthy step and keen caution.

Finally they were gazing down upon the object which had attracted Wetzel’s attention.

“Will Sheppard!” cried Jonathan. “Is he dead? What’s this mean?”

Wetzel leaned over the prostrate lad, and then quickly turned to his companion.

“Get some water. Take his cap. No, he ain’t even hurt bad, unless he’s got some wound as don’t show.”

Jonathan returned with the water, and Wetzel bathed the bloody face. When the gash on Will’s forehead was clean, it told the bordermen much.

“Not an hour old, that blow,” muttered Wetzel.

“He’s comin’ to,” said Jonathan as Will stirred uneasily and moaned. Presently the lad opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. He looked bewildered for a moment, and felt of his head while gazing vaguely at the bordermen. Suddenly he cried:

“I remember! We were captured, brought here, and I was struck down by that villain Case.”

“We? Who was with you?” asked Jonathan slowly.

“Helen. We came after flowers and leaves. While in full sight of the fort I saw an Indian. We hurried back,” he cried, and proceeded with broken, panting voice to tell his story.

Jonathan Zane leaped to his feet with face deathly white and eyes blue-black, like burning stars.

“Jack, study the trail while I get the lad acrost the river, an’ steered fer home,” said Wetzel, and then he asked Will if he could swim.

“Yes; but you will find a canoe there in those willows.”

“Come, lad, we’ve no time to spare,” added Wetzel, sliding down the bank and entering the willows. He came out almost immediately with the canoe which he launched.

Will turned that he might make a parting appeal to Jonathan to save Helen; but could not speak. The expression on the borderman’s face frightened him.

Motionless and erect Jonathan stood, his arms folded and his white, stern face distorted with the agony of remorse, fear, and anguish, which, even as Will gazed, froze into an awful, deadly look of fateful purpose.

Wetzel pushed the canoe off, and paddled with powerful strokes; he left Will on the opposite bank, and returned as swiftly as he could propel the light craft.

The bordermen met each other’s glance, and had little need of words. Wetzel’s great shoulders began to sag slightly, and his head lowered as his eyes sought the grass; a dark and gloomy shade overcast his features. Thus he passed from borderman to Deathwind. The sough of the wind overhead among the almost naked branches might well have warned Indians and renegades that Deathwind was on the trail!

“Brandt’s had a hand in this, an’ the Englishman’s a fool!” said Wetzel.

“An hour ahead; can we come up with them before they join Brandt an’ Legget?”

“We can try, but like as not we’ll fail. Legget’s gang is thirteen strong by now. I said it! Somethin’ told me — a hard trail, a long trail, an’ our last trail.”

“It’s over thirty miles to Legget’s camp. We know the woods, an’ every stream, an’ every cover,” hissed Jonathan Zane.

With no further words Wetzel took the trail on the run, and so plain was it to his keen eyes that he did not relax his steady lope except to stop and listen at regular intervals. Jonathan followed with easy swing. Through forest and meadow, over hill and valley, they ran, fleet and tireless. Once, with unerring instinct, they abruptly left the broad trail and cut far across a wide and rugged ridge to come again upon the tracks of the marching band. Then, in open country they reduced their speed to a walk. Ahead, in a narrow valley, rose a thicket of willows, yellow in the sunlight, and impenetrable to human vision. Like huge snakes the bordermen crept into this copse, over the sand, under the low branches, hard on the trail. Finally, in a light, open space, where the sun shone through a network of yellow branches and foliage, Wetzel’s hand was laid upon Jonathan’s shoulder.

“Listen! Hear that!” he whispered.

Jonathan heard the flapping of wings, and a low, hissing sound, not unlike that made by a goose.

“Buzzards!” he said, with a dark, grim smile. “Mebbe Brandt has begun our work. Come.”

Out into the open they crawled to put to flight a flock of huge black birds with grisly, naked necks, hooked beaks, and long, yellow claws. Upon the green grass lay three half-naked men, ghastly, bloody, in terribly limp and lifeless positions.

“Metzar’s man Smith, Jenks, the outlaw, and Mordaunt!”

Jonathan Zane gazed darkly into the steely, sightless eyes of the traitor. Death’s awful calm had set the expression; but the man’s whole life was there, its better part sadly shining forth among the cruel shadows.

His body was mutilated in a frightful manner. Cuts, stabs, and slashes told the tale of a long encounter, brought to an end by one clean stroke.

“Come here, Lew. You’ve seen men chopped up; but look at this dead Englishman,” called Zane.

Mordaunt lay weltering in a crimson tide. Strangely though, his face was uninjured. A black bruise showed under his fair hair. The ghost of a smile seemed to hover around his set lips, yet almost intangible though it was, it showed that at last he had died a man. His left shoulder, side and arm showed where the brunt of Brandt’s attack had fallen.

“How’d he ever fight so?” mused Jonathan.

“You never can tell,” replied Wetzel. “Mebbe he killed this other fellar, too; but I reckon not. Come, we must go slow now, fer Legget is near at hand.”

Jonathan brought huge, flat stones from the brook, and laid them over Mordaunt; then, cautiously he left the glade on Wetzel’s trail.

Five hundred yards farther on Wetzel had ceased following the outlaw’s tracks to cross the creek and climb a ridge. He was beginning his favorite trick of making a wide detour. Jonathan hurried forward, feeling he was safe from observation. Soon he distinguished the tall, brown figure of his comrade gliding ahead from tree to tree, from bush to bush.

“See them maples an’ chestnuts down thar,” said Wetzel when Jonathan had come up, pointing through an opening in the foliage. “They’ve stopped fer some reason.”

On through the forest the bordermen glided. They kept near the summit of the ridge, under the best cover they could find, and passed swiftly over this half-circle. When beginning once more to draw toward the open grove in the valley, they saw a long, irregular cliff, densely wooded. They swerved a little, and made for this excellent covert.

They crawled the last hundred yards and never shook a fern, moved a leaf, or broke a twig. Having reached the brink of the low precipice, they saw the grassy meadow below, the straggling trees, the brook, the group of Indians crowding round the white men.

“See that point of rock thar? It’s better cover,” whispered Wetzel.

Patiently, with no hurry or excitement, they slowly made their difficult way among the rocks and ferns to the vantage point desired. Taking a position like this was one the bordermen strongly favored. They could see everywhere in front, and had the thick woods at their backs.

“What are they up to?” whispered Jonathan, as he and Wetzel lay close together under a mass of grapevine still tenacious of its broad leaves.

“Dicin’,” answered Wetzel. “I can see ’em throw; anyways, nothin’ but bettin’ ever makes redskins act like that.”

“Who’s playin’? Where’s Brandt?”

“I can make out Legget; see his shaggy head. The other must be Case. Brandt ain’t in sight. Nursin’ a hurt perhaps. Ah! See thar! Over under the big tree as stands dark-like agin the thicket. Thet’s an Injun, an’ he looks too quiet an’ keen to suit me. We’ll have a care of him.”

“Must be playin’ fer Mordaunt’s gold.”

“Like as not, for where’d them ruffians get any ‘cept they stole it.”

“Aha! They’re gettin’ up! See Legget walk away shakin’ his big head. He’s mad. Mebbe he’ll be madder presently,” growled Jonathan.

“Case’s left alone. He’s countin’ his winnin’s. Jack, look out fer more work took off our hands.”

“By gum! See that Injun knock up a leveled rifle.”

“I told you, an’ thet redskin has his suspicions. He’s seen us down along ther ridge. There’s Helen, sittin’ behind the biggest tree. Thet Injun guard, ‘afore he moved, kept us from seein’ her.”

Jonathan made no answer to this; but his breath literally hissed through his clenched teeth.

“Thar goes the other outlaw,” whispered Wetzel, as if his comrade could not see. “It’s all up with Case. See the sneak bendin’ down the bank. Now, thet’s a poor way. It’d better be done from the front, walkin’ up natural-like, instead of tryin’ to cover thet wide stretch. Case’ll see him or hear him sure. Thar, he’s up now, an’ crawlin’. He’s too slow, too slow. Aha! I knew it — Case turns. Look at the outlaw spring! Well, did you see thet little cuss whip his knife? One more less fer us to quiet. Thet makes four, Jack, an’ mebbe, soon, it’ll be five.”

“They’re holdin’ a council,” said Jonathan.

“I see two Injuns sneakin’ off into the woods, an’ here comes thet guard. He’s a keen redskin, Jack, fer we did come light through the brush. Mebbe it’d be well to stop his scoutin’.”

“Lew, that villain Case is bullyin’ Helen!” cried Jonathan.

“Sh-sh-h,” whispered Wetzel.

“See! He’s pulled her to her feet. Oh! He struck her! Oh!”

Jonathan leveled his rifle and would have fired, but for the iron grasp on his wrist.

“Hev you lost yer senses? It’s full two hundred paces, an’ too far fer your piece,” said Wetzel in a whisper. “An’ it ain’t sense to try from here.”

“Lend me your gun! Lend me your gun!”

Silently Wetzel handed him the long, black rifle.

Jonathan raised it, but trembled so violently that the barrel wavered like a leaf in the breeze.

“Take it, I can’t cover him,” groaned Jonathan. “This is new to me. I ain’t myself. God! Lew, he struck her again! Again! He’s tryin’ to kiss her! Wetzel, if you’re my friend, kill him!”

“Jack, it’d be better to wait, an’ — —”

“I love her,” breathed Jonathan.

The long, black barrel swept up to a level and stopped. White smoke belched from among the green leaves; the report rang throughout the forest.

“Ah! I saw him stop an’ pause,” hissed Jonathan. “He stands, he sways, he falls! Death for yours, you sailor-beast!”

CHAPTER XX

THE BORDERMEN WATCHED Legget and his band disappear into the thicket adjoining the grove. When the last dark, lithe form glided out of sight among the yellowing copse, Jonathan leaped from the low cliff, and had hardly reached the ground before Wetzel dashed down to the grassy turf.

Again they followed the outlaw’s trail darker-faced, fiercer-visaged than ever, with cocked, tightly-gripped rifles thrust well before them, and light feet that scarcely brushed the leaves.

Wetzel halted after a long tramp up and down the ridges, and surveyed with keen intent the lay of the land ahead.

“Sooner or later we’ll hear from that redskin as discovered us a ways back,” whispered he. “I wish we might get a crack at him afore he hinders us bad. I ain’t seen many keener Injuns. It’s lucky we fixed ther arrow-shootin’ Shawnee. We’d never hev beat thet combination. An’ fer all of thet I’m worrin’ some about the goin’ ahead.”

“Ambush?” Jonathan asked.

“Like as not. Legget’ll send thet Injun back, an’ mebbe more’n him. Jack, see them little footprints? They’re Helen’s. Look how she’s draggin’ along. Almost tuckered out. Legget can’t travel many more miles to-day. He’ll make a stand somewheres, an’ lose all his redskins afore he gives up the lass.”

“I’ll never live through to-night with her in that gang. She’ll be saved, or dead, before the stars pale in the light of the moon.”

“I reckon we’re nigh the end for some of us. It’ll be moonlight an hour arter dusk, an’ now it’s only the middle of the arternoon; we’ve time enough fer anythin’. Now, Jack, let’s not tackle the trail straight. We’ll split, an’ go round to head ’em off. See thet dead white oak standin’ high over thar?”

Jonathan looked out between the spreading branches of a beech, and saw, far over a low meadow, luxuriant with grasses and rushes and bright with sparkling ponds and streams, a dense wood out of which towered a bare, bleached tree-top.

“You slip around along the right side of this meader, an’ I’ll take the left side. Go slow, an’ hev yer eyes open. We’ll meet under thet big dead tree. I allow we can see it from anywhere around. We’ll leave the trail here, an’ take it up farther on. Legget’s goin’ straight for his camp; he ain’t losin’ an inch. He wants to get in that rocky hole of his’n.”

Wetzel stepped off the trail, glided into the woods, and vanished.

Jonathan turned to the right, traversed the summit of the ridge, softly traveled down its slope, and, after crossing a slow, eddying, quiet stream, gained the edge of the forest on that side of the swamp. A fringe of briars and prickly thorns bordered this wood affording an excellent cover. On the right the land rose rather abruptly. He saw that by walking up a few paces he could command a view of the entire swamp, as well as the ridge beyond, which contained Wetzel, and, probably, the outlaw and his band.

Remembering his comrade’s admonition, Jonathan curbed his unusual impatience and moved slowly. The wind swayed the tree-tops, and rustled the fallen leaves. Birds sang as if thinking the warm, soft weather was summer come again. Squirrels dropped heavy nuts that cracked on the limbs, or fell with a thud to the ground, and they scampered over the dry earth, scratching up the leaves as they barked and scolded. Crows cawed clamorously after a hawk that had darted under the tree-tops to escape them; deer loped swiftly up the hill, and a lordly elk rose from a wallow in the grassy swamp, crashing into the thicket.

When two-thirds around this oval plain, which was a mile long and perhaps one-fourth as wide, Jonathan ascended the hill to make a survey. The grass waved bright brown and golden in the sunshine, swished in the wind, and swept like a choppy sea to the opposite ridge. The hill was not densely wooded. In many places the red-brown foliage opened upon irregular patches, some black, as if having been burned over, others showing the yellow and purple colors of the low thickets and the gray, barren stones.

Suddenly Jonathan saw something darken one of these sunlit plots. It might have been a deer. He studied the rolling, rounded tree-tops, the narrow strips between the black trunks, and the open places that were clear in the sunshine. He had nearly come to believe he had seen a small animal or bird flit across the white of the sky far in the background, when he distinctly saw dark figures stealing along past a green-gray rock, only to disappear under colored banks of foliage. Presently, lower down, they reappeared and crossed an open patch of yellow fern. Jonathan counted them. Two were rather yellow in color, the hue of buckskin; another, slight of stature as compared with the first, and light gray by contrast. Then six black, slender, gliding forms crossed the space. Jonathan then lost sight of them, and did not get another glimpse. He knew them to be Legget and his band. The slight figure was Helen.

Jonathan broke into a run, completed the circle around the swamp, and slowed into a walk when approaching the big dead tree where he was to wait for Wetzel.

Several rods beyond the lowland he came to a wood of white oaks, all giants rugged and old, with scarcely a sapling intermingled with them. Although he could not see the objective point, he knew from his accurate sense of distance that he was near it. As he entered the wood he swept its whole length and width with his eyes, he darted forward twenty paces to halt suddenly behind a tree. He knew full well that a sharply moving object was more difficult to see in the woods, than one stationary. Again he ran, fleet and light, a few paces ahead to take up a position as before behind a tree. Thus he traversed the forest. On the other side he found the dead oak of which Wetzel had spoken.

Its trunk was hollow. Jonathan squeezed himself into the blackened space, with his head in a favorable position behind a projecting knot, where he could see what might occur near at hand.

He waited for what seemed to him a long while, during which he neither saw nor heard anything, and then, suddenly, the report of a rifle rang out. A single, piercing scream followed. Hardly had the echo ceased when three hollow reports, distinctly different in tone from the first, could be heard from the same direction. In quick succession short, fierce yells attended rather than succeeded, the reports.

Jonathan stepped out of the hiding-place, cocked his rifle, and fixed a sharp eye on the ridge before him whence those startling cries had come. The first rifle-shot, unlike any other in its short, spiteful, stinging quality, was unmistakably Wetzel’s. Zane had heard it, followed many times, as now, by the wild death-cry of a savage. The other reports were of Indian guns, and the yells were the clamoring, exultant cries of Indians in pursuit.

Far down where the open forest met the gloom of the thickets, a brown figure flashed across the yellow ground. Darting among the trees, across the glades, it moved so swiftly that Jonathan knew it was Wetzel. In another instant a chorus of yelps resounded from the foliage, and three savages burst through the thicket almost at right angles with the fleeing borderman, running to intercept him. The borderman did not swerve from his course; but came on straight toward the dead tree, with the wonderful fleetness that so often had served him well.

Even in that moment Jonathan thought of what desperate chances his comrade had taken. The trick was plain. Wetzel had, most likely, shot the dangerous scout, and, taking to his heels, raced past the others, trusting to his speed and their poor marksmanship to escape with a whole skin.

When within a hundred yards of the oak Wetzel’s strength apparently gave out. His speed deserted him; he ran awkwardly, and limped. The savages burst out into full cry like a pack of hungry wolves. They had already emptied their rifles at him, and now, supposing one of the shots had taken effect, redoubled their efforts, making the forest ring with their short, savage yells. One gaunt, dark-bodied Indian with a long, powerful, springy stride easily distanced his companions, and, evidently sure of gaining the coveted scalp of the borderman, rapidly closed the gap between them as he swung aloft his tomahawk, yelling the war-cry.

The sight on Jonathan’s rifle had several times covered this savage’s dark face; but when he was about to press the trigger Wetzel’s fleeting form, also in line with the savage, made it extremely hazardous to take a shot.

Jonathan stepped from his place of concealment, and let out a yell that pealed high over the cries of the savages.

Wetzel suddenly dropped flat on the ground.

With a whipping crack of Jonathan’s rifle, the big Indian plunged forward on his face.

The other Indians, not fifty yards away, stopped aghast at the fate of their comrade, and were about to seek the shelter of trees when, with his terrible yell, Wetzel sprang up and charged upon them. He had left his rifle where he fell; but his tomahawk glittered as he ran. The lameness had been a trick, for now he covered ground with a swiftness which caused his former progress to seem slow.

The Indians, matured and seasoned warriors though they were, gave but one glance at this huge, brown figure bearing down upon them like a fiend, and, uttering the Indian name of Deathwind, wavered, broke and ran.

One, not so fleet as his companion, Wetzel overtook and cut down with a single stroke. The other gained an hundred-yard start in the slight interval of Wetzel’s attack, and, spurred on by a pealing, awful cry in the rear, sped swiftly in and out among the trees until he was lost to view.

Wetzel scalped the two dead savages, and, after returning to regain his rifle, joined Jonathan at the dead oak.

“Jack, you can never tell how things is comin’ out. Thet redskin I allowed might worry us a bit, fooled me as slick as you ever saw, an’ I hed to shoot him. Knowin’ it was a case of runnin’, I just cut fer this oak, drew the redskins’ fire, an’ hed ’em arter me quicker ‘n you’d say Jack Robinson. I was hopin’ you’d be here; but wasn’t sure till I’d seen your rifle. Then I kinder got a kink in my leg jest to coax the brutes on.”

“Three more quiet,” said Jonathan Zane. “What now?”

“We’ve headed Legget, an’ we’ll keep nosin’ him off his course. Already he’s lookin’ fer a safe campin’ place for the night.”

“There is none in these woods, fer him.”

“We didn’t plan this gettin’ between him an’ his camp; but couldn’t be better fixed. A mile farther along the ridge, is a campin’ place, with a spring in a little dell close under a big stone, an’ well wooded. Legget’s headin’ straight fer it. With a couple of Injuns guardin’ thet spot, he’ll think he’s safe. But I know the place, an’ can crawl to thet rock the darkest night thet ever was an’ never crack a stick.”

* * * * *

In the gray of the deepening twilight Jonathan Zane sat alone. An owl hooted dismally in the dark woods beyond the thicket where the borderman crouched waiting for Wetzel. His listening ear detected a soft, rustling sound like the play of a mole under the leaves. A branch trembled and swung back; a soft footstep followed and Wetzel came into the retreat.

“Well?” asked Jonathan impatiently, as Wetzel deliberately sat down and laid his rifle across his knees.

“Easy, Jack, easy. We’ve an hour to wait.”

“The time I’ve already waited has been long for me.”

“They’re thar,” said Wetzel grimly.

“How far from here?”

“A half-hour’s slow crawl.”

“Close by?” hissed Jonathan.

“Too near fer you to get excited.”

“Let us go; it’s as light now as in the gray of mornin’.”

“Mornin’ would be best. Injuns get sleepy along towards day. I’ve ever found thet time the best. But we’ll be lucky if we ketch these redskins asleep.”

“Lew, I can’t wait here all night. I won’t leave her longer with that renegade. I’ve got to free or kill her.”

“Most likely it’ll be the last,” said Wetzel simply.

“Well, so be it then,” and the borderman hung his head.

“You needn’t worry none, ‘bout Helen. I jest had a good look at her, not half an hour back. She’s fagged out; but full of spunk yet. I seen thet when Brandt went near her. Legget’s got his hands full jest now with the redskins. He’s hevin’ trouble keepin’ them on this slow trail. I ain’t sayin’ they’re skeered; but they’re mighty restless.”

“Will you take the chance now?”

“I reckon you needn’t hev asked thet.”

“Tell me the lay of the land.”

“Wai, if we get to this rock I spoke ‘bout, we’ll be right over ‘em. It’s ten feet high, an’ we can jump straight amongst ‘em. Most likely two or three’ll be guardin’ the openin’ which is a little ways to the right. Ther’s a big tree, the only one, low down by the spring. Helen’s under it, half-sittin’, half-leanin’ against the roots. When I first looked, her hands were free; but I saw Brandt bind her feet. An’ he had to get an Injun to help him, fer she kicked like a spirited little filly. There’s moss under the tree an’ there’s where the redskins’ll lay down to rest.”

“I’ve got that; now out with your plan.”

“Wal, I calkilate it’s this. The moon’ll be up in about an hour. We’ll crawl as we’ve never crawled afore, because Helen’s life depends as much on our not makin’ a noise, as it does on fightin’ when the time comes. If they hear us afore we’re ready to shoot, the lass’ll be tomahawked quicker’n lightnin’. If they don’t suspicion us, when the right moment comes you shoot Brandt, yell louder’n you ever did afore, leap amongst ‘em, an’ cut down the first Injun thet’s near you on your way to Helen. Swing her over your arm, an’ dig into the woods.”

“Well?” asked Jonathan when Wetzel finished.

“That’s all,” the borderman replied grimly.

“An’ leave you all alone to fight Legget an’ the rest of ‘em?”

“I reckon.”

“Not to be thought of.”

“Ther’s no other way.”

“There must be! Let me think; I can’t, I’m not myself.”

“No other way,” repeated Wetzel curtly.

Jonathan’s broad hand fastened on Wetzel’s shoulder and wheeled him around.

“Have I ever left you alone?”

“This’s different,” and Wetzel turned away again. His voice was cold and hard.

“How is it different? We’ve had the same thing to do, almost, more than once.”

“We’ve never had as bad a bunch to handle as Legget’s. They’re lookin’ fer us, an’ will be hard to beat.”

“That’s no reason.”

“We never had to save a girl one of us loved.”

Jonathan was silent.

“I said this’d be my last trail,” continued Wetzel. “I felt it, an’ I know it’ll be yours.”

“Why?”

“If you get away with the girl she’ll keep you at home, an’ it’ll be well. If you don’t succeed, you’ll die tryin’, so it’s sure your last trail.”

Wetzel’s deep, cold voice rang with truth.

“Lew, I can’t run away an’ leave you to fight those devils alone, after all these years we’ve been together, I can’t.”

“No other chance to save the lass.”

Jonathan quivered with the force of his emotion. His black eyes glittered; his hands grasped at nothing. Once more he was between love and duty. Again he fought over the old battle, but this time it left him weak.

“You love the big-eyed lass, don’t you?” asked Wetzel, turning with softened face and voice.

“I have gone mad!” cried Jonathan, tortured by the simple question of his friend. Those big, dear, wonderful eyes he loved so well, looked at him now from the gloom of the thicket. The old, beautiful, soft glow, the tender light, was there, and more, a beseeching prayer to save her.

Jonathan bowed his head, ashamed to let his friend see the tears that dimmed his eyes.

“Jack, we’ve follered the trail fer years together. Always you’ve been true an’ staunch. This is our last, but whatever bides we’ll break up Legget’s band to-night, an’ the border’ll be cleared, mebbe, for always. At least his race is run. Let thet content you. Our time’d have to come, sooner or later, so why not now? I know how it is, that you want to stick by me; but the lass draws you to her. I understand, an’ want you to save her. Mebbe you never dreamed it; but I can tell jest how you feel. All the tremblin’, an’ softness, an’ sweetness, an’ delight you’ve got for thet girl, is no mystery to Lew Wetzel.”

“You loved a lass?”

Wetzel bowed his head, as perhaps he had never before in all his life.

“Betty — always,” he answered softly.

“My sister!” exclaimed Jonathan, and then his hand closed hard on his comrade’s, his mind going back to many things, strange in the past, but now explained. Wetzel had revealed his secret.

“An’ it’s been all my life, since she wasn’t higher ‘n my knee. There was a time when I might hev been closer to you than I am now. But I was a mad an’ bloody Injun hater, so I never let her know till I seen it was too late. Wal, wal, no more of me. I only told it fer you.”

Jonathan was silent.

“An’ now to come back where we left off,” continued Wetzel. “Let’s take a more hopeful look at this comin’ fight. Sure I said it was my last trail, but mebbe it’s not. You can never tell. Feelin’ as we do, I imagine they’ve no odds on us. Never in my life did I say to you, least of all to any one else, what I was goin’ to do; but I’ll tell it now. If I land uninjured amongst thet bunch, I’ll kill them all.”

The giant borderman’s low voice hissed, and stung. His eyes glittered with unearthly fire. His face was cold and gray. He spread out his brawny arms and clenched his huge fists, making the muscles of his broad shoulders roll and bulge.

“I hate the thought, Lew, I hate the thought. Ain’t there no other way?”

“No other way.”

“I’ll do it, Lew, because I’d do the same for you; because I have to, because I love her; but God! it hurts.”

“Thet’s right,” answered Wetzel, his deep voice softening until it was singularly low and rich. “I’m glad you’ve come to it. An’ sure it hurts. I want you to feel so at leavin’ me to go it alone. If we both get out alive, I’ll come many times to see you an’ Helen. If you live an’ I don’t, think of me sometimes, think of the trails we’ve crossed together. When the fall comes with its soft, cool air, an’ smoky mornin’s an’ starry nights, when the wind’s sad among the bare branches, an’ the leaves drop down, remember they’re fallin’ on my grave.”

Twilight darkened into gloom; the red tinge in the west changed to opal light; through the trees over a dark ridge a rim of silver glinted and moved.

The moon had risen; the hour was come.

The bordermen tightened their belts, replaced their leggings, tied their hunting coats, loosened their hatchets, looked to the priming of their rifles, and were ready.

Wetzel walked twenty paces and turned. His face was white in the moonlight; his dark eyes softened into a look of love as he gripped his comrade’s outstretched hand.

Then he dropped flat on the ground, carefully saw to the position of his rifle, and began to creep. Jonathan kept close at his heels.

Slowly but steadily they crawled, minute after minute. The hazel-nut bushes above them had not yet shed their leaves; the ground was clean and hard, and the course fatefully perfect for their deadly purpose.

A slight rustling of their buckskin garments sounded like the rustling of leaves in a faint breeze.

The moon came out above the trees and still Wetzel advanced softly, steadily, surely.

The owl, lonely sentinel of that wood, hooted dismally. Even his night eyes, which made the darkness seem clear as day, missed those gliding figures. Even he, sure guardian of the wilderness, failed the savages.

Jonathan felt soft moss beneath him; he was now in the woods under the trees. The thicket had been passed.

Wetzel’s moccasin pressed softly against Jonathan’s head. The first signal!

Jonathan crawled forward, and slightly raised himself.

He was on a rock. The trees were thick and gloomy. Below, the little hollow was almost in the wan moonbeams. Dark figures lay close together. Two savages paced noiselessly to and fro. A slight form rolled in a blanket lay against a tree.

Jonathan felt his arm gently squeezed.

The second signal!

Slowly he thrust forward his rifle, and raised it in unison with Wetzel’s. Slowly he rose to his feet as if the same muscles guided them both.

Over his head a twig snapped. In the darkness he had not seen a low branch.

The Indian guards stopped suddenly, and became motionless as stone.

They had heard; but too late.

With the blended roar of the rifles both dropped, lifeless.

Almost under the spouting flame and white cloud of smoke, Jonathan leaped behind Wetzel, over the bank. His yells were mingled with Wetzel’s vengeful cry. Like leaping shadows the bordermen were upon their foes.

An Indian sprang up, raised a weapon, and fell beneath Jonathan’s savage blow, to rise no more. Over his prostrate body the borderman bounded. A dark, nimble form darted upon the captive. He swung high a blade that shone like silver in the moonlight. His shrill war-cry of death rang out with Helen’s scream of despair. Even as he swung back her head with one hand in her long hair, his arm descended; but it fell upon the borderman’s body. Jonathan and the Indian rolled upon the moss. There was a terrific struggle, a whirling blade, a dull blow which silenced the yell, and the borderman rose alone.

He lifted Helen as if she were a child, leaped the brook, and plunged into the thicket.

The noise of the fearful conflict he left behind, swelled high and hideously on the night air. Above the shrill cries of the Indians, and the furious yells of Legget, rose the mad, booming roar of Wetzel. No rifle cracked; but sodden blows, the clash of steel, the threshing of struggling men, told of the dreadful strife.

Jonathan gained the woods, sped through the moonlit glades, and far on under light and shadow.

The shrill cries ceased; only the hoarse yells and the mad roar could be heard. Gradually these also died away, and the forest was still.

CHAPTER XXI

NEXT MORNING, WHEN the mist was breaking and rolling away under the warm rays of the Indian-summer sun, Jonathan Zane beached his canoe on the steep bank before Fort Henry. A pioneer, attracted by the borderman’s halloo, ran to the bluff and sounded the alarm with shrill whoops. Among the hurrying, brown-clad figures that answered this summons, was Colonel Zane.

“It’s Jack, kurnel, an’ he’s got her!” cried one.

The doughty colonel gained the bluff to see his brother climbing the bank with a white-faced girl in his arms.

“Well?” he asked, looking darkly at Jonathan. Nothing kindly or genial was visible in his manner now; rather grim and forbidding he seemed, thus showing he had the same blood in his veins as the borderman.

“Lend a hand,” said Jonathan. “As far as I know she’s not hurt.”

They carried Helen toward Colonel Zane’s cabin. Many women of the settlement saw them as they passed, and looked gravely at one another, but none spoke. This return of an abducted girl was by no means a strange event.

“Somebody run for Sheppard,” ordered Colonel Zane, as they entered his cabin.

Betty, who was in the sitting-room, sprang up and cried: “Oh! Eb! Eb! Don’t say she’s — —”

“No, no, Betts, she’s all right. Where’s my wife? Ah! Bess, here, get to work.”

The colonel left Helen in the tender, skilful hands of his wife and sister, and followed Jonathan into the kitchen.

“I was just ready for breakfast when I heard some one yell,” said he. “Come, Jack, eat something.”

They ate in silence. From the sitting-room came excited whispers, a joyous cry from Betty, and a faint voice. Then heavy, hurrying footsteps, followed by Sheppard’s words of thanks-giving.

“Where’s Wetzel?” began Colonel Zane.

The borderman shook his head gloomily.

“Where did you leave him?”

“We jumped Legget’s bunch last night, when the moon was about an hour high. I reckon about fifteen miles northeast. I got away with the lass.”

“Ah! Left Lew fighting?”

The borderman answered the question with bowed head.

“You got off well. Not a hurt that I can see, and more than lucky to save Helen. Well, Jack, what do you think about Lew?”

“I’m goin’ back,” replied Jonathan.

“No! no!”

The door opened to admit Mrs. Zane. She looked bright and cheerful, “Hello, Jack; glad you’re home. Helen’s all right, only faint from hunger and over-exertion. I want something for her to eat — well! you men didn’t leave much.”

Colonel Zane went into the sitting-room. Sheppard sat beside the couch where Helen lay, white and wan. Betty and Nell were looking on with their hearts in their eyes. Silas Zane was there, and his wife, with several women neighbors.

“Betty, go fetch Jack in here,” whispered the colonel in his sister’s ear. “Drag him, if you have to,” he added fiercely.

The young woman left the room, to reappear directly with her brother. He came in reluctantly.

As the stern-faced borderman crossed the threshold a smile, beautiful to see, dawned in Helen’s eyes.

“I’m glad to see you’re comin’ round,” said Jonathan, but he spoke dully as if his mind was on other things.

“She’s a little flighty; but a night’s sleep will cure that,” cried Mrs. Zane from the kitchen.

“What do you think?” interrupted the colonel. “Jack’s not satisfied to get back with Helen unharmed, and a whole skin himself; but he’s going on the trail again.”

“No, Jack, no, no!” cried Betty.

“What’s that I hear?” asked Mrs. Zane as she came in. “Jack’s going out again? Well, all I want to say is that he’s as mad as a March hare.”

“Jonathan, look here,” said Silas seriously. “Can’t you stay home now?”

“Jack, listen,” whispered Betty, going close to him. “Not one of us ever expected to see either you or Helen again, and oh! we are so happy. Do not go away again. You are a man; you do not know, you cannot understand all a woman feels. She must sit and wait, and hope, and pray for the safe return of husband or brother or sweetheart. The long days! Oh, the long sleepless nights, with the wail of the wind in the pines, and the rain on the roof! It is maddening. Do not leave us! Do not leave me! Do not leave Helen! Say you will not, Jack.”

To these entreaties the borderman remained silent. He stood leaning on his rifle, a tall, dark, strangely sad and stern man.

“Helen, beg him to stay!” implored Betty.

Colonel Zane took Helen’s hand, and stroked it. “Yes,” he said, “you ask him, lass. I’m sure you can persuade him to stay.”

Helen raised her head. “Is Brandt dead?” she whispered faintly.

Still the borderman failed to speak, but his silence was not an affirmative.

“You said you loved me,” she cried wildly. “You said you loved me, yet you didn’t kill that monster!”

The borderman, moving quickly like a startled Indian, went out of the door.

* * * * *

Once more Jonathan Zane entered the gloomy, quiet aisles of the forest with his soft, tireless tread hardly stirring the leaves.

It was late in the afternoon when he had long left Two Islands behind, and arrived at the scene of Mordaunt’s death. Satisfied with the distance he had traversed, he crawled into a thicket to rest.

Daybreak found him again on the trail. He made a short cut over the ridges and by the time the mist had lifted from the valley he was within stalking distance of the glade. He approached this in the familiar, slow, cautious manner, and halted behind the big rock from which he and Wetzel had leaped. The wood was solemnly quiet. No twittering of birds could be heard. The only sign of life was a gaunt timber-wolf slinking away amid the foliage. Under the big tree the savage who had been killed as he would have murdered Helen, lay a crumpled mass where he had fallen. Two dead Indians were in the center of the glade, and on the other side were three more bloody, lifeless forms. Wetzel was not there, nor Legget, nor Brandt.

“I reckoned so,” muttered Jonathan as he studied the scene. The grass had been trampled, the trees barked, the bushes crushed aside.

Jonathan went out of the glade a short distance, and, circling it, began to look for Wetzel’s trail. He found it, and near the light footprints of his comrade were the great, broad moccasin tracks of the outlaw. Further searching disclosed the fact that Brandt must have traveled in line with the others.

With the certainty that Wetzel had killed three of the Indians, and, in some wonderful manner characteristic of him, routed the outlaws of whom he was now in pursuit, Jonathan’s smoldering emotion burst forth into full flame. Love for his old comrade, deadly hatred of the outlaws, and passionate thirst for their blood, rioted in his heart.

Like a lynx scenting its quarry, the borderman started on the trail, tireless and unswervable. The traces left by the fleeing outlaws and their pursuer were plain to Jonathan. It was not necessary for him to stop. Legget and Brandt, seeking to escape the implacable Nemesis, were traveling with all possible speed, regardless of the broad trail such hurried movements left behind. They knew full well it would be difficult to throw this wolf off the scent; understood that if any attempt was made to ambush the trail, they must cope with woodcraft keener than an Indian’s. Flying in desperation, they hoped to reach the rocky retreat, where, like foxes in their burrows, they believed themselves safe.

When the sun sloped low toward the western horizon, lengthening Jonathan’s shadow, he slackened pace. He was entering the rocky, rugged country which marked the approach to the distant Alleghenies. From the top of a ridge he took his bearings, deciding that he was within a few miles of Legget’s hiding-place.

At the foot of this ridge, where a murmuring brook sped softly over its bed, he halted. Here a number of horses had forded the brook. They were iron-shod, which indicated almost to a certainty, that they were stolen horses, and in the hands of Indians.

Jonathan saw where the trail of the steeds was merged into that of the outlaws. He suspected that the Indians and Legget had held a short council. As he advanced the borderman found only the faintest impression of Wetzel’s trail. Legget and Brandt no longer left any token of their course. They were riding the horses.

All the borderman cared to know was if Wetzel still pursued. He passed on swiftly up a hill, through a wood of birches where the trail showed on a line of broken ferns, then out upon a low ridge where patches of grass grew sparsely. Here he saw in this last ground no indication of his comrade’s trail; nothing was to be seen save the imprints of the horses’ hoofs. Jonathan halted behind the nearest underbrush. This sudden move on the part of Wetzel was token that, suspecting an ambush, he had made a detour somewhere, probably in the grove of birches.

All the while his eyes searched the long, barren reach ahead. No thicket, fallen tree, or splintered rocks, such as Indians utilized for an ambush, could be seen. Indians always sought the densely matted underbrush, a windfall, or rocky retreat and there awaited a pursuer. It was one of the borderman’s tricks of woodcraft that he could recognize such places.

Far beyond the sandy ridge Jonathan came to a sloping, wooded hillside, upon which were scattered big rocks, some mossy and lichen-covered, and one, a giant boulder, with a crown of ferns and laurel gracing its flat surface. It was such a place as the savages would select for ambush. He knew, however, that if an Indian had hidden himself there Wetzel would have discovered him. When opposite the rock Jonathan saw a broken fern hanging over the edge. The heavy trail of the horses ran close beside it.

Then with that thoroughness of search which made the borderman what he was, Jonathan leaped upon the rock. There, lying in the midst of the ferns, lay an Indian with sullen, somber face set in the repose of death. In his side was a small bullet hole.

Jonathan examined the savage’s rifle. It had been discharged. The rock, the broken fern, the dead Indian, the discharged rifle, told the story of that woodland tragedy.

Wetzel had discovered the ambush. Leaving the trail, he had tricked the redskin into firing, then getting a glimpse of the Indian’s red body through the sights of his fatal weapon, the deed was done.

With greater caution Jonathan advanced once more. Not far beyond the rock he found Wetzel’s trail. The afternoon was drawing to a close. He could not travel much farther, yet he kept on, hoping to overtake his comrade before darkness set in. From time to time he whistled; but got no answering signal.

When the tracks of the horses were nearly hidden by the gathering dusk, Jonathan decided to halt for the night. He whistled one more note, louder and clearer, and awaited the result with strained ears. The deep silence of the wilderness prevailed, suddenly to be broken by a faint, far-away, melancholy call of the hermit-thrush. It was the answering signal the borderman had hoped to hear.

Not many moments elapsed before he heard another call, low, and near at hand, to which he replied. The bushes parted noiselessly on his left, and the tall form of Wetzel appeared silently out of the gloom.

The two gripped hands in silence.

“Hev you any meat?” Wetzel asked, and as Jonathan handed him his knapsack, he continued, “I was kinder lookin’ fer you. Did you get out all right with the lass?”

“Nary a scratch.”

The giant borderman grunted his satisfaction.

“How’d Legget and Brandt get away?” asked Jonathan.

“Cut an’ run like scared bucks. Never got a hand on either of ‘em.”

“How many redskins did they meet back here a spell?”

“They was seven; but now there are only six, an’ all snug in Legget’s place by this time.”

“I reckon we’re near his den.”

“We’re not far off.”

Night soon closing down upon the bordermen found them wrapped in slumber, as if no deadly foes were near at hand. The soft night wind sighed dismally among the bare trees. A few bright stars twinkled overhead. In the darkness of the forest the bordermen were at home.

CHAPTER XXII

IN LEGGET’S RUDE log cabin a fire burned low, lightening the forms of the two border outlaws, and showing in the background the dark forms of Indians sitting motionless on the floor. Their dusky eyes emitted a baleful glint, seemingly a reflection of their savage souls caught by the firelight. Legget wore a look of ferocity and sullen fear strangely blended. Brandt’s face was hard and haggard, his lips set, his gray eyes smoldering.

“Safe?” he hissed. “Safe you say? You’ll see that it’s the same now as on the other night, when those border-tigers jumped us and we ran like cowards. I’d have fought it out here, but for you.”

“Thet man Wetzel is ravin’ mad, I tell you,” growled Legget. “I reckon I’ve stood my ground enough to know I ain’t no coward. But this fellar’s crazy. He hed the Injuns slashin’ each other like a pack of wolves round a buck.”

“He’s no more mad than you or I,” declared Brandt. “I know all about him. His moaning in the woods, and wild yells are only tricks. He knows the Indian nature, and he makes their very superstition and religion aid him in his fighting. I told you what he’d do. Didn’t I beg you to kill Zane when we had a chance? Wetzel would never have taken our trail alone. Now they’ve beat me out of the girl, and as sure as death will round us up here.”

“You don’t believe they’ll rush us here?” asked Legget.

“They’re too keen to take foolish chances, but something will be done we don’t expect. Zane was a prisoner here; he had a good look at this place, and you can gamble he’ll remember.”

“Zane must hev gone back to Fort Henry with the girl.”

“Mark what I say, he’ll come back!”

“Wal, we kin hold this place against all the men Eb Zane may put out.”

“He won’t send a man,” snapped Brandt passionately. “Remember this, Legget, we’re not to fight against soldiers, settlers, or hunters; but bordermen — understand — bordermen! Such as have been developed right here on this bloody frontier, and nowhere else on earth. They haven’t fear in them. Both are fleet as deer in the woods. They can’t be seen or trailed. They can snuff a candle with a rifle ball in the dark. I’ve seen Zane do it three times at a hundred yards. And Wetzel! He wouldn’t waste powder on practicing. They can’t be ambushed, or shaken off a track; they take the scent like buzzards, and have eyes like eagles.”

“We kin slip out of here under cover of night,” suggested Legget.

“Well, what then? That’s all they want. They’d be on us again by sunset. No! we’ve got to stand our ground and fight. We’ll stay as long as we can; but they’ll rout us out somehow, be sure of that. And if one of us pokes his nose out to the daylight, it will be shot off.”

“You’re sore, an’ you’ve lost your nerve,” said Legget harshly. “Sore at me ‘cause I got sweet on the girl. Ho! ho!”

Brandt shot a glance at Legget which boded no good. His strong hands clenched in an action betraying the reckless rage in his heart. Then he carefully removed his hunting coat, and examined his wound. He retied the bandage, muttering gloomily, “I’m so weak as to be light-headed. If this cut opens again, it’s all day for me.”

After that the inmates of the hut were quiet. The huge outlaw bowed his shaggy head for a while, and then threw himself on a pile of hemlock boughs. Brandt was not long in seeking rest. Soon both were fast asleep. Two of the savages passed out with cat-like step, leaving the door open. The fire had burned low, leaving a bed of dead coals. Outside in the dark a waterfall splashed softly.

The darkest hour came, and passed, and paled slowly to gray. Birds began to twitter. Through the door of the cabin the light of day streamed in. The two Indian sentinels were building a fire on the stone hearth. One by one the other savages got up, stretched and yawned, and began the business of the day by cooking their breakfast. It was, apparently, every one for himself.

Legget arose, shook himself like a shaggy dog, and was starting for the door when one of the sentinels stopped him. Brandt, who was now awake, saw the action, and smiled.

In a few moments Indians and outlaws were eating for breakfast roasted strips of venison, with corn meal baked brown, which served as bread. It was a somber, silent group.

Presently the shrill neigh of a horse startled them. Following it, the whip-like crack of a rifle stung and split the morning air. Hard on this came an Indian’s long, wailing death-cry.

“Hah!” exclaimed Brandt.

Legget remained immovable. One of the savages peered out through a little port-hole at the rear of the hut. The others continued their meal.

“Whistler’ll come in presently to tell us who’s doin’ thet shootin’,” said Legget. “He’s a keen Injun.”

“He’s not very keen now,” replied Brandt, with bitter certainty. “He’s what the settlers call a good Indian, which is to say, dead!”

Legget scowled at his lieutenant.

“I’ll go an’ see,” he replied and seized his rifle.

He opened the door, when another rifle-shot rang out. A bullet whistled in the air, grazing the outlaw’s shoulder, and imbedded itself in the heavy door-frame.

Legget leaped back with a curse.

“Close shave!” said Brandt coolly. “That bullet came, probably, straight down from the top of the cliff. Jack Zane’s there. Wetzel is lower down watching the outlet. We’re trapped.”

“Trapped,” shouted Legget with an angry leer. “We kin live here longer’n the bordermen kin. We’ve meat on hand, an’ a good spring in the back of the hut. How’er we trapped?”

“We won’t live twenty-four hours,” declared Brandt.

“Why?”

“Because we’ll be routed out. They’ll find some way to do it, and we’ll never have another chance to fight in the open, as we had the other night when they came after the girl. From now on there’ll be no sleep, no time to eat, the nameless fear of an unseen foe who can’t be shaken off, marching by night, hiding and starving by day, until —— ! I’d rather be back in Fort Henry at Colonel Zane’s mercy.”

Legget turned a ghastly face toward Brandt. “Look a here. You’re takin’ a lot of glee in sayin’ these things. I believe you’ve lost your nerve, or the lettin’ out of a little blood hes made you wobbly. We’ve Injuns here, an’ ought to be a match fer two men.”

Brandt gazed at him with a derisive smile.

“We kin go out an’ fight these fellars,” continued Legget. “We might try their own game, hidin’ an’ crawlin’ through the woods.”

“We two would have to go it alone. If you still had your trusty, trained band of experienced Indians, I’d say that would be just the thing. But Ashbow and the Chippewa are dead; so are the others. This bunch of redskins here may do to steal a few horses; but they don’t amount to much against Zane and Wetzel. Besides, they’ll cut and run presently, for they’re scared and suspicious. Look at the chief; ask him.”

The savage Brandt indicated was a big Indian just coming into manhood. His swarthy face still retained some of the frankness and simplicity of youth.

“Chief,” said Legget in the Indian tongue. “The great paleface hunter, Deathwind, lies hid in the woods.”

“Last night the Shawnee heard the wind of death mourn through the trees,” replied the chief gloomily.

“See! What did I say?” cried Brandt. “The superstitious fool! He would begin his death-chant almost without a fight. We can’t count on the redskins. What’s to be done?”

The outlaw threw himself upon the bed of boughs, and Legget sat down with his rifle across his knees. The Indians maintained the same stoical composure. The moments dragged by into hours.

“Ugh!” suddenly exclaimed the Indian at the end of the hut.

Legget ran to him, and acting upon a motion of the Indian’s hand, looked out through the little port-hole.

The sun was high. He saw four of the horses grazing by the brook; then gazed scrutinizingly from the steep waterfall, along the green-stained cliff to the dark narrow cleft in the rocks. Here was the only outlet from the inclosure. He failed to discover anything unusual.

The Indian grunted again, and pointed upward.

“Smoke! There’s smoke risin’ above the trees,” cried Legget. “Brandt, come here. What’s thet mean?”

Brandt hurried, looked out. His face paled, his lower jaw protruded, quivered, and then was shut hard. He walked away, put his foot on a bench and began to lace his leggings.

“Wal?” demanded Legget.

“The game’s up! Get ready to run and be shot at,” cried Brandt with a hiss of passion.

Almost as he spoke the roof of the hut shook under a heavy blow.

“What’s thet?” No one replied. Legget glanced from Brandt’s cold, determined face to the uneasy savages. They were restless, and handling their weapons. The chief strode across the floor with stealthy steps.

“Thud!”

A repetition of the first blow caused the Indians to jump, and drew a fierce imprecation from their outlaw leader.

Brandt eyed him narrowly. “It’s coming to you, Legget. They are shooting arrows of fire into the roof from the cliff. Zane is doin’ that. He can make a bow and draw one, too. We’re to be burned out. Now, damn you! take your medicine! I wanted you to kill him when you had the chance. If you had done so we’d never have come to this. Burned out, do you get that? Burned out!”

“Fire!” exclaimed Legget. He sat down as if the strength had left his legs.

The Indians circled around the room like caged tigers.

“Ugh!” The chief suddenly reached up and touched the birch-bark roof of the hut.

His action brought the attention of all to a faint crackling of burning wood.

“It’s caught all right,” cried Brandt in a voice which cut the air like a blow from a knife.

“I’ll not be smoked like a ham, fer all these tricky bordermen,” roared Legget. Drawing his knife he hacked at the heavy buckskin hinges of the rude door. When it dropped free he measured it against the open space. Sheathing the blade, he grasped his rifle in his right hand and swung the door on his left arm. Heavy though it was he carried it easily. The roughly hewn planks afforded a capital shield for all except the lower portion of his legs and feet. He went out of the hut with the screen of wood between himself and the cliff, calling for the Indians to follow. They gathered behind him, breathing hard, clutching their weapons, and seemingly almost crazed by excitement.

Brandt, with no thought of joining this foolhardy attempt to escape from the inclosure, ran to the little port-hole that he might see the outcome. Legget and his five redskins were running toward the narrow outlet in the gorge. The awkward and futile efforts of the Indians to remain behind the shield were almost pitiful. They crowded each other for favorable positions, but, struggle as they might, one or two were always exposed to the cliff. Suddenly one, pushed to the rear, stopped simultaneously with the crack of a rifle, threw up his arms and fell. Another report, differing from the first, rang out. A savage staggered from behind the speeding group with his hand at his side. Then he dropped into the brook.

Evidently Legget grasped this as a golden opportunity, for he threw aside the heavy shield and sprang forward, closely followed by his red-skinned allies. Immediately they came near the cliff, where the trail ran into the gorge, a violent shaking of the dry ferns overhead made manifest the activity of some heavy body. Next instant a huge yellow figure, not unlike a leaping catamount, plunged down with a roar so terrible as to sound inhuman. Legget, Indians, and newcomer rolled along the declivity toward the brook in an indistinguishable mass.

Two of the savages shook themselves free, and bounded to their feet nimbly as cats, but Legget and the other redskin became engaged in a terrific combat. It was a wrestling whirl, so fierce and rapid as to render blows ineffectual. The leaves scattered as if in a whirlwind. Legget’s fury must have been awful, to judge from his hoarse screams; the Indians’ fear maddening, as could be told by their shrieks. The two savages ran wildly about the combatants, one trying to level a rifle, the other to get in a blow with a tomahawk. But the movements of the trio, locked in deadly embrace, were too swift.

Above all the noise of the contest rose that strange, thrilling roar.

“Wetzel!” muttered Brandt, with a chill, creeping shudder as he gazed upon the strife with fascinated eyes.

“Bang!” Again from the cliff came that heavy bellow.

The savage with the rifle shrunk back as if stung, and without a cry fell limply in a heap. His companion, uttering a frightened cry, fled from the glen.

The struggle seemed too deadly, too terrible, to last long. The Indian and the outlaw were at a disadvantage. They could not strike freely. The whirling conflict grew more fearful. During one second the huge, brown, bearish figure of Legget appeared on top; then the dark-bodied, half-naked savage, spotted like a hyena, and finally the lithe, powerful, tiger-shape of the borderman.

Finally Legget wrenched himself free at the same instant that the bloody-stained Indian rolled, writhing in convulsions, away from Wetzel. The outlaw dashed with desperate speed up the trail, and disappeared in the gorge. The borderman sped toward the cliff, leaped on a projecting ledge, grasped an overhanging branch, and pulled himself up. He was out of sight almost as quickly as Legget.

“After his rifle,” Brandt muttered, and then realized that he had watched the encounter without any idea of aiding his comrade. He consoled himself with the knowledge that such an attempt would have been useless. From the moment the borderman sprang upon Legget, until he scaled the cliff, his movements had been incredibly swift. It would have been hardly possible to cover him with a rifle, and the outlaw grimly understood that he needed to be careful of that charge in his weapon.

“By Heavens, Wetzel’s a wonder!” cried Brandt in unwilling admiration. “Now he’ll go after Legget and the redskin, while Zane stays here to get me. Well, he’ll succeed, most likely, but I’ll never quit. What’s this?”

He felt something slippery and warm on his hand. It was blood running from the inside of his sleeve. A slight pain made itself felt in his side. Upon examination he found, to his dismay, that his wound had reopened. With a desperate curse he pulled a linsey jacket off a peg, tore it into strips, and bound up the injury as tightly as possible.

Then he grasped his rifle, and watched the cliff and the gorge with flaring eyes. Suddenly he found it difficult to breathe; his throat was parched, his eyes smarted. Then the odor of wood-smoke brought him to a realization that the cabin was burning. It was only now he understood that the room was full of blue clouds. He sank into the corner, a wolf at bay.

Not many moments passed before the outlaw understood that he could not withstand the increasing heat and stifling vapor of the room. Pieces of burning birch dropped from the roof. The crackling above grew into a steady roar.

“I’ve got to run for it,” he gasped. Death awaited him outside the door, but that was more acceptable than death by fire. Yet to face the final moment when he desired with all his soul to live, required almost super-human courage. Sweating, panting, he glared around. “God! Is there no other way?” he cried in agony. At this moment he saw an ax on the floor.

Seizing it he attacked the wall of the cabin. Beyond this partition was a hut which had been used for a stable. Half a dozen strokes of the ax opened a hole large enough for him to pass through. With his rifle, and a piece of venison which hung near, he literally fell through the hole, where he lay choking, almost fainting. After a time he crawled across the floor to a door. Outside was a dense laurel thicket, into which he crawled.

The crackling and roaring of the fire grew louder. He could see the column of yellow and black smoke. Once fairly under way, the flames rapidly consumed the pitch-pine logs. In an hour Legget’s cabins were a heap of ashes.

The afternoon waned. Brandt lay watchful, slowly recovering his strength. He felt secure under this cover, and only prayed for night to come. As the shadows began to creep down the sides of the cliffs, he indulged in hope. If he could slip out in the dark he had a good chance to elude the borderman. In the passionate desire to escape, he had forgotten his fatalistic words to Legget. He reasoned that he could not be trailed until daylight; that a long night’s march would put him far in the lead, and there was just a possibility of Zane’s having gone away with Wetzel.

When darkness had set in he slipped out of the covert and began his journey for life. Within a few yards he reached the brook. He had only to follow its course in order to find the outlet to the glen. Moreover, its rush and gurgle over the stones would drown any slight noise he might make.

Slowly, patiently he crawled, stopping every moment to listen. What a long time he was in coming to the mossy stones over which the brook dashed through the gorge! But he reached them at last. Here if anywhere Zane would wait for him.

With teeth clenched desperately, and an inward tightening of his chest, for at any moment he expected to see the red flame of a rifle, he slipped cautiously over the mossy stones. Finally his hands touched the dewy grass, and a breath of cool wind fanned his hot cheek. He had succeeded in reaching the open. Crawling some rods farther on, he lay still a while and listened. The solemn wilderness calm was unbroken. Rising, he peered about. Behind loomed the black hill with its narrow cleft just discernible. Facing the north star, he went silently out into the darkness.

CHAPTER XXIII

AT DAYLIGHT JONATHAN Zane rolled from his snug bed of leaves under the side of a log, and with the flint, steel and punk he always carried, began building a fire. His actions were far from being hurried. They were deliberate, and seemed strange on the part of a man whose stern face suggested some dark business to be done. When his little fire had been made, he warmed some slices of venison which had already been cooked, and thus satisfied his hunger. Carefully extinguishing the fire and looking to the priming of his rifle, he was ready for the trail.

He stood near the edge of the cliff from which he could command a view of the glen. The black, smoldering ruins of the burned cabins defaced a picturesque scene.

“Brandt must have lit out last night, for I could have seen even a rabbit hidin’ in that laurel patch. He’s gone, an’ it’s what I wanted,” thought the borderman.

He made his way slowly around the edge of the inclosure and clambered down on the splintered cliff at the end of the gorge. A wide, well-trodden trail extended into the forest below. Jonathan gave scarcely a glance to the beaten path before him; but bent keen eyes to the north, and carefully scrutinized the mossy stones along the brook. Upon a little sand bar running out from the bank he found the light imprint of a hand.

“It was a black night. He’d have to travel by the stars, an’ north’s the only safe direction for him,” muttered the borderman.

On the bank above he found oblong indentations in the grass, barely perceptible, but owing to the peculiar position of the blades of grass, easy for him to follow.

“He’d better have learned to walk light as an Injun before he took to outlawin’,” said the borderman in disdain. Then he returned to the gorge and entered the inclosure. At the foot of the little rise of ground where Wetzel had leaped upon his quarry, was one of the dead Indians. Another lay partly submerged in the brown water.

Jonathan carried the weapons of the savages to a dry place under a projecting ledge in the cliff. Passing on down the glen, he stopped a moment where the cabins had stood. Not a log remained. The horses, with the exception of two, were tethered in the copse of laurel. He recognized Colonel Zane’s thoroughbred, and Betty’s pony. He cut them loose, positive they would not stray from the glen, and might easily be secured at another time.

He set out upon the trail of Brandt with a long, swinging stride. To him the outcome of that pursuit was but a question of time. The consciousness of superior endurance, speed, and craft, spoke in his every movement. The consciousness of being in right, a factor so powerfully potent for victory, spoke in the intrepid front with which he faced the north.

It was a gloomy November day. Gray, steely clouds drifted overhead. The wind wailed through the bare trees, sending dead leaves scurrying and rustling over the brown earth.

The borderman advanced with a step that covered glade and glen, forest and field, with astonishing swiftness. Long since he had seen that Brandt was holding to the lowland. This did not strike him as singular until for the third time he found the trail lead a short distance up the side of a ridge, then descend, seeking a level. With this discovery came the certainty that Brandt’s pace was lessening. He had set out with a hunter’s stride, but it had begun to shorten. The outlaw had shirked the hills, and shifted from his northern course. Why? The man was weakening; he could not climb; he was favoring a wound.

What seemed more serious for the outlaw, was the fact that he had left a good trail, and entered the low, wild land north of the Ohio. Even the Indians seldom penetrated this tangled belt of laurel and thorn. Owing to the dry season the swamps were shallow, which was another factor against Brandt. No doubt he had hoped to hide his trail by wading, and here it showed up like the track of a bison.

Jonathan kept steadily on, knowing the farther Brandt penetrated into this wilderness the worse off he would be. The outlaw dared not take to the river until below Fort Henry, which was distant many a weary mile. The trail grew more ragged as the afternoon wore away. When twilight rendered further tracking impossible, the borderman built a fire in a sheltered place, ate his supper, and went to sleep.

In the dim, gray morning light he awoke, fancying he had been startled by a distant rifle shot. He roasted his strips of venison carefully, and ate with a hungry hunter’s appreciation, yet sparingly, as befitted a borderman who knew how to keep up his strength upon a long trail.

Hardly had he traveled a mile when Brandt’s footprints covered another’s. Nothing surprised the borderman; but he had expected this least of all. A hasty examination convinced him that Legget and his Indian ally had fled this way with Wetzel in pursuit.

The morning passed slowly. The borderman kept to the trail like a hound. The afternoon wore on. Over sandy reaches thick with willows, and through long, matted, dried-out cranberry marshes and copses of prickly thorn, the borderman hung to his purpose. His legs seemed never to lose their spring, but his chest began to heave, his head bent, and his face shone with sweat.

At dusk he tired. Crawling into a dry thicket, he ate his scanty meal and fell asleep. When he awoke it was gray daylight. He was wet and chilled. Again he kindled a fire, and sat over it while cooking breakfast.

Suddenly he was brought to his feet by the sound of a rifle shot; then two others followed in rapid succession. Though they were faint, and far away to the west, Jonathan recognized the first, which could have come only from Wetzel’s weapon, and he felt reasonably certain of the third, which was Brandt’s. There might have been, he reflected grimly, a good reason for Legget’s not shooting. However, he knew that Wetzel had rounded up the fugitives, and again he set out.

It was another dismal day, such a one as would be fitting for a dark deed of border justice. A cold, drizzly rain blew from the northwest. Jonathan wrapped a piece of oil-skin around his rifle-breech, and faced the downfall. Soon he was wet to the skin. He kept on, but his free stride had shortened. Even upon his iron muscles this soggy, sticky ground had begun to tell.

The morning passed but the storm did not; the air grew colder and darker. The short afternoon would afford him little time, especially as the rain and running rills of water were obliterating the trail.

In the midst of a dense forest of great cottonwoods and sycamores he came upon a little pond, hidden among the bushes, and shrouded in a windy, wet gloom. Jonathan recognized the place. He had been there in winter hunting bears when all the swampland was locked by ice.

The borderman searched along the banks for a time, then went back to the trail, patiently following it. Around the pond it led to the side of a great, shelving rock. He saw an Indian leaning against this, and was about to throw forward his rifle when the strange, fixed, position of the savage told of the tragedy. A wound extended from his shoulder to his waist. Near by on the ground lay Legget. He, too, was dead. His gigantic frame weltered in blood. His big feet were wide apart; his arms spread, and from the middle of his chest protruded the haft of a knife.

The level space surrounding the bodies showed evidence of a desperate struggle. A bush had been rolled upon and crushed by heavy bodies. On the ground was blood as on the stones and leaves. The blade Legget still clutched was red, and the wrist of the hand which held it showed a dark, discolored band, where it had felt the relentless grasp of Wetzel’s steel grip. The dead man’s buckskin coat was cut into ribbons. On his broad face a demoniacal expression had set in eternal rigidity; the animal terror of death was frozen in his wide staring eyes. The outlaw chief had died as he had lived, desperately.

Jonathan found Wetzel’s trail leading directly toward the river, and soon understood that the borderman was on the track of Brandt. The borderman had surprised the worn, starved, sleepy fugitives in the gray, misty dawn. The Indian, doubtless, was the sentinel, and had fallen asleep at his post never to awaken. Legget and Brandt must have discharged their weapons ineffectually. Zane could not understand why his comrade had missed Brandt at a few rods’ distance. Perhaps he had wounded the younger outlaw; but certainly he had escaped while Wetzel had closed in on Legget to meet the hardest battle of his career.

While going over his version of the attack, Jonathan followed Brandt’s trail, as had Wetzel, to where it ended in the river. The old borderman had continued on down stream along the sandy shore. The outlaw remained in the water to hide his trail.

At one point Wetzel turned north. This move puzzled Jonathan, as did also the peculiar tracks. It was more perplexing because not far below Zane discovered where the fugitive had left the water to get around a ledge of rock.

The trail was approaching Fort Henry. Jonathan kept on down the river until arriving at the head of the island which lay opposite the settlement. Still no traces of Wetzel! Here Zane lost Brandt’s trail completely. He waded the first channel, which was shallow and narrow, and hurried across the island. Walking out upon a sand-bar he signaled with his well-known Indian cry. Almost immediately came an answering shout.

While waiting he glanced at the sand, and there, pointing straight toward the fort, he found Brandt’s straggling trail!

CHAPTER XXIV

COLONEL ZANE PACED to and fro on the porch. His genial smile had not returned; he was grave and somber. Information had just reached him that Jonathan had hailed from the island, and that one of the settlers had started across the river in a boat.

Betty came out accompanied by Mrs. Zane.

“What’s this I hear?” asked Betty, flashing an anxious glance toward the river. “Has Jack really come in?”

“Yes,” replied the colonel, pointing to a throng of men on the river bank.

“Now there’ll be trouble,” said Mrs. Zane nervously. “I wish with all my heart Brandt had not thrown himself, as he called it, on your mercy.”

“So do I,” declared Colonel Zane.

“What will be done?” she asked. “There! that’s Jack! Silas has hold of his arm.”

“He’s lame. He has been hurt,” replied her husband.

A little procession of men and boys followed the borderman from the river, and from the cabins appeared the settlers and their wives. But there was no excitement except among the children. The crowd filed into the colonel’s yard behind Jonathan and Silas.

Colonel Zane silently greeted his brother with an iron grip of the hand which was more expressive than words. No unusual sight was it to see the borderman wet, ragged, bloody, worn with long marches, hollow-eyed and gloomy; yet he had never before presented such an appearance at Fort Henry. Betty ran forward, and, though she clasped his arm, shrank back. There was that in the borderman’s presence to cause fear.

“Wetzel?” Jonathan cried sharply.

The colonel raised both hands, palms open, and returned his brother’s keen glance. Then he spoke. “Lew hasn’t come in. He chased Brandt across the river. That’s all I know.”

“Brandt’s here, then?” hissed the borderman.

The colonel nodded gloomily.

“Where?”

“In the long room over the fort. I locked him in there.”

“Why did he come here?”

Colonel Zane shrugged his shoulders. “It’s beyond me. He said he’d rather place himself in my hands than be run down by Wetzel or you. He didn’t crawl; I’ll say that for him. He just said, ‘I’m your prisoner.’ He’s in pretty bad shape; barked over the temple, lame in one foot, cut under the arm, starved and worn out.”

“Take me to him,” said the borderman, and he threw his rifle on a bench.

“Very well. Come along,” replied the colonel. He frowned at those following them. “Here, you women, clear out!” But they did not obey him.

It was a sober-faced group that marched in through the big stockade gate, under the huge, bulging front of the fort, and up the rough stairway. Colonel Zane removed a heavy bar from before a door, and thrust it open with his foot. The long guardroom brilliantly lighted by sunshine coming through the portholes, was empty save for a ragged man lying on a bench.

The noise aroused him; he sat up, and then slowly labored to his feet. It was the same flaring, wild-eyed Brandt, only fiercer and more haggard. He wore a bloody bandage round his head. When he saw the borderman he backed, with involuntary, instinctive action, against the wall, yet showed no fear.

In the dark glance Jonathan shot at Brandt shone a pitiless implacability; no scorn, nor hate, nor passion, but something which, had it not been so terrible, might have been justice.

“I think Wetzel was hurt in the fight with Legget,” said Jonathan deliberately, “an’ ask if you know?”

“I believe he was,” replied Brandt readily. “I was asleep when he jumped us, and was awakened by the Indian’s yell. Wetzel must have taken a snap shot at me as I was getting up, which accounts, probably, for my being alive. I fell, but did not lose consciousness. I heard Wetzel and Legget fighting, and at last struggled to my feet. Although dizzy and bewildered, I could see to shoot; but missed. For a long time, it seemed to me, I watched that terrible fight, and then ran, finally reaching the river, where I recovered somewhat.”

“Did you see Wetzel again?”

“Once, about a quarter of a mile behind me. He was staggering along on my trail.”

At this juncture there was a commotion among the settlers crowding behind Colonel Zane and Jonathan, and Helen Sheppard appeared, white, with her big eyes strangely dilated.

“Oh!” she cried breathlessly, clasping both hands around Jonathan’s arm. “I’m not too late? You’re not going to — —”

“Helen, this is no place for you,” said Colonel Zane sternly. “This is business for men. You must not interfere.”

Helen gazed at him, at Brandt, and then up at the borderman. She did not loose his arm.

“Outside some one told me you intended to shoot him. Is it true?”

Colonel Zane evaded the searching gaze of those strained, brilliant eyes. Nor did he answer.

As Helen stepped slowly back a hush fell upon the crowd. The whispering, the nervous coughing, and shuffling of feet, ceased.

In those around her Helen saw the spirit of the border. Colonel Zane and Silas wore the same look, cold, hard, almost brutal. The women were strangely grave. Nellie Douns’ sweet face seemed changed; there was pity, even suffering on it, but no relenting. Even Betty’s face, always so warm, piquant, and wholesome, had taken on a shade of doubt, of gloom, of something almost sullen, which blighted its dark beauty. What hurt Helen most cruelly was the borderman’s glittering eyes.

She fought against a shuddering weakness which threatened to overcome her.

“Whose prisoner is Brandt?” she asked of Colonel Zane.

“He gave himself up to me, naturally, as I am in authority here,” replied the colonel. “But that signifies little. I can do no less than abide by Jonathan’s decree, which, after all, is the decree of the border.”

“And that is?”

“Death to outlaws and renegades.”

“But cannot you spare him?” implored Helen. “I know he is a bad man; but he might become a better one. It seems like murder to me. To kill him in cold blood, wounded, suffering as he is, when he claimed your mercy. Oh! it is dreadful!”

The usually kind-hearted colonel, soft as wax in the hands of a girl, was now colder and harder than flint.

“It is useless,” he replied curtly. “I am sorry for you. We all understand your feelings, that yours are not the principles of the border. If you had lived long here you could appreciate what these outlaws and renegades have done to us. This man is a hardened criminal; he is a thief, a murderer.”

“He did not kill Mordaunt,” replied Helen quickly. “I saw him draw first and attack Brandt.”

“No matter. Come, Helen, cease. No more of this,” Colonel Zane cried with impatience.

“But I will not!” exclaimed Helen, with ringing voice and flashing eye. She turned to her girl friends and besought them to intercede for the outlaw. But Nell only looked sorrowfully on, while Betty met her appealing glance with a fire in her eyes that was no dim reflection of her brother’s.

“Then I must make my appeal to you,” said Helen, facing the borderman. There could be no mistaking how she regarded him. Respect, honor and love breathed from every line of her beautiful face.

“Why do you want him to go free?” demanded Jonathan. “You told me to kill him.”

“Oh, I know. But I was not in my right mind. Listen to me, please. He must have been very different once; perhaps had sisters. For their sake give him another chance. I know he has a better nature. I feared him, hated him, scorned him, as if he were a snake, yet he saved me from that monster Legget!”

“For himself!”

“Well, yes, I can’t deny that. But he could have ruined me, wrecked me, yet he did not. At least, he meant marriage by me. He said if I would marry him he would flee over the border and be an honest man.”

“Have you no other reason?”

“Yes.” Helen’s bosom swelled and a glory shone in her splendid eyes. “The other reason is, my own happiness!”

Plain to all, if not through her words, from the light in her eyes, that she could not love a man who was a party to what she considered injustice.

The borderman’s white face became flaming red.

It was difficult to refuse this glorious girl any sacrifice she demanded for the sake of the love so openly avowed.

Sweetly and pityingly she turned to Brandt: “Will not you help me?”

“Lass, if it were for me you were asking my life I’d swear it yours for always, and I’d be a man,” he replied with bitterness; “but not to save my soul would I ask anything of him.”

The giant passions, hate and jealousy, flamed in his gray eyes.

“If I persuade them to release you, will you go away, leave this country, and never come back?”

“I’ll promise that, lass, and honestly,” he replied.

She wheeled toward Jonathan, and now the rosy color chased the pallor from her cheeks.

“Jack, do you remember when we parted at my home; when you left on this terrible trail, now ended, thank God! Do you remember what an ordeal that was for me? Must I go through it again?”

Bewitchingly sweet she was then, with the girlish charm of coquetry almost lost in the deeper, stranger power of the woman.

The borderman drew his breath sharply; then he wrapped his long arms closely round her. She, understanding that victory was hers, sank weeping upon his breast. For a moment he bowed his face over her, and when he lifted it the dark and terrible gloom had gone.

“Eb, let him go, an’ at once,” ordered Jonathan. “Give him a rifle, some meat, an’ a canoe, for he can’t travel, an’ turn him loose. Only be quick about it, because if Wetzel comes in, God himself couldn’t save the outlaw.”

It was an indescribable glance that Brandt cast upon the tearful face of the girl who had saved his life. But without a word he followed Colonel Zane from the room.

The crowd slowly filed down the steps. Betty and Nell lingered behind, their eyes beaming through happy tears. Jonathan, long so cold, showed evidence of becoming as quick and passionate a lover as he had been a borderman. At least, Helen had to release herself from his embrace, and it was a blushing, tear-stained face she turned to her friends.

When they reached the stockade gate Colonel Zane was hurrying toward the river with a bag in one hand, and a rifle and a paddle in the other. Brandt limped along after him, the two disappearing over the river bank.

Betty, Nell, and the lovers went to the edge of the bluff.

They saw Colonel Zane choose a canoe from among a number on the beach. He launched it, deposited the bag in the bottom, handed the rifle and paddle to Brandt, and wheeled about.

The outlaw stepped aboard, and, pushing off slowly, drifted down and out toward mid-stream. When about fifty yards from shore he gave a quick glance around, and ceased paddling. His face gleamed white, and his eyes glinted like bits of steel in the sun.

Suddenly he grasped the rifle, and, leveling it with the swiftness of thought, fired at Jonathan.

The borderman saw the act, even from the beginning, and must have read the outlaw’s motive, for as the weapon flashed he dropped flat on the bank. The bullet sang harmlessly over him, imbedding itself in the stockade fence with a distinct thud.

The girls were so numb with horror that they could not even scream.

Colonel Zane swore lustily. “Where’s my gun? Get me a gun. Oh! What did I tell you?”

“Look!” cried Jonathan as he rose to his feet.

Upon the sand-bar opposite stood a tall, dark, familiar figure.

“By all that’s holy, Wetzel!” exclaimed Colonel Zane.

They saw the giant borderman raise a long, black rifle, which wavered and fell, and rose again. A little puff of white smoke leaped out, accompanied by a clear, stinging report.

Brandt dropped the paddle he had hurriedly begun plying after his traitor’s act. His white face was turned toward the shore as it sank forward to rest at last upon the gunwale of the canoe. Then his body slowly settled, as if seeking repose. His hand trailed outside in the water, drooping inert and lifeless. The little craft drifted down stream.

“You see, Helen, it had to be,” said Colonel Zane gently. “What a dastard! A long shot, Jack! Fate itself must have glanced down the sights of Wetzel’s rifle.”

CHAPTER XXV

A YEAR ROLLED round; once again Indian summer veiled the golden fields and forests in a soft, smoky haze. Once more from the opal-blue sky of autumn nights, shone the great white stars, and nature seemed wrapped in a melancholy hush.

November the third was the anniversary of a memorable event on the frontier — the marriage of the younger borderman.

Colonel Zane gave it the name of “Independence Day,” and arranged a holiday, a feast and dance where all the settlement might meet in joyful thankfulness for the first year of freedom on the border.

With the wiping out of Legget’s fierce band, the yoke of the renegades and outlaws was thrown off forever. Simon Girty migrated to Canada and lived with a few Indians who remained true to him. His confederates slowly sank into oblivion. The Shawnee tribe sullenly retreated westward, far into the interior of Ohio; the Delawares buried the war hatchet, and smoked the pipe of peace they had ever before refused. For them the dark, mysterious, fatal wind had ceased to moan along the trails, or sigh through tree-tops over lonely Indian camp-fires.

The beautiful Ohio valley had been wrested from the savages and from those parasites who for years had hung around the necks of the red men.

This day was the happiest of Colonel Zane’s life. The task he had set himself, and which he had hardly ever hoped to see completed, was ended. The West had been won. What Boone achieved in Kentucky he had accomplished in Ohio and West Virginia.

The feast was spread on the colonel’s lawn. Every man, woman and child in the settlement was there. Isaac Zane, with his Indian wife and child, had come from the far-off Huron town. Pioneers from Yellow Creek and eastward to Fort Pitt attended. The spirit of the occasion manifested itself in such joyousness as had never before been experienced in Fort Henry. The great feast was equal to the event. Choice cuts of beef and venison, savory viands, wonderful loaves of bread and great plump pies, sweet cider and old wine, delighted the merry party.

“Friends, neighbors, dear ones,” said Colonel Zane, “my heart is almost too full for speech. This occasion, commemorating the day of our freedom on the border, is the beginning of the reward for stern labor, hardship, silenced hearths of long, relentless years. I did not think I’d live to see it. The seed we have sown has taken root; in years to come, perhaps, a great people will grow up on these farms we call our homes. And as we hope those coming afterward will remember us, we should stop a moment to think of the heroes who have gone before. Many there are whose names will never be written on the roll of fame, whose graves will be unmarked in history. But we who worked, fought, bled beside them, who saw them die for those they left behind, will render them all justice, honor and love. To them we give the victory. They were true; then let us, who begin to enjoy the freedom, happiness and prosperity they won with their lives, likewise be true in memory of them, in deed to ourselves, and in grace to God.”

By no means the least of the pleasant features of this pleasant day was the fact that three couples blushingly presented themselves before the colonel, and confided to him their sudden conclusions in regard to the felicitousness of the moment. The happy colonel raced around until he discovered Jim Douns, the minister, and there amid the merry throng he gave the brides away, being the first to kiss them.

It was late in the afternoon when the villagers dispersed to their homes and left the colonel to his own circle. With his strong, dark face beaming, he mounted the old porch step.

“Where are my Zane babies?” he asked. “Ah! here you are! Did anybody ever see anything to beat that? Four wonderful babies! Mother, here’s your Daniel — if you’d only named him Eb! Silas, come for Silas junior, bad boy that he is. Isaac, take your Indian princess; ah! little Myeerah with the dusky face. Woe be to him who looks into those eyes when you come to age. Jack, here’s little Jonathan, the last of the bordermen; he, too, has beautiful eyes, big like his mother’s. Ah! well, I don’t believe I have left a wish, unless — —”

“Unless?” suggested Betty with her sweet smile.

“It might be — —” he said and looked at her.

Betty’s warm cheek was close to his as she whispered: “Dear Eb!” The rest only the colonel heard.

“Well! By all that’s glorious!” he exclaimed, and attempted to seize her; but with burning face Betty fled.

* * * * *

“Jack, dear, how the leaves are falling!” exclaimed Helen. “See them floating and whirling. It reminds me of the day I lay a prisoner in the forest glade praying, waiting for you.”

The borderman was silent.

They passed down the sandy lane under the colored maple trees, to a new cottage on the hillside.

“I am perfectly happy to-day,” continued Helen. “Everybody seems to be content, except you. For the first time in weeks I see that shade on your face, that look in your eyes. Jack, you do not regret the new life?”

“My love, no, a thousand times no,” he answered, smiling down into her eyes. They were changing, shadowing with thought; bright as in other days, and with an added beauty. The wilful spirit had been softened by love.

“Ah, I know, you miss the old friend.”

The yellow thicket on the slope opened to let out a tall, dark man who came down with lithe and springy stride.

“Jack, it’s Wetzel!” said Helen softly.

No words were spoken as the comrades gripped hands.

“Let me see the boy?” asked Wetzel, turning to Helen.

Little Jonathan blinked up at the grave borderman with great round eyes, and pulled with friendly, chubby fingers at the fringed buckskin coat.

“When you’re a man the forest trails will be corn fields,” muttered Wetzel.

The bordermen strolled together up the brown hillside, and wandered along the river bluff. The air was cool; in the west the ruddy light darkened behind bold hills; a blue mist streaming in the valley shaded into gray as twilight fell.

The Young Forester

CONTENTS

I. CHOOSING A PROFESSION

II. THE MAN ON THE TRAIN

III. THE TRAIL

IV. LOST IN THE FOREST

V. THE SAWMILL

VI. DICK LESLIE, RANGER

VII. BACK TO HOLSTON

VIII. THE LUMBERMEN

IX. TAKEN INTO THE MOUNTAINS

X. ESCAPE

XI. THE OLD HUNTER

XII. BEARS

XIII. THE CABIN IN THE FOREST

XIV. A PRISONER

XV. THE FIGHT

XVI. THE FOREST’S GREATEST FOE

XVII. THE BACK-FIRE

XVIII. CONCLUSION

I. CHOOSING A PROFESSION

I LOVED OUTDOOR life and hunting. Some way a grizzly bear would come in when I tried to explain forestry to my brother.

“Hunting grizzlies!” he cried. “Why, Ken, father says you’ve been reading dime novels.”

“Just wait, Hal, till he comes out here. I’ll show him that forestry isn’t just bear-hunting.”

My brother Hal and I were camping a few days on the Susquehanna River, and we had divided the time between fishing and tramping. Our camp was on the edge of a forest some eight miles from Harrisburg. The property belonged to our father, and he had promised to drive out to see us. But he did not come that day, and I had to content myself with winning Hal over to my side.

“Ken, if the governor lets you go to Arizona can’t you ring me in?”

“Not this summer. I’d be afraid to ask him. But in another year I’ll do it.”

“Won’t it be great? But what a long time to wait! It makes me sick to think of you out there riding mustangs and hunting bears and lions.”

“You’ll have to stand it. You’re pretty much of a kid, Hal — not yet fourteen. Besides, I’ve graduated.”

“Kid!” exclaimed Hal, hotly. “You’re not such a Methuselah yourself! I’m nearly as big as you. I can ride as well and play ball as well, and I can beat you all—”

“Hold on, Hal! I want you to help me to persuade father, and if you get your temper up you’ll like as not go against me. If he lets me go I’ll bring you in as soon as I dare. That’s a promise. I guess I know how much I’d like to have you.”

“All right,” replied Hal, resignedly. “I’ll have to hold in, I suppose. But I’m crazy to go. And, Ken, the cowboys and lions are not all that interest me. I like what you tell me about forestry. But who ever heard of forestry as a profession?”

“It’s just this way, Hal. The natural resources have got to be conserved, and the Government is trying to enlist intelligent young men in the work — particularly in the department of forestry. I’m not exaggerating when I say the prosperity of this country depends upon forestry.”

I have to admit that I was repeating what I had read.

“Why does it? Tell me how,” demanded Hal.

“Because the lumbermen are wiping out all the timber and never thinking of the future. They are in such a hurry to get rich that they’ll leave their grandchildren only a desert. They cut and slash in every direction, and then fires come and the country is ruined. Our rivers depend upon the forests for water. The trees draw the rain; the leaves break it up and let it fall in mists and drippings; it seeps into the ground, and is held by the roots. If the trees are destroyed the rain rushes off on the surface and floods the rivers. The forests store up water, and they do good in other ways.”

“We’ve got to have wood and lumber,” said Hal.

“Of course we have. But there won’t be any unless we go in for forestry. It’s been practiced in Germany for three hundred years.”

We spent another hour talking about it, and if Hal’s practical sense, which he inherited from father, had not been offset by his real love for the forests I should have been discouraged. Hal was of an industrious turn of mind; he meant to make money, and anything that was good business appealed strongly to him. But, finally, he began to see what I was driving at; he admitted that there was something in the argument.

The late afternoon was the best time for fishing. For the next two hours our thoughts were of quivering rods and leaping bass,

“You’ll miss the big bass this August,” remarked Hal, laughing. “Guess you won’t have all the sport.”

“That’s so, Hal,” I replied, regretfully. “But we’re talking as if it were a dead sure thing that I’m going West. Well, I only hope so.”

What Hal and I liked best about camping — of course after the fishing — was to sit around the campfire. Tonight it was more pleasant than ever, and when darkness fully settled down it was even thrilling. We talked about bears. Then Hal told of mountain-lions and the habit they have of creeping stealthily after hunters. There was a hoot-owl crying dismally up in the woods, and down by the edge of the river bright-green eyes peered at us from the darkness. When the wind came up and moaned through the trees it was not hard to imagine we were out in the wilderness. This had been a favorite game for Hal and me; only tonight there seemed some reality about it. From the way Hal whispered, and listened, and looked, he might very well have been expecting a visit from lions or, for that matter, even from Indians. Finally we went to bed. But our slumbers were broken. Hal often had nightmares even on ordinary nights, and on this one he moaned so much and thrashed about the tent so desperately that I knew the lions were after him.

I dreamed of forest lands with snow-capped peaks rising in the background; I dreamed of elk standing on the open ridges, of white-tailed deer trooping out of the hollows, of antelope browsing on the sage at the edge of the forests. Here was the broad track of a grizzly in the snow; there on a sunny crag lay a tawny mountain-lion asleep. The bronzed cowboy came in for his share, and the lone bandit played his part in a way to make me shiver. The great pines, the shady, brown trails, the sunlit glades, were as real to me as if I had been among them. Most vivid of all was the lonely forest at night and the campfire. I heard the sputter of the red embers and smelled the wood smoke; I peered into the dark shadows watching and listening for I knew not what.

On the next day early in the afternoon father appeared on the river road.

“There he is,” cried Hal. “He’s driving Billy. How he’s coming”

Billy was father’s fastest horse. It pleased me immensely to see the pace, for father would not have been driving fast unless he were in a particularly good humor. And when he stopped on the bank above camp I could have shouted. He wore his corduroys as if he were ready for outdoor life. There was a smile on his face as he tied Billy, and, coming down, he poked into everything in camp and asked innumerable questions. Hal talked about the bass until I was afraid he would want to go fishing and postpone our forestry tramp in the woods. But presently he spoke directly to me.

“Well, Kenneth, are you going to come out with the truth about that Wild-West scheme of yours? Now that you’ve graduated you want a fling. You want to ride mustangs, to see cowboys, to hunt and shoot — all that sort of thing.”

When father spoke in such a way it usually meant the defeat of my schemes. I grew cold all over.

“Yes, father, I’d like all that — But I mean business. I want to be a forest ranger. Let me go to Arizona this summer. And in the fall I’d — I’d like to go to a school of forestry.”

There! the truth was out, and my feelings were divided between relief and fear. Before father could reply I launched into a set speech upon forestry, and talked till I was out of breath.

“There’s something in what you say,” replied my father. “You’ve been reading up on the subject?”

“Everything I could get, and I’ve been trying to apply my knowledge in the woods. I love the trees. I’d love an outdoor life. But forestry won’t be any picnic. A ranger must be able to ride and pack, make trail and camp, live alone in the woods, fight fire and wild beasts. Oh! It’d be great!”

“I dare say,” said father, dryly; “particularly the riding and shooting. Well, I guess you’ll make a good-enough doctor to suit me.”

“Give me a square deal,” I cried, jumping up. “Mayn’t I have one word to say about my future? Wouldn’t you rather have me happy and successful as a forester, even if there is danger, than just an ordinary, poor doctor? Let’s go over our woodland. I’ll prove that you are letting your forest run down. You’ve got sixty acres of hard woods that ought to be bringing a regular income. If I can’t prove it, if I can’t interest you, I’ll agree to study medicine. But if I do you’re to let me try forestry.”

“Well, Kenneth, that’s a fair proposition,” returned father, evidently surprised at my earnestness “Come on. We’ll go up in the woods. Hal, I suppose he’s won you over?”

“Ken’s got a big thing in mind,” replied Hal, loyally “It’s just splendid.”

I never saw the long, black-fringed line of trees without joy in the possession of them and a desire to be among them. The sixty acres of timber land covered the whole of a swampy valley, spread over a rolling hill sloping down to the glistening river.

“Now, son? go ahead,” said my father, as we clambered over a rail fence and stepped into the edge of shade..

“Well, father—” I began, haltingly, and could not collect my thoughts. Then we were in the cool woods. It was very still, there being only a faint rustling of leaves and the mellow note of a hermit-thrush. The deep shadows were lightened by shafts of sunshine which, here and there, managed to pierce the canopy of foliage. Somehow, the feeling roused by these things loosened my tongue.

“This is an old hard-wood forest,” I began. “Much of the white oak, hickory, ash, maple, is virgin timber. These trees have reached maturity; many are dead at the tops; all of them should have been cut long ago. They make too dense a shade for the seedlings to survive. Look at that bunch of sapling maples. See how they reach up, trying to get to the light. They haven’t a branch low down and the tops are thin. Yet maple is one of our hardiest trees. Growth has been suppressed. Do you notice there are no small oaks or hickories just here? They can’t live in deep shade. Here’s the stump of a white oak cut last fall. It was about two feet in diameter. Let’s count the rings to find its age — about ninety years. It flourished in its youth and grew rapidly, but it had a hard time after about fifty years. At that time it was either burned, or mutilated by a falling tree, or struck by lightning.”

“Now, how do you make that out?” asked father, intensely interested.

“See the free, wide rings from the pith out to about number forty-five. The tree was healthy up to that time. Then it met with an injury of some kind, as is indicated by this black scar. After that the rings grew narrower. The tree struggled to live.”

We walked on with me talking as fast as I could get the words out. I showed father a giant, bushy chestnut which was dominating all the trees around it, and told him how it retarded their growth. On the other hand, the other trees were absorbing nutrition from the ground that would have benefited the chestnut.

“There’s a sinful waste of wood here,” I said, as we climbed over and around the windfalls and rotting tree-trunks. “The old trees die and are blown down. The amount of rotting wood equals the yearly growth. Now, I want to show you the worst enemies of the trees. Here’s a big white oak, a hundred and fifty years old. It’s almost dead. See the little holes bored in the bark. They were made by a beetle. Look!”

I swung my hatchet and split off a section of bark. Everywhere in the bark and round the tree ran little dust-filled grooves. I pried out a number of tiny brown beetles, somewhat the shape of a pinching-bug, only very much smaller.

“There! You’d hardly think that that great tree was killed by a lot of little bugs, would you? They girdle the trees and prevent the sap from flowing.”

I found an old chestnut which contained nests of the deadly white moths, and explained how it laid its eggs, and how the caterpillars that came from them killed the trees by eating the leaves. I showed how mice and squirrels injured the forest by eating the seeds.

“First I’d cut and sell all the matured and dead timber. Then I’d thin out the spreading trees that want all the light, and the saplings that grow too close together. I’d get rid of the beetles, and try to check the spread of caterpillars. For trees grow twice as fast if they are not choked or diseased. Then I’d keep planting seeds and shoots in the open places, taking care to favor the species best adapted to the soil, and cutting those that don’t grow well. In this way we’ll be keeping our forest while doubling its growth and value, and having a yearly income from it.”

“Kenneth, I see you’re in dead earnest about this business,” said my father, slowly. “Before I came out here today I had been looking up the subject, and I believe, with you, that forestry really means the salvation of our country. I think you are really interested, and I’ve a mind not to oppose you.”

“You’ll never regret it. I’ll learn; I’ll work up. Then it’s an outdoor life — healthy, free — why! all the boys I’ve told take to the idea. There’s something fine about it.” “Forestry it is, then,” replied he. “I like the promise of it, and I like your attitude. If you have learned so much while you were camping out here the past few summers it speaks well for you. But why do you want to go to Arizona?”

“Because the best chances are out West. I’d like to get a line on the National Forests there before I go to college. The work will be different; those Western forests are all pine. I’ve a friend, Dick Leslie, a fellow I used to fish with, who went West and is now a fire ranger in the new National Forest in Arizona — Penetier is the name of it. He has written me several times to come out and spend a while with him in the woods.”

“Penetier? Where is that — near what town?”

“Holston. It’s a pretty rough country, Dick says; plenty of deer, bears, and lions on his range. So I could hunt some while studying the forests. I think I’d be safe with Dick, even if it is wild out there.”

“All right, I’ll let you go. When you return we’ll see about the college.” Then he surprised me by drawing a letter from his pocket and handing it to me. “My friend, Mr. White, got this letter from the department at Washington. It may be of use to you out there.”

So it was settled, and when father drove off homeward Hal and I went back to camp. It would have been hard to say which of us was the more excited. Hal did a war dance round the campfire. I was glad, however, that he did not have the little twinge of remorse which I experienced, for I had not told him or father all that Dick had written about the wilderness of Penetier. I am afraid my mind was as much occupied with rifles and mustangs as with the study of forestry. But, though the adventure called most strongly to me, I knew I was sincere about the forestry end of it, and I resolved that I would never slight my opportunities. So, smothering conscience, I fell to the delight of making plans. I was for breaking camp at once, but Hal persuaded me to stay one more day. We talked for hours. Only one thing bothered me. Hal was jolly and glum by turns. He reveled in the plans for my outfit, but he wanted his own chance. A thousand times I had to repeat my promise, and the last thing he said before we slept was: “Ken, you’re going to ring me in next summer!”

II. THE MAN ON THE TRAIN

TRAVELLING WAS A new experience to me, and on the first night after I left home I lay awake until we reached Altoona. We rolled out of smoky Pittsburg at dawn, and from then on the only bitter drop in my cup of bliss was that the train went so fast I could not see everything out of my window.

Four days to ride! The great Mississippi to cross, the plains, the Rocky Mountains, then the Arizona plateaus-a long, long journey with a wild pine forest at the end! I wondered what more any young fellow could have wished. With my face glued to the car window I watched the level country speed by.

There appeared to be one continuous procession of well-cultivated farms, little hamlets, and prosperous towns. What interested me most, of course, were the farms, for all of them had some kind of wood. We passed a zone of maple forests which looked to be more carefully kept than the others. Then I recognized that they were maple-sugar trees. The farmers had cleaned out the other species, and this primitive method of forestry had produced the finest maples it had ever been my good-fortune to see. Indiana was flatter than Ohio, not so well watered, and therefore less heavily timbered. I saw, with regret, that the woodland was being cut regularly, tree after tree, and stacked in cords for firewood.

At Chicago I was to change for Santa Fe, and finding my train in the station I climbed aboard. My car was a tourist coach. Father had insisted on buying a ticket for the California Limited, but I had argued that a luxurious Pullman was not exactly the thing for a prospective forester. Still I pocketed the extra money which I had assured him he need not spend for the first-class ticket.

The huge station, with its glaring lights and clanging bells, and the outspreading city, soon gave place to prairie land.

That night I slept little, but the very time I wanted to be awake — when we crossed the Mississippi — I was slumbering soundly, and so missed it.

“I’ll bet I don’t miss it coming back,” I vowed.

The sight of the Missouri, however, somewhat repaid me for the loss. What a muddy, wide river! And I thought of the thousands of miles of country it drained, and of the forests there must be at its source. Then came the never-ending Kansas corn-fields. I do not know whether it was their length or their treeless monotony, but I grew tired looking at them.

From then on I began to take some notice of my fellow-travelers. The conductor proved to be an agreeable old fellow; and the train-boy, though I mistrusted his advances because he tried to sell me everything from chewing-gum to mining stock, turned out to be pretty good company. The Negro porter had such a jolly voice and laugh that I talked to him whenever I got the chance. Then occasional passengers occupied the seat opposite me from town to town. They were much alike, all sunburned and loud-voiced, and it looked as though they had all bought their high boots and wide hats at the same shop.

The last traveller to face me was a very heavy man with a great bullet head and a shock of light hair. His blue eyes had a bold flash, his long mustache drooped, and there was something about him that I did not like. He wore a huge diamond in the bosom of his flannel shirt, and a leather watch-chain that was thick and strong enough to have held up a town-clock.

“Hot,” he said, as he mopped his moist brow.

“Not so hot as it was,” I replied.

“Sure not. We’re climbin’ a little. He’s whistlin’ for Dodge City now.”

“Dodge City?” I echoed, with interest. The name brought back vivid scenes from certain yellow-backed volumes, and certain uncomfortable memories of my father’s displeasure. “Isn’t this the old cattle town where there used to be so many fights?”

“Sure. An’ not so very long ago. Here, look out the window.” He clapped his big hand on my knee; then pointed. “See that hill there. Dead Man’s Hill it was once, where they buried the fellers as died with their boots on.”

I stared, and even stretched my neck out of the window.

“Yes, old Dodge was sure lively,” he continued, as our train passed on. “I seen a little mix-up there myself in the early eighties. Five cow-punchers, friends they was, had been visitin’ town. One feller, playful-like, takes another feller’s quirt — that’s a whip. An’ the other feller, playful-like, says, ‘Give it back.’ Then they tussles for it, an’ rolls on the ground. I was laughin’, as was everybody, when, suddenly, the owner of the quirt thumps his friend. Both cowboys got up, slow, an’ watchin’ of each other. Then the first feller, who had started the play, pulls his gun. He’d hardly flashed it when they all pulls guns, an’ it was some noisy an’ smoky. In about five seconds there was five dead cowpunchers. Killed themselves, as you might say, just for fun. That’s what life was worth in old Dodge.” After this story I felt more kindly disposed ward my travelling companion, and would have asked for more romances but the conductor came along and engaged him in conversation. Then my neighbor across the aisle, a young fellow not much older than myself, asked me to talk to him.

“Why, yes, if you like,” I replied, in surprise. He was pale; there were red spots in his cheeks, and dark lines under his weary eyes.

“You look so strong and eager that it’s done me good to watch you,” he explained, with a sad smile. “You see — I’m sick.”

I told him I was very sorry, and hoped he would get well soon.

“I ought to have come West sooner,” he replied, “but I couldn’t get the money.”

He looked up at me and then out of the window at the sun setting red across the plains. I tried to make him think of something beside himself, but I made a mess of it. The meeting with him was a shock to me. Long after dark, when I had stretched out for the night, I kept thinking of him and contrasting what I had to look forward to with his dismal future. Somehow it did not seem fair, and I could not get rid of the idea that I was selfish.

Next day I had my first sight of real mountains. And the Pennsylvania hills, that all my life had appeared so high, dwindled to nothing. At Trinidad, where we stopped for breakfast, I walked out on the platform sniffing at the keen thin air. When we crossed the Raton Mountains into New Mexico the sick boy got off at the first station, and I waved good-bye to him as the train pulled out. Then the mountains and the funny little adobe huts and the Pueblo Indians along the line made me forget everything else.

The big man with the heavy watch-chain was still on the train, and after he had read his newspaper he began to talk to me.

“This road follows the old trail that the goldseekers took in forty-nine,” he said. “We’re comin’ soon to a place, Apache Pass, where the Apaches used to ambush the wagon-trains, It’s somewheres along here.”

Presently the train wound into a narrow yellow ravine, the walls of which grew higher and higher.

“Them Apaches was the worst redskins ever in the West. They used to hide on top of this pass an’ shoot down on the wagon-trains.”

Later in the day he drew my attention to a mountain standing all by itself. It was shaped like a cone, green with trees almost to the summit, and ending in a bare stone peak that had a flat top.

“Starvation Peak,” he said. “That name’s three hundred years old, dates back to the time the Spaniards owned this land. There’s a story about it that’s likely true enough. Some Spaniards were attacked by Indians an’ climbed to the peak, expectin’ to be better able to defend themselves up there. The Indians camped below the peak an’ starved the Spaniards. Stuck there till they starved to death! That’s where it got its name.”

“Those times you tell of must have been great,” I said, regretfully. “I’d like to have been here then. But isn’t the country all settled now? Aren’t the Indians dead? There’s no more fighting?”

“It’s not like it used to be, but there’s still warm places in the West. Not that the Indians break out often any more. But bad men are almost as bad, if not so plentiful, as when Billy the Kid run these parts. I saw two men shot an’ another knifed jest before I went East to St. Louis.”

“Where?”

“In Arizona. Holston is the station where I get off, an’ it happened near there.”

“Holston is where I’m going.”

“You don’t say. Well, I’m glad to meet you, young man. My name’s Buell, an’ I’m some known in Holston. What’s your name?”

He eyed me in a sharp but not unfriendly manner, and seemed pleased to learn of my destination.

“Ward. Kenneth Ward. I’m from Pennsylvania.”

“You haven’t got the bugs. Any one can see that,” he said, and as I looked puzzled he went on with a smile, and a sounding rap on his chest: “Most young fellers as come out here have consumption. They call it bugs. I reckon you’re seekin’ your fortune.”’

“Yes, in a way.”

“There’s opportunities for husky youngsters out here. What’re you goin’ to rustle for, if I may ask?”

“I’m going in for forestry.”

“Forestry? Do you mean lumberin’?”

“No. Forestry is rather the opposite of lumbering. I’m going in for Government forestry — to save the timber, not cut it.”

It seemed to me he gave a little start of surprise; he certainly straightened up and looked at me hard.

“What’s Government forestry?”

I told him to the best of my ability. He listened attentively enough, but thereafter he had not another word for me, and presently he went into the next car. I took his manner to be the Western abruptness that I had heard of, and presently forgot him in the scenery along the line. At Albuquerque I got off for a trip to a lunch-counter, and happened to take a seat next to him.

“Know anybody in Holston?” he asked.

As I could not speak because of a mouthful of sandwich I shook my head. For the moment I had forgotten about Dick Leslie, and when it did occur to me some Indians offering to sell me beads straightway drove it out of my mind again.

When I awoke the next day, it was to see the sage ridges and red buttes of Arizona. We were due at Holston at eight o’clock, but owing to a crippled engine the train was hours late. At last I fell asleep to be awakened by a vigorous shake.

“Holston. Your stop. Holston,” the conductor was saying.

“All right,” I said, sitting up and then making a grab for my grip. “We’re pretty late, aren’t we?”

“Six hours. It’s two o’clock.”

“Hope I can get a room,” I said, as I followed him out on the platform. He held up his lantern so that the light would shine in my face. “There’s a hotel down the street a block or so. Better hurry and look sharp. Holston’s not a safe place for a stranger at night.”

I stepped off into a windy darkness. A lamp glimmered in the station window. By its light I made out several men, the foremost of whom had a dark, pointed face and glittering eyes. He wore a strange hat, and I knew from pictures I had seen that he was a Mexican. Then the bulky form of Buell loomed up. I called, but evidently he did not hear me. The men took his grips, and they moved away to disappear in the darkness. While I paused, hoping to see some one to direct me, the train puffed out, leaving me alone on the platform.

When I turned the corner I saw two dim lights, one far to the left, the other to the right, and the black outline of buildings under what appeared to be the shadow of a mountain. It was the quietest and darkest town I had ever struck.

I decided to turn toward the right-hand light, for the conductor had said “down the street.” I set forth at a brisk pace, but the loneliness and strangeness of the place were rather depressing.

Before I had gone many steps, however, the sound of running water halted me, and just in the nick of time, for I was walking straight into a ditch. By peering hard into the darkness and feeling my way I found a bridge. Then it did not take long to reach the light. But it was a saloon, and not the hotel. One peep into it served to make me face about in double-quick time, and hurry in the opposite direction.

Hearing a soft footfall, I glanced over my shoulder, to see the Mexican that I had noticed at the station. He was coming from across the street. I wondered if he were watching me. He might be. My heart began to beat violently. Turning once again, I discovered that the fellow could not be seen in the pitchy blackness. Then I broke into a run.

III. THE TRAIL

A SHORT DASH brought me to the end of the block; the side street was not so dark, and after I had crossed this open space I glanced backward.

Soon I sped into a wan circle of light, and, reaching a door upon which was a hotel sign, I burst in. Chairs were scattered about a bare office; a man stirred on a couch, and then sat up, blinking.

“I’m afraid — I believe some one’s chasing me,” I said.

He sat there eying me, and then drawled, sleepily:

“Thet ain’t no call to wake a feller, is it?”

The man settled himself comfortably again, and closed his eyes.

“Say, isn’t this a hotel? I want a room!” I cried.

“Up-stairs; first door.” And with that the porter went to sleep in good earnest.

I made for the stairs, and, after a backward look into the street, I ran up. A smelly lamp shed a yellowish glare along a hall. I pushed open the first door, and, entering the room, bolted myself in. Then all the strength went out of my legs. When I sat down on the bed I was in a cold sweat and shaking like a leaf. Soon the weakness passed, and I moved about the room, trying to find a lamp or candle. Evidently the hotel, and, for that matter, the town of Holston, did not concern itself with such trifles as lights. On the instant I got a bad impression of Holston. I had to undress in the dark. When I pulled the window open a little at the top the upper sash slid all the way down. I managed to get it back, and tried raising the lower sash. It was very loose, but it stayed up. Then I crawled into bed.

Though I was tired and sleepy, my mind whirled so that I could not get to sleep. If I had been honest with myself I should have wished myself back home. Pennsylvania seemed a long way off, and the adventures that I had dreamed of did not seem so alluring, now that I was in a lonely room in a lonely, dark town. Buell had seemed friendly and kind — at least, in the beginning. Why had he not answered my call? The incident did not look well to me. Then I fell to wondering if the Mexican had really followed me. The first thing for me in the morning would be to buy a revolver. Then if any Mexicans —

A step on the tin roof outside frightened me stiff. I had noticed a porch, or shed, under my window. Some one must have climbed upon it. I stopped breathing to listen. For what seemed moments there was no sound. I wanted to think that the noise might have been made by a cat, but I couldn’t. I was scared — frightened half to death.

If there had been a bolt on the window the matter would not have been so disturbing. I lay there a-quiver, eyes upon the gray window space of my room. Dead silence once more intervened. All I heard was the pound of my heart against my ribs.

Suddenly I froze at the sight of a black figure against the light of my window. I recognized the strange bat, the grotesque outlines. I was about to shout for help when the fellow reached down and softly began to raise the sash.

That made me angry. Jerking up in bed, I caught the heavy pitcher from the wash-stand and flung it with all my might.

Crash!

Had I smashed out the whole side of the room it could scarcely have made more noise. Accompanied by the clinking of glass and the creaking of tin, my visitor rolled off the roof. I waited, expecting an uproar from the other inmates of the hotel. No footstep, no call sounded within hearing. Once again the stillness settled down.

Then, to my relief, the gray gloom lightened, and dawn broke. Never had I been so glad to see the morning. While dressing I cast gratified glances at the ragged hole in the window. With the daylight my courage had returned, and I began to have a sort of pride in my achievement.

“If that fellow had known how I can throw a baseball he’d have been careful,” I thought, a little cockily.

I went down-stairs into the office. The sleepy porter was mopping the floor. Behind the desk stood a man so large that he made Buell seem small. He was all shoulders and beard.

“Can I get breakfast?”

“Nobody’s got a half-hitch on you, has they?” he replied, jerking a monstrous thumb over his shoulder toward a door.

I knew the words half-hitch had something to do with a lasso, and I was rather taken back by the hotel proprietor’s remark. The dining-room was more attractive than anything I had yet seen about the place: the linen was clean, and the ham and eggs and coffee that were being served to several rugged men gave forth a savory odor. But either the waiter was blind or he could not bear, for he paid not the slightest attention to me. I waited, while trying to figure out the situation. Something was wrong, and, whatever it was, I guessed that it must be with me. After about an hour I got my breakfast. Then I went into the office, intending to be brisk, businesslike, and careful about asking questions.

“I’d like to pay my bill, and also for a little damage,” I said, telling what had happened.

“Somebody’ll kill thet Greaser yet,” was all the comment the man made.

I went outside, not knowing whether to be angry or amused with these queer people. In the broad light of day Holston looked as bad as it had made me feel by night. All I could see were the station and freight-sheds, several stores with high, wide signs, glaringly painted, and a long block of saloons. When I had turned a street corner, however, a number of stores came into view with some three-storied brick buildings, and, farther out, many frame houses.

Moreover, this street led my eye to great snowcapped mountains, and I stopped short in my tracks, for I realized they were the Arizona peaks. Up the swelling slopes swept a black fringe that I knew to be timber. The mountains appeared to be close, but I knew that even the foot-bills were miles away. Penetier, I remembered from one of Dick’s letters, was on the extreme northern slope, and it must be anywhere from forty to sixty miles off. The sharp, white peaks glistened in the morning sun; the air had a cool touch of snow and a tang of pine. I drew in a full breath, with a sense on being among the pines.

Now I must buy my outfit and take the trail for Penetier. This I resolved to do with as few questions as possible. I never before was troubled by sensitiveness, but the fact had dawned upon me that I did not like being taken for a tenderfoot. So, with this in mind, I entered a general merchandise store.

It was very large, and full of hardware, harness, saddles, blankets — everything that cowboys and ranchmen use. Several men, two in shirt-sleeves, were chatting near the door. They saw me come in, and then, for all that it meant to them, I might as well not have been in existence at all. So I sat down to wait, determined to take Western ways and things as I found them. I sat there fifteen minutes by my watch. This was not so bad; but when a lanky, red-faced, leather-legged individual came in to he at once supplied with his wants, I began to get angry. I waited another five minutes, and still the friendly chatting went on. Finally I could stand it no longer.

“Will somebody wait on me?” I demanded.

One of the shirt-sleeved men leisurely got up and surveyed me.

“Do you want to buy something?” he drawled.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

The reply trembling on my lips was cut short by the entrance of Buell.

“Hello!” he said in a loud voice, shaking hands with me. “You’ve trailed into the right place. Smith, treat this lad right. It’s guns an’ knives an’ lassoes he wants, I’ll bet a hoss.”

“Yes, I want an outfit,” I said, much embarrassed. “ I’m going to meet a friend out in Penetier, a ranger — Dick Leslie.”

Buell started violently, and his eyes flashed. “Dick — Dick Leslie!” he said, and coughed loudly. “I know Dick. . . . So you’re a friend of his’n? . . . Now, let me help you with the outfit.”

Anything strange in Buell’s manner was forgotten, in the absorbing interest of my outfit. Father had given me plenty of money, so that I had but to choose. I had had sense enough to bring my old corduroys and boots, and I had donned them that morning. One after another I made my purchases — Winchester, revolver, bolsters, ammunition, saddle, bridle, lasso, blanket. When I got so far, Buell said: “You’ll need a mustang an’ a pack-pony. I know a feller who’s got jest what you want.” And with that he led me out of the store.

“Now you take it from me,” he went on, in a fatherly voice, “Holston people haven’t got any use for Easterners. An’ if you mention your business — forestry an’ that — why, you wouldn’t be safe. There’s many in the lumberin’ business here as don’t take kindly to the Government. See! That’s why I’m givin’ you advice. Keep it to yourself an’ hit the trail today, soon as you can. I’ll steer you right.”

I was too much excited to answer clearly; indeed, I hardly thanked him. However, be scarcely gave me the chance. He kept up his talk about the townspeople and their attitude toward Easterners until we arrived at a kind of stock-yard full of shaggy little ponies. The sight of them drove every other thought out of my head.

“Mustangs!” I exclaimed.

“Sure. Can you ride?”

“Oh yes. I have a horse at home. . . . What wiry little fellows! They’re so wild-looking.”

“You pick out the one as suits you, an’ I’ll step into Cless’s here. He’s the man who owns this bunch.”

It did not take me long to decide. A black mustang at once took my eye. When he had been curried and brushed he would be a little beauty. I was trying to coax him to me when Buell returned with a man.

“Thet your pick?” he asked, as I pointed. “Well, now, you’re not so much of a tenderfoot. Thet’s the best mustang in the lot. Cless, how much for him, an’ a pack-pony an’ pack-saddle?”

“I reckon twenty dollars’ll make it square,” replied the owner.

This nearly made me drop with amazement. I had only about seventy-five dollars left, and I had been very much afraid that I could not buy the mustang, let alone the pack-pony and saddle.

“Cless, send round to Smith for the lad’s outfit, an’ saddle up for him at once.” Then he turned to me. “Now some grub, an’ a pan or two.”

Having camped before, I knew how to buy supplies. Buell, however, cut out much that I wanted, saying the thing to think of was a light pack for the pony.

“I’ll hurry to the hotel and get my things,” I said, “and meet you here. I’ll not be a moment.”

But Buell said it would be better for him to go with me, though he did not explain. He kept with me, still he remained in the office while I went up-stairs. Somehow this suited me, for I did not want him to see the broken window. I took a few things from my grip and rolled them in a bundle. Then I took a little leather case of odds and ends I had always carried when camping and slipped it into my pocket. Hurrying down-stairs I left my grip with the porter, wrote and mailed a postal card to my father, and followed the impatient Buell.

“You see, it’s a smart lick of a ride to Penetier, and I want to get there before dark,” he explained, kindly.

I could have shouted for very glee when I saw the black mustang saddled and bridled.

“He’s well broke,” said Cless. “Keep his bridle down when you ain’t in the saddle. An’ find a patch of grass fer him at night. The pony’ll stick to him.”

Cless fell to packing a lean pack-pony.

“Watch me do this,” said he; “you’ll hev trouble if you don’t git the hang of the diamondhitch.”

I watched him set the little wooden criss-cross on the pony’s back, throw the balance of my outfit (which he had tied up in a canvas) over the saddle, and then pass a long rope in remarkable turns and wonderful loops round pony and pack.

“What’s the mustang’s name?” I inquired.

“Never had any,” replied the former owner.

“Then it’s Hal.” I thought how that name would please my brother at home.

“Climb up. Let’s see if you fit the stirrups,” said Cless. “Couldn’t be better.”

“Now, young feller, you can hit the trail,” put in Buell, with his big voice. “An’ remember what I told you. This country ain’t got much use for a feller as can’t look out for himself.”

He opened the gate, and led my mustang into the road and quite some distance. The pony jogged along after us. Then Buell stopped with a finger outstretched.

“There, at the end of this street, you’ll find a trail. Hit it an’ stick to it. All the little trail’s leadin’ into it needn’t bother you.”

He swept his hand round to the west of the mountain. The direction did not tally with the idea I had gotten from Dick’s letter.

“I thought Penetier was on the north side of the mountains.”

“Who said so?” he asked, staring. “Don’t I know this country? Take it from me.”

I thanked him, and, turning, with a light heart I faced the black mountain and my journey.

It was about ten o’clock when Hal jogged into a broad trail on the outskirts of Holston. A gray flat lay before me, on the other side of which began the slow rise of the slope. I could hardly contain myself. I wanted to run the mustang, but did not for the sake of the burdened pony. That sage-flat was miles wide, though it seemed so narrow. The back of the lower slope began to change to a dark green, which told me I was surely getting closer to the mountains, even if it did not seem so. The trail began to rise, and at last I reached the first pine-trees. They were a disappointment to me, being no larger than many of the white oaks at home, and stunted, with ragged dead tops. They proved to me that trees isolated from their fellows fare as poorly as trees overcrowded. Where pines grow closely, but not too closely, they rise straight and true, cleaning themselves of the low branches, and making good lumber, free of knots. Where they grow far apart, at the mercy of wind and heat and free to spread many branches, they make only gnarled and knotty lumber.

As I rode on the pines became slowly more numerous and loftier. Then, when I had surmounted what I took to be the first foot-hill, I came upon a magnificent forest. A little farther on the trail walled me in with great seamed trunks, six feet in diameter, rising a hundred feet before spreading a single branch.

Meanwhile my mustang kept steadily up the slow-rising trail, and the time passed. Either the grand old forest had completely bewitched me or the sweet smell of pine had intoxicated me, for as I rode along utterly content I entirely forgot about Dick and the trail and where I was heading. Nor did I come to my senses until Hal snorted and stopped before a tangled windfall.

Then I glanced down to see only the clean, brown pine-needles. There was no trail. Perplexed and somewhat anxious, I rode back a piece, expecting surely to cross the trail. But I did not. I went to the left and to the right, then circled in a wide curve. No trail! The forest about me seemed at once familiar and strange.

It was only when the long shadows began to creep under the trees that I awoke fully to the truth.

I had missed the trail! I was lost in the forest!

IV. LOST IN THE FOREST

FOR A MOMENT I was dazed. And then came panic. I ran up this ridge and that one, I rushed to and fro over ground which looked, whatever way I turned, exactly the same. And I kept saying, “I’m lost! I’m lost!” Not until I dropped exhausted against a pine-tree did any other thought come to me.

The moment that I stopped running about so aimlessly the panicky feeling left me. I remembered that for a ranger to be lost in the forest was an every-day affair, and the sooner I began that part of my education the better. Then it came to me how foolish I had been to get alarmed, when I knew that the general slope of the forest led down to the open country.

This put an entirely different light upon the matter. I still had some fears that I might not soon find Dick Leslie, but these I dismissed for the present, at least. A suitable place to camp for the night must be found. I led the mustang down into the hollows, keeping my eye sharp for grass. Presently I came to a place that was wet and soggy at the bottom, and, following this up for quite a way, I found plenty of grass and a pool of clear water.

Often as I had made camp back in the woods of Pennsylvania, the doing of it now was new. For this was not play; it was the real thing, and it made the old camping seem tame. I took the saddle off Hal and tied him with my lasso, making as long a halter as possible. Slipping the pack from the pony was an easier task than the getting it back again was likely to prove. Next I broke open a box of cartridges and loaded the Winchester. My revolver was already loaded, and hung on my belt. Remembering Dick’s letters about the bears and mountain-lions in Penetier Forest, I got a good deal of comfort out of my weapons. Then I built a fire, and while my supper was cooking I scraped up a mass of pine-needles for a bed. Never had I sat down to a meal with such a sense of strange enjoyment.

But when I had finished and had everything packed away and covered, my mind began to wander in unexpected directions. Why was it that the twilight seemed to move under the giant pines and creep down the hollow? While I gazed the gray shadows deepened to black, and night came suddenly. My campfire seemed to give almost no light, yet close at hand the flickering gleams played hide-and-seek among the pines and chased up the straight tree trunks. The crackling of my fire and the light steps of the grazing mustangs only emphasized the silence of the forest. Then a low moaning from a distance gave me a chill. At first I had no idea what it was, but presently I thought it must be the wind in the pines. It bore no resemblance to any sound I had ever before heard in the woods. It would murmur from different parts of the forest; sometimes it would cease for a little, and then travel and swell toward me, only to die away again. But it rose steadily, with shorter intervals of silence, until the intermittent gusts swept through the tree-tops with a rushing roar. I had listened to the crash of the ocean surf, and the resemblance was a striking one.

Listening to this mournful wind with all my ears I was the better prepared for any lonesome cries of the forest; nevertheless, a sudden, sharp “Ki-yi-i!” seemingly right at my back, gave me a fright that sent my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

Fumbling at the hammer of my rifle, I peered into the black-streaked gloom of the forest. The crackling of dry twigs brought me to my feet. At the same moment the mustangs snorted. Something was prowling about just beyond the light. I thought of a panther. That was the only beast I could think of which had such an unearthly cry.

Then another bowl, resembling that of a dog, and followed by yelps and barks, told me that I was being visited by a pack of coyotes. I spent the good part of an hour listening to their serenade. The wild, mournful notes sent quivers up my back. By-and-by they went away, and as my fire had burned down to a red glow and the night wind had grown cold I began to think of sleep.

But I was not sleepy. When I had stretched out on the soft bed of pine-needles with my rifle close by, and was all snug and warm under the heavy blanket, it seemed that nothing was so far away from me as sleep. The wonder of my situation kept me wide awake, my eyes on the dim huge pines and the glimmer of stars, and my ears open to the rush and roar of the wind, every sense alert. Hours must have passed as I lay there living over the things that had happened and trying to think out what was to come. At last, however, I rolled over on my side, and with my hand on the rifle and my cheek close to the sweet-smelling pine-needles I dropped asleep.

When I awoke the forest was bright and sunny.

“You’ll make a fine forester,” I said aloud, in disgust at my tardiness. Then began the stern business of the day. While getting breakfast I turned over in my mind the proper thing for me to do. Evidently I must pack and find the trail. The pony had wandered off into the woods, but was easily caught — a fact which lightened my worry, for I knew how dependent I was upon my mustangs. When I had tried for I do not know how long to get my pack to stay on the pony’s back I saw where Mr. Cless had played a joke on me. All memory of the diamond-hitch had faded into utter confusion. First the pack fell over the off-side; next, on top of me; then the saddle slipped awry, and when I did get the pack to remain stationary upon the patient pony, how on earth to tie it there became more and more of a mystery. Finally, in sheer desperation, I ran round the pony, pulled, tugged, and knotted the lasso; more by luck than through sense I had accomplished something in the nature of the diamond-hitch.

I headed Hal up the gentle forest slope, and began the day’s journey wherever chance might lead me. As confidence came, my enjoyment increased. I began to believe I could take care of myself. I reasoned out that, as the peaks were snow-capped, I should find water, and very likely game, up higher. Moreover, I might climb a foothill or bluff from which I could get my bearings.

It seemed to me that I passed more pine-trees than I could have imagined there were in the whole world. Miles and miles of pines! And in every mile they grew larger and ruggeder and farther apart, and so high that I could hardly see the tips. After a time I got out of the almost level forest into ground ridged and hollowed, and found it advisable to turn more to the right. On the sunny southern slopes I saw trees that dwarfed the ones on the colder and shady north sides. I also found many small pines and seedlings growing in warm, protected places. This showed me the value of the sun to a forest. Though I kept a lookout for deer or game of any kind, I saw nothing except some black squirrels with white tails. They were beautiful and very tame, and one was nibbling at what I concluded must have been a seed from a pine-cone.

Presently I fancied that I espied a moving speck far down through the forest glades. I stopped Hal, and, watching closely, soon made certain of it. Then it became lost for a time, but reappeared again somewhat closer. It was like a brown blur and scarcely moved. I reined Hal more to the right. Not for quite a while did I see the thing again, and when I did it looked so big and brown that I took up my Winchester. Then it disappeared once more.

I descended into a hollow, and tying Hal, I stole forward on foot, hoping by that means to get close to the strange object without being seen myself.

I waited behind a pine, and suddenly three horsemen rode across a glade not two hundred yards away. The foremost rider was no other than the Mexican whom I had reason to remember.

The huge trunk amply concealed me, but, nevertheless, I crouched down. How strange that I should run into that Mexican again! Where was he going? Had he followed me? Was there a trail?

As long as the three men were in sight I watched them. When the last brown speck had flitted and disappeared far away in the forest I retraced my steps to my mustang, pondering upon this new turn in my affairs.

“Things are bound to happen to me,” I concluded, “and I may as well make up my mind to that.”

While standing beside Hal, undecided as to my next move, I heard a whistle. It was faint, perhaps miles away, yet unmistakably it was the whistle of an engine. I wondered if the railroad turned round this side of the peaks. Mounting Hal, I rode down the forest to the point where I had seen the men, and there came upon a trail. I proceeded along this in the direction the men had taken. I had come again to the slow-rising level that I had noted earlier in my morning’s journey. After several miles a light or opening in the forest ahead caused me to use more caution. As I rode forward I saw a vast area of tree-tops far below, and then I found myself on the edge of a foot-hill.

Right under me was a wide, yellow, bare spot, miles across, a horrible slash in the green forest, and in the middle of it, surrounded by stacks on stacks of lumber, was a great sawmill.

I stared in utter amazement. A sawmill on Penetier! Even as I gazed a train of fresh-cut lumber trailed away into the forest.

V. THE SAWMILL

IN MY SURPRISE I almost forgot the Mexican. Then I thought that if Dick were there the Mexican would be likely to have troubles of his own. I remembered Dick’s reputation as a fighter. But suppose I did not find Dick at the sawmill? This part of the forest was probably owned by private individuals, for I couldn’t imagine Government timber being cut in this fashion. So I tied Hal and the pony amidst a thick clump of young pines, and, leaving all my outfit except my revolver, I struck out across the slash.

No second glance was needed to tell that the lumbering here was careless and without thought for the future. It had been a clean cut, and what small saplings had escaped the saw had been crushed by the dropping and hauling of the large pines. The stumps were all about three feet high, and that meant the waste of many thousands of feet of good lumber. Only the straight, unbranched trunks had been used. The tops of the pines had not been lopped, and lay where they had fallen. It was a wilderness of yellow brush, a dry jungle. The smell of pine was so powerful that I could hardly breathe. Fire must inevitably complete this work of ruin; already I was forester enough to see that.

Presently the trail crossed a railroad track which appeared to have been hastily constructed. Swinging along at a rapid step on the ties I soon reached the outskirts of the huge stacks of lumber; I must have walked half a mile between two yellow walls. Then I entered the lumber camp.

It was even worse-looking than the slash. Rows of dirty tents, lines of squatty log-cabins, and many flat-board houses clustered around an immense sawmill. Evidently I had arrived at the noon hour, for the mill was not running, and many rough men were lounging about smoking pipes. At the door of the first shack stood a fat, round-faced Negro wearing a long, dirty apron.

“Is Dick Leslie here?” I asked.

“I dunno if Dick’s come in yet, but I ‘specks him,” he replied. “Be you the young gent Dick’s lookin’ fer from down East?”

“Yes.”

“Come right in, sonny, come right in an’ eat. Dick allus eats with me, an’ he has spoke often ‘bout you.” He led me in, and seated me at a bench where several men were eating. They were brawny fellows, clad in overalls and undershirts, and one, who spoke pleasantly to me, had sawdust on his bare arms and even in his hair. The cook set before me a bowl of soup, a plate of beans, potroast, and coffee, all of which I attacked with a good appetite. Presently the men finished their meat and went outside, leaving me alone with the cook.

“Many men on this job?” I asked.

“More’n a thousand. Buell’s runnin’ two shifts, day an’ night.”

“Buell? Does he own this land?”

“No. He’s only the agent of a ‘Frisco lumber company, an’ the land belongs to the Government. Buell’s sure slashin’ the lumber off, though. Two freight-trains of lumber out every day.”

“Is this Penetier Forest?” I queried, carelessly, but I had begun to think hard.

“Sure.”

I wanted to ask questions, but thought it wiser to wait. I knew enough already to make out that I had come upon the scene of a gigantic lumber steal. Buell’s strange manner on the train, at the station, and his eagerness to hurry me out of Holston now needed no more explanation. I began to think the worst of him.

“Did you see a Mexican come into camp?” I inquired of the Negro.

“Sure. Greaser got here this mornin’.”

“He tried to rob me in Holston.”

“‘Tain’t nothin’ new fer Greaser. He’s a thief, but I never heerd of him holdin’ anybody up. No nerve ‘cept to knife a feller in the back.”

“What’ll I do if I meet him here?”

“Slam him one! You’re a strappin’ big lad. Slam him one, an’ flash your gun on him. Greaser’s a coward. I seen a young feller he’d cheated make him crawl. Anyway, it’ll be all day with him when Dick finds out he tried to rob you. An’ say, stranger, if a feller stays sober, this camp’s safe enough in daytime, but at night, drunk or sober, it’s a tough place.”

Before I had finished eating a shrill whistle from the sawmill called the hands to work; soon it was followed by the rumble of machinery and the sharp singing of a saw.

I set out to see the lumber-camp, and although I stepped forth boldly, the truth was that with all my love for the Wild West I would have liked to be at home. But here I was, and I determined not to show the white feather.

I passed a row of cook-shacks like the one I had been in, and several stores and saloons. The lumber-camp was a little town. A rambling log cabin attracted me by reason of the shaggy mustangs standing before it and the sounds of mirth within. A peep showed me a room with a long bar, where men and boys were drinking. I heard the rattle of dice and the clink of silver. Seeing the place was crowded, I thought I might find Dick there, so I stepped inside. My entrance was unnoticed, so far as I could tell; in fact, there seemed no reason why it should be otherwise, for, being roughly dressed, I did not look very different from the many young fellows there. I scanned all the faces, but did not see Dick’s, nor, for that matter, the Mexican’s. Both disappointed and relieved, I turned away, for the picture of low dissipation was not attractive.

The hum of the great sawmill drew me like a magnet. I went out to the lumber-yard at the back of the mill, where a trestle slanted down to a pond full of logs. A train loaded with pines had just pulled in, and dozens of men were rolling logs off the flat-cars into a canal. At stations along the canal stood others pike-poling the logs toward the trestle, where an endless chain caught them with sharp claws and hauled them up. Half-way from, the ground they were washed clean by a circle of water-spouts.

I walked up the trestle and into the mill. Tho noise almost deafened me. High above all other sounds rose the piercing song of the saw, and the short intervals when it was not cutting were filled with a thunderous crash that jarred the whole building. After a few confused glances I got the working order into my head, and found myself in the most interesting place I had ever seen.

As the stream of logs came up into the mill the first log was shunted off the chain upon a carriage. Two men operated this carriage by levers, one to take the log up to the saw, and the other to run it back for another cut. The run back was very swift. Then a huge black iron head butted up from below and turned the log over as easily as if it had been a straw. This was what made the jar and crash. On the first cut the long strip of bark went to the left and up against five little circular saws. Then the five pieces slipped out of sight down chutes. When the log was trimmed a man stationed near the huge band-saw made signs to those on the carriage, and I saw that they got from him directions whether to cut the log into timbers, planks, or boards. The heavy timbers, after leaving the saw, went straight down the middle of the mill, the planks went to the right, the boards in another direction. Men and boys were everywhere, each with a lever in hand. There was not the slightest cessation of the work. And a log forty feet long and six feet thick, which had taken hundreds of years to grow, was cut up in just four minutes.

The place fascinated me. I had not dreamed that a sawmill could be brought to such a pitch of mechanical perfection, and I wondered how long the timber would last at that rate of cutting. The movement and din tired me, and I went outside upon a long platform. Here workmen caught the planks and boards as they came out, and loaded them upon trucks which were wheeled away. This platform was a world in itself. It sent arms everywhere among the piles of lumber, and once or twice I was as much lost as I had been up in the forest.

While turning into one of these byways I came suddenly upon Buell and another man. They were standing near a little house of weather-strips, evidently an office, and were in their shirt-sleeves. They had not seen or heard me. I dodged behind a pile of planks, intending to slip back the way I had come. Before I could move Buell’s voice rooted me to the spot.

“His name’s Ward. Tall, well-set lad. I put Greaser after him the other night, hopin’ to scare him back East. But nix!”

“Well, he’s here now — to study forestry! Ha! ha!” said the other.

“You’re sure the boy you mean is the one I mean?”

“Greaser told me so. And this boy is Leslie’s friend.”

“That’s the worst of it,” replied Buell, impatiently. “I’ve got Leslie fixed as far as this lumber deal is concerned, but he won’t stand for any more. He was harder to fix than the other rangers, an’ I’m afraid of him.” he’s grouchy now.

“You shouldn’t have let the boy get here.”

“Stockton, I tried to prevent it. I put Greaser with Bud an’ Bill on his trail. They didn’t find him, an’ now here he turns up.”

“Maybe he can be fixed.”

“Not if I know my business, he can’t; take that from me. This kid is straight. He’ll queer my deal in a minute if he gets wise. Mind you, I’m gettin’ leary of Washington. We’ve seen about the last of these lumber deals. If I can pull this one off I’ll quit; all I want is a little more time. Then I’ll fire the slash, an’ that’ll cover tracks.”

“Buell, I wouldn’t want to be near Penetier when you light that fire. This forest will burn like tinder.”

“It’s a whole lot I care then. Let her burn. Let the Government put out the fire. Now, what’s to be done about this boy?”

“I think I’d try to feel him out. Maybe he can be fixed. Boys who want to be foresters can’t be rich. Failing that — you say he’s a kid who wants to hunt and shoot — get some one to take him up on the mountain.”

“See here, Stockton. This young Ward will see the timber is bein’ cut clean. If it was only a little patch I wouldn’t mind. But this slash an’ this mill! He’ll know. More’n that, he’ll tell Leslie about the Mexican. Dick’s no fool. We’re up against it.”

“It’s risky, Buell. You remember the ranger up in Oregon.”

“Then we are to fall down on this deal all because of a fresh tenderfoot kid?” demanded Buell.

“Not so loud. . . . We’ll not fall down. But caution — use caution. You made a mistake in trusting so much to the Greaser.”

“I know, an’ I’m afraid of Leslie. An’ that other fire-ranger, Jim Williams, he’s a Texan, an’ a bad man. The two of them could about trim up this camp. They’ll both fight for the boy; take that from me.”

“We are sure up against it. Think now, and think quick.”

“First, I’ll try to fix the boy. If that won’t work . . . we’ll kidnap him. Then we’ll take no chances with Leslie. There’s a cool two hundred an’ fifty thousand in this deal for us, an’ we’re goin’ to get it.”

With that Buell went into his office and closed the door; the other man, Stockton, walked briskly down the platform. I could not resist peeping from my hiding-place as he passed. He was tall and had a red beard, which would enable me to recognize him if we met.

I waited there for some little time. Then I saw that by squeezing between two plies of lumber could reach the other side of the platform. When I reached the railing I climbed over, and, with the help of braces and posts, soon got to where I could drop down. Once on the ground I ran along under the platform until I saw a lane that led to the street. My one thought was to reach the cabin where the Negro cook stayed and ask him if Dick Leslie had come to camp. If he had not arrived, then I intended to make a bee-line for my mustang.

VI. DICK LESLIE, RANGER

WHICH END OF the street I entered I had no idea. The cabins were all alike, and in my hurry I would have passed the cook’s shack had it not been for the sight of a man standing in the door. That stalwart figure I would have known anywhere.

“Dick!” I cried, rushing at him.

What Dick’s welcome was I did not hear, but judging from the grip he put on my shoulders and then on my hands, he was glad to see me.

“Ken, blessed if I’d have known you,” he said, shoving me back at arm’s-length. “Let’s have a look at you. . . . Grown I say, but you’re a husky lad!”

While he was looking at me I returned the scrutiny with interest. Dick had always been big, but now he seemed wider and heavier. Among these bronzed Westerners he appeared pale, but that was only on account of his fair skin.

“Ken, didn’t you get my letter — the one telling you not to come West yet a while?”

“No,” I replied, blankly. “The last one I got was in May — about the middle. I have it with me. You certainly asked me to come then. Dick, don’t you want me — now?”

Plain it was that my friend felt uncomfortable; he shifted from one foot to another, and a cloud darkened his brow. But his blue eyes burned with a warm light as he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Ken, I’m glad to see you,” he said, earnestly. “It’s like getting a glimpse of home. But I wrote you not to come. Conditions have changed — there’s something doing here — I’ll—”

“You needn’t explain, Dick,” I replied, gravely. “I know. Buell and—” I waved my hand from the sawmill to the encircling slash.

Dick’s face turned a fiery red. I believed that was the only time Dick Leslie ever failed to look a fellow in the eye.

“Ken! . . . You’re on,” he said, recovering his composure. “Well, wait till you hear — Hello! here’s Jim Williams, my pardner.”

A clinking of spurs accompanied a soft step.

“Jim, here’s Ken Ward, the kid pardner I used to have back in the States,” said Dick. “Ken, you know Jim.”

If ever I knew anything by heart it was what Dick had written me about this Texan, Jim Williams.

“Ken, I shore am glad to see you,” drawled Jim, giving my hand a squeeze that I thought must break every bone in it.

Though Jim Williams had never been described to me, my first sight of him fitted my own ideas. He was tall and spare; his weather-beaten face seemed set like a dark mask; only his eyes moved, and they had a quivering alertness and a brilliancy that made them hard to look into. He wore a wide sombrero, a blue flannel shirt with a double row of big buttons, overalls, top-boots with very high heels, and long spurs. A heavy revolver swung at his hip, and if I had not already known that Jim Williams had fought Indians and killed bad men, I should still have seen something that awed me in the look of him.

I certainly felt proud to be standing with those two rangers, and for the moment Buell and all his crew could not have daunted me.

“Hello! what’s this?” inquired Dick, throwing back my coat; and, catching sight of my revolver, he ejaculated: “Ken Ward!”

“Wal, Ken, if you-all ain’t packin’ a gun!” said Jim, in his slow, careless drawl. “Dick, he shore is!”

It was now my turn to blush.

“Yes, I’ve got a gun,” I replied, “and I ought to have had it the other night.”

“How so?” inquired Dick, quickly.

It did not take me long to relate the incident of the Mexican.

Dick looked like a thunder-cloud, but Jim swayed and shook with laughter.

“You knocked him off the roof? Wal, thet shore is dee-lightful. It shore is!”

“Yes; and, Dick,” I went on, breathlessly, “the Greaser followed me, and if I hadn’t missed the trail, I don’t know what would have happened. Anyway, he got here first.”

“The Greaser trailed you?” interrupted Dick, sharply.

When I replied he glanced keenly at me. “How do you know?”

“I suspected it when I saw him with two men in the forest. But now I know it.”

“How?”

“I beard Buell tell Stockton he had put the Greaser on my trail.”

“Buell — Stockton!” exclaimed Dick. “What’d they have to do with the Greaser?”

“I met Buell on the train. I told him I had come West to study forestry. Buell’s afraid I’ll find out about this lumber steal, and he wants to shut my mouth.”

Dick looked from me to Jim, and Jim slowly straitened his tall form. For a moment neither spoke. Dick’s white face caused me to look away from him. Jim put a hand on my arm.

“Ken, you shore was lucky; you shore was.”

“I guess he doesn’t know how lucky,” added Dick, somewhat huskily. “Come on, we’ll look up the Mexican.”

“It shore is funny how bad I want to see thet Greaser.”

Dick’s hard look and tone were threatening enough, yet they did not affect me so much as the easy, gay manner of the Texan. Little cold quivers ran over me, and my knees knocked together. For the moment my animosity toward the Mexican vanished, and with it the old hunger to be in the thick of Wild Western life. I was afraid that I was going to see a man killed without being able to lift a hand to prevent it.

The rangers marched me between them down the street and into the corner saloon. Dick held me half behind him with his left hand while Jim sauntered ahead. Strangest of all the things that had happened was the sudden silencing of the noisy crowd.

The Mexican was not there. His companions, Bud and Bill, as Buell had called them, were sitting at a table, and as Jim Williams walked into the center of the room they slowly and gradually rose to their feet. One was a swarthy man with evil eyes and a scar on his cheek; the other had a brick- red face and a sandy mustache with a vicious curl. Neither seemed to be afraid, only cautious.

“We’re all lookin’ for thet Greaser friend of yourn,” drawled Jim. “I shore want to see him bad.”

“He’s gone, Williams,” replied one. “Was in somethin’ of a rustle, an’ didn’t leave no word.”

“Wal, I reckon he’s all we’re lookin’ for this pertickler minnit.”

Jim spoke in a soft, drawling voice, and his almost expressionless tone seemed to indicate pleasant indifference; still, no one could have been misled by it, for the long, steady gaze he gave the men and his cool presence that held the room quiet meant something vastly different. No reply was offered. Bud and Bill sat down, evidently to resume their card-playing. The uneasy silence broke to a laugh, then to subdued voices, and finally the clatter and hum began again. Dick led me outside, where we were soon joined by Jim.

“He’s holed up,” suggested Dick.

“Shore. I don’t take no stock in his hittin’ the trail. He’s layin’ low.”

“Let’s look around a bit, anyhow.”

Dick took me back to the cook’s cabin and, bidding me remain inside, strode away. I beard footsteps so soon after his departure that I made certain he had returned, but the burly form which blocked the light in the cabin door was not Dick’s. I was astounded to recognize Buell.

“Hello!” he said, in his blustering voice. “Heard you had reached camp, an’ have been huntin’ you up.”

I greeted him pleasantly enough — more from surprise than from a desire to mislead him. It seemed to me then that a child could have read Buell. He’d an air of suppressed excitement; there was a glow on his face and a kind of daring flash in his eyes. He seemed too eager, too glad to see me.

“I’ve got a good job for you,” he went on, glibly. “jest what you want, an’ you’re jest what I need. Come into my office an’ help me. There’ll be plenty of outside work — measurin’ lumber, markin’ trees, an’ such.”

“Why, Mr. Buell — I — you see, Dick — he might not—”

I hesitated, not knowing how to proceed. But at my halting speech Buell became even more smiling and voluble.

“Dick? Oh, Dick an’ I stand all right; take thet from me. Dick’ll agree to what I want. I need a young feller bad. Money’s no object. You’re a bright youngster. You’ll look out for my interests. Here!” He pulled out a large wad of greenbacks, and then spoke in a lower voice. “You understand that money cuts no ice ‘round this camp. We’ve a big deal. We need a smart young feller. There’s always some little irregularities about these big timber deals out West. But you’ll wear blinkers, an’ make some money while you’re studyin’ forestry. See?”

“Irregularities? What kind of irregularities?”

For the life of me I could not keep a little scorn out of my question. Buell slowly put the bills in his pocket while his eyes searched; I could not control my rising temper.

“You mean you want to fix me?”

He made no answer, and his face stiffened.

“You mean you want to buy my silence, shut my mouth about this lumber steal?”

He drew in his breath audibly, yet still he did not speak. Either he was dull of comprehension or else he was astonished beyond words. I knew I was mad to goad him like that, but I could not help it. I grew hot with anger, and the more clearly I realized that he had believed he could “fix” me with his dirty money the hotter I got.

“You told Stockton you were leary of Washington, and were afraid I’d queer your big deal. . . . Well, Mr. Buell, that’s exactly what I’m going to do — queer it!”

He went black in the face, and, cursing horribly, grasped me by the arm. I struggled, but I could not loose that iron hand. Suddenly I felt a violent wrench that freed me. Then I saw Dick swing back his shoulder and shoot out his arm. He knocked Buell clear across the room, and when the man fell I thought the cabin was coming down in the crash. He appeared stunned, for he groped about with his hands, found a chair, and, using it as a support, rose to his feet, swaying unsteadily.

“Leslie, I’ll get you for this — take it from me,” he muttered.

Dick’s lips were tight, and he watched Buell with flaming eyes. The lumberman lurched out of the door, and we heard him cursing after he had disappeared. Then Dick looked at me with no little disapproval.

“What did you say to make Buell wild like that?”

I told Dick, word for word. First he looked dumfounded, then angry, and he ended up with a grim laugh.

“Ken, you’re sure bent on starting something, as Jim would say. You’ve started it all right. And Jim’ll love you for it. But I’m responsible to your mother. Ken, I remember your mother — and you’re going back home.”

“Dick!”

“You’re going back home as fast as I can get you to Holston and put you on a train, that’s all.”

“I won’t go!” I cried.

Without any more words Dick led me down the street to a rude corral; here he rapidly saddled and packed his horses. The only time he spoke was when he asked me where I had tied my mustangs. Soon we were hurrying out through the slash toward the forest. Dick’s troubled face kept down my resentment, but my heart grew like lead. What an ending to my long-cherished trip to the West! It had lasted two days. The disappointment seemed more than I could bear.

We found the mustangs as I had left them, and the sight of Hal and the feeling of the saddle made me all the worse. We did not climb the foot-hill by the trail which the Mexican had used, but took a long, slow ascent far round to the left. Dick glanced back often, and when we reached the top he looked again in a way to convince me that he had some apprehensions of being followed.

Twilight of that eventful day found us pitching camp in a thickly timbered hollow. I could not help dwelling on how different my feelings would have been if this night were but the beginning of many nights with Dick. It was the last, and the more I thought about it the more wretched I grew. Dick rolled in his blanket without saying even good-night, and I lay there watching the veils and shadows of firelight flicker on the pines, and listening, to the wind. Gradually the bitterness seemed to go away; my body relaxed and sank into the soft, fragrant pine-needles; the great shadowy trees mixed with the surrounding darkness. When I awoke it was broad daylight, and Dick was shaking my arm.

“Hunt up the horses while I get the grub ready,” he said, curtly.

As the hollow was carpeted with thick grass our horses had not strayed. I noticed that here the larger trees had been cut, and the forest resembled a fine park. In the sunny patches seedlings were sprouting, many little bushy pines were growing, and the saplings had sufficient room and light to prosper. I commented to Dick upon the difference between this part of Penetier and the hideous slash we had left.

“There were a couple of Government markers went through here and marked the timber to be cut,” said Dick.

“Was the timber cut in the mill I saw?”

“No. Buell’s just run up that mill. The old one is out here a ways, nearer Holston.”

“Is it possible, Dick, that any of those loggers back there don’t know the Government is being defrauded?”

“Ken, hardly any of them know it, and they wouldn’t care if they did. You see, this forest-preserve business is new out here. Formerly the lumbermen bought so much land and cut over it — skinned it. Two years ago, when the National Forests were laid out, the lumbering men — that is, the loggers, sawmill hands, and so on — found they did not get as much employment as formerly. So generally they’re sore on the National Forest idea.”

“But, Dick, if they understand the idea of forestry they’d never oppose it.”

“Maybe. I don’t understand it too well myself. I can fight fire — that’s my business; but this ranger work is new. I doubt if the Westerners will take to forestry. There’ve been some shady deals all over the West because of it. Buell, now, he’s a timber shark. He bought so much timber from the Government, and had the markers come in to mark the cut; then after they were gone, he rushed up a mill and clapped on a thousand hands.”

“And the rangers stand for it? Where’ll their jobs be when the Government finds out?”

“I was against it from the start. So was Jim, particularly. But the other rangers persuaded us.”

It began to dawn upon me that Dick Leslie might, after all, turn out to be good soil in which to plant some seeds of forestry. I said no more then, as we were busy packing for the start, but when we had mounted I began to talk. I told him all I had learned about trees, how I loved them, and how I had determined to devote my life to their study, care, and development. As we rode along under the wide-spreading pines I illustrated my remarks by every example I could possibly use. The more I talked the more interested Dick became, and this spurred me on. Perhaps I exaggerated, but my conscience never pricked me. He began to ask questions.

We reached a spring at midday, and halted for a rest. I kept on pleading, and presently I discovered, to my joy, that I had made a strong impression upon Dick. It seemed a strange thing for me to be trying to explain forestry to a forest ranger, but so it was.

“Ken, it’s all news to me. I’ve been on Penetier about a year, and I never heard a word of what you’ve been telling me. My duties have been the practical ones that any woodsman knows. Jim and the other rangers — why, they don’t know any more than I. It’s a great thing, and I’ve queered my chance with the Government.”

“No, you haven’t — neither has Jim — not if you’ll be straight from now on. You can’t keep faith with Buell. He tried to kidnap me. That lets you out. We’ll spoil Buell’s little deal and save Penetier. A letter to father will do it. He has friends in the Forestry Department at Washington. Dick, what do you say? It’s not too late!”

The dark shade lifted from the ranger’s face, and he looked at me with the smile of the old fishing days.

“Say? I say yes!” he exclaimed, in ringing voice, “Ken, you’ve made a man of me!”

VII. BACK TO HOLSTON

SOON WE WERE out of the forest, and riding across the sage-flat with Holston in sight. Both of us avoided the unpleasant subject of my enforced home-going. Evidently Dick felt cut up about it, and it caused me such a pang that I drove it from my mind. Toward the end of our ride Dick began again to talk of forestry.

“Ken, it’s mighty interesting — all this you’ve said about trees. Some of the things are so simple that I wonder I didn’t hit on them long ago; in fact, I knew a lot of what you might call forestry, but the scientific ideas — they stump me. Now, what you said about a pine-tree cleaning itself — come back at me with that.”

“Why, that’s simple enough, Dick,” I answered. “Now, say here we have a clump of pine saplings. They stand pretty close — close enough to make dense shade, but not too crowded. The shade has prevented the lower branches from producing leaves. As a consequence these branches die. Then they dry, rot, and fall off, so when the trees mature they are clean-shafted. They have fine, clear trunks. They have cleaned themselves, and so make the best of lumber, free from knots.”

So our talk went on. Once in town I was impatient to write to my father, for we had decided that we would not telegraph. Leaving our horses in Cless’s corral, we went to the hotel and proceeded to compose the letter. This turned out more of a task than we had bargained for. But we got it finished at last, not forgetting to put in a word for Jim Williams, and then we both signed it.

“There!” I cried. “Dick, something will be doing round Holston before many days.”

“That’s no joke, you can bet,” replied Dick, wiping his face. “Ken, it’s made me sweat just to see that letter start East. Buell is a tough sort, and he’ll make trouble. Well, he wants to steer clear of Jim and me.”

After that we fell silent, and walked slowly back toward Cless’s corral. Dick’s lips were closed tight, and he did not look at me. Evidently he did not intend to actually put me aboard a train, and the time for parting had come. He watered his horses at the trough, and fussed over his pack and fumbled with his saddle-girths. It looked to me as though he had not the courage to say goodby.

“Ken, it didn’t look so bad — so mean till now,” he said. “I’m all broken up. . . . To get you way out here! Oh! what’s the use? I’m mighty sorry. . . . Good-bye — maybe-”

He broke off suddenly, and, wringing my hand, he vaulted into the saddle. He growled at his pack-pony, and drove him out of the corral. Then he set off at a steady trot down the street toward the open country.

It came to me in a flash, as I saw him riding farther and farther away, that the reason my heart was not broken was because I did not intend to go home. Dick had taken it for granted that I would board the next train for the East. But I was not going to do anything of the sort. To my amaze I found my mind made up on that score. I had no definite plan, but I was determined to endure almost anything rather than give up my mustang and outfit.

“It’s shift for myself now,” I thought, soberly. “I guess I can make good. . . . I’m going back to Penetier.”

Even in the moment of impulse I knew how foolish this would be. But I could not help it. That forest had bewitched me. I meant to go back to it.

“I’ll stay away from the sawmill,” I meditated, growing lighter of heart every minute. “I’ll keep out of sight of the lumbermen. I’ll go higher up on the mountain, and hunt, and study the trees. . . . I’ll do it.”

Whereupon I marched off at once to a store and bought the supply of provisions that Buell had decided against when he helped me with my outfit. This addition made packing the pony more of a problem than ever, but I contrived to get it all on to my satisfaction. It was nearing sunset when I rode out of Holston this second time. The sage flat was bare and gray. Dick had long since reached the pines, and would probably make camp at the spring where we had stopped for lunch. I certainly did not want to catch up with him, but as there was small chance of that; it caused me no concern.

Shortly after sunset twilight fell, and it was night when I reached the first pine-trees. Still, as the trail was easily to be seen, I kept on, for I did not want to camp without water. The forest was very dark, in some places like a huge black tent, and I had not ridden far when the old fear of night, the fancy of things out there in the darkness, once more possessed me. It made me angry. Why could I not have the same confidence that I had in the daytime? It was impossible. The forest was full of moving shadows. When the wind came up to roar in the pine-tips it was a relief because it broke the silence.

I began to doubt whether I could be sure of locating the spring, and I finally decided to make camp at once. I stopped Hal, and had swung my leg over the pommel when I saw a faint glimmer of light far ahead. It twinkled like a star, but was not white and cold enough for a star.

“That’s Dick’s campfire,” I said. “I’ll have to stop here. Maybe I’m too close now.”

I pondered the question. The blaze was a long way off, and I concluded I could risk camping on the spot, provided I did not make a fire. Accordingly I dismounted, and was searching for a suitable place when I happened to think that the campfire might not be Dick’s, after all. Perhaps Buell had sent the Mexican with Bud and Bill on my trail again. This would not do. But I did not want to go back or turn off the trail.

“I’ll slip up and see who it is,” I decided.

The idea pleased me; however, I did not yield to it without further consideration. I had a clear sense of responsibility. I knew that from now on I should be called upon to reason out many perplexing things. I did not want to make any mistakes. So I tied Hal and the pack-pony to a bush fringing the trail, and set off through the forest.

It dawned upon me presently that the campfire was much farther away than it appeared. Often it went out of sight behind trees. By degrees it grew larger and larger. Then I slowed down and approached more cautiously. Once when the trees obscured it I traveled some distance without getting a good view of it. Passing down into a little hollow I lost it again. When I climbed out I hauled up short with a sharp catch of my breath. There were several figures moving around the campfire. I had stumbled on a camp that surely was not Dick Leslie’s.

The ground was as soft as velvet, and my footsteps gave forth no sound. When the wind lulled I paused behind a tree and waited for another gusty roar. I kept very close to the trail, for that was the only means by which I could return to my horses. I felt the skin tighten on my face. Suddenly, as I paused, I beard angry voices, pitched high. But I could not make out the words.

Curiosity got the better of me. If the men were hired by Buell I wanted to know what they were quarrelling about. I stole stealthily from tree to tree, and another hollow opened beneath me. It was so wide and the pines so overshadowed it that I could not tell how close the opposite side might be to the campfire. I slipped down along the edge of the trail. The blaze disappeared. Only a faint arc of light showed through the gloom.

I peered keenly into the blackness. At length I reached the slope. Here I dropped to my hands and knees.

It was a long crawl to the top. Reaching it, I cautiously peeped over. There were trees hiding the fire. But it was close. I heard the voices of men. I backed down the slope, crossed the trail, and came up on the other side. Pines grew thick on this level, and I stole silently from one to another. Finally I reached the black trunk of a tree close to the campfire.

For a moment I lay low. I did not seem exactly afraid, but I was all tense and hard, and my heart drummed in my ears. There was something ticklish about this scouting. Then I peeped out.

It added little to my excitement to recognize the Mexican. He sat near the fire smoking a cigarette. Near him were several men, one of whom was Bill. Facing them sat a man with his back to a small sapling. He was tied with a lasso.

One glance at his white face made me drop behind the tree, where I lay stunned and bewildered — for that man was Dick Leslie.

VIII. THE LUMBERMEN

FOR A FULL moment I just lay still, hugging the ground, and I did not seem to think at all. Voices loud in anger roused me. Raising myself, I guardedly looked from behind the tree.

One of the lumbermen threw brush on the fire, making it blaze brightly. He was tall and had a red beard. I recognized Stockton, Buell’s right hand in the lumber deal.

“Leslie, you’re a liar!” he said.

Dick’s eyes glinted from his pale face.

“Yes, that’s your speed, Stockton,” he retorted. “You bring your thugs into my camp pretending to be friendly. You grab a fellow behind his back, tie him up, and then call him a liar. Wait, you timber shark!”

“You’re lying about that kid, Ward,” declared the other. “You sent him back East, that’s what. He’ll have the whole forest service down here. Buell will be wild. Oh, he won’t do a thing when he learns Ward has given us the slip!”

“I tell you, Ken Ward gave me the slip,” replied Dick. “I’ll admit I meant to see him safe in Holston. But he wouldn’t go. He ran off from me right here in this forest.”

What could have been Dick’s object in telling such a lie? It made me wonder. Perhaps these lumbermen were more dangerous than I had supposed, and Dick did not wish them to believe I had left Penetier. Maybe he was playing for time, and did not want them to get alarmed and escape before the officers came.

“Why did he run off?” asked Stockton.

“Because I meant to send him home, and he didn’t want to go. He’s crazy to camp out, to hunt and ride.”

“If that’s true, Leslie, there’s been no word sent to Washington.”

“How could there be?”

“Well, I’ve got to hold you anyway till we see Buell. His orders were to keep you and Ward prisoners till this lumber deal is pulled off. We’re not going to be stopped now.”

Leslie turned crimson, and strained on the lasso that bound him to the sapling. “Somebody is going to pay for this business!” he declared, savagely. “You forget I’m an officer in this forest.”

“I’ll hold you, Leslie, whatever comes of it,” answered the lumberman. “I’d advise you to cool down.”

“You and Buell have barked up the wrong tree, mind that, Stockton. Jim Williams, my pardner, is wise. He expects me back tomorrow.”

“See hyar, Stockton,” put in Bill, “you’re new in Arizona, an’ I want to give you a hunch. If Jim Williams hits this trail, you ain’t goin’ to be well enough to care about any old lumber steal.”

“Jim hit the trail all right,” went on Dick. “He’s after Greaser. It’d go hard with you if Jim happened to walk in now.”

“I don’t want to buck against Williams, that’s certain,” replied Stockton. “I know his record. But I’ll take a chance — anyway, till Buell knows. It’s his game.”

Dick made no answer, and sat there eyeing his captors. There was little talk after this. Bud threw a log on the fire. Stockton told the Mexican to take a look at the horses. Greaser walked within twenty feet of where I lay, and I held my breath while be passed. The others rolled in their blankets. It was now so dark that I could not distinguish anything outside of the campfire circle. But I heard Greaser’s soft, shuffling footsteps as he returned. Then his dark, slim figure made a shadow between me and the light. He sat down before the fire and began to roll a cigarette. He did not seem sleepy.

A daring scheme flashed into my mind. I would crawl into camp and free Dick. Not only would I outwit the lumber thieves, but also make Dick think well of me. What would Jim Williams say of a trick like that? The thought of the Texan banished what little hesitation I felt. Glancing round the bright circle, I made my plan; it was to crawl far back into the darkness, go around to the other side of the camp, and then slip up behind Dick. Already his head was nodding on his breast. It made me furious to see him sitting so uncomfortably, sagging in the lasso.

I tried to beat down my excitement, but there was a tingling all over me that would not subside. But I soon saw that I might have a long wait. The Mexican did not go to sleep, so I had time to cool off.

The campfire gradually burned out, and the white glow changed to red. One of the men snored in a way that sounded like a wheezy whistle. Coyotes howled in the woods, and the longer I listened to the long, strange howls the better I liked them. The roar in the wind had died down to a moaning. I thought of myself lying there, with my skin prickling and my eyes sharp on the darkening forms. I thought of the nights I had spent with Hal in the old woods at home. How full the present seemed! My breast swelled, my hand gripped my revolver, my eyes pierced the darkness, and I would not have been anywhere else for the world.

Greaser smoked out his cigarette, and began to nod. That was the signal for me. I crawled noiselessly from the tree. When I found myself going down into the hollow, I stopped and rose to my feet. The forest was so pitchy black that I could not tell the trees from the darkness. I groped to the left, trying to circle. Once I snapped a twig; it cracked like a pistol-shot, and my heart stopped beating, then began to thump. But Greaser never stirred as he sat in the waning light. At last I had half circled the camp.

After a short rest I started forward, slow and stealthy as a creeping cat. When within fifty feet of the fire I went down on all-fours and began to crawl. Twice I got out of line. But at last Dick’s burly shoulders loomed up between me and the light.

Then I halted. My breast seemed bursting, and I panted so hard that I was in a terror lest I should awaken some one. Again I thought of what I was doing, and fought desperately to gain my coolness,

Now the only cover I had was Dick’s broad back, for the sapling to which he was tied was small. I drew my hunting-knife. One more wriggle brought me close to Dick, with my face near his hands, which were bound behind him. I slipped the blade under the lasso, and cut it through.

Dick started as if he had received an electric shock. He threw back his head and uttered a sudden exclamation.

Although I was almost paralyzed with fright I put my hand on his shoulder and whispered: “S-s-s-h! It’s Ken!”

Greaser uttered a shrill cry. Dick leaped to his feet. Then I grew dizzy, and my sight blurred. I heard hoarse shouts and saw dark forms rising as if out of the earth. All was confusion. I wanted to run, but could not get up. There was a wrestling, whirling mass in front of me.

But this dimness of sight and weakness of body did not last. I saw two men on the ground, with Dick standing over them. Stockton was closing in. Greaser ran around them with something in his hand that glittered in the firelight. Stockton dived for Dick’s legs and upset him. They went down together, and the Mexican leaped on them, waving the bright thing high over his head.

I bounded forward, and, grasping his wrist with both hands, I wrenched his arm with all my might. Some one struck me over the head. I saw a million darting points of light — then all went black.

When I opened my eyes the sun was shining. I had a queer, numb feeling all over, and my head hurt terribly. Everything about me was hazy. I did not know where I was. After a little I struggled to sit up, and with great difficulty managed it. My hands were tied. Then it all came back to me. Stockton stood before me holding a tin cup of water toward my lips. My throat was parched, and I drank. Stockton had a great bruise on his forehead; his nostrils were crusted with blood, and his shirt was half torn off.

“You’re all right?” he said.

“Sure,” I replied, which was not true.

I imagined that a look of relief came over his face. Next I saw Bill nursing his eye, and bathing it with a wet handkerchief. It was swollen shut, puffed out to the size of a goose-egg, and blue as indigo. Dick had certainly landed hard on Bill. Then I turned round to see Dick sitting against the little sapling, bound fast with a lasso. His clean face did not look as if he had been in a fight; he was smiling, yet there was anxiety in his eyes.

“Ken, now you’ve played hob,” he said. It was a reproach, but his look made me proud.

“Oh, Dick, if you hadn’t called out!” I exclaimed.

“Darned if you’re not right! But it was a slick job, and you’ll tickle Jim to death. I was an old woman. But that cold knife-blade made me jump.”

I glanced round the camp for the Mexican and Bud and the fifth man, but they were gone. Bill varied his occupation of the moment by kneading biscuit dough in a basin. Then there came such a severe pain in my head that I went blind for a little while. “What’s the matter with my head? Who hit me?” I cried.

“Bud slugged you with the butt of his pistol,” said Dick. “And, Ken, I think you saved me from being knifed by the Greaser. You twisted his arm half off. He cursed all night. . . . Ha! there he comes now with your outfit.”

Sure enough, the Mexican appeared on the trail, leading my horses. I was so glad to see Hal that I forgot I was a prisoner. But Greaser’s sullen face and glittering eyes reminded me of it quickly enough. I read treachery in his glance.

Bud rode into camp from the other direction, and he brought a bunch of horses, two of which I recognized as Dick’s. The lumbermen set about getting breakfast, and Stockton helped me to what little I could eat and drink. Now that I was caught he did not appear at all mean or harsh. I did not shrink from him, and had the feeling that he meant well by me.

The horses were saddled and bridled, and Dick and I, still tied, were bundled astride our mounts. The pack-ponies led the way, with Bill following; I came next, Greaser rode behind me, and Dick was between Bud and Stockton. So we traveled, and no time was wasted. I noticed that the men kept a sharp lookout both to the fore and the rear. We branched off the main trail and took a steeper one leading up the slope. We rode for hours. There were moments when I reeled in my saddle, but for the greater while I stood my pain and weariness well enough. Some time in the afternoon a shrill whistle ahead attracted my attention. I made out two horsemen waiting on the trail.

“Huh! about time!” growled Bill. “Hyar’s Buell an’ Herky-Jerky.”

As we approached I saw Buell, and the fellow with the queer name turned out to be no other than the absent man I had been wondering about. He had been dispatched to fetch the lumberman.

Buell was superbly mounted on a sleek bay, and he looked very much the same jovial fellow I had met on the train. He grinned at the disfigured men.

“Take it from me, you fellers wouldn’t look any worse bunged up if you’d been jolted by the sawlogs in my mill.”

“We can’t stand here to crack jokes,” said Stockton, sharply. “Some ranger might see us. Now what?”

“You ketched the kid in time. That’s all I wanted. Take him an’ Leslie up in one of the canyons an’ keep them there till further orders. You needn’t stay, Stockton, after you get them in a safe place. An’ you can send up grub.”

Then he turned to me.

“You’ll not be hurt if—”

“Don’t you speak to me!” I burst out. It was on my lips to tell him of the letter to Washington, but somehow I kept silent.

“Leslie,” went on Buell, “I’ll overlook your hittin’ me an’ let you go if you’ll give me your word to keep mum about this.”

Dick did not speak, but looked at the lumberman with a dark gleam in his eyes.

“There’s one thing, Buell,” said Stockton. “Jim Williams is wise. You’ve got to look out for him.”

Buell’s ruddy face blanched. Then, without another word, he waved his hand toward the slope, and, wheeling his horse, galloped down the trail.

IX. TAKEN INTO THE MOUNTAINS

WE CLIMBED TO another level bench where we branched off the trail. The forest still kept its open, park-like character. Under the great pines the ground was bare and brown with a thick covering of pine-needles, but in the glades were green grass and blue flowers.

Once across this level we encountered a steeper ascent than any I had yet climbed. Here the character of the forest began to change. There were other trees than pines, and particularly one kind, cone-shaped, symmetrical, and bright, which Dick called a silver spruce. I was glad it belonged to the conifers, or pine-tree family, because it was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen. We climbed ridges and threaded through aspen thickets in hollows till near sunset. Then Stockton ordered a halt for camp.

It came none too soon for me, and I was so exhausted that I had to be helped off my mustang. Stockton arranged my blankets, fed me, and bathed the bruise on my head, but I was too weary and sick to be grateful or to care about anything except sleep. Even the fact that my hands were uncomfortably bound did not keep me awake.

When some one called me next morning my eyes did not want to stay open. I had a lazy feeling and a dull ache in my bones, but the pain had gone from my head. That made everything else seem all right.

Soon we were climbing again, and my interest in my surroundings grew as we went up. For a while we brushed through thickets of scrub oak. The whole slope of the mountain was ridged and hollowed, so that we were always going down and climbing up. The pines and spruces grew smaller, and were more rugged and gnarled.

“Hyar’s the canyon!” sang out Bill, presently.

We came out on the edge of a deep hollow. It was half a mile wide. I looked down a long incline of sharp tree-tips. The roar of water rose from below, and in places a white rushing torrent showed. Above loomed the snow-clad peak, glistening in the morning sun. How wonderfully far off and high it still was!

To my regret it was shut off from my sight as we descended into the canyon. However, I soon forgot that. I saw a troop of coyotes, and many black and white squirrels. From time to time huge birds, almost as big as turkeys, crashed out of the thickets and whirred away. They flew swift as pheasants, and I asked Dick what they were.

“Blue grouse,” he replied. “Look sharp now, Ken, there are deer ahead of us. See the tracks?”

Looking down I saw little, sharp-pointed, oval tracks. Presently two foxes crossed an open patch not fifty yards from us, but I did not get a glimpse of the deer. Soon we reached the bottom of the canyon, and struck into another trail. The air was full of the low roar of tumbling water. This mountain-torrent was about twenty feet wide, but its swiftness and foam made it impossible to tell its depth. The trail led up-stream, and turned so constantly that half the time Bill, the leader, was not in sight. Once the sharp crack of his rifle halted the train. I heard crashings in the thicket. Dick yelled for me to look up the slope, and there I saw three gray deer with white tails raised. I heard a strange, whistling sound.

On going forward we found that Bill had killed a deer and was roping it on his pack-horse. As we proceeded up the canyon it grew narrower, and soon we entered a veritable gorge. It was short, but the floor was exceedingly rough, and made hard going for the horses. Suddenly I was amazed to see the gorge open out into a kind of amphitheatre several hundred feet across. The walls were steep, and one side shelved out, making a long, shallow cave, In the center of this amphitheatre was a deep hole from which the mountain stream boiled and bubbled.

“Hyar we are,” said Bill, and swung out of his saddle. The other men followed suit, and helped Dick and me down. Stockton untied our hands, saying he reckoned we would be more comfortable that way. Indeed we were. My wrists were swollen and blistered. Stockton detailed the Mexican to keep guard over us.

“Ken, I’ve heard of this place,” said Dick. “How’s that for a spring? Twenty yards wide, and no telling how deep! This is snow-water straight from the peaks. We’re not a thousand feet below the snow-line.”

“I can tell that. Look at those Jwari pines,” I replied, pointing up over the wall. A rugged slope rose above our camp-site, and it was covered with a tangled mass of stunted pines. Many of them were twisted and misshapen; some were half dead and bleached white at the tops. “It’s my first sight of such trees,” I went on, “but I’ve studied about them. Up here it’s not lack of moisture that stunts and retards their growth. It’s fighting the elements — cold, storm-winds, snowslides. I suppose not one in a thousand seedlings takes root and survives. But the forest fights hard to live.”

“Well, Ken, we may as well sit back now and talk forestry till Buell skins all he wants of Penetier,” said Dick. “It’s really a fine camping-spot. Plenty of deer up here and bear, too.”

“Dick, couldn’t we escape?” I whispered.

“We’re not likely to have a chance. But I say, Ken, how did you happen to turn up? I thought you were going to hop on the first train for home.”

“Dick, you had another think coming. I couldn’t go home. I’ll have a great time yet — I’m having it now.”

“Yes, that lump on your head looks like it,” replied Dick, with a laugh. “If Bud hadn’t put you out we’d have come closer to licking this bunch. Ken, keep your eye on Greaser. He’s treacherous. His arm’s lame yet.”

“We’ve had two run-ins already,” I said. “The third time is the worst, they say. I hope it won’t come. . . . But, Dick, I’m as big — I’m bigger than he is.”

“Hear the kid talk! I certainly ought to have put you on that train—”

“What train?” asked Stockton, sharply, from our rear. He took us in with suspicious eyes.

“I was telling Ken I ought to have put him on a train for home,” answered Dick.

Stockton let the remark pass without further comment; still, he appeared to be doing some hard thinking. He put Dick at one end of the long cave, me at the other. Our bedding was unpacked and placed at our disposal. We made our beds. After that I kept my eyes open and did not miss anything.

“Leslie, I’m going to treat you and Ward white,” said Stockton. “You’ll have good grub. Herky-Jerky’s the best cook this side of Holston, and you’ll be left untied in the daytime. But if either of you attempts to get away it means a leg shot off. Do you get that?”

“All right, Stockton; that’s pretty square of you, considering,” replied Dick. “You’re a decent sort of chap to be mixed up with a thief like Buell. I’m sorry.”

Stockton turned away at this rather abruptly. Then Bill appeared on the wall above, and began to throw down firewood. Bud returned from the canyon, where he had driven the horses. Greaser sat on a stone puffing a cigarette. It was the first time I had taken a good look at him. He was smaller than I had fancied; his feet and hands and features resembled those of a woman, but his eyes were live coals of black fire. In the daylight I was not in the least afraid of him.

Herky-Jerky was the most interesting one of our captors. He had a short, stocky figure, and was the most bow-legged man I ever saw. Never on earth could he have stopped a pig in a lane. A stubby beard covered the lower half of his brick-red face. The most striking thing about Herky-Jerky, however, was his perpetual grin. He looked very jolly, yet every time he opened his mouth it was to utter bad language. He cursed the fire, the pans, the coffee, the biscuits, all of which he handled most skillfully. It was disgusting, and yet aside from this I rather liked him.

It grew dark very quickly while we were eating, and the wind that dipped down into the gorge was cold. I kept edging closer and closer to the blazing campfire. I had never tasted venison before, and rather disliked it at first. But I soon cultivated a liking for it.

That night Stockton tied me securely, but in a way which made it easy for me to turn. I slept soundly and awoke late. When I sat up Stockton stood by his saddled horse, and was giving orders to the men. He spoke sharply. He made it clear that they were not to be lax in their vigilance. Then, without a word to Dick or me, he rode down the gorge and disappeared behind a corner of yellow wall.

Bill untied the rope that held Dick’s arms, but left his feet bound. I was freed entirely, and it felt so good to have the use of all my limbs once more that I pranced round in a rather lively way. Either my antics annoyed Herky-Jerky or he thought it a good opportunity to show his skill with a lasso, for he shot the loop over me so hard that it stung my back.

“I’m all there as a roper!” he said, pulling the lasso tight round my middle. The men all laughed as I tumbled over in the gravel.

“Better keep a half-hitch on the colt,” remarked Bud.

So they left the lasso fast about my waist, and it trailed after me as I walked. Herky-Jerky put me to carrying Dick’s breakfast from the campfire up into the cave. This I did with alacrity. Dick and I exchanged commonplace remarks aloud, but we had several little whispers.

“Ken, we may get the drop on them or give them the slip yet,” whispered Dick, in one of these interludes.

This put ideas into my head. There might be a chance for me to escape, if not for Dick. I made up my mind to try if a good chance offered, but I did not want to go alone down that canyon without a gun. Stockton had taken my revolver and hunting-knife, but I still had the little leather case which Hal and I had used so often back on the Susquehanna. Besides a pen-knife this case contained salt and pepper, fishing hooks and lines, matches — a host of little things that a boy who had never been lost might imagine he would need in an emergency. While thinking and planning I sat on the edge of the great hole where the spring was. Suddenly I saw a swirl in the water, and then a splendid spotted fish. It broke water twice. It was two feet long.

“Dick, there’s fish in this hole!” I yelled, eagerly.

“Shouldn’t wonder,” replied he. “Sure, kid, thet hole’s full of trout — speckled trout,” said Herky-Jerky. “But they can’t be ketched.”

“Why not?” I demanded. I had not caught little trout in the Pennsylvania hills for nothing. “They eat, don’t they? That fish I saw was a whale, and he broke water for a bug. Get me a pole and some bugs or worms!”

When I took out my little case and showed the fishing-line, Herky-Jerky said he would find me some bait.

While he was absent I studied that spring with new and awakened eyes. It was round and very deep, and the water bulged up in great greenish swirls. The outlet was a narrow little cleft through which the water flowed slowly, as though it did not want to take its freedom. The rush and roar came from the gorge below.

Herky-Jerky returned with a long, slender pole. It was as pliant as a buggy-whip, and once trimmed and rigged it was far from being a poor tackle. Herky-Jerky watched me with extreme attention, all the time grinning. Then he held out a handful of grubs.

“If you ketch a trout on thet I’ll swaller the pole!” he exclaimed.

I stooped low and approached the spring, being careful to keep out of sight.

“You forgot to spit on yer bait, kid,” said Bill.

They all laughed in a way to rouse my ire. But despite it I flipped the bait into the water with the same old thrilling expectancy.

The bait dropped with a little spat. An arrowy shadow, black and gold, flashed up. Splash! The line hissed. Then I jerked hard. The pole bent double, wobbled, and swayed this way and that. The fish was a powerful one; his rushes were like those of a heavy bass. But never had a bass given me such a struggle. Every instant I made sure the tackle would be wrecked. Then, just at the breaking-point, the fish would turn. At last he began to tire. I felt that he was rising to the surface, and I put on more strain. Soon I saw him; then he turned, flashing like a gold bar. I led my captive to the outlet of the spring, where I reached down and got my fingers in his gills. With that I lifted him. Dick whooped when I held up the fish; as for me, I was speechless. The trout was almost two feet long, broad and heavy, with shiny sides flecked with color.

Herky-Jerky celebrated my luck with a generous outburst of enthusiasm, whereupon his comrades reminded him of his offer to swallow my fishing pole.

I put on a fresh bait and instantly hooked another fish, a smaller one, which was not so bard to land. The spring hole was full of trout. They made the water boil when I cast. Several large ones tore the hook loose; I had never dreamed of such fishing. Really it was a strange situation. Here I was a prisoner, with Greaser or Bud taking turns at holding the other end of the lasso. More than once they tethered me up short for no other reason than to torment me. Yet never in my life had I so enjoyed fishing.

By-and-by Bill and Herky-Jerky left the camp. I heard Herky tell Greaser to keep his eye on the stew-pots, and it occurred to me that Greaser had better keep his eye on Ken Ward. When I saw Bud lie down I remembered what Dick had whispered. I pretended to be absorbed in my fishing, but really I was watching Greaser. As usual, he was smoking, and appeared listless, but he still held on to the lasso.

Suddenly I saw a big blue revolver lying on a stone and I could even catch the glint of brass shells in the cylinder. It was not close to Bud nor so very close to Greaser. If he should drop the lasso! A wild idea possessed me — held me in its grip. just then the stew-pot boiled over. There was a sputter and a cloud of steam, Greaser lazily swore in Mexican; he got up to move the stew-pot and dropped the lasso.

When he reached the fire I bounded up, jerking the lasso far behind me. I ran and grabbed the revolver. Greaser heard me and wheeled with a yell. Bud sat up quickly. I pointed the revolver at him, then at Greaser, and kept moving it from one side to the other.

“Don’t move! I’ll shoot!” I cried.

“Good boy!” yelled Dick. “You’ve got the drop. Keep it, Ken, keep it! Don’t lose your nerve. Edge round here and cut me loose. . . . Bud, if you move I’ll make him shoot. Come on, Ken.”

“Greaser, cut him loose!” I commanded the snarling Mexican.

I trembled so that the revolver wabbled in my hand. Trying to hold it steadied, I squeezed it hard. Bang! It went off with a bellow like a cannon. The bullet scattered the gravel near Greaser. His yellow face turned a dirty white. He jumped straight up in his fright.

“Cut him loose!” I ordered.

Greaser ran toward Dick.

“Look out, Ken! Behind you! Quick!” yelled Dick.

I beard a crunching of gravel. Even as I wheeled I felt a tremendous pull on the lasso and I seemed to be sailing in the air. I got a blurred glimpse of Herky-Jerky leaning back on the taut lasso. Then I plunged down, slid over the rocks, and went souse into the spring.

X. ESCAPE

DOWN, DOWN I plunged, and the shock of the icy water seemed to petrify me. I should have gone straight to the bottom like a piece of lead but for the lasso. It tightened around my chest, and began to haul me up.

I felt the air and the light, and opened my eyes to see Herky-Jerky hauling away on the rope. When he caught sight of me he looked as if ready to dodge behind the bank.

“Whar’s my gun?” he yelled.

I had dropped it in the spring. He let the lasso sag, and I had to swim. Then, seeing that my hands were empty, he began to swear and to drag me round and round in the pool. When he had pulled me across he ran to the other side and jerked me back. I was drawn through the water with a force that I feared would tear me apart. Greaser chattered like a hideous monkey, and ran to and fro in glee. Herky-Jerky soon had me sputtering, gasping, choking. When he finally pulled me out of the hole I was all but drowned.

“You bow-legged beggar!” shouted Dick, “I’ll fix you for that.”

“Whar’s my gun?” yelled Herky, as I fell to the ground.

“I lost — it,” I panted.

He began to rave. Then I half swooned, and when sight and hearing fully returned I was lying in the cave on my blankets. A great lassitude weighted me down. The terrible thrashing about in the icy water had quenched my spirit. For a while I was too played out to move, and lay there in my wet clothes. Finally I asked leave to take them off. Bud, who had come back in the meantime, helped me, or I should never have got out of them. Herky brought up my coat, which, fortunately, I had taken off before the ducking. I did not have the heart to speak to Dick or look at him, so I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

It was another day when I awoke. I felt all right except for a soreness under my arms and across my chest where the lasso had chafed and bruised me. Still I did not recover my good spirits. Herky-Jerky kept on grinning and cracking jokes on my failure to escape. He had appropriated my revolver for himself, and he asked me several times if I wanted to borrow it to shoot Greaser.

That day passed quietly, and so did the two that followed. The men would not let me fish nor move about. They had been expecting Stockton, and as he did not come it was decided to send Bud down to the mill; in fact, Bud decided the matter himself. He warned Greaser and Herky to keep close watch over Dick and me. Then he rode away. Dick and I resumed our talk about forestry, and as we were separated by the length of the cave it was necessary to speak loud. So our captors heard every word we said.

“Ken, what’s the difference between Government forestry out here and, say, forestry practiced by a farmer back in Pennsylvania?” asked Dick.

“There’s a big difference, I imagine. Forestry is established in some parts of the East; it’s only an experiment out here.”

Then I went on to tell him about the method of the farmer. He usually had a small piece of forest, mostly hard wood. When the snow was on he cut firewood, fence-rails, and lumber for his own use in building. Some seasons lumber brought high prices; then he would select matured logs and haul them to the sawmill. But he would not cut a great deal, and he would use care in the selection. It was his aim to keep the land well covered with forest. He would sow as well as harvest.

“Now the Government policy is to preserve the National Forests for the use of the people. The soil must be kept productive. Agriculture would be impossible without water, and the forests hold water. The West wants people to come to stay. The lumberman who slashes off the timber may get rich himself, but he ruins the land.”

“What’s that new law Congress is trying to pass?” queried Dick.

I was puzzled, but presently I caught his meaning. Bill and Herky-Jerky were hanging on our words with unconcealed attention. Even the Mexican was listening. Dick’s cue was to scare them, or at least to have some fun at their expense.

“They’ve passed it,” I replied. “Fellows like Buell will go to the penitentiary for life. His men’ll get twenty years on bread and water. No whiskey! Serves ’em right.”

“What’ll the President do when he learns these men kidnapped you?”

“Do? He’ll have the whole forest service out here and the National Guard. He’s a friend of my father’s. Why, these kidnappers will be hanged!”

“I wish the Guard would come quick. Too bad you couldn’t have sent word! I’d enjoy seeing Greaser swing. Say, he hasn’t a ghost of a chance, with the President and Jim Williams after him.”

“Dick, I want the rings in Greaser’s ears.”

“What for? They’re only brass.”

“Souvenirs. Maybe I’ll have watch-charms made of them. Anyway, I can show them to my friends back East.”

“It’ll be great — what you’ll have to tell,” went on Dick. “It’ll be funny, too.”

Greaser had begun to snarl viciously, and Herky and Bill looked glum and thoughtful. The arrival of Bud interrupted the conversation and put an end to our playful mood. We heard a little of what he told his comrades, and gathered that Jim Williams had met Stockton and had asked questions hard to answer. Dick flashed me a significant look, which was as much as to say that Jim was growing suspicious. Bud had brought a store of whiskey, and his companions now kept closer company with him than ever before. But from appearances they did not get all they wanted.

“We’ve got to move this here camp,” said Bud.

Bud and Bill and Herky walked off down the gorge. Perhaps they really went to find another place for the camp, for the present spot was certainly a kind of trap. But from the looks of Greaser I guessed that they were leaving him to keep guard while they went off to drink by themselves. Greaser muttered and snarled. As the moments passed his face grew sullen.

All at once he came toward me. He bound my hands and my feet. Dick was already securely tied, but Greaser put another lasso on him. Then he slouched down the gorge. His high-peaked Mexican sombrero bobbed above the rocks, then disappeared.

“Ken, now’s the chance,” said Dick, low and quick. “If you can only work loose! There’s your rifle and mine, too. We could hold this fort for a month.”

“What can I do?” I asked, straining on my ropes.

“You’re not fast to the rock, as I am. Rollover here and untie me with your teeth.”

I raised my head to get the direction, and then, with a violent twist of my body, I started toward him; but being bound fast I could not guide myself, and I rolled off the ledge. The bank there was pretty steep, and, unable to stop, I kept on like a barrel going down-bill. The thought of rolling into the spring filled me with horror. Suddenly I bumped hard into something that checked me. It was a log of firewood, and in one end stuck the big knife which Herky-Jerky used to cut meat.

Instantly I conceived the idea of cutting my bonds with this knife. But how was I to set about it?

“Dick, here’s a knife. How’ll I get to it so as to free myself?”

“Easy as pie,” replied he, eagerly. “The sharp edge points down. You hitch yourself this way — That’s it — good!”

What Dick called easy as pie was the hardest work I ever did. I lay flat on my back, bound hand and foot, and it was necessary to jerk my body along the log till my hands should be under the knife. I lifted my legs and edged along inch by inch.

“Fine work, Ken! Now you’re right! Turn on your side! Be careful you don’t loosen the knife!”

Not only were my wrists bound, but the lasso had been wrapped round my elbows, holding them close to my body. Turning on my side, I found that I could not reach the knife — not by several inches. This was a bitter disappointment. I strained and heaved. In my effort to lift my body sidewise I pressed my face into the gravel. “Hurry, Ken, hurry!” cried Dick. “Somebody’s coming!” Thus urged, I grew desperate. In my struggle I discovered that it was possible to edge up on the log and stick there. I glued myself to that log. By dint of great exertion I brought the tight cord against the blade. It parted with a little snap, my elbows dropped free. Raising my wrists, I sawed quickly through the bonds. I cut myself, the blood flowed, but that was no matter. jerking the knife from the log, I severed the ropes round my ankles and leaped up.

“Hurry, boy!” cried Dick, with a sharp note of alarm.

I ran to where he lay, and attacked the heavy halter with which he had been secured. I had cut half through the knots when a shrill cry arrested me. It was the Mexican’s voice.

“Head him off! He’s after your gun!” yelled Dick.

The sight of Greaser running toward the cave put me into a frenzy. Dropping the knife, I darted to where my rifle leaned across my saddle. But I saw the Mexican would beat me to it. Checking my speed, I grabbed up a round stone and let fly. That was where my ball-playing stood me in good stead, for the stone hit Greaser on the shoulder, knocking him flat. But he got up, and lunged for the rifle just as I reached him.

I kicked the rifle out of his band, grappled with him, and down we went together. We wrestled and thrashed off the ledge, and when we landed in the gravel I was on top.

“Slug him, Ken!” yelled Dick, wildly. “Oh, that’s fine! Give it to him! Punch him! Get his wind!”

Either it was a mortal dread of Greaser’s knife or some kind of a new-born fury that lent me such strength. He screeched, he snapped like a wolf, he clawed me, he struck me, but he could not shake me off. Several times he had me turning, but a hard rap on his head knocked him back again. Then I began to bang him in the ribs.

“That’s the place!” shouted Dick. “Ken, you’re going to do him up! Soak him! Oh-h, but this is great!”

I kept the advantage over Greaser, but still he punished me cruelly. Suddenly he got his snaky hands on my throat and began to choke me. With all my might I swung my fist into his stomach.

His hands dropped, his mouth opened in a gasp, his face turned green. The blow had made him horribly sick, and he sank back utterly helpless. I jumped up with a shout of triumph.

“Run! Run for it!” yelled Dick, in piercing tones. “They’re coming! Never mind me! Run, I tell you! Not down the gorge! Climb out!”

For a moment I could not move out of my tracks. Then I saw Bill and Herky running up the gorge, and, farther down, Bud staggering and lurching.

This lent me wings. In two jumps I had grabbed my rifle; then, turning, I ran round the pool, and started up the one place in the steep wall where climbing was possible. Above the yells of the men I heard Dick’s piercing cry:

“Go-go-go, Ken!”

I sent the loose rocks down in my flight. Here I leaped up; there I ran along a little ledge; in another place I climbed hand and foot. The last few yards was a gravelly incline. I seemed to slide back as much as I gained.

“Come back hyar!” bawled Bill.

Crack! Crack! Crack . . . The reports rang out in quick succession. A bullet whistled over me, another struck the gravel and sent a shower of dust into my face. I pitched my rifle up over the bank and began to dig my fingers and toes into the loose ground. As I gained the top two more bullets sang past my head so close that I knew Bill was aiming to more than scare me. I dragged myself over the edge and was safe.

The canyon, with its dense thickets and scrubby clumps of trees, lay below in plain sight. Once hidden there, I would be hard to find. Picking up my rifle, I ran swiftly along the base of the slope and soon gained the cover of the woods.

XI. THE OLD HUNTER

I RAN TILL I got a stitch in my side, and then slowed down to a dog-trot. The one thing to do was to get a long way ahead of my pursuers, for surely at the outset they would stick like hounds to my trail.

A mile or more below the gorge I took to the stream and waded. It was slippery, dangerous work, for the current tore about my legs and threatened to upset me. After a little I crossed to the left bank. Here the slope of the canyon was thick with grass that hid my tracks. It was a long climb up to the level. Upon reaching it I dropped, exhausted.

“I’ve — given them — the slip,” I panted, exultantly. . . . “But — now what?”

It struck me that now I was free, I had only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. Hurriedly I examined my Winchester. The magazine contained ten cartridges. What luck that Stockton had neglected to unload it! This made things look better. I had salt and pepper, a knife, and matches — thanks to the little leather case — and so I could live in the woods.

It was too late for regrets. I might have freed Dick somehow or even held the men at bay, but I had thought only of escape. The lack of nerve and judgment stung me. Then I was bitter over losing my mustang and outfit.

But on thinking it all over, I concluded that I ought to be thankful for things as they were. I was free, with a whole skin. That climb out of the gorge had been no small risk. How those bullets had whistled and hissed!

“I’m pretty lucky,” I muttered. “Now to get good and clear of this vicinity. They’ll ride down the trail after me. Better go over this ridge into the next canyon and strike down that. I must go down. But how far? What must I strike for?”

I took a long look at the canyon. In places the stream showed, also the trail; then there were open patches, but I saw no horses or men. With a grim certainty that I should be lost in a very little while, I turned into the cool, dark forest.

Every stone and log, every bit of hard ground in my path, served to help hide my trail. Herky-Jerky very likely had the cowboy’s skill at finding tracks, but I left few traces of my presence on that long slope. Only an Indian or a hound could have trailed me. The timber was small and rough brush grew everywhere. Presently I saw light ahead, and I came to an open space. It was a wide swath in the forest. At once I recognized the path of an avalanche. It sloped up clean and bare to the gray cliffs far above. Below was a great mass of trees and rocks, all tangled in black splintered ruin. I pushed on across the path, into the forest, and up and down the hollows. The sun had gone down behind the mountain, and the shadows were gathering when I came to another large canyon. It looked so much like the first that I feared I had been travelling in a circle. But this one seemed wider, deeper, and there was no roar of rushing water.

It was time to think of making camp, and so I hurried down the slope. At the bottom I found a small brook winding among boulders and ledges of rock. The far side of this canyon was steep and craggy. Soon I discovered a place where I thought it would be safe to build a fire. My clothes were wet, and the air had grown keen and cold. Gathering a store of wood, I made my fire in a niche. For a bed I cut some sweet-scented pine boughs (I thought they must be from a balsam-tree), and these I laid close up in a rocky corner. Thus I had the fire between me and the opening, and with plenty of wood to burn I did not fear visits from bears or lions. At last I lay down, dry and warm indeed, but very tired and hungry.

Darkness closed in upon me. I saw a few stars, heard the cheery crackle of my fire, and then I fell asleep. Twice in the night I awakened cold, but by putting on more firewood I was soon comfortable again.

When I awoke the sun was shining brightly into my rocky bedchamber. The fire had died out completely, there was frost on the stones. To build up another fire and to bathe my face in the ice-water of the brook were my first tasks. The air was sweet; it seemed to freeze as I breathed, and was a bracing tonic. I was tingling all over, and as hungry as a starved wolf.

I set forth on a hunt for game. Even if the sound of a shot betrayed my whereabouts I should have to abide by it, for I had to eat. Stepping softly along, I glanced about me with sharp eyes. Deer trails were thick. The bottom of this canyon was very wide, and grew wider as I proceeded. Then the pines once more became large and thrifty. I judged I had come down the mountain, perhaps a couple of thousand feet below the camp in the gorge. I flushed many of the big blue grouse, and I saw numerous coyotes, a fox, and a large brown beast which moved swiftly into a thicket. It was enough to make my heart rise in my throat. To dream of hunting bears was something vastly different from meeting one in a lonely canyon.

Just after this I saw a herd of deer. They were a good way off. I began to slip from tree to tree, and drew closer. Presently I came to a little hollow with a thick, short patch of underbrush growing on the opposite side. Something crashed in the thicket. Then two beautiful deer ran out. One bounded leisurely up the slope; the other, with long ears erect, stopped to look at me. It was no more than fifty yards away. Trembling with eagerness, I leveled my rifle. I could not get the sight to stay steady on the deer. Even then, with the rifle wobbling in my intense excitement, I thought of how beautiful that wild creature was. Straining every nerve, I drew the sight till it was in line with the gray shape, then fired. The deer leaped down the slope, staggered, and crumpled down in a heap.

I tore through the bushes, and had almost reached the bottom of the hollow when I remembered that a wounded deer was dangerous. So I halted. The gray form was as still as stone. I ventured closer. The deer was dead. My bullet had entered high above the shoulder at the juncture of the neck. Though I had only aimed at him generally, I took a good deal of pride in my first shot at a deer.

Fortunately my pen-knife had a fair-sized blade. With it I decided to cut out part of the deer and carry it back to my camp. Then it occurred to me that I might as well camp where I was. There were several jumbles of rock and a cliff within a stone’s-throw of where I stood. Besides, I must get used to making camp wherever I happened to be. Accordingly, I took hold of the deer, and dragged him down the hollow till I came to a leaning slab of rock.

Skinning a deer was, of course, new to me. I haggled the flesh somewhat and cut through the skin often, my knife-blade being much too small for such work. Finally I thought it would be enough for me to cut out the haunches, and then I got down to one haunch. It had bothered me how I was going to sever the joint, but to my great surprise I found there did not seem to be any connection between the bones. The haunch came out easily, and I hung it up on a branch while making a fire.

Herky-Jerky’s method of broiling a piece of venison at the end of a stick solved the problem of cooking. Then it was that the little flat flask, full of mixed salt and pepper, rewarded me for the long carrying of it. I was hungry, and I feasted.

By this time the sun shone warm, and the canyon was delightful. I roamed around, sat on sunny stones, and lay in the shade of pines. Deer browsed in the glades. When they winded or saw me they would stand erect, shoot up their long cars, and then leisurely lope away. Coyotes trotted out of thickets and watched me suspiciously. I could have shot several, but deemed it wise to be saving of my ammunition. Once I heard a low drumming. I could not imagine what made it. Then a big blue grouse strutted out of a patch of bushes. He spread his wings and tail and neck feathers, after the fashion of a turkey-gobbler. It was a flap or shake of his wings that produced the drumming. I wondered if he intended, by his actions, to frighten me away from his mate’s nest. So I went toward him, and got very close before he flew. I caught sight of his mate in the bushes, and, as I had supposed, she was on a nest. Though wanting to see her eggs or young ones, I resisted the temptation, for I was afraid if I went nearer she might abandon her nest, as some mother birds do.

It did not seem to me that I was lost, yet lost I was. The peaks were not in sight. The canyon widened down the slope, and I was pretty sure that it opened out flat into the great pine forest of Penetier. The only thing that bothered me was the loss of my mustang and outfit; I could not reconcile myself to that. So I wandered about with a strange, full sense of freedom such as I had never before known. What was to be the end of my adventure I could not guess, and I wasted no time worrying over it.

The knowledge I had of forestry I tried to apply. I studied the north and south slopes of the canyon, observing how the trees prospered on the sunny side. Certain saplings of a species unknown to me had been gnawed fully ten feet from the ground. This puzzled me. Squirrels could not have done it, nor rabbits, nor birds. Presently I hit upon the solution. The bark and boughs of this particular sapling were food for deer, and to gnaw so high the deer must have stood upon six or seven feet of snow.

I dug into the soft duff under the pines. This covering of the roots was very thick and deep. I made it out to be composed of pine-needles, leaves, and earth. It was like a sponge. No wonder such covering held the water! I pried bark off dead trees and dug into decayed logs to find the insect enemies of the trees. The open places, where little colonies of pine sprouts grew, seemed generally to be down-slope from the parent trees. It was easy to tell the places where the wind had blown the seeds.

The hours sped by. The shadows of the pines lengthened, the sun set, and the shade deepened in the hollows. Returning to my camp, I cooked my supper and made my bed. When I had laid up a store of firewood it was nearly dark.

With night came the coyotes. The carcass of the deer attracted them, and they approached from all directions. At first it was fascinating to hear one howl far off in the forest, and then to notice the difference in the sound as he came nearer and nearer. The way they barked and snapped out there in the darkness was as wild a thing to hear as any boy could have wished for. It began to be a little too much for me. I kept up a bright fire, and, though not exactly afraid, I had a perch picked out in the nearest tree. Suddenly the coyotes became silent. Then a low, continuous growling, a snapping of twigs, and the unmistakable drag of a heavy body over the ground made my hair stand on end. Gripping my rifle, I listened. I heard the crunch of teeth on bones, then more sounds of something being dragged down the hollow. The coyotes began to bark again, but now far back in the forest.

Some beast had frightened them. What was it? I did not know whether a bear would eat deer flesh,, but I thought not. Perhaps timber-wolves had disturbed the coyotes. But would they run from wolves? It came to me suddenly — a mountain-lion!

I hugged my fire, and sat there, listening with all my ears, imagining every rustle of leaf to be the step of a lion. It was long before the thrills and shivers stopped chasing over me, longer before I could decide to lie down. But after a while the dead quiet of the forest persuaded me that the night was far advanced, and I fell asleep.

The first thing in the morning I took my rifle and went out to where I had left the carcass of the deer. It was gone. It had been dragged away. A dark path on the pine-needles and grass, and small bushes pressed to the ground, plainly marked the trail. But search as I might, I could not find the track of the animal that had dragged off the deer. After following the trail for a few rods, I decided to return to camp and cook breakfast before going any farther. While I was at it I cut many thin slices of venison, and, after roasting them, I stored them away in the capacious pocket of my coat.

My breakfast finished, I again set out to see what had become of the remains of the deer. In two or three places the sharp hoofs had cut lines in the soft earth, and there were tufts of whitish-gray hair elsewhere. A hundred yards or more down the hollow I came to a bare spot where recently there had been a pool of water. Here I found cat tracks as large as my two hands. I had never seen the track of a mountain-lion, but, all the same, I knew that this was the real thing. What an enormous brute he must have been! I cast fearful glances into the surrounding thickets.

It was not needful to travel much farther. Under a bush well hidden in a clump of trees lay what now remained of my deer. A patch of gray hair, a few long bones, a split skull, and two long ears — no more! Even the hide was gone. Perhaps the coyotes had finished the job after the lion had gorged himself, but I did not think so. It seemed to me that coyotes would have scattered the remains. Those two long ears somehow seemed pathetic. I wished for a second that the lion were in range of my rifle.

The lion was driven from my mind when I saw a troop of deer cross a glade below me. I had to fight myself to keep from shooting. The wind blew rather strong in my face, which probably accounted for the deer not winding me.

Then the whip-like crack of a rifle riveted me where I stood. One of the deer fell, and the others bounded away. I saw a tall man stride down the slope and into the glade. He was not like any of the loggers or lumbermen. They were mostly brawny and round-shouldered. This man was lithe, erect; he walked like athletes I had seen. Surely I should find a friend in him, and I lost no time in running down into the glade. He saw me as soon as I was clear of the trees, and stood leaning on his rifle.

“Wal, dog-gone my buttons!” he ejaculated. “Who’re you?”

I blurted out all about myself, at the same time taking stock of him. He was not young, but I had never seen a young man so splendid. Hair, beard, and skin were all of a dark gray. His eyes, too, were gray — the keenest and clearest I had ever looked into. They shone with a kindly light, otherwise I might have thought his face hard and stern. His shoulders were very wide, his arms long, his hands enormous. His buckskin shirt attracted my attention to his other clothes, which looked like leather overalls or heavy canvas. A belt carried a huge knife and a number of shells of large caliber; the Winchester he had was exceedingly long and heavy, and of an old pattern. The look of him brought back my old fancy of Wetzel or Kit Carson.

“So I’m lost,” I concluded, “and don’t know what to do. I daren’t try to find the sawmill. I won’t go back to Holston just yet.”

“An’ why not, youngster? ‘Pears to me you’d better make tracks from Penetier.”

I told him why, at which he laughed.

“Wal, I reckon you can stay with me fer a spell. My camp’s in the head of this canyon.”

“Oh, thank you, that’ll be fine!” I exclaimed. My great good luck filled me with joy. “Do you stay on the mountain?”

“Be’n here goin’ on eighteen years, youngster. Mebbe you’ve heerd my name. Hiram Bent.”

“Are you a hunter?”

“Wal, I reckon so, though I’m more a trapper. Here, you pack my gun.”

With that he drew his knife and set to work on the deer. It was wonderful to see his skill. In a few cuts and strokes, a ripping of the hide and a powerful slash, he had cut out a haunch. It took even less work for the second. Then he hung the rest of the deer on a snag, and wiped his knife and hands on the grass.

“Come on, youngster,” he said, starting up the canyon.

I showed him where the carcass of my deer had been devoured.

“Cougar. Thar’s a big feller has the run of this canyon.”

“Cougar? I thought it was a mountain-lion.”

“Cougar, painter, panther, lion — all the same critter. An’ if you leave him alone he’ll not bother you, but he’s bad in a corner.”

“He scared away the coyotes.”

“Youngster, even a silver-tip — thet’s a grizzly bear — will make tracks away from a cougar. I lent my pack of hounds to a pard over near Springer. If I had them we’d put thet cougar up a tree in no time.”

“Are there many lions — cougars here?”

“Only a few. Thet’s why there’s plenty of deer. Other game is plentiful, too. Foxes, wolves, an’, up in the mountains, bears are thick.”

“Then I may get to see one — get a shot at one?”

“Wal, I reckon.”

From that time I trod on air. I found myself wishing for my brother Hal. I became reconciled to the loss of mustang and outfit. For a moment I almost forgot Dick and Buell. Forestry seemed less important than hunting. I had read a thousand books about old hunters and trappers, and here I was in a wild mountain canyon with a hunter who might have stepped out of one of my dreams. So I trudged along beside him, asking a question now and then, and listening always. He certainly knew what would interest me. There was scarcely a thing he said that I would ever forget. After a while, however, the trail became so steep and rough that I, at least, had no breath to spare for talking. We climbed and climbed. The canyon had become a narrow, rocky cleft. Huge stones blocked the way. A ragged growth of underbrush fringed the stream. Dead pines, with branches like spears, lay along the trail.

We came upon a little clearing, where there was a rude log-cabin with a stone chimney. Skins of animals were tacked upon logs. Under the bank was a spring. The mountain overshadowed this wild nook.

“Wal, youngster, here’s my shack. Make yourself to home,” said Hiram Bent.

I was all eyes as we entered the cabin. Skins, large and small, and of many colors, hung upon the walls. A fire burned in a wide stone grate. A rough table and some pans and cooking utensils showed evidence of recent scouring. A bunch of steel traps lay in a corner. Upon a shelf were tin cans and cloth bags, and against the wall stood a bed of glossy bearskins. To me the cabin was altogether a most satisfactory place.

“I reckon ye’re tired?” asked the hunter. “Thet’s some pumpkins of a climb unless you’re used to it.”

I admitted I was pretty tired.

“Wal, rest awhile. You look like you hadn’t slept much.”

He asked me about my people and home, and was so interested in forestry that he left off his task of the moment to talk about it. I was not long in discovering that what he did not know about trees and forests was hardly worth learning. He called it plain woodcraft. He had never heard of forestry. All the same I hungered for his knowledge. How lucky for me to fall in with him! The things that had puzzled me about the pines he answered easily. Then he volunteered information. From talking of the forest, he drifted to the lumbermen.

“Wal, the lumber-sharks are rippin’ holes in Penetier. I reckon they wouldn’t stop at nothin’. I’ve heered some tough stories about thet sawmill gang. I ain’t acquainted with Leslie, or any of them fellers you named except Jim Williams. I knowed Jim. He was in Springer fer a while. If Jim’s your friend, there’ll be somethin’ happenin, when he rounds up them kidnappers. I reckon you’d better hang up with me fer a while. You don’t want to get ketched again. Your life wasn’t much to them fellers. I think they’d held on to you fer money. It’s too bad you didn’t send word home to your people.”

“I sent word home about the big steal of timber. That was before I got kidnapped. By this time the Government knows.”

“Wal, you don’t say! Thet was pert of you, youngster. An’ will the Government round up these sharks?”

“Indeed it will. The Government is in dead earnest about protecting the National Forests.”

“So it ought to be. Next to a forest fire, I hate these skinned timber tracts. Wal, old Penetier’s going to see somethin’ lively before long. Youngster, them lumbermen — leastways, them fellers you call Bud an’ Bill, an’ such — they’re goin’ to fight.”

The old hunter left me presently, and went outside. I waited awhile for him, but as he did not return I lay down upon the bearskins and dropped to sleep. It seemed I had hardly closed my eyes when I felt a hand on my arm and heard a voice.

“Wake up, youngster. Thar’s two old bears an’ a cub been foolin’ with one of my traps.”

In a flash I was wide awake.

“Let’s see your gun. Humph! pretty small — 38 caliber, ain’t it? Wal, it’ll do the work if you hold straight. Can you shoot?”

“Fairly well.”

He took his heavy Winchester, and threw a coil of thin rope over his shoulder.

“Come on. Stay close to me, an’ keep your eyes peeled.”

XII. BEARS

THE OLD HUNTER walked so swiftly that I had to run to keep up with him. The trail led up the creek, now on one side, again on the other, and I was constantly skipping from stone to stone. The grassy slopes grew fewer, and finally gave way altogether to cracked cliffs and weathered rocks. A fringe of pine-trees leaned over the top with here and there a blasted spear standing out white.

“I had my trap set up thet draw,” said Hiram Bent, as he pointed toward an intersecting canyon. “Just before I waked you I was comin’ along here, an’ I heered an all-fired racket up thar, an’ so I watched. Soon three black bears come paddlin’ down, an’ the biggest was draggin’ the trap with the chain an’ log. Then I hurried to tell you. They can’t be far.”

“Are they grizzlies?” I asked, trying to speak naturally.

“Nope. Jest plain black bears. But the one with the trap is a whopper. He’ll go over four hundred. See the tracks? Looks like somebody’d been plowin’ up the stones.”

There were deep tracks in the sand, and broad furrows, and stones overturned, and places where a heavy object had crushed the gravel even and smooth.

The old hunter kept striding on, and I wondered bow he could go so fast without running. Presently we came to where the canyon forked. Hiram started up the right-hand fork, then suddenly stopped, and, turning, began to go back, carefully examining the ground.

“They’ve split on us,” he explained. “The ole feller with the trap went up the right-hand draw, an’ the mother an’ cub took to the left. Now, youngster, can you keep your nerve?”

“I think so.”

“Wal, you go after the ole feller. You can’t miss him, an’ he won’t be far. You’ll hear him bellerin’ long before you git to him, though he might lay low, so you steer clear of big boulders an’ thickets. Kill him, an’ then run back an’ take up this draw. The she bear is cute an’ may give me the slip, but if she doesn’t climb out soon I’ll head her off. Hurry on, now. Keep your eye peeled, an’ you’ll be safe as if you were to home.”

With that he disappeared round the corner of stone wall where the canyon divided. I wheeled and went to the right. This wing of the canyon twisted and turned and was full of stones. A shallow sheet of water gleamed over its colored bed of gravel. The walls were straight up, and, in places, bulged outward. I flinched at every turn in the canyon; but, with rifle cocked and thrust forward, I went on. The cracks in the walls, the boulders and pieces of cliff that obstructed my path, and the occasional thickets — all made me halt with careful step and finger on the trigger. I followed the splashes on the stones, which told me that the bear had passed that way. As I went cautiously on I felt a tightening at my throat. The light above grew dimmer. When I stopped to listen it was so silent that I heard only the pounding of my heart and my own quick breathing. I pressed on and on, going faster all the time not that I felt braver, but I longed to end the suspense. Suddenly the silence was broken by a threatening roar. It swept down on me, swelling as it continued, and it seemed to fill the canyon. It shook my pulses, it urged me to flight, but I could not move. Then as suddenly it ceased.

For a long moment I stood still, with no idea of advancing farther. The clinking of a chain seemed to release my cramped muscles. Very cautiously I peered around a projecting corner of wall. There sat a huge black bear on his haunches holding up a great steel trap which clutched one of his paws. It was such a strange sight that my fear was forgotten. There was something almost human in the way the bear looked at that trap. He touched it gingerly with his free paw, and nosed it. I crept up close to the corner of stone and looked around again. The bear was now close to me. I saw the heavy chain and the log to which it was attached. He looked at trap and log in a grave, pathetic way, as if trying to reason about them. Then he roused into furious action, swinging the trap, dragging the log, and bellowing in such a frightful manner that I dodged back behind the wall.

But this sudden change in the bear, this appalling roar with its note of pain, awakened me to his suffering. When the noise stopped and I looked again, the bear was a sight not to be forgotten. He showed a helpless, terrible fear of the steel-jawed thing on his foot. He dropped down on the sand with a groan, and there was a despairing look in his eyes.

This made me forget my fear, and I had only one thought — to put him out of his misery. When I leveled my rifle it was as steady as the rock beside me. Aiming just below his ear, I pressed the trigger. The dull report re-echoed from wall to wall. The bear lurched slightly, and his head fell upon his outstretched paws. I waited, ready to shoot again upon the slightest movement, but there was none.

With rifle ready I cautiously approached the bear. As I came close he seemed larger and larger, but he showed no signs of life. I looked at the glossy black fur, the flecks of blood on the side of his head where my bullet had entered, the murderous saw-teeth of the heavy trap biting to the bone, and the cruelty of that trap seemed to drive from me all pride of achievement. It was nothing except mercy to kill a trapped crippled bear that could not run or fight. Then and there I gained a dislike for trapping animals.

The crack of the old hunter’s rifle made me remember that I was to hurry back up the other canyon, so I began to run. I bounded from stone to stone, dashed over the sand-bars, jumped the brook, and went down that canyon perhaps in far greater danger of bodily harm than when I had gone up.

But when I turned the corner it was another story. The first canyon had been easy climbing compared to this one. It was narrow, steep, and full of dead pines fallen from above. Running was impossible. I clambered upward over the loose stones, under the bridges of pines, round the boulders. Presently I heard a shout. I could not tell where it came from, but I replied. A second call I identified as coming from high up the ragged canyon side, and I started up. It was hard work. Certainly no bears or hunter had climbed out just here. At length, sore, spent, and torn, I fell out of a tangle of brush upon the edge of the canyon. Above me rose the swelling mountain slope thickly covered with dwarf pines.

“This way, youngster!” called the old hunter from my left.

A few more dashes in and out of the brush and trees brought me to a fairly open space with not much slope. Hiram Bent stood under a pine, and at his feet lay a black furry mass.

“Wal, I heerd you shoot. Reckon you got yourn?”

“Yes, I killed him. . . . Say, Mr. Bent, I don’t like traps.”

“Nary do I — for bears,” replied he, shaking his gray head. “A trapped bear is about the pitifulest thing I ever seen. But it’s seldom one ever gits into trap of mine.”

“This one you shot must be the old mother bear. Where’s the cub? Did it get away?”

“Not yet. Lookup in the tree.”

I looked up the black trunk through the network of slender branches, and saw the bear snuggling in a fork. His sharp ears stood up against the sky. He was most anxiously gazing down at us.

“Wal, tumble him out of thar,” said Hiram Bent.

With a natural impulse to shoot I raised my rifle, but the cub looked so attractive and so helpless that I hesitated.

“I don’t like to do it,” I said. “Oh, I wish we could catch him alive!”

“Wal, I reckon we can.”

“How?” I inquired, eagerly, and lowered my rifle.

“Are you good on the climb?”

“Climb? This tree? Why, with one hand. Back in Pennsylvania I climbed shell-bark hickory-trees with the lowest limb fifty feet from the ground. . . But there weren’t any bears up them.”

“You must keep out of his way if he comes down on you. He’s a sassy little chap. Now take this rope an’ go up an’ climb round him.”

“Climb round him?” I queried, as I gazed dubiously upward. “You mean to slip out on the branches and go up hand-over-hand till I get above him. The branches up there seem pretty close — I might. But suppose he goes higher?”

“I’m lookin’ fer him to go clean to the top. But you can beat him to it — mebbe.”

“Any danger of his attacking me — up there?”

“Wal, not much. If he hugs the trunk he’ll have to hold on fer all he’s worth. But if he stands on the branches an’ you come up close he might bat you one. Mebbe I’d better go up.”

“Oh, I’m going — I only wanted to know what to expect. Now, in case I get above him, what then?”

“Make him back down till he reaches these first branches. When he gets so far I’ll tell you what to do.” I put my arm through the coil of rope, and, slinging it snugly over my shoulder, began to climb the pine. It was the work of only a moment to reach the first branch.

“Wal, I reckon you’re some relation to a squirrel at thet,” said Hiram Bent. “Jest as I thought the little cuss is climbin’ higher. Thet’s goin’ to worry us.”

It was like stepping up a ladder from the first branch to the fork. The cub had gone up the right-hand trunk some fifteen feet, and was now hugging it. At that short distance he looked alarmingly big. But I saw he would have all he could do to hold on, and if I could climb the left trunk and get above him there would be little to fear. How I did it so quickly was a mystery, but amid the cracking of dead branches and pattering of falling bark and swaying of the tree-top I gained a position above him.

He was so close that I could smell him. His quick little eyes snapped fire and fear at once; he uttered a sound that was between a whine and a growl.

“Hey, youngster!” yelled Hiram, “thet’s high enough— ‘tain’t safe — be careful now.”

With the words I looked out below me, to see the old hunter standing in the glade waving his arms.

“I’m all right!” I yelled down. “Now, how’ll I drive him?”

“Break off a branch an’ switch him.”

There was not a branch above me that I could break, but a few feet below was a slender, dead limb. I slid down and got it, and, holding on with my left arm and legs, I began to thrash the cub. He growled fiercely. snapped at the stick, and began to back down.

“He’s started!” I cried, in glee. “Go on, Cubby — down with you!”

Clumsy as he was, he made swift time. I was hard put to keep close to him. I slipped down the trunk — holding on one instant and sliding down the next. But below the fork it was harder for Cubby and easier for me. The branches rather hindered his backward progress while they aided mine. Growling and whining, with long claws ripping the bark, he went down. All of a sudden I became aware of the old hunter threshing about under the tree.

“Hold on — not so fast!” he yelled.

Still the cub kept going, and stopped with his haunches on the first branch. There, looking down, he saw an enemy below him, and hesitated. But he looked up, and, seeing me, began to back down again. Hiram pounded the tree with a dead branch. Cubby evidently intended to reach the ground, for the noise did not stop him. Then the hunter ran a little way to a windfall, and came back with the upper half of a dead sapling. With this he began to prod the bear. Thereupon, Cubby lost no time in getting up to the first branch again, where he halted.

“Throw the noose on him now — anywhere,” ordered the hunter. “An’ we’ve no time to lose. He’s gittin’ sassier every minnit.”

I dropped the wide loop upon Cubby, expecting to catch him first time. The rope went over his bead, but with a dexterous flip of his paw he sent it flying. Then began a duel between us, in which he continually got the better of me. All the while the old hunter prodded Cubby from below.

“You ain’t quick enough,” said Hiram, impatiently.

Made reckless by this, I stepped down to another branch directly over the bear, and tried again to rope him. It was of no use. He slipped out of the noose with the sinuous movements of an eel. Once it caught over his ears and in his open jaws. He gave a jerk that nearly pulled me from my perch. I could tell he was growing angrier every instant, and also braver. Suddenly the noose, quite by accident, caught his nose. He wagged his head and I pulled. The noose tightened.

“I’ve got him!” I yelled, and gave the rope a strong pull.

The bear stood up with startling suddenness and reached for me.

“Climb!” shouted Hiram,

I dropped the rope and leaped for the branch above, and, catching it, lifted myself just as the sharp claws of the cub scratched hard over my boot.

Cubby now hugged the tree trunk and started up again.

“We’ve got him!” yelled Hiram. “Don’t move — step on his nose if he gets too close.”

Then I saw the halter had come off the bear and had fallen to the ground. Hiram picked it up, arranged the noose, and, holding it in his teeth began to limb after the bear. Cubby was now only a few feet under me, working steadily up, growling, and his little eyes were like points of green fire.

“Stop him! Stand on his head!” mumbled Hiram, with the rope in his teeth.

“What! — not on your life!”

But, reaching up, I grasped a branch, and, swinging clear of the lower one, I began to kick at the bear. This stopped him. Then he squealed, and began to kick on his own account. Hiram was trying to get the noose over a bind foot. After several attempts he succeeded, and then threw the rope over the lowest branch. I gave a wild Indian yell of triumph. The next instant, before I could find a foothold, the branch to which I was hanging snapped like a pistol-shot, and I plunged down with a crash. I struck the bear and the lower branch, and then the ground. The fall half stunned me. I thought every bone in my body was broken. I rose unsteadily, and for a moment everything whirled before my eyes. Then I discovered that the roar in my ears was the old hunter’s yell. I saw him hauling on the rope. There was a great ripping of bark and many strange sounds, and then the cub was dangling head downward. Hiram had pulled him from his perch, and hung him over the lowest branch.

“Thar, youngster, git busy now!” yelled the hunter. “Grab the other rope — thar it is — an’ rope a front paw while I hold him. Lively now, he’s mighty heavy, an’ if he ever gits down with only one rope on him we’ll think we’re fast to chain lightnin’.”

The bear swung about five feet from the ground. As I ran at him with the noose he twisted himself, seemed to double up in a knot, then he dropped full-stretched again, and lunged viciously at me. Twice I felt the wind of his paws. He spun around so fast that it kept me dancing. I flung the noose and caught his right paw. Hiram bawled something that made me all the more heedless, and in tightening the noose I ran in too close. The bear gave me a slashing cuff on the side of the head, and I went down like a tenpin.

“Git a hitch thar — to the saplin’!” roared Hiram, as I staggered to my feet. “Rustle now — hurry!”

What with my ringing head, and fingers all thumbs, and Hiram roaring at me, I made a mess of tying the knot. Then Hiram let go his rope, and when the cub dropped to the ground the rope flew up over the branch. Cubby leaped so quickly that he jerked the rope away before Hiram could pick it up, and one hard pull loosened my hitch on the sapling.

The cub bounded through the glade, dragging me with him. For a few long leaps I kept my feet, then down I sprawled.

“Hang on! Hang on!” Hiram yelled from behind.

If I had not been angry clear through at that cub I might have let go. He ploughed my face in the dirt, and almost jerked my arms off. Suddenly the strain lessened. I got up, to see that the old hunter had hold of the other rope.

“Now, stretch him out!” he yelled.

Between us we stretched the cub out, so that all he could do was struggle and paw the air and utter strange cries. Hiram tied his rope to a tree, and then ran back to relieve me. It was high time. He took my rope and fastened it to a stout bush.

“Thar, youngster, I reckon thet’ll hold him! Now tie his paws an’ muzzle him.”

He drew some buckskin thongs from his pocket and handed them to me. We went up to the straining cub, and Hiram, with one pull of his powerful hands, brought the hind legs together.

“Tie ‘em,” he said.

This done, with the aid of a heavy piece of wood he pressed the cub’s head down and wound a thong tightly round the sharp nose. Then he tied the front legs.

“Thar! Now you loosen the ropes an’ wind them up.”

When I had done this he lifted the cub and swung him over his broad back.

“Come on, you trail behind, an’ keep your eye peeled to see he doesn’t work thet knot off his jaws. . . . Say, youngster, now you’ve got him, what in thunder will you do with him?”

I looked at my torn trousers, at the blood on my skinned and burning hands, and I felt of the bruise on my head, as I said, grimly: “I’ll hang to him as long as I can.”

XIII. THE CABIN IN THE FOREST

HIRAM BENT PACKED the cub down the canyon as he would have handled a sack of oats. When we reached the cabin he fastened a heavy dog-collar round Cubby’s neck and snapped a chain to it. Doubling the halter, he tied one end to the chain and the other to a sturdy branch of a tree. This done, he slipped the thongs off the bear.

“Thar! He’ll let you pet him in a few days mebbe,” he said.

Our captive did not yet show any signs of becoming tame. No sooner was he free of the buckskin thongs than he leaped away, only to be pulled up by the halter. Then he rolled over and over, clawing at the chain, and squirming to get his head out of the collar.

“He might choke hisself,” said Hiram, “but mebbe he’ll ease up if we stay away from him. Now we’ve got to rustle to skin them two bears.”

So, after giving me a hunting-knife, and telling me to fetch my rifle, he set off up the canyon. As I trudged along behind him I spoke of Dick Leslie, and asked if there were not some way to get him out of the clutches of the lumber thieves.

“I’ve been thinkin’ about thet,” replied the hunter, “an’ I reckon we can. Tomorrow we’ll cross the ridge high up back of thet spring-hole canyon, an’ sneak down. ‘Pears to me them fellers will be trailin’ you pretty hard, an’ mebbe they’ll leave only one to guard Leslie. More’n thet, the trail up here to my shack is known, an’ I’m thinkin’ we’d be smart to go off an’ camp somewhere else.”

“What’ll I do about Cubby?” I asked, quickly.

“Cubby? Oh, thet bear cub. Wal, take him along. Youngster, you don’t want to pack thet pesky cub back to Pennsylvania?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I reckon it ain’t likely you can. He’s pretty heavy. Weighs nearly a hundred. An’ he’d make a heap of trouble. Mebbe we’ll ketch a little cub — one you can carry in your arms.”

“That’d be still better,” I replied. “But if we don’t, I’ll try to take him back home.”

The old hunter said I made a good shot at the big bear, and that he would give me the skin for a rug. It delighted me to think of that huge glossy bearskin on the floor of my den. I told Hiram how the bear had suffered, and I was glad to see that, although he was a hunter and trapper, he disliked to catch a bear in a trap. We skinned the animal, and cut out a quantity of meat. He told me that bear meat would make me forget all about venison. By the time we had climbed up the other canyon and skinned the other bear and returned to camp it was dark. As for me, I was so tired I could hardly crawl.

In spite of my aches and pains, that was a night for me to remember. But there was the thought of Dick Leslie. His rescue was the only thing needed to make me happy. Dick was in my mind even when Hiram cooked a supper that almost made me forget my manners. Certainly the broiled bear meat made me forget venison. Then we talked before the burning logs in the stone fire- place. Hiram sat on his home-made chair and smoked a strong-smelling pipe while I lay on a bearskin in blissful ease. Occasionally we heard the cub outside rattling his chain and growling. All of the trappers and Indian fighters I had read of were different from Hiram Bent and Jim Williams. Jim’s soft drawl and kind, twinkling eyes were not what any book-reader would expect to find in a dangerous man. And Hiram Bent was so simple and friendly, so glad to have even a boy to talk to, that it seemed he would never stop. If it had not been for his striking appearance and for the strange, wild tales he told of his lonely life, he would have reminded me of the old canal-lock tenders at home.

Once, when he was refilling his pipe and I thought it would be a good time to profit from his knowledge of the forests, I said to him:

“Now, Mr. Bent, let’s suppose I’m the President of the United States, and I have just appointed you to the office of Chief Forester of the National Forests. You have full power. The object is to conserve our national resources. What will you do?”

“Wal, Mr. President,” he began, slowly and seriously, and with great dignity, “the Government must own the forests an’ deal wisely with them. These mountain forests are great sponges to hold the water, an’ we must stop fire an’ reckless cuttin’. The first thing is to overcome the opposition of the stockmen, an’ show them where the benefit will be theirs in the long run. Next the timber must be used, but not all used up. We’ll need rangers who’re used to rustlin’ in the West an’ know Western ways. Cabins must be built, trails made, roads cut. We’ll need a head forester for every forest. This man must know all that’s on his preserve, an’ have it mapped. He must teach his rangers what he knows about trees. Penetier will be given over entirely to the growin’ of yellow pine. Thet thrives best, an’ the parasites must go. All dead an’ old timber must be cut, an’ much of thet where the trees are crowded. The north slopes must be cut enough to let in the sun an’ light. Brush, windfalls rottin’ logs must be burned. Thickets of young pine must be thinned. Care oughten be taken not to cut on the north an’ west edges of the forests, as the old guard pines will break the wind.”

“How will you treat miners and prospectors?”

“They must be as free to take up claims as if there wasn’t no National Forest.”

“How about the settler, the man seeking a home out West?” I went on.

“We’ll encourage him. The more men there are, the better the forester can fight fire. But those home-seekers must want a home, an’ not be squattin’ for a little, jest to sell out to lumber sharks.”

“What’s to become of timber and wood?”

“Wal, it’s there to be used, an’ must be used. We’ll give it free to the settler an’ prospector. We’ll sell it cheap to the lumbermen — big an’ little. We’ll consider the wants of the local men first.”

“Now about the range. Will you keep out the stockmen?”

“Nary. Grazin’ for sheep, cattle, an’ hosses will go on jest the same. But we must look out for overgrazin’. For instance, too many cattle will stamp down young growth, an’ too many sheep leave no grazin’ for other stock. The bead forester must know his business, an’ not let his range be overstocked. The small local herders an’ sheepmen must be considered first, the big stockmen second. Both must be charged a small fee per head for grazin’.”

“How will you fight fire?”

“Wal, thet’s the hard nut to crack. Fire is the forest’s worst enemy. In a dry season like this Penetier would burn like tinder blown by a bellows. Fire would race through here faster ‘n a man could run. I’ll need special fire rangers, an’ all other rangers must be trained to fight fire, an’ then any men living in or near the forest will be paid to help. The thing to do is watch for the small fires an’ put them out. Campers must be made to put out their fires before leaving camp. Brush piles an’ slashes mustn’t be burned in dry or windy weather.”

Just where we left off talking I could not remember, for I dropped off to sleep. I seemed hardly to have closed my eyes when the hunter called me in the morning. The breakfast was smoking on the red-hot coals, and outside the cabin all was dense gray fog.

When, soon after, we started down the canyon, the fog was lifting and the forest growing lighter. Everything was as white with frost as if it had snowed. A thin, brittle frost crackled under our feet. When we, had gotten below the rocky confines of the canyon we climbed the slope to the level ridge. Here it was impossible not to believe it had snowed. The forest was as still as night, and looked very strange with the white aisles lined by black tree trunks and the gray fog shrouding the tree-tops. Soon we were climbing again, and I saw that Hiram meant to head the canyon where I had left Dick.

The fog split and blew away, and the brilliant sunlight changed the forest. The frost began to melt, and the air was full of mist. We climbed and climbed — out of the stately yellow-pine zone, up among the gnarled and blasted spruces, over and around strips of weathered stone. Once I saw a cold, white snow-peak. It was hard enough for me to carry my rifle and keep up with the hunter without talking. Besides, Hiram had answered me rather shortly, and I thought it best to keep silent. From time to time he stopped to listen. Then when he turned to go down the slope be trod carefully, and cautioned me not to loosen stones, and he went slower and yet slower. From this I made sure we were not far from the springhole.

“Thar’s the canyon,” he whispered, stopping to point below, where a black, irregular line marked the gorge. “I haven’t heerd a thing, an’ we’re close. Mebbe they’re asleep. Mebbe most of them are trallin’ you, an’ I hope so. Now, don’t you put your hand or foot on anythin’ thet’ll make a noise.”

Then he slipped off, and it was wonderful to see how noiselessly he stepped, and how he moved between trees and dead branches without a sound. I managed pretty well, yet more than once a rattling stone or a broken branch stopped Hiram short and made him lift a warning hand.

At last we got down to the narrow bench which separated the canyon-slope from the deep cut. It was level and roughly strewn with boulders. Here we took to all fours and crawled. It was easy to move here without noise, for the ground was rocky and hard, and there was no brush.

Suddenly I fairly bumped into the hunter. Looking up, I saw that he had halted only a few feet from the edge of the gorge where I had climbed out in my escape. He was listening. There was not a sound save the dull roar of rushing water.

Hiram slid forward a little, and rose cautiously to look over. I did the same. When I saw the cave and the spring-hole I felt a catch in my throat.

But there was not a man in sight. Dick’s captors had broken camp; they were gone. The only thing left in the gorge to show they had ever been there was a burned-out campfire.

“They’re gone,” I whispered.

“Wal, it ‘pears so,” replied Hiram. “An’ it’s a move I don’t like. Youngster, it’s you they want. Leslie’s no particular use to them. They’ll have to let him go sooner or later, if they hain’t already.”

“What’ll we do now?”

“Make tracks. We’ll cut back acrost the ridge an’ git some blankets an’ grub, then light out for the other side of Penetier.”

I thought the old hunter had made rapid time on our way up, but now I saw what he really meant by “making tracks.” Fortunately, after a short, killing climb, the return was all down-hill. One stride of Hiram’s equalled two of mine, and he made his faster, so that I had to trot now and then to catch up. Very soon I was as hot as fire, and every step was an effort. But I kept thinking of Dick, of my mustang and outfit, and I vowed I would stick to Hiram Bent’s trail till I dropped. For the matter of that I did drop more than once before we reached the cabin.

A short rest while Hiram was packing a few things put me right again. I strapped my rifle over my shoulder, and then went out to untie my bear cub. It would have cost me a great deal to leave him behind. I knew I ought to, still I could not bring myself to it. All my life I had wanted a bear cub. Here was one that I had helped to lasso and tie up with my own hands. I made up my mind to hold to the cub until the last gasp.

So I walked up to Cubby with a manner more bold than sincere. He had not eaten anything, but he had drunk the water we had left for him. To my surprise he made no fuss when I untied the rope; on the other hand, he seemed to look pleased, and I thought I detected a cunning gleam in his little eyes. He paddled away down the canyon, and, as this was in the direction we wanted to go, I gave him slack rope and followed.

“Wal, you’re goin’ to have a right pert time, youngster, an’ don’t you forget it,” said Hiram Bent.

The truth of that was very soon in evidence. Cubby would not let well enough alone, and he would not have a slack rope. I think he wanted to choke himself or pull my arms out. When I realized that Cubby was three times as strong as I was I began to see that my work was cut out for me. The more, however, that he jerked me and hauled me along, the more I determined to hang on. I thought I had a genuine love for him up to the time he had almost knocked my head off, but it was funny how easily he roused my anger after that. What would have happened had he taken a notion to go through the brush? Luckily he kept to the trail, which certainly was rough enough. So, with watching the cub and keeping my feet free of roots and rocks, I had no chance to look ahead. Still I had no concern about this, for the old hunter was at my heels, and I knew he would keep a sharp lookout.

Before I was aware of it we had gotten out of the narrow canyon into a valley with well-timbered bottom, and open, slow rising slopes. We were getting down into Penetier. Cubby swerved from the trail and started up the left slope. I did not want to go, but I had to keep with him, and that was the only way. The hunter strode behind without speaking, and so I gathered that the direction suited him. By leaning back on the rope I walked up the slope as easily as if it were a moving stairway. Cubby pulled me up; I had only to move my feet. When we reached a level once more I discovered that the cub was growing stronger and wanted to go faster. We zigzagged across the ridge to the next canyon, which at a glance I saw was deep and steep.

“Thet’ll be some work goin’ down that!” called Hiram. “Let me pack your gun.”

I would have been glad to give it to him, but how was I to manage? I could not let go of the rope, and Hiram, laden as he was, could not catch up with me. Then suddenly it was too late, for Cubby lunged forward and down.

This first downward jump was not vicious — only a playful one perhaps, by way of initiating me; but it upset me, and I was dragged in the pine-needles. I did not leap to my feet; I was jerked up. Then began a wild chase down that steep, bushy slope. Cubby got going, and I could no more have checked him than I could a steam-engine. Very soon I saw that not only was the bear cub running away, but he was running away with me. I slid down yellow places where the earth was exposed, I tore through thickets, I dodged a thousand trees. In some grassy descents it was as if I had seven-league boots. I must have broken all records for jumps. All at once I stumbled just as Cubby made a spurt and flew forward, alighting face downward. I dug up the pine — needles with my outstretched hands, I scraped with my face and ploughed with my nose, I ate the dust; and when I brought up with a jolt against a log a more furious boy than Ken Ward it would be bard to imagine. Leaping up, I strove with every ounce of might to hold in the bear. But though fury lent me new strength, he kept the advantage.

Presently I saw the bottom of the canyon, an open glade, and an old log-cabin. I looked back to see if the hunter was coming. He was not in sight, but I fancied I heard him. Then Cubby, putting on extra steam, took the remaining rods of the slope in another spurt. I had to race, then fly, and at last lost my footing and plunged down into a thicket.

There farther progress stopped for both of us. Cubby had gone down on one side of a sapling and I on the other, with the result that we were brought up short. I crashed through some low bushes and bumped squarely into the cub. Whether it was his frantic effort to escape, or just excitement, or deliberate intention to beat me into a jelly I had no means to tell. The fact was he began to dig at me and paw me and maul me. Never had I been so angry. I began to fight back, to punch and kick him.

Suddenly, with a crashing in the bushes, the cub was hauled away from me, and then I saw Hiram at the rope.

“Wal, wal!” he ejaculated, “your own mother wouldn’t own you now!” Then he laughed heartily and chuckled to himself, and gave the cub a couple of jerks that took the mischief out of him. I dragged myself after Hiram into the glade. The cabin was large and very old, and part of the roof was sunken in.

“We’ll hang up here an’ camp,” said Hiram. “This is an old hunters’ cabin, an’ kinder out of the way. We’ll hitch this little fighter inside, where mebbe he won’t be so noisy.”

The hunter hauled the cub up short, and half pulled, half lifted him into the door. I took off my rifle, emptied my pockets of brush and beat out the dust, and combed the pine-needles from my hair. My hands were puffed and red, and smarted severely. And altogether I was in no amiable frame of mind as regarded my captive bear cub.

When I stepped inside the cabin it was dark, and coming from the bright light I could not for a moment see what the interior looked like. Presently I made out one large room with no opening except the door. There was a tumble-down stone fireplace at one end, and at the other a rude ladder led up to a loft. Hiram had thrown his pack aside, and had tied Cubby to a peg in the log wall.

“Wal, I’ll fetch in some fresh venison,” said the hunter. “You rest awhile, an’ then gather some wood an’ make a fire.”

The rest I certainly needed, for I was so tired I could scarcely untie the pack to get out the blankets. The bear cub showed signs or weariness, which pleased me. It was not long after Hiram’s departure that I sank into a doze.

When my eyes opened I knew I had been awakened by something, but I could not tell what. I listened. Cubby was as quiet as a mouse, and his very quiet and the alert way he held his ears gave me a vague alarm. He had heard something. I thought of the old hunter’s return, yet this did not reassure me.

All at once the voices of men made me sit up with a violent start. Who could they be? Had Hiram met a ranger? I began to shake a little, and was about to creep to the door when I heard the clink of stirrups and soft thud of hoofs. Then followed more voices, and last a loud volley of curses.

“Herky-Jerky!” I gasped, and looked about wildly.

I had no time to dash out of the door. I was caught in a trap, and I felt cold and sick. Suddenly I caught sight of the ladder leading to the loft. Like a monkey I ran up, and crawled as noiselessly as possible upon the rickety flooring of dry pine branches. Then I lay there quivering.

XIV. A PRISONER

IT CHANCED THAT as I lay on my side my eye caught a gleam of light through a little ragged hole in the matting of pine branches. Part of the interior of the cabin, the doorway, and some space outside were plainly visible. The thud of horses had given place to snorts, and then came a flopping of saddles and packs on the ground. “Any water hyar?” asked a gruff voice I recognized as Bill’s. “Spring right thar,” replied a voice I knew to be Bud’s.

“You onery old cayuse, stand still!”

From that I gathered Herky was taking the saddle off his horse.

“Here, Leslie, I’ll untie you — if you’ll promise not to bolt.”

That voice was Buell’s. I would have known it among a thousand. And Dick was still a prisoner.

“Bolt! If you let me loose I’ll beat your fat head off!” replied Dick. “Ha! A lot you care about my sore wrists. You’re weakening, Buell, and you know it. You’ve got a yellow streak.”

“Shet up!” said Herky, in a low, sharp tone. A silence followed. “Buell, look hyar in the trail. Tracks! Goin’ in an’ comin’ out.”

“How old are they?”

“I’ll bet a hoss they ain’t an hour old.”

“Somebody’s usin’ the cabin, eh?”

The men then fell to whispering, and I could not understand what was said, but I fancied they were thinking only of me. My mind worked fast. Buell and his fellows had surely not run across Hiram Bent. Had the old hunter deserted me? I flouted such a thought. It was next to a certainty that he had seen the lumbermen, and for reasons best known to himself had not returned to the cabin. But he was out there somewhere among the pines, and I did not think any of those ruffians was safe.

Then I heard stealthy footsteps approaching. Soon I saw the Mexican slipping cautiously to the door. He peeped within. Probably the interior was dark to him, as it had been to me. He was not a coward, for he stepped inside.

At that instant there was a clinking sound, a rush and a roar, and a black mass appeared to hurl itself upon the Mexican. He went down with a piercing shriek. Then began a fearful commotion. Screams and roars mingled with the noise of combat. I saw a whirling cloud of dust on the cabin floor. The cub had jumped on the Mexican. What an unmerciful beating he was giving that Greaser! I could have yelled out in my glee. I had to bite my tongue to keep from urging on my docile little pet bear. Greaser surely thought he had fallen in with his evil spirit, for he howled to the saints to save him.

Herky-Jerky was the only one of his companions brave enough to start to help him.

“The cabin’s full of b’ars!” he yelled.

At his cry the bear leaped out of the cloud of dust, and shot across the threshold like black lightning. In his onslaught upon Greaser he had broken his halter. Herky-Jerky stood directly in his path. I caught only a glimpse, but it served to show that Herky was badly scared. The cub dove at Herky, under him, straight between his legs like a greased pig, and, spilling him all over the trail, sped on out of sight. Herky raised himself, and then he sat there, red as a lobster, and bawled curses while he made his huge revolver spurt flame on flame.

I could not see the other men, but their uproarious mirth could have been heard half a mile away. When it dawned upon Herky, he was so furious that he spat at them like an angry cat and clicked his empty revolver.

Then Greaser lurched out of the door. I got a glimpse of him, and, for a wonder, was actually sorry for him. He looked as if he had been through a threshing-machine.

“Haw! haw! Ho! ho!” roared the merry lumbermen.

Then they trooped into the cabin. Buell headed the line, and Herky, sullenly reloading his revolver, came last. At first they groped around in the dim light, stumbling over everything. Part of the time they were in the light space near the door, and the rest I could not see them. I scarcely dared to breathe. I felt a creepy chill, and my eyesight grew dim.

“Who does this stuff belong to, anyhow?” Buell was saying. “An’ what was thet bear doin’ in here?”

“He was roped up — hyar’s the hitch,” answered Bud.

“An’ hyar’s a rifle — Winchester — ain’t been used much. Buell, it’s thet kid’s!”

I heard rapid footsteps and smothered exclamations.

“Take it from me, you’re right!” ejaculated Buell. “We jest missed him. Herky, them tracks out there? Somebody’s with this boy — who?”

“It’s Jim Williams,” put in Dick Leslie, cool-voiced and threatening.

The little stillness that followed his words was broken by Buell.

“Naw! ’Twasn’t Williams. You can’t bluff this bunch, Leslie. By your own words Williams is lookin’ for us, an’ if he’s lookin’ for anybody I know he’s lookin’ for ‘em. See!”

“Buell, the kid’s fell in with old Bent, the b’ar hunter,” said Bill. “Thet accounts fer the cub. Bent’s allus got cubs, an’ kittens, an’ sich. An’ I’ll tell you, he ain’t no better friend of ourn than Jim Williams.”

“I’d about as soon tackle Williams as Bent,” put in Bud.

Buell shook his fist. “What luck the kid has! But I’ll get him, take it from me! Now, what’s best to do?”

“Buell, the game’s going against you,” said Dick Leslie. “The penitentiary is where you’ll finish. You’d better let me loose. Old Bent will find Jim Williams, and then you fellows will be up against it. There’s going to be somebody killed. The best thing for you to do is to let me go and then cut out yourself.”

Buell breathed as heavily as a porpoise, and his footsteps pounded hard.

“Leslie, I’m seein’ this out — understand? When Bud rode down to the mill an’ told me the kid had got away I made up my mind to ketch him an’ shet his mouth — one way or another. An’ I’ll do it. Take thet from me!”

“Bah!” sneered Dick. “You’re sca’red into the middle of next week right now. . . . Besides, if you do ketch Ken it won’t do you any good-now!”

“What?”

But Dick shut up like a clam, and not another word could be gotten from him. Buell fumed and stamped.

“Bud, you’re the only one in this bunch of loggerheads thet has any sense. What d’you say?”

“Quiet down an’ wait here,” replied Bud. “Mebbe old Bent didn’t hear them shots of Herky’s. He may come back. Let’s wait awhile, an’, if he doesn’t come, put Herky on the trail.”

“Good! Greaser, go out an’ hide the hosses — drive them up the canyon.”

The Mexican shuffled out, and all the others settled down to quiet. I heard some of them light their pipes. Bud leaned against the left of the door, Buell sat on the other side, and beyond them I saw as much of Herky as his boots. I knew him by his bow-legs.

The stillness that set in began to be hard on me’. When the men were moving about and talking I had been so interested that my predicament did not occupy my mind. But now, with those ruffians waiting silently below, I was beset with a thousand fears. The very consciousness that I must be quiet made it almost impossible. Then I became aware that my one position cramped my arm and side. A million prickling needles were at my elbow. A band as of steel tightened about my breast. I grew hot and cold, and trembled. I knew the slightest move would be fatal, so I bent all my mind to lying quiet as a stone.

Greaser came limping back into the cabin, and found a seat without any one speaking. It was so still that I heard the silken rustle of paper as he rolled a cigarette. Moments that seemed long as years passed, with my muscles clamped as in a vise. If only I had lain down upon my back! But there I was, half raised on my elbow, in a most awkward and uncomfortable position. I tried not to mind the tingling in my arm, but to think of Hiram, of Jim, of my mustang. But presently I could not think of anything except the certainty that I would soon lose control of my muscles and fall over.

The tingling changed to a painful vibration, and perspiration stung my face. The strain became unbearable. All of a sudden something seemed to break within me, and my muscles began to ripple and shake. I had no power to stop it. More than that, the feeling was so terrible that I knew I would welcome discovery as a relief.

“Sh-s-s-h!” whispered some one below.

I turned my eyes down to the peep-hole. Bud had moved over squarely into the light of the door. He was bending over something. Then he extended his hand, back uppermost, toward Buell. On the back of that broad brown hand were pieces of leaf and bits of pine-needles. The trembling of my body had shaken these from the brush on the rickety loft. More than that, in the yellow bar of sunlight which streamed in at the door there floated particles of dust.

Bud silently looked upward. There was a gleam in his black eyes, and his mouth was agape. Buell’s gaze followed Bud’s, and his face grew curious, intent, then fixed in a cunning, bold smile of satisfaction. He rose to his feet.

“Come down out o’ thet!” he ordered, harshly. “Come down!”

The sound of his voice stilled my trembling. I did not move nor breathe. I saw Buell loom up hugely and Bud slowly rise. Herky-Jerky’s boots suddenly stood on end, and I knew then he had also risen. The silence which followed Buell’s order was so dense that it oppressed me.

“Come down!” repeated Buell.

There was no hint of doubt in his deep voice, but a cold certainty and a brutal note. I had feared the man before, but that gave me new terror.

“Bud, climb the ladder,” commanded Buell.

“I ain’t stuck on thet job,” rejoined Bud.

As his heavy boots thumped on the ladder they jarred the whole cabin. My very desperation filled me with the fierceness of a cornered animal. I caught sight of a short branch of the thickness of a man’s arm, and, grasping it, I slowly raised myself. When Bud’s black, round head appeared above the loft I hit it with all my might.

Bud bawled like a wounded animal, and fell to the ground with the noise of a load of bricks. Through my peep-hole I saw him writhing, with both hands pressed to his head. Then, lying flat on his back, he whipped out his revolver. I saw the red spurt, the puff of smoke. Bang!

A bullet zipped through the brush, and tore a hole through the roof.

Bang! Bang!

I felt a hot, tearing pain in my arm.

“Stop, you black idiot!” yelled Buell. He kicked the revolver out of Bud’s hand. “What d’you mean by thet?”

In the momentary silence that followed I listened intently, even while I held tightly to my arm. From its feeling my arm seemed to be shot off, but it was only a flesh-wound. After the first instant of shock I was not scared. But blood flowed fast. Warm, oily, slippery, it ran down inside my shirt sleeve and dripped off my fingers.

“Bud,” hoarsely spoke up Bill, breaking the stillness, “mebbe you killed him!”

Buell coughed, as if choking.

“What’s thet?” For once his deep voice was pitched low. “Listen.”

Drip! drip! drip! It was like the sound of water dripping from a leak in a roof. It was directly under me, and, quick as thought, I knew the sound was made by my own dripping blood.

“Find thet, somebody,” ordered Buell.

Drip! drip! drip!

One of the men stepped noisily.

“Hyar it is — thar,” said Bill. “Look on my hand. . . . Blood! I knowed it. Bud got him, all right.”

There was a sudden rustling such as might come from a quick, strained movement.

“Buell,” cried Dick Leslie. in piercing tones, “Heaven help you murdering thieves if that boy’s killed! I’ll see you strung up right in this forest. Ken, speak! Speak!”

It seemed then, in my pain and bitterness, that I would rather let Buell think me dead. Dick’s voice went straight to my heart, but I made no answer.

“Leslie, I didn’t kill him, an’ I didn’t order it,” said Buell, in a voice strangely shrunk and shaken. “I meant no harm to the lad. . . . Go up, Bud, an’ get him.”

Bud made no move, nor did Greaser when he was ordered. “Go up, somebody, an’ see what’s up there!” shouted Buell. “Strikes me you might go yourself,” said Bill, coolly.

With a growl Buell mounted the ladder. When his great shock head hove in sight I was seized by a mad desire to give him a little of his own medicine. With both hands I lifted the piece of pine branch and brought it down with every ounce of strength in me.

Like a pistol it cracked on Buell’s head and snapped into bits. The lumberman gave a smothered groan, then clattered down the ladder and rolled on the floor. There he lay quiet.

“All-fired dead — thet kid — now, ain’t he?” said Bud, sarcastically. “How’d you like thet crack on the knob? You’ll need a larger size hat, mebbe. Herky-Jerky, you go up an’ see what’s up there.”

“I’ve a picture of myself goin’,” replied Herky, without moving.

“Whar’s the water? Get some water, Greaser,” chimed in Bill.

From the way they worked over Buell, I concluded he had been pretty badly stunned. But he came to presently.

“What struck me?” he asked.

“Oh, nothin’,” replied Bud, derisively. “The loft up thar’s full of air, an’ it blowed on you, thet’s all.”

Buell got up, and began walking around.

“Bill, go out an’ fetch in some long poles,” he said.

When Bill returned with a number of sharp, bayonet-like pikes I knew the game was all up for me. Several of the men began to prod through the thin covering of dry brush. One of them reached me, and struck so hard that I lurched violently.

That was too much for the rickety loft floor. It was only a bit of brush laid on a netting of slender poles. It creaked, rasped, and went down with a crash. I alighted upon somebody, and knocked him to the floor. Whoever it was, seized me with iron hands. I was buried, almost smothered, in the dusty mass. My captor began to curse cheerfully, and I knew then that Herky-Jerky had made me a prisoner.

XV. THE FIGHT

HERKY HAULED ME out of the brush, and held me in the light. The others scrambled from under the remains of the loft, and all viewed me curiously.

“Kid, you ain’t hurt much?” queried Buell, with concern.

I would have snapped out a reply, but I caught sight of Dick’s pale face and anxious eyes.

“Ken,” he called, with both gladness and doubt in his voice, “you look pretty good — but that blood. . . . Tell me, quick!”

“It’s nothing, Dick, only a little cut. The bullet just ticked my arm.”

Whatever Dick’s reply was it got drowned in Herky-Jerky’s long explosion of strange language. Herky was plainly glad I had not been badly hurt. I had already heard mirth, anger, disgust, and fear in his outbreaks, and now relief was added. He stripped off my coat, cut off the bloody sleeve of my shirt, and washed the wound. It was painful and bled freely, but it was not much worse than cuts from spikes when playing ball. Herky bound it tightly with a strip of my shirt-sleeve, and over that my handkerchief.

“Thar, kid, thet’ll stiffen up an’ be sore fer a day or two, but it ain’t nothin’. You’ll soon be bouncin’ clubs offen our heads.”

It was plain that Herky — and the others, for that matter, except Buell — thought more of me because I had wielded a club so vigorously.

“Look at thet lump, kid,” said Bud, bending his head. “Now, ain’t thet a nice way to treat a feller? It made me plumb mad, it did.”

“I’m likely to hurt somebody yet,” I declared.

They looked at me curiously. Buell raised his face with a queer smile. Bud broke into a laugh.

“Oh, you’re goin’ to? Mebbe you think you need an axe,” said he.

They made no offer to tie me up then. Bud went to the door and sat in it, and I heard him half whisper to Buell: “What ‘d I tell you? Thet’s a game kid. If he ever wakes up right we’ll have a wildcat on our hands. He’ll do fer one of us yet.” These men all took pleasure in saying things like this to Buell. This time Buell had no answer ready, and sat nursing his head. “Wal, I hev a little headache myself, an’ the crack I got wasn’t nothin’ to yourn,” concluded Bud. Then Bill began packing the supplies indoors, and Herky started a fire. Bud kept a sharp eye on me; still, he made no objection when I walked over and lay down upon the blankets near Dick.

“Dick, I shot a bear and helped to tie up a cub,” I said. And then I told him all that had happened from the time I scrambled out of the spring-hole till I was discovered up in the loft. Dick shook his head, as if he did not know what to make of me, and all he said was that he would give a year’s pay to have me safe back in Pennsylvania.

Herky-Jerky announced supper in his usual manner — a challenge to find as good a cook as he was, and a cheerful call to “grub.” I did not know what to think of his kindness to me. Remembering how he had nearly drowned me in the spring, I resented his sudden change. He could not do enough for me. I asked the reason for my sudden popularity.

Herky scratched his head and grinned. “Yep, kid, you sure hev riz in my estimashun.”

“Hey, you rummy cow-puncher,” broke in Bud, scornfully. “Mebbe you’d like the kid more’n you do if you’d got one of them wollops.”

“Bud, I ain’t sayin’,” replied Herky, with his mouth full of meat. “Considerin’ all points, howsoever, I’m thinkin’ them wallops was distributed very proper.”

They bandied such talk between them, and occasionally Bill chimed in with a joke. Greaser ate in morose silence. There must have been something on his mind. Buell took very little dinner, and appeared to be in pain. It was dark when the meal ended. Bud bound me up for the night, and he made a good job of it. My arm burned and throbbed, but not badly enough to prevent sleep. Twice I had nearly dropped off when loud laughs or voices roused me. My eyes closed with a picture of those rough, dark men sitting before the fire.

A noise like muffled thunder burst into my slumber. I awakened with my body cramped and stiff. It was daylight, and something had happened. Buell ran in and out of the cabin yelling at his men. All of them except Herky were wildly excited. Buell was abusing Bud for something, and Bud was blaming Buell.

“Thet’s no way to talk to me!” said Bud, angrily. “He didn’t break loose in my watch!’

“You an’ Greaser had the job. Both of you — went to sleep — take thet from me!”

“Wal, he’s gone, an’ he took the kid’s gun with him,” said Bill, coolly. “Now we’ll be dodgin’ bullets.”

Dick Leslie had escaped! I could hardly keep down a cry of triumph. I did ask if it was true, but none of them paid any attention to me. Buell then ordered Herky-Jerky to trail Dick and see where he had gone. Herky refused point-blank. “Nope. Not fer me,” he said. “Leslie has a rifle. So has Bent, an’ we haven’t one among us. An’, Buell, if Leslie falls in with Bent, it’s goin’ to git hot fer us round here.”

This silenced Buell, but did not stop his restless pacings. His face was like a thunder-cloud, and he was plainly worried and harassed. Once Bud deliberately asked what be intended to do with me, and Buell snarled a reply which no one understood. His gloom extended to the others, except Herky, who whistled and sang as he busied himself about the campfire. Greaser appeared to be particularly cast down.

“Buell, what are you going to do with me?” I demanded. But he made no answer.

“Well, anyway,” I went on, “somebody cut these ropes. I’m mighty sore and uncomfortable.”

Herky-Jerky did not wait for permission; he untied me, and helped me to my feet. I was rather unsteady on my legs at first, and my injured arm felt like a board. It seemed dead; but after I had moved it a little the pain came back, and it had apparently come to stay. We ate breakfast, and then settled down to do nothing, or to wait for something to turn up. Buell sat in the doorway, moodily watching the trail. Once he spoke, ordering the Mexican to drive in the horses. I fancied from this that Buell might have decided to break camp, but there was no move to pack.

The morning quiet was suddenly split by the stinging crack of a rifle and a yell of agony.

Buell leaped to his feet, his ruddy face white.

“Greaser!” he exclaimed.

“Thet was about where Greaser cashed,” relied Bill, coolly knocking the ashes from his pipe.

“No, Bill, you’re wrong. Here comes Greaser, runnin’ like an Indian.”

“Look at the blood! He’s been plugged, all right!” exclaimed Herky-Jerky.

The sound of running feet drew nearer, and suddenly the group at the door broke to admit the Mexican. One side of his terrified face was covered with blood. His eyes were staring, his hands raised, he staggered as if about to fall.

“Senyor William! Senyor William!” he cried, and then called on Saint Somebody.

“Jim Williams! I said so,” muttered Bud.

Bill caught hold of the excited Mexican, and pulled him nearer the light.

“Thet ain’t a bad hurt. jest cut his ear off!” aid Bill. “Hyar, stand still, you wild man! you’re not goin’ to die. Git some water, Herky. Fellers, Greaser has been oneasy ever since he knew Jim Williams was lookin’ fer him. He thinks Jim did this. But Jim Williams don’t use a rifle, an’, what’s more, when he shoots he don’t miss. You all heerd the rifle-shot.”

“Then it was old Bent or Leslie?” questioned Buell.

“Leslie it were. Bent uses a 45-90 caliber. Thet shot we heerd was from the little 38 — the kid’s gun.”

“Wal, it was a narrer escape fer Greaser,” said Bud. “Leslie’s sore, an’ he’ll shoot fer keeps. Buell, you’ve started somethin’.”

When Bill had washed the blood off the Mexican it was found that the ball had carried away the lower part of the ear, and with it, of course, the gold earring. The wound must have been extremely painful; it certainly took all the starch out of Greaser. He kept mumbling in his own language, and rolling his wicked black eyes and twisting his thin, yellow hands.

“What’s to be done?” asked Buell, sharply.

“Thet’s fer you to say,” replied Bill, with his exasperating calmness.

“Must we hang up here to be shot at? Leslie’s takin’ a long chance on thet kid’s life if he comes slingin’ lead round this cabin.”

Herky-Jerky spat tobacco-juice across the room and grunted. Then, with his beady little eyes as keen and cold as flint, he said: “Buell, Leslie knows you daren’t harm the kid; an’ as fer bullets, he’ll take good care where he stings ‘em. This deal of ours begins to look like a wild-goose stunt. It never was safe, an’ now it’s worse.”

Here was even Herky-Jerky harping on Buell’s situation. To me it did not appear much more serious than before. But evidently they thought Buell seemed on the verge of losing control of himself. He glared at Herky, and rammed his fists in his pockets and paced the long room. Presently he stepped out of the door.

A rifle cracked clear and sharp, another bellowed out heavy and hollow. A bullet struck the door-post, a second hummed through the door and budded into the log wall. Buell jumped back into the room. His face worked, his breath hissed between his teeth, as with trembling hand he examined the front of his coat. A big bullet had torn through both lapels.

Bill stuck his pudgy finger in the hole. “The second bullet made thet. It was from old Hiram’s gun — a 45-90!”

“Bent an’ Leslie! My God! They’re shootin’ to kill!” cried Buell.

“I should smile,” replied Herky-Jerky.

Bud was peeping out through a chink between the logs. “I got their smoke,” he said; “look, Bill, up the slope. They’re too fur off, but we may as well send up respects.” With that he aimed his revolver through the narrow crack and deliberately shot six times. The reports clapped like thunder, the smoke from burnt powder and the smell of brimstone filled the room. By way of reply old Hiram’s rifle boomed out twice, and two heavy slugs crashed through the roof, sending down a shower of dust and bits of decayed wood.

“Thet’s jist to show what a 45-90 can do,” remarked Bill.

Bud reloaded his weapon while Bill shot several times. Herky-Jerky had his gun in hand, but contented himself with peering from different chinks between the logs. I hid behind the wide stone fireplace, and though I felt pretty safe from flying bullets, I began to feel the icy grip of fear. I had seen too much of these men in excitement, and knew if circumstances so brought it about there might come a moment when my life would not be worth a pin. They were all sober now, and deadly quiet. Buell showed the greatest alarm, though he had begun to settle down to what looked like fight. Herky was more fearless than any of them, and cooler even than Bill. All at once I missed the Mexican. If he had not slipped out of the room he had hidden under the brush of the fallen loft or in a pile of blankets. But the room was smoky, and it was hard for me to be certain.

Some time passed with no shots and with no movement inside the cabin. Slowly the blue smoke wafted out of the door. The sunlight danced in gleams through the holes in the ragged roof. There was a pleasant swish of pine branches against the cabin.

“Listen, , whispered Bud, hoarsely. “I heerd a pony snort.”

Then the rapid beat of hard hoofs on the trail was followed by several shots from the hillside. Soon the clatter of hoofs died away in the distance.

“Who was thet?” asked three of Buell’s men in unison.

“Take it from me, Greaser’s sneaked,” replied Buell.

“How’d he git out?”

With that Bud and Bill began kicking in the piles of brush.

“Aha! Hyar’s the place,” sang out Bud.

In one corner of the back wall a rotten log had crumbled, and here it was plain to all eyes that Greaser had slipped out. I remembered that on this side of the cabin there was quite a thick growth of young pine. Greaser had been able to conceal himself as he crawled toward the horses, and had probably been seen at the last moment. Herky-Jerky was the only one to make comment.

“I ain’t wishin’ Greaser any hard luck, but hope he carried away a couple Of 45-90 slugs somewheres in his yaller carcass.”

“It’d be worth a lot to the feller who can show me a way out of this mess,” said Buell, mopping the beads of sweat from his face.

I got up — it seemed to me my mind was made up for me — and walked into the light of the room.

“Buell, I can show you the way,” I said, quietly.

“What!” His mouth opened in astonishment. “Speak up, then.”

The other men stepped forward, and I felt their eyes upon me.

“Let me go free. Let me out of here to find Dick Leslie! Then when you go to jail in Holston for stealing lumber I’ll say a good word for you and your men. There won’t be any charge of kidnapping or violence.”

After a long pause, during which Buell bored me with gimlet eyes, he said, in a queer voice: “Say thet again.”

I repeated it, and added that he could not gain anything now by holding me a prisoner. I think he saw what I meant, but hated to believe it.

“It’s too late,” I said, as he hesitated.

“You mean Leslie lied an’ you fooled me — you did get to Holston?” he shouted. He was quivering with rage, and the red flamed in his neck and face.

“Buell, I did get to Holston and I did send word to Washington,” I went on, hurriedly for I had begun to lose my calmness. “I wrote to my father. He knows a friend of the Chief Forester who is close to the Department at Washington. By this time Holston is full of officers of the forest service. Perhaps they’re already at your mill. Anyway, the game’s up, and you’d better let me go.”

Buell’s face lost all its ruddy color, slowly blanched, and changed terribly. The boldness fled, leaving it craven, almost ghastly. Realizing he had more to fear from the law than conviction of his latest lumber steal, he made at me in blind anger.

“Hold on!” Herky-Jerky yelled, as he jumped between Buell and me.

Buell’s breath was a hiss, and the words he bit between his clinched teeth were unintelligible. In that moment he would have killed me.

Herky-Jerky met his onslaught, and flung him back. Then, with his hand on the butt of his revolver, he spoke:

“Buell, hyar’s where you an’ me split. You’ve bungled your big deal. The kid stacked the deck on you. But I ain’t a-goin’ to see you do him harm fer it.”

“Herky’s right, boss,” put in Bill, “thar’s no sense in addin’ murder to this mess. Strikes me you’re in bad enough.”

“So thet’s your game? You’re double-crossin’ me now — all on a chance at kidnappin’ for ransom money. Well, I’m through with the kid an’ all of you. Take thet from me!”

“You skunk!” exclaimed Herky-Jerky, with the utmost cheerfulness.

“Wal, Buell,” said Bill, in cool disdain, “comsiderin’ my fondness fer fresh air an’ open country, I can’t say I’m sorry to dissolve future relashuns. I was only in jail onct, an’ I couldn’t breathe free.”

It was then Buell went beside himself with rage. He raised his huge fists, and shook himself, and plunged about the room, cursing. Suddenly he picked up an axe, and began chopping at the rotten log above the hole where Greaser had slipped out. Bud yelled at him, so did Bill; Herky-Jerky said unpleasant things. But Buell did not hear them. He hacked and dug away like one possessed. The dull, sodden blows fell fast, scattering pieces of wood about the floor. The madness that was in Buell was the madness to get out, to escape the consequences of his acts. His grunts and pants as he worked showed his desperate energy. Then he slammed the axe against the wall, and, going down flat, began to crawl through the opening. Buell was a thick man, and the hole appeared too small. He stuck in it, but he squeezed and flattened himself, finally worked through, and disappeared.

A sudden quiet fell upon his departure.

“Hands up!”

Jim Williams’s voice! It was strange to see Herky and Bud flash up their arms without turning. But I wheeled quickly. Bill, too, had his hands high in the air.

In the sunlight of the doorway stood Jim Williams. Low down, carelessly, it seemed, he held two long revolvers. He looked the same easy, slow Texan I remembered. But the smile was not now in his eyes, and his lips were set in a thin, hard line.

XVI. THE FOREST’S GREATEST FOE

JIM WILLIAMS SENT out a sharp call. From the canyon-slope came answering shouts. There were sounds of heavy bodies breaking through brush, followed by the thudding of feet. Then men could be plainly heard running up the trail. Jim leaned against the door-post, and the three fellows before him stood rigid as stone.

Suddenly a form leaped past Jim. It was Dick Leslie, bareheaded, his hair standing like a lion’s mane, and he had a cocked rifle in his hands. Close behind him came old Hiram Bent, slower, more cautious, but no less formidable. As these men glanced around with fiery eyes the quick look of relief that shot across their faces told of ungrounded fears.

“Where’s Buell?” sharply queried Dick.

Jim Williams did not reply, and a momentary silence ensued.

“Buell lit out after the Greaser,” said Bill, finally.

“Cut and run, did he? That’s his speed,” grimly said Dick. “Here, Bent, find some rope. We’ve got to tie up these jacks.”

“Hands back, an’ be graceful like. Quick!” sang out Jim Williams.

It seemed to me human beings could not have more eagerly and swiftly obeyed an order. Herky and Bill and Bud jerked their arms down and extended their hands out behind. After that quick action they again turned into statues. There was a breathless suspense in every act. And there was something about Jim Williams then that I did not like. I was in a cold perspiration for fear one of the men would make some kind of a move. As the very mention of the Texan had always caused a little silence, so his presence changed the atmosphere of that cabin room. Before his coming there had been the element of chance — a feeling of danger, to be sure, but a healthy spirit of give and take. That had all changed with Jim Williams’s words “Hands up!” There was now something terrible hanging in the balance. I had but to look at Jim’s eyes, narrow slits of blue fire, at the hard jaw and tight lips, to see a glimpse of the man who thought nothing of life. It turned me sick, and I was all in a tremor till Dick and Hiram had the men bound fast.

Then Jim dropped the long, blue guns into the holsters on his belt.

“Ken, I shore am glad to see you,” said he.

The soft, drawling voice, the sleepy smile, the careless good-will all came back, utterly transforming the man. This was the Jim Williams I had come to love. With a wrench I recovered myself.

“Are you all right, Ken?” asked Dick. And old Hiram questioned me with a worried look. This anxiety marked the difference between these men and Williams. I hastened to assure my friends that I was none the worse for my captivity.

“Ken, your little gun doesn’t shoot where it points,” said Jim. “I shore had a bead on the Greaser an’ missed him. First Greaser I ever missed.”

“You shot his ear off,” I replied. “He came running back covered with blood. I never saw a man so scared.”

“Wal, I shore am glad,” drawled Jim.

“He made off with your mustang,” said Dick.

This information lessened my gladness at Greaser’s escape. Still, I would rather have had him get away on my horse than stay to be shot by Jim.

Dick called me to go outside with him. My pack was lying under one of the pines near the cabin, and examination proved that nothing had been disturbed. We found the horses grazing up the canyon. Buell had taken the horse of one of his men, and had left his own superb bay. Most likely he had jumped astride the first animal he saw. Dick said I could have Buell’s splendid horse. I had some trouble in catching him, as he was restive and spirited, but I succeeded eventually, and we drove the other horses and ponies into the glade. My comrades then fell to arguing about what to do with the prisoners. Dick was for packing them off to Holston. Bent talked against this, saying it was no easy matter to drive bound men over rough trails, and Jim sided with him.

Once, while they were talking, I happened to catch Herky-Jerky’s eye. He was lying on his back in the light from the door. Herky winked at me, screwed up his face in the most astonishing manner, all of which I presently made out to mean that he wanted to speak to me. So I went over to him.

“Kid, you ain’t a-goin’ to fergit I stalled off Buell?” whispered Herky. “He’d hev done fer you, an’ thet’s no lie. You won’t fergit when we’re rustled down to Holston?”

“I’ll remember, Herky,” I promised, and I meant to put in a good word for him. Because, whether or not his reasons had to do with kidnapping and ransom, he had saved me from terrible violence, perhaps death.

It was decided that we would leave the prisoners in the cabin and ride down to the sawmill. Hiram was to return at once with officers. If none could be found at the mill he was to guard the prisoners and take care of them till Dick could send officers to relieve him. Thereupon we cooked a meal, and I was put to feeding Herky and his companions. Dick ordered me especially to make them drink water, as it might be a day or longer before Hiram could get back. I made Bill drink, and easily filled up Herky; but Bud, who never drank anything save whiskey, gave me a job. He refused with a growl, and I insisted with what I felt sure was Christian patience. Still he would not drink, so I put the cup to his lips and tipped it. Bud promptly spat the water all over me. And I as promptly got another cupful and dashed it all over him.

“Bud, you’ll drink or I’ll drown you,” I declared.

So while Bill cracked hoarse jokes and Herky swore his pleasure, I made Bud drink all he could hold. Jim got a good deal of fun out of it, but Dick and Hiram never cracked a smile. Possibly the latter two saw something far from funny in the outlook; at any rate, they were silent, almost moody, and in a hurry to be off.

Dick was so anxious to be on the trail that he helped me pack my pony, and saddled Buell’s horse. It was one thing to admire the big bay from the ground, and it was another to be astride him. Target — that was his name- -had a spirited temper, an iron mouth, and he had been used to a sterner hand than mine. He danced all over the glade before he decided to behave himself. Riding him, however, was such a great pleasure that a more timid boy than I would have taken the risk. He would not let any horse stay near him; he pulled on the bridle, and leaped whenever a branch brushed him. I had been on some good horses, but never on one with a swing like his, and I grew more and more possessed with the desire to let him run.

“Like as not he’ll bolt with you. Hold him in, Ken!” called Dick, as he mounted. Then he shouted a final word to the prisoners, saying they would be looked after, and drove the pack-ponies into the trail. As we rode out we passed several of the horses that we had decided to leave behind, and as they wanted to follow us it was necessary to drive them back.

I had my hands full with the big, steel-jawed steed I was trying to hold in. It was the hardest work of the kind that I had ever undertaken. I had never worn spurs, but now I began to wish for them. We traveled at a good clip, as fast as the pack-ponies could go, and covered a long distance by camping-time. I was surprised that we did not get out of the canyon. The place where we camped was a bare, rocky opening, with a big pool in the center. While we were making camp it suddenly came over me that I was completely bewildered as to our whereabouts. I could not see the mountain peaks and did not know one direction from another. Even when Jim struck out of our trail and went off alone toward Holston I could not form an idea of where I was. All this, however, added to my feeling of the bigness of Penetier.

Dick was taciturn, and old Hiram, when I tried to engage him in conversation, cut me off with the remark that I would need my breath on the morrow. This somewhat offended me. So I made my bed and rolled into it. Not till I had lain quiet for a little did I realize that every bone and muscle felt utterly worn out. I seemed to deaden and stiffen more each moment. Presently Dick breathed heavily and Hiram snored. The red glow of fire paled and died. I heard the clinking of the hobbles on Target, and a step, now and then, of the other horses. The sky grew ever bluer and colder, the stars brighter and larger, and the night wind moaned in the pines. I heard a coyote bark, a trout splash in the pool, and the hoot of an owl. Then the sounds and the clear, cold night seemed to fade away.

When Dick roused me the forest was shrouded in gray, cold fog. No time was lost in getting breakfast, driving in the horses, and packing. Hardly any words were exchanged. My comrades appeared even soberer than on the day before. The fog lifted quickly that morning, and soon the sun was shining.

We got under way at once, and took to the trail at a jog-trot. I knew my horse better and he was more used to me, which made it at least bearable to both of us. Before long the canyon widened out into the level forest land thickly studded with magnificent pines. I had again the feeling of awe and littleness. Everything was solemn and still. The morning air was cool, and dry as toast; the smell of pitch-pine choked my nostrils. We rode briskly down the broad brown aisles, across the sunny glades, under the murmuring pines.

The old hunter was leading our train, and evidently knew perfectly what he was about. Unexpectedly he halted, bringing us up short. The pack-ponies lined up behind us. Hiram looked at Dick.

“I smell smoke,” he said, sniffing at the fragrant air.

Dick stared at the old hunter and likewise sniffed. I followed their lead, but all I could smell was the thick, piney odor of the forest.

“I don’t catch it,” replied Dick.

We continued on our journey perhaps for a quarter of a mile, and then Hiram Bent stopped again. This time he looked significantly at Dick without speaking a word.

“Ah!” exclaimed Dick. I thought his tone sounded queer, but it did not at the moment strike me forcibly. We rode on. The forest became lighter, glimpses of sky showed low down through the trees, we were nearing a slope.

For the third time the old hunter brought us to a stop, this time on the edge of a slope that led down to the rolling foot-hills. I could only stand and gaze. Those open stretches, sloping down, all green and brown and beautiful, robbed me of thought.

“Look thar!” cried Hiram Bent.

His tone startled me. I faced about, to see his powerful arm outstretched and his finger pointing. His stern face added to my sudden concern. Something was wrong with my friends. I glanced in the direction he indicated. There were two rolling slopes or steps below us, and they were like gigantic swells of a green ocean. Beyond the second one rose a long, billowy, bluish cloud. It was smoke. All at once I smelled smoke, too. It came on the fresh, strong wind.

“Forest fire!” exclaimed Dick.

“Wal, I reckon,” replied Hiram, tersely. “An’ look thar, an’ thar!”

Far to the right and far to the left, over the green, swelling foot-hills, rose that rounded, changing line of blue cloud.

“The slash! the slash! Buell’s fired the slash!” cried Dick, as one suddenly awakened. “Penetier will go!”

“Wal, I reckon. But thet’s not the worst.”

“You mean—”

“Mebbe we can’t get out. The forest’s dry as powder, an’ thet’s the worst wind we could have. These canyon-draws suck in the wind, an’ fire will race up them fast as a hoss can run.”

“Good God, man! What’ll we do?”

“Wait. Mebbe it ain’t so bad — yet. Now let’s all listen.”

The faces of my friends, more than words, terrified me. I listened with all my ears while watching with all my eyes. The line of rolling cloud expanded, seemed to burst and roll upward, to bulge and mushroom. In a few short moments it covered the second slope as far to the right and left as we could see. The under surface was a bluish white. It shot up swiftly, to spread out into immense, slow-moving clouds of creamy yellow.

“Hear thet?” Hiram Bent shook his gray head as one who listened to dire tidings.

The wind, sweeping up the slope of Penetier, carried a strong, pungent odor of burning pitch. It brought also a low roar, not like the wind in the trees or rapid-rushing water. It might have been my imagination, but I fancied it was like the sound of flames blowing through the wood of a campfire.

“Fire! Fire!” exclaimed Hiram, with another ominous shake of his head. “We must be up an’ doin’.”

“The forest’s greatest foe! Old Penetier is doomed!” cried Dick Leslie. “That line of fire is miles long, and is spreading fast. It’ll shoot up the canyons and crisscross the forest in no time. Bent, what’ll we do?”

“Mebbe we can get around the line. We must, or we’ll have to make tracks for the mountain, an’ thet’s a long chance. You take to the left an’ I’ll go to the right, an’ we’ll see how the fire’s runnin’.”

“What will Ken do?”

“Wal, let him stay here — no, thet won’t do! We might get driven back a little an’ have to circle. The safest place in this forest is where we camped. Thet’s not far. Let him drive the ponies back thar an’ wait.”

“All right. Ken, you hustle the pack-team back to our last night’s camp. Wait there for us. We won’t be long.”

Dick galloped off through the forest, and Hiram went down the slope in almost the opposite direction. Left alone, I turned my horse and drove the pack-ponies along our back-trail. Thus engaged, I began to recover somewhat from the terror that had stupefied me. Still, I kept looking back. I found the mouth of the canyon and the trail, and in what I thought a very short time I reached the bare, rocky spot where we had last camped. The horses all drank thirstily, and I discovered that I was hot and dry.

Then I waited. At every glance I expected to see Dick and Hiram riding up the canyon. But moments dragged by, and they did not come. Here there was no sign of smoke, nor even the faintest hint of the roar of the fire. The wind blew strongly up the canyon, and I kept turning my ear to it. In spite of the fact that my friends did not come quickly I had begun to calm my fears. They would return presently with knowledge of the course of the fire and the way to avoid it. My thoughts were mostly occupied with sorrow for beautiful Penetier. What a fiend Buell was! I had heard him say he would fire the slash, and he had kept his word.

Half an hour passed. I saw a flash of gray down the canyon, and shouted in joy. But what I thought Dick and Hiram was a herd of deer. They were running wildly. They clicked on the stones, and scarcely swerved for the pack-ponies. It took no second glance to see that they were fleeing from the fire. This brought back all my alarms, and every moment that I waited thereafter added to them. I watched the trail and under the trees for my friends, and I scanned the sky for signs of the blue-white clouds of smoke. But I saw neither.

“Dick told me to wait here; but how long shall I wait?” I muttered. “Something’s happened to him. If only I could see what that fire is doing!”

The camping-place was low down between two slopes, one of which was high and had a rocky cliff standing bare in the sunlight. I conceived the idea of climbing to it. I could not sit quietly waiting any longer. So, mounting Target, I put him up the slope. It was not a steep climb, still it was long and took considerable time. Before I reached the gray cliff I looked down over the forest to see the rolling, smoky clouds. We climbed higher and still higher, till Target reached the cliff and could go no farther. Leaping off, I tied him securely and bent my efforts to getting around on top of the cliff. If I had known what a climb it was I should not have attempted it, but I could not back out with the summit looming over me. It ran up to a ragged crag. Hot, exhausted, and out of breath, I at last got there.

As I looked I shouted in surprise. It seemed that the whole of Penetier was under my feet. The green slope disappeared in murky clouds of smoke. There were great pillars and huge banks of yellow and long streaks of black, and here and there, underneath, moving splashes of red. The thing did not stay still one instant. It changed so that I could not tell what it did look like. Them were life and movement in it, and something terribly sinister. I tried to calculate how far distant the fire was and how fast it was coming, but that, in my state of mind, I could not do. The whole sweep of forest below me was burning. I felt the strong breeze and smelled the burnt wood. Puffs of white smoke ran out ahead of the main clouds, and I saw three of them widely separated. What they meant puzzled me. But all of a sudden I saw in front of the nearest a flickering gleam of red. Then I knew those white streams of smoke rose where the fire was being sucked up the canyons. They leaped along with amazing speed. It was then that I realized that Dick and Hiram had been caught by one of these offshoots of the fire, and had been compelled to turn away to save their lives. Perhaps they would both be lost. For a moment I felt faint, but I fought it off. I had to think of myself. It was every one for himself, and perhaps there was many a man caught on Penetier with only a slender chance for life.

“Oh! oh!” I cried, suddenly. “Herky, Bud, and Bill tied helpless in that cabin! Dick forgot them. They’ll be burned to death!”

As I stood there, trembling at the thought of Herky and his comrades bound hand and foot, the first roar of the forest fire reached my ears. It threatened, but it roused my courage. I jumped as if I had been shot, and clattered down that crag with wings guiding my long leaps. No crevice or jumble of loose stones or steep descent daunted me. I reached the horse, and, grasping the bridle, I started to lead him. We had zigzagged up, we went straight down. Target was too spirited to balk, but he did everything else. More than once he reared with his hoofs high in the air, and, snorting, crashed down. He pulled me off my feet, he pawed at me with his great iron shoes. When we got clear of the roughest and most thickly overgrown part of the descent I mounted him. Then I needed no longer to urge him. The fire had entered the canyon, the hollow roar swept up and filled Target with the same fright that possessed me. He plunged down, slid on his haunches, jumped the logs, crashed through brush. I had continually to rein him toward the camp. He wanted to turn from that hot wind and strange roar.

We reached a level, the open, stony ground, then the pool. The pack-ponies were standing patiently with drooping heads. The sun was obscured in thin blue haze. Smoke and dust and ashes blew by with the wind. I put Target’s nose down to the water, so that he would drink. Then I cut packs off the ponies, spilled the contents, and filled my pockets with whatever I could lay my hands on in the way of eatables. I hung a canteen on the pommel, and threw a bag of biscuits over the saddle and tied it fast. My fingers worked swiftly. There was a fluttering in my throat, and my sight was dim. All the time the roar of the forest fire grew louder and more ominous.

The ponies would be safe. I would be safe in the lee of the big rocks near the pool. But I did not mean to stay. I could not stay with those men lying tied up in the cabin. Herky had saved me. Still it was not that which spurred me on.

Target snorted shrilly and started back from the water, ready to stampede. Slipping the bridle into place, I snapped the bit between his teeth. I had to swing off my feet to pull his head down.

Even as I did this I felt the force of the wind. It was hard to breathe. A white tumbling column of smoke hid sky and sun. All about me it was like a blue twilight.

The appalling roar held me spellbound with my foot in the stirrup. It drew my glance even in that moment of flight.

Under the shifting cloud flashes of red followed by waves of fire raced through the tree-tops. That the forest fire traveled through the tree-tops was as new to me as it was terrible. The fire seemed to make and drive the wind. Lower down along the ground was a dull furnace-glow, now dark, now bright. It all brought into my mind a picture I had seen of the end of the world.

Target broke the spell by swinging me up into the saddle as he leaped forward with a furious snort. I struck him with the bridle, and yelled:

“You iron-jawed brute! You’ve been crazy to run — now run!”

XVII. THE BACK-FIRE

TARGET POUNDED OVER the scaly ground and thundered into the hard trail. Then he stretched out. As we cleared the last obstructing pile of rocks I looked back. There was a vast wave of fire rolling up the canyon and spreading up the slopes. It was so close that I nearly fainted. With both hands knotted and stiff I clung to the pommel in a cold horror, and I looked back no more to see the flames reaching out for me. But I could not keep the dreadful roar from filling my ears, and it weakened me so that I all but dropped from the saddle. Only an unconscious instinct to fight for life made me hold on.

Blue and white puffs of smoke swept by me. The trail was a dim, twisting line. The slopes and pines, merged in a mass, flew backward in brown sheets. Above the roar of the pursuing fire I heard the thunder of Target’s hoofs. I scarcely felt him or the saddle, only a motion and the splitting of the wind.

The fear of death by fire, which had almost robbed me of strength, passed from me. My brain cleared. Still I had no kind of hope, only a desperate resolve not to give up.

The great bay horse was running to save his life and to save mine. It was a race with fire. When I thought of the horse, and saw how fast he was going, and realized that I must do my part, I was myself again.

The trail was a winding, hard-packed thread of white ground. It had been made for leisurely travel. Many turns were sudden and sharp. I loosened the reins, and cried out to Target. Evidently I had unknowingly held him in, for he lengthened out, and went on in quicker, longer leaps. In that moment riding seemed easy. I listened to the roar behind me, now a little less deafening, and began to thrill. We were running away from the fire.

Hope made the race seem different. Something stirred and beat warm within me, driving out the chill in my marrow. I leaned over the neck of the great bay horse, and called to him and cheered him on. Then I saw he was deaf and blind to me, for he was wild. He had the bit between his teeth, and was running away.

The roar behind us relentlessly pursuing, only a little less appalling, was now not my only source of peril. Target could no more be guided nor stopped than could the forest fire. The trail grew more winding and overhung more thickly by pine branches. The horse did not swerve an inch for tree or thicket, but ran as if free, and the saving of my life began to be a matter of dodging. Once a crashing blow from a branch almost knocked me from the saddle. The wind in my ears half drowned the roar behind me. With hands twisted in Target’s mane I bent low, watching with keen eyes for the trees and branches ahead. I drew up my knees and bent my body, and dodged and went down flat over the pommel like a wild-riding Indian. Target kept that straining run for a longer distance than I could judge. With the same breakneck speed he thundered on over logs and little washes, through the thick, bordering bushes, and around the sudden turns. His foam moistened my face and flecked my sleeves. The wind came stinging into my face, the heavy roar followed at my back with its menace.

Swift and terrible as the forest fire was, Target was winning the race. I knew it. Steadily the roar softened, but it did not die away. Pound! pound! pound! The big bay charged up the trail. How long could he stand that killing pace? I began to talk soothingly to him, to pull on the bridle; but he might have been an avalanche for all he heeded. Still I kept at him, fighting him every moment that I was free from low branches. Gradually the strain began to tell.

The sight of a cabin brought back to my mind the meaning of the wild race with fire. I had forgotten the prisoners. I had reached the forest glade and the cabin, but Target was still going hard. What if I could not stop him! Summoning all my strength, I quickly threw weight and muscle back on the reins and snapped the bit out of his teeth. Then coaxing, commanding, I pulled him back. In the glade were four horses, standing bunched with heads and ears up, uneasy, and beginning to be frightened. Perhaps the sight of them helped me to stop Target; at any rate, he slackened his pace and halted. He was spotted with foam, dripping wet, and his broad sides heaved.

I jumped off, stiff and cramped. I could scarcely walk. The air was clear, though the fog of smoke overspread the sun. The wind blew strong with a scent of pitch. Now that I was not riding, the roar of the fire sounded close. I caught the same strange growl, the note of on-sweeping fury. Again the creepy cold went over me. I felt my face blanch, and the skin tighten over my cheeks. I dashed into the cabin, crying: “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

“Whoop! It’s the kid!” yelled Herky-Jerky.

He was lying near the door, red as a brick in the face, and panting hard. In one cut I severed the rope on his feet; in another, that round his raw and bloody wrists. Herky had torn his flesh trying to release his hands.

“Kid, how’d you git back hyar?” he questioned, with his sharp little eyes glinting on me. “Did the fire chase you? Whar’s Leslie?”

“Buell fired the slash. Penetier is burning. Dick and Hiram sent me back to the pool below, and then didn’t come. They got caught — oh! . . . I’m afraid — lost! . . . Then I remembered you fellows. The fire’s coming — it’s awful — we must fly!”

“You thought of us?” Herky’s voice sounded queer and strangled. “Bud! Bill! Did you hear thet? Wal, wal!”

While he muttered on I cut Bill’s bonds. He rose without a word. Bud was almost unconscious. He had struggled terribly. His heels had dug a hole in the hard clay floor; his wrists were skinned; his mouth and chin covered with earth, probably from his having bitten the ground in his agony. Herky helped him up and gave him a drink from a little pocket-flask.

“Herky, if you think you’ve rid some in your day, look at thet hoss,” said Bill, coolly, from the door. He eyed me coolly; in fact, he was as cool as if there were no fire on Penetier. But Bud was white and sick, and Herky flaming with excitement.

“We hain’t got a chance. Listen! Thet roar! She’s hummin’.”

“It’s runnin’ up the draw. We don’t stand no showdown in hyar. Grab a hoss now, an’ we’ll try to head acrost the ridge.”

I remounted Target, and the three men caught horses and climbed up bareback. Bill led the way across the glade, up the slope, into the level forest. There we broke into a gallop. The air upon this higher ground was dark and thick, but not so hard to breathe as that lower down. We pressed on. For a while the roar receded, and almost deadened. Then it grew clearer again’ filled out, and swelled. Bud wanted to sheer off to the left. Herky swore we were being surrounded. Bill turned a deaf ear to them. From my own sense of direction I fancied we were going wrong, but Bill was so cool he gave me courage. Soon a blue, windy haze, shrouding the giant pines ahead, caused Bill to change his course.

“Do you know whar you’re headin’?” yelled Herky, high above the roar.

“I hain’t got the least idee, Herky,” shouted Bill, as cool as could be, “but I guess somewhar whar it’ll be hot!”

We were lost in the forest and almost surrounded by fire, if the roar was anything to tell by. We galloped on, always governed by the roar, always avoiding the slope up the mountain. If we once started up that with the fire in our rear we were doomed. Perhaps there were times when the wind deceived us. It was hard to tell. Anyway, we kept on, growing more bewildered. Bud looked like a dead man already and reeled in his saddle. The horses were getting hard to manage, and the wind was strengthening and puffed at us from all quarters. Bill still looked cool, but the last vestige of color had faded from his face. These things boded ill. Herky had grown strangely silent, which fact was the worst of all for me. For that tough, scarred, reckless little wretch to hold his tongue was the last straw.

The air freshened somewhat, and the forest lightened. Almost abruptly we rode out to the edge of a great, wide canyon. It must have crossed the forest at right angles to the canyon we had left. It was twice as wide and deep as any I had yet seen. In the bottom wound a broad brook.

“Which way now?” asked Herky.

Bill shook his head. Far to our right a pall of smoke moved over the tree-tops, to our left was foggy gloom, behind rolled the unceasing roar. We all looked straight across. Probably each of us harbored the same thought. Before that wind the fire would leap the canyon in flaming bounds, and on the opposite level was the thick pitch-pine forest of Penetier proper. So far we had been among the foot-hills. We dared not enter the real forest with that wild-fire back of us. Momentarily we stood irresolute. It was a pause full of hopelessness, such as might have come to tired deer, close harried by hounds.

The winding brook and the brown slope, comparatively bare of trees, brought me a sudden inspiration.

“Back-fire! Back-fire!” I cried to my companions, in wild appeal. “We must back-fire. It’s our chance! Here’s the place!”

Bud scowled and Herky grumbled, but Bill grasped at the idea.

“I’ve heerd of back-firin’. The rangers do it. But how? How?”

They caught his hope, and their haggard faces lightened.

“Kid, we ain’t forest rangers,” said Herky. “Do you know what you’re talkin’ about?”

“Yes, yes! Come on! We’ll back-fire!”

I led the way down the slope, and they came close at my heels. I rode into the shallow brook, and dismounted about the middle between the banks. I hung my coat on the pommel of my saddle.

“Bud, you and Bill hold the horses here!” I shouted, intensely excited. “Herky, have you matches?”

“Nary a match.”

“Hyar’s a box,” said Bill, tossing it.

“Come on, Herky! You run up the brook. Light a match, and drop it every hundred feet. Be sure it catches. Lucky there’s little wind down here. Go as far as you can. I’ll run down!”

We splashed out of the brook and leaped up the bank. The grass was long and dry. There was brush near by, and the pine-needle mats almost bordered the bank. I struck a match and dropped it.

Sis-s-s! Flare! It was almost like dropping a spark into gunpowder. The flame ran quickly, reached the pine-needles, then sputtered and fizzed into a big blaze. The first pine-tree exploded and went off like a rocket. We were startled by the sound and the red, up-leaping pillar of fire. Sudden heat shot back at us as if from a furnace. Great sparks began to fall.

“It’s goin’!” yelled Herky-Jerky, his voice ringing strong. He clapped his hat down on my bare head. Then he started running up-stream.

I darted in the opposite direction. I heard Bud and Bill yelling, and the angry crack and hiss of the fire. A few rods down I stopped, struck another match, and lit the grass. There was a sputter and flash. Then the flame flared up, spread like running quicksilver, and, meeting the pine-needles, changed to red. I ran on. There was a loud flutter behind me, then a crack almost like a shot, then a seething roar. Another pine had gone off. As I stopped to strike the third match there came three distinct reports, and then others that seemed dulled in a windy roar. I raced onward, daring only once to look back. A fearful sight met my gaze. The slope was a red wave. The pines were tufts of flame. The air was filled with steaming clouds of whirling smoke. Then I fled onward again.

Match after match I struck, and when the box was empty I must have been a mile, two miles, maybe more, from the starting-point. I was wringing-wet, and there was a piercing pain in my side. I plunged across the brook, and in as deep water as I could find knelt down to cover all but my face. Then, with laboring breaths that bubbled the water near my mouth, I kept still and watched.

The back-fire which I had started swept up over the slope and down the brook like a charge of red lancers. Spears of flame led the advance. The flame licked up the dry surface-grass and brush, and, meeting the pines, circled them in a whirlwind of fire, like lightning flashing upward. Then came prolonged reports, and after that a long, blistering roar in the tree-tops. Even as I gazed, appalled in the certainty of a horrible fate, I thrilled at the grand spectacle. Fire had always fascinated me. The clang of the engines and the call of “Fire!” would tear me from any task or play. But I had never known what fire was. I knew now. Storms of air and sea were nothing compared to this. It was the greatest force in nature. It was fire. On one hand, I seemed cool and calculated the chances; on the other, I had flashes in my brain, and kept crying out crazily, in a voice like a whisper: “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

But presently the wall of fire rolled by and took the roar with it. Dense billows of smoke followed, and hid everything in opaque darkness. I heard the hiss of failing sparks and the crackle of burning wood, and occasionally the crash of a failing branch. It was intolerably hot, but I could stand the heat better than the air. I coughed and strangled. I could not get my breath. My eyes smarted and burned. Crawling close under the bank, I leaned against it and waited.

Some hours must have passed. I suffered, not exactly pain, but a discomfort that was almost worse. By-and-by the air cleared a little. Rifts in the smoke drifted over me, always toward the far side of the canyon. Twice I crawled out upon the bank, but the heat drove me back into the water. The snow-water from the mountain-peaks had changed from cold to warm; still, it gave a relief from the hot blast of air. More time dragged by. Weary to the point of collapse, I grew not to care about anything.

Then the yellow fog lightened, and blew across the brook and lifted and split. The parts of the canyon-slope that I could see were seared and blackened. The pines were columns of living coals. The fire was eating into their hearts. Presently they would snap at the trunk, crash down, and burn to ashes. Wreathes of murky smoke circled them, and drifted aloft to join the overhanging clouds.

I floundered out on the bank, and began to walk up-stream. After all, it was not so very hot, but I felt queer. I did not seem to be able to step where I looked or see where I stepped. Still, that caused me no worry. The main thing was that the fire had not yet crossed the brook. I wanted to feel overjoyed at that, but I was too tired. Anyway I was sure the fire had crossed below or above. It would be tearing down on this side presently, and then I would have to crawl into the brook or burn up. It did not matter much which I had to do. Then I grew dizzy, my legs trembled, my feet lost all sense of touching the ground. I could not go much farther. Just then I heard a shout. It was close by. I answered, and heard heavy steps. I peered through the smoky haze. Something dark moved up in the gloom.

“Ho, kid! Thar you are!” I felt a strong arm go round my waist. “Wal, wal!” That was Herky. His voice sounded glad. It roused a strange eagerness in me; his rough greeting seemed to bring me back from a distance.

“All wet, but not burned none, I, see. We kinder was afeared. . . . Say, kid, thet back-fire, now. It was a dandy. It did the biz. Our whiskers was singed, but we’re safe. An, kid, it was your game, played like a man

After that his voice grew faint, and I felt as if I were walking in a dream.

XVIII. CONCLUSION

THAT DREADFUL FEELING of motion went away, and I became unconscious of everything. When I awoke the sun was gleaming dimly through thin films of smoke. I was lying in a pleasant little ravine with stunted pines fringing its slopes. The brook bowled merrily over stones.

Bud snored in the shade of a big boulder. Herky whistled as he broke dead branches into fagots for a campfire. Bill was nowhere in sight. I saw several of the horses browsing along the edge of the water.

My drowsy eyelids fell back again. When I awoke a long time seemed to have passed. The air was clearer, the sky darker, and the sun had gone behind the peaks. I saw Bill and Herky skinning a deer.

“Where are we?” I asked, sitting up.

“Hello, kid!” replied Herky, cheerily. “We come up to the head of the canyon, thet’s all. How’re you feelin’?”

“I’m all right, only tired. Where’s the forest fire?”

“It’s most burned out by now. It didn’t jump the canyon into the big forest. Thet back-fire did the biz. Say, kid, wasn’t settin’ off them pines an’ runnin’ fer your life jest like bein’ in a battle?”

“It certainly was. Herky, how long will we be penned up here?”

“Only a day or two. I reckon we’d better not risk takin’ you back to Holston till we’re sure about the fire. Anyways, kid, you need rest. You’re all played out.”

Indeed, I was so weary that it took an effort to lift my hand. A strange lassitude made me indifferent. But Herky’s calm mention of taking me back to Holston changed the color of my mood. I began to feel more cheerful. The meal we ate was scant enough — biscuits and steaks of broiled venison with a pinch of salt; but, starved as we were, it was more than satisfactory. Herky and Bill were absurdly eager to serve me. Even Bud was kind to me, though he still wore conspicuously over his forehead the big bruise I had given him. After I had eaten I began to gain strength. But my face was puffed from the heat, my injured arm was stiff and sore, and my legs seemed never to have been used before.

Darkness came on quickly. The dew fell heavily, and the air grew chilly. Our blazing campfire was a comfort. Bud and Bill carried in logs for firewood, while Herky made me a bed of dry pine needles.

“It’ll be some cold tonight,” he said,” an’ we’ll hev to hug the fire. Now if we was down in the foot-hills we’d be warmer, hey? Look thar!”

He pointed down the ravine, and I saw a great white arc of light extending up into the steely sky.

“The forest fire?”

“Yep, she’s burnin’ some. But you oughter seen it last night. Not thet it ain’t worth seein’ jest now. Come along with me.”

He led me where the ravine opened wide. I felt, rather than saw, a steep slope beneath. Far down was a great patch of fire. It was like a crazy quilt, here dark, there light, with streaks and stars and streams of fire shining out of the blackness. Masses of slow-moving smoke overhung the brighter areas. The night robbed the forest fire of its fierceness and lent it a kind of glory. The fire had ceased to move; it had spent its force, run its race, and was now dying. But I could not forget what it had been, what it had done. Thousands of acres of magnificent pines had perished. The shade and color and beauty of that part of the forest had gone. The heart of the great trees was now slowly rolling away in those dark, weird clouds of smoke. I was sad for the loss and sick with fear for Dick and Hiram.

Herky must have known my mind.

“You needn’t feel bad, kid. Thet’s only a foothill or so of Penetier gone up in smoke. An’ Buell’s sawmill went, too. It’s almost a sure thing thet Leslie an’ old Bent got out safe, though they must be doin’ some tall worryin’ about you. I wonder how they feel about me an’ Bud an’ Bill? A little prematoore roastin’ for us, eh? Wal, wal!”

We went back to the camp. I lay down near the fire and fell asleep. Some time in the night I awoke. The fire was still burning brightly. Bud and Bill were lying with their backs to it almost close enough to scorch. Herky sat in his shirtsleeves. The smoke of his pipe and the smoke of the campfire wafted up together. Then I saw and felt that he had covered me with his coat and vest.

I slept far into the next day. Herky was in camp alone. The others had gone, Herky said, and he would not tell me where. He did not appear as cheerful as usual. I suspected he had quarreled with his companions, very likely about what was to be done with me. The day passed, and again I slept. Herky awakened me before it was light.

“Come, kid, we’ll rustle in to Holston today.”

We cooked our breakfast of venison, and then Herky went in search of the horses. They had browsed far up the ravine, and the dawn had broken by the time he returned. Target stood well to be saddled, nor did he bolt when I climbed up. Perhaps that ride I gave him had chastened and subdued his spirit. Well, it had nearly killed me. Herky mounted the one horse left, a sorry-looking pack-pony, and we started down the ravine.

An hour of steady descent passed by before we caught sight of any burned forest land. Then as we descended into the big canyon we turned a curve and saw, far ahead to the left, a black, smoky, hideous slope. We kept to the right side of the brook and sheered off just as we reached a point opposite, where the burned line began. Fire had run up that side till checked by bare weathered slopes and cliffs. As far down the brook as eye could see through the smoky haze there stretched that black line of charred, spear-pointed pines, some glowing, some blazing, all smoking.

From time to time, as we climbed up the slope, I looked back. The higher I got the more hideous became the outlook over the burned district. I was glad when Herky led the way into the deep shade of level forest, shutting out the view. It would take a hundred years to reforest those acres denuded of their timber by the fire of a few days. But as hour after hour went by, with our trail leading through miles and miles of the same old forest that had bewitched me, I began to feel a little less grief at the thought of what the fire had destroyed. It was a loss, yet only a small part of vast Penetier. If only my friends had gotten out alive!

Herky was as relentless in his travelling as I had found him in some other ways. He kept his pony at a trot. The trail was open, we made fast time, and when the sun had begun to cast a shadow before us we were going down-hill. Busy with the thought of my friends, I scarcely noted the passing of time. It was a surprise to me when we rode down the last little foot-hill, out into the scattered pines, and saw Holston only a few miles across the sage-flat.

“Wal, kid, we’ve come to the partin’ of the ways,” said Herky, with a strange smile on his smug face.

“Herky, won’t you ride in with me?”

“Naw, I reckon it’d not be healthy fer me.”

“But you haven’t even a saddle or blanket or any grub.”

“I’ve a friend across hyar a ways, a rancher, an’ he’ll fix me up. But, kid, I’d like to hev thet hoss. He was Buell’s, an’ Buell owed me money. Now I calkilate you can’t take Target back East with you, an’ you might as well let me have him.”

“Sure, Herky.” I jumped off at once, led the horse over, and held out the bridle. Herky dismounted, and began fumbling with the stirrup straps.

“Your legs are longer’n mine,” he explained.

“Oh yes, Herky, I almost forgot to return your hat,” I said, removing the wide sombrero. It had a wonderful band made of horsehair and a buckle of silver with a strange device.

“Wal, you keep the hat,” he replied, with his back turned. “Greaser stole your hoss an’ your outfit’s lost, an’ you might want somethin’ to remember your — your friends in Arizony. . . . Thet hat ain’t much, but, say, the buckle was an Injun’s I shot, an’ I made the band when I was in jail in Yuma.”

“Thank you, Herky. I’ll keep it, though I’d never need anything to make me remember Arizona — or you.”

Herky swung his bow-legs over Target and I got astride the lean-backed pony. There did not seem to be any more to say, yet we both lingered.

“Good-bye, Herky, I’m glad I met you,” I said, offering my hand.

He gave it a squeeze that nearly crushed my fingers. His keen little eyes gleamed, but he turned away without another word, and, slapping Target on the flank, rode off under the trees.

I put the hat back on my head and watched Herky for a moment. His silence and abrupt manner were unlike him, but what struck me most was the fact that in our last talk every word had been clean and sincere. Somehow it pleased me. Then I started the pony toward Holston.

He was tired and I was ready to drop, and those last few miles were long. We reached the outskirts of the town perhaps a couple of hours before sundown. A bank of clouds had spread out of the west and threatened rain.

The first person I met was Cless, and he put the pony in his corral and hurried me round to the hotel. On the way he talked so fast and said so much that I was bewildered before we got there. The office was full of men, and Cless shouted to them. There was the sound of a chair scraping hard on the floor, then I felt myself clasped by brawny arms. After that all was rather hazy in my mind. I saw Dick and Jim and old Hiram, though, I could not see them distinctly, and I heard them all talking, all questioning at once. Then I was talking in a somewhat silly way, I thought, and after that some one gave me a hot, nasty drink, and I felt the cool sheets of a bed.

The next morning all was clear. Dick came to my room and tried to keep me in bed, but I refused to stay. We went down to breakfast, and sat at a table with Jim and Hiram. It seemed to me that I could not answer any questions till I had asked a thousand.

What news had they for me? Buell had escaped, after firing the slash. His sawmill and lumber-camp and fifty thousand acres of timber had been burned. The fire had in some way been confined to the foot-hills. It had rained all night, so the danger of spreading was now over. My letter had brought the officers of the forest service; even the Chief, who had been travelling west over the Santa Fe, had stopped off and was in Holston then. There had been no arrests, nor would there be, unless Buell or Stockton could be found. A new sawmill was to be built by the service. Buell’s lumbermen would have employment in the mill and as rangers in the forest.

But I was more interested in matters which Dick seemed to wish to avoid.

“How did you get out of the burning forest?” I asked, for the second time.

“We didn’t get out. We went back to the pool where we sent you. The pack-ponies were there, but you were gone. By George! I was mad, and then I was just broken up. I was . . . afraid you’d been burned. We weathered the fire all right, and then rode in to Holston. Now the mystery is where were you?”

“Then you saved all the ponies?”

“Yes, and brought your outfit in. But, Ken, we — that was awful of us to forget those poor fellows tied fast in the cabin.” Dick looked haggard, there was a dark gloom in his eyes, and he gulped. Then I knew why he avoided certain references to the fire. “To be burned alive . . . horrible! I’ll never get over it. It’ll haunt me always. Of course we had to save our own lives; we had no time to go to them. Yet—”

“Don’t let it worry you, Dick,” I interrupted.

“What do you mean?” he asked, slowly.

“Why, I beat the fire up to the cabin, that’s all. Buell’s horse can run some. I cut the men loose, and we made up across the ridge, got lost, surrounded by fire, and then I got Herky to help me start a back-fire in that big canyon.”

“Back-fire!” exclaimed Dick, slamming the table with his big fist. Then he settled down and looked at me. Hiram looked at me. Jim looked at me, and not one of them said a word for what seemed a long time. It brought the blood to my face. But for all my embarrassment it was sweet praise. At last Dick broke the silence.

“Ken Ward, this stumps me I . . . Tell us about it.”

So I related my adventures from the moment they had left me till we met again.

“It was a wild boy’s trick, Ken — that ride in the very face of fire in a dry forest. But, thank God, you saved the lives of those fellows.” “Amen!” exclaimed old Hiram, fervently. “My lad, you saved Penetier, too; thar’s no doubt on it. The fire was sweepin’ up the canyon, an’ it would have crossed the brook somewhars in thet stretch you back-fired.”

“Ken, you shore was born in Texas,” drawl Jim Williams.

His remark was unrelated to our talk, I did not know what he meant by it; nevertheless it pleased me more than anything that had ever been said me in my life.

Then came the reading of letters that had a rived for me. In Hal’s letter, first and last harped on having been left behind. Father sent me a check, and wrote that in the event of a trouble in the lumber district he trusted me to take the first train for Harrisburg. That, I knew, meant that I must get out of my ragged clothes. That I did, and packed them up — all except Herky sombrero, which I wore. Then I went to the railroad station to see the schedule, and I compromised with father by deciding to take the limited. The fast east-bound train had gone a little before, and the next one did not leave until six o’clock. Th would give me half a day with my friends.

When I returned to the hotel Dick was looking for me. He carried me off up-stairs to a hall full of men. At one end were tables littered with papers, and here men were signing their name Dick explained that forest rangers were being paid and new ones hired. Then he introduced me officers of the service and the Chief. I knew by the way they looked at me that Dick had been talking. It made me so tongue-tied that I could not find my voice when the Chief spoke to me and shook my hand warmly. He was a tall man, with a fine face and kind eyes and hair just touched with gray.

“Kenneth Ward,” he went on, pleasantly, “I hope that letter of introduction I dictated for you some time ago has been of some service.”

“I haven’t had a chance to use it yet,” I blurted out, and I dived into my pocket to bring forth the letter. It was wrinkled, soiled, and had been soaked with water. I began to apologize for its disreputable appearance when he interrupted me.

“I’ve heard about the ducking you got and all the rest of it,” he said, smiling. Then his manner changed to one of business and hurry.

“You are studying forestry?”

“Yes, sir. I’m going to college this fall.”

“My friend in Harrisburg wrote me of your ambition and, I may say, aptness for the forest service. I’m very much pleased. We need a host of bright young fellows. Here, look at this map.”

He drew my attention to a map lying on the table, and made crosses and tracings with a pencil while he talked.

“This is Penetier. Here are the Arizona Peaks. The heavy shading represents timbered land. All these are canyons. Here’s Oak Creek Canyon, the one the fire bordered. Now I want you to tell me how you worked that back-fire, and, if you can, mark the line you fired.”

This appeared to me an easy task, and certainly one I was enthusiastic over. I told him just how I had come to the canyon, and how I saw that the fire would surely cross there, and that a back-fire was the only chance. Then, carefully studying the map, I marked off the three miles Herky and I had fired.

“Very good. You had help in this?”

“Yes. A fellow called Herky-Jerky. He was one of Buell’s men who kept me a prisoner.”

“But he turned out a pretty good sort, didn’t he?”

“Indeed, yes, sir.”

“Well, I’ll try to locate him, and offer him a job in the service. Now, Mr. Ward, you’ve had special opportunities; you have an eye in your head, and you are interested in forestry. Perhaps you can help us. Personally I shall be most pleased to hear what you think might be done in Penetier.”

I gasped and stared, and could scarcely believe my ears. But he was not joking; he was as serious as if he had addressed himself to one of his officers. I looked at them all, standing interested and expectant. Dick was as grave and erect as a deacon. Jim seemed much impressed. But old Hiram Bent, standing somewhat back of the others, deliberately winked at me.

But for that wink I never could have seized my opportunity. It made me remember my talks with Hiram. So I boiled down all that I had learned and launched it on the Chief. Whether I was brief or not, I was out of breath when I stopped. He appeared much surprised.

“Thank you,” he said, finally. “You certainly have been observant.” Then he turned to his officers. “Gentlemen, here’s a new point of view from first-hand observation. I call it splendid conservation. It’s in the line of my policy. It considers the settler and lumberman instead of combating him.”

He shook hands with me again. “You may be sure I’ll not lose sight of you. Of course you will be coming West next summer, after your term at college?”

“Yes, sir, I want to — if Dick—”

He smiled as I hesitated. That man read my mind like an open book.

“Mr. Leslie goes to the Coconina Forest as head forest ranger. Mr. Williams goes as his assistant. And I have appointed Mr. Bent game warden in the same forest. You may spend next summer with them.”

I stammered some kind of thanks, and found myself going out and down-stairs with my friends.

“Oh, Dick! Wasn’t he fine? ... Say, where’s Coconina Forest?”

“It’s over across the desert and beyond the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Penetier is tame compared to Coconina. I’m afraid to let you come out there.”

“I don’t have to ask you, Mr. Dick,” I replied.

“Lad, I’ll need a young fellar bad next summer,” said old Hiram, with twinkling eyes. “One as can handle a rope, an’ help tie up lions an’ sich.”

“Oh! my bear cub! I’d forgotten him. I wanted to take him home.”

“Wal, thar weren’t no sense in thet, youngster, fer you couldn’t do it. He was a husky cub.”

“I hate to give up my mustang, too. Dick, have you heard of the Greaser?”

“Not yet, but he’ll be trailing into Holston before long.”

Jim Williams removed his pipe, and puffed a cloud of white smoke.

“Ken, I shore ain’t fergot Greaser,” he drawled with his slow smile. “Hev you any pertickler thing you want did to him?”

“Jim, don’t kill him!” I burst out, impetuously, and then paused, frightened out of speech. Why I was afraid of him I did not know, he seemed so easy-going, so careless — almost sweet, like a woman; but then I had seen his face once with a look that I could never forget.

“Wal, Ken, I’ll dodge Greaser if he ever crosses my trail again.”

That promise was a relief. I knew Greaser would come to a bad end, and certainly would get his just deserts; but I did not want him punished any more for what he had done to me.

Those last few hours sped like winged moments. We talked and planned a little, I divided my outfit among my friends, and then it was time for the train. That limited train had been late, so they said, every day for a week, and this day it was on time to the minute. I had no luck.

My friends bade me good-bye as if they expected to see me next day, and I said good-bye calmly. I had my part to play. My short stay with them had made me somehow different. But my coolness was deceitful. Dick helped me on the train and wrung my hand again.

“Good-bye, Ken. It’s been great to have you out. . . . Next year you’ll be back in the forests!”

He had to hurry to get off. The train started as I looked out of my window. There stood the powerful hunter, his white head bare, and he was waving his hat. Jim leaned against a railing with his sleepy, careless smile. I caught a gleam of the blue gun swinging at his hip. Dick’s eyes shone warm and blue; he was shouting something. Then they all passed back out of sight. So my gaze wandered to the indistinct black line of Penetier, to the purple slopes, and up to the cold, white mountain-peaks, and Dick’s voice rang in my ears like a prophecy: “You’ll be back in the forests.”

THE END

The Heritage of the Desert

CONTENTS

I. THE SIGN OF THE SUNSET

II. WHITE SAGE

III. THE TRAIL OF THE RED WALL

IV. THE OASIS

V. BLACK SAGE AND JUNIPER

VI. THE WIND IN THE CEDARS

VII. SILVERMANE

VIII. THE BREAKER OF WILD MUSTANGS

IX. THE SCENT OF DESERT-WATER

X. RIDING THE RANGES

XI. THE DESERT-HAWK

XII. ECHO CLIFFS

XIII. THE SOMBRE LINE

XIV. WOLF

XV. DESERT NIGHT

XVI. THUNDER RIVER

XVII. THE SWOOP OF THE HAWK

XVIII. THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT

XIX. UNLEASHED

XX. THE RAGE OF THE OLD LION

XXI. MESCAL

The first edition

I. THE SIGN OF THE SUNSET

“BUT THE MAN’S almost dead.”

The words stung John Hare’s fainting spirit into life. He opened his eyes. The desert still stretched before him, the appalling thing that had overpowered him with its deceiving purple distance. Near by stood a sombre group of men.

“Leave him here,” said one, addressing a gray-bearded giant. “He’s the fellow sent into southern Utah to spy out the cattle thieves. He’s all but dead. Dene’s outlaws are after him. Don’t cross Dene.”

The stately answer might have come from a Scottish Covenanter or a follower of Cromwell.

“Martin Cole, I will not go a hair’s-breadth out of my way for Dene or any other man. You forget your religion. I see my duty to God.”

“Yes, August Naab, I know,” replied the little man, bitterly. “You would cast the Scriptures in my teeth, and liken this man to one who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. But I’ve suffered enough at the hands of Dene.”

The formal speech, the Biblical references, recalled to the reviving Hare that he was still in the land of the Mormons. As he lay there the strange words of the Mormons linked the hard experience of the last few days with the stern reality of the present.

“Martin Cole, I hold to the spirit of our fathers,” replied Naab, like one reading from the Old Testament. “They came into this desert land to worship and multiply in peace. They conquered the desert; they prospered with the years that brought settlers, cattle-men, sheep-herders, all hostile to their religion and their livelihood. Nor did they ever fail to succor the sick and unfortunate. What are our toils and perils compared to theirs? Why should we forsake the path of duty, and turn from mercy because of a cut-throat outlaw? I like not the sign of the times, but I am a Mormon; I trust in God.”

“August Naab, I am a Mormon too,” returned Cole, “but my hands are stained with blood. Soon yours will be if you keep your water-holes and your cattle. Yes, I know. You’re strong, stronger than any of us, far off in your desert oasis, hemmed in by walls, cut off by canyons, guarded by your Navajo friends. But Holderness is creeping slowly on you. He’ll ignore your water rights and drive your stock. Soon Dene will steal cattle under your very eyes. Don’t make them enemies.”

“I can’t pass by this helpless man,” rolled out August Naab’s sonorous voice.

Suddenly, with livid face and shaking hand, Cole pointed westward. “There! Dene and his band! See, under the red wall; see the dust, not ten miles away. See them?”

The desert, gray in the foreground, purple in the distance, sloped to the west. Eyes keen as those of hawks searched die waste, and followed the red mountain rampart, which, sheer in bold height and processional in its craggy sweep, shut out the north. Far away little puffs of dust rose above the white sage, and creeping specks moved at a snail’s pace.

“See them? Ah! then look, August Naab, look in the heavens above for my prophecy,” cried Cole, fanatically. “The red sunset — the sign of the times — blood!”

A broad bar of dense black shut out the April sky, except in the extreme west, where a strip of pale blue formed background for several clouds of striking color and shape. They alone, in all that expanse, were dyed in the desert’s sunset crimson. The largest projected from behind the dark cloud-bank in the shape of a huge fist, and the others, small and round, floated below. To Cole it seemed a giant hand, clutching, with inexorable strength, a bleeding heart. His terror spread to his companions as they stared.

Then, as light surrendered to shade, the sinister color faded; the tracing of the closed hand softened; flush and glow paled, leaving the sky purple, as if mirroring the desert floor. One golden shaft shot up, to be blotted out by sudden darkening change, and the sun had set.

“That may be God’s will,” said August Naab. “So be it. Martin Cole, take your men and go.”

There was a word, half oath, half prayer, and then rattle of stirrups, the creak of saddles, and clink of spurs, followed by the driving rush of fiery horses. Cole and his men disappeared in a pall of yellow dust.

A wan smile lightened John Hare’s face as he spoke weakly: “I fear your — generous act — can’t save me . . . may bring you harm. I’d rather you left me — seeing you have women in your party.”

“Don’t try to talk yet,” said August Naab. “You’re faint. Here — drink.” He stooped to Hare, who was leaning against a sage-bush, and held a flask to his lips. Rising, he called to his men: “Make camp, sons. We’ve an hour before the outlaws come up, and if they don’t go round the sand-dune we’ll have longer.”

Hare’s flagging senses rallied, and he forgot himself in wonder. While the bustle went on, unhitching of wagon-teams, hobbling and feeding of horses, unpacking of camp-supplies, Naab appeared to be lost in deep meditation or prayer. Not once did he glance backward over the trail on which peril was fast approaching. His gaze was fastened on a ridge to the east where desert line, fringed by stunted cedars, met the pale-blue sky, and for a long time he neither spoke nor stirred. At length he turned to the camp-fire; he raked out red coals, and placed the iron pots in position, by way of assistance to the women who were preparing the evening meal.

A cool wind blew in from the desert, rustling the sage, sifting the sand, fanning the dull coals to burning opals. Twilight failed and night fell; one by one great stars shone out, cold and bright. From the zone of blackness surrounding the camp burst the short bark, the hungry whine, the long-drawn-out wail of desert wolves.

“Supper, sons,” called Naab, as he replenished the fire with an armful of grease-wood.

Naab’s sons had his stature, though not his bulk. They were wiry, rangy men, young, yet somehow old. The desert had multiplied their years. Hare could not have told one face from another, the bronze skin and steel eye and hard line of each were so alike. The women, one middle-aged, the others young, were of comely, serious aspect.

“Mescal,” called the Mormon.

A slender girl slipped from one of the covered wagons; she was dark, supple, straight as an Indian.

August Naab dropped to his knees, and, as the members of his family bowed their heads, he extended his hands over them and over the food laid on the ground.

“Lord, we kneel in humble thanksgiving. Bless this food to our use. Strengthen us, guide us, keep us as Thou hast in the past. Bless this stranger within our gates. Help us to help him. Teach us Thy ways, O Lord — Amen.”

Hare found himself flushing and thrilling, found himself unable to control a painful binding in his throat. In forty-eight hours he had learned to hate the Mormons unutterably; here, in the presence of this austere man, he felt that hatred wrenched from his heart, and in its place stirred something warm and living. He was glad, for if he had to die, as he believed, either from the deed of evil men, or from this last struggle of his wasted body, he did not want to die in bitterness. That simple prayer recalled the home he had long since left in Connecticut, and the time when he used to tease his sister and anger his father and hurt his mother while grace was being said at the breakfast-table. Now he was alone in the world, sick and dependent upon the kindness of these strangers. But they were really friends — it was a wonderful thought.

“Mescal, wait on the stranger,” said August Naab, and the girl knelt beside him, tendering meat and drink. His nerveless fingers refused to hold the cup, and she put it to his lips while he drank. Hot coffee revived him; he ate and grew stronger, and readily began to talk when the Mormon asked for his story.

“There isn’t much to tell. My name is Hare. I am twenty-four. My parents are dead. I came West because the doctors said I couldn’t live in the East. At first I got better. But my money gave out and work became a necessity. I tramped from place to place, ending up ill in Salt Lake City. People were kind to me there. Some one got me a job with a big cattle company, and sent me to Marysvale, southward over the bleak plains. It was cold; I was ill when I reached Lund. Before I even knew what my duties were for at Lund I was to begin work — men called me a spy. A fellow named Chance threatened me. An innkeeper led me out the back way, gave me bread and water, and said: ‘Take this road to Bane; it’s sixteen miles. If you make it some one’ll give you a lift North.’ I walked all night, and all the next day. Then I wandered on till I dropped here where you found me.”

“You missed the road to Bane,” said Naab. “This is the trail to White Sage. It’s a trail of sand and stone that leaves no tracks, a lucky thing for you. Dene wasn’t in Lund while you were there — else you wouldn’t be here. He hasn’t seen you, and he can’t be certain of your trail. Maybe he rode to Bane, but still we may find a way—”

One of his sons whistled low, causing Naab to rise slowly, to peer into the darkness, to listen intently.

“Here, get up,” he said, extending a hand to Hare. “Pretty shaky, eh? Can you walk? Give me a hold — there. . . . Mescal, come.” The slender girl obeyed, gliding noiselessly like a shadow. “Take his arm.” Between them they led Hare to a jumble of stones on the outer edge of the circle of light.

“It wouldn’t do to hide,” continued Naab, lowering his voice to a swift whisper, “that might be fatal. You’re in sight from the camp-fire, but indistinct. By-and-by the outlaws will get here, and if any of them prowl around close, you and Mescal must pretend to be sweethearts. Understand? They’ll pass by Mormon love-making without a second look. Now, lad, courage . . . Mescal, it may save his life.”

Naab returned to the fire, his shadow looming in gigantic proportions on the white canopy of a covered wagon. Fitful gusts of wind fretted the blaze; it roared and crackled and sputtered, now illuminating the still forms, then enveloping them in fantastic obscurity. Hare shivered, per- haps from the cold air, perhaps from growing dread. Westward lay the desert, an impenetrable black void; in front, the gloomy mountain wall lifted jagged peaks close to the stars; to the right rose the ridge, the rocks and stunted cedars of its summit standing in weird relief. Suddenly Hare’s fugitive glance descried a dark object; he watched intently as it moved and rose from behind the summit of the ridge to make a bold black figure silhouetted against the cold clearness of sky. He saw it distinctly, realized it was close, and breathed hard as the wind-swept mane and tail, the lean, wild shape and single plume resolved themselves into the unmistakable outline of an Indian mustang and rider.

“Look!” he whispered to the girl. “See, a mounted Indian, there on the ridge — there, he’s gone — no, I see him again. But that’s another. Look! there are more.” He ceased in breathless suspense and stared fearfully at a line of mounted Indians moving in single file over the ridge to become lost to view in the intervening blackness. A faint rattling of gravel and the peculiar crack of unshod hoof on stone gave reality to that shadowy train.

“Navajos,” said Mescal.

“Navajos!” he echoed. “I heard of them at Lund; ‘desert hawks’ the men called them, worse than Piutes. Must we not alarm the men? — You — aren’t you afraid?

“No.”

“But they are hostile.”

“Not to him.” She pointed at the stalwart figure standing against the firelight.

“Ah! I remember. The man Cole spoke of friendly Navajos. They must be close by. What does it mean?”

“I’m not sure. I think they are out there in the cedars, waiting.”

“Waiting! For what?”

“Perhaps for a signal.”

“Then they were expected?”

“I don’t know; I only guess. We used to ride often to White Sage and Lund; now we go seldom, and when we do there seem to be Navajos near the camp at night, and riding the ridges by day. I believe Father Naab knows.”

“Your father’s risking much for me. He’s good. I wish I could show my gratitude.”

“I call him Father Naab, but he is not my father.”

“A niece or granddaughter, then?”

“I’m no relation. Father Naab raised me in his family. My mother was a Navajo, my father a Spaniard.”

“Why!” exclaimed Hare. “When you came out of the wagon I took you for an Indian girl. But the moment you spoke — you talk so well — no one would dream—”

“Mormons are well educated and teach the children they raise,” she said, as he paused in embarrassment.

He wanted to ask if she were a Mormon by religion, but the question seemed curious and unnecessary. His interest was aroused; he realized suddenly that he had found pleasure in her low voice; it was new and strange, unlike any woman’s voice he had ever heard; and he regarded her closely. He had only time for a glance at her straight, clean-cut profile, when she turned startled eyes on him, eyes black as the night. And they were eyes that looked through and beyond him. She held up a hand, slowly bent toward the wind, and whispered:

“Listen.”

Hare heard nothing save the barking of coyotes and the breeze in the sage. He saw, however, the men rise from round the camp-fire to face the north, and the women climb into the wagon, and close the canvas flaps. And he prepared himself, with what fortitude he could command for the approach of the outlaws. He waited, straining to catch a sound. His heart throbbed audibly, like a muffled drum, and for an endless moment his ears seemed deadened to aught else. Then a stronger puff of wind whipped in, banging the rhythmic beat of flying hoofs. Suspense ended. Hare felt the easing of a weight upon him Whatever was to be his fate, it would be soon decided. The sound grew into a clattering roar. A black mass hurled itself over the border of opaque circle, plunged into tile light, and halted.

August Naab deliberately threw a bundle of grease-wood upon the camp-fire. A blaze leaped up, sending abroad a red flare. “Who comes?” he called.

“Friends, Mormons, friends,” was the answer.

“Get down — friends — and come to the fire.”

Three horsemen advanced to the foreground; others, a troop of eight or ten, remained in the shadow, a silent group.

Hare sank back against the stone. He knew the foremost of those horsemen though he had never seen him.

“Dene,” whispered Mescal, and confirmed his instinctive fear.

Hare was nervously alive to the handsome presence of the outlaw. Glimpses that he had caught of “bad” men returned vividly as he noted the clean-shaven face, the youthful, supple body, the cool, careless mien. Dene’s eyes glittered as he pulled off his gauntlets and beat the sand out of them; and but for that quick fierce glance his leisurely friendly manner would have disarmed suspicion.

“Are you the Mormon Naab?” he queried.

“August Naab, I am.”

“Dry camp, eh? Hosses tired, I reckon. Shore it’s a sandy trail. Where’s the rest of you fellers?”

“Cole and his men were in a hurry to make White Sage to-night. They were travelling light; I’ve heavy wagons.”

“Naab, I reckon you shore wouldn’t tell a lie?”

“I have never lied.”

“Heerd of a young feller thet was in Lund — pale chap — lunger, we’d call him back West?”

“I heard that he had been mistaken for a spy at Lund and had fled toward Bane.”

“Hadn’t seen nothin’ of him this side of Lund?”

“No.”

“Seen any Navvies?”

“Yes.”

The outlaw stared hard at him. Apparently he was about to speak of the Navajos, for his quick uplift of head at Naab’s blunt affirmative suggested the impulse. But he checked himself and slowly drew on his gloves.

“Naab, I’m shore comin’ to visit you some day. Never been over thet range. Heerd you hed fine water, fine cattle. An’ say, I seen thet little Navajo girl you have, an’ I wouldn’t mind seein’ her again.”

August Naab kicked the fire into brighter blaze. “Yes fine range,” he presently replied, his gaze fixed on Dene. “Fine water, fine cattle, fine browse. I’ve a fine graveyard, too; thirty graves, and not one a woman’s. Fine place for graves, the canyon country. You don’t have to dig. There’s one grave the Indians never named; it’s three thousand feet deep.”

“Thet must be in hell,” replied Dene, with a smile, ignoring the covert meaning. He leisurely surveyed Naab’s four sons, the wagons and horses, till his eye fell upon Hare and Mescal. With that he swung in his saddle as if to dismount.

“I shore want a look around.”

“Get down, get down,” returned the Mormon. The deep voice, unwelcoming, vibrant with an odd ring, would have struck a less suspicious man than Dene. The outlaw wrung his leg back over the pommel, sagged in the saddle, and appeared to be pondering the question. Plainly he was uncertain of his ground. But his indecision was brief.

“Two-Spot, you look ’em over,” he ordered.

The third horseman dismounted and went toward the wagons.

Hare, watching this scene, became conscious that his fear had intensified with the recognition of Two-Spot as Chance, the outlaw whom he would not soon forget. In his excitement he moved against Mescal and felt her trembling violently.

“Are you afraid?” he whispered.

“Yes, of Dene.”

The outlaw rummaged in one of the wagons, pulled aside the canvas flaps of the other, laughed harshly, and then with clinking spurs tramped through the camp, kicking the beds, overturning a pile of saddles, and making disorder generally, till he spied the couple sitting on the stone in the shadow.

As the outlaw lurched that way, Hare, with a start of recollection, took Mescal in his arms and leaned his head against hers. He felt one of her hands lightly brush his shoulder and rest there, trembling.

Shuffling footsteps scraped the sand, sounded nearer and nearer, slowed and paused.

“Sparkin’! Dead to the world. Ham! Haw! Haw!”

The coarse laugh gave place to moving footsteps. The rattling clink of stirrup and spur mingled with the restless stamp of horse. Chance had mounted. Dene’s voice drawled out: “Good-bye, Naab, I shore will see you all some day.” The heavy thuds of many hoofs evened into a roar that diminished as it rushed away.

In unutterable relief Hare realized his deliverance. He tried to rise, but power of movement had gone from him.

He was fainting, yet his sensations were singularly acute. Mescal’s hand dropped from his shoulder; her cheek, that had been cold against his, grew hot; she quivered through all her slender length. Confusion claimed his senses. Gratitude and hope flooded his soul. Something sweet and beautiful, the touch of this desert girl, rioted in his blood; his heart swelled in exquisite agony. Then he was whirling in darkness; and he knew no more.

II. WHITE SAGE

THE NIGHT WAS as a blank to Hare; the morning like a drifting of hazy clouds before his eyes. He felt himself moving; and when he awakened clearly to consciousness he lay upon a couch on the vine-covered porch of a cottage. He saw August Naab open a garden gate to admit Martin Cole. They met as friends; no trace of scorn marred August’s greeting, and Martin was not the same man who had shown fear on the desert. His welcome was one of respectful regard for his superior.

“Elder, I heard you were safe in,” he said, fervently. “We feared — I know not what. I was distressed till I got the news of your arrival. How’s the young man?”

“He’s very ill. But while there’s life there’s hope.”

“Will the Bishop administer to him?”

“Gladly, if the young man’s willing. Come, let’s go in.”

“Wait, August,” said Cole. “Did you know your son Snap was in the village?”

“My son here!” August Naab betrayed anxiety. “I left him home with work. He shouldn’t have come. Is — is he—”

“He’s drinking and in an ugly mood. It seems he traded horses with Jeff Larsen, and got the worst of the deal. There’s pretty sure to be a fight.”

“He always hated Larsen.”

“Small wonder. Larsen is mean; he’s as bad as we’ve got and that’s saying a good deal. Snap has done worse things than fight with Larsen. He’s doing a worse thing now, August — he’s too friendly with Dene.”

“I’ve heard — I’ve heard it before. But, Martin, what can I do?”

“Do? God knows. What can any of us do? Times have changed, August. Dene is here in White Sage, free, welcome in many homes. Some of our neighbors, perhaps men we trust, are secret members of this rustler’s band.”

“You’re right, Cole. There are Mormons who are cattle-thieves. To my eternal shame I confess it. Under cover of night they ride with Dene, and here in our midst they meet him in easy tolerance. Driven from Montana he comes here to corrupt our young men. God’s mercy!”

“August, some of our young men need no one to corrupt them. Dene had no great task to win them. He rode in here with a few outlaws and now he has a strong band. We’ve got to face it. We haven’t any law, but he can be killed. Some one must kill him. Yet bad as Dene is, he doesn’t threaten our living as Holderness does. Dene steals a few cattle, kills a man here and there. Holderness reaches out and takes our springs. Because we’ve no law to stop him, he steals the blood of our life — water — water — God’s gift to the desert! Some one must kill Holderness, too!”

“Martin, this lust to kill is a fearful thing. Come in, you must pray with the Bishop.”

“No, it’s not prayer I need, Elder,” replied Cole, stubbornly. “I’m still a good Mormon. What I want is the stock I’ve lost, and my fields green again.”

August Naab had no answer for his friend. A very old man with snow-white hair and beard came out on the porch.

“Bishop, brother Martin is railing again,” said Naab, as Cole bared his head.

“Martin, my son, unbosom thyself,” rejoined the Bishop.

“Black doubt and no light,” said Cole, despondently. “I’m of the younger generation of Mormons, and faith is harder for me. I see signs you can’t see. I’ve had trials hard to bear. I was rich in cattle, sheep, and water. These Gentiles, this rancher Holderness and this outlaw Dene, have driven my cattle, killed my sheep, piped my water off my fields. I don’t like the present. We are no longer in the old days. Our young men are drifting away, and the few who return come with ideas opposed to Mormonism. Our girls and boys are growing up influenced by the Gentiles among us. They intermarry, and that’s a death-blow to our creed.”

“Martin, cast out this poison from your heart. Return to your faith. The millennium will come. Christ will reign on earth again. The ten tribes of Israel will be restored. The Book of Mormon is the Word of God. The creed will live. We may suffer here and die, but our spirits will go marching on; and the City of Zion will be builded over our graves.”

Cole held up his hands in a meekness that signified hope if not faith.

August Naab bent over Hare. “I would like to have the Bishop administer to you,” he said.

“What’s that?” asked Hare.

“A Mormon custom, ‘the laying on of hands.’ We know its efficacy in trouble and illness. A Bishop of the Mormon Church has the gift of tongues, of prophecy, of revelation, of healing. Let him administer to you. It entails no obligation. Accept it as a prayer.”

“I’m willing.” replied the young man.

Thereupon Naab spoke a few low words to some one through the open door. Voices ceased; soft footsteps sounded without; women crossed the threshold, followed by tall young men and rosy-checked girls and round-eyed children. A white-haired old woman came forward with solemn dignity. She carried a silver bowl which she held for the Bishop as he stood close by Hare’s couch. The Bishop put his hands into the bowl, anointing them with fragrant oil; then he placed them on the young man’s head, and offered up a brief prayer, beautiful in its simplicty and tremulous utterance.

The ceremony ended, the onlookers came forward with pleasant words on their lips, pleasant smiles on their faces. The children filed by his couch, bashful yet sympathetic; the women murmured, the young men grasped his hand. Mescal flitted by with downcast eye, with shy smile, but no word.

“Your fever is gone,” said August Naab, with his hand on Hare’s cheek.

“It comes and goes suddenly,” replied Hare. “I feel better now, only I’m oppressed. I can’t breathe freely. I want air, and I’m hungry.”

“Mother Mary, the lad’s hungry. Judith, Esther, where are your wits? Help your mother. Mescal, wait on him, see to his comfort.”

Mescal brought a little table and a pillow, and the other girls soon followed with food and drink; then they hovered about, absorbed in caring for him.

“They said I fell among thieves,” mused Hare, when he was once more alone. “I’ve fallen among saints as well.” He felt that he could never repay this August Naab. “If only I might live!” he ejaculated. How restful was this cottage garden! The green sward was a balm to his eyes. Flowers new to him, though of familiar springtime hue, lifted fresh faces everywhere; fruit-trees, with branches intermingling, blended the white and pink of blossoms. There was the soft laughter of children in the garden. Strange birds darted among the trees. Their notes were new, but their song was the old delicious monotone — the joy of living and love of spring. A green-bowered irrigation ditch led by the porch and unseen water flowed gently, with gurgle and tinkle, with music in its hurry. Innumerable bees murmured amid the blossoms.

Hare fell asleep. Upon returning drowsily to consciousness he caught through half-open eyes the gleam of level shafts of gold sunlight low down in the trees; then he felt himself being carried into the house to be laid upon a bed. Some one gently unbuttoned his shirt at the neck, removed his shoes, and covered him with a blanket. Before he had fully awakened he was left alone, and quiet settled over the house. A languorous sense of ease and rest lulled him to sleep again. In another moment, it seemed to him, he was awake; bright daylight streamed through the window, and a morning breeze stirred the faded curtain.

The drag in his breathing which was always a forerunner of a coughing-spell warned him now; he put on coat and shoes and went outside, where his cough attacked him, had its sway, and left him.

“Good-morning,” sang out August Naab’s cheery voice. “Sixteen hours of sleep, my lad!”

“I did sleep, didn’t I? No wonder I feel well this morning. A peculiarity of my illness is that one day I’m down, the next day up.”

“With the goodness of God, my lad, we’ll gradually increase the days up. Go in to breakfast. Afterward I want to talk to you. This’ll be a busy day for me, shoeing the horses and packing supplies. I want to start for home to-morrow.”

Hare pondered over Naab’s words while he ate. The suggestion in them, implying a relation to his future, made him wonder if the good Mormon intended to take him to his desert home. He hoped so, and warmed anew to this friend. But he had no enthusiasm for himself; his future seemed hopeless.

Naab was waiting for him on the porch, and drew him away from the cottage down the path toward the gate

“I want you to go home with me.”

“You’re kind — I’m only a sort of beggar — I’ve no strength left to work my way. I’ll go — though it’s only to die.”

“I haven’t the gift of revelation — yet somehow I see that you won’t die of this illness. You will come home with me. It’s a beautiful place, my Navajo oasis. The Indians call it the Garden of Eschtah. If you can get well anywhere it’ll be there.”

“I’ll go but I ought not. What can I do for you?

“No man can ever tell what he may do for another. The time may come — well, John, is it settled?” He offered his huge broad hand.

“It’s settled — I—” Hare faltered as he put his hand in Naab’s. The Mormon’s grip straightened his frame and braced him. Strength and simplicity flowed from the giant’s toil-hardened palm. Hare swallowed his thanks along with his emotion, and for what he had intended to say he substituted: “No one ever called me John. I don’t know the name. Call me Jack.”

“Very well, Jack, and now let’s see. You’ll need some things from the store. Can you come with me? It’s not far.”

“Surely. And now what I need most is a razor to scrape the alkali and stubble off my face.”

The wide street, bordered by cottages peeping out of green and white orchards, stretched in a straight line to the base of the ascent which led up to the Pink Cliffs. A green square enclosed a gray church, a school-house and public hall. Farther down the main thoroughfare were several weather-boarded whitewashed stores. Two dusty men were riding along, one on each side of the wildest, most vicious little horse Hare had ever seen. It reared and bucked and kicked, trying to escape from two lassoes. In front of the largest store were a number of mustangs all standing free, with bridles thrown over their heads and trailing on the ground. The loungers leaning against the railing and about the doors were lank brown men very like Naab’s sons. Some wore sheepskin “chaps,” some blue overalls; all wore boots and spurs, wide soft hats, and in their belts, far to the back, hung large Colt’s revolvers.

“We’ll buy what you need, just as if you expected to ride the ranges for me to-morrow,” said Naab. “The first thing we ask a new man is, can he ride? Next, can he shoot?”

“I could ride before I got so weak. I’ve never handled a revolver, but I can shoot a rifle. Never shot at anything except targets, and it seemed to come natural for me to hit them.”

“Good. We’ll show you some targets — lions, bears, deer, cats, wolves. There’s a fine forty-four Winchester here that my friend Abe has been trying to sell. It has a long barrel and weighs eight pounds. Our desert riders like the light carbines that go easy on a saddle. Most of the mustangs aren’t weight-carriers. This rifle has a great range; I’ve shot it, and it’s just the gun for you to use on wolves and coyotes. You’ll need a Colt and a saddle, too.”

“By-the-way,” he went on, as they mounted the store steps, “here’s the kind of money we use in this country.” He handed Hare a slip of blue paper, a written check for a sum of money, signed, but without register of bank or name of firm. “We don’t use real money,” he added. “There’s very little coin or currency in southern Utah. Most of the Gentiles lately come in have money, and some of us Mormons have a bag or two of gold, but scarcely any of it gets into circulation. We use these checks, which go from man to man sometimes for six months. The roundup of a check means sheep, cattle, horses, grain, merchandise or labor. Every man gets his real money’s value without paying out an actual cent.”

“Such a system at least means honest men,” said Hare, laughing his surprise.

They went into a wide door to tread a maze of narrow aisles between boxes and barrels, stacks of canned vegetables, and piles of harness and dry goods; they entered an open space where several men leaned on a counter.

“Hello, Abe,” said Naab; “seen anything of Snap?”

“Hello, August. Yes, Snap’s inside. So’s Holderness. Says he rode in off the range on purpose to see you.” Abe designated an open doorway from which issued loud voices. Hare glanced into a long narrow room full of smoke and the fumes of rum. Through the haze he made out a crowd of men at a rude bar. Abe went to the door and called out: “Hey, Snap, your dad wants you. Holderness, here’s August Naab.”

A man staggered up the few steps leading to the store and swayed in. His long face had a hawkish cast, and it was gray, not with age, but with the sage-gray of the desert. His eyes were of the same hue, cold yet burning with little fiery flecks in their depths. He appeared short of stature because of a curvature of the spine, but straightened up he would have been tall. He wore a blue flannel shirt, and blue overalls; round his lean hips was a belt holding two Colt’s revolvers, their heavy, dark butts projecting outward, and he had on high boots with long, cruel spurs.

“Howdy, father?” he said.

“I’m packing to-day,” returned August Naab. “We ride out to-morrow. I need your help.”

“All-l right. When I get my pinto from Larsen.”

“Never mind Larsen. If he got the better of you let the matter drop.”

“Jeff got my pinto for a mustang with three legs. If I hadn’t been drunk I’d never have traded. So I’m looking for Jeff.”

He bit out the last words with a peculiar snap of his long teeth, a circumstance which caused Hare instantly to associate the savage clicking with the name he had heard given this man. August Naab looked at him with gloomy eyes and stern shut mouth, an expression of righteous anger, helplessness and grief combined, the look of a man to whom obstacles had been nothing, at last confronted with crowning defeat. Hare realized that this son was Naab’s first-born, best-loved, a thorn in his side, a black sheep.

“Say, father, is that the spy you found on the trail?” Snap’s pale eyes gleamed on Hare and the little flames seemed to darken and leap.

“This is John Hare, the young man I found. But he’s not a spy.”

“You can’t make any one believe that. He’s down as a spy. Dene’s spy! His name’s gone over the ranges as a counter of unbranded stock. Dene has named him and Dene has marked him. Don’t take him home, as you’ve taken so many sick and hunted men before. What’s the good of it? You never made a Mormon of one of them yet. Don’t take him — unless you want another grave for your cemetery. Ha! Ha!”

Hare recoiled with a shock. Snap Naab swayed to the door, and stepped down, all the time with his face over his shoulder, his baleful glance on Hare; then the blue haze swallowed him,

The several loungers went out; August engaged the storekeeper in conversation, introducing Hare and explaining their wants. They inspected the various needs of a range-rider, selecting, in the end, not the few suggested by Hare, but the many chosen by Naab. The last purchase was the rifle Naab had talked about. It was a beautiful weapon, finely polished and carved, entirely out of place among the plain coarse-sighted and coarse-stocked guns in the rack.

“Never had a chance to sell it,” said Abe. “Too long and heavy for the riders. I’ll let it go cheap, half price, and the cartridges also, two thousand.”

“Taken,” replied Naab, quickly, with a satisfaction which showed he liked a bargain.

“August, you must be going to shoot some?” queried Abe. “Something bigger than rabbits and coyotes. Its about time — even if you are an Elder. We Mormons must—” he broke off, continuing in a low tone: “Here’s Holderness now.”

Hare wheeled with the interest that had gathered with the reiteration of this man’s name. A new-comer stooped to get in the door. He out-topped even Naab in height, and was a superb blond-bearded man, striding with the spring of a mountaineer.

“Good-day to you, Naab,” he said. “Is this the young fellow you picked up?”

“Yes. Jack Hare,” rejoined Naab.

“Well, Hare, I’m Holderness. You’ll recall my name. You were sent to Lund by men interested in my ranges. I expected to see you in Lund, but couldn’t get over.”

Hare met the proffered hand with his own, and as he had recoiled from Snap Naab so now he received another shock, different indeed but impelling in its power, instinctive of some great portent. Hare was impressed by an indefinable subtlety, a nameless distrust, as colorless as the clear penetrating amber lightness of the eyes that bent upon him.

“Holderness, will you right the story about Hare?” inquired Naab.

“You mean about his being a spy? Well, Naab, the truth is that was his job. I advised against sending a man down here for that sort of work. It won’t do. These Mormons will steal each other’s cattle, and they’ve got to get rid of them; so they won’t have a man taking account of stock, brands, and all that. If the Mormons would stand for it the rustlers wouldn’t. I’ll take Hare out to the ranch and give him work, if he wants. But he’d do best to leave Utah.”

“Thank you, no,” replied Hare, decidedly.

“He’s going with me,” said August Naab.

Holderness accepted this with an almost imperceptible nod, and he swept Hare with eyes that searched and probed for latent possibilities. It was the keen intelligence of a man who knew what development meant on the desert; not in any sense an interest in the young man at present. Then he turned his back.

Hare, feeling that Holderness wished to talk with Naab, walked to the counter, and began assorting his purchases, but he could not help hearing what was said.

“Lungs bad?” queried Holderness.

“One of them,” replied Naab.

‘He’s all in. Better send him out of the country. He’s got the name of Dene’s spy and he’ll never get another on this desert. Dene will kill him. This isn’t good judgment, Naab, to take him with you. Even your friends don’t like it, and it means trouble for you.”

“We’ve settled it,” said Naab, coldly.

“Well, remember, I’ve warned you. I’ve tried to be friendly with you, Naab, but you won’t have it. Anyway, I’ve wanted to see you lately to find out how we stand.”

“What do you mean?”

“How we stand on several things — to begin with, there Mescal.”

“You asked me several times for Mescal, and I said no.”

“But I never said I’d marry her. Now I want her, and I will marry her.”

“No,” rejoined Naab, adding brevity to his coldness.

“Why not?” demanded Holderness. “Oh, well, I can’t take that as an insult. I know there’s not enough money in Utah to get a girl away from a Mormon. . . . About the offer for the water-rights — how do we stand? I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for the rights to Seeping Springs and Silver Cup.”

“Ten thousand!” ejaculated Naab. “Holderness, I wouldn’t take a hundred thousand. You might as well ask to buy my home, my stock, my range, twenty years of toil, for ten thousand dollars!”

“You refuse? All right. I think I’ve made you a fair proposition,” said Holderness, in a smooth, quick tone. “The land is owned by the Government, and though your ranges are across the Arizona line they really figure as Utah land. My company’s spending big money, and the Government won’t let you have a monopoly. No one man can control the water-supply of a hundred miles of range. Times are changing. You want to see that. You ought to protect yourself before it’s too late.”

“Holderness, this is a desert. No men save Mormons could ever have made it habitable. The Government scarcely knows of its existence. It’ll be fifty years before man can come in here to take our water.”

“Why can’t he? The water doesn’t belong to any one. Why can’t he?”

“Because of the unwritten law of the desert. No Mormon would refuse you or your horse a drink, or even a reasonable supply for your stock. But you can’t come in here and take our water for your own use, to supplant us, to parch our stock. Why, even an Indian respects desert law!”

“Bah! I’m not a Mormon or an Indian. I’m a cattleman. It’s plain business with me. Once more I make you the offer.”

Naab scorned to reply. The men faced each other for a silent moment, their glances scintillating. Then Holderness whirled on his heel, jostling into Hare.

“Get out of my way,” said the rancher, in the disgust of intense irritation. He swung his arm, and his open hand sent Hare reeling against the counter.

“Jack,” said Naab, breathing hard, “Holderness showed his real self to-day. I always knew it, yet I gave him the benefit of the doubt. . . . For him to strike you! I’ve not the gift of revelation, but I see — let us go.”

On the return to the Bishop’s cottage Naab did not speak once; the transformation which had begun with the appearance of his drunken son had reached a climax of gloomy silence after the clash with Holderness. Naab went directly to the Bishop, and presently the quavering voice of the old minister rose in prayer.

Hare dropped wearily into the chair on the porch; and presently fell into a doze, from which he awakened with a start. Naab’s sons, with Martin Cole and several other men, were standing in the yard. Naab himself was gently crowding the women into the house. When he got them all inside he closed the door and turned to Cole.

“Was it a fair fight?”

“Yes, an even break. They met in front of Abe’s. I saw the meeting. Neither was surprised. They stood for a moment watching each other. Then they drew — only Snap was quicker. Larsen’s gun went off as he fell. That trick you taught Snap saved his life again. Larsen was no slouch on the draw.”

“Where’s Snap now?”

“Gone after his pinto. He was sober. Said he’d pack at once. Larsen’s friends are ugly. Snap said to tell you to hurry out of the village with young Hare, if you want to take him at all. Dene has ridden in; he swears you won’t take Hare away.”

“We’re all packed and ready to hitch up,” returned Naab. “We could start at once, only until dark I’d rather take chances here than out on the trail.”

“Snap said Dene would ride right into the Bishop’s after Hare.”

“No. He wouldn’t dare.”

“Father!” Dave Naab spoke sharply from where he stood high on a grassy bank. “Here’s Dene now, riding up with Culver, and some man I don’t know. They’re coming in. Dene’s jumped the fence! Look out!”

A clatter of hoofs and rattling of gravel preceded the appearance of a black horse in the garden path. His rider bent low to dodge the vines of the arbor, and reined in before the porch to slip out of the saddle with the agility of an Indian. It was Dene, dark, smiling, nonchalant.

“What do you seek in the house of a Bishop?” challenged August Naab, planting his broad bulk square before Hare.

“Dene’s spy!”

“What do you seek in the house of a Bishop?” repeated Naab.

“I shore want to see the young feller you lied to me about,” returned Dene, his smile slowly fading.

“No speech could be a lie to an outlaw.”

“I want him, you Mormon preacher!”

“You can’t have him.”

“I’ll shore get him.”

In one great stride Naab confronted and towered over Dene.

The rustler’s gaze shifted warily from Naab to the quiet Mormons and back again. Then his right hand quivered and shot downward. Naab’s act was even quicker. A Colt gleamed and whirled to the grass, and the outlaw cried as his arm cracked in the Mormon’s grasp

Dave Naab leaped off the bank directly in front of Dene’s approaching companions, and faced them, alert and silent, his hand on his hip.

August Naab swung the outlaw against the porch-post and held him there with brawny arm.

“Whelp of an evil breed!” he thundered, shaking his gray head. “Do you think we fear you and your gunsharp tricks? Look! See this!” He released Dene and stepped back with his hand before him. Suddenly it moved, quicker than sight, and a Colt revolver lay in his outstretched palm. He dropped it back into the holster. “Let that teach you never to draw on me again.” He doubled his huge fist and shoved it before Dene’s eyes. “One blow would crack your skull like an egg-shell. Why don’t I deal it? Because, you mindless hell-hound, because there s a higher law than man’s — God’s law — Thou shalt not kill! Understand that if you can. Leave me and mine alone from this day. Now go!”

He pushed Dene down the path into the arms of his companions.

“Out with you!” said Dave Naab. “Hurry! Get your horse. Hurry! I’m not so particular about God as Dad is!”

III. THE TRAIL OF THE RED WALL

AFTER THE DEPARTURE of Dene and his comrades Naab decided to leave White Sage at nightfall. Martin Cole and the Bishop’s sons tried to persuade him to remain, urging that the trouble sure to come could be more safely met in the village. Naab, however, was obdurate, unreasonably so, Cole said, unless there were some good reason why he wished to strike the trail in the night. When twilight closed in Naab had his teams ready and the women shut in the canvas-covered wagons. Hare was to ride in an open wagon, one that Naab had left at White Sage to be loaded with grain. When it grew so dark that objects were scarcely discernible a man vaulted the cottage fence.

“Dave, where are the boys?” asked Naab.

“Not so loud! The boys are coming,” replied Dave in a whisper. “Dene is wild. I guess you snapped a bone in his arm. He swears he’ll kill us all. But Chance and the rest of the gang won’t be in till late. We’ve time to reach the Coconina Trail, if we hustle.”

“Any news of Snap?”

“He rode out before sundown.”

Three more forms emerged from the gloom.

“All right, boys. Go ahead, Dave, you lead.”

Dave and George Naab mounted their mustangs and rode through the gate; the first wagon rolled after them, its white dome gradually dissolving in the darkness; the second one started; then August Naab stepped to his seat on the third with a low cluck to the team. Hare shut the gate and climbed over the tail-board of the wagon.

A slight swish of weeds and grasses brushing the wheels was all the sound made in the cautious advance. A bare field lay to the left; to the right low roofs and sharp chimneys showed among the trees; here and there lights twinkled. No one hailed; not a dog barked.

Presently the leaders turned into a road where the iron hoofs and wheels cracked and crunched the stones.

Hare thought he saw something in the deep shade of a line of poplar-trees; he peered closer, and made out a motionless horse and rider, just a shade blacker than the deepest gloom. The next instant they vanished, and the rapid clatter of hoofs down the road told Hare his eyes had not deceived him.

“Getup,” growled Naab to his horses. “Jack, did you see that fellow?”

“Yes. What was he doing there?”

“Watching the road. He’s one of Dene’s scouts.”

“Will Dene—”

One of Naab’s sons came trotting back. “Think that was Larsen’s pal. He was laying in wait for Snap.”

“I thought he was a scout for Dene,” replied August.

“Maybe he’s that too.”

“Likely enough. Hurry along and keep the gray team going lively. They’ve had a week’s rest.”

Hare watched the glimmering lights of the village vanish one by one, like Jack-o’-lanterns. The horses kept a steady, even trot on into the huge windy hall of the desert night. Fleecy clouds veiled the stars, yet transmitted a wan glow. A chill crept over Hare. As he crawled under the blankets Naab had spread for him his hand came into contact with a polished metal surface cold as ice. It was his rifle. Naab had placed it under the blankets. Fingering the rifle Hare found the spring opening on the right side of the breech, and, pressing it down, he felt the round head of a cartridge. Naab had loaded the weapon, he had placed it where Hare’s hand must find it, yet he had not spoken of it. Hare did not stop to reason with his first impulse. Without a word, with silent insistence, disregarding his shattered health, August Naab had given him a man’s part to play. The full meaning lifted Hare out of his self-abasement; once more he felt himself a man.

Hare soon yielded to the warmth of the blankets; a drowsiness that he endeavored in vain to throw off smothered his thoughts; sleep glued his eyelids tight. They opened again some hours later. For a moment he could not realize where he was; then the whip of the cold wind across his face, the woolly feel and smell of the blankets, and finally the steady trot of horses and the clink of a chain swinging somewhere under him, recalled the actually of the night ride. He wondered how many miles had been covered, how the drivers knew the direction and kept the horses in the trail, and whether the outlaws were in pursuit. When Naab stopped the team and, climbing down, walked back some rods to listen, Hare felt sure that Dene was coming. He listened, too, but the movements of the horses and the rattle of their harness were all the sounds he could hear. Naab returned to his seat; the team started, now no longer in a trot; they were climbing. After that Hare fell into a slumber in which he could hear the slow grating whirr of wheels, and when it ceased he awoke to raise himself and turn his ear to the back trail. By-and-by he discovered that the black night had changed to gray; dawn was not far distant; he dozed and awakened to clear light. A rose-red horizon lay far below and to the eastward; the intervening descent was like a rolling sea with league-long swells.

“Glad you slept some,” was Naab’s greeting. “No sign of Dene yet. If we can get over the divide we’re safe. That’s Coconina there, Fire Mountain in Navajo meaning. It’s a plateau low and narrow at this end, but it runs far to the east and rises nine thousand feet. It forms a hundred miles of the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We’re across the Arizona line now.”

Hare followed the sweep of the ridge that rose to the eastward, but to his inexperienced eyes its appearance carried no sense of its noble proportions.

“Don’t form any ideas of distance and size yet a while,” said Naab, reading Hare’s expression. “They’d only have to be made over as soon as you learn what light and air are in this country. It looks only half a mile to the top of the divide; well, if we make it by midday we’re lucky. There, see a black spot over this way, far under the red wall? Look sharp. Good I That’s Holderness’s ranch. It’s thirty miles from here. Nine Mile Valley heads in there. Once it belonged to Martin Cole. Holderness stole it. And he’s begun to range over the divide.”

The sun rose and warmed the chill air. Hare began to notice the increased height and abundance of the sagebrush, which was darker in color. The first cedar-tree, stunted in growth, dead at the top, was the half-way mark up the ascent, so Naab said; it was also the forerunner of other cedars which increased in number toward the summit. At length Hare, tired of looking upward at the creeping white wagons, closed his eyes. The wheels crunched on the stones; the horses heaved and labored; Naab’s “Getup” was the only spoken sound; the sun beamed down warm, then hot; and the hours passed. Some unusual noise roused Hare out of his lethargy. The wagon was at a standstill. Naab stood on the seat with outstretched arm. George and Dave were close by their mustangs, and Snap Naab, mounted on a cream-colored pinto, reined him under August’s arm, and faced the valley below.

“Maybe you’ll make them out,” said August. “I can’t, and I’ve watched those dust-clouds for hours. George can’t decide, either.”

Hare, looking at Snap, was attracted by the eyes from which his father and brothers expected so much. If ever a human being had the eyes of a hawk Snap Naab had them. The little brown flecks danced in clear pale yellow. Evidently Snap had not located the perplexing dust-clouds, for his glance drifted. Suddenly the remarkable vibration of his pupils ceased, and his glance grew fixed, steely, certain.

“That’s a bunch of wild mustangs,” he said.

Hare gazed till his eyes hurt, but could see neither clouds of dust nor moving objects. No more was said. The sons wheeled their mustangs and rode to the fore; August Naab reseated himself and took up the reins; the ascent proceeded.

But it proceeded leisurely, with more frequent rests. At the end of an hour the horses toiled over the last rise to the summit and entered a level forest of cedars; in another hour they were descending gradually.

“Here we are at the tanks,” said Naab.

Hare saw that they had come up with the other wagons. George Naab was leading a team down a rocky declivity to a pool of yellow water. The other boys were unharnessing and unsaddling.

“About three,” said Naab, looking at the sun. “We’re in good time. Jack, get out and stretch yourself. We camp here. There’s the Coconina Trail where the Navajos go in after deer.”

It was not a pretty spot, this little rock-strewn glade where the white hard trail forked with the road. The yellow water with its green scum made Hare sick. The horses drank with loud gulps. Naab and his sons drank of it. The women filled a pail and portioned it out in basins and washed their faces and hands with evident pleasure. Dave Naab whistled as he wielded an axe vigorously on a cedar. It came home to Hare that the tension of the past night and morning had relaxed. Whether to attribute that fact to the distance from White Sage or to the arrival at the water-hole he could not determine. But the certainty was shown in August’s cheerful talk to the horses as he slipped bags of grain over their noses, and in the subdued laughter of the women. Hare sent up an unspoken thanksgiving that these good Mormons had apparently escaped from the dangers incurred for his sake. He sat with his back to a cedar and watched the kindling of fires, the deft manipulating of biscuit dough in a basin, and the steaming of pots. The generous meal was spread on a canvas cloth, around which men and women sat cross-legged, after the fashion of Indians. Hare found it hard to adapt his long legs to the posture, and he wondered how these men, whose legs were longer than his, could sit so easily. It was the crown of a cheerful dinner after hours of anxiety and abstinence to have Snap Naab speak civilly to him, and to see him bow his head meekly as his father asked the blessing. Snap ate as though he had utterly forgotten that he had recently killed a man; to hear the others talk to him one would suppose that they had forgotten it also.

All had finished eating, except Snap and Dave Naab, when one of the mustangs neighed shrilly. Hare would not have noticed it but for looks exchanged among the men The glances were explained a few minutes later when a pattering of hoofs came from the cedar forest, and a stream of mounted Indians poured into the glade.

The ugly glade became a place of color and action. The Navajos rode wiry, wild-looking mustangs and drove ponies and burros carrying packs, most of which consisted of deer-hides. Each Indian dismounted, and unstrapping the blanket which had served as a saddle headed his mustang for the water-hole and gave him a slap. Then the hides and packs were slipped from the pack-train, and soon the pool became a kicking, splashing melee. Every cedar-tree circling the glade and every branch served as a peg for deer meat. Some of it was in the haunch, the bulk in dark dried strips. The Indians laid their weapons aside. Every sagebush and low stone held a blanket. A few of these blankets were of solid color, most of them had bars of white and gray and red, the last color predominating. The mustangs and burros filed out among the cedars, nipping at the sage and the scattered tufts of spare grass. A group of fires, sending up curling columns of blue smoke, and surrounded by a circle of lean, half-naked, bronze-skinned Indians, cooking and eating, completed a picture which afforded Hare the satisfying fulfilment of boyish dreams. What a contrast to the memory of a camp-site on the Connecticut shore, with boy friends telling tales in the glow of the fire, and the wash of the waves on the beach!

The sun sank low in the west, sending gleams through the gnarled branches of the cedars, and turning the green into gold. At precisely the moment of sunset, the Mormon women broke into soft song which had the element of prayer; and the lips of the men moved in silent harmony. Dave Naab, the only one who smoked, removed his pipe for the moment’s grace to dying day.

This simple ceremony over, one of the boys put wood on the fire, and Snap took a jews’-harp out of his pocket and began to extract doleful discords from it, for which George kicked at him in disgust, finally causing him to leave the circle and repair to the cedars, where he twanged with supreme egotism.

“Jack,” said August Naab, “our friends the Navajo chiefs, Scarbreast and Eschtah, are coming to visit us. Take no notice of them at first. They’ve great dignity, and if you entered their hogans they’d sit for some moments before appearing to see you. Scarbreast is a war-chief. Eschtah is the wise old chief of all the Navajos on the Painted Desert. It may interest you to know he is Mescal’s grandfather. Some day I’ll tell you the story.”

Hare tried very hard to appear unconscious when two tall Indians stalked into the circle of Mormons; he set his eyes on the white heart of the camp-fire and waited. For several minutes no one spoke or even moved. The Indians remained standing for a time; then seated themselves. Presently August Naab greeted them in the Navajo language. This was a signal for Hare to use his eyes and ears. Another interval of silence followed before they began to talk. Hare could see only their blanketed shoulders and black heads.

“Jack, come round here,” said Naab at length. “I’ve been telling them about you. These Indians do not like the whites, except my own family. I hope you’ll make friends with them.”

“How do?” said the chief whom Naab had called Eschtah, a stately, keen-eyed warrior, despite his age.

The next Navajo greeted him with a guttural word. This was a warrior whose name might well have been Scarface, for the signs of conflict were there. It was a face like a bronze mask, cast in the one expression of untamed desert fierceness.

Hare bowed to each and felt himself searched by burning eyes, which were doubtful, yet not unfriendly.

“Shake,” finally said Eschtah, offering his hand.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Scarbreast, extending a bare silver-braceleted arm.

This sign of friendship pleased Naab. He wished to enlist the sympathies of the Navajo chieftains in the young man’s behalf. In his ensuing speech, which was plentifully emphasized with gestures, he lapsed often into English, saying “weak — no strong” when he placed his hand on Hare’s legs, and “bad” when he touched the young man’s chest, concluding with the words “sick — sick.”

Scarbreast regarded Hare with great earnestness, and when Naab had finished he said: “Chineago — ping!” and rubbed his hand over his stomach.

“He says you need meat — lots of deer-meat,” translated Naab.

“Sick,” repeated Eschtah, whose English was intelligible. He appeared to be casting about in his mind for additional words to express his knowledge of the white man’s tongue, and, failing, continued in Navajo: “Tohodena — moocha — malocha.”

Hare was nonplussed at the roar of laughter from the Mormons. August shook like a mountain in an earthquake.

“Eschtah says, ‘you hurry, get many squaws — many wives.’”

Other Indians, russet-skinned warriors, with black hair held close by bands round their foreheads, joined the circle, and sitting before the fire clasped their knees and talked. Hare listened awhile, and then, being fatigued, he sought the cedar-tree where he had left his blankets. The dry mat of needles made an odorous bed. He placed a sack of grain for a pillow, and doubling up one blanket to lie upon, he pulled the others over him. Then he watched and listened. The cedar-wood burned with a clear flame, and occasionally snapped out a red spark. The voices of the Navajos, scarcely audible, sounded “toa’s” and “taa’s” — syllables he soon learned were characteristic and dominant — in low, deep murmurs. It reminded Hare of something that before had been pleasant to his ear. Then it came to mind: a remembrance of Mescal’s sweet voice, and that recalled the kinship between her and the Navajo chieftain. He looked about, endeavoring to find her in the ring of light, for he felt in her a fascination akin to the charm of this twilight hour. Dusky forms passed to and fro under the trees; the tinkle of bells on hobbled mustangs rang from the forest; coyotes had begun their night quest with wild howls; the camp-fire burned red, and shadows flickered on the blanketed Indians; the wind now moaned, now lulled in the cedars.

Hare lay back in his blankets and saw lustrous stars through the network of branches. With their light in his face and the cold wind waving his hair on his brow he thought of the strangeness of it all, of its remoteness from anything ever known to him before, of its inexpressible wildness. And a rush of emotion he failed wholly to stifle proved to him that he could have loved this life if — if he had not of late come to believe that he had not long to live. Still Naab’s influence exorcised even that one sad thought; and he flung it from him in resentment.

Sleep did not come so readily; he was not very well this night; the flush of fever was on his cheek, and the heat of feverish blood burned his body. He raised himself and, resolutely seeking for distraction, once more stared at the camp-fire. Some time must have passed during his dreaming, for only three persons were in sight. Naab’s broad back was bowed and his head nodded. Across the fire in its ruddy flicker sat Eschtah beside a slight, dark figure. At second glance Hare recognized Mescal. Surprise claimed him, not more for her presence there than for the white band binding her smooth black tresses. She had not worn such an ornament before. That slender band lent her the one touch which made her a Navajo. Was it worn in respect to her aged grandfather? What did this mean for a girl reared with Christian teaching? Was it desert blood? Hare had no answers for these questions. They only increased the mystery and romance. He fell asleep with the picture in his mind of Eschtah and Mescal, sitting in the glow of the fire, and of August Naab, nodding silently.

“Jack, Jack, wake up.” The words broke dully into his slumbers; wearily he opened his eyes. August Naab bent over him, shaking him gently.

“Not so well this morning, eh? Here’s a cup of coffee. We’re all packed and starting. Drink now, and climb aboard. We expect to make Seeping Springs to-night.”

Hare rose presently and, laboring into the wagon, lay down on the sacks. He had one of his blind, sickening headaches. The familiar lumbering of wheels began, and the clanking of the wagon-chain. Despite jar and jolt he dozed at times, awakening to the scrape of the wheel on the leathern brake. After a while the rapid descent of the wagon changed to a roll, without the irritating rattle. He saw a narrow valley; on one side the green, slow-swelling cedar slope of the mountain; on the other the perpendicular red wall, with its pinnacles like spears against the sky. All day this backward outlook was the same, except that each time he opened aching eyes the valley had lengthened, the red wall and green slope had come closer together in the distance. By and by there came a halt, the din of stamping horses and sharp commands, the bustle and confusion of camp. Naab spoke kindly to him, but he refused any food, lay still and went to sleep.

Daylight brought him the relief of a clear head and cooled blood. The camp had been pitched close under the red wall. A lichen-covered cliff, wet with dripping water, overhung a round pool. A ditch led the water down the ridge to a pond. Cattle stood up to their knees drinking; others lay on the yellow clay, which was packed as hard as stone; still others were climbing the ridge and passing down on both sides.

“You look as if you enjoyed that water,” remarked Naab, when Hare presented himself at the fire. “Well, it’s good, only a little salty. Seeping Springs this is, and it’s mine. This ridge we call The Saddle; you see it dips between wall and mountain and separates two valleys. This valley we go through to-day is where my cattle range. At the other end is Silver Cup Spring, also mine. Keep your eyes open now, my lad.”

How different was the beginning of this day! The sky was as blue as the sea; the valley snuggled deep in the embrace of wall and mountain. Hare took a place on the seat beside Naab and faced the descent. The line of Navajos, a graceful straggling curve of color on the trail, led the way for the white-domed wagons.

Naab pointed to a little calf lying half hidden under a bunch of sage. “That’s what I hate to see. There’s a calf, just born; its mother has gone in for water. Wolves and lions range this valley. We lose hundreds of calves that way.”

As far as Hare could see red and white and black cattle speckled the valley.

“If not overstocked, this range is the best in Utah,” said Naab. “I say Utah, but it’s really Arizona. The Grand Canyon seems to us Mormons to mark the line. There’s enough browse here to feed a hundred thousand cattle. But water’s the thing. In some seasons the springs go almost dry, though Silver Cup holds her own well enough for my cattle.”

Hare marked the tufts of grass lying far apart on the yellow earth; evidently there was sustenance enough in every two feet of ground to support only one tuft.

“What’s that?” he asked, noting a rolling cloud of dust with black bobbing borders.

“Wild mustangs,” replied Naab. “There are perhaps five thousand on the mountain, and they are getting to be a nuisance. They’re almost as bad as sheep on the browse; and I should tell you that if sheep pass over a range once the cattle will starve. The mustangs are getting too plentiful. There are also several bands of wild horses.”

“What’s the difference between wild horses and mustangs?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. Some say the Spaniards left horses in here three hundred years ago. Wild? They are wilder than any naturally wild animal that ever ran on four legs. Wait till you get a look at Silvermane or Whitefoot.”

“What are they?”

“Wild stallions. Silvermane is an iron gray, with a silver mane, the most beautiful horse I ever saw. Whitefoot’s an old black shaggy demon, with one white foot. Both stallions ought to be killed. They fight my horses and lead off the mares. I had a chance to shoot Silvermane on the way over this trip, but he looked so splendid that I just laid down my rifle.”

“Can they run?” asked Hare eagerly, with the eyes of a man who loved a horse.

“Run? Whew! Just you wait till you see Silvermane cover ground! He can look over his shoulder at you and beat any horse in this country. The Navajos have given up catching him as a bad job. Why — here! Jack! quick, get out your rifle — coyotes!”

Naab pulled on the reins, and pointed to one side. Hare discerned three grayish sharp-nosed beasts sneaking off in the sage, and he reached back for the rifle. Naab whistled, stopping the coyotes; then Hare shot. The ball cut a wisp of dust above and beyond them. They loped away into the sage.

“How that rifle spangs!” exclaimed Naab. “It’s good to hear it. Jack, you shot high. That’s the trouble with men who have never shot at game. They can’t hold low enough. Aim low, lower than you want. Ha! There’s another — this side — hold ahead of him and low, quick! — too high again.”

It was in this way that August and Hare fell far behind the other wagons. The nearer Naab got to his home the more genial he became. When he was not answering Hare’s queries he was giving information of his own accord, telling about the cattle and the range, the mustangs, the Navajos, and the desert. Naab liked to talk; he had said he had not the gift of revelation, but he certainly had the gift of tongues.

The sun was in the west when they began to climb a ridge. A short ascent, and a long turn to the right brought them under a bold spur of the mountain which shut out the northwest. Camp had been pitched in a grove of trees of a species new to Hare. From under a bowlder gushed the sparkling spring, a grateful sight and sound to desert travellers. In a niche of the rock hung a silver cup.

“Jack, no man knows how old this cup is, or anything about it. We named the spring after it — Silver Cup. The strange thing is that the cup has never been lost nor stolen. But — could any desert man, or outlaw, or Indian, take it away, after drinking here?”

The cup was nicked and battered, bright on the sides, moss-green on the bottom. When Hare drank from it he understood.

That evening there was rude merriment around the campfire. Snap Naab buzzed on his jews’-harp and sang. He stirred some of the younger braves to dancing, and they stamped and swung their arms, singing, “hoya-heeya- howya,” as they moved in and out of the firelight.

Several of the braves showed great interest in Snap’s jews’-harp and repeatedly asked him for it. Finally the Mormon grudgingly lent it to a curious Indian, who in trying to play it went through such awkward motions and made such queer sounds that his companions set upon him and fought for possession of the instrument. Then Snap, becoming solicitous for its welfare, jumped into the fray. They tussled for it amid the clamor of a delighted circle. Snap, passing from jest to earnest, grew so strenuous in his efforts to regain the harp that he tossed the Navajos about like shuttle-cocks. He got the harp and, concealing it, sought to break away. But the braves laid hold upon him, threw him to the ground, and calmly sat astride him while they went through his pockets. August Naab roared his merriment and Hare laughed till he cried. The incident was as surprising to him as it was amusing. These serious Mormons and silent Navajos were capable of mirth.

Hare would have stayed up as late as any of them, but August’s saying to him, “Get to bed: to-morrow will be bad!” sent him off to his blankets, where he was soon fast asleep. Morning found him well, hungry, eager to know what the day would bring.

“Wait,” said August, soberly.

They rode out of the gray pocket in the ridge and began to climb. Hare had not noticed the rise till they were started, and then, as the horses climbed steadily he grew impatient at the monotonous ascent. There was nothing to see; frequently it seemed that they were soon to reach the summit, but still it rose above them. Hare went back to his comfortable place on the sacks.

“Now, Jack,” said August.

Hare gasped. He saw a red world. His eyes seemed bathed in blood. Red scaly ground, bare of vegetation, sloped down, down, far down to a vast irregular rent in the earth, which zigzagged through the plain beneath. To the right it bent its crooked way under the brow of a black-timbered plateau; to the left it straightened its angles to find a V-shaped vent in the wall, now uplifted to a mountain range. Beyond this earth-riven line lay something vast and illimitable, a far-reaching vision of white wastes, of purple plains, of low mesas lost in distance. It was the shimmering dust-veiled desert.

“Here we come to the real thing,” explained Naab. “This is Windy Slope; that black line is the Grand Canyon of Arizona; on the other side is the Painted Desert where the Navajos live; Coconina Mountain shows his flat head there to the right, and the wall on our left rises to the Vermillion Cliffs. Now, look while you can, for presently you’ll not be able to see.”

“Why?”

“Wind, sand, dust, gravel, pebbles — watch out for your eyes!”

Naab had not ceased speaking when Hare saw that the train of Indians trailing down the slope was enveloped in red clouds. Then the white wagons disappeared. Soon he was struck in the back by a gust which justified Naab’s warning. It swept by; the air grew clear again; once more he could see. But presently a puff, taking him unawares, filled his eyes with dust difficult of removal. Whereupon he turned his back to the wind.

The afternoon grew apace; the sun glistened on the white patches of Coconina Mountain; it set; and the wind died.

“Five miles of red sand,” said Naab. “Here’s what kills the horses. Getup.”

There was no trail. All before was red sand, hollows, slopes, levels, dunes, in which the horses sank above their fetlocks. The wheels ploughed deep, and little red streams trailed down from the tires. Naab trudged on foot with the reins in his hands. Hare essayed to walk also, soon tired, and floundered behind till Naab ordered him to ride again. Twilight came with the horses still toiling.

“There! thankful I am when we get off that strip! But, Jack, that trailless waste prevents a night raid on my home. Even the Navajos shun it after dark. We’ll be home soon. There’s my sign. See? Night or day we call it the Blue Star.”

High in the black cliff a star-shaped, wind-worn hole let the blue sky through.

There was cheer in Naab’s “Getup,” now, and the horses quickened with it. Their iron-shod hoofs struck fire from the rosy road. “Easy, easy — soho!” cried Naab to his steeds. In the pitchy blackness under the shelving cliff they picked their way cautiously, and turned a corner. Lights twinkled in Hare’s sight, a fresh breeze, coming from water, dampened his cheek, and a hollow rumble, a long roll as of distant thunder, filled his ears.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“That, my lad, is what I always love to hear. It means I’m home. It’s the roar of the Colorado as she takes her first plunge into the Canyon.”

IV. THE OASIS

AUGUST NAAB’S OASIS was an oval valley, level as a floor, green with leaf and white with blossom, enclosed by a circle of colossal cliffs of vivid vermilion hue. At its western curve the Colorado River split the red walls from north to south. When the wind was west a sullen roar, remote as of some far-off driving mill, filled the valley; when it was east a dreamy hollow hum, a somnolent song, murmured through the cottonwoods; when no wind stirred, silence reigned, a silence not of serene plain or mountain fastness, but shut in, compressed, strange, and breathless. Safe from the storms of the elements as well as of the world was this Garden of Eschtah.

Naab had put Hare to bed on the unroofed porch of a log house, but routed him out early, and when Hare lifted the blankets a shower of cotton-blossoms drifted away like snow. A grove of gray-barked trees spread green canopy overhead, and through the intricate web shone crimson walls, soaring with resistless onsweep up and up to shut out all but a blue lake of sky.

“I want you to see the Navajos cross the river,” said Naab.

Hare accompanied him out through the grove to a road that flanked the first rise of the red wall; they followed this for half a mile, and turning a corner came into an unobstructed view. A roar of rushing waters had prepared Hare, but the river that he saw appalled him. It was red and swift; it slid onward like an enormous slippery snake; its constricted head raised a crest of leaping waves, and disappeared in a dark chasm, whence came a bellow and boom.

“That opening where she jumps off is the head of the Grand Canyon,” said Naab. “It’s five hundred feet deep there, and thirty miles below it’s five thousand. Oh, once in, she tears in a hurry! Come, we turn up the bank here.”

Hare could find no speech, and he felt immeasurably small. All that he had seen in reaching this isolated spot was dwarfed in comparison. This “Crossing of the Fathers,” as Naab called it, was the gateway of the desert. This roar of turbulent waters was the sinister monotone of the mighty desert symphony of great depths, great heights, great reaches.

On a sandy strip of bank the Navajos had halted. This was as far as they could go, for above the wall jutted out into the river. From here the head of the Canyon was not visible, and the roar of the rapids was accordingly lessened in volume. But even in this smooth water the river spoke a warning.

“The Navajos go in here and swim their mustangs across to that sand bar,” explained Naab. “The current helps when she’s high, and there’s a three-foot raise on now.”

“I can’t believe it possible. What danger they must run — those little mustangs!” exclaimed Hare.

“Danger? Yes, I suppose so,” replied Naab, as if it were a new idea. “My lad, the Mormons crossed here by the hundreds. Many were drowned. This trail and crossing were unknown except to Indians before the Mormon exodus.”

The mustangs had to be driven into the water. Scarbreast led, and his mustang, after many kicks and reluctant steps, went over his depth, wetting the stalwart chief to the waist. Bare-legged Indians waded in and urged their pack-ponies. Shouts, shrill cries, blows mingled with snorts and splashes.

Dave and George Naab in flat boats rowed slowly on the down-stream side of the Indians. Presently all the mustangs and ponies were in, the procession widening out in a triangle from Scarbreast, the leader. The pack-ponies appeared to swim better than the mounted mustangs, or else the packs of deer-pelts made them more buoyant. When one-third way across the head of the swimming train met the current, and the line of progress broke. Mustang after mustang swept down with a rapidity which showed the power of the current. Yet they swam steadily with flanks shining, tails sometimes afloat, sometimes under, noses up, and riders holding weapons aloft. But the pack-ponies labored when the current struck them, and whirling about, they held back the Indians who were leading them, and blocked those behind. The orderly procession of the start became a broken line, and then a rout. Here and there a Navajo slipped into the water and swam, leading his mustang; others pulled on pack-ponies and beat their mounts; strong-swimming mustangs forged ahead; weak ones hung back, and all obeyed the downward will of the current.

While Hare feared for the lives of some of the Navajos, and pitied the laden ponies, he could not but revel in the scene, in its vivid action and varying color, in the cries and shrill whoops of the Indians, and the snorts of the frightened mustangs, in Naab’s hoarse yells to his sons, and the ever-present menacing roar from around the bend. The wildness of it all, the necessity of peril and calm acceptance of it, stirred within Hare the call, the awakening, the spirit of the desert.

August Naab’s stentorian voice rolled out over the river. “Ho! Dave — the yellow pinto — pull him loose — George, back this way — there’s a pack slipping — down now, downstream, turn that straggler in — Dave, in that tangle — quick! There’s a boy drowning — his foot’s caught — he’s been kicked — Hurry! Hurry! — pull him in the boat — There’s a pony under — Too late, George, let that one go — let him go, I tell you!”

So the crossing of the Navajos proceeded, never an instant free from danger in that churning current. The mustangs and ponies floundered somewhat on the sand-bar and then parted the willows and appeared on a trail skirting the red wall. Dave Naab moored his boat on that side of the river, and returned with George.

“We’ll look over my farm,” said August, as they retraced their steps. He led Hare through fields of alfalfa, in all stages of growth, explaining that it yielded six crops a year. Into one ten-acre lot pigs and cows had been turned to feed at will. Everywhere the ground was soggy; little streams of water trickled down ditches. Next to the fields was an orchard, where cherries were ripe, apricots already large, plum-trees shedding their blossoms, and apple-trees just opening into bloom. Naab explained that the products of his oasis were abnormal; the ground was exceedingly rich and could be kept always wet; the reflection of the sun from the walls robbed even winter of any rigor, and the spring, summer, and autumn were tropical. He pointed to grape-vines as large as a man’s thigh and told of bunches of grapes four feet long; he showed sprouting plants on which watermelons and pumpkins would grow so large that one man could not lift them; he told of one pumpkin that held a record of taking two men to roll it.

“I can raise any kind of fruit in such abundance that it can’t be used. My garden is prodigal. But we get little benefit, except for our own use, for we cannot transport things across the desert.”

The water which was the prime factor in all this richness came from a small stream which Naab, by making a dam and tunnelling a corner of cliff, had diverted from its natural course into his oasis.

Between the fence and the red wall there was a wide bare plain which stretched to the house. At its farthest end was a green enclosure, which Hare recognized as the cemetery mentioned by Snap. Hare counted thirty graves, a few with crude monuments of stone, the others marked by wooden head-pieces.

“I’ve the reputation of doctoring the women, and letting the men die,” said Naab, with a smile.” I hardly think it’s fair. But the fact is no women are buried here. Some graves are of men I fished out of the river; others of those who drifted here, and who were killed or died keeping their secrets. I’ve numbered those unknown graves and have kept a description of the men, so, if the chance ever comes, I may tell some one where a father or brother lies buried. Five sons of mine, not one of whom died a natural death, found graves here — God rest them! Here’s the grave of Mescal’s father, a Spaniard. He was an adventurer. I helped him over in Nevada when he was ill; he came here with me, got well, and lived nine years, and he died without speaking one word of himself or telling his name.”

“What strange ends men come to!” mused Hare. Well, a grave was a grave, wherever it lay. He wondered if he would come to rest in that quiet nook, with its steady light, its simple dignity of bare plain graves fitting the brevity of life, the littleness of man.

“We break wild mustangs along this stretch,” said Naab, drawing Hare away. “It’s a fine run. Wait till you see Mescal on Black Bolly tearing up the dust! She’s a Navajo for riding.”

Three huge corrals filled a wide curved space in the wall. In one corral were the teams that had hauled the wagons from White Sage; in another upward of thirty burros, drooping, lazy little fellows half asleep; in the third a dozen or more mustangs and some horses which delighted Hare. Snap Naab’s cream pinto, a bay, and a giant horse of mottled white attracted him most.

“Our best stock is out on the range,” said Naab. “The white is Charger, my saddle-horse. When he was a yearling he got away and ran wild for three years. But we caught him. He’s a weight-carrier and he can run some. You’re fond of a horse — I can see that.”

“Yes,” returned Hare, “but I — I’ll never ride again.” He said it brightly, smiling the while; still the look in his eyes belied the cheerful resignation.

“I’ve not the gift of revelation, yet I seem to see you on a big gray horse with a shining mane.” Naab appeared to be gazing far away.

The cottonwood grove, at the western curve of the oasis, shaded the five log huts where August’s grown sons lived with their wives, and his own cabin, which was of considerable dimensions. It had a covered porch on one side, an open one on the other, a shingle roof, and was a roomy and comfortable habitation.

Naab was pointing out the school-house when he was interrupted by childish laughter, shrieks of glee, and the rush of little feet.

“It’s recess-time,” he said.

A frantic crowd of tousled-headed little ones were running from the log school-house to form a circle under the trees. There were fourteen of them, from four years of age up to ten or twelve. Such sturdy, glad-eyed children Hare had never seen. In a few moments, as though their happy screams were signals, the shady circle was filled with hounds, and a string of puppies stepping on their long ears, and ruffling turkey-gobblers, that gobbled and gobbled, and guinea-hens with their shrill cries, and cackling chickens, and a lame wild goose that hobbled along alone. Then there were shiny peafowls screeching clarion calls from the trees overhead, and flocks of singing blackbirds, and pigeons hovering over and alighting upon the house. Last to approach were a woolly sheep that added his baa-baa to the din, and a bald-faced burro that walked in his sleep. These two became the centre of clamor. After many tumbles four chubby youngsters mounted the burro; and the others, with loud acclaim, shouting, “Noddle, Noddle, getup! getup!” endeavored to make him go. But Noddle nodded and refused to awaken or budge. Then an ambitious urchin of six fastened his hands in the fur of the sheep and essayed to climb to his back. Willing hands assisted him. “Ride him, Billy, ride him. Getup, Navvy, getup!”

Navvy evidently had never been ridden, for he began a fair imitation of a bucking bronco. Billy held on, but the smile vanished and he corners of his mouth drew down

“Hang on, Billy, hang on,” cried August Naab, in delight. Billy hung on a moment longer, and then Navvy, bewildered by the pestering crowd about him, launched out and, butting into Noddle, spilled the four youngsters and Billy also into a wriggling heap.

This recess-time completed Hare’s introduction to the Naabs. There were Mother Mary, and Judith and Esther, whom he knew, and Mother Ruth and her two daughters very like their sisters. Mother Ruth, August’s second wife, was younger than Mother Mary, more comely of face, and more sad and serious of expression. The wives of the five sons, except Snap Naab’s frail bride, were stalwart women, fit to make homes and rear children.

“Now, Jack, things are moving all right,” said August. “For the present you must eat and rest. Walk some, but don’t tire yourself. We’ll practice shooting a little every day; that’s one thing I’ll spare time for. I’ve a trick with a gun to teach you. And if you feel able, take a burro and ride. Anyway, make yourself at home.”

Hare found eating and resting to be matters of profound enjoyment. Before he had fallen in with these good people it had been a year since he had sat down to a full meal; longer still since he had eaten whole some food. And now he had come to a “land overflowing with milk and honey,” as Mother Ruth smilingly said. He could not choose between roast beef and chicken, and so he waived the question by taking both; and what with the biscuits and butter, apple-sauce and blackberry jam, cherry pie and milk like cream, there was danger of making himself ill. He told his friends that he simply could not help it, which shameless confession brought a hearty laugh from August and beaming smiles from his women-folk.

For several days Hare was remarkably well, for an invalid. He won golden praise from August at the rifle practice, and he began to take lessons in the quick drawing and rapid firing of a Colt revolver. Naab was wonderfully proficient in the use of both firearms; and his skill in drawing the smaller weapon, in which his movement was quicker than the eye, astonished Hare. “My lad,” said August, “it doesn’t follow because I’m a Christian that I don’t know how to handle a gun. Besides, I like to shoot.”

In these few days Hare learned what conquering the desert made of a man. August Naab was close to threescore years; his chest was wide as a door, his arm like the branch of an oak. He was a blacksmith, a mechanic, a carpenter, a cooper, a potter. At his forge and in his shop, everywhere, were crude tools, wagons, farming implements, sets of buckskin harness, odds and ends of nameless things, eloquent and pregnant proof of the fact that necessity is the mother of invention. He was a mason; the levee that buffeted back the rage of the Colorado in flood, the wall that turned the creek, the irrigation tunnel, the zigzag trail cut on the face of the cliff — all these attested his eye for line, his judgment of distance, his strength in toil. He was a farmer, a cattle man, a grafter of fruit-trees, a breeder of horses, a herder of sheep, a preacher, a physician. Best and strangest of all in this wonderful man was the instinct and the heart to heal. “I don’t combat the doctrine of the Mormon church,” he said, “but I administer a little medicine with my healing. I learned that from the Navajos.” The children ran to him with bruised heads, and cut fingers, and stubbed toes; and his blacksmith’s hands were as gentle as a woman’s. A mustang with a lame leg claimed his serious attention; a sick sheep gave him an anxious look; a steer with a gored skin sent him running for a bucket of salve. He could not pass by a crippled quail. The farm was overrun by Navajo sheep which he had found strayed and lost on the desert. Anything hurt or helpless had in August Naab a friend. Hare found himself looking up to a great and luminous figure, and he loved this man.

As the days passed Hare learned many other things. For a while illness confined him to his bed on the porch. At night he lay listening to the roar of the river, and watching the stars. Twice he heard a distant crash and rumble, heavy as thunder, and he knew that somewhere along the cliffs avalanches were slipping. By day he watched the cotton snow down upon him, and listened to the many birds, and waited for the merry show at recess-time. After a short time the children grew less shy and came readily to him. They were the most wholesome children he had ever known. Hare wondered about it, and decided it was not so much Mormon teaching as isolation from the world. These children had never been out of their cliff-walled home, and civilization was for them as if it were not. He told them stories, and after school hours they would race to him and climb on his bed, and beg for more.

He exhausted his supply of fairy-stories and animal stories; and had begun to tell about the places and cities which he had visited when the eager-eyed children were peremptorily called within by Mother Mary. This pained him and he was at a loss to understand it. Enlightenment came, however, in the way of an argument between Naab and Mother Mary which he overheard. The elder wife said that the stranger was welcome to the children, but she insisted that they hear nothing of the outside world, and that they be kept to the teachings of the Mormon geography — which made all the world outside Utah an untrodden wilderness. August Naab did not hold to the letter of the Mormon law; he argued that if the children could not be raised as Mormons with a full knowledge of the world, they would only be lost in the end to the Church.

Other developments surprised Hare. The house of this good Mormon was divided against itself. Precedence was given to the first and elder wife — Mother Mary; Mother Ruth’s life was not without pain. The men were out on the ranges all day, usually two or more of them for several days at a time, and this left the women alone. One daughter taught the school, the other daughters did all the chores about the house, from feeding the stock to chopping wood. The work was hard, and the girls would rather have been in White Sage or Lund. They disliked Mescal, and said things inspired by jealousy. Snap Naab’s wife was vindictive, and called Mescal “that Indian!”

It struck him on hearing this gossip that he had missed Mescal. What had become of her? Curiosity prompting him, he asked little Billy about her.

“Mescal’s with the sheep,” piped Billy.

That she was a shepherdess pleased Hare, and he thought of her as free on the open range, with the wind blowing her hair.

One day when Hare felt stronger he took his walk round the farm with new zest. Upon his return to the house he saw Snap’s cream pinto in the yard, and Dave’s mustang cropping the grass near by. A dusty pack lay on the ground. Hare walked down the avenue of cottonwoods and was about to turn the corner of the old forge when he stopped short.

“Now mind you, I’ll take a bead on this white-faced spy if you send him up there.”

It was Snap Naab’s voice, and his speech concluded with the click of teeth characteristic of him in anger.

“Stand there!” August Naab exclaimed in wrath. “Listen. You have been drinking again or you wouldn’t talk of killing a man. I warned you. I won’t do this thing you ask of me till I have your promise. Why won’t you leave the bottle alone?”

“I’ll promise,” came the sullen reply.

“Very well. Then pack and go across to Bitter Seeps.”

“That job’ll take all summer,” growled Snap.

“So much the better. When you come home I’ll keep my promise.”

Hare moved away silently; the shock of Snap’s first words had kept him fast in his tracks long enough to hear the conversation. Why did Snap threaten him? Where was August Naab going to send him? Hare had no means of coming to an understanding of either question. He was disturbed in mind and resolved to keep out of Snap’s way. He went to the orchard, but his stay of an hour availed nothing, for on his return, after threading the maze of cottonwoods, he came face to face with the man he wanted to avoid.

Snap Naab, at the moment of meeting, had a black bottle tipped high above his lips.

With a curse he threw the bottle at Hare, missing him narrowly. He was drunk. His eyes were bloodshot.

“If you tell father you saw me drinking I’ll kill you!” he hissed, and rattling his Colt in its holster, he walked away.

Hare walked back to his bed, where he lay for a long time with his whole inner being in a state of strife. It gradually wore off as he strove for calm. The playground was deserted; no one had seen Snap’s action, and for that he was glad. Then his attention was diverted by a clatter of ringing hoofs on the road; a mustang and a cloud of dust were approaching.

“Mescal and Black Bolly!” he exclaimed, and sat up quickly. The mustang turned in the gate, slid to a stop, and stood quivering, restive, tossing its thoroughbred head, black as a coal, with freedom and fire in every line. Mescal leaped off lightly. A gray form flashed in at the gate, fell at her feet and rose to leap about her. It was a splendid dog, huge in frame, almost white, wild as the mustang.

This was the Mescal whom he remembered, yet somehow different. The sombre homespun garments had given place to fringed and beaded buckskin.

“I’ve come for you,” she said.

“For me?” he asked, wonderingly, as she approached with the bridle of the black over her arm.

“Down, Wolf!” she cried to the leaping dog. “Yes. Didn’t you know? Father Naab says you’re to help me tend the sheep. Are you better? I hope so — You’re quite pale.”

“I — I’m not so well,” said Hare.

He looked up at her, at the black sweep of her hair under the white band, at her eyes, like jet; and suddenly realized, with a gladness new and strange to him, that he liked to look at her, that she was beautiful.

V. BLACK SAGE AND JUNIPER

AUGUST NAAB APPEARED on the path leading from his fields.

“Mescal, here you are,” he greeted. “How about the sheep?”

“Piute’s driving them down to the lower range. There are a thousand coyotes hanging about the flock.”

“That’s bad,” rejoined August.” Jack, there’s evidently some real shooting in store for you. We’ll pack to-day and get an early start to-morrow. I’ll put you on Noddle; he’s slow, but the easiest climber I ever owned. He’s like riding . . . What’s the matter with you? What’s happened to make you angry?”

One of his long strides spanned the distance between them.

“Oh, nothing,” said Hare, flushing.

“Lad, I know of few circumstances that justify a lie. You’ve met Snap.”

Hare might still have tried to dissimulate; but one glance at August’s stern face showed the uselessness of it. He kept silent.

“Drink makes my son unnatural,” said Naab. He breathed heavily as one in conflict with wrath. “We’ll not wait till to-morrow to go up on the plateau; we’ll go at once.”

Then quick surprise awakened for Hare in the meaning in Mescal’s eyes; he caught only a fleeting glimpse, a dark flash, and it left him with a glow of an emotion half pleasure, half pain.

“Mescal,” went on August, “go into the house, and keep out of Snap’s way. Jack, watch me pack. You need to learn these things. I could put all this outfit on two burros, but the trail is narrow, and a wide pack might bump a burro off. Let’s see, I’ve got all your stuff but the saddle; that we’ll leave till we get a horse for you. Well, all’s ready.”

Mescal came at his call and, mounting Black Bolly, rode out toward the cliff wall, with Wolf trotting before her. Hare bestrode Noddle. August, waving good-bye to his women-folk, started the train of burros after Mescal.

How they would be able to climb the face of that steep cliff puzzled Hare. Upon nearer view he discovered the yard-wide trail curving upward in cork-screw fashion round a projecting corner of cliff. The stone was a soft red shale, and the trail had been cut in it at a steep angle. It was so steep that the burros appeared to be climbing straight up. Noddle pattered into it, dropped his head and his long ears and slackened his pace to patient plodding. August walked in the rear.

The first thing that struck Hare was the way the burros in front of him stopped at the curves in the trail, and turned in a space so small that their four feet were close together; yet as they swung their packs they scarcely scraped the wall. At every turn they were higher than he was, going in the opposite direction, yet he could reach out and touch them. He glanced up to see Mescal right above him, leaning forward with her brown hands clasping the pommel. Then he looked out and down; already the green cluster of cottonwoods lay far below. After that sensations pressed upon him. Round and round, up and up, steadily, surely, the beautiful mustang led the train; there were sounds of rattling stones, and click of hoofs, and scrape of pack. On one side towered the iron-stained cliff, not smooth or glistening at close range, but of dull, dead, rotting rock. The trail changed to a zigzag along a seamed and cracked buttress where ledges leaned outward waiting to fall. Then a steeper incline, where the burros crept upward warily, led to a level ledge heading to the left.

Mescal halted on a promontory. She, with her windblown hair, the gleam of white band about her head, and a dash of red along the fringed leggings, gave inexpressible life and beauty to that wild, jagged point of rock, sharp against the glaring sky.

“This is Lookout Point,” said Naab. “I keep an Indian here all the time during daylight. He’s a peon, a Navajo slave. He can’t talk, as he was born without a tongue, or it was cut out, but he has the best eyes of any Indian I know. You see this point commands the farm, the crossing, the Navajo Trail over the river, the Echo Cliffs opposite, where the Navajos signal to me, and also the White Sage Trail.”

The oasis shone under the triangular promontory; the river with its rising roar wound in bold curve from the split in the cliffs. To the right white-sloped Coconina breasted the horizon. Forward across the Canyon line opened the many-hued desert.

“With this peon watching here I’m not likely to be surprised,” said Naab. “That strip of sand protects me at night from approach, and I’ve never had anything to fear from across the river.”

Naab’s peon came from a little cave in the wall; and grinned the greeting he could not speak. To Hare’s uneducated eye all Indians resembled each other. Yet this one stood apart from the others, not differing in blanketed leanness, or straggling black hair, or bronze skin, but in the bird-of-prey cast of his features and the wildness of his glittering eyes. Naab gave him a bag from one of the packs, spoke a few words in Navajo, and then slapped the burros into the trail.

The climb thenceforth was more rapid because less steep, and the trail now led among broken fragments of cliff. The color of the stones had changed from red to yellow, and small cedars grew in protected places. Hare’s judgment of height had such frequent cause for correction that he gave up trying to estimate the altitude. The ride had begun to tell on his strength, and toward the end he thought he could not manage to stay longer upon Noddle. The air had grown thin and cold, and though the sun was yet an hour high, his fingers were numb.

“Hang on, Jack,” cheered August. “We’re almost up.”

At last Black Bolly disappeared, likewise the bobbing burros, one by one, then Noddle, wagging his ears, reached a level. Then Hare saw a gray-green cedar forest, with yellow crags rising in the background, and a rush of cold wind smote his face. For a moment he choked; he could not get his breath. The air was thin and rare, and he inhaled deeply trying to overcome the suffocation. Presently he realized that the trouble was not with the rarity of the atmosphere, but with the bitter-sweet penetrating odor it carried. He was almost stifled. It was not like the smell of pine, though it made him think of pine-trees.

“Ha! that’s good!” said Naab, expanding his great chest. “That’s air for you, my lad. Can you taste it? Well, here’s camp, your home for many a day, Jack. There’s Piute — how do? how’re the sheep?”

A short, squat Indian, good-humored of face, shook his black head till the silver rings danced in his ears, and replied: “Bad — damn coyotee!”

“Piute — shake with Jack. Him shoot coyote — got big gun,” said Naab.

“How-do-Jack?” replied Piute, extending his hand, and then straightway began examining the new rifle. “Damn — heap big gun!”

“Jack, you’ll find this Indian one you can trust, for all he’s a Piute outcast,” went on August. “I’ve had him with me ever since Mescal found him on the Coconina Trail five years ago. What Piute doesn’t know about this side of Coconina isn’t worth learning.”

In a depression sheltered from the wind lay the camp. A fire burned in the centre; a conical tent, like a tepee in shape, hung suspended from a cedar branch and was staked at its four points; a leaning slab of rock furnished shelter for camp supplies and for the Indian, and at one end a spring gushed out. A gray-sheathed cedar-tree marked the entrance to this hollow glade, and under it August began preparing Hare’s bed.

“Here’s the place you’re to sleep, rain or shine or snow,” he said. “Now I’ve spent my life sleeping on the ground, and mother earth makes the best bed. I’ll dig out a little pit in this soft mat of needles; that’s for your hips. Then the tarpaulin so; a blanket so. Now the other blankets. Your feet must be a little higher than your head; you really sleep down hill, which breaks the wind. So you never catch cold. All you need do is to change your position according to the direction of the wind. Pull up the blankets, and then the long end of the tarpaulin. If it rains or snows cover your head, and sleep, my lad, sleep to the song of the wind!”

From where Hare lay, resting a weary body, he could see down into the depression which his position guarded. Naab built up the fire; Piute peeled potatoes with deliberate care; Mescal, on her knees, her brown arms bare, kneaded dough in a basin; Wolf crouched on the ground, and watched his mistress; Black Bolly tossed her head, elevating the bag on her nose so as to get all the grain.

Naab called him to supper, and when Hare set to with a will on the bacon and eggs, and hot biscuits, he nodded approvingly. “That’s what I want to see,” he said approvingly. “You must eat. Piute will get deer, or you may shoot them yourself; eat all the venison you can. Remember what Scarbreast said. Then rest. That’s the secret. If you eat and rest you will gain strength.”

The edge of the wall was not a hundred paces from the camp; and when Hare strolled out to it after supper, the sun had dipped the under side of its red disc behind the desert. He watched it sink, while the golden-red flood of light grew darker and darker. Thought seemed remote from him then; he watched, and watched, until he saw the last spark of fire die from the snow-slopes of Coconina. The desert became dimmer and dimmer; the oasis lost its outline in a bottomless purple pit, except for a faint light, like a star.

The bleating of sheep aroused him and he returned to camp. The fire was still bright. Wolf slept close to Mescal’s tent; Piute was not in sight; and Naab had rolled himself in blankets. Crawling into his bed, Hare stretched aching legs and lay still, as if he would never move again. Tired as he was, the bleating of the sheep, the clear ring of the bell on Black Bolly, and the faint tinkle of lighter bells on some of the rams, drove away sleep for a while. Accompanied by the sough of the wind through the cedars the music of the bells was sweet, and he listened till he heard no more.

A thin coating of frost crackled on his bed when he awakened; and out from under the shelter of the cedar all the ground was hoar-white. As he slipped from his blankets the same strong smell of black sage and juniper smote him, almost like a blow. His nostrils seemed glued together by some rich piny pitch; and when he opened his lips to breathe a sudden pain, as of a knife-thrust, pierced his lungs. The thought following was as sharp as the pain. Pneumonia! What he had long expected! He sank against the cedar, overcome by the shock. But he rallied presently, for with the reestablishment of the old settled bitterness, which had been forgotten in the interest of his situation, he remembered that he had given up hope. Still, he could not get back at once to his former resignation. He hated to acknowledge that the wildness of this desert canyon country, and the spirit it sought to instil in him, had wakened a desire to live. For it meant only more to give up. And after one short instant of battle he was himself again. He put his hand under his flannel shirt and felt of the soreness of his lungs. He found it not at the apex of the right lung, always the one sensitive spot, but all through his breast. Little panting breaths did not hurt; but the deep inhalation, which alone satisfied him filled his whole chest with thousands of pricking needles. In the depth of his breast was a hollow that burned.

When he had pulled on his boots and coat, and had washed himself in the runway of the spring, his hands were so numb with cold they refused to hold his comb and brush; and he presented himself at the roaring fire half-frozen, dishevelled, trembling, but cheerful. He would not tell Naab. If he had to die to-day, to-morrow or next week, he would lie down under a cedar and die; he could not whine about it to this man.

“Up with the sun!” was Naab’s greeting. His cheerfulness was as impelling as his splendid virility. Following the wave of his hand Hare saw the sun, a pale-pink globe through a misty blue, rising between the golden crags of the eastern wall.

Mescal had a shy “good-morning” for him, and Piute a broad smile, and familiar “how-do”; the peon slave, who had finished breakfast and was about to depart, moved his lips in friendly greeting that had no sound.

“Did you hear the coyotes last night?” inquired August “No! Well, of all the choruses I ever heard. There must be a thousand on the bench. Jack, I wish I could spare the time to stay up here with you and shoot some. You’ll have practice with the rifle, but don’t neglect the Colt. Practice particularly the draw I taught you. Piute has a carbine, and he shoots at the coyotes, but who ever saw an Indian that could hit anything?”

“Damn — gun no good!” growled Piute, who evidently understood English pretty well. Naab laughed, and while Hare ate breakfast he talked of the sheep. The flock he had numbered three thousand. They were a goodly part of them Navajo stock: small, hardy sheep that could live on anything but cactus, and needed little water. This flock had grown from a small number to its present size in a few years. Being remarkably free from the diseases and pests which retard increase in low countries, the sheep had multiplied almost one for one for every year. But for the ravages of wild beasts Naab believed he could raise a flock of many thousands and in a brief time be rich in sheep alone. In the winter he drove them down into the oasis; the other seasons he herded them on the high ranges where the cattle could not climb. There was grass enough on this plateau for a million sheep. After the spring thaw in early March, occasional snows fell till the end of May, and frost hung on until early summer; then the July rains made the plateau a garden.

“Get the forty-four,” concluded Naab, “and we’ll go out and break it in.”

With the long rifle in the hollow of his arm Jack forgot that he was a sick man. When he came within gunshot of the flock the smell of sheep effectually smothered the keen, tasty odor of black sage and juniper. Sheep ranged everywhere under the low cedars. They browsed with noses in the frost, and from all around came the tinkle of tiny bells on the curly-horned rams, and an endless variety of bleats.

“They’re spread now,” said August. “Mescal drives them on every little while and Piute goes ahead to pick out the best browse. Watch the dog, Jack; he’s all but human. His mother was a big shepherd dog that I got in Lund. She must have had a strain of wild blood. Once while I was hunting deer on Coconina she ran off with timber wolves and we thought she was killed. But she came back, and had a litter of three puppies. Two were white, the other black. I think she killed the black one. And she neglected the others. One died, and Mescal raised the other. We called him Wolf. He loves Mescal, and loves the sheep, and hates a wolf. Mescal puts a bell on him when she is driving, and the sheep know the bell. I think it would be a good plan for her to tie something red round his neck — a scarf, so as to keep you from shooting him for a wolf.”

Nimble, alert, the big white dog was not still a moment. His duty was to keep the flock compact, to head the stragglers and turn them back; and he knew his part perfectly. There was dash and fire in his work. He never barked. As he circled the flock the small Navajo sheep, edging ever toward forbidden ground, bleated their way back to the fold, the larger ones wheeled reluctantly, and the old belled rams squared themselves, lowering their massive horns as if to butt him. Never, however, did they stand their ground when he reached them, for there was a decision about Wolf which brooked no opposition. At times when he was working on one side a crafty sheep on the other would steal out into the thicket. Then Mescal called and Wolf flashed back to her, lifting his proud head, eager, spirited, ready to take his order. A word, a wave of her whip sufficed for the dog to rout out the recalcitrant sheep and send him bleating to his fellows.

“He manages them easily now,” said Naab, “but when the lambs come they can’t be kept in. The coyotes and wolves hang out in the thickets and pick up the stragglers. The worst enemy of sheep, though, is the old grizzly bear. Usually he is grouchy, and dangerous to hunt. He comes into the herd, kills the mother sheep, and eats the milk-bag — no more! He will kill forty sheep in a night. Piute saw the tracks of one up on the high range, and believes this bear is following the flock. Let’s get off into the woods some little way, into the edge of the thickets — for Piute always keeps to the glades — and see if we can pick off a few coyotes.”

August cautioned Jack to step stealthily, and slip from cedar to cedar, to use every bunch of sage and juniper to hide his advance.

“Watch sharp, Jack. I’ve seen two already. Look for moving things. Don’t try to see one quiet, for you can’t till after your eye catches him moving. They are gray, gray as the cedars, the grass, the ground. Good! Yes, I see him, but don’t shoot. That’s too far. Wait. They sneak away, but they return. You can afford to make sure. Here now, by that stone — aim low and be quick.”

In the course of a mile, without keeping the sheep near at hand, they saw upward of twenty coyotes, five of which Jack killed in as many shots.

“You’ve got the hang of it,” said Naab, rubbing his hands. “You’ll kill the varmints. Piute will skin and salt the pelts. Now I’m going up on the high range to look for bear sign. Go ahead, on your own hook.”

Hare was regardless of time while he stole under the cedars and through the thickets, spying out the cunning coyotes. Then Naab’s yell pealing out claimed his attention; he answered and returned. When they met he recounted his adventures in mingled excitement and disappointment.

“Are you tired?” asked Naab.

“Tired? No,” replied Jack.

“Well, you mustn’t overdo the very first day. I’ve news for you. There are some wild horses on the high range. I didn’t see them, but found tracks everywhere. If they come down here you send Piute to close the trail at the upper end of the bench, and you close the one where we came up. There are only two trails where even a deer can get off this plateau, and both are narrow splits in the wall, which can be barred by the gates. We made the gates to keep the sheep in, and they’ll serve a turn. If you get the wild horses on the bench send Piute for me at once.”

They passed the Indian herding the sheep into a corral built against an uprising ridge of stone. Naab dispatched him to look for the dead coyotes. The three burros were in camp, two wearing empty pack-saddles, and Noddle, for once not asleep, was eating from Mescal’s hand.

“Mescal, hadn’t I better take Black Bolly home?” asked August.

“Mayn’t I keep her?”

“She’s yours. But you run a risk. There are wild horses on the range. Will you keep her hobbled?”

“Yes,” replied Mescal, reluctantly. “Though I don’t believe Bolly would run off from me.”

“Look out she doesn’t go, hobbles and all. Jack, here’s the other bit of news I have for you. There’s a big grizzly camping on the trail of our sheep. Now what I want to know is — shall I leave him to you, or put off work and come up here to wait for him myself?”

“Why—” said Jack, slowly, “whatever you say. If you think you can safely leave him to me — I’m willing.”

“A grizzly won’t be pleasant to face. I never knew one of those sheep-killers that wouldn’t run at a man, if wounded.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“If he comes down it’s more than likely to be after dark. Don’t risk hunting him then. Wait till morning, and put Wolf on his trail. He’ll be up in the rocks, and by holding in the dog you may find him asleep in a cave. However, if you happen to meet him by day do this. Don’t waste any shots. Climb a ledge or tree if one be handy. If not, stand your ground. Get down on your knee and shoot and let him come. Mind you, he’ll grunt when he’s hit, and start for you, and keep coming till he’s dead. Have confidence in yourself and your gun, for you can kill him. Aim low, and shoot steady. If he keeps on coming there’s always a fatal shot, and that is when he rises. You’ll see a bare spot on his breast. Put a forty-four into that, and he’ll go down.”

August had spoken so easily, quite as if he were explaining how to shear a yearling sheep, that Jack’s feelings fluctuated between amazement and laughter. Verily this desert man was stripped of all the false fears of civilization.

“Now, Jack, I’m off. Good-bye and good luck. Mescal, look out for him. . . . So-ho! Noddle! Getup! Biscuit!” And with many a cheery word and slap he urged the burros into the forest, where they and his tall form soon disappeared among the trees.

Piute came stooping toward camp so burdened with coyotes that he could scarcely be seen under the gray pile. With a fervent “damn” he tumbled them under a cedar, and trotted back into the forest for another load. Jack insisted on assuming his share of the duties about camp; and Mescal assigned him to the task of gathering firewood, breaking red-hot sticks of wood into small pieces, and raking them into piles of live coals. Then they ate, these two alone. Jack did not do justice to the supper; excitement had robbed him of appetite. He told Mescal how he had crept upon the coyotes, how so many had eluded him, how he had missed a gray wolf. He plied her with questions about the sheep, and wanted to know if there would be more wolves, and if she thought the “silvertip” would come. He was quite carried away by the events of the day.

The sunset drew him to the rim. Dark clouds were mantling the desert like rolling smoke from a prairie-fire. He almost stumbled over Mescal, who sat with her back to a stone. Wolf lay with his head in her lap, and he growled.

“There’s a storm on the desert,” she said. “Those smoky streaks are flying sand. We may have snow to-night. It’s colder, and the wind is north. See, I’ve a blanket. You had better get one.”

He thanked her and went for it. Piute was eating his supper, and the peon had just come in. The bright campfire was agreeable, yet Hare did not feel cold. But he wrapped himself in a blanket and returned to Mescal and sat beside her. The desert lay indistinct in the foreground, inscrutable beyond; the canyon lost its line in gloom. The solemnity of the scene stilled his unrest, the strange freedom of longings unleashed that day. What had come over him? He shook his head; but with the consciousness of self returned a feeling of fatigue, the burning pain in his chest, the bitter-sweet smell of black sage and juniper.

“You love this outlook?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you sit here often?”

“Every evening.”

“Is it the sunset that you care for, the roar of the river, just being here high above it all?”

“It’s that last, perhaps; I don’t know.”

“Haven’t you been lonely?”

“No.”

“You’d rather be here with the sheep than be in Lund, or Salt Lake City, as Esther and Judith want to be?”

“Yes.”

Any other reply from her would not have been consistent with the impression she was making on him. As yet he had hardly regarded her as a young girl; she had been part of this beautiful desert-land. But he began to see in her a responsive being, influenced by his presence. If the situation was wonderful to him what must it be for her? Like a shy, illusive creature, unused to men, she was troubled by questions, fearful of the sound of her own voice. Yet in repose, as she watched the lights and shadows, she was serene, unconscious; her dark, quiet glance was dreamy and sad, and in it was the sombre, brooding strength of the desert.

Twilight and falling dew sent them back to the camp. Piute and Peon were skinning coyotes by the blaze of the fire. The night wind had not yet risen; the sheep were quiet; there was no sound save the crackle of burning cedar sticks. Jack began to talk; he had to talk, so, addressing Piute and the dumb peon, he struck at random into speech, and words flowed with a rush. Piute approved, for he said “damn” whenever his intelligence grasped a meaning, and the peon twisted his lips and fixed his diamond eyes upon Hare in rapt gaze. The sound of a voice was welcome to the sentinels of that lonely sheep-range. Jack talked of cities, of ships, of people, of simple things in the life he had left, and he discovered that Mescal listened. Not only did she listen; she became absorbed; it was romance to her, fulfilment of her vague dreams. Nor did she seek her tent till he ceased; then with a startled “good-night” she was gone.

From under the snugness of his warm blankets Jack watched out the last wakeful moments of that day of days. A star peeped through the fringe of cedar foliage. The wind sighed, and rose steadily, to sweep over him with breath of ice, with the fragrance of juniper and black sage and a tang of cedar.

But that day was only the beginning of eventful days, of increasing charm, of forgetfulness of self, of time that passed unnoted. Every succeeding day was like its predecessor, only richer. Every day the hoar-frost silvered the dawn; the sheep browsed; the coyotes skulked in the thickets; the rifle spoke truer and truer. Every sunset Mescal’s changing eyes mirrored the desert. Every twilight Jack sat beside her in the silence; every night, in the camp-fire flare, he talked to Piute and the peon.

The Indians were appreciative listeners, whether they understood Jack or not, but his talk with them was only a presence. He wished to reveal the outside world to Mescal, and he saw with pleasure that every day she grew more interested.

One evening he was telling of New York City, of the monster buildings where men worked, and of the elevated railways, for the time was the late seventies and they were still a novelty. Then something unprecedented occurred, inasmuch as Piute earnestly and vigorously interrupted Jack, demanding to have this last strange story made more clear. Jack did his best in gesture and speech, but he had to appeal to Mescal to translate his meaning to the Indian. This Mescal did with surprising fluency. The result, however, was that Piute took exception to the story of trains carrying people through the air. He lost his grin and regarded Jack with much disfavor. Evidently he was experiencing the bitterness of misplaced trust.

“Heap damn lie!” he exclaimed with a growl, and stalked off into the gloom.

Piute’s expressive doubt discomfited Hare, but only momentarily, for Mescal’s silvery peal of laughter told him that the incident had brought them closer together. He laughed with her and discovered a well of joyousness behind her reserve. Thereafter he talked directly to Mescal. The ice being broken she began to ask questions, shyly at first, yet more and more eagerly, until she forgot herself in the desire to learn of cities and people; of women especially, what they wore and how they lived, and all that life meant to them.

The sweetest thing which had ever come to Hare was the teaching of this desert girl. How naive in her questions and how quick to grasp she was! The reaching out of her mind was like the unfolding of a rose. Evidently the Mormon restrictions had limited her opportunities to learn.

But her thought had striven to escape its narrow confines, and now, liberated by sympathy and intelligence, it leaped forth.

Lambing-time came late in May, and Mescal, Wolf, Piute and Jack knew no rest. Night-time was safer for the sheep than the day, though the howling of a thousand coyotes made it hideous for the shepherds. All in a day, seemingly, the little fleecy lambs came, as if by magic, and filled the forest with piping bleats. Then they were tottering after their mothers, gamboling at a day’s growth, wilful as youth — and the carnage began. Boldly the coyotes darted out of thicket and bush, and many lambs never returned to their mothers. Gaunt shadows hovered always near; the great timber-wolves waited in covert for prey. Piute slept not at all, and the dog’s jaws were flecked with blood morning and night. Jack hung up fifty-four coyotes the second day; the third he let them lie, seventy in number. Many times the rifle-barrel burned his hands. His aim grew unerring, so that running brutes in range dropped in their tracks. Many a gray coyote fell with a lamb in his teeth.

One night when sheep and lambs were in the corral, and the shepherds rested round the camp-fire, the dog rose quivering, sniffed the cold wind, and suddenly bristled with every hair standing erect.

“Wolf!” called Mescal.

The sheep began to bleat. A rippling crash, a splintering of wood, told of an irresistible onslaught on the corral fence.

“Chus — chus!” exclaimed Piute.

Wolf, not heeding Mescal’s cry, flashed like lightning under the cedars. The rush of the sheep, pattering across the corral was succeeded by an uproar.

“Bear! Bear!” cried Mescal, with dark eyes on Jack. He seized his rifle.

“Don’t go,” she implored, her hand on his arm. “Not at night — remember Father Naab said not.”

“Listen! I won’t stand that. I’ll go. Here, get in the tree — quick!”

“No — no—”

“Do as I say!” It was a command. The girl wavered. He dropped the rifle, and swung her up. “Climb!”

“No — don’t go — Jack!”

With Piute at his heels he ran out into the darkness.

VI. THE WIND IN THE CEDARS

PIUTE’S INDIAN SENSE of the advantage of position in attack stood Jack in good stead; he led him up the ledge which overhung one end of the corral. In the pale starlight the sheep could be seen running in bands, massing together, crowding the fence; their cries made a deafening din.

The Indian shouted, but Jack could not understand him. A large black object was visible in the shade of the ledge. Piute fired his carbine. Before Jack could bring his rifle up the black thing moved into startlingly rapid flight. Then spouts of red flame illumined the corral. As he shot, Jack got fleeting glimpses of the bear moving like a dark streak against a blur of white. For all he could tell no bullet took effect.

When certain that the visitor had departed Jack descended into the corral. He and Piute searched for dead sheep, but, much to their surprise, found none. If the grizzly had killed one he must have taken it with him; and estimating his strength from the gap he had broken in the fence, he could easily have carried off a sheep. They repaired the break and returned to camp.

“He’s gone, Mescal. Come down,” called Jack into the cedar. “Let me help you — there! Wasn’t it lucky? He wasn’t so brave. Either the flashes from the guns or the dog scared him. I was amazed to see how fast he could run.”

Piute found woolly brown fur hanging from Wolf’s jaws.

“He nipped the brute, that’s sure,” said Jack. “Good dog! Maybe he kept the bear from — Why Mescal! you’re white — you’re shaking. There’s no danger. Piute and I’ll take turns watching with Wolf.”

Mescal went silently into her tent.

The sheep quieted down and made no further disturbance that night. The dawn broke gray, with a cold north wind. Dun-colored clouds rolled up, hiding the tips of the crags on the upper range, and a flurry of snow whitened the cedars. After breakfast Jack tried to get Wolf to take the track of the grizzly, but the scent had cooled.

Next day Mescal drove the sheep eastward toward the crags, and about the middle of the afternoon reached the edge of the slope. Grass grew luxuriantly and it was easy to keep the sheep in. Moreover, that part of the forest had fewer trees, and scarcely any sage or thickets, so that the lambs were safer, barring danger which might lurk in the seamed and cracked cliffs overshadowing the open grassy plots. Piute’s task at the moment was to drag dead coyotes to the rim, near at hand, and throw them over. Mescal rested on a stone, and Wolf reclined at her feet.

Jack presently found a fresh deer track, and trailed it into the cedars, then up the slope to where the huge rocks massed.

Suddenly a cry from Mescal halted him; another, a piercing scream of mortal fright, sent him flying down the slope. He bounded out of the cedars into the open.

The white, well-bunched flock had spread, and streams of jumping sheep fled frantically from an enormous silver-backed bear.

As the bear struck right and left, a brute-engine of destruction, Jack sent a bullet into him at long range. Stung, the grizzly whirled, bit at his side, and then reared with a roar of fury.

But he did not see Jack. He dropped down and launched his huge bulk for Mescal. The blood rushed back to Jack’s heart, and his empty veins seemed to freeze.

The grizzly hurdled the streams of sheep. Terror for Mescal dominated Jack; if he had possessed wings he could not have flown quickly enough to head the bear. Checking himself with a suddenness that fetched him to his knees, he levelled the rifle. It waved as if it were a stick of willow. The bead-sight described a blurred curve round the bear. Yet he shot — in vain — again — in vain.

Above the bleat of sheep and trample of many hoofs rang out Mescal’s cry, despairing.

She had turned, her hands over her breast. Wolf spread his legs before her and crouched to spring, mane erect, jaws wide.

By some lightning flash of memory, August Naab’s words steadied Jack’s shaken nerves. He aimed low and ahead of the running bear. Down the beast went in a sliding sprawl with a muffled roar of rage. Up he sprang, dangling a useless leg, yet leaping swiftly forward. One blow sent the attacking dog aside. Jack fired again. The bear became a wrestling, fiery demon, death-stricken, but full of savage fury. Jack aimed low and shot again.

Slowly now the grizzly reared, his frosted coat blood-flecked, his great head swaying. Another shot. There was one wide sweep of the huge paw, and then the bear sank forward, drooping slowly, and stretched all his length as if to rest.

Mescal, recalled to life, staggered backward. Between her and the outstretched paw was the distance of one short stride.

Jack, bounding up, made sure the bear was dead before he looked at Mescal. She was faint. Wolf whined about her. Piute came running from the cedars. Her eyes were still fixed in a look of fear.

“I couldn’t run — I couldn’t move,” she said, shuddering. A blush drove the white from her cheeks as she raised her face to Jack. “He’d soon have reached me.”

Piute added his encomium: “Damn — heap big bear — Jack kill um — big chief!”

Hare laughed away his own fear and turned their attention to the stampeded sheep. It was dark before they got the flock together again, and they never knew whether they had found them all. Supper-time was unusually quiet that night. Piute was jovial, but no one appeared willing to talk save the peon, and he could only grimace. The reaction of feeling following Mescal’s escape had robbed Jack of strength of voice; he could scarcely whisper. Mescal spoke no word; her black lashes hid her eyes; she was silent, but there was that in her silence which was eloquent. Wolf, always indifferent save to Mescal, reacted to the subtle change, and as if to make amends laid his head on Jack’s knees. The quiet hour round the camp-fire passed, and sleep claimed them. Another day dawned, awakening them fresh, faithful to their duties, regardless of what had gone before.

So the days slipped by. June came, with more leisure for the shepherds, better grazing for the sheep, heavier dews, lighter frosts, snow-squalls half rain, and bursting blossoms on the prickly thorns, wild-primrose patches in every shady spot, and bluebells lifting wan azure faces to the sun.

The last snow-storm of June threatened all one morning; hung menacing over the yellow crags, in dull lead clouds waiting for the wind. Then like ships heaving anchor to a single command they sailed down off the heights; and the cedar forest became the centre of a blinding, eddying storm. The flakes were as large as feathers, moist, almost warm. The low cedars changed to mounds of white; the sheep became drooping curves of snow; the little lambs were lost in the color of their own pure fleece. Though the storm had been long in coming it was brief in passing. Wind-driven toward the desert, it moaned its last in the cedars, and swept away, a sheeted pall. Out over the Canyon it floated, trailing long veils of white that thinned out, darkened, and failed far above the golden desert. The winding columns of snow merged into straight lines of leaden rain; the rain flowed into vapory mist, and the mist cleared in the gold-red glare of endless level and slope. No moisture reached the parched desert.

Jack marched into camp with a snowy burden over his shoulder. He flung it down, disclosing a small deer; then he shook the white mantle from his coat, and whistling, kicked the fire-logs, and looked abroad at the silver cedars, now dripping under the sun, at the rainbows in the settling mists, at the rapidly melting snow on the ground.

“Got lost in that squall. Fine! Fine!” he exclaimed, and threw wide his arms.

“Jack!” said Mescal. “Jack!” Memory had revived some forgotten thing. The dark olive of her skin crimsoned; her eyes dilated and shadowed with a rare change of emotion.

“Jack,” she repeated.

“Well?” he replied, in surprise.

“To look at you! — I never dreamed — I’d forgotten—”

“What’s the matter with me?” demanded Jack.

Wonderingly, her mind on the past, she replied: “You were dying when we found you at White Sage.”

He drew himself up with a sharp catch in his breath, and stared at her as if he saw a ghost.

“Oh — Jack! You’re going to get well!”

Her lips curved in a smile.

For an instant Jack Hare spent his soul in searching her face for truth. While waiting for death he had utterly forgotten it; he remembered now, when life gleamed in the girl’s dark eyes. Passionate joy flooded his heart.

“Mescal — Mescal!” he cried, brokenly. The eyes were true that shed this sudden light on him; glad and sweet were the lips that bade him hope and live again. Blindly, instinctively he kissed them — a kiss unutterably grateful; then he fled into the forest, running without aim.

That flight ended in sheer exhaustion on the far rim of the plateau. The spreading cedars seemed to have eyes; and he shunned eyes in this hour. “God! to think I cared so much,” he whispered. “What has happened?” With time relief came to limbs, to labored breast and lungs, but not to mind. In doubt that would not die, he looked at himself. The leanness of arms, the flat chest, the hollows were gone. He did not recognize his own body. He breathed to the depths of his lungs. No pain — only ex- hilaration! He pounded his chest — no pain! He dug his trembling fingers into the firm flesh over the apex of his right lung — the place of his torture — no pain!

“I wanted to live!” he cried. He buried his face in the fragrant juniper; he rolled on the soft brown mat of earth and hugged it close; he cooled his hot cheeks in the primrose clusters. He opened his eyes to new bright green of cedar, to sky of a richer blue, to a desert, strange, beckoning, enthralling as life itself. He counted backward a month, two months, and marvelled at the swiftness of time. He counted time forward, he looked into the future, and all was beautiful — long days, long hunts, long rides, service to his friend, freedom on the wild steppes, blue-white dawns upon the eastern crags, red-gold sunsets over the lilac mountains of the desert. He saw himself in triumphant health and strength, earning day by day the spirit of this wilderness, coming to fight for it, to live for it, and in far-off time, when he had won his victory, to die for it.

Suddenly his mind was illumined. The lofty plateau with its healing breath of sage and juniper had given back strength to him; the silence and solitude and strife of his surroundings had called to something deep within him; but it was Mescal who made this wild life sweet and significant. It was Mescal, the embodiment of the desert spirit. Like a man facing a great light Hare divined his love. Through all the days on the plateau, living with her the natural free life of Indians, close to the earth, his unconscious love had ripened. He understood now her charm for him; he knew now the lure of her wonderful eyes, flashing fire, desert-trained, like the falcon eyes of her Indian grandfather. The knowledge of what she had become to him dawned with a mounting desire that thrilled all his blood.

Twilight had enfolded the plateau when Hare traced his way back to camp. Mescal was not there. His supper awaited him; Piute hummed a song; the peon sat grimacing at the fire. Hare told them to eat, and moved away toward the rim.

Mescal was at her favorite seat, with the white dog beside her; and she watched the desert where the last glow of sunset gilded the mesas. How cold and calm was her face! How strange to him in this new character!

“Mescal, I didn’t know I loved you — then — but I know it now.”

Her face dropped quickly from its level poise, hiding the brooding eyes; her hand trembled on Wolf’s head.

“You spoke the truth. I’ll get well. I’d rather have had it from your lips than from any in the world. I mean to live my life here where these wonderful things have come to me. The friendship of the good man who saved me, this wild, free desert, the glory of new hope, strength, life — and love.”

He took her hand in his and whispered, “For I love you. Do you care for me? Mescal! It must be complete. Do you care — a little?”

The wind blew her dusky hair; he could not see her face; he tried gently to turn her to him. The hand he had taken lay warm and trembling in his, but it was not withdrawn. As he waited, in fear, in hope, it became still. Her slender form, rigid within his arm, gradually relaxed, and yielded to him; her face sank on his breast, and her dark hair loosened from its band, covered her, and blew across his lips. That was his answer.

The wind sang in the cedars. No longer a sigh, sad as thoughts of a past forever flown, but a song of what had come to him, of hope, of life, of Mescal’s love, of the things to be!

VII. SILVERMANE

LITTLE DEW FELL on the night of July first; the dawn brightened without mists; a hot sun rose; the short summer of the plateau had begun.

As Hare rose, refreshed and happy from his breakfast, his whistle was cut short by the Indian.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Piute, lifting a dark finger. Black Bolly had thrown her nose-bag and slipped her halter, and she moved toward the opening in the cedars, her head high, her black ears straight up.

“Bolly!” called Mescal. The mare did not stop.

“What the deuce?” Hare ran forward to catch her.

“I never knew Bolly to act that way,” said Mescal. “See — she didn’t eat half the oats. Well, Bolly — Jack! look at Wolfl”

The white dog had risen and stood warily shifting his nose. He sniffed the wind, turned round and round, and slowly stiffened with his head pointed toward the eastern rise of the plateau.

“Hold, Wolf, hold!” called Mescal, as the dog appeared to be about to dash away.

“Ugh!” grunted Piute.

“Listen, Jack; did you hear?” whispered the girl.

“Hear what?”

“Listen.”

The warm breeze came down in puffs from the crags; it rustled in the cedars and blew fragrant whiffs of camp-fire smoke into his face; and presently it bore a low, prolonged whistle. He had never before heard its like. The sound broke the silence again, clearer, a keen, sharp whistle.

“What is it?” he queried, reaching for his rifle.

“Wild mustangs,” said Mescal.

“No,” corrected Piute, vehemently shaking his head. “Clea, Clea.”

“Jack, he says ‘horse, horse.’ It’s a wild horse.”

A third time the whistle rang down from the ridge, splitting the air, strong and trenchant, the fiery, shrill challenge of a stallion.

Black Bolly reared straight up.

Jack ran to the rise of ground above the camp, and looked over the cedars. “Oh!” he cried, and beckoned for Mescal. She ran to him, and Piute, tying Black Bolly, hurried after. “Look! look!” cried Jack. He pointed to a ridge rising to the left of the yellow crags. On the bare summit stood a splendid stallion clearly silhouetted against the ruddy morning sky. He was an iron-gray, wild and proud, with long silver-white mane waving in the wind.

“Silvermane! Silvermane!” exclaimed Mescal.

“What a magnificent animal!” Jack stared at the splendid picture for the moment before the horse moved back along the ridge and disappeared. Other horses, blacks and bays, showed above the sage for a moment, and they, too, passed out of sight.

“He’s got some of his band with him,” said Jack, thrilled with excitement. “Mescal, they’re down off the upper range, and grazing along easy. The wind favors us. That whistle was just plain fight, judging from what Naab told me of wild stallions. He came to the hilltop, and whistled down defiance to any horse, wild or tame, that might be below. I’ll slip round through the cedars, and block the trail leading up to the other range, and you and Piute close the gate of our trail at this end. Then send Piute down to tell Naab we’ve got Silvermane.”

Jack chose the lowest edge of the plateau rim where the cedars were thickest for his detour to get behind the wild band; he ran from tree to tree, avoiding the open places, taking advantage of the thickets, keeping away from the ridge. He had never gone so far as the gate, but, knowing where the trail led into a split in the crags, he climbed the slope, and threaded a way over masses of fallen cliff, until he reached the base of the wall. The tracks of the wildhorse band were very fresh and plain in the yellow trail. Four stout posts guarded the opening, and a number of bars lay ready to be pushed into place. He put them up, making a gate ten feet high, an impregnable barrier. This done, he hurried back to camp.

“Jack, Bolly will need more watching to-day than the sheep, unless I let her loose. Why, she pulls and strains so she’ll break that halter.”

“She wants to go with the band; isn’t that it?”

“I don’t like to think so. But Father Naab doesn’t trust Bolly, though she’s the best mustang he ever broke.”

“Better keep her in,” replied Jack, remembering Naab’s warning. “I’ll hobble her, so if she does break loose she can’t go far.”

When Mescal and Jack drove in the sheep that afternoon, rather earlier than usual, Piute had returned with August Naab, Dave, and Billy, a string of mustangs and a pack-train of burros.

“Hello, Mescal,” cheerily called August, as they came into camp. “Well Jack — bless me! Why, my lad, how fine and brown — and yes, how you’ve filled out!” He crushed Jack’s hand in his broad palm, and his gray eyes beamed. “I’ve not the gift of revelation — but, Jack, you’re going to get well.”

“Yes, I—” He had difficulty with his enunciation, but he thumped his breast significantly and smiled.

“Black sage and juniper!” exclaimed August. “In this air if a man doesn’t go off quickly with pneumonia, he’ll get well. I never had a doubt for you, Jack — and thank God!”

He questioned Piute and Mescal about the sheep, and was greatly pleased with their report. He shook his head when Jack spread out the grizzly-pelt, and asked for the story of the killing. Jack made a poor showing with the tale and slighted his share in it, but Mescal told it as it actually happened. And Naab’s great hand resounded from Jack’s shoulder. Then, catching sight of the pile of coyote skins under the stone shelf, he gave vent to his surprise and delight. Then he came back to the object of his trip upon the plateau.

“So you’ve corralled Silvermane? Well, Jack, if he doesn’t jump over the cliff he’s ours. He can’t get off any other way. How many horses with him?”

“We had no chance to count. I saw at least twelve.”

“Good! He’s out with his picked band. Weren’t they all blacks and bays?”

“Yes.”

“Jack, the history of that stallion wouldn’t make you proud of him. We’ve corralled him by a lucky chance. If I don’t miss my guess he’s after Bolly. He has been a lot of trouble to ranchers all the way from the Nevada line across Utah. The stallions he’s killed, the mares he’s led off! Well, Dave, shall we thirst him out, or line up a long corral?”

“Better have a look around to-morrow,” replied Dave. “It’ll take a lot of chasing to run him down, but there’s not a spring on the bench where we can throw up a trap-corral. We’ll have to chase him.”

“Mescal, has Bolly been good since Silvermane came down?”

“No, she hasn’t,” declared Mescal, and told of the circumstance.

“Bolly’s all right,” said Billy Naab. “Any mustang will do that. Keep her belled and hobbled.”

“Silvermane would care a lot about that, if he wanted Bolly, wouldn’t he?” queried Dave in quiet scorn. “Keep her roped and haltered, I say.”

“Dave’s right,” said August. “You can’t trust a wild mustang any more than a wild horse.”

August was right. Black Bolly broke her halter about midnight and escaped into the forest, hobbled as she was. The Indian heard her first, and he awoke August, who aroused the others.

“Don’t make any noise,” he said, as Jack came up, throwing on his coat. “There’s likely to be some fun here presently. Bolly’s loose, broke her rope, and I think Silvermane is close. Listen sharp now.”

The slight breeze favored them, the camp-fire was dead, and the night was clear and starlit. They had not been quiet many moments when the shrill neigh of a mustang rang out. The Naabs raised themselves and looked at one another in the starlight.

“Now what do you think of that?” whispered Billy.

“No more than I expected. It was Bolly,” replied Dave.

“Bolly it was, confound her black hide!” added August. “Now, boys, did she whistle for Silvermane, or to warn him, which?”

“No telling,” answered Billy. “Let’s lie low, and take a chance on him coming close. It proves one thing — you can’t break a wild mare. That spirit may sleep in her blood, maybe for years, but some time it’ll answer to—”

“Shut up — listen,” interrupted Dave.

Jack strained his hearing, yet caught no sound, except the distant yelp of a coyote. Moments went by.

“There!” whispered Dave.

From the direction of the ridge came the faint rattling of stones.

“They’re coming,” put in Billy.

Presently sharp clicks preceded the rattles, and the sounds began to merge into a regular rhythmic tramp. It softened at intervals, probably when the horses were under the cedars, and strengthened as they came out on the harder ground of the open.

“I see them,” whispered Dave.

A black, undulating line wound out of the cedars, a line of horses approaching with drooping heads, hurrying a little as they neared the spring.

“Twenty-odd, all blacks and bays,” said August, “and some of them are mustangs. But where’s Silvermane? — hark!”

Out among the cedars rose the peculiar halting thump of a hobbled horse trying to cover ground, followed by snorts and crashings of brush and the pound of plunging hoofs. The long black line stopped short and began to stamp. Then into the starlit glade below moved two shadows, the first a great gray horse with snowy mane; the second, a small, shiny, black mustang.

“Silvermane and Bolly!” exclaimed August, “and now she’s broken her hobbles.”

The stallion, in the fulfilment of a conquest such as had made him king of the wild ranges, was magnificent in action. Wheeling about her, neighing, and plunging, he arched his splendid neck and pushed his head against her. His action was that of a master. Suddenly Black Bolly snorted and whirled down the glade. Silvermane whistled one blast of anger or terror and thundered after her. They vanished in the gloom of the cedars, and the band of frightened horses and mustangs clattered after them.

“It’s one on me,” remarked Billy. “That little mare played us at the finish. Caught when she was a yearling, broken better than any mustang we ever had, she has helped us run down many a stallion, and now she runs off with that big white-maned brute!”

“They’ll make a team, and if they get out of here we’ll have to chase them to the Great Salt Basin,” replied Dave.

“Mescal, that’s a well-behaved mustang of yours,” said August; “not only did she break loose, but she whistled an alarm to Silvermane and his band. Well, roll in now, everybody, and sleep.”

At breakfast the following day the Naabs fell into a discussion upon the possibility of there being other means of exit from the plateau than the two trails already closed. They had never run any mustangs on the plateau, and in the case of a wild horse like Silvermane, who would take desperate chances, it was advisable to know the ground exactly. Billy and Dave taking their mounts from the sheep-corral, where they had put them up for the night, rode in opposite directions around the rim of the plateau. It was triangular in shape, and some six or seven miles in circumference; and the brothers rode around it in less than an hour.

“Corralled,” said Dave, laconically.

“Good! Did you see him? What kind of a bunch has he with him?” asked his father.

“If we get the pick of the lot it will be worth two weeks’ work,” replied Dave. “I saw him, and Bolly, too. I believe we can catch her easily. She was off from the bunch, and it looks as though the mares were jealous. I think we can run her into a cove under the wall, and get her. Then Mescal can help us run down the stallion. And you can look out on this end for the best level stretch to drop the line of cedars and make our trap.”

The brothers, at their father’s nod, rode off into the forest. Naab had detained the peon, and now gave him orders and sent him off.

“To-night you can stand on the rim here, and watch him signal across to the top of Echo Cliffs to the Navajos,” explained August to Jack. “I’ve sent for the best breaker of wild mustangs on the desert. Dave can break mustangs, and Piute is very good; but I want the best man in the country, because this is a grand horse, and I intend to give him to you.”

“To me!” exclaimed Hare.

“Yes, and if he’s broken right at the start, he’ll serve you faithfully, and not try to bite your arm off every day, or kick your brains out. No white man can break a wild mustang to the best advantage.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. To be truthful, I have an idea it’s bad temper and lack of patience. Just wait till you see this Navajo go at Silvermane!”

After Mescal and Piute drove down the sheep, Jack accompanied Naab to the corral.

“I’ve brought up your saddle,” said Naab, “and you can put it on any mustang here.”

What a pleasure it was to be in the saddle again, and to feel strength to remain there! He rode with August all over the western end of the plateau. They came at length to a strip of ground, higher than the bordering forest, which was comparatively free of cedars and brush; and when August had surveyed it once he slapped his knee with satisfaction.

“Fine, better than I hoped for! This stretch is about a mile long, and narrow at this end. Now, Jack, you see the other side faces the rim, this side the forest, and at the end here is a wall of rock; luckily it curves in a half circle, which will save us work. We’ll cut cedars, drag them in line, and make a big corral against the rock. From the opening in the corral we’ll build two fences of trees; then we’ll chase Silvermane till he’s done, run him down into this level, and turn him inside the fence. No horse can break through a close line of cedars. He’ll run till he’s in the corral, and then we’ll rope him.”

“Great!” said Jack, all enthusiasm. “But isn’t it going to take a lot of work?”

“Rather,” said August, dryly. “It’ll take a week to cut and drag the cedars, let alone to tire out that wild stallion. When the finish comes you want to be on that ledge where we’ll have the corral.”

They returned to camp and prepared supper. Mescal and Piute soon arrived, and, later, Dave and Billy on jaded mustangs. Black Bolly limped behind, stretching a long halter, an unhappy mustang with dusty, foam-stained coat and hanging head.

“Not bad,” said August, examining the lame leg. “She’ll be fit in a few days, long before we need her to help run down Silvermane. Bring the liniment and a cloth, one of you, and put her in the sheep-corral to-night.”

Mescal’s love for the mustang shone in her eyes while she smoothed out the crumpled mane, and petted the slender neck.

“Bolly, to think you’d do it!” And Bolly dropped her head as though really ashamed.

When darkness fell they gathered on the rim to watch the signals. A fire blazed out of the black void below, and as they waited it brightened and flamed higher.

“Ugh!” said Piute, pointing across to the dark line of cliffs.

“Of course he’d see it first,” laughed Naab. “Dave, have you caught it yet? Jack, see if you can make out a fire over on Echo Cliffs.”

“No, I don’t see any light, except that white star. Have you seen it?”

“Long ago,” replied Naab. “Here, sight along my finger, and narrow your eyes down.”

“I believe I see it — yes, I’m sure.”

“Good. How about you, Mescal?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Jack was amused, for Dave insisted that he had been next to the Indian, and Billy claimed priority to all of them. To these men bred on the desert keen sight was preeminently the chief of gifts.

“Jack, look sharp!” said August. “Peon is blanketing his fire. See the flicker? One, two — one, two — one. Now for the answer.”

Jack peered out into the shadowy space, star-studded above, ebony below. Far across the depths shone a pinpoint of steady light. The Indian grunted again, August vented his “ha!” and then Jack saw the light blink like a star, go out for a second, and blink again.

“That’s what I like to see,” said August. “We’re answered. Now all’s over but the work.”

Work it certainly was, as Jack discovered next day. He helped the brothers cut down cedars while August hauled them into line with his roan. What with this labor and the necessary camp duties nearly a week passed, and in the mean time Black Bolly recovered from her lameness.

Twice the workers saw Silvermane standing on open high ridges, restive and suspicious, with his silver mane flying, and his head turned over his shoulder, watching, always watching.

“It’d be worth something to find out how long that stallion could go without water,” commented Dave. “But we’ll make his tongue hang out to-morrow. It’d serve him right to break him with Black Bolly.”

Daylight came warm and misty; veils unrolled from the desert; a purple curtain lifted from the eastern crags; then the red sun burned.

Dave and Billy Naab mounted their mustangs, and each led another mount by a halter.

“We’ll go to the ridge, cut Silvermane out of his band and warm him up; then we’ll drive him down to this end.”

Hare, in his eagerness, found the time very tedious while August delayed about camp, punching new holes in his saddle-girth, shortening his stirrups, and smoothing kinks out of his lasso. At last he saddled the roan, and also Black Bolly. Mescal came out of her tent ready for the chase; she wore a short skirt of buckskin, and leggings of the same material. Her hair, braided, and fastened at the back, was bound by a double band closely fitting her black head. Hare walked, leading two mustangs by the halters, and Naab and Mescal rode, each of them followed by two other spare mounts. August tied three mustangs at one point along the level stretch, and three at another. Then he led Mescal and Jack to the top of the stone wall above the corral, where they had good view of a considerable part of the plateau.

The eastern rise of ground, a sage and juniper slope, was in plain sight. Hare saw a white flash; then Silvermane broke out of the cedars into the sage. One of the brothers raced him half the length of the slope, and then the other coming out headed him off down toward the forest. Soon the pounding of hoofs sounded through the trees nearer and nearer. Silvermane came out straight ahead on the open level. He was running easily.

“He hasn’t opened up yet,” said August.

Hare watched the stallion with sheer fascination; He ran seemingly without effort. What a stride he had. how beautifully his silver mane waved in the wind! He veered off to the left, out of sight in the brush, while Dave and Billy galloped up to the spot where August had tied the first three mustangs. Here they dismounted, changed saddles to fresh horses, and were off again.

The chase now was close and all down-hill for the watchers. Silvermane twinkled in and out among the cedars, and suddenly stopped short on the rim. He wheeled and coursed away toward the crags, and vanished. But soon he reappeared, for Billy had cut across and faced him about. Again he struck the level stretch. Dave was there in front of him. He shot away to the left, and flashed through the glades beyond. The brothers saved their steeds, content to keep him cornered in that end of the plateau. Then August spurred his roan into the scene of action. Silvermane came out on the one piece of rising ground beyond the level, and stood looking backward toward the brothers. When the great roan crashed through the thickets into his sight he leaped as if he had been stung, and plunged away.

The Naabs had hemmed him in a triangle, Dave and Billy at the broad end, August at the apex, and now the real race began. August chased him up and down, along the rim, across to the long line of cedars, always in the end heading him for the open stretch. Down this he fled with flying mane, only to be checked by the relentless brothers. To cover this broad end of the open required riding the like of which Hare had never dreamed of. The brothers, taking advantage of the brief periods when the stallion was going toward August, changed their tired mustangs for fresh ones.

“Ho! Mescal!” rolled out August’s voice. That was the call for Mescal to put Black Bolly after Silvermane. Her fleetness made the other mustangs seem slow. All in a flash she was round the corral, with Silvermane between her and the long fence of cedars. Uttering a piercing snort of terror the gray stallion lunged out, for the first time panic-stricken, and lengthened his stride in a wonderful way. He raced down the stretch with his head over his shoulder watching the little black. Seeing her gaining, he burst into desperate headlong flight. He saved nothing; he had found his match; he won that first race down the level but it had cost him his best. If he had been fresh he might have left Black Bolly far behind, but now he could not elude her.

August Naab let him run this time, and Silvermane, keeping close to the fence, passed the gate, ran down to the rim, and wheeled. The black mustang was on him again, holding him in close to the fence, driving him back down the stretch.

The brothers remorselessly turned him, and now Mescal, forcing the running, caught him, lashed his haunches with her whip, and drove him into the gate of the corral.

August and his two sons were close behind, and blocked the gate. Silvermane’s race was nearly run.

“Hold here, boys,” said August. “I’ll go in and drive him round and round till he’s done, then, when I yell, you stand aside and rope him as he comes out.”

Silvermane ran round the corral, tore at the steep scaly walls, fell back and began his weary round again and yet again. Then as sense and courage yielded gradually to unreasoning terror, he ran blindly; every time he passed the guarded gateway his eyes were wilder, and his stride more labored.

“Now!” yelled August Naab.

Mescal drew out of the opening, and Dave and Billy pulled away, one on each side, their lassoes swinging loosely.

Silvermane sprang for the opening with something of his old speed. As he went through, yellow loops flashed in the sun, circling, narrowing, and he seemed to run straight into them. One loop whipped close round his glossy neck; the other caught his head. Dave’s mustang staggered under the violent shock, went to his knees, struggled up and held firmly. Bill’s mount slid on his haunches and spilled his rider from the saddle. Silvermane seemed to be climbing into the air. Then August Naab, darting through the gate in a cloud of dust, shot his lasso, catching the right foreleg. Silvermane landed hard, his hoofs striking fire from the stones; and for an instant strained in convulsive struggle; then fell heaving and groaning. In a twinkling Billy loosened his lasso over a knot, making of it a halter, and tied the end to a cedar stump.

The Naabs stood back and gazed at their prize.

Silvermane was badly spent; he was wet with foam, but no fleck of blood marred his mane; his superb coat showed scratches, but none cut into the flesh. After a while he rose, panting heavily, and trembling in every muscle. He was a beaten horse; the noble head was bowed; yet he showed no viciousness, only the fear of a trapped animal. He eyed Black Bolly and then the halter, as though he had divined the fatal connection between them.

VIII. THE BREAKER OF WILD MUSTANGS

FOR A FEW days after the capture of Silvermane, a time full to the brim of excitement for Hare, he had no word with Mescal, save for morning and evening greetings. When he did come to seek her, with a purpose which had grown more impelling since August Naab’s arrival, he learned to his bewilderment that she avoided him. She gave him no chance to speak with her alone; her accustomed resting-place on the rim at sunset knew her no more; early after supper she retired to her tent.

Hare nursed a grievance for forty-eight hours, and then, taking advantage of Piute’s absence on an errand down to the farm, and of the Naabs’ strenuous day with four vicious wild horses in the corral at one time, he walked out to the pasture where Mescal shepherded the flock.

“Mescal, why are you avoiding me?” he asked. “What has happened?”

She looked tired and unhappy, and her gaze, instead of meeting his, wandered to the crags.

“Nothing,” she replied.

“But there must be something. You have given me no chance to talk to you, and I wanted to know if you’d let me speak to Father Naab.”

“To Father Naab? Why — what about?”

“About you, of course — and me — that I love you and want to marry you.”

She turned white. “No — no!”

Hare paused blankly, not so much at her refusal as at the unmistakable fear in her face.

“Why — not?” he asked presently, with an odd sense of trouble. There was more here than Mescal’s habitual shyness.

“Because he’ll be terribly angry.”

“Angry — I don’t understand. Why angry?”

The girl did not answer, and looked so forlorn that Hare attempted to take her in his arms. She resisted and broke from him.

“You must never — never do that again.”

Hare drew back sharply.

“Why not? What’s wrong? You must tell me, Mescal.”

“I remembered.” She hung her head.

“Remembered — what?”

“I am pledged to marry Father Naab’s eldest son.”

For a moment Hare did not understand. He stared at her unbelievingly.

“What did you say?” he asked, slowly.

Mescal repeated her words in a whisper.

“But — but Mescal — I love you. You let me kiss you,” said Hare stupidly, as if he did not grasp her meaning. “You let me kiss you,” he repeated.

“Oh, Jack, I forgot,” she wailed. “It was so new, so strange, to have you up here. It was like a kind of dream. And after — after you kissed me I — I found out—”

“What, Mescal?”

Her silence answered him.

“But, Mescal, if you really love me you can’t marry any one else,” said Hare. It was the simple persistence of a simple swain.

“Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know. It’s impossible!”

“Impossible!” Hare’s anger flared up. “You let me believe I had won you. What kind of a girl are you? You were not true. Your actions were lies.”

“Not lies,” she faltered, and turned her face from him.

With no gentle hand he grasped her arm and forced her to look at him. But the misery in her eyes overcame him, and he roughly threw his arms around her and held her close.

“It can’t be a lie. You do care for me — love me. Look at me.” He drew her head back from his breast. Her face was pale and drawn; her eyes closed tight, with tears forcing a way out under the long lashes; her lips were parted. He bowed to their sweet nearness; he kissed them again and again, while the shade of the cedars seemed to whirl about him. “I love you, Mescal. You are mine — I will have you — I will keep you — I will not let him have you!”

She vibrated to that like a keen strung wire under a strong touch. All in a flash the trembling, shame-stricken girl was transformed. She leaned back in his arms, supple, pliant with quivering life, and for the first time gave him wide-open level eyes, in which there were now no tears, no shyness, no fear, but a dark smouldering fire.

“You do love me, Mescal?”

“I — I couldn’t help it.”

There was a pause, tense with feeling.

“Mescal, tell me — about your being pledged,” he said, at last.

“I gave him my promise because there was nothing else to do. I was pledged to — to him in the church at White Sage. It can’t be changed. I’ve got to marry — Father Naab’s eldest son.”

“Eldest son?” echoed Jack, suddenly mindful of the implication. “Why! that’s Snap Naab. Ah! I begin to see light. That — Mescal—”

“I hate him.”

“You hate him and you’re pledged to marry him! . . . God! Mescal, I’d utterly forgotten Snap Naab already has a wife.”

“You’ve also forgotten that we’re Mormons.”

“Are you a Mormon?” he queried bluntly.

“I’ve been raised as one.”

“That’s not an answer. Are you one? Do you believe any man under God’s sky ought to have more than one wife at a time?”

“No. But I’ve been taught that it gave woman greater glory in heaven. There have been men here before you, men who talked to me, and I doubted before I ever saw you. And afterward — I knew.”

“Would not Father Naab release you?”

“Release me? Why, he would have taken me as a wife for himself but for Mother Mary. She hates me. So he pledged me to Snap.”

“Does August Naab love you?”

“Love me? No. Not in the way you mean — perhaps as a daughter. But Mormons teach duty to church first, and say such love comes — to the wives — afterward. But it doesn’t — not in the women I’ve seen. There’s Mother Ruth — her heart is broken. She loves me, and I can tell.”

“When was this — this marriage to be?”

“I don’t know. Father Naab promised me to his son when he came home from the Navajo range. It would be soon if they found out that you and I — Jack, Snap Naab would kill you!”

The sudden thought startled the girl. Her eyes betrayed her terror.

“I mightn’t be so easy to kill,” said Hare, darkly. The words came unbidden, his first answer to the wild influences about him. “Mescal, I’m sorry — maybe I’ve brought you unhappiness.

“No. No. To be with you has been like sitting there on the rim watching the desert, the greatest happiness I have ever known. I used to love to be with the children, but Mother Mary forbade. When I am down there, which is seldom, I’m not allowed to play with the children any more.”

“What can I do?” asked Hare, passionately.

“Don’t speak to Father Naab. Don’t let him guess. Don’t leave me here alone,” she answered low. It was not the Navajo speaking in her now. Love had sounded depths hitherto unplumbed; a quick, soft impulsiveness made the contrast sharp and vivid.

“How can I help but leave you if he wants me on the cattle ranges?”

“I don’t know. You must think. He has been so pleased with what you’ve done. He’s had Mormons up here, and two men not of his Church, and they did nothing. You’ve been ill, besides you’re different. He will keep me with the sheep as long as he can, for two reasons — because I drive them best, he says, and because Snap Naab’s wife must be persuaded to welcome me in her home.”

“I’ll stay, if I have to get a relapse and go down on my back again,” declared Jack. “I hate to deceive him, but Mescal, pledged or not — I love you, and I won’t give up hope.”

Her hands flew to her face again and tried to hide the dark blush.

“Mescal, there’s one question I wish you’d answer. Does August Naab think he’ll make a Mormon of me? Is that the secret of his wonderful kindness?”

“Of course he believes he’ll make a Mormon of you. That’s his religion. He’s felt that way over all the strangers who ever came out here. But he’d be the same to them without his hopes. I don’t know the secret of his kindness, but I think he loves everybody and everything. And Jack, he’s so good. I owe him all my life. He would not let the Navajos take me; he raised me, kept me, taught me. I can’t break my promise to him. He’s been a father to me, and I love him.”

“I think I love him, too,” replied Hare, simply.

With an effort he left her at last and mounted the grassy slope and climbed high up among the tottering yellow crags; and there he battled with himself. Whatever the charm of Mescal’s surrender, and the insistence of his love, stern hammer-strokes of fairness, duty, honor, beat into his brain his debt to the man who had saved him. It was a long-drawn-out battle not to be won merely by saying right was right. He loved Mescal, she loved him; and something born in him with his new health, with the breath of this sage and juniper forest, with the sight of purple canyons and silent beckoning desert, made him fiercely tena- cious of all that life had come to mean for him. He could not give her up — and yet —

Twilight forced Hare from his lofty retreat, and he trod his way campward, weary and jaded, but victorious over himself. He thought he had renounced his hope of Mescal; he returned with a resolve to be true to August, and to himself; bitterness he would not allow himself to feel. And yet he feared the rising in him of a new spirit akin to that of the desert itself, intractable and free.

“Well, Jack, we rode down the last of Silvermane’s band,” said August, at supper. “The Navajos came up and helped us out. To-morrow you’ll see some fun, when we start to break Silvermane. As soon as that’s done I’ll go, leaving the Indians to bring the horses down when they’re broken.”

“Are you going to leave Silvermane with me?” asked Jack.

“Surely. Why, in three days, if I don’t lose my guess, he’ll be like a lamb. Those desert stallions can be made into the finest kind of saddle-horses. I’ve seen one or two. I want you to stay up here with the sheep. You’re getting well, you’ll soon be a strapping big fellow. Then when we drive the sheep down in the fall you can begin life on the cattle ranges, driving wild steers. There’s where you’ll grow lean and hard, like an iron bar. You’ll need that horse, too, my lad.”

“Why — because he’s fast?” queried Jack, quickly answering to the implied suggestion.

August nodded gloomily. “I haven’t the gift of revelation, but I’ve come to believe Martin Cole. Holderness is building an outpost for his riders close to Seeping Springs. He has no water. If he tries to pipe my water—” The pause was not a threat; it implied the Mormon’s doubt of himself. “Then Dene is on the march this way. He’s driven some of Marshall’s cattle from the range next to mine. Dene got away with about a hundred head. The barefaced robber sold them in Lund to a buying company from Salt Lake.”

“Is he openly an outlaw, a rustler?” inquired Hare.

“Everybody knows it, and he’s finding White Sage and vicinity warmer than it was. Every time he comes in he and his band shoot up things pretty lively. Now the Mormons are slow to wrath. But they are awakening. All the way from Salt Lake to the border outlaws have come in. They’ll never get the power on this desert that they had in the places from which they’ve been driven. Men of the Holderness type are more to be dreaded. He’s a rancher, greedy, unscrupulous, but hard to corner in dishonesty. Dene is only a bad man, a gun-fighter. He and all his ilk will get run out of Utah. Did you ever hear of Plummer, John Slade, Boone Helm, any of those bad men?”

“No.”

“Well, they were men to fear. Plummer was a sheriff in Idaho, a man high in the estimation of his townspeople, but he was the leader of the most desperate band of criminals ever known in the West; and he instigated the murder of, or killed outright, more than one hundred men. Slade was a bad man, fatal on the draw. Helm was a killing machine. These men all tried Utah, and had to get out. So will Dene have to get out. But I’m afraid there’ll be warm times before that happens. When you get in the thick of it you’ll appreciate Silvermane.”

“I surely will. But I can’t see that wild stallion with a saddle and a bridle, eating oats like any common horse, and being led to water.”

“Well, he’ll come to your whistle, presently, if I’m not greatly mistaken. You must make him love you, Jack. It can be done with any wild creature. Be gentle, but firm. Teach him to obey the slightest touch of rein, to stand when you throw your bridle on the ground, to come at your whistle. Always remember this. He’s a desert-bred horse; he can live on scant browse and little water. Never break him of those best virtues in a horse. Never feed him grain if you can find a little patch of browse; never give him a drink till he needs it. That’s one-tenth as often as a tame horse. Some day you’ll be caught in the desert, and with these qualities of endurance Silvermane will carry you out.”

Silvermane snorted defiance from the cedar corral next morning when the Naabs, and Indians, and Hare appeared. A half-naked sinewy Navajo with a face as changeless as a bronze mask sat astride August’s blindfolded roan, Charger. He rode bareback except for a blanket strapped upon the horse; he carried only a long, thick halter, with a loop and a knot. When August opened the improvised gate, with its sharp bayonet-like branches of cedar, the Indian rode into the corral. The watchers climbed to the knoll. Silvermane snorted a blast of fear and anger. August’s huge roan showed uneasiness; he stamped, and shook his head, as if to rid himself of the blinders.

Into the farthest corner of densely packed cedar boughs Silvermane pressed himself and watched. The Indian rode around the corral, circling closer and closer, yet appearing not to see the stallion. Many rounds he made; closer he got, and always with the same steady gait. Silvermane left his corner and tried another. The old unwearying round brought Charger and the Navajo close by him. Silvermane pranced out of his thicket of boughs; he whistled; he wheeled with his shiny hoofs lifting. In an hour the Indian was edging the outer circle of the corral, with the stallion pivoting in the centre, ears laid back, eyes shooting sparks, fight in every line of him. And the circle narrowed inward.

Suddenly the Navajo sent the roan at Silvermane and threw his halter. It spread out like a lasso, and the loop went over the head of the stallion, slipped to the knot and held fast, while the rope tightened. Silvermane leaped up, forehoofs pawing the air, and his long shrill cry was neither whistle, snort, nor screech, but all combined. He came down, missing Charger with his hoofs, sliding off his haunches. The Indian, his bronze muscles rippling, close-hauled on the rope, making half hitches round his bony wrist.

In a whirl of dust the roan drew closer to the gray, and Silvermane began a mad race around the corral. The roan ran with him nose to nose. When Silvermane saw he could not shake him, he opened his jaws, rolled back his lip in an ugly snarl, his white teeth glistening, and tried to bite. But the Indian’s moccasined foot shot up under the stallion’s ear and pressed him back. Then the roan hugged Silvermane so close that half the time the Navajo virtually rode two horses. But for the rigidity of his arms, and the play and sudden tension of his leg-muscles, the Indian’s work would have appeared commonplace, so dexterous was he, so perfectly at home in his dangerous seat. Suddenly he whooped and August Naab hauled back the gate, and the two horses, neck and neck, thundered out upon the level stretch.

“Good!” cried August. “Let him rip now, Navvy. All over but the work, Jack. I feared Silvermane would spear himself on some of those dead cedar spikes in the corral. He’s safe now.”

Jack watched the horses plunge at breakneck speed down the stretch, circle at the forest edge, and come tearing back. Silvermane was pulling the roan faster than he had ever gone in his life, but the dark Indian kept his graceful seat. The speed slackened on the second turn, and de- creased as, mile after mile, the imperturbable Indian held roan and gray side to side and let them run.

The time passed, but Hare’s interest in the breaking of the stallion never flagged. He began to understand the Indian, and to feel what the restraint and drag must be to the horse. Never for a moment could Silvermane elude the huge roan, the tight halter, the relentless Navajo. Gallop fell to trot, and trot to jog, and jog to walk; and hour by hour, without whip or spur or word, the breaker of desert mustangs drove the wild stallion. If there were cruelty it was in his implacable slow patience, his farsighted purpose. Silvermane would have killed himself in an hour; he would have cut himself to pieces in one headlong dash, but that steel arm suffered him only to wear himself out. Late that afternoon the Navajo led a dripping, drooping, foam-lashed stallion into the corral, tied him with the halter, and left him.

Later Silvermane drank of the water poured into the corral trough, and had not the strength or spirit to resent the Navajo’s caressing hand on his mane.

Next morning the Indian rode again into the corral on blindfolded Charger. Again he dragged Silvermane out on the level and drove him up and down with remorseless, machine-like persistence. At noon he took him back, tied him up, and roped him fast. Silvermane tried to rear and kick, but the saddle went on, strapped with a flash of the dark-skinned hands. Then again Silvermane ran the level stretch beside the giant roan, only he carried a saddle now. At the first, he broke out with free wild stride as if to run forever from under the hateful thing. But as the afternoon waned he crept weariedly back to the corral.

On the morning of the third day the Navajo went into the corral without Charger, and roped the gray, tied him fast, and saddled him. Then he loosed the lassoes except the one around Silvermane’s neck, which he whipped under his foreleg to draw him down. Silvermane heaved a groan which plainly said he never wanted to rise again. Swiftly the Indian knelt on the stallion’s head; his hands flashed; there was a scream, a click of steel on bone; and proud Silvermane jumped to his feet with a bit between his teeth.

The Navajo, firmly in the saddle, rose with him, and Silvermane leaped through the corral gate, and out upon the stretch, lengthening out with every stride, and settling into a wild, despairing burst of speed. The white mane waved in the wind; the half-naked Navajo swayed to the motion. Horse and rider disappeared in the cedars.

They were gone all day. Toward night they appeared on the stretch. The Indian rode into camp and, dismounting, handed the bridle-rein to Naab. He spoke no word; his dark impassiveness invited no comment. Silvermane was dust-covered and sweat-stained. His silver crest had the same proud beauty, his neck still the splendid arch, his head the noble outline, but his was a broken spirit.

“Here, my lad,” said August Naab, throwing the bridle-rein over Hare’s arm. “What did I say once about seeing you on a great gray horse? Ah! Well, take him and know this: you’ve the swiftest horse in this desert country.”

IX. THE SCENT OF DESERT-WATER

SOON THE SHEPHERDS were left to a quiet unbroken by the whistle of wild mustangs, the whoop of hunters, the ring of iron-shod hoofs on the stones. The scream of an eagle, the bleating of sheep, the bark of a coyote were once more the only familiar sounds accentuating the silence of the plateau. For Hare, time seemed to stand still. He thought but little; his whole life was a matter of feeling from without. He rose at dawn, never failing to see the red sun tip the eastern crags; he glowed with the touch of cold spring-water and the morning air; he trailed Silvermane under the cedars and thrilled when the stallion, answering his call, thumped the ground with hobbled feet and came his way, learning day by day to be glad at sight of his master. He rode with Mescal behind the flock; he hunted hour by hour, crawling over the fragrant brown mats of cedar, through the sage and juniper, up the grassy slopes. He rode back to camp beside Mescal, drove the sheep, and put Silvermane to his fleetest to beat Black Bolly down the level stretch where once the gray, even with freedom at stake, had lost to the black. Then back to camp and fire and curling blue smoke, a supper that testified to busy Piute’s farmward trips, sunset on the rim, endless changing desert, the wind in the cedars, bright stars in the blue, and sleep — so time stood still.

Mescal and Hare were together, or never far apart, from dawn to night. Until the sheep were in the corral, every moment had its duty, from camp-work and care of horses to the many problems of the flock, so that they earned the rest on the rim-wall at sundown. Only a touch of hands bridged the chasm between them. They never spoke of their love, of Mescal’s future, of Jack’s return to hearth; a glance and a smile, scarcely sad yet not altogether happy, was the substance of their dream. Where Jack had once talked about the canyon and desert, he now seldom spoke at all. From watching Mescal he had learned that to see was enough. But there were moments when some association recalled the past and the strangeness of the present faced him. Then he was wont to question Mescal.

“What are you thinking of?” he asked, curiously, interrupting their silence. She leaned against the rocks and kept a changeless, tranquil, unseeing gaze on the desert. The level eyes were full of thought, of sadness, of mystery; they seemed to look afar.

Then she turned to him with puzzled questioning look and enigmatical reply. “Thinking?” asked her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking,” were her words.

“I fancied — I don’t know exactly what,” he went on. “You looked so earnest. Do you ever think of going to the Navajos?”

“No.”

“Or across that Painted Desert to find some place you seem to know, or see?”

“No.”

“I don’t know why, but, Mescal, sometimes I have the queerest ideas when I catch your eyes watching, watching. You look at once happy and sad. You see something out there that I can’t see. Your eyes are haunted. I’ve a feeling that if I’d look into them I’d see the sun setting, the clouds coloring, the twilight shadows changing; and then back of that the secret of it all — of you — Oh! I can’t explain, but it seems so.”

“I never had a secret, except the one you know,” she answered. “You ask me so often what I think about, and you always ask me when we’re here.” She was silent for a pause. “I don’t think at all till you make me. It’s beautiful out there. But that’s not what it is to me. I can’t tell you. When I sit down here all within me is — is somehow stilled. I watch — and it’s different from what it is now, since you’ve made me think. Then I watch, and I see, that’s all.”

It came to Hare afterward with a little start of surprise that Mescal’s purposeless, yet all-satisfying, watchful gaze had come to be part of his own experience. It was inscrutable to him, but he got from it a fancy, which he tried in vain to dispel, that something would happen to them out there on the desert.

And then he realized that when they returned to the camp-fire they seemed freed from this spell of the desert. The blaze-lit circle was shut in by the darkness; and the immensity of their wild environment, because for the hour it could not be seen, lost its paralyzing effect. Hare fell naturally into a talkative mood. Mescal had developed a vivacity, an ambition which contrasted strongly with her silent moods; she became alive and curious, human like the girls he had known in the East, and she fascinated him the more for this complexity.

The July rains did not come; the mists failed; the dews no longer freshened the grass, and the hot sun began to tell on shepherds and sheep. Both sought the shade. The flowers withered first — all the blue-bells and lavender patches of primrose, and pale-yellow lilies, and white thistle-blossoms. Only the deep magenta of cactus and vermilion of Indian paint-brush, flowers of the sun, survived the heat. Day by day the shepherds scanned the sky for storm-clouds that did not appear. The spring ran lower and lower. At last the ditch that carried water to the corral went dry, and the margin of the pool began to retreat. Then Mescal sent Piute down for August Naab.

He arrived at the plateau the next day with Dave and at once ordered the breaking up of camp.

“It will rain some time,” he said, “but we can’t wait any longer. Dave, when did you last see the Blue Star waterhole?”

“On the trip in from Silver Cup, ten days ago. The waterhole was full then.”

“Will there be water enough now?”

“We’ve got to chance it. There’s no water here, and no springs on the upper range where we can drive sheep; we’ve got to go round under the Star.”

“That’s so,” replied August. His fears needed confirmation, because his hopes always influenced his judgment till no hope was left. “I wish I had brought Zeke and George. It’ll be a hard drive, though we’ve got Jack and Mescal to help.”

Hot as it was August Naab lost no time in the start. Piute led the train on foot, and the flock, used to following him, got under way readily. Dave and Mescal rode along the sides, and August with Jack came behind, with the pack-burros bringing up the rear. Wolf circled them all, keeping the flanks close in, heading the lambs that strayed, and, ever vigilant, made the drive orderly and rapid.

The trail to the upper range was wide and easy of ascent, the first of it winding under crags, the latter part climbing long slopes. It forked before the summit, where dark pine trees showed against the sky, one fork ascending, the other, which Piute took, beginning to go down. It admitted of no extended view, being shut in for the most part on the left, but there were times when Hare could see a curving stream of sheep on half a mile of descending trail. Once started down the flock could not be stopped, that was as plain as Piute’s hard task. There were times when Hare could have tossed a pebble on the Indian just below him, yet there were more than three thousand sheep, strung out in line between them. Clouds of dust rolled up, sheets of gravel and shale rattled down the inclines, the clatter, clatter, clatter of little hoofs, the steady baa-baa-baa filled the air. Save for the crowding of lambs off the trail, and a jamming of sheep in the corners, the drive went on without mishap. Hare was glad to see the lambs scramble back bleating for their mothers, and to note that, though peril threatened at every steep turn, the steady down-flow always made space for the sheep behind. He was glad, too, when through a wide break ahead his eye followed the face of a vast cliff down to the red ground below, and he knew the flock would soon be safe on the level.

A blast as from a furnace smote Hare from this open break in the wall. The air was dust-laden, and carried besides the smell of dust and the warm breath of desert growths, a dank odor that was unpleasant.

The sheep massed in a flock on the level, and the drivers spread to their places. The route lay under projecting red cliffs, between the base and enormous sections of wall that had broken off and fallen far out. There was no weathering slope; the wind had carried away the smaller stones and particles, and had cut the huge pieces of pinnacle and tower into hollowed forms. This zone of rim merged into another of strange contrast, the sloping red stream of sand which flowed from the wall of the canyon.

Piute swung the flock up to the left into an amphitheatre, and there halted. The sheep formed a densely packed mass in the curve of the wall. Dave Naab galloped back toward August and Hare, and before he reached them shouted out: “The waterhole’s plugged!”

“What?” yelled his father.

“Plugged, filled with stone and sand.”

“Was it a cave-in?”

“I reckon not. There’s been no rain.”

August spurred his roan after Dave, and Hare kept close behind them, till they reined in on a muddy bank. What had once been a waterhole was a red and yellow heap of shale, fragments of stones, gravel, and sand. There was no water, and the sheep were bleating. August dismounted and climbed high above the hole to examine the slope; soon he strode down with giant steps, his huge fists clinched, shaking his gray mane like a lion.

“I’ve found the tracks! Somebody climbed up and rolled the stones, started the cave-in. Who?”

“Holderness’s men. They did the same for Martin Cole’s waterhole at Rocky Point. How old are the tracks?”

“Two days, perhaps. We can’t follow them. What can be done?”

“Some of Holderness’s men are Mormons, and others are square fellows. They wouldn’t stand for such work as this, and somebody ought to ride in there and tell them.”

“And get shot up by the men paid to do the dirty work. No. I won’t hear of it. This amounts to nothing; we seldom use this hole, only twice a year when driving the flock. But it makes me fear for Silver Cup and Seeping Springs.”

“It makes me fear for the sheep, if this wind doesn’t change.”

“Ah! I had forgotten the river scent. It’s not strong to-night. We might venture if it wasn’t for the strip of sand. We’ll camp here and start the drive at dawn.”

The sun went down under a crimson veil; a dull glow spread, fan-shaped, upward; twilight faded to darkness with the going down of the wind. August Naab paced to and fro before his tired and thirsty flock.

“I’d like to know,” said Hare to Dave, “why those men filled up this waterhole.”

“Holderness wants to cut us off from Silver Cup Spring, and this was a half-way waterhole. Probably he didn’t know we had the sheep upland, but he wouldn’t have cared. He’s set himself to get our cattle range and he’ll stop at nothing. Prospects look black for us. Father never gives up. He doesn’t believe yet that we can lose our water. He prays and hopes, and sees good and mercy in his worst enemies.”

“If Holderness works as far as Silver Cup, how will he go to work to steal another man’s range and water?”

“He’ll throw up a cabin, send in his men, drive in ten thousand steers.”

“Well, will his men try to keep you away from your own water, or your cattle?”

“Not openly. They’ll pretend to welcome us, and drive our cattle away in our absence. You see there are only five of us to ride the ranges, and we’d need five times five to watch all the stock.”

“Then you can’t stop this outrage?”

“There’s only one way,” said Dave, significantly tapping the black handle of his Colt. “Holderness thinks he pulls the wool over our eyes by talking of the cattle company that employs him. He’s the company himself, and he’s hand and glove with Dene.”

“And I suppose, if your father and you boys were to ride over to Holderness’s newest stand, and tell him to get off there would be a fight.”

“We’d never reach him now, that is, if we went together. One of us alone might get to see him, especially in White Sage. If we all rode over to his ranch we’d have to fight his men before we reached the corrals. You yourself will find it pretty warm when you go out with us on the ranges, and if you make White Sage you’ll find it hot. You’re called ‘Dene’s spy’ there, and the rustlers are still looking for you. I wouldn’t worry about it, though.”

“Why not, I’d like to know?” inquired Hare, with a short laugh.

“Well, if you’re like the other Gentiles who have come into Utah you won’t have scruples about drawing on a man. Father says the draw comes natural to you, and you’re as quick as he is. Then he says you can beat any rifle shot he ever saw, and that long-barrelled gun you’ve got will shoot a mile. So if it comes to shooting — why, you can shoot. If you want to run — who’s going to catch you on that white-maned stallion? We talked about you, George and I; we’re mighty glad you’re well and can ride with us.”

Long into the night Jack Hare thought over this talk. It opened up a vista of the range-life into which he was soon to enter. He tried to silence the voice within that cried out, eager and reckless, for the long rides on the windy open. The years of his illness returned in fancy, the narrow room with the lamp and the book, and the tears over stories and dreams of adventure never to be for such as he. And now how wonderful was life! It was, after all, to be full for him. It was already full. Already he slept on the ground, open to the sky. He looked up at a wild black cliff, mountain-high, with its windworn star of blue; he felt himself on the threshold of the desert, with that subtle mystery waiting; he knew himself to be close to strenuous action on the ranges, companion of these sombre Mormons, exposed to their peril, making their cause his cause, their life his life. What of their friendship, their confidence? Was he worthy? Would he fail at the pinch? What a man he must become to approach their simple estimate of him! Because he had found health and strength, because he could shoot, because he had the fleetest horse on the desert, were these reasons for their friendship? No, these were only reasons for their trust. August Naab loved him. Mescal loved him; Dave and George made of him a brother. “They shall have my life,” he muttered.

The bleating of the sheep heralded another day. With the brightening light began the drive over the sand. Under the cliff the shade was cool and fresh; there was no wind; the sheep made good progress. But the broken line of shade crept inward toward the flock, and passed it. The sun beat down, and the wind arose. A red haze of fine sand eddied about the toiling sheep and shepherds. Piute trudged ahead leading the king-ram, old Socker, the leader of the flock; Mescal and Hare rode at the right, turning their faces from the sand-filled puffs of wind; August and Dave drove behind; Wolf, as always, took care of the stragglers. An hour went by without signs of distress; and with half the five-mile trip at his back August Naab’s voice gathered cheer. The sun beat hotter. Another hour told a different story — the sheep labored; they had to be forced by urge of whip, by knees of horses, by Wolf’s threatening bark. They stopped altogether during the frequent hot sand-blasts, and could not be driven. So time dragged. The flock straggled out to a long irregular line; rams refused to budge till they were ready; sheep lay down to rest; lambs fell. But there was an end to the belt of sand, and August Naab at last drove the lagging trailers out upon the stony bench.

The sun was about two hours past the meridian; the red walls of the desert were closing in; the V-shaped split where the Colorado cut through was in sight. The trail now was wide and unobstructed and the distance short, yet August Naab ever and anon turned to face the canyon and shook his head in anxious foreboding.

It quickly dawned upon Hare that the sheep were behaving in a way new and singular to him. They packed densely now, crowding forward, many raising their heads over the haunches of others and bleating. They were not in their usual calm pattering hurry, but nervous, excited, and continually facing west toward the canyon, noses up.

On the top of the next little ridge Hare heard Silvermane snort as he did when led to drink. There was a scent of water on the wind. Hare caught it, a damp, muggy smell. The sheep had noticed it long before, and now under its nearer, stronger influence began to bleat wildly, to run faster, to crowd without aim.

“There’s work ahead. Keep them packed and going. Turn the wheelers,” ordered August.

What had been a drive became a flight. And it was well so long as the sheep headed straight up the trail. Piute had to go to the right to avoid being run down. Mescal rode up to fill his place. Hare took his cue from Dave, and rode along the flank, crowding the sheep inward. August cracked his whip behind. For half a mile the flock kept to the trail, then, as if by common consent, they sheered off to the right. With this move August and Dave were transformed from quiet almost to frenzy. They galloped to the fore, and into the very faces of the turning sheep, and drove them back. Then the rear-guard of the flock curved outward.

“Drive them in!” roared August.

Hare sent Silvermane at the deflecting sheep and frightened them into line.

Wolf no longer had power to chase the stragglers; they had to be turned by a horse. All along the flank noses pointed outward; here and there sheep wilder than the others leaped forward to lead a widening wave of bobbing woolly backs. Mescal engaged one point, Hare another, Dave another, and August Naab’s roan thundered up and down the constantly broken line. All this while as the shepherds fought back the sheep, the flight continued faster eastward, farther canyonward. Each side gained, but the flock gained more toward the canyon than the drivers gained toward the oasis.

By August’s hoarse yells, by Dave’s stern face and ceaseless swift action, by the increasing din, Hare knew terrible danger hung over the flock; what it was he could not tell. He heard the roar of the river rapids, and it seemed that the sheep heard it with him. They plunged madly; they had gone wild from the scent and sound of water. Their eyes gleamed red; their tongues flew out. There was no aim to the rush of the great body of sheep, but they followed the leaders and the leaders followed the scent. And the drivers headed them off, rode them down, ceaselessly, riding forward to check one outbreak, wheeling backward to check another.

The flight became a rout. Hare was in the thick of dust and din, of the terror-stricken jumping mob, of the ever-starting, ever-widening streams of sheep; he rode and yelled and fired his Colt. The dust choked him, the sun burned him, the flying pebbles cut his cheek. Once he had a glimpse of Black Bolly in a melee of dust and sheep; Dave’s mustang blurred in his sight; August’s roan seemed to be double. Then Silvermane, of his own accord, was out before them all.

The sheep had almost gained the victory; their keen noses were pointed toward the water; nothing could stop their flight; but still the drivers dashed at them, ever fighting, never wearying, never ceasing.

At the last incline, where a gentle slope led down to a dark break in the desert, the rout became a stampede. Left and right flanks swung round, the line lengthened, and round the struggling horses, knee-deep in woolly backs, split the streams to flow together beyond in one resistless river of sheep. Mescal forced Bolly out of danger; Dave escaped the right flank, August and Hare swept on with the flood, till the horses, sighting the dark canyon, halted to stand like rocks.

“Will they run over the rim ?” yelled Hare, horrified. His voice came to him as a whisper. August Naab, sweat-stained in red dust, haggard, gray locks streaming in the wind, raised his arms above his head, hopeless.

The long nodding line of woolly forms, lifting like the crest of a yellow wave, plunged out and down in rounded billow over the canyon rim. With din of hoofs and bleats the sheep spilled themselves over the precipice, and an awful deafening roar boomed up from the river, like the spreading thunderous crash of an avalanche.

How endless seemed that fatal plunge! The last line of sheep, pressing close to those gone before, and yet impelled by the strange instinct of life, turned their eyes too late on the brink, carried over by their own momentum.

The sliding roar ceased; its echo, muffled and hollow, pealed from the cliffs, then rumbled down the canyon to merge at length in the sullen, dull, continuous sound of the rapids.

Hare turned at last from that narrow iron-walled cleft, the depth of which he had not seen, and now had no wish to see; and his eyes fell upon a little Navajo lamb limping in the trail of the flock, headed for the canyon, as sure as its mother in purpose. He dismounted and seized it to find, to his infinite wonder and gladness, that it wore a string and bell round its neck. It was Mescal’s pet.

X. RIDING THE RANGES

THE SHEPHERDS WERE home in the oasis that evening, and next day the tragedy of the sheep was a thing of the past. No other circumstance of Hare’s four months with the Naabs had so affected him as this swift inevitable sweeping away of the flock; nothing else had so vividly told him the nature of this country of abrupt heights and depths. He remembered August Naab’s magnificent gesture of despair; and now the man was cheerful again; he showed no sign of his great loss. His tasks were many, and when one was done, he went on to the next. If Hare had not had many proofs of this Mormon’s feeling he would have thought him callous. August Naab trusted God and men, loved animals, did what he had to do with all his force, and accepted fate. The tragedy of the sheep had been only an incident in a tragical life — that Hare divined with awe.

Mescal sorrowed, and Wolf mourned in sympathy with her, for their occupation was gone, but both brightened when August made known his intention to cross the river to the Navajo range, to trade with the Indians for another flock. He began his preparations immediately. The snow-freshets had long run out of the river, the water was low, and he wanted to fetch the sheep down before the summer rains. He also wanted to find out what kept his son Snap so long among the Navajos.

“I’ll take Billy and go at once. Dave, you join George and Zeke out on the Silver Cup range. Take Jack with you. Brand all the cattle you can before the snow flies. Get out of Dene’s way if he rides over, and avoid Holderness’s men. I’ll have no fights. But keep your eyes sharp for their doings.”

It was a relief to Hare that Snap Naab had not yet returned to the oasis, for he felt a sense of freedom which otherwise would have been lacking. He spent the whole of a long calm summer day in the orchard and the vineyard. The fruit season was at its height. Grapes, plums, pears, melons were ripe and luscious. Midsummer was vacationtime for the children, and they flocked into the trees like birds. The girls were picking grapes; Mother Ruth enlisted Jack in her service at the pear-trees; Mescal came, too, and caught the golden pears he threw down, and smiled up at him; Wolf was there, and Noddle; Black Bolly pushed her black nose over the fence, and whinnied for apples; the turkeys strutted, the peafowls preened their beautiful plumage, the guinea-hens ran like quail. Save for those frowning red cliffs Hare would have forgotten where he was; the warm sun, the yellow fruit, the merry screams of children, the joyous laughter of girls, were pleasant reminders of autumn picnic days long gone. But, in the face of those dominating wind-scarred walls, he could not forget.

That night Hare endeavored to see Mescal alone for a few moments, to see her once more with unguarded eyes, to whisper a few words, to say good-bye; but it was impossible.

On the morrow he rode out of the red cliff gate with Dave and the pack- horses, a dull ache in his heart; for amid the cheering crowd of children and women who bade them good-bye he had caught the wave of Mescal’s hand and a look of her eyes that would be with him always. What might happen before he returned, if he ever did return! For he knew now, as well as he could feel Silvermane’s easy stride, that out there under the white glare of desert, the white gleam of the slopes of Coconina, was wild life awaiting him. And he shut his teeth, and narrowed his eyes, and faced it with an eager joy that was in strange contrast to the pang in his breast.

That morning the wind dipped down off the Vermillion Cliffs and whipped west; there was no scent of river-water, and Hare thought of the fatality of the sheep-drive, when, for one day out of the year, a moistened dank breeze had met the flock on the narrow bench. Soon the bench lay far behind them, and the strip of treacherous sand, and the maze of sculptured cliff under the Blue Star, and the hummocky low ridges beyond, with their dry white washes. Silvermane kept on in front. Already Hare had learned that the gray would have no horse before him. His pace was swift, steady, tireless. Dave was astride his Navajo mount, an Indian-bred horse, half mustang, which had to be held in with a firm rein. The pack train strung out far behind, trotting faithfully along, with the white packs, like the humps of camels, nodding up and down. Jack and Dave slackened their gait at the foot of the stony divide. It was an ascent of miles, so long that it did not appear steep. Here the pack-train caught up, and thereafter hung at the heels of the riders.

From the broad bare summit Jack saw the Silver Cup valley - range with eyes which seemed to magnify the winding trail, the long red wall, the green slopes, the dots of sage and cattle. Then he made allowance for months of unobstructed vision; he had learned to see; his eyes had adjusted themselves to distance and dimensions.

Silver Cup Spring lay in a bright green spot close under a break in the rocky slope that soon lost its gray cliff in the shaggy cedared side of Coconina.

The camp of the brothers was situated upon this cliff in a split between two sections of wall. Well sheltered from the north and west winds was a grassy plot which afforded a good survey of the valley and the trails. Dave and Jack received glad greetings from Zeke and George, and Silvermane was an object of wonder and admiration. Zeke, who had often seen the gray and chased him too, walked round and round him, stroking the silver mane, feeling the great chest muscles, slapping his flanks.

“Well, well, Silvermane, to think I’d live to see you wearing a saddle and bridle! He’s even bigger than I thought. There’s a horse, Hare! Never will be another like him in this desert. If Dene ever sees that horse he’ll chase him to the Great Salt Basin. Dene’s crazy about fast horses. He’s from Kentucky, somebody said, and knows a horse when he sees one.”

“How are things?” queried Dave.

“We can’t complain much,” replied Zeke, “though we’ve wasted some time on old Whitefoot. He’s been chasing our horses. It’s been pretty hot and dry. Most of the cattle are on the slopes; fair browse yet. There’s a bunch of steers gone up on the mountain, and some more round toward the Saddle or the canyon.”

“Been over Seeping Springs way?”

“Yes. No change since your trip. Holderness’s cattle are ranging in the upper valley. George found tracks near the spring. We believe somebody was watching there and made off when we came up.”

“We’ll see Holderness’s men when we get to riding out,” put in George. “And some of Dene’s too. Zeke met Two-Spot Chance and Culver below at the spring one day, sort of surprised them.”

“What day was that?”

“Let’s see, this’s Friday. It was last Monday.”

“What were they doing over here?”

“Said they were tracking a horse that had broken his hobbles. But they seemed uneasy, and soon rode off.”

“Did either of them ride a horse with one shoe shy?”

“Now I think of it, yes. Zeke noticed the track at the spring.”

“Well, Chance and Culver had been out our way,” declared Dave. “I saw their tracks, and they filled up the Blue Star waterhole — and cost us three thousand sheep.”

Then he related the story of the drive of the sheep, the finding of the plugged waterhole, the scent of the Colorado, and the plunge of the sheep into the canyon.

“We’ve saved one, Mescal’s belled lamb,” he concluded.

Neither Zeke nor George had a word in reply. Hare thought their silence unnatural. Neither did the mask-like stillness of their faces change. But Hare saw in their eyes a pointed clear flame, vibrating like a compass-needle, a mere glimmering spark.

“I’d like to know,” continued Dave, calmly poking the fire, “who hired Dene’s men to plug the waterhole. Dene couldn’t do that. He loves a horse, and any man who loves a horse couldn’t fill a waterhole in this desert.”

Hare entered upon his new duties as a range-rider with a zeal that almost made up for his lack of experience; he bade fair to develop into a right-hand man for Dave, under whose watchful eye he worked. His natural qualifications were soon shown; he could ride, though his seat was awk- ward and clumsy compared to that of the desert rangers, a fault that Dave said would correct itself as time fitted him close to the saddle and to the swing of his horse. His sight had become extraordinarily keen for a new-comer on the ranges, and when experience had taught him the land- marks, the trails, the distances, the difference between smoke and dust and haze, when he could distinguish a band of mustangs from cattle, and range-riders from outlaws or Indians; in a word, when he had learned to know what it was that he saw, to trust his judgment, he would have acquired the basic feature of a rider’s training. But he showed no gift for the lasso, that other essential requirement of his new calling.

“It’s funny,” said Dave, patiently, “you can’t get the hang of it. Maybe it’s born in a fellow. Now handling a gun seems to come natural for some fellows, and you’re one of them. If only you could get the rope away as quick as you can throw your gun!”

Jack kept faithfully at it, unmindful of defeats, often chagrined when he missed some easy opportunity. Not improbably he might have failed altogether if he had been riding an ordinary horse, or if he had to try roping from a fiery mustang. But Silvermane was as intelligent as he was beautiful and fleet. The horse learned rapidly the agile turns and sudden stops necessary, and as for free running he never got enough. Out on the range Silvermane always had his head up and watched; his life had been spent in watching; he saw cattle, riders, mustangs, deer, coyotes, every moving thing. So that Hare, in the chasing of a cow, had but to start Silvermane, and then he could devote himself to the handling of his rope. It took him ten times longer to lasso the cow than it took Silvermane to head the animal. Dave laughed at some of Jack’s exploits, encouraged him often, praised his intent if not his deed; and always after a run nodded at Silvermane in mute admiration.

Branding the cows and yearlings and tame steers which watered at Silver Cup, and never wandered far away, was play according to Dave’s version. “Wait till we get after the wild steers up on the mountain and in the canyons,” he would say when Jack dropped like a log at supper. Work it certainly was for him. At night he was so tired that he could scarcely crawl into bed; his back felt as if it were broken; his legs were raw, and his bones ached. Many mornings he thought it impossible to arise, but always he crawled out, grim and haggard, and hobbled round the camp-fire to warm his sore and bruised muscles. Then when Zeke and George rode in with the horses the day’s work began. During these weeks of his “hardening up,” as Dave called it, Hare bore much pain, but he continued well and never missed a day. At the most trying time when for a few days he had to be helped on and off Silvermane — for he insisted that he would not stay in camp — the brothers made his work as light as possible. They gave him the branding outfit to carry, a running-iron and a little pot with charcoal and bellows; and with these he followed the riders at a convenient distance and leisurely pace.

Some days they branded one hundred cattle. By October they had August Naab’s crudely fashioned cross on thousands of cows and steers. Still the stock kept coming down from the mountain, driven to the valley by cold weather and snow-covered grass. It was well into November before the riders finished at Silver Cup, and then arose a question as to whether it would be advisable to go to Seeping Springs or to the canyons farther west along the slope of Coconina. George favored the former, but Dave overruled him.

“Father’s orders,” he said. “He wants us to ride Seeping Springs last because he’ll be with us then, and Snap too. We’re going to have trouble over there.”

“How’s this branding stock going to help the matter any, I’d like to know?” inquired George. “We Mormons never needed it.”

“Father says we’ll all have to come to it. Holderness’s stock is branded. Perhaps he’s marked a good many steers of ours. We can’t tell. But if we have our own branded we’ll know what’s ours. If he drives our stock we’ll know it; if Dene steals, it can be proved that he steals.”

“Well, what then? Do you think he’ll care for that, or Holderness either?”

“No, only it makes this difference: both things will then be barefaced robbery. We’ve never been able to prove anything, though we boys know; we don’t need any proof. Father gives these men the benefit of a doubt. We’ve got to stand by him. I know, George, your hand’s begun to itch for your gun. So does mine. But we’ve orders to obey.”

Many gullies and canyons headed up on the slope of Coconina west of Silver Cup, and ran down to open wide on the flat desert. They contained plots of white sage and bunches of rich grass and cold springs. The steers that ranged these ravines were wild as wolves, and in the tangled thickets of juniper and manzanita and jumbles of weathered cliff they were exceedingly difficult to catch.

Well it was that Hare had received his initiation and had become inured to rough, incessant work, for now he came to know the real stuff of which these Mormons were made. No obstacle barred them. They penetrated the gullies to the last step; they rode weathered slopes that were difficult for deer to stick upon; they thrashed the bayonet-guarded manzanita copses; they climbed into labyrinthine fastnesses, penetrating to every nook where a steer could hide. Miles of sliding slope and marble-bottomed streambeds were ascended on foot, for cattle could climb where a horse could not. Climbing was arduous enough, yet the hardest and most perilous toil began when a wild steer was cornered. They roped the animals on moving slopes of weathered stone, and branded them on the edges of precipices.

The days and weeks passed, how many no one counted or cared. The circle of the sun daily lowered over the south end of Coconina; and the black snow-clouds crept down the slopes. Frost whitened the ground at dawn, and held half the day in the shade. Winter was close at the heels of the long autumn.

As for Hare, true to August Naab’s assertion, he had lost flesh and suffered, and though the process was heartbreaking in its severity, he hung on till he hardened into a leather lunged, wire-muscled man, capable of keeping pace with his companions.

He began his day with the dawn when he threw off the frost-coated tarpaulin; the icy water brought him a glow of exhilaration; he drank in the spiced cold air, and there was the spring of the deer-hunter in his step as he went down the slope for his horse. He no longer feared that Silvermane would run away. The gray’s bell could always be heard near camp in the mornings, and when Hare whistled there came always the answering thump of hobbled feet. When Silvermane saw him striding through the cedars or across the grassy belt of the valley he would neigh his gladness. Hare had come to love Silvermane and talked to him and treated him as if he were human.

When the mustangs were brought into camp the day’s work began, the same work as that of yesterday, and yet with endless variety, with ever-changing situations that called for quick wits, steel arms, stout hearts, and unflagging energies. The darkening blue sky and the sun-tipped crags of Vermillion Cliffs were signals to start for camp. They ate like wolves, sat for a while around the camp-fire, a ragged, weary, silent group; and soon lay down, their dark faces in the shadow of the cedars.

In the beginning of this toil-filled time Hare had resolutely set himself to forget Mescal, and he had succeeded at least for a time, when he was so sore and weary that he scarcely thought at all. But she came back to him, and then there was seldom an hour that was not hers. The long months which seemed years since he had seen her, the change in him wrought by labor and peril, the deepening friendship between him and Dave, even the love he bore Silvermane — these, instead of making dim the memory of the dark-eyed girl, only made him tenderer in his thought of her.

Snow drove the riders from the canyon-camp down to Silver Cup, where they found August Naab and Snap, who had ridden in the day before.

“Now you couldn’t guess how many cattle are back there in the canyons,” said Dave to his father.

“I haven’t any idea,” answered August, dubiously.

“Five thousand head.”

“Dave!” His father’s tone was incredulous.

“Yes. You know we haven’t been back in there for years. The stock has multiplied rapidly in spite of the lions and wolves. Not only that, but they’re safe from the winter, and are not likely to be found by Dene or anybody else.”

“How do you make that out?”

“The first cattle we drove in used to come back here to Silver Cup to winter. Then they stopped coming, and we almost forgot them. Well, they’ve got a trail round under the Saddle, and they go down and winter in the canyon. In summer they head up those rocky gullies, but they can’t get up on the mountain. So it isn’t likely any one will ever discover them. They are wild as deer and fatter than any stock on the ranges.”

“Good! That’s the best news I’ve had in many a day. Now, boys, we’ll ride the mountain slope toward Seeping Springs, drive the cattle down, and finish up this branding. Somebody ought to go to White Sage. I’d like to know what’s going on, what Holderness is up to, what Dene is doing, if there’s any stock being driven to Lund.”

“I told you I’d go,” said Snap Naab.

“I don’t want you to,” replied his father. “I guess it can wait till spring, then we’ll all go in. I might have thought to bring you boys out some clothes and boots. You’re pretty ragged. Jack there, especially, looks like a scarecrow. Has he worked as hard as he looks?”

“Father, he never lost a day,” replied Dave, warmly, “and you know what riding is in these canyons.”

August Naab looked at Hare and laughed. “It’d be funny, wouldn’t it, if Holderness tried to slap you now? I always knew you’d do, Jack, and now you’re one of us, and you’ll have a share with my sons in the cattle.”

But the generous promise failed to offset the feeling aroused by the presence of Snap Naab. With the first sight of Snap’s sharp face and strange eyes Hare became conscious of an inward heat, which he had felt before, but never as now, when there seemed to be an actual flame within his breast. Yet Snap seemed greatly changed; the red flush, the swollen lines no longer showed in his face; evidently in his absence on the Navajo desert he had had no liquor; he was good-natured, lively, much inclined to joking, and he seemed to have entirely forgotten his ani- mosity toward Hare. It was easy for Hare to see that the man’s evil nature was in the ascendancy only when he was under the dominance of drink. But he could not forgive; he could not forget. Mescal’s dark, beautiful eyes haunted him. Even now she might be married to this man. Perhaps that was why Snap appeared to be in such cheerful spirits. Suspense added its burdensome insistent question, but he could not bring himself to ask August if the marriage had taken place. For a day he fought to resign himself to the inevitability of the Mormon custom, to forget Mescal, and then he gave up trying. This surrender he felt to be something crucial in his life, though he could not wholly understand it. It was the darkening of his spirit; the death of boyish gentleness; the concluding step from youth into a forced manhood. The desert regeneration had not stopped at turning weak lungs, vitiated blood, and flaccid muscles into a powerful man; it was at work on his mind, his heart, his soul. They answered more and more to the call of some outside, ever-present, fiercely subtle thing.

Thenceforth he no longer vexed himself by trying to forget Mescal; if she came to mind he told himself the truth, that the weeks and months had only added to his love. And though it was bitter-sweet there was relief in speaking the truth to himself. He no longer blinded himself by hoping, striving to have generous feelings toward Snap Naab; he called the inward fire by its real name — jealousy — and knew that in the end it would become hatred.

On the third morning after leaving Silver Cup the riders were working slowly along the slope of Coconina; and Hare having driven down a bunch of cattle, found himself on an open ridge near the temporary camp. Happening to glance up the valley he saw what appeared to be smoke hanging over Seeping Springs.

“That can’t be dust,” he soliloquized. “Looks blue to me.”

He studied the hazy bluish cloud for some time, but it was so many miles away that he could not be certain whether it was smoke or not, so he decided to ride over and make sure. None of the Naabs was in camp, and there was no telling when they would return, so he set off alone. He expected to get back before dark, but it was of little consequence whether he did or not, for he had his blanket under the saddle, and grain for Silvermane and food for himself in the saddle-bags.

Long before Silvermane’s easy trot had covered half the distance Hare recognized the cloud that had made him curious. It was smoke. He thought that range-riders were camping at the springs, and he meant to see what they were about. After three hours of brisk travel he reached the top of a low rolling knoll that hid Seeping Springs. He remembered the springs were up under the red wall, and that the pool where the cattle drank was lower down in a clump of cedars. He saw smoke rising in a column from the cedars, and he heard the lowing of cattle.

“Something wrong here,” he muttered. Following the trail, he rode through the cedars to come upon the dry hole where the pool had once been. There was no water in the flume. The bellowing cattle came from beyond the cedars, down the other side of the ridge. He was not long in reaching the open, and then one glance made all clear.

A new pool, large as a little lake, shone in the sunlight, and round it a jostling horned mass of cattle were pressing against a high corral. The flume that fed water to the pool was fenced all the way up to the springs.

Jack slowly rode down the ridge with eyes roving under the cedars and up to the wall. Not a man was in sight.

When he got to the fire he saw that it was not many hours old and was surrounded by fresh boot and horse tracks in the dust. Piles of slender pine logs, trimmed flat on one side, were proof of somebody’s intention to erect a cabin. In a rage he flung himself from the saddle. It was not many moments’ work for him to push part of the fire under the fence, and part of it against the pile of logs. The pitch-pines went off like rockets, driving the thirsty cattle back.

“I’m going to trail those horse-tracks,” said Hare.

He tore down a portion of the fence enclosing the flume, and gave Silvermane a drink, then put him to a fast trot on the white trail. The tracks he had resolved to follow were clean-cut. A few inches of snow had fallen in the valley, and melting, had softened the hard ground. Silvermane kept to his gait with the tirelessness of a desert horse. August Naab had once said fifty miles a day would be play for the stallion. All the afternoon Hare watched the trail speed toward him and the end of Coconina rise above him. Long before sunset he had reached the slope of the mountain and had begun the ascent. Half way up he came to the snow and counted the tracks of three horses. At twilight he rode into the glade where August Naab had waited for his Navajo friends. There, in a sheltered nook among the rocks, he unsaddled Silvermane, covered and fed him, built a fire, ate sparingly of his meat and bread, and rolling up in his blanket, was soon asleep.

He was up and off before sunrise, and he came out on the western slope of Coconina just as the shadowy valley awakened from its misty sleep into daylight. Soon the Pink Cliffs leaned out, glimmering and vast, to change from gloomy gray to rosy glow, and then to brighten and to redden in the morning sun.

The snow thinned and failed, but the iron-cut horsetracks showed plainly in the trail. At the foot of the mountain the tracks left the White Sage trail and led off to the north toward the cliffs. Hare searched the red sagespotted waste for Holderness’s ranch. He located it, a black patch on the rising edge of the valley under the wall, and turned Silvermane into the tracks that pointed straight toward it.

The sun cleared Coconina and shone warm on his back; the Pink Cliffs lifted higher and higher before him. From the ridge-tops he saw the black patch grow into cabins and corrals. As he neared the ranch he came into rolling pasture-land where the bleached grass shone white and the cattle were ranging in the thousands. This range had once belonged to Martin Cole, and Hare thought of the bitter Mormon as he noted the snug cabins for the riders, the rambling, picturesque ranch-house, the large corrals, and the long flume that ran down from the cliff. There was a corral full of shaggy horses, and another full of steers, and two lines of cattle, one going into a pond-corral, and one coming out. The air was gray with dust. A bunch of yearlings were licking at huge lumps of brown rock-salt. A wagonful of cowhides stood before the ranch-house.

Hare reined in at the door and helloed.

A red-faced ranger with sandy hair and twinkling eyes appeared.

“Hello, stranger, get down an’ come in,” he said.

“Is Holderness here?” asked Hare.

“No. He’s been to Lund with a bunch of steers. I reckon he’ll be in White Sage by now. I’m Snood, the foreman. Is it a job ridin’ you want?”

“No.”

“Say! thet hoss—” he exclaimed. His gaze of friendly curiosity had moved from Hare to Silvermane. “You can corral me if it ain’t thet Sevier range stallion!”

“Yes,” said Hare.

Snood’s whoop brought three riders to the door, and when he pointed to the horse, they stepped out with good-natured grins and admiring eyes.

“I never seen him but onc’t,” said one.

“Lordy, what a hoss!” Snood walked round Silvermane. “If I owned this ranch I’d trade it for that stallion. I know Silvermane. He an’ I hed some chases over in Nevada. An’, stranger, who might you be?”

“I’m one of August Naab’s riders.”

“Dene’s spy!” Snood looked Hare over carefully, with much interest, and without any show of ill-will. “I’ve heerd of you. An’ what might one of Naab’s riders want of Holderness?”

“I rode in to Seeping Springs yesterday,” said Hare, eying the foreman. “There was a new pond, fenced in. Our cattle couldn’t drink. There were a lot of trimmed logs. Somebody was going to build a cabin. I burned the corrals and logs — and I trailed fresh tracks from Seeping Springs to this ranch.”

“The h — l you did!” shouted Snood, and his face flamed. “See here, stranger, you’re the second man to accuse some of my riders of such dirty tricks. That’s enough for me. I was foreman of this ranch till this minute. I was foreman, but there were things gain’ on thet I didn’t know of. I kicked on thet deal with Martin Cole. I quit. I steal no man’s water. Is thet good with you?”

Snood’s query was as much a challenge as a question. He bit savagely at his pipe. Hare offered his hand.

“Your word goes. Dave Naab said you might be Holderness’s foreman, but you weren’t a liar or a thief. I’d believe it even if Dave hadn’t told me.”

“Them fellers you tracked rode in here yesterday. They’re gone now. I’ve no more to say, except I never hired them.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Good-day, Snood, I’m in something of a hurry.”

With that Hare faced about in the direction of White Sage. Once clear of the corrals he saw the village closer than he had expected to find it. He walked Silvermane most of the way, and jogged along the rest, so that he reached the village in the twilight. Memory served him well. He rode in as August Naab had ridden out, and arrived at the Bishop’s barn-yard, where he put up his horse. Then he went to the house. It was necessary to introduce himself for none of the Bishop’s family recognized in him the young man they had once befriended. The old Bishop prayed and reminded him of the laying on of hands. The women served him with food, the young men brought him new boots and garments to replace those that had been worn to tatters. Then they plied him with questions about the Naabs, whom they had not seen for nearly a year. They rejoiced at his recovered health; they welcomed him with warm words.

Later Hare sought an interview alone with the Bishop’s sons, and he told them of the loss of the sheep, of the burning of the new corrals, of the tracks leading to Holderness’s ranch. In turn they warned him of his danger, and gave him information desired by August Naab. Holderness’s grasp on the outlying ranges and water-rights had slowly and surely tightened; every month he acquired new territory; he drove cattle regularly to Lund, and it was no secret that much of the stock came from the eastern slope of Coconina. He could not hire enough riders to do his work. A suspicion that he was not a cattle-man but a rustler had slowly gained ground; it was scarcely hinted, but it was believed. His friendship with Dene had become offensive to the Mormons, who had formerly been on good footing with him. Dene’s killing of Martin Cole was believed to have been at Holderness’s instigation. Cole had threatened Holderness. Then Dene and Cole had met in the main street of White Sage. Cole’s death ushered in the bloody time that he had prophesied. Dene’s band had grown; no man could say how many men he had or who they were. Chance and Culver were openly his lieutenants, and whenever they came into the village there was shooting. There were ugly rumors afloat in regard to their treatment of Mormon women. The wives and daughters of once peaceful White Sage dared no longer venture out-of-doors after nightfall. There was more money in coin and more whiskey than ever before in the village. Lund and the few villages northward were terrorized as well as White Sage. It was a bitter story.

The Bishop and his sons tried to persuade Hare next morning to leave the village without seeing Holderness, urging the futility of such a meeting.

“I will see him,” said Hare. He spent the morning at the cottage, and when it came time to take his leave he smiled into the anxious faces. “If I weren’t able to take care of myself August Naab would never have said so.”

Had Hare asked himself what he intended to do when he faced Holderness he could not have told. His feelings were pent-in, bound, but at the bottom something rankled. His mind seemed steeped in still thunderous atmosphere.

How well he remembered the quaint wide street, the gray church! As he rode many persons stopped to gaze at Silvermane. He turned the corner into the main thoroughfare A new building had been added to the several stores. Mustangs stood, bridles down, before the doors; men lounged along the railings.

As he dismounted he heard the loungers speak of his horse, and he saw their leisurely manner quicken. He stepped into the store to meet more men, among them August Naab’s friend Abe. Hare might never have been in White Sage for all the recognition he found, but he excited something keener than curiosity. He asked for spurs, a clasp-knife and some other necessaries, and he contrived, when momentarily out of sight behind a pile of boxes, to whisper his identity to Abe. The Mormon was dumbfounded. When he came out of his trance he showed his gladness, and at a question of Hare’s he silently pointed toward the saloon.

Hare faced the open door. The room had been enlarged; it was now on a level with the store floor, and was blue with smoke, foul with the fumes of rum, and noisy with the voices of dark, rugged men.

A man in the middle of the room was dancing a jig.

“Hello, who’s this?” he said, straightening up.

It might have been the stopping of the dance or the quick spark in Hare’s eyes that suddenly quieted the room. Hare had once vowed to himself that he would never forget the scarred face; it belonged to the outlaw Chance.

The sight of it flashed into the gulf of Hare’s mind like a meteor into black night. A sudden madness raced through his veins.

“Hello, Don’t you know me?” he said, with a long step that brought him close to Chance.

The outlaw stood irresolute. Was this an old friend or an enemy? His beady eyes scintillated and twitched as if they sought to look him over, yet dared not because it was only in the face that intention could be read.

The stillness of the room broke to a hoarse whisper from some one.

“Look how he packs his gun.”

Another man answering whispered: “There’s not six men in Utah who pack a gun thet way.”

Chance heard these whispers, for his eye shifted downward the merest fraction of a second. The brick color of his face turned a dirty white.

“Do you know me?” demanded Hare.

Chance’s answer was a spasmodic jerking of his hand toward his hip. Hare’s arm moved quicker, and Chance’s Colt went spinning to the floor.

“Too slow,” said Hare. Then he flung Chance backward and struck him blows that sent his head with sodden thuds against the log wall. Chance sank to the floor in a heap.

Hare kicked the outlaw’s gun out of the way, and wheeled to the crowd. Holderness stood foremost, his tall form leaning against the bar, his clear eyes shining like light on ice.

“Do you know me?” asked Hare, curtly.

HolderDess started slightly. “I certainly don’t,” he replied.

“You slapped my face once.” Hare leaned close to the rancher. “Slap it now — you rustler!”

In the slow, guarded instant when Hare’s gaze held Holderness and the other men, a low murmuring ran through the room.

“Dene’s spy!” suddenly burst out Holderness.

Hare slapped his face. Then he backed a few paces with his right arm held before him almost as high as his shoulder, the wrist rigid, the fingers quivering.

“Don’t try to draw, Holderness. Thet’s August Naab’s trick with a gun,” whispered a man, hurriedly.

“Holderness, I made a bonfire over at Seeping Springs,” said Hare. “I burned the new corrals your men built, and I tracked them to your ranch. Snood threw up his job when he heard it. He’s an honest man, and no honest man will work for a water-thief, a cattle-rustler, a sheep-killer. You’re shown up, Holderness. Leave the country before some one kills you — understand, before some one kills you!”

Holderness stood motionless against the bar, his eyes fierce with passionate hate.

Hare backed step by step to the outside door, his right hand still high, his look holding the crowd bound to the last instant. Then he slipped out, scattered the group round Silvermane, and struck hard with the spurs.

The gray, never before spurred, broke down the road into his old wild speed.

Men were crossing from the corner of the green square. One, a compact little fellow, swarthy, his dark hair long and flowing, with jaunty and alert air, was Dene, the outlaw leader. He stopped, with his companions, to let the horse cross.

Hare guided the thundering stallion slightly to the left. Silvermane swerved and in two mighty leaps bore down on the outlaw. Dene saved himself by quickly leaping aside, but even as he moved Silvermane struck him with his left fore-leg, sending him into the dust.

At the street corner Hare glanced back. Yelling men were rushing from the saloon and some of them fired after him. The bullets whistled harmlessly behind Hare. Then the corner house shut off his view.

Silvermane lengthened out and stretched lower with his white mane flying and his nose pointed level for the desert.

XI. THE DESERT-HAWK

TOWARD THE CLOSE of the next day Jack Hare arrived at Seeping Springs. A pile of gray ashes marked the spot where the trimmed logs had lain. Round the pool ran a black circle hard packed into the ground by many hoofs. Even the board flume had been burned to a level with the glancing sheet of water. Hare was slipping Silvermane’s bit to let him drink when he heard a halloo. Dave Naab galloped out of the cedars, and presently August Naab and his other sons appeared with a pack-train.

“Now you’ve played bob!” exclaimed Dave. He swung out of his saddle and gripped Hare with both hands. “I know what you’ve done; I know where you’ve been. Father will be furious, but don’t you care.”

The other Naabs trotted down the slope and lined their horses before the pool. The sons stared in blank astonishment; the father surveyed the scene slowly, and then fixed wrathful eyes on Hare.

“What does this mean?” he demanded, with the sonorous roll of his angry voice.

Hare told all that had happened.

August Naab’s gloomy face worked, and his eagle-gaze had in it a strange far-seeing light; his mind was dwelling upon his mystic power of revelation.

“I see — I see,” he said haltingly.

“Ki — yi-i-i!” yelled Dave Naab with all the power of his lungs. His head was back, his mouth wide open, his face red, his neck corded and swollen with the intensity of his passion.

“Be still — boy!” ordered his father. “Hare, this was madness — but tell me what you learned.”

Briefly Hare repeated all that he had been told at the Bishop’s, and concluded with the killing of Martin Cole by Dene.

August Naab bowed his head and his giant frame shook under the force of his emotion. Martin Cole was the last of his life-long friends.

“This — this outlaw — you say you ran him down?” asked Naab, rising haggard and shaken out of his grief.

“Yes. He didn’t recognize me or know what was coming till Silvermane was on him. But he was quick, and fell sidewise. Silvermane’s knee sent him sprawling.”

“What will it all lead to?” asked August Naab, and in his extremity he appealed to his eldest son.

“The bars are down,” said Snap Naab, with a click of his long teeth.

“Father,” began Dave Naab earnestly, “Jack has done a splendid thing. The news will fly over Utah like wildfire. Mormons are slow. They need a leader. But they can follow and they will. We can’t cure these evils by hoping and praying. We’ve got to fight!”

“Dave’s right, dad, it means fight,” cried George, with his fist clinched high.

“You’ve been wrong, father, in holding back,” said Zeke Naab, his lean jaw bulging. “This Holderness will steal the water and meat out of our children’s mouths. We’ve got to fight!”

“Let’s ride to White Sage,” put in Snap Naab, and the little flecks in his eyes were dancing. “I’ll throw a gun on Dene. I can get to him. We’ve been tolerable friends. He’s wanted me to join his band. I’ll kill him.”

He laughed as he raised his right hand and swept it down to his left side; the blue Colt lay on his outstretched palm. Dene’s life and Holderness’s, too, hung in the balance between two deadly snaps of this desert-wolf’s teeth. He was one of the Naabs, and yet apart from them, for neither religion, nor friendship, nor life itself mattered to him.

August Naab’s huge bulk shook again, not this time with grief, but in wrestling effort to withstand the fiery influence of this unholy fighting spirit among his sons.

“I am forbidden.”

His answer was gentle, but its very gentleness breathed of his battle over himself, of allegiance to something beyond earthly duty. “We’ll drive the cattle to Silver Cup,” he decided, “and then go home. I give up Seeping Springs. Perhaps this valley and water will content Holderness.”

When they reached the oasis Hare was surprised to find that it was the day before Christmas. The welcome given the long-absent riders was like a celebration. Much to Hare’s disappointment Mescal did not appear; the homecoming was not joyful to him because it lacked her welcoming smile.

Christmas Day ushered in the short desert winter; ice formed in the ditches and snow fell, but neither long resisted the reflection of the sun from the walls. The early morning hours were devoted to religious services. At midday dinner was served in the big room of August Naab’s cabin. At one end was a stone fireplace where logs blazed and crackled.

In all his days Hare had never seen such a bountiful board. Yet he was unable to appreciate it, to share in the general thanksgiving. Dominating all other feeling was the fear that Mescal would come in and take a seat by Snap Naab’s side. When Snap seated himself opposite with his pale little wife Hare found himself waiting for Mescal with an intensity that made him dead to all else. The girls, Judith, Esther, Rebecca, came running gayly in, clad in their best dresses, with bright ribbons to honor the occasion. Rebecca took the seat beside Snap, and Hare gulped with a hard contraction of his throat. Mescal was not yet a Mormon’s wife! He seemed to be lifted upward, to grow light-headed with the blessed assurance. Then Mescal entered and took the seat next to him. She smiled and spoke, and the blood beat thick in his ears.

That moment was happy, but it was as nothing to its successor. Under the table-cover Mescal’s hand found his, and pressed it daringly and gladly. Her hand lingered in his all the time August Naab spent in carving the turkey — lingered there even though Snap Naab’s hawk eyes were never far away. In the warm touch of her hand, in some subtle thing that radiated from her Hare felt a change in the girl he loved. A few months had wrought in her some indefinable difference, even as they had increased his love to its full volume and depth. Had his absence brought her to the realization of her woman’s heart?

In the afternoon Hare left the house and spent a little while with Silvermane; then he wandered along the wall to the head of the oasis, and found a seat on the fence. The next few weeks presented to him a situation that would be difficult to endure. He would be near Mescal, but only to have the truth forced cruelly home to him every sane moment — that she was not for him. Out on the ranges he had abandoned himself to dreams of her; they had been beautiful; they had made the long hours seem like minutes; but they had forged chains that could not be broken, and now he was hopelessly fettered.

The clatter of hoofs roused him from a reverie which was half sad, half sweet. Mescal came tearing down the level on Black Bolly. She pulled in the mustang and halted beside Hare to hold out shyly a red scarf embroidered with Navajo symbols in white and red beads.

“I’ve wanted a chance to give you this,” she said, “a little Christmas present.”

For a few seconds Hare could find no words.

“Did you make it for me, Mescal?” he finally asked. “How good of you! I’ll keep it always.”

“Put it on now — let me tie it — there!”

“But, child. Suppose he — they saw it?”

“I don’t care who sees it.”

She met him with clear, level eyes. Her curt, crisp speech was full of meaning. He looked long at her, with a yearning denied for many a day. Her face was the same, yet wonderfully changed; the same in line and color, but different in soul and spirit. The old sombre shadow lay deep in the eyes, but to it had been added gleam of will and reflection of thought. The whole face had been refined and transformed.

“Mescal! What’s happened? You’re not the same. You seem almost happy. Have you — has he — given you up?”

“Don’t you know Mormons better than that? The thing is the same — so far as they’re concerned.”

“But Mescal — are you going to marry him? For God’s sake, tell me.”

“Never.” It was a woman’s word, instant, inflexible, desperate. With a deep breath Hare realized where the girl had changed.

“Still you’re promised, pledged to him! How’ll you get out of it?”

“I don’t know how. But I’ll cut out my tongue, and be dumb as my poor peon before I’ll speak the word that’ll make me Snap Naab’s wife.”

There was a long silence. Mescal smoothed out Bolly’s mane, and Hare gazed up at the walls with eyes that did not see them.

Presently he spoke. “I’m afraid for you. Snap watched us to-day at dinner.”

“He’s jealous.”

“Suppose he sees this scarf?”

Mescal laughed defiantly. It was bewildering for Hare to hear her.

“He’ll — Mescal, I may yet come to this.” Hare’s laugh echoed Mescal’s as he pointed to the enclosure under the wall, where the graves showed bare and rough.

Her warm color fled, but it flooded back, rich, mantling brow and cheek and neck.

“Snap Naab will never kill you,” she said impulsively.

“Mescal.”

She swiftly turned her face away as his hand closed on hers.

“Mescal, do you love me?”

The trembling of her fingers and the heaving of her bosom lent his hope conviction. “Mescal,” he went on, “these past months have been years, years of toiling, thinking, changing, but always loving. I’m not the man you knew. I’m wild — I’m starved for a sight of you. I love you! Mescal, my desert flower!”

She raised her free hand to his shoulder and swayed toward him. He held her a moment, clasped tight, and then released her.

“I’m quite mad!” he exclaimed, in a passion of self-reproach. “What a risk I’m putting on you! But I couldn’t help it. Look at me — Just once — please — Mescal, just one look. . . . Now go.”

The drama of the succeeding days was of absorbing interest. Hare had liberty; there was little work for him to do save to care for Silvermane. He tried to hunt foxes in the caves and clefts; he rode up and down the broad space under the walls; he sought the open desert only to be driven in by the bitter, biting winds. Then he would return to the big living-room of the Naabs and sit before the burning logs. This spacious room was warm, light, pleasant, and was used by every one in leisure hours. Mescal spent most of her time there. She was engaged upon a new frock of buckskin, and over this she bent with her needle and beads. When there was a chance Hare talked with her, speaking one language with his tongue, a far different one with his eyes. When she was not present he looked into the glowing red fire and dreamed of her.

In the evenings when Snap came in to his wooing and drew Mescal into a corner, Hare watched with covert glance and smouldering jealousy. Somehow he had come to see all things and all people in the desert glass, and his symbol for Snap Garb was the desert-hawk. Snap’s eyes were as wild and piercing as those of a hawk; his nose and mouth were as the beak of a hawk; his hands resembled the claws of a hawk; and the spurs he wore, always bloody, were still more significant of his ruthless nature. Then Snap’s courting of the girl, the cool assurance, the unhastening ease, were like the slow rise, the sail, and the poise of a desert-hawk before the downward lightning-swift swoop on his quarry.

It was intolerable for Hare to sit there in the evenings, to try to play with the children who loved him, to talk to August Naab when his eye seemed ever drawn to the quiet couple in the corner, and his ear was unconsciously strained to catch a passing word. That hour was a miserable one for him, yet he could not bring himself to leave the room. He never saw Snap touch her; he never heard Mescal’s voice; he believed that she spoke very little. When the hour was over and Mescal rose to pass to her room, then his doubt, his fear, his misery, were as though they had never been, for as Mescal said good-night she would give him one look, swift as a flash, and in it were womanliness and purity, and some- thing beyond his comprehension. Her Indian serenity and mysticism veiled yet suggested some secret, some power by which she might yet escape the iron band of this Mormon rule. Hare could not fathom it. In that good-night glance was a meaning for him alone, if meaning ever shone in woman’s eyes, and it said: “I will be true to you and to myself!”

Once the idea struck him that as soon as spring returned it would be an easy matter, and probably wise, for him to leave the oasis and go up into Utah, far from the desert-canyon country. But the thought refused to stay before his consciousness a moment. New life had flushed his veins here. He loved the dreamy, sleepy oasis with its mellow sunshine always at rest on the glistening walls; he loved the cedar-scented plateau where hope had dawned, and the wind-swept sand-strips, where hard out-of-door life and work had renewed his wasting youth; he loved the canyon winding away toward Coconina, opening into wide abyss; and always, more than all, he loved the Painted Desert, with its ever-changing pictures, printed in sweeping dust and bare peaks and purple haze. He loved the beauty of these places, and the wildness in them had an affinity with something strange and untamed in him. He would never leave them. When his blood had cooled, when this tumultuous thrill and swell had worn themselves out, happiness would come again.

Early in the winter Snap Naab had forced his wife to visit his father’s house with him; and she had remained in the room, white-faced, passionately jealous, while he wooed Mescal. Then had come a scene. Hare had not been present, but he knew its results. Snap had been furious, his father grave, Mescal tearful and ashamed. The wife found many ways to interrupt her husband’s lovemaking. She sent the children for him; she was taken suddenly ill; she discovered that the corral gate was open and his cream-colored pinto, dearest to his heart, was running loose; she even set her cottage on fire.

One Sunday evening just before twilight Hare was sitting on the porch with August Naab and Dave, when their talk was interrupted by Snap’s loud calling for his wife. At first the sounds came from inside his cabin. Then he put his head out of a window and yelled. Plainly he was both impatient and angry. It was nearly time for him to make his Sunday call upon Mescal.

“Something’s wrong,” muttered Dave.

“Hester! Hester!” yelled Snap.

Mother Ruth came out and said that Hester was not there.

“Where is she?” Snap banged on the window-sill with his fists. “Find her, somebody — Hester!”

“Son, this is the Sabbath,” called Father Naab, gravely. “Lower your voice. Now what’s the matter?”

“Matter!” bawled Snap, giving way to rage. “When I was asleep Hester stole all my clothes. She’s hid them — she’s run off — there’s not a d — n thing for me to put on! I’ll—”

The roar of laughter from August and Dave drowned the rest of the speech. Hare managed to stifle his own mirth. Snap pulled in his head and slammed the window shut.

“Jack,” said August, “even among Mormons the course of true love never runs smooth.”

Hare finally forgot his bitter humor in pity for the wife. Snap came to care not at all for her messages and tricks, and he let nothing interfere with his evening beside Mescal. It was plain that he had gone far on the road of love. Whatever he had been in the beginning of the betrothal, he was now a lover, eager, importunate. His hawk’s eyes were softer than Hare had ever seen them; he was obliging, kind, gay, an altogether different Snap Naab. He groomed himself often, and wore clean scarfs, and left off his bloody spurs. For eight months he had not touched the bottle. When spring approached he was madly in love with Mescal. And the marriage was delayed because his wife would not have another woman in her home.

Once Hare heard Snap remonstrating with his father.

“If she don’t come to time soon I’ll keep the kids and send her back to her father.”

“Don’t be hasty, son. Let her have time,” replied August. “Women must be humored. I’ll wager she’ll give in before the cottonwood blows, and that’s not long.”

It was Hare’s habit, as the days grew warmer, to walk a good deal, and one evening, as twilight shadowed the oasis and grew black under the towering walls, he strolled out toward the fields. While passing Snap’s cottage Hare heard a woman’s voice in passionate protest and a man’s in strident anger. Later as he stood with his arm on Silvermane, a woman’s scream, at first high-pitched, then suddenly faint and smothered, caused him to grow rigid, and his hand clinched tight. When he went back by the cottage a low moaning confirmed his suspicion.

That evening Snap appeared unusually bright and happy; and he asked his father to name the day for the wedding. August did so in a loud voice and with evident relief. Then the quaint Mormon congratulations were offered to Mescal. To Hare, watching the strange girl with the distressingly keen intuition of an unfortunate lover, she appeared as pleased as any of them that the marriage was settled. But there was no shyness, no blushing confusion. When Snap bent to kiss her — his first kiss — she slightly turned her face, so that his lips brushed her cheek, yet even then her self-command did not break for an instant. It was a task for Hare to pretend to congratulate her; nevertheless he mumbled something. She lifted her long lashes, and there, deep beneath the shadows, was unutterable anguish. It gave him a shock. He went to his room, convinced that she had yielded; and though he could not blame her, and he knew she was helpless, he cried out in reproach and resentment. She had failed him, as he had known she must fail. He tossed on his bed and thought; he lay quiet, wide-open eyes staring into the darkness, and his mind burned and seethed. Through the hours of that long night he learned what love had cost him.

With the morning light came some degree of resignation. Several days went slowly by, bringing the first of April, which was to be the wedding-day. August Naab had said it would come before the cottonwoods shed their white floss; and their buds had just commenced to open. The day was not a holiday, and George and Zeke and Dave began to pack for the ranges, yet there was an air of jollity and festivity. Snap Naab had a springy step and jaunty mien. Once he regarded Hare with a slow smile.

Piute prepared to drive his new flock up on the plateau. The women of the household were busy and excited; the children romped.

The afternoon waned into twilight, and Hare sought the quiet shadows under the wall near the river trail. He meant to stay there until August Naab had pronounced his son and Mescal man and wife. The dull roar of the rapids borne on a faint puff of westerly breeze was lulled into a soothing murmur. A radiant white star peeped over the black rim of the wall. The solitude and silence were speaking to Hare’s heart, easing his pain, when a soft patter of moccasined feet brought him bolt upright.

A slender form rounded the corner wall. It was Mescal. The white dog Wolf hung close by her side. Swiftly she reached Hare.

“Mescal!” he exclaimed.

“Hush! Speak softly,” she whispered fearfully. Her hands were clinging to his.

“Jack, do you love me still?”

More than woman’s sweetness was in the whisper; the portent of indefinable motive made Hare tremble like a shaking leaf.

“Good heavens! You are to be married in a few minutes — What do you mean? Where are you going? this buckskin suit — and Wolf with you — Mescal!”

“There’s no time — only a word — hurry — do you love me still?” she panted, with great shining eyes close to his.

“Love you? With all my soul!”

“Listen,” she whispered, and leaned against him. A fresh breeze bore the boom of the river. She caught her breath quickly: “I love you! — I love you! — Good-bye!”

She kissed him and broke from his clasp. Then silently, like a shadow, with the white dog close beside her, she disappeared in the darkness of the river trail.

She was gone before he came out of his bewilderment. He rushed down the trail; he called her name. The gloom had swallowed her, and only the echo of his voice made answer.

XII. ECHO CLIFFS

WHEN THOUGHT CAME clearly to him he halted irresolute. For Mescal’s sake he must not appear to have had any part in her headlong flight, or any knowledge of it.

With stealthy footsteps he reached the cottonwoods, stole under the gloomy shade, and felt his way to a point beyond the twinkling lights. Then, peering through the gloom until assured he was safe from observation, and taking the dark side of the house, he gained the hall, and his room. He threw himself on his bed, and endeavored to compose himself, to quiet his vibrating nerves, to still the triumphant bell-beat of his heart. For a while all his being swung to the palpitating consciousness of joy — Mescal had taken her freedom. She had escaped the swoop of the hawk.

While Hare lay there, trying to gather his shattered senses, the merry sound of voices and the music of an accordion hummed from the big living-room next to his. Presently heavy boots thumped on the floor of the hall; then a hand rapped on his door.

“Jack, are you there?” called August Naab.

“Yes.”

“Come along then.”

Hare rose, opened the door and followed August. The room was bright with lights; the table was set, and the Naabs, large and small, were standing expectantly. As Hare found a place behind them Snap Naab entered with his wife. She was as pale as if she were in her shroud. Hare caught Mother Ruth’s pitying subdued glance as she drew the frail little woman to her side. When August Naab began fingering his Bible the whispering ceased.

“Why don’t they fetch her?” he questioned.

“Judith, Esther, bring her in,” said Mother Mary, calling into the hallway.

Quick footsteps, and the girls burst in impetuously, exclaiming: “Mescal’s not there!”

“Where is she, then?” demanded August Naab, going to the door. “Mescal!” he called.

Succeeding his authoritative summons only the cheery sputter of the wood-fire broke the silence.

“She hadn’t put on her white frock,” went on Judith.

“Her buckskins aren’t hanging where they always are,” continued Esther.

August Naab laid his Bible on the table. “I always feared it,” he said simply.

“She’s gone!” cried Snap Naab. He ran into the hall, into Mescal’s room, and returned trailing the white wedding-dress. “The time we thought she spent to put this on she’s been—”

He choked over the words, and sank into a chair, face convulsed, hands shaking, weak in the grip of a grief that he had never before known. Suddenly he flung the dress into the fire. His wife fell to the floor in a dead faint. Then the desert-hawk showed his claws. His hands tore at the close scarf round his throat as if to liberate a fury that was stifling him; his face lost all semblance to anything human. He began to howl, to rave, to curse; and his father circled him with iron arm and dragged him from the room.

The children were whimpering, the wives lamenting. The quiet men searched the house and yard and corrals and fields. But they found no sign of Mescal. After long hours the excitement subsided and all sought their beds.

Morning disclosed the facts of Mescal’s flight. She had dressed for the trail; a knapsack was missing and food enough to fill it; Wolf was gone; Noddle was not in his corral; the peon slave had not slept in his shack; there were moccasin-tracks and burro-tracks and dog-tracks in the sand at the river crossing, and one of the boats was gone. This boat was not moored to the opposite shore. Questions arose. Had the boat sunk? Had the fugitives crossed safely or had they drifted into the canyon? Dave Naab rode out along the river and saw the boat, a mile below the rapids, bottom side up and lodged on a sand-bar.

“She got across, and then set the boat loose,” said August. “That’s the Indian of her. If she went up on the cliffs to the Navajos maybe we’ll find her. If she went into the Painted Desert—” a grave shake of his shaggy head completed his sentence.

Morning also disclosed Snap Naab once more in the clutch of his demon, drunk and unconscious, lying like a log on the porch of his cottage.

“This means ruin to him,” said his father. “He had one chance; he was mad over Mescal, and if he had got her, he might have conquered his thirst for rum.”

He gave orders for the sheep to be driven up on the plateau, and for his sons to ride out to the cattle ranges. He bade Hare pack and get in readiness to accompany him to the Navajo cliffs, there to search for Mescal.

The river was low, as the spring thaws had not yet set in, and the crossing promised none of the hazard so menacing at a later period. Billy Naab rowed across with the saddle and packs. Then August had to crowd the lazy burros into the water. Silvermane went in with a rush, and Charger took to the river like an old duck. August and Jack sat in the stern of the boat, while Billy handled the oars. They crossed swiftly and safely. The three burros were then loaded, two with packs, the other with a heavy water-bag.

“See there,” said August, pointing to tracks in the sand. The imprints of little moccasins reassured Hare, for he had feared the possibility suggested by the upturned boat. “Perhaps it’ll be better if I never find her,” continued Naab. “If I bring her back Snap’s as likely to kill her as to marry her. But I must try to find her. Only what to do with her—”

“Give her to me,” interrupted Jack.

“Hare!”

“I love her!”

Naab’s stern face relaxed. “Well, I’m beat! Though I don’t see why you should be different from all the others. It was that time you spent with her on the plateau. I thought you too sick to think of a woman!”

“Mescal cares for me,” said Hare.

“Ah! That accounts. Hare, did you play me fair?”

“We tried to, though we couldn’t help loving.”

“She would have married Snap but for you.”

“Yes. But I couldn’t help that. You brought me out here, and saved my life. I know what I owe you. Mescal meant to marry your son when I left for the range last fall. But she’s a true woman and couldn’t. August Naab, if we ever find her will you marry her to him — now?”

“That depends. Did you know she intended to run?”

“I never dreamed of it. I learned it only at the last moment. I met her on the river trail.”

“You should have stopped her.”

Hare maintained silence.

“You should have told me,” went on Naab.

“I couldn’t. I’m only human.”

“Well, well, I’m not blaming you, Hare. I had hot blood once. But I’m afraid the desert will not be large enough for you and Snap. She’s pledged to him. You can’t change the Mormon Church. For the sake of peace I’d give you Mescal, if I could. Snap will either have her or kill her. I’m going to hunt this desert in advance of him, because he’ll trail her like a hound. It would be better to marry her to him than to see her dead.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“Hare, your nose is on a blood scent, like a wolf’s. I can see — I’ve always seen — well, remember, it’s man to man between you now.”

During this talk they were winding under Echo Cliffs, gradually climbing, and working up to a level with the desert, which they presently attained at a point near the head of the canyon. The trail swerved to the left following the base of the cliffs. The tracks of Noddle and Wolf were plainly visible in the dust. Hare felt that if they ever led out into the immense airy space of the desert all hope of finding Mescal must be abandoned.

They trailed the tracks of the dog and burro to Bitter Seeps, a shallow spring of alkali, and there lost all track of them. The path up the cliffs to the Navajo ranges was bare, time-worn in solid rock, and showed only the imprint of age. Desertward the ridges of shale, the washes of copper earth, baked in the sun, gave no sign of the fugitives’ course. August Naab shrugged his broad shoulders and pointed his horse to the cliff. It was dusk when they surmounted it.

They camped in the lee of an uplifting crag. When the wind died down the night was no longer unpleasantly cool; and Hare, finding August Naab uncommunicative and sleepy, strolled along the rim of the cliff, as he had been wont to do in the sheep-herding days. He could scarcely dissociate them from the present, for the bitter-sweet smell of tree and bush, the almost inaudible sigh of breeze, the opening and shutting of the great white stars in the blue dome, the silence, the sense of the invisible void beneath him — all were thought-provoking parts of that past of which nothing could ever be forgotten. And it was a silence which brought much to the ear that could hear. It was a silence penetrated by faint and distant sounds, by mourning wolf, or moan of wind in a splintered crag. Weird and low, an inarticulate voice, it wailed up from the desert, winding along the hollow trail, freeing itself in the wide air, and dying away. He had often heard the scream of lion and cry of wildcat, but this was the strange sound of which August Naab had told him, the mysterious call of canyon and desert night.

Daylight showed Echo Cliffs to be of vastly greater range than the sister plateau across the river. The roll of cedar level, the heave of craggy ridge, the dip of white-sage valley gave this side a diversity widely differing from the two steps of the Vermillion tableland. August Naab followed a trail leading back toward the river. For the most part thick cedars hid the surroundings from Hare’s view; occasionally, however, he had a backward glimpse from a high point, or a wide prospect below, where the trail overlooked an oval hemmed-in valley.

About midday August Naab brushed through a thicket, and came abruptly on a declivity. He turned to his companion with a wave of his hand.

“The Navajo camp,” he said. “Eschtah has lived there for many years. It’s the only permanent Navajo camp I know. These Indians are nomads. Most of them live wherever the sheep lead them. This plateau ranges for a hundred miles, farther than any white man knows, and everywhere, in the valleys and green nooks, will be found Navajo hogans. That’s why we may never find Mescal.”

Hare’s gaze travelled down over the tips of cedar and crag to a pleasant vale, dotted with round mound-like white-streaked hogans, from which lazy floating columns of blue smoke curled upward. Mustangs and burros and sheep browsed on the white patches of grass. Bright-red blankets blazed on the cedar branches. There was slow colorful movement of Indians, passing in and out of their homes. The scene brought irresistibly to Hare the thought of summer, of long warm afternoons, of leisure that took no stock of time.

On the way down the trail they encountered a flock of sheep driven by a little Navajo boy on a brown burro. It was difficult to tell which was the more surprised, the long-eared burro, which stood stock-still, or the boy, who first kicked and pounded his shaggy steed, and then jumped off and ran with black locks flying. Farther down Indian girls started up from their tasks, and darted silently into the shade of the cedars. August Naab whooped when he reached the valley, and Indian braves appeared, to cluster round him, shake his hand and Hare’s, and lead them toward the centre of the encampment.

The hogans where these desert savages dwelt were all alike; only the chief’s was larger. From without it resembled a mound of clay with a few white logs, half imbedded, shining against the brick red. August Naab drew aside a blanket hanging over a door, and entered, beckoning his companion to follow. Inured as Hare had become to the smell and smart of wood-smoke, for a moment he could not see, or scarcely breathe, so thick was the atmosphere. A fire, the size of which attested the desert Indian’s love of warmth, blazed in the middle of the hogan, and sent part of its smoke upward through a round hole in the roof. Eschtah, with blanket over his shoulders, his lean black head bent, sat near the fire. He noted the entrance of his visitors, but immediately resumed his meditative posture, and appeared to be unaware of their presence.

Hare followed August’s example, sitting down and speaking no word. His eyes, however, roved discreetly to and fro. Eschtah’s three wives presented great differences in age and appearance. The eldest was a wrinkled, parchment-skinned old hag who sat sightless before the fire; the next was a solid square squaw, employed in the task of combing a naked boy’s hair with a comb made of stiff thin roots tied tightly in a round bunch. Judging from the youngster’s actions and grimaces, this combing process was not a pleasant one. The third wife, much younger, had a comely face, and long braids of black hair, of which, evidently, she was proud. She leaned on her knees over a flat slab of rock, and holding in her hands a long oval stone, she rolled and mashed corn into meal. There were young braves, handsome in their bronze-skinned way, with bands binding their straight thick hair, silver rings in their ears, silver bracelets on their wrists, silver buttons on their moccasins. There were girls who looked up from their blanket-weaving with shy curiosity, and then turned to their frames strung with long threads. Under their nimble fingers the wool-carrying needles slipped in and out, and the colored stripes grew apace. Then there were younger boys and girls, all bright-eyed and curious; and babies sleeping on blankets. Where the walls and ceiling were not covered with buckskin garments, weapons and blankets, Hare saw the white wood-ribs of the hogan structure. It was a work of art, this circular house of forked logs and branches, interwoven into a dome, arched and strong, and all covered and cemented with clay.

At a touch of August’s hand Hare turned to the old chief; and awaited his speech. It came with the uplifting of Eschtah’s head, and the offering of his hand in the white man’s salute. August’s replies were slow and labored; he could not speak the Navajo language fluently, but he understood it.

“The White Prophet is welcome,” was the chief’s greeting. “Does he come for sheep or braves or to honor the Navajo in his home?”

“Eschtah, he seeks the Flower of the Desert,” replied August Naab. “Mescal has left him. Her trail leads to the bitter waters under the cliff, and then is as a bird’s.”

“Eschtah has waited, yet Mescal has not come to him.”

“She has not been here?”

“Mescal’s shadow has not gladdened the Navajo’s door.”

“She has climbed the crags or wandered into the canyons. The white father loves her; he must find her.”

“Eschtah’s braves and mustangs are for his friend’s use. The Navajo will find her if she is not as the grain of drifting sand. But is the White Prophet wise in his years? Let the Flower of the Desert take root in the soil of her forefathers.”

“Eschtah’s wisdom is great, but he thinks only of Indian blood. Mescal is half white, and her ways have been the ways of the white man. Nor does Eschtah think of the white man’s love.”

“The desert has called. Where is the White Prophet’s vision? White blood and red blood will not mix. The Indian’s blood pales in the white man’s stream; or it burns red for the sun and the waste and the wild. Eschtah’s forefathers, sleeping here in the silence, have called the Desert Flower.”

“It is true. But the white man is bound; he cannot be as the Indian; he does not content himself with life as it is; he hopes and prays for change; he believes in the progress of his race on earth. Therefore Eschtah’s white friend smelts Mescal; he has brought her up as his own; he wants to take her home, to love her better, to trust to the future.”

“The white man’s ways are white man’s ways. Eschtah understands. He remembers his daughter lying here. He closed her dead eyes and sent word to his white friend. He named this child for the flower that blows in the wind of silent places. Eschtah gave his granddaughter to his friend. She has been the bond between them. Now she is flown and the White Father seeks the Navajo. Let him command. Eschtah has spoken.”

Eschtah pressed into Naab’s service a band of young braves, under the guidance of several warriors who knew every trail of the range, every waterhole, every cranny where even a wolf might hide. They swept the river-end of the plateau, and working westward, scoured the levels, ridges, valleys, climbed to the peaks, and sent their Indian dogs into the thickets and caves. From Eschtah’s encampment westward the hogans diminished in number till only one here and there was discovered, hidden under a yellow wall, or amid a clump of cedars. All the Indians met with were sternly questioned by the chiefs, their dwellings were searched, and the ground about their waterholes was closely examined. Mile after mile the plateau was covered by these Indians, who beat the brush and penetrated the fastnesses with a hunting instinct that left scarcely a rabbit-burrow unrevealed. The days sped by; the circle of the sun arched higher; the patches of snow in high places disappeared; and the search proceeded westward. They camped where the night overtook them, sometimes near water and grass, sometimes in bare dry places. To the westward the plateau widened. Rugged ridges rose here and there, and seared crags split the sky like sharp sawteeth. And after many miles of wild up-ranging they reached a divide which marked the line of Eschtah’s domain.

Naab’s dogged persistence and the Navajos’ faithfulness carried them into the country of the Moki Indians, a tribe classed as slaves by the proud race of Eschtah. Here they searched the villages and ancient tombs and ruins, but of Mescal there was never a trace.

Hare rode as diligently and searched as indefatigably as August, but he never had any real hope of finding the girl. To hunt for her, however, despite its hopelessness, was a melancholy satisfaction, for never was she out of his mind.

Nor was the month’s hard riding with the Navajos without profit. He made friends with the Indians, and learned to speak many of their words. Then a whole host of desert tricks became part of his accumulating knowledge. In climbing the crags, in looking for water and grass, in loosing Silvermane at night and searching for him at dawn, in marking tracks on hard ground, in all the sight and feeling and smell of desert things he learned much from the Navajos. The whole outward life of the Indian was concerned with the material aspect of Nature — dust, rock, air, wind, smoke, the cedars, the beasts of the desert. These things made up the Indians’ day. The Navajos were worshippers of the physical; the sun was their supreme god. In the mornings when the gray of dawn flushed to rosy red they began their chant to the sun. At sunset the Navajos were watchful and silent with faces westward. The Moki Indians also, Hare observed, had their morning service to the great giver of light. In the gloom of early dawn, before the pink appeared in the east, and all was whitening gray, the Mokis emerged from their little mud and stone huts and sat upon the roofs with blanketed and drooping heads.

One day August Naab showed in few words how significant a factor the sun was in the lives of desert men.

“We’ve got to turn back,” he said to Hare. “The sun’s getting hot and the snow will melt in the mountains. If the Colorado rises too high we can’t cross.”

They were two days in riding back to the encampment. Eschtah received them in dignified silence, expressive of his regret. When their time of departure arrived he accompanied them to the head of the nearest trail, which started down from Saweep Peak, the highest point of Echo Cliffs. It was the Navajos’ outlook over the Painted Desert.

“Mescal is there,” said August Naab. “She’s there with the slave Eschtah gave her. He leads Mescal. Who can follow him there?”

The old chieftain reined in his horse, beside the time-hollowed trail, and the same hand that waved his white friend downward swept up in slow stately gesture toward the illimitable expanse. It was a warrior’s salute to an unconquered world. Hare saw in his falcon eyes the still gleam, the brooding fire, the mystical passion that haunted the eyes of Mescal.

“The slave without a tongue is a wolf. He scents the trails and the waters. Eschtah’s eyes have grown old watching here, but he has seen no Indian who could follow Mescal’s slave. Eschtah will lie there, but no Indian will know the path to the place of his sleep. Mescal’s trail is lost in the sand. No man may find it. Eschtah’s words are wisdom. Look!”

To search for any living creatures in that borderless domain of colored dune, of shifting cloud of sand, of purple curtain shrouding mesa and dome, appeared the vainest of all human endeavors. It seemed a veritable rainbow realm of the sun. At first only the beauty stirred Hare — he saw the copper belt close under the cliffs, the white beds of alkali and washes of silt farther out, the wind-ploughed canyons and dust-encumbered ridges ranging west and east, the scalloped slopes of the flat tableland rising low, the tips of volcanic peaks leading the eye beyond to veils and vapors hovering over blue clefts and dim line of level lanes, and so on, and on, out to the vast unknown. Then Hare grasped a little of its meaning. It was a sun-painted, sun-governed world. Here was deep and majestic Nature eternal and unchangeable. But it was only through Eschtah’s eyes that he saw its parched slopes, its terrifying desolateness, its sleeping death.

When the old chieftain’s lips opened Hare anticipated the austere speech, the import that meant only pain to him, and his whole inner being seemed to shrink.

“The White Prophet’s child of red blood is lost to him,” said Eschtah. “The Flower of the Desert is as a grain of drifting sand.”

XIII. THE SOMBRE LINE

AUGUST NAAB HOPED that Mescal might have returned in his absence; but to Hare such hope was vain. The women of the oasis met them with gloomy faces presaging bad news, and they were reluctant to tell it. Mescal’s flight had been forgotten in the sterner and sadder misfortune that had followed.

Snap Naab’s wife lay dangerously ill, the victim of his drunken frenzy. For days after the departure of August and Jack the man had kept himself in a stupor; then his store of drink failing, he had come out of his almost senseless state into an insane frenzy. He had tried to kill his wife and wreck his cottage, being prevented in the nick of time by Dave Naab, the only one of his brothers who dared approach him. Then he had ridden off on the White Sage trail and had not been heard from since.

The Mormon put forth all his skill in surgery and medicine to save the life of his son’s wife, but he admitted that he had grave misgivings as to her recovery. But these in no manner affected his patience, gentleness, and cheer. While there was life there was hope, said August Naab. He bade Hare, after he had rested awhile, to pack and ride out to the range, and tell his sons that he would come later.

It was a relief to leave the oasis, and Hare started the same day, and made Silver Cup that night. As he rode under the low-branching cedars toward the bright camp-fire he looked about him sharply. But not one of the four faces ruddy in the glow belonged to Snap Naab.

“Hello, Jack,” called Dave Naab, into the dark. “I knew that was you. Silvermane sure rings bells when he hoofs it down the stones. How’re you and dad? and did you find Mescal? I’ll bet that desert child led you clear to the Little Colorado.”

Hare told the story of the fruitless search.

“It’s no more than we expected,” said Dave. “The man doesn’t live who can trail the peon. Mescal’s like a captured wild mustang that’s slipped her halter and gone free. She’ll die out there on the desert or turn into a stalk of the Indian cactus for which she’s named. It’s a pity, for she’s a good girl, too good for Snap.”

“What’s your news?” inquired Hare.

“Oh, nothing much,” replied Dave, with a short laugh. “The cattle wintered well. We’ve had little to do but hang round and watch. Zeke and I chased old Whitefoot one day, and got pretty close to Seeping Springs. We met Joe Stube, a rider who was once a friend of Zeke’s. He’s with Holderness now, and he said that Holderness had rebuilt the corrals at the spring; also he has put up a big cabin, and he has a dozen riders there. Stube told us Snap had been shooting up White Sage. He finished up by killing Snood. They got into an argument about you.”

“About me!”

“Yes, it seems that Snood took your part, and Snap wouldn’t stand for it. Too bad! Snood was a good fellow. There’s no use talking, Snap’s going too far — he is—” Dave did not conclude his remark, and the silence was more significant than any utterance.

“What will the Mormons in White Sage say about Snap’s killing Snood?”

“They’ve said a lot. This even-break business goes all right among gun-fighters, but the Mormons call killing murder. They’ve outlawed Culver, and Snap will be outlawed next.”

“Your father hinted that Snap would find the desert too small for him and me?”

“Jack, you can’t be too careful. I’ve wanted to speak to you about it. Snap will ride in here some day and then—” Dave’s pause was not reassuring.

And it was only on the third day after Dave’s remark that Hare, riding down the mountain with a deer he had shot, looked out from the trail and saw Snap’s cream pinto trotting toward Silver Cup. Beside Snap rode a tall man on a big bay. When Hare reached camp he reported to George and Zeke what he had seen, and learned in reply that Dave had already caught sight of the horsemen, and had gone down to the edge of the cedars. While they were speaking Dave hurriedly ran up the trail.

“It’s Snap and Holderness,” he called out, sharply “What’s Snap doing with Holderness? What’s he bringing him here for?”

“I don’t like the looks of it,” replied Zeke, deliberately.

“Jack, what what’ll you do?” asked Dave, suddenly

“Do? What can I do? I’m not going to run out of camp because of a visit from men who don’t like me.”

“It might be wisest.”

“Do you ask me to run to avoid a meeting with your brother?”

“No.” The dull red came to Dave’s cheek. “But will you draw on him?”

“Certainly not. He’s August Naab’s son and your brother.”

“Yes, and you’re my friend, which Snap won’t think of. Will you draw on Holderness, then?”

“For the life of me, Dave, I can’t tell you,” replied Hare, pacing the trail. “Something must break loose in me before I can kill a man. I’d draw, I suppose, in self-defence. But what good would it do me to pull too late? Dave, this thing is what I’ve feared. I’m not afraid of Snap or Holderness, not that way. I mean I’m not ready. Look here, would either of them shoot an unarmed man?”

“Lord, I hope not; I don’t think so. But you’re packing your gun.”

Hare unbuckled his cartridge-belt, which held his Colt, and hung it over the pommel of his saddle; then he sat down on one of the stone seats near the camp-fire.

“There they come,” whispered Zeke, and he rose to his feet, followed by George.

“Steady, you fellows,” said Dave, with a warning glance. “I’ll do the talking.”

Holderness and Snap appeared among the cedars, and trotting out into the glade reined in their mounts a few paces from the fire. Dave Naab stood directly before Hare, and George and Zeke stepped aside.

“Howdy, boys?” called out Holderness, with a smile, which was like a gleam of light playing on a frozen lake. His amber eyes were steady, their gaze contracted into piercing yellow points. Dave studied the cattle-man with cool scorn, but refusing to speak to him, addressed his brother.

“Snap, what do you mean by riding in here with this fellow?”

“I’m Holderness’s new foreman. We’re just looking round,” replied Snap. The hard lines, the sullen shade the hawk-beak cruelty had returned tenfold to his face and his glance was like a living, leaping flame.

“New foreman!” exclaimed Dave. His jaw dropped and he stared in amazement. “No — you can’t mean that — you’re drunk!”

“That’s what I said,” growled Snap.

“You’re a liar!” shouted Dave, a crimson blot blurring with the brown on his cheeks. He jumped off the ground m his fury.

“It’s true, Naab; he’s my new foreman,” put in Holderness, suavely. “A hundred a month — in gold — and I’ve got as good a place for you.”

“Well, by G — d!” Dave’s arms came down and his face blanched to his lips. “Holderness!”

“I know what you’d say,” interrupted the ranchman.

“But stop it. I know you’re game. And what’s the use of fighting? I’m talking business. I’ll—”

“You can’t talk business or anything else to me,” said Dave Naab, and he veered sharply toward his brother. “Say it again, Snap Naab. You’ve hired out to ride for this man?”

“That’s it.”

“You’re going against your father, your brothers, your own flesh and blood?”

“I can’t see it that way.”

“Then you’re a drunken, easily-led fool. This man’s no rancher. He’s a rustler. He ruined Martin Cole, the father of your first wife. He’s stolen our cattle; he’s jumped our water-rights. He’s trying to break us. For God’s sake, ain’t you a man?”

“Things have gone bad for me,” replied Snap, sullenly, shifting in his saddle. “I reckon I’ll do better to cut out alone for myself.”

“You crooked cur! But you’re only my half-brother, after all. I always knew you’d come to something bad, but I never thought you’d disgrace the Naabs and break your father’s heart. Now then, what do you want here? Be quick. This’s our range and you and your boss can’t ride here. You can’t even water your horses. Out with it!”

At this, Hare, who had been so absorbed as to forget himself, suddenly felt a cold tightening of the skin of his face, and a hard swell of his breast. The dance of Snap’s eyes, the downward flit of his hand seemed instantaneous with a red flash and loud report. Instinctively Hare dodged, but the light impact of something like a puff of air gave place to a tearing hot agony. Then he slipped down, back to the stone, with a bloody hand fumbling at his breast.

Dave leaped with tigerish agility, and knocking up the levelled Colt, held Snap as in a vise. George Naab gave Holderness’s horse a sharp kick which made the mettlesome beast jump so suddenly that his rider was nearly unseated. Zeke ran to Hare and laid him back against the stone.

“Cool down, there!” ordered Zeke. “He’s done for.”

“My God — my God!” cried Dave, in a broken voice. “Not — not dead?”

“Shot through the heart!”

Dave Naab flung Snap backward, almost off his horse. “D — n you! run, or I’ll kill you. And you, Holderness! Remember! If we ever meet again — you draw!” He tore a branch from a cedar and slashed both horses. They plunged out of the glade, and clattering over the stones, brushing the cedars, disappeared. Dave groped blindly back toward his brothers.

“Zeke, this’s awful. Another murder by Snap! And my friend! . . . Who’s to tell father?”

Then Hare sat up, leaning against the stone, his shirt open and his bare shoulder bloody; his face was pale, but his eyes were smiling. “Cheer up, Dave. I’m not dead yet.”

“Sure he’s not,” said Zeke. “He ducked none too soon, or too late, and caught the bullet high up in the shoulder.”

Dave sat down very quietly without a word, and the hand he laid on Hare’s knee shook a little.

“When I saw George go for his gun,” went on Zeke, “I knew there’d be a lively time in a minute if it wasn’t stopped, so I just said Jack was dead.”

“Do you think they came over to get me?” asked Hare.

“No doubt,” replied Dave, lifting his face and wiping the sweat from his brow. “I knew that from the first, but I was so dazed by Snap’s going over to Holderness that I couldn’t keep my wits, and I didn’t mark Snap edging over till too late.”

“Listen, I hear horses,” said Zeke, looking up from his task over Hare’s wound.

“It’s Billy, up on the home trail,” added George “Yes, and there’s father with him. Good Lord, must we tell him about Snap?”

“Some one must tell him,” answered Dave.

“That’ll be you, then. You always do the talking.”

August Naab galloped into the glade, and swung himself out of the saddle. “I heard a shot. What’s this? Who’s hurt? — Hare! Why — lad — how is it with you?”

“Not bad,” rejoined Hare.

“Let me see,” August thrust Zeke aside. “A bullet-hole — just missed the bone — not serious. Tie it up tight. I’ll take him home to-morrow. . . . Hare, who’s been here?”

“Snap rode in and left his respects.”

“Snap! Already? Yet I knew it — I saw it. You had Providence with you, lad, for this wound is not bad. Snap surprised you, then?”

“No. I knew it was coming.”

“Jack hung his belt and gun on Silvermane’s saddle,” said Dave. “He didn’t feel as if he could draw on either Snap or Holderness—”

“Holderness!”

“Yes. Snap rode in with Holderness. Hare thought if he was unarmed they wouldn’t draw. But Snap did.”

“Was he drunk?”

“No. They came over to kill Hare.” Dave went on to recount the incident in full. “And — and see here, dad — that’s not all. Snap’s gone to the bad.”

Dave Naab hid his face while he told of his brother’s treachery; the others turned away, and Hare closes his eyes.

For long moments there was silence broken only by the tramp of the old man as he strode heavily to and fro. At last the footsteps ceased, and Hare opened his eyes to see Naab’s tall form erect, his arms uplifted, his shaggy head rigid.

“Hare,” began August, presently. “I’m responsible for this cowardly attack on you. I brought you out here. This is the second one. Beware of the third! I see — but tell me, do you remember that I said you must meet Snap as man to man?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you want to live?”

“Of course.”

“You hold to no Mormon creed?”

“Why, no,” Hare replied, wonderingly.

“What was the reason I taught you my trick with a gun?”

“I suppose it was to help me to defend myself.”

“Then why do you let yourself be shot down in cold blood? Why did you hang up your gun? Why didn’t you draw on Snap? Was it because of his father, his brothers, his family?”

“Partly, but not altogether,” replied Hare, slowly. “I didn’t know before what I know now. My flesh sickened at the thought of killing a man, even to save my own life; and to kill — your son—”

“No son of mine!” thundered Naab. “Remember that when next you meet. I don’t want your blood on my hands. Don’t stand to be killed like a sheep! If you have felt duty to me, I release you.”

Zeke finished bandaging the wound. Making a bed of blankets he lifted Hare into it, and covered him, cautioning him to lie still. Hare had a sensation of extreme lassitude, a deep drowsiness which permeated even to his bones. There were intervals of oblivion, then a time when the stars blinked in his eyes; he heard the wind, Silvermane’s bell, the murmur of voices, yet all seemed remote from him, intangible as things in a dream.

He rode home next day, drooping in the saddle and fainting at the end of the trail, with the strong arm of August Naab upholding him. His wound was dressed and he was put to bed, where he lay sleeping most of the time, brooding the rest.

In three weeks he was in the saddle again, riding out over the red strip of desert toward the range. During his convalescence he had learned that he had come to the sombre line of choice. Either he must deliberately back away, and show his unfitness to survive in the desert, or he must step across into its dark wilds. The stern question haunted him. Yet he knew a swift decision waited on the crucial moment.

He sought lonely rides more than ever, and, like Silvermane, he was always watching and listening. His duties carried him half way to Seeping Springs, across the valley to the red wall, up the slope of Coconina far into the forest of stately pines. What with Silvermane’s wonderful scent and sight, and his own constant watchfulness, there were never range-riders or wild horses nor even deer near him without his knowledge.

The days flew by; spring had long since given place to summer; the blaze of sun and blast of flying sand were succeeded by the cooling breezes from the mountain; October brought the flurries of snow and November the dark storm-clouds.

Hare was the last of the riders to be driven off the mountain. The brothers were waiting for him at Silver Cup, and they at once packed and started for home.

August Naab listened to the details of the range-riding since his absence, with silent surprise. Holderness and Snap had kept away from Silver Cup after the supposed killing of Hare. Occasionally a group of horsemen rode across the valley or up a trail within sight of Dave and his followers, but there was never a meeting. Not a steer had been driven off the range that summer and fall; and except for the menace always hanging in the blue smoke over Seeping Springs the range-riding had passed without unusual incident.

So for Hare the months had gone by swiftly; though when he looked back afterward they seemed years. The winter at the oasis he filled as best he could, with the children playing in the yard, with Silvermane under the sunny lee of the great red wall, with any work that offered itself. It was during the long evenings, when he could not be active, that time oppressed him, and the memories of the past hurt him. A glimpse of the red sunset through the cliff-gate toward the west would start the train of thought; he both loved and hated the Painted Desert. Mescal was there in the purple shadows. He dreamed of her in the glowing embers of the log-fire. He saw her on Black Bolly with hair flying free to the wind. And he could not shut out the picture of her sitting in the corner of the room, silent, with bowed head, while the man to whom she was pledged hung close over her. That memory had a sting. It was like a spark of fire dropped on the wound in his breast where the desert-hawk had struck him. It was like a light gleaming on the sombre line he was waiting to cross.

XIV. WOLF

ON THE ANNIVERSARY of the night Mescal disappeared the mysterious voice which had called to Hare so often and so strangely again pierced his slumber, and brought him bolt upright in his bed shuddering and listening. The dark room was as quiet as a tomb. He fell back into his blankets trembling with emotion. Sleep did not close his eyes again that night; he lay in a fever waiting for the dawn, and when the gray gloom lightened he knew what he must do.

After breakfast he sought August Naab. “May I go across the river?” he asked.

The old man looked up from his carpenter’s task and fastened his glance on Hare. “Mescal?”

“Yes.”

“I saw it long ago.” He shook his head and spread his great hands. “There’s no use for me to say what the desert is. If you ever come back you’ll bring her. Yes, you may go. It’s a man’s deed. God keep you!”

Hare spoke to no other person; he filled one saddle-bag with grain, another with meat, bread, and dried fruits, strapped a five-gallon leather water-sack back of Silvermane’s saddle, and set out toward the river. At the crossing-bar he removed Silvermane’s equipments and placed them in the boat. At that moment a long howl, as of a dog baying the moon, startled him from his musings, and his eyes sought the river-bank, up and down, and then the opposite side. An animal, which at first he took to be a gray timber-wolf, was running along the sand-bar of the landing.

“Pretty white for a wolf,” he muttered. “Might be a Navajo dog.”

The beast sat down on his haunches and, lifting a lean head, sent up a doleful howl. Then he began trotting along the bar, every few paces stepping to the edge of the water. Presently he spied Hare, and he began to bark furiously.

“It’s a dog all right; wants to get across,” said Hare. “Where have I seen him?”

Suddenly he sprang to his feet, almost upsetting the boat. “He’s like Mescal’s Wolf!” He looked closer, his heart beginning to thump, and then he yelled: “Ki-yi! Wolf! Hyer! Hyer!”

The dog leaped straight up in the air, and coming down, began to dash back and forth along the sand with piercing yelps.

“It’s Wolf! Mescal must be near,” cried Hare. A veil obscured his sight, and every vein was like a hot cord. “Wolf! Wolf! I’m coming!”

With trembling hands he tied Silvermane’s bridle to the stern seat of the boat and pushed off. In his eagerness he rowed too hard, dragging Silvermane’s nose under water, and he had to check himself. Time and again he turned to call to the dog. At length the bow grated on the sand, and Silvermane emerged with a splash and a snort.

“Wolf, old fellow!” cried Hare. “Where’s Mescal? Wolf, where is she?” He threw his arms around the dog. Wolf whined, licked Hare’s face, and breaking away, ran up the sandy trail, and back again. But he barked no more; he waited to see if Hare was following.

“All right, Wolf — coming.” Never had Hare saddled so speedily, nor mounted so quickly. He sent Silvermane into the willow-skirted trail close behind the dog, up on the rocky bench, and then under the bulging wall. Wolf reached the level between the canyon and Echo Cliffs, and then started straight west toward the Painted Desert. He trotted a few rods and turned to see if the man was coming.

Doubt, fear, uncertainty ceased for Hare. With the first blast of dust-scented air in his face he knew Wolf was leading him to Mescal. He knew that the cry he had heard in his dream was hers, that the old mysterious promise of the desert had at last begun its fulfilment. He gave one sharp exultant answer to that call. The horizon, ever-widening, lay before him, and the treeless plains, the sun-scorched slopes, the sandy stretches, the massed blocks of black mesas, all seemed to welcome him; his soul sang within him.

For Mescal was there. Far away she must be, a mere grain of sand in all that world of drifting sands, perhaps ill, perhaps hurt, but alive, waiting for him, calling for him, crying out with a voice that no distance could silence. He did not see the sharp peaks as pitiless barriers, nor the mesas and domes as black-faced death, nor the moisture-drinking sands as life-sucking foes to plant and beast and man. That painted wonderland had sheltered Mescal for a year. He had loved it for its color, its change, its secrecy; he loved it now because it had not been a grave for Mescal, but a home. Therefore he laughed at the deceiving yellow distances in the foreground of glistening mesas, at the deceiving purple distances of the far-off horizon. The wind blew a song in his ears; the dry desert odors were fragrance in his nostrils; the sand tasted sweet between his teeth, and the quivering heat-waves, veiling the desert in transparent haze, framed beautiful pictures for his eyes.

Wolf kept to the fore for some thirty paces, and though he had ceased to stop, he still looked back to see if the horse and man were following. Hare had noted the dog occasionally in the first hours of travel, but he had given his eyes mostly to the broken line of sky and desert in the west, to the receding contour of Echo Cliffs, to the spread and break of the desert near at hand. Here and there life showed itself in a gaunt coyote sneaking into the cactus, or a horned toad huddling down in the dust, or a jewel-eyed lizard sunning himself upon a stone. It was only when his excited fancy had cooled that Hare came to look closely at Wolf. But for the dog’s color he could not have been distinguished from a real wolf. His head and ears and tail drooped, and he was lame in his right front paw.

Hare halted in the shade of a stone, dismounted and called the dog to him. Wolf returned without quickness, without eagerness, without any of the old-time friendliness of shepherding days. His eyes were sad and strange. Hare felt a sudden foreboding, but rejected it with passionate force. Yet a chill remained. Lifting Wolf’s paw he discovered that the ball of the foot was worn through; whereupon he called into service a piece of buckskin, and fashioning a rude moccasin he tied it round the foot. Wolf licked his hand, but there was no change in the sad light of his eyes. He turned toward the west as if anxious to be off.

“All right, old fellow,” said Hare, “only go slow. From the look of that foot I think you’ve turned back on a long trail.”

Again they faced the west, dog leading, man following, and addressed themselves to a gradual ascent. When it had been surmounted Hare realized that his ride so far had brought him only through an anteroom; the real portal now stood open to the Painted Desert. The immensity of the thing seemed to reach up to him with a thousand lines, ridges, canyons, all ascending out of a purple gulf. The arms of the desert enveloped him, a chill beneath their warmth.

As he descended into the valley, keeping close to Wolf, he marked a straight course in line with a volcanic spur. He was surprised when the dog, though continually threading jumbles of rock, heading canyons, crossing deep washes, and going round obstructions, always veered back to this bearing as true as a compass-needle to its magnet.

Hare felt the air growing warmer and closer as he continued the descent. By mid-afternoon, when he had travelled perhaps thirty miles, he was moist from head to foot, and Silvermane’s coat was wet. Looking backward Hare had a blank feeling of loss; the sweeping line of Echo Cliffs had retreated behind the horizon. There was no familiar landmark left.

Sunset brought him to a standstill, as much from its sudden glorious gathering of brilliant crimsons splashed with gold, as from its warning that the day was done. Hare made his camp beside a stone which would serve as a wind-break. He laid his saddle for a pillow and his blanket for a bed. He gave Silvermane a nose-bag full of water and then one of grain; he fed the dog, and afterward attended to his own needs. When his task was done the desert brightness had faded to gray; the warm air had blown away on a cool breeze, and night approached. He scooped out a little hollow in the sand for his hips, took a last look at Silvermane haltered to the rock, and calling Wolf to his side stretched himself to rest. He was used to lying on the ground, under the open sky, out where the wind blew and the sand seeped in, yet all these were different on this night. He was in the Painted Desert; Wolf crept close to him; Mescal lay somewhere under the blue-white stars.

He awakened and arose before any color of dawn hinted of the day. While he fed his four-footed companions the sky warmed and lightened. A tinge of rose gathered in the east. The air was cool and transparent. He tried to cheer Wolf out of his sad-eyed forlornness, and failed.

Hare vaulted into the saddle. The day had its possibilities, and while he had sobered down from his first unthinking exuberance, there was still a ring in his voice as he called to the dog:

“On, Wolf, on, old boy!”

Out of the east burst the sun, and the gray curtain was lifted by shafts of pink and white and gold, flashing westward long trails of color.

When they started the actions of the dog showed Hare that Wolf was not tracking a back-trail, but travelling by instinct. There were draws which necessitated a search for a crossing, and areas of broken rock which had to be rounded, and steep flat mesas rising in the path, and strips of deep sand and canyons impassable for long distances. But the dog always found a way and always came back to a line with the black spur that Hare had marked. It still stood in sharp relief, no nearer than before, receding with every step, an illusive landmark, which Hare began to distrust.

Then quite suddenly it vanished in the ragged blue mass of the Ghost Mountains. Hare had seen them several times, though never so distinctly. The purple tips, the bold rock-ribs, the shadowed canyons, so sharp and clear in the morning light — how impossible to believe that these were only the deceit of the desert mirage! Yet so they were; even for the Navajos they were spirit-mountains.

The splintered desert-floor merged into an area of sand. Wolf slowed his trot, and Silvermane’s hoofs sunk deep. Dismounting Hare labored beside him, and felt the heat steal through his boots and burn the soles of his feet. Hare plodded onward, stopping once to tie another moccasin on Wolf’s worn paw, this time the left one; and often he pulled the stopper from the water-bag and cooled his parching lips and throat. The waves of the sand-dunes were as the waves of the ocean. He did not look backward, dreading to see what little progress he had made. Ahead were miles on miles of graceful heaps, swelling mounds, crested ridges, all different, yet regular and rhythmical, drift on drift, dune on dune, in endless waves. Wisps of sand were whipped from their summits in white ribbons and wreaths, and pale clouds of sand shrouded little hollows. The morning breeze, rising out of the west, approached in a rippling lines like the crest of an inflowing tide.

Silvermane snorted, lifted his ears and looked westward toward a yellow pall which swooped up from the desert.

“Sand-storm,” said Hare, and calling Wolf he made for the nearest rock that was large enough to shelter them. The whirling sand-cloud mushroomed into an enormous desert covering, engulfing the dunes, obscuring the light. The sunlight failed; the day turned to gloom. Then an eddying fog of sand and dust enveloped Hare. His last glimpse be- fore he covered his face with a silk handkerchief was of sheets of sand streaming past his shelter. The storm came with a low, soft, hissing roar, like the sound in a sea-shell magnified. Breathing through the handkerchief Hare avoided inhaling the sand which beat against his face, but the finer dust particles filtered through and stifled him. At first he felt that he would suffocate, and he coughed and gasped; but presently, when the thicker sand-clouds had passed, he managed to get air enough to breathe. Then he waited patiently while the steady seeping rustle swept by, and the band of his hat sagged heavier, and the load on his shoulders had to be continually shaken off, and the weighty trap round his feet crept upward. When the light, fine touch ceased he removed the covering from his face to see himself standing nearly to his knees in sand, and Silvermane’s back and the saddle burdened with it. The storm was moving eastward, a dull red now with the sun faintly showing through it like a ball of fire.

“Well, Wolf, old boy, how many storms like that will we have to weather?” asked Hare, in a cheery tone which he had to force. He knew these sand-storms were but vagaries of the desert-wind. Before the hour closed he had to seek the cover of a stone and wait for another to pass. Then he was caught in the open, with not a shelter in sight. He was compelled to turn his back to a third storm, the worst of all, and to bear as best he could the heavy impact of the first blow, and the succeeding rush and flow of sand. After that his head drooped and he wearily trudged beside Silvermane, dreading the interminable distance he must cover before once more gaining hard ground. But he discovered that it was useless to try to judge distance on the desert. What had appeared miles at his last look turned out to be only rods.

It was good to get into the saddle again and face clear air. Far away the black spur again loomed up, now surrounded by groups of mesas with sage-slopes tinged with green. That surely meant the end of this long trail; the faint spots of green lent suggestion of a desert waterhole; there Mescal must be, hidden in some shady canyon. Hare built his hopes anew.

So he pressed on down a plain of bare rock dotted by huge bowlders; and out upon a level floor of scant sage and greasewood where a few living creatures, a desert-hawk sailing low, lizards darting into holes, and a swiftly running ground-bird, emphasized the lack of life in the waste. He entered a zone of clay-dunes of violet and heliotrope hues; and then a belt of lava and cactus. Reddish points studded the desert, and here and there were meagre patches of white grass. Far away myriads of cactus plants showed like a troop of distorted horsemen. As he went on the grass failed, and streams of jagged lava flowed downward. Beds of cinders told of the fury of a volcanic fire. Soon Hare had to dismount to make moccasins for Wolf’s hind feet; and to lead Silvermane carefully over the cracked lava. For a while there were strips of ground bare of lava and harboring only an occasional bunch of cactus, but soon every foot free of the reddish iron bore a projecting mass of fierce spikes and thorns. The huge barrel-shaped cacti, and thickets of slender dark-green rods with bayonet points, and broad leaves with yellow spines, drove Hare and his sore-footed fellow-travellers to the lava.

Hare thought there must be an end to it some time, yet it seemed as though he were never to cross that black forbidding inferno. Blistered by the heat, pierced by the thorns, lame from long toil on the lava, he was sorely spent when once more he stepped out upon the bare desert. On pitching camp he made the grievous discovery that the water-bag had leaked or the water had evaporated, for there was only enough left for one more day. He ministered to thirsty dog and horse in silence, his mind revolving the grim fact of his situation.

His little fire of greasewood threw a wan circle into the surrounding blackness. Not a sound hinted of life. He longed for even the bark of a coyote. Silvermane stooped motionless with tired head. Wolf stretched limply on the sand. Hare rolled into his blanket and stretched out with slow aching relief.

He dreamed he was a boy roaming over the green hills of the old farm, wading through dewy clover-fields, and fishing in the Connecticut River. It was the long vacationtime, an endless freedom. Then he was at the swimming-hole, and playmates tied his clothes in knots, and with shouts of glee ran up the bank leaving him there to shiver.

When he awakened the blazing globe of the sun had arisen over the eastern horizon, and the red of the desert swathed all the reach of valley.

Hare pondered whether he should use his water at once or dole it out. That ball of fire in the sky, a glazed circle, like iron at white heat, decided for him. The sun would be hot and would evaporate such water as leakage did not claim, and so he shared alike with Wolf, and gave the rest to Silvermane.

For an hour the mocking lilac mountains hung in the air and then paled in the intense light. The day was soundless and windless, and the heat-waves rose from the desert like smoke. For Hare the realities were the baked clay flats, where Silvermane broke through at every step; the beds of alkali, which sent aloft clouds of powdered dust; the deep gullies full of round bowlders; thickets of mesquite and prickly thorn which tore at his legs; the weary detour to head the canyons; the climb to get between two bridging mesas; and always the haunting presence of the sad-eyed dog. His unrealities were the shimmering sheets of water in every low place; the baseless mountains floating in the air; the green slopes rising close at hand; beautiful buttes of dark blue riding the open sand, like monstrous barks at sea; the changing outlines of desert shapes in pink haze and veils of purple and white lustre — all illusions, all mysterious tricks of the mirage.

In the heat of midday Hare yielded to its influence and reined in his horse under a slate-bank where there was shade. His face was swollen and peeling, and his lips had begun to dry and crack and taste of alkali. Then Wolf pattered on; Silvermane kept at his heels; Hare dozed in the saddle. His eyes burned in their sockets from the glare, and it was a relief to shut out the barren reaches. So the afternoon waned.

Silvermane stumbled, jolting Hare out of his stupid lethargy. Before him spread a great field of bowlders with not a slope or a ridge or a mesa or an escarpment. Not even a tip of a spur rose in the background. He rubbed his sore eyes. Was this another illusion?

When Silvermane started onward Hare thought of the Navajos’ custom to trust horse and dog in such an emergency. They were desert-bred; beyond human understanding were their sight and scent. He was at the mercy now of Wolf’s instinct and Silvermane’s endurance. Resignation brought him a certain calmness of soul, cold as the touch of an icy hand on fevered cheek. He remembered the desert secret in Mescal’s eyes; he was about to solve it. He remembered August Naab’s words: “It’s a man’s deed!” If so, he had achieved the spirit of it, if not the letter. He remembered Eschtah’s tribute to the wilderness of painted wastes: “There is the grave of the Navajo, and no one knows the trail to the place of his sleep!” He remembered the something evermore about to be, the unknown always subtly calling; now it was revealed in the stone-fettering grip of the desert. It had opened wide to him, bright with its face of danger, beautiful with its painted windows, inscrutable with its alluring call. Bidding him enter, it had closed behind him; now he looked upon it in its iron order, its strange ruins racked by fire, its inevitable remorselessness.

XV. DESERT NIGHT

THE GRAY STALLION, finding the rein loose on his neck, trotted forward and overtook the dog, and thereafter followed at his heels. With the setting of the sun a slight breeze stirred, and freshened as twilight fell, rolling away the sultry atmosphere. Then the black desert night mantled the plain.

For a while this blackness soothed the pain of Hare’s sun-blinded eyes. It was a relief to have the unattainable horizon line blotted out. But by-and-by the opaque gloom brought home to him, as the day had never done, the reality of his solitude. He was alone in this immense place of barrenness, and his dumb companions were the world to him. Wolf pattered onward, a silent guide; and Silvermane followed, never lagging, sure-footed in the dark, faithful to his master. All the love Hare had borne the horse was as nothing to that which came to him on this desert night. In and out, round and round, ever winding, ever zigzagging, Silvermane hung close to Wolf, and the sandy lanes between the bowlders gave forth no sound. Dog and horse, free to choose their trail, trotted onward miles and miles into the night.

A pale light in the east turned to a glow, then to gold, and the round disc of the moon silhouetted the black bowlders on the horizon. It cleared the dotted line and rose, an oval orange-hued strange moon, not mellow nor silvery nor gloriously brilliant as Hare had known it in the past, but a vast dead-gold melancholy orb, rising sadly over the desert. To Hare it was the crowning reminder of lifelessness; it fitted this world of dull gleaming stones.

Silvermane went lame and slackened his trot, causing Hare to rein in and dismount. He lifted the right forefoot, the one the horse had favored, and found a stone imbedded tightly in the cloven hoof. He pried it out with his knife and mounted again. Wolf shone faintly far ahead, and presently he uttered a mournful cry which sent a chill to the rider’s heart. The silence had been oppressive before; now it was terrible. It was not a silence of life. It had been broken suddenly by Wolf’s howl, and had closed sharply after it, without echo; it was a silence of death.

Hare took care not to fall behind Wolf again, he had no wish to hear that cry repeated. The dog moved onward with silent feet; the horse wound after him with hoofs padded in the sand; the moon lifted and the desert gleamed; the bowlders grew larger and the lanes wider. So the night wore on, and Hare’s eyelids grew heavy, and his whole weary body cried out for rest and forgetfulness. He nodded until he swayed in the saddle; then righted himself, only to doze again. The east gave birth to the morning star. The whitening sky was the harbinger of day. Hare could not bring himself to face the light and heat, and he stopped at a wind-worn cave under a shelving rock. He was asleep when he rolled out on the sand-strewn floor. Once he awoke and it was still day, for his eyes quickly shut upon the glare. He lay sweltering till once more slumber claimed him. The dog awakened him, with cold nose and low whine. Another twilight had fallen. Hare crawled out, stiff and sore, hungry and parching with thirst. He made an attempt to eat, but it was a failure. There was a dry burning in his throat, a dizzy feeling in his brain, and there were red flashes before his eyes. Wolf refused meat, and Silvermane turned from the grain, and lowered his head to munch a few blades of desert grass.

Then the journey began, and the night fell black. A cool wind blew from the west, the white stars blinked, the weird moon rose with its ghastly glow. Huge bowlders rose before him in grotesque shapes, tombs and pillars and statues of Nature’s dead, carved by wind and sand. But some had life in Hare’s disordered fancy. They loomed and towered over him, and stalked abroad and peered at him with deep-set eyes.

Hare fought with all his force against this mood of gloom. Wolf was not a phantom; he trotted forward with unerring instinct; and he would find water, and that meant life. Silvermane, desert-steeled, would travel to the furthermost corner of this hell of sand-swept stone. Hare tried to collect all his spirit, all his energies, but the battle seemed to be going against him. All about him was silence, breathless silence, insupportable silence of ages. Desert spectres danced in the darkness. The worn-out moon gleamed golden over the worn-out waste. Desolation lurked under the sable shadows.

Hare rode on into the night, tumbled from his saddle in the gray of dawn to sleep, and stumbled in the twilight to his drooping horse. His eyes were blind now to the desert shapes, his brain burned and his tongue filled his mouth. Silvermane trod ever upon Wolf’s heels; he had come into the kingdom of his desert-strength; he lifted his drooping head and lengthened his stride; weariness had gone and he snorted his welcome to something on the wind. Then he passed the limping dog and led the way.

Hare held to the pommel and bent dizzily forward in the saddle. Silvermane was going down, step by step, with metallic clicks upon flinty rock. Whether he went down or up was all the same to Hare; he held on with closed eyes and whispered to himself. Down and down, step by step, cracking the stones with iron-shod hoofs, the gray stallion worked his perilous way, sure-footed as a mountain-sheep. Then he stopped with a great slow heave and bent his head.

The black bulge of a canyon rim blurred in Hare’s hot eyes. A trickling sound penetrated his tired brain. His ears had grown like his eyes — false. Only another delusion! As he had been tortured with the sight of lake and stream now he was to be tortured with the sound of running water. Yet he listened, for it was sweet even in its mockery. What a clear musical tinkle, like silver bells tossing on the wind! He listened. Soft murmuring flow, babble and gurgle, little hollow fall and splash!

Suddenly Silvermane, lifting his head, broke the silence of the canyon with a great sigh of content. It pierced the dull fantasy of Hare’s mind; it burst the gloomy spell. The sigh and the snort which followed were Silvermane’s triumphant signals when he had drunk his fill.

Hare fell from the saddle. The gray dog lay stretched low in the darkness. Hare crawled beside him and reached out with his hot hands. Smooth cool marble rock, growing slippery, then wet, led into running water. He slid forward on his face and wonderful cold thrills quivered over his burning skin. He drank and drank until he could drink no more. Then he lay back upon the rock; the madness of his brain went out with the light of the stars, and he slept.

When he awoke red canyon walls leaned far above him to a gap spanned by blue sky. A song of rushing water murmured near his ears. He looked down; a spring gushed from a crack in the wall; Silvermane cropped green bushes, and Wolf sat on his haunches waiting, but no longer with sad eyes and strange mien. Hare raised himself, looking again and again, and slowly gathered his wits. The crimson blur had gone from his eyes and the burning from his skin, and the painful swelling from his tongue.

He drank long and deeply, and rising with clearing thoughts and thankful heart, he kissed Wolf’s white head, and laid his arms round Silvermane’s neck. He fed them, and ate himself, not without difficulty, for his lips were puffed and his tongue felt like a piece of rope. When he had eaten, his strength came back.

At a word Wolf, with a wag of his tail, splashed into the gravelly stream bed. Hare followed on foot, leading Silvermane. There were little beds of pebbles and beaches of sand and short steps down which the water babbled. The canyon was narrow and tortuous; Hare could not see ahead or below, for the projecting red cliffs, growing higher as he descended, walled out the view. The blue stream of sky above grew bluer and the light and shade less bright. For an hour he went down steadily without a check, and the farther down the rougher grew the way. Bowlders wedged in narrow places made foaming waterfalls. Silvermane clicked down confidently.

The slender stream of water, swelled by seeping springs and little rills, gained the dignity of a brook; it began to dash merrily and hurriedly downward. The depth of the falls, the height of cliffs, and the size of the bowlders increased in the descent. Wolf splashed on unmindful; there was a new spirit in his movements; and when he looked back for his laboring companions there was friendly protest in his eyes. Silvermane’s mien plainly showed that where a dog could go he could follow. Silvermane’s blood was heated; the desert was an old story to him; it had only tired him and parched his throat; this canyon of downward steps and falls, with ever-deepening drops, was new to him, and roused his mettle; and from his long training in the wilds he had gained a marvellous sure-footedness.

The canyon narrowed as it deepened; the jutting walls leaned together, shutting out the light; the sky above was now a ribbon of blue, only to be seen when Hare threw back his head and stared straight up.

“It’ll be easier climbing up, Silvermane,” he panted— “if we ever get the chance.”

The sand and gravel and shale had disappeared; all was bare clean-washed rock. In many places the brook failed as a trail, for it leaped down in white sheets over mossy cliffs. Hare faced these walls in despair. But Wolf led on over the ledges and Silvermane followed, nothing daunted. At last Hare shrank back from a hole which defied him utterly. Even Wolf hesitated. The canyon was barely twenty feet wide; the floor ended in a precipice; the stream leaped out and fell into a dark cleft from which no sound arose. On the right there was a shelf of rock; it was scarce half a foot broad at the narrowest and then apparently vanished altogether. Hare stared helplessly up at the slanting shut-in walls.

While he hesitated Wolf pattered out upon the ledge and Silvermane stamped restlessly. With a desperate fear of losing his beloved horse Hare let go the bridle and stepped upon the ledge. He walked rapidly, for a slow step meant uncertainty and a false one meant death. He heard the sharp ring of Silvermane’s shoes, and he listened in agonized suspense for the slip, the snort, the crash that he feared must come. But it did not come. Seeing nothing except the narrow ledge, yet feeling the blue abyss beneath him, he bent all his mind to his task, and finally walked out into lighter space upon level rock. To his infinite relief Silvermane appeared rounding a corner out of the dark passage, and was soon beside him.

Hare cried aloud in welcome.

The canyon widened; there was a clear demarcation where the red walls gave place to yellow; the brook showed no outlet from its subterranean channel. Sheer exhaustion made Hare almost forget his mission; the strength of his resolve had gone into mechanical toil; he kept on, conscious only of the smart of bruised hands and feet and the ache of laboring lungs.

Time went on and the sun hung in the midst of the broadening belt of blue sky. A long slant of yellow slope led down to a sage-covered level, which Hare crossed, pleased to see blooming cacti and wondering at their slender lofty green stems shining with gold flowers. He descended into a ravine which became precipitous. Here he made only slow advance. At the bottom he found himself in a wonderful lane with an almost level floor; here flowed a shallow stream bordered by green willows. Wolf took the direction of the flowing water. Hare’s thoughts were all of Mescal, and his hopes began to mount, his heart to beat high.

He gazed ahead with straining eyes. Presently there was not a break in the walls. A drowsy hum of falling water came to Hare, strange reminder of the oasis, the dull roar of the Colorado, and of Mescal.

His flagging energies leaped into life with the canyon suddenly opening to bright light and blue sky and beautiful valley, white and gold in blossom, green with grass and cottonwood. On a flower-scented wind rushed that muffled roar again, like distant thunder.

Wolf dashed into the cottonwoods. Silvermane whistled with satisfaction and reached for the long grass.

For Hare the light held something more than beauty, the breeze something more than sweet scent of water and blossom. Both were charged with meaning — with suspense.

Wolf appeared in the open leaping upon a slender brown-garbed form.

“Mescal!” cried Hare.

With a cry she ran to him, her arms outstretched, her hair flying in the wind, her dark eyes wild with joy.

XVI. THUNDER RIVER

FOR AN INSTANT Hare’s brain reeled, and Mescal’s broken murmurings were meaningless Then his faculties grew steady and acute; he held the girl as if he intended never to let her go. Mescal clung to him with a wildness that gave him anxiety for her reason; there was something almost fierce in the tension of her arms, in the blind groping for his face.

“Mescal! It’s Jack, safe and well,” he said. “Let me look at you.”

At the sound of his voice all her rigid strength changed to a yielding weakness; she leaned back supported by his arms and looked at him. Hare trembled before the dusky level glance he remembered so well, and as tears began to flow he drew her head to his shoulder. He had forgotten to prepare himself for a different Mescal. Despite the quivering smile of happiness, her eyes were strained with pain. The oval contour, the rich bloom of her face had gone; beauty was there still, but it was the ghost of the old beauty.

“Jack — is it — really you?” she asked.

He answered with a kiss.

She slipped out of his arms breathless and scarlet. “Tell me all—”

“There’s much to tell, but not before you kiss me. It has been more than a year.”

“Only a year! Have I been gone only a year?”

“Yes, a year. But it’s past now. Kiss me, Mescal. One kiss will pay for that long year, though it broke my heart.”

Shyly she raised her hands to his shoulders and put her lips to his. “Yes, you’ve found me, Jack, thank God! just in time!”

“Mescal! What’s wrong? Aren’t you well?”

“Pretty well. But if you had not come soon I should have starved.”

“Starved? Let me get my saddle-bags — I have bread and meat.”

“Wait. I’m not so hungry now. I mean very soon I should not have had any food at all.”

“But your peon — the dumb Indian? Surely he could find something to eat. What of him? Where is he?”

“My peon is dead. He has been dead for months, I don’t know how many.”

“Dead! What was the matter with him?”

“I never knew. I found him dead one morning and I buried him in the sand.”

Mescal led Hare under the cottonwoods and pointed to the Indian’s grave, now green with grass. Farther on in a circle of trees stood a little hogan skilfully constructed out of brush; the edge of a red blanket peeped from the door; a burnt-out fire smoked on a stone fireplace, and blackened earthen vessels lay near. The white seeds of the cottonwoods were flying light as feathers; plum-trees were pink in blossom; there were vines twining all about; through the openings in the foliage shone the blue of sky and red of cliff. Patches of blossoming Bowers were here and there lit to brilliance by golden shafts of sunlight. The twitter of birds and hum of bees were almost drowned in the soft roar of water.

“Is that the Colorado I hear?” asked Hare.

“No, that’s Thunder River. The Colorado is farther down in the Grand Canyon.”

“Farther down! Mescal, I must have come a mile from the rim. Where are we?”

“We are almost at the Colorado, and directly under the head of Coconina. We can see the mountain from the break in the valley below.”

“Come sit by me here under this tree. Tell me — how did you ever get here?”

Then Mescal told him how the peon had led her on a long trail from Bitter Seeps, how they had camped at desert waterholes, and on the fourth day descended to Thunder River.

“I was quite happy at first. It’s always summer down here. There were rabbits, birds, beaver, and fruit — we had enough to eat I explored the valley with Wolf or rode Noddle up and down the canyon. Then my peon died, and I had to shift for myself. There came a time when the beaver left the valley, and Wolf and I had to make a rabbit serve for days. I knew then I’d have to get across the desert to the Navajos or starve in the canyon. I hesitated about climbing out into the desert, for I wasn’t sure of the trail to the waterholes. Noddle wandered off up the canyon and never came back. After he was gone and I knew I couldn’t get out I grew homesick. The days weren’t so bad because I was always hunting for something to eat, but the nights were lonely. I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake listening to the river, and at last I could hear whispering and singing and music, and strange sounds, and low thunder, always low thunder. I wasn’t really frightened, only lonely, and the canyon was so black and full of mutterings. Sometimes I’d dream I was back on the plateau with you, Jack, and Bolly and the sheep, and when I’d awake in the loneliness I’d cry right out—”

“Mescal, I heard those cries,” said Hare.

“It was strange — the way I felt. I believe if I’d never known and — and loved you, Jack, I’d have forgotten home. After I’d been here a while, I seemed to be drifting, drifting. It was as if I had lived in the canyon long before, and was remembering. The feeling was strong, but always thoughts of you, and of the big world, brought me back to the present with its loneliness and fear of starvation. Then I wanted you, and I’d cry out. I knew I must send Wolf home. How hard it was to make him go! But at last he trotted off, looking backward, and I — waited and waited.”

She leaned against him. The hand which had plucked at his sleeve dropped to his fingers and clung there. Hare knew how her story had slighted the perils and privations of that long year. She had grown lonely in the canyon darkness; she had sent Wolf away and had waited — all was said in that. But more than any speech, the look of her, and the story told in the thin brown hands touched his heart. Not for an instant since his arrival had she altogether let loose of his fingers, or coat, or arm. She had lived so long alone in this weird world of silence and moving shadows and murmuring water, that she needed to feel the substance of her hopes, to assure herself of the reality of the man she loved.

“My mustang — Bolly — tell me of her,” said Mescal.

“Bolly’s fine. Sleek and fat and lazy! She’s been in the fields ever since you left. Not a bridle on her. Many times have I seen her poke her black muzzle over the fence and look down the lane. She’d never forget you, Mescal.”

“Oh! how I want to see her! Tell me — everything.”

“Wait a little. Let me fetch Silvermane and we’ll make a fire and eat. Then—”

“Tell me now.”

“Well, Mescal, it’s soon told.” Then came the story of events growing out of her flight. When he told of the shooting at Silver Cup, Mescal rose with heaving bosom and blazing eyes.

“It was nothing — I wasn’t hurt much. Only the intention was bad. We saw no more of Snap or Holderness. The worst of it all was that Snap’s wife died.”

“Oh, I am sorry — sorry. Poor Father Naab! How he must hate me, the cause of it all! But I couldn’t stay — I couldn’t marry Snap.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Mescal. What Snap might have done if you had married him is guesswork. He might have left drink alone a while longer. But he was bad clean through. I heard Dave Naab tell him that. Snap would have gone over to Holderness sooner or later. And now he’s a rustler, if not worse.”

“Then those men think Snap killed you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going to happen when you meet Snap, or any of them?”

“Somebody will be surprised,” replied Hare, with a laugh.

“Jack, it’s no laughing matter.” She fastened her hands in the lapels of his coat and her eyes grew sad. “You can never hang up your gun again.”

“No. But perhaps I can keep out of their way, especially Snap’s. Mescal, you’ve forgotten Silvermane, and how he can run.”

“I haven’t forgotten. He can run, but he can’t beat Bolly.” She said this with a hint of her old spirit. “Jack — you want to take me back home?”

“Of course. What did you expect when you sent Wolf?”

“I didn’t expect. I just wanted to see you, or somebody, and I thought of the Navajos. Couldn’t I live with them? Why can’t we stay here or in a canyon across the Colorado where there’s plenty of game?”

“I’m going to take you home and Father Naab shall marry you — to — to me.”

Startled, Mescal fell back upon his shoulder and did not stir nor speak for a long time. “Did — did you tell him?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say? Was he angry? Tell me.”

“He was kind and good as he always is. He said if I found you, then the issue would be between Snap and me, as man to man. You are still pledged to Snap in the Mormon Church and that can’t be changed. I don’t suppose even if he’s outlawed that it could be changed.”

“Snap will not let any grass grow in the trails to the oasis,” said Mescal. “Once he finds I’ve come back to life he’ll have me. You don’t know him, Jack. I’m afraid to go home.”

“My dear, there’s no other place for us to go. We can’t live the life of Indians.”

“But Jack, think of me watching you ride out from home! Think of me always looking for Snap! I couldn’t endure it. I’ve grown weak in this year of absence.”

“Mescal, look at me.” His voice rang as he held her face to face. “We must decide everything. Now — say you love me!”

“Yes — yes.”

“Say it.”

“I — love you — Jack.”

“Say you’ll marry me!”

“I will marry you.”

“Then listen. I’ll get you out of this canyon and take you home. You are mine and I’ll keep you.” He held her tightly with strong arms; his face paled, his eyes darkened. “I don’t want to meet Snap Naab. I shall try to keep out of his way. I hope I can. But Mescal, I’m yours now. Your happiness — perhaps your life — depends on me. That makes a difference. Understand!”

Silvermane walked into the glade with a saddle-girth so tight that his master unbuckled it only by dint of repeated effort. Evidently the rich grass of Thunder River Canyon appealed strongly to the desert stallion.

“Here, Silver, how do you expect to carry us out if you eat and drink like that?” Hare removed the saddle and tethered the gray to one of the cottonwoods. Wolf came trotting into camp proudly carrying a rabbit.

“Mescal, can we get across the Colorado and find a way up over Coconina?” asked Hare.

“Yes, I’m sure we can. My peon never made a mistake about directions. There’s no trail, but Navajos have crossed the river at this season, and worked up a canyon.”

The shadows had gathered under the cliffs, and the rosy light high up on the ramparts had chilled and waned when Hare and Mescal sat down to their meal. Wolf lay close to the girl and begged for morsels. Then in the twilight they sat together content to be silent, listening to the low thunder of the river. Long after Mescal had retired into her hogan Hare lay awake before her door with his head in his saddle and listened to the low roll, the dull burr, the dreamy hum of the tumbling waters. The place was like the oasis, only infinitely more hidden under the cliffs. A few stars twinkled out of the dark blue, and one hung, beaconlike, on the crest of a noble crag. There were times when he imagined the valley was as silent as the desert night, and other times when he imagined he heard the thundering roll of avalanches and the tramp of armies. Then the voices of Mescal’s solitude spoke to him — glorious laughter and low sad wails of woe, sweet songs and whispers and murmurs. His last waking thoughts were of the haunting sound of Thunder River, and that he had come to bear Mescal away from its loneliness.

He bestirred himself at the first glimpse of day, and when the gray mists had lifted to wreathe the crags it was light enough to begin the journey. Mescal shed tears at the grave of the faithful peon. “He loved this canyon,” she said, softly. Hare lifted her upon Silvermane. He walked beside the horse and Wolf trotted on before. They travelled awhile under the flowering cottonwoods on a trail bordered with green tufts of grass and great star-shaped lilies. The river was still hidden, but it filled the grove with its soft thunder. Gradually the trees thinned out, hard stony ground encroached upon the sand, bowlders appeared in the way; and presently, when Silvermane stepped out of the shade of the cottonwoods, Hare saw the lower end of the valley with its ragged vent.

“Look back!” said Mescal.

Hare saw the river bursting from the base of the wall in two white streams which soon united below, and leaped down in a continuous cascade. Step by step the stream plunged through the deep gorge, a broken, foaming raceway, and at the lower end of the valley it took its final leap into a blue abyss, and then found its way to the Colorado, hidden underground.

The flower-scented breeze and the rumbling of the river persisted long after the valley lay behind and above, but these failed at length in the close air of the huge abutting walls. The light grew thick, the stones cracked like deep bell-strokes; the voices of man and girl had a hollow sound and echo. Silvermane clattered down the easy trail at a gait which urged Hare now and then from walk to run. Soon the gully opened out upon a plateau through the centre of which, in a black gulf, wound the red Colorado, sullen-voiced, booming, never silent nor restful. Here were distances by which Hare could begin to comprehend the immensity of the canyon, and he felt lost among the great terraces leading up to mesas that dwarfed the Echo Cliffs. All was bare rock of many hues burning under the sun.

“Jack, this is mescal,” said the girl, pointing to some towering plants.

All over the sunny slopes cacti lifted slender shafts, unfolding in spiral leaves as they shot upward and bursting at the top into plumes of yellow flowers. The blossoming stalks waved in the wind, and black bees circled round them.

“Mescal, I’ve always wanted to see the Flower of the Desert from which you’re named. It’s beautiful.”

Hare broke a dead stalk of the cactus and was put to instant flight by a stream of bees pouring with angry buzz from the hollow centre. Two big fellows were so persistent that he had to beat them off with his hat.

“You shouldn’t despoil their homes,” said Mescal, with a peal of laughter.

“I’ll break another stalk and get stung, if you’ll laugh again,” replied Hare.

They traversed the remaining slope of the plateau, and entering the head of a ravine, descended a steep cleft of flinty rock, rock so hard that Silvermane’s iron hoofs not so much as scratched it. Then reaching a level, they passed out to rounded sand and the river.

“It’s a little high,” said Hare dubiously. “Mescal, I don’t like the looks of those rapids.”

Only a few hundred rods of the river could be seen. In front of Hare the current was swift but not broken. Above, where the canyon turned, the river sheered out with a majestic roll and falling in a wide smooth curve suddenly narrowed into a leaping crest of reddish waves. Below Hare was a smaller rapid where the broken water turned toward the nearer side of the river, but with an accompaniment of twisting swirls and vicious waves.

“I guess we’d better risk it,” said Hare, grimly recalling the hot rock, the sand, and lava of the desert.

“It’s safe, if Silvermane is a good swimmer,” replied Mescal. “We can take the river above and cut across so the current will help.”

“Silvermane loves the water. He’ll make this crossing easily. But he can’t carry us both, and it’s impossible to make two trips. I’ll have to swim.”

Without wasting more words and time over a task which would only grow more formidable with every look and thought, Hare led Silvermane up the sand-bar to its limit. He removed his coat and strapped it behind the saddle; his belt and revolver and boots he hung over the pommel.

“How about Wolf? I’d forgotten him.”

“Never fear for him! He’ll stick close to me.”

“Now, Mescal, there’s the point we want to make, that bar; see it?”

“Surely we can land above that.”

“I’ll be satisfied if we get even there. You guide him for it. And, Mescal, here’s my gun. Try to keep it from getting wet. Balance it on the pommel — so. Come, Silver; come, Wolf.”

“Keep up-stream,” called Mescal as Hare plunged in. “Don’t drift below us.”

In two steps Silvermane went in to his saddle, and he rolled with a splash and a snort, sinking Mescal to her hips. His nose level with the water, mane and tail floating, he swam powerfully with the current.

For Hare the water was just cold enough to be delightful after the long hot descent, but its quality was strange. Keeping up-stream of the horse and even with Mescal, he swam with long regular strokes for perhaps one-quarter of the distance. But when they reached the swirling eddies he found that he was tiring. The water was thick and heavy; it compressed his lungs and dragged at his feet. He whirled round and round in the eddies and saw Silvermane doing the same. Only by main force could he breast his way out of these whirlpools. When a wave slapped his face he tasted sand, and then he knew what the strange feeling meant. There was sand here as on the desert. Even in the depths of the canyon he could not escape it. As the current grew rougher he began to feel that he could scarcely spread his arms in the wide stroke. Changing the stroke he discovered that he could not keep up with Silvermane, and he changed back again. Gradually his feet sank lower and lower, the water pressed tighter round him, his arms seemed to grow useless. Then he remembered a saying of August Naab that the Navajos did not attempt to swim the river when it was in flood and full of sand. He ceased to struggle, and drifting with the current, soon was close to Silvermane, and grasped a saddle strap.

“Not there!” called Mescal. “He might strike you. Hang to his tail!”

Hare dropped behind, and catching Silvermane’s tail held on firmly. The stallion towed him easily. The waves dashed over him and lapped at Mescal’s waist. The current grew stronger, sweeping Silvermane down out of line with the black wall which had frowned closer and closer. Mescal lifted the rifle, and resting the stock on the saddle, held it upright. The roar of the rapids seemed to lose its volume, and presently it died in the splashing and slapping of broken water closer at hand. Mescal turned to him with bright eyes; curving her hand about her lips she shouted:

“Can’t make the bar! We’ve got to go through this side of the rapids. Hang on!”

In the swelling did Hare felt the resistless pull of the current. As he held on with both hands, hard pressed to keep his grasp, Silvermane dipped over a low fall in the river. Then Hare was riding the rushing water of an incline. It ended below in a red-crested wave, and beyond was a chaos of curling breakers. Hare had one glimpse of Mescal crouching low, shoulders narrowed and head bent; then, with one white flash of the stallion’s mane against her flying black hair, she went out of sight in leaping waves and spray. Hare was thrown forward into the backlash of the wave. The shock blinded him, stunned him, almost tore his arms from his body, but his hands were so twisted in Silvermane’s tail that even this could not loosen them. The current threw him from wave to wave. He was dragged through a caldron, blind from stinging blows, deaf from the tremendous roar. Then the fierce contention of waves lessened, the threshing of crosscurrents straightened, and he could breathe once more. Silvermane dragged him steadily; and, finally, his feet touched the ground. He could scarcely see, so full were his eyes of the sandy water, but he made out Mescal rising from the river on Silvermane, as with loud snorts he climbed to a bar. Hare staggered up and fell on the sand.

“Jack, are you all right?” inquired Mescal.

“All right, only pounded out of breath, and my eyes are full of sand. How about you?”

“I don’t think I ever was any wetter,” replied Mescal, laughing. “It was hard to stick on holding the rifle. That first wave almost unseated me. I was afraid we might strike the rocks, but the water was deep. Silvermane is grand, Jack. Wolf swam out above the rapids and was waiting for us when we landed.”

Hare wiped the sand out of his eyes and rose to his feet, finding himself little the worse for the adventure. Mescal was wringing the water from the long straight braids of her hair. She was smiling, and a tint of color showed in her cheeks. The wet buckskin blouse and short skirt clung tightly to her slender form. She made so pretty a picture and appeared so little affected by the peril they had just passed through that Hare, yielding to a tender rush of pride and possession, kissed the pink cheeks till they flamed.

“All wet,” said he, “you and I, clothes, food, guns — everything.”

“It’s hot and we’ll soon dry,” returned Mescal. “Here’s the canyon and creek we must follow up to Coconina. My peon mapped them in the sand for me one day. It’ll probably be a long climb.”

Hare poured the water out of his boots, pulled them on, and helping Mescal to mount Silvermane, he took the bridle over his arm and led the way into a black-mouthed canyon, through which flowed a stream of clear water. Wolf splashed and pattered along beside him. Beyond the marble rock this canyon opened out to great breadth and wonderful walls. Hare had eyes only for the gravelly bars and shallow levels of the creek; intent on finding the easy going for his horse he strode on and on thoughtless of time. Nor did he talk to Mescal, for the work was hard, and he needed his breath. Splashing the water, hammering the stones, Silvermane ever kept his nose at Hare’s elbow. They climbed little ridges, making short cuts from point to point, they threaded miles of narrow winding creek floor, and passed under ferny cliffs and over grassy banks and through thickets of yellow willow. As they wound along the course of the creek, always up and up, the great walls imperceptibly lowered their rims. The warm sun soared to the zenith. Jumble of bowlders, stretches of white gravel ridges of sage, blocks of granite, thickets of manzanita long yellow slopes, crumbling crags, clumps of cedar and lines of pinon — all were passed in the persistent plodding climb. The canon grew narrower toward its source; the creek lost its volume; patches of snow gleamed in sheltered places. At last the yellow-streaked walls edged out upon a grassy hollow and the great dark pines of Coconina shadowed the snow.

“We’re up,” panted Hare. “What a climb! Five hours! One more day — then home!”

Silvermane’s ears shot up and Wolf barked. Two gray deer loped out of a thicket and turned inquisitively. Reaching for his rifle Hare threw back the lever, but the action clogged, it rasped with the sound of crunching sand, and the cartridge could not be pressed into the chamber or ejected. He fumbled about the breach of the gun and his brow clouded.

“Sand! Out of commission!” he exclaimed. “Mescal, I don’t like that.”

“Use your Colt,” suggested Mescal.

The distance was too great. Hare missed, and the deer bounded away into the forest.

Hare built a fire under a sheltering pine where no snow covered the soft mat of needles, and while Mescal dried the blankets and roasted the last portion of meat he made a wind-break of spruce boughs. When they had eaten, not forgetting to give Wolf a portion, Hare fed Silvermane the last few handfuls of grain, and tied him with a long halter on the grassy bank. The daylight failed and darkness came on apace. The old familiar roar of the wind in the pines was disturbing; it might mean only the lull and crash of the breaking night-gusts, and it might mean the north wind, storm, and snow. It whooped down the hollow, scattering the few scrub-oak leaves; it whirled the red embers of the fire away into the dark to sputter in the snow, and blew the burning logs into a white glow. Mescal slept in the shelter of the spruce boughs with Wolf snug and warm beside her. Hare stretched his tired limbs in the heat of the blaze.

When he awakened the fire was low and he was numb with cold. He took care to put on logs enough to last until morning; then he lay down once more, but did not sleep. The dawn came with a gray shade in the forest; it was a cloud, and it rolled over him soft, tangible, moist, and cool, and passed away under the pines. With its vanishing the dawn lightened. “Mescal, if we’re on the spur of Coconina, it’s only ten miles or so to Silver Cup,” said Hare, as he saddled Silvermane. “Mount now and we’ll go up out of the hollow and get our bearings.”

While ascending the last step to the rim Hare revolved in his mind the probabilities of marking a straight course to Silver Cup.

“Oh! Jack!” exclaimed Mescal, suddenly. “Vermillion Cliffs and home!”

“I’ve travelled in a circle!” replied Hare.

Mescal was enraptured at the scene. Vermillion Cliffs shone red as a rose. The split in the wall marking the oasis defined its outlines sharply against the sky. Miles of the Colorado River lay in sight. Hare knew he stood on the highest point of Coconina overhanging the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert, thousands of feet below. He noted the wondrous abyss sleeping in blue mist at his feet, while he gazed across to the desert awakening in the first red rays of the rising sun.

“Mescal, your Thunder River Canyon is only one little crack in the rocks. It is lost in this chasm,” said Hare.

“It’s lost, surely. I can t even see the tip of the peak that stood so high over the valley.”

Once more turning to the left Hare ran his eye over the Vermillion Cliffs, and the strip of red sand shining under them, and so calculating his bearings he headed due north for Silver Cup. What with the snow and the soggy ground the first mile was hard going for Hare, and Silvermane often sank deep. Once off the level spur of the mountain they made better time, for the snow thinned out on the slope and gradually gave way to the brown dry aisles of the forest. Hare mounted in front of Mescal, and put the stallion to an easy trot; after two hours of riding they struck a bridle-trail which Hare recognized as one leading down to the spring. In another hour they reached the steep slope of Coconina, and saw the familiar red wall across the valley, and caught glimpses of gray sage patches down through the pines.

“I smell smoke,” said Hare.

“The boys must be at the spring,” rejoined Mescal.

“Maybe. I want to be sure who’s there. We’ll leave the trail and slip down through the woods to the left. I wish we could get down on the home side of the spring. But we can’t; we’ve got to pass it.”

With many a pause to peer through openings in the pines Hare traversed a diagonal course down the slope, crossed the line of cedars, and reached the edge of the valley a mile or more above Silver Cup. Then he turned toward it, still cautiously leading Silvermane under cover of the fringe of cedars.

“Mescal, there are too many cattle in the valley,” he said, looking at her significantly.

“They can’t all be ours, that’s sure,” she replied. “What do you think?”

“Holderness!” With the word Hare’s face grew set and stern. He kept on, cautiously leading the horse under the cedars, careful to avoid breaking brush or rattling stones, occasionally whispering to Wolf; and so worked his way along the curve of the woody slope till further progress was checked by the bulging wall of rock.

“Only cattle in the valley, no horses,” he said. “I’ve a good chance to cut across this cube and reach the trail. If I take time to climb up and see who’s at the spring maybe the chance will be gone. I don’t believe Dave and the boys are there.”

He pondered a moment, then climbed up in front of Mescal, and directed the gray out upon the valley. Soon he was among the grazing cattle. He felt no surprise to see the H brand on their flanks.

“Jack, look at that brand,” said Mescal, pointing to a white-flanked steer. “There’s an old brand like a cross, Father Naab’s cross, and a new brand, a single bar. Together they make an H!”

“Mescal! You’ve hit it. I remember that steer. He was a very devil to brand. He’s the property of August Naab, and Holderness has added the bar, making a clumsy H. What a rustler’s trick! It wouldn’t deceive a child.”

They had reached the cedars and the trail when Wolf began to sniff suspiciously at the wind.

“Look!” whispered Mescal, calling Hare’s attention from the dog. “Look! A new corral!”

Bending back to get in line with her pointing finger Hare looked through a network of cedar boughs to see a fence of stripped pines. Farther up were piles of unstripped logs, and close by the spring there was a new cabin with smoke curling from a stone chimney. Hare guided Silvermane off the trail to softer ground and went on. He climbed the slope, passed the old pool, now a mud-puddle, and crossed the dry wash to be brought suddenly to a halt. Wolf had made an uneasy stand with his nose pointing to the left, and Silvermane pricked up his ears. Presently Hare heard the stamping of hoofs off in the cedars, and before he had fully determined the direction from which the sound came three horses and a man stepped from the shade into a sunlit space.

As luck would have it Hare happened to be well screened by a thick cedar; and since there was a possibility that he might remain unseen he chose to take it. Silvermane and Wolf stood still in their tracks. Hare felt Mescal’s hands tighten on his coat and he pressed them to reassure her. Peeping out from his covert he saw a man in his shirt-sleeves leading the horses — a slender, clean-faced, dark-haired man — Dene! The blood beat hotly in Hare’s temples and he gripped the handle of his Colt. It seemed a fatal chance that sent the outlaw to that trail. He was whistling; he had two halters in one hand and with the other he led his bay horse by the mane. Then Hare saw that he wore no belt; he was unarmed; on the horses were only the halters and clinking hobbles. Hare dropped his Colt back into its holster.

Dene sauntered on, whistling “Dixie.” When he reached the trail, instead of crossing it, as Hare had hoped, he turned into it and came down.

Hare swung the switch he had broken from an aspen and struck Silvermane a stinging blow on the flanks. The gray leaped forward. The crash of brush and rattle of hoofs stampeded Dene’s horses in a twinkling. But the outlaw paled to a ghastly white and seemed rooted to the trail. It was not fear of a man or a horse that held Dene fixed; in his starting eyes was the terror of the supernatural.

The shoulder of the charging stallion struck Dene and sent him spinning out of the trail. In a backward glance Hare saw the outlaw fall, then rise unhurt to shake his fists wildly and to run yelling toward the cabin.

XVII. THE SWOOP OF THE HAWK

“JACK! THE SADDLE’S slipping!” cried Mescal, clinging closer to him. “What luck!” Hare muttered through clinched teeth, and pulled hard on the bridle. But the mouth of the stallion was iron; regardless of the sawing bit, he galloped on. Hare called steadily: “Whoa there, Silver! Whoa — slow now — whoa — easy!” and finally halted him. Hare swung down, and as he lifted Mescal off, the saddle slipped to the ground.

“Lucky not to get a spill! The girth snapped. It was wet, and dried out.” Hare hurriedly began to repair the break with buckskin thongs that he found in a saddle-bag.

“Listen! Hear the yells!” Oh! hurry!” cried Mescal.

“I’ve never ridden bareback. Suppose you go ahead with Silver, and I’ll hide in the cedars till dark, then walk home!”

“No — No. There’s time, but hurry.”

“It’s got to be strong,” muttered Hare, holding the strap over his knee and pulling the laced knot with all his strength, “for we’ll have to ride some. If it comes loose — Good-bye!”

Silvermane’s broad chest muscles rippled and he stamped restlessly. The dog whined and looked back. Mescal had the blanket smooth on the gray when Hare threw the saddle over him. The yells had ceased, but clattering hoofs on the stony trail were a greater menace. While Hare’s brown hands worked swiftly over buckle and strap Mescal climbed to a seat behind the saddle.

“Get into the saddle,” said Hare, leaping astride and pressing forward over the pommel. “Slip down — there! and hold to me. Go! Silver!”

The rapid pounding of the stallion’s hoofs drowned the clatter coming up the trail. A backward glance relieved Hare, for dust-clouds some few hundred yards in the rear showed the position of the pursuing horsemen. He held in Silvermane to a steady gallop. The trail was up-hill, and steep enough to wind even a desert racer, if put to his limit.

“Look back!” cried Mescal. “Can you see them? Is Snap with them?”

“I can’t see for trees,” replied Hare, over his shoulder. “There’s dust- -we’re far in the lead — never fear, Mescal. The lead’s all we want.”

Cedars grew thickly all the way up the steeper part of the divide, and ended abruptly at a pathway of stone, where the ascent became gradual. When Silvermane struck out of the grove upon this slope Hare kept turning keen glances rearward. The dust cloud rolled to the edge of the cedars, and out of it trooped half-a-dozen horsemen who began to shoot as soon as they had reached the open. Bullets zipped along the red stone, cutting little puffs of red dust, and sung through the air.

“Good God!” cried Hare. “They’re firing on us! They’d shoot a woman!”

“Has it taken you so long to learn that?”

Hare slashed his steed with the switch. But Silvermane needed no goad or spur; he had been shot at before, and the whistle of one bullet was sufficient to stretch his gallop into a run. Then distance between him and his pursuers grew wider and wider and soon he was out of range. The yells of the rustlers seemed at first to come from baffled rage, but Mescal’s startled cry shoveled their meaning. Other horsemen appeared ahead and to the right of him, tearing down the ridge to the divide. Evidently they had been returning from the western curve of Coconina.

The direction in which Silvermane was stretching was the only possible one for Hare. If he swerved off the trail to the left it would be upon rough rising ground. Not only must he outride this second band to the point where the trail went down on the other side of the divide, but also he must get beyond it before they came within rifle range.

“Now! Silver! Go! Go!” Fast as the noble stallion was speeding he answered to the call. He was in the open now, free of stones and brush, with the spang of rifles in the air. The wind rushed into Hare’s ears, filling them with a hollow roar; the ground blurred by in reddish sheets. The horsemen cut down the half mile to a quarter, lessened that, swept closer and closer, till Hare recognized Chance and Culver, and Snap Naab on his cream-colored pinto. Seeing that they could not head the invincible stallion they sheered more to the right. But Silvermane thundered on, crossing the line ahead of them at full three hundred yards, and went over the divide, drawing them in behind dime

Then, at the sharp crack of the rifles, leaden messengers whizzed high in the air over horse and riders, and skipped along the red shale in front of the running dog.

“Oh — Silvermane!” cried Hare. It was just a call, as if the horse were human, and knew what that pace meant to his master. The stern business of the race had ceased to rest on Hare. Silvermane was out to the front! He was like a level-rushing thunderbolt. Hare felt the instantaneous pause between his long low leaps, the gather of mighty muscles, the strain, the tension, then the quivering expulsion of force. It was a perilous ride down that red slope, not so much from the hissing bullets as from the washes and gullies which Silvermane sailed over in magnificent leaps. Hare thrilled with savage delight in the wonderful prowess of his desert king, in the primal instinct of joy at escaping with the woman he loved.

“Outrun!” he cried, with blazing eyes. Mescal’s white face was pressed close to his shoulder. “Silver has beaten them. They’ll hang on till we reach the sand-strip, hoping the slow-down will let them come up in time. But they’ll be far too late.”

The rustlers continued on the trail, firing desultorily, till Silvermane so far distanced them that even the necessary lapse into a walk in the red sand placed him beyond range when they arrived at the strip.

“They’ve turned back, Mescal. We’re safe. Why, you look as you did the day the bear ran for you.”

“I’d rather a bear got me than Snap. Jack, did you see him?”

“See him? Rather! I’ll bet he nearly killed his pinto. Mescal, what do you think of Silvermane now? Can he run? Can he outrun Bolly?”

“Yes — yes. Oh! Jack! how I’ll love him! Look back again. Are we safe? Will we ever be safe?”

It was still daylight when they rounded the portal of the oasis and entered the lane with the familiar wall on one side, the peeled fence-pickets on the other. Wolf dashed on ahead, and presently a chorus of barks announced that he had been met by the other dogs. Silvermane neighed shrilly, and the horses and mustangs in the corrals trooped noisily to the lower sides and hung inquisitive heads over the top bars.

A Navajo whom Hare remembered stared with axe idle by the woodpile, then Judith Naab dropped a bundle of sticks and with a cry of gladness ran from the house. Before Silvermane had come to a full stop Mescal was off. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him, then she left Judith to dart to the corral where a little black mustang had begun to whistle and stamp and try to climb over the bars.

August Naab, bareheaded, with shaggy locks shaking at every step, strode off the porch and his great hands lifted Hare from the saddle.

“Every day I’ve watched the river for you,” he said. His eyes were warm and his grasp like a vise.

“Mescal — child!” he continued, as she came running to him. “Safe and well. He’s brought you back. Thank the Lord!” He took her to his breast and bent his gray head over her.

Then the crowd of big and little Naabs burst from the house and came under the cottonwoods to offer noisy welcome to Mescal and Hare.

“Jack, you look done up,” said Dave Naab solicitously, when the first greetings had been spoken, and Mother Ruth had led Mescal indoors. “Silvermane, too — he’s wet and winded. He’s been running?”

“Yes, a little,” replied Hare, as he removed the saddle from the weary horse.

“Ah! What’s this?” questioned August Naab, with his hand on Silvermane’s flank. He touched a raw groove, and the stallion flinched. “Hare, a bullet made that!”

“Yes.”

“Then you didn’t ride in by the Navajo crossing?”

“No. I came by Silver Cup.”

“Silver Cup? How on earth did you get down there?”

“We climbed out of the canyon up over Coconina, and so made the spring.”

Naab whistled in surprise and he flashed another keen glance over Hare and his horse. “Your story can wait. I know about what it is — after you reached Silver Cup. Come in, come in, Dave will look out for the stallion.”

But Hare would allow no one else to attend to Silvermane. He rubbed the tired gray, gave him a drink at the trough, led him to the corral, and took leave of him with a caress like Mescal’s. Then he went to his room and bathed himself and changed his clothes, afterward presenting himself at the supper-table to eat like one famished. Mescal and he ate alone, as they had been too late for the regular hour. The women-folk waited upon them as if they could not do enough. There were pleasant words and smiles; but in spite of them something sombre attended the meal. There was a shadow in each face, each step was slow, each voice subdued. Naab and his sons were waiting for Hare when he entered the sitting room, and after his entrance the door was closed. They were all quiet and stern, especially the father. “Tell us all,” said Naab, simply.

While Hare was telling his adventures not a word or a move interrupted him till he spoke of Silvermane’s running Dene down.

“That’s the second time!” rolled out Naab. “The stallion will kill him yet!”

Hare finished his story.

“What don’t you owe to that whirlwind of a horse!” exclaimed Dave Naab. No other comment on Hare or Silvermane was offered by the Naabs.

“You knew Holderness had taken in Silver Cup?” inquired Hare.

August Naab nodded gloomily.

“I guess we knew it,” replied Dave for him. “While I was in White Sage and the boys were here at home, Holderness rode to the spring and took possession. I called to see him on my way back, but he wasn’t around. Snap was there, the boss of a bunch of riders. Dene, too, was there.”

“Did you go right into camp?” asked Hare.

“Sure. I was looking for Holderness. There were eighteen or twenty riders in the bunch. I talked to several of them, Mormons, good fellows, they used to be. Also I had some words with Dene. He said: ‘I shore was sorry Snap got to my spy first. I wanted him bad, an’ I’m shore goin’ to have his white horse.’ Snap and Dene, all of them, thought you were number thirty-one in dad’s cemetery.”

“Not yet,” said Hare. “Dene certainly looked as if he saw a ghost when Silvermane jumped for him. Well, he’s at Silver Cup now. They’re all there. What’s to be done about it? They’re openly thieves. The new brand on all your stock proves that.”

“Such a trick we never heard of,” replied August Naab. “If we had we might have spared ourselves the labor of branding the stock.”

“But that new brand of Holderness’s upon yours proves his guilt.”

“It’s not now a question of proof. It’s one of possession. Holderness has stolen my water and my stock.”

“They are worse than rustlers; firing on Mescal and me proves that.”

“Why didn’t you unlimber the long rifle?” interposed Dave, curiously.

“I got it full of water and sand. That reminds me I must see about cleaning it. I never thought of shooting back. Silvermane was running too fast.”

“Jack, you can see I am in the worst fix of my life,” said August Naab. “My sons have persuaded me that I was pushed off my ranges too easily. I’ve come to believe Martin Cole; certainly his prophecy has come true. Dave brought news from White Sage, and it’s almost unbelievable. Holderness has proclaimed himself or has actually got himself elected sheriff. He holds office over the Mormons from whom he steals. Scarcely a day goes by in the village without a killing. The Mormons north of Lund finally banded together, hanged some rustlers, and drove the others out. Many of them have come down into our country, and Holderness now has a strong force. But the Mormons will rise against him. I know it; I see it. I am waiting for it. We are God-fearing, life-loving men, slow to wrath. But—”

The deep rolling burr in his voice showed emotion too deep for words.

“They need a leader,” replied Hare, sharply.

August Naab rose with haggard face and his eyes had the look of a man accused.

“Dad figures this way,” put in Dave. “On the one hand we lose our water and stock without bloodshed. We have a living in the oasis. There’s little here to attract rustlers, so we may live in peace if we give up our rights. On the other hand, suppose Dad gets the Navajos down here and we join them and go after Holderness and his gang. There’s going to be an all-fired bloody fight. Of course we’d wipe out the rustlers, but some of us would get killed — and there are the wives and kids. See!”

The force of August Naab’s argument for peace, entirely aside from his Christian repugnance to the shedding of blood, was plainly unassailable.

“Remember what Snap said?” asked Hare, suddenly. “One man to kill Dene! Therefore one man to kill Holderness! That would break the power of this band.”

“Ah! you’ve said it,” replied Dave, raising a tense arm. “It’s a one-man job. D — n Snap! He could have done it, if he hadn’t gone to the bad. But it won’t be easy. I tried to get Holderness. He was wise, and his men politely said they had enjoyed my call, but I wasn’t to come again.”

“One man to kill Holderness!” repeated Hare.

August Naab cast at the speaker one of his far-seeing glances; then he shook himself, as if to throw off the grip of something hard and inevitable. “I’m still master here,” he said, and his voice showed the conquest of his passions.

“I give up Silver Cup and my stock. Maybe that will content Holderness.”

Some days went by pleasantly for Hare, as he rested from his long exertions. Naab’s former cheer and that of his family reasserted itself once the decision was made, and the daily life went on as usual. The sons worked in the fields by day, and in the evening played at pitching horseshoes on the bare circle where the children romped. The women went on baking, sewing, and singing. August Naab’s prayers were more fervent than ever, and he even prayed for the soul of the man who had robbed him. Mescal’s cheeks soon rounded out to their old contour and her eyes shone with a happier light than Hare had ever seen there. The races between Silvermane and Black Bolly were renewed on the long stretch under the wall, and Mescal forgot that she had once acknowledged the superiority of the gray. The cottonwoods showered silken floss till the cabins and grass were white; the birds returned to the oasis; the sun kissed warm color into the cherries, and the distant noise of the river seemed like the humming of a swarm of bees.

“Here, Jack,” said August Naab, one morning, “get a spade and come with me. There’s a break somewhere in the ditch.”

Hare went with him out along the fence by the alfalfa fields, and round the corner of red wall toward the irrigating dam.

“Well, Jack, I suppose you’ll be asking me for Mescal one of these days,” said Naab.

“Yes,” replied Hare.

“There’s a little story to tell you about Mescal, when the day comes.”

“Tell it now.”

“No. Not yet. I’m glad you found her. I never knew her to be so happy, not even when she was a child. But somehow there’s a better feeling between her and my womenfolk. The old antagonism is gone. Well, well, life is so. I pray that things may turn out well for you and her. But I fear — I seem to see — Hare, I’m a poor man once more. I can’t do for you what I’d like. Still we’ll see, we’ll hope.”

Hare was perfectly happy. The old Mormon’s hint did not disturb him; even the thought of Snap Naab did not return to trouble his contentment. The full present was sufficient for Hare, and his joy bubbled over, bringing smiles to August’s grave face. Never had a summer afternoon in the oasis been so fair. The green fields, the red walls, the blue sky, all seemed drenched in deeper, richer hues. The wind-song in the crags, the river-murmur from the canyon, filled Hare’s ears with music. To be alive, to feel the sun, to see the colors, to hear the sounds, was beautiful; and to know that Mescal awaited him, was enough.

Work on the washed-out bank of the ditch had not gone far when Naab raised his head as if listening.

“Did you hear anything?” he asked.

“No,” replied Hare.

“The roar of the river is heavy here. Maybe I was mistaken. I thought I heard shots.” Then he went on spading clay into the break, but he stopped every moment or so, uneasily, as if he could not get rid of some disturbing thought. Suddenly he dropped the spade and his eyes flashed.

“Judith! Judith! Here!” he called. Wheeling with a sudden premonition of evil Hare saw the girl running along the wall toward them. Her face was white as death; she wrung her hands and her cries rose above the sound of the river. Naab sprang toward her and Hare ran at his heels.

“Father! — Father!” she panted. “Come — quick — the rustlers! — the rustlers! Snap! — Dene — Oh — hurry! They’ve killed Dave — they’ve got Mescal!”

Death itself shuddered through Hare’s veins and then a raging flood of fire. He bounded forward to be flung back by Naab’s arm.

“Fool! Would you throw away your life? Go slowly. We’ll slip through the fields, under the trees.”

Sick and cold Hare hurried by Naab’s side round the wall and into the alfalfa. There were moments when he was weak and trembling; others when he could have leaped like a tiger to rend and kill.

They left the fields and went on more cautiously into the grove. The screaming and wailing of women added certainty to their doubt and dread.

“I see only the women — the children — no — there’s a man — Zeke,” said Hare, bending low to gaze under the branches.

“Go slow,” muttered Naab.

“The rustlers rode off — after Mescal — she’s gone!” panted Judith.

Hare, spurred by the possibilities in the half-crazed girl’s speech, cast caution to the winds and dashed forward into the glade. Naab’s heavy steps thudded behind him.

In the corner of the porch scared and stupefied children huddled in a heap. George and Billy bent over Dave, who sat white-faced against the steps. Blood oozed through the fingers pressed to his breast. Zeke was trying to calm the women.

“My God! Dave!” cried Hare. “You’re not hard hit? Don’t say it!”

“Hard hit — Jack — old fellow,” replied Dave, with a pale smile. His face was white and clammy.

August Naab looked once at him and groaned, “My son! My son!”

“Dad — I got Chance and Culver — there they lie in the road — not bungled, either!”

Hare saw the inert forms of two men lying near the gate; one rested on his face, arm outstretched with a Colt gripped in the stiff hand; the other lay on his back, his spurs deep in the ground, as if driven there in his last convulsion.

August Naab and Zeke carried the injured man into the house. The women and children followed, and Hare, with Billy and George, entered last.

“Dad — I’m shot clean through — low down,” said Dave, as they laid him on a couch. “It’s just as well I — as any one — somebody had to — start this fight.”

Naab got the children and the girls out of the room. The women were silent now, except Dave’s wife, who clung to him with low moans. He smiled upon all with a quick intent smile, then he held out a hand to Hare.

“Jack, we got — to be — good friends. Don’t forget — that — when you meet — Holderness. He shot me — from behind Chance and Culver — and after I fell- -I killed them both — trying to get him. You — won’t hang up — your gun — again — will you?”

Hare wrung the cold hand clasping his so feebly. “No! Dave, no!” Then he fled from the room. For an hour he stood on the porch waiting in dumb misery. George and Zeke came noiselessly out, followed by their father.

“It’s all over, Hare.” Another tragedy had passed by this man of the desert, and left his strength unshaken, but his deadly quiet and the gloom of his iron face were more terrible to see than any grief.

“Father, and you, Hare, come out into the road,” said George.

Another motionless form lay beyond Chance and Culver. It was that of a slight man, flat on his back, his arms wide, his long black hair in the dust. Under the white level brow the face had been crushed into a bloody curve.

“Dene!” burst from Hare, in a whisper.

“Killed by a horse!” exclaimed August Naab. “Ah! What horse?”

“Silvermane!” replied George.

“Who rode my horse — tell me — quick!” cried Hare, in a frenzy.

“It was Mescal. Listen. Let me tell you how it all happened. I was out at the forge when I heard a bunch of horses coming up the lane. I wasn’t packing my gun, but I ran anyway. When I got to the house there was Dave facing Snap, Dene, and a bunch of rustlers. I saw Chance at first, but not Holderness. There must have been twenty men.

“‘I came after Mescal, that’s what,’ Snap was saying.

“‘You can’t have her,’ Dave answered.

“‘We’ll shore take her, an’ we want Silvermane, too,’ said Dene.

“‘So you’re a horse-thief as well as a rustler?’ asked Dave.

“‘Naab, I ain’t in any mind to fool. Snap wants the girl, an’ I want Silvermane, an’ that damned spy that come back to life.’

“Then Holderness spoke from the back of the crowd: ‘Naab, you’d better hurry, if you don’t want the house burned!’

“Dave drew and Holderness fired from behind the men. Dave fell, raised up and shot Chance and Culver, then dropped his gun.

“With that the women in the house began to scream, and Mescal ran out saying she’d go with Snap if they’d do no more harm.

“‘All right,’ said Snap, ‘get a horse, hurry — hurry!’

“Then Dene dismounted and went toward the corral saying, ‘I shore want Silvermane.’

“Mescal reached the gate ahead of Dene. ‘Let me get Silvermane. He’s wild; he doesn’t know you; he’ll kick you if you go near him.’ She dropped the bars and went up to the horse. He was rearing and snorting. She coaxed him down and then stepped up on the fence to untie him. When she had him loose she leaped off the fence to his back, screaming as she hit him with the halter. Silvermane snorted and jumped, and in three jumps he was going like a bullet. Dene tried to stop him, and was knocked twenty feet. He was raising up when the stallion ran over him. He never moved again. Once in the lane Silvermane got going — Lord! how he did run! Mescal hung low over his neck like an Indian. He was gone in a cloud of dust before Snap and the rustlers knew what had happened. Snap came to first and, yelling and waving his gun, spurred down the lane. The rest of the rustlers galloped after him.”

August Naab placed a sympathetic hand on Hare’s shaking shoulder.

“You see, lad, things are never so bad as they seem at first. Snap might as well try to catch a bird as Silvermane.”

XVIII. THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT

“MESCAL’S FAR OUT in front by this time. Depend on it, Hare,” went on Naab. “That trick was the cunning Indian of her. She’ll ride Silvermane into White Sage to-morrow night. Then she’ll hide from Snap. The Bishop will take care of her. She’ll be safe for the present in White Sage. Now we must bury these men. To-morrow — my son. Then—”

“What then?” Hare straightened up.

Unutterable pain darkened the flame in the Mormon’s gaze. For an instant his face worked spasmodically, only to stiffen into a stony mask. It was the old conflict once more, the never-ending war between flesh and spirit. And now the flesh had prevailed.

“The time has come!” said George Naab.

“Yes,” replied his father, harshly.

A great calm settled over Hare; his blood ceased to race, his mind to riot; in August Naab’s momentous word he knew the old man had found himself. At last he had learned the lesson of the desert — to strike first and hard.

“Zeke, hitch up a team,” said August Naab. “No — wait a moment. Here comes Piute. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Piute appeared on the zigzag cliff-trail, driving a burro at dangerous speed.

“He’s sighted Silvermane and the rustlers,” suggested George, as the shepherd approached.

Naab translated the excited Indian’s mingling of Navajo and Piute languages to mean just what George had said. “Snap ahead of riders — Silvermane far, far ahead of Snap — running fast — damn!”

“Mescal’s pushing him hard to make the sand-strip,” said George.

“Piute — three fires to-night — Lookout Point!” This order meant the execution of August Naab’s hurry-signal for the Navajos, and after he had given it, he waved the Indian toward the cliff, and lapsed into a silence which no one dared to break.

Naab consigned the bodies of the rustlers to the famous cemetery under the red wall. He laid Dene in grave thirty-one. It was the grave that the outlaw had promised as the last resting-place of Dene’s spy. Chance and Culver he buried together. It was noteworthy that no Mormon rites were conferred on Culver, once a Mormon in good standing, nor were any prayers spoken over the open graves.

What did August Naab intend to do? That was the question in Hare’s mind as he left the house. It was a silent day, warm as summer, though the sun was overcast with gray clouds; the birds were quiet in the trees; there was no bray of burro or clarion-call of peacock, even the hum of the river had fallen into silence. Hare wandered over the farm and down the red lane, brooding over the issue. Naab’s few words had been full of meaning; the cold gloom so foreign to his nature, had been even more impressive. His had been the revolt of the meek. The gentle, the loving, the administering, the spiritual uses of his life had failed.

Hare recalled what the desert had done to his own nature, how it had bred in him its impulse to fight, to resist, to survive. If he, a stranger of a few years, could be moulded in the flaming furnace of its fiery life, what then must be the cast of August Naab, born on the desert, and sleeping five nights out of seven on the sands for sixty years?

The desert! Hare trembled as he grasped all its meaning. Then he slowly resolved that meaning. There were the measureless distances to narrow the eye and teach restraint; the untrodden trails, the shifting sands, the thorny brakes, the broken lava to pierce the flesh; the heights and depths, unscalable and unplumbed. And over all the sun, red and burning.

The parched plants of the desert fought for life, growing far apart, sending enormous roots deep to pierce the sand and split the rock for moisture, arming every leaf with a barbed thorn or poisoned sap, never thriving and ever thirsting.

The creatures of the desert endured the sun and lived without water, and were at endless war. The hawk had a keener eye than his fellow of more fruitful lands, sharper beak, greater spread of wings, and claws of deeper curve. For him there was little to eat, a rabbit now, a rock-rat then; nature made his swoop like lightning and it never missed its aim. The gaunt wolf never failed in his sure scent, in his silent hunt. The lizard flicked an invisible tongue into the heart of a flower; and the bee he caught stung with a poisoned sting. The battle of life went to the strong.

So the desert trained each of its wild things to survive. No eye of the desert but burned with the flame of the sun. To kill or to escape death- -that was the dominant motive. To fight barrenness and heat — that was stern enough, but each creature must fight his fellow.

What then of the men who drifted into the desert and survived? They must of necessity endure the wind and heat, the drouth and famine; they must grow lean and hard, keen-eyed and silent. The weak, the humble, the sacrificing must be winnowed from among them. As each man developed he took on some aspect of the desert — Holderness had the amber clearness of its distances in his eyes, its deceit in his soul; August Naab, the magnificence of the desert-pine in his giant form, its strength in his heart; Snap Naab, the cast of the hawk-beak in his face, its cruelty in his nature. But all shared alike in the common element of survival — ferocity. August Naab had subdued his to the promptings of a Christ-like spirit; yet did not his very energy, his wonderful tirelessness, his will to achieve, his power to resist, partake of that fierceness? Moreover, after many struggles, he too had been overcome by the desert’s call for blood. His mystery was no longer a mystery. Always in those moments of revelation which he disclaimed, he had seen himself as faithful to the desert in the end.

Hare’s slumbers that night were broken. He dreamed of a great gray horse leaping in the sky from cloud to cloud with the lightning and the thunder under his hoofs, the storm-winds sweeping from his silver mane. He dreamed of Mescal’s brooding eyes. They were dark gateways of the desert open only to him, and he entered to chase the alluring stars deep into the purple distance. He dreamed of himself waiting in serene confidence for some unknown thing to pass. He awakened late in the morning and found the house hushed. The day wore on in a repose unstirred by breeze and sound, in accord with the mourning of August Naab. At noon a solemn procession wended its slow course to the shadow of the red cliff, and as solemnly returned.

Then a long-drawn piercing Indian whoop broke the midday hush. It heralded the approach of the Navajos. In single-file they rode up the lane, and when the falcon-eyed Eschtah dismounted before his white friend, the line of his warriors still turned the corner of the red wall. Next to the chieftain rode Scarbreast, the grim war-lord of the Navajos. His followers trailed into the grove. Their sinewy bronze bodies, almost naked, glistened wet from the river. Full a hundred strong were they, a silent, lean-limbed desert troop.

“The White Prophet’s fires burned bright,” said the chieftain. “Eschtah is here.”

“The Navajo is a friend,” replied Naab. “The white man needs counsel and help. He has fallen upon evil days.”

“Eschtah sees war in the eyes of his friend.”

“War, chief, war! Let the Navajo and his warriors rest and eat. Then we shall speak.”

A single command from the Navajo broke the waiting files of warriors. Mustangs were turned into the fields, packs were unstrapped from the burros, blankets spread under the cottonwoods. When the afternoon waned and the shade from the western wall crept into the oasis, August Naab came from his cabin clad in buckskins, with a large blue Colt swinging handle outward from his left hip. He ordered his sons to replenish the fire which had been built in the circle, and when the fierce-eyed Indians gathered round the blaze he called to his women to bring meat and drink.

Hare’s unnatural calmness had prevailed until he saw Naab stride out to front the waiting Indians. Then a ripple of cold passed over him. He leaned against a tree in the shadow and watched the gray-faced giant stalking to and fro before his Indian friends. A long while he strode in the circle of light to pause at length before the chieftains and to break the impressive silence with his deep voice.

“Eschtah sees before him a friend stung to his heart. Men of his own color have long injured him, yet have lived. The Mormon loved his fellows and forgave. Five sons he laid in their graves, yet his heart was not hardened. His first-born went the trail of the fire-water and is an outcast from his people. Many enemies has he and one is a chief. He has killed the white man’s friends, stolen his cattle, and his water. To-day the white man laid another son in his grave. What thinks the chief? Would he not crush the scorpion that stung him?”

The old Navajo answered in speech which, when translated, was as stately as the Mormon’s.

“Eschtah respects his friend, but he has not thought him wise. The White Prophet sees visions of things to come, but his blood is cold. He asks too much of the white man’s God. He is a chief; he has an eye like the lightning, an arm strong as the pine, yet he has not struck. Eschtah grieves. He does not wish to shed blood for pleasure. But Eschtah’s friend has let too many selfish men cross his range and drink at his springs. Only a few can live on the desert. Let him who has found the springs and the trails keep them for his own. Let him who came too late go away to find for himself, to prove himself a warrior, or let his bones whiten in the sand. The Navajo counsels his white friend to kill.”

“The great Eschtah speaks wise words,” said Naab. “The White Prophet is richer for them. He will lay aside the prayers to his unseeing God, and will seek his foe.”

“It is well.”

“The white man’s foe is strong,” went on the Mormon; “he has many men, they will fight. If Eschtah sends his braves with his friend there will be war. Many braves will fall. The White Prophet wishes to save them if he can. He will go forth alone to kill his foe. If the sun sets four times and the white man is not here, then Eschtah will send his great war-chief and his warriors. They will kill whom they find at the white man’s springs. And thereafter half of all the white man’s cattle that were stolen shall be Eschtah’s, so that he watch over the water and range.”

“Eschtah greets a chief,” answered the Indian. “The White Prophet knows he will kill his enemy, but he is not sure he will return. He is not sure that the little braves of his foe will fly like the winds, yet he hopes. So he holds the Navajo back to the last. Eschtah will watch the sun set four times. If his white friend returns he will rejoice. If he does not return the Navajo will send his warriors on the trail.”

August Naab walked swiftly from the circle of light into the darkness; his heavy steps sounded on the porch, and in the hallway. His three sons went toward their cabins with bowed heads and silent tongues. Eschtah folded his blanket about him and stalked off into the gloom of the grove, followed by his warriors.

Hare remained in the shadow of the cottonwood where he had stood unnoticed. He had not moved a muscle since he had heard August Naab’s declaration. That one word of Naab’s intention, “Alone!” had arrested him. For it had struck into his heart and mind. It had paralyzed him with the revelation it brought; for Hare now knew as he had never known anything before, that he would forestall August Naab, avenge the death of Dave, and kill the rustler Holderness. Through blinding shock he passed slowly into cold acceptance of his heritage from the desert.

The two long years of his desert training were as an open page to Hare’s unveiled eyes. The life he owed to August Naab, the strength built up by the old man’s knowledge of the healing power of plateau and range — these lay in a long curve between the day Naab had lifted him out of the White Sage trail and this day of the Mormon’s extremity. A long curve with Holderness’s insulting blow at the beginning, his murder of a beloved friend at the end! For Hare remembered the blow, and never would he forget Dave’s last words. Yet unforgetable as these were, it was duty rather than revenge that called him. This was August Naab’s hour of need. Hare knew himself to be the tool of inscrutable fate; he was the one to fight the old desert-scarred Mormon’s battle. Hare recalled how humbly he had expressed his gratitude to Naab, and the apparent impossibility of ever repaying him, and then Naab’s reply: “Lad, you can never tell how one man may repay another.” Hare could pay his own debt and that of the many wanderers who had drifted across the sands to find a home with the Mormon. These men stirred in their graves, and from out the shadow of the cliff whispered the voice of Mescal’s nameless father: “Is there no one to rise up for this old hero of the desert?”

Softly Hare slipped into his room. Putting on coat and belt and catching up his rifle he stole out again stealthily, like an Indian. In the darkness of the wagon-shed he felt for his saddle, and finding it, he groped with eager hands for the grain-box; raising the lid he filled a measure with grain, and emptied it into his saddle-bag. Then lifting the saddle he carried it out of the yard, through the gate and across the lane to the corrals. The wilder mustangs in the far corral began to kick and snort, and those in the corral where Black Bolly was kept trooped noisily to the bars. Bolly whinnied and thrust her black muzzle over the fence. Hare placed a caressing hand on her while he waited listening and watching. It was not unusual for the mustangs to get restless at any time, and Hare was confident that this would pass without investigation.

Gradually the restless stampings and suspicious snortings ceased, and Hare, letting down the bars, led Bolly out into the lane. It was the work of a moment to saddle her; his bridle hung where he always kept it, on the pommel, and with nimble fingers he shortened the several straps to fit Bolly’s head, and slipped the bit between her teeth. Then he put up the bars of the gate.

Before mounting he stood a moment thinking coolly, deliberately numbering the several necessities he must not forget — grain for Bolly, food for himself, his Colt and Winchester, cartridges, canteen, matches, knife. He inserted a hand into one of his saddle-bags expecting to find some strips of meat. The bag was empty. He felt in the other one, and under the grain he found what he sought. The canteen lay in the coil of his lasso tied to the saddle, and its heavy canvas covering was damp to his touch. With that he thrust the long Winchester into its saddle-sheath, and swung his leg over the mustang.

The house of the Naabs was dark and still. The dying council-fire cast flickering shadows under the black cottonwoods where the Navajos slept. The faint breeze that rustled the leaves brought the low sullen roar of the river.

Hare guided Bolly into the thick dust of the lane, laid the bridle loosely on her neck for her to choose the trail, and silently rode out into the lonely desert night.

XIX. UNLEASHED

HARE, LISTENING BREATHLESSLY, rode on toward the gateway of the cliffs, and when he had passed the corner of the wall he sighed in relief. Spurring Bolly into a trot he rode forward with a strange elation. He had slipped out of the oasis unheard, and it would be morning before August Naab discovered his absence, perhaps longer before he divined his purpose. Then Hare would have a long start. He thrilled with something akin to fear when he pictured the old man’s rage, and wondered what change it would make in his plans. Hare saw in mind Naab and his sons, and the Navajos sweeping in pursuit to save him from the rustlers.

But the future must take care of itself, and he addressed all the faculties at his command to cool consideration of the present. The strip of sand under the Blue Star had to be crossed at night — a feat which even the Navajos did not have to their credit. Yet Hare had no shrinking; he had no doubt; he must go on. As he had been drawn to the Painted Desert by a voiceless call, so now he was urged forward by something nameless.

In the blackness of the night it seemed as if he were riding through a vaulted hall swept by a current of air. The night had turned cold, the stars had brightened icily, the rumble of the river had died away when Bolly’s ringing trot suddenly changed to a noiseless floundering walk. She had come upon the sand. Hare saw the Blue Star in the cliff, and once more loosed the rein on Bolly’s neck. She stopped and champed her bit, and turned her black head to him as if to intimate that she wanted the guidance of a sure arm. But as it was not forthcoming she stepped onward into the yielding sand.

With hands resting idly on the pommel Hare sat at ease in the saddle. The billowy dunes reflected the pale starlight and fell away from him to darken in obscurity. So long as the Blue Star remained in sight he kept his sense of direction; when it had disappeared he felt himself lost. Bolly’s course seemed as crooked as the jagged outline of the cliffs. She climbed straight up little knolls, descended them at an angle, turned sharply at wind-washed gullies, made winding detours, zigzagged levels that shone like a polished floor; and at last (so it seemed to Hare) she doubled back on her trail. The black cliff receded over the waves of sand; the stars changed positions, travelled round in the blue dome, and the few that he knew finally sank below the horizon. Bolly never lagged; she was like the homeward - bound horse, indifferent to direction because sure of it, eager to finish the journey because now it was short. Hare was glad though not surprised when she snorted and cracked her iron-shod hoof on a stone at the edge of the sand. He smiled with tightening lips as he rode into the shadow of a rock which he recognized. Bolly had crossed the treacherous belt of dunes and washes and had struck the trail on the other side.

The long level of wind-carved rocks under the cliffs, the ridges of the desert, the miles of slow ascent up to the rough divide, the gradual descent to the cedars — these stretches of his journey took the night hours and ended with the brightening gray in the east. Within a mile of Silver Cup Spring Hare dismounted, to tie folded pads of buckskin on Bolly’s hoofs. When her feet were muffled, he cautiously advanced on the trail for the matter of a hundred rods or more; then sheered off to the right into the cedars. He led Bolly slowly, without rattling a stone or snapping a twig, and stopped every few paces to listen. There was no sound other than the wind in the cedars. Presently, with a gasp, he caught the dull gleam of a burned-out camp-fire. Then his movements became as guarded, as noiseless as those of a scouting Indian. The dawn broke over the red wall as he gained the trail beyond the spring.

He skirted the curve of the valley and led Bolly a little way up the wooded slope to a dense thicket of aspens in a hollow. This thicket encircled a patch of grass. Hare pressed the lithe aspens aside to admit Bolly and left her there free. He drew his rifle from its sheath and, after assuring himself that the mustang could not be seen or heard from below, he bent his steps diagonally up the slope.

Every foot of this ground he knew, and he climbed swiftly until he struck the mountain trail. Then, descending, he entered the cedars. At last he reached a point directly above the cliff-camp where he had spent so many days, and this he knew overhung the cabin built by Holderness. He stole down from tree to tree and slipped from thicket to thicket. The sun, red as blood, raised a bright crescent over the red wall; the soft mists of the valley began to glow and move; cattle were working in toward the spring. Never brushing a branch, never dislodging a stone, Hare descended the slope, his eyes keener, his ears sharper with every step. Soon the edge of the gray stone cliff below shut out the lower level of cedars. While resting he listened. Then he marked his course down the last bit of slanting ground to the cliff bench which faced the valley. This space was open, rough with crumbling rock and dead cedar brush — a difficult place to cross without sound. Deliberate in his choice of steps, very slow in moving, Hare went on with a stealth which satisfied even his intent ear. When the wide gray strip of stone drew slowly into the circle of his downcast gaze he sank to the ground with a slight trembling in all his limbs. There was a thick bush on the edge of the cliff; in three steps he could reach it and, unseen himself, look down upon the camp.

A little cloud or smoke rose lazily and capped a slender column of blue. Sounds were wafted softly upward, the low voices of men in conversation, a merry whistle, and then the humming of a tune. Hare’s mouth was dry and his temples throbbed as he asked himself what it was best to do. The answer came instantaneously as though it had lain just below the level of his conscious thought. “I’ll watch till Holderness walks out into sight, jump up with a yell when he comes, give him time to see me, to draw his gun — then kill him!”

Hare slipped to the bush, drew in a deep long breath that stilled his agitation, and peered over the cliff. The crude shingles of the cabin first rose into sight; then beyond he saw the corral with a number of shaggy mustangs and a great gray horse. Hare stared blankly. As in a dream he saw the proud arch of a splendid neck, the graceful wave of a white-crested mane.

“Silvermane! . . . My God!” he gasped, suddenly. “They caught him — after all!”

He fell backward upon the cliff and lay there with hands clinching his rifle, shudderingly conscious of a blow, trying to comprehend its meaning.

“Silvermane! . . . they caught him — after all!” he kept repeating; then in a flash of agonized understanding he whispered: “Mescal . . . Mescal!”

He rolled upon his face, shutting our the blue sky; his body stretched stiff as a bent spring released from its compress, and his nails dented the stock of his rifle. Then this rigidity softened to sobs that shook him from head to foot. He sat up, haggard and wild-eyed.

Silvermane had been captured, probably by rustlers waiting at the western edge of the sand-strip. Mescal had fallen into the hands of Snap Naab. But Mescal was surely alive and Snap was there to be killed; his long career of unrestrained cruelty was in its last day — something told Hare that this thing must and should be. The stern deliberation of his intent to kill Holderness, the passion of his purpose to pay his debt to August Naab, were as nothing compared to the gathering might of this new resolve; suddenly he felt free and strong as an untamed lion broken free from his captors.

From the cover of the bush he peered again over the cliff. The cabin with its closed door facing him was scarcely two hundred feet down from his hiding-place. One of the rustlers sang as he bent over the camp-fire and raked the coals around the pots; others lounged on a bench waiting for breakfast; some rolled out of their blankets; they stretched and yawned, and pulling on their boots made for the spring. The last man to rise was Snap Naab, and he had slept with his head on the threshold of the door. Evidently Snap had made Mescal a prisoner in the cabin, and no one could go in or out without stepping upon him. The rustler-foreman of Holderness’s company had slept with his belt containing two Colts, nor had he removed his boots. Hare noted these details with grim humor. Now the tall Holderness, face shining, gold-red beard agleam, rounded the cabin whistling. Hare watched the rustlers sit down to breakfast, and here and there caught a loud-spoken word, and marked their leisurely care-free manner. Snap Naab took up a pan of food and a cup of coffee, carried them into the cabin, and came out, shutting the door.

After breakfast most of the rustlers set themselves to their various tasks. Hare watched them with the eyes of a lynx watching deer. Several men were arranging articles for packing, and their actions were slow to the point of laziness; others trooped down toward the corral. Holderness rolled a cigarette and stooped over the campfire to reach a burning stick. Snap Naab stalked to and fro before the door of the cabin. He alone of the rustler’s band showed restlessness, and more than once he glanced up the trail that led over the divide toward his father’s oasis. Holderness sent expectant glances in the other direction toward Seeping Springs. Once his clear voice rang out:

“I tell you, Naab, there’s no hurry. We’ll ride in tomorrow.”

A thousand thoughts flitted through Hare’s mind — a steady stream of questions and answers. Why did Snap look anxiously along the oasis trail? It was not that he feared his father or his brothers alone, but there was always the menace of the Navajos. Why was Holderness in no hurry to leave Silver Cup? Why did he lag at the spring when, if he expected riders from his ranch, he could have gone on to meet them, obviously saving time and putting greater distance between him and the men he had wronged? Was it utter fearlessness or only a deep-played game? Holderness and his rustlers, all except the gloomy Naab, were blind to the peril that lay beyond the divide. How soon would August Naab strike out on the White Sage trail? Would he come alone? Whether he came alone or at the head of his hard-riding Navajos he would arrive too late. Holderness’s life was not worth a pinch of the ashes he flecked so carelessly from his cigarette. Snap Naab’s gloom, his long stride, his nervous hand always on or near the butt of his Colt, spoke the keenness of his desert instinct. For him the sun had arisen red over the red wall. Had he harmed Mescal? Why did he keep the cabin door shut and guard it so closely?

While Hare watched and thought the hours sped by. Holderness lounged about and Snap kept silent guard. The rustlers smoked, slept, and moved about; the day waned, and the shadow of the cliff crept over the cabin. To Hare the time had been as a moment; he was amazed to find the sun had gone down behind Coconina. If August Naab had left the oasis at dawn he must now be near the divide, unless he had been delayed by a wind-storm at the strip of sand. Hare longed to see the roan charger come up over the crest; he longed to see a file of Navajos, plumes waving, dark mustangs gleaming in the red light, sweep down the stony ridge toward the cedars. “If they come,” he whispered, “I’ll kill Holderness and Snap and any man who tries to open that cabin door.”

So he waited in tense watchfulness, his gaze alternating between the wavy line of the divide and the camp glade. Out in the valley it was still daylight, but under the cliff twilight had fallen. All day Hare had strained his ears to hear the talk of the rustlers, and it now occurred to him that if he climbed down through the split in the cliff to the bench where Dave and George had always hidden to watch the spring he would be just above the camp. This descent involved risk, but since it would enable him to see the cabin door when darkness set in, he decided to venture. The moment was propitious, for the rustlers were bustling around, cooking dinner, unrolling blankets, and moving to and fro from spring and corral. Hare crawled back a few yards and along the cliff until he reached the split. It was a narrow steep crack which he well remembered. Going down was attended with two dangers — losing his hold, and the possible rattling of stones. Face foremost he slipped downward with the gliding, sinuous movement of a snake, and reaching the grassy bench he lay quiet. Jesting voices and loud laughter from below reassured him. He had not been heard. His new position afforded every chance to see and hear, and also gave means of rapid, noiseless retreat along the bench to the cedars. Lying flat he crawled stealthily to the bushy fringe of the bench.

A bright fire blazed under the cliff. Men were moving and laughing. The cabin door was open. Mescal stood leaning back from Snap Naab, struggling to release her hands.

“Let me untie them, I say,” growled Snap.

Mescal tore loose from him and stepped back. Her hands were bound before her, and twisting them outward, she warded him off. Her dishevelled hair almost hid her dark eyes. They burned in a level glance of hate and defiance. She was a little lioness, quivering with fiery life, fight in every line of her form.

“All right, don’t eat then — starve!” said Snap.

“I’ll starve before I eat what you give me.”

The rustlers laughed. Holderness blew out a puff of smoke and smiled. Snap glowered upon Mescal and then upon his amiable companions. One of them, a ruddyfaced fellow, walked toward Mescal.

“Cool down, Snap, cool down,” he said. “We’re not goin’ to stand for a girl starvin’. She ain’t eat a bite yet. Here, Miss, let me untie your hands — there. . . . Say! Naab, d — n you, her wrists are black an’ blue!”

“Look out! Your gun!” yelled Snap.

With a swift movement Mescal snatched the man’s Colt from its holster and was raising it when he grasped her arm. She winced and dropped the weapon.

“You little Indian devil!” exclaimed the rustler, in a rapt admiration. “Sorry to hurt you, an’ more’n sorry to spoil your aim. Thet wasn’t kind to throw my own gun on me, jest after I’d played the gentleman, now, was it?”

“I didn’t — intend — to shoot — you,” panted Mescal.

“Naab, if this’s your Mormon kind of wife — excuse me! Though I ain’t denyin’ she’s the sassiest an’ sweetest little cat I ever seen!”

“We Mormons don’t talk about our women or hear any talk,” returned Snap, a dancing fury in his pale eyes. “You’re from Nebraska?”

“Yep, jest a plain Nebraska rustler, cattle-thief, an’ all round no-good customer, though I ain’t taken to houndin’ women yet.”

For answer Snap Naab’s right hand slowly curved upward before him and stopped taut and inflexible, while his strange eyes seemed to shoot sparks.

“See here, Naab, why do you want to throw a gun on me?” asked the rustler, coolly. “Haven’t you shot enough of your friends yet? I reckon I’ve no right to interfere in your affairs. I was only protestin’ friendly like, for the little lady. She’s game, an’ she’s called your hand. An’ it’s not a straight hand. Thet’s all, an’ d — n if I care whether you are a Mormon or not. I’ll bet a hoss Holderness will back me up.”

“Snap, he’s right,” put in Holderness, smoothly. “You needn’t be so touchy about Mescal. She’s showed what little use she’s got for you. If you must rope her around like you do a mustang, be easy about it. Let’s have supper. Now, Mescal, you sit here on the bench and behave yourself. I don’t want you shooting up my camp.”

Snap turned sullenly aside while Holderness seated Mescal near the door and fetched her food and drink. The rustlers squatted round the camp-fire, and conversation ceased in the business of the meal.

To Hare the scene had brought a storm of emotions. Joy at the sight of Mescal, blessed relief to see her unscathed, pride in her fighting spirit — these came side by side with gratitude to the kind Nebraska rustler, strange deepening insight into Holderness’s game, unextinguishable white-hot hatred of Snap Naab. And binding all was the ever-mounting will to rescue Mescal, which was held in check by an inexorable judgment; he must continue to wait. And he did wait with blind faith in the something to be, keeping ever in mind the last resort- -the rifle he clutched with eager hands. Meanwhile the darkness descended, the fire sent forth a brighter blaze, and the rustlers finished their supper. Mescal arose and stepped across the threshold of the cabin door.

“Hold on!” ordered Snap, as he approached with swift strides. “Stick out your hands!”

Some of the rustlers grumbled; and one blurted out: “Aw no, Snap, don’t tie her up — no!”

“Who says no?” hissed the Mormon, with snapping teeth. As he wheeled upon them his Colt seemed to leap forward, and suddenly quivered at arm’s-length, gleaming in the ruddy fire-rays.

Holderness laughed in the muzzle of the weapon. “Go ahead, Snap, tie up your lady love. What a tame little wife she’s going to make you! Tie her up, but do it without hurting her.”

The rustlers growled or laughed at their leader’s order. Snap turned to his task. Mescal stood in the doorway and shrinkingly extended her clasped hands. Holderness whirled to the fire with a look which betrayed his game. Snap bound Mescal’s hands securely, thrust her inside the cabin, and after hesitating for a long moment, finally shut the door.

“It’s funny about a woman, now, ain’t it?” said Nebraska, confidentially, to a companion. “One minnit she’ll snatch you bald-headed; the next, she’ll melt in your mouth like sugar. An’ I’ll be darned if the changeablest one ain’t the kind to hold a feller longest. But it’s h — 1. I was married onct. Not any more for mine! A pal I had used to say thet whiskey riled him, thet rattlesnake pisen het up his blood some, but it took a woman to make him plumb bad. Dn if it ain’t so. When there’s a woman around there’s somethin’ allus comin’ off.”

But the strain, instead of relaxing, became portentous. Holderness suddenly showed he was ill at ease; he appeared to be expecting arrivals from the direction of Seeping Springs. Snap Naab leaned against the side of the door, his narrow gaze cunningly studying the rustlers before him. More than any other he had caught a foreshadowing. Like the desert-hawk he could see afar. Suddenly he pressed back against the door, half opening it while he faced the men.

“Stop!” commanded Holderness. The change in his voice was as if it had come from another man. “You don’t go in there!”

“I’m going to take the girl and ride to White Sage,” replied Naab, in slow deliberation.

“Bah! You say that only for the excuse to get into the cabin with her. You tried it last night and I blocked you. Shut the door, Naab, or something’ll happen.”

“There’s more going to happen than ever you think of, Holderness. Don’t interfere now, I’m going.”

“Well, go ahead — but you won’t take the girl!”

Snap Naab swung off the step, slamming the door behind him.

“So-ho!” he exclaimed, sneeringly. “That’s why you’ve made me foreman, eh?” His claw-like hand moved almost imperceptibly upward while his pale eyes strove to pierce the strength behind Holderness’s effrontery. The rustler chief had a trump card to play; one that showed in his sardonic smile.

“Naab, you don’t get the girl.”

“Maybe you’ll get her?” hissed Snap.

“I always intended to.”

Surely never before had passion driven Snap’s hand to such speed. His Colt gleamed in the camp-fire light. Click! Click! Click! The hammer fell upon empty chambers.

“H — l!” he shrieked.

Holderness laughed sarcastically.

“That’s where you’re going!” he cried. “Here’s to Naab’s trick with a gun — Bah!” And he shot his foreman through the heart.

Snap plunged upon his face. His hands beat the ground like the shuffling wings of a wounded partridge. His fingers gripped the dust, spread convulsively, straightened, and sank limp.

Holderness called through the door of the cabin. “Mescal, I’ve rid you of your would-be husband. Cheer-up!” Then, pointing to the fallen man, he said to the nearest bystanders: “Some of you drag that out for the coyotes.”

The first fellow who bent over Snap happened to be the Nebraska rustler, and he curiously opened the breech of the six-shooter he picked up. “No shells!” he said. He pulled Snap’s second Colt from his belt, and unbreeched that. “No shells! Well, d — n me!” He surveyed the group of grim men, not one of whom had any reply.

Holderness again laughed harshly, and turning to the cabin, he fastened the door with a lasso.

It was a long time before Hare recovered from the starting revelation of the plot which had put Mescal into Holderness’s power. Bad as Snap Naab had been he would have married her, and such a fate was infinitely preferable to the one that now menaced her. Hare changed his position and settled himself to watch and wait out the night. Every hour Holderness and his men tarried at Silver Cup hastened their approaching doom. Hare’s strange prescience of the fatality that overshadowed these men had received its first verification in the sudden taking off of Snap Naab. The deep-scheming Holderness, confident that his strong band meant sure protection, sat and smoked and smiled beside the camp-fire. He had not caught even a hint of Snap Naab’s suggested warning. Yet somewhere out on the oasis trail rode a man who, once turned from the saving of life to the lust to kill, would be as immutable as death itself. Behind him waited a troop of Navajos, swift as eagles, merciless as wolves, desert warriors with the sunheated blood of generations in their veins. As Hare waited and watched with all his inner being cold, he could almost feel pity for Holderness. His doom was close. Twice, when the rustler chief had sauntered nearer to the cabin door, as if to enter, Hare had covered him with the rifle, waiting, waiting for the step upon the threshold. But Holderness always checked himself in time, and Hare’s finger eased its pressure upon the trigger.

The night closed in black; the clouded sky gave forth no starlight; the wind rose and moaned through the cedars. One by one the rustlers rolled in their blankets and all dropped into slumber while the camp-fire slowly burned down. The night hours wore on to the soft wail of the breeze and the wild notes of far-off trailing coyotes.

Hare, watching sleeplessly, saw one of the prone figures stir. The man raised himself very cautiously; he glanced at his companions, and looked long at Holderness, who lay squarely in the dimming light. Then he softly lowered himself. Hare wondered what the rustler meant to do. Presently he again lifted his head and turned it as if listening intently. His companions were motionless in deep-breathing sleep. Gently he slipped aside his blankets and began to rise. He was slow and guarded of movement; it took him long to stand erect. He stepped between the rustlers with stockinged feet which were as noiseless as an Indian’s, and he went toward the cabin door.

He softly edged round the sleeping Holderness, showing a glinting six-shooter in his hand. Hare’s resolve to kill him before he reached the door was checked. What did it mean, this rustler’s stealthy movements, his passing by Holderness with his drawn weapon! Again doom hovered over the rustler chief. If he stirred! — Hare knew instantly that this softly stepping man was a Mormon; he was true to Snap Naab, to the woman pledged in his creed. He meant to free Mescal.

If ever Hare breathed a prayer it was then. What if one of the band awakened! As the rustler turned at the door his dark face gleamed in the flickering light. He unwound the lasso and opened the door without a sound.

Hare whispered: “Heavens! if he goes in she’ll scream! that will wake Holderness — then I must shoot — I must!”

But the Mormon rustler added wisdom to his cunning and stealth.

“Hist!” he whispered into the cabin. “Hist!”

Mescal must have been awake; she must have guessed instantly the meaning of that low whisper, for silently she appeared in the doorway, silently she held forth her bound hands. The man untied the bonds and pointed into the cedars toward the corral. Swift and soundless as a flitting shadow Mescal vanished in the gloom. The Mormon stole with wary, unhurried steps back to his bed and rolled in his blankets.

Hare rose unsteadily, wavering in the hot grip of a moment that seemed to have but one issue — the killing of Holderness. Mescal would soon be upon Silvermane, far out on the White Sage trail, and this time there would be no sand-strip to trap her. But Hare could not kill the rustler while he was sleeping; and he could not awaken him without revealing to his men the escape of the girl. Hare stood there on the bench, gazing down on the blanketed Holderness. Why not kill him now, ending forever his power, and trust to chance for the rest? No, no! Hare flung the temptation from him. To ward off pursuit as long as possible, to aid Mescal in every way to some safe hiding-place, and then to seek Holderness — that was the forethought of a man who had learned to wait.

Under the dark projection of the upper cliff Hare felt his way to the cedar slope, and the trail, and then he went swiftly down into the little hollow where he had left Bolly. The darkness of the forest hindered him, but he came at length to the edge of the aspen thicket; he penetrated it, and guided toward Bolly by a suspicious stamp and neigh, he found her and quieted her with a word. He rode down the hollow, out upon the level valley.

The clouds had broken somewhat, letting pale light down through rifts. All about him cattle were lying in a thick gloom. It was penetrable for only a few rods. The ground was like a cushion under Bolly’s hoofs, giving forth no sound. The mustang threw up her head, causing Hare to peer into the night-fog. Rapid hoof-beats broke the silence, a vague gray shadow moved into sight. He saw Silvermane and called as loudly as he dared. The stallion melted into the misty curtain, the beating of hoofs softened and ceased. Hare spurred Bolly to her fleetest. He had a long, silent chase, but it was futile, and unnecessarily hard on the mustang; so he pulled her in to a trot.

Hare kept Bolly to this gait the remainder of the night, and when the eastern sky lightened he found the trail and reached Seeping Springs at dawn. Silvermane’s tracks were deep in the clay at the drinking-trough. He rested a few moments, gave Bolly sparingly of grain and water, and once more took to the trail.

From the ridge below the spring he saw Silvermane beyond the valley, miles ahead of him. This day seemed shorter than the foregoing one; it passed while he watched Silvermane grow smaller and smaller and disappear on the looming slope of Coconina. Hare’s fear that Mescal would run into the riders Holderness expected from his ranch grew less and less after she had reached the cover of the cedars. That she would rest the stallion at the Navajo pool on the mountain he made certain. Late in the night he came to the camping spot and found no trace to prove that she had halted there even to let Silvermane drink. So he tied the tired mustang and slept until daylight.

He crossed the plateau and began the descent. Before he was half-way down the warm bright sun had cleared the valley of vapor and shadow. Far along the winding white trail shone a speck. It was Silvermane almost out of sight.

“Ten miles — fifteen, more maybe,” said Hare. “Mescal will soon be in the village.”

Again hours of travel flew by like winged moments. Thoughts of time, distance, monotony, fatigue, purpose, were shut out from his mind. A rushing kaleidoscopic dance of images filled his consciousness, but they were all of Mescal. Safety for her had unsealed the fountain of happiness.

It was near sundown when he rode Black Bolly into White Sage, and took the back road, and the pasture lane to Bishop Caldwell’s cottage. John, one of the Bishop’s sons, was in the barn-yard and ran to open the gate.

“Mescal!” cried Hare.

“Safe,” replied the Mormon.

“Have you hidden her?”

“She’s in a secret cave, a Mormon hiding-place for women. Only a few men know of its existence. Rest easy, for she’s absolutely safe.”

“Thank God! . . . then that’s settled.” Hare drew a long, deep breath.

“Mescal told us what happened, how she got caught at the sand-strip and escaped from Holderness at Silver Cup. Was Dene hurt?”

“Silvermane killed him.”

“Good God! How things come about! I saw you run Dene down that time here in White Sage. It must have been written. Did Holderness shoot Snap Naab?”

“Yes.”

“What of old Naab? Won’t he come down here now to lead us Mormons against the rustlers?”

“He called the Navajos across the river. He meant to take the trail alone and kill Holderness, keeping the Indians back a few days. If he failed to return then they were to ride out on the rustlers. But his plan must be changed, for I came ahead of him.”

“For what? Mescal?”

“No. For Holderness.”

“You’ll kill him!”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be coming soon? — When?”

“To-morrow, possibly by daylight. He wants Mescal. There’s a chance Naab may have reached Silver Cup before Holderness left, but I doubt it.”

“May I know your plan?” The Mormon hesitated while his strong brown face flashed with daring inspiration. “I — I’ve a good reason.”

“Plan? — Yes. Hide Bolly and Silvermane in the little arbor down in the orchard. I’ll stay outside to-night, sleep a little — for I’m dead tired- -and watch in the morning. Holderness will come here with his men, perhaps not openly at first, to drag Mescal away. He’ll mean to use strategy. I’ll meet him when he comes — that’s all.”

“It’s well. I ask you not to mention this to my father. Come in, now. You need food and rest. Later I’ll hide Bolly and Silvermane in the arbor.”

Hare met the Bishop and his family with composure, but his arrival following so closely upon Mescal’s, increased their alarm. They seemed repelled yet fascinated by his face. Hare ate in silence. John Caldwell did not come in to supper; his brothers mysteriously left the table before finishing the meal. A subdued murmur of voices floated in at the open window.

Darkness found Hare wrapped in a blanket under the trees. He needed sleep that would loose the strange deadlock of his thoughts, clear the blur from his eyes, ease the pain in his head and weariness of limbs — all these weaknesses of which he had suddenly become conscious. Time and again he had almost wooed slumber to him when soft footsteps on the gravel paths, low voices, the gentle closing of the gate, brought him back to the unreal listening wakefulness. The sounds continued late into the night, and when he did fall asleep he dreamed of them. He awoke to a dawn clearer than the light from the noonday sun. In his ears was the ringing of a bell. He could not stand still, and his movements were subtle and swift. His hands took a peculiar, tenacious, hold of everything he chanced to touch. He paced his hidden walk behind the arbor, at every turn glancing sharply up and down the road. Thoughts came to him clearly, yet one was dominant. The morning was curiously quiet, the sons of the Bishop had strangely disappeared — a sense of imminent catastrophe was in the air.

A band of horsemen closely grouped turned into the road and trotted forward. Some of the men wore black masks. Holderness rode at the front, his red-gold beard shining in the sunlight. The steady clip-crop of hoofs and clinking of iron stirrups broke the morning quiet. Holderness, with two of his men, dismounted before the Bishop’s gate; the others of the band trotted on down the road. The ring of Holderness’s laugh preceded the snap of the gate-latch.

Hare stood calm and cold behind his green covert watching the three men stroll up the garden path. Holderness took a cigarette from his lips as he neared the porch and blew out circles of white smoke. Bishop Caldwell tottered from the cottage rapping the porch-floor with his cane.

“Good-morning, Bishop,” greeted Holderness, blandly, baring his head.

“To you, sir,” quavered the old man, with his wavering blue eyes fixed on the spurred and belted rustler. Holderness stepped out in front of his companions, a superb man, courteous, smiling, entirely at his ease.

“I rode in to—”

Hare leaped from his hiding-place.

“Holderness!”

The rustler pivoted on whirling heels.

“Dene’s spy!” he exclaimed, aghast. Swift changes swept his mobile features. Fear flickered in his eyes as he faced his foe; then came wonder, a glint of amusement, dark anger, and the terrible instinct of death impending.

“Naab’s trick!” hissed Hare, with his hand held high. The suggestion in his words, the meaning in his look, held the three rustlers transfixed. The surprise was his strength.

In Holderness’s amber eyes shone his desperate calculation of chances. Hare’s fateful glance, impossible to elude, his strung form slightly crouched, his cold deliberate mention of Naab’s trick, and more than all the poise of that quivering hand, filled the rustler with a terror that he could not hide.

He had been bidden to draw and he could not summon the force.

“Naab’s trick!” repeated Hare, mockingly.

Suddenly Holderness reached for his gun.

Hare’s hand leapt like a lightning stroke. Gleam of blue — spurt of red — crash!

Holderness swayed with blond head swinging backward; the amber of his eyes suddenly darkened; the life in them glazed; like a log he fell clutching the weapon he had half drawn.

XX. THE RAGE OF THE OLD LION

“TAKE HOLDERNESS AWAY — quick!” ordered Hare. A thin curl of blue smoke floated from the muzzle of his raised weapon.

The rustlers started out of their statue-like immobility, and lifting their dead leader dragged him down the garden path with his spurs clinking on the gravel and ploughing little furrows.

“Bishop, go in now. They may return,” said Hare. He hurried up the steps to place his arm round the tottering old man.

“Was that Holderness?”

“Yes,” replied Hare.

“The deeds of the wicked return unto them! God’s will!”

Hare led the Bishop indoors. The sitting-room was full Or wailing women and crying children. None of the young men were present. Again Hare made note of their inexplicable absence. He spoke soothingly to the frightened family. The little boys and girls yielded readily to his persuasion, but the women took no heed of him.

“Where are your sons?” asked Hare.

“I don’t know,” replied the Bishop. “They should be here to stand by you. It’s strange. I don’t understand. Last night my sons were visited by many men, coming and going in twos and threes till late. They didn’t sleep in their beds. I know not what to think.”

Hare remembered John Caldwell’s enigmatic face.

“Have the rustlers really come?” asked a young woman, whose eyes were red and cheeks tear-stained

“They have. Nineteen in all. I counted them,” answered Hare.

The young woman burst out weeping afresh, and the wailing of the others answered her. Hare left the cottage He picked up his rifle and went down through the orchard to the hiding-place of the horses. Silvermane pranced and snorted his gladness at sight of his master. The desert king was fit for a grueling race. Black Bolly quietly cropped the long grass. Hare saddled the stallion to have him in instant readiness, and then returned to the front of the yard.

He heard the sound of a gun down the road, then another, and several shots following in quick succession. A distant angry murmuring and trampling of many feet drew Hare to the gate. Riderless mustangs were galloping down the road; several frightened boys were fleeing across the square; not a man was in sight. Three more shots cracked, and the low murmur and trampling swelled into a hoarse uproar. Hare had heard that sound before; it was the tumult of mob-violence. A black dense throng of men appeared crowding into the main street, and crossing toward the square. The procession had some order; it was led and flanked by mounted men. But the upflinging of many arms, the craning of necks, and the leaping of men on the outskirts of the mass, the pressure inward and the hideous roar, proclaimed its real character.

“By Heaven!” exclaimed Hare. “The Mormons have risen against the rustlers. I understand now. John Caldwell spent last night in secretly rousing his neighbors. They have surprised the rustlers. Now what?”

Hare vaulted the fence and ran down the road. A compact mob of men, a hundred or more, had halted in the village under the wide-spreading cottonwoods. Hare suddenly grasped the terrible significance of those outstretched branches, and out of the thought grew another which made him run at bursting break-neck speed.

“Open up! Let me in!” he yelled to the thickly thronged circle. Right and left he flung men. “Make way!” His piercing voice stilled the angry murmur. Fierce men with weapons held aloft fell back from his face.

“Dene’s spy!” they cried.

The circle opened and closed upon him. He saw bound rustlers under armed guard. Four still forms were on the ground. Holderness lay outstretched, a dark-red blot staining his gray shirt. Flinty-faced Mormons, ruthless now as they had once been mild, surrounded the rustlers. John Caldwell stood foremost, with ashen lips breaking bitterly into speech:

“Mormons, this is Dene’s spy, the man who killed Holderness!”

The listeners burst into the short stern shout of men proclaiming a leader in war.

“What’s the game?” demanded Hare.

“A fair trial for the rustlers, then a rope,” replied John Caldwell. The low ominous murmur swelled through the crowd again.

“There are two men here who have befriended me. I won’t see them hanged.”

“Pick them out!” A strange ripple of emotion made a fleeting break in John Caldwell’s hard face.

Hare eyed the prisoners.

“Nebraska, step out here,” said he.

“I reckon you’re mistaken,” replied the rustler, his blue eyes intently on Hare. “I never seen you before. An’ I ain’t the kind of a feller to cheat the man you mean.”

“I saw you untie the girl’s hands.”

“You did? Well, d — n me!”

“Nebraska, if I save your life will you quit rustling cattle? You weren’t cut out for a thief.”

“Will I? D — n me! I’ll be straight an’ decent. I’ll take a job ridin’ for you, stranger, an’ prove it.”

“Cut him loose from the others,” said Hare. He scrutinized the line of rustlers. Several were masked in black. “Take off those masks!”

“No! Those men go to their graves masked.” Again the strange twinge of pain crossed John Caldwell’s face.

“Ah, I see,” exclaimed Hare. Then quickly: “I couldn’t recognize the other man anyhow; I don’t know him. But Mescal can tell. He saved her and I’ll save him. But how?”

Every rustler, except the masked ones standing stern and silent, clamored that he was the one to be saved.

“Hurry back home,” said Caldwell in Hare’s ear “Tell them to fetch Mescal. Find out and hurry back. Time presses. The Mormons are wavering. You’ve got only a few minutes.”

Hare slipped out of the crowd, sped up the road, jumped the fence on the run, and burst in upon the Bishop and his family.

“No danger — don’t be alarmed — all’s well,” he panted. “The rustlers are captured. I want Mescal. Quick! Where is she? Fetch her, somebody.”

One of the women glided from the room. Hare caught the clicking of a latch, the closing of a door, hollow footfalls descending on stone, and dying away under the cottage. They rose again, ending in swiftly pattering footsteps. Like a whirlwind Mescal came through the hall, black hair flying, dark eyes beaming.

“My darling!” Oblivious of the Mormons he swung her up and held her in his arms. “Mescal! Mescal!”

When he raised his face from the tumbling mass of her black hair, the Bishop and his family had left the room.

“Listen, Mescal. Be calm. I’m safe. The rustlers are prisoners. One of them released you from Holderness. Tell me which one?”

“I don’t know,” replied Mescal. “I’ve tried to think. I didn’t see his face; I can’t remember his voice.”

“Think! Think! He’ll be hanged if you don’t recall something to identify him. He deserves a chance. Holderness’s crowd are thieves, murderers. But two were not all bad. That showed the night you were at Silver Cup. I saved Nebraska—”

“Were you at Silver Cup? Jack!”

“Hush! don’t interrupt me. We must save this man who saved you. Think! Mescal! Think!”

“Oh! I can’t. What — how shall I remember?”

“Something about him. Think of his coat, his sleeve. You must remember something. Did you see his hands?”

“Yes, I did — when he was loosing the cords,” said Mescal, eagerly. “Long, strong fingers. I felt them too. He has a sharp rough wart on one hand, I don’t know which. He wears a leather wristband.”

“That’s enough!” Hare bounded out upon the garden walk and raced back to the crowded square. The uneasy circle stirred and opened for him to enter. He stumbled over a pile of lassoes which had not been there when he left. The stony Mormons waited; the rustlers coughed and shifted their feet. John Caldwell turned a gray face. Hare bent over the three dead rustlers lying with Holderness, and after a moment of anxious scrutiny he rose to confront the line of prisoners.

“Hold out your hands.”

One by one they complied. The sixth rustler in the line, a tall fellow, completely masked, refused to do as he was bidden. Twice Hare spoke. The rustler twisted his bound hands under his coat.

“Let’s see them,” said Hare, quickly. He grasped the fellow’s arm and received a violent push that almost knocked him over. Grappling with the rustler, he pulled up the bound hands, in spite of fierce resistance, and there were the long fingers, the sharp wart, the laced wristband. “Here’s my man!” he said.

“No,” hoarsely mumbled the rustler. The perspiration ran down his corded neck; his breast heaved convulsively.

“You fool!” cried Hare, dumfounded and resentful. “I recognized you. Would you rather hang than live? What’s your secret?”

He snatched off the black mask. The Bishop’s eldest son stood revealed.

“Good God!” cried Hare, recoiling from that convulsed face.

“Brother! Oh! I feared this,” groaned John Caldwell.

The rustlers broke out into curses and harsh laughter.

“ —— you Mormons! See him! Paul Caldwell! Son of a Bishop! Thought he was shepherdin’ sheep?”

“D — n you, Hare!” shouted the guilty Mormon, in passionate fury and shame. “Why didn’t you hang me? Why didn’t you bury me unknown?”

“Caldwell! I can’t believe it,” cried Hare, slowly coming to himself.” But you don’t hang. Here, come out of the crowd. Make way, men!”

The silent crowd of Mormons with lowered and averted eyes made passage for Hare and Caldwell. Then cold, stern voices in sharp questions and orders went on with the grim trial. Leading the bowed and stricken Mormon, Hare drew off to the side of the town-hall and turned his back upon the crowd. The constant trampling of many feet, the harsh medley of many voices swelled into one dreadful sound. It passed away, and a long hush followed. But this in turn was suddenly broken by an outcry:

“The Navajos! The Navajos!”

Hare thrilled at that cry and his glance turned to the eastern end of the village road where a column of mounted Indians, four abreast, was riding toward the square.

“Naab and his Indians,” shouted Hare. “Naab and his Indians! No fear!” His call was timely, for the aroused Mormons, ignorant of Naab’s pursuit, fearful of hostile Navajos, were handling their guns ominously.

But there came a cry of recognition— “August Naab!”

Onward came the band, Naab in the lead on his spotted roan. The mustangs were spent and lashed with foam. Naab reined in his charger and the keen-eyed Navajos closed in behind him. The old Mormon’s eagle glance passed over the dark forms dangling from the cottonwoods to the files of waiting men.

“Where is he?”

“There!” answered John Caldwell, pointing to the body of Holderness.

“Who robbed me of my vengeance? Who killed the rustler?” Naab’s stentorian voice rolled over the listening multitude. In it was a hunger of thwarted hate that held men mute. He bent a downward gaze at the dead Holderness as if to make sure of the ghastly reality. Then he seemed to rise in his saddle, and his broad chest to expand. “I know — I saw it all — blind I was not to believe my own eyes! Where is he? Where is Hare?”

Some one pointed Hare out. Naab swung from his saddle and scattered the men before him as if they had been sheep. His shaggy gray head and massive shoulders towered above the tallest there.

Hare felt again a cold sense of fear. He grew weak in all his being. He reeled when the gray shaggy giant laid a huge hand on his shoulder and with one pull dragged him close. Was this his kind Mormon benefactor, this man with the awful eyes?

“You killed Holderness?” roared Naab.

“Yes,” whispered Hare.

“You heard me say I’d go alone? You forestalled me? You took upon yourself my work? . . . Speak.”

“I — did.”

“By what right?”

“My debt — duty — your family — Dave!”

“Boy! Boy! You’ve robbed me.” Naab waved his arm from the gaping crowd to the swinging rustlers. “You’ve led these white-livered Mormons to do my work. How can I avenge my sons — seven sons?”

His was the rage of the old desert-lion. He loosed Hare and strode in magnificent wrath over Holderness and raised his brawny fists.

“Eighteen years I prayed for wicked men,” he rolled out. “One by one I buried my sons. I gave my springs and my cattle. Then I yielded to the lust for blood. I renounced my religion. I paid my soul to everlasting hell for the life of my foe. But he’s dead! Killed by a wild boy! I sold myself to the devil for nothing!”

August Naab raved out his unnatural rage amid awed silence. His revolt was the flood of years undammed at the last. The ferocity of the desert spirit spoke silently in the hanging rustlers, in the ruthlessness of the vigilantes who had destroyed them, but it spoke truest in the sonorous roll of the old Mormon’s wrath.

“August, young Hare saved two of the rustlers,” spoke up an old friend, hoping to divert the angry flood. “Paul Caldwell there, he was one of them. The other’s gone.”

Naab loomed over him. “What!” he roared. His friend edged away, repeating his words and jerking his thumb backward toward the Bishop’s son.

“Judas Iscariot!” thundered Naab. “False to thyself, thy kin, and thy God! Thrice traitor! . . . Why didn’t you get yourself killed? . . . Why are you left? Ah-h! for me — a rustler for me to kill — with my own hands! — A rope there — a rope!”

“I wanted them to hang me,” hoarsely cried Caldwell, writhing in Naab’s grasp.

Hare threw all his weight and strength upon the Mormon’s iron arm. “Naab! Naab! For God’s sake, hear! He saved Mescal. This man, thief, traitor, false Mormon — whatever he is — he saved Mescal.”

August Naab’s eyes were bloodshot. One shake of his great body flung Hare off. He dragged Paul Caldwell across the grass toward the cottonwood as easily as if he were handling an empty grain-sack.

Hare suddenly darted after him. “August! August! — look! look!” he cried. He pointed a shaking finger down the square. The old Bishop came tottering over the grass, leaning on his cane, shading his eyes with his hand. “August. See, the Bishop’s coming. Paul’s father! Do you hear?”

Hare’s appeal pierced Naab’s frenzied brain. The Mormon Elder saw his old Bishop pause and stare at the dark shapes suspended from the cottonwoods and hold up his hands in horror.

Naab loosed his hold. His frame seemed wrenched as though by the passing of an evil spirit, and the reaction left his face transfigured.

“Paul, it’s your father, the Bishop,” he said, brokenly. “Be a man. He must never know.” Naab spread wide his arms to the crowd. “Men, listen,” he said. “Of all of us Mormons I have lost most, suffered most. Then hear me. Bishop Caldwell must never know of his son’s guilt. He would sink under it. Keep the secret. Paul will be a man again. I know. I see. For, Mormons, August Naab has the gift of revelation!”

XXI. MESCAL

SUMMER GLEAMS OF golden sunshine swam under the glistening red walls of the oasis. Shadows from white clouds, like sails on a deep-blue sea, darkened the broad fields of alfalfa. Circling columns of smoke were wafted far above the cottonwoods and floated in the still air. The desert-red color of Navajo blankets brightened the grove.

Half-naked bronze Indians lolled in the shade, lounged on the cabin porches and stood about the sunny glade in idle groups. They wore the dress of peace. A single black-tipped white eagle feather waved above the band binding each black head. They watched the merry children tumble round the playground. Silvermane browsed where he listed under the shady trees, and many a sinewy red hand caressed his flowing mane. Black Bolly neighed her jealous displeasure from the corral, and the other mustangs trampled and kicked and whistled defiance across the bars. The peacocks preened their gorgeous plumage and uttered their clarion calls. The belligerent turkey-gobblers sidled about ruffling their feathers. The blackbirds and swallows sang and twittered their happiness to find old nests in the branches and under the eaves. Over all boomed the dull roar of the Colorado in flood.

It was the morning of Mescal’s wedding-day.

August Naab, for once without a task, sat astride a peeled log of driftwood in the lane, and Hare stood beside him.

“Five thousand steers, lad! Why do you refuse them? They’re worth ten dollars a head to-day in Salt Lake City. A good start for a young man.”

“No, I’m still in your debt.”

“Then share alike with my sons in work and profit?”

“Yes, I can accept that.”

“Good! Jack, I see happiness and prosperity for you. Do you remember that night on the White Sage trail? Ah! Well, the worst is over. We can look forward to better times. It’s not likely the rustlers will ride into Utah again. But this desert will never be free from strife.”

“Tell me of Mescal,” said Hare.

“Ah! Yes, I’m coming to that.” Naab bent his head over the log and chipped off little pieces with his knife.” Jack, will you come into the Mormon Church?”

Long had Hare shrunk from this question which he felt must inevitably come, and now he met it as bravely as he could, knowing he would pain his friend.

“No, August, I can’t,” he replied. “I feel — differently from Mormons about — about women. If it wasn’t for that! I look upon you as a father. I’ll do anything for you, except that. No one could pray to be a better man than you. Your work, your religion, your life — Why! I’ve no words to say what I feel. Teach me what little you can of them, August, but don’t ask me — that.”

“Well, well,” sighed Naab. The gray clearness of his eagle eyes grew shadowed and his worn face was sad. It was the look of a strong wise man who seemed to hear doubt and failure knocking at the gate of his creed. But he loved life too well to be unhappy; he saw it too clearly not to know there was nothing wholly good, wholly perfect, wholly without error. The shade passed from his face like the cloud-shadow from the sunlit lane.

“You ask about Mescal,” he mused. “There’s little more to tell.”

“But her father — can you tell me more of him?”

“Little more than I’ve already told. He was evidently a man of some rank. I suspected that he ruined his life and became an adventurer. His health was shattered when I brought him here, but he got well after a year or so. He was a splendid, handsome fellow. He spoke very seldom and I don’t remember ever seeing him smile. His favorite walk was the river trail. I came upon him there one day, and found him dying. He asked me to have a care of Mescal. And he died muttering a Spanish word, a woman’s name, I think.”

“I’ll cherish Mescal the more,” said Hare.

“Cherish her, yes. My Bible will this day give her a name. We know she has the blood of a great chief. Beautiful she is and good. I raised her for the Mormon Church, but God disposes after all, and I—”

A shrill screeching sound split the warm stillness, the long-drawn-out bray of a burro.

“Jack, look down the lane. If it isn’t Noddle!”

Under the shady line of the red wall a little gray burro came trotting leisurely along with one long brown ear standing straight up, the other hanging down over his nose.

“By George! it’s Noddle!” exclaimed Hare. “He’s climbed out of the canyon. Won’t this please Mescal?”

“Hey, Mother Mary,” called Naab toward the cabin. “Send Mescal out. Here’s a wedding-present.”

With laughing wonder the women-folk flocked out into the yard. Mescal hung back shy-eyed, roses dyeing the brown of her cheeks.

“Mescal’s wedding-present from Thunder River. Just arrived!” called Naab cheerily, yet deep-voiced with the happiness he knew the tidings would give. “A dusty, dirty, shaggy, starved, lop-eared, lazy burro — Noddle!”

Mescal flew out into the lane, and with a strange broken cry of joy that was half a sob she fell upon her knees and clasped the little burro’s neck. Noddle wearily flapped his long brown ears, wearily nodded his white nose; then evidently considering the incident closed, he went lazily to sleep.

“Noddle! dear old Noddle!” murmured Mescal, with far-seeing, thought-mirroring eyes. “For you to come back to-day from our canyon! . . . Oh! The long dark nights with the thunder of the river and the lonely voices! . . . they come back to me. . . . Wolf, Wolf, here’s Noddle, the same faithful old Noddle!”

August Naab married Mescal and Hare at noon under the shade of the cottonwoods. Eschtah, magnificent in robes of state, stood up with them. The many members of Naab’s family and the grave Navajos formed an attentive circle around them. The ceremony was brief. At its close the Mormon lifted his face and arms in characteristic invocation.

“Almighty God, we entreat Thy blessing upon this marriage. Many and inscrutable are Thy ways; strange are the workings of Thy will; wondrous the purpose with which Thou hast brought this man and this woman together. Watch over them in the new path they are to tread, help them in the trials to come; and in Thy good time, when they have reached the fulness of days, when they have known the joy of life and rendered their service, gather them to Thy bosom in that eternal home where we all pray to meet Thy chosen ones of good; yea, and the evil ones purified in Thy mercy. Amen.”

Happy congratulations of the Mormon family, a merry romp of children flinging flowers, marriage-dance of singing Navajos — these, with the feast spread under the cottonwoods, filled the warm noon-hours of the day.

Then the chief Eschtah raised his lofty form, and turned his eyes upon the bride and groom.

“Eschtah’s hundred summers smile in the face of youth. The arm of the White Chief is strong; the kiss of the Flower of the Desert is sweet. Let Mescal and Jack rest their heads on one pillow, and sleep under the trees, and chant when the dawn brightens in the east. Out of his wise years the Navajo bids them love while they may. Daughter of my race, take the blessing of the Navajo.”

Jack lifted Mescal upon Black Bolly and mounted Silvermane. Piute grinned till he shook his earrings and started the pack burros toward the plateau trail. Wolf pattered on before, turning his white head, impatient of delay. Amid tears and waving of hands and cheers they began the zigzag ascent.

When they reached the old camp on the plateau the sun was setting behind the Painted Desert. With hands closely interwoven they watched the color fade and the mustering of purple shadows.

Twilight fell. Piute raked the red coals from the glowing centre of the camp-fire. Wolf crouched all his long white length, his sharp nose on his paws, watching Mescal. Hare watched her, too. The night shone in her eyes, the light of the fire, the old brooding mystic desert-spirit, and something more. The thump of Silvermane’s hobbled hoofs was heard in the darkness; Bolly’s bell jangled musically. The sheep were bleating. A lonesome coyote barked. The white stars blinked out of the blue and the night breeze whispered softly among the cedars.

THE END

The Young Lion Hunter

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I - KEN WARD’S ARRIVAL IN UTAH

CHAPTER II - WINGS

CHAPTER III - OFF FOR COCONINA

CHAPTER IV - THROUGH BUCKSKIN FOREST

CHAPTER V - THE PLATEAU

CHAPTER VI - TRAILS

CHAPTER VII - TWO LIONS

CHAPTER VIII - IN CAMP

CHAPTER IX - A VISIT FROM RANGERS

CHAPTER X - HAL

CHAPTER XI - HIRAM CALLS ON KEN

CHAPTER XII - NAVVY’S WATERLOO

CHAPTER XIII - THE CAÑON AND ITS DISCOVERERS

CHAPTER XIV - HIRAM BENT’S STORY

CHAPTER XV - WILD MUSTANGS

CHAPTER XVI - SPLIT TRAILS

CHAPTER XVII - STRENUOUS WORK

CHAPTER XVIII - HAL’S LESSON

CHAPTER XIX - KEN AND PRINCE

CHAPTER XX - AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE

CHAPTER I - KEN WARD’S ARRIVAL IN UTAH

“DICK, I SHORE will be glad to see Ken,” said Jim Williams, in his lazy drawl. “I reckon you’ll be, too?”

Jim’s cool and careless way of saying things sometimes irritated me. Glad to see Ken Ward! I was crazy to see the lad.

“Jim, what you know about being glad to see any one isn’t a whole lot,” I replied. “You’ve been a Texan ranger all your life. I’ve only been out here in this wild, forsaken country for three years. Ken Ward is from my home in Pennsylvania. He probably saw my mother the day he left to come West...Glad to see him? Say!”

“Wal, you needn’t git peevish. Now, if we calkilated right from Ken’s letter he’ll be on to-day’s stage — an’ there she comes bowlin’ round the corner of the Pink Cliffs.”

I glanced up eagerly, my eye sweeping out on the desert, climbing the red ridge to see a cloud of dust rolling along the base of the great walls.

“By Jingo! You’re right, Jim. Here she comes. Say, I hope Ken is aboard.”

Jim and I were sitting on a box in front of a store in the little town of Kanab, Utah. The day before we had ridden in off Buckskin Mountain, having had Ken Ward’s letter brought out to us by one of the forest rangers. We had a room in a cottage where we kept what traps and belongings we did not need out on the preserve; and here I had stored Ken’s saddle, rifle, lasso, blanket — all the things he had used during his memorable sojourn with us on Penetier the year before. Also we had that morning sent out to one of the ranches for Ken’s mustang, which was now in a near-by corral. We intended to surprise Ken, for it was not likely we would forget how much he cared for that mustang. So we waited, watching the cloud of dust roll down the ridge till we could see under it the old gray stage swaying from side to side.

“Shore, he mightn’t be aboard,” said Jim.

I reproached myself then for having scorned Jim’s matter-of-fact way. After all there was no telling from Jim’s looks or words just how he felt. No doubt he looked forward to Ken’s visit as pleasurably as I. We were two lonely forest rangers, seldom coming to the village, and always detailed to duty in the far solitudes of Coconina Preserve, so that the advent of a lively and companionable youngster would be in the nature of a treat.

The stage bumped down over the last rocky steps of the ridge, and headed into the main street of Kanab. The four dusty horses trotted along with a briskness that showed they knew they had reached the end of their journey.

“There’s a red-headed kid sittin’ with the driver,” remarked Jim. “Leslie, thet can’t be Ken.”

“No, Ken’s hair is light...There he is, Jim...There’s Ken. He’s looking out of the window!”

The horses clattered up and stopped short with a rattle and clink of trappings, and a lumbering groan from the old stage. Somebody let out a ringing yell. I saw the driver throw off a mail-pouch. Then a powerful young fellow leaped over the wheel and bounded at me. “Dick Leslie!” he yelled. I thought I knew that yellow hair, flying up, and the keen eyes like flashes of blue fire. But before I could be sure of anything he was upon me, had me in a bear hug that stopped my breath. Then I knew it was Ken Ward.

“Oh, Dick, maybe I’m not glad to see you!” Whereupon he released me, which made it possible for me to greet him. He interrupted me with eager pleasure, handing me a small bundle and some letters. “From home, Dick — your mother and sister. Both well when I left and tickled to death that I was going to visit you...Why — hello, Jim Williams!”

“Ken, I shore am glad to see you,” replied Jim, as he wrung and pumped Ken’s hand. “But I wouldn’t ‘a’ knowed you. Why, how you’ve growed! An’ you wasn’t no striplin’ when you trimmed the Greaser last summer. Ken, you could lick him now in about a minnit.”

“Well, maybe not quite so quick,” replied Ken, laughing. “Jim, I’ve taken on fifteen or twenty pounds since I had that scrap with the Greaser, and I’ve had a season’s training under the most famous football and baseball trainers in the world.”

“Wal, now, Ken, you’re shore goin’ to tell me all about thet,” said Jim, greatly interested.

To me Ken Ward had changed, and I studied him with curious interest. The added year sat well upon him, for there was now no suggestion of callowness. The old frank, boyish look was the same, yet somewhat different. Ken had worked, studied, suffered. But as to his build, it was easy to see the change. That promise of magnificent strength and agility, which I had seen in him since he was a mere boy, had reached its fulfilment. Lithe and straight as an Indian, almost tall, wide across the shoulders, small-waisted and small-hipped, and with muscles rippling at his every move, he certainly was the most splendid specimen of young manhood I had ever seen.

“Hey, Kid, why don’t you come down?” called Ken to the boy on top of the stage. “Here’s Dick Leslie — you remember him.”

I looked from the boy to Ken.

“It’s my brother Hal,” responded Ken. “Father wanted me to bring him along, and Hal has been clean mad ever since I was out West last year. So, Dick, I had to bring him. I expect you’ll be angry with me, but I couldn’t have come without him. I wanted him along, too, Dick, and if it’s all right with you—”

“Sure, Ken, it’s all right,” I interrupted. “Only he’s pretty much of a kid — has he got any sand?”

“He’s all sand,” replied Ken, in a lower voice. “That’s the trouble; he’s got too much sand.”

Ken called to his brother again and the youngster reluctantly clambered down. Evidently the meeting with Ken’s ranger friends was to be an ordeal for Hal. I seemed to remember his freckled face and red head, but not very well. Then he dropped over the wheel of the stage, and came toward me readily, holding out his hand.

“Hullo, Dick, I remember you all right,” he said.

I replied to his greeting and gave the lad a close scrutiny. I should say fourteen years would have topped his age. He was short, sturdy, and looked the outdoor boy. His expression was one of intense interest, as if he lived every moment of his life to its utmost, and he had the most singular eyes I ever beheld. They were very large, of a piercing light gray, and they seemed to take everything in with a kind of daring flash. Altogether, I thought, here was a lad out of the ordinary, one with latent possibilities which gave me a vague alarm.

“Wal, now, so you’re Ken’s brother,” said Jim Williams. “I shore am glad to see you. Ken an’ me was pretty tolerable pals last summer, an’ I reckon you an’ me kin be thet, too.”

It was plain Jim liked the looks of the youngster or else he would never have made that speech. Hal approached the ranger and shook hands awkwardly. He was not timid, but backward. I saw that he was all eyes, and he looked Jim over from spurs to broadbrim with the look of one who was comparing the reality with a picture long carried in mind. Of course Ken had told Hal all about the Texan, and what that telling must have been showed plainly in the lad’s manner. Manifestly he was satisfied with Jim’s tall form, his sun-scorched face and hawk eyes, the big blue gun Jim packed, and the high boots and spurs he wore.

“Where’s Hiram Bent?” asked Ken, earnestly. “Hiram’s back on the saddle with his hounds. He’s waiting for us.”

“He told me about them,” replied Ken. “Lion dogs, the best in the West, Hiram said. I guess maybe I’m not aching to see them...Dick! My mustang! I forgot him. What did you ever do with him? You know I left him with you at Holston last summer.”

“We’ll see if we can’t hear something of him,” I replied, evasively, as if I wanted Ken to meet a disappointment gradually. His face fell, but he did not say any more about the mustang. “Ken, I’m going to sign you into service as a ranger — my helper. Hiram is game-warden, you know, and I’ve arranged’ for us to go with him. He’s specially engaged now in trying to clean out the cougars. The critters are thick as hops back on the north rim, and we’ve got a lively summer ahead of us.”

“Sounds great,” replied Ken. “Say, what do you mean by north rim?”

“It’s the north rim of the Cañon — Grand Cañon — and the wildest, ruggedest country on earth.”

“Oh yes, I forgot that Coconina takes in the Cañon. Will we get to see much of it?”

“Ken, in a month from now you’ll be sick of climbing out of that awful gash.”

For answer Ken smiled his doubts. Then, leaving Jim and Hal, who appeared to be getting on a friendly footing, I took Ken over to the office of Mr. Birch, the Supervisor of Coconina Forest Preserve. As a matter of fact, this rather superior person had always jarred on me. He was inclined to be arrogant, and few of the rangers liked him. I had to get along with him, for being head ranger, it was policy for me to keep a civil tongue in my head. When I introduced Ken and stated my desire to sign him in as my helper the Supervisor looked rebellious and said I had all the helpers I needed.

“Who is this fellow anyhow, Leslie?” he demanded. “I’m not going to have any of your Eastern friends chasing around the preserve, setting fires and killing deer. This idea of yours about a helper is only a bluff. I don’t sign any more rangers. Understand?”

I bit my tongue to keep from loosing it, and while I was trying to think what was best to do Ken stepped forward.

“Mr. Supervisor,” he said, blandly, “I’ve only come out to have a little vacation and get some practical ideas on forestry. Please be good enough to look at my credentials.”

Ken handed over letters with the Washington seal stamped on them, and Birch stared. What was more when he had read the letters his manner changed very considerably, and he even looked at me with a shade of surprise.

“Oh — yes — Mr. Ward, that’ll be all right. You see — I — I only — I’ve got to be particular about rangers and all that. Now anything I can do for you I’ll be glad to do.”

Ken’s letters must have been pretty strong, and I was secretly pleased to see old Birch taken down a bit. The upshot of the matter was that Ken got a free hand in Coconina, to roam where he liked, and spend what time he wished with the rangers on duty. We left the office highly pleased.

“We’ll go over to the corral now and look over some mustangs,” I said.

From Ken’s face I knew his thoughts reverted once more to the mustang which had trotted its way into his heart. But I said nothing. I wanted his surprise to be complete. Jim and Hal joined us, and together we walked down the street. Kanab was only a hamlet of a few stores, a church, a school, and cottages. My lodgings were at a cottage just at the end of the street, and here, back of a barn, was the corral. When we turned a corner of the barn there was a black mustang, all glossy as silk, with long mane flying and shiny hoofs lifting as he pranced around. He certainly looked proud. That, I felt sure, was because of the thorough currying and brushing I had given him.

Ken stopped stock-still and his eyes began to bulge. As for the mustang, he actually tried to climb over the bars. He knew Ken before Ken knew him.

“Oh! Dick Leslie!” exclaimed Ken.

Then, placing both hands on the top bar, with one splendid vault he cleared the gate.

CHAPTER II - WINGS

IT DID ME good to see the way Ken Ward hugged that little black mustang. Somehow a ranger gets to have a warm feeling for a horse. Now, Ken’s mustang remembered him, or if he did not he surely was a most deceitful bit of horse-flesh.

“He’s fine and fat — in great shape,” said Ken, rubbing his hands all over the mustang. “He hasn’t been worked much.”

“Been down on our winter range for six months,” I replied. “I had him brought in this morning, and after the blacksmith clipped and shod him I took a hand myself.”

“Ken, I want a mustang,” sang out Hal.

He sat on the top of the corral fence, absorbed in the appearance and action of Ken’s mount.

“Now, Kid, keep your shirt on,” said Ken. “You’ll get one. It’s just half an hour since you arrived.”

“That’s long enough. Do you think I’m going to stand around here and watch you have a pony like that and not have one myself?”

“It’s a mustang, not a pony,” said Ken.

Purcell, the owner of the cottage and corrals, drove up at this juncture, and I engaged him in conversation regarding a mount for the boy and the pack-horses we would need on our trip.

“Wal, there’s a bunch of mustangs over in the waterin’ corral. Some good ones — all pretty wild. But about pack-hosses — that sort of bumps me,” said Purcell, dubiously. “I’m due to go to Lund after grain an’ supplies, an’ I need my regular packers. I’ll let you have one, an’ the big bay stallion.”

“You don’t mean that big brute Marc?” I queried.

“Sure. He’s all right, if you handle him easy. I don’t know as he’ll stand for a pack-saddle — any kind of a saddle — but you might load somethin’ on him.”

“If that’s the best you can do we’ll have to take him,” I rejoined. “Also I want a good man to take care of the horses for the boys.”

“Hire the Indian. He’s here now, an’ he’s the best man to find grass an’ water in this desert.”

“You mean Navvy? Yes, we’d be lucky to get him, but Jim and Hiram Bent, they both hate Indians.”

“Leslie, I don’t know of any one else in the village. It’s lambin’ time now, an’ hands are scarce. You’d better take the Indian, for he’ll save you lots of trampin’ round.”

“I’ll do it, Purcell. We’ll pack early in the morning and get a good start. Now, take the lad over to the corral and get him a mount.”

“Come on, youngster,” said Purcell to Hal.

“Come on an’ let’s see what kind of an eye you have for a hoss.”

Hal leaped off the fence and went with Purcell toward the other corrals. Jim started to go with them, but Ken detained him.

“Fellows,” said Ken, “before we get any farther I want to tell you about my brother. He’s simply as wild as a March hare. I’m not sure, but I suspect that he’s been reading a lot of Wild West stuff. The folks at home have humored him, spoiled him, I think. Father is sort of proud of Hal. The boy is bright, quick as a steel trap, and just the finest, squarest kid ever. But he has a fiendish propensity for making trouble, getting into scrapes. Now that would be bad enough back home, wouldn’t it? And here I’ve had to bring him out West!”

“I shore am glad you fetched him,” replied Jim.

“I’m glad, too, Jim, until I think of Hal’s peculiarities, and then I’m scared. That kid can hatch up more impossible, never-heard-of situations than any other kid on earth. Hal imagines he can do anything. What’s worse he’s got the nerve to try, and, to tell you the truth, I’ve never yet discovered anything he couldn’t do.”

“Can he ride a horse?” I asked.

“Ride! Say, he can ride standing on his head. Now, Dick and Jim, I want you to do all you can to look after Hal, but understand, the responsibility for his safety and welfare doesn’t rest upon you. I’ll do my best for him; the responsibility rests upon me. Much as I wanted Hal with me, I advised and coaxed father not to send him. But Dad thinks the kid can do anything a great deal better than I. He told me where I could go Hal could go. So we’ll make up our minds to have our hearts in our throats all the time on this trip and let it go at that.”

Our attention was attracted by a shout from the other corral.

“Hyar, Leslie, come over,” called Purcell.

We crossed over, slipped through a couple of gates, and edging round a cloud of dust saw Hal in the middle of a corral holding a beautiful mustang by the mane.

“Leslie, the youngster has picked out Wings, the worst pinto that ever came off Buckskin Mountain,” declared Purcell. “An’ he says he don’t want an’ won’t have any other mustang here.”

“Sure! What did I tell you, Dick? This is where the toboggan starts. Ha! Ha!” yelled Ken.

“What’s wrong, Purcell? That pinto looks fine and dandy,” I said.

“He is a dandy,” returned Purcell. “He’s a climber, an’ he can beat any hoss on the range. But he can’t be rid except when he wants to be rid. There’s no tellin’ when he’s liable to make up his mind to rare. It’s not buckin’ so much — he’s no bronch — but he just runs wild when it pleases him, an’ then it takes a Navajo to ride him. I say he’s no mount for a tenderfoot.”

During this speech of Purcell’s I watched Hal closely, and saw that, however he occupied himself with Wings’ glossy mane, he heard every word. And when he glanced up I believed that what Purcell said had absolutely decided him. The lad looked keen to me, and deep as the sea. But he was not fresh or forward, and despite my uneasiness I began to like him.

“Kid, will you take my mustang?” asked Ken.

“Nix,” answered Hal. “I’m going to ride Wings and beat the life out of you and your mustang.”

I sent Purcell for a saddle, and he fetched one presently and put it on Wings.

“Youngster, seein’ as you are set on the pinto, all-l right,” said Purcell, as he fastened the cinch.

Then Hal looked straight at the rancher.

“Mr. Purcell, I’ve had ponies at home and I could ride them,” he said. “But this’ll be new to me. Will you give me a few tips?”

That pleased me immensely. Whatever Hal was, he was not a fool. I noticed Jim Williams wore an expression as near akin to excitement as it was possible for that cool Texas ranger to wear. Perhaps in Jim’s mind, as in mine, the lad was being measured. Purcell, too, appeared to like the boy’s frankness.

“I don’t know as I kin give you many tips,” he said. “Fact of the matter is you must try to stick on, that’s all. Just keep your toes in the stirrups, so you can git them out quick. Then squeeze him with your knees for all you’re worth...Wait! Make sure where you’re going...There!”

Hal sat firmly in the saddle. Wings champed the bit and turned his head, then shook it, and suddenly lifting his hind hoofs he kicked viciously. We scattered and climbed the corral fence. When we turned round the pinto had come down on all fours and squared himself. With head down, humping his back, he proceeded to buck with startling quickness, and tossed Hal like a feather. The boy hit the ground with a thud, and slowly got up, considerably shaken. Then he went up to the mustang, now standing quietly.

Quite a little crowd of villagers, mostly boys, had collected to see the fun, and some of the latter were inclined to make remarks at Hal’s expense. One of them, a boy I knew to be a rascal, poked his head between the bars of a gate, and yelled derisively at Hal, to the immense delight of the other lads. Hal eyed him a moment, but he did not say anything. This made the fellow all the bolder, for he climbed the fence, from which he directed more remarks.

“Mr. Purcell,” said Hal to the rancher, “I hadn’t got ready that time. I wasn’t expecting it. Now how must I treat him? My way at home was to coax a pony, be decent to him.”

“It’ll pay best in the end to be decent to a hoss,” replied Purcell. “Be kind, but firm, an’ use your spurs.”

“I haven’t any spurs; I never used any.”

“You’ll need them out here.”

Hal mounted the pinto again. Wings wheeled about, pranced, stood up pawing the air, snorted, and then, dropping down, he began to run round the corral. He zigzagged against the fence, and slowing down he took short jumps, kicking at the same time. Then he squared himself again and lowered his head.

“Look out, Kid!” yelled Ken.

We all shouted warnings. Hal was prepared, and for the space of a few seconds, while the bucking pinto pounded a dusty circle in the corral, he kept his seat. But a new move, a sort of sidestepping buck, flung him against the fence, and he fell all in a heap. It was a hard fall, but the boy got up. A lump began to show on his chin, and blood, his knuckles, too, were bloody.

“Lookie here, Redhead,” called out the smart youngster who was amusing his comrades by making fun of Hal. “Can’t you ride no better’n that? Haw! Haw! You can’t ride or nothin’, Redhead! Redhead!”

“Say, Johnny, can you ride him?” asked Hal, coolly.

“Yep, you bet.”

“Come down and let me see you do it. I don’t believe you.”

Johnny eyed Hal rather doubtfully. Hal looked very much interested, very friendly, but his eyes were cold and hard. The Western lad hesitated, and finally driven to it by the bantering of the other lads, he dropped off the fence. Vaulting into the saddle, he rode Wings round the corral, kept his seat easily while the pinto went through his tricks, and altogether gave an exhibition of riding which would have made most any Eastern lad green with envy.

“You did ride him. I was wrong. I thought you couldn’t,” said Hal, walking slowly up to Johnny as he dismounted. “You’re a crack horseman.”

Suddenly Hal leaped at the fellow, and at the same moment Ken yelled and tumbled off the fence. I was too amazed to move. Jim Williams’s mouth gaped and he stared in speechless delight.

Hal had the youngster jammed against the fence and was banging him.

“You called me redhead and tenderfoot and sloppy rider!” cried Hal, swinging his fists.

Then Ken reached them, pulled Hal away, and rescued the already bewildered and bloody-nosed lad.

“Dick, I knew it, I knew it,” said Ken, leading the lad out at the gate. “The minute Hal asked that boy to ride the mustang I knew what was up. I couldn’t say a word. Hal always makes me speechless.”

Williams was shaking so that he rattled the top bar of the corral, and Purcell roared. If it had not been for the shame and distress in Ken’s face I would have yelled myself. For that bantering youngster had long ago earned my dislike, and I was glad to see him get a little of his just deserts.

Then I saw Hal look through the fence at all the strange lads. He was certainly the coolest piece of audacity I ever saw.

“I wasn’t born in a saddle, see?” he said. “At that I’ll bet in a month I can ride with any of you. But there’s one thing I can do right now — so don’t any of you call me redhead again.”

“Hal, shut up, and come out of there,” called Ken.

“Not on your life,” replied Hal, promptly. “I’m going to ride this iron-jawed mustang or — or—”

Hal did not complete the sentence, but his look was expressive enough.

Jim Williams leisurely dropped off the fence into the corral. While removing his spurs he looked up at Ken, and his eyes twinkled.

“See here, Ken, you’re doin’ a powerful lot of fussin’ about this kid brother. You leave him to me.”

That from Williams occasioned me immeasurable relief, and though Ken still looked doubtful there was much gladness and gratitude in his surprised glance.

Jim sauntered over toward the center of the corral, swinging his spurs.

“Kid, I reckon you an’ me had better strike up a pardnership in ridin’ pintoes, an’ all sich little matters appertainin’ to the range.”

Jim changed the strap lengths on his spurs and handed them to Hal.

“Put these on,” he said. “I reckon they’re too long for you, an’ mebbe ‘11 trip you up when you walk. But they’re what you need on horseback.”

Hal adjusted the spurs, and took a few awkward steps, digging up the ground with the big rowels.

“They’ll be as hard on me as on the pony,” he said.

Jim captured Wings, and tightened saddle-girths, shortened stirrups, and, slipping off the bridle, let the pinto go.

“Now, kid, listen. These Western hosses an’ mustangs can size up a man, an’ take advantage of him. You’ve got to be half hoss yourself to know all their tricks. The trouble with you jest now was thet Wings seen you was scared of him. You mustn’t let a hoss see that. You must be natural, easy, an’ firm. You must be master. Take the bridle an’ go up to Wings, on the left side. Never again try to straddle a hoss from the right side. Don’t coax him, an’ don’t yell at him. If you say anythin’, mean bizness. When you get him in a corner go right up, not too quick or too slow, an’ reach out to put on the bridle as if you’d done it all your life. When you get it on draw the reins back over his head reasonable tight an’ hold them with your left hand, at the same time takin’ a good grip on his mane. Turn the stirrup an’ slip your left toe in, grab the pommel with right hand, an’ swing up. Start him off then an’ let him know who’s boss. If he wants to go one way make him go the other. Don’t be afraid to stick the spurs into him. You’re too gentle with a hoss. Thet’ll never do in this country. These sage-brush hosses ain’t Eastern hosses. Make up your mind to ride him now. He’ll see it. An’ if he bucks soak him with the spurs till he stops or throws you. An’ if he throws you get up an’ go after him again.”

“All right,” replied Hal, soberly. And picking up the bridle he went toward Wings.

The pinto squared around and eyed Hal as curiously as if he had actually heard the advice tendered by the Texan. Probably he heard the clinking spurs and knew what they meant. With a snort he jumped and began to run round the corral. Hal slowly closed in on him, and at length got him in a corner. And here Hal showed that he could obey coaching as readily as Ken. Walking directly up to the pinto, he bridled him, and with quick, decisive action leaped astride.

Then he spurred Wings. The pinto bolted, and in his plunging scattered dust and gravel. Not liking the spurs, he settled into a run. Hal was now more at ease in the saddle. It was not so much confidence as desperation. Perhaps the shortened stirrups helped him to a firmer leg-hold. At any rate, he rode gracefully and appeared to good advantage. He pulled Wings, and when the fiery pinto snorted and tossed his head and preferred his own way a touch of spur made him turn round. In this manner Hal ran Wings along the corral fence, across the open space, to and fro, successfully turning him at will. Then as he let up the pinto wheeled and spread his legs and tried to get his head down.

“Hold him up!” yelled Purcell.

“Now’s the time, kid!” added Jim Williams. “Soak him with the spurs!”

Hal could not keep the pinto from getting his head down or from beginning to buck, but he managed to use the long spurs. That made a difference. It broke Wing’s action. He did not seem to be able to get to going. He had to break and bolt, then square himself again, and try to buck.

“Stick on, Hal!” I yelled. “If you stay with him now you’ll have him beat.”

We all yelled, and Ken Ward danced around in great danger of being ridden down by the furious pinto. Like a burr Hal stuck on. There were moments when he wabbled in the saddle, lurched one way and then another, and again bounced high. Once we made sure it was to be a victory for the pinto, but Hal luckily and wonderfully regained his seat. And after that by degrees he appeared to get a surer, easier swing, while Wings grew tired of bucking and more tired of being spurred.

Purcell jumped into the corral and began to throw down the bars of the gate.

“Kid, run him out now!” shouted Jim. “Drive him good an’ hard! Make him see who’s boss!”

Wings did not want to leave the corral, and Hal, in pulling him, lifted him off his forefeet. Another touch of spurs sent the pinto through the gate. Hal spurred him down the road.

We watched Wings going faster and faster, gradually settling into an even gait, till he was on a dead run.

“Thet pinto has wings, all right,” remarked Jim. “Purcell named him some ways near right. An’ between us the kid’s no slouch in the saddle. He won’t have thet little fire-eatin’ hoss broke all in a minnit, but he’ll be able to ride him. An’ thet’ll let us hit the trail.”

CHAPTER III - OFF FOR COCONINA

THE NAVAJO INDIAN whom I had engaged through Purcell did not show up till we were packing next morning. He was a copper-skinned, raven-haired, beady-eyed desert savage. When Ken and Hal had finished breakfast I called them out of the cottage to meet him.

“Here, boys, shake hands with Navvy. Here, Navvy, shake with heap big brother — heap little brother.”

“Me savvy,” said the Indian, extending his hand to Ken. “How.”

Then he turned to Hal. “How.”

Hal, following Ken, gingerly shook hands with Navvy. From the look of the lad he was all at sea, and plainly disappointed. No doubt in his mind dwelt images and fancies of picturesque plumed Indians, such as he had evolved from Western tales. Indeed Navvy would have been a disappointment to a most unromantic boy, let alone one as imaginative and full of wild ideas as Hal was. Navvy’s slouch hat and torn shirt and blue jeans, some white man’s cast-off apparel, were the things that disillusioned Hal. And I saw that he turned once more to his pinto. A new saddle and bridle, spurs, chaps, lasso, canteen, quirt, a rifle and a scabbard, and a slicker — these with spirited Wings were all-satisfying and gave him back his enchantment.

“Where’ll the Indian ride?” asked Purcell.

“Why, he can climb on the stallion,” I replied.

Purcell’s stallion Marc was a magnificent bay, very heavy and big-boned. We had strapped a blanket on him and roped some sacks of oats over that. The other pack-horses were loaded with all they could carry.

“He can climb on, I reckon, but he’ll darn soon git off,” remarked Purcell, dryly.

“Then he’ll have to walk,” I rejoined.

“That’ll be best,” said Purcell, much relieved. “Leslie, have a care of Marc. You’ll strike some all-fired bad trails in the Cañon, where many a hoss has slipped an’ gone over. Don’t drive Marc or pull him. Just coax him a little.”

“All right, Purcell. We’ll be careful...Now, boys. We’re late starting, and it’s thirty miles to the first water.”

I led the train, driving our pack horses before me. Navvy came next, leading Marc. Ken was third, and Jim, with a watchful eye on Hal and the pinto, brought up the rear.

The few miles of good road between Kanab and Fredonia, another little hamlet, we made at a jog trot, doing the distance in something over an hour. Outside of Fredonia we hit the trail, and went down and down into the red washes, and, over the sage speckled flats. It grew dusty and hot. About noon we reached the first slow roll of rising ridge, and from there on it was climb. More than once I looked back, and more than once I saw Hal having trouble with his pinto. Once Wings, as if he really had wings, flew off across a flat, and spilled Hal into the sage. Navvy got tired walking and climbed up on the grain-sacks on Marc, but he did not stay there very long. Then my pack horse made trouble for me by shying at a rattlesnake and getting off the trail. The time passed swiftly, as it always passed when we were on the move, and we reached the first cedars about three o’clock. Here I saw that our train was stretched out over a mile in length. Navvy was having a little ride on Marc, but Ken limped along before his mustang, and Hal changed from side to side, from leg to leg, in his saddle. The boys were beginning to show soreness from riding.

The sun had set when we made the head of Nail Gulch. Here a spring and a cabin awaited us, also a little browse for the horses.

“I’ve got a lame knee, all right,” remarked Ken. “Thought I was in good shape.”

“No matter how hard you are it’ll take three days or more to break you in,” I said.

Hal came straggling along behind Jim. He fell off his pinto and just flopped over against a cedar.

“Gee! but ain’t it great! Ken, look at those cliffs!”

“Wait a couple of days, Hal. Then I’ll show you some cliffs,” I said.

It took Jim and me only a little time to unpack, build a fire in the cabin, bake biscuits, and get a good supper. Navvy led the horses to water, hobbled them and turned them loose. Then we had our meal. Ken and Hal were supremely happy, but too tired to be jolly. Darkness found them both asleep, and Hal threshed about as if he were having wild dreams.

At daybreak Navvy awakened me coming in with the horses. It began to appear that the Indian would be a welcome addition to our party. Finding the horses in the morning was work for me, and sometimes long and arduous work. And Jim, rolling out of his blanket and blinking his eyes, drawled: “Wal, pretty fair for an Injun, pretty fair!”

The boys heard us, and roused themselves, bright and eager, though so stiff they could scarcely stand erect. In an hour we had breakfasted, packed, and were in the saddle. This morning Wings did not seem to be so frisky.

“Boys, to-day will be a drill and no mistake,” I told them. “Ride as long as you can stand it, then walk a bit...Here! Look over the far side of the gulch. See that long black-fringed line with the patches of snow? That’s Buckskin Mountain. To-night we’ll camp under the pines. And Ken, there’re pine-trees on Buckskin that dwarf those in Penetier.”

We struck out into the trail, and then began a long, tedious, uninteresting ride. Nail Gulch was narrow, and shut in the view. Low bare stone walls and cedar slopes extended for miles and miles. It was a gradual ascent all the way, but this did not grow perceptible until about noon. I laughed to see Ken and Hal fall off their saddles, hobble along for a while, then wearily mount again, presently to repeat the performance. The air grew cooler, making gloves comfortable. About three o’clock the gulch began to lose its walls, and we reached the first pines. They were not large, and straggled over the widening gulch, but as we climbed the trail they grew more numerous. The early shades of night enveloped us as we rode out of the gulch into the level forest.

Here and there patches of snow gleamed through the gloom. This solved the question of water, and we made camp at once. A blazing fire soon warmed us. We had a hearty supper of bacon, hot biscuits, coffee, and canned vegetables. Ken and Hal were so tired and sore that they could scarcely move, but that did not affect their appetites. Then we sat around the campfire.

By this time the forest was black and the wind roared through the pines. It was not new to Ken, but Hal showed what it meant to him. I fancied him even more sensitive to impressions than Ken, but he was not so apt to express his feelings. In fact Hal seemed a silent lad, or else he had not yet found his tongue. Wonderful thoughts, I knew, were teeming in his mind. His big eyes glowed. He watched the camp-fire, and looked out into the dark gloom of the forest, and then back at Jim, then at the impassive Navajo. He listened to the wind and to the bells on the horses.

“Where’s our tent?” he asked, suddenly. “We don’t use no tents,” replied Jim. “We spread a tarp—”

“What’s that?”

“Why, a tarpaulin, you know, a big piece of canvas. Wal, we spread one of them on the ground, roll in our blankets, an’ pull the other end of the tarp up over.”

Then a little while afterward Hal broke silence again.

“I hear something; what is it?” he asked, breathlessly, starting up.

We all listened while the fire sputtered. A lull came in the roar of the wind through the pines, and then from far off in the forest a wild, high-pitched yelp.

“Kid, that’s a coyote,” replied Ken, slapping Hal on the knee. “Don’t you remember I told you about coyotes?...Listen!”

Hal said no more that evening, yet when I was sleepy and ready to turn in he still sat up, alert, watchful, intent on the strangeness and wildness of the forest. It was a treat to see him when Navvy rolled in a blanket with feet to the fire.

“Sleepie — me,” said the Indian.

That was his good-night to us.

Ken shared my blankets and tarpaulin that night and slept without turning once. When the gray dawn came I was up lighting a fire. Jim yawned out of his bed, and both boys slept on. The morning was cold. A white frost silvered the scant grass. Presently I heard bells far off; they grew louder and quickened. Soon the horses appeared with the Navajo riding one, and they trooped into camp with thudding hoofs and jangling bells. That woke the boys.

“Rustle, now, Kid,” said Jim to Hal. “You’ll miss somethin’ if you ain’t lively.”

“Oh, I’m all stove up!” exclaimed Ken. “Whew! but that’s cold air! How about you, Hal?”

“I feel great,” rejoined his brother. We all saw that Hal could hardly get out of bed, that when he did get out it was a desperate task for him to draw on his boots.

“Where’s some water to wash in?” he asked. “Tackle the snow-drift there.”

I meant for Hal to get a pan of snow and melt it at the fire, but he misunderstood me. He tackled the snow barehanded. It had a frozen crust which he could not break through, so he kicked a hole in it, and then digging out a double handful he proceeded to wash. That operation was one which required fortitude. Hal never murmured, but he hurried to the fire in a way to make Jim wink slyly at me.

When the sun rose we were on the trail. We passed the zone of silver spruces, rode through a long aspen hollow, and then out among the brown aisles of great pines of Buckskin Forest.

“Oh! Ken, I never saw a woods before!” was Hal’s tribute.

“Boys, keep your eyes peeled for deer and coyotes,” I said.

It was my intention to lead Ken and Hal to the rim of the Grand Cañon without warning. I wanted the great spectacle to burst upon them unexpectedly as it had upon me. So I said nothing about it. Ken was in a dream, perhaps living over again his adventures in Penetier. Hal was suffering from his raw legs and sore joints, but he was in an ecstasy over the huge gnarled pines and the wild glades. Both boys had forgotten the Cañon. So I rode on, pleased at the thought of what it all was to them. The sun thawed the frost, letting the bluebells peep out of the grass.

“There’s a black squirrel with a white tail,” shouted Hal.

“Kid, don’t ever yell in the forest unless it’s a yelling matter,” said Ken.

We flushed blue grouse in some of the hollows, but saw no sign of deer. It was easy going and we made fast time. About noon I called into requisition a little ruse I had planned to attract the attention of the boys from the trail ahead. I told them to look sharp for deer on both sides. In this way, leaving the trail and keeping behind the thicker clumps of pines, I approached the Cañon without their suspecting its nearness. Then, rounding a thicket of juniper, within twenty yards of the rim I called out:

“Boys! Look!”

CHAPTER IV - THROUGH BUCKSKIN FOREST

STRONG MEN, WHEN suddenly confronted with the spectacle of the Grand Cañon, have been known to cry out in joy or fear, to weep, to fall upon their knees, or to be petrified into silence. Serious-minded men have been known to laugh immoderately. Sight of the Cañon affects no two persons alike, but there are none whom it does not affect powerfully. I paid my own moment’s tribute of solemn awe, and then I glanced at the boys.

Ken looked stunned and white, his throat swelling with emotion. Hal’s face shone with a radiant glow of wild joy, and for a moment he stuttered, then as Ken burst into an exclamation, he lapsed into stony silence.

“Wonderful! Beautiful! It’s — it’s—” That was all Ken could say.

“It shore is,” replied Jim.

Then I told the boys that the Grand Cañon of Arizona was over two hundred miles long, twelve to twenty wide, and a mile and a half deep. It was a Titanic gorge in which mountains, table-lands, chasms and cliffs lay buried in purple haze, a thing of wonder and mystery, beyond any other a place to grip the heart of a man. It had the strange power to make him at once meek and then to unleash his daring spirit.

“The world’s split!” exclaimed Hal. “What made this — this awful hole?”

“We’ll talk of that and study it after you have seen something of its heights and depths,” I replied.

At our feet yawned a blue gulf with faint tracings of cedared slope and shining cliff visible through the noonday haze. Farther out a dark-purple cañon wended its irregular ragged way to vanish in space. Still farther out rose bare peaks and domes and mesas all asleep in the sunshine. Beyond these towered a gigantic plateau, rugged and bold in outline, its granite walls gold in the sun, its forest covering a strip of fringed black. It stood aloof from the towers and escarpments, detached from the world of rock, haunting in its isolation and wild promise.

“Boys, there’s the plateau, where the cougars are,” I said. “You see way down to the left under the wall where a dip of ground connects the plateau to the mainland? That’s the Saddle. Hiram Bent is there with his hounds waiting for us.”

“How on earth will we ever get there?” queried Ken.

“There are two trails. One leads down over the rim here, the other round through the forest. We’ll take the forest trail, for the lower one is not safe for you boys till you get broken in. Come now, we can make the Saddle before dark if we plug along.”

With that I led off into the forest, and, what with finding the seldom-used trail, and keeping the pack-horses in it, I had no time to see how the boys fared or what they did. I knew that both were finding riding most painful, and yet were enjoying themselves hugely. It was a long roundabout way to get to the Saddle. For the most part the trail led up and down the heads of many hollows. So steep were the slopes that we had to zigzag down and up. Then the thickets of prickly-thorn and scrub-oak and black-sage were obstacles to swift traveling. One thing I discovered, and it was that the stallion Marc was the best horse I had ever seen on a trail. He would not carry the Indian, but he led the way for us and made a path through the thickets. The sun was yet an hour above the southwest rim when I reached the head of the hollow where the trail turned down to the Saddle. From a shallow ravine with grassy and thicketed slopes it deepened and widened till it was a cañon itself with looming yellow walls. It became deeper and deeper and then turning to the left it opened out into a wide space under the magnificent wall of the plateau. Here I smelled fire and presently saw the gleam of a white tent and then a column of blue smoke. The short, sharp bark of a hound rang out. I stopped and waited for Ken to catch up with me. He came along on foot, limping and leading his mustang.

“Cheer up, Ken,” I said, “we’re almost there.”

“I’m cheerful, Dick. I’m supremely happy, but I’m all in. And as for Hal, why, Jim and I had to lift him in his saddle more times than I can remember. Dick, what’re you doing to us, anyway?”

“You’ll be fine in a couple of days. I wanted to get on the ground. There’s Hal. Come along, Hal, you’re doing well. We’re almost there.”

“Dick, I hear a hound,” said Ken, eagerly. “Hurry up! There’s smoke, too...Ah! I see Hiram!”

The first sight of the old bear hunter feeding his hounds under a tree was a joy to Ken Ward. I saw it in his sparkling eyes and heard it in his exultant voice. Soon we rode through the last thicket of brush into camp. The hounds barked furiously until quieted by Hiram.

Ken, despite his crippled condition, got to the hunter in quick time, and there was a warm greeting between them.

“Youngster, the Lord is good. I hevn’t been so glad about anythin’ in years as I am about seein’ you...Wal, you have improved a heap.”

Hal came forward with the same searching, luminous gaze which he had turned upon the Navajo. This time, however, the boy did not meet with disappointment. Any lad would have been fascinated with the splendid presence of the old hunter. And Hal was more than fascinated. Plain it was that Hiram’s great stature, the flashing gray eyes, and the stern, weather-beaten face, his buckskin shirt, and all about him, realized the idea Hal had formed in his boyish thoughts.

“Wal, dog-gone my buttons!” said Hiram, offering an enormous hand to Hal. “Ken’s brother! I’ve heard of you, now don’t you forget thet. I’m mighty glad to meet you.”

The shadow of the plateau crept out to us and shaded the camp. The sun was setting. We were down a thousand feet under the rim, so that we looked up at the plateau, and also at the peaks and towers and escarpments to the west. These were capped with pink and gold and red, and every moment the colors changed. While I was unpacking I heard Hiram ask Jim why on earth we had fetched that “tarnal redskin” with us, and Jim’s reply was one that left no doubt about his idea of Indians. Both Hiram and Jim carried somewhere about in their anatomies leaden bullets which sometimes painfully reminded them that they had a grudge against Indians.

After sunset darkness settled quickly below the Cañon rim, and it was night long before we were through with supper. Then came the quiet, cheerful hour around the camp-fire, which I foresaw was to be a source of unalloyed bliss to Ken and Hal.

Hiram did not appear to be in any hurry to talk about cougars, but he was keenly interested in Ken’s year at college, and especially in Ken’s making the ‘varsity baseball team. He asked innumerable questions, and he was delighted to learn of Ken’s success and that he had been elected captain. Then he went off into reminiscences and talked of Ken’s adventures in Penetier the summer before. Finally when he had satisfied his fancy he called up the hounds, one by one, and playfully, though seriously, he introduced them to the boys.

“Hyar’s Prince, the best lion-hound I ever trained, bar none. He has a nose thet’s perfect; he’s fast an’ savage, an’ if ever a dog had brains it’s Prince.”

The great hound looked the truth of Hiram’s claim. He was powerful in build, lean of loin, and long of limb, tawny-colored, and he had a noble head with great, somber eyes.

“Hyar’s Curley, who’s a slow trailer, an’ he always bays, both fine qualities in a hound. Prince goes too swift an’ saves his breath, but then it’s not his fault if I don’t keep close to him in a chase.”

“An’ hyar’s Mux-Mux, who’s no good.”

The ugly black-and-white hound so designated wagged a stumpy tail and pawed his master, and appeared to want to make it plain that he was not so bad as all that.

“Wal, Mux, I’ll take a leetle of thet back. You’re good at eatin’, an’ then I never seen the cougar you was afraid of. An’ thet’s bad, fer you’ll be killed some day.”

“Hyar’s Queen, the mother of the pups, an’ she’s reliable, though slow because of her lame leg. Hyar’s Tan, a good hound, an’ this big black feller, he’s Ringer. He’ll be as good as Prince some day, if I can only save him.”

Hiram chained each hound to near-by saplings; then lighting his pipe at the camp-fire he found a comfortable seat.

“Wal, youngsters, it’s dog-gone good to see you sittin’ by my camp-fire. To-morrow we’ll go up on the plateau an’ make a permanent camp. Thar’s grass an’ snow in the hollers, an’ deer, an’ wild hosses an’ mustangs.”

“Any mountain-lions, cougars?” asked Ken, intensely.

“I was comin’ to them. Wal, I never in my born days seen such a network of cougars’ tracks as is on thet plateau. An’ at thet I’ve only been on one end. I’m reckonin’ we’ll round up the biggest den of cougars in the West. You see, no one ever hunted thet plateau but Navajos, an’ they wouldn’t kill a cougar. Why, a cougar is one of their gods. Wal, as I was sayin’, mebbe we’ll strike a whole cat tribe up thar. An’, youngsters, what do you say to ketchin’ ’em alive?”

“Great!” exclaimed Ken.

Hiram switched his look of inquiry to Hal. The lad’s large eyes, startlingly bright, dilated and burned.

“How?” he asked, and his voice rang like a bell.

“Lasso ‘em, tie ’em up,” replied Hiram. Deceit could not have lived in his kindly, clear glance.

“Then Ken didn’t lie — after all?” blurted out Hal.

“My brother never believed I helped you lasso a bear and that we intended to do the same with cougars out here,” exclaimed Ken.

“It’s straight goods, youngster,” added Hiram. “Now, whar do you stand? Most youngsters like to shoot things. Mebbe you’d find it fun to chase cougars up trees an’ then shoot ‘em, but thar’s a leetle more chance fer excitement when you pull ’em out with a rope. It keeps a feller movin’ around tolerable lively. Which would you like best, then — shootin’ or ketchin’?”

“I’d like best — to catch them alive,” replied Hal, his voice very low.

“Wal, now, I’m glad. You see it’s not the excitement I’m lookin’ fer, though I ain’t sayin’ I don’t like to rope things, but the fact is I get ten dollars for cougar skins, an’ three hundred dollars for live cougars. So, you youngsters will have the fun an’ I’ll be makin’ money, an’ at the same time we’ll be riddin’ Coconina Preserve of bad critters. Let’s roll in now, fer you’re tired, an’ we must be stirrin’ early.”

CHAPTER V - THE PLATEAU

HIRAM ROUTED US all in the morning while the shadows were still gray. There was a bustling about camp. When we were packed and mounted ready for the ascent of the plateau the pines and slopes were still shrouded in the gray gloom. Hiram led us along a trail overgrown by brush. Presently we began climbing such a steep slope that we had to hang to the pommels.

The Saddle was a narrow ridge sloping up to the plateau, and the trail zigzagged its crest. To the right a sweep of thicketed hollow led out into wide space where peaks and mesas began to show. To the left was the great abyss, filled with creamy mist. It was not possible to see a rod down toward the depths, still I had a sure sense of the presence of the Cañon. The climb was a hard task for the horses, the trail being one made by deer, but in less than an hour we were up on the rim. At that moment the sun burst out showing through rifts in rolling clouds of mist. Then we saw behind and above us the long, bold, black line of Buckskin.

Hiram took a course straight back from the rim through a magnificent forest of pines. Perhaps a couple of miles back the old hunter circled and appeared to be searching for a particular place. Presently he halted in a beautiful glade above a hollow where lay a heavy bank of snow. On the slopes the grass was yet thin, but in the glade it was thick. Here, with the snow and the grass, our problem was solved as to water and feed for the horses.

“Hyar we are,” called out Hiram, cheerily. “We’ll throw our camp in this glade jest out of reach of them pines on the northwest side. Sometimes a heavy wind blows one over.”

We had all gotten busy at our tasks of unpacking when suddenly we were attracted by a heavy pounding on the turf.

“Hold the hosses!” yelled Hiram. “Everybody grab a hoss!”

We all made a dive among our snorting and plunging steeds.

“Youngsters, look sharp! Don’t miss nothin’! Thar’s a sight!” called Hiram.

The sound of pounding hoofs appeared to be coming right into camp. I saw a string of wild horses thundering by. A black stallion led them, and as he ran with splendid stride he curved his fine head backward to look at us, and whistled a wild challenge. Soon he and his band were lost in the blackness of the forest.

“The finest sight I ever saw in my life!” ejaculated Ken. “Hal, wasn’t that simply grand?”

“No matter what comes off now, I’m paid for the trouble of getting here,” replied Hal.

It was only a few minutes afterward that the Indian manifested excitement and pointed up the hollow. A herd of large, white-tailed deer trooped down toward us, and stopped within a hundred yards. Then they stood motionless with long ears erect.

“Shoot! Shoot!” exclaimed Navvy.

“Nary a shoot, Navvy,” replied Hiram.

The Indian looked dumbfounded, and gazed from the rifles to us and then to the deer.

“Oh!” cried Hal. “They’re tame deer! What beautiful, large creatures! I couldn’t shoot them.”

“No, youngster, they’re not tame deer. They’re so wild thet they aren’t afraid. They’ve never been shot at, thet bunch. An’, youngster, these deer here are mule deer an’ must hey some elk in them. Thet accounts fer their big size. Now ain’t they jest pretty?”

The hounds saw the herd and burst into wild clamor. That frightened the deer and they bounded off with the long, springy leaps characteristic of them.

“Look like they jump on rubber stilts,” commented Hal.

“All hands now to throw camp. Fust thing, we’ll pitch my tent. I tell you, youngsters, thet tent may come in right useful, if we hey a storm. An’ at this altitude — we’re up over seven thousand feet — we may git a snow-squall any day.”

It was not long before we had a comfortable and attractive camp. At the far side of the glade stood a clump of small sapling pines in regard to which Ken said he would have to practice a little forestry. The saplings were meager and had foliage only at the top. Ken declared he would thin out that clump.

“Wal, thet’s a fine idee,” remarked Hiram. “Thin ’em out an’ leave about a dozen saplin’s each ten feet apart. They’ll be jest what I want to chain our cougars to.”

At that speech the faces of both boys were studies in expression. Hal, especially, looked as if he were dreaming a most wild and real adventure.

When work was finished the boys threw themselves down upon the brown pine-needle mats and indulged in rest. Hiram did not allow them much indulgence.

“Saddle up, youngsters,” he called out, “On-less you’re too tired to go with us.”

Thereupon the boys became as animated as their aching bones and sore muscles would permit.

“Leslie, leave the Injun in camp to look after things an’ we’ll git the lay of the land.”

“He’ll eat us outen house an’ home,” growled Jim Williams. “I shore don’t see why we fetched him, anyhow.”

All the afternoon we were riding the plateau. We were completely bewildered with its impressiveness and surprised at the abundance of wild horses and mustangs, deer, coyotes, foxes, grouse and birds, and overjoyed to find innumerable lion trails. When we returned to camp I drew a rough map, which Hiram laid flat on the ground and called us around him.

“Now, youngsters, let’s get our heads together.”

In shape the plateau resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side wings were high and well wooded with heavy pine; the middle wing was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar. Numerous ridges and cañons cut up this central wing. Middle Cañon, the longest and deepest, bisected the plateau, headed near camp, and ran parallel with two smaller ones, which we named Right and Left Cañons. These three were lion runways, and hundreds of deer carcasses lined the thickets. North Hollow was the only depression, as well as runway, on the northwest rim. West Point formed the extreme western cape of the plateau. To the left of West Point was a deep cut-in of the rim-wall, called the Bay. The three important cañons opened into it. From the Bay the south rim was regular and impassable all the way round to the narrow Saddle, which connected it to the mainland.

“Wal,” said Hiram, “see the advantage we can git on the tarnal critters. The plateau is tolerable nigh ten miles long an’ six wide at the widest. We can’t git lost for very long. Thet’s a big thing in our favor. We know whar cougars go over the rim an’ we’ll head ’em off, make short-cut chases thet I calkilate is a new one in cougar-chasin’. ‘Cept whar we climbed up the Saddle cougars can’t git over the second wall of rock. The first rim, I oughter told you, is mebbe a thousand feet down, with breaks in places. Then comes a long cedar an’ piñon slope, weatherin’ slides, broken cliffs an’ crags, an’ then the second wall. Now regardin’ cougar sign — wal, I hardly believe the evidence of my own eyes. The plateau is virgin ground. We’ve stumbled on the breedin’-ground of the hundreds of cougars thet infest the north rim.”

Hiram struck his huge fist into the palm of his hand. He looked at Jim and me and then at the boys. It did not take a very observing person to see that the old bear hunter was actually excited. Jim ran his hand into his hair and scratched his head, a familiar action with him when his mind was working unusually.

“We hey corraled them, shore as you’re born!”

The flash in Hiram’s clear eyes changed to an anxious glance, that ranged from Ken and Hal to our horses.

“I reckon some common sense an’ care will make it safe for the youngsters,” he said, “but some of the hosses an’ some of the dogs are goin’ to git hurt, mebbe killed.”

More than anything else that remark, from such a man, thrilled me with its subtle suggestion. He loved horses and hounds. He saw danger ahead for them.

“Youngsters, listen,” he went on, soberly. “We’re in fer some chases. I want you to think first of the risk to yourselves, an’ then to the hosses you ride. Don’t fly often the handle. Be cool. Let your hosses pick the goin’. Keep sharp eyes peeled fer the snags on the trees, an’ fer bad rocks an’ places. Ken, you keep close behind Leslie as you can, an’ Hal, you stick close to Jim. Course we’ll lose each other an’ the hounds, an’ hey trouble findin’ each other again. But the idee is, keep cool and go slow, when you see it ain’t safe to go fast.”

During supper we talked a good deal, and afterward around the camp-fire. Hal was the only one who kept silent, and he was too absorbed in what he heard to find his own voice.

But during a lull in the conversation he asked suddenly:

“I want to know why our horses carried on so this morning when that stallion ran through the woods with his band?”

“Simple enough, Hal,” I replied. “They wanted to break loose and run off with the wild horses. They’ll do it, too, before we leave here. We rangers have trouble keeping our horses. The mountain is overrun with mustangs and such wild bands as you saw to-day. And if we lose a horse it’s almost impossible to catch him again.”

Twilight descended with the shadows sweeping under the pines; the night wind rose and began its moan.

“Shore there’s a scent on the wind,” said Jim, lighting his pipe with a red ember. “See how uneasy Prince is.”

The hound raised his dark head, pointing his nose into the cool breeze, and he walked to and fro as if on guard for his pack. Mux-Mux ground his teeth on a bone and growled at one of the pups. Curley was asleep. Ringer watched Prince with suspicious eyes. The other hounds lay stretched before the fire.

“Wal, Prince, we ain’t lookin’ fer trails tonight,” said Hiram. “Ken, it’ll be part of your duty around camp to help me with the pack. Chain ’em up now, an’ we’ll go to bed.”

CHAPTER VI - TRAILS

WHEN I AWAKENED next morning the crack of Hiram’s axe rang out sharply, and the light from the camp-fire played on Ken’s face as he lay asleep. I saw old Mux get up and stretch himself. A jangle of bells from the forest told me we would not have to wait for the horses.

“The Injun’s all right,” I heard Hiram say. “All rustle for breakfast,” called Jim. “Ken!...Hal!”

Then the boys rolled out, fresh-faced and bright-eyed, but still stiff and lame.

“Gee! Ken, listen to the horses coming,” said Hal. “How’d Navvy ever find them? It’s hardly daylight.”

“That’s a secret I expect every ranger would like to know,” replied Ken.

“I like that Indian — better’n at first,” went on Hal.

We ate in the semi-darkness with the gray shadow lifting among the trees. As we saddled our horses dawn lightened. The pups ran to and fro on their chains, scenting the air. The older hounds stood quiet, waiting.

“Come, Navvy. Come chase cougie,” said Hiram.

The Indian made a remarkable gesture of dislike or fear, I could not divine which.

“Let him keep camp,” I suggested.

“He’ll shore eat all our grub,” said Jim.

“Climb up, youngsters,” ordered Hiram. “An’ remember all I said about bein’ careful...Wal, hey I got all my trappin’s — rope, chains, collars, wire, nippers? Allright. Hyar, you lazy hounds — out of this. Take the lead that, Prince.”

We rode abreast through the forest, and I could not help seeing the pleasure in Ken’s face and the wild spirit in Hal’s eyes. The hounds followed Prince at an orderly trot. We struck out of the pines at half-past five. Floating mists hid the lower end of the plateau, but cedar-trees began to show green against the soft gray of sage. The morning had a cool touch, though there was no frost. Jogging along, we had crossed Middle Cañon and were nearing the dark line of cedar forest when Hiram, who led, held up his hand in a warning check.

“Oh, Ken! look at Prince,” whispered Hal to his brother.

The hound stood stiff, head well up, nose working, and hair on his back bristling. All the other hounds whined and kept close to him.

“Prince has a scent,” said Hiram. “Thar’s been a cougar round hyar. I never knowed Prince to be fooled. The scent’s in the wind. Hunt ’em up, Prince. Spread out thar, you dogs.”

The pack commenced to work back and forth along the ridge. We neared a hollow where Prince barked eagerly. Curley answered, and likewise Queen. Mux’s short, angry bow-wow showed that he was in line.

“Ringer’s gone,” shouted Jim. “He was farthest ahead. Shore he’s struck a trail.”

“Likely enough,” replied Hiram. “But Ringer doesn’t bay...Thar’s Prince workin’ over. Look sharp, youngsters, an’ be ready fer some ridin’. We’re close!”

The hounds went tearing through the sage, working harder and harder, calling and answering one another, all the time getting down into the hollow. Suddenly Prince began to yelp. Like a yellow dart he shot into the cedars, running head up. Curley howled his deep, full bay and led the rest of the pack up the slope in angry clamor.

“Thar off!” yelled Hiram, spurring his big horse.

“Stay with me, Kid,” shouted Jim over his shoulder to Hal. The lad’s pinto leaped into quick action. They were out of sight in the cedars in less than a moment. I heard Ken close behind me, and yelled to him to come along. Crashings among the cedars ahead, thud of hoofs and yells kept me going in one direction. The fiery burst of the hounds had surprised me. Such hunting was as new to me as to the boys, and from the tingling in my veins I began to feel that it was just as exciting. I remembered that Jim had said Hiram and his charger might keep the pack in sight, but the rest of us could not.

My horse was carrying me at a fast pace on the trail of some one, and he seemed to know that by keeping in this trail part of the work of breaking through the brush was already done for him. Ken’s horse thundered in my rear. The sharp cedar branches struck and stung me, and I heard them hitting Ken. We climbed a ridge, found the cedars thinning out, and then there were open patches. As we faced a slope of sage I saw Hiram on his big horse.

“Ride now, boy!” I yelled to Ken.

“I’ll hang to you. Cut loose!” he shouted in reply.

We hurdled the bunches of sage, and went over the brush, rocks, and gullies at breakneck speed. I heard nothing but the wind singing in my ears. Hiram’s trail, plain in the yellow ground, showed me the way. Upon entering the cedars again we lost it. I stopped my horse and checked Ken. Then I called. I heard the baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal.

“Don’t say we’ve lost them!” cried Ken. “Come on! The hounds are close.”

We burst through thickets, threaded the mazes of cedars, and galloped over sage flats till a signal cry, sharp to our right, turned us. I answered, and an exchange of signals led us into an open glade where we found Hiram, Jim, and Hal, but no sign of a hound.

“Hyar you are,” said Hiram. “Now hold up, an’ listen fer the hounds.”

With the labored breathing of the horses filling our ears we could hear no other sound. Dismounting, I went aside a little way and turned my ear to the breeze.

“I hear Prince,” I cried, instantly.

“Which way?” both men asked.

“West.”

“Strange,” said Hiram.

“Shore the hounds wouldn’t split?” asked Jim. “Prince leave thet hot trail? Not much. But he’s runnin’ queer this mornin’.”

“There! Now listen,” I put in. “There are Prince and another hound with a deep bay.”

“Thet’s Curley. I hear ’em now. They’re runnin’ to us, an’ hot. We might see a cougar any minnit. Keep a tight rein, youngsters. Mind a hoss is scan to death of a cougar.”

The baying came closer and closer. Our horses threw up their ears. Hal’s pinto stood up and snorted. The lad handled him well. Then at a quick cry from Jim we saw Prince cross the lower end of the flat.

There was no need to spur our mounts. The lifting of bridles served, and away we raced. Prince disappeared in a trice, then Curley, Mux, and Queen broke out of the cedars in full cry. They, too, were soon out of sight.

“Hounds runnin’ wild,” yelled Hiram.

The onslaught of the hunter and his charger stirred a fear in me that checked admiration. I saw the green of a low cedar-tree shake and split to let in the huge, gaunt horse with rider doubled over the saddle. Then came the crash of breaking brush and pounding of hoofs from the direction the hounds had taken. We strung out in the lane Hiram left and hung low over the pommels; and though we had his trail and followed it at only half his speed, yet the tearing and whipping we got from the cedar spikes were hard enough indeed.

A hundred rods within the forest we unexpectedly came upon Hiram, dismounted, searching the ground. Mux and Curley were with him, apparently at fault. Suddenly Mux left the little glade and, with a sullen, quick bark, disappeared under the trees. Curley sat on his haunches and yelped.

“Shore somethin’s wrong,” said Jim, tumbling out of his saddle. “Hiram, I see a lion track.”

“Here, fellows, I see one, and it’s not where you’re looking,” I added.

“Now what do you think I’m lookin’ fer if it ain’t tracks?” queried Hiram. “Hyar’s one cougar track, an’ thar’s another. Jump off, youngsters, an’ git a good look at ‘em. Hyar’s the trail we were on, an’ thar’s the other, crossin’ at right angles. Both are fresh, one ain’t many minnits old. Prince an’ Queen hey split one way, an’ Mux another. Curley, wise old hound, hung fire an’ waited fer me. Whar on earth is Ringer? It ain’t like him to be lost when thar’s doin’s like this.”

“What next?” asked Jim, mounting.

“I’ll put Curley on the fresher trail,” replied Hiram. “An’ you all ought to be able to keep within hearin’ of him...Thar! Curley...Hi! Hi!”

Curley dashed off on the trail Mux had taken. Then began some hard riding. Hal and the pinto were directly in front of me, and I saw that the lad was having the ride of his life. Sometimes he ducked the cedar branches and again he was not quick enough. There were times when I thought he would be swept from his saddle, but he hung on while the pinto made a hole in the brush. More than once Hal lost his stirrup-footing. All the time that I watched him and turned to see if Ken was all right, I was getting a thrashing from the cedars. But I felt only the severest lashes. From time to time Hiram yelled. We managed to keep within earshot of Curley, and presently reached a cañon, which, judging by depth, must have been Middle Cañon. At that point it was a barrier to our progress, but fortunately Curley did not climb the opposite slope, so we followed the rim and gained on the hound. Soon we heard Mux. Curley had caught up with him. We came to a point where the cañon was not so deep and wider, and the slopes were less rugged. Curley bayed incessantly. Mux uttered harsh howls, and both hounds in plain sight began working in a circle. Hiram reined in his horse and leaped off, while the rest of us came to a halt.

“Off now, youngsters,” said Hiram, sharply. “Tie your hosses, tight. The cougar’s gone up somewhat. Run along the slope an’ look sharp in every cedar an’ piñon, an’ in every crevice of the cliffs.”

Hal jumped off, but did not tie his pinto, and he was white with excitement and panting heavily. Ken left his mustang and hurried along the ledge ahead of me. Every few steps he would stop to peer cautiously around. As if he had been struck, he suddenly straightened and his voice pealed out:

“The lion! The lion! Here he is! I see him!...Oh, hurry, Hal!”

I ran toward Ken, but could not see the lion. Then I stopped to watch Mux. He ran to the edge of a low wall of stone across the cañon; he looked over, and barked fiercely. When I saw him slide down a steep slope, make for the bottom of the stone wall, and jump into the branches of a cedar I knew where to look for the lion. Then I espied a round yellow ball cunningly curled up in a mass of branches. Probably the lion had leaped into the tree from the wall.

“Treed! Treed!” I yelled. “Mux has found him.”

Hiram appeared, crashing down a weathered slope.

“Hyar, everybody,” he bawled. “Hustle down an’ make a racket. We don’t want him to jump.”

CHAPTER VII - TWO LIONS

HIRAM AND JIM rolled down and fairly cracked the stones in their descent. I shouted for the boys to come on. Hal never moved a muscle, and Ken seemed chained to the spot. Hiram turned and saw them.

“Ho, youngsters, are you scared?” shouted he.

“Yes, but I’m coming,” replied Ken. Still he showed a strange vacillation. Overcome then by shame or anger, he plunged down the slope and did not halt till he was under the snarling lion.

“Back, Ken, back! You’re too close,” warned Hiram. “He might jump, an’ if he does don’t run, but drop flat. He’s a Tom, a two-year-old, an’ he’s sassy.”

“Don’t care — whether he — jumps or not,” panted Ken, bouncing about. “I’ve got to — be cured — of this — this—”

Whatever Ken had to be cured of he did not say, but I had no doubt that it was dread. I, myself, did not feel perfectly cool, by some dozens of degrees. The flaming eyes of the lion, his open mouth with its white fangs, his steady, hissing growls, the rippling of muscles as if it was his intention to leap at the hounds, were matters certainly not conducive to calmness.

“Will you — look at Mux!” shouted Ken.

The old hound had already climbed a third of the distance up to the lion.

“Hyar, Mux, you rascal coon-chaser!” yelled Hiram. “Out of thar!” He threw stones and sticks at the hound. Mux replied with his surly bark and steadily climbed on.

“I’ll hey to pull him out, or thart’ll be a dead hound in about a minnit,” said Hiram. “Watch close, Jim, an’ tell me if the cougar starts down. I can’t see through the thick branches. He’ll git mighty nervous jest before he starts.”

When Hiram mounted into the first branches of the cedar Tom emitted an ominous growl, and bunched himself into a ball, trembling all over.

“Shore he’s comin’,” yelled Jim.

The lion, snarling viciously, started to descend, and Hiram warily backed down. It was a ticklish moment for all of us, particularly Hiram; and as for me, what with keeping an eye on the lion and watching the boys, I had enough to do. Hal’s actions were singular; he would run down the slope, then run back, wave his arms and let out an Indian yell. His brother kept dodging to and fro as if he were on hot bricks. Never before had I seen such eyes as blazed in Ken Ward’s face. The lion went hack up the cedar, Mux climbed laboriously on, and Hiram followed. “Fellars, mebbe he’s bluffin’,” said Hiram.

“Let’s try him out. Now all of you grab sticks an’ holler an’ run at the tree as if you was goin’ to kill him.”

The thrashing, yelling din we made under that cedar might have alarmed even an African lion. Tom shook all over, showed his white fangs, and climbed so far up that the branches he clung to swayed alarmingly.

“Here, punch Mux out,” said Jim, handing up a long pole.

The old hound hung to the tree, making it difficult to dislodge him, but at length Hiram punched him off. He fell heavily, whereupon, venting his thick battle-cry, he essayed to climb again.

“You old gladiator! Git down!” protested Hiram. “What in the tarnal dickens can we do with sich a dog? Tie him up, somebody.”

Jim seized Mux and made him fast to the lasso with which Curley had already been secured.

“Wal, fellers, I can’t reach him hyar. I’m goin’ farther up,” said the hunter.

“Rustle, now,” yelled Jim.

I saw that Hiram evidently had that in mind. He climbed quickly. It was enough to make even a man catch his breath to watch him, and I heard Ken gasping. Hiram reached the middle fork of the cedar, stood erect and extended the noose of his lasso on the point of his pole. Tom, with a hiss and a snap, savagely struck at it. A second trial tempted the lion to seize the rope with his teeth. In a flash Hiram withdrew the pole and lifted a loop of the slack noose over the lion’s ears. The other end of the lasso he threw down to Jim.

“Pull!” he yelled.

Jim threw all his weight into action, pulling the lion out with a crash, and giving the cedar such a tremendous shake that Hiram lost his footing. Grasping at branches and failing to hold, he fell, apparently right upon the lion. A whirling cloud of dust arose, out of which Hiram made prodigious leaps.

“Look out!” he bawled.

His actions, without words, would have been electrifying enough. As I ran to one side the lion just missed Hiram. Then with a spring that sent the stones rattling he made at Ken. The lad dove straight downhill into a thicket. When the furious lion turned on Jim, that worthy dropped the lasso and made tracks. Here the quick-witted Hiram seized the free end of the trailing lasso and tied it to a sapling. Then the wrestling lion disappeared in a thick cloud of dust.

“Dod gast the luck!” yelled Hiram, picking up Jim’s lasso. “I didn’t mean for you to pull him out of the tree. He’ll kill himself now or git loose.”

When the dust cleared away I discovered our prize stretched out at full length, frothing at the mouth. As Hiram approached, swinging the other lasso, the lion began a series of evolutions that made him resemble a wheel of yellow fur and dust. Then came a thud and he lay inert.

Hiram pounced upon him and loosened the lasso round his neck.

“I’m afraid he’s done fer. But mebbe not. They’re hard-lived critters. He’s breathin’ yet. Hyar, Leslie, help me tie his paws together...Be watchful.”

As I came up the lion stirred and raised his head. Hiram ran the loop of the second lasso round the two hind paws and stretched Tom out. While in this helpless position, with no strength and scarcely any breath, he was easy to handle. With Jim and me attending strictly to orders Hiram clipped the sharp claws, tied the four paws together, took off the neck lasso and substituted a collar and chain.

“Let him breathe a little. He’s comin’ round all right,” said Hiram. “But we’re lucky. Jim, never pull another cougar clear out of a tree. Pull him off over a limb an’ hang him thar while some one below ropes his hind paws. Thet’s the only way, an’ if we don’t stick to it somebody’ll git chewed up.”

Ken appeared, all scratched and torn from his header into the thorny brake. As he gazed at our captive he whooped for Hal. The lad edged down the slope and approached us eagerly. He was absolutely unconscious that we were laughing at him. His face was in a flush, with brow moist and his telltale eyes protruding. Whatever the few thrilling moments had been to us, they must have been tame compared to what they had been to Hal.

“Wal, youngster, whar were you when it came off?” inquired Hiram, with a smile.

“Have we got him — really?” whispered Hal. “Shore, Kid. He’s a good cougar now,” answered Jim.

“Come along an’ watch me put on his muzzle,” said Hiram.

Hiram’s method of performing this part of his work was the most hazardous of all. He thrust a stick between Tom’s open jaws, and when the lion crushed it into splinters he tried another and yet another, till he found one that did not break. Then, while Tom bit on it, Hiram placed a wire loop over the animal’s nose, slowly tightening it till the stick would not slip forward of the great canine teeth.

“Thar, thet’s one, ready to pack to camp. We’ll leave him hyar an’ hunt up Prince an’ Queen. They’ve treed the other cougar by this time.”

When Jim untied Mux and Curley it was remarkable to see what little interest they had in the now helpless lion. Mux growled, then followed Curley up the slope. We all climbed out and mounted our horses.

“Hear thet!” yelled Hiram. “Thar’s Prince yelpin’. Hi! Hi! Hi!”

From the cedars across the ridge rang a thrilling chorus of bays. Hiram spurred his horse and we fell in behind him at a gallop. We leveled a lane of sage in that short race, and when Hiram leaped off at the edge of the impenetrable cedar forest we were close at his heels. He disappeared and Jim and Ken followed him. I heard them smashing the dead wood, and soon a deep yell mingled with shouts and the yelps of the hounds. I waited to tie Ken’s mustang, and I had to perform a like office for Hal, whose hands trembled so he could not do it. He jerked his rifle out of his scabbard.

“No, no, Hal, you won’t want that. Put it back. You might shoot somebody in the excitement. Come on. Keep your wits. You can climb or dodge as well as I.”

Then I dragged him into the gloomy clump of cedars whence came the uproar. First I saw Ken in a tree, climbing fast; then Mux in another, and under him the other hounds with noses skyward; and last, up in the dead topmost branches, a big tawny lion.

“Whoop!” the yell leaped past my lips. Quiet Jim was yelling; Ken was splitting the air, and Hiram let out from his cavernous chest a booming roar that almost crowned ours.

I lifted and shoved Hal into a cedar, and then turned to the grim business of the moment. Hiram’s first move was to pull Mux out of the tree.

“Hyar, Leslie, grab him; he’s stronger’n a hoss.”

If Mux had been only a little stronger he would have broken away from me. Jim ran a rope under the collar of all the hounds; there both of us pulled them from under the lion.

“It’s got to be a slip-knot,” said Jim, as we fumbled with the rope. “Shore if the cougar jumps we want to be able to free the hounds quick.”

Then while Hiram climbed Jim and I waited. I saw Ken in the top of a cedar on a level with the lion. Hal hugged a branch and strained his gaze, and, judging from the look of him, his heart was in his throat. Hiram’s gray hat went pushing up between the dead snags, then his burly shoulders. The quivering muscles of the lion grew tense, and his lithe body crouched low. He was about to jump. His dripping jaws, his wild eyes roving for some means of escape, his tufted tail swinging against the twigs and breaking them, manifested his terror and extremity. The hunter climbed on with a rope between his teeth and a long stick in his hand.

“Git ropes ready down thar!” yelled Hiram.

My rope was new and bothersome to handle. When I got it right with a noose ready I heard a cracking of branches. Looking up, I saw the lion biting hard at a rope which circled his neck. Jim ran directly under the tree with a spread noose in his hands. Then Hiram pulled and pulled, but the lion held firmly. Whereupon Hiram threw his end of the rope down to me.

“Thar, Leslie, lend a hand.”

We both pulled with might and main; still the lion was too strong. Suddenly the branch broke, letting the lion fall, kicking frantically with all four paws. Jim grasped one of the lower paws and dexterously left the noose fast on it. But only by a hair’s breadth did he dodge the other whipping paw.

“Let go, Leslie,” yelled Hiram.

I complied, and the rope Hiram and I had held flew up over the branches as the lion fell, and then it dropped to the ground. Hiram, plunging out of the tree, made a flying snatch for the rope, got it and held fast.

“Stretch him out, Jim,” roared Hiram. “An’ Leslie, stand ready to put another rope on.”

The action had been fast, but it was slow to what then began. It appeared impossible for two strong men, one of them a giant, to straighten out that wrestling lion. The dust flew, the sticks snapped, the gravel pattered against the cedars. Jim went to his knees, and Hiram’s huge bulk bowed under the strain. Then Jim plowed the ground flat on his stomach. I ran to his assistance and took the rope which he now held by only one hand. He got up and together we lent our efforts, getting in a strong haul on the lion. Short as that moment was it enabled Hiram to make his lasso fast to a cedar. The three of us then stretched the beast from tree to tree, after which Hiram put a third lasso on the front paws.

“A whoppin’ female,” said Hiram, as our captive lay helpless with swelling sides and blazing eyes. “She’s nearly eight feet from tip to tip, but not extra heavy. Females never git fat. Hand me another rope.”

With four lassoes in position to suit Hiram the lioness could not move. Then he proceeded to tie her paws, clip her claws, muzzle and chain her.

“I reckon you squirrels can come down now,” remarked Hiram, dryly, to the brothers. “See hyar, one of these days when we git split, thar’ll be mebbe no one to help me but one of you youngsters. What then?”

To Hal and Ken, who had dropped out of their perches, the old hunter’s speech evidently suggested something at once frightful and enthralling.

“Shore as you’re born thet’s goin’ to happen,’ added Jim, as he wiped the sweat and dust from his face.

“I never felt — so — before in my life,” said Hal, tremulously. “My whole insides went like a crazy clock when you break a spring...Then I froze — scared stiff!”

His naive confession strengthened any already favorable impression.

Ken laughed. “Kid, didn’t I say it was coming to you?”

Hal did not reply to this; he had shifted his attention to the hounds. Jim was loosing them from the rope. They had ceased yelping and I was curious to know how they would regard our captive.

Prince walked within three feet of the lioness, disdaining to notice her at all, and lay down. Curley wagged his tail; Queen began to lick her sore foot; Tan wearily stretched himself for a nap; only Mux, the incorrigible, retained antipathy for our bound captive, and he growled once low and deep, and rolled his bloodshot eyes at her as if to remind her it was he who had brought her to such a pass. And, on the instant, Ringer, lame and dusty from travel, trotted into the glade, and, looking at the lioness, he gave one disgusted grunt and flopped down.

CHAPTER VIII - IN CAMP

HOW SHOULD WE get our captives to camp? This was the task which we faced next. We sent Ken back for the pack-horses. He was absent a long while, and when at length he hove in sight on the sage flat it was plain that we were in for trouble. Marc, the bay stallion, was on the rampage.

“Why didn’t he fetch the Injun?” growled Hiram, who lost his temper only when things went wrong with the horses. “Spread out, boys, an’ head him off.”

We managed to surround the stallion and Hiram succeeded in getting a halter on him. Ken’s face was red, his hair damp, and he looked as if he had spent an hour or two of trying responsibility.

“I didn’t want the bay,” he explained. “But I couldn’t drive the others without him. And what do you think of this? When I told the Indian that we had two lions he ran off into the woods. Say! maybe I haven’t had some bother with that stallion. I think riding him will be the only way to get him anywhere. That’s what I’m going to do next time.”

“Wal, first thing when we get to camp I’ll scalp the redskin,” said Jim.

“Youngster, you needn’t be so flustrated,” put in Hiram. “I reckon you did well to git Marc hyar at all.”

As they talked they were standing on the open ridge at the entrance to the thick cedar forest. The two lions lay just within the shade. Hiram and Jim, using a pole, had carried our first captive, whom we had named Tom, up from the cañon to where we had tied the lioness.

Ken, as directed, had brought a pack-saddle and two long canvas sacks. When Hiram tried to lead the horse that carried these, the animal began to tremble and pull back.

“Somebody unbuckle the straps,” yelled Hiram.

It was good luck that I got the sacks and saddle off, for in three jumps the horse broke from Hiram and plunged away across the sage flat.

“Shore he’ll belong to the band of wild bosses,” commented Jim.

I led up another horse and endeavored to hold him while Jim and Hiram got the pack-saddle on. It would have taken all three of us to hold him.

“They smell the lions,” said Hiram. “I was afraid they would. Consarn the luck! Never had hut one nag thet would pack lions.”

“Try the sorrel,” I suggested. “He looks amiable.”

For the first time in a serviceable life, according to Hiram, the sorrel broke his halter and kicked like a plantation mule.

“Shore they’re scared,” said Jim. “Marc ain’t afraid. Try him.”

Hiram gazed at Jim as if he had not heard aright.

“Go ahead, Hiram, try the stallion,” I added. “I like the way he looks.”

“Pack cougars on thet hoss!” exclaimed the astounded Hiram.

“Shore,” replied Jim.

The big stallion looked a King of horses — just what he would have been if Purcell had not taken him when a colt from his wild desert brothers. He scented the lions, for he held his proud head up, his ears erect, and his lame dark eyes shone like fire.

“I’ll try to lead him in an’ let him see the cougars. We can’t fool him,” said Hiram.

Marc showed no hesitation, nor indeed anything we expected. He stood stiff-legged before the lions and looked as if he wanted to fight.

“Shore he’ll pack them,” declared Jim.

The pack-saddle being strapped on and the sacks hooked to the horns, Hiram and Jim, while I held the stallion, lifted Tom and shoved him down into the left sack. A madder lion than Tom never lived. It was hard enough to be lassoed and disgrace enough to be “hog-tied,” as Jim put it, but to be thrust down into a bag and packed on a horse was more than any self-respecting lion could stand. Tom frothed at the mouth and seemed like a fizzing torpedo about to explode. The lioness, being considerably larger, was with difficulty gotten into the other sack, and her head and paws hung out.

“I look to see Marc bolt over the rim,” said Hiram. “An’ I promised Purcell to hey a care of this hoss.”

Hiram’s anxiety clouded his judgment, for he was wrong. Marc packed the lions to camp in short order, and as Jim said, “without turnin’ a hair.” We saw the Navajo’s head protruding from behind a tree.

“Here, Navvy,” I called.

Hiram and Jim yelled derisively, whereupon the black head vanished and did not reappear. Then they unhooked one of the sacks and dumped out the lioness. Hiram fastened her chain to a small pine-tree, and as she lay powerless he pulled out the stick back of her canines. This let the wire muzzle fall off. She welcomed so much freedom with a roar. The last action in releasing her from the bonds Hiram performed with much dexterity. He slipped the loop fastening one paw, which loosened the rope, and in a twinkling let her work the other paws free. Up she sprang, mouth wide, ears flat, and eyes ablaze.

Before the men lowered Tom from the packsaddle I stepped closer and put my lace within six inches of his. He promptly spat at me. I wanted to see the eyes of a wild lion at close range. They were beautiful. Great half-globes of tawny amber, streaked with delicate lines of black, surrounded pupils of purple fire.

“Boys, come here,” I called to Ken and Hal. “Don’t miss this chance. Bend close to the lion and look into his eyes.”

Both boys jerked back as Tom spat and hissed, but presently they steeled their nerves and got close enough.

“There...What do you see?”

“Pictures!” exclaimed Ken.

“I want to let him go free,” replied Hal, instantly.

It pleased me that the brothers saw in the eyes of the lion much the same that I had seen.

Pictures shone there and faded in the amber light — the shaggy-tipped plateau, the dark pines and smoky cañons, the yellow cliffs and crags. Deep in these live pupils, changing, quickening with a thousand vibrations, quivered the soul of this savage beast, the wildest of all wild nature, unquenchable love of life and freedom and flame of defiance and hate.

Hiram disposed of Tom in the same manner he had the lioness, chaining him to an adjoining small pine, where he leaped and wrestled.

“Dick, look! There comes Jim with Navvy,” said Ken.

I saw Jim leading and dragging the Indian into camp. I la sorry for Navvy, for I believed that his fear was not so much physical as spiritual. The lion, being a Navajo god, was an object of reverence to the Indian, and it seemed no wonder that Navvy hung back from the sacrilegious treatment of his god. Forced along by Jim, the Navajo dragged his feet and held his face sidewise. Jim drew him within fifteen feet and there held him, while Hiram tried to show and tell the poor fellow that the lions would not hurt him. Navvy stared and muttered to himself. Jim seemed to have some deviltry in mind, for he edged up closer, but just then Hiram pointed to the loose horses and said to the Indian:

“Chineago” (feed).

But no sooner had Jim released Navvy than he bolted, and the yells sent after him made him run only the faster.

“He’ll come back when he gits hungry,” said Hiram. “Ken, you drive the hosses down in the holler whar thar’s good browse.”

With an agile leap Ken swung up on the broad back of the stallion.

“Hyar, youngster, pile off thar!” called Hiram. “Wal, dog-gone me!”

It appeared that our great stallion had laid aside his noble disposition and was his old self once more. Before Ken had fairly gotten astride Marc dropped his head, humped his shoulders, brought his feet together and began to buck. It looked to me as if Marc was a tougher bucking proposition than the wildest broncho that ever romped the desert. For Marc was unusually robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active. I hac seen him roll over in the dust three times each way and do it easily, something I had never seer equaled by another horse.

Ken began to bounce. He twisted his strong hands in the mane of the stallion and held on. It was plain that Ken’s blood was up. And all of us, seeing that it was now safer for him to keep his seat, began to give encouragement.

“Shore you’re doin’ fine,” yelled Jim. But I fancied that Jim did not mean Ken was really doing well. Hiram’s concern changed to mirth and he roared. It was as funny to see Hal as it was to see Ken. The younger lad was beside himself with excitement and glee. He ran around Marc and his shrill yells pealed out.

“Stay with him, Ken...Stick on...Hug him tight...Get a new hold...Look out!”

Then Marc became a demon. He plowed the ground. Apparently he bucked five feet straight up. Before Ken had bounced. Now he began to shoot up into the air. But the lad was powerful and his hold did not break easily. Higher and higher he rose, and then the last time his heels went over his head. He went up to the full extent of his arms, and when he came down heavily his hold broke. He spun around on the broad back of the stallion and went hurtling to the ground. The soft pine-needle mat saved him from injury and he sat up. “Jiminy!” he exclaimed, “no wonder Navvy didn’t ride him.”

When we recovered from our mirth Jim drawled out:

“Ken, thet was the best buckin’ I ever seen a hoss do. Shore Marc could buck off a cinched saddle.”

“Ken, I reckon you’ll hey to knuckle to Marc,” said Hiram, “an’ you better ride your own hoss.”

“Don’t worry,” replied Ken. “I know when I have got enough.” He mounted his mustang and drove Marc and the other horses down into the hollow. When he returned we all saw Navvy sneaking into camp behind him. The Indian stopped at a near-by pine, but seeing that we appeared not to be concerned about him, he presently approached.

We all busied ourselves with camp-fire tasks, and I helped Ken feed the hounds. To feed ordinary dogs is a matter of throwing them a few bones; our dogs, however, were not ordinary. It took time to feed them and a prodigious amount of meat. We had packed a quantity of wild-horse meat which had been cut into small pieces and strung on the branches of a scrub-oak.

Prince had to be fed by hand. I heard Hiram say the hound would have starved if the meat had been thrown indiscriminately to the pack. Curley asserted his rights and preferred large portions at a time. Queen begged with solemn eyes, but for all her gentleness she could eat more than her share. Tan needed watching, and Ringer, because of imperfectly developed teeth, had to have his portion cut into small pieces. As for Mux-Mux — well, great dogs have their faults — he never got enough meat. He would fight poor crippled Queen, and steal even from the pups, and when he had gotten all that Ken would give him and all he could snatch, he would waddle away with bulging sides, looking like an old Dutch man-of-war.

“Will our lions eat?” asked Hal.

“Not for days,” replied Hiram. “Mebbe we can tempt them to eat fresh rabbits in a week or so. But they’ll drink to-night.”

We made a hearty meal, and afterward Hiram and Ken and I walked through the woods toward the rim. A yellow promontory, huge and glistening, invited us westward, and after a detour of half a mile we reached it. The points of the rim, stretching out into the immense void, always drew me irresistibly. We found the view from this rock one of startling splendor. The corrugated rim-wall of the middle wing extended to the west, and at this moment apparently reached into the setting sun. The golden light, flashing from the millions of facets of chiseled stone, created color and brilliance too glorious and intense for the gaze of men. And looking downward was like looking into the placid, blue, bottomless depths of the Pacific.

“Here, help me push off this stone,” I said. We heaved on a huge round stone, and were encouraged to feel it move. Fortunately we had a little slope; the boulder groaned, rocked and began to slide. Just as it toppled over I glanced at the second-hand of my watch. Then with eyes over the rim we waited. The silence was the silence of the cañon, dead and vast, intensified by our breathless ear-strain. Ten long, palpitating seconds and no sound! I gave up. The distance was too great for sound to reach us. Fifteen seconds — seventeen — eighteen —

With that a puff of air seemed to rise, bringing a deafening peal of thunder. It rolled up and widened, deadened, to burst out and roll louder, then slowly, like mountains on wheels, rumbled under the rim-walls, passing on and on, to roar back in echo from the cliffs of the mesas. Roar and rumble — roar and rumble! For two long moments the dull and hollow echoes rolled at us, slowly to die away at the last in the far-distant cañons.

“Thet’s a mighty deep hole,” commented Hiram.

Twilight stole upon us idling there, silent, content to watch the red glow pass away from the buttes and peaks, the color deepening downward to meet the ebon shades of night creeping up like a dark tide.

On turning toward camp we tried a short cut, which brought us to a deep hollow with stony walls. It seemed better to go around it. The hollow, however, was quite long, and we decided presently to cross it. We had descended a little way when suddenly the old hunter held me back with his big arm.

“Listen,” he whispered.

It was quiet in the woods; only a faint breeze stirred the pine-needles; and the weird, gray darkness seemed approaching under the trees.

I heard the patter of light, hard hoofs on the scaly sides of the hollow.

“Deer?” I asked, in a low voice.

“Yes; see,” he replied, pointing ahead, “jest under thet broken wall of rock; right thar on this side; they’re goin’ down.”

I descried gray, objects, the color of the rock, moving down like shadows.

“Have they scented us?”

“Hardly; the breeze is against us. Mebbe they heerd us break a twig. They’ve stopped, but are not lookin’ our way. Wal, I wonder—”

Suddenly there was a rattle of stones, followed by an indistinct thud as from the impact of soft, heavy bodies, and then the sound of a struggle in the hollow.

“Lion jumped a deer,” yelled Hiram. “Right under our eyes. Come on! Ken, pull your gun on the critter. Thar he goes! Hi! Hi! Hi!”

Hiram ran down the incline, yelling all the way, and I kept close to him. Toward the bottom, the thicket barred our progress, so that we had to smash through. But Ken distanced us. His yell pealed out and then Crack! Crack! went his six-shooter. I saw a gray, swiftly bounding object too long and too low for a deer. Hurriedly drawing my revolver I worked the trigger as fast as I could. Ken also was shooting, and the reports blended in a roar that echoed from the cliff. But for all our shots the cougar got away.

“Come here — this way — hurry,” called Ken.

Hiram and I crashed out of the brush, and in another moment were bending over a gray mass huddled at Ken’s feet. It was a deer, gasping and choking.

“A yearlin’ doe,” said Hiram. “Look hyar, low down on her neck, whar the tarnal cat bit in. Hear thet wheeze? Thet’s blood in her throat. Ken, if you hey another shot put her out of pain.”

But neither Ken nor I had an extra cartridge about us, nor did Hiram have his clasp knife, and we had to stand there silent until the doe quivered and died.

Then a signal cry rang down the slope. “Thet’s Jim,” said Hiram. “It didn’t take him long to git to us.”

There was a crashing of brush, quick thud of flying feet, and Jim loomed up through the gathering darkness. He carried a rifle in each hand, and he moved so assuredly and looked so formidable in the dusk that I thought of what such a reinforcement would mean at a time of real peril.

“Jim, I’ve lived to see many strange happenin’s,” saw Hiram, “but this was the first time I ever seen a cougar jump a deer.”

“Shore you did enough shootin’ to make me think somethin’ had come off,” replied Jim.

We soon returned to camp the richer by a quantity of fresh venison.

Hal was sitting close to the fire and looked rather white. I observed that he had his rifle. He did not speak a word till Ken told of our little adventure.

“Just before all the yells and shots I happened to be watching Prince,” said Hal. “He was uneasy; he wouldn’t lie down; he sniffed the wind and growled. I thought there must be a lion about.”

“Wal, I shore wish Ken had plugged him,” said Jim.

I believed Jim’s wish found an echo in all our hearts. At any rate, to hear him and Hiram express regret over the death of the doe justified in some degree my own feelings. The tragedy we had all but interrupted occurred every night, perhaps often in the day, and likely at different points at the same time. Hiram told how he had found fourteen piles of bleached bones and dried hair in the thickets of less than a mile of the hollow on which we were encamped.

“We’ll rope the danged cats, boys, or by George! we’ll kill them! Wal, it’s blowin’ cold. Hey, Navvy, coco! coco!”

The Indian, carefully laying aside his cigarette, kicked up the fire and threw on more wood. “Discass” (cold), he said to Ken; “coco weyno” (fire good).

Ken replied, “Me savvy — yes.”

“Sleep-ie?” he asked.

“Moocha,” returned Ken.

While we carried on a sort of novel conversation, full of Navajo, English, Spanish, and gestures, absolute darkness settled down upon us. I saw the stars disappear. The wind, changing to the north, grew colder, and carried a breath of snow. I liked a north wind best — from under the warm blankets — because of the roar and lull and lull and roar in the pines. Crawling into bed presently I lay there and listened to the rising storm-wind for a long time. Sometimes it swelled and crashed like the sound of a breaker on the beach, but mostly, from a low, incessant moan, it rose and filled to a mighty rush, then suddenly lulled; and this lull was conducive to sleep.

CHAPTER IX - A VISIT FROM RANGERS

THE NAVAJO AWOKE us with his singing. Ken peeped lazily from under the blankets and then covered himself again. The air was cold and flakes of white drifted through our wind-break of pine boughs.

“Snow!” exclaimed Ken.

“By all that’s lucky,” I replied. “Hiram wants snow more than anything.”

“Why?” queried Ken.

“So we can track lions. Also have plenty of snow-water. Roll out now, Ken.”

“Oh-h-h! but I’m sore,” groaned Ken, as he laboriously got up and began to pull on his boots. “Baseball training isn’t one — two — six to this work.”

“Stay off bucking horses,” I replied.

We walked to a roaring camp-fire. The others were all astir, even Hal being up and busy. Hiram’s biscuits, well browned and of generous size, had just been dumped into the middle of our tarpaulin table-cloth; the coffeepot steamed fragrantly and a huge skillet sizzled with a quantity of sliced venison.

“Youngster, did you hear the Injun?” asked Hiram, as he poked red coals in a heap round the skillet.

“His singing woke me,” answered Ken.

“It wasn’t a song. Thet’s the Navajo’s mornin’ prayer, a chant. Wal—”

Growls and snarls from the lions interrupted him. I looked up to see Hal fooling round our captives. They were wet, dirty, bedraggled. Hiram had cut down a small pine and made shelters for the lions, but they did not ‘seem disposed to keep out of the snow.

“Let ’em alone, youngster,” said Hiram to Hal. “They won’t be drove. Mebbe they’ll git in out of the wet arter a while...We’re havin’ good luck an’ bad. Snow’s what we want. But now we can’t git the trail of the lion thet killed the doe.”

“Chineago!” called Jim, who like the rest of us had begun to assimilate a little of the Navajo language.

Whereupon we fell to eating with appetites unknown to any save hunters. Somehow the Indian gravitated to Hal at meal-times, and now he sat cross-legged beside him, holding out a plate and looking as hungry as Mux. At the first he always asked for what happened to be on Hal’s plate, and when that became empty he gave up imitation and asked for anything he could get. The Navajo had a marvelous appetite. He liked sweet things, sugar best of all. It was a fatal error to let him get his hands on a can of fruit. Although he inspired Hiram with disgust and Jim with worse, he was a source of unfailing pleasure to the boys.

“What’s on for to-day?” queried Ken.

“Wal, we may as well hang round camp an’ rest the hounds,” replied Hiram. “I intended to go after the lion thet killed the deer, but this snow has taken away the scent.”

“Shore it’ll stop snowin’ soon,” said Jim.

The falling snow had thinned out, and looked like flying powder; the leaden clouds, rolling close to the tree-tops, grew brighter and brighter; bits of azure sky shone through rifts.

Navvy had tramped off to find the horses, and not long after his departure we heard the jangle of bells. Then he appeared, riding Hal’s mustang, and racing the others toward camp.

Ken and I set to work building a shack for the hounds. And when we finished it there was no need of it, for that time at least, because all the snow had gone. The sun was shining warmly and the forest was as brown and almost as dry as on the day before.

“Wal, it’s a good idee to hey a day of rest onct in a while,” said Hiram, in answer to Ken’s impatient desire to be on the hunt. “Youngster, you’ll git all you want. But I tell you it might be useful fer us to prowl round an’ explore some of these hollers. We’ll need to know all about ‘em, places to cross, whar they head, an’ sich as thet. Now you an’ Dick go north, an’ Jim an’ me’ll go south. Hal can keep camp with Navvy.”

So Ken and I started off on foot. We found the hollows extremely interesting. They began where the forest of pines merged on the sage flats. Some were shallow and some deep V-shaped cuts, too steep for us to go straight down. The thickets of scrub-oak lined the slope and thickets of aspen covered the bottom. Every hollow had its well-defined deer and lion trail, and every thicket its grisly heap of bones and hide. We jumped deer and flushed grouse, and out of one hollow we chased the wild stallion and his band. Ken was delighted at the sight of them. After several hours of leisurely exploring we returned toward camp.

“Dick, I see strange horses,” said Ken, as we drew near.

Sure enough, there were horses in camp that did not belong to our party, and presently I saw men who were not Hiram or Jim. We had visitors.

“Perhaps they’re some Mormon wild-horse hunters,” I replied. “I hope so, for I’d like you to meet some of those fellows, and go on a hunt with them...No, they’re rangers. Now, Ken, I don’t like this for a cent.”

As we walked into camp neither Hal nor the Indian was in sight. Three rangers lolled about under the pines. One of them I did not know; the others had worked with me and did not like me any better than I liked them, which was not much. Then a fourth fellow appeared from somewhere in the shade, and when I recognized him I was divided between anger and distrust at this invasion of our camp. This fourth individual, Belden by name, had been a ranger, and as he had been worthless, and a hindrance to other rangers, I got his discharge. It had been an object of worry to me that after his discharge he still remained on the preserve. In fact all these men were Mormons, and they resented the advent of Hiram, Jim, and myself. The bone of contention was that the forest department had put us over them. And the hard feelings had been shared even by the forest supervisor, who was strongly in sympathy with native rangers. To me the present situation looked as if these men had been sent to spy on us, or they had undertaken that on their own account.

“Hello, fellows,” I said, “what are you doing out here? Thought you were building a cabin at Quaking-Asp.”

“We’re jest pokin’ around,” replied one, a man named Sells, and he was the best of the lot.

“We want to see how you trap them cougars,” said another.

Belden laughed loudly. “An’ me, I’m sort of scouting around, too, Leslie; I’ve got a new job.”

“With the forest service?” I queried.

“Yep.”

“What kind of a job?”

“I’m keepin’ tab on all the rangers. The Supervisor says it’ll go hard with any ranger ketched with fresh venison.”

Belden looked meaningly at me. I thought the fellow was lying about a new job, still I could not be certain as to that. But there was no doubt about the gleam in his eyes meaning that he had caught me breaking the law.

“Belden, we’ve got fresh venison in camp — but we didn’t kill it.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” he guffawed.

It was hard for me to keep my temper. On the moment I was glad to see Hiram and Jim approaching. Hiram stopped near where the lions were chained and I heard him mutter: “Wal, what in the tarnal dickens is the matter with thet lion?” From where I stood I could not see either of our captives. Jim lounged into camp, and as he glanced with keen eyes from our visitors to me his genial smile faded.

“Shore we’ve got company,” he drawled.

I would have replied in no cordial acknowledgment of the fact, but just then Hal came out of the tent, and sight of him cut short my speech. Hal wore a broad red mark across his cheek, and any one could have seen that it was a mark made by a blow. Moreover, he trembled either with excitement or anger, and on closer view I saw that under his tan he was pale.

“Hal!” exclaimed Ken, sharply. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I’m all right.”

“That’s not so. I’d know from the look of you, without that red welt on your face. Who hit you? Hal — you couldn’t have gotten in a scrap with Navvy?”

“Nope — never mind how I got the welt. I got it and that’s enough,” replied Hal.

Where Hal got that mark did not appear any great mystery to me. I would have staked my horse that Belden had given the blow.

“Sells,” I demanded, “which one of you struck the lad?”

Sells removed his pipe and puffed a cloud of smoke. He did not seem in any hurry to reply.

“Speak up, man. Who hit the lad — Belden, wasn’t it?”

This time the ranger nodded.

“What for? What did he do?...Haven’t you a tongue? Talk! I want to know—”

I felt Ken Ward’s hand on my arm and I hesitated. He took one long step forward.

“This boy is my brother,” he said. “Do I understand you to mean one of you hit him?”

Again Sells nodded.

“Which one of you?” added Ken.

Sells pointed to the grinning Belden. Ken made a quick, passionate movement, and took another long step that seemed involuntary; then he wheeled to his brother.

“Hal, what have you done this time? You promised me you’d behave if I brought you out West. I declare I’m ashamed of you. I’ll never—”

“Cheese it! Shut up!” cried Hal, hotly. “You’re always blaming me. How do you know I deserved getting slapped? Do I always deserve the worst of everything?”

“Nearly always, Hal, I’m sorry to say,” returned Ken, gravely.

“Well, this is one of the few times when I don’t, then,” said Hal, sullenly.

“What did you do?” demanded Ken.

“I called that fellow every name I could lay tongue to,” retorted Hal, pointing a quivering finger at Belden. “I called him a liar and a coward. Then he hit me.”

“Why did you call him names?”

“He saw the deer meat hanging there on the tree and he kept saying we shot the deer. But I held my temper. Then he got to teasing Tom and trying to hold him with a forked stick. He said we caught the lion in a trap and he was looking for trap-marks. Tom batted him one, scratching him a little. Then he took up a club—”

At this juncture Hiram Bent strode into the circle and he roared: “Who clubbed thet lion? If the Injun—”

The old hunter was angry clear through.

“Hold on, Hiram,” I interrupted. “We’re getting at the thing. Hal was just telling us. Go on, lad.”

“Look here, Hal,” spoke up Ken, in great earnestness, “tell the absolute truth. Don’t stretch. Give me your word. Then I’ll believe you, and if I do, so will Hiram and Dick and Jim.”

Hal repeated precisely what he had told us before Hiram’s interruption, and then he went on: “Belden took up a club and beat Tom over the head — beat him till I was sure Tom was dead. Then I couldn’t stand it longer, so I called Belden a brute, a coward, a liar — everything I could think of. So he hit me, knocked me down, and kicked me.”

“Leslie — the youngster’s tellin’ it straight,” said Hiram. “Thet cougar is all bunged up, an’ any sneak who would beat a chained animal would hit a boy.”

The old hunter then turned to Belden. That worthy had ceased to grin. I looked closely at him to see if he had been drinking, but it was not that; he was surely sober enough.

“Belden, afore I say anythin’ else I’d like to know what you mean by carryin’ on this way,” went on Hiram. “Mebbe you think beatin’ up chained cougars an’ boys as are keepin’ camp ain’t serious. Wal, I reckon you’ll change your idee.”

“Bent, I’d change no idees of mine,” rejoined Belden. “An’ one idea I got is then you trapped them cougars. An’ another idee is thet I ketched you killin’ deer. An’ thet’s agin the law. I’m agoin’ to put you through for it.”

For answer Hiram strode to a pine-tree some twenty paces from his tent and took down something from a dead snag. As he returned I saw it was the head and neck of the yearling doe. He showed it to Belden, and pointed out the laceration made by the teeth of the lion. Belden did not speak. Then Hiram showed the wound to the other rangers.

“Sells, you’re a woodsman. Now what made thet wound?”

“A cougar killed thet doe an’ no mistake,” admitted Sells.

“Thar!” The old hunter threw down the deer head and whirled to face Belden. I never saw a man any more furious than Hiram was, holding himself in control.

“I ain’t carin’ a tarnal flip what sich as you think of my capturin’ cougars. But fer beatin’ up a helpless animal I care this much — you’re wuss than the youngster called you — you’re the wust dog I ever seen. An’ fer hittin’ this youngster I’m goin’ to pay you back in—”

Ken Ward caught the old hunter’s arm. The boy was white, but he was as cool as ice, and his eyes had the dark flash I had once or twice before seen in them. He stepped in front of Hiram and faced Belden.

“Belden, I’ll give you a chance to beat me up.”

“Hey?” queried Belden in stupid surprise.

Hiram and Jim appeared too amazed for speech; and as for me I saw with a kind of warm thrill what was coming off.

“Hey?” mocked Ken. “What do you think? I mean fight.”

Belden kept on staring. He was a grown man and probably could not conceive the idea Of a boy wanting to fight him. But I knew Ken Ward, and I saw, too, that he was nearly as big as Belden, and when I compared the two and thought of Ken’s wonderful agility and strength I felt the call of battle rise within me. Then conscience troubling me, I made a half-hearted attempt to draw Ken back. I was too late. The lad reached out with his hand — his powerful right hand that had acquired much of its strength in gripping baseballs — and he seized Belden’s nose between his fingers. It was no wonder he did it. Belden’s nose was long and red, an offensive kind of nose. The effect was startling. Like a mad bull Belden roared. Ken pulled him round, this way and that, then he let go and squared himself. Bellowing furiously, the ranger rushed at Ken. The lad appeared to step aside and flash into swift forward action at the same instant. A sharp thud rang out and Belden stopped in his rush and staggered. But he did not fall.

Then Ken began to dance around the ranger. Any fight always roused me to a high pitch of excitement, and this one gripped me so intensely that I could scarcely see it. But then Ken Ward was so swift in action that even in a calm moment it would not have been easy to follow his motions. I saw enough to know that the fight he had made with the Greaser when I was bound fast was as nothing to this one. Ken appeared to be on all sides of Belden at once. He seemed to have as many arms as a centipede has legs. Belden’s wildly swinging fists hit the air. The way his head jerked up showed the way Ken was hitting, and the sound of his blows rang out like rapid pistol-shots. Belden’s swarthy face grew red and swollen. All at once I seemed to hear mingled yells from Hiram and Jim, and that made me conscious that I was yelling myself. Ken’s gray form flashed around Belden and the rain of scientific blows went on. Suddenly Ken stepped back and swung heavily. Belden went to his knees, staggered up, only to be met with a stunning shock that laid him flat.

He stirred laboriously, groaned and cursed, tried to sit up and fell back. He was bloody; his nose looked like a red cauliflower; one eye was nearly closed. Ken stood erect panting hard, still flaming-eyed, still unsatisfied. His face showed a few marks of conflict.

Hiram Bent looked down at Belden. “Dog-gone it! You did git a tarnal good lickin’!...Hey?”

This good-humored query from the lately furious Hiram brought the rest of us to our senses.

CHAPTER X - HAL

PRESENTLY BELDEN GOT to his feet. He did not look at Ken or any of us, and went directly for his horses. He saddled and packed with hurried hands. It showed what the humiliation meant to him as well as what kind of a fellow he was that he rode away without a word to his companions.

They were disposed to make a joke of it and were not above praising Ken. Soon afterward they put up a tent and began preparations for supper. I certainly had no desire for their company, but neither had I any right to ask them to move on, so I thought it was just as well that we should try to be friendly.

“If you all don’t mind we want to see you ketch a cougar,” said Sells.

“Sartinly — glad to show you,” replied Hiram.

And shortly we were laughing and talking around the camp-fire just as if there had not been any unpleasantness. I noticed, however, that Hal did not speak a word to any of our visitors, and indeed he was uncivil enough not to reply to questions they put. This gave me the idea that Hal had not told all of what had been done to him during our absence. Certainly he was not the kind of a boy to blab things. From the light in his big gray eyes I fancied that he was cherishing a righteous anger against these invaders. I made a note, too, of how intently he listened to all they said.

“Look a-here, Bent,” Sells was asking, “is there any danger of them cougars gittin’ loose?”

“Wal, sometimes they break a collar or chain. I lose probably one out of ten thet way. But I can’t tie them up any tighter, for they’d choke themselves to death.”

“Durn me if I like to sleep so close to cougars as this,” went on Sells. “I allus wus scared of ‘em; jest can’t stand fer cats, any kind, nohow.”

“Nother am I powerful enraptured at the idee,” remarked one of his companions.

“Then why did you throw up the tent so close to them?” demanded Sells.

“Nary danger, fellers,” put in Hiram. “My cougars won’t hurt you onless you git in their way. Then I reckon you’d git a swipe.”

We talked and smoked around the camp fire for an hour or more. Then the north wind rose, roaring in the pines, and the night air grew cold. Soon we all sought our blankets.

I quickly dropped off to sleep. Sooner or later after that I was awakened by a terrible sound. Sitting up with a violent start I felt Ken’s hands clasping me like a vise. I heard his voice hut could not distinguish what he said. For the uproar in the camp made hearing anything else impossible. Blood-curdling shrieks, yells and curses mingled with sounds of conflict. They all came from the rangers’ tent. By the pale moonlight I saw the tent wavering and shaking. Then followed the shrill rending of canvas. Hiram emerged from the gloom and bounded forward. I jumped up eager to help, but ignorant of what to do, I held back. Then bang, bang, bang, went a revolver, and bullets whistled about.

“Lay low!” roared Hiram, above the tumult in the tent.

Promptly I pulled Ken with me behind a pine and peeped forth.

To make the din worse all the hounds began to bark furiously. Suddenly there came a violent shock from a heavy body plunging against the inside of the tent. It waved this way and that, then collapsed. From the agitated canvas came hoarse, smothered bellows. If I had not been so nonplussed I would have given up to laughter. But something was terribly wrong with the rangers. I saw a dark form roll from under the tent, rise and flee into the forest. Then another emerged from the other side. The yells ceased now, to be followed by loud cries of some one in pain.

With this Hiram ran forward. I saw him bend over, and then was astounded to see him straighten up and begin to haul away on something. But a gray, hounding object explained the mystery. Hiram was dragging one of the cougars back from the demolished tent.

“By George! Ken, one of the lions got loose,” I exclaimed, “and it must have run right into the rangers’ tent.”

“Great!” replied Ken Ward.

I jumped up and ran to help Hiram, but he had the cougar tied when I got to him. Even in the excitement I noticed that he was untying a lasso from the end of the chain. I looked at Hiram and he looked at me.

“Don’t say nothin’,” he whispered. “Somebody tied this rope in the chain, then pulled the cougar over to the rangers’ tent. I found the lasso tied to the tent-stake.”

“Whew! What’s come off?” I ejaculated. “Who did it?”

“How on earth he did it I can’t reckon, but I’ll bet it was thet tarnal boy.”

“Hal?...Impossible, Hiram!”

“Wal, I reckon there ain’t much thet’s impossible fer Ken Ward’s brother...Come on — somebody’s hurt — we can figure it out afterward.”

Jim appeared, and then two men emerged from the dark shadow of pines. One was Sells. Little was said on the moment. We lifted the tent and underneath we found the other ranger. If he had been as badly hurt as he was frightened I thought surely we would presently have a dead ranger on our hands. It turned out, however, that when we washed the blood from his face we found he had been badly scratched but not seriously injured. And as neither Sells nor the other ranger had been hurt the tension of the moment lessened, and Hiram particularly appeared greatly relieved.

“I woke up,” said Sells, “an’ seen thet durned cougar jump right in the tent. He was quicker’n lightnin’ an’ he began to leap at me. I dodged him, an’ yellin’ like mad I tried to git out. But every time I got near the tent door the cougar made at me an’ I hed to dodge. Then he got us all goin’, an’ there was no chance to do anythin’ but roll over an’ jump an’ duck. Pell throwed his gun an’ begin to shoot, an’ if the tent hedn’t fallen in he’d plugged one of us...I jest knowed one of them cougars would rustle us last night.”

Plain it was that Sells had no suspicion of a trick. This relieved me. I glanced round for Hal, but he was not in sight and I supposed he had not rolled out of his blankets. Presently all was quiet again in camp, except that the lions were restless and clanked their chains. Sells and his companions had moved away some distance under the pines. Before I went to sleep again I told Ken what Hiram had said about Hal, and Ken replied: “Oh yes! I knew whatever it was Hal did it!”

“But Jim must have had a hand in it,” I declared. “How could Hal drag the lion, even if he had the nerve?”

“Dick, that boy could drag a rhinoceros around if by it he could get even with somebody who had mistreated him. You take my word — those rangers did something to Hal more than we know.”

“Well, whatever they did to him he’s square with them. Did you ever hear such yelling? They were scared wild.”

“Reminds me of the time Greaser and Herky-Jerky got mixed up with my bear-cub in the old cabin on Penetier. Only this was worse.”

We soon slept again, and owing to the break in our slumbers did not awaken until rather late. Sells and his rangers had decided they did not care so much after all to see Hiram tie up a lion, and with the rising of the sun they had departed.

“Shore it’s good riddance,” declared Jim.

“Where’s Hal?” asked Ken.

His question acquainted me with the fact that Hal was missing. At once Ken appeared troubled.

“Don’t worry, youngster,” assured Hiram. “Your brother will turn up presently.”

“Have you seen him this morning?”

“Nary a hair of him,” replied Hiram.

“Have you, Jim?”

“I shore hevn’t. An’ what’s more he wasn’t in bed when I got rustled out last night by thet infernal racket. An’ he didn’t come back.”

“Wal, now, thet’s new on me,” said Hiram, getting serious.

Ken began to pace up and down before the camp-fire. “If anything happens to Hal how can I ever lace my lather again?”

“See hyar, youngster. I reckon your father is a sensible man,” rejoined Hiram. “He knowed things was goin’ to happen to thet wild kid, an’ thet’s why he sent him with you. Hal will get his eye teeth cut out hyar. I calkilate it’ll be wise fer you to jest stop worryin’, an’ let things happen.”

“Shore, shore,” added Jim, earnestly.

“There’s a good deal of sense in what Hiram says,” I said. “No doubt Hal is hiding somewhere. And he’ll come in as soon as he finds out the rangers have gone...Jim, weren’t you in that trick last night?”

“I shore wasn’t,” replied Jim, complacently. I knew then that it would be impossible ever to find out whether or not he had really aided Hal.

“Hiram, would it have been possible for Hal to pull off that lion stunt all by himself?” I inquired.

The old hunter looked thoughtful.

“Wal, it does seem onreasonable. But I ain’t doubtin’ it. The youngster is strong an’ a daredevil. Then he has watched me handlin’ the cougars. He’s a wonder on imitation, thet boy. It’s a fact thet a young cougar, arter he’s been tied up fer a day or so, will be kinder sluggish fer a little on bein’ dragged round agin. He’ll hang back, an’ not begin to jump an’ pull an’ fight till he’s waked up thoroughly. It’s quite possible, I reckon, thet Hal sneaked up to the tree, loosed the chain an’ tied a rope to it. Then he dragged the cougar over to the rangers’ tent, tied the rope to the tent-stake, an’ then — wal, I’m balked. How did he git the cougar into thet tent? He’ll hey to tell us.”

“It’s a wonder no one was killed,” said Ken.

“It shore is,” replied Jim.

“I wish he’d come in,” went on Ken. “Only — what’ll he do next?”

We got breakfast, ate it, and still Hal did not put in appearance. The Navajo came in, however, and that made us wonder how far he had been from the camp. Jim was of the opinion that Navvy had been so scared by the uproar that he had run till he dropped. I observed pine-needles thick in Navvy’s black hair, and knew he had slept somewhere under a pine.

Hiram went to feed the hounds and almost instantly I heard him exclaim: “Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!”

“What’s the matter, Hiram?”

“The pup’s gone, too. He didn’t break away. He’s been untied, that’s sartin. Fer I was per-tickler to fasten him tight. He’s been crazy to run off an’ trail somethin’. The youngster he’s took him.”

Ken marched over to where Hal kept his saddle and outfit. “He left his rifle and all the rest of his trappings.”

A sudden thought made me grow cold. “Hiram, mightn’t Sells have fooled us? Pretended he didn’t know the trick, and then got hold of Hal?...Those Mormons wouldn’t think much of dropping him over the rim.”

“Oh! no!” cried Ken Ward.

Following that we all fell silent, and instinctively looked to the old hunter for help or assurance. But Hiram appeared much disturbed in mind. All at once a little shock went over his tall form, making him suddenly rigid.

“Listen!” he said.

I complied with all my ears, but heard nothing except the wind in the pines and the hammering of a flicker on a dead branch.

“Shore—” began Jim.

Hiram held up a finger in warning.

“Listen — with the puffs of wind.”

Then followed a long listening silence. After what seemed an age I heard a faint yelp of a hound. It was so low that it was almost indistinguishable. Jim heard it, too, and at last Ken, as I could tell by their faces. We all remained silent, still held by Hiram’s uplifted finger.

“It’s the pup,” said Hiram, finally. “He’s way over to the west. I reckon he’s arter a coyote — or else he’s yelpin’ because somethin’s happened to — Now, fellers, I’ll make a bee-line fer whar I think he is. If I let out a string of yells you all come a-runnin’ with dogs an’ guns. If I yell onct head me off to your left. If twice, head me off to your right.”

With that he took up a rifle and strode rapidly off into the forest. Jim had nothing to say, and I did not look at Ken, for from Hiram’s unfinished speech it looked as if he feared an accident had befallen Hal.

We waited moments and moments. Once Ken imagined he heard a shout, and then Jim turned a doubtful ear to the west, but I assured them they were mistaken. Presently we were electrified by rapid yells far off in the forest, yet clear and ringing on the wind. Jim unchained the hounds and strung a rope through their collars while Ken and I gathered up guns and ropes. The Navajo was as excited as we were, and he followed us out of camp, but soon lagged behind. We ran across the level glades and through the brown aisles, and up and down the hollows.

Jim called a halt and pealed out a signal to Hiram. The answer came and again we ran. The hounds had become excited by this unusual proceeding; they barked and plunged to get away from Jim. Ken distanced us, and Jim yelled for him to wait. When we caught up with him once more Jim sent out a cry. This time Hiram’s answer proved we were traveling off to the right, so we sheered round and hurried on. Openings in the green-black wall of pines showed me that we were nearing the rim. The hollows grew deeper and had to be headed, which change of direction threw us out of line.

Jim’s next signal drew a stentorian blast from the old hunter, and that caused us to run with all we had left in us. Then at the end of a long aisle we saw Hiram waving to us and we had a mad race that Ken won by several rods.

I stopped, panting for breath, and surveyed the glade with quick eyes. At the same moment the pack of hounds burst into wild clamor. “There’s Hal!” shouted Ken, in a glad voice. I saw the lost lad sitting composedly on a log. Next I saw the pup. He was quite beside himself, yelping, leaping, and his nose pointed straight upward. Following the direction thus indicated I looked up in a short dead pine-tree to see a snarling lion.

CHAPTER XI - HIRAM CALLS ON KEN

THE FULL WILD chorus of the hounds mingled with our yells of exultation. Prince stood on his hind legs and pawed the air in his eagerness to get to the lion. Mux-Mux, the old war-dog, had as usual lost his reason.

When we had calmed down somewhat Hiram said: “It’s another two-year-old, an’ fair-sized. Fellars, thet’s the best tree fer our ropin’ purposes I ever seen a cougar in. Spread out now an’ surround him, an’ keep lively an’ noisy.”

When Hiram swung himself on the first stubby branch of the pine, the lion, some fifteen feet above, leaped to another limb, and the one he had left cracked, swayed, and broke. It fell directly upon Hiram, the blunt end striking his head and knocking him out of the tree. Fortunately, he landed on his feet; otherwise there would surely have been bones broken. He appeared stunned, and reeled so that Jim caught him. The blood poured from a wound in his head.

This sudden shock sobered us instantly. On examination we found a long, jagged cut in Hiram’s scalp. We bathed it with water from my canteen and with snow Jim procured from a near-by hollow, eventually stopping the bleeding. I insisted on Hiram coming to camp to have the wound properly dressed, and he insisted on having it bound with a bandanna.

“I reckon it doesn’t amount to much,” said Hiram. “But I’m a little dizzy, an’ better not climb any more...Wal, youngster, hyar’s whar I call on you.”

He directed this last remark toward Ken. “What — what?” stammered Ken.

“I want you to go up an’ slip the rope over the cougar’s head. We’ll do the rest.”

Ken’s face went first red, then white. He gave a kind of eager gasp and a wild start at once. He stared at the old hunter and it was a full moment before his natural color returned.

“You want — me to rope him?”

“Sartinly. You are supple an’ quick, an’ with me to tell you what to do, the job can be done better’n if I went up arter him. Don’t be scared now, Ken. If he gits sassy up thar I’ll warn you in plenty of time.”

Without a word Ken took the lasso and began to climb the pine. Hal Ward stood as if petrified; only his eyes seemed alive, and they were wonderful to behold. I appreciated what the situation meant to the boy he had not believed Ken’s stories of an old hunter roping wild beasts, and here was Ken himself about to perform the miracle!

“Not so fast, youngster,” called Hiram. “Don’t crowd him. It’s hard to tell what move he’ll make next, an’ thar’s the danger.” The cougar changed his position, growled, spat, clawed the twigs, and kept the tree-trunk between him and Ken.

“Wait — he’s too close to the tree,” said Hiram. “You’ve got to chase him out on a limb. It’ll be best for you to git a little above him, Ken. Try an’ scare him. Break off a branch an’ throw at him.”

Ken was eighteen feet below the cougar, on the opposite side of the tree. He broke off a snag and thrashed and pounded; then throwing it he hit the beast square in the side. There was an explosion of spits and snarls and hisses.

“Thet’s the way,” yelled Hiram. “Make him think you’re goin’ to kill him. Go on up now, hurry! Don’t hesitate. He’ll back out on thet thick branch.”

It surely must have tried Ken’s nerve to obey the hunter. I thought that Ken could have been excused if he had not obeyed. But he climbed on and slowly the cougar backed out on the limb.

“Shore, Ken, you’re more at home in thet tree than the critter himself,” cried Jim.

And so it really appeared, for Ken’s movements were rapid and certain, his lithe, powerful form seemed to glide up between the branches without effort, and the lion was awkward and slow, plainly showing he feared he might fall.

“Thar, Ken, thet’ll do,” shouted Hiram, as Ken reached a point a little above the cougar. “Now you’re right. Make a noose, not too big, an’ sort of pitch it...Try again, youngster, an’ be deliberate. You’re nervous. You’re perfectly safe, ‘cause if he gits a notion to start fer you jest climb up farther. He’ll never foller you up...Thar!...You ketched him thet time. Whoop!”

We all whooped, and I thought Jim Williams would stand on his head. He had come to exhibit the most extraordinary delight in the achievements of the lads.

“Draw the noose tight...Jest pull easy-like, fer he’s bitin’ at the rope, an’ if you jerk too hard you’ll — Thar! I could hey done no better myself. Come down now...No, don’t climb down. Slide down on the rope.”

Ken had not spoken a word since he had gone up the pine, and now he turned his tense white face down to us, and looked as if he had not heard aright.

“Slide down the rope,” yelled Hiram. “It’ll hold.”

With that Ken gave the lasso a strong pull and the lion braced himself. Then Ken stepped off the limb and slid down the lasso, hand over hand, while the lion held his weight with apparent ease. Ken was breathing hard and he had the expression of a man whom strong, thrilling excitement had carried through a deed the reality of which he scarcely appreciated.

“Make your noose ready,” yelled Hiram to Jim.

I had dropped my rope to help them pull the animal from his perch. The branches broke in a shower; then the lion, hissing, snarling, whirling, plunged down. He nearly jerked the rope out of our hands, but we lowered him and then Hiram noosed his hind paws in a flash.

“Make fast your rope,” shouted he. “Thar, thet’s good! Now let him down — easy.”

As soon as the lion touched ground we let go the lasso, which whipped up and over the branch. He became a round, yellow, rapidly moving ball. Jim was the first to catch the loose lasso and he checked the rolling cougar. Hiram leaped to assist him and the two of them straightened out the struggling animal, while I swung another noose. On the second throw I caught a front paw.

“Pull hard! Stretch her out!” yelled Hiram. He grasped up a stout piece of wood and pushed it at the lion. He caught it in his mouth, making the splinters fly. Hiram shoved the head of the beast back on the ground and pressed his brawny knee on the bar of wood.

“The collar! The collar! Quick!” he called.

I threw the chain and collar to him, which in a moment he had buckled on.

“Thar, we’ve got him!” he said. “It’s only a short way over to camp, so we’ll drag him without muzzlin’.”

As he rose the lion lurched, and, reaching for him, fastened its fangs in his leg. Hiram roared. Jim and I yelled. And Ken, though frightened, was so obsessed with the idea of getting a picture that he began to fumble with the shutter of his camera.

“Grab the chain! Pull him off!” bawled Hiram.

I ran in and took up the chain with both hands, and tugged with all my might. Jim, too, had all his weight on a lasso. Between the two of us we choked the hold of the lion loose, but he tore Hiram’s leather legging. Then I dropped the chain and jumped.

“Hyar! Hyar!” exploded Hiram to Ken. “Do you think more of a picture than savin’ my life?” Having expressed this not unreasonable protest, he untied the lasso that Jim had made fast to a small sapling.

Then we three men, forming points of a triangle around an animated center, began a march through the forest that for variety of action and uproar beat any show I ever saw.

So rare was it that the Navajo came out of hiding and, straightway forgetting his reverence and fear, began to execute a ghost dance, or war dance, or at any rate some kind of an Indian dance, along the side lines.

There were moments when the lion had Jim and me on the ground and Hiram wobbling; others when he ran on his bound legs and chased the two in front and dragged the one behind; others when he came within an ace of getting his teeth into somebody.

We had caught a tartar. We dared not let him go, and though Hiram evidently ordered it, no one made his rope fast to a tree. There was no chance. The lion was in the air three parts of the time and the fourth he was invisible in dust. The lassos were each thirty feet long, but even with that we could just barely keep out of reach.

Then came the climax, as it always comes in a lion hunt, unexpectedly and with lightning swiftness. We were nearing the bottom of the second hollow, well spread out, lassos taut, facing one another. I stumbled and the lion leaped. The weight of both brought Jim over, sliding and slipping, with his rope slackening. The leap of the lion carried him within reach of Hiram; and as he raised himself the cougar reached a big paw for him just as Jim threw all his strength and bulk on his lasso.

The seat of Hiram’s trousers came away with the claws of the lion. Then he fell backward, overcome by Jim’s desperate lunge. Hiram sprang up with the velocity of an Arab tumbler, and his scarlet face, working spasmodically, and his moving lips, showed how utterly unable he was to give expression to his rage. I had a stitch in my side that nearly killed me, but laugh I would if I died for it.

But it was no laughing matter for Hiram. He volleyed and thundered at us.

All the while, however, we had been running from the lion, which brought us, before we realized it, right into camp. Our captive lions cut up fearfully at the hubbub, and the horses stampeded in terror.

“Whoa!” yelled Hiram, whether to us or the struggling cougar no one knew. But Navvy thought Hiram addressed the cougar.

“Whoa!” repeated Navvy. “No savvy whoa! No savvy whoa!” which proved conclusively that the Navajo had understanding as well as wit.

Soon we had another captive safely chained and growling away in tune with the others. I went back to untie the hounds, to find them sulky and out of sorts from being so unceremoniously treated. They noisily trailed the lion into camp, where, finding him chained, they gave up in disgust.

Hiram soon recovered from his anger and laughed loud and long at what he considered the most disgraceful trick he had ever had played on him by a cougar.

Then as we sat in the shade resting, well content with ourselves, Hiram and Jim and Ken began to fire questions at Hal. The lad was, as usual, not inclined to talk. But the old hunter’s admiration and Jim Williams’ persuasive questions at length proved too much for Hal. His story of getting the lion to the tent of the rangers tallied precisely with the manner in which Hiram had explained it.

“Wal, I reckoned on thet,” said Hiram. “But, youngster, how did you ever git the lion inside the rangers’ tent? Thet stumps me.”

Hal appeared surprised.

“Why, I didn’t put the lion in the tent. And the lion didn’t go in the tent. When I tied the lasso to the tent-stake Tom began to wake up and buck. He lunged back near the door of the tent and began to roar and spit. Just then I guess Sells woke up and began to bawl. I crawled away and got behind a tree. Then I watched. It looked to me as if the rangers just got up and ran here and there with the tent over them. Gee! but didn’t they howl. But I know positively that the lion was not in the tent at all.”

“How on earth did that ranger get all scratched up?” I asked.

“‘Peared to me them scratches were sorter unlike cougar scratches,” remarked Hiram. “Thet fellar scratched himself wrastlin’ round.”

“Shore, then, thet story of Sells was a big yarn. Why, the way he talked you’d thought the tent was full of cougars,” said Jim.

“I reckon Sells lied, but he believed what he said. Probably he waked up an’ seein’ the cougar between the flaps of the tent he was so scared thet he imagined all the rest. An’ of course his yellin’ thet way was enough to scare the other rangers into fits. Why, I was scared myself.”

We had a good laugh at the expense of Sells and his companions, and our conviction was that they had paid dearly for their spying visit.

“Wal, then what did you do?” went on Hiram.

“I untied one of the hounds, the first I got my hands on,” replied Hal. “I wanted to go off in the woods, because I thought the rangers would find out I put up the job on them. And I wanted company, so I took the dog. I sat up awhile and then fell asleep. When I awoke the woods were getting gray. It was near daylight. The pup had left me, and presently I heard him barking way off in the woods. I went after him and when I found him he had the lion treed. That’s all.”

“Oh, that’s all, eh?” inquired Ken, with a queer look at his brother. “Well, I hope it holds you for a while.”

“Youngster, I can’t find the heart to scold you now,” said Hiram, soberly. “But you was careless of yourself an’ the feelin’s of others.”

“Shore, kid, you was plumb bad,” added Jim. “As it turned out thet lion stunt tickled me most to death. It shore did. But mebbe the luck of it was accident. Don’t pull off no more tricks like thet.”

I added my advice to that of the others, but I observed that Hal, though he appeared contrite and subdued, did not make any rash promise as to future behavior.

CHAPTER XII - NAVVY’S WATERLOO

THAT NIGHT WE were sitting around the campfire, and Hiram was puffing at his pipe in a way that seemed rather favorable for the telling of a story he had long promised the boys.

It was an unusually cool night, so cool that we all hugged the fire except Hal. He hung back in the shadow. This action I would scarcely have noted particularly had he not made elaborate efforts to attract attention to some real or pretended task. I had come to regard Hal with considerable doubt, and felt safer to watch him from a distance.

Navvy sat right upon the fire, stolid as usual, with his bright black eyes fixed upon the red embers. From time to time he puffed at a cigarette. Ken had a seat back of the Indian, just out of the severest heat, and he left it occasionally to stir and rake some coals over a potato he was baking.

“It’s shore fine round the camp-fire,” remarked Jim, spreading his hands to the blaze.

“Thar’s snow in the wind,” said Hiram. “It reminds me—”

Just then Ken poked the embers again. Startling as a flash of lightning the camp-fire blew up in a blinding flare. It burst into a huge light, and exploded with a boom into millions of sparks. Pieces of burning wood flew every way. Red embers and hot ashes and showers of sparks covered us. I heard the Indian yell, and Ken yelled still louder. Then came black darkness.

We were all threshing about, scared out of our wits, and trying to beat the fire from our burning clothes. That was a pretty lively moment. When the excitement quieted down a little I heard Jim’s wrathful voice. Hiram was so astounded he could not be angry.

“Dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “What in the tarnal dickens was thet? Youngster, was thet a potato you was bakin’ or a dinnamite bomb?”

“By George!” declared Ken, breathing hard. “You’ve got one on me! I’ve no idea what happened. Make a light. I’m burned alive.”

It developed presently, when Hiram got a fire blazing some yards distant from the dangerous camp-fire site, that Ken had been pretty severely burned. His face was black with charcoal. It took several moments for us to put out the burning holes in his shirt and trousers. Ken’s hands trembled, and when he washed the black from his face we saw that he was pale. He had been badly frightened, but fortunately had escaped serious injury.

For a little while we all talked at once so that I could hardly grasp anything we said. The Indian came warily out of the darkness, and this was the first we had seen of him since the explosion. We had forgotten all about him. He had been sitting near the fire, but, though apparently more frightened than Ken, he had not been so badly burned.

“Hey! Hal, where are you?” called Ken. “Here,” came a response from the woodpile.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure. Never touched me,” replied Hal. “Scared you though, I’ll bet.”

“It’d take more than a busting log of fire-wood to scare me.”

Ken was silent. We were all silent, revolving Hal’s cool explanation of the explosion.

“Oh-h — it would!” finally exclaimed Ken, and there was a world of meaning in his peculiar tone of voice.

Hiram growled low and deep. Jim was shaking in silent mirth. And the Navajo was staring from one to the other of us, as if he did not know what to make of such company. He kept feeling his shirt, and this action led me to the discovery that his shirt was wet. Not only was it wet, but hot.

“Hiram, the Indian’s shirt is all wet, and mighty hot, too,” I said. “Did you have a pot of water on the fire? It might have tipped and caused the blow-up.”

It was plain from the fact that Hiram did not trust his memory, and went to look over his outfit of pans and pots, that he was much disturbed in mind.

“Mebbe — mebbe,” he said, as he fumbled among them. “Dog-gone it! — no! Hyar they all are, an’ nary one wet.”

“Jim, can you smell powder?” I asked.

“No. Thet shore must have been a bustin’ log,” replied Jim.

“That was a steam explosion, my man,” I replied. “Somebody put a sealed fruit-can in the fire, or buried a jar of water in the ashes.”

No more was said on the moment, but later, when Hal and Jim were tying up the dogs, Ken broke out emphatically:

“Another job of the kid’s! Whatever it was it certainly got me. I was never so scared in my life. Hiram, isn’t there any way we can scare Hal? It’s got to be done.”

“Wal, youngster, I’ll think on it.”

“Let’s play a trick on Hal, give him a dose of his own medicine. Hiram, it’s a wonder to me he hasn’t done something to you and Dick. He will yet.”

“Wal, youngster, I reckon you’ll find Leslie an’ me accomplices in any reasonable trick on thet thar lad.”

“It’ll be great...But what he’ll do to us, if he ever finds it out, will be a-plenty.”

By this time Ken seemed obsessed with his idea, yet all the while he showed a strange half-reluctance, as if he bore in mind Hal’s remarkable powers of retaliation.

“But how?” he asked. “Can we coax Jim into the scheme?”

“Leave that to me, Ken,” I said. “Jim would fall victim to any fun. Now, we’ll get Jim to fire Hal out of his bed, and we’ll all refuse to take him in ours on some pretext or other. Then the Navajo will naturally gravitate to Hal, and we’ll find some way to scare him.”

Next morning I found a favorable opportunity, wherein I approached Jim with my proposition and won him over easily. He had weakness of that sort.

We hunted that day, and at supper Jim groaned and took as much trouble in sitting down as if his leg was in splints.

“What’s wrong with you?” inquired Hiram, with extraordinary sympathy.

“It’s my leg.”

“Wal?”

“You know I told you. It’s thet place where Hal has been kickin’ me every night in his sleep.”

“Wha — at?” stammered Hal. His eyes opened wide.

“Lad, I’m sorry to hey to hurt your feelin’s,” replied Jim, gently. “But I’ve shore stood it as long as I could. You’re one of them nightmare sleepers, an’ when you git after anythin’, or anythin’ gits after you, then you kick. I never seen a broncho thet could hold a candle to you. No matter how you lay, on your side or back or belly, you can kick, an’ allus in the same place. I was throwed From a horse once an’ hurt this leg, an’ right there’s where you’ve been kickin’ me.”

Hal looked as if he wanted to cry. He seemed unmistakably, genuinely ashamed of himself.

“Oh, Jim, I know I have crazy dreams and thrash about in my sleep. Why — why didn’t you kick back — kick me out of bed?”

“Shore, lad, you needn’t feel bad about it. I ain’t blamin’ you. I realize we’re havin’ some pretty warm times after these cougars, enough to make any feller hey nightmares.”

“I won’t trouble you again that way,” said Hal, earnestly. “I’ll sleep somewhere else...Hiram, can I come in your tent — way over on one side, far from you?”

“Youngster, I wish you hedn’t asked me,” replied Hiram, in apparent distress. “Fer I’ve got to refuse. I’m gittin’ old, Hal, an’ I must hey my rest. You’d keep me awake.”

Pride and mortification held Hal back from further appeal. He finished his supper without another word. Then he took the axe and cutting down some small pines began to make a shack. Navvy got so interested that he offered to help, and to our great delight, when the shack was completed Hal pointed to it and asked the Indian to share it with him.

The next day we had some strenuous chases; the hounds split on fresh trails, and we were separated from one another. One by one we got back to camp, and it was a mooted question which were the most worn out, hunters or hounds. It was about dark when Jim came riding in.

“Fellers, you shore missed the wind-up,” he said, throwing the skin of a cougar on the ground.

“Wal, dog-gone it, you hed to kill one!” exclaimed Hiram.

“Shore. Curley and Tan treed thet one, an’ I yelled fer you till I lost my voice. He started down, finally, an’ as I was afraid he’d kill a dog I hed to kill him. When I got the skin I started to work up to the place I left my hoss. It’s bad climbin’. I got on a side of a cliff an’ saw where I could work out, if I could climb a smooth place. So I tried. There was little cracks an’ ridges for my hands an’ feet. All to once, just above I heard a low growl. Lookin’ up I saw a big lion, bigger’n any we’ve chased, an’ he was pokin’ his head out of a hole, an’ shore tellin’ me to come no farther. I couldn’t let go with either hand to reach my gun, because I’d have fallen; so I yelled at him with all my might. He spit at me an’ then walked out of the hole, over the bench, as proud as a lord, an’ jumped down where I couldn’t see him no more. I climbed out all right, but he’d gone. An’ I tell you for a minute he shore made me sweat.”

That night Hiram whispered to Ken and Jim and me to stay up till Hal and Navvy had gone to bed. We did not need to wait long, and soon Navvy’s snores and Hal’s deep breathing assured us we might safely talk of our plan.

“Youngster, you slip up an’ steal Hal’s gun,” whispered Hiram. “I wouldn’t be easy in mind monkeyin’ with thet kid if he hed a gun handy.”

Ken got down on his hands and knees and crawled noiselessly toward the shack. He did not return for some time. At last he appeared carrying Hal’s weapons, and we all breathed easier.

“Thet kid shore has us all buffaloed,” remarked Jim.

Then we got our heads together. It was not strange for Ken to be eager to pay Hal back in his own coin, and perhaps I was still young enough to feel the fun of a good, well-deserved trick. But it did seem strange for Hiram Bent and Jim Williams to outdo us in eagerness. Hiram was excited and Jim was bursting with suppressed glee.

“See hyar, youngster, I’ve planned it all,” said Hiram. “Now you take this lasso — thar’s a noose on each end — an’ jest wrap it once round thet little saplin’ thar, an’ then slip a noose over Hal’s foot an’ one over Navvy’s.”

“You’ve planned, and I must execute,” protested Ken. “By George! Hiram, can’t Dick help me?”

“I’ll take one end of the lasso,” I replied. “That will make it easier for us to wrap the middle of the lasso round the sapling. We’ll both walk round it once. Come on.”

The sapling in question was about fifteen feet from Hal’s shack, and quite in the open. Ken and I got the lasso round it, and then dropping on all fours we crawled stealthily toward the shack.

“You take the Indian,” I suggested, in a whisper.

“Good!” whispered Ken. “I’d rather try to rope Geronimo than my kid brother.”

Like snails we crept on, as tense and silent as if there were real danger. We reached the shack and lay low a moment. Hal had wrapped himself in his blanket, but the Navajo lay partially uncovered. It turned out that I had gotten the worse of the choice, for Ken soon slipped his noose over Navvy’s uncovered foot. And I had carefully to remove the blanket from Hal before I could get the lasso over his foot. Hal kicked, but he did not awaken. I returned to the other conspirators to find Ken already there.

“What next?” I demanded.

“Wal, it’s my turn now,” whispered Hiram, “an’ if you fellers don’t see some fun then I’m an old fool.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Ken.

“Youngster, I never seen the sleepin’ Injun thet I couldn’t scare out of his skin, an’ you jest listen an’ watch.”

Hiram got down flat on the ground and began to squirm like a snake, with a perfectly noiseless motion. He went out of sight toward the shack.

We waited, holding fast to each other, straining eyes, and listening with all our might. The silence was unusual, there being only a faint moan of wind in the pines.

Suddenly a hideous ear-splitting sound rose on the night air. It was neither yell, nor roar, nor bawl. Like a prolonged superhuman shriek it pierced us, transfixed us to the spot. It bore some faint resemblance to a terrible loud, coarse whistle.

The shack flew up and tumbled to pieces, out of which bounded the Navajo. His screech of terror rose above Hiram’s unearthly cry. Navvy leaped, and then, like a nine-pin, down he went. Hal jumped up, and, yelling, ran the other way, and down he went. Both sprang up and leaped away again, only to go tumbling down. Quick as thought Navvy rose and started to run; Hal, doing the same, ran into the Indian’s arms. Then Hiram stopped his unearthly noise. The frightened dogs burst into an uproar. Everything happened so quickly that I could scarcely keep track of it. Down went Navvy and Hal all in a heap.

Suddenly Hiram roared out. “Hyar, you Carnal redskin! stop thet!”

We rushed up to find Navvy sitting astride Hal and pommeling him at a great rate. It was only the work of a moment to rescue poor Hal, after which he roared as loudly as Hiram, but our roaring was laughter.

We had not thought that Navvy would suspect Hal, and that had made our little trick thrice successful.

“How — much — does — it take — to scare — you — Hal?” choked Ken.

Hiram added his say: “Hal — I was jest — wonderin’ — what your pa — would hey thought — if he hed seen you.”

We did not see any more of Hal till next day. As that was to be a day of rest, particularly for the hounds, we lounged in the shade. Hiram, however, who was seldom idle, spent his time in making buckskin moccasins for the hounds. More or less we all bantered Hal with our several opinions of what it took to scare him. Like a waiting volcano with a cold exterior, Hal endured our sallies in silence. Indeed he did not appear to hold resentment — Hal was not that sort of a boy — but all the same his brain was busy. And we all shivered in our boots. Whatever Hal’s feelings were toward us he did not reveal, but he watched the Indian steadily and thoughtfully. By that we knew Hal had designs on Navvy, and we awaited developments with some relief and much interest.

Toward sunset we were interrupted by yells from the Navajo, off in the woods. The brushing of branches and pounding of hoofs preceded his appearance. In some remarkable manner he had got a bridle on Marc, and from the way the big stallion hurled his huge bulk over logs and through thickets, it appeared evident he meant to usurp Jim’s ambition and kill the Navajo. Hearing Hiram yell, the Indian turned Marc toward camp. The horse slowed down when he neared the glade and tried to buck. But Navvy kept his head up. With that Marc seemed to give way to ungovernable rage and plunged right through camp; he knocked over the dog-shelter, and thundered down the ridge.

Now, the Navajo, with a bridle in his hands, was thoroughly at home; he was getting his revenge on Marc, and he would have kept his seat on a wild mustang. But Marc swerved suddenly under a low branch of pine, sweeping the Indian off.

When Navvy did not rise we began to fear he had been seriously hurt, perhaps killed, and we ran to where he lay.

Face downward, hands outstretched, with no movement of body or muscle, he certainly appeared dead.

“Badly hurt,” said Hiram, “probably back broken. I’ve seen it afore from jest sich accidents.”

“Oh no!” I cried. And I felt so deeply I could not speak. Jim, who always wanted Navvy to be a dead Indian, looked profoundly sorry.

“He’s a dead Injun, all right,” replied Hiram.

We rose from our stooping postures and stood around, uncertain and deeply grieved, till a mournful groan from Navvy afforded us much relief.

“Thet’s your dead Indian!” exclaimed Jim. Hiram stooped and felt the Indian’s back, and got in reward another mournful groan.

“It’s his back,” said Hiram, and true to his ruling passion, forever to minister to the needs of horses and men and things, he began to rub the Indian and called for the liniment.

Hal went to fetch it, while I, who still believed Navvy to be dangerously hurt, knelt by him, and pulled up his shirt, exposing the hollow of his brown back.

“Here you are,” said Hal, returning on the run with a bottle.

“Pour some on,” replied Hiram. Hal removed the cork and soused the liniment all over the Indian’s back.

“Don’t waste it,” remonstrated Hiram, starting to rub Navvy.

Then occurred a most extraordinary thing. A convulsion seemed to quiver through the Indian’s body; he rose at a single leap, and uttering a wild, piercing yell, broke into a run. I never saw an Indian or anybody else run so fleetly. Yell after yell pealed back at us.

Absolutely dumfounded, we all gazed at each other.

“Thet’s your dead Indian!” ejaculated Jim. “Dog-gone me!” exclaimed Hiram.

“Look here,” I cried, picking up the bottle. “See! Don’t you smell it?”

Jim fell face downward and began to shake.

“What?” shouted Hiram. “Turpentine! You idiots! Turpentine! Hal brought the wrong bottle!”

CHAPTER XIII - THE CAÑON AND ITS DISCOVERERS

HAL, HOWEVER, WAS not always making trouble. Like Ken, he had a thoughtful turn of mind, and when in this mood he was not slow to seek information.

“What made this Cañon?” he asked.

And I undertook to tell him.

“Well, Hal, I don’t see how any one could look at this Cañon without wondering how it was made,” I said. “It seems to me the forces of nature were no more wonderful here than elsewhere. But here you can see so much of what’s been done, and that makes you curious.

“Ages ago, you know, the whole face of the earth was covered by water. And as the crust began to cool, and shrink, and crumple up, the first land began to rise above the water. In this part of the country the Rockies were the first points of land to appear. As the earth’s crust kept on crumpling these mountains kept rising above the water. As they rose they began to weather, and dust, sand, silt, and rock washed back into the ocean, and formed layers on the bottom. This went on for thousands and thousands of years.

“All this time the earth was lifting itself out of the sea, and finally a continent was formed. But it wasn’t much like the continent of to-day. Florida and the Southern States were still under water. There was a great inland sea north of this plateau region, and as the uplift continued this inland sea began to flow out, cutting a river into the plateau. This river was the Colorado.

“Probably it rained much harder and longer in those early days, and the river, with its tributaries, had greater power, and there was a greater erosion. The Colorado cut its way through to the Gulf of California. As time went on, and the uplift of land continued, the river cut deeper and deeper, and erosion by rain and wind and frost widened the channel into a cañon. The different layers of rock raised up were of different degrees of hardness and softness.

“Some readily wore away; others were durable. These layers were the deposit of silt into the ocean bed, where they had been burned or cemented into rock strata. There have been fifteen thousand feet — three miles — of strata washed off from the earth here, where we sit now.

“Then the uplift increased, or there was a second and quicker uplift of the plateau. It was greater here, where we are, than southward. That’s why the north rim is so much higher. The whole plateau has a tilt to the north. This second uplift gave the river a greater impetus toward the sea, and that, of course, gave it greater cutting power. The narrow inner cañon was thus formed. This drained the inland sea. The river is small now to what it was then. But the same washing, grinding of sand on rock is going on down there And up above the same eroding and weathering of rims.”

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Hal. “It’s easy to understand the way you put it. Then these different-colored cliffs, the yellow, and red, and white — they’re made out of the sand and silt once washed into the sea, and petrified into the layers — the strata, you called it — and then uplifted, to be washed away again. It takes my breath!”

“Yes, and from these layers we can determine when life first appeared in the sea. For we find shells and bones of a low order of life imbedded in this rock.”

“Who discovered the Cañon, anyhow?” asked Hal. “If the fellow rode out of the cedars right upon the rim, without being prepared, I’ll bet he thought he’d come to the jumping-off place.”

“Ken can tell you that better than I,” I replied.

“It’s worth knowing, Hal,” said Ken. “Look here, who were the first white people in America, anyway?”

“The Jamestown, Virginia, colony in 1607,” Hal answered, triumphantly, “and the Plymouth colony in 1620.”

Ken laughed.

“Well,” said Hal, rather sulkily, “of course, there are all the stories of Norsemen dropping in any old time all the way from Newfoundland to Long Island Sound, but they certain didn’t amount to much as settlers.”

“No, we won’t count the Norsemen,” said Ken. “But, Hal, just think of this. The Grand Cañon, away out here in this wilderness, was discovered in 1540, sixty-seven years before the Jamestown colony landed, and eighty years before the Mayflower dropped anchor at Plymouth.”

Hal whistled.

“That makes Plymouth Rock look young,” he said. “Who found the Cañon?”

“It was discovered by a Spaniard. His name was Don Lopez de Cardenas. He was a lieutenant of the great Spanish explorer Coronado, who sent him out from his camp near the so-called Seven Cities of Cibola, usually identified as the Pueblos of Zuni. Cardenas with a handful of men traveled into northern Arizona, and finally reached the gorge now known as the Grand Cañon. He must have traversed the southerly edge of the Colorado plateau and passed through the Coconina forests.”

“I don’t understand,” said Hal. “These were Spanish warriors in helmets and breasts plates like the men with Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in South America. What brought them to such an out-of-the-way place as this?”

“It’s a romance,” replied Ken, earnestly; “but it’s a true one, and it goes back to the search for a way to the treasures of the Far East, which led to Columbus’ discovery of Cat or San Salvador Island in the West Indies, and then to the Spanish occupancy of Cuba, and to the gold-hunts of De Soto in our South and Pizarro in South America.”

“I don’t see the connection,” grumbled Hal.

“You will in a minute. You see when the Spaniards were settled in Cuba in the early sixteenth century they kept on looking for two things — gold and a water route to Cathay or China and the Spice Islands of the East. Now, in 1528 a Spanish expedition under Narvaez came to grief in Florida. A few survivors made their way across the Gulf of Mexico, and finally four who were left were captured by the Indians a little west of the mouth of the Mississippi. For years they were captives among the Indians of eastern Texas and western Louisiana. They made many long journeys, and their leader, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, gained some favors by acting as medicine man. But at last they escaped. They traveled across Texas and northern Mexico, and in 1536 succeeded in reaching the northern outpost of Spain in Mexico, at Culiacan, in Sinaloa.”

“That must have been the first time a white man crossed this continent,” broke in Hal.

“Yes, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca was the first to cross the continent. He was the first white man to see the buffalo, and another thing he did was to bring hack stories of wonderful towns filled with riches of which the Indians had told him. Stories like this had reached the Spaniards before. Within three years a priest, Fray Marcos de Niza, taking one of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca’s followers, started north to find the Seven Cities of Cibola. He probably did find the Pueblos of Zuni, but he brought back exaggerated stories. Such stories, especially one of Quivira, an Indian treasure city, led Mendoza, the Viceroy of Mexico, to organize a search expedition which was commanded by Coronado, the Governor of New Galicia. He started north in 1540 with over three hundred soldiers and over a thousand Indian allies and Indian and negro servants. He captured Zuni, although he didn’t find any gold. He wintered there and sent out exploring parties, and one of them, to come back to my starting-point, found the Grand Cañon.”

“Did the Spaniards get down into the Grand Cañon?” asked Hal.

“They tried to. Some of the men with Cardenas climbed down a long way with Indian guides. They said that some rocks on the sides of the cliffs which seemed the size of a man from above proved to be larger than the great tower at Seville when they reached them. But they could not go on to the bottom. They estimated the width of the Cañon at the top at three or four leagues.”

“But,” said Hal, “didn’t the Spaniards ever reach the river itself?”

“I should say they did,” replied Ken. “Listen. In 1539 some ships commanded by Don Francisco de Ulloa evidently reached the mouth of the river. When Coronado started the next year, the Viceroy sent out another fleet commanded by Don Fernando de Alarcon. This fleet was to go north along the Mexican coast, and as they knew nothing of the geography of the region they thought Coronado and Alarcon would not be far apart and could keep in touch. Alarcon not only reached the mouth of the Colorado, but he ascended the river in boats for eighty-five leagues and called it the Rio de Buena Guia. Also Melchior Diaz, who led an exploring party sent out by Coronado, went across Arizona to the Gulf of California, crossing the Colorado River.”

“Where did you get all this?” asked Dick, abruptly, and then, as Ken held up a small book, “Oh! you’ve been reading up. But my histories never told me this. What is that?”

“That,” said Ken, “is Castañeda’s ‘Relations,’ or Journal, and Castañeda was an educated private soldier with Coronado who was the historian of the journey, in order that there might be a full report for the Viceroy of Mexico and the Emperor-King of Spain. It has been translated and explained by Mr. G. P. Winship, and other scholars, like Bandelier, have helped to make the Spanish explorations known. Cabeza de Vaca wrote a full account of his wanderings, like many other adventurous Spaniards.”

“Oh! What became of Coronado finally?” asked Hal.

“His expedition journeyed from Zuni eastward, entered Kansas, and probably reached the northeasterly part of the State.”

“How about the golden Quivira?” asked Hal.

“The only Quivira they found was a wretched little village, probably of the Wichita Indians, in Kansas. But here is a dramatic thing. While Coronado was up there in Kansas with his fine expedition, poor De Soto, who had fought his way from Florida to the Mississippi, had crossed the river, and was distant only a journey of a few days for an Indian runner — in fact, it is related that Coronado heard of some white men there in the heart of this strange country and sent a messenger to find them, who failed. Now here’s the thing that strikes me. At that early day, in the summer of 1541, two Spanish expeditions, one starting from Florida, and one from Mexico, practically traversed the breadth of our continent, and nearly met in eastern Kansas. We always hear of the Jamestown colony and the Pilgrims; but think of the Spaniards crossing the continent twice in the first half of the century before Jamestown.”

“It’s a great story,” said Hal. “I hope Coronado got some reward.”

“Not much,” Ken snapped out. “First, he fe 11 from his horse and was badly hurt. Secondly, he had found no gold. That was the important thing. So he reached the City of Mexico in the spring of 1542, ‘very sad and very weary, completely worn out and shamefaced.’”

“Didn’t he get any credit for his discoveries?”

“Not a particle. Yet he had made known to Europeans a vast territory extending from the mouth of the Colorado River to the Grand Cañon, and stretching east nearly to the Mississippi and north to Nebraska.”

“What became of him?”

“He was so coldly received by the Viceroy,” answered Ken, “that he resigned as Governor of New Galicia and retired to his estate in Spain, where he died.”

“It’s a wonderful story,” said Hal.

“There’s nothing better in the exploration of this country,” Ken agreed. “But, Hal, I’ve talked myself out and it’s time to do something else.”

CHAPTER XIV - HIRAM BENT’S STORY

HOW OLD HIRAM Bent was no one knew, and he probably did not know himself. But his life of Western adventure had included Indian-fighting and buffalo-hunting in the early days, and once in a while he could be persuaded to talk of wild life on the plains. Something that he said made us demand a story, and at last he began:

“Youngsters, this narrer escape I had happened way down in the northwest corner of Texas. Jim must know jest about whar it was.

“I was tryin’ to overhaul a shifty herd of buffalo, an’ had rid mebbe forty or fifty mile thet day. As I was climbin’ a slope I saw columns of dust risin’ beyond the ridge, an’ they told me the direction the herd was takin’. When I got on top I made out far ahead a lone sentinel of the herd standin’ out sharp an’ black against the sky line.

“When the wary old buffalo disappeared I hed cause to grumble. For there wasn’t much chance of me overhaulin’ the herd. Still I kept spurrin’ my hoss. He plunged down the ridge with a weakenin’ stride, an’ I knew he was most done. But he was game an’ kept on. Presently I saw the flyin’ buffalo, a black movin’ mass half hid by clouds of whitish dust. They were a mile or more ahead an’ I thought if I could git out of the rough ground I might head them. Jest below me were piles of yellow rock an’ clumps of dwarf trees, an’ green thet I reckoned was cottonwoods. My hoss ran down into a low hollow, an’ afore I knowed what was up all about me was movin’ objects, red an’ brown an’ black. I pulled up my snortin’ hoss right in the midst of a band of Comanches.

“One glance showed me half-naked redskins slippin’ from tree to tree, springin’ up all around with half-leveled rifles. I felt the blood rush to my heart an’ leave my body all cold an’ heavy. There wasn’t much chance them days of escapin’ from Comanches. But my mind worked fast. I hed one chance, mebbe half a chance, but it was so hopeless thet even as I thought of it I hed a gloomy feelin’ clamp down on me. I leaped off my hoss, threw the bridle over my arm, an’ with bearin’ as natural as if my comin’ was intended I went toward the Injuns.

“The half-leveled rifles dropped, an’ the strung bows slowly straightened, an’ deep grunts told of the surprise of the Comanches.

“‘Me talk big chief,’ I said, wavin’ my hand as if I was not one to talk to braves.

“One redskin pointed with a long arm. Then the line opened an’ let me through with my hoss. It was a large camp of huntin’ Comanches. Buffalo meat and robes were dryin’ in the sun. Swarms of buzzin’ flies showed the fresh kill. Covered fires gave vent to thin wisps of smoke; worn rifles gleamed in the sun, an’ bows smooth an’ oily from use littered the grass. But there were no wigwams or squaws.

“I went forward watched by many cunnin’ eyes, an’ made straight for a cottonwood-tree, whar a long trailin’ head-dress of black-barred eagle feathers hung from a branch. The chief was there restin’. I was expectin’ an’ dreadin’ to see a short square Injun, an old chief I knew an’ who had reason to know me. But instead I saw a splendid young redskin, tall an’ muscular, an’ of sullen look.

“‘How,’ I said.

“‘How,’ he replied.

“Then we locked eyes. I was cold an’ quiet, hidin’ my fear an’ hope. An’ the Injun showed in his piercin’ glance suspicion thet would hey been astonishment in any one save a redskin. Thet Injun hed a pair of eyes that showed the very soul of lifelong hatred.

“‘Ugh!’ he exclaimed. ‘White man — buffalo-killer — lose trail. Me know white man!’

“I would have liked to deny my reputation. But thet would hey been the worst thing for me.

“‘No lose trail — come swap pony,’ I said.

“‘Heap lie!’ he replied, in scorn.

“‘Big chief brave — now,’ I taunted, an’ swept my arm round the camp. I knew the Injun nature. The chief lifted his head with a motion that said ‘No.’ The Comanche cared for nothin’ but courage an’ endurance. He was faced in his home by a defenseless hunter. No doubt he felt the call of his blood. It was his law that he couldn’t tomahawk me or order me shot an’ scalped till he hed made me show fear. An’ thar was my hope. The Comanche hed to see fear in me, or sense it, before he could kill me.

“I looked as if I didn’t know what fear was. I jest made myself stone. In this was all the little hope I hed of life. The redskin hed to be made believe I had rid into his camp, feelin’ no fear of death, recognizin’ no cause for it, an’ holdin’ myself safe. Now the redskin believed in the supernatural, in the unseen force of nature leaguin’ itself with the brave, an’ givin’ man a god-like spirit. Years of bloody warfare had driven the redskin back from the frontiers, made him a savage whar once no doubt he was noble, but fire an’ strife an’ blood couldn’t stamp out thet belief.

“‘Swap pony,’ I said again, an’ showed silver I would include in the trade.

“‘How much?’ he asked.

“‘Heap much,’ I answered.

“He held out a brown lean hand for the silver, an’ threw it straight back in my face. The hard silver cut an’ bruised me; blood flowed from cuts, but I didn’t move a muscle, an’ kept a cool gaze level with the dark hot eyes of the redskin.

“Thet flingin’ of the silver was a young chiefs undignified passion toward a prisoner who hed become prisoner without effort or risk for any warrior. No honor was thar in me, no glory in insult to me. I caught my advantage, an’ became cooler an’ stonier than ever, an’ put a little contempt in my looks.

“A sudden yell from him brought his band runnin’ an’ leapin’. They grunted an’ let out deep savage cries. A circle formed round us, a circle of bronzed, scarred warriors, an’ I felt my time was near. They all knew me, not so much because I hed fought them, but because I was a great buffalo-killer, an’ they hated me for thet. More than any other hunter I made meat scarce at their camp-fires. Their meanin’ eyes roved from chief to me, spellin’ sentences of iron an’ torture an’ death.

“The Comanche took from one of his braves a long black bow as tall as himself, an’ a long feathered an’ barbed arrow. He leaned toward me, an’ his look was so keen thet I felt it would read my soul.

“‘White hunter lie — no want swap pony — hunt buffalo — no smell Indian smoke.’

“I kept silence an’ never let my gaze flicker from his. Thet was all I could do. No word, no move could help me now. I summoned all I had left of courage, an’ tried in a flash to think of all the tight places I hed been in before.

“White hunter lie!’ repeated the Comanche.

“Then with slow an’ deliberate motion, never lowerin’ his burnin’ gaze, he fitted the arrow to the bow an’ slowly stretchin’ his arms he shot the arrow at my foot.

“I felt it graze me and heard the light thud as it entered the ground. I twitched inwardly an’ a chill crept up from my foot. But I made no outward motion, not a flick of an eyelash.

“‘White hunter lie!’

“Thet was the redskin’s stumblin’-block. He couldn’t believe that any white hunter, much less me, would dare to come before him an’ all his braves, an’ ask to swap ponies. His crafty mind told him it couldn’t be true. An’ every beat of his heart throbbed to make me show it. Selectin’ another arrow he set the feathered notch against the rawhide cord — an’ twang!...The sharp point bit into the leather of my boot, an’ buried itself half length.

“Thet Comanche’s gaze became the hardest thing I ever stood. He looked clear through me for signs of weakenin’. I saw the cold gleam of somethin’ hangin’ in the balance, an’ I matched white courage against red cunnin’. His eyelids shut down till they was mere slits over black blazes, an’ the veins over his temples swelled an’ beat. Still, he had command of himself, an’ his movements were as slow as the torture he promised. Again he reached for an arrow, notched it, drew it, paused while he called me liar, then shot it. A knife-blade couldn’t hey been wedged between thet arrow an’ my foot. Then, one after another, slow an’ cruel, he shot twelve arrows, an’ penned my foot in a little circle of feathered shafts.

“With thet he stopped to eye me for a little. Suddenly, as quick as he hed been slow, he shot an arrow straight through my boot, pinnin’ my foot to the ground.

“It burned like a red-hot bar of iron.

“‘Heap lie!’ he yelled, in a voice of thunder.

“Again he leaned forward to search my face for a shade of fear. But the pain upheld me, an’ he couldn’t scare me. Then he sprang erect to straighten the long bow in line with his eye. He lifted the bow so that the murderous arrow-head of flint pointed at my heart. An’ his eye pierced me. Slow — slow as a fiend he began to bend the bow. It was thick an’ heavy, an’ hed been seasoned an’ strung when firearms were unknown to the redskins. It was such a bow as only a great chief could own, an’ one thet only a powerful arm could bend. An’ this chief bent it slowly, more an’ more every second, till, makin’ a perfect curve, it quivered an’ vibrated with the strain. The circle of Injuns parted from behind me. Once loosened thet arrow would never have stopped in my body.

“I knew either the Injun or I must soon give way under thet ordeal. But it was my life at stake, an’ he began to weaken first. He began to tremble.

“‘Swap pony’ — lie!” he said.

“Somehow I hed it in me then to laugh. “The Comanche kept his look of pride an’ hatred. Then, raisin’ the bow, he shot the arrow in a wonderful flight out of sight over the ridge.

“‘Waugh! Waugh!’ he cried in disgust, an’ threw down the bow. He couldn’t frighten me, therefore he wouldn’t kill me.

“‘Brave lie!’ A kind of light seemed to clear his angry face. He waved his long arm toward the ridge an’ the east, an’ then, turnin’ his back on me, went among the cottonwoods. The other warriors went after him, leavin’ my way open. Thet was how even the Comanches honored courage.

“I pulled the arrows from the ground, an’ last the one thet held my foot like a red-hot spike. Leadin’ my hoss I limped out of camp, an’ climbed the ridge. When I got out of sight I took off my boot to see how bad I was hurt. Thet thar arrow went between my toes, jest grazin’ them an’ hardly drawin’ blood! I hed been so scared I thought my foot was shot half off...But all the same, thet was the narrerest escape Hiram Bent ever had!”

CHAPTER XV - WILD MUSTANGS

ONE MORNING NAVVY came in with the horses and reported that Wings had broken his hobbles and gone off with a band of wild mustangs. We were considerably put out about it, especially as Hal took the loss much to heart. Hiram asked the Navajo whether the marauding band were really mustangs or the wild horses we had seen on the plateau. And Navvy grinned at the idea of his making a mistake over tracks.

“Shore thought there wasn’t no mustangs up here,” commented Jim.

“Thar wasn’t when we come up,” replied Hiram. “They jest trotted down off Buckskin, climbed up hyar an’ coaxed Wings off. Wild mustangs do thet a lot, an’ so do wild hosses fer thet matter. The mountain’s full of them. We’re all the time havin’ trouble with our hosses. Now a hoss thet’s well broke an’ tame an’ even used to haulin’ a wagon will git crazy the minnit he smells them wild hosses. An’ he’ll git like a fox, an’ he’ll hide in the cedars when you track him, an’ dog-gone me if I don’t believe he’ll try to hide his tracks.”

“Isn’t there any way to catch Wings?” inquired Ken.

“I reckon we’ll never git a bridle on him agin. But we might round up the band, an’ catch a couple of mustangs. What do you say to takin’ the trail of them mustangs?”

Ken and Hal yelled their desire for that, and it seemed to suit Jim pretty well. And I was like him, rather pleased to undertake whatever pleased the brothers.

“What’ll I ride?” asked Hal, suddenly.

“You an’ Navvy can both saddle a pack-hoss,” replied Hiram.

“You shore ain’t goin’ to take the Injun?” inquired Jim.

“Wal, I reckon so. He’s a Navajo, ain’t he? An’ while I don’t like to hurt your Texas feelin’s, Jim, thar never was the white feller on earth thet could hold a candle to a Navajo when it comes to hosses.”

“Shore, you’re right,” declared Jim, with wonderful good nature.

“An’ fellers,” went on Hiram, “stuff some biscuits in your pockets, an’ throw a blanket on your hoss before saddlin’. Mebbe we won’t git back to-night. Ken, give the hounds a good feed, an’ see they’re tied proper. It’ll be a rest for them, an’ they need it.”

“Shall I take my rifle?” asked Ken.

“Wal, you’d better. Thar’s no tellin’ what we’ll strike down thar in the brakes. It’s my idee them mustangs will take to thet wide plateau down below, lookin’ fer rich browse. An’ thet’s jest what I’d like to see. Down thar we’d hey a chance to corner them, an’ if they go up in Buckskin thar won’t be no use trackin’ them.”

The hounds howled dismally as we rode away from camp, and the last time I turned I saw Prince standing up the length of his chain and wild to go with us. In a hollow perhaps a half-mile from camp Navvy picked up the mustang trail, and he followed it through the forest without getting off his horse.

“Boys, can you see tracks?” I asked Ken and Hal.

Ken laughed his inability, and Hal said: “Nix.”

“Wal, I can’t see any myself,” added Hiram.

It was remarkable how the Navajo trailed that band of mustangs over the soft pine-needle mats. Try as I might I could not see the slightest sign of a track. However, when we got to the dusty trail at the head of the Saddle, tracks were exceedingly plain to us. We rode down in single file and were glad to find the mustangs had turned to the left toward the plateau that Hiram had called the brakes. We passed the spring and Hiram’s camp, where I had brought the boys to meet him, and then went on past the gulch where we had come down.

Before us spread a plateau a thousand feet under the great rim-wall above. It widened and widened till the walls of rock were ten miles apart, and the end of this wild brake was fully thirty miles away. It was an exceedingly wild and rough place. The horses had to go slowly. Scrub-oak only breast-high, and as thick as a hedge, and as spiked as a barbed-wire fence, made progress tedious and painful.

“Ken, you’d hardly think you were down in the Cañon, would you?” I asked.

“It’s hard to know what to think down in this awful hole. Where are we, anyhow?”

“There’s no name for this bench that I ever heard. It’s only a line on the maps. We’ve just got beyond the end of Powell’s Plateau. Buckskin, of course, rises on our right. To the left the real Cañon deepens, and straight ahead — that yellow rim with the black border — is what they call Siwatts. It’s spur of the mountain.”

The outlook from where we rode was level only at a distance. As we went on we were continually riding up and down ridges, heading cañons and gullies, and crossing brooks. We jumped deer and foxes and coyotes out of every brake. The scrub-oak gave way to manzanita — a red-barked, green-leaved species of brush that was almost impenetrable. And when we did get through that it was to enter a cedar forest where the ground was red and bare and soft. The mustang tracks were now plain to the eye and quite fresh. Other tracks were of great variety. Hiram halted us all round an enormous cougar track. The marks had evidently been made some time before, and during wet weather. The cougar was so heavy he had sunk in half a foot, and his track was bigger around than that of any horse we had.

“I reckon he’s the captain,” remarked Hiram.

Ken dismounted once to pick up some arrowheads. One was a perfect point, over six inches long, of dark blue flint, and sharp as a blade.

“Thet’s pretty old, youngster,” said Hiram. “The Navajos used to come here for their buckskin. Thet’s why the mountain was called Buckskin.”

Hal fired at a coyote, and the sleepy pack-horse he rode woke and nearly left the boy hanging on the spikes of a cedar.

“Hyar!” called Hiram. “Don’t shoot fer nothin’, Hal. We don’t want to scare the mustangs.”

The trail led across the cedar forest, out into open ground again, and began to go down, bench by bench, step by step.

It was hot down there. But presently the sun was hidden behind storm-clouds and the air grew cooler. I heard Jim grumbling that he never trailed any horses that did not stop to graze. And Hiram replied that this particular band evidently was making for some especial place. Presently we came out upon the edge of a step with another step some hundreds of feet below. The scene was so rugged and beautiful and wonderful that I had to look many times before I made any special note of ground near at hand. But finally I saw a triangular promontory, perhaps a mile or more in length on each side, and this was green with rich grass and willow except out on the extreme point, where it was bare and white. Deep cañons bounded this promontory on three sides.

“Git back out of sight,” said Hiram. “If the mustangs are down thar we don’t want them to see us.”

We all dismounted and led our horses back into a clump of cedars.

“We’ll wait hyar an’ let Navajo go look thet place over,” added Hiram.

The Indian understood without being told, and he stole off among the jumbles of rocks. Hal was the other one who did not rest, and he got on the trail of some animal and went off among the cedars toward a seamed and cracked cliff. We heard him throwing stones, and presently he yelled for Ken.

“Youngster, hurry up an’ sit on thet thar kid, or he’ll spoil our mustang hunt,” said Hiram.

Navvy returned and announced that he had seen the mustangs browsing. Then Hiram went off with him to get sight of the band and the lay of the ground. Meanwhile the sky grew darker and darker, and there was a cool touch of rain or snow in the air. Hiram was gone nearly an hour, and in that time Jim and I saw or heard nothing of the boys.

“It’s goin’ to snow,” said Hiram. “An’ we’ve got to throw a camp quick. Say, them mustangs are down War on Wet kite-shaped shelf, an’ dog-gone me if thar ain’t only one trail leadin’ down. An’ it’s narrer an’ steep. We can drive them an’ ketch all we can handle. Whar are the youngsters?”

“Shore we don’t know. They’re chasin’ some-thin’ shore’s you’re born,” said Jim.

“Who fetched an axe?” asked Hiram.

I was never caught out without my small hand-axe, and with this we set about cutting cedar branches and brush to make shelters. A big black cloud swooped down on us, bringing a flurry of snow. At that juncture Ken and Hal stalked into camp, each carrying a struggling, snapping little fox. Both boys were bleeding from bites or cuts which they minded not at all.

“Been ropin’ foxes, eh?” asked Hiram. “Wal, let ’em go an’ pitch in hyar an’ help. We’ve got the mustangs rounded up, an’ with good weather we’ll hey more fun an’ hard work than you youngsters hey seen yet.”

It was noticeable that Ken released his capture, while Hal tied his to a cedar with a cord. Both lads lent their aid, and it was not long before we had a big lean-to on the windward side. It was not finished any too soon, for the snow began to fall. A snowstorm like this one was as bad as rain, and as good as rain, too, for it was heavy, thick, and wet. When the storm passed six inches of snow lay upon everything. The sun still hid behind clouds, but the air was warm and the snow melted fast.

“Fellars, it’s gittin’ late, anyhow,” said Hiram. “An’ we couldn’t do much in this snow. We’ll wait till to-morrer. I’ll fence up thet narrer trail so the mustangs can’t give us the slip.”

We lounged around our camp, made a meal on biscuits and snowballs, and rolled in our blankets to sleep soundly. Hiram awakened us early. We ate what little we had left, and, as the sun rose red and warm, we were eager to begin the day’s adventure.

“Let’s all take a look at the mustangs,” suggested Hiram.

There were patches of snow left in shady places, and the ground was soft and soggy. We followed Hiram out of the cedars, thorough brush and round huge boulders, and finally crawled to a point on the edge of the bluff.

“Look at thet! Jest look!” whispered Hiram, hoarsely.

The bare promontory glistened in the morning sunlight, and right in the middle of it was the band of wild mustangs. There were whites and blacks and bays.

“There’s Wings!” burst out Hal.

“S-s-sh. Not so loud thar,” said Hiram. “What are they doing?” asked Ken, in eager interest.

“The snow’s melted, an’ they’re drinkin’ out of the little pockets in the rock.”

“Well! — it’s great!” replied Ken.

I shared his delight. To my mind there could not have been a more beautiful sight than the mustangs drinking on that promontory. The mustangs looked wild. They were shaggy. Long manes waved in the breeze. The leader of the band, a fine, keen-looking white, stood on guard. His attitude showed pride as well as suspicion. He held his head up and he was looking our way. Beyond the promontory yawned the blue shadow of an abyss, and beyond that lifted a bold red bluff, and farther on loomed a great dome. And all around to left and right were the ragged ridges of rock and the dark clefts between the cliffs. It was a wild background for these wild rangers of the wilderness.

“Thet white feller’s winded us, I do believe,” said Hiram. “Wal, I reckon it doesn’t make no difference to us. He can’t git out.”

“Hiram, may I take a picture of that bunch?” asked Ken.

“Shore. But you must go down through the crack in the rocks thar, an’ then crawl as close as you can.”

Ken slipped away, and soon returned to us, enthusiastic over his picture and more than enthusiastic over the beauty of some of the mustangs.

“Why, Hal, my mustang is nowhere for looks. And Wings — he’s like a dub compared to some of the ponies in that band.”

“Wal, it ain’t goin’ to be an all-fired job to ketch a couple of mustangs,” said Hiram. “But what’ll we do with them?”

“Shore, let’s wait till we ketch some,” replied Jim, wisely.

“Hiram, we can turn them over to the Indian,” I suggested.

“Thet’s so. He’ll drag them up on the plateau, an’ break them for us.”

“How are we going to catch them?” I asked.

“Dick, we’ve got a place made to order. You all can hide behind an’ above thet crack whar the trail comes up. I’ll go down an’ drive the mustangs up, an’ you fellers can rope ’em as they come out.”

“Shore it’ll be lively round here,” chuckled Jim.

“Youngsters, you’d better both lay for Wings an’ rope him,” said Hiram. “Jim an’ Dick can each rope a mustang. Thet’ll be enough, won’t it?”

“I want to rope one for myself,” replied Hal. “I don’t care whether we get Wings or not.”

“I’d like to pick one out, too,” added Ken.

“Wal, I’m sure I don’t keer if you rope half a dozen. Every man for hisself, then. Only, youngsters, I’d advise you to put on your gloves, an’ tighten your belts, an’ git ready for a warm time. It’ll be easy to drop a noose over a mustang’s head, but holdin’ him mebbe’ll be another story. Git your lassoes ready, now.”

Jim and the brothers took up a position on the side of the gully where we expected the mustangs to come up, and Navvy and I took ours on the opposite side. Hiram rattled down over the stones of the trail, with a last word to the boys to make ready for some real sport.

As I had asked for the loan of Wings from my friend in Kanab, it fell to me as a duty to catch the mustang if I could. We waited for quite a while, and excitement began to verge on strain when we heard Hiram’s stentorian yell. Following that was a sound like low thunder, then a sharp clattering, and then the clear ringing of hard hoofs on stone.

“Shore they’re comin’,” called Jim.

I had expected to see the mustangs run out of that crack in single file. But they burst out, it seemed, three or four abreast, in a cloud of dust and a thundering din. I saw Jim’s noose whip over a mustang’s head. Then the dusty air appeared full of flying lassoes. The mustangs ran their heads right into the loops. I watched for Wings, but did not see him. In a twinkling the band had cleared the crack and were half across the cedar bench. I heard a confusion of yells and pounding hoofs and crashings in the brush. But I could not see for dust, and had to run to one side out of the thick cloud.

Jim had a white mustang down, and Navvy had a bay well under control. Then I saw Ken. In an instant he was actually dodging the plunges of a vicious pinto. Ken had roped one of the band, but now he did not know what to do, except hold on. That he was doing valiantly at the risk of his life. The pinto reared and, like a furious deer, struck with his fore hoofs. Ken dodged and ran to the extent of his rope and hauled away with all his strength. His quarry began to leap and pull and drag Ken through the brush.

“Hold hard thar, youngster,” yelled Hiram. He came running out of the crack in the rocks and quickly laid his powerful grasp on Ken’s rope.

“Where’s Hal?” I yelled. No one heard me. All were too busy. I turned this way and that. Finally, way off on the bench, at least a hundred yards, I saw a mustang jumping and shaking his head. Then I saw a tight lasso round his neck. I did not wait to see Hal, but started to run with all my might. The mustang, a beautiful slate color with white tail and mane, kept plunging through the brush, and I knew he was dragging Hal. Then I saw the boy. He was down, but trying to get up, and holding to the lasso as if he would die before he let go.

“Hang on, Hal,” I cried. “He’s a beauty. You’ve got a prize. Hang on!”

Hal regained his feet. The mustang renewed his fight for freedom. And then began a race. He dragged Hal so fast for a little while I scarcely gained at all. But Hal tripped and fell, and as he would not give up, of course, his weight held the mustang back. I gained ground, reached Hal, and grasped the tight lasso. One jerk sent that savage mustang to his knees and took away some of his breath and fire. He thrashed about and wrestled a few more moments, and then squared away, fore hoofs braced, and, refusing to budge, watched me with wild eyes. Promptly I tied the lasso to a stout bush. Again he began to rear and jump, and as the rope did not give an inch he choked himself pretty thoroughly, and at length fell flat. I hurried up and loosened the noose and tied a knot that would not slip.

“He’s ours — Hal; where are you?” I yelled.

It was a sorry-looking lad I found half sitting up in the brush. Dust-covered, scratched and bloody, with his clothes in tatters, Hal Ward was a sight.

“I’m all right except my wrists. They’re all skinned from the rope,” he said. “Gee! What a pony! Say, Dick, is he hurt? He breathes so hard.”

“He’s just winded and scared. We’ll leave him here till we find out what to do with him. Let’s go back.”

We returned to camp, where Hal was greeted with solicitude, and then, when it became known that he had not been hurt, there was uproarious mirth at his appearance.

“I don’t care. I got the blue-ribbon winner of that bunch,” retorted Hal.

So indeed it turned out. Hal’s mustang was a beauty, one and all agreeing that he was about the wildest and raciest and most beautiful little horse we had ever seen.

“Wal, I ‘ain’t noticed thet any of you ketched Wings,” said Hiram.

For that matter not one of us had even seen the mustang. Hiram said that it was rather strange, and he went back down to the promontory. Upon his return he told us that Wings was down there and could be readily caught.

“He turned back, I reckon,” went on Hiram. “An’ now, fellers, let’s figure things. We’ve had a right smart bit of luck. But we can’t take all these wild mustangs up on the plateau with us. Let’s put them down on thet bench, an’ close up this crack so they’ll be corralled. Then we can git them on our way back to Kanab.”

That appeared to be a wise solution to our problem for the present. Wild mustangs are apt to be white elephants on hunters’ hands. So, while Hiram and Jim went down to catch Wings, the Navajo half led and half dragged our captured mustangs down through the crack to the promontory.

“I reckoned,” said Hiram, upon his return with Wings, “thet it’d be best to leave the lassoes trailin’ on the mustangs. We don’t run much risk of one chokin’. An’ we can ketch them easy when we come back. Now to build thet corral gate. Everybody rustle for big branches of cedar.”

An hour of hard work saw the task completed, and it gave us much satisfaction. Then we mounted and took our own backtrail toward the Saddle and the plateau camp.

CHAPTER XVI - SPLIT TRAILS

WHEN WE TROOPED out of the pines next morning, the sun, rising gloriously bright, had already taken off the keen edge of the frosty air. The ridges glistened in their white dress, and the bunches of sage and the cedars, tipped with snow, were like trees laden with blossoms.

We rode swiftly to the mouth of Left Cañon, into which Jim had trailed three lions. On the way the snow, as we had expected, began to thin out, and it failed altogether under the cedars, though there was enough on the branches to give us a drenching.

Jim reined in on the verge of a narrow gorge, and told us that a lion’s cave was below. Hiram looked the ground over and said Jim had better take the hounds down while the rest of us waited above, ready for whatever might happen.

Jim went down on foot, calling the hounds and holding them close. We listened eagerly for his call or the outbreak of the pack, but there was no sound. In less than half an hour he came climbing out, with the information that the lions had left the cave, probably the evening after he had chased them there.

“Well, then,” said Hiram, “let’s split the pack an’ hunt round the rims of these cañons. We can signal to each other if necessary.”

So we arranged for Jim and Hal to take Ranger and the pup across Left Cañon, Hiram to try Middle Cañon with Tan and Mux, and Ken and I were to perform a like office in Right Cañon with Prince and Queen. Hiram rode back with us, leaving us where we crossed Middle Cañon.

Ken and I skirted a mile of our cañon and worked out almost to the west end of the Bay, without finding so much as a single track. Then we started back. The sun was now hot; the snow all gone; the ground dry as if it had never been damp; and we complained that our morning was a failure.

We reached the ragged mouth of Right Cañon where it opened into the deep, wide Bay, and rode close to the rim because we hoped to hear our companions across the cañon. The hounds began to bark on a cliff, but as we could find no tracks in the dust we called them off. Queen obeyed reluctantly, but Prince wanted to get down over the wall.

“They scent a lion,” I declared. “Let’s put them over the wall.”

Once permitted to go the hounds needed no assistance. They ran up and down the rim till they found a crack which would admit them. Hardly had they vanished when we heard them yelping. We rushed to the rim and looked over. The first step was short, a crumbled section of wall, and from it led down a long slope, dotted here and there with cedars. Both hounds were baying furiously.

I looked the cañon over carefully and decided that it was a bad place to venture into.

“Ken, it’s hard to tell which way the hounds run in these cañons. I think Queen is heading up. Anyway, I’ll go that way, and you go down here. We’ll get separated, but don’t forget the signal yell.”

With that I proceeded along the rim to the left, making sure I heard a hound in that direction. It was rough, hard going, and in the excitement of it I forgot how much ground I was covering. I came to a place, presently, where I determined to go down, and leaving spurs, chaps, gun, coat and hat on the rim, I started down, carrying only my lasso. The slope was steep, a long incline of scaly, rotting rock, growing rougher toward the bottom. I heard the baying of a hound, to my right and turned in that direction. Soon I was among huge rocks and windfalls of cedar. Through this it was impossible to keep a straight line. I turned and twisted. But as I continued to hear the baying of the hound I thought I could not be going wrong. In this way time passed, yet still I did not seem to get any closer to the dog, and though I yelled for Ken I got no response. Working more to the left of the dense jumble of weathered rock and thicket of dead cedars I made better progress. All the time, though I appeared to be in the bottom of a cañon, I was descending rapidly. Then the louder baying of the hound and yells from Ken spurred me forward. Another shout guided me to the right, and running through a clump of cedars I came out upon the edge of a deep, narrow cleft.

Up on the opposite slope I saw Queen with her paws on a cedar and above her clung a lion, so close that she could nearly reach him. Prince was nowhere in sight, nor was Ken.

“Ho! Ken!” I yelled.

“Hi! Hi! Dick!” his reply came down the cañon, and both yells blended in a roar that banged back and forth in echo from the cliffs.

I ran up the cañon a little way, to find my passage blocked, unless I chose to go far around. Then I hurried back, only to see that I could not get across below. In my excitement I thought of leaping across and searched for the narrowest place. But the split was quite twenty feet wide and I dared not risk it.

“Ken, I’m on the wrong side of the cañon,” I yelled.

“Go back — head it,” he replied. “Here’s the lion — treed.”

“It’s too far back that way — it would take an hour to climb round — no help for it.”

Then I climbed up a little so as to be on a level with the lion. The cedar that held him was perhaps fifty paces away. Ken came down, and there we were, a few feet apart, in easy talking distance, yet widely separated in so far as any help to each other was concerned.

“Where’s Prince? Look out for him. I hear him below. This lion won’t stay treed long,” shouted Ken.

I, too, heard Prince. A cedar-tree obstructed my view, and I moved aside. A few hundred feet farther down the hound bayed under a tall piñon. High in the branches I saw a great mass of yellow. How I yelled! Then a second glance showed two lions close together.

“Two more! two more! Look! look!” I screamed to Ken.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” he joined his yell to mine, and for a moment we made the cañon bellow. When we stopped for breath the echoes bayed at us from the opposite walls.

“Waa-hoo!” Hiram’s signal, faint, far away, soaring, but unmistakable, floated down to us. Across the jutting capes separating the mouths of these cañons, high above them on the rim-wall of the opposite side of the Bay, stood a giant white horse bearing Hiram’s dark figure silhouetted against the white sky. They made a brave picture, one most welcome to us. We yelled in chorus: “Three lions treed! Three lions treed! Come down — hurry!”

A crash of rolling stones made us wheel. Queen’s lion had jumped. He ran straight down, drawing Prince from his guard. Queen went tearing alter them.

“What on earth will we do now?” cried Ken.

“Keep the other lions treed — if you can,” I replied, running along the cañon till I neared the piñon tree. Ken clambered over the rocks on his side. We kept yelling for Hiram. Presently Ken was under the piñon, and I at a point opposite. We were now some thirty rods apart, but I was utterly useless to Ken except in the way of advice and encouragement. So for minutes we caught our breath and waited.

“Gee! two big fellows! And they look as scared as I am,” called Ken.

“That’s good. Keep them scared...I hear Hiram coming...Hi! Hi! This way, Hiram...Ken, just listen to Hiram rolling the rocks. He’s coming like an avalanche.”

Bits of weathered rock clattered down the slope, and the old hunter was at their heels. “Whar are the hounds?” he yelled.

“Gone down after the third lion,” I replied. “They’ve treed him down there.”

“Wal, that’s good. Now you fellers keep these cougars treed. It’ll be easy. Bark at ’em like dogs, an’ if one starts down, grab a club and run at him as if you was goin’ to kill him. Bang on the tree. Beat the branches, an’ yell. You can keep ’em up thar till I git back with the hounds.”

With that, Hiram, like a giant with seven-league boots, disappeared down the slope. It had all happened so quickly that I could scarcely realize it. The yelping of the hounds, the clattering of stones grew fainter, telling me that Prince and Queen, and Hiram too, were going to the bottom of the Bay.

“Ken, have you got your gun?” I called.

“No, I left everything but my rope,” he replied.

Then the two snarling lions brought me to a keen sense of the reality. Ken had a job on his hands: two almost full-grown lions to be kept treed without hounds, without a gun, without help from a companion.

“Say! this is funny!” yelled Ken. “Dick, I’m scared sick, but I hate to quit...I’ll stick. I’ll do what Hiram told me to.”

It occurred to me then that Hiram probably had not noticed Ken was without his gun, or that I was separated from him by the narrow, deep chasm.

Ken began to bark like a dog at the lions.

About this moment I heard hounds, but could not tell their direction. I called and called. Presently a faint chorus of bays and a yell from Hiram told that his lion had surely treed.

“Waa-hoo!” rolled down from above.

Far up behind me, on the yellow cracked rim, stood Jim Williams.

“Where — can — I — git — down?”

I surveyed the walls. Cliff on cliff, slide on slide, jumble, crag, and ruin baffled my gaze. But finally I picked out a place.

“To the left — to the left,” I yelled. He passed on with one of the hounds at his heels. “There! let the dog down on a rope and then yourself.”

I watched him swing the hound, which I recognized as Ringer, down a wall and pull the slip noose free.

“This doesn’t seem so bad,” called Ken, who evidently was recovering his nerve. Then he saw Jim above. “Hi, Jim! Where’s H-a-l?”

Jim put both hands around his mouth and formed a trumpet. “Hal’s lost — somewhere — he an’ the pup — split trails.”

“Ken, it’s going to be a great day — for all of us,” I shouted. “Don’t worry and stay with your lions.”

Then I watched Ringer slide to the edge of a slope, trot to the right and left of crags and turn down in the direction of the baying hounds. He passed along the verge of precipices that made me tremble for him, but, surefooted as a goat, he went on safely, to disappear far to my right.

I saw Jim with his leg wrapped in his lasso sliding down the first step of the rim. The rope, doubled to reach round a cedar above, was too short to extend to the landing below. Jim dropped, raising a cloud of dust and starting the stones. Pulling his lasso after him, he gathered it in a coil on his arm, and faced forward on the trail of the hound. In the clear light, against that wild red-and-yellow background, with the stones and gravel roaring down, streaming over the walls like waterfalls, he seemed another giant, striding on in seven-league boots. I would have called him to come down to help Ken, but it was impossible for him to get to us. From time to time he sent up a yell of encouragement that wound down the cañon, to be answered by Hiram and the baying hounds, and then the strange, clapping echoes. At last he passed out of sight, and still I heard him going down; down till the sounds were only faint and hollow.

Ken was now practically alone with his two treed lions, and I knew that no hunter was ever so delighted. He had entirely recovered from his first panicky feeling. I sat there in the sun watching him. He stood on the slope, just under the edge of the piñon branches, and he had a long club in his hand. The situation was so singular that I could have laughed, but for the peril. The idea of Ken keeping those big cougars treed with a club was almost too ridiculous to consider, yet all the same it was true. For a long time the cougars were quiet, listening. However, as the baying of the hounds diminished in volume and occurrence, and then ceased altogether, Ken’s quarry became restless. It was then that he began to bark like a dog, whereupon the lions grew quiet once more.

“That’s the way, Ken. You’re the best hound in the pack. You’ve got a fine bark there. Keep it up,” I shouted.

As long as Ken barked or bayed or yelped the cougars remained comparatively quiet. Ken, however, began to weaken in voice and finally lost it.

“Dick, you’ll have to bark some,” he said, and I could scarcely hear him.

At that I willingly began to imitate Prince and Ringer and Mux-Mux. It was easy at first, but soon it became a task. I bayed for an hour. My voice grew hoarser and hoarser, and finally failed in my throat. In order to get out a few bays I had to rest for a moment. Soon I was compelled to stop. The cougars immediately grew restless and then active.

“Ken, you’ve got to do something,” I called, in strained, weak tones.

The lower lion hissed and spat and growled at Ken, and made many attempts to start down. Ken frustrated these by hitting the cougar with stones. Every time Ken threw he struck his mark. Even this punishment, however, did not long intimidate the beast, and he grew bolder and bolder. At length he made a more determined effort, and stepped from branch to branch.

Ken dashed down the incline with a stone in one hand and a long club in the other. I tried to shout advice, but I doubt if Ken heard. He aimed deliberately at the lion, threw the stone and hit him squarely in the ribs. That brought a roar which raised my hair. Then directly under him Ken wielded his club, pounding on the tree, thrashing at the branches.

“Go back! go back!” yelled Ken. “Don’t you dare come down! I’ll crack your old head.”

The cougar came almost within reach of Ken’s club. I wondered at the way the boy held his post. Many as were the daring achievements Ken Ward had executed before my eyes, this one eclipsed them all. I was chilled with fear. I was in distress because I could not raise my hand to help him.

Ken must have been in an unreasoning frenzy. He ran round the piñon, keeping directly under the cougar, and intercepting him at every turn. More than once the beast crouched as if to spring, and was only deterred from that by Ken’s savage attacks. Finally he had luck enough to give the cougar a ringing blow on the head. This, for the moment, stopped the descent, for the big cat climbed back to his perch beside his mate.

In the momentary lull of battle I heard the faint yelp of a hound.

“Listen, Ken!” I cried.

I listened, too. It came again, faint but clearer. I looked up at the lions. They, too, heard, for they were very still. I saw their heads raised and tense. I backed a little way up the slope. Then the faint yelp floated up again in the dead, strange silence. I saw the lions quiver, and it seemed as if I heard their hearts thump. The yelp was wafted up again, closer this time. I recognized it; it belonged to Prince. The great hound was on the backtrail of the other lion, coming to Ken’s rescue.

“It’s Prince! It’s Prince! It’s Prince!” I cried. “It’s all up now!”

What feelings stirred me then! Gladness and relief for Ken dominated me. Pity for those lions I felt also. Big, tawny, cruel fellows as they were, they shivered with fright. Their sides trembled. But pity did not hold me long; Prince’s yelp, now growing clear and sharp, brought back the savage instinct of the hunter.

A full-toned bay attracted my attention from the lions to the downward slope. I saw a yellow form moving under the trees and climbing fast. It was Prince.

“Hi! Hi! old boy!” I yelled.

Up he came like a shot and sprang against the piñon, his deep bay ringing defiance to the lions.

It was very comfortable, but I felt it necessary to sit down just then.

CHAPTER XVII - STRENUOUS WORK

“COME DOWN NOW, you cougars,” yelled Ken, defiantly shaking his broken club. “I dare you now. Old Prince is here. You can’t catch that hound, and you can’t get away from him.”

Ken had evidently contracted Hiram’s habit of talking to cougars as if they were human.

“Oh, Ken Ward, it was tough on you,” I said, “and tough on me, too. But we’re all right now.”

Moments passed. I was just on the point of deciding to go down to hurry up our comrades, when I heard the other hounds coming. Yelp on yelp, bay on bay, made welcome music to my ears. Then a black-and-yellow, swiftly flying string of hounds bore into sight down the slope, streamed up and circled the piñon.

Hiram, who at last showed his tall, stooping form on the steep of the ascent, seemed as long in coming as the hounds had been swift.

“Did you get the lion? Where’s Jim?” I asked, in eagerness.

“Lion tied — all fast,” replied the panting Hiram. “Left Jim — to guard — him.”

“What are we to do now?” asked Ken.

“Wait — till I git — my breath. We can’t git both lions — out of one tree.”

“All right,” Ken replied, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll tie Curley and Mux. You go up the tree. That first lion will jump sure; he’s almost ready now. The other hounds will tree him again pretty soon. If he runs up the cañon, well and good.”.

“Wal, thet’s a good idee,” said Hiram. “Hyar, Leslie, what’re you doin’ over thar?”

“I couldn’t get across,” I replied.

“Hey you been thar all the time, leavin’ the youngster hyar alone with these critters?”

“Hiram, it couldn’t be helped. I was unable to do a blamed thing. But Ken made a grand job of it. Wait till I can tell you.”

“Wal, dog-gone me!” exclaimed the old hunter. He pounded Ken with his big hand, then he began coiling his rope. “Ken, you go ahead and tie up Curley and Mux. You, Leslie, git ready to run up the cañon an’ keep track of this cougar thet’s goin’ to jump.”

He began the ascent of the piñon. The branches were not too close, affording him easy climbing. Before he looked for even a move on the part of the lions, the lower one began stepping down. Ken yelled a warning, but Hiram did not have time to take advantage of it. He had half turned, meaning to swing out and drop, when the lion planted both fore paws upon his back. Hiram went sprawling down, with the lion almost on him.

Prince had his teeth in the lion before he touched the ground, and when he did strike the rest of the hounds were on him. A cloud of dust rolled down the slope. The lion broke loose and with great, springy bounds ran up the cañon, Prince and his followers hot-footing it after him.

Mux and Curley broke the dead sapling to which Ken had tied them, and dragging it behind them, endeavored in frenzied action to join the chase. Ken drew them back, loosening the rope, so in case the other lion jumped he could free them quickly.

Hiram calmly gathered himself up, rearranged his lasso, took his long stick and proceeded to mount the piñon again. I waited till I saw him slip the noose over the lion’s head, then I ran up the slope. I passed perilously near the precipice and then began to climb. The baying of the hounds directed me. In the box of yellow walls the chorus seemed to come from a hundred dogs.

When I found them, close to a low cliff, baying the lion in a thick dark piñon, Ringer leaped into my arms, and next Prince stood up against me with his paws on my shoulders. These were strange actions, and though I marked it at the moment, I had ceased to wonder at our hounds. I took one look at the lion in the dark shade, and then climbed to the low cliff and sat down. I called Prince to me and held him. In case our quarry leaped upon the cliff I wanted a hound to put quickly on his trail.

Another hour passed. It must have been a dark hour for the lion — he looked as if it were — and one of impatience for the baying hounds, but for me it was an hour of enjoyment. Alone with the hounds and a lion, walled in by wild-colored cliffs, with the dry sweet smell of cedar and piñon, I asked no more, only that I wished Ken had been there.

Curley and Mux, yelping as they came, were forerunners of Hiram. I saw his gray locks waving in the breeze, and shouted to him to take his time. As he reached me the lion jumped and ran up the cañon. This suited me, for I knew he would take to a tree soon, and the farther up he went the less distance we would have to pack him. From the cliff I saw him run up a slope, pass a big cedar, cunningly turn on his trail, and then climb into the tree and hide in its thickest part. Prince passed him, got off the trail, and ran at fault. The others, so used to his leadership, were also baffled. But Queen, crippled and slow, brought up the rear, and she did not go a yard beyond where the lion turned. She opened up her deep call under the cedar, and in a moment the howling pack were around her.

Hiram and I toiled laboriously upward. He had brought my lasso, and he handed it to me with the significant remark that I would soon have need of it.

The cedar was bushy and overhung a yellow, bare slope which made Hiram shake his head. He climbed the tree, lassoed the spitting lion and then leaped down to my side. By united and determined efforts we pulled the lion off the limb and let him down. The hounds began to leap at him. We both roared in rage at them, but to no avail.

“Hold on thar!” shouted Hiram, leaving me with the lasso while he sprang forward.

The weight of the animal dragged me forward and, had I not taken a half-hitch round a snag, would have lifted me off my feet or pulled the lasso from my hands. As it was, the choking lion, now within reach of the furious leaping hounds, swung to and fro before my face. His frantic lunges narrowly missed me.

Hiram grasped Prince by the hind legs and pitched him down the slope. Prince rolled a hundred feet before he caught himself. Then Hiram threw old Mux and Ringer and Curley, but he let Queen alone. Before the hounds could climb the slope Hiram roped the lion again and made fast his lasso to a tree.

“Let go,” he yelled to me.

The lion fell. Hiram grasped the lasso I had held and then called to me to stop the hounds. By the time I had checked them he had the lion securely tied. This beast was the bold fellow which had given Ken such a battle. He lay now, his sides heaving, glaring and spitting at us.

“Leslie — I’m all in,” panted Hiram. “Climbin’ them awful slopes — ketches me in the heart. I can’t go down agin. Thar’s Jim guardin’ the first cougar. Ken is watchin’ the second, the one I fastened with chain an’ lasso to a swingin’ branch. An’ hyar’s the third. Three cougars!...Wal, I never beat thet in my life. An’ I want the day to be a great success fer Ken’s sake.”

“Hiram, when you’ve rested go after the packhorses. Bring them all and the packs and Navvy, too. You take the hounds with you and leave them in camp. Ken and I will tie up the second lion. Then we’ll call Jim up and pack the two lions up here to this one. You meet us here.”

“Mind you, thet second cougar’s loose except fer collar an’ chain. His claws hevn’t been clipped. He’ll fight. An’ it’ll be a job to pack ’em up hyar. But I can’t climb no more.”

“Find your horse and hustle for camp,” I replied.

Hiram wearily climbed the slope, followed by the hounds, and I took the back-trail down into the cañon. I noted, now that I was calm, what a long distance we had covered. I made fast time, however, and soon found Ken standing guard over his captive. This lion had been tied to an overhanging branch which swung violently with every move he made.

“Say! did you get the third one?” asked Ken. “You bet we did.”

“Now what?”

“Well, I’ll go down until I can make Jim hear. I’ll call him to come up with his lion. You stay here till I get hack.”

It was another long tramp down to the edge of that slope, but I reached it and yelled for Jim. He answered, and then I told him to come up with his cougar. I sat down to wait for him, thinking he would be glad of a little help. An hour and a half passed before I heard the sliding of stones below which told me Jim was coming. He appeared on the lower slope carrying the lion head downward. Manifestly he was having toilsome work. He could climb only a few steps without lowering his burden and resting.

I ran down to meet him. He was red of face, wringing wet with sweat, and almost out of breath and patience.

“Shore — I’m ‘most — tuck — ered out,” he said

We secured a stout pole, and slipping this between the paws of the lion, below where they were tied, we managed to carry him fairly well. But he was heavy, the slope was steep, the sliding stones treacherous, and the task nearly exhausted us. We climbed by the shortest way and so passed to the right of Ken. At last we toiled up to where I had parted from Hiram. Jim fell in the shade and breathed hard.

“Leslie — I — might — git down there — to Ken — but I’d never git back. I’m used to ridin’ — a hoss.”

So I had to go again alone, and discovered Ken sitting guard faithfully over his charge.

“Wasn’t I gone a long while?” I asked. “Couldn’t help it, Ken.”

“It didn’t seem long to me,” replied Ken.

That was the difference in time as seen through the eyes of fiery youth and enthusiasm.

“Now to tie that rascal,” I said. “It’s coming to us, Ken. Hiram didn’t pay compliments to this particular cougar. We’ll cut a piece off each lasso and unravel them so as to leave enough strings. I wish Hiram hadn’t tied the lasso to that swinging branch.”

“I’ll go up and untie it,” replied Ken. Acting upon this, he climbed the piñon and started out on the branch.

“Hold on!” I warned. “I’m afraid you’d better stop. How on earth did Hiram tie that rope there, anyway?”

“He bent the branch down.”

“Well, it’s bending now, and that darned cougar might reach you. I don’t like his looks.”

But despite this Ken slipped out a couple of yards farther, and had almost gotten to the knotted lasso, when the branch swayed and bent alarmingly. The cougar sprang from his niche between the tree-trunk and a rock, and crouched under Ken, snarling and hissing, with every intention of leaping.

“Jump! Jump!” I shouted.

“I can’t jump out of his reach,” cried Ken.

He raised his legs and began to slide himself back up the branch. The cougar leaped, missing him, but scattering twigs and hark. Then the beast, beside himself with fury, half leaped, half stood up and reached for Ken.

I saw his hooked claws fasten in Ken’s leather wristband. The lad yelled shrilly. I dashed forward, grasped the lion by the tail, and with one powerful swing I tore him loose and flung him down the slope to the full extent of the rope. Quick as thought Ken jumped down, and we both sought a safer locality.

“Whew!” whistled Ken, holding out his hand.

“It’s a nasty scratch,” I said, binding my handkerchief round his wrist. “The leather saved your hand from being torn off. He’s an ugly brute.”

“We’ll tie him — or — or—” Ken declared, without finishing his speech.

“Ken, let’s each take a lasso and worry him till we both get hold of a paw.”

Hiram did a fiendish thing when he tied that lion to the swinging branch. It was almost worse than having him entirely free. He had a circle about twenty feet in diameter in which he could run and leap at will. He seemed to be in the air all the time. He sprang first at Ken, then at me, mouth agape, eyes wild, claws spread. We caught him with our nooses, but they would not hold. He tore each noose off before we could draw it tight. Once I got a precarious hold on one hind paw and straightened my lasso.

“Hold him tight, but don’t lift him,” called Ken. He held his noose ready, waiting for a favorable chance.

The lion crouched low, his body tense, his long tail lashing back and forth across my lasso. Ken threw the loop in front of the spread paws, now half sunk into the dust.

“Ease up, ease up,” said he. “I’ll tease him to jump into the noose.” I let my rope sag. Ken poked a stick at the lion. All at once I saw the slack in the lasso which was tied to the chain. Before I could yell to warn my comrade the beast leaped. My rope burned as it slipped through my hands. The lion sailed into the air, his paws wide-spread like wings, and one of them struck Ken on the head and rolled him down the slope. I jerked back on my rope to find it had slipped its hold.

“He slugged me one,” remarked Ken, rising and picking up his hat. “Did he break the skin?”

“No, but he tore your hatband off,” I replied. “Let’s keep at him.”

For a few moments or an hour — no one will ever know how long — we ran around him, raising the dust, scattering stones, breaking the branches, as we dodged his onslaughts. He leaped at us to the full length of his tether, sailing right into our faces, a fierce, uncowable, tigerish beast. If it had not been for the collar and swivel he would have choked himself a hundred times. Quick as a cat, supple, powerful, tireless, he kept on the go, whirling, bounding, leaping, rolling, till it seemed we would never catch him.

“If anything breaks, he’ll get one of us,” cried Ken. “I felt his breath that time.”

“Lord! How I wish we had some of those fellows here who say lions are rank cowards!” I exclaimed.

In one of his sweeping side swings the lion struck the rock and hung there on its flat surface with his tail hanging over.

“Attract his attention,” I shouted, “but don’t get too close; don’t make him jump.”

While Ken slowly manoeuvered in front of the lion I slipped behind the rock, lunged for the long tail and got a good hold of it. Then with a whoop I ran around the rock, carrying the kicking, squalling lion clear of the ground.

“Now’s your chance,” I yelled. “Rope a hind foot! I can hold him.”

In a second Ken had a noose fast on both hind paws, and then passed his rope to me. While I held the lion he again climbed the tree, untied the knot that had caused so much trouble, and shortly we had our obstinate captive stretched out between two trees. After which we took a much-needed breathing spell.

“Not very scientific,” I said, by way of apologizing for our crude work, “but we had to get him some way.”

“Dick, do you know, I believe Hiram put up a job on us?” said Ken.

“Well, maybe he did. We had the job all right. But we’ll make short work of him now.”

While Ken held the chain I muzzled the lion with a stick and strands of lasso.

“Now for the hardest part of it,” said I— “packing him up.”

We toiled painfully upward, resting every few yards, wet with sweat, burning with heat, parching for water. We slipped and fell, got up, to slip and fall again. The dust choked us. Unheedingly we risked our lives on the brinks of precipices. We had no thought save to get the lion up.

We had to climb partly sidewise, with the pole in the hollow of our elbows. The lion dragged head downward, catching in the brush and on the stones. Our rests became more frequent. I had the downward end of the pole, and therefore thrice the weight, and I whistled when I drew breath. Half the time I saw red mist before my eyes. How I hated the sliding stones!

“Wait,” I panted once. “You’re younger — than I — wait!”

At last we dropped our burden in the shade of a cedar where the other lions lay, and we stretched ourselves for a long, sweet rest.

“Wonder — where Jim is?” I said.

Then I heard the lions wheezing, coughing.

“Ken! Look! The lions are choking. They’re choking of thirst. They’ll die if we don’t get water...That’s where Jim is — hunting water.”

“Water in this dry place? Where will we find it?” implored Ken.

After all our efforts and wonderful good luck the thought of losing those beautiful cougars for lack of a little water was almost sickening.

“Ken, I can’t do another lick. I’m played out. You must find water. Don’t hope and wait for Jim. Go yourself. It snowed yesterday.”

Then into my mind flashed a picture of the many little pockets beaten by rains into the shelves and promontories of the cañon rim.

When I told Ken he leaped up and ran like a startled deer. I watched him with curious pride and faith. What an athlete he was! He swung up over boulders, he drew himself up by grasping branches, he walked straight up steep slides. The roar of a starting avalanche came from under his heels. Then he reached the rim and disappeared.

For what seemed a long time he remained out of my sight; then he appeared carrying his cap in both hands. He had found water.

He began the downward journey. Like a tightrope performer he balanced himself on crumbling stones. He stepped with the skill of a goat; he zigzagged weathered slopes; he leaped fissures and ran along yellow slides. The farther down he got, the faster he came, until it seemed as if he had wings. Places that in an ordinary moment would have seemed impassable he sailed over with the light touch of sure feet. Then he bore down upon me with an Indian yell of triumph.

“Ken, old boy, you’re a wonder!” I exclaimed.

He grasped a lion by the ears and held his head up. I saturated my handkerchief and squeezed the water into his mouth. He wheezed, coughed, choked, but to our joy he swallowed. He had to swallow. One after another we served them so, seeing with unmistakable relief the sure signs of recovery. Their eyes cleared and brightened; the dry coughing that distressed us so ceased; the froth came no more. Spitfire, as we had christened the savage brute which had fought us to a standstill, raised his head, the gold in his beautiful eyes glowed like fire, and he growled in token of returning life and defiance.

Ken and I sank back in unutterable relief.

“Waa-hoo!” Hiram’s yell came breaking the warm quiet of the slope. Our comrade appeared riding down. The voice of the Indian calling to Marc mingled with the ringing of iron-shod hoofs on the stones.

Then Jim, stooping under the cedars, appeared from the opposite direction.

“Hello! Shore I’ve been huntin’ water, an’ couldn’t find none. Hevn’t you seen the need of it?” Suddenly he grasped the situation, and his red face relaxed and beamed.

Hiram surveyed the small level spot in the shade of the cedars. He gazed from the lions to us, and his dry laugh split the air.

“Dog-gone me if you didn’t do it!”

CHAPTER XVIII - HAL’S LESSON

IT WAS A strange procession that soon emerged from Left Cañon. Stranger to us than the lion heads bobbing out of the sacks was the sight of Navvy riding in front of the lions. I kept well in the rear, for if anything happened, which I thought more than likely, I wanted to see it. Before we had reached the outskirts of the pines, I observed that the piece of lasso round Spitfire’s nose had worked loose.

I was about to speak when the lion opened a corner of his mouth and fastened his teeth in the Navajo’s overalls. He did not catch the flesh, for when Navvy turned he wore only the expression of curiosity. But when he saw Spitfire chewing at him he uttered a shrill scream and fell sidewise off his horse.

Then there were two difficulties; to catch the frightened horse and to persuade the Indian he had not been bitten. We failed in the latter. Navvy gave us and the lions a wide berth, and walked to camp.

Hal was waiting for us, and said he had chased a lion south along the rim till the hound got away from him.

Spitfire, having already been chained, was the first lion we endeavored to introduce to our family of captives. He raised such a fearful row that we had to take him quite a little distance from the others.

“We hey two dog chains,” said Hiram, “but not a collar or a swivel in camp. We can’t chain the lions without swivels. They’d choke themselves in two minutes.”

Once more for the hundredth time he came to the rescue with his inventive and mechanical skill. He took the largest pair of hobbles we had, and with an axe, a knife, and wire nippers fashioned two collars with swivels that in strength and serviceability were an improvement on those we had bought.

Darkness was enveloping the forest when we finished supper. I fell into my bed and, despite the throbbing and burning of my body, soon relapsed into slumber. And I crawled out next morning late for breakfast, stiff, worn out, crippled. The boys, too, were crippled, but happy. Six lions roaring in concert were enough to bring contentment.

Hiram engaged himself upon a new pair of trousers, which he contrived to produce from two of our empty meal-bags. The lower half of his overalls had gone to decorate the cedar spikes and brush, and these new bag-leg trousers, while somewhat remarkable for design, answered the purpose well enough. His coat was somewhere along the cañon rim, his shoes were full of holes, his shirt in strips, and his trousers in rags. Jim looked like a scarecrow. Ken looked as if he had been fired from a cannon. But, fortunately for him, he had an extra suit.

Hal spent the afternoon with the lions, photographing them, listening to their spitting and growling, and watching them fight their chains, and roll up like balls of fur. From different parts of the forest he tried to creep unsuspected upon them; but always when he peeped out from behind a tree or log, every pair of ears would be erect, every pair of eyes gleaming and suspicious.

Spitfire afforded more amusement than all the others. He had indeed the temper of a king; he had been born for sovereignty, not slavery. He tried in every way to frighten Hal, and, failing, he always ended with a spring to the length of his chain. This means was always effective. Hal simply could not stand still when the lion leaped; and in turn he tried every artifice he could think of to make him back away and take refuge behind his tree. He ran at him with a club as if he were going to kill him. Spitfire waited crouching and could not be budged. Finally Hal bethought himself of a red flannel hood that Hiram had given him, saying he might have use for it on cold nights. It was a weird, flaming head-gear, falling, cloak-like, down over Hal’s shoulders. Hal started to crawl on all fours toward Spitfire. This was too much for the cougar. In his astonishment he forgot to spit and growl, and he backed behind the little pine, from which he regarded Hal with growing perplexity.

“Youngster, I hey been watchin’ you fer the last hour or so,” remarked Hiram. “An’ I want to give you a piece of advice. Thar’s sech a thing as bein’ foolhardy brave. You don’t seem to reckon that them critters are cougars, wild cougars, an’ not pets.”

“But I’m not afraid,” replied Hal, boldly.

“Wal, I noticed thet. Mebbe you don’t know what danger is. Let me tell you a story I read. Thar was a time onct in the old country when officers of the great French army was reviewin’ the troops as they marched out to battle. Presently a big corporal strutted by, bold an’ important, swaggerin’ himself, an’ lookin’ fight all over.

“‘Thet’s a brave soldier,’ said one of the officers to Napoleon. The Emperor shook his head, an’ said: ‘No!’ Arter a while a little drummer boy marched by. He was drummin’ away fer dear life, as if by drummin’ hard he could keep up his courage. But he was white as a sheet, an’ his eyes stuck out, an’ he was sweatin’, an’ every step he took seemed to be with leaden feet.

“‘Thar’s a brave soldier,’ said Napoleon. ‘He knows the danger.’”

Hiram’s story did not appear to have any great effect on Hal. For a while the lad left the lions alone, but presently he was back tormenting them. He was not at all mean or vicious in his teasing; it was simply that they fascinated him and he could not let them alone. Finally, when Hal slipped, in one of his escapes, just eluding Spitfire by the narrowest margin. Hiram ordered him to keep away from them altogether. Whereupon Hal strode off in anger.

“I never seen sich a youngster,” explained Hiram.

“Shore he needs a lesson, an’ he’s goin’ to git it,” said Jim. “If the boy only hes the temper cooled in him, an’ not broke outright, he’ll be fine.”

Ken gave one of his short laughs.

“That kid is powder, brimstone, dynamite, and chain-lightning all mixed with a compound, concentrated solution of deviltry. Why, he has positively been good so far on this trip.”

Hiram groaned.

“Ken, a few years ago you were almost exactly the same kid that Hal is now,” I said, with a smile.

“I was not,” declared Ken, hotly.

“Youngster, ‘pears to me you did some tall scrappin’ fer this same bad kid brother,” remarked Hiram.

“That’s different. I can fight for Hal and still condemn his trickiness, can’t I?”

The afternoon passed, then sunset, and the shades spread darkly under the pines; suppertime went by, darkness came on, the camp-fire blazed — and still Hal Ward did not come back. We were not especially worried on this score, but when bedtime rolled around and no Hal, then both Ken and Hiram showed anxiety.

Morning dawned without his return. We had a late breakfast purposely, as we expected him to be in by the time Navvy drove up the horses. But there was no sign of Hal.

“Something has happened to him, sure,” Ken said.

Both Jim and I took a different view, agreeing that the lad had slept out for fun, perhaps to cause us concern, and that he would not come in until he was hungry.

Hiram had no comment to make, but it was plain that he did not like the possibilities. Ken showed no desire for lion-hunting, so we did not go out that day. When night came again and Hal had not returned we were at our wits’ end. But knowing his singular propensity for tricks, and believing that he would do almost anything in the way of mischief, we still remained in camp, hoping that he would get as tired of the joke as we were, and return.

Next morning Hiram routed us out early.

“Fellars, I think we’ve been good an’ wrong fer hangin’ around here waitin’ fer the youngster, tricks or no tricks. It’s been growin’ on me thet somethin’ onusual hes come off. We could hey follered his tracks yesterday a tarnal sight better than to-day. Leslie, you an’ Ken rim the plateau-wall. Look fer tracks, an’ keep signalin’. Jim an’ me’ll search the pine, an’ the cedar thickets, an’ the hollers.”

“What are you going to search the thickets and hollows for?” demanded Ken, with wide eyes of misgiving.

When Hiram had no answer for him Ken grew greatly perturbed.

“Hiram, you don’t think — it possible — a cougar could have jumped the boy?”

“Possible? Sartinly it’s possible. It’s not likely, though. But I’ve knowed more than one feller to be attacked by a hungry cougar. I’ve hed one foller me, more than onct...Now, youngster, don’t look sick thet way. Thet boy hed to hey somethin’ happen to him somethin’ serious. It was jest plain as the nose on his face. I hope, an’ believe, of course, thet we’ll find him safe. But you’d better prepare yourself fer a jar.”

The expression of Ken’s face made me almost sick, too; and what little hope I had oozed out.

“Leslie, you’d better see if any hosses hey come up or gone down the trail at the Saddle,” called Hiram, as Ken and I rode off.

“I tell you, Dick, I’m afraid Hiram takes a bad meaning from Hal’s absence,” said Ken. “He meant by what he said to you that those rangers, Belden and Sells, might have got hold of Hal.”

“I hope they have, because then we’d get only a scare, and Hal wouldn’t be hurt much...Well, go slow now, Ken, and keep up hope.”

We separated at the rim and took different directions. It was high noon when we met again on the other side of the plateau. Neither of us had found a trace of Hal. We turned for camp, hoping against hope that Hiram and Jim would have a different story.

They were both in camp when we arrived, and they ran out under the pines to meet us. It was plain that they hoped to receive the news from us which we had hoped to hear from them.

It was a gloomy meeting.

“I failed to foller Hal’s tracks, an’ Jim, he failed, too, an’ Jim ain’t no slouch on follerin’ tracks. It would take an Injun—”

The same thought came to us and we all shouted: “Put Navvy on Hal’s trail.”

Hiram called the Navajo and began to try to tell him, by signs and speech, that Hal was lost and that we wanted his trail followed.

“Me savvy,” said the Indian.

He threw the bridle of Ken’s mustang over his arm, and then, bending over the faint imprints of Hal’s boots, he slowly walked into the forest leading the mustang.

“Don’t foller him. Let him alone,” said Hiram, as Ken and I pressed forward.

The Navajo’s snail-like progress was intolerable to watch, yet it was hopeful, too, for it meant that he was able to pick out Hal’s trail. A long hour passed before Navvy disappeared in the forest. Another passed, still longer. And a third went by that seemed interminable.

“Wal, them desert Navajos hev the sharpest eyes in the world fer a trail...Youngster, he’ll find your brother.”

Suddenly I saw a black streak darting in the forest.

“Look!”

It shot across an open space, disappeared, came in sight again. It was a horse.

“Wild hoss, I’m afeard,” said Hiram.

“No, it’s the mustang,” said Jim. “I guess mebbe I hevn’t often seen a redskin pushin’ a mustang to his limit.”

“Oh! it’s Navvy,” exclaimed Ken. “Look at him come!”

“Youngster, now you’re seein’ some real ridin’,” said Hiram.

The beautiful black mustang swept toward camp at the speed of the wind. He ran on a straight line, sailing over logs, splitting through the bunch of juniper with flying mane and tail. The dark Indian crouched low and rode as if he were part of the mustang. There was something wild in that fleet approach, something thrilling and full of hope. The Navajo gained the camp circle, pulled up the mustang until he slid on his haunches, and leaped from the saddle.

We crowded toward him. He said a few words in Navajo, which none of us could translate. There was no telling anything from his dark, impassive face. Then he made motions with his hands and his meaning became at once clear. Hal had fallen over the rim.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Ken Ward, covering his face with his hands.

It was a black moment for all of us. I Hiram and Jim glanced compassionately at Ken, but I could not bear to look at him. As I turned away I saw the Indian pick up two lassoes and a canteen.

“Tohodena! Tohodena!” (“Hurry — hurry!”), said the Navajo.

That put new life into us.

“Look, Ken, the Indian’s grabbed up canteen and ropes. That means Hal is alive.”

Ken’s face seemed transfigured. He darted for Hal’s mustang, which was with our other horses, threw on a saddle and buckled it with nervous haste. We were mounted as soon as Ken. Navvy swung his quirt and the race was on. It was a race and a mad one to keep the Indian in sight. Our lion chases were tame beside this wild ride. The pines blurred all about me; the brown sward seemed to shoot backwards under me; the wind howled in my ears. I kept close at the heels of Hiram’s thundering roan. The Indian with marvelous skill held to a straight line. Logs and thickets and hollows, even deep gulches did not make him swerve. Once I got a good look ahead, and there was Ken riding Wings almost a rod ahead of Jim, who had a lead over Hiram. I thought at the moment how proud Hal would have been of Wings. But fast as Ken was driving him the pinto could not catch the mustang.

The pines thinned out and clumps of cedar appeared with patches of sage. The Navajo reined in, leaped off, and waited till we raced up. In a twinkling we were oil ready to follow. He carried the lassoes and the canteen.

We were directly above a cape of crumbling rim rock. To me the great abyss, with its purple clefts and gold domes and red walls, had never appeared so sinister and menacing. The Indian led down a short slope of sage and then went out upon a jutting section of wall. This cape appeared to be cut up into crags and castles and columns of yellow stone. One crumbling mass resembled a ruined pipe-organ of grand proportions. We wound in and out, always dangerously near the precipice, following the rim-wall of this cape. The Indian halted upon the edge of a kind of cove, a cut-in some fifty yards across at the widest, where it opened out into the chasm. I saw that the wall on the opposite side was perpendicular and almost forty feet high.

Navvy dropped to his knees and leaned over the rim. We followed suit. I found myself looking down at a straight wall, then a narrow shelf of debris, and below that a small grassy plot of ground which sloped to the main rim-wall.

Ken Ward let out a bursting yell of joy. Then I saw Hal lying on one side of the plot. There was a bloody wound on the side of his cheek and temple.

“Ah, there!” he said, faintly, and he smiled a smile that was as feeble as his voice.

I could not tell what the greeting was we shouted down to him, for the reason that we all shouted at once. Then we leaped up from the rim, ready for action. The first thing Ken Ward did was to give the Navajo such a hug that I made sure he would crush the Indian’s ribs. Navvy smiled at this rough treatment as if he knew what it meant to lose and find a brother.

“Cool down now, youngster,” said Hiram, “an’ let me engineer this bizness.”

Jim was more agitated than I had ever seen him. He kept peeping over the rim.

“Hiram, he shore ain’t moved a hand or foot since we got here,” whispered Jim.

“Mebbe he’s too weak,” replied Hiram.

The old hunter carefully tied up two lassoes, then two more, and putting these together he made a double rope more than fifty feet long.

“Ken, we’ll let you down,” he said, running a noose under Ken’s arms.

With Hiram and Jim holding the rope Ken slipped over the rim and soon reached the shelf below.

“Hal, old boy, are you hurt — very much?” asked Ken, as he knelt by his brother.

“Water! Water!” whispered Hal.

“Pitch me the canteen, quick,” called Ken. Hiram took it from Navvy and carefully poised it.

“Make sure, youngster. It might hit a rock an’ bounce down the slope.”

“Pitch it!” cried Ken in scornful distraction. “Have I played ball all these years for nothing? Pitch it!”

“Thar,” called Hiram, and he pitched the canteen. Ken caught it with steel like clutch, and then he was kneeling by Hal, holding up the boy’s head and helping him to drink. From the length of that drink Hal must have been pretty thirsty.

“Hal, tell me now — where are you hurt?” asked Ken.

The boy whispered something that only Ken heard. And we saw that Ken began to feel for broken bones and search for injuries.

“Hiram, all I can find is the bruise on his face and a bad ankle. It’s black and blue and swollen out of shape. I’m afraid it’s broken. He can move all over, so his spine can’t be hurt.”

“Good! Now, youngster, you take off your coat an’ put it round Hal, under his arms, whar the rope goes...Thar, thet’s right. Now you lift him an’ git him straight under us...Steady now...Help me lift him, Jim. An’ Leslie, you stand ready to grab him when we git him up.”

In less than two minutes we had Hal lying on the rim above. I hardly recognized his face. It was pallid except for the bloody bruise, and his eyes were deep-set with a strained expression of pain, and his lips were drawn. He had changed terribly.

“Oh, I’m all — here,” he whispered. But it was only a faint likeness of his old spirit.

“Say! throw me the rope,” yelled Ken. Hiram threw it over, and, while he and I held firmly, Ken came up hand over hand.

“Leslie, you lead back an’ break a trail through the brush,” directed I Hiram, as he carefully lifted Hal in his arms. We were not long in getting to the horses. Here Hiram placed Hal astride his roan, and walked, with an arm steadying the lad, while Jim rode alongside and helped. This procession was very slow in reaching camp.

When we arrived there, Hiram made a thorough examination of the boy and to our great relief announced that there were no serious injuries.

“He’s got a knock on the side of his head, an’ a sprained ankle, an’ mebbe he’s sufferin’ from shock, but he’ll be around in a few days.”

We washed the blood from Hal’s face and bathed his ankle in hot water. His face was so painful and his lips so swollen that it was difficult for him to eat, but after he had forced down some potato soup and a few mouthfuls of coffee he appeared to gather a little strength. We were so overjoyed to have him back alive and comparatively well that all thought of his delinquencies had been forgotten. But, evidently, Hal had not forgotten, for he looked wistfully at Ken and Hiram. It appeared to me that Hal wanted to be helped out in his confession. None of us, however, asked him a question.

“Ken,” he said, finally, and his voice was strangely weak, “I ran off bull-headed mad, but I didn’t stay away for spite. I chased some kind of a young animal — a young coyote, I think and I fell over the rim.”

“Forget it,” replied Ken, cheerfully.

“I yelled and yelled,” went on Hal. “Then I knew you wouldn’t be hunting for me, because you’d all figure I was playing a trick, trying to scare you. So I stopped yelling. The pain wasn’t so bad. I could have stood that. But the thought of you not hunting for me for a long time — that hurt. It made me sick. Then after the first night and the next day I got thirsty. I had a fever, I guess, for I was flighty. Pretty soon I believed — you’d never find me. Then — then—”

He never completed that sentence, but his look was eloquent. Hal Ward had been face to face with his first real tragedy in life. The lesson that Jim had prophesied had been a terrible one.

“Ken,” he said, after a long silence, “I broke my promise to you. One thing I did promise, you know. That was to be careful.”

“It’s all right, kid,” replied Ken.

“Jim,” he went on, after another silence, “I guess you won’t let me ‘rustle’ with you — any more?”

“Shore I will — shore,” replied Jim, hurriedly, as he fumbled aimlessly with his pipe.

Then there was a third silence, this one the longest.

“Hiram,” said Hal, “do you remember — you called me a young Injun once, and then I heard you say the only good Injun was a dead one?”

“Wal, lad, what about it?” asked Hiram, kindly.

“When I lay down in that dark hole, at night, with the stars shining in my lace I never slept a wink — I thought of what you had said — of your advice — and I made up my mind if I ever got out alive I’d fool you about being a good Injun...I’m goin’ to be one.”

“Amen,” cried Ken Ward, fervently.

CHAPTER XIX - KEN AND PRINCE

NEXT MORNING HIRAM was out bright and early, yelling to Navvy to hurry with the horses, calling to the hounds and lions and routing us from warm blankets.

Navvy had come into his own: he received his full meed of praise from all of us. Even Jim, reluctantly feeling the place in his hip where he carried a pellet of Indian lead, acknowledged that Navvy had been invaluable. “Shore, he’s the only good redskin I ever seen, an’ I guess I’ll hey to change my mind about liftin’ his scalp.”

“Tohodena!” said Navvy, mimicking Hiram. Perhaps we all contrasted this jocular use of the word with the grim meaning he had given to it the day before.

As we sat down to breakfast he loped off into the forest, and before we got up the bells of the horses were jingling in the hollow.

“Shore, it’s goin’ to be cloudy,” said Jim.

“If it’s just the same to you fellows, I’ll keep camp,” remarked Hal.

“Wal, lad, I reckon so,” was Hiram’s reply.

Indeed, we carried Hal out of Hiram’s tent and propped him up with blankets. It would probably be several days before he could use his injured ankle. He was haggard, and the bruise had grown blacker. But the terrible, strained shadow of pain in his eyes had given place to something brighter and softer.

“Shore I’m goin’ to keep camp with you,” drawled Jim, presently.

“That will be fine — but Ken and Hiram and Dick will need you.”

“They can need an’ be darned. I’m tired climbin’ out of them gashes. My heart ain’t right yet, after luggin’ thet cougar eleven miles or less straight up in the air.”

“Wal, youngster,” said Hiram to Ken — it was strange and incomprehensible why he called Hal ‘lad’ and Ken ‘youngster,’ but so it was— “I reckon we’ve got more sassy cougars right now than we can pack off this plateau. Packin’ them out — thar’ll be some fun.”

“Everything yet has been fun except some of my stunts,” replied Hal.

After breakfast we made a comfortable lounging place for Hal and left him in care of Jim. Then Ken, Hiram, and I rode down the ridge to the left of Middle Cañon. All the way we had trouble with the hounds. First they ran foul of a coyote, which was the one and only beast they could not resist. Spreading out to head them off, we separated. I cut into a hollow and rode to its end, and there I went up. I heard the hounds and presently saw a big white coyote making fast time through the forest glades. It looked as if he would cross close to me, so I dismounted and knelt with my rifle ready. The coyote saw me and shied off. I sent several singing, zipping bullets after him, which only served to make him run the faster. Remounting I turned toward my companions, now hallooing from a ridge below.

The pack lost some time on old trails, but we reached the cedars about eight o’clock, and as the sky was overcast with low dun-colored clouds and the air cool, we were sure it was not too late.

Soon we were in the thick of dense cedars. There, with but a single bark to warn us, Prince got out of sight and hearing. While we separated to look for him the remainder of the pack hit a trail, and then they were off. I kept them in hearing for some time. Meanwhile Hiram and Ken might as well have vanished off the globe for all I could see or hear of them. Occasionally I halted to let out a signal.

“Waa-hoo!”

Away on the dry air pealed the cry, piercing the cedar forest, splitting sharp in the walled cañons and clapping back and forth from wall to wall, rolling on to lose power, to die away in mocking silence.

I rode to and fro, up this gully and down that one. I rimmed what seemed a thousand cañons and yelled till I was out of breath, but I could not find a trace or hear a sound that belonged to my companions or the hounds.

So I turned my horse toward camp, and it was noon when I got there. About three o’clock Curley came in, foot-sore and weary. Next was Queen and she could scarcely touch her crippled foot to the ground. An hour after her arrival Ringer came in. He was worn out, dusty, and panting with thirst and heat.

“Shore everybody was huntin’ fer himself today,” remarked Jim.

At five o’clock Hiram’s gaunt charger snapped the dead wood in the hollow. The tall hunter got off and untied two cougar skins from the back of his saddle.

“Whar were you an’ the youngster?” he demanded. “Thet’s what I want to know.”

“I lost you both and couldn’t hit your trail again,” I replied.

“Wal, the hounds got up cougar chases fer themselves to-day. Prince lit out an’ thet settled it. I lost ’em all but Mux an’ Tan.”

As he spoke the two hounds limped into camp.

“I reckon Ken is sittin’ under a cedar, holdin’ Prince, an’ yellin’ fer us to come an’ help him git his cougar...It’s been another queer huntin’ day. Dog-gone it! this plateau is a curious split-up place, an’ no wonder we can’t do nuthin’. I hed to kill the two cougars I treed, arter I waited hours fer you an’ Ken...Wal, I’ll rest a little an’ then git supper.”

“Gee! Hiram, I hope Ken’s all right,” exclaimed Hal, anxiously.

“Don’t you worry, lad. He’ll be ridin’ in soon.”

Hiram had just taken the steaming supper off the fire when the barking of the hounds announced Ken’s appearance. He rode wearily under the pines and Prince trotted wearily behind.

“Jest in time, youngster,” called the old hunter, cheerily.

Ken fell rather than dismounted, and he slipped to the ground and stretched out so slowly, so painfully, so gratefully, that it was easy to see what he had been through. His clothes were in tatters and he was white and spent. To our solicitations he whispered: “Wait!” And he lay there for full five minutes before he crawled to the supper-cloth.

We were all curious, and Hal was wild to hear Ken’s adventure. There was something about Ken Ward, before a time of stress, or after hard action, that thrilled one with its significance. When supper was over and we sat in a circle round the ruddy camp-fire, with the cool wind singing in the pines and the shadows of night darkening, Hiram said: “Wal, youngster, I reckon we want to hyar about it.”

Ken was still silent and there was a brooding grimness about his thoughtful face. As we waited for Ken to take his time Prince edged nearer the fire for the air was chill — and when the great hound laid his splendid head on Ken’s knee and looked up with somber eyes, the boy seemed to burst out involuntarily: “Prince saved my life!”

“He did?” breathed Hal, his shining eyes full on his brother. “Tell me — everything!”

Ken settled back and began his story.

“Sometime this morning I lost Hiram and the hounds. I found myself in a dark, gloomy forest. After a while this forest got all but impenetrable. Dead cedars lay in windfalls; live cedars, branches touching the ground, grew close together. I lost my bearings. I turned and turned, crossed my own back-trail, which I followed, coming out of the cedars at a deep cañon.

“Here I fired my revolver, but no answering shot came. There was nothing for me to do but wander along in the hope of finding Hiram or Dick. I was riding on when I saw Prince come trotting to me.

“‘Hello, old boy,’ I said. Prince seemed to be as glad to see me as I was to see him. He flopped down and panted with a dripping tongue jerking out of his mouth. He was covered with dust and flecked with froth.

“‘All in, Prince?’ I asked. ‘We’ll rest awhile.’ Then I discovered blood on his ear and found the ear slit. He had been pushing a cougar too hard that morning.

“I filled my hat with water from my canteen and gave Prince a drink. Four times he emptied the hat before he was satisfied. Then he laid his head against me and rested.

“Prince got up Finally of his own accord, and with a wag of his tail set of westward. I kept my mustang as close to Prince as the rough going permitted. We came out in the notch of the great curve we had named the Bay. I was just about to shout for you when I saw Prince with his hair bristling. He took a dozen jumps, then yelping broke down the steep gorge and disappeared.

“I found a fresh track of the big lion that we have chased so often, and decided to follow Prince. I tied my mustang and took off my coat and spurs and chaps, and fastened a red bandana to the top of a dead cedar to show me where to come up on my way back.

“I went down about five hundred feet until a precipice stopped me. From it I heard Prince baying and almost instantly saw a lion in a treetop.

“That roused me and I yelled, ‘Hi! Hi! Hi!’ to encourage Prince.

“I thought it would be wise to look before I leaped. The Bay lay under me, a mile wide where it opened into the big smoky Cañon. It seemed like an awful, bottomless pit. I tell you for a moment the sight shook my nerve, but I had to go after Prince. I ran along to the left and came to where the cliff ended in a weathered slope.

“Once started in dead earnest, it was like playing a game that had to be won. My boots struck fire from the rocks. I slid and hung on and let go to slide again. I started avalanches of weathered rock and then outfooted them.

“But soon I had to go slower and climb over things. Prince bayed once in a while, and I yelled to him to let him know I was coming. A white bank of decayed limestone led down to a runway, where I made up time. Here Prince’s bay kept me going. Flying down this to a clump of cedars, I ran in among them and saw Prince standing with fore paws against a big cedar. I saw a lion moving down. Then the crash and rattle of stones told me he had jumped. Prince ran after him.

“I dashed down, dodged under cedars, and threaded openings in the rocks to come to a ravine with a bare, water-worn floor. Patches of sand showed the tracks of Prince and the lion. Those of the lion were so large they made my blood run cold. They were twice the size of any tracks I had seen before. Running down this dry stream-bed was the easiest going yet. Every rod or so the stream-bed dropped from four to ten feet, often more, and these places I slid down.

“The cougar didn’t appear to tree any more. I feared every moment to hear the sounds of a fight, for I remembered that Hiram had said an old cougar would get tired running and stop to kill the hound.

“Down, down, down I went. I saw that we were almost to the real jump-off, the great, wide main cañon, and I wondered what would happen when we reached it. Suddenly I came upon Prince baying wildly under a piñon on the brink of a deep cove.

“Looking up I had the fright of my life. The cougar was immense and so old that his color was almost gray. His head was huge, his paws short and round. He did not spit, nor snarl, nor growl; he did not look at Prince, but kept his half-shut eyes on me.

“Before I had time to move he left his perch and hit the ground with a thud. At first I made sure he intended to attack me, and I jerked out my revolver. But he walked slowly past Prince and without a moment’s hesitation leaped down into the cove. A rattling crash of sliding stones came up with a cloud of dust. Then I saw him leisurely picking his way among the rough stones.

“Prince came whining to me, and together we went along the cove till we found a place where we could get down. We crawled and jumped and fell till we reached the bottom, and again Prince took the trail.

“Almost before I knew what I was about I stood on the second wall of the cañon, with nothing but thin air under me. I tell you it made me gasp.

“Prince’s bark came to me, and I turned round a corner of cliff wall and saw him on a narrow shelf. He was coming, and when he got to me he faced about and barked fiercely. The hair on his neck stuck up.

“‘Come on, Prince,’ I called.

“That was the only time I ever knew of Prince hesitating to chase a lion. I had to coax him, for he didn’t like that narrow shelf. But, once started, he wouldn’t let me lead. The shelf was twenty feet wide, and close to the wall were lion tracks in the dust. A jutting corner of cliff wall hid my view. I peeped round it. On the other side the shelf narrowed and it climbed a little by broken steps. Prince passed the corner, looked back to see if I was coming, and went on. He looked back four times, and once he waited for me to come up with him.

“‘I’m with you, Prince,’ I kept calling.

“The shelf narrowed till it was scarcely three feet wide. Prince stopped barking, then looked back for me. A protruding corner shut me from sight of what lay beyond. Prince slipped round. I had to go sidewise and my fingers bit into the wall.

“To my surprise I found myself on the floor of a shallow wind-cave. The lion trail led straight across it and on. Prince went slower and slower.

“I rounded the next point, and crossed another shallow cave, and slipped by another corner to come upon a wonderful scene. The trail ended there. In the center of a wide shelf sat the great lion on his haunches, with his long tail lashing out over the precipice. When he saw us he turned round and walked the whole length of the shelf with his head bent over. He was looking for a place to jump. Then he stopped and bent his head so far over the abyss that I thought he would fall.

“All at once I thought of my camera, and at the same time forgot all about Hiram’s telling me never to take my eye off a cougar when al close quarters. I got my camera, opened it, and focused for about twenty-five feet.

“Then a wild yelp from Prince and a roar from the cougar brought me to my senses. The cat leaped ten feet and stood snarling horribly almost in my face. His lashing tail knocked little stones off the shelf. I pulled out my revolver and aimed, once, twice, but was afraid to shoot. If I wounded him he would knock us off the shelf.

“It was then I got scared and began to shake so I could scarcely keep my knees from sinking under me. But good old Prince was braver than I, and he had more sense. He faced the lion and bayed at him.

“‘Hold him, Prince, hold him,’ I yelled, and I took a backward step.

“The cougar put forward one big paw. His eyes were now purple blazes. I backed again and he stepped forward. Prince gave ground slowly. Once the lion flashed a yellow paw at him. It was frightful to see the wide-spread claws. In the terror of the moment I let the lion back me clear across the front of the wind-cave, where I saw, the moment it was too late, I should have taken advantage of more space to shoot him.

“The cougar was master of the situation. I kept backing step by step, and I saw the shelf narrowing under my feet. When I remembered the place where it would be impossible for me to back around I almost fainted. I stopped stock still and almost tottered over the precipice.

“Somehow Prince’s bravery gave me a kind of desperate strength at the last. The lion, taking slow, cat-like steps, backed Prince against my knees. The great brute was within his own length of me, so close that I smelt him. His eyes fascinated me. Hugging the wall with my body, I brought up the revolver, short-armed, and, straining every nerve, I aimed between those eyes and pulled the trigger.

“The cougar’s left eye seemed to vanish with the bellow of the revolver and the smell of powder. He uttered a hoarse howl, and rose straight up, towering over me, beating the wall heavily with his paws.

“I stood there, helpless with terror, forgetting my weapon, fearing only that the beast would fall over on me and brush me off the shelf. But in his death agony he bounded out from the wall, turned over and over, and went down out of sight.

“I had to sit down then. I was all in. The relief made me sick. I sat there with Prince’s head on my knees, and slowly got back my strength. Finally, when I tried to rise, my legs were still shaky and I felt as weak as if I were just up from a long sickness. Three times I tried to go round the narrow place. On the fourth I braced up and went around, and soon reached the turn of the wall.

“I was six hours in climbing out...And I guess I’ve had enough cougar chasing to do me for a while.”

CHAPTER XX - AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE

“WAL, YOUNGSTER,” BEGAN the old hunter, after a long silence, “I allus reckoned thet Prince was a great hound. An’ it’s only when a feller gits out alone with a dog an’ gits in lonesome or dangerous places thet he really knows how human a dog is.”

“Oh! it was grand of Prince to stay between Ken and the lion,” exclaimed Hal.

“Shore it’s a shame thet hound’ll hey to be killed by a cougar some day,” remarked Jim.

“I reckon now thet day’ll never come,” replied Hiram.

“Why? Shore you always said so.”

“Prince shall never put his nose to another cougar trail, an’ he’s goin’ back to Pennsylvania with the youngster.”

“Hiram! do you really mean to give him to me?” asked Ken, in glad surprise.

“Wal, I reckon so. I’ll miss him, but Ringer is comin’ on, an’ will lead the pack.”

“Hiram — it’s good of you — I’ll—” Ken left off and hugged Prince by way of reply, and the hound licked his face. For once Hal did not look jealous over Ken’s possession of something that he could not hope to rival for himself.

“Ken, if you have enough cougar hunting, what next?” I asked.

“The rest of my time here I’ll put in studying forestry, and I want you to help me. I declare, I’ve completely forgotten my work. But I’ll make it up. I’m a fine ranger, eh?”

“Wal, youngster, a ranger’s duties are many,” replied Hiram. “Now, if the Chief was to ask you about cougars, same as he asked you about forest-fires last summer, you could tell him a few things.”

“I guess I could,” declared Ken.

“Your time hasn’t been wasted, an’ now thet nobody has been hurt bad or any hosses or hounds killed I feel pretty happy about the hunt. From now on, while I’m hyar on the plateau, I’ll tree cougars an’ kill ‘em, fer I’ve orders to clear the preserve of them, you know. Meantime you will be addin’ to your knowledge of trees, an’ Hal will be gittin’ well. I calkilate he ought not to ride down these trails fer two weeks. Thet will be long enough for his ankle to git strong. Then we’ll pack our cougars out to Kanab. An’ we’ve got to stop down in the brakes at our corral, an’ ketch our wild mustangs. We’ve most forgot them. It’ll be some fun — thet job.”

“Ken, are you going back to college this fall?” I asked.

“Yes, but I intend to get ahead of my term and take some time off — about January and February — to go South. I want to see the tropics, to study the jungle timber and vegetation.”

“Shore you’ll look up some trouble down there,” said Jim. “I’ve been in Mexican jungles, along the Rio Grande. Millions of things to shoot.”

“Ken, I’m going with you,” declared Hal. “You’re going to start in college,” said Ken, severely.

“Do you suppose I’d be any good in college with you somewhere in the jungle? Wait till I see father. He’ll let me go.”

“You’d have a fine chance ever getting to go to any wild place again — if I told him how you jumped over the rim of the Grand Cañon just to scare your brother and friends!”

“I didn’t — I didn’t,” denied Hal, vehemently. “I fell over — and I knocked some sense into me, too...But, Ken, you’ll never tell the governor, will you?”

“Lad, I reckon Ken won’t give you away,” said Hiram. “Fer he an’ all of us believe thet adventure has taught you the difference between fun an’ foolhardiness. I’d trust you now, an’ if I would, surely your brother would...Now, Leslie, you spring your little surprise on the boys.”

I turned to Ken and Hal, then hesitated.

“Hiram,” I said, “are you sure the Indian can’t understand English? I don’t want even a word of this to get to any ears but ours.”

Ken Ward leaned forward, with his eyes suddenly flashing dark, and Hal sat up in glowing curiosity. Hiram sent the Navajo off to bunch the horses.

“Well, boys, it’s this,” I began. “Hiram and Jim and I are not going to sign contracts with the Forest Service for next year. We think we’ve got something a little better. We’ve found traces of gold down in the Cañon, and we believe there’s enough gold to pay us to go after it. And there are chances we may strike it rich...So next summer we want you both to come out and go with us — after gold.”

Ken Ward uttered his ringing shout and Hal looked the wild joy that his speechless tongue could not utter. That was their answer.

“Wal, wal, somehow I kinder thought you’d like the idee,” said Hiram, as he filled his pipe. “We all want you to come bad. Thar’ll be some of the real thing— ‘specially if any of them no-good fellers like the one Ken licked git wind of our enterprise. Wal, I reckon we’d hey to fight. How about thet, Jim?”

“Shore, shore,” replied the Texan.

So the three of us talked and planned while Ken and Hal drank in every little word.

Meanwhile the camp-fire died down to a small red blaze and the shadows darkened under the pines. Prince went to sleep with his head on his new master’s knees. From the captive lions came an occasional soft-padded, stealthy step and a low growl and a clink of chain. The wind began to moan. A twig snapped, and the lithe figure of the Indian strode out of the forest gloom.

“Sleep-ie, Navvy?” asked Ken.

“Moocho,” answered the Navajo.

Then he began to prepare his bed for the night. Selecting a spot close to the campfire, he dug out a little pit in the pine-needles and threw a blanket over it. He kicked off his shoes, lay down and curled up with his back and the soles of his bare feet toward the heat. It seemed to me that the moment he had pulled his other scant blanket over his shoulders he went to sleep.

The red light of the dying fire shone on his dusky face and tangled black hair. Ken Ward watched him, and so did Hal. Lying there, covered with his old blanket, there was Indian enough and wildness enough about him to suit any boy. By and by, as we all sat silent, Navvy began to mumble in his sleep.

“Shore I’ll hey to scalp thet Injun yet,” declared Jim.

“Dog-gone me if he ain’t got a nightmare!” ejaculated Hiram.

“No, I think he’s dreaming of the adventures we’ll have next summer,” said Ken Ward.

Ken’s idea pleased me. And long after the others had gone to bed, no doubt to dream with the Indian, I sat wide awake beside the ruddy embers, and dreamed, too, of the summer to come. It would be a wild trip — that hunt for gold down in the cañon. With Ken Ward along it would be sure to develop dangers; and with Hal Ward along it would be sure to develop amazing situations.

So I dreamed on till the fire burned out, and the blackness gathered thick, and the wind roared in the pines.

THE END

Riders of the Purple Sage

This famous novel was first published by Harper & Brothers in 1912 and is considered by many to have played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular western genre.

The novel’s events occur between the mid-spring and the late summer of 1871, set in the cañon country of southern Utah. Jane Withersteen, a Mormon-born spinster of 28, has inherited a valuable ranch and spring from her father, which is coveted by other Mormons in the community. The narrative concerns her battle to overcome her persecution by members of her polygamous Mormon Church, a leader of which, Elder Tull, wants to marry her. Withersteen is supported by a number of Gentile friends, including Bern Venters and Lassiter, a famous gunman and killer of Mormons. Throughout most of the novel, Jane struggles with her inability to detect the evil nature of her church and its leaders, trying to keep both Venters and Lassiter from killing her adversaries, who are slowly ruining her. Through the adoption of a child, Fay, she abandons her false beliefs and discovers her true love. The narrative also concerns the sub-plot of Venters and his escape to the wilderness with a girl named Bess, "the rustler's girl," whom he has accidentally shot. By caring for Bess, Venters falls in love with her and together they escape to the East, while Lassiter, Fay, and Jane, pursued by both Mormons and rustlers, escape into a paradise-like valley by toppling a giant rock, forever closing off the only way in or out.

Unlike many previous western novels that were straightforward morality tales, Riders of the Purple Sage is a long novel, offering a complex plot, developed with many strands and controversial themes of the time. Plural marriage was only officially prohibited by the Mormons with the issuing of the First and Second Manifesto in 1890 and 1904 respectively, enacted primarily to allow the territory to attain statehood. In 1871, mainstream American society found plural marriage offensive. Even after the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was passed in 1862, the practice had continued. Consequently, Grey described the distaste of the institution by creating the character Lassiter, 22 years after the practice had officially ended.

The first edition

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. LASSITER

CHAPTER II. COTTONWOODS

CHAPTER III. AMBER SPRING

CHAPTER IV. DECEPTION PASS

CHAPTER V. THE MASKED RIDER

CHAPTER VI. THE MILL-WHEEL OF STEERS

CHAPTER VII. THE DAUGHTER OF WITHERSTEEN

CHAPTER VIII. SURPRISE VALLEY

CHAPTER IX. SILVER SPRUCE AND ASPENS

CHAPTER X. LOVE

CHAPTER XI. FAITH AND UNFAITH

CHAPTER XII. THE INVISIBLE HAND

CHAPTER XIII. SOLITUDE AND STORM

CHAPTER XIV. WEST WIND

CHAPTER XV. SHADOWS ON THE SAGE-SLOPE

CHAPTER XVI. GOLD

CHAPTER XVII. WRANGLE’S RACE RUN

CHAPTER XVIII. OLDRING’S KNELL

CHAPTER XIX. FAY

CHAPTER XX. LASSITER’S WAY

CHAPTER XXI. BLACK STAR AND NIGHT

CHAPTER XXII. RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

CHAPTER XXIII. THE FALL OF BALANCING ROCK

A Mormon polygamist family in 1888

CHAPTER I. LASSITER

A SHARP CLIP-CROP of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage.

Jane Withersteen gazed down the wide purple slope with dreamy and troubled eyes. A rider had just left her and it was his message that held her thoughtful and almost sad, awaiting the churchmen who were coming to resent and attack her right to befriend a Gentile.

She wondered if the unrest and strife that had lately come to the little village of Cottonwoods was to involve her. And then she sighed, remembering that her father had founded this remotest border settlement of southern Utah and that he had left it to her. She owned all the ground and many of the cottages. Withersteen House was hers, and the great ranch, with its thousands of cattle, and the swiftest horses of the sage. To her belonged Amber Spring, the water which gave verdure and beauty to the village and made living possible on that wild purple upland waste. She could not escape being involved by whatever befell Cottonwoods.

That year, 1871, had marked a change which had been gradually coming in the lives of the peace-loving Mormons of the border. Glaze — Stone Bridge — Sterling, villages to the north, had risen against the invasion of Gentile settlers and the forays of rustlers. There had been opposition to the one and fighting with the other. And now Cottonwoods had begun to wake and bestir itself and grown hard.

Jane prayed that the tranquillity and sweetness of her life would not be permanently disrupted. She meant to do so much more for her people than she had done. She wanted the sleepy quiet pastoral days to last always. Trouble between the Mormons and the Gentiles of the community would make her unhappy. She was Mormon-born, and she was a friend to poor and unfortunate Gentiles. She wished only to go on doing good and being happy. And she thought of what that great ranch meant to her. She loved it all — the grove of cottonwoods, the old stone house, the amber-tinted water, and the droves of shaggy, dusty horses and mustangs, the sleek, clean-limbed, blooded racers, and the browsing herds of cattle and the lean, sun-browned riders of the sage.

While she waited there she forgot the prospect of untoward change. The bray of a lazy burro broke the afternoon quiet, and it was comfortingly suggestive of the drowsy farmyard, and the open corrals, and the green alfalfa fields. Her clear sight intensified the purple sage-slope as it rolled before her. Low swells of prairie-like ground sloped up to the west. Dark, lonely cedar-trees, few and far between, stood out strikingly, and at long distances ruins of red rocks. Farther on, up the gradual slope, rose a broken wall, a huge monument, looming dark purple and stretching its solitary, mystic way, a wavering line that faded in the north. Here to the westward was the light and color and beauty. Northward the slope descended to a dim line of canyons from which rose an up-flinging of the earth, not mountainous, but a vast heave of purple uplands, with ribbed and fan-shaped walls, castle-crowned cliffs, and gray escarpments. Over it all crept the lengthening, waning afternoon shadows.

The rapid beat of hoofs recalled Jane Withersteen to the question at hand. A group of riders cantered up the lane, dismounted, and threw their bridles. They were seven in number, and Tull, the leader, a tall, dark man, was an elder of Jane’s church.

“Did you get my message?” he asked, curtly.

“Yes,” replied Jane.

“I sent word I’d give that rider Venters half an hour to come down to the village. He didn’t come.”

“He knows nothing of it;” said Jane. “I didn’t tell him. I’ve been waiting here for you.”

“Where is Venters?”

“I left him in the courtyard.”

“Here, Jerry,” called Tull, turning to his men, “take the gang and fetch Venters out here if you have to rope him.”

The dusty-booted and long-spurred riders clanked noisily into the grove of cottonwoods and disappeared in the shade.

“Elder Tull, what do you mean by this?” demanded Jane. “If you must arrest Venters you might have the courtesy to wait till he leaves my home. And if you do arrest him it will be adding insult to injury. It’s absurd to accuse Venters of being mixed up in that shooting fray in the village last night. He was with me at the time. Besides, he let me take charge of his guns. You’re only using this as a pretext. What do you mean to do to Venters?”

“I’ll tell you presently,” replied Tull. “But first tell me why you defend this worthless rider?”

“Worthless!” exclaimed Jane, indignantly. “He’s nothing of the kind. He was the best rider I ever had. There’s not a reason why I shouldn’t champion him and every reason why I should. It’s no little shame to me, Elder Tull, that through my friendship he has roused the enmity of my people and become an outcast. Besides I owe him eternal gratitude for saving the life of little Fay.”

“I’ve heard of your love for Fay Larkin and that you intend to adopt her. But — Jane Withersteen, the child is a Gentile!”

“Yes. But, Elder, I don’t love the Mormon children any less because I love a Gentile child. I shall adopt Fay if her mother will give her to me.”

“I’m not so much against that. You can give the child Mormon teaching,” said Tull. “But I’m sick of seeing this fellow Venters hang around you. I’m going to put a stop to it. You’ve so much love to throw away on these beggars of Gentiles that I’ve an idea you might love Venters.”

Tull spoke with the arrogance of a Mormon whose power could not be brooked and with the passion of a man in whom jealousy had kindled a consuming fire.

“Maybe I do love him,” said Jane. She felt both fear and anger stir her heart. “I’d never thought of that. Poor fellow! he certainly needs some one to love him.”

“This’ll be a bad day for Venters unless you deny that,” returned Tull, grimly.

Tull’s men appeared under the cottonwoods and led a young man out into the lane. His ragged clothes were those of an outcast. But he stood tall and straight, his wide shoulders flung back, with the muscles of his bound arms rippling and a blue flame of defiance in the gaze he bent on Tull.

For the first time Jane Withersteen felt Venters’s real spirit. She wondered if she would love this splendid youth. Then her emotion cooled to the sobering sense of the issue at stake.

“Venters, will you leave Cottonwoods at once and forever?” asked Tull, tensely.

“Why?” rejoined the rider.

“Because I order it.”

Venters laughed in cool disdain.

The red leaped to Tull’s dark cheek.

“If you don’t go it means your ruin,” he said, sharply.

“Ruin!” exclaimed Venters, passionately. “Haven’t you already ruined me? What do you call ruin? A year ago I was a rider. I had horses and cattle of my own. I had a good name in Cottonwoods. And now when I come into the village to see this woman you set your men on me. You hound me. You trail me as if I were a rustler. I’ve no more to lose — except my life.”

“Will you leave Utah?”

“Oh! I know,” went on Venters, tauntingly, “it galls you, the idea of beautiful Jane Withersteen being friendly to a poor Gentile. You want her all yourself. You’re a wiving Mormon. You have use for her — and Withersteen House and Amber Spring and seven thousand head of cattle!”

Tull’s hard jaw protruded, and rioting blood corded the veins of his neck.

“Once more. Will you go?”

“NO!”

“Then I’ll have you whipped within an inch of your life,” replied Tull, harshly. “I’ll turn you out in the sage. And if you ever come back you’ll get worse.”

Venters’s agitated face grew coldly set and the bronze changed

Jane impulsively stepped forward. “Oh! Elder Tull!” she cried. “You won’t do that!”

Tull lifted a shaking finger toward her.

“That’ll do from you. Understand, you’ll not be allowed to hold this boy to a friendship that’s offensive to your Bishop. Jane Withersteen, your father left you wealth and power. It has turned your head. You haven’t yet come to see the place of Mormon women. We’ve reasoned with you, borne with you. We’ve patiently waited. We’ve let you have your fling, which is more than I ever saw granted to a Mormon woman. But you haven’t come to your senses. Now, once for all, you can’t have any further friendship with Venters. He’s going to be whipped, and he’s got to leave Utah!”

“Oh! Don’t whip him! It would be dastardly!” implored Jane, with slow certainty of her failing courage.

Tull always blunted her spirit, and she grew conscious that she had feigned a boldness which she did not possess. He loomed up now in different guise, not as a jealous suitor, but embodying the mysterious despotism she had known from childhood — the power of her creed.

“Venters, will you take your whipping here or would you rather go out in the sage?” asked Tull. He smiled a flinty smile that was more than inhuman, yet seemed to give out of its dark aloofness a gleam of righteousness.

“I’ll take it here — if I must,” said Venters. “But by God! — Tull you’d better kill me outright. That’ll be a dear whipping for you and your praying Mormons. You’ll make me another Lassiter!”

The strange glow, the austere light which radiated from Tull’s face, might have been a holy joy at the spiritual conception of exalted duty. But there was something more in him, barely hidden, a something personal and sinister, a deep of himself, an engulfing abyss. As his religious mood was fanatical and inexorable, so would his physical hate be merciless.

“Elder, I — I repent my words,” Jane faltered. The religion in her, the long habit of obedience, of humility, as well as agony of fear, spoke in her voice. “Spare the boy!” she whispered.

“You can’t save him now,” replied Tull stridently.

Her head was bowing to the inevitable. She was grasping the truth, when suddenly there came, in inward constriction, a hardening of gentle forces within her breast. Like a steel bar it was stiffening all that had been soft and weak in her. She felt a birth in her of something new and unintelligible. Once more her strained gaze sought the sage-slopes. Jane Withersteen loved that wild and purple wilderness. In times of sorrow it had been her strength, in happiness its beauty was her continual delight. In her extremity she found herself murmuring, “Whence cometh my help!” It was a prayer, as if forth from those lonely purple reaches and walls of red and clefts of blue might ride a fearless man, neither creed-bound nor creed-mad, who would hold up a restraining hand in the faces of her ruthless people.

The restless movements of Tull’s men suddenly quieted down. Then followed a low whisper, a rustle, a sharp exclamation.

“Look!” said one, pointing to the west.

“A rider!”

Jane Withersteen wheeled and saw a horseman, silhouetted against the western sky, coming riding out of the sage. He had ridden down from the left, in the golden glare of the sun, and had been unobserved till close at hand. An answer to her prayer!

“Do you know him? Does any one know him?” questioned Tull, hurriedly.

His men looked and looked, and one by one shook their heads.

“He’s come from far,” said one.

“Thet’s a fine hoss,” said another.

“A strange rider.”

“Huh! he wears black leather,” added a fourth.

With a wave of his hand, enjoining silence, Tull stepped forward in such a way that he concealed Venters.

The rider reined in his mount, and with a lithe forward-slipping action appeared to reach the ground in one long step. It was a peculiar movement in its quickness and inasmuch that while performing it the rider did not swerve in the slightest from a square front to the group before him.

“Look!” hoarsely whispered one of Tull’s companions. “He packs two black-butted guns — low down — they’re hard to see — black akin them black chaps.”

“A gun-man!” whispered another. “Fellers, careful now about movin’ your hands.”

The stranger’s slow approach might have been a mere leisurely manner of gait or the cramped short steps of a rider unused to walking; yet, as well, it could have been the guarded advance of one who took no chances with men.

“Hello, stranger!” called Tull. No welcome was in this greeting only a gruff curiosity.

The rider responded with a curt nod. The wide brim of a black sombrero cast a dark shade over his face. For a moment he closely regarded Tull and his comrades, and then, halting in his slow walk, he seemed to relax.

“Evenin’, ma’am,” he said to Jane, and removed his sombrero with quaint grace.

Jane, greeting him, looked up into a face that she trusted instinctively and which riveted her attention. It had all the characteristics of the range rider’s — the leanness, the red burn of the sun, and the set changelessness that came from years of silence and solitude. But it was not these which held her, rather the intensity of his gaze, a strained weariness, a piercing wistfulness of keen, gray sight, as if the man was forever looking for that which he never found. Jane’s subtle woman’s intuition, even in that brief instant, felt a sadness, a hungering, a secret.

“Jane Withersteen, ma’am?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she replied.

“The water here is yours?”

“Yes.”

“May I water my horse?”

“Certainly. There’s the trough.”

“But mebbe if you knew who I was—” He hesitated, with his glance on the listening men. “Mebbe you wouldn’t let me water him — though I ain’t askin’ none for myself.”

“Stranger, it doesn’t matter who you are. Water your horse. And if you are thirsty and hungry come into my house.”

“Thanks, ma’am. I can’t accept for myself — but for my tired horse—”

Trampling of hoofs interrupted the rider. More restless movements on the part of Tull’s men broke up the little circle, exposing the prisoner Venters.

“Mebbe I’ve kind of hindered somethin’ — for a few moments, perhaps?” inquired the rider.

“Yes,” replied Jane Withersteen, with a throb in her voice.

She felt the drawing power of his eyes; and then she saw him look at the bound Venters, and at the men who held him, and their leader.

“In this here country all the rustlers an’ thieves an’ cut-throats an’ gun-throwers an’ all-round no-good men jest happen to be Gentiles. Ma’am, which of the no-good class does that young feller belong to?”

“He belongs to none of them. He’s an honest boy.”

“You KNOW that, ma’am?”

“Yes — yes.”

“Then what has he done to get tied up that way?”

His clear and distinct question, meant for Tull as well as for Jane Withersteen, stilled the restlessness and brought a momentary silence.

“Ask him,” replied Jane, her voice rising high.

The rider stepped away from her, moving out with the same slow, measured stride in which he had approached, and the fact that his action placed her wholly to one side, and him no nearer to Tull and his men, had a penetrating significance.

“Young feller, speak up,” he said to Venters.

“Here stranger, this’s none of your mix,” began Tull. “Don’t try any interference. You’ve been asked to drink and eat. That’s more than you’d have got in any other village of the Utah border. Water your horse and be on your way.”

“Easy — easy — I ain’t interferin’ yet,” replied the rider. The tone of his voice had undergone a change. A different man had spoken. Where, in addressing Jane, he had been mild and gentle, now, with his first speech to Tull, he was dry, cool, biting. “I’ve lest stumbled onto a queer deal. Seven Mormons all packin’ guns, an’ a Gentile tied with a rope, an’ a woman who swears by his honesty! Queer, ain’t that?”

“Queer or not, it’s none of your business,” retorted Tull.

“Where I was raised a woman’s word was law. I ain’t quite outgrowed that yet.”

Tull fumed between amaze and anger.

“Meddler, we have a law here something different from woman’s whim — Mormon law!... Take care you don’t transgress it.”

“To hell with your Mormon law!”

The deliberate speech marked the rider’s further change, this time from kindly interest to an awakening menace. It produced a transformation in Tull and his companions. The leader gasped and staggered backward at a blasphemous affront to an institution he held most sacred. The man Jerry, holding the horses, dropped the bridles and froze in his tracks. Like posts the other men stood watchful-eyed, arms hanging rigid, all waiting.

“Speak up now, young man. What have you done to be roped that way?”

“It’s a damned outrage!” burst out Venters. “I’ve done no wrong. I’ve offended this Mormon Elder by being a friend to that woman.”

“Ma’am, is it true — what he says?” asked the rider of Jane, but his quiveringly alert eyes never left the little knot of quiet men.

“True? Yes, perfectly true,” she answered.

“Well, young man, it seems to me that bein’ a friend to such a woman would be what you wouldn’t want to help an’ couldn’t help.... What’s to be done to you for it?”

“They intend to whip me. You know what that means — in Utah!”

“I reckon,” replied the rider, slowly.

With his gray glance cold on the Mormons, with the restive bit-champing of the horses, with Jane failing to repress her mounting agitations, with Venters standing pale and still, the tension of the moment tightened. Tull broke the spell with a laugh, a laugh without mirth, a laugh that was only a sound betraying fear.

“Come on, men!” he called.

Jane Withersteen turned again to the rider.

“Stranger, can you do nothing to save Venters?”

“Ma’am, you ask me to save him — from your own people?”

“Ask you? I beg of you!”

“But you don’t dream who you’re askin’.”

“Oh, sir, I pray you — save him!”

“These are Mormons, an’ I...”

“At — at any cost — save him. For I — I care for him!”

Tull snarled. “You love-sick fool! Tell your secrets. There’ll be a way to teach you what you’ve never learned.... Come men out of here!”

“Mormon, the young man stays,” said the rider.

Like a shot his voice halted Tull.

“What!”

“Who’ll keep him? He’s my prisoner!” cried Tull, hotly. “Stranger, again I tell you — don’t mix here. You’ve meddled enough. Go your way now or—”

“Listen!... He stays.”

Absolute certainty, beyond any shadow of doubt, breathed in the rider’s low voice.

“Who are you? We are seven here.”

The rider dropped his sombrero and made a rapid movement, singular in that it left him somewhat crouched, arms bent and stiff, with the big black gun-sheaths swung round to the fore.

“LASSITER!”

It was Venters’s wondering, thrilling cry that bridged the fateful connection between the rider’s singular position and the dreaded name.

Tull put out a groping hand. The life of his eyes dulled to the gloom with which men of his fear saw the approach of death. But death, while it hovered over him, did not descend, for the rider waited for the twitching fingers, the downward flash of hand that did not come. Tull, gathering himself together, turned to the horses, attended by his pale comrades.

CHAPTER II. COTTONWOODS

VENTERS APPEARED TOO deeply moved to speak the gratitude his face expressed. And Jane turned upon the rescuer and gripped his hands. Her smiles and tears seemingly dazed him. Presently as something like calmness returned, she went to Lassiter’s weary horse.

“I will water him myself,” she said, and she led the horse to a trough under a huge old cottonwood. With nimble fingers she loosened the bridle and removed the bit. The horse snorted and bent his head. The trough was of solid stone, hollowed out, moss-covered and green and wet and cool, and the clear brown water that fed it spouted and splashed from a wooden pipe.

“He has brought you far to-day?”

“Yes, ma’am, a matter of over sixty miles, mebbe seventy.”

“A long ride — a ride that — Ah, he is blind!”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Lassiter.

“What blinded him?”

“Some men once roped an’ tied him, an’ then held white-iron close to his eyes.”

“Oh! Men? You mean devils.... Were they your enemies — Mormons?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“To take revenge on a horse! Lassiter, the men of my creed are unnaturally cruel. To my everlasting sorrow I confess it. They have been driven, hated, scourged till their hearts have hardened. But we women hope and pray for the time when our men will soften.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am — that time will never come.”

“Oh, it will!... Lassiter, do you think Mormon women wicked? Has your hand been against them, too?”

“No. I believe Mormon women are the best and noblest, the most long-sufferin’, and the blindest, unhappiest women on earth.”

“Ah!” She gave him a grave, thoughtful look. “Then you will break bread with me?”

Lassiter had no ready response, and he uneasily shifted his weight from one leg to another, and turned his sombrero round and round in his hands. “Ma’am,” he began, presently, “I reckon your kindness of heart makes you overlook things. Perhaps I ain’t well known hereabouts, but back up North there’s Mormons who’d rest uneasy in their graves at the idea of me sittin’ to table with you.”

“I dare say. But — will you do it, anyway?” she asked.

“Mebbe you have a brother or relative who might drop in an’ be offended, an’ I wouldn’t want to—”

“I’ve not a relative in Utah that I know of. There’s no one with a right to question my actions.” She turned smilingly to Venters. “You will come in, Bern, and Lassiter will come in. We’ll eat and be merry while we may.”

“I’m only wonderin’ if Tull an’ his men’ll raise a storm down in the village,” said Lassiter, in his last weakening stand.

“Yes, he’ll raise the storm — after he has prayed,” replied Jane. “Come.”

She led the way, with the bridle of Lassiter’s horse over her arm. They entered a grove and walked down a wide path shaded by great low-branching cottonwoods. The last rays of the setting sun sent golden bars through the leaves. The grass was deep and rich, welcome contrast to sage-tired eyes. Twittering quail darted across the path, and from a tree-top somewhere a robin sang its evening song, and on the still air floated the freshness and murmur of flowing water.

The home of Jane Withersteen stood in a circle of cottonwoods, and was a flat, long, red-stone structure with a covered court in the center through which flowed a lively stream of amber-colored water. In the massive blocks of stone and heavy timbers and solid doors and shutters showed the hand of a man who had builded against pillage and time; and in the flowers and mosses lining the stone-bedded stream, in the bright colors of rugs and blankets on the court floor, and the cozy corner with hammock and books and the clean-linened table, showed the grace of a daughter who lived for happiness and the day at hand.

Jane turned Lassiter’s horse loose in the thick grass. “You will want him to be near you,” she said, “or I’d have him taken to the alfalfa fields.” At her call appeared women who began at once to bustle about, hurrying to and fro, setting the table. Then Jane, excusing herself, went within.

She passed through a huge low ceiled chamber, like the inside of a fort, and into a smaller one where a bright wood-fire blazed in an old open fireplace, and from this into her own room. It had the same comfort as was manifested in the home-like outer court; moreover, it was warm and rich in soft hues.

Seldom did Jane Withersteen enter her room without looking into her mirror. She knew she loved the reflection of that beauty which since early childhood she had never been allowed to forget. Her relatives and friends, and later a horde of Mormon and Gentile suitors, had fanned the flame of natural vanity in her. So that at twenty-eight she scarcely thought at all of her wonderful influence for good in the little community where her father had left her practically its beneficent landlord, but cared most for the dream and the assurance and the allurement of her beauty. This time, however, she gazed into her glass with more than the usual happy motive, without the usual slight conscious smile. For she was thinking of more than the desire to be fair in her own eyes, in those of her friend; she wondered if she were to seem fair in the eyes of this Lassiter, this man whose name had crossed the long, wild brakes of stone and plains of sage, this gentle-voiced, sad-faced man who was a hater and a killer of Mormons. It was not now her usual half-conscious vain obsession that actuated her as she hurriedly changed her riding-dress to one of white, and then looked long at the stately form with its gracious contours, at the fair face with its strong chin and full firm lips, at the dark-blue, proud, and passionate eyes.

“If by some means I can keep him here a few days, a week — he will never kill another Mormon,” she mused. “Lassiter!... I shudder when I think of that name, of him. But when I look at the man I forget who he is — I almost like him. I remember only that he saved Bern. He has suffered. I wonder what it was — did he love a Mormon woman once? How splendidly he championed us poor misunderstood souls! Somehow he knows — much.”

Jane Withersteen joined her guests and bade them to her board. Dismissing her woman, she waited upon them with her own hands. It was a bountiful supper and a strange company. On her right sat the ragged and half-starved Venters; and though blind eyes could have seen what he counted for in the sum of her happiness, yet he looked the gloomy outcast his allegiance had made him, and about him there was the shadow of the ruin presaged by Tull. On her left sat black-leather-garbed Lassiter looking like a man in a dream. Hunger was not with him, nor composure, nor speech, and when he twisted in frequent unquiet movements the heavy guns that he had not removed knocked against the table-legs. If it had been otherwise possible to forget the presence of Lassiter those telling little jars would have rendered it unlikely. And Jane Withersteen talked and smiled and laughed with all the dazzling play of lips and eyes that a beautiful, daring woman could summon to her purpose.

When the meal ended, and the men pushed back their chairs, she leaned closer to Lassiter and looked square into his eyes.

“Why did you come to Cottonwoods?”

Her question seemed to break a spell. The rider arose as if he had just remembered himself and had tarried longer than his wont.

“Ma’am, I have hunted all over the southern Utah and Nevada for — somethin’. An’ through your name I learned where to find it — here in Cottonwoods.”

“My name! Oh, I remember. You did know my name when you spoke first. Well, tell me where you heard it and from whom?”

“At the little village — Glaze, I think it’s called — some fifty miles or more west of here. An’ I heard it from a Gentile, a rider who said you’d know where to tell me to find—”

“What?” she demanded, imperiously, as Lassiter broke off.

“Milly Erne’s grave,” he answered low, and the words came with a wrench.

Venters wheeled in his chair to regard Lassiter in amazement, and Jane slowly raised herself in white, still wonder.

“Milly Erne’s grave?” she echoed, in a whisper. “What do you know of Milly Erne, my best-beloved friend — who died in my arms? What were you to her?”

“Did I claim to be anythin’?” he inquired. “I know people — relatives — who have long wanted to know where she’s buried, that’s all.”

“Relatives? She never spoke of relatives, except a brother who was shot in Texas. Lassiter, Milly Erne’s grave is in a secret burying-ground on my property.”

“Will you take me there?... You’ll be offendin’ Mormons worse than by breakin’ bread with me.”

“Indeed yes, but I’ll do it. Only we must go unseen. To-morrow, perhaps.”

“Thank you, Jane Withersteen,” replied the rider, and he bowed to her and stepped backward out of the court.

“Will you not stay — sleep under my roof?” she asked.

“No, ma’am, an’ thanks again. I never sleep indoors. An’ even if I did there’s that gatherin’ storm in the village below. No, no. I’ll go to the sage. I hope you won’t suffer none for your kindness to me.”

“Lassiter,” said Venters, with a half-bitter laugh, “my bed too, is the sage. Perhaps we may meet out there.”

“Mebbe so. But the sage is wide an’ I won’t be near. Good night.”

At Lassiter’s low whistle the black horse whinnied, and carefully picked his blind way out of the grove. The rider did not bridle him, but walked beside him, leading him by touch of hand and together they passed slowly into the shade of the cottonwoods.

“Jane, I must be off soon,” said Venters. “Give me my guns. If I’d had my guns—”

“Either my friend or the Elder of my church would be lying dead,” she interposed.

“Tull would be — surely.”

“Oh, you fierce-blooded, savage youth! Can’t I teach you forebearance, mercy? Bern, it’s divine to forgive your enemies. ‘Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath.’”

“Hush! Talk to me no more of mercy or religion — after to-day. To-day this strange coming of Lassiter left me still a man, and now I’ll die a man!... Give me my guns.”

Silently she went into the house, to return with a heavy cartridge-belt and gun-filled sheath and a long rifle; these she handed to him, and as he buckled on the belt she stood before him in silent eloquence.

“Jane,” he said, in gentler voice, “don’t look so. I’m not going out to murder your churchman. I’ll try to avoid him and all his men. But can’t you see I’ve reached the end of my rope? Jane, you’re a wonderful woman. Never was there a woman so unselfish and good. Only you’re blind in one way.... Listen!”

From behind the grove came the clicking sound of horses in a rapid trot.

“Some of your riders,” he continued. “It’s getting time for the night shift. Let us go out to the bench in the grove and talk there.”

It was still daylight in the open, but under the spreading cottonwoods shadows were obscuring the lanes. Venters drew Jane off from one of these into a shrub-lined trail, just wide enough for the two to walk abreast, and in a roundabout way led her far from the house to a knoll on the edge of the grove. Here in a secluded nook was a bench from which, through an opening in the tree-tops, could be seen the sage-slope and the wall of rock and the dim lines of canyons. Jane had not spoken since Venters had shocked her with his first harsh speech; but all the way she had clung to his arm, and now, as he stopped and laid his rifle against the bench, she still clung to him.

“Jane, I’m afraid I must leave you.”

“Bern!” she cried.

“Yes, it looks that way. My position is not a happy one — I can’t feel right — I’ve lost all—”

“I’ll give you anything you—”

“Listen, please. When I say loss I don’t mean what you think. I mean loss of good-will, good name — that which would have enabled me to stand up in this village without bitterness. Well, it’s too late.... Now, as to the future, I think you’d do best to give me up. Tull is implacable. You ought to see from his intention to-day that — But you can’t see. Your blindness — your damned religion!... Jane, forgive me — I’m sore within and something rankles. Well, I fear that invisible hand will turn its hidden work to your ruin.”

“Invisible hand? Bern!”

“I mean your Bishop.” Venters said it deliberately and would not release her as she started back. “He’s the law. The edict went forth to ruin me. Well, look at me! It’ll now go forth to compel you to the will of the Church.”

“You wrong Bishop Dyer. Tull is hard, I know. But then he has been in love with me for years.”

“Oh, your faith and your excuses! You can’t see what I know — and if you did see it you’d not admit it to save your life. That’s the Mormon of you. These elders and bishops will do absolutely any deed to go on building up the power and wealth of their church, their empire. Think of what they’ve done to the Gentiles here, to me — think of Milly Erne’s fate!”

“What do you know of her story?”

“I know enough — all, perhaps, except the name of the Mormon who brought her here. But I must stop this kind of talk.”

She pressed his hand in response. He helped her to a seat beside him on the bench. And he respected a silence that he divined was full of woman’s deep emotion beyond his understanding.

It was the moment when the last ruddy rays of the sunset brightened momentarily before yielding to twilight. And for Venters the outlook before him was in some sense similar to a feeling of his future, and with searching eyes he studied the beautiful purple, barren waste of sage. Here was the unknown and the perilous. The whole scene impressed Venters as a wild, austere, and mighty manifestation of nature. And as it somehow reminded him of his prospect in life, so it suddenly resembled the woman near him, only in her there were greater beauty and peril, a mystery more unsolvable, and something nameless that numbed his heart and dimmed his eye.

“Look! A rider!” exclaimed Jane, breaking the silence. “Can that be Lassiter?”

Venters moved his glance once more to the west. A horseman showed dark on the sky-line, then merged into the color of the sage.

“It might be. But I think not — that fellow was coming in. One of your riders, more likely. Yes, I see him clearly now. And there’s another.”

“I see them, too.”

“Jane, your riders seem as many as the bunches of sage. I ran into five yesterday ‘way down near the trail to Deception Pass. They were with the white herd.”

“You still go to that canyon? Bern, I wish you wouldn’t. Oldring and his rustlers live somewhere down there.”

“Well, what of that?”

“Tull has already hinted to your frequent trips into Deception Pass.”

“I know.” Venters uttered a short laugh. “He’ll make a rustler of me next. But, Jane, there’s no water for fifty miles after I leave here, and the nearest is in the canyon. I must drink and water my horse. There! I see more riders. They are going out.”

“The red herd is on the slope, toward the Pass.”

Twilight was fast falling. A group of horsemen crossed the dark line of low ground to become more distinct as they climbed the slope. The silence broke to a clear call from an incoming rider, and, almost like the peal of a hunting-horn, floated back the answer. The outgoing riders moved swiftly, came sharply into sight as they topped a ridge to show wild and black above the horizon, and then passed down, dimming into the purple of the sage.

“I hope they don’t meet Lassiter,” said Jane.

“So do I,” replied Venters. “By this time the riders of the night shift know what happened to-day. But Lassiter will likely keep out of their way.”

“Bern, who is Lassiter? He’s only a name to me — a terrible name.”

“Who is he? I don’t know, Jane. Nobody I ever met knows him. He talks a little like a Texan, like Milly Erne. Did you note that?”

“Yes. How strange of him to know of her! And she lived here ten years and has been dead two. Bern, what do you know of Lassiter? Tell me what he has done — why you spoke of him to Tull — threatening to become another Lassiter yourself?”

“Jane, I only heard things, rumors, stories, most of which I disbelieved. At Glaze his name was known, but none of the riders or ranchers I knew there ever met him. At Stone Bridge I never heard him mentioned. But at Sterling and villages north of there he was spoken of often. I’ve never been in a village which he had been known to visit. There were many conflicting stories about him and his doings. Some said he had shot up this and that Mormon village, and others denied it. I’m inclined to believe he has, and you know how Mormons hide the truth. But there was one feature about Lassiter upon which all agree — that he was what riders in this country call a gun-man. He’s a man with a marvelous quickness and accuracy in the use of a Colt. And now that I’ve seen him I know more. Lassiter was born without fear. I watched him with eyes which saw him my friend. I’ll never forget the moment I recognized him from what had been told me of his crouch before the draw. It was then I yelled his name. I believe that yell saved Tull’s life. At any rate, I know this, between Tull and death then there was not the breadth of the littlest hair. If he or any of his men had moved a finger downward—”

Venters left his meaning unspoken, but at the suggestion Jane shuddered.

The pale afterglow in the west darkened with the merging of twilight into night. The sage now spread out black and gloomy. One dim star glimmered in the southwest sky. The sound of trotting horses had ceased, and there was silence broken only by a faint, dry pattering of cottonwood leaves in the soft night wind.

Into this peace and calm suddenly broke the high-keyed yelp of a coyote, and from far off in the darkness came the faint answering note of a trailing mate.

“Hello! the sage-dogs are barking,” said Venters.

“I don’t like to hear them,” replied Jane. “At night, sometimes when I lie awake, listening to the long mourn or breaking bark or wild howl, I think of you asleep somewhere in the sage, and my heart aches.”

“Jane, you couldn’t listen to sweeter music, nor could I have a better bed.”

“Just think! Men like Lassiter and you have no home, no comfort, no rest, no place to lay your weary heads. Well!... Let us be patient. Tull’s anger may cool, and time may help us. You might do some service to the village — who can tell? Suppose you discovered the long-unknown hiding-place of Oldring and his band, and told it to my riders? That would disarm Tull’s ugly hints and put you in favor. For years my riders have trailed the tracks of stolen cattle. You know as well as I how dearly we’ve paid for our ranges in this wild country. Oldring drives our cattle down into the network of deceiving canyons, and somewhere far to the north or east he drives them up and out to Utah markets. If you will spend time in Deception Pass try to find the trails.”

“Jane, I’ve thought of that. I’ll try.”

“I must go now. And it hurts, for now I’ll never be sure of seeing you again. But to-morrow, Bern?”

“To-morrow surely. I’ll watch for Lassiter and ride in with him.”

“Good night.”

Then she left him and moved away, a white, gliding shape that soon vanished in the shadows.

Venters waited until the faint slam of a door assured him she had reached the house, and then, taking up his rifle, he noiselessly slipped through the bushes, down the knoll, and on under the dark trees to the edge of the grove. The sky was now turning from gray to blue; stars had begun to lighten the earlier blackness; and from the wide flat sweep before him blew a cool wind, fragrant with the breath of sage. Keeping close to the edge of the cottonwoods, he went swiftly and silently westward. The grove was long, and he had not reached the end when he heard something that brought him to a halt. Low padded thuds told him horses were coming this way. He sank down in the gloom, waiting, listening. Much before he had expected, judging from sound, to his amazement he descried horsemen near at hand. They were riding along the border of the sage, and instantly he knew the hoofs of the horses were muffled. Then the pale starlight afforded him indistinct sight of the riders. But his eyes were keen and used to the dark, and by peering closely he recognized the huge bulk and black-bearded visage of Oldring and the lithe, supple form of the rustler’s lieutenant, a masked rider. They passed on; the darkness swallowed them. Then, farther out on the sage, a dark, compact body of horsemen went by, almost without sound, almost like specters, and they, too, melted into the night.

CHAPTER III. AMBER SPRING

NO UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES was it for Oldring and some of his men to visit Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief was brewing. Moreover, to Venters the presence of the masked rider with Oldring seemed especially ominous. For about this man there was mystery, he seldom rode through the village, and when he did ride through it was swiftly; riders seldom met by day on the sage, but wherever he rode there always followed deeds as dark and mysterious as the mask he wore. Oldring’s band did not confine themselves to the rustling of cattle.

Venters lay low in the shade of the cottonwoods, pondering this chance meeting, and not for many moments did he consider it safe to move on. Then, with sudden impulse, he turned the other way and went back along the grove. When he reached the path leading to Jane’s home he decided to go down to the village. So he hurried onward, with quick soft steps. Once beyond the grove he entered the one and only street. It was wide, lined with tall poplars, and under each row of trees, inside the foot-path, were ditches where ran the water from Jane Withersteen’s spring.

Between the trees twinkled lights of cottage candles, and far down flared bright windows of the village stores. When Venters got closer to these he saw knots of men standing together in earnest conversation. The usual lounging on the corners and benches and steps was not in evidence. Keeping in the shadow Venters went closer and closer until he could hear voices. But he could not distinguish what was said. He recognized many Mormons, and looked hard for Tull and his men, but looked in vain. Venters concluded that the rustlers had not passed along the village street. No doubt these earnest men were discussing Lassiter’s coming. But Venters felt positive that Tull’s intention toward himself that day had not been and would not be revealed.

So Venters, seeing there was little for him to learn, began retracing his steps. The church was dark, Bishop Dyer’s home next to it was also dark, and likewise Tull’s cottage. Upon almost any night at this hour there would be lights here, and Venters marked the unusual omission.

As he was about to pass out of the street to skirt the grove, he once more slunk down at the sound of trotting horses. Presently he descried two mounted men riding toward him. He hugged the shadow of a tree. Again the starlight, brighter now, aided him, and he made out Tull’s stalwart figure, and beside him the short, froglike shape of the rider Jerry. They were silent, and they rode on to disappear.

Venters went his way with busy, gloomy mind, revolving events of the day, trying to reckon those brooding in the night. His thoughts overwhelmed him. Up in that dark grove dwelt a woman who had been his friend. And he skulked about her home, gripping a gun stealthily as an Indian, a man without place or people or purpose. Above her hovered the shadow of grim, hidden, secret power. No queen could have given more royally out of a bounteous store than Jane Withersteen gave her people, and likewise to those unfortunates whom her people hated. She asked only the divine right of all women — freedom; to love and to live as her heart willed. And yet prayer and her hope were vain.

“For years I’ve seen a storm clouding over her and the village of Cottonwoods,” muttered Venters, as he strode on. “Soon it’ll burst. I don’t like the prospects.” That night the villagers whispered in the street — and night-riding rustlers muffled horses — and Tull was at work in secret — and out there in the sage hid a man who meant something terrible — Lassiter!

Venters passed the black cottonwoods, and, entering the sage, climbed the gradual slope. He kept his direction in line with a western star. From time to time he stopped to listen and heard only the usual familiar bark of coyote and sweep of wind and rustle of sage. Presently a low jumble of rocks loomed up darkly somewhat to his right, and, turning that way, he whistled softly. Out of the rocks glided a dog that leaped and whined about him. He climbed over rough, broken rock, picking his way carefully, and then went down. Here it was darker, and sheltered from the wind. A white object guided him. It was another dog, and this one was asleep, curled up between a saddle and a pack. The animal awoke and thumped his tail in greeting. Venters placed the saddle for a pillow, rolled in his blankets, with his face upward to the stars. The white dog snuggled close to him. The other whined and pattered a few yards to the rise of ground and there crouched on guard. And in that wild covert Venters shut his eyes under the great white stars and intense vaulted blue, bitterly comparing their loneliness to his own, and fell asleep.

When he awoke, day had dawned and all about him was bright steel-gray. The air had a cold tang. Arising, he greeted the fawning dogs and stretched his cramped body, and then, gathering together bunches of dead sage sticks, he lighted a fire. Strips of dried beef held to the blaze for a moment served him and the dogs. He drank from a canteen. There was nothing else in his outfit; he had grown used to a scant fire. Then he sat over the fire, palms outspread, and waited. Waiting had been his chief occupation for months, and he scarcely knew what he waited for unless it was the passing of the hours. But now he sensed action in the immediate present; the day promised another meeting with Lassiter and Jane, perhaps news of the rustlers; on the morrow he meant to take the trail to Deception Pass.

And while he waited he talked to his dogs. He called them Ring and Whitie; they were sheep-dogs, half collie, half deerhound, superb in build, perfectly trained. It seemed that in his fallen fortunes these dogs understood the nature of their value to him, and governed their affection and faithfulness accordingly. Whitie watched him with somber eyes of love, and Ring, crouched on the little rise of ground above, kept tireless guard. When the sun rose, the white dog took the place of the other, and Ring went to sleep at his master’s feet.

By and by Venters rolled up his blankets and tied them and his meager pack together, then climbed out to look for his horse. He saw him, presently, a little way off in the sage, and went to fetch him. In that country, where every rider boasted of a fine mount and was eager for a race, where thoroughbreds dotted the wonderful grazing ranges, Venters rode a horse that was sad proof of his misfortunes.

Then, with his back against a stone, Venters faced the east, and, stick in hand and idle blade, he waited. The glorious sunlight filled the valley with purple fire. Before him, to left, to right, waving, rolling, sinking, rising, like low swells of a purple sea, stretched the sage. Out of the grove of cottonwoods, a green patch on the purple, gleamed the dull red of Jane Withersteen’s old stone house. And from there extended the wide green of the village gardens and orchards marked by the graceful poplars; and farther down shone the deep, dark richness of the alfalfa fields. Numberless red and black and white dots speckled the sage, and these were cattle and horses.

So, watching and waiting, Venters let the time wear away. At length he saw a horse rise above a ridge, and he knew it to be Lassiter’s black. Climbing to the highest rock, so that he would show against the sky-line, he stood and waved his hat. The almost instant turning of Lassiter’s horse attested to the quickness of that rider’s eye. Then Venters climbed down, saddled his horse, tied on his pack, and, with a word to his dogs, was about to ride out to meet Lassiter, when he concluded to wait for him there, on higher ground, where the outlook was commanding.

It had been long since Venters had experienced friendly greeting from a man. Lassiter’s warmed in him something that had grown cold from neglect. And when he had returned it, with a strong grip of the iron hand that held his, and met the gray eyes, he knew that Lassiter and he were to be friends.

“Venters, let’s talk awhile before we go down there,” said Lassiter, slipping his bridle. “I ain’t in no hurry. Them’s sure fine dogs you’ve got.” With a rider’s eye he took in the points of Venter’s horse, but did not speak his thought. “Well, did anythin’ come off after I left you last night?”

Venters told him about the rustlers.

“I was snug hid in the sage,” replied Lassiter, “an’ didn’t see or hear no one. Oldrin’s got a high hand here, I reckon. It’s no news up in Utah how he holes in canyons an’ leaves no track.” Lassiter was silent a moment. “Me an’ Oldrin’ wasn’t exactly strangers some years back when he drove cattle into Bostil’s Ford, at the head of the Rio Virgin. But he got harassed there an’ now he drives some place else.”

“Lassiter, you knew him? Tell me, is he Mormon or Gentile?”

“I can’t say. I’ve knowed Mormons who pretended to be Gentiles.”

“No Mormon ever pretended that unless he was a rustler,” declared Venters.

“Mebbe so.”

“It’s a hard country for any one, but hardest for Gentiles. Did you ever know or hear of a Gentile prospering in a Mormon community?”

“I never did.”

“Well, I want to get out of Utah. I’ve a mother living in Illinois. I want to go home. It’s eight years now.”

The older man’s sympathy moved Venters to tell his story. He had left Quincy, run off to seek his fortune in the gold fields had never gotten any farther than Salt Lake City, wandered here and there as helper, teamster, shepherd, and drifted southward over the divide and across the barrens and up the rugged plateau through the passes to the last border settlements. Here he became a rider of the sage, had stock of his own, and for a time prospered, until chance threw him in the employ of Jane Withersteen.

“Lassiter, I needn’t tell you the rest.”

“Well, it’d be no news to me. I know Mormons. I’ve seen their women’s strange love en’ patience en’ sacrifice an’ silence en’ whet I call madness for their idea of God. An’ over against that I’ve seen the tricks of men. They work hand in hand, all together, an’ in the dark. No man can hold out against them, unless he takes to packin’ guns. For Mormons are slow to kill. That’s the only good I ever seen in their religion. Venters, take this from me, these Mormons ain’t just right in their minds. Else could a Mormon marry one woman when he already has a wife, an’ call it duty?”

“Lassiter, you think as I think,” returned Venters.

“How’d it come then that you never throwed a gun on Tull or some of them?” inquired the rider, curiously.

“Jane pleaded with me, begged me to be patient, to overlook. She even took my guns from me. I lost all before I knew it,” replied Venters, with the red color in his face. “But, Lassiter, listen. Out of the wreck I saved a Winchester, two Colts, and plenty of shells. I packed these down into Deception Pass. There, almost every day for six months, I have practiced with my rifle till the barrel burnt my hands. Practised the draw — the firing of a Colt, hour after hour!”

“Now that’s interestin’ to me,” said Lassiter, with a quick uplift of his head and a concentration of his gray gaze on Venters. “Could you throw a gun before you began that practisin’?”

“Yes. And now...” Venters made a lightning-swift movement.

Lassiter smiled, and then his bronzed eyelids narrowed till his eyes seemed mere gray slits. “You’ll kill Tull!” He did not question; he affirmed.

“I promised Jane Withersteen I’d try to avoid Tull. I’ll keep my word. But sooner or later Tull and I will meet. As I feel now, if he even looks at me I’ll draw!”

“I reckon so. There’ll be hell down there, presently.” He paused a moment and flicked a sage-brush with his quirt. “Venters, seein’ as you’re considerable worked up, tell me Milly Erne’s story.”

Venters’s agitation stilled to the trace of suppressed eagerness in Lassiter’s query.

“Milly Erne’s story? Well, Lassiter, I’ll tell you what I know. Milly Erne had been in Cottonwoods years when I first arrived there, and most of what I tell you happened before my arrival. I got to know her pretty well. She was a slip of a woman, and crazy on religion. I conceived an idea that I never mentioned — I thought she was at heart more Gentile than Mormon. But she passed as a Mormon, and certainly she had the Mormon woman’s locked lips. You know, in every Mormon village there are women who seem mysterious to us, but about Milly there was more than the ordinary mystery. When she came to Cottonwoods she had a beautiful little girl whom she loved passionately. Milly was not known openly in Cottonwoods as a Mormon wife. That she really was a Mormon wife I have no doubt. Perhaps the Mormon’s other wife or wives would not acknowledge Milly. Such things happen in these villages. Mormon wives wear yokes, but they get jealous. Well, whatever had brought Milly to this country — love or madness of religion — she repented of it. She gave up teaching the village school. She quit the church. And she began to fight Mormon upbringing for her baby girl. Then the Mormons put on the screws — slowly, as is their way. At last the child disappeared. ‘Lost’ was the report. The child was stolen, I know that. So do you. That wrecked Milly Erne. But she lived on in hope. She became a slave. She worked her heart and soul and life out to get back her child. She never heard of it again. Then she sank.... I can see her now, a frail thing, so transparent you could almost look through her — white like ashes — and her eyes!... Her eyes have always haunted me. She had one real friend — Jane Withersteen. But Jane couldn’t mend a broken heart, and Milly died.”

For moments Lassiter did not speak, or turn his head.

“The man!” he exclaimed, presently, in husky accents.

“I haven’t the slightest idea who the Mormon was,” replied Venters; “nor has any Gentile in Cottonwoods.”

“Does Jane Withersteen know?”

“Yes. But a red-hot running-iron couldn’t burn that name out of her!”

Without further speech Lassiter started off, walking his horse and Venters followed with his dogs. Half a mile down the slope they entered a luxuriant growth of willows, and soon came into an open space carpeted with grass like deep green velvet. The rushing of water and singing of birds filled their ears. Venters led his comrade to a shady bower and showed him Amber Spring. It was a magnificent outburst of clear, amber water pouring from a dark, stone-lined hole. Lassiter knelt and drank, lingered there to drink again. He made no comment, but Venters did not need words. Next to his horse a rider of the sage loved a spring. And this spring was the most beautiful and remarkable known to the upland riders of southern Utah. It was the spring that made old Withersteen a feudal lord and now enabled his daughter to return the toll which her father had exacted from the toilers of the sage.

The spring gushed forth in a swirling torrent, and leaped down joyously to make its swift way along a willow-skirted channel. Moss and ferns and lilies overhung its green banks. Except for the rough-hewn stones that held and directed the water, this willow thicket and glade had been left as nature had made it.

Below were artificial lakes, three in number, one above the other in banks of raised earth, and round about them rose the lofty green-foliaged shafts of poplar trees. Ducks dotted the glassy surface of the lakes; a blue heron stood motionless on a water-gate; kingfishers darted with shrieking flight along the shady banks; a white hawk sailed above; and from the trees and shrubs came the song of robins and cat-birds. It was all in strange contrast to the endless slopes of lonely sage and the wild rock environs beyond. Venters thought of the woman who loved the birds and the green of the leaves and the murmur of the water.

Next on the slope, just below the third and largest lake, were corrals and a wide stone barn and open sheds and coops and pens. Here were clouds of dust, and cracking sounds of hoofs, and romping colts and heehawing burros. Neighing horses trampled to the corral fences. And on the little windows of the barn projected bobbing heads of bays and blacks and sorrels. When the two men entered the immense barnyard, from all around the din increased. This welcome, however, was not seconded by the several men and boys who vanished on sight.

Venters and Lassiter were turning toward the house when Jane appeared in the lane leading a horse. In riding-skirt and blouse she seemed to have lost some of her statuesque proportions, and looked more like a girl rider than the mistress of Withersteen. She was brightly smiling, and her greeting was warmly cordial.

“Good news,” she announced. “I’ve been to the village. All is quiet. I expected — I don’t know what. But there’s no excitement. And Tull has ridden out on his way to Glaze.”

“Tull gone?” inquired Venters, with surprise. He was wondering what could have taken Tull away. Was it to avoid another meeting with Lassiter that he went? Could it have any connection with the probable nearness of Oldring and his gang?

“Gone, yes, thank goodness,” replied Jane. “Now I’ll have peace for a while. Lassiter, I want you to see my horses. You are a rider, and you must be a judge of horseflesh. Some of mine have Arabian blood. My father got his best strain in Nevada from Indians who claimed their horses were bred down from the original stock left by the Spaniards.”

“Well, ma’am, the one you’ve been ridin’ takes my eye,” said Lassiter, as he walked round the racy, clean-limbed, and fine-pointed roan.

“Where are the boys?” she asked, looking about. “Jerd, Paul, where are you? Here, bring out the horses.”

The sound of dropping bars inside the barn was the signal for the horses to jerk their heads in the windows, to snort and stamp. Then they came pounding out of the door, a file of thoroughbreds, to plunge about the barnyard, heads and tails up, manes flying. They halted afar off, squared away to look, came slowly forward with whinnies for their mistress, and doubtful snorts for the strangers and their horses.

“Come — come — come,” called Jane, holding out her hands. “Why, Bells — Wrangle, where are your manners? Come, Black Star — come, Night. Ah, you beauties! My racers of the sage!”

Only two came up to her; those she called Night and Black Star. Venters never looked at them without delight. The first was soft dead black, the other glittering black, and they were perfectly matched in size, both being high and long-bodied, wide through the shoulders, with lithe, powerful legs. That they were a woman’s pets showed in the gloss of skin, the fineness of mane. It showed, too, in the light of big eyes and the gentle reach of eagerness.

“I never seen their like,” was Lassiter’s encomium, “an’ in my day I’ve seen a sight of horses. Now, ma’am, if you was wantin’ to make a long an’ fast ride across the sage — say to elope—”

Lassiter ended there with dry humor, yet behind that was meaning. Jane blushed and made arch eyes at him.

“Take care, Lassiter, I might think that a proposal,” she replied, gaily. “It’s dangerous to propose elopement to a Mormon woman. Well, I was expecting you. Now will be a good hour to show you Milly Erne’s grave. The day-riders have gone, and the night-riders haven’t come in. Bern, what do you make of that? Need I worry? You know I have to be made to worry.”

“Well, it’s not usual for the night shift to ride in so late,” replied Venters, slowly, and his glance sought Lassiter’s. “Cattle are usually quiet after dark. Still, I’ve known even a coyote to stampede your white herd.”

“I refuse to borrow trouble. Come,” said Jane.

They mounted, and, with Jane in the lead, rode down the lane, and, turning off into a cattle trail, proceeded westward. Venters’s dogs trotted behind them. On this side of the ranch the outlook was different from that on the other; the immediate foreground was rough and the sage more rugged and less colorful; there were no dark-blue lines of canyons to hold the eye, nor any uprearing rock walls. It was a long roll and slope into gray obscurity. Soon Jane left the trail and rode into the sage, and presently she dismounted and threw her bridle. The men did likewise. Then, on foot, they followed her, coming out at length on the rim of a low escarpment. She passed by several little ridges of earth to halt before a faintly defined mound. It lay in the shade of a sweeping sage-brush close to the edge of the promontory; and a rider could have jumped his horse over it without recognizing a grave.

“Here!”

She looked sad as she spoke, but she offered no explanation for the neglect of an unmarked, uncared-for grave. There was a little bunch of pale, sweet lavender daisies, doubtless planted there by Jane.

“I only come here to remember and to pray,” she said. “But I leave no trail!”

A grave in the sage! How lonely this resting-place of Milly Erne! The cottonwoods or the alfalfa fields were not in sight, nor was there any rock or ridge or cedar to lend contrast to the monotony. Gray slopes, tinging the purple, barren and wild, with the wind waving the sage, swept away to the dim horizon.

Lassiter looked at the grave and then out into space. At that moment he seemed a figure of bronze.

Jane touched Venters’s arm and led him back to the horses.

“Bern!” cried Jane, when they were out of hearing. “Suppose Lassiter were Milly’s husband — the father of that little girl lost so long ago!”

“It might be, Jane. Let us ride on. If he wants to see us again he’ll come.”

So they mounted and rode out to the cattle trail and began to climb. From the height of the ridge, where they had started down, Venters looked back. He did not see Lassiter, but his glance, drawn irresistibly farther out on the gradual slope, caught sight of a moving cloud of dust.

“Hello, a rider!”

“Yes, I see,” said Jane.

“That fellow’s riding hard. Jane, there’s something wrong.”

“Oh yes, there must be.... How he rides!”

The horse disappeared in the sage, and then puffs of dust marked his course.

“He’s short-cut on us — he’s making straight for the corrals.”

Venters and Jane galloped their steeds and reined in at the turning of the lane. This lane led down to the right of the grove. Suddenly into its lower entrance flashed a bay horse. Then Venters caught the fast rhythmic beat of pounding hoofs. Soon his keen eye recognized the swing of the rider in his saddle.

“It’s Judkins, your Gentile rider!” he cried. “Jane, when Judkins rides like that it means hell!”

CHAPTER IV. DECEPTION PASS

THE RIDER THUNDERED up and almost threw his foam-flecked horse in the sudden stop. He was a giant form, and with fearless eyes.

“Judkins, you’re all bloody!” cried Jane, in affright. “Oh, you’ve been shot!”

“Nothin’ much Miss Withersteen. I got a nick in the shoulder. I’m some wet an’ the hoss’s been throwin’ lather, so all this ain’t blood.”

“What’s up?” queried Venters, sharply.

“Rustlers sloped off with the red herd.”

“Where are my riders?” demanded Jane.

“Miss Withersteen, I was alone all night with the herd. At daylight this mornin’ the rustlers rode down. They began to shoot at me on sight. They chased me hard an’ far, burnin’ powder all the time, but I got away.”

“Jud, they meant to kill you,” declared Venters.

“Now I wonder,” returned Judkins. “They wanted me bad. An’ it ain’t regular for rustlers to waste time chasin’ one rider.”

“Thank heaven you got away,” said Jane. “But my riders — where are they?”

“I don’t know. The night-riders weren’t there last night when I rode down, en’ this mornin’ I met no day-riders.”

“Judkins! Bern, they’ve been set upon — killed by Oldring’s men!”

“I don’t think so,” replied Venters, decidedly. “Jane, your riders haven’t gone out in the sage.”

“Bern, what do you mean?” Jane Withersteen turned deathly pale.

“You remember what I said about the unseen hand?”

“Oh!... Impossible!”

“I hope so. But I fear—” Venters finished, with a shake of his head.

“Bern, you’re bitter; but that’s only natural. We’ll wait to see what’s happened to my riders. Judkins, come to the house with me. Your wound must be attended to.”

“Jane, I’ll find out where Oldring drives the herd,” vowed Venters.

“No, no! Bern, don’t risk it now — when the rustlers are in such shooting mood.”

“I’m going. Jud, how many cattle in that red herd?”

“Twenty-five hundred head.”

“Whew! What on earth can Oldring do with so many cattle? Why, a hundred head is a big steal. I’ve got to find out.”

“Don’t go,” implored Jane.

“Bern, you want a hoss thet can run. Miss Withersteen, if it’s not too bold of me to advise, make him take a fast hoss or don’t let him go.”

“Yes, yes, Judkins. He must ride a horse that can’t be caught. Which one — Black Star — Night?”

“Jane, I won’t take either,” said Venters, emphatically. “I wouldn’t risk losing one of your favorites.”

“Wrangle, then?”

“Thet’s the hoss,” replied Judkins. “Wrangle can outrun Black Star an’ Night. You’d never believe it, Miss Withersteen, but I know. Wrangle’s the biggest en’ fastest hoss on the sage.”

“Oh no, Wrangle can’t beat Black Star. But, Bern, take Wrangle if you will go. Ask Jerd for anything you need. Oh, be watchful, careful.... God speed you.”

She clasped his hand, turned quickly away, and went down a lane with the rider.

Venters rode to the barn, and, leaping off, shouted for Jerd. The boy came running. Venters sent him for meat, bread, and dried fruits, to be packed in saddlebags. His own horse he turned loose into the nearest corral. Then he went for Wrangle. The giant sorrel had earned his name for a trait the opposite of amiability. He came readily out of the barn, but once in the yard he broke from Venters, and plunged about with ears laid back. Venters had to rope him, and then he kicked down a section of fence, stood on his hind legs, crashed down and fought the rope. Jerd returned to lend a hand.

“Wrangle don’t git enough work,” said Jerd, as the big saddle went on. “He’s unruly when he’s corralled, an’ wants to run. Wait till he smells the sage!”

“Jerd, this horse is an iron-jawed devil. I never straddled him but once. Run? Say, he’s swift as wind!”

When Venters’s boot touched the stirrup the sorrel bolted, giving him the rider’s flying mount. The swing of this fiery horse recalled to Venters days that were not really long past, when he rode into the sage as the leader of Jane Withersteen’s riders. Wrangle pulled hard on a tight rein. He galloped out of the lane, down the shady border of the grove, and hauled up at the watering-trough, where he pranced and champed his bit. Venters got off and filled his canteen while the horse drank. The dogs, Ring and Whitie, came trotting up for their drink. Then Venters remounted and turned Wrangle toward the sage.

A wide, white trail wound away down the slope. One keen, sweeping glance told Venters that there was neither man nor horse nor steer within the limit of his vision, unless they were lying down in the sage. Ring loped in the lead and Whitie loped in the rear. Wrangle settled gradually into an easy swinging canter, and Venters’s thoughts, now that the rush and flurry of the start were past, and the long miles stretched before him, reverted to a calm reckoning of late singular coincidences.

There was the night ride of Tull’s, which, viewed in the light of subsequent events, had a look of his covert machinations; Oldring and his Masked Rider and his rustlers riding muffled horses; the report that Tull had ridden out that morning with his man Jerry on the trail to Glaze, the strange disappearance of Jane Withersteen’s riders, the unusually determined attempt to kill the one Gentile still in her employ, an intention frustrated, no doubt, only by Judkin’s magnificent riding of her racer, and lastly the driving of the red herd. These events, to Venters’s color of mind, had a dark relationship. Remembering Jane’s accusation of bitterness, he tried hard to put aside his rancor in judging Tull. But it was bitter knowledge that made him see the truth. He had felt the shadow of an unseen hand; he had watched till he saw its dim outline, and then he had traced it to a man’s hate, to the rivalry of a Mormon Elder, to the power of a Bishop, to the long, far-reaching arm of a terrible creed. That unseen hand had made its first move against Jane Withersteen. Her riders had been called in, leaving her without help to drive seven thousand head of cattle. But to Venters it seemed extraordinary that the power which had called in these riders had left so many cattle to be driven by rustlers and harried by wolves. For hand in glove with that power was an insatiate greed; they were one and the same.

“What can Oldring do with twenty-five hundred head of cattle?” muttered Venters. “Is he a Mormon? Did he meet Tull last night? It looks like a black plot to me. But Tull and his churchmen wouldn’t ruin Jane Withersteen unless the Church was to profit by that ruin. Where does Oldring come in? I’m going to find out about these things.”

Wrangle did the twenty-five miles in three hours and walked little of the way. When he had gotten warmed up he had been allowed to choose his own gait. The afternoon had well advanced when Venters struck the trail of the red herd and found where it had grazed the night before. Then Venters rested the horse and used his eyes. Near at hand were a cow and a calf and several yearlings, and farther out in the sage some straggling steers. He caught a glimpse of coyotes skulking near the cattle. The slow sweeping gaze of the rider failed to find other living things within the field of sight. The sage about him was breast-high to his horse, oversweet with its warm, fragrant breath, gray where it waved to the light, darker where the wind left it still, and beyond the wonderful haze-purple lent by distance. Far across that wide waste began the slow lift of uplands through which Deception Pass cut its tortuous many-canyoned way.

Venters raised the bridle of his horse and followed the broad cattle trail. The crushed sage resembled the path of a monster snake. In a few miles of travel he passed several cows and calves that had escaped the drive. Then he stood on the last high bench of the slope with the floor of the valley beneath. The opening of the canyon showed in a break of the sage, and the cattle trail paralleled it as far as he could see. That trail led to an undiscovered point where Oldring drove cattle into the pass, and many a rider who had followed it had never returned. Venters satisfied himself that the rustlers had not deviated from their usual course, and then he turned at right angles off the cattle trail and made for the head of the pass.

The sun lost its heat and wore down to the western horizon, where it changed from white to gold and rested like a huge ball about to roll on its golden shadows down the slope. Venters watched the lengthening of the rays and bars, and marveled at his own league-long shadow. The sun sank. There was instant shading of brightness about him, and he saw a kind of cold purple bloom creep ahead of him to cross the canyon, to mount the opposite slope and chase and darken and bury the last golden flare of sunlight.

Venters rode into a trail that he always took to get down into the canyon. He dismounted and found no tracks but his own made days previous. Nevertheless he sent the dog Ring ahead and waited. In a little while Ring returned. Whereupon Venters led his horse on to the break in the ground.

The opening into Deception Pass was one of the remarkable natural phenomena in a country remarkable for vast slopes of sage, uplands insulated by gigantic red walls, and deep canyons of mysterious source and outlet. Here the valley floor was level, and here opened a narrow chasm, a ragged vent in yellow walls of stone. The trail down the five hundred feet of sheer depth always tested Venters’s nerve. It was bad going for even a burro. But Wrangle, as Venters led him, snorted defiance or disgust rather than fear, and, like a hobbled horse on the jump, lifted his ponderous iron-shod fore hoofs and crashed down over the first rough step. Venters warmed to greater admiration of the sorrel; and, giving him a loose bridle, he stepped down foot by foot. Oftentimes the stones and shale started by Wrangle buried Venters to his knees; again he was hard put to it to dodge a rolling boulder, there were times when he could not see Wrangle for dust, and once he and the horse rode a sliding shelf of yellow, weathered cliff. It was a trail on which there could be no stops, and, therefore, if perilous, it was at least one that did not take long in the descent.

Venters breathed lighter when that was over, and felt a sudden assurance in the success of his enterprise. For at first it had been a reckless determination to achieve something at any cost, and now it resolved itself into an adventure worthy of all his reason and cunning, and keenness of eye and ear.

Pinyon pines clustered in little clumps along the level floor of the pass. Twilight had gathered under the walls. Venters rode into the trail and up the canyon. Gradually the trees and caves and objects low down turned black, and this blackness moved up the walls till night enfolded the pass, while day still lingered above. The sky darkened; and stars began to show, at first pale and then bright. Sharp notches of the rim-wall, biting like teeth into the blue, were landmarks by which Venters knew where his camping site lay. He had to feel his way through a thicket of slender oaks to a spring where he watered Wrangle and drank himself. Here he unsaddled and turned Wrangle loose, having no fear that the horse would leave the thick, cool grass adjacent to the spring. Next he satisfied his own hunger, fed Ring and Whitie and, with them curled beside him, composed himself to await sleep.

There had been a time when night in the high altitude of these Utah uplands had been satisfying to Venters. But that was before the oppression of enemies had made the change in his mind. As a rider guarding the herd he had never thought of the night’s wildness and loneliness; as an outcast, now when the full silence set in, and the deep darkness, and trains of radiant stars shone cold and calm, he lay with an ache in his heart. For a year he had lived as a black fox, driven from his kind. He longed for the sound of a voice, the touch of a hand. In the daytime there was riding from place to place, and the gun practice to which something drove him, and other tasks that at least necessitated action, at night, before he won sleep, there was strife in his soul. He yearned to leave the endless sage slopes, the wilderness of canyons, and it was in the lonely night that this yearning grew unbearable. It was then that he reached forth to feel Ring or Whitie, immeasurably grateful for the love and companionship of two dogs.

On this night the same old loneliness beset Venters, the old habit of sad thought and burning unquiet had its way. But from it evolved a conviction that his useless life had undergone a subtle change. He had sensed it first when Wrangle swung him up to the high saddle, he knew it now when he lay in the gateway of Deception Pass. He had no thrill of adventure, rather a gloomy perception of great hazard, perhaps death. He meant to find Oldring’s retreat. The rustlers had fast horses, but none that could catch Wrangle. Venters knew no rustler could creep upon him at night when Ring and Whitie guarded his hiding-place. For the rest, he had eyes and ears, and a long rifle and an unerring aim, which he meant to use. Strangely his foreshadowing of change did not hold a thought of the killing of Tull. It related only to what was to happen to him in Deception Pass; and he could no more lift the veil of that mystery than tell where the trails led to in that unexplored canyon. Moreover, he did not care. And at length, tired out by stress of thought, he fell asleep.

When his eyes unclosed, day had come again, and he saw the rim of the opposite wall tipped with the gold of sunrise. A few moments sufficed for the morning’s simple camp duties. Near at hand he found Wrangle, and to his surprise the horse came to him. Wrangle was one of the horses that left his viciousness in the home corral. What he wanted was to be free of mules and burros and steers, to roll in dust-patches, and then to run down the wide, open, windy sage-plains, and at night browse and sleep in the cool wet grass of a springhole. Jerd knew the sorrel when he said of him, “Wait till he smells the sage!”

Venters saddled and led him out of the oak thicket, and, leaping astride, rode up the canyon, with Ring and Whitie trotting behind. An old grass-grown trail followed the course of a shallow wash where flowed a thin stream of water. The canyon was a hundred rods wide, its yellow walls were perpendicular; it had abundant sage and a scant growth of oak and pinon. For five miles it held to a comparatively straight bearing, and then began a heightening of rugged walls and a deepening of the floor. Beyond this point of sudden change in the character of the canyon Venters had never explored, and here was the real door to the intricacies of Deception Pass.

He reined Wrangle to a walk, halted now and then to listen, and then proceeded cautiously with shifting and alert gaze. The canyon assumed proportions that dwarfed those of its first ten miles. Venters rode on and on, not losing in the interest of his wide surroundings any of his caution or keen search for tracks or sight of living thing. If there ever had been a trail here, he could not find it. He rode through sage and clumps of pinon trees and grassy plots where long-petaled purple lilies bloomed. He rode through a dark constriction of the pass no wider than the lane in the grove at Cottonwoods. And he came out into a great amphitheater into which jutted huge towering corners of a confluence of intersecting canyons.

Venters sat his horse, and, with a rider’s eye, studied this wild cross-cut of huge stone gullies. Then he went on, guided by the course of running water. If it had not been for the main stream of water flowing north he would never have been able to tell which of those many openings was a continuation of the pass. In crossing this amphitheater he went by the mouths of five canyons, fording little streams that flowed into the larger one. Gaining the outlet which he took to be the pass, he rode on again under over hanging walls. One side was dark in shade, the other light in sun. This narrow passageway turned and twisted and opened into a valley that amazed Venters.

Here again was a sweep of purple sage, richer than upon the higher levels. The valley was miles long, several wide, and inclosed by unscalable walls. But it was the background of this valley that so forcibly struck him. Across the sage-flat rose a strange up-flinging of yellow rocks. He could not tell which were close and which were distant. Scrawled mounds of stone, like mountain waves, seemed to roll up to steep bare slopes and towers.

In this plain of sage Venters flushed birds and rabbits, and when he had proceeded about a mile he caught sight of the bobbing white tails of a herd of running antelope. He rode along the edge of the stream which wound toward the western end of the slowly looming mounds of stone. The high slope retreated out of sight behind the nearer protection. To Venters the valley appeared to have been filled in by a mountain of melted stone that had hardened in strange shapes of rounded outline. He followed the stream till he lost it in a deep cut. Therefore Venters quit the dark slit which baffled further search in that direction, and rode out along the curved edge of stone where it met the sage. It was not long before he came to a low place, and here Wrangle readily climbed up.

All about him was ridgy roll of wind-smoothed, rain-washed rock. Not a tuft of grass or a bunch of sage colored the dull rust-yellow. He saw where, to the right, this uneven flow of stone ended in a blunt wall. Leftward, from the hollow that lay at his feet, mounted a gradual slow-swelling slope to a great height topped by leaning, cracked, and ruined crags. Not for some time did he grasp the wonder of that acclivity. It was no less than a mountain-side, glistening in the sun like polished granite, with cedar-trees springing as if by magic out of the denuded surface. Winds had swept it clear of weathered shale, and rains had washed it free of dust. Far up the curved slope its beautiful lines broke to meet the vertical rim-wall, to lose its grace in a different order and color of rock, a stained yellow cliff of cracks and caves and seamed crags. And straight before Venters was a scene less striking but more significant to his keen survey. For beyond a mile of the bare, hummocky rock began the valley of sage, and the mouths of canyons, one of which surely was another gateway into the pass.

He got off his horse, and, giving the bridle to Ring to hold, he commenced a search for the cleft where the stream ran. He was not successful and concluded the water dropped into an underground passage. Then he returned to where he had left Wrangle, and led him down off the stone to the sage. It was a short ride to the opening canyons. There was no reason for a choice of which one to enter. The one he rode into was a clear, sharp shaft in yellow stone a thousand feet deep, with wonderful wind-worn caves low down and high above buttressed and turreted ramparts. Farther on Venters came into a region where deep indentations marked the line of canyon walls. These were huge, cove-like blind pockets extending back to a sharp corner with a dense growth of underbrush and trees.

Venters penetrated into one of these offshoots, and, as he had hoped, he found abundant grass. He had to bend the oak saplings to get his horse through. Deciding to make this a hiding-place if he could find water, he worked back to the limit of the shelving walls. In a little cluster of silver spruces he found a spring. This inclosed nook seemed an ideal place to leave his horse and to camp at night, and from which to make stealthy trips on foot. The thick grass hid his trail; the dense growth of oaks in the opening would serve as a barrier to keep Wrangle in, if, indeed, the luxuriant browse would not suffice for that. So Venters, leaving Whitie with the horse, called Ring to his side, and, rifle in hand, worked his way out to the open. A careful photographing in mind of the formation of the bold outlines of rimrock assured him he would be able to return to his retreat even in the dark.

Bunches of scattered sage covered the center of the canyon, and among these Venters threaded his way with the step of an Indian. At intervals he put his hand on the dog and stopped to listen. There was a drowsy hum of insects, but no other sound disturbed the warm midday stillness. Venters saw ahead a turn, more abrupt than any yet. Warily he rounded this corner, once again to halt bewildered.

The canyon opened fan-shaped into a great oval of green and gray growths. It was the hub of an oblong wheel, and from it, at regular distances, like spokes, ran the outgoing canyons. Here a dull red color predominated over the fading yellow. The corners of wall bluntly rose, scarred and scrawled, to taper into towers and serrated peaks and pinnacled domes.

Venters pushed on more heedfully than ever. Toward the center of this circle the sage-brush grew smaller and farther apart He was about to sheer off to the right, where thickets and jumbles of fallen rock would afford him cover, when he ran right upon a broad cattle trail. Like a road it was, more than a trail, and the cattle tracks were fresh. What surprised him more, they were wet! He pondered over this feature. It had not rained. The only solution to this puzzle was that the cattle had been driven through water, and water deep enough to wet their legs.

Suddenly Ring growled low. Venters rose cautiously and looked over the sage. A band of straggling horsemen were riding across the oval. He sank down, startled and trembling. “Rustlers!” he muttered. Hurriedly he glanced about for a place to hide. Near at hand there was nothing but sage-brush. He dared not risk crossing the open patches to reach the rocks. Again he peeped over the sage. The rustlers — four — five — seven — eight in all, were approaching, but not directly in line with him. That was relief for a cold deadness which seemed to be creeping inward along his veins. He crouched down with bated breath and held the bristling dog.

He heard the click of iron-shod hoofs on stone, the coarse laughter of men, and then voices gradually dying away. Long moments passed. Then he rose. The rustlers were riding into a canyon. Their horses were tired, and they had several pack animals; evidently they had traveled far. Venters doubted that they were the rustlers who had driven the red herd. Olding’s band had split. Venters watched these horsemen disappear under a bold canyon wall.

The rustlers had come from the northwest side of the oval. Venters kept a steady gaze in that direction, hoping, if there were more, to see from what canyon they rode. A quarter of an hour went by. Reward for his vigilance came when he descried three more mounted men, far over to the north. But out of what canyon they had ridden it was too late to tell. He watched the three ride across the oval and round the jutting red corner where the others had gone.

“Up that canyon!” exclaimed Venters. “Oldring’s den! I’ve found it!”

A knotty point for Venters was the fact that the cattle tracks all pointed west. The broad trail came from the direction of the canyon into which the rustlers had ridden, and undoubtedly the cattle had been driven out of it across the oval. There were no tracks pointing the other way. It had been in his mind that Oldring had driven the red herd toward the rendezvous, and not from it. Where did that broad trail come down into the pass, and where did it lead? Venters knew he wasted time in pondering the question, but it held a fascination not easily dispelled. For many years Oldring’s mysterious entrance and exit to Deception Pass had been all-absorbing topics to sage-riders.

All at once the dog put an end to Venters’s pondering. Ring sniffed the air, turned slowly in his tracks with a whine, and then growled. Venters wheeled. Two horsemen were within a hundred yards, coming straight at him. One, lagging behind the other, was Oldring’s Masked Rider.

Venters cunningly sank, slowly trying to merge into sage-brush. But, guarded as his action was, the first horse detected it. He stopped short, snorted, and shot up his ears. The rustler bent forward, as if keenly peering ahead. Then, with a swift sweep, he jerked a gun from its sheath and fired.

The bullet zipped through the sage-brush. Flying bits of wood struck Venters, and the hot, stinging pain seemed to lift him in one leap. Like a flash the blue barrel of his rifle gleamed level and he shot once — twice.

The foremost rustler dropped his weapon and toppled from his saddle, to fall with his foot catching in a stirrup. The horse snorted wildly and plunged away, dragging the rustler through the sage.

The Masked Rider huddled over his pommel slowly swaying to one side, and then, with a faint, strange cry, slipped out of the saddle.

CHAPTER V. THE MASKED RIDER

VENTERS LOOKED QUICKLY from the fallen rustlers to the canyon where the others had disappeared. He calculated on the time needed for running horses to return to the open, if their riders heard shots. He waited breathlessly. But the estimated time dragged by and no riders appeared. Venters began presently to believe that the rifle reports had not penetrated into the recesses of the canyon, and felt safe for the immediate present.

He hurried to the spot where the first rustler had been dragged by his horse. The man lay in deep grass, dead, jaw fallen, eyes protruding — a sight that sickened Venters. The first man at whom he had ever aimed a weapon he had shot through the heart. With the clammy sweat oozing from every pore Venters dragged the rustler in among some boulders and covered him with slabs of rock. Then he smoothed out the crushed trail in grass and sage. The rustler’s horse had stopped a quarter of a mile off and was grazing.

When Venters rapidly strode toward the Masked Rider not even the cold nausea that gripped him could wholly banish curiosity. For he had shot Oldring’s infamous lieutenant, whose face had never been seen. Venters experienced a grim pride in the feat. What would Tull say to this achievement of the outcast who rode too often to Deception Pass?

Venters’s curious eagerness and expectation had not prepared him for the shock he received when he stood over a slight, dark figure. The rustler wore the black mask that had given him his name, but he had no weapons. Venters glanced at the drooping horse, there were no gun-sheaths on the saddle.

“A rustler who didn’t pack guns!” muttered Venters. “He wears no belt. He couldn’t pack guns in that rig.... Strange!”

A low, gasping intake of breath and a sudden twitching of body told Venters the rider still lived.

“He’s alive!... I’ve got to stand here and watch him die. And I shot an unarmed man.”

Shrinkingly Venters removed the rider’s wide sombrero and the black cloth mask. This action disclosed bright chestnut hair, inclined to curl, and a white, youthful face. Along the lower line of cheek and jaw was a clear demarcation, where the brown of tanned skin met the white that had been hidden from the sun.

“Oh, he’s only a boy!... What! Can he be Oldring’s Masked Rider?”

The boy showed signs of returning consciousness. He stirred; his lips moved; a small brown hand clenched in his blouse.

Venters knelt with a gathering horror of his deed. His bullet had entered the rider’s right breast, high up to the shoulder. With hands that shook, Venters untied a black scarf and ripped open the blood-wet blouse.

First he saw a gaping hole, dark red against a whiteness of skin, from which welled a slender red stream. Then the graceful, beautiful swell of a woman’s breast!

“A woman!” he cried. “A girl!... I’ve killed a girl!”

She suddenly opened eyes that transfixed Venters. They were fathomless blue. Consciousness of death was there, a blended terror and pain, but no consciousness of sight. She did not see Venters. She stared into the unknown.

Then came a spasm of vitality. She writhed in a torture of reviving strength, and in her convulsions she almost tore from Ventner’s grasp. Slowly she relaxed and sank partly back. The ungloved hand sought the wound, and pressed so hard that her wrist half buried itself in her bosom. Blood trickled between her spread fingers. And she looked at Venters with eyes that saw him.

He cursed himself and the unerring aim of which he had been so proud. He had seen that look in the eyes of a crippled antelope which he was about to finish with his knife. But in her it had infinitely more — a revelation of mortal spirit. The instinctive bringing to life was there, and the divining helplessness and the terrible accusation of the stricken.

“Forgive me! I didn’t know!” burst out Venters.

“You shot me — you’ve killed me!” she whispered, in panting gasps. Upon her lips appeared a fluttering, bloody froth. By that Venters knew the air in her lungs was mixing with blood. “Oh, I knew — it would — come — some day!... Oh, the burn!... Hold me — I’m sinking — it’s all dark.... Ah, God!... Mercy—”

Her rigidity loosened in one long quiver and she lay back limp, still, white as snow, with closed eyes.

Venters thought then that she died. But the faint pulsation of her breast assured him that life yet lingered. Death seemed only a matter of moments, for the bullet had gone clear through her. Nevertheless, he tore sageleaves from a bush, and, pressing them tightly over her wounds, he bound the black scarf round her shoulder, tying it securely under her arm. Then he closed the blouse, hiding from his sight that blood-stained, accusing breast.

“What — now?” he questioned, with flying mind. “I must get out of here. She’s dying — but I can’t leave her.”

He rapidly surveyed the sage to the north and made out no animate object. Then he picked up the girl’s sombrero and the mask. This time the mask gave him as great a shock as when he first removed it from her face. For in the woman he had forgotten the rustler, and this black strip of felt-cloth established the identity of Oldring’s Masked Rider. Venters had solved the mystery. He slipped his rifle under her, and, lifting her carefully upon it, he began to retrace his steps. The dog trailed in his shadow. And the horse, that had stood drooping by, followed without a call. Venters chose the deepest tufts of grass and clumps of sage on his return. From time to time he glanced over his shoulder. He did not rest. His concern was to avoid jarring the girl and to hide his trail. Gaining the narrow canyon, he turned and held close to the wall till he reached his hiding-place. When he entered the dense thicket of oaks he was hard put to it to force a way through. But he held his burden almost upright, and by slipping side wise and bending the saplings he got in. Through sage and grass he hurried to the grove of silver spruces.

He laid the girl down, almost fearing to look at her. Though marble pale and cold, she was living. Venters then appreciated the tax that long carry had been to his strength. He sat down to rest. Whitie sniffed at the pale girl and whined and crept to Venters’s feet. Ring lapped the water in the runway of the spring.

Presently Venters went out to the opening, caught the horse and, leading him through the thicket, unsaddled him and tied him with a long halter. Wrangle left his browsing long enough to whinny and toss his head. Venters felt that he could not rest easily till he had secured the other rustler’s horse; so, taking his rifle and calling for Ring, he set out. Swiftly yet watchfully he made his way through the canyon to the oval and out to the cattle trail. What few tracks might have betrayed him he obliterated, so only an expert tracker could have trailed him. Then, with many a wary backward glance across the sage, he started to round up the rustler’s horse. This was unexpectedly easy. He led the horse to lower ground, out of sight from the opposite side of the oval along the shadowy western wall, and so on into his canyon and secluded camp.

The girl’s eyes were open; a feverish spot burned in her cheeks she moaned something unintelligible to Venters, but he took the movement of her lips to mean that she wanted water. Lifting her head, he tipped the canteen to her lips. After that she again lapsed into unconsciousness or a weakness which was its counterpart. Venters noted, however, that the burning flush had faded into the former pallor.

The sun set behind the high canyon rim, and a cool shade darkened the walls. Venters fed the dogs and put a halter on the dead rustlers horse. He allowed Wrangle to browse free. This done, he cut spruce boughs and made a lean-to for the girl. Then, gently lifting her upon a blanket, he folded the sides over her. The other blanket he wrapped about his shoulders and found a comfortable seat against a spruce-tree that upheld the little shack. Ring and Whitie lay near at hand, one asleep, the other watchful.

Venters dreaded the night’s vigil. At night his mind was active, and this time he had to watch and think and feel beside a dying girl whom he had all but murdered. A thousand excuses he invented for himself, yet not one made any difference in his act or his self-reproach.

It seemed to him that when night fell black he could see her white face so much more plainly.

“She’ll go, presently,” he said, “and be out of agony — thank God!”

Every little while certainty of her death came to him with a shock; and then he would bend over and lay his ear on her breast. Her heart still beat.

The early night blackness cleared to the cold starlight. The horses were not moving, and no sound disturbed the deathly silence of the canyon.

“I’ll bury her here,” thought Venters, “and let her grave be as much a mystery as her life was.”

For the girl’s few words, the look of her eyes, the prayer, had strangely touched Venters.

“She was only a girl,” he soliloquized. “What was she to Oldring? Rustlers don’t have wives nor sisters nor daughters. She was bad — that’s all. But somehow... well, she may not have willingly become the companion of rustlers. That prayer of hers to God for mercy!... Life is strange and cruel. I wonder if other members of Oldring’s gang are women? Likely enough. But what was his game? Oldring’s Mask Rider! A name to make villagers hide and lock their doors. A name credited with a dozen murders, a hundred forays, and a thousand stealings of cattle. What part did the girl have in this? It may have served Oldring to create mystery.”

Hours passed. The white stars moved across the narrow strip of dark-blue sky above. The silence awoke to the low hum of insects. Venters watched the immovable white face, and as he watched, hour by hour waiting for death, the infamy of her passed from his mind. He thought only of the sadness, the truth of the moment. Whoever she was — whatever she had done — she was young and she was dying.

The after-part of the night wore on interminably. The starlight failed and the gloom blackened to the darkest hour. “She’ll die at the gray of dawn,” muttered Venters, remembering some old woman’s fancy. The blackness paled to gray, and the gray lightened and day peeped over the eastern rim. Venters listened at the breast of the girl. She still lived. Did he only imagine that her heart beat stronger, ever so slightly, but stronger? He pressed his ear closer to her breast. And he rose with his own pulse quickening.

“If she doesn’t die soon — she’s got a chance — the barest chance to live,” he said.

He wondered if the internal bleeding had ceased. There was no more film of blood upon her lips. But no corpse could have been whiter. Opening her blouse, he untied the scarf, and carefully picked away the sage leaves from the wound in her shoulder. It had closed. Lifting her lightly, he ascertained that the same was true of the hole where the bullet had come out. He reflected on the fact that clean wounds closed quickly in the healing upland air. He recalled instances of riders who had been cut and shot apparently to fatal issues; yet the blood had clotted, the wounds closed, and they had recovered. He had no way to tell if internal hemorrhage still went on, but he believed that it had stopped. Otherwise she would surely not have lived so long. He marked the entrance of the bullet, and concluded that it had just touched the upper lobe of her lung. Perhaps the wound in the lung had also closed. As he began to wash the blood stains from her breast and carefully rebandage the wound, he was vaguely conscious of a strange, grave happiness in the thought that she might live.

Broad daylight and a hint of sunshine high on the cliff-rim to the west brought him to consideration of what he had better do. And while busy with his few camp tasks he revolved the thing in his mind. It would not be wise for him to remain long in his present hiding-place. And if he intended to follow the cattle trail and try to find the rustlers he had better make a move at once. For he knew that rustlers, being riders, would not make much of a day’s or night’s absence from camp for one or two of their number; but when the missing ones failed to show up in reasonable time there would be a search. And Venters was afraid of that.

“A good tracker could trail me,” he muttered. “And I’d be cornered here. Let’s see. Rustlers are a lazy set when they’re not on the ride. I’ll risk it. Then I’ll change my hiding-place.”

He carefully cleaned and reloaded his guns. When he rose to go he bent a long glance down upon the unconscious girl. Then ordering Whitie and Ring to keep guard, he left the camp.

The safest cover lay close under the wall of the canyon, and here through the dense thickets Venters made his slow, listening advance toward the oval. Upon gaining the wide opening he decided to cross it and follow the left wall till he came to the cattle trail. He scanned the oval as keenly as if hunting for antelope. Then, stooping, he stole from one cover to another, taking advantage of rocks and bunches of sage, until he had reached the thickets under the opposite wall. Once there, he exercised extreme caution in his surveys of the ground ahead, but increased his speed when moving. Dodging from bush to bush, he passed the mouths of two canyons, and in the entrance of a third canyon he crossed a wash of swift clear water, to come abruptly upon the cattle trail.

It followed the low bank of the wash, and, keeping it in sight, Venters hugged the line of sage and thicket. Like the curves of a serpent the canyon wound for a mile or more and then opened into a valley. Patches of red showed clear against the purple of sage, and farther out on the level dotted strings of red led away to the wall of rock.

“Ha, the red herd!” exclaimed Venters.

Then dots of white and black told him there were cattle of other colors in this inclosed valley. Oldring, the rustler, was also a rancher. Venters’s calculating eye took count of stock that outnumbered the red herd.

“What a range!” went on Venters. “Water and grass enough for fifty thousand head, and no riders needed!”

After his first burst of surprise and rapid calculation Venters lost no time there, but slunk again into the sage on his back trail. With the discovery of Oldring’s hidden cattle-range had come enlightenment on several problems. Here the rustler kept his stock, here was Jane Withersteen’s red herd; here were the few cattle that had disappeared from the Cottonwoods slopes during the last two years. Until Oldring had driven the red herd his thefts of cattle for that time had not been more than enough to supply meat for his men. Of late no drives had been reported from Sterling or the villages north. And Venters knew that the riders had wondered at Oldring’s inactivity in that particular field. He and his band had been active enough in their visits to Glaze and Cottonwoods; they always had gold; but of late the amount gambled away and drunk and thrown away in the villages had given rise to much conjecture. Oldring’s more frequent visits had resulted in new saloons, and where there had formerly been one raid or shooting fray in the little hamlets there were now many. Perhaps Oldring had another range farther on up the pass, and from there drove the cattle to distant Utah towns where he was little known But Venters came finally to doubt this. And, from what he had learned in the last few days, a belief began to form in Venters’s mind that Oldring’s intimidations of the villages and the mystery of the Masked Rider, with his alleged evil deeds, and the fierce resistance offered any trailing riders, and the rustling of cattle — these things were only the craft of the rustler-chief to conceal his real life and purpose and work in Deception Pass.

And like a scouting Indian Venters crawled through the sage of the oval valley, crossed trail after trail on the north side, and at last entered the canyon out of which headed the cattle trail, and into which he had watched the rustlers disappear.

If he had used caution before, now he strained every nerve to force himself to creeping stealth and to sensitiveness of ear. He crawled along so hidden that he could not use his eyes except to aid himself in the toilsome progress through the brakes and ruins of cliff-wall. Yet from time to time, as he rested, he saw the massive red walls growing higher and wilder, more looming and broken. He made note of the fact that he was turning and climbing. The sage and thickets of oak and brakes of alder gave place to pinyon pine growing out of rocky soil. Suddenly a low, dull murmur assailed his ears. At first he thought it was thunder, then the slipping of a weathered slope of rock. But it was incessant, and as he progressed it filled out deeper and from a murmur changed into a soft roar.

“Falling water,” he said. “There’s volume to that. I wonder if it’s the stream I lost.”

The roar bothered him, for he could hear nothing else. Likewise, however, no rustlers could hear him. Emboldened by this and sure that nothing but a bird could see him, he arose from his hands and knees to hurry on. An opening in the pinyons warned him that he was nearing the height of slope.

He gained it, and dropped low with a burst of astonishment. Before him stretched a short canyon with rounded stone floor bare of grass or sage or tree, and with curved, shelving walls. A broad rippling stream flowed toward him, and at the back of the canyon waterfall burst from a wide rent in the cliff, and, bounding down in two green steps, spread into a long white sheet.

If Venters had not been indubitably certain that he had entered the right canyon his astonishment would not have been so great. There had been no breaks in the walls, no side canyons entering this one where the rustlers’ tracks and the cattle trail had guided him, and, therefore, he could not be wrong. But here the canyon ended, and presumably the trails also.

“That cattle trail headed out of here,” Venters kept saying to himself. “It headed out. Now what I want to know is how on earth did cattle ever get in here?”

If he could be sure of anything it was of the careful scrutiny he had given that cattle track, every hoofmark of which headed straight west. He was now looking east at an immense round boxed corner of canyon down which tumbled a thin, white veil of water, scarcely twenty yards wide. Somehow, somewhere, his calculations had gone wrong. For the first time in years he found himself doubting his rider’s skill in finding tracks, and his memory of what he had actually seen. In his anxiety to keep under cover he must have lost himself in this offshoot of Deception Pass, and thereby in some unaccountable manner, missed the canyon with the trails. There was nothing else for him to think. Rustlers could not fly, nor cattle jump down thousand-foot precipices. He was only proving what the sage-riders had long said of this labyrinthine system of deceitful canyons and valleys — trails led down into Deception Pass, but no rider had ever followed them.

On a sudden he heard above the soft roar of the waterfall an unusual sound that he could not define. He dropped flat behind a stone and listened. From the direction he had come swelled something that resembled a strange muffled pounding and splashing and ringing. Despite his nerve the chill sweat began to dampen his forehead. What might not be possible in this stonewalled maze of mystery? The unnatural sound passed beyond him as he lay gripping his rifle and fighting for coolness. Then from the open came the sound, now distinct and different. Venters recognized a hobble-bell of a horse, and the cracking of iron on submerged stones, and the hollow splash of hoofs in water.

Relief surged over him. His mind caught again at realities, and curiosity prompted him to peep from behind the rock.

In the middle of the stream waded a long string of packed burros driven by three superbly mounted men. Had Venters met these dark-clothed, dark-visaged, heavily armed men anywhere in Utah, let alone in this robbers’ retreat, he would have recognized them as rustlers. The discerning eye of a rider saw the signs of a long, arduous trip. These men were packing in supplies from one of the northern villages. They were tired, and their horses were almost played out, and the burros plodded on, after the manner of their kind when exhausted, faithful and patient, but as if every weary, splashing, slipping step would be their last.

All this Venters noted in one glance. After that he watched with a thrilling eagerness. Straight at the waterfall the rustlers drove the burros, and straight through the middle, where the water spread into a fleecy, thin film like dissolving smoke. Following closely, the rustlers rode into this white mist, showing in bold black relief for an instant, and then they vanished.

Venters drew a full breath that rushed out in brief and sudden utterance.

“Good Heaven! Of all the holes for a rustler!... There’s a cavern under that waterfall, and a passageway leading out to a canyon beyond. Oldring hides in there. He needs only to guard a trail leading down from the sage-flat above. Little danger of this outlet to the pass being discovered. I stumbled on it by luck, after I had given up. And now I know the truth of what puzzled me most — why that cattle trail was wet!”

He wheeled and ran down the slope, and out to the level of the sage-brush. Returning, he had no time to spare, only now and then, between dashes, a moment when he stopped to cast sharp eyes ahead. The abundant grass left no trace of his trail. Short work he made of the distance to the circle of canyons. He doubted that he would ever see it again; he knew he never wanted to; yet he looked at the red corners and towers with the eyes of a rider picturing landmarks never to be forgotten.

Here he spent a panting moment in a slow-circling gaze of the sage-oval and the gaps between the bluffs. Nothing stirred except the gentle wave of the tips of the brush. Then he pressed on past the mouths of several canyons and over ground new to him, now close under the eastern wall. This latter part proved to be easy traveling, well screened from possible observation from the north and west, and he soon covered it and felt safer in the deepening shade of his own canyon. Then the huge, notched bulge of red rim loomed over him, a mark by which he knew again the deep cove where his camp lay hidden. As he penetrated the thicket, safe again for the present, his thoughts reverted to the girl he had left there. The afternoon had far advanced. How would he find her? He ran into camp, frightening the dogs.

The girl lay with wide-open, dark eyes, and they dilated when he knelt beside her. The flush of fever shone in her cheeks. He lifted her and held water to her dry lips, and felt an inexplicable sense of lightness as he saw her swallow in a slow, choking gulp. Gently he laid her back.

“Who — are — you?” she whispered, haltingly.

“I’m the man who shot you,” he replied.

“You’ll — not — kill me — now?”

“No, no.”

“What — will — you — do — with me?”

“When you get better — strong enough — I’ll take you back to the canyon where the rustlers ride through the waterfall.”

As with a faint shadow from a flitting wing overhead, the marble whiteness of her face seemed to change.

“Don’t — take — me — back — there!”

CHAPTER VI. THE MILL-WHEEL OF STEERS

MEANTIME, AT THE ranch, when Judkins’s news had sent Venters on the trail of the rustlers, Jane Withersteen led the injured man to her house and with skilled fingers dressed the gunshot wound in his arm.

“Judkins, what do you think happened to my riders?”

“I — I d rather not say,” he replied.

“Tell me. Whatever you’ll tell me I’ll keep to myself. I’m beginning to worry about more than the loss of a herd of cattle. Venters hinted of — but tell me, Judkins.”

“Well, Miss Withersteen, I think as Venters thinks — your riders have been called in.”

“Judkins!... By whom?”

“You know who handles the reins of your Mormon riders.”

“Do you dare insinuate that my churchmen have ordered in my riders?”

“I ain’t insinuatin’ nothin’, Miss Withersteen,” answered Judkins, with spirit. “I know what I’m talking about. I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Oh, I can’t believe that! I’ll not believe it! Would Tull leave my herds at the mercy of rustlers and wolves just because — because — ? No, no! It’s unbelievable.”

“Yes, thet particular thing’s onheard of around Cottonwoods But, beggin’ pardon, Miss Withersteen, there never was any other rich Mormon woman here on the border, let alone one thet’s taken the bit between her teeth.”

That was a bold thing for the reserved Judkins to say, but it did not anger her. This rider’s crude hint of her spirit gave her a glimpse of what others might think. Humility and obedience had been hers always. But had she taken the bit between her teeth? Still she wavered. And then, with quick spurt of warm blood along her veins, she thought of Black Star when he got the bit fast between his iron jaws and ran wild in the sage. If she ever started to run! Jane smothered the glow and burn within her, ashamed of a passion for freedom that opposed her duty.

“Judkins, go to the village,” she said, “and when you have learned anything definite about my riders please come to me at once.”

When he had gone Jane resolutely applied her mind to a number of tasks that of late had been neglected. Her father had trained her in the management of a hundred employees and the working of gardens and fields; and to keep record of the movements of cattle and riders. And beside the many duties she had added to this work was one of extreme delicacy, such as required all her tact and ingenuity. It was an unobtrusive, almost secret aid which she rendered to the Gentile families of the village. Though Jane Withersteen never admitted so to herself, it amounted to no less than a system of charity. But for her invention of numberless kinds of employment, for which there was no actual need, these families of Gentiles, who had failed in a Mormon community, would have starved.

In aiding these poor people Jane thought she deceived her keen churchmen, but it was a kind of deceit for which she did not pray to be forgiven. Equally as difficult was the task of deceiving the Gentiles, for they were as proud as they were poor. It had been a great grief to her to discover how these people hated her people; and it had been a source of great joy that through her they had come to soften in hatred. At any time this work called for a clearness of mind that precluded anxiety and worry; but under the present circumstances it required all her vigor and obstinate tenacity to pin her attention upon her task.

Sunset came, bringing with the end of her labor a patient calmness and power to wait that had not been hers earlier in the day. She expected Judkins, but he did not appear. Her house was always quiet; to-night, however, it seemed unusually so. At supper her women served her with a silent assiduity; it spoke what their sealed lips could not utter — the sympathy of Mormon women. Jerd came to her with the key of the great door of the stone stable, and to make his daily report about the horses. One of his daily duties was to give Black Star and Night and the other racers a ten-mile run. This day it had been omitted, and the boy grew confused in explanations that she had not asked for. She did inquire if he would return on the morrow, and Jerd, in mingled surprise and relief, assured her he would always work for her. Jane missed the rattle and trot, canter and gallop of the incoming riders on the hard trails. Dusk shaded the grove where she walked; the birds ceased singing; the wind sighed through the leaves of the cottonwoods, and the running water murmured down its stone-bedded channel. The glimmering of the first star was like the peace and beauty of the night. Her faith welled up in her heart and said that all would soon be right in her little world. She pictured Venters about his lonely camp-fire sitting between his faithful dogs. She prayed for his safety, for the success of his undertaking.

Early the next morning one of Jane’s women brought in word that Judkins wished to speak to her. She hurried out, and in her surprise to see him armed with rifle and revolver, she forgot her intention to inquire about his wound.

“Judkins! Those guns? You never carried guns.”

“It’s high time, Miss Withersteen,” he replied. “Will you come into the grove? It ain’t jest exactly safe for me to be seen here.”

She walked with him into the shade of the cottonwoods.

“What do you mean?”

“Miss Withersteen, I went to my mother’s house last night. While there, some one knocked, an’ a man asked for me. I went to the door. He wore a mask. He said I’d better not ride any more for Jane Withersteen. His voice was hoarse an’ strange, disguised I reckon, like his face. He said no more, an’ ran off in the dark.”

“Did you know who he was?” asked Jane, in a low voice.

“Yes.”

Jane did not ask to know; she did not want to know; she feared to know. All her calmness fled at a single thought.

“Thet’s why I’m packin’ guns,” went on Judkins. “For I’ll never quit ridin’ for you, Miss Withersteen, till you let me go.”

“Judkins, do you want to leave me?”

“Do I look thet way? Give me a hoss — a fast hoss, an’ send me out on the sage.”

“Oh, thank you, Judkins! You’re more faithful than my own people. I ought not accept your loyalty — you might suffer more through it. But what in the world can I do? My head whirls. The wrong to Venters — the stolen herd — these masks, threats, this coil in the dark! I can’t understand! But I feel something dark and terrible closing in around me.”

“Miss Withersteen, it’s all simple enough,” said Judkins, earnestly. “Now please listen — an’ beggin’ your pardon — jest turn thet deaf Mormon ear aside, an’ let me talk clear an’ plain in the other. I went around to the saloons an’ the stores an’ the loafin’ places yesterday. All your riders are in. There’s talk of a vigilance band organized to hunt down rustlers. They call themselves ‘The Riders.’ Thet’s the report — thet’s the reason given for your riders leavin’ you. Strange thet only a few riders of other ranchers joined the band! An’ Tull’s man, Jerry Card — he’s the leader. I seen him en’ his hoss. He ‘ain’t been to Glaze. I’m not easy to fool on the looks of a hoss thet’s traveled the sage. Tull an’ Jerry didn’t ride to Glaze!... Well, I met Blake en’ Dorn, both good friends of mine, usually, as far as their Mormon lights will let ’em go. But these fellers couldn’t fool me, an’ they didn’t try very hard. I asked them, straight out like a man, why they left you like thet. I didn’t forget to mention how you nursed Blake’s poor old mother when she was sick, an’ how good you was to Dorn’s kids. They looked ashamed, Miss Withersteen. An’ they jest froze up — thet dark set look thet makes them strange an’ different to me. But I could tell the difference between thet first natural twinge of conscience an’ the later look of some secret thing. An’ the difference I caught was thet they couldn’t help themselves. They hadn’t no say in the matter. They looked as if their bein’ unfaithful to you was bein’ faithful to a higher duty. An’ there’s the secret. Why it’s as plain as — as sight of my gun here.”

“Plain!... My herds to wander in the sage — to be stolen! Jane Withersteen a poor woman! Her head to be brought low and her spirit broken!... Why, Judkins, it’s plain enough.”

“Miss Withersteen, let me get what boys I can gather, an’ hold the white herd. It’s on the slope now, not ten miles out — three thousand head, an’ all steers. They’re wild, an’ likely to stampede at the pop of a jack-rabbit’s ears. We’ll camp right with them, en’ try to hold them.”

“Judkins, I’ll reward you some day for your service, unless all is taken from me. Get the boys and tell Jerd to give you pick of my horses, except Black Star and Night. But — do not shed blood for my cattle nor heedlessly risk your lives.”

Jane Withersteen rushed to the silence and seclusion of her room, and there could not longer hold back the bursting of her wrath. She went stone-blind in the fury of a passion that had never before showed its power. Lying upon her bed, sightless, voiceless, she was a writhing, living flame. And she tossed there while her fury burned and burned, and finally burned itself out.

Then, weak and spent, she lay thinking, not of the oppression that would break her, but of this new revelation of self. Until the last few days there had been little in her life to rouse passions. Her forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who bore no cross and brooked no hindrance to their will. Her father had inherited that temper; and at times, like antelope fleeing before fire on the slope, his people fled from his red rages. Jane Withersteen realized that the spirit of wrath and war had lain dormant in her. She shrank from black depths hitherto unsuspected. The one thing in man or woman that she scorned above all scorn, and which she could not forgive, was hate. Hate headed a flaming pathway straight to hell. All in a flash, beyond her control there had been in her a birth of fiery hate. And the man who had dragged her peaceful and loving spirit to this degradation was a minister of God’s word, an Elder of her church, the counselor of her beloved Bishop.

The loss of herds and ranges, even of Amber Spring and the Old Stone House, no longer concerned Jane Withersteen, she faced the foremost thought of her life, what she now considered the mightiest problem — the salvation of her soul.

She knelt by her bedside and prayed; she prayed as she had never prayed in all her life — prayed to be forgiven for her sin to be immune from that dark, hot hate; to love Tull as her minister, though she could not love him as a man; to do her duty by her church and people and those dependent upon her bounty; to hold reverence of God and womanhood inviolate.

When Jane Withersteen rose from that storm of wrath and prayer for help she was serene, calm, sure — a changed woman. She would do her duty as she saw it, live her life as her own truth guided her. She might never be able to marry a man of her choice, but she certainly never would become the wife of Tull. Her churchmen might take her cattle and horses, ranges and fields, her corrals and stables, the house of Withersteen and the water that nourished the village of Cottonwoods; but they could not force her to marry Tull, they could not change her decision or break her spirit. Once resigned to further loss, and sure of herself, Jane Withersteen attained a peace of mind that had not been hers for a year. She forgave Tull, and felt a melancholy regret over what she knew he considered duty, irrespective of his personal feeling for her. First of all, Tull, as he was a man, wanted her for himself; and secondly, he hoped to save her and her riches for his church. She did not believe that Tull had been actuated solely by his minister’s zeal to save her soul. She doubted her interpretation of one of his dark sayings — that if she were lost to him she might as well be lost to heaven. Jane Withersteen’s common sense took arms against the binding limits of her religion; and she doubted that her Bishop, whom she had been taught had direct communication with God — would damn her soul for refusing to marry a Mormon. As for Tull and his churchmen, when they had harassed her, perhaps made her poor, they would find her unchangeable, and then she would get back most of what she had lost. So she reasoned, true at last to her faith in all men, and in their ultimate goodness.

The clank of iron hoofs upon the stone courtyard drew her hurriedly from her retirement. There, beside his horse, stood Lassiter, his dark apparel and the great black gun-sheaths contrasting singularly with his gentle smile. Jane’s active mind took up her interest in him and her half-determined desire to use what charm she had to foil his evident design in visiting Cottonwoods. If she could mitigate his hatred of Mormons, or at least keep him from killing more of them, not only would she be saving her people, but also be leading back this bloodspiller to some semblance of the human.

“Mornin’, ma’am,” he said, black sombrero in hand.

“Lassiter I’m not an old woman, or even a madam,” she replied, with her bright smile. “If you can’t say Miss Withersteen — call me Jane.”

“I reckon Jane would be easier. First names are always handy for me.”

“Well, use mine, then. Lassiter, I’m glad to see you. I’m in trouble.”

Then she told him of Judkins’s return, of the driving of the red herd, of Venters’s departure on Wrangle, and the calling-in of her riders.

“‘Pears to me you’re some smilin’ an’ pretty for a woman with so much trouble,” he remarked.

“Lassiter! Are you paying me compliments? But, seriously I’ve made up my mind not to be miserable. I’ve lost much, and I’ll lose more. Nevertheless, I won’t be sour, and I hope I’ll never be unhappy — again.”

Lassiter twisted his hat round and round, as was his way, and took his time in replying.

“Women are strange to me. I got to back-trailin’ myself from them long ago. But I’d like a game woman. Might I ask, seein’ as how you take this trouble, if you’re goin’ to fight?”

“Fight! How? Even if I would, I haven’t a friend except that boy who doesn’t dare stay in the village.”

“I make bold to say, ma’am — Jane — that there’s another, if you want him.”

“Lassiter!... Thank you. But how can I accept you as a friend? Think! Why, you’d ride down into the village with those terrible guns and kill my enemies — who are also my churchmen.”

“I reckon I might be riled up to jest about that,” he replied, dryly.

She held out both hands to him.

“Lassiter! I’ll accept your friendship — be proud of it — return it — if I may keep you from killing another Mormon.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, bluntly, as the gray lightning formed in his eyes. “You’re too good a woman to be sacrificed as you’re goin’ to be.... No, I reckon you an’ me can’t be friends on such terms.”

In her earnestness she stepped closer to him, repelled yet fascinated by the sudden transition of his moods. That he would fight for her was at once horrible and wonderful.

“You came here to kill a man — the man whom Milly Erne—”

“The man who dragged Milly Erne to hell — put it that way!... Jane Withersteen, yes, that’s why I came here. I’d tell so much to no other livin’ soul.... There’re things such a woman as you’d never dream of — so don’t mention her again. Not till you tell me the name of the man!”

“Tell you! I? Never!”

“I reckon you will. An’ I’ll never ask you. I’m a man of strange beliefs an’ ways of thinkin’, an’ I seem to see into the future an’ feel things hard to explain. The trail I’ve been followin’ for so many years was twisted en’ tangled, but it’s straightenin’ out now. An’, Jane Withersteen, you crossed it long ago to ease poor Milly’s agony. That, whether you want or not, makes Lassiter your friend. But you cross it now strangely to mean somethin to me — God knows what! — unless by your noble blindness to incite me to greater hatred of Mormon men.”

Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own. In a clash of wills with this man she would go to the wall. If she were to influence him it must be wholly through womanly allurement. There was that about Lassiter which commanded her respect. She had abhorred his name; face to face with him, she found she feared only his deeds. His mystic suggestion, his foreshadowing of something that she was to mean to him, pierced deep into her mind. She believed fate had thrown in her way the lover or husband of Milly Erne. She believed that through her an evil man might be reclaimed. His allusion to what he called her blindness terrified her. Such a mistaken idea of his might unleash the bitter, fatal mood she sensed in him. At any cost she must placate this man; she knew the die was cast, and that if Lassiter did not soften to a woman’s grace and beauty and wiles, then it would be because she could not make him.

“I reckon you’ll hear no more such talk from me,” Lassiter went on, presently. “Now, Miss Jane, I rode in to tell you that your herd of white steers is down on the slope behind them big ridges. An’ I seen somethin’ goin’ on that’d be mighty interestin’ to you, if you could see it. Have you a field-glass?”

“Yes, I have two glasses. I’ll get them and ride out with you. Wait, Lassiter, please,” she said, and hurried within. Sending word to Jerd to saddle Black Star and fetch him to the court, she then went to her room and changed to the riding-clothes she always donned when going into the sage. In this male attire her mirror showed her a jaunty, handsome rider. If she expected some little need of admiration from Lassiter, she had no cause for disappointment. The gentle smile that she liked, which made of him another person, slowly overspread his face.

“If I didn’t take you for a boy!” he exclaimed. “It’s powerful queer what difference clothes make. Now I’ve been some scared of your dignity, like when the other night you was all in white but in this rig—”

Black Star came pounding into the court, dragging Jerd half off his feet, and he whistled at Lassiter’s black. But at sight of Jane all his defiant lines seemed to soften, and with tosses of his beautiful head he whipped his bridle.

“Down, Black Star, down,” said Jane.

He dropped his head, and, slowly lengthening, he bent one foreleg, then the other, and sank to his knees. Jane slipped her left foot in the stirrup, swung lightly into the saddle, and Black Star rose with a ringing stamp. It was not easy for Jane to hold him to a canter through the grove, and like the wind he broke when he saw the sage. Jane let him have a couple of miles of free running on the open trail, and then she coaxed him in and waited for her companion. Lassiter was not long in catching up, and presently they were riding side by side. It reminded her how she used to ride with Venters. Where was he now? She gazed far down the slope to the curved purple lines of Deception Pass and involuntarily shut her eyes with a trembling stir of nameless fear.

“We’ll turn off here,” Lassiter said, “en’ take to the sage a mile or so. The white herd is behind them big ridges.”

“What are you going to show me?” asked Jane. “I’m prepared — don’t be afraid.”

He smiled as if he meant that bad news came swiftly enough without being presaged by speech.

When they reached the lee of a rolling ridge Lassiter dismounted, motioning to her to do likewise. They left the horses standing, bridles down. Then Lassiter, carrying the field-glasses began to lead the way up the slow rise of ground. Upon nearing the summit he halted her with a gesture.

“I reckon we’d see more if we didn’t show ourselves against the sky,” he said. “I was here less than an hour ago. Then the herd was seven or eight miles south, an’ if they ain’t bolted yet—”

“Lassiter!... Bolted?”

“That’s what I said. Now let’s see.”

Jane climbed a few more paces behind him and then peeped over the ridge. Just beyond began a shallow swale that deepened and widened into a valley and then swung to the left. Following the undulating sweep of sage, Jane saw the straggling lines and then the great body of the white herd. She knew enough about steers, even at a distance of four or five miles, to realize that something was in the wind. Bringing her field-glass into use, she moved it slowly from left to right, which action swept the whole herd into range. The stragglers were restless; the more compactly massed steers were browsing. Jane brought the glass back to the big sentinels of the herd, and she saw them trot with quick steps, stop short and toss wide horns, look everywhere, and then trot in another direction.

“Judkins hasn’t been able to get his boys together yet,” said Jane. “But he’ll be there soon. I hope not too late. Lassiter, what’s frightening those big leaders?”

“Nothin’ jest on the minute,” replied Lassiter. “Them steers are quietin’ down. They’ve been scared, but not bad yet. I reckon the whole herd has moved a few miles this way since I was here.”

“They didn’t browse that distance — not in less than an hour. Cattle aren’t sheep.”

“No, they jest run it, en’ that looks bad.”

“Lassiter, what frightened them?” repeated Jane, impatiently.

“Put down your glass. You’ll see at first better with a naked eye. Now look along them ridges on the other side of the herd, the ridges where the sun shines bright on the sage.... That’s right. Now look en’ look hard en’ wait.”

Long-drawn moments of straining sight rewarded Jane with nothing save the low, purple rim of ridge and the shimmering sage.

“It’s begun again!” whispered Lassiter, and he gripped her arm. “Watch.... There, did you see that?”

“No, no. Tell me what to look for?”

“A white flash — a kind of pin-point of quick light — a gleam as from sun shinin’ on somethin’ white.”

Suddenly Jane’s concentrated gaze caught a fleeting glint. Quickly she brought her glass to bear on the spot. Again the purple sage, magnified in color and size and wave, for long moments irritated her with its monotony. Then from out of the sage on the ridge flew up a broad, white object, flashed in the sunlight and vanished. Like magic it was, and bewildered Jane.

“What on earth is that?”

“I reckon there’s some one behind that ridge throwin’ up a sheet or a white blanket to reflect the sunshine.”

“Why?” queried Jane, more bewildered than ever.

“To stampede the herd,” replied Lassiter, and his teeth clicked.

“Ah!” She made a fierce, passionate movement, clutched the glass tightly, shook as with the passing of a spasm, and then dropped her head. Presently she raised it to greet Lassiter with something like a smile. “My righteous brethren are at work again,” she said, in scorn. She had stifled the leap of her wrath, but for perhaps the first time in her life a bitter derision curled her lips. Lassiter’s cool gray eyes seemed to pierce her. “I said I was prepared for anything; but that was hardly true. But why would they — anybody stampede my cattle?”

“That’s a Mormon’s godly way of bringin’ a woman to her knees.”

“Lassiter, I’ll die before I ever bend my knees. I might be led I won’t be driven. Do you expect the herd to bolt?”

“I don’t like the looks of them big steers. But you can never tell. Cattle sometimes stampede as easily as buffalo. Any little flash or move will start them. A rider gettin’ down an’ walkin’ toward them sometimes will make them jump an’ fly. Then again nothin’ seems to scare them. But I reckon that white flare will do the biz. It’s a new one on me, an’ I’ve seen some ridin’ an’ rustlin’. It jest takes one of them God-fearin’ Mormons to think of devilish tricks.”

“Lassiter, might not this trick be done by Oldring’s men?” asked Jane, ever grasping at straws.

“It might be, but it ain’t,” replied Lassiter. “Oldring’s an honest thief. He don’t skulk behind ridges to scatter your cattle to the four winds. He rides down on you, an’ if you don’t like it you can throw a gun.”

Jane bit her tongue to refrain from championing men who at the very moment were proving to her that they were little and mean compared even with rustlers.

“Look!... Jane, them leadin’ steers have bolted. They’re drawin’ the stragglers, an’ that’ll pull the whole herd.”

Jane was not quick enough to catch the details called out by Lassiter, but she saw the line of cattle lengthening. Then, like a stream of white bees pouring from a huge swarm, the steers stretched out from the main body. In a few moments, with astonishing rapidity, the whole herd got into motion. A faint roar of trampling hoofs came to Jane’s ears, and gradually swelled; low, rolling clouds of dust began to rise above the sage.

“It’s a stampede, an’ a hummer,” said Lassiter.

“Oh, Lassiter! The herd’s running with the valley! It leads into the canyon! There’s a straight jump-off!”

“I reckon they’ll run into it, too. But that’s a good many miles yet. An’, Jane, this valley swings round almost north before it goes east. That stampede will pass within a mile of us.”

The long, white, bobbing line of steers streaked swiftly through the sage, and a funnel-shaped dust-cloud arose at a low angle. A dull rumbling filled Jane’s ears.

“I’m thinkin’ of millin’ that herd,” said Lassiter. His gray glance swept up the slope to the west. “There’s some specks an’ dust way off toward the village. Mebbe that’s Judkins an’ his boys. It ain’t likely he’ll get here in time to help. You’d better hold Black Star here on this high ridge.”

He ran to his horse and, throwing off saddle-bags and tightening the cinches, he leaped astride and galloped straight down across the valley.

Jane went for Black Star and, leading him to the summit of the ridge, she mounted and faced the valley with excitement and expectancy. She had heard of milling stampeded cattle, and knew it was a feat accomplished by only the most daring riders.

The white herd was now strung out in a line two miles long. The dull rumble of thousands of hoofs deepened into continuous low thunder, and as the steers swept swiftly closer the thunder became a heavy roll. Lassiter crossed in a few moments the level of the valley to the eastern rise of ground and there waited the coming of the herd. Presently, as the head of the white line reached a point opposite to where Jane stood, Lassiter spurred his black into a run.

Jane saw him take a position on the off side of the leaders of the stampede, and there he rode. It was like a race. They swept on down the valley, and when the end of the white line neared Lassiter’s first stand the head had begun to swing round to the west. It swung slowly and stubbornly, yet surely, and gradually assumed a long, beautiful curve of moving white. To Jane’s amaze she saw the leaders swinging, turning till they headed back toward her and up the valley. Out to the right of these wild plunging steers ran Lassiter’s black, and Jane’s keen eye appreciated the fleet stride and sure-footedness of the blind horse. Then it seemed that the herd moved in a great curve, a huge half-moon with the points of head and tail almost opposite, and a mile apart But Lassiter relentlessly crowded the leaders, sheering them to the left, turning them little by little. And the dust-blinded wild followers plunged on madly in the tracks of their leaders. This ever-moving, ever-changing curve of steers rolled toward Jane and when below her, scarce half a mile, it began to narrow and close into a circle. Lassiter had ridden parallel with her position, turned toward her, then aside, and now he was riding directly away from her, all the time pushing the head of that bobbing line inward.

It was then that Jane, suddenly understanding Lassiter’s feat stared and gasped at the riding of this intrepid man. His horse was fleet and tireless, but blind. He had pushed the leaders around and around till they were about to turn in on the inner side of the end of that line of steers. The leaders were already running in a circle; the end of the herd was still running almost straight. But soon they would be wheeling. Then, when Lassiter had the circle formed, how would he escape? With Jane Withersteen prayer was as ready as praise; and she prayed for this man’s safety. A circle of dust began to collect. Dimly, as through a yellow veil, Jane saw Lassiter press the leaders inward to close the gap in the sage. She lost sight of him in the dust, again she thought she saw the black, riderless now, rear and drag himself and fall. Lassiter had been thrown — lost! Then he reappeared running out of the dust into the sage. He had escaped, and she breathed again.

Spellbound, Jane Withersteen watched this stupendous millwheel of steers. Here was the milling of the herd. The white running circle closed in upon the open space of sage. And the dust circles closed above into a pall. The ground quaked and the incessant thunder of pounding hoofs rolled on. Jane felt deafened, yet she thrilled to a new sound. As the circle of sage lessened the steers began to bawl, and when it closed entirely there came a great upheaval in the center, and a terrible thumping of heads and clicking of horns. Bawling, climbing, goring, the great mass of steers on the inside wrestled in a crashing din, heaved and groaned under the pressure. Then came a deadlock. The inner strife ceased, and the hideous roar and crash. Movement went on in the outer circle, and that, too, gradually stilled. The white herd had come to a stop, and the pall of yellow dust began to drift away on the wind.

Jane Withersteen waited on the ridge with full and grateful heart. Lassiter appeared, making his weary way toward her through the sage. And up on the slope Judkins rode into sight with his troop of boys. For the present, at least, the white herd would be looked after.

When Lassiter reached her and laid his hand on Black Star’s mane, Jane could not find speech.

“Killed — my — hoss,” he panted.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” cried Jane. “Lassiter! I know you can’t replace him, but I’ll give you any one of my racers — Bells, or Night, even Black Star.”

“I’ll take a fast hoss, Jane, but not one of your favorites,” he replied. “Only — will you let me have Black Star now an’ ride him over there an’ head off them fellers who stampeded the herd?”

He pointed to several moving specks of black and puffs of dust in the purple sage.

“I can head them off with this hoss, an’ then—”

“Then, Lassiter?”

“They’ll never stampede no more cattle.”

“Oh! No! No!... Lassiter, I won’t let you go!”

But a flush of fire flamed in her cheeks, and her trembling hands shook Black Star’s bridle, and her eyes fell before Lassiter’s.

CHAPTER VII. THE DAUGHTER OF WITHERSTEEN

“LASSITER, WILL YOU be my rider?” Jane had asked him.

“I reckon so,” he had replied.

Few as the words were, Jane knew how infinitely much they implied. She wanted him to take charge of her cattle and horse and ranges, and save them if that were possible. Yet, though she could not have spoken aloud all she meant, she was perfectly honest with herself. Whatever the price to be paid, she must keep Lassiter close to her; she must shield from him the man who had led Milly Erne to Cottonwoods. In her fear she so controlled her mind that she did not whisper this Mormon’s name to her own soul, she did not even think it. Besides, beyond this thing she regarded as a sacred obligation thrust upon her, was the need of a helper, of a friend, of a champion in this critical time. If she could rule this gun-man, as Venters had called him, if she could even keep him from shedding blood, what strategy to play his flame and his presence against the game of oppression her churchmen were waging against her? Never would she forget the effect on Tull and his men when Venters shouted Lassiter’s name. If she could not wholly control Lassiter, then what she could do might put off the fatal day.

One of her safe racers was a dark bay, and she called him Bells because of the way he struck his iron shoes on the stones. When Jerd led out this slender, beautifully built horse Lassiter suddenly became all eyes. A rider’s love of a thoroughbred shone in them. Round and round Bells he walked, plainly weakening all the time in his determination not to take one of Jane’s favorite racers.

“Lassiter, you’re half horse, and Bells sees it already,” said Jane, laughing. “Look at his eyes. He likes you. He’ll love you, too. How can you resist him? Oh, Lassiter, but Bells can run! It’s nip and tuck between him and Wrangle, and only Black Star can beat him. He’s too spirited a horse for a woman. Take him. He’s yours.”

“I jest am weak where a hoss’s concerned,” said Lassiter. “I’ll take him, an’ I’ll take your orders, ma’am.”

“Well, I’m glad, but never mind the ma’am. Let it still be Jane.”

From that hour, it seemed, Lassiter was always in the saddle, riding early and late, and coincident with his part in Jane’s affairs the days assumed their old tranquillity. Her intelligence told her this was only the lull before the storm, but her faith would not have it so.

She resumed her visits to the village, and upon one of these she encountered Tull. He greeted her as he had before any trouble came between them, and she, responsive to peace if not quick to forget, met him halfway with manner almost cheerful. He regretted the loss of her cattle; he assured her that the vigilantes which had been organized would soon rout the rustlers; when that had been accomplished her riders would likely return to her.

“You’ve done a headstrong thing to hire this man Lassiter,” Tull went on, severely. “He came to Cottonwoods with evil intent.”

“I had to have somebody. And perhaps making him my rider may turn out best in the end for the Mormons of Cottonwoods.”

“You mean to stay his hand?”

“I do — if I can.”

“A woman like you can do anything with a man. That would be well, and would atone in some measure for the errors you have made.”

He bowed and passed on. Jane resumed her walk with conflicting thoughts. She resented Elder Tull’s cold, impassive manner that looked down upon her as one who had incurred his just displeasure. Otherwise he would have been the same calm, dark-browed, impenetrable man she had known for ten years. In fact, except when he had revealed his passion in the matter of the seizing of Venters, she had never dreamed he could be other than the grave, reproving preacher. He stood out now a strange, secretive man. She would have thought better of him if he had picked up the threads of their quarrel where they had parted. Was Tull what he appeared to be? The question flung itself in-voluntarily over Jane Withersteen’s inhibitive habit of faith without question. And she refused to answer it. Tull could not fight in the open. Venters had said, Lassiter had said, that her Elder shirked fight and worked in the dark. Just now in this meeting Tull had ignored the fact that he had sued, exhorted, demanded that she marry him. He made no mention of Venters. His manner was that of the minister who had been outraged, but who overlooked the frailties of a woman. Beyond question he seemed unutterably aloof from all knowledge of pressure being brought to bear upon her, absolutely guiltless of any connection with secret power over riders, with night journeys, with rustlers and stampedes of cattle. And that convinced her again of unjust suspicions. But it was convincement through an obstinate faith. She shuddered as she accepted it, and that shudder was the nucleus of a terrible revolt.

Jane turned into one of the wide lanes leading from the main street and entered a huge, shady yard. Here were sweet-smelling clover, alfalfa, flowers, and vegetables, all growing in happy confusion. And like these fresh green things were the dozens of babies, tots, toddlers, noisy urchins, laughing girls, a whole multitude of children of one family. For Collier Brandt, the father of all this numerous progeny, was a Mormon with four wives.

The big house where they lived was old, solid, picturesque the lower part built of logs, the upper of rough clapboards, with vines growing up the outside stone chimneys. There were many wooden-shuttered windows, and one pretentious window of glass proudly curtained in white. As this house had four mistresses, it likewise had four separate sections, not one of which communicated with another, and all had to be entered from the outside.

In the shade of a wide, low, vine-roofed porch Jane found Brandt’s wives entertaining Bishop Dyer. They were motherly women, of comparatively similar ages, and plain-featured, and just at this moment anything but grave. The Bishop was rather tall, of stout build, with iron-gray hair and beard, and eyes of light blue. They were merry now; but Jane had seen them when they were not, and then she feared him as she had feared her father.

The women flocked around her in welcome.

“Daughter of Withersteen,” said the Bishop, gaily, as he took her hand, “you have not been prodigal of your gracious self of late. A Sabbath without you at service! I shall reprove Elder Tull.”

“Bishop, the guilt is mine. I’ll come to you and confess,” Jane replied, lightly; but she felt the undercurrent of her words.

“Mormon love-making!” exclaimed the Bishop, rubbing his hands. “Tull keeps you all to himself.”

“No. He is not courting me.”

“What? The laggard! If he does not make haste I’ll go a-courting myself up to Withersteen House.”

There was laughter and further bantering by the Bishop, and then mild talk of village affairs, after which he took his leave, and Jane was left with her friend, Mary Brandt.

“Jane, you’re not yourself. Are you sad about the rustling of the cattle? But you have so many, you are so rich.”

Then Jane confided in her, telling much, yet holding back her doubts of fear.

“Oh, why don’t you marry Tull and be one of us?

“But, Mary, I don’t love Tull,” said Jane, stubbornly.

“I don’t blame you for that. But, Jane Withersteen, you’ve got to choose between the love of man and love of God. Often we Mormon women have to do that. It’s not easy. The kind of happiness you want I wanted once. I never got it, nor will you, unless you throw away your soul. We’ve all watched your affair with Venters in fear and trembling. Some dreadful thing will come of it. You don’t want him hanged or shot — or treated worse, as that Gentile boy was treated in Glaze for fooling round a Mormon woman. Marry Tull. It’s your duty as a Mormon. You’ll feel no rapture as his wife — but think of Heaven! Mormon women don’t marry for what they expect on earth. Take up the cross, Jane. Remember your father found Amber Spring, built these old houses, brought Mormons here, and fathered them. You are the daughter of Withersteen!”

Jane left Mary Brandt and went to call upon other friends. They received her with the same glad welcome as had Mary, lavished upon her the pent-up affection of Mormon women, and let her go with her ears ringing of Tull, Venters, Lassiter, of duty to God and glory in Heaven.

“Verily,” murmured Jane, “I don’t know myself when, through all this, I remain unchanged — nay, more fixed of purpose.”

She returned to the main street and bent her thoughtful steps toward the center of the village. A string of wagons drawn by oxen was lumbering along. These “sage-freighters,” as they were called, hauled grain and flour and merchandise from Sterling, and Jane laughed suddenly in the midst of her humility at the thought that they were her property, as was one of the three stores for which they freighted goods. The water that flowed along the path at her feet, and turned into each cottage-yard to nourish garden and orchard, also was hers, no less her private property because she chose to give it free. Yet in this village of Cottonwoods, which her father had founded and which she maintained she was not her own mistress; she was not able to abide by her own choice of a husband. She was the daughter of Withersteen. Suppose she proved it, imperiously! But she quelled that proud temptation at its birth.

Nothing could have replaced the affection which the village people had for her; no power could have made her happy as the pleasure her presence gave. As she went on down the street past the stores with their rude platform entrances, and the saloons where tired horses stood with bridles dragging, she was again assured of what was the bread and wine of life to her — that she was loved. Dirty boys playing in the ditch, clerks, teamsters, riders, loungers on the corners, ranchers on dusty horses, little girls running errands, and women hurrying to the stores all looked up at her coming with glad eyes.

Jane’s various calls and wandering steps at length led her to the Gentile quarter of the village. This was at the extreme southern end, and here some thirty Gentile families lived in huts and shacks and log-cabins and several dilapidated cottages. The fortunes of these inhabitants of Cottonwoods could be read in their abodes. Water they had in abundance, and therefore grass and fruit-trees and patches of alfalfa and vegetable gardens. Some of the men and boys had a few stray cattle, others obtained such intermittent employment as the Mormons reluctantly tendered them. But none of the families was prosperous, many were very poor, and some lived only by Jane Withersteen’s beneficence.

As it made Jane happy to go among her own people, so it saddened her to come in contact with these Gentiles. Yet that was not because she was unwelcome; here she was gratefully received by the women, passionately by the children. But poverty and idleness, with their attendant wretchedness and sorrow, always hurt her. That she could alleviate this distress more now than ever before proved the adage that it was an ill wind that blew nobody good. While her Mormon riders were in her employ she had found few Gentiles who would stay with her, and now she was able to find employment for all the men and boys. No little shock was it to have man after man tell her that he dare not accept her kind offer.

“It won’t do,” said one Carson, an intelligent man who had seen better days. “We’ve had our warning. Plain and to the point! Now there’s Judkins, he packs guns, and he can use them, and so can the daredevil boys he’s hired. But they’ve little responsibility. Can we risk having our homes burned in our absence?”

Jane felt the stretching and chilling of the skin of her face as the blood left it.

“Carson, you and the others rent these houses?” she asked.

“You ought to know, Miss Withersteen. Some of them are yours.”

“I know?... Carson, I never in my life took a day’s labor for rent or a yearling calf or a bunch of grass, let alone gold.”

“Bivens, your store-keeper, sees to that.”

“Look here, Carson,” went on Jane, hurriedly, and now her cheeks were burning. “You and Black and Willet pack your goods and move your families up to my cabins in the grove. They’re far more comfortable than these. Then go to work for me. And if aught happens to you there I’ll give you money — gold enough to leave Utah!”

The man choked and stammered, and then, as tears welled into his eyes, he found the use of his tongue and cursed. No gentle speech could ever have equaled that curse in eloquent expression of what he felt for Jane Withersteen. How strangely his look and tone reminded her of Lassiter!

“No, it won’t do,” he said, when he had somewhat recovered himself. “Miss Withersteen, there are things that you don’t know, and there’s not a soul among us who can tell you.”

“I seem to be learning many things, Carson. Well, then, will you let me aid you — say till better times?”

“Yes, I will,” he replied, with his face lighting up. “I see what it means to you, and you know what it means to me. Thank you! And if better times ever come, I’ll be only too happy to work for you.”

“Better times will come. I trust God and have faith in man. Good day, Carson.”

The lane opened out upon the sage-inclosed alfalfa fields, and the last habitation, at the end of that lane of hovels, was the meanest. Formerly it had been a shed; now it was a home. The broad leaves of a wide-spreading cottonwood sheltered the sunken roof of weathered boards. Like an Indian hut, it had one floor. Round about it were a few scanty rows of vegetables, such as the hand of a weak woman had time and strength to cultivate. This little dwelling-place was just outside the village limits, and the widow who lived there had to carry her water from the nearest irrigation ditch. As Jane Withersteen entered the unfenced yard a child saw her, shrieked with joy, and came tearing toward her with curls flying. This child was a little girl of four called Fay. Her name suited her, for she was an elf, a sprite, a creature so fairy-like and beautiful that she seemed unearthly.

“Muvver sended for oo,” cried Fay, as Jane kissed her, “an’ oo never tome.”

“I didn’t know, Fay; but I’ve come now.”

Fay was a child of outdoors, of the garden and ditch and field, and she was dirty and ragged. But rags and dirt did not hide her beauty. The one thin little bedraggled garment she wore half covered her fine, slim body. Red as cherries were her cheeks and lips; her eyes were violet blue, and the crown of her childish loveliness was the curling golden hair. All the children of Cottonwoods were Jane Withersteen’s friends, she loved them all. But Fay was dearest to her. Fay had few playmates, for among the Gentile children there were none near her age, and the Mormon children were forbidden to play with her. So she was a shy, wild, lonely child.

“Muvver’s sick,” said Fay, leading Jane toward the door of the hut.

Jane went in. There was only one room, rather dark and bare, but it was clean and neat. A woman lay upon a bed.

“Mrs. Larkin, how are you?” asked Jane, anxiously.

“I’ve been pretty bad for a week, but I’m better now.”

“You haven’t been here all alone — with no one to wait on you?”

“Oh no! My women neighbors are kind. They take turns coming in.”

“Did you send for me?”

“Yes, several times.”

“But I had no word — no messages ever got to me.”

“I sent the boys, and they left word with your women that I was ill and would you please come.”

A sudden deadly sickness seized Jane. She fought the weakness, as she fought to be above suspicious thoughts, and it passed, leaving her conscious of her utter impotence. That, too, passed as her spirit rebounded. But she had again caught a glimpse of dark underhand domination, running its secret lines this time into her own household. Like a spider in the blackness of night an unseen hand had begun to run these dark lines, to turn and twist them about her life, to plait and weave a web. Jane Withersteen knew it now, and in the realization further coolness and sureness came to her, and the fighting courage of her ancestors.

“Mrs. Larkin, you’re better, and I’m so glad,” said Jane. “But may I not do something for you — a turn at nursing, or send you things, or take care of Fay?”

“You’re so good. Since my husband’s been gone what would have become of Fay and me but for you? It was about Fay that I wanted to speak to you. This time I thought surely I’d die, and I was worried about Fay. Well, I’ll be around all right shortly, but my strength’s gone and I won’t live long. So I may as well speak now. You remember you’ve been asking me to let you take Fay and bring her up as your daughter?”

“Indeed yes, I remember. I’ll be happy to have her. But I hope the day—”

“Never mind that. The day’ll come — sooner or later. I refused your offer, and now I’ll tell you why.”

“I know why,” interposed Jane. “It’s because you don’t want her brought up as a Mormon.”

“No, it wasn’t altogether that.” Mrs. Larkin raised her thin hand and laid it appealingly on Jane’s. “I don’t like to tell you. But — it’s this: I told all my friends what you wanted. They know you, care for you, and they said for me to trust Fay to you. Women will talk, you know. It got to the ears of Mormons — gossip of your love for Fay and your wanting her. And it came straight back to me, in jealousy, perhaps, that you wouldn’t take Fay as much for love of her as because of your religious duty to bring up another girl for some Mormon to marry.”

“That’s a damnable lie!” cried Jane Withersteen.

“It was what made me hesitate,” went on Mrs. Larkin, “but I never believed it at heart. And now I guess I’ll let you—”

“Wait! Mrs. Larkin, I may have told little white lies in my life, but never a lie that mattered, that hurt any one. Now believe me. I love little Fay. If I had her near me I’d grow to worship her. When I asked for her I thought only of that love.... Let me prove this. You and Fay come to live with me. I’ve such a big house, and I’m so lonely. I’ll help nurse you, take care of you. When you’re better you can work for me. I’ll keep little Fay and bring her up — without Mormon teaching. When she’s grown, if she should want to leave me, I’ll send her, and not empty-handed, back to Illinois where you came from. I promise you.”

“I knew it was a lie,” replied the mother, and she sank back upon her pillow with something of peace in her white, worn face. “Jane Withersteen, may Heaven bless you! I’ve been deeply grateful to you. But because you’re a Mormon I never felt close to you till now. I don’t know much about religion as religion, but your God and my God are the same.”

CHAPTER VIII. SURPRISE VALLEY

BACK IN THAT strange canyon, which Venters had found indeed a valley of surprises, the wounded girl’s whispered appeal, almost a prayer, not to take her back to the rustlers crowned the events of the last few days with a confounding climax. That she should not want to return to them staggered Venters. Presently, as logical thought returned, her appeal confirmed his first impression — that she was more unfortunate than bad — and he experienced a sensation of gladness. If he had known before that Oldring’s Masked Rider was a woman his opinion would have been formed and he would have considered her abandoned. But his first knowledge had come when he lifted a white face quivering in a convulsion of agony; he had heard God’s name whispered by blood-stained lips; through her solemn and awful eyes he had caught a glimpse of her soul. And just now had come the entreaty to him, “Don’t — take — me — back — there!”

Once for all Venters’s quick mind formed a permanent conception of this poor girl. He based it, not upon what the chances of life had made her, but upon the revelation of dark eyes that pierced the infinite, upon a few pitiful, halting words that betrayed failure and wrong and misery, yet breathed the truth of a tragic fate rather than a natural leaning to evil.

“What’s your name?” he inquired.

“Bess,” she answered.

“Bess what?”

“That’s enough — just Bess.”

The red that deepened in her cheeks was not all the flush of fever. Venters marveled anew, and this time at the tint of shame in her face, at the momentary drooping of long lashes. She might be a rustler’s girl, but she was still capable of shame, she might be dying, but she still clung to some little remnant of honor.

“Very well, Bess. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “But this matters — what shall I do with you?”

“Are — you — a rider?” she whispered.

“Not now. I was once. I drove the Withersteen herds. But I lost my place — lost all I owned — and now I’m — I’m a sort of outcast. My name’s Bern Venters.”

“You won’t — take me — to Cottonwoods — or Glaze? I’d be — hanged.”

“No, indeed. But I must do something with you. For it’s not safe for me here. I shot that rustler who was with you. Sooner or later he’ll be found, and then my tracks. I must find a safer hiding-place where I can’t be trailed.”

“Leave me — here.”

“Alone — to die!”

“Yes.”

“I will not.” Venters spoke shortly with a kind of ring in his voice.

“What — do you want — to do — with me?” Her whispering grew difficult, so low and faint that Venters had to stoop to hear her.

“Why, let’s see,” he replied, slowly. “I’d like to take you some place where I could watch by you, nurse you, till you’re all right.”

“And — then?”

“Well, it’ll be time to think of that when you’re cured of your wound. It’s a bad one. And — Bess, if you don’t want to live — if you don’t fight for life — you’ll never—”

“Oh! I want — to live! I’m afraid — to die. But I’d rather — die — than go back — to — to—”

“To Oldring?” asked Venters, interrupting her in turn.

Her lips moved in an affirmative.

“I promise not to take you back to him or to Cottonwoods or to Glaze.”

The mournful earnestness of her gaze suddenly shone with unutterable gratitude and wonder. And as suddenly Venters found her eyes beautiful as he had never seen or felt beauty. They were as dark blue as the sky at night. Then the flashing changed to a long, thoughtful look, in which there was a wistful, unconscious searching of his face, a look that trembled on the verge of hope and trust.

“I’ll try — to live,” she said. The broken whisper just reached his ears. “Do what — you want — with me.”

“Rest then — don’t worry — sleep,” he replied.

Abruptly he arose, as if words had been decision for him, and with a sharp command to the dogs he strode from the camp. Venters was conscious of an indefinite conflict of change within him. It seemed to be a vague passing of old moods, a dim coalescing of new forces, a moment of inexplicable transition. He was both cast down and uplifted. He wanted to think and think of the meaning, but he resolutely dispelled emotion. His imperative need at present was to find a safe retreat, and this called for action.

So he set out. It still wanted several hours before dark. This trip he turned to the left and wended his skulking way southward a mile or more to the opening of the valley, where lay the strange scrawled rocks. He did not, however, venture boldly out into the open sage, but clung to the right-hand wall and went along that till its perpendicular line broke into the long incline of bare stone.

Before proceeding farther he halted, studying the strange character of this slope and realizing that a moving black object could be seen far against such background. Before him ascended a gradual swell of smooth stone. It was hard, polished, and full of pockets worn by centuries of eddying rain-water. A hundred yards up began a line of grotesque cedar-trees, and they extended along the slope clear to its most southerly end. Beyond that end Venters wanted to get, and he concluded the cedars, few as they were, would afford some cover.

Therefore he climbed swiftly. The trees were farther up than he had estimated, though he had from long habit made allowance for the deceiving nature of distances in that country. When he gained the cover of cedars he paused to rest and look, and it was then he saw how the trees sprang from holes in the bare rock. Ages of rain had run down the slope, circling, eddying in depressions, wearing deep round holes. There had been dry seasons, accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds, and cedars rose wonderfully out of solid rock. But these were not beautiful cedars. They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions, as if growth were torture, dead at the tops, shrunken, gray, and old. Theirs had been a bitter fight, and Venters felt a strange sympathy for them. This country was hard on trees — and men.

He slipped from cedar to cedar, keeping them between him and the open valley. As he progressed, the belt of trees widened and he kept to its upper margin. He passed shady pockets half full of water, and, as he marked the location for possible future need, he reflected that there had been no rain since the winter snows. From one of these shady holes a rabbit hopped out and squatted down, laying its ears flat.

Venters wanted fresh meat now more than when he had only himself to think of. But it would not do to fire his rifle there. So he broke off a cedar branch and threw it. He crippled the rabbit, which started to flounder up the slope. Venters did not wish to lose the meat, and he never allowed crippled game to escape, to die lingeringly in some covert. So after a careful glance below, and back toward the canyon, he began to chase the rabbit.

The fact that rabbits generally ran uphill was not new to him. But it presently seemed singular why this rabbit, that might have escaped downward, chose to ascend the slope. Venters knew then that it had a burrow higher up. More than once he jerked over to seize it, only in vain, for the rabbit by renewed effort eluded his grasp. Thus the chase continued on up the bare slope. The farther Venters climbed the more determined he grew to catch his quarry. At last, panting and sweating, he captured the rabbit at the foot of a steeper grade. Laying his rifle on the bulge of rising stone, he killed the animal and slung it from his belt.

Before starting down he waited to catch his breath. He had climbed far up that wonderful smooth slope, and had almost reached the base of yellow cliff that rose skyward, a huge scarred and cracked bulk. It frowned down upon him as if to forbid further ascent. Venters bent over for his rifle, and, as he picked it up from where it leaned against the steeper grade, he saw several little nicks cut in the solid stone.

They were only a few inches deep and about a foot apart. Venters began to count them — one — two — three — four — on up to sixteen. That number carried his glance to the top of his first bulging bench of cliff-base. Above, after a more level offset, was still steeper slope, and the line of nicks kept on, to wind round a projecting corner of wall.

A casual glance would have passed by these little dents; if Venters had not known what they signified he would never have bestowed upon them the second glance. But he knew they had been cut there by hand, and, though age-worn, he recognized them as steps cut in the rock by the cliff-dwellers. With a pulse beginning to beat and hammer away his calmness, he eyed that indistinct line of steps, up to where the buttress of wall hid further sight of them. He knew that behind the corner of stone would be a cave or a crack which could never be suspected from below. Chance, that had sported with him of late, now directed him to a probable hiding-place. Again he laid aside his rifle, and, removing boots and belt, he began to walk up the steps. Like a mountain goat, he was agile, sure-footed, and he mounted the first bench without bending to use his hands. The next ascent took grip of fingers as well as toes, but he climbed steadily, swiftly, to reach the projecting corner, and slipped around it. Here he faced a notch in the cliff. At the apex he turned abruptly into a ragged vent that split the ponderous wall clear to the top, showing a narrow streak of blue sky.

At the base this vent was dark, cool, and smelled of dry, musty dust. It zigzagged so that he could not see ahead more than a few yards at a time. He noticed tracks of wildcats and rabbits in the dusty floor. At every turn he expected to come upon a huge cavern full of little square stone houses, each with a small aperture like a staring dark eye. The passage lightened and widened, and opened at the foot of a narrow, steep, ascending chute.

Venters had a moment’s notice of the rock, which was of the same smoothness and hardness as the slope below, before his gaze went irresistibly upward to the precipitous walls of this wide ladder of granite. These were ruined walls of yellow sandstone, and so split and splintered, so overhanging with great sections of balancing rim, so impending with tremendous crumbling crags, that Venters caught his breath sharply, and, appalled, he instinctively recoiled as if a step upward might jar the ponderous cliffs from their foundation. Indeed, it seemed that these ruined cliffs were but awaiting a breath of wind to collapse and come tumbling down. Venters hesitated. It would be a foolhardy man who risked his life under the leaning, waiting avalanches of rock in that gigantic split. Yet how many years had they leaned there without falling! At the bottom of the incline was an immense heap of weathered sandstone all crumbling to dust, but there were no huge rocks as large as houses, such as rested so lightly and frightfully above, waiting patiently and inevitably to crash down. Slowly split from the parent rock by the weathering process, and carved and sculptured by ages of wind and rain, they waited their moment. Venters felt how foolish it was for him to fear these broken walls; to fear that, after they had endured for thousands of years, the moment of his passing should be the one for them to slip. Yet he feared it.

“What a place to hide!” muttered Venters. “I’ll climb — I’ll see where this thing goes. If only I can find water!”

With teeth tight shut he essayed the incline. And as he climbed he bent his eyes downward. This, however, after a little grew impossible; he had to look to obey his eager, curious mind. He raised his glance and saw light between row on row of shafts and pinnacles and crags that stood out from the main wall. Some leaned against the cliff, others against each other; many stood sheer and alone; all were crumbling, cracked, rotten. It was a place of yellow, ragged ruin. The passage narrowed as he went up; it became a slant, hard for him to stick on; it was smooth as marble. Finally he surmounted it, surprised to find the walls still several hundred feet high, and a narrow gorge leading down on the other side. This was a divide between two inclines, about twenty yards wide. At one side stood an enormous rock. Venters gave it a second glance, because it rested on a pedestal. It attracted closer attention. It was like a colossal pear of stone standing on its stem. Around the bottom were thousands of little nicks just distinguishable to the eye. They were marks of stone hatchets. The cliff-dwellers had chipped and chipped away at this boulder till it rested its tremendous bulk upon a mere pin-point of its surface. Venters pondered. Why had the little stone-men hacked away at that big boulder? It bore no semblance to a statue or an idol or a godhead or a sphinx. Instinctively he put his hands on it and pushed; then his shoulder and heaved. The stone seemed to groan, to stir, to grate, and then to move. It tipped a little downward and hung balancing for a long instant, slowly returned, rocked slightly, groaned, and settled back to its former position.

Venters divined its significance. It had been meant for defense. The cliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, had cunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to be dislodged by strong hands. Just below it leaned a tottering crag that would have toppled, starting an avalanche on an acclivity where no sliding mass could stop. Crags and pinnacles, splintered cliffs, and leaning shafts and monuments, would have thundered down to block forever the outlet to Deception Pass.

“That was a narrow shave for me,” said Venters, soberly. “A balancing rock! The cliff-dwellers never had to roll it. They died, vanished, and here the rock stands, probably little changed.... But it might serve another lonely dweller of the cliffs. I’ll hide up here somewhere, if I can only find water.”

He descended the gorge on the other side. The slope was gradual, the space narrow, the course straight for many rods. A gloom hung between the up-sweeping walls. In a turn the passage narrowed to scarce a dozen feet, and here was darkness of night. But light shone ahead; another abrupt turn brought day again, and then wide open space.

Above Venters loomed a wonderful arch of stone bridging the canyon rims, and through the enormous round portal gleamed and glistened a beautiful valley shining under sunset gold reflected by surrounding cliffs. He gave a start of surprise. The valley was a cove a mile long, half that wide, and its enclosing walls were smooth and stained, and curved inward, forming great caves. He decided that its floor was far higher than the level of Deception Pass and the intersecting canyons. No purple sage colored this valley floor. Instead there were the white of aspens, streaks of branch and slender trunk glistening from the green of leaves, and the darker green of oaks, and through the middle of this forest, from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which marked the course of cottonwoods and willows.

“There’s water here — and this is the place for me,” said Venters. “Only birds can peep over those walls, I’ve gone Oldring one better.”

Venters waited no longer, and turned swiftly to retrace his steps. He named the canyon Surprise Valley and the huge boulder that guarded the outlet Balancing Rock. Going down he did not find himself attended by such fears as had beset him in the climb; still, he was not easy in mind and could not occupy himself with plans of moving the girl and his outfit until he had descended to the notch. There he rested a moment and looked about him. The pass was darkening with the approach of night. At the corner of the wall, where the stone steps turned, he saw a spur of rock that would serve to hold the noose of a lasso. He needed no more aid to scale that place. As he intended to make the move under cover of darkness, he wanted most to be able to tell where to climb up. So, taking several small stones with him, he stepped and slid down to the edge of the slope where he had left his rifle and boots. He placed the stones some yards apart. He left the rabbit lying upon the bench where the steps began. Then he addressed a keen-sighted, remembering gaze to the rim-wall above. It was serrated, and between two spears of rock, directly in line with his position, showed a zigzag crack that at night would let through the gleam of sky. This settled, he put on his belt and boots and prepared to descend. Some consideration was necessary to decide whether or not to leave his rifle there. On the return, carrying the girl and a pack, it would be added encumbrance; and after debating the matter he left the rifle leaning against the bench. As he went straight down the slope he halted every few rods to look up at his mark on the rim. It changed, but he fixed each change in his memory. When he reached the first cedar-tree, he tied his scarf upon a dead branch, and then hurried toward camp, having no more concern about finding his trail upon the return trip.

Darkness soon emboldened and lent him greater speed. It occurred to him, as he glided into the grassy glade near camp and head the whinny of a horse, that he had forgotten Wrangle. The big sorrel could not be gotten into Surprise Valley. He would have to be left here.

Venters determined at once to lead the other horses out through the thicket and turn them loose. The farther they wandered from this canyon the better it would suit him. He easily descried Wrangle through the gloom, but the others were not in sight. Venters whistled low for the dogs, and when they came trotting to him he sent them out to search for the horses, and followed. It soon developed that they were not in the glade nor the thicket. Venters grew cold and rigid at the thought of rustlers having entered his retreat. But the thought passed, for the demeanor of Ring and Whitie reassured him. The horses had wandered away.

Under the clump of silver spruces a denser mantle of darkness, yet not so thick that Venter’s night-practiced eyes could not catch the white oval of a still face. He bent over it with a slight suspension of breath that was both caution lest he frighten her and chill uncertainty of feeling lest he find her dead. But she slept, and he arose to renewed activity.

He packed his saddle-bags. The dogs were hungry, they whined about him and nosed his busy hands; but he took no time to feed them nor to satisfy his own hunger. He slung the saddlebags over his shoulders and made them secure with his lasso. Then he wrapped the blankets closer about the girl and lifted her in his arms. Wrangle whinnied and thumped the ground as Venters passed him with the dogs. The sorrel knew he was being left behind, and was not sure whether he liked it or not. Venters went on and entered the thicket. Here he had to feel his way in pitch blackness and to wedge his progress between the close saplings. Time meant little to him now that he had started, and he edged along with slow side movement till he got clear of the thicket. Ring and Whitie stood waiting for him. Taking to the open aisles and patches of the sage, he walked guardedly, careful not to stumble or step in dust or strike against spreading sage-branches.

If he were burdened he did not feel it. From time to time, when he passed out of the black lines of shade into the wan starlight, he glanced at the white face of the girl lying in his arms. She had not awakened from her sleep or stupor. He did not rest until he cleared the black gate of the canyon. Then he leaned against a stone breast-high to him and gently released the girl from his hold. His brow and hair and the palms of his hands were wet, and there was a kind of nervous contraction of his muscles. They seemed to ripple and string tense. He had a desire to hurry and no sense of fatigue. A wind blew the scent of sage in his face. The first early blackness of night passed with the brightening of the stars. Somewhere back on his trail a coyote yelped, splitting the dead silence. Venters’s faculties seemed singularly acute.

He lifted the girl again and pressed on. The valley better traveling than the canyon. It was lighter, freer of sage, and there were no rocks. Soon, out of the pale gloom shone a still paler thing, and that was the low swell of slope. Venters mounted it and his dogs walked beside him. Once upon the stone he slowed to snail pace, straining his sight to avoid the pockets and holes. Foot by foot he went up. The weird cedars, like great demons and witches chained to the rock and writhing in silent anguish, loomed up with wide and twisting naked arms. Venters crossed this belt of cedars, skirted the upper border, and recognized the tree he had marked, even before he saw his waving scarf.

Here he knelt and deposited the girl gently, feet first and slowly laid her out full length. What he feared was to reopen one of her wounds. If he gave her a violent jar, or slipped and fell! But the supreme confidence so strangely felt that night admitted no such blunders.

The slope before him seemed to swell into obscurity to lose its definite outline in a misty, opaque cloud that shaded into the over-shadowing wall. He scanned the rim where the serrated points speared the sky, and he found the zigzag crack. It was dim, only a shade lighter than the dark ramparts, but he distinguished it, and that served.

Lifting the girl, he stepped upward, closely attending to the nature of the path under his feet. After a few steps he stopped to mark his line with the crack in the rim. The dogs clung closer to him. While chasing the rabbit this slope had appeared interminable to him; now, burdened as he was, he did not think of length or height or toil. He remembered only to avoid a misstep and to keep his direction. He climbed on, with frequent stops to watch the rim, and before he dreamed of gaining the bench he bumped his knees into it, and saw, in the dim gray light, his rifle and the rabbit. He had come straight up without mishap or swerving off his course, and his shut teeth unlocked.

As he laid the girl down in the shallow hollow of the little ridge with her white face upturned, she opened her eyes. Wide, staring black, at once like both the night and the stars, they made her face seem still whiter.

“Is — it — you?” she asked, faintly.

“Yes,” replied Venters.

“Oh! Where — are we?”

“I’m taking you to a safe place where no one will ever find you. I must climb a little here and call the dogs. Don’t be afraid. I’ll soon come for you.”

She said no more. Her eyes watched him steadily for a moment and then closed. Venters pulled off his boots and then felt for the little steps in the rock. The shade of the cliff above obscured the point he wanted to gain, but he could see dimly a few feet before him. What he had attempted with care he now went at with surpassing lightness. Buoyant, rapid, sure, he attained the corner of wall and slipped around it. Here he could not see a hand before his face, so he groped along, found a little flat space, and there removed the saddle-bags. The lasso he took back with him to the corner and looped the noose over the spur of rock.

“Ring — Whitie — come,” he called, softly.

Low whines came up from below.

“Here! Come, Whitie — Ring,” he repeated, this time sharply.

Then followed scraping of claws and pattering of feet; and out of the gray gloom below him swiftly climbed the dogs to reach his side and pass beyond.

Venters descended, holding to the lasso. He tested its strength by throwing all his weight upon it. Then he gathered the girl up, and, holding her securely in his left arm, he began to climb, at every few steps jerking his right hand upward along the lasso. It sagged at each forward movement he made, but he balanced himself lightly during the interval when he lacked the support of a taut rope. He climbed as if he had wings, the strength of a giant, and knew not the sense of fear. The sharp corner of cliff seemed to cut out of the darkness. He reached it and the protruding shelf, and then, entering the black shade of the notch, he moved blindly but surely to the place where he had left the saddle-bags. He heard the dogs, though he could not see them. Once more he carefully placed the girl at his feet. Then, on hands and knees, he went over the little flat space, feeling for stones. He removed a number, and, scraping the deep dust into a heap, he unfolded the outer blanket from around the girl and laid her upon this bed. Then he went down the slope again for his boots, rifle, and the rabbit, and, bringing also his lasso with him, he made short work of that trip.

“Are — you — there?” The girl’s voice came low from the blackness.

“Yes,” he replied, and was conscious that his laboring breast made speech difficult.

“Are we — in a cave?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, listen!... The waterfall!... I hear it! You’ve brought me back!”

Venters heard a murmuring moan that one moment swelled to a pitch almost softly shrill and the next lulled to a low, almost inaudible sigh.

“That’s — wind blowing — in the — cliffs,” he panted. “You’re far from Oldring’s — canyon.”

The effort it cost him to speak made him conscious of extreme lassitude following upon great exertion. It seemed that when he lay down and drew his blanket over him the action was the last before utter prostration. He stretched inert, wet, hot, his body one great strife of throbbing, stinging nerves and bursting veins. And there he lay for a long while before he felt that he had begun to rest.

Rest came to him that night, but no sleep. Sleep he did not want. The hours of strained effort were now as if they had never been, and he wanted to think. Earlier in the day he had dismissed an inexplicable feeling of change; but now, when there was no longer demand on his cunning and strength and he had time to think, he could not catch the illusive thing that had sadly perplexed as well as elevated his spirit.

Above him, through a V-shaped cleft in the dark rim of the cliff, shone the lustrous stars that had been his lonely accusers for a long, long year. To-night they were different. He studied them. Larger, whiter, more radiant they seemed; but that was not the difference he meant. Gradually it came to him that the distinction was not one he saw, but one he felt. In this he divined as much of the baffling change as he thought would be revealed to him then. And as he lay there, with the singing of the cliff-winds in his ears, the white stars above the dark, bold vent, the difference which he felt was that he was no longer alone.

CHAPTER IX. SILVER SPRUCE AND ASPENS

THE REST OF that night seemed to Venters only a few moments of starlight, a dark overcasting of sky, an hour or so of gray gloom, and then the lighting of dawn.

When he had bestirred himself, feeding the hungry dogs and breaking his long fast, and had repacked his saddle-bags, it was clear daylight, though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in the east. He concluded to make the climb and descent into Surprise Valley in one trip. To that end he tied his blanket upon Ring and gave Whitie the extra lasso and the rabbit to carry. Then, with the rifle and saddle-bags slung upon his back, he took up the girl. She did not awaken from heavy slumber.

That climb up under the rugged, menacing brows of the broken cliffs, in the face of a grim, leaning boulder that seemed to be weary of its age-long wavering, was a tax on strength and nerve that Venters felt equally with something sweet and strangely exulting in its accomplishment. He did not pause until he gained the narrow divide and there he rested. Balancing Rock loomed huge, cold in the gray light of dawn, a thing without life, yet it spoke silently to Venters: “I am waiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury your trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!”

On the descent of the other side Venters had easy going, but was somewhat concerned because Whitie appeared to have succumbed to temptation, and while carrying the rabbit was also chewing on it. And Ring evidently regarded this as an injury to himself, especially as he had carried the heavier load. Presently he snapped at one end of the rabbit and refused to let go. But his action prevented Whitie from further misdoing, and then the two dogs pattered down, carrying the rabbit between them.

Venters turned out of the gorge, and suddenly paused stock-still, astounded at the scene before him. The curve of the great stone bridge had caught the sunrise, and through the magnificent arch burst a glorious stream of gold that shone with a long slant down into the center of Surprise Valley. Only through the arch did any sunlight pass, so that all the rest of the valley lay still asleep, dark green, mysterious, shadowy, merging its level into walls as misty and soft as morning clouds.

Venters then descended, passing through the arch, looking up at its tremendous height and sweep. It spanned the opening to Surprise Valley, stretching in almost perfect curve from rim to rim. Even in his hurry and concern Venters could not but feel its majesty, and the thought came to him that the cliff-dwellers must have regarded it as an object of worship.

Down, down, down Venters strode, more and more feeling the weight of his burden as he descended, and still the valley lay below him. As all other canyons and coves and valleys had deceived him, so had this deep, nestling oval. At length he passed beyond the slope of weathered stone that spread fan-shape from the arch, and encountered a grassy terrace running to the right and about on a level with the tips of the oaks and cottonwoods below. Scattered here and there upon this shelf were clumps of aspens, and he walked through them into a glade that surpassed in beauty and adaptability for a wild home, any place he had ever seen. Silver spruces bordered the base of a precipitous wall that rose loftily. Caves indented its surface, and there were no detached ledges or weathered sections that might dislodge a stone. The level ground, beyond the spruces, dropped down into a little ravine. This was one dense line of slender aspens from which came the low splashing of water. And the terrace, lying open to the west, afforded unobstructed view of the valley of green treetops.

For his camp Venters chose a shady, grassy plot between the silver spruces and the cliff. Here, in the stone wall, had been wonderfully carved by wind or washed by water several deep caves above the level of the terrace. They were clean, dry, roomy.

He cut spruce boughs and made a bed in the largest cave and laid the girl there. The first intimation that he had of her being aroused from sleep or lethargy was a low call for water.

He hurried down into the ravine with his canteen. It was a shallow, grass-green place with aspens growing up everywhere. To his delight he found a tiny brook of swift-running water. Its faint tinge of amber reminded him of the spring at Cottonwoods, and the thought gave him a little shock. The water was so cold it made his fingers tingle as he dipped the canteen. Having returned to the cave, he was glad to see the girl drink thirstily. This time he noted that she could raise her head slightly without his help.

“You were thirsty,” he said. “It’s good water. I’ve found a fine place. Tell me — how do you feel?”

“There’s pain — here,” she replied, and moved her hand to her left side.

“Why, that’s strange! Your wounds are on your right side. I believe you’re hungry. Is the pain a kind of dull ache — a gnawing?”

“It’s like — that.”

“Then it’s hunger.” Venters laughed, and suddenly caught himself with a quick breath and felt again the little shock. When had he laughed? “It’s hunger,” he went on. “I’ve had that gnaw many a time. I’ve got it now. But you mustn’t eat. You can have all the water you want, but no food just yet.”

“Won’t I — starve?”

“No, people don’t starve easily. I’ve discovered that. You must lie perfectly still and rest and sleep — for days.”

“My hands — are dirty; my face feels — so hot and sticky; my boots hurt.” It was her longest speech as yet, and it trailed off in a whisper.

“Well, I’m a fine nurse!”

It annoyed him that he had never thought of these things. But then, awaiting her death and thinking of her comfort were vastly different matters. He unwrapped the blanket which covered her. What a slender girl she was! No wonder he had been able to carry her miles and pack her up that slippery ladder of stone. Her boots were of soft, fine leather, reaching clear to her knees. He recognized the make as one of a boot-maker in Sterling. Her spurs, that he had stupidly neglected to remove, consisted of silver frames and gold chains, and the rowels, large as silver dollars, were fancifully engraved. The boots slipped off rather hard. She wore heavy woollen rider’s stockings, half length, and these were pulled up over the ends of her short trousers. Venters took off the stockings to note her little feet were red and swollen. He bathed them. Then he removed his scarf and bathed her face and hands.

“I must see your wounds now,” he said, gently.

She made no reply, but watched him steadily as he opened her blouse and untied the bandage. His strong fingers trembled a little as he removed it. If the wounds had reopened! A chill struck him as he saw the angry red bullet-mark, and a tiny stream of blood winding from it down her white breast. Very carefully he lifted her to see that the wound in her back had closed perfectly. Then he washed the blood from her breast, bathed the wound, and left it unbandaged, open to the air.

Her eyes thanked him.

“Listen,” he said, earnestly. “I’ve had some wounds, and I’ve seen many. I know a little about them. The hole in your back has closed. If you lie still three days the one in your breast will close and you’ll be safe. The danger from hemorrhage will be over.”

He had spoken with earnest sincerity, almost eagerness.

“Why — do you — want me — to get well?” she asked, wonderingly.

The simple question seemed unanswerable except on grounds of humanity. But the circumstances under which he had shot this strange girl, the shock and realization, the waiting for death, the hope, had resulted in a condition of mind wherein Venters wanted her to live more than he had ever wanted anything. Yet he could not tell why. He believed the killing of the rustler and the subsequent excitement had disturbed him. For how else could he explain the throbbing of his brain, the heat of his blood, the undefined sense of full hours, charged, vibrant with pulsating mystery where once they had dragged in loneliness?

“I shot you,” he said, slowly, “and I want you to get well so I shall not have killed a woman. But — for your own sake, too—”

A terrible bitterness darkened her eyes, and her lips quivered.

“Hush,” said Venters. “You’ve talked too much already.”

In her unutterable bitterness he saw a darkness of mood that could not have been caused by her present weak and feverish state. She hated the life she had led, that she probably had been compelled to lead. She had suffered some unforgivable wrong at the hands of Oldring. With that conviction Venters felt a shame throughout his body, and it marked the rekindling of fierce anger and ruthlessness. In the past long year he had nursed resentment. He had hated the wilderness — the loneliness of the uplands. He had waited for something to come to pass. It had come. Like an Indian stealing horses he had skulked into the recesses of the canyons. He had found Oldring’s retreat; he had killed a rustler; he had shot an unfortunate girl, then had saved her from this unwitting act, and he meant to save her from the consequent wasting of blood, from fever and weakness. Starvation he had to fight for her and for himself. Where he had been sick at the letting of blood, now he remembered it in grim, cold calm. And as he lost that softness of nature, so he lost his fear of men. He would watch for Oldring, biding his time, and he would kill this great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage, who had used her to his infamous ends.

Venters surmised this much of the change in him — idleness had passed; keen, fierce vigor flooded his mind and body; all that had happened to him at Cottonwoods seemed remote and hard to recall; the difficulties and perils of the present absorbed him, held him in a kind of spell.

First, then, he fitted up the little cave adjoining the girl’s room for his own comfort and use. His next work was to build a fireplace of stones and to gather a store of wood. That done, he spilled the contents of his saddle-bags upon the grass and took stock. His outfit consisted of a small-handled axe, a hunting-knife, a large number of cartridges for rifle or revolver, a tin plate, a cup, and a fork and spoon, a quantity of dried beef and dried fruits, and small canvas bags containing tea, sugar, salt, and pepper. For him alone this supply would have been bountiful to begin a sojourn in the wilderness, but he was no longer alone. Starvation in the uplands was not an unheard-of thing; he did not, however, worry at all on that score, and feared only his possible inability to supply the needs of a woman in a weakened and extremely delicate condition.

If there was no game in the valley — a contingency he doubted — it would not be a great task for him to go by night to Oldring’s herd and pack out a calf. The exigency of the moment was to ascertain if there were game in Surprise Valley. Whitie still guarded the dilapidated rabbit, and Ring slept near by under a spruce. Venters called Ring and went to the edge of the terrace, and there halted to survey the valley.

He was prepared to find it larger than his unstudied glances had made it appear; for more than a casual idea of dimensions and a hasty conception of oval shape and singular beauty he had not had time. Again the felicity of the name he had given the valley struck him forcibly. Around the red perpendicular walls, except under the great arc of stone, ran a terrace fringed at the cliff-base by silver spruces; below that first terrace sloped another wider one densely overgrown with aspens, and the center of the valley was a level circle of oaks and alders, with the glittering green line of willows and cottonwood dividing it in half. Venters saw a number and variety of birds flitting among the trees. To his left, facing the stone bridge, an enormous cavern opened in the wall; and low down, just above the tree-tops, he made out a long shelf of cliff-dwellings, with little black, staring windows or doors. Like eyes they were, and seemed to watch him. The few cliff-dwellings he had seen — all ruins — had left him with haunting memory of age and solitude and of something past. He had come, in a way, to be a cliff-dweller himself, and those silent eyes would look down upon him, as if in surprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded the valley. Venters felt sure that he was the only white man who had ever walked under the shadow of the wonderful stone bridge, down into that wonderful valley with its circle of caves and its terraced rings of silver spruce and aspens.

The dog growled below and rushed into the forest. Venters ran down the declivity to enter a zone of light shade streaked with sunshine. The oak-trees were slender, none more than half a foot thick, and they grew close together, intermingling their branches. Ring came running back with a rabbit in his mouth. Venters took the rabbit and, holding the dog near him, stole softly on. There were fluttering of wings among the branches and quick bird-notes, and rustling of dead leaves and rapid patterings. Venters crossed well-worn trails marked with fresh tracks; and when he had stolen on a little farther he saw many birds and running quail, and more rabbits than he could count. He had not penetrated the forest of oaks for a hundred yards, had not approached anywhere near the line of willows and cottonwoods which he knew grew along a stream. But he had seen enough to know that Surprise Valley was the home of many wild creatures.

Venters returned to camp. He skinned the rabbits, and gave the dogs the one they had quarreled over, and the skin of this he dressed and hung up to dry, feeling that he would like to keep it. It was a particularly rich, furry pelt with a beautiful white tail. Venters remembered that but for the bobbing of that white tail catching his eye he would not have espied the rabbit, and he would never have discovered Surprise Valley. Little incidents of chance like this had turned him here and there in Deception Pass; and now they had assumed to him the significance and direction of destiny.

His good fortune in the matter of game at hand brought to his mind the necessity of keeping it in the valley. Therefore he took the axe and cut bundles of aspens and willows, and packed them up under the bridge to the narrow outlet of the gorge. Here he began fashioning a fence, by driving aspens into the ground and lacing them fast with willows. Trip after trip he made down for more building material, and the afternoon had passed when he finished the work to his satisfaction. Wildcats might scale the fence, but no coyote could come in to search for prey, and no rabbits or other small game could escape from the valley.

Upon returning to camp he set about getting his supper at ease, around a fine fire, without hurry or fear of discovery. After hard work that had definite purpose, this freedom and comfort gave him peculiar satisfaction. He caught himself often, as he kept busy round the camp-fire, stopping to glance at the quiet form in the cave, and at the dogs stretched cozily near him, and then out across the beautiful valley. The present was not yet real to him.

While he ate, the sun set beyond a dip in the rim of the curved wall. As the morning sun burst wondrously through a grand arch into this valley, in a golden, slanting shaft, so the evening sun, at the moment of setting, shone through a gap of cliffs, sending down a broad red burst to brighten the oval with a blaze of fire. To Venters both sunrise and sunset were unreal.

A cool wind blew across the oval, waving the tips of oaks, and while the light lasted, fluttering the aspen leaves into millions of facets of red, and sweeping the graceful spruces. Then with the wind soon came a shade and a darkening, and suddenly the valley was gray. Night came there quickly after the sinking of the sun. Venters went softly to look at the girl. She slept, and her breathing was quiet and slow. He lifted Ring into the cave, with stern whisper for him to stay there on guard. Then he drew the blanket carefully over her and returned to the camp-fire.

Though exceedingly tired, he was yet loath to yield to lassitude, but this night it was not from listening, watchful vigilance; it was from a desire to realize his position. The details of his wild environment seemed the only substance of a strange dream. He saw the darkening rims, the gray oval turning black, the undulating surface of forest, like a rippling lake, and the spear-pointed spruces. He heard the flutter of aspen leaves and the soft, continuous splash of falling water. The melancholy note of a canyon bird broke clear and lonely from the high cliffs. Venters had no name for this night singer, and he had never seen one, but the few notes, always pealing out just at darkness, were as familiar to him as the canyon silence. Then they ceased, and the rustle of leaves and the murmur of water hushed in a growing sound that Venters fancied was not of earth. Neither had he a name for this, only it was inexpressibly wild and sweet. The thought came that it might be a moan of the girl in her last outcry of life, and he felt a tremor shake him. But no! This sound was not human, though it was like despair. He began to doubt his sensitive perceptions, to believe that he half-dreamed what he thought he heard. Then the sound swelled with the strengthening of the breeze, and he realized it was the singing of the wind in the cliffs.

By and by a drowsiness overcame him, and Venters began to nod, half asleep, with his back against a spruce. Rousing himself and calling Whitie, he went to the cave. The girl lay barely visible in the dimness. Ring crouched beside her, and the patting of his tail on the stone assured Venters that the dog was awake and faithful to his duty. Venters sought his own bed of fragrant boughs; and as he lay back, somehow grateful for the comfort and safety, the night seemed to steal away from him and he sank softly into intangible space and rest and slumber.

Venters awakened to the sound of melody that he imagined was only the haunting echo of dream music. He opened his eyes to another surprise of this valley of beautiful surprises. Out of his cave he saw the exquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round space of blue morning sky; and in this lacy leafage fluttered a number of gray birds with black and white stripes and long tails. They were mocking-birds, and they were singing as if they wanted to burst their throats. Venters listened. One long, silver-tipped branch dropped almost to his cave, and upon it, within a few yards of him, sat one of the graceful birds. Venters saw the swelling and quivering of its throat in song. He arose, and when he slid down out of his cave the birds fluttered and flew farther away.

Venters stepped before the opening of the other cave and looked in. The girl was awake, with wide eyes and listening look, and she had a hand on Ring’s neck.

“Mocking-birds!” she said.

“Yes,” replied Venters, “and I believe they like our company.”

“Where are we?”

“Never mind now. After a little I’ll tell you.”

“The birds woke me. When I heard them — and saw the shiny trees — and the blue sky — and then a blaze of gold dropping down — I wondered—”

She did not complete her fancy, but Venters imagined he understood her meaning. She appeared to be wandering in mind. Venters felt her face and hands and found them burning with fever. He went for water, and was glad to find it almost as cold as if flowing from ice. That water was the only medicine he had, and he put faith in it. She did not want to drink, but he made her swallow, and then he bathed her face and head and cooled her wrists.

The day began with the heightening of the fever. Venters spent the time reducing her temperature, cooling her hot cheeks and temples. He kept close watch over her, and at the least indication of restlessness, that he knew led to tossing and rolling of the body, he held her tightly, so no violent move could reopen her wounds. Hour after hour she babbled and laughed and cried and moaned in delirium; but whatever her secret was she did not reveal it. Attended by something somber for Venters, the day passed. At night in the cool winds the fever abated and she slept.

The second day was a repetition of the first. On the third he seemed to see her wither and waste away before his eyes. That day he scarcely went from her side for a moment, except to run for fresh, cool water; and he did not eat. The fever broke on the fourth day and left her spent and shrunken, a slip of a girl with life only in her eyes. They hung upon Venters with a mute observance, and he found hope in that.

To rekindle the spark that had nearly flickered out, to nourish the little life and vitality that remained in her, was Venters’s problem. But he had little resource other than the meat of the rabbits and quail; and from these he made broths and soups as best he could, and fed her with a spoon. It came to him that the human body, like the human soul, was a strange thing and capable of recovering from terrible shocks. For almost immediately she showed faint signs of gathering strength. There was one more waiting day, in which he doubted, and spent long hours by her side as she slept, and watched the gentle swell of her breast rise and fall in breathing, and the wind stir the tangled chestnut curls. On the next day he knew that she would live.

Upon realizing it he abruptly left the cave and sought his accustomed seat against the trunk of a big spruce, where once more he let his glance stray along the sloping terraces. She would live, and the somber gloom lifted out of the valley, and he felt relief that was pain. Then he roused to the call of action, to the many things he needed to do in the way of making camp fixtures and utensils, to the necessity of hunting food, and the desire to explore the valley.

But he decided to wait a few more days before going far from camp, because he fancied that the girl rested easier when she could see him near at hand. And on the first day her languor appeared to leave her in a renewed grip of life. She awoke stronger from each short slumber; she ate greedily, and she moved about in her bed of boughs; and always, it seemed to Venters, her eyes followed him. He knew now that her recovery would be rapid. She talked about the dogs, about the caves, the valley, about how hungry she was, till Venters silenced her, asking her to put off further talk till another time. She obeyed, but she sat up in her bed, and her eyes roved to and fro, and always back to him.

Upon the second morning she sat up when he awakened her, and would not permit him to bathe her face and feed her, which actions she performed for herself. She spoke little, however, and Venters was quick to catch in her the first intimations of thoughtfulness and curiosity and appreciation of her situation. He left camp and took Whitie out to hunt for rabbits. Upon his return he was amazed and somewhat anxiously concerned to see his invalid sitting with her back to a corner of the cave and her bare feet swinging out. Hurriedly he approached, intending to advise her to lie down again, to tell her that perhaps she might overtax her strength. The sun shone upon her, glinting on the little head with its tangle of bright hair and the small, oval face with its pallor, and dark-blue eyes underlined by dark-blue circles. She looked at him and he looked at her. In that exchange of glances he imagined each saw the other in some different guise. It seemed impossible to Venters that this frail girl could be Oldring’s Masked Rider. It flashed over him that he had made a mistake which presently she would explain.

“Help me down,” she said.

“But — are you well enough?” he protested. “Wait — a little longer.”

“I’m weak — dizzy. But I want to get down.”

He lifted her — what a light burden now! — and stood her upright beside him, and supported her as she essayed to walk with halting steps. She was like a stripling of a boy; the bright, small head scarcely reached his shoulder. But now, as she clung to his arm, the rider’s costume she wore did not contradict, as it had done at first, his feeling of her femininity. She might be the famous Masked Rider of the uplands, she might resemble a boy; but her outline, her little hands and feet, her hair, her big eyes and tremulous lips, and especially a something that Venters felt as a subtle essence rather than what he saw, proclaimed her sex.

She soon tired. He arranged a comfortable seat for her under the spruce that overspread the camp-fire.

“Now tell me — everything,” she said.

He recounted all that had happened from the time of his discovery of the rustlers in the canyon up to the present moment.

“You shot me — and now you’ve saved my life?”

“Yes. After almost killing you I’ve pulled you through.”

“Are you glad?”

“I should say so!”

Her eyes were unusually expressive, and they regarded him steadily; she was unconscious of that mirroring of her emotions and they shone with gratefulness and interest and wonder and sadness.

“Tell me — about yourself?” she asked.

He made this a briefer story, telling of his coming to Utah, his various occupations till he became a rider, and then how the Mormons had practically driven him out of Cottonwoods, an outcast.

Then, no longer able to withstand his own burning curiosity, he questioned her in turn.

“Are you Oldring’s Masked Rider?”

“Yes,” she replied, and dropped her eyes.

“I knew it — I recognized your figure — and mask, for I saw you once. Yet I can’t believe it!... But you never were really that rustler, as we riders knew him? A thief — a marauder — a kidnapper of women — a murderer of sleeping riders!”

“No! I never stole — or harmed any one — in all my life. I only rode and rode—”

“But why — why?” he burst out. “Why the name? I understand Oldring made you ride. But the black mask — the mystery — the things laid to your hands — the threats in your infamous name — the night-riding credited to you — the evil deeds deliberately blamed on you and acknowledged by rustlers — even Oldring himself! Why? Tell me why?”

“I never knew that,” she answered low. Her drooping head straightened, and the large eyes, larger now and darker, met Venters’s with a clear, steadfast gaze in which he read truth. It verified his own conviction.

“Never knew? That’s strange! Are you a Mormon?”

“No.”

“Is Oldring a Mormon?”

“No.”

“Do you — care for him?”

“Yes. I hate his men — his life — sometimes I almost hate him!”

Venters paused in his rapid-fire questioning, as if to brace him self to ask for a truth that would be abhorrent for him to confirm, but which he seemed driven to hear.

“What are — what were you to Oldring?”

Like some delicate thing suddenly exposed to blasting heat, the girl wilted; her head dropped, and into her white, wasted cheeks crept the red of shame.

Venters would have given anything to recall that question. It seemed so different — his thought when spoken. Yet her shame established in his mind something akin to the respect he had strangely been hungering to feel for her.

“D — n that question! — forget it!” he cried, in a passion of pain for her and anger at himself. “But once and for all — tell me — I know it, yet I want to hear you say so — you couldn’t help yourself?”

“Oh no.”

“Well, that makes it all right with me,” he went on, honestly. “I — I want you to feel that... you see — we’ve been thrown together — and — and I want to help you — not hurt you. I thought life had been cruel to me, but when I think of yours I feel mean and little for my complaining. Anyway, I was a lonely outcast. And now!... I don’t see very clearly what it all means. Only we are here — together. We’ve got to stay here, for long, surely till you are well. But you’ll never go back to Oldring. And I’m sure helping you will help me, for I was sick in mind. There’s something now for me to do. And if I can win back your strength — then get you away, out of this wild country — help you somehow to a happier life — just think how good that’ll be for me!”

CHAPTER X. LOVE

DURING ALL THESE waiting days Venters, with the exception of the afternoon when he had built the gate in the gorge, had scarcely gone out of sight of camp and never out of hearing. His desire to explore Surprise Valley was keen, and on the morning after his long talk with the girl he took his rifle and, calling Ring, made a move to start. The girl lay back in a rude chair of boughs he had put together for her. She had been watching him, and when he picked up the gun and called the dog Venters thought she gave a nervous start.

“I’m only going to look over the valley,” he said.

“Will you be gone long?”

“No,” he replied, and started off. The incident set him thinking of his former impression that, after her recovery from fever, she did not seem at ease unless he was close at hand. It was fear of being alone, due, he concluded, most likely to her weakened condition. He must not leave her much alone.

As he strode down the sloping terrace, rabbits scampered before him, and the beautiful valley quail, as purple in color as the sage on the uplands, ran fleetly along the ground into the forest. It was pleasant under the trees, in the gold-flecked shade, with the whistle of quail and twittering of birds everywhere. Soon he had passed the limit of his former excursions and entered new territory. Here the woods began to show open glades and brooks running down from the slope, and presently he emerged from shade into the sunshine of a meadow. The shaking of the high grass told him of the running of animals, what species he could not tell, but from Ring’s manifest desire to have a chase they were evidently some kind wilder than rabbits. Venters approached the willow and cottonwood belt that he had observed from the height of slope. He penetrated it to find a considerable stream of water and great half-submerged mounds of brush and sticks, and all about him were old and new gnawed circles at the base of the cottonwoods.

“Beaver!” he exclaimed. “By all that’s lucky! The meadow’s full of beaver! How did they ever get here?”

Beaver had not found a way into the valley by the trail of the cliff-dwellers, of that he was certain; and he began to have more than curiosity as to the outlet or inlet of the stream. When he passed some dead water, which he noted was held by a beaver dam, there was a current in the stream, and it flowed west. Following its course, he soon entered the oak forest again, and passed through to find himself before massed and jumbled ruins of cliff wall. There were tangled thickets of wild plum-trees and other thorny growths that made passage extremely laborsome. He found innumerable tracks of wildcats and foxes. Rustlings in the thick undergrowth told him of stealthy movements of these animals. At length his further advance appeared futile, for the reason that the stream disappeared in a split at the base of immense rocks over which he could not climb. To his relief he concluded that though beaver might work their way up the narrow chasm where the water rushed, it would be impossible for men to enter the valley there.

This western curve was the only part of the valley where the walls had been split asunder, and it was a wildly rough and inaccessible corner. Going back a little way, he leaped the stream and headed toward the southern wall. Once out of the oaks he found again the low terrace of aspens, and above that the wide, open terrace fringed by silver spruces. This side of the valley contained the wind or water worn caves. As he pressed on, keeping to the upper terrace, cave after cave opened out of the cliff; now a large one, now a small one. Then yawned, quite suddenly and wonderfully above him, the great cavern of the cliff-dwellers.

It was still a goodly distance, and he tried to imagine, if it appeared so huge from where he stood, what it would be when he got there. He climbed the terrace and then faced a long, gradual ascent of weathered rock and dust, which made climbing too difficult for attention to anything else. At length he entered a zone of shade, and looked up. He stood just within the hollow of a cavern so immense that he had no conception of its real dimensions. The curved roof, stained by ages of leakage, with buff and black and rust-colored streaks, swept up and loomed higher and seemed to soar to the rim of the cliff. Here again was a magnificent arch, such as formed the grand gateway to the valley, only in this instance it formed the dome of a cave instead of the span of a bridge.

Venters passed onward and upward. The stones he dislodged rolled down with strange, hollow crack and roar. He had climbed a hundred rods inward, and yet he had not reached the base of the shelf where the cliff-dwellings rested, a long half-circle of connected stone house, with little dark holes that he had fancied were eyes. At length he gained the base of the shelf, and here found steps cut in the rock. These facilitated climbing, and as he went up he thought how easily this vanished race of men might once have held that stronghold against an army. There was only one possible place to ascend, and this was narrow and steep.

Venters had visited cliff-dwellings before, and they had been in ruins, and of no great character or size but this place was of proportions that stunned him, and it had not been desecrated by the hand of man, nor had it been crumbled by the hand of time. It was a stupendous tomb. It had been a city. It was just as it had been left by its builders. The little houses were there, the smoke-blackened stains of fires, the pieces of pottery scattered about cold hearths, the stone hatchets; and stone pestles and mealing-stones lay beside round holes polished by years of grinding maize — lay there as if they had been carelessly dropped yesterday. But the cliff-dwellers were gone!

Dust! They were dust on the floor or at the foot of the shelf, and their habitations and utensils endured. Venters felt the sublimity of that marvelous vaulted arch, and it seemed to gleam with a glory of something that was gone. How many years had passed since the cliff-dwellers gazed out across the beautiful valley as he was gazing now? How long had it been since women ground grain in those polished holes? What time had rolled by since men of an unknown race lived, loved, fought, and died there? Had an enemy destroyed them? Had disease destroyed them, or only that greatest destroyer — time? Venters saw a long line of blood-red hands painted low down upon the yellow roof of stone. Here was strange portent, if not an answer to his queries. The place oppressed him. It was light, but full of a transparent gloom. It smelled of dust and musty stone, of age and disuse. It was sad. It was solemn. It had the look of a place where silence had become master and was now irrevocable and terrible and could not be broken. Yet, at the moment, from high up in the carved crevices of the arch, floated down the low, strange wail of wind — a knell indeed for all that had gone.

Venters, sighing, gathered up an armful of pottery, such pieces as he thought strong enough and suitable for his own use, and bent his steps toward camp. He mounted the terrace at an opposite point to which he had left. He saw the girl looking in the direction he had gone. His footsteps made no sound in the deep grass, and he approached close without her being aware of his presence. Whitie lay on the ground near where she sat, and he manifested the usual actions of welcome, but the girl did not notice them. She seemed to be oblivious to everything near at hand. She made a pathetic figure drooping there, with her sunny hair contrasting so markedly with her white, wasted cheeks and her hands listlessly clasped and her little bare feet propped in the framework of the rude seat. Venters could have sworn and laughed in one breath at the idea of the connection between this girl and Oldring’s Masked Rider. She was the victim of more than accident of fate — a victim to some deep plot the mystery of which burned him. As he stepped forward with a half-formed thought that she was absorbed in watching for his return, she turned her head and saw him. A swift start, a change rather than rush of blood under her white cheeks, a flashing of big eyes that fixed their glance upon him, transformed her face in that single instant of turning, and he knew she had been watching for him, that his return was the one thing in her mind. She did not smile; she did not flush; she did not look glad. All these would have meant little compared to her indefinite expression. Venters grasped the peculiar, vivid, vital something that leaped from her face. It was as if she had been in a dead, hopeless clamp of inaction and feeling, and had been suddenly shot through and through with quivering animation. Almost it was as if she had returned to life.

And Venters thought with lightning swiftness, “I’ve saved her — I’ve unlinked her from that old life — she was watching as if I were all she had left on earth — she belongs to me!” The thought was startlingly new. Like a blow it was in an unprepared moment. The cheery salutation he had ready for her died unborn and he tumbled the pieces of pottery awkwardly on the grass while some unfamiliar, deep-seated emotion, mixed with pity and glad assurance of his power to succor her, held him dumb.

“What a load you had!” she said. “Why, they’re pots and crocks! Where did you get them?”

Venters laid down his rifle, and, filling one of the pots from his canteen, he placed it on the smoldering campfire.

“Hope it’ll hold water,” he said, presently. “Why, there’s an enormous cliff-dwelling just across here. I got the pottery there. Don’t you think we needed something? That tin cup of mine has served to make tea, broth, soup — everything.”

“I noticed we hadn’t a great deal to cook in.”

She laughed. It was the first time. He liked that laugh, and though he was tempted to look at her, he did not want to show his surprise or his pleasure.

“Will you take me over there, and all around in the valley — pretty soon, when I’m well?” she added.

“Indeed I shall. It’s a wonderful place. Rabbits so thick you can’t step without kicking one out. And quail, beaver, foxes, wildcats. We’re in a regular den. But — haven’t you ever seen a cliff-dwelling?”

“No. I’ve heard about them, though. The — the men say the Pass is full of old houses and ruins.”

“Why, I should think you’d have run across one in all your riding around,” said Venters. He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully, and he essayed a perfectly casual manner, and pretended to be busy assorting pieces of pottery. She must have no cause again to suffer shame for curiosity of his. Yet never in all his days had he been so eager to hear the details of anyone’s life.

“When I rode — I rode like the wind,” she replied, “and never had time to stop for anything.”

“I remember that day I — I met you in the Pass — how dusty you were, how tired your horse looked. Were you always riding?”

“Oh, no. Sometimes not for months, when I was shut up in the cabin.”

Venters tried to subdue a hot tingling.

“You were shut up, then?” he asked, carelessly.

“When Oldring went away on his long trips — he was gone for months sometimes — he shut me up in the cabin.”

“What for?”

“Perhaps to keep me from running away. I always threatened that. Mostly, though, because the men got drunk at the villages. But they were always good to me. I wasn’t afraid.”

“A prisoner! That must have been hard on you?”

“I liked that. As long as I can remember I’ve been locked up there at times, and those times were the only happy ones I ever had. It’s a big cabin, high up on a cliff, and I could look out. Then I had dogs and pets I had tamed, and books. There was a spring inside, and food stored, and the men brought me fresh meat. Once I was there one whole winter.”

It now required deliberation on Venters’s part to persist in his unconcern and to keep at work. He wanted to look at her, to volley questions at her.

“As long as you can remember — you’ve lived in Deception Pass?” he went on.

“I’ve a dim memory of some other place, and women and children; but I can’t make anything of it. Sometimes I think till I’m weary.”

“Then you can read — you have books?”

“Oh yes, I can read, and write, too, pretty well. Oldring is educated. He taught me, and years ago an old rustler lived with us, and he had been something different once. He was always teaching me.”

“So Oldring takes long trips,” mused Venters. “Do you know where he goes?”

“No. Every year he drives cattle north of Sterling — then does not return for months. I heard him accused once of living two lives — and he killed the man. That was at Stone Bridge.”

Venters dropped his apparent task and looked up with an eagerness he no longer strove to hide.

“Bess,” he said, using her name for the first time, “I suspected Oldring was something besides a rustler. Tell me, what’s his purpose here in the Pass? I believe much that he has done was to hide his real work here.”

“You’re right. He’s more than a rustler. In fact, as the men say, his rustling cattle is now only a bluff. There’s gold in the canyons!”

“Ah!”

“Yes, there’s gold, not in great quantities, but gold enough for him and his men. They wash for gold week in and week out. Then they drive a few cattle and go into the villages to drink and shoot and kill — to bluff the riders.”

“Drive a few cattle! But, Bess, the Withersteen herd, the red herd — twenty-five hundred head! That’s not a few. And I tracked them into a valley near here.”

“Oldring never stole the red herd. He made a deal with Mormons. The riders were to be called in, and Oldring was to drive the herd and keep it till a certain time — I won’t know when — then drive it back to the range. What his share was I didn’t hear.”

“Did you hear why that deal was made?” queried Venters.

“No. But it was a trick of Mormons. They’re full of tricks. I’ve heard Oldring’s men tell about Mormons. Maybe the Withersteen woman wasn’t minding her halter! I saw the man who made the deal. He was a little, queer-shaped man, all humped up. He sat his horse well. I heard one of our men say afterward there was no better rider on the sage than this fellow. What was the name? I forget.”

“Jerry Card?” suggested Venters.

“That’s it. I remember — it’s a name easy to remember — and Jerry Card appeared to be on fair terms with Oldring’s men.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” replied Venters, thoughtfully. Verification of his suspicions in regard to Tull’s underhand work — for the deal with Oldring made by Jerry Card assuredly had its inception in the Mormon Elder’s brain, and had been accomplished through his orders — revived in Venters a memory of hatred that had been smothered by press of other emotions. Only a few days had elapsed since the hour of his encounter with Tull, yet they had been forgotten and now seemed far off, and the interval one that now appeared large and profound with incalculable change in his feelings. Hatred of Tull still existed in his heart, but it had lost its white heat. His affection for Jane Withersteen had not changed in the least; nevertheless, he seemed to view it from another angle and see it as another thing — what, he could not exactly define. The recalling of these two feelings was to Venters like getting glimpses into a self that was gone; and the wonder of them — perhaps the change which was too illusive for him — was the fact that a strange irritation accompanied the memory and a desire to dismiss it from mind. And straightway he did dismiss it, to return to thoughts of his significant present.

“Bess, tell me one more thing,” he said. “Haven’t you known any women — any young people?”

“Sometimes there were women with the men; but Oldring never let me know them. And all the young people I ever saw in my life was when I rode fast through the villages.”

Perhaps that was the most puzzling and thought-provoking thing she had yet said to Venters. He pondered, more curious the more he learned, but he curbed his inquisitive desires, for he saw her shrinking on the verge of that shame, the causing of which had occasioned him such self-reproach. He would ask no more. Still he had to think, and he found it difficult to think clearly. This sad-eyed girl was so utterly different from what it would have been reason to believe such a remarkable life would have made her. On this day he had found her simple and frank, as natural as any girl he had ever known. About her there was something sweet. Her voice was low and well modulated. He could not look into her face, meet her steady, unabashed, yet wistful eyes, and think of her as the woman she had confessed herself. Oldring’s Masked Rider sat before him, a girl dressed as a man. She had been made to ride at the head of infamous forays and drives. She had been imprisoned for many months of her life in an obscure cabin. At times the most vicious of men had been her companions; and the vilest of women, if they had not been permitted to approach her, had, at least, cast their shadows over her. But — but in spite of all this — there thundered at Venters some truth that lifted its voice higher than the clamoring facts of dishonor, some truth that was the very life of her beautiful eyes; and it was innocence.

In the days that followed, Venters balanced perpetually in mind this haunting conception of innocence over against the cold and sickening fact of an unintentional yet actual gift. How could it be possible for the two things to be true? He believed the latter to be true, and he would not relinquish his conviction of the former; and these conflicting thoughts augmented the mystery that appeared to be a part of Bess. In those ensuing days, however, it became clear as clearest light that Bess was rapidly regaining strength; that, unless reminded of her long association with Oldring, she seemed to have forgotten it; that, like an Indian who lives solely from moment to moment, she was utterly absorbed in the present.

Day by day Venters watched the white of her face slowly change to brown, and the wasted cheeks fill out by imperceptible degrees. There came a time when he could just trace the line of demarcation between the part of her face once hidden by a mask and that left exposed to wind and sun. When that line disappeared in clear bronze tan it was as if she had been washed clean of the stigma of Oldring’s Masked Rider. The suggestion of the mask always made Venters remember; now that it was gone he seldom thought of her past. Occasionally he tried to piece together the several stages of strange experience and to make a whole. He had shot a masked outlaw the very sight of whom had been ill omen to riders; he had carried off a wounded woman whose bloody lips quivered in prayer; he had nursed what seemed a frail, shrunken boy; and now he watched a girl whose face had become strangely sweet, whose dark-blue eyes were ever upon him without boldness, without shyness, but with a steady, grave, and growing light. Many times Venters found the clear gaze embarrassing to him, yet, like wine, it had an exhilarating effect. What did she think when she looked at him so? Almost he believed she had no thought at all. All about her and the present there in Surprise Valley, and the dim yet subtly impending future, fascinated Venters and made him thoughtful as all his lonely vigils in the sage had not.

Chiefly it was the present that he wished to dwell upon; but it was the call of the future which stirred him to action. No idea had he of what that future had in store for Bess and him. He began to think of improving Surprise Valley as a place to live in, for there was no telling how long they would be compelled to stay there. Venters stubbornly resisted the entering into his mind of an insistent thought that, clearly realized, might have made it plain to him that he did not want to leave Surprise Valley at all. But it was imperative that he consider practical matters; and whether or not he was destined to stay long there, he felt the immediate need of a change of diet. It would be necessary for him to go farther afield for a variety of meat, and also that he soon visit Cottonwoods for a supply of food.

It occurred again to Venters that he could go to the canyon where Oldring kept his cattle, and at little risk he could pack out some beef. He wished to do this, however, without letting Bess know of it till after he had made the trip. Presently he hit upon the plan of going while she was asleep.

That very night he stole out of camp, climbed up under the stone bridge, and entered the outlet to the Pass. The gorge was full of luminous gloom. Balancing Rock loomed dark and leaned over the pale descent. Transformed in the shadowy light, it took shape and dimensions of a spectral god waiting — waiting for the moment to hurl himself down upon the tottering walls and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass. At night more than by day Venters felt something fearful and fateful in that rock, and that it had leaned and waited through a thousand years to have somehow to deal with his destiny.

“Old man, if you must roll, wait till I get back to the girl, and then roll!” he said, aloud, as if the stones were indeed a god.

And those spoken words, in their grim note to his ear, as well as contents to his mind, told Venters that he was all but drifting on a current which he had not power nor wish to stem.

Venters exercised his usual care in the matter of hiding tracks from the outlet, yet it took him scarcely an hour to reach Oldring’s cattle. Here sight of many calves changed his original intention, and instead of packing out meat he decided to take a calf out alive. He roped one, securely tied its feet, and swung it over his shoulder. Here was an exceedingly heavy burden, but Venters was powerful — he could take up a sack of grain and with ease pitch it over a pack-saddle — and he made long distance without resting. The hardest work came in the climb up to the outlet and on through to the valley. When he had accomplished it, he became fired with another idea that again changed his intention. He would not kill the calf, but keep it alive. He would go back to Oldring’s herd and pack out more calves. Thereupon he secured the calf in the best available spot for the moment and turned to make a second trip.

When Venters got back to the valley with another calf, it was close upon daybreak. He crawled into his cave and slept late. Bess had no inkling that he had been absent from camp nearly all night, and only remarked solicitously that he appeared to be more tired than usual, and more in the need of sleep. In the afternoon Venters built a gate across a small ravine near camp, and here corralled the calves; and he succeeded in completing his task without Bess being any the wiser.

That night he made two more trips to Oldring’s range, and again on the following night, and yet another on the next. With eight calves in his corral, he concluded that he had enough; but it dawned upon him then that he did not want to kill one. “I’ve rustled Oldring’s cattle,” he said, and laughed. He noted then that all the calves were red. “Red!” he exclaimed. “From the red herd. I’ve stolen Jane Withersteen’s cattle!... That’s about the strangest thing yet.”

One more trip he undertook to Oldring’s valley, and this time he roped a yearling steer and killed it and cut out a small quarter of beef. The howling of coyotes told him he need have no apprehension that the work of his knife would be discovered. He packed the beef back to camp and hung it upon a spruce-tree. Then he sought his bed.

On the morrow he was up bright and early, glad that he had a surprise for Bess. He could hardly wait for her to come out. Presently she appeared and walked under the spruce. Then she approached the camp-fire. There was a tinge of healthy red in the bronze of her cheeks, and her slender form had begun to round out in graceful lines.

“Bess, didn’t you say you were tired of rabbit?” inquired Venters. “And quail and beaver?”

“Indeed I did.”

“What would you like?”

“I’m tired of meat, but if we have to live on it I’d like some beef.”

“Well, how does that strike you?” Venters pointed to the quarter hanging from the spruce-tree. “We’ll have fresh beef for a few days, then we’ll cut the rest into strips and dry it.”

“Where did you get that?” asked Bess, slowly.

“I stole that from Oldring.”

“You went back to the canyon — you risked—” While she hesitated the tinge of bloom faded out of her cheeks.

“It wasn’t any risk, but it was hard work.”

“I’m sorry I said I was tired of rabbit. Why! How — When did you get that beef?”

“Last night.”

“While I was asleep?”

“Yes.”

“I woke last night sometime — but I didn’t know.”

Her eyes were widening, darkening with thought, and whenever they did so the steady, watchful, seeing gaze gave place to the wistful light. In the former she saw as the primitive woman without thought; in the latter she looked inward, and her gaze was the reflection of a troubled mind. For long Venters had not seen that dark change, that deepening of blue, which he thought was beautiful and sad. But now he wanted to make her think.

“I’ve done more than pack in that beef,” he said. “For five nights I’ve been working while you slept. I’ve got eight calves corralled near a ravine. Eight calves, all alive and doing fine!”

“You went five nights!”

All that Venters could make of the dilation of her eyes, her slow pallor, and her exclamation, was fear — fear for herself or for him.

“Yes. I didn’t tell you, because I knew you were afraid to be left alone.”

“Alone?” She echoed his word, but the meaning of it was nothing to her. She had not even thought of being left alone. It was not, then, fear for herself, but for him. This girl, always slow of speech and action, now seemed almost stupid. She put forth a hand that might have indicated the groping of her mind. Suddenly she stepped swiftly to him, with a look and touch that drove from him any doubt of her quick intelligence or feeling.

“Oldring has men watch the herds — they would kill you. You must never go again!”

When she had spoken, the strength and the blaze of her died, and she swayed toward Venters.

“Bess, I’ll not go again,” he said, catching her.

She leaned against him, and her body was limp and vibrated to a long, wavering tremble. Her face was upturned to his. Woman’s face, woman’s eyes, woman’s lips — all acutely and blindly and sweetly and terribly truthful in their betrayal! But as her fear was instinctive, so was her clinging to this one and only friend.

Venters gently put her from him and steadied her upon her feet; and all the while his blood raced wild, and a thrilling tingle unsteadied his nerve, and something — that he had seen and felt in her — that he could not understand — seemed very close to him, warm and rich as a fragrant breath, sweet as nothing had ever before been sweet to him.

With all his will Venters strove for calmness and thought and judgment unbiased by pity, and reality unswayed by sentiment. Bess’s eyes were still fixed upon him with all her soul bright in that wistful light. Swiftly, resolutely he put out of mind all of her life except what had been spent with him. He scorned himself for the intelligence that made him still doubt. He meant to judge her as she had judged him. He was face to face with the inevitableness of life itself. He saw destiny in the dark, straight path of her wonderful eyes. Here was the simplicity, the sweetness of a girl contending with new and strange and enthralling emotions here the living truth of innocence; here the blind terror of a woman confronted with the thought of death to her savior and protector. All this Venters saw, but, besides, there was in Bess’s eyes a slow-dawning consciousness that seemed about to break out in glorious radiance.

“Bess, are you thinking?” he asked.

“Yes — oh yes!”

“Do you realize we are here alone — man and woman?”

“Yes.”

“Have you thought that we may make our way out to civilization, or we may have to stay here — alone — hidden from the world all our lives?”

“I never thought — till now.”

“Well, what’s your choice — to go — or to stay here — alone with me?”

“Stay!” New-born thought of self, ringing vibrantly in her voice, gave her answer singular power.

Venters trembled, and then swiftly turned his gaze from her face — from her eyes. He knew what she had only half divined — that she loved him.

CHAPTER XI. FAITH AND UNFAITH

AT JANE WITHERSTEEN’S home the promise made to Mrs. Larkin to care for little Fay had begun to be fulfilled. Like a gleam of sunlight through the cottonwoods was the coming of the child to the gloomy house of Withersteen. The big, silent halls echoed with childish laughter. In the shady court, where Jane spent many of the hot July days, Fay’s tiny feet pattered over the stone flags and splashed in the amber stream. She prattled incessantly. What difference, Jane thought, a child made in her home! It had never been a real home, she discovered. Even the tidiness and neatness she had so observed, and upon which she had insisted to her women, became, in the light of Fay’s smile, habits that now lost their importance. Fay littered the court with Jane’s books and papers, and other toys her fancy improvised, and many a strange craft went floating down the little brook.

And it was owing to Fay’s presence that Jane Withersteen came to see more of Lassiter. The rider had for the most part kept to the sage. He rode for her, but he did not seek her except on business; and Jane had to acknowledge in pique that her overtures had been made in vain. Fay, however, captured Lassiter the moment he first laid eyes on her.

Jane was present at the meeting, and there was something about it which dimmed her sight and softened her toward this foe of her people. The rider had clanked into the court, a tired yet wary man, always looking for the attack upon him that was inevitable and might come from any quarter; and he had walked right upon little Fay. The child had been beautiful even in her rags and amid the surroundings of the hovel in the sage, but now, in a pretty white dress, with her shining curls brushed and her face clean and rosy, she was lovely. She left her play and looked up at Lassiter.

If there was not an instinct for all three of them in that meeting, an unreasoning tendency toward a closer intimacy, then Jane Withersteen believed she had been subject to a queer fancy. She imagined any child would have feared Lassiter. And Fay Larkin had been a lonely, a solitary elf of the sage, not at all an ordinary child, and exquisitely shy with strangers. She watched Lassiter with great, round, grave eyes, but showed no fear. The rider gave Jane a favorable report of cattle and horses; and as he took the seat to which she invited him, little Fay edged as much as half an inch nearer. Jane replied to his look of inquiry and told Fay’s story. The rider’s gray, earnest gaze troubled her. Then he turned to Fay and smiled in a way that made Jane doubt her sense of the true relation of things. How could Lassiter smile so at a child when he had made so many children fatherless? But he did smile, and to the gentleness she had seen a few times he added something that was infinitely sad and sweet. Jane’s intuition told her that Lassiter had never been a father, but if life ever so blessed him he would be a good one. Fay, also, must have found that smile singularly winning. For she edged closer and closer, and then, by way of feminine capitulation, went to Jane, from whose side she bent a beautiful glance upon the rider.

Lassiter only smiled at her.

Jane watched them, and realized that now was the moment she should seize, if she was ever to win this man from his hatred. But the step was not easy to take. The more she saw of Lassiter the more she respected him, and the greater her respect the harder it became to lend herself to mere coquetry. Yet as she thought of her great motive, of Tull, and of that other whose name she had schooled herself never to think of in connection with Milly Erne’s avenger, she suddenly found she had no choice. And her creed gave her boldness far beyond the limit to which vanity would have led her.

“Lassiter, I see so little of you now,” she said, and was conscious of heat in her cheeks.

“I’ve been riding hard,” he replied.

“But you can’t live in the saddle. You come in sometimes. Won’t you come here to see me — oftener?”

“Is that an order?”

“Nonsense! I simply ask you to come to see me when you find time.”

“Why?”

The query once heard was not so embarrassing to Jane as she might have imagined. Moreover, it established in her mind a fact that there existed actually other than selfish reasons for her wanting to see him. And as she had been bold, so she determined to be both honest and brave.

“I’ve reasons — only one of which I need mention,” she answered. “If it’s possible I want to change you toward my people. And on the moment I can conceive of little I wouldn’t do to gain that end.”

How much better and freer Jane felt after that confession! She meant to show him that there was one Mormon who could play a game or wage a fight in the open.

“I reckon,” said Lassiter, and he laughed.

It was the best in her, if the most irritating, that Lassiter always aroused.

“Will you come?” She looked into his eyes, and for the life of her could not quite subdue an imperiousness that rose with her spirit. “I never asked so much of any man — except Bern Venters.”

“‘Pears to me that you’d run no risk, or Venters, either. But mebbe that doesn’t hold good for me.”

“You mean it wouldn’t be safe for you to be often here? You look for ambush in the cottonwoods?”

“Not that so much.”

At this juncture little Fay sidled over to Lassiter.

“Has oo a little dirl?” she inquired.

“No, lassie,” replied the rider.

Whatever Fay seemed to be searching for in Lassiter’s sun-reddened face and quiet eyes she evidently found. “Oo tan tom to see me,” she added, and with that, shyness gave place to friendly curiosity. First his sombrero with its leather band and silver ornaments commanded her attention; next his quirt, and then the clinking, silver spurs. These held her for some time, but presently, true to childish fickleness, she left off playing with them to look for something else. She laughed in glee as she ran her little hands down the slippery, shiny surface of Lassiter’s leather chaps. Soon she discovered one of the hanging gun — sheaths, and she dragged it up and began tugging at the huge black handle of the gun. Jane Withersteen repressed an exclamation. What significance there was to her in the little girl’s efforts to dislodge that heavy weapon! Jane Withersteen saw Fay’s play and her beauty and her love as most powerful allies to her own woman’s part in a game that suddenly had acquired a strange zest and a hint of danger. And as for the rider, he appeared to have forgotten Jane in the wonder of this lovely child playing about him. At first he was much the shyer of the two. Gradually her confidence overcame his backwardness, and he had the temerity to stroke her golden curls with a great hand. Fay rewarded his boldness with a smile, and when he had gone to the extreme of closing that great hand over her little brown one, she said, simply, “I like oo!”

Sight of his face then made Jane oblivious for the time to his character as a hater of Mormons. Out of the mother longing that swelled her breast she divined the child hunger in Lassiter.

He returned the next day, and the next; and upon the following he came both at morning and at night. Upon the evening of this fourth day Jane seemed to feel the breaking of a brooding struggle in Lassiter. During all these visits he had scarcely a word to say, though he watched her and played absent-mindedly with Fay. Jane had contented herself with silence. Soon little Fay substituted for the expression of regard, “I like oo,” a warmer and more generous one, “I love oo.”

Thereafter Lassiter came oftener to see Jane and her little protegee. Daily he grew more gentle and kind, and gradually developed a quaintly merry mood. In the morning he lifted Fay upon his horse and let her ride as he walked beside her to the edge of the sage. In the evening he played with the child at an infinite variety of games she invented, and then, oftener than not, he accepted Jane’s invitation to supper. No other visitor came to Withersteen House during those days. So that in spite of watchfulness he never forgot, Lassiter began to show he felt at home there. After the meal they walked into the grove of cottonwoods or up by the lakes, and little Fay held Lassiter’s hand as much as she held Jane’s. Thus a strange relationship was established, and Jane liked it. At twilight they always returned to the house, where Fay kissed them and went in to her mother. Lassiter and Jane were left alone.

Then, if there were anything that a good woman could do to win a man and still preserve her self-respect, it was something which escaped the natural subtlety of a woman determined to allure. Jane’s vanity, that after all was not great, was soon satisfied with Lassiter’s silent admiration. And her honest desire to lead him from his dark, blood-stained path would never have blinded her to what she owed herself. But the driving passion of her religion, and its call to save Mormons’ lives, one life in particular, bore Jane Withersteen close to an infringement of her womanhood. In the beginning she had reasoned that her appeal to Lassiter must be through the senses. With whatever means she possessed in the way of adornment she enhanced her beauty. And she stooped to artifices that she knew were unworthy of her, but which she deliberately chose to employ. She made of herself a girl in every variable mood wherein a girl might be desirable. In those moods she was not above the methods of an inexperienced though natural flirt. She kept close to him whenever opportunity afforded; and she was forever playfully, yet passionately underneath the surface, fighting him for possession of the great black guns. These he would never yield to her. And so in that manner their hands were often and long in contact. The more of simplicity that she sensed in him the greater the advantage she took.

She had a trick of changing — and it was not altogether voluntary — from this gay, thoughtless, girlish coquettishness to the silence and the brooding, burning mystery of a woman’s mood. The strength and passion and fire of her were in her eyes, and she so used them that Lassiter had to see this depth in her, this haunting promise more fitted to her years than to the flaunting guise of a wilful girl.

The July days flew by. Jane reasoned that if it were possible for her to be happy during such a time, then she was happy. Little Fay completely filled a long aching void in her heart. In fettering the hands of this Lassiter she was accomplishing the greatest good of her life, and to do good even in a small way rendered happiness to Jane Withersteen. She had attended the regular Sunday services of her church; otherwise she had not gone to the village for weeks. It was unusual that none of her churchmen or friends had called upon her of late; but it was neglect for which she was glad. Judkins and his boy riders had experienced no difficulty in driving the white herd. So these warm July days were free of worry, and soon Jane hoped she had passed the crisis; and for her to hope was presently to trust, and then to believe. She thought often of Venters, but in a dreamy, abstract way. She spent hours teaching and playing with little Fay. And the activity of her mind centered around Lassiter. The direction she had given her will seemed to blunt any branching off of thought from that straight line. The mood came to obsess her.

In the end, when her awakening came, she learned that she had builded better than she knew. Lassiter, though kinder and gentler than ever, had parted with his quaint humor and his coldness and his tranquillity to become a restless and unhappy man. Whatever the power of his deadly intent toward Mormons, that passion now had a rival, the one equally burning and consuming. Jane Withersteen had one moment of exultation before the dawn of a strange uneasiness. What if she had made of herself a lure, at tremendous cost to him and to her, and all in vain!

That night in the moonlit grove she summoned all her courage and, turning suddenly in the path, she faced Lassiter and leaned close to him, so that she touched him and her eyes looked up to his.

“Lassiter!... Will you do anything for me?”

In the moonlight she saw his dark, worn face change, and by that change she seemed to feel him immovable as a wall of stone.

Jane slipped her hands down to the swinging gun-sheaths, and when she had locked her fingers around the huge, cold handles of the guns, she trembled as with a chilling ripple over all her body.

“May I take your guns?”

“Why?” he asked, and for the first time to her his voice carried a harsh note. Jane felt his hard, strong hands close round her wrists. It was not wholly with intent that she leaned toward him, for the look of his eyes and the feel of his hands made her weak.

“It’s no trifle — no woman’s whim — it’s deep — as my heart. Let me take them?”

“Why?”

“I want to keep you from killing more men — Mormons. You must let me save you from more wickedness — more wanton bloodshed—” Then the truth forced itself falteringly from her lips. “You must — let — help me to keep my vow to Milly Erne. I swore to her — as she lay dying — that if ever any one came here to avenge her — I swore I would stay his hand. Perhaps I — I alone can save the — the man who — who — Oh, Lassiter!... I feel that I can’t change you — then soon you’ll be out to kill — and you’ll kill by instinct — and among the Mormons you kill will be the one — who... Lassiter, if you care a little for me — let me — for my sake — let me take your guns!”

As if her hands had been those of a child, he unclasped their clinging grip from the handles of his guns, and, pushing her away, he turned his gray face to her in one look of terrible realization and then strode off into the shadows of the cottonwoods.

When the first shock of her futile appeal to Lassiter had passed, Jane took his cold, silent condemnation and abrupt departure not so much as a refusal to her entreaty as a hurt and stunned bitterness for her attempt at his betrayal. Upon further thought and slow consideration of Lassiter’s past actions, she believed he would return and forgive her. The man could not be hard to a woman, and she doubted that he could stay away from her. But at the point where she had hoped to find him vulnerable she now began to fear he was proof against all persuasion. The iron and stone quality that she had early suspected in him had actually cropped out as an impregnable barrier. Nevertheless, if Lassiter remained in Cottonwoods she would never give up her hope and desire to change him. She would change him if she had to sacrifice everything dear to her except hope of heaven. Passionately devoted as she was to her religion, she had yet refused to marry a Mormon. But a situation had developed wherein self paled in the great white light of religious duty of the highest order. That was the leading motive, the divinely spiritual one; but there were other motives, which, like tentacles, aided in drawing her will to the acceptance of a possible abnegation. And through the watches of that sleepless night Jane Withersteen, in fear and sorrow and doubt, came finally to believe that if she must throw herself into Lassiter’s arms to make him abide by “Thou shalt not kill!” she would yet do well.

In the morning she expected Lassiter at the usual hour, but she was not able to go at once to the court, so she sent little Fay. Mrs. Larkin was ill and required attention. It appeared that the mother, from the time of her arrival at Withersteen House, had relaxed and was slowly losing her hold on life. Jane had believed that absence of worry and responsibility coupled with good nursing and comfort would mend Mrs. Larkin’s broken health. Such, however, was not the case.

When Jane did get out to the court, Fay was there alone, and at the moment embarking on a dubious voyage down the stone-lined amber stream upon a craft of two brooms and a pillow. Fay was as delightfully wet as she could possibly wish to get.

Clatter of hoofs distracted Fay and interrupted the scolding she was gleefully receiving from Jane. The sound was not the light-spirited trot that Bells made when Lassiter rode him into the outer court. This was slower and heavier, and Jane did not recognize in it any of her other horses. The appearance of Bishop Dyer startled Jane. He dismounted with his rapid, jerky motion flung the bridle, and, as he turned toward the inner court and stalked up on the stone flags, his boots rang. In his authoritative front, and in the red anger unmistakably flaming in his face, he reminded Jane of her father.

“Is that the Larkin pauper?” he asked, bruskly, without any greeting to Jane.

“It’s Mrs. Larkin’s little girl,” replied Jane, slowly.

“I hear you intend to raise the child?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you mean to give her Mormon bringing-up?”

“No.”

His questions had been swift. She was amazed at a feeling that some one else was replying for her.

“I’ve come to say a few things to you.” He stopped to measure her with stern, speculative eye.

Jane Withersteen loved this man. From earliest childhood she had been taught to revere and love bishops of her church. And for ten years Bishop Dyer had been the closest friend and counselor of her father, and for the greater part of that period her own friend and Scriptural teacher. Her interpretation of her creed and her religious activity in fidelity to it, her acceptance of mysterious and holy Mormon truths, were all invested in this Bishop. Bishop Dyer as an entity was next to God. He was God’s mouthpiece to the little Mormon community at Cottonwoods. God revealed himself in secret to this mortal.

And Jane Withersteen suddenly suffered a paralyzing affront to her consciousness of reverence by some strange, irresistible twist of thought wherein she saw this Bishop as a man. And the train of thought hurdled the rising, crying protests of that other self whose poise she had lost. It was not her Bishop who eyed her in curious measurement. It was a man who tramped into her presence without removing his hat, who had no greeting for her, who had no semblance of courtesy. In looks, as in action, he made her think of a bull stamping cross-grained into a corral. She had heard of Bishop Dyer forgetting the minister in the fury of a common man, and now she was to feel it. The glance by which she measured him in turn momentarily veiled the divine in the ordinary. He looked a rancher; he was booted, spurred, and covered with dust; he carried a gun at his hip, and she remembered that he had been known to use it. But during the long moment while he watched her there was nothing commonplace in the slow-gathering might of his wrath.

“Brother Tull has talked to me,” he began. “It was your father’s wish that you marry Tull, and my order. You refused him?”

“Yes.”

“You would not give up your friendship with that tramp Venters?”

“No.”

“But you’ll do as I order!” he thundered. “Why, Jane Withersteen, you are in danger of becoming a heretic! You can thank your Gentile friends for that. You face the damning of your soul to perdition.”

In the flux and reflux of the whirling torture of Jane’s mind, that new, daring spirit of hers vanished in the old habitual order of her life. She was a Mormon, and the Bishop regained ascendance.

“It’s well I got you in time, Jane Withersteen. What would your father have said to these goings-on of yours? He would have put you in a stone cage on bread and water. He would have taught you something about Mormonism. Remember, you’re a born Mormon. There have been Mormons who turned heretic — damn their souls! — but no born Mormon ever left us yet. Ah, I see your shame. Your faith is not shaken. You are only a wild girl.” The Bishop’s tone softened. “Well, it’s enough that I got to you in time.... Now tell me about this Lassiter. I hear strange things.”

“What do you wish to know?” queried Jane.

“About this man. You hired him?”

“Yes, he’s riding for me. When my riders left me I had to have any one I could get.”

“Is it true what I hear — that he’s a gun-man, a Mormon-hater, steeped in blood?”

“True — terribly true, I fear.”

“But what’s he doing here in Cottonwoods? This place isn’t notorious enough for such a man. Sterling and the villages north, where there’s universal gun-packing and fights every day — where there are more men like him, it seems to me they would attract him most. We’re only a wild, lonely border settlement. It’s only recently that the rustlers have made killings here. Nor have there been saloons till lately, nor the drifting in of outcasts. Has not this gun-man some special mission here?”

Jane maintained silence.

“Tell me,” ordered Bishop Dyer, sharply.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Do you know what it is?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me that.”

“Bishop Dyer, I don’t want to tell.”

He waved his hand in an imperative gesture of command. The red once more leaped to his face, and in his steel-blue eyes glinted a pin-point of curiosity.

“That first day,” whispered Jane, “Lassiter said he came here to find — Milly Erne’s grave!”

With downcast eyes Jane watched the swift flow of the amber water. She saw it and tried to think of it, of the stones, of the ferns; but, like her body, her mind was in a leaden vise. Only the Bishop’s voice could release her. Seemingly there was silence of longer duration than all her former life.

“For what — else?” When Bishop Dyer’s voice did cleave the silence it was high, curiously shrill, and on the point of breaking. It released Jane’s tongue, but she could not lift her eyes.

“To kill the man who persuaded Milly Erne to abandon her home and her husband — and her God!”

With wonderful distinctness Jane Withersteen heard her own clear voice. She heard the water murmur at her feet and flow on to the sea; she heard the rushing of all the waters in the world. They filled her ears with low, unreal murmurings — these sounds that deadened her brain and yet could not break the long and terrible silence. Then, from somewhere — from an immeasurable distance — came a slow, guarded, clinking, clanking step. Into her it shot electrifying life. It released the weight upon her numbed eyelids. Lifting her eyes she saw — ashen, shaken, stricken — not the Bishop but the man! And beyond him, from round the corner came that soft, silvery step. A long black boot with a gleaming spur swept into sight — and then Lassiter! Bishop Dyer did not see, did not hear: he stared at Jane in the throes of sudden revelation.

“Ah, I understand!” he cried, in hoarse accents. “That’s why you made love to this Lassiter — to bind his hands!”

It was Jane’s gaze riveted upon the rider that made Bishop Dyer turn. Then clear sight failed her. Dizzily, in a blur, she saw the Bishop’s hand jerk to his hip. She saw gleam of blue and spout of red. In her ears burst a thundering report. The court floated in darkening circles around her, and she fell into utter blackness.

The darkness lightened, turned to slow-drifting haze, and lifted. Through a thin film of blue smoke she saw the rough-hewn timbers of the court roof. A cool, damp touch moved across her brow. She smelled powder, and it was that which galvanized her suspended thought. She moved, to see that she lay prone upon the stone flags with her head on Lassiter’s knee, and he was bathing her brow with water from the stream. The same swift glance, shifting low, brought into range of her sight a smoking gun and splashes of blood.

“Ah-h!” she moaned, and was drifting, sinking again into darkness, when Lassiter’s voice arrested her.

“It’s all right, Jane. It’s all right.”

“Did — you — kill — him?” she whispered.

“Who? That fat party who was here? No. I didn’t kill him.”

“Oh!... Lassiter!”

“Say! It was queer for you to faint. I thought you were such a strong woman, not faintish like that. You’re all right now — only some pale. I thought you’d never come to. But I’m awkward round women folks. I couldn’t think of anythin’.”

“Lassiter!... the gun there!... the blood!”

“So that’s troublin’ you. I reckon it needn’t. You see it was this way. I come round the house an’ seen that fat party an’ heard him talkin’ loud. Then he seen me, an’ very impolite goes straight for his gun. He oughtn’t have tried to throw a gun on me — whatever his reason was. For that’s meetin’ me on my own grounds. I’ve seen runnin’ molasses that was quicker ‘n him. Now I didn’t know who he was, visitor or friend or relation of yours, though I seen he was a Mormon all over, an’ I couldn’t get serious about shootin’. So I winged him — put a bullet through his arm as he was pullin’ at his gun. An’ he dropped the gun there, an’ a little blood. I told him he’d introduced himself sufficient, an’ to please move out of my vicinity. An’ he went.”

Lassiter spoke with slow, cool, soothing voice, in which there was a hint of levity, and his touch, as he continued to bathe her brow, was gentle and steady. His impassive face, and the kind gray eyes, further stilled her agitation.

“He drew on you first, and you deliberately shot to cripple him — you wouldn’t kill him — you — Lassiter?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Jane kissed his hand.

All that was calm and cool about Lassiter instantly vanished.

“Don’t do that! I won’t stand it! An’ I don’t care a damn who that fat party was.”

He helped Jane to her feet and to a chair. Then with the wet scarf he had used to bathe her face he wiped the blood from the stone flags and, picking up the gun, he threw it upon a couch. With that he began to pace the court, and his silver spurs jangled musically, and the great gun-sheaths softly brushed against his leather chaps.

“So — it’s true — what I heard him say?” Lassiter asked, presently halting before her. “You made love to me — to bind my hands?”

“Yes,” confessed Jane. It took all her woman’s courage to meet the gray storm of his glance.

“All these days that you’ve been so friendly an’ like a pardner — all these evenin’s that have been so bewilderin’ to me — your beauty — an’ — an’ the way you looked an’ came close to me — they were woman’s tricks to bind my hands?”

“Yes.”

“An’ your sweetness that seemed so natural, an’ your throwin’ little Fay an’ me so much together — to make me love the child — all that was for the same reason?”

“Yes.”

Lassiter flung his arms — a strange gesture for him.

“Mebbe it wasn’t much in your Mormon thinkin’, for you to play that game. But to ring the child in — that was hellish!”

Jane’s passionate, unheeding zeal began to loom darkly.

“Lassiter, whatever my intention in the beginning, Fay loves you dearly — and I — I’ve grown to — to like you.”

“That’s powerful kind of you, now,” he said. Sarcasm and scorn made his voice that of a stranger. “An’ you sit there an’ look me straight in the eyes! You’re a wonderful strange woman, Jane Withersteen.”

“I’m not ashamed, Lassiter. I told you I’d try to change you.”

“Would you mind tellin’ me just what you tried?”

“I tried to make you see beauty in me and be softened by it. I wanted you to care for me so that I could influence you. It wasn’t easy. At first you were stone-blind. Then I hoped you’d love little Fay, and through that come to feel the horror of making children fatherless.”

“Jane Withersteen, either you’re a fool or noble beyond my understandin’. Mebbe you’re both. I know you’re blind. What you meant is one thing — what you did was to make me love you.”

“Lassiter!”

“I reckon I’m a human bein’, though I never loved any one but my sister, Milly Erne. That was long—”

“Oh, are you Milly’s brother?”

“Yes, I was, an’ I loved her. There never was any one but her in my life till now. Didn’t I tell you that long ago I back-trailed myself from women? I was a Texas ranger till — till Milly left home, an’ then I became somethin’ else — Lassiter! For years I’ve been a lonely man set on one thing. I came here an’ met you. An’ now I’m not the man I was. The change was gradual, an’ I took no notice of it. I understand now that never-satisfied longin’ to see you, listen to you, watch you, feel you near me. It’s plain now why you were never out of my thoughts. I’ve had no thoughts but of you. I’ve lived an’ breathed for you. An’ now when I know what it means — what you’ve done — I’m burnin’ up with hell’s fire!”

“Oh, Lassiter — no — no — you don’t love me that way!” Jane cased.

“If that’s what love is, then I do.”

“Forgive me! I didn’t mean to make you love me like that. Oh, what a tangle of our lives! You — Milly Erne’s brother! And I — heedless, mad to melt your heart toward Mormons. Lassiter, I may be wicked but not wicked enough to hate. If I couldn’t hate Tull, could I hate you?”

“After all, Jane, mebbe you’re only blind — Mormon blind. That only can explain what’s close to selfishness—”

“I’m not selfish. I despise the very word. If I were free—”

“But you’re not free. Not free of Mormonism. An’ in playin’ this game with me you’ve been unfaithful.”

“Un-faithful!” faltered Jane.

“Yes, I said unfaithful. You’re faithful to your Bishop an’ unfaithful to yourself. You’re false to your womanhood an’ true to your religion. But for a savin’ innocence you’d have made yourself low an’ vile — betrayin’ yourself, betrayin’ me — all to bind my hands an’ keep me from snuffin’ out Mormon life. It’s your damned Mormon blindness.”

“Is it vile — is it blind — is it only Mormonism to save human life? No, Lassiter, that’s God’s law, divine, universal for all Christians.”

“The blindness I mean is blindness that keeps you from seein’ the truth. I’ve known many good Mormons. But some are blacker than hell. You won’t see that even when you know it. Else, why all this blind passion to save the life of that — that....”

Jane shut out the light, and the hands she held over her eyes trembled and quivered against her face.

“Blind — yes, en’ let me make it clear en’ simple to you,” Lassiter went on, his voice losing its tone of anger. “Take, for instance, that idea of yours last night when you wanted my guns. It was good an’ beautiful, an’ showed your heart — but — why, Jane, it was crazy. Mind I’m assumin’ that life to me is as sweet as to any other man. An’ to preserve that life is each man’s first an’ closest thought. Where would any man be on this border without guns? Where, especially, would Lassiter be? Well, I’d be under the sage with thousands of other men now livin’ an’ sure better men than me. Gun-packin’ in the West since the Civil War has growed into a kind of moral law. An’ out here on this border it’s the difference between a man an’ somethin’ not a man. Look what your takin’ Venters’s guns from him all but made him! Why, your churchmen carry guns. Tull has killed a man an’ drawed on others. Your Bishop has shot a half dozen men, an’ it wasn’t through prayers of his that they recovered. An’ to-day he’d have shot me if he’d been quick enough on the draw. Could I walk or ride down into Cottonwoods without my guns? This is a wild time, Jane Withersteen, this year of our Lord eighteen seventy-one.”

“No time — for a woman!” exclaimed Jane, brokenly. “Oh, Lassiter, I feel helpless — lost — and don’t know where to turn. If I am blind — then — I need some one — a friend — you, Lassiter — more than ever!”

“Well, I didn’t say nothin’ about goin’ back on you, did I?”

CHAPTER XII. THE INVISIBLE HAND

JANE RECEIVED A letter from Bishop Dyer, not in his own handwriting, which stated that the abrupt termination of their interview had left him in some doubt as to her future conduct. A slight injury had incapacitated him from seeking another meeting at present, the letter went on to say, and ended with a request which was virtually a command, that she call upon him at once.

The reading of the letter acquainted Jane Withersteen with the fact that something within her had all but changed. She sent no reply to Bishop Dyer nor did she go to see him. On Sunday she remained absent from the service — for the second time in years — and though she did not actually suffer there was a dead-lock of feelings deep within her, and the waiting for a balance to fall on either side was almost as bad as suffering. She had a gloomy expectancy of untoward circumstances, and with it a keen-edged curiosity to watch developments. She had a half-formed conviction that her future conduct — as related to her churchmen — was beyond her control and would be governed by their attitude toward her. Something was changing in her, forming, waiting for decision to make it a real and fixed thing. She had told Lassiter that she felt helpless and lost in the fateful tangle of their lives; and now she feared that she was approaching the same chaotic condition of mind in regard to her religion. It appalled her to find that she questioned phases of that religion. Absolute faith had been her serenity. Though leaving her faith unshaken, her serenity had been disturbed, and now it was broken by open war between her and her ministers. That something within her — a whisper — which she had tried in vain to hush had become a ringing voice, and it called to her to wait. She had transgressed no laws of God. Her churchmen, however invested with the power and the glory of a wonderful creed, however they sat in inexorable judgment of her, must now practice toward her the simple, common, Christian virtue they professed to preach, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you!”

Jane Withersteen, waiting in darkness of mind, remained faithful still. But it was darkness that must soon be pierced by light. If her faith were justified, if her churchmen were trying only to intimidate her, the fact would soon be manifest, as would their failure, and then she would redouble her zeal toward them and toward what had been the best work of her life — work for the welfare and happiness of those among whom she lived, Mormon and Gentile alike. If that secret, intangible power closed its coils round her again, if that great invisible hand moved here and there and everywhere, slowly paralyzing her with its mystery and its inconceivable sway over her affairs, then she would know beyond doubt that it was not chance, nor jealousy, nor intimidation, nor ministerial wrath at her revolt, but a cold and calculating policy thought out long before she was born, a dark, immutable will of whose empire she and all that was hers was but an atom.

Then might come her ruin. Then might come her fall into black storm. Yet she would rise again, and to the light. God would be merciful to a driven woman who had lost her way.

A week passed. Little Fay played and prattled and pulled at Lassiter’s big black guns. The rider came to Withersteen House oftener than ever. Jane saw a change in him, though it did not relate to his kindness and gentleness. He was quieter and more thoughtful. While playing with Fay or conversing with Jane he seemed to be possessed of another self that watched with cool, roving eyes, that listened, listened always as if the murmuring amber stream brought messages, and the moving leaves whispered something. Lassiter never rode Bells into the court any more, nor did he come by the lane or the paths. When he appeared it was suddenly and noiselessly out of the dark shadow of the grove.

“I left Bells out in the sage,” he said, one day at the end of that week. “I must carry water to him.”

“Why not let him drink at the trough or here?” asked Jane, quickly.

“I reckon it’ll be safer for me to slip through the grove. I’ve been watched when I rode in from the sage.”

“Watched? By whom?”

“By a man who thought he was well hid. But my eyes are pretty sharp. An’, Jane,” he went on, almost in a whisper, “I reckon it’d be a good idea for us to talk low. You’re spied on here by your women.”

“Lassiter!” she whispered in turn. “That’s hard to believe. My women love me.”

“What of that?” he asked. “Of course they love you. But they’re Mormon women.”

Jane’s old, rebellious loyalty clashed with her doubt.

“I won’t believe it,” she replied, stubbornly.

“Well then, just act natural an’ talk natural, an’ pretty soon — give them time to hear us — pretend to go over there to the table, en’ then quick-like make a move for the door en’ open it.”

“I will,” said Jane, with heightened color. Lassiter was right; he never made mistakes; he would not have told her unless he positively knew. Yet Jane was so tenacious of faith that she had to see with her own eyes, and so constituted that to employ even such small deceit toward her women made her ashamed, and angry for her shame as well as theirs. Then a singular thought confronted her that made her hold up this simple ruse — which hurt her, though it was well justified — against the deceit she had wittingly and eagerly used toward Lassiter. The difference was staggering in its suggestion of that blindness of which he had accused her. Fairness and justice and mercy, that she had imagined were anchor-cables to hold fast her soul to righteousness had not been hers in the strange, biased duty that had so exalted and confounded her.

Presently Jane began to act her little part, to laugh and play with Fay, to talk of horses and cattle to Lassiter. Then she made deliberate mention of a book in which she kept records of all pertaining to her stock, and she walked slowly toward the table, and when near the door she suddenly whirled and thrust it open. Her sharp action nearly knocked down a woman who had undoubtedly been listening.

“Hester,” said Jane, sternly, “you may go home, and you need not come back.”

Jane shut the door and returned to Lassiter. Standing unsteadily, she put her hand on his arm. She let him see that doubt had gone, and how this stab of disloyalty pained her.

“Spies! My own women!... Oh, miserable!” she cried, with flashing, tearful eyes.

“I hate to tell you,” he replied. By that she knew he had long spared her. “It’s begun again — that work in the dark.”

“Nay, Lassiter — it never stopped!”

So bitter certainty claimed her at last, and trust fled Withersteen House and fled forever. The women who owed much to Jane Withersteen changed not in love for her, nor in devotion to their household work, but they poisoned both by a thousand acts of stealth and cunning and duplicity. Jane broke out once and caught them in strange, stone-faced, unhesitating falsehood. Thereafter she broke out no more. She forgave them because they were driven. Poor, fettered, and sealed Hagars, how she pitied them! What terrible thing bound them and locked their lips, when they showed neither consciousness of guilt toward their benefactress nor distress at the slow wearing apart of long-established and dear ties?

“The blindness again!” cried Jane Withersteen. “In my sisters as in me!... O God!”

There came a time when no words passed between Jane and her women. Silently they went about their household duties, and secretly they went about the underhand work to which they had been bidden. The gloom of the house and the gloom of its mistress, which darkened even the bright spirit of little Fay, did not pervade these women. Happiness was not among them, but they were aloof from gloom. They spied and listened; they received and sent secret messengers; and they stole Jane’s books and records, and finally the papers that were deeds of her possessions. Through it all they were silent, rapt in a kind of trance. Then one by one, without leave or explanation or farewell, they left Withersteen House, and never returned.

Coincident with this disappearance Jane’s gardeners and workers in the alfalfa fields and stable men quit her, not even asking for their wages. Of all her Mormon employees about the great ranch only Jerd remained. He went on with his duty, but talked no more of the change than if it had never occurred.

“Jerd,” said Jane, “what stock you can’t take care of turn out in the sage. Let your first thought be for Black Star and Night. Keep them in perfect condition. Run them every day and watch them always.”

Though Jane Withersteen gave them such liberality, she loved her possessions. She loved the rich, green stretches of alfalfa, and the farms, and the grove, and the old stone house, and the beautiful, ever-faithful amber spring, and every one of a myriad of horses and colts and burros and fowls down to the smallest rabbit that nipped her vegetables; but she loved best her noble Arabian steeds. In common with all riders of the upland sage Jane cherished two material things — the cold, sweet, brown water that made life possible in the wilderness and the horses which were a part of that life. When Lassiter asked her what Lassiter would be without his guns he was assuming that his horse was part of himself. So Jane loved Black Star and Night because it was her nature to love all beautiful creatures — perhaps all living things; and then she loved them because she herself was of the sage and in her had been born and bred the rider’s instinct to rely on his four-footed brother. And when Jane gave Jerd the order to keep her favorites trained down to the day it was a half-conscious admission that presaged a time when she would need her fleet horses.

Jane had now, however, no leisure to brood over the coils that were closing round her. Mrs. Larkin grew weaker as the August days began; she required constant care; there was little Fay to look after; and such household work as was imperative. Lassiter put Bells in the stable with the other racers, and directed his efforts to a closer attendance upon Jane. She welcomed the change. He was always at hand to help, and it was her fortune to learn that his boast of being awkward around women had its root in humility and was not true.

His great, brown hands were skilled in a multiplicity of ways which a woman might have envied. He shared Jane’s work, and was of especial help to her in nursing Mrs. Larkin. The woman suffered most at night, and this often broke Jane’s rest. So it came about that Lassiter would stay by Mrs. Larkin during the day, when she needed care, and Jane would make up the sleep she lost in night-watches. Mrs. Larkin at once took kindly to the gentle Lassiter, and, without ever asking who or what he was, praised him to Jane. “He’s a good man and loves children,” she said. How sad to hear this truth spoken of a man whom Jane thought lost beyond all redemption! Yet ever and ever Lassiter towered above her, and behind or through his black, sinister figure shone something luminous that strangely affected Jane. Good and evil began to seem incomprehensibly blended in her judgment. It was her belief that evil could not come forth from good; yet here was a murderer who dwarfed in gentleness, patience, and love any man she had ever known.

She had almost lost track of her more outside concerns when early one morning Judkins presented himself before her in the courtyard.

Thin, hard, burnt, bearded, with the dust and sage thick on him, with his leather wrist-bands shining from use, and his boots worn through on the stirrup side, he looked the rider of riders. He wore two guns and carried a Winchester.

Jane greeted him with surprise and warmth, set meat and bread and drink before him; and called Lassiter out to see him. The men exchanged glances, and the meaning of Lassiter’s keen inquiry and Judkins’s bold reply, both unspoken, was not lost upon Jane.

“Where’s your hoss?” asked Lassiter, aloud.

“Left him down the slope,” answered Judkins. “I footed it in a ways, an’ slept last night in the sage. I went to the place you told me you ‘moss always slept, but didn’t strike you.”

“I moved up some, near the spring, an’ now I go there nights.”

“Judkins — the white herd?” queried Jane, hurriedly.

“Miss Withersteen, I make proud to say I’ve not lost a steer. Fer a good while after thet stampede Lassiter milled we hed no trouble. Why, even the sage dogs left us. But it’s begun agin — thet flashin’ of lights over ridge tips, an’ queer puffin’ of smoke, en’ then at night strange whistles en’ noises. But the herd’s acted magnificent. An’ my boys, say, Miss Withersteen, they’re only kids, but I ask no better riders. I got the laugh in the village fer takin’ them out. They’re a wild lot, an’ you know boys hev more nerve than grown men, because they don’t know what danger is. I’m not denyin’ there’s danger. But they glory in it, an’ mebbe I like it myself — anyway, we’ll stick. We’re goin’ to drive the herd on the far side of the first break of Deception Pass. There’s a great round valley over there, an’ no ridges or piles of rocks to aid these stampeders. The rains are due. We’ll hev plenty of water fer a while. An’ we can hold thet herd from anybody except Oldrin’. I come in fer supplies. I’ll pack a couple of burros an’ drive out after dark to-night.”

“Judkins, take what you want from the store-room. Lassiter will help you. I — I can’t thank you enough... but — wait.”

Jane went to the room that had once been her father’s, and from a secret chamber in the thick stone wall she took a bag of gold, and, carrying it back to the court, she gave it to the rider.

“There, Judkins, and understand that I regard it as little for your loyalty. Give what is fair to your boys, and keep the rest. Hide it. Perhaps that would be wisest.”

“Oh... Miss Withersteen!” ejaculated the rider. “I couldn’t earn so much in — in ten years. It’s not right — I oughtn’t take it.”

“Judkins, you know I’m a rich woman. I tell you I’ve few faithful friends. I’ve fallen upon evil days. God only knows what will become of me and mine! So take the gold.”

She smiled in understanding of his speechless gratitude, and left him with Lassiter. Presently she heard him speaking low at first, then in louder accents emphasized by the thumping of his rifle on the stones. “As infernal a job as even you, Lassiter, ever heerd of.”

“Why, son,” was Lassiter’s reply, “this breakin’ of Miss Withersteen may seem bad to you, but it ain’t bad — yet. Some of these wall-eyed fellers who look jest as if they was walkin’ in the shadow of Christ himself, right down the sunny road, now they can think of things en’ do things that are really hell-bent.”

Jane covered her ears and ran to her own room, and there like caged lioness she paced to and fro till the coming of little Fay reversed her dark thoughts.

The following day, a warm and muggy one threatening rain awhile Jane was resting in the court, a horseman clattered through the grove and up to the hitching-rack. He leaped off and approached Jane with the manner of a man determined to execute difficult mission, yet fearful of its reception. In the gaunt, wiry figure and the lean, brown face Jane recognized one of her Mormon riders, Blake. It was he of whom Judkins had long since spoken. Of all the riders ever in her employ Blake owed her the most, and as he stepped before her, removing his hat and making manly efforts to subdue his emotion, he showed that he remembered.

“Miss Withersteen, mother’s dead,” he said.

“Oh — Blake!” exclaimed Jane, and she could say no more.

“She died free from pain in the end, and she’s buried — resting at last, thank God!... I’ve come to ride for you again, if you’ll have me. Don’t think I mentioned mother to get your sympathy. When she was living and your riders quit, I had to also. I was afraid of what might be done — said to her.... Miss Withersteen, we can’t talk of — of what’s going on now—”

“Blake, do you know?”

“I know a great deal. You understand, my lips are shut. But without explanation or excuse I offer my services. I’m a Mormon — I hope a good one. But — there are some things!... It’s no use, Miss Withersteen, I can’t say any more — what I’d like to. But will you take me back?”

“Blake!... You know what it means?”

“I don’t care. I’m sick of — of — I’ll show you a Mormon who’ll be true to you!”

“But, Blake — how terribly you might suffer for that!”

“Maybe. Aren’t you suffering now?”

“God knows indeed I am!”

“Miss Withersteen, it’s a liberty on my part to speak so, but I know you pretty well — know you’ll never give in. I wouldn’t if I were you. And I — I must — Something makes me tell you the worst is yet to come. That’s all. I absolutely can’t say more. Will you take me back — let me ride for you — show everybody what I mean?”

“Blake, it makes me happy to hear you. How my riders hurt me when they quit!” Jane felt the hot tears well to her eyes and splash down upon her hands. “I thought so much of them — tried so hard to be good to them. And not one was true. You’ve made it easy to forgive. Perhaps many of them really feel as you do, but dare not return to me. Still, Blake, I hesitate to take you back. Yet I want you so much.”

“Do it, then. If you’re going to make your life a lesson to Mormon women, let me make mine a lesson to the men. Right is right. I believe in you, and here’s my life to prove it.”

“You hint it may mean your life!” said Jane, breathless and low.

“We won’t speak of that. I want to come back. I want to do what every rider aches in his secret heart to do for you.... Miss Withersteen, I hoped it’d not be necessary to tell you that my mother on her deathbed told me to have courage. She knew how the thing galled me — she told me to come back.... Will you take me?”

“God bless you, Blake! Yes, I’ll take you back. And will you — will you accept gold from me?”

“Miss Withersteen!”

“I just gave Judkins a bag of gold. I’ll give you one. If you will not take it you must not come back. You might ride for me a few months — weeks — days till the storm breaks. Then you’d have nothing, and be in disgrace with your people. We’ll forearm you against poverty, and me against endless regret. I’ll give you gold which you can hide — till some future time.”

“Well, if it pleases you,” replied Blake. “But you know I never thought of pay. Now, Miss Withersteen, one thing more. I want to see this man Lassiter. Is he here?”

“Yes, but, Blake — what — Need you see him? Why?” asked Jane, instantly worried. “I can speak to him — tell him about you.”

“That won’t do. I want to — I’ve got to tell him myself. Where is he?”

“Lassiter is with Mrs. Larkin. She is ill. I’ll call him,” answered Jane, and going to the door she softly called for the rider. A faint, musical jingle preceded his step — then his tall form crossed the threshold.

“Lassiter, here’s Blake, an old rider of mine. He has come back to me and he wishes to speak to you.”

Blake’s brown face turned exceedingly pale.

“Yes, I had to speak to you,” he said, swiftly. “My name’s Blake. I’m a Mormon and a rider. Lately I quit Miss Withersteen. I’ve come to beg her to take me back. Now I don’t know you; but I know — what you are. So I’ve this to say to your face. It would never occur to this woman to imagine — let alone suspect me to be a spy. She couldn’t think it might just be a low plot to come here and shoot you in the back. Jane Withersteen hasn’t that kind of a mind.... Well, I’ve not come for that. I want to help her — to pull a bridle along with Judkins and — and you. The thing is — do you believe me?”

“I reckon I do,” replied Lassiter. How this slow, cool speech contrasted with Blake’s hot, impulsive words! “You might have saved some of your breath. See here, Blake, cinch this in your mind. Lassiter has met some square Mormons! An’ mebbe—”

“Blake,” interrupted Jane, nervously anxious to terminate a colloquy that she perceived was an ordeal for him. “Go at once and fetch me a report of my horses.”

“Miss Withersteen!... You mean the big drove — down in the sage-cleared fields?”

“Of course,” replied Jane. “My horses are all there, except the blooded stock I keep here.”

“Haven’t you heard — then?”

“Heard? No! What’s happened to them?”

“They’re gone, Miss Withersteen, gone these ten days past. Dorn told me, and I rode down to see for myself.”

“Lassiter — did you know?” asked Jane, whirling to him.

“I reckon so.... But what was the use to tell you?”

It was Lassiter turning away his face and Blake studying the stone flags at his feet that brought Jane to the understanding of what she betrayed. She strove desperately, but she could not rise immediately from such a blow.

“My horses! My horses! What’s become of them?”

“Dorn said the riders report another drive by Oldring.... And I trailed the horses miles down the slope toward Deception Pass.”

“My red herd’s gone! My horses gone! The white herd will go next. I can stand that. But if I lost Black Star and Night, it would be like parting with my own flesh and blood. Lassiter — Blake — am I in danger of losing my racers?”

“A rustler — or — or anybody stealin’ hosses of yours would most of all want the blacks,” said Lassiter. His evasive reply was affirmative enough. The other rider nodded gloomy acquiescence.

“Oh! Oh!” Jane Withersteen choked, with violent utterance.

“Let me take charge of the blacks?” asked Blake. “One more rider won’t be any great help to Judkins. But I might hold Black Star and Night, if you put such store on their value.”

“Value! Blake, I love my racers. Besides, there’s another reason why I mustn’t lose them. You go to the stables. Go with Jerd every day when he runs the horses, and don’t let them out of your sight. If you would please me — win my gratitude, guard my black racers.”

When Blake had mounted and ridden out of the court Lassiter regarded Jane with the smile that was becoming rarer as the days sped by.

“‘Pears to me, as Blake says, you do put some store on them hosses. Now I ain’t gainsayin’ that the Arabians are the handsomest hosses I ever seen. But Bells can beat Night, an’ run neck en’ neck with Black Star.”

“Lassiter, don’t tease me now. I’m miserable — sick. Bells is fast, but he can’t stay with the blacks, and you know it. Only Wrangle can do that.”

“I’ll bet that big raw-boned brute can more’n show his heels to your black racers. Jane, out there in the sage, on a long chase, Wrangle could kill your favorites.”

“No, no,” replied Jane, impatiently. “Lassiter, why do you say that so often? I know you’ve teased me at times, and I believe it’s only kindness. You’re always trying to keep my mind off worry. But you mean more by this repeated mention of my racers?”

“I reckon so.” Lassiter paused, and for the thousandth time in her presence moved his black sombrero round and round, as if counting the silver pieces on the band. “Well, Jane, I’ve sort of read a little that’s passin’ in your mind.”

“You think I might fly from my home — from Cottonwoods — from the Utah border?”

“I reckon. An’ if you ever do an’ get away with the blacks I wouldn’t like to see Wrangle left here on the sage. Wrangle could catch you. I know Venters had him. But you can never tell. Mebbe he hasn’t got him now.... Besides — things are happenin’, an’ somethin’ of the same queer nature might have happened to Venters.”

“God knows you’re right!... Poor Bern, how long he’s gone! In my trouble I’ve been forgetting him. But, Lassiter, I’ve little fear for him. I’ve heard my riders say he’s as keen as a wolf.... As to your reading my thoughts — well, your suggestion makes an actual thought of what was only one of my dreams. I believe I dreamed of flying from this wild borderland, Lassiter. I’ve strange dreams. I’m not always practical and thinking of my many duties, as you said once. For instance — if I dared — if I dared I’d ask you to saddle the blacks and ride away with me — and hide me.”

“Jane!”

The rider’s sunburnt face turned white. A few times Jane had seen Lassiter’s cool calm broken — when he had met little Fay, when he had learned how and why he had come to love both child and mistress, when he had stood beside Milly Erne’s grave. But one and all they could not be considered in the light of his present agitation. Not only did Lassiter turn white — not only did he grow tense, not only did he lose his coolness, but also he suddenly, violently, hungrily took her into his arms and crushed her to his breast.

“Lassiter!” cried Jane, trembling. It was an action for which she took sole blame. Instantly, as if dazed, weakened, he released her. “Forgive me!” went on Jane. “I’m always forgetting your — your feelings. I thought of you as my faithful friend. I’m always making you out more than human... only, let me say — I meant that — about riding away. I’m wretched, sick of this — this — Oh, something bitter and black grows on my heart!”

“Jane, the hell — of it,” he replied, with deep intake of breath, “is you can’t ride away. Mebbe realizin’ it accounts for my grabbin’ you — that way, as much as the crazy boy’s rapture your words gave me. I don’t understand myself.... But the hell of this game is — you can’t ride away.”

“Lassiter!... What on earth do you mean? I’m an absolutely free woman.”

“You ain’t absolutely anythin’ of the kind.... I reckon I’ve got to tell you!”

“Tell me all. It’s uncertainty that makes me a coward. It’s faith and hope — blind love, if you will, that makes me miserable. Every day I awake believing — still believing. The day grows, and with it doubts, fears, and that black bat hate that bites hotter and hotter into my heart. Then comes night — I pray — I pray for all, and for myself — I sleep — and I awake free once more, trustful, faithful, to believe — to hope! Then, O my God! I grow and live a thousand years till night again!... But if you want to see me a woman, tell me why I can’t ride away — tell me what more I’m to lose — tell me the worst.”

“Jane, you’re watched. There’s no single move of yours, except when you’re hid in your house, that ain’t seen by sharp eyes. The cottonwood grove’s full of creepin’, crawlin’ men. Like Indians in the grass. When you rode, which wasn’t often lately, the sage was full of sneakin’ men. At night they crawl under your windows into the court, an’ I reckon into the house. Jane Withersteen, you know, never locked a door! This here grove’s a hummin’ bee-hive of mysterious happenin’s. Jane, it ain’t so much that these soles keep out of my way as me keepin’ out of theirs. They’re goin’ to try to kill me. That’s plain. But mebbe I’m as hard to shoot in the back as in the face. So far I’ve seen fit to watch only. This all means, Jane, that you’re a marked woman. You can’t get away — not now. Mebbe later, when you’re broken, you might. But that’s sure doubtful. Jane, you’re to lose the cattle that’s left — your home an’ ranch — an’ Amber Spring. You can’t even hide a sack of gold! For it couldn’t be slipped out of the house, day or night, an’ hid or buried, let alone be rid off with. You may lose all. I’m tellin’ you, Jane, hopin’ to prepare you, if the worst does come. I told you once before about that strange power I’ve got to feel things.”

“Lassiter, what can I do?”

“Nothin’, I reckon, except know what’s comin’ an’ wait an’ be game. If you’d let me make a call on Tull, an’ a long-deferred call on—”

“Hush!... Hush!” she whispered.

“Well, even that wouldn’t help you any in the end.”

“What does it mean? Oh, what does it mean? I am my father’s daughter — a Mormon, yet I can’t see! I’ve not failed in religion — in duty. For years I’ve given with a free and full heart. When my father died I was rich. If I’m still rich it’s because I couldn’t find enough ways to become poor. What am I, what are my possessions to set in motion such intensity of secret oppression?”

“Jane, the mind behind it all is an empire builder.”

“But, Lassiter, I would give freely — all I own to avert this — this wretched thing. If I gave — that would leave me with faith still. Surely my — my churchmen think of my soul? If I lose my trust in them—”

“Child, be still!” said Lassiter, with a dark dignity that had in it something of pity. “You are a woman, fine en’ big an’ strong, an’ your heart matches your size. But in mind you’re a child. I’ll say a little more — then I’m done. I’ll never mention this again. Among many thousands of women you’re one who has bucked against your churchmen. They tried you out, an’ failed of persuasion, an’ finally of threats. You meet now the cold steel of a will as far from Christlike as the universe is wide. You’re to be broken. Your body’s to be held, given to some man, made, if possible, to bring children into the world. But your soul?... What do they care for your soul?”

CHAPTER XIII. SOLITUDE AND STORM

IN HIS HIDDEN valley Venters awakened from sleep, and his ears rang with innumerable melodies from full-throated mockingbirds, and his eyes opened wide upon the glorious golden shaft of sunlight shining through the great stone bridge. The circle of cliffs surrounding Surprise Valley lay shrouded in morning mist, a dim blue low down along the terraces, a creamy, moving cloud along the ramparts. The oak forest in the center was a plumed and tufted oval of gold.

He saw Bess under the spruces. Upon her complete recovery of strength she always rose with the dawn. At the moment she was feeding the quail she had tamed. And she had begun to tame the mocking-birds. They fluttered among the branches overhead and some left off their songs to flit down and shyly hop near the twittering quail. Little gray and white rabbits crouched in the grass, now nibbling, now laying long ears flat and watching the dogs.

Venters’s swift glance took in the brightening valley, and Bess and her pets, and Ring and Whitie. It swept over all to return again and rest upon the girl. She had changed. To the dark trousers and blouse she had added moccasins of her own make, but she no longer resembled a boy. No eye could have failed to mark the rounded contours of a woman. The change had been to grace and beauty. A glint of warm gold gleamed from her hair, and a tint of red shone in the clear dark brown of cheeks. The haunting sweetness of her lips and eyes, that earlier had been illusive, a promise, had become a living fact. She fitted harmoniously into that wonderful setting; she was like Surprise Valley — wild and beautiful.

Venters leaped out of his cave to begin the day.

He had postponed his journey to Cottonwoods until after the passing of the summer rains. The rains were due soon. But until their arrival and the necessity for his trip to the village he sequestered in a far corner of mind all thought of peril, of his past life, and almost that of the present. It was enough to live. He did not want to know what lay hidden in the dim and distant future. Surprise Valley had enchanted him. In this home of the cliff-dwellers there were peace and quiet and solitude, and another thing, wondrous as the golden morning shaft of sunlight, that he dared not ponder over long enough to understand.

The solitude he had hated when alone he had now come to love. He was assimilating something from this valley of gleams and shadows. From this strange girl he was assimilating more.

The day at hand resembled many days gone before. As Venters had no tools with which to build, or to till the terraces, he remained idle. Beyond the cooking of the simple fare there were no tasks. And as there were no tasks, there was no system. He and Bess began one thing, to leave it; to begin another, to leave that; and then do nothing but lie under the spruces and watch the great cloud-sails majestically move along the ramparts, and dream and dream. The valley was a golden, sunlit world. It was silent. The sighing wind and the twittering quail and the singing birds, even the rare and seldom-occurring hollow crack of a sliding weathered stone, only thickened and deepened that insulated silence.

Venters and Bess had vagrant minds.

“Bess, did I tell you about my horse Wrangle?” inquired Venters.

“A hundred times,” she replied.

“Oh, have I? I’d forgotten. I want you to see him. He’ll carry us both.”

“I’d like to ride him. Can he run?”

“Run? He’s a demon. Swiftest horse on the sage! I hope he’ll stay in that canyon.

“He’ll stay.”

They left camp to wander along the terraces, into the aspen ravines, under the gleaming walls. Ring and Whitie wandered in the fore, often turning, often trotting back, open-mouthed and solemn-eyed and happy. Venters lifted his gaze to the grand archway over the entrance to the valley, and Bess lifted hers to follow his, and both were silent. Sometimes the bridge held their attention for a long time. To-day a soaring eagle attracted them.

“How he sails!” exclaimed Bess. “I wonder where his mate is?”

“She’s at the nest. It’s on the bridge in a crack near the top. I see her often. She’s almost white.”

They wandered on down the terrace, into the shady, sun-flecked forest. A brown bird fluttered crying from a bush. Bess peeped into the leaves. “Look! A nest and four little birds. They’re not afraid of us. See how they open their mouths. They’re hungry.”

Rabbits rustled the dead brush and pattered away. The forest was full of a drowsy hum of insects. Little darts of purple, that were running quail, crossed the glades. And a plaintive, sweet peeping came from the coverts. Bess’s soft step disturbed a sleeping lizard that scampered away over the leaves. She gave chase and caught it, a slim creature of nameless color but of exquisite beauty.

“Jewel eyes,” she said. “It’s like a rabbit — afraid. We won’t eat you. There — go.”

Murmuring water drew their steps down into a shallow shaded ravine where a brown brook brawled softly over mossy stones. Multitudes of strange, gray frogs with white spots and black eyes lined the rocky bank and leaped only at close approach. Then Venters’s eye descried a very thin, very long green snake coiled round a sapling. They drew closer and closer till they could have touched it. The snake had no fear and watched them with scintillating eyes.

“It’s pretty,” said Bess. “How tame! I thought snakes always ran.”

“No. Even the rabbits didn’t run here till the dogs chased them.”

On and on they wandered to the wild jumble of massed and broken fragments of cliff at the west end of the valley. The roar of the disappearing stream dinned in their ears. Into this maze of rocks they threaded a tortuous way, climbing, descending, halting to gather wild plums and great lavender lilies, and going on at the will of fancy. Idle and keen perceptions guided them equally.

“Oh, let us climb there!” cried Bess, pointing upward to a small space of terrace left green and shady between huge abutments of broken cliff. And they climbed to the nook and rested and looked out across the valley to the curling column of blue smoke from their campfire. But the cool shade and the rich grass and the fine view were not what they had climbed for. They could not have told, although whatever had drawn them was well-satisfying. Light, sure-footed as a mountain goat, Bess pattered down at Venters’s heels; and they went on, calling the dogs, eyes dreamy and wide, listening to the wind and the bees and the crickets and the birds.

Part of the time Ring and Whitie led the way, then Venters, then Bess; and the direction was not an object. They left the sun-streaked shade of the oaks, brushed the long grass of the meadows, entered the green and fragrant swaying willows, to stop, at length, under the huge old cottonwoods where the beavers were busy.

Here they rested and watched. A dam of brush and logs and mud and stones backed the stream into a little lake. The round, rough beaver houses projected from the water. Like the rabbits, the beavers had become shy. Gradually, however, as Venters and Bess knelt low, holding the dogs, the beavers emerged to swim with logs and gnaw at cottonwoods and pat mud walls with their paddle-like tails, and, glossy and shiny in the sun, to go on with their strange, persistent industry. They were the builders. The lake was a mud-hole, and the immediate environment a scarred and dead region, but it was a wonderful home of wonderful animals.

“Look at that one — he puddles in the mud,” said Bess. “And there! See him dive! Hear them gnawing! I’d think they’d break their teeth. How’s it they can stay out of the water and under the water?”

And she laughed.

Then Venters and Bess wandered farther, and, perhaps not all unconsciously this time, wended their slow steps to the cave of the cliff-dwellers, where she liked best to go.

The tangled thicket and the long slant of dust and little chips of weathered rock and the steep bench of stone and the worn steps all were arduous work for Bess in the climbing. But she gained the shelf, gasping, hot of cheek, glad of eye, with her hand in Venters’s. Here they rested. The beautiful valley glittered below with its millions of wind-turned leaves bright-faced in the sun, and the mighty bridge towered heavenward, crowned with blue sky. Bess, however, never rested for long. Soon she was exploring, and Venters followed; she dragged forth from corners and shelves a multitude of crudely fashioned and painted pieces of pottery, and he carried them. They peeped down into the dark holes of the kivas, and Bess gleefully dropped a stone and waited for the long-coming hollow sound to rise. They peeped into the little globular houses, like mud-wasp nests, and wondered if these had been store-places for grain, or baby cribs, or what; and they crawled into the larger houses and laughed when they bumped their heads on the low roofs, and they dug in the dust of the floors. And they brought from dust and darkness armloads of treasure which they carried to the light. Flints and stones and strange curved sticks and pottery they found; and twisted grass rope that crumbled in their hands, and bits of whitish stone which crushed to powder at a touch and seemed to vanish in the air.

“That white stuff was bone,” said Venters, slowly. “Bones of a cliff-dweller.”

“No!” exclaimed Bess.

“Here’s another piece. Look!... Whew! dry, powdery smoke! That’s bone.”

Then it was that Venters’s primitive, childlike mood, like a savage’s, seeing, yet unthinking, gave way to the encroachment of civilized thought. The world had not been made for a single day’s play or fancy or idle watching. The world was old. Nowhere could be gotten a better idea of its age than in this gigantic silent tomb. The gray ashes in Venters’s hand had once been bone of a human being like himself. The pale gloom of the cave had shadowed people long ago. He saw that Bess had received the same shock — could not in moments such as this escape her feeling living, thinking destiny.

“Bern, people have lived here,” she said, with wide, thoughtful eyes.

“Yes,” he replied.

“How long ago?”

“A thousand years and more.”

“What were they?”

“Cliff-dwellers. Men who had enemies and made their homes high out of reach.”

“They had to fight?”

“Yes.”

“They fought for — what?”

“For life. For their homes, food, children, parents — for their women!”

“Has the world changed any in a thousand years?”

“I don’t know — perhaps a little.”

“Have men?”

“I hope so — I think so.”

“Things crowd into my mind,” she went on, and the wistful light in her eyes told Venters the truth of her thoughts. “I’ve ridden the border of Utah. I’ve seen people — know how they live — but they must be few of all who are living. I had my books and I studied them. But all that doesn’t help me any more. I want to go out into the big world and see it. Yet I want to stay here more. What’s to become of us? Are we cliff-dwellers? We’re alone here. I’m happy when I don’t think. These — these bones that fly into dust — they make me sick and a little afraid. Did the people who lived here once have the same feelings as we have? What was the good of their living at all? They’re gone! What’s the meaning of it all — of us?”

“Bess, you ask more than I can tell. It’s beyond me. Only there was laughter here once — and now there’s silence. There was life — and now there’s death. Men cut these little steps, made these arrow-heads and mealing-stones, plaited the ropes we found, and left their bones to crumble in our fingers. As far as time is concerned it might all have been yesterday. We’re here to-day. Maybe we’re higher in the scale of human beings — in intelligence. But who knows? We can’t be any higher in the things for which life is lived at all.”

“What are they?”

“Why — I suppose relationship, friendship — love.”

“Love!”

“Yes. Love of man for woman — love of woman for man. That’s the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself.”

She said no more. Wistfulness of glance deepened into sadness.

“Come, let us go,” said Venters.

Action brightened her. Beside him, holding his hand she slipped down the shelf, ran down the long, steep slant of sliding stones, out of the cloud of dust, and likewise out of the pale gloom.

“We beat the slide,” she cried.

The miniature avalanche cracked and roared, and rattled itself into an inert mass at the base of the incline. Yellow dust like the gloom of the cave, but not so changeless, drifted away on the wind; the roar clapped in echo from the cliff, returned, went back, and came again to die in the hollowness. Down on the sunny terrace there was a different atmosphere. Ring and Whitie leaped around Bess. Once more she was smiling, gay, and thoughtless, with the dream-mood in the shadow of her eyes.

“Bess, I haven’t seen that since last summer. Look!” said Venters, pointing to the scalloped edge of rolling purple clouds that peeped over the western wall. “We’re in for a storm.”

“Oh, I hope not. I’m afraid of storms.”

“Are you? Why?”

“Have you ever been down in one of these walled-up pockets in a bad storm?”

“No, now I think of it, I haven’t.”

“Well, it’s terrible. Every summer I get scared to death and hide somewhere in the dark. Storms up on the sage are bad, but nothing to what they are down here in the canyons. And in this little valley — why, echoes can rap back and forth so quick they’ll split our ears.”

“We’re perfectly safe here, Bess.”

“I know. But that hasn’t anything to do with it. The truth is I’m afraid of lightning and thunder, and thunder-claps hurt my head. If we have a bad storm, will you stay close to me?”

“Yes.”

When they got back to camp the afternoon was closing, and it was exceedingly sultry. Not a breath of air stirred the aspen leaves, and when these did not quiver the air was indeed still. The dark-purple clouds moved almost imperceptibly out of the west.

“What have we for supper?” asked Bess.

“Rabbit.”

“Bern, can’t you think of another new way to cook rabbit?” went on Bess, with earnestness.

“What do you think I am — a magician?” retorted Venters.

“I wouldn’t dare tell you. But, Bern, do you want me to turn into a rabbit?”

There was a dark-blue, merry flashing of eyes and a parting of lips; then she laughed. In that moment she was naive and wholesome.

“Rabbit seems to agree with you,” replied Venters. “You are well and strong — and growing very pretty.”

Anything in the nature of compliment he had never before said to her, and just now he responded to a sudden curiosity to see its effect. Bess stared as if she had not heard aright, slowly blushed, and completely lost her poise in happy confusion.

“I’d better go right away,” he continued, “and fetch supplies from Cottonwoods.”

A startlingly swift change in the nature of her agitation made him reproach himself for his abruptness.

“No, no, don’t go!” she said. “I didn’t mean — that about the rabbit. I — I was only trying to be — funny. Don’t leave me all alone!”

“Bess, I must go sometime.”

“Wait then. Wait till after the storms.”

The purple cloud-bank darkened the lower edge of the setting sun, crept up and up, obscuring its fiery red heart, and finally passed over the last ruddy crescent of its upper rim.

The intense dead silence awakened to a long, low, rumbling roll of thunder.

“Oh!” cried Bess, nervously.

“We’ve had big black clouds before this without rain,” said Venters. “But there’s no doubt about that thunder. The storms are coming. I’m glad. Every rider on the sage will hear that thunder with glad ears.”

Venters and Bess finished their simple meal and the few tasks around the camp, then faced the open terrace, the valley, and the west, to watch and await the approaching storm.

It required keen vision to see any movement whatever in the purple clouds. By infinitesimal degrees the dark cloud-line merged upward into the golden-red haze of the afterglow of sunset. A shadow lengthened from under the western wall across the valley. As straight and rigid as steel rose the delicate spear-pointed silver spruces; the aspen leaves, by nature pendant and quivering, hung limp and heavy; no slender blade of grass moved. A gentle splashing of water came from the ravine. Then again from out of the west sounded the low, dull, and rumbling roll of thunder.

A wave, a ripple of light, a trembling and turning of the aspen leaves, like the approach of a breeze on the water, crossed the valley from the west; and the lull and the deadly stillness and the sultry air passed away on a cool wind.

The night bird of the canyon, with clear and melancholy notes announced the twilight. And from all along the cliffs rose the faint murmur and moan and mourn of the wind singing in the caves. The bank of clouds now swept hugely out of the western sky. Its front was purple and black, with gray between, a bulging, mushrooming, vast thing instinct with storm. It had a dark, angry, threatening aspect. As if all the power of the winds were pushing and piling behind, it rolled ponderously across the sky. A red flare burned out instantaneously, flashed from the west to east, and died. Then from the deepest black of the purple cloud burst a boom. It was like the bowling of a huge boulder along the crags and ramparts, and seemed to roll on and fall into the valley to bound and bang and boom from cliff to cliff.

“Oh!” cried Bess, with her hands over her ears. “What did I tell you?”

“Why, Bess, be reasonable!” said Venters.

“I’m a coward.”

“Not quite that, I hope. It’s strange you’re afraid. I love a storm.”

“I tell you a storm down in these canyons is an awful thing. I know Oldring hated storms. His men were afraid of them. There was one who went deaf in a bad storm, and never could hear again.”

“Maybe I’ve lots to learn, Bess. I’ll lose my guess if this storm isn’t bad enough. We’re going to have heavy wind first, then lightning and thunder, then the rain. Let’s stay out as long as we can.”

The tips of the cottonwoods and the oaks waved to the east, and the rings of aspens along the terraces twinkled their myriad of bright faces in fleet and glancing gleam. A low roar rose from the leaves of the forest, and the spruces swished in the rising wind. It came in gusts, with light breezes between. As it increased in strength the lulls shortened in length till there was a strong and steady blow all the time, and violent puffs at intervals, and sudden whirling currents. The clouds spread over the valley, rolling swiftly and low, and twilight faded into a sweeping darkness. Then the singing of the wind in the caves drowned the swift roar of rustling leaves; then the song swelled to a mourning, moaning wail; then with the gathering power of the wind the wail changed to a shriek. Steadily the wind strengthened and constantly the strange sound changed.

The last bit of blue sky yielded to the on-sweep of clouds. Like angry surf the pale gleams of gray, amid the purple of that scudding front, swept beyond the eastern rampart of the valley. The purple deepened to black. Broad sheets of lightning flared over the western wall. There were not yet any ropes or zigzag streaks darting down through the gathering darkness. The storm center was still beyond Surprise Valley.

“Listen!... Listen!” cried Bess, with her lips close to Venters’s ear. “You’ll hear Oldring’s knell!”

“What’s that?”

“Oldring’s knell. When the wind blows a gale in the caves it makes what the rustlers call Oldring’s knell. They believe it bodes his death. I think he believes so, too. It’s not like any sound on earth.... It’s beginning. Listen!”

The gale swooped down with a hollow unearthly howl. It yelled and pealed and shrilled and shrieked. It was made up of a thousand piercing cries. It was a rising and a moving sound. Beginning at the western break of the valley, it rushed along each gigantic cliff, whistling into the caves and cracks, to mount in power, to bellow a blast through the great stone bridge. Gone, as into an engulfing roar of surging waters, it seemed to shoot back and begin all over again.

It was only wind, thought Venters. Here sped and shrieked the sculptor that carved out the wonderful caves in the cliffs. It was only a gale, but as Venters listened, as his ears became accustomed to the fury and strife, out of it all or through it or above it pealed low and perfectly clear and persistently uniform a strange sound that had no counterpart in all the sounds of the elements. It was not of earth or of life. It was the grief and agony of the gale. A knell of all upon which it blew!

Black night enfolded the valley. Venters could not see his companion, and knew of her presence only through the tightening hold of her hand on his arm. He felt the dogs huddle closer to him. Suddenly the dense, black vault overhead split asunder to a blue-white, dazzling streak of lightning. The whole valley lay vividly clear and luminously bright in his sight. Upreared, vast and magnificent, the stone bridge glimmered like some grand god of storm in the lightning’s fire. Then all flashed black again — blacker than pitch — a thick, impenetrable coal-blackness. And there came a ripping, crashing report. Instantly an echo resounded with clapping crash. The initial report was nothing to the echo. It was a terrible, living, reverberating, detonating crash. The wall threw the sound across, and could have made no greater roar if it had slipped in avalanche. From cliff to cliff the echo went in crashing retort and banged in lessening power, and boomed in thinner volume, and clapped weaker and weaker till a final clap could not reach across the waiting cliff.

In the pitchy darkness Venters led Bess, and, groping his way, by feel of hand found the entrance to her cave and lifted her up. On the instant a blinding flash of lightning illumined the cave and all about him. He saw Bess’s face white now with dark, frightened eyes. He saw the dogs leap up, and he followed suit. The golden glare vanished; all was black; then came the splitting crack and the infernal din of echoes.

Bess shrank closer to him and closer, found his hands, and pressed them tightly over her ears, and dropped her face upon his shoulder, and hid her eyes.

Then the storm burst with a succession of ropes and streaks and shafts of lightning, playing continuously, filling the valley with a broken radiance; and the cracking shots followed each other swiftly till the echoes blended in one fearful, deafening crash.

Venters looked out upon the beautiful valley — beautiful now as never before — mystic in its transparent, luminous gloom, weird in the quivering, golden haze of lightning. The dark spruces were tipped with glimmering lights; the aspens bent low in the winds, as waves in a tempest at sea; the forest of oaks tossed wildly and shone with gleams of fire. Across the valley the huge cavern of the cliff-dwellers yawned in the glare, every little black window as clear as at noonday; but the night and the storm added to their tragedy. Flung arching to the black clouds, the great stone bridge seemed to bear the brunt of the storm. It caught the full fury of the rushing wind. It lifted its noble crown to meet the lightnings. Venters thought of the eagles and their lofty nest in a niche under the arch. A driving pall of rain, black as the clouds, came sweeping on to obscure the bridge and the gleaming walls and the shining valley. The lightning played incessantly, streaking down through opaque darkness of rain. The roar of the wind, with its strange knell and the re-crashing echoes, mingled with the roar of the flooding rain, and all seemingly were deadened and drowned in a world of sound.

In the dimming pale light Venters looked down upon the girl. She had sunk into his arms, upon his breast, burying her face. She clung to him. He felt the softness of her, and the warmth, and the quick heave of her breast. He saw the dark, slender, graceful outline of her form. A woman lay in his arms! And he held her closer. He who had been alone in the sad, silent watches of the night was not now and never must be again alone. He who had yearned for the touch of a hand felt the long tremble and the heart-beat of a woman. By what strange chance had she come to love him! By what change — by what marvel had she grown into a treasure!

No more did he listen to the rush and roar of the thunder-storm. For with the touch of clinging hands and the throbbing bosom he grew conscious of an inward storm — the tingling of new chords of thought, strange music of unheard, joyous bells sad dreams dawning to wakeful delight, dissolving doubt, resurging hope, force, fire, and freedom, unutterable sweetness of desire. A storm in his breast — a storm of real love.

CHAPTER XIV. WEST WIND

WHEN THE STORM abated Venters sought his own cave, and late in the night, as his blood cooled and the stir and throb and thrill subsided, he fell asleep.

With the breaking of dawn his eyes unclosed. The valley lay drenched and bathed, a burnished oval of glittering green. The rain-washed walls glistened in the morning light. Waterfalls of many forms poured over the rims. One, a broad, lacy sheet, thin as smoke, slid over the western notch and struck a ledge in its downward fall, to bound into broader leap, to burst far below into white and gold and rosy mist.

Venters prepared for the day, knowing himself a different man.

“It’s a glorious morning,” said Bess, in greeting.

“Yes. After the storm the west wind,” he replied.

“Last night was I — very much of a baby?” she asked, watching him.

“Pretty much.”

“Oh, I couldn’t help it!”

“I’m glad you were afraid.”

“Why?” she asked, in slow surprise.

“I’ll tell you some day,” he answered, soberly. Then around the camp-fire and through the morning meal he was silent; afterward he strolled thoughtfully off alone along the terrace. He climbed a great yellow rock raising its crest among the spruces, and there he sat down to face the valley and the west.

“I love her!”

Aloud he spoke — unburdened his heart — confessed his secret. For an instant the golden valley swam before his eyes, and the walls waved, and all about him whirled with tumult within.

“I love her!... I understand now.”

Reviving memory of Jane Withersteen and thought of the complications of the present amazed him with proof of how far he had drifted from his old life. He discovered that he hated to take up the broken threads, to delve into dark problems and difficulties. In this beautiful valley he had been living a beautiful dream. Tranquillity had come to him, and the joy of solitude, and interest in all the wild creatures and crannies of this incomparable valley — and love. Under the shadow of the great stone bridge God had revealed Himself to Venters.

“The world seems very far away,” he muttered, “but it’s there — and I’m not yet done with it. Perhaps I never shall be.... Only — how glorious it would be to live here always and never think again!”

Whereupon the resurging reality of the present, as if in irony of his wish, steeped him instantly in contending thought. Out of it all he presently evolved these things: he must go to Cottonwoods; he must bring supplies back to Surprise Valley; he must cultivate the soil and raise corn and stock, and, most imperative of all, he must decide the future of the girl who loved him and whom he loved. The first of these things required tremendous effort, the last one, concerning Bess, seemed simply and naturally easy of accomplishment. He would marry her. Suddenly, as from roots of poisonous fire, flamed up the forgotten truth concerning her. It seemed to wither and shrivel up all his joy on its hot, tearing way to his heart. She had been Oldring’s Masked Rider. To Venters’s question, “What were you to Oldring?” she had answered with scarlet shame and drooping head.

“What do I care who she is or what she was!” he cried, passionately. And he knew it was not his old self speaking. It was this softer, gentler man who had awakened to new thoughts in the quiet valley. Tenderness, masterful in him now, matched the absence of joy and blunted the knife-edge of entering jealousy. Strong and passionate effort of will, surprising to him, held back the poison from piercing his soul.

“Wait!... Wait!” he cried, as if calling. His hand pressed his breast, and he might have called to the pang there. “Wait! It’s all so strange — so wonderful. Anything can happen. Who am I to judge her? I’ll glory in my love for her. But I can’t tell it — can’t give up to it.”

Certainly he could not then decide her future. Marrying her was impossible in Surprise Valley and in any village south of Sterling. Even without the mask she had once worn she would easily have been recognized as Oldring’s Rider. No man who had ever seen her would forget her, regardless of his ignorance as to her sex. Then more poignant than all other argument was the fact that he did not want to take her away from Surprise Valley. He resisted all thought of that. He had brought her to the most beautiful and wildest place of the uplands; he had saved her, nursed her back to strength, watched her bloom as one of the valley lilies; he knew her life there to be pure and sweet — she belonged to him, and he loved her. Still these were not all the reasons why he did not want to take her away. Where could they go? He feared the rustlers — he feared the riders — he feared the Mormons. And if he should ever succeed in getting Bess safely away from these immediate perils, he feared the sharp eyes of women and their tongues, the big outside world with its problems of existence. He must wait to decide her future, which, after all, was deciding his own. But between her future and his something hung impending. Like Balancing Rock, which waited darkly over the steep gorge, ready to close forever the outlet to Deception Pass, that nameless thing, as certain yet intangible as fate, must fall and close forever all doubts and fears of the future.

“I’ve dreamed,” muttered Venters, as he rose. “Well, why not?... To dream is happiness! But let me just once see this clearly wholly; then I can go on dreaming till the thing falls. I’ve got to tell Jane Withersteen. I’ve dangerous trips to take. I’ve work here to make comfort for this girl. She’s mine. I’ll fight to keep her safe from that old life. I’ve already seen her forget it. I love her. And if a beast ever rises in me I’ll burn my hand off before I lay it on her with shameful intent. And, by God! sooner or later I’ll kill the man who hid her and kept her in Deception Pass!”

As he spoke the west wind softly blew in his face. It seemed to soothe his passion. That west wind was fresh, cool, fragrant, and it carried a sweet, strange burden of far-off things — tidings of life in other climes, of sunshine asleep on other walls — of other places where reigned peace. It carried, too, sad truth of human hearts and mystery — of promise and hope unquenchable. Surprise Valley was only a little niche in the wide world whence blew that burdened wind. Bess was only one of millions at the mercy of unknown motive in nature and life. Content had come to Venters in the valley; happiness had breathed in the slow, warm air; love as bright as light had hovered over the walls and descended to him; and now on the west wind came a whisper of the eternal triumph of faith over doubt.

“How much better I am for what has come to me!” he exclaimed. “I’ll let the future take care of itself. Whatever falls, I’ll be ready.”

Venters retraced his steps along the terrace back to camp, and found Bess in the old familiar seat, waiting and watching for his return.

“I went off by myself to think a little,” he explained.

“You never looked that way before. What — what is it? Won’t you tell me?”

“Well, Bess, the fact is I’ve been dreaming a lot. This valley makes a fellow dream. So I forced myself to think. We can’t live this way much longer. Soon I’ll simply have to go to Cottonwoods. We need a whole pack train of supplies. I can get—”

“Can you go safely?” she interrupted.

“Why, I’m sure of it. I’ll ride through the Pass at night. I haven’t any fear that Wrangle isn’t where I left him. And once on him — Bess, just wait till you see that horse!”

“Oh, I want to see him — to ride him. But — but, Bern, this is what troubles me,” she said. “Will — will you come back?”

“Give me four days. If I’m not back in four days you’ll know I’m dead. For that only shall keep me.”

“Oh!”

“Bess, I’ll come back. There’s danger — I wouldn’t lie to you — but I can take care of myself.”

“Bern, I’m sure — oh, I’m sure of it! All my life I’ve watched hunted men. I can tell what’s in them. And I believe you can ride and shoot and see with any rider of the sage. It’s not — not that I — fear.”

“Well, what is it, then?”

“Why — why — why should you come back at all?”

“I couldn’t leave you here alone.”

“You might change your mind when you get to the village — among old friends—”

“I won’t change my mind. As for old friends—” He uttered a short, expressive laugh.

“Then — there — there must be a — a woman!” Dark red mantled the clear tan of temple and cheek and neck. Her eyes were eyes of shame, upheld a long moment by intense, straining search for the verification of her fear. Suddenly they drooped, her head fell to her knees, her hands flew to her hot cheeks.

“Bess — look here,” said Venters, with a sharpness due to the violence with which he checked his quick, surging emotion.

As if compelled against her will — answering to an irresistible voice — Bess raised her head, looked at him with sad, dark eyes, and tried to whisper with tremulous lips.

“There’s no woman,” went on Venters, deliberately holding her glance with his. “Nothing on earth, barring the chances of life, can keep me away.”

Her face flashed and flushed with the glow of a leaping joy; but like the vanishing of a gleam it disappeared to leave her as he had never beheld her.

“I am nothing — I am lost — I am nameless!”

“Do you want me to come back?” he asked, with sudden stern coldness. “Maybe you want to go back to Oldring!”

That brought her erect, trembling and ashy pale, with dark, proud eyes and mute lips refuting his insinuation.

“Bess, I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have said that. But you angered me. I intend to work — to make a home for you here — to be a — a brother to you as long as ever you need me. And you must forget what you are — were — I mean, and be happy. When you remember that old life you are bitter, and it hurts me.”

“I was happy — I shall be very happy. Oh, you’re so good that — that it kills me! If I think, I can’t believe it. I grow sick with wondering why. I’m only a let me say it — only a lost, nameless — girl of the rustlers. Oldring’s Girl, they called me. That you should save me — be so good and kind — want to make me happy — why, it’s beyond belief. No wonder I’m wretched at the thought of your leaving me. But I’ll be wretched and bitter no more. I promise you. If only I could repay you even a little—”

“You’ve repaid me a hundredfold. Will you believe me?”

“Believe you! I couldn’t do else.”

“Then listen!... Saving you, I saved myself. Living here in this valley with you, I’ve found myself. I’ve learned to think while I was dreaming. I never troubled myself about God. But God, or some wonderful spirit, has whispered to me here. I absolutely deny the truth of what you say about yourself. I can’t explain it. There are things too deep to tell. Whatever the terrible wrongs you’ve suffered, God holds you blameless. I see that — feel that in you every moment you are near me. I’ve a mother and a sister ‘way back in Illinois. If I could I’d take you to them — to-morrow.”

“If it were true! Oh, I might — I might lift my head!” she cried.

“Lift it then — you child. For I swear it’s true.”

She did lift her head with the singular wild grace always a part of her actions, with that old unconscious intimation of innocence which always tortured Venters, but now with something more — a spirit rising from the depths that linked itself to his brave words.

“I’ve been thinking — too,” she cried, with quivering smile and swelling breast. “I’ve discovered myself — too. I’m young — I’m alive — I’m so full — oh! I’m a woman!”

“Bess, I believe I can claim credit of that last discovery — before you,” Venters said, and laughed.

“Oh, there’s more — there’s something I must tell you.”

“Tell it, then.”

“When will you go to Cottonwoods?”

“As soon as the storms are past, or the worst of them.”

“I’ll tell you before you go. I can’t now. I don’t know how I shall then. But it must be told. I’d never let you leave me without knowing. For in spite of what you say there’s a chance you mightn’t come back.”

Day after day the west wind blew across the valley. Day after day the clouds clustered gray and purple and black. The cliffs sang and the caves rang with Oldring’s knell, and the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled, the echoes crashed and crashed, and the rains flooded the valley. Wild flowers sprang up everywhere, swaying with the lengthening grass on the terraces, smiling wanly from shady nooks, peeping wondrously from year-dry crevices of the walls. The valley bloomed into a paradise. Every single moment, from the breaking of the gold bar through the bridge at dawn on to the reddening of rays over the western wall, was one of colorful change. The valley swam in thick, transparent haze, golden at dawn, warm and white at noon, purple in the twilight. At the end of every storm a rainbow curved down into the leaf-bright forest to shine and fade and leave lingeringly some faint essence of its rosy iris in the air.

Venters walked with Bess, once more in a dream, and watched the lights change on the walls, and faced the wind from out of the west.

Always it brought softly to him strange, sweet tidings of far-off things. It blew from a place that was old and whispered of youth. It blew down the grooves of time. It brought a story of the passing hours. It breathed low of fighting men and praying women. It sang clearly the song of love. That ever was the burden of its tidings — youth in the shady woods, waders through the wet meadows, boy and girl at the hedgerow stile, bathers in the booming surf, sweet, idle hours on grassy, windy hills, long strolls down moonlit lanes — everywhere in far-off lands, fingers locked and bursting hearts and longing lips — from all the world tidings of unquenchable love.

Often, in these hours of dreams he watched the girl, and asked himself of what was she dreaming? For the changing light of the valley reflected its gleam and its color and its meaning in the changing light of her eyes. He saw in them infinitely more than he saw in his dreams. He saw thought and soul and nature — strong vision of life. All tidings the west wind blew from distance and age he found deep in those dark-blue depths, and found them mysteries solved. Under their wistful shadow he softened, and in the softening felt himself grow a sadder, a wiser, and a better man.

While the west wind blew its tidings, filling his heart full, teaching him a man’s part, the days passed, the purple clouds changed to white, and the storms were over for that summer.

“I must go now,” he said.

“When?” she asked.

“At once — to-night.”

“I’m glad the time has come. It dragged at me. Go — for you’ll come back the sooner.”

Late in the afternoon, as the ruddy sun split its last flame in the ragged notch of the western wall, Bess walked with Venters along the eastern terrace, up the long, weathered slope, under the great stone bridge. They entered the narrow gorge to climb around the fence long before built there by Venters. Farther than this she had never been. Twilight had already fallen in the gorge. It brightened to waning shadow in the wider ascent. He showed her Balancing Rock, of which he had often told her, and explained its sinister leaning over the outlet. Shuddering, she looked down the long, pale incline with its closed-in, toppling walls.

“What an awful trail! Did you carry me up here?”

“I did, surely,” replied he.

“It frightens me, somehow. Yet I never was afraid of trails. I’d ride anywhere a horse could go, and climb where he couldn’t. But there’s something fearful here. I feel as — as if the place was watching me.”

“Look at this rock. It’s balanced here — balanced perfectly. You know I told you the cliff-dwellers cut the rock, and why. But they’re gone and the rock waits. Can’t you see — feel how it waits here? I moved it once, and I’ll never dare again. A strong heave would start it. Then it would fall and bang, and smash that crag, and jar the walls, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!”

“Ah! When you come back I’ll steal up here and push and push with all my might to roll the rock and close forever the outlet to the Pass!” She said it lightly, but in the undercurrent of her voice was a heavier note, a ring deeper than any ever given mere play of words.

“Bess!... You can’t dare me! Wait till I come back with supplies — then roll the stone.”

“I — was — in — fun.” Her voice now throbbed low. “Always you must be free to go when you will. Go now... this place presses on me — stifles me.”

“I’m going — but you had something to tell me?”

“Yes.... Will you — come back?”

“I’ll come if I live.”

“But — but you mightn’t come?”

“That’s possible, of course. It’ll take a good deal to kill me. A man couldn’t have a faster horse or keener dog. And, Bess, I’ve guns, and I’ll use them if I’m pushed. But don’t worry.”

“I’ve faith in you. I’ll not worry until after four days. Only — because you mightn’t come — I must tell you—”

She lost her voice. Her pale face, her great, glowing, earnest eyes, seemed to stand alone out of the gloom of the gorge. The dog whined, breaking the silence.

“I must tell you — because you mightn’t come back,” she whispered. “You must know what — what I think of your goodness — of you. Always I’ve been tongue-tied. I seemed not to be grateful. It was deep in my heart. Even now — if I were other than I am — I couldn’t tell you. But I’m nothing — only a rustler’s girl — nameless — infamous. You’ve saved me — and I’m — I’m yours to do with as you like.... With all my heart and soul — I love you!”

CHAPTER XV. SHADOWS ON THE SAGE-SLOPE

IN THE CLOUDY, threatening, waning summer days shadows lengthened down the sage-slope, and Jane Withersteen likened them to the shadows gathering and closing in around her life.

Mrs. Larkin died, and little Fay was left an orphan with no known relative. Jane’s love redoubled. It was the saving brightness of a darkening hour. Fay turned now to Jane in childish worship. And Jane at last found full expression for the mother-longing in her heart. Upon Lassiter, too, Mrs. Larkin’s death had some subtle reaction. Before, he had often, without explanation, advised Jane to send Fay back to any Gentile family that would take her in. Passionately and reproachfully and wonderingly Jane had refused even to entertain such an idea. And now Lassiter never advised it again, grew sadder and quieter in his contemplation of the child, and infinitely more gentle and loving. Sometimes Jane had a cold, inexplicable sensation of dread when she saw Lassiter watching Fay. What did the rider see in the future? Why did he, day by day, grow more silent, calmer, cooler, yet sadder in prophetic assurance of something to be?

No doubt, Jane thought, the rider, in his almost superhuman power of foresight, saw behind the horizon the dark, lengthening shadows that were soon to crowd and gloom over him and her and little Fay. Jane Withersteen awaited the long-deferred breaking of the storm with a courage and embittered calm that had come to her in her extremity. Hope had not died. Doubt and fear, subservient to her will, no longer gave her sleepless nights and tortured days. Love remained. All that she had loved she now loved the more. She seemed to feel that she was defiantly flinging the wealth of her love in the face of misfortune and of hate. No day passed but she prayed for all — and most fervently for her enemies. It troubled her that she had lost, or had never gained, the whole control of her mind. In some measure reason and wisdom and decision were locked in a chamber of her brain, awaiting a key. Power to think of some things was taken from her. Meanwhile, abiding a day of judgment, she fought ceaselessly to deny the bitter drops in her cup, to tear back the slow, the intangibly slow growth of a hot, corrosive lichen eating into her heart.

On the morning of August 10th, Jane, while waiting in the court for Lassiter, heard a clear, ringing report of a rifle. It came from the grove, somewhere toward the corrals. Jane glanced out in alarm. The day was dull, windless, soundless. The leaves of the cottonwoods drooped, as if they had foretold the doom of Withersteen House and were now ready to die and drop and decay. Never had Jane seen such shade. She pondered on the meaning of the report. Revolver shots had of late cracked from different parts of the grove — spies taking snap-shots at Lassiter from a cowardly distance! But a rifle report meant more. Riders seldom used rifles. Judkins and Venters were the exceptions she called to mind. Had the men who hounded her hidden in her grove, taken to the rifle to rid her of Lassiter, her last friend? It was probable — it was likely. And she did not share his cool assumption that his death would never come at the hands of a Mormon. Long had she expected it. His constancy to her, his singular reluctance to use the fatal skill for which he was famed — both now plain to all Mormons — laid him open to inevitable assassination. Yet what charm against ambush and aim and enemy he seemed to bear about him! No, Jane reflected, it was not charm; only a wonderful training of eye and ear, and sense of impending peril. Nevertheless that could not forever avail against secret attack.

That moment a rustling of leaves attracted her attention; then the familiar clinking accompaniment of a slow, soft, measured step, and Lassiter walked into the court.

“Jane, there’s a fellow out there with a long gun,” he said, and, removing his sombrero, showed his head bound in a bloody scarf.

“I heard the shot; I knew it was meant for you. Let me see — you can’t be badly injured?”

“I reckon not. But mebbe it wasn’t a close call!... I’ll sit here in this corner where nobody can see me from the grove.” He untied the scarf and removed it to show a long, bleeding furrow above his left temple.

“It’s only a cut,” said Jane. “But how it bleeds! Hold your scarf over it just a moment till I come back.”

She ran into the house and returned with bandages; and while she bathed and dressed the wound Lassiter talked.

“That fellow had a good chance to get me. But he must have flinched when he pulled the trigger. As I dodged down I saw him run through the trees. He had a rifle. I’ve been expectin’ that kind of gun play. I reckon now I’ll have to keep a little closer hid myself. These fellers all seem to get chilly or shaky when they draw a bead on me, but one of them might jest happen to hit me.”

“Won’t you go away — leave Cottonwoods as I’ve begged you to — before some one does happen to hit you?” she appealed to him.

“I reckon I’ll stay.”

“But, oh, Lassiter — your blood will be on my hands!”

“See here, lady, look at your hands now, right now. Aren’t they fine, firm, white hands? Aren’t they bloody now? Lassiter’s blood! That’s a queer thing to stain your beautiful hands. But if you could only see deeper you’d find a redder color of blood. Heart color, Jane!”

“Oh!... My friend!”

“No, Jane, I’m not one to quit when the game grows hot, no more than you. This game, though, is new to me, an’ I don’t know the moves yet, else I wouldn’t have stepped in front of that bullet.”

“Have you no desire to hunt the man who fired at you — to find him — and — and kill him?”

“Well, I reckon I haven’t any great hankerin’ for that.”

“Oh, the wonder of it!... I knew — I prayed — I trusted. Lassiter, I almost gave — all myself to soften you to Mormons. Thank God, and thank you, my friend.... But, selfish woman that I am, this is no great test. What’s the life of one of those sneaking cowards to such a man as you? I think of your great hate toward him who — I think of your life’s implacable purpose. Can it be—”

“Wait!... Listen!” he whispered. “I hear a hoss.”

He rose noiselessly, with his ear to the breeze. Suddenly he pulled his sombrero down over his bandaged head and, swinging his gun-sheaths round in front, he stepped into the alcove.

“It’s a hoss — comin’ fast,” he added.

Jane’s listening ear soon caught a faint, rapid, rhythmic beat of hoofs. It came from the sage. It gave her a thrill that she was at a loss to understand. The sound rose stronger, louder. Then came a clear, sharp difference when the horse passed from the sage trail to the hard-packed ground of the grove. It became a ringing run — swift in its bell-like clatterings, yet singular in longer pause than usual between the hoofbeats of a horse.

“It’s Wrangle!... It’s Wrangle!” cried Jane Withersteen. “I’d know him from a million horses!”

Excitement and thrilling expectancy flooded out all Jane Withersteen’s calm. A tight band closed round her breast as she saw the giant sorrel flit in reddish-brown flashes across the openings in the green. Then he was pounding down the lane — thundering into the court — crashing his great iron-shod hoofs on the stone flags. Wrangle it was surely, but shaggy and wild-eyed, and sage-streaked, with dust-caked lather staining his flanks. He reared and crashed down and plunged. The rider leaped off, threw the bridle, and held hard on a lasso looped round Wrangle’s head and neck. Janet’s heart sank as she tried to recognize Venters in the rider. Something familiar struck her in the lofty stature in the sweep of powerful shoulders. But this bearded, longhaired, unkempt man, who wore ragged clothes patched with pieces of skin, and boots that showed bare legs and feet — this dusty, dark, and wild rider could not possibly be Venters.

“Whoa, Wrangle, old boy! Come down. Easy now. So — so — so. You’re home, old boy, and presently you can have a drink of water you’ll remember.”

In the voice Jane knew the rider to be Venters. He tied Wrangle to the hitching-rack and turned to the court.

“Oh, Bern!... You wild man!” she exclaimed.

“Jane — Jane, it’s good to see you! Hello, Lassiter! Yes, it’s Venters.”

Like rough iron his hard hand crushed Jane’s. In it she felt the difference she saw in him. Wild, rugged, unshorn — yet how splendid! He had gone away a boy — he had returned a man. He appeared taller, wider of shoulder, deeper-chested, more powerfully built. But was that only her fancy — he had always been a young giant — was the change one of spirit? He might have been absent for years, proven by fire and steel, grown like Lassiter, strong and cool and sure. His eyes — were they keener, more flashing than before? — met hers with clear, frank, warm regard, in which perplexity was not, nor discontent, nor pain.

“Look at me long as you like,” he said, with a laugh. “I’m not much to look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag. You’re paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run some.... Well, perhaps you’ve more to tell me than I’ve got to tell you.”

Briefly, in few words, Jane outlined the circumstances of her undoing in the weeks of his absence.

Under his beard and bronze she saw his face whiten in terrible wrath.

“Lassiter — what held you back?”

No time in the long period of fiery moments and sudden shocks had Jane Withersteen ever beheld Lassiter as calm and serene and cool as then.

“Jane had gloom enough without my addin’ to it by shootin’ up the village,” he said.

As strange as Lassiter’s coolness was Venters’s curious, intent scrutiny of them both, and under it Jane felt a flaming tide wave from bosom to temples.

“Well — you’re right,” he said, with slow pause. “It surprises me a little, that’s all.”

Jane sensed then a slight alteration in Venters, and what it was, in her own confusion, she could not tell. It had always been her intention to acquaint him with the deceit she had fallen to in her zeal to move Lassiter. She did not mean to spare herself. Yet now, at the moment, before these riders, it was an impossibility to explain.

Venters was speaking somewhat haltingly, without his former frankness. “I found Oldring’s hiding-place and your red herd. I learned — I know — I’m sure there was a deal between Tull and Oldring.” He paused and shifted his position and his gaze. He looked as if he wanted to say something that he found beyond him. Sorrow and pity and shame seemed to contend for mastery over him. Then he raised himself and spoke with effort. “Jane I’ve cost you too much. You’ve almost ruined yourself for me. It was wrong, for I’m not worth it. I never deserved such friendship. Well, maybe it’s not too late. You must give me up. Mind, I haven’t changed. I am just the same as ever. I’ll see Tull while I’m here, and tell him to his face.”

“Bern, it’s too late,” said Jane.

“I’ll make him believe!” cried Venters, violently.

“You ask me to break our friendship?”

“Yes. If you don’t, I shall.”

“Forever?”

“Forever!”

Jane sighed. Another shadow had lengthened down the sage slope to cast further darkness upon her. A melancholy sweetness pervaded her resignation. The boy who had left her had returned a man, nobler, stronger, one in whom she divined something unbending as steel. There might come a moment later when she would wonder why she had not fought against his will, but just now she yielded to it. She liked him as well — nay, more, she thought, only her emotions were deadened by the long, menacing wait for the bursting storm.

Once before she had held out her hand to him — when she gave it; now she stretched it tremblingly forth in acceptance of the decree circumstance had laid upon them. Venters bowed over it kissed it, pressed it hard, and half stifled a sound very like a sob. Certain it was that when he raised his head tears glistened in his eyes.

“Some — women — have a hard lot,” he said, huskily. Then he shook his powerful form, and his rags lashed about him. “I’ll say a few things to Tull — when I meet him.”

“Bern — you’ll not draw on Tull? Oh, that must not be! Promise me—”

“I promise you this,” he interrupted, in stern passion that thrilled while it terrorized her. “If you say one more word for that plotter I’ll kill him as I would a mad coyote!”

Jane clasped her hands. Was this fire-eyed man the one whom she had once made as wax to her touch? Had Venters become Lassiter and Lassiter Venters?

“I’ll — say no more,” she faltered.

“Jane, Lassiter once called you blind,” said Venters. “It must be true. But I won’t upbraid you. Only don’t rouse the devil in me by praying for Tull! I’ll try to keep cool when I meet him. That’s all. Now there’s one more thing I want to ask of you — the last. I’ve found a valley down in the Pass. It’s a wonderful place. I intend to stay there. It’s so hidden I believe no one can find it. There’s good water, and browse, and game. I want to raise corn and stock. I need to take in supplies. Will you give them to me?”

“Assuredly. The more you take the better you’ll please me — and perhaps the less my — my enemies will get.”

“Venters, I reckon you’ll have trouble packin’ anythin’ away,” put in Lassiter.

“I’ll go at night.”

“Mebbe that wouldn’t be best. You’d sure be stopped. You’d better go early in the mornin’ — say, just after dawn. That’s the safest time to move round here.”

“Lassiter, I’ll be hard to stop,” returned Venters, darkly.

“I reckon so.”

“Bern,” said Jane, “go first to the riders’ quarters and get yourself a complete outfit. You’re a — a sight. Then help yourself to whatever else you need — burros, packs, grain, dried fruits, and meat. You must take coffee and sugar and flour — all kinds of supplies. Don’t forget corn and seeds. I remember how you used to starve. Please — please take all you can pack away from here. I’ll make a bundle for you, which you mustn’t open till you’re in your valley. How I’d like to see it! To judge by you and Wrangle, how wild it must be!”

Jane walked down into the outer court and approached the sorrel. Upstarting, he laid back his ears and eyed her.

“Wrangle — dear old Wrangle,” she said, and put a caressing hand on his matted mane. “Oh, he’s wild, but he knows me! Bern, can he run as fast as ever?”

“Run? Jane, he’s done sixty miles since last night at dark, and I could make him kill Black Star right now in a ten-mile race.”

“He never could,” protested Jane. “He couldn’t even if he was fresh.”

“I reckon mebbe the best hoss’ll prove himself yet,” said Lassiter, “an’, Jane, if it ever comes to that race I’d like you to be on Wrangle.”

“I’d like that, too,” rejoined Venters. “But, Jane, maybe Lassiter’s hint is extreme. Bad as your prospects are, you’ll surely never come to the running point.”

“Who knows!” she replied, with mournful smile.

“No, no, Jane, it can’t be so bad as all that. Soon as I see Tull there’ll be a change in your fortunes. I’ll hurry down to the village.... Now don’t worry.”

Jane retired to the seclusion of her room. Lassiter’s subtle forecasting of disaster, Venters’s forced optimism, neither remained in mind. Material loss weighed nothing in the balance with other losses she was sustaining. She wondered dully at her sitting there, hands folded listlessly, with a kind of numb deadness to the passing of time and the passing of her riches. She thought of Venters’s friendship. She had not lost that, but she had lost him. Lassiter’s friendship — that was more than love — it would endure, but soon he, too, would be gone. Little Fay slept dreamlessly upon the bed, her golden curls streaming over the pillow. Jane had the child’s worship. Would she lose that, too? And if she did, what then would be left? Conscience thundered at her that there was left her religion. Conscience thundered that she should be grateful on her knees for this baptism of fire; that through misfortune, sacrifice, and suffering her soul might be fused pure gold. But the old, spontaneous, rapturous spirit no more exalted her. She wanted to be a woman — not a martyr. Like the saint of old who mortified his flesh, Jane Withersteen had in her the temper for heroic martyrdom, if by sacrificing herself she could save the souls of others. But here the damnable verdict blistered her that the more she sacrificed herself the blacker grew the souls of her churchmen. There was something terribly wrong with her soul, something terribly wrong with her churchmen and her religion. In the whirling gulf of her thought there was yet one shining light to guide her, to sustain her in her hope; and it was that, despite her errors and her frailties and her blindness, she had one absolute and unfaltering hold on ultimate and supreme justice. That was love. “Love your enemies as yourself!” was a divine word, entirely free from any church or creed.

Jane’s meditations were disturbed by Lassiter’s soft, tinkling step in the court. Always he wore the clinking spurs. Always he was in readiness to ride. She passed out and called him into the huge, dim hall.

“I think you’ll be safer here. The court is too open,” she said.

“I reckon,” replied Lassiter. “An’ it’s cooler here. The day’s sure muggy. Well, I went down to the village with Venters.”

“Already! Where is he?” queried Jane, in quick amaze.

“He’s at the corrals. Blake’s helpin’ him get the burros an’ packs ready. That Blake is a good fellow.”

“Did — did Bern meet Tull?”

“I guess he did,” answered Lassiter, and he laughed dryly.

“Tell me! Oh, you exasperate me! You’re so cool, so calm! For Heaven’s sake, tell me what happened!”

“First time I’ve been in the village for weeks,” went on Lassiter, mildly. “I reckon there ‘ain’t been more of a show for a long time. Me an’ Venters walkin’ down the road! It was funny. I ain’t sayin’ anybody was particular glad to see us. I’m not much thought of hereabouts, an’ Venters he sure looks like what you called him, a wild man. Well, there was some runnin’ of folks before we got to the stores. Then everybody vamoosed except some surprised rustlers in front of a saloon. Venters went right in the stores an’ saloons, an’ of course I went along. I don’t know which tickled me the most — the actions of many fellers we met, or Venters’s nerve. Jane, I was downright glad to be along. You see that sort of thing is my element, an’ I’ve been away from it for a spell. But we didn’t find Tull in one of them places. Some Gentile feller at last told Venters he’d find Tull in that long buildin’ next to Parsons’s store. It’s a kind of meetin’-room; and sure enough, when we peeped in, it was half full of men.

“Venters yelled: ‘Don’t anybody pull guns! We ain’t come for that!’ Then he tramped in, an’ I was some put to keep alongside him. There was a hard, scrapin’ sound of feet, a loud cry, an’ then some whisperin’, an’ after that stillness you could cut with a knife. Tull was there, an’ that fat party who once tried to throw a gun on me, an’ other important-lookin’ men, en’ that little frog-legged feller who was with Tull the day I rode in here. I wish you could have seen their faces, ‘specially Tull’s an’ the fat party’s. But there ain’t no use of me tryin’ to tell you how they looked.

“Well, Venters an’ I stood there in the middle of the room with that batch of men all in front of us, en’ not a blamed one of them winked an eyelash or moved a finger. It was natural, of course, for me to notice many of them packed guns. That’s a way of mine, first noticin’ them things. Venters spoke up, an’ his voice sort of chilled an’ cut, en’ he told Tull he had a few things to say.”

Here Lassiter paused while he turned his sombrero round and round, in his familiar habit, and his eyes had the look of a man seeing over again some thrilling spectacle, and under his red bronze there was strange animation.

“Like a shot, then, Venters told Tull that the friendship between you an’ him was all over, an’ he was leaving your place. He said you’d both of you broken off in the hope of propitiatin’ your people, but you hadn’t changed your mind otherwise, an’ never would.

“Next he spoke up for you. I ain’t goin’ to tell you what he said. Only — no other woman who ever lived ever had such tribute! You had a champion, Jane, an’ never fear that those thick-skulled men don’t know you now. It couldn’t be otherwise. He spoke the ringin’, lightnin’ truth.... Then he accused Tull of the underhand, miserable robbery of a helpless woman. He told Tull where the red herd was, of a deal made with Oldrin’, that Jerry Card had made the deal. I thought Tull was goin’ to drop, an’ that little frog-legged cuss, he looked some limp an’ white. But Venters’s voice would have kept anybody’s legs from bucklin’. I was stiff myself. He went on an’ called Tull — called him every bad name ever known to a rider, an’ then some. He cursed Tull. I never hear a man get such a cursin’. He laughed in scorn at the idea of Tull bein’ a minister. He said Tull an’ a few more dogs of hell builded their empire out of the hearts of such innocent an’ God-fearin’ women as Jane Withersteen. He called Tull a binder of women, a callous beast who hid behind a mock mantle of righteousness — an’ the last an’ lowest coward on the face of the earth. To prey on weak women through their religion — that was the last unspeakable crime!

“Then he finished, an’ by this time he’d almost lost his voice. But his whisper was enough. ‘Tull,’ he said, ‘she begged me not to draw on you to-day. She would pray for you if you burned her at the stake.... But listen!... I swear if you and I ever come face to face again, I’ll kill you!’

“We backed out of the door then, an’ up the road. But nobody follered us.”

Jane found herself weeping passionately. She had not been conscious of it till Lassiter ended his story, and she experienced exquisite pain and relief in shedding tears. Long had her eyes been dry, her grief deep; long had her emotions been dumb. Lassiter’s story put her on the rack; the appalling nature of Venters’s act and speech had no parallel as an outrage; it was worse than bloodshed. Men like Tull had been shot, but had one ever been so terribly denounced in public? Over-mounting her horror, an uncontrollable, quivering passion shook her very soul. It was sheer human glory in the deed of a fearless man. It was hot, primitive instinct to live — to fight. It was a kind of mad joy in Venters’s chivalry. It was close to the wrath that had first shaken her in the beginning of this war waged upon her.

“Well, well, Jane, don’t take it that way,” said Lassiter, in evident distress. “I had to tell you. There’s some things a feller jest can’t keep. It’s strange you give up on hearin’ that, when all this long time you’ve been the gamest woman I ever seen. But I don’t know women. Mebbe there’s reason for you to cry. I know this — nothin’ ever rang in my soul an’ so filled it as what Venters did. I’d like to have done it, but — I’m only good for throwin’ a gun, en’ it seems you hate that.... Well, I’ll be goin’ now.”

“Where?”

“Venters took Wrangle to the stable. The sorrel’s shy a shoe, an’ I’ve got to help hold the big devil an’ put on another.”

“Tell Bern to come for the pack I want to give him — and — and to say good-by,” called Jane, as Lassiter went out.

Jane passed the rest of that day in a vain endeavor to decide what and what not to put in the pack for Venters. This task was the last she would ever perform for him, and the gifts were the last she would ever make him. So she picked and chose and rejected, and chose again, and often paused in sad revery, and began again, till at length she filled the pack.

It was about sunset, and she and Fay had finished supper and were sitting in the court, when Venters’s quick steps rang on the stones. She scarcely knew him, for he had changed the tattered garments, and she missed the dark beard and long hair. Still he was not the Venters of old. As he came up the steps she felt herself pointing to the pack, and heard herself speaking words that were meaningless to her. He said good-by; he kissed her, released her, and turned away. His tall figure blurred in her sight, grew dim through dark, streaked vision, and then he vanished.

Twilight fell around Withersteen House, and dusk and night. Little Fay slept; but Jane lay with strained, aching eyes. She heard the wind moaning in the cottonwoods and mice squeaking in the walls. The night was interminably long, yet she prayed to hold back the dawn. What would another day bring forth? The blackness of her room seemed blacker for the sad, entering gray of morning light. She heard the chirp of awakening birds, and fancied she caught a faint clatter of hoofs. Then low, dull distant, throbbed a heavy gunshot. She had expected it, was waiting for it; nevertheless, an electric shock checked her heart, froze the very living fiber of her bones. That vise-like hold on her faculties apparently did not relax for a long time, and it was a voice under her window that released her.

“Jane!... Jane!” softly called Lassiter.

She answered somehow.

“It’s all right. Venters got away. I thought mebbe you’d heard that shot, en’ I was worried some.”

“What was it — who fired?”

“Well — some fool feller tried to stop Venters out there in the sage — an’ he only stopped lead!... I think it’ll be all right. I haven’t seen or heard of any other fellers round. Venters’ll go through safe. An’, Jane, I’ve got Bells saddled, an’ I’m going to trail Venters. Mind, I won’t show myself unless he falls foul of somebody an’ needs me. I want to see if this place where he’s goin’ is safe for him. He says nobody can track him there. I never seen the place yet I couldn’t track a man to. Now, Jane, you stay indoors while I’m gone, an’ keep close watch on Fay. Will you?”

“Yes! Oh yes!”

“An’ another thing, Jane,” he continued, then paused for long— “another thing — if you ain’t here when I come back — if you’re gone — don’t fear, I’ll trail you — I’ll find you out.”

“My dear Lassiter, where could I be gone — as you put it?” asked Jane, in curious surprise.

“I reckon you might be somewhere. Mebbe tied in an old barn — or corralled in some gulch — or chained in a cave! Milly Erne was — till she give in! Mebbe that’s news to you.... Well, if you’re gone I’ll hunt for you.”

“No, Lassiter,” she replied, sadly and low. “If I’m gone just forget the unhappy woman whose blinded selfish deceit you repaid with kindness and love.”

She heard a deep, muttering curse, under his breath, and then the silvery tinkling of his spurs as he moved away.

Jane entered upon the duties of that day with a settled, gloomy calm. Disaster hung in the dark clouds, in the shade, in the humid west wind. Blake, when he reported, appeared without his usual cheer; and Jerd wore a harassed look of a worn and worried man. And when Judkins put in appearance, riding a lame horse, and dismounted with the cramp of a rider, his dust-covered figure and his darkly grim, almost dazed expression told Jane of dire calamity. She had no need of words.

“Miss Withersteen, I have to report — loss of the — white herd,” said Judkins, hoarsely.

“Come, sit down, you look played out,” replied Jane, solicitously. She brought him brandy and food, and while he partook of refreshments, of which he appeared badly in need, she asked no questions.

“No one rider — could hev done more — Miss Withersteen,” he went on, presently.

“Judkins, don’t be distressed. You’ve done more than any other rider. I’ve long expected to lose the white herd. It’s no surprise. It’s in line with other things that are happening. I’m grateful for your service.”

“Miss Withersteen, I knew how you’d take it. But if anythin’, that makes it harder to tell. You see, a feller wants to do so much fer you, an’ I’d got fond of my job. We led the herd a ways off to the north of the break in the valley. There was a big level an’ pools of water an’ tip-top browse. But the cattle was in a high nervous condition. Wild — as wild as antelope! You see, they’d been so scared they never slept. I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you of the many tricks that were pulled off out there in the sage. But there wasn’t a day for weeks thet the herd didn’t get started to run. We allus managed to ride ’em close an’ drive ’em back an’ keep ’em bunched. Honest, Miss Withersteen, them steers was thin. They was thin when water and grass was everywhere. Thin at this season — thet’ll tell you how your steers was pestered. Fer instance, one night a strange runnin’ streak of fire run right through the herd. That streak was a coyote — with an oiled an’ blazin’ tail! Fer I shot it an’ found out. We had hell with the herd that night, an’ if the sage an’ grass hadn’t been wet — we, hosses, steers, an’ all would hev burned up. But I said I wasn’t goin’ to tell you any of the tricks.... Strange now, Miss Withersteen, when the stampede did come it was from natural cause — jest a whirlin’ devil of dust. You’ve seen the like often. An’ this wasn’t no big whirl, fer the dust was mostly settled. It had dried out in a little swale, an’ ordinarily no steer would ever hev run fer it. But the herd was nervous en’ wild. An’ jest as Lassiter said, when that bunch of white steers got to movin’ they was as bad as buffalo. I’ve seen some buffalo stampedes back in Nebraska, an’ this bolt of the steers was the same kind.

“I tried to mill the herd jest as Lassiter did. But I wasn’t equal to it, Miss Withersteen. I don’t believe the rider lives who could hev turned thet herd. We kept along of the herd fer miles, an’ more ‘n one of my boys tried to get the steers a-millin’. It wasn’t no use. We got off level ground, goin’ down, an’ then the steers ran somethin’ fierce. We left the little gullies an’ washes level-full of dead steers. Finally I saw the herd was makin’ to pass a kind of low pocket between ridges. There was a hog-back — as we used to call ’em — a pile of rocks stickin’ up, and I saw the herd was goin’ to split round it, or swing out to the left. An’ I wanted ’em to go to the right so mebbe we’d be able to drive ’em into the pocket. So, with all my boys except three, I rode hard to turn the herd a little to the right. We couldn’t budge ‘em. They went on en’ split round the rocks, en’ the most of ’em was turned sharp to the left by a deep wash we hedn’t seen — hed no chance to see.

“The other three boys — Jimmy Vail, Joe Willis, an’ thet little Cairns boy — a nervy kid! they, with Cairns leadin’, tried to buck thet herd round to the pocket. It was a wild, fool idee. I couldn’t do nothin’. The boys got hemmed in between the steers an’ the wash — thet they hedn’t no chance to see, either. Vail an’ Willis was run down right before our eyes. An’ Cairns, who rode a fine hoss, he did some ridin’. I never seen equaled, en’ would hev beat the steers if there’d been any room to run in. I was high up an’ could see how the steers kept spillin’ by twos an’ threes over into the wash. Cairns put his hoss to a place thet was too wide fer any hoss, an’ broke his neck an’ the hoss’s too. We found that out after, an’ as fer Vail an’ Willis — two thousand steers ran over the poor boys. There wasn’t much left to pack home fer burying!... An’, Miss Withersteen, thet all happened yesterday, en’ I believe, if the white herd didn’t run over the wall of the Pass, it’s runnin’ yet.”

On the morning of the second day after Judkins’s recital, during which time Jane remained indoors a prey to regret and sorrow for the boy riders, and a new and now strangely insistent fear for her own person, she again heard what she had missed more than she dared honestly confess — the soft, jingling step of Lassiter. Almost overwhelming relief surged through her, a feeling as akin to joy as any she could have been capable of in those gloomy hours of shadow, and one that suddenly stunned her with the significance of what Lassiter had come to mean to her. She had begged him, for his own sake, to leave Cottonwoods. She might yet beg that, if her weakening courage permitted her to dare absolute loneliness and helplessness, but she realized now that if she were left alone her life would become one long, hideous nightmare.

When his soft steps clinked into the hall, in answer to her greeting, and his tall, black-garbed form filled the door, she felt an inexpressible sense of immediate safety. In his presence she lost her fear of the dim passageways of Withersteen House and of every sound. Always it had been that, when he entered the court or the hall, she had experienced a distinctly sickening but gradually lessening shock at sight of the huge black guns swinging at his sides. This time the sickening shock again visited her, it was, however, because a revealing flash of thought told her that it was not alone Lassiter who was thrillingly welcome, but also his fatal weapons. They meant so much. How she had fallen — how broken and spiritless must she be — to have still the same old horror of Lassiter’s guns and his name, yet feel somehow a cold, shrinking protection in their law and might and use.

“Did you trail Venters — find his wonderful valley?” she asked, eagerly.

“Yes, an’ I reckon it’s sure a wonderful place.”

“Is he safe there?”

“That’s been botherin’ me some. I tracked him an’ part of the trail was the hardest I ever tackled. Mebbe there’s a rustler or somebody in this country who’s as good at trackin’ as I am. If that’s so Venters ain’t safe.”

“Well — tell me all about Bern and his valley.”

To Jane’s surprise Lassiter showed disinclination for further talk about his trip. He appeared to be extremely fatigued. Jane reflected that one hundred and twenty miles, with probably a great deal of climbing on foot, all in three days, was enough to tire any rider. Moreover, it presently developed that Lassiter had returned in a mood of singular sadness and preoccupation. She put it down to a moodiness over the loss of her white herd and the now precarious condition of her fortune.

Several days passed, and as nothing happened, Jane’s spirits began to brighten. Once in her musings she thought that this tendency of hers to rebound was as sad as it was futile. Meanwhile, she had resumed her walks through the grove with little Fay.

One morning she went as far as the sage. She had not seen the slope since the beginning of the rains, and now it bloomed a rich deep purple. There was a high wind blowing, and the sage tossed and waved and colored beautifully from light to dark. Clouds scudded across the sky and their shadows sailed darkly down the sunny slope.

Upon her return toward the house she went by the lane to the stables, and she had scarcely entered the great open space with its corrals and sheds when she saw Lassiter hurriedly approaching. Fay broke from her and, running to a corral fence, began to pat and pull the long, hanging ears of a drowsy burro.

One look at Lassiter armed her for a blow.

Without a word he led her across the wide yard to the rise of the ground upon which the stable stood.

“Jane — look!” he said, and pointed to the ground.

Jane glanced down, and again, and upon steadier vision made out splotches of blood on the stones, and broad, smooth marks in the dust, leading out toward the sage.

“What made these?” she asked.

“I reckon somebody has dragged dead or wounded men out to where there was hosses in the sage.”

“Dead — or — wounded — men!”

“I reckon — Jane, are you strong? Can you bear up?”

His hands were gently holding hers, and his eyes — suddenly she could no longer look into them. “Strong?” she echoed, trembling. “I — I will be.”

Up on the stone-flag drive, nicked with the marks made by the iron-shod hoofs of her racers, Lassiter led her, his grasp ever growing firmer.

“Where’s Blake — and — and Jerb?” she asked, haltingly.

“I don’t know where Jerb is. Bolted, most likely,” replied Lassiter, as he took her through the stone door. “But Blake — poor Blake! He’s gone forever!... Be prepared, Jane.”

With a cold prickling of her skin, with a queer thrumming in her ears, with fixed and staring eyes, Jane saw a gun lying at her feet with chamber swung and empty, and discharged shells scattered near.

Outstretched upon the stable floor lay Blake, ghastly white — dead — one hand clutching a gun and the other twisted in his bloody blouse.

“Whoever the thieves were, whether your people or rustlers — Blake killed some of them!” said Lassiter.

“Thieves?” whispered Jane.

“I reckon. Hoss-thieves!... Look!” Lassiter waved his hand toward the stalls.

The first stall — Bells’s stall — was empty. All the stalls were empty. No racer whinnied and stamped greeting to her. Night was gone! Black Star was gone!

CHAPTER XVI. GOLD

AS LASSITER HAD reported to Jane, Venters “went through” safely, and after a toilsome journey reached the peaceful shelter of Surprise Valley. When finally he lay wearily down under the silver spruces, resting from the strain of dragging packs and burros up the slope and through the entrance to Surprise Valley, he had leisure to think, and a great deal of the time went in regretting that he had not been frank with his loyal friend, Jane Withersteen.

But, he kept continually recalling, when he had stood once more face to face with her and had been shocked at the change in her and had heard the details of her adversity, he had not had the heart to tell her of the closer interest which had entered his life. He had not lied; yet he had kept silence.

Bess was in transports over the stores of supplies and the outfit he had packed from Cottonwoods. He had certainly brought a hundred times more than he had gone for; enough, surely, for years, perhaps to make permanent home in the valley. He saw no reason why he need ever leave there again.

After a day of rest he recovered his strength and shared Bess’s pleasure in rummaging over the endless packs, and began to plan for the future. And in this planning, his trip to Cottonwoods, with its revived hate of Tull and consequent unleashing of fierce passions, soon faded out of mind. By slower degrees his friendship for Jane Withersteen and his contrition drifted from the active preoccupation of his present thought to a place in memory, with more and more infrequent recalls.

And as far as the state of his mind was concerned, upon the second day after his return, the valley, with its golden hues and purple shades, the speaking west wind and the cool, silent night, and Bess’s watching eyes with their wonderful light, so wrought upon Venters that he might never have left them at all.

That very afternoon he set to work. Only one thing hindered him upon beginning, though it in no wise checked his delight, and that in the multiplicity of tasks planned to make a paradise out of the valley he could not choose the one with which to begin. He had to grow into the habit of passing from one dreamy pleasure to another, like a bee going from flower to flower in the valley, and he found this wandering habit likely to extend to his labors. Nevertheless, he made a start.

At the outset he discovered Bess to be both a considerable help in some ways and a very great hindrance in others. Her excitement and joy were spurs, inspirations; but she was utterly impracticable in her ideas, and she flitted from one plan to another with bewildering vacillation. Moreover, he fancied that she grew more eager, youthful, and sweet; and he marked that it was far easier to watch her and listen to her than it was to work. Therefore he gave her tasks that necessitated her going often to the cave where he had stored his packs.

Upon the last of these trips, when he was some distance down the terrace and out of sight of camp, he heard a scream, and then the sharp barking of the dogs.

For an instant he straightened up, amazed. Danger for her had been absolutely out of his mind. She had seen a rattlesnake — or a wildcat. Still she would not have been likely to scream at sight of either; and the barking of the dogs was ominous. Dropping his work, he dashed back along the terrace. Upon breaking through a clump of aspens he saw the dark form of a man in the camp. Cold, then hot, Venters burst into frenzied speed to reach his guns. He was cursing himself for a thoughtless fool when the man’s tall form became familiar and he recognized Lassiter. Then the reversal of emotions changed his run to a walk; he tried to call out, but his voice refused to carry; when he reached camp there was Lassiter staring at the white-faced girl. By that time Ring and Whitie had recognized him.

“Hello, Venters! I’m makin’ you a visit,” said Lassiter, slowly. “An’ I’m some surprised to see you’ve a — a young feller for company.”

One glance had sufficed for the keen rider to read Bess’s real sex, and for once his cool calm had deserted him. He stared till the white of Bess’s cheeks flared into crimson. That, if it were needed, was the concluding evidence of her femininity, for it went fittingly with her sun-tinted hair and darkened, dilated eyes, the sweetness of her mouth, and the striking symmetry of her slender shape.

“Heavens! Lassiter!” panted Venters, when he caught his breath. “What relief — it’s only you! How — in the name of all that’s wonderful — did you ever get here?”

“I trailed you. We — I wanted to know where you was, if you had a safe place. So I trailed you.”

“Trailed me,” cried Venters, bluntly.

“I reckon. It was some of a job after I got to them smooth rocks. I was all day trackin’ you up to them little cut steps in the rock. The rest was easy.”

“Where’s your hoss? I hope you hid him.”

“I tied him in them queer cedars down on the slope. He can’t be seen from the valley.”

“That’s good. Well, well! I’m completely dumfounded. It was my idea that no man could track me in here.”

“I reckon. But if there’s a tracker in these uplands as good as me he can find you.”

“That’s bad. That’ll worry me. But, Lassiter, now you’re here I’m glad to see you. And — and my companion here is not a young fellow!... Bess, this is a friend of mine. He saved my life once.”

The embarrassment of the moment did not extend to Lassiter. Almost at once his manner, as he shook hands with Bess, relieved Venters and put the girl at ease. After Venters’s words and one quick look at Lassiter, her agitation stilled, and, though she was shy, if she were conscious of anything out of the ordinary in the situation, certainly she did not show it.

“I reckon I’ll only stay a little while,” Lassiter was saying. “An’ if you don’t mind troublin’, I’m hungry. I fetched some biscuits along, but they’re gone. Venters, this place is sure the wonderfullest ever seen. Them cut steps on the slope! That outlet into the gorge! An’ it’s like climbin’ up through hell into heaven to climb through that gorge into this valley! There’s a queer-lookin’ rock at the top of the passage. I didn’t have time to stop. I’m wonderin’ how you ever found this place. It’s sure interestin’.”

During the preparation and eating of dinner Lassiter listened mostly, as was his wont, and occasionally he spoke in his quaint and dry way. Venters noted, however, that the rider showed an increasing interest in Bess. He asked her no questions, and only directed his attention to her while she was occupied and had no opportunity to observe his scrutiny. It seemed to Venters that Lassiter grew more and more absorbed in his study of Bess, and that he lost his coolness in some strange, softening sympathy. Then, quite abruptly, he arose and announced the necessity for his early departure. He said good-by to Bess in a voice gentle and somewhat broken, and turned hurriedly away. Venters accompanied him, and they had traversed the terrace, climbed the weathered slope, and passed under the stone bridge before either spoke again.

Then Lassiter put a great hand on Venters’s shoulder and wheeled him to meet a smoldering fire of gray eyes.

“Lassiter, I couldn’t tell Jane! I couldn’t,” burst out Venters, reading his friend’s mind. “I tried. But I couldn’t. She wouldn’t understand, and she has troubles enough. And I love the girl!”

“Venters, I reckon this beats me. I’ve seen some queer things in my time, too. This girl — who is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know! What is she, then?”

“I don’t know that, either. Oh, it’s the strangest story you ever heard. I must tell you. But you’ll never believe.”

“Venters, women were always puzzles to me. But for all that, if this girl ain’t a child, an’ as innocent, I’m no fit person to think of virtue an’ goodness in anybody. Are you goin’ to be square with her?”

“I am — so help me God!”

“I reckoned so. Mebbe my temper oughtn’t led me to make sure. But, man, she’s a woman in all but years. She’s sweeter ‘n the sage.”

“Lassiter, I know, I know. And the hell of it is that in spite of her innocence and charm she’s — she’s not what she seems!”

“I wouldn’t want to — of course, I couldn’t call you a liar, Venters,” said the older man.

“What’s more, she was Oldring’s Masked Rider!”

Venters expected to floor his friend with that statement, but he was not in any way prepared for the shock his words gave. For an instant he was astounded to see Lassiter stunned; then his own passionate eagerness to unbosom himself, to tell the wonderful story, precluded any other thought.

“Son, tell me all about this,” presently said Lassiter as he seated himself on a stone and wiped his moist brow.

Thereupon Venters began his narrative at the point where he had shot the rustler and Oldring’s Masked Rider, and he rushed through it, telling all, not holding back even Bess’s unreserved avowal of her love or his deepest emotions.

“That’s the story,” he said, concluding. “I love her, though I’ve never told her. If I did tell her I’d be ready to marry her, and that seems impossible in this country. I’d be afraid to risk taking her anywhere. So I intend to do the best I can for her here.”

“The longer I live the stranger life is,” mused Lassiter, with downcast eyes. “I’m reminded of somethin’ you once said to Jane about hands in her game of life. There’s that unseen hand of power, an’ Tull’s black hand, an’ my red one, an’ your indifferent one, an’ the girl’s little brown, helpless one. An’, Venters there’s another one that’s all-wise an’ all-wonderful. That’s the hand guidin’ Jane Withersteen’s game of life!... Your story’s one to daze a far clearer head than mine. I can’t offer no advice, even if you asked for it. Mebbe I can help you. Anyway, I’ll hold Oldrin’ up when he comes to the village an’ find out about this girl. I knew the rustler years ago. He’ll remember me.”

“Lassiter, if I ever meet Oldring I’ll kill him!” cried Venters, with sudden intensity.

“I reckon that’d be perfectly natural,” replied the rider.

“Make him think Bess is dead — as she is to him and that old life.”

“Sure, sure, son. Cool down now. If you’re goin’ to begin pullin’ guns on Tull an’ Oldin’ you want to be cool. I reckon, though, you’d better keep hid here. Well, I must be leavin’.”

“One thing, Lassiter. You’ll not tell Jane about Bess? Please don’t!”

“I reckon not. But I wouldn’t be afraid to bet that after she’d got over anger at your secrecy — Venters, she’d be furious once in her life! — she’d think more of you. I don’t mind sayin’ for myself that I think you’re a good deal of a man.”

In the further ascent Venters halted several times with the intention of saying good-by, yet he changed his mind and kept on climbing till they reached Balancing Rock. Lassiter examined the huge rock, listened to Venters’s idea of its position and suggestion, and curiously placed a strong hand upon it.

“Hold on!” cried Venters. “I heaved at it once and have never gotten over my scare.”

“Well, you do seem uncommon nervous,” replied Lassiter, much amused. “Now, as for me, why I always had the funniest notion to roll stones! When I was a kid I did it, an’ the bigger I got the bigger stones I’d roll. Ain’t that funny? Honest — even now I often get off my hoss just to tumble a big stone over a precipice, en’ watch it drop, en’ listen to it bang an’ boom. I’ve started some slides in my time, an’ don’t you forget it. I never seen a rock I wanted to roll as bad as this one! Wouldn’t there jest be roarin’, crashin’ hell down that trail?”

“You’d close the outlet forever!” exclaimed Venters. “Well, good-by, Lassiter. Keep my secret and don’t forget me. And be mighty careful how you get out of the valley below. The rustlers’ canyon isn’t more than three miles up the Pass. Now you’ve tracked me here, I’ll never feel safe again.”

In his descent to the valley, Venters’s emotion, roused to stirring pitch by the recital of his love story, quieted gradually, and in its place came a sober, thoughtful mood. All at once he saw that he was serious, because he would never more regain his sense of security while in the valley. What Lassiter could do another skilful tracker might duplicate. Among the many riders with whom Venters had ridden he recalled no one who could have taken his trail at Cottonwoods and have followed it to the edge of the bare slope in the pass, let alone up that glistening smooth stone. Lassiter, however, was not an ordinary rider. Instead of hunting cattle tracks he had likely spent a goodly portion of his life tracking men. It was not improbable that among Oldring’s rustlers there was one who shared Lassiter’s gift for trailing. And the more Venters dwelt on this possibility the more perturbed he grew.

Lassiter’s visit, moreover, had a disquieting effect upon Bess, and Venters fancied that she entertained the same thought as to future seclusion. The breaking of their solitude, though by a well-meaning friend, had not only dispelled all its dream and much of its charm, but had instilled a canker of fear. Both had seen the footprint in the sand.

Venters did no more work that day. Sunset and twilight gave way to night, and the canyon bird whistled its melancholy notes, and the wind sang softly in the cliffs, and the camp-fire blazed and burned down to red embers. To Venters a subtle difference was apparent in all of these, or else the shadowy change had been in him. He hoped that on the morrow this slight depression would have passed away.

In that measure, however, he was doomed to disappointment. Furthermore, Bess reverted to a wistful sadness that he had not observed in her since her recovery. His attempt to cheer her out of it resulted in dismal failure, and consequently in a darkening of his own mood. Hard work relieved him; still, when the day had passed, his unrest returned. Then he set to deliberate thinking, and there came to him the startling conviction that he must leave Surprise Valley and take Bess with him. As a rider he had taken many chances, and as an adventurer in Deception Pass he had unhesitatingly risked his life, but now he would run no preventable hazard of Bess’s safety and happiness, and he was too keen not to see that hazard. It gave him a pang to think of leaving the beautiful valley just when he had the means to establish a permanent and delightful home there. One flashing thought tore in hot temptation through his mind — why not climb up into the gorge, roll Balancing Rock down the trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass? “That was the beast in me — showing his teeth!” muttered Venters, scornfully. “I’ll just kill him good and quick! I’ll be fair to this girl, if it’s the last thing I do on earth!”

Another day went by, in which he worked less and pondered more and all the time covertly watched Bess. Her wistfulness had deepened into downright unhappiness, and that made his task to tell her all the harder. He kept the secret another day, hoping by some chance she might grow less moody, and to his exceeding anxiety she fell into far deeper gloom. Out of his own secret and the torment of it he divined that she, too, had a secret and the keeping of it was torturing her. As yet he had no plan thought out in regard to how or when to leave the valley, but he decided to tell her the necessity of it and to persuade her to go. Furthermore, he hoped his speaking out would induce her to unburden her own mind.

“Bess, what’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she answered, with averted face.

Venters took hold of her gently, though masterfully, forced her to meet his eyes.

“You can’t look at me and lie,” he said. “Now — what’s wrong with you? You’re keeping something from me. Well, I’ve got a secret, too, and I intend to tell it presently.”

“Oh — I have a secret. I was crazy to tell you when you came back. That’s why I was so silly about everything. I kept holding my secret back — gloating over it. But when Lassiter came I got an idea — that changed my mind. Then I hated to tell you.”

“Are you going to now?”

“Yes — yes. I was coming to it. I tried yesterday, but you were so cold. I was afraid. I couldn’t keep it much longer.”

“Very well, most mysterious lady, tell your wonderful secret.”

“You needn’t laugh,” she retorted, with a first glimpse of reviving spirit. “I can take the laugh out of you in one second.”

“It’s a go.”

She ran through the spruces to the cave, and returned carrying something which was manifestly heavy. Upon nearer view he saw that whatever she held with such evident importance had been bound up in a black scarf he well remembered. That alone was sufficient to make him tingle with curiosity.

“Have you any idea what I did in your absence?” she asked.

“I imagine you lounged about, waiting and watching for me,” he replied, smiling. “I’ve my share of conceit, you know.”

“You’re wrong. I worked. Look at my hands.” She dropped on her knees close to where he sat, and, carefully depositing the black bundle, she held out her hands. The palms and inside of her fingers were white, puckered, and worn.

“Why, Bess, you’ve been fooling in the water,” he said.

“Fooling? Look here!” With deft fingers she spread open the black scarf, and the bright sun shone upon a dull, glittering heap of gold.

“Gold!” he ejaculated.

“Yes, gold! See, pounds of gold! I found it — washed it out of the stream — picked it out grain by grain, nugget by nugget!”

“Gold!” he cried.

“Yes. Now — now laugh at my secret!”

For a long minute Venters gazed. Then he stretched forth a hand to feel if the gold was real.

“Gold!” he almost shouted. “Bess, there are hundreds — thousands of dollars’ worth here!”

He leaned over to her, and put his hand, strong and clenching now, on hers.

“Is there more where this came from?” he whispered.

“Plenty of it, all the way up the stream to the cliff. You know I’ve often washed for gold. Then I’ve heard the men talk. I think there’s no great quantity of gold here, but enough for — for a fortune for you.”

“That — was — your — secret!”

“Yes. I hate gold. For it makes men mad. I’ve seen them drunk with joy and dance and fling themselves around. I’ve seen them curse and rave. I’ve seen them fight like dogs and roll in the dust. I’ve seen them kill each other for gold.”

“Is that why you hated to tell me?”

“Not — not altogether.” Bess lowered her head. “It was because I knew you’d never stay here long after you found gold.”

“You were afraid I’d leave you?”

“Yes.

“Listen!... You great, simple child! Listen... You sweet, wonderful, wild, blue-eyed girl! I was tortured by my secret. It was that I knew we — we must leave the valley. We can’t stay here much longer. I couldn’t think how we’d get away — out of the country — or how we’d live, if we ever got out. I’m a beggar. That’s why I kept my secret. I’m poor. It takes money to make way beyond Sterling. We couldn’t ride horses or burros or walk forever. So while I knew we must go, I was distracted over how to go and what to do. Now! We’ve gold! Once beyond Sterling, we’ll be safe from rustlers. We’ve no others to fear.

“Oh! Listen! Bess!” Venters now heard his voice ringing high and sweet, and he felt Bess’s cold hands in his crushing grasp as she leaned toward him pale, breathless. “This is how much I’d leave you! You made me live again! I’ll take you away — far away from this wild country. You’ll begin a new life. You’ll be happy. You shall see cities, ships, people. You shall have anything your heart craves. All the shame and sorrow of your life shall be forgotten — as if they had never been. This is how much I’d leave you here alone — you sad-eyed girl. I love you! Didn’t you know it? How could you fail to know it? I love you! I’m free! I’m a man — a man you’ve made — no more a beggar!... Kiss me! This is how much I’d leave you here alone — you beautiful, strange, unhappy girl. But I’ll make you happy. What — what do I care for — your past! I love you! I’ll take you home to Illinois — to my mother. Then I’ll take you to far places. I’ll make up all you’ve lost. Oh, I know you love me — knew it before you told me. And it changed my life. And you’ll go with me, not as my companion as you are here, nor my sister, but, Bess, darling!... As my wife!”

CHAPTER XVII. WRANGLE’S RACE RUN

THE PLAN EVENTUALLY decided upon by the lovers was for Venters to go to the village, secure a horse and some kind of a disguise for Bess, or at least less striking apparel than her present garb, and to return post-haste to the valley. Meanwhile, she would add to their store of gold. Then they would strike the long and perilous trail to ride out of Utah. In the event of his inability to fetch back a horse for her, they intended to make the giant sorrel carry double. The gold, a little food, saddle blankets, and Venters’s guns were to compose the light outfit with which they would make the start.

“I love this beautiful place,” said Bess. “It’s hard to think of leaving it.”

“Hard! Well, I should think so,” replied Venters. “Maybe — in years—” But he did not complete in words his thought that might be possible to return after many years of absence and change.

Once again Bess bade Venters farewell under the shadow of Balancing Rock, and this time it was with whispered hope and tenderness and passionate trust. Long after he had left her, all down through the outlet to the Pass, the clinging clasp of her arms, the sweetness of her lips, and the sense of a new and exquisite birth of character in her remained hauntingly and thrillingly in his mind. The girl who had sadly called herself nameless and nothing had been marvelously transformed in the moment of his avowal of love. It was something to think over, something to warm his heart, but for the present it had absolutely to be forgotten so that all his mind could be addressed to the trip so fraught with danger.

He carried only his rifle, revolver, and a small quantity of bread and meat, and thus lightly burdened, he made swift progress down the slope and out into the valley. Darkness was coming on, and he welcomed it. Stars were blinking when he reached his old hiding-place in the split of canyon wall, and by their aid he slipped through the dense thickets to the grassy enclosure. Wrangle stood in the center of it with his head up, and he appeared black and of gigantic proportions in the dim light. Venters whistled softly, began a slow approach, and then called. The horse snorted and, plunging away with dull, heavy sound of hoofs, he disappeared in the gloom. “Wilder than ever!” muttered Venters. He followed the sorrel into the narrowing split between the walls, and presently had to desist because he could not see a foot in advance. As he went back toward the open Wrangle jumped out of an ebony shadow of cliff and like a thunderbolt shot huge and black past him down into the starlit glade. Deciding that all attempts to catch Wrangle at night would be useless, Venters repaired to the shelving rock where he had hidden saddle and blanket, and there went to sleep.

The first peep of day found him stirring, and as soon as it was light enough to distinguish objects, he took his lasso off his saddle and went out to rope the sorrel. He espied Wrangle at the lower end of the cove and approached him in a perfectly natural manner. When he got near enough, Wrangle evidently recognized him, but was too wild to stand. He ran up the glade and on into the narrow lane between the walls. This favored Venters’s speedy capture of the horse, so, coiling his noose ready to throw, he hurried on. Wrangle let Venters get to within a hundred feet and then he broke. But as he plunged by, rapidly getting into his stride, Venters made a perfect throw with the rope. He had time to brace himself for the shock; nevertheless, Wrangle threw him and dragged him several yards before halting.

“You wild devil,” said Venters, as he slowly pulled Wrangle up. “Don’t you know me? Come now — old fellow — so — so—”

Wrangle yielded to the lasso and then to Venters’s strong hand. He was as straggly and wild-looking as a horse left to roam free in the sage. He dropped his long ears and stood readily to be saddled and bridled. But he was exceedingly sensitive, and quivered at every touch and sound. Venters led him to the thicket, and, bending the close saplings to let him squeeze through, at length reached the open. Sharp survey in each direction assured him of the usual lonely nature of the canyon, then he was in the saddle, riding south.

Wrangle’s long, swinging canter was a wonderful ground-gainer. His stride was almost twice that of an ordinary horse; and his endurance was equally remarkable. Venters pulled him in occasionally, and walked him up the stretches of rising ground and along the soft washes. Wrangle had never yet shown any indication of distress while Venters rode him. Nevertheless, there was now reason to save the horse, therefore Venters did not resort to the hurry that had characterized his former trip. He camped at the last water in the Pass. What distance that was to Cottonwoods he did not know; he calculated, however, that it was in the neighborhood of fifty miles.

Early in the morning he proceeded on his way, and about the middle of the forenoon reached the constricted gap that marked the southerly end of the Pass, and through which led the trail up to the sage-level. He spied out Lassiter’s tracks in the dust, but no others, and dismounting, he straightened out Wrangle’s bridle and began to lead him up the trail. The short climb, more severe on beast than on man, necessitated a rest on the level above, and during this he scanned the wide purple reaches of slope.

Wrangle whistled his pleasure at the smell of the sage. Remounting, Venters headed up the white trail with the fragrant wind in his face. He had proceeded for perhaps a couple of miles when Wrangle stopped with a suddenness that threw Venters heavily against the pommel.

“What’s wrong, old boy?” called Venters, looking down for a loose shoe or a snake or a foot lamed by a picked-up stone. Unrewarded, he raised himself from his scrutiny. Wrangle stood stiff head high, with his long ears erect. Thus guided, Venters swiftly gazed ahead to make out a dust-clouded, dark group of horsemen riding down the slope. If they had seen him, it apparently made no difference in their speed or direction.

“Wonder who they are!” exclaimed Venters. He was not disposed to run. His cool mood tightened under grip of excitement as he reflected that, whoever the approaching riders were, they could not be friends. He slipped out of the saddle and led Wrangle behind the tallest sage-brush. It might serve to conceal them until the riders were close enough for him to see who they were; after that he would be indifferent to how soon they discovered him.

After looking to his rifle and ascertaining that it was in working order, he watched, and as he watched, slowly the force of a bitter fierceness, long dormant, gathered ready to flame into life. If those riders were not rustlers he had forgotten how rustlers looked and rode. On they came, a small group, so compact and dark that he could not tell their number. How unusual that their horses did not see Wrangle! But such failure, Venters decided, was owing to the speed with which they were traveling. They moved at a swift canter affected more by rustlers than by riders. Venters grew concerned over the possibility that these horsemen would actually ride down on him before he had a chance to tell what to expect. When they were within three hundred yards he deliberately led Wrangle out into the trail.

Then he heard shouts, and the hard scrape of sliding hoofs, and saw horses rear and plunge back with up-flung heads and flying manes. Several little white puffs of smoke appeared sharply against the black background of riders and horses, and shots rang out. Bullets struck far in front of Venters, and whipped up the dust and then hummed low into the sage. The range was great for revolvers, but whether the shots were meant to kill or merely to check advance, they were enough to fire that waiting ferocity in Venters. Slipping his arm through the bridle, so that Wrangle could not get away, Venters lifted his rifle and pulled the trigger twice.

He saw the first horseman lean sideways and fall. He saw another lurch in his saddle and heard a cry of pain. Then Wrangle, plunging in fright, lifted Venters and nearly threw him. He jerked the horse down with a powerful hand and leaped into the saddle. Wrangle plunged again, dragging his bridle, that Venters had not had time to throw in place. Bending over with a swift movement, he secured it and dropped the loop over the pommel. Then, with grinding teeth, he looked to see what the issue would be.

The band had scattered so as not to afford such a broad mark for bullets. The riders faced Venters, some with red-belching guns. He heard a sharper report, and just as Wrangle plunged again he caught the whim of a leaden missile that would have hit him but for Wrangle’s sudden jump. A swift, hot wave, turning cold, passed over Venters. Deliberately he picked out the one rider with a carbine, and killed him. Wrangle snorted shrilly and bolted into the sage. Venters let him run a few rods, then with iron arm checked him.

Five riders, surely rustlers, were left. One leaped out of the saddle to secure his fallen comrade’s carbine. A shot from Venters, which missed the man but sent the dust flying over him made him run back to his horse. Then they separated. The crippled rider went one way; the one frustrated in his attempt to get the carbine rode another, Venters thought he made out a third rider, carrying a strange-appearing bundle and disappearing in the sage. But in the rapidity of action and vision he could not discern what it was. Two riders with three horses swung out to the right. Afraid of the long rifle — a burdensome weapon seldom carried by rustlers or riders — they had been put to rout.

Suddenly Venters discovered that one of the two men last noted was riding Jane Withersteen’s horse Bells — the beautiful bay racer she had given to Lassiter. Venters uttered a savage outcry. Then the small, wiry, frog-like shape of the second rider, and the ease and grace of his seat in the saddle — things so strikingly incongruous — grew more and more familiar in Venters’s sight.

“Jerry Card!” cried Venters.

It was indeed Tull’s right-hand man. Such a white hot wrath inflamed Venters that he fought himself to see with clearer gaze.

“It’s Jerry Card!” he exclaimed, instantly. “And he’s riding Black Star and leading Night!”

The long-kindling, stormy fire in Venters’s heart burst into flame. He spurred Wrangle, and as the horse lengthened his stride Venters slipped cartridges into the magazine of his rifle till it was once again full. Card and his companion were now half a mile or more in advance, riding easily down the slope. Venters marked the smooth gait, and understood it when Wrangle galloped out of the sage into the broad cattle trail, down which Venters had once tracked Jane Withersteen’s red herd. This hard-packed trail, from years of use, was as clean and smooth as a road. Venters saw Jerry Card look back over his shoulder, the other rider did likewise. Then the three racers lengthened their stride to the point where the swinging canter was ready to break into a gallop.

“Wrangle, the race’s on,” said Venters, grimly. “We’ll canter with them and gallop with them and run with them. We’ll let them set the pace.”

Venters knew he bestrode the strongest, swiftest, most tireless horse ever ridden by any rider across the Utah uplands. Recalling Jane Withersteen’s devoted assurance that Night could run neck and neck with Wrangle, and Black Star could show his heels to him, Venters wished that Jane were there to see the race to recover her blacks and in the unqualified superiority of the giant sorrel. Then Venters found himself thankful that she was absent, for he meant that race to end in Jerry Card’s death. The first flush, the raging of Venters’s wrath, passed, to leave him in sullen, almost cold possession of his will. It was a deadly mood, utterly foreign to his nature, engendered, fostered, and released by the wild passions of wild men in a wild country. The strength in him then — the thing rife in him that was not hate, but something as remorseless — might have been the fiery fruition of a whole lifetime of vengeful quest. Nothing could have stopped him.

Venters thought out the race shrewdly. The rider on Bells would probably drop behind and take to the sage. What he did was of little moment to Venters. To stop Jerry Card, his evil hidden career as well as his present flight, and then to catch the blacks — that was all that concerned Venters. The cattle trail wound for miles and miles down the slope. Venters saw with a rider’s keen vision ten, fifteen, twenty miles of clear purple sage. There were no on-coming riders or rustlers to aid Card. His only chance to escape lay in abandoning the stolen horses and creeping away in the sage to hide. In ten miles Wrangle could run Black Star and Night off their feet, and in fifteen he could kill them outright. So Venters held the sorrel in, letting Card make the running. It was a long race that would save the blacks.

In a few miles of that swinging canter Wrangle had crept appreciably closer to the three horses. Jerry Card turned again, and when he saw how the sorrel had gained, he put Black Star to a gallop. Night and Bells, on either side of him, swept into his stride.

Venters loosened the rein on Wrangle and let him break into a gallop. The sorrel saw the horses ahead and wanted to run. But Venters restrained him. And in the gallop he gained more than in the canter. Bells was fast in that gait, but Black Star and Night had been trained to run. Slowly Wrangle closed the gap down to a quarter of a mile, and crept closer and closer.

Jerry Card wheeled once more. Venters distinctly saw the red flash of his red face. This time he looked long. Venters laughed. He knew what passed in Card’s mind. The rider was trying to make out what horse it happened to be that thus gained on Jane Withersteen’s peerless racers. Wrangle had so long been away from the village that not improbably Jerry had forgotten. Besides, whatever Jerry’s qualifications for his fame as the greatest rider of the sage, certain it was that his best point was not far-sightedness. He had not recognized Wrangle. After what must have been a searching gaze he got his comrade to face about. This action gave Venters amusement. It spoke so surely of the facts that neither Card nor the rustler actually knew their danger. Yet if they kept to the trail — and the last thing such men would do would be to leave it — they were both doomed.

This comrade of Card’s whirled far around in his saddle, and he even shaded his eyes from the sun. He, too, looked long. Then, all at once, he faced ahead again and, bending lower in the saddle, began to fling his right arm up and down. That flinging Venters knew to be the lashing of Bells. Jerry also became active. And the three racers lengthened out into a run.

“Now, Wrangle!” cried Venters. “Run, you big devil! Run!”

Venters laid the reins on Wrangle’s neck and dropped the loop over the pommel. The sorrel needed no guiding on that smooth trail. He was surer-footed in a run than at any other fast gait, and his running gave the impression of something devilish. He might now have been actuated by Venters’s spirit; undoubtedly his savage running fitted the mood of his rider. Venters bent forward swinging with the horse, and gripped his rifle. His eye measured the distance between him and Jerry Card.

In less than two miles of running Bells began to drop behind the blacks, and Wrangle began to overhaul him. Venters anticipated that the rustler would soon take to the sage. Yet he did not. Not improbably he reasoned that the powerful sorrel could more easily overtake Bells in the heavier going outside of the trail. Soon only a few hundred yards lay between Bells and Wrangle. Turning in his saddle, the rustler began to shoot, and the bullets beat up little whiffs of dust. Venters raised his rifle, ready to take snap shots, and waited for favorable opportunity when Bells was out of line with the forward horses. Venters had it in him to kill these men as if they were skunk-bitten coyotes, but also he had restraint enough to keep from shooting one of Jane’s beloved Arabians.

No great distance was covered, however, before Bells swerved to the left, out of line with Black Star and Night. Then Venters, aiming high and waiting for the pause between Wrangle’s great strides, began to take snap shots at the rustler. The fleeing rider presented a broad target for a rifle, but he was moving swiftly forward and bobbing up and down. Moreover, shooting from Wrangle’s back was shooting from a thunderbolt. And added to that was the danger of a low-placed bullet taking effect on Bells. Yet, despite these considerations, making the shot exceedingly difficult, Venters’s confidence, like his implacability, saw a speedy and fatal termination of that rustler’s race. On the sixth shot the rustler threw up his arms and took a flying tumble off his horse. He rolled over and over, hunched himself to a half-erect position, fell, and then dragged himself into the sage. As Venters went thundering by he peered keenly into the sage, but caught no sign of the man. Bells ran a few hundred yards, slowed up, and had stopped when Wrangle passed him.

Again Venters began slipping fresh cartridges into the magazine of his rifle, and his hand was so sure and steady that he did not drop a single cartridge. With the eye of a rider and the judgment of a marksman he once more measured the distance between him and Jerry Card. Wrangle had gained, bringing him into rifle range. Venters was hard put to it now not to shoot, but thought it better to withhold his fire. Jerry, who, in anticipation of a running fusillade, had huddled himself into a little twisted ball on Black Star’s neck, now surmising that this pursuer would make sure of not wounding one of the blacks, rose to his natural seat in the saddle.

In his mind perhaps, as certainly as in Venters’s, this moment was the beginning of the real race.

Venters leaned forward to put his hand on Wrangle’s neck, then backward to put it on his flank. Under the shaggy, dusty hair trembled and vibrated and rippled a wonderful muscular activity. But Wrangle’s flesh was still cold. What a cold-blooded brute thought Venters, and felt in him a love for the horse he had never given to any other. It would not have been humanly possible for any rider, even though clutched by hate or revenge or a passion to save a loved one or fear of his own life, to be astride the sorrel to swing with his swing, to see his magnificent stride and hear the rapid thunder of his hoofs, to ride him in that race and not glory in the ride.

So, with his passion to kill still keen and unabated, Venters lived out that ride, and drank a rider’s sage-sweet cup of wildness to the dregs.

When Wrangle’s long mane, lashing in the wind, stung Venters in the cheek, the sting added a beat to his flying pulse. He bent a downward glance to try to see Wrangle’s actual stride, and saw only twinkling, darting streaks and the white rush of the trail. He watched the sorrel’s savage head, pointed level, his mouth still closed and dry, but his nostrils distended as if he were snorting unseen fire. Wrangle was the horse for a race with death. Upon each side Venters saw the sage merged into a sailing, colorless wall. In front sloped the lay of ground with its purple breadth split by the white trail. The wind, blowing with heavy, steady blast into his face, sickened him with enduring, sweet odor, and filled his ears with a hollow, rushing roar.

Then for the hundredth time he measured the width of space separating him from Jerry Card. Wrangle had ceased to gain. The blacks were proving their fleetness. Venters watched Jerry Card, admiring the little rider’s horsemanship. He had the incomparable seat of the upland rider, born in the saddle. It struck Venters that Card had changed his position, or the position of the horses. Presently Venters remembered positively that Jerry had been leading Night on the right-hand side of the trail. The racer was now on the side to the left. No — it was Black Star. But, Venters argued in amaze, Jerry had been mounted on Black Star. Another clearer, keener gaze assured Venters that Black Star was really riderless. Night now carried Jerry Card.

“He’s changed from one to the other!” ejaculated Venters, realizing the astounding feat with unstinted admiration. “Changed at full speed! Jerry Card, that’s what you’ve done unless I’m drunk on the smell of sage. But I’ve got to see the trick before I believe it.”

Thenceforth, while Wrangle sped on, Venters glued his eyes to the little rider. Jerry Card rode as only he could ride. Of all the daring horsemen of the uplands, Jerry was the one rider fitted to bring out the greatness of the blacks in that long race. He had them on a dead run, but not yet at the last strained and killing pace. From time to time he glanced backward, as a wise general in retreat calculating his chances and the power and speed of pursuers, and the moment for the last desperate burst. No doubt, Card, with his life at stake, gloried in that race, perhaps more wildly than Venters. For he had been born to the sage and the saddle and the wild. He was more than half horse. Not until the last call — the sudden up-flashing instinct of self-preservation — would he lose his skill and judgment and nerve and the spirit of that race. Venters seemed to read Jerry’s mind. That little crime-stained rider was actually thinking of his horses, husbanding their speed, handling them with knowledge of years, glorying in their beautiful, swift, racing stride, and wanting them to win the race when his own life hung suspended in quivering balance. Again Jerry whirled in his saddle and the sun flashed red on his face. Turning, he drew Black Star closer and closer toward Night, till they ran side by side, as one horse. Then Card raised himself in the saddle, slipped out of the stirrups, and, somehow twisting himself, leaped upon Black Star. He did not even lose the swing of the horse. Like a leech he was there in the other saddle, and as the horses separated, his right foot, that had been apparently doubled under him, shot down to catch the stirrup. The grace and dexterity and daring of that rider’s act won something more than admiration from Venters.

For the distance of a mile Jerry rode Black Star and then changed back to Night. But all Jerry’s skill and the running of the blacks could avail little more against the sorrel.

Venters peered far ahead, studying the lay of the land. Straightaway for five miles the trail stretched, and then it disappeared in hummocky ground. To the right, some few rods, Venters saw a break in the sage, and this was the rim of Deception Pass. Across the dark cleft gleamed the red of the opposite wall. Venters imagined that the trail went down into the Pass somewhere north of those ridges. And he realized that he must and would overtake Jerry Card in this straight course of five miles.

Cruelly he struck his spurs into Wrangle’s flanks. A light touch of spur was sufficient to make Wrangle plunge. And now, with a ringing, wild snort, he seemed to double up in muscular convulsions and to shoot forward with an impetus that almost unseated Venters. The sage blurred by, the trail flashed by, and the wind robbed him of breath and hearing. Jerry Card turned once more. And the way he shifted to Black Star showed he had to make his last desperate running. Venters aimed to the side of the trail and sent a bullet puffing the dust beyond Jerry. Venters hoped to frighten the rider and get him to take to the sage. But Jerry returned the shot, and his ball struck dangerously close in the dust at Wrangle’s flying feet. Venters held his fire then, while the rider emptied his revolver. For a mile, with Black Star leaving Night behind and doing his utmost, Wrangle did not gain; for another mile he gained little, if at all. In the third he caught up with the now galloping Night and began to gain rapidly on the other black.

Only a hundred yards now stretched between Black Star and Wrangle. The giant sorrel thundered on — and on — and on. In every yard he gained a foot. He was whistling through his nostrils, wringing wet, flying lather, and as hot as fire. Savage as ever, strong as ever, fast as ever, but each tremendous stride jarred Venters out of the saddle! Wrangle’s power and spirit and momentum had begun to run him off his legs. Wrangle’s great race was nearly won — and run. Venters seemed to see the expanse before him as a vast, sheeted, purple plain sliding under him. Black Star moved in it as a blur. The rider, Jerry Card, appeared a mere dot bobbing dimly. Wrangle thundered on — on — on! Venters felt the increase in quivering, straining shock after every leap. Flecks of foam flew into Venters’s eyes, burning him, making him see all the sage as red. But in that red haze he saw, or seemed to see, Black Star suddenly riderless and with broken gait. Wrangle thundered on to change his pace with a violent break. Then Venters pulled him hard. From run to gallop, gallop to canter, canter to trot, trot to walk, and walk to stop, the great sorrel ended his race.

Venters looked back. Black Star stood riderless in the trail. Jerry Card had taken to the sage. Far up the white trail Night came trotting faithfully down. Venters leaped off, still half blind, reeling dizzily. In a moment he had recovered sufficiently to have a care for Wrangle. Rapidly he took off the saddle and bridle. The sorrel was reeking, heaving, whistling, shaking. But he had still the strength to stand, and for him Venters had no fears.

As Venters ran back to Black Star he saw the horse stagger on shaking legs into the sage and go down in a heap. Upon reaching him Venters removed the saddle and bridle. Black Star had been killed on his legs, Venters thought. He had no hope for the stricken horse. Black Star lay flat, covered with bloody froth, mouth wide, tongue hanging, eyes glaring, and all his beautiful body in convulsions.

Unable to stay there to see Jane’s favorite racer die, Venters hurried up the trail to meet the other black. On the way he kept a sharp lookout for Jerry Card. Venters imagined the rider would keep well out of range of the rifle, but, as he would be lost on the sage without a horse, not improbably he would linger in the vicinity on the chance of getting back one of the blacks. Night soon came trotting up, hot and wet and run out. Venters led him down near the others, and unsaddling him, let him loose to rest. Night wearily lay down in the dust and rolled, proving himself not yet spent.

Then Venters sat down to rest and think. Whatever the risk, he was compelled to stay where he was, or comparatively near, for the night. The horses must rest and drink. He must find water. He was now seventy miles from Cottonwoods, and, he believed, close to the canyon where the cattle trail must surely turn off and go down into the Pass. After a while he rose to survey the valley.

He was very near to the ragged edge of a deep canyon into which the trail turned. The ground lay in uneven ridges divided by washes, and these sloped into the canyon. Following the canyon line, he saw where its rim was broken by other intersecting canyons, and farther down red walls and yellow cliffs leading toward a deep blue cleft that he made sure was Deception Pass. Walking out a few rods to a promontory, he found where the trail went down. The descent was gradual, along a stone-walled trail, and Venters felt sure that this was the place where Oldring drove cattle into the Pass. There was, however, no indication at all that he ever had driven cattle out at this point. Oldring had many holes to his burrow.

In searching round in the little hollows Venters, much to his relief, found water. He composed himself to rest and eat some bread and meat, while he waited for a sufficient time to elapse so that he could safely give the horses a drink. He judged the hour to be somewhere around noon. Wrangle lay down to rest and Night followed suit. So long as they were down Venters intended to make no move. The longer they rested the better, and the safer it would be to give them water. By and by he forced himself to go over to where Black Star lay, expecting to find him dead. Instead he found the racer partially if not wholly recovered. There was recognition, even fire, in his big black eyes. Venters was overjoyed. He sat by the black for a long time. Black Star presently labored to his feet with a heave and a groan, shook himself, and snorted for water. Venters repaired to the little pool he had found, filled his sombrero, and gave the racer a drink. Black Star gulped it at one draught, as if it were but a drop, and pushed his nose into the hat and snorted for more. Venters now led Night down to drink, and after a further time Black Star also. Then the blacks began to graze.

The sorrel had wandered off down the sage between the trail and the canyon. Once or twice he disappeared in little swales. Finally Venters concluded Wrangle had grazed far enough, and, taking his lasso, he went to fetch him back. In crossing from one ridge to another he saw where the horse had made muddy a pool of water. It occurred to Venters then that Wrangle had drunk his fill, and did not seem the worse for it, and might be anything but easy to catch. And, true enough, he could not come within roping reach of the sorrel. He tried for an hour, and gave up in disgust. Wrangle did not seem so wild as simply perverse. In a quandary Venters returned to the other horses, hoping much, yet doubting more, that when Wrangle had grazed to suit himself he might be caught.

As the afternoon wore away Venters’s concern diminished, yet he kept close watch on the blacks and the trail and the sage. There was no telling of what Jerry Card might be capable. Venters sullenly acquiesced to the idea that the rider had been too quick and too shrewd for him. Strangely and doggedly, however, Venters clung to his foreboding of Card’s downfall.

The wind died away; the red sun topped the far distant western rise of slope; and the long, creeping purple shadows lengthened. The rims of the canyons gleamed crimson and the deep clefts appeared to belch forth blue smoke. Silence enfolded the scene.

It was broken by a horrid, long-drawn scream of a horse and the thudding of heavy hoofs. Venters sprang erect and wheeled south. Along the canyon rim, near the edge, came Wrangle, once more in thundering flight.

Venters gasped in amazement. Had the wild sorrel gone mad? His head was high and twisted, in a most singular position for a running horse. Suddenly Venters descried a frog-like shape clinging to Wrangle’s neck. Jerry Card! Somehow he had straddled Wrangle and now stuck like a huge burr. But it was his strange position and the sorrel’s wild scream that shook Venters’s nerves. Wrangle was pounding toward the turn where the trail went down. He plunged onward like a blind horse. More than one of his leaps took him to the very edge of the precipice.

Jerry Card was bent forward with his teeth fast in the front of Wrangle’s nose! Venters saw it, and there flashed over him a memory of this trick of a few desperate riders. He even thought of one rider who had worn off his teeth in this terrible hold to break or control desperate horses. Wrangle had indeed gone mad. The marvel was what guided him. Was it the half-brute, the more than half-horse instinct of Jerry Card? Whatever the mystery, it was true. And in a few more rods Jerry would have the sorrel turning into the trail leading down into the canyon.

“No — Jerry!” whispered Venters, stepping forward and throwing up the rifle. He tried to catch the little humped, frog-like shape over the sights. It was moving too fast; it was too small. Yet Venters shot once... twice... the third time... four times... five! all wasted shots and precious seconds!

With a deep-muttered curse Venters caught Wrangle through the sights and pulled the trigger. Plainly he heard the bullet thud. Wrangle uttered a horrible strangling sound. In swift death action he whirled, and with one last splendid leap he cleared the canyon rim. And he whirled downward with the little frog-like shape clinging to his neck!

There was a pause which seemed never ending, a shock, and an instant s silence.

Then up rolled a heavy crash, a long roar of sliding rocks dying away in distant echo, then silence unbroken.

Wrangle’s race was run.

CHAPTER XVIII. OLDRING’S KNELL

SOME FORTY HOURS or more later Venters created a commotion in Cottonwoods by riding down the main street on Black Star and leading Bells and Night. He had come upon Bells grazing near the body of a dead rustler, the only incident of his quick ride into the village.

Nothing was farther from Venters’s mind than bravado. No thought came to him of the defiance and boldness of riding Jane Withersteen’s racers straight into the arch-plotter’s stronghold. He wanted men to see the famous Arabians; he wanted men to see them dirty and dusty, bearing all the signs of having been driven to their limit; he wanted men to see and to know that the thieves who had ridden them out into the sage had not ridden them back. Venters had come for that and for more — he wanted to meet Tull face to face; if not Tull, then Dyer; if not Dyer, then anyone in the secret of these master conspirators. Such was Venters’s passion. The meeting with the rustlers, the unprovoked attack upon him, the spilling of blood, the recognition of Jerry Card and the horses, the race, and that last plunge of mad Wrangle — all these things, fuel on fuel to the smoldering fire, had kindled and swelled and leaped into living flame. He could have shot Dyer in the midst of his religious services at the altar; he could have killed Tull in front of wives and babes.

He walked the three racers down the broad, green-bordered village road. He heard the murmur of running water from Amber Spring. Bitter waters for Jane Withersteen! Men and women stopped to gaze at him and the horses. All knew him; all knew the blacks and the bay. As well as if it had been spoken, Venters read in the faces of men the intelligence that Jane Withersteen’s Arabians had been known to have been stolen. Venters reined in and halted before Dyer’s residence. It was a low, long, stone structure resembling Withersteen House. The spacious front yard was green and luxuriant with grass and flowers; gravel walks led to the huge porch; a well-trimmed hedge of purple sage separated the yard from the church grounds; birds sang in the trees; water flowed musically along the walks; and there were glad, careless shouts of children. For Venters the beauty of this home, and the serenity and its apparent happiness, all turned red and black. For Venters a shade overspread the lawn, the flowers, the old vine-clad stone house. In the music of the singing birds, in the murmur of the running water, he heard an ominous sound. Quiet beauty — sweet music — innocent laughter! By what monstrous abortion of fate did these abide in the shadow of Dyer?

Venters rode on and stopped before Tull’s cottage. Women stared at him with white faces and then flew from the porch. Tull himself appeared at the door, bent low, craning his neck. His dark face flashed out of sight; the door banged; a heavy bar dropped with a hollow sound.

Then Venters shook Black Star’s bridle, and, sharply trotting, led the other horses to the center of the village. Here at the intersecting streets and in front of the stores he halted once more. The usual lounging atmosphere of that prominent corner was not now in evidence. Riders and ranchers and villagers broke up what must have been absorbing conversation. There was a rush of many feet, and then the walk was lined with faces.

Venters’s glance swept down the line of silent stone-faced men. He recognized many riders and villagers, but none of those he had hoped to meet. There was no expression in the faces turned toward him. All of them knew him, most were inimical, but there were few who were not burning with curiosity and wonder in regard to the return of Jane Withersteen’s racers. Yet all were silent. Here were the familiar characteristics — masked feeling — strange secretiveness — expressionless expression of mystery and hidden power.

“Has anybody here seen Jerry Card?” queried Venters, in a loud voice.

In reply there came not a word, not a nod or shake of head, not so much as dropping eye or twitching lip — nothing but a quiet, stony stare.

“Been under the knife? You’ve a fine knife-wielder here — one Tull, I believe!... Maybe you’ve all had your tongues cut out?”

This passionate sarcasm of Venters brought no response, and the stony calm was as oil on the fire within him.

“I see some of you pack guns, too!” he added, in biting scorn. In the long, tense pause, strung keenly as a tight wire, he sat motionless on Black Star. “All right,” he went on. “Then let some of you take this message to Tull. Tell him I’ve seen Jerry Card! ... Tell him Jerry Card will never return!”

Thereupon, in the same dead calm, Venters backed Black Star away from the curb, into the street, and out of range. He was ready now to ride up to Withersteen House and turn the racers over to Jane.

“Hello, Venters!” a familiar voice cried, hoarsely, and he saw a man running toward him. It was the rider Judkins who came up and gripped Venters’s hand. “Venters, I could hev dropped when I seen them hosses. But thet sight ain’t a marker to the looks of you. What’s wrong? Hev you gone crazy? You must be crazy to ride in here this way — with them hosses — talkie’ thet way about Tull en’ Jerry Card.”

“Jud, I’m not crazy — only mad clean through,” replied Venters.

“Mad, now, Bern, I’m glad to hear some of your old self in your voice. Fer when you come up you looked like the corpse of a dead rider with fire fer eyes. You hed thet crowd too stiff fer throwin’ guns. Come, we’ve got to hev a talk. Let’s go up the lane. We ain’t much safe here.”

Judkins mounted Bells and rode with Venters up to the cottonwood grove. Here they dismounted and went among the trees.

“Let’s hear from you first,” said Judkins. “You fetched back them hosses. Thet is the trick. An’, of course, you got Jerry the same as you got Horne.”

“Horne!”

“Sure. He was found dead yesterday all chewed by coyotes, en’ he’d been shot plumb center.”

“Where was he found?”

“At the split down the trail — you know where Oldring’s cattle trail runs off north from the trail to the pass.”

“That’s where I met Jerry and the rustlers. What was Horne doing with them? I thought Horne was an honest cattle-man.”

“Lord — Bern, don’t ask me thet! I’m all muddled now tryin’ to figure things.”

Venters told of the fight and the race with Jerry Card and its tragic conclusion.

“I knowed it! I knowed all along that Wrangle was the best hoss!” exclaimed Judkins, with his lean face working and his eyes lighting. “Thet was a race! Lord, I’d like to hev seen Wrangle jump the cliff with Jerry. An’ thet was good-by to the grandest hoss an’ rider ever on the sage!... But, Bern, after you got the hosses why’d you want to bolt right in Tull’s face?”

“I want him to know. An’ if I can get to him I’ll—”

“You can’t get near Tull,” interrupted Judkins. “Thet vigilante bunch hev taken to bein’ bodyguard for Tull an’ Dyer, too.”

“Hasn’t Lassiter made a break yet?” inquired Venters, curiously.

“Naw!” replied Judkins, scornfully. “Jane turned his head. He’s mad in love over her — follers her like a dog. He ain’t no more Lassiter! He’s lost his nerve, he doesn’t look like the same feller. It’s village talk. Everybody knows it. He hasn’t thrown a gun, an’ he won’t!”

“Jud, I’ll bet he does,” replied Venters, earnestly. “Remember what I say. This Lassiter is something more than a gun-man. Jud, he’s big — he’s great!... I feel that in him. God help Tull and Dyer when Lassiter does go after them. For horses and riders and stone walls won’t save them.”

“Wal, hev it your way, Bern. I hope you’re right. Nat’rully I’ve been some sore on Lassiter fer gittin’ soft. But I ain’t denyin’ his nerve, or whatever’s great in him thet sort of paralyzes people. No later ‘n this mornin’ I seen him saunterin’ down the lane, quiet an’ slow. An’ like his guns he comes black — black, thet’s Lassiter. Wal, the crowd on the corner never batted an eye, en’ I’ll gamble my hoss thet there wasn’t one who hed a heartbeat till Lassiter got by. He went in Snell’s saloon, an’ as there wasn’t no gun play I had to go in, too. An’ there, darn my pictures, if Lassiter wasn’t standin’ to the bar, drinking en’ talkin’ with Oldrin’.”

“Oldring!” whispered Venters. His voice, as all fire and pulse within him, seemed to freeze.

“Let go my arm!” exclaimed Judkins. “Thet’s my bad arm. Sure it was Oldrin’. What the hell’s wrong with you, anyway? Venters, I tell you somethin’s wrong. You’re whiter ‘n a sheet. You can’t be scared of the rustler. I don’t believe you’ve got a scare in you. Wal, now, jest let me talk. You know I like to talk, an’ if I’m slow I allus git there sometime. As I said, Lassiter was talkie’ chummy with Oldrin’. There wasn’t no hard feelin’s. An’ the gang wasn’t payin’ no pertic’lar attention. But like a cat watchin’ a mouse I hed my eyes on them two fellers. It was strange to me, thet confab. I’m gittin’ to think a lot, fer a feller who doesn’t know much. There’s been some queer deals lately an’ this seemed to me the queerest. These men stood to the bar alone, an’ so close their big gun-hilts butted together. I seen Oldrin’ was some surprised at first, an’ Lassiter was cool as ice. They talked, an’ presently at somethin’ Lassiter said the rustler bawled out a curse, an’ then he jest fell up against the bar, an’ sagged there. The gang in the saloon looked around an’ laughed, an’ thet’s about all. Finally Oldrin’ turned, and it was easy to see somethin’ hed shook him. Yes, sir, thet big rustler — you know he’s as broad as he is long, an’ the powerfulest build of a man — yes, sir, the nerve had been taken out of him. Then, after a little, he began to talk an’ said a lot to Lassiter, an’ by an’ by it didn’t take much of an eye to see thet Lassiter was gittin’ hit hard. I never seen him anyway but cooler ‘n ice — till then. He seemed to be hit harder ‘n Oldrin’, only he didn’t roar out thet way. He jest kind of sunk in, an’ looked an’ looked, an’ he didn’t see a livin’ soul in thet saloon. Then he sort of come to, an’ shakin’ hands — mind you, shakin’ hands with Oldrin’ — he went out. I couldn’t help thinkin’ how easy even a boy could hev dropped the great gun-man then!... Wal, the rustler stood at the bar fer a long time, en’ he was seein’ things far off, too; then he come to an’ roared fer whisky, an’ gulped a drink thet was big enough to drown me.”

“Is Oldring here now?” whispered Venters. He could not speak above a whisper. Judkins’s story had been meaningless to him.

“He’s at Snell’s yet. Bern, I hevn’t told you yet thet the rustlers hev been raisin’ hell. They shot up Stone Bridge an’ Glaze, an’ fer three days they’ve been here drinkin’ an’ gamblin’ an’ throwin’ of gold. These rustlers hev a pile of gold. If it was gold dust or nugget gold I’d hev reason to think, but it’s new coin gold, as if it had jest come from the United States treasury. An’ the coin’s genuine. Thet’s all been proved. The truth is Oldrin’s on a rampage. A while back he lost his Masked Rider, an’ they say he’s wild about thet. I’m wonderin’ if Lassiter could hev told the rustler anythin’ about thet little masked, hard-ridin’ devil. Ride! He was most as good as Jerry Card. An’, Bern, I’ve been wonderin’ if you know—”

“Judkins, you’re a good fellow,” interrupted Venters. “Some day I’ll tell you a story. I’ve no time now. Take the horses to Jane.”

Judkins stared, and then, muttering to himself, he mounted Bells, and stared again at Venters, and then, leading the other horses, he rode into the grove and disappeared.

Once, long before, on the night Venters had carried Bess through the canyon and up into Surprise Valley, he had experienced the strangeness of faculties singularly, tinglingly acute. And now the same sensation recurred. But it was different in that he felt cold, frozen, mechanical incapable of free thought, and all about him seemed unreal, aloof, remote. He hid his rifle in the sage, marking its exact location with extreme care. Then he faced down the lane and strode toward the center of the village. Perceptions flashed upon him, the faint, cold touch of the breeze, a cold, silvery tinkle of flowing water, a cold sun shining out of a cold sky, song of birds and laugh of children, coldly distant. Cold and intangible were all things in earth and heaven. Colder and tighter stretched the skin over his face; colder and harder grew the polished butts of his guns; colder and steadier became his hands as he wiped the clammy sweat from his face or reached low to his gun-sheaths. Men meeting him in the walk gave him wide berth. In front of Bevin’s store a crowd melted apart for his passage, and their faces and whispers were faces and whispers of a dream. He turned a corner to meet Tull face to face, eye to eye. As once before he had seen this man pale to a ghastly, livid white so again he saw the change. Tull stopped in his tracks, with right hand raised and shaking. Suddenly it dropped, and he seemed to glide aside, to pass out of Venters’s sight. Next he saw many horses with bridles down — all clean-limbed, dark bays or blacks — rustlers’ horses! Loud voices and boisterous laughter, rattle of dice and scrape of chair and clink of gold, burst in mingled din from an open doorway. He stepped inside.

With the sight of smoke-hazed room and drinking, cursing, gambling, dark-visaged men, reality once more dawned upon Venters.

His entrance had been unnoticed, and he bent his gaze upon the drinkers at the bar. Dark-clothed, dark-faced men they all were, burned by the sun, bow-legged as were most riders of the sage, but neither lean nor gaunt. Then Venters’s gaze passed to the tables, and swiftly it swept over the hard-featured gamesters, to alight upon the huge, shaggy, black head of the rustler chief.

“Oldring!” he cried, and to him his voice seemed to split a bell in his ears.

It stilled the din.

That silence suddenly broke to the scrape and crash of Oldring’s chair as he rose; and then, while he passed, a great gloomy figure, again the thronged room stilled in silence yet deeper.

“Oldring, a word with you!” continued Venters.

“Ho! What’s this?” boomed Oldring, in frowning scrutiny.

“Come outside, alone. A word for you — from your Masked Rider!”

Oldring kicked a chair out of his way and lunged forward with a stamp of heavy boot that jarred the floor. He waved down his muttering, rising men.

Venters backed out of the door and waited, hearing, as no sound had ever before struck into his soul, the rapid, heavy steps of the rustler.

Oldring appeared, and Venters had one glimpse of his great breadth and bulk, his gold-buckled belt with hanging guns, his high-top boots with gold spurs. In that moment Venters had a strange, unintelligible curiosity to see Oldring alive. The rustler’s broad brow, his large black eyes, his sweeping beard, as dark as the wing of a raven, his enormous width of shoulder and depth of chest, his whole splendid presence so wonderfully charged with vitality and force and strength, seemed to afford Venters an unutterable fiendish joy because for that magnificent manhood and life he meant cold and sudden death.

“Oldring, Bess is alive! But she’s dead to you — dead to the life you made her lead — dead as you will be in one second!”

Swift as lightning Venters’s glance dropped from Oldring’s rolling eyes to his hands. One of them, the right, swept out, then toward his gun — and Venters shot him through the heart.

Slowly Oldring sank to his knees, and the hand, dragging at the gun, fell away. Venters’s strangely acute faculties grasped the meaning of that limp arm, of the swaying hulk, of the gasp and heave, of the quivering beard. But was that awful spirit in the black eyes only one of vitality?

“Man — why — didn’t — you — wait? Bess — was—” Oldring’s whisper died under his beard, and with a heavy lurch he fell forward.

Bounding swiftly away, Venters fled around the corner, across the street, and, leaping a hedge, he ran through yard, orchard, and garden to the sage. Here, under cover of the tall brush, he turned west and ran on to the place where he had hidden his rifle. Securing that, he again set out into a run, and, circling through the sage, came up behind Jane Withersteen’s stable and corrals. With laboring, dripping chest, and pain as of a knife thrust in his side, he stopped to regain his breath, and while resting his eyes roved around in search of a horse. Doors and windows of the stable were open wide and had a deserted look. One dejected, lonely burro stood in the near corral. Strange indeed was the silence brooding over the once happy, noisy home of Jane Withersteen’s pets.

He went into the corral, exercising care to leave no tracks, and led the burro to the watering-trough. Venters, though not thirsty, drank till he could drink no more. Then, leading the burro over hard ground, he struck into the sage and down the slope.

He strode swiftly, turning from time to time to scan the slope for riders. His head just topped the level of sage-brush, and the burro could not have been seen at all. Slowly the green of Cottonwoods sank behind the slope, and at last a wavering line of purple sage met the blue of sky.

To avoid being seen, to get away, to hide his trail — these were the sole ideas in his mind as he headed for Deception Pass, and he directed all his acuteness of eye and ear, and the keenness of a rider’s judgment for distance and ground, to stern accomplishment of the task. He kept to the sage far to the left of the trail leading into the Pass. He walked ten miles and looked back a thousand times. Always the graceful, purple wave of sage remained wide and lonely, a clear, undotted waste. Coming to a stretch of rocky ground, he took advantage of it to cross the trail and then continued down on the right. At length he persuaded himself that he would be able to see riders mounted on horses before they could see him on the little burro, and he rode bareback.

Hour by hour the tireless burro kept to his faithful, steady trot. The sun sank and the long shadows lengthened down the slope. Moving veils of purple twilight crept out of the hollows and, mustering and forming on the levels, soon merged and shaded into night. Venters guided the burro nearer to the trail, so that he could see its white line from the ridges, and rode on through the hours.

Once down in the Pass without leaving a trail, he would hold himself safe for the time being. When late in the night he reached the break in the sage, he sent the burro down ahead of him, and started an avalanche that all but buried the animal at the bottom of the trail. Bruised and battered as he was, he had a moment’s elation, for he had hidden his tracks. Once more he mounted the burro and rode on. The hour was the blackest of the night when he made the thicket which inclosed his old camp. Here he turned the burro loose in the grass near the spring, and then lay down on his old bed of leaves.

He felt only vaguely, as outside things, the ache and burn and throb of the muscles of his body. But a dammed-up torrent of emotion at last burst its bounds, and the hour that saw his release from immediate action was one that confounded him in the reaction of his spirit. He suffered without understanding why. He caught glimpses into himself, into unlit darkness of soul. The fire that had blistered him and the cold which had frozen him now united in one torturing possession of his mind and heart, and like a fiery steed with ice-shod feet, ranged his being, ran rioting through his blood, trampling the resurging good, dragging ever at the evil.

Out of the subsiding chaos came a clear question. What had happened? He had left the valley to go to Cottonwoods. Why? It seemed that he had gone to kill a man — Oldring! The name riveted his consciousness upon the one man of all men upon earth whom he had wanted to meet. He had met the rustler. Venters recalled the smoky haze of the saloon, the dark-visaged men, the huge Oldring. He saw him step out of the door, a splendid specimen of manhood, a handsome giant with purple-black and sweeping beard. He remembered inquisitive gaze of falcon eyes. He heard himself repeating: “OLDRING, BESS IS ALIVE! BUT SHE’S DEAD TO YOU,” and he felt himself jerk, and his ears throbbed to the thunder of a gun, and he saw the giant sink slowly to his knees. Was that only the vitality of him — that awful light in the eyes — only the hard-dying life of a tremendously powerful brute? A broken whisper, strange as death: “MAN — WHY — DIDN’T — YOU WAIT! BESS — WAS—” And Oldring plunged face forward, dead.

“I killed him,” cried Venters, in remembering shock. “But it wasn’t THAT. Ah, the look in his eyes and his whisper!”

Herein lay the secret that had clamored to him through all the tumult and stress of his emotions. What a look in the eyes of a man shot through the heart! It had been neither hate nor ferocity nor fear of men nor fear of death. It had been no passionate glinting spirit of a fearless foe, willing shot for shot, life for life, but lacking physical power. Distinctly recalled now, never to be forgotten, Venters saw in Oldring’s magnificent eyes the rolling of great, glad surprise — softness — love! Then came a shadow and the terrible superhuman striving of his spirit to speak. Oldring shot through the heart, had fought and forced back death, not for a moment in which to shoot or curse, but to whisper strange words.

What words for a dying man to whisper! Why had not Venters waited? For what? That was no plea for life. It was regret that there was not a moment of life left in which to speak. Bess was — Herein lay renewed torture for Venters. What had Bess been to Oldring? The old question, like a specter, stalked from its grave to haunt him. He had overlooked, he had forgiven, he had loved and he had forgotten; and now, out of the mystery of a dying man’s whisper rose again that perverse, unsatisfied, jealous uncertainty. Bess had loved that splendid, black-crowned giant — by her own confession she had loved him; and in Venters’s soul again flamed up the jealous hell. Then into the clamoring hell burst the shot that had killed Oldring, and it rang in a wild fiendish gladness, a hateful, vengeful joy. That passed to the memory of the love and light in Oldring’s eyes and the mystery in his whisper. So the changing, swaying emotions fluctuated in Venters’s heart.

This was the climax of his year of suffering and the crucial struggle of his life. And when the gray dawn came he rose, a gloomy, almost heartbroken man, but victor over evil passions. He could not change the past; and, even if he had not loved Bess with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he knew — he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when they had safely gotten out of that wild country to take up a new and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life worth living.

All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the Pass, taking time to peer around corners, to pick out hard ground and grassy patches, and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the valley, and here set the burro at liberty. He walked beyond, climbed the slope and the dim, starlit gorge. Then, weary to the point of exhaustion, he crept into a shallow cave and fell asleep.

In the morning, when he descended the trail, he found the sun was pouring a golden stream of light through the arch of the great stone bridge. Surprise Valley, like a valley of dreams, lay mystically soft and beautiful, awakening to the golden flood which was rolling away its slumberous bands of mist, brightening its walled faces.

While yet far off he discerned Bess moving under the silver spruces, and soon the barking of the dogs told him that they had seen him. He heard the mocking-birds singing in the trees, and then the twittering of the quail. Ring and Whitie came bounding toward him, and behind them ran Bess, her hands outstretched.

“Bern! You’re back! You’re back!” she cried, in joy that rang of her loneliness.

“Yes, I’m back,” he said, as she rushed to meet him.

She had reached out for him when suddenly, as she saw him closely, something checked her, and as quickly all her joy fled, and with it her color, leaving her pale and trembling.

“Oh! What’s happened?”

“A good deal has happened, Bess. I don’t need to tell you what. And I’m played out. Worn out in mind more than body.”

“Dear — you look strange to me!” faltered Bess.

“Never mind that. I’m all right. There’s nothing for you to be scared about. Things are going to turn out just as we have planned. As soon as I’m rested we’ll make a break to get out of the country. Only now, right now, I must know the truth about you.”

“Truth about me?” echoed Bess, shrinkingly. She seemed to be casting back into her mind for a forgotten key. Venters himself, as he saw her, received a pang.

“Yes — the truth. Bess, don’t misunderstand. I haven’t changed that way. I love you still. I’ll love you more afterward. Life will be just as sweet — sweeter to us. We’ll be — be married as soon as ever we can. We’ll be happy — but there’s a devil in me. A perverse, jealous devil! Then I’ve queer fancies. I forgot for a long time. Now all those fiendish little whispers of doubt and faith and fear and hope come torturing me again. I’ve got to kill them with the truth.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” she replied, frankly.

“Then by Heaven! we’ll have it over and done with!... Bess — did Oldring love you?”

“Certainly he did.”

“Did — did you love him?”

“Of course. I told you so.”

“How can you tell it so lightly?” cried Venters, passionately. “Haven’t you any sense of — of—” He choked back speech. He felt the rush of pain and passion. He seized her in rude, strong hands and drew her close. He looked straight into her dark-blue eyes. They were shadowing with the old wistful light, but they were as clear as the limpid water of the spring. They were earnest, solemn in unutterable love and faith and abnegation. Venters shivered. He knew he was looking into her soul. He knew she could not lie in that moment; but that she might tell the truth, looking at him with those eyes, almost killed his belief in purity.

“What are — what were you to — to Oldring?” he panted, fiercely.

“I am his daughter,” she replied, instantly.

Venters slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the force of his feeling — then creeping blankness.

“What — was it — you said?” he asked, in a kind of dull wonder.

“I am his daughter.”

“Oldring’s daughter?” queried Venters, with life gathering in his voice.

“Yes.”

With a passionately awakening start he grasped her hands and drew her close.

“All the time — you’ve been Oldring’s daughter?”

“Yes, of course all the time — always.”

“But Bess, you told me — you let me think — I made out you were — a — so — so ashamed.”

“It is my shame,” she said, with voice deep and full, and now the scarlet fired her cheek. “I told you — I’m nothing — nameless — just Bess, Oldring’s girl!”

“I know — I remember. But I never thought—” he went on, hurriedly, huskily. “That time — when you lay dying — you prayed — you — somehow I got the idea you were bad.”

“Bad?” she asked, with a little laugh.

She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute unconsciousness of a child. Venters gasped in the gathering might of the truth. She did not understand his meaning.

“Bess! Bess!” He clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against his breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held her while he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded sight, in the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw Oldring. She was the rustler’s nameless daughter. Oldring had loved her. He had so guarded her, so kept her from women and men and knowledge of life that her mind was as a child’s. That was part of the secret — part of the mystery. That was the wonderful truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure, innocent above all innocence in the world — the innocence of lonely girlhood.

He saw Oldring’s magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching, softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love, then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million bellowing, thundering voices — gunshots of conscience, thunderbolts of remorse — dinned horribly in his ears. He had killed Bess’s father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed — Oldring’s knell.

He dropped to his knees and hid his face against Bess, and grasped her with the hands of a drowning man.

“My God!... My God!... Oh, Bess!... Forgive me! Never mind what I’ve done — what I’ve thought. But forgive me. I’ll give you my life. I’ll live for you. I’ll love you. Oh, I do love you as no man ever loved a woman. I want you to know — to remember that I fought a fight for you — however blind I was. I thought — I thought — never mind what I thought — but I loved you — I asked you to marry me. Let that — let me have that to hug to my heart. Oh, Bess, I was driven! And I might have known! I could not rest nor sleep till I had this mystery solved. God! how things work out!”

“Bern, you’re weak — trembling — you talk wildly,” cried Bess. “You’ve overdone your strength. There’s nothing to forgive. There’s no mystery except your love for me. You have come back to me!”

And she clasped his head tenderly in her arms and pressed it closely to her throbbing breast.

CHAPTER XIX. FAY

AT THE HOME of Jane Withersteen Little Fay was climbing Lassiter’s knee.

“Does oo love me?” she asked.

Lassiter, who was as serious with Fay as he was gentle and loving, assured her in earnest and elaborate speech that he was her devoted subject. Fay looked thoughtful and appeared to be debating the duplicity of men or searching for a supreme test to prove this cavalier.

“Does oo love my new muvver?” she asked, with bewildering suddenness.

Jane Withersteen laughed, and for the first time in many a day she felt a stir of her pulse and warmth in her cheek.

It was a still drowsy summer of afternoon, and the three were sitting in the shade of the wooded knoll that faced the sage-slope. Little Fay’s brief spell of unhappy longing for her mother — the childish, mystic gloom — had passed, and now where Fay was there were prattle and laughter and glee. She had emerged from sorrow to be the incarnation of joy and loveliness. She had grown supernaturally sweet and beautiful. For Jane Withersteen the child was an answer to prayer, a blessing, a possession infinitely more precious than all she had lost. For Lassiter, Jane divined that little Fay had become a religion.

“Does oo love my new muvver?” repeated Fay.

Lassiter’s answer to this was a modest and sincere affirmative.

“Why don’t oo marry my new muvver an’ be my favver?”

Of the thousands of questions put by little Fay to Lassiter this was the first he had been unable to answer.

“Fay — Fay, don’t ask questions like that,” said Jane.

“Why?”

“Because,” replied Jane. And she found it strangely embarrassing to meet the child’s gaze. It seemed to her that Fay’s violet eyes looked through her with piercing wisdom.

“Oo love him, don’t oo?”

“Dear child — run and play,” said Jane, “but don’t go too far. Don’t go from this little hill.”

Fay pranced off wildly, joyous over freedom that had not been granted her for weeks.

“Jane, why are children more sincere than grown-up persons?” asked Lassiter.

“Are they?”

“I reckon so. Little Fay there — she sees things as they appear on the face. An Indian does that. So does a dog. An’ an Indian an’ a dog are most of the time right in what they see. Mebbe a child is always right.”

“Well, what does Fay see?” asked Jane.

“I reckon you know. I wonder what goes on in Fay’s mind when she sees part of the truth with the wise eyes of a child, an’ wantin’ to know more, meets with strange falseness from you? Wait! You are false in a way, though you’re the best woman I ever knew. What I want to say is this. Fay has taken you’re pretendin’ to — to care for me for the thing it looks on the face. An’ her little formin’ mind asks questions. An’ the answers she gets are different from the looks of things. So she’ll grow up gradually takin’ on that falseness, an’ be like the rest of the women, an’ men, too. An’ the truth of this falseness to life is proved by your appearin’ to love me when you don’t. Things aren’t what they seem.”

“Lassiter, you’re right. A child should be told the absolute truth. But — is that possible? I haven’t been able to do it, and all my life I’ve loved the truth, and I’ve prided myself upon being truthful. Maybe that was only egotism. I’m learning much, my friend. Some of those blinding scales have fallen from my eyes. And — and as to caring for you, I think I care a great deal. How much, how little, I couldn’t say. My heart is almost broken, Lassiter. So now is not a good time to judge of affection. I can still play and be merry with Fay. I can still dream. But when I attempt serious thought I’m dazed. I don’t think. I don’t care any more. I don’t pray!... Think of that, my friend! But in spite of my numb feeling I believe I’ll rise out of all this dark agony a better woman, with greater love of man and God. I’m on the rack now; I’m senseless to all but pain, and growing dead to that. Sooner or later I shall rise out of this stupor. I’m waiting the hour.”

“It’ll soon come, Jane,” replied Lassiter, soberly. “Then I’m afraid for you. Years are terrible things, an’ for years you’ve been bound. Habit of years is strong as life itself. Somehow, though, I believe as you — that you’ll come out of it all a finer woman. I’m waitin’, too. An’ I’m wonderin’ — I reckon, Jane, that marriage between us is out of all human reason?”

“Lassiter!... My dear friend!... It’s impossible for us to marry!”

“Why — as Fay says?” inquired Lassiter, with gentle persistence.

“Why! I never thought why. But it’s not possible. I am Jane, daughter of Withersteen. My father would rise out of his grave. I’m of Mormon birth. I’m being broken. But I’m still a Mormon woman. And you — you are Lassiter!”

“Mebbe I’m not so much Lassiter as I used to be.”

“What was it you said? Habit of years is strong as life itself! You can’t change the one habit — the purpose of your life. For you still pack those black guns! You still nurse your passion for blood.”

A smile, like a shadow, flickered across his face.

“No.”

“Lassiter, I lied to you. But I beg of you — don’t you lie to me. I’ve great respect for you. I believe you’re softened toward most, perhaps all, my people except — But when I speak of your purpose, your hate, your guns, I have only him in mind. I don’t believe you’ve changed.”

For answer he unbuckled the heavy cartridge-belt, and laid it with the heavy, swing gun-sheaths in her lap.

“Lassiter!” Jane whispered, as she gazed from him to the black, cold guns. Without them he appeared shorn of strength, defenseless, a smaller man. Was she Delilah? Swiftly, conscious of only one motive — refusal to see this man called craven by his enemies — she rose, and with blundering fingers buckled the belt round his waist where it belonged.

“Lassiter, I am a coward.”

“Come with me out of Utah — where I can put away my guns an’ be a man,” he said. “I reckon I’ll prove it to you then! Come! You’ve got Black Star back, an’ Night an’ Bells. Let’s take the racers an’ little Fay, en’ race out of Utah. The hosses an’ the child are all you have left. Come!”

“No, no, Lassiter. I’ll never leave Utah. What would I do in the world with my broken fortunes and my broken heart? I’ll never leave these purple slopes I love so well.”

“I reckon I ought to ‘ve knowed that. Presently you’ll be livin’ down here in a hovel, en’ presently Jane Withersteen will be a memory. I only wanted to have a chance to show you how a man — any man — can be better ‘n he was. If we left Utah I could prove — I reckon I could prove this thing you call love. It’s strange, an’ hell an’ heaven at once, Jane Withersteen. ‘Pears to me that you’ve thrown away your big heart on love — love of religion an’ duty an’ churchmen, an’ riders an’ poor families an’ poor children! Yet you can’t see what love is — how it changes a person!... Listen, an’ in tellin’ you Milly Erne’s story I’ll show you how love changed her.

“Milly an’ me was children when our family moved from Missouri to Texas, an’ we growed up in Texas ways same as if we’d been born there. We had been poor, an’ there we prospered. In time the little village where we went became a town, an’ strangers an’ new families kept movin’ in. Milly was the belle them days. I can see her now, a little girl no bigger ‘n a bird, an’ as pretty. She had the finest eyes, dark blue-black when she was excited, an’ beautiful all the time. You remember Milly’s eyes! An’ she had light-brown hair with streaks of gold, an’ a mouth that every feller wanted to kiss.

“An’ about the time Milly was the prettiest an’ the sweetest, along came a young minister who began to ride some of a race with the other fellers for Milly. An’ he won. Milly had always been strong on religion, an’ when she met Frank Erne she went in heart an’ soul for the salvation of souls. Fact was, Milly, through study of the Bible an’ attendin’ church an’ revivals, went a little out of her head. It didn’t worry the old folks none, an’ the only worry to me was Milly’s everlastin’ prayin’ an’ workin’ to save my soul. She never converted me, but we was the best of comrades, an’ I reckon no brother an’ sister ever loved each other better. Well, Frank Erne an me hit up a great friendship. He was a strappin’ feller, good to look at, an’ had the most pleasin’ ways. His religion never bothered me, for he could hunt an’ fish an’ ride an’ be a good feller. After buffalo once, he come pretty near to savin’ my life. We got to be thick as brothers, an’ he was the only man I ever seen who I thought was good enough for Milly. An’ the day they were married I got drunk for the only time in my life.

“Soon after that I left home — it seems Milly was the only one who could keep me home — an’ I went to the bad, as to prosperin’ I saw some pretty hard life in the Pan Handle, an’ then I went North. In them days Kansas an’ Nebraska was as bad, come to think of it, as these days right here on the border of Utah. I got to be pretty handy with guns. An’ there wasn’t many riders as could beat me ridin’. An’ I can say all modest-like that I never seen the white man who could track a hoss or a steer or a man with me. Afore I knowed it two years slipped by, an’ all at once I got homesick, en’ purled a bridle south.

“Things at home had changed. I never got over that homecomin’. Mother was dead an’ in her grave. Father was a silent, broken man, killed already on his feet. Frank Erne was a ghost of his old self, through with workin’, through with preachin’, almost through with livin’, an’ Milly was gone!... It was a long time before I got the story. Father had no mind left, an’ Frank Erne was afraid to talk. So I had to pick up whet ‘d happened from different people.

“It ‘pears that soon after I left home another preacher come to the little town. An’ he an’ Frank become rivals. This feller was different from Frank. He preached some other kind of religion, and he was quick an’ passionate, where Frank was slow an’ mild. He went after people, women specially. In looks he couldn’t compare to Frank Erne, but he had power over women. He had a voice, an’ he talked an’ talked an’ preached an’ preached. Milly fell under his influence.. She became mightily interested in his religion. Frank had patience with her, as was his way, an’ let her be as interested as she liked. All religions were devoted to one God, he said, an’ it wouldn’t hurt Milly none to study a different point of view. So the new preacher often called on Milly, an’ sometimes in Frank’s absence. Frank was a cattle-man between Sundays.

“Along about this time an incident come off that I couldn’t get much light on. A stranger come to town, an’ was seen with the preacher. This stranger was a big man with an eye like blue ice, an’ a beard of gold. He had money, an’ he ‘peered a man of mystery, an’ the town went to buzzin’ when he disappeared about the same time as a young woman known to be mightily interested in the new preacher’s religion. Then, presently, along comes a man from somewheres in Illinois, en’ he up an’ spots this preacher as a famous Mormon proselyter. That riled Frank Erne as nothin’ ever before, an’ from rivals they come to be bitter enemies. An’ it ended in Frank goin’ to the meetin’-house where Milly was listenin’, en’ before her en’ everybody else he called that preacher — called him, well, almost as hard as Venters called Tull here sometime back. An’ Frank followed up that call with a hosswhippin’, en’ he drove the proselyter out of town.

“People noticed, so ’twas said, that Milly’s sweet disposition changed. Some said it was because she would soon become a mother, en’ others said she was pinin’ after the new religion. An’ there was women who said right out that she was pinin’ after the Mormon. Anyway, one mornin’ Frank rode in from one of his trips, to find Milly gone. He had no real near neighbors — livin’ a little out of town — but those who was nearest said a wagon had gone by in the night, an’ they thought it stopped at her door. Well, tracks always tell, an’ there was the wagon tracks an’ hoss tracks an’ man tracks. The news spread like wildfire that Milly had run off from her husband. Everybody but Frank believed it an’ wasn’t slow in tellin’ why she run off. Mother had always hated that strange streak of Milly’s, takin’ up with the new religion as she had, an’ she believed Milly ran off with the Mormon. That hastened mother’s death, an’ she died unforgivin’. Father wasn’t the kind to bow down under disgrace or misfortune but he had surpassin’ love for Milly, an’ the loss of her broke him.

“From the minute I heard of Milly’s disappearance I never believed she went off of her own free will. I knew Milly, an’ I knew she couldn’t have done that. I stayed at home awhile, tryin’ to make Frank Erne talk. But if he knowed anythin’ then he wouldn’t tell it. So I set out to find Milly. An’ I tried to get on the trail of that proselyter. I knew if I ever struck a town he’d visited that I’d get a trail. I knew, too, that nothin’ short of hell would stop his proselytin’. An’ I rode from town to town. I had a blind faith that somethin’ was guidin’ me. An’ as the weeks an’ months went by I growed into a strange sort of a man, I guess. Anyway, people were afraid of me. Two years after that, way over in a corner of Texas, I struck a town where my man had been. He’d jest left. People said he came to that town without a woman. I back-trailed my man through Arkansas an’ Mississippi, an’ the old trail got hot again in Texas. I found the town where he first went after leavin’ home. An’ here I got track of Milly. I found a cabin where she had given birth to her baby. There was no way to tell whether she’d been kept a prisoner or not. The feller who owned the place was a mean, silent sort of a skunk, an’ as I was leavin’ I jest took a chance an’ left my mark on him. Then I went home again.

“It was to find I hadn’t any home, no more. Father had been dead a year. Frank Erne still lived in the house where Milly had left him. I stayed with him awhile, an’ I grew old watchin’ him. His farm had gone to weed, his cattle had strayed or been rustled, his house weathered till it wouldn’t keep out rain nor wind. An’ Frank set on the porch and whittled sticks, an’ day by day wasted away. There was times when he ranted about like a crazy man, but mostly he was always sittin’ an’ starin’ with eyes that made a man curse. I figured Frank had a secret fear that I needed to know. An’ when I told him I’d trailed Milly for near three years an’ had got trace of her, an’ saw where she’d had her baby, I thought he would drop dead at my feet. An’ when he’d come round more natural-like he begged me to give up the trail. But he wouldn’t explain. So I let him alone, an’ watched him day en’ night.

“An’ I found there was one thing still precious to him, an’ it was a little drawer where he kept his papers. This was in the room where he slept. An’ it ‘peered he seldom slept. But after bein’ patient I got the contents of that drawer an’ found two letters from Milly. One was a long letter written a few months after her disappearance. She had been bound an’ gagged an’ dragged away from her home by three men, an’ she named them — Hurd, Metzger, Slack. They was strangers to her. She was taken to the little town where I found trace of her two years after. But she didn’t send the letter from that town. There she was penned in. ‘Peared that the proselytes, who had, of course, come on the scene, was not runnin’ any risks of losin’ her. She went on to say that for a time she was out of her head, an’ when she got right again all that kept her alive was the baby. It was a beautiful baby, she said, an’ all she thought an’ dreamed of was somehow to get baby back to its father, an’ then she’d thankfully lay down and die. An’ the letter ended abrupt, in the middle of a sentence, en’ it wasn’t signed.

“The second letter was written more than two years after the first. It was from Salt Lake City. It simply said that Milly had heard her brother was on her trail. She asked Frank to tell her brother to give up the search because if he didn’t she would suffer in a way too horrible to tell. She didn’t beg. She just stated a fact an’ made the simple request. An’ she ended that letter by sayin’ she would soon leave Salt Lake City with the man she had come to love, en’ would never be heard of again.

“I recognized Milly’s handwritin’, an’ I recognized her way of puttin’ things. But that second letter told me of some great change in her. Ponderin’ over it, I felt at last she’d either come to love that feller an’ his religion, or some terrible fear made her lie an’ say so. I couldn’t be sure which. But, of course, I meant to find out. I’ll say here, if I’d known Mormons then as I do now I’d left Milly to her fate. For mebbe she was right about what she’d suffer if I kept on her trail. But I was young an’ wild them days. First I went to the town where she’d first been taken, an’ I went to the place where she’d been kept. I got that skunk who owned the place, an’ took him out in the woods, an’ made him tell all he knowed. That wasn’t much as to length, but it was pure hell’s-fire in substance. This time I left him some incapacitated for any more skunk work short of hell. Then I hit the trail for Utah.

“That was fourteen years ago. I saw the incomin’ of most of the Mormons. It was a wild country an’ a wild time. I rode from town to town, village to village, ranch to ranch, camp to camp. I never stayed long in one place. I never had but one idea. I never rested. Four years went by, an’ I knowed every trail in northern Utah. I kept on an’ as time went by, an’ I’d begun to grow old in my search, I had firmer, blinder faith in whatever was guidin’ me. Once I read about a feller who sailed the seven seas an’ traveled the world, an’ he had a story to tell, an’ whenever he seen the man to whom he must tell that story he knowed him on sight. I was like that, only I had a question to ask. An’ always I knew the man of whom I must ask. So I never really lost the trail, though for many years it was the dimmest trail ever followed by any man.

“Then come a change in my luck. Along in Central Utah I rounded up Hurd, an’ I whispered somethin’ in his ear, an’ watched his face, an’ then throwed a gun against his bowels. An’ he died with his teeth so tight shut I couldn’t have pried them open with a knife. Slack an’ Metzger that same year both heard me whisper the same question, an’ neither would they speak a word when they lay dyin’. Long before I’d learned no man of this breed or class — or God knows what — would give up any secrets! I had to see in a man’s fear of death the connections with Milly Erne’s fate. An’ as the years passed at long intervals I would find such a man.

“So as I drifted on the long trail down into southern Utah my name preceded me, an’ I had to meet a people prepared for me, an’ ready with guns. They made me a gun-man. An’ that suited me. In all this time signs of the proselyter an’ the giant with the blue-ice eyes an’ the gold beard seemed to fade dimmer out of the trail. Only twice in ten years did I find a trace of that mysterious man who had visited the proselyter at my home village. What he had to do with Milly’s fate was beyond all hope for me to learn, unless my guidin’ spirit led me to him! As for the other man, I knew, as sure as I breathed en’ the stars shone en’ the wind blew, that I’d meet him some day.

“Eighteen years I’ve been on the trail. An’ it led me to the last lonely villages of the Utah border. Eighteen years!... I feel pretty old now. I was only twenty when I hit that trail. Well, as I told you, back here a ways a Gentile said Jane Withersteen could tell me about Milly Erne an’ show me her grave!”

The low voice ceased, and Lassiter slowly turned his sombrero round and round, and appeared to be counting the silver ornaments on the band. Jane, leaning toward him, sat as if petrified, listening intently, waiting to hear more. She could have shrieked, but power of tongue and lips were denied her. She saw only this sad, gray, passion-worn man, and she heard only the faint rustling of the leaves.

“Well, I came to Cottonwoods,” went on Lassiter, “an’ you showed me Milly’s grave. An’ though your teeth have been shut tighter ‘n them of all the dead men lyin’ back along that trail, jest the same you told me the secret I’ve lived these eighteen years to hear! Jane, I said you’d tell me without ever me askin’. I didn’t need to ask my question here. The day, you remember, when that fat party throwed a gun on me in your court, an’—”

“Oh! Hush!” whispered Jane, blindly holding up her hands.

“I seen in your face that Dyer, now a bishop, was the proselyter who ruined Milly Erne.”

For an instant Jane Withersteen’s brain was a whirling chaos and she recovered to find herself grasping at Lassiter like one drowning. And as if by a lightning stroke she sprang from her dull apathy into exquisite torture.

“It’s a lie! Lassiter! No, no!” she moaned. “I swear — you’re wrong!”

“Stop! You’d perjure yourself! But I’ll spare you that. You poor woman! Still blind! Still faithful!... Listen. I know. Let that settle it. An’ I give up my purpose!”

“What is it — you say?”

“I give up my purpose. I’ve come to see an’ feel differently. I can’t help poor Milly. An’ I’ve outgrowed revenge. I’ve come to see I can be no judge for men. I can’t kill a man jest for hate. Hate ain’t the same with me since I loved you and little Fay.”

“Lassiter! You mean you won’t kill him?” Jane whispered.

“No.”

“For my sake?”

“I reckon. I can’t understand, but I’ll respect your feelin’s.”

“Because you — oh, because you love me?... Eighteen years! You were that terrible Lassiter! And now — because you love me?”

“That’s it, Jane.”

“Oh, you’ll make me love you! How can I help but love you? My heart must be stone. But — oh, Lassiter, wait, wait! Give me time. I’m not what I was. Once it was so easy to love. Now it’s easy to hate. Wait! My faith in God — some God — still lives. By it I see happier times for you, poor passion-swayed wanderer! For me — a miserable, broken woman. I loved your sister Milly. I will love you. I can’t have fallen so low — I can’t be so abandoned by God — that I’ve no love left to give you. Wait! Let us forget Milly’s sad life. Ah, I knew it as no one else on earth! There’s one thing I shall tell you — if you are at my death-bed, but I can’t speak now.”

“I reckon I don’t want to hear no more,” said Lassiter.

Jane leaned against him, as if some pent-up force had rent its way out, she fell into a paroxysm of weeping. Lassiter held her in silent sympathy. By degrees she regained composure, and she was rising, sensible of being relieved of a weighty burden, when a sudden start on Lassiter’s part alarmed her.

“I heard hosses — hosses with muffled hoofs!” he said; and he got up guardedly.

“Where’s Fay?” asked Jane, hurriedly glancing round the shady knoll. The bright-haired child, who had appeared to be close all the time, was not in sight.

“Fay!” called Jane.

No answering shout of glee. No patter of flying feet. Jane saw Lassiter stiffen.

“Fay — oh — Fay!” Jane almost screamed.

The leaves quivered and rustled; a lonesome cricket chirped in the grass, a bee hummed by. The silence of the waning afternoon breathed hateful portent. It terrified Jane. When had silence been so infernal?

“She’s — only — strayed — out — of earshot,” faltered Jane, looking at Lassiter.

Pale, rigid as a statue, the rider stood, not in listening, searching posture, but in one of doomed certainty. Suddenly he grasped Jane with an iron hand, and, turning his face from her gaze, he strode with her from the knoll.

“See — Fay played here last — a house of stones an’ sticks.... An’ here’s a corral of pebbles with leaves for hosses,” said Lassiter, stridently, and pointed to the ground. “Back an’ forth she trailed here.... See, she’s buried somethin’ — a dead grasshopper — there’s a tombstone... here she went, chasin’ a lizard — see the tiny streaked trail... she pulled bark off this cottonwood... look in the dust of the path — the letters you taught her — she’s drawn pictures of birds en’ hosses an’ people.... Look, a cross! Oh, Jane, your cross!”

Lassiter dragged Jane on, and as if from a book read the meaning of little Fay’s trail. All the way down the knoll, through the shrubbery, round and round a cottonwood, Fay’s vagrant fancy left records of her sweet musings and innocent play. Long had she lingered round a bird-nest to leave therein the gaudy wing of a butterfly. Long had she played beside the running stream sending adrift vessels freighted with pebbly cargo. Then she had wandered through the deep grass, her tiny feet scarcely turning a fragile blade, and she had dreamed beside some old faded flowers. Thus her steps led her into the broad lane. The little dimpled imprints of her bare feet showed clean-cut in the dust they went a little way down the lane; and then, at a point where they stopped, the great tracks of a man led out from the shrubbery and returned.

CHAPTER XX. LASSITER’S WAY

FOOTPRINTS TOLD THE story of little Fay’s abduction. In anguish Jane Withersteen turned speechlessly to Lassiter, and, confirming her fears, she saw him gray-faced, aged all in a moment, stricken as if by a mortal blow.

Then all her life seemed to fall about her in wreck and ruin.

“It’s all over,” she heard her voice whisper. “It’s ended. I’m going — I’m going—”

“Where?” demanded Lassiter, suddenly looming darkly over her.

“To — to those cruel men—”

“Speak names!” thundered Lassiter.

“To Bishop Dyer — to Tull,” went on Jane, shocked into obedience.

“Well — what for?”

“I want little Fay. I can’t live without her. They’ve stolen her as they stole Milly Erne’s child. I must have little Fay. I want only her. I give up. I’ll go and tell Bishop Dyer — I’m broken. I’ll tell him I’m ready for the yoke — only give me back Fay — and — and I’ll marry Tull!”

“Never!” hissed Lassiter.

His long arm leaped at her. Almost running, he dragged her under the cottonwoods, across the court, into the huge hall of Withersteen House, and he shut the door with a force that jarred the heavy walls. Black Star and Night and Bells, since their return, had been locked in this hall, and now they stamped on the stone floor.

Lassiter released Jane and like a dizzy man swayed from her with a hoarse cry and leaned shaking against a table where he kept his rider’s accoutrements. He began to fumble in his saddlebags. His action brought a clinking, metallic sound — the rattling of gun-cartridges. His fingers trembled as he slipped cartridges into an extra belt. But as he buckled it over the one he habitually wore his hands became steady. This second belt contained two guns, smaller than the black ones swinging low, and he slipped them round so that his coat hid them. Then he fell to swift action. Jane Withersteen watched him, fascinated but uncomprehending and she saw him rapidly saddle Black Star and Night. Then he drew her into the light of the huge windows, standing over her, gripping her arm with fingers like cold steel.

“Yes, Jane, it’s ended — but you’re not goin’ to Dyer!... I’m goin’ instead!”

Looking at him — he was so terrible of aspect — she could not comprehend his words. Who was this man with the face gray as death, with eyes that would have made her shriek had she the strength, with the strange, ruthlessly bitter lips? Where was the gentle Lassiter? What was this presence in the hall, about him, about her — this cold, invisible presence?

“Yes, it’s ended, Jane,” he was saying, so awfully quiet and cool and implacable, “an’ I’m goin’ to make a little call. I’ll lock you in here, an’ when I get back have the saddle-bags full of meat an bread. An’ be ready to ride!”

“Lassiter!” cried Jane.

Desperately she tried to meet his gray eyes, in vain, desperately she tried again, fought herself as feeling and thought resurged in torment, and she succeeded, and then she knew.

“No — no — no!” she wailed. “You said you’d foregone your vengeance. You promised not to kill Bishop Dyer.”

“If you want to talk to me about him — leave off the Bishop. I don’t understand that name, or its use.”

“Oh, hadn’t you foregone your vengeance on — on Dyer?

“Yes.”

“But — your actions — your words — your guns — your terrible looks!... They don’t seem foregoing vengeance?”

“Jane, now it’s justice.”

“You’ll — kill him?”

“If God lets me live another hour! If not God — then the devil who drives me!”

“You’ll kill him — for yourself — for your vengeful hate?”

“No!”

“For Milly Erne’s sake?”

“No.”

“For little Fay’s?”

“No!”

“Oh — for whose?”

“For yours!”

“His blood on my soul!” whispered Jane, and she fell to her knees. This was the long-pending hour of fruition. And the habit of years — the religious passion of her life — leaped from lethargy, and the long months of gradual drifting to doubt were as if they had never been. “If you spill his blood it’ll be on my soul — and on my father’s. Listen.” And she clasped his knees, and clung there as he tried to raise her. “Listen. Am I nothing to you?”

“Woman — don’t trifle at words! I love you! An’ I’ll soon prove it.”

“I’ll give myself to you — I’ll ride away with you — marry you, if only you’ll spare him?”

His answer was a cold, ringing, terrible laugh.

“Lassiter — I’ll love you. Spare him!”

“No.”

She sprang up in despairing, breaking spirit, and encircled his neck with her arms, and held him in an embrace that he strove vainly to loosen. “Lassiter, would you kill me? I’m fighting my last fight for the principles of my youth — love of religion, love of father. You don’t know — you can’t guess the truth, and I can’t speak ill. I’m losing all. I’m changing. All I’ve gone through is nothing to this hour. Pity me — help me in my weakness. You’re strong again — oh, so cruelly, coldly strong! You’re killing me. I see you — feel you as some other Lassiter! My master, be merciful — spare him!”

His answer was a ruthless smile.

She clung the closer to him, and leaned her panting breast on him, and lifted her face to his. “Lassiter, I do love you! It’s leaped out of my agony. It comes suddenly with a terrible blow of truth. You are a man! I never knew it till now. Some wonderful change came to me when you buckled on these guns and showed that gray, awful face. I loved you then. All my life I’ve loved, but never as now. No woman can love like a broken woman. If it were not for one thing — just one thing — and yet! I can’t speak it — I’d glory in your manhood — the lion in you that means to slay for me. Believe me — and spare Dyer. Be merciful — great as it’s in you to be great.... Oh, listen and believe — I have nothing, but I’m a woman — a beautiful woman, Lassiter — a passionate, loving woman — and I love you! Take me — hide me in some wild place — and love me and mend my broken heart. Spare him and take me away.”

She lifted her face closer and closer to his, until their lips nearly touched, and she hung upon his neck, and with strength almost spent pressed and still pressed her palpitating body to his.

“Kiss me!” she whispered, blindly.

“No — not at your price!” he answered. His voice had changed or she had lost clearness of hearing.

“Kiss me!... Are you a man? Kiss me and save me!”

“Jane, you never played fair with me. But now you’re blisterin’ your lips — blackenin’ your soul with lies!”

“By the memory of my mother — by my Bible — no! No, I have no Bible! But by my hope of heaven I swear I love you!”

Lassiter’s gray lips formed soundless words that meant even her love could not avail to bend his will. As if the hold of her arms was that of a child’s he loosened it and stepped away.

“Wait! Don’t go! Oh, hear a last word!... May a more just and merciful God than the God I was taught to worship judge me — forgive me — save me! For I can no longer keep silent!... Lassiter, in pleading for Dyer I’ve been pleading more for my father. My father was a Mormon master, close to the leaders of the church. It was my father who sent Dyer out to proselyte. It was my father who had the blue-ice eye and the beard of gold. It was my father you got trace of in the past years. Truly, Dyer ruined Milly Erne — dragged her from her home — to Utah — to Cottonwoods. But it was for my father! If Milly Erne was ever wife of a Mormon that Mormon was my father! I never knew — never will know whether or not she was a wife. Blind I may be, Lassiter — fanatically faithful to a false religion I may have been but I know justice, and my father is beyond human justice. Surely he is meeting just punishment — somewhere. Always it has appalled me — the thought of your killing Dyer for my father’s sins. So I have prayed!”

“Jane, the past is dead. In my love for you I forgot the past. This thing I’m about to do ain’t for myself or Milly or Fay. It’s not because of anythin’ that ever happened in the past, but for what is happenin’ right now. It’s for you!... An’ listen. Since I was a boy I’ve never thanked God for anythin’. If there is a God — an’ I’ve come to believe it — I thank Him now for the years that made me Lassiter!... I can reach down en’ feel these big guns, en’ know what I can do with them. An’, Jane, only one of the miracles Dyer professes to believe in can save him!”

Again for Jane Withersteen came the spinning of her brain in darkness, and as she whirled in endless chaos she seemed to be falling at the feet of a luminous figure — a man — Lassiter — who had saved her from herself, who could not be changed, who would slay rightfully. Then she slipped into utter blackness.

When she recovered from her faint she became aware that she was lying on a couch near the window in her sitting-room. Her brow felt damp and cold and wet, some one was chafing her hands; she recognized Judkins, and then saw that his lean, hard face wore the hue and look of excessive agitation.

“Judkins!” Her voice broke weakly.

“Aw, Miss Withersteen, you’re comin’ round fine. Now jest lay still a little. You’re all right; everythin’s all right.”

“Where is — he?”

“Who?”

“Lassiter!”

“You needn’t worry none about him.”

“Where is he? Tell me — instantly.”

“Wal, he’s in the other room patchin’ up a few triflin’ bullet holes.”

“Ah!... Bishop’ Dyer?”

“When I seen him last — a matter of half an hour ago, he was on his knees. He was some busy, but he wasn’t prayin’!”

“How strangely you talk! I’ll sit up. I’m — well, strong again. Tell me. Dyer on his knees! What was he doing?”

“Wal, beggin’ your pardon fer blunt talk, Miss Withersteen, Dyer was on his knees an’ not prayin’. You remember his big, broad hands? You’ve seen ’em raised in blessin’ over old gray men an’ little curly-headed children like — like Fay Larkin! Come to think of thet, I disremember ever hearin’ of his liftin’ his big hands in blessin’ over a woman. Wal, when I seen him last — jest a little while ago — he was on his knees, not prayin’, as I remarked — an’ he was pressin’ his big hands over some bigger wounds.”

“Man, you drive me mad! Did Lassiter kill Dyer?”

“Yes.”

“Did he kill Tull?”

“No. Tull’s out of the village with most of his riders. He’s expected back before evenin’. Lassiter will hev to git away before Tull en’ his riders come in. It’s sure death fer him here. An’ wuss fer you, too, Miss Withersteen. There’ll be some of an uprisin’ when Tull gits back.”

“I shall ride away with Lassiter. Judkins, tell me all you saw — all you know about this killing.” She realized, without wonder or amaze, how Judkins’s one word, affirming the death of Dyer — that the catastrophe had fallen — had completed the change whereby she had been molded or beaten or broken into another woman. She felt calm, slightly cold, strong as she had not been strong since the first shadow fell upon her.

“I jest saw about all of it, Miss Withersteen, an’ I’ll be glad to tell you if you’ll only hev patience with me,” said Judkins, earnestly. “You see, I’ve been pecooliarly interested, an’ nat’rully I’m some excited. An’ I talk a lot thet mebbe ain’t necessary, but I can’t help thet.

“I was at the meetin’-house where Dyer was holdin’ court. You know he allus acts as magistrate an’ judge when Tull’s away. An’ the trial was fer tryin’ what’s left of my boy riders — thet helped me hold your cattle — fer a lot of hatched-up things the boys never did. We’re used to thet, an’ the boys wouldn’t hev minded bein’ locked up fer a while, or hevin’ to dig ditches, or whatever the judge laid down. You see, I divided the gold you give me among all my boys, an’ they all hid it, en’ they all feel rich. Howsomever, court was adjourned before the judge passed sentence. Yes, ma’m, court was adjourned some strange an’ quick, much as if lightnin’ hed struck the meetin’-house.

“I hed trouble attendin’ the trial, but I got in. There was a good many people there, all my boys, an’ Judge Dyer with his several clerks. Also he hed with him the five riders who’ve been guardin’ him pretty close of late. They was Carter, Wright, Jengessen, an’ two new riders from Stone Bridge. I didn’t hear their names, but I heard they was handy men with guns an’ they looked more like rustlers than riders. Anyway, there they was, the five all in a row.

“Judge Dyer was tellin’ Willie Kern, one of my best an’ steadiest boys — Dyer was tellin’ him how there was a ditch opened near Willie’s home lettin’ water through his lot, where it hadn’t ought to go. An’ Willie was tryin’ to git a word in to prove he wasn’t at home all the day it happened — which was true, as I know — but Willie couldn’t git a word in, an’ then Judge Dyer went on layin’ down the law. An’ all to onct he happened to look down the long room. An’ if ever any man turned to stone he was thet man.

“Nat’rully I looked back to see what hed acted so powerful strange on the judge. An’ there, half-way up the room, in the middle of the wide aisle, stood Lassiter! All white an’ black he looked, an’ I can’t think of anythin’ he resembled, onless it’s death. Venters made thet same room some still an’ chilly when he called Tull; but this was different. I give my word, Miss Withersteen, thet I went cold to my very marrow. I don’t know why. But Lassiter had a way about him thet’s awful. He spoke a word — a name — I couldn’t understand it, though he spoke clear as a bell. I was too excited, mebbe. Judge Dyer must hev understood it, an’ a lot more thet was mystery to me, for he pitched forrard out of his chair right onto the platform.

“Then them five riders, Dyer’s bodyguards, they jumped up, an’ two of them thet I found out afterward were the strangers from Stone Bridge, they piled right out of a winder, so quick you couldn’t catch your breath. It was plain they wasn’t Mormons.

“Jengessen, Carter, an’ Wright eyed Lassiter, for what must hev been a second an’ seemed like an hour, an’ they went white en’ strung. But they didn’t weaken nor lose their nerve.

“I hed a good look at Lassiter. He stood sort of stiff, bendin’ a little, an’ both his arms were crooked an’ his hands looked like a hawk’s claws. But there ain’t no tellin’ how his eyes looked. I know this, though, an’ thet is his eyes could read the mind of any man about to throw a gun. An’ in watchin’ him, of course, I couldn’t see the three men go fer their guns. An’ though I was lookin’ right at Lassiter — lookin’ hard — I couldn’t see how he drawed. He was quicker ‘n eyesight — thet’s all. But I seen the red spurtin’ of his guns, en’ heard his shots jest the very littlest instant before I heard the shots of the riders. An’ when I turned, Wright an’ Carter was down, en’ Jengessen, who’s tough like a steer, was pullin’ the trigger of a wabblin’ gun. But it was plain he was shot through, plumb center. An’ sudden he fell with a crash, an’ his gun clattered on the floor.

“Then there was a hell of a silence. Nobody breathed. Sartin I didn’t, anyway. I saw Lassiter slip a smokin’ gun back in a belt. But he hadn’t throwed either of the big black guns, an’ I thought thet strange. An’ all this was happenin’ quick — you can’t imagine how quick.

“There come a scrapin’ on the floor an’ Dyer got up, his face like lead. I wanted to watch Lassiter, but Dyer’s face, onct I seen it like thet, glued my eyes. I seen him go fer his gun — why, I could hev done better, quicker — an’ then there was a thunderin’ shot from Lassiter, an’ it hit Dyer’s right arm, an’ his gun went off as it dropped. He looked at Lassiter like a cornered sage-wolf, an’ sort of howled, an’ reached down fer his gun. He’d jest picked it off the floor an’ was raisin’ it when another thunderin’ shot almost tore thet arm off — so it seemed to me. The gun dropped again an’ he went down on his knees, kind of flounderin’ after it. It was some strange an’ terrible to see his awful earnestness. Why would such a man cling so to life? Anyway, he got the gun with left hand an’ was raisin’ it, pullin’ trigger in his madness, when the third thunderin’ shot hit his left arm, an’ he dropped the gun again. But thet left arm wasn’t useless yet, fer he grabbed up the gun, an’ with a shakin’ aim thet would hev been pitiful to me — in any other man — he began to shoot. One wild bullet struck a man twenty feet from Lassiter. An’ it killed thet man, as I seen afterward. Then come a bunch of thunderin’ shots — nine I calkilated after, fer they come so quick I couldn’t count them — an’ I knew Lassiter hed turned the black guns loose on Dyer.

“I’m tellin’ you straight, Miss Withersteen, fer I want you to know. Afterward you’ll git over it. I’ve seen some soul-rackin’ scenes on this Utah border, but this was the awfulest. I remember I closed my eyes, an’ fer a minute I thought of the strangest things, out of place there, such as you’d never dream would come to mind. I saw the sage, an’ runnin’ hosses — an’ thet’s the beautfulest sight to me — an’ I saw dim things in the dark, an’ there was a kind of hummin’ in my ears. An’ I remember distinctly — fer it was what made all these things whirl out of my mind an’ opened my eyes — I remember distinctly it was the smell of gunpowder.

“The court had about adjourned fer thet judge. He was on his knees, en’ he wasn’t prayin’. He was gaspin’ an’ tryin’ to press his big, floppin’, crippled hands over his body. Lassiter had sent all those last thunderin’ shots through his body. Thet was Lassiter’s way.

“An’ Lassiter spoke, en’ if I ever forgit his words I’ll never forgit the sound of his voice.

“‘Proselyter, I reckon you’d better call quick on thet God who reveals Hisself to you on earth, because He won’t be visitin’ the place you’re goin’ to!”

“An’ then I seen Dyer look at his big, hangin’ hands thet wasn’t big enough fer the last work he set them to. An’ he looked up at Lassiter. An’ then he stared horrible at somethin’ thet wasn’t Lassiter, nor anyone there, nor the room, nor the branches of purple sage peepin’ into the winder. Whatever he seen, it was with the look of a man who discovers somethin’ too late. Thet’s a terrible look!... An’ with a horrible understandin’ cry he slid forrard on his face.”

Judkins paused in his narrative, breathing heavily while he wiped his perspiring brow.

“Thet’s about all,” he concluded. “Lassiter left the meetin’-house an’ I hurried to catch up with him. He was bleedin’ from three gunshots, none of them much to bother him. An’ we come right up here. I found you layin’ in the hall, an’ I hed to work some over you.”

Jane Withersteen offered up no prayer for Dyer’s soul.

Lassiter’s step sounded in the hall — the familiar soft, silver-clinking step — and she heard it with thrilling new emotions in which was a vague joy in her very fear of him. The door opened, and she saw him, the old Lassiter, slow, easy, gentle, cool, yet not exactly the same Lassiter. She rose, and for a moment her eyes blurred and swam in tears.

“Are you — all — all right?” she asked, tremulously.

“I reckon.”

“Lassiter, I’ll ride away with you. Hide me till danger is past — till we are forgotten — then take me where you will. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God!”

He kissed her hand with the quaint grace and courtesy that came to him in rare moments.

“Black Star an’ Night are ready,” he said, simply.

His quiet mention of the black racers spurred Jane to action. Hurrying to her room, she changed to her rider’s suit, packed her jewelry, and the gold that was left, and all the woman’s apparel for which there was space in the saddle-bags, and then returned to the hall. Black Star stamped his iron-shod hoofs and tossed his beautiful head, and eyed her with knowing eyes.

“Judkins, I give Bells to you,” said Jane. “I hope you will always keep him and be good to him.”

Judkins mumbled thanks that he could not speak fluently, and his eyes flashed.

Lassiter strapped Jane’s saddle-bags upon Black Star, and led the racers out into the court.

“Judkins, you ride with Jane out into the sage. If you see any riders comin’ shout quick twice. An’, Jane, don’t look back! I’ll catch up soon. We’ll get to the break into the Pass before midnight, an’ then wait until mornin’ to go down.”

Black Star bent his graceful neck and bowed his noble head, and his broad shoulders yielded as he knelt for Jane to mount.

She rode out of the court beside Judkins, through the grove, across the wide lane into the sage, and she realized that she was leaving Withersteen House forever, and she did not look back. A strange, dreamy, calm peace pervaded her soul. Her doom had fallen upon her, but, instead of finding life no longer worth living she found it doubly significant, full of sweetness as the western breeze, beautiful and unknown as the sage-slope stretching its purple sunset shadows before her. She became aware of Judkins’s hand touching hers; she heard him speak a husky good-by; then into the place of Bells shot the dead-black, keen, racy nose of Night, and she knew Lassiter rode beside her.

“Don’t — look — back!” he said, and his voice, too, was not clear.

Facing straight ahead, seeing only the waving, shadowy sage, Jane held out her gauntleted hand, to feel it enclosed in strong clasp. So she rode on without a backward glance at the beautiful grove of Cottonwoods. She did not seem to think of the past of what she left forever, but of the color and mystery and wildness of the sage-slope leading down to Deception Pass, and of the future. She watched the shadows lengthen down the slope; she felt the cool west wind sweeping by from the rear; and she wondered at low, yellow clouds sailing swiftly over her and beyond.

“Don’t look — back!” said Lassiter.

Thick-driving belts of smoke traveled by on the wind, and with it came a strong, pungent odor of burning wood.

Lassiter had fired Withersteen House! But Jane did not look back.

A misty veil obscured the clear, searching gaze she had kept steadfastly upon the purple slope and the dim lines of canyons. It passed, as passed the rolling clouds of smoke, and she saw the valley deepening into the shades of twilight. Night came on, swift as the fleet racers, and stars peeped out to brighten and grow, and the huge, windy, eastern heave of sage-level paled under a rising moon and turned to silver. Blanched in moonlight, the sage yet seemed to hold its hue of purple and was infinitely more wild and lonely. So the night hours wore on, and Jane Withersteen never once looked back.

CHAPTER XXI. BLACK STAR AND NIGHT

THE TIME HAD come for Venters and Bess to leave their retreat. They were at great pains to choose the few things they would be able to carry with them on the journey out of Utah.

“Bern, whatever kind of a pack’s this, anyhow?” questioned Bess, rising from her work with reddened face.

Venters, absorbed in his own task, did not look up at all, and in reply said he had brought so much from Cottonwoods that he did not recollect the half of it.

“A woman packed this!” Bess exclaimed.

He scarcely caught her meaning, but the peculiar tone of her voice caused him instantly to rise, and he saw Bess on her knees before an open pack which he recognized as the one given him by Jane.

“By George!” he ejaculated, guiltily, and then at sight of Bess’s face he laughed outright.

“A woman packed this,” she repeated, fixing woeful, tragic eyes on him.

“Well, is that a crime?’

“There — there is a woman, after all!”

“Now Bess—”

“You’ve lied to me!”

Then and there Venters found it imperative to postpone work for the present. All her life Bess had been isolated, but she had inherited certain elements of the eternal feminine.

“But there was a woman and you did lie to me,” she kept repeating, after he had explained.

“What of that? Bess, I’ll get angry at you in a moment. Remember you’ve been pent up all your life. I venture to say that if you’d been out in the world you d have had a dozen sweethearts and have told many a lie before this.”

“I wouldn’t anything of the kind,” declared Bess, indignantly.

“Well — perhaps not lie. But you’d have had the sweethearts — You couldn’t have helped that — being so pretty.”

This remark appeared to be a very clever and fortunate one; and the work of selecting and then of stowing all the packs in the cave went on without further interruption.

Venters closed up the opening of the cave with a thatch of willows and aspens, so that not even a bird or a rat could get in to the sacks of grain. And this work was in order with the precaution habitually observed by him. He might not be able to get out of Utah, and have to return to the valley. But he owed it to Bess to make the attempt, and in case they were compelled to turn back he wanted to find that fine store of food and grain intact. The outfit of implements and utensils he packed away in another cave.

“Bess, we have enough to live here all our lives,” he said once, dreamily.

“Shall I go roll Balancing Rock?” she asked, in light speech, but with deep-blue fire in her eyes.

“No — no.”

“Ah, you don’t forget the gold and the world,” she sighed.

“Child, you forget the beautiful dresses and the travel — and everything.”

“Oh, I want to go. But I want to stay!”

“I feel the same way.”

They let the eight calves out of the corral, and kept only two of the burros Venters had brought from Cottonwoods. These they intended to ride. Bess freed all her pets — the quail and rabbits and foxes.

The last sunset and twilight and night were both the sweetest and saddest they had ever spent in Surprise Valley. Morning brought keen exhilaration and excitement. When Venters had saddled the two burros, strapped on the light packs and the two canteens, the sunlight was dispersing the lazy shadows from the valley. Taking a last look at the caves and the silver spruces, Venters and Bess made a reluctant start, leading the burros. Ring and Whitie looked keen and knowing. Something seemed to drag at Venters’s feet and he noticed Bess lagged behind. Never had the climb from terrace to bridge appeared so long.

Not till they reached the opening of the gorge did they stop to rest and take one last look at the valley. The tremendous arch of stone curved clear and sharp in outline against the morning sky. And through it streaked the golden shaft. The valley seemed an enchanted circle of glorious veils of gold and wraiths of white and silver haze and dim, blue, moving shade — beautiful and wild and unreal as a dream.

“We — we can — th — think of it — always — re — remember,” sobbed Bess.

“Hush! Don’t cry. Our valley has only fitted us for a better life somewhere. Come!”

They entered the gorge and he closed the willow gate. From rosy, golden morning light they passed into cool, dense gloom. The burros pattered up the trail with little hollow-cracking steps. And the gorge widened to narrow outlet and the gloom lightened to gray. At the divide they halted for another rest. Venters’s keen, remembering gaze searched Balancing Rock, and the long incline, and the cracked toppling walls, but failed to note the slightest change.

The dogs led the descent; then came Bess leading her burro; then Venters leading his. Bess kept her eyes bent downward. Venters, however, had an irresistible desire to look upward at Balancing Rock. It had always haunted him, and now he wondered if he were really to get through the outlet before the huge stone thundered down. He fancied that would be a miracle. Every few steps he answered to the strange, nervous fear and turned to make sure the rock still stood like a giant statue. And, as he descended, it grew dimmer in his sight. It changed form; it swayed it nodded darkly; and at last, in his heightened fancy, he saw it heave and roll. As in a dream when he felt himself falling yet knew he would never fall, so he saw this long-standing thunderbolt of the little stone-men plunge down to close forever the outlet to Deception Pass.

And while he was giving way to unaccountable dread imaginations the descent was accomplished without mishap.

“I’m glad that’s over,” he said, breathing more freely. “I hope I’m by that hanging rock for good and all. Since almost the moment I first saw it I’ve had an idea that it was waiting for me. Now, when it does fall, if I’m thousands of miles away, I’ll hear it.”

With the first glimpses of the smooth slope leading down to the grotesque cedars and out to the Pass, Venters’s cool nerve returned. One long survey to the left, then one to the right, satisfied his caution. Leading the burros down to the spur of rock, he halted at the steep incline.

“Bess, here’s the bad place, the place I told you about, with the cut steps. You start down, leading your burro. Take your time and hold on to him if you slip. I’ve got a rope on him and a half-hitch on this point of rock, so I can let him down safely. Coming up here was a killing job. But it’ll be easy going down.”

Both burros passed down the difficult stairs cut by the cliff-dwellers, and did it without a misstep. After that the descent down the slope and over the mile of scrawled, ripped, and ridged rock required only careful guidance, and Venters got the burros to level ground in a condition that caused him to congratulate himself.

“Oh, if we only had Wrangle!” exclaimed Venters. “But we’re lucky. That’s the worst of our trail passed. We’ve only men to fear now. If we get up in the sage we can hide and slip along like coyotes.”

They mounted and rode west through the valley and entered the canyon. From time to time Venters walked, leading his burro. When they got by all the canyons and gullies opening into the Pass they went faster and with fewer halts. Venters did not confide in Bess the alarming fact that he had seen horses and smoke less than a mile up one of the intersecting canyons. He did not talk at all. And long after he had passed this canyon and felt secure once more in the certainty that they had been unobserved he never relaxed his watchfulness. But he did not walk any more, and he kept the burros at a steady trot. Night fell before they reached the last water in the Pass and they made camp by starlight. Venters did not want the burros to stray, so he tied them with long halters in the grass near the spring. Bess, tired out and silent, laid her head in a saddle and went to sleep between the two dogs. Venters did not close his eyes. The canyon silence appeared full of the low, continuous hum of insects. He listened until the hum grew into a roar, and then, breaking the spell, once more he heard it low and clear. He watched the stars and the moving shadows, and always his glance returned to the girl’s dimly pale face. And he remembered how white and still it had once looked in the starlight. And again stern thought fought his strange fancies. Would all his labor and his love be for naught? Would he lose her, after all? What did the dark shadow around her portend? Did calamity lurk on that long upland trail through the sage? Why should his heart swell and throb with nameless fear? He listened to the silence and told himself that in the broad light of day he could dispel this leaden-weighted dread.

At the first hint of gray over the eastern rim he awoke Bess, saddled the burros, and began the day’s travel. He wanted to get out of the Pass before there was any chance of riders coming down. They gained the break as the first red rays of the rising sun colored the rim.

For once, so eager was he to get up to level ground, he did not send Ring or Whitie in advance. Encouraging Bess to hurry pulling at his patient, plodding burro, he climbed the soft, steep trail.

Brighter and brighter grew the light. He mounted the last broken edge of rim to have the sun-fired, purple sage-slope burst upon him as a glory. Bess panted up to his side, tugging on the halter of her burro.

“We’re up!” he cried, joyously. “There’s not a dot on the sage. We’re safe. We’ll not be seen! Oh, Bess—”

Ring growled and sniffed the keen air and bristled. Venters clutched at his rifle. Whitie sometimes made a mistake, but Ring never. The dull thud of hoofs almost deprived Venters of power to turn and see from where disaster threatened. He felt his eyes dilate as he stared at Lassiter leading Black Star and Night out of the sage, with Jane Withersteen, in rider’s costume, close beside them.

For an instant Venters felt himself whirl dizzily in the center of vast circles of sage. He recovered partially, enough to see Lassiter standing with a glad smile and Jane riveted in astonishment.

“Why, Bern!” she exclaimed. “How good it is to see you! We’re riding away, you see. The storm burst — and I’m a ruined woman!... I thought you were alone.”

Venters, unable to speak for consternation, and bewildered out of all sense of what he ought or ought not to do, simply stared at Jane.

“Son, where are you bound for?” asked Lassiter.

“Not safe — where I was. I’m — we’re going out of Utah — back East,” he found tongue to say.

“I reckon this meetin’s the luckiest thing that ever happened to you an’ to me — an’ to Jane — an’ to Bess,” said Lassiter, coolly.

“Bess!” cried Jane, with a sudden leap of blood to her pale cheek.

It was entirely beyond Venters to see any luck in that meeting.

Jane Withersteen took one flashing, woman’s glance at Bess’s scarlet face, at her slender, shapely form.

“Venters! is this a girl — a woman?” she questioned, in a voice that stung.

“Yes.”

“Did you have her in that wonderful valley?”

“Yes, but Jane—”

“All the time you were gone?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t tell—”

“Was it for her you asked me to give you supplies? Was it for her that you wanted to make your valley a paradise?”

“Oh — Jane—”

“Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, you liar!” And with these passionate words Jane Withersteen succumbed to fury. For the second time in her life she fell into the ungovernable rage that had been her father’s weakness. And it was worse than his, for she was a jealous woman — jealous even of her friends.

As best he could, he bore the brunt of her anger. It was not only his deceit to her that she visited upon him, but her betrayal by religion, by life itself.

Her passion, like fire at white heat, consumed itself in little time. Her physical strength failed, and still her spirit attempted to go on in magnificent denunciation of those who had wronged her. Like a tree cut deep into its roots, she began to quiver and shake, and her anger weakened into despair. And her ringing voice sank into a broken, husky whisper. Then, spent and pitiable, upheld by Lassiter’s arm, she turned and hid her face in Black Star’s mane.

Numb as Venters was when at length Jane Withersteen lifted her head and looked at him, he yet suffered a pang.

“Jane, the girl is innocent!” he cried.

“Can you expect me to believe that?” she asked, with weary, bitter eyes.

“I’m not that kind of a liar. And you know it. If I lied — if I kept silent when honor should have made me speak, it was to spare you. I came to Cottonwoods to tell you. But I couldn’t add to your pain. I intended to tell you I had come to love this girl. But, Jane I hadn’t forgotten how good you were to me. I haven’t changed at all toward you. I prize your friendship as I always have. But, however it may look to you — don’t be unjust. The girl is innocent. Ask Lassiter.”

“Jane, she’s jest as sweet an’ innocent as little Fay,” said Lassiter. There was a faint smile upon his face and a beautiful light.

Venters saw, and knew that Lassiter saw, how Jane Withersteen’s tortured soul wrestled with hate and threw it — with scorn doubt, suspicion, and overcame all.

“Bern, if in my misery I accused you unjustly, I crave forgiveness,” she said. “I’m not what I once was. Tell me — who is this girl?”

“Jane, she is Oldring’s daughter, and his Masked Rider. Lassiter will tell you how I shot her for a rustler, saved her life — all the story. It’s a strange story, Jane, as wild as the sage. But it’s true — true as her innocence. That you must believe.”

“Oldring’s Masked Rider! Oldring’s daughter!” exclaimed Jane “And she’s innocent! You ask me to believe much. If this girl is — is what you say, how could she be going away with the man who killed her father?”

“Why did you tell that?” cried Venters, passionately.

Jane’s question had roused Bess out of stupefaction. Her eyes suddenly darkened and dilated. She stepped toward Venters and held up both hands as if to ward off a blow.

“Did — did you kill Oldring?”

“I did, Bess, and I hate myself for it. But you know I never dreamed he was your father. I thought he’d wronged you. I killed him when I was madly jealous.”

For a moment Bess was shocked into silence.

“But he was my father!” she broke out, at last. “And now I must go back — I can’t go with you. It’s all over — that beautiful dream. Oh, I knew it couldn’t come true. You can’t take me now.”

“If you forgive me, Bess, it’ll all come right in the end!” implored Venters.

“It can’t be right. I’ll go back. After all, I loved him. He was good to me. I can’t forget that.”

“If you go back to Oldring’s men I’ll follow you, and then they’ll kill me,” said Venters, hoarsely.

“Oh no, Bern, you’ll not come. Let me go. It’s best for you to forget me. I’ve brought you only pain and dishonor.”

She did not weep. But the sweet bloom and life died out of her face. She looked haggard and sad, all at once stunted; and her hands dropped listlessly; and her head drooped in slow, final acceptance of a hopeless fate.

“Jane, look there!” cried Venters, in despairing grief. “Need you have told her? Where was all your kindness of heart? This girl has had a wretched, lonely life. And I’d found a way to make her happy. You’ve killed it. You’ve killed something sweet and pure and hopeful, just as sure as you breathe.”

“Oh, Bern! It was a slip. I never thought — I never thought!” replied Jane. “How could I tell she didn’t know?”

Lassiter suddenly moved forward, and with the beautiful light on his face now strangely luminous, he looked at Jane and Venters and then let his soft, bright gaze rest on Bess.

“Well, I reckon you’ve all had your say, an’ now it’s Lassiter’s turn. Why, I was jest praying for this meetin’. Bess, jest look here.”

Gently he touched her arm and turned her to face the others, and then outspread his great hand to disclose a shiny, battered gold locket.

“Open it,” he said, with a singularly rich voice.

Bess complied, but listlessly.

“Jane — Venters — come closer,” went on Lassiter. “Take a look at the picture. Don’t you know the woman?”

Jane, after one glance, drew back.

“Milly Erne!” she cried, wonderingly.

Venters, with tingling pulse, with something growing on him, recognized in the faded miniature portrait the eyes of Milly Erne.

“Yes, that’s Milly,” said Lassiter, softly. “Bess, did you ever see her face — look hard — with all your heart an’ soul?”

“The eyes seem to haunt me,” whispered Bess. “Oh, I can’t remember — they’re eyes of my dreams — but — but—”

Lassiter’s strong arm went round her and he bent his head.

“Child, I thought you’d remember her eyes. They’re the same beautiful eyes you’d see if you looked in a mirror or a clear spring. They’re your mother’s eyes. You are Milly Erne’s child. Your name is Elizabeth Erne. You’re not Oldring’s daughter. You’re the daughter of Frank Erne, a man once my best friend. Look! Here’s his picture beside Milly’s. He was handsome, an’ as fine an’ gallant a Southern gentleman as I ever seen. Frank came of an old family. You come of the best of blood, lass, and blood tells.”

Bess slipped through his arm to her knees and hugged the locket to her bosom, and lifted wonderful, yearning eyes.

“It — can’t — be — true!”

“Thank God, lass, it is true,” replied Lassiter. “Jane an’ Bern here — they both recognize Milly. They see Milly in you. They’re so knocked out they can’t tell you, that’s all.”

“Who are you?” whispered Bess.

“I reckon I’m Milly’s brother an’ your uncle!... Uncle Jim! Ain’t that fine?”

“Oh, I can’t believe — Don’t raise me! Bern, let me kneel. I see truth in your face — in Miss Withersteen’s. But let me hear it all — all on my knees. Tell me how it’s true!”

“Well, Elizabeth, listen,” said Lassiter. “Before you was born your father made a mortal enemy of a Mormon named Dyer. They was both ministers an’ come to be rivals. Dyer stole your mother away from her home. She gave birth to you in Texas eighteen years ago. Then she was taken to Utah, from place to place, an’ finally to the last border settlement — Cottonwoods. You was about three years old when you was taken away from Milly. She never knew what had become of you. But she lived a good while hopin’ and prayin’ to have you again. Then she gave up an’ died. An’ I may as well put in here your father died ten years ago. Well, I spent my time tracin’ Milly, an’ some months back I landed in Cottonwoods. An’ jest lately I learned all about you. I had a talk with Oldrin’ an’ told him you was dead, an’ he told me what I had so long been wantin’ to know. It was Dyer, of course, who stole you from Milly. Part reason he was sore because Milly refused to give you Mormon teachin’, but mostly he still hated Frank Erne so infernally that he made a deal with Oldrin’ to take you an’ bring you up as an infamous rustler an’ rustler’s girl. The idea was to break Frank Erne’s heart if he ever came to Utah — to show him his daughter with a band of low rustlers. Well — Oldrin’ took you, brought you up from childhood, an’ then made you his Masked Rider. He made you infamous. He kept that part of the contract, but he learned to love you as a daughter an’ never let any but his own men know you was a girl. I heard him say that with my own ears, an’ I saw his big eyes grow dim. He told me how he had guarded you always, kept you locked up in his absence, was always at your side or near you on those rides that made you famous on the sage. He said he an’ an old rustler whom he trusted had taught you how to read an’ write. They selected the books for you. Dyer had wanted you brought up the vilest of the vile! An’ Oldrin’ brought you up the innocentest of the innocent. He said you didn’t know what vileness was. I can hear his big voice tremble now as he said it. He told me how the men — rustlers an’ outlaws — who from time to time tried to approach you familiarly — he told me how he shot them dead. I’m tellin’ you this ‘specially because you’ve showed such shame — sayin’ you was nameless an’ all that. Nothin’ on earth can be wronger than that idea of yours. An’ the truth of it is here. Oldrin’ swore to me that if Dyer died, releasin’ the contract, he intended to hunt up your father an’ give you back to him. It seems Oldrin’ wasn’t all bad, en’ he sure loved you.”

Venters leaned forward in passionate remorse.

“Oh, Bess! I know Lassiter speaks the truth. For when I shot Oldring he dropped to his knees and fought with unearthly power to speak. And he said: ‘Man — why — didn’t — you — wait? Bess was—’ Then he fell dead. And I’ve been haunted by his look and words. Oh, Bess, what a strange, splendid thing for Oldring to do! It all seems impossible. But, dear, you really are not what you thought.”

“Elizabeth Erne!” cried Jane Withersteen. “I loved your mother and I see her in you!”

What had been incredible from the lips of men became, in the tone, look, and gesture of a woman, a wonderful truth for Bess. With little tremblings of all her slender body she rocked to and fro on her knees. The yearning wistfulness of her eyes changed to solemn splendor of joy. She believed. She was realizing happiness. And as the process of thought was slow, so were the variations of her expression. Her eyes reflected the transformation of her soul. Dark, brooding, hopeless belief — clouds of gloom — drifted, paled, vanished in glorious light. An exquisite rose flush — a glow — shone from her face as she slowly began to rise from her knees. A spirit uplifted her. All that she had held as base dropped from her.

Venters watched her in joy too deep for words. By it he divined something of what Lassiter’s revelation meant to Bess, but he knew he could only faintly understand. That moment when she seemed to be lifted by some spiritual transfiguration was the most beautiful moment of his life. She stood with parted, quivering lips, with hands tightly clasping the locket to her heaving breast. A new conscious pride of worth dignified the old wild, free grace and poise.

“Uncle Jim!” she said, tremulously, with a different smile from any Venters had ever seen on her face.

Lassiter took her into his arms.

“I reckon. It’s powerful fine to hear that,” replied Lassiter, unsteadily.

Venters, feeling his eyes grow hot and wet, turned away, and found himself looking at Jane Withersteen. He had almost forgotten her presence. Tenderness and sympathy were fast hiding traces of her agitation. Venters read her mind — felt the reaction of her noble heart — saw the joy she was beginning to feel at the happiness of others. And suddenly blinded, choked by his emotions, he turned from her also. He knew what she would do presently; she would make some magnificent amend for her anger; she would give some manifestation of her love; probably all in a moment, as she had loved Milly Erne, so would she love Elizabeth Erne.

“‘Pears to me, folks, that we’d better talk a little serious now,” remarked Lassiter, at length. “Time flies.”

“You’re right,” replied Venters, instantly. “I’d forgotten time — place — danger. Lassiter, you’re riding away. Jane’s leaving Withersteen House?”

“Forever,” replied Jane.

“I fired Withersteen House,” said Lassiter.

“Dyer?” questioned Venters, sharply.

“I reckon where Dyer’s gone there won’t be any kidnappin’ of girls.”

“Ah! I knew it. I told Judkins — And Tull?” went on Venters, passionately.

“Tull wasn’t around when I broke loose. By now he’s likely on our trail with his riders.”

“Lassiter, you’re going into the Pass to hide till all this storm blows over?”

“I reckon that’s Jane’s idea. I’m thinkin’ the storm’ll be a powerful long time blowin’ over. I was comin’ to join you in Surprise Valley. You’ll go back now with me?”

“No. I want to take Bess out of Utah. Lassiter, Bess found gold in the valley. We’ve a saddle-bag full of gold. If we can reach Sterling—”

“Man! how’re you ever goin’ to do that? Sterlin’ is a hundred miles.”

“My plan is to ride on, keeping sharp lookout. Somewhere up the trail we’ll take to the sage and go round Cottonwoods and then hit the trail again.”

“It’s a bad plan. You’ll kill the burros in two days.”

“Then we’ll walk.”

“That’s more bad an’ worse. Better go back down the Pass with me.”

“Lassiter, this girl has been hidden all her life in that lonely place,” went on Venters. “Oldring’s men are hunting me. We’d not be safe there any longer. Even if we would be I’d take this chance to get her out. I want to marry her. She shall have some of the pleasures of life — see cities and people. We’ve gold — we’ll be rich. Why, life opens sweet for both of us. And, by Heaven! I’ll get her out or lose my life in the attempt!”

“I reckon if you go on with them burros you’ll lose your life all right. Tull will have riders all over this sage. You can’t get out on them burros. It’s a fool idea. That’s not doin’ best by the girl. Come with me en’ take chances on the rustlers.”

Lassiter’s cool argument made Venters waver, not in determination to go, but in hope of success.

“Bess, I want you to know. Lassiter says the trip’s almost useless now. I’m afraid he’s right. We’ve got about one chance in a hundred to go through. Shall we take it? Shall we go on?”

“We’ll go on,” replied Bess.

“That settles it, Lassiter.”

Lassiter spread wide his hands, as if to signify he could do no more, and his face clouded.

Venters felt a touch on his elbow. Jane stood beside him with a hand on his arm. She was smiling. Something radiated from her, and like an electric current accelerated the motion of his blood.

“Bern, you’d be right to die rather than not take Elizabeth out of Utah — out of this wild country. You must do it. You’ll show her the great world, with all its wonders. Think how little she has seen! Think what delight is in store for her! You have gold, You will be free; you will make her happy. What a glorious prospect! I share it with you. I’ll think of you — dream of you — pray for you.”

“Thank you, Jane,” replied Venters, trying to steady his voice. “It does look bright. Oh, if we were only across that wide, open waste of sage!”

“Bern, the trip’s as good as made. It’ll be safe — easy. It’ll be a glorious ride,” she said, softly.

Venters stared. Had Jane’s troubles made her insane? Lassiter, too, acted queerly, all at once beginning to turn his sombrero round in hands that actually shook.

“You are a rider. She is a rider. This will be the ride of your lives,” added Jane, in that same soft undertone, almost as if she were musing to herself.

“Jane!” he cried.

“I give you Black Star and Night!”

“Black Star and Night!” he echoed.

“It’s done. Lassiter, put our saddle-bags on the burros.”

Only when Lassiter moved swiftly to execute her bidding did Venters’s clogged brain grasp at literal meanings. He leaped to catch Lassiter’s busy hands.

“No, no! What are you doing?” he demanded, in a kind of fury. “I won’t take her racers. What do you think I am? It’d be monstrous. Lassiter! stop it, I say!... You’ve got her to save. You’ve miles and miles to go. Tull is trailing you. There are rustlers in the Pass. Give me back that saddle-bag!”

“Son — cool down,” returned Lassiter, in a voice he might have used to a child. But the grip with which he tore away Venters’s grasping hands was that of a giant. “Listen — you fool boy! Jane’s sized up the situation. The burros’ll do for us. We’ll sneak along an’ hide. I’ll take your dogs an’ your rifle. Why, it’s the trick. The blacks are yours, an’ sure as I can throw a gun you’re goin’ to ride safe out of the sage.”

“Jane — stop him — please stop him,” gasped Venters. “I’ve lost my strength. I can’t do — anything. This is hell for me! Can’t you see that? I’ve ruined you — it was through me you lost all. You’ve only Black Star and Night left. You love these horses. Oh! I know how you must love them now! And — you’re trying to give them to me. To help me out of Utah! To save the girl I love!”

“That will be my glory.”

Then in the white, rapt face, in the unfathomable eyes, Venters saw Jane Withersteen in a supreme moment. This moment was one wherein she reached up to the height for which her noble soul had ever yearned. He, after disrupting the calm tenor of her peace, after bringing down on her head the implacable hostility of her churchmen, after teaching her a bitter lesson of life — he was to be her salvation. And he turned away again, this time shaken to the core of his soul. Jane Withersteen was the incarnation of selflessness. He experienced wonder and terror, exquisite pain and rapture. What were all the shocks life had dealt him compared to the thought of such loyal and generous friendship?

And instantly, as if by some divine insight, he knew himself in the remaking — tried, found wanting; but stronger, better, surer — and he wheeled to Jane Withersteen, eager, joyous, passionate, wild, exalted. He bent to her; he left tears and kisses on her hands.

“Jane, I — I can’t find words — now,” he said. “I’m beyond words. Only — I understand. And I’ll take the blacks.”

“Don’t be losin’ no more time,” cut in Lassiter. “I ain’t certain, but I think I seen a speck up the sage-slope. Mebbe I was mistaken. But, anyway, we must all be movin’. I’ve shortened the stirrups on Black Star. Put Bess on him.”

Jane Withersteen held out her arms.

“Elizabeth Erne!” she cried, and Bess flew to her.

How inconceivably strange and beautiful it was for Venters to see Bess clasped to Jane Withersteen’s breast!

Then he leaped astride Night.

“Venters, ride straight on up the slope,” Lassiter was saying, “‘an if you don’t meet any riders keep on till you’re a few miles from the village, then cut off in the sage an’ go round to the trail. But you’ll most likely meet riders with Tull. Jest keep right on till you’re jest out of gunshot an’ then make your cut-off into the sage. They’ll ride after you, but it won’t be no use. You can ride, an’ Bess can ride. When you’re out of reach turn on round to the west, an’ hit the trail somewhere. Save the hosses all you can, but don’t be afraid. Black Star and Night are good for a hundred miles before sundown, if you have to push them. You can get to Sterlin’ by night if you want. But better make it along about to-morrow mornin’. When you get through the notch on the Glaze trail, swing to the right. You’ll be able to see both Glaze an’ Stone Bridge. Keep away from them villages. You won’t run no risk of meetin’ any of Oldrin’s rustlers from Sterlin’ on. You’ll find water in them deep hollows north of the Notch. There’s an old trail there, not much used, en’ it leads to Sterlin’. That’s your trail. An’ one thing more. If Tull pushes you — or keeps on persistent-like, for a few miles — jest let the blacks out an’ lose him an’ his riders.”

“Lassiter, may we meet again!” said Venters, in a deep voice.

“Son, it ain’t likely — it ain’t likely. Well, Bess Oldrin’ — Masked Rider — Elizabeth Erne — now you climb on Black Star. I’ve heard you could ride. Well, every rider loves a good horse. An’, lass, there never was but one that could beat Black Star.”

“Ah, Lassiter, there never was any horse that could beat Black Star,” said Jane, with the old pride.

“I often wondered — mebbe Venters rode out that race when he brought back the blacks. Son, was Wrangle the best hoss?”

“No, Lassiter,” replied Venters. For this lie he had his reward in Jane’s quick smile.

“Well, well, my hoss-sense ain’t always right. An’ here I’m talkin’ a lot, wastin’ time. It ain’t so easy to find an’ lose a pretty niece all in one hour! Elizabeth — good-by!”

“Oh, Uncle Jim!... Good-by!”

“Elizabeth Erne, be happy! Good-by,” said Jane.

“Good-by — oh — good-by!” In lithe, supple action Bess swung up to Black Star’s saddle.

“Jane Withersteen!... Good-by!” called Venters hoarsely.

“Bern — Bess — riders of the purple sage — good-by!”

CHAPTER XXII. RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

BLACK STAR AND Night, answering to spur, swept swiftly westward along the white, slow-rising, sage-bordered trail. Venters heard a mournful howl from Ring, but Whitie was silent. The blacks settled into their fleet, long-striding gallop. The wind sweetly fanned Venters’s hot face. From the summit of the first low-swelling ridge he looked back. Lassiter waved his hand; Jane waved her scarf. Venters replied by standing in his stirrups and holding high his sombrero. Then the dip of the ridge hid them. From the height of the next he turned once more. Lassiter, Jane, and the burros had disappeared. They had gone down into the Pass. Venters felt a sensation of irreparable loss.

“Bern — look!” called Bess, pointing up the long slope.

A small, dark, moving dot split the line where purple sage met blue sky. That dot was a band of riders.

“Pull the black, Bess.”

They slowed from gallop to canter, then to trot. The fresh and eager horses did not like the check.

“Bern, Black Star has great eyesight.”

“I wonder if they’re Tull’s riders. They might be rustlers. But it’s all the same to us.”

The black dot grew to a dark patch moving under low dust clouds. It grew all the time, though very slowly. There were long periods when it was in plain sight, and intervals when it dropped behind the sage. The blacks trotted for half an hour, for another half-hour, and still the moving patch appeared to stay on the horizon line. Gradually, however, as time passed, it began to enlarge, to creep down the slope, to encroach upon the intervening distance.

“Bess, what do you make them out?” asked Venters. “I don’t think they’re rustlers.”

“They’re sage-riders,” replied Bess. “I see a white horse and several grays. Rustlers seldom ride any horses but bays and blacks.”

“That white horse is Tull’s. Pull the black, Bess. I’ll get down and cinch up. We’re in for some riding. Are you afraid?”

“Not now,” answered the girl, smiling.

“You needn’t be. Bess, you don’t weigh enough to make Black Star know you’re on him. I won’t be able to stay with you. You’ll leave Tull and his riders as if they were standing still.”

“How about you?”

“Never fear. If I can’t stay with you I can still laugh at Tull.”

“Look, Bern! They’ve stopped on that ridge. They see us.”

“Yes. But we’re too far yet for them to make out who we are. They’ll recognize the blacks first. We’ve passed most of the ridges and the thickest sage. Now, when I give the word, let Black Star go and ride!”

Venters calculated that a mile or more still intervened between them and the riders. They were approaching at a swift canter. Soon Venters recognized Tull’s white horse, and concluded that the riders had likewise recognized Black Star and Night. But it would be impossible for Tull yet to see that the blacks were not ridden by Lassiter and Jane. Venters noted that Tull and the line of horsemen, perhaps ten or twelve in number, stopped several times and evidently looked hard down the slope. It must have been a puzzling circumstance for Tull. Venters laughed grimly at the thought of what Tull’s rage would be when he finally discovered the trick. Venters meant to sheer out into the sage before Tull could possibly be sure who rode the blacks.

The gap closed to a distance of half a mile. Tull halted. His riders came up and formed a dark group around him. Venters thought he saw him wave his arms and was certain of it when the riders dashed into the sage, to right and left of the trail. Tull had anticipated just the move held in mind by Venters.

“Now Bess!” shouted Venters. “Strike north. Go round those riders and turn west.”

Black Star sailed over the low sage, and in a few leaps got into his stride and was running. Venters spurred Night after him. It was hard going in the sage. The horses could run as well there, but keen eyesight and judgment must constantly be used by the riders in choosing ground. And continuous swerving from aisle to aisle between the brush, and leaping little washes and mounds of the pack-rats, and breaking through sage, made rough riding. When Venters had turned into a long aisle he had time to look up at Tull’s riders. They were now strung out into an extended line riding northeast. And, as Venters and Bess were holding due north, this meant, if the horses of Tull and his riders had the speed and the staying power, they would head the blacks and turn them back down the slope. Tull’s men were not saving their mounts; they were driving them desperately. Venters feared only an accident to Black Star or Night, and skilful riding would mitigate possibility of that. One glance ahead served to show him that Bess could pick a course through the sage as well as he. She looked neither back nor at the running riders, and bent forward over Black Star’s neck and studied the ground ahead.

It struck Venters, presently, after he had glanced up from time to time, that Bess was drawing away from him as he had expected. He had, however, only thought of the light weight Black Star was carrying and of his superior speed; he saw now that the black was being ridden as never before, except when Jerry Card lost the race to Wrangle. How easily, gracefully, naturally, Bess sat her saddle! She could ride! Suddenly Venters remembered she had said she could ride. But he had not dreamed she was capable of such superb horsemanship. Then all at once, flashing over him, thrilling him, came the recollection that Bess was Oldring’s Masked Rider.

He forgot Tull — the running riders — the race. He let Night have a free rein and felt him lengthen out to suit himself, knowing he would keep to Black Star’s course, knowing that he had been chosen by the best rider now on the upland sage. For Jerry Card was dead. And fame had rivaled him with only one rider, and that was the slender girl who now swung so easily with Black Star’s stride. Venters had abhorred her notoriety, but now he took passionate pride in her skill, her daring, her power over a horse. And he delved into his memory, recalling famous rides which he had heard related in the villages and round the camp-fires. Oldring’s Masked Rider! Many times this strange rider, at once well known and unknown, had escaped pursuers by matchless riding. He had to run the gantlet of vigilantes down the main street of Stone Bridge, leaving dead horses and dead rustlers behind. He had jumped his horse over the Gerber Wash, a deep, wide ravine separating the fields of Glaze from the wild sage. He had been surrounded north of Sterling; and he had broken through the line. How often had been told the story of day stampedes, of night raids, of pursuit, and then how the Masked Rider, swift as the wind, was gone in the sage! A fleet, dark horse — a slender, dark form — a black mask — a driving run down the slope — a dot on the purple sage — a shadowy, muffled steed disappearing in the night!

And this Masked Rider of the uplands had been Elizabeth Erne!

The sweet sage wind rushed in Venters’s face and sang a song in his ears. He heard the dull, rapid beat of Night’s hoofs; he saw Black Star drawing away, farther and farther. He realized both horses were swinging to the west. Then gunshots in the rear reminded him of Tull. Venters looked back. Far to the side, dropping behind, trooped the riders. They were shooting. Venters saw no puffs or dust, heard no whistling bullets. He was out of range. When he looked back again Tull’s riders had given up pursuit. The best they could do, no doubt, had been to get near enough to recognize who really rode the blacks. Venters saw Tull drooping in his saddle.

Then Venters pulled Night out of his running stride. Those few miles had scarcely warmed the black, but Venters wished to save him. Bess turned, and, though she was far away, Venters caught the white glint of her waving hand. He held Night to a trot and rode on, seeing Bess and Black Star, and the sloping upward stretch of sage, and from time to time the receding black riders behind. Soon they disappeared behind a ridge, and he turned no more. They would go back to Lassiter’s trail and follow it, and follow in vain. So Venters rode on, with the wind growing sweeter to taste and smell, and the purple sage richer and the sky bluer in his sight; and the song in his ears ringing. By and by Bess halted to wait for him, and he knew she had come to the trail. When he reached her it was to smile at sight of her standing with arms round Black Star’s neck.

“Oh, Bern! I love him!” she cried. “He’s beautiful; he knows; and how he can run! I’ve had fast horses. But Black Star!... Wrangle never beat him!”

“I’m wondering if I didn’t dream that. Bess, the blacks are grand. What it must have cost Jane — ah! — well, when we get out of this wild country with Star and Night, back to my old home in Illinois, we’ll buy a beautiful farm with meadows and springs and cool shade. There we’ll turn the horses free — free to roam and browse and drink — never to feel a spur again — never to be ridden!”

“I would like that,” said Bess.

They rested. Then, mounting, they rode side by side up the white trail. The sun rose higher behind them. Far to the left a low line of green marked the site of Cottonwoods. Venters looked once and looked no more. Bess gazed only straight ahead. They put the blacks to the long, swinging rider’s canter, and at times pulled them to a trot, and occasionally to a walk. The hours passed, the miles slipped behind, and the wall of rock loomed in the fore. The Notch opened wide. It was a rugged, stony pass, but with level and open trail, and Venters and Bess ran the blacks through it. An old trail led off to the right, taking the line of the wall, and this Venters knew to be the trail mentioned by Lassiter.

The little hamlet, Glaze, a white and green patch in the vast waste of purple, lay miles down a slope much like the Cottonwoods slope, only this descended to the west. And miles farther west a faint green spot marked the location of Stone Bridge. All the rest of that world was seemingly smooth, undulating sage, with no ragged lines of canyons to accentuate its wildness.

“Bess, we’re safe — we’re free!” said Venters. “We’re alone on the sage. We’re half way to Sterling.”

“Ah! I wonder how it is with Lassiter and Miss Withersteen.”

“Never fear, Bess. He’ll outwit Tull. He’ll get away and hide her safely. He might climb into Surprise Valley, but I don’t think he’ll go so far.”

“Bern, will we ever find any place like our beautiful valley?”

“No. But, dear, listen. Well go back some day, after years — ten years. Then we’ll be forgotten. And our valley will be just as we left it.”

“What if Balancing Rock falls and closes the outlet to the Pass?”

“I’ve thought of that. I’ll pack in ropes and ropes. And if the outlet’s closed we’ll climb up the cliffs and over them to the valley and go down on rope ladders. It could be done. I know just where to make the climb, and I’ll never forget.”

“Oh yes, let us go back!”

“It’s something sweet to look forward to. Bess, it’s like all the future looks to me.”

“Call me — Elizabeth,” she said, shyly.

“Elizabeth Erne! It’s a beautiful name. But I’ll never forget Bess. Do you know — have you thought that very soon — by this time to-morrow — you will be Elizabeth Venters?”

So they rode on down the old trail. And the sun sloped to the west, and a golden sheen lay on the sage. The hours sped now; the afternoon waned. Often they rested the horses. The glisten of a pool of water in a hollow caught Venters’s eye, and here he unsaddled the blacks and let them roll and drink and browse. When he and Bess rode up out of the hollow the sun was low, a crimson ball, and the valley seemed veiled in purple fire and smoke. It was that short time when the sun appeared to rest before setting, and silence, like a cloak of invisible life, lay heavy on all that shimmering world of sage.

They watched the sun begin to bury its red curve under the dark horizon.

“We’ll ride on till late,” he said. “Then you can sleep a little, while I watch and graze the horses. And we’ll ride into Sterling early to-morrow. We’ll be married!... We’ll be in time to catch the stage. We’ll tie Black Star and Night behind — and then — for a country not wild and terrible like this!”

“Oh, Bern!... But look! The sun is setting on the sage — the last time for us till we dare come again to the Utah border. Ten years! Oh, Bern, look, so you will never forget!”

Slumbering, fading purple fire burned over the undulating sage ridges. Long streaks and bars and shafts and spears fringed the far western slope. Drifting, golden veils mingled with low, purple shadows. Colors and shades changed in slow, wondrous transformation.

Suddenly Venters was startled by a low, rumbling roar — so low that it was like the roar in a sea-shell.

“Bess, did you hear anything?” he whispered.

“No.”

“Listen!... Maybe I only imagined — Ah!”

Out of the east or north from remote distance, breathed an infinitely low, continuously long sound — deep, weird, detonating, thundering, deadening — dying.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE FALL OF BALANCING ROCK

THROUGH TEAR-BLURRED SIGHT Jane Withersteen watched Venters and Elizabeth Erne and the black racers disappear over the ridge of sage.

“They’re gone!” said Lassiter. “An’ they’re safe now. An’ there’ll never be a day of their comin’ happy lives but what they’ll remember Jane Withersteen an’ — an’ Uncle Jim!... I reckon, Jane, we’d better be on our way.”

The burros obediently wheeled and started down the break with little cautious steps, but Lassiter had to leash the whining dogs and lead them. Jane felt herself bound in a feeling that was neither listlessness nor indifference, yet which rendered her incapable of interest. She was still strong in body, but emotionally tired. That hour at the entrance to Deception Pass had been the climax of her suffering — the flood of her wrath — the last of her sacrifice — the supremity of her love — and the attainment of peace. She thought that if she had little Fay she would not ask any more of life.

Like an automaton she followed Lassiter down the steep trail of dust and bits of weathered stone; and when the little slides moved with her or piled around her knees she experienced no alarm. Vague relief came to her in the sense of being enclosed between dark stone walls, deep hidden from the glare of sun, from the glistening sage. Lassiter lengthened the stirrup straps on one of the burros and bade her mount and ride close to him. She was to keep the burro from cracking his little hard hoofs on stones. Then she was riding on between dark, gleaming walls. There were quiet and rest and coolness in this canyon. She noted indifferently that they passed close under shady, bulging shelves of cliff, through patches of grass and sage and thicket and groves of slender trees, and over white, pebbly washes, and around masses of broken rock. The burros trotted tirelessly; the dogs, once more free, pattered tirelessly; and Lassiter led on with never a stop, and at every open place he looked back. The shade under the walls gave place to sunlight. And presently they came to a dense thicket of slender trees, through which they passed to rich, green grass and water. Here Lassiter rested the burros for a little while, but he was restless, uneasy, silent, always listening, peering under the trees. She dully reflected that enemies were behind them — before them; still the thought awakened no dread or concern or interest.

At his bidding she mounted and rode on close to the heels of his burro. The canyon narrowed; the walls lifted their rugged rims higher; and the sun shone down hot from the center of the blue stream of sky above. Lassiter traveled slower, with more exceeding care as to the ground he chose, and he kept speaking low to the dogs. They were now hunting-dogs — keen, alert, suspicious, sniffing the warm breeze. The monotony of the yellow walls broke in change of color and smooth surface, and the rugged outline of rims grew craggy. Splits appeared in deep breaks, and gorges running at right angles, and then the Pass opened wide at a junction of intersecting canyons.

Lassiter dismounted, led his burro, called the dogs close, and proceeded at snail pace through dark masses of rock and dense thickets under the left wall. Long he watched and listened before venturing to cross the mouths of side canyons. At length he halted, fled his burro, lifted a warning hand to Jane, and then slipped away among the boulders, and, followed by the stealthy dogs, disappeared from sight. The time he remained absent was neither short nor long to Jane Withersteen.

When he reached her side again he was pale, and his lips were set in a hard line, and his gray eyes glittered coldly. Bidding her dismount, he led the burros into a covert of stones and cedars, and tied them.

“Jane, I’ve run into the fellers I’ve been lookin’ for, an’ I’m goin’ after them,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“I reckon I won’t take time to tell you.”

“Couldn’t we slip by without being seen?”

“Likely enough. But that ain’t my game. An’ I’d like to know, in case I don’t come back, what you’ll do.”

“What can I do?”

“I reckon you can go back to Tull. Or stay in the Pass an’ be taken off by rustlers. Which’ll you do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t think very well. But I believe I’d rather be taken off by rustlers.”

Lassiter sat down, put his head in his hands, and remained for a few moments in what appeared to be deep and painful thought. When he lifted his face it was haggard, lined, cold as sculptured marble.

“I’ll go. I only mentioned that chance of my not comin’ back. I’m pretty sure to come.”

“Need you risk so much? Must you fight more? Haven’t you shed enough blood?”

“I’d like to tell you why I’m goin’,” he continued, in coldness he had seldom used to her. She remarked it, but it was the same to her as if he had spoken with his old gentle warmth. “But I reckon I won’t. Only, I’ll say that mercy an’ goodness, such as is in you, though they’re the grand things in human nature, can’t be lived up to on this Utah border. Life’s hell out here. You think — or you used to think — that your religion made this life heaven. Mebbe them scales on your eyes has dropped now. Jane, I wouldn’t have you no different, an’ that’s why I’m going to try to hide you somewhere in this Pass. I’d like to hide many more women, for I’ve come to see there are more like you among your people. An’ I’d like you to see jest how hard an’ cruel this border life is. It’s bloody. You’d think churches an’ churchmen would make it better. They make it worse. You give names to things — bishops, elders, ministers, Mormonism, duty, faith, glory. You dream — or you’re driven mad. I’m a man, an’ I know. I name fanatics, followers, blind women, oppressors, thieves, ranchers, rustlers, riders. An’ we have — what you’ve lived through these last months. It can’t be helped. But it can’t last always. An’ remember this — some day the border’ll be better, cleaner, for the ways of ten like Lassiter!”

She saw him shake his tall form erect, look at her strangely and steadfastly, and then, noiselessly, stealthily slip away amid the rocks and trees. Ring and Whitie, not being bidden to follow, remained with Jane. She felt extreme weariness, yet somehow it did not seem to be of her body. And she sat down in the shade and tried to think. She saw a creeping lizard, cactus flowers, the drooping burros, the resting dogs, an eagle high over a yellow crag. Once the meanest flower, a color, the flight of the bee, or any living thing had given her deepest joy. Lassiter had gone off, yielding to his incurable blood lust, probably to his own death; and she was sorry, but there was no feeling in her sorrow.

Suddenly from the mouth of the canyon just beyond her rang out a clear, sharp report of a rifle. Echoes clapped. Then followed a piercingly high yell of anguish, quickly breaking. Again echoes clapped, in grim imitation. Dull revolver shots — hoarse yells — pound of hoofs — shrill neighs of horses — commingling of echoes — and again silence! Lassiter must be busily engaged, thought Jane, and no chill trembled over her, no blanching tightened her skin. Yes, the border was a bloody place. But life had always been bloody. Men were blood-spillers. Phases of the history of the world flashed through her mind — Greek and Roman wars, dark, mediaeval times, the crimes in the name of religion. On sea, on land, everywhere — shooting, stabbing, cursing, clashing, fighting men! Greed, power, oppression, fanaticism, love, hate, revenge, justice, freedom — for these, men killed one another.

She lay there under the cedars, gazing up through the delicate lacelike foliage at the blue sky, and she thought and wondered and did not care.

More rattling shots disturbed the noonday quiet. She heard a sliding of weathered rock, a hoarse shout of warning, a yell of alarm, again the clear, sharp crack of the rifle, and another cry that was a cry of death. Then rifle reports pierced a dull volley of revolver shots. Bullets whizzed over Jane’s hiding-place; one struck a stone and whined away in the air. After that, for a time, succeeded desultory shots; and then they ceased under long, thundering fire from heavier guns.

Sooner or later, then, Jane heard the cracking of horses’ hoofs on the stones, and the sound came nearer and nearer. Silence intervened until Lassiter’s soft, jingling step assured her of his approach. When he appeared he was covered with blood.

“All right, Jane,” he said. “I come back. An’ don’t worry.”

With water from a canteen he washed the blood from his face and hands.

“Jane, hurry now. Tear my scarf in two, en’ tie up these places. That hole through my hand is some inconvenient, worse ‘n this at over my ear. There — you’re doin’ fine! Not a bit nervous — no tremblin’. I reckon I ain’t done your courage justice. I’m glad you’re brave jest now — you’ll need to be. Well, I was hid pretty good, enough to keep them from shootin’ me deep, but they was slingin’ lead close all the time. I used up all the rifle shells, an’ en I went after them. Mebbe you heard. It was then I got hit. Had to use up every shell in my own gun, an’ they did, too, as I seen. Rustlers an’ Mormons, Jane! An’ now I’m packin’ five bullet holes in my carcass, an’ guns without shells. Hurry, now.”

He unstrapped the saddle-bags from the burros, slipped the saddles and let them lie, turned the burros loose, and, calling the dogs, led the way through stones and cedars to an open where two horses stood.

“Jane, are you strong?” he asked.

“I think so. I’m not tired,” Jane replied.

“I don’t mean that way. Can you bear up?”

“I think I can bear anything.”

“I reckon you look a little cold an’ thick. So I’m preparin’ you.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t tell you why I jest had to go after them fellers. I couldn’t tell you. I believe you’d have died. But I can tell you now — if you’ll bear up under a shock?”

“Go on, my friend.”

“I’ve got little Fay! Alive — bad hurt — but she’ll live!”

Jane Withersteen’s dead-locked feeling, rent by Lassiter’s deep, quivering voice, leaped into an agony of sensitive life.

“Here,” he added, and showed her where little Fay lay on the grass.

Unable to speak, unable to stand, Jane dropped on her knees. By that long, beautiful golden hair Jane recognized the beloved Fay. But Fay’s loveliness was gone. Her face was drawn and looked old with grief. But she was not dead — her heart beat — and Jane Withersteen gathered strength and lived again.

“You see I jest had to go after Fay,” Lassiter was saying, as he knelt to bathe her little pale face. “But I reckon I don’t want no more choices like the one I had to make. There was a crippled feller in that bunch, Jane. Mebbe Venters crippled him. Anyway, that’s why they were holding up here. I seen little Fay first thing, en’ was hard put to it to figure out a way to get her. An’ I wanted hosses, too. I had to take chances. So I crawled close to their camp. One feller jumped a hoss with little Fay, an’ when I shot him, of course she dropped. She’s stunned an’ bruised — she fell right on her head. Jane, she’s comin’ to! She ain’t bad hurt!”

Fay’s long lashes fluttered; her eyes opened. At first they seemed glazed over. They looked dazed by pain. Then they quickened, darkened, to shine with intelligence — bewilderment — memory — and sudden wonderful joy.

“Muvver — Jane!” she whispered.

“Oh, little Fay, little Fay!” cried Jane, lifting, clasping the child to her.

“Now, we’ve got to rustle!” said Lassiter, in grim coolness. “Jane, look down the Pass!”

Across the mounds of rock and sage Jane caught sight of a band of riders filing out of the narrow neck of the Pass; and in the lead was a white horse, which, even at a distance of a mile or more, she knew.

“Tull!” she almost screamed.

“I reckon. But, Jane, we’ve still got the game in our hands. They’re ridin’ tired hosses. Venters likely give them a chase. He wouldn’t forget that. An’ we’ve fresh hosses.”

Hurriedly he strapped on the saddle-bags, gave quick glance to girths and cinches and stirrups, then leaped astride.

“Lift little Fay up,” he said.

With shaking arms Jane complied.

“Get back your nerve, woman! This’s life or death now. Mind that. Climb up! Keep your wits. Stick close to me. Watch where your hoss’s goin’ en’ ride!”

Somehow Jane mounted; somehow found strength to hold the reins, to spur, to cling on, to ride. A horrible quaking, craven fear possessed her soul. Lassiter led the swift flight across the wide space, over washes, through sage, into a narrow canyon where the rapid clatter of hoofs rapped sharply from the walls. The wind roared in her ears; the gleaming cliffs swept by; trail and sage and grass moved under her. Lassiter’s bandaged, blood-stained face turned to her; he shouted encouragement; he looked back down the Pass; he spurred his horse. Jane clung on, spurring likewise. And the horses settled from hard, furious gallop into a long-striding, driving run. She had never ridden at anything like that pace; desperately she tried to get the swing of the horse, to be of some help to him in that race, to see the best of the ground and guide him into it. But she failed of everything except to keep her seat the saddle, and to spur and spur. At times she closed her eyes unable to bear sight of Fay’s golden curls streaming in the wind. She could not pray; she could not rail; she no longer cared for herself. All of life, of good, of use in the world, of hope in heaven entered in Lassiter’s ride with little Fay to safety. She would have tried to turn the iron-jawed brute she rode, she would have given herself to that relentless, dark-browed Tull. But she knew Lassiter would turn with her, so she rode on and on.

Whether that run was of moments or hours Jane Withersteen could not tell. Lassiter’s horse covered her with froth that blew back in white streams. Both horses ran their limit, were allowed slow down in time to save them, and went on dripping, heaving, staggering.

“Oh, Lassiter, we must run — we must run!”

He looked back, saying nothing. The bandage had blown from his head, and blood trickled down his face. He was bowing under the strain of injuries, of the ride, of his burden. Yet how cool and gay he looked — how intrepid!

The horses walked, trotted, galloped, ran, to fall again to walk. Hours sped or dragged. Time was an instant — an eternity. Jane Withersteen felt hell pursuing her, and dared not look back for fear she would fall from her horse.

“Oh, Lassiter! Is he coming?”

The grim rider looked over his shoulder, but said no word. Fay’s golden hair floated on the breeze. The sun shone; the walls gleamed; the sage glistened. And then it seemed the sun vanished, the walls shaded, the sage paled. The horses walked — trotted — galloped — ran — to fall again to walk. Shadows gathered under shelving cliffs. The canyon turned, brightened, opened into a long, wide, wall-enclosed valley. Again the sun, lowering in the west, reddened the sage. Far ahead round, scrawled stone appeared to block the Pass.

“Bear up, Jane, bear up!” called Lassiter. “It’s our game, if you don’t weaken.”

“Lassiter! Go on — alone! Save little Fay!”

“Only with you!”

“Oh! — I’m a coward — a miserable coward! I can’t fight or think or hope or pray! I’m lost! Oh, Lassiter, look back! Is he coming? I’ll not — hold out—”

“Keep your breath, woman, an’ ride not for yourself or for me, but for Fay!”

A last breaking run across the sage brought Lassiter’s horse to a walk.

“He’s done,” said the rider.

“Oh, no — no!” moaned Jane.

“Look back, Jane, look back. Three — four miles we’ve come across this valley, en’ no Tull yet in sight. Only a few more miles!”

Jane looked back over the long stretch of sage, and found the narrow gap in the wall, out of which came a file of dark horses with a white horse in the lead. Sight of the riders acted upon Jane as a stimulant. The weight of cold, horrible terror lessened. And, gazing forward at the dogs, at Lassiter’s limping horse, at the blood on his face, at the rocks growing nearer, last at Fay’s golden hair, the ice left her veins, and slowly, strangely, she gained hold of strength that she believed would see her to the safety Lassiter promised. And, as she gazed, Lassiter’s horse stumbled and fell.

He swung his leg and slipped from the saddle.

“Jane, take the child,” he said, and lifted Fay up. Jane clasped her arms suddenly strong. “They’re gainin’,” went on Lassiter, as he watched the pursuing riders. “But we’ll beat ’em yet.”

Turning with Jane’s bridle in his hand, he was about to start when he saw the saddle-bag on the fallen horse.

“I’ve jest about got time,” he muttered, and with swift fingers that did not blunder or fumble he loosened the bag and threw it over his shoulder. Then he started to run, leading Jane’s horse, and he ran, and trotted, and walked, and ran again. Close ahead now Jane saw a rise of bare rock. Lassiter reached it, searched along the base, and, finding a low place, dragged the weary horse up and over round, smooth stone. Looking backward, Jane saw Tull’s white horse not a mile distant, with riders strung out in a long line behind him. Looking forward, she saw more valley to the right, and to the left a towering cliff. Lassiter pulled the horse and kept on.

Little Fay lay in her arms with wide-open eyes — eyes which were still shadowed by pain, but no longer fixed, glazed in terror. The golden curls blew across Jane’s lips; the little hands feebly clasped her arm; a ghost of a troubled, trustful smile hovered round the sweet lips. And Jane Withersteen awoke to the spirit of a lioness.

Lassiter was leading the horse up a smooth slope toward cedar trees of twisted and bleached appearance. Among these he halted.

“Jane, give me the girl en’ get down,” he said. As if it wrenched him he unbuckled the empty black guns with a strange air of finality. He then received Fay in his arms and stood a moment looking backward. Tull’s white horse mounted the ridge of round stone, and several bays or blacks followed. “I wonder what he’ll think when he sees them empty guns. Jane, bring your saddle-bag and climb after me.”

A glistening, wonderful bare slope, with little holes, swelled up and up to lose itself in a frowning yellow cliff. Jane closely watched her steps and climbed behind Lassiter. He moved slowly. Perhaps he was only husbanding his strength. But she saw drops of blood on the stone, and then she knew. They climbed and climbed without looking back. Her breast labored; she began to feel as if little points of fiery steel were penetrating her side into her lungs. She heard the panting of Lassiter and the quicker panting of the dogs.

“Wait — here,” he said.

Before her rose a bulge of stone, nicked with little cut steps, and above that a corner of yellow wall, and overhanging that a vast, ponderous cliff.

The dogs pattered up, disappeared round the corner. Lassiter mounted the steps with Fay, and he swayed like a drunken man, and he too disappeared. But instantly he returned alone, and half ran, half slipped down to her.

Then from below pealed up hoarse shouts of angry men. Tull and several of his riders had reached the spot where Lassiter had parted with his guns.

“You’ll need that breath — mebbe!” said Lassiter, facing downward, with glittering eyes.

“Now, Jane, the last pull,” he went on. “Walk up them little steps. I’ll follow an’ steady you. Don’t think. Jest go. Little Fay’s above. Her eyes are open. She jest said to me, ‘Where’s muvver Jane?’”

Without a fear or a tremor or a slip or a touch of Lassiter’s hand Jane Withersteen walked up that ladder of cut steps.

He pushed her round the corner of the wall. Fay lay, with wide staring eyes, in the shade of a gloomy wall. The dogs waited. Lassiter picked up the child and turned into a dark cleft. It zigzagged. It widened. It opened. Jane was amazed at a wonderfully smooth and steep incline leading up between ruined, splintered, toppling walls. A red haze from the setting sun filled this passage. Lassiter climbed with slow, measured steps, and blood dripped from him to make splotches on the white stone. Jane tried not to step in his blood, but was compelled, for she found no other footing. The saddle-bag began to drag her down; she gasped for breath, she thought her heart was bursting. Slower, slower yet the rider climbed, whistling as he breathed. The incline widened. Huge pinnacles and monuments of stone stood alone, leaning fearfully. Red sunset haze shone through cracks where the wall had split. Jane did not look high, but she felt the overshadowing of broken rims above. She felt that it was a fearful, menacing place. And she climbed on in heartrending effort. And she fell beside Lassiter and Fay at the top of the incline in a narrow, smooth divide.

He staggered to his feet — staggered to a huge, leaning rock that rested on a small pedestal. He put his hand on it — the hand that had been shot through — and Jane saw blood drip from the ragged hole. Then he fell.

“Jane — I — can’t — do — it!” he whispered.

“What?”

“Roll the — stone!... All my — life I’ve loved — to roll stones — en’ now I — can’t!”

“What of it? You talk strangely. Why roll that stone?”

“I planned to — fetch you here — to roll this stone. See! It’ll smash the crags — loosen the walls — close the outlet!”

As Jane Withersteen gazed down that long incline, walled in by crumbling cliffs, awaiting only the slightest jar to make them fall asunder, she saw Tull appear at the bottom and begin to climb. A rider followed him — another — and another.

“See! Tull! The riders!”

“Yes — they’ll get us — now.”

“Why? Haven’t you strength left to roll the stone?”

“Jane — it ain’t that — I’ve lost my nerve!”

“You!... Lassiter!”

“I wanted to roll it — meant to — but I — can’t. Venters’s valley is down behind here. We could — live there. But if I roll the stone — we’re shut in for always. I don’t dare. I’m thinkin’ of you!”

“Lassiter! Roll the stone!” she cried.

He arose, tottering, but with set face, and again he placed the bloody hand on the Balancing Rock. Jane Withersteen gazed from him down the passageway. Tull was climbing. Almost, she thought, she saw his dark, relentless face. Behind him more riders climbed. What did they mean for Fay — for Lassiter — for herself?

“Roll the stone!... Lassiter, I love you!”

Under all his deathly pallor, and the blood, and the iron of seared cheek and lined brow, worked a great change. He placed both hands on the rock and then leaned his shoulder there and braced his powerful body.

ROLL THE STONE!

It stirred, it groaned, it grated, it moved, and with a slow grinding, as of wrathful relief, began to lean. It had waited ages to fall, and now was slow in starting. Then, as if suddenly instinct with life, it leaped hurtlingly down to alight on the steep incline, to bound more swiftly into the air, to gather momentum, to plunge into the lofty leaning crag below. The crag thundered into atoms. A wave of air — a splitting shock! Dust shrouded the sunset red of shaking rims; dust shrouded Tull as he fell on his knees with uplifted arms. Shafts and monuments and sections of wall fell majestically.

From the depths there rose a long-drawn rumbling roar. The outlet to Deception Pass closed forever.

Ken Ward in the Jungle

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER I

THE PRIZE

“WHAT A CHANGE from the Arizona desert!”

The words broke from the lips of Ken Ward as he leaned from the window of the train which was bearing his brother and himself over the plateau to Tampico in Tamaulipas, the southeastern state of Mexico. He had caught sight of a river leaping out between heavily wooded slopes and plunging down in the most beautiful waterfall he had ever seen.

“Look, Hal,” he cried.

The first fall was a long white streak, ending in a dark pool; below came cascade after cascade, fall after fall, some wide, others narrow, and all white and green against the yellow rock. Then the train curved round a spur of the mountain, descended to a level, to be lost in a luxuriance of jungle growth.

It was indeed a change for Ken Ward, young forester, pitcher of the varsity nine at school, and hunter of lions in the Arizona canyons. Here he was entering the jungle of the tropics. The rifles and the camp outfit on the seat beside his brother Hal and himself spoke of coming adventures. Before them lay an unknown wilderness — the semi-tropical jungle. And the future was to show that the mystery of the jungle was stranger even than their imaginings.

It was not love of adventure alone or interest in the strange new forest growths that had drawn Ken to the jungle. His uncle, the one who had gotten Ken letters from the Forestry Department at Washington, had been proud of Ken’s Arizona achievements. This uncle was a member of the American Geographical Society and a fellow of the New York Museum of Natural History. He wanted Ken to try his hand at field work in the jungle of Mexico, and if that was successful, then to explore the ruined cities of wild Yucatan. If Ken made good as an explorer his reward was to be a trip to Equatorial Africa after big game. And of course that trip meant opportunity to see England and France, and, what meant more to Ken, a chance to see the great forests of Germany, where forestry had been carried on for three hundred years.

In spite of the fact that the inducement was irresistible, and that Ken’s father was as proud and eager as Ken’s uncle to have him make a name for himself, and that Hal would be allowed to go with him, Ken had hesitated. There was the responsibility for Hal and the absolute certainty that Hal could not keep out of mischief. Still Ken simply could not have gone to Mexico leaving his brother at home broken-hearted.

At last the thing had been decided. It was Hal’s ambition to be a naturalist and to collect specimens, and the uncle had held out possible recognition from the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Perhaps he might find a new variety of some animal to which the scientists would attach his name. Then the lad was passionately eager to see Ken win that trip to Africa. There had been much study of maps and books of travel, science, and natural history. There had been the most careful instruction and equipment for semi-tropical camp life. The uncle had given Ken valuable lessons in map-drawing, in estimating distance and topography, and he had indicated any one of several rivers in the jungle belt of Mexico. Traversing one hundred miles of unknown jungle river, with intelligent observation and accurate reports, would win the prize for Ken Ward. Now the race was on. Would Ken win?

Presently the train crossed a bridge. Ken Ward had a brief glance at clear green water, at great cypress-trees, gray and graceful with long, silvery, waving moss, and at the tangled, colorful banks. A water-fowl black as coal, with white-crested wings, skimmed the water in swift wild flight, to disappear up the shady river-lane. Then the train clattered on, and, a mile or more beyond the bridge, stopped at a station called Valles. In the distance could be seen the thatched palm-leaf huts and red-tiled roofs of a hamlet.

The boys got out to stretch their legs. The warm, sweet, balmy air was a new and novel thing to them. They strolled up and down the gravel walk, watching the natives. Hal said he rather liked the looks of their brown bare feet and the thin cotton trousers and shirts, but he fancied the enormous sombreros were too heavy and unwieldy. Ken spoke to several pleasant-faced Mexicans, each of whom replied: “No sabe, Señor.”

The ticket agent at the station was an American, and from the way he smiled and spoke Ken knew he was more than glad to see one of his own kind. So, after Ken had replied to many questions about the States, he began to ask some of his own.

“What’s the name of the waterfall we passed?”

“Micas Falls,” replied the agent.

“And the river?”

“It’s called the Santa Rosa.”

“Where does it go?”

The agent did not know, except that it disappeared in the jungle. Southward the country was wild. The villages were few and all along the railroad; and at Valles the river swung away to the southwest.

“But it must flow into the Panuco River,” said Ken. He had studied maps of Mexico and had learned all that it was possible to learn before he undertook the journey.

“Why, yes, it must find the Panuco somewhere down over the mountain,” answered the agent.

“Then there are rapids in this little river?” asked Ken, in growing interest.

“Well, I guess. It’s all rapids.”

“How far to Tampico by rail?” went on Ken.

“Something over a hundred miles.”

“Any game in the jungle hereabouts — or along the Santa Rosa?” continued Ken.

The man laughed, and laughed in such a way that Ken did not need his assertion that it was not safe to go into the jungle.

Whereupon Ken Ward became so thoughtful that he did not hear the talk that followed between the agent and Hal. The engine bell roused him into action, and with Hal he hurried back to their seats. And then the train sped on. But the beauty of Micas Falls and the wildness of the Santa Rosa remained with Ken. Where did that river go? How many waterfalls and rapids did it have? What teeming life must be along its rich banks! It haunted Ken. He wanted to learn the mystery of the jungle. There was the same longing which had gotten him into the wild adventures in Penetier Forest and the Grand Canyon country of Arizona. And all at once flashed over him the thought that here was the jungle river for him to explore.

“Why, that’s the very thing,” he said, thinking aloud.

“What’s wrong with you,” asked Hal, “talking to yourself that way?”

Ken did not explain. The train clattered between green walls of jungle, and occasionally stopped at a station. But the thought of the jungle haunted him until the train arrived at Tampico.

Ken had the name of an American hotel, and that was all he knew about Tampico. The station was crowded with natives. Man after man accosted the boys, jabbering excitedly in Mexican. Some of these showed brass badges bearing a number and the word Cargodore.

“Hal, I believe these fellows are porters or baggage-men,” said Ken. And he showed his trunk check to one of them. The fellow jerked it out of Ken’s hand and ran off. The boys ran after him. They were relieved to see him enter a shed full of baggage. And they were amazed to see him kneel down and take their trunk on his back. It was a big trunk and heavy. The man was small and light.

“It’ll smash him!” cried Hal.

But the little cargodore walked off with the trunk on his back. Then Ken and Hal saw other cargodores packing trunks. The boys kept close to their man and used their eyes with exceeding interest. The sun was setting, and the square, colored buildings looked as if they were in a picture of Spain.

“Look at the boats — canoes!” cried Hal, as they crossed a canal.

Ken saw long narrow canoes that had been hollowed out from straight tree-trunks. They were of every size, and some of the paddles were enormous. Crowds of natives were jabbering and jostling each other at a rude wharf.

“Look back,” called Hal, who seemed to have a hundred eyes.

Ken saw a wide, beautiful river, shining red in the sunset. Palm-trees on the distant shore showed black against the horizon.

“Hal, that’s the Panuco. What a river!”

“Makes the Susquehanna look like a creek,” was Hal’s comment.

The cargodore led the boys through a plaza, down a narrow street to the hotel. Here they were made to feel at home. The proprietor was a kindly American. The hotel was crowded, and many of the guests were Englishmen there for the tarpon-fishing, with sportsmen from the States, and settlers coming in to take up new lands. It was pleasant for Ken and Hal to hear their own language once more. After dinner they sallied forth to see the town. But the narrow dark streets and the blanketed natives stealing silently along were not particularly inviting. The boys got no farther than the plaza, where they sat down on a bench. It was wholly different from any American town. Ken suspected that Hal was getting homesick, for the boy was quiet and inactive.

“I don’t like this place,” said Hal. “What’d you ever want to drag me way down here for?”

“Humph! drag you? Say, you pestered the life out of me, and bothered Dad till he was mad, and worried mother sick to let you come on this trip.”

Hal hung his head.

“Now, you’re not going to show a streak of yellow?” asked Ken. He knew how to stir his brother.

Hal rose to the attack and scornfully repudiated the insinuation. Ken replied that they were in a new country and must not reach conclusions too hastily.

“I liked it back up there at the little village where we saw the green river and the big trees with the gray streamers on them,” said Hal.

“Well, I liked that myself,” rejoined Ken. “I’d like to go back there and put a boat in the river and come all the way here.”

Ken had almost unconsciously expressed the thought that had been forming in his mind. Hal turned slowly and looked at his brother.

“Ken, that’d be great — that’s what we came for!”

“I should say so,” replied Ken.

“Well?” asked Hal, simply.

That question annoyed Ken. Had he not come south to go into the jungle? Had he come with any intention of shirking the danger of a wild trip? There was a subtle flattery in Hal’s question.

“That Santa Rosa River runs through the jungle,” went on Hal. “It flows into the Panuco somewhere. You know we figured out on the map that the Panuco’s the only big river in this jungle. That’s all we want to know. And, Ken, you know you’re a born boatman. Why, look at the rapids we’ve shot on the Susquehanna. Remember that trip we came down the Juniata? The water was high, too. Ken, you can take a boat down that Santa Rosa!”

“By George! I believe I can,” exclaimed Ken, and he thrilled at the thought.

“Ken, let’s go. You’ll win the prize, and I’ll get specimens. Think what we’d have to tell Jim Williams and Dick Leslie when we go West next summer!”

“Oh, Hal, I know — but this idea of a trip seems too wild.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so wild.”

In all fairness Ken could not deny this, so he kept silent.

“Ken, listen,” went on Hal, and now he was quite cool. “If we’d promised the Governor not to take a wild trip I wouldn’t say another word. But we’re absolutely free.”

“That’s why we ought to be more careful. Dad trusts me.”

“He trusts you because he knows you can take care of yourself, and me, too. You’re a wonder, Ken. Why, if you once made up your mind, you’d make that Santa Rosa River look like a canal.”

Ken began to fear that he would not be proof against the haunting call of that jungle river and the flattering persuasion of his brother and the ever-present ambition to show his uncle what he could do.

“Hal, if I didn’t have you with me I’d already have made up my mind to tackle this river.”

That appeared to insult Hal.

“All I’ve got to say is I’d be a help to you — not a drag,” he said, with some warmth.

“You’re always a help, Hal. I can’t say anything against your willingness. But you know your weakness. By George! you made trouble enough for me in Arizona. On a trip such as this you’d drive me crazy.”

“Ken, I won’t make any rash promises. I don’t want to queer myself with you. But I’m all right.”

“Look here, Hal; let’s wait. We’ve only got to Tampico. Maybe such a trip is impracticable — impossible. Let’s find out more about the country.”

Hal appeared to take this in good spirit. The boys returned to the hotel and went to bed. Hal promptly fell asleep. But Ken Ward lay awake a long time thinking of the green Santa Rosa, with its magnificent moss-festooned cypresses. And when he did go to sleep it was to dream of the beautiful waterfowl with the white-crested wings, and he was following it on its wild flight down the dark, mysterious river-trail into the jungle.

CHAPTER II

THE HOME OF THE TARPON

HAL’S HOMESICKNESS MIGHT never have been in evidence at all, to judge from the way the boy, awakening at dawn, began to talk about the Santa Rosa trip.

“Well,” said Ken, as he rolled out of bed, “I guess we’re in for it.”

“Ken, will we go?” asked Hal, eagerly.

“I’m on the fence.”

“But you’re leaning on the jungle side?”

“Yes, kid — I’m slipping.”

Hal opened his lips to let out a regular Hiram Bent yell, when Ken clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Hold on — we’re in the hotel yet.”

It took the brothers long to dress, because they could not keep away from the window. The sun was rising in rosy glory over misty lagoons. Clouds of creamy mist rolled above the broad Panuco. Wild ducks were flying low. The tiled roofs of the stone houses gleamed brightly, and the palm-trees glistened with dew. The soft breeze that blew in was warm, sweet, and fragrant.

After breakfast the boys went out to the front and found the hotel lobby full of fishermen and their native boatmen. It was an interesting sight, as well as a surprise, for Ken and Hal did not know that Tampico was as famous for fishing as it was for hunting. The huge rods and reels amazed them.

“What kind of fish do these fellows fish for?” asked Hal.

Ken was well enough acquainted with sport to know something about tarpon, but he had never seen one of the great silver fish. And he was speechless when Hal led him into a room upon the walls of which were mounted specimens of tarpon from six to seven feet in length and half as wide as a door.

“Say, Ken! We’ve come to the right place. Those fishermen are all going out to fish for such whales as these here.”

“Hal, we never saw a big fish before,” said Ken. “And before we leave Tampico we’ll know what it means to hook tarpon.”

“I’m with you,” replied Hal, gazing doubtfully and wonderingly at a fish almost twice as big as himself.

Then Ken, being a practical student of fishing, as of other kinds of sport, began to stroll round the lobby with an intent to learn. He closely scrutinized the tackle. And he found that the bait used was a white mullet six to ten inches long, a little fish which resembled the chub. Ken did not like the long, cruel gaff which seemed a necessary adjunct to each outfit of tackle, and he vowed that in his fishing for tarpon he would dispense with it.

Ken was not backward about asking questions, and he learned that Tampico, during the winter months, was a rendezvous for sportsmen from all over the world. For the most part, they came to catch the leaping tarpon; the shooting along the Panuco, however, was as well worth while as the fishing. But Ken could not learn anything about the Santa Rosa River. The tierra caliente, or hot belt, along the curve of the Gulf was intersected by small streams, many of them unknown and unnamed. The Panuco swung round to the west and had its source somewhere up in the mountains. Ken decided that the Santa Rosa was one of its headwaters. Valles lay up on the first swell of higher ground, and was distant from Tampico some six hours by train. So, reckoning with the meandering course of jungle streams, Ken calculated he would have something like one hundred and seventy-five miles to travel by water from Valles to Tampico. There were Indian huts strung along the Panuco River, and fifty miles inland a village named Panuco. What lay between Panuco and Valles, up over the wild steppes of that jungle, Ken Ward could only conjecture.

Presently he came upon Hal in conversation with an American boy, who at once volunteered to show them around. So they set out, and were soon becoming well acquainted. Their guide said he was from Kansas; had been working in the railroad offices for two years; and was now taking a vacation. His name was George Alling. Under his guidance the boys spent several interesting hours going about the city. During this walk Hal showed his first tendency to revert to his natural bent of mind. Not for long could Hal Ward exist without making trouble for something. In this case it was buzzards, of which the streets of Tampico were full. In fact, George explained, the buzzards were the only street-cleaning department in the town. They were as tame as tame turkeys, and Hal could not resist the desire to chase them. And he could be made to stop only after a white-helmeted officer had threatened him. George explained further that although Tampico had no game-laws it protected these buzzard-scavengers of the streets.

The market-house at the canal wharf was one place where Ken thought Hal would forget himself in the bustle and din and color. All was so strange and new. Indeed, for a time Hal appeared to be absorbed in his surroundings, but when he came to a stall where a man had parrots and raccoons and small deer, and three little yellow, black-spotted tiger-cats, as George called them, then once more Ken had to take Hal in tow. Outside along the wharf were moored a hundred or more canoes of manifold variety. All had been hewn from solid tree-trunks. Some were long, slender, graceful, pretty to look at, and easy to handle in shallow lagoons, but Ken thought them too heavy and cumbersome for fast water. Happening just then to remember Micas Falls, Ken had a momentary chill and a check to his enthusiasm for the jungle trip. What if he encountered, in coming down the Santa Rosa, some such series of cascades as those which made Micas Falls!

It was about noon when George led the boys out to the banks of the broad Panuco. Both Hal and Ken were suffering from the heat. They had removed their coats, and were now very glad to rest in the shade.

“This is a nice cool day,” said George, and he looked cool.

“We’ve got on our heavy clothes, and this tropic sun is new to us,” replied Ken. “Say, Hal—”

A crash in the water near the shore interrupted Ken.

“Was that a rhinoceros?” inquired Hal.

“Savalo,” said George.

“What’s that?”

“Silver king. A tarpon. Look around and you’ll see one break water. There are some fishermen trolling down-stream. Watch. Maybe one will hook a fish presently. Then you’ll see some jumping.”

It was cool in the shade, as the brothers soon discovered, and they spent a delightful hour watching the river and the wild fowl and the tarpon. Ken and Hal were always lucky. Things happened for their benefit and pleasure. Not only did they see many tarpon swirl like bars of silver on the water, but a fisherman hooked one of the great fish not fifty yards from where the boys sat. And they held their breath, and with starting eyes watched the marvelous leaps and dashes of the tarpon till, as he shot up in a last mighty effort, wagging his head, slapping his huge gills, and flinging the hook like a bullet, he plunged back free.

“Nine out of ten get away,” remarked George.

“Did you ever catch one?” asked Hal.

“Sure.”

“Hal, I’ve got to have some of this fishing,” said Ken. “But if we start at it now — would we ever get that jungle trip?”

“Oh, Ken, you’ve made up your mind to go!” exclaimed Hal, in glee.

“No, I haven’t,” protested Ken.

“Yes, you have,” declared Hal. “I know you.” And the whoop that he had suppressed in the hotel he now let out with good measure.

Naturally George was interested, and at his inquiry Ken told him the idea for the Santa Rosa trip.

“Take me along,” said George. There was a note of American spirit in his voice, a laugh on his lips, and a flash in his eyes that made Ken look at him attentively. He was a slim youth, not much Hal’s senior, and Ken thought if ever a boy had been fashioned to be a boon comrade of Hal Ward this George Alling was the boy.

“What do you think of the trip?” inquired Ken, curiously.

“Fine. We’ll have some fun. We’ll get a boat and a mozo—”

“What’s a mozo?”

“A native boatman.”

“That’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of a boatman to help row. But the boat is the particular thing. I wouldn’t risk a trip in one of those canoes.”

“Come on, I’ll find a boat,” said George.

And before he knew it George and Hal were leading him back from the river. George led him down narrow lanes, between painted stone houses and iron-barred windows, till they reached the canal. They entered a yard where buzzards, goats, and razor-back pigs were contesting over the scavenger rights. George went into a boat-house and pointed out a long, light, wide skiff with a flat bottom. Ken did not need George’s praise, or the shining light in Hal’s eyes, or the boat-keeper’s importunities to make him eager to try this particular boat. Ken Ward knew a boat when he saw one. He jumped in, shoved it out, rowed up the canal, pulled and turned, backed water, and tried every stroke he knew. Then he rested on the oars and whistled. Hal’s shout of delight made him stop whistling. Those two boys would have him started on the trip if he did not look sharp.

“It’s a dandy boat,” said Ken.

“Only a peso a day, Ken,” went on Hal. “One dollar Mex — fifty cents in our money. Quick, Ken, hire it before somebody else gets it.”

“Sure I’ll hire the boat,” replied Ken; “but Hal, it’s not for that Santa Rosa trip. We’ll have to forget that.”

“Forget your grandmother!” cried Hal. And then it was plain that he tried valiantly to control himself, to hide his joy, to pretend to agree with Ken’s ultimatum.

Ken had a feeling that his brother knew him perfectly, and he was divided between anger and amusement. They returned to the hotel and lounged in the lobby. The proprietor was talking with some Americans, and as he now appeared to be at leisure he introduced the brothers and made himself agreeable. Moreover, he knew George Alling well. They began to chat, and Ken was considerably annoyed to hear George calmly state that he and his new-found friends intended to send a boat up to Valles and come down an unknown jungle river.

The proprietor laughed, and, though the laugh was not unpleasant, somehow it nettled Ken Ward.

“Why not go?” he asked, quietly, and he looked at the hotel man.

“My boy, you can’t undertake any trip like that.”

“Why not?” persisted Ken. “Is there any law here to prevent our going into the jungle?”

“There’s no law. No one could stop you. But, my lad, what’s the sense of taking such a fool trip? The river here is full of tarpon right now. There are millions of ducks and geese on the lagoons. You can shoot deer and wild turkey right on the edge of town. If you want tiger and javelin, go out to one of the ranches where they have dogs to hunt with, where you’ll have a chance for your life. These tigers and boars will kill a man. There’s all the sport any one wants right close to Tampico.”

“I don’t see how all that makes a reason why we shouldn’t come down the Santa Rosa,” replied Ken. “We want to explore — map the river.”

The hotel man seemed nettled in return.

“You’re only kids. It’d be crazy to start out on that wild trip.”

It was on Ken’s lips to mention a few of the adventures which he believed justly gave him a right to have pride and confidence in his ability. But he forbore.

“It’s a fool trip,” continued the proprietor. “You don’t know this river. You don’t know where you’ll come out. It’s wild up in that jungle. I’ve hunted up at Valles, and no native I ever met would go a mile from the village. If you take a mozo he’ll get soaked with canya. He’ll stick a knife in you or run off and leave you when you most need help. Nobody ever explored that river. It’ll likely be full of swamps, sandbars, bogs. You’d get fever. Then the crocodiles, the boars, the bats, the snakes, the tigers! Why, if you could face these you’d still have the ticks — the worst of all. The ticks would drive men crazy, let alone boys. It’s no undertaking for a boy.”

The mention of all these dangers would have tipped the balance for Ken in favor of the Santa Rosa trip, even if the hint of his callowness had not roused his spirit.

“Thank you. I’m sure you mean kindly,” said Ken. “But I’m going to Valles and I’ll come down that jungle river.”

CHAPTER III

AN INDIAN BOATMAN

THE MOMENT THE decision was made Ken felt both sorry and glad. He got the excited boys outside away from the critical and anxious proprietor. And Ken decided it was incumbent upon him to adopt a serious and responsible manner, which he was far from feeling. So he tried to be as cool as Hiram Bent, with a fatherly interest in the two wild boys who were to accompany him down the Santa Rosa.

“Now, George, steer us around till we find a mozo,” said Ken. “Then well buy an outfit and get started on this trip before you can say Jack Robinson.”

All the mozos the boys interviewed were eager to get work; however, when made acquainted with the nature of the trip they refused point blank.

“Tigre!” exclaimed one.

“Javelin!” exclaimed another.

The big spotted jaguar of the jungle and the wild boar, or peccary, were held in much dread by the natives.

“These natives will climb a tree at sight of a tiger or pig,” said George. “For my part I’m afraid of the garrapatoes and the pinilius.”

“What’re they?” asked Hal.

“Ticks — jungle ticks. Just wait till you make their acquaintance.”

Finally the boys met a mozo named Pepe, who had often rowed a boat for George. Pepe looked sadly in need of a job; still he did not ask for it. George said that Pepe had been one of the best boatmen on the river until canya, the fiery white liquor to which the natives were addicted, had ruined his reputation. Pepe wore an old sombrero, a cotton shirt and sash, and ragged trousers. He was barefooted. Ken noted the set of his muscular neck, his brawny shoulders and arms, and appreciated the years of rowing that had developed them. But Pepe’s haggard face, deadened eyes, and listless manner gave Ken pause. Still, Ken reflected, there was never any telling what a man might do, if approached right. Pepe’s dejection excited Ken’s sympathy. So Ken clapped him on the shoulder, and, with George acting as interpreter, offered Pepe work for several weeks at three pesos a day. That was more than treble the mozo’s wage. Pepe nearly fell off the canal bridge, where he was sitting, and a light as warm and bright as sunshine flashed into his face.

“Si, Señor — Si, Señor,” he began to jabber, and waved his brown hands.

Ken suspected that Pepe needed a job and a little kind treatment. He was sure of it when George said Pepe’s wife and children were in want. Somehow Ken conceived a liking for Pepe, and believed he could trust him. He thought he knew how to deal with poor Pepe. So he gave him money, told him to get a change of clothes and a pair of shoes, and come to the hotel next day.

“He’ll spend the money for canya, and not show up to-morrow,” said George.

“I don’t know anything about your natives, but that fellow will come,” declared Ken.

It appeared that the whole American colony in Tampico had been acquainted with Ken Ward’s project, and made a business to waylay the boys at each corner. They called the trip a wild-goose chase. They declared it was a dime-novel idea, and could hardly take Ken seriously. They mingled astonishment with amusement and concern. They advised Ken not to go, and declared they would not let him go. Over and over again the boys were assured of the peril from ticks, bats, boars, crocodiles, snakes, tigers, and fevers.

“That’s what I’m taking the trip for,” snapped Ken, driven to desperation by all this nagging.

“Well, young man, I admire your nerve,” concluded the hotel man. “If you’re determined to go, we can’t stop you. And there’s some things we would like you to find out for us. How far do tarpon run up the Panuco River? Do they spawn up there? How big are the new-born fish? I’ll furnish you with tackle and preserved mullet, for bait. We’ve always wondered about how far tarpon go up into fresh water. Keep your eye open for signs of oil. Also look at the timber. And be sure to make a map of the river.”

When it came to getting the boat shipped the boys met with more obstacles. But for the friendly offices of a Texan, an employee of the railroad, they would never have been able to convince the native shipping agent that a boat was merchandise. The Texan arranged the matter and got Ken a freight bill. He took an entirely different view of Ken’s enterprise, compared with that of other Americans, and in a cool, drawling voice, which somehow reminded Ken of Jim Williams, he said:

“Shore you-all will have the time of your lives. I worked at Valles for a year. That jungle is full of game. I killed three big tigers. You-all want to look out for those big yellow devils. One in every three will jump for a man. There’s nothing but shoot, then. And the wild pigs are bad. They put me up a tree more than once. I don’t know much about the Santa Rosa. Its source is above Micas Falls. Never heard where it goes. I know it’s full of crocodiles and rapids. Never saw a boat or a canoe at Valles. And say — there are big black snakes in the jungle. Look out for them, too. Shore you-all have sport a-comin’.”

Ken thanked the Texan, and as he went on up-street, for all his sober thoughtfulness, he was as eager as Hal or George. However, his position as their guardian would not permit any show of extravagant enthusiasm.

Ken bought blankets, cooking utensils, and supplies for three weeks. There was not such a thing as a tent in Tampico. The best the boys could get for a shelter was a long strip of canvas nine feet wide.

“That’ll keep off the wet,” said Ken, “but it won’t keep out the mosquitoes and things.”

“Couldn’t keep ’em out if we had six tents,” replied George.

The remainder of that day the boys were busy packing the outfit.

Pepe presented himself at the hotel next morning an entirely different person. He was clean-shaven, and no longer disheveled. He wore a new sombrero, a white cotton shirt, a red sash, and blue trousers. He carried a small bundle, a pair of shoes, and a long machete. The dignity with which he approached before all the other mozos was not lost upon Ken Ward. A sharp scrutiny satisfied him that Pepe had not been drinking. Ken gave him several errands to do. Then he ordered the outfit taken to the station in Pepe’s charge.

The boys went down early in the afternoon. It was the time when the mozos were returning from the day’s tarpon-fishing on the river, and they, with the cargodores, streamed to and fro on the platform. Pepe was there standing guard over Ken’s outfit. He had lost his fame among his old associates, and for long had been an outsider. Here he was in charge of a pile of fine guns, fishing-tackle, baggage, and supplies — a collection representing a fortune to him and his simple class. He had been trusted with it. It was under his eye. All his old associates passed by to see him there. That was a great time for Pepe. He looked bright, alert, and supremely happy. It would have fared ill with thieves or loafers who would have made themselves free with any of the articles under his watchful eye.

The train pulled out of Tampico at five o’clock, and Hal’s “We’re off!” was expressive.

The railroad lay along the river-bank, and the broad Panuco was rippling with the incoming tide. If Ken and Hal had not already found George to be invaluable as a companion in this strange country they would have discovered it then. For George could translate Pepe’s talk, and explain much that otherwise would have been dark to the brothers. Wild ducks dotted the green surface, and spurts showed where playful ravalo were breaking water. Great green-backed tarpon rolled their silver sides against the little waves. White cranes and blue herons stood like statues upon the reedy bars. Low down over the opposite bank of the river a long line of wild geese winged its way toward a shimmering lagoon. And against the gold and crimson of the sunset sky a flight of wild fowl stood out in bold black relief. The train crossed the Tamesi River and began to draw away from the Panuco. On the right, wide marshes, gleaming purple in the darkening light, led the eye far beyond to endless pale lagoons. Birds of many kinds skimmed the weedy flats. George pointed out a flock of aigrets, the beautiful wild fowl with the priceless plumes. Then there was a string of pink flamingoes, tall, grotesque, wading along with waddling stride, feeding with heads under water.

“Great!” exclaimed Ken Ward.

“It’s all so different from Arizona,” said Hal.

At Tamos, twelve miles out of Tampico, the train entered the jungle. Thereafter the boys could see nothing but the impenetrable green walls that lined the track. At dusk the train reached a station called Las Palmas, and then began to ascend the first step of the mountain. The ascent was steep, and, when it was accomplished, Ken looked down and decided that step of the mountain was between two and three thousand feet high. The moon was in its first quarter, and Ken, studying this tropical moon, found it large, radiant, and a wonderful green-gold. It shed a soft luminous glow down upon the sleeping, tangled web of jungle. It was new and strange to Ken, so vastly different from barren desert or iron-ribbed canyon, and it thrilled him with nameless charm.

The train once more entered jungle walls, and as the boys could not see anything out of the windows they lay back in their seats and waited for the ride to end. They were due at Valles at ten o’clock, and the impatient Hal complained that they would never get there. At length a sharp whistle from the engine caused Pepe to turn to the boys with a smile.

“Valles,” he said.

With rattle and clank the train came to a halt. Ken sent George and Pepe out, and he and Hal hurriedly handed the luggage through the open window. When the last piece had been passed into Pepe’s big hands the boys made a rush for the door, and jumped off as the train started.

“Say, but it’s dark,” said Hal.

As the train with its lights passed out of sight Ken found himself in what seemed a pitchy blackness. He could not see the boys. And he felt a little cold sinking of his heart at the thought of such black nights on an unknown jungle river.

CHAPTER IV

AT THE JUNGLE RIVER

PRESENTLY, AS KEN’S eyes became accustomed to the change, the darkness gave place to pale moonlight. A crowd of chattering natives, with wide sombreros on their heads and blankets over their shoulders, moved round the little stone station. Visitors were rare in Valles, as was manifested by the curiosity aroused by the boys and the pile of luggage.

“Ask Pepe to find some kind of lodging for the night,” said Ken to George.

Pepe began to question the natives, and soon was lost in the crowd. Awhile after, as Ken was making up his mind they might have to camp on the station platform, a queer low ‘bus drawn by six little mules creaked up. Pepe jumped off the seat beside the driver, and began to stow the luggage away in the ‘bus. Then the boys piled in behind, and were soon bowling along a white moonlit road. The soft voices of natives greeted their passing.

Valles appeared to be about a mile from the station, and as they entered the village Ken made out rows of thatched huts, and here and there a more pretentious habitation of stone. At length the driver halted before a rambling house, partly stone and partly thatch. There were no lights; in fact, Ken did not see a light in the village. George told the boys to take what luggage each could carry and follow the guide. Inside the house it was as dark as a dungeon. The boys bumped into things and fell over each other trying to keep close to the barefooted and mysterious guide. Finally they climbed to a kind of loft, where the moonlight streamed in at the open sides.

“What do you think of this?” panted Hal, who had struggled with a heavy load of luggage. Pepe and the guide went down to fetch up the remainder of the outfit. Ken thought it best to stand still until he knew just where he was. But Hal and George began moving about in the loft. It was very large and gloomy, and seemed open, yet full of objects. Hal jostled into something which creaked and fell with a crash. Then followed a yell, a jabbering of a frightened native, and a scuffling about.

“Hal, what’d you do?” called Ken, severely.

“You can search me,” replied Hal Ward. “One thing — I busted my shin.”

“He knocked over a bed with some one sleeping in it,” said George.

Pepe arrived in the loft then and soon soothed the injured feelings of the native who had been so rudely disturbed. He then led the boys to their cots, which were no more than heavy strips of canvas stretched over tall frameworks. They appeared to be enormously high for beds. Ken’s was as high as his head, and Ken was tall for his age.

“Say, I’ll never get up into this thing,” burst out Hal. “These people must be afraid to sleep near the floor. George, why are these cots so high?”

“I reckon to keep the pigs and dogs and all that from sleeping with the natives,” answered George. “Besides, the higher you sleep in Mexico the farther you get from creeping, crawling things.”

Ken had been of half a mind to sleep on the floor, but George’s remark had persuaded him to risk the lofty cot. It was most awkward to climb into. Ken tried several times without success, and once he just escaped a fall. By dint of muscle and a good vault he finally landed in the center of his canvas. From there he listened to his more unfortunate comrades. Pepe got into his without much difficulty. George, however, in climbing up, on about the fifth attempt swung over too hard and rolled off on the other side. The thump he made when he dropped jarred the whole loft. From the various growls out of the darkness it developed that the loft was full of sleepers, who were not pleased at this invasion. Then Hal’s cot collapsed, and went down with a crash. And Hal sat on the flattened thing and laughed.

“Mucho malo,” Pepe said, and he laughed, too. Then he had to get out and put up Hal’s trestle bed. Hal once again went to climbing up the framework, and this time, with Pepe’s aid, managed to surmount it.

“George, what does Pepe mean by mucho malo?” asked Hal.

“Bad — very much bad,” replied George.

“Nix — tell him nix. This is fine,” said Hal.

“Boys, if you don’t want to sleep yourselves, shut up so the rest of us can,” ordered Ken.

He liked the sense of humor and the good fighting spirit of the boys, and fancied they were the best attributes in comrades on a wild trip. For a long time he heard a kind of shuddering sound, which he imagined was Hal’s cot quivering as the boy laughed. Then absolute quiet prevailed, the boys slept, and Ken felt himself drifting.

When he awakened the sun was shining through the holes in the thatched roof. Pepe was up, and the other native sleepers were gone. Ken and the boys descended from their perches without any tumbles, had a breakfast that was palatable — although even George could not name what they ate — and then were ready for the day.

Valles consisted of a few stone houses and many thatched huts of bamboo and palm. There was only one street, and it was full of pigs, dogs, and buzzards. The inhabitants manifested a kindly interest and curiosity, which changed to consternation when they learned of the boys’ project. Pepe questioned many natives, and all he could learn about the Santa Rosa was that there was an impassable waterfall some few kilometers below Valles. Ken gritted his teeth and said they would have to get past it. Pepe did not encounter a man who had ever heard of the headwaters of the Panuco River. There were only a few fields under cultivation around Valles, and they were inclosed by impenetrable jungle. It seemed useless to try to find out anything about the river. But Pepe’s advisers in the village told enough about tigre and javelin to make Hal’s hair stand on end, and George turn pale, and Ken himself wish they had not come. It all gave Ken both a thrill and a shock.

There was not much conversation among the boys on the drive back to the station. However, sight of the boat, which had come by freight, stirred Ken with renewed spirit, and through him that was communicated to the others.

The hardest task, so far, developed in the matter of transporting boat and supplies out to the river. Ken had hoped to get a handcar and haul the outfit on the track down to where the bridge crossed the Santa Rosa. But there was no hand-car. Then came the staggering information that there was no wagon which would carry the boat, and then worse still in the fact that there was no road. This discouraged Ken; nevertheless he had not the least idea of giving up. He sent Pepe out to tell the natives there must be some way to get the outfit to the river.

Finally Pepe found a fellow who had a cart. This fellow claimed he knew a trail that went to a point from which it would be easy to carry the boat to the river. Ken had Pepe hire the man at once.

“Bring on your old cart,” said the irrepressible Hal.

That cart turned out to be a remarkable vehicle. It consisted of a narrow body between enormously high wheels. A trio of little mules was hitched to it. The driver willingly agreed to haul the boat and outfit for one peso, but when he drove up to the platform to be surrounded by neighbors, he suddenly discovered that he could not possibly accommodate the boys. Patiently Pepe tried to persuade him. No, the thing was impossible. He made no excuses, but he looked mysterious.

“George, tell Pepe to offer him five pesos,” said Ken.

Pepe came out bluntly with the inducement, and the driver began to sweat. From the look of his eyes Ken fancied he had not earned so much money in a year. Still he was cunning, and his whispering neighbors lent him support. He had the only cart in the village, and evidently it seemed that fortune had come to knock at least once at his door. He shook his head.

Ken held up both hands with fingers spread. “Ten pesos,” he said.

The driver, like a crazy man, began to jabber his consent.

The boys lifted the boat upon the cart, and tied it fast in front so that the stern would not sag. Then they packed the rest of the outfit inside.

Ken was surprised to see how easily the little mules trotted off with such a big load. At the edge of the jungle he looked back toward the station. The motley crowd of natives were watching, making excited gestures, and all talking at once. The driver drove into a narrow trail, which closed behind him. Pepe led on foot, brushing aside the thick foliage. Ken drew a breath of relief as he passed into the cool shade. The sun was very hot. Hal and George brought up the rear, talking fast.

The trail was lined and overgrown with slender trees, standing very close, making dense shade. Many birds, some of beautiful coloring, flitted in the branches. In about an hour the driver entered a little clearing where there were several thatched huts. Ken heard the puffing of an engine, and, looking through the trees, he saw the railroad and knew they had arrived at the pumping-station and the bridge over the Santa Rosa.

Pepe lost no time in rounding up six natives to carry the boat. They did not seem anxious to oblige Pepe, although they plainly wanted the money he offered. The trouble was the boat, at which they looked askance. As in the case with the driver, however, the weight and clinking of added silver overcame their reluctance. They easily lifted the boat upon their shoulders. And as they entered the trail, making a strange procession in the close-bordering foliage, they encountered two natives, who jumped and ran, yelling: “La diable! La diable!”

“What ails those gazabos?” asked Hal.

“They’re scared,” replied George. “They thought the boat was the devil.”

If Ken needed any more than had already come to him about the wildness of the Santa Rosa, he had it in the frightened cries and bewilderment of these natives. They had never seen a boat. The Santa Rosa was a beautiful wild river upon which boats were unknown. Ken had not hoped for so much. And now that the die was cast he faced the trip with tingling gladness.

“George and Hal, you stay behind to watch the outfit. Pepe and I will carry what we can and follow the boat. I’ll send back after you,” said Ken.

Then as he followed Pepe and the natives down the trail there was a deep satisfaction within him. He heard the soft rush of water over stones and the mourning of turtledoves. He rounded a little hill to come abruptly upon the dense green mass of river foliage. Giant cypress-trees, bearded with gray moss, fringed the banks. Through the dark green of leaves Ken caught sight of light-green water. Birds rose all about him. There were rustlings in the thick underbrush and the whir of ducks. The natives penetrated the dark shade and came out to an open, grassy point.

The Santa Rosa, glistening, green, swift, murmured at Ken’s feet. The natives dropped the boat into the water, and with Pepe went back for the rest of the outfit. Ken looked up the shady lane of the river and thought of the moment when he had crossed the bridge in the train. Then, as much as he had longed to be there, he had not dared to hope it. And here he was! How strange it was, just then, to see a large black duck with white-crested wings sweep by as swift as the wind! Ken had seen that wild fowl, or one of his kind, and it had haunted him.

CHAPTER V

THE FIRST CAMP

IN LESS THAN an hour all the outfit had been carried down to the river, and the boys sat in the shade, cooling off, happily conscious that they had made an auspicious start.

It took Ken only a moment to decide to make camp there and the next day try to reach Micas Falls. The mountains appeared close at hand, and were so lofty that, early in the afternoon as it was, the westering sun hung over the blue summits. The notch where the Santa Rosa cut through the range stood out clear, and at most it was not more than eighteen miles distant. So Ken planned to spend a day pulling up the river, and then to turn for the down-stream trip.

“Come, boys, let’s make camp,” said Ken.

He sent Pepe with his long machete into the brush to cut fire-wood. Hal he set to making a stone fireplace, which work the boy rather prided himself upon doing well. Ken got George to help him to put up the strip of canvas. They stretched a rope between two trees, threw the canvas over it, and pegged down the ends.

“Say, how’re we going to sleep?” inquired Hal, suddenly.

“Sleep? Why, on our backs, of course,” retorted Ken, who could read Hal’s mind.

“If we don’t have some hot old times keeping things out of this tent, I’m a lobster,” said George, dubiously. “I’m going to sleep in the middle.”

“You’re a brave boy, George,” replied Ken.

“Me for between Ken and Pepe,” added Hal.

“And you’re twice as brave,” said Ken. “I dare say Pepe and I will be able to keep things from getting at you.”

Just as Pepe came into camp staggering under a load of wood, a flock of russet-colored ducks swung round the bend. They alighted near the shore at a point opposite the camp. The way George and Hal made headers into the pile of luggage for their guns gave Ken an inkling of what he might expect from these lads. He groaned, and then he laughed. George came up out of the luggage first, and he had a .22-caliber rifle, which he quickly loaded and fired into the flock. He crippled one; the others flew up-stream. Then George began to waste shells trying to kill the crippled duck. Hal got into action with his .22. They bounced bullets off the water all around the duck, but they could not hit it.

Pepe grew as excited as the boys, and he jumped into the boat and with a long stick began to pole out into the stream. Ken had to caution George and Hal to lower their guns and not shoot Pepe. Below camp and just under the bridge the water ran into a shallow rift. The duck got onto the current and went round the bend, with Pepe polling in pursuit and George and Hal yelling along the shore. When they returned a little later, they had the duck, which was of an unknown species to Ken. Pepe had fallen overboard; George was wet to his knees; and, though Hal did not show any marks of undue exertion, his eyes would have enlightened any beholder. The fact was that they were glowing with the excitement of the chase. It amused Ken. He felt that he had to try to stifle his own enthusiasm. There had to be one old head in the party. But if he did have qualms over the possibilities of the boys to worry him with their probable escapades, he still felt happy at their boundless life and spirit.

It was about the middle of the afternoon, and the heat had become intense. Ken realized it doubly when he saw Pepe favoring the shade. George and Hal were hot, but they appeared to be too supremely satisfied with their surroundings to care about that.

During this hot spell, which lasted from three o’clock until five, there was a quiet and a lack of life around camp that surprised Ken. It was slumberland; even the insects seemed drowsy. Not a duck and scarcely a bird passed by. Ken heard the mourning of turtle-doves, and was at once struck with the singular deep, full tone. Several trains crossed the bridge, and at intervals the engine at the pumping-tank puffed and chugged. From time to time a native walked out upon the bridge to stare long and curiously at the camp.

When the sun set behind the mountain a hard breeze swept down the river. Ken did not know what to make of it, and at first thought there was going to be a storm. Pepe explained that the wind blew that way every day after sunset. For a while it tossed the willows, and waved the Spaniard’s-beard upon the cypresses. Then as suddenly as it had come it died away, taking the heat with it.

Whereupon the boys began to get supper.

“George, do you know anything about this water?” asked Ken. “Is it safe?”

George supposed it was all right, but he did not know. The matter of water had bothered Ken more than any other thing in consideration of the trip. This river-water was cool and clear; it apparently was safe. But Ken decided not to take any chances, and to boil all the water used. All at once George yelled, “Canvasbacks!” and made a dive for his gun. Ken saw a flock of ducks swiftly winging flight up-stream.

“Hold on, George; don’t shoot,” called Ken. “Let’s go a little slow at the start.”

George appeared to be disappointed, though he promptly obeyed.

Then the boys had supper, finding the russet duck much to their taste. Ken made a note of Pepe’s capacity, and was glad there were prospects of plenty of meat. While they were eating, a group of natives gathered on the bridge. Ken would not have liked to interpret their opinion of his party from their actions.

Night came on almost before the boys were ready for it. They replenished the camp-fire, and sat around it, looking into the red blaze and then out into the flickering shadows. Ken thought the time propitious for a little lecture he had to give the boys, and he remembered how old Hiram Bent had talked to him and Hal that first night down under the great black rim-wall of the Grand Canyon.

“Well, fellows,” began Ken, “we’re started, we’re here, and the trip looks great to me. Now, as I am responsible, I intend to be boss. I want you boys to do what I tell you. I may make mistakes, but if I do I’ll take them on my shoulders. Let’s try to make the trip a great success. Let’s be careful. We’re not game-hogs. We’ll not kill any more than we can eat. I want you boys to be careful with your guns. Think all the time where you’re pointing them. And as to thinking, we’d do well to use our heads all the time. We’ve no idea what we’re going up against in this jungle.”

Both boys listened to Ken with attention and respect, but they did not bind themselves by any promises.

Ken had got out the mosquito-netting, expecting any moment to find it very serviceable; however, to his surprise it was not needed. When it came time to go to bed, Hal and George did not forget to slip in between Pepe and Ken. The open-sided tent might keep off rain or dew, but for all the other protection it afforded, the boys might as well have slept outside. Nevertheless they were soon fast asleep. Ken awoke a couple of times during the night and rolled over to find a softer spot in the hard bed. These times he heard only the incessant hum of insects.

When he opened his eyes in the gray morning light, he did hear something that made him sit up with a start. It was a deep booming sound, different from anything that he had ever heard. Ken called Pepe, and that roused the boys.

“Listen,” said Ken.

In a little while the sound was repeated, a heavy “boo-oom! . . . boo-oom!” There was a resemblance to the first strong beats of a drumming grouse, only infinitely wilder.

Pepe called it something like “faisan real.”

“What’s that?” asked Hal.

The name was as new to Ken as the noise itself. Pepe explained through George that it was made by a huge black bird not unlike a turkey. It had a golden plume, and could run as fast as a deer. The boys rolled out, all having conceived a desire to see such a strange bird. The sound was not repeated. Almost immediately, however, the thicket across the river awoke to another sound, as much a contrast to the boom as could be imagined. It was a bird medley. At first Ken thought of magpies, but Pepe dispelled this illusion with another name hard to pronounce.

“Chicalocki,” he said.

And that seemed just like what they were singing. It was a sharp, clear song— “Chic-a-lock-i . . . chic-a-lock-i,” and to judge from the full chorus there must have been many birds.

“They’re a kind of pheasant,” added George, “and make fine pot-stews.”

The chicalocki ceased their salute to the morning, and then, as the river mist melted away under the rising sun, other birds took it up. Notes new to Ken burst upon the air. And familiar old songs thrilled him, made him think of summer days on the Susquehanna — the sweet carol of the meadow-lark, the whistle of the quail, the mellow, sad call of the swamp-blackbird. The songs blended in an exquisite harmony.

“Why, some of them are our own birds come south for the winter,” declared Hal.

“It’s music,” said Ken.

“Just wait,” laughed George.

It dawned upon Ken then that George was a fellow who had the mysterious airs of a prophet hinting dire things.

Ken did not know what to wait for, but he enjoyed the suggestion and anticipated much. Ducks began to whir by; flocks of blackbirds alighted in the trees across the river. Suddenly Hal jumped up, and Ken was astounded at a great discordant screeching and a sweeping rush of myriads of wings. Ken looked up to see the largest flock of birds he had ever seen.

“Parrots,” he yelled.

Indeed they were, and they let the boys know it. They flew across the river, wheeled to come back, all the time screeching, and then they swooped down into the tops of the cypress-trees.

“Red-heads,” said George. “Just wait till you see the yellow-heads!”

At the moment the red-heads were quite sufficient for Ken. They broke out into a chattering, screaming, cackling discordance. It was plainly directed at the boys. These intelligent birds were curious and resentful. As Pepe put it, they were scolding. Ken enjoyed it for a full half-hour and reveled in the din. That morning serenade was worth the trip. Presently the parrots flew away, and Ken was surprised to find that most of the other birds had ceased singing. They had set about the business of the day — something it was nigh time for Ken to consider.

Breakfast over, the boys broke camp, eager for the adventures that they felt to be before them.

CHAPTER VI

WILDERNESS LIFE

“NOW FOR THE big job, boys,” called Ken. “Any ideas will be welcome, but don’t all talk at once.”

And this job was the packing of the outfit in the boat. It was a study for Ken, and he found himself thanking his lucky stars that he had packed boats for trips on rapid rivers. George and Hal came to the fore with remarkable advice which Ken was at the pains of rejecting. And as fast as one wonderful idea emanated from the fertile minds another one came in. At last Ken lost patience.

“Kids, it’s going to take brains to pack this boat,” he said, with some scorn.

And when Hal remarked that in that case he did not see how they ever were going to pack the boat, Ken drove both boys away and engaged Pepe to help.

The boat had to be packed for a long trip, with many things taken into consideration. The very best way to pack it must be decided upon and thereafter held to strictly. Balance was all-important; comfort and elbow-room were not to be overlooked; a flat surface easy to crawl and jump over was absolutely necessary. Fortunately, the boat was large and roomy, although not heavy. The first thing Ken did was to cut out the narrow bow-seat. Here he packed a small bucket of preserved mullet, some bottles of kerosene and canya, and a lantern. The small, flat trunk, full of supplies, went in next. Two boxes with the rest of the supplies filled up the space between the trunk and the rowing-seat. By slipping an extra pair of oars, coils of rope, the ax, and a few other articles between the gunwales and the trunk and boxes Ken made them fit snugly. He cut off a piece of the canvas, and, folding it, he laid it with the blankets lengthwise over the top. This made a level surface, one that could be gotten over quickly, or a place to sleep, for that matter, and effectually disposed of the bow half of the boat. Of course the boat sank deep at the bow, but Ken calculated when they were all aboard their weight would effect an even balance.

The bags with clothing Ken put under the second seat. Then he arranged the other piece of canvas so that it projected up back of the stern of the boat. He was thinking of the waves to be buffeted in going stern first down-stream through the rapids. The fishing-tackle and guns he laid flat from seat to seat. Last of all he placed the ammunition on one side next the gunwale, and the suit-case carrying camera, films, medicines, on the other.

“Come now, fellows,” called Ken. “Hal, you and George take the second seat. Pepe will take the oars. I’ll sit in the stern.”

Pepe pushed off, jumped to his place, and grasped the oars. Ken was delighted to find the boat trim, and more buoyant than he had dared to hope.

“We’re off,” cried Hal, and he whooped. And George exercised his already well-developed faculty of imitating Hal.

Pepe bent to the oars, and under his powerful strokes the boat glided up-stream. Soon the bridge disappeared. Ken had expected a long, shady ride, but it did not turn out so. Shallow water and gravelly rapids made rowing impossible.

“Pile out, boys, and pull,” said Ken.

The boys had dressed for wading and rough work, and went overboard with a will. Pulling, at first, was not hard work. They were fresh and eager, and hauled the boat up swift, shallow channels, making nearly as good time as when rowing in smooth water. Then, as the sun began to get hot, splashing in the cool river was pleasant. They passed little islands green with willows and came to high clay-banks gradually wearing away, and then met with rocky restrictions in the stream-bed. From round a bend came a hollow roar of a deeper rapid. Ken found it a swift-rushing incline, very narrow, and hard to pull along. The margin of the river was hidden and obstructed by willows so that the boys could see very little ahead.

When they got above this fall the water was deep and still. Entering the boat again, they turned a curve into a long, beautiful stretch of river.

“Ah! this ‘s something like,” said Hal.

The green, shady lane was alive with birds and water-fowl. Ducks of various kinds rose before the boat. White, blue, gray, and speckled herons, some six feet tall, lined the low bars, and flew only at near approach. There were many varieties of bitterns, one kind with a purple back and white breast. They were very tame and sat on the overhanging branches, uttering dismal croaks. Everywhere was the flash and glitter and gleam of birds in flight, up and down and across the river.

Hal took his camera and tried to get pictures.

The strangeness, beauty, and life of this jungle stream absorbed Ken. He did not take his guns from their cases. The water was bright green and very deep; here and there were the swirls of playing fish. The banks were high and densely covered with a luxuriant foliage. Huge cypress-trees, moss-covered, leaned half-way across the river. Giant gray-barked ceibas spread long branches thickly tufted with aloes, orchids, and other jungle parasites. Palm-trees lifted slender stems and graceful broad-leaved heads. Clumps of bamboo spread an enormous green arch out over the banks. These bamboo-trees were particularly beautiful to Ken. A hundred yellow, black-circled stems grew out of the ground close together, and as they rose high they gracefully leaned their bodies and drooped their tips. The leaves were arrowy, exquisite in their fineness.

He looked up the long river-lane, bright in the sun, dark and still under the moss-veiled cypresses, at the turning vines and blossoming creepers, at the changeful web of moving birds, and indulged to the fullest that haunting sense for wild places.

“Chicalocki,” said Pepe, suddenly.

A flock of long-tailed birds, resembling the pheasant in body, was sailing across the river. Again George made a dive for a gun. This one was a sixteen-gage and worn out. He shot twice at the birds on the wing. Then Pepe rowed under the overhanging branches, and George killed three chicalocki with his rifle. They were olive green in color, and the long tail had a brownish cast. Heavy and plump, they promised fine eating.

“Pato real!” yelled Pepe, pointing excitedly up the river.

Several black fowl, as large as geese, hove in sight, flying pretty low. Ken caught a glimpse of wide, white-crested wings, and knew then that these were the birds he had seen.

“Load up and get ready,” he said to George. “They’re coming fast — shoot ahead of them.”

How swift and powerful they were on the wing! They swooped up when they saw the boat, and offered a splendid target. The little sixteen-gage rang out. Ken heard the shot strike. The leader stopped in midair, dipped, and plunged with a sounding splash. Ken picked him up and found him to be most beautiful, and as large and heavy as a goose. His black feathers shone with the latent green luster of an opal, and the pure white of the shoulder of the wings made a remarkable contrast.

“George, we’ve got enough meat for to-day, more than we can use. Don’t shoot any more,” said Ken.

Pepe resumed rowing, and Ken told him to keep under the overhanging branches and to row without splashing. He was skilled in the use of the oars, so the boat glided along silently. Ken felt he was rewarded for this stealth. Birds of rare and brilliant plumage flitted among the branches. There was one, a long, slender bird, gold and black with a white ring round its neck. There were little yellow-breasted kingfishers no larger than a wren, and great red-breasted kingfishers with blue backs and tufted heads. The boat passed under a leaning ceiba-tree that was covered with orchids. Ken saw the slim, sharp head of a snake dart from among the leaves. His neck was as thick as Ken’s wrist.

“What kind of a snake, Pepe?” whispered Ken, as he fingered the trigger of George’s gun. But Pepe did not see the snake, and then Ken thought better of disturbing the silence with a gunshot. He was reminded, however, that the Texan had told him of snakes in this jungle, some of which measured more than fifteen feet and were as large as a man’s leg.

Most of the way the bank was too high and steep and overgrown for any animal to get down to the water. Still there were dry gullies, or arroyos, every few hundred yards, and these showed the tracks of animals, but Pepe could not tell what species from the boat. Often Ken heard the pattering of hard feet, and then he would see a little cloud of dust in one of these drinking-places. So he cautioned Pepe to row slower and closer in to the bank.

“Look there! lemme out!” whispered Hal, and he seemed to be on the point of jumping overboard.

“Coons,” said George. “Oh, a lot of them. There — some young ones.”

Ken saw that they had come abruptly upon a band of raccoons, not less than thirty in number, some big, some little, and a few like tiny balls of fur, and all had long white-ringed tails. What a scampering the big ones set up! The little ones were frightened, and the smallest so tame they scarcely made any effort to escape. Pepe swung the boat in to the bank, and reaching out he caught a baby raccoon and handed it to Hal.

“Whoop! We’ll catch things and tame them,” exclaimed Hal, much delighted, and he proceeded to tie the little raccoon under the seat.

“Sure, we’ll get a whole menagerie,” said George.

So they went on up-stream. Often Ken motioned Pepe to stop in dark, cool places under the golden-green canopy of bamboos. He was as much fascinated by the beautiful foliage and tree growths as by the wild life. Hal appeared more taken up with the fluttering of birds in the thick jungle, rustlings, and soft, stealthy steps. Then as they moved on Ken whispered and pointed out a black animal vanishing in the thicket. Three times he caught sight of a spotted form slipping away in the shade. George saw it the last time, and whispered: “Tiger-cat! Let’s get him.”

“What’s that, Ken, a kind of a wildcat?” asked Hal.

“Yes.” Ken took George’s .32-caliber and tried to find a way up the bank. There was no place to climb up unless he dragged himself up branches of trees or drooping bamboos, and this he did not care to attempt encumbered with a rifle. Only here and there could he see over the matted roots and creepers. Then the sound of rapids put hunting out of his mind.

“Boys, we’ve got Micas Falls to reach,” he said, and told Pepe to row on.

The long stretch of deep river ended in a wide, shallow, noisy rapid. Fir-trees lined the banks. The palms, cypresses, bamboos, and the flowery, mossy growths were not here in evidence. Thickly wooded hills rose on each side. The jungle looked sear and yellow.

The boys began to wade up the rapid, and before they had reached the head of it Pepe yelled and jumped back from where he was wading at the bow. He took an oar and began to punch at something in the water, at the same time calling out.

“Crocodile!” cried George, and he climbed in the boat. Hal was not slow in following suit. Then Ken saw Pepe hitting a small crocodile, which lashed out with its tail and disappeared.

“Come out of there,” called Ken to the boys. “We can’t pull you up-stream.”

“Say, I don’t want to step on one of those ugly brutes,” protested Hal.

“Look sharp, then. Come out.”

Above the rapid extended a quarter-mile stretch where Pepe could row, and beyond that another long rapid. When the boys had waded up that it was only to come to another. It began to be hard work. But Ken kept the boys buckled down, and they made fair progress. They pulled up through eighteen rapids, and covered distance that Ken estimated to be about ten miles. The blue mountain loomed closer and higher, yet Ken began to have doubts of reaching Micas Falls that day.

Moreover, as they ascended the stream, the rapids grew rougher.

“It’ll be great coming down,” panted Hal.

Finally they reached a rapid which had long dinned in Ken’s ears. All the water in the river rushed down on the right-hand side through a channel scarcely twenty feet wide. It was deep and swift. With the aid of ropes, and by dint of much hard wading and pulling, the boys got the boat up. A little farther on was another bothersome rapid. At last they came to a succession of falls, steps in the river, that barred farther advance up-stream.

Here Ken climbed up on the bank, to find the country hilly and open, with patches of jungle and palm groves leading up to the mountains. Then he caught a glint of Micas Falls, and decided that it would be impossible to get there. He made what observations he could, and returned to camp.

“Boys, here’s where we stop,” said Ken. “It’ll be all down-stream now, and I’m glad.”

There was no doubt that the boys were equally glad. They made camp on a grassy bench above a foam-flecked pool. Ken left the others to get things in shape for supper, and, taking his camera, he hurried off to try to get a picture of Micas Falls. He found open places and by-paths through the brushy forest. He saw evidences of forest fire, and then knew what had ruined that part of the jungle. There were no birds. It was farther than he had estimated to the foothill he had marked, but, loath to give up, he kept on and finally reached a steep, thorny ascent. Going up he nearly suffocated with heat. He felt rewarded for his exertions when he saw Micas Falls glistening in the distance. It was like a string of green fans connected by silver ribbons. He remained there watching it while the sun set in the golden notch between the mountains.

On the way back to camp he waded through a flat overgrown with coarse grass and bushes. Here he jumped a herd of deer, eight in number. These small, sleek, gray deer appeared tame, and if there had been sufficient light, Ken would have photographed them. It cost him an effort to decide not to fetch his rifle, but as he had meat enough in camp there was nothing to do except let the deer go.

When he got back to the river Pepe grinned at him, and, pointing to little red specks on his shirt, he said:

“Pinilius.”

“Aha! the ticks!” exclaimed Ken.

They were exceedingly small, not to be seen without close scrutiny. They could not be brushed off, so Ken began laboriously to pick them off. Pepe and George laughed, and Hal appeared to derive some sort of enjoyment from the incident.

“Say, these ticks don’t bother me any,” declared Ken.

Pepe grunted; and George called out, “Just wait till you get the big fellows — the garrapatoes.”

It developed presently that the grass and bushes on the camp-site contained millions of the ticks. Ken found several of the larger ticks — almost the size of his little finger-nail — but he did not get bitten. Pepe and George, however, had no such good luck, as was manifested at different times. By the time they had cut down the bushes and carried in a stock of fire-wood, both were covered with the little pests. Hal found a spot where there appeared to be none, and here he stayed.

Pepe and George had the bad habit of smoking, and Ken saw them burning the ticks off shirt-sleeves and trousers-legs, using the fiery end of their cigarettes. This feat did not puzzle Ken anything like the one where they held the red point of the cigarettes close to their naked flesh. Ken, and Hal, too, had to see that performance at close range.

“Why do you do that?” asked Ken.

“Popping ticks,” replied George. He and Pepe were as sober as judges.

The fact of the matter was soon clear to Ken. The ticks stuck on as if glued. When the hot end of the burning cigarette was held within a quarter of an inch of them they simply blew up, exploded with a pop. Ken could easily distinguish between the tiny pop of an exploding pinilius and the heavier pop of a garrapato.

“But, boy, while you’re taking time to do that, half a dozen other ticks can bite you!” exclaimed Ken.

“Sure they can,” replied George. “But if they get on me I’ll kill ‘em. I don’t mind the little ones — it’s the big boys I hate.”

On the other hand, Pete seemed to mind most the pinilius.

“Say, from now on you fellows will be Garrapato George and Pinilius Pepe.”

“Pretty soon you’ll laugh on the other side of your face,” said George. “In three days you’ll be popping ticks yourself.”

Just then Hal let out a yell and began to hunt for a tick that had bit him. If there was anything that could bother Hal Ward it was a crawling bug of some kind.

“I’ll have to christen you too, brother.” said Ken, gurgling with mirth. “A very felicitous name — Hollering Hal!”

Despite the humor of the thing, Ken really saw its serious side. When he found the grass under his feet alive with ticks he cast about in his mind for some way to get rid of them. And he hit upon a remedy. On the ridge above the bench was a palm-tree, and under it were many dead palm leaves. These were large in size, had long stems, and were as dry as tinder. Ken lighted one, and it made a flaming hot torch. It did not take him long to scorch all the ticks near that camp.

The boys had supper and enjoyed it hugely. The scene went well with the camp-fire and game-dinner. They gazed out over the foaming pool, the brawling rapids, to the tufted palm-trees, and above them the dark-blue mountain. At dusk Hal and George were so tired they went to bed and at once dropped into slumber. Pepe sat smoking before the slumbering fire.

And Ken chose that quiet hour to begin the map of the river, and to set down in his note-book his observations on the mountains and in the valley, and what he had seen that day of bird, animal, and plant life in the jungle.

CHAPTER VII

RUNNING THE RAPIDS

SOME TIME IN the night a yell awakened Ken. He sat up, clutching his revolver. The white moonlight made all as clear as day. Hal lay deep in slumber. George was raising himself, half aroused. But Pepe was gone.

Ken heard a thrashing about outside. Leaping up he ran out, and was frightened to see Pepe beating and clawing and tearing at himself like a man possessed of demons.

“Pepe, what’s wrong?” shouted Ken.

It seemed that Pepe only grew more violent in his wrestling about. Then Ken was sure Pepe had been stung by a scorpion or bitten by a snake.

But he was dumfounded to see George bound like an apparition out of the tent and begin evolutions that made Pepe’s look slow.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you jumping-jacks?” yelled Ken.

George was as grimly silent as an Indian running the gantlet, but Ken thought it doubtful if any Indian ever slapped and tore at his body in George’s frantic manner. To add to the mystery Hal suddenly popped out of the tent. He was yelling in a way to do justice to the name Ken had lately given him, and, as for wild and whirling antics, his were simply marvelous.

“Good land!” ejaculated Ken. Had the boys all gone mad? Despite his alarm, Ken had to roar with laughter at those three dancing figures in the moonlight. A rush of ideas went through Ken’s confused mind. And the last prompted him to look in the tent.

He saw a wide bar of black crossing the moonlit ground, the grass, and the blankets. This bar moved. It was alive. Bending low Ken descried that it was made by ants. An army of jungle ants on a march! They had come in a straight line along the base of the little hill and their passageway led under the canvas. Pepe happened to be the first in line, and they had surged over him. As he had awakened, and jumped up of course, the ants had begun to bite. The same in turn happened to George and then Hal.

Ken was immensely relieved, and had his laugh out. The stream of ants moved steadily and quite rapidly, and soon passed from sight. By this time Pepe and the boys had threshed themselves free of ants and into some degree of composure.

“Say, you nightmare fellows! Come back to bed,” said Ken. “Any one would think something had really happened to you.”

Pepe snorted, which made Ken think the native understood something of English. And the boys grumbled loudly.

“Ants! Ants as big as wasps! They bit worse than helgramites,” declared Hal. “Oh, they missed you. You always are lucky. I’m not afraid of all the old jaguars in this jungle. But I can’t stand biting, crawling bugs. I wish you hadn’t made me come on this darn trip.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Ken.

“Just wait, Hal,” put in George, grimly. “Just wait. It’s coming to him!”

The boys slept well the remainder of the night and, owing to the break in their rest, did not awaken early. The sun shone hot when Ken rolled out; a creamy mist was dissolving over the curve of the mountain-range; parrots were screeching in the near-by trees.

After breakfast Ken set about packing the boat as it had been done the day before.

“I think we’ll do well to leave the trunk in the boat after this, unless we find a place where we want to make a permanent camp for a while,” said Ken.

Before departing he carefully looked over the ground to see that nothing was left, and espied a heavy fish-line which George had baited, set, and forgotten.

“Hey, George, pull up your trot-line. It looks pretty much stretched to me. Maybe you’ve got a fish.”

Ken happened to be busy at the boat when George started to take in the line. An exclamation from Pepe, George’s yell, and a loud splash made Ken jump up in double-quick time. Hal also came running.

George was staggering on the bank, leaning back hard on the heavy line. A long, angry swirl in the pool told of a powerful fish. It was likely to pull George in.

“Let go the line!” yelled Ken.

But George was not letting go of any fish-lines. He yelled for Pepe, and went down on his knees before Pepe got to him. Both then pulled on the line. The fish, or whatever it was at the other end, gave a mighty jerk that almost dragged the two off the bank.

“Play him, play him!” shouted Ken. “You’ve got plenty of line. Give him some.”

Hal now added his weight and strength, and the three of them, unmindful of Ken’s advice, hauled back with might and main. The line parted and they sprawled on the grass.

“What a sockdologer!” exclaimed Hal.

“I had that hook baited with a big piece of duck meat,” said George. “We must have been hooked to a crocodile. Things are happening to us.”

“Yes, so I’ve noticed,” replied Ken, dryly. “But if you fellows hadn’t pulled so hard you might have landed that thing, whatever it was. All aboard now. We must be on the move — we don’t know what we have before us.”

When they got into the boat Ken took the oars, much to Pepe’s surprise. It was necessary to explain to him that Ken would handle the boat in swift water. They shoved off, and Ken sent one regretful glance up the river, at the shady aisle between the green banks, at the white rapids, and the great colored dome of the mountain. He almost hesitated, for he desired to see more of that jungle-covered mountain. But something already warned Ken to lose no time in the trip down the Santa Rosa. There did not seem to be any reason for hurry, yet he felt it necessary. But he asked Pepe many questions and kept George busy interpreting names of trees and flowers and wild creatures.

Going down-stream on any river, mostly, would have been pleasure, but drifting on the swift current of the Santa Rosa and rowing under the wonderful moss-bearded cypresses was almost like a dream. It was too beautiful to seem real. The smooth stretch before the first rapid was short, however, and then all Ken’s attention had to be given to the handling of the boat. He saw that George and Pepe both expected to get out and wade down the rapids as they had waded up. He had a surprise in store for them. The rapids that he could not shoot would have to be pretty bad.

“You’re getting close,” shouted George, warningly.

With two sweeps of the oars Ken turned the boat stern first down-stream, then dipped on the low green incline, and sailed down toward the waves. They struck the first wave with a shock, and the water flew all over the boys. Pepe was tremendously excited; he yelled and made wild motions with his hands; George looked a little frightened. Hal enjoyed it. Whatever the rapid appeared to them, it was magnificent to Ken; and it was play to manage the boat in such water. A little pull on one oar and then on the other kept the stern straight down-stream. The channel he could make out a long way ahead. He amused himself by watching George and Pepe. There were stones in the channel, and the water rose angrily about them. A glance was enough to tell that he could float over these without striking. But the boys thought they were going to hit every stone, and were uneasy all the time. Twice he had to work to pass ledges and sunken trees upon which the current bore down hard. When Ken neared one of these he dipped the oars and pulled back to stop or lessen the momentum; then a stroke turned the boat half broadside to the current. That would force it to one side, and another stroke would turn the boat straight. At the bottom of this rapid they encountered a long triangle of choppy waves that they bumped and splashed over. They came through with nothing wet but the raised flap of canvas in the stern.

Pepe regarded Ken with admiring eyes, and called him grande mozo.

“Shooting rapids is great sport,” proclaimed George.

They drifted through several little rifts, and then stopped at the head of the narrow chute that had been such a stumbling-block on the way up. Looked at from above, this long, narrow channel, with several S curves, was a fascinating bit of water for a canoeist. It tempted Ken to shoot it even with the boat. But he remembered the four-foot waves at the bottom, and besides he resented the importunity of the spirit of daring so early in the game. Risk, and perhaps peril, would come soon enough. So he decided to walk along the shore and float the boat through with a rope.

The thing looked a good deal easier than it turned out to be. Half-way through, at the narrowest point and most abrupt curve, Pepe misunderstood directions and pulled hard on the bow-rope, when he should have let it slack.

The boat swung in, nearly smashing Ken against the bank, and the sweeping current began to swell dangerously near the gunwale.

“Let go! Let go!” yelled Ken. “George, make him let go!”

But George, who was trying to get the rope out of Pepe’s muscular hands, suddenly made a dive for his rifle.

“Deer! deer!” he cried, hurriedly throwing a shell into the chamber. He shot downstream, and Ken, looking that way, saw several deer under the firs on a rocky flat. George shot three more times, and the bullets went “spinging” into the trees. The deer bounded out of sight.

When Ken turned again, water was roaring into the boat. He was being pressed harder into the bank, and he saw disaster ahead.

“Loosen the rope — tell him, George,” yelled Ken.

Pepe only pulled the harder.

“Quick, or we’re ruined,” cried Ken.

George shouted in Spanish, and Pepe promptly dropped the rope in the water. That was the worst thing he could have done.

“Grab the rope!” ordered Ken, wildly. “Grab the bow! Don’t let it swing out! Hal!”

Before either boy could reach it the bow swung out into the current. Ken was not only helpless, but in a dangerous position. He struggled to get out from where the swinging stern was wedging him into the bank, but could not budge. Fearing that all the outfit would be lost in the river, he held on to the boat and called for some one to catch the rope.

George pushed Pepe head first into the swift current. Pepe came up, caught the rope, and then went under again. The boat swung round and, now half full of water, got away from Ken. It gathered headway. Ken leaped out on the ledge and ran along with the boat. It careened round the bad curve and shot down-stream. Pepe was still under water.

“He’s drowned! He’s drowned!” cried George.

Hal took a header right off the ledge, came up, and swam with a few sharp strokes to the drifting boat. He gained the bow, grasped it, and then pulled on the rope.

Ken had a sickening feeling that Pepe might be drowned. Suddenly Pepe appeared like a brown porpoise. He was touching bottom in places and holding back on the rope. Then the current rolled him over and over. The boat drifted back of a rocky point into shallow water. Hal gave a haul that helped to swing it out of the dangerous current. Then Pepe came up, and he, too, pulled hard. Just as Ken plunged in the boat sank in two feet of water. Ken’s grip, containing camera, films, and other perishable goods, was on top, and he got it just in time. He threw it out on the rocks. Then together the boys lifted the boat and hauled the bow well up on the shore.

“Pretty lucky!” exclaimed Ken, as he flopped down.

“Doggone it!” yelled Hal, suddenly. And he dove for the boat, and splashed round in the water under his seat, to bring forth a very limp and drenched little raccoon.

“Good! he’s all right,” said Ken.

Pepe said “Mucho malo,” and pointed to his shins, which bore several large bumps from contact with the rocks in the channel.

“I should say mucha malo,” growled George.

He jerked open his grip, and, throwing out articles of wet clothing — for which he had no concern — he gazed in dismay at his whole store of cigarettes wet by the water.

“So that’s all you care for,” said Ken, severely. “Young man, I’ll have something to say to you presently. All hands now to unpack the boat.”

Fortunately nothing had been carried away. That part of the supplies which would have been affected by water was packed in tin cases, and so suffered no damage. The ammunition was waterproof, Ken’s Parker hammerless and his .351 automatic rifle were full of water, and so were George’s guns and Hal’s. While they took their weapons apart, wiped them, and laid them in the sun, Pepe spread out the rest of the things and then baled out the boat. The sun was so hot that everything dried quickly and was not any the worse for the wetting. The boys lost scarcely an hour by the accident. Before the start Ken took George and Pepe to task, and when he finished they were both very sober and quiet.

Ken observed, however, that by the time they had run the next rapid they were enjoying themselves again. Then came a long succession of rapids which Ken shot without anything approaching a mishap. When they drifted into the level stretch Pepe relieved him at the oars. They glided down-stream under the drooping bamboo, under the silken streamers of silvery moss, under the dark, cool bowers of matted vine and blossoming creepers. And as they passed this time the jungle silence awoke to the crack of George’s .22 and the discordant cry of river fowl. Ken’s guns were both at hand, and the rifle was loaded, but he did not use either. He contented himself with snapping a picture here and there and watching the bamboo thickets and the mouths of the little dry ravines.

That ride was again so interesting, so full of sound and action and color, that it seemed a very short one. The murmur of the water on the rocks told Ken that it was time to change seats with Pepe. They drifted down two short rapids, and then came to the gravelly channels between the islands noted on the way up. The water was shallow down these rippling channels; and, fearing they might strike a stone, Ken tumbled out over the bow and, wading slowly, let the boat down to still water again. He was about to get in when he espied what he thought was an alligator lying along a log near the river. He pointed it out to Pepe.

That worthy yelled gleefully in Mexican, and reached for his machete.

“Iguana!” exclaimed George. “I’ve heard it’s good to eat.”

The reptile had a body about four feet long and a very long tail. Its color was a steely blue-black on top, and it had a blunt, rounded head.

Pepe slipped out of the boat and began to wade ashore. When the iguana raised itself on short, stumpy legs George shot at it, and missed, as usual. But he effectually frightened the reptile, which started to climb the bank with much nimbleness. Pepe began to run, brandishing his long machete. George plunged into the water in hot pursuit, and then Hal yielded to the call of the chase. Pepe reached the iguana before it got up the bank, aimed a mighty blow with his machete, and would surely have cut the reptile in two pieces if the blade had not caught on an over-hanging branch. Then Pepe fell up the bank and barely grasped the tail of the iguana. Pepe hauled back, and Pepe was powerful. The frantic creature dug its feet in the clay-bank and held on for dear life. But Pepe was too strong. He jerked the iguana down and flung it square upon George, who had begun to climb the bank.

George uttered an awful yell, as if he expected to be torn asunder, and rolled down, with the reptile on top of him. Ken saw that it was as badly frightened as George. But Hal did not see this. And he happened to have gained a little sand-bar below the bank, in which direction the iguana started with wonderful celerity. Then Hal made a jump that Ken believed was a record.

Remarkably awkward as that iguana was, he could surely cover ground with his stumpy legs. Again he dashed up the bank. Pepe got close enough once more, and again he swung the machete. The blow cut off a piece of the long tail, but the only effect this produced was to make the iguana run all the faster. It disappeared over the bank, with Pepe scrambling close behind. Then followed a tremendous crashing in the dry thickets, after which the iguana could be heard rattling and tearing away through the jungle.

Pepe returned to the boat with the crestfallen boys, and he was much concerned over the failure to catch the big lizard, which he said made fine eating.

“What next?” asked George, ruefully, and at that the boys all laughed.

“The fun is we don’t have any idea what’s coming off,” said Hal.

“Boys, if you brave hunters had thought to throw a little salt on that lizard’s tail you might have caught him,” added Ken.

Presently Pepe espied another iguana in the forks of a tree, and he rowed ashore. This lizard was only a small one, not over two feet in length, but he created some excitement among the boys. George wanted him to eat, and Hal wanted the skin for a specimen, and Ken wanted to see what the lizard looked like close at hand. So they all clamored for Pepe to use caution and to be quick.

When Pepe started up the tree the iguana came down on the other side, quick as a squirrel. Then they had a race round the trunk until Pepe ended it with a well-directed blow from his machete.

Hal began to skin the iguana.

“Ken, I’m going to have trouble preserving specimens in this hot place,” he said.

“Salt and alum will do the trick. Remember what old Hiram used to say,” replied Ken.

Shortly after that the boat passed the scene of the first camp, and then drifted under the railroad bridge.

Hal and George, and Pepe too, looked as if they were occupied with the same thought troubling Ken — that once beyond the bridge they would plunge into the jungle wilderness from which there could be no turning back.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FIRST TIGER-CAT

THE SANTA ROSA opened out wide, and ran swiftly over smooth rock. Deep cracks, a foot or so wide, crossed the river diagonally, and fish darted in and out.

The boys had about half a mile of this, when, after turning a hilly bend, they entered a long rapid. It was a wonderful stretch of river to look down.

“By George!” said Ken, as he stood up to survey it. “This is great!”

“It’s all right now,” added George, with his peculiar implication as to the future.

“What gets me is the feeling of what might be round the next bend,” said Hal.

This indeed, Ken thought, made the fascination of such travel. The water was swift and smooth and shallow. There was scarcely a wave or ripple. At times the boat stuck fast on the flat rock, and the boys would have to get out to shove off. As far ahead as Ken could see extended this wide slant of water. On the left rose a thick line of huge cypresses all festooned with gray moss that drooped to the water; on the right rose a bare bluff of crumbling rock. It looked like blue clay baked and cracked by the sun. A few palms fringed the top.

“Say, we can beat this,” said Ken, as for the twentieth time the boys had to step out and shove off a flat, shallow place. “Two of you in the bow and Pepe with me in the stern, feet overboard.”

The little channels ran every way, making it necessary often to turn the boat. Ken’s idea was to drift along and keep the boat from grounding by an occasional kick.

“Ken manages to think of something once in a while,” observed Hal.

Then the boat drifted down-stream, whirling round and round. Here Pepe would drop his brown foot in and kick his end clear of a shallow ledge; there George would make a great splash when his turn came to ward off from a rock; and again Hal would give a greater kick than was necessary to the righting of the boat. Probably Hal was much influenced by the fact that when he kicked hard he destroyed the lazy equilibrium of his companions.

It dawned upon Ken that here was a new and unique way to travel down a river. It was different from anything he had ever tried before. The water was swift and seldom more than a foot deep, except in diagonal cracks that ribbed the river-bed. This long, shut-in stretch appeared to be endless. But for the quick, gliding movement of the boat, which made a little breeze, the heat would have been intolerable. When one of Hal’s kicks made Ken lurch overboard to sit down ludicrously, the cool water sent thrills over him. Instead of retaliating on Hal, he was glad to be wet. And the others, soon discovering the reason for Ken’s remarkable good-nature, went overboard and lay flat in the cool ripples. Then little clouds of steam began to rise from their soaked clothes.

Ken began to have an idea that he had been wise in boiling the water which they drank. They all suffered from a parching thirst. Pepe scooped up water in his hand; George did likewise, and then Hal.

“You’ve all got to stop that,” ordered Ken, sharply. “No drinking this water unless it’s boiled.”

The boys obeyed, for the hour, but they soon forgot, or deliberately allayed their thirst despite Ken’s command. Ken himself found his thirst unbearable. He squeezed the juice of a wild lime into a cup of water and drank that. Then he insisted on giving the boys doses of quinine and anti-malaria pills, which treatment he meant to continue daily.

Toward the lower part of that rapid, where the water grew deeper, fish began to be so numerous that the boys kicked at many as they darted under the boat. There were thousands of small fish and some large ones. Occasionally, as a big fellow lunged for a crack in the rock, he would make the water roar. There was a fish that resembled a mullet, and another that Hal said was some kind of bass with a blue tail. Pepe chopped at them with his machete; George whacked with an oar; Hal stood up in the boat and shot at them with his .22 rifle.

“Say, I’ve got to see what that blue-tailed bass looks like,” said Ken. “You fellows will never get one.”

Whereupon Ken jointed up a small rod and, putting on a spinner, began to cast it about. He felt two light fish hit it. Then came a heavy shock that momentarily checked the boat. The water foamed as the line cut through, and Ken was just about to jump off the boat to wade and follow the fish, when it broke the leader.

“That was a fine exhibition,” remarked the critical Hal.

“What’s the matter with you?” retorted Ken, who was sensitive as to his fishing abilities. “It was a big fish. He broke things.”

“Haven’t you got a reel on that rod and fifty yards of line?” queried Hal.

Ken did not have another spinner, and he tried an artificial minnow, but could not get a strike on it. He took Hal’s gun and shot at several of the blue-tailed fish, but though he made them jump out of the water like a real northern black-bass, it was all of no avail.

Then Hal caught one with a swoop of the landing net. It was a beautiful fish, and it did have a blue tail. Pepe could not name it, nor could Ken classify it, so Hal was sure he had secured a rare specimen.

When the boat drifted round a bend to enter another long, wide, shallow rapid, the boys demurred a little at the sameness of things. The bare blue bluffs persisted, and the line of gray-veiled cypresses and the strange formation of stream-bed. Five more miles of drifting under the glaring sun made George and Hal lie back in the boat, under an improvised sun-shade. The ride was novel and strange to Ken Ward, and did not pall upon him, though he suffered from the heat and glare. He sat on the bow, occasionally kicking the boat off a rock.

All at once a tense whisper from Pepe brought Ken round with a jerk. Pepe was pointing down along the right-hand shore. George heard, and, raising himself, called excitedly: “Buck! buck!”

Ken saw a fine deer leap back from the water and start to climb the side of a gully that indented the bluff. Snatching up the .351 rifle, he shoved in the safety catch. The distance was far — perhaps two hundred yards — but without elevating the sights he let drive. A cloud of dust puffed up under the nose of the climbing deer.

“Wow!” yelled George, and Pepe began to jabber. Hal sprang up, nearly falling overboard, and he shouted: “Give it to him, Ken!”

The deer bounded up a steep, winding trail, his white flag standing, his reddish coat glistening. Ken fired again. The bullet sent up a white puff of dust, this time nearer still. That shot gave Ken the range, and he pulled the automatic again — and again. Each bullet hit closer. The boys were now holding their breath, watching, waiting. Ken aimed a little firmer and finer at the space ahead of the deer — for in that instant he remembered what the old hunter on Penetier had told him — and he pulled the trigger twice.

The buck plunged down, slipped off the trail, and, raising a cloud of dust, rolled over and over. Then it fell sheer into space, and whirled down to strike the rock with a sodden crash.

It was Ken’s first shooting on this trip, and he could not help adding a cry of exultation to the yells of his admiring comrades.

“Guess you didn’t plug him!” exclaimed Hal Ward, with flashing eyes.

Wading, the boys pulled the boat ashore. Pepe pronounced the buck to be very large, but to Ken, remembering the deer in Coconino Forest, it appeared small. If there was an unbroken bone left in that deer, Ken greatly missed his guess. He and Pepe cut out the haunch least crushed by the fall.

“There’s no need to carry along more meat than we can use,” said George. “It spoils overnight. That’s the worst of this jungle, I’ve heard hunters say.”

Hal screwed up his face in the manner he affected when he tried to imitate old Hiram Bent. “Wal, youngster, I reckon I’m right an’ down proud of thet shootin’. You air comin’ along.”

Ken was as pleased as Hal, but he replied, soberly: “Well, kid, I hope I can hold as straight as that when we run up against a jaguar.”

“Do you think we’ll see one?” asked Hal.

“Just you wait!” exclaimed George, replying for Ken. “Pepe says we’ll have to sleep in the boat, and anchor the boat in the middle of the river.”

“What for?”

“To keep those big yellow tigers from eating us up.”

“How nice!” replied Hal, with a rather forced laugh.

So, talking and laughing, the boys resumed their down-stream journey. Ken, who was always watching with sharp eyes, saw buzzards appear, as if by magic. Before the boat was half a mile down the river buzzards were circling over the remains of the deer. These birds of prey did not fly from the jungle on either side of the stream. They sailed, dropped down from the clear blue sky where they had been invisible. How wonderful that was to Ken! Nature had endowed these vulture-like birds with wonderful scent or instinct or sight, or all combined. But Ken believed that it was power of sight which brought the buzzards so quickly to the scene of the killing. He watched them circling, sweeping down till a curve in the river hid them from view.

And with this bend came a welcome change. The bluff played out in a rocky slope below which the green jungle was relief to aching eyes. As the boys made this point, the evening breeze began to blow. They beached the boat and unloaded to make camp.

“We haven’t had any work to-day, but we’re all tired just the same,” observed Ken.

“The heat makes a fellow tired,” said George.

They were fortunate in finding a grassy plot where there appeared to be but few ticks and other creeping things. That evening it was a little surprise to Ken to realize how sensitive he had begun to feel about these jungle vermin.

Pepe went up the bank for fire-wood. Ken heard him slashing away with his machete. Then this sound ceased, and Pepe yelled in fright. Ken and George caught up guns as they bounded into the thicket; Hal started to follow, likewise armed. Ken led the way through a thorny brake to come suddenly upon Pepe. At the same instant Ken caught a glimpse of gray, black-striped forms slipping away in the jungle. Pepe shouted out something.

“Tiger-cats!” exclaimed George.

Ken held up his finger to enjoin silence. With that he stole cautiously forward, the others noiselessly at his heels. The thicket was lined with well-beaten trails, and by following these and stooping low it was possible to go ahead without rustling the brush. Owing to the gathering twilight Ken could not see very far. When he stopped to listen he heard the faint crackling of dead brush and soft, quick steps. He had not proceeded far when pattering footsteps halted him. Ken dropped to his knee. The boys knelt behind him, and Pepe whispered. Peering along the trail Ken saw what he took for a wildcat. Its boldness amazed him. Surely it had heard him, but instead of bounding into the thicket it crouched not more than twenty-five feet away. Ken took a quick shot at the gray huddled form. It jerked, stretched out, and lay still. Then a crashing in the brush, and gray streaks down the trail told Ken of more game.

“There they go. Peg away at them,” called Ken.

George and Hal burned a good deal of powder and sent much lead whistling through the dry branches, but the gray forms vanished in the jungle.

“We got one, anyway,” said Ken.

He advanced to find his quarry quite dead. It was bigger than any wildcat Ken had ever seen. The color was a grayish yellow, almost white, lined and spotted with black. Ken lifted it and found it heavy enough to make a good load.

“He’s a beauty,” said Hal.

“Pepe says it’s a tiger-cat,” remarked George. “There are two or three kinds besides the big tiger. We may run into a lot of them and get some skins.”

It was almost dark when they reached camp. While Pepe and Hal skinned the tiger-cat and stretched the pelt over a framework of sticks the other boys got supper. They were all very hungry and tired, and pleased with the events of the day. As they sat round the camp-fire there was a constant whirring of water-fowl over their heads and an incessant hum of insects from the jungle.

“Ken, does it feel as wild to you here as on Buckskin Mountain?” asked Hal.

“Oh yes, much wilder, Hal,” replied his brother. “And it’s different, somehow. Out in Arizona there was always the glorious expectancy of to-morrow’s fun or sport. Here I have a kind of worry — a feeling—”

But he concluded it wiser to keep to himself that strange feeling of dread which came over him at odd moments.

“It suits me,” said Hal. “I want to get a lot of things and keep them alive. Of course, I want specimens. I’d like some skins for my den, too. But I don’t care so much about killing things.”

“Just wait!” retorted George, who evidently took Hal’s remark as a reflection upon his weakness. “Just wait! You’ll be shooting pretty soon for your life.”

“Now, George, what do you mean by that?” questioned Ken, determined to pin George down to facts. “You said you didn’t really know anything about this jungle. Why are you always predicting disaster for us?”

“Why? Because I’ve heard things about the jungle,” retorted, George. “And Pepe says wait till we get down off the mountain. He doesn’t know anything, either. But it’s his instinct — Pepe’s half Indian. So I say, too, wait till we get down in the jungle!”

“Confound you! Where are we now?” queried Ken.

“The real jungle is the lowland. There we’ll find the tigers and the crocodiles and the wild cattle and wild pigs.”

“Bring on your old pigs and things,” replied Hal.

But Ken looked into the glowing embers of the camp-fire and was silent. When he got out his note-book and began his drawing, he forgot the worry and dread in the interest of his task. He was astonished at his memory, to see how he could remember every turn in the river and yet not lose his sense of direction. He could tell almost perfectly the distance traveled, because he knew so well just how much a boat would cover in swift or slow waters in a given time. He thought he could give a fairly correct estimate of the drop of the river. And, as for descriptions of the jungle life along the shores, that was a delight, all except trying to understand and remember and spell the names given to him by Pepe. Ken imagined Pepe spoke a mixture of Toltec, Aztec, Indian, Spanish, and English.

CHAPTER IX

IN THE WHITE WATER

UPON AWAKENING NEXT morning Ken found the sun an hour high. He was stiff and sore and thirsty. Pepe and the boys slept so soundly it seemed selfish to wake them.

All around camp there was a melodious concourse of birds. But the parrots did not make a visit that morning. While Ken was washing in the river a troop of deer came down to the bar on the opposite side. Ken ran for his rifle, and by mistake took up George’s .32. He had a splendid shot at less than one hundred yards. But the bullet dropped fifteen feet in front of the leading buck. The deer ran into the deep, bushy willows.

“That gun’s leaded,” muttered Ken. “It didn’t shoot where I aimed.”

Pepe jumped up; George rolled out of his blanket with one eye still glued shut; and Hal stretched and yawned and groaned.

“Do I have to get up?” he asked.

“Shore, lad,” said Ken, mimicking Jim Williams, “or I’ll hev to be reconsiderin’ that idee of mine about you bein’ pards with me.”

Such mention of Hal’s ranger friend brought the boy out of his lazy bed with amusing alacrity.

“Rustle breakfast, now, you fellows,” said Ken, and, taking his rifle, he started off to climb the high river bluff.

It was his idea to establish firmly in mind the trend of the mountain-range, and the relation of the river to it. The difficulty in mapping the river would come after it left the mountains to wind away into the wide lowlands. The matter of climbing the bluff would have been easy but for the fact that he wished to avoid contact with grass, brush, trees, even dead branches, as all were covered with ticks. The upper half of the bluff was bare, and when he reached that part he soon surmounted it. Ken faced south with something of eagerness. Fortunately the mist had dissolved under the warm rays of the sun, affording an unobstructed view. That scene was wild and haunting, yet different from what his fancy had pictured. The great expanse of jungle was gray, the green line of cypress, palm, and bamboo following the southward course of the river. The mountain-range some ten miles distant sloped to the south and faded away in the haze. The river disappeared in rich dark verdure, and but for it, which afforded a water-road back to civilization, Ken would have been lost in a dense gray-green overgrowth of tropical wilderness. Once or twice he thought he caught the faint roar of a waterfall on the morning breeze, yet could not be sure, and he returned toward camp with a sober appreciation of the difficulty of his enterprise and a more thrilling sense of its hazard and charm.

“Didn’t see anything to peg at, eh?” greeted Hal. “Well, get your teeth in some of this venison before it’s all gone.”

Soon they were under way again, Pepe strong and willing at the oars. This time Ken had his rifle and shotgun close at hand, ready for use. Half a mile below, the river, running still and deep, entered a shaded waterway so narrow that in places the branches of wide-spreading and leaning cypresses met and intertwined their moss-fringed foliage. This lane was a paradise for birds, that ranged from huge speckled cranes, six feet high, to little yellow birds almost too small to see.

Black squirrels were numerous and very tame. In fact, all the creatures along this shaded stream were so fearless that it was easy to see they had never heard a shot. Ken awoke sleepy cranes with his fishing-rod and once pushed a blue heron off a log. He heard animals of some species running back from the bank, but could not see them.

All at once a soft breeze coming up-stream bore a deep roar of tumbling rapids. The sensation of dread which had bothered Ken occasionally now returned and fixed itself in his mind. He was in the jungle of Mexico, and knew not what lay ahead of him. But if he had been in the wilds of unexplored Brazil and had heard that roar, it would have been familiar to him. In his canoe experience on the swift streams of Pennsylvania Ken Ward had learned, long before he came to rapids, to judge what they were from the sound. His attention wandered from the beautiful birds, the moss-shaded bowers, and the overhanging jungle. He listened to the heavy, sullen roar of the rapids.

“That water sounds different,” remarked George.

“Grande,” said Pepe, with a smile.

“Pretty heavy, Ken, eh?” asked Hal, looking quickly at his brother.

But Ken Ward made his face a mask, and betrayed nothing of the grim nature of his thought. Pepe and the boys had little idea of danger, and they had now a blind faith in Ken.

“I dare say we’ll get used to that roar,” replied Ken, easily, and he began to pack his guns away in their cases.

Hal forgot his momentary anxiety; Pepe rowed on, leisurely; and George lounged in his seat. There was no menace for them in that dull, continuous roar.

But Ken knew they would soon be in fast water and before long would drop down into the real wilderness. It was not now too late to go back up the river, but soon that would be impossible. Keeping a sharp lookout ahead, Ken revolved in mind the necessity for caution and skilful handling of the boat. But he realized, too, that overzealousness on the side of caution was a worse thing for such a trip than sheer recklessness. Good judgment in looking over rapids, a quick eye to pick the best channel, then a daring spirit — that was the ideal to be striven for in going down swift rivers.

Presently Ken saw a break in the level surface of the water. He took Pepe’s place at the oars, and, as usual, turned the boat stern first down-stream. The banks were low and shelved out in rocky points. This relieved Ken, for he saw that he could land just above the falls. What he feared was a narrow gorge impossible to portage round or go through. As the boat approached the break the roar seemed to divide itself, hollow and shallow near at hand, rushing and heavy farther on.

Ken rowed close to the bank and landed on the first strip of rock. He got out and, walking along this ledge, soon reached the fall. It was a straight drop of some twelve or fifteen feet. The water was shallow all the way across.

“Boys, this is easy,” said Ken. “We’ll pack the outfit round the fall, and slide the boat over.”

But Ken did not say anything about the white water extending below the fall as far as he could see. From here came the sullen roar that had worried him.

Portaging the supplies around that place turned out to be far from easy. The portage was not long nor rugged, but the cracked, water-worn rock made going very difficult. The boys often stumbled. Pepe fell and broke open a box, and almost broke his leg. Ken had a hard knock. Then, when it came to carrying the trunk, one at each corner, progress was laborious and annoying. Full two hours were lost in transporting the outfit around the fall.

Below there was a wide, shelving apron, over which the water ran a foot or so in depth. Ken stationed Pepe and the boys there, and went up to get the boat. He waded out with it. Ken saw that his end of this business was going to be simple enough, but he had doubts as to what would happen to the boys.

“Brace yourselves, now,” he yelled. “When I drop her over she’ll come a-humming. Hang on if she drags you a mile!”

Wading out deeper Ken let the boat swing down with the current till the stern projected over the fall. He had trouble in keeping his footing, for the rock was slippery. Then with a yell he ran the stern far out over the drop, bore down hard on the bow, and shoved off.

The boat shot out and down, to alight with a heavy souse. Then it leaped into the swift current. George got his hands on it first, and went down like a ninepin. The boat floated over him. The bow struck Hal, and would have dragged him away had not Pepe laid powerful hands on the stern. They waded to the lower ledge.

“Didn’t ship a bucketful,” said Hal. “Fine work, Ken.”

“I got all the water,” added the drenched and dripping George.

“Bail out, boys, and repack, while I look below,” said Ken.

He went down-stream a little way to take a survey of the rapids. If those rapids had been back in Pennsylvania, Ken felt that he could have gone at them in delight. If the jungle country had been such that damage to boat or supplies could have been remedied or replaced, these rapids would not have appeared so bad. Ken walked up and down looking over the long white inclines more than was wise, and he hesitated about going into them. But it had to be done. So he went back to the boys. Then he took the oars with gripping fingers.

“George, can you swim?” he asked.

“I’m a second cousin to a fish,” replied George.

“All right. We’re off. Now, if we upset, hang to the boat, if you can, and hold up your legs. George, tell Pepe.”

Ken backed the boat out from the shore. To his right in the middle of the narrow river was a racy current that he kept out of as long as possible. But presently he was drawn into it, and the boat shot forward, headed into the first incline, and went racing smoothly down toward the white waves of the rapids.

This was a trying moment for Ken. Grip as hard as he might, the oar-handles slipped in his sweaty hands.

The boys were yelling, but Ken could not hear for the din of roaring waters. The boat sailed down with swift, gliding motion. When it thumped into the back-lash of the first big waves the water threshed around and over the boys. Then they were in the thick of rush and roar. Ken knew he was not handling the boat well. It grazed stones that should have been easy to avoid, and bumped on hidden ones, and got half broadside to the current. Pepe, by quick action with an oar, pushed the stern aside from collision with more than one rock. Several times Ken missed a stroke when a powerful one was needed. He passed between stones so close together that he had to ship the oars. It was all rapid water, this stretch, but the bad places, with sunken rocks, falls, and big waves, were strung out at such distances apart that Ken had time to get the boat going right before entering them.

Ken saw scarcely anything of the banks of the river. They blurred in his sight. Sometimes they were near, sometimes far. The boat turned corners where rocky ledges pointed out, constricting the stream and making a curved channel. What lay around the curve was always a question and a cause for suspense. Often the boat raced down a chute and straight toward a rocky wall. Ken would pull back with all his might, and Pepe would break the shock by striking the wall with his oar.

More than once Pepe had a narrow escape from being knocked overboard. George tried to keep him from standing up. Finally at the end of a long rapid, Pepe, who had the stern-seat, jumped up and yelled. Ken saw a stone directly in the path of the boat, and he pulled back on the oars with a quick, strong jerk. Pepe shot out of the stern as if he had been flung from a catapult. He swam with the current while the boat drifted. He reached smooth water and the shore before Ken could pick him up.

It was fun for everybody but Ken. There were three inches of water in the boat. The canvas, however, had been arranged to protect guns, grips, and supplies. George had been wet before he entered the rapids, so a little additional water did not matter to him. Hal was almost as wet as Pepe.

“I’m glad that’s past,” said Ken.

With that long rapid behind him he felt different. It was what he had needed. His nervousness disappeared and he had no dread of the next fall. While the boys bailed out the boat Ken rested and thought. He had made mistakes in that rapid just passed. Luck had favored him. He went over the mistakes and saw where he had been wrong, and how he could have avoided them if he had felt right. Ken realized now that this was a daredevil trip. And the daredevil in him had been shut up in dread. It took just that nervous dread, and the hard work, blunders and accidents, the danger and luck, to liberate the spirit that would make the trip a success. Pepe and George were loud in their praises of Ken. But they did not appreciate the real hazard of the undertaking, and if Hal did he was too much of a wild boy to care.

“All aboard,” called George.

Then they were on their way again. Ken found himself listening for rapids. It was no surprise to hear a dull roar round the next bend. His hair rose stiffly under his hat. But this time he did not feel the chill, the uncertainty, the lack of confidence that had before weakened him.

At the head of a long, shallow incline the boys tumbled overboard, Ken and Hal at the bow, Pepe and George at the stern. They waded with the bow up-stream. The water tore around their legs, rising higher and higher. Soon Pepe and George had to climb in the boat, for the water became so deep and swift they could not wade.

“Jump in, Hal,” called Ken.

Then he held to the bow an instant longer, wading a little farther down. This was ticklish business, and all depended upon Ken. He got the stern of the boat straight in line with the channel he wanted to run, then he leaped aboard and made for the oars. The boat sped down. At the bottom of this incline was a mass of leaping green and white waves. The blunt stern of the boat made a great splash and the water flew over the boys. They came through the roar and hiss and spray to glide into a mill-race current.

“Never saw such swift water!” exclaimed Ken.

This incline ended in a sullen plunge between two huge rocks. Ken saw the danger long before it became evident to his companions. There was no other way to shoot the rapid. He could not reach the shore. He must pass between the rocks. Ken pushed on one oar, then on the other, till he got the boat in line, and then he pushed with both oars. The boat flew down that incline. It went so swiftly that if it had hit one of the rocks it would have been smashed to kindling wood. Hal crouched low. George’s face was white. And Pepe leaned forward with his big arms outstretched, ready to try to prevent a collision.

Down! down with the speed of the wind! The boat flashed between the black stones. Then it was raised aloft, light as a feather, to crash into the back-lashers. The din deafened Ken; the spray blinded him. The boat seemed to split a white pall of water, then, with many a bounce, drifted out of that rapid into little choppy waves, and from them into another long, smooth runway.

Ken rested, and had nothing to say. Pepe shook his black head. Hal looked at his brother. George had forgotten his rifle. No one spoke.

Soon Ken had more work on hand. For round another corner lay more fast water. The boat dipped on a low fall, and went down into the midst of green waves with here and there ugly rocks splitting the current. The stream-bed was continually new and strange to Ken, and he had never seen such queer formation of rocks. This rapid, however, was easy to navigate. A slanting channel of swift water connected it with another rapid. Ken backed into that one, passed through, only to face another. And so it went for a long succession of shallow rapids.

A turn in the winding lane of cypresses revealed walls of gray, between which the river disappeared.

“Aha!” muttered Ken.

“Ken, I’ll bet this is the place you’ve been looking for,” said Hal.

The absence of any roar of water emboldened Ken. Nearing the head of the ravine, he stood upon the seat and looked ahead. But Ken could not see many rods ahead. The ravine turned, and it was the deceiving turns in the river that he had feared. What a strange sensation Ken had when he backed the boat into the mouth of that gorge! He was forced against his will. Yet there seemed to be a kind of blood-tingling pleasure in the prospect.

The current caught the boat and drew it between the gray-green walls of rock.

“It’s coming to us,” said the doubtful George.

The current ran all of six miles an hour. This was not half as fast as the boys had traveled in rapids, but it appeared swift enough because of the nearness of the overshadowing walls. In the shade the water took on a different coloring. It was brown and oily. It slid along silently. It was deep, and the swirling current suggested power. Here and there long, creeping ferns covered the steep stone sides, and above ran a stream of blue sky fringed by leaning palms. Once Hal put his hands to his lips and yelled: “Hel-lo!” The yell seemed to rip the silence and began to clap from wall to wall. It gathered quickness until it clapped in one fiendish rattle. Then it wound away from the passage, growing fainter and fainter, and at last died in a hollow echo.

“Don’t do that again,” ordered Ken.

He began to wish he could see the end of that gorge. But it grew narrower, and the shade changed to twilight, and there were no long, straight stretches. The river kept turning corners. Quick to note the slightest change in conditions, Ken felt a breeze, merely a zephyr, fan his hot face. The current had almost imperceptibly quickened. Yet it was still silent. Then on the gentle wind came a low murmur. Ken’s pulse beat fast. Turning his ear down-stream, he strained his hearing. The low murmur ceased. Perhaps he had imagined it. Still he kept listening. There! Again it came, low, far away, strange. It might have been the wind in the palms. But no, he could not possibly persuade himself it was wind. And as that faint breeze stopped he lost the sound once more. The river was silent, and the boat, and the boys — it was a silent ride. Ken divined that his companions were enraptured. But this ride had no beauty, no charm for him.

There! Another faint puff of wind, and again the low murmur! He fancied it was louder. He was beginning to feel an icy dread when all was still once more. So the boat drifted swiftly on with never a gurgle of water about her gunwales. The river gleamed in brown shadows. Ken saw bubbles rise and break on the surface, and there was a slight rise or swell of the water toward the center of the channel. This bothered him. He could not understand it. But then there had been many other queer formations of rock and freaks of current along this river.

The boat glided on and turned another corner, the sharpest one yet. A long, shadowy water-lane, walled in to the very skies, opened up to Ken’s keen gaze. The water here began to race onward, still wonderfully silent. And now the breeze carried a low roar. It was changeable yet persistent. It deepened.

Once more Ken felt his hair rise under his hat. Cold sweat wet his skin. Despite the pounding of his heart and the throb of his veins, his blood seemed to clog, to freeze, to stand still.

That roar was the roar of rapids. Impossible to go back! If there had been four sets of oars, Ken and his comrades could not row the heavy boat back up that swift, sliding river.

They must go on.

CHAPTER X

LOST!

“KEN, OLD MAN, do you hear that?” questioned Hal, waking from his trance.

George likewise rose out of his lazy contentment. “Must be rapids,” he muttered. “If we strike rapids in this gorge it’s all day with us. What did I tell you!”

Pepe’s dark, searching eyes rested on Ken.

But Ken had no word for any of them. He was fighting an icy numbness, and the weakness of muscle and the whirl of his mind. It was thought of responsibility that saved him from collapse.

“It’s up to you, old man,” said Hal, quietly.

In a moment like this the boy could not wholly be deceived.

Ken got a grip upon himself. He looked down the long, narrow lane of glancing water. Some hundred yards on, it made another turn round a corner, and from this dim curve came the roar. The current was hurrying the boat toward it, but not fast enough to suit Ken. He wanted to see the worst, to get into the thick of it, to overcome it. So he helped the boat along. A few moments sufficed to cover that gliding stretch of river, yet to Ken it seemed never to have an end. The roar steadily increased. The current became still stronger. Ken saw eruptions of water rising as from an explosion beneath the surface. Whirlpools raced along with the boat. The dim, high walls re-echoed the roaring of the water.

The first thing Ken saw when he sailed round that corner was a widening of the chasm and bright sunlight ahead. Perhaps an eighth of a mile below the steep walls ended abruptly. Next in quick glance he saw a narrow channel of leaping, tossing, curling white-crested waves under sunlighted mist and spray.

Pulling powerfully back and to the left Ken brought the boat alongside the cliff. Then he shipped his oars.

“Hold hard,” he yelled, and he grasped the stone. The boys complied, and thus stopped the boat. Ken stood up on the seat. It was a bad place he looked down into, but he could not see any rocks. And rocks were what he feared most.

“Hold tight, boys,” he said. Then he got Pepe to come to him and sit on the seat. Ken stepped up on Pepe’s shoulders and, by holding to the rock, was able to get a good view of the rapid. It was not a rapid at all, but a constriction of the channel, and also a steep slant. The water rushed down so swiftly to get through that it swelled in the center in a long frothy ridge of waves. The water was deep. Ken could not see any bumps or splits or white-wreathed rocks, such as were conspicuous in a rapid. The peril here for Ken was to let the boat hit the wall or turn broadside or get out of that long swelling ridge.

He stepped down and turned to the white-faced boys. He had to yell close to them to make them hear him in the roar.

“I — can — run — this — place. But — you’ve got — to help. Pull — the canvas — up higher in the stern — and hold it.”

Then he directed Pepe to kneel in the bow of the boat with an oar and be ready to push off from the walls.

If Ken had looked again or hesitated a moment he would have lost his nerve. He recognized that fact. And he shoved off instantly. Once the boat had begun to glide down, gathering momentum, he felt his teeth grind hard and his muscles grow tense. He had to bend his head from side to side to see beyond the canvas George and Hal were holding round their shoulders. He believed with that acting as a buffer in the stern he could go pounding through those waves. Then he was in the middle of the channel, and the boat fairly sailed along. Ken kept his oars poised, ready to drop either one for a stroke. All he wanted was to enter those foaming, tumultuous waves with his boat pointed right. He knew he could not hope to see anything low down after he entered the race. He calculated that the last instant would give him an opportunity to get his direction in line with some object.

Then, even as he planned it, the boat dipped on a beautiful glassy incline, and glided down toward the engulfing, roaring waves. Above them, just in the center, Ken caught sight of the tufted top of a palm-tree. That was his landmark!

The boat shot into a great, curling, back-lashing wave. There was a heavy shock, a pause, and then Ken felt himself lifted high, while a huge sheet of water rose fan-shape behind the buffer in the stern. Walls and sky and tree faded under a watery curtain. Then the boat shot on again; the light came, the sky shone, and Ken saw his palm-tree.

He pulled hard on the right oar to get the stern back in line. Another heavy shock, a pause, a blinding shower of water, and then the downward rush! Ken got a fleeting glimpse of his guiding mark, and sunk the left oar deep for a strong stroke. The beating of the waves upon the upraised oars almost threw him out of the boat. The wrestling waters hissed and bellowed. Down the boat shot and up, to pound and pound, and then again shoot down. Through the pall of mist and spray Ken always got a glimpse, quick as lightning, of the palm-tree, and like a demon he plunged in his oars to keep the boat in line. He was only dimly conscious of the awfulness of the place. But he was not afraid. He felt his action as being inspirited by something grim and determined. He was fighting the river.

All at once a grating jar behind told him the bow had hit a stone or a wall. He did not dare look back. The most fleeting instant of time might be the one for him to see his guiding mark. Then the boat lurched under him, lifted high with bow up, and lightened. He knew Pepe had been pitched overboard.

In spite of the horror of the moment, Ken realized that the lightening of the boat made it more buoyant, easier to handle. That weight in the bow had given him an unbalanced craft. But now one stroke here and one there kept the stern straight. The palm-tree loomed higher and closer through the brightening mist. Ken no longer felt the presence of the walls. The thunderous roar had begun to lose some of its volume. Then with a crash through a lashing wave the boat raced out into the open light. Ken saw a beautiful foam-covered pool, down toward which the boat kept bumping over a succession of diminishing waves.

He gave a start of joy to see Pepe’s black head bobbing in the choppy channel. Pepe had beat the boat to the outlet. He was swimming easily, and evidently he had not been injured.

Ken turned the bow toward him. But Pepe did not need any help, and a few more strokes put him in shallow water. Ken discovered that the boat, once out of the current, was exceedingly loggy and hard to row. It was half full of water. Ken’s remaining strength went to pull ashore, and there he staggered out and dropped on the rocky bank.

The blue sky was very beautiful and sweet to look at just then. But Ken had to close his eyes. He did not have strength left to keep them open. For a while all seemed dim and obscure to him. Then he felt a dizziness, which in turn succeeded to a racing riot of his nerves and veins. His heart gradually resumed a normal beat, and his bursting lungs seemed to heal. A sickening languor lay upon him. He could not hold little stones which he felt under his fingers. He could not raise his hands. The life appeared to have gone from his legs.

All this passed, at length, and, hearing Hal’s voice, Ken sat up. The outfit was drying in the sun; Pepe was bailing out the boat; George was wiping his guns; and Hal was nursing a very disheveled little raccoon.

“You can bring on any old thing now, for all I care,” said Hal. “I’d shoot Lachine Rapids with Ken at the oars.”

“He’s a fine boatman,” replied George. “Weren’t you scared when we were in the middle of that darned place?”

“Me? Naw!”

“Well, I was scared, and don’t you forget it,” said Ken to them.

“You were all in, Ken,” replied Hal. “Never saw you so tuckered out. The day you and Prince went after the cougar along that canyon precipice — you were all in that time. George, it took Ken six hours to climb out of that hole.”

“Tell me about it,” said George, all eyes.

“No stories now,” put in Ken. “The sun is still high. We’ve got to be on our way. Let’s look over the lay of the land.”

Below the pool was a bold, rocky bluff, round which the river split. What branch to take was a matter of doubt and anxiety to Ken. Evidently this bluff was an island. It had a yellow front and long bare ledges leading into the river.

Ken climbed the bluff, accompanied by the boys, and found it covered with palm-trees. Up there everything was so dry and hot that it did not seem to be jungle at all. Even the palms were yellow and parched. Pepe stood the heat, but the others could not endure it. Ken took one long look at the surrounding country, so wild and dry and still, and then led the way down the loose, dusty shelves.

Thereupon he surveyed the right branch of the river and followed it a little distance. The stream here foamed and swirled among jagged rocks. At the foot of this rapid stretched the first dead water Ken had encountered for miles. A flock of wild geese rose from under his feet and flew down-stream.

“Geese!” exclaimed Ken. “I wonder if that means we are getting down near lagoons or big waters. George, wild geese don’t frequent little streams, do they?”

“There’s no telling where you’ll find them in this country,” answered George. “I’ve chased them right in our orange groves.”

They returned to look at the left branch of the river. It was open and one continuous succession of low steps. That would have decided Ken even if the greater volume of water had not gone down on this left side. As far as he could see was a wide, open river running over little ledges. It looked to be the easiest and swiftest navigation he had come upon, and so indeed it proved. The water was swift, and always dropped over some ledge in a rounded fall that was safe for him to shoot. It was great fun going over these places. The boys hung their feet over the gunwales most of the time, sliding them along the slippery ledge or giving a kick to help the momentum. When they came to a fall, Ken would drop off the bow, hold the boat back and swing it straight, then jump in, and over it would go — souse!

There were so many of these ledges, and they were so close together, that going over them grew to be a habit. It induced carelessness. The boat drifted to a brow of a fall full four feet high. Ken, who was at the bow, leaped off just in time to save the boat. He held on while the swift water surged about his knees. He yelled for the boys to jump. As the stern where they sat was already over the fall it was somewhat difficult to make the boys vacate quickly enough.

“Tumble out! Quick!” bawled Ken. “Do you think I’m Samson?”

Over they went, up to their necks in the boiling foam, and not a second too soon, for Ken could hold the boat no longer. It went over smoothly, just dipping the stern under water. If the boys had remained aboard, the boat would have swamped. As it was, Pepe managed to catch the rope, which Ken had wisely thrown out, and he drifted down to the next ledge. Ken found this nearly as high as the last one. So he sent the boys below to catch the boat. This worked all right. The shelves slanted slightly, with the shallow part of the water just at the break of the ledge. They passed half a dozen of these, making good time, and before they knew it were again in a deep, smooth jungle lane with bamboo and streamers of moss waving over them.

The shade was cool, and Ken settled down in the stern-seat, grateful for a rest. To his surprise, he did not see a bird. The jungle was asleep. Once or twice Ken fancied he heard the tinkle and gurgle of water running over rocks. The boat glided along silently, with Pepe rowing leisurely, George asleep, Hal dreaming.

Ken watched the beautiful green banks. They were high, a mass of big-leafed vines, flowering and fragrant, above which towered the jungle giants. Ken wanted to get out and study those forest trees. But he made no effort to act upon his good intentions, and felt that he must take the most of his forestry study at long range. He was reveling in the cool recesses under the leaning cypresses, in the soft swish of bearded moss, and the strange rustle of palms, in the dreamy hum of the resting jungle, when his pleasure was brought to an abrupt end.

“Santa Maria!” yelled Pepe.

George woke up with a start. Hal had been jarred out of his day-dream, and looked resentful. Ken gazed about him with the feeling of a man going into a trance, instead of coming out of one.

The boat was fast on a mud-bank. That branch of the river ended right there. The boys had come all those miles to run into a blind pocket.

Ken’s glance at the high yellow bank, here crumbling and bare, told him there was no outlet. He had a sensation of blank dismay.

“Gee!” exclaimed Hal, softly.

George rubbed his eyes; and, searching for a cigarette, he muttered: “We’re lost! I said it was coming to us. We’ve got to go back!”

CHAPTER XI

AN ARMY OF SNAKES

FOR A MOMENT Ken Ward was utterly crushed under the weight of this sudden blow. It was so sudden that he had no time to think; or his mind was clamped on the idea of attempting to haul the boat up that long, insurmountable series of falls.

“It’ll be an awful job,” burst out Hal.

No doubt in the mind of each boy was the same idea — the long haul, wading over slippery rocks; the weariness of pushing legs against the swift current; the packing of supplies uphill; and then the toil of lifting the heavy boat up over a fall.

“Mucho malo,” said Pepe, and he groaned. That was significant, coming from a mozo, who thought nothing of rowing forty miles in a day.

“Oh, but it’s tough luck,” cried Ken. “Why didn’t I choose the right branch of this pesky river?”

“I think you used your head at that,” said Hal. “Most of the water came down on this side. Where did it go?”

Hal had hit the vital question, and it cleared Ken’s brain.

“Hal, you’re talking sense. Where did that water go? It couldn’t all have sunk into the earth. We’ll find out. We won’t try to go back. We can’t go back.”

Pepe shoved off the oozy mud, and, reluctantly, as if he appreciated the dilemma, he turned the boat and rowed along the shore. As soon as Ken had recovered somewhat he decided there must be an outlet which he had missed. This reminded him that at a point not far back he had heard the tinkle and gurgle of unseen water flowing over rocks.

He directed Pepe to row slowly along the bank that he thought was the island side. As they glided under the drooping bamboos and silky curtains of moss George began to call out: “Low bridge! Low bridge!” For a boy who was forever voicing ill-omened suggestions as to what might soon happen he was extraordinarily cheerful.

There were places where all had to lie flat and others where Pepe had to use his machete. This disturbed the siesta of many aquatic birds, most of which flew swiftly away. But there were many of the gray-breasted, blue-backed bitterns that did not take to flight. These croaked dismally, and looked down upon the boys with strange, protruding eyes.

“Those darn birds’ll give me the willies,” declared Hal. “George, you just look like them when you croak about what’s coming to us.”

“Just wait!” retorted George. “It’ll come, all right. Then I’ll have the fun of seeing you scared silly.”

“What! You’ll not do anything of the kind!” cried Hal, hotly. “I’ve been in places where such — such a skinny little sap-head as you—”

“Here, you kids stop wrangling,” ordered Ken, who sensed hostilities in the air. “We’ve got trouble enough.”

Suddenly Ken signaled Pepe to stop rowing.

“Boys, I hear running water. Aha! Here’s a current. See — it’s making right under this bank.”

Before them was a high wall of broad-leaved vines, so thick that nothing could be seen through them. Apparently this luxuriant canopy concealed the bank. Pepe poked an oar into it, but found nothing solid.

“Pepe, cut a way through. We’ve got to see where this water runs.”

It was then that Ken came to a full appreciation of a machete. He had often fancied it a much less serviceable tool than an ax. Pepe flashed the long, bright blade up, down, and around, and presently the boat was its own length in a green tunnel. Pepe kept on slashing while Ken poled the boat in and the other boys dumped the cut foliage overboard. Soon they got through this mass of hanging vine and creeper. Much to Ken’s surprise and delight, he found no high bank, but low, flat ground, densely wooded, through which ran a narrow, deep outlet of the river.

“By all that’s lucky!” ejaculated Ken.

George and Hal whooped their pleasure, and Pepe rubbed his muscular hands. Then all fell silent. The deep, penetrating silence of that jungle was not provocative of speech. The shade was so black that when a ray of sunlight did manage to pierce the dense canopy overhead it resembled a brilliant golden spear. A few lofty palms and a few clumps of bamboo rather emphasized the lack of these particular species in this forest. Nor was there any of the familiar streaming moss hanging from the trees. This glen was green, cool, dark. It did not smell exactly swampy, but rank, like a place where many water plants were growing.

The outlet was so narrow that Ken was not able to use the oars. Still, as the current was swift, the boat went along rapidly. He saw a light ahead and heard the babble of water. The current quickened, and the boat drifted suddenly upon the edge of an oval glade, where the hot sun beat down. A series of abrupt mossy benches, over which the stream slid almost noiselessly, blocked further progress.

The first thing about this glade that Ken noted particularly, after the difficulties presented by the steep steps, was the multitude of snakes sunning themselves along the line of further progress.

“Boys, it’ll be great wading down there, hey?” he queried.

Pepe grumbled for the first time on the trip. Ken gathered from the native’s looks and speech that he did not like snakes.

“Watch me peg ‘em!” yelled Hal, and he began to throw stones with remarkable accuracy. “Hike, you brown sons-of-guns!”

George, not to be outdone, made a dive for his .22 and began to pop as if he had no love for snakes. Ken had doubts about this species. The snakes were short, thick, dull brown in color, and the way they slipped into the stream proved they were water-snakes. Ken had never read of a brown water-moccasin, so he doubted that these belonged to that poisonous family. Anyway, snakes were the least of his troubles.

“Boys, you’re doing fine,” he said. “There are about a thousand snakes there, and you’ve hit about six.”

He walked down through the glade into the forest, and was overjoyed to hear once more the heavy roar of rapids. He went on. The timber grew thinner, and light penetrated the jungle. Presently he saw the gleam of water through the trees. Then he hurried back.

“All right, boys,” he shouted. “Here’s the river.”

The boys were so immensely relieved that packing the outfit round the waterfalls was work they set about with alacrity. Ken, who had on his boots, broke a trail through the ferns and deep moss. Pepe, being barefoot, wasted time looking for snakes. George teased him. But Pepe was deadly serious. And the way he stepped and looked made Ken thoughtful. He had made his last trip with supplies, and was about to start back to solve the problem of getting the boat down, when a hoarse yell resounded through the sleeping jungle. Parrots screeched, and other birds set up a cackling.

Ken bounded up the slope.

“Santa Maria!” cried Pepe.

Ken followed the direction indicated by Pepe’s staring eyes and trembling finger. Hanging from a limb of a tree was a huge black-snake. It was as thick as Ken’s leg. The branch upon which it poised its neck so gracefully was ten feet high, and the tail curled into the ferns on the ground.

“Boys, it’s one of the big fellows,” cried Ken.

“Didn’t I tell you!” yelled George, running down for his gun.

Hal seemed rooted to the spot. Pepe began to jabber. Ken watched the snake, and felt instinctively from its sinister looks that it was dangerous. George came running back with his .32 and waved it in the air as he shot. He was so frightened that he forgot to aim. Ken took the rifle from him.

“You can’t hit him with this. Run after your shotgun. Quick!”

But the sixteen-gage was clogged with a shell that would not eject. Ken’s guns were in their cases.

“Holy smoke!” cried George. “He’s coming down.”

The black-snake moved his body and began to slide toward the tree-trunk.

Ken shot twice at the head of the snake. It was a slow-swaying mark hard to hit. The reptile stopped and poised wonderfully on the limb. He was not coiled about it, but lay over it with about four feet of neck waving, swaying to and fro. He watched the boys, and his tongue, like a thin, black streak, darted out viciously.

Ken could not hit the head, so he sent a bullet through the thick part of the body. Swift as a gleam the snake darted from the limb.

“Santa Maria!” yelled Pepe, and he ran off.

“Look out, boys,” shouted Ken. He picked up Pepe’s machete and took to his heels. George and Hal scrambled before him. They ran a hundred yards or more, and Ken halted in an open rocky spot. He was angry, and a little ashamed that he had run. The snake did not pursue, and probably was as badly frightened as the boys had been. Pepe stopped some distance away, and Hal and George came cautiously back.

“I don’t see anything of him,” said Ken. “I’m going back.”

He walked slowly, keeping a sharp outlook, and, returning to the glade, found blood-stains under the tree. The snake had disappeared without leaving a trail.

“If I’d had my shotgun ready!” exclaimed Ken, in disgust. And he made a note that in the future he would be prepared to shoot.

“Wasn’t he a whopper, Ken?” said Hal. “We ought to have got his hide. What a fine specimen!”

“Boys, you drive away those few little snakes while I figure on a way to get the boat down.”

“Not on your life!” replied Hal.

George ably sustained Hal’s objection.

“Mucho malo,” said Pepe, and then added a loud “No” in English.

“All right, my brave comrades,” rejoined Ken, scornfully. “As I’ve not done any work yet or taken any risks, I’ll drive the snakes away.”

With Pepe’s machete he cut a long forked pole, trimmed it, and, armed with this weapon, he assaulted the rolls and bands and balls of brown snakes. He stalked boldly down upon them, pushed and poled, and even kicked them off the mossy banks. Hal could not stand that, and presently he got a pole and went to Ken’s assistance.

“Who’s hollering now?” he yelled to George.

Whereupon George cut a long branch and joined the battle. They whacked and threshed and pounded, keeping time with yells. Everywhere along the wet benches slipped and splashed the snakes. But after they were driven into the water they did not swim away. They dove under the banks and then stretched out their pointed heads from the dripping edge of moss.

“Say, fellows, we’re making it worse for us,” declared Ken. “See, the brown devils won’t swim off. We’d better have left them on the bank. Let’s catch one and see if he’ll bite.”

He tried to pick up one on his pole, but it slipped off. George fished after another. Hal put the end of his stick down inside the coil of still another and pitched it. The brown, wriggling, wet snake shot straight at the unsuspecting George, and struck him and momentarily wound about him.

“Augrrh!” bawled George, flinging off the reptile and leaping back. “What’d you do that for? I’ll punch you!”

“George, he didn’t mean it,” said Ken. “It was an accident. Come on, let’s tease that fellow and see if he’ll bite.”

The snake coiled and raised his flat head and darted a wicked tongue out and watched with bright, beady eyes, but he did not strike. Ken went as close as he thought safe and studied the snake.

“Boys, his head isn’t a triangle, and there are no little pits under his eyes. Those are two signs of a poisonous snake. I don’t believe this fellow’s one.”

“He’ll be a dead snake, b’ gosh,” replied George, and he fell to pounding it with his pole.

“Don’t smash him. I want the skin,” yelled Hal.

Ken pondered on the situation before him.

“Come, the sooner we get at this the better,” he said.

There was a succession of benches through which the stream zigzagged and tumbled. These benches were rock ledges over which moss had grown fully a foot thick, and they were so oozy and slippery that it was no easy task to walk upon them. Then they were steep, so steep that it was remarkable how the water ran over them so smoothly, with very little noise or break. It was altogether a new kind of waterfall to Ken. But if the snakes had not been hidden there, navigation would have presented an easier problem.

“Come on boys, alongside now, and hold back,” he ordered, gripping the bow.

Exactly what happened the next few seconds was not clear in his mind. There was a rush, and all were being dragged by the boat. The glade seemed to whizz past. There were some sodden thumps, a great splashing, a check — and lo! they were over several benches. It was the quickest and easiest descent he had ever made down a steep waterfall.

“Fine!” ejaculated George, wiping the ooze from his face.

“Yes, it was fine,” Ken replied. “But unless this boat has wings something’ll happen soon.”

Below was a long, swift curve of water, very narrow and steep, with a moss-covered rock dividing the lower end. Ken imagined if there was a repetition of the first descent the boat would be smashed on that rock. He ordered Pepe, who was of course the strongest, to go below and jump to the rock. There he might prevent a collision.

Pepe obeyed, but as he went he yelled and doubled up in contortions as he leaped over snakes in the moss.

Then gently, gingerly the boys started the boat off the bench, where it had lodged. George was at the stern, Ken and Hal at the bow. Suddenly Hal shrieked and jumped straight up, to land in the boat.

“Snakes!” he howled.

“Give us a rest!” cried Ken, in disgust.

The boat moved as if instinct with life. It dipped, then — wheeze! it dove over the bench. Hal was thrown off his feet, fell back on the gunwale, and thence into the snaky moss. George went sprawling face downward into the slimy ooze, and Ken was jerked clear off the bench into the stream. He got his footing and stood firm in water to his waist, and he had the bow-rope coiled round his hands.

“Help! Help!” he yelled, as he felt the dragging weight too much for him.

If Ken retarded the progress of the boat at all, it was not much. George saw his distress and the danger menacing the boat, and he leaped valiantly forward. As he dashed down a slippery slant his feet flew up higher than where his head had been; he actually turned over in the air, and fell with a great sop.

Hal had been trying to reach Ken, but here he stopped and roared with laughter.

Despite Ken’s anger and fear of snakes, and his greater fear for the boat, he likewise had to let out a peal of laughter. That tumble of George’s was great. Then Ken’s footing gave way and he went down. His mouth filled with nasty water, nearly strangling him. He was almost blinded, too. His arms seemed to be wrenched out of their sockets, and he felt himself bumping over moss-covered rocks as soft as cushions. Slimy ropes or roots of vegetation, that felt like snakes, brushed his face and made him cold and sick. It was impossible to hold the boat any longer. He lodged against a stone, and the swift water forced him upon it. Blinking and coughing, he stuck fast.

Ken saw the boat headed like a dart for the rock where Pepe stood.

“Let ‘er go!” yelled Ken. “Don’t try to stop her. Pepe, you’ll be smashed!”

Pepe acted like a man determined to make up for past cowardice. He made a great show of brave intentions. He was not afraid of a boat. He braced himself and reached out with his brawny arms. Ken feared for the obstinate native’s life, for the boat moved with remarkable velocity.

At the last second Pepe’s courage vanished. He turned tail to get out of the way. But he slipped. The boat shot toward him and the blunt stern struck him with a dull thud. Pepe sailed into the air, over the rock, and went down cleaving the water.

The boat slipped over the stone as easily as if it had been a wave and, gliding into still water below, lodged on the bank.

Ken crawled out of the stream, and when he ascertained that no one was injured he stretched himself on the ground and gave up to mirth. Pepe resembled a drowned rat; Hal was an object to wonder at; and George, in his coating of slime and with strings of moss in his hair, was the funniest thing Ken had ever seen. It was somewhat of a surprise to him to discover, presently, that the boys were convulsed with fiendish glee over the way he himself looked.

By and by they recovered, and, with many a merry jest and chuckle of satisfaction, they repacked the boat and proceeded on their way. No further obstacle hindered them. They drifted out of the shady jungle into the sunlit river.

In half a mile of drifting the heat of the sun dried the boys’ clothes. The water was so hot that it fairly steamed. Once more the boat entered a placid aisle over which the magnificent gray-wreathed cypresses bowed, and the west wind waved long ribbons of moss, and wild fowl winged reluctant flight.

Ken took advantage of this tranquil stretch of river to work on his map. He realized that he must use every spare moment and put down his drawings and notes as often as time and travel permitted. It had dawned on Ken that rapids and snakes, and all the dangers along the river, made his task of observation and study one apt to be put into eclipse at times. Once or twice he landed on shore to climb a bluff, and was pleased each time to see that he had lined a comparatively true course on his map. He had doubts of its absolute accuracy, yet he could not help having pride in his work. So far so good, he thought, and hoped for good-fortune farther down the river.

CHAPTER XII

CATCHING STRANGE FISH

BEYOND A BEND in the river the boys came upon an island with a narrow, shaded channel on one side, a wide shoal on the other, and a group of huge cypresses at the up-stream end.

“Looks good to me,” said Hal.

The instant Ken saw the island he knew it was the place he had long been seeking to make a permanent camp for a few days. They landed, to find an ideal camping site. The ground under the cypresses was flat, dry, and covered with short grass. Not a ray of sunlight penetrated the foliage. A pile of driftwood had lodged against one of the trees, and this made easy the question of fire-wood.

“Great!” exclaimed Ken. “Come on, let’s look over the ground.”

The island was about two hundred yards long, and the lower end was hidden by a growth of willows. Bursting through this, the boys saw a weedy flat leading into a wide, shallow back-eddy. Great numbers of ducks were sporting and feeding. The stones of the rocky shore were lined with sleeping ducks. Herons of all colors and sizes waded about, or slept on one leg. Snipe ran everywhere. There was a great squawking and flapping of wings. But at least half the number of waterfowl were too tame or too lazy to fly.

Ken returned to camp with his comrades, all highly elated over the prospects. The best feature about this beautiful island was the absence of ticks and snakes.

“Boys, this is the place,” said Ken. “We’ll hang up here for a while. Maybe we won’t strike another such nice place to stay.”

So they unloaded the boat, taking everything out, and proceeded to pitch a camp that was a delight. They were all loud in expressions of satisfaction. Then Pepe set about leisurely peeling potatoes; George took his gun and slipped off toward the lower end of the island; Hal made a pen for his raccoon, and then more pens, as if he meant to capture a menagerie; and Ken made a comfortable lounging-bed under a cypress. He wanted to forget that nagging worry as to farther descent of the river, and to enjoy this place.

“Bang!” went George’s sixteen-gage. A loud whirring of wings followed, and the air was full of ducks.

“Never touched one!” yelled Hal, in taunting voice.

A flock of teal skimmed the water and disappeared up-stream. The shot awakened parrots in the trees, where for a while there was clamor. Ken saw George wade out into the shoal and pick up three ducks.

“Pot-shot!” exclaimed Hal, disgustedly. “Why couldn’t he be a sport and shoot them on the fly?”

George crossed to the opposite shore and, climbing a bare place, stood looking before him.

“Hey, George, don’t go far,” called Ken.

“Fine place over here,” replied George, and, waving his hand, he passed into the bushes out of sight.

Ken lay back upon his blanket with a blissful sense of rest and contentment. Many a time he had lain so, looking up through the broad leaves of a sycamore or the lacy foliage of a birch or the delicate crisscross of millions of pine needles. This overhead canopy, however, was different. Only here and there could he catch little slivers of blue sky. The graceful streamers of exquisite moss hung like tassels of silver. In the dead stillness of noonday they seemed to float curved in the shape in which the last soft breeze had left them. High upon a branch he saw a redheaded parrot hanging back downward, after the fashion of a monkey. Then there were two parrots asleep in the fork of a branch. It was the middle of the day, and all things seemed tired and sleepy. The deep channel murmured drowsily, and the wide expanse of river on the other side lapped lazily at the shore. The only other sound was the mourning of turtle-doves, one near and another far away. Again the full richness, the mellow sweetness of this song struck Ken forcibly. He remembered that all the way down the river he had heard that mournful note. It was beautiful but melancholy. Somehow it made him think that it had broken the dreamy stillness of the jungle noonday long, long ago. It was sweet but sad and old. He did not like to hear it.

Ken yielded to the soothing influence of the hour and fell asleep. When he awoke there was George, standing partially undressed and very soberly popping ticks. He had enlisted the services of Pepe, and, to judge from the remarks of both, they needed still more assistance.

“Say, Garrapato George, many ticks over there?”

“Ticks!” shouted George, wildly, waving his cigarette. “Millions of ‘em! And there’s — ouch! Kill that one, Pepe. Wow! he’s as big as a penny. There’s game over there. It’s a flat with some kind of berry bush. There’s lots of trails. I saw cat-tracks, and I scared up wild turkeys—”

“Turkeys!” Ken exclaimed, eagerly.

“You bet. I saw a dozen. How they can run! I didn’t flush them. Then I saw a flock of those black and white ducks, like the big fellow I shot. They were feeding. I believe they’re Muscovy ducks.”

“I’m sure I don’t know, but we can call them that.”

“Well, I’d got a shot, too, but I saw some gray things sneaking in the bushes. I thought they were pigs, so I got out of there quick.”

“You mean javelin?”

“Yep, I mean wild pigs. Oh! We’ve struck the place for game. I’ll bet it’s coming to us.”

When George anticipated pleasurable events he was the most happy of companions. It was good to look forward. He was continually expecting things to happen; he was always looking ahead with great eagerness. But unfortunately he had a twist of mind toward the unfavorable side of events, and so always had the boys fearful.

“Well, pigs or no pigs, ticks or no ticks, we’ll hunt and fish, and see all there is to see,” declared Ken, and he went back to his lounging.

When he came out of that lazy spell, George and Hal were fishing. George had Ken’s rod, and it happened to be the one Ken thought most of.

“Do you know how to fish?” he asked.

“I’ve caught tarpon bigger’n you,” retorted George.

That fact was indeed too much for Ken, and he had nothing to do but risk his beloved rod in George’s hands. And the way George swung it about, slashed branches with it, dropped the tip in the water, was exceedingly alarming to Ken. The boy would break the tip in a minute. Yet Ken could not take his rod away from a boy who had caught tarpon.

There were fish breaking water. Where a little while before the river had been smooth, now it was ruffled by ravalo, gar, and other fish Pepe could not name. But George and Hal did not get a bite. They tried all their artificial flies and spoons and minnows, then the preserved mullet, and finally several kinds of meat.

“Bah! they want pie,” said Hal.

For Ken Ward to see little and big fish capering around under his very nose and not be able to hook one was exasperating. He shot a small fish, not unlike a pickerel, and had the boys bait with that. Still no strike was forthcoming.

This put Ken on his mettle. He rigged up a minnow tackle, and, going to the lower end of the island, he tried to catch some minnows. There were plenty of them in the shallow water, but they would not bite. Finally Ken waded in the shoal and turned over stones. He found some snails almost as large as mussels, and with these he hurried back to the boys.

“Here, if you don’t get a bite on one of these I’m no fisherman,” said Ken. “Try one.”

George got his hands on the new bait in advance of Hal and so threw his hook into the water first. No sooner had the bait sunk than he got a strong pull.

“There! Careful now,” said Ken.

George jerked up, hooking a fish that made the rod look like a buggy-whip.

“Give me the rod,” yelled Ken, trying to take it.

“It’s my fish,” yelled back George.

He held on and hauled with all his might. A long, finely built fish, green as emerald, split the water and churned it into foam. Then, sweeping out in strong dash, it broke Ken’s rod square in the middle. Ken eyed the wreck with sorrow, and George with no little disapproval.

“You said you knew how to fish,” protested Ken.

“Those split-bamboo rods are no good,” replied George. “They won’t hold a fish.”

“George, you’re a grand fisherman!” observed Hal, with a chuckle. “Why, you only dreamed you’ve caught tarpon.”

Just then Hal had a tremendous strike. He was nearly hauled off the bank. But he recovered his balance and clung to his nodding rod. Hal’s rod was heavy cane, and his line was thick enough to suit. So nothing broke. The little brass reel buzzed and rattled.

“I’ve got a whale!” yelled Hal.

“It’s a big gar — alligator-gar,” said George. “You haven’t got him. He’s got you.”

The fish broke water, showing long, open jaws with teeth like saw-teeth. It threshed about and broke away. Hal reeled in to find the hook straightened out. Then George kindly commented upon the very skilful manner in which Hal had handled the gar. For a wonder Hal did not reply.

By four o’clock, when Ken sat down to supper, he was so thirsty that his mouth puckered as dry as if he had been eating green persimmons. This matter of thirst had become serious. Twice each day Ken had boiled a pot of water, into which he mixed cocoa, sugar, and condensed milk, and begged the boys to drink that and nothing else. Nevertheless Pepe and George, and occasionally Hal, would drink unboiled water. For this meal the boys had venison and duck, and canned vegetables and fruit, so they fared sumptuously.

Pepe pointed to a string of Muscovy ducks sailing up the river. George had a good shot at the tail end of the flock, and did not even loosen a feather. Then a line of cranes and herons passed over the island. When a small bunch of teal flew by, to be followed by several canvasbacks, Ken ran for his shotgun. It was a fine hammerless, a hard-shooting gun, and one Ken used for grouse-hunting. In his hurry he grasped a handful of the first shells he came to and, when he ran to the river-bank, found they were loads of small shot. He decided to try them anyhow.

While Pepe leisurely finished the supper Ken and George and Hal sat on the bank watching for ducks. Just before the sun went down a hard wind blew, making difficult shooting. Every few moments ducks would whir by. George’s gun missed fire often, and when it did work all right, he missed the ducks. To Ken’s surprise he found the load of small shot very deadly. He could sometimes reach a duck at eighty yards. The little brown ducks and teal he stopped as if they had hit a stone wall. He dropped a canvasback with the sheer dead plunge that he liked. Ken thought a crippled duck enough to make a hunter quit shooting. With six ducks killed, he decided to lay aside his gun for that time, when Pepe pointed down the river.

“Pato real,” he said.

Ken looked eagerly and saw three of the big black ducks flying as high as the tree-tops and coming fast. Snapping a couple of shells in the gun, Ken stood ready. At the end of the island two of the ducks wheeled to the left, but the big leader came on like a thunderbolt. To Ken he made a canvas-back seem slow. Ken caught him over the sights of the gun, followed him up till he was abreast and beyond; then, sweeping a little ahead of him, Ken pulled both triggers. The Muscovy swooped up and almost stopped in his flight while a cloud of black feathers puffed away on the wind. He sagged a little, recovered, and flew on as strong as ever. The small shot were not heavy enough to stop him.

“We’ll need big loads for the Muscovies and the turkeys,” said George.

“We’ve all sizes up to BB’s,” replied Ken. “George, let’s take a walk over there where you saw the turkeys. It’s early yet.”

Then Pepe told George if they wanted to see game at that hour the thing to do was to sit still in camp and watch the game come down to the river to drink. And he pointed down-stream to a herd of small deer quietly walking out on the bar.

“After all the noise we made!” exclaimed Ken. “Well, this beats me. George, we’ll stay right here and not shoot again to-night. I’ve an idea we’ll see something worth while.”

It was Pepe’s idea, but Ken instantly saw its possibilities. There were no tributaries to the river or springs in that dry jungle, and, as manifestly the whole country abounded in game, it must troop down to the river in the cool of the evening to allay the hot day’s thirst. The boys were perfectly situated for watching the dark bank on the channel side of the island as well as the open bars on the other. The huge cypresses cast shadows that even in daylight effectually concealed them. They put out the camp-fire and, taking comfortable seats in the folds of the great gnarled roots, began to watch and listen.

The vanguard of thirsty deer had prepared Ken for something remarkable, and he was in no wise disappointed. The trooping of deer down to the water’s edge and the flight of wild fowl up-stream increased in proportion to the gathering shadows of twilight. The deer must have got a scent, for they raised their long ears and stood still as statues, gazing across toward the upper end of the island. But they showed no fear. It was only when they had drunk their fill and wheeled about to go up the narrow trails over the bank that they showed uneasiness and haste. This made Ken wonder if they were fearful of being ambushed by jaguars. Soon the dark line of deer along the shore shaded into the darkness of night. Then Ken heard soft splashes and an occasional patter of hard hoofs. The whir of wings had ceased.

A low exclamation from Pepe brought attention to interesting developments closer at hand.

“Javelin!” he whispered.

On the channel side of the island was impenetrable pitchy blackness. Ken tried to pierce it with straining eyes, but he could not even make out the shore-line that he knew was only ten yards distant. Still he could hear, and that was thrilling enough. Everywhere on this side, along the edge of the water and up the steep bank, were faint tickings of twigs and soft rustlings of leaves. Then there was a continuous sound, so low as to be almost inaudible, that resembled nothing Ken could think of so much as a long line of softly dripping water. It swelled in volume to a tiny roll, and ended in a sharp clicking on rocks and a gentle splashing in the water. A drove of javelin had come down to drink. Occasionally the glint of green eyes made the darkness all the more weird. Suddenly a long, piercing wail, a keen cry almost human, quivered into the silence.

“Panther!” Ken whispered, instantly, to the boys. It was a different cry from that of the lion of the canyon, but there was a strange wild note that betrayed the species. A stillness fell, dead as that of a subterranean cavern. Strain his ears as he might, Ken could not detect the slightest sound. It was as if no javelin or any other animals had come down to drink. That listening, palpitating moment seemed endless. What mystery of wild life it meant, that silence following the cry of the panther! Then the jungle sounds recommenced — the swishing of water, the brushing in the thicket, stealthy padded footsteps, the faint snapping of twigs. Some kind of a cat uttered an unearthly squall. Close upon this the clattering of deer up the bank on the other side rang out sharply. The deer were running, and the striking of the little hoofs ceased in short order. Ken listened intently. From far over the bank came a sound not unlike a cough — deep, hoarse, inexpressibly wild and menacing.

“Tigre!” cried Pepe, gripping Ken hard with both hands. He could feel him trembling. It showed how the native of the jungle-belt feared the jaguar.

Again the cough rasped out, nearer and louder this time. It was not a courage-provoking sound, and seemed on second thought more of a growl than a cough. Ken felt safe on the island; nevertheless, he took up his rifle.

“That’s a tiger,” whispered George. “I heard one once from the porch of the Alamitas hacienda.”

A third time the jaguar told of his arrival upon the night scene. Ken was excited, and had a thrill of fear. He made up his mind to listen with clearer ears, but the cough or growl was not repeated.

Then a silence set in, so unbroken that it seemed haunted by the echoes of those wild jungle cries. Perhaps Ken had the haunting echoes in mind. He knew what had sent the deer away and stilled the splashings and creepings. It was the hoarse voice of the lord of the jungle.

Pepe and the boys, too, fell under the spell of the hour. They did not break the charm by talking. Giant fireflies accentuated the ebony blackness and a low hum of insects riveted the attention on the stillness. Ken could not understand why he was more thoughtful on this trip than he had ever been before. Somehow he felt immeasurably older. Probably that was because it had seemed necessary for him to act like a man, even if he was only a boy.

The black mantle of night lifted from under the cypresses, leaving a gloom that slowly paled. Through the dark foliage, low down over the bank, appeared the white tropical moon. Shimmering gleams chased the shadows across the ripples, and slowly the river brightened to a silver sheen.

A great peace fell upon the jungle world. How white, how wild, how wonderful! It only made the island more beautiful and lonely. The thought of leaving it gave Ken Ward a pang. Almost he wished he were a savage.

And he lay there thinking of the wild places that he could never see, where the sun shone, the wind blew, the twilight shadowed, the rain fell; where the colors and beauties changed with the passing hours; where a myriad of wild creatures preyed upon each other and night never darkened but upon strife and death.

CHAPTER XIII

A TURKEY-HUNT

UPON AWAKENING IN the early morning Ken found his state one of huge enjoyment. He was still lazily tired, but the dead drag and ache had gone from his bones. A cool breeze wafted the mist from the river, breaking it up into clouds, between which streamed rosy shafts of sunlight. Wood-smoke from the fire Pepe was starting blew fragrantly over him. A hundred thousand birds seemed to be trying to burst their throats. The air was full of music. He lay still, listening to this melodious herald of the day till it ceased.

Then a flock of parrots approached and circled over the island, screeching like a band of flying imps. Presently they alighted in the cypresses, bending the branches to a breaking-point and giving the trees a spotted appearance of green and red. Pepe waved his hand toward another flock sweeping over.

“Parrakeets,” he said.

These birds were a solid green, much smaller than the red-heads, with longer tails. They appeared wilder than the red-heads, and flew higher, circling the same way and screeching, but they did not alight. Other flocks sailed presently from all directions. The last one was a cloud of parrots, a shining green and yellow mass several acres in extent. They flew still higher than the parrakeets.

“Yellow-heads!” shouted George. “They’re the big fellows, the talkers. If there ain’t a million of ‘em!”

The boys ate breakfast in a din that made conversation useless. The red-heads swooped down upon the island, and the two unfriendly species flew back and forth, manifestly trying to drive the boys off. The mist had blown away, the sun was shining bright, when the myriad of parrots, in large and small flocks, departed to other jungle haunts.

Pepe rowed across the wide shoal to the sand-bars. There in the soft ooze, among the hundreds of deer-tracks, Ken found a jaguar-track larger than his spread hand. It was different from a lion-track, yet he could not distinguish just what the difference was. Pepe, who had accompanied the boys to carry the rifles and game, pointed to the track and said, vehemently:

“Tigre!” He pronounced it “tee-gray.” And he added, “Grande!”

“Big he certainly is,” Ken replied. “Boys, we’ll kill this jaguar. We’ll bait this drinking-trail with a deer carcass and watch tonight.”

Once upon the bank, Ken was surprised to see a wide stretch of comparatively flat land. It was covered with a low vegetation, with here and there palm-trees on the little ridges and bamboo clumps down in the swales. Beyond the flat rose the dark line of dense jungle. It was not clear to Ken why that low piece of ground was not overgrown with the matted thickets and vines and big trees characteristic of other parts of the jungle.

They struck into one of the trails, and had not gone a hundred paces when they espied a herd of deer. The grass and low bushes almost covered them. George handed his shotgun to Pepe and took his rifle.

“Shoot low,” said Ken.

George pulled the trigger, and with the report a deer went down, but it was not the one Ken was looking at, nor the one at which he believed George had aimed. The rest of the herd bounded away, to disappear in a swale. Wading through bushes and grass, they found George’s quarry, a small deer weighing perhaps sixty pounds. Pepe carried it over to the trail. Ken noted that he was exceedingly happy to carry the rifles. They went on at random, somehow feeling that, no matter in what direction, they would run into something to shoot at.

The first bamboo swale was alive with chicalocki. Up to this time Ken had not seen this beautiful pheasant fly in the open, and he was astonished at its speed. It would burst out of the thick bamboo, whir its wings swiftly, then sail. That sail was a most graceful thing to see. George pulled his 16-gage twice, and missed both times. He had the beginner’s fault — shooting too soon. Presently Pepe beat a big cock chicalocki out of the bush. He made such a fine target, he sailed so evenly, that Ken simply looked at him over the gun-sights and followed him till he was out of sight. The next one he dropped like a plummet. Shooting chicalocki was too easy, he decided; they presented so fair a mark that it was unfair to pull on them.

George was an impetuous hunter. Ken could not keep near him, nor coax or command him to stay near. He would wander off by himself. That was one mark in his favor; at least he had no fear. Pepe hung close to Ken and Hal, with his dark eyes roving everywhere. Ken climbed out on one side of the swale, George on the other. Catching his whistle, Ken turned to look after him. He waved, and, pointing ahead, began to stoop and slip along from bush to bush. Presently a flock of Muscovy ducks rose before him, sailed a few rods, and alighted. Then from right under his feet labored up great gray birds. Wild geese! Ken recognized them as George’s gun went bang! One tumbled over, the others wheeled toward the river. Ken started down into the swale to cross to where George was, when Pepe touched his arm.

“Turkeys!” he whispered.

That changed Ken’s mind. Pepe pointed into the low bushes ahead and slowly led Ken forward. He heard a peculiar low thumping. Trails led everywhere, and here and there were open patches covered with a scant growth of grass. Across one of these flashed a bronze streak, then another and another.

“Shoot! Shoot!” said Pepe, tensely.

Those bronze streaks were running turkeys! The thumpings were made by their rapidly moving feet!

“Don’t they flush — fly?” Ken queried of Pepe.

“No — no — shoot!” exclaimed he, as another streak of brown crossed an open spot. Ken hurriedly unbreached his gun and changed the light shells for others loaded with heavy shot. He reached the edge of a bare spot across which a turkey ran with incredible swiftness. He did not get the gun in line with it at all. Then two more broke out of the bushes. Run! They were as swift as flying quail. Ken took two snap-shots, and missed both times. If any one had told him that he would miss a running turkey at fifty feet, he would have been insulted. But he did not loosen a feather. Loading again, he yelled for George.

“Hey, George — turkeys!”

He whooped, and started across on the run.

“Gee!” said Hal. “Ken, I couldn’t do any worse shooting than you. Let me take a few pegs.”

Ken handed over the heavy gun and fell back a little, giving Hal the lead. They walked on, peering closely into the bushes. Suddenly a beautiful big gobbler ran out of a thicket, and then stopped to stretch out his long neck and look.

“Shoot — hurry!” whispered Ken. “What a chance!”

“That’s a tame turkey,” said Hal.

“Tame! Why, you tenderfoot! He’s as wild as wild. Can’t you see that?”

Ken’s excitement and Pepe’s intense eagerness all at once seemed communicated to Hal. He hauled up the gun, fingered the triggers awkwardly, then shot both barrels. He tore a tremendous hole in the brush some few feet to one side of the turkey. Then the great bird ran swiftly out of sight.

“Didn’t want to kill him sitting, anyhow,” said Hal, handing the gun back to Ken.

“We want to eat some wild turkey, don’t we? Well, we’d better take any chance. These birds are game, Hal, and don’t you forget that!”

“What’s all the shooting?” panted George, as he joined the march.

Just then there was a roar in the bushes, and a brown blur rose and whizzed ahead like a huge bullet. That turkey had flushed. Ken watched him fly till he went down out of sight into a distant swale.

“Pretty nifty flier, eh?” said George. “He was too quick for me.”

“Great!” replied Ken.

There was another roar, and a huge bronze cannon-ball sped straight ahead. Ken shot both barrels, then George shot one, all clean misses. Ken watched this turkey fly, and saw him clearer. He had to admit that the wild turkey of the Tamaulipas jungle had a swifter and more beautiful flight than his favorite bird, the ruffled grouse.

“Walk faster,” said George. “They’ll flush better. I don’t see how I’m to hit one. This goose I’m carrying weighs about a ton.”

The hunters hurried along, crashing through the bushes. They saw turkey after turkey. Bang! went George’s gun.

Then a beautiful sight made Ken cry out and forget to shoot. Six turkeys darted across an open patch — how swiftly they ran! — then rose in a bunch. The roar they made, the wonderfully rapid action of their powerful wings, and then the size of them, their wildness and noble gameness made them the royal game for Ken.

At the next threshing in the bushes his gun was leveled; he covered the whistling bronze thing that shot up. The turkey went down with a crash. Pepe yelled, and as he ran forward the air all about him was full of fine bronze feathers. Ken hurried forward to see his bird. Its strength and symmetry, and especially the beautiful shades of bronze, captivated his eye.

“Come on, boys — this is the greatest game I ever hunted,” he called.

Again Pepe yelled, and this time he pointed. From where Ken stood he could not see anything except low, green bushes. In great excitement George threw up his gun and shot. Ken heard a squealing.

“Javelin! Javelin!” yelled Pepe, in piercing alarm.

George jerked a rifle from him and began to shoot. Hal pumped his .22 into the bushes. The trampling of hard little hoofs and a cloud of dust warned Ken where the javelin were. Suddenly Pepe broke and fled for the river.

“Hyar, Pepe, fetch back my rifle,” shouted Ken, angrily.

Pepe ran all the faster.

George turned and dashed away yelling: “Wild pigs! Wild pigs!”

“Look out, Ken! Run! Run!” added Hal; and he likewise took to his heels.

It looked as if there was nothing else for Ken to do but to make tracks from that vicinity. Never before had he run from a danger which he had not seen; but the flight of the boys was irresistibly contagious, and this, coupled with the many stories he had heard of the javelin, made Ken execute a sprint that would have been a record but for the hampering weight of gun and turkey. He vowed he would hold on to both, pigs or no pigs; nevertheless he listened as he ran and nervously looked back often. It may have been excited imagination that the dust-cloud appeared to be traveling in his wake. Fortunately, the distance to the river did not exceed a short quarter of a mile. Hot, winded, and thoroughly disgusted with himself, Ken halted on the bank. Pepe was already in the boat, and George was scrambling aboard.

“A fine — chase — you’ve given — me,” Ken panted. “There’s nothing — after us.”

“Don’t you fool yourself,” returned George, quickly. “I saw those pigs, and, like the ass I am, I blazed away at one with my shotgun.”

“Did he run at you? That’s what I want to know?” demanded Ken.

George said he was not certain about that, but declared there always was danger if a wounded javelin squealed. Pepe had little to say; he refused to go back after the deer left in the trail. So they rowed across the shoal, and on the way passed within a rod of a big crocodile.

“Look at that fellow,” cried George. “Wish I had my rifle loaded. He’s fifteen feet long.”

“Oh no, George, he’s not more than ten feet,” said Ken.

“You don’t see his tail. He’s a whopper. Pepe told me there was one in this pool. We’ll get him, all right.”

They reached camp tired out, and all a little ruffled in temper, which certainly was not eased by the discovery that they were covered with ticks. Following the cue of his companions, Ken hurriedly stripped off his clothes and hung them where they could singe over the camp-fire. There were broad red bands of pinilius round both ankles, and reddish patches on the skin of his arms. Here and there were black spots about the size of his little finger-nail, and these were garrapatoes. He picked these off one by one, rather surprised to find them come off so easily. Suddenly he jumped straight up with a pain as fierce as if it had been a puncture from a red-hot wire.

Pepe grinned; and George cried:

“Aha! that was a garrapato bite, that was! You just wait!”

George had a hundred or more of the big black ticks upon him, and he was remorselessly popping them with his cigarette. Some of them were biting him, too, judging from the way he flinched. Pepe had attracted to himself a million or more of the pinilius, but very few of the larger pests. He generously came to Ken’s assistance. Ken was trying to pull off the garrapato that had bitten a hole in him. Pepe said it had embedded its head, and if pulled would come apart, leaving the head buried in the flesh, which would cause inflammation. Pepe held the glowing end of his cigarette close over the tick, and it began to squirm and pull out its head. When it was free of the flesh Pepe suddenly touched it with the cigarette, and it exploded with a pop. A difficult question was: Which hurt Ken the most, the burn from the cigarette or the bite of the tick? Pepe scraped off as many pinilius as would come, and then rubbed Ken with canya, the native alcohol. If this was not some kind of vitriol, Ken missed his guess. It smarted so keenly he thought his skin was peeling off. Presently, however, the smarting subsided, and so did the ticks.

Hal, who by far was the most sensitive one in regard to the crawling and biting of the jungle pests, had been remarkably fortunate in escaping them. So he made good use of his opportunity to poke fun at the others, particularly Ken.

George snapped out: “Just wait, Hollering Hal!”

“Don’t you call me that!” said Hal, belligerently.

Ken eyed his brother in silence, but with a dark, meaning glance. It had occurred to Ken that here in this jungle was the only place in the world where he could hope to pay off old scores on Hal. And plots began to form in his mind.

They lounged about camp, resting in the shade during the hot midday hours. For supper they had a superfluity of meat, the waste of which Ken deplored, and he assuaged his conscience by deciding to have a taste of each kind. The wild turkey he found the most toothsome, delicious meat it had ever been his pleasure to eat. What struck him at once was the flavor, and he could not understand it until Pepe explained that the jungle turkey lived upon a red pepper. So the Tamaulipas wild turkey turned out to be doubly the finest game he had ever shot.

All afternoon the big crocodile sunned himself on the surface of the shoal.

Ken wanted a crocodile-skin, and this was a chance to get one; but he thought it as well to wait, and kept the boys from wasting ammunition.

Before sundown Pepe went across the river and fetched the deer carcass down to the sandbar, where the jaguar-trail led to the water.

At twilight Ken stationed the boys at the lower end of the island, ambushed behind stones. He placed George and Pepe some rods below his own position. They had George’s .32 rifle, and the 16-gage loaded with a solid ball. Ken put Hal, with the double-barreled shotgun, also loaded with ball, some little distance above. And Ken, armed with his automatic, hid just opposite the deer-trails.

“Be careful where you shoot,” Ken warned repeatedly. “Be cool — think quick — and aim.”

Ken settled down for a long wait, some fifty yards from the deer carcass. A wonderful procession of wild fowl winged swift flight over his head. They flew very low. It was strange to note the difference in the sound of their flying. The cranes and herons softly swished the air, the teal and canvas-backs whirred by, and the great Muscovies whizzed like bullets.

When the first deer came down to drink it was almost dark, and when they left the moon was up, though obscured by clouds. Faint sounds rose from the other side of the island. Ken listened until his ears ached, but he could hear nothing. Heavier clouds drifted over the moon. The deer carcass became indistinct, and then faded entirely, and the bar itself grew vague. He was about to give up watching for that night when he heard a faint rustling below. Following it came a grating or crunching of gravel.

Bright flares split the darkness — crack! crack! rang out George’s rifle, then the heavy boom! boom! of the shotgun.

“There he is!” yelled George. “He’s down — we got him — there’s two! Look out!”

Boom! Boom! roared the heavy shotgun from Hal’s covert.

“George missed him! I got him!” yelled Hal. “No, there he goes — Ken! Ken!”

Ken caught the flash of a long gray body in the hazy gloom of the bar and took a quick shot at it. The steel-jacketed bullet scattered the gravel and then hummed over the bank. The gray body moved fast up the bank. Ken could just see it. He turned loose the little automatic and made the welkin ring.

CHAPTER XIV

A FIGHT WITH A JAGUAR

WHEN THE ECHOES of the shots died away the stillness seemed all the deeper. No rustle in the brush or scuffle on the sand gave evidence of a wounded or dying jaguar. George and Hal and Pepe declared there were two tigers, and that they had hit one. Ken walked out upon the stones till he could see the opposite bar, but was not rewarded by a sight of dead game. Thereupon they returned to camp, somewhat discouraged at their ill luck, but planning another night-watch.

In the morning George complained that he did not feel well. Ken told him he had been eating too much fresh meat, and that he had better be careful. Then Ken set off alone, crossed the river, and found that the deer carcass was gone. In the sand near where it had lain were plenty of cat-tracks, but none of the big jaguar. Upon closer scrutiny he found the cat-tracks to be those of a panther. He had half dragged, half carried the carcass up one of the steep trails, but from that point there was no further trace.

Ken struck out across the flat, intending to go as far as the jungle. Turtle-doves fluttered before him in numberless flocks. Far to one side he saw Muscovy ducks rising, sailing a few rods, then alighting. This occurred several times before he understood what it meant. There was probably a large flock feeding on the flat, and the ones in the rear were continually flying to get ahead of those to the fore.

Several turkeys ran through the bushes before Ken, but as he was carrying a rifle he paid little heed to them. He kept a keen lookout for javelin. Two or three times he was tempted to turn off the trail into little bamboo hollows; this, however, owing to a repugnance to ticks, he did not do. Finally, as he neared the high moss-decked wall of the jungle, he came upon a runway leading through the bottom of a deep swale, and here he found tiger-tracks.

Farther down the swale, under a great cluster of bamboo, he saw the scattered bones of several deer. Ken was sure that in this spot the lord of the jungle had feasted more than once. It was an open hollow, with the ground bare under the bamboos. The runway led on into dense, leafy jungle. Ken planned to bait that lair with a deer carcass and watch it during the late afternoon.

First, it was necessary to get the deer. This might prove bothersome, for Ken’s hands and wrists were already sprinkled with pinilius, and he certainly did not want to stay very long in the brush. Ken imagined he felt an itching all the time, and writhed inside his clothes.

“Say, blame you! bite!” he exclaimed, resignedly, and stepped into the low bushes. He went up and out of the swale. Scarcely had he reached a level when he saw a troop of deer within easy range. Before they winded danger Ken shot, and the one he had singled out took a few bounds, then fell over sideways. The others ran off into the brush. Ken remembered that the old hunter on Penetier had told him how seldom a deer dropped at once. When he saw the work of the soft-nose .351 bullet, he no longer wondered at this deer falling almost in his tracks.

“If I ever hit a jaguar like that it will be all day with him,” was Ken’s comment.

There were two things about hunting the jaguar that Ken had been bidden to keep in mind — fierce aggressiveness and remarkable tenacity of life.

Ken dragged the deer down into the bamboo swale and skinned out a haunch. Next to wild-turkey meat, he liked venison best. He was glad to have that as an excuse, for killing these tame tropical deer seemed like murder to Ken. He left the carcass in a favorable place and then hurried back to camp.

To Ken’s relief, he managed to escape bringing any garrapatoes with him, but it took a half-hour to rid himself of the collection of pinilius.

“George, ask Pepe what’s the difference between a garrapato and a pinilius,” said Ken.

“The big tick is the little one’s mother,” replied Pepe.

“Gee! you fellows fuss a lot about ticks,” said Hal, looking up from his task. He was building more pens to accommodate the turtles, snakes, snails, mice, and young birds that he had captured during the morning.

Pepe said there were few ticks there in the uplands compared to the number down along the Panuco River. In the lowlands where the cattle roamed there were millions in every square rod. The under side of every leaf and blade of grass was red with ticks. The size of these pests depended on whether or not they got a chance to stick to a steer or any beast. They appeared to live indefinitely, but if they could not suck blood they could not grow. The pinilius grew into a garrapato, and a garrapato bred a hundred thousand pinilius in her body. Two singular things concerning these ticks were that they always crawled upward, and they vanished from the earth during the wet season.

Ken soaked his Duxbax hunting-suit in kerosene in the hope that this method would enable him to spend a reasonable time hunting. Then, while the other boys fished and played around, he waited for the long, hot hours to pass. It was cool in the shade, but the sunlight resembled the heat of fire. At last five o’clock came, and Ken put on the damp suit. Soaked with the oil, it was heavier and hotter than sealskin, and before he got across the river he was nearly roasted. The evening wind sprang up, and the gusts were like blasts from a furnace. Ken’s body was bathed in perspiration; it ran down his wrists, over his hands, and wet the gun. This cure for ticks — if it were one — was worse than their bites. When he reached the shade of the bamboo swale it was none too soon for him. He threw off the coat, noticing there were more ticks upon it than at any time before. The bottom of his trousers, too, had gathered an exceeding quantity. He brushed them off, muttering the while that he believed they liked kerosene, and looked as if they were drinking it. Ken found it easy, however, to brush them off the wet Duxbax, and soon composed himself to rest and watch.

The position chosen afforded Ken a clear view of the bare space under the bamboos and of the hollow where the runway disappeared in the jungle. The deer carcass, which lay as he had left it, was about a hundred feet from him. This seemed rather close, but he had to accept it, for if he had moved farther away he could not have commanded both points.

Ken sat with his back against a clump of bamboos, the little rifle across his knees and an extra clip of cartridges on the ground at his left. After taking that position he determined not to move a yard when the tiger came, and to kill him.

Ken went over in mind the lessons he had learned hunting bear in Penetier Forest with old Hiram Bent and lassoing lions on the wild north-rim of the Grand Canyon. Ken knew that the thing for a hunter to do, when his quarry was dangerous, was to make up his mind beforehand. Ken had twelve powerful shells that he could shoot in the half of twelve seconds. He would have been willing to face two jaguars.

The sun set and the wind died down. What a relief was the cooling shade! The little breeze that was left fortunately blew at right angles to the swale, so that there did not seem much danger of the tiger winding Ken down the jungle runway.

For long moments he was tense and alert. He listened till he thought he had almost lost the sense of hearing. The jungle leaves were whispering; the insects were humming. He had expected to hear myriad birds and see processions of deer, and perhaps a drove of javelin. But if any living creatures ventured near him it was without his knowledge. The hour between sunset and twilight passed — a long wait; still he did not lose the feeling that something would happen. Ken’s faculties of alertness tired, however, and needed distraction. So he took stock of the big clump of bamboos under which lay the deer carcass.

It was a remarkable growth, that gracefully drooping cluster of slender bamboo poles. He remembered how, as a youngster, not many years back, he had wondered where the fishing-poles came from. Here Ken counted one hundred and sixty-nine in a clump no larger than a barrel. They were yellow in color with black bands, and they rose straight for a few yards, then began to lean out, to bend slightly, at last to droop with their abundance of spiked leaves. Ken was getting down to a real, interested study of this species of jungle growth when a noise startled him.

He straightened out of his lounging position and looked around. The sound puzzled him. He could not place its direction or name what it was. The jungle seemed strangely quiet. He listened. After a moment of waiting he again heard the sound. Instantly Ken was as tense and vibrating as a violin string. The thing he had heard was from the lungs of some jungle beast. He was almost ready to pronounce it a cough. Warily he glanced around, craning his neck. Then a deep, hoarse growl made him whirl.

There stood a jaguar with head up and paw on the deer carcass. Ken imagined he felt perfectly cool, but he knew he was astounded. And even as he cautiously edged the rifle over his knee he took in the beautiful points of the jaguar. He was yellow, almost white, with black spots. He was short and stocky, with powerful stumpy bow-legs. But his head most amazed Ken. It was enormous. And the expression of his face was so singularly savage and wild that Ken seemed to realize instantly the difference between a mountain-lion and this fierce tropical brute.

The jaguar opened his jaws threateningly. He had an enormous stretch of jaw. His long, yellow fangs gleamed. He growled again.

Not hurriedly, nor yet slowly, Ken fired.

He heard the bullet strike him as plainly as if he had hit him with a board. He saw dust fly from his hide. Ken expected to see the jaguar roll over. Instead of that he leaped straight up with a terrible roar. Something within Ken shook. He felt cold and sick.

When the jaguar came down, sprawled on all fours, Ken pulled the automatic again, and he saw the fur fly. Then the jaguar leaped forward with a strange, hoarse cry. Ken shot again, and knocked the beast flat. He tumbled and wrestled about, scattering the dust and brush. Three times more Ken fired, too hastily, and inflicted only slight wounds.

In reloading Ken tried to be deliberate in snapping in the second clip and pushing down the rod that threw the shell into the barrel. But his hands shook. His fingers were all thumbs, and he fumbled at the breech of the rifle.

In that interval, if the jaguar could have kept his sense of direction, he would have reached Ken. But the beast zigzagged; he had lost his equilibrium; he was hard hit.

Then he leaped magnificently. He landed within twenty-five feet of Ken, and when he plunged down he rolled clear over. Ken shot him through and through. Yet he got up, wheezing blood, uttering a hoarse bellow, and made again at Ken.

Ken had been cold, sick. Now panic almost overpowered him. The rifle wabbled. The bamboo glade blurred in his sight. A terrible dizziness and numbness almost paralyzed him. He was weakening, sinking, when thought of life at stake lent him a momentary grim and desperate spirit.

Once while the jaguar was in the air Ken pulled, twice while he was down. Then the jaguar stood up pawing the air with great spread claws, coughing, bleeding, roaring. He was horrible.

Ken shot him straight between the widespread paws.

With twisted body, staggering, and blowing bloody froth all over Ken, the big tiger blindly lunged forward and crashed to earth.

Then began a furious wrestling. Ken imagined it was the death-throes of the jaguar. Ken could not see him down among the leaves and vines; nevertheless, he shot into the commotion. The struggles ceased. Then a movement of the weeds showed Ken that the jaguar was creeping toward the jungle.

Ken fell rather than sat down. He found he was wringing wet with cold sweat. He was panting hard.

“Say, but — that — was — awful!” he gasped. “What — was — wrong — with me?”

He began to reload the clips. They were difficult to load for even a calm person, and now, in the reaction, Ken was the farthest removed from calm. The jaguar crept steadily away, as Ken could tell by the swaying weeds and shaking vines.

“What — a hard-lived beast!” muttered Ken. “I — must have shot — him all to pieces. Yet he’s getting away from me.”

At last Ken’s trembling fingers pushed some shells in the two clips, and once more he reloaded the rifle. Then he stood up, drew a deep, full breath, and made a strong effort at composure.

“I’ve shot at bear — and deer — and lions out West,” said Ken. “But this was different. I’ll never get over it.”

How close that jaguar came to reaching Ken was proved by the blood coughed into his face. He recalled that he had felt the wind of one great sweeping paw.

Ken regained his courage and determination. He meant to have that beautiful spotted skin for his den. So he hurried along the runway and entered the jungle. Beyond the edge, where the bushes made a dense thicket, it was dry forest, with little green low down. The hollow gave place to a dry wash. He could not see the jaguar, but he could hear him dragging himself through the brush, cracking sticks, shaking saplings.

Presently Ken ran across a bloody trail and followed it. Every little while he would stop to listen. When the wounded jaguar was still, he waited until he started to move again. It was hard going. The brush was thick, and had to be broken and crawled under or through. As Ken had left his coat behind, his shirt was soon torn to rags. He peered ahead with sharp eyes, expecting every minute to come in sight of the poor, crippled beast. He wanted to put him out of agony. So he kept on doggedly for what must have been a long time.

The first premonition he had of carelessness was to note that the shadows were gathering in the jungle. It would soon be night. He must turn back while there was light enough to follow his back track out to the open. The second came in shape of a hot pain in his arm, as keen as if he had jagged it with a thorn. Holding it out, he discovered to his dismay that it was spotted with garrapatoes.

CHAPTER XV

THE VICIOUS GARRAPATOES

AT ONCE KEN turned back, and if he thought again of the jaguar it was that he could come after him the next day or send Pepe. Another vicious bite, this time on his leg, confirmed his suspicions that many of the ticks had been on him long enough to get their heads in. Then he was bitten in several places.

Those bites were as hot as the touch of a live coal, yet they made Ken break out in dripping cold sweat. It was imperative that he get back to camp without losing a moment which could be saved. From a rapid walk he fell into a trot. He got off his back trail and had to hunt for it. Every time a tick bit he jumped as if stung. The worst of it was that he knew he was collecting more garrapatoes with almost every step. When he grasped a dead branch to push it out of the way he could feel the ticks cling to his hand. Then he would whip his arm in the air, flinging some of them off to patter on the dry ground. Impossible as it was to run through that matted jungle, Ken almost accomplished it. When he got out into the open he did run, not even stopping for his coat, and he crossed the flat at top speed.

It was almost dark when Ken reached the river-bank and dashed down to frighten a herd of drinking deer. He waded the narrowest part of the shoal. Running up the island he burst into the bright circle of camp-fire. Pepe dropped a stew-pan and began to jabber. George dove for a gun.

“What’s after you?” shouted Hal, in alarm.

Ken was so choked up and breathless that at first he could not speak. His fierce aspect and actions, as he tore off his sleeveless and ragged shirt and threw it into the fire, added to the boys’ fright.

“Good Lord! are you bug-house, Ken?” shrieked Hal.

“Bug-house! Yes!” roared Ken, swiftly undressing. “Look at me!”

In the bright glare he showed his arms black with garrapatoes and a sprinkling of black dots over the rest of his body.

“Is that all?” demanded Hal, in real or simulated scorn. “Gee! but you’re a brave hunter. I thought not less than six tigers were after you.”

“I’d rather have six tigers after me,” yelled Ken. “You little freckle-faced redhead!”

It was seldom indeed that Ken called his brother that name. Hal was proof against any epithets except that one relating to his freckles and his hair. But just now Ken felt that he was being eaten alive. He was in an agony, and he lost his temper. And therefore he laid himself open to Hal’s scathing humor.

“Never mind the kid,” said Ken to Pepe and George. “Hurry now, and get busy with these devils on me.”

It was well for Ken that he had a native like Pepe with him. For Pepe knew just what to do. First he dashed a bucket of cold water over Ken. How welcome that was!

“Pepe says for you to point out the ticks that’re biting the hardest,” said George.

In spite of his pain Ken stared in mute surprise.

“Pepe wants you to point out the ticks that are digging in the deepest,” explained George. “Get a move on, now.”

“What!” roared Ken, glaring at Pepe and George. He thought even the native might be having fun with him. And for Ken this was not a funny time.

But Pepe was in dead earnest.

“Say, it’s impossible to tell where I’m being bitten most! It’s all over!” protested Ken.

Still he discovered that by absolute concentration on the pain he was enduring he was able to locate the severest points. And that showed him the soundness of Pepe’s advice.

“Here — this one — here — there. . . . Oh! here,” began Ken, indicating certain ticks.

“Not so fast, now,” interrupted the imperturbable George, as he and Pepe set to work upon Ken.

Then the red-hot cigarette-tips scorched Ken’s skin. Ken kept pointing and accompanying his directions with wild gestures and exclamations.

“Here. . . . Oo-oo! Here. . . . Wow! Here. . . . Ouch! — that one stung! Here. . . . Augh! Say, can’t you hurry? Here! . . . Oh! that one was in a mile! Here. . . . Hold on! You’re burning a hole in me! . . . George, you’re having fun out of this. Pepe gets two to your one.”

“He’s been popping ticks all his life,” was George’s reasonable protest.

“Hurry!” cried Ken, in desperation. “George, if you monkey round — fool over this job — I’ll — I’ll punch you good.”

All this trying time Hal Ward sat on a log and watched the proceedings with great interest and humor. Sometimes he smiled, at others he laughed, and yet again he burst out into uproarious mirth.

“George, he wouldn’t punch anybody,” said Hal. “I tell you he’s all in. He hasn’t any nerve left. It’s a chance of your life. You’ll never get another. He’s been bossing you around. Pay him up. Make him holler. Why, what’s a few little ticks? Wouldn’t phase me! But Ken Ward’s such a delicate, fine-skinned, sensitive, girly kind of a boy! He’s too nice to be bitten by bugs. Oh dear, yes, yes! . . . Ken, why don’t you show courage?”

Ken shook his fist at Hal.

“All right,” said Ken, grimly. “Have all the fun you can. Because I’ll get even with you.”

Hal relapsed into silence, and Ken began to believe he had intimidated his brother. But he soon realized how foolish it was to suppose such a thing. Hal had only been working his fertile brain.

“George, here’s a little verse for the occasion,” said Hal.

“There was a brave hunter named Ken,

And he loved to get skins for his den,

Not afraid was he of tigers or pigs,

Or snakes or cats or any such things,

But one day in the jungle he left his clothes,

And came hollering back with garrapatoes.”

“Gre-at-t-t!” sputtered Ken. “Oh, brother mine, we’re a long way from home. I’ll make you crawl.”

Pepe smoked and wore out three cigarettes, and George two, before they had popped all the biting ticks. Then Ken was still covered with them. Pepe bathed him in canya, which was like a bath of fire, and soon removed them all. Ken felt flayed alive, peeled of his skin, and sprinkled with fiery sparks. When he lay down he was as weak as a sick cat. Pepe said the canya would very soon take the sting away, but it was some time before Ken was resting easily.

It would not have been fair to ask Ken just then whether the prize for which he worked was worth his present gain. Garrapatoes may not seem important to one who simply reads about them, but such pests are a formidable feature of tropical life.

However, Ken presently felt that he was himself again.

Then he put his mind to the serious problem of his note-book and the plotting of the island. As far as his trip was concerned, Cypress Island was an important point. When he had completed his map down to the island, he went on to his notes. He believed that what he had found out from his knowledge of forestry was really worth something. He had seen a gradual increase in the size and number of trees as he had proceeded down the river, a difference in the density and color of the jungle, a flattening-out of the mountain range, and a gradual change from rocky to clayey soil. And on the whole his note-book began to assume such a character that he was beginning to feel willing to submit it to his uncle.

CHAPTER XVI

FIELD WORK OF A NATURALIST

THAT NIGHT KEN talked natural history to the boys and read extracts from a small copy of Sclater he had brought with him.

They were all particularly interested in the cat tribe.

The fore feet of all cats have five toes, the hind feet only four. Their claws are curved and sharp, and, except in case of one species of leopard, can be retracted in their sheaths. The claws of the great cat species are kept sharp by pulling them down through bark of trees. All cats walk on their toes. And the stealthy walk is due to hairy pads or cushions. The claws of a cat do not show in its track as do those of a dog. The tongues of all cats are furnished with large papillae. They are like files, and the use is to lick bones and clean their fur. Their long whiskers are delicate organs of perception to aid them in finding their way on their night quests. The eyes of all cats are large and full, and can be altered by contraction or expansion of iris, according to the amount of light they receive. The usual color is gray or tawny with dark spots or stripes. The uniform tawny color of the lion and the panther is perhaps an acquired color, probably from the habit of these animals of living in desert countries. It is likely that in primitive times cats were all spotted or striped.

Naturally the boys were most interested in the jaguar, which is the largest of the cat tribe in the New World. The jaguar ranges from northern Mexico to northern Patagonia. Its spots are larger than those of the leopard. Their ground color is a rich tan or yellow, sometimes almost gold. Large specimens have been known nearly seven feet from nose to end of tail.

The jaguar is an expert climber and swimmer. Humboldt says that where the South American forests are subject to floods the jaguar sometimes takes to tree life, living on monkeys. All naturalists agree on the ferocious nature of jaguars, and on the loudness and frequency of their cries. There is no record of their attacking human beings without provocation. Their favorite haunts are the banks of jungle rivers, and they often prey upon fish and turtles.

The attack of a jaguar is terrible. It leaps on the back of its prey and breaks its neck. In some places there are well-known scratching trees where jaguars sharpen their claws. The bark is worn smooth in front from contact with the breasts of the animals as they stand up, and there is a deep groove on each side. When new scars appear on these trees it is known that jaguars are in the vicinity. The cry of the jaguar is loud, deep, hoarse, something like pu, pu, pu. There is much enmity between the panther, or mountain-lion, and the jaguar, and it is very strange that generally the jaguar fears the lion, although he is larger and more powerful.

Pepe had interesting things to say about jaguars, or tigres, as he called them. But Ken, of course, could not tell how much Pepe said was truth and how much just native talk. At any rate, Pepe told of one Mexican who had a blind and deaf jaguar that he had tamed. Ken knew that naturalists claimed the jaguar could not be tamed, but in this instance Ken was inclined to believe Pepe. This blind jaguar was enormous in size, terrible of aspect, and had been trained to trail anything his master set him to. And Tigre, as he was called, never slept or stopped till he had killed the thing he was trailing. As he was blind and deaf, his power of scent had been abnormally developed.

Pepe told of a fight between a huge crocodile and a jaguar in which both were killed. He said jaguars stalked natives and had absolutely no fear. He knew natives who said that jaguars had made off with children and eaten them. Lastly, Pepe told of an incident that had happened in Tampico the year before. There was a ship at dock below Tampico, just on the outskirts where the jungle began, and one day at noon two big jaguars leaped on the deck. They frightened the crew out of their wits. George verified this story, and added that the jaguars had been chased by dogs, had boarded the ship, where they climbed into the rigging, and stayed there till they were shot.

“Well,” said Ken, thoughtfully, “from my experience I believe a jaguar would do anything.”

The following day promised to be a busy one for Hal, without any time for tricks. George went hunting before breakfast — in fact, before the others were up — and just as the boys were sitting down to eat he appeared on the nearer bank and yelled for Pepe. It developed that for once George had bagged game.

He had a black squirrel, a small striped wildcat, a peccary, a three-foot crocodile, and a duck of rare plumage.

After breakfast Hal straightway got busy, and his skill and knowledge earned praise from George and Pepe. They volunteered to help, which offer Hal gratefully accepted. He had brought along a folding canvas tank, forceps, knives, scissors, several packages of preservatives, and tin boxes in which to pack small skins.

His first task was to mix a salt solution in the canvas tank. This was for immersing skins. Then he made a paste of salt and alum, and after that a mixture of two-thirds glycerin and one-third water and carbolic acid, which was for preserving small skins and to keep them soft.

And as he worked he gave George directions on how to proceed with the wildcat and squirrel skins.

“Skin carefully and tack up the pelts fur side down. Scrape off all the fat and oil, but don’t scrape through. To-morrow when the skins are dry soak them in cold water till soft. Then take them out and squeeze dry. I’ll make a solution of three quarts water, one-half pint salt, and one ounce oil of vitriol. Put the skins in that for half an hour. Squeeze dry again, and hang in shade. That’ll tan the skin, and the moths will never hurt them.”

When Hal came to take up the duck he was sorry that some of the beautiful plumage had been stained.

“I want only a few water-fowl,” he said. “And particularly one of the big Muscovies. And you must keep the feathers from getting soiled.”

It was interesting to watch Hal handle that specimen. First he took full measurements. Then, separating the feathers along the breast, he made an incision with a sharp knife, beginning high up on breast-bone and ending at tail. He exercised care so as not to cut through the abdomen. Raising the skin carefully along the cut as far as the muscles of the leg, he pushed out the knee joint and cut it off. Then he loosened the skin from the legs and the back, and bent the tail down to cut through the tail joint. Next he removed the skin from the body and cut off the wings at the shoulder joint. Then he proceeded down the neck, being careful not to pull or stretch the skin. Extreme care was necessary in cutting round the eyes. Then, when he had loosened the skin from the skull, he severed the head and cleaned out the skull. He coated all with the paste, filled the skull with cotton, and then immersed them in the glycerin bath.

The skinning of the crocodile was an easy matter compared with that of the duck. Hal made an incision at the throat, cut along the middle of the abdomen all the way to the tip of the tail, and then cut the skin away all around the carcass. Then he set George and Pepe to scraping the skin, after which he immersed it in the tank.

About that time Ken, who was lazily fishing in the shade of the cypresses, caught one of the blue-tailed fish. Hal was delighted. He had made a failure of the other specimen of this unknown fish. This one was larger and exquisitely marked, being dark gold on the back, white along the belly, and its tail had a faint bluish tinge. Hal promptly killed the fish, and then made a dive for his suitcase. He produced several sheets of stiff cardboard and a small box of water-colors and brushes. He laid the fish down on a piece of paper and outlined its exact size. Then, placing it carefully in an upright position on a box, he began to paint it in the actual colors of the moment. Ken laughed and teased him. George also was inclined to be amused. But Pepe was amazed and delighted. Hal worked on unmindful of his audience, and, though he did not paint a very artistic picture, he produced the vivid colors of the fish before they faded.

His next move was to cover the fish with strips of thin cloth, which adhered to the scales and kept them from being damaged. Then he cut along the middle line of the belly, divided the pelvic arch where the ventral fins joined, cut through the spines, and severed the fins from the bones. Then he skinned down to the tail, up to the back, and cut through caudal processes. The vertebral column he severed at the base of the skull. He cleaned and scraped the entire inside of the skin, and then put it to soak.

“Hal, you’re much more likely to make good with Uncle Jim than I am,” said Ken. “You’ve really got skill, and you know what to do. Now, my job is different. So far I’ve done fairly well with my map of the river. But as soon as we get on level ground I’ll be stumped.”

“We’ll cover a hundred miles before we get to low land,” replied Hal, cheerily. “That’s enough, even if we do get lost for the rest of the way. You’ll win that trip abroad, Ken, never fear, and little Willie is going to be with you.”

CHAPTER XVII

A MIXED-UP TIGER-HUNT

NEXT MORNING HAL arose bright as a lark, but silent, mysterious, and with far-seeing eyes. It made Ken groan in spirit to look at the boy. Yes, indeed, they were far from home, and the person did not live on the earth who could play a trick on Hal Ward and escape vengeance.

After breakfast Hal went off with a long-handled landing-net, obviously to capture birds or fish or mice or something.

George said he did not feel very well, and he looked grouchy. He growled around camp in a way that might have nettled Ken, but Ken, having had ten hours of undisturbed sleep, could not have found fault with anybody.

“Garrapato George, come out of it. Cheer up,” said Ken. “Why don’t you take Pinilius Pepe as gun-bearer and go out to shoot something? You haven’t used up much ammunition yet.”

Ken’s sarcasm was not lost upon George.

“Well, if I do go, I’ll not come running back to camp without some game.”

“My son,” replied Ken, genially, “if you should happen to meet a jaguar you’d — you’d just let out one squawk and then never touch even the high places of the jungle. You’d take that crazy .32 rifle for a golf-stick.”

“Would I?” returned George. “All right.”

Ken watched George awhile that morning. The lad performed a lot of weird things around camp. Then he bounced bullets off the water in vain effort to locate the basking crocodile. Then he tried his hand at fishing once more. He could get more bites than any fisherman Ken ever saw, but he could not catch anything.

By and by the heat made Ken drowsy, and, stretching himself in the shade, he thought of a scheme to rid the camp of the noisy George.

“Say, George, take my hammerless and get Pepe to row you up along the shady bank of the river,” suggested Ken. “Go sneaking along and you’ll have some sport.”

George was delighted with that idea. He had often cast longing eyes at the hammerless gun. Pepe, too, looked exceedingly pleased. They got in the boat and were in the act of starting when George jumped ashore. He reached for his .32 and threw the lever down to see if there was a shell in the chamber. Then he proceeded to fill his pockets with ammunition.

“Might need a rifle,” he said. “You can’t tell what you’re going to see in this unholy jungle.”

Whereupon he went aboard again and Pepe rowed leisurely up-stream.

“Be careful, boys,” Ken called, and composed himself for a nap. He promptly fell asleep. How long he slept he had no idea, and when he awoke he lay with languor, not knowing at the moment what had awakened him. Presently he heard a shout, then a rifle-shot. Sitting up, he saw the boat some two hundred yards above, drifting along about the edge of the shade. Pepe was in it alone. He appeared to be excited, for Ken observed him lay down an oar and pick up a gun, and then reverse the performance. Also he was jabbering to George, who evidently was out on the bank, but invisible to Ken.

“Hey, Pepe!” Ken yelled. “What’re you doing?”

Strange to note, Pepe did not reply or even turn.

“Now where in the deuce is George?” Ken said, impatiently.

The hollow crack of George’s .32 was a reply to the question. Ken heard the singing of a bullet. Suddenly, spou! it twanged on a branch not twenty feet over his head, and then went whining away. He heard it tick a few leaves or twigs. There was not any languor in the alacrity with which Ken put the big cypress-tree between him and up-stream. Then he ventured to peep forth.

“Look out where you’re slinging lead!” he yelled. He doubted not that George had treed a black squirrel or was pegging away at parrots. Yet Pepe’s motions appeared to carry a good deal of feeling, too much, he thought presently, for small game. So Ken began to wake up thoroughly. He lost sight of Pepe behind a low branch of a tree that leaned some fifty yards above the island. Then he caught sight of him again. He was poling with an oar, evidently trying to go up or down — Ken could not tell which.

Spang! Spang! George’s .32 spoke twice more, and the bullets both struck in the middle of the stream and ricochetted into the far bank with little thuds.

Something prompted Ken to reach for his automatic, snap the clip in tight, and push in the safety. At the same time he muttered George’s words: “You can never tell what’s coming off in this unholy jungle.”

Then, peeping out from behind the cypress, Ken watched the boat drift down-stream. Pepe had stopped poling and was looking closely into the thick grass and vines of the bank. Ken heard his voice, but could not tell what he said. He watched keenly for some sight of George. The moments passed, the boat drifted, and Ken began to think there was nothing unusual afoot. In this interval Pepe drifted within seventy-five yards of camp. Again Ken called to ask him what George was stalking, and this time Pepe yelled; but Ken did not know what he said. Hard upon this came George’s sharp voice:

“Look out, there, on the island. Get behind something. I’ve got him between the river and the flat. He’s in this strip of shore brush. There!”

Spang! Spang! Spang! Bullets hummed and whistled all about the island. Ken was afraid to peep out with even one eye. He began to fancy that George was playing Indian.

“Fine, Georgie! You’re doing great!” he shouted. “You couldn’t come any closer to me if you were aiming at me. What is it?”

Then a crashing of brush and a flash of yellow low down along the bank changed the aspect of the situation.

“Panther! or jaguar!” Ken ejaculated, in amaze. In a second he was tight-muscled, cold, and clear-witted. At that instant he saw George’s white shirt about the top of the brush.

“Go back! Get out in the open!” Ken ordered. “Do you hear me?”

“Where is he?” shouted George, paying not the slightest attention to Ken. Ken jumped from behind the tree, and, running to the head of the island, he knelt low near the water with rifle ready.

“Tigre! Tigre! Tigre!” screamed Pepe, waving his arms, then pointing.

George crashed into the brush. Ken saw the leaves move, then a long yellow shape. With the quickness of thought and the aim of the wing-shot, Ken fired. From the brush rose a strange wild scream. George aimed at a shaking mass of grass and vines, but, before he could fire, a long, lean, ugly beast leaped straight out from the bank to drop into the water with a heavy splash.

Like a man half scared to death Pepe waved Ken’s double-barreled gun. Then a yellow head emerged from the water. It was in line with the boat. Ken dared not shoot.

“Kill him, George,” yelled Ken. “Tell Pepe to kill him.”

George seemed unaccountably silent. But Ken had no time to look for him, for his eyes were riveted on Pepe. The native did not know how to hold a gun properly, let alone aim it. He had, however, sense enough to try. He got the stock under his chin, and, pointing the gun, he evidently tried to fire. But the hammerless did not go off. Then Pepe fumbled at the safety-catch, which he evidently remembered seeing Ken use.

The jaguar, swimming with difficulty, perhaps badly wounded, made right for the boat. Pepe was standing on the seat. Awkwardly he aimed.

Boom! He had pulled both triggers. The recoil knocked him backward. The hammerless fell in the boat, and Pepe’s broad back hit the water; his bare, muscular legs clung to the gunwale, and slipped loose.

He had missed the jaguar, for it kept on toward the boat. Still Ken dared not shoot.

“George, what on earth is the matter with you?” shouted Ken.

Then Ken saw him standing in the brush on the bank, fussing over the crazy .32. Of course at the critical moment something had gone wrong with the old rifle.

Pepe’s head bobbed up just on the other side of the boat. The jaguar was scarcely twenty feet distant and now in line with both boat and man. At that instant a heavy swirl in the water toward the middle of the river drew Ken’s attention. He saw the big crocodile, and the great creature did not seem at all lazy at that moment.

George began to scream in Spanish. Ken felt his hair stiffen and his face blanch. Pepe, who had been solely occupied with the jaguar, caught George’s meaning and turned to see the peril in his rear.

He bawled his familiar appeal to the saints. Then he grasped the gunwale of the boat just as it swung against the branches of the low-leaning tree. He vaulted rather than climbed aboard.

Ken forgot that Pepe could understand little English, and he yelled: “Grab an oar, Pepe. Keep the jaguar in the water. Don’t let him in the boat.”

But Pepe, even if he had understood, had a better idea. Nimble, he ran over the boat and grasped the branches of the tree just as the jaguar flopped paws and head over the stern gunwale.

Ken had only a fleeting instant to get a bead on that yellow body, and before he could be sure of an aim the branch weighted with Pepe sank down to hide both boat and jaguar. The chill of fear for Pepe changed to hot rage at this new difficulty.

Then George began to shoot.

Spang!

Ken heard the bullet hit the boat.

“George — wait!” shouted Ken. “Don’t shoot holes in the boat. You’ll sink it.”

Spang! Spang! Spang! Spang!

That was as much as George cared about such a possibility. He stood on the bank and worked the lever of his .32 with wild haste. Ken plainly heard the spat of the bullets, and the sound was that of lead in contact with wood. So he knew George was not hitting the jaguar.

“You’ll ruin the boat!” roared Ken.

Pepe had worked up from the lower end of the branch, and as soon as he straddled it and hunched himself nearer shore the foliage rose out of the water, exposing the boat. George kept on shooting till his magazine was empty. Ken’s position was too low for him to see the jaguar.

Then the boat swung loose from the branch and, drifting down, gradually approached the shore.

“Pull yourself together, George,” called Ken. “Keep cool. Make sure of your aim. We’ve got him now.”

“He’s mine! He’s mine! He’s mine! Don’t you dare shoot!” howled George. “I got him!”

“All right. But steady up, can’t you? Hit him once, anyway.”

Apparently without aim George fired. Then, jerking the lever, he fired again. The boat drifted into overhanging vines. Once more Ken saw a yellow and black object, then a trembling trail of leaves.

“He’s coming out below you. Look out,” yelled Ken.

George disappeared. Ken saw no sign of the jaguar and heard no shot or shout from George. Pepe dropped from his branch to the bank and caught the boat. Ken called, and while Pepe rowed over to the island, he got into some clothes fit to hunt in. Then they hurried back across the channel to the bank.

Ken found the trail of the jaguar, followed it up to the edge of the brush, and lost it in the weedy flat. George came out of a patch of bamboos. He looked white and shaky and wild with disappointment.

“Oh, I had a dandy shot as he came out, but the blamed gun jammed again. Come on, we’ll get him. He’s all shot up. I bet I hit him ten times. He won’t get away.”

Ken finally got George back to camp. The boat was half full of water, making it necessary to pull it out on the bank and turn it over. There were ten bullet-holes in it.

“George, you hit the boat, anyway,” Ken said; “now we’ve a job on our hands.”

Hal came puffing into camp. He was red of face, and the sweat stood out on his forehead. He had a small animal of some kind in a sack, and his legs were wet to his knees.

“What was — all the — pegging about?” he asked, breathlessly. “I expected to find camp surrounded by Indians.”

“Kid, it’s been pretty hot round here for a little. George and Pepe rounded up a tiger. Tell us about it, George,” said Ken.

So while Ken began to whittle pegs to pound into the bullet-holes, George wiped his flushed, sweaty face and talked.

“We were up there a piece, round the bend. I saw a black squirrel and went ashore to get him. But I couldn’t find him, and in kicking round in the brush I came into a kind of trail or runway. Then I ran plumb into that darned jaguar. I was so scared I couldn’t remember my gun. But the cat turned and ran. It was lucky he didn’t make at me. When I saw him run I got back my courage. I called for Pepe to row down-stream and keep a lookout. Then I got into the flat. I must have come down a good ways before I saw him. I shot, and he dodged back into the brush again. I fired into the moving bushes where he was. And pretty soon I ventured to get in on the bank, where I had a better chance. I guess it was about that time that I heard you yell. Then it all happened. You hit him! Didn’t you hear him scream? What a jump he made! If it hadn’t been so terrible when your hammerless kicked Pepe overboard, I would have died laughing. Then I was paralyzed when the jaguar swam for the boat. He was hurt, for the water was bloody. Things came off quick, I tell you. Like a monkey Pepe scrambled into the tree. When I got my gun loaded the jaguar was crouched down in the bottom of the boat watching Pepe. Then I began to shoot. I can’t realize he got away from us. What was the reason you didn’t knock him?”

“Well, you see, George, there were two good reasons,” Ken replied. “The first was that at that time I was busy dodging bullets from your rifle. And the second was that you threatened my life if I killed your jaguar.”

“Did I get as nutty as that? But it was pretty warm there for a little. . . . Say, was he a big one? My eyes were so hazy I didn’t see him clear.”

“He wasn’t big, not half as big as the one I lost yesterday. Yours was a long, wiry beast, like a panther, and mean-looking.”

Pepe sat on the bank, and while he nursed his bruises he smoked. Once he made a speech that was untranslatable, but Hal gave it an interpretation which was probably near correct.

“That’s right, Pepe. Pretty punk tiger-hunters — mucho punk!”

CHAPTER XVIII

WATCHING A RUNWAY

“I’LL TELL YOU what, fellows,” said Hal. “I know where we can get a tiger.”

“We’ll get one in the neck if we don’t watch out,” replied George.

Ken thought that Hal looked very frank and earnest, and honest and eager, but there was never any telling about him.

“Where?” he asked, skeptically.

“Down along the river. You know I’ve been setting traps all along. There’s a flat sand-bar for a good piece down. I came to a little gully full of big tracks, big as my two hands. And fresh!”

“Honest Injun, kid?” queried Ken.

“Hope to die if I’m lyin’,” replied Hal. “I want to see somebody kill a tiger. Now let’s go down there in the boat and wait for one to come to drink. There’s a big log with driftwood lodged on it. We can hide behind that.”

“Great idea, Hal,” said Ken. “We’d be pretty safe in the boat. I want to say that tigers have sort of got on my nerves. I ought to go over in the jungle to look for the one I crippled. He’s dead by now. But the longer I put it off the harder it is to go. I’ll back out yet. . . . Come, we’ll have an early dinner. Then to watch for Hal’s tiger.”

The sun had just set, and the hot breeze began to swirl up the river when Ken slid the boat into the water. He was pleased to find that it did not leak.

“We’ll take only two guns,” said Ken, “my .351 and the hammerless, with some ball-cartridges. We want to be quiet to-night, and if you fellows take your guns you’ll be pegging at ducks and things. That won’t do.”

Pepe sat at the oars with instructions to row easily. George and Hal occupied the stern-seats, and Ken took his place in the bow, with both guns at hand.

The hot wind roared in the cypresses, and the river whipped up little waves with white crests. Long streamers of gray moss waved out over the water and branches tossed and swayed. The blow did not last for many minutes. Trees and river once more grew quiet. And suddenly the heat was gone.

As Pepe rowed on down the river, Cypress Island began to disappear round a bend, and presently was out of sight. Ducks were already in flight. They flew low over the boat, so low that Ken could almost have reached them with the barrel of his gun. The river here widened. It was full of huge snags. A high, wooded bluff shadowed the western shore. On the left, towering cypresses, all laced together in dense vine and moss webs, leaned out.

Under Hal’s direction Pepe rowed to a pile of driftwood, and here the boat was moored. The gully mentioned by Hal was some sixty yards distant. It opened like the mouth of a cave. Beyond the cypresses thick, intertwining bamboos covered it.

“I wish we’d gone in to see the tracks,” said Ken. “But I’ll take your word, Hal.”

“Oh, they’re there, all right.”

“I don’t doubt it. Looks great to me! That’s a runway, Hal. . . . Now, boys, get a comfortable seat, and settle down to wait. Don’t talk. Just listen and watch. Remember, soon we’ll be out of the jungle, back home. So make hay while the sun shines. Watch and listen! Whoever sees or hears anything first is the best man.”

For once the boys were as obedient as lambs. But then, Ken thought, the surroundings were so beautiful and wild and silent that any boys would have been watchful.

There was absolutely no sound but the intermittent whir of wings. The water-fowl flew by in companies — ducks, cranes, herons, snipe, and the great Muscovies. Ken never would have tired of that procession. It passed all too soon, and then only an occasional water-fowl swept swiftly by, as if belated.

Slowly the wide river-lane shaded. But it was still daylight, and the bank and the runway were clearly distinguishable. There was a moment — Ken could not tell just how he knew — when the jungle awakened. It was not only the faint hum of insects; it was a sense as if life stirred with the coming of twilight.

Pepe was the first to earn honors at the listening game. He held up a warning forefinger. Then he pointed under the bluff. Ken saw a doe stepping out of a fringe of willows.

“Don’t move — don’t make a noise,” whispered Ken.

The doe shot up long ears and watched the boat. Then a little fawn trotted out and splashed in the water. Both deer drank, then seemed in no hurry to leave the river.

Next moment Hal heard something downstream and George saw something up-stream. Pepe again whispered. As for Ken, he saw little dark shapes moving out of the shadow of the runway. He heard a faint trampling of hard little hoofs. But if these animals were javelin — of which he was sure — they did not come out into the open runway. Ken tried to catch Pepe’s attention without making a noise; however, Pepe was absorbed in his side of the river. Ken then forgot he had companions. All along the shores were faint splashings and rustlings and crackings.

A loud, trampling roar rose in the runway and seemed to move backward toward the jungle, diminishing in violence.

“Pigs running — something scared ‘em,” said George.

‘“S-s-s-sh!” whispered Ken.

All the sounds ceased. The jungle seemed to sleep in deep silence.

Ken’s eyes were glued to the light patch of sand-bank where it merged in the dark of the runway. Then Ken heard a sound — what, he could not have told. But it made his heart beat fast.

There came a few pattering thuds, soft as velvet; and a shadow, paler than the dark background, moved out of the runway.

With that a huge jaguar loped into the open. He did not look around. He took a long, easy bound down to the water and began to lap.

Either Pepe or George jerked so violently as to make the boat lurch. They seemed to be stifling.

“Oh, Ken, don’t miss!” whispered Hal.

Ken had the automatic over the log and in line. His teeth were shut tight, and he was cold and steady. He meant not to hurry.

The jaguar was a heavy, squat, muscular figure, not graceful and beautiful like the one Ken had crippled. Suddenly he raised his head and looked about. He had caught a scent.

It was then that Ken lowered the rifle till the sight covered the beast — lower yet to his huge paws, then still lower to the edge of the water. Ken meant to shoot low enough this time. Holding the rifle there, and holding it with all his strength, he pressed the trigger once — twice. The two shots rang out almost simultaneously. Ken expected to see this jaguar leap, but the beast crumpled up and sank in his tracks.

Then the boys yelled, and Ken echoed them. Pepe was wildly excited, and began to fumble with the oars.

“Wait! Wait, I tell you!” ordered Ken.

“Oh, Ken, you pegged him!” cried Hal. “He doesn’t move. Let’s go ashore. What did I tell you? It took me to find the tiger.”

Ken watched with sharp eyes and held his rifle ready, but the huddled form on the sand never so much as twitched.

“I guess I plugged him,” said Ken, with unconscious pride.

Pepe rowed the boat ashore, and when near the sand-bar he reached out with an oar to touch the jaguar. There was no doubt about his being dead. The boys leaped ashore and straightened out the beast. He was huge, dirty, spotted, bloody, and fiercely savage even in death. Ken’s bullets had torn through the chest, making fearful wounds. Pepe jabbered, and the boys all talked at once. When it came to lifting the jaguar into the boat they had no slight task. The short, thick-set body was very heavy. But at last they loaded it in the bow, and Pepe rowed back to the island. It was still a harder task to get the jaguar up the high bank. Pepe kindled a fire so they would have plenty of light, and then they set to work at the skinning.

What with enthusiasm over the stalk, and talk of the success of the trip, and compliments to Ken’s shooting, and care of the skinning, the boys were three hours at the job. Ken, remembering Hiram Bent’s teachings, skinned out the great claws himself. They salted the pelt and nailed it up on the big cypress.

“You’d never have got one but for me,” said Hal. “That’s how I pay you for the tricks you’ve played me!”

“By George, Hal, it’s a noble revenge!” cried Ken, who, in the warmth and glow of happiness of the time, quite believed his brother.

Pepe went to bed first. George turned in next. Ken took a last look at the great pelt stretched on the cypress, and then he sought his blankets. Hal, however, remained up. Ken heard him pounding stakes in the ground.

“Hal, what’re you doing?”

“I’m settin’ my trot-lines,” replied Hal, cheerfully.

“Well, come to bed.”

“Keep your shirt on, Ken, old boy. I’ll be along presently.”

Ken fell asleep. He did not have peaceful slumbers. He had been too excited to rest well. He would wake up out of a nightmare, then go to sleep again. He seemed to wake suddenly out of one of these black spells, and he was conscious of pain. Something tugged at his leg.

“What the dickens!” he said, and raised on his elbow. Hal was asleep between George and Pepe, who were snoring.

Just then Ken felt a violent jerk. The blankets flew up at his feet, and his left leg went out across his brother’s body. There was a string — a rope — something fast round his ankle, and it was pulling hard. It hurt.

“Jiminy!” shouted Ken, reaching for his foot. But before he could reach it another tug, more violent, pulled his leg straight out. Ken began to slide.

“What on earth?” yelled Ken. “Say! Something’s got me!”

The yells and Ken’s rude exertions aroused the boys. And they were frightened. Ken got an arm around Hal and the other around George and held on for dear life. He was more frightened than they. Pepe leaped up, jabbering, and, tripping, he fell all in a heap.

“Oh! my leg!” howled Ken. “It’s being pulled off. Say, I can’t be dreaming!”

Most assuredly Ken was wide awake. The moonlight showed his bare leg sticking out and round his ankle a heavy trot-line. It was stretched tight. It ran down over the bank. And out there in the river a tremendous fish or a crocodile was surging about, making the water roar.

Pepe was trying to loosen the line or break it. George, who was always stupid when first aroused, probably imagined he was being mauled by a jaguar, for he loudly bellowed. Ken had a strangle-hold on Hal.

“Oh! Oh! Oh-h-h!” bawled Ken. Not only was he scared out of a year’s growth; he was in terrible pain. Then his cries grew unintelligible. He was being dragged out of the tent. Still he clung desperately to the howling George and the fighting Hal.

All at once something snapped. The tension relaxed. Ken fell back upon Hal.

“Git off me, will you?” shouted Hal. “Are you c-c-cr-azy?”

But Hal’s voice had not the usual note when he was angry or impatient. He was laughing so he could not speak naturally.

“Uh-huh!” said Ken, and sat up. “I guess here was where I got it. Is my leg broken? What came off?”

Pepe was staggering about on the bank, going through strange motions. He had the line in his hands, and at the other end was a monster of some kind threshing about in the water. It was moonlight and Ken could see plainly. Around the ankle that felt broken was a twisted loop of trot-line. Hal had baited a hook and slipped the end of the trot-line over Ken’s foot. During the night the crocodile or an enormous fish had taken the bait. Then Ken had nearly been hauled off the island.

Pepe was doing battle with the hooked thing, whatever it was, and Ken was about to go to his assistance when again the line broke.

“Great! Hal, you have a nice disposition,” exclaimed Ken. “You have a wonderful affection for your brother. You care a lot about his legs or his life. Idiot! Can’t you play a safe trick? If I hadn’t grabbed you and George, I’d been pulled into the river. Eaten up, maybe! And my ankle is sprained. It won’t be any good for a week. You are a bright boy!”

And in spite of his laughter Hal began to look ashamed.

CHAPTER XIX

ADVENTURES WITH CROCODILES

THE REST OF that night Ken had more dreams; and they were not pleasant. He awoke from one in a cold fright.

It must have been late, for the moon was low. His ankle pained and throbbed, and to that he attributed his nightmare. He was falling asleep again when the clink of tin pans made him sit up with a start. Some animal was prowling about camp. He peered into the moonlit shadows, but could make out no unfamiliar object. Still he was not satisfied; so he awoke Pepe.

Certainly it was not Ken’s intention to let Pepe get out ahead; nevertheless he was lame and slow, and before he started Pepe rolled out of the tent.

“Santa Maria!” shrieked Pepe.

Ken fumbled under his pillow for a gun. Hal raised up so quickly that he bumped Ken’s head, making him see a million stars. George rolled over, nearly knocking down the tent.

From outside came a sliddery, rustling noise, then another yell that was deadened by a sounding splash. Ken leaped out with his gun, George at his elbow. Pepe stood just back of the tent, his arms upraised, and he appeared stunned. The water near the bank was boiling and bubbling; waves were dashing on the shore and ripples spreading in a circle.

George shouted in Spanish.

“Crocodile!” cried Ken.

“Si, si, Señor,” replied Pepe. Then he said that when he stepped out of the tent the crocodile was right in camp, not ten feet from where the boys lay. Pepe also said that these brutes were man-eaters, and that he had better watch for the rest of the night. Ken thought him, like all the natives, inclined to exaggerate; however, he made no objection to Pepe’s holding watch over the crocodile.

“What’d I tell you?” growled George. “Why didn’t you let me shoot him? Let’s go back to bed.”

In the morning when Ken got up he viewed his body with great curiosity. The ticks and the cigarette burns had left him a beautifully tattooed specimen of aborigine. His body, especially his arms, bore hundreds of little reddish scars — bites and burns together. There was not, however, any itching or irritation, for which he made sure he had to thank Pepe’s skill and the canya.

George did not get up when Ken called him. Thinking his sleep might have been broken, Ken let him alone a while longer, but when breakfast was smoking he gave him a prod. George rolled over, looking haggard and glum.

“I’m sick,” he said.

Ken’s cheerfulness left him, for he knew what sickness or injury did to a camping trip. George complained of aching bones, headache and cramps, and showed a tongue with a yellow coating. Ken said he had eaten too much fresh meat, but Pepe, after looking George over, called it a name that sounded like calentura.

“What’s that?” Ken inquired.

“Tropic fever,” replied George. “I’ve had it before.”

For a while he was a very sick boy. Ken had a little medicine-case, and from it he administered what he thought was best, and George grew easier presently. Then Ken sat down to deliberate on the situation.

Whatever way he viewed it, he always came back to the same thing — they must get out of the jungle; and as they could not go back, they must go on down the river. That was a bad enough proposition without being hampered by a sick boy. It was then Ken had a subtle change of feeling; a shade of gloom seemed to pervade his spirit.

By nine o’clock they were packed, and, turning into the shady channel, soon were out in the sunlight saying good-by to Cypress Island. At the moment Ken did not feel sorry to go, yet he knew that feeling would come by and by, and that Cypress Island would take its place in his memory as one more haunting, calling wild place.

They turned a curve to run under a rocky bluff from which came a muffled roar of rapids. A long, projecting point of rock extended across the river, allowing the water to rush through only at a narrow mill-race channel close to the shore. It was an obstacle to get around. There was no possibility of lifting the boat over the bridge of rock, and the alternative was shooting the channel. Ken got out upon the rocks, only to find that drifting the boat round the sharp point was out of the question, owing to a dangerously swift current. Ken tried the depth of the water — about four feet. Then he dragged the boat back a little distance and stepped into the river.

“Look! Look!” cried Pepe, pointing to the bank.

About ten yards away was a bare shelf of mud glistening with water and showing the deep tracks of a crocodile. It was a slide, and manifestly had just been vacated. The crocodile-tracks resembled the imprints of a giant’s hand.

“Come out!” yelled George, and Pepe jabbered to his saints.

“We’ve got to go down this river,” Ken replied, and he kept on wading till he got the boat in the current. He was frightened, of course, but he kept on despite that. The boat lurched into the channel, stern first, and he leaped up on the bow. It shot down with the speed of a toboggan, and the boat whirled before he could scramble to the oars. What was worse, an overhanging tree with dead snags left scarce room to pass beneath. Ken ducked to prevent being swept overboard, and one of the snags that brushed and scraped him ran under his belt and lifted him into the air. He grasped at the first thing he could lay hands on, which happened to be a box, but he could not hold to it because the boat threatened to go on, leaving him kicking in midair and holding up a box of potatoes. Ken clutched a gunwale, only to see the water swell dangerously over the edge. In angry helplessness he loosened his hold. Then the snag broke, just in the nick of time, for in a second more the boat would have been swept away. Ken fell across the bow, held on, and soon drifted from under the threshing branches, and seized the oars.

Pepe and George and Hal walked round the ledge and, even when they reached Ken, had not stopped laughing.

“Boys, it wasn’t funny,” declared Ken, soberly.

“I said it was coming to us,” replied George.

There were rapids below, and Ken went at them with stern eyes and set lips. It was the look of men who face obstacles in getting out of the wilderness. More than one high wave circled spitefully round Pepe’s broad shoulders.

They came to a fall where the river dropped a few feet straight down. Ken sent the boys below. Hal and George made a detour. But Pepe jumped off the ledge into shallow water.

“Ah-h!” yelled Pepe.

Ken was becoming accustomed to Pepe’s wild yell, but there was a note in this which sent a shiver over him. Before looking, Ken snatched his rifle from the boat.

Pepe appeared to be sailing out into the pool. But his feet were not moving.

Ken had only an instant, but in that he saw under Pepe a long, yellow, swimming shape, leaving a wake in the water. Pepe had jumped upon the back of a crocodile. He seemed paralyzed, or else he was wisely trusting himself there rather than in the water. Ken was too shocked to offer advice. Indeed, he would not have known how to meet this situation.

Suddenly Pepe leaped for a dry stone, and the energy of his leap carried him into the river beyond. Like a flash he was out again, spouting water.

Ken turned loose the automatic on the crocodile and shot a magazine of shells. The crocodile made a tremendous surge, churning up a slimy foam, then vanished in a pool.

“Guess this’ll be crocodile day,” said Ken, changing the clip in his rifle. “I’ll bet I made a hole in that one. Boys, look out below.”

Ken shoved the boat over the ledge in line with Pepe, and it floated to him, while Ken picked his way round the rocky shore. The boys piled aboard again. The day began to get hot. Ken cautioned the boys to avoid wading, if possible, and to be extremely careful where they stepped. Pepe pointed now and then to huge bubbles breaking on the surface of the water and said they were made by crocodiles.

From then on Ken’s hands were full. He struck swift water, where rapid after rapid, fall on fall, took the boat downhill at a rate to afford him satisfaction. The current had a five or six mile speed, and, as Ken had no portages to make and the corrugated rapids of big waves gave him speed, he made by far the best time of the voyage.

The hot hours passed — cool for the boys because they were always wet. The sun sank behind a hill. The wind ceased to whip the streamers of moss. At last, in a gathering twilight, Ken halted at a wide, flat rock to make camp.

“Forty miles to-day if we made an inch!” exclaimed Ken.

The boys said more.

They built a fire, cooked supper, and then, weary and silent, Hal and George and Pepe rolled into their blankets. But Ken doggedly worked an hour at his map and notes. That hard forty miles meant a long way toward the success of his trip.

Next morning the mists had not lifted from the river when they shoved off, determined to beat the record of yesterday. Difficulties beset them from the start — the highest waterfall of the trip, a leak in the boat, deep, short rapids, narrows with choppy waves, and a whirlpool where they turned round and round, unable to row out. Nor did they get free till Pepe lassoed a snag and pulled them out.

About noon they came to another narrow chute brawling down into a deep, foamy pool. Again Ken sent the boys around, and he backed the boat into the chute; and just as the current caught it he leaped aboard. He was either tired or careless, for he drifted too close to a half-submerged rock, and, try as he might, at the last moment he could not avoid a collision.

As the stern went hard on the rock Ken expected to break something, but was surprised at the soft thud with which he struck. It flashed into his mind that the rock was moss-covered.

Quick as the thought there came a rumble under the boat, the stern heaved up, there was a great sheet-like splash, and then a blow that splintered the gunwale. Then the boat shunted off, affording the astounded Ken a good view of a very angry crocodile. He had been sleeping on the rock.

The boys were yelling and crowding down to the shore where Ken was drifting in. Pepe waded in to catch the boat.

“What was it hit you, Ken?” asked Hal.

“Mucho malo,” cried Pepe.

“The boat’s half full of water — the gunwale’s all split!” ejaculated George.

“Only an accident of river travel,” replied Ken, with mock nonchalance. “Say, Garrapato, when, about when is it coming to me?”

“Well, if he didn’t get slammed by a crocodile!” continued George.

They unloaded, turned out the water, broke up a box to use for repairs, and mended the damaged gunwale — work that lost more than a good hour. Once again under way, Ken made some interesting observations. The river ceased to stand on end in places; crocodiles slipped off every muddy promontory, and wide trails ridged the steep clay-banks.

“Cattle-trails, Pepe says,” said George. “Wild cattle roam all through the jungle along the Panuco.”

It was a well-known fact that the rancheros of Tamaulipas State had no idea how many cattle they owned. Ken was so eager to see if Pepe had been correct that he went ashore, to find the trails were, indeed, those of cattle.

“Then, Pepe, we must be somewhere near the Panuco River,” he said.

“Quien sabe?” rejoined he, quietly.

When they rounded the curve they came upon a herd of cattle that clattered up the bank, raising a cloud of dust.

“Wilder than deer!” Ken exclaimed.

From that point conditions along the river changed. The banks were no longer green; the beautiful cypresses gave place to other trees, as huge, as moss-wound, but more rugged and of gaunt outline; the flowers and vines and shady nooks disappeared. Everywhere wide-horned steers and cows plunged up the banks. Everywhere buzzards rose from gruesome feasts. The shore was lined with dead cattle, and the stench of putrefying flesh was almost unbearable. They passed cattle mired in the mud, being slowly tortured to death by flies and hunger; they passed cattle that had slipped off steep banks and could not get back and were bellowing dismally; and also strangely acting cattle that Pepe said had gone crazy from ticks in their ears. Ken would have put these miserable beasts out of their misery had not George restrained him with a few words about Mexican law.

A sense of sickness came to Ken, and though he drove the feeling from him, it continually returned. George and Hal lay flat on the canvas, shaded with a couple of palm leaves; Pepe rowed on and on, growing more and more serious and quiet. His quick, responsive smile was wanting now.

By way of diversion, and also in the hope of securing a specimen, Ken began to shoot at the crocodiles. George came out of his lethargy and took up his rifle. He would have had to be ill indeed, to forswear any possible shooting; and, now that Ken had removed the bar, he forgot he had fever. Every hundred yards or so they would come upon a crocodile measuring somewhere from about six feet upward, and occasionally they would see a great yellow one, as large as a log. Seldom did they get within good range of these huge fellows, and shooting from a moving boat was not easy. The smaller ones, however, allowed the boat to approach quite close. George bounced many a .32 bullet off the bank, but he never hit a crocodile. Ken allowed him to have the shots for the fun of it, and, besides, he was watching for a big one.

“George, that rifle of yours is leaded. It doesn’t shoot where you aim.”

When they got unusually close to a small crocodile George verified Ken’s statement by missing his game some yards. He promptly threw the worn-out rifle overboard, an act that caused Pepe much concern.

Whereupon Ken proceeded to try his luck. Instructing Pepe to row about in the middle of the stream, he kept eye on one shore while George watched the other. He shot half a dozen small crocodiles, but they slipped off the bank before Pepe could get ashore. This did not appear to be the fault of the rifle, for some of the reptiles were shot almost in two pieces. But Ken had yet to learn more about the tenacity of life of these water-brutes. Several held still long enough for Ken to shoot them through, then with a plunge they went into the water, sinking at once in a bloody foam. He knew he had shot them through, for he saw large holes in the mud-banks lined with bits of bloody skin and bone.

“There’s one,” said George, pointing. “Let’s get closer, so we can grab him. He’s got a good piece to go before he reaches the water.”

Pepe rowed slowly along, guiding the boat a little nearer the shore. At forty feet the crocodile raised up, standing on short legs, so that all but his tail was free of the ground. He opened his huge jaws either in astonishment or to intimidate them, and then Ken shot him straight down the throat. He flopped convulsively and started to slide and roll. When he reached the water he turned over on his back, with his feet sticking up, resembling a huge frog. Pepe rowed hard to the shore, just as the crocodile with one last convulsion rolled off into deeper water. Ken reached over, grasped his foot, and was drawing it up when a sight of cold, glassy eyes and open-fanged jaws made him let go. Then the crocodile sank in water where Pepe could not touch bottom with an oar.

“Let’s get one if it takes a week,” declared George. The lad might be sick, but there was nothing wrong with his spirit. “Look there!” he exclaimed. “Oh, I guess it’s a log. Too big!”

They had been unable to tell the difference between a crocodile and a log of driftwood until it was too late. In this instance a long, dirty-gray object lay upon a low bank. Despite its immense size, which certainly made the chances in favor of its being a log, Ken determined this time to be fooled on the right side. He had seen a dozen logs — as he thought — suddenly become animated and slip into the river.

“Hold steady, Pepe. I’ll take a crack at that just for luck.”

The distance was about a hundred yards, a fine range for the little rifle. Resting on his knee, he sighted low, under the gray object, and pulled the trigger twice. There were two spats so close together as to be barely distinguishable. The log of driftwood leaped into life.

“Whoop!” shouted Hal.

“It’s a crocodile!” yelled George. “You hit — you hit! Will you listen to that?”

“Row hard, Pepe — pull!”

He bent to the oars, and the boat flew shoreward.

The huge crocodile, opening yard-long jaws, snapped them shut with loud cracks. Then he beat the bank with his tail. It was as limber as a willow, but he seemed unable to move his central parts, his thick bulk, where Ken had sent the two mushroom bullets. Whack! Whack! Whack! The sodden blows jarred pieces from the clay-bank above him. Each blow was powerful enough to have staved in the planking of a ship. All at once he lunged upward and, falling over backward, slid down his runway into a few inches of water, where he stuck.

“Go in above him, Pepe,” Ken shouted. “Here — Heavens! What a monster!”

Deliberately, at scarce twenty feet, Ken shot the remaining four shells into the crocodile. The bullets tore through his horny hide, and blood and muddy water spouted up. George and Pepe and Hal yelled, and Ken kept time with them. The terrible lashing tail swung back and forth almost too swiftly for the eye to catch. A deluge of mud and water descended upon the boys, bespattering, blinding them and weighing down the boat. They jumped out upon the bank to escape it. They ran to and fro in aimless excitement. Ken still clutched the rifle, but he had no shells for it. George was absurd enough to fling a stone into the blood-tinged cloud of muddy froth and spray that hid the threshing leviathan. Presently the commotion subsided enough for them to see the great crocodile lying half on his back, with belly all torn and bloody and huge claw-like hands pawing the air. He was edging, slipping off into deeper water.

“He’ll get away — he’ll get away!” cried Hal. “What’ll we do?”

Ken racked his brains.

“Pepe, get your lasso — rope him — rope him! Hurry! he’s slipping!” yelled George.

Pepe snatched up his lariat, and, without waiting to coil it, cast the loop. He caught one of the flippers and hauled tight on it just as the crocodile slipped out of sight off the muddy ledge. The others ran to the boat, and, grasping hold of the lasso with Pepe, squared away and began to pull. Plain it was that the crocodile was not coming up so easily. They could not budge him.

“Hang on, boys!” Ken shouted. “It’s a tug-of-war.”

The lasso was suddenly jerked out with a kind of twang. Crash! went Pepe and Hal into the bottom of the boat. Ken went sprawling into the mud and George, who had the last hold, went to his knees, but valiantly clung to the slipping rope. Bounding up, Ken grasped it from him and wound it round the sharp nose of the bowsprit.

“Get in — hustle!” he called, falling aboard. “You’re always saying it’s coming to us. Here’s where!”

George had hardly got into the boat when the crocodile pulled it off shore, and away it went, sailing down-stream.

“Whoop! All aboard for Panuco!” yelled Hal.

“Now, Pepe, you don’t need to row any more — we’ve a water-horse,” Ken added.

But Pepe did not enter into the spirit of the occasion. He kept calling on the saints and crying, “Mucho malo.” George and Ken and Hal, however, were hilarious. They had not yet had experience enough to know crocodiles.

Faster and faster they went. The water began to surge away from the bow and leave a gurgling wake behind the stern. Soon the boat reached the middle of the river where the water was deepest, and the lasso went almost straight down.

Ken felt the stern of the boat gradually lifted, and then, in alarm, he saw the front end sinking in the water. The crocodile was hauling the bow under.

“Pepe — your machete — cut the lasso!” he ordered, sharply. George had to repeat the order.

Wildly Pepe searched under the seat and along the gunwales. He could not find the machete.

“Cut the rope!” Ken thundered. “Use a knife, the ax — anything — only cut it — and cut it quick!”

Pepe could find nothing. Knife in hand, Ken leaped over his head, sprawled headlong over the trunk, and slashed the taut lasso just as the water began to roar into the boat. The bow bobbed up as a cork that had been under. But the boat had shipped six inches of water.

“Row ashore, Pepe. Steady, there. Trim the boat, George.”

They beached at a hard clay-bank and rested a little before unloading to turn out the water.

“Grande!” observed Pepe.

“Yes; he was big,” assented George.

“I wonder what’s going to happen to us next,” added Hal.

Ken Ward looked at these companions of his and he laughed outright. “Well, if you all don’t take the cake for nerve!”

CHAPTER XX

TREED BY WILD PIGS

PEPE’S LONG YEARS of mozo work, rowing for tarpon fishermen, now stood the boys in good stead. All the hot hours of the day he bent steadily to the oars. Occasionally they came to rifts, but these were not difficult to pass, being mere swift, shallow channels over sandy bottom. The rocks and the rapids were things of the past.

George lay in a kind of stupor, and Hal lolled in his seat. Ken, however, kept alert, and as the afternoon wore on began to be annoyed at the scarcity of camp-sites.

The muddy margins of the river, the steep banks, and the tick-infested forests offered few places where it was possible to rest, to say nothing of sleep. Every turn in the widening river gave Ken hope, which resulted in disappointment. He found consolation, however, in the fact that every turn and every hour put him so much farther on the way.

About five o’clock Ken had unexpected good luck in shape of a small sand-bar cut off from the mainland, and therefore free of cattle-tracks. It was clean and dry, with a pile of driftwood at one end.

“Tumble out, boys,” called Ken, as Pepe beached the boat. “We’ll pitch camp here.”

Neither Hal nor George showed any alacrity. Ken watched his brother; he feared to see some of the symptoms of George’s sickness. Both lads, however, seemed cheerful, though too tired to be of much use in the pitching of camp.

Ken could not recover his former good spirits. There was a sense of foreboding in his mind that all was not well, that he must hurry, hurry. And although George appeared to be holding his own, Hal healthy enough, and Pepe’s brooding quiet at least no worse, Ken could not rid himself of gloom. If he had answered the question that knocked at his mind he would have admitted a certainty of disaster. So he kept active, and when there were no more tasks for that day he worked on his note-book, and then watched the flight of wild fowl.

The farther down the river the boys traveled the more numerous were the herons and cranes and ducks. But they saw no more of the beautiful pato real, as Pepe called them, or the little russet-colored ducks, or the dismal-voiced bitterns. On the other hand, wild geese were common, and there were flocks and flocks of teal and canvasbacks.

Pepe, as usual, cooked duck. And he had to eat it. George had lost his appetite altogether. Hal had lost his taste for meat, at least. And Ken made a frugal meal of rice.

“Boys,” he said, “the less you eat from now on the better for you.”

It took resolution to drink the cocoa, for Ken could not shut out remembrance of the green water and the shore-line of dead and decaying cattle. Still, he was parched with thirst; he had to drink. That night he slept ten hours without turning over. Next morning he had to shake Pepe to rouse him.

Ken took turns at the oars with Pepe. It was not only that he fancied Pepe was weakening and in need of an occasional rest, but the fact that he wanted to be occupied, and especially to keep in good condition. They made thirty miles by four o’clock, and most of it against a breeze. Not in the whole distance did they pass half a dozen places fit for a camp. Toward evening the river narrowed again, resembling somewhat the Santa Rosa of earlier acquaintance. The magnificent dark forests crowded high on the banks, always screened and curtained by gray moss, as if to keep their secrets.

The sun was just tipping with gold the mossy crests of a grove of giant ceibas, when the boys rounded a bend to come upon the first ledge of rocks for two days. A low, grassy promontory invited the eyes searching for camping-ground. This spot appeared ideal; it certainly was beautiful. The ledge jutted into the river almost to the opposite shore, forcing the water to rush through a rocky trough into a great foam-spotted pool below.

They could not pitch the tent, since the stony ground would not admit stakes, so they laid the canvas flat. Pepe went up the bank with his machete in search of firewood. To Ken’s utmost delight he found a little spring of sweet water trickling from the ledge, and by digging a hole was enabled to get a drink, the first one in more than a week.

A little later, as he was spreading the blankets, George called his attention to shouts up in the woods.

“Pepe’s treed something,” Ken said. “Take your gun and hunt him up.”

Ken went on making a bed and busying himself about camp, with little heed to George’s departure. Presently, however, he was startled by unmistakable sounds of alarm. George and Pepe were yelling in unison, and, from the sound, appeared to be quite a distance away.

“What the deuce!” Ken ejaculated, snatching up his rifle. He snapped a clip in the magazine and dropped several loaded clips and a box of extra shells into his coat pocket. After his adventure with the jaguar he decided never again to find himself short of ammunition. Running up the sloping bank, he entered the forest, shouting for his companions. Answering cries came from in front and a little to the left. He could not make out what was said.

Save for drooping moss the forest was comparatively open, and at a hundred paces from the river-bank were glades covered with thickets and long grass and short palm-trees. The ground sloped upward quite perceptibly.

“Hey, boys, where are you?” called Ken.

Pepe’s shrill yells mingled with George’s shouts. At first their meaning was unintelligible, but after calling twice Ken understood.

“Javelin! Go back! Javelin! We’re treed! Wild pigs! Santa Maria! Run for your life!”

This was certainly enlightening and rather embarrassing. Ken remembered the other time the boys had made him run, and he grew hot with anger.

“I’ll be blessed if I’ll run!” he said, in the pride of conceit and wounded vanity. Whereupon he began to climb the slope, stopping every few steps to listen and look. Ken wondered what had made Pepe go so far for fire-wood; still, there was nothing but green wood all about. Walking round a clump of seared and yellow palms that rustled in the breeze, Ken suddenly espied George’s white shirt. He was in a scrubby sapling not fifteen feet from the ground. Then Ken espied Pepe, perched in the forks of a ceiba, high above the thickets and low shrubbery. Ken was scarcely more than a dozen rods from them down the gradual slope. Both saw him at once.

“Run, you Indian! Run!” bawled George, waving his hands.

George implored Ken to fly to save his precious life.

“What for? you fools! I don’t see anything to run from,” Ken shouted back. His temper had soured a little during the last few days.

“You’d better run, or you’ll have to climb,” replied George. “Wild pigs — a thousand of ‘em!”

“Where?”

“Right under us. There! Oh, if they see you! Listen to this.” He broke off a branch, trimmed it of leaves, and flung it down. Ken heard a low, trampling roar of many hard little feet, brushings in the thicket, and cracking of twigs. As close as he was, however, he could not see a moving object. The dead grass and brush were several feet high, up to his waist in spots, and, though he changed position several times, no javelin did he see.

“You want to look out. Say, man, these are wild pigs — boars, I tell you! They’ll kill you!” bellowed George.

“Are you going to stay up there all night?” Ken asked, sarcastically.

“We’ll stay till they go away.”

“All right, I’ll scare them away,” Ken replied, and, suiting action to word, he worked the automatic as fast as it would shoot, aiming into the thicket under George.

Of all the foolish things a nettled hunter ever did that was the worst. A roar answered the echoes of the rifle, and the roar rose from every side of the trees the victims were in. Nervously Ken clamped a fresh clip of shells into the rifle. Clouds of dust arose, and strange little squeals and grunts seemed to come from every quarter. Then the grass and bushes were suddenly torn apart by swift gray forms with glittering eyes. They were everywhere.

“Run! Run!” shrieked George, high above the tumult.

For a thrilling instant Ken stood his ground and fired at the bobbing gray backs. But every break made in the ranks by the powerful shells filled in a flash. Before that vicious charge he wavered, then ran as if pursued by demons.

The way was downhill. Ken tripped, fell, rolled over and over, then, still clutching the rifle, rose with a bound and fled. The javelin had gained. They were at his heels. He ran like a deer. Then, seeing a low branch, he leaped for it, grasped it with one hand, and, crooking an elbow round it, swung with the old giant swing.

Before Ken knew how it had happened he was astride a dangerously swaying branch directly over a troop of brownish-gray, sharp-snouted, fiendish-eyed little peccaries.

Some were young and sleek, others were old and rough; some had little yellow teeth or tusks, and all pointed their sharp noses upward, as if expecting him to fall into their very mouths. Feeling safe, once more Ken loaded the rifle and began to kill the biggest, most vicious javelin. When he had killed twelve in twelve shots, he saw that shooting a few would be of no avail. There were hundreds, it seemed, and he had scarcely fifty shells left. Moreover, the rifle-barrel grew so hot that it burnt his hands. Hearing George’s yell, he replied, somewhat to his disgust:

“I’m all right, George — only treed. How’re you?”

“Pigs all gone — they chased you — Pepe thinks we can risk running.”

“Don’t take any chances,” Ken yelled, in answer.

“Hi! Hi! What’s wrong with you gazabos?” came Hal’s yell from down the slope.

“Go back to the boat,” shouted Ken.

“What for?”

“We’re all treed by javelin — wild pigs.”

“I’ve got to see that,” was Hal’s reply.

Ken called a sharp, angry order for Hal to keep away. But Hal did not obey. Ken heard him coming, and presently saw him enter one of the little glades. He had Ken’s shotgun, and was peering cautiously about.

“Ken, where are you?”

“Here! Didn’t I tell you to keep away? The pigs heard you — some of them are edging out there. Look out! Run, kid, run!”

A troop of javelin flashed into the glade. Hal saw them and raised the shotgun.

Boom! He shot both barrels.

The shot tore through the brush all around Ken, but fortunately beneath him. Neither the noise nor the lead stopped the pugnacious little peccaries.

Hal dropped Ken’s hammerless and fled.

“Run faster!” yelled George, who evidently enjoyed Hal’s plight. “They’ll get you! Run hard!”

The lad was running close to the record when he disappeared.

In trying to find a more comfortable posture, so he could apply himself to an interesting study of his captors, Ken made the startling discovery that the branch which upheld him was splitting from the tree-trunk. His heart began to pound in his breast; then it went up into his throat. Every move he made — for he had started to edge toward the tree — widened the little white split.

“Boys, my branch is breaking!” he called, piercingly.

“Can’t you get another?” returned George.

“No; I daren’t move! Hurry, boys! If you don’t scare these brutes off I’m a goner!”

Ken’s eyes were riveted upon the gap where the branch was slowly separating from the tree-trunk. He glanced about to see if he could not leap to another branch. There was nothing near that would hold him. In desperation he resolved to drop the rifle, cautiously get to his feet upon the branch, and with one spring try to reach the tree. When about to act upon this last chance he heard Pepe’s shrill yell and a crashing in the brush. Then followed the unmistakable roar and crackling of fire. Pepe had fired the brush — no, he was making his way toward Ken, armed with a huge torch.

“Pepe, you’ll fire the jungle!” cried Ken, forgetting what was at stake and that Pepe could not understand much English. But Ken had been in one forest-fire and remembered it with horror.

The javelin stirred uneasily, and ran around under Ken, tumbling over one another.

When Pepe burst through the brush, holding before him long-stemmed palm leaves flaring in hissing flames, the whole pack of pigs bowled away into the forest at breakneck speed.

Ken leaped down, and the branch came with him. George came running up, his face white, his eyes big. Behind him rose a roar that Ken thought might be another drove of pigs till he saw smoke and flame.

“Boys, the jungle’s on fire. Run for the river!”

In their hurry they miscalculated the location of camp and dashed out of the jungle over a steep bank, and they all had a tumble. It was necessary to wade to reach the rocky ledge.

Ken shook hands with Pepe.

“George, tell him that was a nervy thing to do. He saved my life, I do believe.”

“You fellows did a lot of hollering,” said Hal, from his perch in the boat.

“Say, young man, you’ve got to go back after my gun. Why didn’t you do what I told you? Foolish, to run into danger that way!” declared Ken, severely.

“You don’t suppose I was going to overlook a chance to see Ken Ward treed, do you?”

“Well, you saw him, and that was no joke. But I wish Pepe could have scared those pigs off without firing the jungle.”

“Pepe says it’ll give the ticks a good roasting,” said George.

“We’ll have roast pig, anyway,” added Ken.

He kept watching the jungle back of the camp as if he expected it to blow up like a powder-mine. But this Tamaulipas jungle was not Penetier Forest. A cloud of smoke rolled up; there was a frequent roaring of dry palms; but the green growths did not burn. It was not much of a forest-fire, and Ken concluded that it would soon burn out.

So he took advantage of the waning daylight to spread out his map and plot in the day’s travel. This time Hal watched him with a quiet attention that was both flattering and stimulating; and at the conclusion of the task he said:

“Well, Ken, we’re having sport, but we’re doing something more — something worth while.”

CHAPTER XXI

THE LEAPING TARPON

JUST BEFORE DARK, when the boys were at supper, a swarm of black mosquitoes swooped down upon camp.

Pepe could not have shown more fear at angry snakes, and he began to pile green wood and leaves on the fire to make a heavy smoke.

These mosquitoes were very large, black-bodied, with white-barred wings. Their bite was as painful as the sting of a bee. After threshing about until tired out the boys went to bed. But it was only to get up again, for the mosquitoes could bite through two thicknesses of blanket.

For a wonder every one was quiet. Even George did not grumble. The only thing to do was to sit or stand in the smoke of the camp-fire. The boys wore their gloves and wrapped blankets round heads and shoulders. They crouched over the fire until tired of that position, then stood up till they could stand no longer. It was a wretched, sleepless night with the bloodthirsty mosquitoes humming about like a swarm of bees. They did not go away until dawn.

“That’s what I get for losing the mosquito-netting,” said Ken, wearily.

Breakfast was not a cheerful meal, despite the fact that the boys all tried to brace up.

George’s condition showed Ken the necessity for renewed efforts to get out of the jungle. Pepe appeared heavy and slow, and, what was more alarming, he had lost his appetite. Hal was cross, but seemed to keep well. It was hard enough for Ken to persuade George and Pepe to take the bitter doses of quinine, and Hal positively refused.

“It makes me sick, I tell you,” said Hal, impatiently.

“But Hal, you ought to be guided by my judgment now,” replied Ken, gently.

“I don’t care. I’ve had enough of bitter pills.”

“I ask you — as a favor?” persisted Ken, quietly.

“No!”

“Well, then, I’ll have to make you take them.”

“Wha-at?” roared Hal.

“If necessary, I’ll throw you down and pry open your mouth and get Pepe to stuff these pills down your throat. There!” went on Ken, and now he did not recognize his own voice.

Hal looked quickly at his brother, and was amazed and all at once shaken.

“Why, Ken—” he faltered.

“I ought to have made you take them before,” interrupted Ken. “But I’ve been too easy. Now, Hal, listen — and you, too, George. I’ve made a bad mess of this trip. I got you into this jungle, and I ought to have taken better care of you, whether you would or not. George has fever. Pepe is getting it. I’m afraid you won’t escape. You all would drink unboiled water.”

“Ken, that’s all right, but you can get fever from the bites of the ticks,” said George.

“I dare say. But just the same you could have been careful about the water. Not only that — look how careless we have been. Think of the things that have happened! We’ve gotten almost wild on this trip. We don’t realize. But wait till we get home. Then we’ll hardly be able to believe we ever had these adventures. But our foolishness, our carelessness, must stop right here. If we can’t profit by our lucky escapes yesterday — from that lassoed crocodile and the wild pigs — we are simply no good. I love fun and sport. But there’s a limit. Hal, remember what old Hiram told you about being foolhardily brave. I think we have been wonderfully lucky. Now let’s deserve our good luck. Let’s not prove what that Tampico hotel-man said. Let’s show we are not just wild-goose-chasing boys. I put it to you straight. I think the real test is yet to come, and I want you to help me. No more tricks. No more drinking unboiled water. No more shooting except in self-defense. We must not eat any more meat. No more careless wandering up the banks. No chances. See? And fight the fever. Don’t give up. Then when we get out of this awful jungle we can look back at our adventures — and, better, we can be sure we’ve learned a lot. We shall have accomplished something, and that’s learning. Now, how about it? Will you help me?”

“You can just bet your life,” replied George, and he held out his hand.

“Ken, I’m with you,” was Hal’s quiet promise; and Ken knew from the way the lad spoke that he was in dead earnest. When it came to the last ditch Hal Ward was as true as steel. He took the raw, bitter quinine Ken offered and swallowed it without a grimace.

“Good!” exclaimed Ken. “Now, boys, let’s pack. Hal, you let your menagerie go. There’s no use keeping your pets any longer. George, you make yourself a bed on the trunk, and fix a palm-leaf sun-shelter. Then lie down.”

When the boat had been packed and all was in readiness for the start, George was sound asleep. They shoved off into the current. Pepe and Ken took turns at the oars, making five miles an hour.

As on the day before, they glided under the shadows of the great moss-twined cypresses, along the muddy banks where crocodiles basked in the sun and gaunt cattle came down to drink. Once the boat turned a bushy point to startle a large flock of wild turkeys, perhaps thirty-five in number. They had been resting in the cool sand along the river. Some ran up the bank, some half-dozen flew right over the boat, and most of them squatted down as if to evade detection. Thereafter turkeys and ducks and geese became so common as to be monotonous.

About one o’clock Ken sighted a thatched bamboo and palm-leaf hut on the bank.

“Oh, boys, look! look!” cried Ken, joyfully.

Hal was as pleased as Ken, and George roused out of his slumber. Pepe grinned and nodded his head.

Some naked little children ran like quail. A disheveled black head peeped out of a door, then swiftly vanished.

“Indians,” said George.

“I don’t care,” replied Ken, “they’re human beings — people. We’re getting somewhere.”

From there on the little bamboo huts were frequently sighted. And soon Ken saw a large one situated upon a high bluff. Ken was wondering if these natives would be hospitable.

Upon rounding the next bend the boys came unexpectedly upon a connecting river. It was twice as wide as the Santa Rosa, and quite swift.

“Tamaulipas,” said Pepe.

“Hooray! boys, this is the source of the Panuco, sure as you’re born,” cried Ken. “I told you we were getting somewhere.”

He was overcome with the discovery. This meant success.

“Savalo! Savalo!” exclaimed Pepe, pointing.

“Tarpon! Tarpon! What do you think of that? ‘Way up here! We must be a long distance from tide-water,” said George.

Ken looked around over the broad pool below the junction of the two rivers. And here and there he saw swirls, and big splashes, and then the silver sides of rolling tarpon.

“Boys, seeing we’ve packed that can of preserved mullet all the way, and those thundering heavy tackles, let’s try for tarpon,” suggested Ken.

It was wonderful to see how the boys responded. Pepe was no longer slow and heavy. George forgot he was sick. Hal, who loved to fish better than to hunt, was as enthusiastic as on the first day.

“Ken, let me boss this job,” said George, as he began to rig the tackles. “Pepe will row; you and Hal sit back here and troll. I’ll make myself useful. Open the can. See, I hook the mullet just back of the head, letting the bar become out free. There! Now run out about forty feet of line. Steady the butt of the rod under your leg. Put your left hand above the reel. Hold the handle of the reel in your right, and hold it hard. The drag is in the handle. Now when a tarpon takes the bait, jerk with all your might. Their mouths are like iron, and it’s hard to get a hook to stick.”

Pepe rowed at a smooth, even stroke and made for the great curve of the pool where tarpon were breaking water.

“If they’re on the feed, we’ll have more sport than we’ve had yet,” said George.

Ken was fascinated, and saw that Hal was going to have the best time of the trip. Also Ken was very curious to have a tarpon strike. He had no idea what it would be like. Presently, when the boat glided among the rolling fish and there was prospect of one striking at any moment, Ken could not subdue a mounting excitement.

“Steady now — be ready,” warned George.

Suddenly Hal’s line straightened. The lad yelled and jerked at the same instant. There came a roar of splitting waters, and a beautiful silver fish, longer than Hal himself, shot up into the air. The tarpon shook himself and dropped back into the water with a crash.

Hal was speechless. He wound in his line to find the bait gone.

“Threw the hook,” said George, as he reached into the can for another bait. “He wasn’t so big. You’ll get used to losing ‘em. There! try again.”

Ken had felt several gentle tugs at his line, as if tarpon were rolling across it. And indeed he saw several fish swim right over where his line disappeared in the water. There were splashes all around the boat, some gentle swishes and others hard, cutting rushes. Then his line straightened with a heavy jerk. He forgot to try to hook the fish; indeed, he had no time. The tarpon came half out of the water, wagged his head, and plumped back. Ken had not hooked the fish, nor had the fish got the bait. So Ken again let out his line.

The next thing which happened was that the boys both had strikes at the same instant. Hal stood up, and as his tarpon leaped it pulled him forward, and he fell into the stern-seat. His reel-handle rattled on the gunwale. The line hissed. Ken leaned back and jerked. His fish did not break water, but he was wonderfully active under the surface. Pepe was jabbering. George was yelling. Hal’s fish was tearing the water to shreds. He crossed Ken’s fish; the lines fouled, and then slacked. Ken began to wind in. Hal rose to do likewise.

“Gee!” he whispered, with round eyes.

Both lines had been broken. George made light of this incident, and tied on two more leaders and hooks and baited afresh.

“The fish are on the feed, boys. It’s a cinch you’ll each catch one. Better troll one at a time, unless you can stand for crossed lines.”

But Ken and Hal were too eager to catch a tarpon to troll one at a time, so once more they let their lines out. A tarpon took Hal’s bait right under the stern of the boat. Hal struck with all his might. This fish came up with a tremendous splash, drenching the boys. His great, gleaming silver sides glistened in the sun. He curved his body and straightened out with a snap like the breaking of a board, and he threw the hook whistling into the air.

Before Hal had baited up, Ken got another strike. This fish made five leaps, one after the other, and upon the last threw the hook like a bullet. As he plunged down, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the misty spray.

“Hal, do you see that rainbow?” cried Ken, quickly. “There’s a sight for a fisherman!”

This time in turn, before Ken started to troll, Hal hooked another tarpon. This one was not so large, but he was active. His first rush was a long surge on the surface. He sent the spray in two streaks like a motor-boat. Then he sounded.

“Hang on, Hal!” yelled George and Ken in unison.

Hal was bent almost double and his head was bobbing under the strain. He could not hold the drag. The line was whizzing out.

“You got that one hooked,” shouted George. “Let go the reel — drop the handle. Let him run.”

He complied, and then his fish began a marvelous exhibition of lofty tumbling. He seemed never to stay down at all. Now he shot up, mouth wide, gills spread, eyes wild, and he shook himself like a wet dog. Then he dropped back, and before the boys had time to think where he might be he came up several rods to the right and cracked his gills like pistol-shots. He skittered on his tail and stood on his head and dropped flat with a heavy smack. Then he stayed under and began to tug.

“Hang on, now,” cried George. “Wind in. Hold him tight. Don’t give him an inch unless he jumps.”

This was heartbreaking work for Hal. He toiled to keep the line in. He grew red in the face. He dripped with sweat. He panted for breath. But he hung on.

Ken saw how skilfully Pepe managed the boat. The mozo seemed to know just which way the fish headed, and always kept the boat straight. Sometimes he rowed back and lent his help to Hal. But this appeared to anger the tarpon, for the line told he was coming to the surface. Then, as Pepe ceased to let him feel the weight of the boat, the tarpon sank again. So the battle went on round and round the great pool. After an hour of it Hal looked ready to drop.

“Land him alone if you can,” said Ken. “He’s tiring, Hal.”

“I’ll — land him — or — or bust!” panted Hal.

“Look out, now!” warned George again. “He’s coming up. See the line. Be ready to trim the boat if he drops aboard. Wow!”

The tarpon slipped smoothly out of the water and shot right over the bow of the boat. Quick-witted George flung out his hand and threw Hal’s rod round in time to save the line from catching. The fish went down, came up wagging his head, and then fell with sullen splash.

“He’s done,” yelled George. “Now, Hal, hold him for all you’re worth. Not an inch of line!”

Pepe headed the boat for a sandy beach; and Hal, looking as if about to have a stroke of apoplexy, clung desperately to the bending rod. The tarpon rolled and lashed his tail, but his power was mostly gone. Gradually he ceased to roll, until by the time Pepe reached shore he was sliding wearily through the water, his silvery side glittering in the light.

The boat grated on the sand. Pepe leaped out. Then he grasped Hal’s line, slipped his hands down to the long wire leader, and with a quick, powerful pull slid the tarpon out upon the beach.

“Oh-h!” gasped Hal, with glistening eyes. “Oh-h! Ken, just look!”

“I’m looking, son, and don’t you forget it.”

The tarpon lay inert, a beautiful silver-scaled creature that looked as if he had just come from a bath of melted opals. The great dark eyes were fixed and staring, the tail moved feebly, the long dorsal fin quivered.

He measured five feet six inches in length, which was one inch more than Hal’s height.

“Ken, the boys back home will never believe I caught him,” said Hal, in distress.

“Take his picture to prove it,” replied Ken.

Hal photographed his catch. Pepe took out the hook, showing, as he did so, the great iron-like plates in the mouth of the fish.

“No wonder it’s hard to hook them,” said Ken.

Hal certainly wanted his beautiful fish to go back, free and little hurt, to the river. But also he wanted him for a specimen. Hal deliberated. Evidently he was considering the labor of skinning such a huge fish and the difficulty of preserving and packing the hide.

“Say, Hal, wouldn’t you like to see me hook one?” queried Ken, patiently.

That brought Hal to his senses.

“Sure, Ken, old man, I want you to catch one — a big one — bigger than mine,” replied Hal, and restored the fish to the water.

They all watched the liberated tarpon swim wearily off and slip down under the water.

“He’ll have something to tell the rest, won’t he?” said George.

In a few minutes the boat was again in the center of the great pool among the rolling tarpon. Ken had a strike immediately. He missed. Then he tried again. And in a short space of time he saw five tarpon in the air, one after the other, and not one did he hook securely. He got six leaps out of one, however, and that was almost as good as landing him.

“There’re some whales here,” said George.

“Grande savalo,” added Pepe, and he rowed over to where a huge fish was rolling.

“Oh, I don’t want to hook the biggest one first,” protested Ken.

Pepe rowed to and fro. The boys were busy trying to see the rolling tarpon. There would be a souse on one side, then a splash on the other, then a thump behind. What with trying to locate all these fish and still keep an eye on Ken’s line the boys almost dislocated their necks.

Then, quick as a flash, Ken had a strike that pulled him out of his seat to his knees. He could not jerk. His line was like a wire. It began to rise. With all his strength he held on. The water broke in a hollow, slow roar, and a huge humpbacked tarpon seemed to be climbing into the air. But he did not get all the way out, and he plunged back with a thunderous crash. He made as much noise as if a horse had fallen off a bridge.

The handle of the reel slipped out of Ken’s grasp, and it was well. The tarpon made a long, wonderful run and showed on the surface a hundred yards from the boat. He was irresistibly powerful. Ken was astounded and thrilled at his strength and speed. There, far away from the boat, the tarpon leaped magnificently, clearing the water, and then went down. He did not come up again.

“Ken, he’s a whale,” said George. “I believe he’s well hooked. He won’t jump any more. And you’ve got a job on your hands.”

“I want him to jump.”

“The big ones seldom break water after the first rush or so.”

“Ken, it’s coming to you with that fellow,” said Hal. “My left arm is paralyzed. Honestly, I can pinch it and not feel the pain.”

Pepe worked the boat closer and Ken reeled in yard after yard of line. The tarpon was headed down-stream, and he kept up a steady, strong strain.

“Let him tow the boat,” said George. “Hold the drag, Ken. Let him tow the boat.”

“What!” exclaimed Ken, in amaze.

“Oh, he’ll do it, all right.”

And so it proved. Ken’s tarpon, once headed with the current, did not turn, and he towed the boat.

“This is a new way for me to tire out a fish,” said Ken. “What do you think of it, Hal?”

Hal’s eyes glistened.

“This is fishing. Ken, did you see him when he came up?”

“Not very clearly. I had buck-fever. You know how a grouse looks when he flushes right under your feet — a kind of brown blur. Well, this was the same, only silver.”

At the end of what Ken judged to be a mile the tarpon was still going. At the end of the second mile he was tired. And three miles down the river from where the fish was hooked Pepe beached the boat on a sandbar and hauled ashore a tarpon six feet ten inches long.

Here Ken echoed Hal’s panting gasp of wonder and exultation. As he sat down on the boat to rest he had no feeling in his left arm, and little in his right. His knuckles were skinned and bloody. No game of baseball he had ever pitched had taken his strength like the conquest of this magnificent fish.

“Hal, we’ll have some more of this fishing when we get to Tampico,” said Ken. “Why, this beats hunting. You have the sport, and you needn’t kill anything. This tarpon isn’t hurt.”

So Ken photographed his prize and measured him, and, taking a last lingering glance at the great green back, the silver-bronze sides, the foot-wide flukes of the tail, at the whole quivering fire-tinted length, he slid the tarpon back into the river.

CHAPTER XXII

STRICKEN DOWN

MUCH AS KEN would have liked to go back to that pool, he did not think of it twice. And as soon as the excitement had subsided and the journey was resumed, George and Hal, and Pepe, too, settled down into a silent weariness that made Ken anxious.

During the afternoon Ken saw Pepe slowly droop lower and lower at the oars till the time came when he could scarcely lift them to make a stroke. And when Ken relieved him of them, Pepe fell like a log in the boat.

George slept. Hal seemed to be fighting stupor. Pepe lay motionless on his seat. They were all going down with the fever, that Ken knew, and it took all his courage to face the situation. It warmed his heart to see how Hal was trying to bear up under a languor that must have been well-nigh impossible to resist. At last Hal said:

“Ken, let me row.” He would not admit that he was sick.

Ken thought it would do Hal no harm to work. But Ken did not want to lose time. So he hit upon a plan that pleased him. There was an extra pair of oars in the boat. Ken fashioned rude pegs from a stick and drove these down into the cleat inside the gunwales. With stout rope he tied the oars to the pegs, which answered fairly well as oarlocks. Then they had a double set of oars going, and made much better time.

George woke and declared that he must take a turn at the oars. So Ken let him row, too, and rested himself. He had a grim foreboding that he would need all his strength.

The succeeding few hours before sunset George and Hal more than made up for all their delinquencies of the past. At first it was not very hard for them to row; but soon they began to weary, then weaken. Neither one, however, would give up. Ken let them row, knowing that it was good for them. Slower and slower grew George’s strokes. There were times when he jerked up spasmodically and made an effort, only to weaken again. At last, with a groan he dropped the oars. Ken had to lift him back into the bow.

Hal was not so sick as George, and therefore not so weak. He lasted longer. Ken had seen the lad stick to many a hard job, but never as he did to this one. Hal was making good his promise. There were times when his breath came in whistles. He would stop and pant awhile, then row on. Ken pretended he did not notice. But he had never been so proud of his brother nor loved him so well.

“Ken, old man,” said Hal, presently. “I was — wrong — about the water. I ought to have obeyed you. I — I’m pretty sick.”

What a confession for Hal Ward!

Ken turned in time to see Hal vomit over the gunwale.

“It’s pretty tough, Hal,” said Ken, as he reached out to hold his brother’s head; “but you’re game. I’m so glad to see that.”

Whereupon Hal went back to his oars and stayed till he dropped. Ken lifted him and laid him beside George.

Ken rowed on with his eyes ever in search of a camping-site. But there was no place to camp. The muddy banks were too narrow at the bottom, too marshy and filthy. And they were too steep to climb to the top.

The sun set. Twilight fell. Darkness came on, and still Ken rowed down the river. At last he decided to make a night of it at the oars. He preferred to risk the dangers of the river at night rather than spend miserable hours in the mud. Rousing the boys, he forced them to swallow a little cold rice and some more quinine. Then he covered them with blankets, and had scarce completed the task when they were deep in slumber.

Then the strange, dense tropical night settled down upon Ken. The oars were almost noiseless, and the water gurgled softly from the bow. Overhead the expanse was dark blue, with a few palpitating stars. The river was shrouded in gray gloom, and the banks were lost in black obscurity. Great fireflies emphasized the darkness. He trusted a good deal to luck in the matter of going right; yet he kept his ear keen for the sound of quickening current, and turned every few strokes to peer sharply into the gloom. He seemed to have little sense of peril, for, though he hit submerged logs and stranded on bars, he kept on unmindful, and by and by lost what anxiety he had felt. The strange wildness of the river at night, the gray, veiled space into which he rowed unheeding began to work upon his mind.

That was a night to remember — a night of sounds and smells, of the feeling of the cool mist, the sight of long, dark forest-line and a golden moon half hidden by clouds. Prominent among these was the trill of river frogs. The trill of a northern frog was music, but that of these great, silver-throated jungle frogs was more than music. Close at hand one would thrill Ken with mellow, rich notes; and then from far would come the answer, a sweet, high tenor, wilder than any other wilderness sound, long sustained, dying away till he held his breath to listen.

So the hours passed; and the moon went down into the weird shadows, and the Southern Cross rose pale and wonderful.

Gradually the stars vanished in a kind of brightening gray, and dawn was at hand. Ken felt weary for sleep, and his arms and back ached. Morning came, with its steely light on the river, the rolling and melting of vapors, the flight of ducks and call of birds. The rosy sun brought no cheer.

Ken beached the boat on a sand-bar. While he was building a fire George raised his head and groaned. But neither Pepe nor Hal moved. Ken cooked rice and boiled cocoa, which he choked down. He opened a can of fruit and found that most welcome. Then he lifted George’s head, shook him, roused him, and held him, and made him eat and drink. Nor did he neglect to put a liberal dose of quinine in the food. Pepe was easily managed, but poor Hal was almost unable to swallow. Something terribly grim mingled with a strong, passionate thrill as Ken looked at Hal’s haggard face. Then Ken Ward knew how much he could stand, what work he could do to get his brother out of the jungle.

He covered the boys again and pushed out the boat. At the moment he felt a strength that he had never felt before. There was a good, swift current in the river, and Ken was at great pains to keep in it. The channel ran from one side of the river to the other. Many times Ken stranded on sandy shoals and had to stand up and pole the boat into deeper water. This was work that required all his attention. It required more than patience. But as he rowed and poled and drifted he studied the shallow ripples and learned to avoid the places where the boat would not float.

There were stretches of river where the water was comparatively deep, and along these he rested and watched the shores as he drifted by. He saw no Indian huts that morning. The jungle loomed high and dark, a matted gray wall. The heat made the river glare and smoke. Then where the current quickened he rowed steadily and easily, husbanding his strength.

More than all else, even the ravings of Hal in fever, the thing that wore on Ken and made him gloomy was the mourning of turtle-doves. As there had been thousands of these beautiful birds along the Santa Rosa River, so there were millions along the Panuco. Trees were blue with doves. There was an incessant soft, sad moaning. He fought his nervous, sensitive imaginings. And for a time he would conquer the sense of some sad omen sung by the doves. Then the monotony, the endless sweet “coo-ooo-ooo,” seemed to drown him in melancholy sound. There were three distinct tones — a moan, swelling to full ring, and dying away: “Coo-ooo-ooo — coo-ooo-ooo.”

All the afternoon the mourning, haunting song filled Ken Ward’s ears. And when the sun set and night came, with relief to his tortured ear but not to mind, Ken kept on without a stop.

The day had slipped behind Ken with the miles, and now it was again dark. It seemed that he had little sense of time. But his faculties of sight and hearing were singularly acute. Otherwise his mind was like the weird gloom into which he was drifting.

Before the stars came out the blackness was as thick as pitch. He could not see a yard ahead. He backed the boat stern first down-stream and listened for the soft murmur of ripples on shoals. He avoided these by hearing alone. Occasionally a huge, dark pile of driftwood barred his passage, and he would have to go round it. Snags loomed up specter-like in his path, seemingly to reach for him with long, gaunt arms. Sometimes he drifted upon sand-bars, from which he would patiently pole the boat.

When the heavy dew began to fall he put on his waterproof coat. The night grew chill. Then the stars shone out. This lightened the river. Yet everywhere were shadows. Besides, clouds of mist hung low, in places obscuring the stars.

Ken turned the boat bow first downstream and rowed with slow, even stroke. He no longer felt tired. He seemed to have the strength of a giant. He fancied that with one great heave he could lift the boat out of the water or break the oars. From time to time he ceased to row, and, turning his head, he looked and listened. The river had numerous bends, and it was difficult for Ken to keep in the middle channel. He managed pretty well to keep right by watching the dark shore-line where it met the deep-blue sky. In the bends the deepest water ran close to the shore of the outside curve. And under these high banks and the leaning cypresses shadows were thicker and blacker than in the earlier night. There was mystery in them that Ken felt.

The sounds he heard when he stopped during these cautious resting intervals were the splashes of fish breaking water, the low hum of insects, and the trill of frogs. The mourning of the doves during daylight had haunted him, and now he felt the same sensation at this long-sustained, exquisitely sweet trill. It pierced him, racked him, and at last, from sheer exhaustion of his sensibilities, he seemed not to hear it any more, but to have it in his brain.

The moon rose behind the left-hand jungle wall, silvered half of the river and the opposite line of cypresses, then hid under clouds.

Suddenly, near or far away, down the river Ken saw a wavering light. It was too large for a firefly, and too steady. He took it for a Jack-o’-lantern. And for a while it enhanced the unreality, the ghostliness of the river. But it was the means of bringing Ken out of his dreamy gloom. It made him think. The light was moving. It was too wavering for a Jack-o’-lantern. It was coming up-stream. It grew larger.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished. Ken lost sight of it under a deep shadow of overhanging shore. As he reached a point opposite to where it disappeared he thought he heard a voice. But he could not be sure. He did not trust his ears. The incident, however, gave him a chill. What a lonesome ride! He was alone on that unknown river with three sick boys in the boat. Their lives depended upon his care, his strength, his skill, his sight and hearing. And the realization, striking him afresh, steeled his arms again and his spirit.

The night wore on. The moon disappeared entirely. The mists hung low like dim sheets along the water. Ken was wringing-wet with dew. Long periods of rowing he broke with short intervals of drifting, when he rested at the oars.

Then drowsiness attacked him. For hours it seemed he fought it off. But at length it grew overpowering. Only hard rowing would keep him awake. And, as he wanted to reserve his strength, he did not dare exert himself violently. He could not keep his eyes open. Time after time he found himself rowing when he was half asleep. The boat drifted against a log and stopped. Ken drooped over his oars and slept, and yet he seemed not altogether to lose consciousness. He roused again to row on.

It occurred to him presently that he might let the boat drift and take naps between whiles. When he drifted against a log or a sand-bar the jar would awaken him. The current was sluggish. There seemed to be no danger whatever. He must try to keep his strength. A little sleep would refresh him. So he reasoned, and fell asleep over the oars.

Sooner or later — he never knew how long after he had fallen asleep — a little jar awakened him. Then the gurgle and murmur of water near him and the rush and roar of a swift current farther off made him look up with a violent start. All about him was wide, gray gloom. Yet he could see the dark, glancing gleam of the water. Movement of the oars told him the boat was fast on a sand-bar. That relieved him, for he was not drifting at the moment into the swift current he heard. Ken peered keenly into the gloom. Gradually he made out a long, dark line running diagonally ahead of him and toward the right-hand shore. It could not be an island or a sand-bar or a shore-line. It could not be piles of driftwood. There was a strange regularity in the dark upheavals of this looming object. Ken studied it. He studied the black, glancing water. Whatever the line was, it appeared to shunt the current over to the right, whence came the low rush and roar.

Altogether it was a wild, strange place. Ken felt a fear of something he could not name. It was the river — the night — the loneliness — the unknown about him and before him.

Suddenly he saw a dull, red light far down the river. He stiffened in his seat. Then he saw another red light. They were like two red eyes. Ken shook himself to see if he had nightmare. No; the boat was there; the current was there; the boys were there, dark and silent under their blankets. This was no dream. Ken’s fancy conjured up some red-eyed river demon come to destroy him and his charges. He scorned the fancy, laughed at it. But, all the same, in that dark, weird place, with the murmuring of notes in his ears and with those strange red eyes glowing in the distance, he could not help what his emotions made the truth. He was freezing to the marrow, writhing in a clammy sweat when a low “chug-chug-chug” enlightened him. The red eyes were those of a steamboat.

A steamboat on the wild Panuco! Ken scarcely believed his own judgment. Then he remembered that George said there were a couple of boats plying up and down the lower Panuco, mostly transporting timber and cattle. Besides, he had proof of his judgment in the long, dark line that had so puzzled him — it was a breakwater. It turned the current to the left, where there evidently was a channel.

The great, red eyes gleamed closer, the “chug-chug-chug” sounded louder. Then another sound amazed Ken — a man’s voice crying out steadily and monotonously.

Ken wanted to rouse the boys and Pepe, but he refrained. It was best for them to sleep. How surprised they would be when he told them about the boat that passed in the night! Ken now clearly heard the splashing of paddles, the chug of machinery, and the man’s voice. He was singsonging: “Dos y media, dos y media, dos y media.”

Ken understood a little Mexican, and this strange cry became clear to him. The man was taking soundings with a lead and crying out to the pilot. Dos y media meant two and a half feet of water. Then the steamboat loomed black in the gray gloom. It was pushing a low, flat barge. Ken could not see the man taking soundings, but he heard him and knew he was on the front end of the barge. The boat passed at fair speed, and it cheered Ken. For he certainly ought to be able to take a rowboat where a steamboat had passed. And, besides, he must be getting somewhere near the little village of Panuco.

He poled off the bar and along the breakwater to the channel. It was narrow and swift. He wondered how the pilot of the steamboat had navigated in the gloom. He slipped down-stream, presently to find himself once more in a wide river. Refreshed by his sleep and encouraged by the meeting with the steamboat, Ken settled down to steady rowing.

The stars paled, the mist thickened, fog obscured the water and shore; then all turned gray, lightened, and dawn broke. The sun burst out. Ken saw thatched huts high on the banks and occasionally natives. This encouraged him all the more.

He was not hungry, but he was sick for a drink. He had to fight himself to keep from drinking the dirty river-water. How different it was here from the clear green of the upper Santa Rosa! Ken would have given his best gun for one juicy orange. George was restless and rolling about, calling for water; Hal lay in slumber or stupor; and Pepe sat up. He was a sick-looking fellow, but he was better; and that cheered Ken as nothing yet had.

Ken beached the boat on a sandy shore, and once again forced down a little rice and cocoa. Pepe would not eat, yet he drank a little. George was burning up with fever, and drank a full cup. Hal did not stir, and Ken thought it best to let him lie.

As Ken resumed the journey the next thing to attract his attention was a long canoe moored below one of the thatched huts. This afforded him great satisfaction. At least he had passed the jungle wilderness, where there was nothing that even suggested civilization. In the next few miles he noticed several canoes and as many natives. Then he passed a canoe that was paddled by two half-naked bronze Indians. Pepe hailed them, but either they were too unfriendly to reply or they did not understand him.

Some distance below Pepe espied a banana grove, and he motioned Ken to row ashore. Ken did so with pleasure at the thought of getting some fresh fruit. There was a canoe moored to the roots of a tree and a path leading up the steep bank. Pepe got out and laboriously toiled up the bare path. He was gone a good while.

Presently Ken heard shouts, then the bang of a lightly loaded gun, then yells from Pepe.

“What on earth!” cried Ken, looking up in affright.

Pepe appeared with his arms full of red bananas. He jumped and staggered down the path and almost fell into the boat. But he hung on to the bananas.

“Santa Maria!” gasped Pepe, pointing to little bloody spots on the calf of his leg.

“Pepe, you’ve been shot!” ejaculated Ken. “You stole the fruit — somebody shot you!”

Pepe howled his affirmative. Ken was angry at himself, angrier at Pepe, and angriest at the native who had done the shooting. With a strong shove Ken put the boat out and then rowed hard down-stream. As he rounded a bend a hundred yards below he saw three natives come tumbling down the path. They had a gun. They leaped into the canoe. They meant pursuit.

“Say, but this is a pretty kettle of fish!” muttered Ken, and he bent to the oars.

Of course Pepe had been in the wrong. He should have paid for the bananas or asked for them. All the same, Ken was not in any humor to be fooled with by excitable natives. He had a sick brother in the boat and meant to get that lad out of the jungle as quickly as will and strength could do it. He certainly did not intend to be stopped by a few miserable Indians angry over the loss of a few bananas. If it had not been for the gun, Ken would have stopped long enough to pay for the fruit. But he could not risk it now. So he pulled a strong stroke down-stream.

The worst of the matter developed when Pepe peeled one of the bananas. It was too green to eat.

Presently the native canoe hove in sight round the bend. All three men were paddling. They made the long craft fly through the water. Ken saw instantly that they would overhaul him in a long race, and this added to his resentment. Pepe looked back and jabbered and shook his brawny fists at the natives. Ken was glad to see that the long stretch of river below did not show a canoe or hut along the banks. He preferred to be overhauled, if he had to be, in a rather lonely spot.

It was wonderful how those natives propelled that log canoe. And when one of the three dropped his paddle to pick up the gun, the speed of the canoe seemed not to diminish. They knew the channels, and so gained on Ken. He had to pick the best he could choose at short notice, and sometimes he chose poorly.

Two miles or more below the bend the natives with the gun deliberately fired, presumably at Pepe. The shot scattered and skipped along the water and did not come near the boat. Nevertheless, as the canoe was gaining and the crazy native was reloading, Ken saw he would soon be within range. Something had to be done.

Ken wondered if he could not frighten those natives. They had probably never heard the quick reports of a repeating rifle, let alone the stinging cracks of an automatic. Ken decided it would be worth trying. But he must have a chance to get the gun out of its case and load it.

That chance came presently. The natives, in paddling diagonally across a narrow channel, ran aground in the sand. They were fast for only a few moments, but in that time Ken had got out the little rifle and loaded it.

Pepe’s dark face turned a dirty white, and his eyes dilated. He imagined Ken was going to kill some of his countrymen. But Pepe never murmured. He rubbed the place in his leg where he had been shot, and looked back.

Ken rowed on, now leisurely. There was a hot anger within him, but he had it in control. He knew what he was about. Again the native fired, and again his range was short. The distance was perhaps two hundred yards.

Ken waited until the canoe, in crossing one of the many narrow places, was broadside toward him. Then he raised the automatic. There were at least ten feet in the middle of the canoe where it was safe for him to hit without harm to the natives. And there he aimed. The motion of his boat made it rather hard to keep the sights right. He was cool, careful; he aimed low, between gunwale and the water, and steadily he pulled the trigger — once, twice, three times, four, five.

The steel-jacketed bullets “spoued” on the water and “cracked” into the canoe. They evidently split both gunwales low down at the water-line. The yelling, terror-stricken natives plunged about, and what with their actions and the great split in the middle the canoe filled and sank. The natives were not over their depth; that was plainly evident. Moreover, it was equally evident that they dared not wade in the quicksand. So they swam to the shallower water, and there, like huge turtles, floundered toward the shore.

CHAPTER XXIII

OUT OF THE JUNGLE

BEFORE THE NATIVES had reached the shore they were hidden from Ken’s sight by leaning cypress-trees. Ken, however, had no fear for their safety. He was sorry to cause the Indians’ loss of a gun and a canoe; nevertheless, he was not far from echoing Pepe’s repeated: “Bueno! Bueno! Bueno!”

Upon examination Ken found two little bloody holes in the muscles of Pepe’s leg. A single shot had passed through. Ken bathed the wounds with an antiseptic lotion and bound them with clean bandages.

Pepe appeared to be pretty weak, so Ken did not ask him to take the oars. Then, pulling with long, steady stroke, Ken set out to put a long stretch between him and the angry natives. The current was swift, and Ken made five miles or more an hour. He kept that pace for three hours without a rest. And then he gave out. It seemed that all at once he weakened. His back bore an immense burden. His arms were lead, and his hands were useless. There was an occasional mist or veil before his sight. He was wet, hot, breathless, numb. But he knew he was safe from pursuit. So he rested and let the boat drift.

George sat up, green in the face, a most miserable-looking boy. But that he could sit up at all was hopeful.

“Oh, my head!” he moaned. “Is there anything I can drink? My mouth is dry — pasted shut.”

Ken had two lemons he had been saving. He cut one in halves and divided it between Pepe and George. The relief the sour lemon afforded both showed Ken how wise he had been to save the lemons. Then he roused Hal, and, lifting the lad’s head, made him drink a little of the juice. Hal was a sick boy, too weak to sit up without help.

“Don’t — you worry — Ken,” he said. “I’m going — to be — all right.”

Hal was still fighting.

Ken readjusted the palm-leaf shelter over the boys so as to shade them effectually from the hot sun, and then he went back to the oars.

As he tried once more to row, Ken was reminded of the terrible lassitude that had overtaken him the day he had made the six-hour climb out of the Grand Canyon. The sensation now was worse, but Ken had others depending upon his exertions, and that spurred him to the effort which otherwise would have been impossible.

It was really not rowing that Ken accomplished. It was a weary puttering with oars he could not lift, handles he could not hold. At best he managed to guide the boat into the swiftest channels. Whenever he felt that he was just about to collapse, then he would look at Hal’s pale face. That would revive him. So the hot hours dragged by.

They came, after several miles, upon more huts and natives. And farther down they met canoes on the river. Pepe interrogated the natives. According to George, who listened, Panuco was far, far away, many kilometers. This was most disheartening. Another native said the village was just round the next bend. This was most happy information. But it turned out to be a lie. There was no village around any particular bend — nothing save bare banks for miles. The stretches of the river were long, and bends far apart.

Ken fell asleep. When he awoke he found Pepe at the oars. Watching him, Ken fancied he was recovering, and was overjoyed.

About four o’clock in the afternoon Pepe rowed ashore and beached the boat at the foot of a trail leading up to a large bamboo and thatch hut. This time Ken thought it well to accompany Pepe. And as he climbed the path he found his legs stiffer and shakier than ever before.

Ken saw a cleared space in which were several commodious huts, gardens, and flowers. There was a grassy yard in which little naked children were playing with tame deer and tiger-cats. Parrots were screeching, and other tame birds fluttered about. It appeared a real paradise to Ken.

Two very kindly disposed and wondering native women made them welcome. Then Ken and Pepe went down to the boat and carried Hal up, and went back for George.

It developed that the native women knew just what to do for the fever-stricken boys. They made some kind of a native drink for them, and after that gave them hot milk and chicken and rice soup. George improved rapidly, and Hal brightened a little and showed signs of gathering strength.

Ken could not eat until he had something to quench his thirst. Upon inquiring, Pepe found that the natives used the river-water. Ken could not drink that. Then Pepe pointed out an orange-tree, and Ken made a dive for it. The ground was littered with oranges. Collecting an armful, Ken sat under the tree and with wild haste began to squeeze the juice into his mouth. Never had anything before tasted so cool, so sweet, so life-giving! He felt a cool, wet sensation steal all through his body. He never knew till that moment how really wonderful and precious an orange could be. He thought that as he would hate mourning turtle-doves all the rest of his life, so he would love the sight and smell and taste of oranges. And he demolished twenty-two before he satisfied his almost insatiable thirst. After that the chicken and rice made him feel like a new boy.

Then Ken made beds under a kind of porch, and he lay down in one, stretched out languidly and gratefully, as if he never intended to move again, and his eyes seemed to be glued shut.

When he awoke the sun was shining in his face. When he had gone to bed it had been shining at his back. He consulted his watch. He had slept seventeen hours.

When he got up and found Pepe as well as before he had been taken with the fever and George on his feet and Hal awake and actually smiling, Ken experienced a sensation of unutterable thankfulness. A terrible burden slipped from his shoulders. For a moment he felt a dimming of his eyes and a lump in his throat.

“How about you, Ken, old man?” inquired Hal, with a hint of his usual spirit.

“Wal, youngster, I reckon fer a man who’s been through some right pert happenin’s, I’m in tol’able shape,” drawled Ken.

“I’ll bet two dollars you’ve been up against it,” declared Hal, solemnly.

Then, as they sat to an appetizing breakfast, Ken gave them a brief account of the incidents of the two days and two nights when they were too ill to know anything.

It was a question whether George’s voluble eulogy of Ken’s feat or Hal’s silent, bright-eyed pride in his brother was the greater compliment.

Finally Hal said: “Won’t that tickle Jim Williams when we tell him how you split up the Indians’ canoe and spilled them into the river?”

Then Ken conceived the idea of climbing into the giant ceiba that stood high on the edge of the bluff. It was hard work, but he accomplished it, and from a fork in the top-most branches he looked out. That was a warm, rich, wonderful scene. Ken felt that he would never forget it. His interest now, however, was not so much in its beauty and wildness. His keen eye followed the river as it wound away into the jungle, and when he could no longer see the bright ribbon of water he followed its course by the line of magnificent trees. It was possible to trace the meandering course of the river clear to the rise of the mountains, dim and blue in the distance. And from here Ken made more observations and notes.

As he went over in his mind the map and notes and report he had prepared he felt that he had made good. He had explored and mapped more than a hundred miles of wild jungle river. He felt confident that he had earned the trip to England and the German forests. He might win a hunting trip on the vast uplands of British East Africa. But he felt also that the reward of his uncle’s and his father’s pride would be more to him. That was a great moment for Ken Ward. And there was yet much more that he could do to make this exploring trip a success.

When he joined the others he found that Pepe had learned that the village of Panuco was distant a day or a night by canoe. How many miles or kilometers Pepe could not learn. Ken decided it would be best to go on at once. It was not easy to leave that pleasant place, with its music of parrots and other birds, and the tiger-cats that played like kittens, and the deer that ate from the hand. The women would accept no pay, so Ken made them presents.

Once more embarked, Ken found his mood reverting to that of the last forty-eight hours. He could not keep cheerful. The river was dirty and the smell sickening. The sun was like the open door of a furnace. And Ken soon discovered he was tired, utterly tired.

That day was a repetition of the one before, hotter, wearier, and the stretches of river were longer, and the natives met in canoes were stolidly ignorant of distance. The mourning of turtle-doves almost drove Ken wild. There were miles and miles of willows, and every tree was full of melancholy doves. At dusk the boys halted on a sand-bar, too tired to cook a dinner, and sprawled in the warm sand to sleep like logs.

In the morning they brightened up a little, for surely just around the bend they would come to Panuco. Pepe rowed faithfully on, and bend after bend lured Ken with deceit. He was filled with weariness and disgust, so tired he could hardly lift his hand, so sleepy he could scarcely keep his eyes open. He hated the wide, glassy stretches of river and the muddy banks and dusty cattle.

At noon they came unexpectedly upon a cluster of thatched huts, to find that they made up the village of Panuco. Ken was sick, for he had expected a little town where they could get some drinking-water and hire a launch to speed them down to Tampico. This appeared little more than the other places he had passed, and he climbed up the bank wearily, thinking of the long fifty miles still to go.

But Panuco was bigger and better than it looked from the river. The boys found a clean, comfortable inn, where they dined well, and learned to their joy that a coach left in an hour for Tamos to meet the five-o’clock train to Tampico.

They hired a mozo to row the boat to Tampico and, carrying the lighter things, boarded the coach, and, behind six mules, were soon bowling over a good level road.

It was here that the spirit of Ken’s mood again changed, and somehow seemed subtly conveyed to the others. The gloom faded away as Ken had seen the mist-clouds dissolve in the morning sunlight. It was the end of another wild trip. Hal was ill, but a rest and proper care would soon bring him around. Ken had some trophies and pictures, but he also had memories. And he believed he had acquired an accurate knowledge of the jungle and its wild nature, and he had mapped the river from Micas Falls to Panuco.

“Well, it certainly did come to us, didn’t it?” asked George, naively, for the hundredth time. “Didn’t I tell you? By gosh, I can’t remember what did come off. But we had a dandy time.”

“Great!” replied Ken. “I had more than I wanted. I’ll never spring another stunt like this one!”

Hal gazed smilingly at his brother.

“Bah! Ken Ward, bring on your next old trip!”

Which proved decidedly that Hal was getting better and that he alone understood his brother.

Pepe listened and rubbed his big hands, and there was a light in his dark eyes.

Ken laughed. It was good to feel happy just then; it was enough to feel safe and glad in the present, with responsibility removed, without a thought of the future.

Yet, when some miles across country he saw the little town of Tamos shining red-roofed against the sky, he came into his own again. The old calling, haunting love of wild places and wild nature returned, and with dreamy eyes he looked out. He saw the same beauty and life and wildness. Beyond the glimmering lagoons stretched the dim, dark jungle. A flock of flamingoes showed pink across the water. Ducks dotted the weedy marshes. And low down on the rosy horizon a long curved line of wild geese sailed into the sunset.

When the boys arrived at Tampico and George had secured comfortable lodgings for them, the first thing Ken did was to put Hal to bed. It required main strength to do this. Ken was not taking any chances with tropical fever, and he sent for a doctor.

It was not clear whether the faces Hal made were at the little dried-up doctor or at the medicine he administered. However, it was very clear that Hal made fun of him and grew bolder the more he believed the man could not understand English.

Ken liked the silent, kindly physician, and remonstrated with Hal, and often, just to keep Hal’s mind occupied, he would talk of the university and baseball, topics that were absorbing to the boy.

And one day, as the doctor was leaving, he turned to Ken with a twinkle in his eyes and said in perfect English: “I won’t need to come any more.”

Hal’s jaw began to drop.

“Your brother is all right,” went on the doctor. “But he’s a fresh kid, and he’ll never make the Wayne Varsity — or a good explorer, either — till he gets over that freshness. I’m a Wayne man myself. Class of ‘82. Good day, boys.”

Ken Ward was astounded. “By George! What do you think of that? He’s a Wayne med. I’ll have to look him up. And, Hal, he was just right about you.”

Hal looked extremely crestfallen and remorseful.

“I’m always getting jars.”

It took a whole day for him to recover his usual spirits.

Ken had promptly sent the specimens and his notes to his uncle, and as the days passed the boys began to look anxiously for some news. In ten days Hal was as well as ever, and then the boys had such sport with the tarpon and big sharks and alligator-gars that they almost forgot about the rewards they had striven so hard for and hoped to win. But finally, when the mail arrived from home, they were at once happy and fearful. George was with them that evening, and shared their excitement and suspense. Hal’s letters were from his mother and his sister, and they were read first. Judge Ward’s letter to Ken was fatherly and solicitous, but brief. He gave the boys six more weeks, cautioned them to be sensible and to profit by their opportunity, and he inclosed a bank-draft. Not a word about rewards!

Ken’s fingers trembled a little as he tore open the uncle’s letter. He read it aloud:

Dear Ken, — Congratulations! You’ve done well. You win the trip to Africa. Hal’s work also was good — several specimens accepted by the Smithsonian. I’ll back you for the Yucatan trip. Will send letters to the American consul at Progreso, and arrange for you to meet the Austrian archæologist Maler, who I hope will take you in hand.

I want you to make a study of some of the ruins of Yucatan, which I believe are as wonderful as any in Egypt. I advise you to make this trip short and to the point, for there are indications of coming revolution throughout Mexico.

With best wishes,

Uncle G.

The old varsity cheer rang out from Ken, and Hal began a war-dance. Then both boys pounced upon George, and for a few moments made life miserable for him.

“And I can’t go with you!” he exclaimed, sorrowfully.

Both Ken and Hal shared his disappointment. But presently George brightened up. The smile came back which he always wore when prophesying the uncertain adventures of the future.

“Well, anyway, I’ll be safe home. And you fellows! You’ll be getting yours when you’re lost in the wilderness of Yucatan!”

THE END

Desert Gold

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

PROLOGUE

I

A FACE HAUNTED Cameron — a woman’s face. It was there in the white heart of the dying campfire; it hung in the shadows that hovered over the flickering light; it drifted in the darkness beyond.

This hour, when the day had closed and the lonely desert night set in with its dead silence, was one in which Cameron’s mind was thronged with memories of a time long past — of a home back in Peoria, of a woman he had wronged and lost, and loved too late. He was a prospector for gold, a hunter of solitude, a lover of the drear, rock-ribbed infinitude, because he wanted to be alone to remember.

A sound disturbed Cameron’s reflections. He bent his head listening. A soft wind fanned the paling embers, blew sparks and white ashes and thin smoke away into the enshrouding circle of blackness. His burro did not appear to be moving about. The quiet split to the cry of a coyote. It rose strange, wild, mournful — not the howl of a prowling upland beast baying the campfire or barking at a lonely prospector, but the wail of a wolf, full-voiced, crying out the meaning of the desert and the night. Hunger throbbed in it — hunger for a mate, for offspring, for life. When it ceased, the terrible desert silence smote Cameron, and the cry echoed in his soul. He and that wandering wolf were brothers.

Then a sharp clink of metal on stone and soft pads of hoofs in sand prompted Cameron to reach for his gun, and to move out of the light of the waning campfire. He was somewhere along the wild border line between Sonora and Arizona; and the prospector who dared the heat and barrenness of that region risked other dangers sometimes as menacing.

Figures darker than the gloom approached and took shape, and in the light turned out to be those of a white man and a heavily packed burro.

“Hello there,” the man called, as he came to a halt and gazed about him. “I saw your fire. May I make camp here?”

Cameron came forth out of the shadow and greeted his visitor, whom he took for a prospector like himself. Cameron resented the breaking of his lonely campfire vigil, but he respected the law of the desert.

The stranger thanked him, and then slipped the pack from his burro. Then he rolled out his pack and began preparations for a meal. His movements were slow and methodical.

Cameron watched him, still with resentment, yet with a curious and growing interest. The campfire burst into a bright blaze, and by its light Cameron saw a man whose gray hair somehow did not seem to make him old, and whose stooped shoulders did not detract from an impression of rugged strength.

“Find any mineral?” asked Cameron, presently.

His visitor looked up quickly, as if startled by the sound of a human voice. He replied, and then the two men talked a little. But the stranger evidently preferred silence. Cameron understood that. He laughed grimly and bent a keener gaze upon the furrowed, shadowy face. Another of those strange desert prospectors in whom there was some relentless driving power besides the lust for gold! Cameron felt that between this man and himself there was a subtle affinity, vague and undefined, perhaps born of the divination that here was a desert wanderer like himself, perhaps born of a deeper, an unintelligible relation having its roots back in the past. A long-forgotten sensation stirred in Cameron’s breast, one so long forgotten that he could not recognize it. But it was akin to pain.

II

When he awakened he found, to his surprise, that his companion had departed. A trail in the sand led off to the north. There was no water in that direction. Cameron shrugged his shoulders; it was not his affair; he had his own problems. And straightway he forgot his strange visitor.

Cameron began his day, grateful for the solitude that was now unbroken, for the canyon-furrowed and cactus-spired scene that now showed no sign of life. He traveled southwest, never straying far from the dry stream bed; and in a desultory way, without eagerness, he hunted for signs of gold.

The work was toilsome, yet the periods of rest in which he indulged were not taken because of fatigue. He rested to look, to listen, to feel. What the vast silent world meant to him had always been a mystical thing, which he felt in all its incalculable power, but never understood.

That day, while it was yet light, and he was digging in a moist white-bordered wash for water, he was brought sharply up by hearing the crack of hard hoofs on stone. There down the canyon came a man and a burro. Cameron recognized them.

“Hello, friend,” called the man, halting. “Our trails crossed again. That’s good.”

“Hello,” replied Cameron, slowly. “Any mineral sign to-day?”

“No.”

They made camp together, ate their frugal meal, smoked a pipe, and rolled in their blankets without exchanging many words. In the morning the same reticence, the same aloofness characterized the manner of both. But Cameron’s companion, when he had packed his burro and was ready to start, faced about and said: “We might stay together, if it’s all right with you.”

“I never take a partner,” replied Cameron.

“You’re alone; I’m alone,” said the other, mildly. “It’s a big place. If we find gold there’ll be enough for two.”

“I don’t go down into the desert for gold alone,” rejoined Cameron, with a chill note in his swift reply.

His companion’s deep-set, luminous eyes emitted a singular flash. It moved Cameron to say that in the years of his wandering he had met no man who could endure equally with him the blasting heat, the blinding dust storms, the wilderness of sand and rock and lava and cactus, the terrible silence and desolation of the desert. Cameron waved a hand toward the wide, shimmering, shadowy descent of plain and range. “I may strike through the Sonora Desert. I may head for Pinacate or north for the Colorado Basin. You are an old man.”

“I don’t know the country, but to me one place is the same as another,” replied his companion. For moments he seemed to forget himself, and swept his far-reaching gaze out over the colored gulf of stone and sand. Then with gentle slaps he drove his burro in behind Cameron. “Yes, I’m old. I’m lonely, too. It’s come to me just lately. But, friend, I can still travel, and for a few days my company won’t hurt you.”

“Have it your way,” said Cameron.

They began a slow march down into the desert. At sunset they camped under the lee of a low mesa. Cameron was glad his comrade had the Indian habit of silence. Another day’s travel found the prospectors deep in the wilderness. Then there came a breaking of reserve, noticeable in the elder man, almost imperceptibly gradual in Cameron. Beside the meager mesquite campfire this gray-faced, thoughtful old prospector would remove his black pipe from his mouth to talk a little; and Cameron would listen, and sometimes unlock his lips to speak a word. And so, as Cameron began to respond to the influence of a desert less lonely than habitual, he began to take keener note of his comrade, and found him different from any other he had ever encountered in the wilderness. This man never grumbled at the heat, the glare, the driving sand, the sour water, the scant fare. During the daylight hours he was seldom idle. At night he sat dreaming before the fire or paced to and fro in the gloom. He slept but little, and that long after Cameron had had his own rest. He was tireless, patient, brooding.

Cameron’s awakened interest brought home to him the realization that for years he had shunned companionship. In those years only three men had wandered into the desert with him, and these had left their bones to bleach in the shifting sands. Cameron had not cared to know their secrets. But the more he studied this latest comrade the more he began to suspect that he might have missed something in the others. In his own driving passion to take his secret into the limitless abode of silence and desolation, where he could be alone with it, he had forgotten that life dealt shocks to other men. Somehow this silent comrade reminded him.

One afternoon late, after they had toiled up a white, winding wash of sand and gravel, they came upon a dry waterhole. Cameron dug deep into the sand, but without avail. He was turning to retrace weary steps back to the last water when his comrade asked him to wait. Cameron watched him search in his pack and bring forth what appeared to be a small, forked branch of a peach tree. He grasped the prongs of the fork and held them before him with the end standing straight out, and then he began to walk along the stream bed. Cameron, at first amused, then amazed, then pitying, and at last curious, kept pace with the prospector. He saw a strong tension of his comrade’s wrists, as if he was holding hard against a considerable force. The end of the peach branch began to quiver and turn. Cameron reached out a hand to touch it, and was astounded at feeling a powerful vibrant force pulling the branch downward. He felt it as a magnetic shock. The branch kept turning, and at length pointed to the ground.

“Dig here,” said the prospector.

“What!” ejaculated Cameron. Had the man lost his mind?

Then Cameron stood by while his comrade dug in the sand. Three feet he dug — four — five, and the sand grew dark, then moist. At six feet water began to seep through.

“Get the little basket in my pack,” he said.

Cameron complied, and saw his comrade drop the basket into the deep hole, where it kept the sides from caving in and allowed the water to seep through. While Cameron watched, the basket filled. Of all the strange incidents of his desert career this was the strangest. Curiously he picked up the peach branch and held it as he had seen it held. The thing, however, was dead in his hands.

“I see you haven’t got it,” remarked his comrade. “Few men have.”

“Got what?” demanded Cameron.

“A power to find water that way. Back in Illinois an old German used to do that to locate wells. He showed me I had the same power. I can’t explain. But you needn’t look so dumfounded. There’s nothing supernatural about it.”

“You mean it’s a simple fact — that some men have a magnetism, a force or power to find water as you did?”

“Yes. It’s not unusual on the farms back in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania. The old German I spoke of made money traveling round with his peach fork.”

“What a gift for a man in the desert!”

Cameron’s comrade smiled — the second time in all those days.

They entered a region where mineral abounded, and their march became slower. Generally they took the course of a wash, one on each side, and let the burros travel leisurely along nipping at the bleached blades of scant grass, or at sage or cactus, while they searched in the canyons and under the ledges for signs of gold. When they found any rock that hinted of gold they picked off a piece and gave it a chemical test. The search was fascinating. They interspersed the work with long, restful moments when they looked afar down the vast reaches and smoky shingles to the line of dim mountains. Some impelling desire, not all the lure of gold, took them to the top of mesas and escarpments; and here, when they had dug and picked, they rested and gazed out at the wide prospect. Then, as the sun lost its heat and sank lowering to dent its red disk behind far-distant spurs, they halted in a shady canyon or likely spot in a dry wash and tried for water. When they found it they unpacked, gave drink to the tired burros, and turned them loose. Dead mesquite served for the campfire. While the strange twilight deepened into weird night they sat propped against stones, with eyes on the dying embers of the fire, and soon they lay on the sand with the light of white stars on their dark faces.

Each succeeding day and night Cameron felt himself more and more drawn to this strange man. He found that after hours of burning toil he had insensibly grown nearer to his comrade. He reflected that after a few weeks in the desert he had always become a different man. In civilization, in the rough mining camps, he had been a prey to unrest and gloom. But once down on the great billowing sweep of this lonely world, he could look into his unquiet soul without bitterness. Did not the desert magnify men? Cameron believed that wild men in wild places, fighting cold, heat, starvation, thirst, barrenness, facing the elements in all their ferocity, usually retrograded, descended to the savage, lost all heart and soul and became mere brutes. Likewise he believed that men wandering or lost in the wilderness often reversed that brutal order of life and became noble, wonderful, super-human. So now he did not marvel at a slow stir stealing warmer along his veins, and at the premonition that perhaps he and this man, alone on the desert, driven there by life’s mysterious and remorseless motive, were to see each other through God’s eyes.

His companion was one who thought of himself last. It humiliated Cameron that in spite of growing keenness he could not hinder him from doing more than an equal share of the day’s work. The man was mild, gentle, quiet, mostly silent, yet under all his softness he seemed to be made of the fiber of steel. Cameron could not thwart him. Moreover, he appeared to want to find gold for Cameron, not for himself. Cameron’s hands always trembled at the turning of rock that promised gold; he had enough of the prospector’s passion for fortune to thrill at the chance of a strike. But the other never showed the least trace of excitement.

One night they were encamped at the head of a canyon. The day had been exceedingly hot, and long after sundown the radiation of heat from the rocks persisted. A desert bird whistled a wild, melancholy note from a dark cliff, and a distant coyote wailed mournfully. The stars shone white until the huge moon rose to burn out all their whiteness. And on this night Cameron watched his comrade, and yielded to interest he had not heretofore voiced.

“Pardner, what drives you into the desert?”

“Do I seem to be a driven man?”

“No. But I feel it. Do you come to forget?”

“Yes.”

“Ah!” softly exclaimed Cameron. Always he seemed to have known that. He said no more. He watched the old man rise and begin his nightly pace to and fro, up and down. With slow, soft tread, forward and back, tirelessly and ceaselessly, he paced that beat. He did not look up at the stars or follow the radiant track of the moon along the canyon ramparts. He hung his head. He was lost in another world. It was a world which the lonely desert made real. He looked a dark, sad, plodding figure, and somehow impressed Cameron with the helplessness of men.

Cameron grew acutely conscious of the pang in his own breast, of the fire in his heart, the strife and torment of his passion-driven soul. He had come into the desert to remember a woman. She appeared to him then as she had looked when first she entered his life — a golden-haired girl, blue-eyed, white-skinned, red-lipped, tall and slender and beautiful. He had never forgotten, and an old, sickening remorse knocked at his heart. He rose and climbed out of the canyon and to the top of a mesa, where he paced to and fro and looked down into the weird and mystic shadows, like the darkness of his passion, and farther on down the moon track and the glittering stretches that vanished in the cold, blue horizon. The moon soared radiant and calm, the white stars shone serene. The vault of heaven seemed illimitable and divine. The desert surrounded him, silver-streaked and black-mantled, a chaos of rock and sand, silent, austere, ancient, always waiting. It spoke to Cameron. It was a naked corpse, but it had a soul. In that wild solitude the white stars looked down upon him pitilessly and pityingly. They had shone upon a desert that might once have been alive and was now dead, and might again throb with life, only to die. It was a terrible ordeal for him to stand alone and realize that he was only a man facing eternity. But that was what gave him strength to endure. Somehow he was a part of it all, some atom in that vastness, somehow necessary to an inscrutable purpose, something indestructible in that desolate world of ruin and death and decay, something perishable and changeable and growing under all the fixity of heaven. In that endless, silent hall of desert there was a spirit; and Cameron felt hovering near him what he imagined to be phantoms of peace.

He returned to camp and sought his comrade.

“I reckon we’re two of a kind,” he said. “It was a woman who drove me into the desert. But I come to remember. The desert’s the only place I can do that.”

“Was she your wife?” asked the elder man.

“No.”

A long silence ensued. A cool wind blew up the canyon, sifting the sand through the dry sage, driving away the last of the lingering heat. The campfire wore down to a ruddy ashen heap.

“I had a daughter,” said Cameron’s comrade. “She lost her mother at birth. And I — I didn’t know how to bring up a girl. She was pretty and gay. It was the — the old story.”

His words were peculiarly significant to Cameron. They distressed him. He had been wrapped up in his remorse. If ever in the past he had thought of any one connected with the girl he had wronged he had long forgotten. But the consequences of such wrong were far-reaching. They struck at the roots of a home. Here in the desert he was confronted by the spectacle of a splendid man, a father, wasting his life because he could not forget — because there was nothing left to live for. Cameron understood better now why his comrade was drawn by the desert.

“Well, tell me more?” asked Cameron, earnestly.

“It was the old, old story. My girl was pretty and free. The young bucks ran after her. I guess she did not run away from them. And I was away a good deal — working in another town. She was in love with a wild fellow. I knew nothing of it till too late. He was engaged to marry her. But he didn’t come back. And when the disgrace became plain to all, my girl left home. She went West. After a while I heard from her. She was well — working — living for her baby. A long time passed. I had no ties. I drifted West. Her lover had also gone West. In those days everybody went West. I trailed him, intending to kill him. But I lost his trail. Neither could I find any trace of her. She had moved on, driven, no doubt, by the hound of her past. Since then I have taken to the wilds, hunting gold on the desert.”

“Yes, it’s the old, old story, only sadder, I think,” said Cameron; and his voice was strained and unnatural. “Pardner, what Illinois town was it you hailed from?”

“Peoria.”

“And your — your name?” went on Cameron huskily.

“Warren — Jonas Warren.”

That name might as well have been a bullet. Cameron stood erect, motionless, as men sometimes stand momentarily when shot straight through the heart. In an instant, when thoughts resurged like blinding flashes of lightning through his mind, he was a swaying, quivering, terror-stricken man. He mumbled something hoarsely and backed into the shadow. But he need not have feared discovery, however surely his agitation might have betrayed him. Warren sat brooding over the campfire, oblivious of his comrade, absorbed in the past.

Cameron swiftly walked away in the gloom, with the blood thrumming thick in his ears, whispering over and over:

“Merciful God! Nell was his daughter!”

III

As thought and feeling multiplied, Cameron was overwhelmed. Beyond belief, indeed, was it that out of the millions of men in the world two who had never seen each other could have been driven into the desert by memory of the same woman. It brought the past so close. It showed Cameron how inevitably all his spiritual life was governed by what had happened long ago. That which made life significant to him was a wandering in silent places where no eye could see him with his secret. Some fateful chance had thrown him with the father of the girl he had wrecked. It was incomprehensible; it was terrible. It was the one thing of all possible happenings in the world of chance that both father and lover would have found unendurable.

Cameron’s pain reached to despair when he felt this relation between Warren and himself. Something within him cried out to him to reveal his identity. Warren would kill him; but it was not fear of death that put Cameron on the rack. He had faced death too often to be afraid. It was the thought of adding torture to this long-suffering man. All at once Cameron swore that he would not augment Warren’s trouble, or let him stain his hands with blood. He would tell the truth of Nell’s sad story and his own, and make what amends he could.

Then Cameron’s thought shifted from father to daughter. She was somewhere beyond the dim horizon line. In those past lonely hours by the campfire his fancy had tortured him with pictures of Nell. But his remorseful and cruel fancy had lied to him. Nell had struggled upward out of menacing depths. She had reconstructed a broken life. And now she was fighting for the name and happiness of her child. Little Nell! Cameron experienced a shuddering ripple in all his being — the physical rack of an emotion born of a new and strange consciousness.

As Cameron gazed out over the blood-red, darkening desert suddenly the strife in his soul ceased. The moment was one of incalculable change, in which his eyes seemed to pierce the vastness of cloud and range, and mystery of gloom and shadow — to see with strong vision the illimitable space before him. He felt the grandeur of the desert, its simplicity, its truth. He had learned at last the lesson it taught. No longer strange was his meeting and wandering with Warren. Each had marched in the steps of destiny; and as the lines of their fates had been inextricably tangled in the years that were gone, so now their steps had crossed and turned them toward one common goal. For years they had been two men marching alone, answering to an inward driving search, and the desert had brought them together. For years they had wandered alone in silence and solitude, where the sun burned white all day and the stars burned white all night, blindly following the whisper of a spirit. But now Cameron knew that he was no longer blind, and in this flash of revelation he felt that it had been given him to help Warren with his burden.

He returned to camp trying to evolve a plan. As always at that long hour when the afterglow of sunset lingered in the west, Warren plodded to and fro in the gloom. All night Cameron lay awake thinking.

In the morning, when Warren brought the burros to camp and began preparations for the usual packing, Cameron broke silence.

“Pardner, your story last night made me think. I want to tell you something about myself. It’s hard enough to be driven by sorrow for one you’ve loved, as you’ve been driven; but to suffer sleepless and eternal remorse for the ruin of one you’ve loved as I have suffered — that is hell.... Listen. In my younger days — it seems long now, yet it’s not so many years — I was wild. I wronged the sweetest and loveliest girl I ever knew. I went away not dreaming that any disgrace might come to her. Along about that time I fell into terrible moods — I changed — I learned I really loved her. Then came a letter I should have gotten months before. It told of her trouble — importuned me to hurry to save her. Half frantic with shame and fear, I got a marriage certificate and rushed back to her town. She was gone — had been gone for weeks, and her disgrace was known. Friends warned me to keep out of reach of her father. I trailed her — found her. I married her. But too late!... She would not live with me. She left me — I followed her west, but never found her.”

Warren leaned forward a little and looked into Cameron’s eyes, as if searching there for the repentance that might make him less deserving of a man’s scorn.

Cameron met the gaze unflinchingly, and again began to speak:

“You know, of course, how men out here somehow lose old names, old identities. It won’t surprise you much to learn my name really isn’t Cameron, as I once told you.”

Warren stiffened upright. It seemed that there might have been a blank, a suspension, between his grave interest and some strange mood to come.

Cameron felt his heart bulge and contract in his breast; all his body grew cold; and it took tremendous effort for him to make his lips form words.

“Warren, I’m the man you’re hunting. I’m Burton. I was Nell’s lover!”

The old man rose and towered over Cameron, and then plunged down upon him, and clutched at his throat with terrible stifling hands. The harsh contact, the pain awakened Cameron to his peril before it was too late. Desperate fighting saved him from being hurled to the ground and stamped and crushed. Warren seemed a maddened giant. There was a reeling, swaying, wrestling struggle before the elder man began to weaken. The Cameron, buffeted, bloody, half-stunned, panted for speech.

“Warren — hold on! Give me — a minute. I married Nell. Didn’t you know that?... I saved the child!”

Cameron felt the shock that vibrated through Warren. He repeated the words again and again. As if compelled by some resistless power, Warren released Cameron, and, staggering back, stood with uplifted, shaking hands. In his face was a horrible darkness.

“Warren! Wait — listen!” panted Cameron. “I’ve got that marriage certificate — I’ve had it by me all these years. I kept it — to prove to myself I did right.”

The old man uttered a broken cry.

Cameron stole off among the rocks. How long he absented himself or what he did he had no idea. When he returned Warren was sitting before the campfire, and once more he appeared composed. He spoke, and his voice had a deeper note; but otherwise he seemed as usual.

They packed the burros and faced the north together.

Cameron experienced a singular exaltation. He had lightened his comrade’s burden. Wonderfully it came to him that he had also lightened his own. From that hour it was not torment to think of Nell. Walking with his comrade through the silent places, lying beside him under the serene luminous light of the stars, Cameron began to feel the haunting presence of invisible things that were real to him — phantoms whispering peace. In the moan of the cool wind, in the silken seep of sifting sand, in the distant rumble of a slipping ledge, in the faint rush of a shooting star he heard these phantoms of peace coming with whispers of the long pain of men at the last made endurable. Even in the white noonday, under the burning sun, these phantoms came to be real to him. In the dead silence of the midnight hours he heard them breathing nearer on the desert wind — nature’s voices of motherhood, whispers of God, peace in the solitude.

IV

There came a morning when the sun shone angry and red through a dull, smoky haze.

“We’re in for sandstorms,” said Cameron.

They had scarcely covered a mile when a desert-wide, moaning, yellow wall of flying sand swooped down upon them. Seeking shelter in the lee of a rock, they waited, hoping the storm was only a squall, such as frequently whipped across the open places. The moan increased to a roar, and the dull red slowly dimmed, to disappear in the yellow pall, and the air grew thick and dark. Warren slipped the packs from the burros. Cameron feared the sandstorms had arrived some weeks ahead of their usual season.

The men covered their heads and patiently waited. The long hours dragged, and the storm increased in fury. Cameron and Warren wet scarfs with water from their canteens, and bound them round their faces, and then covered their heads. The steady, hollow bellow of flying sand went on. It flew so thickly that enough sifted down under the shelving rock to weight the blankets and almost bury the men. They were frequently compelled to shake off the sand to keep from being borne to the ground. And it was necessary to keep digging out the packs. The floor of their shelter gradually rose higher and higher. They tried to eat, and seemed to be grinding only sand between their teeth. They lost the count of time. They dared not sleep, for that would have meant being buried alive. The could only crouch close to the leaning rock, shake off the sand, blindly dig out their packs, and every moment gasp and cough and choke to fight suffocation.

The storm finally blew itself out. It left the prospectors heavy and stupid for want of sleep. Their burros had wandered away, or had been buried in the sand. Far as eye could reach the desert had marvelously changed; it was now a rippling sea of sand dunes. Away to the north rose the peak that was their only guiding mark. They headed toward it, carrying a shovel and part of their packs.

At noon the peak vanished in the shimmering glare of the desert. The prospectors pushed on, guided by the sun. In every wash they tried for water. With the forked peach branch in his hands Warren always succeeded in locating water. They dug, but it lay too deep. At length, spent and sore, they fell and slept through that night and part of the next day. Then they succeeded in getting water, and quenched their thirst, and filled the canteens, and cooked a meal.

The burning day found them in an interminably wide plain, where there was no shelter from the fierce sun. The men were exceedingly careful with their water, though there was absolute necessity of drinking a little every hour. Late in the afternoon they came to a canyon that they believed was the lower end of the one in which they had last found water. For hours they traveled toward its head, and, long after night had set, found what they sought. Yielding to exhaustion, they slept, and next day were loath to leave the waterhole. Cool night spurred them on with canteens full and renewed strength.

Morning told Cameron that they had turned back miles into the desert, and it was desert new to him. The red sun, the increasing heat, and especially the variety and large size of the cactus plants warned Cameron that he had descended to a lower level. Mountain peaks loomed on all sides, some near, others distant; and one, a blue spur, splitting the glaring sky far to the north, Cameron thought he recognized as a landmark. The ascent toward it was heartbreaking, not in steepness, but in its league-and-league-long monotonous rise. Cameron knew there was only one hope — to make the water hold out and never stop to rest. Warren began to weaken. Often he had to halt. The burning white day passed, and likewise the night, with its white stars shining so pitilessly cold and bright.

Cameron measured the water in his canteen by its weight. Evaporation by heat consumed as much as he drank. During one of the rests, when he had wetted his parched mouth and throat, he found opportunity to pour a little water from his canteen into Warren’s.

At first Cameron had curbed his restless activity to accommodate the pace of his elder comrade. But now he felt that he was losing something of his instinctive and passionate zeal to get out of the desert. The thought of water came to occupy his mind. He began to imagine that his last little store of water did not appreciably diminish. He knew he was not quite right in his mind regarding water; nevertheless, he felt this to be more of fact than fancy, and he began to ponder.

When next they rested he pretended to be in a kind of stupor; but he covertly watched Warren. The man appeared far gone, yet he had cunning. He cautiously took up Cameron’s canteen and poured water into it from his own.

This troubled Cameron. The old irritation at not being able to thwart Warren returned to him. Cameron reflected, and concluded that he had been unwise not to expect this very thing. Then, as his comrade dropped into weary rest, he lifted both canteens. If there were any water in Warren’s, it was only very little. Both men had been enduring the terrible desert thirst, concealing it, each giving his water to the other, and the sacrifice had been useless.

Instead of ministering to the parched throats of one or both, the water had evaporated. When Cameron made sure of this, he took one more drink, the last, and poured the little water left into Warren’s canteen. He threw his own away.

Soon afterward Warren discovered the loss.

“Where’s your canteen?” he asked.

“The heat was getting my water, so I drank what was left.”

“My son!” said Warren.

The day opened for them in a red and green hell of rock and cactus. Like a flame the sun scorched and peeled their faces. Warren went blind from the glare, and Cameron had to lead him. At last Warren plunged down, exhausted, in the shade of a ledge.

Cameron rested and waited, hopeless, with hot, weary eyes gazing down from the height where he sat. The ledge was the top step of a ragged gigantic stairway. Below stretched a sad, austere, and lonely valley. A dim, wide streak, lighter than the bordering gray, wound down the valley floor. Once a river had flowed there, leaving only a forlorn trace down the winding floor of this forlorn valley.

Movement on the part of Warren attracted Cameron’s attention. Evidently the old prospector had recovered his sight and some of his strength, for he had arisen, and now began to walk along the arroyo bed with his forked peach branch held before him. He had clung to the precious bit of wood. Cameron considered the prospect for water hopeless, because he saw that the arroyo had once been a canyon, and had been filled with sands by desert winds. Warren, however, stopped in a deep pit, and, cutting his canteen in half, began to use one side of it as a scoop. He scooped out a wide hollow, so wide that Cameron was certain he had gone crazy. Cameron gently urged him to stop, and then forcibly tried to make him. But these efforts were futile. Warren worked with slow, ceaseless, methodical movement. He toiled for what seemed hours. Cameron, seeing the darkening, dampening sand, realized a wonderful possibility of water, and he plunged into the pit with the other half of the canteen. Then both men toiled, round and round the wide hole, down deeper and deeper. The sand grew moist, then wet. At the bottom of the deep pit the sand coarsened, gave place to gravel. Finally water welled in, a stronger volume than Cameron ever remembered finding on the desert. It would soon fill the hole and run over. He marveled at the circumstance. The time was near the end of the dry season. Perhaps an underground stream flowed from the range behind down to the valley floor, and at this point came near to the surface. Cameron had heard of such desert miracles.

The finding of water revived Cameron’s flagging hopes. But they were short-lived. Warren had spend himself utterly.

“I’m done. Don’t linger,” he whispered. “My son, go — go!”

Then he fell. Cameron dragged him out of the sand pit to a sheltered place under the ledge. While sitting beside the failing man Cameron discovered painted images on the wall. Often in the desert he had found these evidences of a prehistoric people. Then, from long habit, he picked up a piece of rock and examined it. Its weight made him closely scrutinize it. The color was a peculiar black. He scraped through the black rust to find a piece of gold. Around him lay scattered heaps of black pebbles and bits of black, weathered rock and pieces of broken ledge, and they showed gold.

“Warren! Look! See it! Feel it! Gold!”

But Warren had never cared, and now he was too blind to see.

“Go — go!” he whispered.

Cameron gazed down the gray reaches of the forlorn valley, and something within him that was neither intelligence nor emotion — something inscrutably strange — impelled him to promise.

Then Cameron built up stone monuments to mark his gold strike. That done, he tarried beside the unconscious Warren. Moments passed — grew into hours. Cameron still had strength left to make an effort to get out of the desert. But that same inscrutable something which had ordered his strange involuntary promise to Warren held him beside his fallen comrade. He watched the white sun turn to gold, and then to red and sink behind mountains in the west. Twilight stole into the arroyo. It lingered, slowly turning to gloom. The vault of blue black lightened to the blinking of stars. Then fell the serene, silent, luminous desert night.

Cameron kept his vigil. As the long hours wore on he felt creep over him the comforting sense that he need not forever fight sleep. A wan glow flared behind the dark, uneven horizon, and a melancholy misshapen moon rose to make the white night one of shadows. Absolute silence claimed the desert. It was mute. Then that inscrutable something breathed to him, telling him when he was alone. He need not have looked at the dark, still face beside him.

Another face haunted Cameron’s — a woman’s face. It was there in the white moonlit shadows; it drifted in the darkness beyond; it softened, changed to that of a young girl, sweet, with the same dark, haunting eyes of her mother. Cameron prayed to that nameless thing within him, the spirit of something deep and mystical as life. He prayed to that nameless thing outside, of which the rocks and the sand, the spiked cactus and the ragged lava, the endless waste, with its vast star-fired mantle, were but atoms. He prayed for mercy to a woman — for happiness to her child. Both mother and daughter were close to him then. Time and distance were annihilated. He had faith — he saw into the future. The fateful threads of the past, so inextricably woven with his error, wound out their tragic length here in this forlorn desert.

Cameron then took a little tin box from his pocket, and, opening it, removed a folded certificate. He had kept a pen, and now he wrote something upon the paper, and in lieu of ink he wrote with blood. The moon afforded him enough light to see; and, having replaced the paper, he laid the little box upon a shelf of rock. It would remain there unaffected by dust, moisture, heat, time. How long had those painted images been there clear and sharp on the dry stone walls? There were no trails in that desert, and always there were incalculable changes. Cameron saw this mutable mood of nature — the sands would fly and seep and carve and bury; the floods would dig and cut; the ledges would weather in the heat and rain; the avalanches would slide; the cactus seeds would roll in the wind to catch in a niche and split the soil with thirsty roots. Years would pass. Cameron seemed to see them, too; and likewise destiny leading a child down into this forlorn waste, where she would find love and fortune, and the grave of her father.

Cameron covered the dark, still face of his comrade from the light of the waning moon.

That action was the severing of his hold on realities. They fell away from him in final separation. Vaguely, dreamily he seemed to behold his soul. Night merged into gray day; and night came again, weird and dark. Then up out of the vast void of the desert, from the silence and illimitableness, trooped his phantoms of peace. Majestically they formed around him, marshalling and mustering in ceremonious state, and moved to lay upon him their passionless serenity.

CHAPTER I

OLD FRIENDS

RICHARD GALE REFLECTED that his sojourn in the West had been what his disgusted father had predicted — idling here and there, with no objective point or purpose.

It was reflection such as this, only more serious and perhaps somewhat desperate, that had brought Gale down to the border. For some time the newspapers had been printing news of Mexican revolution, guerrilla warfare, United States cavalry patrolling the international line, American cowboys fighting with the rebels, and wild stories of bold raiders and bandits. But as opportunity, and adventure, too, had apparently given him a wide berth in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, he had struck southwest for the Arizona border, where he hoped to see some stirring life. He did not care very much what happened. Months of futile wandering in the hope of finding a place where he fitted had inclined Richard to his father’s opinion.

It was after dark one evening in early October when Richard arrived in Casita. He was surprised to find that it was evidently a town of importance. There was a jostling, jabbering, sombreroed crowd of Mexicans around the railroad station. He felt as if he were in a foreign country. After a while he saw several men of his nationality, one of whom he engaged to carry his luggage to a hotel. They walked up a wide, well-lighted street lined with buildings in which were bright windows. Of the many people encountered by Gale most were Mexicans. His guide explained that the smaller half of Casita lay in Arizona, the other half in Mexico, and of several thousand inhabitants the majority belonged on the southern side of the street, which was the boundary line. He also said that rebels had entered the town that day, causing a good deal of excitement.

Gale was almost at the end of his financial resources, which fact occasioned him to turn away from a pretentious hotel and to ask his guide for a cheaper lodging-house. When this was found, a sight of the loungers in the office, and also a desire for comfort, persuaded Gale to change his traveling-clothes for rough outing garb and boots.

“Well, I’m almost broke,” he soliloquized, thoughtfully. “The governor said I wouldn’t make any money. He’s right — so far. And he said I’d be coming home beaten. There he’s wrong. I’ve got a hunch that something ‘ll happen to me in this Greaser town.”

He went out into a wide, whitewashed, high-ceiled corridor, and from that into an immense room which, but for pool tables, bar, benches, would have been like a courtyard. The floor was cobblestoned, the walls were of adobe, and the large windows opened like doors. A blue cloud of smoke filled the place. Gale heard the click of pool balls and the clink of glasses along the crowded bar. Bare-legged, sandal-footed Mexicans in white rubbed shoulders with Mexicans mantled in black and red. There were others in tight-fitting blue uniforms with gold fringe or tassels at the shoulders. These men wore belts with heavy, bone-handled guns, and evidently were the rurales, or native policemen. There were black-bearded, coarse-visaged Americans, some gambling round the little tables, others drinking. The pool tables were the center of a noisy crowd of younger men, several of whom were unsteady on their feet. There were khaki-clad cavalrymen strutting in and out.

At one end of the room, somewhat apart from the general meelee, was a group of six men round a little table, four of whom were seated, the other two standing. These last two drew a second glance from Gale. The sharp-featured, bronzed faces and piercing eyes, the tall, slender, loosely jointed bodies, the quiet, easy, reckless air that seemed to be a part of the men — these things would plainly have stamped them as cowboys without the buckled sombreros, the colored scarfs, the high-topped, high-heeled boots with great silver-roweled spurs. Gale did not fail to note, also, that these cowboys wore guns, and this fact was rather a shock to his idea of the modern West. It caused him to give some credence to the rumors of fighting along the border, and he felt a thrill.

He satisfied his hunger in a restaurant adjoining, and as he stepped back into the saloon a man wearing a military cape jostled him. Apologies from both were instant. Gale was moving on when the other stopped short as if startled, and, leaning forward, exclaimed:

“Dick Gale?”

“You’ve got me,” replied Gale, in surprise. “But I don’t know you.”

He could not see the stranger’s face, because it was wholly shaded by a wide-brimmed hat pulled well down.

“By Jove! It’s Dick! If this isn’t great! Don’t you know me?”

“I’ve heard your voice somewhere,” replied Gale. “Maybe I’ll recognize you if you come out from under that bonnet.”

For answer the man, suddenly manifesting thought of himself, hurriedly drew Gale into the restaurant, where he thrust back his hat to disclose a handsome, sunburned face.

“George Thorne! So help me—”

“‘S-s-ssh. You needn’t yell,” interrupted the other, as he met Gale’s outstretched hand. There was a close, hard, straining grip. “I must not be recognized here. There are reasons. I’ll explain in a minute. Say, but it’s fine to see you! Five years, Dick, five years since I saw you run down University Field and spread-eagle the whole Wisconsin football team.”

“Don’t recollect that,” replied Dick, laughing. “George, I’ll bet you I’m gladder to see you than you are to see me. It seems so long. You went into the army, didn’t you?”

“I did. I’m here now with the Ninth Cavalry. But — never mind me. What’re you doing way down here? Say, I just noticed your togs. Dick, you can’t be going in for mining or ranching, not in this God-forsaken desert?”

“On the square, George, I don’t know any more why I’m here than — than you know.”

“Well, that beats me!” ejaculated Thorne, sitting back in his chair, amaze and concern in his expression. “What the devil’s wrong? Your old man’s got too much money for you ever to be up against it. Dick, you couldn’t have gone to the bad?”

A tide of emotion surged over Gale. How good it was to meet a friend — some one to whom to talk! He had never appreciated his loneliness until that moment.

“George, how I ever drifted down here I don’t know. I didn’t exactly quarrel with the governor. But — damn it, Dad hurt me — shamed me, and I dug out for the West. It was this way. After leaving college I tried to please him by tackling one thing after another that he set me to do. On the square, I had no head for business. I made a mess of everything. The governor got sore. He kept ramming the harpoon into me till I just couldn’t stand it. What little ability I possessed deserted me when I got my back up, and there you are. Dad and I had a rather uncomfortable half hour. When I quit — when I told him straight out that I was going West to fare for myself, why, it wouldn’t have been so tough if he hadn’t laughed at me. He called me a rich man’s son — an idle, easy-going spineless swell. He said I didn’t even have character enough to be out and out bad. He said I didn’t have sense enough to marry one of the nice girls in my sister’s crowd. He said I couldn’t get back home unless I sent to him for money. He said he didn’t believe I could fight — could really make a fight for anything under the sun. Oh — he — he shot it into me, all right.”

Dick dropped his head upon his hands, somewhat ashamed of the smarting dimness in his eyes. He had not meant to say so much. Yet what a relief to let out that long-congested burden!

“Fight!” cried Thorne, hotly. “What’s ailing him? Didn’t they call you Biff Gale in college? Dick, you were one of the best men Stagg ever developed. I heard him say so — that you were the fastest, one-hundred-and-seventy-five-pound man he’d ever trained, the hardest to stop.”

“The governor didn’t count football,” said Dick. “He didn’t mean that kind of fight. When I left home I don’t think I had an idea what was wrong with me. But, George, I think I know now. I was a rich man’s son — spoiled, dependent, absolutely ignorant of the value of money. I haven’t yet discovered any earning capacity in me. I seem to be unable to do anything with my hands. That’s the trouble. But I’m at the end of my tether now. And I’m going to punch cattle or be a miner, or do some real stunt — like joining the rebels.”

“Aha! I thought you’d spring that last one on me,” declared Thorne, wagging his head. “Well, you just forget it. Say, old boy, there’s something doing in Mexico. The United States in general doesn’t realize it. But across that line there are crazy revolutionists, ill-paid soldiers, guerrilla leaders, raiders, robbers, outlaws, bandits galore, starving peons by the thousand, girls and women in terror. Mexico is like some of her volcanoes — ready to erupt fire and hell! Don’t make the awful mistake of joining rebel forces. Americans are hated by Mexicans of the lower class — the fighting class, both rebel and federal. Half the time these crazy Greasers are on one side, then on the other. If you didn’t starve or get shot in ambush, or die of thirst, some Greaser would knife you in the back for you belt buckle or boots. There are a good many Americans with the rebels eastward toward Agua, Prieta and Juarez. Orozco is operating in Chihuahua, and I guess he has some idea of warfare. But this is Sonora, a mountainous desert, the home of the slave and the Yaqui. There’s unorganized revolt everywhere. The American miners and ranchers, those who could get away, have fled across into the States, leaving property. Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t come must fight for their lives, are fighting now.”

“That’s bad,” said Gale. “It’s news to me. Why doesn’t the government take action, do something?”

“Afraid of international complications. Don’t want to offend the Maderists, or be criticized by jealous foreign nations. It’s a delicate situation, Dick. The Washington officials know the gravity of it, you can bet. But the United States in general is in the dark, and the army — well, you ought to hear the inside talk back at San Antonio. We’re patrolling the boundary line. We’re making a grand bluff. I could tell you of a dozen instances where cavalry should have pursued raiders on the other side of the line. But we won’t do it. The officers are a grouchy lot these days. You see, of course, what significance would attach to United States cavalry going into Mexican territory. There would simply be hell. My own colonel is the sorest man on the job. We’re all sore. It’s like sitting on a powder magazine. We can’t keep the rebels and raiders from crossing the line. Yet we don’t fight. My commission expires soon. I’ll be discharged in three months. You can bet I’m glad for more reasons than I’ve mentioned.”

Thorne was evidently laboring under strong, suppressed excitement. His face showed pale under the tan, and his eyes gleamed with a dark fire. Occasionally his delight at meeting, talking with Gale, dominated the other emotions, but not for long. He had seated himself at a table near one of the doorlike windows leading into the street, and every little while he would glance sharply out. Also he kept consulting his watch.

These details gradually grew upon Gale as Thorne talked.

“George, it strikes me that you’re upset,” said Dick, presently. “I seem to remember you as a cool-headed fellow whom nothing could disturb. Has the army changed you?”

Thorne laughed. It was a laugh with a strange, high note. It was reckless — it hinted of exaltation. He rose abruptly; he gave the waiter money to go for drinks; he looked into the saloon, and then into the street. On this side of the house there was a porch opening on a plaza with trees and shrubbery and branches. Thorne peered out one window, then another. His actions were rapid. Returning to the table, he put his hands upon it and leaned over to look closely into Gale’s face.

“I’m away from camp without leave,” he said.

“Isn’t that a serious offense?” asked Dick.

“Serious? For me, if I’m discovered, it means ruin. There are rebels in town. Any moment we might have trouble. I ought to be ready for duty — within call. If I’m discovered it means arrest. That means delay — the failure of my plans — ruin.”

Gale was silenced by his friend’s intensity. Thorne bent over closer with his dark eyes searching bright.

“We were old pals — once?”

“Surely,” replied Dick.

“What would you say, Dick Gale, if I told you that you’re the one man I’d rather have had come along than any other at this crisis of my life?”

The earnest gaze, the passionate voice with its deep tremor drew Dick upright, thrilling and eager, conscious of strange, unfamiliar impetuosity.

“Thorne, I should say I was glad to be the fellow,” replied Dick.

Their hands locked for a moment, and they sat down again with heads close over the table.

“Listen,” began Thorne, in low, swift whisper, “a few days, a week ago — it seems like a year! — I was of some assistance to refugees fleeing from Mexico into the States. They were all women, and one of them was dressed as a nun. Quite by accident I saw her face. It was that of a beautiful girl. I observed she kept aloof from the others. I suspected a disguise, and, when opportunity afforded, spoke to her, offered my services. She replied to my poor efforts at Spanish in fluent English. She had fled in terror from her home, some place down in Sinaloa. Rebels are active there. Her father was captured and held for ransom. When the ransom was paid the rebels killed him. The leader of these rebels was a bandit named Rojas. Long before the revolution began he had been feared by people of class — loved by the peons. Bandits are worshiped by the peons. All of the famous bandits have robbed the rich and given to the poor. Rojas saw the daughter, made off with her. But she contrived to bribe her guards, and escaped almost immediately before any harm befell her. She hid among friends. Rojas nearly tore down the town in his efforts to find her. Then she disguised herself, and traveled by horseback, stage, and train to Casita.

“Her story fascinated me, and that one fleeting glimpse I had of her face I couldn’t forget. She had no friends here, no money. She knew Rojas was trailing her. This talk I had with her was at the railroad station, where all was bustle and confusion. No one noticed us, so I thought. I advised her to remove the disguise of a nun before she left the waiting-room. And I got a boy to guide her. But he fetched her to his house. I had promised to come in the evening to talk over the situation with her.

“I found her, Dick, and when I saw her — I went stark, staring, raving mad over her. She is the most beautiful, wonderful girl I ever saw. Her name is Mercedes Castaneda, and she belongs to one of the old wealthy Spanish families. She has lived abroad and in Havana. She speaks French as well as English. She is — but I must be brief.

“Dick, think, think! With Mercedes also it was love at first sight. My plan is to marry her and get her farther to the interior, away from the border. It may not be easy. She’s watched. So am I. It was impossible to see her without the women of this house knowing. At first, perhaps, they had only curiosity — an itch to gossip. But the last two days there has been a change. Since last night there’s some powerful influence at work. Oh, these Mexicans are subtle, mysterious! After all, they are Spaniards. They work in secret, in the dark. They are dominated first by religion, then by gold, then by passion for a woman. Rojas must have got word to his friends here; yesterday his gang of cutthroat rebels arrived, and to-day he came. When I learned that, I took my chance and left camp. I hunted up a priest. He promised to come here. It’s time he’s due. But I’m afraid he’ll be stopped.”

“Thorne, why don’t you take the girl and get married without waiting, without running these risks?” said Dick.

“I fear it’s too late now. I should have done that last night. You see, we’re over the line—”

“Are we in Mexican territory now?” queried Gale, sharply.

“I guess yes, old boy. That’s what complicates it. Rojas and his rebels have Casita in their hands. But Rojas without his rebels would be able to stop me, get the girl, and make for his mountain haunts. If Mercedes is really watched — if her identity is known, which I am sure is the case — we couldn’t get far from this house before I’d be knifed and she seized.”

“Good Heavens! Thorne, can that sort of thing happen less than a stone’s throw from the United States line?” asked Gale, incredulously.

“It can happen, and don’t you forget it. You don’t seem to realize the power these guerrilla leaders, these rebel captains, and particularly these bandits, exercise over the mass of Mexicans. A bandit is a man of honor in Mexico. He is feared, envied, loved. In the hearts of the people he stands next to the national idol — the bull-fighter, the matador. The race has a wild, barbarian, bloody strain. Take Quinteros, for instance. He was a peon, a slave. He became a famous bandit. At the outbreak of the revolution he proclaimed himself a leader, and with a band of followers he devastated whole counties. The opposition to federal forces was only a blind to rob and riot and carry off women. The motto of this man and his followers was: ‘Let us enjoy ourselves while we may!’

“There are other bandits besides Quinteros, not so famous or such great leaders, but just as bloodthirsty. I’ve seen Rojas. He’s a handsome, bold sneering devil, vainer than any peacock. He decks himself in gold lace and sliver trappings, in all the finery he can steal. He was one of the rebels who helped sack Sinaloa and carry off half a million in money and valuables. Rojas spends gold like he spills blood. But he is chiefly famous for abducting women. The peon girls consider it an honor to be ridden off with. Rojas has shown a penchant for girls of the better class.”

Thorne wiped the perspiration from his pale face and bent a dark gaze out of the window before he resumed his talk.

“Consider what the position of Mercedes really is. I can’t get any help from our side of the line. If so, I don’t know where. The population on that side is mostly Mexican, absolutely in sympathy with whatever actuates those on this side. The whole caboodle of Greasers on both sides belong to the class in sympathy with the rebels, the class that secretly respects men like Rojas, and hates an aristocrat like Mercedes. They would conspire to throw her into his power. Rojas can turn all the hidden underground influences to his ends. Unless I thwart him he’ll get Mercedes as easily as he can light a cigarette. But I’ll kill him or some of his gang or her before I let him get her.... This is the situation, old friend. I’ve little time to spare. I face arrest for desertion. Rojas is in town. I think I was followed to this hotel. The priest has betrayed me or has been stopped. Mercedes is here alone, waiting, absolutely dependent upon me to save her from — from.... She’s the sweetest, loveliest girl!... In a few moments — sooner or later there’ll be hell here! Dick, are you with me?”

Dick Gale drew a long, deep breath. A coldness, a lethargy, an indifference that had weighed upon him for months had passed out of his being. On the instant he could not speak, but his hand closed powerfully upon his friend’s. Thorne’s face changed wonderfully, the distress, the fear, the appeal all vanishing in a smile of passionate gratefulness.

Then Dick’s gaze, attracted by some slight sound, shot over his friend’s shoulder to see a face at the window — a handsome, bold, sneering face, with glittering dark eyes that flashed in sinister intentness.

Dick stiffened in his seat. Thorne, with sudden clenching of hands, wheeled toward the window.

“Rojas!” he whispered.

CHAPTER II

MERCEDES CASTANEDA

THE DARK FACE vanished. Dick Gale heard footsteps and the tinkle of spurs. He strode to the window, and was in time to see a Mexican swagger into the front door of the saloon. Dick had only a glimpse; but in that he saw a huge black sombrero with a gaudy band, the back of a short, tight-fitting jacket, a heavy pearl-handled gun swinging with a fringe of sash, and close-fitting trousers spreading wide at the bottom. There were men passing in the street, also several Mexicans lounging against the hitching-rail at the curb.

“Did you see him? Where did he go?” whispered Thorne, as he joined Gale. “Those Greasers out there with the cartridge belts crossed over their breasts — they are rebels.”

“I think he went into the saloon,” replied Dick. “He had a gun, but for all I can see the Greasers out there are unarmed.”

“Never believe it! There! Look, Dick! That fellow’s a guard, though he seems so unconcerned. See, he has a short carbine, almost concealed.... There’s another Greaser farther down the path. I’m afraid Rojas has the house spotted.”

“If we could only be sure.”

“I’m sure, Dick. Let’s cross the hall; I want to see how it looks from the other side of the house.”

Gale followed Thorne out of the restaurant into the high-ceiled corridor which evidently divided the hotel, opening into the street and running back to a patio. A few dim, yellow lamps flickered. A Mexican with a blanket round his shoulders stood in the front entrance. Back toward the patio there were sounds of boots on the stone floor. Shadows flitted across that end of the corridor. Thorne entered a huge chamber which was even more poorly lighted than the hall. It contained a table littered with papers, a few high-backed chairs, a couple of couches, and was evidently a parlor.

“Mercedes has been meeting me here,” said Thorne. “At this hour she comes every moment or so to the head of the stairs there, and if I am here she comes down. Mostly there are people in this room a little later. We go out into the plaza. It faces the dark side of the house, and that’s the place I must slip out with her if there’s any chance at all to get away.”

They peered out of the open window. The plaza was gloomy, and at first glance apparently deserted. In a moment, however, Gale made out a slow-pacing dark form on the path. Farther down there was another. No particular keenness was required to see in these forms a sentinel-like stealthiness.

Gripping Gale’s arm, Thorne pulled back from the window.

“You saw them,” he whispered. “It’s just as I feared. Rojas has the place surrounded. I should have taken Mercedes away. But I had no time — no chance! I’m bound!... There’s Mercedes now! My God!... Dick, think — think if there’s a way to get her out of this trap!”

Gale turned as his friend went down the room. In the dim light at the head of the stairs stood the slim, muffled figure of a woman. When she saw Thorne she flew noiselessly down the stairway to him. He caught her in his arms. Then she spoke softly, brokenly, in a low, swift voice. It was a mingling of incoherent Spanish and English; but to Gale it was mellow, deep, unutterably tender, a voice full of joy, fear, passion, hope, and love. Upon Gale it had an unaccountable effect. He found himself thrilling, wondering.

Thorne led the girl to the center of the room, under the light where Gale stood. She had raised a white hand, holding a black-laced mantilla half aside. Dick saw a small, dark head, proudly held, an oval face half hidden, white as a flower, and magnificent black eyes.

Then Thorne spoke.

“Mercedes — Dick Gale, an old friend — the best friend I ever had.”

She swept the mantilla back over her head, disclosing a lovely face, strange and striking to Gale in its pride and fire, its intensity.

“Senor Gale — ah! I cannot speak my happiness. His friend!”

“Yes, Mercedes; my friend and yours,” said Thorne, speaking rapidly. “We’ll have need of him. Dear, there’s bad news and no time to break it gently. The priest did not come. He must have been detained. And listen — be brave, dear Mercedes — Rojas is here!”

She uttered an inarticulate cry, the poignant terror of which shook Gale’s nerve, and swayed as if she would faint. Thorne caught her, and in husky voice importuned her to bear up.

“My darling! For God’s sake don’t faint — don’t go to pieces! We’d be lost! We’ve got a chance. We’ll think of something. Be strong! Fight!”

It was plain to Gale that Thorne was distracted. He scarcely knew what he was saying. Pale and shaking, he clasped Mercedes to him. Her terror had struck him helpless. It was so intense — it was so full of horrible certainty of what fate awaited her.

She cried out in Spanish, beseeching him; and as he shook his head, she changed to English:

“Senor, my lover, I will be strong — I will fight — I will obey. But swear by my Virgin, if need be to save me from Rojas — you will kill me!”

“Mercedes! Yes, I’ll swear,” he replied hoarsely. “I know — I’d rather have you dead than — But don’t give up. Rojas can’t be sure of you, or he wouldn’t wait. He’s in there. He’s got his men there — all around us. But he hesitates. A beast like Rojas doesn’t stand idle for nothing. I tell you we’ve a chance. Dick, here, will think of something. We’ll slip away. Then he’ll take you somewhere. Only — speak to him — show him you won’t weaken. Mercedes, this is more than love and happiness for us. It’s life or death.”

She became quiet, and slowly recovered control of herself.

Suddenly she wheeled to face Gale with proud dark eyes, tragic sweetness of appeal, and exquisite grace.

“Senor, you are an American. You cannot know the Spanish blood — the peon bandit’s hate and cruelty. I wish to die before Rojas’s hand touches me. If he takes me alive, then the hour, the little day that my life lasts afterward will be tortured — torture of hell. If I live two days his brutal men will have me. If I live three, the dogs of his camp... Senor, have you a sister whom you love? Help Senor Thorne to save me. He is a soldier. He is bound. He must not betray his honor, his duty, for me.... Ah, you two splendid Americans — so big, so strong, so fierce! What is that little black half-breed slave Rojas to such men? Rojas is a coward. Now, let me waste no more precious time. I am ready. I will be brave.”

She came close to Gale, holding out her white hands, a woman all fire and soul and passion. To Gale she was wonderful. His heart leaped. As he bent over her hands and kissed them he seemed to feel himself renewed, remade.

“Senorita,” he said, “I am happy to be your servant. I can conceive of no greater pleasure than giving the service you require.”

“And what is that?” inquired Thorne, hurriedly.

“That of incapacitating Senor Rojas for to-night, and perhaps several nights to come,” replied Gale.

“Dick, what will you do?” asked Thorne, now in alarm.

“I’ll make a row in that saloon,” returned Dick, bluntly. “I’ll start something. I’ll rush Rojas and his crowd. I’ll—”

“Lord, no; you mustn’t, Dick — you’ll be knifed!” cried Thorne. He was in distress, yet his eyes were shining.

“I’ll take a chance. Maybe I can surprise that slow Greaser bunch and get away before they know what’s happened.... You be ready watching at the window. When the row starts those fellows out there in the plaza will run into the saloon. Then you slip out, go straight through the plaza down the street. It’s a dark street, I remember. I’ll catch up with you before you get far.”

Thorne gasped, but did not say a word. Mercedes leaned against him, her white hands now at her breast, her great eyes watching Gale as he went out.

In the corridor Gale stopped long enough to pull on a pair of heavy gloves, to muss his hair, and disarrange his collar. Then he stepped into the restaurant, went through, and halted in the door leading into the saloon. His five feet eleven inches and one hundred and eighty pounds were more noticeable there, and it was part of his plan to attract attention to himself. No one, however, appeared to notice him. The pool-players were noisily intent on their game, the same crowd of motley-robed Mexicans hung over the reeking bar. Gale’s roving glance soon fixed upon the man he took to be Rojas. He recognized the huge, high-peaked, black sombrero with its ornamented band. The Mexican’s face was turned aside. He was in earnest, excited colloquy with a dozen or more comrades, most of whom were sitting round a table. They were listening, talking, drinking. The fact that they wore cartridge belts crossed over their breasts satisfied that these were the rebels. He had noted the belts of the Mexicans outside, who were apparently guards. A waiter brought more drinks to this group at the table, and this caused the leader to turn so Gale could see his face. It was indeed the sinister, sneering face of the bandit Rojas. Gale gazed at the man with curiosity. He was under medium height, and striking in appearance only because of his dandified dress and evil visage. He wore a lace scarf, a tight, bright-buttoned jacket, a buckskin vest embroidered in red, a sash and belt joined by an enormous silver clasp. Gale saw again the pearl-handled gun swinging at the bandit’s hip. Jewels flashed in his scarf. There were gold rings in his ears and diamonds on his fingers.

Gale became conscious of an inward fire that threatened to overrun his coolness. Other emotions harried his self-control. It seemed as if sight of the man liberated or created a devil in Gale. And at the bottom of his feelings there seemed to be a wonder at himself, a strange satisfaction for the something that had come to him.

He stepped out of the doorway, down the couple of steps to the floor of the saloon, and he staggered a little, simulating drunkenness. He fell over the pool tables, jostled Mexicans at the bar, laughed like a maudlin fool, and, with his hat slouched down, crowded here and there. Presently his eye caught sight of the group of cowboys whom he had before noticed with such interest.

They were still in a corner somewhat isolated. With fertile mind working, Gale lurched over to them. He remembered his many unsuccessful attempts to get acquainted with cowboys. If he were to get any help from these silent aloof rangers it must be by striking fire from them in one swift stroke. Planting himself squarely before the two tall cowboys who were standing, he looked straight into their lean, bronzed faces. He spared a full moment for that keen cool gaze before he spoke.

“I’m not drunk. I’m throwing a bluff, and I mean to start a rough house. I’m going to rush that damned bandit Rojas. It’s to save a girl — to give her lover, who is my friend, a chance to escape with her. When I start a row my friend will try to slip out with her. Every door and window is watched. I’ve got to raise hell to draw the guards in.... Well, you’re my countrymen. We’re in Mexico. A beautiful girl’s honor and life are at stake. Now, gentlemen, watch me!”

One cowboy’s eyes narrowed, blinking a little, and his lean jaw dropped; the other’s hard face rippled with a fleeting smile.

Gale backed away, and his pulse leaped when he saw the two cowboys, as if with one purpose, slowly stride after him. Then Gale swerved, staggering along, brushed against the tables, kicked over the empty chairs. He passed Rojas and his gang, and out of the tail of his eye saw that the bandit was watching him, waving his hands and talking fiercely. The hum of the many voices grew louder, and when Dick lurched against a table, overturning it and spilling glasses into the laps of several Mexicans, there arose a shrill cry. He had succeeded in attracting attention; almost every face turned his way. One of the insulted men, a little tawny fellow, leaped up to confront Gale, and in a frenzy screamed a volley of Spanish, of which Gale distinguished “Gringo!” The Mexican stamped and made a threatening move with his right hand. Dick swung his leg and with a swift side kick knocked the fellows feet from under him, whirling him down with a thud.

The action was performed so suddenly, so adroitly, it made the Mexican such a weakling, so like a tumbled tenpin, that the shrill jabbering hushed. Gale knew this to be the significant moment.

Wheeling, he rushed at Rojas. It was his old line-breaking plunge. Neither Rojas nor his men had time to move. The black-skinned bandit’s face turned a dirty white; his jaw dropped; he would have shrieked if Gale had not hit him. The blow swept him backward against his men. Then Gale’s heavy body, swiftly following with the momentum of that rush, struck the little group of rebels. They went down with table and chairs in a sliding crash.

Gale carried by his plunge, went with them. Like a cat he landed on top. As he rose his powerful hands fastened on Rojas. He jerked the little bandit off the tangled pile of struggling, yelling men, and, swinging him with terrific force, let go his hold. Rojas slid along the floor, knocking over tables and chairs. Gale bounded back, dragged Rojas up, handling him as if he were a limp sack.

A shot rang out above the yells. Gale heard the jingle of breaking glass. The room darkened perceptibly. He flashed a glance backward. The two cowboys were between him and the crowd of frantic rebels. One cowboy held two guns low down, level in front of him. The other had his gun raised and aimed. On the instant it spouted red and white. With the crack came the crashing of glass, another darkening shade over the room. With a cry Gale slung the bleeding Rojas from him. The bandit struck a table, toppled over it, fell, and lay prone.

Another shot made the room full of moving shadows, with light only back of the bar. A white-clad figure rushed at Gale. He tripped the man, but had to kick hard to disengage himself from grasping hands. Another figure closed in on Gale. This one was dark, swift. A blade glinted — described a circle aloft. Simultaneously with a close, red flash the knife wavered; the man wielding it stumbled backward. In the din Gale did not hear a report, but the Mexican’s fall was significant. Then pandemonium broke loose. The din became a roar. Gale heard shots that sounded like dull spats in the distance. The big lamp behind the bar seemingly split, then sputtered and went out, leaving the room in darkness.

Gale leaped toward the restaurant door, which was outlined faintly by the yellow light within. Right and left he pushed the groping men who jostled with him. He vaulted a pool table, sent tables and chairs flying, and gained the door, to be the first of a wedging mob to squeeze through. One sweep of his arm knocked the restaurant lamp from its stand; and he ran out, leaving darkness behind him. A few bounds took him into the parlor. It was deserted. Thorne had gotten away with Mercedes.

It was then Gale slowed up. For the space of perhaps sixty seconds he had been moving with startling velocity. He peered cautiously out into the plaza. The paths, the benches, the shady places under the trees contained no skulking men. He ran out, keeping to the shade, and did not go into the path till he was halfway through the plaza. Under a street lamp at the far end of the path he thought he saw two dark figures. He ran faster, and soon reached the street. The uproar back in the hotel began to diminish, or else he was getting out of hearing. The few people he saw close at hand were all coming his way, and only the foremost showed any excitement. Gale walked swiftly, peering ahead for two figures. Presently he saw them — one tall, wearing a cape; the other slight, mantled. Gale drew a sharp breath of relief. Thorne and Mercedes were not far ahead.

From time to time Thorne looked back. He strode swiftly, almost carrying Mercedes, who clung closely to him. She, too, looked back. Once Gale saw her white face flash in the light of a street lamp. He began to overhaul them; and soon, when the last lamp had been passed and the street was dark, he ventured a whistle. Thorne heard it, for he turned, whistled a low reply, and went on. Not for some distance beyond, where the street ended in open country, did they halt to wait. The desert began here. Gale felt the soft sand under his feet and saw the grotesque forms of cactus. Then he came up with the fugitives.

“Dick! Are you — all right?” panted Thorne, grasping Gale.

“I’m — out of breath — but — O.K.,” replied Gale.

“Good! Good!” choked Thorne. “I was scared — helpless.... Dick, it worked splendidly. We had no trouble. What on earth did you do?”

“I made the row, all right,” said Dick.

“Good Heavens! It was like a row I once heard made by a mob. But the shots, Dick — were they at you? They paralyzed me. Then the yells. What happened? Those guards of Rojas ran round in front at the first shot. Tell me what happened.”

“While I was rushing Rojas a couple of cowboys shot out the lamplights. A Mexican who pulled a knife on me got hurt, I guess. Then I think there was some shooting from the rebels after the room was dark.”

“Rushing Rojas?” queried Thorne, leaning close to Dick. His voice was thrilling, exultant, deep with a joy that yet needed confirmation. “What did you do to him?”

“I handed him one off side, tackled, then tried a forward pass,” replied Dick, lightly speaking the football vernacular so familiar to Thorne.

Thorne leaned closer, his fine face showing fierce and corded in the starlight. “Tell me straight,” he demanded, in thick voice.

Gale then divined something of the suffering Thorne had undergone — something of the hot, wild, vengeful passion of a lover who must have brutal truth.

It stilled Dick’s lighter mood, and he was about to reply when Mercedes pressed close to him, touched his hands, looked up into his face with wonderful eyes. He thought he would not soon forget their beauty — the shadow of pain that had been, the hope dawning so fugitively.

“Dear lady,” said Gale, with voice not wholly steady, “Rojas himself will hound you no more to-night, nor for many nights.”

She seemed to shake, to thrill, to rise with the intelligence. She pressed his hand close over her heaving breast. Gale felt the quick throb of her heart.

“Senor! Senor Dick!” she cried. Then her voice failed. But her hands flew up; quick as a flash she raised her face — kissed him. Then she turned and with a sob fell into Thorne’s arms.

There ensued a silence broken only by Mercedes’ sobbing. Gale walked some paces away. If he were not stunned, he certainly was agitated. The strange, sweet fire of that girl’s lips remained with him. On the spur of the moment he imagined he had a jealousy of Thorne. But presently this passed. It was only that he had been deeply moved — stirred to the depths during the last hour — had become conscious of the awakening of a spirit. What remained with him now was the splendid glow of gladness that he had been of service to Thorne. And by the intensity of Mercedes’ abandon of relief and gratitude he measured her agony of terror and the fate he had spared her.

“Dick, Dick, come here!” called Thorne softly. “Let’s pull ourselves together now. We’ve got a problem yet. What to do? Where to go? How to get any place? We don’t dare risk the station — the corrals where Mexicans hire out horses. We’re on good old U.S. ground this minute, but we’re not out of danger.”

As he paused, evidently hoping for a suggestion from Gale, the silence was broken by the clear, ringing peal of a bugle. Thorne gave a violent start. Then he bent over, listening. The beautiful notes of the bugle floated out of the darkness, clearer, sharper, faster.

“It’s a call, Dick! It’s a call!” he cried.

Gale had no answer to make. Mercedes stood as if stricken. The bugle call ended. From a distance another faintly pealed. There were other sounds too remote to recognize. Then scattering shots rattled out.

“Dick, the rebels are fighting somebody,” burst out Thorne, excitedly. “The little federal garrison still holds its stand. Perhaps it is attacked again. Anyway, there’s something doing over the line. Maybe the crazy Greasers are firing on our camp. We’ve feared it — in the dark.... And here I am, away without leave — practically a deserter!”

“Go back! Go back, before you’re too late!” cried Mercedes.

“Better make tracks, Thorne,” added Gale. “It can’t help our predicament for you to be arrested. I’ll take care of Mercedes.”

“No, no, no,” replied Thorne. “I can get away — avoid arrest.”

“That’d be all right for the immediate present. But it’s not best for the future. George, a deserter is a deserter!... Better hurry. Leave the girl to me till tomorrow.”

Mercedes embraced her lover, begged him to go. Thorne wavered.

“Dick, I’m up against it,” he said. “You’re right. If only I can get back in time. But, oh, I hate to leave her! Old fellow, you’ve saved her! I already owe you everlasting gratitude. Keep out of Casita, Dick. The U.S. side might be safe, but I’m afraid to trust it at night. Go out in the desert, up in the mountains, in some safe place. Then come to me in camp. We’ll plan. I’ll have to confide in Colonel Weede. Maybe he’ll help us. Hide her from the rebels — that’s all.”

He wrung Dick’s hand, clasped Mercedes tightly in his arms, kissed her, and murmured low over her, then released her to rush off into the darkness. He disappeared in the gloom. The sound of his dull footfalls gradually died away.

For a moment the desert silence oppressed Gale. He was unaccustomed to such strange stillness. There was a low stir of sand, a rustle of stiff leaves in the wind. How white the stars burned! Then a coyote barked, to be bayed by a dog. Gale realized that he was between the edge of an unknown desert and the edge of a hostile town. He had to choose the desert, because, though he had no doubt that in Casita there were many Americans who might befriend him, he could not chance the risks of seeking them at night.

He felt a slight touch on his arm, felt it move down, felt Mercedes slip a trembling cold little hand into his. Dick looked at her. She seemed a white-faced girl now, with staring, frightened black eyes that flashed up at him. If the loneliness, the silence, the desert, the unknown dangers of the night affected him, what must they be to this hunted, driven girl? Gale’s heart swelled. He was alone with her. He had no weapon, no money, no food, no drink, no covering, nothing except his two hands. He had absolutely no knowledge of the desert, of the direction or whereabouts of the boundary line between the republics; he did not know where to find the railroad, or any road or trail, or whether or not there were towns near or far. It was a critical, desperate situation. He thought first of the girl, and groaned in spirit, prayed that it would be given him to save her. When he remembered himself it was with the stunning consciousness that he could conceive of no situation which he would have exchanged for this one — where fortune had set him a perilous task of loyalty to a friend, to a helpless girl.

“Senor, senor!” suddenly whispered Mercedes, clinging to him. “Listen! I hear horses coming!”

CHAPTER III

A FLIGHT INTO THE DESERT

UNEASY AND STARTLED, Gale listened and, hearing nothing, wondered if Mercedes’s fears had not worked upon her imagination. He felt a trembling seize her, and he held her hands tightly.

“You were mistaken, I guess,” he whispered.

“No, no, senor.”

Dick turned his ear to the soft wind. Presently he heard, or imagined he heard, low beats. Like the first faint, far-off beats of a drumming grouse, they recalled to him the Illinois forests of his boyhood. In a moment he was certain the sounds were the padlike steps of hoofs in yielding sand. The regular tramp was not that of grazing horses.

On the instant, made cautious and stealthy by alarm, Gale drew Mercedes deeper into the gloom of the shrubbery. Sharp pricks from thorns warned him that he was pressing into a cactus growth, and he protected Mercedes as best he could. She was shaking as one with a severe chill. She breathed with little hurried pants and leaned upon him almost in collapse. Gale ground his teeth in helpless rage at the girl’s fate. If she had not been beautiful she might still have been free and happy in her home. What a strange world to live in — how unfair was fate!

The sounds of hoofbeats grew louder. Gale made out a dark moving mass against a background of dull gray. There was a line of horses. He could not discern whether or not all the horses carried riders. The murmur of a voice struck his ear — then a low laugh. It made him tingle, for it sounded American. Eagerly he listened. There was an interval when only the hoofbeats could be heard.

“It shore was, Laddy, it shore was,” came a voice out of the darkness. “Rough house! Laddy, since wire fences drove us out of Texas we ain’t seen the like of that. An’ we never had such a call.”

“Call? It was a burnin’ roast,” replied another voice. “I felt low down. He vamoosed some sudden, an’ I hope he an’ his friends shook the dust of Casita. That’s a rotten town Jim.”

Gale jumped up in joy. What luck! The speakers were none other than the two cowboys whom he had accosted in the Mexican hotel.

“Hold on, fellows,” he called out, and strode into the road.

The horses snorted and stamped. Then followed swift rustling sounds — a clinking of spurs, then silence. The figures loomed clearer in the gloom.. Gale saw five or six horses, two with riders, and one other, at least, carrying a pack. When Gale got within fifteen feet of the group the foremost horseman said:

“I reckon that’s close enough, stranger.”

Something in the cowboy’s hand glinted darkly bright in the starlight.

“You’d recognize me, if it wasn’t so dark,” replied Gale, halting. “I spoke to you a little while ago — in the saloon back there.”

“Come over an’ let’s see you,” said the cowboy curtly.

Gale advanced till he was close to the horse. The cowboy leaned over the saddle and peered into Gale’s face. Then, without a word, he sheathed the gun and held out his hand. Gale met a grip of steel that warmed his blood. The other cowboy got off his nervous, spirited horse and threw the bridle. He, too, peered closely into Gale’s face.

“My name’s Ladd,” he said. “Reckon I’m some glad to meet you again.”

Gale felt another grip as hard and strong as the other had been. He realized he had found friends who belonged to a class of men whom he had despaired of ever knowing.

“Gale — Dick Gale is my name,” he began, swiftly. “I dropped into Casita to-night hardly knowing where I was. A boy took me to that hotel. There I met an old friend whom I had not seen for years. He belongs to the cavalry stationed here. He had befriended a Spanish girl — fallen in love with her. Rojas had killed this girl’s father — tried to abduct her.... You know what took place at the hotel. Gentlemen, if it’s ever possible, I’ll show you how I appreciate what you did for me there. I got away, found my friend with the girl. We hurried out here beyond the edge of town. Then Thorne had to make a break for camp. We heard bugle calls, shots, and he was away without leave. That left the girl with me. I don’t know what to do. Thorne swears Casita is no place for Mercedes at night.”

“The girl ain’t no peon, no common Greaser?” interrupted Ladd.

“No. Her name is Castaneda. She belongs to an old Spanish family, once rich and influential.”

“Reckoned as much,” replied the cowboy. “There’s more than Rojas’s wantin’ to kidnap a pretty girl. Shore he does that every day or so. Must be somethin’ political or feelin’ against class. Well, Casita ain’t no place for your friend’s girl at night or day, or any time. Shore, there’s Americans who’d take her in an’ fight for her, if necessary. But it ain’t wise to risk that. Lash, what do you say?”

“It’s been gettin’ hotter round this Greaser corral for some weeks,” replied the other cowboy. “If that two-bit of a garrison surrenders, there’s no tellin’ what’ll happen. Orozco is headin’ west from Agua Prieta with his guerrillas. Campo is burnin’ bridges an’ tearin’ up the railroad south of Nogales. Then there’s all these bandits callin’ themselves revolutionists just for an excuse to steal, burn, kill, an’ ride off with women. It’s plain facts, Laddy, an’ bein’ across the U.S. line a few inches or so don’t make no hell of a difference. My advice is, don’t let Miss Castaneda ever set foot in Casita again.”

“Looks like you’ve shore spoke sense,” said Ladd. “I reckon, Gale, you an’ the girl ought to come with us. Casita shore would be a little warm for us to-morrow. We didn’t kill anybody, but I shot a Greaser’s arm off, an’ Lash strained friendly relations by destroyin’ property. We know people who’ll take care of the senorita till your friend can come for her.”

Dick warmly spoke his gratefulness, and, inexpressibly relieved and happy for Mercedes, he went toward the clump of cactus where he had left her. She stood erect, waiting, and, dark as it was, he could tell she had lost the terror that had so shaken her.

“Senor Gale, you are my good angel,” she said, tremulously.

“I’ve been lucky to fall in with these men, and I’m glad with all my heart,” he replied. “Come.”

He led her into the road up to the cowboys, who now stood bareheaded in the starlight. They seemed shy, and Lash was silent while Ladd made embarrassed, unintelligible reply to Mercedes’s thanks.

There were five horses — two saddled, two packed, and the remaining one carried only a blanket. Ladd shortened the stirrups on his mount, and helped Mercedes up into the saddle. From the way she settled herself and took the few restive prances of the mettlesome horse Gale judged that she could ride. Lash urged Gale to take his horse. But this Gale refused to do.

“I’ll walk,” he said. “I’m used to walking. I know cowboys are not.”

They tried again to persuade him, without avail. Then Ladd started off, riding bareback. Mercedes fell in behind, with Gale walking beside her. The two pack animals came next, and Lash brought up the rear.

Once started with protection assured for the girl and a real objective point in view, Gale relaxed from the tense strain he had been laboring under. How glad he would have been to acquaint Thorne with their good fortune! Later, of course, there would be some way to get word to the cavalryman. But till then what torments his friend would suffer!

It seemed to Dick that a very long time had elapsed since he stepped off the train; and one by one he went over every detail of incident which had occurred between that arrival and the present moment. Strange as the facts were, he had no doubts. He realized that before that night he had never known the deeps of wrath undisturbed in him; he had never conceived even a passing idea that it was possible for him to try to kill a man. His right hand was swollen stiff, so sore that he could scarcely close it. His knuckles were bruised and bleeding, and ached with a sharp pain. Considering the thickness of his heavy glove, Gale was of the opinion that so to bruise his hand he must have struck Rojas a powerful blow. He remembered that for him to give or take a blow had been nothing. This blow to Rojas, however, had been a different matter. The hot wrath which had been his motive was not puzzling; but the effect on him after he had cooled off, a subtle difference, something puzzled and eluded him. The more it baffled him the more he pondered. All those wandering months of his had been filled with dissatisfaction, yet he had been too apathetic to understand himself. So he had not been much of a person to try. Perhaps it had not been the blow to Rojas any more than other things that had wrought some change in him.

His meeting with Thorne; the wonderful black eyes of a Spanish girl; her appeal to him; the hate inspired by Rojas, and the rush, the blow, the action; sight of Thorne and Mercedes hurrying safely away; the girl’s hand pressing his to her heaving breast; the sweet fire of her kiss; the fact of her being alone with him, dependent upon him — all these things Gale turned over and over in his mind, only to fail of any definite conclusion as to which had affected him so remarkably, or to tell what had really happened to him.

Had he fallen in love with Thorne’s sweetheart? The idea came in a flash. Was he, all in an instant, and by one of those incomprehensible reversals of character, jealous of his friend? Dick was almost afraid to look up at Mercedes. Still he forced himself to do so, and as it chanced Mercedes was looking down at him. Somehow the light was better, and he clearly saw her white face, her black and starry eyes, her perfect mouth. With a quick, graceful impulsiveness she put her hand upon his shoulder. Like her appearance, the action was new, strange, striking to Gale; but it brought home suddenly to him the nature of gratitude and affection in a girl of her blood. It was sweet and sisterly. He knew then that he had not fallen in love with her. The feeling that was akin to jealousy seemed to be of the beautiful something for which Mercedes stood in Thorne’s life. Gale then grasped the bewildering possibilities, the infinite wonder of what a girl could mean to a man.

The other haunting intimations of change seemed to be elusively blended with sensations — the heat and thrill of action, the sense of something done and more to do, the utter vanishing of an old weary hunt for he knew not what. Maybe it had been a hunt for work, for energy, for spirit, for love, for his real self. Whatever it might be, there appeared to be now some hope of finding it.

The desert began to lighten. Gray openings in the border of shrubby growths changed to paler hue. The road could be seen some rods ahead, and it had become a stony descent down, steadily down. Dark, ridged backs of mountains bounded the horizon, and all seemed near at hand, hemming in the plain. In the east a white glow grew brighter and brighter, reaching up to a line of cloud, defined sharply below by a rugged notched range. Presently a silver circle rose behind the black mountain, and the gloom of the desert underwent a transformation. From a gray mantle it changed to a transparent haze. The moon was rising.

“Senor I am cold,” said Mercedes.

Dick had been carrying his coat upon his arm. He had felt warm, even hot, and had imagined that the steady walk had occasioned it. But his skin was cool. The heat came from an inward burning. He stopped the horse and raised the coat up, and helped Mercedes put it on.

“I should have thought of you,” he said. “But I seemed to feel warm... The coat’s a little large; we might wrap it round you twice.”

Mercedes smiled and lightly thanked him in Spanish. The flash of mood was in direct contrast to the appealing, passionate, and tragic states in which he had successively viewed her; and it gave him a vivid impression of what vivacity and charm she might possess under happy conditions. He was about to start when he observed that Ladd had halted and was peering ahead in evident caution. Mercedes’ horse began to stamp impatiently, raised his ears and head, and acted as if he was about to neigh.

A warning “hist!” from Ladd bade Dick to put a quieting hand on the horse. Lash came noiselessly forward to join his companion. The two then listened and watched.

An uneasy yet thrilling stir ran through Gale’s veins. This scene was not fancy. These men of the ranges had heard or seen or scented danger. It was all real, as tangible and sure as the touch of Mercedes’s hand upon his arm. Probably for her the night had terrors beyond Gale’s power to comprehend. He looked down into the desert, and would have felt no surprise at anything hidden away among the bristling cactus, the dark, winding arroyos, the shadowed rocks with their moonlit tips, the ragged plain leading to the black bold mountains. The wind appeared to blow softly, with an almost imperceptible moan, over the desert. That was a new sound to Gale. But he heard nothing more.

Presently Lash went to the rear and Ladd started ahead. The progress now, however, was considerably slower, not owing to a road — for that became better — but probably owing to caution exercised by the cowboy guide. At the end of a half hour this marked deliberation changed, and the horses followed Ladd’s at a gait that put Gale to his best walking-paces.

Meanwhile the moon soared high above the black corrugated peaks. The gray, the gloom, the shadow whitened. The clearing of the dark foreground appeared to lift a distant veil and show endless aisles of desert reaching down between dim horizon-bounding ranges.

Gale gazed abroad, knowing that as this night was the first time for him to awake to consciousness of a vague, wonderful other self, so it was one wherein he began to be aware of an encroaching presence of physical things — the immensity of the star-studded sky, the soaring moon, the bleak, mysterious mountains, and limitless slope, and plain, and ridge, and valley. These things in all their magnificence had not been unnoticed by him before; only now they spoke a different meaning. A voice that he had never heard called him to see, to feel the vast hard externals of heaven and earth, all that represented the open, the free, silence and solitude and space.

Once more his thoughts, like his steps, were halted by Ladd’s actions. The cowboy reined in his horse, listened a moment, then swung down out of the saddle. He raised a cautioning hand to the others, then slipped into the gloom and disappeared. Gale marked that the halt had been made in a ridged and cut-up pass between low mesas. He could see the columns of cactus standing out black against the moon-white sky. The horses were evidently tiring, for they showed no impatience. Gale heard their panting breaths, and also the bark of some animal — a dog or a coyote. It sounded like a dog, and this led Gale to wonder if there was any house near at hand. To the right, up under the ledges some distance away, stood two square black objects, too uniform, he thought, to be rocks. While he was peering at them, uncertain what to think, the shrill whistle of a horse pealed out, to be followed by the rattling of hoofs on hard stone. Then a dog barked. At the same moment that Ladd hurriedly appeared in the road a light shone out and danced before one of the square black objects.

“Keep close an’ don’t make no noise,” he whispered, and led his horse at right angles off the road.

Gale followed, leading Mercedes’s horse. As he turned he observed that Lash also had dismounted.

To keep closely at Ladd’s heels without brushing the cactus or stumbling over rocks and depressions was a task Gale found impossible. After he had been stabbed several times by the bayonetlike spikes, which seemed invisible, the matter of caution became equally one of self-preservation. Both the cowboys, Dick had observed, wore leather chaps. It was no easy matter to lead a spirited horse through the dark, winding lanes walled by thorns. Mercedes horse often balked and had to be coaxed and carefully guided. Dick concluded that Ladd was making a wide detour. The position of certain stars grown familiar during the march veered round from one side to another. Dick saw that the travel was fast, but by no means noiseless. The pack animals at times crashed and ripped through the narrow places. It seemed to Gale that any one within a mile could have heard these sounds. From the tops of knolls or ridges he looked back, trying to locate the mesas where the light had danced and the dog had barked alarm. He could not distinguish these two rocky eminences from among many rising in the background.

Presently Ladd let out into a wider lane that appeared to run straight. The cowboy mounted his horse, and this fact convinced Gale that they had circled back to the road. The march proceeded then once more at a good, steady, silent walk. When Dick consulted his watch he was amazed to see that the hour was still early. How much had happened in little time! He now began to be aware that the night was growing colder; and, strange to him, he felt something damp that in a country he knew he would have recognized as dew. He had not been aware there was dew on the desert. The wind blew stronger, the stars shone whiter, the sky grew darker, and the moon climbed toward the zenith. The road stretched level for miles, then crossed arroyos and ridges, wound between mounds of broken ruined rock, found a level again, and then began a long ascent. Dick asked Mercedes if she was cold, and she answered that she was, speaking especially of her feet, which were growing numb. Then she asked to be helped down to walk awhile. At first she was cold and lame, and accepted the helping hand Dick proffered. After a little, however, she recovered and went on without assistance. Dick could scarcely believe his eyes, as from time to time he stole a sidelong glance at this silent girl, who walked with lithe and rapid stride. She was wrapped in his long coat, yet it did not hide her slender grace. He could not see her face, which was concealed by the black mantle.

A low-spoken word from Ladd recalled Gale to the question of surroundings and of possible dangers. Ladd had halted a few yards ahead. They had reached the summit of what was evidently a high ridge which sloped with much greater steepness on the far side. It was only after a few more forward steps, however, that Dick could see down the slope. Then full in view flashed a bright campfire around which clustered a group of dark figures. They were encamped in a wide arroyo, where horses could be seen grazing in black patches of grass between clusters of trees. A second look at the campers told Gale they were Mexicans. At this moment Lash came forward to join Ladd, and the two spent a long, uninterrupted moment studying the arroyo. A hoarse laugh, faint yet distinct, floated up on the cool wind.

“Well, Laddy, what’re you makin’ of that outfit?” inquired Lash, speaking softly.

“Same as any of them raider outfits,” replied Ladd. “They’re across the line for beef. But they’ll run off any good stock. As hoss thieves these rebels have got ’em all beat. That outfit is waitin’ till it’s late. There’s a ranch up the arroyo.”

Gale heard the first speaker curse under his breath.

“Sure, I feel the same,” said Ladd. “But we’ve got a girl an’ the young man to look after, not to mention our pack outfit. An’ we’re huntin’ for a job, not a fight, old hoss. Keep on your chaps!”

“Nothin’ to it but head south for the Rio Forlorn.”

“You’re talkin’ sense now, Jim. I wish we’d headed that way long ago. But it ain’t strange I’d want to travel away from the border, thinkin’ of the girl. Jim, we can’t go round this Greaser outfit an’ strike the road again. Too rough. So we’ll have to give up gettin’ to San Felipe.”

“Perhaps it’s just as well, Laddy. Rio Forlorn is on the border line, but it’s country where these rebels ain’t been yet.”

“Wait till they learn of the oasis an’ Beldin’s hosses!” exclaimed Laddy. “I’m not anticipatin’ peace anywhere along the border, Jim. But we can’t go ahead; we can’t go back.”

“What’ll we do, Laddy? It’s a hike to Beldin’s ranch. An’ if we get there in daylight some Greaser will see the girl before Beldin’ can hide her. It’ll get talked about. The news’ll travel to Casita like sage balls before the wind.”

“Shore we won’t ride into Rio Forlorn in the daytime. Let’s slip the packs, Jim. We can hid them off in the cactus an’ come back after them. With the young man ridin’ we—”

The whispering was interrupted by a loud ringing neigh that whistled up from the arroyo. One of the horses had scented the travelers on the ridge top. The indifference of the Mexicans changed to attention.

Ladd and Lash turned back and led the horses into the first opening on the south side of the road. There was nothing more said at the moment, and manifestly the cowboys were in a hurry. Gale had to run in the open places to keep up. When they did stop it was welcome to Gale, for he had begun to fall behind.

The packs were slipped, securely tied and hidden in a mesquite clump. Ladd strapped a blanket around one of the horses. His next move was to take off his chaps.

“Gale, you’re wearin’ boots, an’ by liftin’ your feet you can beat the cactus,” he whispered. “But the — the — Miss Castaneda, she’ll be torn all to pieces unless she puts these on. Please tell her — an’ hurry.”

Dick took the caps, and, going up to Mercedes, he explained the situation. She laughed, evidently at his embarrassed earnestness, and slipped out of the saddle.

“Senor, chapparejos and I are not strangers,” she said.

Deftly and promptly she equipped herself, and then Gale helped her into the saddle, called to her horse, and started off. Lash directed Gale to mount the other saddled horse and go next.

Dick had not ridden a hundred yards behind the trotting leaders before he had sundry painful encounters with reaching cactus arms. The horse missed these by a narrow margin. Dick’s knees appeared to be in line, and it became necessary for him to lift them high and let his boots take the onslaught of the spikes. He was at home in the saddle, and the accomplishment was about the only one he possessed that had been of any advantage during his sojourn in the West.

Ladd pursued a zigzag course southward across the desert, trotting down the aisles, cantering in wide, bare patches, walking through the clumps of cacti. The desert seemed all of a sameness to Dick — a wilderness of rocks and jagged growths hemmed in by lowering ranges, always looking close, yet never growing any nearer. The moon slanted back toward the west, losing its white radiance, and the gloom of the earlier evening began to creep into the washes and to darken under the mesas. By and by Ladd entered an arroyo, and here the travelers turned and twisted with the meanderings of a dry stream bed. At the head of a canyon they had to take once more to the rougher ground. Always it led down, always it grew rougher, more rolling, with wider bare spaces, always the black ranges loomed close.

Gale became chilled to the bone, and his clothes were damp and cold. His knees smarted from the wounds of the poisoned thorns, and his right hand was either swollen stiff or too numb to move. Moreover, he was tiring. The excitement, the long walk, the miles on miles of jolting trot — these had wearied him. Mercedes must be made of steel, he thought, to stand all that she had been subjected to and yet, when the stars were paling and dawn perhaps not far away, stay in the saddle.

So Dick Gale rode on, drowsier for each mile, and more and more giving the horse a choice of ground. Sometimes a prod from a murderous spine roused Dick. A grayness had blotted out the waning moon in the west and the clear, dark, starry sky overhead. Once when Gale, thinking to fight his weariness, raised his head, he saw that one of the horses in the lead was riderless. Ladd was carrying Mercedes. Dick marveled that her collapse had not come sooner. Another time, rousing himself again, he imagined they were now on a good hard road.

It seemed that hours passed, though he knew only little time had elapsed, when once more he threw off the spell of weariness. He heard a dog bark. Tall trees lined the open lane down which he was riding. Presently in the gray gloom he saw low, square houses with flat roofs. Ladd turned off to the left down another lane, gloomy between trees. Every few rods there was one of the squat houses. This lane opened into wider, lighter space. The cold air bore a sweet perfume — whether of flowers or fruit Dick could not tell. Ladd rode on for perhaps a quarter of a mile, though it seemed interminably long to Dick. A grove of trees loomed dark in the gray morning. Ladd entered it and was lost in the shade. Dick rode on among trees. Presently he heard voices, and soon another house, low and flat like the others, but so long he could not see the farther end, stood up blacker than the trees. As he dismounted, cramped and sore, he could scarcely stand. Lash came alongside. He spoke, and some one with a big, hearty voice replied to him. Then it seemed to Dick that he was led into blackness like pitch, where, presently, he felt blankets thrown on him and then his drowsy faculties faded.

CHAPTER IV

FORLORN RIVER

WHEN DICK OPENED his eyes a flood of golden sunshine streamed in at the open window under which he lay. His first thought was one of blank wonder as to where in the world he happened to be. The room was large, square, adobe-walled. It was littered with saddles, harness, blankets. Upon the floor was a bed spread out upon a tarpaulin. Probably this was where some one had slept. The sight of huge dusty spurs, a gun belt with sheath and gun, and a pair of leather chaps bristling with broken cactus thorns recalled to Dick the cowboys, the ride, Mercedes, and the whole strange adventure that had brought him there.

He did not recollect having removed his boots; indeed, upon second thought, he knew he had not done so. But there they stood upon the floor. Ladd and Lash must have taken them off when he was so exhausted and sleepy that he could not tell what was happening. He felt a dead weight of complete lassitude, and he did not want to move. A sudden pain in his hand caused him to hold it up. It was black and blue, swollen to almost twice its normal size, and stiff as a board. The knuckles were skinned and crusted with dry blood. Dick soliloquized that it was the worst-looking hand he had seen since football days, and that it would inconvenience him for some time.

A warm, dry, fragrant breeze came through the window. Dick caught again the sweet smell of flowers or fruit. He heard the fluttering of leaves, the murmur of running water, the twittering of birds, then the sound of approaching footsteps and voices. The door at the far end of the room was open. Through it he saw poles of peeled wood upholding a porch roof, a bench, rose bushes in bloom, grass, and beyond these bright-green foliage of trees.

“He shore was sleepin’ when I looked in an hour ago,” said a voice that Dick recognized as Ladd’s.

“Let him sleep,” came the reply in deep, good-natured tones. “Mrs. B. says the girl’s never moved. Must have been a tough ride for them both. Forty miles through cactus!”

“Young Gale hoofed darn near half the way,” replied Ladd. “We tried to make him ride one of our hosses. If we had, we’d never got here. A walk like that’d killed me an’ Jim.”

“Well, Laddy, I’m right down glad to see you boys, and I’ll do all I can for the young couple,” said the other. “But I’m doing some worry here; don’t mistake me.”

“About your stock?”

“I’ve got only a few head of cattle at the oasis now, I’m worrying some, mostly about my horses. The U. S. is doing some worrying, too, don’t mistake me. The rebels have worked west and north as far as Casita. There are no cavalrymen along the line beyond Casita, and there can’t be. It’s practically waterless desert. But these rebels are desert men. They could cross the line beyond the Rio Forlorn and smuggle arms into Mexico. Of course, my job is to keep tab on Chinese and Japs trying to get into the U.S. from Magdalena Bay. But I’m supposed to patrol the border line. I’m going to hire some rangers. Now, I’m not so afraid of being shot up, though out in this lonely place there’s danger of it; what I’m afraid of most is losing that bunch of horses. If any rebels come this far, or if they ever hear of my horses, they’re going to raid me. You know what those guerrilla Mexicans will do for horses. They’re crazy on horse flesh. They know fine horses. They breed the finest in the world. So I don’t sleep nights any more.”

“Reckon me an’ Jim might as well tie up with your for a spell, Beldin’. We’ve been ridin’ up an’ down Arizona tryin’ to keep out of sight of wire fences.”

“Laddy, it’s open enough around Forlorn River to satisfy even an old-time cowpuncher like you,” laughed Belding. “I’d take your staying on as some favor, don’t mistake me. Perhaps I can persuade the young man Gale to take a job with me.”

“That’s shore likely. He said he had no money, no friends. An’ if a scrapper’s all you’re lookin’ for he’ll do,” replied Ladd, with a dry chuckle.

“Mrs. B. will throw some broncho capers round this ranch when she hears I’m going to hire a stranger.”

“Why?”

“Well, there’s Nell — And you said this Gale was a young American. My wife will be scared to death for fear Nell will fall in love with him.”

Laddy choked off a laugh, then evidently slapped his knee or Belding’s, for there was a resounding smack.

“He’s a fine-spoken, good-looking chap, you said?” went on Belding.

“Shore he is,” said Laddy, warmly. “What do you say, Jim?”

By this time Dick Gale’s ears began to burn and he was trying to make himself deaf when he wanted to hear every little word.

“Husky young fellow, nice voice, steady, clear eyes, kinda proud, I thought, an’ some handsome, he was,” replied Jim Lash.

“Maybe I ought to think twice before taking a stranger into my family,” said Belding, seriously. “Well, I guess he’s all right, Laddy, being the cavalryman’s friend. No bum or lunger? He must be all right?”

“Bum? Lunger? Say, didn’t I tell you I shook hands with this boy an’ was plumb glad to meet him?” demanded Laddy, with considerable heat. Manifestly he had been affronted. “Tom Beldin’, he’s a gentleman, an’ he could lick you in — in half a second. How about that, Jim?”

“Less time,” replied Lash. “Tom, here’s my stand. Young Gale can have my hoss, my gun, anythin’ of mine.”

“Aw, I didn’t mean to insult you, boys, don’t mistake me,” said Belding. “Course he’s all right.”

The object of this conversation lay quiet upon his bed, thrilling and amazed at being so championed by the cowboys, delighted with Belding’s idea of employing him, and much amused with the quaint seriousness of the three.

“How’s the young man?” called a woman’s voice. It was kind and mellow and earnest.

Gale heard footsteps on flagstones.

“He’s asleep yet, wife,” replied Belding. “Guess he was pretty much knocked out.... I’ll close the door there so we won’t wake him.”

There were slow, soft steps, then the door softly closed. But the fact scarcely made a perceptible difference in the sound of the voices outside.

“Laddy and Jim are going to stay,” went on Belding. “It’ll be like the old Panhandle days a little. I’m powerful glad to have the boys, Nellie. You know I meant to sent to Casita to ask them. We’ll see some trouble before the revolution is ended. I think I’ll make this young man Gale an offer.”

“He isn’t a cowboy?” asked Mrs. Belding, quickly.

“No.”

“Shore he’d make a darn good one,” put in Laddy.

“What is he? Who is he? Where did he come from? Surely you must be—”

“Laddy swears he’s all right,” interrupted the husband. “That’s enough reference for me. Isn’t it enough for you?”

“Humph! Laddy knows a lot about young men, now doesn’t he, especially strangers from the East?... Tom, you must be careful!”

“Wife, I’m only too glad to have a nervy young chap come along. What sense is there in your objection, if Jim and Laddy stick up for him?”

“But, Tom — he’ll fall in love with Nell!” protested Mrs. Belding.

“Well, wouldn’t that be regular? Doesn’t every man who comes along fall in love with Nell? Hasn’t it always happened? When she was a schoolgirl in Kansas didn’t it happen? Didn’t she have a hundred moon-eyed ninnies after her in Texas? I’ve had some peace out here in the desert, except when a Greaser or a prospector or a Yaqui would come along. Then same old story — in love with Nell!”

“But, Tom, Nell might fall in love with this young man!” exclaimed the wife, in distress.

“Laddy, Jim, didn’t I tell you?” cried Belding. “I knew she’d say that.... My dear wife, I would be simply overcome with joy if Nell did fall in love once. Real good and hard! She’s wilder than any antelope out there on the desert. Nell’s nearly twenty now, and so far as we know she’s never cared a rap for any fellow. And she’s just as gay and full of the devil as she was at fourteen. Nell’s as good and lovable as she is pretty, but I’m afraid she’ll never grow into a woman while we live out in this lonely land. And you’ve always hated towns where there was a chance for the girl — just because you were afraid she’d fall in love. You’ve always been strange, even silly, about that. I’ve done my best for Nell — loved her as if she were my own daughter. I’ve changed many business plans to suit your whims. There are rough times ahead, maybe. I need men. I’ll hire this chap Gale if he’ll stay. Let Nell take her chance with him, just as she’ll have to take chances with men when we get out of the desert. She’ll be all the better for it.”

“I hope Laddy’s not mistaken in his opinion of this newcomer,” replied Mrs. Belding, with a sigh of resignation.

“Shore I never made a mistake in my life figger’n’ people,” said Laddy, stoutly.

“Yes, you have, Laddy,” replied Mrs. Belding. “You’re wrong about Tom.... Well, supper is to be got. That young man and the girl will be starved. I’ll go in now. If Nell happens around don’t — don’t flatter her, Laddy, like you did at dinner. Don’t make her think of her looks.”

Dick heard Mrs. Belding walk away.

“Shore she’s powerful particular about that girl,” observed Laddy. “Say, Tom, Nell knows she’s pretty, doesn’t she?”

“She’s liable to find it out unless you shut up, Laddy. When you visited us out here some weeks ago, you kept paying cowboy compliments to her.”

“An’ it’s your idea that cowboy compliments are plumb bad for girls?”

“Downright bad, Laddy, so my wife says.”

“I’ll be darned if I believe any girl can be hurt by a little sweet talk. It pleases ‘em.... But say, Beldin’, speaking of looks, have you got a peek yet at the Spanish girl?”

“Not in the light.”

“Well, neither have I in daytime. I had enough by moonlight. Nell is some on looks, but I’m regretful passin’ the ribbon to the lady from Mex. Jim, where are you?”

“My money’s on Nell,” replied Lash. “Gimme a girl with flesh an’ color, an’ blue eyes a-laughin’. Miss Castaneda is some peach, I’ll not gainsay. But her face seemed too white. An’ when she flashed those eyes on me, I thought I was shot! When she stood up there at first, thankin’ us, I felt as if a — a princess was round somewhere. Now, Nell is kiddish an’ sweet an’—”

“Chop it,” interrupted Belding. “Here comes Nell now.”

Dick’s tingling ears took in the pattering of light footsteps, the rush of some one running.

“Here you are,” cried a sweet, happy voice. “Dad, the Senorita is perfectly lovely. I’ve been peeping at her. She sleeps like — like death. She’s so white. Oh, I hope she won’t be ill.”

“Shore she’s only played out,” said Laddy. “But she had spunk while it lasted.... I was just arguin’ with Jim an’ Tom about Miss Castaneda.”

“Gracious! Why, she’s beautiful. I never saw any one so beautiful.... How strange and sad, that about her! Tell me more, Laddy. You promised. I’m dying to know. I never hear anything in this awful place. Didn’t you say the Senorita had a sweetheart?”

“Shore I did.”

“And he’s a cavalryman?”

“Yes.”

“Is he the young man who came with you?”

“Nope. That fellow’s the one who saved the girl from Rojas.”

“Ah! Where is he, Laddy?”

“He’s in there asleep.”

“Is he hurt?”

“I reckon not. He walked about fifteen miles.”

“Is he — nice, Laddy?”

“Shore.”

“What is he like?”

“Well, I’m not long acquainted, never saw him by day, but I was some tolerable took with him. An’ Jim here, Jim says the young man can have his gun an’ his hoss.”

“Wonderful! Laddy, what on earth did this stranger do to win you cowboys in just one night?”

“I’ll shore have to tell you. Me an’ Jim were watchin’ a game of cards in the Del Sol saloon in Casita. That’s across the line. We had acquaintances — four fellows from the Cross Bar outfit, where we worked a while back. This Del Sol is a billiard hall, saloon, restaurant, an’ the like. An’ it was full of Greasers. Some of Camp’s rebels were there drinkin’ an’ playin’ games. Then pretty soon in come Rojas with some of his outfit. They were packin’ guns an’ kept to themselves off to one side. I didn’t give them a second look till Jim said he reckoned there was somethin’ in the wind. Then, careless-like, I began to peek at Rojas. They call Rojas the ‘dandy rebel,’ an’ he shore looked the part. It made me sick to see him in all that lace an’ glitter, knowin’ him to be the cutthroat robber he is. It’s no oncommon sight to see excited Greasers. They’re all crazy. But this bandit was shore some agitated. He kept his men in a tight bunch round a table. He talked an’ waved his hands. He was actually shakin’. His eyes had a wild glare. Now I figgered that trouble was brewin’, most likely for the little Casita garrison. People seemed to think Campo an’ Rojas would join forces to oust the federals. Jim thought Rojas’s excitement was at the hatchin’ of some plot. Anyway, we didn’t join no card games, an’ without pretendin’ to, we was some watchful.

“A little while afterward I seen a fellow standin’ in the restaurant door. He was a young American dressed in corduroys and boots, like a prospector. You know it’s no onusual fact to see prospectors in these parts. What made me think twice about this one was how big he seemed, how he filled up that door. He looked round the saloon, an’ when he spotted Rojas he sorta jerked up. Then he pulled his slouch hat lopsided an’ began to stagger down, down the steps. First off I made shore he was drunk. But I remembered he didn’t seem drunk before. It was some queer. So I watched that young man.

“He reeled around the room like a fellow who was drunker’n a lord. Nobody but me seemed to notice him. Then he began to stumble over pool-players an’ get his feet tangled up in chairs an’ bump against tables. He got some pretty hard looks. He came round our way, an’ all of a sudden he seen us cowboys. He gave another start, like the one when he first seen Rojas, then he made for us. I tipped Jim off that somethin’ was doin’.

“When he got close he straightened up, put back his slouch hat, an’ looked at us. Then I saw his face. It sorta electrified yours truly. It was white, with veins standin’ out an’ eyes flamin’ — a face of fury. I was plumb amazed, didn’t know what to think. Then this queer young man shot some cool, polite words at me an’ Jim.

“He was only bluffin’ at bein’ drunk — he meant to rush Rojas, to start a rough house. The bandit was after a girl. This girl was in the hotel, an’ she was the sweetheart of a soldier, the young fellow’s friend. The hotel was watched by Rojas’s guards, an’ the plan was to make a fuss an’ get the girl away in the excitement. Well, Jim an’ me got a hint of our bein’ Americans — that cowboys generally had a name for loyalty to women. Then this amazin’ chap — you can’t imagine how scornful — said for me an’ Jim to watch him.

“Before I could catch my breath an’ figger out what he meant by ‘rush’ an’ ‘rough house’ he had knocked over a table an’ crowded some Greaser half off the map. One little funny man leaped up like a wild monkey an’ began to screech. An’ in another second he was in the air upside down. When he lit, he laid there. Then, quicker’n I can tell you, the young man dove at Rojas. Like a mad steer on the rampage he charged Rojas an’ his men. The whole outfit went down — smash! I figgered then what ‘rush’ meant. The young fellow came up out of the pile with Rojas, an’ just like I’d sling an empty sack along the floor he sent the bandit. But swift as that went he was on top of Rojas before the chairs an’ tables had stopped rollin’.

“I woke up then, an’ made for the center of the room. Jim with me. I began to shoot out the lamps. Jim throwed his guns on the crazy rebels, an’ I was afraid there’d be blood spilled before I could get the room dark. Bein’s shore busy, I lost sight of the young fellow for a second or so, an’ when I got an eye free for him I seen a Greaser about to knife him. Think I was some considerate of the Greaser by only shootin’ his arm off. Then I cracked the last lamp, an’ in the hullabaloo me an’ Jim vamoosed.

“We made tracks for our hosses an’ packs, an’ was hittin’ the San Felipe road when we run right plumb into the young man. Well, he said his name was Gale — Dick Gale. The girl was with him safe an’ well; but her sweetheart, the soldier, bein’ away without leave, had to go back sudden. There shore was some trouble, for Jim an’ me heard shootin’. Gale said he had no money, no friends, was a stranger in a desert country; an’ he was distracted to know how to help the girl. So me an’ Jim started off with them for San Felipe, got switched, and’ then we headed for the Rio Forlorn.”

“Oh, I think he was perfectly splendid!” exclaimed the girl.

“Shore he was. Only, Nell, you can’t lay no claim to bein’ the original discoverer of that fact.”

“But, Laddy, you haven’t told me what he looks like.”

At this juncture Dick Gale felt it absolutely impossible for him to play the eavesdropper any longer. Quietly he rolled out of bed. The voices still sounded close outside, and it was only by effort that he kept from further listening. Belding’s kindly interest, Laddy’s blunt and sincere cowboy eulogy, the girl’s sweet eagerness and praise — these warmed Gale’s heart. He had fallen among simple people, into whose lives the advent of an unknown man was welcome. He found himself in a singularly agitated mood. The excitement, the thrill, the difference felt in himself, experienced the preceding night, had extended on into his present. And the possibilities suggested by the conversation he had unwittingly overheard added sufficiently to the other feelings to put him into a peculiarly receptive state of mind. He was wild to be one of the Belding rangers. The idea of riding a horse in the open desert, with a dangerous duty to perform, seemed to strike him with an appealing force. Something within him went out to the cowboys, to this blunt and kind Belding. He was afraid to meet the girl. If every man who came along fell in love with this sweet-voiced Nell, then what hope had he to escape — now, when his whole inner awakening betokened a change of spirit, hope, a finding of real worth, real good, real power in himself? He did not understand wholly, yet he felt ready to ride, to fight, to love the desert, to love these outdoor men, to love a woman. That beautiful Spanish girl had spoken to something dead in him and it had quickened to life. The sweet voice of an audacious, unseen girl warned him that presently a still more wonderful thing would happen to him.

Gale imagined he made noise enough as he clumsily pulled on his boots, yet the voices, split by a merry laugh, kept on murmuring outside the door. It was awkward for him, having only one hand available to lace up his boots. He looked out of the window. Evidently this was at the end of the house. There was a flagstone walk, beside which ran a ditch full of swift, muddy water. It made a pleasant sound. There were trees strange of form and color to to him. He heard bees, birds, chickens, saw the red of roses and green of grass. Then he saw, close to the wall, a tub full of water, and a bench upon which lay basin, soap, towel, comb, and brush. The window was also a door, for under it there was a step.

Gale hesitated a moment, then went out. He stepped naturally, hoping and expecting that the cowboys would hear him. But nobody came. Awkwardly, with left hand, he washed his face. Upon a nail in the wall hung a little mirror, by the aid of which Dick combed and brushed his hair. He imagined he looked a most haggard wretch. With that he faced forward, meaning to go round the corner of the house to greet the cowboys and these new-found friends.

Dick had taken but one step when he was halted by laugher and the patter of light feet.

From close around the corner pealed out that sweet voice. “Dad, you’ll have your wish, and mama will be wild!”

Dick saw a little foot sweep into view, a white dress, then the swiftly moving form of a girl. She was looking backward.

“Dad, I shall fall in love with your new ranger. I will — I have—”

Then she plumped squarely into Dick’s arms.

She started back violently.

Dick saw a fair face and dark-blue, audaciously flashing eyes. Swift as lightning their expression changed to surprise, fear, wonder. For an instant they were level with Dick’s grave questioning. Suddenly, sweetly, she blushed.

“Oh-h!” she faltered.

Then the blush turned to a scarlet fire. She whirled past him, and like a white gleam was gone.

Dick became conscious of the quickened beating of his heart. He experienced a singular exhilaration. That moment had been the one for which he had been ripe, the event upon which strange circumstances had been rushing him.

With a couple of strides he turned the corner. Laddy and Lash were there talking to a man of burly form. Seen by day, both cowboys were gray-haired, red-skinned, and weather-beaten, with lean, sharp features, and gray eyes so much alike that they might have been brothers.

“Hello, there’s the young fellow,” spoke up the burly man. “Mr. Gale, I’m glad to meet you. My name’s Belding.”

His greeting was as warm as his handclasp was long and hard. Gale saw a heavy man of medium height. His head was large and covered with grizzled locks. He wore a short-cropped mustache and chin beard. His skin was brown, and his dark eyes beamed with a genial light.

The cowboys were as cordial as if Dick had been their friend for years.

“Young man, did you run into anything as you came out?” asked Belding, with twinkling eyes.

“Why, yes, I met something white and swift flying by,” replied Dick.

“Did she see you?” asked Laddy.

“I think so; but she didn’t wait for me to introduce myself.”

“That was Nell Burton, my girl — step-daughter, I should say,” said Belding. “She’s sure some whirlwind, as Laddy calls her. Come, let’s go in and meet the wife.”

The house was long, like a barracks, with porch extending all the way, and doors every dozen paces. When Dick was ushered into a sitting-room, he was amazed at the light and comfort. This room had two big windows and a door opening into a patio, where there were luxuriant grass, roses in bloom, and flowering trees. He heard a slow splashing of water.

In Mrs. Belding, Gale found a woman of noble proportions and striking appearance. Her hair was white. She had a strong, serious, well-lined face that bore haunting evidences of past beauty. The gaze she bent upon him was almost piercing in its intensity. Her greeting, which seemed to Dick rather slow in coming, was kind though not cordial. Gale’s first thought, after he had thanked these good people for their hospitality, was to inquire about Mercedes. He was informed that the Spanish girl had awakened with a considerable fever and nervousness. When, however, her anxiety had been allayed and her thirst relieved, she had fallen asleep again. Mrs. Belding said the girl had suffered no great hardship, other than mental, and would very soon be rested and well.

“Now, Gale,” said Belding, when his wife had excused herself to get supper, “the boys, Jim and Laddy, told me about you and the mix-up at Casita. I’ll be glad to take care of the girl till it’s safe for your soldier friend to get her out of the country. That won’t be very soon, don’t mistake me.... I don’t want to seem over-curious about you — Laddy has interested me in you — and straight out I’d like to know what you propose to do now.”

“I haven’t any plans,” replied Dick; and, taking the moment as propitious, he decided to speak frankly concerning himself. “I just drifted down here. My home is in Chicago. When I left school some years ago — I’m twenty-five now — I went to work for my father. He’s — he has business interests there. I tried all kinds of inside jobs. I couldn’t please my father. I guess I put no real heart in my work. The fact was I didn’t know how to work. The governor and I didn’t exactly quarrel; but he hurt my feelings, and I quit. Six months or more ago I came West, and have knocked about from Wyoming southwest to the border. I tried to find congenial work, but nothing came my way. To tell you frankly, Mr. Belding, I suppose I didn’t much care. I believe, though, that all the time I didn’t know what I wanted. I’ve learned — well, just lately—”

“What do you want to do?” interposed Belding.

“I want a man’s job. I want to do things with my hands. I want action. I want to be outdoors.”

Belding nodded his head as if he understood that, and he began to speak again, cut something short, then went on, hesitatingly:

“Gale — you could go home again — to the old man — it’d be all right?”

“Mr. Belding, there’s nothing shady in my past. The governor would be glad to have me home. That’s the only consolation I’ve got. But I’m not going. I’m broke. I won’t be a tramp. And it’s up to me to do something.”

“How’d you like to be a border ranger?” asked Belding, laying a hand on Dick’s knee. “Part of my job here is United States Inspector of Immigration. I’ve got that boundary line to patrol — to keep out Chinks and Japs. This revolution has added complications, and I’m looking for smugglers and raiders here any day. You’ll not be hired by the U. S. You’ll simply be my ranger, same as Laddy and Jim, who have promised to work for me. I’ll pay you well, give you a room here, furnish everything down to guns, and the finest horse you ever saw in your life. Your job won’t be safe and healthy, sometimes, but it’ll be a man’s job — don’t mistake me! You can gamble on having things to do outdoors. Now, what do you say?”

“I accept, and I thank you — I can’t say how much,” replied Gale, earnestly.

“Good! That’s settled. Let’s go out and tell Laddy and Jim.”

Both boys expressed satisfaction at the turn of affairs, and then with Belding they set out to take Gale around the ranch. The house and several outbuildings were constructed of adobe, which, according to Belding, retained the summer heat on into winter, and the winter cold on into summer. These gray-red mud habitations were hideous to look at, and this fact, perhaps, made their really comfortable interiors more vividly a contrast. The wide grounds were covered with luxuriant grass and flowers and different kinds of trees. Gale’s interest led him to ask about fig trees and pomegranates, and especially about a beautiful specimen that Belding called palo verde.

Belding explained that the luxuriance of this desert place was owing to a few springs and the dammed-up waters of the Rio Forlorn. Before he had come to the oasis it had been inhabited by a Papago Indian tribe and a few peon families. The oasis lay in an arroyo a mile wide, and sloped southwest for some ten miles or more. The river went dry most of the year; but enough water was stored in flood season to irrigate the gardens and alfalfa fields.

“I’ve got one never-failing spring on my place,” said Belding. “Fine, sweet water! You know what that means in the desert. I like this oasis. The longer I live here the better I like it. There’s not a spot in southern Arizona that’ll compare with this valley for water or grass or wood. It’s beautiful and healthy. Forlorn and lonely, yes, especially for women like my wife and Nell; but I like it.... And between you and me, boys, I’ve got something up my sleeve. There’s gold dust in the arroyos, and there’s mineral up in the mountains. If we only had water! This hamlet has steadily grown since I took up a station here. Why, Casita is no place beside Forlorn River. Pretty soon the Southern Pacific will shoot a railroad branch out here. There are possibilities, and I want you boys to stay with me and get in on the ground floor. I wish this rebel war was over.... Well, here are the corrals and the fields. Gale, take a look at that bunch of horses!”

Belding’s last remark was made as he led his companions out of shady gardens into the open. Gale saw an adobe shed and a huge pen fenced by strangely twisted and contorted branches or trunks of mesquite, and, beyond these, wide, flat fields, green — a dark, rich green — and dotted with beautiful horses. There were whites and blacks, and bays and grays. In his admiration Gale searched his memory to see if he could remember the like of these magnificent animals, and had to admit that the only ones he could compare with them were the Arabian steeds.

“Every ranch loves his horses,” said Belding. “When I was in the Panhandle I had some fine stock. But these are Mexican. They came from Durango, where they were bred. Mexican horses are the finest in the world, bar none.”

“Shore I reckon I savvy why you don’t sleep nights,” drawled Laddy. “I see a Greaser out there — no, it’s an Indian.”

“That’s my Papago herdsman. I keep watch over the horses now day and night. Lord, how I’d hate to have Rojas or Salazar — any of those bandit rebels — find my horses!... Gale, can you ride?”

Dick modestly replied that he could, according to the Eastern idea of horsemanship.

“You don’t need to be half horse to ride one of that bunch. But over there in the other field I’ve iron-jawed broncos I wouldn’t want you to tackle — except to see the fun. I’ve an outlaw I’ll gamble even Laddy can’t ride.”

“So. How much’ll you gamble?” asked Laddy, instantly.

The ringing of a bell, which Belding said was a call to supper, turned the men back toward the house. Facing that way, Gale saw dark, beetling ridges rising from the oasis and leading up to bare, black mountains. He had heard Belding call them No Name Mountains, and somehow the appellation suited those lofty, mysterious, frowning peaks.

It was not until they reached the house and were about to go in that Belding chanced to discover Gale’s crippled hand.

“What an awful hand!” he exclaimed. “Where the devil did you get that?”

“I stove in my knuckles on Rojas,” replied Dick.

“You did that in one punch? Say, I’m glad it wasn’t me you hit! Why didn’t you tell me? That’s a bad hand. Those cuts are full of dirt and sand. Inflammation’s setting in. It’s got to be dressed. Nell!” he called.

There was no answer. He called again, louder.

“Mother, where’s the girl?”

“She’s there in the dining-room,” replied Mrs. Belding.

“Did she hear me?” he inquired, impatiently.

“Of course.”

“Nell!” roared Belding.

This brought results. Dick saw a glimpse of golden hair and a white dress in the door. But they were not visible longer than a second.

“Dad, what’s the matter?” asked a voice that was still as sweet as formerly, but now rather small and constrained.

“Bring the antiseptics, cotton, bandages — and things out here. Hurry now.”

Belding fetched a pail of water and a basin from the kitchen. His wife followed him out, and, upon seeing Dick’s hand, was all solicitude. Then Dick heard light, quick footsteps, but he did not look up.

“Nell, this is Mr. Gale — Dick Gale, who came with the boys last last night,” said Belding. “He’s got an awful hand. Got it punching that greaser Rojas. I want you to dress it.... Gale, this is my step-daughter, Nell Burton, of whom I spoke. She’s some good when there’s somebody sick or hurt. Shove out your fist, my boy, and let her get at it. Supper’s nearly ready.”

Dick felt that same strange, quickening heart throb, yet he had never been cooler in his life. More than anything else in the world he wanted to look at Nell Burton; however, divining that the situation might be embarrassing to her, he refrained from looking up. She began to bathe his injured knuckles. He noted the softness, the deftness of her touch, and then it seemed her fingers were not quite as steady as they might have been. Still, in a moment they appeared to become surer in their work. She had beautiful hands, not too large, though certainly not small, and they were strong, brown, supple. He observed next, with stealthy, upward-stealing glance, that she had rolled up her sleeves, exposing fine, round arms graceful in line. Her skin was brown — no, it was more gold than brown. It had a wonderful clear tint. Dick stoically lowered his eyes then, putting off as long as possible the alluring moment when he was to look into her face. That would be a fateful moment. He played with a certain strange joy of anticipation. When, however, she sat down beside him and rested his injured hand in her lap as she cut bandages, she was so thrillingly near that he yielded to an irrepressible desire to look up. She had a sweet, fair face warmly tinted with that same healthy golden-brown sunburn. Her hair was light gold and abundant, a waving mass. Her eyes were shaded by long, downcast lashes, yet through them he caught a gleam of blue.

Despite the stir within him, Gale, seeing she was now absorbed in her task, critically studied her with a second closer gaze. She was a sweet, wholesome, joyous, pretty girl.

“Shore it musta hurt?” replied Laddy, who sat an interested spectator.

“Yes, I confess it did,” replied Dick, slowly, with his eyes on Nell’s face. “But I didn’t mind.”

The girl’s lashes swept up swiftly in surprise. She had taken his words literally. But the dark-blue eyes met his for only a fleeting second. Then the warm tint in her cheeks turned as red as her lips. Hurriedly she finished tying the bandage and rose to her feet.

“I thank you,” said Gale, also rising.

With that Belding appeared in the doorway, and finding the operation concluded, called them in to supper. Dick had the use of only one arm, and he certainly was keenly aware of the shy, silent girl across the table; but in spite of these considerable handicaps he eclipsed both hungry cowboys in the assault upon Mrs. Belding’s bounteous supper. Belding talked, the cowboys talked more or less. Mrs. Belding put in a word now and then, and Dick managed to find brief intervals when it was possible for him to say yes or no. He observed gratefully that no one round the table seemed to be aware of his enormous appetite.

After supper, having a favorable opportunity when for a moment no one was at hand, Dick went out through the yard, past the gardens and fields, and climbed the first knoll. From that vantage point he looked out over the little hamlet, somewhat to his right, and was surprised at its extent, its considerable number of adobe houses. The overhanging mountains, ragged and darkening, a great heave of splintered rock, rather chilled and affronted him.

Westward the setting sun gilded a spiked, frost-colored, limitless expanse of desert. It awed Gale. Everywhere rose blunt, broken ranges or isolated groups of mountains. Yet the desert stretched away down between and beyond them. When the sun set and Gale could not see so far, he felt a relief.

That grand and austere attraction of distance gone, he saw the desert nearer at hand — the valley at his feet. What a strange gray, somber place! There was a lighter strip of gray winding down between darker hues. This he realized presently was the river bed, and he saw how the pools of water narrowed and diminished in size till they lost themselves in gray sand. This was the rainy season, near its end, and here a little river struggled hopelessly, forlornly to live in the desert. He received a potent impression of the nature of that blasted age-worn waste which he had divined was to give him strength and work and love.

CHAPTER V

A DESERT ROSE

BELDING ASSIGNED DICK to a little room which had no windows but two doors, one opening into the patio, the other into the yard on the west side of the house. It contained only the barest necessities for comfort. Dick mentioned the baggage he had left in the hotel at Casita, and it was Belding’s opinion that to try to recover his property would be rather risky; on the moment Richard Gale was probably not popular with the Mexicans at Casita. So Dick bade good-by to fine suits of clothes and linen with a feeling that, as he had said farewell to an idle and useless past, it was just as well not to have any old luxuries as reminders. As he possessed, however, not a thing save the clothes on his back, and not even a handkerchief, he expressed regret that he had come to Forlorn River a beggar.

“Beggar hell!” exploded Belding, with his eyes snapping in the lamplight. “Money’s the last thing we think of out here. All the same, Gale, if you stick you’ll be rich.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” replied Dick, thoughtfully. But he was not thinking of material wealth. Then, as he viewed his stained and torn shirt, he laughed and said “Belding, while I’m getting rich I’d like to have some respectable clothes.”

“We’ve a little Mex store in town, and what you can’t get there the women folks will make for you.”

When Dick lay down he was dully conscious of pain and headache, that he did not feel well. Despite this, and a mind thronging with memories and anticipations, he succumbed to weariness and soon fell asleep.

It was light when he awoke, but a strange brightness seen through what seemed blurred eyes. A moment passed before his mind worked clearly, and then he had to make an effort to think. He was dizzy. When he essayed to lift his right arm, an excruciating pain made him desist. Then he discovered that his arm was badly swollen, and the hand had burst its bandages. The injured member was red, angry, inflamed, and twice its normal size. He felt hot all over, and a raging headache consumed him.

Belding came stamping into the room.

“Hello, Dick. Do you know it’s late? How’s the busted fist this morning?”

Dick tried to sit up, but his effort was a failure. He got about half up, then felt himself weakly sliding back.

“I guess — I’m pretty sick,” he said.

He saw Belding lean over him, feel his face, and speak, and then everything seemed to drift, not into darkness, but into some region where he had dim perceptions of gray moving things, and of voices that were remote. Then there came an interval when all was blank. He knew not whether it was one of minutes or hours, but after it he had a clearer mind. He slept, awakened during night-time, and slept again. When he again unclosed his eyes the room was sunny, and cool with a fragrant breeze that blew through the open door. Dick felt better; but he had no particular desire to move or talk or eat. He had, however, a burning thirst. Mrs. Belding visited him often; her husband came in several times, and once Nell slipped in noiselessly. Even this last event aroused no interest in Dick.

On the next day he was very much improved.

“We’ve been afraid of blood poisoning,” said Belding. “But my wife thinks the danger’s past. You’ll have to rest that arm for a while.”

Ladd and Jim came peeping in at the door.

“Come in, boys. He can have company — the more the better — if it’ll keep him content. He mustn’t move, that’s all.”

The cowboys entered, slow, easy, cool, kind-voiced.

“Shore it’s tough,” said Ladd, after he had greeted Dick. “You look used up.”

Jim Lash wagged his half-bald, sunburned head, “Musta been more’n tough for Rojas.”

“Gale, Laddy tells me one of our neighbors, fellow named Carter, is going to Casita,” put in Belding. “Here’s a chance to get word to your friend the soldier.”

“Oh, that will be fine!” exclaimed Dick. “I declare I’d forgotten Thorne.... How is Miss Castaneda? I hope—”

“She’s all right, Gale. Been up and around the patio for two days. Like all the Spanish — the real thing — she’s made of Damascus steel. We’ve been getting acquainted. She and Nell made friends at once. I’ll call them in.”

He closed the door leading out into the yard, explaining that he did not want to take chances of Mercedes’s presence becoming known to neighbors. Then he went to the patio and called.

Both girls came in, Mercedes leading. Like Nell, she wore white, and she had a red rose in her hand. Dick would scarcely have recognized anything about her except her eyes and the way she carried her little head, and her beauty burst upon him strange and anew. She was swift, impulsive in her movements to reach his side.

“Senor, I am so sorry you were ill — so happy you are better.”

Dick greeted her, offering his left hand, gravely apologizing for the fact that, owing to a late infirmity, he could not offer the right. Her smile exquisitely combined sympathy, gratitude, admiration. Then Dick spoke to Nell, likewise offering his hand, which she took shyly. Her reply was a murmured, unintelligible one; but her eyes were glad, and the tint in her cheeks threatened to rival the hue of the rose she carried.

Everybody chatted then, except Nell, who had apparently lost her voice. Presently Dick remembered to speak of the matter of getting news to Thorne.

“Senor, may I write to him? Will some one take a letter?... I shall hear from him!” she said; and her white hands emphasized her words.

“Assuredly. I guess poor Thorne is almost crazy. I’ll write to him.... No, I can’t with this crippled hand.”

“That’ll be all right, Gale,” said Belding. “Nell will write for you. She writes all my letters.”

So Belding arranged it; and Mercedes flew away to her room to write, while Nell fetched pen and paper and seated herself beside Gale’s bed to take his dictation.

What with watching Nell and trying to catch her glance, and listening to Belding’s talk with the cowboys, Dick was hard put to it to dictate any kind of a creditable letter. Nell met his gaze once, then no more. The color came and went in her cheeks, and sometimes, when he told her to write so and so, there was a demure smile on her lips. She was laughing at him. And Belding was talking over the risks involved in a trip to Casita.

“Shore I’ll ride in with the letters,” Ladd said.

“No you won’t,” replied Belding. “That bandit outfit will be laying for you.”

“Well, I reckon if they was I wouldn’t be oncommon grieved.”

“I’ll tell you, boys, I’ll ride in myself with Carter. There’s business I can see to, and I’m curious to know what the rebels are doing. Laddy, keep one eye open while I’m gone. See the horses are locked up.... Gale, I’m going to Casita myself. Ought to get back tomorrow some time. I’ll be ready to start in an hour. Have your letter ready. And say — if you want to write home it’s a chance. Sometimes we don’t go to the P. O. in a month.”

He tramped out, followed by the tall cowboys, and then Dick was enabled to bring his letter to a close. Mercedes came back, and her eyes were shining. Dick imagined a letter received from her would be something of an event for a fellow. Then, remembering Belding’s suggestion, he decided to profit by it.

“May I trouble you to write another for me?” asked Dick, as he received the letter from Nell.

“It’s no trouble, I’m sure — I’d be pleased,” she replied.

That was altogether a wonderful speech of hers, Dick thought, because the words were the first coherent ones she had spoken to him.

“May I stay?” asked Mercedes, smiling.

“By all means,” he answered, and then he settled back and began.

Presently Gale paused, partly because of genuine emotion, and stole a look from under his hand at Nell. She wrote swiftly, and her downcast face seemed to be softer in its expression of sweetness. If she had in the very least been drawn to him — But that was absurd — impossible!

When Dick finished dictating, his eyes were upon Mercedes, who sat smiling curious and sympathetic. How responsive she was! He heard the hasty scratch of Nell’s pen. He looked at Nell. Presently she rose, holding out his letter. He was just in time to see a wave of red recede from her face. She gave him one swift gaze, unconscious, searching, then averted it and turned away. She left the room with Mercedes before he could express his thanks.

But that strange, speaking flash of eyes remained to haunt and torment Gale. It was indescribably sweet, and provocative of thoughts that he believed were wild without warrant. Something within him danced for very joy, and the next instant he was conscious of wistful doubt, a gravity that he could not understand. It dawned upon him that for the brief instant when Nell had met his gaze she had lost her shyness. It was a woman’s questioning eyes that had pierced through him.

During the rest of the day Gale was content to lie still on his bed thinking and dreaming, dozing at intervals, and watching the lights change upon the mountain peaks, feeling the warm, fragrant desert wind that blew in upon him. He seemed to have lost the faculty of estimating time. A long while, strong in its effect upon him, appeared to have passed since he had met Thorne. He accepted things as he felt them, and repudiated his intelligence. His old inquisitive habit of mind returned. Did he love Nell? Was he only attracted for the moment? What was the use of worrying about her or himself? He refused to answer, and deliberately gave himself up to dreams of her sweet face and of that last dark-blue glance.

Next day he believed he was well enough to leave his room; but Mrs. Belding would not permit him to do so. She was kind, soft-handed, motherly, and she was always coming in to minister to his comfort. This attention was sincere, not in the least forced; yet Gale felt that the friendliness so manifest in the others of the household did not extend to her. He was conscious of something that a little thought persuaded him was antagonism. It surprised and hurt him. He had never been much of a success with girls and young married women, but their mothers and old people had generally been fond of him. Still, though Mrs. Belding’s hair was snow-white, she did not impress him as being old. He reflected that there might come a time when it would be desirable, far beyond any ground of every-day friendly kindliness, to have Mrs. Belding be well disposed toward him. So he thought about her, and pondered how to make her like him. It did not take very long for Dick to discover that he liked her. Her face, except when she smiled, was thoughtful and sad. It was a face to make one serious. Like a haunting shadow, like a phantom of happier years, the sweetness of Nell’s face was there, and infinitely more of beauty than had been transmitted to the daughter. Dick believed Mrs. Belding’s friendship and motherly love were worth striving to win, entirely aside from any more selfish motive. He decided both would be hard to get. Often he felt her deep, penetrating gaze upon him; and, though this in no wise embarrassed him — for he had no shameful secrets of past or present — it showed him how useless it would be to try to conceal anything from her. Naturally, on first impulse, he wanted to hide his interest in the daughter; but he resolved to be absolutely frank and true, and through that win or lose. Moreover, if Mrs. Belding asked him any questions about his home, his family, his connections, he would not avoid direct and truthful answers.

Toward evening Gale heard the tramp of horses and Belding’s hearty voice. Presently the rancher strode in upon Gale, shaking the gray dust from his broad shoulders and waving a letter.

“Hello, Dick! Good news and bad!” he said, putting the letter in Dick’s hand. “Had no trouble finding your friend Thorne. Looked like he’d been drunk for a week! Say, he nearly threw a fit. I never saw a fellow so wild with joy. He made sure you and Mercedes were lost in the desert. He wrote two letters which I brought. Don’t mistake me, boy, it was some fun with Mercedes just now. I teased her, wouldn’t give her the letter. You ought to have seen her eyes. If ever you see a black-and-white desert hawk swoop down upon a quail, then you’ll know how Mercedes pounced upon her letter... Well, Casita is one hell of a place these days. I tried to get your baggage, and I think I made a mistake. We’re going to see travel toward Forlorn River. The federal garrison got reinforcements from somewhere, and is holding out. There’s been fighting for three days. The rebels have a string of flat railroad cars, all iron, and they ran this up within range of the barricades. They’ve got some machine guns, and they’re going to lick the federals sure. There are dead soldiers in the ditches, Mexican non-combatants lying dead in the streets — and buzzards everywhere! It’s reported that Campo, the rebel leader, is on the way up from Sinaloa, and Huerta, a federal general, is coming to relieve the garrison. I don’t take much stock in reports. But there’s hell in Casita, all right.”

“Do you think we’ll have trouble out here?” asked Dick, excitedly.

“Sure. Some kind of trouble sooner or later,” replied Belding, gloomily. “Why, you can stand on my ranch and step over into Mexico. Laddy says we’ll lose horses and other stock in night raids. Jim Lash doesn’t look for any worse. But Jim isn’t as well acquainted with Greasers as I am. Anyway, my boy, as soon as you can hold a bridle and a gun you’ll be on the job, don’t mistake me.”

“With Laddy and Jim?” asked Dick, trying to be cool.

“Sure. With them and me, and by yourself.”

Dick drew a deep breath, and even after Belding had departed he forgot for a moment about the letter in his hand. Then he unfolded the paper and read:

Dear Dick, — You’ve more than saved my life. To the end of my days you’ll be the one man to whom I owe everything. Words fail to express my feelings.

This must be a brief note. Belding is waiting, and I used up most of the time writing to Mercedes. I like Belding. He was not unknown to me, though I never met or saw him before. You’ll be interested to learn that he’s the unadulterated article, the real Western goods. I’ve heard of some of his stunts, and they made my hair curl. Dick, your luck is staggering. The way Belding spoke of you was great. But you deserve it, old man.

I’m leaving Mercedes in your charge, subject, of course, to advice from Belding. Take care of her, Dick, for my life is wrapped up in her. By all means keep her from being seen by Mexicans. We are sitting tight here — nothing doing. If some action doesn’t come soon, it’ll be darned strange. Things are centering this way. There’s scrapping right along, and people have begun to move. We’re still patrolling the line eastward of Casita. It’ll be impossible to keep any tab on the line west of Casita, for it’s too rough. That cactus desert is awful. Cowboys or rangers with desert-bred horses might keep raiders and smugglers from crossing. But if cavalrymen could stand that waterless wilderness, which I doubt much, their horses would drop under them.

If things do quiet down before my commission expires, I’ll get leave of absence, run out to Forlorn River, marry my beautiful Spanish princess, and take her to a civilized country, where, I opine, every son of a gun who sees her will lose his head, and drive me mad. It’s my great luck, old pal, that you are a fellow who never seemed to care about pretty girls. So you won’t give me the double cross and run off with Mercedes — carry her off, like the villain in the play, I mean.

That reminds me of Rojas. Oh, Dick, it was glorious! You didn’t do anything to the Dandy Rebel! Not at all! You merely caressed him — gently moved him to one side. Dick, harken to these glad words: Rojas is in the hospital. I was interested to inquire. He had a smashed finger, a dislocated collar bone, three broken ribs, and a fearful gash on his face. He’ll be in the hospital for a month. Dick, when I meet that pig-headed dad of yours I’m going to give him the surprise of his life.

Send me a line whenever any one comes in from F. R., and inclose Mercedes’s letter in yours. Take care of her, Dick, and may the future hold in store for you some of the sweetness I know now!

Faithfully yours, Thorne.

Dick reread the letter, then folded it and placed it under his pillow.

“Never cared for pretty girls, huh?” he soliloquized. “George, I never saw any till I struck Southern Arizona! Guess I’d better make up for lost time.”

While he was eating his supper, with appetite rapidly returning to normal, Ladd and Jim came in, bowing their tall heads to enter the door. Their friendly advances were singularly welcome to Gale, but he was still backward. He allowed himself to show that he was glad to see them, and he listened. Jim Lash had heard from Belding the result of the mauling given to Rojas by Dick. And Jim talked about what a grand thing that was. Ladd had a good deal to say about Belding’s horses. It took no keen judge of human nature to see that horses constituted Ladd’s ruling passion.

“I’ve had wimmen go back on me, but never no hoss!” declared Ladd, and manifestly that was a controlling truth with him.

“Shore it’s a cinch Beldin’ is agoin’ to lose some of them hosses,” he said. “You can search me if I don’t think there’ll be more doin’ on the border here than along the Rio Grande. We’re just the same as on Greaser soil. Mebbe we don’t stand no such chance of bein’ shot up as we would across the line. But who’s goin’ to give up his hosses without a fight? Half the time when Beldin’s stock is out of the alfalfa it’s grazin’ over the line. He thinks he’s careful about them hosses, but he ain’t.”

“Look a-here, Laddy; you cain’t believe all you hear,” replied Jim, seriously. “I reckon we mightn’t have any trouble.”

“Back up, Jim. Shore you’re standin’ on your bridle. I ain’t goin’ much on reports. Remember that American we met in Casita, the prospector who’d just gotten out of Sonora? He had some story, he had. Swore he’d killed seventeen Greasers breakin’ through the rebel line round the mine where he an’ other Americans were corralled. The next day when I met him again, he was drunk, an’ then he told me he’d shot thirty Greasers. The chances are he did kill some. But reports are exaggerated. There are miners fightin’ for life down in Sonora, you can gamble on that. An’ the truth is bad enough. Take Rojas’s harryin’ of the Senorita, for instance. Can you beat that? Shore, Jim, there’s more doin’ than the raidin’ of a few hosses. An’ Forlorn River is goin’ to get hers!”

Another dawn found Gale so much recovered that he arose and looked after himself, not, however, without considerable difficulty and rather disheartening twinges of pain.

Some time during the morning he heard the girls in the patio and called to ask if he might join them. He received one response, a mellow, “Si, Senor.” It was not as much as he wanted, but considering that it was enough, he went out. He had not as yet visited the patio, and surprise and delight were in store for him. He found himself lost in a labyrinth of green and rose-bordered walks. He strolled around, discovering that the patio was a courtyard, open at an end; but he failed to discover the young ladies. So he called again. The answer came from the center of the square. After stooping to get under shrubs and wading through bushes he entered an open sandy circle, full of magnificent and murderous cactus plants, strange to him. On the other side, in the shade of a beautiful tree, he found the girls. Mercedes sitting in a hammock, Nell upon a blanket.

“What a beautiful tree!” he exclaimed. “I never saw one like that. What is it?”

“Palo verde,” replied Nell.

“Senor, palo verde means ‘green tree,’” added Mercedes.

This desert tree, which had struck Dick as so new and strange and beautiful, was not striking on account of size, for it was small, scarcely reaching higher than the roof; but rather because of its exquisite color of green, trunk and branch alike, and owing to the odd fact that it seemed not to possess leaves. All the tree from ground to tiny flat twigs was a soft polished green. It bore no thorns.

Right then and there began Dick’s education in desert growths; and he felt that even if he had not had such charming teachers he would still have been absorbed. For the patio was full of desert wonders. A twisting-trunked tree with full foliage of small gray leaves Nell called a mesquite. Then Dick remembered the name, and now he saw where the desert got its pale-gray color. A huge, lofty, fluted column of green was a saguaro, or giant cactus. Another oddshaped cactus, resembling the legs of an inverted devil-fish, bore the name ocatillo. Each branch rose high and symmetrical, furnished with sharp blades that seemed to be at once leaves and thorns. Yet another cactus interested Gale, and it looked like a huge, low barrel covered with green-ribbed cloth and long thorns. This was the bisnaga, or barrel cactus. According to Nell and Mercedes, this plant was a happy exception to its desert neighbors, for it secreted water which had many times saved the lives of men. Last of the cacti to attract Gale, and the one to make him shiver, was a low plant, consisting of stem and many rounded protuberances of a frosty, steely white, and covered with long murderous spikes. From this plant the desert got its frosty glitter. It was as stiff, as unyielding as steel, and bore the name choya.

Dick’s enthusiasm was contagious, and his earnest desire to learn was flattering to his teachers. When it came to assimilating Spanish, however, he did not appear to be so apt a pupil. He managed, after many trials, to acquire “buenos dias” and “buenos tardes,” and “senorita” and “gracias,” and a few other short terms. Dick was indeed eager to get a little smattering of Spanish, and perhaps he was not really quite so stupid as he pretended to be. It was delightful to be taught by a beautiful Spaniard who was so gracious and intense and magnetic of personality, and by a sweet American girl who moment by moment forgot her shyness. Gale wished to prolong the lessons.

So that was the beginning of many afternoons in which he learned desert lore and Spanish verbs, and something else that he dared not name.

Nell Burton had never shown to Gale that daring side of her character which had been so suggestively defined in Belding’s terse description and Ladd’s encomiums, and in her own audacious speech and merry laugh and flashing eye of that never-to-be-forgotten first meeting. She might have been an entirely different girl. But Gale remembered; and when the ice had been somewhat broken between them, he was always trying to surprise her into her real self. There were moments that fairly made him tingle with expectation. Yet he saw little more than a ghost of her vivacity, and never a gleam of that individuality which Belding had called a devil. On the few occasions that Dick had been left alone with her in the patio Nell had grown suddenly unresponsive and restrained, or she had left him on some transparent pretext. On the last occasion Mercedes returned to find Dick staring disconsolately at the rose-bordered path, where Nell had evidently vanished. The Spanish girl was wonderful in her divination.

“Senor Dick!” she cried.

Dick looked at her, soberly nodded his head, and then he laughed. Mercedes had seen through him in one swift glance. Her white hand touched his in wordless sympathy and thrilled him. This Spanish girl was all fire and passion and love. She understood him, she was his friend, she pledged him what he felt would be the most subtle and powerful influence.

Little by little he learned details of Nell’s varied life. She had lived in many places. As a child she remembered moving from town to town, of going to school among schoolmates whom she never had time to know. Lawrence, Kansas, where she studied for several years, was the later exception to this changeful nature of her schooling. Then she moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, from there to Austin, Texas, and on to Waco, where her mother met and married Belding. They lived in New Mexico awhile, in Tucson, Arizona, in Douglas, and finally had come to lonely Forlorn River.

“Mother could never live in one place any length of time,” said Nell. “And since we’ve been in the Southwest she has never ceased trying to find some trace of her father. He was last heard of in Nogales fourteen years ago. She thinks grandfather was lost in the Sonora Desert.... And every place we go is worse. Oh, I love the desert. But I’d like to go back to Lawrence — or to see Chicago or New York — some of the places Mr. Gale speaks of.... I remember the college at Lawrence, though I was only twelve. I saw races — and once real football. Since then I’ve read magazines and papers about big football games, and I was always fascinated .... Mr. Gale, of course, you’ve seen games?

“Yes, a few,” replied Dick; and he laughed a little. It was on his lips then to tell her about some of the famous games in which he had participated. But he refrained from exploiting himself. There was little, however, of the color and sound and cheer, of the violent action and rush and battle incidental to a big college football game that he did not succeed in making Mercedes and Nell feel just as if they had been there. They hung breathless and wide-eyed upon his words.

Some one else was present at the latter part of Dick’s narrative. The moment he became aware of Mrs. Belding’s presence he remembered fancying he had heard her call, and now he was certain she had done so. Mercedes and Nell, however, had been and still were oblivious to everything except Dick’s recital. He saw Mrs. Belding cast a strange, intent glance upon Nell, then turn and go silently through the patio. Dick concluded his talk, but the brilliant beginning was not sustained.

Dick was haunted by the strange expression he had caught on Mrs. Belding’s face, especially the look in her eyes. It had been one of repressed pain liberated in a flash of certainty. The mother had seen just as quickly as Mercedes how far he had gone on the road of love. Perhaps she had seen more — even more than he dared hope. The incident roused Gale. He could not understand Mrs. Belding, nor why that look of hers, that seeming baffled, hopeless look of a woman who saw the inevitable forces of life and could not thwart them, should cause him perplexity and distress. He wanted to go to her and tell her how he felt about Nell, but fear of absolute destruction of his hopes held him back. He would wait. Nevertheless, an instinct that was perhaps akin to self-preservation prompted him to want to let Nell know the state of his mind. Words crowded his brain seeking utterance. Who and what he was, how he loved her, the work he expected to take up soon, his longings, hopes, and plans — there was all this and more. But something checked him. And the repression made him so thoughtful and quiet, even melancholy, that he went outdoors to try to throw off the mood. The sun was yet high, and a dazzling white light enveloped valleys and peaks. He felt that the wonderful sunshine was the dominant feature of that arid region. It was like white gold. It had burned its color in a face he knew. It was going to warm his blood and brown his skin. A hot, languid breeze, so dry that he felt his lips shrink with its contact, came from the desert; and it seemed to smell of wide-open, untainted places where sand blew and strange, pungent plants gave a bitter-sweet tang to the air.

When he returned to the house, some hours later, his room had been put in order. In the middle of the white coverlet on his table lay a fresh red rose. Nell had dropped it there. Dick picked it up, feeling a throb in his breast. It was a bud just beginning to open, to show between its petals a dark-red, unfolding heart. How fragrant it was, how exquisitely delicate, how beautiful its inner hue of red, deep and dark, the crimson of life blood!

Had Nell left it there by accident or by intent? Was it merely kindness or a girl’s subtlety? Was it a message couched elusively, a symbol, a hope in a half-blown desert rose?

CHAPTER VI

THE YAQUI

TOWARD EVENING OF a lowering December day, some fifty miles west of Forlorn River, a horseman rode along an old, dimly defined trail. From time to time he halted to study the lay of the land ahead. It was bare, somber, ridgy desert, covered with dun-colored greasewood and stunted prickly pear. Distant mountains hemmed in the valley, raising black spurs above the round lomas and the square-walled mesas.

This lonely horseman bestrode a steed of magnificent build, perfectly white except for a dark bar of color running down the noble head from ears to nose. Sweatcaked dust stained the long flanks. The horse had been running. His mane and tail were laced and knotted to keep their length out of reach of grasping cactus and brush. Clumsy home-made leather shields covered the front of his forelegs and ran up well to his wide breast. What otherwise would have been muscular symmetry of limb was marred by many a scar and many a lump. He was lean, gaunt, worn, a huge machine of muscle and bone, beautiful only in head and mane, a weight-carrier, a horse strong and fierce like the desert that had bred him.

The rider fitted the horse as he fitted the saddle. He was a young man of exceedingly powerful physique, wide-shouldered, long-armed, big-legged. His lean face, where it was not red, blistered and peeling, was the hue of bronze. He had a dark eye, a falcon gaze, roving and keen. His jaw was prominent and set, mastiff-like; his lips were stern. It was youth with its softness not yet quite burned and hardened away that kept the whole cast of his face from being ruthless.

This young man was Dick Gale, but not the listless traveler, nor the lounging wanderer who, two months before, had by chance dropped into Casita. Friendship, chivalry, love — the deep-seated, unplumbed emotions that had been stirred into being with all their incalculable power for spiritual change, had rendered different the meaning of life. In the moment almost of their realization the desert had claimed Gale, and had drawn him into its crucible. The desert had multiplied weeks into years. Heat, thirst, hunger, loneliness, toil, fear, ferocity, pain — he knew them all. He had felt them all — the white sun, with its glazed, coalescing, lurid fire; the caked split lips and rasping, dry-puffed tongue; the sickening ache in the pit of his stomach; the insupportable silence, the empty space, the utter desolation, the contempt of life; the weary ride, the long climb, the plod in sand, the search, search, search for water; the sleepless night alone, the watch and wait, the dread of ambush, the swift flight; the fierce pursuit of men wild as Bedouins and as fleet, the willingness to deal sudden death, the pain of poison thorn, the stinging tear of lead through flesh; and that strange paradox of the burning desert, the cold at night, the piercing icy wind, the dew that penetrated to the marrow, the numbing desert cold of the dawn.

Beyond any dream of adventure he had ever had, beyond any wild story he had ever read, had been his experience with those hard-riding rangers, Ladd and Lash. Then he had traveled alone the hundred miles of desert between Forlorn River and the Sonoyta Oasis. Ladd’s prophecy of trouble on the border had been mild compared to what had become the actuality. With rebel occupancy of the garrison at Casita, outlaws, bandits, raiders in rioting bands had spread westward. Like troops of Arabs, magnificently mounted, they were here, there, everywhere along the line; and if murder and worse were confined to the Mexican side, pillage and raiding were perpetrated across the border. Many a dark-skinned raider bestrode one of Belding’s fast horses, and indeed all except his selected white thoroughbreds had been stolen. So the job of the rangers had become more than a patrolling of the boundary line to keep Japanese and Chinese from being smuggled into the United States. Belding kept close at home to protect his family and to hold his property. But the three rangers, in fulfilling their duty had incurred risks on their own side of the line, had been outraged, robbed, pursued, and injured on the other. Some of the few waterholes that had to be reached lay far across the border in Mexican territory. Horses had to drink, men had to drink; and Ladd and Lash were not of the stripe that forsook a task because of danger. Slow to wrath at first, as became men who had long lived peaceful lives, they had at length revolted; and desert vultures could have told a gruesome story. Made a comrade and ally of these bordermen, Dick Gale had leaped at the desert action and strife with an intensity of heart and a rare physical ability which accounted for the remarkable fact that he had not yet fallen by the way.

On this December afternoon the three rangers, as often, were separated. Lash was far to the westward of Sonoyta, somewhere along Camino del Diablo, that terrible Devil’s Road, where many desert wayfarers had perished. Ladd had long been overdue in a prearranged meeting with Gale. The fact that Ladd had not shown up miles west of the Papago Well was significant.

The sun had hidden behind clouds all the latter part of that day, an unusual occurrence for that region even in winter. And now, as the light waned suddenly, telling of the hidden sunset, a cold dry, penetrating wind sprang up and blew in Gale’s face. Not at first, but by imperceptible degrees it chilled him. He untied his coat from the back of the saddle and put it on. A few cold drops of rain touched his cheek.

He halted upon the edge of a low escarpment. Below him the narrowing valley showed bare, black ribs of rock, long, winding gray lines leading down to a central floor where mesquite and cactus dotted the barren landscape. Moving objects, diminutive in size, gray and white in color, arrested Gale’s roving sight. They bobbed away for a while, then stopped. They were antelope, and they had seen his horse. When he rode on they started once more, keeping to the lowest level. These wary animals were often desert watchdogs for the ranger, they would betray the proximity of horse or man. With them trotting forward, he made better time for some miles across the valley. When he lost them, caution once more slowed his advance.

The valley sloped up and narrowed, to head into an arroyo where grass began to show gray between the clumps of mesquite. Shadows formed ahead in the hollows, along the walls of the arroyo, under the trees, and they seemed to creep, to rise, to float into a veil cast by the background of bold mountains, at last to claim the skyline. Night was not close at hand, but it was there in the east, lifting upward, drooping downward, encroaching upon the west.

Gale dismounted to lead his horse, to go forward more slowly. He had ridden sixty miles since morning, and he was tired, and a not entirely healed wound in his hip made one leg drag a little. A mile up the arroyo, near its head, lay the Papago Well. The need of water for his horse entailed a risk that otherwise he could have avoided. The well was on Mexican soil. Gale distinguished a faint light flickering through the thin, sharp foliage. Campers were at the well, and, whoever they were, no doubt they had prevented Ladd from meeting Gale. Ladd had gone back to the next waterhole, or maybe he was hiding in an arroyo to the eastward, awaiting developments.

Gale turned his horse, not without urge of iron arm and persuasive speech, for the desert steed scented water, and plodded back to the edge of the arroyo, where in a secluded circle of mesquite he halted. The horse snorted his relief at the removal of the heavy, burdened saddle and accoutrements, and sagging, bent his knees, lowered himself with slow heave, and plunged down to roll in the sand. Gale poured the contents of his larger canteen into his hat and held it to the horse’s nose.

“Drink, Sol,” he said.

It was but a drop for a thirsty horse. However, Blanco Sol rubbed a wet muzzle against Gale’s hand in appreciation. Gale loved the horse, and was loved in return. They had saved each other’s lives, and had spent long days and nights of desert solitude together. Sol had known other masters, though none so kind as this new one; but it was certain that Gale had never before known a horse.

The spot of secluded ground was covered with bunches of galleta grass upon which Sol began to graze. Gale made a long halter of his lariat to keep the horse from wandering in search of water. Next Gale kicked off the cumbersome chapparejos, with their flapping, tripping folds of leather over his feet, and drawing a long rifle from its leather sheath, he slipped away into the shadows.

The coyotes were howling, not here and there, but in concerted volume at the head of the arroyo. To Dick this was no more reassuring than had been the flickering light of the campfire. The wild desert dogs, with their characteristic insolent curiosity, were baying men round a campfire. Gale proceeded slowly, halting every few steps, careful not to brush against the stiff greasewood. In the soft sand his steps made no sound. The twinkling light vanished occasionally, like a Jack-o’lantern, and when it did show it seemed still a long way off. Gale was not seeking trouble or inviting danger. Water was the thing that drove him. He must see who these campers were, and then decide how to give Blanco Sol a drink.

A rabbit rustled out of brush at Gale’s feet and thumped away over the sand. The wind pattered among dry, broken stalks of dead ocatilla. Every little sound brought Gale to a listening pause. The gloom was thickening fast into darkness. It would be a night without starlight. He moved forward up the pale, zigzag aisles between the mesquite. He lost the light for a while, but the coyotes’ chorus told him he was approaching the campfire. Presently the light danced through the black branches, and soon grew into a flame. Stooping low, with bushy mesquites between him and the fire, Gale advanced. The coyotes were in full cry. Gale heard the tramping, stamping thumps of many hoofs. The sound worried him. Foot by foot he advanced, and finally began to crawl. The wind favored his position, so that neither coyotes nor horses could scent him. The nearer he approached the head of the arroyo, where the well was located, the thicker grew the desert vegetation. At length a dead palo verde, with huge black clumps of its parasite mistletoe thick in the branches, marked a distance from the well that Gale considered close enough. Noiselessly he crawled here and there until he secured a favorable position, and then rose to peep from behind his covert.

He saw a bright fire, not a cooking-fire, for that would have been low and red, but a crackling blaze of mesquite. Three men were in sight, all close to the burning sticks. They were Mexicans and of the coarse type of raiders, rebels, bandits that Gale expected to see. One stood up, his back to the fire; another sat with shoulders enveloped in a blanket, and the third lounged in the sand, his feet almost in the blaze. They had cast off belts and weapons. A glint of steel caught Gale’s eye. Three short, shiny carbines leaned against a rock. A little to the left, within the circle of light, stood a square house made of adobe bricks. Several untrimmed poles upheld a roof of brush, which was partly fallen in. This house was a Papago Indian habitation, and a month before had been occupied by a family that had been murdered or driven off by a roving band of outlaws. A rude corral showed dimly in the edge of firelight, and from a black mass within came the snort and stamp and whinney of horses.

Gale took in the scene in one quick glance, then sank down at the foot of the mesquite. He had naturally expected to see more men. But the situation was by no means new. This was one, or part of one, of the raider bands harrying the border. They were stealing horses, or driving a herd already stolen. These bands were more numerous than the waterholes of northern Sonora; they never camped long at one place; like Arabs, they roamed over the desert all the way from Nogales to Casita. If Gale had gone peaceably up to this campfire there were a hundred chances that the raiders would kill and rob him to one chance that they might not. If they recognized him as a ranger comrade of Ladd and Lash, if they got a glimpse of Blanco Sol, then Gale would have no chance.

These Mexicans had evidently been at the well some time. Their horses being in the corral meant that grazing had been done by day. Gale revolved questions in mind. Had this trio of outlaws run across Ladd? It was not likely, for in that event they might not have been so comfortable and care-free in camp. Were they waiting for more members of their gang? That was very probable. With Gale, however, the most important consideration was how to get his horse to water. Sol must have a drink if it cost a fight. There was stern reason for Gale to hurry eastward along the trail. He thought it best to go back to where he had left his horse and not make any decisive move until daylight.

With the same noiseless care he had exercised in the advance, Gale retreated until it was safe for him to rise and walk on down the arroyo. He found Blanco Sol contentedly grazing. A heavy dew was falling, and, as the grass was abundant, the horse did not show the usual restlessness and distress after a dry and exhausting day. Gale carried his saddle blankets and bags into the lee of a little greasewood-covered mound, from around which the wind had cut the soil, and here, in a wash, he risked building a small fire. By this time the wind was piercingly cold. Gale’s hands were numb and he moved them to and fro in the little blaze. Then he made coffee in a cup, cooked some slices of bacon on the end of a stick, and took a couple of hard biscuits from a saddlebag. Of these his meal consisted. After that he removed the halter from Blanco Sol, intending to leave him free to graze for a while.

Then Gale returned to his little fire, replenished it with short sticks of dead greasewood and mesquite, and, wrapping his blanket round his shoulders he sat down to warm himself and to wait till it was time to bring in the horse and tie him up.

The fire was inadequate and Gale was cold and wet with dew. Hunger and thirst were with him. His bones ached, and there was a dull, deep-seated pain throbbing in his unhealed wound. For days unshaven, his beard seemed like a million pricking needles in his blistered skin. He was so tired that once having settled himself, he did not move hand or foot. The night was dark, dismal, cloudy, windy, growing colder. A moan of wind in the mesquite was occasionally pierced by the high-keyed yelp of a coyote. There were lulls in which the silence seemed to be a thing of stifling, encroaching substance — a thing that enveloped, buried the desert.

Judged by the great average of ideals and conventional standards of life, Dick Gale was a starved, lonely, suffering, miserable wretch. But in his case the judgment would have hit only externals, would have missed the vital inner truth. For Gale was happy with a kind of strange, wild glory in the privations, the pains, the perils, and the silence and solitude to be endured on this desert land. In the past he had not been of any use to himself or others; and he had never know what it meant to be hungry, cold, tired, lonely. He had never worked for anything. The needs of the day had been provided, and to-morrow and the future looked the same. Danger, peril, toil — these had been words read in books and papers.

In the present he used his hands, his senses, and his wits. He had a duty to a man who relied on his services. He was a comrade, a friend, a valuable ally to riding, fighting rangers. He had spent endless days, weeks that seemed years, alone with a horse, trailing over, climbing over, hunting over a desert that was harsh and hostile by nature, and perilous by the invasion of savage men. That horse had become human to Gale. And with him Gale had learned to know the simple needs of existence. Like dead scales the superficialities, the falsities, the habits that had once meant all of life dropped off, useless things in this stern waste of rock and sand.

Gale’s happiness, as far as it concerned the toil and strife, was perhaps a grim and stoical one. But love abided with him, and it had engendered and fostered other undeveloped traits — romance and a feeling for beauty, and a keen observation of nature. He felt pain, but he was never miserable. He felt the solitude, but he was never lonely.

As he rode across the desert, even though keen eyes searched for the moving black dots, the rising puffs of white dust that were warnings, he saw Nell’s face in every cloud. The clean-cut mesas took on the shape of her straight profile, with its strong chin and lips, its fine nose and forehead. There was always a glint of gold or touch of red or graceful line or gleam of blue to remind him of her. Then at night her face shone warm and glowing, flushing and paling, in the campfire.

To-night, as usual, with a keen ear to the wind, Gale listened as one on guard; yet he watched the changing phantom of a sweet face in the embers, and as he watched he thought. The desert developed and multiplied thought. A thousand sweet faces glowed in the pink and white ashes of his campfire, the faces of other sweethearts or wives that had gleamed for other men. Gale was happy in his thought of Nell, for Nell, for something, when he was alone this way in the wilderness, told him she was near him, she thought of him, she loved him. But there were many men alone on that vast southwestern plateau, and when they saw dream faces, surely for some it was a fleeting flash, a gleam soon gone, like the hope and the name and the happiness that had been and was now no more. Often Gale thought of those hundreds of desert travelers, prospectors, wanderers who had ventured down the Camino del Diablo, never to be heard of again. Belding had told him of that most terrible of all desert trails — a trail of shifting sands. Lash had traversed it, and brought back stories of buried waterholes, of bones bleaching white in the sun, of gold mines as lost as were the prospectors who had sought them, of the merciless Yaqui and his hatred for the Mexican. Gale thought of this trail and the men who had camped along it. For many there had been one night, one campfire that had been the last. This idea seemed to creep in out of the darkness, the loneliness, the silence, and to find a place in Gale’s mind, so that it had strange fascination for him. He knew now as he had never dreamed before how men drifted into the desert, leaving behind graves, wrecked homes, ruined lives, lost wives and sweethearts. And for every wanderer every campfire had a phantom face. Gale measured the agony of these men at their last campfire by the joy and promise he traced in the ruddy heart of his own.

By and by Gale remembered what he was waiting for; and, getting up, he took the halter and went out to find Blanco Sol. It was pitch-dark now, and Gale could not see a rod ahead. He felt his way, and presently as he rounded a mesquite he saw Sol’s white shape outlined against the blackness. The horse jumped and wheeled, ready to run. It was doubtful if any one unknown to Sol could ever have caught him. Gale’s low call reassured him, and he went on grazing. Gale haltered him in the likeliest patch of grass and returned to his camp. There he lifted his saddle into a protected spot under a low wall of the mound, and, laying one blanket on the sand, he covered himself with the other and stretched himself for the night.

Here he was out of reach of the wind; but he heard its melancholy moan in the mesquite. There was no other sound. The coyotes had ceased their hungry cries. Gale dropped to sleep, and slept soundly during the first half of the night; and after that he seemed always to be partially awake, aware of increasing cold and damp. The dark mantle turned gray, and then daylight came quickly. The morning was clear and nipping cold. He threw off the wet blanket and got up cramped and half frozen. A little brisk action was all that was necessary to warm his blood and loosen his muscles, and then he was fresh, tingling, eager. The sun rose in a golden blaze, and the descending valley took on wondrous changing hues. Then he fetched up Blanco Sol, saddled him, and tied him to the thickest clump of mesquite.

“Sol, we’ll have a drink pretty soon,” he said, patting the splendid neck.

Gale meant it. He would not eat till he had watered his horse. Sol had gone nearly forty-eight hours without a sufficient drink, and that was long enough, even for a desert-bred beast. No three raiders could keep Gale away from that well. Taking his rifle in hand, he faced up the arroyo. Rabbits were frisking in the short willows, and some were so tame he could have kicked them. Gale walked swiftly for a goodly part of the distance, and then, when he saw blue smoke curling up above the trees, he proceeded slowly, with alert eye and ear. From the lay of the land and position of trees seen by daylight, he found an easier and safer course that the one he had taken in the dark. And by careful work he was enabled to get closer to the well, and somewhat above it.

The Mexicans were leisurely cooking their morning meal. They had two fires, one for warmth, the other to cook over. Gale had an idea these raiders were familiar to him. It seemed all these border hawks resembled one another — being mostly small of build, wiry, angular, swarthy-faced, and black-haired, and they wore the oddly styled Mexican clothes and sombreros. A slow wrath stirred in Gale as he watched the trio. They showed not the slightest indication of breaking camp. One fellow, evidently the leader, packed a gun at his hip, the only weapon in sight. Gale noted this with speculative eyes. The raiders had slept inside the little adobe house, and had not yet brought out the carbines. Next Gale swept his gaze to the corral, in which he saw more than a dozen horses, some of them fine animals. They were stamping and whistling, fighting one another, and pawing the dirt. This was entirely natural behavior for desert horses penned in when they wanted to get at water and grass.

But suddenly one of the blacks, a big, shaggy fellow, shot up his ears and pointed his nose over the top of the fence. He whistled. Other horses looked in the same direction, and their ears went up, and they, too, whistled. Gale knew that other horses or men, very likely both, were approaching. But the Mexicans did not hear the alarm, or show any interest if they did. These mescal-drinking raiders were not scouts. It was notorious how easily they could be surprised or ambushed. Mostly they were ignorant, thick-skulled peons. They were wonderful horsemen, and could go long without food or water; but they had not other accomplishments or attributes calculated to help them in desert warfare. They had poor sight, poor hearing, poor judgment, and when excited they resembled crazed ants running wild.

Gale saw two Indians on burros come riding up the other side of the knoll upon which the adobe house stood; and apparently they were not aware of the presence of the Mexicans, for they came on up the path. One Indian was a Papago. The other, striking in appearance for other reasons than that he seemed to be about to fall from the burro, Gale took to be a Yaqui. These travelers had absolutely nothing for an outfit except a blanket and a half-empty bag. They came over the knoll and down the path toward the well, turned a corner of the house, and completely surprised the raiders.

Gale heard a short, shrill cry, strangely high and wild, and this came from one of the Indians. It was answered by hoarse shouts. Then the leader of the trio, the Mexican who packed a gun, pulled it and fired point-blank. He missed once — and again. At the third shot the Papago shrieked and tumbled off his burro to fall in a heap. The other Indian swayed, as if the taking away of the support lent by his comrade had brought collapse, and with the fourth shot he, too, slipped to the ground.

The reports had frightened the horses in the corral; and the vicious black, crowding the rickety bars, broke them down. He came plunging out. Two of the Mexicans ran for him, catching him by nose and mane, and the third ran to block the gateway.

Then, with a splendid vaulting mount, the Mexican with the gun leaped to the back of the horse. He yelled and waved his gun, and urged the black forward. The manner of all three was savagely jocose. They were having sport. The two on the ground began to dance and jabber. The mounted leader shot again, and then stuck like a leech upon the bare back of the rearing black. It was a vain show of horsemanship. Then this Mexican, by some strange grip, brought the horse down, plunging almost upon the body of the Indian that had fallen last.

Gale stood aghast with his rifle clutched tight. He could not divine the intention of the raider, but suspected something brutal. The horse answered to that cruel, guiding hand, yet he swerved and bucked. He reared aloft, pawing the air, wildly snorting, then he plunged down upon the prostrate Indian. Even in the act the intelligent animal tried to keep from striking the body with his hoofs. But that was not possible. A yell, hideous in its passion, signaled this feat of horsemanship.

The Mexican made no move to trample the body of the Papago. He turned the black to ride again over the other Indian. That brought into Gale’s mind what he had heard of a Mexican’s hate for a Yaqui. It recalled the barbarism of these savage peons, and the war of extermination being waged upon the Yaquis.

Suddenly Gale was horrified to see the Yaqui writhe and raise a feeble hand. The action brought renewed and more savage cries from the Mexicans. The horse snorted in terror.

Gale could bear no more. He took a quick shot at the rider. He missed the moving figure, but hit the horse. There was a bound, a horrid scream, a mighty plunge, then the horse went down, giving the Mexican a stunning fall. Both beast and man lay still.

Gale rushed from his cover to intercept the other raiders before they could reach the house and their weapons. One fellow yelled and ran wildly in the opposite direction; the other stood stricken in his tracks. Gale ran in close and picked up the gun that had dropped from the raider leader’s hand. This fellow had begun to stir, to come out of his stunned condition. Then the frightened horses burst the corral bars, and in a thundering, dust-mantled stream fled up the arroyo.

The fallen raider sat up, mumbling to his saints in one breath, cursing in his next. The other Mexican kept his stand, intimidated by the threatening rifle.

“Go, Greasers! Run!” yelled Gale. Then he yelled it in Spanish. At the point of his rifle he drove the two raiders out of the camp. His next move was to run into the house and fetch out the carbines. With a heavy stone he dismantled each weapon. That done, he set out on a run for his horse. He took the shortest cut down the arroyo, with no concern as to whether or not he would encounter the raiders. Probably such a meeting would be all the worse for them, and they knew it. Blanco Sol heard him coming and whistled a welcome, and when Gale ran up the horse was snorting war. Mounting, Gale rode rapidly back to the scene of the action, and his first thought, when he arrived at the well, was to give Sol a drink and to fill his canteens.

Then Gale led his horse up out of the waterhole, and decided before remounting to have a look at the Indians. The Papago had been shot through the heart, but the Yaqui was still alive. Moreover, he was conscious and staring up at Gale with great, strange, somber eyes, black as volcanic slag.

“Gringo good — no kill,” he said, in husky whisper.

His speech was not affirmative so much as questioning.

“Yaqui, you’re done for,” said Gale, and his words were positive. He was simply speaking aloud his mind.

“Yaqui — no hurt — much,” replied the Indian, and then he spoke a strange word — repeated it again and again.

An instinct of Gale’s, or perhaps some suggestion in the husky, thick whisper or dark face, told Gale to reach for his canteen. He lifted the Indian and gave him a drink, and if ever in all his life he saw gratitude in human eyes he saw it then. Then he examined the injured Yaqui, not forgetting for an instant to send wary, fugitive glances on all sides. Gale was not surprised. The Indian had three wounds — a bullet hole in his shoulder, a crushed arm, and a badly lacerated leg. What had been the matter with him before being set upon by the raider Gale could not be certain.

The ranger thought rapidly. This Yaqui would live unless left there to die or be murdered by the Mexicans when they found courage to sneak back to the well. It never occurred to Gale to abandon the poor fellow. That was where his old training, the higher order of human feeling, made impossible the following of any elemental instinct of self-preservation. All the same, Gale knew he multiplied his perils a hundredfold by burdening himself with a crippled Indian. Swiftly he set to work, and with rifle ever under his hand, and shifting glance spared from his task, he bound up the Yaqui’s wounds. At the same time he kept keen watch.

The Indians’ burros and the horses of the raiders were all out of sight. Time was too valuable for Gale to use any in what might be a vain search. Therefore, he lifted the Yaqui upon Sol’s broad shoulders and climbed into the saddle. At a word Sol dropped his head and started eastward up the trail, walking swiftly, without resentment for his double burden.

Far ahead, between two huge mesas where the trail mounted over a pass, a long line of dust clouds marked the position of the horses that had escaped from the corral. Those that had been stolen would travel straight and true for home, and perhaps would lead the others with them. The raiders were left on the desert without guns or mounts.

Blanco Sol walked or jog-trotted six miles to the hour. At that gait fifty miles would not have wet or turned a hair of his dazzling white coat. Gale, bearing in mind the ever-present possibility of encountering more raiders and of being pursued, saved the strength of the horse. Once out of sight of Papago Well, Gale dismounted and walked beside the horse, steadying with one firm hand the helpless, dangling Yaqui.

The sun cleared the eastern ramparts, and the coolness of morning fled as if before a magic foe. The whole desert changed. The grays wore bright; the mesquites glistened; the cactus took the silver hue of frost, and the rocks gleamed gold and red. Then, as the heat increased, a wind rushed up out of the valley behind Gale, and the hotter the sun blazed down the swifter rushed the wind. The wonderful transparent haze of distance lost its bluish hue for one with tinge of yellow. Flying sand made the peaks dimly outlined.

Gale kept pace with his horse. He bore the twinge of pain that darted through his injured hip at every stride. His eye roved over the wide, smoky prospect seeking the landmarks he knew. When the wild and bold spurs of No Name Mountains loomed through a rent in flying clouds of sand he felt nearer home. Another hour brought him abreast of a dark, straight shaft rising clear from a beetling escarpment. This was a monument marking the international boundary line. When he had passed it he had his own country under foot. In the heat of midday he halted in the shade of a rock, and, lifting the Yaqui down, gave him a drink. Then, after a long, sweeping survey of the surrounding desert, he removed Sol’s saddle and let him roll, and took for himself a welcome rest and a bite to eat.

The Yaqui was tenacious of life. He was still holding his own. For the first time Gale really looked at the Indian to study him. He had a large head nobly cast, and a face that resembled a shrunken mask. It seemed chiseled in the dark-red, volcanic lava of his Sooner wilderness. The Indian’s eyes were always black and mystic, but this Yaqui’s encompassed all the tragic desolation of the desert. They were fixed on Gale, moved only when he moved. The Indian was short and broad, and his body showed unusual muscular development, although he seemed greatly emaciated from starvation or illness.

Gale resumed his homeward journey. When he got through the pass he faced a great depression, as rough as if millions of gigantic spikes had been driven by the hammer of Thor into a seamed and cracked floor. This was Altar Valley. It was a chaos of arroyo’s, canyons, rocks, and ridges all mantled with cactus, and at its eastern end it claimed the dry bed of Forlorn River and water when there was any.

With a wounded, helpless man across the saddle, this stretch of thorny and contorted desert was practically impassable. Yet Gale headed into it unflinchingly. He would carry the Yaqui as far as possible, or until death make the burden no longer a duty. Blanco Sol plodded on over the dragging sand, up and down the steep, loose banks of washes, out on the rocks, and through the rows of white-toothed choyas.

The sun sloped westward, bending fiercer heat in vengeful, parting reluctance. The wind slackened. The dust settled. And the bold, forbidding front of No Name Mountains changed to red and gold. Gale held grimly by the side of the tireless, implacable horse, holding the Yaqui on the saddle, taking the brunt of the merciless thorns. In the end it became heartrending toil. His heavy chaps dragged him down; but he dared not go on without them, for, thick and stiff as they were, the terrible, steel-bayoneted spikes of the choyas pierced through to sting his legs.

To the last mile Gale held to Blanco Sol’s gait and kept ever-watchful gaze ahead on the trail. Then, with the low, flat houses of Forlorn River shining red in the sunset, Gale flagged and rapidly weakened. The Yaqui slipped out of the saddle and dropped limp in the sand. Gale could not mount his horse. He clutched Sol’s long tail and twisted his hand in it and staggered on.

Blanco Sol whistled a piercing blast. He scented cool water and sweet alfalfa hay. Twinkling lights ahead meant rest. The melancholy desert twilight rapidly succeeded the sunset. It accentuated the forlorn loneliness of the gray, winding river of sand and its grayer shores. Night shadows trooped down from the black and looming mountains.

CHAPTER VII

WHITE HORSES

“A CRIPPLED YAQUI! Why the hell did you saddle yourself with him?” roared Belding, as he laid Gale upon the bed.

Belding had grown hard these late, violent weeks.

“Because I chose,” whispered Gale, in reply. “Go after him — he dropped in the trail — across the river — near the first big saguaro.”

Belding began to swear as he fumbled with matches and the lamp; but as the light flared up he stopped short in the middle of a word.

“You said you weren’t hurt?” he demanded, in sharp anxiety, as he bent over Gale.

“I’m only — all in.... Will you go — or send some one — for the Yaqui?”

“Sure, Dick, sure,” Belding replied, in softer tones. Then he stalked out; his heels rang on the flagstones; he opened a door and called: “Mother — girls, here’s Dick back. He’s done up.... Now — no, no, he’s not hurt or in bad shape. You women!... Do what you can to make him comfortable. I’ve got a little job on hand.”

There were quick replies that Gale’s dulling ears did not distinguish. Then it seemed Mrs. Belding was beside his bed, her presence so cool and soothing and helpful, and Mercedes and Nell, wide-eyed and white-faced, were fluttering around him. He drank thirstily, but refused food. He wanted rest. And with their faces drifting away in a kind of haze, with the feeling of gentle hands about him, he lost consciousness.

He slept twenty hours. Then he arose, thirsty, hungry, lame, overworn, and presently went in search of Belding and the business of the day.

“Your Yaqui was near dead, but guess we’ll pull him through,” said Belding. “Dick, the other day that Indian came here by rail and foot and Lord only knows how else, all the way from New Orleans! He spoke English better than most Indians, and I know a little Yaqui. I got some of his story and guessed the rest. The Mexican government is trying to root out the Yaquis. A year ago his tribe was taken in chains to a Mexican port on the Gulf. The fathers, mothers, children, were separated and put in ships bound for Yucatan. There they were made slaves on the great henequen plantations. They were driven, beaten, starved. Each slave had for a day’s rations a hunk of sour dough, no more. Yucatan is low, marshy, damp, hot. The Yaquis were bred on the high, dry Sonoran plateau, where the air is like a knife. They dropped dead in the henequen fields, and their places were taken by more. You see, the Mexicans won’t kill outright in their war of extermination of the Yaquis. They get use out of them. It’s a horrible thing.... Well, this Yaqui you brought in escaped from his captors, got aboard ship, and eventually reached New Orleans. Somehow he traveled way out here. I gave him a bag of food, and he went off with a Papago Indian. He was a sick man then. And he must have fallen foul of some Greasers.”

Gale told of his experience at Papago Well.

“That raider who tried to grind the Yaqui under a horse’s hoofs — he was a hyena!” concluded Gale, shuddering. “I’ve seen some blood spilled and some hard sights, but that inhuman devil took my nerve. Why, as I told you, Belding, I missed a shot at him — not twenty paces!”

“Dick, in cases like that the sooner you clean up the bunch the better,” said Belding, grimly. “As for hard sights — wait till you’ve seen a Yaqui do up a Mexican. Bar none, that is the limit! It’s blood lust, a racial hate, deep as life, and terrible. The Spaniards crushed the Aztecs four or five hundred years ago. That hate has had time to grow as deep as a cactus root. The Yaquis are mountain Aztecs. Personally, I think they are noble and intelligent, and if let alone would be peaceable and industrious. I like the few I’ve known. But they are a doomed race. Have you any idea what ailed this Yaqui before the raider got in his work?”

“No, I haven’t. I noticed the Indian seemed in bad shape; but I couldn’t tell what was the matter with him.”

“Well, my idea is another personal one. Maybe it’s off color. I think that Yaqui was, or is, for that matter, dying of a broken heart. All he wanted was to get back to his mountains and die. There are no Yaquis left in that part of Sonora he was bound for.”

“He had a strange look in his eyes,” said Gale, thoughtfully.

“Yes, I noticed that. But all Yaquis have a wild look. Dick, if I’m not mistaken, this fellow was a chief. It was a waste of strength, a needless risk for you to save him, pack him back here. But, damn the whole Greaser outfit generally, I’m glad you did!”

Gale remembered then to speak of his concern for Ladd.

“Laddy didn’t go out to meet you,” replied Belding. “I knew you were due in any day, and, as there’s been trouble between here and Casita, I sent him that way. Since you’ve been out our friend Carter lost a bunch of horses and a few steers. Did you get a good look at the horses those raiders had at Papago Well?”

Dick had learned, since he had become a ranger, to see everything with keen, sure, photographic eye; and, being put to the test so often required of him, he described the horses as a dark-colored drove, mostly bays and blacks, with one spotted sorrel.

“Some of Carter’s — sure as you’re born!” exclaimed Belding. “His bunch has been split up, divided among several bands of raiders. He has a grass ranch up here in Three Mile Arroyo. It’s a good long ride in U. S. territory from the border.”

“Those horses I saw will go home, don’t you think?” asked Dick.

“Sure. They can’t be caught or stopped.”

“Well, what shall I do now?”

“Stay here and rest,” bluntly replied Belding. “You need it. Let the women fuss over you — doctor you a little. When Jim gets back from Sonoyta I’ll know more about what we ought to do. By Lord! it seems our job now isn’t keeping Japs and Chinks out of the U. S. It’s keeping our property from going into Mexico.”

“Are there any letters for me?” asked Gale.

“Letters! Say, my boy, it’d take something pretty important to get me or any man here back Casita way. If the town is safe these days the road isn’t. It’s a month now since any one went to Casita.”

Gale had received several letters from his sister Elsie, the last of which he had not answered. There had not been much opportunity for writing on his infrequent returns to Forlorn River; and, besides, Elsie had written that her father had stormed over what he considered Dick’s falling into wild and evil ways.

“Time flies,” said Dick. “George Thorne will be free before long, and he’ll be coming out. I wonder if he’ll stay here or try to take Mercedes away?”

“Well, he’ll stay right here in Forlorn River, if I have any say,” replied Belding. “I’d like to know how he’d ever get that Spanish girl out of the country now, with all the trails overrun by rebels and raiders. It’d be hard to disguise her. Say, Dick, maybe we can get Thorne to stay here. You know, since you’ve discovered the possibility of a big water supply, I’ve had dreams of a future for Forlorn River.... If only this war was over! Dick, that’s what it is — war — scattered war along the northern border of Mexico from gulf to gulf. What if it isn’t our war? We’re on the fringe. No, we can’t develop Forlorn River until there’s peace.”

The discovery that Belding alluded to was one that might very well lead to the making of a wonderful and agricultural district of Altar Valley. While in college Dick Gale had studied engineering, but he had not set the scientific world afire with his brilliance. Nor after leaving college had he been able to satisfy his father that he could hold a job. Nevertheless, his smattering of engineering skill bore fruit in the last place on earth where anything might have been expected of it — in the desert. Gale had always wondered about the source of Forlorn River. No white man or Mexican, or, so far as known, no Indian, had climbed those mighty broken steps of rock called No Name Mountains, from which Forlorn River was supposed to come. Gale had discovered a long, narrow, rock-bottomed and rock-walled gulch that could be dammed at the lower end by the dynamiting of leaning cliffs above. An inexhaustible supply of water could be stored there. Furthermore, he had worked out an irrigation plan to bring the water down for mining uses, and to make a paradise out of that part of Altar Valley which lay in the United States. Belding claimed there was gold in the arroyos, gold in the gulches, not in quantities to make a prospector rejoice, but enough to work for. And the soil on the higher levels of Altar Valley needed only water to make it grow anything the year round. Gale, too, had come to have dreams of a future for Forlorn River.

On the afternoon of the following day Ladd unexpectedly appeared leading a lame and lathered horse into the yard. Belding and Gale, who were at work at the forge, looked up and were surprised out of speech. The legs of the horse were raw and red, and he seemed about to drop. Ladd’s sombrero was missing; he wore a bloody scarf round his head; sweat and blood and dust had formed a crust on his face; little streams of powdery dust slid from him; and the lower half of his scarred chaps were full of broken white thorns.

“Howdy, boys,” he drawled. “I shore am glad to see you all.”

“Where’n hell’s your hat?” demanded Belding, furiously. It was a ridiculous greeting. But Belding’s words signified little. The dark shade of worry and solicitude crossing his face told more than his black amaze.

The ranger stopped unbuckling the saddle girths, and, looking at Belding, broke into his slow, cool laugh.

“Tom, you recollect that whopper of a saguaro up here where Carter’s trail branches off the main trail to Casita? Well, I climbed it an’ left my hat on top for a woodpecker’s nest.”

“You’ve been running — fighting?” queried Belding, as if Ladd had not spoken at all.

“I reckon it’ll dawn on you after a while,” replied Ladd, slipping the saddle.

“Laddy, go in the house to the women,” said Belding. “I’ll tend to your horse.”

“Shore, Tom, in a minute. I’ve been down the road. An’ I found hoss tracks an’ steer tracks goin’ across the line. But I seen no sign of raiders till this mornin’. Slept at Carter’s last night. That raid the other day cleaned him out. He’s shootin’ mad. Well, this mornin’ I rode plumb into a bunch of Carter’s hosses, runnin’ wild for home. Some Greasers were tryin’ to head them round an’ chase them back across the line. I rode in between an’ made matters embarrassin’. Carter’s hosses got away. Then me an’ the Greasers had a little game of hide an’ seek in the cactus. I was on the wrong side, an’ had to break through their line to head toward home. We run some. But I had a closer call than I’m stuck on havin’.”

“Laddy, you wouldn’t have any such close calls if you’d ride one of my horses,” expostulated Belding. “This broncho of yours can run, and Lord knows he’s game. But you want a big, strong horse, Mexican bred, with cactus in his blood. Take one of the bunch — Bull, White Woman, Blanco Jose.”

“I had a big, fast horse a while back, but I lost him,” said Ladd. “This bronch ain’t so bad. Shore Bull an’ that white devil with his Greaser name — they could run down my bronch, kill him in a mile of cactus. But, somehow, Tom, I can’t make up my mind to take one of them grand white hosses. Shore I reckon I’m kinda soft. An’ mebbe I’d better take one before the raiders clean up Forlorn River.”

Belding cursed low and deep in his throat, and the sound resembled muttering thunder. The shade of anxiety on his face changed to one of dark gloom and passion. Next to his wife and daughter there was nothing so dear to him as those white horses. His father and grandfather — all his progenitors of whom he had trace — had been lovers of horses. It was in Belding’s blood.

“Laddy, before it’s too late can’t I get the whites away from the border?”

“Mebbe it ain’t too late; but where can we take them?”

“To San Felipe?”

“No. We’ve more chance to hold them here.”

“To Casita and the railroad?”

“Afraid to risk gettin’ there. An’ the town’s full of rebels who need hosses.”

“Then straight north?”

“Shore man, you’re crazy. Ther’s no water, no grass for a hundred miles. I’ll tell you, Tom, the safest plan would be to take the white bunch south into Sonora, into some wild mountain valley. Keep them there till the raiders have traveled on back east. Pretty soon there won’t be any rich pickin’ left for these Greasers. An’ then they’ll ride on to new ranges.”

“Laddy, I don’t know the trails into Sonora. An’ I can’t trust a Mexican or a Papago. Between you and me, I’m afraid of this Indian who herds for me.”

“I reckon we’d better stick here, Tom.... Dick, it’s some good to see you again. But you seem kinda quiet. Shore you get quieter all the time. Did you see any sign of Jim out Sonoyta way?”

Then Belding led the lame horse toward the watering-trough, while the two rangers went toward the house, Dick was telling Ladd about the affair at Papago Well when they turned the corner under the porch. Nell was sitting in the door. She rose with a little scream and came flying toward them.

“Now I’ll get it,” whispered Ladd. “The women’ll make a baby of me. An’ shore I can’t help myself.”

“Oh, Laddy, you’ve been hurt!” cried Nell, as with white cheeks and dilating eyes she ran to him and caught his arm.

“Nell, I only run a thorn in my ear.”

“Oh, Laddy, don’t lie! You’ve lied before. I know you’re hurt. Come in to mother.”

“Shore, Nell, it’s only a scratch. My bronch throwed me.”

“Laddy, no horse every threw you.” The girl’s words and accusing eyes only hurried the ranger on to further duplicity.

“Mebbe I got it when I was ridin’ hard under a mesquite, an’ a sharp snag—”

“You’ve been shot!... Mama, here’s Laddy, and he’s been shot!.... Oh, these dreadful days we’re having! I can’t bear them! Forlorn River used to be so safe and quiet. Nothing happened. But now! Jim comes home with a bloody hole in him — then Dick — then Laddy!.... Oh, I’m afraid some day they’ll never come home.”

The morning was bright, still, and clear as crystal. The heat waves had not yet begun to rise from the desert.

A soft gray, white, and green tint perfectly blended lay like a mantle over mesquite and sand and cactus. The canyons of distant mountain showed deep and full of lilac haze.

Nell sat perched high upon the topmost bar of the corral gate. Dick leaned beside her, now with his eyes on her face, now gazing out into the alfalfa field where Belding’s thoroughbreds grazed and pranced and romped and whistled. Nell watched the horses. She loved them, never tired of watching them. But her gaze was too consciously averted from the yearning eyes that tried to meet hers to be altogether natural.

A great fenced field of dark velvety green alfalfa furnished a rich background for the drove of about twenty white horses. Even without the horses the field would have presented a striking contrast to the surrounding hot, glaring blaze of rock and sand. Belding had bred a hundred or more horses from the original stock he had brought up from Durango. His particular interest was in the almost unblemished whites, and these he had given especial care. He made a good deal of money selling this strain to friends among the ranchers back in Texas. No mercenary consideration, however, could have made him part with the great, rangy white horses he had gotten from the Durango breeder. He called them Blanco Diablo (White Devil), Blanco Sol (White Sun), Blanca Reina (White Queen), Blanca Mujer (White Woman), and El Gran Toro Blanco (The Big White Bull). Belding had been laughed at by ranchers for preserving the sentimental Durango names, and he had been unmercifully ridiculed by cowboys. But the names had never been changed.

Blanco Diablo was the only horse in the field that was not free to roam and graze where he listed. A stake and a halter held him to one corner, where he was severely let alone by the other horses. He did not like this isolation. Blanco Diablo was not happy unless he was running, or fighting a rival. Of the two he would rather fight. If anything white could resemble a devil, this horse surely did. He had nothing beautiful about him, yet he drew the gaze and held it. The look of him suggested discontent, anger, revolt, viciousness. When he was not grazing or prancing, he held his long, lean head level, pointing his nose and showing his teeth. Belding’s favorite was almost all the world to him, and he swore Diablo could stand more heat and thirst and cactus than any other horse he owned, and could run down and kill any horse in the Southwest. The fact that Ladd did not agree with Belding on these salient points was a great disappointment, and also a perpetual source for argument. Ladd and Lash both hated Diablo; and Dick Gale, after one or two narrow escapes from being brained, had inclined to the cowboys’ side of the question.

El Gran Toro Blanco upheld his name. He was a huge, massive, thick-flanked stallion, a kingly mate for his full-bodied, glossy consort, Blanca Reina. The other mare, Blanca Mujer, was dazzling white, without a spot, perfectly pointed, racy, graceful, elegant, yet carrying weight and brawn and range that suggested her relation to her forebears.

The cowboys admitted some of Belding’s claims for Diablo, but they gave loyal and unshakable allegiance to Blanco Sol. As for Dick, he had to fight himself to keep out of arguments, for he sometimes imagined he was unreasonable about the horse. Though he could not understand himself, he knew he loved Sol as a man loved a friend, a brother. Free of heavy saddle and the clumsy leg shields, Blanco Sol was somehow all-satisfying to the eyes of the rangers. As long and big as Diablo was, Sol was longer and bigger. Also, he was higher, more powerful. He looked more a thing for action — speedier. At a distance the honorable scars and lumps that marred his muscular legs were not visible. He grazed aloof from the others, and did not cavort nor prance; but when he lifted his head to whistle, how wild he appeared, and proud and splendid! The dazzling whiteness of the desert sun shone from his coat; he had the fire and spirit of the desert in his noble head, its strength and power in his gigantic frame.

“Belding swears Sol never beat Diablo,” Dick was saying.

“He believes it,” replied Nell. “Dad is queer about that horse.”

“But Laddy rode Sol once — made him beat Diablo. Jim saw the race.”

Nell laughed. “I saw it, too. For that matter, even I have made Sol put his nose before Dad’s favorite.”

“I’d like to have seen that. Nell, aren’t you ever going to ride with me?”

“Some day — when it’s safe.”

“Safe!”

“I — I mean when the raiders have left the border.”

“Oh, I’m glad you mean that,” said Dick, laughing. “Well, I’ve often wondered how Belding ever came to give Blanco Sol to me.”

“He was jealous. I think he wanted to get rid of Sol.”

“No? Why, Nell, he’d give Laddy or Jim one of the whites any day.”

“Would he? Not Devil or Queen or White Woman. Never in this world! But Dad has lots of fast horses the boys could pick from. Dick, I tell you Dad wants Blanco Sol to run himself out — lose his speed on the desert. Dad is just jealous for Diablo.”

“Maybe. He surely has strange passion for horses. I think I understand better than I used to. I owned a couple of racers once. They were just animals to me, I guess. But Blanco Sol!”

“Do you love him?” asked Nell; and now a warm, blue flash of eyes swept his face.

“Do I? Well, rather.”

“I’m glad. Sol has been finer, a better horse since you owned him. He loves you, Dick. He’s always watching for you. See him raise his head. That’s for you. I know as much about horses as Dad or Laddy any day. Sol always hated Diablo, and he never had much use for Dad.”

Dick looked up at her.

“It’ll be — be pretty hard to leave Sol — when I go away.”

Nell sat perfectly still.

“Go away?” she asked, presently, with just the faintest tremor in her voice.

“Yes. Sometimes when I get blue — as I am to-day — I think I’ll go. But, in sober truth, Nell, it’s not likely that I’ll spend all my life here.”

There was no answer to this. Dick put his hand softly over hers; and, despite her half-hearted struggle to free it, he held on.

“Nell!”

Her color fled. He saw her lips part. Then a heavy step on the gravel, a cheerful, complaining voice interrupted him, and made him release Nell and draw back. Belding strode into view round the adobe shed.

“Hey, Dick, that darned Yaqui Indian can’t be driven or hired or coaxed to leave Forlorn River. He’s well enough to travel. I offered him horse, gun, blanket, grub. But no go.”

“That’s funny,” replied Gale, with a smile. “Let him stay — put him to work.”

“It doesn’t strike me funny. But I’ll tell you what I think. That poor, homeless, heartbroken Indian has taken a liking to you, Dick. These desert Yaquis are strange folk. I’ve heard strange stories about them. I’d believe ‘most anything. And that’s how I figure his case. You saved his life. That sort of thing counts big with any Indian, even with an Apache. With a Yaqui maybe it’s of deep significance. I’ve heard a Yaqui say that with his tribe no debt to friend or foe ever went unpaid. Perhaps that’s what ails this fellow.”

“Dick, don’t laugh,” said Nell. “I’ve noticed the Yaqui. It’s pathetic the way his great gloomy eyes follow you.”

“You’ve made a friend,” continued Belding. “A Yaqui could be a real friend on this desert. If he gets his strength back he’ll be of service to you, don’t mistake me. He’s welcome here. But you’re responsible for him, and you’ll have trouble keeping him from massacring all the Greasers in Forlorn River.”

The probability of a visit from the raiders, and a dash bolder than usual on the outskirts of a ranch, led Belding to build a new corral. It was not sightly to the eye, but it was high and exceedingly strong. The gate was a massive affair, swinging on huge hinges and fastening with heavy chains and padlocks. On the outside it had been completely covered with barb wire, which would make it a troublesome thing to work on in the dark.

At night Belding locked his white horses in this corral. The Papago herdsman slept in the adobe shed adjoining. Belding did not imagine that any wooden fence, however substantially built, could keep determined raiders from breaking it down. They would have to take time, however, and make considerable noise; and Belding relied on these facts. Belding did not believe a band of night raiders would hold out against a hot rifle fire. So he began to make up some of the sleep he had lost. It was noteworthy, however, that Ladd did not share Belding’s sanguine hopes.

Jim Lash rode in, reporting that all was well out along the line toward the Sonoyta Oasis. Days passed, and Belding kept his rangers home. Nothing was heard of raiders at hand. Many of the newcomers, both American and Mexican, who came with wagons and pack trains from Casita stated that property and life were cheap back in that rebel-infested town.

One January morning Dick Gale was awakened by a shrill, menacing cry. He leaped up bewildered and frightened. He heard Belding’s booming voice answering shouts, and rapid steps on flagstones. But these had not awakened him. Heavy breaths, almost sobs, seemed at his very door. In the cold and gray dawn Dick saw something white. Gun in hand, he bounded across the room. Just outside his door stood Blanco Sol.

It was not unusual for Sol to come poking his head in at Dick’s door during daylight. But now in the early dawn, when he had been locked in the corral, it meant raiders — no less. Dick called softly to the snorting horse; and, hurriedly getting into clothes and boots, he went out with a gun in each hand. Sol was quivering in every muscle. Like a dog he followed Dick around the house. Hearing shouts in the direction of the corrals, Gale bent swift steps that way.

He caught up with Jim Lash, who was also leading a white horse.

“Hello, Jim! Guess it’s all over but the fireworks,” said Dick.

“I cain’t say just what has come off,” replied Lash. “I’ve got the Bull. Found him runnin’ in the yard.”

They reached the corral to find Belding shaking, roaring like a madman. The gate was open, the corral was empty. Ladd stooped over the ground, evidently trying to find tracks.

“I reckon we might jest as well cool off an’ wait for daylight,” suggested Jim.

“Shore. They’ve flown the coop, you can gamble on that. Tom, where’s the Papago?” said Ladd.

“He’s gone, Laddy — gone!”

“Double-crossed us, eh? I see here’s a crowbar lyin’ by the gatepost. That Indian fetched it from the forge. It was used to pry out the bolts an’ steeples. Tom, I reckon there wasn’t much time lost forcin’ that gate.”

Belding, in shirt sleeves and barefooted, roared with rage. He said he had heard the horses running as he leaped out of bed.

“What woke you?” asked Laddy.

“Sol. He came whistling for Dick. Didn’t you hear him before I called you?”

“Hear him! He came thunderin’ right under my window. I jumped up in bed, an’ when he let out that blast Jim lit square in the middle of the floor, an’ I was scared stiff. Dick, seein’ it was your room he blew into, what did you think?”

“I couldn’t think. I’m shaking yet, Laddy.”

“Boys, I’ll bet Sol spilled a few raiders if any got hands on him,” said Jim. “Now, let’s sit down an’ wait for daylight. It’s my idea we’ll find some of the hosses runnin’ loose. Tom, you go an’ get some clothes on. It’s freezin’ cold. An’ don’t forget to tell the women folks we’re all right.”

Daylight made clear some details of the raid. The cowboys found tracks of eight raiders coming up from the river bed where their horses had been left. Evidently the Papago had been false to his trust. His few personal belongings were gone. Lash was correct in his idea of finding more horses loose in the fields. The men soon rounded up eleven of the whites, all more or less frightened, and among the number were Queen and Blanca Mujer. The raiders had been unable to handle more than one horse for each man. It was bitter irony of fate that Belding should lose his favorite, the one horse more dear to him than all the others. Somewhere out on the trail a raider was fighting the iron-jawed savage Blanco Diablo.

“I reckon we’re some lucky,” observed Jim Lash.

“Lucky ain’t enough word,” replied Ladd. “You see, it was this way. Some of the raiders piled over the fence while the others worked on the gate. Mebbe the Papago went inside to pick out the best hosses. But it didn’t work except with Diablo, an’ how they ever got him I don’t know. I’d have gambled it’d take all of eight men to steal him. But Greasers have got us skinned on handlin’ hosses.”

Belding was unconsolable. He cursed and railed, and finally declared he was going to trail the raiders.

“Tom, you just ain’t agoin’ to do nothin’ of the kind,” said Ladd coolly.

Belding groaned and bowed his head.

“Laddy, you’re right,” he replied, presently. “I’ve got to stand it. I can’t leave the women and my property. But it’s sure tough. I’m sore way down deep, and nothin’ but blood would ever satisfy me.”

“Leave that to me an’ Jim,” said Ladd.

“What do you mean to do?” demanded Belding, starting up.

“Shore I don’t know yet.... Give me a light for my pipe. An’ Dick, go fetch out your Yaqui.”

CHAPTER VIII

THE RUNNING OF BLANCO SOL

THE YAQUI’S STRANGE dark glance roved over the corral, the swinging gate with its broken fastenings, the tracks in the road, and then rested upon Belding.

“Malo,” he said, and his Spanish was clear.

“Shore Yaqui, about eight bad men, an’ a traitor Indian,” said Ladd.

“I think he means my herder,” added Belding. “If he does, that settles any doubt it might be decent to have — Yaqui — malo Papago — Si?”

The Yaqui spread wide his hands. Then he bent over the tracks in the road. They led everywhither, but gradually he worked out of the thick net to take the trail that the cowboys had followed down to the river. Belding and the rangers kept close at his heels. Occasionally Dick lent a helping hand to the still feeble Indian. He found a trampled spot where the raiders had left their horses. From this point a deeply defined narrow trail led across the dry river bed.

Belding asked the Yaqui where the raiders would head for in the Sonora Desert. For answer the Indian followed the trail across the stream of sand, through willows and mesquite, up to the level of rock and cactus. At this point he halted. A sand-filled, almost obliterated trail led off to the left, and evidently went round to the east of No Name Mountains. To the right stretched the road toward Papago Well and the Sonoyta Oasis. The trail of the raiders took a southeasterly course over untrodden desert. The Yaqui spoke in his own tongue, then in Spanish.

“Think he means slow march,” said Belding. “Laddy, from the looks of that trail the Greasers are having trouble with the horses.”

“Tom, shore a boy could see that,” replied Laddy. “Ask Yaqui to tell us where the raiders are headin’, an’ if there’s water.”

It was wonderful to see the Yaqui point. His dark hand stretched, he sighted over his stretched finger at a low white escarpment in the distance. Then with a stick he traced a line in the sand, and then at the end of that another line at right angles. He made crosses and marks and holes, and as he drew the rude map he talked in Yaqui, in Spanish; with a word here and there in English. Belding translated as best he could. The raiders were heading southeast toward the railroad that ran from Nogales down into Sonora. It was four days’ travel, bad trail, good sure waterhole one day out; then water not sure for two days. Raiders traveling slow; bothered by too many horses, not looking for pursuit; were never pursued, could be headed and ambushed that night at the first waterhole, a natural trap in a valley.

The men returned to the ranch. The rangers ate and drank while making hurried preparations for travel. Blanco Sol and the cowboys’ horses were fed, watered, and saddled. Ladd again refused to ride one of Belding’s whites. He was quick and cold.

“Get me a long-range rifle an’ lots of shells. Rustle now,” he said.

“Laddy, you don’t want to be weighted down?” protested Belding.

“Shore I want a gun that’ll outshoot the dinky little carbines an’ muskets used by the rebels. Trot one out an’ be quick.”

“I’ve got a .405, a long-barreled heavy rifle that’ll shoot a mile. I use it for mountain sheep. But Laddy, it’ll break that bronch’s back.”

“His back won’t break so easy.... Dick, take plenty of shells for your Remington. An’ don’t forget your field glass.”

In less than an hour after the time of the raid the three rangers, heavily armed and superbly mounted on fresh horses, rode out on the trail. As Gale turned to look back from the far bank of Forlorn River, he saw Nell waving a white scarf. He stood high in his stirrups and waved his sombrero. Then the mesquites hid the girl’s slight figure, and Gale wheeled grim-faced to follow the rangers.

They rode in single file with Ladd in the lead. He did not keep to the trail of the raiders all the time. He made short cuts. The raiders were traveling leisurely, and they evinced a liking for the most level and least cactus-covered stretches of ground. But the cowboy took a bee-line course for the white escarpment pointed out by the Yaqui; and nothing save deep washes and impassable patches of cactus or rocks made him swerve from it. He kept the broncho at a steady walk over the rougher places and at a swinging Indian canter over the hard and level ground. The sun grew hot and the wind began to blow. Dust clouds rolled along the blue horizon. Whirling columns of sand, like water spouts at sea, circled up out of white arid basins, and swept away and spread aloft before the wind. The escarpment began to rise, to change color, to show breaks upon its rocky face.

Whenever the rangers rode out on the brow of a knoll or ridge or an eminence, before starting to descend, Ladd required of Gale a long, careful, sweeping survey of the desert ahead through the field glass. There were streams of white dust to be seen, streaks of yellow dust, trailing low clouds of sand over the glistening dunes, but no steadily rising, uniformly shaped puffs that would tell a tale of moving horses on the desert.

At noon the rangers got out of the thick cactus. Moreover, the gravel-bottomed washes, the low weathering, rotting ledges of yellow rock gave place to hard sandy rolls and bare clay knolls. The desert resembled a rounded hummocky sea of color. All light shades of blue and pink and yellow and mauve were there dominated by the glaring white sun. Mirages glistened, wavered, faded in the shimmering waves of heat. Dust as fine as powder whiffed up from under the tireless hoofs.

The rangers rode on and the escarpment began to loom. The desert floor inclined perceptibly upward. When Gale got an unobstructed view of the slope of the escarpment he located the raiders and horses. In another hour’s travel the rangers could see with naked eyes a long, faint moving streak of black and white dots.

“They’re headin’ for that yellow pass,” said Ladd, pointing to a break in the eastern end of the escarpment. “When they get out of sight we’ll rustle. I’m thinkin’ that waterhole the Yaqui spoke of lays in the pass.”

The rangers traveled swiftly over the remaining miles of level desert leading to the ascent of the escarpment. When they achieved the gateway of the pass the sun was low in the west. Dwarfed mesquite and greasewood appeared among the rocks. Ladd gave the word to tie up horses and go forward on foot.

The narrow neck of the pass opened and descended into a valley half a mile wide, perhaps twice that in length. It had apparently unscalable slopes of weathered rock leading up to beetling walls. With floor bare and hard and white, except for a patch of green mesquite near the far end it was a lurid and desolate spot, the barren bottom of a desert bowl.

“Keep down, boys” said Ladd. “There’s the waterhole an’ hosses have sharp eyes. Shore the Yaqui figgered this place. I never seen its like for a trap.”

Both white and black horses showed against the green, and a thin curling column of blue smoke rose lazily from amid the mesquites.

“I reckon we’d better wait till dark, or mebbe daylight,” said Jim Lash.

“Let me figger some. Dick, what do you make of the outlet to this hole? Looks rough to me.”

With his glass Gale studied the narrow construction of walls and roughened rising floor.

“Laddy, it’s harder to get out at that end than here,” he replied.

“Shore that’s hard enough. Let me have a look.... Well, boys, it don’t take no figgerin’ for this job. Jim, I’ll want you at the other end blockin’ the pass when we’re ready to start.”

“When’ll that be?” inquired Jim.

“Soon as it’s light enough in the mornin’. That Greaser outfit will hang till to-morrow. There’s no sure water ahead for two days, you remember.”

“I reckon I can slip through to the other end after dark,” said Lash, thoughtfully. “It might get me in bad to go round.”

The rangers stole back from the vantage point and returned to their horses, which they untied and left farther round among broken sections of cliff. For the horses it was a dry, hungry camp, but the rangers built a fire and had their short though strengthening meal.

The location was high, and through a break in the jumble of rocks the great colored void of desert could be seen rolling away endlessly to the west. The sun set, and after it had gone down the golden tips of mountains dulled, their lower shadows creeping upward.

Jim Lash rolled in his saddle blanket, his feet near the fire, and went to sleep. Ladd told Gale to do likewise while he kept the fire up and waited until it was late enough for Jim to undertake circling round the raiders. When Gale awakened the night was dark, cold, windy. The stars shone with white brilliance. Jim was up saddling his horse, and Ladd was talking low. When Gale rose to accompany them both rangers said he need not go. But Gale wanted to go because that was the thing Ladd or Jim would have done.

With Ladd leading, they moved away into the gloom. Advance was exceedingly slow, careful, silent. Under the walls the blackness seemed impenetrable. The horse was as cautious as his master. Ladd did not lose his way, nevertheless he wound between blocks of stone and clumps of mesquite, and often tried a passage to abandon it. Finally the trail showed pale in the gloom, and eastern stars twinkled between the lofty ramparts of the pass.

The advance here was still as stealthily made as before, but not so difficult or slow. When the dense gloom of the pass lightened, and there was a wide space of sky and stars overhead, Ladd halted and stood silent a moment.

“Luck again!” he whispered. “The wind’s in your face, Jim. The horses won’t scent you. Go slow. Don’t crack a stone. Keep close under the wall. Try to get up as high as this at the other end. Wait till daylight before riskin’ a loose slope. I’ll be ridin’ the job early. That’s all.”

Ladd’s cool, easy speech was scarcely significant of the perilous undertaking. Lash moved very slowly away, leading his horse. The soft pads of hoofs ceased to sound about the time the gray shape merged into the black shadows. Then Ladd touched Dick’s arm, and turned back up the trail.

But Dick tarried a moment. He wanted a fuller sense of that ebony-bottomed abyss, with its pale encircling walls reaching up to the dusky blue sky and the brilliant stars. There was absolutely no sound.

He retraced his steps down, soon coming up with Ladd; and together they picked a way back through the winding recesses of cliff. The campfire was smoldering. Ladd replenished it and lay down to get a few hours’ sleep, while Gale kept watch. The after part of the night wore on till the paling of stars, the thickening of gloom indicated the dark hour before dawn. The spot was secluded from wind, but the air grew cold as ice. Gale spent the time stripping wood from a dead mesquite, in pacing to and fro, in listening. Blanco Sol stamped occasionally, which sound was all that broke the stilliness. Ladd awoke before the faintest gray appeared. The rangers ate and drank. When the black did lighten to gray they saddled the horses and led them out to the pass and down to the point where they had parted with Lash. Here they awaited daylight.

To Gale it seemed long in coming. Such a delay always aggravated the slow fire within him. He had nothing of Ladd’s patience. He wanted action. The gray shadow below thinned out, and the patch of mesquite made a blot upon the pale valley. The day dawned.

Still Ladd waited. He grew more silent, grimmer as the time of action approached. Gale wondered what the plan of attack would be. Yet he did not ask. He waited ready for orders.

The valley grew clear of gray shadow except under leaning walls on the eastern side. Then a straight column of smoke rose from among the mesquites. Manifestly this was what Ladd had been awaiting. He took the long .405 from its sheath and tried the lever. Then he lifted a cartridge belt from the pommel of his saddle. Every ring held a shell and these shells were four inches long. He buckled the belt round him.

“Come on, Dick.”

Ladd led the way down the slope until he reached a position that commanded the rising of the trail from a level. It was the only place a man or horse could leave the valley for the pass.

“Dick, here’s your stand. If any raider rides in range take a crack at him.... Now I want the lend of your hoss.”

“Blanco Sol!” exclaimed Gale, more in amazement that Ladd should ask for the horse than in reluctance to lend him.

“Will you let me have him?” Ladd repeated, almost curtly.

“Certainly, Laddy.”

A smile momentarily chased the dark cold gloom that had set upon the ranger’s lean face.

“Shore I appreciate it, Dick. I know how you care for that hoss. I guess mebbe Charlie Ladd has loved a hoss! An’ one not so good as Sol. I was only tryin’ your nerve, Dick, askin’ you without tellin’ my plan. Sol won’t get a scratch, you can gamble on that! I’ll ride him down into the valley an’ pull the greasers out in the open. They’ve got short-ranged carbines. They can’t keep out of range of the .405, an’ I’ll be takin’ the dust of their lead. Sabe, senor?”

“Laddy! You’ll run Sol away from the raiders when they chase you? Run him after them when they try to get away?”

“Shore. I’ll run all the time. They can’t gain on Sol, an’ he’ll run them down when I want. Can you beat it?”

“No. It’s great!... But suppose a raider comes out on Blanco Diablo?”

“I reckon that’s the one weak place in my plan. I’m figgerin’ they’ll never think of that till it’s too late. But if they do, well, Sol can outrun Diablo. An’ I can always kill the white devil!”

Ladd’s strange hate of the horse showed in the passion of his last words, in his hardening jaw and grim set lips.

Gale’s hand went swiftly to the ranger’s shoulder.

“Laddy. Don’t kill Diablo unless it’s to save your life.”

“All right. But, by God, if I get a chance I’ll make Blanco Sol run him off his legs!”

He spoke no more and set about changing the length of Sol’s stirrups. When he had them adjusted to suit he mounted and rode down the trail and out upon the level. He rode leisurely as if merely going to water his horse. The long black rifle lying across his saddle, however, was ominous.

Gale securely tied the other horse to a mesquite at hand, and took a position behind a low rock over which he could easily see and shoot when necessary. He imagined Jim Lash in a similar position at the far end of the valley blocking the outlet. Gale had grown accustomed to danger and the hard and fierce feelings peculiar to it. But the coming drama was so peculiarly different in promise from all he had experienced, that he waited the moment of action with thrilling intensity. In him stirred long, brooding wrath at these border raiders — affection for Belding, and keen desire to avenge the outrages he had suffered — warm admiration for the cold, implacable Ladd and his absolute fearlessness, and a curious throbbing interest in the old, much-discussed and never-decided argument as to whether Blanco Sol was fleeter, stronger horse than Blanco Diablo. Gale felt that he was to see a race between these great rivals — the kind of race that made men and horses terrible.

Ladd rode a quarter of a mile out upon the flat before anything happened. Then a whistle rent the still, cold air. A horse had seen or scented Blanco Sol. The whistle was prolonged, faint, but clear. It made the blood thrum in Gale’s ears. Sol halted. His head shot up with the old, wild, spirited sweep. Gale leveled his glass at the patch of mesquites. He saw the raiders running to an open place, pointing, gesticulating. The glass brought them so close that he saw the dark faces. Suddenly they broke and fled back among the trees. Then he got only white and dark gleams of moving bodies. Evidently that moment was one of boots, guns, and saddles for the raiders.

Lowering the glass, Gale saw that Blanco Sol had started forward again. His gait was now a canter, and he had covered another quarter of a mile before horses and raiders appeared upon the outskirts of the mesquites. Then Blanco Sol stopped. His shrill, ringing whistle came distinctly to Gale’s ears. The raiders were mounted on dark horses, and they stood abreast in a motionless line. Gale chuckled as he appreciated what a puzzle the situation presented for them. A lone horseman in the middle of the valley did not perhaps seem so menacing himself as the possibilities his presence suggested.

Then Gale saw a raider gallop swiftly from the group toward the farther outlet of the valley. This might have been owing to characteristic cowardice; but it was more likely a move of the raiders to make sure of retreat. Undoubtedly Ladd saw this galloping horseman. A few waiting moments ensued. The galloping horseman reached the slope, began to climb. With naked eyes Gale saw a puff of white smoke spring out of the rocks. Then the raider wheeled his plunging horse back to the level, and went racing wildly down the valley.

The compact bunch of bays and blacks seemed to break apart and spread rapidly from the edge of the mesquites. Puffs of white smoke indicated firing, and showed the nature of the raiders’ excitement. They were far out of ordinary range, but they spurred toward Ladd, shooting as they rode. Ladd held his ground; the big white horse stood like a rock in his tracks. Gale saw little spouts of dust rise in front of Blanco Sol and spread swift as sight to his rear. The raiders’ bullets, striking low, were skipping along the hard, bare floor of the valley. Then Ladd raised the long rifle. There was no smoke, but three high, spanging reports rang out. A gap opened in the dark line of advancing horsemen; then a riderless steed sheered off to the right. Blanco Sol seemed to turn as on a pivot and charged back toward the lower end of the valley. He circled over to Gale’s right and stretched out into his run. There were now five raiders in pursuit, and they came sweeping down, yelling and shooting, evidently sure of their quarry. Ladd reserved his fire. He kept turning from back to front in his saddle.

Gale saw how the space widened between pursuers and pursued, saw distinctly when Ladd eased up Sol’s running. Manifestly Ladd intended to try to lead the raiders round in front of Gale’s position, and, presently, Gale saw he was going to succeed. The raiders, riding like vaqueros, swept on in a curve, cutting off what distance they could. One fellow, a small, wiry rider, high on his mount’s neck like a jockey, led his companions by many yards. He seemed to be getting the range of Ladd, or else he shot high, for his bullets did not strike up the dust behind Sol. Gale was ready to shoot. Blanco Sol pounded by, his rapid, rhythmic hoofbeats plainly to be heard. He was running easily.

Gale tried to still the jump of heart and pulse, and turned his eye again on the nearest pursuer. This raider was crossing in, his carbine held muzzle up in his right hand, and he was coming swiftly. It was a long shot, upward of five hundred yards. Gale had not time to adjust the sights of the Remington, but he knew the gun and, holding coarsely upon the swiftly moving blot, he began to shoot. The first bullet sent up a great splash of dust beneath the horse’s nose, making him leap as if to hurdle a fence. The rifle was automatic; Gale needed only to pull the trigger. He saw now that the raiders behind were in line. Swiftly he worked the trigger. Suddenly the leading horse leaped convulsively, not up nor aside, but straight ahead, and then he crashed to the ground throwing his rider like a catapult, and then slid and rolled. He half got up, fell back, and kicked; but his rider never moved.

The other raiders sawed the reins of plunging steeds and whirled to escape the unseen battery. Gale slipped a fresh clip into the magazine of his rifle. He restrained himself from useless firing and gave eager eye to the duel below. Ladd began to shoot while Sol was running. The .405 rang out sharply — then again. The heavy bullets streaked the dust all the way across the valley. Ladd aimed deliberately and pulled slowly, unmindful of the kicking dust-puffs behind Sol, and to the side. The raiders spurred madly in pursuit, loading and firing. They shot ten times while Ladd shot once, and all in vain; and on Ladd’s sixth shot a raider topped backward, threw his carbine and fell with his foot catching in a stirrup. The frightened horse plunged away, dragging him in a path of dust.

Gale had set himself to miss nothing of that fighting race, yet the action passed too swiftly for clear sight of all. Ladd had emptied a magazine, and now Blanco Sol quickened and lengthened his running stride. He ran away from his pursuers. Then it was that the ranger’s ruse was divined by the raiders. They hauled sharply up and seemed to be conferring. But that was a fatal mistake. Blanco Sol was seen to break his gait and slow down in several jumps, then square away and stand stockstill. Ladd fired at the closely grouped raiders. An instant passed. Then Gale heard the spat of a bullet out in front, saw a puff of dust, then heard the lead strike the rocks and go whining away. And it was after this that one of the raiders fell prone from his saddle. The steel-jacketed .405 had gone through him on its uninterrupted way to hum past Gale’s position.

The remaining two raiders frantically spurred their horses and fled up the valley. Ladd sent Sol after them. It seemed to Gale, even though he realized his excitement, that Blanco Sol made those horses seem like snails. The raiders split, one making for the eastern outlet, the other circling back of the mesquites. Ladd kept on after the latter. Then puffs of white smoke and rifle shots faintly crackling told Jim Lash’s hand in the game. However, he succeeded only in driving the raider back into the valley. But Ladd had turned the other horseman, and now it appeared the two raiders were between Lash above on the stony slope and Ladd below on the level. There was desperate riding on part of the raiders to keep from being hemmed in closer. Only one of them got away, and he came riding for life down under the eastern wall. Blanco Sol settled into his graceful, beautiful swing. He gained steadily, though he was far from extending himself. By Gale’s actual count the raider fired eight times in that race down the valley, and all his bullets went low and wide. He pitched the carbine away and lost all control in headlong flight.

Some few hundred rods to the left of Gale the raider put his horse to the weathered slope. He began to climb. The horse was superb, infinitely more courageous than his rider. Zigzag they went up and up, and when Ladd reached the edge of the slope they were high along the cracked and guttered rampart. Once — twice Ladd raised the long rifle, but each time he lowered it. Gale divined that the ranger’s restraint was not on account of the Mexican, but for that valiant and faithful horse. Up and up he went, and the yellow dust clouds rose, and an avalanche rolled rattling and cracking down the slope. It was beyond belief that a horse, burdened or unburdened, could find footing and hold it upon that wall of narrow ledges and inverted, slanting gullies. But he climbed on, sure-footed as a mountain goat, and, surmounting the last rough steps, he stood a moment silhouetted against the white sky. Then he disappeared. Ladd sat astride Blanco Sol gazing upward. How the cowboy must have honored that raider’s brave steed!

Gale, who had been too dumb to shout the admiration he felt, suddenly leaped up, and his voice came with a shriek:

“LOOK OUT, LADDY!”

A big horse, like a white streak, was bearing down to the right of the ranger. Blanco Diablo! A matchless rider swung with the horse’s motion. Gale was stunned. Then he remembered the first raider, the one Lash had shot at and driven away from the outlet. This fellow had made for the mesquite and had put a saddle on Belding’s favorite. In the heat of the excitement, while Ladd had been intent upon the climbing horse, this last raider had come down with the speed of the wind straight for the western outlet. Perhaps, very probably, he did not know Gale was there to block it; and certainly he hoped to pass Ladd and Blanco Sol.

A touch of the spur made Sol lunge forward to head off the raider. Diablo was in his stride, but the distance and angle favored Sol. The raider had no carbine. He held aloft a gun ready to level it and fire. He sat the saddle as if it were a stationary seat. Gale saw Ladd lean down and drop the .405 in the sand. He would take no chances of wounding Belding’s best-loved horse.

Then Gale sat transfixed with suspended breath watching the horses thundering toward him. Blanco Diablo was speeding low, fleet as an antelope, fierce and terrible in his devilish action, a horse for war and blood and death. He seemed unbeatable. Yet to see the magnificently running Blanco Sol was but to court a doubt. Gale stood spellbound. He might have shot the raider; but he never thought of such a thing. The distance swiftly lessened. Plain it was the raider could not make the opening ahead of Ladd. He saw it and swerved to the left, emptying his six-shooter as he turned. His dark face gleamed as he flashed by Gale.

Blanco Sol thundered across. Then the race became straight away up the valley. Diablo was cold and Sol was hot; therein lay the only handicap and vantage. It was a fleet, beautiful, magnificent race. Gale thrilled and exulted and yelled as his horse settled into a steadily swifter run and began to gain. The dust rolled in a funnel-shaped cloud from the flying hoofs. The raider wheeled with gun puffing white, and Ladd ducked low over the neck of his horse.

The gap between Diablo and Sol narrowed yard by yard. At first it had been a wide one. The raider beat his mount and spurred, beat and spurred, wheeled round to shoot, then bent forward again. In his circle at the upper end of the valley he turned far short of the jumble of rocks.

All the devil that was in Blanco Diablo had its running on the downward stretch. The strange, cruel urge of bit and spur, the crazed rider who stuck like a burr upon him, the shots and smoke added terror to his natural violent temper. He ran himself off his feet. But he could not elude that relentless horse behind him. The running of Blanco Sol was that of a sure, remorseless driving power — steadier — stronger — swifter with every long and wonderful stride.

The raider tried to sheer Diablo off closer under the wall, to make the slope where his companion had escaped. But Diablo was uncontrollable. He was running wild, with breaking gait. Closer and closer crept that white, smoothly gliding, beautiful machine of speed.

Then, like one white flash following another, the two horses gleamed down the bank of a wash and disappeared in clouds of dust.

Gale watched with strained and smarting eyes. The thick throb in his ears was pierced by faint sounds of gunshots. Then he waited in almost unendurable suspense.

Suddenly something whiter than the background of dust appeared above the low roll of valley floor. Gale leveled his glass. In the clear circle shone Blanco Sol’s noble head with its long black bar from ears to nose. Sol’s head was drooping now. Another second showed Ladd still in the saddle.

The ranger was leading Blanco Diable — spent — broken — dragging — riderless.

CHAPTER IX

AN INTERRUPTED SIESTA

NO MAN EVER had a more eloquent and beautiful pleader for his cause than had Dick Gale in Mercedes Castaneda. He peeped through the green, shining twigs of the palo verde that shaded his door. The hour was high noon, and the patio was sultry. The only sounds were the hum of bees in the flowers and the low murmur of the Spanish girl’s melodious voice. Nell lay in the hammock, her hands behind her head, with rosy cheeks and arch eyes. Indeed, she looked rebellious. Certain it was, Dick reflected, that the young lady had fully recovered the wilful personality which had lain dormant for a while. Equally certain it seemed that Mercedes’s earnestness was not apparently having the effect it should have had.

Dick was inclined to be rebellious himself. Belding had kept the rangers in off the line, and therefore Dick had been idle most of the time, and, though he tried hard, he had been unable to stay far from Nell’s vicinity. He believed she cared for him; but he could not catch her alone long enough to verify his tormenting hope. When alone she was as illusive as a shadow, as quick as a flash, as mysterious as a Yaqui. When he tried to catch her in the garden or fields, or corner her in the patio, she eluded him, and left behind a memory of dark-blue, haunting eyes. It was that look in her eyes which lent him hope. At other times, when it might have been possible for Dick to speak, Nell clung closely to Mercedes. He had long before enlisted the loyal Mercedes in his cause; but in spite of this Nell had been more than a match for them both.

Gale pondered over an idea he had long revolved in mind, and which now suddenly gave place to a decision that made his heart swell and his cheek burn. He peeped again through the green branches to see Nell laughing at the fiery Mercedes.

“Qui’en sabe,” he called, mockingly, and was delighted with Nell’s quick, amazed start.

Then he went in search of Mrs. Belding, and found her busy in the kitchen. The relation between Gale and Mrs. Belding had subtly and incomprehensively changed. He understood her less than when at first he divined an antagonism in her. If such a thing were possible she had retained the antagonism while seeming to yield to some influence that must have been fondness for him. Gale was in no wise sure of her affection, and he had long imagined she was afraid of him, or of something that he represented. He had gone on, openly and fairly, though discreetly, with his rather one-sided love affair; and as time passed he had grown less conscious of what had seemed her unspoken opposition. Gale had come to care greatly for Nell’s mother. Not only was she the comfort and strength of her home, but also of the inhabitants of Forlorn River. Indian, Mexican, American were all the same to her in trouble or illness; and then she was nurse, doctor, peacemaker, helper. She was good and noble, and there was not a child or grownup in Forlorn River who did not love and bless her. But Mrs. Belding did not seem happy. She was brooding, intense, deep, strong, eager for the happiness and welfare of others; and she was dominated by a worship of her daughter that was as strange as it was pathetic. Mrs. Belding seldom smiled, and never laughed. There was always a soft, sad, hurt look in her eyes. Gale often wondered if there had been other tragedy in her life than the supposed loss of her father in the desert. Perhaps it was the very unsolved nature of that loss which made it haunting.

Mrs. Belding heard Dick’s step as he entered the kitchen, and, looking up, greeted him.

“Mother,” began Dick, earnestly. Belding called her that, and so did Ladd and Lash, but it was the first time for Dick. “Mother — I want to speak to you.”

The only indication Mrs. Belding gave of being started was in her eyes, which darkened, shadowed with multiplying thought.

“I love Nell,” went on Dick, simply, “and I want you to let me ask her to be my wife.”

Mrs. Belding’s face blanched to a deathly white. Gale, thinking with surprise and concern that she was going to faint, moved quickly toward her, took her arm.

“Forgive me. I was blunt.... But I thought you knew.”

“I’ve known for a long time,” replied Mrs. Belding. Her voice was steady, and there was no evidence of agitation except in her pallor. “Then you — you haven’t spoken to Nell?”

Dick laughed. “I’ve been trying to get a chance to tell her. I haven’t had it yet. But she knows. There are other ways besides speech. And Mercedes has told her. I hope, I almost believe Nell cares a little for me.”

“I’ve known that, too, for a long time,” said Mrs. Belding, low almost as a whisper.

“You know!” cried Dick, with a glow and rush of feeling.

“Dick, you must be very blind not to see what has been plain to all of us.... I guess — it couldn’t have been helped. You’re a splendid fellow. No wonder she loves you.”

“Mother! You’ll give her to me?”

She drew him to the light and looked with strange, piercing intentness into his face. Gale had never dreamed a woman’s eyes could hold such a world of thought and feeling. It seemed all the sweetness of life was there, and all the pain.

“Do you love her?” she asked.

“With all my heart.”

“You want to marry her?”

“Ah, I want to! As much as I want to live and work for her.”

“When would you marry her?”

“Why!... Just as soon as she will do it. To-morrow!” Dick gave a wild, exultant little laugh.

“Dick Gale, you want my Nell? You love her just as she is — her sweetness — her goodness? Just herself, body and soul?... There’s nothing could change you — nothing?”

“Dear Mrs. Belding, I love Nell for herself. If she loves me I’ll be the happiest of men. There’s absolutely nothing that could make any difference in me.”

“But your people? Oh, Dick, you come of a proud family. I can tell. I — I once knew a young man like you. A few months can’t change pride — blood. Years can’t change them. You’ve become a ranger. You love the adventure — the wild life. That won’t last. Perhaps you’ll settle down to ranching. I know you love the West. But, Dick, there’s your family—”

“If you want to know anything about my family, I’ll tell you,” interrupted Dick, with strong feeling. “I’ve not secrets about them or myself. My future and happiness are Nell’s to make. No one else shall count with me.”

“Then, Dick — you may have her. God — bless — you — both.”

Mrs. Belding’s strained face underwent a swift and mobile relaxation, and suddenly she was weeping in strangely mingled happiness and bitterness.

“Why, mother!” Gale could say no more. He did not comprehend a mood seemingly so utterly at variance with Mrs. Belding’s habitual temperament. But he put his arm around her. In another moment she had gained command over herself, and, kissing him, she pushed him out of the door.

“There! Go tell her, Dick... And have some spunk about it!”

Gale went thoughtfully back to his room. He vowed that he would answer for Nell’s happiness, if he had the wonderful good fortune to win her. Then remembering the hope Mrs. Belding had given him, Dick lost his gravity in a flash, and something began to dance and ring within him. He simply could not keep his steps turned from the patio. Every path led there. His blood was throbbing, his hopes mounting, his spirit soaring. He knew he had never before entered the patio with that inspirited presence.

“Now for some spunk!” he said, under his breath.

Plainly he meant his merry whistle and his buoyant step to interrupt this first languorous stage of the siesta which the girls always took during the hot hours. Nell had acquired the habit long before Mercedes came to show how fixed a thing it was in the life of the tropics. But neither girl heard him. Mercedes lay under the palo verde, her beautiful head dark and still upon a cushion. Nell was asleep in the hammock. There was an abandonment in her deep repose, and a faint smile upon her face. Her sweet, red lips, with the soft, perfect curve, had always fascinated Dick, and now drew him irresistibly. He had always been consumed with a desire to kiss her, and now he was overwhelmed with his opportunity. It would be a terrible thing to do, but if she did not awaken at once — No, he would fight the temptation. That would be more than spunk. It would — Suddenly an ugly green fly sailed low over Nell, appeared about to alight on her. Noiselessly Dick stepped close to the hammock bent under the tree, and with a sweep of his hand chased the intruding fly away. But he found himself powerless to straighten up. He was close to her — bending over her face — near the sweet lips. The insolent, dreaming smile just parted them. Then he thought he was lost. But she stirred — he feared she would awaken.

He had stepped back erect when she opened her eyes. They were sleepy, yet surprised until she saw him. Then she was wide awake in a second, bewildered, uncertain.

“Why — you here?” she asked, slowly.

“Large as life!” replied Dick, with unusual gayety.

“How long have you been here?”

“Just got here this fraction of a second,” he replied, lying shamelessly.

It was evident that she did not know whether or not to believe him, and as she studied him a slow blush dyed her cheek.

“You are absolutely truthful when you say you just stepped there?”

“Why, of course,” answered Dick, right glad he did not have to lie about that.

“I thought — I was — dreaming,” she said, and evidently the sound of her voice reassured her.

“Yes, you looked as if you were having pleasant dreams,” replied Dick. “So sorry to wake you. I can’t see how I came to do it, I was so quiet. Mercedes didn’t wake. Well, I’ll go and let you have your siesta and dreams.”

But he did not move to go. Nell regarded him with curious, speculative eyes.

“Isn’t it a lovely day?” queried Dick.

“I think it’s hot.”

“Only ninety in the shade. And you’ve told me the mercury goes to one hundred and thirty in midsummer. This is just a glorious golden day.”

“Yesterday was finer, but you didn’t notice it.”

“Oh, yesterday was somewhere back in the past — the inconsequential past.”

Nell’s sleepy blue eyes opened a little wider. She did not know what to make of this changed young man. Dick felt gleeful and tried hard to keep the fact from becoming manifest.

“What’s the inconsequential past? You seem remarkably happy to-day.”

“I certainly am happy. Adios. Pleasant dreams.”

Dick turned away then and left the patio by the opening into the yard. Nell was really sleepy, and when she had fallen asleep again he would return. He walked around for a while. Belding and the rangers were shoeing a broncho. Yaqui was in the field with the horses. Blanco Sol grazed contently, and now and then lifted his head to watch. His long ears went up at sight of his master, and he whistled. Presently Dick, as if magnet-drawn, retraced his steps to the patio and entered noiselessly.

Nell was now deep in her siesta. She was inert, relaxed, untroubled by dreams. Her hair was damp on her brow.

Again Nell stirred, and gradually awakened. Her eyes unclosed, humid, shadowy, unconscious. They rested upon Dick for a moment before they became clear and comprehensive. He stood back fully ten feet from her, and to all outside appearances regarded her calmly.

“I’ve interrupted your siesta again,” he said. “Please forgive me. I’ll take myself off.”

He wandered away, and when it became impossible for him to stay away any longer he returned to the patio.

The instant his glance rested upon Nell’s face he divined she was feigning sleep. The faint rose-blush had paled. The warm, rich, golden tint of her skin had fled. Dick dropped upon his knees and bent over her. Though his blood was churning in his veins, his breast laboring, his mind whirling with the wonder of that moment and its promise, he made himself deliberate. He wanted more than anything he had ever wanted in his life to see if she would keep up that pretense of sleep and let him kiss her. She must have felt his breath, for her hair waved off her brow. Her cheeks were now white. Her breast swelled and sank. He bent down closer — closer. But he must have been maddeningly slow, for as he bent still closer Nell’s eyes opened, and he caught a swift purple gaze of eyes as she whirled her head. Then, with a little cry, she rose and fled.

CHAPTER X

ROJAS

NO WORD FROM George Thorne had come to Forlorn River in weeks. Gale grew concerned over the fact, and began to wonder if anything serious could have happened to him. Mercedes showed a slow, wearing strain.

Thorne’s commission expired the end of January, and if he could not get his discharge immediately, he surely could obtain leave of absence. Therefore, Gale waited, not without growing anxiety, and did his best to cheer Mercedes. The first of February came bringing news of rebel activities and bandit operations in and around Casita, but not a word from the cavalryman.

Mercedes became silent, mournful. Her eyes were great black windows of tragedy. Nell devoted herself entirely to the unfortunate girl; Dick exerted himself to persuade her that all would yet come well; in fact, the whole household could not have been kinder to a sister or a daughter. But their united efforts were unavailing. Mercedes seemed to accept with fatalistic hopelessness a last and crowning misfortune.

A dozen times Gale declared he would ride in to Casita and find out why they did not hear from Thorne; however, older and wiser heads prevailed over his impetuosity. Belding was not sanguine over the safety of the Casita trail. Refugees from there arrived every day in Forlorn River, and if tales they told were true, real war would have been preferable to what was going on along the border. Belding and the rangers and the Yaqui held a consultation. Not only had the Indian become a faithful servant to Gale, but he was also of value to Belding. Yaqui had all the craft of his class, and superior intelligence. His knowledge of Mexicans was second only to his hate of them. And Yaqui, who had been scouting on all the trails, gave information that made Belding decide to wait some days before sending any one to Casita. He required promises from his rangers, particularly Gale, not to leave without his consent.

It was upon Gale’s coming from this conference that he encountered Nell. Since the interrupted siesta episode she had been more than ordinarily elusive, and about all he had received from her was a tantalizing smile from a distance. He got the impression now, however, that she had awaited him. When he drew close to her he was certain of it, and he experienced more than surprise.

“Dick,” she began, hurriedly. “Dad’s not going to send any one to see about Thorne?”

“No, not yet. He thinks it best not to. We all think so. I’m sorry. Poor Mercedes!”

“I knew it. I tried to coax him to send Laddy or even Yaqui. He wouldn’t listen to me. Dick, Mercedes is dying by inches. Can’t you see what ails her? It’s more than love or fear. It’s uncertainty — suspense. Oh, can’t we find out for her?”

“Nell, I feel as badly as you about her. I wanted to ride in to Casita. Belding shut me up quick, the last time.”

Nell came close to Gale, clasped his arm. There was no color in her face. Her eyes held a dark, eager excitement.

“Dick, will you slip off without Dad’s consent? Risk it! Go to Casita and find out what’s happened to Thorne — at least if he ever started for Forlorn River?”

“No, Nell, I won’t do that.”

She drew away from him with passionate suddenness.

“Are you afraid?”

This certainly was not the Nell Burton that Gale knew.

“No, I’m not afraid,” Gale replied, a little nettled.

“Will you go — for my sake?” Like lightning her mood changed and she was close to him again, hands on his, her face white, her whole presence sweetly alluring.

“Nell, I won’t disobey Belding,” protested Gale. “I won’t break my word.”

“Dick, it’ll not be so bad as that. But — what if it is?... Go, Dick, if not for poor Mercedes’s sake, then for mine — to please me. I’ll — I’ll... you won’t lose anything by going. I think I know how Mercedes feels. Just a word from Thorne or about him would save her. Take Blanco Sol and go, Dick. What rebel outfit could ever ride you down on that horse? Why, Dick, if I was up on Sol I wouldn’t be afraid of the whole rebel army.”

“My dear girl, it’s not a question of being afraid. It’s my word — my duty to Belding.”

“You said you loved me. If you love me you will go... You don’t love me!”

Gale could only stare at this transformed girl.

“Dick, listen!... If you go — if you fetch some word of Thorne to comfort Mercedes, you — well, you will have your reward.”

“Nell!”

Her dangerous sweetness was as amazing as this newly revealed character.

“Dick, will you go?”

“No-no!” cried Gale, in violence, struggling with himself. “Nell Burton, I’ll tell you this. To have the reward I want would mean pretty near heaven for me. But not even for that will I break my word to your father.”

She seemed the incarnation of girlish scorn and wilful passion.

“Gracias, senor,” she replied, mockingly. “Adios.” Then she flashed out of his sight.

Gale went to his room at once, disturbed and thrilling, and did not soon recover from that encounter.

The following morning at the breakfast table Nell was not present. Mrs. Belding evidently considered the fact somewhat unusual, for she called out into the patio and then into the yard. Then she went to Mercedes’s room. But Nell was not there, either.

“She’s in one of her tantrums lately,” said Belding. “Wouldn’t speak to me this morning. Let her alone, mother. She’s spoiled enough, without running after her. She’s always hungry. She’ll be on hand presently, don’t mistake me.”

Notwithstanding Belding’s conviction, which Gale shared, Nell did not appear at all during the hour. When Belding and the rangers went outside, Yaqui was eating his meal on the bench where he always sat.

“Yaqui — Lluvia d’ oro, si?” asked Belding, waving his hand toward the corrals. The Indian’s beautiful name for Nell meant “shower of gold,” and Belding used it in asking Yaqui if he had seen her. He received a negative reply.

Perhaps half an hour afterward, as Gale was leaving his room, he saw the Yaqui running up the path from the fields. It was markedly out of the ordinary to see the Indian run. Gale wondered what was the matter. Yaqui ran straight to Belding, who was at work at his bench under the wagon shed. In less than a moment Belding was bellowing for his rangers. Gale got to him first, but Ladd and Lash were not far behind.

“Blanco Sol gone!” yelled Belding, in a rage.

“Gone? In broad daylight, with the Indian a-watch-in?” queried Ladd.

“It happened while Yaqui was at breakfast. That’s sure. He’d just watered Sol.”

“Raiders!” exclaimed Jim Lash.

“Lord only knows. Yaqui says it wasn’t raiders.”

“Mebbe Sol’s just walked off somewheres.”

“He was haltered in the corral.”

“Send Yaqui to find the hoss’s trail, an’ let’s figger,” said Ladd. “Shore this ‘s no raider job.”

In the swift search that ensued Gale did not have anything to say; but his mind was forming a conclusion. When he found his old saddle and bridle missing from the peg in the barn his conclusion became a positive conviction, and it made him, for the moment, cold and sick and speechless.

“Hey, Dick, don’t take it so much to heart,” said Belding. “We’ll likely find Sol, and if we don’t, there’s other good horses.”

“I’m not thinking of Sol,” replied Gale.

Ladd cast a sharp glance at Gale, snapped his fingers, and said:

“Damn me if I ain’t guessed it, too!”

“What’s wrong with you locoed gents?” bluntly demanded Belding.

“Nell has slipped away on Sol,” answered Dick.

There was a blank pause, which presently Belding broke.

“Well, that’s all right, if Nell’s on him. I was afraid we’d lost the horse.”

“Belding, you’re trackin’ bad,” said Ladd, wagging his head.

“Nell has started for Casita,” burst out Gale. “She has gone to fetch Mercedes some word about Thorne. Oh, Belding, you needn’t shake your head. I know she’s gone. She tried to persuade me to go, and was furious when I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t believe it,” replied Belding, hoarsely. “Nell may have her temper. She’s a little devil at times, but she always had good sense.”

“Tom, you can gamble she’s gone,” said Ladd.

“Aw, hell, no! Jim, what do you think?” implored Belding.

“I reckon Sol’s white head is pointed level an’ straight down the Casita trail. An’ Nell can ride. We’re losing’ time.”

That roused Belding to action.

“I say you’re all wrong,” he yelled, starting for the corrals. “She’s only taking a little ride, same as she’s done often. But rustle now. Find out. Dick, you ride cross the valley. Jim, you hunt up and down the river. I’ll head up San Felipe way. And you, Laddy, take Diablo and hit the Casita trail. If she really has gone after Thorne you can catch her in an hour or so.”

“Shore I’ll go,” replied Ladd. “But, Beldin’, if you’re not plumb crazy you’re close to it. That big white devil can’t catch Sol. Not in an hour or a day or a week! What’s more, at the end of any runnin’ time, with an even start, Sol will be farther in the lead. An’ now Sol’s got an hour’s start.”

“Laddy, you mean to say Sol is a faster horse than Diablo?” thundered Belding, his face purple.

“Shore. I mean to tell you just that there,” replied the ranger.

“I’ll — I’ll bet a—”

“We’re wastin’ time,” curtly interrupted Ladd. “You can gamble on this if you want to. I’ll ride your Blanco Devil as he never was rid before, ‘cept once when a damn sight better hossman than I am couldn’t make him outrun Sol.”

Without more words the men saddled and were off, not waiting for the Yaqui to come in with possible information as to what trail Blanco Sol had taken. It certainly did not show in the clear sand of the level valley where Gale rode to and fro. When Gale returned to the house he found Belding and Lash awaiting him. They did not mention their own search, but stated that Yaqui had found Blanco Sol’s tracks in the Casita trail. After some consultation Belding decided to send Lash along after Ladd.

The interminable time that followed contained for Gale about as much suspense as he could well bear. What astonished him and helped him greatly to fight off actual distress was the endurance of Nell’s mother.

Early on the morning of the second day, Gale, who had acquired an unbreakable habit of watching, saw three white horses and a bay come wearily stepping down the road. He heard Blanco Sol’s familiar whistle, and he leaped up wild with joy. The horse was riderless. Gale’s sudden joy received a violent check, then resurged when he saw a limp white form in Jim Lash’s arms. Ladd was supporting a horseman who wore a military uniform.

Gale shouted with joy and ran into the house to tell the good news. It was the ever-thoughtful Mrs. Belding who prevented him from rushing in to tell Mercedes. Then he hurried out into the yard, closely followed by the Beldings.

Lash handed down a ragged, travel-stained, wan girl into Belding’s arms.

“Dad! Mama!”

It was indeed a repentant Nell, but there was spirit yet in the tired blue eyes. Then she caught sight of Gale and gave him a faint smile.

“Hello — Dick.”

“Nell!” Gale reached for her hand, held it tightly, and found speech difficult.

“You needn’t worry — about your old horse,” she said, as Belding carried her toward the door. “Oh, Dick! Blanco Sol is — glorious!”

Gale turned to greet his friend. Indeed, it was but a haggard ghost of the cavalryman. Thorne looked ill or wounded. Gale’s greeting was also a question full of fear.

Thorne’s answer was a faint smile. He seemed ready to drop from the saddle. Gale helped Ladd hold Thorne upon the horse until they reached the house. Belding came out again. His welcome was checked as he saw the condition of the cavalryman. Thorne reeled into Dick’s arms. But he was able to stand and walk.

“I’m not — hurt. Only weak — starved,” he said. “Is Mercedes — Take me to her.”

“She’ll be well the minute she sees him,” averred Belding, as he and Gale led the cavalryman to Mercedes’s room. There they left him; and Gale, at least, felt his ears ringing with the girl’s broken cry of joy.

When Belding and Gale hurried forth again the rangers were tending the tired horses. Upon returning to the house Jim Lash calmly lit his pipe, and Ladd declared that, hungry as he was, he had to tell his story.

“Shore, Beldin’,” began Ladd, “that was funny about Diablo catchin’ Blanco Sol. Funny ain’t the word. I nearly laughed myself to death. Well, I rode in Sol’s tracks all the way to Casita. Never seen a rebel or a raider till I got to town. Figgered Nell made the trip in five hours. I went straight to the camp of the cavalrymen, an’ found them just coolin’ off an’ dressin’ down their hosses after what looked to me like a big ride. I got there too late for the fireworks.

“Some soldier took me to an officer’s tent. Nell was there, some white an’ all in. She just said, ‘Laddy!’ Thorne was there, too, an’ he was bein’ worked over by the camp doctor. I didn’t ask no questions, because I seen quiet was needed round that tent. After satisfying myself that Nell was all right, an’ Thorne in no danger, I went out.

“Shore there was so darn many fellers who wanted to an’ tried to tell me what’d come off, I thought I’d never find out. But I got the story piece by piece. An’ here’s what happened.

“Nell rode Blanco Sol a-tearin’ into camp, an’ had a crowd round her in a jiffy. She told who she was, where she’d come from, an’ what she wanted. Well, it seemed a day or so before Nell got there the cavalrymen had heard word of Thorne. You see, Thorne had left camp on leave of absence some time before. He was shore mysterious, they said, an’ told nobody where he was goin’. A week or so after he left camp some Greaser give it away that Rojas had a prisoner in a dobe shack near his camp. Nobody paid much attention to what the Greaser said. He wanted money for mescal. An’ it was usual for Rojas to have prisoners. But in a few more days it turned out pretty sure that for some reason Rojas was holdin’ Thorne.

“Now it happened when this news came Colonel Weede was in Nogales with his staff, an’ the officer left in charge didn’t know how to proceed. Rojas’s camp was across the line in Mexico, an’ ridin’ over there was serious business. It meant a whole lot more than just scatterin’ one Greaser camp. It was what had been botherin’ more’n one colonel along the line. Thorne’s feller soldiers was anxious to get him out of a bad fix, but they had to wait for orders.

“When Nell found out Thorne was bein’ starved an’ beat in a dobe shack no more’n two mile across the line, she shore stirred up that cavalry camp. Shore! She told them soldiers Rojas was holdin’ Thorne — torturin’ him to make him tell where Mercedes was. She told about Mercedes — how sweet an’ beautiful she was — how her father had been murdered by Rojas — how she had been hounded by the bandit — how ill an’ miserable she was, waitin’ for her lover. An’ she begged the cavalrymen to rescue Thorne.

“From the way it was told to me I reckon them cavalrymen went up in the air. Fine, fiery lot of young bloods, I thought, achin’ for a scrap. But the officer in charge, bein’ in a ticklish place, still held out for higher orders.

“Then Nell broke loose. You-all know Nell’s tongue is sometimes like a choya thorn. I’d have give somethin’ to see her work up that soldier outfit. Nell’s never so pretty as when she’s mad. An’ this last stunt of hers was no girly tantrum, as Beldin’ calls it. She musta been ragin’ with all the hell there’s in a woman.... Can’t you fellers see her on Blanco Sol with her eyes turnin’ black?”

Ladd mopped his sweaty face with his dusty scarf. He was beaming. He was growing excited, hurried in his narrative.

“Right out then Nell swore she’d go after Thorne. If them cavalrymen couldn’t ride with a Western girl to save a brother American — let them hang back! One feller, under orders, tried to stop Blanco Sol. An’ that feller invited himself to the hospital. Then the cavalrymen went flyin’ for their hosses. Mebbe Nell’s move was just foxy — woman’s cunnin’. But I’m thinkin’ as she felt then she’d have sent Blanco Sol straight into Rojas’s camp, which, I’d forgot to say, was in plain sight.

“It didn’t take long for every cavalryman in that camp to get wind of what was comin’ off. Shore they musta been wild. They strung out after Nell in a thunderin’ troop.

“Say, I wish you fellers could see the lane that bunch of hosses left in the greasewood an’ cactus. Looks like there’d been a cattle stampede on the desert.... Blanco Sol stayed out in front, you can gamble on that. Right into Rojas’s camp! Sabe, you senors? Gawd Almighty! I never had grief that ‘d hold a candle to this one of bein’ too late to see Nell an’ Sol in their one best race.

“Rojas an’ his men vamoosed without a shot. That ain’t surprisin’. There wasn’t a shot fired by anybody. The cavalrymen soon found Thorne an’ hurried with him back on Uncle Sam’s land. Thorne was half naked, black an’ blue all over, thin as a rail. He looked mighty sick when I seen him first. That was a little after midday. He was given food an’ drink. Shore he seemed a starved man. But he picked up wonderful, an’ by the time Jim came along he was wantin’ to start for Forlorn River. So was Nell. By main strength as much as persuasion we kept the two of them quiet till next evenin’ at dark.

“Well, we made as sneaky a start in the dark as Jim an’ me could manage, an’ never hit the trail till we was miles from town. Thorne’s nerve held him up for a while. Then all at once he tumbled out of his saddle. We got him back, an’ Lash held him on. Nell didn’t give out till daybreak.”

As Ladd paused in his story Belding began to stutter, and finally he exploded. His mighty utterances were incoherent. But plainly the wrath he had felt toward the wilful girl was forgotten. Gale remained gripped by silence.

“I reckon you’ll all be some surprised when you see Casita,” went on Ladd. “It’s half burned an’ half tore down. An’ the rebels are livin’ fat. There was rumors of another federal force on the road from Casa Grandes. I seen a good many Americans from interior Mexico, an’ the stories they told would make your hair stand up. They all packed guns, was fightin’ mad at Greasers, an’ sore on the good old U. S. But shore glad to get over the line! Some were waitin’ for trains, which don’t run reg’lar no more, an’ others were ready to hit the trails north.”

“Laddy, what knocks me is Rojas holding Thorne prisoner, trying to make him tell where Mercedes had been hidden,” said Belding.

“Shore. It ‘d knock anybody.”

“The bandit’s crazy over her. That’s the Spanish of it,” replied Belding, his voice rolling. “Rojas is a peon. He’s been a slave to the proud Castilian. He loves Mercedes as he hates her. When I was down in Durango I saw something of these peons’ insane passions. Rojas wants this girl only to have her, then kill her. It’s damn strange, boys, and even with Thorne here our troubles have just begun.”

“Tom, you spoke correct,” said Jim Ladd, in his cool drawl.

“Shore I’m not sayin’ what I think,” added Ladd. But the look of him was not indicative of a tranquil optimism.

Thorne was put to bed in Gale’s room. He was very weak, yet he would keep Mercedes’s hand and gaze at her with unbelieving eyes. Mercedes’s failing hold on hope and strength seemed to have been a fantasy; she was again vivid, magnetic, beautiful, shot through and through with intense and throbbing life. She induced him to take food and drink. Then, fighting sleep with what little strength he had left, at last he succumbed.

For all Dick could ascertain his friend never stirred an eyelash nor a finger for twenty-seven hours. When he awoke he was pale, weak, but the old Thorne.

“Hello, Dick; I didn’t dream it then,” he said. “There you are, and my darling with the proud, dark eyes — she’s here?”

“Why, yes, you locoed cavalryman.”

“Say, what’s happened to you? It can’t be those clothes and a little bronze on your face.... Dick, you’re older — you’ve changed. You’re not so thickly built. By Gad, if you don’t look fine!”

“Thanks. I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment. You’re about the seediest, hungriest-looking fellow I ever saw.... Say, old man, you must have had a tough time.”

A dark and somber fire burned out the happiness in Thorne’s eyes.

“Dick, don’t make me — don’t let me think of that fiend Rojas!.... I’m here now. I’ll be well in a day or two. Then!...”

Mercedes came in, radiant and soft-voiced. She fell upon her knees beside Thorne’s bed, and neither of them appeared to see Nell enter with a tray. Then Gale and Nell made a good deal of unnecessary bustle in moving a small table close to the bed. Mercedes had forgotten for the moment that her lover had been a starving man. If Thorne remembered it he did not care. They held hands and looked at each other without speaking.

“Nell, I thought I had it bad,” whispered Dick. “But I’m not—”

“Hush. It’s beautiful,” replied Nell, softly; and she tried to coax Dick from the room.

Dick, however, thought he ought to remain at least long enough to tell Thorne that a man in his condition could not exist solely upon love.

Mercedes sprang up blushing with pretty, penitent manner and moving white hands eloquent of her condition.

“Oh, Mercedes — don’t go!” cried Thorne, as she stepped to the door.

“Senor Dick will stay. He is not mucha malo for you — as I am.”

Then she smiled and went out.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Thorne. “How I love her. Dick, isn’t she the most beautiful, the loveliest, the finest—”

“George, I share your enthusiasm,” said Dick, dryly, “but Mercedes isn’t the only girl on earth.”

Manifestly this was a startling piece of information, and struck Thorne in more than one way.

“George,” went on Dick, “did you happen to observe the girl who saved your life — who incidentally just fetched in your breakfast?”

“Nell Burton! Why, of course. She’s brave, a wonderful girl, and really nice-looking.”

“You long, lean, hungry beggar! That was the young lady who might answer the raving eulogy you just got out of your system.... I — well, you haven’t cornered the love market!”

Thorne uttered some kind of a sound that his weakened condition would not allow to be a whoop.

“Dick! Do you mean it?”

“I shore do, as Laddy says.”

“I’m glad, Dick, with all my heart. I wondered at the changed look you wear. Why, boy, you’ve got a different front.... Call the lady in, and you bet I’ll look her over right. I can see better now.”

“Eat your breakfast. There’s plenty of time to dazzle you afterward.”

Thorne fell to upon his breakfast and made it vanish with magic speed. Meanwhile Dick told him something of a ranger’s life along the border.

“You needn’t waste your breath,” said Thorne. “I guess I can see. Belding and those rangers have made you the real thing — the real Western goods.... What I want to know is all about the girl.”

“Well, Laddy swears she’s got your girl roped in the corral for looks.”

“That’s not possible. I’ll have to talk to Laddy.... But she must be a wonder, or Dick Gale would never have fallen for her.... Isn’t it great, Dick? I’m here! Mercedes is well — safe! You’ve got a girl! Oh!.... But say, I haven’t a dollar to my name. I had a lot of money, Dick, and those robbers stole it, my watch — everything. Damn that little black Greaser! He got Mercedes’s letters. I wish you could have seen him trying to read them. He’s simply nutty over her, Dick. I could have borne the loss of money and valuables — but those beautiful, wonderful letters — they’re gone!”

“Cheer up. You have the girl. Belding will make you a proposition presently. The future smiles, old friend. If this rebel business was only ended!”

“Dick, you’re going to be my savior twice over.... Well, now, listen to me.” His gay excitement changed to earnest gravity. “I want to marry Mercedes at once. Is there a padre here?”

“Yes. But are you wise in letting any Mexican, even a priest, know Mercedes is hidden in Forlorn River?”

“It couldn’t be kept much longer.”

Gale was compelled to acknowledge the truth of this statement.

“I’ll marry her first, then I’ll face my problem. Fetch the padre, Dick. And ask our kind friends to be witnesses at the ceremony.”

Much to Gale’s surprise neither Belding nor Ladd objected to the idea of bringing a padre into the household, and thereby making known to at least one Mexican the whereabouts of Mercedes Castaneda. Belding’s caution was wearing out in wrath at the persistent unsettled condition of the border, and Ladd grew only the cooler and more silent as possibilities of trouble multiplied.

Gale fetched the padre, a little, weazened, timid man who was old and without interest or penetration. Apparently he married Mercedes and Thorne as he told his beads or mumbled a prayer. It was Mrs. Belding who kept the occasion from being a merry one, and she insisted on not exciting Thorne. Gale marked her unusual pallor and the singular depth and sweetness of her voice.

“Mother, what’s the use of making a funeral out of a marriage?” protested Belding. “A chance for some fun doesn’t often come to Forlorn River. You’re a fine doctor. Can’t you see the girl is what Thorne needed? He’ll be well to-morrow, don’t mistake me.”

“George, when you’re all right again we’ll add something to present congratulations,” said Gale.

“We shore will,” put in Ladd.

So with parting jests and smiles they left the couple to themselves.

Belding enjoyed a laugh at his good wife’s expense, for Thorne could not be kept in bed, and all in a day, it seemed, he grew so well and so hungry that his friends were delighted, and Mercedes was radiant. In a few days his weakness disappeared and he was going the round of the fields and looking over the ground marked out in Gale’s plan of water development. Thorne was highly enthusiastic, and at once staked out his claim for one hundred and sixty acres of land adjoining that of Belding and the rangers. These five tracts took in all the ground necessary for their operations, but in case of the success of the irrigation project the idea was to increase their squatter holdings by purchase of more land down the valley. A hundred families had lately moved to Forlorn River; more were coming all the time; and Belding vowed he could see a vision of the whole Altar Valley green with farms.

Meanwhile everybody in Belding’s household, except the quiet Ladd and the watchful Yaqui, in the absence of disturbance of any kind along the border, grew freer and more unrestrained, as if anxiety was slowly fading in the peace of the present. Jim Lash made a trip to the Sonoyta Oasis, and Ladd patrolled fifty miles of the line eastward without incident or sight of raiders. Evidently all the border hawks were in at the picking of Casita.

The February nights were cold, with a dry, icy, penetrating coldness that made a warm fire most comfortable. Belding’s household usually congregated in the sitting-room, where burning mesquite logs crackled in the open fireplace. Belding’s one passion besides horses was the game of checkers, and he was always wanting to play. On this night he sat playing with Ladd, who never won a game and never could give up trying. Mrs. Belding worked with her needle, stopping from time to time to gaze with thoughtful eyes into the fire. Jim Lash smoked his pipe by the hearth and played with the cat on his knee. Thorne and Mercedes were at the table with pencil and paper; and he was trying his best to keep his attention from his wife’s beautiful, animated face long enough to read and write a little Spanish. Gale and Nell sat in a corner watching the bright fire.

There came a low knock on the door. It may have been an ordinary knock, for it did not disturb the women; but to Belding and his rangers it had a subtle meaning.

“Who’s that?” asked Belding, as he slowly pushed back his chair and looked at Ladd.

“Yaqui,” replied the ranger.

“Come in,” called Belding.

The door opened, and the short, square, powerfully built Indian entered. He had a magnificent head, strangely staring, somber black eyes, and very darkly bronzed face. He carried a rifle and strode with impressive dignity.

“Yaqui, what do you want?” asked Belding, and repeated his question in Spanish.

“Senor Dick,” replied the Indian.

Gale jumped up, stifling an exclamation, and he went outdoors with Yaqui. He felt his arm gripped, and allowed himself to be led away without asking a question. Yaqui’s presence was always one of gloom, and now his stern action boded catastrophe. Once clear of trees he pointed to the level desert across the river, where a row of campfires shone bright out of the darkness.

“Raiders!” ejaculated Gale.

Then he cautioned Yaqui to keep sharp lookout, and, hurriedly returning to the house, he called the men out and told them there were rebels or raiders camping just across the line.

Ladd did not say a word. Belding, with an oath, slammed down his cigar.

“I knew it was too good to last.... Dick, you and Jim stay here while Laddy and I look around.”

Dick returned to the sitting-room. The women were nervous and not to be deceived. So Dick merely said Yaqui had sighted some lights off in the desert, and they probably were campfires. Belding did not soon return, and when he did he was alone, and, saying he wanted to consult with the men, he sent Mrs. Belding and the girls to their rooms. His gloomy anxiety had returned.

“Laddy’s gone over to scout around and try to find out who the outfit belongs to and how many are in it,” said Belding.

“I reckon if they’re raiders with bad intentions we wouldn’t see no fires,” remarked Jim, calmly.

“It ‘d be useless, I suppose, to send for the cavalry,” said Gale. “Whatever’s coming off would be over before the soldiers could be notified, let alone reach here.”

“Hell, fellows! I don’t look for an attack on Forlorn River,” burst out Belding. “I can’t believe that possible. These rebel-raiders have a little sense. They wouldn’t spoil their game by pulling U. S. soldiers across the line from Yuma to El Paso. But, as Jim says, if they wanted to steal a few horses or cattle they wouldn’t build fires. I’m afraid it’s—”

Belding hesitated and looked with grim concern at the cavalryman.

“What?” queried Thorne.

“I’m afraid it’s Rojas.”

Thorne turned pale but did not lose his nerve.

“I thought of that at once. If true, it’ll be terrible for Mercedes and me. But Rojas will never get his hands on my wife. If I can’t kill him, I’ll kill her!... Belding, this is tough on you — this risk we put upon your family. I regret—”

“Cut that kind of talk,” replied Belding, bluntly. “Well, if it is Rojas he’s acting damn strange for a raider. That’s what worries me. We can’t do anything but wait. With Laddy and Yaqui out there we won’t be surprised. Let’s take the best possible view of the situation until we know more. That’ll not likely be before to-morrow.”

The women of the house might have gotten some sleep that night, but it was certain the men did not get any. Morning broke cold and gray, the 19th of February. Breakfast was prepared earlier than usual, and an air of suppressed waiting excitement pervaded the place. Otherwise the ordinary details of the morning’s work continued as on any other day. Ladd came in hungry and cold, and said the Mexicans were not breaking camp. He reported a good-sized force of rebels, and was taciturn as to his idea of forthcoming events.

About an hour after sunrise Yaqui ran in with the information that part of the rebels were crossing the river.

“That can’t mean a fight yet,” declared Belding. “But get in the house, boys, and make ready anyway. I’ll meet them.”

“Drive them off the place same as if you had a company of soldiers backin’ you,” said Ladd. “Don’t give them an inch. We’re in bad, and the bigger bluff we put up the more likely our chance.”

“Belding, you’re an officer of the United States. Mexicans are much impressed by show of authority. I’ve seen that often in camp,” said Thorne.

“Oh, I know the white-livered Greasers better than any of you, don’t mistake me,” replied Belding. He was pale with rage, but kept command over himself.

The rangers, with Yaqui and Thorne, stationed themselves at the several windows of the sitting-room. Rifles and smaller arms and boxes of shells littered the tables and window seats. No small force of besiegers could overcome a resistance such as Belding and his men were capable of making.

“Here they come, boys,” called Gale, from his window.

“Rebel-raiders I should say, Laddy.”

“Shore. An’ a fine outfit of buzzards!”

“Reckon there’s about a dozen in the bunch,” observed the calm Lash. “Some hosses they’re ridin’. Where ‘n the hell do they get such hosses, anyhow?”

“Shore, Jim, they work hard an’ buy ’em with real silver pesos,” replied Ladd, sarcastically.

“Do any of you see Rojas?” whispered Thorne.

“Nix. No dandy bandit in that outfit.”

“It’s too far to see,” said Gale.

The horsemen halted at the corrals. They were orderly and showed no evidence of hostility. They were, however, fully armed. Belding stalked out to meet them. Apparently a leader wanted to parley with him, but Belding would hear nothing. He shook his head, waved his arms, stamped to and fro, and his loud, angry voice could be heard clear back at the house. Whereupon the detachment of rebels retired to the bank of the river, beyond the white post that marked the boundary line, and there they once more drew rein. Belding remained by the corrals watching them, evidently still in threatening mood. Presently a single rider left the troop and trotted his horse back down the road. When he reached the corrals he was seen to halt and pass something to Belding. Then he galloped away to join his comrades.

Belding looked at whatever it was he held in his hand, shook his burley head, and started swiftly for the house. He came striding into the room holding a piece of soiled paper.

“Can’t read it and don’t know as I want to,” he said, savagely.

“Beldin’, shore we’d better read it,” replied Ladd. “What we want is a line on them Greasers. Whether they’re Campo’s men or Salazar’s, or just a wanderin’ bunch of rebels — or Rojas’s bandits. Sabe, senor?”

Not one of the men was able to translate the garbled scrawl.

“Shore Mercedes can read it,” said Ladd.

Thorne opened a door and called her. She came into the room followed by Nell and Mrs. Belding. Evidently all three divined a critical situation.

“My dear, we want you to read what’s written on this paper,” said Thorne, as he led her to the table. “It was sent in by rebels, and — and we fear contains bad news for us.”

Mercedes gave the writing one swift glance, then fainted in Thorne’s arms. He carried her to a couch, and with Nell and Mrs. Belding began to work over her.

Belding looked at his rangers. It was characteristic of the man that, now when catastrophe appeared inevitable, all the gloom and care and angry agitation passed from him.

“Laddy, it’s Rojas all right. How many men has he out there?”

“Mebbe twenty. Not more.”

“We can lick twice that many Greasers.”

“Shore.”

Jim Lash removed his pipe long enough to speak.

“I reckon. But it ain’t sense to start a fight when mebbe we can avoid it.”

“What’s your idea?”

“Let’s stave the Greaser off till dark. Then Laddy an’ me an’ Thorne will take Mercedes an’ hit the trail for Yuma.”

“Camino del Diablo! That awful trail with a woman! Jim, do you forget how many hundreds of men have perished on the Devil’s Road?”

“I reckon I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’,” replied Jim. “The waterholes are full now. There’s grass, an’ we can do the job in six days.”

“It’s three hundred miles to Yuma.”

“Beldin’, Jim’s idea hits me pretty reasonable,” interposed Ladd. “Lord knows that’s about the only chance we’ve got except fightin’.”

“But suppose we do stave Rojas off, and you get safely away with Mercedes. Isn’t Rojas going to find it out quick? Then what’ll he try to do to us who’re left here?”

“I reckon he’d find out by daylight,” replied Jim. “But, Tom, he ain’t agoin’ to start a scrap then. He’d want time an’ hosses an’ men to chase us out on the trail. You see, I’m figgerin’ on the crazy Greaser wantin’ the girl. I reckon he’ll try to clean up here to get her. But he’s too smart to fight you for nothin’. Rojas may be nutty about women, but he’s afraid of the U. S. Take my word for it he’d discover the trail in the mornin’ an’ light out on it. I reckon with ten hours’ start we could travel comfortable.”

Belding paced up and down the room. Jim and Ladd whispered together. Gale walked to the window and looked out at the distant group of bandits, and then turned his gaze to rest upon Mercedes. She was conscious now, and her eyes seemed all the larger and blacker for the whiteness of her face. Thorne held her hands, and the other women were trying to still her tremblings.

No one but Gale saw the Yaqui in the background looking down upon the Spanish girl. All of Yaqui’s looks were strange; but this singularly so. Gale marked it, and felt he would never forget. Mercedes’s beauty had never before struck him as being so exquisite, so alluring as now when she lay stricken. Gale wondered if the Indian was affected by her loveliness, her helplessness, or her terror. Yaqui had seen Mercedes only a few times, and upon each of these he had appeared to be fascinated. Could the strange Indian, because his hate for Mexicans was so great, be gloating over her misery? Something about Yaqui — a noble austerity of countenance — made Gale feel his suspicion unjust.

Presently Belding called his rangers to him, and then Thorne.

“Listen to this,” he said, earnestly. “I’ll go out and have a talk with Rojas. I’ll try to reason with him; tell him to think a long time before he sheds blood on Uncle Sam’s soil. That he’s now after an American’s wife! I’ll not commit myself, nor will I refuse outright to consider his demands, nor will I show the least fear of him. I’ll play for time. If my bluff goes through... well and good.... After dark the four of you, Laddy, Jim, Dick, and Thorne, will take Mercedes and my best white horses, and, with Yaqui as guide, circle round through Altar Valley to the trail, and head for Yuma.... Wait now, Laddy. Let me finish. I want you to take the white horses for two reasons — to save them and to save you. Savvy? If Rojas should follow on my horses he’d be likely to catch you. Also, you can pack a great deal more than on the bronchs. Also, the big horses can travel faster and farther on little grass and water. I want you to take the Indian, because in a case of this kind he’ll be a godsend. If you get headed or lost or have to circle off the trail, think what it ‘d mean to have Yaqui with you. He knows Sonora as no Greaser knows it. He could hide you, find water and grass, when you would absolutely believe it impossible. The Indian is loyal. He has his debt to pay, and he’ll pay it, don’t mistake me. When you’re gone I’ll hide Nell so Rojas won’t see her if he searches the place. Then I think I could sit down and wait without any particular worry.”

The rangers approved of Belding’s plan, and Thorne choked in his effort to express his gratitude.

“All right, we’ll chance it,” concluded Belding. “I’ll go out now and call Rojas and his outfit over... Say, it might be as well for me to know just what he said in that paper.”

Thorne went to the side of his wife.

“Mercedes, we’ve planned to outwit Rojas. Will you tell us just what he wrote?”

The girl sat up, her eyes dilating, and with her hands clasping Thorne’s. She said:

“Rojas swore — by his saints and his virgin — that if I wasn’t given — to him — in twenty-four hours — he would set fire to the village — kill the men — carry off the women — hang the children on cactus thorns!”

A moment’s silence followed her last halting whisper.

“By his saints an’ his virgin!” echoed Ladd. He laughed — a cold, cutting, deadly laugh — significant and terrible.

Then the Yaqui uttered a singular cry. Gale had heard this once before, and now he remembered it was at the Papago Well.

“Look at the Indian,” whispered Belding, hoarsely. “Damn if I don’t believe he understood every word Mercedes said. And, gentlemen, don’t mistake me, if he ever gets near Senor Rojas there’ll be some gory Aztec knife work.”

Yaqui had moved close to Mercedes, and stood beside her as she leaned against her husband. She seemed impelled to meet the Indian’s gaze, and evidently it was so powerful or hypnotic that it wrought irresistibly upon her. But she must have seen or divined what was beyond the others, for she offered him her trembling hand. Yaqui took it and laid it against his body in a strange motion, and bowed his head. Then he stepped back into the shadow of the room.

Belding went outdoors while the rangers took up their former position at the west window. Each had his own somber thoughts, Gale imagined, and knew his own were dark enough. A slow fire crept along his veins. He saw Belding halt at the corrals and wave his hand. Then the rebels mounted and came briskly up the road, this time to rein in abreast.

Wherever Rojas had kept himself upon the former advance was not clear; but he certainly was prominently in sight now. He made a gaudy, almost a dashing figure. Gale did not recognize the white sombrero, the crimson scarf, the velvet jacket, nor any feature of the dandy’s costume; but their general effect, the whole ensemble, recalled vividly to mind his first sight of the bandit. Rojas dismounted and seemed to be listening. He betrayed none of the excitement Gale had seen in him that night at the Del Sol. Evidently this composure struck Ladd and Lash as unusual in a Mexican supposed to be laboring under stress of feeling. Belding made gestures, vehemently bobbed his big head, appeared to talk with his body as much as with his tongue. Then Rojas was seen to reply, and after that it was clear that the talk became painful and difficult. It ended finally in what appeared to be mutual understanding. Rojas mounted and rode away with his men, while Belding came tramping back to the house.

As he entered the door his eyes were shining, his big hands were clenched, and he was breathing audibly.

“You can rope me if I’m not locoed!” he burst out. “I went out to conciliate a red-handed little murderer, and damn me if I didn’t meet a — a — well, I’ve not suitable name handy. I started my bluff and got along pretty well, but I forgot to mention that Mercedes was Thorne’s wife. And what do you think? Rojas swore he loved Mercedes — swore he’d marry her right here in Forlorn River — swore he would give up robbing and killing people, and take her away from Mexico. He has gold — jewels. He swore if he didn’t get her nothing mattered. He’d die anyway without her.... And here’s the strange thing. I believe him! He was cold as ice, and all hell inside. Never saw a Greaser like him. Well, I pretended to be greatly impressed. We got to talking friendly, I suppose, though I didn’t understand half he said, and I imagine he gathered less what I said. Anyway, without my asking he said for me to think it over for a day and then we’d talk again.”

“Shore we’re born lucky!” ejaculated Ladd.

“I reckon Rojas’ll be smart enough to string his outfit across the few trails leadin’ out of Forlorn River,” remarked Jim.

“That needn’t worry us. All we want is dark to come,” replied Belding. “Yaqui will slip through. If we thank any lucky stars let it be for the Indian.... Now, boys, put on your thinking caps. You’ll take eight horses, the pick of my bunch. You must pack all that’s needed for a possible long trip. Mind, Yaqui may lead you down into some wild Sonora valley and give Rojas the slip. You may get to Yuma in six days, and maybe in six weeks. Yet you’ve got to pack light — a small pack in saddles — larger ones on the two free horses. You may have a big fight. Laddy, take the .405. Dick will pack his Remington. All of you go gunned heavy. But the main thing is a pack that ‘ll be light enough for swift travel, yet one that ‘ll keep you from starving on the desert.”

The rest of that day passed swiftly. Dick had scarcely a word with Nell, and all the time, as he chose and deliberated and worked over his little pack, there was a dull pain in his heart.

The sun set, twilight fell, then night closed down fortunately a night slightly overcast. Gale saw the white horses pass his door like silent ghosts. Even Blanco Diablo made no sound, and that fact was indeed a tribute to the Yaqui. Gale went out to put his saddle on Blanco Sol. The horse rubbed a soft nose against his shoulder. Then Gale returned to the sitting-room. There was nothing more to do but wait and say good-by. Mercedes came clad in leather chaps and coat, a slim stripling of a cowboy, her dark eyes flashing. Her beauty could not be hidden, and now hope and courage had fired her blood.

Gale drew Nell off into the shadow of the room. She was trembling, and as she leaned toward him she was very different from the coy girl who had so long held him aloof. He took her into his arms.

“Dearest, I’m going — soon.... And maybe I’ll never—”

“Dick, do — don’t say it,” sobbed Nell, with her head on his breast.

“I might never come back,” he went on, steadily. “I love you — I’ve loved you ever since the first moment I saw you. Do you care for me — a little?”

“Dear Dick — de-dear Dick, my heart is breaking,” faltered Nell, as she clung to him.

“It might be breaking for Mercedes — for Laddy and Jim. I want to hear something for myself. Something to have on long marches — round lonely campfires. Something to keep my spirit alive. Oh, Nell, you can’t imagine that silence out there — that terrible world of sand and stone!... Do you love me?”

“Yes, yes. Oh, I love you so! I never knew it till now. I love you so. Dick, I’ll be safe and I’ll wait — and hope and pray for your return.”

“If I come back — no — when I come back, will you marry me?”

“I — I — oh yes!” she whispered, and returned his kiss.

Belding was in the room speaking softly.

“Nell, darling, I must go,” said Dick.

“I’m a selfish little coward,” cried Nell. “It’s so splendid of you all. I ought to glory in it, but I can’t. ... Fight if you must, Dick. Fight for that lovely persecuted girl. I’ll love you — the more.... Oh! Good-by! Good-by!”

With a wrench that shook him Gale let her go. He heard Belding’s soft voice.

“Yaqui says the early hour’s best. Trust him, Laddy. Remember what I say — Yaqui’s a godsend.”

Then they were all outside in the pale gloom under the trees. Yaqui mounted Blanco Diablo; Mercedes was lifted upon White Woman; Thorne climbed astride Queen; Jim Lash was already upon his horse, which was as white as the others but bore no name; Ladd mounted the stallion Blanco Torres, and gathered up the long halters of the two pack horses; Gale came last with Blanco Sol.

As he toed the stirrup, hand on mane and pommel, Gale took one more look in at the door. Nell stood in the gleam of light, her hair shining, face like ashes, her eyes dark, her lips parted, her arms outstretched. That sweet and tragic picture etched its cruel outlines into Gale’s heart. He waved his hand and then fiercely leaped into the saddle.

Blanco Sol stepped out.

Before Gale stretched a line of moving horses, white against dark shadows. He could not see the head of that column; he scarcely heard a soft hoofbeat. A single star shone out of a rift in thin clouds. There was no wind. The air was cold. The dark space of desert seemed to yawn. To the left across the river flickered a few campfires. The chill night, silent and mystical, seemed to close in upon Gale; and he faced the wide, quivering, black level with keen eyes and grim intent, and an awakening of that wild rapture which came like a spell to him in the open desert.

CHAPTER XI

ACROSS CACTUS AND LAVA

BLANCO SOL SHOWED no inclination to bend his head to the alfalfa which swished softly about his legs. Gale felt the horse’s sensitive, almost human alertness. Sol knew as well as his master the nature of that flight.

At the far corner of the field Yaqui halted, and slowly the line of white horses merged into a compact mass. There was a trail here leading down to the river. The campfires were so close that the bright blazes could be seen in movement, and dark forms crossed in front of them. Yaqui slipped out of his saddle. He ran his hand over Diablo’s nose and spoke low, and repeated this action for each of the other horses. Gale had long ceased to question the strange Indian’s behavior. There was no explaining or understanding many of his manoeuvers. But the results of them were always thought-provoking. Gale had never seen horse stand so silently as in this instance; no stamp — no champ of bit — no toss of head — no shake of saddle or pack — no heave or snort! It seemed they had become imbued with the spirit of the Indian.

Yaqui moved away into the shadows as noiselessly as if he were one of them. The darkness swallowed him. He had taken a parallel with the trail. Gale wondered if Yaqui meant to try to lead his string of horses by the rebel sentinels. Ladd had his head bent low, his ear toward the trail. Jim’s long neck had the arch of a listening deer. Gale listened, too, and as the slow, silent moments went by his faculty of hearing grew more acute from strain. He heard Blanco Sol breathe; he heard the pound of his own heart; he heard the silken rustle of the alfalfa; he heard a faint, far-off sound of voice, like a lost echo. Then his ear seemed to register a movement of air, a disturbance so soft as to be nameless. Then followed long, silent moments.

Yaqui appeared as he had vanished. He might have been part of the shadows. But he was there. He started off down the trail leading Diablo. Again the white line stretched slowly out. Gale fell in behind. A bench of ground, covered with sparse greasewood, sloped gently down to the deep, wide arroyo of Forlorn River. Blanco Sol shied a few feet out of the trail. Peering low with keen eyes, Gale made out three objects — a white sombrero, a blanket, and a Mexican lying face down. The Yaqui had stolen upon this sentinel like a silent wind of death. Just then a desert coyote wailed, and the wild cry fitted the darkness and the Yaqui’s deed.

Once under the dark lee of the river bank Yaqui caused another halt, and he disappeared as before. It seemed to Gale that the Indian started to cross the pale level sandbed of the river, where stones stood out gray, and the darker line of opposite shore was visible. But he vanished, and it was impossible to tell whether he went one way or another. Moments passed. The horses held heads up, looked toward the glimmering campfires and listened. Gale thrilled with the meaning of it all — the night — the silence — the flight — and the wonderful Indian stealing with the slow inevitableness of doom upon another sentinel. An hour passed and Gale seemed to have become deadened to all sense of hearing. There were no more sounds in the world. The desert was as silent as it was black. Yet again came that strange change in the tensity of Gale’s ear-strain, a check, a break, a vibration — and this time the sound did not go nameless. It might have been moan of wind or wail of far-distant wolf, but Gale imagined it was the strangling death-cry of another guard, or that strange, involuntary utterance of the Yaqui. Blanco Sol trembled in all his great frame, and then Gale was certain the sound was not imagination.

That certainty, once for all, fixed in Gale’s mind the mood of his flight. The Yaqui dominated the horses and the rangers. Thorne and Mercedes were as persons under a spell. The Indian’s strange silence, the feeling of mystery and power he seemed to create, all that was incomprehensible about him were emphasized in the light of his slow, sure, and ruthless action. If he dominated the others, surely he did more for Gale — colored his thoughts — presage the wild and terrible future of that flight. If Rojas embodied all the hatred and passion of the peon — scourged slave for a thousand years — then Yaqui embodied all the darkness, the cruelty, the white, sun-heated blood, the ferocity, the tragedy of the desert.

Suddenly the Indian stalked out of the gloom. He mounted Diablo and headed across the river. Once more the line of moving white shadows stretched out. The soft sand gave forth no sound at all. The glimmering campfires sank behind the western bank. Yaqui led the way into the willows, and there was faint swishing of leaves; then into the mesquite, and there was faint rustling of branches. The glimmering lights appeared again, and grotesque forms of saguaros loomed darkly. Gale peered sharply along the trail, and, presently, on the pale sand under a cactus, there lay a blanketed form, prone, outstretched, a carbine clutched in one hand, a cigarette, still burning, in the other.

The cavalcade of white horses passed within five hundred yards of campfires, around which dark forms moved in plain sight. Soft pads in sand, faint metallic tickings of steel on thorns, low, regular breathing of horses — these were all the sounds the fugitives made, and they could not have been heard at one-fifth the distance. The lights disappeared from time to time, grew dimmer, more flickering, and at last they vanished altogether. Belding’s fleet and tireless steeds were out in front; the desert opened ahead wide, dark, vast. Rojas and his rebels were behind, eating, drinking, careless. The somber shadow lifted from Gale’s heart. He held now an unquenchable faith in the Yaqui. Belding would be listening back there along the river. He would know of the escape. He would tell Nell, and then hide her safely. As Gale accepted a strange and fatalistic foreshadowing of toil, blood, and agony in this desert journey, so he believed in Mercedes’s ultimate freedom and happiness, and his own return to the girl who had grown dearer than life.

A cold, gray dawn was fleeing before a rosy sun when Yaqui halted the march at Papago Well. The horses were taken to water, then led down the arroyo into the grass. Here packs were slipped, saddles removed. Mercedes was cold, lame, tired, but happy. It warmed Gale’s blood to look at her. The shadow of fear still lay in her eyes, but it was passing. Hope and courage shone there, and affection for her ranger protectors and the Yaqui, and unutterable love for the cavalryman. Jim Lash remarked how cleverly they had fooled the rebels.

“Shore they’ll be comin’ along,” replied Ladd.

They built a fire, cooked and ate. The Yaqui spoke only one word: “Sleep.” Blankets were spread. Mercedes dropped into a deep slumber, her head on Thorne’s shoulder. Excitement kept Thorne awake. The two rangers dozed beside the fire. Gale shared the Yaqui’s watch. The sun began to climb and the icy edge of dawn to wear away. Rabbits bobbed their cotton tails under the mesquite. Gale climbed a rocky wall above the arroyo bank, and there, with command over the miles of the back-trail, he watched.

It was a sweeping, rolling, wrinkled, and streaked range of desert that he saw, ruddy in the morning sunlight, with patches of cactus and mesquite rough-etched in shimmering gloom. No Name Mountains split the eastern sky, towering high, gloomy, grand, with purple veils upon their slopes. They were forty miles away and looked five. Gale thought of the girl who was there under their shadow.

Yaqui kept the horses bunched, and he led them from one little park of galleta grass to another. At the end of three hours he took them to water. Upon his return Gale clambered down from his outlook, the rangers grew active. Mercedes was awakened; and soon the party faced westward, their long shadows moving before them. Yaqui led with Blanco Diablo in a long, easy lope. The arroyo washed itself out into flat desert, and the greens began to shade into gray, and then the gray into red. Only sparse cactus and weathered ledges dotted the great low roll of a rising escarpment. Yaqui suited the gait of his horse to the lay of the land, and his followers accepted his pace. There were canter and trot, and swift walk and slow climb, and long swing — miles up and down and forward. The sun soared hot. The heated air lifted, and incoming currents from the west swept low and hard over the barren earth. In the distance, all around the horizon, accumulations of dust seemed like ranging, mushrooming yellow clouds.

Yaqui was the only one of the fugitives who never looked back. Mercedes did it the most. Gale felt what compelled her, he could not resist it himself. But it was a vain search. For a thousand puffs of white and yellow dust rose from that backward sweep of desert, and any one of them might have been blown from under horses’ hoofs. Gale had a conviction that when Yaqui gazed back toward the well and the shining plain beyond, there would be reason for it. But when the sun lost its heat and the wind died down Yaqui took long and careful surveys westward from the high points on the trail. Sunset was not far off, and there in a bare, spotted valley lay Coyote Tanks, the only waterhole between Papago Well and the Sonoyta Oasis. Gale used his glass, told Yaqui there was no smoke, no sign of life; still the Indian fixed his falcon eyes on distant spots looked long. It was as if his vision could not detect what reason or cunning or intuition, perhaps an instinct, told him was there. Presently in a sheltered spot, where blown sand had not obliterated the trail, Yaqui found the tracks of horses. The curve of the iron shoes pointed westward. An intersecting trail from the north came in here. Gale thought the tracks either one or two days old. Ladd said they were one day. The Indian shook his head.

No farther advance was undertaken. The Yaqui headed south and traveled slowly, climbing to the brow of a bold height of weathered mesa. There he sat his horse and waited. No one questioned him. The rangers dismounted to stretch their legs, and Mercedes was lifted to a rock, where she rested. Thorne had gradually yielded to the desert’s influence for silence. He spoke once or twice to Gale, and occasionally whispered to Mercedes. Gale fancied his friend would soon learn that necessary speech in desert travel meant a few greetings, a few words to make real the fact of human companionship, a few short, terse terms for the business of day or night, and perhaps a stern order or a soft call to a horse.

The sun went down, and the golden, rosy veils turned to blue and shaded darker till twilight was there in the valley. Only the spurs of mountains, spiring the near and far horizon, retained their clear outline. Darkness approached, and the clear peaks faded. The horses stamped to be on the move.

“Malo!” exclaimed the Yaqui.

He did not point with arm, but his falcon head was outstretched, and his piercing eyes gazed at the blurring spot which marked the location of Coyote Tanks.

“Jim, can you see anything?” asked Ladd.

“Nope, but I reckon he can.”

Darkness increased momentarily till night shaded the deepest part of the valley.

Then Ladd suddenly straightened up, turned to his horse, and muttered low under his breath.

“I reckon so,” said Lash, and for once his easy, good-natured tone was not in evidence. His voice was harsh.

Gale’s eyes, keen as they were, were last of the rangers to see tiny, needle-points of light just faintly perceptible in the blackness.

“Laddy! Campfires?” he asked, quickly.

“Shore’s you’re born, my boy.”

“How many?”

Ladd did not reply; but Yaqui held up his hand, his fingers wide. Five campfires! A strong force of rebels or raiders or some other desert troop was camping at Coyote Tanks.

Yaqui sat his horse for a moment, motionless as stone, his dark face immutable and impassive. Then he stretched wide his right arm in the direction of No Name Mountains, now losing their last faint traces of the afterglow, and he shook his head. He made the same impressive gesture toward the Sonoyta Oasis with the same somber negation.

Thereupon he turned Diablo’s head to the south and started down the slope. His manner had been decisive, even stern. Lash did not question it, nor did Ladd. Both rangers hesitated, however, and showed a strange, almost sullen reluctance which Gale had never seen in them before. Raiders were one thing, Rojas was another; Camino del Diablo still another; but that vast and desolate and unwatered waste of cactus and lava, the Sonora Desert, might appall the stoutest heart. Gale felt his own sink — felt himself flinch.

“Oh, where is he going?” cried Mercedes. Her poignant voice seemed to break a spell.

“Shore, lady, Yaqui’s goin’ home,” replied Ladd, gently. “An’ considerin’ our troubles I reckon we ought to thank God he knows the way.”

They mounted and rode down the slope toward the darkening south.

Not until night travel was obstructed by a wall of cactus did the Indian halt to make a dry camp. Water and grass for the horses and fire to cook by were not to be had. Mercedes bore up surprisingly; but she fell asleep almost the instant her thirst had been allayed. Thorne laid her upon a blanket and covered her. The men ate and drank. Diablo was the only horse that showed impatience; but he was angry, and not in distress. Blanco Sol licked Gale’s hand and stood patiently. Many a time had he taken his rest at night without a drink. Yaqui again bade the men sleep. Ladd said he would take the early watch; but from the way the Indian shook his head and settled himself against a stone, it appeared if Ladd remained awake he would have company. Gale lay down weary of limb and eye. He heard the soft thump of hoofs, the sough of wind in the cactus — then no more.

When he awoke there was bustle and stir about him. Day had not yet dawned, and the air was freezing cold. Yaqui had found a scant bundle of greasewood which served to warm them and to cook breakfast. Mercedes was not aroused till the last moment.

Day dawned with the fugitives in the saddle. A picketed wall of cactus hedged them in, yet the Yaqui made a tortuous path, that, zigzag as it might, in the main always headed south. It was wonderful how he slipped Diablo through the narrow aisles of thorns, saving the horse and saving himself. The others were torn and clutched and held and stung. The way was a flat, sandy pass between low mountain ranges. There were open spots and aisles and squares of sand; and hedging rows of prickly pear and the huge spider-legged ocatillo and hummocky masses of clustered bisnagi. The day grew dry and hot. A fragrant wind blew through the pass. Cactus flowers bloomed, red and yellow and magenta. The sweet, pale Ajo lily gleamed in shady corners.

Ten miles of travel covered the length of the pass. It opened wide upon a wonderful scene, an arboreal desert, dominated by its pure light green, yet lined by many merging colors. And it rose slowly to a low dim and dark-red zone of lava, spurred, peaked, domed by volcano cones, a wild and ragged region, illimitable as the horizon.

The Yaqui, if not at fault, was yet uncertain. His falcon eyes searched and roved, and became fixed at length at the southwest, and toward this he turned his horse. The great, fluted saguaros, fifty, sixty feet high, raised columnal forms, and their branching limbs and curving lines added a grace to the desert. It was the low-bushed cactus that made the toil and pain of travel. Yet these thorny forms were beautiful.

In the basins between the ridges, to right and left along the floor of low plains the mirage glistened, wavered, faded, vanished — lakes and trees and clouds. Inverted mountains hung suspended in the lilac air and faint tracery of white-walled cities.

At noon Yaqui halted the cavalcade. He had selected a field of bisnagi cactus for the place of rest. Presently his reason became obvious. With long, heavy knife he cut off the tops of these barrel-shaped plants. He scooped out soft pulp, and with stone and hand then began to pound the deeper pulp into a juicy mass. When he threw this out there was a little water left, sweet, cool water which man and horse shared eagerly. Thus he made even the desert’s fiercest growths minister to their needs.

But he did not halt long. Miles of gray-green spiked walls lay between him and that line of ragged, red lava which manifestly he must reach before dark. The travel became faster, straighter. And the glistening thorns clutched and clung to leather and cloth and flesh. The horses reared, snorted, balked, leaped — but they were sent on. Only Blanco Sol, the patient, the plodding, the indomitable, needed no goad or spur. Waves and scarfs and wreaths of heat smoked up from the sand. Mercedes reeled in her saddle. Thorne bade her drink, bathed her face, supported her, and then gave way to Ladd, who took the girl with him on Torre’s broad back. Yaqui’s unflagging purpose and iron arm were bitter and hateful to the proud and haughty spirit of Blanco Diablo. For once Belding’s great white devil had met his master. He fought rider, bit, bridle, cactus, sand — and yet he went on and on, zigzagging, turning, winding, crashing through the barbed growths. The middle of the afternoon saw Thorne reeling in his saddle, and then, wherever possible, Gale’s powerful arm lent him strength to hold his seat.

The giant cactus came to be only so in name. These saguaros were thinning out, growing stunted, and most of them were single columns. Gradually other cactus forms showed a harder struggle for existence, and the spaces of sand between were wider. But now the dreaded, glistening choya began to show pale and gray and white upon the rising slope. Round-topped hills, sunset-colored above, blue-black below, intervened to hide the distant spurs and peaks. Mile and mile long tongues of red lava streamed out between the hills and wound down to stop abruptly upon the slope.

The fugitives were entering a desolate, burned-out world. It rose above them in limitless, gradual ascent and spread wide to east and west. Then the waste of sand began to yield to cinders. The horses sank to their fetlocks as they toiled on. A fine, choking dust blew back from the leaders, and men coughed and horses snorted. The huge, round hills rose smooth, symmetrical, colored as if the setting sun was shining on bare, blue-black surfaces. But the sun was now behind the hills. In between ran the streams of lava. The horsemen skirted the edge between slope of hill and perpendicular ragged wall. This red lava seemed to have flowed and hardened there only yesterday. It was broken sharp, dull rust color, full of cracks and caves and crevices, and everywhere upon its jagged surface grew the white-thorned choya.

Again twilight encompassed the travelers. But there was still light enough for Gale to see the constricted passage open into a wide, deep space where the dull color was relieved by the gray of gnarled and dwarfed mesquite. Blanco Sol, keenest of scent, whistled his welcome herald of water. The other horses answered, quickened their gait. Gale smelled it, too, sweet, cool, damp on the dry air.

Yaqui turned the corner of a pocket in the lava wall. The file of white horses rounded the corner after him. And Gale, coming last, saw the pale, glancing gleam of a pool of water beautiful in the twilight.

Next day the Yaqui’s relentless driving demand on the horses was no longer in evidence. He lost no time, but he did not hasten. His course wound between low cinder dunes which limited their view of the surrounding country. These dunes finally sank down to a black floor as hard as flint with tongues of lava to the left, and to the right the slow descent into the cactus plain. Yaqui was now traveling due west. It was Gale’s idea that the Indian was skirting the first sharp-toothed slope of a vast volcanic plateau which formed the western half of the Sonora Desert and extended to the Gulf of California. Travel was slow, but not exhausting for rider or beast. A little sand and meager grass gave a grayish tinge to the strip of black ground between lava and plain.

That day, as the manner rather than the purpose of the Yaqui changed, so there seemed to be subtle differences in the others of the party. Gale himself lost a certain sickening dread, which had not been for himself, but for Mercedes and Nell, and Thorne and the rangers. Jim, good-natured again, might have been patrolling the boundary line. Ladd lost his taciturnity and his gloom changed to a cool, careless air. A mood that was almost defiance began to be manifested in Thorne. It was in Mercedes, however, that Gale marked the most significant change. Her collapse the preceding day might never have been. She was lame and sore; she rode her saddle sidewise, and often she had to be rested and helped; but she had found a reserve fund of strength, and her mental condition was not the same that it had been. Her burden of fear had been lifted. Gale saw in her the difference he always felt in himself after a few days in the desert. Already Mercedes and he, and all of them, had begun to respond to the desert spirit. Moreover, Yaqui’s strange influence must have been a call to the primitive.

Thirty miles of easy stages brought the fugitives to another waterhole, a little round pocket under the heaved-up edge of lava. There was spare, short, bleached grass for the horses, but no wood for a fire. This night there was question and reply, conjecture, doubt, opinion, and conviction expressed by the men of the party. But the Indian, who alone could have told where they were, where they were going, what chance they had to escape, maintained his stoical silence. Gale took the early watch, Ladd the midnight one, and Lash that of the morning.

The day broke rosy, glorious, cold as ice. Action was necessary to make useful benumbed hands and feet. Mercedes was fed while yet wrapped in blankets. Then, while the packs were being put on and horses saddled, she walked up and down, slapping her hands, warming her ears. The rose color of the dawn was in her cheeks, and the wonderful clearness of desert light in her eyes. Thorne’s eyes sought her constantly. The rangers watched her. The Yaqui bent his glance upon her only seldom; but when he did look it seemed that his strange, fixed, and inscrutable face was about to break into a smile. Yet that never happened. Gale himself was surprised to find how often his own glance found the slender, dark, beautiful Spaniard. Was this because of her beauty? he wondered. He thought not altogether. Mercedes was a woman. She represented something in life that men of all races for thousands of years had loved to see and own, to revere and debase, to fight and die for.

It was a significant index to the day’s travel that Yaqui should keep a blanket from the pack and tear it into strips to bind the legs of the horses. It meant the dreaded choya and the knife-edged lava. That Yaqui did not mount Diablo was still more significant. Mercedes must ride; but the others must walk.

The Indian led off into one of the gray notches between the tumbled streams of lava. These streams were about thirty feet high, a rotting mass of splintered lava, rougher than any other kind of roughness in the world. At the apex of the notch, where two streams met, a narrow gully wound and ascended. Gale caught sight of the dim, pale shadow of a one-time trail. Near at hand it was invisible; he had to look far ahead to catch the faint tracery. Yaqui led Diablo into it, and then began the most laborious and vexatious and painful of all slow travel.

Once up on top of that lava bed, Gale saw stretching away, breaking into millions of crests and ruts, a vast, red-black field sweeping onward and upward, with ragged, low ridges and mounds and spurs leading higher and higher to a great, split escarpment wall, above which dim peaks shone hazily blue in the distance.

He looked no more in that direction. To keep his foothold, to save his horse, cost him all energy and attention. The course was marked out for him in the tracks of the other horses. He had only to follow. But nothing could have been more difficult. The disintegrating surface of a lava bed was at once the roughest, the hardest, the meanest, the cruelest, the most deceitful kind of ground to travel.

It was rotten, yet it had corners as hard and sharp as pikes. It was rough, yet as slippery as ice. If there was a foot of level surface, that space would be one to break through under a horse’s hoofs. It was seamed, lined, cracked, ridged, knotted iron. This lava bed resembled a tremendously magnified clinker. It had been a running sea of molten flint, boiling, bubbling, spouting, and it had burst its surface into a million sharp facets as it hardened. The color was dull, dark, angry red, like no other red, inflaming to the eye. The millions of minute crevices were dominated by deep fissures and holes, ragged and rough beyond all comparison.

The fugitives made slow progress. They picked a cautious, winding way to and fro in little steps here and there along the many twists of the trail, up and down the unavoidable depressions, round and round the holes. At noon, so winding back upon itself had been their course, they appeared to have come only a short distance up the lava slope.

It was rough work for them; it was terrible work for the horses. Blanco Diablo refused to answer to the power of the Yaqui. He balked, he plunged, he bit and kicked. He had to be pulled and beaten over many places. Mercedes’s horse almost threw her, and she was put upon Blanco Sol. The white charger snorted a protest, then, obedient to Gale’s stern call, patiently lowered his noble head and pawed the lava for a footing that would hold.

The lava caused Gale toil and worry and pain, but he hated the choyas. As the travel progressed this species of cactus increased in number of plants and in size. Everywhere the red lava was spotted with little round patches of glistening frosty white. And under every bunch of choya, along and in the trail, were the discarded joints, like little frosty pine cones covered with spines. It was utterly impossible always to be on the lookout for these, and when Gale stepped on one, often as not the steel-like thorns pierced leather and flesh. Gale came almost to believe what he had heard claimed by desert travelers — that the choya was alive and leaped at man or beast. Certain it was when Gale passed one, if he did not put all attention to avoiding it, he was hooked through his chaps and held by barbed thorns. The pain was almost unendurable. It was like no other. It burned, stung, beat — almost seemed to freeze. It made useless arm or leg. It made him bite his tongue to keep from crying out. It made the sweat roll off him. It made him sick.

Moreover, bad as the choya was for man, it was infinitely worse for beast. A jagged stab from this poisoned cactus was the only thing Blanco Sol could not stand. Many times that day, before he carried Mercedes, he had wildly snorted, and then stood trembling while Gale picked broken thorns from the muscular legs. But after Mercedes had been put upon Sol Gale made sure no choya touched him.

The afternoon passed like the morning, in ceaseless winding and twisting and climbing along this abandoned trail. Gale saw many waterholes, mostly dry, some containing water, all of them catch-basins, full only after rainy season. Little ugly bunched bushes, that Gale scarcely recognized as mesquites, grew near these holes; also stunted greasewood and prickly pear. There was no grass, and the choya alone flourished in that hard soil.

Darkness overtook the party as they unpacked beside a pool of water deep under an overhanging shelf of lava. It had been a hard day. The horses drank their fill, and then stood patiently with drooping heads. Hunger and thirst appeased, and a warm fire cheered the weary and foot-sore fugitives. Yaqui said, “Sleep.” And so another night passed.

Upon the following morning, ten miles or more up the slow-ascending lava slope, Gale’s attention was called from his somber search for the less rough places in the trail.

“Dick, why does Yaqui look back?” asked Mercedes.

Gale was startled.

“Does he?”

“Every little while,” replied Mercedes.

Gale was in the rear of all the other horses, so as to take, for Mercedes’s sake, the advantage of the broken trail. Yaqui was leading Diablo, winding around a break. His head was bent as he stepped slowly and unevenly upon the lava. Gale turned to look back, the first time in several days. The mighty hollow of the desert below seemed wide strip of red — wide strip of green — wide strip of gray — streaking to purple peaks. It was all too vast, too mighty to grasp any little details. He thought, of course, of Rojas in certain pursuit; but it seemed absurded to look for him.

Yaqui led on, and Gale often glanced up from his task to watch the Indian. Presently he saw him stop, turn, and look back. Ladd did likewise, and then Jim and Thorne. Gale found the desire irresistible. Thereafter he often rested Blanco Sol, and looked back the while. He had his field-glass, but did not choose to use it.

“Rojas will follow,” said Mercedes.

Gale regarded her in amaze. The tone of her voice had been indefinable. If there were fear then he failed to detect it. She was gazing back down the colored slope, and something about her, perhaps the steady, falcon gaze of her magnificent eyes, reminded him of Yaqui.

Many times during the ensuing hour the Indian faced about, and always his followers did likewise. It was high noon, with the sun beating hot and the lava radiating heat, when Yaqui halted for a rest. The place selected was a ridge of lava, almost a promontory, considering its outlook. The horses bunched here and drooped their heads. The rangers were about to slip the packs and remove saddles when Yaqui restrained them.

He fixed a changeless, gleaming gaze on the slow descent; but did not seem to look afar.

Suddenly he uttered his strange cry — the one Gale considered involuntary, or else significant of some tribal trait or feeling. It was incomprehensible, but no one could have doubted its potency. Yaqui pointed down the lava slope, pointed with finger and arm and neck and head — his whole body was instinct with direction. His whole being seemed to have been animated and then frozen. His posture could not have been misunderstood, yet his expression had not altered. Gale had never seen the Indian’s face change its hard, red-bronze calm. It was the color and the flintiness and the character of the lava at his feet.

“Shore he sees somethin’,” said Ladd. “But my eyes are not good.”

“I reckon I ain’t sure of mine,” replied Jim. “I’m bothered by a dim movin’ streak down there.”

Thorne gazed eagerly down as he stood beside Mercedes, who sat motionless facing the slope. Gale looked and looked till he hurt his eyes. Then he took his glass out of its case on Sol’s saddle.

There appeared to be nothing upon the lava but the innumerable dots of choya shining in the sun. Gale swept his glass slowly forward and back. Then into a nearer field of vision crept a long white-and-black line of horses and men. Without a word he handed the glass to Ladd. The ranger used it, muttering to himself.

“They’re on the lava fifteen miles down in an air line,” he said, presently. “Jim, shore they’re twice that an’ more accordin’ to the trail.”

Jim had his look and replied: “I reckon we’re a day an’ a night in the lead.”

“Is it Rojas?” burst out Thorne, with set jaw.

“Yes, Thorne. It’s Rojas and a dozen men or more,” replied Gale, and he looked up at Mercedes.

She was transformed. She might have been a medieval princess embodying all the Spanish power and passion of that time, breathing revenge, hate, unquenchable spirit of fire. If her beauty had been wonderful in her helpless and appealing moments, now, when she looked back white-faced and flame-eyed, it was transcendant.

Gale drew a long, deep breath. The mood which had presaged pursuit, strife, blood on this somber desert, returned to him tenfold. He saw Thorne’s face corded by black veins, and his teeth exposed like those of a snarling wolf. These rangers, who had coolly risked death many times, and had dealt it often, were white as no fear or pain could have made them. Then, on the moment, Yaqui raised his hand, not clenched or doubled tight, but curled rigid like an eagle’s claw; and he shook it in a strange, slow gesture which was menacing and terrible.

It was the woman that called to the depths of these men. And their passion to kill and to save was surpassed only by the wild hate which was yet love, the unfathomable emotion of a peon slave. Gale marveled at it, while he felt his whole being cold and tense, as he turned once more to follow in the tracks of his leaders. The fight predicted by Belding was at hand. What a fight that must be! Rojas was traveling light and fast. He was gaining. He had bought his men with gold, with extravagant promises, perhaps with offers of the body and blood of an aristocrat hateful to their kind. Lastly, there was the wild, desolate environment, a tortured wilderness of jagged lava and poisoned choya, a lonely, fierce, and repellant world, a red stage most somberly and fittingly colored for a supreme struggle between men.

Yaqui looked back no more. Mercedes looked back no more. But the others looked, and the time came when Gale saw the creeping line of pursuers with naked eyes.

A level line above marked the rim of the plateau. Sand began to show in the little lava pits. On and upward toiled the cavalcade, still very slowly advancing. At last Yaqui reached the rim. He stood with his hand on Blanco Diablo; and both were silhouetted against the sky. That was the outlook for a Yaqui. And his great horse, dazzlingly white in the sunlight, with head wildly and proudly erect, mane and tail flying in the wind, made a magnificent picture. The others toiled on and upward, and at last Gale led Blanco Sol over the rim. Then all looked down the red slope.

But shadows were gathering there and no moving line could be seen.

Yaqui mounted and wheeled Diablo away. The others followed. Gale saw that the plateau was no more than a vast field of low, ragged circles, levels, mounds, cones, and whirls of lava. The lava was of a darker red than that down upon the slope, and it was harder than flint. In places fine sand and cinders covered the uneven floor. Strange varieties of cactus vied with the omnipresent choya. Yaqui, however, found ground that his horse covered at a swift walk.

But there was only an hour, perhaps, of this comparatively easy going. Then the Yaqui led them into a zone of craters. The top of the earth seemed to have been blown out in holes from a few rods in width to large craters, some shallow, others deep, and all red as fire. Yaqui circled close to abysses which yawned sheer from a level surface, and he appeared always to be turning upon his course to avoid them.

The plateau had now a considerable dip to the west. Gale marked the slow heave and ripple of the ocean of lava to the south, where high, rounded peaks marked the center of this volcanic region. The uneven nature of the slope westward prevented any extended view, until suddenly the fugitives emerged from a rugged break to come upon a sublime and awe-inspiring spectacle.

They were upon a high point of the western slope of the plateau. It was a slope, but so many leagues long in its descent that only from a height could any slant have been perceptible. Yaqui and his white horse stood upon the brink of a crater miles in circumference, a thousand feet deep, with its red walls patched in frost-colored spots by the silvery choya. The giant tracery of lava streams waved down the slope to disappear in undulating sand dunes. And these bordered a seemingly endless arm of blue sea. This was the Gulf of California. Beyond the Gulf rose dim, bold mountains, and above them hung the setting sun, dusky red, flooding all that barren empire with a sinister light.

It was strange to Gale then, and perhaps to the others, to see their guide lead Diablo into a smooth and well-worn trail along the rim of the awful crater. Gale looked down into that red chasm. It resembled an inferno. The dark cliffs upon the opposite side were veiled in blue haze that seemed like smoke. Here Yaqui was at home. He moved and looked about him as a man coming at last into his own. Gale saw him stop and gaze out over that red-ribbed void to the Gulf.

Gale devined that somewhere along this crater of hell the Yaqui would make his final stand; and one look into his strange, inscrutable eyes made imagination picture a fitting doom for the pursuing Rojas.

CHAPTER XII

THE CRATER OF HELL

THE TRAIL LED along a gigantic fissure in the side of the crater, and then down and down into a red-walled, blue hazed labyrinth.

Presently Gale, upon turning a sharp corner, was utterly amazed to see that the split in the lava sloped out and widened into an arroyo. It was so green and soft and beautiful in all the angry, contorted red surrounding that Gale could scarcely credit his sight. Blanco Sol whistled his welcome to the scent of water. Then Gale saw a great hole, a pit in the shiny lava, a dark, cool, shady well. There was evidence of the fact that at flood seasons the water had an outlet into the arroyo. The soil appeared to be a fine sand, in which a reddish tinge predominated; and it was abundantly covered with a long grass, still partly green. Mesquites and palo verdes dotted the arroyo and gradually closed in thickets that obstructed the view.

“Shore it all beats me,” exclaimed Ladd. “What a place to hole-up in! We could have hid here for a long time. Boys, I saw mountain sheep, the real old genuine Rocky Mountain bighorn. What do you think of that?”

“I reckon it’s a Yaqui hunting-ground,” replied Lash. “That trail we hit must be hundreds of years old. It’s worn deep and smooth in iron lava.”

“Well, all I got to say is — Beldin’ was shore right about the Indian. An’ I can see Rojas’s finish somewhere up along that awful hell-hole.”

Camp was made on a level spot. Yaqui took the horses to water, and then turned them loose in the arroyo. It was a tired and somber group that sat down to eat. The strain of suspense equaled the wearing effects of the long ride. Mercedes was calm, but her great dark eyes burned in her white face. Yaqui watched her. The others looked at her with unspoken pride. Presently Thorne wrapped her in his blankets, and she seemed to fall asleep at once. Twilight deepened. The campfire blazed brighter. A cool wind played with Mercedes’s black hair, waving strands across her brow.

Little of Yaqui’s purpose or plan could be elicited from him. But the look of him was enough to satisfy even Thorne. He leaned against a pile of wood, which he had collected, and his gloomy gaze pierced the campfire, and at long intervals strayed over the motionless form of the Spanish girl.

The rangers and Thorne, however, talked in low tones. It was absolutely impossible for Rojas and his men to reach the waterhole before noon of the next day. And long before that time the fugitives would have decided on a plan of defense. What that defense would be, and where it would be made, were matters over which the men considered gravely. Ladd averred the Yaqui would put them into an impregnable position, that at the same time would prove a death-trap for their pursuers. They exhausted every possibility, and then, tired as they were, still kept on talking.

“What stuns me is that Rojas stuck to our trail,” said Thorne, his lined and haggard face expressive of dark passion. “He has followed us into this fearful desert. He’ll lose men, horses, perhaps his life. He’s only a bandit, and he stands to win no gold. If he ever gets out of here it ‘ll be by herculean labor and by terrible hardship. All for a poor little helpless woman — just a woman! My God, I can’t understand it.”

“Shore — just a woman,” replied Ladd, solemnly nodding his head.

Then there was a long silence during which the men gazed into the fire. Each, perhaps, had some vague conception of the enormity of Rojas’s love or hate — some faint and amazing glimpse of the gulf of human passion. Those were cold, hard, grim faces upon which the light flickered.

“Sleep,” said the Yaqui.

Thorne rolled in his blanket close beside Mercedes. Then one by one the rangers stretched out, feet to the fire. Gale found that he could not sleep. His eyes were weary, but they would not stay shut; his body ached for rest, yet he could not lie still. The night was so somber, so gloomy, and the lava-encompassed arroyo full of shadows. The dark velvet sky, fretted with white fire, seemed to be close. There was an absolute silence, as of death. Nothing moved — nothing outside of Gale’s body appeared to live. The Yaqui sat like an image carved out of lava. The others lay prone and quiet. Would another night see any of them lie that way, quiet forever? Gale felt a ripple pass over him that was at once a shudder and a contraction of muscles. Used as he was to the desert and its oppression, why should he feel to-night as if the weight of its lava and the burden of its mystery were bearing him down?

He sat up after a while and again watched the fire. Nell’s sweet face floated like a wraith in the pale smoke — glowed and flushed and smiled in the embers. Other faces shone there — his sister’s — that of his mother. Gale shook off the tender memories. This desolate wilderness with its forbidding silence and its dark promise of hell on the morrow — this was not the place to unnerve oneself with thoughts of love and home. But the torturing paradox of the thing was that this was just the place and just the night for a man to be haunted.

By and by Gale rose and walked down a shadowy aisle between the mesquites. On his way back the Yaqui joined him. Gale was not surprised. He had become used to the Indian’s strange guardianship. But now, perhaps because of Gale’s poignancy of thought, the contending tides of love and regret, the deep, burning premonition of deadly strife, he was moved to keener scrutiny of the Yaqui. That, of course, was futile. The Indian was impenetrable, silent, strange. But suddenly, inexplicably, Gale felt Yaqui’s human quality. It was aloof, as was everything about this Indian; but it was there. This savage walked silently beside him, without glance or touch or word. His thought was as inscrutable as if mind had never awakened in his race. Yet Gale was conscious of greatness, and, somehow, he was reminded of the Indian’s story. His home had been desolated, his people carried off to slavery, his wife and children separated from him to die. What had life meant to the Yaqui? What had been in his heart? What was now in his mind? Gale could not answer these questions. But the difference between himself and Yaqui, which he had vaguely felt as that between savage and civilized men, faded out of his mind forever. Yaqui might have considered he owed Gale a debt, and, with a Yaqui’s austere and noble fidelity to honor, he meant to pay it. Nevertheless, this was not the thing Gale found in the Indian’s silent presence. Accepting the desert with its subtle and inconceivable influence, Gale felt that the savage and the white man had been bound in a tie which was no less brotherly because it could not be comprehended.

Toward dawn Gale managed to get some sleep. Then the morning broke with the sun hidden back of the uplift of the plateau. The horses trooped up the arroyo and snorted for water. After a hurried breakfast the packs were hidden in holes in the lava. The saddles were left where they were, and the horses allowed to graze and wander at will. Canteens were filled, a small bag of food was packed, and blankets made into a bundle. Then Yaqui faced the steep ascent of the lava slope.

The trail he followed led up on the right side of the fissure, opposite to the one he had come down. It was a steep climb, and encumbered as the men were they made but slow progress. Mercedes had to be lifted up smooth steps and across crevices. They passed places where the rims of the fissure were but a few yards apart. At length the rims widened out and the red, smoky crater yawned beneath. Yaqui left the trail and began clambering down over the rough and twisted convolutions of lava which formed the rim. Sometimes he hung sheer over the precipice. It was with extreme difficulty that the party followed him. Mercedes had to be held on narrow, foot-wide ledges. The choya was there to hinder passage. Finally the Indian halted upon a narrow bench of flat, smooth lava, and his followers worked with exceeding care and effort down to his position.

At the back of this bench, between bunches of choya, was a niche, a shallow cave with floor lined apparently with mold. Ladd said the place was a refuge which had been inhabited by mountain sheep for many years. Yaqui spread blankets inside, left the canteen and the sack of food, and with a gesture at once humble, yet that of a chief, he invited Mercedes to enter. A few more gestures and fewer words disclosed his plan. In this inaccessible nook Mercedes was to be hidden. The men were to go around upon the opposite rim, and block the trail leading down to the waterhole.

Gale marked the nature of this eyrie. It was the wildest and most rugged place he had ever stepped upon. Only a sheep could have climbed up the wall above or along the slanting shelf of lava beyond. Below glistened a whole bank of choya, frosty in the sunlight, and it overhung an apparently bottomless abyss.

Ladd chose the smallest gun in the party and gave it to Mercedes.

“Shore it’s best to go the limit on bein’ ready,” he said, simply. “The chances are you’ll never need it. But if you do—”

He left off there, and his break was significant. Mercedes answered him with a fearless and indomitable flash of eyes. Thorne was the only one who showed any shaken nerve. His leave-taking of his wife was affecting and hurried. Then he and the rangers carefully stepped in the tracks of the Yaqui.

They climbed up to the level of the rim and went along the edge. When they reached the fissure and came upon its narrowest point, Yaqui showed in his actions that he meant to leap it. Ladd restrained the Indian. They then continued along the rim till they reached several bridges of lava which crossed it. The fissures was deep in some parts, choked in others. Evidently the crater had no direct outlet into the arroyo below. Its bottom, however, must have been far beneath the level of the waterhole.

After the fissure was crossed the trail was soon found. Here it ran back from the rim. Yaqui waved his hand to the right, where along the corrugated slope of the crater there were holes and crevices and coverts for a hundred men. Yaqui strode on up the trail toward a higher point, where presently his dark figure stood motionless against the sky. The rangers and Thorne selected a deep depression, out of which led several ruts deep enough for cover. According to Ladd it was as good a place as any, perhaps not so hidden as others, but freer from the dreaded choya. Here the men laid down rifles and guns, and, removing their heavy cartridge belts, settled down to wait.

Their location was close to the rim wall and probably five hundred yards from the opposite rim, which was now seen to be considerably below them. The glaring red cliff presented a deceitful and baffling appearance. It had a thousand ledges and holes in its surfaces, and one moment it looked perpendicular and the next there seemed to be a long slant. Thorne pointed out where he thought Mercedes was hidden; Ladd selected another place, and Lash still another. Gale searched for the bank of choya he had seen under the bench where Mercedes’s retreat lay, and when he found it the others disputed his opinion. Then Gale brought his field glass into requisition, proving that he was right. Once located and fixed in sight, the white patch of choya, the bench, and the sheep eyrie stood out from the other features of that rugged wall. But all the men were agreed that Yaqui had hidden Mercedes where only the eyes of a vulture could have found her.

Jim Lash crawled into a little strip of shade and bided the time tranquilly. Ladd was restless and impatient and watchful, every little while rising to look up the far-reaching slope, and then to the right, where Yaqui’s dark figure stood out from a high point of the rim. Thorne grew silent, and seemed consumed by a slow, sullen rage. Gale was neither calm nor free of a gnawing suspense nor of a waiting wrath. But as best he could he put the pending action out of mind.

It came over him all of a sudden that he had not grasped the stupendous nature of this desert setting. There was the measureless red slope, its lower ridges finally sinking into white sand dunes toward the blue sea. The cold, sparkling light, the white sun, the deep azure of sky, the feeling of boundless expanse all around him — these meant high altitude. Southward the barren red simply merged into distance. The field of craters rose in high, dark wheels toward the dominating peaks. When Gale withdrew his gaze from the magnitude of these spaces and heights the crater beneath him seemed dwarfed. Yet while he gazed it spread and deepened and multiplied its ragged lines. No, he could not grasp the meaning of size or distance here. There was too much to stun the sight. But the mood in which nature had created this convulsed world of lava seized hold upon him.

Meanwhile the hours passed. As the sun climbed the clear, steely lights vanished, the blue hazes deepened, and slowly the glistening surfaces of lava turned redder. Ladd was concerned to discover that Yaqui was missing from his outlook upon the high point. Jim Lash came out of the shady crevice, and stood up to buckle on his cartridge belt. His narrow, gray glance slowly roved from the height of lava down along the slope, paused in doubt, and then swept on to resurvey the whole vast eastern dip of the plateau.

“I reckon my eyes are pore,” he said. “Mebbe it’s this damn red glare. Anyway, what’s them creepin’ spots up there?”

“Shore I seen them. Mountain sheep,” replied Ladd.

“Guess again, Laddy. Dick, I reckon you’d better flash the glass up the slope.”

Gale adjusted the field glass and began to search the lava, beginning close at hand and working away from him. Presently the glass became stationary.

“I see half a dozen small animals, brown in color. They look like sheep. But I couldn’t distinguish mountain sheep from antelope.”

“Shore they’re bighorn,” said Laddy.

“I reckon if you’ll pull around to the east an’ search under that long wall of lava — there — you’ll see what I see,” added Jim.

The glass climbed and circled, wavered an instant, then fixed steady as a rock. There was a breathless silence.

“Fourteen horses — two packed — some mounted — others without riders, and lame,” said Gale, slowly.

Yaqui appeared far up the trail, coming swiftly. Presently he saw the rangers and halted to wave his arms and point. Then he vanished as if the lava had opened beneath him.

“Lemme that glass,” suddenly said Jim Lash. “I’m seein’ red, I tell you.... Well, pore as my eyes are they had it right. Rojas an’ his outfit have left the trail.”

“Jim, you ain’t meanin’ they’ve taken to that awful slope?” queried Ladd.

“I sure do. There they are — still comin’, but goin’ down, too.”

“Mebbe Rojas is crazy, but it begins to look like he—”

“Laddy, I’ll be danged if the Greaser bunch hasn’t vamoosed. Gone out of sight! Right there not a half mile away, the whole caboodle — gone!”

“Shore they’re behind a crust or have gone down into a rut,” suggested Ladd. “They’ll show again in a minute. Look sharp, boys, for I’m figgerin’ Rojas ‘ll spread his men.”

Minutes passed, but nothing moved upon the slope. Each man crawled up to a vantage point along the crest of rotting lava. The watchers were careful to peer through little notches or from behind a spur, and the constricted nature of their hiding-place kept them close together. Ladd’s muttering grew into a growl, then lapsed into the silence that marked his companions. From time to time the rangers looked inquiringly at Gale. The field glass, however, like the naked sight, could not catch the slightest moving object out there upon the lava. A long hour of slow, mounting suspense wore on.

“Shore it’s all goin’ to be as queer as the Yaqui,” said Ladd.

Indeed, the strange mien, the silent action, the somber character of the Indian had not been without effect upon the minds of the men. Then the weird, desolate, tragic scene added to the vague sense of mystery. And now the disappearance of Rojas’s band, the long wait in the silence, the boding certainty of invisible foes crawling, circling closer and closer, lent to the situation a final touch that made it unreal.

“I’m reckonin’ there’s a mind behind them Greasers,” replied Jim. “Or mebbe we ain’t done Rojas credit... If somethin’ would only come off!”

That Lash, the coolest, most provokingly nonchalant of men in times of peril, should begin to show a nervous strain was all the more indicative of a subtle pervading unreality.

“Boys, look sharp!” suddenly called Lash. “Low down to the left — mebbe three hundred yards. See, along by them seams of lava — behind the choyas. First off I thought it was a sheep. But it’s the Yaqui!... Crawlin’ swift as a lizard! Can’t you see him?”

It was a full moment before Jim’s companions could locate the Indian. Flat as a snake Yaqui wound himself along with incredible rapidity. His advance was all the more remarkable for the fact that he appeared to pass directly under the dreaded choyas. Sometimes he paused to lift his head and look. He was directly in line with a huge whorl of lava that rose higher than any point on the slope. This spur was a quarter of a mile from the position of the rangers.

“Shore he’s headin’ for that high place,” said Ladd. “He’s goin’ slow now. There, he’s stopped behind some choyas. He’s gettin’ up — no, he’s kneelin’.... Now what the hell!”

“Laddy, take a peek at the side of that lava ridge,” sharply called Jim. “I guess mebbe somethin’ ain’t comin’ off. See! There’s Rojas an’ his outfit climbin’. Don’t make out no hosses.... Dick, use your glass an’ tell us what’s doin’. I’ll watch Yaqui an’ tell you what his move means.”

Clearly and distinctly, almost as if he could have touched them, Gale had Rojas and his followers in sight. They were toiling up the rough lava on foot. They were heavily armed. Spurs, chaps, jackets, scarfs were not in evidence. Gale saw the lean, swarthy faces, the black, straggly hair, the ragged, soiled garments which had once been white.

“They’re almost up now,” Gale was saying. “There! They halt on top. I see Rojas. He looks wild. By —— ! fellows, an Indian!... It’s a Papago. Belding’s old herder!... The Indian points — this way — then down. He’s showing Rojas the lay of the trail.”

“Boys, Yaqui’s in range of that bunch,” said Jim, swiftly. “He’s raisin’ his rifle slow — Lord, how slow he is!... He’s covered some one. Which one I can’t say. But I think he’ll pick Rojas.”

“The Yaqui can shoot. He’ll pick Rojas,” added Gale, grimly.

“Rojas — yes — yes!” cried Thorne, in passion of suspense.

“Not on your life!” Ladd’s voice cut in with scorn. “Gentlemen, you can gamble Yaqui ‘ll kill the Papago. That traitor Indian knows these sheep haunts. He’s tellin’ Rojas—”

A sharp rifle shot rang out.

“Laddy’s right,” called Gale. “The Papago’s hit — his arm falls — There, he tumbles!”

More shots rang out. Yaqui was seen standing erect firing rapidly at the darting Mexicans. For all Gale could make out no second bullet took effect. Rojas and his men vanished behind the bulge of lava. Then Yaqui deliberately backed away from his position. He made no effort to run or hide. Evidently he watched cautiously for signs of pursuers in the ruts and behind the choyas. Presently he turned and came straight toward the position of the rangers, sheered off perhaps a hundred paces below it, and disappeared in a crevice. Plainly his intention was to draw pursuers within rifle shot.

“Shore, Jim, you had your wish. Somethin’ come off,” said Ladd. “An’ I’m sayin’ thank God for the Yaqui! That Papago ‘d have ruined us. Even so, mebbe he’s told Rojas more’n enough to make us sweat blood.”

“He had a chance to kill Rojas,” cried out the drawn-faced, passionate Thorne. “He didn’t take it!... He didn’t take it!”

Only Ladd appeared to be able to answer the cavalryman’s poignant cry.

“Listen, son,” he said, and his voice rang. “We-all know how you feel. An’ if I’d had that one shot never in the world could I have picked the Papago guide. I’d have had to kill Rojas. That’s the white man of it. But Yaqui was right. Only an Indian could have done it. You can gamble the Papago alive meant slim chance for us. Because he’d led straight to where Mercedes is hidden, an’ then we’d have left cover to fight it out... When you come to think of the Yaqui’s hate for Greasers, when you just seen him pass up a shot at one — well, I don’t know how to say what I mean, but damn me, my som-brer-ro is off to the Indian!”

“I reckon so, an’ I reckon the ball’s opened,” rejoined Lash, and now that former nervous impatience so unnatural to him was as if it had never been. He was smilingly cool, and his voice had almost a caressing note. He tapped the breech of his Winchester with a sinewy brown hand, and he did not appear to be addressing any one in particular. “Yaqui’s opened the ball. Look up your pardners there, gents, an’ get ready to dance.”

Another wait set in then, and judging by the more direct rays of the sun and a receding of the little shadows cast by the choyas, Gale was of the opinion that it was a long wait. But it seemed short. The four men were lying under the bank of a half circular hole in the lava. It was notched and cracked, and its rim was fringed by choyas. It sloped down and opened to an unobstructed view of the crater. Gale had the upper position, fartherest to the right, and therefore was best shielded from possible fire from the higher ridges of the rim, some three hundred yards distant. Jim came next, well hidden in a crack. The positions of Thorne and Ladd were most exposed. They kept sharp lookout over the uneven rampart of their hiding-place.

The sun passed the zenith, began to slope westward, and to grow hotter as it sloped. The men waited and waited. Gale saw no impatience even in Thorne. The sultry air seemed to be laden with some burden or quality that was at once composed of heat, menace, color, and silence. Even the light glancing up from the lava seemed red and the silence had substance. Sometimes Gale felt that it was unbearable. Yet he made no effort to break it.

Suddenly this dead stillness was rent by a shot, clear and stinging, close at hand. It was from a rifle, not a carbine. With startling quickness a cry followed — a cry that pierced Gale — it was so thin, so high-keyed, so different from all other cries. It was the involuntary human shriek at death.

“Yaqui’s called out another pardner,” said Jim Lash, laconically.

Carbines began to crack. The reports were quick, light, like sharp spats without any ring. Gale peered from behind the edge of his covert. Above the ragged wave of lava floated faint whitish clouds, all that was visible of smokeless powder. Then Gale made out round spots, dark against the background of red, and in front of them leaped out small tongues of fire. Ladd’s .405 began to “spang” with its beautiful sound of power. Thorne was firing, somewhat wildly Gale thought. Then Jim Lash pushed his Winchester over the rim under a choya, and between shots Gale could hear him singing: “Turn the lady, turn — turn the lady, turn!... Alaman left!... Swing your pardners!... Forward an’ back!... Turn the lady, turn!” Gale got into the fight himself, not so sure that he hit any of the round, bobbing objects he aimed at, but growing sure of himself as action liberated something forced and congested within his breast.

Then over the position of the rangers came a hail of steel bullets. Those that struck the lava hissed away into the crater; those that came biting through the choyas made a sound which resembled a sharp ripping of silk. Bits of cactus stung Gale’s face, and he dreaded the flying thorns more than he did the flying bullets.

“Hold on, boys,” called Ladd, as he crouched down to reload his rifle. “Save your shells. The greasers are spreadin’ on us, some goin’ down below Yaqui, others movin’ up for that high ridge. When they get up there I’m damned if it won’t be hot for us. There ain’t room for all of us to hide here.”

Ladd raised himself to peep over the rim. Shots were now scattering, and all appeared to come from below. Emboldened by this he rose higher. A shot from in front, a rip of bullet through the choya, a spat of something hitting Ladd’s face, a steel missle hissing onward — these inseparably blended sounds were all registered by Gale’s sensitive ear.

With a curse Ladd tumbled down into the hole. His face showed a great gray blotch, and starting blood. Gale felt a sickening assurance of desperate injury to the ranger. He ran to him calling: “Laddy! Laddy!”

“Shore I ain’t plugged. It’s a damn choya burr. The bullet knocked it in my face. Pull it out!”

The oval, long-spiked cone was firmly imbedded in Ladd’s cheek. Blood streamed down his face and neck. Carefully, yet with no thought of pain to himself, Gale tried to pull the cactus joint away. It was as firm as if it had been nailed there. That was the damnable feature of the barbed thorns: once set, they held on as that strange plant held to its desert life. Ladd began to writhe, and sweat mingled with the blood on his face. He cursed and raved, and his movements made it almost impossible for Gale to do anything.

“Put your knife-blade under an’ tear it out!” shouted Ladd, hoarsely.

Thus ordered, Gale slipped a long blade in between the imbedded thorns, and with a powerful jerk literally tore the choya out of Ladd’s quivering flesh. Then, where the ranger’s face was not red and raw, it certainly was white.

A volley of shots from a different angle was followed by the quick ring of steel bullets striking the lava all around Gale. His first idea, as he heard the projectiles sing and hum and whine away into the air, was that they were coming from above him. He looked up to see a number of low, white and dark knobs upon the high point of lava. They had not been there before. Then he saw little, pale, leaping tongues of fire. As he dodged down he distinctly heard a bullet strike Ladd. At the same instant he seemed to hear Thorne cry out and fall, and Lash’s boots scrape rapidly away.

Ladd fell backward still holding the .405. Gale dragged him into the shelter of his own position, and dreading to look at him, took up the heavy weapon. It was with a kind of savage strength that he gripped the rifle; and it was with a cold and deadly intent that he aimed and fired. The first Greaser huddled low, let his carbine go clattering down, and then crawled behind the rim. The second and third jerked back. The fourth seemed to flop up over the crest of lava. A dark arm reached for him, clutched his leg, tried to drag him up. It was in vain. Wildly grasping at the air the bandit fell, slid down a steep shelf, rolled over the rim, to go hurtling down out of sight.

Fingering the hot rifle with close-pressed hands, Gale watched the sky line along the high point of lava. It remained unbroken. As his passion left him he feared to look back at his companions, and the cold chill returned to his breast.

“Shore — I’m damn glad — them Greasers ain’t usin’ soft-nose bullets,” drawled a calm voice.

Swift as lightning Gale whirled.

“Laddy! I thought you were done for,” cried Gale, with a break in his voice.

“I ain’t a-mindin’ the bullet much. But that choya joint took my nerve, an’ you can gamble on it. Dick, this hole’s pretty high up, ain’t it?”

The ranger’s blouse was open at the neck, and on his right shoulder under the collar bone was a small hole just beginning to bleed.

“Sure it’s high, Laddy,” replied Gale, gladly. “Went clear through, clean as a whistle!”

He tore a handkerchief into two parts, made wads, and pressing them close over the wounds he bound them there with Ladd’s scarf.

“Shore it’s funny how a bullet can floor a man an’ then not do any damage,” said Ladd. “I felt a zip of wind an’ somethin’ like a pat on my chest an’ down I went. Well, so much for the small caliber with their steel bullets. Supposin’ I’d connected with a .405!”

“Laddy, I — I’m afraid Thorne’s done for,” whispered Gale. “He’s lying over there in that crack. I can see part of him. He doesn’t move.”

“I was wonderin’ if I’d have to tell you that. Dick, he went down hard hit, fallin’, you know, limp an’ soggy. It was a moral cinch one of us would get it in this fight; but God! I’m sorry Thorne had to be the man.”

“Laddy, maybe he’s not dead,” replied Gale. He called aloud to his friend. There was no answer.

Ladd got up, and, after peering keenly at the height of lava, he strode swiftly across the space. It was only a dozen steps to the crack in the lava where Thorne had fallen head first. Ladd bent over, went to his knees, so that Gale saw only his head. Then he appeared rising with arms round the cavalryman. He dragged him across the hole to the sheltered corner that alone afforded protection. He had scarcely reached it when a carbine cracked and a bullet struck the flinty lava, striking sparks, then singing away into the air.

Thorne was either dead or unconscious, and Gale, with a contracting throat and numb heart, decided for the former. Not so Ladd, who probed the bloody gash on Thorne’s temple, and then felt his breast.

“He’s alive an’ not bad hurt. That bullet hit him glancin’. Shore them steel bullets are some lucky for us. Dick, you needn’t look so glum. I tell you he ain’t bad hurt. I felt his skull with my finger. There’s no hole in it. Wash him off an’ tie — Wow! did you get the wind of that one? An’ mebbe it didn’t sing off the lava!... Dick, look after Thorne now while I—”

The completion of his speech was the stirring ring of the .405, and then he uttered a laugh that was unpleasant.

“Shore, Greaser, there’s a man’s size bullet for you. No slim, sharp-pointed, steel-jacket nail! I’m takin’ it on me to believe you’re appreciatin’ of the .405, seein’ as you don’t make no fuss.”

It was indeed a joy to Gale to find that Thorne had not received a wound necessarily fatal, though it was serious enough. Gale bathed and bound it, and laid the cavalryman against the slant of the bank, his head high to lessen the probability of bleeding.

As Gale straightened up Ladd muttered low and deep, and swung the heavy rifle around to the left. Far along the slope a figure moved. Ladd began to work the lever of the Winchester and to shoot. At every shot the heavy firearm sprang up, and the recoil made Ladd’s shoulder give back. Gale saw the bullets strike the lava behind, beside, before the fleeing Mexican, sending up dull puffs of dust. On the sixth shot he plunged down out of sight, either hit or frightened into seeking cover.

“Dick, mebbe there’s one or two left above; but we needn’t figure much on it,” said Ladd, as, loading the rifle, he jerked his fingers quickly from the hot breech. “Listen! Jim an’ Yaqui are hittin’ it up lively down below. I’ll sneak down there. You stay here an’ keep about half an eye peeled up yonder, an’ keep the rest my way.”

Ladd crossed the hole, climbed down into the deep crack where Thorne had fallen, and then went stooping along with only his head above the level. Presently he disappeared. Gale, having little to fear from the high ridge, directed most of his attention toward the point beyond which Ladd had gone. The firing had become desultory, and the light carbine shots outnumbered the sharp rifle shots five to one. Gale made a note of the fact that for some little time he had not heard the unmistakable report of Jim Lash’s automatic. Then ensued a long interval in which the desert silence seemed to recover its grip. The .405 ripped it asunder — spang — spang — spang. Gale fancied he heard yells. There were a few pattering shots still farther down the trail. Gale had an uneasy conviction that Rojas and some of his band might go straight to the waterhole. It would be hard to dislodge even a few men from that retreat.

There seemed a lull in the battle. Gale ventured to stand high, and screened behind choyas, he swept the three-quarter circle of lava with his glass. In the distance he saw horses, but no riders. Below him, down the slope along the crater rim and the trail, the lava was bare of all except tufts of choya. Gale gathered assurance. It looked as if the day was favoring his side. Then Thorne, coming partly to consciousness, engaged Gale’s care. The cavalryman stirred and moaned, called for water, and then for Mercedes. Gale held him back with a strong hand, and presently he was once more quiet.

For the first time in hours, as it seemed, Gale took note of the physical aspect of his surroundings. He began to look upon them without keen gaze strained for crouching form, or bobbing head, or spouting carbine. Either Gale’s sense of color and proportion had become deranged during the fight, or the encompassing air and the desert had changed. Even the sun had changed. It seemed lowering, oval in shape, magenta in hue, and it had a surface that gleamed like oil on water. Its red rays shone through red haze. Distances that had formerly been clearly outlined were now dim, obscured. The yawning chasm was not the same. It circled wider, redder, deeper. It was a weird, ghastly mouth of hell. Gale stood fascinated, unable to tell how much he saw was real, how much exaggeration of overwrought emotions. There was no beauty here, but an unparalleled grandeur, a sublime scene of devastation and desolation which might have had its counterpart upon the burned-out moon. The mood that gripped Gale now added to its somber portent an unshakable foreboding of calamity.

He wrestled with the spell as if it were a physical foe. Reason and intelligence had their voices in his mind; but the moment was not one wherein these things could wholly control. He felt life strong within his breast, yet there, a step away, was death, yawning, glaring, smoky, red. It was a moment — an hour for a savage, born, bred, developed in this scarred and blasted place of jagged depths and red distances and silences never meant to be broken. Since Gale was not a savage he fought that call of the red gods which sent him back down the long ages toward his primitive day. His mind combated his sense of sight and the hearing that seemed useless; and his mind did not win all the victory. Something fatal was here, hanging in the balance, as the red haze hung along the vast walls of that crater of hell.

Suddenly harsh, prolonged yells brought him to his feet, and the unrealities vanished. Far down the trails where the crater rims closed in the deep fissure he saw moving forms. They were three in number. Two of them ran nimbly across the lava bridge. The third staggered far behind. It was Ladd. He appeared hard hit. He dragged at the heavy rifle which he seemed unable to raise. The yells came from him. He was calling the Yaqui.

Gale’s heart stood still momentarily. Here, then, was the catastrophe! He hardly dared sweep that fissure with his glass. The two fleeing figures halted — turned to fire at Ladd. Gale recognized the foremost one — small, compact, gaudy. Rojas! The bandit’s arm was outstretched. Puffs of white smoke rose, and shots rapped out. When Ladd went down Rojas threw his gun aside and with a wild yell bounded over the lava. His companion followed.

A tide of passion, first hot as fire, then cold as ice, rushed over Gale when he saw Rojas take the trail toward Mercedes’s hiding-place. The little bandit appeared to have the sure-footedness of a mountain sheep. The Mexican following was not so sure or fast. He turned back. Gale heard the trenchant bark of the .405. Ladd was kneeling. He shot again — again. The retreating bandit seemed to run full into an invisible obstacle, then fell lax, inert, lifeless. Rojas sped on unmindful of the spurts of dust about him. Yaqui, high above Ladd, was also firing at the bandit. Then both rifles were emptied. Rojas turned at a high break in the trail. He shook a defiant hand, and his exulting yell pealed faintly to Gale’s ears. About him there was something desperate, magnificent. Then he clambered down the trail.

Ladd dropped the .405, and rising, gun in hand, he staggered toward the bridge of lava. Before he had crossed it Yaqui came bounding down the slope, and in one splendid leap he cleared the fissure. He ran beyond the trail and disappeared on the lava above. Rojas had not seen this sudden, darting move of the Indian.

Gale felt himself bitterly powerless to aid in that pursuit. He could only watch. He wondered, fearfully, what had become of Lash. Presently, when Rojas came out of the cracks and ruts of lava there might be a chance of disabling him by a long shot. His progress was now slow. But he was making straight for Mercedes’s hiding-place. What was it leading him there — an eagle eye, or hate, or instinct? Why did he go on when there could be no turning back for him on that trail? Ladd was slow, heavy, staggering on the trail; but he was relentless. Only death could stop the ranger now. Surely Rojas must have known that when he chose the trail. From time to time Gale caught glimpses of Yaqui’s dark figure stealing along the higher rim of the crater. He was making for a point above the bandit.

Moments — endless moments dragged by. The lowering sun colored only the upper half of the crater walls. Far down the depths were murky blue. Again Gale felt the insupportable silence. The red haze became a transparent veil before his eyes. Sinister, evil, brooding, waiting, seemed that yawning abyss. Ladd staggered along the trail, at times he crawled. The Yaqui gained; he might have had wings; he leaped from jagged crust to jagged crust; his sure-footedness was a wonderful thing.

But for Gale the marvel of that endless period of watching was the purpose of the bandit Rojas. He had now no weapon. Gale’s glass made this fact plain. There was death behind him, death below him, death before him, and though he could not have known it, death above him. He never faltered — never made a misstep upon the narrow, flinty trail. When he reached the lower end of the level ledge Gale’s poignant doubt became a certainty. Rojas had seen Mercedes. It was incredible, yet Gale believed it. Then, his heart clamped as in an icy vise, Gale threw forward the Remington, and sinking on one knee, began to shoot. He emptied the magazine. Puffs of dust near Rojas did not even make him turn.

As Gale began to reload he was horror-stricken by a low cry from Thorne. The cavalryman had recovered consciousness. He was half raised, pointing with shaking hand at the opposite ledge. His distended eyes were riveted upon Rojas. He was trying to utter speech that would not come.

Gale wheeled, rigid now, steeling himself to one last forlorn hope — that Mercedes could defend herself. She had a gun. He doubted not at all that she would use it. But, remembering her terror of this savage, he feared for her.

Rojas reached the level of the ledge. He halted. He crouched. It was the act of a panther. Manifestly he saw Mercedes within the cave. Then faint shots patted the air, broke in quick echo. Rojas went down as if struck a heavy blow. He was hit. But even as Gale yelled in sheer madness the bandit leaped erect. He seemed too quick, too supple to be badly wounded. A slight, dark figure flashed out of the cave. Mercedes! She backed against the wall. Gale saw a puff of white — heard a report. But the bandit lunged at her. Mercedes ran, not to try to pass him, but straight for the precipice. Her intention was plain. But Rojas outstripped her, even as she reached the verge. Then a piercing scream pealed across the crater — a scream of despair.

Gale closed his eyes. He could not bear to see more.

Thorne echoed Mercedes’s scream. Gale looked round just in time to leap and catch the cavalryman as he staggered, apparently for the steep slope. And then, as Gale dragged him back, both fell. Gale saved his friend, but he plunged into a choya. He drew his hands away full of the great glistening cones of thorns.

“For God’s sake, Gale, shoot! Shoot! Kill her! Kill her!... Can’t — you — see — Rojas—”

Thorne fainted.

Gale, stunned for the instant, stood with uplifted hands, and gazed from Thorne across the crater. Rojas had not killed Mercedes. He was overpowering her. His actions seemed slow, wearing, purposeful. Hers were violent. Like a trapped she-wolf, Mercedes was fighting. She tore, struggled, flung herself.

Rojas’s intention was terribly plain.

In agony now, both mental and physical, cold and sick and weak, Gale gripped his rifle and aimed at the struggling forms on the ledge. He pulled the trigger. The bullet struck up a cloud of red dust close to the struggling couple. Again Gale fired, hoping to hit Rojas, praying to kill Mercedes. The bullet struck high. A third — fourth — fifth time the Remington spoke — in vain! The rifle fell from Gale’s racked hands.

How horribly plain that fiend’s intention! Gale tried to close his eyes, but could not. He prayed wildly for a sudden blindness — to faint as Thorne had fainted. But he was transfixed to the spot with eyes that pierced the red light.

Mercedes was growing weaker, seemed about to collapse.

“Oh, Jim Lash, are you dead?” cried Gale. “Oh, Laddy!... Oh, Yaqui!”

Suddenly a dark form literally fell down the wall behind the ledge where Rojas fought the girl. It sank in a heap, then bounded erect.

“Yaqui!” screamed Gale, and he waved his bleeding hands till the blood bespattered his face. Then he choked. Utterance became impossible.

The Indian bent over Rojas and flung him against the wall. Mercedes, sinking back, lay still. When Rojas got up the Indian stood between him and escape from the ledge. Rojas backed the other way along the narrowing shelf of lava. His manner was abject, stupefied. Slowly he stepped backward.

It was then that Gale caught the white gleam of a knife in Yaqui’s hand. Rojas turned and ran. He rounded a corner of wall where the footing was precarious. Yaqui followed slowly. His figure was dark and menacing. But he was not in a hurry. When he passed off the ledge Rojas was edging farther and farther along the wall. He was clinging now to the lava, creeping inch by inch. Perhaps he had thought to work around the buttress or climb over it. Evidently he went as far as possible, and there he clung, an unscalable wall above, the abyss beneath.

The approach of the Yaqui was like a slow dark shadow of gloom. If it seemed so to the stricken Gale what must it have been to Rojas? He appeared to sink against the wall. The Yaqui stole closer and closer. He was the savage now, and for him the moment must have been glorified. Gale saw him gaze up at the great circling walls of the crater, then down into the depths. Perhaps the red haze hanging above him, or the purple haze below, or the deep caverns in the lava, held for Yaqui spirits of the desert, his gods to whom he called. Perhaps he invoked shadows of his loved ones and his race, calling them in this moment of vengeance.

Gale heard — or imagined he heard — that wild, strange Yaqui cry.

Then the Indian stepped close to Rojas, and bent low, keeping out of reach. How slow were his motions! Would Yaqui never — never end it?... A wail drifted across the crater to Gale’s ears.

Rojas fell backward and plunged sheer. The bank of white choyas caught him, held him upon their steel spikes. How long did the dazed Gale sit there watching Rojas wrestling and writhing in convulsive frenzy? The bandit now seemed mad to win the delayed death.

When he broke free he was a white patched object no longer human, a ball of choya burrs, and he slipped off the bank to shoot down and down into the purple depths of the crater.

CHAPTER XIII

CHANGES AT FORLORN RIVER

THE FIRST OF March saw the federal occupation of the garrison at Casita. After a short, decisive engagement the rebels were dispersed into small bands and driven eastward along the boundary line toward Nogales.

It was the destiny of Forlorn River, however, never to return to the slow, sleepy tenor of its former existence. Belding’s predictions came true. That straggling line of home-seekers was but a forerunner of the real invasion of Altar Valley. Refugees from Mexico and from Casita spread the word that water and wood and grass and land were to be had at Forlorn River; and as if by magic the white tents and red adobe houses sprang up to glisten in the sun.

Belding was happier than he had been for a long time. He believed that evil days for Forlorn River, along with the apathy and lack of enterprise, were in the past. He hired a couple of trustworthy Mexicans to ride the boundary line, and he settled down to think of ranching and irrigation and mining projects. Every morning he expected to receive some word form Sonoyta or Yuma, telling him that Yaqui had guided his party safely across the desert.

Belding was simple-minded, a man more inclined to action than reflection. When the complexities of life hemmed him in, he groped his way out, never quite understanding. His wife had always been a mystery to him. Nell was sunshine most of the time, but, like the sun-dominated desert, she was subject to strange changes, wilful, stormy, sudden. It was enough for Belding now to find his wife in a lighter, happier mood, and to see Nell dreamily turning a ring round and round the third finger of her left hand and watching the west. Every day both mother and daughter appeared farther removed from the past darkly threatening days. Belding was hearty in his affections, but undemonstrative. If there was any sentiment in his make-up it had an outlet in his memory of Blanco Diablo and a longing to see him. Often Belding stopped his work to gaze out over the desert toward the west. When he thought of his rangers and Thorne and Mercedes he certainly never forgot his horse. He wondered if Diablo was running, walking, resting; if Yaqui was finding water and grass.

In March, with the short desert winter over, the days began to grow warm. The noon hours were hot, and seemed to give promise of the white summer blaze and blasting furnace wind soon to come. No word was received from the rangers. But this caused Belding no concern, and it seemed to him that his women folk considered no news good news.

Among the many changes coming to pass in Forlorn River were the installing of post-office service and the building of a mescal drinking-house. Belding had worked hard for the post office, but he did not like the idea of a saloon for Forlorn River. Still, that was an inevitable evil. The Mexicans would have mescal. Belding had kept the little border hamlet free of an establishment for distillation of the fiery cactus drink. A good many Americans drifted into Forlorn River — miners, cowboys, prospectors, outlaws, and others of nondescript character; and these men, of course, made the saloon, which was also an inn, their headquarters. Belding, with Carter and other old residents, saw the need of a sheriff for Forlorn River.

One morning early in this spring month, while Belding was on his way from the house to the corrals, he saw Nell running Blanco Jose down the road at a gait that amazed him. She did not take the turn of the road to come in by the gate. She put Jose at a four-foot wire fence, and came clattering into the yard.

“Nell must have another tantrum,” said Belding. “She’s long past due.”

Blanco Jose, like the other white horses, was big of frame and heavy, and thunder rolled from under his great hoofs. Nell pulled him up, and as he pounded and slid to a halt in a cloud of dust she swung lightly down.

It did not take more than half an eye for Belding to see that she was furious.

“Nell, what’s come off now?” asked Belding.

“I’m not going to tell you,” she replied, and started away, leading Jose toward the corral.

Belding leisurely followed. She went into the corral, removed Jose’s bridle, and led him to the watering-trough. Belding came up, and without saying anything began to unbuckle Jose’s saddle girths. But he ventured a look at Nell. The red had gone from her face, and he was surprised to see her eyes brimming with tears. Most assuredly this was not one of Nell’s tantrums. While taking off Jose’s saddle and hanging it in the shed Belding pondered in his slow way. When he came back to the corral Nell had her face against the bars, and she was crying. He slipped a big arm around her and waited. Although it was not often expressed, there was a strong attachment between them.

“Dad, I don’t want you to think me a — a baby any more,” she said. “I’ve been insulted.”

With a specific fact to make clear thought in Belding’s mind he was never slow.

“I knew something unusual had come off. I guess you’d better tell me.”

“Dad, I will, if you promise.”

“What?”

“Not to mention it to mother, not to pack a gun down there, and never, never tell Dick.”

Belding was silent. Seldom did he make promises readily.

“Nell, sure something must have come off, for you to ask all that.”

“If you don’t promise I’ll never tell, that’s all,” she declared, firmly.

Belding deliberated a little longer. He knew the girl.

“Well, I promise not to tell mother,” he said, presently; “and seeing you’re here safe and well, I guess I won’t go packing a gun down there, wherever that is. But I won’t promise to keep anything from Dick that perhaps he ought to know.”

“Dad, what would Dick do if — if he were here and I were to tell him I’d — I’d been horribly insulted?”

“I guess that ‘d depend. Mostly, you know, Dick does what you want. But you couldn’t stop him — nobody could — if there was reason, a man’s reason, to get started. Remember what he did to Rojas!... Nell, tell me what’s happened.”

Nell, regaining her composure, wiped her eyes and smoothed back her hair.

“The other day, Wednesday,” she began, “I was coming home, and in front of that mescal drinking-place there was a crowd. It was a noisy crowd. I didn’t want to walk out into the street or seem afraid. But I had to do both. There were several young men, and if they weren’t drunk they certainly were rude. I never saw them before, but I think they must belong to the mining company that was run out of Sonora by rebels. Mrs. Carter was telling me. Anyway, these young fellows were Americans. They stretched themselves across the walk and smiled at me. I had to go out in the road. One of them, the rudest, followed me. He was a big fellow, red-faced, with prominent eyes and a bold look. He came up beside me and spoke to me. I ran home. And as I ran I heard his companions jeering.

“Well, to-day, just now, when I was riding up the valley road I came upon the same fellows. They had instruments and were surveying. Remembering Dick, and how he always wished for an instrument to help work out his plan for irrigation, I was certainly surprised to see these strangers surveying — and surveying upon Laddy’s plot of land. It was a sandy road there, and Jose happened to be walking. So I reined in and asked these engineers what they were doing. The leader, who was that same bold fellow who had followed me, seemed much pleased at being addressed. He was swaggering — too friendly; not my idea of a gentleman at all. He said he was glad to tell me he was going to run water all over Altar Valley. Dad, you can bet that made me wild. That was Dick’s plan, his discovery, and here were surveyors on Laddy’s claim.

“Then I told him that he was working on private land and he’d better get off. He seemed to forget his flirty proclivities in amazement. Then he looked cunning. I read his mind. It was news to him that all the land along the valley had been taken up.

“He said something about not seeing any squatters on the land, and then he shut up tight on that score. But he began to be flirty again. He got hold of Jose’s bridle, and before I could catch my breath he said I was a peach, and that he wanted to make a date with me, that his name was Chase, that he owned a gold mine in Mexico. He said a lot more I didn’t gather, but when he called me ‘Dearie’ I — well, I lost my temper.

“I jerked on the bridle and told him to let go. He held on and rolled his eyes at me. I dare say he imagined he was a gentlemen to be infatuated with. He seemed sure of conquest. One thing certain, he didn’t know the least bit about horses. It scared me the way he got in front of Jose. I thanked my stars I wasn’t up on Blanco Diablo. Well, Dad, I’m a little ashamed now, but I was mad. I slashed him across the face with my quirt. Jose jumped and knocked Mr. Chase into the sand. I didn’t get the horse under control till I was out of sight of those surveyors, and then I let him run home.”

“Nell, I guess you punished the fellow enough. Maybe he’s only a conceited softy. But I don’t like that sort of thing. It isn’t Western. I guess he won’t be so smart next time. Any fellow would remember being hit by Blanco Jose. If you’d been up on Diablo we’d have to bury Mr. Chase.”

“Thank goodness I wasn’t! I’m sorry now, Dad. Perhaps the fellow was hurt. But what could I do? Let’s forget all about it, and I’ll be careful where I ride in the future.... Dad, what does it mean, this surveying around Forlorn River?”

“I don’t know, Nell,” replied Belding, thoughtfully. “It worries me. It looks good for Forlorn River, but bad for Dick’s plan to irrigate the valley. Lord, I’d hate to have some one forestall Dick on that!”

“No, no, we won’t let anybody have Dick’s rights,” declared Nell.

“Where have I been keeping myself not to know about these surveyors?” muttered Belding. “They must have just come.”

“Go see Mrs. Cater. She told me there were strangers in town, Americans, who had mining interests in Sonora, and were run out by Orozco. Find out what they’re doing, Dad.”

Belding discovered that he was, indeed, the last man of consequence in Forlorn River to learn of the arrival of Ben Chase and son, mineowners and operators in Sonora. They, with a force of miners, had been besieged by rebels and finally driven off their property. This property was not destroyed, but held for ransom. And the Chases, pending developments, had packed outfits and struck for the border. Casita had been their objective point, but, for some reason which Belding did not learn, they had arrived instead at Forlorn River. It had taken Ben Chase just one day to see the possibilities of Altar Valley, and in three days he had men at work.

Belding returned home without going to see the Chases and their operations. He wanted to think over the situation. Next morning he went out to the valley to see for himself. Mexicans were hastily erecting adobe houses upon Ladd’s one hundred and sixty acres, upon Dick Gale’s, upon Jim Lash’s and Thorne’s. There were men staking the valley floor and the river bed. That was sufficient for Belding. He turned back toward town and headed for the camp of these intruders.

In fact, the surroundings of Forlorn River, except on the river side, reminded Belding of the mushroom growth of a newly discovered mining camp. Tents were everywhere; adobe shacks were in all stages of construction; rough clapboard houses were going up. The latest of this work was new and surprising to Belding, all because he was a busy man, with no chance to hear village gossip. When he was directed to the headquarters of the Chase Mining Company he went thither in slow-growing wrath.

He came to a big tent with a huge canvas fly stretched in front, under which sat several men in their shirt sleeves. They were talking and smoking.

“My name’s Belding. I want to see this Mr. Chase,” said Belding, gruffly.

Slow-witted as Belding was, and absorbed in his own feelings, he yet saw plainly that his advent was disturbing to these men. They looked alarmed, exchanged glances, and then quickly turned to him. One of them, a tall, rugged man with sharp face and shrewd eyes and white hair, got up and offered his hand.

“I’m Chase, senior,” he said. “My son Radford Chase is here somewhere. You’re Belding, the line inspector, I take it? I meant to call on you.”

He seemed a rough-and-ready, loud-spoken man, withal cordial enough.

“Yes, I’m the inspector,” replied Belding, ignoring the proffered hand, “and I’d like to know what in the hell you mean by taking up land claims — staked ground that belongs to my rangers?”

“Land claims?” slowly echoed Chase, studying his man. “We’re taking up only unclaimed land.”

“That’s a lie. You couldn’t miss the stakes.”

“Well, Mr. Belding, as to that, I think my men did run across some staked ground. But we recognize only squatters. If your rangers think they’ve got property just because they drove a few stakes in the ground they’re much mistaken. A squatter has to build a house and live on his land so long, according to law, before he owns it.”

This argument was unanswerable, and Belding knew it.

“According to law!” exclaimed Belding. “Then you own up; you’ve jumped our claims.”

“Mr. Belding, I’m a plain business man. I come along. I see a good opening. Nobody seems to have tenable grants. I stake out claims, locate squatters, start to build. It seems to me your rangers have overlooked certain precautions. That’s unfortunate for them. I’m prepared to hold my claim and to back all the squatters who work for me. If you don’t like it you can carry the matter to Tucson. The law will uphold me.”

“The law? Say, on this southwest border we haven’t any law except a man’s word and a gun.”

“Then you’ll find United States law has come along with Ben Chase,” replied the other, snapping his fingers. He was still smooth, outspoken, but his mask had fallen.

“You’re not a Westerner?” queried Belding.

“No, I’m from Illinois.”

“I thought the West hadn’t bred you. I know your kind. You’d last a long time on the Texas border; now, wouldn’t you? You’re one of the land and water hogs that has come to root in the West. You’re like the timber sharks — take it all and leave none for those who follow. Mr. Chase, the West would fare better and last longer if men like you were driven out.”

“You can’t drive me out.”

“I’m not so sure of that. Wait till my rangers come back. I wouldn’t be in your boots. Don’t mistake me. I don’t suppose you could be accused of stealing another man’s ideas or plan, but sure you’ve stolen these four claims. Maybe the law might uphold you. But the spirit, not the letter, counts with us bordermen.”

“See here, Belding, I think you’re taking the wrong view of the matter. I’m going to develop this valley. You’d do better to get in with me. I’ve a proposition to make you about that strip of land of yours facing the river.”

“You can’t make any deals with me. I won’t have anything to do with you.”

Belding abruptly left the camp and went home. Nell met him, probably intended to question him, but one look into his face confirmed her fears. She silently turned away. Belding realized he was powerless to stop Chase, and he was sick with disappointment for the ruin of Dick’s hopes and his own.

CHAPTER XIV

A LOST SON

TIME PASSED. THE population of Forlorn River grew apace. Belding, who had once been the head of the community, found himself a person of little consequence. Even had he desired it he would not have had any voice in the selection of postmaster, sheriff, and a few other officials. The Chases divided their labors between Forlorn River and their Mexican gold mine, which had been restored to them. The desert trips between these two places were taken in automobiles. A month’s time made the motor cars almost as familiar a sight in Forlorn River as they had been in Casita before the revolution.

Belding was not so busy as he had been formerly. As he lost ambition he began to find less work to do. His wrath at the usurping Chases increased as he slowly realized his powerlessness to cope with such men. They were promoters, men of big interests and wide influence in the Southwest. The more they did for Forlorn River the less reason there seemed to be for his own grievance. He had to admit that it was personal; that he and Gale and the rangers would never have been able to develop the resources of the valley as these men were doing it.

All day long he heard the heavy booming blasts and the rumble of avalanches up in the gorge. Chase’s men were dynamiting the cliffs in the narrow box canyon. They were making the dam just as Gale had planned to make it. When this work of blasting was over Belding experienced a relief. He would not now be continually reminded of his and Gale’s loss. Resignation finally came to him. But he could not reconcile himself to misfortune for Gale.

Moreover, Belding had other worry and strain. April arrived with no news of the rangers. From Casita came vague reports of raiders in the Sonoyta country — reports impossible to verify until his Mexican rangers returned. When these men rode in, one of them, Gonzales, an intelligent and reliable halfbreed, said he had met prospectors at the oasis. They had just come in on the Camino del Diablo, reported a terrible trip of heat and drought, and not a trace of the Yaqui’s party.

“That settles it,” declared Belding. “Yaqui never went to Sonoyta. He’s circled round to the Devil’s Road, and the rangers, Mercedes, Thorne, the horses — they — I’m afraid they have been lost in the desert. It’s an old story on Camino del Diablo.”

He had to tell Nell that, and it was an ordeal which left him weak.

Mrs. Belding listened to him, and was silent for a long time while she held the stricken Nell to her breast. Then she opposed his convictions with that quiet strength so characteristic of her arguments.

“Well, then,” decided Belding, “Rojas headed the rangers at Papago Well or the Tanks.”

“Tom, when you are down in the mouth you use poor judgment,” she went on. “You know only by a miracle could Rojas or anybody have headed those white horses. Where’s your old stubborn confidence? Yaqui was up on Diablo. Dick was up on Sol. And there were the other horses. They could not have been headed or caught. Miracles don’t happen.”

“All right, mother, it’s sure good to hear you,” said Belding. She always cheered him, and now he grasped at straws. “I’m not myself these days, don’t mistake that. Tell us what you think. You always say you feel things when you really don’t know them.”

“I can say little more than what you said yourself the night Mercedes was taken away. You told Laddy to trust Yaqui, that he was a godsend. He might go south into some wild Sonora valley. He might lead Rojas into a trap. He would find water and grass where no Mexican or American could.”

“But mother, they’re gone seven weeks. Seven weeks! At the most I gave them six weeks. Seven weeks in the desert!”

“How do the Yaquis live?” she asked.

Belding could not reply to that, but hope revived in him. He had faith in his wife, though he could not in the least understand what he imagined was something mystic in her.

“Years ago when I was searching for my father I learned many things about this country,” said Mrs. Belding. “You can never tell how long a man may live in the desert. The fiercest, most terrible and inaccessible places often have their hidden oasis. In his later years my father became a prospector. That was strange to me, for he never cared for gold or money. I learned that he was often gone in the desert for weeks, once for months. Then the time came when he never came back. That was years before I reached the southwest border and heard of him. Even then I did not for long give up hope of his coming back, I know now — something tells me — indeed, it seems his spirit tells me — he was lost. But I don’t have that feeling for Yaqui and his party. Yaqui has given Rojas the slip or has ambushed him in some trap. Probably that took time and a long journey into Sonora. The Indian is too wise to start back now over dry trails. He’ll curb the rangers; he’ll wait. I seem to know this, dear Nell, so be brave, patient. Dick Gale will come back to you.”

“Oh, mother!” cried Nell. “I can’t give up hope while I have you.”

That talk with the strong mother worked a change in Nell and Belding. Nell, who had done little but brood and watch the west and take violent rides, seemed to settle into a waiting patience that was sad, yet serene. She helped her mother more than ever; she was a comfort to Belding; she began to take active interest in the affairs of the growing village. Belding, who had been breaking under the strain of worry, recovered himself so that to outward appearance he was his old self. He alone knew, however, that his humor was forced, and that the slow burning wrath he felt for the Chases was flaming into hate.

Belding argued with himself that if Ben Chase and his son, Radford, had turned out to be big men in other ways than in the power to carry on great enterprises he might have become reconciled to them. But the father was greedy, grasping, hard, cold; the son added to those traits an overbearing disposition to rule, and he showed a fondness for drink and cards. These men were developing the valley, to be sure, and a horde of poor Mexicans and many Americans were benefiting from that development; nevertheless, these Chases were operating in a way which proved they cared only for themselves.

Belding shook off a lethargic spell and decided he had better set about several by no means small tasks, if he wanted to get them finished before the hot months. He made a trip to the Sonoyta Oasis. He satisfied himself that matters along the line were favorable, and that there was absolutely no trace of his rangers. Upon completing this trip he went to Casita with a number of his white thoroughbreds and shipped them to ranchers and horse-breeders in Texas. Then, being near the railroad, and having time, he went up to Tucson. There he learned some interesting particulars about the Chases. They had an office in the city; influential friends in the Capitol. They were powerful men in the rapidly growing finance of the West. They had interested the Southern Pacific Railroad, and in the near future a branch line was to be constructed from San Felipe to Forlorn River. These details of the Chase development were insignificant when compared to a matter striking close home to Belding. His responsibility had been subtly attacked. A doubt had been cast upon his capability of executing the duties of immigration inspector to the best advantage of the state. Belding divined that this was only an entering wedge. The Chases were bent upon driving him out of Forlorn River; but perhaps to serve better their own ends, they were proceeding at leisure. Belding returned home consumed by rage. But he controlled it. For the first time in his life he was afraid of himself. He had his wife and Nell to think of; and the old law of the West had gone forever.

“Dad, there’s another Rojas round these diggings,” was Nell’s remark, after the greetings were over and the usual questions and answers passed.

Belding’s exclamation was cut short by Nell’s laugh. She was serious with a kind of amused contempt.

“Mr. Radford Chase!”

“Now Nell, what the—” roared Belding.

“Hush, Dad! Don’t swear,” interrupted Nell. “I only meant to tease you.”

“Humph! Say, my girl, that name Chase makes me see red. If you must tease me hit on some other way. Sabe, senorita?”

“Si, si, Dad.”

“Nell, you may as well tell him and have it over,” said Mrs. Belding, quietly.

“You promised me once, Dad, that you’d not go packing a gun off down there, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I remember,” replied Belding; but he did not answer her smile.

“Will you promise again?” she asked, lightly. Here was Nell with arch eyes, yet not the old arch eyes, so full of fun and mischief. Her lips were tremulous; her cheeks seemed less round.

“Yes,” rejoined Belding; and he knew why his voice was a little thick.

“Well, if you weren’t such a good old blind Dad you’d have seen long ago the way Mr. Radford Chase ran round after me. At first it was only annoying, and I did not want to add to your worries. But these two weeks you’ve been gone I’ve been more than annoyed. After that time I struck Mr. Chase with my quirt he made all possible efforts to meet me. He did meet me wherever I went. He sent me letters till I got tired of sending them back.

“When you left home on your trips I don’t know that he grew bolder, but he had more opportunity. I couldn’t stay in the house all the time. There were mama’s errands and sick people and my Sunday school, and what not. Mr. Chase waylaid me every time I went out. If he works any more I don’t know when, unless it’s when I’m asleep. He followed me until it was less embarassing for me to let him walk with me and talk his head off. He made love to me. He begged me to marry him. I told him I was already in love and engaged to be married. He said that didn’t make any difference. Then I called him a fool.

“Next time he saw me he said he must explain. He meant I was being true to a man who, everybody on the border knew, had been lost in the desert. That — that hurt. Maybe — maybe it’s true. Sometimes it seems terribly true. Since then, of course, I have stayed in the house to avoid being hurt again.

“But, Dad, a little thing like a girl sticking close to her mother and room doesn’t stop Mr. Chase. I think he’s crazy. Anyway, he’s a most persistent fool. I want to be charitable, because the man swears he loves me, and maybe he does, but he is making me nervous. I don’t sleep. I’m afraid to be in my room at night. I’ve gone to mother’s room. He’s always hanging round. Bold! Why, that isn’t the thing to call Mr. Chase. He’s absolutely without a sense of decency. He bribes our servants. He comes into our patio. Think of that! He makes the most ridiculous excuses. He bothers mother to death. I feel like a poor little rabbit holed by a hound. And I daren’t peep out.”

Somehow the thing struck Belding as funny, and he laughed. He had not had a laugh for so long that it made him feel good. He stopped only at sight of Nell’s surprise and pain. Then he put his arms round her.

“Never mind, dear. I’m an old bear. But it tickled me, I guess. I sure hope Mr. Radford Chase has got it bad... Nell, it’s only the old story. The fellows fall in love with you. It’s your good looks, Nell. What a price women like you and Mercedes have to pay for beauty! I’d a d —— a good deal rather be ugly as a mud fence.”

“So would I, Dad, if — if Dick would still love me.”

“He wouldn’t, you can gamble on that, as Laddy says. ... Well, the first time I catch this locoed Romeo sneaking round here I’ll — I’ll—”

“Dad, you promised.”

“Confound it, Nell, I promised not to pack a gun. That’s all. I’ll only shoo this fellow off the place, gently, mind you, gently. I’ll leave the rest for Dick Gale!”

“Oh, Dad!” cried Nell; and she clung to him wistful, frightened, yet something more.

“Don’t mistake me, Nell. You have your own way, generally. You pull the wool over mother’s eyes, and you wind me round your little finger. But you can’t do either with Dick Gale. You’re tender-hearted; you overlook the doings of this hound, Chase. But when Dick comes back, you just make up your mind to a little hell in the Chase camp. Oh, he’ll find it out. And I sure want to be round when Dick hands Mr. Radford the same as he handed Rojas!”

Belding kept a sharp lookout for young Chase, and then, a few days later, learned that both son and father had gone off upon one of their frequent trips to Casa Grandes, near where their mines were situated.

April grew apace, and soon gave way to May. One morning Belding was called from some garden work by the whirring of an automobile and a “Holloa!” He went forward to the front yard and there saw a car he thought resembled one he had seen in Casita. It contained a familiar-looking driver, but the three figures in gray coats and veils were strange to him. By the time he had gotten to the road he decided two were women and the other a man. At the moment their faces were emerging from dusty veils. Belding saw an elderly, sallow-faced, rather frail-appearing man who was an entire stranger to him; a handsome dark-eyed woman whose hair showed white through her veil; and a superbly built girl, whose face made Belding at once think of Dick Gale.

“Is this Mr. Tom Belding, inspector of immigration?” inquired the gentleman, courteously.

“I’m Belding, and I know who you are,” replied Belding in hearty amaze, as he stretched forth his big hand. “You’re Dick Gale’s Dad — the Governor, Dick used to say. I’m sure glad to meet you.”

“Thank you. Yes, I’m Dick’s governor, and here, Mr. Belding — Dick’s mother and his sister Elsie.”

Beaming his pleasure, Belding shook hands with the ladies, who showed their agitation clearly.

“Mr. Belding, I’ve come west to look up my lost son,” said Mr. Gale. “His sister’s letters were unanswered. We haven’t heard from him in months. Is he still here with you?”

“Well, now, sure I’m awful sorry,” began Belding, his slow mind at work. “Dick’s away just now — been away for a considerable spell. I’m expecting him back any day.... Won’t you come in? You’re all dusty and hot and tired. Come in, and let mother and Nell make you comfortable. Of course you’ll stay. We’ve a big house. You must stay till Dick comes back. Maybe that ‘ll be — Aw, I guess it won’t be long.... Let me handle the baggage, Mr. Gale.... Come in. I sure am glad to meet you all.”

Eager, excited, delighted, Belding went on talking as he ushered the Gales into the sitting-room, presenting them in his hearty way to the astounded Mrs. Belding and Nell. For the space of a few moments his wife and daughter were bewildered. Belding did not recollect any other occasion when a few callers had thrown them off their balance. But of course this was different. He was a little flustered himself — a circumstance that dawned upon him with surprise. When the Gales had been shown to rooms, Mrs. Belding gained the poise momentarily lost; but Nell came rushing back, wilder than a deer, in a state of excitement strange even for her.

“Oh! Dick’s mother, his sister!” whispered Nell.

Belding observed the omission of the father in Nell’s exclamation of mingled delight and alarm.

“His mother!” went on Nell. “Oh, I knew it! I always guessed it! Dick’s people are proud, rich; they’re somebody. I thought I’d faint when she looked at me. She was just curious — curious, but so cold and proud. She was wondering about me. I’m wearing his ring. It was his mother’s, he said. I won’t — I can’t take it off. And I’m scared.... But the sister — oh, she’s lovely and sweet — proud, too. I felt warm all over when she looked at me. I — I wanted to kiss her. She looks like Dick when he first came to us. But he’s changed. They’ll hardly recognize him.... To think they’ve come! And I had to be looking a fright, when of all times on earth I’d want to look my best.”

Nell, out of breath, ran away evidently to make herself presentable, according to her idea of the exigency of the case. Belding caught a glimpse of his wife’s face as she went out, and it wore a sad, strange, anxious expression. Then Belding sat alone, pondering the contracting emotions of his wife and daughter. It was beyond his understanding. Women were creatures of feeling. Belding saw reason to be delighted to entertain Dick’s family; and for the time being no disturbing thought entered his mind.

Presently the Gales came back into the sitting-room, looking very different without the long gray cloaks and veils. Belding saw distinction and elegance. Mr. Gale seemed a grave, troubled, kindly person, ill in body and mind. Belding received the same impression of power that Ben Chase had given him, only here it was minus any harshness or hard quality. He gathered that Mr. Gale was a man of authority. Mrs. Gale rather frightened Belding, but he could not have told why. The girl was just like Dick as he used to be.

Their manner of speaking also reminded Belding of Dick. They talked of the ride from Ash Fork down to the border, of the ugly and torn-up Casita, of the heat and dust and cactus along the trail. Presently Nell came in, now cool and sweet in white, with a red rose at her breast. Belding had never been so proud of her. He saw that she meant to appear well in the eyes of Dick’s people, and began to have a faint perception of what the ordeal was for her. Belding imagined the sooner the Gales were told that Dick was to marry Nell the better for all concerned, and especially for Nell. In the general conversation that ensued he sought for an opening in which to tell this important news, but he was kept so busy answering questions about his position on the border, the kind of place Forlorn River was, the reason for so many tents, etc., that he was unable to find opportunity.

“It’s very interesting, very interesting,” said Mr. Gale. “At another time I want to learn all you’ll tell me about the West. It’s new to me. I’m surprised, amazed, sir, I may say.... But, Mr. Belding, what I want to know most is about my son. I’m broken in health. I’ve worried myself ill over him. I don’t mind telling you, sir, that we quarreled. I laughed at his threats. He went away. And I’ve come to see that I didn’t know Richard. I was wrong to upbraid him. For a year we’ve known nothing of his doings, and now for almost six months we’ve not heard from him at all. Frankly, Mr. Belding, I weakened first, and I’ve come to hunt him up. My fear is that I didn’t start soon enough. The boy will have a great position some day — God knows, perhaps soon! I should not have allowed him to run over this wild country for so long. But I hoped, though I hardly believed, that he might find himself. Now I’m afraid he’s—”

Mr. Gale paused and the white hand he raised expressively shook a little.

Belding was not so thick-witted where men were concerned. He saw how the matter lay between Dick Gale and his father.

“Well, Mr. Gale, sure most young bucks from the East go to the bad out here,” he said, bluntly.

“I’ve been told that,” replied Mr. Gale; and a shade overspread his worn face.

“They blow their money, then go punching cows, take to whiskey.”

“Yes,” rejoined Mr. Gale, feebly nodding.

“Then they get to gambling, lose their jobs,” went on Belding.

Mr. Gale lifted haggard eyes.

“Then it’s bumming around, regular tramps, and to the bad generally.” Belding spread wide his big arms, and when one of them dropped round Nell, who sat beside him, she squeezed his hand tight. “Sure, it’s the regular thing,” he concluded, cheerfully.

He rather felt a little glee at Mr. Gale’s distress, and Mrs. Gale’s crushed I-told-you-so woe in no wise bothered him; but the look in the big, dark eyes of Dick’s sister was too much for Belding.

He choked off his characteristic oath when excited and blurted out, “Say, but Dick Gale never went to the bad!... Listen!”

Belding had scarcely started Dick Gale’s story when he perceived that never in his life had he such an absorbed and breathless audience. Presently they were awed, and at the conclusion of that story they sat white-faced, still, amazed beyond speech. Dick Gale’s advent in Casita, his rescue of Mercedes, his life as a border ranger certainly lost no picturesque or daring or even noble detail in Belding’s telling. He kept back nothing but the present doubt of Dick’s safety.

Dick’s sister was the first of the three to recover herself.

“Oh, father!” she cried; and there was a glorious light in her eyes. “Deep down in my heart I knew Dick was a man!”

Mr. Gale rose unsteadily from his chair. His frailty was now painfully manifest.

“Mr. Belding, do you mean my son — Richard Gale — has done all that you told us?” he asked, incredulously.

“I sure do,” replied Belding, with hearty good will.

“Martha, do you hear?” Mr. Gale turned to question his wife. She could not answer. Her face had not yet regained its natural color.

“He faced that bandit and his gang alone — he fought them?” demanded Mr. Gale, his voice stronger.

“Dick mopped up the floor with the whole outfit!”

“He rescued a Spanish girl, went into the desert without food, weapons, anything but his hands? Richard Gale, whose hands were always useless?”

Belding nodded with a grin.

“He’s a ranger now — riding, fighting, sleeping on the sand, preparing his own food?”

“Well, I should smile,” rejoined Belding.

“He cares for his horse, with his own hands?” This query seemed to be the climax of Mr. Gale’s strange hunger for truth. He had raised his head a little higher, and his eye was brighter.

Mention of a horse fired Belding’s blood.

“Does Dick Gale care for his horse? Say, there are not many men as well loved as that white horse of Dick’s. Blanco Sol he is, Mr. Gale. That’s Mex for White Sun. Wait till you see Blanco Sol! Bar one, the whitest, biggest, strongest, fastest, grandest horse in the Southwest!”

“So he loves a horse! I shall not know my own son.... Mr. Belding, you say Richard works for you. May I ask, at what salary?”

“He gets forty dollars, board and outfit,” replied Belding, proudly.

“Forty dollars?” echoed the father. “By the day or week?”

“The month, of course,” said Belding, somewhat taken aback.

“Forty dollars a month for a young man who spent five hundred in the same time when he was at college, and who ran it into thousands when he got out!”

Mr. Gale laughed for the first time, and it was the laugh of a man who wanted to believe what he heard yet scarcely dared to do it.

“What does he do with so much money — money earned by peril, toil, sweat, and blood? Forty dollars a month!”

“He saves it,” replied Belding.

Evidently this was too much for Dick Gale’s father, and he gazed at his wife in sheer speechless astonishment. Dick’s sister clapped her hands like a little child.

Belding saw that the moment was propitious.

“Sure he saves it. Dick’s engaged to marry Nell here. My stepdaughter, Nell Burton.”

“Oh-h, Dad!” faltered Nell; and she rose, white as her dress.

How strange it was to see Dick’s mother and sister rise, also, and turn to Nell with dark, proud, searching eyes. Belding vaguely realized some blunder he had made. Nell’s white, appealing face gave him a pang. What had he done? Surely this family of Dick’s ought to know his relation to Nell. There was a silence that positively made Belding nervous.

Then Elsie Gale stepped close to Nell.

“Miss Burton, are you really Richard’s betrothed?”

Nell’s tremulous lips framed an affirmative, but never uttered it. She held out her hand, showing the ring Dick had given her. Miss Gale’s recognition was instant, and her response was warm, sweet, gracious.

“I think I am going to be very, very glad,” she said, and kissed Nell.

“Miss Burton, we are learning wonderful things about Richard,” added Mr. Gale, in an earnest though shaken voice. “If you have had to do with making a man of him — and now I begin to see, to believe so — may God bless you!... My dear girl, I have not really looked at you. Richard’s fiancee!... Mother, we have not found him yet, but I think we’ve found his secret. We believed him a lost son. But here is his sweetheart!”

It was only then that the pride and hauteur of Mrs. Gale’s face broke into an expression of mingled pain and joy. She opened her arms. Nell, uttering a strange little stifled cry, flew into them.

Belding suddenly discovered an unaccountable blur in his sight. He could not see perfectly, and that was why, when Mrs. Belding entered the sitting-room, he was not certain that her face was as sad and white as it seemed.

CHAPTER XV

BOUND IN THE DESERT

FAR AWAY FROM Forlorn River Dick Gale sat stunned, gazing down into the purple depths where Rojas had plunged to his death. The Yaqui stood motionless upon the steep red wall of lava from which he had cut the bandit’s hold. Mercedes lay quietly where she had fallen. From across the depths there came to Gale’s ear the Indian’s strange, wild cry.

Then silence, hollow, breathless, stony silence enveloped the great abyss and its upheaved lava walls. The sun was setting. Every instant the haze reddened and thickened.

Action on the part of the Yaqui loosened the spell which held Gale as motionless as his surroundings. The Indian was edging back toward the ledge. He did not move with his former lithe and sure freedom. He crawled, slipped, dragged himself, rested often, and went on again. He had been wounded. When at last he reached the ledge where Mercedes lay Gale jumped to his feet, strong and thrilling, spurred to meet the responsibility that now rested upon him.

Swiftly he turned to where Thorne lay. The cavalryman was just returning to consciousness. Gale ran for a canteen, bathed his face, made him drink. The look in Thorne’s eyes was hard to bear.

“Thorne! Thorne! it’s all right, it’s all right!” cried Gale, in piercing tones. “Mercedes is safe! Yaqui saved her! Rojas is done for! Yaqui jumped down the wall and drove the bandit off the ledge. Cut him loose from the wall, foot by foot, hand by hand! We’ve won the fight, Thorne.”

For Thorne these were marvelous strength-giving words. The dark horror left his eyes, and they began to dilate, to shine. He stood up, dizzily but unaided, and he gazed across the crater. Yaqui had reached the side of Mercedes, was bending over her. She stirred. Yaqui lifted her to her feet. She appeared weak, unable to stand alone. But she faced across the crater and waved her hand. She was unharmed. Thorne lifted both arms above head, and from his lips issued a cry. It was neither call nor holloa nor welcome nor answer. Like the Yaqui’s, it could scarcely be named. But it was deep, husky, prolonged, terribly human in its intensity. It made Gale shudder and made his heart beat like a trip hammer. Mercedes again waved a white hand. The Yaqui waved, too, and Gale saw in the action an urgent signal.

Hastily taking up canteen and rifles, Gale put a supporting arm around Thorne.

“Come, old man. Can you walk? Sure you can walk! Lean on me, and we’ll soon get out of this. Don’t look across. Look where you step. We’ve not much time before dark. Oh, Thorne, I’m afraid Jim has cashed in! And the last I saw of Laddy he was badly hurt.”

Gale was keyed up to a high pitch of excitement and alertness. He seemed to be able to do many things. But once off the ragged notched lava into the trail he had not such difficulty with Thorne, and could keep his keen gaze shifting everywhere for sight of enemies.

“Listen, Thorne! What’s that?” asked Gale, halting as they came to a place where the trail led down through rough breaks in the lava. The silence was broken by a strange sound, almost unbelieveable considering the time and place. A voice was droning: “Turn the lady, turn! Turn the lady, turn! Alamon left. All swing; turn the lady, turn!”

“Hello, Jim,” called Gale, dragging Thorne round the corner of lava. “Where are you? Oh, you son of a gun! I thought you were dead. Oh, I’m glad to see you! Jim, are you hurt?”

Jim Lash stood in the trail leaning over the butt of his rifle, which evidently he was utilizing as a crutch. He was pale but smiling. His hands were bloody. A scarf had been bound tightly round his left leg just above the knee. The leg hung limp, and the foot dragged.

“I reckon I ain’t injured much,” replied Him. “But my leg hurts like hell, if you want to know.”

“Laddy! Oh, where’s Laddy?”

“He’s just across the crack there. I was trying to get to him. We had it hot an’ heavy down here. Laddy was pretty bad shot up before he tried to head Rojas off the trail.... Dick, did you see the Yaqui go after Rojas?”

“Did I!” exclaimed Gale, grimly.

“The finish was all that saved me from runnin’ loco plumb over the rim. You see I was closer’n you to where Mercedes was hid. When Rojas an’ his last Greaser started across, Laddy went after them, but I couldn’t. Laddy did for Rojas’s man, then went down himself. But he got up an’ fell, got up, went on, an’ fell again. Laddy kept doin’ that till he dropped for good. I reckon our chances are against findin’ him alive.... I tell you, boys, Rojas was hell-bent. An’ Mercedes was game. I saw her shoot him. But mebbe bullets couldn’t stop him then. If I didn’t sweat blood when Mercedes was fightin’ him on the cliff! Then the finish! Only a Yaqui could have done that.... Thorne, you didn’t miss it?”

“Yes, I was down and out,” replied the cavalryman.

“It’s a shame. Greatest stunt I ever seen! Thorne, you’re standin’ up pretty fair. How about you? Dick, is he bad hurt?”

“No, he’s not. A hard knock on the skull and a scalp wound,” replied Dick. “Here, Jim, let me help you over this place.”

Step by step Gale got the two injured men down the uneven declivity and then across the narrow lava bridge over the fissure. Here he bade them rest while he went along the trail on that side to search for Laddy. Gale found the ranger stretched out, face downward, a reddened hand clutching a gun. Gale thought he was dead. Upon examination, however, it was found that Ladd still lived, though he had many wounds. Gale lifted him and carried him back to the others.

“He’s alive, but that’s all,” said Dick, as he laid the ranger down. “Do what you can. Stop the blood. Laddy’s tough as cactus, you know. I’ll hurry back for Mercedes and Yaqui.”

Gale, like a fleet, sure-footed mountain sheep, ran along the trail. When he came across the Mexican, Rojas’s last ally, Gale had evidence of the terrible execution of the .405. He did not pause. On the first part of that descent he made faster time than had Rojas. But he exercised care along the hard, slippery, ragged slope leading to the ledge. Presently he came upon Mercedes and the Yaqui. She ran right into Dick’s arms, and there her strength, if not her courage, broke, and she grew lax.

“Mercedes, you’re safe! Thorne’s safe. It’s all right now.”

“Rojas!” she whispered.

“Gone! To the bottom of the crater! A Yaqui’s vengeance, Mercedes.”

He heard the girl whisper the name of the Virgin. Then he gathered her up in his arms.

“Come, Yaqui.”

The Indian grunted. He had one hand pressed close over a bloody place in his shoulder. Gale looked keenly at him. Yaqui was inscrutable, as of old, yet Gale somehow knew that wound meant little to him. The Indian followed him.

Without pausing, moving slowly in some places, very carefully in others, and swiftly on the smooth part of the trail, Gale carried Mercedes up to the rim and along to the the others. Jim Lash worked awkwardly over Ladd. Thorne was trying to assist. Ladd, himself, was conscious, but he was a pallid, apparently a death-stricken man. The greeting between Mercedes and Thorne was calm — strangely so, it seemed to Gale. But he was calm himself. Ladd smiled at him, and evidently would have spoken had he the power. Yaqui then joined the group, and his piercing eyes roved from one to the other, lingering longest over Ladd.

“Dick, I’m figger’n hard,” said Jim, faintly. “In a minute it ‘ll be up to you an’ Mercedes. I’ve about shot my bolt.... Reckon you’ll do — best by bringin’ up blankets — water — salt — firewood. Laddy’s got — one chance — in a hundred. Fix him up — first. Use hot salt water. If my leg’s broke — set it best you can. That hole in Yaqui — only ‘ll bother him a day. Thorne’s bad hurt... Now rustle — Dick, old — boy.”

Lash’s voice died away in a husky whisper, and he quietly lay back, stretching out all but the crippled leg. Gale examined it, assured himself the bones had not been broken, and then rose ready to go down the trail.

“Mercedes, hold Thorne’s head up, in your lap — so. Now I’ll go.”

On the moment Yaqui appeared to have completed the binding of his wounded shoulder, and he started to follow Gale. He paid no attention to Gale’s order for him to stay back. But he was slow, and gradually Gale forged ahead. The lingering brightness of the sunset lightened the trail, and the descent to the arroyo was swift and easy. Some of the white horses had come in for water. Blanco Sol spied Gale and whistled and came pounding toward him. It was twilight down in the arroyo. Yaqui appeared and began collecting a bundle of mesquite sticks. Gale hastily put together the things he needed; and, packing them all in a tarpaulin, he turned to retrace his steps up the trail.

Darkness was setting in. The trail was narrow, exceedingly steep, and in some places fronted on precipices. Gale’s burden was not very heavy, but its bulk made it unwieldy, and it was always overbalancing him or knocking against the wall side of the trail. Gale found it necessary to wait for Yaqui to take the lead. The Indian’s eyes must have seen as well at night as by day. Gale toiled upward, shouldering, swinging, dragging the big pack; and, though the ascent of the slope was not really long, it seemed endless. At last they reached a level, and were soon on the spot with Mercedes and the injured men.

Gale then set to work. Yaqui’s part was to keep the fire blazing and the water hot, Mercedes’s to help Gale in what way she could. Gale found Ladd had many wounds, yet not one of them was directly in a vital place. Evidently, the ranger had almost bled to death. He remained unconscious through Gale’s operations. According to Jim Lash, Ladd had one chance in a hundred, but Gale considered it one in a thousand. Having done all that was possible for the ranger, Gale slipped blankets under and around him, and then turned his attention to Lash.

Jim came out of his stupor. A mushrooming bullet had torn a great hole in his leg. Gale, upon examination, could not be sure the bones had been missed, but there was no bad break. The application of hot salt water made Jim groan. When he had been bandaged and laid beside Ladd, Gale went on to the cavalryman. Thorne was very weak and scarcely conscious. A furrow had been plowed through his scalp down to the bone. When it had been dressed, Mercedes collapsed. Gale laid her with the three in a row and covered them with blankets and the tarpaulin.

Then Yaqui submitted to examination. A bullet had gone through the Indian’s shoulder. To Gale it appeared serious. Yaqui said it was a flea bite. But he allowed Gale to bandage it, and obeyed when he was told to lie quiet in his blanket beside the fire.

Gale stood guard. He seemed still calm, and wondered at what he considered a strange absence of poignant feeling. If he had felt weariness it was now gone. He coaxed the fire with as little wood as would keep it burning; he sat beside it; he walked to and fro close by; sometimes he stood over the five sleepers, wondering if two of them, at least, would ever awaken.

Time had passed swiftly, but as the necessity for immediate action had gone by, the hours gradually assumed something of their normal length. The night wore on. The air grew colder, the stars brighter, the sky bluer, and, if such could be possible, the silence more intense. The fire burned out, and for lack of wood could not be rekindled. Gale patrolled his short beat, becoming colder and damper as dawn approached. The darkness grew so dense that he could not see the pale faces of the sleepers. He dreaded the gray dawn and the light. Slowly the heavy black belt close to the lava changed to a pale gloom, then to gray, and after that morning came quickly.

The hour had come for Dick Gale to face his great problem. It was natural that he hung back a little at first; natural that when he went forward to look at the quiet sleepers he did so with a grim and stern force urging him. Yaqui stirred, roused, yawned, got up; and, though he did not smile at Gale, a light shone swiftly across his dark face. His shoulder drooped and appeared stiff, otherwise he was himself. Mercedes lay in deep slumber. Thorne had a high fever, and was beginning to show signs of restlessness. Ladd seemed just barely alive. Jim Lash slept as if he was not much the worse for his wound.

Gale rose from his examination with a sharp breaking of his cold mood. While there was life in Thorne and Ladd there was hope for them. Then he faced his problem, and his decision was instant.

He awoke Mercedes. How wondering, wistful, beautiful was that first opening flash of her eyes! Then the dark, troubled thought came. Swiftly she sat up.

“Mercedes — come. Are you all right? Laddy is alive Thorne’s not — not so bad. But we’ve got a job on our hands! You must help me.”

She bent over Thorne and laid her hands on his hot face. Then she rose — a woman such as he had imagined she might be in an hour of trial.

Gale took up Ladd as carefully and gently as possible.

“Mercedes, bring what you can carry and follow me,” he said. Then, motioning for Yaqui to remain there, he turned down the slope with Ladd in his arms.

Neither pausing nor making a misstep nor conscious of great effort, Gale carried the wounded man down into the arroyo. Mercedes kept at his heels, light, supple, lithe as a panther. He left her with Ladd and went back. When he had started off with Thorne in his arms he felt the tax on his strength. Surely and swiftly, however, he bore the cavalryman down the trail to lay him beside Ladd. Again he started back, and when he began to mount the steep lava steps he was hot, wet, breathing hard. As he reached the scene of that night’s camp a voice greeted him. Jim Lash was sitting up.

“Hello, Dick. I woke some late this mornin’. Where’s Laddy? Dick, you ain’t a-goin’ to say—”

“Laddy’s alive — that’s about all,” replied Dick.

“Where’s Thorne an’ Mercedes? Look here, man. I reckon you ain’t packin’ this crippled outfit down that awful trail?”

“Had to, Jim. An hour’s sun — would kill — both Laddy and Thorne. Come on now.”

For once Jim Lash’s cool good nature and careless indifference gave precedence to amaze and concern.

“Always knew you was a husky chap. But, Dick, you’re no hoss! Get me a crutch an’ give me a lift on one side.”

“Come on,” replied Gale. “I’ve no time to monkey.”

He lifted the ranger, called to Yaqui to follow with some of the camp outfit, and once more essayed the steep descent. Jim Lash was the heaviest man of the three, and Gale’s strength was put to enormous strain to carry him on that broken trail. Nevertheless, Gale went down, down, walking swiftly and surely over the bad places; and at last he staggered into the arroyo with bursting heart and red-blinded eyes. When he had recovered he made a final trip up the slope for the camp effects which Yaqui had been unable to carry.

Then he drew Jim and Mercedes and Yaqui, also, into an earnest discussion of ways and means whereby to fight for the life of Thorne. Ladd’s case Gale now considered hopeless, though he meant to fight for him, too, as long as he breathed.

In the labor of watching and nursing it seemed to Gale that two days and two nights slipped by like a few hours. During that time the Indian recovered from his injury, and became capable of performing all except heavy tasks. Then Gale succumbed to weariness. After his much-needed rest he relieved Mercedes of the care and watch over Thorne which, up to that time, she had absolutely refused to relinquish. The cavalryman had high fever, and Gale feared he had developed blood poisoning. He required constant attention. His condition slowly grew worse, and there came a day which Gale thought surely was the end. But that day passed, and the night, and the next day, and Thorne lived on, ghastly, stricken, raving. Mercedes hung over him with jealous, passionate care and did all that could have been humanly done for a man. She grew wan, absorbed, silent. But suddenly, and to Gale’s amaze and thanksgiving, there came an abatement of Thorne’s fever. With it some of the heat and redness of the inflamed wound disappeared. Next morning he was conscious, and Gale grasped some of the hope that Mercedes had never abandoned. He forced her to rest while he attended to Thorne. That day he saw that the crisis was past. Recovery for Thorne was now possible, and would perhaps depend entirely upon the care he received.

Jim Lash’s wound healed without any aggravating symptoms. It would be only a matter of time until he had the use of his leg again. All these days, however, there was little apparent change in Ladd’s condition unless it was that he seemed to fade away as he lingered. At first his wounds remained open; they bled a little all the time outwardly, perhaps internally also; the blood did not seem to clot, and so the bullet holes did not close. Then Yaqui asked for the care of Ladd. Gale yielded it with opposing thoughts — that Ladd would waste slowly away till life ceased, and that there never was any telling what might lie in the power of this strange Indian. Yaqui absented himself from camp for a while, and when he returned he carried the roots and leaves of desert plants unknown to Gale. From these the Indian brewed an ointment. Then he stripped the bandages from Ladd and applied the mixture to his wounds. That done, he let him lie with the wounds exposed to the air, at night covering him. Next day he again exposed the wounds to the warm, dry air. Slowly they closed, and Ladd ceased to bleed externally.

Days passed and grew into what Gale imagined must have been weeks. Yaqui recovered fully. Jim Lash began to move about on a crutch; he shared the Indian’s watch over Ladd. Thorne lay haggard, emaciated ghost of his rugged self, but with life in the eyes that turned always toward Mercedes. Ladd lingered and lingered. The life seemingly would not leave his bullet-pierced body. He faded, withered, shrunk till he was almost a skeleton. He knew those who worked and watched over him, but he had no power of speech. His eyes and eyelids moved; the rest of him seemed stone. All those days nothing except water was given him. It was marvelous how tenaciously, however feebly, he clung to life. Gale imagined it was the Yaqui’s spirit that held back death. That tireless, implacable, inscrutable savage was ever at the ranger’s side. His great somber eyes burned. At length he went to Gale, and, with that strange light flitting across the hard bronzed face, he said Ladd would live.

The second day after Ladd had been given such thin nourishment as he could swallow he recovered the use of his tongue.

“Shore — this’s — hell,” he whispered.

That was a characteristic speech for the ranger, Gale thought; and indeed it made all who heard it smile while their eyes were wet.

From that time forward Ladd gained, but he gained so immeasurably slowly that only the eyes of hope could have seen any improvement. Jim Lash threw away his crutch, and Thorne was well, if still somewhat weak, before Ladd could lift his arm or turn his head. A kind of long, immovable gloom passed, like a shadow, from his face. His whispers grew stronger. And the day arrived when Gale, who was perhaps the least optimistic, threw doubt to the winds and knew the ranger would get well. For Gale that joyous moment of realization was one in which he seemed to return to a former self long absent. He experienced an elevation of soul. He was suddenly overwhelmed with gratefulness, humility, awe. A gloomy black terror had passed by. He wanted to thank the faithful Mercedes, and Thorne for getting well, and the cheerful Lash, and Ladd himself, and that strange and wonderful Yaqui, now such a splendid figure. He thought of home and Nell. The terrible encompassing red slopes lost something of their fearsomeness, and there was a good spirit hovering near.

“Boys, come round,” called Ladd, in his low voice. “An’ you, Mercedes. An’ call the Yaqui.”

Ladd lay in the shade of the brush shelter that had been erected. His head was raised slightly on a pillow. There seemed little of him but long lean lines, and if it had not been for his keen, thoughtful, kindly eyes, his face would have resembled a death mask of a man starved.

“Shore I want to know what day is it an’ what month?” asked Ladd.

Nobody could answer him. The question seemed a surprise to Gale, and evidently was so to the others.

“Look at that cactus,” went on Ladd.

Near the wall of lava a stunted saguaro lifted its head. A few shriveled blossoms that had once been white hung along the fluted column.

“I reckon according to that giant cactus it’s somewheres along the end of March,” said Jim Lash, soberly.

“Shore it’s April. Look where the sun is. An’ can’t you feel it’s gettin’ hot?”

“Supposin’ it is April?” queried Lash slowly.

“Well, what I’m drivin’ at is it’s about time you all was hittin’ the trail back to Forlorn River, before the waterholes dry out.”

“Laddy, I reckon we’ll start soon as you’re able to be put on a hoss.”

“Shore that ‘ll be too late.”

A silence ensued, in which those who heard Ladd gazed fixedly at him and then at one another. Lash uneasily shifted the position of his lame leg, and Gale saw him moisten his lips with his tongue.

“Charlie Ladd, I ain’t reckonin’ you mean we’re to ride off an’ leave you here?”

“What else is there to do? The hot weather’s close. Pretty soon most of the waterholes will be dry. You can’t travel then.... I’m on my back here, an’ God only knows when I could be packed out. Not for weeks, mebbe. I’ll never be any good again, even if I was to get out alive.... You see, shore this sort of case comes round sometimes in the desert. It’s common enough. I’ve heard of several cases where men had to go an’ leave a feller behind. It’s reasonable. If you’re fightin’ the desert you can’t afford to be sentimental... Now, as I said, I’m all in. So what’s the sense of you waitin’ here, when it means the old desert story? By goin’ now mebbe you’ll get home. If you wait on a chance of takin’ me, you’ll be too late. Pretty soon this lava ‘ll be one roastin’ hell. Shore now, boys, you’ll see this the right way? Jim, old pard?”

“No, Laddy, an’ I can’t figger how you could ever ask me.”

“Shore then leave me here with Yaqui an’ a couple of the hosses. We can eat sheep meat. An’ if the water holds out—”

“No!” interrupted Lash, violently.

Ladd’s eyes sought Gale’s face.

“Son, you ain’t bull-headed like Jim. You’ll see the sense of it. There’s Nell a-waitin’ back at Forlorn River. Think what it means to her! She’s a damn fine girl, Dick, an’ what right have you to break her heart for an old worn-out cowpuncher? Think how she’s watchin’ for you with that sweet face all sad an’ troubled, an’ her eyes turnin’ black. You’ll go, son, won’t you?”

Dick shook his head.

The ranger turned his gaze upon Thorne, and now the keen, glistening light in his gray eyes had blurred.

“Thorne, it’s different with you. Jim’s a fool, an’ young Gale has been punctured by choya thorns. He’s got the desert poison in his blood. But you now — you’ve no call to stick — you can find that trail out. It’s easy to follow, made by so many shod hosses. Take your wife an’ go.... Shore you’ll go, Thorne?”

Deliberately and without an instant’s hesitation the cavalryman replied “No.”

Ladd then directed his appeal to Mercedes. His face was now convulsed, and his voice, though it had sunk to a whisper, was clear, and beautiful with some rich quality that Gale had never heard in it.

“Mercedes, you’re a woman. You’re the woman we fought for. An’ some of us are shore goin’ to die for you. Don’t make it all for nothin’. Let us feel we saved the woman. Shore you can make Thorne go. He’ll have to go if you say. They’ll all have to go. Think of the years of love an’ happiness in store for you. A week or so an’ it ‘ll be too late. Can you stand for me seein’ you?... Let me tell you, Mercedes, when the summer heat hits the lava we’ll all wither an’ curl up like shavin’s near a fire. A wind of hell will blow up this slope. Look at them mesquites. See the twist in them. That’s the torture of heat an’ thirst. Do you want me or all us men seein’ you like that?... Mercedes, don’t make it all for nothin’. Say you’ll persuade Thorne, if not the others.”

For all the effect his appeal had to move her Mercedes might have possessed a heart as hard and fixed as the surrounding lava.

“Never!”

White-faced, with great black eyes flashing, the Spanish girl spoke the word that bound her and her companions in the desert.

The subject was never mentioned again. Gale thought that he read a sinister purpose in Ladd’s mind. To his astonishment, Lash came to him with the same fancy. After that they made certain there never was a gun within reach of Ladd’s clutching, clawlike hands.

Gradually a somber spell lifted from the ranger’s mind. When he was entirely free of it he began to gather strength daily. Then it was as if he had never known patience — he who had shown so well how to wait. He was in a frenzy to get well. He appetite could not be satisfied.

The sun climbed higher, whiter, hotter. At midday a wind from gulfward roared up the arroyo, and now only palos verdes and the few saguaros were green. Every day the water in the lava hole sank an inch.

The Yaqui alone spent the waiting time in activity. He made trips up on the lava slope, and each time he returned with guns or boots or sombreros, or something belonging to the bandits that had fallen. He never fetched in a saddle or bridle, and from that the rangers concluded Rojas’s horses had long before taken their back trail. What speculation, what consternation those saddled horses would cause if they returned to Forlorn River!

As Ladd improved there was one story he had to hear every day. It was the one relating to what he had missed — the sight of Rojas pursued and plunged to his doom. The thing had a morbid fascination for the sick ranger. He reveled in it. He tortured Mercedes. His gentleness and consideration, heretofore so marked, were in abeyance to some sinister, ghastly joy. But to humor him Mercedes racked her soul with the sensations she had suffered when Rojas hounded her out on the ledge; when she shot him; when she sprang to throw herself over the precipice; when she fought him; when with half-blinded eyes she looked up to see the merciless Yaqui reaching for the bandit. Ladd fed his cruel longing with Thorne’s poignant recollections, with the keen, clear, never-to-be-forgotten shocks to Gale’s eye and ear. Jim Lash, for one at least, never tired of telling how he had seen and heard the tragedy, and every time in the telling it gathered some more tragic and gruesome detail. Jim believed in satiating the ranger. Then in the twilight, when the campfire burned, Ladd would try to get the Yaqui to tell his side of the story. But this the Indian would never do. There was only the expression of his fathomless eyes and the set passion of his massive face.

Those waiting days grew into weeks. Ladd gained very slowly. Nevertheless, at last he could walk about, and soon he averred that, strapped to a horse, he could last out the trip to Forlorn River.

There was rejoicing in camp, and plans were eagerly suggested. The Yaqui happened to be absent. When he returned the rangers told him they were now ready to undertake the journey back across lava and cactus.

Yaqui shook his head. They declared again their intention.

“No!” replied the Indian, and his deep, sonorous voice rolled out upon the quiet of the arroyo. He spoke briefly then. They had waited too long. The smaller waterholes back in the trail were dry. The hot summer was upon them. There could be only death waiting down in the burning valley. Here was water and grass and wood and shade from the sun’s rays, and sheep to be killed on the peaks. The water would hold unless the season was that dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans.

“Wait for rain,” concluded Yaqui, and now as never before he spoke as one with authority. “If no rain—” Silently he lifted his hand.

CHAPTER XVI

MOUNTAIN SHEEP

WHAT GALE MIGHT have thought an appalling situation, if considered from a safe and comfortable home away from the desert, became, now that he was shut in by the red-ribbed lava walls and great dry wastes, a matter calmly accepted as inevitable. So he imagined it was accepted by the others. Not even Mercedes uttered a regret. No word was spoken of home. If there was thought of loved one, it was locked deep in their minds. In Mercedes there was no change in womanly quality, perhaps because all she had to love was there in the desert with her.

Gale had often pondered over this singular change in character. He had trained himself, in order to fight a paralyzing something in the desert’s influence, to oppose with memory and thought an insidious primitive retrogression to what was scarcely consciousness at all, merely a savage’s instinct of sight and sound. He felt the need now of redoubled effort. For there was a sheer happiness in drifting. Not only was it easy to forget, it was hard to remember. His idea was that a man laboring under a great wrong, a great crime, a great passion might find the lonely desert a fitting place for either remembrance or oblivion, according to the nature of his soul. But an ordinary, healthy, reasonably happy mortal who loved the open with its blaze of sun and sweep of wind would have a task to keep from going backward to the natural man as he was before civilization.

By tacit agreement Ladd again became the leader of the party. Ladd was a man who would have taken all the responsibility whether or not it was given him. In moments of hazard, of uncertainty, Lash and Gale, even Belding, unconsciously looked to the ranger. He had that kind of power.

The first thing Ladd asked was to have the store of food that remained spread out upon a tarpaulin. Assuredly, it was a slender enough supply. The ranger stood for long moments gazing down at it. He was groping among past experiences, calling back from his years of life on range and desert that which might be valuable for the present issue. It was impossible to read the gravity of Ladd’s face, for he still looked like a dead man, but the slow shake of his head told Gale much. There was a grain of hope, however, in the significance with which he touched the bags of salt and said, “Shore it was sense packin’ all that salt!”

Then he turned to face his comrades.

“That’s little grub for six starvin’ people corralled in the desert. But the grub end ain’t worryin’ me. Yaqui can get sheep up the slopes. Water! That’s the beginnin’ and middle an’ end of our case.”

“Laddy, I reckon the waterhole here never goes dry,” replied Jim.

“Ask the Indian.”

Upon being questioned, Yaqui repeated what he had said about the dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans. In a dry year this waterhole failed.

“Dick, take a rope an’ see how much water’s in the hole.”

Gale could not find bottom with a thirty foot lasso. The water was as cool, clear, sweet as if it had been kept in a shaded iron receptacle.

Ladd welcomed this information with surprise and gladness.

“Let’s see. Last year was shore pretty dry. Mebbe this summer won’t be. Mebbe our wonderful good luck’ll hold. Ask Yaqui if he thinks it ‘ll rain.”

Mercedes questioned the Indian.

“He says no man can tell surely. But he thinks the rain will come,” she replied.

“Shore it ‘ll rain, you can gamble on that now,” continued Ladd. “If there’s only grass for the hosses! We can’t get out of here without hosses. Dick, take the Indian an’ scout down the arroyo. To-day I seen the hosses were gettin’ fat. Gettin’ fat in this desert! But mebbe they’ve about grazed up all the grass. Go an’ see, Dick. An’ may you come back with more good news!”

Gale, upon the few occasions when he had wandered down the arroyo, had never gone far. The Yaqui said there was grass for the horses, and until now no one had given the question more consideration. Gale found that the arroyo widened as it opened. Near the head, where it was narrow, the grass lined the course of the dry stream bed. But farther down this stream bed spread out. There was every indication that at flood seasons the water covered the floor of the arroyo. The farther Gale went the thicker and larger grew the gnarled mesquites and palo verdes, the more cactus and greasewood there were, and other desert growths. Patches of gray grass grew everywhere. Gale began to wonder where the horses were. Finally the trees and brush thinned out, and a mile-wide gray plain stretched down to reddish sand dunes. Over to one side were the white horses, and even as Gale saw them both Blanco Diablo and Sol lifted their heads and, with white manes tossing in the wind, whistled clarion calls. Here was grass enough for many horses; the arroyo was indeed an oasis.

Ladd and the others were awaiting Gale’s report, and they received it with calmness, yet with a joy no less evident because it was restrained. Gale, in his keen observation at the moment, found that he and his comrades turned with glad eyes to the woman of the party.

“Senor Laddy, you think — you believe — we shall—” she faltered, and her voice failed. It was the woman in her, weakening in the light of real hope, of the happiness now possible beyond that desert barrier.

“Mercedes, no white man can tell what’ll come to pass out here,” said Ladd, earnestly. “Shore I have hopes now I never dreamed of. I was pretty near a dead man. The Indian saved me. Queer notions have come into my head about Yaqui. I don’t understand them. He seems when you look at him only a squalid, sullen, vengeful savage. But Lord! that’s far from the truth. Mebbe Yaqui’s different from most Indians. He looks the same, though. Mebbe the trouble is we white folks never knew the Indian. Anyway, Beldin’ had it right. Yaqui’s our godsend. Now as to the future, I’d like to know mebbe as well as you if we’re ever to get home. Only bein’ what I am, I say, Quien sabe? But somethin’ tells me Yaqui knows. Ask him, Mercedes. Make him tell. We’ll all be the better for knowin’. We’d be stronger for havin’ more’n our faith in him. He’s silent Indian, but make him tell.”

Mercedes called to Yaqui. At her bidding there was always a suggestion of hurry, which otherwise was never manifest in his actions. She put a hand on his bared muscular arm and began to speak in Spanish. Her voice was low, swift, full of deep emotion, sweet as the sound of a bell. It thrilled Gale, though he understood scarcely a word she said. He did not need translation to know that here spoke the longing of a woman for life, love, home, the heritage of a woman’s heart.

Gale doubted his own divining impression. It was that the Yaqui understood this woman’s longing. In Gale’s sight the Indian’s stoicism, his inscrutability, the lavalike hardness of his face, although they did not change, seemed to give forth light, gentleness, loyalty. For an instant Gale seemed to have a vision; but it did not last, and he failed to hold some beautiful illusive thing.

“Si!” rolled out the Indian’s reply, full of power and depth.

Mercedes drew a long breath, and her hand sought Thorne’s.

“He says yes,” she whispered. “He answers he’ll save us; he’ll take us all back — he knows!”

The Indian turned away to his tasks, and the silence that held the little group was finally broken by Ladd.

“Shore I said so. Now all we’ve got to do is use sense. Friends, I’m the commissary department of this outfit, an’ what I say goes. You all won’t eat except when I tell you. Mebbe it’ll not be so hard to keep our health. Starved beggars don’t get sick. But there’s the heat comin’, an’ we can all go loco, you know. To pass the time! Lord, that’s our problem. Now if you all only had a hankerin’ for checkers. Shore I’ll make a board an’ make you play. Thorne, you’re the luckiest. You’ve got your girl, an’ this can be a honeymoon. Now with a few tools an’ little material see what a grand house you can build for your wife. Dick, you’re lucky, too. You like to hunt, an’ up there you’ll find the finest bighorn huntin’ in the West. Take Yaqui and the .405. We need the meat, but while you’re gettin’ it have your sport. The same chance will never come again. I wish we all was able to go. But crippled men can’t climb the lava. Shore you’ll see some country from the peaks. There’s no wilder place on earth, except the poles. An’ when you’re older, you an’ Nell, with a couple of fine boys, think what it’ll be to tell them about bein’ lost in the lava, an’ huntin’ sheep with a Yaqui. Shore I’ve hit it. You can take yours out in huntin’ an’ thinkin’. Now if I had a girl like Nell I’d never go crazy. That’s your game, Dick. Hunt, an’ think of Nell, an’ how you’ll tell those fine boys about it all, an’ about the old cowman you knowed, Laddy, who’ll by then be long past the divide. Rustle now, son. Get some enthusiasm. For shore you’ll need it for yourself an’ us.”

Gale climbed the lava slope, away round to the right of the arroyo, along an old trail that Yaqui said the Papagos had made before his own people had hunted there. Part way it led through spiked, crested, upheaved lava that would have been almost impassable even without its silver coating of choya cactus. There were benches and ledges and ridges bare and glistening in the sun. From the crests of these Yaqui’s searching falcon gaze roved near and far for signs of sheep, and Gale used his glass on the reaches of lava that slanted steeply upward to the corrugated peaks, and down over endless heave and roll and red-waved slopes. The heat smoked up from the lava, and this, with the red color and the shiny choyas, gave the impression of a world of smoldering fire.

Farther along the slope Yaqui halted and crawled behind projections to a point commanding a view over an extraordinary section of country. The peaks were off to the left. In the foreground were gullies, ridges, and canyons, arroyos, all glistening with choyas and some other and more numerous white bushes, and here and there towered a green cactus. This region was only a splintered and more devastated part of the volcanic slope, but it was miles in extent. Yaqui peeped over the top of a blunt block of lava and searched the sharp-billowed wilderness. Suddenly he grasped Gale and pointed across a deep wide gully.

With the aid of his glass Gale saw five sheep. They were much larger than he had expected, dull brown in color, and two of them were rams with great curved horns. They were looking in his direction. Remembering what he had heard about the wonderful eyesight of these mountain animals, Gale could only conclude that they had seen the hunters.

Then Yaqui’s movements attracted and interested him. The Indian had brought with him a red scarf and a mesquite branch. He tied the scarf to the stick, and propped this up in a crack of the lava. The scarf waved in the wind. That done, the Indian bade Gale watch.

Once again he leveled the glass at the sheep. All five were motionless, standing like statues, heads pointed across the gully. They were more than a mile distant. When Gale looked without his glass they merged into the roughness of the lava. He was intensely interested. Did the sheep see the red scarf? It seemed incredible, but nothing else could account for that statuesque alertness. The sheep held this rigid position for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then the leading ram started to approach. The others followed. He took a few steps, then halted. Always he held his head up, nose pointed.

“By George, they’re coming!” exclaimed Gale. “They see that flag. They’re hunting us. They’re curious. If this doesn’t beat me!”

Evidently the Indian understood, for he grunted.

Gale found difficulty in curbing his impatience. The approach of the sheep was slow. The advances of the leader and the intervals of watching had a singular regularity. He worked like a machine. Gale followed him down the opposite wall, around holes, across gullies, over ridges. Then Gale shifted the glass back to find the others. They were coming also, with exactly the same pace and pause of their leader. What steppers they were! How sure-footed! What leaps they made! It was thrilling to watch them. Gale forgot he had a rifle. The Yaqui pressed a heavy hand down upon his shoulder. He was to keep well hidden and to be quiet. Gale suddenly conceived the idea that the sheep might come clear across to investigate the puzzling red thing fluttering in the breeze. Strange, indeed, would that be for the wildest creatures in the world.

The big ram led on with the same regular persistence, and in half an hour’s time he was in the bottom of the great gulf, and soon he was facing up the slope. Gale knew then that the alluring scarf had fascinated him. It was no longer necessary now for Gale to use his glass. There was a short period when an intervening crest of lava hid the sheep from view. After that the two rams and their smaller followers were plainly in sight for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Then they disappeared behind another ridge. Gale kept watching sure they would come out farther on. A tense period of waiting passed, then a suddenly electrifying pressure of Yaqui’s hand made Gale tremble with excitement.

Very cautiously he shifted his position. There, not fifty feet distant upon a high mound of lava, stood the leader of the sheep. His size astounded Gale. He seemed all horns. But only for a moment did the impression of horns overbalancing body remain with Gale. The sheep was graceful, sinewy, slender, powerfully built, and in poise magnificent. As Gale watched, spellbound, the second ram leaped lightly upon the mound, and presently the three others did likewise.

Then, indeed, Gale feasted his eyes with a spectacle for a hunter. It came to him suddenly that there had been something he expected to see in this Rocky Mountain bighorn, and it was lacking. They were beautiful, as wonderful as even Ladd’s encomiums had led him to suppose. He thought perhaps it was the contrast these soft, sleek, short-furred, graceful animals afforded to what he imagined the barren, terrible lava mountains might develop.

The splendid leader stepped closer, his round, protruding amber eyes, which Gale could now plainly see, intent upon that fatal red flag. Like automatons the other four crowded into his tracks. A few little slow steps, then the leader halted.

At this instant Gale’s absorbed attention was directed by Yaqui to the rifle, and so to the purpose of the climb. A little cold shock affronted Gale’s vivid pleasure. With it dawned a realization of what he had imagined was lacking in these animals. They did not look wild! The so-called wildest of wild creatures appeared tamer than sheep he had followed on a farm. It would be little less than murder to kill them. Gale regretted the need of slaughter. Nevertheless, he could not resist the desire to show himself and see how tame they really were.

He reached for the .405, and as he threw a shell into the chamber the slight metallic click made the sheep jump. Then Gale rose quickly to his feet.

The noble ram and his band simply stared at Gale. They had never seen a man. They showed not the slightest indication of instinctive fear. Curiosity, surprise, even friendliness, seemed to mark their attitude of attention. Gale imagined that they were going to step still closer. He did not choose to wait to see if this were true. Certainly it already took a grim resolution to raise the heavy .405.

His shot killed the big leader. The others bounded away with remarkable nimbleness. Gale used up the remaining four shells to drop the second ram, and by the time he had reloaded the others were out of range.

The Yaqui’s method of hunting was sure and deadly and saving of energy, but Gale never would try it again. He chose to stalk the game. This entailed a great expenditure of strength, the eyes and lungs of a mountaineer, and, as Gale put it to Ladd, the need of seven-league boots. After being hunted a few times and shot at, the sheep became exceedingly difficult to approach. Gale learned to know that their fame as the keenest-eyed of all animals was well founded. If he worked directly toward a flock, crawling over the sharp lava, always a sentinel ram espied him before he got within range. The only method of attack that he found successful was to locate sheep with his glass, work round to windward of them, and then, getting behind a ridge or buttress, crawl like a lizard to a vantage point. He failed often. The stalk called forth all that was in him of endurance, cunning, speed. As the days grew hotter he hunted in the early morning hours and a while before the sun went down. More than one night he lay out on the lava, with the great stars close overhead and the immense void all beneath him. This pursuit he learned to love. Upon those scarred and blasted slopes the wild spirit that was in him had free rein. And like a shadow the faithful Yaqui tried ever to keep at his heels.

One morning the rising sun greeted him as he surmounted the higher cone of the volcano. He saw the vastness of the east aglow with a glazed rosy whiteness, like the changing hue of an ember. At this height there was a sweeping wind, still cool. The western slopes of lava lay dark, and all that world of sand and gulf and mountain barrier beyond was shrouded in the mystic cloud of distance. Gale had assimilated much of the loneliness and the sense of ownership and the love of lofty heights that might well belong to the great condor of the peak. Like this wide-winged bird, he had an unparalleled range of vision. The very corners whence came the winds seemed pierced by Gale’s eyes.

Yaqui spied a flock of sheep far under the curved broken rim of the main crater. Then began the stalk. Gale had taught the Yaqui something — that speed might win as well as patient cunning. Keeping out of sight, Gale ran over the spike-crusted lava, leaving the Indian far behind. His feet were magnets, attracting supporting holds and he passed over them too fast to fall. The wind, the keen air of the heights, the red lava, the boundless surrounding blue, all seemed to have something to do with his wildness. Then, hiding, slipping, creeping, crawling, he closed in upon his quarry until the long rifle grew like stone in his grip, and the whipping “spang” ripped the silence, and the strange echo boomed deep in the crater, and rolled around, as if in hollow mockery at the hopelessness of escape.

Gale’s exultant yell was given as much to free himself of some bursting joy of action as it was to call the slower Yaqui. Then he liked the strange echoes. It was a maddening whirl of sound that bored deeper and deeper along the whorled and caverned walls of the crater. It was as if these aged walls resented the violating of their silent sanctity. Gale felt himself a man, a thing alive, something superior to all this savage, dead, upflung world of iron, a master even of all this grandeur and sublimity because he had a soul.

He waited beside his quarry, and breathed deep, and swept the long slopes with searching eyes of habit.

When Yaqui came up they set about the hardest task of all, to pack the best of that heavy sheep down miles of steep, ragged, choya-covered lava. But even in this Gale rejoiced. The heat was nothing, the millions of little pits which could hold and twist a foot were nothing; the blade-edged crusts and the deep fissures and the choked canyons and the tangled, dwarfed mesquites, all these were as nothing but obstacles to be cheerfully overcome. Only the choya hindered Dick Gale.

When his heavy burden pulled him out of sure-footedness, and he plunged into a choya, or when the strange, deceitful, uncanny, almost invisible frosty thorns caught and pierced him, then there was call for all of fortitude and endurance. For this cactus had a malignant power of torture. Its pain was a stinging, blinding, burning, sickening poison in the blood. If thorns pierced his legs he felt the pain all over his body; if his hands rose from a fall full of the barbed joints, he was helpless and quivering till Yaqui tore them out.

But this one peril, dreaded more than dizzy height of precipice or sunblindness on the glistening peak, did not daunt Gale. His teacher was the Yaqui, and always before him was an example that made him despair of a white man’s equality. Color, race, blood, breeding — what were these in the wilderness? Verily, Dick Gale had come to learn the use of his hands.

So in a descent of hours he toiled down the lava slope, to stalk into the arroyo like a burdened giant, wringing wet, panting, clear-eyed and dark-faced, his ragged clothes and boots white with choya thorns.

The gaunt Ladd rose from his shaded seat, and removed his pipe from smiling lips, and turned to nod at Jim, and then looked back again.

The torrid summer heat came imperceptibly, or it could never have been borne by white men. It changed the lives of the fugitives, making them partly nocturnal in habit. The nights had the balmy coolness of spring, and would have been delightful for sleep, but that would have made the blazing days unendurable.

The sun rose in a vast white flame. With it came the blasting, withering wind from the gulf. A red haze, like that of earlier sunsets, seemed to come sweeping on the wind, and it roared up the arroyo, and went bellowing into the crater, and rushed on in fury to lash the peaks.

During these hot, windy hours the desert-bound party slept in deep recesses in the lava; and if necessity brought them forth they could not remain out long. The sand burned through boots, and a touch of bare hand on lava raised a blister.

A short while before sundown the Yaqui went forth to build a campfire, and soon the others came out, heat-dazed, half blinded, with parching throats to allay and hunger that was never satisfied. A little action and a cooling of the air revived them, and when night set in they were comfortable round the campfire.

As Ladd had said, one of their greatest problems was the passing of time. The nights were interminably long, but they had to be passed in work or play or dream — anything except sleep. That was Ladd’s most inflexible command. He gave no reason. But not improbably the ranger thought that the terrific heat of the day spend in slumber lessened a wear and strain, if not a real danger of madness.

Accordingly, at first the occupations of this little group were many and various. They worked if they had something to do, or could invent a pretext. They told and retold stories until all were wearisome. They sang songs. Mercedes taught Spanish. They played every game they knew. They invented others that were so trivial children would scarcely have been interested, and these they played seriously. In a word, with intelligence and passion, with all that was civilized and human, they fought the ever-infringing loneliness, the savage solitude of their environment.

But they had only finite minds. It was not in reason to expect a complete victory against this mighty Nature, this bounding horizon of death and desolation and decay. Gradually they fell back upon fewer and fewer occupations, until the time came when the silence was hard to break.

Gale believed himself the keenest of the party, the one who thought most, and he watched the effect of the desert upon his companions. He imagined that he saw Ladd grow old sitting round the campfire. Certain it was that the ranger’s gray hair had turned white. What had been at times hard and cold and grim about him had strangely vanished in sweet temper and a vacant-mindedness that held him longer as the days passed. For hours, it seemed, Ladd would bend over his checkerboard and never make a move. It mattered not now whether or not he had a partner. He was always glad of being spoken to, as if he were called back from vague region of mind. Jim Lash, the calmest, coolest, most nonchalant, best-humored Westerner Gale had ever met, had by slow degrees lost that cheerful character which would have been of such infinite good to his companions, and always he sat brooding, silently brooding. Jim had no ties, few memories, and the desert was claiming him.

Thorne and Mercedes, however, were living, wonderful proof that spirit, mind, and heart were free — free to soar in scorn of the colossal barrenness and silence and space of that terrible hedging prison of lava. They were young; they loved; they were together; and the oasis was almost a paradise. Gale believe he helped himself by watching them. Imagination had never pictured real happiness to him. Thorne and Mercedes had forgotten the outside world. If they had been existing on the burned-out desolate moon they could hardly have been in a harsher, grimmer, lonelier spot than this red-walled arroyo. But it might have been a statelier Eden than that of the primitive day.

Mercedes grew thinner, until she was a slender shadow of her former self. She became hard, brown as the rangers, lithe and quick as a panther. She seemed to live on water and the air — perhaps, indeed, on love. For of the scant fare, the best of which was continually urged upon her, she partook but little. She reminded Gale of a wild brown creature, free as the wind on the lava slopes. Yet, despite the great change, her beauty remained undiminished. Her eyes, seeming so much larger now in her small face, were great black, starry gulfs. She was the life of that camp. Her smiles, her rapid speech, her low laughter, her quick movements, her playful moods with the rangers, the dark and passionate glance, which rested so often on her lover, the whispers in the dusk as hand in hand they paced the campfire beat — these helped Gale to retain his loosening hold on reality, to resist the lure of a strange beckoning life where a man stood free in the golden open, where emotion was not, nor trouble, nor sickness, nor anything but the savage’s rest and sleep and action and dream.

Although the Yaqui was as his shadow, Gale reached a point when he seemed to wander alone at twilight, in the night, at dawn. Far down the arroyo, in the deepening red twilight, when the heat rolled away on slow-dying wind, Blanco Sol raised his splendid head and whistled for his master. Gale reproached himself for neglect of the noble horse. Blanco Sol was always the same. He loved four things — his master, a long drink of cool water, to graze at will, and to run. Time and place, Gale thought, meant little to Sol if he could have those four things. Gale put his arm over the great arched neck and laid his cheek against the long white mane, and then even as he stood there forgot the horse. What was the dull, red-tinged, horizon-wide mantle creeping up the slope? Through it the copper sun glowed, paled, died. Was it only twilight? Was it gloom? If he thought about it he had a feeling that it was the herald of night and the night must be a vigil, and that made him tremble.

At night he had formed a habit of climbing up the lava slope as far as the smooth trail extended, and there on a promontory he paced to and fro, and watched the stars, and sat stone-still for hours looking down at the vast void with its moving, changing shadows. From that promontory he gazed up at a velvet-blue sky, deep and dark, bright with millions of cold, distant, blinking stars, and he grasped a little of the meaning of infinitude. He gazed down into the shadows, which, black as they were and impenetrable, yet have a conception of immeasurable space.

Then the silence! He was dumb, he was awed, he bowed his head, he trembled, he marveled at the desert silence. It was the one thing always present. Even when the wind roared there seemed to be silence. But at night, in this lava world of ashes and canker, he waited for this terrible strangeness of nature to come to him with the secret. He seemed at once a little child and a strong man, and something very old. What tortured him was the incomprehensibility that the vaster the space the greater the silence! At one moment Gale felt there was only death here, and that was the secret; at another he heard the slow beat of a mighty heart.

He came at length to realize that the desert was a teacher. He did not realize all that he had learned, but he was a different man. And when he decided upon that, he was not thinking of the slow, sure call to the primal instincts of man; he was thinking that the desert, as much as he had experienced and no more, would absolutely overturn the whole scale of a man’s values, break old habits, form new ones, remake him. More of desert experience, Gale believe, would be too much for intellect. The desert did not breed civilized man, and that made Gale ponder over a strange thought: after all, was the civilized man inferior to the savage?

Yaqui was the answer to that. When Gale acknowledged this he always remembered his present strange manner of thought. The past, the old order of mind, seemed as remote as this desert world was from the haunts of civilized men. A man must know a savage as Gale knew Yaqui before he could speak authoritatively, and then something stilled his tongue. In the first stage of Gale’s observation of Yaqui he had marked tenaciousness of life, stoicism, endurance, strength. These were the attributes of the desert. But what of that second stage wherein the Indian had loomed up a colossal figure of strange honor, loyalty, love? Gale doubted his convictions and scorned himself for doubting.

There in the gloom sat the silent, impassive, inscrutable Yaqui. His dark face, his dark eyes were plain in the light of the stars. Always he was near Gale, unobtrusive, shadowy, but there. Why? Gale absolutely could not doubt that the Indian had heart as well as mind. Yaqui had from the very first stood between Gale and accident, toil, peril. It was his own choosing. Gale could not change him or thwart him. He understood the Indian’s idea of obligation and sacred duty. But there was more, and that baffled Gale. In the night hours, alone on the slope, Gale felt in Yaqui, as he felt the mighty throb of that desert pulse, a something that drew him irresistibly to the Indian. Sometimes he looked around to find the Indian, to dispel these strange, pressing thoughts of unreality, and it was never in vain.

Thus the nights passed, endlessly long, with Gale fighting for his old order of thought, fighting the fascination of the infinite sky, and the gloomy insulating whirl of the wide shadows, fighting for belief, hope, prayer, fighting against that terrible ever-recurring idea of being lost, lost, lost in the desert, fighting harder than any other thing the insidious, penetrating, tranquil, unfeeling self that was coming between him and his memory.

He was losing the battle, losing his hold on tangible things, losing his power to stand up under this ponderous, merciless weight of desert space and silence.

He acknowledged it in a kind of despair, and the shadows of the night seemed whirling fiends. Lost! Lost! Lost! What are you waiting for? Rain!... Lost! Lost! Lost in the desert! So the shadows seemed to scream in voiceless mockery.

At the moment he was alone on the promontory. The night was far spent. A ghastly moon haunted the black volcanic spurs. The winds blew silently. Was he alone? No, he did not seem to be alone. The Yaqui was there. Suddenly a strange, cold sensation crept over Gale. It was new. He felt a presence. Turning, he expected to see the Indian, but instead, a slight shadow, pale, almost white, stood there, not close nor yet distant. It seemed to brighten. Then he saw a woman who resembled a girl he had seemed to know long ago. She was white-faced, golden-haired, and her lips were sweet, and her eyes were turning black. Nell! He had forgotten her. Over him flooded a torrent of memory. There was tragic woe in this sweet face. Nell was holding out her arms — she was crying aloud to him across the sand and the cactus and the lava. She was in trouble, and he had been forgetting.

That night he climbed the lava to the topmost cone, and never slipped on a ragged crust nor touched a choya thorn. A voice called to him. He saw Nell’s eyes in the stars, in the velvet blue of sky, in the blackness of the engulfing shadows. She was with him, a slender shape, a spirit, keeping step with him, and memory was strong, sweet, beating, beautiful. Far down in the west, faintly golden with light of the sinking moon, he saw a cloud that resembled her face. A cloud on the desert horizon! He gazed and gazed. Was that a spirit face like the one by his side? No — he did not dream.

In the hot, sultry morning Yaqui appeared at camp, after long hours of absence, and he pointed with a long, dark arm toward the west. A bank of clouds was rising above the mountain barrier.

“Rain!” he cried; and his sonorous voice rolled down the arroyo.

Those who heard him were as shipwrecked mariners at sight of a distant sail.

Dick Gale, silent, grateful to the depths of his soul, stood with arm over Blanco Sol and watched the transforming west, where clouds of wonderous size and hue piled over one another, rushing, darkening, spreading, sweeping upward toward that white and glowing sun.

When they reached the zenith and swept round to blot out the blazing orb, the earth took on a dark, lowering aspect. The red of sand and lava changed to steely gray. Vast shadows, like ripples on water, sheeted in from the gulf with a low, strange moan. Yet the silence was like death. The desert was awaiting a strange and hated visitation — storm! If all the endless torrid days, the endless mystic nights had seemed unreal to Gale, what, then, seemed this stupendous spectacle?

“Oh! I felt a drop of rain on my face!” cried Mercedes; and whispering the name of a saint, she kissed her husband.

The white-haired Ladd, gaunt, old, bent, looked up at the maelstrom of clouds, and he said, softly, “Shore we’ll get in the hosses, an’ pack light, an’ hit the trail, an’ make night marches!”

Then up out of the gulf of the west swept a bellowing wind and a black pall and terrible flashes of lightning and thunder like the end of the world — fury, blackness, chaos, the desert storm.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WHISTLE OF A HORSE

AT THE RANCH-HOUSE at Forlorn River Belding stood alone in his darkened room. It was quiet there and quiet outside; the sickening midsummer heat, like a hot heavy blanket, lay upon the house.

He took up the gun belt from his table and with slow hands buckled it around his waist. He seemed to feel something familiar and comfortable and inspiring in the weight of the big gun against his hip. He faced the door as if to go out, but hesitated, and then began a slow, plodding walk up and down the length of the room. Presently he halted at the table, and with reluctant hands he unbuckled the gun belt and laid it down.

The action did not have an air of finality, and Belding knew it. He had seen border life in Texas in the early days; he had been a sheriff when the law in the West depended on a quickness of wrist; he had seen many a man lay down his gun for good and all. His own action was not final. Of late he had done the same thing many times and this last time it seemed a little harder to do, a little more indicative of vacillation. There were reasons why Belding’s gun held for him a gloomy fascination.

The Chases, those grasping and conscienceless agents of a new force in the development of the West, were bent upon Belding’s ruin, and so far as his fortunes at Forlorn River were concerned, had almost accomplished it. One by one he lost points for which he contended with them. He carried into the Tucson courts the matter of the staked claims, and mining claims, and water claims, and he lost all. Following that he lost his government position as inspector of immigration; and this fact, because of what he considered its injustice, had been a hard blow. He had been made to suffer a humiliation equally as great. It came about that he actually had to pay the Chases for water to irrigate his alfalfa fields. The never-failing spring upon his land answered for the needs of household and horses, but no more.

These matters were unfortunate for Belding, but not by any means wholly accountable for his worry and unhappiness and brooding hate. He believed Dick Gale and the rest of the party taken into the desert by the Yaqui had been killed or lost. Two months before a string of Mexican horses, riderless, saddled, starved for grass and wild for water, had come in to Forlorn River. They were a part of the horses belonging to Rojas and his band. Their arrival complicated the mystery and strengthened convictions of the loss of both pursuers and pursued. Belding was wont to say that he had worried himself gray over the fate of his rangers.

Belding’s unhappiness could hardly be laid to material loss. He had been rich and was now poor, but change of fortune such as that could not have made him unhappy. Something more somber and mysterious and sad than the loss of Dick Gale and their friends had come into the lives of his wife and Nell. He dated the time of this change back to a certain day when Mrs. Belding recognized in the elder Chase an old schoolmate and a rejected suitor. It took time for slow-thinking Belding to discover anything wrong in his household, especially as the fact of the Gales lingering there made Mrs. Belding and Nell, for the most part, hide their real and deeper feelings. Gradually, however, Belding had forced on him the fact of some secret cause for grief other than Gale’s loss. He was sure of it when his wife signified her desire to make a visit to her old home back in Peoria. She did not give many reasons, but she did show him a letter that had found its way from old friends. This letter contained news that may or may not have been authentic; but it was enough, Belding thought, to interest his wife. An old prospector had returned to Peoria, and he had told relatives of meeting Robert Burton at the Sonoyta Oasis fifteen years before, and that Burton had gone into the desert never to return. To Belding this was no surprise, for he had heard that before his marriage. There appeared to have been no doubts as to the death of his wife’s first husband. The singular thing was that both Nell’s father and grandfather had been lost somewhere in the Sonora Desert.

Belding did not oppose his wife’s desire to visit her old home. He thought it would be a wholesome trip for her, and did all in his power to persuade Nell to accompany her. But Nell would not go.

It was after Mrs. Belding’s departure that Belding discovered in Nell a condition of mind that amazed and distressed him. She had suddenly become strangely wretched, so that she could not conceal it from even the Gales, who, of all people, Belding imagined, were the ones to make Nell proud. She would tell him nothing. But after a while, when he had thought it out, he dated this further and more deplorable change in Nell back to a day on which he had met Nell with Radford Chase. This indefatigable wooer had not in the least abandoned his suit. Something about the fellow made Belding grind his teeth. But Nell grew not only solicitously, but now strangely, entreatingly earnest in her importunities to Belding not to insult or lay a hand on Chase. This had bound Belding so far; it had made him think and watch. He had never been a man to interfere with his women folk. They could do as they liked, and usually that pleased him. But a slow surprise gathered and grew upon him when he saw that Nell, apparently, was accepting young Chase’s attentions. At least, she no longer hid from him. Belding could not account for this, because he was sure Nell cordially despised the fellow. And toward the end he divined, if he did not actually know, that these Chases possessed some strange power over Nell, and were using it. That stirred a hate in Belding — a hate he had felt at the very first and had manfully striven against, and which now gave him over to dark brooding thoughts.

Midsummer passed, and the storms came late. But when they arrived they made up for tardiness. Belding did not remember so terrible a storm of wind and rain as that which broke the summer’s drought.

In a few days, it seemed, Altar Valley was a bright and green expanse, where dust clouds did not rise. Forlorn River ran, a slow, heavy, turgid torrent. Belding never saw the river in flood that it did not give him joy; yet now, desert man as he was, he suffered a regret when he thought of the great Chase reservoir full and overflowing. The dull thunder of the spillway was not pleasant. It was the first time in his life that the sound of falling water jarred upon him.

Belding noticed workmen once more engaged in the fields bounding his land. The Chases had extended a main irrigation ditch down to Belding’s farm, skipped the width of his ground, then had gone on down through Altar Valley. They had exerted every influence to obtain right to connect these ditches by digging through his land, but Belding had remained obdurate. He refused to have any dealings with them. It was therefore with some curiosity and suspicion that he saw a gang of Mexicans once more at work upon these ditches.

At daylight next morning a tremendous blast almost threw Belding out of his bed. It cracked the adobe walls of his house and broke windows and sent pans and crockery to the floor with a crash. Belding’s idea was that the store of dynamite kept by the Chases for blasting had blown up. Hurriedly getting into his clothes, he went to Nell’s room to reassure her; and, telling her to have a thought for their guests, he went out to see what had happened.

The villagers were pretty badly frightened. Many of the poorly constructed adobe huts had crumbled almost into dust. A great yellow cloud, like smoke, hung over the river. This appeared to be at the upper end of Belding’s plot, and close to the river. When he reached his fence the smoke and dust were so thick he could scarcely breathe, and for a little while he was unable to see what had happened. Presently he made out a huge hole in the sand just about where the irrigation ditch had stopped near his line. For some reason or other, not clear to Belding, the Mexicans had set off an extraordinarily heavy blast at that point.

Belding pondered. He did not now for a moment consider an accidental discharge of dynamite. But why had this blast been set off? The loose sandy soil had yielded readily to shovel; there were no rocks; as far as construction of a ditch was concerned such a blast would have done more harm than good.

Slowly, with reluctant feet, Belding walked toward a green hollow, where in a cluster of willows lay the never-failing spring that his horses loved so well, and, indeed, which he loved no less. He was actually afraid to part the drooping willows to enter the little cool, shady path that led to the spring. Then, suddenly seized by suspense, he ran the rest of the way.

He was just in time to see the last of the water. It seemed to sink as in quicksand. The shape of the hole had changed. The tremendous force of the blast in the adjoining field had obstructed or diverted the underground stream of water.

Belding’s never-failing spring had been ruined. What had made this little plot of ground green and sweet and fragrant was now no more. Belding’s first feeling was for the pity of it. The pale Ajo lilies would bloom no more under those willows. The willows themselves would soon wither and die. He thought how many times in the middle of hot summer nights he had come down to the spring to drink. Never again!

Suddenly he thought of Blanco Diablo. How the great white thoroughbred had loved this spring! Belding straightened up and looked with tear-blurred eyes out over the waste of desert to the west. Never a day passed that he had not thought of the splendid horse; but this moment, with its significant memory, was doubly keen, and there came a dull pang in his breast.

“Diablo will never drink here again!” muttered Belding.

The loss of Blanco Diablo, though admitted and mourned by Belding, had never seemed quite real until this moment.

The pall of dust drifting over him, the din of the falling water up at the dam, diverted Belding’s mind to the Chases. All at once he was in the harsh grip of a cold certainty. The blast had been set off intentionally to ruin his spring. What a hellish trick! No Westerner, no Indian or Mexican, no desert man could have been guilty of such a crime. To ruin a beautiful, clear, cool, never-failing stream of water in the desert!

It was then that Belding’s worry and indecision and brooding were as if they had never existed. As he strode swiftly back to the house, his head, which had long been bent thoughtfully and sadly, was held erect. He went directly to his room, and with an air that was now final he buckled on his gun belt. He looked the gun over and tried the action. He squared himself and walked a little more erect. Some long-lost individuality had returned to Belding.

“Let’s see,” he was saying. “I can get Carter to send the horses I’ve left back to Waco to my brother. I’ll make Nell take what money there is and go hunt up her mother. The Gales are ready to go — to-day, if I say the word. Nell can travel with them part way East. That’s your game, Tom Belding, don’t mistake me.”

As he went out he encountered Mr. Gale coming up the walk. The long sojourn at Forlorn River, despite the fact that it had been laden with a suspense which was gradually changing to a sad certainty, had been of great benefit to Dick’s father. The dry air, the heat, and the quiet had made him, if not entirely a well man, certainly stronger than he had been in many years.

“Belding, what was that terrible roar?” asked Mr. Gale. “We were badly frightened until Miss Nell came to us. We feared it was an earthquake.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Gale, we’ve had some quakes here, but none of them could hold a candle to this jar we just had.”

Then Belding explained what had caused the explosion, and why it had been set off so close to his property.

“It’s an outrage, sir, an unspeakable outrage,” declared Mr. Gale, hotly. “Such a thing would not be tolerated in the East. Mr. Belding, I’m amazed at your attitude in the face of all this trickery.”

“You see — there was mother and Nell,” began Belding, as if apologizing. He dropped his head a little and made marks in the sand with the toe of his boot. “Mr. Gale, I’ve been sort of half hitched, as Laddy used to say. I’m planning to have a little more elbow room round this ranch. I’m going to send Nell East to her mother. Then I’ll — See here, Mr. Gale, would you mind having Nell with you part way when you go home?”

“We’d all be delighted to have her go all the way and make us a visit,” replied Mr. Gale.

“That’s fine. And you’ll be going soon? Don’t take that as if I wanted to—” Belding paused, for the truth was that he did want to hurry them off.

“We would have been gone before this, but for you,” said Mr. Gale. “Long ago we gave up hope of — of Richard ever returning. And I believe, now we’re sure he was lost, that we’d do well to go home at once. You wished us to remain until the heat was broken — till the rains came to make traveling easier for us. Now I see no need for further delay. My stay here has greatly benefited my health. I shall never forget your hospitality. This Western trip would have made me a new man if — only — Richard—”

“Sure. I understand,” said Belding, gruffly. “Let’s go in and tell the women to pack up.”

Nell was busy with the servants preparing breakfast. Belding took her into the sitting-room while Mr. Gale called his wife and daughter.

“My girl, I’ve some news for you,” began Belding. “Mr. Gale is leaving to-day with his family. I’m going to send you with them — part way, anyhow. You’re invited to visit them. I think that ‘d be great for you — help you to forget. But the main thing is — you’re going East to join mother.”

Nell gazed at him, white-faced, without uttering a word.

“You see, Nell, I’m about done in Forlorn River,” went on Belding. “That blast this morning sank my spring. There’s no water now. It was the last straw. So we’ll shake the dust of Forlorn River. I’ll come on a little later — that’s all.”

“Dad, you’re packing your gun!” exclaimed Nell, suddenly pointing with a trembling finger. She ran to him, and for the first time in his life Belding put her away from him. His movements had lost the old slow gentleness.

“Why, so I am,” replied Belding, coolly, as his hand moved down to the sheath swinging at his hip. “Nell, I’m that absent-minded these days!”

“Dad!” she cried.

“That’ll do from you,” he replied, in a voice he had never used to her. “Get breakfast now, then pack to leave Forlorn River.”

“Leave Forlorn River!” whispered Nell, with a thin white hand stealing up to her breast. How changed the girl was! Belding reproached himself for his hardness, but did not speak his thought aloud. Nell was fading here, just as Mercedes had faded before the coming of Thorne.

Nell turned away to the west window and looked out across the desert toward the dim blue peaks in the distance. Belding watched her; likewise the Gales; and no one spoke. There ensued a long silence. Belding felt a lump rise in his throat. Nell laid her arm against the window frame, but gradually it dropped, and she was leaning with her face against the wood. A low sob broke from her. Elsie Gale went to her, embraced her, took the drooping head on her shoulder.

“We’ve come to be such friends,” she said. “I believe it’ll be good for you to visit me in the city. Here — all day you look out across that awful lonely desert.... Come, Nell.”

Heavy steps sounded outside on the flagstones, then the door rattled under a strong knock. Belding opened it. The Chases, father and son, stood beyond the threshold.

“Good morning, Belding,” said the elder Chase. “We were routed out early by that big blast and came up to see what was wrong. All a blunder. The Greaser foreman was drunk yesterday, and his ignorant men made a mistake. Sorry if the blast bothered you.”

“Chase, I reckon that’s the first of your blasts I was ever glad to hear,” replied Belding, in a way that made Chase look blank.

“So? Well, I’m glad you’re glad,” he went on, evidently puzzled. “I was a little worried — you’ve always been so touchy — we never could get together. I hurried over, fearing maybe you might think the blast — you see, Belding—”

“I see this, Mr. Ben Chase,” interrupted Belding, in curt and ringing voice. “That blast was a mistake, the biggest you ever made in your life.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Chase.

“You’ll have to excuse me for a while, unless you’re dead set on having it out right now. Mr. Gale and his family are leaving, and my daughter is going with them. I’d rather you’d wait a little.”

“Nell going away!” exclaimed Radford Chase. He reminded Belding of an overgrown boy in disappointment.

“Yes. But — Miss Burton to you, young man—”

“Mr. Belding, I certainly would prefer a conference with you right now,” interposed the elder Chase, cutting short Belding’s strange speech. “There are other matters — important matters to discuss. They’ve got to be settled. May we step in, sir?”

“No, you may not,” replied Belding, bluntly. “I’m sure particular who I invite into my house. But I’ll go with you.”

Belding stepped out and closed the door. “Come away from the house so the women won’t hear the — the talk.”

The elder Chase was purple with rage, yet seemed to be controlling it. The younger man looked black, sullen, impatient. He appeared not to have a thought of Belding. He was absolutely blind to the situation, as considered from Belding’s point of view. Ben Chase found his voice about the time Belding halted under the trees out of earshot from the house.

“Sir, you’ve insulted me — my son. How dare you? I want you to understand that you’re—”

“Chop that kind of talk with me, you ——  ——  ——  ——  ——  —— !” interrupted Belding. He had always been profane, and now he certainly did not choose his language. Chase turned livid, gasped, and seemed about to give way to fury. But something about Belding evidently exerted a powerful quieting influence. “If you talk sense I’ll listen,” went on Belding.

Belding was frankly curious. He did not think any argument or inducement offered by Chase could change his mind on past dealings or his purpose of the present. But he believed by listening he might get some light on what had long puzzled him. The masterly effort Chase put forth to conquer his aroused passions gave Belding another idea of the character of this promoter.

“I want to make a last effort to propitiate you,” began Chase, in his quick, smooth voice. That was a singular change to Belding — the dropping instantly into an easy flow of speech. “You’ve had losses here, and naturally you’re sore. I don’t blame you. But you can’t see this thing from my side of the fence. Business is business. In business the best man wins. The law upheld those transactions of mine the honesty of which you questioned. As to mining and water claims, you lost on this technical point — that you had nothing to prove you had held them for five years. Five years is the time necessary in law. A dozen men might claim the source of Forlorn River, but if they had no house or papers to prove their squatters’ rights any man could go in and fight them for the water. .... Now I want to run that main ditch along the river, through your farm. Can’t we make a deal? I’m ready to be liberal — to meet you more than halfway. I’ll give you an interest in the company. I think I’ve influence enough up at the Capitol to have you reinstated as inspector. A little reasonableness on your part will put you right again in Forlorn River, with a chance of growing rich. There’s a big future here.... My interest, Belding, has become personal. Radford is in love with your step-daughter. He wants to marry her. I’ll admit now if I had foreseen this situation I wouldn’t have pushed you so hard. But we can square the thing. Now let’s get together not only in business, but in a family way. If my son’s happiness depends upon having this girl, you may rest assured I’ll do all I can to get her for him. I’ll absolutely make good all your losses. Now what do you say?”

“No,” replied Belding. “Your money can’t buy a right of way across my ranch. And Nell doesn’t want your son. That settles that.”

“But you could persuade her.”

“I won’t, that’s all.”

“May I ask why?” Chases’s voice was losing its suave quality, but it was even swifter than before.

“Sure. I don’t mind your asking,” replied Belding in slow deliberation. “I wouldn’t do such a low-down trick. Besides, if I would, I’d want it to be a man I was persuading for. I know Greasers — I know a Yaqui I’d rather give Nell to than your son.”

Radford Chase began to roar in inarticulate rage. Belding paid no attention to him; indeed, he never glanced at the young man. The elder Chase checked a violent start. He plucked at the collar of his gray flannel shirt, opened it at the neck.

“My son’s offer of marriage is an honor — more an honor, sir, than you perhaps are aware of.”

Belding made no reply. His steady gaze did not turn from the long lane that led down to the river. He waited coldly, sure of himself.

“Mrs. Belding’s daughter has no right to the name of Burton,” snapped Chase. “Did you know that?”

“I did not,” replied Belding, quietly.

“Well, you know it now,” added Chase, bitingly.

“Sure you can prove what you say?” queried Belding, in the same cool, unemotional tone. It struck him strangely at the moment what little knowledge this man had of the West and of Western character.

“Prove it? Why, yes, I think so, enough to make the truth plain to any reasonable man. I come from Peoria — was born and raised there. I went to school with Nell Warren. That was your wife’s maiden name. She was a beautiful, gay girl. All the fellows were in love with her. I knew Bob Burton well. He was a splendid fellow, but wild. Nobody ever knew for sure, but we all supposed he was engaged to marry Nell. He left Peoria, however, and soon after that the truth about Nell came out. She ran away. It was at least a couple of months before Burton showed up in Peoria. He did not stay long. Then for years nothing was heard of either of them. When word did come Nell was in Oklahoma, Burton was in Denver. There’s chance, of course, that Burton followed Nell and married her. That would account for Nell Warren taking the name of Burton. But it isn’t likely. None of us ever heard of such a thing and wouldn’t have believed it if we had. The affair seemed destined to end unfortunately. But Belding, while I’m at it, I want to say that Nell Warren was one of the sweetest, finest, truest girls in the world. If she drifted to the Southwest and kept her past a secret that was only natural. Certainly it should not be held against her. Why, she was only a child — a girl — seventeen — eighteen years old.... In a moment of amazement — when I recognized your wife as an old schoolmate — I blurted the thing out to Radford. You see now how little it matters to me when I ask your stepdaughter’s hand in marriage for my son.”

Belding stood listening. The genuine emotion in Chase’s voice was as strong as the ring of truth. Belding knew truth when he heard it. The revelation did not surprise him. Belding did not soften, for he devined that Chase’s emotion was due to the probing of an old wound, the recalling of a past both happy and painful. Still, human nature was so strange that perhaps kindness and sympathy might yet have a place in this Chase’s heart. Belding did not believe so, but he was willing to give Chase the benefit of the doubt.

“So you told my wife you’d respect her secret — keep her dishonor from husband and daughter?” demanded Belding, his dark gaze sweeping back from the lane.

“What! I — I” stammered Chase.

“You made your son swear to be a man and die before he’d hint the thing to Nell?” went on Belding, and his voice rang louder.

Ben Chase had no answer. The red left his face. His son slunk back against the fence.

“I say you never held this secret over the heads of my wife and her daughter?” thundered Belding.

He had his answer in the gray faces, in the lips that fear made mute. Like a flash Belding saw the whole truth of Mrs. Belding’s agony, the reason for her departure; he saw what had been driving Nell; and it seemed that all the dogs of hell were loosed within his heart. He struck out blindly, instinctively in his pain, and the blow sent Ben Chase staggering into the fence corner. Then he stretched forth a long arm and whirled Radford Chase back beside his father.

“I see it all now,” went on Belding, hoarsely. “You found the woman’s weakness — her love for the girl. You found the girl’s weakness — her pride and fear of shame. So you drove the one and hounded the other. God, what a base thing to do! To tell the girl was bad enough, but to threaten her with betrayal; there’s no name for that!”

Belding’s voice thickened, and he paused, breathing heavily. He stepped back a few paces; and this, an ominous action for an armed man of his kind, instead of adding to the fear of the Chases, seemed to relieve them. If there had been any pity in Belding’s heart he would have felt it then.

“And now, gentlemen,” continued Belding, speaking low and with difficulty, “seeing I’ve turned down your proposition, I suppose you think you’ve no more call to keep your mouths shut?”

The elder Chase appeared fascinated by something he either saw or felt in Belding, and his gray face grew grayer. He put up a shaking hand. Then Radford Chase, livid and snarling, burst out: “I’ll talk till I’m black in the face. You can’t stop me!”

“You’ll go black in the face, but it won’t be from talking,” hissed Belding.

His big arm swept down, and when he threw it up the gun glittered in his hand. Simultaneously with the latter action pealed out a shrill, penetrating whistle.

The whistle of a horse! It froze Belding’s arm aloft. For an instant he could not move even his eyes. The familiarity of that whistle was terrible in its power to rob him of strength. Then he heard the rapid, heavy pound of hoofs, and again the piercing whistle.

“Blanco Diablo!” he cried, huskily.

He turned to see a huge white horse come thundering into the yard. A wild, gaunt, terrible horse; indeed, the loved Blanco Diablo. A bronzed, long-haired Indian bestrode him. More white horses galloped into the yard, pounded to a halt, whistling home. Belding saw a slim shadow of a girl who seemed all great black eyes.

Under the trees flashed Blanco Sol, as dazzling white, as beautiful as if he had never been lost in the desert. He slid to a halt, then plunged and stamped. His rider leaped, throwing the bridle. Belding saw a powerful, spare, ragged man, with dark, gaunt face and eyes of flame.

Then Nell came running from the house, her golden hair flying, her hands outstretched, her face wonderful.

“Dick! Dick! Oh-h-h, Dick!” she cried. Her voice seemed to quiver in Belding’s heart.

Belding’s eyes began to blur. He was not sure he saw clearly. Whose face was this now close before him — a long thin, shrunken face, haggard, tragic in its semblance of torture, almost of death? But the eyes were keen and kind. Belding thought wildly that they proved he was not dreaming.

“I shore am glad to see you all,” said a well-remembered voice in a slow, cool drawl.

CHAPTER XVIII

REALITY AGAINST DREAMS

LADD, LASH, THORNE, Mercedes, they were all held tight in Belding’s arms. Then he ran to Blanco Diablo. For once the great horse was gentle, quiet, glad. He remembered this kindest of masters and reached for him with warm, wet muzzle.

Dick Gale was standing bowed over Nell’s slight form, almost hidden in his arms. Belding hugged them both. He was like a boy. He saw Ben Chase and his son slip away under the trees, but the circumstances meant nothing to him then.

“Dick! Dick!” he roared. “Is it you?... Say, who do you think’s here — here, in Forlorn River?”

Gale gripped Belding with a hand as rough and hard as a file and as strong as a vise. But he did not speak a word. Belding thought Gale’s eyes would haunt him forever.

It was then three more persons came upon the scene — Elsie Gale, running swiftly, her father assisting Mrs. Gale, who appeared about to faint.

“Belding! Who on earth’s that?” cried Dick hoarsely.

“Quien sabe, my son,” replied Belding; and now his voice seemed a little shaky. “Nell, come here. Give him a chance.”

Belding slipped his arm round Nell, and whispered in her ear. “This ‘ll be great!”

Elsie Gale’s face was white and agitated, a face expressing extreme joy.

“Oh, brother! Mama saw you — Papa saw you, and never knew you! But I knew you when you jumped quick — that way — off your horse. And now I don’t know you. You wild man! You giant! You splendid barbarian!... Mama, Papa, hurry! It is Dick! Look at him. Just look at him! Oh-h, thank God!”

Belding turned away and drew Nell with him. In another second she and Mercedes were clasped in each other’s arms. Then followed a time of joyful greetings all round.

The Yaqui stood leaning against a tree watching the welcoming home of the lost. No one seemed to think of him, until Belding, ever mindful of the needs of horses, put a hand on Blanco Diablo and called to Yaqui to bring the others. They led the string of whites down to the barn, freed them of wet and dusty saddles and packs, and turned them loose in the alfalfa, now breast-high. Diablo found his old spirit; Blanco Sol tossed his head and whistled his satisfaction; White Woman pranced to and fro; and presently they all settled down to quiet grazing. How good it was for Belding to see those white shapes against the rich background of green! His eyes glistened. It was a sight he had never expected to see again. He lingered there many moments when he wanted to hurry back to his rangers.

At last he tore himself away from watching Blanco Diablo and returned to the house. It was only to find that he might have spared himself the hurry. Jim and Ladd were lying on the beds that had not held them for so many months. Their slumber seemed as deep and quiet as death. Curiously Belding gazed down upon them. They had removed only boots and chaps. Their clothes were in tatters. Jim appeared little more than skin and bones, a long shape, dark and hard as iron. Ladd’s appearance shocked Belding. The ranger looked an old man, blasted, shriveled, starved. Yet his gaunt face, though terrible in its records of tortures, had something fine and noble, even beautiful to Belding, in its strength, its victory.

Thorne and Mercedes had disappeared. The low murmur of voices came from Mrs. Gale’s room, and Belding concluded that Dick was still with his family. No doubt he, also, would soon seek rest and sleep. Belding went through the patio and called in at Nell’s door. She was there sitting by her window. The flush of happiness had not left her face, but she looked stunned, and a shadow of fear lay dark in her eyes. Belding had intended to talk. He wanted some one to listen to him. The expression in Nell’s eyes, however, silenced him. He had forgotten. Nell read his thought in his face, and then she lost all her color and dropped her head. Belding entered, stood beside her with a hand on hers. He tried desperately hard to think of the right thing to say, and realized so long as he tried that he could not speak at all.

“Nell — Dick’s back safe and sound,” he said, slowly. “That’s the main thing. I wish you could have seen his eyes when he held you in his arms out there.... Of course, Dick’s coming knocks out your trip East and changes plans generally. We haven’t had the happiest time lately. But now it’ll be different. Dick’s as true as a Yaqui. He’ll chase that Chase fellow, don’t mistake me.... Then mother will be home soon. She’ll straighten out this — this mystery. And Nell — however it turns out — I know Dick Gale will feel just the same as I feel. Brace up now, girl.”

Belding left the patio and traced thoughtful steps back toward the corrals. He realized the need of his wife. If she had been at home he would not have come so close to killing two men. Nell would never have fallen so low in spirit. Whatever the real truth of the tragedy of his wife’s life, it would not make the slightest difference to him. What hurt him was the pain mother and daughter had suffered, were suffering still. Somehow he must put an end to that pain.

He found the Yaqui curled up in a corner of the barn in as deep a sleep as that of the rangers. Looking down at him, Belding felt again the rush of curious thrilling eagerness to learn all that had happened since the dark night when Yaqui had led the white horses away into the desert. Belding curbed his impatience and set to work upon tasks he had long neglected. Presently he was interrupted by Mr. Gale, who came out, beside himself with happiness and excitement. He flung a hundred questions at Belding and never gave him time to answer one, even if that had been possible. Finally, when Mr. Gale lost his breath, Belding got a word in. “See here, Mr. Gale, you know as much as I know. Dick’s back. They’re all back — a hard lot, starved, burned, torn to pieces, worked out to the limit I never saw in desert travelers, but they’re alive — alive and well, man! Just wait. Just gamble I won’t sleep or eat till I hear that story. But they’ve got to sleep and eat.”

Belding gathered with growing amusement that besides the joy, excitement, anxiety, impatience expressed by Mr. Gale there was something else which Belding took for pride. It pleased him. Looking back, he remembered some of the things Dick had confessed his father thought of him. Belding’s sympathy had always been with the boy. But he had learned to like the old man, to find him kind and wise, and to think that perhaps college and business had not brought out the best in Richard Gale. The West had done that, however, as it had for many a wild youngster; and Belding resolved to have a little fun at the expense of Mr. Gale. So he began by making a few remarks that appeared to rob Dick’s father of both speech and breath.

“And don’t mistake me,” concluded Belding, “just keep out of earshot when Laddy tells us the story of that desert trip, unless you’re hankering to have your hair turn pure white and stand curled on end and freeze that way.”

About the middle of the forenoon on the following day the rangers hobbled out of the kitchen to the porch.

“I’m a sick man, I tell you,” Ladd was complaining, “an’ I gotta be fed. Soup! Beef tea! That ain’t so much as wind to me. I want about a barrel of bread an’ butter, an’ a whole platter of mashed potatoes with gravy an’ green stuff — all kinds of green stuff — an’ a whole big apple pie. Give me everythin’ an’ anythin’ to eat but meat. Shore I never, never want to taste meat again, an’ sight of a piece of sheep meat would jest about finish me.... Jim, you used to be a human bein’ that stood up for Charlie Ladd.”

“Laddy, I’m lined up beside you with both guns,” replied Jim, plaintively. “Hungry? Say, the smell of breakfast in that kitchen made my mouth water so I near choked to death. I reckon we’re gettin’ most onhuman treatment.”

“But I’m a sick man,” protested Ladd, “an’ I’m agoin’ to fall over in a minute if somebody doesn’t feed me. Nell, you used to be fond of me.”

“Oh, Laddy, I am yet,” replied Nell.

“Shore I don’t believe it. Any girl with a tender heart just couldn’t let a man starve under her eyes... Look at Dick, there. I’ll bet he’s had something to eat, mebbe potatoes an’ gravy, an’ pie an’—”

“Laddy, Dick has had no more than I gave you — indeed, not nearly so much.”

“Shore he’s had a lot of kisses then, for he hasn’t hollered onct about this treatment.”

“Perhaps he has,” said Nell, with a blush; “and if you think that — they would help you to be reasonable I might — I’ll—”

“Well, powerful fond as I am of you, just now kisses ‘ll have to run second to bread an’ butter.”

“Oh, Laddy, what a gallant speech!” laughed Nell. “I’m sorry, but I’ve Dad’s orders.”

“Laddy,” interrupted Belding, “you’ve got to be broke in gradually to eating. Now you know that. You’d be the severest kind of a boss if you had some starved beggars on your hands.”

“But I’m sick — I’m dyin’,” howled Ladd.

“You were never sick in your life, and if all the bullet holes I see in you couldn’t kill you, why, you never will die.”

“Can I smoke?” queried Ladd, with sudden animation. “My Gawd, I used to smoke. Shore I’ve forgot. Nell, if you want to be reinstated in my gallery of angels, just find me a pipe an’ tobacco.”

“I’ve hung onto my pipe,” said Jim, thoughtfully. “I reckon I had it empty in my mouth for seven years or so, wasn’t it, Laddy? A long time! I can see the red lava an’ the red haze, an’ the red twilight creepin’ up. It was hot an’ some lonely. Then the wind, and always that awful silence! An’ always Yaqui watchin’ the west, an’ Laddy with his checkers, an’ Mercedes burnin’ up, wastin’ away to nothin’ but eyes! It’s all there — I’ll never get rid—”

“Chop that kind of talk,” interrupted Belding, bluntly. “Tell us where Yaqui took you — what happened to Rojas — why you seemed lost for so long.”

“I reckon Laddy can tell all that best; but when it comes to Rojas’s finish I’ll tell what I seen, an’ so’ll Dick an’ Thorne. Laddy missed Rojas’s finish. Bar none, that was the—”

“I’m a sick man, but I can talk,” put in Ladd, “an’ shore I don’t want the whole story exaggerated none by Jim.”

Ladd filled the pipe Nell brought, puffed ecstatically at it, and settled himself upon the bench for a long talk. Nell glanced appealingly at Dick, who tried to slip away. Mercedes did go, and was followed by Thorne. Mr. Gale brought chairs, and in subdued excitement called his wife and daughter. Belding leaned forward, rendered all the more eager by Dick’s reluctance to stay, the memory of the quick tragic change in the expression of Mercedes’s beautiful eyes, by the strange gloomy cast stealing over Ladd’s face.

The ranger talked for two hours — talked till his voice weakened to a husky whisper. At the conclusion of his story there was an impressive silence. Then Elsie Gale stood up, and with her hand on Dick’s shoulder, her eyes bright and warm as sunlight, she showed the rangers what a woman thought of them and of the Yaqui. Nell clung to Dick, weeping silently. Mrs. Gale was overcome, and Mr. Gale, very white and quiet, helped her up to her room.

“The Indian! the Indian!” burst out Belding, his voice deep and rolling. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I say he’d be a godsend? Remember what I said about Yaqui and some gory Aztec knifework? So he cut Rojas loose from that awful crater wall, foot by foot, finger by finger, slow and terrible? And Rojas didn’t hang long on the choya thorns? Thank the Lord for that!... Laddy, no story of Camino del Diablo can hold a candle to yours. The flight and the fight were jobs for men. But living through this long hot summer and coming out — that’s a miracle. Only the Yaqui could have done it. The Yaqui! The Yaqui!”

“Shore. Charlie Ladd looks up at an Indian these days. But Beldin’, as for the comin’ out, don’t forget the hosses. Without grand old Sol an’ Diablo, who I don’t hate no more, an’ the other Blancos, we’d never have got here. Yaqui an’ the hosses, that’s my story!”

Early in the afternoon of the next day Belding encountered Dick at the water barrel.

“Belding, this is river water, and muddy at that,” said Dick. “Lord knows I’m not kicking. But I’ve dreamed some of our cool running spring, and I want a drink from it.”

“Never again, son. The spring’s gone, faded, sunk, dry as dust.”

“Dry!” Gale slowly straightened. “We’ve had rains. The river’s full. The spring ought to be overflowing. What’s wrong? Why is it dry?”

“Dick, seeing you’re interested, I may as well tell you that a big charge of nitroglycerin choked my spring.”

“Nitroglycerin?” echoed Gale. Then he gave a quick start. “My mind’s been on home, Nell, my family. But all the same I felt something was wrong here with the ranch, with you, with Nell... Belding, that ditch there is dry. The roses are dead. The little green in that grass has come with the rains. What’s happened? The ranch’s run down. Now I look around I see a change.”

“Some change, yes,” replied Belding, bitterly. “Listen, son.”

Briefly, but not the less forcibly for that, Belding related his story of the operations of the Chases.

Astonishment appeared to be Gale’s first feeling. “Our water gone, our claims gone, our plans forestalled! Why, Belding, it’s unbelievable. Forlorn River with promoters, business, railroad, bank, and what not!”

Suddenly he became fiery and suspicious. “These Chases — did they do all this on the level?”

“Barefaced robbery! Worse than a Greaser holdup,” replied Belding, grimly.

“You say the law upheld them?”

“Sure. Why, Ben Chase has a pull as strong as Diablo’s on a down grade. Dick, we’re jobbed, outfigured, beat, tricked, and we can’t do a thing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Belding, most of all for Laddy,” said Gale, feelingly. “He’s all in. He’ll never ride again. He wanted to settle down here on the farm he thought he owned, grow grass and raise horses, and take it easy. Oh, but it’s tough! Say, he doesn’t know it yet. He was just telling me he’d like to go out and look the farm over. Who’s going to tell him? What’s he going to do when he finds out about this deal?”

“Son, that’s made me think some,” replied Belding, with keen eyes fast upon the young man. “And I was kind of wondering how you’d take it.”

“I? Well, I’ll call on the Chases. Look here, Belding, I’d better do some forestalling myself. If Laddy gets started now there’ll be blood spilled. He’s not just right in his mind yet. He talks in his sleep sometimes about how Yaqui finished Rojas. If it’s left to him — he’ll kill these men. But if I take it up—”

“You’re talking sense, Dick. Only here, I’m not so sure of you. And there’s more to tell. Son, you’ve Nell to think of and your mother.”

Belding’s ranger gave him a long and searching glance.

“You can be sure of me,” he said.

“All right, then; listen,” began Belding. With deep voice that had many a beak and tremor he told Gale how Nell had been hounded by Radford Chase, how her mother had been driven by Ben Chase — the whole sad story.

“So that’s the trouble! Poor little girl!” murmured Gale, brokenly. “I felt something was wrong. Nell wasn’t natural, like her old self. And when I begged her to marry me soon, while Dad was here, she couldn’t talk. She could only cry.”

“It was hard on Nell,” said Belding, simply. “But it ‘ll be better now you’re back. Dick, I know the girl. She’ll refuse to marry you and you’ll have a hard job to break her down, as hard as the one you just rode in off of. I think I know you, too, or I wouldn’t be saying—”

“Belding, what ‘re you hinting at?” demanded Gale. “Do you dare insinuate that — that — if the thing were true it’d make any difference to me?”

“Aw, come now, Dick; I couldn’t mean that. I’m only awkward at saying things. And I’m cut pretty deep—”

“For God’s sake, you don’t believe what Chase said?” queried Gale, in passionate haste. “It’s a lie. I swear it’s a lie. I know it’s a lie. And I’ve got to tell Nell this minute. Come on in with me. I want you, Belding. Oh, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Belding felt himself dragged by an iron arm into the sitting-room out into the patio, and across that to where Nell sat in her door. At sight of them she gave a little cry, drooped for an instant, then raised a pale, still face, with eyes beginning to darken.

“Dearest, I know now why you are not wearing my mother’s ring,” said Gale, steadily and low-voiced.

“Dick, I am not worthy,” she replied, and held out a trembling hand with the ring lying in the palm.

Swift as light Gale caught her hand and slipped the ring back upon the third finger.

“Nell! Look at me. It is your engagement ring.... Listen. I don’t believe this — this thing that’s been torturing you. I know it’s a lie. I am absolutely sure your mother will prove it a lie. She must have suffered once — perhaps there was a sad error — but the thing you fear is not true. But, hear me, dearest; even if it was true it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to me. I’d promise you on my honor I’d never think of it again. I’d love you all the more because you’d suffered. I want you all the more to be my wife — to let me make you forget — to—”

She rose swiftly with the passionate abandon of a woman stirred to her depths, and she kissed him.

“Oh, Dick, you’re good — so good! You’ll never know — just what those words mean to me. They’ve saved me — I think.”

“Then, dearest, it’s all right?” Dick questioned, eagerly. “You will keep your promise? You will marry me?”

The glow, the light faded out of her face, and now the blue eyes were almost black. She drooped and shook her head.

“Nell!” exclaimed Gale, sharply catching his breath.

“Don’t ask me, Dick. I — I won’t marry you.”

“Why?”

“You know. It’s true that I—”

“It’s a lie,” interrupted Gale, fiercely. “But even if it’s true — why — why won’t you marry me? Between you and me love is the thing. Love, and nothing else! Don’t you love me any more?”

They had forgotten Belding, who stepped back into the shade.

“I love you with my whole heart and soul. I’d die for you,” whispered Nell, with clenching hands. “But I won’t disgrace you.”

“Dear, you have worried over this trouble till you’re morbid. It has grown out of all proportion. I tell you that I’ll not only be the happiest man on earth, but the luckiest, if you marry me.”

“Dick, you give not one thought to your family. Would they receive me as your wife?”

“They surely would,” replied Gale, steadily.

“No! oh no!”

“You’re wrong, Nell. I’m glad you said that. You give me a chance to prove something. I’ll go this minute and tell them all. I’ll be back here in less than—”

“Dick, you will not tell her — your mother?” cried Nell, with her eyes streaming. “You will not? Oh, I can’t bear it! She’s so proud! And Dick, I love her. Don’t tell her! Please, please don’t! She’ll be going soon. She needn’t ever know — about me. I want her always to think well of me. Dick, I beg of you. Oh, the fear of her knowing has been the worst of all! Please don’t go!”

“Nell, I’m sorry. I hate to hurt you. But you’re wrong. You can’t see things clearly. This is your happiness I’m fighting for. And it’s my life.... Wait here, dear. I won’t be long.”

Gale ran across the patio and disappeared. Nell sank to the doorstep, and as she met the question in Belding’s eyes she shook her head mournfully. They waited without speaking. It seemed a long while before Gale returned. Belding thrilled at sight of him. There was more boy about him than Belding had ever seen. Dick was coming swiftly, flushed, glowing, eager, erect, almost smiling.

“I told them. I swore it was a lie, but I wanted them to decide as if it were true. I didn’t have to waste a minute on Elsie. She loves you, Nell. The Governor is crazy about you. I didn’t have to waste two minutes on him. Mother used up the time. She wanted to know all there was to tell. She is proud, yes; but, Nell, I wish you could have seen how she took the — the story about you. Why, she never thought of me at all, until she had cried over you. Nell, she loves you, too. They all love you. Oh, it’s so good to tell you. I think mother realizes the part you have had in the — what shall I call it? — the regeneration of Richard Gale. Doesn’t that sound fine? Darling, mother not only consents, she wants you to be my wife. Do you hear that? And listen — she had me in a corner and, of course, being my mother, she put on the screws. She made me promise that we’d live in the East half the year. That means Chicago, Cape May, New York — you see, I’m not exactly the lost son any more. Why, Nell, dear, you’ll have to learn who Dick Gale really is. But I always want to be the ranger you helped me become, and ride Blanco Sol, and see a little of the desert. Don’t let the idea of big cities frighten you. W’ell always love the open places best. Now, Nell, say you’ll forget this trouble. I know it’ll come all right. Say you’ll marry me soon.... Why, dearest, you’re crying.... Nell!”

“My — heart — is broken,” sobbed Nell, “for — I — I — can’t marry you.”

The boyish brightness faded out of Gale’s face. Here, Belding saw, was the stern reality arrayed against his dreams.

“That devil Radford Chase — he’ll tell my secret,” panted Nell. “He swore if you ever came back and married me he’d follow us all over the world to tell it.”

Belding saw Gale grow deathly white and suddenly stand stock-still.

“Chase threatened you, then?” asked Dick; and the forced naturalness of his voice struck Belding.

“Threatened me? He made my life a nightmare,” replied Nell, in a rush of speech. “At first I wondered how he was worrying mother sick. But she wouldn’t tell me. Then when she went away he began to hint things. I hated him all the more. But when he told me — I was frightened, shamed. Still I did not weaken. He was pretty decent when he was sober. But when he was half drunk he was the devil. He laughed at me and my pride. I didn’t dare shut the door in his face. After a while he found out that your mother loved me and that I loved her. Then he began to threaten me. If I didn’t give in to him he’d see she learned the truth. That made me weaken. It nearly killed me. I simply could not bear the thought of Mrs. Gale knowing. But I couldn’t marry him. Besides, he got so half the time, when he was drunk, he didn’t want or ask me to be his wife. I was about ready to give up and go mad when you — you came home.”

She ended in a whisper, looking up wistfully and sadly at him. Belding was a raging fire within, cold without. He watched Gale, and believed he could foretell that young man’s future conduct. Gale gathered Nell up into his arms and held her to his breast for a long moment.

“Dear Nell, I’m sure the worst of your trouble is over,” he said gently. “I will not give you up. Now, won’t you lie down, try to rest and calm yourself. Don’t grieve any more. This thing isn’t so bad as you make it. Trust me. I’ll shut Mr. Radford Chase’s mouth.”

As he released her she glanced quickly up at him, then lifted appealing hands.

“Dick, you won’t hunt for him — go after him?”

Gale laughed, and the laugh made Belding jump.

“Dick, I beg of you. Please don’t make trouble. The Chases have been hard enough on us. They are rich, powerful. Dick, say you will not make matters worse. Please promise me you’ll not go to him.”

“You ask me that?” he demanded.

“Yes. Oh yes!”

“But you know it’s useless. What kind of a man do you want me to be?”

“It’s only that I’m afraid. Oh, Dick, he’d shoot you in the back.”

“No, Nell, a man of his kind wouldn’t have nerve enough even for that.”

“You’ll go?” she cried wildly.

Gale smiled, and the smile made Belding cold.

“Dick, I cannot keep you back?”

“No,” he said.

Then the woman in her burst through instinctive fear, and with her eyes blazing black in her white face she lifted parted quivering lips and kissed him.

Gale left the patio, and Belding followed closely at his heels. They went through the sitting-room. Outside upon the porch sat the rangers, Mr. Gale, and Thorne. Dick went into his room without speaking.

“Shore somethin’s comin’ off,” said Ladd, sharply; and he sat up with keen eyes narrowing.

Belding spoke a few words; and, remembering an impression he had wished to make upon Mr. Gale, he made them strong. But now it was with grim humor that he spoke.

“Better stop that boy,” he concluded, looking at Mr. Gale. “He’ll do some mischief. He’s wilder’n hell.”

“Stop him? Why, assuredly,” replied Mr. Gale, rising with nervous haste.

Just then Dick came out of his door. Belding eyed him keenly. The only change he could see was that Dick had put on a hat and a pair of heavy gloves.

“Richard, where are you going?” asked his father.

“I’m going over here to see a man.”

“No. It is my wish that you remain. I forbid you to go,” said Mr. Gale, with a hand on his son’s shoulder.

Dick put Mr. Gale aside gently, respectfully, yet forcibly. The old man gasped.

“Dad, I haven’t gotten over my bad habit of disobeying you. I’m sorry. Don’t interfere with me now. And don’t follow me. You might see something unpleasant.”

“But my son! What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to beat a dog.”

Mr. Gale looked helplessly from this strangely calm and cold son to the restless Belding. Then Dick strode off the porch.

“Hold on!” Ladd’s voice would have stopped almost any man. “Dick, you wasn’t agoin’ without me?”

“Yes, I was. But I’m thoughtless just now, Laddy.”

“Shore you was. Wait a minute, Dick. I’m a sick man, but at that nobody can pull any stunts round here without me.”

He hobbled along the porch and went into his room. Jim Lash knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and, humming his dance tune, he followed Ladd. In a moment the rangers appeared, and both were packing guns.

Not a little of Belding’s grim excitement came from observation of Mr. Gale. At sight of the rangers with their guns the old man turned white and began to tremble.

“Better stay behind,” whispered Belding. “Dick’s going to beat that two-legged dog, and the rangers get excited when they’re packing guns.”

“I will not stay behind,” replied Mr. Gale, stoutly. “I’ll see this affair through. Belding, I’ve guessed it. Richard is going to fight the Chases, those robbers who have ruined you.”

“Well, I can’t guarantee any fight on their side,” returned Belding, dryly. “But maybe there’ll be Greasers with a gun or two.”

Belding stalked off to catch up with Dick, and Mr. Gale came trudging behind with Thorne.

“Where will we find these Chases?” asked Dick of Belding.

“They’ve got a place down the road adjoining the inn. They call it their club. At this hour Radford will be there sure. I don’t know about the old man. But his office is now just across the way.”

They passed several houses, turned a corner into the main street, and stopped at a wide, low adobe structure. A number of saddled horses stood haltered to posts. Mexicans lolled around the wide doorway.

“There’s Ben Chase now over on the corner,” said Belding to Dick. “See, the tall man with the white hair, and leather band on his hat. He sees us. He knows there’s something up. He’s got men with him. They’ll come over. We’re after the young buck, and sure he’ll be in here.”

They entered. The place was a hall, and needed only a bar to make it a saloon. There were two rickety pool tables. Evidently Chase had fitted up this amusement room for his laborers as well as for the use of his engineers and assistants, for the crowd contained both Mexicans and Americans. A large table near a window was surrounded by a noisy, smoking, drinking circle of card-players.

“Point out this Radford Chase to me,” said Gale.

“There! The big fellow with the red face. His eyes stick out a little. See! He’s dropped his cards and his face isn’t red any more.”

Dick strode across the room.

Belding grasped Mr. Gale and whispered hoarsely: “Don’t miss anything. It’ll be great. Watch Dick and watch Laddy! If there’s any gun play, dodge behind me.”

Belding smiled with a grim pleasure as he saw Mr. Gales’ face turn white.

Dick halted beside the table. His heavy boot shot up, and with a crash the table split, and glasses, cards, chips flew everywhere. As they rattled down and the chairs of the dumfounded players began to slide Dick called out: “My name is Gale. I’m looking for Mr. Radford Chase.”

A tall, heavy-shouldered fellow rose, boldly enough, even swaggeringly, and glowered at Gale.

“I’m Radford Chase,” he said. His voice betrayed the boldness of his action.

It was over in a few moments. The tables and chairs were tumbled into a heap; one of the pool tables had been shoved aside; a lamp lay shattered, with oil running dark upon the floor. Ladd leaned against a post with a smoking gun in his hand. A Mexican crouched close to the wall moaning over a broken arm. In the far corner upheld by comrades another wounded Mexican cried out in pain. These two had attempted to draw weapons upon Gale, and Ladd had crippled them.

In the center of the room lay Radford Chase, a limp, torn, hulking, bloody figure. He was not seriously injured. But he was helpless, a miserable beaten wretch, who knew his condition and felt the eyes upon him. He sobbed and moaned and howled. But no one offered to help him to his feet.

Backed against the door of the hall stood Ben Chase, for once stripped of all authority and confidence and courage. Gale confronted him, and now Gale’s mien was in striking contrast to the coolness with which he had entered the place. Though sweat dripped from his face, it was as white as chalk. Like dark flames his eyes seemed to leap and dance and burn. His lean jaw hung down and quivered with passion. He shook a huge gloved fist in Chase’s face.

“Your gray hairs save you this time. But keep out of my way! And when that son of yours comes to, tell him every time I meet him I’ll add some more to what he got to-day!”

CHAPTER XIX

THE SECRET OF FORLORN RIVER

IN THE EARLY morning Gale, seeking solitude where he could brood over his trouble, wandered alone. It was not easy for him to elude the Yaqui, and just at the moment when he had cast himself down in a secluded shady corner the Indian appeared, noiseless, shadowy, mysterious as always.

“Malo,” he said, in his deep voice.

“Yes, Yaqui, it’s bad — very bad,” replied Gale.

The Indian had been told of the losses sustained by Belding and his rangers.

“Go — me!” said Yaqui, with an impressive gesture toward the lofty lilac-colored steps of No Name Mountains.

He seemed the same as usual, but a glance on Gale’s part, a moment’s attention, made him conscious of the old strange force in the Yaqui. “Why does my brother want me to climb the nameless mountains with him?” asked Gale.

“Lluvia d’oro,” replied Yaqui, and he made motions that Gale found difficult of interpretation.

“Shower of Gold,” translated Gale. That was the Yaqui’s name for Nell. What did he mean by using it in connection with a climb into the mountains? Were his motions intended to convey an idea of a shower of golden blossoms from that rare and beautiful tree, or a golden rain? Gale’s listlessness vanished in a flash of thought. The Yaqui meant gold. Gold! He meant he could retrieve the fallen fortunes of the white brother who had saved his life that evil day at the Papago Well. Gale thrilled as he gazed piercingly into the wonderful eyes of this Indian. Would Yaqui never consider his debt paid?

“Go — me?” repeat the Indian, pointing with the singular directness that always made this action remarkable in him.

“Yes, Yaqui.”

Gale ran to his room, put on hobnailed boots, filled a canteen, and hurried back to the corral. Yaqui awaited him. The Indian carried a coiled lasso and a short stout stick. Without a word he led the way down the lane, turned up the river toward the mountains. None of Belding’s household saw their departure.

What had once been only a narrow mesquite-bordered trail was now a well-trodden road. A deep irrigation ditch, full of flowing muddy water, ran parallel with the road. Gale had been curious about the operations of the Chases, but bitterness he could not help had kept him from going out to see the work. He was not surprised to find that the engineers who had constructed the ditches and dam had anticipated him in every particular. The dammed-up gulch made a magnificent reservoir, and Gale could not look upon the long narrow lake without a feeling of gladness. The dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans might come again and would come, but never to the inhabitants of Forlorn River. That stone-walled, stone-floored gulch would never leak, and already it contained water enough to irrigate the whole Altar Valley for two dry seasons.

Yaqui led swiftly along the lake to the upper end, where the stream roared down over unscalable walls. This point was the farthest Gale had ever penetrated into the rough foothills, and he had Belding’s word for it that no white man had ever climbed No Name Mountains from the west.

But a white man was not an Indian. The former might have stolen the range and valley and mountain, even the desert, but his possessions would ever remain mysteries. Gale had scarcely faced the great gray ponderous wall of cliff before the old strange interest in the Yaqui seized him again. It recalled the tie that existed between them, a tie almost as close as blood. Then he was eager and curious to see how the Indian would conquer those seemingly insurmountable steps of stone.

Yaqui left the gulch and clambered up over a jumble of weathered slides and traced a slow course along the base of the giant wall. He looked up and seemed to select a point for ascent. It was the last place in that mountainside where Gale would have thought climbing possible. Before him the wall rose, leaning over him, shutting out the light, a dark mighty mountain mass. Innumerable cracks and crevices and caves roughened the bulging sides of dark rock.

Yaqui tied one end of his lasso to the short, stout stick and, carefully disentangling the coils, he whirled the stick round and round and threw it almost over the first rim of the shelf, perhaps thirty feet up. The stick did not lodge. Yaqui tried again. This time it caught in a crack. He pulled hard. Then, holding to the lasso, he walked up the steep slant, hand over hand on the rope. When he reached the shelf he motioned for Gale to follow. Gale found that method of scaling a wall both quick and easy. Yaqui pulled up the lasso, and threw the stick aloft into another crack. He climbed to another shelf, and Gale followed him. The third effort brought them to a more rugged bench a hundred feet above the slides. The Yaqui worked round to the left, and turned into a dark fissure. Gale kept close to his heels. They came out presently into lighter space, yet one that restricted any extended view. Broken sections of cliff were on all sides.

Here the ascent became toil. Gale could distance Yaqui going downhill; on the climb, however, he was hard put to it to keep the Indian in sight. It was not a question of strength or lightness of foot. These Gale had beyond the share of most men. It was a matter of lung power, and the Yaqui’s life had been spent scaling the desert heights. Moreover, the climbing was infinitely slow, tedious, dangerous. On the way up several times Gale imagined he heard a dull roar of falling water. The sound seemed to be under him, over him to this side and to that. When he was certain he could locate the direction from which it came then he heard it no more until he had gone on. Gradually he forgot it in the physical sensations of the climb. He burned his hands and knees. He grew hot and wet and winded. His heart thumped so that it hurt, and there were instants when his sight was blurred. When at last he had toiled to where the Yaqui sat awaiting him upon the rim of that great wall, it was none too soon.

Gale lay back and rested for a while without note of anything except the blue sky. Then he sat up. He was amazed to find that after that wonderful climb he was only a thousand feet or so above the valley. Judged by the nature of his effort, he would have said he had climbed a mile. The village lay beneath him, with its new adobe structures and tents and buildings in bright contrast with the older habitations. He saw the green alfalfa fields, and Belding’s white horses, looking very small and motionless. He pleased himself by imagining he could pick out Blanco Sol. Then his gaze swept on to the river.

Indeed, he realized now why some one had named it Forlorn River. Even at this season when it was full of water it had a forlorn aspect. It was doomed to fail out there on the desert — doomed never to mingle with the waters of the Gulf. It wound away down the valley, growing wider and shallower, encroaching more and more on the gray flats, until it disappeared on its sad journey toward Sonoyta. That vast shimmering, sun-governed waste recognized its life only at this flood season, and was already with parched tongue and insatiate fire licking and burning up its futile waters.

Yaqui put a hand on Gale’s knee. It was a bronzed, scarred, powerful hand, always eloquent of meaning. The Indian was listening. His bent head, his strange dilating eyes, his rigid form, and that close-pressing hand, how these brought back to Gale the terrible lonely night hours on the lava!

“What do you hear, Yaqui?” asked Gale. He laughed a little at the mood that had come over him. But the sound of his voice did not break the spell. He did not want to speak again. He yielded to Yaqui’s subtle nameless influence. He listened himself, heard nothing but the scream of an eagle. Often he wondered if the Indian could hear things that made no sound. Yaqui was beyond understanding.

Whatever the Indian had listened to or for, presently he satisfied himself, and, with a grunt that might mean anything, he rose and turned away from the rim. Gale followed, rested now and eager to go on. He saw that the great cliff they had climbed was only a stairway up to the huge looming dark bulk of the plateau above.

Suddenly he again heard the dull roar of falling water. It seemed to have cleared itself of muffled vibrations. Yaqui mounted a little ridge and halted. The next instant Gale stood above a bottomless cleft into which a white stream leaped. His astounded gaze swept backward along this narrow swift stream to its end in a dark, round, boiling pool. It was a huge spring, a bubbling well, the outcropping of an underground river coming down from the vast plateau above.

Yaqui had brought Gale to the source of Forlorn River.

Flashing thoughts in Gale’s mind were no swifter than the thrills that ran over him. He would stake out a claim here and never be cheated out of it. Ditches on the benches and troughs on the steep walls would carry water down to the valley. Ben Chase had build a great dam which would be useless if Gale chose to turn Forlorn River from its natural course. The fountain head of that mysterious desert river belonged to him.

His eagerness, his mounting passion, was checked by Yaqui’s unusual action. The Indian showed wonder, hesitation, even reluctance. His strange eyes surveyed this boiling well as if they could not believe the sight they saw. Gale divined instantly that Yaqui had never before seen the source of Forlorn River. If he had ever ascended to this plateau, probably it had been to some other part, for the water was new to him. He stood gazing aloft at peaks, at lower ramparts of the mountain, and at nearer landmarks of prominence. Yaqui seemed at fault. He was not sure of his location.

Then he strode past the swirling pool of dark water and began to ascend a little slope that led up to a shelving cliff. Another object halted the Indian. It was a pile of stones, weathered, crumbled, fallen into ruin, but still retaining shape enough to prove it had been built there by the hands of men. Round and round this the Yaqui stalked, and his curiosity attested a further uncertainty. It was as if he had come upon something surprising. Gale wondered about the pile of stones. Had it once been a prospector’s claim?

“Ugh!” grunted the Indian; and, though his exclamation expressed no satisfaction, it surely put an end to doubt. He pointed up to the roof of the sloping yellow shelf of stone. Faintly outlined there in red were the imprints of many human hands with fingers spread wide. Gale had often seen such paintings on the walls of the desert caverns. Manifestly these told Yaqui he had come to the spot for which he had aimed.

Then his actions became swift — and Yaqui seldom moved swiftly. The fact impressed Gale. The Indian searched the level floor under the shelf. He gathered up handfuls of small black stones, and thrust them at Gale. Their weight made Gale start, and then he trembled. The Indian’s next move was to pick up a piece of weathered rock and throw it against the wall. It broke. He snatched up parts, and showed the broken edges to Gale. They contained yellow steaks, dull glints, faint tracings of green. It was gold.

Gale found his legs shaking under him; and he sat down, trying to take all the bits of stone into his lap. His fingers were all thumbs as with knife blade he dug into the black pieces of rock. He found gold. Then he stared down the slope, down into the valley with its river winding forlornly away into the desert. But he did not see any of that. Here was reality as sweet, as wonderful, as saving as a dream come true. Yaqui had led him to a ledge of gold. Gale had learned enough about mineral to know that this was a rich strike. All in a second he was speechless with the joy of it. But his mind whirled in thought about this strange and noble Indian, who seemed never to be able to pay a debt. Belding and the poverty that had come to him! Nell, who had wept over the loss of a spring! Laddy, who never could ride again! Jim Lash, who swore he would always look after his friend! Thorne and Mercedes! All these people, who had been good to him and whom he loved, were poor. But now they would be rich. They would one and all be his partners. He had discovered the source of Forlorn River, and was rich in water. Yaqui had made him rich in gold. Gale wanted to rush down the slope, down into the valley, and tell his wonderful news.

Suddenly his eyes cleared and he saw the pile of stones. His blood turned to ice, then to fire. That was the mark of a prospector’s claim. But it was old, very old. The ledge had never been worked, the slope was wild. There was not another single indication that a prospector had ever been there. Where, then, was he who had first staked this claim? Gale wondered with growing hope, with the fire easing, with the cold passing.

The Yaqui uttered the low, strange, involuntary cry so rare with him, a cry somehow always associated with death. Gale shuddered.

The Indian was digging in the sand and dust under the shelving wall. He threw out an object that rang against the stone. It was a belt buckle. He threw out old shrunken, withered boots. He came upon other things, and then he ceased to dig.

The grave of desert prospectors! Gale had seen more than one. Ladd had told him many a story of such gruesome finds. It was grim, hard fact.

Then the keen-eyed Yaqui reached up to a little projecting shelf of rock and took from it a small object. He showed no curiosity and gave the thing to Gale.

How strangely Gale felt when he received into his hands a flat oblong box! Was it only the influence of the Yaqui, or was there a nameless and unseen presence beside that grave? Gale could not be sure. But he knew he had gone back to the old desert mood. He knew something hung in the balance. No accident, no luck, no debt-paying Indian could account wholly for that moment. Gale knew he held in his hands more than gold.

The box was a tin one, and not all rusty. Gale pried open the reluctant lid. A faint old musty odor penetrated his nostrils. Inside the box lay a packet wrapped in what once might have been oilskin. He took it out and removed this covering. A folded paper remained in his hands.

It was growing yellow with age. But he descried a dim tracery of words. A crabbed scrawl, written in blood, hard to read! He held it more to the light, and slowly he deciphered its content.

“We, Robert Burton and Jonas Warren, give half of this gold claim to the man who finds it and half to Nell Burton, daughter and granddaughter.”

Gasping, with a bursting heart, overwhelmed by an unutterable joy of divination, Gale fumbled with the paper until he got it open.

It was a certificate twenty-one years old, and recorded the marriage of Robert Burton and Nellie Warren.

CHAPTER XX

DESERT GOLD

A SUMMER DAY dawned on Forlorn River, a beautiful, still, hot, golden day with huge sail clouds of white motionless over No Name Peaks and the purple of clear air in the distance along the desert horizon.

Mrs. Belding returned that day to find her daughter happy and the past buried forever in two lonely graves. The haunting shadow left her eyes. Gale believed he would never forget the sweetness, the wonder, the passion of her embrace when she called him her boy and gave him her blessing.

The little wrinkled padre who married Gale and Nell performed the ceremony as he told his beads, without interest or penetration, and went his way, leaving happiness behind.

“Shore I was a sick man,” Ladd said, “an’ darn near a dead one, but I’m agoin’ to get well. Mebbe I’ll be able to ride again someday. Nell, I lay it to you. An’ I’m agoin’ to kiss you an’ wish you all the joy there is in this world. An’, Dick, as Yaqui says, she’s shore your Shower of Gold.”

He spoke of Gale’s finding love — spoke of it with the deep and wistful feeling of the lonely ranger who had always yearned for love and had never known it. Belding, once more practical, and important as never before with mining projects and water claims to manage, spoke of Gale’s great good fortune in finding of gold — he called it desert gold.

“Ah, yes. Desert Gold!” exclaimed Dick’s father, softly, with eyes of pride. Perhaps he was glad Dick had found the rich claim; surely he was happy that Dick had won the girl he loved. But it seemed to Dick himself that his father meant something very different from love and fortune in his allusion to desert gold.

That beautiful happy day, like life or love itself, could not be wholly perfect.

Yaqui came to Dick to say good-by. Dick was startled, grieved, and in his impulsiveness forgot for a moment the nature of the Indian. Yaqui was not to be changed.

Belding tried to overload him with gifts. The Indian packed a bag of food, a blanket, a gun, a knife, a canteen, and no more. The whole household went out with him to the corrals and fields from which Belding bade him choose a horse — any horse, even the loved Blanco Diablo. Gale’s heart was in his throat for fear the Indian might choose Blanco Sol, and Gale hated himself for a selfishness he could not help. But without a word he would have parted with the treasured Sol.

Yaqui whistled the horses up — for the last time. Did he care for them? It would have been hard to say. He never looked at the fierce and haughty Diablo, nor at Blanco Sol as he raised his noble head and rang his piercing blast. The Indian did not choose one of Belding’s whites. He caught a lean and wiry broncho, strapped a blanket on him, and fastened on the pack.

Then he turned to these friends, the same emotionless, inscrutable dark and silent Indian that he had always been. This parting was nothing to him. He had stayed to pay a debt, and now he was going home.

He shook hands with the men, swept a dark fleeting glance over Nell, and rested his strange eyes upon Mercedes’s beautiful and agitated face. It must have been a moment of intense feeling for the Spanish girl. She owed it to him that she had life and love and happiness. She held out those speaking slender hands. But Yaqui did not touch them. Turning away, he mounted the broncho and rode down the trail toward the river.

“He’s going home,” said Belding.

“Home!” whispered Ladd; and Dick knew the ranger felt the resurging tide of memory. Home — across the cactus and lava, through solemn lonely days, the silent, lonely nights, into the vast and red-hazed world of desolation.

“Thorne, Mercedes, Nell, let’s climb the foothill yonder and watch him out of sight,” said Dick.

They climbed while the others returned to the house. When they reached the summit of the hill Yaqui was riding up the far bank of the river.

“He will turn to look — to wave good-by?” asked Nell.

“Dear he is an Indian,” replied Gale.

From that height they watched him ride through the mesquites, up over the river bank to enter the cactus. His mount showed dark against the green and white, and for a long time he was plainly in sight. The sun hung red in a golden sky. The last the watchers saw of Yaqui was when he rode across a ridge and stood silhouetted against the gold of desert sky — a wild, lonely, beautiful picture. Then he was gone.

Strangely it came to Gale then that he was glad. Yaqui had returned to his own — the great spaces, the desolation, the solitude — to the trails he had trodden when a child, trails haunted now by ghosts of his people, and ever by his gods. Gale realized that in the Yaqui he had known the spirit of the desert, that this spirit had claimed all which was wild and primitive in him.

Tears glistened in Mercedes’s magnificent black eyes, and Thorne kissed them away — kissed the fire back to them and the flame to her cheeks.

That action recalled Gale’s earlier mood, the joy of the present, and he turned to Nell’s sweet face. The desert was there, wonderful, constructive, ennobling, beautiful, terrible, but it was not for him as it was for the Indian. In the light of Nell’s tremulous returning smile that strange, deep, clutching shadow faded, lost its hold forever; and he leaned close to her, whispering: “Lluvia d’oro”— “Shower of Gold.”

The Light of Western Stars

CONTENTS

I. A Gentleman of the Range

II. A Secret Kept

III. Sister and Brother

IV. A Ride From Sunrise To Sunset

V. The Round-Up

VI. A Gift and A Purchase

VII. Her Majesty’s Rancho

VIII. El Capitan

IX. The New Foreman

X. Don Carlos’s Vaqueros

XI. A Band of Guerrillas

XII. Friends from the East

XIII. Cowboy Golf

XIV. Bandits

XV. The Mountain Trail

XVI. The Crags

XVII. The Lost Mine of the Padres

XVIII. Bonita

XIX. Don Carlos

XX. The Sheriff of El Cajon

XXI. Unbridled

XXII. The Secret Told

XXIII. The Light of Western Stars

XXIV. The Ride

XXV. At the End of the Road

I. A Gentleman of the Range

WHEN MADELINE HAMMOND stepped from the train at El Cajon, New Mexico, it was nearly midnight, and her first impression was of a huge dark space of cool, windy emptiness, strange and silent, stretching away under great blinking white stars.

“Miss, there’s no one to meet you,” said the conductor, rather anxiously.

“I wired my brother,” she replied. “The train being so late — perhaps he grew tired of waiting. He will be here presently. But, if he should not come — surely I can find a hotel?”

“There’s lodgings to be had. Get the station agent to show you. If you’ll excuse me — this is no place for a lady like you to be alone at night. It’s a rough little town — mostly Mexicans, miners, cowboys. And they carouse a lot. Besides, the revolution across the border has stirred up some excitement along the line. Miss, I guess it’s safe enough, if you—”

“Thank you. I am not in the least afraid.”

As the train started to glide away Miss Hammond walked towards the dimly lighted station. As she was about to enter she encountered a Mexican with sombrero hiding his features and a blanket mantling his shoulders.

“Is there any one here to meet Miss Hammond?” she asked.

“No sabe, Senora,” he replied from under the muffling blanket, and he shuffled away into the shadow.

She entered the empty waiting-room. An oil-lamp gave out a thick yellow light. The ticket window was open, and through it she saw there was neither agent nor operator in the little compartment. A telegraph instrument clicked faintly.

Madeline Hammond stood tapping a shapely foot on the floor, and with some amusement contrasted her reception in El Cajon with what it was when she left a train at the Grand Central. The only time she could remember ever having been alone like this was once when she had missed her maid and her train at a place outside of Versailles — an adventure that had been a novel and delightful break in the prescribed routine of her much-chaperoned life. She crossed the waiting-room to a window and, holding aside her veil, looked out. At first she could descry only a few dim lights, and these blurred in her sight. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw a superbly built horse standing near the window. Beyond was a bare square. Or, if it was a street, it was the widest one Madeline had ever seen. The dim lights shone from low, flat buildings. She made out the dark shapes of many horses, all standing motionless with drooping heads. Through a hole in the window-glass came a cool breeze, and on it breathed a sound that struck coarsely upon her ear — a discordant mingling of laughter and shout, and the tramp of boots to the hard music of a phonograph.

“Western revelry,” mused Miss Hammond, as she left the window. “Now, what to do? I’ll wait here. Perhaps the station agent will return soon, or Alfred will come for me.”

As she sat down to wait she reviewed the causes which accounted for the remarkable situation in which she found herself. That Madeline Hammond should be alone, at a late hour, in a dingy little Western railroad station, was indeed extraordinary.

The close of her debutante year had been marred by the only unhappy experience of her life — the disgrace of her brother and his leaving home. She dated the beginning of a certain thoughtful habit of mind from that time, and a dissatisfaction with the brilliant life society offered her. The change had been so gradual that it was permanent before she realized it. For a while an active outdoor life — golf, tennis, yachting — kept this realization from becoming morbid introspection. There came a time when even these lost charm for her, and then she believed she was indeed ill in mind. Travel did not help her.

There had been months of unrest, of curiously painful wonderment that her position, her wealth, her popularity no longer sufficed. She believed she had lived through the dreams and fancies of a girl to become a woman of the world. And she had gone on as before, a part of the glittering show, but no longer blind to the truth — that there was nothing in her luxurious life to make it significant.

Sometimes from the depths of her there flashed up at odd moments intimations of a future revolt. She remembered one evening at the opera when the curtain had risen upon a particularly well-done piece of stage scenery — a broad space of deep desolateness, reaching away under an infinitude of night sky, illumined by stars. The suggestion it brought of vast wastes of lonely, rugged earth, of a great, blue-arched vault of starry sky, pervaded her soul with a strange, sweet peace.

When the scene was changed she lost this vague new sense of peace, and she turned away from the stage in irritation. She looked at the long, curved tier of glittering boxes that represented her world. It was a distinguished and splendid world — the wealth, fashion, culture, beauty, and blood of a nation. She, Madeline Hammond, was a part of it. She smiled, she listened, she talked to the men who from time to time strolled into the Hammond box, and she felt that there was not a moment when she was natural, true to herself. She wondered why these people could not somehow, some way be different; but she could not tell what she wanted them to be. If they had been different they would not have fitted the place; indeed, they would not have been there at all. Yet she thought wistfully that they lacked something for her.

And suddenly realizing she would marry one of these men if she did not revolt, she had been assailed by a great weariness, an icy-sickening sense that life had palled upon her. She was tired of fashionable society. She was tired of polished, imperturbable men who sought only to please her. She was tired of being feted, admired, loved, followed, and importuned; tired of people; tired of houses, noise, ostentation, luxury. She was so tired of herself!

In the lonely distances and the passionless stars of boldly painted stage scenery she had caught a glimpse of something that stirred her soul. The feeling did not last. She could not call it back. She imagined that the very boldness of the scene had appealed to her; she divined that the man who painted it had found inspiration, joy, strength, serenity in rugged nature. And at last she knew what she needed — to be alone, to brood for long hours, to gaze out on lonely, silent, darkening stretches, to watch the stars, to face her soul, to find her real self.

Then it was she had first thought of visiting the brother who had gone West to cast his fortune with the cattlemen. As it happened, she had friends who were on the eve of starting for California, and she made a quick decision to travel with them. When she calmly announced her intention of going out West her mother had exclaimed in consternation; and her father, surprised into pathetic memory of the black sheep of the family, had stared at her with glistening eyes. “Why, Madeline! You want to see that wild boy!” Then he had reverted to the anger he still felt for his wayward son, and he had forbidden Madeline to go. Her mother forgot her haughty poise and dignity. Madeline, however, had exhibited a will she had never before been known to possess. She stood her ground even to reminding them that she was twenty-four and her own mistress. In the end she had prevailed, and that without betraying the real state of her mind.

Her decision to visit her brother had been too hurriedly made and acted upon for her to write him about it, and so she had telegraphed him from New York, and also, a day later, from Chicago, where her traveling friends had been delayed by illness. Nothing could have turned her back then. Madeline had planned to arrive in El Cajon on October 3d, her brother’s birthday, and she had succeeded, though her arrival occurred at the twenty-fourth hour. Her train had been several hours late. Whether or not the message had reached Alfred’s hands she had no means of telling, and the thing which concerned her now was the fact that she had arrived and he was not there to meet her.

It did not take long for thought of the past to give way wholly to the reality of the present.

“I hope nothing has happened to Alfred,” she said to herself. “He was well, doing splendidly, the last time he wrote. To be sure, that was a good while ago; but, then, he never wrote often. He’s all right. Pretty soon he’ll come, and how glad I’ll be! I wonder if he has changed.”

As Madeline sat waiting in the yellow gloom she heard the faint, intermittent click of the telegraph instrument, the low hum of wires, the occasional stamp of an iron-shod hoof, and a distant vacant laugh rising above the sounds of the dance. These commonplace things were new to her. She became conscious of a slight quickening of her pulse. Madeline had only a limited knowledge of the West. Like all of her class, she had traveled Europe and had neglected America. A few letters from her brother had confused her already vague ideas of plains and mountains, as well as of cowboys and cattle. She had been astounded at the interminable distance she had traveled, and if there had been anything attractive to look at in all that journey she had passed it in the night. And here she sat in a dingy little station, with telegraph wires moaning a lonely song in the wind.

A faint sound like the rattling of thin chains diverted Madeline’s attention. At first she imagined it was made by the telegraph wires. Then she heard a step. The door swung wide; a tall man entered, and with him came the clinking rattle. She realized then that the sound came from his spurs. The man was a cowboy, and his entrance recalled vividly to her that of Dustin Farnum in the first act of “The Virginian.”

“Will you please direct me to a hotel?” asked Madeline, rising.

The cowboy removed his sombrero, and the sweep he made with it and the accompanying bow, despite their exaggeration, had a kind of rude grace. He took two long strides toward her.

“Lady, are you married?”

In the past Miss Hammond’s sense of humor had often helped her to overlook critical exactions natural to her breeding. She kept silence, and she imagined it was just as well that her veil hid her face at the moment. She had been prepared to find cowboys rather striking, and she had been warned not to laugh at them.

This gentleman of the range deliberately reached down and took up her left hand. Before she recovered from her start of amaze he had stripped off her glove.

“Fine spark, but no wedding-ring,” he drawled. “Lady, I’m glad to see you’re not married.”

He released her hand and returned the glove.

“You see, the only ho-tel in this here town is against boarding married women.”

“Indeed?” said Madeline, trying to adjust her wits to the situation.

“It sure is,” he went on. “Bad business for ho-tels to have married women. Keeps the boys away. You see, this isn’t Reno.”

Then he laughed rather boyishly, and from that, and the way he slouched on his sombrero, Madeline realized he was half drunk. As she instinctively recoiled she not only gave him a keener glance, but stepped into a position where a better light shone on his face. It was like red bronze, bold, raw, sharp. He laughed again, as if good-naturedly amused with himself, and the laugh scarcely changed the hard set of his features. Like that of all women whose beauty and charm had brought them much before the world, Miss Hammond’s intuition had been developed until she had a delicate and exquisitely sensitive perception of the nature of men and of her effect upon them. This crude cowboy, under the influence of drink, had affronted her; nevertheless, whatever was in his mind, he meant no insult.

“I shall be greatly obliged if you will show me to the hotel,” she said.

“Lady, you wait here,” he replied, slowly, as if his thought did not come swiftly. “I’ll go fetch the porter.”

She thanked him, and as he went out, closing the door, she sat down in considerable relief. It occurred to her that she should have mentioned her brother’s name. Then she fell to wondering what living with such uncouth cowboys had done to Alfred. He had been wild enough in college, and she doubted that any cowboy could have taught him much. She alone of her family had ever believed in any latent good in Alfred Hammond, and her faith had scarcely survived the two years of silence.

Waiting there, she again found herself listening to the moan of the wind through the wires. The horse outside began to pound with heavy hoofs, and once he whinnied. Then Madeline heard a rapid pattering, low at first and growing louder, which presently she recognized as the galloping of horses. She went to the window, thinking, hoping her brother had arrived. But as the clatter increased to a roar, shadows sped by — lean horses, flying manes and tails, sombreroed riders, all strange and wild in her sight. Recalling what the conductor had said, she was at some pains to quell her uneasiness. Dust-clouds shrouded the dim lights in the windows. Then out of the gloom two figures appeared, one tall, the other slight. The cowboy was returning with a porter.

Heavy footsteps sounded without, and lighter ones dragging along, and then suddenly the door rasped open, jarring the whole room. The cowboy entered, pulling a disheveled figure — that of a priest, a padre, whose mantle had manifestly been disarranged by the rude grasp of his captor. Plain it was that the padre was extremely terrified.

Madeline Hammond gazed in bewilderment at the little man, so pale and shaken, and a protest trembled upon her lips; but it was never uttered, for this half-drunken cowboy now appeared to be a cool, grim-smiling devil; and stretching out a long arm, he grasped her and swung her back to the bench.

“You stay there!” he ordered.

His voice, though neither brutal nor harsh nor cruel, had the unaccountable effect of making her feel powerless to move. No man had ever before addressed her in such a tone. It was the woman in her that obeyed — not the personality of proud Madeline Hammond.

The padre lifted his clasped hands as if supplicating for his life, and began to speak hurriedly in Spanish. Madeline did not understand the language. The cowboy pulled out a huge gun and brandished it in the priest’s face. Then he lowered it, apparently to point it at the priest’s feet. There was a red flash, and then a thundering report that stunned Madeline. The room filled with smoke and the smell of powder. Madeline did not faint or even shut her eyes, but she felt as if she were fast in a cold vise. When she could see distinctly through the smoke she experienced a sensation of immeasurable relief that the cowboy had not shot the padre. But he was still waving the gun, and now appeared to be dragging his victim toward her. What possibly could be the drunken fool’s intention? This must be, this surely was a cowboy trick. She had a vague, swiftly flashing recollection of Alfred’s first letters descriptive of the extravagant fun of cowboys. Then she vividly remembered a moving picture she had seen — cowboys playing a monstrous joke on a lone school-teacher. Madeline no sooner thought of it than she made certain her brother was introducing her to a little wild West amusement. She could scarcely believe it, yet it must be true. Alfred’s old love of teasing her might have extended even to this outrage. Probably he stood just outside the door or window laughing at her embarrassment.

Anger checked her panic. She straightened up with what composure this surprise had left her and started for the door. But the cowboy barred her passage — grasped her arms. Then Madeline divined that her brother could not have any knowledge of this indignity. It was no trick. It was something that was happening, that was real, that threatened she knew not what. She tried to wrench free, feeling hot all over at being handled by this drunken brute. Poise, dignity, culture — all the acquired habits of character — fled before the instinct to fight. She was athletic. She fought. She struggled desperately. But he forced her back with hands of iron. She had never known a man could be so strong. And then it was the man’s coolly smiling face, the paralyzing strangeness of his manner, more than his strength, that weakened Madeline until she sank trembling against the bench.

“What — do you — mean?” she panted.

“Dearie, ease up a little on the bridle,” he replied, gaily.

Madeline thought she must be dreaming. She could not think clearly. It had all been too swift, too terrible for her to grasp. Yet she not only saw this man, but also felt his powerful presence. And the shaking priest, the haze of blue smoke, the smell of powder — these were not unreal.

Then close before her eyes burst another blinding red flash, and close at her ears bellowed another report. Unable to stand, Madeline slipped down onto the bench. Her drifting faculties refused clearly to record what transpired during the next few moments; presently, however, as her mind steadied somewhat, she heard, though as in a dream, the voice of the padre hurrying over strange words. It ceased, and then the cowboy’s voice stirred her.

“Lady, say Si — Si. Say it — quick! Say it — Si!”

From sheer suggestion, a force irresistible at this moment when her will was clamped by panic, she spoke the word.

“And now, lady — so we can finish this properly — what’s your name?”

Still obeying mechanically, she told him.

He stared for a while, as if the name had awakened associations in a mind somewhat befogged. He leaned back unsteadily. Madeline heard the expulsion of his breath, a kind of hard puff, not unusual in drunken men.

“What name?” he demanded.

“Madeline Hammond. I am Alfred Hammond’s sister.”

He put his hand up and brushed at an imaginary something before his eyes. Then he loomed over her, and that hand, now shaking a little, reached out for her veil. Before he could touch it, however, she swept it back, revealing her face.

“You’re — not — Majesty Hammond?”

How strange — stranger than anything that had ever happened to her before — was it to hear that name on the lips of this cowboy! It was a name by which she was familiarly known, though only those nearest and dearest to her had the privilege of using it. And now it revived her dulled faculties, and by an effort she regained control of herself.

“You are Majesty Hammond,” he replied; and this time he affirmed wonderingly rather than questioned.

Madeline rose and faced him.

“Yes, I am.”

He slammed his gun back into its holster.

“Well, I reckon we won’t go on with it, then.”

“With what, sir? And why did you force me to say Si to this priest?”

“I reckon that was a way I took to show him you’d be willing to get married.”

“Oh!... You — you!...” Words failed her.

This appeared to galvanize the cowboy into action. He grasped the padre and led him toward the door, cursing and threatening, no doubt enjoining secrecy. Then he pushed him across the threshold and stood there breathing hard and wrestling with himself.

“Here — wait — wait a minute, Miss — Miss Hammond,” he said, huskily. “You could fall into worse company than mine — though I reckon you sure think not. I’m pretty drunk, but I’m — all right otherwise. Just wait — a minute.”

She stood quivering and blazing with wrath, and watched this savage fight his drunkenness. He acted like a man who had been suddenly shocked into a rational state of mind, and he was now battling with himself to hold on to it. Madeline saw the dark, damp hair lift from his brows as he held it up to the cool wind. Above him she saw the white stars in the deep-blue sky, and they seemed as unreal to her as any other thing in this strange night. They were cold, brilliant, aloof, distant; and looking at them, she felt her wrath lessen and die and leave her calm.

The cowboy turned and began to talk.

“You see — I was pretty drunk,” he labored. “There was a fiesta — and a wedding. I do fool things when I’m drunk. I made a fool bet I’d marry the first girl who came to town.... If you hadn’t worn that veil — the fellows were joshing me — and Ed Linton was getting married — and everybody always wants to gamble.... I must have been pretty drunk.”

After the one look at her when she had first put aside her veil he had not raised his eyes to her face. The cool audacity had vanished in what was either excessive emotion or the maudlin condition peculiar to some men when drunk. He could not stand still; perspiration collected in beads upon his forehead; he kept wiping his face with his scarf, and he breathed like a man after violent exertions.

“You see — I was pretty—” he began.

“Explanations are not necessary,” she interrupted. “I am very tired — distressed. The hour is late. Have you the slightest idea what it means to be a gentleman?”

His bronzed face burned to a flaming crimson.

“Is my brother here — in town to-night?” Madeline went on.

“No. He’s at his ranch.”

“But I wired him.”

“Like as not the message is over in his box at the P.O. He’ll be in town to-morrow. He’s shipping cattle for Stillwell.”

“Meanwhile I must go to a hotel. Will you please—”

If he heard her last words he showed no evidence of it. A noise outside had attracted his attention. Madeline listened. Low voices of men, the softer liquid tones of a woman, drifted in through the open door. They spoke in Spanish, and the voices grew louder. Evidently the speakers were approaching the station. Footsteps crunching on gravel attested to this, and quicker steps, coming with deep tones of men in anger, told of a quarrel. Then the woman’s voice, hurried and broken, rising higher, was eloquent of vain appeal.

The cowboy’s demeanor startled Madeline into anticipation of something dreadful. She was not deceived. From outside came the sound of a scuffle — a muffled shot, a groan, the thud of a falling body, a woman’s low cry, and footsteps padding away in rapid retreat.

Madeline Hammond leaned weakly back in her seat, cold and sick, and for a moment her ears throbbed to the tramp of the dancers across the way and the rhythm of the cheap music. Then into the open door-place flashed a girl’s tragic face, lighted by dark eyes and framed by dusky hair. The girl reached a slim brown hand round the side of the door and held on as if to support herself. A long black scarf accentuated her gaudy attire.

“Senor — Gene!” she exclaimed; and breathless glad recognition made a sudden break in her terror.

“Bonita!” The cowboy leaped to her. “Girl! Are you hurt?”

“No, Senor.”

He took hold of her. “I heard — somebody got shot. Was it Danny?”

“No, Senor.”

“Did Danny do the shooting? Tell me, girl.”

“No, Senor.”

“I’m sure glad. I thought Danny was mixed up in that. He had Stillwell’s money for the boys — I was afraid.... Say, Bonita, but you’ll get in trouble. Who was with you? What did you do?”

“Senor Gene — they Don Carlos vaqueros — they quarrel over me. I only dance a leetle, smile a leetle, and they quarrel. I beg they be good — watch out for Sheriff Hawe... and now Sheriff Hawe put me in jail. I so frighten; he try make leetle love to Bonita once, and now he hate me like he hate Senor Gene.”

“Pat Hawe won’t put you in jail. Take my horse and hit the Peloncillo trail. Bonita, promise to stay away from El Cajon.”

“Si, Senor.”

He led her outside. Madeline heard the horse snort and champ his bit. The cowboy spoke low; only a few words were intelligible— “stirrups... wait... out of town... mountain... trail ... now ride!”

A moment’s silence ensued, and was broken by a pounding of hoofs, a pattering of gravel. Then Madeline saw a big, dark horse run into the wide space. She caught a glimpse of wind-swept scarf and hair, a little form low down in the saddle. The horse was outlined in black against the line of dim lights. There was something wild and splendid in his flight.

Directly the cowboy appeared again in the doorway.

“Miss Hammond, I reckon we want to rustle out of here. Been bad goings-on. And there’s a train due.”

She hurried into the open air, not daring to look back or to either side. Her guide strode swiftly. She had almost to run to keep up with him. Many conflicting emotions confused her. She had a strange sense of this stalking giant beside her, silent except for his jangling spurs. She had a strange feeling of the cool, sweet wind and the white stars. Was it only her disordered fancy, or did these wonderful stars open and shut? She had a queer, disembodied thought that somewhere in ages back, in another life, she had seen these stars. The night seemed dark, yet there was a pale, luminous light — a light from the stars — and she fancied it would always haunt her.

Suddenly aware that she had been led beyond the line of houses, she spoke:

“Where are you taking me?”

“To Florence Kingsley,” he replied.

“Who is she?”

“I reckon she’s your brother’s best friend out here.” Madeline kept pace with the cowboy for a few moments longer, and then she stopped. It was as much from necessity to catch her breath as it was from recurring fear. All at once she realized what little use her training had been for such an experience as this. The cowboy, missing her, came back the few intervening steps. Then he waited, still silent, looming beside her.

“It’s so dark, so lonely,” she faltered. “How do I know... what warrant can you give me that you — that no harm will befall me if I go farther?”

“None, Miss Hammond, except that I’ve seen your face.”

II. A Secret Kept

BECAUSE OF THAT singular reply Madeline found faith to go farther with the cowboy. But at the moment she really did not think about what he had said. Any answer to her would have served if it had been kind. His silence had augmented her nervousness, compelling her to voice her fear. Still, even if he had not replied at all she would have gone on with him. She shuddered at the idea of returning to the station, where she believed there had been murder; she could hardly have forced herself to go back to those dim lights in the street; she did not want to wander around alone in the dark.

And as she walked on into the windy darkness, much relieved that he had answered as he had, reflecting that he had yet to prove his words true, she began to grasp the deeper significance of them. There was a revival of pride that made her feel that she ought to scorn to think at all about such a man. But Madeline Hammond discovered that thought was involuntary, that there were feelings in her never dreamed of before this night.

Presently Madeline’s guide turned off the walk and rapped at a door of a low-roofed house.

“Hullo — who’s there?” a deep voice answered.

“Gene Stewart,” said the cowboy. “Call Florence — quick!”

Thump of footsteps followed, a tap on a door, and voices. Madeline heard a woman exclaim: “Gene! here when there’s a dance in town! Something wrong out on the range.” A light flared up and shone bright through a window. In another moment there came a patter of soft steps, and the door opened to disclose a woman holding a lamp.

“Gene! Al’s not—”

“Al is all right,” interrupted the cowboy.

Madeline had two sensations then — one of wonder at the note of alarm and love in the woman’s voice, and the other of unutterable relief to be safe with a friend of her brother’s.

“It’s Al’s sister — came on to-night’s train,” the cowboy was saying. “I happened to be at the station, and I’ve fetched her up to you.”

Madeline came forward out of the shadow.

“Not — not really Majesty Hammond!” exclaimed Florence Kingsley. She nearly dropped the lamp, and she looked and looked, astounded beyond belief.

“Yes, I am really she,” replied Madeline. “My train was late, and for some reason Alfred did not meet me. Mr. — Mr. Stewart saw fit to bring me to you instead of taking me to a hotel.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to meet you,” replied Florence, warmly. “Do come in. I’m so surprised, I forget my manners. Why, Al never mentioned your coming.”

“He surely could not have received my messages,” said Madeline, as she entered.

The cowboy, who came in with her satchel, had to stoop to enter the door, and, once in, he seemed to fill the room. Florence set the lamp down upon the table. Madeline saw a young woman with a smiling, friendly face, and a profusion of fair hair hanging down over her dressing-gown.

“Oh, but Al will be glad!” cried Florence. “Why, you are white as a sheet. You must be tired. What a long wait you had at the station! I heard the train come in hours ago as I was going to bed. That station is lonely at night. If I had known you were coming! Indeed, you are very pale. Are you ill?”

“No. Only I am very tired. Traveling so far by rail is harder than I imagined. I did have rather a long wait after arriving at the station, but I can’t say that it was lonely.”

Florence Kingsley searched Madeline’s face with keen eyes, and then took a long, significant look at the silent Stewart. With that she deliberately and quietly closed a door leading into another room.

“Miss Hammond, what has happened?” She had lowered her voice.

“I do not wish to recall all that has happened,” replied Madeline. “I shall tell Alfred, however, that I would rather have met a hostile Apache than a cowboy.”

“Please don’t tell Al that!” cried Florence. Then she grasped Stewart and pulled him close to the light. “Gene, you’re drunk!”

“I was pretty drunk,” he replied, hanging his head.

“Oh, what have you done?”

“Now, see here, Flo, I only—”

“I don’t want to know. I’d tell it. Gene, aren’t you ever going to learn decency? Aren’t you ever going to stop drinking? You’ll lose all your friends. Stillwell has stuck to you. Al’s been your best friend. Molly and I have pleaded with you, and now you’ve gone and done — God knows what!”

“What do women want to wear veils for?” he growled. “I’d have known her but for that veil.”

“And you wouldn’t have insulted her. But you would the next girl who came along. Gene, you are hopeless. Now, you get out of here and don’t ever come back.”

“Flo!” he entreated.

“I mean it.”

“I reckon then I’ll come back to-morrow and take my medicine,” he replied.

“Don’t you dare!” she cried.

Stewart went out and closed the door.

“Miss Hammond, you — you don’t know how this hurts me,” said Florence. “What you must think of us! It’s so unlucky that you should have had this happen right at first. Now, maybe you won’t have the heart to stay. Oh, I’ve known more than one Eastern girl to go home without ever learning what we really are cut here. Miss Hammond, Gene Stewart is a fiend when he’s drunk. All the same I know, whatever he did, he meant no shame to you. Come now, don’t think about it again to-night.” She took up the lamp and led Madeline into a little room. “This is out West,” she went on, smiling, as she indicated the few furnishings; “but you can rest. You’re perfectly safe. Won’t you let me help you undress — can’t I do anything for you?”

“You are very kind, thank you, but I can manage,” replied Madeline.

“Well, then, good night. The sooner I go the sooner you’ll rest. Just forget what happened and think how fine a surprise you’re to give your brother to-morrow.”

With that she slipped out and softly shut the door.

As Madeline laid her watch on the bureau she noticed that the time was past two o’clock. It seemed long since she had gotten off the train. When she had turned out the lamp and crept wearily into bed she knew what it was to be utterly spent. She was too tired to move a finger. But her brain whirled.

She had at first no control over it, and a thousand thronging sensations came and went and recurred with little logical relation. There were the roar of the train; the feeling of being lost; the sound of pounding hoofs; a picture of her brother’s face as she had last seen it five years before; a long, dim line of lights; the jingle of silver spurs; night, wind, darkness, stars. Then the gloomy station, the shadowy blanketed Mexican, the empty room, the dim lights across the square, the tramp of the dancers and vacant laughs and discordant music, the door flung wide and the entrance of the cowboy. She did not recall how he had looked or what he had done. And the next instant she saw him cool, smiling, devilish — saw him in violence; the next his bigness, his apparel, his physical being were vague as outlines in a dream. The white face of the padre flashed along in the train of thought, and it brought the same dull, half-blind, indefinable state of mind subsequent to that last nerve-breaking pistol-shot. That passed, and then clear and vivid rose memories of the rest that had happened — strange voices betraying fury of men, a deadened report, a moan of mortal pain, a woman’s poignant cry. And Madeline saw the girl’s great tragic eyes and the wild flight of the big horse into the blackness, and the dark, stalking figure of the silent cowboy, and the white stars that seemed to look down remorselessly.

This tide of memory rolled over Madeline again and again, and gradually lost its power and faded. All distress left her, and she felt herself drifting. How black the room was — as black with her eyes open as it was when they were shut! And the silence — it was like a cloak. There was absolutely no sound. She was in another world from that which she knew. She thought of this fair-haired Florence and of Alfred; and, wondering about them, she dropped to sleep.

When she awakened the room was bright with sunlight. A cool wind blowing across the bed caused her to put her hands under the blanket. She was lazily and dreamily contemplating the mud walls of this little room when she remembered where she was and how she had come there.

How great a shock she had been subjected to was manifest in a sensation of disgust that overwhelmed her. She even shut her eyes to try and blot out the recollection. She felt that she had been contaminated.

Presently Madeline Hammond again awoke to the fact she had learned the preceding night — that there were emotions to which she had heretofore been a stranger. She did not try to analyze them, but she exercised her self-control to such good purpose that by the time she had dressed she was outwardly her usual self. She scarcely remembered when she had found it necessary to control her emotions. There had been no trouble, no excitement, no unpleasantness in her life. It had been ordered for her — tranquil, luxurious, brilliant, varied, yet always the same.

She was not surprised to find the hour late, and was going to make inquiry about her brother when a voice arrested her. She recognized Miss Kingsley’s voice addressing some one outside, and it had a sharpness she had not noted before.

“So you came back, did you? Well, you don’t look very proud of yourself this mawnin’. Gene Stewart, you look like a coyote.”

“Say, Flo if I am a coyote I’m not going to sneak,” he said.

“What ‘d you come for?” she demanded.

“I said I was coming round to take my medicine.”

“Meaning you’ll not run from Al Hammond? Gene, your skull is as thick as an old cow’s. Al will never know anything about what you did to his sister unless you tell him. And if you do that he’ll shoot you. She won’t give you away. She’s a thoroughbred. Why, she was so white last night I thought she’d drop at my feet, but she never blinked an eyelash. I’m a woman, Gene Stewart and if I couldn’t feel like Miss Hammond I know how awful an ordeal she must have had. Why, she’s one of the most beautiful, the most sought after, the most exclusive women in New York City. There’s a crowd of millionaires and lords and dukes after her. How terrible it’d be for a woman like her to be kissed by a drunken cowpuncher! I say it—”

“Flo, I never insulted her that way,” broke out Stewart.

“It was worse, then?” she queried, sharply.

“I made a bet that I’d marry the first girl who came to town. I was on the watch and pretty drunk. When she came — well, I got Padre Marcos and tried to bully her into marrying me.”

“Oh, Lord!” Florence gasped. “It’s worse than I feared.... Gene, Al will kill you.”

“That’ll be a good thing,” replied the cowboy, dejectedly.

“Gene Stewart, it certainly would, unless you turn over a new leaf,” retorted Florence. “But don’t be a fool.” And here she became earnest and appealing. “Go away, Gene. Go join the rebels across the border — you’re always threatening that. Anyhow, don’t stay here and run any chance of stirring Al up. He’d kill you just the same as you would kill another man for insulting your sister. Don’t make trouble for Al. That’d only make sorrow for her, Gene.”

The subtle import was not lost upon Madeline. She was distressed because she could not avoid hearing what was not meant for her ears. She made an effort not to listen, and it was futile.

“Flo, you can’t see this a man’s way,” he replied, quietly. “I’ll stay and take my medicine.”

“Gene, I could sure swear at you or any other pig-head of a cowboy. Listen. My brother-in-law, Jack, heard something of what I said to you last night. He doesn’t like you. I’m afraid he’ll tell Al. For Heaven’s sake, man, go down-town and shut him up and yourself, too.”

Then Madeline heard her come into the house and presently rap on the door and call softly:

“Miss Hammond. Are you awake?”

“Awake and dressed, Miss Kingsley. Come in.”

“Oh! You’ve rested. You look so — so different. I’m sure glad. Come out now. We’ll have breakfast, and then you may expect to meet your brother any moment.”

“Wait, please. I heard you speaking to Mr. Stewart. It was unavoidable. But I am glad. I must see him. Will you please ask him to come into the parlor a moment?”

“Yes,” replied Florence, quickly; and as she turned at the door she flashed at Madeline a woman’s meaning glance. “Make him keep his mouth shut!”

Presently there were slow, reluctant steps outside the front door, then a pause, and the door opened. Stewart stood bareheaded in the sunlight. Madeline remembered with a kind of shudder the tall form, the embroidered buckskin vest, the red scarf, the bright leather wristbands, the wide silver-buckled belt and chaps. Her glance seemed to run over him swift as lightning. But as she saw his face now she did not recognize it. The man’s presence roused in her a revolt. Yet something in her, the incomprehensible side of her nature, thrilled in the look of this splendid dark-faced barbarian.

“Mr. Stewart, will you please come in?” she asked, after that long pause.

“I reckon not,” he said. The hopelessness of his tone meant that he knew he was not fit to enter a room with her, and did not care or cared too much.

Madeline went to the door. The man’s face was hard, yet it was sad, too. And it touched her.

“I shall not tell my brother of your — your rudeness to me,” she began. It was impossible for her to keep the chill out of her voice, to speak with other than the pride and aloofness of her class. Nevertheless, despite her loathing, when she had spoken so far it seemed that kindness and pity followed involuntarily. “I choose to overlook what you did because you were not wholly accountable, and because there must be no trouble between Alfred and you. May I rely on you to keep silence and to seal the lips of that priest? And you know there was a man killed or injured there last night. I want to forget that dreadful thing. I don’t want it known that I heard—”

“The Greaser didn’t die,” interrupted Stewart.

“Ah! then that’s not so bad, after all. I am glad for the sake of your friend — the little Mexican girl.”

A slow scarlet wave overspread his face, and his shame was painful to see. That fixed in Madeline’s mind a conviction that if he was a heathen he was not wholly bad. And it made so much difference that she smiled down at him.

“You will spare me further distress, will you not, please?” His hoarse reply was incoherent, but she needed only to see his working face to know his remorse and gratitude.

Madeline went back to her room; and presently Florence came for her, and directly they were sitting at breakfast. Madeline Hammond’s impression of her brother’s friend had to be reconstructed in the morning light. She felt a wholesome, frank, sweet nature. She liked the slow Southern drawl. And she was puzzled to know whether Florence Kingsley was pretty or striking or unusual. She had a youthful glow and flush, the clear tan of outdoors, a face that lacked the soft curves and lines of Eastern women, and her eyes were light gray, like crystal, steady, almost piercing, and her hair was a beautiful bright, waving mass.

Florence’s sister was the elder of the two, a stout woman with a strong face and quiet eyes. It was a simple fare and service they gave to their guest; but they made no apologies for that. Indeed, Madeline felt their simplicity to be restful. She was sated with respect, sick of admiration, tired of adulation; and it was good to see that these Western women treated her as very likely they would have treated any other visitor. They were sweet, kind; and what Madeline had at first thought was a lack of expression or vitality she soon discovered to be the natural reserve of women who did not live superficial lives. Florence was breezy and frank, her sister quaint and not given much to speech. Madeline thought she would like to have these women near her if she were ill or in trouble. And she reproached herself for a fastidiousness, a hypercritical sense of refinement that could not help distinguishing what these women lacked.

“Can you ride?” Florence was asking. “That’s what a Westerner always asks any one from the East. Can you ride like a man — astride, I mean? Oh, that’s fine. You look strong enough to hold a horse. We have some fine horses out here. I reckon when Al comes we’ll go out to Bill Stillwell’s ranch. We’ll have to go, whether we want to or not, for when Bill learns you are here he’ll just pack us all off. You’ll love old Bill. His ranch is run down, but the range and the rides up in the mountains — they are beautiful. We’ll hunt and climb, and most of all we’ll ride. I love a horse — I love the wind in my face, and a wide stretch with the mountains beckoning. You must have the best horse on the ranges. And that means a scrap between Al and Bill and all the cowboys. We don’t all agree about horses, except in case of Gene Stewart’s iron-gray.”

“Does Mr. Stewart own the best horse in the country?” asked Madeline. Again she had an inexplicable thrill as she remembered the wild flight of Stewart’s big dark steed and rider.

“Yes, and that’s all he does own,” replied Florence. “Gene can’t keep even a quirt. But he sure loves that horse and calls him—”

At this juncture a sharp knock on the parlor door interrupted the conversation. Florence’s sister went to open it. She returned presently and said:

“It’s Gene. He’s been dawdlin’ out there on the front porch, and he knocked to let us know Miss Hammond’s brother is comin’.”

Florence hurried into the parlor, followed by Madeline. The door stood open, and disclosed Stewart sitting on the porch steps. From down the road came a clatter of hoofs. Madeline looked out over Florence’s shoulder and saw a cloud of dust approaching, and in it she distinguished outlines of horses and riders. A warmth spread over her, a little tingle of gladness, and the feeling recalled her girlish love for her brother. What would he be like after long years?

“Gene, has Jack kept his mouth shut?” queried Florence; and again Madeline was aware of a sharp ring in the girl’s voice.

“No,” replied Stewart.

“Gene! You won’t let it come to a fight? Al can be managed. But Jack hates you and he’ll have his friends with him.”

“There won’t be any fight.”

“Use your brains now,” added Florence; and then she turned to push Madeline gently back into the parlor.

Madeline’s glow of warmth changed to a blank dismay. Was she to see her brother act with the violence she now associated with cowboys? The clatter of hoofs stopped before the door. Looking out, Madeline saw a bunch of dusty, wiry horses pawing the gravel and tossing lean heads. Her swift glance ran over the lithe horsemen, trying to pick out the one who was her brother. But she could not. Her glance, however, caught the same rough dress and hard aspect that characterized the cowboy Stewart. Then one rider threw his bridle, leaped from the saddle, and came bounding up the porch steps. Florence met him at the door.

“Hello, Flo. Where is she?” he called, eagerly. With that he looked over her shoulder to espy Madeline. He actually jumped at her. She hardly knew the tall form and the bronzed face, but the warm flash of blue eyes was familiar. As for him, he had no doubt of his sister, it appeared, for with broken welcome he threw his arms around her, then held her off and looked searchingly at her.

“Well, sister,” he began, when Florence turned hurriedly from the door and interrupted him.

“Al, I think you’d better stop the wrangling out there.” He stared at her, appeared suddenly to hear the loud voices from the street, and then, releasing Madeline, he said:

“By George! I forgot, Flo. There is a little business to see to. Keep my sister in here, please, and don’t be fussed up now.”

He went out on the porch and called to his men:

“Shut off your wind, Jack! And you, too, Blaze! I didn’t want you fellows to come here. But as you would come, you’ve got to shut up. This is my business.”

Whereupon he turned to Stewart, who was sitting on the fence.

“Hello, Stewart!” he said.

It was a greeting; but there was that in the voice which alarmed Madeline.

Stewart leisurely got up and leisurely advanced to the porch.

“Hello, Hammond!” he drawled.

“Drunk again last night?”

“Well, if you want to know, and if it’s any of your mix, yes, I was-pretty drunk,” replied Stewart.

It was a kind of cool speech that showed the cowboy in control of himself and master of the situation — not an easy speech to follow up with undue inquisitiveness. There was a short silence.

“Damn it, Stewart,” said the speaker, presently, “here’s the situation: It’s all over town that you met my sister last night at the station and — and insulted her. Jack’s got it in for you, so have these other boys. But it’s my affair. Understand, I didn’t fetch them here. They can see you square yourself, or else — Gene, you’ve been on the wrong trail for some time, drinking and all that. You’re going to the bad. But Bill thinks, and I think, you’re still a man. We never knew you to lie. Now what have you to say for yourself?”

“Nobody is insinuating that I am a liar?” drawled Stewart.

“No.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. You see, Al, I was pretty drunk last night, but not drunk enough to forget the least thing I did. I told Pat Hawe so this morning when he was curious. And that’s polite for me to be to Pat. Well, I found Miss Hammond waiting alone at the station. She wore a veil, but I knew she was a lady, of course. I imagine, now that I think of it, that Miss Hammond found my gallantry rather startling, and—”

At this point Madeline, answering to unconsidered impulse, eluded Florence and walked out upon the porch.

Sombreros flashed down and the lean horses jumped.

“Gentlemen,” said Madeline, rather breathlessly; and it did not add to her calmness to feel a hot flush in her cheeks, “I am very new to Western ways, but I think you are laboring under a mistake, which, in justice to Mr. Stewart, I want to correct. Indeed, he was rather — rather abrupt and strange when he came up to me last night; but as I understand him now, I can attribute that to his gallantry. He was somewhat wild and sudden and — sentimental in his demand to protect me — and it was not clear whether he meant his protection for last night or forever; but I am happy to say be offered me no word that was not honorable. And he saw me safely here to Miss Kingsley’s home.”

III. Sister and Brother

THEN MADELINE RETURNED to the little parlor with the brother whom she had hardly recognized.

“Majesty!” he exclaimed. “To think of your being here!”

The warmth stole back along her veins. She remembered how that pet name had sounded from the lips of this brother who had given it to her.

“Alfred!”

Then his words of gladness at sight of her, his chagrin at not being at the train to welcome her, were not so memorable of him as the way he clasped her, for he had held her that way the day he left home, and she had not forgotten. But now he was so much taller and bigger, so dusty and strange and different and forceful, that she could scarcely think him the same man. She even had a humorous thought that here was another cowboy bullying her, and this time it was her brother.

“Dear old girl,” he said, more calmly, as he let her go, “you haven’t changed at all, except to grow lovelier. Only you’re a woman now, and you’ve fulfilled the name I gave you. God! how sight of you brings back home! It seems a hundred years since I left. I missed you more than all the rest.”

Madeline seemed to feel with his every word that she was remembering him. She was so amazed at the change in him that she could not believe her eyes. She saw a bronzed, strong-jawed, eagle-eyed man, stalwart, superb of height, and, like the cowboys, belted, booted, spurred. And there was something hard as iron in his face that quivered with his words. It seemed that only in those moments when the hard lines broke and softened could she see resemblance to the face she remembered. It was his manner, the tone of his voice, and the tricks of speech that proved to her he was really Alfred. She had bidden good-by to a disgraced, disinherited, dissolute boy. Well she remembered the handsome pale face with its weakness and shadows and careless smile, with the ever-present cigarette hanging between the lips. The years had passed, and now she saw him a man — the West had made him a man. And Madeline Hammond felt a strong, passionate gladness and gratefulness, and a direct check to her suddenly inspired hatred of the West.

“Majesty, it was good of you to come. I’m all broken up. How did you ever do it? But never mind that now. Tell me about that brother of mine.”

And Madeline told him, and then about their sister Helen. Question after question he fired at her; and she told him of her mother; of Aunt Grace, who had died a year ago; of his old friends, married, scattered, vanished. But she did not tell him of his father, for he did not ask.

Quite suddenly the rapid-fire questioning ceased; he choked, was silent a moment, and then burst into tears. It seemed to her that a long, stored-up bitterness was flooding away. It hurt her to see him — hurt her more to hear him. And in the succeeding few moments she grew closer to him than she had ever been in the past. Had her father and mother done right by him? Her pulse stirred with unwonted quickness. She did not speak, but she kissed him, which, for her, was an indication of unusual feeling. And when he recovered command over his emotions he made no reference to his breakdown, nor did she. But that scene struck deep into Madeline Hammond’s heart. Through it she saw what he had lost and gained.

“Alfred, why did you not answer my last letters?” asked Madeline. “I had not heard from you for two years.”

“So long? How time flies! Well, things went bad with me about the last time I heard from you. I always intended to write some day, but I never did.”

“Things went wrong? Tell me.”

“Majesty, you mustn’t worry yourself with my troubles. I want you to enjoy your stay and not be bothered with my difficulties.”

“Please tell me. I suspected something had gone wrong. That is partly why I decided to come out.”

“All right; if you must know,” he began; and it seemed to Madeline that there was a gladness in his decision to unburden himself. “You remember all about my little ranch, and that for a while I did well raising stock? I wrote you all that. Majesty, a man makes enemies anywhere. Perhaps an Eastern man in the West can make, if not so many, certainly more bitter ones. At any rate, I made several. There was a cattleman, Ward by name — he’s gone now — and he and I had trouble over cattle. That gave me a back-set. Pat Hawe, the sheriff here, has been instrumental in hurting my business. He’s not so much of a rancher, but he has influence at Santa Fe and El Paso and Douglas. I made an enemy of him. I never did anything to him. He hates Gene Stewart, and upon one occasion I spoiled a little plot of his to get Gene in his clutches. The real reason for his animosity toward me is that he loves Florence, and Florence is going to marry me.”

“Alfred!”

“What’s the matter, Majesty? Didn’t Florence impress you favorably?” he asked, with a keen glance.

“Why — yes, indeed. I like her. But I did not think of her in relation to you — that way. I am greatly surprised. Alfred, is she well born? What connections?”

“Florence is just a girl of ordinary people. She was born in Kentucky, was brought up in Texas. My aristocratic and wealthy family would scorn—”

“Alfred, you are still a Hammond,” said Madeline, with uplifted head.

Alfred laughed. “We won’t quarrel, Majesty. I remember you, and in spite of your pride you’ve got a heart. If you stay here a month you’ll love Florence Kingsley. I want you to know she’s had a great deal to do with straightening me up.... Well, to go on with my story. There’s Don Carlos, a Mexican rancher, and he’s my worst enemy. For that matter, he’s as bad an enemy of Bill Stillwell and other ranchers. Stillwell, by the way, is my friend and one of the finest men on earth. I got in debt to Don Carlos before I knew he was so mean. In the first place I lost money at faro — I gambled some when I came West — and then I made unwise cattle deals. Don Carlos is a wily Greaser, he knows the ranges, he has the water, and he is dishonest. So he outfigured me. And now I am practically ruined. He has not gotten possession of my ranch, but that’s only a matter of time, pending lawsuits at Santa Fe. At present I have a few hundred cattle running on Stillwell’s range, and I am his foreman.”

“Foreman?” queried Madeline.

“I am simply boss of Stillwell’s cowboys, and right glad of my job.”

Madeline was conscious of an inward burning. It required an effort for her to retain her outward tranquillity. Annoying consciousness she had also of the returning sense of new disturbing emotions. She began to see just how walled in from unusual thought-provoking incident and sensation had been her exclusive life.

“Cannot your property be reclaimed?” she asked. “How much do you owe?”

“Ten thousand dollars would clear me and give me another start. But, Majesty, in this country that’s a good deal of money, and I haven’t been able to raise it. Stillwell’s in worse shape than I am.”

Madeline went over to Alfred and put her hands on his shoulders.

“We must not be in debt.”

He stared at her as if her words had recalled something long forgotten. Then he smiled.

“How imperious you are! I’d forgotten just who my beautiful sister really is. Majesty, you’re not going to ask me to take money from you?”

“I am.”

“Well, I’ll not do it. I never did, even when I was in college, and then there wasn’t much beyond me.”

“Listen, Alfred,” she went on, earnestly, “this is entirely different. I had only an allowance then. You had no way to know that since I last wrote you I had come into my inheritance from Aunt Grace. It was — well, that doesn’t matter. Only, I haven’t been able to spend half the income. It’s mine. It’s not father’s money. You will make me very happy if you’ll consent. Alfred, I’m so — so amazed at the change in you. I’m so happy. You must never take a backward step from now on. What is ten thousand dollars to me? Sometimes I spend that in a month. I throw money away. If you let me help you it will be doing me good as well as you. Please, Alfred.”

He kissed her, evidently surprised at her earnestness. And indeed Madeline was surprised herself. Once started, her speech had flowed.

“You always were the best of fellows, Majesty. And if you really care — if you really want to help me I’ll be only too glad to accept. It will be fine. Florence will go wild. And that Greaser won’t harass me any more. Majesty, pretty soon some titled fellow will be spending your money; I may as well take a little before he gets it all,” he finished, jokingly.

“What do you know about me?” she asked, lightly.

“More than you think. Even if we are lost out here in the woolly West we get news. Everybody knows about Anglesbury. And that Dago duke who chased you all over Europe, that Lord Castleton has the running now and seems about to win. How about it, Majesty?”

Madeline detected a hint that suggested scorn in his gay speech. And deep in his searching glance she saw a flame. She became thoughtful. She had forgotten Castleton, New York, society.

“Alfred,” she began, seriously, “I don’t believe any titled gentleman will ever spend my money, as you elegantly express it.”

“I don’t care for that. It’s you!” he cried, passionately, and he grasped her with a violence that startled her. He was white; his eyes were now like fire. “You are so splendid — so wonderful. People called you the American Beauty, but you’re more than that. You’re the American Girl! Majesty, marry no man unless you love him, and love an American. Stay away from Europe long enough to learn to know the men — the real men of your own country.”

“Alfred, I’m afraid there are not always real men and real love for American girls in international marriages. But Helen knows this. It’ll be her choice. She’ll be miserable if she marries Anglesbury.”

“It’ll serve her just right,” declared her brother. “Helen was always crazy for glitter, adulation, fame. I’ll gamble she never saw more of Anglesbury than the gold and ribbons on his breast.”

“I am sorry. Anglesbury is a gentleman; but it is the money he wanted, I think. Alfred, tell me how you came to know about me, ‘way out here? You may be assured I was astonished to find that Miss Kingsley knew me as Majesty Hammond.”

“I imagine it was a surprise,” he replied, with a laugh, “I told Florence about you — gave her a picture of you. And, of course, being a woman, she showed the picture and talked. She’s in love with you. Then, my dear sister, we do get New York papers out here occasionally, and we can see and read. You may not be aware that you and your society friends are objects of intense interest in the U. S. in general, and the West in particular. The papers are full of you, and perhaps a lot of things you never did.”

“That Mr. Stewart knew, too. He said, ‘You’re not Majesty Hammond?’”

“Never mind his impudence!” exclaimed Alfred; and then again he laughed. “Gene is all right, only you’ve got to know him. I’ll tell you what he did. He got hold of one of those newspaper pictures of you — the one in the Times; he took it away from here, and in spite of Florence he wouldn’t fetch it back. It was a picture of you in riding-habit with your blue-ribbon horse, White Stockings — remember? It was taken at Newport. Well, Stewart tacked the picture up in his bunk-house and named his beautiful horse Majesty. All the cowboys knew it. They would see the picture and tease him unmercifully. But he didn’t care. One day I happened to drop in on him and found him just recovering from a carouse. I saw the picture, too, and I said to him, ‘Gene, if my sister knew you were a drunkard she’d not be proud of having her picture stuck up in your room.’ Majesty, he did not touch a drop for a month, and when he did drink again he took the picture down, and he has never put it back.”

Madeline smiled at her brother’s amusement, but she did not reply. She simply could not adjust herself to these queer free Western’ ways. Her brother had eloquently pleaded for her to keep herself above a sordid and brilliant marriage, yet he not only allowed a cowboy to keep her picture in his room, but actually spoke of her and used her name in a temperance lecture. Madeline just escaped feeling disgust. She was saved from this, however, by nothing less than her brother’s naive gladness that through subtle suggestion Stewart had been persuaded to be good for a month. Something made up of Stewart’s effrontery to her; of Florence Kingsley meeting her, frankly as it were, as an equal; of the elder sister’s slow, quiet, easy acceptance of this visitor who had been honored at the courts of royalty; of that faint hint of scorn in Alfred’s voice, and his amused statement in regard to her picture and the name Majesty — something made up of all these stung Madeline Hammond’s pride, alienated her for an instant, and then stimulated her intelligence, excited her interest, and made her resolve to learn a little about this incomprehensible West.

“Majesty, I must run down to the siding,” he said, consulting his watch. “We’re loading a shipment of cattle. I’ll be back by supper-time and bring Stillwell with me. You’ll like him. Give me the check for your trunk.”

She went into the little bedroom and, taking up her bag, she got out a number of checks.

“Six! Six trunks!” he exclaimed. “Well, I’m very glad you intend to stay awhile. Say, Majesty, it will take me as long to realize who you really are as it’ll take to break you of being a tenderfoot. I hope you packed a riding-suit. If not you’ll have to wear trousers! You’ll have to do that, anyway, when we go up in the mountains.”

“No!”

“You sure will, as Florence says.”

“We shall see about that. I don’t know what’s in the trunks. I never pack anything. My dear brother, what do I have maids for?”

“How did it come that you didn’t travel with a maid?”

“I wanted to be alone. But don’t you worry. I shall be able to look after myself. I dare say it will be good for me.”

She went to the gate with him.

“What a shaggy, dusty horse! He’s wild, too. Do you let him stand that way without being haltered? I should think he would run off.”

“Tenderfoot! You’ll be great fun, Majesty, especially for the cowboys.”

“Oh, will I?” she asked, constrainedly.

“Yes, and in three days they will be fighting one another over you. That’s going to worry me. Cowboys fall in love with a plain woman, an ugly woman, any woman, so long as she’s young. And you! Good Lord! They’ll go out of their heads.”

“You are pleased to be facetious, Alfred. I think I have had quite enough of cowboys, and I haven’t been here twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t think too much of first impressions. That was my mistake when I arrived here. Good-by. I’ll go now. Better rest awhile. You look tired.”

The horse started as Alfred put his foot in the stirrup and was running when the rider slipped his leg over the saddle. Madeline watched him in admiration. He seemed to be loosely fitted to the saddle, moving with the horse.

“I suppose that’s a cowboy’s style. It pleases me,” she said. “How different from the seat of Eastern riders!”

Then Madeline sat upon the porch and fell to interested observation of her surrounding. Near at hand it was decidedly not prepossessing. The street was deep in dust, and the cool wind whipped up little puffs. The houses along this street were all low, square, flat-roofed structures made of some kind of red cement. It occurred to her suddenly that this building-material must be the adobe she had read about. There was no person in sight. The long street appeared to have no end, though the line of houses did not extend far. Once she heard a horse trotting at some distance, and several times the ringing of a locomotive bell. Where were the mountains, wondered Madeline. Soon low over the house-roofs she saw a dim, dark-blue, rugged outline. It seemed to charm her eyes and fix her gaze. She knew the Adirondacks, she had seen the Alps from the summit of Mont Blanc, and had stood under the great black, white-tipped shadow of the Himalayas. But they had not drawn her as these remote Rockies. This dim horizon line boldly cutting the blue sky fascinated her. Florence Kingsley’s expression “beckoning mountains” returned to Madeline. She could not see or feel so much as that. Her impression was rather that these mountains were aloof, unattainable, that if approached they would recede or vanish like the desert mirage.

Madeline went to her room, intending to rest awhile, and she fell asleep. She was aroused by Florence’s knock and call.

“Miss Hammond, your brother has come back with Stillwell.”

“Why, how I have slept!” exclaimed Madeline. “It’s nearly six o’clock.”

“I’m sure glad. You were tired. And the air here makes strangers sleepy. Come, we want you to meet old Bill. He calls himself the last of the cattlemen. He has lived in Texas and here all his life.”

Madeline accompanied Florence to the porch. Her brother, who was sitting near the door, jumped up and said:

“Hello, Majesty!” And as he put his arm around her he turned toward a massive man whose broad, craggy face began to ripple and wrinkle. “I want to introduce my friend Stillwell to you. Bill, this is my sister, the sister I’ve so often told you about — Majesty.”

“Wal, wal, Al, this’s the proudest meetin’ of my life,” replied Stillwell, in a booming voice. He extended a huge hand. “Miss — Miss Majesty, sight of you is as welcome as the rain an’ the flowers to an old desert cattleman.”

Madeline greeted him, and it was all she could do to repress a cry at the way he crunched her hand in a grasp of iron. He was old, white-haired, weather-beaten, with long furrows down his checks and with gray eyes almost hidden in wrinkles. If he was smiling she fancied it a most extraordinary smile. The next instant she realized that it had been a smile, for his face appeared to stop rippling, the light died, and suddenly it was like rudely chiseled stone. The quality of hardness she had seen in Stewart was immeasurably intensified in this old man’s face.

“Miss Majesty, it’s plumb humiliatin’ to all of us thet we wasn’t on hand to meet you,” Stillwell said. “Me an’ Al stepped into the P. O. an’ said a few mild an’ cheerful things. Them messages ought to hev been sent out to the ranch. I’m sure afraid it was a bit unpleasant fer you last night at the station.”

“I was rather anxious at first and perhaps frightened,” replied Madeline.

“Wal, I’m some glad to tell you thet there’s no man in these parts except your brother thet I’d as lief hev met you as Gene Stewart.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, an’ thet’s takin’ into consideration Gene’s weakness, too. I’m allus fond of sayin’ of myself thet I’m the last of the old cattlemen. Wal, Stewart’s not a native Westerner, but he’s my pick of the last of the cowboys. Sure, he’s young, but he’s the last of the old style — the picturesque — an’ chivalrous, too, I make bold to say, Miss Majesty, as well as the old hard-ridin’ kind. Folks are down on Stewart. An’ I’m only sayin’ a good word for him because he is down, an’ mebbe last night he might hev scared you, you bein’ fresh from the East.”

Madeline liked the old fellow for his loyalty to the cowboy he evidently cared for; but as there did not seem anything for her to say, she remained silent.

“Miss Majesty, the day of the cattleman is about over. An’ the day of the cowboy, such as Gene Stewart, is over. There’s no place for Gene. If these weren’t modern days he’d come near bein’ a gun-man, same as we had in Texas, when I ranched there in the ‘seventies. But he can’t fit nowhere now; he can’t hold a job, an’ he’s goin’ down.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” murmured Madeline. “But, Mr. Stillwell, aren’t these modern days out here just a little wild — yet? The conductor on my train told me of rebels, bandits, raiders. Then I have had other impressions of — well, that were wild enough for me.”

“Wal, it’s some more pleasant an’ excitin’ these days than for many years,” replied Stillwell. “The boys hev took to packin’ guns again. But thet’s owin’ to the revolution in Mexico. There’s goin’ to be trouble along the border. I reckon people in the East don’t know there is a revolution. Wal, Madero will oust Diaz, an’ then some other rebel will oust Madero. It means trouble on the border an’ across the border, too. I wouldn’t wonder if Uncle Sam hed to get a hand in the game. There’s already been holdups on the railroads an’ raids along the Rio Grande Valley. An’ these little towns are full of Greasers, all disturbed by the fightin’ down in Mexico. We’ve been hevin’ shootin’-scrapes an’ knifin’-scrapes, an’ some cattle-raidin’. I hev been losin’ a few cattle right along. Reminds me of old times; an’ pretty soon if it doesn’t stop, I’ll take the old-time way to stop it.”

“Yes, indeed, Majesty,” put in Alfred, “you have hit upon an interesting time to visit us.”

“Wal, thet sure ‘pears to be so,” rejoined Stillwell. “Stewart got in trouble down heah to-day, an’ I’m more than sorry to hev to tell you thet your name figgered in it. But I couldn’t blame him, fer I sure would hev done the same myself.”

“That so?” queried Alfred, laughing. “Well, tell us about it.”

Madeline simply gazed at her brother, and, though he seemed amused at her consternation, there was mortification in his face.

It required no great perspicuity, Madeline thought, to see that Stillwell loved to talk, and the way he squared himself and spread his huge hands over his knees suggested that he meant to do this opportunity justice.

“Miss Majesty, I reckon, bein’ as you’re in the West now, thet you must take things as they come, an’ mind each thing a little less than the one before. If we old fellers hedn’t been thet way we’d never hev lasted.

“Last night wasn’t particular bad, ratin’ with some other nights lately. There wasn’t much doin’. But, I had a hard knock. Yesterday when we started in with a bunch of cattle I sent one of my cowboys, Danny Mains, along ahead, carryin’ money I hed to pay off hands an’ my bills, an’ I wanted thet money to get in town before dark. Wal, Danny was held up. I don’t distrust the lad. There’s been strange Greasers in town lately, an’ mebbe they knew about the money comin’.

“Wal, when I arrived with the cattle I was some put to it to make ends meet. An’ to-day I wasn’t in no angelic humor. When I hed my business all done I went around pokin’ my nose beak an’ there, tryin’ to get scent of thet money. An’ I happened in at a hall we hev thet does duty fer’ jail an’ hospital an’ election-post an’ what not. Wal, just then it was doin’ duty as a hospital. Last night was fiesta night — these Greasers hev a fiesta every week or so — an’ one Greaser who hed been bad hurt was layin’ in the hall, where he hed been fetched from the station. Somebody hed sent off to Douglas fer a doctor, but be hedn’t come yet. I’ve hed some experience with gunshot wounds, an’ I looked this feller over. He wasn’t shot up much, but I thought there was danger of blood-poison-in’. Anyway, I did all I could.

“The hall was full of cowboys, ranchers, Greasers, miners, an’ town folks, along with some strangers. I was about to get started up this way when Pat Hawe come in.

“Pat he’s the sheriff. I reckon, Miss Majesty, thet sheriffs are new to you, an’ fer sake of the West I’ll explain to you thet we don’t hev many of the real thing any more. Garrett, who killed Billy the Kid an’ was killed himself near a year or so ago — he was the kind of sheriff thet helps to make a self-respectin’ country. But this Pat Hawe — wal, I reckon there’s no good in me sayin’ what I think of him. He come into the hall, an’ he was roarin’ about things. He was goin’ to arrest Danny Mains on sight. Wal, I jest polite-like told Pat thet the money was mine an’ he needn’t get riled about it. An’ if I wanted to trail the thief I reckon I could do it as well as anybody. Pat howled thet law was law, an’ he was goin’ to lay down the law. Sure it ‘peared to me thet Pat was daid set to arrest the first man he could find excuse to.

“Then he cooled down a bit an’ was askin’ questions about the wounded Greaser when Gene Stewart come in. Whenever Pat an’ Gene come together it reminds me of the early days back in the ‘seventies. Jest naturally everybody shut up. Fer Pat hates Gene, an’ I reckon Gene ain’t very sweet on Pat. They’re jest natural foes in the first place, an’ then the course of events here in El Cajon has been aggravatin’.

“‘Hello, Stewart! You’re the feller I’m lookin’ fer,’ said Pat.

“Stewart eyed him an’ said, mighty cool an’ sarcastic, ‘Hawe, you look a good deal fer me when I’m hittin’ up the dust the other way.’

“Pat went red at thet, but he held in. ‘Say, Stewart, you-all think a lot of thet roan horse of yourn, with the aristocratic name?’

“‘I reckon I do,’ replied Gene, shortly.

“‘Wal, where is he?’

“‘Thet’s none of your business, Hawe.’

“‘Oho! it ain’t, hey? Wal, I guess I can make it my business. Stewart, there was some queer goings-on last night thet you know somethin’ about. Danny Mains robbed — Stillwell’s money gone — your roan horse gone — thet little hussy Bonita gone — an’ this Greaser near gone, too. Now, seein’ thet you was up late an’ prowlin’ round the station where this Greaser was found, it ain’t onreasonable to think you might know how he got plugged — is it?’

“Stewart laughed kind of cold, an’ he rolled a cigarette, all the time eyin’ Pat, an’ then he said if he’d plugged the Greaser it ‘d never hev been sich a bunglin’ job.

“‘I can arrest you on suspicion, Stewart, but before I go thet far I want some evidence. I want to round up Danny Mains an’ thet little Greaser girl. I want to find out what’s become of your hoss. You’ve never lent him since you hed him, an’ there ain’t enough raiders across the border to steal him from you. It’s got a queer look — thet hoss bein’ gone.’

“‘You sure are a swell detective, Hawe, an’ I wish you a heap of luck,’ replied Stewart.

“Thet ‘peared to nettle Pat beyond bounds, an’ he stamped around an’ swore. Then he had an idea. It jest stuck out all over him, an’ he shook his finger in Stewart’s face.

“‘You was drunk last night?’

“Stewart never batted an eye.

“‘You met some woman on Number Eight, didn’t you?’ shouted Hawe.

“‘I met a lady,’ replied Stewart, quiet an’ menacin’ like.

“‘You met Al Hammond’s sister, an’ you took her up to Kingsley’s. An’ cinch this, my cowboy cavalier, I’m goin’ up there an’ ask this grand dame some questions, an’ if she’s as close-mouthed as you are I’ll arrest her!’

“Gene Stewart turned white. I fer one expected to see him jump like lightnin’, as he does when he’s riled sudden. But he was calm an’ he was thinkin’ hard. Presently he said:

“‘Pat, thet’s a fool idee, an’ if you do the trick it’ll hurt you all the rest of your life. There’s absolutely no reason to frighten Miss Hammond. An’ tryin’ to arrest her would be such a damned outrage as won’t be stood fer in El Cajon. If you’re sore on me send me to jail. I’ll go. If you want to hurt Al Hammond, go an’ do it some man kind of way. Don’t take your spite out on us by insultin’ a lady who has come hyar to hev a little visit. We’re bad enough without bein’ low-down as Greasers.’

“It was a long talk for Gene, an’ I was as surprised as the rest of the fellers. Think of Gene Stewart talkin’ soft an’ sweet to thet red-eyed coyote of a sheriff! An’ Pat, he looked so devilishly gleeful thet if somethin’ about Gene hedn’t held me tight I’d hev got in the game my-self. It was plain to me an’ others who spoke of it afterwards thet Pat Hawe hed forgotten the law an’ the officer in the man an’ his hate.

“‘I’m a-goin’, an’ I’m a-goin’ right now!’ he shouted. “An’ after thet any one could hev heerd a clock tick a mile off. Stewart seemed kind of chokin’, an’ he seemed to hev been bewildered by the idee of Hawe’s confrontin’ you.

“An’ finally he burst out: ‘But, man, think who it is! It’s Miss Hammond! If you seen her, even if you was locoed or drunk, you — you couldn’t do it.’

“‘Couldn’t I? Wal, I’ll show you damn quick. What do I care who she is? Them swell Eastern women — I’ve heerd of them. They’re not so much. This Hammond woman—’

“Suddenly Hawe shut up, an’ with his red mug turnin’ green he went for his gun.”

Stillwell paused in his narrative to get breath, and he wiped his moist brow. And now his face began to lose its cragginess. It changed, it softened, it rippled and wrinkled, and all that strange mobility focused and shone in a wonderful smile.

“An’ then, Miss Majesty, then there was somethin’ happened. Stewart took Pat’s gun away from him and throwed it on the floor. An’ what followed was beautiful. Sure it was the beautifulest sight I ever seen. Only it was over so soon! A little while after, when the doctor came, he hed another patient besides the wounded Greaser, an’ he said thet this new one would require about four months to be up an’ around cheerful-like again. An’ Gene Stewart hed hit the trail for the border.”

IV. A Ride From Sunrise To Sunset

NEXT MORNING, WHEN Madeline was aroused by her brother, it was not yet daybreak; the air chilled her, and in the gray gloom she had to feel around for matches and lamp. Her usual languid manner vanished at a touch of the cold water. Presently, when Alfred knocked on her door and said he was leaving a pitcher of hot water outside, she replied, with chattering teeth, “Th-thank y-you, b-but I d-don’t ne-need any now.” She found it necessary, however, to warm her numb fingers before she could fasten hooks and buttons. And when she was dressed she marked in the dim mirror that there were tinges of red in her cheeks.

“Well, if I haven’t some color!” she exclaimed.

Breakfast waited for her in the dining-room. The sisters ate with her. Madeline quickly caught the feeling of brisk action that seemed to be in the air. From the back of the house sounded the tramp of boots and voices of men, and from outside came a dull thump of hoofs, the rattle of harness, and creak of wheels. Then Alfred came stamping in.

“Majesty, here’s where you get the real thing,” he announced, merrily. “We’re rushing you off, I’m sorry to say; but we must hustle back to the ranch. The fall round-up begins to-morrow. You will ride in the buck-board with Florence and Stillwell. I’ll ride on ahead with the boys and fix up a little for you at the ranch. Your baggage will follow, but won’t get there till to-morrow sometime. It’s a long ride out — nearly fifty miles by wagon-road. Flo, don’t forget a couple of robes. Wrap her up well. And hustle getting ready. We’re waiting.”

A little later, when Madeline went out with Florence, the gray gloom was lightening. Horses were champing bits and pounding gravel.

“Mawnin’, Miss Majesty,” said Stillwell, gruffly, from the front seat of a high vehicle.

Alfred bundled her up into the back seat, and Florence after her, and wrapped them with robes. Then he mounted his horse and started off. “Gid-eb!” growled Stillwell, and with a crack of his whip the team jumped into a trot. Florence whispered into Madeline’s ear:

“Bill’s grouchy early in the mawnin’. He’ll thaw out soon as it gets warm.”

It was still so gray that Madeline could not distinguish objects at any considerable distance, and she left El Cajon without knowing what the town really looked like. She did know that she was glad to get out of it, and found an easier task of dispelling persistent haunting memory.

“Here come the cowboys,” said Florence.

A line of horsemen appeared coming from the right and fell in behind Alfred, and gradually they drew ahead, to disappear from sight. While Madeline watched them the gray gloom lightened into dawn. All about her was bare and dark; the horizon seemed close; not a hill nor a tree broke the monotony. The ground appeared to be flat, but the road went up and down over little ridges. Madeline glanced backward in the direction of El Cajon and the mountains she had seen the day before, and she saw only bare and dark ground, like that which rolled before.

A puff of cold wind struck her face and she shivered. Florence noticed her and pulled up the second robe and tucked it closely round her up to her chin.

“If we have a little wind you’ll sure feel it,” said the Western girl.

Madeline replied that she already felt it. The wind appeared to penetrate the robes. It was cold, pure, nipping. It was so thin she had to breathe as fast as if she were under ordinary exertion. It hurt her nose and made her lungs ache.

“Aren’t you co-cold?” asked Madeline.

“I?” Florence laughed. “I’m used to it. I never get cold.”

The Western girl sat with ungloved hands on the outside of the robe she evidently did not need to draw up around her. Madeline thought she had never seen such a clear-eyed, healthy, splendid girl.

“Do you like to see the sun rise?” asked Florence.

“Yes, I think I do,” replied Madeline, thoughtfully. “Frankly, I have not seen it for years.”

“We have beautiful sunrises, and sunsets from the ranch are glorious.”

Long lines of pink fire ran level with the eastern horizon, which appeared to recede as day brightened. A bank of thin, fleecy clouds was turning rose. To the south and west the sky was dark; but every moment it changed, the blue turning bluer. The eastern sky was opalescent. Then in one place gathered a golden light, and slowly concentrated till it was like fire. The rosy bank of cloud turned to silver and pearl, and behind it shot up a great circle of gold. Above the dark horizon gleamed an intensely bright disk. It was the sun. It rose swiftly, blazing out the darkness between the ridges and giving color and distance to the sweep of land.

“Wal, wal,” drawled Stillwell, and stretched his huge arms as if he had just awakened, “thet’s somethin’ like.”

Florence nudged Madeline and winked at her.

“Fine mawnin’, girls,” went on old Bill, cracking his whip. “Miss Majesty, it’ll be some oninterestin’ ride all mawnin’. But when we get up a bit you’ll sure like it. There! Look to the southwest, jest over thet farthest ridge.”

Madeline swept her gaze along the gray, sloping horizon-line to where dark-blue spires rose far beyond the ridge.

“Peloncillo Mountains,” said Stillwell. “Thet’s home, when we get there. We won’t see no more of them till afternoon, when they rise up sudden-like.”

Peloncillo! Madeline murmured the melodious name. Where had she heard it? Then she remembered. The cowboy Stewart had told the little Mexican girl Bonita to “hit the Peloncillo trail.” Probably the girl had ridden the big, dark horse over this very road at night, alone. Madeline had a little shiver that was not occasioned by the cold wind.

“There’s a jack!” cried Florence, suddenly.

Madeline saw her first jack-rabbit. It was as large as a dog, and its ears were enormous. It appeared to be impudently tame, and the horses kicked dust over it as they trotted by. From then on old Bill and Florence vied with each other in calling Madeline’s attention to many things along the way. Coyotes stealing away into the brush; buzzards flapping over the carcass of a cow that had been mired in a wash; queer little lizards running swiftly across the road; cattle grazing in the hollows; adobe huts of Mexican herders; wild, shaggy horses, with heads high, watching from the gray ridges — all these things Madeline looked at, indifferently at first, because indifference had become habitual with her, and then with an interest that flourished up and insensibly grew as she rode on. It grew until sight of a little ragged Mexican boy astride the most diminutive burro she had ever seen awakened her to the truth. She became conscious of faint, unmistakable awakening of long-dead feelings — enthusiasm and delight. When she realized that, she breathed deep of the cold, sharp air and experienced an inward joy. And she divined then, though she did not know why, that henceforth there was to be something new in her life, something she had never felt before, something good for her soul in the homely, the commonplace, the natural, and the wild.

Meanwhile, as Madeline gazed about her and listened to her companions, the sun rose higher and grew warm and soared and grew hot; the horses held tirelessly to their steady trot, and mile after mile of rolling land slipped by.

From the top of a ridge Madeline saw down into a hollow where a few of the cowboys had stopped and were sitting round a fire, evidently busy at the noonday meal. Their horses were feeding on the long, gray grass.

“Wal, smell of thet burnin’ greasewood makes my mouth water,” said Stillwell. “I’m sure hungry. We’ll noon hyar an’ let the hosses rest. It’s a long pull to the ranch.”

He halted near the camp-fire, and, clambering down, began to unharness the team. Florence leaped out and turned to help Madeline.

“Walk round a little,” she said. “You must be cramped from sitting still so long. I’ll get lunch ready.”

Madeline got down, glad to stretch her limbs, and began to stroll about. She heard Stillwell throw the harness on the ground and slap his horses. “Roll, you sons-of-guns!” he said. Both horses bent their fore legs, heaved down on their sides, and tried to roll over. One horse succeeded on the fourth try, and then heaved up with a satisfied snort and shook off the dust and gravel. The other one failed to roll over, and gave it up, half rose to his feet, and then lay down on the other side.

“He’s sure going to feel the ground,” said Florence, smiling at Madeline. “Miss Hammond, I suppose that prize horse of yours — White Stockings — would spoil his coat if he were heah to roll in this greasewood and cactus.”

During lunch-time Madeline observed that she was an object of manifestly great interest to the three cowboys. She returned the compliment, and was amused to see that a glance their way caused them painful embarrassment. They were grown men — one of whom had white hair — yet they acted like boys caught in the act of stealing a forbidden look at a pretty girl.

“Cowboys are sure all flirts,” said Florence, as if stating an uninteresting fact. But Madeline detected a merry twinkle in her clear eyes. The cowboys heard, and the effect upon them was magical. They fell to shamed confusion and to hurried useless tasks. Madeline found it difficult to see where they had been bold, though evidently they were stricken with conscious guilt. She recalled appraising looks of critical English eyes, impudent French stares, burning Spanish glances — gantlets which any American girl had to run abroad. Compared with foreign eyes the eyes of these cowboys were those of smiling, eager babies.

“Haw, haw!” roared Stillwell. “Florence, you jest hit the nail on the haid. Cowboys are all plumb flirts. I was wonderin’ why them boys nooned hyar. This ain’t no place to noon. Ain’t no grazin’ or wood wuth burnin’ or nuthin’. Them boys jest held up, throwed the packs, an’ waited fer us. It ain’t so surprisin’ fer Booly an’ Ned — they’re young an’ coltish — but Nels there, why, he’s old enough to be the paw of both you girls. It sure is amazin’ strange.”

A silence ensued. The white-haired cowboy, Nels, fussed aimlessly over the camp-fire, and then straightened up with a very red face.

“Bill, you’re a dog-gone liar,” he said. “I reckon I won’t stand to be classed with Booly an’ Ned. There ain’t no cowboy on this range thet’s more appreciatin’ of the ladies than me, but I shore ain’t ridin’ out of my way. I reckon I hev enough ridin’ to do. Now, Bill, if you’ve sich dog-gone good eyes mebbe you seen somethin’ on the way out?”

“Nels, I hevn’t seen nothin’,” he replied, bluntly. His levity disappeared, and the red wrinkles narrowed round his searching eyes.

“Jest take a squint at these hoss tracks,” said Nels, and he drew Stillwell a few paces aside and pointed to large hoofprints in the dust. “I reckon you know the hoss thet made them?”

“Gene Stewart’s roan, or I’m a son-of-a-gun!” exclaimed Stillwell, and he dropped heavily to his knees and began to scrutinize the tracks. “My eyes are sure pore; but, Nels, they ain’t fresh.”

“I reckon them tracks was made early yesterday mornin’.”

“Wal, what if they was?” Stillwell looked at his cowboy. “It’s sure as thet red nose of yourn Gene wasn’t ridin’ the roan.”

“Who’s sayin’ he was? Bill, its more ‘n your eyes thet’s gettin’ old. Jest foller them tracks. Come on.”

Stillwell walked slowly, with his head bent, muttering to himself. Some thirty paces or more from the camp-fire he stopped short and again flopped to his knees. Then he crawled about, evidently examining horse tracks.

“Nels, whoever was straddlin’ Stewart’s hoss met somebody. An’ they hauled up a bit, but didn’t git down.”

“Tolerable good for you, Bill, thet reasonin’,” replied the cowboy.

Stillwell presently got up and walked swiftly to the left for some rods, halted, and faced toward the southwest, then retraced his steps. He looked at the imperturbable cowboy.

“Nels, I don’t like this a little,” he growled. “Them tracks make straight fer the Peloncillo trail.”

“Shore,” replied Nels.

“Wal?” went on Stillwell, impatiently.

“I reckon you know what hoss made the other tracks?”

“I’m thinkin’ hard, but I ain’t sure.”

“It was Danny Mains’s bronc.”

“How do you know thet?” demanded Stillwell, sharply. “Bill, the left front foot of thet little hoss always wears a shoe thet sets crooked. Any of the boys can tell you. I’d know thet track if I was blind.”

Stillwell’s ruddy face clouded and he kicked at a cactus plant.

“Was Danny comin’ or goin’?” he asked.

“I reckon he was hittin’ across country fer the Peloncillo trail. But I ain’t shore of thet without back-trailin’ him a ways. I was jest waitin’ fer you to come up.”

“Nels, you don’t think the boy’s sloped with thet little hussy, Bonita?”

“Bill, he shore was sweet on Bonita, same as Gene was, an’ Ed Linton before he got engaged, an’ all the boys. She’s shore chain-lightnin’, that little black-eyed devil. Danny might hev sloped with her all right. Danny was held up on the way to town, an’ then in the shame of it he got drunk. But he’ll shew up soon.”

“Wal, mebbe you an’ the boys are right. I believe you are. Nels, there ain’t no doubt on earth about who was ridin’ Stewart’s hoss?”

“Thet’s as plain as the hoss’s tracks.”

“Wal, it’s all amazin’ strange. It beats me. I wish the boys would ease up on drinkin’. I was pretty fond of Danny an’ Gene. I’m afraid Gene’s done fer, sure. If he crosses the border where he can fight it won’t take long fer him to get plugged. I guess I’m gettin’ old. I don’t stand things like I used to.”

“Bill, I reckon I’d better hit the Peloncillo trail. Mebbe I can find Danny.”

“I reckon you had, Nels,” replied Stillwell. “But don’t take more ‘n a couple of days. We can’t do much on the round-up without you. I’m short of boys.”

That ended the conversation. Stillwell immediately began to hitch up his team, and the cowboys went out to fetch their strayed horses. Madeline had been curiously interested, and she saw that Florence knew it.

“Things happen, Miss Hammond,” she said, soberly, almost sadly.

Madeline thought. And then straightway Florence began brightly to hum a tune and to busy herself repacking what was left of the lunch. Madeline conceived a strong liking and respect for this Western girl. She admired the consideration or delicacy or wisdom — what-ever it was — which kept Florence from asking her what she knew or thought or felt about the events that had taken place.

Soon they were once more bowling along the road down a gradual incline, and then they began to climb a long ridge that had for hours hidden what lay beyond. That climb was rather tiresome, owing to the sun and the dust and the restricted view.

When they reached the summit Madeline gave a little gasp of pleasure. A deep, gray, smooth valley opened below and sloped up on the other side in little ridges like waves, and these led to the foothills, dotted with clumps of brush or trees, and beyond rose dark mountains, pine-fringed and crag-spired.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” said Stillwell, cracking his whip. “Ten miles across this valley an’ we’ll be in the foothills where the Apaches used to run.”

“Ten miles!” exclaimed Madeline. “It looks no more than half a mile to me.”

“Wal, young woman, before you go to ridin’ off alone you want to get your eyes corrected to Western distance. Now, what’d you call them black things off there on the slope?”

“Horsemen. No, cattle,” replied Madeline, doubtfully.

“Nope. Jest plain, every-day cactus. An’ over hyar — look down the valley. Somethin’ of a pretty forest, ain’t thet?” he asked, pointing.

Madeline saw a beautiful forest in the center of the valley toward the south.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, thet’s jest this deceivin’ air. There’s no forest. It’s a mirage.”

“Indeed! How beautiful it is!” Madeline strained her gaze on the dark blot, and it seemed to float in the atmosphere, to have no clearly defined margins, to waver and shimmer, and then it faded and vanished.

The mountains dropped down again behind the horizon, and presently the road began once more to slope up. The horses slowed to a walk. There was a mile of rolling ridge, and then came the foothills. The road ascended through winding valleys. Trees and brush and rocks began to appear in the dry ravines. There was no water, yet all along the sandy washes were indications of floods at some periods. The heat and the dust stifled Madeline, and she had already become tired. Still she looked with all her eyes and saw birds, and beautiful quail with crests, and rabbits, and once she saw a deer.

“Miss Majesty,” said Stillwell, “in the early days the Indians made this country a bad one to live in. I reckon you never heerd much about them times. Surely you was hardly born then. I’ll hev to tell you some day how I fought Comanches in the Panhandle — thet was northern Texas — an’ I had some mighty hair-raisin’ scares in this country with Apaches.”

He told her about Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, the most savage and bloodthirsty tribe that ever made life a horror for the pioneer. Cochise befriended the whites once; but he was the victim of that friendliness, and he became the most implacable of foes. Then, Geronimo, another Apache chief, had, as late as 1885, gone on the war-path, and had left a bloody trail down the New Mexico and Arizona line almost to the border. Lone ranchmen and cowboys had been killed, and mothers had shot their children and then themselves at the approach of the Apache. The name Apache curdled the blood of any woman of the Southwest in those days.

Madeline shuddered, and was glad when the old frontiersman changed the subject and began to talk of the settling of that country by the Spaniards, the legends of lost gold-mines handed down to the Mexicans, and strange stories of heroism and mystery and religion. The Mexicans had not advanced much in spite of the spread of civilization to the Southwest. They were still superstitious, and believed the legends of treasures hidden in the walls of their missions, and that unseen hands rolled rocks down the gullies upon the heads of prospectors who dared to hunt for the lost mines of the padres.

“Up in the mountains back of my ranch there’s a lost mine,” said Stillwell. “Mebbe it’s only a legend. But somehow I believe it’s there. Other lost mines hev been found. An’ as fer’ the rollin’ stones, I sure know thet’s true, as any one can find out if he goes trailin’ up the gulch. Mebbe thet’s only the weatherin’ of the cliffs. It’s a sleepy, strange country, this Southwest, an’, Miss Majesty, you’re a-goin’ to love it. You’ll call it ro-mantic, Wal, I reckon ro-mantic is correct. A feller gets lazy out hyar an’ dreamy, an’ he wants to put off work till to-morrow. Some folks say it’s a land of manana — a land of to-morrow. Thet’s the Mexican of it.

“But I like best to think of what a lady said to me onct — an eddicated lady like you, Miss Majesty. Wal, she said it’s a land where it’s always afternoon. I liked thet. I always get up sore in the mawnin’s, an’ don’t feel good till noon. But in the afternoon I get sorta warm an’ like things. An’ sunset is my time. I reckon I don’t want nothin’ any finer than sunset from my ranch. You look out over a valley that spreads wide between Guadalupe Mountains an’ the Chiricahuas, down across the red Arizona desert clear to the Sierra Madres in Mexico. Two hundred miles, Miss Majesty! An’ all as clear as print! An’ the sun sets behind all thet! When my time comes to die I’d like it to be on my porch smokin’ my pipe an’ facin’ the west.”

So the old cattleman talked on while Madeline listened, and Florence dozed in her seat, and the sun began to wane, and the horses climbed steadily. Presently, at the foot of the steep ascent, Stillwell got out and walked, leading the team. During this long climb fatigue claimed Madeline, and she drowsily closed her eyes, to find when she opened them again that the glaring white sky had changed to a steel-blue. The sun had sunk behind the foothills and the air was growing chilly. Stillwell had returned to the driving-seat and was chuckling to the horses. Shadows crept up out of the hollows.

“Wal, Flo,” said Stillwell, “I reckon we’d better hev the rest of thet there lunch before dark.”

“You didn’t leave much of it,” laughed Florence, as she produced the basket from under the seat.

While they ate, the short twilight shaded and gloom filled the hollows. Madeline saw the first star, a faint, winking point of light. The sky had now changed to a hazy gray. Madeline saw it gradually clear and darken, to show other faint stars. After that there was perceptible deepening of the gray and an enlarging of the stars and a brightening of new-born ones. Night seemed to come on the cold wind. Madeline was glad to have the robes close around her and to lean against Florence. The hollows were now black, but the tops of the foothills gleamed pale in a soft light. The steady tramp of the horses went on, and the creak of wheels and crunching of gravel. Madeline grew so sleepy that she could not keep her weary eyelids from falling. There were drowsier spells in which she lost a feeling of where she was, and these were disturbed by the jolt of wheels over a rough place. Then came a blank interval, short or long, which ended in a more violent lurch of the buckboard. Madeline awoke to find her head on Florence’s shoulder. She sat up laughing and apologizing for her laziness. Florence assured her they would soon reach the ranch.

Madeline observed then that the horses were once more trotting. The wind was colder, the night darker, the foot-hills flatter. And the sky was now a wonderful deep velvet-blue blazing with millions of stars. Some of them were magnificent. How strangely white and alive! Again Madeline felt the insistence of familiar yet baffling associations. These white stars called strangely to her or haunted her.

V. The Round-Up

IT WAS A crackling and roaring of fire that awakened Madeline next morning, and the first thing she saw was a huge stone fireplace in which lay a bundle of blazing sticks. Some one had kindled a fire while she slept. For a moment the curious sensation of being lost returned to her. She just dimly remembered reaching the ranch and being taken into a huge house and a huge, dimly lighted room. And it seemed to her that she had gone to sleep at once, and had awakened without remembering how she had gotten to bed.

But she was wide awake in an instant. The bed stood near one end of an enormous chamber. The adobe walls resembled a hall in an ancient feudal castle, stone-floored, stone-walled, with great darkened rafters running across the ceiling. The few articles of furniture were worn out and sadly dilapidated. Light flooded into the room from two windows on the right of the fireplace and two on the left, and another large window near the bedstead. Looking out from where she lay, Madeline saw a dark, slow up-sweep of mountain. Her eyes returned to the cheery, snapping fire, and she watched it while gathering courage to get up. The room was cold. When she did slip her bare feet out upon the stone floor she very quickly put them back under the warm blankets. And she was still in bed trying to pluck up her courage when, with a knock on the door and a cheerful greeting, Florence entered, carrying steaming hot water.

“Good mawnin’, Miss Hammond. Hope you slept well. You sure were tired last night. I imagine you’ll find this old rancho house as cold as a barn. It’ll warm up directly. Al’s gone with the boys and Bill. We’re to ride down on the range after a while when your baggage comes.”

Florence wore a woolen blouse with a scarf round her neck, a short corduroy divided skirt, and boots; and while she talked she energetically heaped up the burning wood in the fireplace, and laid Madeline’s clothes at the foot of the bed, and heated a rug and put that on the floor by the bedside. And lastly, with a sweet, direct smile, she said:

“Al told me — and I sure saw myself — that you weren’t used to being without your maid. Will you let me help you?”

“Thank you, I am going to be my own maid for a while. I expect I do appear a very helpless individual, but really I do not feel so. Perhaps I have had just a little too much waiting on.”

“All right. Breakfast will be ready soon, and after that we’ll look about the place.”

Madeline was charmed with the old Spanish house, and the more she saw of it the more she thought what a delightful home it could be made. All the doors opened into a courtyard, or patio, as Florence called it. The house was low, in the shape of a rectangle, and so immense in size that Madeline wondered if it had been a Spanish barracks. Many of the rooms were dark, without windows, and they were empty. Others were full of ranchers’ implements and sacks of grain and bales of hay. Florence called these last alfalfa. The house itself appeared strong and well preserved, and it was very picturesque. But in the living-rooms were only the barest necessities, and these were worn out and comfortless.

However, when Madeline went outdoors she forgot the cheerless, bare interior. Florence led the way out on a porch and waved a hand at a vast, colored void. “That’s what Bill likes,” she said.

At first Madeline could not tell what was sky and what was land. The immensity of the scene stunned her faculties of conception. She sat down in one of the old rocking-chairs and looked and looked, and knew that she was not grasping the reality of what stretched wondrously before her.

“We’re up at the edge of the foothills,” Florence said. “You remember we rode around the northern end of the mountain range? Well, that’s behind us now, and you look down across the line into Arizona and Mexico. That long slope of gray is the head of the San Bernardino Valley. Straight across you see the black Chiricahua Mountains, and away down to the south the Guadalupe Mountains. That awful red gulf between is the desert, and far, far beyond the dim, blue peaks are the Sierra Madres in Mexico.”

Madeline listened and gazed with straining eyes, and wondered if this was only a stupendous mirage, and why it seemed so different from all else that she had seen, and so endless, so baffling, so grand.

“It’ll sure take you a little while to get used to being up high and seeing so much,” explained Florence. “That’s the secret — we’re up high, the air is clear, and there’s the whole bare world beneath us. Don’t it somehow rest you? Well, it will. Now see those specks in the valley. They are stations, little towns. The railroad goes down that way. The largest speck is Chiricahua. It’s over forty miles by trail. Here round to the north you can see Don Carlos’s rancho. He’s fifteen miles off, and I sure wish he were a thousand. That little green square about half-way between here and Don Carlos — that’s Al’s ranch. Just below us are the adobe houses of the Mexicans. There’s a church, too. And here to the left you see Stillwell’s corrals and bunk-houses and his stables all falling to pieces. The ranch has gone to ruin. All the ranches are going to ruin. But most of them are little one-horse affairs. And here — see that cloud of dust down in the valley? It’s the round-up. The boys are there, and the cattle. Wait, I’ll get the glasses.”

By their aid Madeline saw in the foreground a great, dense herd of cattle with dark, thick streams and dotted lines of cattle leading in every direction. She saw streaks and clouds of dust, running horses, and a band of horses grazing; and she descried horsemen standing still like sentinels, and others in action.

“The round-up! I want to know all about it — to see it,” declared Madeline. “Please tell me what it means, what it’s for, and then take me down there.”

“It’s sure a sight, Miss Hammond. I’ll be glad to take you down, but I fancy you’ll not want to go close. Few Eastern people who regularly eat their choice cuts of roast beef and porterhouse have any idea of the open range and the struggle cattle have to live and the hard life of cowboys. It’ll sure open your eyes, Miss Hammond. I’m glad you care to know. Your brother would have made a big success in this cattle business if it hadn’t been for crooked work by rival ranchers. He’ll make it yet, in spite of them.”

“Indeed he shall,” replied Madeline. “But tell me, please, all about the round-up.”

“Well, in the first place, every cattleman has to have a brand to identify his stock. Without it no cattleman, nor half a hundred cowboys, if he had so many, could ever recognize all the cattle in a big herd. There are no fences on our ranges. They are all open to everybody. Some day I hope we’ll be rich enough to fence a range. The different herds graze together. Every calf has to be caught, if possible, and branded with the mark of its mother. That’s no easy job. A maverick is an unbranded calf that has been weaned and shifts for itself. The maverick then belongs to the man who finds it and brands it. These little calves that lose their mothers sure have a cruel time of it. Many of them die. Then the coyotes and wolves and lions prey on them. Every year we have two big round-ups, but the boys do some branding all the year. A calf should be branded as soon as it’s found. This is a safeguard against cattle-thieves. We don’t have the rustling of herds and bunches of cattle like we used to. But there’s always the calf-thief, and always will be as long as there’s cattle-raising. The thieves have a good many cunning tricks. They kill the calf’s mother or slit the calf’s tongue so it can’t suck and so loses its mother. They steal and hide a calf and watch it till it’s big enough to fare for itself, and then brand it. They make imperfect brands and finish them at a later time.

“We have our big round-up in the fall, when there’s plenty of grass and water, and all the riding-stock as well as the cattle are in fine shape. The cattlemen in the valley meet with their cowboys and drive in all the cattle they can find. Then they brand and cut out each man’s herd and drive it toward home. Then they go on up or down the valley, make another camp, and drive in more cattle. It takes weeks. There are so many Greasers with little bands of stock, and they are crafty and greedy. Bill says he knows Greaser cowboys, vaqueros, who never owned a steer or a cow, and now they’ve got growing herds. The same might be said of more than one white cowboy. But there’s not as much of that as there used to be.”

“And the horses? I want to know about them,” said Madeline, when Florence paused.

“Oh, the cow-ponies! Well, they sure are interesting. Broncos, the boys call them. Wild! they’re wilder than the steers they have to chase. Bill’s got broncos heah that never have been broken and never will be. And not every boy can ride them, either. The vaqueros have the finest horses. Don Carlos has a black that I’d give anything to own. And he has other fine stock. Gene Stewart’s big roan is a Mexican horse, the swiftest and proudest I ever saw. I was up on him once and — oh, he can run! He likes a woman, too, and that’s sure something I want in a horse. I heard Al and Bill talking at breakfast about a horse for you. They were wrangling. Bill wanted you to have one, and Al another. It was funny to hear them. Finally they left the choice to me, until the round-up is over. Then I suppose every cowboy on the range will offer you his best mount. Come, let’s go out to the corrals and look over the few horses left.”

For Madeline the morning hours flew by, with a goodly part of the time spent on the porch gazing out over that ever-changing vista. At noon a teamster drove up with her trunks. Then while Florence helped the Mexican woman get lunch Madeline unpacked part of her effects and got out things for which she would have immediate need. After lunch she changed her dress for a riding-habit and, going outside, found Florence waiting with the horses.

The Western girl’s clear eyes seemed to take stock of Madeline’s appearance in one swift, inquisitive glance and then shone with pleasure.

“You sure look — you’re a picture, Miss Hammond. That riding-outfit is a new one. What it ‘d look like on me or another woman I can’t imagine, but on you it’s — it’s stunning. Bill won’t let you go within a mile of the cowboys. If they see you that’ll be the finish of the round-up.”

While they rode down the slope Florence talked about the open ranges of New Mexico and Arizona.

“Water is scarce,” she said. “If Bill could afford to pipe water down from the mountains he’d have the finest ranch in the valley.”

She went on to tell that the climate was mild in winter and hot in summer. Warm, sunshiny days prevailed nearly all the year round. Some summers it rained, and occasionally there would be a dry year, the dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans. Rain was always expected and prayed for in the midsummer months, and when it came the grama-grass sprang up, making the valleys green from mountain to mountain. The intersecting valleys, ranging between the long slope of foothills, afforded the best pasture for cattle, and these were jealously sought by the Mexicans who had only small herds to look after. Stillwell’s cowboys were always chasing these vaqueros off land that belonged to Stillwell. He owned twenty thousand acres of unfenced land adjoining the open range. Don Carlos possessed more acreage than that, and his cattle were always mingling with Stillwell’s. And in turn Don Carlos’s vaqueros were always chasing Stillwell’s cattle away from the Mexican’s watering-place. Bad feeling had been manifested for years, and now relations were strained to the breaking-point.

As Madeline rode along she made good use of her eyes. The soil was sandy and porous, and she understood why the rain and water from the few springs disappeared so quickly. At a little distance the grama-grass appeared thick, but near at hand it was seen to be sparse. Bunches of greasewood and cactus plants were interspersed here and there in the grass. What surprised Madeline was the fact that, though she and Florence had seemed to be riding quite awhile, they had apparently not drawn any closer to the round-up. The slope of the valley was noticeable only after some miles had been traversed. Looking forward, Madeline imagined the valley only a few miles wide. She would have been sure she could walk her horse across it in an hour. Yet that black, bold range of Chiricahua Mountains was distant a long day’s journey for even a hard-riding cowboy. It was only by looking back that Madeline could grasp the true relation of things; she could not be deceived by distance she had covered.

Gradually the black dots enlarged and assumed shape of cattle and horses moving round a great dusty patch. In another half-hour Madeline rode behind Florence to the outskirts of the scene of action. They drew rein near a huge wagon in the neighborhood of which were more than a hundred horses grazing and whistling and trotting about and lifting heads to watch the new-comers. Four cowboys stood mounted guard over this drove of horses. Perhaps a quarter of a mile farther out was a dusty melee. A roar of tramping hoofs filled Madeline’s ears. The lines of marching cattle had merged into a great, moving herd half obscured by dust.

“I can make little of what is going on,” said Madeline. “I want to go closer.”

They trotted across half the intervening distance, and when Florence halted again Madeline was still not satisfied and asked to be taken nearer. This time, before they reined in again, Al Hammond saw them and wheeled his horse in their direction. He yelled something which Madeline did not understand, and then halted them.

“Close enough,” he called; and in the din his voice was not very clear. “It’s not safe. Wild steers! I’m glad you came, girls. Majesty, what do you think of that bunch of cattle?”

Madeline could scarcely reply what she thought, for the noise and dust and ceaseless action confused her.

“They’re milling, Al,” said Florence.

“We just rounded them up. They’re milling, and that’s bad. The vaqueros are hard drivers. They beat us all hollow, and we drove some, too.” He was wet with sweat, black with dust, and out of breath. “I’m off now. Flo, my sister will have enough of this in about two minutes. Take her back to the wagon. I’ll tell Bill you’re here, and run in whenever I get a minute.”

The bawling and bellowing, the crackling of horns and pounding of hoofs, the dusty whirl of cattle, and the flying cowboys disconcerted Madeline and frightened her a little; but she was intensely interested and meant to stay there until she saw for herself what that strife of sound and action meant. When she tried to take in the whole scene she did not make out anything clearly and she determined to see it little by little.

“Will you stay longer?” asked Florence; and, receiving an affirmative reply, she warned Madeline: “If a runaway steer or angry cow comes this way let your horse go. He’ll get out of the way.”

That lent the situation excitement, and Madeline became absorbed. The great mass of cattle seemed to be eddying like a whirlpool, and from that Madeline understood the significance of the range word “milling.” But when Madeline looked at one end of the herd she saw cattle standing still, facing outward, and calves cringing close in fear. The motion of the cattle slowed from the inside of the herd to the outside and gradually ceased. The roar and tramp of hoofs and crack of horns and thump of heads also ceased in degree, but the bawling and bellowing continued. While she watched, the herd spread, grew less dense, and stragglers appeared to be about to bolt through the line of mounted cowboys.

From that moment so many things happened, and so swiftly, that Madeline could not see a tenth of what was going on within eyesight. It seemed horsemen darted into the herd and drove out cattle. Madeline pinned her gaze on one cowboy who rode a white horse and was chasing a steer. He whirled a lasso around his head and threw it; the rope streaked out and the loop caught the leg of the steer. The white horse stopped with wonderful suddenness, and the steer slid in the dust. Quick as a flash the cowboy was out of the saddle, and, grasping the legs of the steer before it could rise, he tied them with a rope. It had all been done almost as quickly as thought. Another man came with what Madeline divined was a branding-iron. He applied it to the flank of the steer. Then it seemed the steer was up with a jump, wildly looking for some way to run, and the cowboy was circling his lasso. Madeline saw fires in the background, with a man in charge, evidently heating the irons. Then this same cowboy roped a heifer which bawled lustily when the hot iron seared its hide. Madeline saw the smoke rising from the touch of the iron, and the sight made her shrink and want to turn away, but she resolutely fought her sensitiveness. She had never been able to bear the sight of any animal suffering. The rough work in men’s lives was as a sealed book to her; and now, for some reason beyond her knowledge, she wanted to see and hear and learn some of the every-day duties that made up those lives.

“Look, Miss Hammond, there’s Don Carlos!” said Florence. “Look at that black horse!”

Madeleine saw a dark-faced Mexican riding by. He was too far away for her to distinguish his features, but he reminded her of an Italian brigand. He bestrode a magnificent horse.

Stillwell rode up to the girls then and greeted them in his big voice.

“Right in the thick of it, hey? Wal, thet’s sure fine. I’m glad to see, Miss Majesty, thet you ain’t afraid of a little dust or smell of burnin’ hide an’ hair.”

“Couldn’t you brand the calves without hurting them?” asked Madeline.

“Haw, haw! Why, they ain’t hurt none. They jest bawl for their mammas. Sometimes, though, we hev to hurt one jest to find which is his mamma.”

“I want to know how you tell what brand to put on those calves that are separated from their mothers,” asked Madeline.

“Thet’s decided by the round-up bosses. I’ve one boss an’ Don Carlos has one. They decide everything, an’ they hev to be obyed. There’s Nick Steele, my boss. Watch him! He’s ridin’ a bay in among the cattle there. He orders the calves an’ steers to be cut out. Then the cowboys do the cuttin’ out an’ the brandin’. We try to divide up the mavericks as near as possible.”

At this juncture Madeline’s brother joined the group, evidently in search of Stillwell.

“Bill, Nels just rode in,” he said.

“Good! We sure need him. Any news of Danny Mains?”

“No. Nels said he lost the trail when he got on hard ground.”

“Wal, wal. Say, Al, your sister is sure takin’ to the round-up. An’ the boys are gettin’ wise. See thet sun-of-a-gun Ambrose cuttin’ capers all around. He’ll sure do his prettiest. Ambrose is a ladies’ man, he thinks.”

The two men and Florence joined in a little pleasant teasing of Madeline, and drew her attention to what appeared to be really unnecessary feats of horsemanship all made in her vicinity. The cowboys evinced their interest in covert glances while recoiling a lasso or while passing to and fro. It was all too serious for Madeline to be amused at that moment. She did not care to talk. She sat her horse and watched.

The lithe, dark vaqueros fascinated her. They were here, there, everywhere, with lariats flying, horses plunging back, jerking calves and yearlings to the grass. They were cruel to their mounts, cruel to their cattle. Madeline winced as the great silver rowels of the spurs went plowing into the flanks of their horses. She saw these spurs stained with blood, choked with hair. She saw the vaqueros break the legs of calves and let them lie till a white cowboy came along and shot them. Calves were jerked down and dragged many yards; steers were pulled by one leg. These vaqueros were the most superb horsemen Madeline had ever seen, and she had seen the Cossacks and Tatars of the Russian steppes. They were swift, graceful, daring; they never failed to catch a running steer, and the lassoes always went true. What sharp dashes the horses made, and wheelings here and there, and sudden stops, and how they braced themselves to withstand the shock!

The cowboys, likewise, showed wonderful horsemanship, and, reckless as they were, Madeline imagined she saw consideration for steed and cattle that was wanting in the vaqueros. They changed mounts oftener than the Mexican riders, and the horses they unsaddled for fresh ones were not so spent, so wet, so covered with lather. It was only after an hour or more of observation that Madeline began to realize the exceedingly toilsome and dangerous work cowboys had to perform. There was little or no rest for them. They were continually among wild and vicious and wide-horned steers. In many instances they owed their lives to their horses. The danger came mostly when the cowboy leaped off to tie and brand a calf he had thrown. Some of the cows charged with lowered, twisting horns. Time and again Madeline’s heart leaped to her throat for fear a man would be gored. One cowboy roped a calf that bawled loudly. Its mother dashed in and just missed the kneeling cowboy as he rolled over. Then he had to run, and he could not run very fast. He was bow-legged and appeared awkward. Madeline saw another cowboy thrown and nearly run over by a plunging steer. His horse bolted as if it intended to leave the range. Then close by Madeline a big steer went down at the end of a lasso. The cowboy who had thrown it nimbly jumped down, and at that moment his horse began to rear and prance and suddenly to lower his head close to the ground and kick high. He ran round in a circle, the fallen steer on the taut lasso acting as a pivot. The cowboy loosed the rope from the steer, and then was dragged about on the grass. It was almost frightful for Madeline to see that cowboy go at his horse. But she recognized the mastery and skill. Then two horses came into collision on the run. One horse went down; the rider of the other was unseated and was kicked before he could get up. This fellow limped to his mount and struck at him, while the horse showed his teeth in a vicious attempt to bite.

All the while this ceaseless activity was going on there was a strange uproar — bawl and bellow, the shock of heavy bodies meeting and falling, the shrill jabbering of the vaqueros, and the shouts and banterings of the cowboys. They took sharp orders and replied in jest. They went about this stern toil as if it were a game to be played in good humor. One sang a rollicking song, another whistled, another smoked a cigarette. The sun was hot, and they, like their horses, were dripping with sweat. The characteristic red faces had taken on so much dust that cowboys could not be distinguished from vaqueros except by the difference in dress. Blood was not wanting on tireless hands. The air was thick, oppressive, rank with the smell of cattle and of burning hide.

Madeline began to sicken. She choked with dust, was almost stifled by the odor. But that made her all the more determined to stay there. Florence urged her to come away, or at least move back out of the worst of it. Stillwell seconded Florence. Madeline, however, smilingly refused. Then her brother said: “Here, this is making you sick. You’re pale.” And she replied that she intended to stay until the day’s work ended. Al gave her a strange look, and made no more comment. The kindly Stillwell then began to talk.

“Miss Majesty, you’re seein’ the life of the cattleman an’ cowboy — the real thing — same as it was in the early days. The ranchers in Texas an’ some in Arizona hev took on style, new-fangled idees thet are good, an’ I wish we could follow them. But we’ve got to stick to the old-fashioned, open-range round-up. It looks cruel to you, I can see thet. Wal, mebbe so, mebbe so. Them Greasers are cruel, thet’s certain. Fer thet matter, I never seen a Greaser who wasn’t cruel. But I reckon all the strenuous work you’ve seen to-day ain’t any tougher than most any day of a cowboy’s life. Long hours on hossback, poor grub, sleepin’ on the ground, lonesome watches, dust an’ sun an’ wind an’ thirst, day in an’ day out all the year round — thet’s what a cowboy has.

“Look at Nels there. See, what little hair he has is snow-white. He’s red an’ thin an’ hard — burned up. You notice thet hump of his shoulders. An’ his hands, when he gets close — jest take a peep at his hands. Nels can’t pick up a pin. He can’t hardly button his shirt or untie a knot in his rope. He looks sixty years — an old man. Wal, Nels ‘ain’t seen forty. He’s a young man, but he’s seen a lifetime fer every year. Miss Majesty, it was Arizona thet made Nels what he is, the Arizona desert an’ the work of a cowman. He’s seen ridin’ at Canyon Diablo an’ the Verdi an’ Tonto Basin. He knows every mile of Aravaipa Valley an’ the Pinaleno country. He’s ranged from Tombstone to Douglas. He hed shot bad white men an’ bad Greasers before he was twenty-one. He’s seen some life, Nels has. My sixty years ain’t nothin’; my early days in the Staked Plains an’ on the border with Apaches ain’t nothin’ to what Nels has seen an’ lived through. He’s just come to be part of the desert; you might say he’s stone an’ fire an’ silence an’ cactus an’ force. He’s a man, Miss Majesty, a wonderful man. Rough he’ll seem to you. Wal, I’ll show you pieces of quartz from the mountains back of my ranch an’ they’re thet rough they’d cut your hands. But there’s pure gold in them. An’ so it is with Nels an’ many of these cowboys.

“An’ there’s Price — Monty Price. Monty stands fer Montana, where he hails from. Take a good look at him, Miss Majesty. He’s been hurt, I reckon. Thet accounts fer him bein’ without hoss or rope; an’ thet limp. Wal, he’s been ripped a little. It’s sure rare an seldom thet a cowboy gets foul of one of them thousands of sharp horns; but it does happen.”

Madeline saw a very short, wizened little man, ludicrously bow-legged, with a face the color and hardness of a burned-out cinder. He was hobbling by toward the wagon, and one of his short, crooked legs dragged.

“Not much to look at, is he?” went on Stillwell. “Wal; I know it’s natural thet we’re all best pleased by good looks in any one, even a man. It hedn’t ought to be thet way. Monty Price looks like hell. But appearances are sure deceivin’. Monty saw years of ridin’ along the Missouri bottoms, the big prairies, where there’s high grass an’ sometimes fires. In Montana they have blizzards that freeze cattle standin’ in their tracks. An’ hosses freeze to death. They tell me thet a drivin’ sleet in the face with the mercury forty below is somethin’ to ride against. You can’t get Monty to say much about cold. All you hev to do is to watch him, how he hunts the sun. It never gets too hot fer Monty. Wal, I reckon he was a little more prepossessin’ once. The story thet come to us about Monty is this: He got caught out in a prairie fire an’ could hev saved himself easy, but there was a lone ranch right in the line of fire, an’ Monty knowed the rancher was away, an’ his wife an’ baby was home. He knowed, too, the way the wind was, thet the ranch-house would burn. It was a long chance he was takin’. But he went over, put the woman up behind him, wrapped the baby an’ his hoss’s haid in a wet blanket, an’ rode away. Thet was sure some ride, I’ve heerd. But the fire ketched Monty at the last. The woman fell an’ was lost, an’ then his hoss. An’ Monty ran an’ walked an’ crawled through the fire with thet baby, an’ he saved it. Monty was never much good as a cowboy after thet. He couldn’t hold no jobs. Wal, he’ll have one with me as long as I have a steer left.”

VI. A Gift and A Purchase

FOR A WEEK the scene of the round-up lay within riding-distance of the ranch-house, and Madeline passed most of this time in the saddle, watching the strenuous labors of the vaqueros and cowboys. She overestimated her strength, and more than once had to be lifted from her horse. Stillwell’s pleasure in her attendance gave place to concern. He tried to persuade her to stay away from the round-up, and Florence grew even more solicitous.

Madeline, however, was not moved by their entreaties. She grasped only dimly the truth of what it was she was learning — something infinitely more than the rounding up of cattle by cowboys, and she was loath to lose an hour of her opportunity.

Her brother looked out for her as much as his duties permitted; but for several days he never once mentioned her growing fatigue and the strain of excitement, or suggested that she had better go back to the house with Florence. Many times she felt the drawing power of his keen blue eyes on her face. And at these moments she sensed more than brotherly regard. He was watching her, studying her, weighing her, and the conviction was vaguely disturbing. It was disquieting for Madeline to think that Alfred might have guessed her trouble. From time to time he brought cowboys to her and introduced them, and laughed and jested, trying to make the ordeal less embarrassing for these men so little used to women.

Before the week was out, however, Alfred found occasion to tell her that it would be wiser for her to let the round-up go on without gracing it further with her presence. He said it laughingly; nevertheless, he was serious. And when Madeline turned to him in surprise he said, bluntly:

“I don’t like the way Don Carlos follows you around. Bill’s afraid that Nels or Ambrose or one of the cowboys will take a fall out of the Mexican. They’re itching for the chance. Of course, dear, it’s absurd to you, but it’s true.”

Absurd it certainly was, yet it served to show Madeline how intensely occupied she had been with her own feelings, roused by the tumult and toil of the round-up. She recalled that Don Carlos had been presented to her, and that she had not liked his dark, striking face with its bold, prominent, glittering eyes and sinister lines; and she had not liked his suave, sweet, insinuating voice or his subtle manner, with its slow bows and gestures. She had thought he looked handsome and dashing on the magnificent black horse. However, now that Alfred’s words made her think, she recalled that wherever she had been in the field the noble horse, with his silver-mounted saddle and his dark rider, had been always in her vicinity.

“Don Carlos has been after Florence for a long time,” said Alfred. “He’s not a young man by any means. He’s fifty, Bill says; but you can seldom tell a Mexican’s age from his looks. Don Carlos is well educated and a man we know very little about. Mexicans of his stamp don’t regard women as we white men do. Now, my dear, beautiful sister from New York, I haven’t much use for Don Carlos; but I don’t want Nels or Ambrose to make a wild throw with a rope and pull the Don off his horse. So you had better ride up to the house and stay there.”

“Alfred, you are joking, teasing me,” said Madeline. “Indeed not,” replied Alfred. “How about it, Flo?” Florence replied that the cowboys would upon the slightest provocation treat Don Carlos with less ceremony and gentleness than a roped steer. Old Bill Stillwell came up to be importuned by Alfred regarding the conduct of cowboys on occasion, and he not only corroborated the assertion, but added emphasis and evidence of his own.

“An’, Miss Majesty,” he concluded, “I reckon if Gene Stewart was ridin’ fer me, thet grinnin’ Greaser would hev hed a bump in the dust before now.”

Madeline had been wavering between sobriety and laughter until Stillwell’s mention of his ideal of cowboy chivalry decided in favor of the laughter.

“I am not convinced, but I surrender,” she said. “You have only some occult motive for driving me away. I am sure that handsome Don Carlos is being unjustly suspected. But as I have seen a little of cowboys’ singular imagination and gallantry, I am rather inclined to fear their possibilities. So good-by.”

Then she rode with Florence up the long, gray slope to the ranch-house. That night she suffered from excessive weariness, which she attributed more to the strange working of her mind than to riding and sitting her horse. Morning, however, found her in no disposition to rest. It was not activity that she craved, or excitement, or pleasure. An unerring instinct, rising dear from the thronging sensations of the last few days, told her that she had missed something in life. It could not have been love, for she loved brother, sister, parents, friends; it could not have been consideration for the poor, the unfortunate, the hapless; she had expressed her sympathy for these by giving freely; it could not have been pleasure, culture, travel, society, wealth, position, fame, for these had been hers all her life. Whatever this something was, she had baffling intimations of it, hopes that faded on the verge of realizations, haunting promises that were unfulfilled. Whatever it was, it had remained hidden and unknown at home, and here in the West it began to allure and drive her to discovery. Therefore she could not rest; she wanted to go and see; she was no longer chasing phantoms; it was a hunt for treasure that held aloof, as intangible as the substance of dreams.

That morning she spoke a desire to visit the Mexican quarters lying at the base of the foothills. Florence protested that this was no place to take Madeline. But Madeline insisted, and it required only a few words and a persuading smile to win Florence over.

From the porch the cluster of adobe houses added a picturesque touch of color and contrast to the waste of gray valley. Near at hand they proved the enchantment lent by distance. They were old, crumbling, broken down, squalid. A few goats climbed around upon them; a few mangy dogs barked announcement of visitors; and then a troop of half-naked, dirty, ragged children ran out. They were very shy, and at first retreated in affright. But kind words and smiles gained their confidence, and then they followed in a body, gathering a quota of new children at each house. Madeline at once conceived the idea of doing something to better the condition of these poor Mexicans, and with this in mind she decided to have a look indoors. She fancied she might have been an apparition, judging from the effect her presence had upon the first woman she encountered. While Florence exercised what little Spanish she had command of, trying to get the women to talk, Madeline looked about the miserable little rooms. And there grew upon her a feeling of sickness, which increased as she passed from one house to another. She had not believed such squalor could exist anywhere in America. The huts reeked with filth; vermin crawled over the dirt floors. There was absolutely no evidence of water, and she believed what Florence told her — that these people never bathed. There was little evidence of labor. Idle men and women smoking cigarettes lolled about, some silent, others jabbering. They did not resent the visit of the American women, nor did they show hospitality. They appeared stupid. Disease was rampant in these houses; when the doors were shut there was no ventilation, and even with the doors open Madeline felt choked and stifled. A powerful penetrating odor pervaded the rooms that were less stifling than others, and this odor Florence explained came from a liquor the Mexicans distilled from a cactus plant. Here drunkenness was manifest, a terrible inert drunkenness that made its victims deathlike.

Madeline could not extend her visit to the little mission-house. She saw a padre, a starved, sad-faced man who, she instinctively felt, was good. She managed to mount her horse and ride up to the house; but, once there, she weakened and Florence had almost to carry her in-doors. She fought off a faintness, only to succumb to it when alone in her room. Still, she did not entirely lose consciousness, and soon recovered to the extent that she did not require assistance.

Upon the morning after the end of the round-up, when she went out on the porch, her brother and Stillwell appeared to be arguing about the identity of a horse.

“Wal, I reckon it’s my old roan,” said Stillwell, shading his eyes with his hand.

“Bill, if that isn’t Stewart’s horse my eyes are going back on me,” replied Al. “It’s not the color or shape — the distance is too far to judge by that. It’s the motion — the swing.”

“Al, mebbe you’re right. But they ain’t no rider up on thet hoss. Flo, fetch my glass.”

Florence went into the house, while Madeline tried to discover the object of attention. Presently far up the gray hollow along a foothill she saw dust, and then the dark, moving figure of a horse. She was watching when Florence returned with the glass. Bill took a long look, adjusted the glasses carefully, and tried again.

“Wal, I hate to admit my eyes are gettin’ pore. But I guess I’ll hev to. Thet’s Gene Stewart’s hoss, saddled, an’ comin’ at a fast clip without a rider. It’s amazin’ strange, an’ some in keepin’ with other things concernin’ Gene.”

“Give me the glass,” said Al. “Yes, I was right. Bill, the horse is not frightened. He’s coming steadily; he’s got something on his mind.”

“Thet’s a trained hoss, Al. He has more sense than some men I know. Take a look with the glasses up the hollow. See anybody?”

“No.”

“Swing up over the foothills — where the trail leads. Higher — along thet ridge where the rocks begin. See anybody?”

“By Jove! Bill — two horses! But I can’t make out much for dust. They are climbing fast. One horse gone among the rocks. There — the other’s gone. What do you make of that?”

“Wal, I can’t make no more ‘n you. But I’ll bet we know somethin’ soon, fer Gene’s hoss is comin’ faster as he nears the ranch.”

The wide hollow sloping up into the foothills lay open to unobstructed view, and less than half a mile distant Madeline saw the riderless horse coming along the white trail at a rapid canter. She watched him, recalling the circumstances under which she had first seen him, and then his wild flight through the dimly lighted streets of El Cajon out into the black night. She thrilled again and believed she would never think of that starry night’s adventure without a thrill. She watched the horse and felt more than curiosity. A shrill, piercing whistle pealed in.

“Wal, he’s seen us, thet’s sure,” said Bill.

The horse neared the corrals, disappeared into a lane, and then, breaking his gait again, thundered into the inclosure and pounded to a halt some twenty yards from where Stillwell waited for him.

One look at him at close range in the clear light of day was enough for Madeline to award him a blue ribbon over all horses, even her prize-winner, White Stockings. The cowboy’s great steed was no lithe, slender-bodied mustang. He was a charger, almost tremendous of build, with a black coat faintly mottled in gray, and it shone like polished glass in the sun. Evidently he had been carefully dressed down for this occasion, for there was no dust on him, nor a kink in his beautiful mane, nor a mark on his glossy hide.

“Come hyar, you son-of-a-gun,” said Stillwell.

The horse dropped his head, snorted, and came obediently up. He was neither shy nor wild. He poked a friendly nose at Stillwell, and then looked at Al and the women. Unhooking the stirrups from the pommel, Stillwell let them fall and began to search the saddle for something which he evidently expected to find. Presently from somewhere among the trappings he produced a folded bit of paper, and after scrutinizing it handed it to Al.

“Addressed to you; an’ I’ll bet you two bits I know what’s in it,” he said.

Alfred unfolded the letter, read it, and then looked at Stillwell.

“Bill, you’re a pretty good guesser. Gene’s made for the border. He sent the horse by somebody, no names mentioned, and wants my sister to have him if she will accept.”

“Any mention of Danny Mains?” asked the rancher.

“Not a word.”

“Thet’s bad. Gene’d know about Danny if anybody did. But he’s a close-mouthed cuss. So he’s sure hittin’ for Mexico. Wonder if Danny’s goin’, too? Wal, there’s two of the best cowmen I ever seen gone to hell an’ I’m sorry.”

With that he bowed his head and, grumbling to himself, went into the house. Alfred lifted the reins over the head of the horse and, leading him to Madeline, slipped the knot over her arm and placed the letter in her hand.

“Majesty, I’d accept the horse,” he said. “Stewart is only a cowboy now, and as tough as any I’ve known. But he comes of a good family. He was a college man and a gentleman once. He went to the bad out here, like so many fellows go, like I nearly did. Then he had told me about his sister and mother. He cared a good deal for them. I think he has been a source of unhappiness to them. It was mostly when he was reminded of this in some way that he’d get drunk. I have always stuck to him, and I would do so yet if I had the chance. You can see Bill is heartbroken about Danny Mains and Stewart. I think he rather hoped to get good news. There’s not much chance of them coming back now, at least not in the case of Stewart. This giving up his horse means he’s going to join the rebel forces across the border. What wouldn’t I give to see that cowboy break loose on a bunch of Greasers! Oh, damn the luck! I beg your pardon, Majesty. But I’m upset, too. I’m sorry about Stewart. I liked him pretty well before he thrashed that coyote of a sheriff, Pat Hawe, and afterward I guess I liked him more. You read the letter, sister, and accept the horse.”

In silence Madeline bent her gaze from her brother’s face to the letter:

Friend Al, — I’m sending my horse down to you because I’m going away and haven’t the nerve to take him where he’d get hurt or fall into strange hands.

If you think it’s all right, why, give him to your sister with my respects. But if you don’t like the idea, Al, or if she won’t have him, then he’s for you. I’m not forgetting your kindness to me, even if I never showed it. And, Al, my horse has never felt a quirt or a spur, and I’d like to think you’d never hurt him. I’m hoping your sister will take him. She’ll be good to him, and she can afford to take care of him. And, while I’m waiting to be plugged by a Greaser bullet, if I happen to have a picture in mind of how she’ll look upon my horse, why, man, it’s not going to make any difference to you. She needn’t ever know it. Between you and me, Al, don’t let her or Flo ride alone over Don Carlos’s way. If I had time I could tell you something about that slick Greaser. And tell your sister, if there’s ever any reason for her to run away from anybody when she’s up on that roan, just let her lean over and yell in his ear. She’ll find herself riding the wind. So long.

Gene Stewart.

Madeline thoughtfully folded the letter and murmured, “How he must love his horse!”

“Well, I should say so,” replied Alfred. “Flo will tell you. She’s the only person Gene ever let ride that horse, unless, as Bill thinks, the little Mexican girl, Bonita, rode him out of El Cajon the other night. Well, sister mine, how about it — will you accept the horse?”

“Assuredly. And very happy indeed am I to get him. Al, you said, I think, that Mr. Stewart named him after me — saw my nickname in the New York paper?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I will not change his name. But, Al, how shall I ever climb up on him? He’s taller than I am. What a giant of a horse! Oh, look at him — he’s nosing my hand. I really believe he understood what I said. Al, did you ever see such a splendid head and such beautiful eyes? They are so large and dark and soft — and human. Oh, I am a fickle woman, for I am forgetting White Stockings.”

“I’ll gamble he’ll make you forget any other horse,” said Alfred. “You’ll have to get on him from the porch.”

As Madeline was not dressed for the saddle, she did not attempt to mount.

“Come, Majesty — how strange that sounds! — we must get acquainted. You have now a new owner, a very severe young woman who will demand loyalty from you and obedience, and some day, after a decent period, she will expect love.”

Madeline led the horse to and fro, and was delighted with his gentleness. She discovered that he did not need to be led. He came at her call, followed her like a pet dog, rubbed his black muzzle against her. Sometimes, at the turns in their walk, he lifted his head and with ears forward looked up the trail by which he had come, and beyond the foothills. He was looking over the range. Some one was calling to him, perhaps, from beyond the mountains. Madeline liked him the better for that memory, and pitied the wayward cowboy who had parted with his only possession for very love of it.

That afternoon when Alfred lifted Madeline to the back of the big roan she felt high in the air.

“We’ll have a run out to the mesa,” said her brother, as he mounted. “Keep a tight rein on him and ease up when you want him to go faster. But don’t yell in his ear unless you want Florence and me to see you disappear on the horizon.”

He trotted out of the yard, down by the corrals, to come out on the edge of a gray, open flat that stretched several miles to the slope of a mesa. Florence led, and Madeline saw that she rode like a cowboy. Alfred drew on to her side, leaving Madeline in the rear. Then the leading horses broke into a gallop. They wanted to run, and Madeline felt with a thrill that she would hardly be able to keep Majesty from running, even if she wanted to. He sawed on the tight bridle as the others drew away and broke from pace to gallop. Then Florence put her horse into a run. Alfred turned and called to Madeline to come along.

“This will never do. They are running away from us,” said Madeline, and she eased up her hold on the bridle. Something happened beneath her just then; she did not know at first exactly what. As much as she had been on horseback she had never ridden at a running gait. In New York it was not decorous or safe. So when Majesty lowered and stretched and changed the stiff, jolting gallop for a wonderful, smooth, gliding run it required Madeline some moments to realize what was happening. It did not take long for her to see the distance diminishing between her and her companions. Still they had gotten a goodly start and were far advanced. She felt the steady, even rush of the wind. It amazed her to find how easily, comfortably she kept to the saddle. The experience was new. The one fault she had heretofore found with riding was the violent shaking-up. In this instance she experienced nothing of that kind, no strain, no necessity to hold on with a desperate awareness of work. She had never felt the wind in her face, the whip of a horse’s mane, the buoyant, level spring of a tanning gait. It thrilled her, exhilarated her, fired her blood. Suddenly she found herself alive, throbbing; and, inspired by she knew not what, she loosened the bridle and, leaning far forward, she cried, “Oh, you splendid fellow, run!”

She heard from under her a sudden quick clattering roar of hoofs, and she swayed back with the wonderfully swift increase in Majesty’s speed. The wind stung her face, howled in her ears, tore at her hair. The gray plain swept by on each side, and in front seemed to be waving toward her. In her blurred sight Florence and Alfred appeared to be coming back. But she saw presently, upon nearer view, that Majesty was overhauling the other horses, was going to pass them. Indeed, he did pass them, shooting by so as almost to make them appear standing still. And he ran on, not breaking his gait till he reached the steep side of the mesa, where he slowed down and stopped.

“Glorious!” exclaimed Madeline. She was all in a blaze, and every muscle and nerve of her body tingled and quivered. Her hands, as she endeavored to put up the loosened strands of hair, trembled and failed of their accustomed dexterity. Then she faced about and waited for her companions.

Alfred reached her first, laughing, delighted, yet also a little anxious.

“Holy smoke! But can’t he run? Did he bolt on you?”

“No, I called in his ear,” replied Madeline.

“So that was it. That’s the woman of you, and forbidden fruit. Flo said she’d do it the minute she was on him. Majesty, you can ride. See if Flo doesn’t say so.”

The Western girl came up then with her pleasure bright in her face.

“It was just great to see you. How your hair burned in the wind! Al, she sure can ride. Oh, I’m so glad! I was a little afraid. And that horse! Isn’t he grand? Can’t he run?”

Alfred led the way up the steep, zigzag trail to the top of the mesa. Madeline saw a beautiful flat surface of short grass, level as a floor. She uttered a little cry of wonder and enthusiasm.

“Al, what a place for golf! This would be the finest links in the world.”

“Well, I’ve thought of that myself,” he replied. “The only trouble would be — could anybody stop looking at the scenery long enough to hit a ball? Majesty, look!”

And then it seemed that Madeline was confronted by a spectacle too sublime and terrible for her gaze. The immensity of this red-ridged, deep-gulfed world descending incalculable distances refused to be grasped, and awed her, shocked her.

“Once, Majesty, when I first came out West, I was down and out — determined to end it all,” said Alfred. “And happened to climb up here looking for a lonely place to die. When I saw that I changed my mind.”

Madeline was silent. She remained so during the ride around the rim of the mesa and down the steep trail. This time Alfred and Florence failed to tempt her into a race. She had been awe-struck; she had been exalted she had been confounded; and she recovered slowly without divining exactly what had come to her.

She reached the ranch-house far behind her companions, and at supper-time was unusually thoughtful. Later, when they assembled on the porch to watch the sunset, Stillwell’s humorous complainings inspired the inception of an idea which flashed up in her mind swift as lightning. And then by listening sympathetically she encouraged him to recite the troubles of a poor cattleman. They were many and long and interesting, and rather numbing to the life of her inspired idea.

“Mr. Stillwell, could ranching here on a large scale, with up-to-date methods, be made — well, not profitable, exactly, but to pay — to run without loss?” she asked, determined to kill her new-born idea at birth or else give it breath and hope of life.

“Wal, I reckon it could,” he replied, with a short laugh. “It’d sure be a money-maker. Why, with all my bad luck an’ poor equipment I’ve lived pretty well an’ paid my debts an’ haven’t really lost any money except the original outlay. I reckon thet’s sunk fer good.”

“Would you sell — if some one would pay your price?”

“Miss Majesty, I’d jump at the chance. Yet somehow I’d hate to leave hyar. I’d jest be fool enough to go sink the money in another ranch.”

“Would Don Carlos and these other Mexicans sell?”

“They sure would. The Don has been after me fer years, wantin’ to sell thet old rancho of his; an’ these herders in the valley with their stray cattle, they’d fall daid at sight of a little money.”

“Please tell me, Mr. Stillwell, exactly what you would do here if you had unlimited means?” went on Madeline.

“Good Lud!” ejaculated the rancher, and started so he dropped his pipe. Then with his clumsy huge fingers he refilled it, relighted it, took a few long pulls, puffed great clouds of smoke, and, squaring round, hands on his knees, he looked at Madeline with piercing intentness. His hard face began to relax and soften and wrinkle into a smile.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, it jest makes my old heart warm up to think of sich a thing. I dreamed a lot when I first come hyar. What would I do if I hed unlimited money? Listen. I’d buy out Don Carlos an’ the Greasers. I’d give a job to every good cowman in this country. I’d make them prosper as I prospered myself. I’d buy all the good horses on the ranges. I’d fence twenty thousand acres of the best grazin’. I’d drill fer water in the valley. I’d pipe water down from the mountains. I’d dam up that draw out there. A mile-long dam from hill to hill would give me a big lake, an’ hevin’ an eye fer beauty, I’d plant cottonwoods around it. I’d fill that lake full of fish. I’d put in the biggest field of alfalfa in the South-west. I’d plant fruit-trees an’ garden. I’d tear down them old corrals an’ barns an’ bunk-houses to build new ones. I’d make this old rancho some comfortable an’ fine. I’d put in grass an’ flowers all around an’ bring young pine-trees down from the mountains. An’ when all thet was done I’d sit in my chair an’ smoke an’ watch the cattle stringin’ in fer water an’ stragglin’ back into the valley. An’ I see the cowboys ridin’ easy an’ heah them singin’ in their bunks. An’ thet red sun out there wouldn’t set on a happier man in the world than Bill Stillwell, last of the old cattlemen.”

Madeline thanked the rancher, and then rather abruptly retired to her room, where she felt no restraint to hide the force of that wonderful idea, now full-grown and tenacious and alluring.

Upon the next day, late in the afternoon, she asked Alfred if it would be safe for her to ride out to the mesa.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, gaily.

“Dear fellow, I want to go alone,” she replied.

“Ah!” Alfred exclaimed, suddenly serious. He gave her just a quick glance, then turned away. “Go ahead. I think it’s safe. I’ll make it safe by sitting here with my glass and keeping an eye on you. Be careful coming down the trail. Let the horse pick his way. That’s all.”

She rode Majesty across the wide flat, up the zigzag trail, across the beautiful grassy level to the far rim of the mesa, and not till then did she lift her eyes to face the southwest.

Madeline looked from the gray valley at her feet to the blue Sierra Madres, gold-tipped in the setting sun. Her vision embraced in that glance distance and depth and glory hitherto unrevealed to her. The gray valley sloped and widened to the black sentinel Chiricahuas, and beyond was lost in a vast corrugated sweep of earth, reddening down to the west, where a golden blaze lifted the dark, rugged mountains into bold relief. The scene had infinite beauty. But after Madeline’s first swift, all-embracing flash of enraptured eyes, thought of beauty passed away. In that darkening desert there was something illimitable. Madeline saw the hollow of a stupendous hand; she felt a mighty hold upon her heart. Out of the endless space, out of silence and desolation and mystery and age, came slow-changing colored shadows, phantoms of peace, and they whispered to Madeline. They whispered that it was a great, grim, immutable earth; that time was eternity; that life was fleeting. They whispered for her to be a woman; to love some one before it was too late; to love any one, every one; to realize the need of work, and in doing it to find happiness.

She rode back across the mesa and down the trail, and, once more upon the flat, she called to the horse and made him run. His spirit seemed to race with hers. The wind of his speed blew her hair from its fastenings. When he thundered to a halt at the porch steps Madeline, breathless and disheveled, alighted with the mass of her hair tumbling around her.

Alfred met her, and his exclamation, and Florence’s rapt eyes shining on her face, and Stillwell’s speechlessness made her self-conscious. Laughing, she tried to put up the mass of hair.

“I must — look a — fright,” she panted.

“Wal, you can say what you like,” replied the old cattleman, “but I know what I think.”

Madeline strove to attain calmness.

“My hat — and my combs — went on the wind. I thought my hair would go, too.... There is the evening star.... I think I am very hungry.”

And then she gave up trying to be calm, and likewise to fasten up her hair, which fell again in a golden mass.

“Mr. Stillwell,” she began, and paused, strangely aware of a hurried note, a deeper ring in her voice. “Mr. Stillwell, I want to buy your ranch — to engage you as my superintendent. I want to buy Don Carlos’s ranch and other property to the extent, say, of fifty thousand acres. I want you to buy horses and cattle — in short, to make all those improvements which you said you had so long dreamed of. Then I have ideas of my own, in the development of which I must have your advice and Alfred’s. I intend to better the condition of those poor Mexicans in the valley. I intend to make life a little more worth living for them and for the cowboys of this range. To-morrow we shall talk it all over, plan all the business details.”

Madeline turned from the huge, ever-widening smile that beamed down upon her and held out her hands to her brother.

“Alfred, strange, is it not, my coming out to you? Nay, don’t smile. I hope I have found myself — my work — my happiness — here under the light of that western star.”

VII. Her Majesty’s Rancho

FIVE MONTHS BROUGHT all that Stillwell had dreamed of, and so many more changes and improvements and innovations that it was as if a magic touch had transformed the old ranch. Madeline and Alfred and Florence had talked over a fitting name, and had decided on one chosen by Madeline. But this instance was the only one in the course of developments in which Madeline’s wishes were not compiled with. The cowboys named the new ranch “Her Majesty’s Rancho.” Stillwell said the names cowboys bestowed were felicitous, and as unchangeable as the everlasting hills; Florence went over to the enemy; and Alfred, laughing at Madeline’s protest, declared the cowboys had elected her queen of the ranges, and that there was no help for it. So the name stood “Her Majesty’s Rancho.”

The April sun shone down upon a slow-rising green knoll that nestled in the lee of the foothills, and seemed to center bright rays upon the long ranch-house, which gleamed snow-white from the level summit. The grounds around the house bore no semblance to Eastern lawns or parks; there had been no landscape-gardening; Stillwell had just brought water and grass and flowers and plants to the knoll-top, and there had left them, as it were, to follow nature. His idea may have been crude, but the result was beautiful. Under that hot sun and balmy air, with cool water daily soaking into the rich soil, a green covering sprang into life, and everywhere upon it, as if by magic, many colored flowers rose in the sweet air. Pale wild flowers, lavender daisies, fragile bluebells, white four-petaled lilies like Eastern mayflowers, and golden poppies, deep sunset gold, color of the West, bloomed in happy confusion. California roses, crimson as blood, nodded heavy heads and trembled with the weight of bees. Low down in bare places, isolated, open to the full power of the sun, blazed the vermilion and magenta blossoms of cactus plants.

Green slopes led all the way down to where new adobe barns and sheds had been erected, and wide corrals stretched high-barred fences down to the great squares of alfalfa gently inclining to the gray of the valley. The bottom of a dammed-up hollow shone brightly with its slowly increasing acreage of water, upon which thousands of migratory wildfowl whirred and splashed and squawked, as if reluctant to leave this cool, wet surprise so new in the long desert journey to the northland. Quarters for the cowboys — comfortable, roomy adobe houses that not even the lamest cowboy dared describe as crampy bunks — stood in a row upon a long bench of ground above the lake. And down to the edge of the valley the cluster of Mexican habitations and the little church showed the touch of the same renewing hand.

All that had been left of the old Spanish house which had been Stillwell’s home for so long was the bare, massive structure, and some of this had been cut away for new doors and windows. Every modern convenience, even to hot and cold running water and acetylene light, had been installed; and the whole interior painted and carpentered and furnished. The ideal sought had not been luxury, but comfort. Every door into the patio looked out upon dark, rich grass and sweet-faced flowers, and every window looked down the green slopes.

Madeline’s rooms occupied the west end of the building and comprised four in number, all opening out upon the long porch. There was a small room for her maid, another which she used as an office, then her sleeping-apartment; and, lastly, the great light chamber which she had liked so well upon first sight, and which now, simply yet beautifully furnished and containing her favorite books and pictures, she had come to love as she had never loved any room at home. In the morning the fragrant, balmy air blew the white curtains of the open windows; at noon the drowsy, sultry quiet seemed to creep in for the siesta that was characteristic of the country; in the afternoon the westering sun peeped under the porch roof and painted the walls with gold bars that slowly changed to red.

Madeline Hammond cherished a fancy that the transformation she had wrought in the old Spanish house and in the people with whom she had surrounded herself, great as that transformation had been, was as nothing compared to the one wrought in herself. She had found an object in life. She was busy, she worked with her hands as well as mind, yet she seemed to have more time to read and think and study and idle and dream than ever before. She had seen her brother through his difficulties, on the road to all the success and prosperity that he cared for. Madeline had been a conscientious student of ranching and an apt pupil of Stillwell. The old cattleman, in his simplicity, gave her the place in his heart that was meant for the daughter he had never had. His pride in her, Madeline thought, was beyond reason or belief or words to tell. Under his guidance, sometimes accompanied by Alfred and Florence, Madeline had ridden the ranges and had studied the life and work of the cowboys. She had camped on the open range, slept under the blinking stars, ridden forty miles a day in the face of dust and wind. She had taken two wonderful trips down into the desert — one trip to Chiricahua, and from there across the waste of sand and rock and alkali and cactus to the Mexican borderline; and the other through the Aravaipa Valley, with its deep, red-walled canyons and wild fastnesses.

This breaking-in, this training into Western ways, though she had been a so-called outdoor girl, had required great effort and severe pain; but the education, now past its grades, had become a labor of love. She had perfect health, abounding spirits. She was so active hat she had to train herself into taking the midday siesta, a custom of the country and imperative during the hot summer months. Sometimes she looked in her mirror and laughed with sheer joy at sight of the lithe, audacious, brown-faced, flashing-eyed creature reflected there. It was not so much joy in her beauty as sheer joy of life. Eastern critics had been wont to call her beautiful in those days when she had been pale and slender and proud and cold. She laughed. If they could only see her now! From the tip of her golden head to her feet she was alive, pulsating, on fire.

Sometimes she thought of her parents, sister, friends, of how they had persistently refused to believe she could or would stay in the West. They were always asking her to come home. And when she wrote, which was dutifully often, the last thing under the sun that she was likely to mention was the change in her. She wrote that she would return to her old home some time, of course, for a visit; and letters such as this brought returns that amused Madeline, sometimes saddened her. She meant to go back East for a while, and after that once or twice every year. But the initiative was a difficult step from which she shrank. Once home, she would have to make explanations, and these would not be understood. Her father’s business had been such that he could not leave it for the time required for a Western trip, or else, according to his letter, he would have come for her. Mrs. Hammond could not have been driven to cross the Hudson River; her un-American idea of the wilderness westward was that Indians still chased buffalo on the outskirts of Chicago. Madeline’s sister Helen had long been eager to come, as much from curiosity, Madeline thought, as from sisterly regard. And at length Madeline concluded that the proof of her breaking permanent ties might better be seen by visiting relatives and friends before she went back East. With that in mind she invited Helen to visit her during the summer, and bring as many friends as she liked.

* * *

No slight task indeed was it to oversee the many business details of Her Majesty’s Rancho and to keep a record of them. Madeline found the course of business training upon which her father had insisted to be invaluable to her now. It helped her to assimilate and arrange the practical details of cattle-raising as put forth by the blunt Stillwell. She split up the great stock of cattle into different herds, and when any of these were out running upon the open range she had them closely watched. Part of the time each herd was kept in an inclosed range, fed and watered, and carefully handled by a big force of cowboys. She employed three cowboy scouts whose sole duty was to ride the ranges searching for stray, sick, or crippled cattle or motherless calves, and to bring these in to be treated and nursed. There were two cowboys whose business was to master a pack of Russian stag-hounds and to hunt down the coyotes, wolves, and lions that preyed upon the herds. The better and tamer milch cows were separated from the ranging herds and kept in a pasture adjoining the dairy. All branding was done in corrals, and calves were weaned from mother-cows at the proper time to benefit both. The old method of branding and classing, that had so shocked Madeline, had been abandoned, and one had been inaugurated whereby cattle and cowboys and horses were spared brutality and injury.

Madeline established an extensive vegetable farm, and she planted orchards. The climate was superior to that of California, and, with abundant water, trees and plants and gardens flourished and bloomed in a way wonderful to behold. It was with ever-increasing pleasure that Madeline walked through acres of ground once bare, now green and bright and fragrant. There were poultry-yards and pig-pens and marshy quarters for ducks and geese. Here in the farming section of the ranch Madeline found employment for the little colony of Mexicans. Their lives had been as hard and barren as the dry valley where they had lived. But as the valley had been transformed by the soft, rich touch of water, so their lives had been transformed by help and sympathy and work. The children were wretched no more, and many that had been blind could now see, and Madeline had become to them a new and blessed virgin.

Madeline looked abroad over these lands and likened the change in them and those who lived by them to the change in her heart. It may have been fancy, but the sun seemed to be brighter, the sky bluer, the wind sweeter. Certain it was that the deep green of grass and garden was not fancy, nor the white and pink of blossom, nor the blaze and perfume of flower, nor the sheen of lake and the fluttering of new-born leaves. Where there had been monotonous gray there was now vivid and changing color. Formerly there had been silence both day and night; now during the sunny hours there was music. The whistle of prancing stallions pealed in from the grassy ridges. Innumerable birds had come and, like the northward-journeying ducks, they had tarried to stay. The song of meadow-lark and blackbird and robin, familiar to Madeline from childhood, mingled with the new and strange heart-throbbing song of mocking-bird and the piercing blast of the desert eagle and the melancholy moan of turtle-dove.

One April morning Madeline sat in her office wrestling with a problem. She had problems to solve every day. The majority of these were concerned with the management of twenty-seven incomprehensible cowboys. This particular problem involved Ambrose Mills, who had eloped with her French maid, Christine.

Stillwell faced Madeline with a smile almost as huge as his bulk.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, we ketched them; but not before Padre Marcos had married them. All thet speedin’ in the autoomoobile was jest a-scarin’ of me to death fer nothin’. I tell you Link Stevens is crazy about runnin’ thet car. Link never hed no sense even with a hoss. He ain’t afraid of the devil hisself. If my hair hedn’t been white it ‘d be white now. No more rides in thet thing fer me! Wal, we ketched Ambrose an’ the girl too late. But we fetched them back, an’ they’re out there now, spoonin’, sure oblivious to their shameless conduct.”

“Stillwell, what shall I say to Ambrose? How shall I punish him? He has done wrong to deceive me. I never was so surprised in my life. Christine did not seem to care any more for Ambrose than for any of the other cowboys. What does my authority amount to? I must do something. Stillwell, you must help me.”

Whenever Madeline fell into a quandary she had to call upon the old cattleman. No man ever held a position with greater pride than Stillwell, but he had been put to tests that steeped him in humility. Here he scratched his head in great perplexity.

“Dog-gone the luck! What’s this elopin’ bizness to do with cattle-raisin’? I don’t know nothin’ but cattle. Miss Majesty, it’s amazin’ strange what these cowboys hev come to. I never seen no cowboys like these we’ve got hyar now. I don’t know them any more. They dress swell an’ read books, an’ some of them hev actooly stopped cussin’ an’ drinkin’. I ain’t sayin’ all this is against them. Why, now, they’re jest the finest bunch of cow-punchers I ever seen or dreamed of. But managin’ them now is beyond me. When cowboys begin to play thet game gol-lof an’ run off with French maids I reckon Bill Stillwell has got to resign.”

“Stillwell! Oh, you will not leave me? What in the world would I do?” exclaimed Madeline, in great anxiety.

“Wal, I sure won’t leave you, Miss Majesty. No, I never’ll do thet. I’ll run the cattle bizness fer you an’ see after the hosses an’ other stock. But I’ve got to hev a foreman who can handle this amazin’ strange bunch of cowboys.”

“You’ve tried half a dozen foremen. Try more until you find the man who meets your requirements,” said Madeline. “Never mind that now. Tell me how to impress Ambrose — to make him an example, so to speak. I must have another maid. And I do not want a new one carried off in this summary manner.”

“Wal, if you fetch pretty maids out hyar you can’t expect nothin’ else. Why, thet black-eyed little French girl, with her white skin an’ pretty airs an’ smiles an’ shrugs, she had the cowboys crazy. It’ll be wuss with the next one.”

“Oh dear!” sighed Madeline.

“An’ as fer impressin’ Ambrose, I reckon I can tell you how to do thet. Jest give it to him good an’ say you’re goin’ to fire him. That’ll fix Ambrose, an’ mebbe scare the other boys fer a spell.”

“Very well, Stillwell, bring Ambrose in to see me, and tell Christine to wait in my room.”

It was a handsome debonair, bright-eyed cowboy that came tramping into Madeline’s presence. His accustomed shyness and awkwardness had disappeared in an excited manner. He was a happy boy. He looked straight into Madeline’s face as if he expected her to wish him joy. And Madeline actually found that expression trembling to her lips. She held it back until she could be severe. But Madeline feared she would fail of much severity. Something warm and sweet, like a fragrance, had entered the room with Ambrose.

“Ambrose, what have you done?” she asked.

“Miss Hammond, I’ve been and gone and got married,” replied Ambrose, his words tumbling over one another. His eyes snapped, and there was a kind of glow upon his clean-shaven brown cheek. “I’ve stole a march on the other boys. There was Frank Slade pushin’ me close, and I was havin’ some runnin’ to keep Jim Bell back in my dust. Even old man Nels made eyes at Christine! So I wasn’t goin’ to take any chances. I just packed her off to El Cajon and married her.”

“Oh, so I heard,” said Madeline, slowly, as she watched him. “Ambrose, do you — love her?”

He reddened under her clear gaze, dropped his head, and fumbled with his new sombrero, and there was a catch in his breath. Madeline saw his powerful brown hand tremble. It affected her strangely that this stalwart cowboy, who could rope and throw and tie a wild steer in less than one minute, should tremble at a mere question. Suddenly he raised his head, and at the beautiful blase of his eyes Madeline turned her own away.

“Yes, Miss Hammond, I love her,” he said. “I think I love her in the way you’re askin’ about. I know the first time I saw her I thought how wonderful it’d be to have a girl like that for my wife. It’s all been so strange — her comin’ an’ how she made me feel. Sure I never knew many girls, and I haven’t seen any girls at all for years. But when she came! A girl makes a wonderful difference in a man’s feelin’s and thoughts. I guess I never had any before. Leastways, none like I have now. My — it — well, I guess I have a little understandin’ now of Padre Marcos’s blessin’.”

“Ambrose, have you nothing to say to me?” asked Madeline.

“I’m sure sorry I didn’t have time to tell you. But I was in some hurry.”

“What did you intend to do? Where were you going when Stillwell found you?”

“We’d just been married. I hadn’t thought of anything after that. Suppose I’d have rustled back to my job. I’ll sure have to work now and save my money.”

“Oh, well, Ambrose, I am glad you realize your responsibilities. Do you earn enough — is your pay sufficient to keep a wife?”

“Sure it is! Why, Miss Hammond, I never before earned half the salary I’m gettin’ now. It’s some fine to work for you. I’m goin’ to fire the boys out of my bunk-house and fix it up for Christine and me. Say, won’t they be jealous?”

“Ambrose, I — I congratulate you. I wish you joy,” said Madeline. “I — I shall make Christine a little wedding-present. I want to talk to her for a few moments. You may go now.”

It would have been impossible for Madeline to say one severe word to that happy cowboy. She experienced difficulty in hiding her own happiness at the turn of events. Curiosity and interest mingled with her pleasure when she called to Christine.

“Mrs. Ambrose Mills, please come in.”

No sound came from the other room.

“I should like very much to see the bride,” went on Madeline.

Still there was no stir or reply

“Christine!” called Madeline.

Then it was as if a little whirlwind of flying feet and entreating hands and beseeching eyes blew in upon Madeline. Christine was small, graceful, plump, with very white skin and very dark hair. She had been Madeline’s favorite maid for years and there was sincere affection between the two. Whatever had been the blissful ignorance of Ambrose, it was manifestly certain that Christine knew how she had transgressed. Her fear and remorse and appeal for forgiveness were poured out in an incoherent storm. Plain it was that the little French maid had been overwhelmed. It was only after Madeline had taken the emotional girl in her arms and had forgiven and soothed her that her part in the elopement became clear. Christine was in a maze. But gradually, as she talked and saw that she was forgiven, calmness came in some degree, and with it a story which amused yet shocked Madeline. The unmistakable, shy, marveling love, scarcely realized by Christine, gave Madeline relief and joy. If Christine loved Ambrose there was no harm done. Watching the girl’s eyes, wonderful with their changes of thought, listening to her attempts to explain what it was evident she did not understand, Madeline gathered that if ever a caveman had taken unto himself a wife, if ever a barbarian had carried off a Sabine woman, then Ambrose Mills had acted with the violence of such ancient forebears. Just how it all happened seemed to be beyond Christine.

“He say he love me,” repeated the girl, in a kind of rapt awe. “He ask me to marry him — he kees me — he hug me — he lift me on ze horse — he ride with me all night — he marry me.”

And she exhibited a ring on the third finger of her left hand. Madeline saw that, whatever had been the state of Christine’s feeling for Ambrose before this marriage, she loved him now. She had been taken forcibly, but she was won.

After Christine had gone, comforted and betraying her shy eagerness to get back to Ambrose, Madeline was haunted by the look in the girl’s eyes, and her words. Assuredly the spell of romance was on this sunny land. For Madeline there was a nameless charm, a nameless thrill combating her sense of the violence and unfitness of Ambrose’s wooing. Something, she knew not what, took arms against her intellectual arraignment of the cowboy’s method of getting himself a wife. He had said straight out that he loved the girl — he had asked her to marry him — he kissed her — he hugged her — he lifted her upon his horse — he rode away with her through the night — and he married her. In whatever light Madeline reviewed this thing she always came back to her first natural impression; it thrilled her, charmed her. It went against all the precepts of her training; nevertheless, it was somehow splendid and beautiful. She imagined it stripped another artificial scale from her over-sophisticated eyes.

Scarcely had she settled again to the task on her desk when Stillwell’s heavy tread across the porch interrupted her. This time when he entered he wore a look that bordered upon the hysterical; it was difficult to tell whether he was trying to suppress grief or glee.

“Miss Majesty, there’s another amazin’ strange thing sprung on me. Hyars Jim Bell come to see you, an’, when I taxed him, sayin’ you was tolerable busy, he up an’ says he was hungry an’ he ain’t a-goin’ to eat any more bread made in a wash-basin! Says he’ll starve first. Says Nels hed the gang over to big bunk an’ feasted them on bread you taught him how to make in some new-fangled bucket-machine with a crank. Jim says thet bread beat any cake he ever eat, an’ he wants you to show him how to make some. Now, Miss Majesty, as superintendent of this ranch I ought to know what’s goin’ on. Mebbe Jim is jest a-joshin’ me. Mebbe he’s gone clean dotty. Mebbe I hev. An’ beggin’ your pardon, I want to know if there’s any truth in what Jim says Nels says.”

Whereupon it became necessary for Madeline to stifle her mirth and to inform the sadly perplexed old cattleman that she had received from the East a patent bread-mixer, and in view of the fact that her household women had taken fright at the contrivance, she had essayed to operate it herself. This had turned out to be so simple, so saving of time and energy and flour, so much more cleanly than the old method of mixing dough with the hands, and particularly it had resulted in such good bread, that Madeline had been pleased. Immediately she ordered more of the bread-mixers. One day she had happened upon Nels making biscuit dough in his wash-basin, and she had delicately and considerately introduced to him the idea of her new method. Nels, it appeared, had a great reputation as a bread-maker, and he was proud of it. Moreover, he was skeptical of any clap-trap thing with wheels and cranks. He consented, however, to let her show how the thing worked and to sample some of the bread. To that end she had him come up to the house, where she won him over. Stillwell laughed loud and long.

“Wal, wal, wal!” he exclaimed, at length. “Thet’s fine, an’ it’s powerful funny. Mebbe you don’t see how funny? Wal, Nels has jest been lordin’ it over the boys about how you showed him, an’ now you’ll hev to show every last cowboy on the place the same thing. Cowboys are the jealousest kind of fellers. They’re all crazy about you, anyway. Take Jim out hyar. Why, thet lazy cowpuncher jest never would make bread. He’s notorious fer shirkin’ his share of the grub deal. I’ve knowed Jim to trade off washin’ the pots an’ pans fer a lonely watch on a rainy night. All he wants is to see you show him the same as Nels is crowin’ over. Then he’ll crow over his bunkie, Frank Slade, an’ then Frank’ll get lonely to know all about this wonderful bread-machine. Cowboys are amazin’ strange critters, Miss Majesty. An’ now thet you’ve begun with them this way, you’ll hev to keep it up. I will say I never seen such a bunch to work. You’ve sure put heart in them.”

“Indeed, Stillwell, I am glad to hear that,” replied Madeline. “And I shall be pleased to teach them all. But may I not have them all up here at once — at least those off duty?”

“Wal, I reckon you can’t onless you want to hev them scrappin’,” rejoined Stillwell, dryly. “What you’ve got on your hands now, Miss Majesty, is to let ’em come one by one, an’ make each cowboy think you’re takin’ more especial pleasure in showin’ him than the feller who came before him. Then mebbe we can go on with cattle-raisin’.”

Madeline protested, and Stillwell held inexorably to what he said was wisdom. Several times Madeline had gone against his advice, to her utter discomfiture and rout. She dared not risk it again, and resigned herself gracefully and with subdued merriment to her task. Jim Bell was ushered into the great, light, spotless kitchen, where presently Madeline appeared to put on an apron and roll up her sleeves. She explained the use of the several pieces of aluminum that made up the bread-mixer and fastened the bucket to the table-shelf. Jim’s life might have depended upon this lesson, judging from his absorbed manner and his desire to have things explained over and over, especially the turning of the crank. When Madeline had to take Jim’s hand three times to show him the simple mechanism and then he did not understand she began to have faint misgivings as to his absolute sincerity. She guessed that as long as she touched Jim’s hand he never would understand. Then as she began to measure out flour and milk and lard and salt and yeast she saw with despair that Jim was not looking at the ingredients, was not paying the slightest attention to them. His eyes were covertly upon her.

“Jim, I am not sure about you,” said Madeline, severely. “How can you learn to make bread if you do not watch me mix it?”

“I am a-watchin’ you,” replied Jim, innocently.

Finally Madeline sent the cowboy on his way rejoicing with the bread-mixer under his arm. Next morning, true to Stillwell’s prophecy, Frank Slade, Jim’s bunkmate, presented himself cheerfully to Madeline and unbosomed himself of a long-deferred and persistent desire to relieve his overworked comrade of some of the house-keeping in their bunk.

“Miss Hammond,” said Frank, “Jim’s orful kind wantin’ to do it all hisself. But he ain’t very bright, an’ I didn’t believe him. You see, I’m from Missouri, an’ you’ll have to show me.”

For a whole week Madeline held clinics where she expounded the scientific method of modern bread-making. She got a good deal of enjoyment out of her lectures. What boys these great hulking fellows were! She saw through their simple ruses. Some of them were grave as deacons; others wore expressions important enough to have fitted the faces of statesmen signing government treaties. These cowboys were children; they needed to be governed; but in order to govern them they had to be humored. A more light-hearted, fun-loving crowd of boys could not have been found. And they were grown men. Stillwell explained that the exuberance of spirits lay in the difference in their fortunes. Twenty-seven cowboys, in relays of nine, worked eight hours a day. That had never been heard of before in the West. Stillwell declared that cowboys from all points of the compass would head their horses toward Her Majesty’s Rancho.

VIII. El Capitan

STILLWELL’S INTEREST IN the revolution across the Mexican line had manifestly increased with the news that Gene Stewart had achieved distinction with the rebel forces. Thereafter the old cattleman sent for El Paso and Douglas newspapers, wrote to ranchmen he knew on the big bend of the Rio Grande, and he would talk indefinitely to any one who would listen to him. There was not any possibility of Stillwell’s friends at the ranch forgetting his favorite cowboy. Stillwell always prefaced his eulogy with an apologetic statement that Stewart had gone to the bad. Madeline liked to listen to him, though she was not always sure which news was authentic and which imagination.

There appeared to be no doubt, however, that the cowboy had performed some daring feats for the rebels. Madeline found his name mentioned in several of the border papers. When the rebels under Madero stormed and captured the city of Juarez, Stewart did fighting that won him the name of El Capitan. This battle apparently ended the revolution. The capitulation of President Diaz followed shortly, and there was a feeling of relief among ranchers on the border from Texas to California. Nothing more was heard of Gene Stewart until April, when a report reached Stillwell that the cowboy had arrived in El Cajon, evidently hunting trouble. The old cattleman saddled a horse and started post-haste for town. In two days he returned, depressed in spirit. Madeline happened to be present when Stillwell talked to Alfred.

“I got there too late, Al,” said the cattleman. “Gene was gone. An’ what do you think of this? Danny Mains hed jest left with a couple of burros packed. I couldn’t find what way he went, but I’m bettin’ he hit the Peloncillo trail.”

“Danny will show up some day,” replied Alfred. “What did you learn about Stewart? Maybe he left with Danny.”

“Not much,” said Stillwell, shortly. “Gene’s hell-bent fer election! No mountains fer him.”

“Well tell us about him.”

Stillwell wiped his sweaty brow and squared himself to talk.

“Wal, it’s sure amazin’ strange about Gene. Its got me locoed. He arrived in El Cajon a week or so ago. He was trained down like as if he’d been ridin’ the range all winter. He hed plenty of money — Mex, they said. An’ all the Greasers was crazy about him. Called him El Capitan. He got drunk an’ went roarin’ round fer Pat Hawe. You remember that Greaser who was plugged last October — the night Miss Majesty arrived? Wal, he’s daid. He’s daid, an’ people says thet Pat is a-goin’ to lay thet killin’ onto Gene. I reckon thet’s jest talk, though Pat is mean enough to do it, if he hed the nerve. Anyway, if he was in El Cajon he kept mighty much to hisself. Gene walked up an’ down, up an’ down, all day an’ night, lookin’ fer Pat. But he didn’t find him. An’, of course, he kept gettin’ drunker. He jest got plumb bad. He made lots of trouble, but there wasn’t no gun-play. Mebbe thet made him sore, so he went an’ licked Flo’s brother-in-law. Thet wasn’t so bad. Jack sure needed a good lickin’. Wal, then Gene met Danny an’ tried to get Danny drunk. An’ he couldn’t! What do you think of that? Danny hedn’t been drinkin’ — wouldn’t touch a drop. I’m sure glad of thet, but it’s amazin’ strange. Why, Danny was a fish fer red liquor. I guess he an’ Gene had some pretty hard words, though I’m not sure about thet. Anyway, Gene went down to the railroad an’ he got on an engine, an’ he was in the engine when it pulled out. Lord, I hope he doesn’t hold up the train! If he gets gay over in Arizona he’ll go to the pen at Yuma. An’ thet pen is a graveyard fer cowboys. I wired to agents along the railroad to look out fer Stewart, an’ to wire back to me if he’s located.”

“Suppose you do find him, Stillwell, what can you do?” inquired Alfred.

The old man nodded gloomily.

“I straightened him up once. Mebbe I can do it again.” Then, brightening somewhat, he turned to Madeline. “I jest hed an idee, Miss Majesty. If I can get him, Gene Steward is the cowboy I want fer my foreman. He can manage this bunch of cow-punchers thet are drivin’ me dotty. What’s more, since he’s fought fer the rebels an’ got that name El Capitan, all the Greasers in the country will kneel to him. Now, Miss Majesty, we hevn’t got rid of Don Carlos an’ his vaqueros yet. To be sure, he sold you his house an’ ranch an’ stock. But you remember nothin’ was put in black and white about when he should get out. An’ Don Carlos ain’t gettin’ out. I don’t like the looks of things a little bit. I’ll tell you now thet Don Carlos knows somethin’ about the cattle I lost, an’ thet you’ve been losin’ right along. Thet Greaser is hand an’ glove with the rebels. I’m willin’ to gamble thet when he does get out he an’ his vaqueros will make another one of the bands of guerrillas thet are harassin’ the border. This revolution ain’t over’ yet. It’s jest commenced. An’ all these gangs of outlaws are goin’ to take advantage of it. We’ll see some old times, mebbe. Wal, I need Gene Stewart. I need him bad. Will you let me hire him, Miss Majesty, if I can get him straightened up?”

The old cattleman ended huskily.

“Stillwell, by all means find Stewart, and do not wait to straighten him up. Bring him to the ranch,” replied Madeline.

Thanking her, Stillwell led his horse away.

“Strange how he loves that cowboy!” murmured Madeline.

“Not so strange, Majesty,” replied her brother. “Not when you know. Stewart has been with Stillwell on some hard trips into the desert alone. There’s no middle course of feeling between men facing death in the desert. Either they hate each other or love each other. I don’t know, but I imagine Stewart did something for Stillwell — saved us life, perhaps. Besides, Stewart’s a lovable chap when he’s going straight. I hope Stillwell brings him back. We do need him, Majesty. He’s a born leader. Once I saw him ride into a bunch of Mexicans whom we suspected of rustling. It was fine to see him. Well, I’m sorry to tell you that we are worried about Don Carlos. Some of his vaqueros came into my yard the other day when I had left Flo alone. She had a bad scare. These vaqueros have been different since Don Carlos sold the ranch. For that matter, I never would have trusted a white woman alone with them. But they are bolder now. Something’s in the wind. They’ve got assurance. They can ride off any night and cross the border.”

During the succeeding week Madeline discovered that a good deal of her sympathy for Stillwell in his hunt for the reckless Stewart had insensibly grown to be sympathy for the cowboy. It was rather a paradox, she thought, that opposed to the continual reports of Stewart’s wildness as he caroused from town to town were the continual expressions of good will and faith and hope universally given out by those near her at the ranch. Stillwell loved the cowboy; Florence was fond of him; Alfred liked and admired him, pitied him; the cowboys swore their regard for him the more he disgraced himself. The Mexicans called him El Gran Capitan. Madeline’s personal opinion of Stewart had not changed in the least since the night it had been formed. But certain attributes of his, not clearly defined in her mind, and the gift of his beautiful horse, his valor with the fighting rebels, and all this strange regard for him, especially that of her brother, made her exceedingly regret the cowboy’s present behavior.

Meanwhile Stillwell was so earnest and zealous that one not familiar with the situation would have believed he was trying to find and reclaim his own son. He made several trips to little stations in the valley, and from these he returned with a gloomy face. Madeline got the details from Alfred. Stewart was going from bad to worse — drunk, disorderly, savage, sure to land in the penitentiary. Then came a report that hurried Stillwell off to Rodeo. He returned on the third day, a crushed man. He had been so bitterly hurt that no one, not even Madeline, could get out of him what had happened. He admitted finding Stewart, failing to influence him; and when the old cattleman got so far he turned purple in the face and talked to himself, as if dazed: “But Gene was drunk. He was drunk, or he couldn’t hev treated old Bill like thet!”

Madeline was stirred with an anger toward the brutal cowboy that was as strong as her sorrow for the loyal old cattleman. And it was when Stillwell gave up that she resolved to take a hand. The persistent faith of Stillwell, his pathetic excuses in the face of what must have been Stewart’s violence, perhaps baseness, actuated her powerfully, gave her new insight into human nature. She honored a faith that remained unshaken. And the strange thought came to her that Stewart must somehow be worthy of such a faith, or he never could have inspired it. Madeline discovered that she wanted to believe that somewhere deep down in the most depraved and sinful wretch upon earth there was some grain of good. She yearned to have the faith in human nature that Stillwell had in Stewart.

She sent Nels, mounted upon his own horse, and leading Majesty, to Rodeo in search of Stewart. Nels had instructions to bring Stewart back to the ranch. In due time Nels returned, leading the roan without a rider.

“Yep, I shore found him,” replied Nels, when questioned. “Found him half sobered up. He’d been in a scrap, an’ somebody hed put him to sleep, I guess. Wal, when he seen thet roan hoss he let out a yell an’ grabbed him round the neck. The hoss knowed him, all right. Then Gene hugged the hoss an’ cried — cried like — I never seen no one who cried like he did. I waited awhile, an’ was jest goin’ to say somethin’ to him when he turned on me red-eyed, mad as fire. ‘Nels,’ he said, ‘I care a hell of a lot fer thet boss, an’ I liked you pretty well, but if you don’t take him away quick I’ll shoot you both.’ Wal, I lit out. I didn’t even git to say howdy to him.”

“Nels, you think it useless — any attempt to see him — persuade him?” asked Madeline.

“I shore do, Miss Hammond,” replied Nels, gravely. “I’ve seen a few sun-blinded an’ locoed an’ snake-poisoned an’ skunk-bitten cow-punchers in my day, but Gene Stewart beats ’em all. He’s shore runnin’ wild fer the divide.”

Madeline dismissed Nels, but before he got out of earshot she heard him speak to Stillwell, who awaited him on the porch.

“Bill, put this in your pipe an’ smoke it — none of them scraps Gene has hed was over a woman! It used to be thet when he was drank he’d scrap over every pretty Greaser girl he’d run across. Thet’s why Pat Hawe thinks Gene plugged the strange vaquero who was with little Bonita thet night last fall. Wal, Gene’s scrappin’ now jest to git shot up hisself, for some reason thet only God Almighty knows.”

Nels’s story of how Stewart wept over his horse influenced Madeline powerfully. Her next move was to persuade Alfred to see if he could not do better with this doggedly bent cowboy. Alfred needed only a word of persuasion, for he said he had considered going to Rodeo of his own accord. He went, and returned alone.

“Majesty, I can’t explain Stewart’s singular actions,” said Alfred. “I saw him, talked with him. He knew me, but nothing I said appeared to get to him. He has changed terribly. I fancy his once magnificent strength is breaking. It — it actually hurt me to look at him. I couldn’t have fetched him back here — not as he is now. I heard all about him, and if he isn’t downright out of his mind he’s hell-bent, as Bill says, on getting killed. Some of his escapades are — are not for your ears. Bill did all any man could do for another. We’ve all done our best for Stewart. If you’d been given a chance perhaps you could have saved him. But it’s too late. Put it out of mind now, dear.”

Madeline, however, did not forget nor give it up. If she had forgotten or surrendered, she felt that she would have been relinquishing infinitely more than hope to aid one ruined man. But she was at a loss to know what further steps to take. Days passed, and each one brought additional gossip of Stewart’s headlong career toward the Yuma penitentiary. For he had crossed the line into Cochise County, Arizona, where sheriffs kept a stricter observance of law. Finally a letter came from a friend of Nels’s in Chiricahua saying that Stewart had been hurt in a brawl there. His hurt was not serious, but it would probably keep him quiet long enough to get sober, and this opportunity, Nels’s informant said, would be a good one for Stewart’s friends to take him home before he got locked up. This epistle inclosed a letter to Stewart from his sister. Evidently, it had been found upon him. It told a story of illness and made an appeal for aid. Nels’s friend forwarded this letter without Stewart’s knowledge, thinking Stillwell might care to help Stewart’s family. Stewart had no money, he said.

The sister’s letter found its way to Madeline. She read it, tears in her eyes. It told Madeline much more than its brief story of illness and poverty and wonder why Gene had not written home for so long. It told of motherly love, sisterly love, brotherly love — dear family ties that had not been broken. It spoke of pride in this El Capitan brother who had become famous. It was signed “your loving sister Letty.”

Not improbably, Madeline revolved in mind, this letter was one reason for Stewart’s headstrong, long-continued abasement. It had been received too late — after he had squandered the money that would have meant so much to mother and sister. Be that as it might, Madeline immediately sent a bank-draft to Stewart’s sister with a letter explaining that the money was drawn in advance on Stewart’s salary. This done, she impulsively determined to go to Chiricahua herself.

The horseback-rides Madeline had taken to this little Arizona hamlet had tried her endurance to the utmost; but the journey by automobile, except for some rocky bits of road and sandy stretches, was comfortable, and a matter of only a few hours. The big touring-car was still a kind of seventh wonder to the Mexicans and cowboys; not that automobiles were very new and strange, but because this one was such an enormous machine and capable of greater speed than an express-train. The chauffeur who had arrived with the car found his situation among the jealous cowboys somewhat far removed from a bed of roses. He had been induced to remain long enough to teach the operating and mechanical technique of the car. And choice fell upon Link Stevens, for the simple reason that of all the cowboys he was the only one with any knack for mechanics. Now Link had been a hard-riding, hard-driving cowboy, and that winter he had sustained an injury to his leg, caused by a bad fall, and was unable to sit his horse. This had been gall and wormwood to him. But when the big white automobile came and he was elected to drive it, life was once more worth living for him. But all the other cowboys regarded Link and his machine as some correlated species of demon. They were deathly afraid of both.

It was for this reason that Nels, when Madeline asked him to accompany her to Chiricahua, replied, reluctantly, that he would rather follow on his horse. However, she prevailed over his hesitancy, and with Florence also in the car they set out. For miles and miles the valley road was smooth, hard-packed, and slightly downhill. And when speeding was perfectly safe, Madeline was not averse to it. The grassy plain sailed backward in gray sheets, and the little dot in the valley grew larger and larger. From time to time Link glanced round at unhappy Nels, whose eyes were wild and whose hands clutched his seat. While the car was crossing the sandy and rocky places, going slowly, Nels appeared to breathe easier. And when it stopped in the wide, dusty street of Chiricahua Nels gladly tumbled out.

“Nels, we shall wait here in the car while you find Stewart,” said Madeline.

“Miss Hammond, I reckon Gene’ll run when he sees us, if he’s able to run,” replied Nels. “Wal, I’ll go find him an’ make up my mind then what we’d better do.”

Nels crossed the railroad track and disappeared behind the low, flat houses. After a little time he reappeared and hurried up to the car. Madeline felt his gray gaze searching her face.

“Miss Hammond, I found him,” said Nels. “He was sleepin’. I woke him. He’s sober an’ not bad hurt; but I don’t believe you ought to see him. Mebbe Florence—”

“Nels, I want to see him myself. Why not? What did he say when you told him I was here?”

“Shore I didn’t tell him that. I jest says, ‘Hullo, Gene!’ an’ he says, ‘My Gawd! Nels! mebbe I ain’t glad to see a human bein’.’ He asked me who was with me, an’ I told him Link an’ some friends. I said I’d fetch them in. He hollered at thet. But I went, anyway. Now, if you really will see him, Miss Hammond, it’s a good chance. But shore it’s a touchy matter, an’ you’ll be some sick at sight of him. He’s layin’ in a Greaser hole over here. Likely the Greasers hev been kind to him. But they’re shore a poor lot.”

Madeline did not hesitate a moment.

“Thank you, Nels. Take me at once. Come, Florence.”

They left the car, now surrounded by gaping-eyed Mexican children, and crossed the dusty space to a narrow lane between red adobe walls. Passing by several houses, Nels stopped at the door of what appeared to be an alleyway leading back. It was filthy.

“He’s in there, around thet first corner. It’s a patio, open an’ sunny. An’, Miss Hammond, if you don’t mind, I’ll wait here for you. I reckon Gene wouldn’t like any fellers around when he sees you girls.”

It was that which made Madeline hesitate then and go forward slowly. She had given no thought at all to what Stewart might feel when suddenly surprised by her presence.

“Florence, you wait also,” said Madeline, at the doorway, and turned in alone.

And she had stepped into a broken-down patio littered with alfalfa straw and debris, all clear in the sunlight. Upon a bench, back toward her, sat a man looking out through the rents in the broken wall. He had not heard her. The place was not quite so filthy and stifling as the passages Madeline had come through to get there. Then she saw that it had been used as a corral. A rat ran boldly across the dirt floor. The air swarmed with flies, which the man brushed at with weary hand. Madeline did not recognize Stewart. The side of his face exposed to her gaze was black, bruised, bearded. His clothes were ragged and soiled. There were bits of alfalfa in his hair. His shoulders sagged. He made a wretched and hopeless figure sitting there. Madeline divined something of why Nels shrank from being present.

“Mr. Stewart. It is I, Miss Hammond, come to see you,” she said.

He grew suddenly perfectly motionless, as if he had been changed to stone. She repeated her greeting.

His body jerked. He moved violently as if instinctively to turn and face this intruder; but a more violent movement checked him.

Madeline waited. How singular that this ruined cowboy had pride which kept him from showing his face! And was it not shame more than pride?

“Mr. Stewart, I have come to talk with you, if you will let me.”

“Go away,” he muttered.

“Mr. Stewart!” she began, with involuntary hauteur. But instantly she corrected herself, became deliberate and cool, for she saw that she might fail to be even heard by this man. “I have come to help you. Will you let me?”

“For God’s sake! You — you—” he choked over the words. “Go away!”

“Stewart, perhaps it was for God’s sake that I came,” said Madeline, gently. “Surely it was for yours — and your sister’s—” Madeline bit her tongue, for she had not meant to betray her knowledge of Letty.

He groaned, and, staggering up to the broken wall, he leaned there with his face hidden. Madeline reflected that perhaps the slip of speech had been well.

“Stewart, please let me say what I have to say?”

He was silent. And she gathered courage and inspiration.

“Stillwell is deeply hurt, deeply grieved that he could not turn you back from this — this fatal course. My brother is also. They wanted to help you. And so do I. I have come, thinking somehow I might succeed where they have failed. Nels brought your sister’s letter. I — I read it. I was only the more determined to try to help you, and indirectly help your mother and Letty. Stewart, we want you to come to the ranch. Stillwell needs you for his foreman. The position is open to you, and you can name your salary. Both Al and Stillwell are worried about Don Carlos, the vaqueros, and the raids down along the border. My cowboys are without a capable leader. Will you come?”

“No,” he answered.

“But Stillwell wants you so badly.”

“No.”

“Stewart, I want you to come.”

“No.”

His replies had been hoarse, loud, furious. They disconcerted Madeline, and she paused, trying to think of a way to proceed. Stewart staggered away from the wall, and, falling upon the bench, he hid his face in his hands. All his motions, like his speech, had been violent.

“Will you please go away?” he asked.

“Stewart, certainly I cannot remain here longer if you insist upon my going. But why not listen to me when I want so much to help you? Why?”

“I’m a damned blackguard,” he burst out. “But I was a gentleman once, and I’m not so low that I can stand for you seeing me here.”

“When I made up my mind to help you I made it up to see you wherever you were. Stewart, come away, come back with us to the ranch. You are in a bad condition now. Everything looks black to you. But that will pass. When you are among friends again you will get well. You will be your old self. The very fact that you were once a gentleman, that you come of good family, makes you owe so much more to yourself. Why, Stewart, think how young you are! It is a shame to waste your life. Come back with me.”

“Miss Hammond, this was my last plunge,” he replied, despondently. “It’s too late.”

“Oh no, it is not so bad as that.”

“It’s too late.”

“At least make an effort, Stewart. Try!”

“No. There’s no use. I’m done for. Please leave me — thank you for—”

He had been savage, then sullen, and now he was grim. Madeline all but lost power to resist his strange, deadly, cold finality. No doubt he knew he was doomed. Yet something halted her — held her even as she took a backward step. And she became conscious of a subtle change in her own feeling. She had come into that squalid hole, Madeline Hammond, earnest enough, kind enough in her own intentions; but she had been almost imperious — a woman habitually, proudly used to being obeyed. She divined that all the pride, blue blood, wealth, culture, distinction, all the impersonal condescending persuasion, all the fatuous philanthropy on earth would not avail to turn this man a single hair’s-breadth from his downward career to destruction. Her coming had terribly augmented his bitter hate of himself. She was going to fail to help him. She experienced a sensation of impotence that amounted almost to distress. The situation assumed a tragic keenness. She had set forth to reverse the tide of a wild cowboy’s fortunes; she faced the swift wasting of his life, the damnation of his soul. The subtle consciousness of change in her was the birth of that faith she had revered in Stillwell. And all at once she became merely a woman, brave and sweet and indomitable.

“Stewart, look at me,” she said.

He shuddered. She advanced and laid a hand on his bent shoulder. Under the light touch he appeared to sink.

“Look at me,” she repeated.

But he could not lift his head. He was abject, crushed. He dared not show his swollen, blackened face. His fierce, cramped posture revealed more than his features might have shown; it betrayed the torturing shame of a man of pride and passion, a man who had been confronted in his degradation by the woman he had dared to enshrine in his heart. It betrayed his love.

“Listen, then,” went on Madeline, and her voice was unsteady. “Listen to me, Stewart. The greatest men are those who have fallen deepest into the mire, sinned most, suffered most, and then have fought their evil natures and conquered. I think you can shake off this desperate mood and be a man.”

“No!” he cried.

“Listen to me again. Somehow I know you’re worthy of Stillwell’s love. Will you come back with us — for his sake?”

“No. It’s too late, I tell you.”

“Stewart, the best thing in life is faith in human nature. I have faith in you. I believe you are worth it.”

“You’re only kind and good — saying that. You can’t mean it.”

“I mean it with all my heart,” she replied, a sudden rich warmth suffusing her body as she saw the first sign of his softening. “Will you come back — if not for your own sake or Stillwell’s — then for mine?”

“What am I to such a woman as you?”

“A man in trouble, Stewart. But I have come to help you, to show my faith in you.”

“If I believed that I might try,” he said.

“Listen,” she began, softly, hurriedly. “My word is not lightly given. Let it prove my faith in you. Look at me now and say you will come.”

He heaved up his big frame as if trying to cast off a giant’s burden, and then slowly he turned toward her. His face was a blotched and terrible thing. The physical brutalizing marks were there, and at that instant all that appeared human to Madeline was the dawning in dead, furnace-like eyes of a beautiful light.

“I’ll come,” he whispered, huskily. “Give me a few days to straighten up, then I’ll come.”

IX. The New Foreman

TOWARD THE END of the week Stillwell informed Madeline that Stewart had arrived at the ranch and had taken up quarters with Nels.

“Gene’s sick. He looks bad,” said the old cattleman. “He’s so weak an’ shaky he can’t lift a cup. Nels says that Gene has hed some bad spells. A little liquor would straighten him up now. But Nels can’t force him to drink a drop, an’ has hed to sneak some liquor in his coffee. Wal, I think we’ll pull Gene through. He’s forgotten a lot. I was goin’ to tell him what he did to me up at Rodeo. But I know if he’d believe it he’d be sicker than he is. Gene’s losin’ his mind, or he’s got somethin’ powerful strange on it.”

From that time Stillwell, who evidently found Madeline his most sympathetic listener, unburdened himself daily of his hopes and fears and conjectures.

Stewart was really ill. It became necessary to send Link Stevens for a physician. Then Stewart began slowly to mend and presently was able to get up and about. Stillwell said the cowboy lacked interest and seemed to be a broken man. This statement, however, the old cattleman modified as Stewart continued to improve. Then presently it was a good augury of Stewart’s progress that the cowboys once more took up the teasing relation which had been characteristic of them before his illness. A cowboy was indeed out of sorts when he could not vent his peculiar humor on somebody or something. Stewart had evidently become a broad target for their badinage.

“Wal, the boys are sure after Gene,” said Stillwell, with his huge smile. “Joshin’ him all the time about how he sits around an’ hangs around an’ loafs around jest to get a glimpse of you, Miss Majesty. Sure all the boys hev a pretty bad case over their pretty boss, but none of them is a marker to Gene. He’s got it so bad, Miss Majesty, thet he actooly don’t know they are joshin’ him. It’s the amazin’est strange thing I ever seen. Why, Gene was always a feller thet you could josh. An’ he’d laugh an’ get back at you. But he was never before deaf to talk, an’ there was a certain limit no feller cared to cross with him. Now he takes every word an’ smiles dreamy like, an’ jest looks an’ looks. Why, he’s beginnin’ to make me tired. He’ll never run thet bunch of cowboys if he doesn’t wake up quick.”

Madeline smiled her amusement and expressed a belief that Stillwell wanted too much in such short time from a man who had done body and mind a grievous injury.

It had been impossible for Madeline to fail to observe Stewart’s singular behavior. She never went out to take her customary walks and rides without seeing him somewhere in the distance. She was aware that he watched for her and avoided meeting her. When she sat on the porch during the afternoon or at sunset Stewart could always be descried at some point near. He idled listlessly in the sun, lounged on the porch of his bunk-house, sat whittling the top bar of the corral fence, and always it seemed to Madeline he was watching her. Once, while going the rounds with her gardener, she encountered Stewart and greeted him kindly. He said little, but he was not embarrassed. She did not recognize in his face any feature that she remembered. In fact, on each of the few occasions when she had met Stewart he had looked so different that she had no consistent idea of his facial appearance. He was now pale, haggard, drawn. His eyes held a shadow through which shone a soft, subdued light; and, once having observed this, Madeline fancied it was like the light in Majesty’s eyes, in the dumb, worshiping eyes of her favorite stag-hound. She told Stewart that she hoped he would soon be in the saddle again, and passed on her way.

That Stewart loved her Madeline could not help but see. She endeavored to think of him as one of the many who, she was glad to know, liked her. But she could not regulate her thoughts to fit the order her intelligence prescribed. Thought of Stewart dissociated itself from thought of the other cowboys. When she discovered this she felt a little surprise and annoyance. Then she interrogated herself, and concluded that it was not that Stewart was so different from his comrades, but that circumstances made him stand out from them. She recalled her meeting with him that night when he had tried to force her to marry him. This was unforgettable in itself. She called subsequent mention of him, and found it had been peculiarly memorable. The man and his actions seemed to hinge on events. Lastly, the fact standing clear of all others in its relation to her interest was that he had been almost ruined, almost lost, and she had saved him. That alone was sufficient to explain why she thought of him differently. She had befriended, uplifted the other cowboys; she had saved Stewart’s life. To be sure, he had been a ruffian, but a woman could not save the life of even a ruffian without remembering it with gladness. Madeline at length decided her interest in Stewart was natural, and that her deeper feeling was pity. Perhaps the interest had been forced from her; however, she gave the pity as she gave everything.

Stewart recovered his strength, though not in time to ride at the spring round-up; and Stillwell discussed with Madeline the advisability of making the cowboy his foreman.

“Wal, Gene seems to be gettin’ along,” said Stillwell. “But he ain’t like his old self. I think more of him at thet. But where’s his spirit? The boys’d ride rough-shod all over him. Mebbe I’d do best to wait longer now, as the slack season is on. All the same, if those vaquero of Don Carlos’s don’t lay low I’ll send Gene over there. Thet’ll wake him up.”

A few days afterward Stillwell came to Madeline, rubbing his big hands in satisfaction and wearing a grin that was enormous.

“Miss Majesty, I reckon before this I’ve said things was amazin’ strange. But now Gene Stewart has gone an’ done it! Listen to me. Them Greasers down on our slope hev been gettin’ prosperous. They’re growin’ like bad weeds. An’ they got a new padre — the little old feller from El Cajon, Padre Marcos. Wal, this was all right, all the boys thought, except Gene. An’ he got blacker ‘n thunder an’ roared round like a dehorned bull. I was sure glad to see he could get mad again. Then Gene haids down the slope fer the church. Nels an’ me follered him, thinkin’ he might hev been took sudden with a crazy spell or somethin’. He hasn’t never been jest right yet since he left off drinkin’. Wal, we run into him comin’ out of the church. We never was so dumfounded in our lives. Gene was crazy, all right — he sure hed a spell. But it was the kind of a spell he hed thet paralyzed us. He ran past us like a streak, an’ we follered. We couldn’t ketch him. We heerd him laugh — the strangest laugh I ever heerd! You’d thought the feller was suddenly made a king. He was like thet feller who was tied in a bunyin’-sack an’ throwed into the sea, an’ cut his way out, an’ swam to the island where the treasures was, an’ stood up yellin’, ‘The world is mine.’ Wal, when we got up to his bunk-house he was gone. He didn’t come back all day an’ all night. Frankie Slade, who has a sharp tongue, says Gene hed gone crazy for liquor an’ thet was his finish. Nels was some worried. An’ I was sick.

“Wal’ this mawnin’ I went over to Nels’s bunk. Some of the fellers was there, all speculatin’ about Gene. Then big as life Gene struts round the corner. He wasn’t the same Gene. His face was pale an’ his eyes burned like fire. He had thet old mockin’, cool smile, an’ somethin’ besides thet I couldn’t understand. Frankie Slade up an’ made a remark — no wuss than he’d been makin’ fer days — an’ Gene tumbled him out of his chair, punched him good, walked all over him. Frankie wasn’t hurt so much as he was bewildered. ‘Gene,’ he says, ‘what the hell struck you?’ An’ Gene says, kind of sweet like, ‘Frankie, you may be a nice feller when you’re alone, but your talk’s offensive to a gentleman.’

“After thet what was said to Gene was with a nice smile. Now, Miss Majesty, it’s beyond me what to allow for Gene’s sudden change. First off, I thought Padre Marcos had converted him. I actooly thought thet. But I reckon it’s only Gene Stewart come back — the old Gene Stewart an’ some. Thet’s all I care about. I’m rememberin’ how I once told you thet Gene was the last of the cowboys. Perhaps I should hev said he’s the last of my kind of cowboys. Wal, Miss Majesty, you’ll be apprecatin’ of what I meant from now on.”

It was also beyond Madeline to account for Gene Stewart’s antics, and, making allowance for the old cattleman’s fancy, she did not weigh his remarks very heavily. She guessed why Stewart might have been angry at the presence of Padre Marcos. Madeline supposed that it was rather an unusual circumstance for a cowboy to be converted to religious belief. But it was possible. And she knew that religious fervor often manifested itself in extremes of feeling and action. Most likely, in Stewart’s case, his real manner had been both misunderstood and exaggerated. However, Madeline had a curious desire, which she did not wholly admit to herself, to see the cowboy and make her own deductions.

The opportunity did not present itself for nearly two weeks. Stewart had taken up his duties as foreman, and his activities were ceaseless. He was absent most of the time, ranging down toward the Mexican line. When he returned Stillwell sent for him.

This was late in the afternoon of a day in the middle of April. Alfred and Florence were with Madeline on the porch. They saw the cowboy turn his horse over to one of the Mexican boys at the corral and then come with weary step up to the house, beating the dust out of his gauntlets. Little streams of gray sand trickled from his sombrero as he removed it and bowed to the women.

Madeline saw the man she remembered, but with a singularly different aspect. His skin was brown; his eyes were piercing and dark and steady; he carried himself erect; he seemed preoccupied, and there was not a trace of embarrassment in his manner.

“Wal, Gene, I’m sure glad to see you,” Stillwell was saying. “Where do you hail from?”

“Guadaloupe Canyon,” replied the cowboy.

Stillwell whistled.

“Way down there! You don’t mean you follered them hoss tracks thet far?”

“All the way from Don Carlos’s rancho across the Mexican line. I took Nick Steele with me. Nick is the best tracker in the outfit. This trail we were on led along the foothill valleys. First we thought whoever made it was hunting for water. But they passed two ranches without watering. At Seaton’s Wash they dug for water. Here they met a pack-train of burros that came down the mountain trail. The burros were heavily loaded. Horse and burro tracks struck south from Seaton’s to the old California emigrant road. We followed the trail through Guadelope Canyon and across the border. On the way back we stopped at Slaughter’s ranch, where the United States cavalry are camping. There we met foresters from the Peloncillo forest reserve. If these fellows knew anything they kept it to themselves. So we hit the trail home.”

“Wal, I reckon you know enough?” inquired Stillwell, slowly.

“I reckon,” replied Stewart.

“Wal, out with it, then,” said Stillwell, gruffly. “Miss Hammond can’t be kept in the dark much longer. Make your report to her.”

The cowboy shifted his dark gaze to Madeline. He was cool and slow.

“We’re losing a few cattle on the open range. Night-drives by the vaqueros. Some of these cattle are driven across the valley, others up to the foothills. So far as I can find out no cattle are being driven south. So this raiding is a blind to fool the cowboys. Don Carlos is a Mexican rebel. He located his rancho here a few years ago and pretended to raise cattle. All that time he has been smuggling arms and ammunition across the border. He was for Madero against Diaz. Now he is against Madero because he and all the rebels think Madero failed to keep his promises. There will be another revolution. And all the arms go from the States across the border. Those burros I told about were packed with contraband goods.”

“That’s a matter for the United States cavalry. They are patrolling the border,” said Alfred.

“They can’t stop the smuggling of arms, not down in that wild corner,” replied Stewart.

“What is my — my duty? What has it to do with me?” inquired Madeline, somewhat perturbed.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, I reckon it hasn’t nothing to do with you,” put in Stillwell. “Thet’s my bizness an’ Stewart’s. But I jest wanted you to know. There might be some trouble follerin’ my orders.”

“Your orders?”

“I want to send Stewart over to fire Don Carlos an’ his vaqueros off the range. They’ve got to go. Don Carlos is breakin’ the law of the United States, an’ doin’ it on our property an’ with our hosses. Hev I your permission, Miss Hammond?”

“Why, assuredly you have! Stillwell, you know what to do. Alfred, what do you think best?”

“It’ll make trouble, Majesty, but it’s got to be done,” replied Alfred. “Here you have a crowd of Eastern friends due next month. We want the range to ourselves then. But, Stillwell, if you drive those vaqueros off, won’t they hang around in the foothills? I declare they are a bad lot.”

Stillwell’s mind was not at ease. He paced the porch with a frown clouding his brow.

“Gene, I reckon you got this Greaser deal figgered better’n me,” said Stillwell. “Now what do you say?”

“He’ll have to be forced off,” replied Stewart, quietly. “The Don’s pretty slick, but his vaqueros are bad actors. It’s just this way. Nels said the other day to me, ‘Gene, I haven’t packed a gun for years until lately, and it feels good whenever I meet any of those strange Greasers.’ You see, Stillwell, Don Carlos has vaqueros coming and going all the time. They’re guerrilla bands, that’s all. And they’re getting uglier. There have been several shooting-scrapes lately. A rancher named White, who lives up the valley, was badly hurt. It’s only a matter of time till something stirs up the boys here. Stillwell, you know Nels and Monty and Nick.”

“Sure I know ‘em. An’ you’re not mentionin’ one more particular cowboy in my outfit,” said Stillwell, with a dry chuckle and a glance at Stewart.

Madeline divined the covert meaning, and a slight chill passed over her, as if a cold wind had blown in from the hills.

“Stewart, I see you carry a gun,” she said, pointing to a black handle protruding from a sheath swinging low along his leather chaps.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why do you carry it?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, “it’s not a pretty gun — and it’s heavy.” She caught the inference. The gun was not an ornament. His keen, steady, dark gaze caused her vague alarm. What had once seemed cool and audacious about this cowboy was now cold and powerful and mystical. Both her instinct and her intelligence realized the steel fiber of the man’s nature. As she was his employer, she had the right to demand that he should not do what was so chillingly manifest that he might do. But Madeline could not demand. She felt curiously young and weak, and the five months of Western life were as if they had never been. She now had to do with a question involving human life. And the value she placed upon human life and its spiritual significance was a matter far from her cowboy’s thoughts. A strange idea flashed up. Did she place too much value upon all human life? She checked that, wondering, almost horrified at herself. And then her intuition told her that she possessed a far stronger power to move these primitive men than any woman’s stern rule or order.

“Stewart, I do not fully understand what you hint that Nels and his comrades might do. Please be frank with me. Do you mean Nels would shoot upon little provocation?”

“Miss Hammond, as far as Nels is concerned, shooting is now just a matter of his meeting Don Carlos’s vaqueros. It’s wonderful what Nels has stood from them, considering the Mexicans he’s already killed.”

“Already killed! Stewart, you are not in earnest?” cried Madeline, shocked.

“I am. Nels has seen hard life along the Arizona border. He likes peace as well as any man. But a few years of that doesn’t change what the early days made of him. As for Nick Steele and Monty, they’re just bad men, and looking for trouble.”

“How about yourself, Stewart? Stillwell’s remark was not lost upon me,” said Madeline, prompted by curiosity.

Stewart did not reply. He looked at her in respectful silence. In her keen earnestness Madeline saw beneath his cool exterior and was all the more baffled. Was there a slight, inscrutable, mocking light in his eyes, or was it only her imagination? However, the cowboy’s face was as hard as flint.

“Stewart, I have come to love my ranch,” said Madeline, slowly, “and I care a great deal for my — my cowboys. It would be dreadful if they were to kill anybody, or especially if one of them should be killed.”

“Miss Hammond, you’ve changed things considerable out here, but you can’t change these men. All that’s needed to start them is a little trouble. And this Mexican revolution is bound to make rough times along some of the wilder passes across the border. We’re in line, that’s all. And the boys are getting stirred up.”

“Very well, then, I must accept the inevitable. I am facing a rough time. And some of my cowboys cannot be checked much longer. But, Stewart, whatever you have been in the past, you have changed.” She smiled at him, and her voice was singularly sweet and rich. “Stillwell has so often referred to you as the last of his kind of cowboy. I have just a faint idea of what a wild life you have led. Perhaps that fits you to be a leader of such rough men. I am no judge of what a leader should do in this crisis. My cowboys are entailing risk in my employ; my property is not safe; perhaps my life even might be endangered. I want to rely upon you, since Stillwell believes, and I, too, that you are the man for this place. I shall give you no orders. But is it too much to ask that you be my kind of a cowboy?”

Madeline remembered Stewart’s former brutality and shame and abject worship, and she measured the great change in him by the contrast afforded now in his dark, changeless, intent face.

“Miss Hammond, what kind of a cowboy is that?” he asked.

“I — I don’t exactly know. It is that kind which I feel you might be. But I do know that in the problem at hand I want your actions to be governed by reason, not passion. Human life is not for any man to sacrifice unless in self-defense or in protecting those dependent upon him. What Stillwell and you hinted makes me afraid of Nels and Nick Steele and Monty. Cannot they be controlled? I want to feel that they will not go gunning for Don Carlos’s men. I want to avoid all violence. And yet when my guests come I want to feel that they will be safe from danger or fright or even annoyance. May I not rely wholly upon you, Stewart? Just trust you to manage these obstreperous cowboys and protect my property and Alfred’s, and take care of us — of me, until this revolution is ended? I have never had a day’s worry since I bought the ranch. It is not that I want to shirk my responsibilities; it is that I like being happy. May I put so much faith in you?”

“I hope so, Miss Hammond,” replied Stewart. It was an instant response, but none the less fraught with consciousness of responsibility. He waited a moment, and then, as neither Stillwell nor Madeline offered further speech, he bowed and turned down the path, his long spurs clinking in the gravel.

“Wal, wal,” exclaimed Stillwell, “thet’s no little job you give him, Miss Majesty.”

“It was a woman’s cunning, Stillwell,” said Alfred. “My sister used to be a wonder at getting her own way when we were kids. Just a smile or two, a few sweet words or turns of thought, and she had what she wanted.”

“Al, what a character to give me!” protested Madeline. “Indeed, I was deeply in earnest with Stewart. I do not understand just why, but I trust him. He seems like iron and steel. Then I was a little frightened at the prospect of trouble with the vaqueros. Both you and Stillwell have influenced me to look upon Stewart as invaluable. I thought it best to confess my utter helplessness and to look to him for support.”

“Majesty, whatever actuated you, it was a stroke of diplomacy,” replied her brother. “Stewart has got good stuff in him. He was down and out. Well, he’s made a game fight, and it looks as if he’d win. Trusting him, giving him responsibility, relying upon him, was the surest way to strengthen his hold upon himself. Then that little touch of sentiment about being your kind of cowboy and protecting you — well, if Gene Stewart doesn’t develop into an Argus-eyed knight I’ll say I don’t know cowboys. But, Majesty, remember, he’s a composite of tiger breed and forked lightning, and don’t imagine he has failed you if he gets into a fight.

“I’ll sure tell you what Gene Stewart will do,” said Florence. “Don’t I know cowboys? Why, they used to take me up on their horses when I was a baby. Gene Stewart will be the kind of cowboy your sister said he might be, whatever that is. She may not know and we may not guess, but he knows.”

“Wal, Flo, there you hit plumb center,” replied the old cattleman. “An’ I couldn’t be gladder if he was my own son.”

X. Don Carlos’s Vaqueros

EARLY THE FOLLOWING morning Stewart, with a company of cowboys, departed for Don Carlos’s rancho. As the day wore on without any report from him, Stillwell appeared to grow more at ease; and at nightfall he told Madeline that he guessed there was now no reason for concern.

“Wal, though it’s sure amazin’ strange,” he continued, “I’ve been worryin’ some about how we was goin’ to fire Don Carlos. But Gene has a way of doin’ things.”

Next day Stillwell and Alfred decided to ride over Don Carlos’s place, taking Madeline and Florence with them, and upon the return trip to stop at Alfred’s ranch. They started in the cool, gray dawn, and after three hours’ riding, as the sun began to get bright, they entered a mesquite grove, surrounding corrals and barns, and a number of low, squat buildings and a huge, rambling structure, all built of adobe and mostly crumbling to ruin. Only one green spot relieved the bald red of grounds and walls; and this evidently was made by the spring which had given both value and fame to Don Carlos’s range. The approach to the house was through a wide courtyard, bare, stony, hard packed, with hitching-rails and watering-troughs in front of a long porch. Several dusty, tired horses stood with drooping heads and bridles down, their wet flanks attesting to travel just ended.

“Wal, dog-gone it, Al, if there ain’t Pat Hawe’s hoss I’ll eat it,” exclaimed Stillwell.

“What’s Pat want here, anyhow?” growled Alfred.

No one was in sight; but Madeline heard loud voices coming from the house. Stillwell dismounted at the porch and stalked in at the door. Alfred leaped off his horse, helped Florence and Madeline down, and, bidding them rest and wait on the porch, he followed Stillwell.

“I hate these Greaser places,” said Florence, with a grimace. “They’re so mysterious and creepy. Just watch now! They’ll be dark-skinned, beady-eyed, soft-footed Greasers slip right up out of the ground! There’ll be an ugly face in every door and window and crack.”

“It’s like a huge barn with its characteristic odor permeated by tobacco smoke,” replied Madeline, sitting down beside Florence. “I don’t think very much of this end of my purchase. Florence, isn’t that Don Carlos’s black horse over there in the corral?”

“It sure is. Then the Don’s heah yet. I wish we hadn’t been in such a hurry to come over. There! that doesn’t sound encouraging.”

From the corridor came the rattling of spurs, tramping of boots, and loud voices. Madeline detected Alfred’s quick notes when he was annoyed: “We’ll rustle back home, then,” he said. The answer came, “No!” Madeline recognized Stewart’s voice, and she quickly straightened up. “I won’t have them in here,” went on Alfred.

“Outdoors or in, they’ve got to be with us!” replied Stewart, sharply. “Listen, Al,” came the boom of Stillwell’s big voice, “now that we’ve butted in over hyar with the girls, you let Stewart run things.”

Then a crowd of men tramped pell-mell out upon the porch. Stewart, dark-browed and somber, was in the lead. Nels hung close to him, and Madeline’s quick glance saw that Nels had undergone some indescribable change. The grinning, brilliant-eyed Don Carlos came jostling out beside a gaunt, sharp-featured man wearing a silver shield. This, no doubt, was Pat Hawe. In the background behind Stillwell and Alfred stood Nick Steele, head and shoulders over a number of vaqueros and cowboys.

“Miss Hammond, I’m sorry you came,” said Stewart, bluntly. “We’re in a muddle here. I’ve insisted that you and Flo be kept close to us. I’ll explain later. If you can’t stop your ears I beg you to overlook rough talk.”

With that he turned to the men behind him: “Nick, take Booly, go back to Monty and the boys. Fetch out that stuff. All of it. Rustle, now!”

Stillwell and Alfred disengaged themselves from the crowd to take up positions in front of Madeline and Florence. Pat Hawe leaned against a post and insolently ogled Madeline and then Florence. Don Carlos pressed forward. His whole figure filled Madeline’s reluctant but fascinated eyes. He wore tight velveteen breeches, with a heavy fold down the outside seam, which was ornamented with silver buttons. Round his waist was a sash, and a belt with fringed holster, from which protruded a pearl-handled gun. A vest or waistcoat, richly embroidered, partly concealed a blouse of silk and wholly revealed a silken scarf round his neck. His swarthy face showed dark lines, like cords, under the surface. His little eyes were exceedingly prominent and glittering. To Madeline his face seemed to be a bold, handsome mask through which his eyes piercingly betrayed the evil nature of the man.

He bowed low with elaborate and sinuous grace. His smile revealed brilliant teeth, enhanced the brilliance of his eyes. He slowly spread deprecatory hands.

“Senoritas, I beg a thousand pardons,” he said. How strange it was for Madeline to hear English spoken in a soft, whiningly sweet accent! “The gracious hospitality of Don Carlos has passed with his house.”

Stewart stepped forward and, thrusting Don Carlos aside, he called, “Make way, there!”

The crowd fell back to the tramp of heavy boots. Cowboys appeared staggering out of the corridor with long boxes. These they placed side by side upon the floor of the porch.

“Now, Hawe, we’ll proceed with our business,” said Stewart. “You see these boxes, don’t you?”

“I reckon I see a good many things round hyar,” replied Hawe, meaningly.

“Well, do you intend to open these boxes upon my say-so?”

“No!” retorted Hawe. “It’s not my place to meddle with property as come by express an’ all accounted fer regular.”

“You call yourself a sheriff!” exclaimed Stewart, scornfully.

“Mebbe you’ll think so before long,” rejoined Hawe, sullenly.

“I’ll open them. Here, one of you boys, knock the tops off these boxes,” ordered Stewart. “No, not you, Monty. You use your eyes. Let Booly handle the ax. Rustle, now!”

Monty Price had jumped out of the crowd into the middle of the porch. The manner in which he gave way to Booly and faced the vaqueros was not significant of friendliness or trust.

“Stewart, you’re dead wrong to bust open them boxes. Thet’s ag’in’ the law,” protested Hawe, trying to interfere.

Stewart pushed him back. Then Don Carlos, who had been stunned by the appearance of the boxes, suddenly became active in speech and person. Stewart thrust him back also. The Mexican’s excitement increased. He wildly gesticulated; he exclaimed shrilly in Spanish. When, however, the lids were wrenched open and an inside packing torn away he grew rigid and silent. Madeline raised herself behind Stillwell to see that the boxes were full of rifles and ammunition.

“There, Hawe! What did I tell you?” demanded Stewart. “I came over here to take charge of this ranch. I found these boxes hidden in an unused room. I suspected what they were. Contraband goods!”

“Wal, supposin’ they are? I don’t see any call fer sech all-fired fuss as you’re makin’. Stewart, I calkilate you’re some stuck on your new job an’ want to make a big show before—”

“Hawe, stop slinging that kind of talk,” interrupted Stewart. “You got too free with your mouth once before! Now here, I’m supposed to be consulting an officer of the law. Will you take charge of these contraband goods?”

“Say, you’re holdin’ on high an’ mighty,” replied Hawe, in astonishment that was plainly pretended. “What ‘re you drivin’ at?”

Stewart muttered an imprecation. He took several swift strides across the porch; he held out his hands to Stillwell as if to indicate the hopelessness of intelligent and reasonable arbitration; he looked at Madeline with a glance eloquent of his regret that he could not handle the situation to please her. Then as he wheeled he came face to face with Nels, who had slipped forward out of the crowd.

Madeline gathered serious import from the steel-blue meaning flash of eyes whereby Nels communicated something to Stewart. Whatever that something was, it dispelled Stewart’s impatience. A slight movement of his hand brought Monty Price forward with a jump. In these sudden jumps of Monty’s there was a suggestion of restrained ferocity. Then Nels and Monty lined up behind Stewart. It was a deliberate action, even to Madeline, unmistakably formidable. Pat Hawe’s face took on an ugly look; his eyes had a reddish gleam. Don Carlos added a pale face and extreme nervousness to his former expressions of agitation. The cowboys edged away from the vaqueros and the bronzed, bearded horsemen who were evidently Hawe’s assistants.

“I’m driving at this,” spoke up Stewart, presently; and now he was slow and caustic. “Here’s contraband of war! Hawe, do you get that? Arms and ammunition for the rebels across the border! I charge you as an officer to confiscate these goods and to arrest the smuggler — Don Carlos.”

These words of Stewart’s precipitated a riot among Don Carlos and his followers, and they surged wildly around the sheriff. There was an upflinging of brown, clenching hands, a shrill, jabbering babel of Mexican voices. The crowd around Don Carlos grew louder and denser with the addition of armed vaqueros and barefooted stable-boys and dusty-booted herdsmen and blanketed Mexicans, the last of whom suddenly slipped from doors and windows and round comers. It was a motley assemblage. The laced, fringed, ornamented vaqueros presented a sharp contrast to the bare-legged, sandal-footed boys and the ragged herders. Shrill cries, evidently from Don Carlos, somewhat quieted the commotion. Then Don Carlos could be heard addressing Sheriff Hawe in an exhortation of mingled English and Spanish. He denied, he avowed, he proclaimed, and all in rapid, passionate utterance. He tossed his black hair in his vehemence; he waved his fists and stamped the floor; he rolled his glittering eyes; he twisted his thin lips into a hundred different shapes, and like a cornered wolf showed snarling white teeth.

It seemed to Madeline that Don Carlos denied knowledge of the boxes of contraband goods, then knowledge of their real contents, then knowledge of their destination, and, finally, everything except that they were there in sight, damning witnesses to somebody’s complicity in the breaking of neutrality laws. Passionate as had been his denial of all this, it was as nothing compared to his denunciation of Stewart.

“Senor Stewart, he keel my Vaquero!” shouted Don Carlos, as, sweating and spent, he concluded his arraignment of the cowboy. “Him you must arrest! Senor Stewart a bad man! He keel my vaquero!”

“Do you hear thet?” yelled Hawe. “The Don’s got you figgered fer thet little job at El Cajon last fall.”

The clamor burst into a roar. Hawe began shaking his finger in Stewart’s face and hoarsely shouting. Then a lithe young vaquero, swift as an Indian, glided under Hawe’s uplifted arm. Whatever the action he intended, he was too late for its execution. Stewart lunged out, struck the vaquero, and knocked him off the porch. As he fell a dagger glittered in the sunlight and rolled clinking over the stones. The man went down hard and did not move. With the same abrupt violence, and a manner of contempt, Stewart threw Hawe off the porch, then Don Carlos, who, being less supple, fell heavily. Then the mob backed before Stewart’s rush until all were down in the courtyard.

The shuffling of feet ceased, the clanking of spurs, and the shouting. Nels and Monty, now reinforced by Nick Steele, were as shadows of Stewart, so closely did they follow him. Stewart waved them back and stepped down into the yard. He was absolutely fearless; but what struck Madeline so keenly was his magnificent disdain. Manifestly, he knew the nature of the men with whom he was dealing. From the look of him it was natural for Madeline to expect them to give way before him, which they did, even Hawe and his attendants sullenly retreating.

Don Carlos got up to confront Stewart. The prostrate vaquero stirred and moaned, but did not rise.

“You needn’t jibber Spanish to me,” said Stewart. “You can talk American, and you can understand American. If you start a rough-house here you and your Greasers will be cleaned up. You’ve got to leave this ranch. You can have the stock, the packs and traps in the second corral. There’s grub, too. Saddle up and hit the trail. Don Carlos, I’m dealing more than square with you. You’re lying about these boxes of guns and cartridges. You’re breaking the laws of my country, and you’re doing it on property in my charge. If I let smuggling go on here I’d be implicated myself. Now you get off the range. If you don’t I’ll have the United States cavalry here in six hours, and you can gamble they’ll get what my cowboys leave of you.”

Don Carlos was either a capital actor and gratefully relieved at Stewart’s leniency or else he was thoroughly cowed by references to the troops. “Si, Senor! Gracias, Senor!” he exclaimed; and then, turning away, he called to his men. They hurried after him, while the fallen vaquero got to his feet with Stewart’s help and staggered across the courtyard. In a moment they were gone, leaving Hawe and his several comrades behind.

Hawe was spitefully ejecting a wad of tobacco from his mouth and swearing in an undertone about “white-livered Greasers.” He cocked his red eye speculatively at Stewart.

“Wal, I reckon as you’re so hell-bent on doin’ it up brown thet you’ll try to fire me off’n the range, too?”

“If I ever do, Pat, you’ll need to be carried off,” replied Stewart. “Just now I’m politely inviting you and your deputy sheriffs to leave.”

“We’ll go; but we’re comin’ back one of these days, an’ when we do we’ll put you in irons.”

“Hawe, if you’ve got it in that bad for me, come over here in the corral and let’s fight it out.”

“I’m an officer, an’ I don’t fight outlaws an’ sich except when I hev to make arrests.”

“Officer! You’re a disgrace to the county. If you ever did get irons on me you’d take me some place out of sight, shoot me, and then swear you killed me in self-defense. It wouldn’t be the first time you pulled that trick, Pat Hawe.”

“Ho, ho!” laughed Hawe, derisively. Then he started toward the horses.

Stewart’s long arm shot out, his hand clapped on Hawe’s shoulder, spinning him round like a top.

“You’re leaving, Pat, but before you leave you’ll come out with your play or you’ll crawl,” said Stewart. “You’ve got it in for me, man to man. Speak up now and prove you’re not the cowardly skunk I’ve always thought you. I’ve called your hand.”

Pat Hawe’s face turned a blackish-purple hue.

“You can jest bet thet I’ve got it in fer you,” he shouted, hoarsely. “You’re only a low-down cow-puncher. You never hed a dollar or a decent job till you was mixed up with thet Hammond woman—”

Stewart’s hand flashed out and hit Hawe’s face in a ringing slap. The sheriff’s head jerked back, his sombrero fell to the ground. As he bent over to reach it his hand shook, his arm shook, his whole body shook.

Monty Price jumped straight forward and crouched down with a strange, low cry.

Stewart seemed all at once rigid, bending a little.

“Say Miss Hammond, if there’s occasion to use her name,” said Stewart, in a voice that seemed coolly pleasant, yet had a deadly undernote.

Hawe did a moment’s battle with strangling fury, which he conquered in some measure.

“I said you was a low-down, drunken cow-puncher, a tough as damn near a desperado as we ever hed on the border,” went on Hawe, deliberately. His speech appeared to be addressed to Stewart, although his flame-pointed eyes were riveted upon Monty Price. “I know you plugged that vaquero last fall, an’ when I git my proof I’m comin’ after you.”

“That’s all right, Hawe. You can call me what you like, and you can come after me when you like,” replied Stewart. “But you’re going to get in bad with me. You’re in bad now with Monty and Nels. Pretty soon you’ll queer yourself with all the cowboys and the ranchers, too. If that don’t put sense into you — Here, listen to this. You knew what these boxes contained. You know Don Carlos has been smuggling arms and ammunition across the border. You know he is hand and glove with the rebels. You’ve been wearing blinders, and it has been to your interest. Take a hunch from me. That’s all. Light out now, and the less we see of your handsome mug the better we’ll like you.”

Muttering, cursing, pallid of face, Hawe climbed astride his horse. His comrades followed suit. Certain it appeared that the sheriff was contending with more than fear and wrath. He must have had an irresistible impulse to fling more invective and threat upon Stewart, but he was speechless. Savagely he spurred his horse, and as it snorted and leaped he turned in his saddle, shaking his fist. His comrades led the way, with their horses clattering into a canter. They disappeared through the gate.

* * *

When, later in the day, Madeline and Florence, accompanied by Alfred and Stillwell, left Don Carlos’s ranch it was not any too soon for Madeline. The inside of the Mexican’s home was more unprepossessing and uncomfortable than the outside. The halls were dark, the rooms huge, empty, and musty; and there was an air of silence and secrecy and mystery about them most fitting to the character Florence had bestowed upon the place.

On the other hand, Alfred’s ranch-house, where the party halted to spend the night, was picturesquely located, small and cozy, camplike in its arrangement, and altogether agreeable to Madeline.

The day’s long rides and the exciting events had wearied her. She rested while Florence and the two men got supper. During the meal Stillwell expressed satisfaction over the good riddance of the vaqueros, and with his usual optimism trusted he had seen the last of them. Alfred, too, took a decidedly favorable view of the day’s proceedings. However, it was not lost upon Madeline that Florence appeared unusually quiet and thoughtful. Madeline wondered a little at the cause. She remembered that Stewart had wanted to come with them, or detail a few cowboys to accompany them, but Alfred had laughed at the idea and would have none of it.

After supper Alfred monopolized the conversation by describing what he wanted to do to improve his home before he and Florence were married.

Then at an early hour they all retired.

Madeline’s deep slumbers were disturbed by a pounding upon the wall, and then by Florence’s crying out in answer to a call:

“Get up! Throw some clothes on and come out!”

It was Alfred’s voice.

“What’s the matter?” asked Florence, as she slipped out of bed.

“Alfred, is there anything wrong?” added Madeline, sitting up.

The room was dark as pitch, but a faint glow seemed to mark the position of the window.

“Oh, nothing much,” replied Alfred. “Only Don Carlos’s rancho going up in smoke.”

“Fire!” cried Florence, sharply.

“You’ll think so when you see it. Hurry out. Majesty, old girl, now you won’t have to tear down that heap of adobe, as you threatened. I don’t believe a wall will stand after that fire.”

“Well, I’m glad of it,” said Madeline. “A good healthy fire will purify the atmosphere over there and save me expense. Ugh! that haunted rancho got on my nerves! Florence, I do believe you’ve appropriated part of my riding-habit. Doesn’t Alfred have lights in this house?”

Florence laughingly helped Madeline to dress. Then they hurriedly stumbled over chairs, and, passing through the dining-room, went out upon the porch.

Away to the westward, low down along the horizon, she saw leaping red flames and wind-swept columns of smoke.

Stillwell appeared greatly perturbed.

“Al, I’m lookin’ fer that ammunition to blow up,” he said. “There was enough of it to blow the roof off the rancho.”

“Bill, surely the cowboys would get that stuff out the first thing,” replied Alfred, anxiously.

“I reckon so. But all the same, I’m worryin’. Mebbe there wasn’t time. Supposin’ thet powder went off as the boys was goin’ fer it or carryin’ it out! We’ll know soon. If the explosion doesn’t come quick now we can figger the boys got the boxes out.”

For the next few moments there was a silence of sustained and painful suspense. Florence gripped Madeline’s arm. Madeline felt a fullness in her throat and a rapid beating of her heart. Presently she was relieved with the others when Stillwell declared the danger of an explosion needed to be feared no longer.

“Sure you can gamble on Gene Stewart,” he added.

The night happened to be partly cloudy, with broken rifts showing the moon, and the wind blew unusually strong. The brightness of the fire seemed subdued. It was like a huge bonfire smothered by some great covering, penetrated by different, widely separated points of flame. These corners of flame flew up, curling in the wind, and then died down. Thus the scene was constantly changing from dull light to dark. There came a moment when a blacker shade overspread the wide area of flickering gleams and then obliterated them. Night enfolded the scene. The moon peeped a curved yellow rim from under broken clouds. To all appearances the fire had burned itself out. But suddenly a pinpoint of light showed where all had been dense black. It grew and became long and sharp. It moved. It had life. It leaped up. Its color warmed from white to red. Then from all about it burst flame on flame, to leap into a great changing pillar of fire that climbed high and higher. Huge funnels of smoke, yellow, black, white, all tinged with the color of fire, slanted skyward, drifting away on the wind.

“Wal, I reckon we won’t hev the good of them two thousand tons of alfalfa we was figgerin’ on,” remarked Stillwell.

“Ah! Then that last outbreak of fire was burning hay,” said Madeline. “I do not regret the rancho. But it’s too bad to lose such a quantity of good feed for the stock.”

“It’s lost, an’ no mistake. The fire’s dyin’ as quick as she flared up. Wal, I hope none of the boys got risky to save a saddle or blanket. Monty — he’s hell on runnin’ the gantlet of fire. He’s like a hoss that’s jest been dragged out of a burnin’ stable an’ runs back sure locoed. There! She’s smolderin’ down now. Reckon we-all might jest as well turn in again. It’s only three o’clock.”

“I wonder how the fire originated?” remarked Alfred. “Some careless cowboy’s cigarette, I’ll bet.”

Stillwell rolled out his laugh.

“Al, you sure are a free-hearted, trustin’ feller. I’m some doubtin’ the cigarette idee; but you can gamble if it was a cigarette it belonged to a cunnin’ vaquero, an’ wasn’t dropped accident-like.”

“Now, Bill, you don’t mean Don Carlos burned the rancho?” ejaculated Alfred, in mingled amaze and anger.

Again the old cattleman laughed.

“Powerful strange to say, my friend, ole Bill means jest thet.”

“Of course Don Carlos set that fire,” put in Florence, with spirit. “Al, if you live out heah a hundred years you’ll never learn that Greasers are treacherous. I know Gene Stewart suspected something underhand. That’s why he wanted us to hurry away. That’s why he put me on the black horse of Don Carlos’s. He wants that horse for himself, and feared the Don would steal or shoot him. And you, Bill Stillwell, you’re as bad as Al. You never distrust anybody till it’s too late. You’ve been singing ever since Stewart ordered the vaqueros off the range. But you sure haven’t been thinking.”

“Wal, now, Flo, you needn’t pitch into me jest because I hev a natural Christian spirit,” replied Stillwell, much aggrieved. “I reckon I’ve hed enough trouble in my life so’s not to go lookin’ fer more. Wal, I’m sorry about the hay burnin’. But mebbe the boys saved the stock. An’ as fer that ole adobe house of dark holes an’ under-ground passages, so long’s Miss Majesty doesn’t mind, I’m darn glad it burned. Come, let’s all turn in again. Somebody’ll ride over early an’ tell us what’s what.”

Madeline awakened early, but not so early as the others, who were up and had breakfast ready when she went into the dining-room. Stillwell was not in an amiable frame of mind. The furrows of worry lined his broad brow and he continually glanced at his watch, and growled because the cowboys were so late in riding over with the news. He gulped his breakfast, and while Madeline and the others ate theirs he tramped up and down the porch. Madeline noted that Alfred grew nervous and restless. Presently he left the table to join Stillwell outside.

“They’ll slope off to Don Carlos’s rancho and leave us to ride home alone,” observed Florence.

“Do you mind?” questioned Madeline.

“No, I don’t exactly mind; we’ve got the fastest horses in this country. I’d like to run that big black devil off his legs. No, I don’t mind; but I’ve no hankering for a situation Gene Stewart thinks—”

Florence began disconnectedly, and she ended evasively. Madeline did not press the point, although she had some sense of misgiving. Stillwell tramped in, shaking the floor with his huge boots; Alfred followed him, carrying a field-glass.

“Not a hoss in sight,” complained Stillwell. “Some-thin’ wrong over Don Carlos’s way. Miss Majesty, it’ll be jest as well fer you an’ Flo to hit the home trail. We can telephone over an’ see that the boys know you’re comin’.”

Alfred, standing in the door, swept the gray valley with his field-glass.

“Bill, I see running stock-horses or cattle; I can’t make out which. I guess we’d better rustle over there.”

Both men hurried out, and while the horses were being brought up and saddled Madeline and Florence put away the breakfast-dishes, then speedily donned spurs, sombreros, and gauntlets.

“Here are the horses ready,” called Alfred. “Flo, that black Mexican horse is a prince.”

The girls went out in time to hear Stillwell’s good-by as he mounted and spurred away. Alfred went through the motions of assisting Madeline and Florence to mount, which assistance they always flouted, and then he, too, swung up astride.

“I guess it’s all right,” he said, rather dubiously. “You really must not go over toward Don Carlos’s. It’s only a few miles home.”

“Sure it’s all right. We can ride, can’t we?” retorted Florence. “Better have a care for yourself, going off over there to mix in goodness knows what.”

Alfred said good-by, spurred his horse, and rode away.

“If Bill didn’t forget to telephone!” exclaimed Florence. “I declare he and Al were sure rattled.”

Florence dismounted and went into the house. She left the door open. Madeline had some difficulty in holding Majesty. It struck Madeline that Florence stayed rather long indoors. Presently she came out with sober face and rather tight lips.

“I couldn’t get anybody on the ‘phone. No answer. I tried a dozen times.”

“Why, Florence!” Madeline was more concerned by the girl’s looks than by the information she imparted.

“The wire’s been cut,” said Florence. Her gray glance swept swiftly after Alfred, who was now far out of earshot. “I don’t like this a little bit. Heah’s where I’ve got to ‘figger,’ as Bill says.”

She pondered a moment, then hurried into the house, to return presently with the field-glass that Alfred had used. With this she took a survey of the valley, particularly in the direction of Madeline’s ranch-house. This was hidden by low, rolling ridges which were quite close by.

“Anyway, nobody in that direction can see us leave heah,” she mused. “There’s mesquite on the ridges. We’ve got cover long enough to save us till we can see what’s ahead.”

“Florence, what — what do you expect?” asked Madeline, nervously.

“I don’t know. There’s never any telling about Greasers. I wish Bill and Al hadn’t left us. Still, come to think of that, they couldn’t help us much in case of a chase. We’d run right away from them. Besides, they’d shoot. I guess I’m as well as satisfied that we’ve got the job of getting home on our own hands. We don’t dare follow Al toward Don Carlos’s ranch. We know there’s trouble over there. So all that’s left is to hit the trail for home. Come, let’s ride. You stick like a Spanish needle to me.”

A heavy growth of mesquite covered the top of the first ridge, and the trail went through it. Florence took the lead, proceeding cautiously, and as soon as she could see over the summit she used the field-glass. Then she went on. Madeline, following closely, saw down the slope of the ridge to a bare, wide, grassy hollow, and onward to more rolling land, thick with cactus and mesquite. Florence appeared cautious, deliberate, yet she lost no time. She was ominously silent. Madeline’s misgivings took definite shape in the fear of vaqueros in ambush.

Upon the ascent of the third ridge, which Madeline remembered was the last uneven ground between the point she had reached and home, Florence exercised even more guarded care in advancing. Before she reached the top of this ridge she dismounted, looped her bridle round a dead snag, and, motioning Madeline to wait, she slipped ahead through the mesquite out of sight. Madeline waited, anxiously listening and watching. Certain it was that she could not see or hear anything alarming. The sun began to have a touch of heat; the morning breeze rustled the thin mesquite foliage; the deep magenta of a cactus flower caught her eye; a long-tailed, cruel-beaked, brown bird sailed so close to her she could have touched it with her whip. But she was only vaguely aware of these things. She was watching for Florence, listening for some sound fraught with untoward meaning. All of a sudden she saw Majesty’s ears were held straight up. Then Florence’s face, now strangely white, showed round the turn of the trail.

“‘S-s-s-sh!” whispered Florence, holding up a warning finger. She reached the black horse and petted him, evidently to still an uneasiness he manifested. “We’re in for it,” she went on. “A whole bunch of vaqueros hiding among the mesquite over the ridge! They’ve not seen or heard us yet. We’d better risk riding ahead, cut off the trail, and beat them to the ranch. Madeline, you’re white as death! Don’t faint now!”

“I shall not faint. But you frighten me. Is there danger? What shall we do?”

“There’s danger. Madeline, I wouldn’t deceive you,” went on Florence, in an earnest whisper. “Things have turned out just as Gene Stewart hinted. Oh, we should — Al should have listened to Gene! I believe — I’m afraid Gene knew!”

“Knew what?” asked Madeline.

“Never mind now. Listen. We daren’t take the back trail. We’ll go on. I’ve a scheme to fool that grinning Don Carlos. Get down, Madeline — hurry.”

Madeline dismounted.

“Give me your white sweater. Take it off — And that white hat! Hurry, Madeline.”

“Florence, what on earth do you mean?” cried Madeline.

“Not so loud,” whispered the other. Her gray eyes snapped. She had divested herself of sombrero and jacket, which she held out to Madeline. “Heah. Take these. Give me yours. Then get up on the black. I’ll ride Majesty. Rustle now, Madeline. This is no time to talk.”

“But, dear, why — why do you want — ? Ah! You’re going to make the vaqueros take you for me!”

“You guessed it. Will you—”

“I shall not allow you to do anything of the kind,” returned Madeline.

It was then that Florence’s face, changing, took on the hard, stern sharpness so typical of a cowboy’s. Madeline had caught glimpses of that expression in Alfred’s face, and on Stewart’s when he was silent, and on Stillwell’s always. It was a look of iron and fire — unchangeable, unquenchable will. There was even much of violence in the swift action whereby Florence compelled Madeline to the change of apparel.

“It ‘d been my idea, anyhow, if Stewart hadn’t told me to do it,” said Florence, her words as swift as her hands. “Don Carlos is after you — you, Miss Madeline Hammond! He wouldn’t ambush a trail for any one else. He’s not killing cowboys these days. He wants you for some reason. So Gene thought, and now I believe him. Well, we’ll know for sure in five minutes. You ride the black; I’ll ride Majesty. We’ll slip round through the brush, out of sight and sound, till we can break out into the open. Then we’ll split. You make straight for the ranch. I’ll cut loose for the valley where Gene said positively the cowboys were with the cattle. The vaqueros will take me for you. They all know those striking white things you wear. They’ll chase me. They’ll never get anywhere near me. And you’ll be on a fast horse. He can take you home ahead of any vaqueros. But you won’t be chased. I’m staking all on that. Trust me, Madeline. If it were only my calculation, maybe I’d — It’s because I remember Stewart. That cowboy knows things. Come, this heah’s the safest and smartest way to fool Don Carlos.” Madeline felt herself more forced than persuaded into acquiescence. She mounted the black and took up the bridle. In another moment she was guiding her horse off the trail in the tracks of Majesty. Florence led off at right angles, threading a slow passage through the mesquite. She favored sandy patches and open aisles between the trees, and was careful not to break a branch. Often she stopped to listen. This detour of perhaps half a mile brought Madeline to where she could see open ground, the ranch-house only a few miles off, and the cattle dotting the valley. She had not lost her courage, but it was certain that these familiar sights somewhat lightened the pressure upon her breast. Excitement gripped her. The shrill whistle of a horse made both the black and Majesty jump. Florence quickened the gait down the slope. Soon Madeline saw the edge of the brush, the gray-bleached grass and level ground.

Florence waited at the opening between the low trees. She gave Madeline a quick, bright glance.

“All over but the ride! That’ll sure be easy. Bolt now and keep your nerve!”

When Florence wheeled the fiery roan and screamed in his ear Madeline seemed suddenly to grow lax and helpless. The big horse leaped into thundering action. This was memorable of Bonita of the flying hair and the wild night ride. Florence’s hair streamed on the wind and shone gold in the sunlight. Yet Madeline saw her with the same thrill with which she had seen the wild-riding Bonita. Then hoarse shouts unclamped Madeline’s power of movement, and she spurred the black into the open.

He wanted to run and he was swift. Madeline loosened the reins — laid them loose upon his neck. His action was strange to her. He was hard to ride. But he was fast, and she cared for nothing else. Madeline knew horses well enough to realize that the black had found he was free and carrying a light weight. A few times she took up the bridle and pulled to right or left, trying to guide him. He kept a straight course, however, and crashed through small patches of mesquite and jumped the cracks and washes. Uneven ground offered no perceptible obstacle to his running. To Madeline there was now a thrilling difference in the lash of wind and the flash of the gray ground underneath. She was running away from something; what that was she did not know. But she remembered Florence, and she wanted to look back, yet hated to do so for fear of the nameless danger Florence had mentioned.

Madeline listened for the pounding of pursuing hoofs in her rear. Involuntarily she glanced back. On the mile or more of gray level between her and the ridge there was not a horse, a man, or anything living. She wheeled to look back on the other side, down the valley slope.

The sight of Florence riding Majesty in zigzag flight before a whole troop of vaqueros blanched Madeline’s cheek and made her grip the pommel of her saddle in terror. That strange gait of her roan was not his wonderful stride. Could Majesty be running wild? Madeline saw one vaquero draw closer, whirling his lasso round his head, but he did not get near enough to throw. So it seemed to Madeline. Another vaquero swept across in front of the first one. Then, when Madeline gasped in breathless expectancy, the roan swerved to elude the attack. It flashed over Madeline that Florence was putting the horse to some such awkward flight as might have been expected of an Eastern girl frightened out of her wits. Madeline made sure of this when, after looking again, she saw that Florence, in spite of the horse’s breaking gait and the irregular course, was drawing slowly and surely down the valley.

Madeline had not lost her head to the extent of forgetting her own mount and the nature of the ground in front. When, presently, she turned again to watch Florence, uncertainty ceased in her mind. The strange features of that race between girl and vaqueros were no longer in evidence. Majesty was in his beautiful, wonderful stride, low down along the ground, stretching, with his nose level and straight for the valley. Between him and the lean horses in pursuit lay an ever-increasing space. He was running away from the vaqueros. Florence was indeed “riding the wind,” as Stewart had aptly expressed his idea of flight upon the fleet roan.

A dimness came over Madeline’s eyes, and it was not all owing to the sting of the wind. She rubbed it away, seeing Florence as a flying dot in a strange blur. What a daring, intrepid girl! This kind of strength — and aye, splendid thought for a weaker sister — was what the West inculcated in a woman.

The next time Madeline looked back Florence was far ahead of her pursuers and going out of sight behind a low knoll. Assured of Florence’s safety, Madeline put her mind to her own ride and the possibilities awaiting at the ranch. She remembered the failure to get any of her servants or cowboys on the telephone. To be sure, a wind-storm had once broken the wire. But she had little real hope of such being the case in this instance. She rode on, pulling the black as she neared the ranch. Her approach was from the south and off the usual trail, so that she went up the long slope of the knoll toward the back of the house. Under these circumstances she could not consider it out of the ordinary that she did not see any one about the grounds.

It was perhaps fortunate for her, she thought, that the climb up the slope cut the black’s speed so she could manage him. He was not very hard to stop. The moment she dismounted, however, he jumped and trotted off. At the edge of the slope, facing the corrals, he halted to lift his head and shoot up his ears. Then he let out a piercing whistle and dashed down the lane.

Madeline, prepared by that warning whistle, tried to fortify herself for a new and unexpected situation; but as she espied an unfamiliar company of horsemen rapidly riding down a hollow leading from the foothills she felt the return of fears gripping at her like cold hands, and she fled precipitously into the house.

XI. A Band of Guerrillas

MADELINE BOLTED THE door, and, flying into the kitchen, she told the scared servants to shut themselves in. Then she ran to her own rooms. It was only a matter of a few moments for her to close and bar the heavy shutters, yet even as she was fastening the last one in the room she used as an office a clattering roar of hoofs seemed to swell up to the front of the house. She caught a glimpse of wild, shaggy horses and ragged, dusty men. She had never seen any vaqueros that resembled these horsemen. Vaqueros had grace and style; they were fond of lace and glitter and fringe; they dressed their horses in silvered trappings. But the riders now trampling into the driveway were uncouth, lean, savage. They were guerrillas, a band of the raiders who had been harassing the border since the beginning of the revolution. A second glimpse assured Madeline that they were not all Mexicans.

The presence of outlaws in that band brought home to Madeline her real danger. She remembered what Stillwell had told her about recent outlaw raids along the Rio Grande. These flying bands, operating under the excitement of the revolution, appeared here and there, everywhere, in remote places, and were gone as quickly as they came. Mostly they wanted money and arms, but they would steal anything, and unprotected women had suffered at their hands.

Madeline, hurriedly collecting her securities and the considerable money she had in her desk, ran out, closed and locked the door, crossed the patio to the opposite side of the house, and, entering again, went down a long corridor, trying to decide which of the many unused rooms would be best to hide in. And before she made up her mind she came to the last room. Just then a battering on door or window in the direction of the kitchen and shrill screams from the servant women increased Madeline’s alarm.

She entered the last room. There was no lock or bar upon the door. But the room was large and dark, and it was half full of bales of alfalfa hay. Probably it was the safest place in the house; at least time would be necessary to find any one hidden there. She dropped her valuables in a dark corner and covered them with loose hay. That done, she felt her way down a narrow aisle between the piled-up bales and presently crouched in a niche.

With the necessity of action over for the immediate present, Madeline became conscious that she was quivering and almost breathless. Her skin felt tight and cold. There was a weight on her chest; her mouth was dry, and she had a strange tendency to swallow. Her listening faculty seemed most acute. Dull sounds came from parts of the house remote from her. In the intervals of silence between these sounds she heard the squeaking and rustling of mice in the hay. A mouse ran over her hand.

She listened, waiting, hoping yet dreading to hear the clattering approach of her cowboys. There would be fighting — blood — men injured, perhaps killed. Even the thought of violence of any kind hurt her. But perhaps the guerrillas would run in time to avoid a clash with her men. She hoped for that, prayed for it. Through her mind flitted what she knew of Nels, of Monty, of Nick Steele; and she experienced a sensation that left her somewhat chilled and sick. Then she thought of the dark-browed, fire-eyed Stewart. She felt a thrill drive away the cold nausea. And her excitement augmented.

Waiting, listening increased all her emotions. Nothing appeared to be happening. Yet hours seemed to pass while she crouched there. Had Florence been overtaken? Could any of those lean horses outrun Majesty? She doubted it; she knew it could not be true. Nevertheless, the strain of uncertainty was torturing.

Suddenly the bang of the corridor door pierced her through and through with the dread of uncertainty. Some of the guerrillas had entered the east wing of the house. She heard a babel of jabbering voices, the shuffling of boots and clinking of spurs, the slamming of doors and ransacking of rooms.

Madeline lost faith in her hiding-place. Moreover, she found it impossible to take the chance. The idea of being caught in that dark room by those ruffians filled her with horror. She must get out into the light. Swiftly she rose and went to the window. It was rather more of a door than window, being a large aperture closed by two wooden doors on hinges. The iron hook yielded readily to her grasp, and one door stuck fast, while the other opened a few inches. She looked out upon a green slope covered with flowers and bunches of sage and bushes. Neither man nor horse showed in the narrow field of her vision. She believed she would be safer hidden out there in the shrubbery than in the house. The jump from the window would be easy for her. And with her quick decision came a rush and stir of spirit that warded off her weakness.

She pulled at the door. It did not budge. It had caught at the bottom. Pulling with all her might proved to be in vain. Pausing, with palms hot and bruised, she heard a louder, closer approach of the invaders of her home. Fear, wrath, and impotence contested for supremacy over her and drove her to desperation. She was alone here, and she must rely on herself. And as she strained every muscle to move that obstinate door and heard the quick, harsh voices of men and the sounds of a hurried search she suddenly felt sure that they were hunting for her. She knew it. She did not wonder at it. But she wondered if she were really Madeline Hammond, and if it were possible that brutal men would harm her. Then the tramping of heavy feet on the floor of the adjoining room lent her the last strength of fear. Pushing with hands and shoulders, she moved the door far enough to permit the passage of her body. Then she stepped up on the sill and slipped through the aperture. She saw no one. Lightly she jumped down and ran in among the bushes. But these did not afford her the cover she needed. She stole from one clump to another, finding too late that she had chosen with poor judgment. The position of the bushes had drawn her closer to the front of the house rather than away from it, and just before her were horses, and beyond a group of excited men. With her heart in her throat Madeline crouched down.

A shrill yell, followed by running and mounting guerrillas, roused her hope. They had sighted the cowboys and were in flight. Rapid thumping of boots on the porch told of men hurrying from the house. Several horses dashed past her, not ten feet distant. One rider saw her, for he turned to shout back. This drove Madeline into a panic. Hardly knowing what she did, she began to run away from the house. Her feet seemed leaden. She felt the same horrible powerlessness that sometimes came over her when she dreamed of being pursued. Horses with shouting riders streaked past her in the shrubbery. There was a thunder of hoofs behind her. She turned aside, but the thundering grew nearer. She was being run down.

As Madeline shut her eyes and, staggering, was about to fall, apparently right under pounding hoofs, a rude, powerful hand clapped round her waist, clutched deep and strong, and swung her aloft. She felt a heavy blow when the shoulder of the horse struck her, and then a wrenching of her arm as she was dragged up. A sudden blighting pain made sight and feeling fade from her.

But she did not become unconscious to the extent that she lost the sense of being rapidly borne away. She seemed to hold that for a long time. When her faculties began to return the motion of the horse was no longer violent. For a few moments she could not determine her position. Apparently she was upside down. Then she saw that she was facing the ground, and must be lying across a saddle with her head hanging down. She could not move a hand; she could not tell where her hands were. Then she felt the touch of soft leather. She saw a high-topped Mexican boot, wearing a huge silver spur, and the reeking flank and legs of a horse, and a dusty, narrow trail. Soon a kind of red darkness veiled her eyes, her head swam, and she felt motion and pain only dully.

After what seemed a thousand weary hours some one lifted her from the horse and laid her upon the ground, where, gradually, as the blood left her head and she could see, she began to get the right relation of things.

She lay in a sparse grove of firs, and the shadows told of late afternoon. She smelled wood smoke, and she heard the sharp crunch of horses’ teeth nipping grass. Voices caused her to turn her face. A group of men stood and sat round a camp-fire eating like wolves. The looks of her captors made Madeline close her eyes, and the fascination, the fear they roused in her made her open them again. Mostly they were thin-bodied, thin-bearded Mexicans, black and haggard and starved. Whatever they might be, they surely were hunger-stricken and squalid. Not one had a coat. A few had scarfs. Some wore belts in which were scattered cartridges. Only a few had guns, and these were of diverse patterns. Madeline could see no packs, no blankets, and only a few cooking-utensils, all battered and blackened. Her eyes fastened upon men she believed were white men; but it was from their features and not their color that she judged. Once she had seen a band of nomad robbers in the Sahara, and somehow was reminded of them by this motley outlaw troop.

They divided attention between the satisfying of ravenous appetites and a vigilant watching down the forest aisles. They expected some one, Madeline thought, and, manifestly, if it were a pursuing posse, they did not show anxiety. She could not understand more than a word here and there that they uttered. Presently, however, the name of Don Carlos revived keen curiosity in her and realization of her situation, and then once more dread possessed her breast.

A low exclamation and a sweep of arm from one of the guerrillas caused the whole band to wheel and concentrate their attention in the opposite direction. They heard something. They saw some one. Grimy hands sought weapons, and then every man stiffened. Madeline saw what hunted men looked like at the moment of discovery, and the sight was terrible. She closed her eyes, sick with what she saw, fearful of the moment when the guns would leap out.

There were muttered curses, a short period of silence followed by whisperings, and then a clear voice rang out, “El Capitan!”

A strong shock vibrated through Madeline, and her eyelids swept open. Instantly she associated the name El Capitan with Stewart and experienced a sensation of strange regret. It was not pursuit or rescue she thought of then, but death. These men would kill Stewart. But surely he had not come alone. The lean, dark faces, corded and rigid, told her in what direction to look. She heard the slow, heavy thump of hoofs. Soon into the wide aisle between the trees moved the form of a man, arms flung high over his head. Then Madeline saw the horse, and she recognized Majesty, and she knew it was really Stewart who rode the roan. When doubt was no longer possible she felt a suffocating sense of gladness and fear and wonder.

Many of the guerrillas leaped up with drawn weapons. Still Stewart approached with his hands high, and he rode right into the camp-fire circle. Then a guerrilla, evidently the chief, waved down the threatening men and strode up to Stewart. He greeted him. There was amaze and pleasure and respect in the greeting. Madeline could tell that, though she did not know what was said. At the moment Stewart appeared to her as cool and careless as if he were dismounting at her porch steps. But when he got down she saw that his face was white. He shook hands with the guerrilla, and then his glittering eyes roved over the men and around the glade until they rested upon Madeline. Without moving from his tracks he seemed to leap, as if a powerful current had shocked him. Madeline tried to smile to assure him she was alive and well; but the intent in his eyes, the power of his controlled spirit telling her of her peril and his, froze the smile on her lips.

With that he faced the chief and spoke rapidly in the Mexican jargon Madeline had always found so difficult to translate. The chief answered, spreading wide his hands, one of which indicated Madeline as she lay there. Stewart drew the fellow a little aside and said something for his ear alone. The chief’s hands swept up in a gesture of surprise and acquiescence. Again Stewart spoke swiftly. His hearer then turned to address the band. Madeline caught the words “Don Carlos” and “pesos.” There was a brief muttering protest which the chief thundered down. Madeline guessed her release had been given by this guerrilla and bought from the others of the band.

Stewart strode to her side, leading the roan. Majesty reared and snorted when he saw his mistress prostrate. Stewart knelt, still holding the bridle.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I think so,” she replied, essaying a laugh that was rather a failure. “My feet are tied.”

Dark blood blotted out all the white from his face, and lightning shot from his eyes. She felt his hands, like steel tongs, loosening the bonds round her ankles. Without a word he lifted her upright and then upon Majesty. Madeline reeled a little in the saddle, held hard to the pommel with one hand, and tried to lean on Stewart’s shoulder with the other.

“Don’t give up,” he said.

She saw him gaze furtively into the forest on all sides. And it surprised her to see the guerrillas riding away. Putting the two facts together, Madeline formed an idea that neither Stewart nor the others desired to meet with some one evidently due shortly in the glade. Stewart guided the roan off to the right and walked beside Madeline, steadying her in the saddle. At first Madeline was so weak and dizzy that she could scarcely retain her seat. The dizziness left her presently, and then she made an effort to ride without help. Her weakness, however, and a pain in her wrenched arm made the task laborsome.

Stewart had struck off the trail, if there were one, and was keeping to denser parts of the forest. The sun sank low, and the shafts of gold fell with a long slant among the firs. Majesty’s hoofs made no sound on the soft ground, and Stewart strode on without speaking. Neither his hurry nor vigilance relaxed until at least two miles had been covered. Then he held to a straighter course and did not send so many glances into the darkening woods. The level of the forest began to be cut up by little hollows, all of which sloped and widened. Presently the soft ground gave place to bare, rocky soil. The horse snorted and tossed his head. A sound of splashing water broke the silence. The hollow opened into a wider one through which a little brook murmured its way over the stones. Majesty snorted again and stopped and bent his head.

“He wants a drink,” said Madeline. “I’m thirsty, too, and very tired.”

Stewart lifted her out of the saddle, and as their hands parted she felt something moist and warm. Blood was running down her arm and into the palm of her hand.

“I’m — bleeding,” she said, a little unsteadily. “Oh, I remember. My arm was hurt.”

She held it out, the blood making her conscious of her weakness. Stewart’s fingers felt so firm and sure. Swiftly he ripped the wet sleeve. Her forearm had been cut or scratched. He washed off the blood.

“Why, Stewart, it’s nothing. I was only a little nervous. I guess that’s the first time I ever saw my own blood.”

He made no reply as he tore her handkerchief into strips and bound her arm. His swift motions and his silence gave her a hint of how he might meet a more serious emergency. She felt safe. And because of that impression, when he lifted his head and she saw that he was pale and shaking, she was surprised. He stood before her folding his scarf, which was still wet, and from which he made no effort to remove the red stains.

“Miss Hammond,” he said, hoarsely, “it was a man’s hands — a Greaser’s finger-nails — that cut your arm. I know who he was. I could have killed him. But I mightn’t have got your freedom. You understand? I didn’t dare.”

Madeline gazed at Stewart, astounded more by his speech than his excessive emotion.

“My dear boy!” she exclaimed. And then she paused. She could not find words.

He was making an apology to her for not killing a man who had laid a rough hand upon her person. He was ashamed and seemed to be in a torture that she would not understand why he had not killed the man. There seemed to be something of passionate scorn in him that he had not been able to avenge her as well as free her.

“Stewart, I understand. You were being my kind of cowboy. I thank you.”

But she did not understand so much as she implied. She had heard many stories of this man’s cool indifference to peril and death. He had always seemed as hard as granite. Why should the sight of a little blood upon her arm pale his cheek and shake his hand and thicken his voice? What was there in his nature to make him implore her to see the only reason he could not kill an outlaw? The answer to the first question was that he loved her. It was beyond her to answer the second. But the secret of it lay in the same strength from which his love sprang — an intensity of feeling which seemed characteristic of these Western men of simple, lonely, elemental lives. All at once over Madeline rushed a tide of realization of how greatly it was possible for such a man as Stewart to love her. The thought came to her in all its singular power. All her Eastern lovers who had the graces that made them her equals in the sight of the world were without the only great essential that a lonely, hard life had given to Stewart. Nature here struck a just balance. Something deep and dim in the future, an unknown voice, called to Madeline and disturbed her. And because it was not a voice to her intelligence she deadened the ears of her warm and throbbing life and decided never to listen.

“Is it safe to rest a little?” she asked. “I am so tired. Perhaps I’ll be stronger if I rest.”

“We’re all right now,” he said. “The horse will be better, too. I ran him out. And uphill, at that.”

“Where are we?”

“Up in the mountains, ten miles and more from the ranch. There’s a trail just below here. I can get you home by midnight. They’ll be some worried down there.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing much to any one but you. That’s the — the hard luck of it. Florence caught us out on the slope. We were returning from the fire. We were dead beat. But we got to the ranch before any damage was done. We sure had trouble in finding a trace of you. Nick spotted the prints of your heels under the window. And then we knew. I had to fight the boys. If they’d come after you we’d never have gotten you without a fight. I didn’t want that. Old Bill came out packing a dozen guns. He was crazy. I had to rope Monty. Honest, I tied him to the porch. Nels and Nick promised to stay and hold him till morning. That was the best I could do. I was sure lucky to come up with the band so soon. I had figured right. I knew that guerrilla chief. He’s a bandit in Mexico. It’s a business with him. But he fought for Madero, and I was with him a good deal. He may be a Greaser, but he’s white.”

“How did you effect my release?”

“I offered them money. That’s what the rebels all want. They need money. They’re a lot of poor, hungry devils.”

“I gathered that you offered to pay ransom. How much?”

“Two thousand dollars Mex. I gave my word. I’ll have to take the money. I told them when and where I’d meet them.”

“Certainly. I’m glad I’ve got the money.” Madeline laughed. “What a strange thing to happen to me! I wonder what dad would say to that? Stewart, I’m afraid he’d say two thousand dollars is more than I’m worth. But tell me. That rebel chieftain did not demand money?”

“No. The money is for his men.”

“What did you say to him? I saw you whisper in his ear.”

Stewart dropped his head, averting her direct gaze.

“We were comrades before Juarez. One day I dragged him out of a ditch. I reminded him. Then I — I told him something I — I thought—”

“Stewart, I know from the way he looked at me that you spoke of me.”

Her companion did not offer a reply to this, and Madeline did not press the point.

“I heard Don Carlos’s name several times. That interests me. What have Don Carlos and his vaqueros to do with this?”

“That Greaser has all to do with it,” replied Stewart, grimly. “He burned his ranch and corrals to keep us from getting them. But he also did it to draw all the boys away from your home. They had a deep plot, all right. I left orders for some one to stay with you. But Al and Stillwell, who’re both hot-headed, rode off this morning. Then the guerrillas came down.”

“Well, what was the idea — the plot — as you call it?”

“To get you,” he said, bluntly.

“Me! Stewart, you do not mean my capture — whatever you call it — was anything more than mere accident?”

“I do mean that. But Stillwell and your brother think the guerrillas wanted money and arms, and they just happened to make off with you because you ran under a horse’s nose.”

“You do not incline to that point of view?”

“I don’t. Neither does Nels nor Nick Steele. And we know Don Carlos and the Greasers. Look how the vaqueros chased Flo for you!”

“What do you think, then?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“But, Stewart, I would like to know. If it is about me, surely I ought to know,” protested Madeline. “What reason have Nels and Nick to suspect Don Carlos of plotting to abduct me?”

“I suppose they’ve no reason you’d take. Once I heard Nels say he’d seen the Greaser look at you, and if he ever saw him do it again he’d shoot him.”

“Why, Stewart, that is ridiculous. To shoot a man for looking at a woman! This is a civilized country.”

“Well, maybe it would be ridiculous in a civilized country. There’s some things about civilization I don’t care for.”

“What, for instance?”

“For one thing, I can’t stand for the way men let other men treat women.”

“But, Stewart, this is strange talk from you, who, that night I came—”

She broke off, sorry that she had spoken. His shame was not pleasant to see. Suddenly he lifted his head, and she felt scorched by flaming eyes.

“Suppose I was drunk. Suppose I had met some ordinary girl. Suppose I had really made her marry me. Don’t you think I would have stopped being a drunkard and have been good to her?”

“Stewart, I do not know what to think about you,” replied Madeline.

Then followed a short silence. Madeline saw the last bright rays of the setting sun glide up over a distant crag. Stewart rebridled the horse and looked at the saddle-girths.

“I got off the trail. About Don Carlos I’ll say right out, not what Nels and Nick think, but what I know. Don Carlos hoped to make off with you for himself, the same as if you had been a poor peon slave-girl down in Sonora. Maybe he had a deeper plot than my rebel friend told me. Maybe he even went so far as to hope for American troops to chase him. The rebels are trying to stir up the United States. They’d welcome intervention. But, however that may be, the Greaser meant evil to you, and has meant it ever since he saw you first. That’s all.”

“Stewart, you have done me and my family a service we can never hope to repay.”

“I’ve done the service. Only don’t mention pay to me. But there’s one thing I’d like you to know, and I find it hard to say. It’s prompted, maybe, by what I know you think of me and what I imagine your family and friends would think if they knew. It’s not prompted by pride or conceit. And it’s this: Such a woman as you should never have come to this God-forsaken country unless she meant to forget herself. But as you did come, and as you were dragged away by those devils, I want you to know that all your wealth and position and influence — all that power behind you — would never have saved you from hell to-night. Only such a man as Nels or Nick Steele or I could have done that.”

Madeline Hammond felt the great leveling force of the truth. Whatever the difference between her and Stewart, or whatever the imagined difference set up by false standards of class and culture, the truth was that here on this wild mountain-side she was only a woman and he was simply a man. It was a man that she needed, and if her choice could have been considered in this extremity it would have fallen upon him who had just faced her in quiet, bitter speech. Here was food for thought.

“I reckon we’d better start now,” he said, and drew the horse close to a large rock. “Come.”

Madeline’s will greatly exceeded her strength. For the first time she acknowledged to herself that she had been hurt. Still, she did not feel much pain except when she moved her shoulder. Once in the saddle, where Stewart lifted her, she drooped weakly. The way was rough; every step the horse took hurt her; and the slope of the ground threw her forward on the pommel. Presently, as the slope grew rockier and her discomfort increased, she forgot everything except that she was suffering.

“Here is the trail,” said Stewart, at length.

Not far from that point Madeline swayed, and but for Stewart’s support would have fallen from the saddle. She heard him swear under his breath.

“Here, this won’t do,” he said. “Throw your leg over the pommel. The other one — there.”

Then, mounting, he slipped behind her and lifted and turned her, and then held her with his left arm so that she lay across the saddle and his knees, her head against his shoulder.

As the horse started into a rapid walk Madeline gradually lost all pain and discomfort when she relaxed her muscles. Presently she let herself go and lay inert, greatly to her relief. For a little while she seemed to be half drunk with the gentle swaying of a hammock. Her mind became at once dreamy and active, as if it thoughtfully recorded the slow, soft impressions pouring in from all her senses.

A red glow faded in the west. She could see out over the foothills, where twilight was settling gray on the crests, dark in the hollows. Cedar and pinyon trees lined the trail, and there were no more firs. At intervals huge drab-colored rocks loomed over her. The sky was clear and steely. A faint star twinkled. And lastly, close to her, she saw Stewart’s face, once more dark and impassive, with the inscrutable eyes fixed on the trail.

His arm, like a band of iron, held her, yet it was flexible and yielded her to the motion of the horse. One instant she felt the brawn, the bone, heavy and powerful; the next the stretch and ripple, the elasticity of muscles. He held her as easily as if she were a child. The roughness of his flannel shirt rubbed her cheek, and beneath that she felt the dampness of the scarf he had used to bathe her arm, and deeper still the regular pound of his heart. Against her ear, filling it with strong, vibrant beat, his heart seemed a mighty engine deep within a great cavern. Her head had never before rested on a man’s breast, and she had no liking for it there; but she felt more than the physical contact. The position was mysterious and fascinating, and something natural in it made her think of life. Then as the cool wind blew down from the heights, loosening her tumbled hair, she was compelled to see strands of it curl softly into Stewart’s face, before his eyes, across his lips. She was unable to reach it with her free hand, and therefore could not refasten it. And when she shut her eyes she felt those loosened strands playing against his cheeks.

In the keener press of such sensations she caught the smell of dust and a faint, wild, sweet tang on the air. There was a low, rustling sigh of wind in the brush along the trail. Suddenly the silence ripped apart to the sharp bark of a coyote, and then, from far away, came a long wail. And then Majesty’s metal-rimmed hoof rang on a stone.

These later things lent probability to that ride for Madeline. Otherwise it would have seemed like a dream. Even so it was hard to believe. Again she wondered if this woman who had begun to think and feel so much was Madeline Hammond. Nothing had ever happened to her. And here, playing about her like her hair played about Stewart’s face, was adventure, perhaps death, and surely life. She could not believe the evidence of the day’s happenings. Would any of her people, her friends, ever believe it? Could she tell it? How impossible to think that a cunning Mexican might have used her to further the interests of a forlorn revolution. She remembered the ghoulish visages of those starved rebels, and marveled at her blessed fortune in escaping them. She was safe, and now self-preservation had some meaning for her. Stewart’s arrival in the glade, the courage with which he had faced the outlawed men, grew as real to her now as the iron arm that clasped her. Had it been an instinct which had importuned her to save this man when he lay ill and hopeless in the shack at Chiricahua? In helping him had she hedged round her forces that had just operated to save her life, or if not that, more than life was to her? She believed so.

Madeline opened her eyes after a while and found that night had fallen. The sky was a dark, velvety blue blazing with white stars. The cool wind tugged at her hair, and through waving strands she saw Stewart’s profile, bold and sharp against the sky.

Then, as her mind succumbed to her bodily fatigue, again her situation became unreal and wild. A heavy languor, like a blanket, began to steal upon her. She wavered and drifted. With the last half-conscious sense of a muffled throb at her ear, a something intangibly sweet, deep-toned, and strange, like a distant calling bell, she fell asleep with her head on Stewart’s breast.

XII. Friends from the East

THREE DAYS AFTER her return to the ranch Madeline could not discover any physical discomfort as a reminder of her adventurous experiences. This surprised her, but not nearly so much as the fact that after a few weeks she found she scarcely remembered the adventures at all. If it had not been for the quiet and persistent guardianship of her cowboys she might almost have forgotten Don Carlos and the raiders. Madeline was assured of the splendid physical fitness to which this ranch life had developed her, and that she was assimilating something of the Western disregard of danger. A hard ride, an accident, a day in the sun and dust, an adventure with outlaws — these might once have been matters of large import, but now for Madeline they were in order with all the rest of her changed life.

There was never a day that something interesting was not brought to her notice. Stillwell, who had ceaselessly reproached himself for riding away the morning Madeline was captured, grew more like an anxious parent than a faithful superintendent. He was never at ease regarding her unless he was near the ranch or had left Stewart there, or else Nels and Nick Steele. Naturally, he trusted more to Stewart than to any one else.

“Miss Majesty, it’s sure amazin’ strange about Gene,” said the old cattleman, as he tramped into Madeline’s office.

“What’s the matter now?” she inquired.

“Wal, Gene has rustled off into the mountains again.”

“Again? I did not know he had gone. I gave him money for that band of guerrillas. Perhaps he went to take it to them.”

“No. He took that a day or so after he fetched you back home. Then in about a week he went a second time. An’ he packed some stuff with him. Now he’s sneaked off, an’ Nels, who was down to the lower trail, saw him meet somebody that looked like Padre Marcos. Wal, I went down to the church, and, sure enough, Padre Marcos is gone. What do you think of that, Miss Majesty?”

“Maybe Stewart is getting religious,” laughed Madeline. You told me so once.

Stillwell puffed and wiped his red face.

“If you’d heerd him cuss Monty this mawnin’ you’d never guess it was religion. Monty an’ Nels hev been givin’ Gene a lot of trouble lately. They’re both sore an’ in fightin’ mood ever since Don Carlos hed you kidnapped. Sure they’re goin’ to break soon, an’ then we’ll hev a couple of wild Texas steers ridin’ the range. I’ve a heap to worry me.”

“Let Stewart take his mysterious trips into the mountains. Here, Stillwell, I have news for you that may give you reason for worry. I have letters from home. And my sister, with a party of friends, is coming out to visit me. They are society folk, and one of them is an English lord.”

“Wal, Miss Majesty, I reckon we’ll all be glad to see them,” said Stillwell. “Onless they pack you off back East.”

“That isn’t likely,” replied Madeline, thoughtfully. “I must go back some time, though. Well, let me read you a few extracts from my mail.”

Madeline took up her sister’s letter with a strange sensation of how easily sight of a crested monogram and scent of delicately perfumed paper could recall the brilliant life she had given up. She scanned the pages of beautiful handwriting. Helen’s letter was in turn gay and brilliant and lazy, just as she was herself; but Madeline detected more of curiosity in it than of real longing to see the sister and brother in the Far West. Much of what Helen wrote was enthusiastic anticipation of the fun she expected to have with bashful cowboys. Helen seldom wrote letters, and she never read anything, not even popular novels of the day. She was as absolutely ignorant of the West as the Englishman, who, she said, expected to hunt buffalo and fight Indians. Moreover, there was a satiric note in the letter that Madeline did not like, and which roused her spirit. Manifestly, Helen was reveling in the prospect of new sensation.

When she finished reading aloud a few paragraphs the old cattleman snorted and his face grew redder.

“Did your sister write that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Wal, I — I beg pawdin, Miss Majesty. But it doesn’t seem like you. Does she think we’re a lot of wild men from Borneo?”

“Evidently she does. I rather think she is in for a surprise. Now, Stillwell, you are clever and you can see the situation. I want my guests to enjoy their stay here, but I do not want that to be at the expense of the feelings of all of us, or even any one. Helen will bring a lively crowd. They’ll crave excitement — the unusual. Let us see that they are not disappointed. You take the boys into your confidence. Tell them what to expect, and tell them how to meet it. I shall help you in that. I want the boys to be on dress-parade when they are off duty. I want them to be on their most elegant behavior. I do not care what they do, what measures they take to protect themselves, what tricks they contrive, so long as they do not overstep the limit of kindness and courtesy. I want them to play their parts seriously, naturally, as if they had lived no other way. My guests expect to have fun. Let us meet them with fun. Now what do you say?”

Stillwell rose, his great bulk towering, his huge face beaming.

“Wal, I say it’s the most amazin’ fine idee I ever heerd in my life.”

“Indeed, I am glad you like it,” went on Madeline.

“Come to me again, Stillwell, after you have spoken to the boys. But, now that I have suggested it, I am a little afraid. You know what cowboy fun is. Perhaps—”

“Don’t you go back on that idee,” interrupted Stillwell. He was assuring and bland, but his hurry to convince Madeline betrayed him. “Leave the boys to me. Why, don’t they all swear by you, same as the Mexicans do to the Virgin? They won’t disgrace you, Miss Majesty. They’ll be simply immense. It’ll beat any show you ever seen.”

“I believe it will,” replied Madeline. She was still doubtful of her plan, but the enthusiasm of the old cattleman was infectious and irresistible. “Very well, we will consider it settled. My guests will arrive on May ninth. Meanwhile let us get Her Majesty’s Rancho in shape for this invasion.”

* * *

On the afternoon of the ninth of May, perhaps half an hour after Madeline had received a telephone message from Link Stevens announcing the arrival of her guests at El Cajon, Florence called her out upon the porch. Stillwell was there with his face wrinkled by his wonderful smile and his eagle eyes riveted upon the distant valley. Far away, perhaps twenty miles, a thin streak of white dust rose from the valley floor and slanted skyward.

“Look!” said Florence, excitedly.

“What is that?” asked Madeline.

“Link Stevens and the automobile!”

“Oh no! Why, it’s only a few minutes since he telephoned saying the party had just arrived.”

“Take a look with the glasses,” said Florence.

One glance through the powerful binoculars convinced Madeline that Florence was right. And another glance at Stillwell told her that he was speechless with delight. She remembered a little conversation she had had with Link Stevens a short while previous.

“Stevens, I hope the car is in good shape,” she had said. “Now, Miss Hammond, she’s as right as the best-trained hoss I ever rode,” he had replied.

“The valley road is perfect,” she had gone on, musingly. “I never saw such a beautiful road, even in France. No fences, no ditches, no rocks, no vehicles. Just a lonely road on the desert.”

“Shore, it’s lonely,” Stevens had answered, with slowly brightening eyes. “An’ safe, Miss Hammond.”

“My sister used to like fast riding. If I remember correctly, all of my guests were a little afflicted with the speed mania. It is a common disease with New-Yorkers. I hope, Stevens, that you will not give them reason to think we are altogether steeped in the slow, dreamy manana languor of the Southwest.”

Link doubtfully eyed her, and then his bronze face changed its dark aspect and seemed to shine.

“Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Hammond, thet’s shore tall talk fer Link Stevens to savvy. You mean — as long as I drive careful an’ safe I can run away from my dust, so to say, an’ get here in somethin’ less than the Greaser’s to-morrow?”

Madeline had laughed her assent. And now, as she watched the thin streak of dust, at that distance moving with snail pace, she reproached herself. She trusted Stevens; she had never known so skilful, daring, and iron-nerved a driver as he was. If she had been in the car herself she would have had no anxiety. But, imagining what Stevens would do on forty miles and more of that desert road, Madeline suffered a prick of conscience.

“Oh, Stillwell!” she exclaimed. “I am afraid I will go back on my wonderful idea. What made me do it?”

“Your sister wanted the real thing, didn’t she? Said they all wanted it. Wal, I reckon they’ve begun gettin’ it,” replied Stillwell.

That statement from the cattleman allayed Madeline’s pangs of conscience. She understood just what she felt, though she could not have put it in words. She was hungry for a sight of well-remembered faces; she longed to hear the soft laughter and gay repartee of old friends; she was eager for gossipy first-hand news of her old world. Nevertheless, something in her sister’s letter, in messages from the others who were coming, had touched Madeline’s pride. In one sense the expected guests were hostile, inasmuch as they were scornful and curious about the West that had claimed her. She imagined what they would expect in a Western ranch. They would surely get the real thing, too, as Stillwell said; and in that certainty was satisfaction for a small grain of something within Madeline which approached resentment. She wistfully wondered, however, if her sister or friends would come to see the West even a little as she saw it. That, perhaps, would he hoping too much. She resolved once for all to do her best to give them the sensation their senses craved, and equally to show them the sweetness and beauty and wholesomeness and strength of life in the Southwest.

“Wal, as Nels says, I wouldn’t be in that there ottomobile right now for a million pesos,” remarked Stillwell.

“Why? Is Stevens driving fast?”

“Good Lord! Fast? Miss Majesty, there hain’t ever been anythin’ except a streak of lightnin’ run so fast in this country. I’ll bet Link for once is in heaven. I can jest see him now, the grim, crooked-legged little devil, hunchin’ down over that wheel as if it was a hoss’s neck.”

“I told him not to let the ride be hot or dusty,” remarked Madeline.

“Haw, haw!” roared Stillwell. “Wal, I’ll be goin’. I reckon I’d like to be hyar when Link drives up, but I want to be with the boys down by the bunks. It’ll be some fun to see Nels an’ Monty when Link comes flyin’ along.”

“I wish Al had stayed to meet them,” said Madeline.

Her brother had rather hurried a shipment of cattle to California: and it was Madeline’s supposition that he had welcomed the opportunity to absent himself from the ranch.

“I am sorry he wouldn’t stay,” replied Florence. “But Al’s all business now. And he’s doing finely. It’s just as well, perhaps.”

“Surely. That was my pride speaking. I would like to have all my family and all my old friends see what a man Al has become. Well, Link Stevens is running like the wind. The car will be here before we know it. Florence, we’ve only a few moments to dress. But first I want to order many and various and exceedingly cold refreshments for that approaching party.”

Less than a half-hour later Madeline went again to the porch and found Florence there.

“Oh, you look just lovely!” exclaimed Florence, impulsively, as she gazed wide-eyed up at Madeline. “And somehow so different!”

Madeline smiled a little sadly. Perhaps when she had put on that exquisite white gown something had come to her of the manner which befitted the wearing of it. She could not resist the desire to look fair once more in the eyes of these hypercritical friends. The sad smile had been for the days that were gone. For she knew that what society had once been pleased to call her beauty had trebled since it had last been seen in a drawing-room. Madeline wore no jewels, but at her waist she had pinned two great crimson roses. Against the dead white they had the life and fire and redness of the desert.

“Link’s hit the old round-up trail,” said Florence, “and oh, isn’t he riding that car!”

With Florence, as with most of the cowboys, the car was never driven, but ridden.

A white spot with a long trail of dust showed low down in the valley. It was now headed almost straight for the ranch. Madeline watched it growing larger moment by moment, and her pleasurable emotion grew accordingly. Then the rapid beat of a horse’s hoofs caused her to turn.

Stewart was riding in on his black horse. He had been absent on an important mission, and his duty had taken him to the international boundary-line. His presence home long before he was expected was particularly gratifying to Madeline, for it meant that his mission had been brought to a successful issue. Once more, for the hundredth time, the man’s reliability struck Madeline. He was a doer of things. The black horse halted wearily without the usual pound of hoofs on the gravel, and the dusty rider dismounted wearily. Both horse and rider showed the heat and dust and wind of many miles.

Madeline advanced to the porch steps. And Stewart, after taking a parcel of papers from a saddle-bag, turned toward her.

“Stewart, you are the best of couriers,” she said. “I am pleased.”

Dust streamed from his sombrero as he doffed it. His dark face seemed to rise as he straightened weary shoulders.

“Here are the reports, Miss Hammond,” he replied.

As he looked up to see her standing there, dressed to receive her Eastern guests, he checked his advance with a violent action which recalled to Madeline the one he had made on the night she had met him, when she disclosed her identity. It was not fear nor embarrassment nor awkwardness. And it was only momentary. Yet, slight as had been his pause, Madeline received from it an impression of some strong halting force. A man struck by a bullet might have had an instant jerk of muscular control such as convulsed Stewart. In that instant, as her keen gaze searched his dust-caked face, she met the full, free look of his eyes. Her own did not fall, though she felt a warmth steal to her cheeks. Madeline very seldom blushed. And now, conscious of her sudden color a genuine blush flamed on her face. It was irritating because it was incomprehensible. She received the papers from Stewart and thanked him. He bowed, then led the black down the path toward the corrals.

“When Stewart looks like that he’s been riding,” said Florence. “But when his horse looks like that he’s sure been burning the wind.”

Madeline watched the weary horse and rider limp down the path. What had made her thoughtful? Mostly it was something new or sudden or inexplicable that stirred her mind to quick analysis. In this instance the thing that had struck Madeline was Stewart’s glance. He had looked at her, and the old burning, inscrutable fire, the darkness, had left his eyes. Suddenly they had been beautiful. The look had not been one of surprise or admiration; nor had it been one of love. She was familiar, too familiar with all three. It had not been a gaze of passion, for there was nothing beautiful in that. Madeline pondered. And presently she realized that Stewart’s eyes had expressed a strange joy of pride. That expression Madeline had never before encountered in the look of any man. Probably its strangeness had made her notice it and accounted for her blushing. The longer she lived among these outdoor men the more they surprised her. Particularly, how incomprehensible was this cowboy Stewart! Why should he have pride or joy at sight of her?

Florence’s exclamation made Madeline once more attend to the approaching automobile. It was on the slope now, some miles down the long gradual slant. Two yellow funnel-shaped clouds of dust seemed to shoot out from behind the car and roll aloft to join the column that stretched down the valley.

“I wonder what riding a mile a minute would be like,” said Florence. “I’ll sure make Link take me. Oh, but look at him come!”

The giant car resembled a white demon, and but for the dust would have appeared to be sailing in the air. Its motion was steadily forward, holding to the road as if on rails. And its velocity was astounding. Long, gray veils, like pennants, streamed in the wind. A low rushing sound became perceptible, and it grew louder, became a roar. The car shot like an arrow past the alfalfa-field, by the bunk-houses, where the cowboys waved and cheered. The horses and burros in the corrals began to snort and tramp and race in fright. At the base of the long slope of the foothill Link cut the speed more than half. Yet the car roared up, rolling the dust, flying capes and veils and ulsters, and crashed and cracked to a halt in the yard before the porch.

Madeline descried a gray, disheveled mass of humanity packed inside the car. Besides the driver there were seven occupants, and for a moment they appeared to be coming to life, moving and exclaiming under the veils and wraps and dust-shields.

Link Stevens stepped out and, removing helmet and goggles, coolly looked at his watch.

“An hour an’ a quarter, Miss Hammond,” he said. “It’s sixty-three miles by the valley road, an’ you know there’s a couple of bad hills. I reckon we made fair time, considerin’ you wanted me to drive slow an’ safe.”

From the mass of dusty-veiled humanity in the car came low exclamations and plaintive feminine wails.

Madeline stepped to the front of the porch. Then the deep voices of men and softer voices of women united in one glad outburst, as much a thanksgiving as a greeting, “MAJESTY!”

Helen Hammond was three years younger than Madeline, and a slender, pretty girl. She did not resemble her sister, except in whiteness and fineness of skin, being more of a brown-eyed, brown-haired type. Having recovered her breath soon after Madeline took her to her room, she began to talk.

“Majesty, old girl, I’m here; but you can bet I would never have gotten here if I had known about that ride from the railroad. You never wrote that you had a car. I thought this was out West — stage-coach, and all that sort of thing. Such a tremendous car! And the road! And that terrible little man with the leather trousers! What kind of a chauffeur is he?”

“He’s a cowboy. He was crippled by falling under his horse, so I had him instructed to run the car. He can drive, don’t you think?”

“Drive? Good gracious! He scared us to death, except Castleton. Nothing could scare that cold-blooded little Englishman. I am dizzy yet. Do you know, Majesty, I was delighted when I saw the car. Then your cowboy driver met us at the platform. What a queer-looking individual! He had a big pistol strapped to those leather trousers. That made me nervous. When he piled us all in with our grips, he put me in the seat beside him, whether I liked it or not. I was fool enough to tell him I loved to travel fast. What do you think he said? Well, he eyed me in a rather cool and speculative way and said, with a smile, ‘Miss, I reckon anything you love an’ want bad will be coming to you out here!’ I didn’t know whether it was delightful candor or impudence. Then he said to all of us: ‘Shore you had better wrap up in the veils an’ dusters. It’s a long, slow, hot, dusty ride to the ranch, an’ Miss Hammond’s order was to drive safe.’ He got our baggage checks and gave them to a man with a huge wagon and a four-horse team. Then he cranked the car, jumped in, wrapped his arms round the wheel, and sank down low in his seat. There was a crack, a jerk, a kind of flash around us, and that dirty little town was somewhere on the map behind. For about five minutes I had a lovely time. Then the wind began to tear me to pieces. I couldn’t hear anything but the rush of wind and roar of the car. I could see only straight ahead. What a road! I never saw a road in my life till to-day. Miles and miles and miles ahead, with not even a post or tree. That big car seemed to leap at the miles. It hummed and sang. I was fascinated, then terrified. We went so fast I couldn’t catch my breath. The wind went through me, and I expected to be disrobed by it any minute. I was afraid I couldn’t hold any clothes on. Presently all I could see was a flashing gray wall with a white line in the middle. Then my eyes blurred. My face burned. My ears grew full of a hundred thousand howling devils. I was about ready to die when the car stopped. I looked and looked, and when I could see, there you stood!”

“Helen, I thought you were fond of speeding,” said Madeline, with a laugh.

“I was. But I assure you I never before was in a fast car; I never saw a road; I never met a driver.”

“Perhaps I may have a few surprises for you out here in the wild and woolly West.”

Helen’s dark eyes showed a sister’s memory of possibilities.

“You’ve started well,” she said. “I am simply stunned. I expected to find you old and dowdy. Majesty, you’re the handsomest thing I ever laid eyes on. You’re so splendid and strong, and your skin is like white gold. What’s happened to you? What’s changed you? This beautiful room, those glorious roses out there, the cool, dark sweetness of this wonderful house! I know you, Majesty, and, though you never wrote it, I believe you have made a home out here. That’s the most stunning surprise of all. Come, confess. I know I’ve always been selfish and not much of a sister; but if you are happy out here I am glad. You were not happy at home. Tell me about yourself and about Alfred. Then I shall give you all the messages and news from the East.”

It afforded Madeline exceeding pleasure to have from one and all of her guests varied encomiums of her beautiful home, and a real and warm interest in what promised to be a delightful and memorable visit.

Of them all Castleton was the only one who failed to show surprise. He greeted her precisely as he had when he had last seen her in London. Madeline, rather to her astonishment, found meeting him again pleasurable. She discovered she liked this imperturbable Englishman. Manifestly her capacity for liking any one had immeasurably enlarged. Quite unexpectedly her old girlish love for her younger sister sprang into life, and with it interest in these half-forgotten friends, and a warm regard for Edith Wayne, a chum of college days.

Helen’s party was smaller than Madeline had expected it to be. Helen had been careful to select a company of good friends, all of whom were well known to Madeline. Edith Wayne was a patrician brunette, a serious, soft-voiced woman, sweet and kindly, despite a rather bitter experience that had left her worldly wise. Mrs. Carrollton Beck, a plain, lively person, had chaperoned the party. The fourth and last of the feminine contingent was Miss Dorothy Coombs — Dot, as they called her — a young woman of attractive blond prettiness.

For a man Castleton was of very small stature. He had a pink-and-white complexion, a small golden mustache, and his heavy eyelids, always drooping, made him look dull. His attire, cut to what appeared to be an exaggerated English style, attracted attention to his diminutive size. He was immaculate and fastidious. Robert Weede was a rather large florid young man, remarkable only for his good nature. Counting Boyd Harvey, a handsome, pale-faced fellow, with the careless smile of the man for whom life had been easy and pleasant, the party was complete.

Dinner was a happy hour, especially for the Mexican women who served it and who could not fail to note its success. The mingling of low voices and laughter, the old, gay, superficial talk, the graciousness of a class which lived for the pleasure of things and to make time pass pleasurably for others — all took Madeline far back into the past. She did not care to return to it, but she saw that it was well she had not wholly cut herself off from her people and friends.

When the party adjourned to the porch the heat had markedly decreased and the red sun was sinking over the red desert. An absence of spoken praise, a gradually deepening silence, attested to the impression on the visitors of that noble sunset. Just as the last curve of red rim vanished beyond the dim Sierra Madres and the golden lightning began to flare brighter Helen broke the silence with an exclamation.

“It wants only life. Ah, there’s a horse climbing the hill! See, he’s up! He has a rider!”

Madeline knew before she looked the identity of the man riding up the mesa. But she did not know until that moment how the habit of watching for him at this hour had grown upon her. He rode along the rim of the mesa and out to the point, where, against the golden background, horse and rider stood silhouetted in bold relief.

“What’s he doing there? Who is he?” inquired the curious Helen.

“That is Stewart, my right-hand man,” replied Madeline. “Every day when he is at the ranch he rides up there at sunset. I think he likes the ride and the scene; but he goes to take a look at the cattle in the valley.”

“Is he a cowboy?” asked Helen.

“Indeed yes!” replied Madeline, with a little laugh. “You will think so when Stillwell gets hold of you and begins to talk.”

Madeline found it necessary to explain who Stillwell was, and what he thought of Stewart, and, while she was about it, of her own accord she added a few details of Stewart’s fame.

“El Capitan. How interesting!” mused Helen. “What does he look like?”

“He is superb.”

Florence handed the field-glass to Helen and bade her look.

“Oh, thank you!” said Helen, as she complied. “There. I see him. Indeed, he is superb. What a magnificent horse! How still he stands! Why, he seems carved in stone.”

“Let me look?” said Dorothy Coombs, eagerly.

Helen gave her the glass.

“You can look, Dot, but that’s all. He’s mine. I saw him first.”

Whereupon Madeline’s feminine guests held a spirited contest over the field-glass, and three of them made gay, bantering boasts not to consider Helen’s self-asserted rights. Madeline laughed with the others while she watched the dark figure of Stewart and his black outline against the sky. There came over her a thought not by any means new or strange — she wondered what was in Stewart’s mind as he stood there in the solitude and faced the desert and the darkening west. Some day she meant to ask him. Presently he turned the horse and rode down into the shadow creeping up the mesa.

“Majesty, have you planned any fun, any excitement for us?” asked Helen. She was restless, nervous, and did not seem to be able to sit still a moment.

“You will think so when I get through with you,” replied Madeline.

“What, for instance?” inquired Helen and Dot and Mrs. Beck, in unison. Edith Wayne smiled her interest.

“Well, I am not counting rides and climbs and golf; but these are necessary to train you for trips over into Arizona. I want to show you the desert and the Aravaipa Canyon. We have to go on horseback and pack our outfit. If any of you are alive after those trips and want more we shall go up into the mountains. I should like very much to know what you each want particularly.”

“I’ll tell you,” replied Helen, promptly. “Dot will be the same out here as she was in the East. She wants to look bashfully down at her hand — a hand imprisoned in another, by the way — and listen to a man talk poetry about her eyes. If cowboys don’t make love that way Dot’s visit will be a failure. Now Elsie Beck wants solely to be revenged upon us for dragging her out here. She wants some dreadful thing to happen to us. I don’t know what’s in Edith’s head, but it isn’t fun. Bobby wants to be near Elsie, and no more. Boyd wants what he has always wanted — the only thing he ever wanted that he didn’t get. Castleton has a horrible bloodthirsty desire to kill something.”

“I declare now, I want to ride and camp out, also,” protested Castleton.

“As for myself,” went on Helen, “I want — Oh, if I only knew what it is that I want! Well, I know I want to be outdoors, to get into the open, to feel sun and wind, to burn some color into my white face. I want some flesh and blood and life. I am tired out. Beyond all that I don’t know very well. I’ll try to keep Dot from attaching all the cowboys to her train.”

“What a diversity of wants!” said Madeline.

“Above all, Majesty, we want something to happen,” concluded Helen, with passionate finality.

“My dear sister, maybe you will have your wish fulfilled,” replied Madeline, soberly. “Edith, Helen has made me curious about your especial yearning.”

“Majesty, it is only that I wanted to be with you for a while,” replied this old friend.

There was in the wistful reply, accompanied by a dark and eloquent glance of eyes, what told Madeline of Edith’s understanding, of her sympathy, and perhaps a betrayal of her own unquiet soul. It saddened Madeline. How many women might there not be who had the longing to break down the bars of their cage, but had not the spirit!

XIII. Cowboy Golf

IN THE WHIRL of the succeeding days it was a mooted question whether Madeline’s guests or her cowboys or herself got the keenest enjoyment out of the flying time. Considering the sameness of the cowboys’ ordinary life, she was inclined to think they made the most of the present. Stillwell and Stewart, however, had found the situation trying. The work of the ranch had to go on, and some of it got sadly neglected. Stillwell could not resist the ladies any more than he could resist the fun in the extraordinary goings-on of the cowboys. Stewart alone kept the business of cattle-raising from a serious setback. Early and late he was in the saddle, driving the lazy Mexicans whom he had hired to relieve the cowboys.

One morning in June Madeline was sitting on the porch with her merry friends when Stillwell appeared on the corral path. He had not come to consult Madeline for several days — an omission so unusual as to be remarked.

“Here comes Bill — in trouble,” laughed Florence.

Indeed, he bore some faint resemblance to a thundercloud as he approached the porch; but the greetings he got from Madeline’s party, especially from Helen and Dorothy, chased away the blackness from his face and brought the wonderful wrinkling smile.

“Miss Majesty, sure I’m a sad demoralized old cattleman,” he said, presently. “An’ I’m in need of a heap of help.”

“What’s wrong now?” asked Madeline, with her encouraging smile.

“Wal, it’s so amazin’ strange what cowboys will do. I jest am about to give up. Why, you might say my cowboys were all on strike for vacations. What do you think of that? We’ve changed the shifts, shortened hours, let one an’ another off duty, hired Greasers, an’, in fact, done everythin’ that could be thought of. But this vacation idee growed worse. When Stewart set his foot down, then the boys begin to get sick. Never in my born days as a cattleman have I heerd of so many diseases. An’ you ought to see how lame an’ crippled an’ weak many of the boys have got all of a sudden. The idee of a cowboy comin’ to me with a sore finger an’ askin’ to be let off for a day! There’s Booly. Now I’ve knowed a hoss to fall all over him, an’ onct he rolled down a canyon. Never bothered him at all. He’s got a blister on his heel, a ridin’ blister, an’ he says it’s goin’ to blood-poisonin’ if he doesn’t rest. There’s Jim Bell. He’s developed what he says is spinal mengalootis, or some such like. There’s Frankie Slade. He swore he had scarlet fever because his face burnt so red, I guess, an’ when I hollered that scarlet fever was contagious an’ he must be put away somewhere, he up an’ says he guessed it wasn’t that. But he was sure awful sick an’ needed to loaf around an’ be amused. Why, even Nels doesn’t want to work these days. If it wasn’t for Stewart, who’s had Greasers with the cattle, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“Why all this sudden illness and idleness?” asked Madeline.

“Wal, you see, the truth is every blamed cowboy on the range except Stewart thinks it’s his bounden duty to entertain the ladies.”

“I think that is just fine!” exclaimed Dorothy Coombs; and she joined in the general laugh.

“Stewart, then, doesn’t care to help entertain us?” inquired Helen, in curious interest. “Wal, Miss Helen, Stewart is sure different from the other cowboys,” replied Stillwell. “Yet he used to be like them. There never was a cowboy fuller of the devil than Gene. But he’s changed. He’s foreman here, an’ that must be it. All the responsibility rests on him. He sure has no time for amusin’ the ladies.”

“I imagine that is our loss,” said Edith Wayne, in her earnest way. “I admire him.”

“Stillwell, you need not be so distressed with what is only gallantry in the boys, even if it does make a temporary confusion in the work,” said Madeline.

“Miss Majesty, all I said is not the half, nor the quarter, nor nuthin’ of what’s troublin’ me,” answered he, sadly.

“Very well; unburden yourself.”

“Wal, the cowboys, exceptin’ Gene, have gone plumb batty, jest plain crazy over this heah game of gol-lof.”

A merry peal of mirth greeted Stillwell’s solemn assertion.

“Oh, Stillwell, you are in fun,” replied Madeline.

“I hope to die if I’m not in daid earnest,” declared the cattleman. “It’s an amazin’ strange fact. Ask Flo. She’ll tell you. She knows cowboys, an’ how if they ever start on somethin’ they ride it as they ride a hoss.”

Florence being appealed to, and evidently feeling all eyes upon her, modestly replied that Stillwell had scarcely misstated the situation.

“Cowboys play like they work or fight,” she added. “They give their whole souls to it. They are great big simple boys.”

“Indeed they are,” said Madeline. “Oh, I’m glad if they like the game of golf. They have so little play.”

“Wal, somethin’s got to be did if we’re to go on raisin’ cattle at Her Majesty’s Rancho,” replied Stillwell. He appeared both deliberate and resigned.

Madeline remembered that despite Stillwell’s simplicity he was as deep as any of his cowboys, and there was absolutely no gaging him where possibilities of fun were concerned. Madeline fancied that his exaggerated talk about the cowboys’ sudden craze for golf was in line with certain other remarkable tales that had lately emanated from him. Some very strange things had occurred of late, and it was impossible to tell whether or not they were accidents, mere coincidents, or deep-laid, skilfully worked-out designs of the fun-loving cowboys. Certainly there had been great fun, and at the expense of her guests, particularly Castleton. So Madeline was at a loss to know what to think about Stillwell’s latest elaboration. From mere force of habit she sympathized with him and found difficulty in doubting his apparent sincerity.

“To go back a ways,” went on Stillwell, as Madeline looked up expectantly, “you recollect what pride the boys took in fixin’ up that gol-lof course out on the mesa? Wal, they worked on that job, an’ though I never seen any other course, I’ll gamble yours can’t be beat. The boys was sure curious about that game. You recollect also how they all wanted to see you an’ your brother play, an’ be caddies for you? Wal, whenever you’d quit they’d go to work tryin’ to play the game. Monty Price, he was the leadin’ spirit. Old as I am, Miss Majesty, an’ used as I am to cowboy excentrikities, I nearly dropped daid when I heered that little hobble-footed, burned-up Montana cow-puncher say there wasn’t any game too swell for him, an’ gol-lof was just his speed. Serious as a preacher, mind you, he was. An’ he was always practisin’. When Stewart gave him charge of the course an’ the club-house an’ all them funny sticks, why, Monty was tickled to death. You see, Monty is sensitive that he ain’t much good any more for cowboy work. He was glad to have a job that he didn’t feel he was hangin’ to by kindness. Wal, he practised the game, an’ he read the books in the club-house, an’ he got the boys to doin’ the same. That wasn’t very hard, I reckon. They played early an’ late an’ in the moonlight. For a while Monty was coach, an’ the boys stood it. But pretty soon Frankie Slade got puffed on his game, an’ he had to have it out with Monty. Wal, Monty beat him bad. Then one after another the other boys tackled Monty. He beat them all. After that they split up an’ begin to play matches, two on a side. For a spell this worked fine. But cowboys can’t never be satisfied long onless they win all the time. Monty an’ Link Stevens, both cripples, you might say, joined forces an’ elected to beat all comers. Wal, they did, an’ that’s the trouble. Long an’ patient the other cowboys tried to beat them two game legs, an’ hevn’t done it. Mebbe if Monty an’ Link was perfectly sound in their legs like the other cowboys there wouldn’t hev been such a holler. But no sound cowboys’ll ever stand for a disgrace like that. Why, down at the bunks in the evenin’s it’s some mortifyin’ the way Monty an’ Link crow over the rest of the outfit. They’ve taken on superior airs. You couldn’t reach up to Monty with a trimmed spruce pole. An’ Link — wal, he’s just amazin’ scornful.

“‘It’s a swell game, ain’t it?’ says Link, powerful sarcastic. ‘Wal, what’s hurtin’ you low-down common cowmen? You keep harpin’ on Monty’s game leg an’ on my game leg. If we hed good legs we’d beat you all the wuss. It’s brains that wins in gol-lof. Brains an’ airstoocratik blood, which of the same you fellers sure hev little.’

“An’ then Monty he blows smoke powerful careless an’ superior, an’ he says:

“‘Sure it’s a swell game. You cow-headed gents think beef an’ brawn ought to hev the call over skill an’ gray matter. You’ll all hev to back up an’ get down. Go out an’ learn the game. You don’t know a baffy from a Chinee sandwich. All you can do is waggle with a club an’ fozzle the ball.’

“Whenever Monty gets to usin’ them queer names the boys go round kind of dotty. Monty an’ Link hev got the books an’ directions of the game, an’ they won’t let the other boys see them. They show the rules, but that’s all. An’, of course, every game ends in a row almost before it’s started. The boys are all turrible in earnest about this gol-lof. An’ I want to say, for the good of ranchin’, not to mention a possible fight, that Monty an’ Link hev got to be beat. There’ll be no peace round this ranch till that’s done.”

Madeline’s guests were much amused. As for herself, in spite of her scarcely considered doubt, Stillwell’s tale of woe occasioned her anxiety. However, she could hardly control her mirth.

“What in the world can I do?”

“Wal, I reckon I couldn’t say. I only come to you for advice. It seems that a queer kind of game has locoed my cowboys, an’ for the time bein’ ranchin’ is at a standstill. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but cowboys are as strange as wild cattle. All I’m sure of is that the conceit has got to be taken out of Monty an’ Link. Onct, just onct, will square it, an’ then we can resoome our work.”

“Stillwell, listen,” said Madeline, brightly. “We’ll arrange a match game, a foursome, between Monty and Link and your best picked team. Castleton, who is an expert golfer, will umpire. My sister, and friends, and I will take turns as caddies for your team. That will be fair, considering yours is the weaker. Caddies may coach, and perhaps expert advice is all that is necessary for your team to defeat Monty’s.”

“A grand idee,” declared Stillwell, with instant decision. “When can we have this match game?”

“Why, to-day — this afternoon. We’ll all ride out to the links.”

“Wal, I reckon I’ll be some indebted to you, Miss Majesty, an’ all your guests,” replied Stillwell, warmly. He rose with sombrero in hand, and a twinkle in his eye that again prompted Madeline to wonder. “An’ now I’ll be goin’ to fix up for the game of cowboy gol-lof. Adios.”

The idea was as enthusiastically received by Madeline’s guests as it had been by Stillwell. They were highly amused and speculative to the point of taking sides and making wagers on their choice. Moreover, this situation so frankly revealed by Stillwell had completed their deep mystification. They were now absolutely nonplussed by the singular character of American cowboys. Madeline was pleased to note how seriously they had taken the old cattleman’s story. She had a little throb of wild expectancy that made her both fear and delight in the afternoon’s prospect.

The June days had set in warm; in fact, hot during the noon hours: and this had inculcated in her insatiable visitors a tendency to profit by the experience of those used to the Southwest. They indulged in the restful siesta during the heated term of the day.

Madeline was awakened by Majesty’s well-known whistle and pounding on the gravel. Then she heard the other horses. When she went out she found her party assembled in gala golf attire, and with spirits to match their costumes. Castleton, especially, appeared resplendent in a golf coat that beggared description. Madeline had faint misgivings when she reflected on what Monty and Nels and Nick might do under the influence of that blazing garment.

“Oh. Majesty,” cried Helen, as Madeline went up to her horse, “don’t make him kneel! Try that flying mount. We all want to see it. It’s so stunning.”

“But that way, too, I must have him kneel,” said Madeline, “or I can’t reach the stirrup. He’s so tremendously high.”

Madeline had to yield to the laughing insistence of her friends, and after all of them except Florence were up she made Majesty go down on one knee. Then she stood on his left side, facing back, and took a good firm grip on the bridle and pommel and his mane. After she had slipped the toe of her boot firmly into the stirrup she called to Majesty. He jumped and swung her up into the saddle.

“Now just to see how it ought to be done watch Florence,” said Madeline.

The Western girl was at her best in riding-habit and with her horse. It was beautiful to see the ease and grace with which she accomplished the cowboys’ flying mount. Then she led the party down the slope and across the flat to climb the mesa.

Madeline never saw a group of her cowboys without looking them over, almost unconsciously, for her foreman, Gene Stewart. This afternoon, as usual, he was not present. However, she now had a sense — of which she was wholly conscious — that she was both disappointed and irritated. He had really not been attentive to her guests, and he, of all her cowboys, was the one of whom they wanted most to see something. Helen, particularly, had asked to have him attend the match. But Stewart was with the cattle. Madeline thought of his faithfulness, and was ashamed of her momentary lapse into that old imperious habit of desiring things irrespective of reason.

Stewart, however, immediately slipped out of her mind as she surveyed the group of cowboys on the links. By actual count there were sixteen, not including Stillwell. And the same number of splendid horses, all shiny and clean, grazed on the rim in the care of Mexican lads. The cowboys were on dress-parade, looking very different in Madeline’s eyes, at least, from the way cowboys usually appeared. But they were real and natural to her guests; and they were so picturesque that they might have been stage cowboys instead of real ones. Sombreros with silver buckles and horsehair bands were in evidence; and bright silk scarfs, embroidered vests, fringed and ornamented chaps, huge swinging guns, and clinking silver spurs lent a festive appearance.

Madeline and her party were at once eagerly surrounded by the cowboys, and she found it difficult to repress a smile. If these cowboys were still remarkable to her, what must they be to her guests?

“Wal, you-all raced over, I seen,” said Stillwell, taking Madeline’s bridle. “Get down — get down. We’re sure amazin’ glad an’ proud. An’, Miss Majesty, I’m offerin’ to beg pawdin for the way the boys are packin’ guns. Mebbe it ain’t polite. But it’s Stewart’s orders.”

“Stewart’s orders!” echoed Madeline. Her friends were suddenly silent.

“I reckon he won’t take no chances on the boys bein’ surprised sudden by raiders. An’ there’s raiders operatin’ in from the Guadalupes. That’s all. Nothin’ to worry over. I was just explainin’.”

Madeline, with several of her party, expressed relief, but Helen showed excitement and then disappointment.

“Oh, I want something to happen!” she cried.

Sixteen pairs of keen cowboy eyes fastened intently upon her pretty, petulant face; and Madeline divined, if Helen did not, that the desired consummation was not far off.

“So do I,” said Dot Coombs. “It would be perfectly lovely to have a real adventure.”

The gaze of the sixteen cowboys shifted and sought the demure face of this other discontented girl. Madeline laughed, and Stillwell wore his strange, moving smile.

“Wal, I reckon you ladies sure won’t have to go home unhappy,” he said. “Why, as boss of this heah outfit I’d feel myself disgraced forever if you didn’t have your wish. Just wait. An’ now, ladies, the matter on hand may not be amusin’ or excitin’ to you; but to this heah cowboy outfit it’s powerful important. An’ all the help you can give us will sure be thankfully received. Take a look across the links. Do you-all see them two apologies for human bein’s prancin’ like a couple of hobbled broncs? Wal, you’re gazin’ at Monty Price an’ Link Stevens, who have of a sudden got too swell to associate with their old bunkies. They’re practisin’ for the toornament. They don’t want my boys to see how they handle them crooked clubs.”

“Have you picked your team?” inquired Madeline.

Stillwell mopped his red face with an immense bandana, and showed something of confusion and perplexity.

“I’ve sixteen boys, an’ they all want to play,” he replied. “Pickin’ the team ain’t goin’ to be an easy job. Mebbe it won’t be healthy, either. There’s Nels and Nick. They just stated cheerful-like that if they didn’t play we won’t have any game at all. Nick never tried before, an’ Nels, all he wants is to get a crack at Monty with one of them crooked clubs.”

“I suggest you let all your boys drive from the tee and choose the two who drive the farthest,” said Madeline.

Stillwell’s perplexed face lighted up.

“Wal, that’s a plumb good idee. The boys’ll stand for that.”

Wherewith he broke up the admiring circle of cowboys round the ladies.

“Grap a rope — I mean a club — all you cow-punchers, an’ march over hyar an’ take a swipe at this little white bean.”

The cowboys obeyed with alacrity. There was considerable difficulty over the choice of clubs and who should try first. The latter question had to be adjusted by lot. However, after Frankie Slade made several ineffectual attempts to hit the ball from the teeing-ground, at last to send it only a few yards, the other players were not so eager to follow. Stillwell had to push Booly forward, and Booly executed a most miserable shot and retired to the laughing comments of his comrades. The efforts of several succeeding cowboys attested to the extreme difficulty of making a good drive.

“Wal, Nick, it’s your turn,” said Stillwell.

“Bill, I ain’t so all-fired particular about playin’,” replied Nick.

“Why? You was roarin’ about it a little while ago. Afraid to show how bad you’ll play?”

“Nope, jest plain consideration for my feller cow-punchers,” answered Nick, with spirit. “I’m appreciatin’ how bad they play, an’ I’m not mean enough to show them up.”

“Wal, you’ve got to show me,” said Stillwell. “I know you never seen a gol-lof stick in your life. What’s more, I’ll bet you can’t hit that little ball square — not in a dozen cracks at it.”

“Bill, I’m also too much of a gent to take your money. But you know I’m from Missouri. Gimme a club.”

Nick’s angry confidence seemed to evaporate as one after another he took up and handled the clubs. It was plain that he had never before wielded one. But, also, it was plain that he was not the kind of a man to give in. Finally he selected a driver, looked doubtfully at the small knob, and then stepped into position on the teeing-ground.

Nick Steele stood six feet four inches in height. He had the rider’s wiry slenderness, yet he was broad of shoulder. His arms were long. Manifestly he was an exceedingly powerful man. He swung the driver aloft and whirled it down with a tremendous swing. Crack! The white ball disappeared, and from where it had been rose a tiny cloud of dust.

Madeline’s quick sight caught the ball as it lined somewhat to the right. It was shooting low and level with the speed of a bullet. It went up and up in swift, beautiful flight, then lost its speed and began to sail, to curve, to drop; and it fell out of sight beyond the rim of the mesa. Madeline had never seen a drive that approached this one. It was magnificent, beyond belief except for actual evidence of her own eyes.

The yelling of the cowboys probably brought Nick Steele out of the astounding spell with which he beheld his shot. Then Nick, suddenly alive to the situation, recovered from his trance and, resting nonchalantly upon his club, he surveyed Stillwell and the boys. After their first surprised outburst they were dumb.

“You-all seen thet?” Nick grandly waved his hand. “Thaught I was joshin’, didn’t you? Why, I used to go to St. Louis an’ Kansas City to play this here game. There was some talk of the golf clubs takin’ me down East to play the champions. But I never cared fer the game. Too easy fer me! Them fellers back in Missouri were a lot of cheap dubs, anyhow, always kickin’ because whenever I hit a ball hard I always lost it. Why, I hed to hit sort of left-handed to let ’em stay in my class. Now you-all can go ahead an’ play Monty an’ Link. I could beat ’em both, playin’ with one hand, if I wanted to. But I ain’t interested. I jest hit thet ball off the mesa to show you. I sure wouldn’t be seen playin’ on your team.”

With that Nick sauntered away toward the horses. Stillwell appeared crushed. And not a scornful word was hurled after Nick, which fact proved the nature of his victory. Then Nels strode into the limelight. As far as it was possible for this iron-faced cowboy to be so, he was bland and suave. He remarked to Stillwell and the other cowboys that sometimes it was painful for them to judge of the gifts of superior cowboys such as belonged to Nick and himself. He picked up the club Nick had used and called for a new ball. Stillwell carefully built up a little mound of sand and, placing the ball upon it, squared away to watch. He looked grim and expectant.

Nels was not so large a man as Nick, and did not look so formidable as he waved his club at the gaping cowboys. Still he was lithe, tough, strong. Briskly, with a debonair manner, he stepped up and then delivered a mighty swing at the ball. He missed. The power and momentum of his swing flung him off his feet, and he actually turned upside down and spun round on his head. The cowboys howled. Stillwell’s stentorian laugh rolled across the mesa. Madeline and her guests found it impossible to restrain their mirth. And when Nels got up he cast a reproachful glance at Madeline. His feelings were hurt.

His second attempt, not by any means so violent, resulted in as clean a miss as the first, and brought jeers from the cowboys. Nels’s red face flamed redder. Angrily he swung again. The mound of sand spread over the teeing-ground and the exasperating little ball rolled a few inches. This time he had to build up the sand mound and replace the ball himself. Stillwell stood scornfully by, and the boys addressed remarks to Nels.

“Take off them blinders,” said one.

“Nels, your eyes are shore bad,” said another.

“You don’t hit where you look.”

“Nels, your left eye has sprung a limp.”

“Why, you dog-goned old fule, you cain’t hit thet bawl.”

Nels essayed again, only to meet ignominious failure. Then carefully he gathered himself together, gaged distance, balanced the club, swung cautiously. And the head of the club made a beautiful curve round the ball.

“Shore it’s jest thet crooked club,” he declared.

He changed clubs and made another signal failure. Rage suddenly possessing him, he began to swing wildly. Always, it appeared, the illusive little ball was not where he aimed. Stillwell hunched his huge bulk, leaned hands on knees, and roared his riotous mirth. The cowboys leaped up and down in glee.

“You cain’t hit thet bawl,” sang out one of the noisiest. A few more whirling, desperate lunges on the part of Nels, all as futile as if the ball had been thin air, finally brought to the dogged cowboy a realization that golf was beyond him.

Stillwell bawled: “Oh, haw, haw, haw! Nels, you’re — too old — eyes no good!”

Nels slammed down the club, and when he straightened up with the red leaving his face, then the real pride and fire of the man showed. Deliberately he stepped off ten paces and turned toward the little mound upon which rested the ball. His arm shot down, elbow crooked, hand like a claw.

“Aw, Nels, this is fun!” yelled Stillwell.

But swift as a gleam of light Nels flashed his gun, and the report came with the action. Chips flew from the golf-ball as it tumbled from the mound. Nels had hit it without raising the dust. Then he dropped the gun back in its sheath and faced the cowboys.

“Mebbe my eyes ain’t so orful bad,” he said, coolly, and started to walk off.

“But look ah-heah, Nels,” yelled Stillwell, “we come out to play gol-lof! We can’t let you knock the ball around with your gun. What’d you want to get mad for? It’s only fun. Now you an’ Nick hang round heah an’ be sociable. We ain’t depreciatin’ your company none, nor your usefulness on occasions. An’ if you just hain’t got inborn politeness sufficient to do the gallant before the ladies, why, remember Stewart’s orders.”

“Stewart’s orders?” queried Nels, coming to a sudden halt.

“That’s what I said,” replied Stillwell, with asperity. “His orders. Are you forgettin’ orders? Wal, you’re a fine cowboy. You an’ Nick an’ Monty, ‘specially, are to obey orders.”

Nels took off his sombrero and scratched his head. “Bill, I reckon I’m some forgetful. But I was mad. I’d ‘a’ remembered pretty soon, an’ mebbe my manners.”

“Sure you would,” replied Stillwell. “Wal, now, we don’t seem to be proceedin’ much with my gol-lof team. Next ambitious player step up.”

In Ambrose, who showed some skill in driving, Stillwell found one of his team. The succeeding players, however, were so poor and so evenly matched that the earnest Stillwell was in despair. He lost his temper just as speedily as Nels had. Finally Ed Linton’s wife appeared riding up with Ambrose’s wife, and perhaps this helped, for Ed suddenly disclosed ability that made Stillwell single him out.

“Let me coach you a little,” said Bill.

“Sure, if you like,” replied Ed. “But I know more about this game than you do.”

“Wal, then, let’s see you hit a ball straight. Seems to me you got good all-fired quick. It’s amazin’ strange.” ere Bill looked around to discover the two young wives modestly casting eyes of admiration upon their husbands. “Haw, haw! It ain’t so darned strange. Mebbe that’ll help some. Now, Ed, stand up and don’t sling your club as if you was ropin’ a steer. Come round easy-like an’ hit straight.”

Ed made several attempts which, although better than those of his predecessors, were rather discouraging to the exacting coach. Presently, after a particularly atrocious shot, Stillwell strode in distress here and there, and finally stopped a dozen paces or more in front of the teeing-ground. Ed, who for a cowboy was somewhat phlegmatic, calmly made ready for another attempt.

“Fore!” he called.

Stillwell stared.

“Fore!” yelled Ed.

“Why’re you hollerin’ that way at me?” demanded Bill.

“I mean for you to lope off the horizon. Get back from in front.”

“Oh, that was one of them durned crazy words Monty is always hollerin’. Wal, I reckon I’m safe enough hyar. You couldn’t hit me in a million years.”

“Bill, ooze away,” urged Ed.

“Didn’t I say you couldn’t hit me? What am I coachin’ you for? It’s because you hit crooked, ain’t it? Wal, go ahaid an’ break your back.”

Ed Linton was a short, heavy man, and his stocky build gave evidence of considerable strength. His former strokes had not been made at the expense of exertion, but now he got ready for a supreme effort. A sudden silence clamped down upon the exuberant cowboys. It was one of those fateful moments when the air was charged with disaster. As Ed swung the club it fairly whistled.

Crack! Instantly came a thump. But no one saw the ball until it dropped from Stillwell’s shrinking body. His big hands went spasmodically to the place that hurt, and a terrible groan rumbled from him.

Then the cowboys broke into a frenzy of mirth that seemed to find adequate expression only in dancing and rolling accompaniment to their howls. Stillwell recovered his dignity as soon as he caught his breath, and he advanced with a rueful face.

“Wal, boys, it’s on Bill,” he said. “I’m a livin’ proof of the pig-headedness of mankind. Ed, you win. You’re captain of the team. You hit straight, an’ if I hadn’t been obstructin’ the general atmosphere that ball would sure have gone clear to the Chiricahuas.”

Then making a megaphone of his huge hands, he yelled a loud blast of defiance at Monty and Link.

“Hey, you swell gol-lofers! We’re waitin’. Come on if you ain’t scared.”

Instantly Monty and Link quit practising, and like two emperors came stalking across the links.

“Guess my bluff didn’t work much,” said Stillwell. Then he turned to Madeline and her friends. “Sure I hope, Miss Majesty, that you-all won’t weaken an’ go over to the enemy. Monty is some eloquent, an’, besides, he has a way of gettin’ people to agree with him. He’ll be plumb wild when he heahs what he an’ Link are up against. But it’s a square deal, because he wouldn’t help us or lend the book that shows how to play. An’, besides, it’s policy for us to beat him. Now, if you’ll elect who’s to be caddies an’ umpire I’ll be powerful obliged.”

Madeline’s friends were hugely amused over the prospective match; but, except for Dorothy and Castleton, they disclaimed any ambition for active participation. Accordingly, Madeline appointed Castleton to judge the play, Dorothy to act as caddie for Ed Linton, and she herself to be caddie for Ambrose. While Stillwell beamingly announced this momentous news to his team and supporters Monty and Link were striding up.

Both were diminutive in size, bow-legged, lame in one foot, and altogether unprepossessing. Link was young, and Monty’s years, more than twice Link’s, had left their mark. But it would have been impossible to tell Monty’s age. As Stillwell said, Monty was burned to the color and hardness of a cinder. He never minded the heat, and always wore heavy sheepskin chaps with the wool outside. This made him look broader than he was long. Link, partial to leather, had, since he became Madeline’s chauffeur, taken to leather altogether. He carried no weapon, but Monty wore a huge gun-sheath and gun. Link smoked a cigarette and looked coolly impudent. Monty was dark-faced, swaggering, for all the world like a barbarian chief.

“That Monty makes my flesh creep,” said Helen, low-voiced. “Really, Mr. Stillwell, is he so bad — desperate — as I’ve heard? Did he ever kill anybody?”

“Sure. ‘Most as many as Nels,” replied Stillwell, cheerfully.

“Oh! And is that nice Mr. Nels a desperado, too? I wouldn’t have thought so. He’s so kind and old-fashioned and soft-voiced.”

“Nels is sure an example of the dooplicity of men, Miss Helen. Don’t you listen to his soft voice. He’s really as bad as a side-winder rattlesnake.”

At this juncture Monty and Link reached the teeing-ground, and Stillwell went out to meet them. The other cowboys pressed forward to surround the trio. Madeline heard Stillwell’s voice, and evidently he was explaining that his team was to have skilled advice during the play. Suddenly there came from the center of the group a loud, angry roar that broke off as suddenly. Then followed excited voices all mingled together. Presently Monty appeared, breaking away from restraining hands, and he strode toward Madeline.

Monty Price was a type of cowboy who had never been known to speak to a woman unless he was first addressed, and then he answered in blunt, awkward shyness. Upon this great occasion, however, it appeared that he meant to protest or plead with Madeline, for he showed stress of emotion. Madeline had never gotten acquainted with Monty. She was a little in awe, if not in fear, of him, and now she found it imperative for her to keep in mind that more than any other of the wild fellows on her ranch this one should be dealt with as if he were a big boy.

Monty removed his sombrero — something he had never done before — and the single instant when it was off was long enough to show his head entirely bald. This was one of the hall-marks of that terrible Montana prairie fire through which he had fought to save the life of a child. Madeline did not forget it, and all at once she wanted to take Monty’s side. Remembering Stillwell’s wisdom, however, she forebore yielding to sentiment, and called upon her wits.

“Miss — Miss Hammond,” began Monty, stammering, “I’m extendin’ admirin’ greetin’s to you an’ your friends. Link an’ me are right down proud to play the match game with you watchin’. But Bill says you’re goin’ to caddie for his team an’ coach ’em on the fine points. An’ I want to ask, all respectful, if thet’s fair an’ square?”

“Monty, that is for you to say,” replied Madeline. “It was my suggestion. But if you object in the least, of course we shall withdraw. It seems fair to me, because you have learned the game; you are expert, and I understand the other boys have no chance with you. Then you have coached Link. I think it would be sportsmanlike of you to accept the handicap.”

“Aw, a handicap! Thet was what Bill was drivin’ at. Why didn’t he say so? Every time Bill comes to a word thet’s pie to us old golfers he jest stumbles. Miss Majesty, you’ve made it all clear as print. An’ I may say with becomin’ modesty thet you wasn’t mistaken none about me bein’ sportsmanlike. Me an’ Link was born thet way. An’ we accept the handicap. Lackin’ thet handicap, I reckon Link an’ me would have no ambish to play our most be-ootiful game. An’ thankin’ you, Miss Majesty, an’ all your friends, I want to add thet if Bill’s outfit couldn’t beat us before, they’ve got a swell chanct now, with you ladies a-watchin’ me an’ Link.”

Monty had seemed to expand with pride as he delivered this speech, and at the end he bowed low and turned away. He joined the group round Stillwell. Once more there was animated discussion and argument and expostulation. One of the cowboys came for Castleton and led him away to exploit upon ground rules.

It seemed to Madeline that the game never would begin. She strolled on the rim of the mesa, arm in arm with Edith Wayne, and while Edith talked she looked out over the gray valley leading to the rugged black mountains and the vast red wastes. In the foreground on the gray slope she saw cattle in movement and cowboys riding to and fro. She thought of Stewart. Then Boyd Harvey came for them, saying all details had been arranged. Stillwell met them half-way, and this cool, dry, old cattleman, whose face and manner scarcely changed at the announcement of a cattle-raid, now showed extreme agitation.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, we’ve gone an’ made a foozle right at the start,” he said, dejectedly.

“A foozle? But the game has not yet begun,” replied Madeline.

“A bad start, I mean. It’s amazin’ bad, an’ we’re licked already.”

“What in the world is wrong?”

She wanted to laugh, but Stillwell’s distress restrained her.

“Wal, it’s this way. That darn Monty is as cute an’ slick as a fox. After he got done declaimin’ about the handicap he an’ Link was so happy to take, he got Castleton over hyar an’ drove us all dotty with his crazy gol-lof names. Then he borrowed Castleton’s gol-lof coat. I reckon borrowed is some kind word. He just about took that blazin’ coat off the Englishman. Though I ain’t sayin’ but that Casleton was agreeable when he tumbled to Monty’s meanin’. Which was nothin’ more ‘n to break Ambrose’s heart. That coat dazzles Ambrose. You know how vain Ambrose is. Why, he’d die to get to wear that Englishman’s gol-lof coat. An’ Monty forestalled him. It’s plumb pitiful to see the look in Ambrose’s eyes. He won’t be able to play much. Then what do you think? Monty fixed Ed Linton, all right. Usually Ed is easy-goin’ an’ cool. But now he’s on the rampage. Wal, mebbe it’s news to you to learn that Ed’s wife is powerful, turrible jealous of him. Ed was somethin’ of a devil with the wimmen. Monty goes over an’ tells Beulah — that’s Ed’s wife — that Ed is goin’ to have for caddie the lovely Miss Dorothy with the goo-goo eyes. I reckon this was some disrespectful, but with all doo respect to Miss Dorothy she has got a pair of unbridled eyes. Mebbe it’s just natural for her to look at a feller like that. Oh, it’s all right; I’m not sayin’ any-thin’! I know it’s all proper an’ regular for girls back East to use their eyes. But out hyar it’s bound to result disastrous. All the boys talk about among themselves is Miss Dot’s eyes, an’ all they brag about is which feller is the luckiest. Anyway, sure Ed’s wife knows it. An’ Monty up an’ told her that it was fine for her to come out an’ see how swell Ed was prancin’ round under the light of Miss Dot’s brown eyes. Beulah calls over Ed, figgertively speakin’, ropes him for a minnit. Ed comes back huggin’ a grouch as big as a hill. Oh, it was funny! He was goin’ to punch Monty’s haid off. An’ Monty stands there an’ laughs. Says Monty, sarcastic as alkali water: ‘Ed, we-all knowed you was a heap married man, but you’re some locoed to give yourself away.’ That settled Ed. He’s some touchy about the way Beulah henpecks him. He lost his spirit. An’ now he couldn’t play marbles, let alone gol-lof. Nope, Monty was too smart. An’ I reckon he was right about brains bein’ what wins.”

The game began. At first Madeline and Dorothy essayed to direct the endeavors of their respective players. But all they said and did only made their team play the worse. At the third hole they were far behind and hopelessly bewildered. What with Monty’s borrowed coat, with its dazzling effect upon Ambrose, and Link’s oft-repeated allusion to Ed’s matrimonial state, and Stillwell’s vociferated disgust, and the clamoring good intention and pursuit of the cowboy supporters, and the embarrassing presence of the ladies, Ambrose and Ed wore through all manner of strange play until it became ridiculous.

“Hey, Link,” came Monty’s voice booming over the links, “our esteemed rivals are playin’ shinny.”

Madeline and Dorothy gave up, presently, when the game became a rout, and they sat down with their followers to watch the fun. Whether by hook or crook, Ed and Ambrose forged ahead to come close upon Monty and Link. Castleton disappeared in a mass of gesticulating, shouting cowboys. When that compact mass disintegrated Castleton came forth rather hurriedly, it appeared, to stalk back toward his hostess and friends.

“Look!” exclaimed Helen, in delight. “Castleton is actually excited. Whatever did they do to him? Oh, this is immense!”

Castleton was excited, indeed, and also somewhat disheveled.

“By Jove! that was a rum go,” he said, as he came up. “Never saw such blooming golf! I resigned my office as umpire.”

Only upon considerable pressure did he reveal the reason. “It was like this, don’t you know. They were all together over there, watching each other. Monty Price’s ball dropped into a hazard, and he moved it to improve the lie. By Jove! they’ve all been doing that. But over there the game was waxing hot. Stillwell and his cowboys saw Monty move the ball, and there was a row. They appealed to me. I corrected the play, showed the rules. Monty agreed he was in the wrong. However, when it came to moving his ball back to its former lie in the hazard there was more blooming trouble. Monty placed the ball to suit him, and then he transfixed me with an evil eye.

“‘Dook,’ he said. I wish the bloody cowboy would not call me that. ‘Dook, mebbe this game ain’t as important as international politics or some other things relatin’, but there’s some health an’ peace dependin’ on it. Savvy? For some space our opponents have been dead to honor an’ sportsmanlike conduct. I calculate the game depends on my next drive. I’m placin’ my ball as near to where it was as human eyesight could. You seen where it was same as I seen it. You’re the umpire, an’, Dook, I take you as a honorable man. Moreover, never in my born days has my word been doubted without sorrow. So I’m askin’ you, wasn’t my ball layin’ just about here?’

“The bloody little desperado smiled cheerfully, and he dropped his right hand down to the butt of his gun. By Jove, he did! Then I had to tell a blooming lie!”

Castleton even caught the tone of Monty’s voice, but it was plain that he had not the least conception that Monty had been fooling. Madeline and her friends divined it, however; and, there being no need of reserve, they let loose the fountains of mirth.

XIV. Bandits

WHEN MADELINE AND her party recovered composure they sat up to watch the finish of the match. It came with spectacular suddenness. A sharp yell pealed out, and all the cowboys turned attentively in its direction. A big black horse had surmounted the rim of the mesa and was just breaking into a run. His rider yelled sharply to the cowboys. They wheeled to dash toward their grazing horses.

“That’s Stewart. There is something wrong,” said Madeline, in alarm.

Castleton stared. The other men exclaimed uneasily. The women sought Madeline’s face with anxious eyes.

The black got into his stride and bore swiftly down upon them.

“Oh, look at that horse run!” cried Helen. “Look at that fellow ride!”

Helen was not alone in her admiration, for Madeline divided her emotions between growing alarm of some danger menacing and a thrill and quickening of pulse-beat that tingled over her whenever she saw Stewart in violent action. No action of his was any longer insignificant, but violent action meant so much. It might mean anything. For one moment she remembered Stillwell and all his talk about fun, and plots, and tricks to amuse her guest. Then she discountenanced the thought. Stewart might lend himself to a little fun, but he cared too much for a horse to run him at that speed unless there was imperious need. That alone sufficed to answer Madeline’s questioning curiosity. And her alarm mounted to fear not so much for herself as for her guests. But what danger could there be? She could think of nothing except the guerrillas.

Whatever threatened, it would be met and checked by this man Stewart, who was thundering up on his fleet horse; and as he neared her, so that she could see the dark gleam of face and eyes, she had a strange feeling of trust in her dependence upon him.

The big black was so close to Madeline and her friends that when Stewart pulled him the dust and sand kicked up by his pounding hoofs flew in their faces.

“Oh, Stewart, what is it?” cried Madeline.

“Guess I scared you, Miss Hammond,” he replied. “But I’m pressed for time. There’s a gang of bandits hiding on the ranch, most likely in a deserted hut. They held up a train near Agua Prieta. Pat Hawe is with the posse that’s trailing them, and you know Pat has no use for us. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be pleasant for you or your guests to meet either the posse or the bandits.”

“I fancy not,” said Madeline, considerably relieved. “We’ll hurry back to the house.”

They exchanged no more speech at the moment, and Madeline’s guests were silent. Perhaps Stewart’s actions and looks belied his calm words. His piercing eyes roved round the rim of the mesa, and his face was as hard and stern as chiseled bronze.

Monty and Nick came galloping up, each leading several horses by the bridles. Nels appeared behind them with Majesty, and he was having trouble with the roan. Madeline observed that all the other cowboys had disappeared.

One sharp word from Stewart calmed Madeline’s horse; the other horses, however, were frightened and not inclined to stand. The men mounted without trouble, and likewise Madeline and Florence. But Edith Wayne and Mrs. Beck, being nervous and almost helpless, were with difficulty gotten into the saddle.

“Beg pardon, but I’m pressed for time,” said Stewart, coolly, as with iron arm he forced Dorothy’s horse almost to its knees. Dorothy, who was active and plucky, climbed astride; and when Stewart loosed his hold on bit and mane the horse doubled up and began to buck. Dorothy screamed as she shot into the air. Stewart, as quick as the horse, leaped forward and caught Dorothy in his arms. She had slipped head downward and, had he not caught her, would have had a serious fall. Stewart, handling her as if she were a child, turned her right side up to set her upon her feet. Dorothy evidently thought only of the spectacle she presented, and made startled motions to readjust her riding-habit. It was no time to laugh, though Madeline felt as if she wanted to. Besides, it was impossible to be anything but sober with Stewart in violent mood. For he had jumped at Dorothy’s stubborn mount. All cowboys were masters of horses. It was wonderful to see him conquer the vicious animal. He was cruel, perhaps, yet it was from necessity. When, presently, he led the horse back to Dorothy she mounted without further trouble. Meanwhile, Nels and Nick had lifted Helen into her saddle.

“We’ll take the side trail,” said Stewart, shortly, as he swung upon the big black. Then he led the way, and the other cowboys trotted in the rear.

It was only a short distance to the rim of the mesa, and when Madeline saw the steep trail, narrow and choked with weathered stone, she felt that her guests would certainly flinch.

“That’s a jolly bad course,” observed Castleton.

The women appeared to be speechless.

Stewart checked his horse at the deep cut where the trail started down.

“Boys, drop over, and go slow,” he said, dismounting. “Flo, you follow. Now, ladies, let your horses loose and hold on. Lean forward and hang to the pommel. It looks bad. But the horses are used to such trails.”

Helen followed closely after Florence; Mrs. Beck went next, and then Edith Wayne. Dorothy’s horse balked.

“I’m not so — so frightened,” said Dorothy. “If only he would behave!”

She began to urge him into the trail, making him rear, when Stewart grasped the bit and jerked the horse down.

“Put your foot in my stirrup,” said Stewart. “We can’t waste time.”

He lifted her upon his horse and started him down over the rim.

“Go on, Miss Hammond. I’ll have to lead this nag down. It’ll save time.”

Then Madeline attended to the business of getting down herself. It was a loose trail. The weathered slopes seemed to slide under the feet of the horses. Dust-clouds formed; rocks rolled and rattled down; cactus spikes tore at horse and rider. Mrs. Beck broke into laughter, and there was a note in it that suggested hysteria. Once or twice Dorothy murmured plaintively. Half the time Madeline could not distinguish those ahead through the yellow dust. It was dry and made her cough. The horses snorted. She heared Stewart close behind, starting little avalanches that kept rolling on Majesty’s fetlocks. She feared his legs might be cut or bruised, for some of the stones cracked by and went rattling down the slope. At length the clouds of dust thinned and Madeline saw the others before her ride out upon a level. Soon she was down, and Stewart also.

Here there was a delay, occasioned by Stewart changing Dorothy from his horse to her own. This struck Madeline as being singular, and made her thoughtful. In fact, the alert, quiet manner of all the cowboys was not reassuring. As they resumed the ride it was noticeable that Nels and Nick were far in advance, Monty stayed far in the rear, and Stewart rode with the party. Madeline heard Boyd Harvey ask Stewart if lawlessness such as he had mentioned was not unusual. Stewart replied that, except for occasional deeds of outlawry such as might break out in any isolated section of the country, there had been peace and quiet along the border for years. It was the Mexican revolution that had revived wild times, with all the attendant raids and holdups and gun-packing. Madeline knew that they were really being escorted home under armed guard.

When they rounded the head of the mesa, bringing into view the ranch-house and the valley, Madeline saw dust or smoke hovering over a hut upon the outskirts of the Mexican quarters. As the sun had set and the light was fading, she could not distinguish which it was. Then Stewart set a fast pace for the house. In a few minutes the party was in the yard, ready and willing to dismount.

Stillwell appeared, ostensibly cheerful, too cheerful to deceive Madeline. She noted also that a number of armed cowboys were walking with their horses just below the house.

“Wal, you-all had a nice little run,” Stillwell said, speaking generally. “I reckon there wasn’t much need of it. Pat Hawe thinks he’s got some outlaws corralled on the ranch. Nothin’ at all to be fussed up about. Stewart’s that particular he won’t have you meetin’ with any rowdies.”

Many and fervent were the expressions of relief from Madeline’s feminine guests as they dismounted and went into the house. Madeline lingered behind to speak with Stillwell and Stewart.

“Now, Stillwell, out with it,” she said, briefly.

The cattleman stared, and then he laughed, evidently pleased with her keenness.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, there’s goin’ to be a fight somewhere, an’ Stewart wanted to get you-all in before it come off. He says the valley’s overrun by vaqueros an’ guerrillas an’ robbers, an’ Lord knows what else.”

He stamped off the porch, his huge spurs rattling, and started down the path toward the waiting men.

Stewart stood in his familiar attentive position, erect, silent, with a hand on pommel and bridle.

“Stewart, you are exceedingly — thoughtful of my interests,” she said, wanting to thank him, and not readily finding words. “I would not know what to do without you. Is there danger?”

“I’m not sure. But I want to be on the safe side.”

She hesitated. It was no longer easy for her to talk to him, and she did not know why.

“May I know the special orders you gave Nels and Nick and Monty?” she asked.

“Who said I gave those boys special orders?”

“I heard Stillwell tell them so.”

“Of course I’ll tell you if you insist. But why should you worry over something that’ll likely never happen?”

“I insist, Stewart,” she replied, quietly.

“My orders were that at least one of them must be on guard near you day and night — never to be out of hearing of your voice.”

“I thought as much. But why Nels or Monty or Nick? That seems rather hard on them. For that matter, why put any one to keep guard over me? Do you not trust any other of my cowboys?”

“I’d trust their honesty, but not their ability.”

“Ability? Of what nature?”

“With guns.”

“Stewart!” she exclaimed.

“Miss Hammond, you have been having such a good time entertaining your guests that you forget. I’m glad of that. I wish you had not questioned me.”

“Forget what?”

“Don Carlos and his guerrillas.”

“Indeed I have not forgotten. Stewart, you still think Don Carlos tried to make off with me — may try it again?”

“I don’t think. I know.”

“And besides all your other duties you have shared the watch with these three cowboys?”

“Yes.”

“It has been going on without my knowledge?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Since I brought you down from the mountains last month.”

“How long is it to continue?”

“That’s hard to say. Till the revolution is over, anyhow.”

She mused a moment, looking away to the west, where the great void was filling with red haze. She believed implicitly in him, and the menace hovering near her fell like a shadow upon her present happiness.

“What must I do?” she asked.

“I think you ought to send your friends back East — and go with them, until this guerrilla war is over.”

“Why, Stewart, they would be broken-hearted, and so would I.”

He had no reply for that.

“If I do not take your advice it will be the first time since I have come to look to you for so much,” she went on. “Cannot you suggest something else? My friends are having such a splendid visit. Helen is getting well. Oh, I should be sorry to see them go before they want to.”

“We might take them up into the mountains and camp out for a while,” he said, presently. “I know a wild place up among the crags. It’s a hard climb, but worth the work. I never saw a more beautiful spot. Fine water, and it will be cool. Pretty soon it’ll be too hot here for your party to go out-of-doors.”

“You mean to hide me away among the crags and clouds?” replied Madeline, with a laugh.

“Well, it’d amount to that. Your friends need not know. Perhaps in a few weeks this spell of trouble on the border will be over till fall.”

“You say it’s a hard climb up to this place?”

“It surely is. Your friends will get the real thing if they make that trip.”

“That suits me. Helen especially wants something to happen. And they are all crazy for excitement.”

“They’d get it up there. Bad trails, canyons to head, steep climbs, wind-storms, thunder and lightning, rain, mountain-lions and wildcats.”

“Very well, I am decided. Stewart, of course you will take charge? I don’t believe I — Stewart, isn’t there something more you could tell me — why you think, why you know my own personal liberty is in peril?”

“Yes. But do not ask me what it is. If I hadn’t been a rebel soldier I would never have known.”

“If you had not been a rebel soldier, where would Madeline Hammond be now?” she asked, earnestly.

He made no reply.

“Stewart,” she continued, with warm impulse, “you once mentioned a debt you owed me—” And seeing his dark face pale, she wavered, then went on. “It is paid.”

“No, no,” he answered, huskily.

“Yes. I will not have it otherwise.”

“No. That never can be paid.”

Madeline held out her hand.

“It is paid, I tell you,” she repeated.

Suddenly he drew back from the outstretched white hand that seemed to fascinate him.

“I’d kill a man to touch your hand. But I won’t touch it on the terms you offer.”

His unexpected passion disconcerted her.

“Stewart, no man ever before refused to shake hands with me, for any reason. It — it is scarcely flattering,” she said, with a little laugh. “Why won’t you? Because you think I offer it as mistress to servant — rancher to cowboy?”

“No.”

“Then why? The debt you owed me is paid. I cancel it. So why not shake hands upon it, as men do?”

“I won’t. That’s all.”

“I fear you are ungracious, whatever your reason,” she replied. “Still, I may offer it again some day. Good night.”

He said good night and turned. Madeline wonderingly watched him go down the path with his hand on the black horse’s neck.

She went in to rest a little before dressing for dinner, and, being fatigued from the day’s riding and excitement, she fell asleep. When she awoke it was twilight. She wondered why her Mexican maid had not come to her, and she rang the bell. The maid did not put in an appearance, nor was there any answer to the ring. The house seemed unusually quiet. It was a brooding silence, which presently broke to the sound of footsteps on the porch. Madeline recognized Stillwell’s tread, though it appeared to be light for him. Then she heard him call softly in at the open door of her office. The suggestion of caution in his voice suited the strangeness of his walk. With a boding sense of trouble she hurried through the rooms. He was standing outside her office door.

“Stillwell!” she exclaimed.

“Anybody with you?” he asked, in a low tone.

“No.”

“Please come out on the porch,” he added.

She complied, and, once out, was enabled to see him. His grave face, paler than she had ever beheld it, caused her to stretch an appealing hand toward him. Stillwell intercepted it and held it in his own.

“Miss Majesty, I’m amazin’ sorry to tell worrisome news.” He spoke almost in a whisper, cautiously looked about him, and seemed both hurried and mysterious. “If you’d heerd Stewart cuss you’d sure know how we hate to hev to tell you this. But it can’t be avoided. The fact is we’re in a bad fix. If your guests ain’t scared out of their skins it’ll be owin’ to your nerve an’ how you carry out Stewart’s orders.”

“You can rely upon me,” replied Madeline, firmly, though she trembled.

“Wal, what we’re up against is this: that gang of bandits Pat Hawe was chasin’ — they’re hidin’ in the house!”

“In the house?” echoed Madeline, aghast.

“Miss Majesty, it’s the amazin’ truth, an’ shamed indeed am I to admit it. Stewart — why, he’s wild with rage to think it could hev happened. You see, it couldn’t hev happened if I hedn’t sloped the boys off to the gol-lof-links, an’ if Stewart hedn’t rid out on the mesa after us. It’s my fault. I’ve hed too much femininity around fer my old haid. Gene cussed me — he cussed me sure scandalous. But now we’ve got to face it — to figger.”

“Do you mean that a gang of hunted outlaws — bandits — have actually taken refuge somewhere in my house?” demanded Madeline.

“I sure do. Seems powerful strange to me why you didn’t find somethin’ was wrong, seem’ all your servants hev sloped.”

“Gone? Ah, I missed my maid! I wondered why no lights were lit. Where did my servants go?”

“Down to the Mexican quarters, an’ scared half to death. Now listen. When Stewart left you an hour or so ago he follered me direct to where me an’ the boys was tryin’ to keep Pat Hawe from tearin’ the ranch to pieces. At that we was helpin’ Pat all we could to find them bandits. But when Stewart got there he made a difference. Pat was nasty before, but seein’ Stewart made him wuss. I reckon Gene to Pat is the same as red to a Greaser bull. Anyway, when the sheriff set fire to an old adobe hut Stewart called him an’ called him hard. Pat Hawe hed six fellers with him, an’ from all appearances bandit-huntin’ was some fiesta. There was a row, an ‘it looked bad fer a little. But Gene was cool, an’ he controlled the boys. Then Pat an’ his tough de-pooties went on huntin’. That huntin’, Miss Majesty, petered out into what was only a farce. I reckon Pat could hev kept on foolin’ me an’ the boys, but as soon as Stewart showed up on the scene — wal, either Pat got to blunderin’ or else we-all shed our blinders. Anyway, the facts stood plain. Pat Hawe wasn’t lookin’ hard fer any bandits; he wasn’t daid set huntin’ anythin’, unless it was trouble fer Stewart. Finally, when Pat’s men made fer our storehouse, where we keep ammunition, grub, liquors, an’ sich, then Gene called a halt. An’ he ordered Pat Hawe off the ranch. It was hyar Hawe an’ Stewart locked horns.

“An’ hyar the truth come out. There was a gang of bandits hid somewheres, an’ at fust Pat Hawe hed been powerful active an’ earnest in his huntin’. But sudden-like he’d fetched a pecooliar change of heart. He had been some flustered with Stewart’s eyes a-pryin’ into his moves, an’ then, mebbe to hide somethin’, mebbe jest nat’rul, he got mad. He hollered law. He pulled down off the shelf his old stock grudge on Stewart, accusin’ him over again of that Greaser murder last fall. Stewart made him look like a fool — showed him up as bein’ scared of the bandits or hevin’ some reason fer slopin’ off the trail. Anyway, the row started all right, an’ but fer Nels it might hev amounted to a fight. In the thick of it, when Stewart was drivin’ Pat an’ his crowd off the place, one of them de-pooties lost his head an’ went fer his gun. Nels throwed his gun an’ crippled the feller’s arm. Monty jumped then an’ throwed two forty-fives, an’ fer a second or so it looked ticklish. But the bandit-hunters crawled, an’ then lit out.”

Stillwell paused in the rapid delivery of his narrative; he still retained Madeline’s hand, as if by that he might comfort her.

“After Pat left we put our haids together,” began the old cattleman, with a long respiration. “We rounded up a lad who hed seen a dozen or so fellers — he wouldn’t to they was Greasers — breakin’ through the shrubbery to the back of the house. That was while Stewart was ridin’ out to the mesa. Then this lad seen your servants all runnin’ down the hill toward the village. Now, heah’s the way Gene figgers. There sure was some deviltry down along the railroad, an’ Pat Hawe trailed bandits up to the ranch. He hunts hard an’ then all to onct he quits. Stewart says Pat Hawe wasn’t scared, but he discovered signs or somethin’, or got wind in some strange way that there was in the gang of bandits some fellers he didn’t want to ketch. Sabe? Then Gene, quicker ‘n a flash, springs his plan on me. He’d go down to Padre Marcos an’ hev him help to find out all possible from your Mexican servants. I was to hurry up hyar an’ tell you — give you orders, Miss Majesty. Ain’t that amazin’ strange? Wal, you’re to assemble all your guests in the kitchen. Make a grand bluff an’ pretend, as your help has left, that it’ll be great fun fer your guests to cook dinner. The kitchen is the safest room in the house. While you’re joshin’ your party along, makin’ a kind of picnic out of it, I’ll place cowboys in the long corridor, an’ also outside in the corner where the kitchen joins on to the main house. It’s pretty sure the bandits think no one’s wise to where they’re hid. Stewart says they’re in that end room where the alfalfa is, an’ they’ll slope in the night. Of course, with me an’ the boys watchin’, you-all will be safe to go to bed. An’ we’re to rouse your guests early before daylight, to hit the trail up into the mountains. Tell them to pack outfits before goin’ to bed. Say as your servants hev sloped, you might as well go campin’ with the cowboys. That’s all. If we hev any luck your’ friends’ll never know they’ve been sittin’ on a powder-mine.”

“Stillwell, do you advise that trip up into the mountains?” asked Madeline.

“I reckon I do, considerin’ everythin’. Now, Miss Majesty, I’ve used up a lot of time explainin’. You’ll sure keep your nerve?”

“Yes,” Madeline replied, and was surprised at herself. “Better tell Florence. She’ll be a power of comfort to you. I’m goin’ now to fetch up the boys.”

Instead of returning to her room Madeline went through the office into the long corridor. It was almost as dark as night. She fancied she saw a slow-gliding figure darker than the surrounding gloom; and she entered upon the fulfilment of her part of the plan in something like trepidation. Her footsteps were noiseless. Finding the door to the kitchen, and going in, she struck lights. Upon passing out again she made certain she discerned a dark shape, now motionless, crouching along the wall. But she mistrusted her vivid imagination. It took all her boldness to enable her unconcernedly and naturally to strike the corridor light. Then she went on through her own rooms and thence into the patio.

Her guests laughingly and gladly entered into the spirit of the occasion. Madeline fancied her deceit must have been perfect, seeing that it deceived even Florence. They trooped merrily into the kitchen. Madeline, delaying at the door, took a sharp but unobtrusive glance down the great, barnlike hall. She saw nothing but blank dark space. Suddenly from one side, not a rod distant, protruded a pale, gleaming face breaking the even blackness. Instantly it flashed back out of sight. Yet that time was long enough for Madeline to see a pair of glittering eyes, and to recognize them as Don Carlos’s.

Without betraying either hurry or alarm, she closed the door. It had a heavy bolt which she slowly, noiselessly shot. Then the cold amaze that had all but stunned her into inaction throbbed into wrath. How dared that Mexican steal into her home! What did he mean? Was he one of the bandits supposed to be hidden in her house? She was thinking herself into greater anger and excitement, and probably would have betrayed herself had not Florence, who had evidently seen her bolt the door and now read her thoughts, come toward her with a bright, intent, questioning look. Madeline caught herself in time.

Thereupon she gave each of her guests a duty to perform. Leading Florence into the pantry, she unburdened herself of the secret in one brief whisper. Florence’s reply was to point out of the little open window, passing which was a file of stealthily moving cowboys. Then Madeline lost both anger and fear, retaining only the glow of excitement.

Madeline could be gay, and she initiated the abandonment of dignity by calling Castleton into the pantry, and, while interesting him in some pretext or other, imprinting the outlines of her flour-covered hands upon the back of his black coat. Castleton innocently returned to the kitchen to be greeted with a roar. That surprising act of the hostess set the pace, and there followed a merry, noisy time. Everybody helped. The miscellaneous collection of dishes so confusingly contrived made up a dinner which they all heartily enjoyed. Madeline enjoyed it herself, even with the feeling of a sword hanging suspended over her.

The hour was late when she rose from the table and told her guests to go to their rooms, don their riding-clothes, pack what they needed for the long and adventurous camping trip that she hoped would be the climax of their Western experience, and to snatch a little sleep before the cowboys roused them for the early start.

Madeline went immediately to her room, and was getting out her camping apparel when a knock interrupted her. She thought Florence had come to help her pack. But this knock was upon the door opening out in the porch. It was repeated.

“Who’s there?” she questioned.

“Stewart,” came the reply.

She opened the door. He stood on the threshold. Beyond him, indistinct in the gloom, were several cowboys.

“May I speak to you?” he asked.

“Certainly.” She hesitated a moment, then asked him in and closed the door. “Is — is everything all right?”

“No. These bandits stick to cover pretty close. They must have found out we’re on the watch. But I’m sure we’ll get you and your friends away before anything starts. I wanted to tell you that I’ve talked with your servants. They were just scared. They’ll come back to-morrow, soon as Bill gets rid of this gang. You need not worry about them or your property.”

“Do you have any idea who is hiding in the house?”

“I was worried some at first. Pat Hawe acted queer. I imagined he’d discovered he was trailing bandits who might turn out to be his smuggling guerrilla cronies. But talking with your servants, finding a bunch of horses upon hidden down in the mesquite behind the pond — several things have changed my mind. My idea is that a cowardly handful of riffraff outcasts from the border have hidden in your house, more by accident than design. We’ll let them go — get rid of them without even a shot. If I didn’t think so — well, I’d be considerably worried. It would make a different state of affairs.”

“Stewart, you are wrong,” she said.

He started, but his reply did not follow swiftly. The expression of his eyes altered. Presently he spoke:

“How so?”

“I saw one of these bandits. I distinctly recognized him.”

One long step brought him close to her.

“Who was he?” demanded Stewart.

“Don Carlos.”

He muttered low and deep, then said, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I saw his figure twice in the hall, then his face in the light. I could never mistake his eyes.”

“Did he know you saw him?”

“I am not positive, but I think so. Oh, he must have known! I was standing full in the light. I had entered the door, then purposely stepped out. His face showed from around a corner, and swiftly flashed out of sight.”

Madeline was tremblingly conscious that Stewart underwent a transformation. She saw as well as felt the leaping passion that changed him.

“Call your friends — get them in here!” he ordered, tersely, and wheeled toward the door.

“Stewart, wait!” she said.

He turned. His white face, his burning eyes, his presence now charged with definite, fearful meaning, influenced her strangely, weakened her.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“That needn’t concern you. Get your party in here. Bar the windows and lock the doors. You’ll be safe.”

“Stewart! Tell me what you intend to do.”

“I won’t tell you,” he replied, and turned away again.

“But I will know,” she said. With a hand on his arm she detained him. She saw how he halted — felt the shock in him as she touched him. “Oh, I do know. You mean to fight!”

“Well, Miss Hammond, isn’t it about time?” he asked. Evidently he overcame a violent passion for instant action. There was weariness, dignity, even reproof in his question. “The fact of that Mexican’s presence here in your house ought to prove to you the nature of the case. These vaqueros, these guerrillas, have found out you won’t stand for any fighting on the part of your men. Don Carlos is a sneak, a coward, yet he’s not afraid to hide in your own house. He has learned you won’t let your cowboys hurt anybody. He’s taking advantage of it. He’ll rob, burn, and make off with you. He’ll murder, too, if it falls his way. These Greasers use knives in the dark. So I ask — isn’t it about time we stop him?”

“Stewart, I forbid you to fight, unless in self-defense. I forbid you.”

“What I mean to do is self-defense. Haven’t I tried to explain to you that just now we’ve wild times along this stretch of border? Must I tell you again that Don Carlos is hand and glove with the revolution? The rebels are crazy to stir up the United States. You are a woman of prominence. Don Carlos would make off with you. If he got you, what little matter to cross the border with you! Well, where would the hue and cry go? Through the troops along the border! To New York! To Washington! Why, it would mean what the rebels are working for — United States intervention. In other words, war!”

“Oh, surely you exaggerate!” she cried.

“Maybe so. But I’m beginning to see the Don’s game. And, Miss Hammond, I — It’s awful for me to think what you’d suffer if Don Carlos got you over the line. I know these low-caste Mexicans. I’ve been among the peons — the slaves.”

“Stewart, don’t let Don Carlos get me,” replied Madeline, in sweet directness.

She saw him shake, saw his throat swell as he swallowed hard, saw the hard fierceness return to his face.

“I won’t. That’s why I’m going after him.”

“But I forbade you to start a fight deliberately.”

“Then I’ll go ahead and start one without your permission,” he replied shortly, and again he wheeled.

This time, when Madeline caught his arm she held to it, even after he stopped.

“No,” she said, imperiously.

He shook off her hand and strode forward.

“Please don’t go!” she called, beseechingly. But he kept on. “Stewart!”

She ran ahead of him, intercepted him, faced him with her back against the door. He swept out a long arm as if to brush her aside. But it wavered and fell. Haggard, troubled, with working face, he stood before her.

“It’s for your sake,” he expostulated.

“If it is for my sake, then do what pleases me.”

“These guerrillas will knife somebody. They’ll burn the house. They’ll make off with you. They’ll do something bad unless we stop them.”

“Let us risk all that,” she importuned.

“But it’s a terrible risk, and it oughtn’t be run,” he exclaimed, passionately. “I know best here. Stillwell upholds me. Let me out, Miss Hammond. I’m going to take the boys and go after these guerrillas.”

“No!”

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Stewart. “Why not let me go? It’s the thing to do. I’m sorry to distress you and your guests. Why not put an end to Don Carlos’s badgering? Is it because you’re afraid a rumpus will spoil your friends’ visit?”

“It isn’t — not this time.”

“Then it’s the idea of a little shooting at these Greasers?”

“No.”

“You’re sick to think of a little Greaser blood staining the halls of your home?”

“No!”

“Well, then, why keep me from doing what I know is best?”

“Stewart, I — I—” she faltered, in growing agitation. “I’m frightened — confused. All this is too — too much for me. I’m not a coward. If you have to fight you’ll see I’m not a coward. But your way seems so reckless — that hall is so dark — the guerrillas would shoot from behind doors. You’re so wild, so daring, you’d rush right into peril. Is that necessary? I think — I mean — I don’t know just why I feel so — so about you doing it. But I believe it’s because I’m afraid you — you might be hurt.”

“You’re afraid I — I might be hurt?” he echoed, wonderingly, the hard whiteness of his face warming, flushing, glowing.

“Yes.”

The single word, with all it might mean, with all it might not mean, softened him as if by magic, made him gentle, amazed, shy as a boy, stifling under a torrent of emotions.

Madeline thought she had persuaded him — worked her will with him. Then another of his startlingly sudden moves told her that she had reckoned too quickly. This move was to put her firmly aside so he could pass; and Madeline, seeing he would not hesitate to lift her out of the way, surrendered the door. He turned on the threshold. His face was still working, but the flame-pointed gleam of his eyes indicated the return of that cowboy ruthlessness.

“I’m going to drive Don Carlos and his gang out of the house,” declared Stewart. “I think I may promise you to do it without a fight. But if it takes a fight, off he goes!”

XV. The Mountain Trail

AS STEWART DEPARTED from one door Florence knocked upon another; and Madeline, far shaken out of her usual serenity, admitted the cool Western girl with more than gladness. Just to have her near helped Madeline to get back her balance. She was conscious of Florence’s sharp scrutiny, then of a sweet, deliberate change of manner. Florence might have been burning with curiosity to know more about the bandits hidden in the house, the plans of the cowboys, the reason for Madeline’s suppressed emotion; but instead of asking Madeline questions she introduced the important subject of what to take on the camping trip. For an hour they discussed the need of this and that article, selected those things most needful, and then packed them in Madeline’s duffle-bags.

That done, they decided to lie down, fully dressed as they were in riding-costume, and sleep, or at least rest, the little remaining time left before the call to saddle. Madeline turned out the light and, peeping through her window, saw dark forms standing sentinel-like in the gloom. When she lay down she heard soft steps on the path. This fidelity to her swelled her heart, while the need of it presaged that fearful something which, since Stewart’s passionate appeal to her, haunted her as inevitable.

Madeline did not expect to sleep, yet she did sleep, and it seemed to have been only a moment until Florence called her. She followed Florence outside. It was the dark hour before dawn. She could discern saddled horses being held by cowboys. There was an air of hurry and mystery about the departure. Helen, who came tip-toeing out with Madeline’s other guests, whispered that it was like an escape. She was delighted. The others were amused. To Madeline it was indeed an escape.

In the darkness Madeline could not see how many escorts her party was to have. She heard low voices, the champing of bits and thumping of hoofs, and she recognized Stewart when he led up Majesty for her to mount. Then came a pattering of soft feet and the whining of dogs. Cold noses touched her hands, and she saw the long, gray, shaggy shapes of her pack of Russian wolf-hounds. That Stewart meant to let them go with her was indicative of how he studied her pleasure. She loved to be out with the hounds and her horse.

Stewart led Majesty out into the darkness past a line of mounted horses.

“Guess we’re ready?” he said. “I’ll make the count.” He went back along the line, and on the return Madeline heard him say several times, “Now, everybody ride close to the horse in front, and keep quiet till daylight.” Then the snorting and pounding of the big black horse in front of her told Madeline that Stewart had mounted.

“All right, we’re off,” he called.

Madeline lifted Majesty’s bridle and let the roan go. There was a crack and crunch of gravel, fire struck from stone, a low whinny, a snort, and then steady, short, clip-clop of iron hoofs on hard ground. Madeline could just discern Stewart and his black outlined in shadowy gray before her. Yet they were almost within touching distance. Once or twice one of the huge stag-hounds leaped up at her and whined joyously. A thick belt of darkness lay low, and seemed to thin out above to a gray fog, through which a few wan stars showed. It was altogether an unusual departure from the ranch; and Madeline, always susceptible even to ordinary incident that promised well, now found herself thrillingly sensitive to the soft beat of hoofs, the feel of cool, moist air, the dim sight of Stewart’s dark figure. The caution, the early start before dawn, the enforced silence — these lent the occasion all that was needful to make it stirring.

Majesty plunged into a gully, where sand and rough going made Madeline stop romancing to attend to riding. In the darkness Stewart was not so easy to keep close to even on smooth trails, and now she had to be watchfully attentive to do it. Then followed a long march through dragging sand. Meantime the blackness gradually changed to gray. At length Majesty climbed out of the wash, and once more his iron shoes rang on stone. He began to climb. The figure of Stewart and his horse loomed more distinctly in Madeline’s sight. Bending over, she tried to see the trail, but could not. She wondered how Stewart could follow a trail in the dark. His eyes must be as piercing as they sometimes looked. Over her shoulder Madeline could not see the horse behind her, but she heard him.

As Majesty climbed steadily Madeline saw the gray darkness grow opaque, change and lighten, lose its substance, and yield the grotesque shapes of yucca and ocotillo. Dawn was about to break. Madeline imagined she was facing east, still she saw no brightening of sky. All at once, to her surprise, Stewart and his powerful horse stood clear in her sight. She saw the characteristic rock and cactus and brush that covered the foothills. The trail was old and seldom used, and it zigzagged and turned and twisted. Looking back, she saw the short, squat figure of Monty Price humped over his saddle. Monty’s face was hidden under his sombrero. Behind him rode Dorothy Coombs, and next loomed up the lofty form of Nick Steele. Madeline and the members of her party were riding between cowboy escorts.

Bright daylight came, and Madeline saw the trail was leading up through foothills. It led in a round-about way through shallow gullies full of stone and brush washed down by floods. At every turn now Madeline expected to come upon water and the waiting pack-train. But time passed, and miles of climbing, and no water or horses were met. Expectation in Madeline gave place to desire; she was hungry.

Presently Stewart’s horse went splashing into a shallow pool. Beyond that damp places in the sand showed here and there, and again more water in rocky pockets. Stewart kept on. It was eight o’clock by Madeline’s watch when, upon turning into a wide hollow, she saw horses grazing on spare grass, a great pile of canvas-covered bundles, and a fire round which cowboys and two Mexican women were busy.

Madeline sat her horse and reviewed her followers as they rode up single file. Her guests were in merry mood, and they all talked at once.

“Breakfast — and rustle,” called out Stewart, without ceremony.

“No need to tell me to rustle,” said Helen. “I am simply ravenous. This air makes me hungry.”

For that matter, Madeline observed Helen did not show any marked contrast to the others. The hurry order, however, did not interfere with the meal being somewhat in the nature of a picnic. While they ate and talked and laughed the cowboys were packing horses and burros and throwing the diamond-hitch, a procedure so interesting to Castleton that he got up with coffee-cup in hand and tramped from one place to another.

“Heard of that diamond-hitch-up,” he observed to a cowboy. “Bally nice little job!”

As soon as the pack-train was in readiness Stewart started it off in the lead to break trail. A heavy growth of shrub interspersed with rock and cactus covered the slopes; and now all the trail appeared to be uphill. It was not a question of comfort for Madeline and her party, for comfort was impossible; it was a matter of making the travel possible for him. Florence wore corduroy breeches and high-top boots, and the advantage of this masculine garb was at once in evidence. The riding-habits of the other ladies suffered considerably from the sharp spikes. It took all Madeline’s watchfulness to save her horse’s legs, to pick the best bits of open ground, to make cut-offs from the trail, and to protect herself from outreaching thorny branches, so that the time sped by without her knowing it. The pack-train forged ahead, and the trailing couples grew farther apart. At noon they got out of the foothills to face the real ascent of the mountains. The sun beat down hot. There was little breeze, and the dust rose thick and hung in a pall. The view was restricted, and what scenery lay open to the eye was dreary and drab, a barren monotony of slow-mounting slopes ridged by rocky canyons.

Once Stewart waited for Madeline, and as she came up he said:

“We’re going to have a storm.”

“That will be a relief. It’s so hot and dusty,” replied Madeline.

“Shall I call a halt and make camp?”

“Here? Oh no! What do you think best?”

“Well, if we have a good healthy thunder-storm it will be something new for your friends. I think we’d be wise to keep on the go. There’s no place to make a good camp. The wind would blow us off this slope if the rain didn’t wash us off. It’ll take all-day travel to reach a good camp-site, and I don’t promise that. We’re making slow time. If it rains, let it rain. The pack outfit is well covered. We will have to get wet.”

“Surely,” replied Madeline; and she smiled at his inference. She knew what a storm was in that country, and her guests had yet to experience one. “If it rains, let it rain.”

Stewart rode on, and Madeline followed. Up the slope toiled and nodded the pack-animals, the little burros going easily where the horses labored. Their packs, like the humps of camels, bobbed from side to side. Stones rattled down; the heat-waves wavered black; the dust puffed up and sailed. The sky was a pale blue, like heated steel, except where dark clouds peeped over the mountain crests. A heavy, sultry atmosphere made breathing difficult. Down the slope the trailing party stretched out in twos and threes, and it was easy to distinguish the weary riders.

Half a mile farther up Madeline could see over the foothills to the north and west and a little south, and she forgot the heat and weariness and discomfort for her guests in wide, unlimited prospects of sun-scorched earth. She marked the gray valley and the black mountains and the wide, red gateway of the desert, and the dim, shadowy peaks, blue as the sky they pierced. She was sorry when the bleak, gnarled cedar-trees shut off her view.

Then there came a respite from the steep climb, and the way led in a winding course through a matted, storm-wrenched forest of stunted trees. Even up to this elevation the desert reached with its gaunt hand. The clouds overspreading the sky, hiding the sun, made a welcome change. The pack-train rested, and Stewart and Madeline waited for the party to come up. Here he briefly explained to her that Don Carlos and his bandits had left the ranch some time in the night. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a faint wind rustled the scant foliage of the cedars. The air grew oppressive; the horses panted.

“Sure it’ll be a hummer,” said Stewart. “The first storm almost always is bad. I can feel it in the air.”

The air, indeed, seemed to be charged with a heavy force that was waiting to be liberated.

One by one the couples mounted to the cedar forest, and the feminine contingent declaimed eloquently for rest. But there was to be no permanent rest until night and then that depended upon reaching the crags. The pack-train wagged onward, and Stewart fell in behind. The storm-center gathered slowly around the peaks; low rumble and howl of thunder increased in frequence; slowly the light shaded as smoky clouds rolled up; the air grew sultrier, and the exasperating breeze puffed a few times and then failed.

An hour later the party had climbed high and was rounding the side of a great bare ridge that long had hidden the crags. The last burro of the pack-train plodded over the ridge out of Madeline’s sight. She looked backward down the slope, amused to see her guests change wearily from side to side in their saddles. Far below lay the cedar flat and the foothills. Far to the west the sky was still clear, with shafts of sunlight shooting down from behind the encroaching clouds.

Stewart reached the summit of the ridge and, though only a few rods ahead, he waved to her, sweeping his hand round to what he saw beyond. It was an impressive gesture, and Madeline, never having climbed as high as this, anticipated much.

Majesty surmounted the last few steps and, snorting, halted beside Stewart’s black. To Madeline the scene was as if the world had changed. The ridge was a mountain-top. It dropped before her into a black, stone-ridged, shrub-patched, many-canyoned gulf. Eastward, beyond the gulf, round, bare mountain-heads loomed up. Upward, on the right, led giant steps of cliff and bench and weathered slope to the fir-bordered and pine-fringed crags standing dark and bare against the stormy sky. Massed inky clouds were piling across the peaks, obscuring the highest ones. A fork of white lightning flashed, and, like the booming of an avalanche, thunder followed.

That bold world of broken rock under the slow mustering of storm-clouds was a grim, awe-inspiring spectacle. It had beauty, but beauty of the sublime and majestic kind. The fierce desert had reached up to meet the magnetic heights where heat and wind and frost and lightning and flood contended in everlasting strife. And before their onslaught this mighty upflung world of rugged stone was crumbling, splitting, wearing to ruin.

Madeline glanced at Stewart. He had forgotten her presence. Immovable as stone, he sat his horse, dark-faced, dark-eyed, and, like an Indian unconscious of thought, he watched and watched. To see him thus, to divine the strange affinity between the soul of this man, become primitive, and the savage environment that had developed him, were powerful helps to Madeline Hammond in her strange desire to understand his nature.

A cracking of iron-shod hoofs behind her broke the spell. Monty had reached the summit.

“Gene, what it won’t all be doin’ in a minnut Moses hisself couldn’t tell,” observed Monty.

Then Dorothy climbed to his side and looked.

“Oh, isn’t it just perfectly lovely!” she exclaimed. “But I wish it wouldn’t storm. We’ll all get wet.”

Once more Stewart faced the ascent, keeping to the slow heave of the ridge as it rose southward toward the looming spires of rock. Soon he was off smooth ground, and Madeline, some rods behind him, looked back with concern at her friends. Here the real toil, the real climb began, and a mountain storm was about to burst in all its fury.

The slope that Stewart entered upon was a magnificent monument to the ruined crags above. It was a southerly slope, and therefore semi-arid, covered with cercocarpus and yucca and some shrub that Madeline believed was manzanita. Every foot of the trail seemed to slide under Majesty. What hard ground there was could not be traveled upon, owing to the spiny covering or masses of shattered rocks. Gullies lined the slope.

Then the sky grew blacker; the slow-gathering clouds appeared to be suddenly agitated; they piled and rolled and mushroomed and obscured the crags. The air moved heavily and seemed to be laden with sulphurous smoke, and sharp lightning flashes began to play. A distant roar of wind could be heard between the peals of thunder.

Stewart waited for Madeline under the lee of a shelving cliff, where the cowboys had halted the pack-train. Majesty was sensitive to the flashes of lightning. Madeline patted his neck and softly called to him. The weary burros nodded; the Mexican women covered their heads with their mantles. Stewart untied the slicker at the back of Madeline’s saddle and helped her on with it. Then he put on his own. The other cowboys followed suit. Presently Madeline saw Monty and Dorothy rounding the cliff, and hoped the others would come soon.

A blue-white, knotted rope of lightning burned down out of the clouds, and instantly a thunder-clap crashed, seeming to shake the foundations of the earth. Then it rolled, as if banging from cloud to cloud, and boomed along the peaks, and reverberated from deep to low, at last to rumble away into silence. Madeline felt the electricity in Majesty’s mane, and it seemed to tingle through her nerves. The air had a weird, bright cast. The ponderous clouds swallowed more and more of the eastern domes. This moment of the breaking of the storm, with the strange growing roar of wind, like a moaning monster, was pregnant with a heart-disturbing emotion for Madeline Hammond. Glorious it was to be free, healthy, out in the open, under the shadow of the mountain and cloud, in the teeth of the wind and rain and storm.

Another dazzling blue blaze showed the bold mountain-side and the storm-driven clouds. In the flare of light Madeline saw Stewart’s face.

“Are you afraid?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, simply.

Then the thunderbolt racked the heavens, and as it boomed away in lessening power Madeline reflected with surprise upon Stewart’s answer. Something in his face had made her ask him what she considered a foolish question. His reply amazed her. She loved a storm. Why should he fear it — he, with whom she could not associate fear?

“How strange! Have you not been out in many storms?”

A smile that was only a gleam flitted over his dark face.

“In hundreds of them. By day, with the cattle stampeding. At night, alone on the mountain, with the pines crashing and the rocks rolling — in flood on the desert.”

“It’s not only the lightning, then?” she asked.

“No. All the storm.”

Madeline felt that henceforth she would have less faith in what she had imagined was her love of the elements. What little she knew! If this iron-nerved man feared a storm, then there was something about a storm to fear.

And suddenly, as the ground quaked under her horse’s feet, and all the sky grew black and crisscrossed by flaming streaks, and between thunderous reports there was a strange hollow roar sweeping down upon her, she realized how small was her knowledge and experience of the mighty forces of nature. Then, with that perversity of character of which she was wholly conscious, she was humble, submissive, reverent, and fearful even while she gloried in the grandeur of the dark, cloud-shadowed crags and canyons, the stupendous strife of sound, the wonderful driving lances of white fire.

With blacker gloom and deafening roar came the torrent of rain. It was a cloud-burst. It was like solid water tumbling down. For long Madeline sat her horse, head bent to the pelting rain. When its force lessened and she heard Stewart call for all to follow, she looked up to see that he was starting once more. She shot a glimpse at Dorothy and as quickly glanced away. Dorothy, who would not wear a hat suitable for inclement weather, nor one of the horrid yellow, sticky slickers, was a drenched and disheveled spectacle. Madeline did not trust herself to look at the other girls. It was enough to hear their lament. So she turned her horse into Stewart’s trail.

Rain fell steadily. The fury of the storm, however, had passed, and the roll of thunder diminished in volume. The air had wonderfully cleared and was growing cool. Madeline began to feel uncomfortably cold and wet. Stewart was climbing faster than formerly, and she noted that Monty kept at her heels, pressing her on. Time had been lost, and the camp-site was a long way off. The stag-hounds began to lag and get footsore. The sharp rocks of the trail were cruel to their feet. Then, as Madeline began to tire, she noticed less and less around her. The ascent grew rougher and steeper — slow toil for panting horses. The thinning rain grew colder, and sometimes a stronger whip of wind lashed stingingly in Madeline’s face. Her horse climbed and climbed, and brush and sharp corners of stone everlastingly pulled and tore at her wet garments. A gray gloom settled down around her. Night was approaching. Majesty heaved upward with a snort, the wet saddle creaked, and an even motion told Madeline she was on level ground. She looked up to see looming crags and spires, like huge pipe-organs, dark at the base and growing light upward. The rain had ceased, but the branches of fir-trees and juniper were water-soaked arms reaching out for her. Through an opening between crags Madeline caught a momentary glimpse of the west. Red sun-shafts shone through the murky, broken clouds. The sun had set.

Stewart’s horse was on a jog-trot now, and Madeline left the trail more to Majesty than to her own choosing. The shadows deepened, and the crags grew gloomy and spectral. A cool wind moaned through the dark trees. Coyotes, scenting the hounds, kept apace of them, and barked and howled off in the gloom. But the tired hounds did not appear to notice.

As black night began to envelop her surroundings, Madeline marked that the fir-trees had given place to pine forest. Suddenly a pin-point of light pierced the ebony blackness. Like a solitary star in dark sky it twinkled and blinked. She lost sight of it — found it again. It grew larger. Black tree-trunks crossed her line of vision. The light was a fire. She heard a cowboy song and the wild chorus of a pack of coyotes. Drops of rain on the branches of trees glittered in the rays of the fire. Stewart’s tall figure, with sombrero slouched down, was now and then outlined against a growing circle of light. And by the aid of that light she saw him turn every moment or so to look back, probably to assure himself that she was close behind.

With a prospect of fire and warmth, and food and rest, Madeline’s enthusiasm revived. What a climb! There was promise in this wild ride and lonely trail and hidden craggy height, not only in the adventure her friends yearned for, but in some nameless joy and spirit for herself.

XVI. The Crags

GLAD INDEED WAS Madeline to be lifted off her horse beside a roaring fire — to see steaming pots upon red-hot coals. Except about her shoulders, which had been protected by the slicker, she was wringing wet. The Mexican women came quickly to help her change in a tent near by; but Madeline preferred for the moment to warm her numb feet and hands and to watch the spectacle of her arriving friends.

Dorothy plumped off her saddle into the arms of several waiting cowboys. She could scarcely walk. Far removed in appearance was she from her usual stylish self. Her face was hidden by a limp and lopsided hat. From under the disheveled brim came a plaintive moan: “O-h-h! what a-an a-awful ride!” Mrs. Beck was in worse condition; she had to be taken off her horse. “I’m paralyzed — I’m a wreck. Bobby, get a roller-chair.” Bobby was solicitous and willing, but there were no roller-chairs. Florence dismounted easily, and but for her mass of hair, wet and tumbling, would have been taken for a handsome cowboy. Edith Wayne had stood the physical strain of the ride better than Dorothy; however, as her mount was rather small, she had been more at the mercy of cactus and brush. Her habit hung in tatters. Helen had preserved a remnant of style, as well as of pride, and perhaps a little strength. But her face was white, her eyes were big, and she limped. “Majesty!” she exclaimed. “What did you want to do to us? Kill us outright or make us homesick?” Of all of them, however, Ambrose’s wife, Christine, the little French maid, had suffered the most in that long ride. She was unaccustomed to horses. Ambrose had to carry her into the big tent. Florence persuaded Madeline to leave the fire, and when they went in with the others Dorothy was wailing because her wet boots would not come off, Mrs. Beck was weeping and trying to direct a Mexican woman to unfasten her bedraggled dress, and there was general pandemonium.

“Warm clothes — hot drinks and grub — warm blankets,” rang out Stewart’s sharp order.

Then, with Florence helping the Mexican women, it was not long until Madeline and the feminine side of the party were comfortable, except for the weariness and aches that only rest and sleep could alleviate.

Neither fatigue nor pains, however, nor the strangeness of being packed sardine-like under canvas, nor the howls of coyotes, kept Madeline’s guests from stretching out with long, grateful sighs, and one by one dropping into deep slumber. Madeline whispered a little to Florence, and laughed with her once or twice, and then the light flickering on the canvas faded and her eyelids closed. Darkness and roar of camp life, low voices of men, thump of horses’ hoofs, coyote serenade, the sense of warmth and sweet rest — all drifted away.

When she awakened shadows of swaying branches moved on the sunlit canvas above her. She heard the ringing strokes of an ax, but no other sound from outside. Slow, regular breathing attested to the deep slumbers of her tent comrades. She observed presently that Florence was missing from the number. Madeline rose and peeped out between the flaps.

An exquisitely beautiful scene surprised and enthralled her gaze. She saw a level space, green with long grass, bright with flowers, dotted with groves of graceful firs and pines and spruces, reaching to superb crags, rosy and golden in the sunlight. Eager to get out where she could enjoy an unrestricted view, she searched for her pack, found it in a corner, and then hurriedly and quietly dressed.

Her favorite stag-hounds, Russ and Tartar, were asleep before the door, where they had been chained. She awakened them and loosened them, thinking the while that it must have been Stewart who had chained them near her. Close at hand also was a cowboy’s bed rolled up in a tarpaulin.

The cool air, fragrant with pine and spruce and some subtle nameless tang, sweet and tonic, made Madeline stand erect and breathe slowly and deeply. It was like drinking of a magic draught. She felt it in her blood, that it quickened its flow. Turning to look in the other direction, beyond the tent, she saw the remnants of last night’s temporary camp, and farther on a grove of beautiful pines from which came the sharp ring of the ax. Wider gaze took in a wonderful park, not only surrounded by lofty crags, but full of crags of lesser height, many lifting their heads from dark-green groves of trees. The morning sun, not yet above the eastern elevations, sent its rosy and golden shafts in between the towering rocks, to tip the pines.

Madeline, with the hounds beside her, walked through the nearest grove. The ground was soft and springy and brown with pine-needles. Then she saw that a clump of trees had prevented her from seeing the most striking part of this natural park. The cowboys had selected a campsite where they would have the morning sun and afternoon shade. Several tents and flies were already up; there was a huge lean-to made of spruce boughs; cowboys were busy round several camp-fires; piles of packs lay covered with tarpaulins, and beds were rolled up under the trees. This space was a kind of rolling meadow, with isolated trees here and there, and other trees in aisles and circles; and it mounted up in low, grassy banks to great towers of stone five hundred feet high. Other crags rose behind these. From under a mossy cliff, huge and green and cool, bubbled a full, clear spring. Wild flowers fringed its banks. Out in the meadow the horses were knee-deep in grass that waved in the morning breeze.

Florence espied Madeline under the trees and came running. She was like a young girl, with life and color and joy. She wore a flannel blouse, corduroy skirt, and moccasins. And her hair was fastened under a band like an Indian’s.

“Castleton’s gone with a gun, for hours, it seems,” said Florence. “Gene just went to hunt him up. The other gentlemen are still asleep. I imagine they sure will sleep up heah in this air.”

Then, business-like, Florence fell to questioning Madeline about details of camp arrangement which Stewart, and Florence herself, could hardly see to without suggestion.

Before any of Madeline’s sleepy guests awakened the camp was completed. Madeline and Florence had a tent under a pine-tree, but they did not intend to sleep in it except during stormy weather. They spread a tarpaulin, made their bed on it, and elected to sleep under the light of the stars. After that, taking the hounds with them, they explored. To Madeline’s surprise, the park was not a little half-mile nook nestling among the crags, but extended farther than they cared to walk, and was rather a series of parks. They were no more than small valleys between gray-toothed peaks. As the day advanced the charm of the place grew upon Madeline. Even at noon, with the sun beating down, there was comfortable warmth rather than heat. It was the kind of warmth that Madeline liked to feel in the spring. And the sweet, thin, rare atmosphere began to affect her strangely. She breathed deeply of it until she felt light-headed, as if her body lacked substance and might drift away like a thistledown. All at once she grew uncomfortably sleepy. A dreamy languor possessed her, and, lying under a pine with her head against Florence, she went to sleep. When she opened her eyes the shadows of the crags stretched from the west, and between them streamed a red-gold light. It was hazy, smoky sunshine losing its fire. The afternoon had far advanced. Madeline sat up. Florence was lazily reading. The two Mexican women were at work under the fly where the big stone fireplace had been erected. No one else was in sight.

Florence, upon being questioned, informed Madeline that incident about camp had been delightfully absent. Castleton had returned and was profoundly sleeping with the other men. Presently a chorus of merry calls attracted Madeline’s attention, and she turned to see Helen limping along with Dorothy, and Mrs. Beck and Edith supporting each other. They were all rested, but lame, and delighted with the place, and as hungry as bears awakened from a winter’s sleep. Madeline forthwith escorted them round the camp, and through the many aisles between the trees, and to the mossy, pine-matted nooks under the crags.

Then they had dinner, sitting on the ground after the manner of Indians; and it was a dinner that lacked merriment only because everybody was too busily appeasing appetite.

Later Stewart led them across a neck of the park, up a rather steep climb between towering crags, to take them out upon a grassy promontory that faced the great open west — a vast, ridged, streaked, and reddened sweep of earth rolling down, as it seemed, to the golden sunset end of the world. Castleton said it was a jolly fine view; Dorothy voiced her usual languid enthusiasm; Helen was on fire with pleasure and wonder; Mrs. Beck appealed to Bobby to see how he liked it before she ventured, and she then reiterated his praise; and Edith Wayne, like Madeline and Florence, was silent. Boyd was politely interested; he was the kind of man who appeared to care for things as other people cared for them.

Madeline watched the slow transformation of the changing west, with its haze of desert dust, through which mountain and cloud and sun slowly darkened. She watched until her eyes ached, and scarcely had a thought of what she was watching. When her eyes shifted to encounter the tall form of Stewart standing motionless on the rim, her mind became active again. As usual, he stood apart from the others, and now he seemed aloof and unconscious. He made a dark, powerful figure, and he fitted that wild promontory.

She experienced a strange, annoying surprise when she discovered both Helen and Dorothy watching Stewart with peculiar interest. Edith, too, was alive to the splendid picture the cowboy made. But when Edith smiled and whispered in her ear, “It’s so good to look at a man like that,” Madeline again felt the surprise, only this time the accompaniment was a vague pleasure rather than annoyance. Helen and Dorothy were flirts, one deliberate and skilled, the other unconscious and natural. Edith Wayne, occasionally — and Madeline reflected that the occasions were infrequent — admired a man sincerely. Just here Madeline might have fallen into a somewhat revealing state of mind if it had not been for the fact that she believed Stewart was only an object of deep interest to her, not as a man, but as a part of this wild and wonderful West which was claiming her. So she did not inquire of herself why Helen’s coquetry and Dorothy’s languishing allurement annoyed her, or why Edith’s eloquent smile and words had pleased her. She got as far, however, as to think scornfully how Helen and Dorothy would welcome and meet a flirtation with this cowboy and then go back home and forget him as utterly as if he had never existed. She wondered, too, with a curious twist of feeling that was almost eagerness, how the cowboy would meet their advances. Obviously the situation was unfair to him; and if by some strange accident he escaped unscathed by Dorothy’s beautiful eyes he would never be able to withstand Helen’s subtle and fascinating and imperious personality.

They returned to camp in the cool of the evening and made merry round a blazing camp-fire. But Madeline’s guests soon succumbed to the persistent and irresistible desire to sleep.

Then Madeline went to bed with Florence under the pine-tree. Russ lay upon one side and Tartar upon the other. The cool night breeze swept over her, fanning her face, waving her hair. It was not strong enough to make any sound through the branches, but it stirred a faint, silken rustle in the long grass. The coyotes began their weird bark and howl. Russ raised his head to growl at their impudence.

Madeline faced upward, and it seemed to her that under those wonderful white stars she would never be able to go to sleep. They blinked down through the black-barred, delicate crisscross of pine foliage, and they looked so big and so close. Then she gazed away to open space, where an expanse of sky glittered with stars, and the longer she gazed the larger they grew and the more she saw.

It was her belief that she had come to love all the physical things from which sensations of beauty and mystery and strength poured into her responsive mind; but best of all she loved these Western stars, for they were to have something to do with her life, were somehow to influence her destiny.

For a few days the prevailing features of camp life for Madeline’s guests were sleep and rest. Dorothy Coombs slept through twenty-four hours, and then was so difficult to awaken that for a while her friends were alarmed. Helen almost fell asleep while eating and talking. The men were more visibly affected by the mountain air than the women. Castleton, however, would not succumb to the strange drowsiness while he had a chance to prowl around with a gun.

This languorous spell disappeared presently, and then the days were full of life and action. Mrs. Beck and Bobby and Boyd, however, did not go in for anything very strenuous. Edith Wayne, too, preferred to walk through the groves or sit upon the grassy promontory. It was Helen and Dorothy who wanted to explore the crags and canyons, and when they could not get the others to accompany them they went alone, giving the cowboy guides many a long climb.

Necessarily, of course, Madeline and her guests were now thrown much in company with the cowboys. And the party grew to be like one big family. Her friends not only adapted themselves admirably to the situation, but came to revel in it. As for Madeline, she saw that outside of a certain proclivity of the cowboys to be gallant and on dress-parade and alive to possibilities of fun and excitement, they were not greatly different from what they were at all times. If there were a leveling process here it was made by her friends coming down to meet the Westerners. Besides, any class of people would tend to grow natural in such circumstances and environment.

Madeline found the situation one of keen and double interest for her. If before she had cared to study her cowboys, particularly Stewart, now, with the contrasts afforded by her guests, she felt by turns she was amused and mystified and perplexed and saddened, and then again subtly pleased.

Monty, once he had overcome his shyness, became a source of delight to Madeline, and, for that matter, to everybody. Monty had suddenly discovered that he was a success among the ladies. Either he was exalted to heroic heights by this knowledge or he made it appear so. Dorothy had been his undoing, and in justice to her Madeline believed her innocent. Dorothy thought Monty hideous to look at, and, accordingly, if he had been a hero a hundred times and had saved a hundred poor little babies’ lives, he could not have interested her. Monty followed her around, reminding her, she told Madeline, of a little adoring dog one moment and the next of a huge, devouring gorilla.

Nels and Nick stalked at Helen’s heels like grenadiers on duty, and if she as much as dropped her glove they almost came to blows to see who should pick it up.

In a way Castleton was the best feature of the camping party. He was such an absurd-looking little man, and his abilities were at such tremendous odds with what might have been expected of him from his looks. He could ride, tramp, climb, shoot. He liked to help around the camp, and the cowboys could not keep him from it. He had an insatiable desire to do things that were new to him. The cowboys played innumerable tricks upon him, not one of which he ever discovered. He was serious, slow in speech and action, and absolutely imperturbable. If imperturbability could ever be good humor, then he was always good-humored. Presently the cowboys began to understand him, and then to like him. When they liked a man it meant something. Madeline had been sorry more than once to see how little the cowboys chose to speak to Boyd Harvey. With Castleton, however, they actually became friends. They did not know it, and certainly such a thing never occurred to him; all the same, it was a fact. And it grew solely out of the truth that the Englishman was manly in the only way cowboys could have interpreted manliness. When, after innumerable attempts, he succeeded in throwing the diamond-hitch on a pack-horse the cowboys began to respect him. Castleton needed only one more accomplishment to claim their hearts, and he kept trying that — to ride a bucking bronco. One of the cowboys had a bronco that they called Devil. Every day for a week Devil threw the Englishman all over the park, ruined his clothes, bruised him, and finally kicked him. Then the cowboys solicitously tried to make Castleton give up; and this was remarkable enough, for the spectacle of an English lord on a bucking bronco was one that any Westerner would have ridden a thousand miles to see. Whenever Devil threw Castleton the cowboys went into spasms. But Castleton did not know the meaning of the word fail, and there came a day when Devil could not throw him. Then it was a singular sight to see the men line up to shake hands with the cool Englishman. Even Stewart, who had watched from the background, came forward with a warm and pleasant smile on his dark face. When Castleton went to his tent there was much characteristic cowboy talk, and this time vastly different from the former persiflage.

“By Gawd!” ejaculated Monty Price, who seemed to be the most amazed and elated of them all. “Thet’s the fust Englishman I ever seen! He’s orful deceivin’ to look at, but I know now why England rules the wurrld. Jest take a peek at thet bronco. His spirit is broke. Rid by a leetle English dook no bigger ‘n a grasshopper! Fellers, if it hain’t dawned on you yit, let Monty Price give you a hunch. There’s no flies on Castleton. An’ I’ll bet a million steers to a rawhide rope thet next he’ll be throwin’ a gun as good as Nels.”

It was a distinct pleasure for Madeline to realize that she liked Castleton all the better for the traits brought out so forcibly by his association with the cowboys. On the other hand, she liked the cowboys better for something in them that contact with Easterners brought out. This was especially true in Stewart’s case. She had been wholly wrong when she had imagined he would fall an easy victim to Dorothy’s eyes and Helen’s lures. He was kind, helpful, courteous, and watchful. But he had no sentiment. He did not see Dorothy’s charms or feel Helen’s fascination. And their efforts to captivate him were now so obvious that Mrs. Beck taunted them, and Edith smiled knowingly, and Bobby and Boyd made playful remarks. All of which cut Helen’s pride and hurt Dorothy’s vanity. They essayed open conquest of Stewart.

So it came about that Madeline unconsciously admitted the cowboy to a place in her mind never occupied by any other. The instant it occurred to her why he was proof against the wiles of the other women she drove that amazing and strangely disturbing thought from her. Nevertheless, as she was human, she could not help thinking and being pleased and enjoying a little the discomfiture of the two coquettes.

Moreover, from this thought of Stewart, and the watchfulness growing out of it she discovered more about him. He was not happy; he often paced up and down the grove at night; he absented himself from camp sometimes during the afternoon when Nels and Nick and Monty were there; he was always watching the trails, as if he expected to see some one come riding up. He alone of the cowboys did not indulge in the fun and talk around the camp-fire. He remained preoccupied and sad, and was always looking away into distance. Madeline had a strange sense of his guardianship over her; and, remembering Don Carlos, she imagined he worried a good deal over his charge, and, indeed, over the safety of all the party.

But if he did worry about possible visits from wandering guerrillas, why did he absent himself from camp? Suddenly into Madeline’s inquisitive mind flashed a remembrance of the dark-eyed Mexican girl, Bonita, who had never been heard of since that night she rode Stewart’s big horse out of El Cajon. The remembrance of her brought an idea. Perhaps Stewart had a rendezvous in the mountains, and these lonely trips of his were to meet Bonita. With the idea hot blood flamed into Madeline’s cheek. Then she was amazed at her own feelings — amazed because her swiftest succeeding thought was to deny the idea — amazed that its conception had fired her cheek with shame. Then her old self, the one aloof from this red-blooded new self, gained control over her emotions.

But Madeline found that new-born self a creature of strange power to return and govern at any moment. She found it fighting loyally for what intelligence and wisdom told her was only her romantic conception of a cowboy. She reasoned: If Stewart were the kind of man her feminine skepticism wanted to make him, he would not have been so blind to the coquettish advances of Helen and Dorothy. He had once been — she did not want to recall what he had once been. But he had been uplifted. Madeline Hammond declared that. She was swayed by a strong, beating pride, and her instinctive woman’s faith told her that he could not stoop to such dishonor. She reproached herself for having momentarily thought of it.

One afternoon a huge storm-cloud swooped out of the sky and enveloped the crags. It obscured the westering sun and laid a mantle of darkness over the park. Madeline was uneasy because several of her party, including Helen and Dorothy, had ridden off with the cowboys that afternoon and had not returned. Florence assured her that even if they did not get back before the storm broke there was no reason for apprehension. Nevertheless, Madeline sent for Stewart and asked him to go or send some one in search of them.

Perhaps half an hour later Madeline heard the welcome pattering of hoofs on the trail. The big tent was brightly lighted by several lanterns. Edith and Florence were with her. It was so black outside that Madeline could not see a rod before her face. The wind was moaning in the trees, and big drops of rain were pelting upon the canvas.

Presently, just outside the door, the horses halted, and there was a sharp bustle of sound, such as would naturally result from a hurried dismounting and confusion in the dark. Mrs. Beck came running into the tent out of breath and radiant because they had beaten the storm. Helen entered next, and a little later came Dorothy, but long enough to make her entrance more noticeable. The instant Madeline saw Dorothy’s blazing eyes she knew something unusual had happened. Whatever it was might have escaped comment had not Helen caught sight of Dorothy.

“Heavens, Dot, but you’re handsome occasionally!” remarked Helen. “When you get some life in your face and eyes!”

Dorothy turned her face away from the others, and perhaps it was only accident that she looked into a mirror hanging on the tent wall. Swiftly she put her hand up to feel a wide red welt on her cheek. Dorothy had been assiduously careful of her soft, white skin, and here was an ugly mark marring its beauty.

“Look at that!” she cried, in distress. “My complexion’s ruined!”

“How did you get such a splotch?” inquired Helen, going closer.

“I’ve been kissed!” exclaimed Dorothy, dramatically.

“What?” queried Helen, more curiously, while the others laughed.

“I’ve been kissed — hugged and kissed by one of those shameless cowboys! It was so pitch-dark outside I couldn’t see a thing. And so noisy I couldn’t hear. But somebody was trying to help me off my horse. My foot caught in the stirrup, and away I went — right into somebody’s arms. Then he did it, the wretch! He hugged and kissed me in a most awful bearish manner. I couldn’t budge a finger. I’m simply boiling with rage!”

When the outburst of mirth subsided Dorothy turned her big, dilated eyes upon Florence.

“Do these cowboys really take advantage of a girl when she’s helpless and in the dark?”

“Of course they do,” replied Florence, with her frank smile.

“Dot, what in the world could you expect?” asked Helen. “Haven’t you been dying to be kissed?”

“No.”

“Well, you acted like it, then. I never before saw you in a rage over being kissed.”

“I — I wouldn’t care so much if the brute hadn’t scoured the skin off my face. He had whiskers as sharp and stiff as sandpaper. And when I jerked away he rubbed my cheek with them.”

This revelation as to the cause of her outraged dignity almost prostrated her friends with glee.

“Dot, I agree with you; it’s one thing to be kissed, and quite another to have your beauty spoiled,” replied Helen, presently. “Who was this particular savage?”

“I don’t know!” burst out Dorothy. “If I did I’d — I’d—”

Her eyes expressed the direful punishment she could not speak.

“Honestly now, Dot, haven’t you the least idea who did it?” questioned Helen.

“I hope — I think it was Stewart,” replied Dorothy.

“Ah! Dot, your hope is father to the thought. My dear, I’m sorry to riddle your little romance. Stewart did not — could not have been the offender or hero.”

“How do you know he couldn’t?” demanded Dorothy, flushing.

“Because he was clean-shaven to-day at noon, before we rode out. I remember perfectly how nice and smooth and brown his face looked.”

“Oh, do you? Well, if your memory for faces is so good, maybe you can tell me which one of these cowboys wasn’t clean-shaven.”

“Merely a matter of elimination,” replied Helen, merrily. “It was not Nick; it was not Nels; it was not Frankie. There was only one other cowboy with us, and he had a short, stubby growth of black beard, much like that cactus we passed on the trail.”

“Oh, I was afraid of it,” moaned Dorothy. “I knew he was going to do it. That horrible little smiling demon, Monty Price!”

A favorite lounging-spot of Madeline’s was a shaded niche under the lee of crags facing the east. Here the outlook was entirely different from that on the western side. It was not red and white and glaring, nor so changeable that it taxed attention. This eastern view was one of the mountains and valleys, where, to be sure, there were arid patches; but the restful green of pine and fir was there, and the cool gray of crags. Bold and rugged indeed were these mountain features, yet they were companionably close, not immeasurably distant and unattainable like the desert. Here in the shade of afternoon Madeline and Edith would often lounge under a low-branched tree. Seldom they talked much, for it was afternoon and dreamy with the strange spell of this mountain fastness. There was smoky haze in the valleys, a fleecy cloud resting over the peaks, a sailing eagle in the blue sky, silence that was the unbroken silence of the wild heights, and a soft wind laden with incense of pine.

One afternoon, however, Edith appeared prone to talk seriously.

“Majesty, I must go home soon. I cannot stay out here forever. Are you going back with me?”

“Well, maybe,” replied Madeline, thoughtfully. “I have considered it. I shall have to visit home some time. But this summer mother and father are going to Europe.”

“See here, Majesty Hammond, do you intend to spend the rest of your life in this wilderness?” asked Edith, bluntly.

Madeline was silent.

“Oh, it is glorious! Don’t misunderstand me, dear,” went on Edith, earnestly, as she laid her hand on Madeline’s. “This trip has been a revelation to me. I did not tell you, Majesty, that I was ill when I arrived. Now I’m well. So well! Look at Helen, too. Why, she was a ghost when we got here. Now she is brown and strong and beautiful. If it were for nothing else than this wonderful gift of health I would love the West. But I have come to love it for other things — even spiritual things. Majesty, I have been studying you. I see and feel what this life has made of you. When I came I wondered at your strength, your virility, your serenity, your happiness. And I was stunned. I wondered at the causes of your change. Now I know. You were sick of idleness, sick of uselessness, if not of society — sick of the horrible noises and smells and contacts one can no longer escape in the cities. I am sick of all that, too, and I could tell you many women of our kind who suffer in a like manner. You have done what many of us want to do, but have not the courage. You have left it. I am not blind to the splendid difference you have made in your life. I think I would have discovered, even if your brother had not told me, what good you have done to the Mexicans and cattlemen of your range. Then you have work to do. That is much the secret of your happiness, is it not? Tell me. Tell me something of what it means to you?”

“Work, of course, has much to do with any one’s happiness,” replied Madeline. “No one can be happy who has no work. As regards myself — for the rest I can hardly tell you. I have never tried to put it in words. Frankly, I believe, if I had not had money that I could not have found such contentment here. That is not in any sense a judgment against the West. But if I had been poor I could not have bought and maintained my ranch. Stillwell tells me there are many larger ranches than mine, but none just like it. Then I am almost paying my expenses out of my business. Think of that! My income, instead of being wasted, is mostly saved. I think — I hope I am useful. I have been of some little good to the Mexicans — eased the hardships of a few cowboys. For the rest, I think my life is a kind of dream. Of course my ranch and range are real, my cowboys are typical. If I were to tell you how I feel about them it would simply be a story of how Madeline Hammond sees the West. They are true to the West. It is I who am strange, and what I feel for them may be strange, too. Edith, hold to your own impressions.”

“But, Majesty, my impressions have changed. At first I did not like the wind, the dust, the sun, the endless open stretches. But now I do like them. Where once I saw only terrible wastes of barren ground now I see beauty and something noble. Then, at first, your cowboys struck me as dirty, rough, loud, crude, savage — all that was primitive. I did not want them near me. I imagined them callous, hard men, their only joy a carouse with their kind. But I was wrong. I have changed. The dirt was only dust, and this desert dust is clean. They are still rough, loud, crude, and savage in my eyes, but with a difference. They are natural men. They are little children. Monty Price is one of nature’s noblemen. The hard thing is to discover it. All his hideous person, all his actions and speech, are masks of his real nature. Nels is a joy, a simple, sweet, kindly, quiet man whom some woman should have loved. What would love have meant to him! He told me that no woman ever loved him except his mother, and he lost her when he was ten. Every man ought to be loved — especially such a man as Nels. Somehow his gun record does not impress me. I never could believe he killed a man. Then take your foreman, Stewart. He is a cowboy, his work and life the same as the others. But he has education and most of the graces we are in the habit of saying make a gentleman. Stewart is a strange fellow, just like this strange country. He’s a man, Majesty, and I admire him. So, you see, my impressions are developing with my stay out here.”

“Edith, I am so glad you told me that,” replied Madeline, warmly.

“I like the country, and I like the men,” went on Edith. “One reason I want to go home soon is because I am discontented enough at home now, without falling in love with the West. For, of course, Majesty, I would. I could not live out here. And that brings me to my point. Admitting all the beauty and charm and wholesomeness and good of this wonderful country, still it is no place for you, Madeline Hammond. You have your position, your wealth, your name, your family. You must marry. You must have children. You must not give up all that for a quixotic life in a wilderness.”

“I am convinced, Edith, that I shall live here all the rest of my life.”

“Oh, Majesty! I hate to preach this way. But I promised your mother I would talk to you. And the truth is I hate — I hate what I’m saying. I envy you your courage and wisdom. I know you have refused to marry Boyd Harvey. I could see that in his face. I believe you will refuse Castleton. Whom will you marry? What chance is there for a woman of your position to marry out here? What in the world will become of you?”

“Quien sabe?” replied Madeline, with a smile that was almost sad.

Not so many hours after this conversation with Edith, Madeline sat with Boyd Harvey upon the grassy promontory overlooking the west, and she listened once again to his suave courtship.

Suddenly she turned to him and said, “Boyd, if I married you would you be willing — glad to spend the rest of your life here in the West?”

“Majesty!” he exclaimed. There was amaze in the voice usually so even and well modulated — amaze in the handsome face usually so indifferent. Her question had startled him. She saw him look down the iron-gray cliffs, over the barren slopes and cedared ridges, beyond the cactus-covered foothills to the grim and ghastly desert. Just then, with its red veils of sunlit dust-clouds, its illimitable waste of ruined and upheaved earth, it was a sinister spectacle.

“No,” he replied, with a tinge of shame in his cheek. Madeline said no more, nor did he speak. She was spared the pain of refusing him, and she imagined he would never ask her again. There was both relief and regret in the conviction. Humiliated lovers seldom made good friends.

It was impossible not to like Boyd Harvey. The thought of that, and why she could not marry him, concentrated her never-satisfied mind upon the man. She looked at him, and she thought of him.

He was handsome, young, rich, well born, pleasant, cultivated — he was all that made a gentleman of his class. If he had any vices she had not heard of them. She knew he had no thirst for drink or craze for gambling. He was considered a very desirable and eligible young man. Madeline admitted all this.

Then she thought of things that were perhaps exclusively her own strange ideas. Boyd Harvey’s white skin did not tan even in this southwestern sun and wind. His hands were whiter than her own, and as soft. They were really beautiful, and she remembered what care he took of them. They were a proof that he never worked. His frame was tall, graceful, elegant. It did not bear evidence of ruggedness. He had never indulged in a sport more strenuous than yachting. He hated effort and activity. He rode horseback very little, disliked any but moderate motoring, spent much time in Newport and Europe, never walked when he could help it, and had no ambition unless it were to pass the days pleasantly. If he ever had any sons they would be like him, only a generation more toward the inevitable extinction of his race.

Madeline returned to camp in just the mood to make a sharp, deciding contrast. It happened — fatefully, perhaps — that the first man she saw was Stewart. He had just ridden into camp, and as she came up he explained that he had gone down to the ranch for the important mail about which she had expressed anxiety.

“Down and back in one day!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” he replied. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“But why did you not send one of the boys, and let him make the regular two-day trip?”

“You were worried about your mail,” he answered, briefly, as he delivered it. Then he bent to examine the fetlocks of his weary horse.

It was midsummer now, Madeline reflected and exceedingly hot and dusty on the lower trail. Stewart had ridden down the mountain and back again in twelve hours. Probably no horse in the outfit, except his big black or Majesty, could have stood that trip. And his horse showed the effects of a grueling day. He was caked with dust and lame and weary.

Stewart looked as if he had spared the horse his weight on many a mile of that rough ascent. His boots were evidence of it. His heavy flannel shirt, wet through with perspiration, adhered closely to his shoulders and arms, so that every ripple of muscle plainly showed. His face was black, except round the temples and forehead, where it was bright red. Drops of sweat, running off his blackened hands dripped to the ground. He got up from examining the lame foot, and then threw off the saddle. The black horse snorted and lunged for the watering-pool. Stewart let him drink a little, then with iron arms dragged him away. In this action the man’s lithe, powerful form impressed Madeline with a wonderful sense of muscular force. His brawny wrist was bare; his big, strong hand, first clutching the horse’s mane, then patting his neck, had a bruised knuckle, and one finger was bound up. That hand expressed as much gentleness and thoughtfulness for the horse as it had strength to drag him back from too much drinking at a dangerous moment.

Stewart was a combination of fire, strength, and action. These attributes seemed to cling about him. There was something vital and compelling in his presence. Worn and spent and drawn as he was from the long ride, he thrilled Madeline with his potential youth and unused vitality and promise of things to be, red-blooded deeds, both of flesh and spirit. In him she saw the strength of his forefathers unimpaired. The life in him was marvelously significant. The dust, the dirt, the sweat, the soiled clothes, the bruised and bandaged hand, the brawn and bone — these had not been despised by the knights of ancient days, nor by modern women whose eyes shed soft light upon coarse and bloody toilers.

Madeline Hammond compared the man of the East with the man of the West; and that comparison was the last parting regret for her old standards.

XVII. The Lost Mine of the Padres

IN THE COOL, starry evenings the campers sat around a blazing fire and told and listened to stories thrillingly fitted to the dark crags and the wild solitude.

Monty Price had come to shine brilliantly as a storyteller. He was an atrocious liar, but this fact would not have been evident to his enthralled listeners if his cowboy comrades, in base jealousy, had not betrayed him. The truth about his remarkable fabrications, however, had not become known to Castleton, solely because of the Englishman’s obtuseness. And there was another thing much stranger than this and quite as amusing. Dorothy Coombs knew Monty was a liar; but she was so fascinated by the glittering, basilisk eyes he riveted upon her, so taken in by his horrible tales of blood, that despite her knowledge she could not help believing them.

Manifestly Monty was very proud of his suddenly acquired gift. Formerly he had hardly been known to open his lips in the presence of strangers. Monty had developed more than one singular and hitherto unknown trait since his supremacy at golf had revealed his possibilities. He was as sober and vain and pompous about his capacity for lying as about anything else. Some of the cowboys were jealous of him because he held the attention and, apparently, the admiration of the ladies; and Nels was jealous, not because Monty made himself out to be a wonderful gun-man, but because Monty could tell a story. Nels really had been the hero of a hundred fights; he had never been known to talk about them; but Dorothy’s eyes and Helen’s smile had somehow upset his modesty. Whenever Monty would begin to talk Nels would growl and knock his pipe on a log, and make it appear he could not stay and listen, though he never really left the charmed circle of the camp-fire. Wild horses could not have dragged him away.

One evening at twilight, as Madeline was leaving her tent, she encountered Monty. Evidently, he had way-laid her. With the most mysterious of signs and whispers he led her a little aside.

“Miss Hammond, I’m makin’ bold to ask a favor of you,” he said.

Madeline smiled her willingness.

“To-night, when they’ve all shot off their chins an’ it’s quiet-like, I want you to ask me, jest this way, ‘Monty, seein’ as you’ve hed more adventures than all them cow-punchers put together, tell us about the most turrible time you ever hed.’ Will you ask me, Miss Hammond, jest kinda sincere like?”

“Certainly I will, Monty,” she replied.

His dark, seared face had no more warmth than a piece of cold, volcanic rock, which it resembled. Madeline appreciated how monstrous Dorothy found this burned and distorted visage, how deformed the little man looked to a woman of refined sensibilities. It was difficult for Madeline to look into his face. But she saw behind the blackened mask. And now she saw in Monty’s deep eyes a spirit of pure fun.

So, true to her word, Madeline remembered at an opportune moment, when conversation had hushed and only the long, dismal wail of coyotes broke the silence, to turn toward the little cowboy.

“Monty,” she said, and paused for effect— “Monty, seeing that you have had more adventures than all the cowboys together, tell us about the most terrible time you ever had.”

Monty appeared startled at the question that fastened all eyes upon him. He waved a deprecatory hand.

“Aw, Miss Hammond, thankin’ you all modest-like fer the compliment, I’ll hev to refuse,” replied Monty, laboring in distress. “It’s too harrowin’ fer tender-hearted gurls to listen to.”

“Go on?” cried everybody except the cowboys. Nels began to nod his head as if he, as well as Monty, understood human nature. Dorothy hugged her knees with a kind of shudder. Monty had fastened the hypnotic eyes upon her. Castleton ceased smoking, adjusted his eyeglass, and prepared to listen in great earnestness.

Monty changed his seat to one where the light from the blazing logs fell upon his face; and he appeared plunged into melancholy and profound thought.

“Now I tax myself, I can’t jest decide which was the orfulest time I ever hed,” he said, reflectively.

Here Nels blew forth an immense cloud of smoke, as if he desired to hide himself from sight. Monty pondered, and then when the smoke rolled away he turned to Nels.

“See hyar, old pard, me an’ you seen somethin’ of each other in the Panhandle, more ‘n thirty years ago—”

“Which we didn’t,” interrupted Nels, bluntly. “Shore you can’t make me out an ole man.”

“Mebbe it wasn’t so darn long. Anyhow, Nels, you recollect them three hoss-thieves I hung all on one cottonwood-tree, an’ likewise thet boo-tiful blond gurl I rescooed from a band of cutthroats who murdered her paw, ole Bill Warren, the buffalo-hunter? Now, which of them two scraps was the turriblest, in your idee?”

“Monty, my memory’s shore bad,” replied the unimpeachable Nels.

“Tell us about the beautiful blonde,” cried at least three of the ladies. Dorothy, who had suffered from nightmare because of a former story of hanging men on trees, had voicelessly appealed to Monty to spare her more of that.

“All right, we’ll hev the blond gurl,” said Monty, settling back, “though I ain’t thinkin’ her story is most turrible of the two, an’ it’ll rake over tender affections long slumberin’ in my breast.”

As he paused there came a sharp, rapping sound. This appeared to be Nels knocking the ashes out of his pipe on a stump — a true indication of the passing of content from that jealous cowboy.

“It was down in the Panhandle, ‘way over in the west end of thet Comanche huntin’-ground, an’ all the redskins an’ outlaws in thet country were hidin’ in the river-bottoms, an’ chasin’ some of the last buffalo herds thet hed wintered in there. I was a young buck them days, an’ purty much of a desperado, I’m thinkin’. Though of all the seventeen notches on my gun — an’ each notch meant a man killed face to face — there was only one thet I was ashamed of. Thet one was fer an express messenger who I hit on the head most unprofessional like, jest because he wouldn’t hand over a leetle package. I hed the kind of a reputashun thet made all the fellers in saloons smile an’ buy drinks.

“Well, I dropped into a place named Taylor’s Bend, an’ was peaceful standin’ to the bar when three cow-punchers come in, an’, me bein’ with my back turned, they didn’t recognize me an’ got playful. I didn’t stop drinkin’, an’ I didn’t turn square round; but when I stopped shootin’ under my arm the saloon-keeper hed to go over to the sawmill an’ fetch a heap of sawdust to cover up what was left of them three cow-punchers, after they was hauled out. You see, I was rough them days, an’ would shoot ears off an’ noses off an’ hands off; when in later days I’d jest kill a man quick, same as Wild Bill.

“News drifts into town thet night thet a gang of cut-throats hed murdered ole Bill Warren an’ carried off his gurl. I gathers up a few good gun-men, an’ we rid out an’ down the river-bottom, to an ole log cabin, where the outlaws hed a rondevoo. We rid up boldlike, an’ made a hell of a racket. Then the gang began to throw lead from the cabin, an’ we all hunted cover. Fightin’ went on all night. In the mornin’ all my outfit was killed but two, an’ they was shot up bad. We fought all day without eatin’ or drinkin’, except some whisky I hed, an’ at night I was on the job by my lonesome.

“Bein’ bunged up some myself, I laid off an’ went down to the river to wash the blood off, tie up my wounds, an’ drink a leetle. While I was down there along comes one of the cutthroats with a bucket. Instead of gettin’ water he got lead, an’ as he was about to croak he tells me a whole bunch of outlaws was headin’ in there, doo to-morrer. An’ if I wanted to rescoo the gurl I hed to be hurryin’. There was five fellers left in the cabin.

“I went back to the thicket where I hed left my hoss, an’ loaded up with two more guns an’ another belt, an’ busted a fresh box of shells. If I recollect proper, I got some cigarettes, too. Well, I mozied back to the cabin. It was a boo-tiful moonshiny night, an’ I wondered if ole Bill’s gun was as purty as I’d heerd. The grass growed long round the cabin, an’ I crawled up to the door without startin’ anythin’. Then I figgered. There was only one door in thet cabin, an’ it was black dark inside. I jest grabbed open the door an’ slipped in quick. It worked all right. They heerd me, but hedn’t been quick enough to ketch me in the light of the door. Of course there was some shots, but I ducked too quick, an’ changed my position.

“Ladies an’ gentlemen, thet there was some dool by night. An’ I wasn’t often in the place where they shot. I was most wonderful patient, an’ jest waited until one of them darned ruffians would get so nervous he’d hev to hunt me up. When mornin’ come there they was all piled up on the floor, all shot to pieces. I found the gurl. Purty! Say, she was boo-tiful. We went down to the river, where she begun to bathe my wounds. I’d collected a dozen more or so, an’ the sight of tears in her lovely eyes, an’ my blood a-stainin’ of her little hands, jest nat’rally wakened a trembly spell in my heart. I seen she was took the same way, an’ thet settled it.

“We was comin’ up from the river, an’ I hed jest straddled my hoss, with the gurl behind, when we run right into thet cutthroat gang thet was doo about then. Bein’ some handicapped, I couldn’t drop more ‘n one gun-round of them, an’ then I hed to slope. The whole gang follered me, an’ some miles out chased me over a ridge right into a big herd of buffalo. Before I knowed what was what thet herd broke into a stampede, with me in the middle. Purty soon the buffalo closed in tight. I knowed I was in some peril then. But the gurl trusted me somethin’ pitiful. I seen again thet she hed fell in love with me. I could tell from the way she hugged me an’ yelled. Before long I was some put to it to keep my hoss on his feet. Far as I could see was dusty, black, bobbin’, shaggy humps. A huge cloud of dust went along over our heads. The roar of tramplin’ hoofs was turrible. My hoss weakened, went down, an’ was carried along a leetle while I slipped off with the gurl on to the backs of the buffalo.

“Ladies, I ain’t denyin’ that then Monty Price was some scairt. Fust time in my life! But the trustin’ face of thet boo-tiful gurl, as she lay in my arms an’ hugged me an’ yelled, made my spirit leap like a shootin’ star. I just began to jump from buffalo to buffalo. I must hev jumped a mile of them bobbin’ backs before I come to open places. An’ here’s where I performed the greatest stunts of my life. I hed on my big spurs, an’ I jest sit down an’ rid an’ spurred till thet pertickler buffalo I was on got near another, an’ then I’d flop over. Thusly I got to the edge of the herd, tumbled off’n the last one, an’ rescooed the gurl.

“Well, as my memory takes me back, thet was a most affectin’ walk home to the little town where she lived. But she wasn’t troo to me, an’ married another feller. I was too much a sport to kill him. But thet low-down trick rankled in my breast. Gurls is strange. I’ve never stopped wonderin’ how any gurl who has been hugged an’ kissed by one man could marry another. But matoor experience teaches me thet sich is the case.”

The cowboys roared; Helen and Mrs. Beck and Edith laughed till they cried; Madeline found repression absolutely impossible; Dorothy sat hugging her knees, her horror at the story no greater than at Monty’s unmistakable reference to her and to the fickleness of women; and Castleton for the first time appeared to be moved out of his imperturbability, though not in any sense by humor. Indeed, when he came to notice it, he was dumfounded by the mirth.

“By Jove! you Americans are an extraordinary people,” he said. “I don’t see anything blooming funny in Mr. Price’s story of his adventure. By Jove! that was a bally warm occasion. Mr. Price, when you speak of being frightened for the only time in your life, I appreciate what you mean. I have experienced that. I was frightened once.”

“Dook, I wouldn’t hev thought it of you,” replied Monty. “I’m sure tolerable curious to hear about it.”

Madeline and her friends dared not break the spell, for fear that the Englishman might hold to his usual modest reticence. He had explored in Brazil, seen service in the Boer War, hunted in India and Africa — matters of experience of which he never spoke. Upon this occasion, however, evidently taking Monty’s recital word for word as literal truth, and excited by it into a Homeric mood, he might tell a story. The cowboys almost fell upon their knees in their importunity. There was a suppressed eagerness in their solicitations, a hint of something that meant more than desire, great as it was, to hear a story told by an English lord. Madeline divined instantly that the cowboys had suddenly fancied that Castleton was not the dense and easily fooled person they had made such game of; that he had played his part well; that he was having fun at their expense; that he meant to tell a story, a lie which would simply dwarf Monty’s. Nels’s keen, bright expectation suggested how he would welcome the joke turned upon Monty. The slow closing of Monty’s cavernous smile, the gradual sinking of his proud bearing, the doubt with which he began to regard Castleton — these were proofs of his fears.

“I have faced charging tigers and elephants in India, and charging rhinos and lions in Africa,” began Castleton, his quick and fluent speech so different from the drawl of his ordinary conversation; “but I never was frightened but once. It will not do to hunt those wild beasts if you are easily balled up. This adventure I have in mind happened in British East Africa, in Uganda. I was out with safari, and we were in a native district much infested by man-eating lions. Perhaps I may as well state that man-eaters are very different from ordinary lions. They are always matured beasts, and sometimes — indeed, mostly — are old. They become man-eaters most likely by accident or necessity. When old they find it more difficult to make a kill, being slower, probably, and with poorer teeth. Driven by hunger, they stalk and kill a native, and, once having tasted human blood, they want no other. They become absolutely fearless and terrible in their attacks.

“The natives of this village near where we camped were in a terrorized state owing to depredations of two or more man-eaters. The night of our arrival a lion leaped a stockade fence, seized a native from among others sitting round a fire, and leaped out again, carrying the screaming fellow away into the darkness. I determined to kill these lions, and made a permanent camp in the village for that purpose. By day I sent beaters into the brush and rocks of the river-valley, and by night I watched. Every night the lions visited us, but I did not see one. I discovered that when they roared around the camp they were not so liable to attack as when they were silent. It was indeed remarkable how silently they could stalk a man. They could creep through a thicket so dense you would not believe a rabbit could get through, and do it without the slightest sound. Then, when ready to charge, they did so with terrible onslaught and roar. They leaped right into a circle of fires, tore down huts, even dragged natives from the low trees. There was no way to tell at which point they would make an attack.

“After ten days or more of this I was worn out by loss of sleep. And one night, when tired out with watching, I fell asleep. My gun-bearer was alone in the tent with me. A terrible roar awakened me, then an unearthly scream pierced right into my ears. I always slept with my rifle in my hands, and, grasping it, I tried to rise. But I could not for the reason that a lion was standing over me. Then I lay still. The screams of my gun-bearer told me that the lion had him. I was fond of this fellow and wanted to save him. I thought it best, however, not to move while the lion stood over me. Suddenly he stepped, and I felt poor Luki’s feet dragging across me. He screamed, ‘Save me, master!’ And instinctively I grasped at him and caught his foot. The lion walked out of the tent dragging me as I held to Luki’s foot. The night was bright moonlight. I could see the lion distinctly. He was a huge, black-maned brute, and he held Luki by the shoulder. The poor lad kept screaming frightfully. The man-eater must have dragged me forty yards before he became aware of a double incumbrance to his progress. Then he halted and turned. By Jove! he made a devilish fierce object with his shaggy, massive head, his green-fire eyes, and his huge jaws holding Luki. I let go of Luki’s foot and bethought myself of the gun. But as I lay there on my side, before attempting to rise, I made a horrible discovery. I did not have my rifle at all. I had Luki’s iron spear, which he always had near him. My rifle had slipped out of the hollow of my arm, and when the lion awakened me, in my confusion I picked up Luki’s spear instead. The bloody brute dropped Luki and uttered a roar that shook the ground. It was then I felt frightened. For an instant I was almost paralyzed. The lion meant to charge, and in one spring he could reach me. Under circumstances like those a man can think many things in little time. I knew to try to run would be fatal. I remembered how strangely lions had been known to act upon occasion. One had been frightened by an umbrella; one had been frightened by a blast from a cow-horn; another had been frightened by a native who in running from one lion ran right at the other which he had not seen. Accordingly, I wondered if I could frighten the lion that meant to leap at me. Acting upon wild impulse, I prodded him in the hind quarters with the spear. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a blooming idiot if that lion did not cower like a whipped dog, put his tail down, and begin to slink away. Quick to see my chance, I jumped up yelling, and made after him, prodding him again. He let out a bellow such as you could imagine would come from an outraged king of beasts. I prodded again, and then he loped off. I found Luki not badly hurt. In fact, he got well. But I’ve never forgotten that scare.”

When Castleton finished his narrative there was a trenchant silence. All eyes were upon Monty. He looked beaten, disgraced, a disgusted man. Yet there shone from his face a wonderful admiration for Castleton.

“Dook, you win!” he said; and, dropping his head, he left the camp-fire circle with the manner of a deposed emperor.

Then the cowboys exploded. The quiet, serene, low-voiced Nels yelled like a madman and he stood upon his head. All the other cowboys went through marvelous contortions. Mere noise was insufficient to relieve their joy at what they considered the fall and humiliation of the tyrant Monty.

The Englishman stood there and watched them in amused consternation. They baffled his understanding. Plain it was to Madeline and her friends that Castleton had told the simple truth. But never on the earth, or anywhere else, could Nels and his comrades have been persuaded that Castleton had not lied deliberately to humble their great exponent of Ananias.

Everybody seemed reluctant to break the camp-fire spell. The logs had burned out to a great heap of opal and gold and red coals, in the heart of which quivered a glow alluring to the spirit of dreams. As the blaze subsided the shadows of the pines encroached darker and darker upon the circle of fading light. A cool wind fanned the embers, whipped up flakes of white ashes, and moaned through the trees. The wild yelps of coyotes were dying in the distance, and the sky was a wonderful dark-blue dome spangled with white stars.

“What a perfect night!” said Madeline. “This is a night to understand the dream, the mystery, the wonder of the Southwest. Florence, for long you have promised to tell us the story of the lost mine of the padres. It will give us all pleasure, make us understand something of the thrall in which this land held the Spaniards who discovered it so many years ago. It will be especially interesting now, because this mountain hides somewhere under its crags the treasures of the lost mine of the padres.”

“In the sixteenth century,” Florence began, in her soft, slow voice so suited to the nature of the legend, “a poor young padre of New Spain was shepherding his goats upon a hill when the Virgin appeared before him. He prostrated himself at her feet, and when he looked up she was gone. But upon the maguey plant near where she had stood there were golden ashes of a strange and wonderful substance. He took the incident as a good omen and went again to the hilltop. Under the maguey had sprung up slender stalks of white, bearing delicate gold flowers, and as these flowers waved in the wind a fine golden dust, as fine as powdered ashes, blew away toward the north. Padre Juan was mystified, but believed that great fortune attended upon him and his poor people. So he went again and again to the hilltop in hope that the Virgin would appear to him.

“One morning, as the sun rose gloriously, he looked across the windy hill toward the waving grass and golden flowers under the maguey, and he saw the Virgin beckoning to him. Again he fell upon his knees; but she lifted him and gave him of the golden flowers, and bade him leave his home and people to follow where these blowing golden ashes led. There he would find gold — pure gold — wonderful fortune to bring back to his poor people to build a church for them, and a city.

“Padre Juan took the flowers and left his home, promising to return, and he traveled northward over the hot and dusty desert, through the mountain passes, to a new country where fierce and warlike Indians menaced his life. He was gentle and good, and of a persuasive speech. Moreover, he was young and handsome of person. The Indians were Apaches, and among them he became a missionary, while always he was searching for the flowers of gold. He heard of gold lying in pebbles upon the mountain slopes, but he never found any. A few of the Apaches he converted; the most of them, however, were prone to be hostile to him and his religion. But Padre Juan prayed and worked on.

“There came a time when the old Apache chief, imagining the padre had designs upon his influence with the tribe, sought to put him to death by fire. The chief’s daughter, a beautiful, dark-eyed maiden, secretly loved Juan and believed in his mission, and she interceded for his life and saved him. Juan fell in love with her. One day she came to him wearing golden flowers in her dark hair, and as the wind blew the flowers a golden dust blew upon it. Juan asked her where to find such flowers, and she told him that upon a certain day she would take him to the mountain to look for them. And upon the day she led up to the mountain-top from which they could see beautiful valleys and great trees and cool waters. There at the top of a wonderful slope that looked down upon the world, she showed Juan the flowers. And Juan found gold in such abundance that he thought he would go out of his mind. Dust of gold! Grains of gold! Pebbles of gold! Rocks of gold! He was rich beyond all dreams. He remembered the Virgin and her words. He must return to his people and build their church, and the great city that would bear his name.

“But Juan tarried. Always he was going manana. He loved the dark-eyed Apache girl so well that he could not leave her. He hated himself for his infidelity to his Virgin, to his people. He was weak and false, a sinner. But he could not go, and he gave himself up to love of the Indian maiden.

“The old Apache chief discovered the secret love of his daughter and the padre. And, fierce in his anger, he took her up into the mountains and burned her alive and cast her ashes upon the wind. He did not kill Padre Juan. He was too wise, and perhaps too cruel, for he saw the strength of Juan’s love. Besides, many of his tribe had learned much from the Spaniard.

“Padre Juan fell into despair. He had no desire to live. He faded and wasted away. But before he died he went to the old Indians who had burned the maiden, and he begged them, when he was dead, to burn his body and to cast his ashes to the wind from that wonderful slope, where they would blow away to mingle forever with those of his Indian sweetheart.

“The Indians promised, and when Padre Juan died they burned his body and took his ashes to the mountain heights and cast them to the wind, where they drifted and fell to mix with the ashes of the Indian girl he had loved.

“Years passed. More padres traveled across the desert to the home of the Apaches, and they heard the story of Juan. Among their number was a padre who in his youth had been one of Juan’s people. He set forth to find Juan’s grave, where he believed he would also find the gold. And he came back with pebbles of gold and flowers that shed a golden dust, and he told a wonderful story. He had climbed and climbed into the mountains, and he had come to a wonderful slope under the crags. That slope was yellow with golden flowers. When he touched them golden ashes drifted from them and blew down among the rocks. There the padre found dust of gold, grains of gold, pebbles of gold, rocks of gold.

“Then all the padres went into the mountains. But the discoverer of the mine lost his way. They searched and searched until they were old and gray, but never found the wonderful slope and flowers that marked the grave and the mine of Padre Juan.

“In the succeeding years the story was handed down from father to son. But of the many who hunted for the lost mine of the padres there was never a Mexican or an Apache. For the Apache the mountain slopes were haunted by the spirit of an Indian maiden who had been false to her tribe and forever accursed. For the Mexican the mountain slopes were haunted by the spirit of the false padre who rolled stones upon the heads of those adventurers who sought to find his grave and his accursed gold.”

XVIII. Bonita

FLORENCE’S STORY OF the lost mine fired Madeline’s guests with the fever for gold-hunting. But after they had tried it a few times and the glamour of the thing wore off they gave up and remained in camp. Having exhausted all the resources of the mountain, such that had interest for them, they settled quietly down for a rest, which Madeline knew would soon end in a desire for civilized comforts. They were almost tired of roughing it. Helen’s discontent manifested itself in her remark, “I guess nothing is going to happen, after all.”

Madeline awaited their pleasure in regard to the breaking of camp; and meanwhile, as none of them cared for more exertion, she took her walks without them, sometimes accompanied by one of the cowboys, always by the stag-hounds. These walks furnished her exceeding pleasure. And, now that the cowboys would talk to her without reserve, she grew fonder of listening to their simple stories. The more she knew of them the more she doubted the wisdom of shut-in lives. Companionship with Nels and most of the cowboys was in its effect like that of the rugged pines and crags and the untainted wind. Humor, their predominant trait when a person grew to know them, saved Madeline from finding their hardness trying. They were dreamers, as all men who lived lonely lives in the wilds were dreamers.

The cowboys all had secrets. Madeline learned some of them. She marveled most at the strange way in which they hid emotions, except of violence of mirth and temper so easily aroused. It was all the more remarkable in view of the fact that they felt intensely over little things to which men of the world were blind and dead. Madeline had to believe that a hard and perilous life in a barren and wild country developed great principles in men. Living close to earth, under the cold, bleak peaks, on the dust-veiled desert, men grew like the nature that developed them — hard, fierce, terrible, perhaps, but big — big with elemental force.

But one day, while out walking alone, before she realized it she had gone a long way down a dim trail winding among the rocks. It was the middle of a summer afternoon, and all about her were shadows of the crags crossing the sunlit patches. The quiet was undisturbed. She went on and on, not blind to the fact that she was perhaps going too far from camp, but risking it because she was sure of her way back, and enjoying the wild, craggy recesses that were new to her. Finally she came out upon a bank that broke abruptly into a beautiful little glade. Here she sat down to rest before undertaking the return trip.

Suddenly Russ, the keener of the stag-hounds, raised his head and growled. Madeline feared he might have scented a mountain-lion or wildcat. She quieted him and carefully looked around. To each side was an irregular line of massive blocks of stone that had weathered from the crags. The little glade was open and grassy, with here a pine-tree, there a boulder. The outlet seemed to go down into a wilderness of canyons and ridges. Looking in this direction, Madeline saw the slight, dark figure of a woman coming stealthily along under the pines. Madeline was amazed, then a little frightened, for that stealthy walk from tree to tree was suggestive of secrecy, if nothing worse.

Presently the woman was joined by a tall man who carried a package, which he gave to her. They came on up the glade and appeared to be talking earnestly. In another moment Madeline recognized Stewart. She had no greater feeling of surprise than had at first been hers. But for the next moment she scarcely thought at all — merely watched the couple approaching. In a flash came back her former curiosity as to Stewart’s strange absences from camp, and then with the return of her doubt of him the recognition of the woman. The small, dark head, the brown face, the big eyes — Madeline now saw distinctly — belonged to the Mexican girl Bonita. Stewart had met her there. This was the secret of his lonely trips, taken ever since he had come to work for Madeline. This secluded glade was a rendezvous. He had her hidden there.

Quietly Madeline arose, with a gesture to the dogs, and went back along the trail toward camp. Succeeding her surprise was a feeling of sorrow that Stewart’s regeneration had not been complete. Sorrow gave place to insufferable distrust that while she had been romancing about this cowboy, dreaming of her good influence over him, he had been merely base. Somehow it stung her. Stewart had been nothing to her, she thought, yet she had been proud of him. She tried to revolve the thing, to be fair to him, when every instinctive tendency was to expel him, and all pertaining to him, from her thoughts. And her effort at sympathy, at extenuation, failed utterly before her pride. Exerting her will-power, she dismissed Stewart from her mind.

Madeline did not think of him again till late that afternoon, when, as she was leaving her tent to join several of her guests, Stewart appeared suddenly in her path.

“Miss Hammond, I saw your tracks down the trail,” he began, eagerly, but his tone was easy and natural. “I’m thinking — well, maybe you sure got the idea—”

“I do not wish for an explanation,” interrupted Madeline.

Stewart gave a slight start. His manner had a semblance of the old, cool audacity. As he looked down at her it subtly changed.

What effrontery, Madeline thought, to face her before her guests with an explanation of his conduct! Suddenly she felt an inward flash of fire that was pain, so strange, so incomprehensible, that her mind whirled. Then anger possessed her, not at Stewart, but at herself, that anything could rouse in her a raw emotion. She stood there, outwardly cold, serene, with level, haughty eyes upon Stewart; but inwardly she was burning with rage and shame.

“I’m sure not going to have you think—” He began passionately, but he broke off, and a slow, dull crimson blotted over the healthy red-brown of his neck and cheeks.

“What you do or think, Stewart, is no concern of mine.”

“Miss — Miss Hammond! You don’t believe—” faltered Stewart.

The crimson receded from his face, leaving it pale. His eyes were appealing. They had a kind of timid look that struck Madeline even in her anger. There was something boyish about him then. He took a step forward and reached out with his hand open-palmed in a gesture that was humble, yet held a certain dignity.

“But listen. Never mind now what you — you think about me. There’s a good reason—”

“I have no wish to hear your reason.”

“But you ought to,” he persisted.

“Sir!”

Stewart underwent another swift change. He started violently. A dark tide shaded his face and a glitter leaped to his eyes. He took two long strides — loomed over her.

“I’m not thinking about myself,” he thundered. “Will you listen?”

“No,” she replied; and there was freezing hauteur in her voice. With a slight gesture of dismissal, unmistakable in its finality, she turned her back upon him. Then she joined her guests.

Stewart stood perfectly motionless. Then slowly he began to lift his right hand in which he held his sombrero. He swept it up and up high over his head. His tall form towered. With fierce suddenness he flung his sombrero down. He leaped at his black horse and dragged him to where his saddle lay. With one pitch he tossed the saddle upon the horse’s back. His strong hands flashed at girths and straps. Every action was swift, decisive, fierce. Bounding for his bridle, which hung over a bush, he ran against a cowboy who awkwardly tried to avoid the onslaught.

“Get out of my way!” he yelled.

Then with the same savage haste he adjusted the bridle on his horse.

“Mebbe you better hold on a minnit, Gene, ole feller,” said Monty Price.

“Monty, do you want me to brain you?” said Stewart, with the short, hard ring in his voice.

“Now, considerin’ the high class of my brains, I oughter be real careful to keep ‘em,” replied Monty. “You can betcher life, Gene, I ain’t goin’ to git in front of you. But I jest says — Listen!”

Stewart raised his dark face. Everybody listened. And everybody heard the rapid beat of a horse’s hoofs. The sun had set, but the park was light. Nels appeared down the trail, and his horse was running. In another moment he was in the circle, pulling his bay back to a sliding halt. He leaped off abreast of Stewart.

Madeline saw and felt a difference in Nels’s presence.

“What’s up, Gene?” he queried, sharply.

“I’m leaving camp,” replied Stewart, thickly. His black horse began to stamp as Stewart grasped bridle and mane and kicked the stirrup round.

Nels’s long arm shot out, and his hand fell upon Stewart, holding him down.

“Shore I’m sorry,” said Nels, slowly. “Then you was goin’ to hit the trail?”

“I am going to. Let go, Nels.”

“Shore you ain’t goin’, Gene?”

“Let go, damn you!” cried Stewart, as he wrestled free.

“What’s wrong?” asked Nels, lifting his hand again.

“Man! Don’t touch me!”

Nels stepped back instantly. He seemed to become aware of Stewart’s white, wild passion. Again Stewart moved to mount.

“Nels, don’t make me forget we’ve been friends,” he said.

“Shore I ain’t fergettin’,” replied Nels. “An’ I resign my job right here an’ now!”

His strange speech checked the mounting cowboy. Stewart stepped down from the stirrup. Then their hard faces were still and cold while their eyes locked glances.

Madeline was as much startled by Nels’s speech as Stewart. Quick to note a change in these men, she now sensed one that was unfathomable.

“Resign?” questioned Stewart.

“Shore. What ‘d you think I’d do under circumstances sich as has come up?”

“But see here, Nels, I won’t stand for it.”

“You’re not my boss no more, an’ I ain’t beholdin’ to Miss Hammond, neither. I’m my own boss, an’ I’ll do as I please. Sabe, senor?”

Nels’s words were at variance with the meaning in his face.

“Gene, you sent me on a little scout down in the mountains, didn’t you?” he continued.

“Yes, I did,” replied Stewart, with a new sharpness in his voice.

“Wal, shore you was so good an’ right in your figgerin’, as opposed to mine, that I’m sick with admirin’ of you. If you hedn’t sent me — wal, I’m reckonin’ somethin’ might hev happened. As it is we’re shore up against a hell of a proposition!”

How significant was the effect of his words upon all the cowboys! Stewart made a fierce and violent motion, terrible where his other motions had been but passionate. Monty leaped straight up into the air in a singular action as suggestive of surprise as it was of wild acceptance of menace. Like a stalking giant Nick Steele strode over to Nels and Stewart. The other cowboys rose silently, without a word.

Madeline and her guests, in a little group, watched and listened, unable to divine what all this strange talk and action meant.

“Hold on, Nels, they don’t need to hear it,” said Stewart, hoarsely, as he waved a hand toward Madeline’s silent group.

“Wal, I’m sorry, but I reckon they’d as well know fust as last. Mebbe thet yearnin’ wish of Miss Helen’s fer somethin’ to happen will come true. Shore I—”

“Cut out the joshin’,” rang out Monty’s strident voice.

It had as decided an effect as any preceding words or action. Perhaps it was the last thing needed to transform these men, doing unaccustomed duty as escorts of beautiful women, to their natural state as men of the wild.

“Tell us what’s what,” said Stewart, cool and grim.

“Don Carlos an’ his guerrillas are campin’ on the trails thet lead up here. They’ve got them trails blocked. By to-morrer they’d hed us corralled. Mebbe they meant to surprise us. He’s got a lot of Greasers an’ outlaws. They’re well armed. Now what do they mean? You-all can figger it out to suit yourselves. Mebbe the Don wants to pay a sociable call on our ladies. Mebbe his gang is some hungry, as usual. Mebbe they want to steal a few hosses, or anythin’ they can lay hands on. Mebbe they mean wuss, too. Now my idee is this, an’ mebbe it’s wrong. I long since separated from love with Greasers. Thet black-faced Don Carlos has got a deep game. Thet two-bit of a revolution is hevin’ hard times. The rebels want American intervention. They’d stretch any point to make trouble. We’re only ten miles from the border. Suppose them guerrillas got our crowd across thet border? The U. S. cavalry would foller. You-all know what thet’d mean. Mebbe Don Carlos’s mind works thet way. Mebbe it don’t. I reckon we’ll know soon. An’ now, Stewart, whatever the Don’s game is, shore you’re the man to outfigger him. Mebbe it’s just as well you’re good an’ mad about somethin’. An’ I resign my job because I want to feel unbeholdin’ to anybody. Shore it struck me long since thet the old days hed come back fer a little spell, an’ there I was trailin’ a promise not to hurt any Greaser.”

XIX. Don Carlos

STEWART TOOK NELS, Monty, and Nick Steele aside out of earshot, and they evidently entered upon an earnest colloquy. Presently the other cowboys were called. They all talked more or less, but the deep voice of Stewart predominated over the others. Then the consultation broke up, and the cowboys scattered.

“Rustle, you Indians!” ordered Stewart.

The ensuing scene of action was not reassuring to Madeline and her friends. They were quiet, awaiting some one to tell them what to do. At the offset the cowboys appeared to have forgotten Madeline. Some of them ran off into the woods, others into the open, grassy places, where they rounded up the horses and burros. Several cowboys spread tarpaulins upon the ground and began to select and roll small packs, evidently for hurried travel. Nels mounted his horse to ride down the trail. Monty and Nick Steele went off into the grove, leading their horses. Stewart climbed up a steep jumble of stone between two sections of low, cracked cliff back of the camp.

Castleton offered to help the packers, and was curtly told he would be in the way. Madeline’s friends all importuned her: Was there real danger? Were the guerrillas coming? Would a start be made at once for the ranch? Why had the cowboys suddenly become so different? Madeline answered as best she could; but her replies were only conjecture, and modified to allay the fears of her guests. Helen was in a white glow of excitement.

Soon cowboys appeared riding barebacked horses, driving in others and the burros. Some of these horses were taken away and evidently hidden in deep recesses between the crags. The string of burros were packed and sent off down the trail in charge of a cowboy. Nick Steele and Monty returned. Then Stewart appeared, clambering down the break between the cliffs.

His next move was to order all the baggage belonging to Madeline and her guests taken up the cliff. This was strenuous toil, requiring the need of lassoes to haul up the effects.

“Get ready to climb,” said Stewart, turning to Madelines party.

“Where?” asked Helen.

He waved his hand at the ascent to be made. Exclamations of dismay followed his gesture.

“Mr. Stewart, is there danger?” asked Dorothy; and her voice trembled.

This was the question Madeline had upon her lips to ask Stewart, but she could not speak it.

“No, there’s no danger,” replied Stewart, “but we’re taking precautions we all agreed on as best.”

Dorothy whispered that she believed Stewart lied. Castleton asked another question, and then Harvey followed suit. Mrs. Beck made a timid query.

“Please keep quiet and do as you’re told,” said Stewart, bluntly.

At this juncture, when the last of the baggage was being hauled up the cliff, Monty approached Madeline and removed his sombrero. His black face seemed the same, yet this was a vastly changed Monty.

“Miss Hammond, I’m givin’ notice I resign my job,” he said.

“Monty! What do you mean? What does Nels mean now, when danger threatens?”

“We jest quit. Thet’s all,” replied Monty, tersely. He was stern and somber; he could not stand still; his eyes roved everywhere.

Castleton jumped up from the log where he had been sitting, and his face was very red.

“Mr. Price, does all this blooming fuss mean we are to be robbed or attacked or abducted by a lot of ragamuffin guerrillas?”

“You’ve called the bet.”

Dorothy turned a very pale face toward Monty.

“Mr. Price, you wouldn’t — you couldn’t desert us now? You and Mr. Nels—”

“Desert you?” asked Monty, blankly.

“Yes, desert us. Leave us when we may need you so much, with something dreadful coming.”

Monty uttered a short, hard laugh as he bent a strange look upon the girl.

“Me an’ Nels is purty much scared, an’ we’re goin’ to slope. Miss Dorothy, bein’ as we’ve rustled round so much; it sorta hurts us to see nice young girls dragged off by the hair.”

Dorothy uttered a little cry and then became hysterical. Castleton for once was fully aroused.

“By Gad! You and your partner are a couple of blooming cowards. Where now is that courage you boasted of?”

Monty’s dark face expressed extreme sarcasm.

“Dook, in my time I’ve seen some bright fellers, but you take the cake. It’s most marvelous how bright you are. Figger’n’ me an’ Nels so correct. Say, Dook, if you don’t git rustled off to Mexico an’ roped to a cactus-bush you’ll hev a swell story fer your English chums. Bah Jove! You’ll tell ’em how you seen two old-time gun-men run like scared jack-rabbits from a lot of Greasers. Like hell you will! Unless you lie like the time you told about proddin’ the lion. That there story allus—”

“Monty, shut up!” yelled Stewart, as he came hurriedly up. Then Monty slouched away, cursing to himself.

Madeline and Helen, assisted by Castleton, worked over Dorothy, and with some difficulty quieted her. Stewart passed several times without noticing them, and Monty, who had been so ridiculously eager to pay every little attention to Dorothy, did not see her at all. Rude it seemed; in Monty’s ease more than that. Madeline hardly knew what to make of it.

Stewart directed cowboys to go to the head of the open place in the cliff and let down lassoes. Then, with little waste of words, he urged the women toward this rough ladder of stones.

“We want to hide you,” he said, when they demurred. “If the guerrillas come we’ll tell them you’ve all gone down to the ranch. If we have to fight you’ll be safe up there.”

Helen stepped boldly forward and let Stewart put the loop of a lasso round her and tighten it. He waved his hand to the cowboys above.

“Just walk up, now,” he directed Helen.

It proved to the watchers to be an easy, safe, and rapid means of scaling the steep passage. The men climbed up without assistance. Mrs. Beck, as usual, had hysteria; she half walked and was half dragged up. Stewart supported Dorothy with one arm, while with the other he held to the lasso. Ambrose had to carry Christine. The Mexican women required no assistance. Edith Wayne and Madeline climbed last; and, once up, Madeline saw a narrow bench, thick with shrubs, and overshadowed by huge, leaning crags. There were holes in the rock, and dark fissures leading back. It was a rough, wild place. Tarpaulins and bedding were then hauled up, and food and water. The cowboys spread comfortable beds in several of the caves, and told Madeline and her friends to be as quiet as possible, not to make a light, and to sleep dressed, ready for travel at a moment’s notice.

After the cowboys had gone down it was not a cheerful group left there in the darkening twilight. Castleton prevailed upon them to eat.

“This is simply great,” whispered Helen.

“Oh, it’s awful!” moaned Dorothy. “It’s your fault, Helen. You prayed for something to happen.”

“I believe it’s a horrid trick those cowboys are playing,” said Mrs. Beck.

Madeline assured her friends that no trick was being played upon them, and that she deplored the discomfort and distress, but felt no real alarm. She was more inclined to evasive kindness here than to sincerity, for she had a decided uneasiness. The swift change in the manner and looks of her cowboys had been a shock to her. The last glance she had of Stewart’s face, then stern, almost sad, and haggard with worry, remained to augment her foreboding.

Darkness appeared to drop swiftly down; the coyotes began their haunting, mournful howls; the stars showed and grew brighter; the wind moaned through the tips of the pines. Castleton was restless. He walked to and fro before the overhanging shelf of rock, where his companions sat lamenting, and presently he went out to the ledge of the bench. The cowboys below had built a fire, and the light from it rose in a huge, fan-shaped glow. Castleton’s little figure stood out black against this light. Curious and anxious also, Madeline joined him and peered down from the cliff. The distance was short, and occasionally she could distinguish a word spoken by the cowboys. They were unconcernedly cooking and eating. She marked the absence of Stewart, and mentioned it to Castleton. Silently Castleton pointed almost straight down, and there in the gloom stood Stewart, with the two stag-hounds at his feet.

Presently Nick Steele silenced the camp-fire circle by raising a warning hand. The cowboys bent their heads, listening. Madeline listened with all her might. She heard one of the hounds whine, then the faint beat of horse’s hoofs. Nick spoke again and turned to his supper, and the other men seemed to slacken in attention. The beat of hoofs grew louder, entered the grove, then the circle of light. The rider was Nels. He dismounted, and the sound of his low voice just reached Madeline.

“Gene, it’s Nels. Somethin’ doin’,” Madeline heard one of the cowboys call, softly.

“Send him over,” replied Stewart.

Nels stalked away from the fire.

“See here, Nels, the boys are all right, but I don’t want them to know everything about this mix-up,” said Stewart, as Nels came up. “Did you find the girl?”

Madeline guessed that Stewart referred to the Mexican girl Bonita.

“No. But I met” — Madeline did not catch the name— “an’ he was wild. He was with a forest-ranger. An’ they said Pat Hawe had trailed her an’ was takin’ her down under arrest.”

Stewart muttered deep under his breath, evidently cursing.

“Wonder why he didn’t come on up here?” he queried, presently. “He can see a trail.”

“Wal, Gene, Pat knowed you was here all right, fer thet ranger said Pat hed wind of the guerrillas, an’ Pat said if Don Carlos didn’t kill you — which he hoped he’d do — then it ‘d be time enough to put you in jail when you come down.”

“He’s dead set to arrest me, Nels.”

“An’ he’ll do it, like the old lady who kept tavern out West. Gene, the reason thet red-faced coyote didn’t trail you up here is because he’s scared. He allus was scared of you. But I reckon he’s shore scared to death of me an’ Monty.”

“Well, we’ll take Pat in his turn. The thing now is, when will that Greaser stalk us, and what’ll we do when he comes?”

“My boy, there’s only one way to handle a Greaser. I shore told you thet. He means rough toward us. He’ll come smilin’ up, all soci’ble like, insinuatin’ an’ sweeter ‘n a woman. But he’s treacherous; he’s wuss than an Indian. An’, Gene, we know for a positive fact how his gang hev been operatin’ between these hills an’ Agua Prieta. They’re no nervy gang of outlaws like we used to hev. But they’re plumb bad. They’ve raided and murdered through the San Luis Pass an’ Guadalupe Canyon. They’ve murdered women, an’ wuss than thet, both north an’ south of Agua Prieta. Mebbe the U. S. cavalry don’t know it, an’ the good old States; but we, you an’ me an’ Monty an’ Nick, we know it. We know jest about what thet rebel war down there amounts to. It’s guerrilla war, an’ shore some harvest-time fer a lot of cheap thieves an’ outcasts.”

“Oh, you’re right, Nels. I’m not disputing that,” replied Stewart. “If it wasn’t for Miss Hammond and the other women, I’d rather enjoy seeing you and Monty open up on that bunch. I’m thinking I’d be glad to meet Don Carlos. But Miss Hammond! Why, Nels, such a woman as she is would never recover from the sight of real gun-play, let alone any stunts with a rope. These Eastern women are different. I’m not belittling our Western women. It’s in the blood. Miss Hammond is — is—”

“Shore she is,” interrupted Nels; “but she’s got a damn sight more spunk than you think she has, Gene Stewart. I’m no thick-skulled cow. I’d hate somethin’ powerful to hev Miss Hammond see any rough work, let alone me an’ Monty startin’ somethin’. An’ me an’ Monty’ll stick to you, Gene, as long as seems reasonable. Mind, ole feller, beggin’ your pardon, you’re shore stuck on Miss Hammond, an’ over-tender not to hurt her feelin’s or make her sick by lettin’ some blood. We’re in bad here, an’ mebbe we’ll hev to fight. Sabe, senor? Wal, we do you can jest gamble thet Miss Hammond’ll be game. An’ I’ll bet you a million pesos thet if you got goin’ onct, an’ she seen you as I’ve seen you — wal, I know what she’d think of you. This old world ain’t changed much. Some women may be white-skinned an’ soft-eyed an’ sweet-voiced an’ high-souled, but they all like to see a man! Gene, here’s your game. Let Don Carlos come along. Be civil. If he an’ his gang are hungry, feed ‘em. Take even a little overbearin’ Greaser talk. Be blind if he wants his gang to steal somethin’. Let him think the women hev mosied down to the ranch. But if he says you’re lyin’ — if he as much as looks round to see the women — jest jump him same as you jumped Pat Hawe. Me an’ Monty’ll hang back fer thet, an’ if your strong bluff don’t go through, if the Don’s gang even thinks of flashin’ guns, then we’ll open up. An’ all I got to say is if them Greasers stand fer real gun-play they’ll be the fust I ever seen.”

“Nels, there are white men in that gang,” said Stewart.

“Shore. But me an’ Monty’ll be thinkin’ of thet. If they start anythin’ it’ll hev to be shore quick.”

“All right, Nels, old friend, and thanks,” replied Stewart. Nels returned to the camp-fire, and Stewart resumed his silent guard.

Madeline led Castleton away from the brink of the wall.

“By Jove! Cowboys are blooming strange folk!” he exclaimed. “They are not what they pretend to be.”

“Indeed, you are right,” replied Madeline. “I cannot understand them. Come, let us tell the others that Nels and Monty were only talking and do not intend to leave us. Dorothy, at least, will be less frightened if she knows.”

Dorothy was somewhat comforted. The others, however, complained of the cowboys’ singular behavior. More than once the idea was advanced that an elaborate trick had been concocted. Upon general discussion this idea gained ground. Madeline did not combat it, because she saw it tended to a less perturbed condition of mind among her guests. Castleton for once proved that he was not absolutely obtuse, and helped along the idea.

They sat talking in low voices until a late hour. The incident now began to take on the nature of Helen’s long-yearned-for adventure. Some of the party even grew merry in a subdued way. Then, gradually, one by one they tired and went to bed. Helen vowed she could not sleep in a place where there were bats and crawling things. Madeline fancied, however, that they all went to sleep while she lay wide-eyed, staring up at the black bulge of overhanging rock and beyond the starry sky.

To keep from thinking of Stewart and the burning anger he had caused her to feel for herself, Madeline tried to keep her mind on other things. But thought of him recurred, and each time there was a hot commotion in her breast hard to stifle. Intelligent reasoning seemed out of her power. In the daylight it had been possible for her to be oblivious to Stewart’s deceit after the moment of its realization. At night, however, in the strange silence and hovering shadows of gloom, with the speaking stars seeming to call to her, with the moan of the wind in the pines, and the melancholy mourn of coyotes in the distance, she was not able to govern her thought and emotion. The day was practical, cold; the night was strange and tense. In the darkness she had fancies wholly unknown to her in the bright light of the sun. She battled with a haunting thought. She had inadvertently heard Nels’s conversation with Stewart; she had listened, hoping to hear some good news or to hear the worst; she had learned both, and, moreover, enlightenment on one point of Stewart’s complex motives. He wished to spare her any sight that might offend, frighten, or disgust her. Yet this Stewart, who showed a fineness of feeling that might have been wanting even in Boyd Harvey, maintained a secret rendezvous with that pretty, abandoned Bonita. Here always the hot shame, like a live, stinging, internal fire, abruptly ended Madeline’s thought. It was intolerable, and it was the more so because she could neither control nor understand it. The hours wore on, and at length, as the stars began to pale and there was no sound whatever, she fell asleep.

She was called out of her slumber. Day had broken bright and cool. The sun was still below the eastern crags. Ambrose, with several other cowboys, had brought up buckets of spring-water, and hot coffee and cakes. Madeline’s party appeared to be none the worse for the night’s experience. Indeed, the meager breakfast might have been as merrily partaken of as it was hungrily had not Ambrose enjoined silence.

“They’re expectin’ company down below,” he said.

This information and the summary manner in which the cowboys soon led the party higher up among the ruined shelves of rock caused a recurrence of anxiety. Madeline insisted on not going beyond a projection of cliff from which she could see directly down into the camp. As the vantage-point was one affording concealment, Ambrose consented, but he placed the frightened Christine near Madeline and remained there himself.

“Ambrose, do you really think the guerrillas will come?” asked Madeline.

“Sure. We know. Nels just rode in and said they were on their way up. Miss Hammond, can I trust you? You won’t let out a squeal if there’s a fight down there? Stewart told me to hide you out of sight or keep you from lookin’.”

“I promise not to make any noise,” replied Madeline. Madeline arranged her coat so that she could lie upon it, and settled down to wait developments. There came a slight rattling of stones in the rear. She turned to see Helen sliding down a bank with a perplexed and troubled cowboy. Helen came stooping low to where Madeline lay and said: “I am going to see what happens, if I die in the attempt! I can stand it if you can.” She was pale and big-eyed. Ambrose promptly swore at the cowboy who had let her get away from him. “Take a half-hitch on her yourself an’ see where you end up,” replied the fellow, and disappeared in the jumble of rocks. Ambrose, finding words useless, sternly and heroically prepared to carry Helen back to the others. He laid hold of her. In a fury, with eyes blazing, Helen whispered:

“Let go of me! Majesty, what does this fool mean?”

Madeline laughed. She knew Helen, and had marked the whisper, when ordinarily Helen would have spoken imperiously, and not low. Madeline explained to her the exigency of the situation. “I might run, but I’ll never scream,” said Helen. With that Ambrose had to be content to let her stay. However, he found her a place somewhat farther back from Madeline’s position, where he said there was less danger of her being seen. Then he sternly bound her to silence, tarried a moment to comfort Christine, and returned to where Madeline lay concealed. He had been there scarcely a moment when he whispered:

“I hear hosses. The guerrillas are comin’.”

Madeline’s hiding-place was well protected from possible discovery from below. She could peep over a kind of parapet, through an opening in the tips of the pines that reached up to the cliff, and obtain a commanding view of the camp circle and its immediate surroundings. She could not, however, see far either to right or left of the camp, owing to the obstructing foliage. Presently the sound of horses’ hoofs quickened the beat of her pulse and caused her to turn keener gaze upon the cowboys below.

Although she had some inkling of the course Stewart and his men were to pursue, she was not by any means prepared for the indifference she saw. Frank was asleep, or pretended to be. Three cowboys were lazily and unconcernedly attending to camp-fire duties, such as baking biscuits, watching the ovens, and washing tins and pots. The elaborate set of aluminum plates, cups, etc., together with the other camp fixtures that had done service for Madeline’s party, had disappeared. Nick Steele sat with his back to a log, smoking his pipe. Another cowboy had just brought the horses closer into camp, where they stood waiting to be saddled. Nels appeared to be fussing over a pack. Stewart was rolling a cigarette. Monty had apparently nothing to do for the present except whistle, which he was doing much more loudly than melodiously. The whole ensemble gave an impression of careless indifference.

The sound of horses’ hoofs grew louder and slowed its beat. One of the cowboys pointed down the trail, toward which several of his comrades turned their heads for a moment, then went on with their occupations.

Presently a shaggy, dusty horse bearing a lean, ragged, dark rider rode into camp and halted. Another followed, and another. Horses with Mexican riders came in single file and stopped behind the leader.

The cowboys looked up, and the guerrillas looked down. “Buenos dias, senor,” ceremoniously said the foremost guerrilla.

By straining her ears Madeline heard that voice, and she recognized it as belonging to Don Carlos. His graceful bow to Stewart was also familiar. Otherwise she would never have recognized the former elegant vaquero in this uncouth, roughly dressed Mexican.

Stewart answered the greeting in Spanish, and, waving his hand toward the camp-fire, added in English, “Get down and eat.”

The guerrillas were anything but slow in complying. They crowded to the fire, then spread in a little circle and squatted upon the ground, laying their weapons beside them. In appearance they tallied with the band of guerrillas that had carried Madeline up into the foothills, only this band was larger and better armed. The men, moreover, were just as hungry and as wild and beggarly. The cowboys were not cordial in their reception of this visit, but they were hospitable. The law of the desert had always been to give food and drink to wayfaring men, whether lost or hunted or hunting.

“There’s twenty-three in that outfit,” whispered Ambrose, “includin’ four white men. Pretty rummy outfit.”

“They appear to be friendly enough,” whispered Madeline.

“Things down there ain’t what they seem,” replied Ambrose.

“Ambrose, tell me — explain to me. This is my opportunity. As long as you will let me watch them, please let me know the — the real thing.”

“Sure. But recollect, Miss Hammond, that Gene’ll give it to me good if he ever knows I let you look and told you what’s what. Well, decent-like Gene is seen’ them poor devils get a square meal. They’re only a lot of calf-thieves in this country. Across the border they’re bandits, some of them, the others just riffraff outlaws. That rebel bluff doesn’t go down with us. I’d have to see first before I’d believe them Greasers would fight. They’re a lot of hard-ridin’ thieves, and they’d steal a fellow’s blanket or tobacco. Gene thinks they’re after you ladies — to carry you off. But Gene — Oh, Gene’s some highfalutin in his ideas lately. Most of us boys think the guerrillas are out to rob — that’s all.”

Whatever might have been the secret motive of Don Carlos and his men, they did not allow it to interfere with a hearty appreciation of a generous amount of food. Plainly, each individual ate all that he was able to eat at the time. They jabbered like a flock of parrots; some were even merry, in a kind of wild way. Then, as each and every one began to roll and smoke the inevitable cigarette of the Mexican, there was a subtle change in manner. They smoked and looked about the camp, off into the woods, up at the crags, and back at the leisurely cowboys. They had the air of men waiting for something.

“Senor,” began Don Carlos, addressing Stewart. As he spoke he swept his sombrero to indicate the camp circle.

Madeline could not distinguish his words, but his gesture plainly indicated a question in regard to the rest of the camping party. Stewart’s reply and the wave of his hand down the trail meant that his party had gone home. Stewart turned to some task, and the guerrilla leader quietly smoked. He looked cunning and thoughtful. His men gradually began to manifest a restlessness, noticeable in the absence of former languor and slow puffing of cigarette smoke. Presently a big-boned man with a bullet head and a blistered red face of evil coarseness got up and threw away his cigarette. He was an American.

“Hey, cull,” he called in loud voice, “ain’t ye goin’ to cough up a drink?”

“My boys don’t carry liquor on the trail,” replied Stewart. He turned now to face the guerrillas.

“Haw, haw! I heerd over in Rodeo thet ye was gittin’ to be shore some fer temperance,” said this fellow. “I hate to drink water, but I guess I’ve gotter do it.”

He went to the spring, sprawled down to drink, and all of a sudden he thrust his arm down in the water to bring forth a basket. The cowboys in the hurry of packing had neglected to remove this basket; and it contained bottles of wine and liquors for Madeline’s guests. They had been submerged in the spring to keep them cold. The guerrilla fumbled with the lid, opened it, and then got up, uttering a loud roar of delight.

Stewart made an almost imperceptible motion, as if to leap forward; but he checked the impulse, and after a quick glance at Nels he said to the guerrilla:

“Guess my party forgot that. You’re welcome to it.” Like bees the guerrillas swarmed around the lucky finder of the bottles. There was a babel of voices. The drink did not last long, and it served only to liberate the spirit of recklessness. The several white outlaws began to prowl around the camp; some of the Mexicans did likewise; others waited, showing by their ill-concealed expectancy the nature of their thoughts.

It was the demeanor of Stewart and his comrades that puzzled Madeline. Apparently they felt no anxiety or even particular interest. Don Carlos, who had been covertly watching them, now made his scrutiny open, even aggressive. He looked from Stewart to Nels and Monty, and then to the other cowboys. While some of his men prowled around the others watched him, and the waiting attitude had taken on something sinister. The guerrilla leader seemed undecided, but not in any sense puzzled. When he turned his cunning face upon Nels and Monty he had the manner of a man in whom decision was lacking.

In her growing excitement Madeline had not clearly heard Ambrose’s low whispers and she made an effort to distract some of her attention from those below to the cowboy crouching beside her.

The quality, the note of Ambrose’s whisper had changed. It had a slight sibilant sound.

“Don’t be mad if sudden-like I clap my hands over your eyes, Miss Hammond,” he was saying. “Somethin’s brewin’ below. I never seen Gene so cool. That’s a dangerous sign in him. And look, see how the boys are workin’ together! Oh, it’s slow and accident-like, but I know it’s sure not accident. That foxy Greaser knows, too. But maybe his men don’t. If they are wise they haven’t sense enough to care. The Don, though — he’s worried. He’s not payin’ so much attention to Gene, either. It’s Nels and Monty he’s watchin’. And well he need do it! There, Nick and Frank have settled down on that log with Booly. They don’t seem to be packin’ guns. But look how heavy their vests hang. A gun in each side! Those boys can pull a gun and flop over that log quicker than you can think. Do you notice how Nels and Monty and Gene are square between them guerrillas and the trail up here? It doesn’t seem on purpose, but it is. Look at Nels and Monty. How quiet they are confabbin’ together, payin’ no attention to the guerrillas. I see Monty look at Gene, then I see Nels look at Gene. Well, it’s up to Gene. And they’re goin’ to back him. I reckon, Miss Hammond, there’d be dead Greasers round that camp long ago if Nels and Monty were foot-loose. They’re beholdin’ to Gene. That’s plain. And, Lord! how it tickles me to watch them! Both packin’ two forty-fives, butts swingin’ clear. There’s twenty-four shots in them four guns. And there’s twenty-three guerrillas. If Nels and Monty ever throw guns at that close range, why, before you’d know what was up there’d be a pile of Greasers. There! Stewart said something to the Don. I wonder what. I’ll gamble it was something to get the Don’s outfit all close together. Sure! Greasers have no sense. But them white guerrillas, they’re lookin’ some dubious. Whatever’s comin’ off will come soon, you can bet. I wish I was down there. But maybe it won’t come to a scrap. Stewart’s set on avoidin’ that. He’s a wonderful chap to get his way. Lord, though, I’d like to see him go after that overbearin’ Greaser! See! the Don can’t stand prosperity. All this strange behavior of cowboys is beyond his pulque-soaked brains. Then he’s a Greaser. If Gene doesn’t knock him on the head presently he’ll begin to get over his scare, even of Nels and Monty. But Gene’ll pick out the right time. And I’m gettin’ nervous. I want somethin’ to start. Never saw Nels in but one fight, then he just shot a Greaser’s arm off for tryin’ to draw on him. But I’ve heard all about him. And Monty! Monty’s the real old-fashioned gun-man. Why, none of them stories, them lies he told to entertain the Englishman, was a marker to what Monty has done. What I don’t understand is how Monty keeps so quiet and easy and peaceful-like. That’s not his way, with such an outfit lookin’ for trouble. O-ha! Now for the grand bluff. Looks like no fight at all!”

The guerrilla leader had ceased his restless steps and glances, and turned to Stewart with something of bold resolution in his aspect.

“Gracias, senor,” he said. “Adios.” He swept his sombrero in the direction of the trail leading down the mountain to the ranch; and as he completed the gesture a smile, crafty and jeering, crossed his swarthy face.

Ambrose whispered so low that Madeline scarcely heard him. “If the Greaser goes that way he’ll find our horses and get wise to the trick. Oh, he’s wise now! But I’ll gamble he never even starts on that trail.”

Neither hurriedly nor guardedly Stewart rose out of his leaning posture and took a couple of long strides toward Don Carlos.

“Go back the way you came,” he fairly yelled; and his voice had the ring of a bugle.

Ambrose nudged Madeline; his whisper was tense and rapid: “Don’t miss nothin’. Gene’s called him. Whatever’s comin’ off will be here quick as lightnin’. See! I guess maybe that Greaser don’t savvy good U. S. lingo. Look at that dirty yaller face turn green. Put one eye on Nels and Monty! That’s great — just to see ‘em. Just as quiet and easy. But oh, the difference! Bent and stiff — that means every muscle is like a rawhide riata. They’re watchin’ with eyes that can see the workin’s of them Greasers’ minds. Now there ain’t a hoss-hair between them Greasers and hell!”

Don Carlos gave Stewart one long malignant stare; then he threw back his head, swept up the sombrero, and his evil smile showed gleaming teeth.

“Senor—” he began.

With magnificent bound Stewart was upon him. The guerrilla’s cry was throttled in his throat. A fierce wrestling ensued, too swift to see clearly; then heavy, sodden blows, and Don Carlos was beaten to the ground. Stewart leaped back. Then, crouching with his hands on the butts of guns at his hips, he yelled, he thundered at the guerrillas. He had been quicker than a panther, and now his voice was so terrible that it curdled Madeline’s blood, and the menace of deadly violence in his crouching position made her shut her eyes. But she had to open them. In that single instant Nels and Monty had leaped to Stewart’s side. Both were bent down, with hands on the butts of guns at their hips. Nels’s piercing yell seemed to divide Monty’s roar of rage. Then they ceased, and echoes clapped from the crags. The silence of those three men crouching like tigers about to leap was more menacing than the nerve-racking yells.

Then the guerrillas wavered and broke and ran for their horses. Don Carlos rolled over, rose, and staggered away, to be helped upon his mount. He looked back, his pale and bloody face that of a thwarted demon. The whole band got into action and were gone in a moment.

“I knew it,” declared Ambrose. “Never seen a Greaser who could face gun-play. That was some warm. And Monty Price never flashed a gun! He’ll never get over that. I reckon, Miss Harnmond, we’re some lucky to avoid trouble. Gene had his way, as you seen. We’ll be makin’ tracks for the ranch in about two shakes.”

“Why?” whispered Madeline, breathlessly. She became conscious that she was weak and shaken.

“Because the guerrillas sure will get their nerve back, and come sneakin’ on our trail or try to head us off by ambushin’,” replied Ambrose. “That’s their way. Otherwise three cowboys couldn’t bluff a whole gang like that. Gene knows the nature of Greasers. They’re white-livered. But I reckon we’re in more danger now than before, unless we get a good start down the mountain. There! Gene’s callin’. Come! Hurry!”

Helen had slipped down from her vantage-point, and therefore had not seen the last act in that little camp-fire drama. It seemed, however, that her desire for excitement was satisfied, for her face was pale and she trembled when she asked if the guerrillas were gone.

“I didn’t see the finish, but those horrible yells were enough for me.”

Ambrose hurried the three women over the rough rocks, down the cliff. The cowboys below were saddling horses in haste. Evidently all the horses had been brought out of hiding. Swiftly, with regard only for life and limb, Madeline, Helen, and Christine were lowered by lassoes and half carried down to the level. By the time they were safely down the other members of the party appeared on the cliff above. They were in excellent spirits, appearing to treat the matter as a huge joke.

Ambrose put Christine on a horse and rode away through the pines; Frankie Slade did likewise with Helen. Stewart led Madeline’s horse up to her, helped her to mount, and spoke one stern word, “Wait!” Then as fast as one of the women reached the level she was put upon a horse and taken away by a cowboy escort. Few words were spoken. Haste seemed to be the great essential. The horses were urged, and, once in the trail, spurred and led into a swift trot. One cowboy drove up four pack-horses, and these were hurriedly loaded with the party’s baggage. Castleton and his companions mounted, and galloped off to catch the others in the lead. This left Madeline behind with Stewart and Nels and Monty.

“They’re goin’ to switch off at the holler thet heads near the trail a few miles down,” Nels was saying, as he tightened his saddle-girth. “Thet holler heads into a big canyon. Once in thet, it’ll be every man fer hisself. I reckon there won’t be anythin’ wuss than a rough ride.”

Nels smiled reassuringly at Madeline, but he did not speak to her. Monty took her canteen and filled it at the spring and hung it over the pommel of her saddle. He put a couple of biscuits in the saddle-bag.

“Don’t fergit to take a drink an’ a bite as you’re ridin’ along,” he said. “An’ don’t worry, Miss Majesty. Stewart’ll be with you, an’ me an’ Nels hangin’ on the back-trail.”

His somber and sullen face did not change in its strange intensity, but the look in his eyes Madeline felt she would never forget. Left alone with these three men, now stripped of all pretense, she realized how fortune had favored her and what peril still hung in the balance. Stewart swung astride his big black, spurred him, and whistled. At the whistle Majesty jumped, and with swift canter followed Stewart. Madeline looked back to see Nels already up and Monty handing him a rifle. Then the pines hid her view.

Once in the trail, Stewart’s horse broke into a gallop. Majesty changed his gait and kept at the black’s heels. Stewart called back a warning. The low, wide-spreading branches of trees might brush Madeline out of the saddle. Fast riding through the forest along a crooked, obstructed trail called forth all her alertness. Likewise the stirring of her blood, always susceptible to the spirit and motion of a ride, let alone one of peril, now began to throb and burn away the worry, the dread, the coldness that had weighted her down.

Before long Stewart wheeled at right angles off the trail and entered a hollow between two low bluffs. Madeline saw tracks in the open patches of ground. Here Stewart’s horse took to a brisk walk. The hollow deepened, narrowed, became rocky, full of logs and brush. Madeline exerted all her keenness, and needed it, to keep close to Stewart. She did not think of him, nor her own safety, but of keeping Majesty close in the tracks of the black, of eluding the sharp spikes in the dead brush, of avoiding the treacherous loose stones.

At last Madeline was brought to a dead halt by Stewart and his horse blocking the trail. Looking up, she saw they were at the head of a canyon that yawned beneath and widened its gray-walled, green-patched slopes down to a black forest of fir. The drab monotony of the foothills made contrast below the forest, and away in the distance, rosy and smoky, lay the desert. Retracting her gaze, Madeline saw pack-horses cross an open space a mile below, and she thought she saw the stag-hounds. Stewart’s dark eyes searched the slopes high up along the craggy escarpments. Then he put the black to the descent.

If there had been a trail left by the leading cowboys, Stewart did not follow it. He led off to the right, zigzagging an intricate course through the roughest ground Madeline had ever ridden over. He crashed through cedars, threaded a tortuous way among boulders, made his horse slide down slanting banks of soft earth, picked a slow and cautious progress across weathered slopes of loose rock. Madeline followed, finding in this ride a tax on strength and judgment. On an ordinary horse she never could have kept in Stewart’s trail. It was dust and heat, a parching throat, that caused Madeline to think of time; and she was amazed to see the sun sloping to the west. Stewart never stopped; he never looked back; he never spoke. He must have heard the horse close behind him. Madeline remembered Monty’s advice about drinking and eating as she rode along. The worst of that rough travel came at the bottom of the canyon. Dead cedars and brush and logs were easy to pass compared with the miles, it seemed, of loose boulders. The horses slipped and stumbled. Stewart proceeded here with exceeding care. At last, when the canyon opened into a level forest of firs, the sun was setting red in the west.

Stewart quickened the gait of his horse. After a mile or so of easy travel the ground again began to fall decidedly, sloping in numerous ridges, with draws between. Soon night shadowed the deeper gullies. Madeline was refreshed by the cooling of the air.

Stewart traveled slowly now. The barks of coyotes seemed to startle him. Often he stopped to listen. And during one of those intervals the silence was broken by sharp rifle-shots. Madeline could not tell whether they were near or far, to right or left, behind or before. Evidently Stewart was both alarmed and baffled. He dismounted. He went cautiously forward to listen. Madeline fancied she heard a cry, low and far away. It was only that of a coyote, she convinced herself, yet it was so wailing, so human, that she shuddered. Stewart came back. He slipped the bridles of both horses, and he led them. Every few paces he stopped to listen. He changed his direction several times, and the last time he got among rough, rocky ridges. The iron shoes of the horses cracked on the rocks. That sound must have penetrated far into the forest. It perturbed Stewart, for he searched for softer ground. Meanwhile the shadows merged into darkness. The stars shone. The wind rose. Madeline believed hours passed.

Stewart halted again. In the gloom Madeline discerned a log cabin, and beyond it pear-pointed dark trees piercing the sky-line. She could just make out Stewart’s tall form as he leaned against his horse. Either he was listening or debating what to do — perhaps both. Presently he went inside the cabin. Madeline heard the scratching of a match; then she saw a faint light. The cabin appeared to be deserted. Probably it was one of the many habitations belonging to prospectors and foresters who lived in the mountains. Stewart came out again. He walked around the horses, out into the gloom, then back to Madeline. For a long moment he stood as still as a statue and listened. Then she heard him mutter, “If we have to start quick I can ride bareback.” With that he took the saddle and blanket off his horse and carried them into the cabin.

“Get off,” he said, in a low voice, as he stepped out of the door.

He helped her down and led her inside, where again he struck a match. Madeline caught a glimpse of a rude fireplace and rough-hewn logs. Stewart’s blanket and saddle lay on the hard-packed earthen floor.

“Rest a little,” he said. “I’m going into the woods a piece to listen. Gone only a minute or so.”

Madeline had to feel round in the dark to locate the saddle and blanket. When she lay down it was with a grateful sense of ease and relief. As her body rested, however, her mind became the old thronging maze for sensation and thought. All day she had attended to the alert business of helping her horse. Now, what had already happened, the night, the silence, the proximity of Stewart and his strange, stern caution, the possible happenings to her friends — all claimed their due share of her feeling. She went over them all with lightning swiftness of thought. She believed, and she was sure Stewart believed, that her friends, owing to their quicker start down the mountain, had not been headed off in their travel by any of the things which had delayed Stewart. This conviction lifted the suddenly returning dread from her breast; and as for herself, somehow she had no fear. But she could not sleep; she did not try to.

Stewart’s soft steps sounded outside. His dark form loomed in the door. As he sat down Madeline heard the thump of a gun that he laid beside him on the sill; then the thump of another as he put that down, too. The sounds thrilled her. Stewart’s wide shoulders filled the door; his finely shaped head and strong, stern profile showed clearly in outline against the sky; the wind waved his hair. He turned his ear to that wind and listened. Motionless he sat for what to her seemed hours.

Then the stirring memory of the day’s adventure, the feeling of the beauty of the night, and a strange, deep-seated, sweetly vague consciousness of happiness portending, were all burned out in hot, pressing pain at the remembrance of Stewart’s disgrace in her eyes. Something had changed within her so that what had been anger at herself was sorrow for him. He was such a splendid man. She could not feel the same; she knew her debt to him, yet she could not thank him, could not speak to him. She fought an unintelligible bitterness.

Then she rested with closed eyes, and time seemed neither short nor long. When Stewart called her she opened her eyes to see the gray of dawn. She rose and stepped outside. The horses whinnied. In a moment she was in the saddle, aware of cramped muscles and a weariness of limbs. Stewart led off at a sharp trot into the fir forest. They came to a trail into which he turned. The horses traveled steadily; the descent grew less steep; the firs thinned out; the gray gloom brightened.

When Madeline rode out of the firs the sun had arisen and the foothills rolled beneath her; and at their edge, where the gray of valley began, she saw a dark patch that she knew was the ranch-house.

XX. The Sheriff of El Cajon

ABOUT THE MIDDLE of the forenoon of that day Madeline reached the ranch. Her guests had all arrived there late the night before, and wanted only her presence and the assurance of her well-being to consider the last of the camping trip a rare adventure. Likewise, they voted it the cowboys’ masterpiece of a trick. Madeline’s delay, they averred, had been only a clever coup to give a final effect. She did not correct their impression, nor think it needful to state that she had been escorted home by only one cowboy.

Her guests reported an arduous ride down the mountain, with only one incident to lend excitement. On the descent they had fallen in with Sheriff Hawe and several of his deputies, who were considerably under the influence of drink and very greatly enraged by the escape of the Mexican girl Bonita. Hawe had used insulting language to the ladies and, according to Ambrose, would have inconvenienced the party on some pretext or other if he had not been sharply silenced by the cowboys.

Madeline’s guests were two days in recovering from the hard ride. On the third day they leisurely began to prepare for departure. This period was doubly trying for Madeline. She had her own physical need of rest, and, moreover, had to face a mental conflict that could scarcely be postponed further. Her sister and friends were kindly and earnestly persistent in their entreaties that she go back East with them. She desired to go. It was not going that mattered; it was how and when and under what circumstances she was to return that roused in her disturbing emotion. Before she went East she wanted to have fixed in mind her future relation to the ranch and the West. When the crucial hour arrived she found that the West had not claimed her yet. These old friends had warmed cold ties.

It turned out, however, that there need be no hurry about making the decision. Madeline would have welcomed any excuse to procrastinate; but, as it happened, a letter from Alfred made her departure out of the question for the present. He wrote that his trip to California had been very profitable, that he had a proposition for Madeline from a large cattle company, and, particularly, that he wanted to marry Florence soon after his arrival home and would bring a minister from Douglas for that purpose.

Madeline went so far, however, as to promise Helen and her friends that she would go East soon, at the very latest by Thanksgiving. With that promise they were reluctantly content to say good-by to the ranch and to her. At the last moment there seemed a great likelihood of a hitch in plans for the first stage of that homeward journey. All of Madeline’s guests held up their hands, Western fashion, when Link Stevens appeared with the big white car. Link protested innocently, solemnly, that he would drive slowly and safely; but it was necessary for Madeline to guarantee Link’s word and to accompany them before they would enter the car. At the station good-bys were spoken and repeated, and Madeline’s promise was exacted for the hundredth time.

Dorothy Coombs’s last words were: “Give my love to Monty Price. Tell him I’m — I’m glad he kissed me!”

Helen’s eyes had a sweet, grave, yet mocking light as she said:

“Majesty, bring Stewart with you when you come. He’ll be the rage.”

Madeline treated the remark with the same merry lightness with which it was received by the others; but after the train had pulled out and she was on her way home she remembered Helen’s words and looks with something almost amounting to a shock. Any mention of Stewart, any thought of him, displeased her.

“What did Helen mean?” mused Madeline. And she pondered. That mocking light in Helen’s eyes had been simply an ironical glint, a cynical gleam from that worldly experience so suspicious and tolerant in its wisdom. The sweet gravity of Helen’s look had been a deeper and more subtle thing. Madeline wanted to understand it, to divine in it a new relation between Helen and herself, something fine and sisterly that might lead to love. The thought, however, revolving around a strange suggestion of Stewart, was poisoned at its inception, and she dismissed it.

Upon the drive in to the ranch, as she was passing the lower lake, she saw Stewart walking listlessly along the shore. When he became aware of the approach of the car he suddenly awakened from his aimless sauntering and disappeared quickly in the shade of the shrubbery. This was not by any means the first time Madeline had seen him avoid a possible meeting with her. Somehow the act had pained her, though affording her a relief. She did not want to meet him face to face.

It was annoying for her to guess that Stillwell had something to say in Stewart’s defense. The old cattleman was evidently distressed. Several times he had tried to open a conversation with Madeline relating to Stewart; she had evaded him until the last time, when his persistence had brought a cold and final refusal to hear another word about the foreman. Stillwell had been crushed.

As days passed Stewart remained at the ranch without his old faithfulness to his work. Madeline was not moved to a kinder frame of mind to see him wandering dejectedly around. It hurt her, and because it hurt her she grew all the harder. Then she could not help hearing snatches of conversation which strengthened her suspicions that Stewart was losing his grip on himself, that he would soon take the downward course again. Verification of her own suspicion made it a belief, and belief brought about a sharp conflict between her generosity and some feeling that she could not name. It was not a question of justice or mercy or sympathy. If a single word could have saved Stewart from sinking his splendid manhood into the brute she had recoiled from at Chiricahua, she would not have spoken it. She could not restore him to his former place in her regard; she really did not want him at the ranch at all. Once, considering in wonder her knowledge of men, she interrogated herself to see just why she could not overlook Stewart’s transgression. She never wanted to speak to him again, or see him, or think of him. In some way, through her interest in Stewart, she had come to feel for herself an inexplicable thing close to scorn.

A telegram from Douglas, heralding the coming of Alfred and a minister, put an end to Madeline’s brooding, and she shared something of Florence Kingsley’s excitement. The cowboys were as eager and gossipy as girls. It was arranged to have the wedding ceremony performed in Madeline’s great hall-chamber, and the dinner in the cool, flower-scented patio.

Alfred and his minister arrived at the ranch in the big white car. They appeared considerably wind-blown. In fact, the minister was breathless, almost sightless, and certainly hatless. Alfred, used as he was to wind and speed, remarked that he did not wonder at Nels’s aversion to riding a fleeting cannon-ball. The imperturbable Link took off his cap and goggles and, consulting his watch, made his usual apologetic report to Madeline, deploring the fact that a teamster and a few stray cattle on the road had held him down to the manana time of only a mile a minute.

Arrangements for the wedding brought Alfred’s delighted approval. When he had learned all Florence and Madeline would tell him he expressed a desire to have the cowboys attend; and then he went on to talk about California, where he was going take Florence on a short trip. He was curiously interested to find out all about Madeline’s guests and what had happened to them. His keen glance at Madeline grew softer as she talked.

“I breathe again,” he said, and laughed. “I was afraid. Well, I must have missed some sport. I can just fancy what Monty and Nels did to that Englishman. So you went up to the crags. That’s a wild place. I’m not surprised at guerrillas falling in with you up there. The crags were a famous rendezvous for Apaches — it’s near the border — almost inaccessible — good water and grass. I wonder what the U. S. cavalry would think if they knew these guerrillas crossed the border right under their noses. Well, it’s practically impossible to patrol some of that border-line. It’s desert, mountain, and canyon, exceedingly wild and broken. I’m sorry to say that there seems to be more trouble in sight with these guerrillas than at any time heretofore. Orozco, the rebel leader, has failed to withstand Madero’s army. The Federals are occupying Chihuahua now, and are driving the rebels north. Orozco has broken up his army into guerrilla bands. They are moving north and west, intending to carry on guerrilla warfare in Sonora. I can’t say just how this will affect us here. But we’re too close to the border for comfort. These guerrillas are night-riding hawks; they can cross the border, raid us here, and get back the same night. Fighting, I imagine, will not be restricted to northern Mexico. With the revolution a failure the guerrillas will be more numerous, bolder, and hungrier. Unfortunately, we happen to be favorably situated for them down here in this wilderness corner of the state.”

On the following day Alfred and Florence were married. Florence’s sister and several friends from El Cajon were present, besides Madeline, Stillwell, and his men. It was Alfred’s express wish that Stewart attend the ceremony. Madeline was amused when she noticed the painfully suppressed excitement of the cowboys. For them a wedding must have been an unusual and impressive event. She began to have a better understanding of the nature of it when they cast off restraint and pressed forward to kiss the bride. In all her life Madeline had never seen a bride kissed so much and so heartily, nor one so flushed and disheveled and happy. This indeed was a joyful occasion. There was nothing of the “effete East” about Alfred Hammond; he might have been a Westerner all his days. When Madeline managed to get through the press of cowboys to offer her congratulations Alfred gave her a bear hug and a kiss. This appeared to fascinate the cowboys. With shining eyes and faces aglow, with smiling, boyish boldness, they made a rush at Madeline. For one instant her heart leaped to her throat. They looked as if they could most shamelessly kiss and maul her. That little, ugly-faced, soft-eyed, rude, tender-hearted ruffian, Monty Price, was in the lead. He resembled a dragon actuated by sentiment. All at once Madeline’s instinctive antagonism to being touched by strange hands or lips battled with a real, warm, and fun-loving desire to let the cowboys work their will with her. But she saw Stewart hanging at the back of the crowd, and something — some fierce, dark expression of pain — amazed her, while it froze her desire to be kind. Then she did not know what change must have come to her face and bearing; but she saw Monty fall back sheepishly and the other cowboys draw aside to let her lead the way into the patio.

The dinner began quietly enough with the cowboys divided between embarrassment and voracious appetites that they evidently feared to indulge. Wine, however, loosened their tongues, and when Stillwell got up to make the speech everybody seemed to expect of him they greeted him with a roar.

Stillwell was now one huge, mountainous smile. He was so happy that he appeared on the verge of tears. He rambled on ecstatically till he came to raise his glass.

“An’ now, girls an’ boys, let’s all drink to the bride an’ groom; to their sincere an’ lastin’ love; to their happiness an’ prosperity; to their good health an’ long life. Let’s drink to the unitin’ of the East with the West. No man full of red blood an’ the real breath of life could resist a Western girl an’ a good hoss an’ God’s free hand — that open country out there. So we claim Al Hammond, an’ may we be true to him. An’, friends, I think it fittin’ that we drink to his sister an’ to our hopes. Heah’s to the lady we hope to make our Majesty! Heah’s to the man who’ll come ridin’ out of the West, a fine, big-hearted man with a fast hoss an’ a strong rope, an’ may he win an’ hold her! Come, friends, drink.”

A heavy pound of horses’ hoofs and a yell outside arrested Stillwell’s voice and halted his hand in midair.

The patio became as silent as an unoccupied room.

Through the open doors and windows of Madeline’s chamber burst the sounds of horses stamping to a halt, then harsh speech of men, and a low cry of a woman in pain.

Rapid steps crossed the porch, entered Madeline’s room. Nels appeared in the doorway. Madeline was surprised to see that he had not been at the dinner-table. She was disturbed at sight of his face.

“Stewart, you’re wanted outdoors,” called Nels, bluntly. “Monty, you slope out here with me. You, Nick, an’ Stillwell — I reckon the rest of you hed better shut the doors an’ stay inside.”

Nels disappeared. Quick as a cat Monty glided out. Madeline heard his soft, swift steps pass from her room into her office. He had left his guns there. Madeline trembled. She saw Stewart get up quietly and without any change of expression on his dark, sad face leave the patio. Nick Steele followed him. Stillwell dropped his wine-glass. As it broke, shivering the silence, his huge smile vanished. His face set into the old cragginess and the red slowly thickened into black. Stillwell went out and closed the door behind him.

Then there was a blank silence. The enjoyment of the moment had been rudely disrupted. Madeline glanced down the lines of brown faces to see the pleasure fade into the old familiar hardness.

“What’s wrong?” asked Alfred, rather stupidly. The change of mood had been too rapid for him. Suddenly he awakened, thoroughly aroused at the interruption. “I’m going to see who’s butted in here to spoil our dinner,” he said, and strode out.

He returned before any one at the table had spoken or moved, and now the dull red of anger mottled his forehead.

“It’s the sheriff of El Cajon!” he exclaimed, contemptuously. “Pat Hawe with some of his tough deputies come to arrest Gene Stewart. They’ve got that poor little Mexican girl out there tied on a horse. Confound that sheriff!”

Madeline calmly rose from the table, eluding Florence’s entreating hand, and started for the door. The cowboys jumped up. Alfred barred her progress.

“Alfred, I am going out,” she said.

“No, I guess not,” he replied. “That’s no place for you.”

“I am going.” She looked straight at him.

“Madeline! Why, what is it? You look — Dear, there’s pretty sure to be trouble outside. Maybe there’ll be a fight. You can do nothing. You must not go.”

“Perhaps I can prevent trouble,” she replied.

As she left the patio she was aware that Alfred, with Florence at his side and the cowboys behind, were starting to follow her. When she got out of her room upon the porch she heard several men in loud, angry discussion. Then, at sight of Bonita helplessly and cruelly bound upon a horse, pale and disheveled and suffering, Madeline experienced the thrill that sight or mention of this girl always gave her. It yielded to a hot pang in her breast — that live pain which so shamed her. But almost instantly, as a second glance showed an agony in Bonita’s face, her bruised arms where the rope bit deep into the flesh, her little brown hands stained with blood, Madeline was overcome by pity for the unfortunate girl and a woman’s righteous passion at such barbarous treatment of one of her own sex.

The man holding the bridle of the horse on which Bonita had been bound was at once recognized by Madeline as the big-bodied, bullet-headed guerrilla who had found the basket of wine in the spring at camp. Redder of face, blacker of beard, coarser of aspect, evidently under the influence of liquor, he was as fierce-looking as a gorilla and as repulsive. Besides him there were three other men present, all mounted on weary horses. The one in the foreground, gaunt, sharp-featured, red-eyed, with a pointed beard, she recognized as the sheriff of El Cajon.

Madeline hesitated, then stopped in the middle of the porch. Alfred, Florence, and several others followed her out; the rest of the cowboys and guests crowded the windows and doors. Stillwell saw Madeline, and, throwing up his hands, roared to be heard. This quieted the gesticulating, quarreling men.

“Wal now, Pat Hawe, what’s drivin’ you like a locoed steer on the rampage?” demanded Stillwell.

“Keep in the traces, Bill,” replied Hawe. “You savvy what I come fer. I’ve been bidin’ my time. But I’m ready now. I’m hyar to arrest a criminal.”

The huge frame of the old cattleman jerked as if he had been stabbed. His face turned purple.

“What criminal?” he shouted, hoarsely.

The sheriff flicked his quirt against his dirty boot, and he twisted his thin lips into a leer. The situation was agreeable to him.

“Why, Bill, I knowed you hed a no-good outfit ridin’ this range; but I wasn’t wise thet you hed more ‘n one criminal.”

“Cut that talk! Which cowboy are you wantin’ to arrest?”

Hawe’s manner altered.

“Gene Stewart,” he replied, curtly.

“On what charge?”

“Fer killin’ a Greaser one night last fall.”

“So you’re still harpin’ on that? Pat, you’re on the wrong trail. You can’t lay that killin’ onto Stewart. The thing’s ancient by now. But if you insist on bringin’ him to court, let the arrest go to-day — we’re hevin’ some fiesta hyar — an’ I’ll fetch Gene in to El Cajon.”

“Nope. I reckon I’ll take him when I got the chance, before he slopes.”

“I’m givin’ you my word,” thundered Stillwell.

“I reckon I don’t hev to take your word, Bill, or anybody else’s.”

Stillwell’s great bulk quivered with his rage, yet he made a successful effort to control it.

“See hyar, Pat Hawe, I know what’s reasonable. Law is law. But in this country there always has been an’ is now a safe an’ sane way to proceed with the law. Mebbe you’ve forgot that. The law as invested in one man in a wild country is liable, owin’ to that man’s weaknesses an’ onlimited authority, to be disputed even by a decent ole cattleman like myself. I’m a-goin’ to give you a hunch. Pat, you’re not overliked in these parts. You’ve rid too much with a high hand. Some of your deals hev been shady, an’ don’t you overlook what I’m sayin’. But you’re the sheriff, an’ I’m respectin’ your office. I’m respectin’ it this much. If the milk of human decency is so soured in your breast that you can’t hev a kind feelin’, then try to avoid the onpleasantness that’ll result from any contrary move on your part to-day. Do you get that hunch?”

“Stillwell, you’re threatenin’ an officer,” replied Hawe, angrily.

“Will you hit the trail quick out of hyar?” queried Stillwell, in strained voice. “I guarantee Stewart’s appearance in El Cajon any day you say.”

“No. I come to arrest him, an’ I’m goin’ to.”

“So that’s your game!” shouted Stillwell. “We-all are glad to get you straight, Pat. Now listen, you cheap, red-eyed coyote of a sheriff! You don’t care how many enemies you make. You know you’ll never get office again in this county. What do you care now? It’s amazin’ strange how earnest you are to hunt down the man who killed that particular Greaser. I reckon there’s been some dozen or more killin’s of Greasers in the last year. Why don’t you take to trailin’ some of them killin’s? I’ll tell you why. You’re afraid to go near the border. An’ your hate of Gene Stewart makes you want to hound him an’ put him where he’s never been yet — in jail. You want to spite his friends. Wal, listen, you lean-jawed, skunk-bitten coyote! Go ahead an’ try to arrest him!”

Stillwell took one mighty stride off the porch. His last words had been cold. His rage appeared to have been transferred to Hawe. The sheriff had begun to stutter and shake a lanky red hand at the cattleman when Stewart stepped out.

“Here, you fellows, give me a chance to say a word.”

As Stewart appeared the Mexican girl suddenly seemed vitalized out of her stupor. She strained at her bonds, as if to lift her hands beseechingly. A flush animated her haggard face, and her big dark eyes lighted.

“Senor Gene!” she moaned. “Help me! I so seek. They beat me, rope me, ‘mos’ keel me. Oh, help me, Senor Gene!”

“Shut up, er I’ll gag you,” said the man who held Bonita’s horse.

“Muzzle her, Sneed, if she blabs again,” called Hawe. Madeline felt something tense and strained working in the short silence. Was it only a phase of her thrilling excitement? Her swift glance showed the faces of Nels and Monty and Nick to be brooding, cold, watchful. She wondered why Stewart did not look toward Bonita. He, too, was now dark-faced, cool, quiet, with something ominous about him.

“Hawe, I’ll submit to arrest without any fuss,” he said, slowly, “if you’ll take the ropes off that girl.”

“Nope,” replied the sheriff. “She got away from me onct. She’s hawg-tied now, an’ she’ll stay hawg-tied.”

Madeline thought she saw Stewart give a slight start. But an unaccountable dimness came over her eyes, at brief intervals obscuring her keen sight. Vaguely she was conscious of a clogged and beating tumult in her breast.

“All right, let’s hurry out of here,” said Stewart. “You’ve made annoyance enough. Ride down to the corral with me. I’ll get my horse and go with you.”

“Hold on!” yelled Hawe, as Stewart turned away. “Not so fast. Who’s doin’ this? You don’t come no El Capitan stunts on me. You’ll ride one of my pack-horses, an’ you’ll go in irons.”

“You want to handcuff me?” queried Stewart, with sudden swift start of passion.

“Want to? Haw, haw! Nope, Stewart, thet’s jest my way with hoss-thieves, raiders, Greasers, murderers, an’ sich. See hyar, you Sneed, git off an’ put the irons on this man.”

The guerrilla called Sneed slid off his horse and began to fumble in his saddle-bags.

“You see, Bill,” went on Hawe, “I swore in a new depooty fer this particular job. Sneed is some handy. He rounded up thet little Mexican cat fer me.”

Stillwell did not hear the sheriff; he was gazing at Stewart in a kind of imploring amaze.

“Gene, you ain’t goin’ to stand fer them handcuffs?” he pleaded.

“Yes,” replied the cowboy. “Bill, old friend, I’m an outsider here. There’s no call for Miss Hammond and — and her brother and Florence to be worried further about me. Their happy day has already been spoiled on my account. I want to get out quick.”

“Wal, you might be too damn considerate of Miss Hammond’s sensitive feelin’s.” There was now no trace of the courteous, kindly old rancher. He looked harder than stone. “How about my feelin’s? I want to know if you’re goin’ to let this sneakin’ coyote, this last gasp of the old rum-guzzlin’ frontier sheriffs, put you in irons an’ hawg-tie you an’ drive you off to jail?”

“Yes,” replied Stewart, steadily.

“Wal, by Gawd! You, Gene Stewart! What’s come over you? Why, man, go in the house, an’ I’ll ‘tend to this feller. Then to-morrow you can ride in an’ give yourself up like a gentleman.”

“No. I’ll go. Thanks, Bill, for the way you and the boys would stick to me. Hurry, Hawe, before my mind changes.”

His voice broke at the last, betraying the wonderful control he had kept over his passions. As he ceased speaking he seemed suddenly to become spiritless. He dropped his head.

Madeline saw in him then a semblance to the hopeless, shamed Stewart of earlier days. The vague riot in her breast leaped into conscious fury — a woman’s passionate repudiation of Stewart’s broken spirit. It was not that she would have him be a lawbreaker; it was that she could not bear to see him deny his manhood. Once she had entreated him to become her kind of a cowboy — a man in whom reason tempered passion. She had let him see how painful and shocking any violence was to her. And the idea had obsessed him, softened him, had grown like a stultifying lichen upon his will, had shorn him of a wild, bold spirit she now strangely longed to see him feel. When the man Sneed came forward, jingling the iron fetters, Madeline’s blood turned to fire. She would have forgiven Stewart then for lapsing into the kind of cowboy it had been her blind and sickly sentiment to abhor. This was a man’s West — a man’s game. What right had a woman reared in a softer mold to use her beauty and her influence to change a man who was bold and free and strong? At that moment, with her blood hot and racing, she would have gloried in the violence which she had so deplored: she would have welcomed the action that had characterized Stewart’s treatment of Don Carlos; she had in her the sudden dawning temper of a woman who had been assimilating the life and nature around her and who would not have turned her eyes away from a harsh and bloody deed.

But Stewart held forth his hands to be manacled. Then Madeline heard her own voice burst out in a ringing, imperious “Wait!”

In the time it took her to make the few steps to the edge of the porch, facing the men, she not only felt her anger and justice and pride summoning forces to her command, but there was something else calling — a deep, passionate, mysterious thing not born of the moment.

Sneed dropped the manacles. Stewart’s face took on a chalky whiteness. Hawe, in a slow, stupid embarrassment beyond his control, removed his sombrero in a respect that seemed wrenched from him.

“Mr. Hawe, I can prove to you that Stewart was not concerned in any way whatever with the crime for which you want to arrest him.”

The sheriff’s stare underwent a blinking change. He coughed, stammered, and tried to speak. Manifestly, he had been thrown completely off his balance. Astonishment slowly merged into discomfiture.

“It was absolutely impossible for Stewart to have been connected with that assault,” went on Madeline, swiftly, “for he was with me in the waiting-room of the station at the moment the assault was made outside. I assure you I have a distinct and vivid recollection. The door was open. I heard the voices of quarreling men. They grew louder. The language was Spanish. Evidently these men had left the dance-hall opposite and were approaching the station. I heard a woman’s voice mingling with the others. It, too, was Spanish, and I could not understand. But the tone was beseeching. Then I heard footsteps on the gravel. I knew Stewart heard them. I could see from his face that something dreadful was about to happen. Just outside the door then there were hoarse, furious voices, a scuffle, a muffled shot, a woman’s cry, the thud of a falling body, and rapid footsteps of a man running away. Next, the girl Bonita staggered into the door. She was white, trembling, terror-stricken. She recognized Stewart, appealed to him. Stewart supported her and endeavored to calm her. He was excited. He asked her if Danny Mains had been shot, or if he had done the shooting. The girl said no. She told Stewart that she had danced a little, flirted a little with vaqueros, and they had quarreled over her. Then Stewart took her outside and put her upon his horse. I saw the girl ride that horse down the street to disappear in the darkness.”

While Madeline spoke another change appeared to be working in the man Hawe. He was not long disconcerted, but his discomfiture wore to a sullen fury, and his sharp features fixed in an expression of craft.

“Thet’s mighty interestin’, Miss Hammond, ‘most as interestin’ as a story-book,” he said. “Now, since you’re so obligin’ a witness, I’d sure like to put a question or two. What time did you arrive at El Cajon thet night?”

“It was after eleven o’clock,” replied Madeline.

“Nobody there to meet you?”

“No.”

“The station agent an’ operator both gone?”

“Yes.”

“Wal, how soon did this feller Stewart show up?” Hawe continued, with a wry smile.

“Very soon after my arrival. I think — perhaps fifteen minutes, possibly a little more.”

“Some dark an’ lonesome around thet station, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed yes.”

“An’ what time was the Greaser shot?” queried Hawe, with his little eyes gleaming like coals.

“Probably close to half past one. It was two o’clock when I looked at my watch at Florence Kingsley’s house. Directly after Stewart sent Bonita away he took me to Miss Kingsley’s. So, allowing for the walk and a few minutes’ conversation with her, I can pretty definitely say the shooting took place at about half past one.”

Stillwell heaved his big frame a step closer to the sheriff. “What ‘re you drivin’ at?” he roared, his face black again.

“Evidence,” snapped Hawe.

Madeline marveled at this interruption; and as Stewart irresistibly drew her glance she saw him gray-faced as ashes, shaking, utterly unnerved.

“I thank you, Miss Hammond,” he said, huskily. “But you needn’t answer any more of Hawe’s questions. He’s — he’s — It’s not necessary. I’ll go with him now, under arrest. Bonita will corroborate your testimony in court, and that will save me from this — this man’s spite.”

Madeline, looking at Stewart, seeing a humility she at first took for cowardice, suddenly divined that it was not fear for himself which made him dread further disclosures of that night, but fear for her — fear of shame she might suffer through him.

Pat Hawe cocked his head to one side, like a vulture about to strike with his beak, and cunningly eyed Madeline.

“Considered as testimony, what you’ve said is sure important an’ conclusive. But I’m calculatin’ thet the court will want to hev explained why you stayed from eleven-thirty till one-thirty in thet waitin’-room alone with Stewart.”

His deliberate speech met with what Madeline imagined a remarkable reception from Stewart, who gave a tigerish start; from Stillwell, whose big hands tore at the neck of his shirt, as if he was choking; from Alfred, who now strode hotly forward, to be stopped by the cold and silent Nels; from Monty Price, who uttered a violent “Aw!” which was both a hiss and a roar.

In the rush of her thought Madeline could not interpret the meaning of these things which seemed so strange at that moment. But they were portentous. Even as she was forming a reply to Hawe’s speech she felt a chill creep over her.

“Stewart detained me in the waiting-room,” she said, clear-voiced as a bell. “But we were not alone — all the time.”

For a moment the only sound following her words was a gasp from Stewart. Hawe’s face became transformed with a hideous amaze and joy.

“Detained?” he whispered, craning his lean and corded neck. “How’s thet?”

“Stewart was drunk. He—”

With sudden passionate gesture of despair Stewart appealed to her:

“Oh, Miss Hammond, don’t! don’t! DON’T!...”

Then he seemed to sink down, head lowered upon his breast, in utter shame. Stillwell’s great hand swept to the bowed shoulder, and he turned to Madeline.

“Miss Majesty, I reckon you’d be wise to tell all,” said the old cattleman, gravely. “There ain’t one of us who could misunderstand any motive or act of yours. Mebbe a stroke of lightnin’ might clear this murky air. Whatever Gene Stewart did that onlucky night — you tell it.”

Madeline’s dignity and self-possession had been disturbed by Stewart’s importunity. She broke into swift, disconnected speech:

“He came into the station — a few minutes after I got there. I asked-to be shown to a hotel. He said there wasn’t any that would accommodate married women. He grasped my hand — looked for a wedding-ring. Then I saw he was — he was intoxicated. He told me he would go for a hotel porter. But he came back with a padre — Padre Marcos. The poor priest was — terribly frightened. So was I. Stewart had turned into a devil. He fired his gun at the padre’s feet. He pushed me into a bench. Again he shot — right before my face. I — I nearly fainted. But I heard him cursing the padre — heard the padre praying or chanting — I didn’t know what. Stewart tried to make me say things in Spanish. All at once he asked my name. I told him. He jerked at my veil. I took it off. Then he threw his gun down — pushed the padre out of the door. That was just before the vaqueros approached with Bonita. Padre Marcos must have seen them — must have heard them. After that Stewart grew quickly sober. He was mortified — distressed — stricken with shame. He told me he had been drinking at a wedding — I remember, it was Ed Linton’s wedding. Then he explained — the boys were always gambling — he wagered he would marry the first girl who arrived at El Cajon. I happened to be the first one. He tried to force me to marry him. The rest — relating to the assault on the vaquero — I have already told you.”

Madeline ended, out of breath and panting, with her hands pressed upon her heaving bosom. Revelation of that secret liberated emotion; those hurried outspoken words had made her throb and tremble and burn. Strangely then she thought of Alfred and his wrath. But he stood motionless, as if dazed. Stillwell was trying to holster up the crushed Stewart.

Hawe rolled his red eyes and threw back his head.

“Ho, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho! Say, Sneed, you didn’t miss any of it, did ye? Haw, haw! Best I ever heerd in all my born days. Ho, ho!”

Then he ceased laughing, and with glinting gaze upon Madeline, insolent and vicious and savage, he began to drawl:

“Wal now, my lady, I reckon your story, if it tallies with Bonita’s an’ Padre Marcos’s, will clear Gene Stewart in the eyes of the court.” Here he grew slower, more biting, sharper and harder of face. “But you needn’t expect Pat Hawe or the court to swaller thet part of your story — about bein’ detained unwillin’!”

Madeline had not time to grasp the sense of his last words. Stewart had convulsively sprung upward, white as chalk. As he leaped at Hawe Stillwell interposed his huge bulk and wrapped his arms around Stewart. There was a brief, whirling, wrestling struggle. Stewart appeared to be besting the old cattleman.

“Help, boys, help!” yelled Stillwell. “I can’t hold him. Hurry, or there’s goin’ to be blood spilled!”

Nick Steele and several cowboys leaped to Stillwell’s assistance. Stewart, getting free, tossed one aside and then another. They closed in on him. For an instant a furious straining wrestle of powerful bodies made rasp and shock and blow. Once Stewart heaved them from him. But they plunged back upon him — conquered him.

“Gene! Why, Gene!” panted the old cattleman. “Sure you’re locoed — to act this way. Cool down! Cool down! Why, boy, it’s all right. Jest stand still — give us a chance to talk to you. It’s only ole Bill, you know — your ole pal who’s tried to be a daddy to you. He’s only wantin’ you to hev sense — to be cool — to wait.”

“Let me go! Let me go!” cried Stewart; and the poignancy of that cry pierced Madeline’s heart. “Let me go, Bill, if you’re my friend. I saved your life once — over in the desert. You swore you’d never forget. Boys, make him let me go! Oh, I don’t care what Hawe’s said or done to me! It was that about her! Are you all a lot of Greasers? How can you stand it? Damn you for a lot of cowards! There’s a limit, I tell you.” Then his voice broke, fell to a whisper. “Bill, dear old Bill, let me go. I’ll kill him! You know I’ll kill him!”

“Gene, I know you’d kill him if you hed an even break,” replied Stillwell, soothingly. “But, Gene, why, you ain’t even packin’ a gun! An’ there’s Pat lookin’ nasty, with his hand nervous-like. He seen you hed no gun. He’d jump at the chance to plug you now, an’ then holler about opposition to the law. Cool down, son; it’ll all come right.”

Suddenly Madeline was transfixed by a terrible sound.

Her startled glance shifted from the anxious group round Stewart to see that Monty Price had leaped off the porch. He crouched down with his bands below his hips, where the big guns swung. From his distorted lips issued that which was combined roar and bellow and Indian war-whoop, and, more than all, a horrible warning cry. He resembled a hunchback about to make the leap of a demon. He was quivering, vibrating. His eyes, black and hot, were fastened with most piercing intentness upon Hawe and Sneed.

“Git back, Bill, git back!” he roared. “Git ’em back!” With one lunge Stillwell shoved Stewart and Nick and the other cowboys up on the porch. Then he crowded Madeline and Alfred and Florence to the wall, tried to force them farther. His motions were rapid and stern. But failing to get them through door and windows, he planted his wide person between the women and danger. Madeline grasped his arm, held on, and peered fearfully from behind his broad shoulder.

“You, Hawe! You, Sneed!” called Monty, in that same wild voice. “Don’t you move a finger or an eyelash!”

Madeline’s faculties nerved to keen, thrilling divination. She grasped the relation between Monty’s terrible cry and the strange hunched posture he had assumed. Stillwell’s haste and silence, too, were pregnant of catastrophe.

“Nels, git in this!” yelled Monty; and all the time he never shifted his intent gaze as much as a hair’s-breadth from Hawe and his deputy. “Nels, chase away them two fellers hangin’ back there. Chase ‘em, quick!”

These men, the two deputies who had remained in the background with the pack-horses, did not wait for Nels. They spurred their mounts, wheeled, and galloped away.

“Now, Nels, cut the gurl loose,” ordered Monty.

Nels ran forward, jerked the halter out of Sneed’s hand, and pulled Bonita’s horse in close to the porch. As he slit the rope which bound her she fell into his arms.

“Hawe, git down!” went on Monty. “Face front an’ stiff!”

The sheriff swung his leg, and, never moving his hands, with his face now a deathly, sickening white, he slid to the ground.

“Line up there beside your guerrilla pard. There! You two make a damn fine pictoor, a damn fine team of pizened coyote an’ a cross between a wild mule an’ a Greaser. Now listen!”

Monty made a long pause, in which his breathing was plainly audible.

Madeline’s eyes were riveted upon Monty. Her mind, swift as lightning, had gathered the subtleties in action and word succeeding his domination of the men. Violence, terrible violence, the thing she had felt, the thing she had feared, the thing she had sought to eliminate from among her cowboys, was, after many months, about to be enacted before her eyes. It had come at last. She had softened Stillwell, she had influenced Nels, she had changed Stewart; but this little black-faced, terrible Monty Price now rose, as it were, out of his past wild years, and no power on earth or in heaven could stay his hand. It was the hard life of wild men in a wild country that was about to strike this blow at her. She did not shudder; she did not wish to blot out from sight this little man, terrible in his mood of wild justice. She suffered a flash of horror that Monty, blind and dead to her authority, cold as steel toward her presence, understood the deeps of a woman’s soul. For in this moment of strife, of insult to her, of torture to the man she had uplifted and then broken, the passion of her reached deep toward primitive hate. With eyes slowly hazing red, she watched Monty Price; she listened with thrumming ears; she waited, slowly sagging against Stillwell.

“Hawe, if you an’ your dirty pard hev loved the sound of human voice, then listen an’ listen hard,” said Monty. “Fer I’ve been goin’ contrary to my ole style jest to hev a talk with you. You all but got away on your nerve, didn’t you? ‘Cause why? You roll in here like a mad steer an’ flash yer badge an’ talk mean, then almost bluff away with it. You heerd all about Miss Hammond’s cowboy outfit stoppin’ drinkin’ an’ cussin’ an’ packin’ guns. They’ve took on religion an’ decent livin’, an’ sure they’ll be easy to hobble an’ drive to jail. Hawe, listen. There was a good an’ noble an be-ootiful woman come out of the East somewheres, an’ she brought a lot of sunshine an’ happiness an’ new idees into the tough lives of cowboys. I reckon it’s beyond you to know what she come to mean to them. Wal, I’ll tell you. They-all went clean out of their heads. They-all got soft an’ easy an’ sweet-tempered. They got so they couldn’t kill a coyote, a crippled calf in a mud-hole. They took to books, an’ writin’ home to mother an’ sister, an’ to savin’ money, an’ to gittin’ married. Onct they was only a lot of poor cowboys, an’ then sudden-like they was human bein’s, livin’ in a big world thet hed somethin’ sweet even fer them. Even fer me — an ole, worn-out, hobble-legged, burned-up cowman like me! Do you git thet? An’ you, Mister Hawe, you come along, not satisfied with ropin’ an’ beatin’, an’ Gaw knows what else, of thet friendless little Bonita; you come along an’ face the lady we fellers honor an’ love an’ reverence, an’ you — you — Hell’s fire!”

With whistling breath, foaming at the mouth, Monty Price crouched lower, hands at his hips, and he edged inch by inch farther out from the porch, closer to Hawe and Sneed. Madeline saw them only in the blurred fringe of her sight. They resembled specters. She heard the shrill whistle of a horse and recognized Majesty calling her from the corral.

“Thet’s all!” roared Monty, in a voice now strangling. Lower and lower he bent, a terrible figure of ferocity. “Now, both you armed ocifers of the law, come on! Flash your guns! Throw ‘em, an’ be quick! Monty Price is done! There’ll be daylight through you both before you fan a hammer! But I’m givin’ you a chanst to sting me. You holler law, an’ my way is the ole law.”

His breath came quicker, his voice grew hoarser, and he crouched lower. All his body except his rigid arms quivered with a wonderful muscular convulsion.

“Dogs! Skunks! Buzzards! Flash them guns, er I’ll flash mine! Aha!”

To Madeline it seemed the three stiff, crouching men leaped into instant and united action. She saw streaks of fire — streaks of smoke. Then a crashing volley deafened her. It ceased as quickly. Smoke veiled the scene. Slowly it drifted away to disclose three fallen men, one of whom, Monty, leaned on his left hand, a smoking gun in his right. He watched for a movement from the other two. It did not come. Then, with a terrible smile, he slid back and stretched out.

XXI. Unbridled

IN WAKING AND sleeping hours Madeline Hammond could not release herself from the thralling memory of that tragedy. She was haunted by Monty Price’s terrible smile. Only in action of some kind could she escape; and to that end she worked, she walked and rode. She even overcame a strong feeling, which she feared was unreasonable disgust, for the Mexican girl Bonita, who lay ill at the ranch, bruised and feverish, in need of skilful nursing.

Madeline felt there was something inscrutable changing her soul. That strife — the struggle to decide her destiny for East or West — held still further aloof. She was never spiritually alone. There was a step on her trail. Indoors she was oppressed. She required the open — the light and wind, the sight of endless slope, the sounds of corral and pond and field, physical things, natural things.

One afternoon she rode down to the alfalfa-fields, round them, and back up to the spillway of the lower lake, where a group of mesquite-trees, owing to the water that seeped through the sand to their roots, had taken on bloom and beauty of renewed life. Under these trees there was shade enough to make a pleasant place to linger. Madeline dismounted, desiring to rest a little. She liked this quiet, lonely spot. It was really the only secluded nook near the house. If she rode down into the valley or out to the mesa or up on the foothills she could not go alone. Probably now Stillwell or Nels knew her whereabouts. But as she was comparatively hidden here, she imagined a solitude that was not actually hers.

Her horse, Majesty, tossed his head and flung his mane and switched his tail at the flies. He would rather have been cutting the wind down the valley slope. Madeline sat with her back against a tree, and took off her sombrero. The soft breeze, fanning her hot face, blowing strands of her hair, was refreshingly cool. She heard the slow tramp of cattle going in to drink. That sound ceased, and the grove of mesquites appeared to be lifeless, except for her and her horse. It was, however, only after moments of attention that she found the place was far from being dead. Keen eyes and ears brought reward. Desert quail, as gray as the bare earth, were dusting themselves in a shady spot. A bee, swift as light, hummed by. She saw a horned toad, the color of stone, squatting low, hiding fearfully in the sand within reach of her whip. She extended the point of the whip, and the toad quivered and swelled and hissed. It was instinct with fight. The wind faintly stirred the thin foliage of the mesquites, making a mournful sigh. From far up in the foothills, barely distinguishable, came the scream of an eagle. The bray of a burro brought a brief, discordant break. Then a brown bird darted down from an unseen perch and made a swift, irregular flight after a fluttering winged insect. Madeline heard the sharp snapping of a merciless beak. Indeed, there was more than life in the shade of the mesquites.

Suddenly Majesty picked up his long ears and snorted. Then Madeline heard a slow pad of hoofs. A horse was approaching from the direction of the lake. Madeline had learned to be wary, and, mounting Majesty, she turned him toward the open. A moment later she felt glad of her caution, for, looking back between the trees, she saw Stewart leading a horse into the grove. She would as lief have met a guerrilla as this cowboy.

Majesty had broken into a trot when a shrill whistle rent the air. The horse leaped and, wheeling so swiftly that he nearly unseated Madeline, he charged back straight for the mesquites. Madeline spoke to him, cried angrily at him, pulled with all her strength upon the bridle, but was helplessly unable to stop him. He whistled a piercing blast. Madeline realized then that Stewart, his old master, had called him and that nothing could turn him. She gave up trying, and attended to the urgent need of intercepting mesquite boughs that Majesty thrashed into motion. The horse thumped into an aisle between the trees and, stopping before Stewart, whinnied eagerly.

Madeline, not knowing what to expect, had not time for any feeling but amaze. A quick glance showed her Stewart in rough garb, dressed for the trail, and leading a wiry horse, saddled and packed. When Stewart, without looking at her, put his arm around Majesty’s neck and laid his face against the flowing mane Madeline’s heart suddenly began to beat with unwonted quickness. Stewart seemed oblivious to her presence. His eyes were closed. His dark face softened, lost its hardness and fierceness and sadness, and for an instant became beautiful.

Madeline instantly divined what his action meant. He was leaving the ranch; this was his good-by to his horse. How strange, sad, fine was this love between man and beast! A dimness confused Madeline’s eyes; she hurriedly brushed it away, and it came back wet and blurring. She averted her face, ashamed of the tears Stewart might see. She was sorry for him. He was going away, and this time, judging from the nature of his farewell to his horse, it was to be forever. Like a stab from a cold blade a pain shot through Madeline’s heart. The wonder of it, the incomprehensibility of it, the utter newness and strangeness of this sharp pain that now left behind a dull pang, made her forget Stewart, her surroundings, everything except to search her heart. Maybe here was the secret that had eluded her. She trembled on the brink of something unknown. In some strange way the emotion brought back her girlhood. Her mind revolved swift queries and replies; she was living, feeling, learning; happiness mocked at her from behind a barred door, and the bar of that door seemed to be an inexplicable pain. Then like lightning strokes shot the questions: Why should pain hide her happiness? What was her happiness? What relation had it to this man? Why should she feel strangely about his departure? And the voices within her were silenced, stunned, unanswered.

“I want to talk to you,” said Stewart.

Madeline started, turned to him, and now she saw the earlier Stewart, the man who reminded her of their first meeting at El Cajon, of that memorable meeting at Chiricahua.

“I want to ask you something,” he went on. “I’ve been wanting to know something. That’s why I’ve hung on here. You never spoke to me, never noticed me, never gave me a chance to ask you. But now I’m going over — over the border. And I want to know. Why did you refuse to listen to me?”

At his last words that hot shame, tenfold more stifling than when it had before humiliated Madeline, rushed over her, sending the scarlet in a wave to her temples. It seemed that his words made her realize she was actually face to face with him, that somehow a shame she would rather have died than revealed was being liberated. Biting her lips to hold back speech, she jerked on Majesty’s bridle, struck him with her whip, spurred him. Stewart’s iron arm held the horse. Then Madeline, in a flash of passion, struck at Stewart’s face, missed it, struck again, and hit. With one pull, almost drawing her from the saddle, he tore the whip from her hands. It was not that action on his part, or the sudden strong masterfulness of his look, so much as the livid mark on his face where the whip had lashed that quieted, if it did not check, her fury.

“That’s nothing,” he said, with something of his old audacity. “That’s nothing to how you’ve hurt me.”

Madeline battled with herself for control. This man would not be denied. Never before had the hardness of his face, the flinty hardness of these desert-bred men, so struck her with its revelation of the unbridled spirit. He looked stern, haggard, bitter. The dark shade was changing to gray — the gray to ash-color of passion. About him now there was only the ghost of that finer, gentler man she had helped to bring into being. The piercing dark eyes he bent upon her burned her, went through her as if he were looking into her soul. Then Madeline’s quick sight caught a fleeting doubt, a wistfulness, a surprised and saddened certainty in his eyes, saw it shade and pass away. Her woman’s intuition, as keen as her sight, told her Stewart in that moment had sustained a shock of bitter, final truth.

For the third time he repeated his question to her. Madeline did not answer; she could not speak.

“You don’t know I love you, do you?” he continued, passionately. “That ever since you stood before me in that hole at Chiricahua I’ve loved you? You can’t see I’ve been another man, loving you, working for you, living for you? You won’t believe I’ve turned my back on the old wild life, that I’ve been decent and honorable and happy and useful — your kind of a cowboy? You couldn’t tell, though I loved you, that I never wanted you to know it, that I never dared to think of you except as my angel, my holy Virgin? What do you know of a man’s heart and soul? How could you tell of the love, the salvation of a man who’s lived his life in the silence and loneliness? Who could teach you the actual truth — that a wild cowboy, faithless to mother and sister, except in memory, riding a hard, drunken trail straight to hell; had looked into the face, the eyes of a beautiful woman infinitely beyond him, above him, and had so loved her that he was saved — that he became faithful again — that he saw her face in every flower and her eyes in the blue heaven? Who could tell you, when at night I stood alone under these Western stars, how deep in my soul I was glad just to be alive, to be able to do something for you, to be near you, to stand between you and worry, trouble, danger, to feel somehow that I was a part, just a little part of the West you had come to love?”

Madeline was mute. She heard her heart thundering in her ears.

Stewart leaped at her. His powerful hand closed on her arm. She trembled. His action presaged the old instinctive violence.

“No; but you think I kept Bonita up in the mountains, that I went secretly to meet her, that all the while I served you I was — Oh, I know what you think! I know now. I never knew till I made you look at me. Now, say it! Speak!”

White-hot, blinded, utterly in the fiery grasp of passion, powerless to stem the rush of a word both shameful and revealing and fatal, Madeline cried:

“YES!”

He had wrenched that word from her, but he was not subtle enough, not versed in the mystery of woman’s motive enough, to divine the deep significance of her reply.

For him the word had only literal meaning confirming the dishonor in which she held him. Dropping her arm, he shrank back, a strange action for the savage and crude man she judged him to be.

“But that day at Chiricahua you spoke of faith,” he burst out. “You said the greatest thing in the world was faith in human nature. You said the finest men had been those who had fallen low and had risen. You said you had faith in me! You made me have faith in myself!”

His reproach, without bitterness or scorn, was a lash to her old egoistic belief in her fairness. She had preached a beautiful principle that she had failed to live up to. She understood his rebuke, she wondered and wavered, but the affront to her pride had been too great, the tumult within her breast had been too startlingly fierce; she could not speak, the moment passed, and with it his brief, rugged splendor of simplicity.

“You think I am vile,” he said. “You think that about Bonita! And all the time I’ve been... I could make you ashamed — I could tell you—”

His passionate utterance ceased with a snap of his teeth. His lips set in a thin, bitter line. The agitation of his face preceded a convulsive wrestling of his shoulders. All this swift action denoted an inner combat, and it nearly overwhelmed him.

“No, no!” he panted. Was it his answer to some mighty temptation? Then, like a bent sapling released, he sprang erect. “But I’ll be the man — the dog — you think me!”

He laid hold of her arm with rude, powerful clutch. One pull drew her sliding half out of the saddle into his arms. She fell with her breast against his, not wholly free of stirrups or horse, and there she hung, utterly powerless. Maddened, writhing, she tore to release herself. All she could accomplish was to twist herself, raise herself high enough to see his face. That almost paralyzed her. Did he mean to kill her? Then he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her tighter, closer to him. She felt the pound of his heart; her own seemed to have frozen. Then he pressed his burning lips to hers. It was a long, terrible kiss. She felt him shake.

“Oh, Stewart! I — implore — you — let — me — go!” she whispered.

His white face loomed over hers. She closed her eyes. He rained kisses upon her face, but no more upon her mouth. On her closed eyes, her hair, her cheeks, her neck he pressed swift lips — lips that lost their fire and grew cold. Then he released her, and, lifting and righting her in the saddle, he still held her arm to keep her from falling.

For a moment Madeline sat on her horse with shut eyes. She dreaded the light.

“Now you can’t say you’ve never been kissed,” Stewart said. His voice seemed a long way off. “But that was coming to you, so be game. Here!”

She felt something hard and cold and metallic thrust into her hand. He made her fingers close over it, hold it. The feel of the thing revived her. She opened her eyes. Stewart had given her his gun. He stood with his broad breast against her knee, and she looked up to see that old mocking smile on his face.

“Go ahead! Throw my gun on me! Be a thoroughbred!”

Madeline did not yet grasp his meaning.

“You can put me down in that quiet place on the hill — beside Monty Price.”

Madeline dropped the gun with a shuddering cry of horror. The sense of his words, the memory of Monty, the certainty that she would kill Stewart if she held the gun an instant longer, tortured the self-accusing cry from her.

Stewart stooped to pick up the weapon.

“You might have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble,” he said, with another flash of the mocking smile. “You’re beautiful and sweet and proud, but you’re no thoroughbred! Majesty Hammond, adios!”

Stewart leaped for the saddle of his horse, and with the flying mount crashed through the mesquites to disappear.

XXII. The Secret Told

IN THE SHADED seclusion of her room, buried face down deep among the soft cushions on her couch, Madeline Hammond lay prostrate and quivering under the outrage she had suffered.

The afternoon wore away; twilight fell; night came; and then Madeline rose to sit by the window to let the cool wind blow upon her hot face. She passed through hours of unintelligible shame and impotent rage and futile striving to reason away her defilement.

The train of brightening stars seemed to mock her with their unattainable passionless serenity. She had loved them, and now she imagined she hated them and everything connected with this wild, fateful, and abrupt West.

She would go home.

Edith Wayne had been right; the West was no place for Madeline Hammond. The decision to go home came easily, naturally, she thought, as the result of events. It caused her no mental strife. Indeed, she fancied she felt relief. The great stars, blinking white and cold over the dark crags, looked down upon her, and, as always, after she had watched them for a while they enthralled her. “Under Western stars,” she mused, thinking a little scornfully of the romantic destiny they had blazed for her idle sentiment. But they were beautiful; they were speaking; they were mocking; they drew her. “Ah!” she sighed. “It will not be so very easy to leave them, after all.”

Madeline closed and darkened the window. She struck a light. It was necessary to tell the anxious servants who knocked that she was well and required nothing. A soft step on the walk outside arrested her. Who was there — Nels or Nick Steele or Stillwell? Who shared the guardianship over her, now that Monty Price was dead and that other — that savage — ? It was monstrous and unfathomable that she regretted him.

The light annoyed her. Complete darkness fitted her strange mood. She retired and tried to compose herself to sleep. Sleep for her was not a matter of will. Her cheeks burned so hotly that she rose to bathe them. Cold water would not alleviate this burn, and then, despairing of forgetfulness, she lay down again with a shameful gratitude for the cloak of night. Stewart’s kisses were there, scorching her lips, her closed eyes, her swelling neck. They penetrated deeper and deeper into her blood, into her heart, into her soul — the terrible farewell kisses of a passionate, hardened man. Despite his baseness, he had loved her.

Late in the night Madeline fell asleep. In the morning she was pale and languid, but in a mental condition that promised composure.

It was considerably after her regular hour that Madeline repaired to her office. The door was open, and just outside, tipped back in a chair, sat Stillwell.

“Mawnin’, Miss Majesty,” he said, as he rose to greet her with his usual courtesy. There were signs of trouble in his lined face. Madeline shrank inwardly, fearing his old lamentations about Stewart. Then she saw a dusty, ragged pony in the yard and a little burro drooping under a heavy pack. Both animals bore evidence of long, arduous travel.

“To whom do they belong?” asked Madeline.

“Them critters? Why, Danny Mains,” replied Stillwell, with a cough that betrayed embarrassment.

“Danny Mains?” echoed Madeline, wonderingly.

“Wal, I said so.”

Stillwell was indeed not himself.

“Is Danny Mains here?” she asked, in sudden curiosity.

The old cattleman nodded gloomily.

“Yep, he’s hyar, all right. Sloped in from the hills, an’ he hollered to see Bonita. He’s locoed, too, about that little black-eyed hussy. Why, he hardly said, ‘Howdy, Bill,’ before he begun to ask wild an’ eager questions. I took him in to see Bonita. He’s been there more ‘n a half-hour now.”

Evidently Stillwell’s sensitive feelings had been ruffled. Madeline’s curiosity changed to blank astonishment, which left her with a thrilling premonition. She caught her breath. A thousand thoughts seemed thronging for clear conception in her mind.

Rapid footsteps with an accompaniment of clinking spurs sounded in the hallway. Then a young man ran out upon the porch. He resembled a cowboy in his lithe build, his garb and action, in the way he wore his gun, but his face, instead of being red, was clear brown tan. His eyes were blue; his hair was light and curly. He was a handsome, frank-faced boy. At sight of Madeline he slammed down his sombrero and, leaping at her, he possessed himself of her hands. His swift violence not only alarmed her, but painfully reminded her of something she wished to forget.

This cowboy bent his head and kissed her hands and wrung them, and when he straightened up he was crying.

“Miss Hammond, she’s safe an’ almost well, an’ what I feared most ain’t so, thank God,” he cried. “Sure I’ll never be able to pay you for all you’ve done for her. She’s told me how she was dragged down here, how Gene tried to save her, how you spoke up for Gene an’ her, too, how Monty at the last throwed his guns. Poor Monty! We were good friends, Monty an’ I. But it wasn’t friendship for me that made Monty stand in there. He would have saved her, anyway. Monty Price was the whitest man I ever knew. There’s Nels an’ Nick an’ Gene, he’s been some friend to me; but Monty Price was — he was grand. He never knew, any more than you or Bill, here, or the boys, what Bonita was to me.”

Stillwell’s kind and heavy hand fell upon the cowboy’s shoulder.

“Danny, what’s all this queer gab?” he asked. “An’ you’re takin’ some liberty with Miss Hammond, who never seen you before. Sure I’m makin’ allowance fer amazin’ strange talk. I see you’re not drinkin’. Mebbe you’re plumb locoed. Come, ease up now an’ talk sense.”

The cowboy’s fine, frank face broke into a smile. He dashed the tears from his eyes. Then he laughed. His laugh had a pleasant, boyish ring — a happy ring.

“Bill, old pal, stand bridle down a minute, will you?” Then he bowed to Madeline. “I beg your pardon, Miss Hammond, for seemin’ rudeness. I’m Danny Mains. An’ Bonita is my wife. I’m so crazy glad she’s safe an’ unharmed — so grateful to you that — why, sure it’s a wonder I didn’t kiss you outright.”

“Bonita’s your wife!” ejaculated Stillwell.

“Sure. We’ve been married for months,” replied Danny, happily. “Gene Stewart did it. Good old Gene, he’s hell on marryin’. I guess maybe I haven’t come to pay him up for all he’s done for me! You see, I’ve been in love with Bonita for two years. An’ Gene — you know, Bill, what a way Gene has with girls — he was — well, he was tryin’ to get Bonita to have me.”

Madeline’s quick, varying emotions were swallowed up in a boundless gladness. Something dark, deep, heavy, and somber was flooded from her heart. She had a sudden rich sense of gratitude toward this smiling, clean-faced cowboy whose blue eyes flashed through tears.

“Danny Mains!” she said, tremulously and smilingly. “If you are as glad as your news has made me — if you really think I merit such a reward — you may kiss me outright.”

With a bashful wonder, but with right hearty will, Danny Mains availed himself of this gracious privilege. Stillwell snorted. The signs of his phenomenal smile were manifest, otherwise Madeline would have thought that snort an indication of furious disapproval.

“Bill, straddle a chair,” said Danny. “You’ve gone back a heap these last few months, frettin’ over your bad boys, Danny an’ Gene. You’ll need support under you while I’m throwin’ my yarn. Story of my life, Bill.” He placed a chair for Madeline. “Miss Hammond, beggin’ your pardon again, I want you to listen, also. You’ve the face an’ eyes of a woman who loves to hear of other people’s happiness. Besides, somehow, it’s easy for me to talk lookin’ at you.”

His manner subtly changed then. Possibly it took on a little swagger; certainly he lost the dignity that he had shown under stress of feeling; he was now more like a cowboy about to boast or affect some stunning maneuver. Walking off the porch, he stood before the weary horse and burro.

“Played out!” he exclaimed.

Then with the swift violence so characteristic of men of his class he slipped the pack from the burro and threw saddle and bridle from the horse.

“There! See ‘em! Take a look at the last dog-gone weight you ever packed! You’ve been some faithful to Danny Mains. An’ Danny Mains pays! Never a saddle again or a strap or a halter or a hobble so long as you live! So long as you live nothin’ but grass an’ clover, an’ cool water in shady places, an’ dusty swales to roll in an’ rest an’ sleep!”

Then he untied the pack and, taking a small, heavy sack from it, he came back upon the porch. Deliberately he dumped the contents of the sack at Stillwell’s feet. Piece after piece of rock thumped upon the floor. The pieces were sharp, ragged, evidently broken from a ledge; the body of them was white in color, with yellow veins and bars and streaks. Stillwell grasped up one rock after another, stared and stuttered, put the rocks to his lips, dug into them with his shaking fingers; then he lay back in his chair, head against the wall, and as he gaped at Danny the old smile began to transform his face.

“Lord, Danny if you hevn’t been an’ gone an’ struck it rich!”

Danny regarded Stillwell with lofty condescension.

“Some rich,” he said. “Now, Bill, what’ve we got here, say, offhand?”

“Oh, Lord, Danny! I’m afraid to say. Look, Miss Majesty, jest look at the gold. I’ve lived among prospectors an’ gold-mines fer thirty years, an’ I never seen the beat of this.”

“The Lost Mine of the Padres!” cried Danny, in stentorian voice. “An’ it belongs to me!”

Stillwell made some incoherent sound as he sat up fascinated, quite beside himself.

“Bill, it was some long time ago since you saw me,” said Danny. “Fact is, I know how you felt, because Gene kept me posted. I happened to run across Bonita, an’ I wasn’t goin’ to let her ride away alone, when she told me she was in trouble. We hit the trail for the Peloncillos. Bonita had Gene’s horse, an’ she was to meet him up on the trail. We got to the mountains all right, an’ nearly starved for a few days till Gene found us. He had got in trouble himself an’ couldn’t fetch much with him.

“We made for the crags an’ built a cabin. I come down that day Gene sent his horse Majesty to you. Never saw Gene so broken-hearted. Well, after he sloped for the border Bonita an’ I were hard put to it to keep alive. But we got along, an’ I think it was then she began to care a little for me. Because I was decent. I killed cougars an’ went down to Rodeo to get bounties for the skins, an’ bought grub an’ supplies I needed. Once I went to El Cajon an’ run plumb into Gene. He was back from the revolution an’ cuttin’ up some. But I got away from him after doin’ all I could to drag him out of town. A long time after that Gene trailed up to the crags an’ found us. Gene had stopped drinkin’, he’d changed wonderful, was fine an’ dandy. It was then he began to pester the life out of me to make me marry Bonita. I was happy, so was she, an’ I was some scared of spoilin’ it. Bonita had been a little flirt, an’ I was afraid she’d get shy of a halter, so I bucked against Gene. But I was all locoed, as it turned out. Gene would come up occasionally, packin’ supplies for us, an’ always he’d get after me to do the right thing by Bonita. Gene’s so dog-gone hard to buck against! I had to give in, an’ I asked Bonita to marry me. Well, she wouldn’t at first — said she wasn’t good enough for me. But I saw the marriage idea was workin’ deep, an’ I just kept on bein’ as decent as I knew how. So it was my wantin’ to marry Bonita — my bein’ glad to marry her — that made her grow soft an’ sweet an’ pretty as — as a mountain quail. Gene fetched up Padre Marcos, an’ he married us.”

Danny paused in his narrative, breathing hard, as if the memory of the incident described had stirred strong and thrilling feeling in him. Stillwell’s smile was rapturous. Madeline leaned toward Danny with her eyes shining.

“Miss Hammond, an’ you, Bill Stillwell, now listen, for this is strange I’ve got to tell you. The afternoon Bonita an’ I were married, when Gene an’ the padre had gone, I was happy one minute an’ low-hearted the next. I was miserable because I had a bad name. I couldn’t buy even a decent dress for my pretty wife. Bonita heard me, an’ she was some mysterious. She told me the story of the lost mine of the padres, an’ she kissed me an made joyful over me in the strangest way. I knew marriage went to women’s heads, an’ I thought even Bonita had a spell.

“Well, she left me for a little, an’ when she came back she wore some pretty yellow flowers in her hair. Her eyes were big an’ black an’ beautiful. She said some queer things about spirits rollin’ rocks down the canyon. Then she said she wanted to show me where she always sat an’ waited an’ watched for me when I was away.

“She led me around under the crags to a long slope. It was some pretty there — clear an’ open, with a long sweep, an’ the desert yawnin’ deep an’ red. There were yellow flowers on that slope, the same kind she had in her hair — the same kind that Apache girl wore hundreds of years ago when she led the padre to the gold-mine.

“When I thought of that, an’ saw Bonita’s eyes, an’ then heard the strange crack of rollin’ rocks — heard them rattle down an’ roll an’ grow faint — I was some out of my head. But not for long. Them rocks were rollin’ all right, only it was the weatherin’ of the cliffs.

“An’ there under the crags was a gold pocket.

“Then I was worse than locoed. I went gold-crazy. I worked like seventeen burros. Bill, I dug a lot of goldbearin’ quartz. Bonita watched the trails for me, brought me water. That was how she come to get caught by Pat Hawe an’ his guerrillas. Sure! Pat Hawe was so set on doin’ Gene dirt that he mixed up with Don Carlos. Bonita will tell you some staggerin’ news about that outfit. Just now my story is all gold.”

Danny Mains got up and kicked back his chair. Blue lightning gleamed from his eyes as he thrust a hand toward Stillwell.

“Bill, old pal, put her there — give me your hand,” he said. “You were always my friend. You had faith in me. Well, Danny Mains owes you, an’ he owes Gene Stewart a good deal, an’ Danny Mains pays. I want two pardners to help me work my gold-mine. You an’ Gene. If there’s any ranch hereabouts that takes your fancy I’ll buy it. If Miss Hammond ever gets tired of her range an stock an’ home I’ll buy them for Gene. If there’s any railroad or town round here that she likes I’ll buy it. If I see anythin’ myself that I like I’ll buy it. Go out; find Gene for me. I’m achin’ to see him, to tell him. Go fetch him; an’ right here in this house, with my wife an’ Miss Hammond as witnesses, we’ll draw up a pardnership. Go find him, Bill. I want to show him this gold, show him how Danny Mains pays! An’ the only bitter drop in my cup to-day is that I can’t ever pay Monty Price.”

Madeline’s lips tremblingly formed to tell Danny Mains and Stillwell that the cowboy they wanted so much had left the ranch; but the flame of fine loyalty that burned in Danny’s eyes, the happiness that made the old cattleman’s face at once amazing and beautiful, stiffened her lips. She watched the huge Stillwell and the little cowboy, both talking wildly, as they walked off arm in arm to find Stewart. She imagined something of what Danny’s disappointment would be, of the elder man’s consternation and grief, when he learned Stewart had left for the border. At this juncture she looked up to see a strange, yet familiar figure approaching. Padre Marcos! Certain it was that Madeline felt herself trembling. What did his presence mean on this day? He had always avoided meeting her whenever possible. He had been exceedingly grateful for all she had done for his people, his church, and himself; but he had never thanked her in person. Perhaps he had come for that purpose now. But Madeline did not believe so.

Mention of Padre Marcos, sight of him, had always occasioned Madeline a little indefinable shock; and now, as he stepped to the porch, a shrunken, stooped, and sad-faced man, she was startled.

The padre bowed low to her.

“Senora, will you grant me audience?” he asked, in perfect English, and his voice was low-toned and grave.

“Certainly, Padre Marcos,” replied Madeline; and she led him into her office.

“May I beg to close the doors?” he asked. “It is a matter of great moment, which you might not care to have any one hear.”

Wonderingly Madeline inclined her head. The padre gently closed one door and then the others.

“Senora, I have come to disclose a secret — my own sinfulness in keeping it — and to implore your pardon. Do you remember that night Senor Stewart dragged me before you in the waiting-room at El Cajon?”

“Yes,” replied Madeline.

“Senora, since that night you have been Senor Stewart’s wife!”

Madeline became as motionless as stone. She seemed to feel nothing, only to hear.

“You are Senor Stewart’s wife. I have kept the secret under fear of death. But I could keep it no longer. Senor Stewart may kill me now. Ah, Senora, it is very strange to you. You were so frightened that night, you knew not what happened. Senor Stewart threatened me. He forced you. He made me speak the service. He made you speak the Spanish yes. And I, Senora, knowing the deeds of these sinful cowboys, fearing worse than disgrace to one so beautiful and so good as you, I could not do less than marry you truly. At least you should be his wife. So I married you, truly, in the service of my church.”

“My God!” cried Madeline, rising.

“Hear me! I implore you, Senora, hear me out! Do not leave me! Do not look so — so — Ah, Senora, let me speak a word for Senor Stewart. He was drunk that night. He did not know what he was about. In the morning he came to me, made me swear by my cross that I would not reveal the disgrace he had put upon you. If I did he would kill me. Life is nothing to the American vaquero, Senora. I promised to respect his command. But I did not tell him you were his wife. He did not dream I had truly married you. He went to fight for the freedom of my country — Senora, he is one splendid soldier — and I brooded over the sin of my secret. If he were killed I need never tell you. But if he lived I knew that I must some day.

“Strange indeed that Senor Stewart and Padre Marcos should both come to this ranch together. The great change your goodness wrought in my beloved people was no greater than the change in Senor Stewart. Senora, I feared you would go away one day, go back to your Eastern home, ignorant of the truth. The time came when I confessed to Stewart — said I must tell you. Senor, the man went mad with joy. I have never seen so supreme a joy. He threatened no more to kill me. That strong, cruel vaquero begged me not to tell the secret — never to reveal it. He confessed his love for you — a love something like the desert storm. He swore by all that was once sacred to him, and by my cross and my church, that he would be a good man, that he would be worthy to have you secretly his wife for the little time life left him to worship at your shrine. You needed never to know. So I held my tongue, half pitying him, half fearing him, and praying for some God-sent light.

“Senora, it was a fool’s paradise that Stewart lived in. I saw him, often. When he took me up into the mountains to have me marry that wayward Bonita and her lover I came to have respect for a man whose ideas about nature and life and God were at a variance with mine. But the man is a worshiper of God in all material things. He is a part of the wind and sun and desert and mountain that have made him. I have never heard more beautiful words than those in which he persuaded Bonita to accept Senor Mains, to forget her old lovers, and henceforth to be happy. He is their friend. I wish I could tell you what that means. It sounds so simple. It is really simple. All great things are so. For Senor Stewart it was natural to be loyal to his friend, to have a fine sense of the honor due to a woman who had loved and given, to bring about their marriage, to succor them in their need and loneliness. It was natural for him never to speak of them. It would have been natural for him to give his life in their defense if peril menaced them. Senora, I want you to understand that to me the man has the same stability, the same strength, the same elements which I am in the habit of attributing to the physical life around me in this wild and rugged desert.”

Madeline listened as one under a spell. It was not only that this soft-voiced, eloquent priest knew how to move the heart, stir the soul; but his defense, his praise of Stewart, if they had been couched in the crude speech of cowboys, would have been a glory to her.

“Senora, I pray you, do not misunderstand my mission. Beyond my confession to you I have only a duty to tell you of the man whose wife you are. But I am a priest and I can read the soul. The ways of God are inscrutable. I am only a humble instrument. You are a noble woman, and Senor Stewart is a man of desert iron forged anew in the crucible of love. Quien sabe? Senor Stewart swore he would kill me if I betrayed him. But he will not lift his hand against me. For the man bears you a very great and pure love, and it has changed him. I no longer fear his threat, but I do fear his anger, should he ever know I spoke of his love, of his fool’s paradise. I have watched his dark face turned to the sun setting over the desert. I have watched him lift it to the light of the stars. Think, my gracious and noble lady, think what is his paradise? To love you above the spirit of the flesh; to know you are his wife, his, never to be another’s except by his sacrifice; to watch you with a secret glory of joy and pride; to stand, while he might, between you and evil; to find his happiness in service; to wait, with never a dream of telling you, for the hour to come when to leave you free he must go out and get himself shot! Senora, that is beautiful, it is sublime, it is terrible. It has brought me to you with my confession. I repeat, Senora, the ways of God are inscrutable. What is the meaning of your influence upon Senor Stewart? Once he was merely an animal, brutal, unquickened; now he is a man — I have not seen his like! So I beseech you in my humble office as priest, as a lover of mankind, before you send Stewart to his death, to be sure there is here no mysterious dispensation of God. Love, that mighty and blessed and unknown thing, might be at work. Senora, I have heard that somewhere in the rich Eastern cities you are a very great lady. I know you are good and noble. That is all I want to know. To me you are only a woman, the same as Senor Stewart is only a man. So I pray you, Senora, before you let Stewart give you freedom at such cost be sure you do not want his love, lest you cast away something sweet and ennobling which you yourself have created.”

XXIII. The Light of Western Stars

BLINDED, LIKE A wild creature, Madeline Hammond ran to her room. She felt as if a stroke of lightning had shattered the shadowy substance of the dream she had made of real life. The wonder of Danny Mains’s story, the strange regret with which she had realized her injustice to Stewart, the astounding secret as revealed by Padre Marcos — these were forgotten in the sudden consciousness of her own love.

Madeline fled as if pursued. With trembling hands she locked the doors, drew the blinds of the windows that opened on the porch, pushed chairs aside so that she could pace the length of her room. She was now alone, and she walked with soft, hurried, uneven steps. She could be herself here; she needed no mask; the long habit of serenely hiding the truth from the world and from herself could be broken. The seclusion of her darkened chamber made possible that betrayal of herself to which she was impelled.

She paused in her swift pacing to and fro. She liberated the thought that knocked at the gates of her mind. With quivering lips she whispered it. Then she spoke aloud:

“I will say it — hear it. I — I love him!”

“I love him!” she repeated the astounding truth, but she doubted her identity.

“Am I still Madeline Hammond? What has happened? Who am I?” She stood where the light from one unclosed window fell upon her image in the mirror. “Who is this woman?”

She expected to see a familiar, dignified person, a quiet, unruffled figure, a tranquil face with dark, proud eyes and calm, proud lips. No, she did not see Madeline Hammond. She did not see any one she knew. Were her eyes, like her heart, playing her false? The figure before her was instinct with pulsating life. The hands she saw, clasped together, pressed deep into a swelling bosom that heaved with each panting breath. The face she saw — white, rapt, strangely glowing, with parted, quivering lips, with great, staring, tragic eyes — this could not be Madeline Hammond’s face.

Yet as she looked she knew no fancy could really deceive her, that she was only Madeline Hammond come at last to the end of brooding dreams. She swiftly realized the change in her, divined its cause and meaning, accepted it as inevitable, and straightway fell back again into the mood of bewildering amaze.

Calmness was unattainable. The surprise absorbed her. She could not go back to count the innumerable, imperceptible steps of her undoing. Her old power of reflecting, analyzing, even thinking at all, seemed to have vanished in a pulse-stirring sense of one new emotion. She only felt all her instinctive outward action that was a physical relief, all her involuntary inner strife that was maddening, yet unutterably sweet; and they seemed to be just one bewildering effect of surprise.

In a nature like hers, where strength of feeling had long been inhibited as a matter of training, such a transforming surprise as sudden consciousness of passionate love required time for its awakening, time for its sway.

By and by that last enlightening moment came, and Madeline Hammond faced not only the love in her heart, but the thought of the man she loved.

Suddenly, as she raged, something in her — this dauntless new personality — took arms against indictment of Gene Stewart. Her mind whirled about him and his life. She saw him drunk, brutal; she saw him abandoned, lost. Then out of the picture she had of him thus slowly grew one of a different man — weak, sick, changed by shock, growing strong, strangely, spiritually altered, silent, lonely like an eagle, secretive, tireless, faithful, soft as a woman, hard as iron to endure, and at the last noble.

She softened. In a flash her complex mood changed to one wherein she thought of the truth, the beauty, the wonder of Stewart’s uplifting. Humbly she trusted that she had helped him to climb. That influence had been the best she had ever exerted. It had wrought magic in her own character. By it she had reached some higher, nobler plane of trust in man. She had received infinitely more than she had given.

Her swiftly flying memory seemed to assort a vast mine of treasures of the past. Of that letter Stewart had written to her brother she saw vivid words. But ah! she had known, and if it had not made any difference then, now it made all in the world. She recalled how her loosened hair had blown across his lips that night he had ridden down from the mountains carrying her in his arms. She recalled the strange joy of pride in Stewart’s eyes when he had suddenly come upon her dressed to receive her Eastern guests in the white gown with the red roses at her breast.

Swiftly as they had come these dreamful memories departed. There was to be no rest for her mind. All she had thought and felt seemed only to presage a tumult.

Heedless, desperate, she cast off the last remnant of self-control, turned from the old proud, pale, cold, self-contained ghost of herself to face this strange, strong, passionate woman. Then, with hands pressed to her beating heart, with eyes shut, she listened to the ringing trip-hammer voice of circumstance, of truth, of fatality. The whole story was revealed, simple enough in the sum of its complicated details, strange and beautiful in part, remorseless in its proof of great love on Stewart’s side, in dreaming blindness on her own, and, from the first fatal moment to the last, prophetic of tragedy.

Madeline, like a prisoner in a cell, began again to pace to and fro.

“Oh, it is all terrible!” she cried. “I am his wife. His wife! That meeting with him — the marriage — then his fall, his love, his rise, his silence, his pride! And I can never be anything to him. Could I be anything to him? I, Madeline Hammond? But I am his wife, and I love him! His wife! I am the wife of a cowboy! That might be undone. Can my love be undone? Ah, do I want anything undone? He is gone. Gone! Could he have meant — I will not, dare not think of that. He will come back. No, he never will come back. Oh, what shall I do?”

For Madeline Hammond the days following that storm of feeling were leaden-footed, endless, hopeless — a long succession of weary hours, sleepless hours, passionate hours, all haunted by a fear slowly growing into torture, a fear that Stewart had crossed the border to invite the bullet which would give her freedom. The day came when she knew this to be true. The spiritual tidings reached her, not subtly as so many divinations had come, but in a clear, vital flash of certainty. Then she suffered. She burned inwardly, and the nature of that deep fire showed through her eyes. She kept to herself, waiting, waiting for her fears to be confirmed.

At times she broke out in wrath at the circumstances she had failed to control, at herself, at Stewart.

“He might have learned from Ambrose!” she exclaimed, sick with a bitterness she knew was not consistent with her pride. She recalled Christine’s trenchant exposition of Ambrose’s wooing: “He tell me he love me; he kees me; he hug me; he put me on his horse; he ride away with me; he marry me.”

Then in the next breath Madeline denied this insistent clamoring of a love that was gradually breaking her spirit. Like a somber shadow remorse followed her, shading blacker. She had been blind to a man’s honesty, manliness, uprightness, faith, and striving. She had been dead to love, to nobility that she had herself created. Padre Marcos’s grave, wise words returned to haunt her. She fought her bitterness, scorned her intelligence, hated her pride, and, weakening, gave up more and more to a yearning, hopeless hope.

She had shunned the light of the stars as she had violently dismissed every hinting suggestive memory of Stewart’s kisses. But one night she went deliberately to her window. There they shone. Her stars! Beautiful, passionless as always, but strangely closer, warmer, speaking a kinder language, helpful as they had never been, teaching her now that regret was futile, revealing to her in their one grand, blazing task the supreme duty of life — to be true.

Those shining stars made her yield. She whispered to them that they had claimed her — the West claimed her — Stewart claimed her forever, whether he lived or died. She gave up to her love. And it was as if he was there in person, dark-faced, fire-eyed, violent in his action, crushing her to his breast in that farewell moment, kissing her with one burning kiss of passion, then with cold, terrible lips of renunciation.

“I am your wife!” she whispered to him. In that moment, throbbing, exalted, quivering in her first sweet, tumultuous surrender to love, she would have given her all, her life, to be in his arms again, to meet his lips, to put forever out of his power any thought of wild sacrifice.

And on the morning of the next day, when Madeline went out upon the porch, Stillwell, haggard and stern, with a husky, incoherent word, handed her a message from El Cajon. She read:

El Capitan Stewart captured by rebel soldiers in fight at Agua Prieta yesterday. He was a sharpshooter in the Federal ranks. Sentenced to death Thursday at sunset.

XXIV. The Ride

“STILLWELL!”

Madeline’s cry was more than the utterance of a breaking heart. It was full of agony. But also it uttered the shattering of a structure built of false pride, of old beliefs, of bloodless standards, of ignorance of self. It betrayed the final conquest of her doubts, and out of their darkness blazed the unquenchable spirit of a woman who had found herself, her love, her salvation, her duty to a man, and who would not be cheated.

The old cattleman stood mute before her, staring at her white face, at her eyes of flame.

“Stillwell! I am Stewart’s wife!”

“My Gawd, Miss Majesty!” he burst out. “I knowed somethin’ turrible was wrong. Aw, sure it’s a pity—”

“Do you think I’ll let him be shot when I know him now, when I’m no longer blind, when I love him?” she asked, with passionate swiftness. “I will save him. This is Wednesday morning. I have thirty-six hours to save his life. Stillwell, send for Link and the car!”

She went into her office. Her mind worked with extraordinary rapidity and clearness. Her plan, born in one lightning-like flash of thought, necessitated the careful wording of telegrams to Washington, to New York, to San Antonio. These were to Senators, Representatives, men high in public and private life, men who would remember her and who would serve her to their utmost. Never before had her position meant anything to her comparable with what it meant now. Never in all her life had money seemed the power that it was then. If she had been poor! A shuddering chill froze the thought at its inception. She dispelled heartbreaking thoughts. She had power. She had wealth. She would set into operation all the unlimited means these gave her — the wires and pulleys and strings underneath the surface of political and international life, the open, free, purchasing value of money or the deep, underground, mysterious, incalculably powerful influence moved by gold. She could save Stewart. She must await results — deadlocked in feeling, strained perhaps almost beyond endurance, because the suspense would be great; but she would allow no possibility of failure to enter her mind.

When she went outside the car was there with Link, helmet in hand, a cool, bright gleam in his eyes, and with Stillwell, losing his haggard misery, beginning to respond to Madeline’s spirit.

“Link, drive Stillwell to El Cajon in time for him to catch the El Paso train,” she said. “Wait there for his return, and if any message comes from him, telephone it at once to me.”

Then she gave Stillwell the telegrams to send from El Cajon and drafts to cash in El Paso. She instructed him to go before the rebel junta, then stationed at Juarez, to explain the situation, to bid them expect communications from Washington officials requesting and advising Stewart’s exchange as a prisoner of war, to offer to buy his release from the rebel authorities.

When Stillwell had heard her through his huge, bowed form straightened, a ghost of his old smile just moved his lips. He was no longer young, and hope could not at once drive away stern and grim realities. As he bent over her hand his manner appeared courtly and reverent. But either he was speechless or felt the moment not one for him to break silence.

He climbed to a seat beside Link, who pocketed the watch he had been studying and leaned over the wheel. There was a crack, a muffled sound bursting into a roar, and the big car jerked forward to bound over the edge of the slope, to leap down the long incline, to shoot out upon the level valley floor and disappear in moving dust.

For the first time in days Madeline visited the gardens, the corrals, the lakes, the quarters of the cowboys. Though imagining she was calm, she feared she looked strange to Nels, to Nick, to Frankie Slade, to those boys best known to her. The situation for them must have been one of tormenting pain and bewilderment. They acted as if they wanted to say something to her, but found themselves spellbound. She wondered — did they know she was Stewart’s wife? Stillwell had not had time to tell them; besides, he would not have mentioned the fact. These cowboys only knew that Stewart was sentenced to be shot; they knew if Madeline had not been angry with him he would not have gone in desperate fighting mood across the border. She spoke of the weather, of the horses and cattle, asked Nels when he was to go on duty, and turned away from the wide, sunlit, adobe-arched porch where the cowboys stood silent and bareheaded. Then one of her subtle impulses checked her.

“Nels, you and Nick need not go on duty to-day,” she said. “I may want you. I — I—”

She hesitated, paused, and stood lingering there. Her glance had fallen upon Stewart’s big black horse prancing in a near-by corral.

“I have sent Stillwell to El Paso,” she went on, in a low voice she failed to hold steady. “He will save Stewart. I have to tell you — I am Stewart’s wife!”

She felt the stricken amaze that made these men silent and immovable. With level gaze averted she left them. Returning to the house and her room, she prepared for something — for what? To wait!

Then a great invisible shadow seemed to hover behind her. She essayed many tasks, to fail of attention, to find that her mind held only Stewart and his fortunes. Why had he become a Federal? She reflected that he had won his title, El Capitan, fighting for Madero, the rebel. But Madero was now a Federal, and Stewart was true to him. In crossing the border had Stewart any other motive than the one he had implied to Madeline in his mocking smile and scornful words, “You might have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble!” What trouble? She felt again the cold shock of contact with the gun she had dropped in horror. He meant the trouble of getting himself shot in the only way a man could seek death without cowardice. But had he any other motive? She recalled Don Carlos and his guerrillas. Then the thought leaped up in her mind with gripping power that Stewart meant to hunt Don Carlos, to meet him, to kill him. It would be the deed of a silent, vengeful, implacable man driven by wild justice such as had been the deadly leaven in Monty Price. It was a deed to expect of Nels or Nick Steel — and, aye, of Gene Stewart. Madeline felt regret that Stewart, as he had climbed so high, had not risen above deliberate seeking to kill his enemy, however evil that enemy.

The local newspapers, which came regularly a day late from El Paso and Douglas, had never won any particular interest from Madeline; now, however, she took up any copies she could find and read all the information pertaining to the revolution. Every word seemed vital to her, of moving significant force.

AMERICANS ROBBED BY MEXICAN REBELS

MADERA, STATE OF CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO, July 17. — Having looted the Madera Lumber Company’s storehouses of $25,000 worth of goods and robbed scores of foreigners of horses and saddles, the rebel command of Gen. Antonio Rojas, comprising a thousand men, started westward to-day through the state of Sonora for Agnaymas and Pacific coast points.

The troops are headed for Dolores, where a mountain pass leads into the state of Sonora. Their entrance will be opposed by 1,000 Maderista volunteers, who are reported to be waiting the rebel invasion.

The railroad south of Madera is being destroyed and many Americans who were traveling to Chihuahua from Juarez are marooned here.

General Rojas executed five men while here for alleged offenses of a trivial character. Gen. Rosalio y Hernandez, Lieut. Cipriano Amador, and three soldiers were the unfortunates.

WASHINGTON, July 17. — Somewhere in Mexico Patrick Dunne, an American citizen, is in prison under sentence of death. This much and no more the State Department learned through Representative Kinkaid of Nebraska. Consular officers in various sections of Mexico have been directed to make every effort to locate Dunne and save his life.

JUAREZ, MEXICO, July 31. — General Orozco, chief of the rebels, declared to-day:

“If the United States will throw down the barriers and let us have all the ammunition we can buy, I promise in sixty days to have peace restored in Mexico and a stable government in charge.”

CASAS GRANDES, CHIHUAHUA, July 31. — Rebel soldiers looted many homes of Mormons near here yesterday. All the Mormon families have fled to El Paso. Although General Salazar had two of his soldiers executed yesterday for robbing Mormons, he has not made any attempt to stop his men looting the unprotected homes of Americans.

Last night’s and to-day’s trains carried many Americans from Pearson, Madera, and other localities outside the Mormon settlements. Refugees from Mexico continued to pour into El Paso. About one hundred came last night, the majority of whom were men. Heretofore few men came.

Madeline read on in feverish absorption. It was not a real war, but a starving, robbing, burning, hopeless revolution. Five men executed for alleged offenses of a trivial nature! What chance had, then, a Federal prisoner, an enemy to be feared, an American cowboy in the clutches of those crazed rebels?

Madeline endured patiently, endured for long interminable hours while holding to her hope with indomitable will.

No message came. At sunset she went outdoors, suffering a torment of accumulating suspense. She faced the desert, hoping, praying for strength. The desert did not influence her as did the passionless, unchangeable stars that had soothed her spirit. It was red, mutable, shrouded in shadows, terrible like her mood. A dust-veiled sunset colored the vast, brooding, naked waste of rock and sand. The grim Chiricahua frowned black and sinister. The dim blue domes of the Guadalupes seemed to whisper, to beckon to her. Beyond them somewhere was Stewart, awaiting the end of a few brief hours — hours that to her were boundless, endless, insupportable.

Night fell. But now the white, pitiless stars failed her. Then she sought the seclusion and darkness of her room, there to lie with wide eyes, waiting, waiting. She had always been susceptible to the somber, mystic unrealities of the night, and now her mind slowly revolved round a vague and monstrous gloom. Nevertheless, she was acutely sensitive to outside impressions. She heard the measured tread of a guard, the rustle of wind stirring the window-curtain, the remote, mournful wail of a coyote. By and by the dead silence of the night insulated her with leaden oppression. There was silent darkness for so long that when the window casements showed gray she believed it was only fancy and that dawn would never come. She prayed for the sun not to rise, not to begin its short twelve-hour journey toward what might be a fatal setting for Stewart. But the dawn did lighten, swiftly she thought, remorselessly. Daylight had broken, and this was Thursday!

Sharp ringing of the telephone bell startled her, roused her into action. She ran to answer the call.

“Hello — hello — Miss Majesty!” came the hurried reply. “This is Link talkin’. Messages for you. Favorable, the operator said. I’m to ride out with them. I’ll come a-hummin’.”

That was all. Madeline heard the bang of the receiver as Stevens threw it down. She passionately wanted to know more, but was immeasurably grateful for so much! Favorable! Then Stillwell had been successful. Her heart leaped. Suddenly she became weak and her hands failed of their accustomed morning deftness. It took her what seemed a thousand years to dress. Breakfast meant nothing to her except that it helped her to pass dragging minutes.

Finally a low hum, mounting swiftly to a roar and ending with a sharp report, announced the arrival of the car. If her feet had kept pace with her heart she would have raced out to meet Link. She saw him, helmet thrown back, watch in hand, and he looked up at her with his cool, bright smile, with his familiar apologetic manner.

“Fifty-three minutes, Miss Majesty,” he said, “but I hed to ride round a herd of steers an’ bump a couple off the trail.”

He gave her a packet of telegrams. Madeline tore them open with shaking fingers, began to read with swift, dim eyes. Some were from Washington, assuring her of every possible service; some were from New York; others written in Spanish were from El Paso, and these she could not wholly translate in a brief glance. Would she never find Stillwell’s message? It was the last. It was lengthy. It read:

Bought Stewart’s release. Also arranged for his transfer as prisoner of war. Both matters official. He’s safe if we can get notice to his captors. Not sure I’ve reached them by wire. Afraid to trust it. You go with Link to Agua Prieta. Take the messages sent you in Spanish. They will protect you and secure Stewart’s freedom. Take Nels with you. Stop for nothing. Tell Link all — trust him — let him drive that car.

STILLWELL.

The first few lines of Stillwell’s message lifted Madeline to the heights of thanksgiving and happiness. Then, reading on, she experienced a check, a numb, icy, sickening pang. At the last line she flung off doubt and dread, and in white, cold passion faced the issue.

“Read,” she said, briefly, handing the telegram to Link. He scanned it and then looked blankly up at her.

“Link, do you know the roads, the trails — the desert between here and Agua Prieta?” she asked.

“Thet’s sure my old stampin’-ground. An’ I know Sonora, too.”

“We must reach Agua Prieta before sunset — long before, so if Stewart is in some near-by camp we can get to it in — in time.”

“Miss Majesty, it ain’t possible!” he exclaimed. “Stillwell’s crazy to say thet.”

“Link, can an automobile be driven from here into northern Mexico?”

“Sure. But it ‘d take time.”

“We must do it in little time,” she went on, in swift eagerness. “Otherwise Stewart may be — probably will be — be shot.”

Link Stevens appeared suddenly to grow lax, shriveled, to lose all his peculiar pert brightness, to weaken and age.

“I’m only a — a cowboy, Miss Majesty.” He almost faltered. It was a singular change in him. “Thet’s an awful ride — down over the border. If by some luck I didn’t smash the car I’d turn your hair gray. You’d never be no good after thet ride!”

“I am Stewart’s wife,” she answered him and she looked at him, not conscious of any motive to persuade or allure, but just to let him know the greatness of her dependence upon him.

He started violently — the old action of Stewart, the memorable action of Monty Price. This man was of the same wild breed.

Then Madeline’s words flowed in a torrent. “I am Stewart’s wife. I love him; I have been unjust to him; I must save him. Link, I have faith in you. I beseech you to do your best for Stewart’s sake — for my sake. I’ll risk the ride gladly — bravely. I’ll not care where or how you drive. I’d far rather plunge into a canyon — go to my death on the rocks — than not try to save Stewart.”

How beautiful the response of this rude cowboy — to realize his absolute unconsciousness of self, to see the haggard shade burn out of his face, the old, cool, devil-may-care spirit return to his eyes, and to feel something wonderful about him then! It was more than will or daring or sacrifice. A blood-tie might have existed between him and Madeline. She sensed again that indefinable brother-like quality, so fine, so almost invisible, which seemed to be an inalienable trait in these wild cowboys.

“Miss Majesty, thet ride figgers impossible, but I’ll do it!” he replied. His cool, bright glance thrilled her. “I’ll need mebbe half an hour to go over the car an’ to pack on what I’ll want.”

She could not thank him, and her reply was merely a request that he tell Nels and other cowboys off duty to come up to the house. When Link had gone Madeline gave a moment’s thought to preparations for the ride. She placed what money she had and the telegrams in a satchel. The gown she had on was thin and white, not suitable for travel, but she would not risk the losing of one moment in changing it. She put on a long coat and wound veils round her head and neck, arranging them in a hood so she could cover her face when necessary. She remembered to take an extra pair of goggles for Nels’s use, and then, drawing on her gloves, she went out ready for the ride.

A number of cowboys were waiting. She explained the situation and left them in charge of her home. With that she asked Nels to accompany her down into the desert. He turned white to his lips, and this occasioned Madeline to remember his mortal dread of the car and Link’s driving.

“Nels, I’m sorry to ask you,” she added. “I know you hate the car. But I need you — may need you, oh! so much.”

“Why, Miss Majesty, thet’s shore all a mistaken idee of yours about me hatin’ the car,” he said, in his slow, soft drawl. “I was only jealous of Link; an’ the boys, they made thet joke up on me about bein’ scared of ridin’ fast. Shore I’m powerful proud to go. An’ I reckon if you hedn’t asked me my feelin’s might hev been some hurt. Because if you’re goin’ down among the Greasers you want me.”

His cool, easy speech, his familiar swagger, the smile with which he regarded her did not in the least deceive Madeline. The gray was still in his face. Incomprehensible as it seemed, Nels had a dread, an uncanny fear, and it was of that huge white automobile. But he lied about it. Here again was that strange quality of faithfulness.

Madeline heard the buzz of the car. Link appeared driving up the slope. He made a short, sliding turn and stopped before the porch. Link had tied two long, heavy planks upon the car, one on each side, and in every available space he had strapped extra tires. A huge cask occupied one back seat, and another seat was full of tools and ropes. There was just room in this rear part of the car for Nels to squeeze in. Link put Madeline in front beside him, then bent over the wheel. Madeline waved her hand at the silent cowboys on the porch. Not an audible good-by was spoken.

The car glided out of the yard, leaped from level to slope, and started swiftly down the road, out into the open valley. Each stronger rush of dry wind in Madeline’s face marked the increase of speed. She took one glance at the winding cattle-road, smooth, unobstructed, disappearing in the gray of distance. She took another at the leather-garbed, leather-helmeted driver beside her, and then she drew the hood of veils over her face and fastened it round her neck so there was no possibility of its blowing loose.

Harder and stronger pressed the wind till it was like sheeted lead forcing her back in her seat. There was a ceaseless, intense, inconceivably rapid vibration under her; occasionally she felt a long swing, as if she were to be propelled aloft; but no jars disturbed the easy celerity of the car. The buzz, the roar of wheels, of heavy body in flight, increased to a continuous droning hum. The wind became an insupportable body moving toward her, crushing her breast, making the task of breathing most difficult. To Madeline the time seemed to fly with the speed of miles. A moment came when she detected a faint difference in hum and rush and vibration, in the ceaseless sweeping of the invisible weight against her. This difference became marked. Link was reducing speed. Then came swift change of all sensation, and she realized the car had slowed to normal travel.

Madeline removed her hood and goggles. It was a relief to breathe freely, to be able to use her eyes. To her right, not far distant, lay the little town of Chiricahua. Sight of it made her remember Stewart in a way strange to her constant thought of him. To the left inclined the gray valley. The red desert was hidden from view, but the Guadalupe Mountains loomed close in the southwest.

Opposite Chiricahua, where the road forked, Link Stevens headed the car straight south and gradually increased speed. Madeline faced another endless gray incline. It was the San Bernardino Valley. The singing of the car, the stinging of the wind warned her to draw the hood securely down over her face again, and then it was as if she was riding at night. The car lurched ahead, settled into that driving speed which wedged Madeline back as in a vise. Again the moments went by fleet as the miles. Seemingly, there was an acceleration of the car till it reached a certain swiftness — a period of time in which it held that pace, and then a diminishing of all motion and sound which contributed to Madeline’s acute sensation. Uncovering her face, she saw Link was passing another village. Could it be Bernardino? She asked Link — repeated the question.

“Sure,” he replied. “Eighty miles.”

Link did not this time apologize for the work of his machine. Madeline marked the omission with her first thrill of the ride. Leaning over, she glanced at Link’s watch, which he had fastened upon the wheel in front of his eyes. A quarter to ten! Link had indeed made short work of the valley miles.

Beyond Bernardino Link sheered off the road and put the car to a long, low-rising slope. Here the valley appeared to run south under the dark brows of the Guadalupes. Link was heading southwest. Madeline observed that the grass began to fail as they climbed the ridge; bare, white, dusty spots appeared; there were patches of mesquite and cactus and scattering areas of broken rock.

She might have been prepared for what she saw from the ridge-top. Beneath them the desert blazed. Seen from afar, it was striking enough, but riding down into its red jaws gave Madeline the first affront to her imperious confidence. All about her ranch had been desert, the valleys were desert; but this was different. Here began the red desert, extending far into Mexico, far across Arizona and California to the Pacific. She saw a bare, hummocky ridge, down which the car was gliding, bounding, swinging, and this long slant seemed to merge into a corrugated world of rock and sand, patched by flats and basins, streaked with canyons and ranges of ragged, saw-toothed stone. The distant Sierra Madres were clearer, bluer, less smoky and suggestive of mirage than she had ever seen them. Madeline’s sustaining faith upheld her in the face of this appalling obstacle. Then the desert that had rolled its immensity beneath her gradually began to rise, to lose its distant margins, to condense its varying lights and shades, at last to hide its yawning depths and looming heights behind red ridges, which were only little steps, little outposts, little landmarks at its gates.

The bouncing of the huge car, throwing Madeline up, directed her attention and fastened it upon the way Link Stevens was driving and upon the immediate foreground. Then she discovered that he was following an old wagon-road. At the foot of that long slope they struck into rougher ground, and here Link took to a cautious zigzag course. The wagon-road disappeared and then presently reappeared. But Link did not always hold to it. He made cuts, detours, crosses, and all the time seemed to be getting deeper into a maze of low, red dunes, of flat canyon-beds lined by banks of gravel, of ridges mounting higher. Yet Link Stevens kept on and never turned back. He never headed into a place that he could not pass. Up to this point of travel he had not been compelled to back the car, and Madeline began to realize that it was the cowboy’s wonderful judgment of ground that made advance possible. He knew the country; he was never at a loss; after making a choice of direction, he never hesitated.

Then at the bottom of a wide canyon he entered a wash where the wheels just barely turned in dragging sand. The sun beat down white-hot, the dust arose, there was not a breath of wind; and no sound save the slide of a rock now and then down the weathered slopes and the labored chugging of the machine. The snail pace, like the sand at the wheels, began to drag at Madeline’s faith. Link gave over the wheel to Madeline, and, leaping out, he called Nels. When they untied the long planks and laid them straight in front for the wheels to pass over Madeline saw how wise had been Link’s forethought. With the aid of those planks they worked the car through sand and gravel otherwise impossible to pass.

This canyon widened and opened into space affording an unobstructed view for miles. The desert sloped up in steps, and in the morning light, with the sun bright on the mesas and escarpments, it was gray, drab, stone, slate, yellow, pink, and, dominating all, a dull rust-red. There was level ground ahead, a wind-swept floor as hard as rock. Link rushed the car over this free distance. Madeline’s ears filled with a droning hum like the sound of a monstrous, hungry bee and with a strange, incessant crinkle which she at length guessed to be the spreading of sheets of gravel from under the wheels. The giant car attained such a speed that Madeline could only distinguish the colored landmarks to the fore, and these faded as the wind stung her eyes.

Then Link began the ascent of the first step, a long, sweeping, barren waste with dunes of wonderful violet and heliotrope hues. Here were well-defined marks of an old wagon-road lately traversed by cattle. The car climbed steadily, surmounted the height, faced another long bench that had been cleaned smooth by desert winds. The sky was an intense, light, steely blue, hard on the eyes. Madeline veiled her face, and did not uncover it until Link had reduced the racing speed. From the summit of the next ridge she saw more red ruin of desert.

A deep wash crossing the road caused Link Stevens to turn due south. There was a narrow space along the wash just wide enough for the car. Link seemed oblivious to the fact that the outside wheels were perilously close to the edge. Madeline heard the rattle of loosened gravel and earth sliding into the gully. The wash widened and opened out into a sandy flat. Link crossed this and turned up on the opposite side. Rocks impeded the progress of the car, and these had to be rolled out of the way. The shelves of silt, apparently ready to slide with the slightest weight, the little tributary washes, the boulder-strewn stretches of slope, the narrow spaces allowing no more than a foot for the outside wheels, the spear-pointed cactus that had to be avoided — all these obstacles were as nothing to the cowboy driver. He kept on, and when he came to the road again he made up for the lost time by speed.

Another height was reached, and here Madeline fancied that Link had driven the car to the summit of a high pass between two mountain ranges. The western slope of that pass appeared to be exceedingly rough and broken. Below it spread out another gray valley, at the extreme end of which glistened a white spot that Link grimly called Douglas. Part of that white spot was Agua Prieta, the sister town across the line. Madeline looked with eyes that would fain have pierced the intervening distance.

The descent of the pass began under difficulties. Sharp stones and cactus spikes penetrated the front tires, bursting them with ripping reports. It took time to replace them. The planks were called into requisition to cross soft places. A jagged point of projecting rock had to be broken with a sledge. At length a huge stone appeared to hinder any further advance. Madeline caught her breath. There was no room to turn the car. But Link Stevens had no intention of such a thing. He backed the car to a considerable distance, then walked forward. He appeared to be busy around the boulder for a moment and returned down the road on the run. A heavy explosion, a cloud of dust, and a rattle of falling fragments told Madeline that her indomitable driver had cleared a passage with dynamite. He seemed to be prepared for every emergency. Madeline looked to see what effect the discovery of Link carrying dynamite would have upon the silent Nels.

“Shore, now, Miss Majesty, there ain’t nothin’ goin’ to stop Link,” said Nels, with a reassuring smile. The significance of the incident had not dawned upon Nels, or else he was heedless of it. After all, he was afraid only of the car and Link, and that fear was an idiosyncrasy. Madeline began to see her cowboy driver with clearer eyes and his spirit awoke something in her that made danger of no moment. Nels likewise subtly responded, and, though he was gray-faced, tight-lipped, his eyes took on the cool, bright gleam of Link’s.

Cactus barred the way, rocks barred the way, gullies barred the way, and these Nels addressed in the grim humor with which he was wont to view tragic things. A mistake on Link’s part, a slip of a wheel, a bursting of a tire at a critical moment, an instant of the bad luck which might happen a hundred times on a less perilous ride — any one of these might spell disaster for the car, perhaps death to the occupants. Again and again Link used the planks to cross washes in sand. Sometimes the wheels ran all the length of the planks, sometimes slipped off. Presently Link came to a ditch where water had worn deep into the road. Without hesitation he placed them, measuring distance carefully, and then started across. The danger was in ditching the machine. One of the planks split, sagged a little, but Link made the crossing without a slip.

The road led round under an overhanging cliff and was narrow, rocky, and slightly downhill. Bidding Madeline and Nels walk round this hazardous corner, Link drove the car. Madeline expected to hear it crash down into the canyon, but presently she saw Link waiting to take them aboard again. Then came steeper parts of the road, places that Link could run down if he had space below to control the car, and on the other hand places where the little inclines ended in abrupt ledges upon one side or a declivity upon the other. Here the cowboy, with ropes on the wheels and half-hitches upon the spurs of rock, let the car slide down.

Once at a particularly bad spot Madeline exclaimed involuntarily, “Oh, time is flying!” Link Stevens looked up at her as if he had been reproved for his care. His eyes shone like the glint of steel on ice. Perhaps that utterance of Madeline’s was needed to liberate his recklessness to its utmost. Certainly he put the car to seemingly impossible feats. He rimmed gullies, he hurdled rising ground, he leaped little breaks in the even road. He made his machine cling like a goat to steep inclines; he rounded corners with the inside wheels higher than the outside; he passed over banks of soft earth that caved in the instant he crossed weak places. He kept on and on, threading tortuous passages through rock-strewn patches, keeping to the old road where it was clear, abandoning it for open spaces, and always going down.

At length a mile of clean, brown slope, ridged and grooved like a washboard, led gently down to meet the floor of the valley, where the scant grama-grass struggled to give a tinge of gray. The road appeared to become more clearly defined, and could be seen striking straight across the valley.

To Madeline’s dismay, that road led down to a deep, narrow wash. It plunged on one side, ascended on the other at a still steeper angle. The crossing would have been laborsome for a horse; for an automobile it was unpassable. Link turned the car to the right along the rim and drove as far along the wash as the ground permitted. The gully widened, deepened all the way. Then he took the other direction. When he made this turn Madeline observed that the sun had perceptibly begun its slant westward. It shone in her face, glaring and wrathful. Link drove back to the road, crossed it, and kept on down the line of the wash. It was a deep cut in red earth, worn straight down by swift water in the rainy seasons. It narrowed. In some places it was only five feet wide. Link studied these points and looked up the slope, and seemed to be making deductions. The valley was level now, and there were nothing but little breaks in the rim of the wash. Link drove mile after mile, looking for a place to cross, and there was none. Finally progress to the south was obstructed by impassable gullies where the wash plunged into the head of a canyon. It was necessary to back the car a distance before there was room to turn. Madeline looked at the imperturbable driver. His face revealed no more than the same old hard, immutable character. When he reached the narrowest points, which had so interested him, he got out of the car and walked from place to place. Once with a little jump he cleared the wash. Then Madeline noted that the farther rim was somewhat lower. In a flash she divined Link’s intention. He was hunting a place to jump the car over the crack in the ground.

Soon he found one that seemed to suit him, for he tied his red scarf upon a greasewood-bush. Then, returning to the car, he clambered in, and, muttering, broke his long silence: “This ain’t no air-ship, but I’ve outfiggered thet damn wash.” He backed up the gentle slope and halted just short of steeper ground. His red scarf waved in the wind. Hunching low over the wheel, he started, slowly at first, then faster, and then faster. The great car gave a spring like a huge tiger. The impact of suddenly formed wind almost tore Madeline out of her seat. She felt Nels’s powerful hands on her shoulders. She closed her eyes. The jolting headway of the car gave place to a gliding rush. This was broken by a slight jar, and then above the hum and roar rose a cowboy yell. Madeline waited with strained nerves for the expected crash. It did not come. Opening her eyes, she saw the level valley floor without a break. She had not even noticed the instant when the car had shot over the wash.

A strange breathlessness attacked her, and she attributed it to the celerity with which she was being carried along. Pulling the hood down over her face, she sank low in the seat. The whir of the car now seemed to be a world-filling sound. Again the feeling of excitement, the poignancy of emotional heights, the ever-present impending sense of catastrophe became held in abeyance to the sheer intensity of physical sensations. There came a time when all her strength seemed to unite in an effort to lift her breast against the terrific force of the wind — to draw air into her flattened lungs. She became partly dazed. The darkness before her eyes was not all occasioned by the blood that pressed like a stone mask on her face. She had a sense that she was floating, sailing, drifting, reeling, even while being borne swiftly as a thunderbolt. Her hands and arms were immovable under the weight of mountains. There was a long, blank period from which she awakened to feel an arm supporting her. Then she rallied. The velocity of the car had been cut to the speed to which she was accustomed. Throwing back the hood, she breathed freely again, recovered fully.

The car was bowling along a wide road upon the outskirts of a city. Madeline asked what place it could be.

“Douglas,” replied Link. “An’ jest around is Agua Prieta!”

That last name seemed to stun Madeline. She heard no more, and saw little until the car stopped. Nels spoke to some one. Then sight of khaki-clad soldiers quickened Madeline’s faculties. She was on the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico, and Agua Prieta, with its white and blue walled houses, its brown-tiled roofs, lay before her. A soldier, evidently despatched by Nels, returned and said an officer would come at once. Madeline’s attention was centered in the foreground, upon the guard over the road, upon the dry, dusty town beyond; but she was aware of noise and people in the rear. A cavalry officer approached the car, stared, and removed his sombrero.

“Can you tell me anything about Stewart, the American cowboy who was captured by rebels a few days ago?” asked Madeline.

“Yes,” replied the officer. “There was a skirmish over the line between a company of Federals and a large force of guerrillas and rebels. The Federals were driven west along the line. Stewart is reported to have done reckless fighting and was captured. He got a Mexican sentence. He is known here along the border, and the news of his capture stirred up excitement. We did all we could to get his release. The guerrillas feared to execute him here, and believed he might be aided to escape. So a detachment departed with him for Mezquital.”

“He was sentenced to be shot Thursday at sunset — to-night?”

“Yes. It was rumored there was a personal resentment against Stewart. I regret that I can’t give you definite information. If you are friends of Stewart — relatives — I might find—”

“I am his wife,” interrupted Madeline. “Will you please read these.” She handed him the telegrams. “Advise me — help me, if you can?”

With a wondering glance at her the officer received the telegrams. He read several, and whistled low in amaze. His manner became quick, alert, serious.

“I can’t read these written in Spanish, but I know the names signed.” Swiftly he ran through the others.

“Why, these mean Stewart’s release has been authorized. They explain mysterious rumors we have heard here. Greaser treachery! For some strange reason messages from the rebel junta have failed to reach their destination. We heard reports of an exchange for Stewart, but nothing came of it. No one departed for Mezquital with authority. What an outrage! Come, I’ll go with you to General Salazar, the rebel chief in command. I know him. Perhaps we can find out something.”

Nels made room for the officer. Link sent the car whirring across the line into Mexican territory. Madeline’s sensibilities were now exquisitely alive. The white road led into Agua Prieta, a town of colored walls and roofs. Goats and pigs and buzzards scattered before the roar of the machine. Native women wearing black mantles peeped through iron-barred windows. Men wearing huge sombreros, cotton shirts and trousers, bright sashes round their waists, and sandals, stood motionless, watching the car go by. The road ended in an immense plaza, in the center of which was a circular structure that in some measure resembled a corral. It was a bull-ring, where the national sport of bull-fighting was carried on. Just now it appeared to be quarters for a considerable army. Ragged, unkempt rebels were everywhere, and the whole square was littered with tents, packs, wagons, arms. There were horses, mules, burros, and oxen.

The place was so crowded that Link was compelled to drive slowly up to the entrance to the bull-ring. Madeline caught a glimpse of tents inside, then her view was obstructed by a curious, pressing throng. The cavalry officer leaped from the car and pushed his way into the entrance.

“Link, do you know the road to this Mezquital?” asked Madeline.

“Yes. I’ve been there.”

“How far is it?”

“Aw, not so very far,” he mumbled.

“Link! How many miles?” she implored.

“I reckon only a few.”

Madeline knew that he lied. She asked him no more; nor looked at him, nor at Nels. How stifling was this crowded, ill-smelling plaza! The sun, red and lowering, had sloped far down in the west, but still burned with furnace heat. A swarm of flies whirled over the car. The shadows of low-sailing buzzards crossed Madeline’s sight. Then she saw a row of the huge, uncanny black birds sitting upon the tiled roof of a house. They had neither an air of sleeping nor resting. They were waiting. She fought off a horrible ghastly idea before its full realization. These rebels and guerrillas — what lean, yellow, bearded wretches! They curiously watched Link as he went working over the car. No two were alike, and all were ragged. They had glittering eyes sunk deep in their heads. They wore huge sombreros of brown and black felt, of straw, of cloth. Every man wore a belt or sash into which was thrust some kind of weapon. Some wore boots, some shoes, some moccasins, some sandals, and many were barefooted. They were an excited, jabbering, gesticulating mob. Madeline shuddered to think how a frenzy to spill blood could run through these poor revolutionists. If it was liberty they fought for, they did not show the intelligence in their faces. They were like wolves upon a scent. They affronted her, shocked her. She wondered if their officers were men of the same class. What struck her at last and stirred pity in her was the fact that every man of the horde her swift glance roamed over, however dirty and bedraggled he was, wore upon him some ornament, some tassel or fringe or lace, some ensign, some band, bracelet, badge, or belt, some twist of scarf, something that betrayed the vanity which was the poor jewel of their souls. It was in the race.

Suddenly the crowd parted to let the cavalry officer and a rebel of striking presence get to the car.

“Madam, it is as I suspected,” said the officer, quickly. “The messages directing Stewart’s release never reached Salazar. They were intercepted. But even without them we might have secured Stewart’s exchange if it had not been for the fact that one of his captors wanted him shot. This guerrilla intercepted the orders, and then was instrumental in taking Stewart to Mezquital. It is exceedingly sad. Why, he should be a free man this instant. I regret—”

“Who did this — this thing?” cried Madeline, cold and sick. “Who is the guerrilla?”

“Senor Don Carlos Martinez. He has been a bandit, a man of influence in Sonora. He is more of a secret agent in the affairs of the revolution than an active participator. But he has seen guerrilla service.”

“Don Carlos! Stewart in his power! O God!” Madeline sank down, almost overcome. Then two great hands, powerful, thrilling, clasped her shoulders, and Nels bent over her.

“Miss Majesty, shore we’re wastin’ time here,” he said. His voice, like his hands, was uplifting. She wheeled to him in trembling importunity. How cold, bright, blue the flash of his eyes! They told Madeline she must not weaken. But she could not speak her thought to Nels — could only look at Link.

“It figgers impossible, but I’ll do it!” said Link Stevens, in answer to her voiceless query. The cold, grim, wild something about her cowboys blanched Madeline’s face, steeled her nerve, called to the depths of her for that last supreme courage of a woman. The spirit of the moment was nature with Link and Nels; with her it must be passion.

“Can I get a permit to go into the interior — to Mezquital?” asked Madeline of the officer.

“You are going on? Madam, it’s a forlorn hope. Mezquital is a hundred miles away. But there’s a chance — the barest chance if your man can drive this car. The Mexicans are either murderous or ceremonious in their executions. The arrangements for Stewart’s will be elaborate. But, barring unusual circumstances, it will take place precisely at the hour designated. You need no permit. Your messages are official papers. But to save time, perhaps delay, I suggest you take this Mexican, Senor Montes, with you. He outranks Don Carlos and knows the captain of the Mezquital detachment.”

“Ah! Then Don Carlos is not in command of the forces holding Stewart?”

“No.”

“I thank you, sir. I shall not forget your kindness,” concluded Madeline.

She bowed to Senor Montes, and requested him to enter the car. Nels stowed some of the paraphernalia away, making room in the rear seat. Link bent over the wheel. The start was so sudden, with such crack and roar, that the crowd split in wild disorder. Out of the plaza the car ran, gathering headway; down a street lined by white and blue walls; across a square where rebels were building barricades; along a railroad track full of iron flat-cars that carried mounted pieces of artillery; through the outlying guards, who waved to the officer, Montes.

Madeline bound her glasses tightly over her eyes, and wound veils round the lower part of her face. She was all in a strange glow, she had begun to burn, to throb, to thrill, to expand, and she meant to see all that was possible. The sullen sun, red as fire, hung over the mountain range in the west. How low it had sunk! Before her stretched a narrow, white road, dusty, hard as stone — a highway that had been used for centuries. If it had been wide enough to permit passing a vehicle it would have been a magnificent course for automobiles. But the weeds and the dusty flowers and the mesquite boughs and arms of cactus brushed the car as it sped by.

Faster, faster, faster! That old resistless weight began to press Madeline back; the old incessant bellow of wind filled her ears. Link Stevens hunched low over the wheel. His eyes were hidden under leather helmet and goggles, but the lower part of his face was unprotected. He resembled a demon, so dark and stone-hard and strangely grinning was he. All at once Madeline realized how matchless, how wonderful a driver was this cowboy. She divined that weakening could not have been possible to Link Stevens. He was a cowboy, and he really was riding that car, making it answer to his will, as it had been born in him to master a horse. He had never driven to suit himself, had never reached an all-satisfying speed until now. Beyond that his motive was to save Stewart — to make Madeline happy. Life was nothing to him. That fact gave him the superhuman nerve to face the peril of this ride. Because of his disregard of self he was able to operate the machine, to choose the power, the speed, the guidance, the going with the best judgment and highest efficiency possible. Madeline knew he would get her to Mezquital in time to save Stewart or he would kill her in the attempt.

The white, narrow road flashed out of the foreground, slipped with inconceivable rapidity under the car. When she marked a clump of cactus far ahead it seemed to shoot at her, to speed behind her even the instant she noticed it. Nevertheless, Madeline knew Link was not putting the car to its limit. Swiftly as he was flying, he held something in reserve. But he took the turns of the road as if he knew the way was cleared before him. He trusted to a cowboy’s luck. A wagon in one of those curves, a herd of cattle, even a frightened steer, meant a wreck. Madeline never closed her eyes at these fateful moments. If Link could stake himself, the others, and her upon such chance, what could not she stake with her motive? So while the great car hummed and thrummed, and darted round the curves on two wheels, and sped on like a bullet, Madeline lived that ride, meant to feel it to the uttermost.

But it was not all swift going. A stretch of softer ground delayed Link, made the car labor and pant and pound and grind through gravel. Moreover, the cactus plants assumed an alarming ability to impede progress. Long, slender arms of the ocotillo encroached upon the road; broad, round leaves did likewise; fluted columns, fallen like timbers in a forest, lay along the narrow margins; the bayonet cactus and the bisnagi leaned threateningly; clusters of maguey, shadowed by the huge, looming saguaro, infringed upon the highway to Mezquital. And every leaf and blade and branch of cactus bore wicked thorns, any one of which would be fatal to a tire.

It came at length, the bursting report. The car lurched, went on like a crippled thing, and halted, obedient to the master hand at the wheel. Swift as Link was in replacing the tire, he lost time. The red sun, more sullen, duskier as it neared the black, bold horizon, appeared to mock Madeline, to eye her in derision.

Link leaped in, and the car sprang ahead. The road-bed changed, the trees changed — all the surroundings changed except the cactus. There were miles of rolling ridges, rough in the hollows, and short rocky bits of road, and washes to cross, and a low, sandy swale where mesquites grouped a forest along a trickling inch-deep sheet of water. Green things softened the hard, dry aspect of the desert. There were birds and parrots and deer and wild boars. All these Madeline remarked with clear eyes, with remarkable susceptibility of attention; but what she strained to see, what she yearned for, prayed for, was straight, unobstructed road.

But the road began to wind up; it turned and twisted in tantalizing lazy curves; it was in no hurry to surmount a hill that began to assume proportions of a mountain; it was leisurely, as were all things in Mexico except strife. That was quick, fierce, bloody — it was Spanish.

The descent from that elevation was difficult, extremely hazardous, yet Link Stevens drove fast. At the base of the hill rocks and sand all but halted him for good. Then in taking an abrupt curve a grasping spear ruined another tire. This time the car rasped across the road into the cactus, bursting the second front-wheel tire. Like demons indeed Link and Nels worked. Shuddering, Madeline felt the declining heat of the sun, saw with gloomy eyes the shading of the red light over the desert. She did not look back to see how near the sun was to the horizon. She wanted to ask Nels. Strange as anything on this terrible ride was the absence of speech. As yet no word had been spoken. Madeline wanted to shriek to Link to hurry. But he was more than humanly swift in all his actions. So with mute lips, with the fire in her beginning to chill, with a lifelessness menacing her spirit, she watched, hoped against hope, prayed for a long, straight, smooth road.

Quite suddenly she saw it, seemingly miles of clear, narrow lane disappearing like a thin, white streak in distant green. Perhaps Link Stevens’s heart leaped like Madeline’s. The huge car with a roar and a jerk seemed to answer Madeline’s call, a cry no less poignant because it was silent.

Faster, faster, faster! The roar became a whining hum. Then for Madeline sound ceased to be anything — she could not hear. The wind was now heavy, imponderable, no longer a swift, plastic thing, but solid, like an on-rushing wall. It bore down upon Madeline with such resistless weight that she could not move. The green of desert plants along the road merged in two shapeless fences, sliding at her from the distance. Objects ahead began to blur the white road, to grow streaky, like rays of light, the sky to take on more of a reddening haze.

Madeline, realizing her sight was failing her, turned for one more look at Link Stevens. It had come to be his ride almost as much as it was hers. He hunched lower than ever, rigid, strained to the last degree, a terrible, implacable driver. This was his hour, and he was great. If he so much as brushed a flying tire against one of the millions of spikes clutching out, striking out from the cactus, there would be a shock, a splitting wave of air — an end. Madeline thought she saw that Link’s bulging cheek and jaw were gray, that his tight-shut lips were white, that the smile was gone. Then he really was human — not a demon. She felt a strange sense of brotherhood. He understood a woman’s soul as Monty Price had understood it. Link was the lightning-forged automaton, the driving, relentless, unconquerable instrument of a woman’s will. He was a man whose force was directed by a woman’s passion. He reached up to her height, felt her love, understood the nature of her agony. These made him heroic. But it was the hard life, the wild years of danger on the desert, the companionship of ruthless men, the elemental, that made possible his physical achievement. Madeline loved his spirit then and gloried in the man.

She had pictured upon her heart, never to be forgotten, this little hunched, deformed figure of Link’s hanging with dauntless, with deathless grip over the wheel, his gray face like a marble mask.

That was Madeline’s last clear sensation upon the ride. Blinded, dazed, she succumbed to the demands upon her strength. She reeled, fell back, only vaguely aware of a helping hand. Confusion seized her senses. All about her was a dark chaos through which she was rushing, rushing, rushing under the wrathful red eye of a setting sun. Then, as there was no more sound or sight for her, she felt there was no color. But the rush never slackened — a rush through opaque, limitless space. For moments, hours, ages she was propelled with the velocity of a shooting-star. The earth seemed a huge automobile. And it sped with her down an endless white track through the universe. Looming, ghostly, ghastly, spectral forms of cacti plants, large as pine-trees, stabbed her with giant spikes. She became an unstable being in a shapeless, colorless, soundless cosmos of unrelated things, but always rushing, even to meet the darkness that haunted her and never reached her.

But at an end of infinite time that rush ceased. Madeline lost the queer feeling of being disembodied by a frightfully swift careening through boundless distance. She distinguished voices, low at first, apparently far away. Then she opened her eyes to blurred but conscious sight.

The car had come to a stop. Link was lying face down over the wheel. Nels was rubbing her hands, calling to her. She saw a house with clean whitewashed wall and brown-tiled roof. Beyond, over a dark mountain range, peeped the last red curve, the last beautiful ray of the setting sun.

XXV. At the End of the Road

MADELINE SAW THAT the car was surrounded by armed Mexicans. They presented a contrast to the others she had seen that day; she wondered a little at their silence, at their respectful front.

Suddenly a sharp spoken order opened up the ranks next to the house. Senor Montes appeared in the break, coming swiftly. His dark face wore a smile; his manner was courteous, important, authoritative.

“Senora, it is not too late!”

He spoke her language with an accent strange to her, so that it seemed to hinder understanding.

“Senora, you got here in time,” he went on. “El Capitan Stewart will be free.”

“Free!” she whispered.

She rose, reeling.

“Come,” replied Montes, taking her arm. “Perdoneme, Senora.”

Without his assistance she would have fallen wholly upon Nels, who supported her on the other side. They helped her alight from the car. For a moment the white walls, the hazy red sky, the dark figures of the rebels, whirled before Madeline’s eyes. She took a few steps, swaying between her escorts; then the confusion of her sight and mind passed away. It was as if she quickened with a thousand vivifying currents, as if she could see and hear and feel everything in the world, as if nothing could be overlooked, forgotten, neglected.

She turned back, remembering Link. He was lurching from the car, helmet and goggles thrust back, the gray shade gone from his face, the cool, bright gleam of his eyes disappearing for something warmer.

Senor Montes led Madeline and her cowboys through a hall to a patio, and on through a large room with flooring of rough, bare boards that rattled, into a smaller room full of armed quiet rebels facing an open window.

Madeline scanned the faces of these men, expecting to see Don Carlos. But he was not present. A soldier addressed her in Spanish too swiftly uttered, too voluble for her to translate. But, like Senor Montes, he was gracious and, despite his ragged garb and uncouth appearance, he bore the unmistakable stamp of authority.

Montes directed Madeline’s attention to a man by the window. A loose scarf of vivid red hung from his hand.

“Senora, they were waiting for the sun to set when we arrived,” said Montes. “The signal was about to be given for Senor Stewart’s walk to death.”

“Stewart’s walk!” echoed Madeline.

“Ah, Senora, let me tell you his sentence — the sentence I have had the honor and happiness to revoke for you.”

Stewart had been court-martialed and sentenced according to a Mexican custom observed in cases of brave soldiers to whom honorable and fitting executions were due. His hour had been set for Thursday when the sun had sunk. Upon signal he was to be liberated and was free to walk out into the road, to take any direction he pleased. He knew his sentence; knew that death awaited him, that every possible avenue of escape was blocked by men with rifles ready. But he had not the slightest idea at what moment or from what direction the bullets were to come.

“Senora, we have sent messengers to every squad of waiting soldiers — an order that El Capitan is not to be shot. He is ignorant of his release. I shall give the signal for his freedom.”

Montes was ceremonious, gallant, emotional. Madeline saw his pride, and divined that the situation was one which brought out the vanity, the ostentation, as well as the cruelty of his race. He would keep her in an agony of suspense, let Stewart start upon that terrible walk in ignorance of his freedom. It was the motive of a Spaniard. Suddenly Madeline had a horrible quaking fear that Montes lied, that he meant her to be a witness of Stewart’s execution. But no, the man was honest; he was only barbarous. He would satisfy certain instincts of his nature — sentiment, romance, cruelty — by starting Stewart upon that walk, by watching Stewart’s actions in the face of seeming death, by seeing Madeline’s agony of doubt, fear, pity, love. Almost Madeline felt that she could not endure the situation. She was weak and tottering.

“Senora! Ah, it will be one beautiful thing!” Montes caught the scarf from the rebel’s hand. He was glowing, passionate; his eyes had a strange, soft, cold flash; his voice was low, intense. He was living something splendid to him. “I’ll wave the scarf, Senora. That will be the signal. It will be seen down at the other end of the road. Senor Stewart’s jailer will see the signal, take off Stewart’s irons, release him, open the door for his walk. Stewart will be free. But he will not know. He will expect death. As he is a brave man, he will face it. He will walk this way. Every step of that walk he will expect to be shot from some unknown quarter. But he will not be afraid. Senora, I have seen El Captain fighting in the field. What is death to him? Ah, will it not be magnificent to see him come forth — to walk down? Senora, you will see what a man he is. All the way he will expect cold, swift death. Here at this end of the road he will meet his beautiful lady!”

“Is there no — no possibility of a mistake?” faltered Madeline.

“None. My order included unloading of rifles.”

“Don Carlos?”

“He is in irons, and must answer to General Salazar,” replied Montes.

Madeline looked down the deserted road. How strange to see the last ruddy glow of the sun over the brow of the mountain range! The thought of that sunset had been torture for her. Yet it had passed, and now the afterlights were luminous, beautiful, prophetic.

With a heart stricken by both joy and agony, she saw Montes wave the scarf.

Then she waited. No change manifested itself down the length of that lonely road. There was absolute silence in the room behind her. How terribly, infinitely long seemed the waiting! Never in all her future life would she forget the quaint pink, blue, and white walled houses with their colored roofs. That dusty bare road resembled one of the uncovered streets of Pompeii with its look of centuries of solitude.

Suddenly a door opened and a tall man stepped out.

Madeline recognized Stewart. She had to place both hands on the window-sill for support, while a storm of emotion swayed her. Like a retreating wave it rushed away. Stewart lived. He was free. He had stepped out into the light. She had saved him. Life changed for her in that instant of realization and became sweet, full, strange.

Stewart shook hands with some one in the doorway. Then he looked up and down the road. The door closed behind him. Leisurely he rolled a cigarette, stood close to the wall while he scratched a match. Even at that distance Madeline’s keen eyes caught the small flame, the first little puff of smoke.

Stewart then took to the middle of the road and leisurely began his walk.

To Madeline he appeared natural, walked as unconcernedly as if he were strolling for pleasure; but the absence of any other living thing, the silence, the red haze, the surcharged atmosphere — these were all unnatural. From time to time Stewart stopped to turn face forward toward houses and corners. Only silence greeted these significant moves of his. Once he halted to roll and light another cigarette. After that his step quickened.

Madeline watched him, with pride, love, pain, glory combating for a mastery over her. This walk of his seemingly took longer than all her hours of awakening, of strife, of remorse, longer than the ride to find him. She felt that it would be impossible for her to wait till he reached the end of the road. Yet in the hurry and riot of her feelings she had fleeting panics. What could she say to him? How meet him? Well she remembered the tall, powerful form now growing close enough to distinguish its dress. Stewart’s face was yet only a dark gleam. Soon she would see it — long before he could know she was there. She wanted to run to meet him. Nevertheless, she stood rooted to her covert behind the window, living that terrible walk with him to the uttermost thought of home, sister, mother, sweetheart, wife, life itself — every thought that could come to a man stalking to meet his executioners. With all that tumult in her mind and heart Madeline still fell prey to the incomprehensible variations of emotion possible to a woman. Every step Stewart took thrilled her. She had some strange, subtle intuition that he was not unhappy, and that he believed beyond shadow of doubt that he was walking to his death. His steps dragged a little, though they had begun to be swift. The old, hard, physical, wild nerve of the cowboy was perhaps in conflict with spiritual growth of the finer man, realizing too late that life ought not to be sacrificed.

Then the dark gleam that was his face took shape, grew sharper and clearer. He was stalking now, and there was a suggestion of impatience in his stride. It took these hidden Mexicans a long time to kill him! At a point in the middle of the road, even with the corner of a house and opposite to Madeline’s position, Stewart halted stock-still. He presented a fair, bold mark to his executioners, and he stood there motionless a full moment.

Only silence greeted him. Plain it was to Madeline, and she thought to all who had eyes to see, that to Stewart, since for some reason he had been spared all along his walk, this was the moment when he ought to be mercifully shot. But as no shots came a rugged dignity left him for a reckless scorn manifest in the way he strolled, across to the corner of the house, rolled yet another cigarette, and, presenting a broad breast to the window, smoked and waited.

That wait was almost unendurable for Madeline. Perhaps it was only a moment, several moments at the longest, but the time seemed a year. Stewart’s face was scornful, hard. Did he suspect treachery on the part of his captors, that they meant to play with him as a cat with a mouse, to murder him at leisure? Madeline was sure she caught the old, inscrutable, mocking smile fleeting across his lips. He held that position for what must have been a reasonable time to his mind, then with a laugh and a shrug he threw the cigarette into the road. He shook his head as if at the incomprehensible motives of men who could have no fair reasons now for delay.

He made a sudden violent action that was more than a straightening of his powerful frame. It was the old instinctive violence. Then he faced north. Madeline read his thought, knew he was thinking of her, calling her a last silent farewell. He would serve her to his last breath, leave her free, keep his secret. That picture of him, dark-browed, fire-eyed, strangely sad and strong, sank indelibly into Madeline’s heart of hearts.

The next instant he was striding forward, to force by bold and scornful presence a speedy fulfilment of his sentence.

Madeline stepped into the door, crossed the threshold. Stewart staggered as if indeed the bullets he expected had pierced him in mortal wound. His dark face turned white. His eyes had the rapt stare, the wild fear of a man who saw an apparition, yet who doubted his sight. Perhaps he had called to her as the Mexicans called to their Virgin; perhaps he imagined sudden death had come unawares, and this was her image appearing to him in some other life.

“Who — are — you?” he whispered, hoarsely.

She tried to lift her hands, failed, tried again, and held them out, trembling.

“It is I. Majesty. Your wife!”

THE END

The Rainbow Trail

Also known as The Desert Crucible, this western novel is a sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage. Initially published in 1915, the novel takes place ten years after events of the earlier novel, when the wall to Surprise Valley has broken and Jane Withersteen is forced to choose between Lassiter's life and Fay Larkin's marriage to a Mormon. In The Rainbow Trail, the theme of Mormon polygamy is treated more explicitly, as events contrast the lives of the older Mormons with the rising generation of Mormon women and men, who will no longer tolerate polygamy in their community.

The first edition

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

I. RED LAKE

II. THE SAGI

III. KAYENTA

IV. NEW FRIENDS

V. ON THE TRAIL

VI. IN THE HIDDEN VALLEY

VII. SAGO-LILIES

VIII. THE HOGAN OF NAS TA BEGA

IX. IN THE DESERT CRUCIBLE

X. STONEBRIDGE

XI. AFTER THE TRIAL

XII. THE REVELATION

XIII. THE STORY OF SURPRISE VALLEY

XIV. THE NAVAJO

XV. WILD JUSTICE

XVI. SURPRISE VALLEY

XVII. THE TRAIL TO NONNEZOSHE

XVIII. AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW

XIX. THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO

XX. WILLOW SPRINGS

EPILOGUE

FOREWORD

THE SPELL OF the desert comes back to me, as it always will come. I see the veils, like purple smoke, in the canyon, and I feel the silence. And it seems that again I must try to pierce both and to get at the strange wild life of the last American wilderness — wild still, almost, as it ever was.

While this romance is an independent story, yet readers of “Riders of the Purple Sage” will find in it an answer to a question often asked.

I wish to say also this story has appeared serially in a different form in one of the monthly magazines under the title of “The Desert Crucible.” ZANE GREY.

June, 1915.

I. RED LAKE

SHEFFORD HALTED HIS tired horse and gazed with slowly realizing eyes.

A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red Lake, a dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond.

All day Shefford had plodded onward with the clear horizon-line a thing unattainable; and for days before that he had ridden the wild bare flats and climbed the rocky desert benches. The great colored reaches and steps had led endlessly onward and upward through dim and deceiving distance.

A hundred miles of desert travel, with its mistakes and lessons and intimations, had not prepared him for what he now saw. He beheld what seemed a world that knew only magnitude. Wonder and awe fixed his gaze, and thought remained aloof. Then that dark and unknown northland flung a menace at him. An irresistible call had drawn him to this seamed and peaked border of Arizona, this broken battlemented wilderness of Utah upland; and at first sight they frowned upon him, as if to warn him not to search for what lay hidden beyond the ranges. But Shefford thrilled with both fear and exultation. That was the country which had been described to him. Far across the red valley, far beyond the ragged line of black mesa and yellow range, lay the wild canyon with its haunting secret.

Red Lake must be his Rubicon. Either he must enter the unknown to seek, to strive, to find, or turn back and fail and never know and be always haunted. A friend’s strange story had prompted his singular journey; a beautiful rainbow with its mystery and promise had decided him. Once in his life he had answered a wild call to the kingdom of adventure within him, and once in his life he had been happy. But here in the horizon-wide face of that up-flung and cloven desert he grew cold; he faltered even while he felt more fatally drawn.

As if impelled Shefford started his horse down the sandy trail, but he checked his former far-reaching gaze. It was the month of April, and the waning sun lost heat and brightness. Long shadows crept down the slope ahead of him and the scant sage deepened its gray. He watched the lizards shoot like brown streaks across the sand, leaving their slender tracks; he heard the rustle of pack-rats as they darted into their brushy homes; the whir of a low-sailing hawk startled his horse.

Like ocean waves the slope rose and fell, its hollows choked with sand, its ridge-tops showing scantier growth of sage and grass and weed. The last ridge was a sand-dune, beautifully ribbed and scalloped and lined by the wind, and from its knife-sharp crest a thin wavering sheet of sand blew, almost like smoke. Shefford wondered why the sand looked red at a distance, for here it seemed almost white. It rippled everywhere, clean and glistening, always leading down.

Suddenly Shefford became aware of a house looming out of the bareness of the slope. It dominated that long white incline. Grim, lonely, forbidding, how strangely it harmonized with the surroundings! The structure was octagon-shaped, built of uncut stone, and resembled a fort. There was no door on the sides exposed to Shefford’s gaze, but small apertures two-thirds the way up probably served as windows and port-holes. The roof appeared to be made of poles covered with red earth.

Like a huge cold rock on a wide plain this house stood there on the windy slope. It was an outpost of the trader Presbrey, of whom Shefford had heard at Flagstaff and Tuba. No living thing appeared in the limit of Shefford’s vision. He gazed shudderingly at the unwelcoming habitation, at the dark eyelike windows, at the sweep of barren slope merging into the vast red valley, at the bold, bleak bluffs. Could any one live here? The nature of that sinister valley forbade a home there, and the spirit of the place hovered in the silence and space. Shefford thought irresistibly of how his enemies would have consigned him to just such a hell. He thought bitterly and mockingly of the narrow congregation that had proved him a failure in the ministry, that had repudiated his ideas of religion and immortality and God, that had driven him, at the age of twenty-four, from the calling forced upon him by his people. As a boy he had yearned to make himself an artist; his family had made him a clergyman; fate had made him a failure. A failure only so far in his life, something urged him to add — for in the lonely days and silent nights of the desert he had experienced a strange birth of hope. Adventure had called him, but it was a vague and spiritual hope, a dream of promise, a nameless attainment that fortified his wilder impulse.

As he rode around a corner of the stone house his horse snorted and stopped. A lean, shaggy pony jumped at sight of him, almost displacing a red long-haired blanket that covered an Indian saddle. Quick thuds of hoofs in sand drew Shefford’s attention to a corral made of peeled poles, and here he saw another pony.

Shefford heard subdued voices. He dismounted and walked to an open door. In the dark interior he dimly descried a high counter, a stairway, a pile of bags of flour, blankets, and silver-ornamented objects, but the persons he had heard were not in that part of the house. Around another corner of the octagon-shaped wall he found another open door, and through it saw goat-skins and a mound of dirty sheep-wool, black and brown and white. It was light in this part of the building. When he crossed the threshold he was astounded to see a man struggling with a girl — an Indian girl. She was straining back from him, panting, and uttering low guttural sounds. The man’s face was corded and dark with passion. This scene affected Shefford strangely. Primitive emotions were new to him.

Before Shefford could speak the girl broke loose and turned to flee. She was an Indian and this place was the uncivilized desert, but Shefford knew terror when he saw it. Like a dog the man rushed after her. It was instinct that made Shefford strike, and his blow laid the man flat. He lay stunned a moment, then raised himself to a sitting posture, his hand to his face, and the gaze he fixed upon Shefford seemed to combine astonishment and rage.

“I hope you’re not Presbrey,” said Shefford, slowly. He felt awkward, not sure of himself.

The man appeared about to burst into speech, but repressed it. There was blood on his mouth and his hand. Hastily he scrambled to his feet. Shefford saw this man’s amaze and rage change to shame. He was tall and rather stout; he had a smooth tanned face, soft of outline, with a weak chin; his eyes were dark. The look of him and his corduroys and his soft shoes gave Shefford an impression that he was not a man who worked hard. By contrast with the few other worn and rugged desert men Shefford had met this stranger stood out strikingly. He stooped to pick up a soft felt hat and, jamming it on his head, he hurried out. Shefford followed him and watched him from the door. He went directly to the corral, mounted the pony, and rode out, to turn down the slope toward the south. When he reached the level of the basin, where evidently the sand was hard, he put the pony to a lope and gradually drew away.

“Well!” ejaculated Shefford. He did not know what to make of this adventure. Presently he became aware that the Indian girl was sitting on a roll of blankets near the wall. With curious interest Shefford studied her appearance. She had long, raven-black hair, tangled and disheveled, and she wore a soiled white band of cord above her brow. The color of her face struck him; it was dark, but not red nor bronzed; it almost had a tinge of gold. Her profile was clear-cut, bold, almost stern. Long black eyelashes hid her eyes. She wore a tight-fitting waist garment of material resembling velveteen. It was ripped along her side, exposing a skin still more richly gold than that of her face. A string of silver ornaments and turquoise-and-white beads encircled her neck, and it moved gently up and down with the heaving of her full bosom. Her skirt was some gaudy print goods, torn and stained and dusty. She had little feet, incased in brown moccasins, fitting like gloves and buttoning over the ankles with silver coins.

“Who was that man? Did he hurt you?” inquired Shefford, turning to gaze down the valley where a moving black object showed on the bare sand.

“No savvy,” replied the Indian girl.

“Where’s the trader Presbrey?” asked Shefford.

She pointed straight down into the red valley.

“Toh,” she said.

In the center of the basin lay a small pool of water shining brightly in the sunset glow. Small objects moved around it, so small that Shefford thought he saw several dogs led by a child. But it was the distance that deceived him. There was a man down there watering his horses. That reminded Shefford of the duty owing to his own tired and thirsty beast. Whereupon he untied his pack, took off the saddle, and was about ready to start down when the Indian girl grasped the bridle from his hand.

“Me go,” she said.

He saw her eyes then, and they made her look different. They were as black as her hair. He was puzzled to decide whether or not he thought her handsome.

“Thanks, but I’ll go,” he replied, and, taking the bridle again, he started down the slope. At every step he sank into the deep, soft sand. Down a little way he came upon a pile of tin cans; they were everywhere, buried, half buried, and lying loose; and these gave evidence of how the trader lived. Presently Shefford discovered that the Indian girl was following him with her own pony. Looking upward at her against the light, he thought her slender, lithe, picturesque. At a distance he liked her.

He plodded on, at length glad to get out of the drifts of sand to the hard level floor of the valley. This, too, was sand, but dried and baked hard, and red in color. At some season of the year this immense flat must be covered with water. How wide it was, and empty! Shefford experienced again a feeling that had been novel to him — and it was that he was loose, free, unanchored, ready to veer with the wind. From the foot of the slope the water hole had appeared to be a few hundred rods out in the valley. But the small size of the figures made Shefford doubt; and he had to travel many times a few hundred rods before those figures began to grow. Then Shefford made out that they were approaching him.

Thereafter they rapidly increased to normal proportions of man and beast. When Shefford met them he saw a powerful, heavily built young man leading two ponies.

“You’re Mr. Presbrey, the trader?” inquired Shefford.

“Yes, I’m Presbrey, without the Mister,” he replied.

“My name’s Shefford. I’m knocking about on the desert. Rode from beyond Tuba to-day.”

“Glad to see you,” said Presbrey. He offered his hand. He was a stalwart man, clad in gray shirt, overalls, and boots. A shock of tumbled light hair covered his massive head; he was tanned, but not darkly, and there was red in his cheeks; under his shaggy eyebrows were deep, keen eyes; his lips were hard and set, as if occasion for smiles or words was rare; and his big, strong jaw seemed locked.

“Wish more travelers came knocking around Red Lake,” he added. “Reckon here’s the jumping-off place.”

“It’s pretty — lonesome,” said Shefford, hesitating as if at a loss for words.

Then the Indian girl came up. Presbrey addressed her in her own language, which Shefford did not understand. She seemed shy and would not answer; she stood with downcast face and eyes. Presbrey spoke again, at which she pointed down the valley, and then moved on with her pony toward the water-hole.

Presbrey’s keen eyes fixed on the receding black dot far down that oval expanse.

“That fellow left — rather abruptly,” said Shefford, constrainedly. “Who was he?”

“His name’s Willetts. He’s a missionary. He rode in to-day with this Navajo girl. He was taking her to Blue canyon, where he lives and teaches the Indians. I’ve met him only a few times. You see, not many white men ride in here. He’s the first white man I’ve seen in six months, and you’re the second. Both the same day!... Red Lake’s getting popular! It’s queer, though, his leaving. He expected to stay all night. There’s no other place to stay. Blue canyon is fifty miles away.”

“I’m sorry to say — no, I’m not sorry, either — but I must tell you I was the cause of Mr. Willetts leaving,” replied Shefford.

“How so?” inquired the other.

Then Shefford related the incident following his arrival.

“Perhaps my action was hasty,” he concluded, apologetically. “I didn’t think. Indeed, I’m surprised at myself.”

Presbrey made no comment and his face was as hard to read as one of the distant bluffs.

“But what did the man mean?” asked Shefford, conscious of a little heat. “I’m a stranger out here. I’m ignorant of Indians — how they’re controlled. Still I’m no fool.... If Willetts didn’t mean evil, at least he was brutal.”

“He was teaching her religion,” replied Presbrey. His tone held faint scorn and implied a joke, but his face did not change in the slightest.

Without understanding just why, Shefford felt his conviction justified and his action approved. Then he was sensible of a slight shock of wonder and disgust.

“I am — I was a minister of the Gospel,” he said to Presbrey. “What you hint seems impossible. I can’t believe it.”

“I didn’t hint,” replied Presbrey, bluntly, and it was evident that he was a sincere, but close-mouthed, man. “Shefford, so you’re a preacher?... Did you come out here to try to convert the Indians?”

“No. I said I WAS a minister. I am no longer. I’m just a — a wanderer.”

“I see. Well, the desert’s no place for missionaries, but it’s good for wanderers.... Go water your horse and take him up to the corral. You’ll find some hay for him. I’ll get grub ready.”

Shefford went on with his horse to the pool. The water appeared thick, green, murky, and there was a line of salty crust extending around the margin of the pool. The thirsty horse splashed in and eagerly bent his head. But he did not like the taste. Many times he refused to drink, yet always lowered his nose again. Finally he drank, though not his fill. Shefford saw the Indian girl drink from her hand. He scooped up a handful and found it too sour to swallow. When he turned to retrace his steps she mounted her pony and followed him.

A golden flare lit up the western sky, and silhouetted dark and lonely against it stood the trading-post. Upon his return Shefford found the wind rising, and it chilled him. When he reached the slope thin gray sheets of sand were blowing low, rising, whipping, falling, sweeping along with soft silken rustle. Sometimes the gray veils hid his boots. It was a long, toilsome climb up that yielding, dragging ascent, and he had already been lame and tired. By the time he had put his horse away twilight was everywhere except in the west. The Indian girl left her pony in the corral and came like a shadow toward the house.

Shefford had difficulty in finding the foot of the stairway. He climbed to enter a large loft, lighted by two lamps. Presbrey was there, kneading biscuit dough in a pan.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said.

The huge loft was the shape of a half-octagon. A door opened upon the valley side, and here, too, there were windows. How attractive the place was in comparison with the impressions gained from the outside! The furnishings consisted of Indian blankets on the floor, two beds, a desk and table, several chairs and a couch, a gun-rack full of rifles, innumerable silver-ornamented belts, bridles, and other Indian articles upon the walls, and in one corner a wood-burning stove with teakettle steaming, and a great cupboard with shelves packed full of canned foods.

Shefford leaned in the doorway and looked out. Beneath him on a roll of blankets sat the Indian girl, silent and motionless. He wondered what was in her mind, what she would do, how the trader would treat her. The slope now was a long slant of sheeted moving shadows of sand. Dusk had gathered in the valley. The bluffs loomed beyond. A pale star twinkled above. Shefford suddenly became aware of the intense nature of the stillness about him. Yet, as he listened to this silence, he heard an intermittent and immeasurably low moan, a fitful, mournful murmur. Assuredly it was only the wind. Nevertheless, it made his blood run cold. It was a different wind from that which had made music under the eaves of his Illinois home. This was a lonely, haunting wind, with desert hunger in it, and more which he could not name. Shefford listened to this spirit-brooding sound while he watched night envelop the valley. How black, how thick the mantle! Yet it brought no comforting sense of close-folded protection, of walls of soft sleep, of a home. Instead there was the feeling of space, of emptiness, of an infinite hall down which a mournful wind swept streams of murmuring sand.

“Well, grub’s about ready,” said Presbrey.

“Got any water?” asked Shefford.

“Sure. There in the bucket. It’s rain-water. I have a tank here.”

Shefford’s sore and blistered face felt better after he had washed off the sand and alkali dust.

“Better not wash your face often while you’re in the desert. Bad plan,” went on Presbrey, noting how gingerly his visitor had gone about his ablutions. “Well, come and eat.”

Shefford marked that if the trader did live a lonely life he fared well. There was more on the table than twice two men could have eaten. It was the first time in four days that Shefford had sat at a table, and he made up for lost opportunity.

His host’s actions indicated pleasure, yet the strange, hard face never relaxed, never changed. When the meal was finished Presbrey declined assistance, had a generous thought of the Indian girl, who, he said, could have a place to eat and sleep down-stairs, and then with the skill and despatch of an accomplished housewife cleared the table, after which work he filled a pipe and evidently prepared to listen.

It took only one question for Shefford to find that the trader was starved for news of the outside world; and for an hour Shefford fed that appetite, even as he had been done by. But when he had talked himself out there seemed indication of Presbrey being more than a good listener.

“How’d you come in?” he asked, presently.

“By Flagstaff — across the Little Colorado — and through Moencopie.”

“Did you stop at Moen Ave?”

“No. What place is that?”

“A missionary lives there. Did you stop at Tuba?”

“Only long enough to drink and water my horse. That was a wonderful spring for the desert.”

“You said you were a wanderer.... Do you want a job? I’ll give you one.”

“No, thank you, Presbrey.”

“I saw your pack. That’s no pack to travel with in this country. Your horse won’t last, either. Have you any money?”

“Yes, plenty of money.”

“Well, that’s good. Not that a white man out here would ever take a dollar from you. But you can buy from the Indians as you go. Where are you making for, anyhow?”

Shefford hesitated, debating in mind whether to tell his purpose or not. His host did not press the question.

“I see. Just foot-loose and wandering around,” went on Presbrey. “I can understand how the desert appeals to you. Preachers lead easy, safe, crowded, bound lives. They’re shut up in a church with a Bible and good people. When once in a lifetime they get loose — they break out.”

“Yes, I’ve broken out — beyond all bounds,” replied Shefford, sadly. He seemed retrospective for a moment, unaware of the trader’s keen and sympathetic glance, and then he caught himself. “I want to see some wild life. Do you know the country north of here?”

“Only what the Navajos tell me. And they’re not much to talk. There’s a trail goes north, but I’ve never traveled it. It’s a new trail every time an Indian goes that way, for here the sand blows and covers old tracks. But few Navajos ride in from the north. My trade is mostly with Indians up and down the valley.”

“How about water and grass?”

“We’ve had rain and snow. There’s sure to be, water. Can’t say about grass, though the sheep and ponies from the north are always fat.... But, say, Shefford, if you’ll excuse me for advising you — don’t go north.”

“Why?” asked Shefford, and it was certain that he thrilled.

“It’s unknown country, terribly broken, as you can see from here, and there are bad Indians biding in the canyon. I’ve never met a man who had been over the pass between here and Kayenta. The trip’s been made, so there must be a trail. But it’s a dangerous trip for any man, let alone a tenderfoot. You’re not even packing a gun.”

“What’s this place Kayenta?” asked Shefford.

“It’s a spring. Kayenta means Bottomless Spring. There’s a little trading-post, the last and the wildest in northern Arizona. Withers, the trader who keeps it, hauls his supplies in from Colorado and New Mexico. He’s never come down this way. I never saw him. Know nothing of him except hearsay. Reckon he’s a nervy and strong man to hold that post. If you want to go there, better go by way of Keams canyon, and then around the foot of Black Mesa. It’ll be a long ride — maybe two hundred miles.”

“How far straight north over the pass?”

“Can’t say. Upward of seventy-five miles over rough trails, if there are trails at all.... I’ve heard rumors of a fine tribe of Navajos living in there, rich in sheep and horses. It may be true and it may not. But I do know there are bad Indians, half-breeds and outcasts, hiding in there. Some of them have visited me here. Bad customers! More than that, you’ll be going close to the Utah line, and the Mormons over there are unfriendly these days.”

“Why?” queried Shefford, again with that curious thrill.

“They are being persecuted by the government.”

Shefford asked no more questions and his host vouchsafed no more information on that score. The conversation lagged. Then Shefford inquired about the Indian girl and learned that she lived up the valley somewhere. Presbrey had never seen her before Willetts came with her to Red Lake. And this query brought out the fact that Presbrey was comparatively new to Red Lake and vicinity. Shefford wondered why a lonely six months there had not made the trader old in experience. Probably the desert did not readily give up its secrets. Moreover, this Red Lake house was only an occasionally used branch of Presbrey’s main trading-post, which was situated at Willow Springs, fifty miles westward over the mesa.

“I’m closing up here soon for a spell,” said Presbrey, and now his face lost its set hardness and seemed singularly changed. It was a difference, of light and softness. “Won’t be so lonesome over at Willow Springs.... I’m being married soon.”

“That’s fine,” replied Shefford, warmly. He was glad for the sake of this lonely desert man. What good a wife would bring into a trader’s life!

Presbrey’s naive admission, however, appeared to detach him from his present surroundings, and with his massive head enveloped by a cloud of smoke he lived in dreams.

Shefford respected his host’s serene abstraction. Indeed, he was grateful for silence. Not for many nights had the past impinged so closely upon the present. The wound in his soul had not healed, and to speak of himself made it bleed anew. Memory was too poignant; the past was too close; he wanted to forget until he had toiled into the heart of this forbidding wilderness — until time had gone by and he dared to face his unquiet soul. Then he listened to the steadily rising roar of the wind. How strange and hollow! That wind was freighted with heavy sand, and he heard it sweep, sweep, sweep by in gusts, and then blow with dull, steady blast against the walls. The sound was provocative of thought. This moan and rush of wind was no dream — this presence of his in a night-enshrouded and sand-besieged house of the lonely desert was reality — this adventure was not one of fancy. True indeed, then, must be the wild, strange story that had led him hither. He was going on to seek, to strive, to find. Somewhere northward in the broken fastnesses lay hidden a valley walled in from the world. Would they be there, those lost fugitives whose story had thrilled him? After twelve years would she be alive, a child grown to womanhood in the solitude of a beautiful canyon? Incredible! Yet he believed his friend’s story and he indeed knew how strange and tragic life was. He fancied he heard her voice on the sweeping wind. She called to him, haunted him. He admitted the improbability of her existence, but lost nothing of the persistent intangible hope that drove him. He believed himself a man stricken in soul, unworthy, through doubt of God, to minister to the people who had banished him. Perhaps a labor of Hercules, a mighty and perilous work of rescue, the saving of this lost and imprisoned girl, would help him in his trouble. She might be his salvation. Who could tell? Always as a boy and as a man he had fared forth to find the treasure at the foot of the rainbow.

II. THE SAGI

NEXT MORNING THE Indian girl was gone and the tracks of her pony led north. Shefford’s first thought was to wonder if he would overtake her on the trail; and this surprised him with the proof of how unconsciously his resolve to go on had formed.

Presbrey made no further attempt to turn Shefford back. But he insisted on replenishing the pack, and that Shefford take weapons. Finally Shefford was persuaded to accept a revolver. The trader bade him good-by and stood in the door while Shefford led his horse down the slope toward the water-hole. Perhaps the trader believed he was watching the departure of a man who would never return. He was still standing at the door of the post when Shefford halted at the pool.

Upon the level floor of the valley lay thin patches of snow which had fallen during the night. The air was biting cold, yet stimulated Shefford while it stung him. His horse drank rather slowly and disgustedly. Then Shefford mounted and reluctantly turned his back upon the trading-post.

As he rode away from the pool he saw a large flock of sheep approaching. They were very closely, even densely, packed, in a solid slow-moving mass and coming with a precision almost like a march. This fact surprised Shefford, for there was not an Indian in sight. Presently he saw that a dog was leading the flock, and a little later he discovered another dog in the rear of the sheep. They were splendid, long-haired dogs, of a wild-looking shepherd breed. He halted his horse to watch the procession pass by. The flock covered fully an acre of ground and the sheep were black, white, and brown. They passed him, making a little pattering roar on the hard-caked sand. The dogs were taking the sheep in to water.

Shefford went on and was drawing close to the other side of the basin, where the flat red level was broken by rising dunes and ridges, when he espied a bunch of ponies. A shrill whistle told him that they had seen him. They were wild, shaggy, with long manes and tails. They stopped, threw up their heads, and watched him. Shefford certainly returned the attention. There was no Indian with them. Presently, with a snort, the leader, which appeared to be a stallion, trotted behind the others, seemed to be driving them, and went clear round the band to get in the lead again. He was taking them in to water, the same as the dogs had taken the sheep.

These incidents were new and pleasing to Shefford. How ignorant he had been of life in the wilderness! Once more he received subtle intimations of what he might learn out in the open; and it was with a less weighted heart that he faced the gateway between the huge yellow bluffs on his left and the slow rise of ground to the black mesa on his right. He looked back in time to see the trading-post, bleak and lonely on the bare slope, pass out of sight behind the bluffs. Shefford felt no fear — he really had little experience of physical fear — but it was certain that he gritted his teeth and welcomed whatever was to come to him. He had lived a narrow, insulated life with his mind on spiritual things; his family and his congregation and his friends — except that one new friend whose story had enthralled him — were people of quiet religious habit; the man deep down in him had never had a chance. He breathed hard as he tried to imagine the world opening to him, and almost dared to be glad for the doubt that had sent him adrift.

The tracks of the Indian girl’s pony were plain in the sand. Also there were other tracks, not so plain, and these Shefford decided had been made by Willetts and the girl the day before. He climbed a ridge, half soft sand and half hard, and saw right before him, rising in striking form, two great yellow buttes, like elephant legs. He rode between them, amazed at their height. Then before him stretched a slowly ascending valley, walled on one side by the black mesa and on the other by low bluffs. For miles a dark-green growth of greasewood covered the valley, and Shefford could see where the green thinned and failed, to give place to sand. He trotted his horse and made good time on this stretch.

The day contrasted greatly with any he had yet experienced. Gray clouds obscured the walls of rock a few miles to the west, and Shefford saw squalls of snow like huge veils dropping down and spreading out. The wind cut with the keenness of a knife. Soon he was chilled to the bone. A squall swooped and roared down upon him, and the wind that bore the driving white pellets of snow, almost like hail, was so freezing bitter cold that the former wind seemed warm in comparison. The squall passed as swiftly as it had come, and it left Shefford so benumbed he could not hold the bridle. He tumbled off his horse and walked. By and by the sun came out and soon warmed him and melted the thin layer of snow on the sand. He was still on the trail of the Indian girl, but hers were now the only tracks he could see.

All morning he gradually climbed, with limited view, until at last he mounted to a point where the country lay open to his sight on all sides except where the endless black mesa ranged on into the north. A rugged yellow peak dominated the landscape to the fore, but it was far away. Red and jagged country extended westward to a huge flat-topped wall of gray rock. Lowering swift clouds swept across the sky, like drooping mantles, and darkened the sun. Shefford built a little fire out of dead greasewood sticks, and with his blanket round his shoulders he hung over the blaze, scorching his clothes and hands. He had been cold before in his life but he had never before appreciated fire. This desert blast pierced him. The squall enveloped him, thicker and colder and windier than the other, but, being better fortified, he did not suffer so much. It howled away, hiding the mesa and leaving a white desert behind. Shefford walked on, leading his horse, until the exercise and the sun had once more warmed him.

This last squall had rendered the Indian girl’s trail difficult to follow. The snow did not quickly melt, and, besides, sheep tracks and the tracks of horses gave him trouble, until at last he was compelled to admit that he could not follow her any longer. A faint path or trail led north, however, and, following that, he soon forgot the girl. Every surmounted ridge held a surprise for him. The desert seemed never to change in the vast whole that encompassed him, yet near him it was always changing. From Red Lake he had seen a peaked, walled, and canyoned country, as rough as a stormy sea; but when he rode into that country the sharp and broken features held to the distance.

He was glad to get out of the sand. Long narrow flats, gray with grass and dotted with patches of greasewood, and lined by low bare ridges of yellow rock, stretched away from him, leading toward the yellow peak that seemed never to be gained upon.

Shefford had pictures in his mind, pictures of stone walls and wild valleys and domed buttes, all of which had been painted in colorful and vivid words by his friend Venters. He believed he would recognize the distinctive and remarkable landmarks Venters had portrayed, and he was certain that he had not yet come upon one of them. This was his second lonely day of travel and he had grown more and more susceptible to the influence of horizon and the different prominent points. He attributed a gradual change in his feelings to the loneliness and the increasing wildness. Between Tuba and Flagstaff he had met Indians and an occasional prospector and teamster. Here he was alone, and though he felt some strange gladness, he could not help but see the difference.

He rode on during the gray, lowering, chilly day, and toward evening the clouds broke in the west, and a setting sun shone through the rift, burnishing the desert to red and gold. Shefford’s instinctive but deadened love of the beautiful in nature stirred into life, and the moment of its rebirth was a melancholy and sweet one. Too late for the artist’s work, but not too late for his soul!

For a place to make camp he halted near a low area of rock that lay like an island in a sea of grass. There was an abundance of dead greasewood for a camp-fire, and, after searching over the rock, he found little pools of melted snow in the depressions. He took off the saddle and pack, watered his horse, and, hobbling him as well as his inexperience permitted, he turned him loose on the grass.

Then while he built a fire and prepared a meal the night came down upon him. In the lee of the rock he was well sheltered from the wind, but the air, was bitter cold. He gathered all the dead greasewood in the vicinity, replenished the fire, and rolled in his blanket, back to the blaze. The loneliness and the coyotes did not bother him this night. He was too tired and cold. He went to sleep at once and did not awaken until the fire died out. Then he rebuilt it and went to sleep again. Every half-hour all night long he repeated this, and was glad indeed when the dawn broke.

The day began with misfortune. His horse was gone; it had been stolen, or had worked out of sight, or had broken the hobbles and made off. From a high stone ridge Shefford searched the grassy flats and slopes, all to no purpose. Then he tried to track the horse, but this was equally futile. He had expected disasters, and the first one did not daunt him. He tied most of his pack in the blanket, threw the canteen across his shoulder, and set forth, sure at least of one thing — that he was a very much better traveler on foot than on horseback.

Walking did not afford him the leisure to study the surrounding country; however, from time to time, when he surmounted a bench he scanned the different landmarks that had grown familiar. It took hours of steady walking to reach and pass the yellow peak that had been a kind of goal. He saw many sheep trails and horse tracks in the vicinity of this mountain, and once he was sure he espied an Indian watching him from a bold ridge-top.

The day was bright and warm, with air so clear it magnified objects he knew to be far away. The ascent was gradual; there were many narrow flats connected by steps; and the grass grew thicker and longer. At noon Shefford halted under the first cedar-tree, a lonely, dwarfed shrub that seemed to have had a hard life. From this point the rise of ground was more perceptible, and straggling cedars led the eye on to a purple slope that merged into green of pinon and pine. Could that purple be the sage Venters had so feelingly described, or was it merely the purple of deceiving distance? Whatever it might be, it gave Shefford a thrill and made him think of the strange, shy, and lovely woman Venters had won out here in this purple-sage country.

He calculated that he had ridden thirty miles the day before and had already traveled ten miles today, and therefore could hope to be in the pass before night. Shefford resumed his journey with too much energy and enthusiasm to think of being tired. And he discovered presently that the straggling cedars and the slope beyond were much closer than he had judged them to be. He reached the sage to find it gray instead of purple. Yet it was always purple a little way ahead, and if he half shut his eyes it was purple near at hand. He was surprised to find that he could not breathe freely, or it seemed so, and soon made the discovery that the sweet, pungent, penetrating fragrance of sage and cedar had this strange effect upon him. This was an exceedingly dry and odorous forest, where every open space between the clumps of cedars was choked with luxuriant sage. The pinyons were higher up on the mesa, and the pines still higher. Shefford appeared to lose himself. There were no trails; the black mesa on the right and the wall of stone on the left could not be seen; but he pushed on with what was either singular confidence or rash impulse. And he did not know whether that slope was long or short. Once at the summit he saw with surprise that it broke abruptly and the descent was very steep and short on that side. Through the trees he once more saw the black mesa, rising to the dignity of a mountain; and he had glimpses of another flat, narrow valley, this time with a red wall running parallel with the mesa. He could not help but hurry down to get an unobstructed view. His eagerness was rewarded by a splendid scene, yet to his regret he could not force himself to believe it had any relation to the pictured scenes in his mind. The valley was half a mile wide, perhaps several miles long, and it extended in a curve between the cedar-sloped mesa and a looming wall of red stone. There was not a bird or a beast in sight. He found a well-defined trail, but it had not been recently used. He passed a low structure made of peeled logs and mud, with a dark opening like a door. It did not take him many minutes to learn that the valley was longer than he had calculated. He walked swiftly and steadily, in spite of the fact that the pack had become burdensome. What lay beyond the jutting corner of the mesa had increasing fascination for him and acted as a spur. At last he turned the corner, only to be disappointed at sight of another cedar slope. He had a glimpse of a single black shaft of rock rising far in the distance, and it disappeared as his striding forward made the crest of the slope rise toward the sky.

Again his view became restricted, and he lost the sense of a slow and gradual uplift of rock and an increase in the scale of proportion. Half-way up this ascent he was compelled to rest; and again the sun was slanting low when he entered the cedar forest. Soon he was descending, and he suddenly came into the open to face a scene that made his heart beat thick and fast.

He saw lofty crags and cathedral spires, and a wonderful canyon winding between huge beetling red walls. He heard the murmur of flowing water. The trail led down to the canyon floor, which appeared to be level and green and cut by deep washes in red earth. Could this canyon be the mouth of Deception Pass? It bore no resemblance to any place Shefford had heard described, yet somehow he felt rather than saw that it was the portal to the wild vastness he had traveled so far to enter.

Not till he had descended the trail and had dropped his pack did he realize how weary and footsore he was. Then he rested. But his eyes roved to and fro, and his mind was active. What a wild and lonesome spot! The low murmur of shallow water came up to him from a deep, narrow cleft. Shadows were already making the canyon seem full of blue haze. He saw a bare slope of stone out of which cedar-trees were growing. And as he looked about him he became aware of a singular and very perceptible change in the lights and shades. The sun was setting; the crags were gold-tipped; the shadows crept upward; the sky seemed to darken swiftly; then the gold changed to red, slowly dulled, and the grays and purples stood out. Shefford was entranced with the beautiful changing effects, and watched till the walls turned black and the sky grew steely and a faint star peeped out. Then he set about the necessary camp tasks.

Dead cedars right at hand assured him a comfortable night with steady fire; and when he had satisfied his hunger he arranged an easy seat before the blazing logs, and gave his mind over to thought of his weird, lonely environment.

The murmur of running water mingled in harmonious accompaniment with the moan of the wind in the cedars — wild, sweet sounds that were balm to his wounded spirit! They seemed a part of the silence, rather than a break in it or a hindrance to the feeling of it. But suddenly that silence did break to the rattle of a rock. Shefford listened, thinking some wild animal was prowling around. He felt no alarm. Presently he heard the sound again, and again. Then he recognized the crack of unshod hoofs upon rock. A horse was coming down the trail. Shefford rather resented the interruption, though he still had no alarm. He believed he was perfectly safe. As a matter of fact, he had never in his life been anything but safe and padded around with wool, hence, never having experienced peril, he did not know what fear was.

Presently he saw a horse and rider come into dark prominence on the ridge just above his camp. They were silhouetted against the starry sky. The horseman stopped and he and his steed made a magnificent black statue, somehow wild and strange, in Shefford’s sight. Then he came on, vanished in the darkness under the ridge, presently to emerge into the circle of camp-fire light.

He rode to within twenty feet of Shefford and the fire. The horse was dark, wild-looking, and seemed ready to run. The rider appeared to be an Indian, and yet had something about him suggesting the cowboy. At once Shefford remembered what Presbrey had said about half-breeds. A little shock, inexplicable to Shefford, rippled over him.

He greeted his visitor, but received no answer. Shefford saw a dark, squat figure bending forward in the saddle. The man was tense. All about him was dark except the glint of a rifle across the saddle. The face under the sombrero was only a shadow. Shefford kicked the fire-logs and a brighter blaze lightened the scene. Then he saw this stranger a little more clearly, and made out an unusually large head, broad dark face, a sinister tight-shut mouth, and gleaming black eyes.

Those eyes were unmistakably hostile. They roved searchingly over Shefford’s pack and then over his person. Shefford felt for the gun that Presbrey had given him. But it was gone. He had left it back where he had lost his horse, and had not thought of it since. Then a strange, slow-coming cold agitation possessed Shefford. Something gripped his throat.

Suddenly Shefford was stricken at a menacing movement on the part of the horseman. He had drawn a gun. Shefford saw it shine darkly in the firelight. The Indian meant to murder him. Shefford saw the grim, dark face in a kind of horrible amaze. He felt the meaning of that drawn weapon as he had never felt anything before in his life. And he collapsed back into his seat with an icy, sickening terror. In a second he was dripping wet with cold sweat. Lightning-swift thoughts flashed through his mind. It had been one of his platitudes that he was not afraid of death. Yet here he was a shaking, helpless coward. What had he learned about either life or death? Would this dark savage plunge him into the unknown? It was then that Shefford realized his hollow philosophy and the bitter-sweetness of life. He had a brain and a soul, and between them he might have worked out his salvation. But what were they to this ruthless night-wanderer, this raw and horrible wildness of the desert?

Incapable of voluntary movement, with tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, Shefford watched the horseman and the half-poised gun. It was not yet leveled. Then it dawned upon Shefford that the stranger’s head was turned a little, his ear to the wind. He was listening. His horse was listening. Suddenly he straightened up, wheeled his horse, and trotted away into the darkness. But he did not climb the ridge down which he had come.

Shefford heard the click of hoofs upon the stony trail. Other horses and riders were descending into the canyon. They had been the cause of his deliverance, and in the relaxation of feeling he almost fainted. Then he sat there, slowly recovering, slowly ceasing to tremble, divining that this situation was somehow to change his attitude toward life.

Three horses, two with riders, moved in dark shapes across the skyline above the ridge, disappeared as had Shefford’s first visitor, and then rode into the light. Shefford saw two Indians — a man and a woman; then with surprise recognized the latter to be the Indian girl he had met at Red Lake. He was still more surprised to recognize in the third horse the one he had lost at the last camp. Shefford rose, a little shaky on his legs, to thank these Indians for a double service. The man slipped from his saddle and his moccasined feet thudded lightly. He was tall, lithe, erect, a singularly graceful figure, and as he advanced Shefford saw a dark face and sharp, dark eyes. The Indian was bareheaded, with his hair bound in a band. He resembled the girl, but appeared to have a finer face.

“How do?” he said, in a voice low and distinct. He extended his hand, and Shefford felt a grip of steel. He returned the greeting. Then the Indian gave Shefford the bridle of the horse, and made signs that appeared to indicate the horse had broken his hobbles and strayed. Shefford thanked him. Thereupon the Indian unsaddled and led the horses away, evidently to water them. The girl remained behind. Shefford addressed her, but she was shy and did not respond. He then set about cooking a meal for his visitors, and was busily engaged at this when the Indian returned without the horses. Presently Shefford resumed his seat by the fire and watched the two eat what he had prepared. They certainly were hungry and soon had the pans and cups empty. Then the girl drew back a little into the shadow, while the man sat with his legs crossed and his feet tucked under him.

His dark face was smooth, yet it seemed to have lines under the surface. Shefford was impressed. He had never seen an Indian who interested him as this one. Looked at superficially, he appeared young, wild, silent, locked in his primeval apathy, just a healthy savage; but looked at more attentively, he appeared matured, even old, a strange, sad, brooding figure, with a burden on his shoulders. Shefford found himself growing curious.

“What place?” asked Shefford, waving his hand toward the dark opening between the black cliffs.

“Sagi,” replied the Indian.

That did not mean anything to Shefford, and he asked if the Sagi was the pass, but the Indian shook his head.

“Wife?” asked Shefford, pointing to the girl.

The Indian shook his head again. “Bi-la,” he said.

“What you mean?” asked Shefford. “What bi-la?”

“Sister,” replied the Indian. He spoke the word reluctantly, as if the white man’s language did not please him, but the clearness and correct pronunciation surprised Shefford.

“What name — what call her?” he went on.

“Glen Naspa.”

“What your name?” inquired Shefford, indicating the Indian.

“Nas Ta Bega,” answered the Indian.

“Navajo?”

The Indian bowed with what seemed pride and stately dignity.

“My name John Shefford. Come far way back toward rising sun. Come stay here long.”

Nas Ta Bega’s dark eyes were fixed steadily upon Shefford. He reflected that he could not remember having felt so penetrating a gaze. But neither the Indian’s eyes nor face gave any clue to his thoughts.

“Navajo no savvy Jesus Christ,” said the Indian, and his voice rolled out low and deep.

Shefford felt both amaze and pain. The Indian had taken him for a missionary.

“No!... Me no missionary,” cried Shefford, and he flung up a passionately repudiating hand.

A singular flash shot from the Indian’s dark eyes. It struck Shefford even at this stinging moment when the past came back.

“Trade — buy wool — blanket?” queried Nas Ta Bega.

“No,” replied Shefford. “Me want ride — walk far.” He waved his hand to indicate a wide sweep of territory. “Me sick.”

Nas Ta Bega laid a significant finger upon his lungs.

“No,” replied Shefford. “Me strong. Sick here.” And with motions of his hands he tried to show that his was a trouble of the heart.

Shefford received instant impression of this Indian’s intelligent comprehension, but he could not tell just what had given him the feeling. Nas Ta Bega rose then and walked away into the shadow. Shefford heard him working around the dead cedar-tree, where he had probably gone to get fire-wood. Then Shefford heard a splintering crash, which was followed by a crunching, bumping sound. Presently he was astounded to see the Indian enter the lighted circle dragging the whole cedar-tree, trunk first. Shefford would have doubted the ability of two men to drag that tree, and here came Nas Ta Bega, managing it easily. He laid the trunk on the fire, and then proceeded to break off small branches, to place them advantageously where the red coals kindled them into a blaze.

The Indian’s next move was to place his saddle, which he evidently meant to use for a pillow. Then he spread a goat-skin on the ground, lay down upon it, with his back to the fire, and, pulling a long-haired saddle-blanket over his shoulders, he relaxed and became motionless. His sister, Glen Naspa, did likewise, except that she stayed farther away from the fire, and she had a larger blanket, which covered her well. It appeared to Shefford that they went to sleep at once.

Shefford felt as tired as he had ever been, but he did not think he could soon drop into slumber, and in fact he did not want to.

There was something in the companionship of these Indians that he had not experienced before. He still had a strange and weak feeling — the aftermath of that fear which had sickened him with its horrible icy grip. Nas Ta Bega’s arrival had frightened away that dark and silent prowler of the night; and Shefford was convinced the Indian had saved his life. The measure of his gratitude was a source of wonder to him. Had he cared so much for life? Yes — he had, when face to face with death. That was something to know. It helped him. And he gathered from his strange feeling that the romantic quest which had brought him into the wilderness might turn out to be an antidote for the morbid bitterness of heart.

With new sensations had come new thoughts. Right then it was very pleasant to sit in the warmth and light of the roaring cedar fire. There was a deep-seated ache of fatigue in his bones. What joy it was to rest! He had felt the dry scorch of desert thirst and the pang of hunger. How wonderful to learn the real meaning of water and food! He had just finished the longest, hardest day’s work of his life! Had that anything to do with a something almost like peace which seemed to hover near in the shadows, trying to come to him? He had befriended an Indian girl, and now her brother had paid back the service. Both the giving and receiving were somehow sweet to Shefford. They opened up hitherto vague channels of thought. For years he had imagined he was serving people, when he had never lifted a hand. A blow given in the defense of an Indian girl had somehow operated to make a change in John Shefford’s existence. It had liberated a spirit in him. Moreover, it had worked its influence outside his mind. The Indian girl and her brother had followed his trail to return his horse, perhaps to guide him safely, but, unknowingly perhaps, they had done infinitely more than that for him. As Shefford’s eye wandered over the dark, still figures of the sleepers he had a strange, dreamy premonition, or perhaps only a fancy, that there was to be more come of this fortunate meeting.

For the rest, it was good to be there in the speaking silence, to feel the heat on his outstretched palms and the cold wind on his cheek, to see the black wall lifting its bold outline and the crags reaching for the white stars.

III. KAYENTA

THE STAMPING OF horses awoke Shefford. He saw a towering crag, rosy in the morning light, like a huge red spear splitting the clear blue of sky. He got up, feeling cramped and sore, yet with unfamiliar exhilaration. The whipping air made him stretch his hands to the fire. An odor of coffee and broiled meat mingled with the fragrance of wood smoke. Glen Naspa was on her knees broiling a rabbit on a stick over the red coals. Nas Ta Bega was saddling the ponies. The canyon appeared to be full of purple shadows under one side of dark cliffs and golden streaks of mist on the other where the sun struck high up on the walls.

“Good morning,” said Shefford.

Glen Naspa shyly replied in Navajo.

“How,” was Nas Ta Bega’s greeting.

In daylight the Indian lost some of the dark somberness of face that had impressed Shefford. He had a noble head, in poise like that of an eagle, a bold, clean-cut profile, and stern, close-shut lips. His eyes were the most striking and attractive feature about him; they were coal-black and piercing; the intent look out of them seemed to come from a keen and inquisitive mind.

Shefford ate breakfast with the Indians, and then helped with the few preparations for departure. Before they mounted, Nas Ta Bega pointed to horse tracks in the dust. They were those that had been made by Shefford’s threatening visitor of the night before. Shefford explained by word and sign, and succeeded at least in showing that he had been in danger. Nas Ta Bega followed the tracks a little way and presently returned.

“Shadd,” he said, with an ominous shake of his head. Shefford did not understand whether he meant the name of his visitor or something else, but the menace connected with the word was clear enough.

Glen Naspa mounted her pony, and it was a graceful action that pleased Shefford. He climbed a little stiffly into his own saddle. Then Nas Ta Bega got up and pointed northward.

“Kayenta?” he inquired.

Shefford nodded and then they were off, with Glen Naspa in the lead. They did not climb the trail which they had descended, but took one leading to the right along the base of the slope. Shefford saw down into the red wash that bisected the canyon floor. It was a sheer wall of red clay or loam, a hundred feet high, and at the bottom ran a swift, shallow stream of reddish water. Then for a time a high growth of greasewood hid the surroundings from Shefford’s sight. Presently the trail led out into the open, and Shefford saw that he was at the neck of a wonderful valley that gradually widened with great jagged red peaks on the left and the black mesa, now a mountain, running away to the right. He turned to find that the opening of the Sagi could no longer be seen, and he was conscious of a strong desire to return and explore that canyon.

Soon Glen Naspa put her pony to a long, easy, swinging canter and her followers did likewise. As they got outward into the valley Shefford lost the sense of being overshadowed and crowded by the nearness of the huge walls and crags. The trail appeared level underfoot, but at a distance it was seen to climb. Shefford found where it disappeared over the foot of a slope that formed a graceful rising line up to the cedared flank of the mesa. The valley floor, widening away to the north, remained level and green. Beyond rose the jagged range of red peaks, all strangely cut and slanting. These distant deceiving features of the country held Shefford’s gaze until the Indian drew his attention to things near at hand. Then Shefford saw flocks of sheep dotting the gray-green valley, and bands of beautiful long-maned, long-tailed ponies.

For several miles the scene did not change except that Shefford imagined he came to see where the upland plain ended or at least broke its level. He was right, for presently the Indian pointed, and Shefford went on to halt upon the edge of a steep slope leading down into a valley vast in its barren gray reaches.

“Kayenta,” said Nas Ta Bega.

Shefford at first saw nothing except the monotonous gray valley reaching far to the strange, grotesque monuments of yellow cliff. Then close under the foot of the slope he espied two squat stone houses with red roofs, and a corral with a pool of water shining in the sun.

The trail leading down was steep and sandy, but it was not long. Shefford’s sweeping eyes appeared to take in everything at once — the crude stone structures with their earthen roofs, the piles of dirty wool, the Indians lolling around, the tents, and wagons, and horses, little lazy burros and dogs, and scattered everywhere saddles, blankets, guns, and packs.

Then a white man came out of the door. He waved a hand and shouted. Dust and wool and flour were thick upon him. He was muscular and weather-beaten, and appeared young in activity rather than face. A gun swung at his hip and a row of brass-tipped cartridges showed in his belt. Shefford looked into a face that he thought he had seen before, until he realized the similarity was only the bronze and hard line and rugged cast common to desert men. The gray searching eyes went right through him.

“Glad to see you. Get down and come in. Just heard from an Indian that you were coming. I’m the trader Withers,” he said to Shefford. His voice was welcoming and the grip of his hand made Shefford’s ache.

Shefford told his name and said he was as glad as he was lucky to arrive at Kayenta.

“Hello! Nas Ta Bega!” exclaimed Withers. His tone expressed a surprise his face did not show. “Did this Indian bring you in?”

Withers shook hands with the Navajo while Shefford briefly related what he owed to him. Then Withers looked at Nas Ta Bega and spoke to him in the Indian tongue.

“Shadd,” said Nas Ta Bega. Withers let out a dry little laugh and his strong hand tugged at his mustache.

“Who’s Shadd?” asked Shefford.

“He’s a half-breed Ute — bad Indian, outlaw, murderer. He’s in with a gang of outlaws who hide in the San Juan country.... Reckon you’re lucky. How’d you come to be there in the Sagi alone?”

“I traveled from Red Lake. Presbrey, the trader there, advised against it, but I came anyway.”

“Well.” Withers’s gray glance was kind, if it did express the foolhardiness of Shefford’s act. “Come into the house.... Never mind the horse. My wife will sure be glad to see you.”

Withers led Shefford by the first stone house, which evidently was the trading-store, into the second. The room Shefford entered was large, with logs smoldering in a huge open fireplace, blankets covering every foot of floor space, and Indian baskets and silver ornaments everywhere, and strange Indian designs painted upon the whitewashed walls. Withers called his wife and made her acquainted with Shefford. She was a slight, comely little woman, with keen, earnest, dark eyes. She seemed to be serious and quiet, but she made Shefford feel at home immediately. He refused, however, to accept the room offered him, saying that he me meant to sleep out under the open sky. Withers laughed at this and said he understood. Shefford, remembering Presbrey’s hunger for news of the outside world, told this trader and his wife all he could think of; and he was listened to with that close attention a traveler always gained in the remote places.

“Sure am glad you rode in,” said Withers, for the fourth time. “Now you make yourself at home. Stay here — come over to the store — do what you like. I’ve got to work. To-night we’ll talk.”

Shefford went out with his host. The store was as interesting as Presbrey’s, though much smaller and more primitive. It was full of everything, and smelled strongly of sheep and goats. There was a narrow aisle between sacks of flour and blankets on one side and a high counter on the other. Behind this counter Withers stood to wait upon the buying Indians. They sold blankets and skins and bags of wool, and in exchange took silver money. Then they lingered and with slow, staid reluctance bought one thing and then another — flour, sugar, canned goods, coffee, tobacco, ammunition. The counter was never without two or three Indians leaning on their dark, silver-braceleted arms. But as they were slow to sell and buy and go, so were others slow to come in. Their voices were soft and low and it seemed to Shefford they were whispering. He liked to hear them and to look at the banded heads, the long, twisted rolls of black hair tied with white cords, the still dark faces and watchful eyes, the silver ear-rings, the slender, shapely brown hands, the lean and sinewy shapes, the corduroys with a belt and gun, and the small, close-fitting buckskin moccasins buttoned with coins. These Indians all appeared young, and under the quiet, slow demeanor there was fierce blood and fire.

By and by two women came in, evidently squaw and daughter. The former was a huge, stout Indian with a face that was certainly pleasant if not jolly.

She had the corners of a blanket tied under her chin, and in the folds behind on her broad back was a naked Indian baby, round and black of head, brown-skinned, with eyes as bright as beads. When the youngster caught sight of Shefford he made a startled dive into the sack of the blanket. Manifestly, however, curiosity got the better of fear, for presently Shefford caught a pair of wondering dark eyes peeping at him.

“They’re good spenders, but slow,” said Withers. “The Navajos are careful and cautious. That’s why they’re rich. This squaw, Yan As Pa, has flocks of sheep and more mustangs than she knows about.”

“Mustangs. So that’s what you call the ponies?” replied Shefford.

“Yep. They’re mustangs, and mostly wild as jack-rabbits.”

Shefford strolled outside and made the acquaintance of Withers’s helper, a Mormon named Whisner. He was a stockily built man past maturity, and his sun-blistered face and watery eyes told of the open desert. He was engaged in weighing sacks of wool brought in by the Indians. Near by stood a framework of poles from which an immense bag was suspended. From the top of this bag protruded the head and shoulders of an Indian who appeared to be stamping and packing wool with his feet. He grinned at the curious Shefford. But Shefford was more interested in the Mormon. So far as he knew, Whisner was the first man of that creed he had ever met, and he could scarcely hide his eagerness. Venters’s stories had been of a long-past generation of Mormons, fanatical, ruthless, and unchangeable. Shefford did not expect to meet Mormons of this kind. But any man of that religion would have interested him. Besides this, Whisner seemed to bring him closer to that wild secret canyon he had come West to find. Shefford was somewhat amazed and discomfited to have his polite and friendly overtures repulsed. Whisner might have been an Indian. He was cold, incommunicative, aloof; and there was something about him that made the sensitive Shefford feel his presence was resented.

Presently Shefford strolled on to the corral, which was full of shaggy mustangs. They snorted and kicked at him. He had a half-formed wish that he would never be called upon to ride one of those wild brutes, and then he found himself thinking that he would ride one of them, and after a while any of them. Shefford did not understand himself, but he fought his natural instinctive reluctance to meet obstacles, peril, suffering.

He traced the white-bordered little stream that made the pool in the corral, and when he came to where it oozed out of the sand under the bluff he decided that was not the spring which had made Kayenta famous. Presently down below the trading-post he saw a trough from which burros were drinking. Here he found the spring, a deep well of eddying water walled in by stones, and the overflow made a shallow stream meandering away between its borders of alkali, like a crust of salt. Shefford tasted the water. It bit, but it was good.

Shefford had no trouble in making friends with the lazy sleepy-eyed burros. They let him pull their long ears and rub their noses, but the mustangs standing around were unapproachable. They had wild eyes; they raised long ears and looked vicious. He let them alone.

Evidently this trading-post was a great deal busier than Red Lake. Shefford counted a dozen Indians lounging outside, and there were others riding away. Big wagons told how the bags of wool were transported out of the wilds and how supplies were brought in. A wide, hard-packed road led off to the east, and another, not so clearly defined, wound away to the north. And Indian trails streaked off in all directions.

Shefford discovered, however, when he had walked off a mile or so across the valley to lose sight of the post, that the feeling of wildness and loneliness returned to him. It was a wonderful country. It held something for him besides the possible rescue of an imprisoned girl from a wild canyon.

. . . . . . . . . . .

That night after supper, when Withers and Shefford sat alone before the blazing logs in the huge fireplace, the trader laid his hand on Shefford’s and said, with directness and force:

“I’ve lived my life in the desert. I’ve met many men and have been a friend to most.... You’re no prospector or trader or missionary?”

“No,” replied Shefford.

“You’ve had trouble?”

“Yes.”

“Have you come in here to hide? Don’t be afraid to tell me. I won’t give you away.”

“I didn’t come to hide.”

“Then no one is after you? You’ve done no wrong?”

“Perhaps I wronged myself, but no one else,” replied Shefford, steadily.

“I reckoned so. Well, tell me, or keep your secret — it’s all one to me.”

Shefford felt a desire to unburden himself. This man was strong, persuasive, kindly. He drew Shefford.

“You’re welcome in Kayenta,” went on Withers. “Stay as long as you like. I take no pay from a white man. If you want work I have it aplenty.”

“Thank you. That is good. I need to work. We’ll talk of it later. ... But just yet I can’t tell you why I came to Kayenta, what I want to do, how long I shall stay. My thoughts put in words would seem so like dreams. Maybe they are dreams. Perhaps I’m only chasing a phantom — perhaps I’m only hunting the treasure at the foot of the rainbow.”

“Well, this is the country for rainbows,” laughed Withers. “In summer from June to August when it storms we have rainbows that’ll make you think you’re in another world. The Navajos have rainbow mountains, rainbow canyons, rainbow bridges of stone, rainbow trails. It sure is rainbow country.”

That deep and mystic chord in Shefford thrilled. Here it was again — something tangible at the bottom of his dream.

Withers did not wait for Shefford to say any more, and almost as if he read his visitor’s mind he began to talk about the wild country he called home.

He had lived at Kayenta for several years — hard and profitless years by reason of marauding outlaws. He could not have lived there at all but for the protection of the Indians. His father-in-law had been friendly with the Navajos and Piutes for many years, and his wife had been brought up among them. She was held in peculiar reverence and affection by both tribes in that part of the country. Probably she knew more of the Indians’ habits, religion, and life than any white person in the West. Both tribes were friendly and peaceable, but there were bad Indians, half-breeds, and outlaws that made the trading-post a venture Withers had long considered precarious, and he wanted to move and intended to some day. His nearest neighbors in New Mexico and Colorado were a hundred miles distant and at some seasons the roads were impassable. To the north, however, twenty miles or so, was situated a Mormon village named Stonebridge. It lay across the Utah line. Withers did some business with this village, but scarcely enough to warrant the risks he had to run. During the last year he had lost several pack-trains, one of which he had never heard of after it left Stonebridge.

“Stonebridge!” exclaimed Shefford, and he trembled. He had heard that name. In his memory it had a place beside the name of another village Shefford longed to speak of to this trader.

“Yes — Stonebridge,” replied Withers. “Ever heard the name?”

“I think so. Are there other villages in — in that part of the country?”

“A few, but not close. Glaze is now only a water-hole. Bluff and Monticello are far north across the San Juan.... There used to be another village — but that wouldn’t interest you.”

“Maybe it would,” replied Shefford, quietly.

But his hint was not taken by the trader. Withers suddenly showed a semblance of the aloofness Shefford had observed in Whisner.

“Withers, pardon an impertinence — I am deeply serious.... Are you a Mormon?”

“Indeed I’m not,” replied the trader, instantly.

“Are you for the Mormons or against them?”

“Neither. I get along with them. I know them. I believe they are a misunderstood people.”

“That’s for them.”

“No. I’m only fair-minded.”

Shefford paused, trying to curb his thrilling impulse, but it was too strong.

“You said there used to be another village.... Was the name of it — Cottonwoods?”

Withers gave a start and faced round to stare at Shefford in blank astonishment.

“Say, did you give me a straight story about yourself?” he queried, sharply.

“So far as I went,” replied Shefford.

“You’re no spy on the lookout for sealed wives?”

“Absolutely not. I don’t even know what you mean by sealed wives.”

“Well, it’s damn strange that you’d know the name Cottonwoods.... Yes, that’s the name of the village I meant — the one that used to be. It’s gone now, all except a few stone walls.”

“What became of it?”

“Torn down by Mormons years ago. They destroyed it and moved away. I’ve heard Indians talk about a grand spring that was there once. It’s gone, too. Its name was — let me see—”

“Amber Spring,” interrupted Shefford.

“By George, you’re right!” rejoined the trader, again amazed. “Shefford, this beats me. I haven’t heard that name for ten years. I can’t help seeing what a tenderfoot — stranger — you are to the desert. Yet, here you are — speaking of what you should know nothing of.... And there’s more behind this.”

Shefford rose, unable to conceal his agitation.

“Did you ever hear of a rider named Venters?”

“Rider? You mean a cowboy? Venters. No, I never heard that name.”

“Did you ever hear of a gunman named Lassiter?” queried Shefford, with increasing emotion.

“No.”

“Did you ever hear of a Mormon woman named — Jane Withersteen?”

“No.”

Shefford drew his breath sharply. He had followed a gleam — he had caught a fleeting glimpse of it.

“Did you ever hear of a child — a girl — a woman — called Fay Larkin?”

Withers rose slowly with a paling face.

“If you’re a spy it’ll go hard with you — though I’m no Mormon,” he said, grimly.

Shefford lifted a shaking hand.

“I WAS a clergyman. Now I’m nothing — a wanderer — least of all a spy.”

Withers leaned closer to see into the other man’s eyes; he looked long and then appeared satisfied.

“I’ve heard the name Fay Larkin,” he said, slowly. “I reckon that’s all I’ll say till you tell your story.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Shefford stood with his back to the fire and he turned the palms of his hands to catch the warmth. He felt cold. Withers had affected him strangely. What was the meaning of the trader’s somber gravity? Why was the very mention of Mormons attended by something austere and secret?

“My name is John Shefford. I am twenty-four,” began Shefford. “My family—”

Here a knock on the door interrupted Shefford.

“Come in,” called Withers.

The door opened and like a shadow Nas Ta Bega slipped in. He said something in Navajo to the trader.

“How,” he said to Shefford, and extended his hand. He was stately, but there was no mistaking his friendliness. Then he sat down before the fire, doubled his legs under him after the Indian fashion, and with dark eyes on the blazing logs seemed to lose himself in meditation.

“He likes the fire,” explained Withers. “Whenever he comes to Kayenta he always visits me like this.... Don’t mind him. Go on with your story.”

“My family were plain people, well-to-do, and very religious,” went on Shefford. “When I was a boy we moved from the country to a town called Beaumont, Illinois. There was a college in Beaumont and eventually I was sent to it to study for the ministry. I wanted to be —— But never mind that.... By the time I was twenty-two I was ready for my career as a clergyman. I preached for a year around at different places and then got a church in my home town of Beaumont. I became exceedingly good friends with a man named Venters, who had recently come to Beaumont. He was a singular man. His wife was a strange, beautiful woman, very reserved, and she had wonderful dark eyes. They had money and were devoted to each other, and perfectly happy. They owned the finest horses ever seen in Illinois, and their particular enjoyment seemed to be riding. They were always taking long rides. It was something worth going far for to see Mrs. Venters on a horse.

“It was through my own love of horses that I became friendly with Venters. He and his wife attended my church, and as I got to see more of them, gradually we grew intimate. And it was not until I did get intimate with them that I realized that both seemed to be haunted by the past. They were sometimes sad even in their happiness. They drifted off into dreams. They lived back in another world. They seemed to be listening. Indeed, they were a singularly interesting couple, and I grew genuinely fond of them. By and by they had a little girl whom they named Jane. The coming of the baby made a change in my friends. They were happier, and I observed that the haunting shadow did not so often return.

“Venters had spoken of a journey west that he and his wife meant to take some time. But after the baby came he never mentioned his wife in connection with the trip. I gathered that he felt compelled to go to clear up a mystery or to find something — I did not make out just what. But eventually, and it was about a year ago, he told me his story — the strangest, wildest, and most tragic I ever heard. I can’t tell it all now. It is enough to say that fifteen years before he had been a rider for a rich Mormon woman named Jane Withersteen, of this village Cottonwoods. She had adopted a beautiful Gentile child named Fay Larkin. Her interest in Gentiles earned the displeasure of her churchmen, and as she was proud there came a breach. Venters and a gunman named Lassiter became involved in her quarrel. Finally Venters took to the canyon. Here in the wilds he found the strange girl he eventually married. For a long time they lived in a wonderful hidden valley, the entrance to which was guarded by a huge balancing rock. Venters got away with the girl. But Lassiter and Jane Withersteen and the child Fay Larkin were driven into the canyon. They escaped to the valley where Venters had lived. Lassiter rolled the balancing rock, and, crashing down the narrow trail, it loosened the weathered walls and closed the narrow outlet for ever.”

IV. NEW FRIENDS

SHEFFORD ENDED HIS narrative out of breath, pale, and dripping with sweat. Withers sat leaning forward with an expression of intense interest. Nas Ta Bega’s easy, graceful pose had succeeded to one of strained rigidity. He seemed a statue of bronze. Could a few intelligible words, Shefford wondered, have created that strange, listening posture?

“Venters got out of Utah, of course, as you know,” went on Shefford. “He got out, knowing — as I feel I would have known — that Jane, Lassiter, and little Fay Larkin were shut up, walled up in Surprise Valley. For years Venters considered it would not have been safe for him to venture to rescue them. He had no fears for their lives. They could live in Surprise Valley. But Venters always intended to come back with Bess and find the valley and his friends. No wonder he and Bess were haunted. However, when his wife had the baby that made a difference. It meant he had to go alone. And he was thinking seriously of starting when — when there were developments that made it desirable for me to leave Beaumont. Venters’s story haunted me as he had been haunted. I dreamed of that wild valley — of little Fay Larkin grown to womanhood — such a woman as Bess Venters was. And the longing to come was great.... And, Withers — here I am.”

The trader reached out and gave Shefford the grip of a man in whom emotion was powerful, but deep and difficult to express.

“Listen to this.... I wish I could help you. Life is a queer deal. ... Shefford, I’ve got to trust you. Over here in the wild canyon country there’s a village of Mormons’ sealed wives. It’s in Arizona, perhaps twenty miles from here, and near the Utah line. When the United States government began to persecute, or prosecute, the Mormons for polygamy, the Mormons over here in Stonebridge took their sealed wives and moved them out of Utah, just across the line. They built houses, established a village there. I’m the only Gentile who knows about it. And I pack supplies every few weeks in to these women. There are perhaps fifty women, mostly young — second or third or fourth wives of Mormons — sealed wives. And I want you to understand that sealed means SEALED in all that religion or loyalty can get out of the word. There are also some old women and old men in the village, but they hardly count. And there’s a flock of the finest children you ever saw in your life.

“The idea of the Mormons must have been to escape prosecution. The law of the government is one wife for each man — no more. All over Utah polygamists have been arrested. The Mormons are deeply concerned. I believe they are a good, law-abiding people. But this law is a direct blow at their religion. In my opinion they can’t obey both. And therefore they have not altogether given up plural wives. Perhaps they will some day. I have no proof, but I believe the Mormons of Stonebridge pay secret night visits to their sealed wives across the line in the lonely, hidden village.

“Now once over in Stonebridge I overheard some Mormons talking about a girl who was named Fay Larkin. I never forgot the name. Later I heard the name in this sealed-wife village. But, as I told you, I never heard of Lassiter or Jane Withersteen. Still, if Mormons had found them I would never have heard of it. And Deception Pass — that might be the Sagi.... I’m not surprised at your rainbow-chasing adventure. It’s a great story.... This Fay Larkin I’ve heard of MIGHT be your Fay Larkin — I almost believe so. Shefford, I’ll help you find out.”

“Yes, yes — I must know,” replied Shefford. “Oh, I hope, I pray we can find her! But — I’d rather she was dead — if she’s not still hidden in the valley.”

“Naturally. You’ve dreamed yourself into rescuing this lost Fay Larkin.... But, Shefford, you’re old enough to know life doesn’t work out as you want it to. One way or another I fear you’re in for a bitter disappointment.”

“Withers, take me to the village.”

“Shefford, you’re liable to get in bad out here,” said the trader, gravely.

“I couldn’t be any more ruined than I am now,” replied Shefford, passionately.

“But there’s risk in this — risk such as you never had,” persisted Withers.

“I’ll risk anything.”

“Reckon this is a funny deal for a sheep-trader to have on his hands,” continued Withers. “Shefford, I like you. I’ve a mind to see you through this. It’s a damn strange story.... I’ll tell you what — I will help you. I’ll give you a job packing supplies in to the village. I meant to turn that over to a Mormon cowboy — Joe Lake. The job shall be yours, and I’ll go with you first trip. Here’s my hand on it.... Now, Shefford, I’m more curious about you than I was before you told your story. What ruined you? As we’re to be partners, you can tell me now. I’ll keep your secret. Maybe I can do you good.”

Shefford wanted to confess, yet it was hard. Perhaps, had he not been so agitated, he would not have answered to impulse. But this trader was a man — a man of the desert — he would understand.

“I told you I was a clergyman,” said Shefford in low voice. “I didn’t want to be one, but they made me one. I did my best. I failed.... I had doubts of religion — of the Bible — of God, as my Church believed in them. As I grew older thought and study convinced me of the narrowness of religion as my congregation lived it. I preached what I believed. I alienated them. They put me out, took my calling from me, disgraced me, ruined me.”

“So that’s all!” exclaimed Withers, slowly. “You didn’t believe in the God of the Bible.... Well, I’ve been in the desert long enough to know there IS a God, but probably not the one your Church worships. ... Shefford, go to the Navajo for a faith!”

Shefford had forgotten the presence of Nas Ta Bega, and perhaps Withers had likewise. At this juncture the Indian rose to his full height, and he folded his arms to stand with the somber pride of a chieftain while his dark, inscrutable eyes were riveted upon Shefford. At that moment he seemed magnificent. How infinitely more he seemed than just a common Indian who had chanced to befriend a white man! The difference was obscure to Shefford. But he felt that it was there in the Navajo’s mind. Nas Ta Bega’s strange look was not to be interpreted. Presently he turned and passed from the room.

“By George!” cried Withers, suddenly, and he pounded his knee with his fist. “I’d forgotten.”

“What?” ejaculated Shefford.

“Why, that Indian understood every word we said. He knows English. He’s educated. Well, if this doesn’t beat me.... Let me tell you about Nas Ta Bega.”

Withers appeared to be recalling something half forgotten.

“Years ago, in fifty-seven, I think, Kit Carson with his soldiers chased the Navajo tribes and rounded them up to be put on reservations. But he failed to catch all the members of one tribe. They escaped up into wild canyon like the Sagi. The descendants of these fugitives live there now and are the finest Indians on earth — the finest because unspoiled by the white man. Well, as I got the story, years after Carson’s round-up one of his soldiers guided some interested travelers in here. When they left they took an Indian boy with them to educate. From what I know of Navajos I’m inclined to think the boy was taken against his parents’ wish. Anyway, he was taken. That boy was Nas Ta Bega. The story goes that he was educated somewhere. Years afterward, and perhaps not long before I came in here, he returned to his people. There have been missionaries and other interested fools who have given Indians a white man’s education. In all the instances I know of, these educated Indians returned to their tribes, repudiating the white man’s knowledge, habits, life, and religion. I have heard that Nas Ta Bega came back, laid down the white man’s clothes along with the education, and never again showed that he had known either.

“You have just seen how strangely he acted. It’s almost certain he heard our conversation. Well, it doesn’t matter. He won’t tell. He can hardly be made to use an English word. Besides, he’s a noble red man, if there ever was one. He has been a friend in need to me. If you stay long out here you’ll learn something from the Indians. Nas Ta Bega has befriended you, too, it seems. I thought he showed unusual interest in you.”

“Perhaps that was because I saved his sister — well, to be charitable, from the rather rude advances of a white man,” said Shefford, and he proceeded to tell of the incident that occurred at Red Lake.

“Willetts!” exclaimed Withers, with much the same expression that Presbrey had used. “I never met him. But I know about him. He’s — well, the Indians don’t like him much. Most of the missionaries are good men — good for the Indians, in a way, but sometimes one drifts out here who is bad. A bad missionary teaching religion to savages! Queer, isn’t it? The queerest part is the white people’s blindness — the blindness of those who send the missionaries. Well, I dare say Willetts isn’t very good. When Presbrey said that was Willetts’s way of teaching religion he meant just what he said. If Willetts drifts over here he’ll be risking much.... This you told me explains Nas Ta Bega’s friendliness toward you, and also his bringing his sister Glen Naspa to live with relatives up in the pass. She had been living near Red Lake.”

“Do you mean Nas Ta Bega wants to keep his sister far removed from Willetts?” inquired Shefford.

“I mean that,” replied Withers, “and I hope he’s not too late.”

Later Shefford went outdoors to walk and think. There was no moon, but the stars made light enough to cast his shadow on the ground. The dark, illimitable expanse of blue sky seemed to be glittering with numberless points of fire. The air was cold and still. A dreaming silence lay over the land. Shefford saw and felt all these things, and their effect was continuous and remained with him and helped calm him. He was conscious of a burden removed from his mind. Confession of his secret had been like tearing a thorn from his flesh, but, once done, it afforded him relief and a singular realization that out here it did not matter much. In a crowd of men all looking at him and judging him by their standards he had been made to suffer. Here, if he were judged at all, it would be by what he could do, how he sustained himself and helped others.

He walked far across the valley toward the low bluffs, but they did not seem to get any closer. And, finally, he stopped beside a stone and looked around at the strange horizon and up at the heavens. He did not feel utterly aloof from them, nor alone in a waste, nor a useless atom amid incomprehensible forces. Something like a loosened mantle fell from about him, dropping down at his feet; and all at once he was conscious of freedom. He did not understand in the least why abasement left him, but it was so. He had come a long way, in bitterness, in despair, believing himself to be what men had called him. The desert and the stars and the wind, the silence of the night, the loneliness of this vast country where there was room for a thousand cities — these somehow vaguely, yet surely, bade him lift his head. They withheld their secret, but they made a promise. The thing which he had been feeling every day and every night was a strange enveloping comfort. And it was at this moment that Shefford, divining whence his help was to come, embraced all that wild and speaking nature around and above him and surrendered himself utterly.

“I am young. I am free. I have my life to live,” he said. “I’ll be a man. I’ll take what comes. Let me learn here!”

When he had spoken out, settled once and for ever his attitude toward his future, he seemed to be born again, wonderfully alive to the influences around him, ready to trust what yet remained a mystery.

Then his thoughts reverted to Fay Larkin. Could this girl be known to the Mormons? It was possible. Fay Larkin was an unusual name. Deep into Shefford’s heart had sunk the story Venters had told. Shefford found that he had unconsciously created a like romance — he had been loving a wild and strange and lonely girl, like beautiful Bess Venters. It was a shock to learn the truth, but, as it had been only a dream, it could hardly be vital.

Shefford retraced his steps toward the post. Halfway back he espied a tall, dark figure moving toward him, and presently the shape and the step seemed familiar. Then he recognized Nas Ta Bega. Soon they were face to face. Shefford felt that the Indian had been trailing him over the sand, and that this was to be a significant meeting. Remembering Withers’s revelation about the Navajo, Shefford scarcely knew how to approach him now. There was no difference to be made out in Nas Ta Bega’s dark face and inscrutable eyes, yet there was a difference to be felt in his presence. But the Indian did not speak, and turned to walk by Shefford’s side. Shefford could not long be silent.

“Nas Ta Bega, were you looking for me?” he asked.

“You had no gun,” replied the Indian.

But for his very low voice, his slow speaking of the words, Shefford would have thought him a white man. For Shefford there was indeed an instinct in this meeting, and he turned to face the Navajo.

“Withers told me you had been educated, that you came back to the desert, that you never showed your training.... Nas Ta Bega, did you understand all I told Withers?”

“Yes,” replied the Indian.

“You won’t betray me?”

“I am a Navajo.”

“Nas Ta Bega, you trail me — you say I had no gun.” Shefford wanted to ask this Indian if he cared to be the white man’s friend, but the question was not easy to put, and, besides, seemed unnecessary. “I am alone and strange in this wild country. I must learn.”

“Nas Ta Bega will show you the trails and the water-holes and how to hide from Shadd.”

“For money — for silver you will do this?” inquired Shefford.

Shefford felt that the Indian’s silence was a rebuke. He remembered Withers’s singular praise of this red man. He realized he must change his idea of Indians.

“Nas Ta Bega, I know nothing. I feel like a child in the wilderness. When I speak it is out of the mouths of those who have taught me. I must find a new voice and a new life.... You heard my story to Withers. I am an outcast from my own people. If you will be my friend — be so.”

The Indian clasped Shefford’s hand and held it in a response that was more beautiful for its silence. So they stood for a moment in the starlight.

“Nas Ta Bega, what did Withers mean when he said go to the Navajo for a faith?” asked Shefford.

“He meant the desert is my mother.... Will you go with Nas Ta Bega into the canyon and the mountains?”

“Indeed I will.”

They unclasped hands and turned toward the trading-post.

“Nas Ta Bega, have you spoken my tongue to any other white man since you returned to your home?” asked Shefford.

“No.”

“Why do you — why are you different for me?”

The Indian maintained silence.

“Is it because of — of Glen Naspa?” inquired Shefford.

Nas Ta Bega stalked on, still silent, but Shefford divined that, although his service to Glen Naspa would never be forgotten, still it was not wholly responsible for the Indian’s subtle sympathy.

“Bi Nai! The Navajo will call his white friend Bi Nai — brother,” said Nas Ta Bega, and he spoke haltingly, not as if words were hard to find, but strange to speak. “I was stolen from my mother’s hogan and taken to California. They kept me ten years in a mission at San Bernardino and four years in a school. They said my color and my hair were all that was left of the Indian in me. But they could not see my heart. They took fourteen years of my life. They wanted to make me a missionary among my own people. But the white man’s ways and his life and his God are not the Indian’s. They never can be.”

How strangely productive of thought for Shefford to hear the Indian talk! What fatality in this meeting and friendship! Upon Nas Ta Bega had been forced education, training, religion, that had made him something more and something less than an Indian. It was something assimilated from the white man which made the Indian unhappy and alien in his own home — something meant to be good for him and his kind that had ruined him. For Shefford felt the passion and the tragedy of this Navajo.

“Bi Nai, the Indian is dying!” Nas Ta Bega’s low voice was deep and wonderful with its intensity of feeling. “The white man robbed the Indian of lands and homes, drove him into the deserts, made him a gaunt and sleepless spiller of blood.... The blood is all spilled now, for the Indian is broken. But the white man sells him rum and seduces his daughters.... He will not leave the Indian in peace with his own God!... Bi Nai, the Indian is dying!”

. . . . . . . . . . .

That night Shefford lay in his blankets out under the open sky and the stars. The earth had never meant much to him, and now it was a bed. He had preached of the heavens, but until now had never studied them. An Indian slept beside him. And not until the gray of morning had blotted out the starlight did Shefford close his eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . .

With break of the next day came full, varied, and stirring incidents to Shefford. He was strong, though unskilled at most kinds of outdoor tasks. Withers had work for ten men, if they could have been found. Shefford dug and packed and lifted till he was so sore and tired that rest was a blessing.

He never succeeded in getting on a friendly footing with the Mormon Whisner, though he kept up his agreeable and kindly advances. He listened to the trader’s wife as she told him about the Indians, and what he learned he did not forget. And his wonder and respect increased in proportion to his knowledge.

One day there rode into Kayenta the Mormon for whom Withers had been waiting. His name was Joe Lake. He appeared young, and slipped off his superb bay with a grace and activity that were astounding in one of his huge bulk. He had a still, smooth face, with the color of red bronze and the expression of a cherub; big, soft, dark eyes; and a winning smile. He was surprisingly different from Whisner or any Mormon character that Shefford had naturally conceived. His costume was that of the cowboy on active service; and he packed a gun at his hip. The hand-shake he gave Shefford was an ordeal for that young man and left him with his whole right side momentarily benumbed.

“I sure am glad to meet you,” he said in a lazy, mild voice. And he was taking friendly stock of Shefford when the bay mustang reached with vicious muzzle to bite at him. Lake gave a jerk on the bridle that almost brought the mustang to his knees. He reared then, snorted, and came down to plant his forefeet wide apart, and watched his master with defiant eyes. This mustang was the finest horse Shefford had ever seen. He appeared quite large for his species, was almost red in color, had a racy and powerful build, and a fine thoroughbred head with dark, fiery eyes. He did not look mean, but he had spirit.

“Navvy, you’ve sure got bad manners,” said Lake, shaking the mustang’s bridle. He spoke as if he were chiding a refractory little boy. “Didn’t I break you better’n that? What’s this gentleman goin’ to think of you? Tryin’ to bite my ear off!”

Lake had arrived about the middle of the forenoon, and Withers announced his intention of packing at once for the trip. Indians were sent out on the ranges to drive in burros and mustangs. Shefford had his thrilling expectancy somewhat chilled by what he considered must have been Lake’s reception of the trader’s plan. Lake seemed to oppose him, and evidently it took vehemence and argument on Withers’s part to make the Mormon tractable. But Withers won him over, and then he called Shefford to his side.

“You fellows got to be good friends,” he said. “You’ll have charge of my pack-trains. Nas Ta Bega wants to go with you. I’ll feel safer about my supplies and stock than I’ve ever been.... Joe, I’ll back this stranger for all I’m worth. He’s square.... And, Shefford, Joe Lake is a Mormon of the younger generation. I want to start you right. You can trust him as you trust me. He’s white clean through. And he’s the best horse-wrangler in Utah.”

It was Lake who first offered his hand, and Shefford made haste to meet it with his own. Neither of them spoke. Shefford intuitively felt an alteration in Lake’s regard, or at least a singular increase of interest. Lake had been told that Shefford had been a clergyman, was now a wanderer, without any religion. Again it seemed to Shefford that he owed a forming of friendship to this singular fact. And it hurt him. But strangely it came to him that he had taken a liking to a Mormon.

About one o’clock the pack-train left Kayenta. Nas Ta Bega led the way up the slope. Following him climbed half a dozen patient, plodding, heavily laden burros. Withers came next, and he turned in his saddle to wave good-by to his wife. Joe Lake appeared to be busy keeping a red mule and a wild gray mustang and a couple of restive blacks in the trail. Shefford brought up in the rear.

His mount was a beautiful black mustang with three white feet, a white spot on his nose, and a mane that swept to his knees. “His name’s Nack-yal,” Withers had said. “It means two bits, or twenty-five cents. He ain’t worth more.” To look at Nack-yal had pleased Shefford very much indeed, but, once upon his back, he grew dubious. The mustang acted queer. He actually looked back at Shefford, and it was a look of speculation and disdain. Shefford took exception to Nack-yal’s manner and to his reluctance to go, and especially to a habit the mustang had of turning off the trail to the left. Shefford had managed some rather spirited horses back in Illinois; and though he was willing and eager to learn all over again, he did not enjoy the prospect of Lake and Withers seeing this black mustang make a novice of him. And he guessed that was just what Nack-yal intended to do. However, once up over the hill, with Kayenta out of sight, Nack-yal trotted along fairly well, needing only now and then to be pulled back from his strange swinging to the left off the trail.

The pack-train traveled steadily and soon crossed the upland plain to descend into the valley again. Shefford saw the jagged red peaks with an emotion he could not name. The canyon between them were purple in the shadows, the great walls and slopes brightened to red, and the tips were gold in the sun. Shefford forgot all about his mustang and the trail.

Suddenly with a pound of hoofs Nack-yal seemed to rise. He leaped sidewise out of the trail, came down stiff-legged. Then Shefford shot out of the saddle. He landed so hard that he was stunned for an instant. Sitting up, he saw the mustang bent down, eyes and ears showing fight, and his forefeet spread. He appeared to be looking at something in the trail. Shefford got up and soon saw what had been the trouble. A long, crooked stick, rather thick and black and yellow, lay in the trail, and any mustang looking for an excuse to jump might have mistaken it for a rattlesnake. Nack-yal appeared disposed to be satisfied, and gave Shefford no trouble in mounting. The incident increased Shefford’s dubiousness. These Arizona mustangs were unknown quantities.

Thereafter Shefford had an eye for the trail rather than the scenery, and this continued till the pack-train entered the mouth of the Sagi. Then those wonderful lofty cliffs, with their peaks and towers and spires, loomed so close and so beautiful that he did not care if Nack-yal did throw him. Along here, however, the mustang behaved well, and presently Shefford decided that if it had been otherwise he would have walked. The trail suddenly stood on end and led down into the deep wash, where some days before he had seen the stream of reddish water. This day there appeared to be less water and it was not so red. Nack-yal sank deep as he took short and careful steps down. The burros and other mustangs were drinking, and Nack-yal followed suit. The Indian, with a hand clutching his mustang’s mane, rode up a steep, sandy slope on the other side that Shefford would not have believed any horse could climb. The burros plodded up and over the rim, with Withers calling to them. Joe Lake swung his rope and cracked the flanks of the gray mare and the red mule; and the way the two kicked was a revelation and a warning to Shefford. When his turn came to climb the trail he got off and walked, an action that Nack-yal appeared fully to appreciate.

From the head of this wash the trail wound away up the widening canyon, through greasewood flats and over grassy levels and across sandy stretches. The looming walls made the valley look narrow, yet it must have been half a mile wide. The slopes under the cliffs were dotted with huge stones and cedar-trees. There were deep indentations in the walls, running back to form box canyon, choked with green of cedar and spruce and pinon. These notches haunted Shefford, and he was ever on the lookout for more of them.

Withers came back to ride just in advance and began to talk.

“Reckon this Sagi canyon is your Deception Pass,” he said. “It’s sure a queer hole. I’ve been lost more than once, hunting mustangs in here. I’ve an idea Nas Ta Bega knows all this country. He just pointed out a cliff-dwelling to me. See it?... There ‘way up in that cave of the wall.”

Shefford saw a steep, rough slope leading up to a bulge of the cliff, and finally he made out strange little houses with dark, eyelike windows. He wanted to climb up there. Withers called his attention to more caves with what he believed were the ruins of cliff-dwellings. And as they rode along the trader showed him remarkable formations of rock where the elements were slowly hollowing out a bridge. They came presently to a region of intersecting canyon, and here the breaking of the trail up and down the deep washes took Withers back to his task with the burros and gave Shefford more concern than he liked with Nack-yal. The mustang grew unruly and was continually turning to the left. Sometimes he tried to climb the steep slope. He had to be pulled hard away from the opening canyon on the left. It seemed strange to Shefford that the mustang never swerved to the right. This habit of Nack-yal’s and the increasing caution needed on the trail took all of Shefford’s attention. When he dismounted, however, he had a chance to look around, and more and more he was amazed at the increasing proportions and wildness of the Sagi.

He came at length to a place where a fallen tree blocked the trail. All of the rest of the pack-train had jumped the log. But Nack-yal balked. Shefford dismounted, pulled the bridle over the mustang’s head, and tried to lead him. Nack-yal, however, refused to budge. Whereupon Shefford got a stick and, remounting, he gave the balky mustang a cut across the flank. Then something violent happened. Shefford received a sudden propelling jolt, and then he was rising into the air, and then falling. Before he alighted he had a clear image of Nack-yal in the air above him, bent double, and seemingly possessed of devils. Then Shefford hit the ground with no light thud. He was thoroughly angry when he got dizzily upon his feet, but he was not quick enough to catch the mustang. Nack-yal leaped easily over the log and went on ahead, dragging his bridle. Shefford hurried after him, and the faster he went just by so much the cunning Nack-yal accelerated his gait. As the pack-train was out of sight somewhere ahead, Shefford could not call to his companions to halt his mount, so he gave up trying, and walked on now with free and growing appreciation of his surroundings.

The afternoon had waned. The sun blazed low in the west in a notch of the canyon ramparts, and one wall was darkening into purple shadow while the other shone through a golden haze. It was a weird, wild world to Shefford, and every few strides he caught his breath and tried to realize actuality was not a dream.

Nack-yal kept about a hundred paces to the fore and ever and anon he looked back to see how his new master was progressing. He varied these occasions by reaching down and nipping a tuft of grass. Evidently he was too intelligent to go on fast enough to be caught by Withers. Also he kept continually looking up the slope to the left as if seeking a way to climb out of the valley in that direction. Shefford thought it was well the trail lay at the foot of a steep slope that ran up to unbroken bluffs.

The sun set and the canyon lost its red and its gold and deepened its purple. Shefford calculated he had walked five miles, and though he did not mind the effort, he would rather have ridden Nack-yal into camp. He mounted a cedar ridge, crossed some sandy washes, turned a corner of bold wall to enter a wide, green level. The mustangs were rolling and snorting. He heard the bray of a burro. A bright blaze of camp-fire greeted him, and the dark figure of the Indian approached to intercept and catch Nack-yal. When he stalked into camp Withers wore a beaming smile, and Joe Lake, who was on his knees making biscuit dough in a pan, stopped proceedings and drawled:

“Reckon Nack-yal bucked you off.”

“Bucked! Was that it? Well, he separated himself from me in a new and somewhat painful manner — to me.”

“Sure, I saw that in his eye,” replied Lake; and Withers laughed with him.

“Nack-yal never was well broke,” he said. “But he’s a good mustang, nothing like Joe’s Navvy or that gray mare Dynamite. All this Indian stock will buck on a man once in a while.”

“I’ll take the bucking along with the rest,” said Shefford. Both men liked his reply, and the Indian smiled for the first time.

Soon they all sat round a spread tarpaulin and ate like wolves. After supper came the rest and talk before the camp-fire. Joe Lake was droll; he said the most serious things in a way to make Shefford wonder if he was not joking. Withers talked about the canyon, the Indians, the mustangs, the scorpions running out of the heated sand; and to Shefford it was all like a fascinating book. Nas Ta Bega smoked in silence, his brooding eyes upon the fire.

V. ON THE TRAIL

SHEFFORD WAS AWAKENED next morning by a sound he had never heard before — the plunging of hobbled horses on soft turf. It was clear daylight, with a ruddy color in the sky and a tinge of red along the canyon rim. He saw Withers, Lake, and the Indian driving the mustangs toward camp.

The burros appeared lazy, yet willing. But the mustangs and the mule Withers called Red and the gray mare Dynamite were determined not to be driven into camp. It was astonishing how much action they had, how much ground they could cover with their forefeet hobbled together. They were exceedingly skilful; they lifted both forefeet at once, and then plunged. And they all went in different directions. Nas Ta Bega darted in here and there to head off escape.

Shefford pulled on his boots and went out to help. He got too close to the gray mare and, warned by a yell from Withers, he jumped back just in time to avoid her vicious heels. Then Shefford turned his attention to Nack-yal and chased him all over the flat in a futile effort to catch him. Nas Ta Bega came to Shefford’s assistance and put a rope over Nack-yal’s head.

“Don’t ever get behind one of these mustangs,” said Withers, warningly, as Shefford came up. “You might be killed.... Eat your bite now. We’ll soon be out of here.”

Shefford had been late in awakening. The others had breakfasted. He found eating somewhat difficult in the excitement that ensued. Nas Ta Bega held ropes which were round the necks of Red and Dynamite. The mule showed his cunning and always appeared to present his heels to Withers, who tried to approach him with a pack-saddle. The patience of the trader was a revelation to Shefford. And at length Red was cornered by the three men, the pack-saddle was strapped on, and then the packs. Red promptly bucked the packs off, and the work had to be done over again. Then Red dropped his long ears and seemed ready to be tractable.

When Shefford turned his attention to Dynamite he decided that this was his first sight of a wild horse. The gray mare had fiery eyes that rolled and showed the white. She jumped straight up, screamed, pawed, bit, and then plunged down to shoot her hind hoofs into the air as high as her head had been. She was amazingly agile and she seemed mad to kill something. She dragged the Indian about, and when Joe Lake got a rope on her hind foot she dragged them both. They lashed her with the ends of the lassoes, which action only made her kick harder. She plunged into camp, drove Shefford flying for his life, knocked down two of the burros, and played havoc with the unstrapped packs. Withers ran to the assistance of Lake, and the two of them hauled back with all their strength and weight. They were both powerful and heavy men. Dynamite circled round and finally, after kicking the camp-fire to bits, fell down on her haunches in the hot embers. “Let — her — set — there!” panted Withers. And Joe Lake shouted, “Burn up, you durn coyote!” Both men appeared delighted that she had brought upon herself just punishment. Dynamite sat in the remains of the fire long enough to get burnt, and then she got up and meekly allowed Withers to throw a tarpaulin and a roll of blankets over her and tie them fast.

Lake and Withers were sweating freely when this job was finished.

“Say, is that a usual morning’s task with the pack-animals?” asked Shefford.

“They’re all pretty decent to-day, except Dynamite,” replied Withers. “She’s got to be worked out.”

Shefford felt both amusement and consternation. The sun was just rising over the ramparts of the canyon, and he had already seen more difficult and dangerous work accomplished than half a dozen men of his type could do in a whole day. He liked the outlook of his new duty as Withers’s assistant, but he felt helplessly inefficient. Still, all he needed was experience. He passed over what he anticipated would be pain and peril — the cost was of no moment.

Soon the pack-train was on the move, with the Indian leading. This morning Nack-yal began his strange swinging off to the left, precisely as he had done the day before. It got to be annoying to Shefford, and he lost patience with the mustang and jerked him sharply round. This, however, had no great effect upon Nack-yal.

As the train headed straight up the canyon Joe Lake dropped back to ride beside Shefford. The Mormon had been amiable and friendly.

“Flock of deer up that draw,” he said, pointing up a narrow side canyon.

Shefford gazed to see a half-dozen small, brown, long-eared objects, very like burros, watching the pack-train pass.

“Are they deer?” he asked, delightedly.

“Sure are,” replied Joe, sincerely. “Get down and shoot one. There’s a rifle in your saddle-sheath.”

Shefford had already discovered that he had been armed this morning, a matter which had caused him reflection. These animals certainly looked like deer; he had seen a few deer, though not in their native wild haunts; and he experienced the thrill of the hunter. Dismounting, he drew the rifle out of the sheath and started toward the little canyon.

“Hyar! Where you going with that gun?” yelled Withers. “That’s a bunch of burros.... Joe’s up to his old tricks. Shefford, look out for Joe!”

Rather sheepishly Shefford returned to his mustang and sheathed the rifle, and then took a long look at the animals up the draw. They, resembled deer, but upon second glance they surely were burros.

“Durn me! Now if I didn’t think they sure were deer!” exclaimed Joe. He appeared absolutely sincere and innocent. Shefford hardly knew how to take this likable Mormon, but vowed he would be on his guard in the future.

Nas Ta Bega soon led the pack-train toward the left wall of the canyon, and evidently intended to scale it. Shefford could not see any trail, and the wall appeared steep and insurmountable. But upon nearing the cliff he saw a narrow broken trail leading zigzag up over smooth rock, weathered slope, and through cracks.

“Spread out, and careful now!” yelled Withers.

The need of both advices soon became manifest to Shefford. The burros started stones rolling, making danger for those below. Shefford dismounted and led Nack-yal and turned aside many a rolling rock. The Indian and the burros, with the red mule leading, climbed steadily. But the mustangs had trouble. Joe’s spirited bay had to be coaxed to face the ascent; Nack-yal balked at every difficult step; and Dynamite slipped on a flat slant of rock and slid down forty feet. Withers and Lake with ropes hauled the mare out of the dangerous position. Shefford, who brought up the rear, saw all the action, and it was exciting, but his pleasure in the climb was spoiled by sight of blood and hair on the stones. The ascent was crooked, steep, and long, and when Shefford reached the top of the wall he was glad to rest. It made him gasp to look down and see what he had surmounted. The canyon floor, green and level, lay a thousand feet below; and the wild burros which had followed on the trail looked like rabbits.

Shefford mounted presently, and rode out upon a wide, smooth trail leading into a cedar forest. There were bunches of gray sage in the open places. The air was cool and crisp, laden with a sweet fragrance. He saw Lake and Withers bobbing along, now on one side of the trail, now on the other, and they kept to a steady trot. Occasionally the Indian and his bright-red saddle-blanket showed in an opening of the cedars.

It was level country, and there was nothing for Shefford to see except cedar and sage, an outcropping of red rock in places, and the winding trail. Mocking-birds made melody everywhere. Shefford seemed full of a strange pleasure, and the hours flew by. Nack-yal still wanted to be everlastingly turning off the trail, and, moreover, now he wanted to go faster. He was eager, restless, dissatisfied.

At noon the pack-train descended into a deep draw, well covered with cedar and sage. There was plenty of grass and shade, but no water. Shefford was surprised to see that every pack was removed; however, the roll of blankets was left on Dynamite.

The men made a fire and began to cook a noonday meal. Shefford, tired and warm, sat in a shady spot and watched. He had become all eyes. He had almost forgotten Fay Larkin; he had forgotten his trouble; and the present seemed sweet and full. Presently his ears were filled by a pattering roar and, looking up the draw, he saw two streams of sheep and goats coming down. Soon an Indian shepherd appeared, riding a fine mustang. A cream-colored colt bounded along behind, and presently a shaggy dog came in sight. The Indian dismounted at the camp, and his flock spread by in two white and black streams. The dog went with them. Withers and Joe shook hands with the Indian, whom Joe called “Navvy,” and Shefford lost no time in doing likewise. Then Nas Ta Bega came in, and he and the Navajo talked. When the meal was ready all of them sat down round the canvas. The shepherd did not tie his horse.

Presently Shefford noticed that Nack-yal had returned to camp and was acting strangely. Evidently he was attracted by the Indian’s mustang or the cream-colored colt. At any rate, Nack-yal hung around, tossed his head, whinnied in a low, nervous manner, and looked strangely eager and wild. Shefford was at first amused, then curious. Nack-yal approached too close to the mother of the colt, and she gave him a sounding kick in the ribs. Nack-yal uttered a plaintive snort and backed away, to stand, crestfallen, with all his eagerness and fire vanished.

Nas Ta Bega pointed to the mustang and said something in his own tongue. Then Withers addressed the visiting Indian, and they exchanged some words, whereupon the trader turned to Shefford:

“I bought Nack-yal from this Indian three years ago. This mare is Nack-yal’s mother. He was born over here to the south. That’s why he always swung left off the trail. He wanted to go home. Just now he recognized his mother and she whaled away and gave him a whack for his pains. She’s got a colt now and probably didn’t recognize Nack-yal. But he’s broken-hearted.”

The trader laughed, and Joe said, “You can’t tell what these durn mustangs will do.” Shefford felt sorry for Nack-yal, and when it came time to saddle him again found him easier to handle than ever before. Nack-yal stood with head down, broken-spirited.

Shefford was the first to ride up out of the draw, and once upon the top of the ridge he halted to gaze, wide-eyed and entranced. A rolling, endless plain sloped down beneath him, and led him on to a distant round-topped mountain. To the right a red canyon opened its jagged jaws, and away to the north rose a whorled and strange sea of curved ridges, crags, and domes.

Nas Ta Bega rode up then, leading the pack-train.

“Bi Nai, that is Na-tsis-an,” he said, pointing to the mountain. “Navajo Mountain. And there in the north are the canyon.”

Shefford followed the Indian down the trail and soon lost sight of that wide green-and-red wilderness. Nas Ta Bega turned at an intersecting trail, rode down into the canyon, and climbed out on the other side. Shefford got a glimpse now and then of the black dome of the mountain, but for the most part the distant points of the country were hidden. They crossed many trails, and went up and down the sides of many shallow canyon. Troops of wild mustangs whistled at them, stood on ridge-tops to watch, and then dashed away with manes and tails flying.

Withers rode forward presently and halted the pack-train. He had some conversation with Nas Ta Bega, whereupon the Indian turned his horse and trotted back, to disappear in the cedars.

“I’m some worried,” explained Withers. “Joe thinks he saw a bunch of horsemen trailing us. My eyes are bad and I can’t see far. The Indian will find out. I took a roundabout way to reach the village because I’m always dodging Shadd.”

This communication lent an added zest to the journey. Shefford could hardly believe the truth that his eyes and his ears brought to his consciousness. He turned in behind Withers and rode down the rough trail, helping the mustang all in his power. It occurred to him that Nack-yal had been entirely different since that meeting with his mother in the draw. He turned no more off the trail; he answered readily to the rein; he did not look afar from every ridge. Shefford conceived a liking for the mustang.

Withers turned sidewise in his saddle and let his mustang pick the way.

“Another time we’ll go up round the base of the mountain, where you can look down on the grandest scene in the world,” said he. “Two hundred miles of wind-worn rock, all smooth and bare, without a single straight line — canyon, caves, bridges — the most wonderful country in the world! Even the Indians haven’t explored it. It’s haunted, for them, and they have strange gods. The Navajos will hunt on this side of the mountain, but not on the other. That north side is consecrated ground. My wife has long been trying to get the Navajos to tell her the secret of Nonnezoshe. Nonnezoshe means Rainbow Bridge. The Indians worship it, but as far as she can find out only a few have ever seen it. I imagine it’d be worth some trouble.”

“Maybe that’s the bridge Venters talked about — the one overarching the entrance to Surprise Valley,” Said Shefford.

“It might be,” replied the trader. “You’ve got a good chance of finding out. Nas Ta Bega is the man. You stick to that Indian. ... Well, we start down here into this canyon, and we go down some, I reckon. In half an hour you’ll see sago-lilies and Indian paint-brush and vermilion cactus.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

About the middle of the afternoon the pack-train and its drivers arrived at the hidden Mormon village. Nas Ta Bega had not returned from his scout back along the trail.

Shefford’s sensibilities had all been overstrained, but he had left in him enthusiasm and appreciation that made the situation of this village a fairyland. It was a valley, a canyon floor, so long that he could not see the end, and perhaps a quarter of a mile wide. The air was hot, still, and sweetly odorous of unfamiliar flowers. Pinon and cedar trees surrounded the little log and stone houses, and along the walls of the canyon stood sharp-pointed, dark-green spruce-trees. These walls were singular of shape and color. They were not imposing in height, but they waved like the long, undulating swell of a sea. Every foot of surface was perfectly smooth, and the long curved lines of darker tinge that streaked the red followed the rounded line of the slope at the top. Far above, yet overhanging, were great yellow crags and peaks, and between these, still higher, showed the pine-fringed slope of Navajo Mountain with snow in the sheltered places, and glistening streams, like silver threads, running down.

All this Shefford noticed as he entered the valley from round a corner of wall. Upon nearer view he saw and heard a host of children, who, looking up to see the intruders, scattered like frightened quail. Long gray grass covered the ground, and here and there wide, smooth paths had been worn. A swift and murmuring brook ran through the middle of the valley, and its banks were bordered with flowers.

Withers led the way to one side near the wall, where a clump of cedar-trees and a dark, swift spring boiling out of the rocks and banks of amber moss with purple blossoms made a beautiful camp site. Here the mustangs were unsaddled and turned loose without hobbles. It was certainly unlikely that they would leave such a spot. Some of the burros were unpacked, and the others Withers drove off into the village.

“Sure’s pretty nice,” said Joe, wiping his sweaty face. “I’ll never want to leave. It suits me to lie on this moss.... Take a drink of that spring.”

Shefford complied with alacrity and found the water cool and sweet, and he seemed to feel it all through him. Then he returned to the mossy bank. He did not reply to Joe. In fact, all his faculties were absorbed in watching and feeling, and he lay there long after Joe went off to the village. The murmur of water, the hum of bees, the songs of strange birds, the sweet, warm air, the dreamy summer somnolence of the valley — all these added drowsiness to Shefford’s weary lassitude, and he fell asleep. When he awoke Nas Ta Bega was sitting near him and Joe was busy near a camp-fire.

“Hello, Nas Ta Bega!” said Shefford. “Was there any one trailing us?”

The Navajo nodded.

Joe raised his head and with forceful brevity said, “Shadd.”

“Shadd!” echoed Shefford, remembering the dark, sinister face of his visitor that night in the Sagi. “Joe, is it serious — his trailing us?”

“Well, I don’t know how durn serious it is, but I’m scared to death,” replied Lake. “He and his gang will hold us up somewhere on the way home.”

Shefford regarded Joe with both concern and doubt. Joe’s words were at variance with his looks.

“Say, pard, can you shoot a rifle?” queried Joe.

“Yes. I’m a fair shot at targets.”

The Mormon nodded his head as if pleased. “That’s good. These outlaws are all poor shots with a rifle. So ‘m I. But I can handle a six-shooter. I reckon we’ll make Shadd sweat if he pushes us.”

Withers returned, driving the burros, all of which had been unpacked down to the saddles. Two gray-bearded men accompanied him. One of them appeared to be very old and venerable, and walked with a stick. The other had a sad-lined face and kind, mild blue eyes. Shefford observed that Lake seemed unusually respectful. Withers introduced these Mormons merely as Smith and Henninger. They were very cordial and pleasant in their greetings to Shefford. Presently another, somewhat younger, man joined the group, a stalwart, jovial fellow with ruddy face. There was certainly no mistaking his kindly welcome as he shook Shefford’s hand. His name was Beal. The three stood round the camp-fire for a while, evidently glad of the presence of fellow-men and to hear news from the outside. Finally they went away, taking Joe with them. Withers took up the task of getting supper where Joe had been made to leave it.

“Shefford, listen,” he said, presently, as he knelt before the fire. “I told them right out that you’d been a Gentile clergyman — that you’d gone back on your religion. It impressed them and you’ve been well received. I’ll tell the same thing over at Stonebridge. You’ll get in right. Of course I don’t expect they’ll make a Mormon of you. But they’ll try to. Meanwhile you can be square and friendly all the time you’re trying to find your Fay Larkin. To-morrow you’ll meet some of the women. They’re good souls, but, like any women, crazy for news. Think what it is to be shut up in here between these walls!”

“Withers, I’m intensely interested,” replied Shefford, “and excited, too. Shall we stay here long?”

“I’ll stay a couple of days, then go to Stonebridge with Joe. He’ll come back here, and when you both feel like leaving, and if Nas Ta Bega thinks it safe, you’ll take a trail over to some Indian hogans and pack me out a load of skins and blankets.... My boy, you’ve all the time there is, and I wish you luck. This isn’t a bad place to loaf. I always get sentimental over here. Maybe it’s the women. Some of them are pretty, and one of them — Shefford, they call her the Sago Lily. Her first name is Mary, I’m told. Don’t know her last name. She’s lovely. And I’ll bet you forget Fay Larkin in a flash. Only — be careful. You drop in here with rather peculiar credentials, so to speak — as my helper and as a man with no religion! You’ll not only be fully trusted, but you’ll be welcome to these lonely women. So be careful. Remember it’s my secret belief they are sealed wives and are visited occasionally at night by their husbands. I don’t know this, but I believe it. And you’re not supposed to dream of that.”

“How many men in the village?” asked Shefford.

“Three. You met them.”

“Have they wives?” asked Shefford, curiously.

“Wives! Well, I guess. But only one each that I know of. Joe Lake is the only unmarried Mormon I’ve met.”

“And no men — strangers, cowboys, outlaws — ever come to this village?”

“Except to Indians, it seems to be a secret so far,” replied the trader, earnestly. “But it can’t be kept secret. I’ve said that time after time over in Stonebridge. With Mormons it’s ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”

“What’ll happen when outsiders do learn and ride in here?”

“There’ll be trouble — maybe bloodshed. Mormon women are absolutely good, but they’re human, and want and need a little life. And, strange to say, Mormon men are pig-headedly jealous.... Why, if some of the cowboys I knew in Durango would ride over here there’d simply be hell. But that’s a long way, and probably this village will be deserted before news of it ever reaches Colorado. There’s more danger of Shadd and his gang coming in. Shadd’s half Piute. He must know of this place. And he’s got some white outlaws in his gang.... Come on. Grub’s ready, and I’m too hungry to talk.”

Later, when shadows began to gather in the valley and the lofty peaks above were gold in the sunset glow, Withers left camp to look after the straying mustangs, and Shefford strolled to and fro under the cedars. The lights and shades in the Sagi that first night had moved him to enthusiastic watchfulness, but here they were so weird and beautiful that he was enraptured. He actually saw great shafts of gold and shadows of purple streaming from the peaks down into the valley. It was day on the heights and twilight in the valley. The swiftly changing colors were like rainbows.

While he strolled up and down several women came to the spring and filled their buckets. They wore shawls or hoods and their garments were somber, but, nevertheless, they appeared to have youth and comeliness. They saw him, looked at him curiously, and then, without speaking, went back on the well-trodden path. Presently down the path appeared a woman — a girl in lighter garb. It was almost white. She was shapely and walked with free, graceful step, reminding him of the Indian girl, Glen Naspa. This one wore a hood shaped like a huge sunbonnet and it concealed her face. She carried a bucket. When she reached the spring and went down the few stone steps Shefford saw that she did not have on shoes. As she braced herself to lift the bucket her bare foot clung to the mossy stone. It was a strong, sinewy, beautiful foot, instinct with youth. He was curious enough, he thought, but the awakening artist in him made him more so. She dragged at the full bucket and had difficulty in lifting it out of the hole. Shefford strode forward and took the bucket-handle from her.

“Won’t you let me help you?” he said, lifting the bucket. “Indeed — it’s very heavy.”

“Oh — thank you,” she said, without raising her head. Her voice seemed singularly young and sweet. He had not heard a voice like it. She moved down the path and he walked beside her. He felt embarrassed, yet more curious than ever; he wanted to say something, to turn and look at her, but he kept on for a dozen paces without making up his mind.

Finally he said: “Do you really carry this heavy bucket? Why, it makes my arm ache.”

“Twice every day — morning and evening,” she replied. “I’m very strong.”

Then he stole a look out of the corner of his eye, and, seeing that her face was hidden from him by the hood, he turned to observe her at better advantage. A long braid of hair hung down her back. In the twilight it gleamed dull gold. She came up to his shoulder. The sleeve nearest him was rolled up to her elbow, revealing a fine round arm. Her hand, like her foot, was brown, strong, and well shaped. It was a hand that had been developed by labor. She was full-bosomed, yet slender, and she walked with a free stride that made Shefford admire and wonder.

They passed several of the little stone and log houses, and women greeted them as they went by and children peered shyly from the doors. He kept trying to think of something to say, and, failing in that, determined to have one good look under the hood before he left her.

“You walk lame,” she said, solicitously. “Let me carry the bucket now — please. My house is near.”

“Am I lame?... Guess so, a little,” he replied. “It was a hard ride for me. But I’ll carry the bucket just the same.”

They went on under some pinon-trees, down a path to a little house identical with the others, except that it had a stone porch. Shefford smelled fragrant wood-smoke and saw a column curling from the low, flat, stone chimney. Then he set the bucket down on the porch. “Thank you, Mr. Shefford,” she said. “You know my name?” he asked. “Yes. Mr. Withers spoke to my nearest neighbor and she told me.”

“Oh, I see. And you—”

He did not go on and she did not reply. When she stepped upon the porch and turned he was able to see under the hood. The face there was in shadow, and for that very reason he answered to ungovernable impulse and took a step closer to her. Dark, grave, sad eyes looked down at him, and he felt as if he could never draw his own glance away. He seemed not to see the rest of her face, and yet felt that it was lovely. Then a downward movement of the hood hid from him the strange eyes and the shadowy loveliness.

“I — I beg your pardon,” he said, quickly, drawing back. “I’m rude. ... Withers told me about a girl he called — he said looked like a sago-lily. That’s no excuse to stare under your hood. But I — I was curious. I wondered if—”

He hesitated, realizing how foolish his talk was. She stood a moment, probably watching him, but he could not be sure, for her face was hidden.

“They call me that,” she said. “But my name is Mary.”

“Mary — what?” he asked.

“Just Mary,” she said, simply. “Good night.”

He did not say good night and could not have told why. She took up the bucket and went into the dark house. Shefford hurried away into the gathering darkness.

VI. IN THE HIDDEN VALLEY

SHEFFORD HAD HARDLY seen her face, yet he was more interested in a woman than he had ever been before. Still, he reflected, as he returned to camp, he had been under a long strain, he was unduly excited by this new and adventurous life, and these, with the mystery of this village, were perhaps accountable for a state of mind that could not last.

He rolled in his blankets on the soft bed of moss and he saw the stars through the needle-like fringe of the pinyons. It seemed impossible to fall asleep. The two domed peaks split the sky, and back of them, looming dark and shadowy, rose the mountain. There was something cold, austere, and majestic in their lofty presence, and they made him feel alone, yet not alone. He raised himself to see the quiet forms of Withers and Nas Ta Bega prone in the starlight, and their slow, deep breathing was that of tired men. A bell on a mustang rang somewhere off in the valley and gave out a low, strange, reverberating echo from wall to wall. When it ceased a silence set in that was deader than any silence he had ever felt, but gradually he became aware of the low murmur of the brook. For the rest there was no sound of wind, no bark of dog or yelp of coyote, no sound of voice in the village.

He tried to sleep, but instead thought of this girl who was called the Sago Lily. He recalled everything incident to their meeting and the walk to her home. Her swift, free step, her graceful poise, her shapely form — the long braid of hair, dull gold in the twilight, the beautiful bare foot and the strong round arm — these he thought of and recalled vividly. But of her face he had no idea except the shadowy, haunting loveliness, and that grew more and more difficult to remember. The tone of her voice and what she had said — how the one had thrilled him and the other mystified! It was her voice that had most attracted him. There was something in it besides music — what, he could not tell — sadness, depth, something like that in Nas Ta Bega’s beauty springing from disuse. But this seemed absurd. Why should he imagine her voice one that had not been used as freely as any other woman’s? She was a Mormon; very likely, almost surely, she was a sealed wife. His interest, too, was absurd, and he tried to throw it off, or imagine it one he might have felt in any other of these strange women of the hidden village.

But Shefford’s intelligence and his good sense, which became operative when he was fully roused and set the situation clearly before his eyes, had no effect upon his deeper, mystic, and primitive feelings. He saw the truth and he felt something that he could not name. He would not be a fool, but there was no harm in dreaming. And unquestionably, beyond all doubt, the dream and the romance that had lured him to the wilderness were here; hanging over him like the shadows of the great peaks. His heart swelled with emotion when he thought of how the black and incessant despair of the past was gone. So he embraced any attraction that made him forget and think and feel; some instinct stronger than intelligence bade him drift.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Joe’s rolling voice awoke him next morning and he rose with a singular zest. When or where in his life had he awakened in such a beautiful place? Almost he understood why Venters and Bess had been haunted by memories of Surprise Valley. The morning was clear, cool, sweet; the peaks were dim and soft in rosy cloud; shafts of golden sunlight shot down into the purple shadows. Mocking-birds were singing. His body was sore and tired from the unaccustomed travel, but his heart was full, happy. His spirit wanted to run, and he knew there was something out there waiting to meet it. The Indian and the trader and the Mormon all meant more to him this morning. He had grown a little overnight. Nas Ta Bega’s deep “Bi Nai” rang in his ears, and the smiles of Withers and Joe were greetings. He had friends; he had work; and there was rich, strange, and helpful life to live. There was even a difference in the mustang Nack-yal. He came readily; he did not look wild; he had a friendly eye; and Shefford liked him more.

“What is there to do?” asked Shefford, feeling equal to a hundred tasks.

“No work,” replied the trader, with a laugh, and he drew Shefford aside, “I’m in no hurry. I like it here. And Joe never wants to leave. To-day you can meet the women. Make yourself popular. I’ve already made you that. These women are most all young and lonesome. Talk to them. Make them like you. Then some day you may be safe to ask questions. Last night I wanted to ask old Mother Smith if she ever heard the name Fay Larkin. But I thought better of it. If there’s a girl here or at Stonebridge of that name we’ll learn it. If there’s mystery we’d better go slow. Mormons are hell on secret and mystery, and to pry into their affairs is to queer yourself. My advice is — just be as nice as you can be, and let things happen.”

Fay Larkin! All in a night Shefford had forgotten her. Why? He pondered over the matter, and then the old thrill, the old desire, came back.

“Shefford, what do you think Nas Ta Bega said to me last night?” asked Withers in lower voice.

“Haven’t any idea,” replied Shefford, curiously.

“We were sitting beside the fire. I saw you walking under the cedars. You seemed thoughtful. That keen Indian watched you, and he said to me in Navajo, ‘Bi Nai has lost his God. He has come far to find a wife. Nas Ta Bega is his brother.’... He meant he’ll find both God and wife for you. I don’t know about that, but I say take the Indian as he thinks he is — your brother. Long before I knew Nas Ta Bega well my wife used to tell me about him. He’s a sage and a poet — the very spirit of this desert. He’s worth cultivating for his own sake. But more — remember, if Fay Larkin is still shut in that valley the Navajo will find her for you.”

“I shall take Nas Ta Bega as my brother — and be proud,” replied Shefford.

“There’s another thing. Do you intend to confide in Joe?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, it might be a good plan. But wait until you know him better and he knows you. He’s ready to fight for you now. He’s taken your trouble to heart. You wouldn’t think Joe is deeply religious. Yet he is. He may never breathe a word about religion to you.... Now, Shefford, go ahead. You’ve struck a trail. It’s rough, but it’ll make a man of you. It’ll lead somewhere.”

“I’m singularly fortunate — I — who had lost all friends. Withers, I am grateful. I’ll prove it. I’ll show—”

Withers’s upheld hand checked further speech, and Shefford realized that beneath the rough exterior of this desert trader there was fine feeling. These men of crude toil and wild surroundings were beginning to loom up large in Shefford’s mind.

The day began leisurely. The men were yet at breakfast when the women of the village began to come one by one to the spring. Joe Lake made friendly and joking remarks to each. And as each one passed on down the path he poised a biscuit in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, and with his head cocked sidewise like an owl he said, “Reckon I’ve got to get me a woman like her.”

Shefford saw and heard, yet he was all the time half unconsciously watching with strange eagerness for a white figure to appear. At last he saw her — the same girl with the hood, the same swift step. A little shock or quiver passed over him, and at the moment all that was explicable about it was something associated with regret.

Joe Lake whistled and stared.

“I haven’t met her,” he muttered.

“That’s the Sago Lily,” said Withers.

“Reckon I’m going to carry that bucket,” went on Joe.

“And queer yourself with all the other women who’ve been to the spring? Don’t do it, Joe,” advised the trader.

“But her bucket’s bigger,” protested Joe, weakly.

“That’s true. But you ought to know Mormons. If she’d come first, all right. As she didn’t — why, don’t single her out.”

Joe kept his seat. The girl came to the spring. A low “good morning” came from under the hood. Then she filled her bucket and started home. Shefford observed that this time she wore moccasins and she carried the heavy bucket with ease. When she disappeared he had again the vague, inexplicable sensation of regret.

Joe Lake breathed heavily. “Reckon I’ve got to get me a woman like her,” he said. But the former jocose tone was lacking and he appeared thoughtful.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Withers first took Shefford to the building used for a school. It was somewhat larger than the other houses, had only one room with two doors and several windows. It was full of children, of all sizes and ages, sitting on rude board benches.

There were half a hundred of them, sturdy, healthy, rosy boys and girls, clad in home-made garments. The young woman teacher was as embarrassed as her pupils were shy, and the visitors withdrew without having heard a word of lessons.

Withers then called upon Smith, Henninger, and Beal, and their wives. Shefford found himself cordially received, and what little he did say showed him how he would be listened to when he cared to talk. These folk were plain and kindly, and he found that there was nothing about them to dislike. The men appeared mild and quiet, and when not conversing seemed austere. The repose of the women was only on the surface; underneath he felt their intensity. Especially in many of the younger women, whom he met in the succeeding hour, did he feel this power of restrained emotion. This surprised him, as did also the fact that almost every one of them was attractive and some of them were exceedingly pretty. He became so interested in them all as a whole that he could not individualize one. They were as widely different in appearance and temperament as women of any other class, but it seemed to Shefford that one common trait united them — and it was a strange, checked yearning for something that he could not discover. Was it happiness? They certainly seemed to be happy, far more so than those millions of women who were chasing phantoms. Were they really sealed wives, as Withers believed, and was this unnatural wife-hood responsible for the strange intensity? At any rate he returned to camp with the conviction that he had stumbled upon a remarkable situation.

He had been told the last names of only three women, and their husbands were in the village. The names of the others were Ruth, Rebecca, Joan — he could not recall them all. They were the mothers of these beautiful children. The fathers, as far as he was concerned, were as intangible as myths. Shefford was an educated clergyman, a man of the world, and, as such, knew women in his way. Mormons might be strange and different, yet the fundamental truth was that all over the world mothers of children were wives; there was a relation between wife and mother that did not need to be named to be felt; and he divined from this that, whatever the situation of these lonely and hidden women, they knew themselves to be wives. Shefford absolutely satisfied himself on that score. If they were miserable they certainly did not show it, and the question came to him how just was the criticism of uninformed men? His judgment of Mormons had been established by what he had heard and read, rather than what he knew. He wanted now to have an open mind. He had studied the totemism and exogamy of the primitive races, and here was his opportunity to understand polygamy. One wife for one man — that was the law. Mormons broke it openly; Gentiles broke it secretly. Mormons acknowledged all their wives and protected their children; Gentiles acknowledged one wife only. Unquestionably the Mormons were wrong, but were not the Gentiles still more wrong?

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

The following day Joe Lake appeared reluctant to start for Stonebridge with Withers.

“Joe, you’d better come along,” said the trader, dryly. “I reckon you’ve seen a little too much of the Sago Lily.”

Lake offered no reply, but it was evident from his sober face that Withers had not hit short of the mark. Withers rode off, with a parting word to Shefford, and finally Joe somberly mounted his bay and trotted down the valley. As Nas Ta Bega had gone off somewhere to visit Indians, Shefford was left alone.

He went into the village and made himself useful and agreeable. He made friends with the children and he talked to the women until he was hoarse. Their ignorance of the world was a spur to him, and never in his life had he had such an attentive audience. And as he showed no curiosity, asked no difficult questions, gradually what reserve he had noted wore away, and the end of the day saw him on a footing with them that Withers had predicted.

By the time several like days had passed it seemed from the interest and friendliness of these women that he might have lived long among them. He was possessed of wit and eloquence and information, which he freely gave, and not with selfish motive. He liked these women; he liked to see the somber shade pass from their faces, to see them brighten. He had met the girl Mary at the spring and along the path, but he had not yet seen her face. He was always looking for her, hoping to meet her, and confessed to himself that the best of the day for him were the morning and evening visits she made to the spring. Nevertheless, for some reason hard to divine, he was reluctant to seek her deliberately.

Always while he had listened to her neighbors’ talk, he had hoped they might let fall something about her. But they did not. He received an impression that she was not so intimate with the others as he had supposed. They all made one big family. Still, she seemed a little outside. He could bring no proofs to strengthen this idea. He merely felt it, and many of his feelings were independent of intelligent reason. Something had been added to curiosity, that was sure.

It was his habit to call upon Mother Smith in the afternoons. From the first her talk to him hinted of a leaning toward thought of making him a Mormon. Her husband and the other men took up her cue and spoke of their religion, casually at first, but gradually opening their minds to free and simple discussion of their faith. Shefford lent respectful attention. He would rather have been a Mormon than an atheist, and apparently they considered him the latter, and were earnest to save his soul. Shefford knew that he could never be one any more than the other. He was just at sea. But he listened, and he found them simple in faith, blind, perhaps, but loyal and good. It was noteworthy that Mother Smith happened to be the only woman in the village who had ever mentioned religion to him. She was old, of a past generation; the young women belonged to the present. Shefford pondered the significant difference.

Every day made more steadfast his impression of the great mystery that was like a twining shadow round these women, yet in the same time many little ideas shifted and many new characteristics became manifest. This last was of course the result of acquaintance; he was learning more about the villagers. He gathered from keen interpretation of subtle words and looks that here in this lonely village, the same as in all the rest of the world where women were together, there were cliques, quarrels, dislikes, loves, and jealousies. The truth, once known to him, made him feel natural and fortified his confidence to meet the demands of an increasingly interesting position. He discovered, with a somewhat grim amusement, that a clergyman’s experience in a church full of women had not been entirely useless.

One afternoon he let fall a careless remark that was a subtle question in regard to the girl Mary, whom Withers called the Sago Lily. In response he received an answer couched in the sweet poisoned honey of woman’s jealousy. He said no more. Certain ideas of his were strengthened, and straightway he became thoughtful.

That afternoon late, as he did his camp chores, he watched for her. But she did not come. Then he decided to go to see her. But even the decision and the strange thrill it imparted did not change his reluctance.

Twilight was darkening the valley when he reached her house, and the shadows were thick under the pinyons. There was no light in the door or window. He saw a white shape on the porch, and as he came down the path it rose. It was the girl Mary, and she appeared startled.

“Good evening,” he said. “It’s Shefford. May I stay and talk a little while?”

She was silent for so long that he began to feel awkward.

“I’d be glad to have you,” she replied, finally.

There was a bench on the porch, but he preferred to sit upon a blanket on the step.

“I’ve been getting acquainted with everybody — except you,” he went on.

“I have been here,” she replied.

That might have been a woman’s speech, but it certainly had been made in a girl’s voice. She was neither shy nor embarrassed nor self-conscious. As she stood back from him he could not see her face in the dense twilight.

“I’ve been wanting to call on you.”

She made some slight movement. Shefford felt a strange calm, yet he knew the moment was big and potent.

“Won’t you sit here?” he asked.

She complied with his wish, and then he saw her face, though dimly, in the twilight. And it struck him mute. But he had no glimpse such as had flashed upon him from under her hood that other night. He thought of a white flower in shadow, and received his first impression of the rare and perfect lily Withers had said graced the wild canyon. She was only a girl. She sat very still, looking straight before her, and seemed to be waiting, listening. Shefford saw the quick rise and fall of her bosom.

“I want to talk,” he began, swiftly, hoping to put her at her ease. “Every one here has been good to me and I’ve talked — oh, for hours and hours. But the thing in my mind I haven’t spoken of. I’ve never asked any questions. That makes my part so strange. I want to tell why I came out here. I need some one who will keep my secret, and perhaps help me.... Would you?”

“Yes, if I could,” she replied.

“You see I’ve got to trust you, or one of these other women. You’re all Mormons. I don’t mean that’s anything against you. I believe you’re all good and noble. But the fact makes — well, makes a liberty of speech impossible. What can I do?”

Her silence probably meant that she did not know. Shefford sensed less strain in her and more excitement. He believed he was on the right track and did not regret his impulse. Even had he regretted it he would have gone on, for opposed to caution and intelligence was his driving mystic force.

Then he told her the truth about his boyhood, his ambition to be an artist, his renunciation to his father’s hope, his career as a clergyman, his failure in religion, and the disgrace that had made him a wanderer.

“Oh — I’m sorry!” she said. The faint starlight shone on her face, in her eyes, and if he ever saw beauty and soul he saw them then. She seemed deeply moved. She had forgotten herself. She betrayed girlhood then — all the quick sympathy, the wonder, the sweetness of a heart innocent and untutored. She looked at him with great, starry, questioning eyes, as if they had just become aware of his presence, as if a man had been strange to her.

“Thank you. It’s good of you to be sorry,” he said. “My instinct guided me right. Perhaps you’ll be my friend.”

“I will be — if I can,” she said.

“But CAN you be?”

“I don’t know. I never had a friend. I... But, sir, I mustn’t talk of myself.... Oh, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

How strange the pathos of her voice! Almost he believed she was in need of help or sympathy or love. But he could not wholly trust a judgment formed from observation of a class different from hers.

“Maybe you CAN help me. Let’s see,” he said. “I don’t seek to make you talk of yourself. But — you’re a human being — a girl — almost a woman. You’re not dumb. But even a nun can talk.”

“A nun? What is that?”

“Well — a nun is a sister of mercy — a woman consecrated to God — who has renounced the world. In some ways you Mormon women here resemble nuns. It is sacrifice that nails you in this lonely valley.... You see — how I talk! One word, one thought brings another, and I speak what perhaps should be unsaid. And it’s hard, because I feel I could unburden myself to you.”

“Tell me what you want,” she said.

Shefford hesitated, and became aware of the rapid pound of his heart. More than anything he wanted to be fair to this girl. He saw that she was warming to his influence. Her shadowy eyes were fixed upon him. The starlight, growing brighter, shone on her golden hair and white face.

“I’ll tell you presently,” he said. “I’ve trusted you. I’ll trust you with all.... But let me have my own time. This is so strange a thing, my wanting to confide in you. It’s selfish, perhaps. I have my own ax to grind. I hope I won’t wrong you. That’s why I’m going to be perfectly frank. I might wait for days to get better acquainted. But the impulse is on me. I’ve been so interested in all you Mormon women. The fact — the meaning of this hidden village is so — so terrible to me. But that’s none of my business. I have spent my afternoons and evenings with these women at the different cottages. You do not mingle with them. They are lonely, but have not such loneliness as yours. I have passed here every night. No light — no sound. I can’t help thinking. Don’t censure me or be afraid or draw within yourself just because I must think. I may be all wrong. But I’m curious. I wonder about you. Who are you? Mary — Mary what? Maybe I really don’t want to know. I came with selfish motive and now I’d like to — to — what shall I say? Make your life a little less lonely for the while I’m here. That’s all. It needn’t offend. And if you accept it, how much easier I can tell you my secret. You are a Mormon and I — well, I am only a wanderer in these wilds. But — we might help each other.... Have I made a mistake?”

“No — no,” she cried, almost wildly.

“We can be friends then. You will trust me, help me?”

“Yes, if I dare.”

“Surely you may dare what the other women would?”

She was silent.

And the wistfulness of her silence touched him. He felt contrition. He did not stop to analyze his own emotions, but he had an inkling that once this strange situation was ended he would have food for reflection. What struck him most now was the girl’s blanched face, the strong, nervous clasp of her hands, the visible tumult of her bosom. Excitement alone could not be accountable for this. He had not divined the cause for such agitation. He was puzzled, troubled, and drawn irresistibly. He had not said what he had planned to say. The moment had given birth to his speech, and it had flowed. What was guiding him?

“Mary,” he said, earnestly, “tell me — have you mother, father, sister, brother? Something prompts me to ask that.”

“All dead — gone — years ago,” she answered.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen, I think. I’m not sure.”

“You ARE lonely.”

His words were gentle and divining.

“O God!” she cried. “Lonely!”

Then as a man in a dream he beheld her weeping. There was in her the unconsciousness of a child and the passion of a woman. He gazed out into the dark shadows and up at the white stars, and then at the bowed head with its mass of glinting hair. But her agitation was no longer strange to him. A few gentle and kind words had proved her undoing. He knew then that whatever her life was, no kindness or sympathy entered it. Presently she recovered, and sat as before, only whiter of face it seemed, and with something tragic in her dark eyes. She was growing cold and still again, aloof, more like those other Mormon women.

“I understand,” he said. “I’m not sorry I spoke. I felt your trouble, whatever it is.... Do not retreat into your cold shell, I beg of you.... Let me trust you with my secret.”

He saw her shake out of the cold apathy. She wavered. He felt an inexplicable sweetness in the power his voice seemed to have upon her. She bowed her head in acquiescence. And Shefford began his story. Did she grow still, like stone, or was that only his vivid imagination? He told her of Venters and Bess — of Lassiter and Jane — of little Fay Larkin — of the romance, and then the tragedy of Surprise Valley.

“So, when my Church disowned me,” he concluded, “I conceived the idea of wandering into the wilds of Utah to save Fay Larkin from that canyon prison. It grew to be the best and strongest desire of my life. I think if I could save her that it would save me. I never loved any girl. I can’t say that I love Fay Larkin. How could I when I’ve never seen her — when she’s only a dream girl? But I believe if she were to become a reality — a flesh-and-blood girl — that I would love her.”

That was more than Shefford had ever confessed to any one, and it stirred him to his depths. Mary bent her head on her hands in strange, stonelike rigidity.

“So here I am in the canyon country,” he continued. “Withers tells me it is a country of rainbows, both in the evanescent air and in the changeless stone. Always as a boy there had been for me some haunting promise, some treasure at the foot of the rainbow. I shall expect the curve of a rainbow to lead me down into Surprise Valley. A dreamer, you will call me. But I have had strange dreams come true.... Mary, do you think THIS dream will come true?”

She was silent so long that he repeated his question.

“Only — in heaven,” she whispered.

He took her reply strangely and a chill crept over him.

“You think my plan to seek to strive, to find — you think that idle, vain?”

“I think it noble.... Thank God I’ve met a man like you!”

“Don’t praise me!” he exclaimed, hastily. “Only help me.... Mary, will you answer a few little questions, if I swear by my honor I’ll never reveal what you tell me?”

“I’ll try.”

He moistened his lips. Why did she seem so strange, so far away? The hovering shadows made him nervous. Always he had been afraid of the dark. His mood now admitted of unreal fancies.

“Have you ever heard of Fay Larkin?” he asked, very low.

“Yes.”

“Was there only one Fay Larkin?”

“Only one.”

“Did you — ever see her?”

“Yes,” came the faint reply.

He was grateful. How she might be breaking faith with creed or duty! He had not dared to hope so much. All his inner being trembled at the portent of his next query. He had not dreamed it would be so hard to put, or would affect him so powerfully. A warmth, a glow, a happiness pervaded his spirit; and the chill, the gloom were as if they had never been.

“Where is Fay Larkin now?” he asked, huskily.

He bent over her, touched her, leaned close to catch her whisper.

“She is — dead!”

Slowly Shefford rose, with a sickening shock, and then in bitter pain he strode away into the starlight.

VII. SAGO-LILIES

THE INDIAN RETURNED to camp that night, and early the next day, which was Sunday, Withers rode in, accompanied by a stout, gray-bearded personage wearing a long black coat.

“Bishop Kane, this is my new man, John Shefford,” said the trader.

Shefford acknowledged the introduction with the respectful courtesy evidently in order, and found himself being studied intently by clear blue eyes. The bishop appeared old, dry, and absorbed in thought; he spoke quaintly, using in every speech some Biblical word or phrase; and he had an air of authority. He asked Shefford to hear him preach at the morning service, and then he went off into the village.

“Guess he liked your looks,” remarked Withers.

“He certainly sized me up,” replied Shefford.

“Well, what could you expect? Sure I never heard of a deal like this — a handsome young fellow left alone with a lot of pretty Mormon women! You’ll understand when you learn to know Mormons. Bishop Kane’s a square old chap. Crazy on religion, maybe, but otherwise he’s a good fellow. I made the best stand I could for you. The Mormons over at Stonebridge were huffy because I hadn’t consulted them before fetching you over here. If I had, of course you’d never have gotten here. It was Joe Lake who made it all right with them. Joe’s well thought of, and he certainly stood up for you.”

“I owe him something, then,” replied Shefford. “Hope my obligations don’t grow beyond me. Did you leave Joe at Stonebridge?”

“Yes. He wanted to stay, and I had work there that’ll keep him awhile. Shefford, we got news of Shadd — bad news. The half-breed’s cutting up rough. His gang shot up some Piutes over here across the line. Then he got run out of Durango a few weeks ago for murder. A posse of cowboys trailed him. But he slipped them. He’s a fox. You know he was trailing us here. He left the trail, Nas Ta Bega said. I learned at Stonebridge that Shadd is well disposed toward Mormons. It takes the Mormons to handle Indians. Shadd knows of this village and that’s why he shunted off our trail. But he might hang down in the pass and wait for us. I think I’d better go back to Kayenta alone, across country. You stay here till Joe and the Indian think it safe to leave. You’ll be going up on the slope of Navajo to load a pack-train, and from there it may be well to go down West canyon to Red Lake, and home over the divide, the way you came. Joe’ll decide what’s best. And you might as well buckle on a gun and get used to it. Sooner or later you’ll have to shoot your way through.”

Shefford did not respond with his usual enthusiasm, and the omission caused the trader to scrutinize him closely.

“What’s the matter?” he queried. “There’s no light in your eye to-day. You look a little shady.”

“I didn’t rest well last night,” replied Shefford. “I’m depressed this morning. But I’ll cheer up directly.”

“Did you get along with the women?”

“Very well indeed. And I’ve enjoyed myself. It’s a strange, beautiful place.”

“Do you like the women?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen much of the Sago Lily?”

“No. I carried her bucket one night — and saw her only once again. I’ve been with the other women most of the time.”

“It’s just as well you didn’t run often into Mary. Joe’s sick over her. I never saw a girl with a face and form to equal hers. There’s danger here for any man, Shefford. Even for you who think you’ve turned your back on the world! Any of these Mormon women may fall in love with you. They CAN’T love their husbands. That’s how I figure it. Religion holds them, not love. And the peculiar thing is this: they’re second, third, or fourth wives, all sealed. That means their husbands are old, have picked them out for youth and physical charms, have chosen the very opposite to their first wives, and then have hidden them here in this lonely hole.... Did you ever imagine so terrible a thing?”

“No, Withers, I did not.”

“Maybe that’s what depressed you. Anyway, my hunch is worth taking. Be as nice as you can, Shefford. Lord knows it would be good for these poor women if every last one of them fell in love with you. That won’t hurt them so long as you keep your head. Savvy? Perhaps I seem rough and coarse to a man of your class. Well, that may be. But human nature is human nature. And in this strange and beautiful place you might love an Indian girl, let alone the Sago Lily. That’s all. I sure feel better with that load off my conscience. Hope I don’t offend.”

“No indeed. I thank you, Withers,” replied Shefford, with his hand on the trader’s shoulder. “You are right to caution me. I seem to be wild — thirsting for adventure — chasing a gleam. In these unstable days I can’t answer for my heart. But I can for my honor. These unfortunate women are as safe with me as — as they are with you and Joe.”

Withers uttered a blunt laugh.

“See here, son, look things square in the eye. Men of violent, lonely, toilsome lives store up hunger for the love of woman. Love of a STRANGE woman, if you want to put it that way. It’s nature. It seems all the beautiful young women in Utah are corralled in this valley. When I come over here I feel natural, but I’m not happy. I’d like to make love to — to that flower-faced girl. And I’m not ashamed to own it. I’ve told Molly, my wife, and she understands. As for Joe, it’s much harder for him. Joe never has had a wife or sweetheart. I tell you he’s sick, and if I’d stay here a month I’d be sick.”

Withers had spoken with fire in his eyes, with grim humor on his lips, with uncompromising brutal truth. What he admitted was astounding to Shefford, but, once spoken, not at all strange. The trader was a man who spoke his inmost thought. And what he said suddenly focused Shefford’s mental vision clear and whole upon the appalling significance of the tragedy of those women, especially of the girl whose life was lonelier, sadder, darker than that of the others.

“Withers, trust me,” replied Shefford.

“All right. Make the best of a bad job,” said the trader, and went off about his tasks.

Shefford and Withers attended the morning service, which was held in the school-house. Exclusive of the children every inhabitant of the village was there. The women, except the few eldest, were dressed in white and looked exceedingly well. Manifestly they had bestowed care upon this Sabbath morning’s toilet. One thing surely this dress occasion brought out, and it was evidence that the Mormon women were not poor, whatever their misfortunes might be. Jewelry was not wanting, nor fine lace. And they all wore beautiful wild flowers of a kind unknown to Shefford. He received many a bright smile. He looked for Mary, hoping to see her face for the first time in the daylight, but she sat far forward and did not turn. He saw her graceful white neck, the fine lines of her throat, and her colorless cheek. He recognized her, yet in the light she seemed a stranger.

The service began with a short prayer and was followed by the singing of a hymn. Nowhere had Shefford heard better music or sweeter voices. How deeply they affected him! Had any man ever fallen into a stranger adventure than this? He had only to shut his eyes to believe it all a creation of his fancy — the square log cabin with its red mud between the chinks and a roof like an Indian hogan — the old bishop in his black coat, standing solemnly, his hand beating time to the tune — the few old women, dignified and stately — the many young women, fresh and handsome, lifting their voices.

Shefford listened intently to the bishop’s sermon. In some respects it was the best he had ever heard. In others it was impossible for an intelligent man to regard seriously. It was very long, lasting an hour and a half, and the parts that were helpful to Shefford came from the experience and wisdom of a man who had grown old in the desert. The physical things that had molded characters of iron, the obstacles that only strong, patient men could have overcome, the making of homes in a wilderness, showed the greatness of this alien band of Mormons. Shefford conceded greatness to them. But the strange religion — the narrowing down of the world to the soil of Utah, the intimations of prophets on earth who had direct converse with God, the austere self-conscious omnipotence of this old bishop — these were matters that Shefford felt he must understand better, and see more favorably, if he were not to consider them impossible.

Immediately after the service, forgetting that his intention had been to get the long-waited-for look at Mary in the light of the sun, Shefford hurried back to camp and to a secluded spot among the cedars. Strikingly it had come to him that the fault he had found in Gentile religion he now found in the Mormon religion. An old question returned to haunt him — were all religions the same in blindness? As far as he could see, religion existed to uphold the founders of a Church, a creed. The Church of his own kind was a place where narrow men and women went to think of their own salvation. They did not go there to think of others. And now Shefford’s keen mind saw something of Mormonism and found it wanting. Bishop Kane was a sincere, good, mistaken man. He believed what he preached, but that would not stand logic. He taught blindness and mostly it appeared to be directed at the women. Was there no religion divorced from power, no religion as good for one man as another, no religion in the spirit of brotherly love? Nas Ta Bega’s “Bi Nai” (brother) — that was love, if not religion, and perhaps the one and the other were the same. Shefford kept in mind an intention to ask Nas Ta Bega what he thought of the Mormons.

Later, when opportunity afforded, he did speak to the Indian. Nas Ta Bega threw away his cigarette and made an impressive gesture that conveyed as much sorrow as scorn.

“The first Mormon said God spoke to him and told him to go to a certain place and dig. He went there and found the Book of Mormon. It said follow me, marry many wives, go into the desert and multiply, send your sons out into the world and bring us young women, many young women. And when the first Mormon became strong with many followers he said again: Give to me part of your labor — of your cattle and sheep — of your silver — that I may build me great cathedrals for you to worship in. And I will commune with God and make it right and good that you have more wives. That is Mormonism.”

“Nas Ta Bega, you mean the Mormons are a great and good people blindly following a leader?”

“Yes. And the leader builds for himself — not for them.”

“That is not religion. He has no God but himself.”

“They have no God. They are blind like the Mokis who have the creeping growths on their eyes. They have no God they can see and hear and feel, who is with them day and night.”

It was late in the afternoon when Bishop Kane rode through the camp and halted on his way to speak to Shefford. He was kind and fatherly. “Young man, are you open to faith?” he questioned gravely.

“I think I am,” replied Shefford, thankful he could answer readily.

“Then come into the fold. You are a lost sheep. ‘Away on the desert I heard its cry.’... God bless you. Visit me when you ride to Stonebridge.”

He flicked his horse with a cedar branch and trotted away beside the trader, and presently the green-choked neck of the valley hid them from view. Shefford could not have said that he was glad to be left behind, and yet neither was he sorry.

That Sabbath evening as he sat quietly with Nas Ta Bega, watching the sunset gilding the peaks, he was visited by three of the young Mormon women — Ruth, Joan, and Hester. They deliberately sought him and merrily led him off to the village and to the evening service of singing and prayer. Afterward he was surrounded and made much of. He had been popular before, but this was different. When he thoughtfully wended his way campward under the quiet stars he realized that the coming of Bishop Kane had made a subtle change in the women. That change was at first hard to define, but from every point by which he approached it he came to the same conclusion — the bishop had not objected to his presence in the village. The women became natural, free, and unrestrained. A dozen or twenty young and attractive women thrown much into companionship with one man. He might become a Mormon. The idea made him laugh. But upon reflection it was not funny; it sobered him. What a situation! He felt instinctively that he ought to fly from this hidden valley. But he could not have done it, even had he not been in the trader’s employ. The thing was provokingly seductive. It was like an Arabian Nights’ tale. What could these strange, fatally bound women do? Would any one of them become involved in sweet toils such as were possible to him? He was no fool. Already eyes had flashed and lips had smiled.

A thousand like thoughts whirled through his mind. And when he had calmed down somewhat two things were not lost upon him — an intricate and fascinating situation, with no end to its possibilities, threatened and attracted him — and the certainty that, whatever change the bishop had inaugurated, it had made these poor women happier. The latter fact weighed more with Shefford than fears for himself. His word was given to Withers. He would have felt just the same without having bound himself. Still, in the light of the trader’s blunt philosophy, and of his own assurance that he was no fool, Shefford felt it incumbent upon him to accept a belief that there were situations no man could resist without an anchor. The ingenuity of man could not have devised a stranger, a more enticing, a more overpoweringly fatal situation. Fatal in that it could not be left untried! Shefford gave in and clicked his teeth as he let himself go. And suddenly he thought of her whom these bitter women called the Sago Lily.

The regret that had been his returned with thought of her. The saddest disillusion of his life, the keenest disappointment, the strangest pain, would always be associated with her. He had meant to see her face once, clear in the sunlight, so that he could always remember it, and then never go near her again. And now it came to him that if he did see much of her these other women would find him like the stone wall in the valley. Folly! Perhaps it was, but she would be safe, maybe happier. When he decided, it was certain that he trembled.

Then he buried the memory of Fay Larkin.

Next day Shefford threw himself with all the boy left in him into the work and play of the village. He helped the women and made games for the children. And he talked or listened. In the early evening he called on Ruth, chatted awhile, and went on to see Joan, and from her to another. When the valley became shrouded in darkness he went unseen down the path to Mary’s lonely home.

She was there, a white shadow against the black.

When she replied to his greeting her voice seemed full, broken, eager to express something that would not come. She was happier to see him than she should have been, Shefford thought. He talked, swiftly, eloquently, about whatever he believed would interest her. He stayed long, and finally left, not having seen her face except in pale starlight and shadow; and the strong clasp of her hand remained with him as he went away under the pinyons.

Days passed swiftly. Joe Lake did not return. The Indian rode in and out of camp, watered and guarded the pack-burros and the mustangs. Shefford grew strong and active. He made gardens for the women; he cut cords of fire-wood; he dammed the brook and made an irrigation ditch; he learned to love these fatherless children, and they loved him.

In the afternoons there was leisure for him and for the women. He had no favorites, and let the occasion decide what he should do and with whom he should be. They had little parties at the cottages and picnics under the cedars. He rode up and down the valley with Ruth, who could ride a horse as no other girl he had ever seen. He climbed with Hester. He walked with Joan. Mostly he contrived to include several at once in the little excursions, though it was not rare for him to be out alone with one.

It was not a game he was playing. More and more, as he learned to know these young women, he liked them better, he pitied them, he was good for them. It shamed him, hurt him, somehow, to see how they tried to forget something when they were with him. Not improbably a little of it was coquetry, as natural as a laugh to any pretty woman. But that was not what hurt him. It was to see Ruth or Rebecca, as the case might be, full of life and fun, thoroughly enjoying some jest or play, all of a sudden be strangely recalled from the wholesome pleasure of a girl to become a deep and somber woman. The crimes in the name of religion! How he thought of the blood and the ruin laid at the door of religion! He wondered if that were so with Nas Ta Bega’s religion, and he meant to find out some day. The women he liked best he imagined the least religious, and they made less effort to attract him.

Every night in the dark he went to Mary’s home and sat with her on the porch. He never went inside. For all he knew, his visits were unknown to her neighbors. Still, it did not matter to him if they found out. To her he could talk as he had never talked to any one. She liberated all his thought and fancy. He filled her mind.

As there had been a change in the other women, so was there in Mary; however, it had no relation to the bishop’s visit. The time came when Shefford could not but see that she lived and dragged through the long day for the sake of those few hours in the shadow of the stars with him. She seldom spoke. She listened. Wonderful to him — sometimes she laughed — and it seemed the sound was a ghost of childhood pleasure. When he stopped to consider that she might fall in love with him he drove the thought from him. When he realized that his folly had become sweet and that the sweetness imperiously drew him, he likewise cast off that thought. The present was enough. And if he had any treasures of mind and heart he gave them to her.

She never asked him to stay, but she showed that she wanted him to. That made it hard to go. Still, he never stayed late. The moment of parting was like a break. Her good-by was sweet, low music; it lingered on his ear; it bade him come to-morrow night; and it sent him away into the valley to walk under the stars, a man fighting against himself.

One night at parting, as he tried to see her face in the wan glow of a clouded moon, he said:

“I’ve been trying to find a sago-lily.”

“Have you never seen one?” she asked.

“No.” He meant to say something with a double meaning, in reference to her face and the name of the flower, but her unconsciousness made him hold his tongue. She was wholly unlike the other women.

“I’ll show you where the lilies grow,” she said.

“When?”

“To-morrow. Early in the afternoon I’ll come to the spring. Then I’ll take you.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Next morning Joe Lake returned and imparted news that was perturbing to Shefford. Reports of Shadd had come in to Stonebridge from different Indian villages; Joe was not inclined to linger long at the camp, and favored taking the trail with the pack-train.

Shefford discovered that he did not want to leave the valley, and the knowledge made him reflective. That morning he did not go into the village, and stayed in camp alone. A depression weighed upon him. It was dispelled, however, early in the afternoon by the sight of a slender figure in white swiftly coming down the path to the spring. He had an appointment with Mary to go to see the sago lilies; everything else slipped his mind.

Mary wore the long black hood that effectually concealed her face. It made of her a woman, a Mormon woman, and strangely belied the lithe form and the braid of gold hair.

“Good day,” she said, putting down her bucket. “Do you still want to go — to see the lilies?”

“Yes,” replied Shefford, with a short laugh.

“Can you climb?”

“I’ll go where you go.”

Then she set off under the cedars and Shefford stalked at her side. He was aware that Nas Ta Bega watched them walk away. This day, so far, at least, Shefford did not feel talkative; and Mary had always been one who mostly listened. They came at length to a place where the wall rose in low, smooth swells, not steep, but certainly at an angle Shefford would not of his own accord have attempted to scale.

Light, quick, and sure as a mountain-sheep Mary went up the first swell to an offset above. Shefford, in amaze and admiration, watched the little moccasins as they flashed and held on to the smooth rock.

When he essayed to follow her he slipped and came to grief. A second attempt resulted in like failure. Then he backed away from the wall, to run forward fast and up the slope, only to slip, halfway up, and fall again.

He made light of the incident, but she was solicitous. When he assured her he was unhurt she said he had agreed to go where she went.

“But I’m not a — a bird,” he protested.

“Take off your boots. Then you can climb. When we get over the wall it’ll be easy,” she said.

In his stocking-feet he had no great difficulty walking up the first bulge of the walls. And from there she led him up the strange waves of wind-worn rock. He could not attend to anything save the red, polished rock under him, and so saw little. The ascent was longer than he would have imagined, and steep enough to make him pant, but at last a huge round summit was reached.

From here he saw down into the valley where the village lay. But for the lazy columns of blue smoke curling up from the pinyons the place would have seemed uninhabited. The wall on the other side was about level with the one upon which he stood. Beyond rose other walls and cliffs, up and up to the great towering peaks between which the green-and-black mountain loomed. Facing the other way, Shefford had only a restricted view. There were low crags and smooth stone ridges, between which were aisles green with cedar and pinon. Shefford’s companion headed toward one of these, and when he had followed her a few steps he could no longer see down into the valley. The Mormon village where she lived was as if it were lost, and when it vanished Shefford felt a difference. Scarcely had the thought passed when Mary removed the dark hood. Her small head glistened like gold in the sunlight.

Shefford caught up with her and walked at her side, but could not bring himself at once deliberately to look at her. They entered a narrow, low-walled lane where cedars and pinyons grew thickly, their fragrance heavy in the warm air, and flowers began to show in the grassy patches.

“This is Indian paint-brush,” she said, pointing to little, low, scarlet flowers. A gray sage-bush with beautiful purple blossoms she called purple sage; another bush with yellow flowers she named buck-brush, and there were vermilion cacti and low, flat mounds of lavender daisies which she said had no name. A whole mossy bank was covered with lace like green leaves and tiny blossoms the color of violets, which she called loco.

“Loco? Is this what makes the horses go crazy when they eat it?” he asked.

“It is, indeed,” she said, laughing.

When she laughed it was impossible not to look at her. She walked a little in advance. Her white cheek and temple seemed framed in the gold of her hair. How white her skin! But it was like pearl, faintly veined and flushed. The profile, clear-cut and pure, appeared cold, almost stern. He knew now that she was singularly beautiful, though he had yet to see her full face.

They walked on. Quite suddenly the lane opened out between two rounded bluffs, and Shefford looked down upon a grander and more awe-inspiring scene than ever he had viewed in his dreams.

What appeared to be a green mountainside sloped endlessly down to a plain, and that rolled and billowed away to a boundless region of strangely carved rock. The greatness of the scene could not be grasped in a glance. The slope was long; the plain not as level as it seemed to be on first sight; here and there round, red rocks, isolated and strange, like lonely castles, rose out of the green. Beyond the green all the earth seemed naked, showing smooth, glistening bones. It was a formidable wall of rock that flung itself up in the distance, carved into a thousand canyon and walls and domes and peaks, and there was not a straight nor a broken nor a jagged line in all that wildness. The color low down was red, dark blue, and purple in the clefts, yellow upon the heights, and in the distance rainbow-hued. A land of curves and color!

Shefford uttered an exclamation.

“That’s Utah,” said Mary. “I come often to sit here. You see that winding blue line. There.... That’s San Juan canyon. And the other dark line, that’s Escalante canyon. They wind down into this great purple chasm— ‘way over here to the left — and that’s the Grand canyon. They say not even the Indians have been in there.”

Shefford had nothing to say. The moment was one of subtle and vital assimilation. Such places as this to be unknown to men! What strength, what wonder, what help, what glory, just to sit there an hour, slowly and appallingly to realize! Something came to Shefford from the distance, out of the purple canyon and from those dim, wind-worn peaks. He resolved to come here to this promontory again and again, alone and in humble spirit, and learn to know why he had been silenced, why peace pervaded his soul.

It was with this emotion upon him that he turned to find his companion watching him. Then for the first time he saw her face fully, and was thrilled that chance had reserved the privilege for this moment. It was a girl’s face he saw, flower-like, lovely and pure as a Madonna’s, and strangely, tragically sad. The eyes were large, dark gray, the color of the sage. They were as clear as the air which made distant things close, and yet they seemed full of shadows, like a ruffled pool under midnight stars. They disturbed him. Her mouth had the sweet curves and redness of youth, but it showed bitterness, pain, and repression.

“Where are the sago-lilies?” he asked, suddenly.

“Farther down. It’s too cold up here for them. Come,” she said.

He followed her down a winding trail — down and down till the green plain rose to blot out the scrawled wall of rock, down into a verdant canyon where a brook made swift music over stones, where the air was sultry and hot, laden with the fragrant breath of flower and leaf. This was a canyon of summer, and it bloomed.

The girl bent and plucked something from the grass.

“Here’s a white lily,” she said. “There are three colors. The yellow and pink ones are deeper down in the canyon.”

Shefford took the flower and regarded it with great interest. He had never seen such an exquisite thing. It had three large petals, curving cuplike, of a whiteness purer than new-fallen snow, and a heart of rich, warm gold. Its fragrance was so faint as to be almost indistinguishable, yet of a haunting, unforgettable sweetness. And even while he looked at it the petals drooped and their whiteness shaded and the gold paled. In a moment the flower was wilted.

“I don’t like to pluck the lilies,” said Mary. “They die so swiftly.”

Shefford saw the white flowers everywhere in the open, sunny places along the brook. They swayed with stately grace in the slow, warm wind. They seemed like three-pointed stars shining out of the green. He bent over one with a particularly lofty stem, and after a close survey of it he rose to look at her face. His action was plainly one of comparison. She laughed and said it was foolish for the women to call her the Sago Lily. She had no coquetry; she spoke as she would have spoken of the stones at her feet; she did not know that she was beautiful. Shefford imagined there was some resemblance in her to the lily — the same whiteness, the same rich gold, and, more striking than either, a strange, rare quality of beauty, of life, intangible as something fleeting, the spirit that had swiftly faded from the plucked flower. Where had the girl been born — what had her life been? Shefford was intensely curious about her. She seemed as different from any other women he had known as this rare canyon lily was different from the tame flowers at home.

On the return up the slope she outstripped him. She climbed lightly and tirelessly. When he reached her upon the promontory there was a stain of red in her cheeks and her expression had changed.

“Let’s go back up over the rocks,” she said. “I’ve not climbed for — for so long.”

“I’ll go where you go,” he replied.

Then she was off, and he followed. She took to the curves of the bare rocks and climbed. He sensed a spirit released in her. It was so strange, so keen, so wonderful to be with her, and when he did catch her he feared to speak lest he break this mood. Her eyes grew dark and daring, and often she stopped to look away across the wavy sea of stones to something beyond the great walls. When they got high the wind blew her hair loose and it flew out, a golden stream, with the sun bright upon it. He saw that she changed her direction, which had been in line with the two peaks, and now she climbed toward the heights. They came to a more difficult ascent, where the stone still held to the smooth curves, yet was marked by steep bulges and slants and crevices. Here she became a wild thing. She ran, she leaped, she would have left him far behind had he not called. Then she appeared to remember him and waited.

Her face had now lost its whiteness; it was flushed, rosy, warm.

“Where — did you — ever learn — to run over rocks — this way?” he panted.

“All my life I’ve climbed,” she said. “Ah! it’s so good to be up on the walls again — to feel the wind — to see!”

Thereafter he kept close to her, no matter what the effort. He would not miss a moment of her, if he could help it. She was wonderful. He imagined she must be like an Indian girl, or a savage who loved the lofty places and the silence. When she leaped she uttered a strange, low, sweet cry of wildness and exultation. Shefford guessed she was a girl freed from her prison, forgetting herself, living again youthful hours. Still she did not forget him. She waited for him at the bad places, lent him a strong hand, and sometimes let it stay long in his clasp. Tireless and agile, sure-footed as a goat, fleet and wild she leaped and climbed and ran until Shefford marveled at her. This adventure was indeed fulfilment of a dream. Perhaps she might lead him to the treasure at the foot of the rainbow. But that thought, sad with memory daring forth from its grave, was irrevocably linked with a girl who was dead. He could not remember her, in the presence of this wonderful creature who was as strange as she was beautiful. When Shefford reached for the brown hand stretched forth to help him in a leap, when he felt its strong clasp, the youth and vitality and life of it, he had the fear of a man who was running towards a precipice and who could not draw back. This was a climb, a lark, a wild race to the Mormon girl, bound now in the village, and by the very freedom of it she betrayed her bonds. To Shefford it was also a wild race, but toward one sure goal he dared not name.

They went on, and at length, hand in hand, even where no steep step or wide fissure gave reason for the clasp. But she seemed unconscious. They were nearing the last height, a bare eminence, when she broke from him and ran up the smooth stone. When he surmounted it she was standing on the very summit, her arms wide, her full breast heaving, her slender body straight as an Indian’s, her hair flying in the wind and blazing in the sun. She seemed to embrace the west, to reach for something afar, to offer herself to the wind and distance. Her face was scarlet from the exertion of the climb, and her broad brow was moist. Her eyes had the piercing light of an eagle’s, though now they were dark. Shefford instinctively grasped the essence of this strange spirit, primitive and wild. She was not the woman who had met him at the spring. She had dropped some side of her with that Mormon hood, and now she stood totally strange.

She belonged up here, he divined. She was a part of that wildness. She must have been born and brought up in loneliness, where the wind blew and the peaks loomed and silence held dominion. The sinking sun touched the rim of the distant wall, and as if in parting regret shone with renewed golden fire. And the girl was crowned as with a glory.

Shefford loved her then. Realizing it, he thought he might have loved her before, but that did not matter when he was certain of it now. He trembled a little, fearfully, though without regret. Everything pertaining to his desert experience had been strange — this the strangest of all.

The sun sank swiftly, and instantly there was a change in the golden light. Quickly it died out. The girl changed as swiftly. She seemed to remember herself, and sat down as if suddenly weary. Shefford went closer and seated himself beside her.

“The sun has set. We must go,” she said. But she made no movement.

“Whenever you are ready,” replied he.

Just as the blaze had died out of her eyes, so the flush faded out of her face. The whiteness stole back, and with it the sadness. He had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her what he felt, to keep from pouring out a thousand questions. But the privilege of having seen her, of having been with her when she had forgotten herself — that he believed was enough. It had been wonderful; it had made him love her But it need not add to the tragedy of her life, whatever that was. He tried to eliminate himself. And he watched her.

Her eyes were fixed upon the gold-rimmed ramparts of the distant wall in the west. Plain it was how she loved that wild upland. And there seemed to be some haunting memory of the past in her gaze — some happy part of life, agonizing to think of now.

“We must go,” she said, and rose.

Shefford rose to accompany her. She looked at him, and her haunting eyes seemed to want him to know that he had helped her to forget the present, to remember girlhood, and that somehow she would always associate a wonderful happy afternoon with him. He divined that her silence then was a Mormon seal on lips.

“Mary, this has been the happiest, the best, the most revealing day of my life,” he said, simply.

Swiftly, as if startled, she turned and faced down the slope. At the top of the wall above the village she put on the dark hood, and with it that somber something which was Mormon.

Twilight had descended into the valley, and shadows were so thick Shefford had difficulty in finding Mary’s bucket. He filled it at the spring, and made offer to carry it home for her, which she declined.

“You’ll come to-night — later?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, hurriedly promising. Then he watched her white form slowly glide down the path to disappear in the shadows.

Nas Ta Bega and Joe were busy at the camp-fire. Shefford joined them. This night he was uncommunicative. Joe peered curiously at him in the flare of the blaze. Later, after the meal, when Shefford appeared restless and strode to and fro, Joe spoke up gruffly:

“Better hang round camp to-night.”

Shefford heard, but did not heed. Nevertheless, the purport of the remark, which was either jealousy or admonition, haunted him with the possibility of its meaning.

He walked away from the camp-fire, under the dark pinyons, out into the starry open; and every step was hard to take, unless it pointed toward the home of the girl whose beauty and sadness and mystery had bewitched him. After what seemed hours he took the well-known path toward her cabin, and then every step seemed lighter. He divined he was rushing to some fate — he knew not what.

The porch was in shadow. He peered in vain for the white form against the dark background. In the silence he seemed to hear his heart-beats thick and muffled.

Some distance down the path he heard the sound of hoofs. Withdrawing into the gloom of a cedar, he watched. Soon he made out moving horses with riders. They filed past him to the number of half a score. Like a flash of fire the truth burned him. Mormons come for one of those mysterious night visits to sealed wives!

Shefford stalked far down the valley, into the lonely silence and the night shadows under the walls.

VIII. THE HOGAN OF NAS TA BEGA

THE HOME OF Nas Ta Bega lay far up the cedared slope, with the craggy yellow cliffs and the black canyon and the pine-fringed top of Navajo Mountain behind, and to the fore the vast, rolling descent of cedar groves and sage flats and sandy washes. No dim, dark range made bold outline along the horizon; the stretch of gray and purple and green extended to the blue line of sky.

Down the length of one sage level Shefford saw a long lane where the brush and the grass had been beaten flat. This, the Navajo said, was a track where the young braves had raced their mustangs and had striven for supremacy before the eyes of maidens and the old people of the tribe.

“Nas Ta Bega, did you ever race here?” asked Shefford.

“I am a chief by birth. But I was stolen from my home, and now I cannot ride well enough to race the braves of my tribe,” the Indian replied, bitterly.

In another place Joe Lake halted his horse and called Shefford’s attention to a big yellow rock lying along the trail. And then he spoke in Navajo to the Indian.

“I’ve heard of this stone — Isende Aha,” said Joe, after Nas Ta Bega had spoken. “Get down, and let’s see.” Shefford dismounted, but the Indian kept his seat in the saddle.

Joe placed a big hand on the stone and tried to move it. According to Shefford’s eye measurement the stone was nearly oval, perhaps three feet high, by a little over two in width. Joe threw off his sombrero, took a deep breath, and, bending over, clasped the stone in his arms. He was an exceedingly heavy and powerful man, and it was plain to Shefford that he meant to lift the stone if that were possible. Joe’s broad shoulders strained, flattened; his arms bulged, his joints cracked, his neck corded, and his face turned black. By gigantic effort he lifted the stone and moved it about six inches. Then as he released his hold he fell, and when he sat up his face was wet with sweat.

“Try it,” he said to Shefford, with his lazy smile. “See if you can heave it.”

Shefford was strong, and there had been a time when he took pride in his strength. Something in Joe’s supreme effort and in the gloom of the Indian’s eyes made Shefford curious about this stone. He bent over and grasped it as Joe had done. He braced himself and lifted with all his power, until a red blur obscured his sight and shooting stars seemed to explode in his head. But he could not even stir the stone.

“Shefford, maybe you’ll be able to heft it some day,” observed Joe. Then he pointed to the stone and addressed Nas Ta Bega.

The Indian shook his head and spoke for a moment.

“This is the Isende Aha of the Navajos,” explained Joe. “The young braves are always trying to carry this stone. As soon as one of them can carry it he is a man. He who carries it farthest is the biggest man. And just so soon as any Indian can no longer lift it he is old. Nas Ta Bega says the stone has been carried two miles in his lifetime. His own father carried it the length of six steps.”

“Well! It’s plain to me that I am not a man,” said Shefford, “or else I am old.”

Joe Lake drawled his lazy laugh and, mounting, rode up the trail. But Shefford lingered beside the Indian.

“Bi Nai,” said Nas Ta Bega, “I am a chief of my tribe, but I have never been a man. I never lifted that stone. See what the pale-face education has done for the Indian!”

The Navajo’s bitterness made Shefford thoughtful. Could greater injury be done to man than this — to rob him of his heritage of strength?

Joe drove the bobbing pack-train of burros into the cedars where the smoke of the hogans curled upward, and soon the whistling of mustangs, the barking of dogs, the bleating of sheep, told of his reception. And presently Shefford was in the midst of an animated scene. Great, woolly, fierce dogs, like wolves, ran out to meet the visitors. Sheep and goats were everywhere, and little lambs scarcely able to walk, with others frisky and frolicsome. There were pure-white lambs, and some that appeared to be painted, and some so beautiful with their fleecy white all except black faces or ears or tails or feet. They ran right under Nack-yal’s legs and bumped against Shefford, and kept bleating their thin-piped welcome. Under the cedars surrounding the several hogans were mustangs that took Shefford’s eye. He saw an iron-gray with white mane and tail sweeping to the ground; and a fiery black, wilder than any other beast he had ever seen; and a pinto as wonderfully painted as the little lambs; and, most striking of all, a pure, cream-colored mustang with grace and fine lines and beautiful mane and tail, and, strange to see, eyes as blue as azure. This albino mustang came right up to Shefford, an action in singular contrast with that of the others, and showed a tame and friendly spirit toward him and Nack-yal. Indeed, Shefford had reason to feel ashamed of Nack-yal’s temper or jealousy.

The first Indians to put in an appearance were a flock of children, half naked, with tangled manes of raven-black hair and skin like gold bronze. They appeared bold and shy by turns. Then a little, sinewy man, old and beaten and gray, came out of the principal hogan. He wore a blanket round his bent shoulders. His name was Hosteen Doetin, and it meant gentle man. His fine, old, wrinkled face lighted with a smile of kindly interest. His squaw followed him, and she was as venerable as he. Shefford caught a glimpse of the shy, dark Glen Naspa, Nas Ta Bega’s sister, but she did not come out. Other Indians appeared, coming from adjacent hogans.

Nas Ta Bega turned the mustangs loose among those Shefford had noticed, and presently there rose a snorting, whistling, kicking, plunging melee. A cloud of dust hid them, and then a thudding of swift hoofs told of a run through the cedars. Joe Lake began picking over stacks of goat-skins and bags of wool that were piled against the hogan.

“Reckon we’ll have one grand job packing out this load,” he growled. “It’s not so heavy, but awkward to pack.”

It developed, presently, from talk with the old Navajo, that this pile was only a half of the load to be packed to Kayenta, and the other half was round the corner of the mountain in the camp of Piutes. Hosteen Doetin said he would send to the camp and have the Piutes bring their share over. The suggestion suited Joe, who wanted to save his burros as much as possible. Accordingly, a messenger was despatched to the Piute camp. And Shefford, with time on his hands and poignant memory to combat, decided to recall his keen interest in the Navajo, and learn, if possible, what the Indian’s life was like. What would a day of his natural life be?

In the gray of dawn, when the hush of the desert night still lay deep over the land, the Navajo stirred in his blanket and began to chant to the morning light. It began very soft and low, a strange, broken murmur, like the music of a brook, and as it swelled that weird and mournful tone was slowly lost in one of hope and joy. The Indian’s soul was coming out of night, blackness, the sleep that resembled death, into the day, the light that was life.

Then he stood in the door of his hogan, his blanket around him, and faced the east.

Night was lifting out of the clefts and ravines; the rolling cedar ridges and the sage flats were softly gray, with thin veils like smoke mysteriously rising and vanishing; the colorless rocks were changing. A long, horizon-wide gleam of light, rosiest in the center, lay low down in the east and momentarily brightened. One by one the stars in the deep-blue sky paled and went out and the blue dome changed and lightened. Night had vanished on invisible wings and silence broke to the music of a mockingbird. The rose in the east deepened; a wisp of cloud turned gold; dim distant mountains showed dark against the red; and low down in a notch a rim of fire appeared. Over the soft ridges and valleys crept a wondrous transfiguration. It was as if every blade of grass, every leaf of sage, every twig of cedar, the flowers, the trees, the rocks came to life at sight of the sun. The red disk rose, and a golden fire burned over the glowing face of that lonely waste.

The Navajo, dark, stately, inscrutable, faced the sun — his god. This was his Great Spirit. The desert was his mother, but the sun was his life. To the keeper of the winds and rains, to the master of light, to the maker of fire, to the giver of life the Navajo sent up his prayer:

Of all the good things of the Earth let me always have plenty.

Of all the beautiful things of the Earth let me always have plenty.

Peacefully let my horses go and peacefully let my sheep go.

God of the Heavens, give me many sheep and horses.

God of the Heavens, help me to talk straight.

Goddess of the Earth, my Mother, let me walk straight.

Now all is well, now all is well, now all is well, now all is well.

Hope and faith were his.

A chief would be born to save the vanishing tribe of Navajos. A bride would rise from a wind — kiss of the lilies in the moonlight.

He drank from the clear, cold spring bubbling from under mossy rocks. He went into the cedars, and the tracks in the trails told him of the visitors of night. His mustangs whistled to him from the ridge-tops, standing clear with heads up and manes flying, and then trooped down through the sage. The shepherd-dogs, guardians of the flocks, barked him a welcome, and the sheep bleated and the lambs pattered round him.

In the hogan by the warm, red fire his women baked his bread and cooked his meat. And he satisfied his hunger. Then he took choice meat to the hogan of a sick relative, and joined in the song and the dance and the prayer that drove away the evil spirit of illness. Down in the valley, in a sandy, sunny place, was his corn-field, and here he turned in the water from the ditch, and worked awhile, and went his contented way.

He loved his people, his women, and his children. To his son he said: “Be bold and brave. Grow like the pine. Work and ride and play that you may be strong. Talk straight. Love your brother. Give half to your friend. Honor your mother that you may honor your wife. Pray and listen to your gods.”

Then with his gun and his mustang he climbed the slope of the mountain. He loved the solitude, but he was never alone. There were voices on the wind and steps on his trail. The lofty pine, the lichened rock, the tiny bluebell, the seared crag — all whispered their secrets. For him their spirits spoke. In the morning light Old Stone Face, the mountain, was a red god calling him to the chase. He was a brother of the eagle, at home on the heights where the winds swept and the earth lay revealed below.

In the golden afternoon, with the warm sun on his back and the blue canyon at his feet, he knew the joy of doing nothing. He did not need rest, for he was never tired. The sage-sweet breath of the open was thick in his nostrils, the silence that had so many whisperings was all about him, the loneliness of the wild was his. His falcon eye saw mustang and sheep, the puff of dust down on the cedar level, the Indian riding on a distant ridge, the gray walls, and the blue clefts. Here was home, still free, still wild, still untainted. He saw with the eyes of his ancestors. He felt them around him. They had gone into the elements from which their voices came on the wind. They were the watchers on his trails.

At sunset he faced the west, and this was his prayer:

Great Spirit, God of my Fathers,

Keep my horses in the night.

Keep my sheep in the night.

Keep my family in the night.

Let me wake to the day.

Let me be worthy of the light.

Now all is well, now all is well,

Now all is well, now all is well.

And he watched the sun go down and the gold sink from the peaks and the red die out of the west and the gray shadows creep out of the canyon to meet the twilight and the slow, silent, mysterious approach of night with its gift of stars.

Night fell. The white stars blinked. The wind sighed in the cedars. The sheep bleated. The shepherd-dogs bayed the mourning coyotes. And the Indian lay down in his blankets with his dark face tranquil in the starlight. All was well in his lonely world. Phantoms hovered, illness lingered, injury and pain and death were there, the shadow of a strange white hand flitted across the face of the moon — but now all was well — the Navajo had prayed to the god of his Fathers. Now all was well!

. . . . . . . . . . .

And this, thought Shefford in revolt, was what the white man had killed in the Indian tribes, was reaching out now to kill in this wild remnant of the Navajos. The padre, the trapper, the trader, the prospector, and the missionary — so the white man had come, some of him good, no doubt, but more of him evil; and the young brave learned a thirst that could never be quenched at the cold, sweet spring of his forefathers, and the young maiden burned with a fever in her blood, and lost the sweet, strange, wild fancies of her tribe.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Joe Lake came to Shefford and said, “Withers told me you had a mix-up with a missionary at Red Lake.”

“Yes, I regret to say,” replied Shefford.

“About Glen Naspa?”

“Yes, Nas Ta Bega’s sister.”

“Withers just mentioned it. Who was the missionary?”

“Willetts, so Presbrey, the trader, said.”

“What’d he look like?”

Shefford recalled the smooth, brown face, the dark eyes, the weak chin, the mild expression, and the soft, lax figure of the missionary.

“Can’t tell by what you said,” went on Joe. “But I’ll bet a peso to a horse-hair that’s the fellow who’s been here. Old Hosteen Doetin just told me. First visits he ever had from the priest with the long gown. That’s what he called the missionary. These old fellows will never forget what’s come down from father to son about the Spanish padres. Well, anyway, Willetts has been here twice after Glen Naspa. The old chap is impressed, but he doesn’t want to let the girl go. I’m inclined to think Glen Naspa would as lief go as stay. She may be a Navajo, but she’s a girl. She won’t talk much.”

“Where’s Nas Ta Bega?” asked Shefford.

“He rode off somewhere yesterday. Perhaps to the Piute camp. These Indians are slow. They may take a week to pack that load over here. But if Nas Ta Bega or some one doesn’t come with a message to-day I’ll ride over there myself.”

“Joe, what do you think about this missionary?” queried Shefford, bluntly.

“Reckon there’s not much to think, unless you see him or find out something. I heard of Willetts before Withers spoke of him. He’s friendly with Mormons. I understand he’s worked for Mormon interests, someway or other. That’s on the quiet. Savvy? This matter of him coming after Glen Naspa, reckon that’s all right. The missionaries all go after the young people. What’d be the use to try to convert the old Indians? No, the missionary’s work is to educate the Indian, and, of course, the younger he is the better.”

“You approve of the missionary?”

“Shefford, if you understood a Mormon you wouldn’t ask that. Did you ever read or hear of Jacob Hamblin?... Well, he was a Mormon missionary among the Navajos. The Navajos were as fierce as Apaches till Hamblin worked among them. He made them friendly to the white man.”

“That doesn’t prove he made converts of them,” replied Shefford, still bluntly.

“No. For the matter of that, Hamblin let religion alone. He made presents, then traded with them, then taught them useful knowledge. Mormon or not, Shefford, I’ll admit this: a good man, strong with his body, and learned in ways with his hands, with some knowledge of medicine, can better the condition of these Indians. But just as soon as he begins to preach his religion, then his influence wanes. That’s natural. These heathen have their ideals, their gods.”

“Which the white man should leave them!” replied Shefford, feelingly.

“That’s a matter of opinion. But don’t let’s argue.... Willetts is after Glen Naspa. And if I know Indian girls he’ll persuade her to go to his school.”

“Persuade her!” Then Shefford broke off and related the incident that had occurred at Red Lake.

“Reckon any means justifies the end,” replied Joe, imperturbably. “Let him talk love to her or rope her or beat her, so long as he makes a Christian of her.”

Shefford felt a hot flush and had difficulty in controlling himself. From this single point of view the Mormon was impossible to reason with.

“That, too, is a matter of opinion. We won’t discuss it,” continued Shefford. “But — if old Hosteen Doetin objects to the girl leaving, and if Nas Ta Bega does the same, won’t that end the matter?”

“Reckon not. The end of the matter is Glen Naspa. If she wants to go she’ll go.”

Shefford thought best to drop the discussion. For the first time he had occasion to be repelled by something in this kind and genial Mormon, and he wanted to forget it. Just as he had never talked about men to the sealed wives in the hidden valley, so he could not talk of women to Joe Lake.

Nas Ta Bega did not return that day, but, next morning a messenger came calling Lake to the Piute camp. Shefford spent the morning high on the slope, learning more with every hour in the silence and loneliness, that he was stronger of soul than he had dared to hope, and that the added pain which had come to him could be borne.

Upon his return toward camp, in the cedar grove, he caught sight of Glen Naspa with a white man. They did not see him. When Shefford recognized Willetts an embarrassment as well as an instinct made him halt and step into a bushy, low-branched cedar. It was not his intention to spy on them. He merely wanted to avoid a meeting. But the missionary’s hand on the girl’s arm, and her up-lifted head, her pretty face, strange, intent, troubled, struck Shefford with an unusual and irresistible curiosity. Willetts was talking earnestly; Glen Naspa was listening intently. Shefford watched long enough to see that the girl loved the missionary, and that he reciprocated or was pretending. His manner scarcely savored of pretense, Shefford concluded, as he slipped away under the trees.

He did not go at once into camp. He felt troubled, and wished that he had not encountered the two. His duty in the matter, of course, was to tell Nas Ta Bega what he had seen. Upon reflection Shefford decided to give the missionary the benefit of a doubt; and if he really cared for the Indian girl, and admitted or betrayed it, to think all the better of him for the fact. Glen Naspa was certainly pretty enough, and probably lovable enough, to please any lonely man in this desert. The pain and the yearning in Shefford’s heart made him lenient. He had to fight himself — not to forget, for that was impossible — but to keep rational and sane when a white flower-like face haunted him and a voice called.

The cracking of hard hoofs on stones caused him to turn toward camp, and as he emerged from the cedar grove he saw three Indian horsemen ride into the cleared space before the hogans. They were superbly mounted and well armed, and impressed him as being different from Navajos. Perhaps they were Piutes. They dismounted and led the mustangs down to the pool below the spring. Shefford saw another mustang, standing bridle down and carrying a pack behind the saddle. Some squaws with children hanging behind their skirts were standing at the door of Hosteen Doetin’s hogan. Shefford glanced in to see Glen Naspa, pale, quiet, almost sullen. Willetts stood with his hands spread. The old Navajo’s seamed face worked convulsively as he tried to lift his bent form to some semblance of dignity, and his voice rolled out, sonorously: “Me no savvy Jesus Christ! Me hungry! ... Me no eat Jesus Christ!”

Shefford drew back as if he had received a blow. That had been Hosteen Doetin’s reply to the importunities of the missionary. The old Navajo could work no longer. His sons were gone. His squaw was worn out. He had no one save Glen Naspa to help him. She was young, strong. He was hungry. What was the white man’s religion to him?

With long, swift stride Shefford entered the hogan. Willetts, seeing him, did not look so mild as Shefford had him pictured in memory, nor did he appear surprised. Shefford touched Hosteen Doetin’s shoulder and said, “Tell me.”

The aged Navajo lifted a shaking hand.

“Me no savvy Jesus Christ! Me hungry!... Me no eat Jesus Christ!”

Shefford then made signs that indicated the missionary’s intention to take the girl away. “Him come — big talk — Jesus — all Jesus.... Me no want Glen Naspa go,” replied the Indian.

Shefford turned to the missionary.

“Willetts, is he a relative of the girl?”

“There’s some blood tie, I don’t know what. But it’s not close,” replied Willetts.

“Then don’t you think you’d better wait till Nas Ta Bega returns? He’s her brother.”

“What for?” demanded Willetts. “That Indian may be gone a week. She’s willing to accompany the missionary.”

Shefford looked at the girl.

“Glen Naspa, do you want to go?”

She was shy, ashamed, and silent, but manifestly willing to accompany the missionary. Shefford pondered a moment. How he hoped Nas Ta Bega would come back! It was thought of the Indian that made Shefford stubborn. What his stand ought to be was hard to define, unless he answered to impulse; and here in the wilds he had become imbued with the idea that his impulses and instincts were no longer false.

“Willetts, what do you want with the girl?” queried Shefford, coolly, and at the question he seemed to find himself. He peered deliberately and searchingly into the other’s face. The missionary’s gaze shifted and a tinge of red crept up from under his collar.

“Absurd thing to ask a missionary!” he burst out, impatiently.

“Do you care for Glen Naspa?”

“I care as God’s disciple — who cares to save the soul of heathen,” he replied, with the lofty tone of prayer.

“Has Glen Naspa no — no other interest in you — except to be taught religion?”

The missionary’s face flamed, and his violent tremor showed that under his exterior there was a different man.

“What right have you to question me?” he demanded. “You’re an adventurer — an outcast. I’ve my duty here. I’m a missionary with Church and state and government behind me.”

“Yes, I’m an outcast,” replied Shefford, bitterly. “And you may be all you say. But we’re alone now out here on the desert. And this girl’s brother is absent. You haven’t answered me yet.... Is there anything between you and Glen Naspa except religion?”

“No, you insulting beggar?”

Shefford had forced the reply that he had expected and which damned the missionary beyond any consideration.

“Willetts, you are a liar!” said Shefford, steadily.

“And what are you?” cried Willetts, in shrill fury. “I’ve heard all about you. Heretic! Atheist! Driven from your Church! Hated and scorned for your blasphemy!”

Then he gave way to ungovernable rage, and cursed Shefford as a religious fanatic might have cursed the most debased sinners. Shefford heard with the blood beating, strangling the pulse in his ears. Somehow this missionary had learned his secret — most likely from the Mormons in Stonebridge. And the terms of disgrace were coals of fire upon Shefford’s head. Strangely, however, he did not bow to them, as had been his humble act in the past, when his calumniators had arraigned and flayed him. Passion burned in him now, for the first time in his life, made a tiger of him. And these raw emotions, new to him, were difficult to control.

“You can’t take the girl,” he replied, when the other had ceased. “Not without her brother’s consent.”

“I will take her!”

Shefford threw him out of the hogan and strode after him. Willetts had stumbled. When he straightened up he was white and shaken. He groped for the bridle of his horse while keeping his eyes upon Shefford, and when he found it he whirled quickly, mounted, and rode off. Shefford saw him halt a moment under the cedars to speak with the three strange Indians, and then he galloped away. It came to Shefford then that he had been unconscious of the last strained moment of that encounter. He seemed all cold, tight, locked, and was amazed to find his hand on his gun. Verily the wild environment had liberated strange instincts and impulses, which he had answered. That he had no regrets proved how he had changed.

Shefford heard the old woman scolding. Peering into the hogan, he saw Glen Naspa flounce sullenly down, for all the world like any other thwarted girl. Hosteen Doetin came out and pointed down the slope at the departing missionary.

“Heap talk Jesus — all talk — all Jesus!” he exclaimed, contemptuously. Then he gave Shefford a hard rap on the chest. “Small talk — heap man!”

The matter appeared to be adjusted for the present. But Shefford felt that he had made a bitter enemy, and perhaps a powerful one.

He prepared and ate his supper alone that evening, for Joe Lake and Nas Ta Bega did not put in an appearance. He observed that the three strange Indians, whom he took for Piutes, kept to themselves, and, so far as he knew, had no intercourse with any one at the camp. This would not have seemed unusual, considering the taciturn habit of Indians, had he not remembered seeing Willetts speak to the trio. What had he to do with them? Shefford was considering the situation with vague doubts when, to his relief, the three strangers rode off into the twilight. Then he went to bed.

He was awakened by violence. It was the gray hour before dawn. Dark forms knelt over him. A cloth pressed down hard over his mouth: Strong hands bound it while other strong hands held him. He could not cry out. He could not struggle. A heavy weight, evidently a man, held down his feet. Then he was rolled over, securely bound, and carried, to be thrown like a sack over the back of a horse.

All this happened so swiftly as to be bewildering. He was too astounded to be frightened. As he hung head downward he saw the legs of a horse and a dim trail. A stirrup swung to and fro, hitting him in the face. He began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable, with a rush of blood to his head, and cramps in his arms and legs. This kept on and grew worse for what seemed a long time. Then the horse was stopped and a rude hand tumbled him to the ground. Again he was rolled over on his face. Strong fingers plucked at his clothes, and he believed he was being searched. His captors were as silent as if they had been dumb. He felt when they took his pocketbook and his knife and all that he had. Then they cut, tore, and stripped off all his clothing. He was lifted, carried a few steps, and dropped upon what seemed a soft, low mound, and left lying there, still tied and naked. Shefford heard the rustle of sage and the dull thud of hoofs as his assailants went away.

His first sensation was one of immeasurable relief. He had not been murdered. Robbery was nothing. And though roughly handled, he had not been hurt. He associated the assault with the three strange visitors of the preceding day. Still, he had no proof of that. Not the slightest clue remained to help him ascertain who had attacked him.

It might have been a short while or a long one, his mind was so filled with growing conjectures, but a time came when he felt cold. As he lay face down, only his back felt cold at first. He was grateful that he had not been thrown upon the rocks. The ground under him appeared soft, spongy, and gave somewhat as he breathed. He had really sunk down a little in this pile of soft earth. The day was not far off, as he could tell by the brightening of the gray. He began to suffer with the cold, and then slowly he seemed to freeze and grow numb. In an effort to roll over upon his back he discovered that his position, or his being bound, or the numbness of his muscles was responsible for the fact that he could not move. Here was a predicament. It began to look serious. What would a few hours of the powerful sun do to his uncovered skin? Somebody would trail and find him: still, he might not be found soon.

He saw the sky lighten, turn rosy and then gold. The sun shone upon him, but some time elapsed before he felt its warmth. All of a sudden a pain, like a sting, shot through his shoulder. He could not see what caused it; probably a bee. Then he felt another upon his leg, and about simultaneously with it a tiny, fiery stab in his side. A sickening sensation pervaded his body, slowly moving, as if poison had entered the blood of his veins. Then a puncture, as from a hot wire, entered the skin of his breast. Unmistakably it was a bite. By dint of great effort he twisted his head to see a big red ant on his breast. Then he heard a faint sound, so exceedingly faint that he could not tell what it was like. But presently his strained ears detected a low, swift, rustling, creeping sound, like the slipping rattle of an infinite number of tiny bits of moving gravel. Then it was a sound like the seeping of wind-blown sand. Several hot bites occurred at once. And then with his head twisted he saw a red stream of ants pour out of the mound and spill over his quivering flesh.

In an instant he realized his position. He had been dropped intentionally upon an ant-heap, which had sunk with his weight, wedging him between the crusts. At the mercy of those terrible desert ants! A frantic effort to roll out proved futile, as did another and another. His violent muscular contractions infuriated the ants, and in an instant he was writhing in pain so horrible and so unendurable that he nearly fainted. But he was too strong to faint suddenly. A bath of vitriol, a stripping of his skin and red embers of fire thrown upon raw flesh, could not have equaled this. There was fury in the bites and poison in the fangs of these ants. Was this an Indian’s brutal trick or was it the missionary’s revenge? Shefford realized that it would kill him soon. He sweat what seemed blood, although perhaps the blood came from the bites. A strange, hollow, buzzing roar filled his ears, and it must have been the pouring of the angry ants from their mound.

Then followed a time that was hell — worse than fire, for fire would have given merciful death — agony under which his physical being began spasmodically to jerk and retch — and his eyeballs turned and his breast caved in.

A cry rang through the roar in his ears. “Bi Nai! Bi Nai!”

His fading sight seemed to shade round the dark face of Nas Ta Bega.

Then powerful hands dragged him from the mound, through the grass and sage, rolled him over and over, and brushed his burning skin with strong, swift sweep.

IX. IN THE DESERT CRUCIBLE

THAT HARD EXPERIENCE was but the beginning of many cruel trials for John Shefford.

He never knew who his assailants were, nor their motive other than robbery; and they had gotten little, for they had not found the large sum of money sewed in the lining of his coat. Joe Lake declared it was Shadd’s work, and the Mormon showed the stern nature that lay hidden under his mild manner. Nas Ta Bega shook his head and would not tell what he thought. But a somber fire burned in his eyes.

The three started with a heavily laden pack-train and went down the mountain slope into West canyon. The second day they were shot at from the rim of the walls. Lake was wounded, hindering the swift flight necessary to escape deeper into the canyon. Here they hid for days, while the Mormon recovered and the Indian took stealthy trips to try to locate the enemy. Lack of water and grass for the burros drove them on. They climbed out of a side canyon, losing several burros on a rough trail, and had proceeded to within half a day’s journey of Red Lake when they were attacked while making camp in a cedar grove. Shefford sustained an exceedingly painful injury to his leg, but, fortunately, the bullet went through without breaking a bone. With that burning pain there came to Shefford the meaning of fight, and his rifle grew hot in his hands. Night alone saved the trio from certain fatality. Under the cover of darkness the Indian helped Shefford to escape. Joe Lake looked out for himself. The pack-train was lost, and the mustangs, except Nack-yal.

Shefford learned what it meant to lie out at night, listening for pursuit, cold to his marrow, sick with dread, and enduring frightful pain from a ragged bullet-hole. Next day the Indian led him down into the red basin, where the sun shone hot and the sand reflected the heat. They had no water. A wind arose and the valley became a place of flying sand. Through a heavy, stifling pall Nas Ta Bega somehow got Shefford to the trading-post at Red Lake. Presbrey attended to Shefford’s injury and made him comfortable. Next day Joe Lake limped in, surly and somber, with the news that Shadd and eight or ten of his outlaw gang had gotten away with the pack-train.

In short time Shefford was able to ride, and with his companions went over the pass to Kayenta. Withers already knew of his loss, and all he said was that he hoped to meet Shadd some day.

Shefford showed a reluctance to go again to the hidden village in the silent canyon with the rounded walls. The trader appeared surprised, but did not press the point. And Shefford meant sooner or later to tell him, yet never quite reached the point. The early summer brought more work for the little post, and Shefford toiled with the others. He liked the outdoor tasks, and at night was grateful that he was too tired to think. Then followed trips to Durango and Bluff and Monticello. He rode fifty miles a day for many days. He knew how a man fares who packs light and rides far and fast. When the Indian was with him he got along well, but Nas Ta Bega would not go near the towns. Thus many mishaps were Shefford’s fortune.

Many and many a mile he trailed his mustang, for Nack-yal never forgot the Sagi, and always headed for it when he broke his hobbles. Shefford accompanied an Indian teamster in to Durango with a wagon and four wild mustangs. Upon the return, with a heavy load of supplies, accident put Shefford in charge of the outfit. In despair he had to face the hardest task that could have been given him — to take care of a crippled Indian, catch, water, feed, harness, and drive four wild mustangs that did not know him and tried to kill him at every turn, and to get that precious load of supplies home to Kayenta. That he accomplished it proved to hint the possibilities of a man, for both endurance and patience. From that time he never gave up in the front of any duty.

In the absence of an available Indian he rode to Durango and back in record time. Upon one occasion he was lost in a canyon for days, with no food and little water. Upon another he went through a sand-storm in the open desert, facing it for forty miles and keeping to the trail; When he rode in to Kayenta that night the trader, in grim praise, said there was no worse to endure. At Monticello Shefford stood off a band of desperadoes, and this time Shefford experienced a strange, sickening shock in the wounding of a man. Later he had other fights, but in none of them did he know whether or not he had shed blood.

The heat of midsummer came, when the blistering sun shone, and a hot blast blew across the sand, and the furious storms made floods in the washes. Day and night Shefford was always in the open, and any one who had ever known him in the past would have failed to recognize him now.

In the early fall, with Nas Ta Bega as companion, he set out to the south of Kayenta upon long-neglected business of the trader. They visited Red Lake, Blue canyon, Keams canyon, Oribi, the Moki villages, Tuba, Moencopie, and Moen Ave. This trip took many weeks and gave Shefford all the opportunity he wanted to study the Indians, and the conditions nearer to the border of civilization. He learned the truth about the Indians and the missionaries.

Upon the return trip he rode over the trail he had followed alone to Red Lake and thence on to the Sagi, and it seemed that years had passed since he first entered this wild region which had come to be home, years that had molded him in the stern and fiery crucible of the desert.

X. STONEBRIDGE

IN OCTOBER SHEFFORD arranged for a hunt in the Cresaw Mountains with Joe Lake and Nas Ta Bega. The Indian had gone home for a short visit, and upon his return the party expected to start. But Nas Ta Bega did not come back. Then the arrival of a Piute with news that excited Withers and greatly perturbed Lake convinced Shefford that something was wrong.

The little trading-post seldom saw such disorder; certainly Shefford had never known the trader to neglect work. Joe Lake threw a saddle on a mustang he would have scorned to notice in an ordinary moment, and without a word of explanation or farewell rode hard to the north on the Stonebridge trail.

Shefford had long since acquired patience. He was curious, but he did not care particularly what was in the wind. However, when Withers came out and sent an Indian to drive up the horses Shefford could not refrain from a query.

“I hate to tell you,” replied the trader.

“Go on,” added Shefford, quickly.

“Did I tell you about the government sending a Supreme Court judge out to Utah to prosecute the polygamists?”

“No,” replied Shefford.

“I forgot to, I reckon. You’ve been away a lot. Well, there’s been hell up in Utah for six months. Lately this judge and his men have worked down into southern Utah. He visited Bluff and Monticello a few weeks ago.... Now what do you think?”

“Withers! Is he coming to Stonebridge?”

“He’s there now. Some one betrayed the whereabouts of the hidden village over in the canyon. All the women have been arrested and taken to Stonebridge. The trial begins to-day.”

“Arrested!” echoed Shefford, blankly. “Those poor, lonely, good women? What on earth for?”

“Sealed wives!” exclaimed Withers, tersely. “This judge is after the polygamists. They say he’s absolutely relentless.”

“But — women can’t be polygamists. Their husbands are the ones wanted.”

“Sure. But the prosecutors have got to find the sealed wives — the second wives — to find the law-breaking husbands. That’ll be a job, or I don’t know Mormons.... Are you going to ride over to Stonebridge with me?”

Shefford shrank at the idea. Months of toil and pain and travail had not been enough to make him forget the strange girl he had loved. But he had remembered only at poignant intervals, and the lapse of time had made thought of her a dream like that sad dream which had lured him into the desert. With the query of the trader came a bitter-sweet regret.

“Better come with me,” said Withers. “Have you forgotten the Sago Lily? She’ll be put on trial.... That girl — that child!... Shefford, you know she hasn’t any friends. And now no Mormon man are protect her, for fear of prosecution.”

“I’ll go,” replied Shefford, shortly.

The Indian brought up the horses. Nack-yal was thin from his long travel during the hot summer, but he was as hard as iron, and the way he pointed his keen nose toward the Sagi showed how he wanted to make for the upland country, with its clear springs and valleys of grass. Withers mounted his bay and with a hurried farewell to his wife spurred the mustang into the trail. Shefford took time to get his weapons and the light pack he always carried, and then rode out after the trader.

The pace Withers set was the long, steady lope to which these Indian mustangs had been trained all their lives. In an hour they reached the mouth of the Sagi, and at sight of it it seemed to Shefford that the hard half-year of suffering since he had been there had disappeared. Withers, to Shefford’s regret, did not enter the Sagi. He turned off to the north and took a wild trail into a split of the red wall, and wound in and out, and climbed a crack so narrow that the light was obscured and the cliffs could be reached from both sides of a horse.

Once up on the wild plateau, Shefford felt again in a different world from the barren desert he had lately known. The desert had crucified him and had left him to die or survive, according to his spirit and his strength. If he had loved the glare, the endless level, the deceiving distance, the shifting sand, it had certainly not been as he loved this softer, wilder, more intimate upland. With the red peaks shining up into the blue, and the fragrance of cedar and pinon, and the purple sage and flowers and grass and splash of clear water over stones — with these there came back to him something that he had lost and which had haunted him.

It seemed he had returned to this wild upland of color and canyon and lofty crags and green valleys and silent places with a spirit gained from victory over himself in the harsher and sterner desert below. And, strange to him, he found his old self, the dreamer, the artist, the lover of beauty, the searcher for he knew not what, come to meet him on the fragrant wind.

He felt this, saw the old wildness with glad eyes, yet the greater part of his mind was given over to the thought of the unfortunate women he expected to see in Stonebridge.

Withers was harder to follow, to keep up with, than an Indian. For one thing he was a steady and tireless rider, and for another there were times when he had no mercy on a horse. Then an Indian always found easier steps in a trail and shorter cuts. Withers put his mount to some bad slopes, and Shefford had no choice but to follow. But they crossed the great broken bench of upland without mishap, and came out upon a promontory of a plateau from which Shefford saw a wide valley and the dark-green alfalfa fields of Stonebridge.

Stonebridge lay in the center of a fertile valley surrounded by pink cliffs. It must have been a very old town, certainly far older than Bluff or Monticello, though smaller, and evidently it had been built to last. There was one main street, very wide, that divided the town and was crossed at right angles by a stream spanned by a small natural stone bridge. A line of poplar-trees shaded each foot-path. The little log cabins and stone houses and cottages were half hidden in foliage now tinted with autumn colors. Toward the center of the town the houses and stores and shops fronted upon the street and along one side of a green square, or plaza. Here were situated several edifices, the most prominent of which was a church built of wood, whitewashed, and remarkable, according to Withers, for the fact that not a nail had been used in its construction. Beyond the church was a large, low structure of stone, with a split-shingle roof, and evidently this was the town hall.

Shefford saw, before he reached the square, that this day in Stonebridge was one of singular action and excitement for a Mormon village. The town was full of people and, judging from the horses hitched everywhere and the big canvas-covered wagons, many of the people were visitors. A crowd surrounded the hall — a dusty, booted, spurred, shirt-sleeved and sombreroed assemblage that did not wear the hall-mark Shefford had come to associate with Mormons. They were riders, cowboys, horse-wranglers, and some of them Shefford had seen in Durango. Navajos and Piutes were present, also, but they loitered in the background.

Withers drew Shefford off to the side where, under a tree, they hitched their horses.

“Never saw Stonebridge full of a riffraff gang like this to-day,” said Withers. “I’ll bet the Mormons are wild. There’s a tough outfit from Durango. If they can get anything to drink — or if they’ve got it — Stonebridge will see smoke to-day!... Come on. I’ll get in that hall.”

But before Withers reached the hall he started violently and pulled up short, then, with apparent unconcern, turned to lay a hand upon Shefford. The trader’s face had blanched and his eyes grew hard and shiny, like flint. He gripped Shefford’s arm.

“Look! Over to your left!” he whispered. “See that gang of Indians there — by the big wagon. See the short Indian with the chaps. He’s got a face big as a ham, dark, fierce. That’s Shadd!... You ought to know him. Shadd and his outfit here! How’s that for nerve? But he pulls a rein with the Mormons.”

Shefford’s keen eye took in a lounging group of ten or twelve Indians and several white men. They did not present any great contrast to the other groups except that they were isolated, appeared quiet and watchful, and were all armed. A bunch of lean, racy mustangs, restive and spirited, stood near by in charge of an Indian. Shefford had to take a second and closer glance to distinguish the half-breed. At once he recognized in Shadd the broad-faced squat Indian who had paid him a threatening visit that night long ago in the mouth of the Sagi. A fire ran along Shefford’s veins and seemed to concentrate in his breast. Shadd’s dark, piercing eyes alighted upon Shefford and rested there. Then the half-breed spoke to one of his white outlaws and pointed at Shefford. His action attracted the attention of others in the gang, and for a moment Shefford and Withers were treated to a keen-eyed stare.

The trader cursed low. “Maybe I wouldn’t like to mix it with that damned breed,” he said. “But what chance have we with that gang? Besides, we’re here on other and more important business. All the same, before I forget, let me remind you that Shadd has had you spotted ever since you came out here. A friendly Piute told me only lately. Shefford, did any Indian between here and Flagstaff ever see that bunch of money you persist in carrying?”

“Why, yes, I suppose so— ‘way back in Tuba, when I first came out,” replied Shefford.

“Huh! Well, Shadd’s after that.... Come on now, let’s get inside the hall.”

The crowd opened for the trader, who appeared to be known to everybody.

A huge man with a bushy beard blocked the way to a shut door.

“Hello, Meade!” said Withers. “Let us in.”

The man opened the door, permitted Withers and Shefford to enter, and then closed it.

Shefford, coming out of the bright glare of sun into the hall, could not see distinctly at first. His eyes blurred. He heard a subdued murmur of many voices. Withers appeared to be affected with the same kind of blindness, for he stood bewildered a moment. But he recovered sooner than Shefford. Gradually the darkness shrouding many obscure forms lifted. Withers drew him through a crowd of men and women to one side of the hall, and squeezed along a wall to a railing where progress was stopped.

Then Shefford raised his head to look with bated breath and strange curiosity.

The hall was large and had many windows. Men were in consultation upon a platform. Women to the number of twenty sat close together upon benches. Back of them stood another crowd. But the women on the benches held Shefford’s gaze. They were the prisoners. They made a somber group. Some were hooded, some veiled, all clad in dark garments except one on the front bench, and she was dressed in white. She wore a long hood that concealed her face. Shefford recognized the hood and then the slender shape. She was Mary — she whom her jealous neighbors had named the Sago Lily. At sight of her a sharp pain pierced Shefford’s breast. His eyes were blurred when he forced them away from her, and it took a moment for him to see clearly.

Withers was whispering to him or to some one near at hand, but Shefford did not catch the meaning of what was said. He paid more attention; however, Withers ceased speaking. Shefford gazed upon the crowd back of him. The women were hooded and it was not possible to see what they looked like. There were many stalwart, clean-cut, young Mormons of Joe Lake’s type, and these men appeared troubled, even distressed and at a loss. There was little about them resembling the stern, quiet, somber austerity of the more matured men, and nothing at all of the strange, aloof, serene impassiveness of the gray-bearded old patriarchs. These venerable men were the Mormons of the old school, the sons of the pioneers, the ruthless fanatics. Instinctively Shefford felt that it was in them that polygamy was embodied; they were the husbands of the sealed wives. He conceived an absorbing curiosity to learn if his instinct was correct; and hard upon that followed a hot, hateful eagerness to see which one was the husband of Mary.

“There’s Bishop Kane,” whispered Withers, nudging Shefford. “And there’s Waggoner with him.”

Shefford saw the bishop, and then beside him a man of striking presence.

“Who’s Waggoner?” asked Shefford, as he looked.

“He owns more than any Mormon in southern Utah,” replied the trader. “He’s the biggest man in Stonebridge, that’s sure. But I don’t know his relation to the Church. They don’t call him elder or bishop. But I’ll bet he’s some pumpkins. He never had any use for me or any Gentile. A close-fisted, tight-lipped Mormon — a skinflint if I ever saw one! Just look him over.”

Shefford had been looking, and considered it unlikely that he would ever forget this individual called Waggoner. He seemed old, sixty at least, yet at that only in the prime of a wonderful physical life. Unlike most of the others, he wore his grizzled beard close-cropped, so close that it showed the lean, wolfish line of his jaw. All his features were of striking sharpness. His eyes, of a singularly brilliant blue, were yet cold and pale. The brow had a serious, thoughtful cast; long furrows sloped down the cheeks. It was a strange, secretive face, full of a power that Shefford had not seen in another man’s, full of intelligence and thought that had not been used as Shefford had known them used among men. The face mystified him. It had so much more than the strange aloofness so characteristic of his fellows.

“Waggoner had five wives and fifty-five children before the law went into effect,” whispered Withers. “Nobody knows and nobody will ever know how many he’s got now. That’s my private opinion.”

Somehow, after Withers told that, Shefford seemed to understand the strange power in Waggoner’s face. Absolutely it was not the force, the strength given to a man from his years of control of men. Shefford, long schooled now in his fair-mindedness, fought down the feelings of other years, and waited with patience. Who was he to judge Waggoner or any other Mormon? But whenever his glance strayed back to the quiet, slender form in white, when he realized again and again the appalling nature of this court, his heart beat heavy and labored within his breast.

Then a bustle among the men upon the platform appeared to indicate that proceedings were about to begin. Some men left the platform; several sat down at a table upon which were books and papers, and others remained standing. These last were all roughly garbed, in riding-boots and spurs, and Shefford’s keen eye detected the bulge of hidden weapons. They looked like deputy-marshals upon duty.

Somebody whispered that the judge’s name was Stone. The name fitted him. He was not young, and looked a man suited to the prosecution of these secret Mormons. He had a ponderous brow, a deep, cavernous eye that emitted gleams but betrayed no color or expression. His mouth was the saving human feature of his stony face.

Shefford took the man upon the judge’s right hand to be a lawyer, and the one on his left an officer of court, perhaps a prosecuting attorney. Presently this fellow pounded upon the table and stood up as if to address a court-room. Certainly he silenced that hallful of people. Then he perfunctorily and briefly stated that certain women had been arrested upon suspicion of being sealed wives of Mormon polygamists, and were to be herewith tried by a judge of the United States Court. Shefford felt how the impressive words affected that silent hall of listeners, but he gathered from the brief preliminaries that the trial could not be otherwise than a crude, rapid investigation, and perhaps for that the more sinister.

The first woman on the foremost bench was led forward by a deputy to a vacant chair on the platform just in front of the judge’s table. She was told to sit down, and showed no sign that she had heard. Then the judge courteously asked her to take the chair. She refused. And Stone nodded his head as if he had experienced that sort of thing before. He stroked his chin wearily, and Shefford conceived an idea that he was a kind man, if he was a relentless judge.

“Please remove your veil,” requested the prosecutor.

The woman did so, and proved to be young and handsome. Shefford had a thrill as he recognized her. She was Ruth, who had been one of his best-known acquaintances in the hidden village. She was pale, angry, almost sullen, and her breast heaved. She had no shame, but she seemed to be outraged. Her dark eyes, scornful and blazing, passed over the judge and his assistants, and on to the crowd behind the railing. Shefford, keen as a blade, with all his faculties absorbed, fancied he saw Ruth stiffen and change slightly as her glance encountered some one in that crowd. Then the prosecutor in deliberate and chosen words enjoined her to kiss the Bible handed to her and swear to tell the truth. How strange for Shefford to see her kiss the book which he had studied for so many years! Stranger still to hear the low murmur from the listening audience as she took the oath!

“What is your name?” asked Judge Stone, leaning back and fixing the cavernous eyes upon her.

“Ruth Jones,” was the cool reply.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Where were you born?” went on the judge. He allowed time for the clerk to record her answers.

“Panguitch, Utah.”

“Were your parents Mormons?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a Mormon?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a married woman?”

“No.”

The answer was instant, cold, final. It seemed to the truth. Almost Shefford believed she spoke truth. The judge stroked his chin and waited a moment, and then hesitatingly he went on.

“Have you — any children?”

“No.” And the blazing eyes met the cavernous ones.

That about the children was true enough, Shefford thought, and he could have testified to it.

“You live in the hidden village near this town?”

“Yes.”

“What is the name of this village?”

“It has none.”

“Did you ever hear of Fre-donia, another village far west of here?”

“Yes.”

“It is in Arizona, near the Utah line. There are few men there. Is it the same kind of village as this one in which you live?”

“Yes.”

“What does Fre-donia mean? The name — has it any meaning?”

“It means free women.”

The judge maintained silence for a moment, turned to whisper to his assistants, and presently, without glancing up, said to the woman:

“That will do.”

Ruth was led back to the bench, and the woman next to her brought forward. This was a heavier person, with the figure and step of a matured woman. Upon removing her bonnet she showed the plain face of a woman of forty, and it was striking only in that strange, stony aloofness noted in the older men. Here, Shefford thought, was the real Mormon, different in a way he could not define from Ruth. This woman seated herself in the chair and calmly faced her prosecutors. She manifested no emotion whatever. Shefford remembered her and could not see any change in her deportment. This trial appeared to be of little moment to her and she took the oath as if doing so had been a habit all her life.

“What is your name?” asked Judge Stone, glancing up from a paper he held.

“Mary Danton.”

“Family or married name?”

“My husband’s name was Danton.”

“Was. Is he living?”

“No.”

“Where did you live when you were married to him?”

“In St. George, and later here in Stonebridge.”

“You were both Mormons?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have any children by him?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Two.”

“Are they living?”

“One of them is living.”

Judge Stone bent over his paper and then slowly raised his eyes to her face.

“Are you married now?”

“No.”

Again the judge consulted his notes, and held a whispered colloquy with the two men at his table.

“Mrs. Danton, when you were arrested there were five children found in your home. To whom do they belong?”

“Me.”

“Are you their mother?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband Danton is the father of only one, the eldest, according to your former statement. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Who, then, is the father — or who are the fathers, of your other children?”

“I do not know.”

She said it with the most stony-faced calmness, with utter disregard of what significance her words had. A strong, mystic wall of cold flint insulated her. Strangely it came to Shefford how impossible either to doubt or believe her. Yet he did both! Judge Stone showed a little heat.

“You don’t know the father of one or all of these children?” he queried, with sharp rising inflection of voice.

“I do not.”

“Madam, I beg to remind you that you are under oath.”

The woman did not reply.

“These children are nameless, then — illegitimate?”

“They are.”

“You swear you are not the sealed wife of some Mormon?”

“I swear.”

“How do you live — maintain yourself?”

“I work.”

“What at?”

“I weave, sew, bake, and work in my garden.”

“My men made note of your large and comfortable cabin, even luxurious, considering this country. How is that?”

“My husband left me comfortable.”

Judge Stone shook a warning finger at the defendant.

“Suppose I were to sentence you to jail for perjury? For a year? Far from your home and children! Would you speak — tell the truth?”

“I am telling the truth. I can’t speak what I don’t know.... Send me to jail.”

Baffled, with despairing, angry impatience, Judge Stone waved the woman away.

“That will do for her. Fetch the next one,” he said.

One after another he examined three more women, and arrived, by various questions and answers different in tone and temper, at precisely the same point as had been made in the case of Mrs. Danton. Thereupon the proceedings rested a few moments while the judge consulted with his assistants.

Shefford was grateful for this respite. He had been worked up to an unusual degree of interest, and now, as the next Mormon woman to be examined was she whom he had loved and loved still, he felt rise in him emotion that threatened to make him conspicuous unless it could be hidden. The answers of these Mormon women had been not altogether unexpected by him, but once spoken in cold blood under oath, how tragic, how appallingly significant of the shadow, the mystery, the yoke that bound them! He was amazed, saddened. He felt bewildered. He needed to think out the meaning of the falsehoods of women he knew to be good and noble. Surely religion, instead of fear and loyalty, was the foundation and the strength of this disgrace, this sacrifice. Absolutely, shame was not in these women, though they swore to shameful facts. They had been coached to give these baffling answers, every one of which seemed to brand them, not the brazen mothers of illegitimate offspring, but faithful, unfortunate sealed wives. To Shefford the truth was not in their words, but it sat upon their somber brows.

Was it only his heightened imagination, or did the silence and the suspense grow more intense when a deputy led that dark-hooded, white-clad, slender woman to the defendant’s chair? She did not walk with the poise that had been manifest in the other women, and she sank into the chair as if she could no longer stand.

“Please remove your hood,” requested the prosecutor.

How well Shefford remembered the strong, shapely hands! He saw them tremble at the knot of ribbon, and that tremor was communicated to him in a sympathy which made his pulses beat. He held his breath while she removed the hood. And then there was revealed, he thought, the loveliest and the most tragic face that ever was seen in a court-room.

A low, whispering murmur that swelled like a wave ran through the hall. And by it Shefford divined, as clearly as if the fact had been blazoned on the walls, that Mary’s face had been unknown to these villagers. But the name Sago Lily had not been unknown; Shefford heard it whispered on all sides.

The murmuring subsided. The judge and his assistants stared at Mary. As for Shefford, there was no need of his personal feeling to make the situation dramatic. Not improbably Judge Stone had tried many Mormon women. But manifestly this one was different. Unhooded, Mary appeared to be only a young girl, and a court, confronted suddenly with her youth and the suspicion attached to her, could not but have been shocked. Then her beauty made her seem, in that somber company, indeed the white flower for which she had been named. But, more likely, it was her agony that bound the court into silence which grew painful. Perhaps the thought that flashed into Shefford’s mind was telepathic; it seemed to him that every watcher there realized that in this defendant the judge had a girl of softer mold, of different spirit, and from her the bitter truth could be wrung.

Mary faced the court and the crowd on that side of the platform. Unlike the other women, she did not look at or seem to see any one behind the railing. Shefford was absolutely sure there was not a man or a woman who caught her glance. She gazed afar, with eyes strained, humid, fearful.

When the prosecutor swore her to the oath her lips were seen to move, but no one heard her speak.

“What is your name?” asked the judge.

“Mary.” Her voice was low, with a slight tremor.

“What’s your other name?”

“I won’t tell.”

Her singular reply, the tones of her voice, her manner before the judge, marked her with strange simplicity. It was evident that she was not accustomed to questions.

“What were your parents’ names?”

“I won’t tell,” she replied, very low.

Judge Stone did not press the point. Perhaps he wanted to make the examination as easy as possible for her or to wait till she showed more composure.

“Were your parents Mormons?” he went on.

“No, sir.” She added the sir with a quaint respect, contrasting markedly with the short replies of the women before her.

“Then you were not born a Mormon?”

“No, sir.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen or eighteen. I’m not sure.”

“You don’t know your exact age?”

“No.”

“Where were you born?”

“I won’t tell.”

“Was it in Utah?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long have you lived in this state?”

“Always — except last year.”

“And that’s been over in the hidden village where you were arrested?”

“Yes.”

“But you often visited here — this town Stonebridge?”

“I never was here — till yesterday.”

Judge Stone regarded her as if his interest as a man was running counter to his duty as an officer. Suddenly he leaned forward.

“Are you a Mormon NOW?” he queried, forcibly.

“No, sir,” she replied, and here her voice rose a little clearer.

It was an unexpected reply. Judge Stone stared at her. The low buzz ran through the listening crowd. And as for Shefford, he was astounded. When his wits flashed back and he weighed her words and saw in her face truth as clear as light, he had the strangest sensation of joy. Almost it flooded away the gloom and pain that attended this ordeal.

The judge bent his head to his assistants as if for counsel. All of them were eager where formerly they had been weary. Shefford glanced around at the dark and somber faces, and a slow wrath grew within him. Then he caught a glimpse of Waggoner. The steel-blue, piercing intensity of the Mormon’s gaze impressed him at a moment when all that older generation of Mormons looked as hard and immutable as iron. Either Shefford was over-excited and mistaken or the hour had become fraught with greater suspense. The secret, the mystery, the power, the hate, the religion of a strange people were thick and tangible in that hall. For Shefford the feeling of the presence of Withers on his left was entirely different from that of the Mormon on his other side. If there was not a shadow there, then the sun did not shine so brightly as it had shone when he entered. The air seemed clogged with nameless passion.

“I gather that you’ve lived mostly in the country — away from people?” the judge began.

“Yes, sir,” replied the girl.

“Do you know anything about the government of the United States?”

“No, sir.”

He pondered again, evidently weighing his queries, leading up to the fatal and inevitable question.

Still, his interest in this particular defendant had become visible.

“Have you any idea of the consequences of perjury?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you understand what perjury is?”

“It’s to lie.”

“Do you tell lies?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you ever told a single lie?”

“Not — yet,” she replied, almost whispering.

It was the answer of a child and affected the judge. He fussed with his papers. Perhaps his task was not easy; certainly it was not pleasant. Then he leaned forward again and fixed those deep, cavernous eyes upon the sad face.

“Do you understand what a sealed wife is?”

“I’ve never been told.”

“But you know there are sealed wives in Utah?”

“Yes, sir; I’ve been told that.”

Judge Stone halted there, watching her. The hall was silent except for faint rustlings and here and there deep breaths drawn guardedly. The vital question hung like a sword over the white-faced girl. Perhaps she divined its impending stroke, for she sat like a stone with dilating, appealing eyes upon her executioner.

“Are you a sealed wife?” he flung at her.

She could not answer at once. She made effort, but the words would not come. He flung the question again, sternly.

“No!” she cried.

And then there was silence. That poignant word quivered in Shefford’s heart. He believed it was a lie. It seemed he would have known it if this hour was the first in which he had ever seen the girl. He heard, he felt, he sensed the fatal thing. The beautiful voice had lacked some quality before present. And the thing wanting was something subtle, an essence, a beautiful ring — the truth. What a hellish thing to make that pure girl a liar — a perjurer! The heat deep within Shefford kindled to fire.

“You are not married?” went on Judge Stone.

“No, sir,” she answered, faintly.

“Have you ever been married?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you expect ever to be married?”

“Oh! No, sir.”

She was ashen pale now, quivering all over, with her strong hands clasping the black hood, and she could no longer meet the judge’s glance.

“Have you — any — any children?” the judge asked, haltingly. It was a hard question to get out.

“No.”

Judge Stone leaned far over the table, and that his face was purple showed Shefford he was a man. His big fist clenched.

“Girl, you’re not going to swear you, too, were visited — over there by men... You’re not going to swear that?”

“Oh — no, sir!”

Judge Stone settled back in his chair, and while he wiped his moist face that same foreboding murmur, almost a menace, moaned through the hall.

Shefford was sick in his soul and afraid of himself. He did not know this spirit that flamed up in him. His helplessness was a most hateful fact.

“Come — confess you are a sealed wife,” called her interrogator.

She maintained silence, but shook her head.

Suddenly he seemed to leap forward.

“Unfortunate child! Confess.”

That forced her to lift her head and face him, yet still she did not speak. It was the strength of despair. She could not endure much more.

“Who is your husband?” he thundered at her.

She rose wildly, terror-stricken. It was terror that dominated her, not of the stern judge, for she took a faltering step toward him, lifting a shaking hand, but of some one or of some thing far more terrible than any punishment she could have received in the sentence of a court. Still she was not proof against the judge’s will. She had weakened, and the terror must have been because of that weakening.

“Who is the Mormon who visits you?” he thundered, relentlessly.

“I — never — knew — his — name.

“But you’d know his face. I’ll arrest every Mormon in this country and bring him before you. You’d know his face?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t. I COULDN’T TELL!... I — NEVER — SAW HIS FACE — IN THE LIGHT!”

The tragic beauty of her, the certainty of some monstrous crime to youth and innocence, the presence of an agony and terror that unfathomably seemed not to be for herself — these transfixed the court and the audience, and held them silenced, till she reached out blindly and then sank in a heap to the floor.

XI. AFTER THE TRIAL

SHEFFORD MIGHT HAVE leaped over the railing but for Withers’s restraining hand, and when there appeared to be some sign of kindness in those other women for the unconscious girl Shefford squeezed through the crowd and got out of the hall.

The gang outside that had been denied admittance pressed upon Shefford, with jest and curious query, and a good nature that jarred upon him. He was far from gentle as he jostled off the first importuning fellows; the others, gaping at him, opened a lane for him to pass through.

Then there was a hand laid on his shoulder that he did not shake off. Nas Ta Bega loomed dark and tall beside him. Neither the trader nor Joe Lake nor any white man Shefford had met influenced him as this Navajo.

“Nas Ta Bega! you here, too. I guess the whole country is here. We waited at Kayenta. What kept you so long?”

The Indian, always slow to answer, did not open his lips till he drew Shefford apart from the noisy crowd.

“Bi Nai, there is sorrow in the hogan of Hosteen Doetin,” he said.

“Glen Naspa!” exclaimed Shefford.

“My sister is gone from the home of her brother. She went away alone in the summer.”

“Blue canyon! She went to the missionary. Nas Ta Bega, I thought I saw her there. But I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to make sure. I was afraid it might be true.”

“A brave who loved my sister trailed her there.”

“Nas Ta Bega, will you — will we go find her, take her home?”

“No. She will come home some day.”

What bitter sadness and wisdom in his words!

“But, my friend, that damned missionary—” began Shefford, passionately. The Indian had met him at a bad hour.

“Willetts is here. I saw him go in there,” interrupted Nas Ta Bega, and he pointed to the hall.

“Here! He gets around a good deal,” declared Shefford. “Nas Ta Bega, what are you going to do to him?”

The Indian held his peace and there was no telling from his inscrutable face what might be in his mind. He was dark, impassive. He seemed a wise and bitter Indian, beyond any savagery of his tribe, and the suffering Shefford divined was deep.

“He’d better keep out of my sight,” muttered Shefford, more to himself than to his companion.

“The half-breed is here,” said Nas Ta Bega.

“Shadd? Yes, we saw him. There! He’s still with his gang. Nas Ta Bega, what are they up to?”

“They will steal what they can.”

“Withers says Shadd is friendly with the Mormons.”

“Yes, and with the missionary, too.”

“With Willetts?”

“I saw them talk together — strong talk.”

“Strange. But maybe it’s not so strange. Shadd is known well in Monticello and Bluff. He spends money there. They are afraid of him, but he’s welcome just the same. Perhaps everybody knows him. It’d be like him to ride into Kayenta. But, Nas Ta Bega, I’ve got to look out for him, because Withers says he’s after me.”

“Bi Nai wears a scar that is proof,” said the Indian.

“Then it must be he found out long ago I had a little money.”

“It might be. But, Bi Nai, the half-breed has a strange step on your trail.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Shefford.

“Nas Ta Bega cannot tell what he does not know,” replied the Navajo. “Let that be. We shall know some day. Bi Nai, there is sorrow to tell that is not the Indian’s.... Sorrow for my brother!”

Shefford lifted his eyes to the Indian’s, and if he did not see sadness there he was much deceived.

“Bi Nai, long ago you told a story to the trader. Nas Ta Bega sat before the fire that night. You did not know he could understand your language. He listened. And he learned what brought you to the country of the Indian. That night he made you his brother.... All his lonely rides into the canyon have been to find the little golden-haired child, the lost girl — Fay Larkin.... Bi Nai, I have found the girl you wanted for your sweetheart.”

Shefford was bereft of speech. He could not see steadily, and the last solemn words of the Indian seemed far away.

“Bi Nai, I have found Fay Larkin,” repeated Nas Ta Bega.

“Fay Larkin!” gasped Shefford, shaking his head. “But — she’s dead.”

“It would be less sorrow for Bi Nai if she were dead.”

Shefford clutched at the Indian. There was something terrible to be revealed. Like an aspen-leaf in the wind he shook all over. He divined the revelation — divined the coming blow — but that was as far as his mind got.

“She’s in there,” said the Indian, pointing toward hall.

“Fay Larkin?” whispered Shefford.

“Yes, Bi Nai.”

“My God! HOW do you know? Oh, I could have seen. I’ve been blind. ... Tell me, Indian. Which one?”

“Fay Larkin is the Sago Lily.”

. . . . . . . . . .

Shefford strode away into a secluded corner of the Square, where in the shade and quiet of the trees he suffered a storm of heart and mind. During that short or long time — he had no idea how long — the Indian remained with him. He never lost the feeling of Nas Ta Bega close beside him. When the period of acute pain left him and some order began to replace the tumult in his mind he felt in Nas Ta Bega the same quality — silence or strength or help — that he had learned to feel in the deep canyon and the lofty crags. He realized then that the Indian was indeed a brother. And Shefford needed him. What he had to fight was more fatal than suffering and love — it was hate rising out of the unsuspected dark gulf of his heart — the instinct to kill — the murder in his soul. Only now did he come to understand Jane Withersteen’s tragic story and the passion of Venters and what had made Lassiter a gun-man. The desert had transformed Shefford. The elements had entered into his muscle and bone, into the very fiber of his heart. Sun, wind, sand, cold, storm, space, stone, the poison cactus, the racking toil, the terrible loneliness — the iron of the desert man, the cruelty of the desert savage, the wildness of the mustang, the ferocity of hawk and wolf, the bitter struggle of every surviving thing — these were as if they had been melted and merged together and now made a dark and passionate stream that was his throbbing blood. He realized what he had become and gloried in it, yet there, looking on with grave and earnest eyes, was his old self, the man of reason, of intellect, of culture, who had been a good man despite the failure and shame of his life. And he gave heed to the voice of warning, of conscience. Not by revengefully seeking the Mormon who had ruined Fay Larkin and blindly dealing a wild justice could he help this unfortunate girl. This fierce, newborn strength and passion must be tempered by reason, lest he become merely elemental, a man answering wholly to primitive impulses. In the darkness of that hour he mined deep into his heart, understood himself, trembled at the thing he faced, and won his victory. He would go forth from that hour a man. He might fight, and perhaps there was death in the balance, but hate would never overthrow him.

Then when he looked at future action he felt a strange, unalterable purpose to save Fay Larkin. She was very young — seventeen or eighteen, she had said — and there could be, there must be some happiness before her. It had been his dream to chase a rainbow — it had been his determination to find her in the lost Surprise Valley. Well, he had found her. It never occurred to him to ask Nas Ta Bega how he had discovered that the Sago Lily was Fay Larkin. The wonder was, Shefford thought, that he had so long been blind himself. How simply everything worked out now! Every thought, every recollection of her was proof. Her strange beauty like that of the sweet and rare lily, her low voice that showed the habit of silence, her shapely hands with the clasp strong as a man’s, her lithe form, her swift step, her wonderful agility upon the smooth, steep trails, and the wildness of her upon the heights, and the haunting, brooding shadow of her eyes when she gazed across the canyon — all these fitted so harmoniously the conception of a child lost in a beautiful Surprise Valley and growing up in its wildness and silence, tutored by the sad love of broken Jane and Lassiter. Yes, to save her had been Shefford’s dream, and he had loved that dream. He had loved the dream and he had loved the child. The secret of her hiding-place as revealed by the story told him and his slow growth from dream to action — these had strangely given Fay Larkin to him. Then had come the bitter knowledge that she was dead. In the light of this subsequent revelation how easy to account for his loving Mary, too. Never would she be Mary again to him! Fay Larkin and the Sago Lily were one and the same. She was here, near him, and he was powerless for the present to help her or to reveal himself. She was held back there in that gloomy hall among those somber Mormons, alien to the women, bound in some fatal way to one of the men, and now, by reason of her weakness in the trial, surely to be hated. Thinking of her past and her present, of the future, and that secret Mormon whose face she had never seen, Shefford felt a sinking of his heart, a terrible cold pang in his breast, a fainting of his spirit. She had sworn she was no sealed wife. But had she not lied? So, then, how utterly powerless he was!

But here to save him, to uplift him, came that strange mystic insight which had been the gift of the desert to him. She was not dead. He had found her. What mattered obstacles, even that implacable creed to which she had been sacrificed, in the face of this blessed and overwhelming truth? It was as mighty as the love suddenly dawning upon him. A strong and terrible and deathly sweet wind seemed to fill his soul with the love of her. It was her fate that had drawn him; and now it was her agony, her innocence, her beauty, that bound him for all time. Patience and cunning and toil, passion and blood, the unquenchable spirit of a man to save — these were nothing to give — life itself were little, could he but free her.

Patience and cunning! His sharpening mind cut these out as his greatest assets for the present. And his thoughts flashed like light through his brain.... Judge Stone and his court would fail to convict any Mormon in Stonebridge, just the same as they had failed in the northern towns. They would go away, and Stonebridge would fall to the slow, sleepy tenor of its former way. The hidden village must become known to all men, honest and outlawed, in that country, but this fact would hardly make any quick change in the plans of the Mormons. They did not soon change. They would send the sealed wives back to the canyon and, after the excitement had died down, visit them as usual. Nothing, perhaps, would ever change these old Mormons but death.

Shefford resolved to remain in Stonebridge and ingratiate himself deeper into the regard of the Mormons. He would find work there, if the sealed wives were not returned to the hidden village. In case the women went back to the valley Shefford meant to resume his old duty of driving Withers’s pack-trains. Wanting that opportunity, he would find some other work, some excuse to take him there. In due time he would reveal to Fay Larkin that he knew her. How the thought thrilled him! She might deny, might persist in her fear, might fight to keep her secret. But he would learn it — hear her story — hear what had become of Jane Withersteen and Lassiter — and if they were alive, which now he believed he would find them — and he would take them and Fay out of the country.

The duty, the great task, held a grim fascination for him. He had a foreboding of the cost; he had a dark realization of the force he meant to oppose. There were duty here and pity and unselfish love, but these alone did not actuate Shefford. Mystically fate seemed again to come like a gleam and bid him follow.

When Shefford and Nas Ta Bega returned to the town hall the trial had been ended, the hall was closed, and only a few Indians and cowboys remained in the square, and they were about to depart. On the street, however, and the paths and in the doorways of stores were knots of people, talking earnestly. Shefford walked up and down, hoping to meet Withers or Joe Lake. Nas Ta Bega said he would take the horses to water and feed and then return.

There were indications that Stonebridge might experience some of the excitement and perhaps violence common to towns like Monticello and Durango. There was only one saloon in Stonebridge, and it was full of roystering cowboys and horse-wranglers. Shefford saw the bunch of mustangs, in charge of the same Indian, that belonged to Shadd and his gang. The men were inside, drinking. Next door was a tavern called Hopewell House, a stone structure of some pretensions. There were Indians lounging outside. Shefford entered through a wide door and found himself in a large bare room, boarded like a loft, with no ceiling except the roof. The place was full of men and noise. Here he encountered Joe Lake talking to Bishop Kane and other Mormons. Shefford got a friendly greeting from the bishop, and then was well received by the strangers, to whom Joe introduced him.

“Have you seen Withers?” asked Shefford.

“Reckon he’s around somewhere,” replied Joe. “Better hang up here, for he’ll drop in sooner or later.”

“When are you going back to Kayenta?” went on Shefford.

“Hard to say. We’ll have to call off our hunt. Nas Ta Bega is here, too.”

“Yes, I’ve been with him.”

The older Mormons drew aside, and then Joe mentioned the fact that he was half starved. Shefford went with him into another clapboard room, which was evidently a dining-room. There were half a dozen men at the long table. The seat at the end was a box, and scarcely large enough or safe enough for Joe and Shefford, but they risked it.

“Saw you in the hall,” said Joe. “Hell — wasn’t it?”

“Joe, I never knew how much I dared say to you, so I don’t talk much. But, it was hell,” replied Shefford.

“You needn’t be so scared of me,” spoke up Joe, testily.

That was the first time Shefford had heard the Mormon speak that way.

“I’m not scared, Joe. But I like you — respect you. I can’t say so much of — of your people.”

“Did you stick out the whole mix?” asked Joe.

“No. I had enough when — when they got through with Mary.” Shefford spoke low and dropped his head. He heard the Mormon grind his teeth. There was silence for a little space while neither man looked at the other.

“Reckon the judge was pretty decent,” presently said Joe.

“Yes, I thought so. He might have—” But Shefford did not finish that sentence. “How’d the thing end?”

“It ended all right.”

“Was there no conviction — no sentence?” Shefford felt a curious eagerness.

“Naw,” he snorted. “That court might have saved its breath.”

“I suppose. Well, Joe, between you and me, as old friends now, that trial established one fact, even if it couldn’t be proved.... Those women are sealed wives.”

Joe had no reply for that. He looked gloomy, and there was a stern line in his lips. To-day he seemed more like a Mormon.

“Judge Stone knew that as well as I knew,” went on Shefford. “Any man of penetration could have seen it. What an ordeal that was for good women to go through! I know they’re good. And there they were swearing to—”

“Didn’t it make me sick?” interrupted Joe in a kind of growl. “Reckon it made Judge Stone sick, too. After Mary went under he conducted that trial like a man cuttin’ out steers at a round-up. He wanted to get it over. He never forced any question.... Bad job to ride down Stonebridge way! It’s out of creation. There’s only six men in the party, with a poor lot of horses. Really, government officers or not, they’re not safe. And they’ve taken a hunch.”

“Have they left already?” inquired Shefford.

“Were packed an hour ago. I didn’t see them go, but somebody said they went. Took the trail for Bluff, which sure is the only trail they could take, unless they wanted to go to Colorado by way of Kayenta. That might have been the safest trail.”

“Joe, what might happen to them?” asked Shefford, quietly, with eyes on the Mormon.

“Aw, you know that rough trail. Bad on horses. Weathered slopes — slipping ledges — a rock might fall on you any time. Then Shadd’s here with his gang. And bad Piutes.”

“What became of the women?” Shefford asked, ‘presently.

“They’re around among friends.”

“Where are their children?”

“Left over there with the old women. Couldn’t be fetched over. But there are some pretty young babies in that bunch — need their mothers.”

“I should — think so,” replied Shefford, constrainedly. “When will their mothers get back to them?”

“To-night, maybe, if this mob of cow-punchers and wranglers get out of town.... It’s a bad mix, Shefford, here’s a hunch on that. These fellows will get full of whisky. And trouble might come if they — approach the women.”

“You mean they might get drunk enough to take the oaths of those poor women — take the meaning literally — pretend to believe the women what they swore they were?”

“Reckon you’ve got the hunch,” replied Joe, gloomily.

“My God! man, that would be horrible!” exclaimed Shefford.

“Horrible or not, it’s liable to happen. The women can be kept here yet awhile. Reckon there won’t be any trouble here. It’ll be over there in the valley. Shefford, getting the women over there safe is a job that’s been put to me. I’ve got a bunch of fellows already. Can I count on you? I’m glad to say you’re well thought of. Bishop Kane liked you, and what he says goes.”

“Yes, Joe, you can count on me,” replied Shefford.

They finished their meal then and repaired to the big office-room of the house. Several groups of men were there and loud talk was going on outside. Shefford saw Withers talking to Bishop Kane and two other Mormons, both strangers to Shefford. The trader appeared to be speaking with unwonted force, emphasizing his words with energetic movements of his hands.

“Reckon something’s up,” whispered Joe, hoarsely. “It’s been in the air all day.”

Withers must have been watching for Shefford.

“Here’s Shefford now,” he said to the trio of Mormons, as Joe and Shefford reached the group. “I want you to hear him speak for himself.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Shefford.

“Give me a hunch and I’ll put in my say-so,” said Joe Lake.

“Shefford, it’s the matter of a good name more than a job,” replied the trader. “A little while back I told the bishop I meant to put you on the pack job over to the valley — same as when you first came to me. Well, the bishop was pleased and said he might put something in your way. Just now I ran in here to find you — not wanted. When I kicked I got the straight hunch. Willetts has said things about you. One of them — the one that sticks in my craw — was that you’d do anything, even pretend to be inclined toward Mormonism, just to be among those Mormon women over there. Willetts is your enemy. And he’s worse than I thought. Now I want you to tell Bishop Kane why this missionary is bitter toward you.”

“Gentlemen, I knocked him down,” replied Shefford, simply.

“What for?” inquired the bishop, in surprise and curiosity.

Shefford related the incident which had occurred at Red Lake and that now seemed again to come forward fatefully.

“You insinuate he had evil intent toward the Indian girl?” queried Kane.

“I insinuate nothing. I merely state what led to my acting as I did.”

“Principles of religion, sir?”

“No. A man’s principles.”

Withers interposed in his blunt way, “Bishop, did you ever see Glen Naspa?”

“No.”

“She’s the prettiest Navajo in the country. Willetts was after her, that’s all.”

“My dear man, I can’t believe that of a Christian missionary. We’ve known Willetts for years. He’s a man of influence. He has money back of him. He’s doing a good work. You hint of a love relation.”

“No, I don’t hint,” replied Withers, impatiently. “I know. It’s not the first time I’ve known a missionary to do this sort of thing. Nor is it the first time for Willetts. Bishop Kane, I live among the Indians. I see a lot I never speak of. My work is to trade with the Indians, that’s all. But I’ll not have Willetts or any other damned hypocrite run down my friend here. John Shefford is the finest young man that ever came to me in the desert. And he’s got to be put right before you all or I’ll not set foot in Stonebridge again.... Willetts was after Glen Naspa. Shefford punched him. And later threw him out of the old Indian’s hogan up on the mountain. That explains Willetts’s enmity. He was after the girl.”

“What’s more, gentlemen, he GOT her,” added Shefford. “Glen Naspa has not been home for six months. I saw her at Blue canyon.... I would like to face this Willetts before you all.”

“Easy enough,” replied Withers, with a grim chuckle. “He’s just outside.”

The trader went out; Joe Lake followed at his heels and the three Mormons were next; Shefford brought up the rear and lingered in the door while his eye swept the crowd of men and Indians. His feeling was in direct contrast to his movements. He felt the throbbing of fierce anger. But it seemed a face came between him and his passion — a sweet and tragic face that would have had power to check him in a vastly more critical moment than this. And in an instant he had himself in hand, and, strangely, suddenly felt the strength that had come to him.

Willetts stood in earnest colloquy with a short, squat Indian — the half-breed Shadd. They leaned against a hitching-rail. Other Indians were there, and outlaws. It was a mixed group, rough and hard-looking.

“Hey, Willetts!” called the trader, and his loud, ringing voice, not pleasant, stilled the movement and sound.

When Willetts turned, Shefford was half-way across the wide walk. The missionary not only saw him, but also Nas Ta Bega, who was striding forward. Joe Lake was ahead of the trader, the Mormons followed with decision, and they all confronted Willetts. He turned pale. Shadd had cautiously moved along the rail, nearer to his gang, and then they, with the others of the curious crowd, drew closer.

“Willetts, here’s Shefford. Now say it to his face!” declared the trader. He was angry and evidently wanted the fact known, as well as the situation.

Willetts had paled, but he showed boldness. For an instant Shefford studied the smooth face, with its sloping lines, the dark, wine-colored eyes.

“Willetts, I understand you’ve maligned me to Bishop Kane and others,” began Shefford, curtly.

“I called you an atheist,” returned the missionary, harshly.

“Yes, and more than that. And I told these men WHY you vented your spite on me.”

Willetts uttered a half-laugh, an uneasy, contemptuous expression of scorn and repudiation.

“The charges of such a man as you are can’t hurt me,” he said.

The man did not show fear so much as disgust at the meeting. He seemed to be absorbed in thought, yet no serious consideration of the situation made itself manifest. Shefford felt puzzled. Perhaps there was no fire to strike from this man. The desert had certainly not made him flint. He had not toiled or suffered or fought.

“But I can hurt you,” thundered Shefford, with startling suddenness. “Here! Look at this Indian! Do you know him? Glen Naspa’s brother. Look at him. Let us see you face him while I accuse you.... You made love to Glen Naspa — took her from her home!”

“Harping infidel!” replied Willetts, hoarsely. “So that’s your game. Well, Glen Naspa came to my school of her own accord and she will say so.”

“Why will she? Because you blinded the simple Indian girl.... Willetts, I’ll waste little more time on you.”

And swift and light as a panther Shefford leaped upon the man and, fastening powerful hands round the thick neck, bore him to his knees and bent back his head over the rail. There was a convulsive struggle, a hard flinging of arms, a straining wrestle, and then Willetts was in a dreadful position. Shefford held him in iron grasp.

“You damned, white-livered hypocrite — I’m liable to kill you!” cried Shefford. “I watched you and Glen Naspa that day up on the mountain. I saw you embrace her. I saw that she loved you. Tell THAT, you liar! That’ll be enough.”

The face of the missionary turned purple as Shefford forced his head back over the rail.

“I’ll kill you, man,” repeated Shefford, piercingly. “Do you want to go to your God unprepared? Say you made love to Glen Naspa — tell that you persuaded her to leave her home. Quick!”

Willetts raised a shaking hand and then Shefford relaxed the paralyzing grip and let his head come forward. The half-strangled man gasped out a few incoherent words that his livid, guilty face made unnecessary.

Shefford gave him a shove and he fell into the dust at the feet of the Navajo.

“Gentlemen, I leave him to Nas Ta Bega,” said Shefford, with a strange change from passion to calmness.

Late that night, when the roystering visitors had gone or were deep in drunken slumber, a melancholy and strange procession filed out of Stonebridge. Joe Lake and his armed comrades were escorting the Mormon women back to the hidden valley. They were mounted on burros and mustangs, and in all that dark and somber line there was only one figure which shone white under the pale moon.

At the starting, until that white-clad figure had appeared, Shefford’s heart had seemed to be in his throat; and thereafter its beat was muffled and painful in his breast. Yet there was some sad sweetness in the knowledge that he could see her now, be near her, watch over her.

By and by the overcast clouds drifted and the moon shone bright. The night was still; the great dark mountain loomed to the stars; the numberless waves of rounded rock that must be crossed and circled lay deep in shadow. There was only a steady pattering of light hoofs.

Shefford’s place was near the end of the line, and he kept well back, riding close to one woman and then another. No word was spoken. These sealed wives rode where their mounts were led or driven, as blind in their hoods as veiled Arab women in palanquins. And their heads drooped wearily and their shoulders bent, as if under a burden. It took an hour of steady riding to reach the ascent to the plateau, and here, with the beginning of rough and smooth and shadowed trail, the work of the escort began. The line lengthened out and each man kept to the several women assigned to him. Shefford had three, and one of them was the girl he loved. She rode as if the world and time and life were naught to her. As soon as he dared trust his voice and his control he meant to let her know the man whom perhaps she had not forgotten was there with her, a friend. Six months! It had been a lifetime to him. Surely eternity to her! Had she forgotten? He felt like a coward who had basely deserted her. Oh — had he only known!

She rode a burro that was slow, continually blocking the passage for those behind, and eventually it became lame. Thus the other women forged ahead. Shefford dismounted and stopped her burro. It was a moment before she noted the halt, and twice in that time Shefford tried to speak and failed. What poignant pain, regret, love made his utterance fail!

“Ride my horse,” he finally said, and his voice was not like his own.

Obediently and wearily she dismounted from the burro and got up on Nack-yal. The stirrups were long for her and he had to change them. His fingers were all thumbs as he fumbled with the buckles.

Suddenly he became aware that there had been a subtle change in her. He knew it without looking up and he seemed to be unable to go on with his task. If his life had depended upon keeping his head lowered he could not have done it. The listlessness of her drooping form was no longer manifest. The peak of the dark hood pointed toward him. He knew then that she was gazing at him.

Never so long as he lived would that moment be forgotten! They were alone. The others had gotten so far ahead that no sound came back. The stillness was so deep it could be felt. The moon shone with white, cold radiance and the shining slopes of smooth stone waved away, crossed by shadows of pinyons.

Then she leaned a little toward him. One swift hand flew up to tear the black hood back so that she could see. In its place flashed her white face. And her eyes were like the night.

“YOU!” she whispered.

His blood came leaping to sting neck and cheek and temple. What dared he interpret from that single word? Could any other word have meant so much?

“No — one — else,” he replied, unsteadily.

Her white hand flashed again to him, and he met it with his own. He felt himself standing cold and motionless in the moonlight. He saw her, wonderful, with the deep, shadowy eyes, and a silver sheen on her hair. And as he looked she released her hand and lifted it, with the other, to her hood. He saw the shiny hair darken and disappear — and then the lovely face with its sad eyes and tragic lips.

He drew Nack-yal’s bridle forward, and led him up the moonlit trail.

XII. THE REVELATION

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON cowboys and horse-wranglers, keen-eyed as Indians for tracks and trails, began to arrive in the quiet valley to which the Mormon women had been returned.

Under every cedar clump there were hobbled horses, packs, and rolled bedding in tarpaulins. Shefford and Joe Lake had pitched camp in the old site near the spring. The other men of Joe’s escort went to the homes of the women; and that afternoon, as the curious visitors began to arrive, these homes became barred and dark and quiet, as if they had been closed and deserted for the winter. Not a woman showed herself.

Shefford and Joe, by reason of the location of their camp and their alertness, met all the new-comers. The ride from Stonebridge was a long and hard one, calculated to wear off the effects of the whisky imbibed by the adventure-seekers. This fact alone saved the situation. Nevertheless, Joe expected trouble. Most of the visitors were decent, good-natured fellows, merely curious, and simple enough to believe that this really was what the Mormons had claimed — a village of free women. But there were those among them who were coarse, evil-minded, and dangerous.

By supper-time there were two dozen or more of these men in the valley, camped along the west wall. Fires were lighted, smoke curled up over the cedars, gay songs disturbed the usual serenity of the place. Later in the early twilight the curious visitors, by twos and threes, walked about the village, peering at the dark cabins and jesting among themselves. Joe had informed Shefford that all the women had been put in a limited number of cabins, so that they could be protected. So far as Shefford saw or heard there was no unpleasant incident in the village; however, as the sauntering visitors returned toward their camps they loitered at the spring, and here developments threatened.

In spite of the fact that the majority of these cowboys and their comrades were decent-minded and beginning to see the real relation of things, they were not disposed to be civil to Shefford. They were certainly not Mormons. And his position, apparently as a Gentile, among these Mormons was one open to criticism. They might have been jealous, too; at any rate, remarks were passed in his hearing, meant for his ears, that made it exceedingly trying for him not to resent. Moreover, Joe Lake’s increasing impatience rendered the situation more difficult. Shefford welcomed the arrival of Nas Ta Bega. The Indian listened to the loud talk of several loungers round the camp-fire; and thereafter he was like Shefford’s shadow, silent, somber, watchful.

Nevertheless, it did not happen to be one of the friendly and sarcastic cowboys that precipitated the crisis. A horse-wrangler named Hurley, a man of bad repute, as much outlaw as anything, took up the bantering.

“Say, Shefford, what in the hell’s your job here, anyway?” he queried as he kicked a cedar branch into the camp-fire. The brightening blaze showed him swarthy, unshaven, a large-featured, ugly man.

“I’ve been doing odd jobs for Withers,” replied Shefford. “Expect to drive pack-trains in here for a while.”

“You must stand strong with these Mormons. Must be a Mormon yerself?”

“No,” replied Shefford, briefly.

“Wal, I’m stuck on your job. Do you need a packer? I can throw a diamond-hitch better ‘n any feller in this country.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Mebbe you’ll take me over to see the ladies,” he went on, with a coarse laugh.

Shefford did not show that he had heard. Hurley waited, leering as looked from the keen listeners to Shefford.

“Want to have them all yerself, eh?” he jeered.

Shefford struck him — sent him tumbling heavily, like a log. Hurley, cursing as he half rose, jerked his gun out. Nas Ta Bega, swift as light, kicked the gun out of his hand. And Joe Lake picked it up.

Deliberately the Mormon cocked the weapon and stood over Hurley.

“Get up!” he ordered, and Shefford heard the ruthless Mormon in him then.

Hurley rose slowly. Then Joe prodded him in the middle with the cocked gun. Shefford startled, expected the gun to go off. So did the others, especially Hurley, who shrank in panic from the dark Mormon.

“Rustle!” said Joe, and gave the man a harder prod. Assuredly the gun did not have a hair-trigger.

“Joe, mebbe it’s loaded!” protested one of the cowboys.

Hurley shrank back, and turned to hurry away, with Joe close after him. They disappeared in the darkness. A constrained silence was maintained around the camp-fire for a while. Presently some of the men walked off and others began to converse. Everybody heard the sound of hoofs passing down the trail. The patter ceased, and in a few moments Lake returned. He still carried Hurley’s gun.

The crowd dispersed then. There was no indication of further trouble. However, Shefford and Joe and Nas Ta Bega divided the night in watches, so that some one would be wide awake.

Early next morning there was an exodus from the village of the better element among the visitors. “No fun hangin’ round hyar,” one of them expressed it, and as good-naturedly as they had come they rode away. Six or seven of the desperado class remained behind, bent on mischief; and they were reinforced by more arrivals from Stonebridge. They avoided the camp by the spring, and when Shefford and Lake attempted to go to them they gave them a wide berth. This caused Joe to assert that they were up to some dirty work. All morning they lounged around under the cedars, keeping out of sight, and evidently the reinforcement from Stonebridge had brought liquor. When they gathered together at their camp, half drunk, all noisy, some wanting to swagger off into the village and others trying to hold them back, Joe Lake said, grimly, that somebody was going to get shot. Indeed, Shefford saw that there was every likelihood of bloodshed.

“Reckon we’d better take to one of the cabins,” said Joe.

Thereupon the three repaired to the nearest cabin, and, entering, kept watch from the windows. During a couple of hours, however, they did not see or hear anything of the ruffians. Then came a shot from over in the village, a single yell, and, after that, a scattering volley. The silence and suspense which followed were finally broken by hoof-beats. Nas Ta Bega called Joe and Shefford to the window he had been stationed at. From here they saw the unwelcome visitors ride down the trail, to disappear in the cedars toward the outlet of the valley. Joe, who had numbered them, said that all but one of them had gone.

“Reckon he got it,” added Joe.

So indeed it turned out; one of the men, a well-known rustler named Harker, had been killed, by whom no one seemed to know. He had brazenly tried to force his way into one of the houses, and the act had cost him his life. Naturally Shefford, never free from his civilized habit of thought, remarked apprehensively that he hoped this affair would not cause the poor women to be arrested again and haled before some rude court.

“Law!” grunted Joe. “There ain’t any. The nearest sheriff is in Durango. That’s Colorado. And he’d give us a medal for killing Harker. It was a good job, for it’ll teach these rowdies a lesson.”

Next day the old order of life was resumed in the village. And the arrival of a heavily laden pack-train, under the guidance of Withers, attested to the fact that the Mormons meant not only to continue to live in the valley, but also to build and plant and enlarge. This was good news to Shefford. At least the village could be made less lonely. And there was plenty of work to give him excuse for staying there. Furthermore, Withers brought a message form Bishop Kane to the effect that the young man was offered a place as teacher in the school, in co-operation with the Mormon teachers. Shefford experienced no twinge of conscience when he accepted.

It was the fourth evening after the never-to-be-forgotten moonlight ride to the valley that Shefford passed under the dark pinon-trees on his way to Fay Larkin’s cottage. He paused in the gloom and memory beset him. The six months were annihilated, and it was the night he had fled. But now all was silent. He seemed to be trying to drag himself back. A beginning must be made. Only how to meet her — what to say — what to conceal!

He tapped on the door and she came out. After all, it was a meeting vastly different from what his feeling made him imagine it might have been. She was nervous, frightened, as were all the other women, for that matter. She was alone in the cottage. He made haste to reassure her about the improbability of any further trouble such as had befallen the last week. As he had always done on those former visits to her, he talked rapidly, using all his wit, and here his emotion made him eloquent; he avoided personalities, except to tell about his prospects of work in the village, and he sought above all to lead her mind from thought of herself and her condition. Before he left her he had the gladness of knowing he had succeeded.

When he said good night he felt the strange falsity of his position. He did not expect to be able to keep up the deception for long. That roused him, and half the night he lay awake, thinking. Next day he was the life of the work and study and play in that village. Kindness and good-will did not need inspiration, but it was keen, deep passion that made him a plotter for influence and friendship. Was there a woman in the village whom he might trust, in case he needed one? And his instinct guided him to her whom he had liked well — Ruth. Ruth Jones she had called herself at the trial, and when Shefford used the name she laughed mockingly. Ruth was not very religious, and sometimes she was bitter and hard. She wanted life, and here she was a prisoner in a lonely valley. She welcomed Shefford’s visits. He imagined that she had slightly changed, and whether it was the added six months with its trouble and pain or a growing revolt he could not tell. After a time he divined that the inevitable retrogression had set in: she had not enough faith to uphold the burden she had accepted, nor the courage to cast it off. She was ready to love him. That did not frighten Shefford, and if she did love him he was not so sure it would not be an anchor for her. He saw her danger, and then he became what he had never really been in all the days of his ministry — the real helper. Unselfishly, for her sake, he found power to influence her; and selfishly, for the sake of Fay Larkin, he began slowly to win her to a possible need.

The days passed swiftly. Mormons came and went, though in the open day, as laborers; new cabins went up, and a store, and other improvements. Some part of every evening Shefford spent with Fay, and these visits were no longer unknown to the village. Women gossiped, in a friendly way about Shefford, but with jealous tongues about the girl. Joe Lake told Shefford the run of the village talk. Anything concerning the Sago Lily the droll Mormon took to heart. He had been hard hit, and admitted it. Sometimes he went with Shefford to call upon her, but he talked little and never remained long. Shefford had anticipated antagonism on the part of Joe; however, he did not find it.

Shefford really lived through the busy day for that hour with Fay in the twilight. And every evening seemed the same. He would find her in the dark, alone, silent, brooding, hopeless. Her mood did not puzzle him, but how to keep from plunging her deeper into despair baffled him. He exhausted all his powers trying to do for her what he had been able to do for Ruth. Yet he failed. Something had blunted her. The shadow of that baneful trial hovered over her, and he came to sense a strange terror in her. It was mostly always present. Was she thinking of Jane Withersteen and Lassiter, left dead or imprisoned in the valley from which she had been brought so mysteriously? Shefford wearied his brain revolving these questions. The fate of her friends, and the cross she bore — of these was tragedy born, but the terror — that Shefford divined came of waiting for the visit of the Mormon whose face she had never seen. Shefford prayed that he might never meet this man. Finally he grew desperate. When he first arrived at the girl’s home she would speak, she showed gladness, relief, and then straightway she dropped back into the shadow of her gloom. When he got up to go then there was a wistfulness, an unspoken need, an unconscious reliance, in her reluctant good night.

Then the hour came when he reached his limit. He must begin his revelation.

“You never ask me anything — let alone about myself,” he said.

“I’d like to hear,” she replied, timidly.

“Do I strike you as an unhappy man?”

“No, indeed.”

“Well, how DO I strike you?”

This was an entirely new tack he had veered to.

“Very good and kind to us women,” she said.

“I don’t know about that. If I am so, it doesn’t bring me happiness. ... Do you remember what I told you once, about my being a preacher — disgrace, ruin, and all that — and my rainbow-chasing dream out here after a — a lost girl?”

“I — remember all — you said,” she replied, very low.

“Listen.” His voice was a little husky, but behind it there seemed a tide of resistless utterance. “Loss of faith and name did not send me to this wilderness. But I had love — love for that lost girl, Fay Larkin. I dreamed about her till I loved her. I dreamed that I would find her — my treasure — at the foot of a rainbow. Dreams!... When you told me she was dead I accepted that. There was truth in your voice. I respected your reticence. But something died in me then. I lost myself, the best of me, the good that might have uplifted me. I went away, down upon the barren desert, and there I rode and slept and grew into another and a harder man. Yet, strange to say, I never forgot her, though my dreams were done. As I toiled and suffered and changed I loved her — if not her, the thought of her — more and more. Now I have come back to these walled valleys — to the smell of pinon, to the flowers in the nooks, to the wind on the heights, to the silence and loneliness and beauty. And here the dreams come back and SHE is WITH me always. Her spirit is all that keeps me kind and good, as you say I am. But I suffer, I long for her alive. If I love her dead, how could I love her living! Always I torture myself with the vain dream that — that she MIGHT not be dead. I have never been anything but a dreamer. And here I go about my work by day and lie awake at night with that lost girl in my mind.... I love her. Does that seem strange to you? But it would not if you understood. Think. I had lost faith, hope. I set myself a great work — to find Fay Larkin. And by the fire and the iron and the blood that I felt it would cost to save her some faith must come to me again.... My work is undone — I’ve never saved her. But listen, how strange it is to feel — now — as I let myself go — that just the loving her and the living here in the wildness that holds her somewhere have brought me hope again. Some faith must come, too. It was through her that I met this Indian, Nas Ta Bega. He has saved my life — taught me much. What would I ever have learned of the naked and vast earth, of the sublimity of the wild uplands, of the storm and night and sun, if I had not followed a gleam she inspired? In my hunt for a lost girl perhaps I wandered into a place where I shall find a God and my salvation. Do you marvel that I love Fay Larkin — that she is not dead to me? Do you marvel that I love her, when I KNOW, were she alive, chained in a canyon, or bound, or lost in any way, my destiny would lead me to her, and she should be saved?”

Shefford ended, overcome with emotion. In the dusk he could not see the girl’s face, but the white form that had drooped so listlessly seemed now charged by some vitalizing current. He knew he had spoken irrationally; still he held it no dishonor to have told her he loved her as one dead. If she took that love to the secret heart of living Fay Larkin, then perhaps a spirit might light in her darkened soul. He had no thought yet that Fay Larkin might ever belong to him. He divined a crime — he had seen her agony. And this avowal of his was only one step toward her deliverance.

Softly she rose, retreating into the shadow.

“Forgive me if I — I disturb you, distress you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you. She was — somehow known to you. I am not happy. And are YOU happy?... Let her memory be a bond between us.... Good night.”

“Good night.”

Faintly as the faintest whisper breathed her reply, and, though it came from a child forced into womanhood, it whispered of girlhood not dead, of sweet incredulity, of amazed tumult, of a wondering, frantic desire to run and hide, of the bewilderment incident to a first hint of love.

Shefford walked away into the darkness. The whisper filled his soul. Had a word of love ever been spoken to that girl? Never — not the love which had been on his lips. Fay Larkin’s lonely life spoke clearly in her whisper.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Next morning as the sun gilded the looming peaks and shafts of gold slanted into the valley she came swiftly down the path to the spring.

Shefford paused in his task of chopping wood. Joe Lake, on his knees, with his big hands in a pan of dough, lifted his head to stare. She had left off the somber black hood, and, although that made a vast difference in her, still it was not enough to account for what struck both men.

“Good morning,” she called, brightly.

They both answered, but not spontaneously. She stopped at the spring and with one sweep of her strong arm filled the bucket and lifted it. Then she started back down the path and, pausing opposite the camp, set the bucket down.

“Joe, do you still pride yourself on your sour dough?” she asked.

“Reckon I do,” replied Joe, with a grin.

“I’ve heard your boasts, but never tasted your bread,” she went on.

“I’ll ask you to eat with us some day.”

“Don’t forget,” she replied.

And then shyly she looked at Shefford. She was like the fresh dawn, and the gold of the sun shone on her head.

“Have you chopped all that wood — so early?” she asked.

“Sure,” replied Shefford, laughing. “I have to get up early to keep Joe from doing all the camp chores.”

She smiled, and then to Shefford she seemed to gleam, to be radiant.

“It’d be a lovely morning to climb— ‘way high.”

“Why — yes — it would,” replied Shefford, awkwardly. “I wish I didn’t have my work.”

“Joe, will YOU climb with me some day?”

“I should smile I will,” declared Joe.

“But I can run right up the walls.”

“I reckon. Mary, it wouldn’t surprise me to see you fly.”

“Do you mean I’m like a canyon swallow or an angel?”

Then, as Joe stared speechlessly, she said good-by and, taking up the bucket, went on with her swift, graceful step.

“She’s perked up,” said the Mormon, staring after her. “Never heard her say more ‘n yes or no till now.”

“She did seem — bright,” replied Shefford.

He was stunned. What had happened to her? To-day this girl had not been Mary, the sealed wife, or the Sago Lily, alien among Mormon women. Then it flashed upon him — she was Fay Larkin. She who had regarded herself as dead had come back to life. In one short night what had transformed her — what had taken place in her heart? Shefford dared not accept, nor allow lodgment in his mind, a thrilling idea that he had made her forget her misery.

“Shefford, did you ever see her like that?” asked Joe.

“Never.”

“Haven’t you — something to do with it?”

“Maybe I have. I — I hope so.”

“Reckon you’ve seen how she’s faded — since the trial?”

“No,” replied Shefford, swiftly. “But I’ve not seen her face in daylight since then.”

“Well, take my hunch,” said Joe, soberly. “She’s begun to fade like the canyon lily when it’s broken. And she’s going to die unless—”

“Why man!” ejaculated Shefford. “Didn’t you see—”

“Sure I see,” interrupted the Mormon. “I see a lot you don’t. She’s so white you can look through her. She’s grown thin, all in a week. She doesn’t eat. Oh, I know, because I’ve made it my business to find out. It’s no news to the women. But they’d like to see her die. And she will die unless—”

“My God!” exclaimed Shefford, huskily. “I never noticed — I never thought.... Joe, hasn’t she any friends?”

“Sure. You and Ruth — and me. Maybe Nas Ta Bega, too. He watches her a good deal.”

“We can do so little, when she needs so much.”

“Nobody can help her, unless it’s you,” went on the Mormon. “That’s plain talk. She seemed different this morning. Why, she was alive — she talked — she smiled.... Shefford, if you cheer her up I’ll go to hell for you!”

The big Mormon, on his knees, with his hands in a pan of dough, and his shirt all covered with flour, presented an incongruous figure of a man actuated by pathos and passion. Yet the contrast made his emotion all the simpler and stronger. Shefford grew closer to Joe in that moment.

“Why do you think I can cheer her, help her?” queried Shefford.

“I don’t know. But she’s different with you. It’s not that you’re a Gentile, though, for all the women are crazy about you. You talk to her. You have power over her, Shefford. I feel that. She’s only a kid.”

“Who is she, Joe? Where did she come from?” asked Shefford, very low, with his eyes cast down.

“I don’t know. I can’t find out. Nobody knows. It’s a mystery — to all the younger Mormons, anyway.”

Shefford burned to ask questions about the Mormon whose sealed wife the girl was, but he respected Joe too much to take advantage of him in a poignant moment like this. Besides, it was only jealousy that made him burn to know the Mormon’s identity, and jealousy had become a creeping, insidious, growing fire. He would be wise not to add fuel to it. He rejected many things before he thought of one that he could voice to his friend.

“Joe, it’s only her body that belongs to — to.... Her soul is lost to—”

“John Shefford, let that go. My mind’s tired. I’ve been taught so and so, and I’m not bright.... But, after all, men are much alike. The thing with you and me is this — we don’t want to see HER grave!”

Love spoke there. The Mormon had seized upon the single elemental point that concerned him and his friend in their relation to this unfortunate girl. His simple, powerful statement united them; it gave the lie to his hint of denseness; it stripped the truth naked. It was such a wonderful thought-provoking statement that Shefford needed time to ponder how deep the Mormon was. To what limit would he go? Did he mean that here, between two men who loved the same girl, class, duty, honor, creed were nothing if they stood in the way of her deliverance and her life?

“Joe Lake, you Mormons are impossible,” said Shefford, deliberately. “You don’t want to see her grave. So long as she lives — remains on the earth — white and gold like the flower you call her, that’s enough for you. It’s her body you think of. And that’s the great and horrible error in your religion.... But death of the soul is infinitely worse than death of the body. I have been thinking of her soul.... So here we stand, you and I. You to save her life — I to save her soul! What will you do?”

“Why, John, I’d turn Gentile,” he said, with terrible softness. It was a softness that scorned Shefford for asking, and likewise it flung defiance at his creed and into the face of hell.

Shefford felt the sting and the exaltation.

“And I’d be a Mormon,” he said.

“All right. We understand each other. Reckon there won’t be any call for such extremes. I haven’t an idea what you mean — what can be done. But I say, go slow, so we won’t all find graves. First cheer her up somehow. Make her want to live. But go slow, John. AND DON’T BE WITH HER LATE!”

. . . . . . . . . . .

That night Shefford found her waiting for him in the moonlight — a girl who was as transparent as crystal-clear water, who had left off the somber gloom with the black hood, who tremulously embraced happiness without knowing it, who was one moment timid and wild like a half-frightened fawn, and the next, exquisitely half-conscious of what it meant to be thought dead, but to be alive, to be awakening, wondering, palpitating, and to be loved.

Shefford lived the hour as a dream and went back to the quiet darkness under the cedars to lie wide-eyed, trying to recall all that she had said. For she had talked as if utterance had long been dammed behind a barrier of silence.

There followed other hours like that one, indescribable hours, so sweet they stung, and in which, keeping pace with his love, was the nobler stride of a spirit that more every day lightened her burden.

The thing he had to do, sooner or later, was to tell her he knew she was Fay Larkin, not dead, but alive, and that, not love nor religion, but sacrifice, nailed her down to her martyrdom. Many and many a time he had tried to force himself to tell her, only to fail. He hated to risk ending this sweet, strange, thoughtless, girlish mood of hers. It might not be soon won back — perhaps never. How could he tell what chains bound her? And so as he vacillated between Joe’s cautious advice to go slow and his own pity the days and weeks slipped by.

One haunting fear kept him sleepless half the nights and sick even in his dreams, and it was that the Mormon whose sealed wife she was might come, surely would come, some night. Shefford could bear it. But what would that visit do to Fay Larkin? Shefford instinctively feared the awakening in the girl of womanhood, of deeper insight, of a spiritual realization of what she was, of a physical dawn.

He might have spared himself needless torture. One day Joe Lake eyed him with penetrating glance.

“Reckon you don’t have to sleep right on that Stonebridge trail,” said the Mormon, significantly.

Shefford felt the blood burn his neck and face. He had pulled his tarpaulin closer to the trail, and his motive was as an open page to the keen Mormon.

“Why?” asked Shefford.

“There won’t be any Mormons riding in here soon — by night — to visit the women,” replied Joe, bluntly. “Haven’t you figured there might be government spies watching the trails?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, take a hunch, then,” added the Mormon, gruffly, and Shefford divined, as well as if he had been told, that warning word had gone to Stonebridge. Gone despite the fact that Nas Ta Bega had reported every trail free of watchers! There was no sign of any spies, cowboys, outlaws, or Indians in the vicinity of the valley. A passionate gratitude to the Mormon overcame Shefford; and the unreasonableness of it, the nature of it, perturbed him greatly. But, something hammered into his brain, if he loved one of these sealed wives, how could he help being jealous?

The result of Joe’s hint was that Shefford put off the hour of revelation, lived in his dream, helped the girl grow farther and farther away from her trouble, until that inevitable hour arrived when he was driven by accumulated emotion as much as the exigency of the case.

He had not often walked with her beyond the dark shade of the pinyons round the cottage, but this night, when he knew he must tell her, he led her away down the path, through the cedar grove to the west end of the valley where it was wild and lonely and sad and silent.

The moon was full and the great peaks were crowned as with snow. A coyote uttered his cutting cry. There were a few melancholy notes from a night bird of the stone walls. The air was clear and cold, with a tang of frost in it. Shefford gazed about him at the vast, uplifted, insulating walls, and that feeling of his which was more than a sense told him how walls like these and the silence and shadow and mystery had been nearly all of Fay Larkin’s life. He felt them all in her.

He stopped out in the open, near the line where dark shadow of the wall met the silver moonlight on the grass, and here, by a huge flat stone where he had come often alone and sometimes with Ruth, he faced Fay Larkin in the spirit to tell her gently that he knew her, and sternly to force her secret from her.

“Am I your friend?” he began.

“Ah! — my only friend,” she said.

“Do you trust me, believe I mean well by you, want to help you?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Well, then, let me speak of you. You know one topic we’ve never touched upon. You!”

She was silent, and looked wonderingly, a little fearfully, at him, as if vague, disturbing thoughts were entering the fringe of her mind.

“Our friendship is a strange one, is it not?” he went on.

“How do I know? I never had any other friendship. What do you mean by strange?”

“Well, I’m a young man. You’re a — a married woman. We are together a good deal — and like to be.”

“Why is that strange?” she asked.

Suddenly Shefford realized that there was nothing strange in what was natural. A remnant of sophistication clung to him and that had spoken. He needed to speak to her in a way which in her simplicity she would understand.

“Never mind strange. Say that I am interested in you, and, as you’re not happy, I want to help you. And say that your neighbors are curious and oppose my idea. Why do they?”

“They’re jealous and want you themselves,” she replied, with sweet directness. “They’ve said things I don’t understand. But I felt they — they hated in me what would be all right in themselves.”

Here to simplicity she added truth and wisdom, as an Indian might have expressed them. But shame was unknown to her, and she had as yet only vague perceptions of love and passion. Shefford began to realize the quickness of her mind, that she was indeed awakening.

“They are jealous — were jealous before I ever came here. That’s only human nature. I was trying to get to a point. Your neighbors are curious. They oppose me. They hate you. It’s all bound up in the — the fact of your difference from them, your youth, beauty, that you’re not a Mormon, that you nearly betrayed their secret at the trial in Stonebridge.”

“Please — please don’t — speak of that!” she faltered.

“But I must,” he replied, swiftly. “That trial was a torture to you. It revealed so much to me.... I know you are a sealed wife. I know there has been a crime. I know you’ve sacrificed yourself. I know that love and religion have nothing to do with — what you are.... Now, is not all that true?”

“I must not tell,” she whispered.

“But I shall MAKE you tell,” he replied, and his voice rang.

“Oh no, you cannot,” she said.

“I can — with just one word!”

Her eyes were great, starry, shadowy gulfs, dark in the white beauty of her face. She was calm now. She had strength. She invited him to speak the word, and the wistful, tremulous quiver of her lips was for his earnest thought of her.

“Wait — a — little,” said Shefford, unsteadily. “I’ll come to that presently. Tell me this — have you ever thought of being free?”

“Free!” she echoed, and there was singular depth and richness in her voice. That was the first spark of fire he had struck from her. “Long ago, the minute I was unwatched, I’d have leaped from a wall had I dared. Oh, I wasn’t afraid. I’d love to die that way. But I never dared.”

“Why?” queried Shefford, piercingly.

She was silent then.

“Suppose I offered to give you freedom that meant life?”

“I — couldn’t — take it.”

“Why?”

“Oh, my friend, don’t ask me any more.”

“I know, I can see — you want to tell me — you need to tell.”

“But I daren’t.”

“Won’t you trust me?”

“I do — I do.”

“Then tell me.”

“No — no — oh no!”

The moment had come. How sad, tragic, yet glorious for him! It would be like a magic touch upon this lovely, cold, white ghost of Fay Larkin, transforming her into a living, breathing girl. He held his love as a thing aloof, and, as such, intangible because of the living death she believed she lived, it had no warmth and intimacy for them. What might it not become with a lightning flash of revelation? He dreaded, yet he was driven to speak. He waited, swallowing hard, fighting the tumultuous storm of emotion, and his eyes dimmed.

“What did I come to this country for?” he asked, suddenly, in ringing, powerful voice.

“To find a girl,” she whispered.

“I’ve found her!”

She began to shake. He saw a white hand go to her breast.

“Where is Surprise Valley?... How were you taken from Jane Withersteen and Lassiter?... I know they’re alive. But where?”

She seemed to turn to stone.

“Fay! — FAY LARKIN!... I KNOW YOU!” he cried, brokenly.

She slipped off the stone to her knees, swayed forward blindly with her hands reaching out, her head falling back to let the moon fall full upon the beautiful, snow-white, tragically convulsed face.

XIII. THE STORY OF SURPRISE VALLEY

“... OH, I remember so well! Even now I dream of it sometimes. I hear the roll and crash of falling rock — like thunder.... We rode and rode. Then the horses fell. Uncle Jim took me in his arms and started up the cliff. Mother Jane climbed close after us. They kept looking back. Down there in the gray valley came the Mormons. I see the first one now. He rode a white horse. That was Tull. Oh, I remember so well! And I was five or six years old.

“We climbed up and up and into dark canyon and wound in and out. Then there was the narrow white trail, straight up, with the little cut steps and the great, red, ruined walls. I looked down over Uncle Jim’s shoulder. I saw Mother Jane dragging herself up. Uncle Jim’s blood spotted the trail. He reached a flat place at the top and fell with me. Mother Jane crawled up to us.

“Then she cried out and pointed. Tull was ‘way below, climbing the trail. His men came behind him. Uncle Jim went to a great, tall rock and leaned against it. There was a bloody hole in his hand. He pushed the rock. It rolled down, banging the loose walls. They crashed and crashed — then all was terrible thunder and red smoke. I couldn’t hear — I couldn’t see.

“Uncle Jim carried me down and down out of the dark and dust into a beautiful valley all red and gold, with a wonderful arch of stone over the entrance.

“I don’t remember well what happened then for what seemed a long, long time. I can feel how the place looked, but not so clear as it is now in my dreams. I seem to see myself with the dogs, and with Mother Jane, learning my letters, marking with red stone on the walls.

“But I remember now how I felt when I first understood we were shut in for ever. Shut in Surprise Valley where Venters had lived so long. I was glad. The Mormons would never get me. I was seven or eight years old then. From that time all is clear in my mind.

“Venters had left supplies and tools and grain and cattle and burros, so we had a good start to begin life there. He had killed off the wildcats and kept the coyotes out, so the rabbits and quail multiplied till there were thousands of them. We raised corn and fruit, and stored what we didn’t use. Mother Jane taught me to read and write with the soft red stone that marked well on the walls.

“The years passed. We kept track of time pretty well. Uncle Jim’s hair turned white and Mother Jane grew gray. Every day was like the one before. Mother Jane cried sometimes and Uncle Jim was sad because they could never be able to get me out of the valley. It was long before they stopped looking and listening for some one. Venters would come back, Uncle Jim always said. But Mother Jane did not think so.

“I loved Surprise Valley. I wanted to stay there always. I remembered Cottonwoods, how the children there hated me, and I didn’t want to go back. The only unhappy times I ever had in the valley were when Ring and Whitie, my dogs, grew old and died. I roamed the valley. I climbed to every nook upon the mossy ledges. I learned to run up the steep cliffs. I could almost stick on the straight walls. Mother Jane called me a wild girl. We had put away the clothes we wore when we got there, to save them, and we made clothes of skins. I always laughed when I thought of my little dress — how I grew out of it. I think Uncle Jim and Mother Jane talked less as the years went by. And after I’d learned all she could teach me we didn’t talk much. I used to scream into the caves just to hear my voice, and the echoes would frighten me.

“The older I grew the more I was alone. I was always running round the valley. I would climb to a high place and sit there for hours, doing nothing. I just watched and listened. I used to stay in the cliff-dwellers’ caves and wonder about them. I loved to be out in the wind. And my happiest time was in the summer storms with the thunder echoes under the walls. At evening it was such a quiet place — after the night bird’s cry, no sound. The quiet made me sad but I loved it. I loved to watch the stars as I lay awake.

“So it was beautiful and happy for me there till — till...

“Two years or more ago there was a bad storm, and one of the great walls caved. The walls were always weathering, slipping. Many and many a time have I heard the rumble of an avalanche, but most of them were in other canyon. This slide in the valley made it possible, Uncle Jim said, for men to get down into the valley. But we could not climb out unless helped from above. Uncle Jim never rested well after that. But it never worried me.

“One day, over a year ago, while I was across the valley, I heard strange shouts, and then screams. I ran to our camp. I came upon men with ropes and guns. Uncle Jim was tied, and a rope was round his neck. Mother Jane was lying on the ground. I thought she was dead until I heard her moan. I was not afraid. I screamed and flew at Uncle Jim to tear the ropes off him. The men held me back. They called me a pretty cat. Then they talked together, and some were for hanging Lassiter — that was the first time I ever knew any name for him but Uncle Jim — and some were for leaving him in the valley. Finally they decided to hang him. But Mother Jane pleaded so and I screamed and fought so that they left off. Then they went away and we saw them climb out of the valley.

“Uncle Jim said they were Mormons, and some among them had been born in Cottonwoods. I was not told why they had such a terrible hate for him. He said they would come back and kill him. Uncle Jim had no guns to fight with.

“We watched and watched. In five days they did come back, with more men, and some of them wore black masks. They came to our cave with ropes and guns. One was tall. He had a cruel voice. The others ran to obey him. I could see white hair and sharp eyes behind the mask. The men caught me and brought me before him.

“He said Lassiter had killed many Mormons. He said Lassiter had killed his father and should be hanged. But Lassiter would be let live and Mother Jane could stay with him, both prisoners there in the valley, if I would marry the Mormon. I must marry him, accept the Mormon faith, and bring up my children as Mormons. If I refused they would hang Lassiter, leave the heretic Jane Withersteen alone in the valley, and take me and break me to their rule.

“I agreed. But Mother Jane absolutely forbade me to marry him. Then the Mormons took me away. It nearly killed me to leave Uncle Jim and Mother Jane. I was carried and lifted out of the valley, and rode a long way on a horse. They brought me here, to the cabin where I live, and I have never been away except that — that time — to — Stonebridge. Only little by little did I learn my position. Bishop Kane was kind, but stern, because I could not be quick to learn the faith.

“I am not a sealed wife. But they’re trying to make me one. The master Mormon — he visited me often — at night — till lately. He threatened me. He never told me a name — except Saint George. I don’t — know him — except his voice. I never — saw his face — in the light!”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Fay Larkin ended her story. Toward its close Shefford had grown involuntarily restless, and when her last tragic whisper ceased all his body seemed shaken with a terrible violence of his joy. He strode to and fro in the dark shadow of the stone. The receding blood left him cold, with a pricking, sickening sensation over his body, but there seemed to be an overwhelming tide accumulating deep in his breast — a tide of passion and pain. He dominated the passion, but the ache remained. And he returned to the quiet figure on the stone.

“Fay Larkin!” he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief that the secret was disclosed. “So you’re not a wife!... You’re free! Thank Heaven! But I felt it was sacrifice. I knew there had been a crime. For crime it is. You child! You can’t understand what crime. Oh, almost I wish you and Jane and Lassiter had never been found. But that’s wrong of me. One year of agony — that shall not ruin your life. Fay, I will take you away.”

“Where?” she whispered.

“Away from this Mormon country — to the East,” he replied, and he spoke of what he had known, of travel, of cities, of people, of happiness possible for a young girl who had spent all her life hidden between the narrow walls of a silent, lonely valley — he spoke swiftly and eloquently till he lost his breath.

There was an instant of flashing wonder and joy on her white face, and then the radiance paled, the glow died. Her soul was the darker for that one strange, leaping glimpse of a glory not for such as she.

“I must stay here,” she said, shudderingly.

“Fay! — How strange to SAY Fay aloud to YOU! — Fay, do you know the way to Surprise Valley?”

“I don’t know where it is, but I could go straight to it,” she replied.

“Take me there. Show me your beautiful valley. Let me see where you ran and climbed and spent so many lonely years.”

“Ah, how I’d love to! But I dare not. And why should you want me to take you? We can run and climb here.”

“I want to — I mean to save Jane Withersteen and Lassiter,” he declared.

She uttered a little cry of pain. “Save them?”

“Yes, save them. Get them out of the valley, take them out of the country, far away where they and YOU—”

“But I can’t go,” she wailed. “I’m afraid. I’m bound. It CAN’T be broken. If I dared — if I tried to go they would catch me. They would hang Uncle Jim and leave Mother Jane alone there to starve.”

“Fay, Lassiter and Jane both will starve — at least they will die there if we do not save them. You have been terribly wronged. You’re a slave. You’re not a wife.”

“They — said I’ll be burned in hell if I don’t marry him.... Mother Jane never taught me about God. I don’t know. But HE — he said God was there. I dare not break it.”

“Fay, you have been deceived by old men. Let them have their creed. But YOU mustn’t accept it.”

“John, what is God to you?”

“Dear child, I — I am not sure of that myself,” he replied, huskily. “When all this trouble is behind us, surely I can help you to understand and you can help me. The fact that you are alive — that Lassiter and Jane are alive — that I shall save you all — that lifts me up. I tell you — Fay Larkin will be my salvation.”

“Your words trouble me. Oh, I shall be torn one way and another.... But, John, I daren’t run away. I will not tell you where to find Lassiter and Mother Jane.”

“I shall find them — I have the Indian. He found you for me. Nas Ta Bega will find Surprise Valley.”

“Nas Ta Bega!... Oh, I remember. There was an Indian with the Mormons who found us. But he was a Piute.”

“Nas Ta Bega never told me how he learned about you. That he learned was enough. And, Fay, he will find Surprise Valley. He will save Uncle Jim and Mother Jane.”

Fay’s hands clasped Shefford’s in strong, trembling pressure; the tears streamed down her white cheeks; a tragic and eloquent joy convulsed her face.

“Oh, my friend, save them! But I can’t go.... Let them keep me! Let him kill me!”

“Him! Fay — he shall not harm you,” replied Shefford in passionate earnestness.

She caught the hand he had struck out with.

“You talk — you look like Uncle Jim when he spoke of the Mormons,” she said. “Then I used to be afraid of him. He was so different. John, you must not do anything about me. Let me be. It’s too late. He — and his men — they would hang you. And I couldn’t bear that. I’ve enough to bear without losing my friend. Say you won’t watch and wait — for — for him.”

Shefford had to promise her. Like an Indian she gave expression to primitive feeling, for it certainly never occurred to her that, whatever Shefford might do, he was not the kind of man to wait in hiding for an enemy. Fay had faltered through her last speech and was now weak and nervous and frightened. Shefford took her back to the cabin.

“Fay, don’t be distressed,” he said. “I won’t do anything right away. You can trust me. I won’t be rash. I’ll consult you before I make a move. I haven’t any idea what I could do, anyway.... You must bear up. Why, it looks as if you’re sorry I found you.”

“Oh! I’m glad!” she whispered.

“Then if you’re glad you mustn’t break down this way again. Suppose some of the women happened to run into us.”

“I won’t again. It’s only you — you surprised me so. I used to think how I’d like you to know — I wasn’t really dead. But now — it’s different. It hurts me here. Yet I’m glad — if my being alive makes you — a little happier.”

Shefford felt that he had to go then. He could not trust himself any further.

“Good night, Fay,” he said.

“Good night, John,” she whispered. “I promise — to be good to-morrow.”

She was crying softly when he left her. Twice he turned to see the dim, white, slender form against the gloom of the cabin. Then he went on under the pinyons, blindly down the path, with his heart as heavy as lead. That night as he rolled in his blanket and stretched wearily he felt that he would never be able to sleep. The wind in the cedars made him shiver. The great stars seemed relentless, passionless, white eyes, mocking his little destiny and his pain. The huge shadow of the mountain resembled the shadow of the insurmountable barrier between Fay and him.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Her pitiful, childish promise to be good was in his mind when he went to her home on the next night. He wondered how she would be, and he realized a desperate need of self-control.

But that night Fay Larkin was a different girl. In the dark, before she spoke, he felt a difference that afforded him surprise and relief. He greeted her as usual. And then it seemed, though not at all clearly, that he was listening to a girl, strangely and unconsciously glad to see him, who spoke with deeper note in her voice, who talked where always she had listened, whose sadness was there under an eagerness, a subdued gaiety as new to her, as sweet as it was bewildering. And he responded with emotion, so that the hour passed swiftly, and he found himself back in camp, in a kind of dream, unable to remember much of what she had said, sure only of this strange sweetness suddenly come to her.

Upon the following night, however, he discovered what had wrought this singular change in Fay Larkin. She loved him and she did not know it. How passionately sweet and sad and painful was that realization for Shefford! The hour spent with her then was only a moment.

He walked under the stars that night and they shed a glorious light upon him. He tried to think, to plan, but the sweetness of remembered word or look made mental effort almost impossible. He got as far as the thought that he would do well to drift, to wait till she learned she loved him, and then, perhaps, she could be persuaded to let him take her and Lassiter and Jane away together.

And from that night he went at his work and the part he played in the village with a zeal and a cunning that left him free to seek Fay when he chose.

Sometimes in the afternoon, always for a while in the evening, he was with her. They climbed the walls, and sat upon a lonely height to look afar; they walked under the stars, and the cedars, and the shadows of the great cliffs. She had a beautiful mind. Listening to her, he imagined he saw down into beautiful Surprise Valley with all its weird shadows, its colored walls and painted caves, its golden shafts of morning light and the red haze at sunset; and he felt the silence that must have been there, and the singing of the wind in the cliffs, and the sweetness and fragrance of the flowers, and the wildness of it all. Love had worked a marvelous transformation in this girl who had lived her life in a canyon. The burden upon her did not weigh heavily. She could not have an unhappy thought. She spoke of the village, of her Mormon companions, of daily happenings, of Stonebridge, of many things in a matter-of-fact way that showed how little they occupied her mind. She even spoke of sealed wives in a kind of dreamy abstraction. Something had possession of her, something as strong as the nature which had developed her, and in its power she, in her simplicity, was utterly unconscious, a watching and feeling girl. A strange, witching, radiant beauty lurked in her smile. And Shefford heard her laugh in his dreams.

The weeks slipped by. The black mountain took on a white cap of snow; in the early mornings there was ice in the crevices on the heights and frost in the valley. In the sheltered canyon where sunshine seemed to linger it was warm and pleasant, so that winter did not kill the flowers.

Shefford waited so long for Fay’s awakening that he believed it would never come, and, believing, had not the heart to force it upon her. Then there was a growing fear with him. What would Fay Larkin do when she awakened to the truth? Fay was indeed like that white and fragile lily which bloomed in the silent, lonely canyon, but the same nature that had created it had created her. Would she droop as the lily would in a furnace blast? More than that, he feared a sudden flashing into life of strength, power, passion, hate. She did not hate yet because she did not yet realize love. She was utterly innocent of any wrong having been done her. More and more he began to fear, and a foreboding grew upon him. He made up his mind to broach the subject of Surprise Valley and of escaping with Lassiter and Jane; still, every time he was with Fay the girl and her beauty and her love were so wonderful that he put off the ordeal till the next night. As time flew by he excused his vacillation on the score that winter was not a good time to try to cross the desert. There was no grass for the mustangs, except in well-known valleys, and these he must shun. Spring would soon come. So the days passed, and he loved Fay more all the time, desperately living out to its limit the sweetness of every moment with her, and paying for his bliss in the increasing trouble that beset him when once away from her charm.

. . . . . . . . . . .

One starry night, about ten o’clock, he went, as was his custom, to drink at the spring. Upon his return to the cedars Nas Ta Bega, who slept under the same tree with him, had arisen, with his blanket hanging half off his shoulder.

“Listen,” said the Indian.

Shefford took one glance at the dark, somber face, with its inscrutable eyes, now so strange and piercing, and then, with a kind of cold excitement, he faced the way the Indian looked, and listened. But he heard only the soft moan of the night wind in the cedars.

Nas Ta Bega kept the rigidity of his position for a moment, and then he relaxed, and stood at ease. Shefford knew the Indian had made a certainty of what must have been a doubtful sound. And Shefford leaned his ear to the wind and strained his hearing.

Then the soft night breeze brought a faint patter — the slow trot of horses on a hard trail. Some one was coming into the village at a late hour. Shefford thought of Joe Lake. But Joe lay right behind him, asleep in his blankets. It could not be Withers, for the trader was in Durango at that time. Shefford thought of Willetts and Shadd.

“Who’s coming?” he asked low of the Indian.

Nas Ta Bega pointed down the trail without speaking.

Shefford peered through the white dim haze of starlight and presently he made out moving figures. Horses, with riders — a string of them — one — two — three — four — five — and he counted up to eleven. Eleven horsemen riding into the village! He was amazed, and suddenly keenly anxious. This visit might be one of Shadd’s raids.

“Shadd’s gang!” he whispered.

“No, Bi Nai,” replied Nas Ta Bega, and he drew Shefford farther into the shade of the cedars. His voice, his action, the way he kept a hand on Shefford’s shoulder, all this told much to the young man.

Mormons come on a night visit! Shefford realized it with a slight shock. Then swift as a lightning flash he was rent by another shock — one that brought cold moisture to his brow and to his heart a flame of hell.

He was shaking when he sank down to find the support of a log. Like a shadow the Indian silently moved away. Shefford watched the eleven horses pass the camp, go down the road, to disappear in the village. They vanished, and the soft clip-clops of hoofs died away. There was nothing left to prove he had not dreamed.

Nothing to prove it except this sudden terrible demoralization of his physical and spiritual being! While he peered out into the valley, toward the black patch of cedars and pinyons that hid the cabins, moments and moments passed, and in them he was gripped with cold and fire.

Was the Mormon who had abducted Fay — the man with the cruel voice — was he among those eleven horsemen? He might not have been. What a torturing hope! But vain — vain, for inevitably he must be among them. He was there in the cabin already. He had dismounted, tied his horse, had knocked on her door. Did he need to knock? No, he would go in, he would call her in that cruel voice, and then...

Shefford pulled a blanket from his bed and covered his cold and trembling body. He had sunk down off the log, was leaning back upon it. The stars were pale, far off, and the valley seemed unreal. He found himself listening — listening with sick and terrible earnestness, trying to hear against the thrum and beat of his heart, straining to catch a sound in all that cold, star-blanched, silent valley. But he could hear no sound. It was as if death held the valley in its perfect silence. How he hated that silence! There ought to have been a million horrible, bellowing demons making the night hideous. Did the stars serenely look down upon the lonely cabins of these exiles? Was there no thunderbolt to drop down from that dark and looming mountain upon the silent cabin where tragedy had entered? In all the world, under the sea, in the abysmal caves, in the vast spaces of the air, there was no such terrible silence as this. A scream, a long cry, a moan — these were natural to a woman, and why did not one of these sealed wives, why did not Fay Larkin, damn this everlasting acquiescent silence? Perhaps she would fly out of her cabin, come running along the path. Shefford peered into the bright patches of starlight and into the shadows of the cedars. But he saw no moving form in the open, no dim white shape against the gloom. And he heard no sound — not even a whisper of wind in the branches overhead.

Nas Ta Bega returned to the shade of the cedars and, lying down on his blankets, covered himself and went to sleep. The fact seemed to bring bitter reality to Shefford. Nothing was going to happen. The valley was to be the same this night as any other night. Shefford accepted the truth. He experienced a kind of self-pity. The night he had thought so much about, prepared for, and had forgotten had now arrived. Then he threw another blanket round him, and, cold, dark, grim, he faced that lonely vigil, meaning to sit there, wide-eyed, to endure and to wait.

Jealousy and pain, following his frenzy, abided with him long hours, and when they passed he divined that selfishness passed with them. What he suffered then was for Fay Larkin and for her sisters in misfortune. He grew big enough to pity these fanatics. The fiery, racing tide of blood that had made of him only an animal had cooled with thought of others. Still he feared that stultifying thing which must have been hate. What a tempest had raged within him! This blood of his, that had received a stronger strain from his desert life, might in a single moment flood out reason and intellect and make him a vengeful man. So in those starlit hours that dragged interminably he looked deep into his heart and tried to fortify himself against a dark and evil moment to come.

Midnight — and the valley seemed a tomb! Did he alone keep wakeful? The sky was a darker blue, the stars burned a whiter fire, the peaks stood looming and vast, tranquil sentinels of that valley, and the wind rose to sigh, to breathe, to mourn through the cedars. It was a sad music. The Indian lay prone, dark face to the stars. Joe Lake lay prone, sleeping as quietly, with his dark face exposed to the starlight. The gentle movement of the cedar branches changed the shape of the bright patches on the grass where shadow and light met. The walls of the valley waved upward, dark below and growing paler, to shine faintly at the rounded rims. And there was a tiny, silvery tinkle of running water over stones.

Here was a little nook of the vast world. Here were tranquillity, beauty, music, loneliness, life. Shefford wondered — did he alone keep watchful? Did he feel that he could see dark, wide eyes peering into the gloom? And it came to him after a time that he was not alone in his vigil, nor was Fay Larkin alone in her agony. There was some one else in the valley, a great and breathing and watchful spirit. It entered into Shefford’s soul and he trembled. What had come to him? And he answered — only added pain and new love, and a strange strength from the firmament and the peaks and the silence and the shadows.

The bright belt with its three radiant stars sank behind the western wall and there was a paler gloom upon the valley.

Then a few lights twinkled in the darkness that enveloped the cabins; a woman’s laugh strangely broke the silence, profaning it, giving the lie to that somber yoke which seemed to consist of the very shadows; the voices of men were heard, and then the slow clip-clop of trotting horses on the hard trail.

Shefford saw the Mormons file out into the paling starlight, ride down the valley, and vanish in the gray gloom. He was aware that the Indian sat up to watch the procession ride by, and that Joe turned over, as if disturbed.

One by one the stars went out. The valley became a place of gray shadows. In the east a light glowed. Shefford sat there, haggard and worn, watching the coming of the dawn, the kindling of the light; and had the power been his the dawn would never have broken and the rose and gold never have tipped the lofty peaks.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Shefford attended to his camp chores as usual. Several times he was aware of Joe’s close scrutiny, and finally, without looking at him, Shefford told of the visit of the Mormons. A violent expulsion of breath was Joe’s answer and it might have been a curse. Straightway Joe ceased his cheery whistling and became as somber as the Indian. The camp was silent; the men did not look at one another. While they sat at breakfast Shefford’s back was turned toward the village — he had not looked in that direction since dawn.

“Ugh!” suddenly exclaimed Nas Ta Bega.

Joe Lake muttered low and deep, and this time there was no mistake about the nature of his speech. Shefford did not have the courage to turn to see what had caused these exclamations. He knew since today had dawned that there was calamity in the air.

“Shefford, I reckon if I know women there’s a little hell coming to you,” said the Mormon, significantly.

Shefford wheeled as if a powerful force had turned him on a pivot. He saw Fay Larkin. She seemed to be almost running. She was unhooded and her bright hair streamed down. Her swift, lithe action was without its usual grace. She looked wild, and she almost fell crossing the stepping-stones of the brook.

Joe hurried to meet her, took hold of her arm and spoke, but she did not seem to hear him. She drew him along with her, up the little bench under the cedars straight toward Shefford. Her face held a white, mute agony, as if in the hour of strife it had hardened into marble. But her eyes were dark-purple fire — windows of an extraordinarily intense and vital life. In one night the girl had become a woman. But the blight Shefford had dreaded to see — the withering of the exquisite soul and spirit and purity he had considered inevitable, just as inevitable as the death of something similar in the flower she resembled, when it was broken and defiled — nothing of this was manifest in her. Straight and swiftly she came to him back in the shade of the cedars and took hold of his hands.

“Last night — HE CAME!” she said.

“Yes — Fay — I — I know,” replied Shefford, haltingly.

He was tremblingly conscious of amaze at her — of something wonderful in her. She did not heed Joe, who stepped aside a little; she did not see Nas Ta Bega, who sat motionless on a log, apparently oblivious to her presence.

“You knew he came?”

“Yes, Fay. I was awake when — they rode in. I watched them. I sat up all night. I saw them ride away.”

“If you knew when he came why didn’t you run to me — to get to me before he did?”

Her question was unanswerable. It had the force of a blow. It stunned him. Its sharp, frank directness sprang from a simplicity and a strength that had not been nurtured in the life he had lived. So far men had wandered from truth and nature!

“I came to you as soon as I was able,” she went on. “I must have fainted. I just had to drag myself around.... And now I can tell you.”

He was powerless to reply, as if she had put another unanswerable question. What did she mean to tell him? What might she not tell him? She loosed her hands from his and lifted them to his shoulders, and that was the first conscious action of feeling, of intimacy, which she had ever shown. It quite robbed Shefford of strength, and in spite of his sorrow there was an indefinable thrill in her touch. He looked at her, saw the white-and-gold beauty that was hers yesterday and seemed changed to-day, and he recognized Fay Larkin in a woman he did not know.

“Listen! He came—”

“Fay, don’t — tell me,” interrupted Shefford.

“I WILL tell you,” she said.

Did the instinct of love teach her how to mitigate his pain? Shefford felt that, as he felt the new-born strength in her.

“Listen,” she went on. “He came when I was undressing for bed. I heard the horse. He knocked on the door. Something terrible happened to me then. I felt sick and my head wasn’t clear. I remember next — his being in the room — the lamp was out — I couldn’t see very well. He thought I was sick and he gave me a drink and let the air blow in on me through the window. I remember I lay back in the chair and I thought. And I listened. When would you come? I didn’t feel that you could leave me there alone with him. For his coming was different this time. That pain like a blade in my side!... When it came I was not the same. I loved you. I understood then. I belonged to you. I couldn’t let him touch me. I had never been his wife. When I realized this — that he was there, that you might suffer for it — I cried right out.

“He thought I was sick. He worked over me. He gave me medicine. And then he prayed. I saw him, in the dark, on his knees, praying for me. That seemed strange. Yet he was kind, so kind that I begged him to let me go. I was not a Mormon. I couldn’t marry him. I begged him to let me go.

“Then he thought I had been deceiving him. He fell into a fury. He talked for a long time. He called upon God to visit my sins upon me. He tried to make me pray. But I wouldn’t. And then I fought him. I’d have screamed for you had he not smothered me. I got weak.... And you never came. I know I thought you would come. But you didn’t. Then I — I gave out. And after — some time — I must have fainted.”

“Fay! For Heaven’s sake, how could I come to you?” burst out Shefford, hoarse and white with remorse, passion, pain.

“If I’m any man’s wife I’m yours. It’s a thing you FEEL, isn’t it? I know that now.... But I want to know what to do?”

“Fay!” he cried, huskily.

“I’m sick of it all. If it weren’t for you I’d climb the wall and throw myself off. That would be easy for me. I’d love to die that way. All my life I’ve been high up on the walls. To fall would be nothing!”

“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that!”

“Do you love me?” she asked, with a low and deathless sweetness.

“Love you? With all my heart! Nothing can change that!”

“Do you want me — as you used to want the Fay Larkin lost in Surprise Valley? Do you love me that way? I understand things better than before, but still — not all. I AM Fay Larkin. I think I must have dreamed of you all my life. I was glad when you came here. I’ve been happy lately. I forgot — till last night. Maybe it needed that to make me see I’ve loved you all the time.... And I fought him like a wildcat!... Tell me the truth. I feel I’m yours. Is that true? If I’m not — I’ll not live another hour. Something holds me up. I am the same.... Do you want me?”

“Yes, Fay Larkin, I want you,” replied Shefford, steadily, with his grip on her arms.

“Then take me away. I don’t want to live here another hour.”

“Fay, I’ll take you. But it can’t be done at once. We must plan. I need help. There are Lassiter and Jane to get out of Surprise Valley. Give me time, dear — give me time. It’ll be a hard job. And we must plan so we can positively get away. Give me time, Fay.”

“Suppose HE comes back?” she queried, with a singular depth of voice.

“We’ll have to risk that,” replied Shefford, miserably. “But — he won’t come soon.”

“He said he would,” she flashed.

Shefford seemed to freeze inwardly with her words. Love had made her a woman and now the woman in her was speaking. She saw the truth as he could not see it. And the truth was nature. She had been hidden all her life from the world, from knowledge as he had it, yet when love betrayed her womanhood to her she acquired all its subtlety.

“If I wait and he DOES come will you keep me from him?” she asked.

“How can I? I’m staking all on the chance of his not coming soon. ... But, Fay, if he DOES come and I don’t give up our secret — how on earth can I keep you from him?” demanded Shefford.

“If you love me you will do it,” she said, as simply as if she were fate.

“But how?” cried Shefford, almost beside himself.

“You are a man. Any man would save the woman who loves him from — from — Oh, from a beast!... How would Lassiter do it?”

“Lassiter!”

“YOU CAN KILL HIM!”

It was there, deep and full in her voice, the strength of the elemental forces that had surrounded her, primitive passion and hate and love, as they were in woman in the beginning.

“My God!” Shefford cried aloud with his spirit when all that was red in him sprang again into a flame of hell. That was what had been wrong with him last night. He could kill this stealthy night-rider, and now, face to face with Fay, who had never been so beautiful and wonderful as in this hour when she made love the only and the sacred thing of life, now he had it in him to kill. Yet, murder — even to kill a brute — that was not for John Shefford, not the way for him to save a woman. Reason and wisdom still fought the passion in him. If he could but cling to them — have them with him in the dark and contending hour!

She leaned against him now, exhausted, her soul in her eyes, and they saw only him. Shefford was all but powerless to resist the longing to take her into his arms, to hold her to his heart, to let himself go. Did not her love give her to him? Shefford gazed helplessly at the stricken Joe Lake, at the somber Indian, as if from them he expected help.

“I know him now,” said Fay, breaking the silence with startling suddenness.

“What!”

“I’ve seen him in the light. I flashed a candle in his face. I saw it. I know him now. He was there at Stonebridge with us, and I never knew him. But I know him now. His name is—”

“For God’s sake don’t tell me who he is!” implored Shefford.

Ignorance was Shefford’s safeguard against himself. To make a name of this heretofore intangible man, to give him an identity apart from the crowd, to be able to recognize him — that for Shefford would be fatal.

“Fay — tell me — no more,” he said, brokenly. “I love you and I will give you my life. Trust me. I swear I’ll save you.”

“Will you take me away soon?”

“Yes.”

She appeared satisfied with that and dropped her hands and moved back from him. A light flitted over her white face, and her eyes grew dark and humid, losing their fire in changing, shadowing thought of submission, of trust, of hope.

“I can lead you to Surprise Valley,” she said. “I feel the way. It’s there!” And she pointed to the west.

“Fay, we’ll go — soon. I must plan. I’ll see you to-night. Then we’ll talk. Run home now, before some of the women see you here.”

She said good-by and started away under the cedars, out into the open where her hair shone like gold in the sunlight, and she took the stepping-stones with her old free grace, and strode down the path swift and lithe as an Indian. Once she turned to wave a hand.

Shefford watched her with a torture of pride, love, hope, and fear contending within him.

XIV. THE NAVAJO

THAT MORNING A Piute rode into the valley.

Shefford recognized him as the brave who had been in love with Glen Naspa. The moment Nas Ta Bega saw this visitor he made a singular motion with his hands — a motion that somehow to Shefford suggested despair — and then he waited, somber and statuesque, for the messenger to come to him. It was the Piute who did all the talking, and that was brief. Then the Navajo stood motionless, with his hands crossed over his breast. Shefford drew near and waited.

“Bi Nai,” said the Navajo, “Nas Ta Bega said his sister would come home some day.... Glen Naspa is in the hogan of her grandfather.”

He spoke in his usual slow, guttural voice, and he might have been bronze for all the emotion he expressed; yet Shefford instinctively felt the despair that had been hinted to him, and he put his hand on the Indian’s shoulder.

“If I am the Navajo’s brother, then I am brother to Glen Naspa,” he said. “I will go with you to the hogan of Hosteen Doetin.”

Nas Ta Bega went away into the valley for the horses. Shefford hurried to the village, made his excuses at the school, and then called to explain to Fay that trouble of some kind had come to the Indian.

Soon afterward he was riding Nack-yal on the rough and winding trail up through the broken country of cliffs and canyon to the great league-long sage and cedar slope of the mountain. It was weeks since he had ridden the mustang. Nack-yal was fat and lazy. He loved his master, but he did not like the climb, and so fell far behind the lean and wiry pony that carried Nas Ta Bega. The sage levels were as purple as the haze of the distance, and there was a bitter-sweet tang on the strong, cool wind. The sun was gold behind the dark line of fringe on the mountain-top. A flock of sheep swept down one of the sage levels, looking like a narrow stream of white and black and brown. It was always amazing for Shefford to see how swiftly these Navajo sheep grazed along. Wild mustangs plunged out of the cedar clumps and stood upon the ridges, whistling defiance or curiosity, and their manes and tails waved in the wind.

Shefford mounted slowly to the cedar bench in the midst of which were hidden the few hogans. And he halted at the edge to dismount and take a look at that downward-sweeping world of color, of wide space, at the wild desert upland which from there unrolled its magnificent panorama.

Then he passed on into the cedars. How strange to hear the lambs bleating again! Lambing-time had come early, but still spring was there in the new green of grass, in the bright upland flower. He led his mustang out of the cedars into the cleared circle. It was full of colts and lambs, and there were the shepherd-dogs and a few old rams and ewes. But the circle was a quiet place this day. There were no Indians in sight. Shefford loosened the saddle-girths on Nack-yal and, leaving him to graze, went toward the hogan of Hosteen Doetin. A blanket was hung across the door. Shefford heard a low chanting. He waited beside the door till the covering was pulled in, then he entered.

Hosteen Doetin met him, clasped his hand. The old Navajo could not speak; his fine face was working in grief; tears streamed from his dim old eyes and rolled down his wrinkled cheeks. His sorrow was no different from a white man’s sorrow. Beyond him Shefford saw Nas Ta Bega standing with folded arms, somehow terrible in his somber impassiveness. At his feet crouched the old woman, Hosteen Doetin’s wife, and beside her, prone and quiet, half covered with a blanket, lay Glen Naspa.

She was dead. To Shefford she seemed older than when he had last seen her. And she was beautiful. Calm, cold, dark, with only bitter lips to give the lie to peace! There was a story in those lips.

At her side, half hidden under the fold of blanket, lay a tiny bundle. Its human shape startled Shefford. Then he did not need to be told the tragedy. When he looked again at Glen Naspa’s face he seemed to understand all that had made her older, to feel the pain that had lined and set her lips.

She was dead, and she was the last of Nas Ta Bega’s family. In the old grandfather’s agony, in the wild chant of the stricken grandmother, in the brother’s stern and terrible calmness Shefford felt more than the death of a loved one. The shadow of ruin, of doom, of death hovered over the girl and her family and her tribe and her race. There was no consolation to offer these relatives of Glen Naspa. Shefford took one more fascinated gaze at her dark, eloquent, prophetic face, at the tragic tiny shape by her side, and then with bowed head he left the hogan.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Outside he paced to and fro, with an aching heart for Nas Ta Bega, with something of the white man’s burden of crime toward the Indian weighing upon his soul.

Old Hosteen Doetin came to him with shaking hands and words memorable of the time Glen Naspa left his hogan.

“Me no savvy Jesus Christ. Me hungry. Me no eat Jesus Christ!”

That seemed to be all of his trouble that he could express to Shefford. He could not understand the religion of the missionary, this Jesus Christ who had called his granddaughter away. And the great fear of an old Indian was not death, but hunger. Shefford remembered a custom of the Navajos, a thing barbarous looked at with a white man’s mind. If an old Indian failed on a long march he was inclosed by a wall of stones, given plenty to eat and drink, and left there to die in the desert. Not death did he fear, but hunger! Old Hosteen Doetin expected to starve, now that the young and strong squaw of his family was gone.

Shefford spoke in his halting Navajo and assured the old Indian that Nas Ta Bega would never let him starve.

At sunset Shefford stood with Nas Ta Bega facing the west. The Indian was magnificent in repose. He watched the sun go down upon the day that had seen the burial of the last of his family. He resembled an impassive destiny, upon which no shocks fell. He had the light of that flaring golden sky in his face, the majesty of the mountain in his mien, the silence of the great gulf below on his lips. This educated Navajo, who had reverted to the life of his ancestors, found in the wildness and loneliness of his environment a strength no white teaching could ever have given him. Shefford sensed in him a measureless grief, an impenetrable gloom, a tragic acceptance of the meaning of Glen Naspa’s ruin and death — the vanishing of his race from the earth. Death had written the law of such bitter truth round Glen Naspa’s lips, and the same truth was here in the grandeur and gloom of the Navajo.

“Bi Nai,” he said, with the beautiful sonorous roll in his voice, “Glen Naspa is in her grave and there are no paths to the place of her sleep. Glen Naspa is gone.”

“Gone! Where? Nas Ta Bega, remember I lost my own faith, and I have not yet learned yours.”

“The Navajo has one mother — the earth. Her body has gone to the earth and it will become dust. But her spirit is in the air. It shall whisper to me from the wind. I shall hear it on running waters. It will hide in the morning music of a mocking-bird and in the lonely night cry of the canyon hawk. Her blood will go to make the red of the Indian flowers and her soul will rest at midnight in the lily that opens only to the moon. She will wait in the shadow for me, and live in the great mountain that is my home, and for ever step behind me on the trail.”

“You will kill Willetts?” demanded Shefford.

“The Navajo will not seek the missionary.”

“But if you meet him you’ll kill him?”

“Bi Nai, would Nas Ta Bega kill after it is too late? What good could come? The Navajo is above revenge.”

“If he crosses my trail I think I couldn’t help but kill him,” muttered Shefford in a passion that wrung the threat from him.

The Indian put his arm round the white man’s shoulders.

“Bi Nai, long ago I made you my brother. And now you make me your brother. Is it not so? Glen Naspa’s spirit calls for wisdom, not revenge. Willetts must be a bad man. But we’ll let him live. Life will punish him. Who knows if he was all to blame? Glen Naspa was only one pretty Indian girl. There are many white men in the desert. She loved a white man when she was a baby. The thing was a curse. ... Listen, Bi Nai, and the Navajo will talk.

“Many years ago the Spanish padres, the first white men, came into the land of the Indian. Their search was for gold. But they were not wicked men. They did not steal and kill. They taught the Indian many useful things. They brought him horses. But when they went away they left him unsatisfied with his life and his god.

“Then came the pioneers. They crossed the great river and took the pasture-lands and the hunting-grounds of the Indian. They drove him backward, and the Indian grew sullen. He began to fight. The white man’s government made treaties with the Indian, and these were broken. Then war came — fierce and bloody war. The Indian was driven to the waste places. The stream of pioneers, like a march of ants, spread on into the desert. Every valley where grass grew, every river, became a place for farms and towns. Cattle choked the water-holes where the buffalo and deer had once gone to drink. The forests in the hills were cut and the springs dried up. And the pioneers followed to the edge of the desert.

“Then came the prospectors, mad, like the padres for the gleam of gold. The day was not long enough for them to dig in the creeks and the canyon; they worked in the night. And they brought weapons and rum to the Indian, to buy from him the secret of the places where the shining gold lay hidden.

“Then came the traders. And they traded with the Indian. They gave him little for much, and that little changed his life. He learned a taste for the sweet foods of the white man. Because he could trade for a sack of flour he worked less in the field. And the very fiber of his bones softened.

“Then came the missionaries. They were proselytizers for converts to their religion. The missionaries are good men. There may be a bad missionary, like Willetts, the same as there are bad men in other callings, or bad Indians. They say Shadd is a half-breed. But the Piutes can tell you he is a full-blood, and he, like me, was sent to a white man’s school. In the beginning the missionaries did well for the Indian. They taught him cleaner ways of living, better farming, useful work with tools — many good things. But the wrong to the Indian was the undermining of his faith. It was not humanity that sent the missionary to the Indian. Humanity would have helped the Indian in his ignorance of sickness and work, and left him his god. For to trouble the Indian about his god worked at the roots of his nature.

“The beauty of the Indian’s life is in his love of the open, of all that is nature, of silence, freedom, wildness. It is a beauty of mind and soul. The Indian would have been content to watch and feel. To a white man he might be dirty and lazy — content to dream life away without trouble or what the white man calls evolution. The Indian might seem cruel because he leaves his old father out in the desert to die. But the old man wants to die that way, alone with his spirits and the sunset. And the white man’s medicine keeps his old father alive days and days after he ought to be dead. Which is more cruel? The Navajos used to fight with other tribes, and then they were stronger men than they are to-day.

“But leaving religion, greed, and war out of the question, contact with the white man would alone have ruined the Indian. The Indian and the white man cannot mix. The Indian brave learns the habits of the white man, acquires his diseases, and has not the mind or body to withstand them. The Indian girl learns to love the white man — and that is death of her Indian soul, if not of life.

“So the red man is passing. Tribes once powerful have died in the life of Nas Ta Bega. The curse of the white man is already heavy upon my race in the south. Here in the north, in the wildest corner of the desert, chased here by the great soldier, Carson, the Navajo has made his last stand.

“Bi Nai, you have seen the shadow in the hogan of Hosteen Doetin. Glen Naspa has gone to her grave, and no sisters, no children, will make paths to the place of her sleep. Nas Ta Bega will never have a wife — a child. He sees the end. It is the sunset of the Navajo.... Bi Nai, the Navajo is dying — dying — dying!”

XV. WILD JUSTICE

A CRESCENT MOON hung above the lofty peak over the valley and a train of white stars ran along the bold rim of the western wall. A few young frogs peeped plaintively. The night was cool, yet had a touch of balmy spring, and a sweeter fragrance, as if the cedars and pinyons had freshened in the warm sun of that day.

Shefford and Fay were walking in the aisles of moonlight and the patches of shade, and Nas Ta Bega, more than ever a shadow of his white brother, followed them silently.

“Fay, it’s growing late. Feel the dew?” said Shefford. “Come, I must take you back.”

“But the time’s so short. I have said nothing that I wanted to say,” she replied.

“Say it quickly, then, as we go.”

“After all, it’s only — will you take me away soon?”

“Yes, very soon. The Indian and I have talked. But we’ve made no plan yet. There are only three ways to get out of this country. By Stonebridge, by Kayenta and Durango, and by Red Lake. We must choose one. All are dangerous. We must lose time finding Surprise Valley. I hoped the Indian could find it. Then we’d bring Lassiter and Jane here and hide them near till dark, then take you and go. That would give us a night’s start. But you must help us to Surprise Valley.”

“I can go right to it, blindfolded, or in the dark.... Oh, John, hurry! I dread the wait. He might come again.”

“Joe says — they won’t come very soon.”

“Is it far — where we’re going — out of the country?”

“Ten days’ hard riding.”

“Oh! That night ride to and from Stonebridge nearly killed me. But I could walk very far, and climb for ever.”

“Fay, we’ll get out of the country if I have to carry you.”

When they arrived at the cabin Fay turned on the porch step and, with her face nearer a level with his, white and sweet in the moonlight, with her eyes shining and unfathomable, she was more than beautiful.

“You’ve never been inside my house,” she said. “Come in. I’ve something for you.”

“But it’s late,” he remonstrated. “I suppose you’ve got me a cake or pie — something to eat. You women all think Joe and I have to be fed.”

“No. You’d never guess. Come in,” she said, and the rare smile on her face was something Shefford would have gone far to see.

“Well, then, for a minute.”

He crossed the porch, the threshold, and entered her home. Her dim, white shape moved in the darkness. And he followed into a room where the moon shone through the open window, giving soft, mellow, shadowy light. He discerned objects, but not clearly, for his senses seemed absorbed in the strange warmth and intimacy of being for the first time with her in her home.

“No, it’s not good to eat,” she said, and her laugh was happy. “Here—”

Suddenly she abruptly ceased speaking. Shefford saw her plainly, and the slender form had stiffened, alert and strained. She was listening.

“What was that?” she whispered.

“I didn’t hear anything,” he whispered back.

He stepped softly nearer the open window and listened.

Clip-clop! clip-clop! clip-clop! Hard hoofs on the hard path outside!

A strong and rippling thrill went over Shefford. In the soft light her eyes seemed unnaturally large and black and fearful.

Clip-clop! clip-clop!

The horse stopped outside. Then followed a metallic clink of spur against stirrup — thud of boots on hard ground — heavy footsteps upon the porch.

A swift, cold contraction of throat, of breast, convulsed Shefford. His only thought was that he could not think.

“Ho — Mary!”

A voice liberated both Shefford’s muscle and mind — a voice of strange, vibrant power. Authority of religion and cruelty of will — these Mormon attributes constituted that power. And Shefford suffered a transformation which must have been ordered by demons. That sudden flame seemed to curl and twine and shoot along his veins with blasting force. A rancorous and terrible cry leaped to his lips.

“Ho — Mary!” Then came a heavy tread across the threshold of the outer room.

Shefford dared not look at Fay. Yet, dimly, from the corner of his eye, he saw her, a pale shadow, turned to stone, with her arms out. If he looked, if he made sure of that, he was lost. When had he drawn his gun? It was there, a dark and glinting thing in his hand. He must fly — not through cowardice and fear, but because in one more moment he would kill a man. Swift as the thought he dove through the open window. And, leaping up, he ran under the dark pinyons toward camp.

Joe Lake had been out late himself. He sat by the fire, smoking his pipe. He must have seen or heard Shefford coming, for he rose with unwonted alacrity, and he kicked the smoldering logs into a flickering blaze.

Shefford, realizing his deliverance, came panting, staggering into the light. The Mormon uttered an exclamation. Then he spoke, anxiously, but what he said was not clear in Shefford’s thick and throbbing ears. He dropped his pipe, a sign of perturbation, and he stared.

But Shefford, without a word, lunged swiftly away into the shadow of the cedars. He found relief in action. He began a steep ascent of the east wall, a dangerous slant he had never dared even in daylight, and he climbed it without a slip. Danger, steep walls, perilous heights, night, and black canyon the same — these he never thought of. But something drove him to desperate effort, that the hours might seem short.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The red sun was tipping the eastern wall when he returned to camp, and he was neither calm nor sure of himself nor ready for sleep or food. Only he had put the night behind him.

The Indian showed no surprise. But Joe Lake’s jaw dropped and his eyes rolled. Moreover, Joe bore a singular aspect, the exact nature of which did not at once dawn upon Shefford.

“By God! you’ve got nerve — or you’re crazy!” he ejaculated, hoarsely.

Then it was Shefford’s turn to stare. The Mormon was haggard, grieved, frightened, and utterly amazed. He appeared to be trying to make certain of Shefford’s being there in the flesh and then to find reason for it.

“I’ve no nerve and I am crazy,” replied Shefford. “But, Joe — what do you mean? Why do you look at me like that?”

“I reckon if I get your horse that’ll square us. Did you come back for him? You’d better hit the trail quick.”

“It’s you now who’re crazy,” burst out Shefford.

“Wish to God I was,” replied Joe.

It was then Shefford realized catastrophe, and cold fear gnawed at his vitals, so that he was sick.

“Joe, what has happened?” he asked, with the blood thick in his heart.

“Hadn’t you better tell me?” demanded the Mormon, and a red wave blotted out the haggard shade of his face.

“You talk like a fool,” said Shefford, sharply, and he strode right up to Joe.

“See here, Shefford, we’ve been pards. You’re making it hard for me. Reckon you ain’t square.”

Shefford shot out a long arm and his hand clutched the Mormon’s burly shoulder.

“Why am I not square? What do you mean?”

Joe swallowed hard and gave himself a shake. Then he eyed his comrade steadily.

“I was afraid you’d kill him. I reckon I can’t blame you. I’ll help you get away. And I’m a Mormon! Do you take the hunch?... But don’t deny you killed him!”

“Killed whom?” gasped Shefford.

“Her husband!”

Shefford seemed stricken by a slow, paralyzing horror. The Mormon’s changing face grew huge and indistinct and awful in his sight. He was clutched and shaken in Joe’s rude hands, yet scarcely felt them. Joe seemed to be bellowing at him, but the voice was far off. Then Shefford began to see, to hear through some cold and terrible deadness that had come between him and everything.

“Say YOU killed him!” hoarsely supplicated the Mormon.

Shefford had not yet control of speech. Something in his gaze appeared to drive Joe frantic.

“Damn you! Tell me quick. Say YOU killed him!... If you want to know my stand, why, I’m glad!... Shefford, don’t look so stony! ... For HER sake, say you killed him!”

Shefford stood with a face as gray and still as stone. With a groan the Mormon drew away from him and sank upon a log. He bowed his head; his broad shoulders heaved; husky sounds came from him. Then with a violent wrench he plunged to his feet and shook himself like a huge, savage dog.

“Reckon it’s no time to weaken,” he said, huskily, and with the words a dark, hard, somber bitterness came to his face.

“Where — is — she?” whispered Shefford.

“Shut up in the school-house,” he replied.

“Did she — did she—”

“She neither denied nor confessed.”

“Have you — seen her?”

“Yes.”

“How did — she look?”

“Cool and quiet as the Indian there.... Game as hell! She always had stuff in her.”

“Oh, Joe!... It’s unbelievable!” cried Shefford. “That lovely, innocent girl! She couldn’t — she couldn’t.”

“She’s fixed him. Don’t think of that. It’s too late. We ought to have saved her.”

“God!... She begged me to hurry — to take her away.”

“Think what we can do NOW to save her,” cut in the Mormon.

Shefford sustained a vivifying shock. “To save her?” he echoed.

“Think, man!”

“Joe, I can hit the trail and let you tell them I killed him,” burst out Shefford in panting excitement.

“Reckon I can.”

“So help me God I’ll do it!”

The Mormon turned a dark and austere glance upon Shefford.

“You mustn’t leave her. She killed him for your sake.... You must fight for her now — save her — take her away.”

“But the law!”

“Law!” scoffed Joe. “In these wilds men get killed and there’s no law. But if she’s taken back to Stonebridge those iron-jawed old Mormons will make law enough to — to... Shefford, the thing is — get her away. Once out of the country, she’s safe. Mormons keep their secrets.”

“I’ll take her. Joe, will you help me?”

Shefford, even in his agitation, felt the Mormon’s silence to be a consent that need not have been asked. And Shefford had a passionate gratefulness toward his comrade. That stultifying and blinding prejudice which had always seemed to remove a Mormon outside the pale of certain virtue suffered final eclipse; and Joe Lake stood out a man, strange and crude, but with a heart and a soul.

“Joe, tell me what to do,” said Shefford, with a simplicity that meant he needed only to be directed.

“Pull yourself together. Get your nerve back,” replied Joe. “Reckon you’d better show yourself over there. No one saw you come in this morning — your absence from camp isn’t known. It’s better you seem curious and shocked like the rest of us. Come on. We’ll go over. And afterward we’ll get the Indian, and plan.”

They left camp and, crossing the brook, took the shaded path toward the village. Hope of saving Fay, the need of all his strength and nerve and cunning to effect that end, gave Shefford the supreme courage to overcome his horror and fear. On that short walk under the pinyons to Fay’s cabin he had suffered many changes of emotion, but never anything like this change which made him fierce and strong to fight, deep and crafty to plan, hard as iron to endure.

The village appeared very quiet, though groups of women stood at the doors of cabins. If they talked, it was very low. Henninger and Smith, two of the three Mormon men living in the village, were standing before the closed door of the school-house. A tigerish feeling thrilled Shefford when he saw them on guard there. Shefford purposely avoided looking at Fay’s cabin as long as he could keep from it. When he had to look he saw several hooded, whispering women in the yard, and Beal, the other Mormon man, standing in the cabin door. Upon the porch lay the long shape of a man, covered with blankets.

Shefford experienced a horrible curiosity.

“Say, Beal, I’ve fetched Shefford over,” said Lake. “He’s pretty much cut up.”

Beal wagged a solemn head, but said nothing. His mind seemed absent or steeped in gloom, and he looked up as one silently praying.

Joe Lake strode upon the little porch and, reaching down, he stripped the blanket from the shrouded form.

Shefford saw a sharp, cold, ghastly face. “WAGGONER!” he whispered.

“Yes,” replied Lake.

Waggoner! Shefford remembered the strange power in his face, and, now that life had gone, that power was stripped of all disguise. Death, in Shefford’s years of ministry, had lain under his gaze many times and in a multiplicity of aspects, but never before had he seen it stamped so strangely. Shefford did not need to be told that here was a man who believed he had conversed with God on earth, who believed he had a divine right to rule women, who had a will that would not yield itself to death utterly. Waggoner, then, was the devil who had come masked to Surprise Valley, had forced a martyrdom upon Fay Larkin. And this was the Mormon who had made Fay Larkin a murderess. Shefford had hated him living, and now he hated him dead. Death here was robbed of all nobility, of pathos, of majesty. It was only retribution. Wild justice! But alas! that it had to be meted out by a white-soled girl whose innocence was as great as the unconscious savagery which she had assimilated from her lonely and wild environment. Shefford laid a despairing curse upon his own head, and a terrible remorse knocked at his heart. He had left her alone, this girl in whom love had made the great change — like a coward he had left her alone. That curse he visited upon himself because he had been the spirit and the motive of this wild justice, and his should have been the deed.

Joe Lake touched Shefford’s arm and pointed at the haft of a knife protruding from Waggoner’s breast. It was a wooden haft. Shefford had seen it before somewhere.

Then he was struck with what perhaps Joe meant him to see — the singular impression the haft gave of one sweeping, accurate, powerful stroke. A strong arm had driven that blade home. The haft was sunk deep; there was a little depression in the cloth; no blood showed; and the weapon looked as if it could not be pulled out. Shefford’s thought went fatally and irresistibly to Fay Larkin’s strong arm. He saw her flash that white arm and lift the heavy bucket from the spring with an ease he wondered at. He felt the strong clasp of her hand as she had given it to him in a flying leap across a crevice upon the walls. Yes, her fine hand and the round, strong arm possessed the strength to have given that blade its singular directness and force. The marvel was not in the physical action. It hid inscrutably in the mystery of deadly passion rising out of a gentle and sad heart.

Joe Lake drew up the blanket and shut from Shefford’s fascinated gaze that spare form, that accusing knife, that face of strange, cruel power.

“Anybody been sent for?” asked Lake of Beal.

“Yes. An Indian boy went for the Piute. We’ll send him to Stonebridge,” replied the Mormon.

“How soon do you expect any one here from Stonebridge?”

“To-morrow, mebbe by noon.”

“Meantime what’s to be done with — this?”

“Elder Smith thinks the body should stay right here where it fell till they come from Stonebridge.”

“Waggoner was found here, then?”

“Right here.”

“Who found him?”

“Mother Smith. She came over early. An’ the sight made her scream. The women all came runnin’. Mother Smith had to be put to bed.”

“Who found — Mary?”

“See here, Joe, I told you all I knowed once before,” replied the Mormon, testily.

“I’ve forgotten. Was sort of bewildered. Tell me again.... Who found — her?”

“The women folks. She laid right inside the door, in a dead faint. She hadn’t undressed. There was blood on her hands an’ a cut or scratch. The women fetched her to. But she wouldn’t talk. Then Elder Smith come an’ took her. They’ve got her locked up.”

Then Joe led Shefford away from the cabin farther on into the village. When they were halted by the somber, grieving women it was Joe who did the talking. They passed the school-house, and here Shefford quickened his step. He could scarcely bear the feeling that rushed over him. And the Mormon gripped his arm as if he understood.

“Shefford, which one of these younger women do you reckon your best friend? Ruth?” asked Lake, earnestly.

“Ruth, by all means. Just lately I haven’t seen her often. But we’ve been close friends. I think she’d do much for me.”

“Maybe there’ll be a chance to find out. Maybe we’ll need Ruth. Let’s have a word with her. I haven’t seen her out among the women.”

They stopped at the door of Ruth’s cabin. It was closed. When Joe knocked there came a sound of footsteps inside, a hand drew aside the window-blind, and presently the door opened. Ruth stood there, dressed in somber hue. She was a pretty, slender, blue-eyed, brown-haired young woman.

Shefford imagined from her pallor and the set look of shock upon her face, that the tragedy had affected her more powerfully than it had the other women. When he remembered that she had been more friendly with Fay Larkin than any other neighbor, he made sure he was right in his conjecture.

“Come in,” was Ruth’s greeting.

“No. We just wanted to say a word. I noticed you’ve not been out. Do you know — all about it?”

She gave them a strange glance.

“Any of the women folks been in?” added Joe.

“Hester ran over. She told me through the window. Then I barred my door to keep the other women out.”

“What for?” asked Joe, curiously.

“Please come in,” she said, in reply.

They entered, and she closed the door after them. The change that came over her then was the loosing of restraint.

“Joe — what will they do with Mary?” she queried, tensely.

The Mormon studied her with dark, speculative eyes. “Hang her!” he rejoined in brutal harshness.

“O Mother of Saints!” she cried, and her hands went up.

“You’re sorry for Mary, then?” asked Joe, bluntly.

“My heart is breaking for her.”

“Well, so’s Shefford’s,” said the Mormon, huskily. “And mine’s kind of damn shaky.”

Ruth glided to Shefford with a woman’s swift softness.

“You’ve been my good — my best friend. You were hers, too. Oh, I know! ... Can’t you do something for her?”

“I hope to God I can,” replied Shefford.

Then the three stood looking from one to the other, in a strong and subtly realizing moment drawn together.

“Ruth,” whispered Joe, hoarsely, and then he glanced fearfully around, at the window and door, as if listeners were there. It was certain that his dark face had paled. He tried to whisper more, only to fail. Shefford divined the weight of Mormonism that burdened Joe Lake then. Joe was faithful to a love for Fay Larkin, noble in friendship to Shefford, desperate in a bitter strait with his own manliness, but the power of that creed by which he had been raised struck his lips mute. For to speak on meant to be false to that creed. Already in his heart he had decided, yet he could not voice the thing.

“Ruth” — Shefford took up the Mormon’s unfinished whisper— “if we plan to save her — if we need you — will you help?”

Ruth turned white, but an instant and splendid fire shone in her eyes.

“Try me,” she whispered back. “I’ll change places with her — so you can get her away. They can’t do much to me.”

Shefford wrung her hands. Joe licked his lips and found his voice: “We’ll come back later.” Then he led the way out and Shefford followed. They were silent all the way back to camp.

Nas Ta Bega sat in repose where they had left him, a thoughtful, somber figure. Shefford went directly to the Indian, and Joe tarried at the camp-fire, where he raked out some red embers and put one upon the bowl of his pipe. He puffed clouds of white smoke, then found a seat beside the others.

“Shefford, go ahead. Talk. It’ll take a deal of talk. I’ll listen. Then I’ll talk. It’ll be Nas Ta Bega who makes the plan out of it all.”

Shefford launched himself so swiftly that he scarcely talked coherently. But he made clear the points that he must save Fay, get her away from the village, let her lead him to Surprise Valley, rescue Lassiter and Jane Withersteen, and take them all out of the country.

Joe Lake dubiously shook his head. Manifestly the Surprise Valley part of the situation presented a new and serious obstacle. It changed the whole thing. To try to take the three out by way of Kayenta and Durango was not to be thought of, for reasons he briefly stated. The Red Lake trail was the only one left, and if that were taken the chances were against Shefford. It was five days over sand to Red Lake — impossible to hide a trail — and even with a day’s start Shefford could not escape the hard-riding men who would come from Stonebridge. Besides, after reaching Red Lake, there were days and days of desert-travel needful to avoid places like Blue canyon, Tuba, Moencopie, and the Indian villages.

“We’ll have to risk all that,” declared Shefford, desperately.

“It’s a fool risk,” retorted Joe. “Listen. By tomorrow noon all of Stonebridge, more or less, will be riding in here. You’ve got to get away to-night with the girl — or never! And to-morrow you’ve got to find that Lassiter and the woman in Surprise Valley. This valley must be back, deep in the canyon country. Well, you’ve got to come out this way again. No trail through here would be safe. Why, you’d put all your heads in a rope!... You mustn’t come through this way. It’ll have to be tried across country, off the trails, and that means hell — day-and-night travel, no camp, no feed for horses — maybe no water. Then you’ll have the best trackers in Utah like hounds on your trail.”

When the Mormon ceased his forceful speech there was a silence fraught with hopeless meaning. He bowed his head in gloom. Shefford, growing sick again to his marrow, fought a cold, hateful sense of despair.

“Bi Nai!” In his extremity he called to the Indian.

“The Navajo has heard,” replied Nas Ta Bega, strangely speaking in his own language.

With a long, slow heave of breast Shefford felt his despair leave him. In the Indian lay his salvation. He knew it. Joe Lake caught the subtle spirit of the moment and looked up eagerly.

Nas Ta Bega stretched an arm toward the east, and spoke in Navajo. But Shefford, owing to the hurry and excitement of his mind, could not translate. Joe Lake listened, gave a violent start, leaped up with all his big frame quivering, and then fired question after question at the Indian. When the Navajo had replied to all, Joe drew himself up as if facing an irrevocable decision which would wring his very soul. What did he cast off in that moment? What did he grapple with? Shefford had no means to tell, except by the instinct which baffled him. But whether the Mormon’s trial was one of spiritual rending or the natural physical fear of a perilous, virtually impossible venture, the fact was he was magnificent in his acceptance of it. He turned to Shefford, white, cold, yet glowing.

“Nas Ta Bega believes he can take you down a canyon to the big river — the Colorado. He knows the head of this canyon. Nonnezoshe Boco it’s called — canyon of the rainbow bridge. He has never been down it. Only two or three living Indians have ever seen the great stone bridge. But all have heard of it. They worship it as a god. There’s water runs down this canyon and water runs to the river. Nas Ta Bega thinks he can take you down to the river.”

“Go on,” cried Shefford breathlessly, as Joe paused.

“The Indian plans this way. God, it’s great!... If only I can do my end!... He plans to take mustangs to-day and wait with them for you to-night or to-morrow till you come with the girl. You’ll go get Lassiter and the woman out of Surprise Valley. Then you’ll strike east for Nonnezoshe Boco. If possible, you must take a pack of grub. You may be days going down — and waiting for me at the mouth of the canyon, at the river.”

“Joe! Where will you be?”

“I’ll ride like hell for Kayenta, get another horse there, and ride like hell for the San Juan River. There’s a big flatboat at the Durango crossing. I’ll go down the San Juan in that — into the big river. I’ll drift down by day, tie up by night, and watch for you at the mouth of every canyon till I come to Nonnezoshe Boco.”

Shefford could not believe the evidence of his ears. He knew the treacherous San Juan River. He had heard of the great, sweeping, terrible red Colorado and its roaring rapids.

“Oh, it seems impossible!” he gasped. “You’ll just lose your life for nothing.”

“The Indian will turn the trick, I tell you. Take my hunch. It’s nothing for me to drift down a swift river. I worked a ferry-boat once.”

Shefford, to whom flying straws would have seemed stable, caught the inflection of defiance and daring and hope of the Mormon’s spirit.

“What then — after you meet us at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco?” he queried.

“We’ll all drift down to Lee’s Ferry. That’s at the head of Marble canyon. We’ll get out on the south side of the river, thus avoiding any Mormons at the ferry. Nas Ta Bega knows the country. It’s open desert — on the other side of these plateaus. He can get horses from Navajos. Then you’ll strike south for Willow Springs.”

“Willow Springs? That’s Presbrey’s trading-post,” said Shefford.

“Never met him. But he’ll see you safe out of the Painted Desert. ... The thing that worries me most is how not to miss you all at the mouth of Nonnezoshe. You must have sharp eyes. But I forget the Indian. A bird couldn’t pass him.... And suppose Nonnezoshe Boco has a steep-walled, narrow mouth opening into a rapids!... Whew! Well, the Indian will figure that, too. Now, let’s put our heads together and plan how to turn this end of the trick here. Getting the girl!”

After a short colloquy it was arranged that Shefford would go to Ruth and talk to her of the aid she had promised. Joe averred that this aid could be best given by Ruth going in her somber gown and hood to the school-house, and there, while Joe and Shefford engaged the guards outside, she would change apparel and places with Fay and let her come forth.

“What’ll they do to Ruth?” demanded Shefford. “We can’t accept her sacrifice if she’s to suffer — or be punished.”

“Reckon Ruth has a strong hunch that she can get away with it. Did you notice how strange she said that? Well, they can’t do much to her. The bishop may damn her soul. But — Ruth—”

Here Lake hesitated and broke off. Not improbably he had meant to say that of all the Mormon women in the valley Ruth was the least likely to suffer from punishment inflicted upon her soul.

“Anyway, it’s our only chance,” went on Joe, “unless we kill a couple of men. Ruth will gladly take what comes to help you.”

“All right; I consent,” replied Shefford, with emotion. “And now after she comes out — the supposed Ruth — what then?”

“You can be natural-like. Go with her back to Ruth’s cabin. Then stroll off into the cedars. Then climb the west wall. Meanwhile Nas Ta Bega will ride off with a pack of grub and Nack-yal and several other mustangs. He’ll wait for you or you’ll wait for him, as the case may be, at some appointed place. When you’re gone I’ll jump my horse and hit the trail for Kayenta and the San Juan.”

“Very well; that’s settled,” said Shefford, soberly. “I’ll go at once to see Ruth. You and Nas Ta Bega decide on where I’m to meet him.”

“Reckon you’d do just as well to walk round and come up to Ruth’s from the other side — instead of going through the village,” suggested Joe.

Shefford approached Ruth’s cabin in a roundabout way; nevertheless, she saw him coming before he got there and, opening the door, stood pale, composed, and quietly bade him enter. Briefly, in low and earnest voice, Shefford acquainted her with the plan.

“You love her so much,” she said, wistfully, wonderingly.

“Indeed I do. Is it too much to ask of you to do this thing?” he asked.

“Do it?” she queried, with a flash of spirit. “Of course I’ll do it.”

“Ruth, I can’t thank you. I can’t. I’ve only a faint idea what you’re risking. That distresses me. I’m afraid of what may happen to you.”

She gave him another of the strange glances. “I don’t risk so much as you think,” she said, significantly.

“Why?”

She came close to him, and her hands clasped his arms and she looked up at him, her eyes darkening and her face growing paler. “Will you swear to keep my secret?” she asked, very low.

“Yes, I swear.”

“I was one of Waggoner’s sealed wives!”

“God Almighty!” broke out Shefford, utterly overwhelmed.

“Yes. That’s why I say I don’t risk so much. I will make up a story to tell the bishop and everybody. I’ll tell that Waggoner was jealous, that he was brutal to Mary, that I believed she was goaded to her mad deed, that I thought she ought to be free. They’ll be terrible. But what can they do to me? My husband is dead... and if I have to go to hell to keep from marrying another married Mormon, I’ll go!”

In that low, passionate utterance Shefford read the death-blow to the old Mormon polygamous creed. In the uplift of his spirit, in the joy at this revelation, he almost forgot the stern matter at hand. Ruth and Joe Lake belonged to a younger generation of Mormons. Their nobility in this instance was in part a revolt at the conditions of their lives. Doubt was knocking at Joe Lake’s heart, and conviction had come to this young sealed wife, bitter and hopeless while she had been fettered, strong and mounting now that she was free. In a flash of inspiration Shefford saw the old order changing. The Mormon creed might survive, but that part of it which was an affront to nature, a horrible yoke on women’s necks, was doomed. It could not live. It could never have survived more than a generation or two of religious fanatics. Shefford had marked a different force and religious fervor in the younger Mormons, and now he understood them.

“Ruth, you talk wildly,” he said. “But I understand. I see. You are free and you’re going to stay free.... It stuns me to think of that man of many wives. What did you feel when you were told he was dead?”

“I dare not think of that. It makes me — wicked. And he was good to me.... Listen. Last night about midnight he came to my window and woke me. I got up and let him in. He was in a terrible state. I thought he was crazy. He walked the floor and called on his saints and prayed. When I wanted to light a lamp he wouldn’t let me. He was afraid I’d see his face. But I saw well enough in the moonlight. And I knew something had happened. So I soothed and coaxed him. He had been a man as close-mouthed as a stone. Yet then I got him to talk.... He had gone to Mary’s, and upon entering, thought he heard some one with her. She didn’t answer him at first. When he found her in her bedroom she was like a ghost. He accused her. Her silence made him furious. Then he berated her, brought down the wrath of God upon her, threatened her with damnation. All of which she never seemed to hear. But when he tried to touch her she flew at him like a she-panther. That’s what he called her. She said she’d kill him! And she drove him out of her house.... He was all weak and unstrung, and I believe scared, too, when he came to me. She must have been a fury. Those quiet, gentle women are furies when they’re once roused. Well, I was hours up with him and finally he got over it. He didn’t pray any more. He paced the room. It was just daybreak when he said the wrath of God had come to him. I tried to keep him from going back to Mary. But he went.... An hour later the women ran to tell me he had been found dead at Mary’s door.”

“Ruth — she was mad — driven — she didn’t know what she — was doing,” said Shefford, brokenly.

“She was always a strange girl, more like an Indian than any one I ever knew. We called her the Sago Lily. I gave her the name. She was so sweet, lovely, white and gold, like those flowers.... And to think! Oh, it’s horrible for her! You must save her. If you get her away there never will be anything come of it. The Mormons will hush it up.”

“Ruth, time is flying,” rejoined Shefford, hurriedly. “I must go back to Joe. You be ready for us when we come. Wear something loose, easily thrown off, and don’t forget the long hood.”

“I’ll be ready and watching,” she said. “The sooner the better, I’d say.”

He left her and returned toward camp in the same circling route by which he had come. The Indian had disappeared and so had his mustang. This significant fact augmented Shefford’s hurried, thrilling excitement. But one glance at Joe’s face changed all that to a sudden numbness, a sinking of his heart.

“What is it?” he queried.

“Look there!” exclaimed the Mormon.

Shefford’s quick eye caught sight of horses and men down the valley. He saw several Indians and three or four white men. They were making camp.

“Who are they?” demanded Shefford.

“Shadd and some of his gang. Reckon that Piute told the news. By to-morrow the valley will be full as a horse-wrangler’s corral.... Lucky Nas Ta Bega got away before that gang rode in. Now things won’t look as queer as they might have looked. The Indian took a pack of grub, six mustangs, and my guns. Then there was your rifle in your saddle-sheath. So you’ll be well heeled in case you come to close quarters. Reckon you can look for a running fight. For now, as soon as your flight is discovered, Shadd will hit your trail. He’s in with the Mormons. You know him — what you’ll have to deal with. But the advantage will all be yours. You can ambush the trail.”

“We’re in for it. And the sooner we’re off the better,” replied Shefford, grimly.

“Reckon that’s gospel. Well — come on!”

The Mormon strode off, and Shefford, catching up with him, kept at his side. Shefford’s mind was full, but Joe’s dark and gloomy face did not invite communication. They entered the pinon grove and passed the cabin where the tragedy had been enacted. A tarpaulin had been stretched across the front porch. Beal was not in sight, nor were any of the women.

“I forgot,” said Shefford, suddenly. “Where am I to meet the Indian?”

“Climb the west wall, back of camp,” replied Joe. “Nas Ta Bega took the Stonebridge trail. But he’ll leave that, climb the rocks, then hide the outfit and come back to watch for you. Reckon he’ll see you when you top the wall.”

They passed on into the heart of the village. Joe tarried at the window of a cabin, and passed a few remarks to a woman there, and then he inquired for Mother Smith at her house. When they left here the Mormon gave Shefford a nudge. Then they separated, Joe going toward the school-house, while Shefford bent his steps in the direction of Ruth’s home.

Her door opened before he had a chance to knock. He entered. Ruth, white and resolute, greeted him with a wistful smile.

“All ready?” she asked.

“Yes. Are you?” he replied, low-voiced.

“I’ve only to put on my hood. I think luck favors you. Hester was here and she said Elder Smith told some one that Mary hadn’t been offered anything to eat yet. So I’m taking her a little. It’ll be a good excuse for me to get in the school-house to see her. I can throw off this dress and she can put it on in a minute. Then the hood. I mustn’t forget to hide her golden hair. You know how it flies. But this is a big hood.... Well, I’m ready now. And — this ‘s our last time together.”

“Ruth, what can I say — how can I thank you?”

“I don’t want any thanks. It’ll be something to think of always — to make me happy.... Only I’d like to feel you — you cared a little.”

The wistful smile was there, a tremor on the sad lips, and a shadow of soul-hunger in her eyes. Shefford did not misunderstand her. She did not mean love, although it was a yearning for real love that she mutely expressed.

“Care! I shall care all my life,” he said, with strong feeling. “I shall never forget you.”

“It’s not likely I’ll forget you.... Good-by, John!”

Shefford took her in his arms and held her close. “Ruth — good-by!” he said, huskily.

Then he released her. She adjusted the hood and, taking up a little tray which held food covered with a napkin, she turned to the door. He opened it and they went out.

They did not speak another word.

It was not a long walk from Ruth’s home to the school-house, yet if it were to be measured by Shefford’s emotion the distance would have been unending. The sacrifice offered by Ruth and Joe would have been noble under any circumstances had they been Gentiles or persons with no particular religion, but, considering that they were Mormons, that Ruth had been a sealed-wife, that Joe had been brought up under the strange, secret, and binding creed, their action was no less than tremendous in its import. Shefford took it to mean vastly more than loyalty to him and pity for Fay Larkin. As Ruth and Joe had arisen to this height, so perhaps would other young Mormons, have arisen. It needed only the situation, the climax, to focus these long-insulated, slow-developing and inquiring minds upon the truth — that one wife, one mother of children, for one man at one time was a law of nature, love, and righteousness. Shefford felt as if he were marching with the whole younger generation of Mormons, as if somehow he had been a humble instrument in the working out of their destiny, in the awakening that was to eliminate from their religion the only thing which kept it from being as good for man, and perhaps as true, as any other religion.

And then suddenly he turned the corner of school-house to encounter Joe talking with the Mormon Henninger. Elder Smith was not present.

“Why, hello, Ruth!” greeted Joe. “You’ve fetched Mary some dinner. Now that’s good of you.”

“May I go in?” asked Ruth.

“Reckon so,” replied Henninger, scratching his head. He appeared to be tractable, and probably was good-natured under pleasant conditions. “She ought to have somethin’ to eat. An’ nobody ‘pears — to have remembered that — we’re so set up.”

He unbarred the huge, clumsy door and allowed Ruth to pass in.

“Joe, you can go in if you want,” he said. “But hurry out before Elder Smith comes back from his dinner.”

Joe mumbled something, gave a husky cough, and then went in.

Shefford experienced great difficulty in presenting to this mild Mormon a natural and unagitated front. When all his internal structure seemed to be in a state of turmoil he did not see how it was possible to keep the fact from showing in his face. So he turned away and took aimless steps here and there.

“‘Pears like we’d hev rain,” observed Henninger. “It’s right warm an’ them clouds are onseasonable.”

“Yes,” replied Shefford. “Hope so. A little rain would be good for the grass.”

“Joe tells me Shadd rode in, an’ some of his fellers.”

“So I see. About eight in the party.”

Shefford was gritting his teeth and preparing to endure the ordeal of controlling his mind and expression when the door opened and Joe stalked out. He had his sombrero pulled down so that it hid the upper half of his face. His lips were a shade off healthy color. He stood there with his back to the door.

“Say, what Mary needs is quiet — to be left alone,” he said. “Ruth says if she rests, sleeps a little, she won’t get fever.... Henninger, don’t let anybody disturb her till night.”

“All right, Joe,” replied the Mormon. “An’ I take it good of Ruth an’ you to concern yourselves.”

A slight tap on the inside of the door sent Shefford’s pulses to throbbing. Joe opened it with a strong and vigorous sweep that meant more than the mere action.

“Ruth — reckon you didn’t stay long,” he said, and his voice rang clear. “Sure you feel sick and weak. Why, seeing her flustered even me!”

A slender, dark-garbed woman wearing a long black hood stepped uncertainly out. She appeared to be Ruth. Shefford’s heart stood still because she looked so like Ruth. But she did not step steadily, she seemed dazed, she did not raise the hooded head.

“Go home,” said Joe, and his voice rang a little louder. “Take her home, Shefford. Or, better, walk her round some. She’s faintish .... And see here, Henninger—”

Shefford led the girl away with a hand in apparent carelessness on her arm. After a few rods she walked with a freer step and then a swifter. He found it necessary to make that hold on her arm a real one, so as to keep her from walking too fast. No one, however, appeared to observe them. When they passed Ruth’s house then Shefford began to lose his fear that this was not Fay Larkin. He was far from being calm or clear-sighted. He thought he recognized that free step; nevertheless, he could not make sure. When they passed under the trees, crossed the brook, and turned down along the west wall, then doubt ceased in Shefford’s mind. He knew this was not Ruth. Still, so strange was his agitation, so keen his suspense, that he needed confirmation of ear, of eye. He wanted to hear her voice, to see her face. Yet just as strangely there was a twist of feeling, a reluctance, a sadness that kept off the moment.

They reached the low, slow-swelling slant of wall and started to ascend. How impossible not to recognize Fay Larkin now in that swift grace and skill on the steep wall! Still, though he knew her, he perversely clung to the unreality of the moment. But when a long braid of dead-gold hair tumbled from under the hood, then his heart leaped. That identified Fay Larkin. He had freed her. He was taking her away. Then a sadness embittered his joy.

As always before, she distanced him in the ascent to the top. She went on without looking back. But Shefford had an irresistible desire to took again and the last time at this valley where he had suffered and loved so much.

XVI. SURPRISE VALLEY

FROM THE SUMMIT of the wall the plateau waved away in red and yellow ridges, with here and there little valleys green with cedar and pinon.

Upon one of these ridges, silhouetted against the sky, appeared the stalking figure of the Indian. He had espied the fugitives. He disappeared in a niche, and presently came again into view round a corner of cliff. Here he waited, and soon Shefford and Fay joined him.

“Bi Nai, it is well,” he said.

Shefford eagerly asked for the horses, and Nas Ta Bega silently pointed down the niche, which was evidently an opening into one of the shallow canyon. Then he led the way, walking swiftly. It was Shefford, and not Fay, who had difficulty in keeping close to him. This speed caused Shefford to become more alive to the business, instead of the feeling, of the flight. The Indian entered a crack between low cliffs — a very narrow canyon full of rocks and clumps of cedars — and in a half-hour or less he came to where the mustangs were halted among some cedars. Three of the mustangs, including Nack-yal, were saddled; one bore a small pack, and the remaining two had blankets strapped on their backs.

“Fay, can you ride in that long skirt?” asked Shefford. How strange it seemed that his first words to her were practical when all his impassioned thought had been only mute! But the instant he spoke he experienced a relief, a relaxation.

“I’ll take it off,” replied Fay, just as practically. And in a twinkling she slipped out of both waist and skirt. She had worn them over the short white-flannel dress with which Shefford had grown familiar.

As Nack-yal appeared to be the safest mustang for her to ride, Shefford helped her upon him and then attended to the stirrups. When he had adjusted them to the proper length he drew the bridle over Nack-yal’s head and, upon handing it to her, found himself suddenly looking into her face. She had taken off the hood, too. The instant there eyes met he realized that she was strangely afraid to meet his glance, as he was to meet hers. That seemed natural. But her face was flushed and there were unmistakable signs upon it of growing excitement, of mounting happiness. Save for that fugitive glance she would have been the Fay Larkin of yesterday. How he had expected her to look he did not know, but it was not like this. And never had he felt her strange quality of simplicity so powerfully.

“Have you ever been here — through this little canyon?” he asked.

“Oh yes, lots of times.”

“You’ll be able to lead us to Surprise Valley, you think?”

“I know it. I shall see Uncle Jim and Mother Jane before sunset!”

“I hope — you do,” he replied, a little shakily. “Perhaps we’d better not tell them of the — the — about what happened last night.”

Her beautiful, grave, and troubled glance returned to meet his, and he received a shock that he considered was amaze. And after more swift consideration he believed he was amazed because that look, instead of betraying fear or gloom or any haunting shadow of darkness, betrayed apprehension for him — grave, sweet, troubled love for him. She was not thinking of herself at all — of what he might think of her, of a possible gulf between them, of a vast and terrible change in the relation of soul to soul. He experienced a profound gladness. Though he could not understand her, he was happy that the horror of Waggoner’s death had escaped her. He loved her, he meant to give his life to her, and right then and there he accepted the burden of her deed and meant to bear it without ever letting her know of the shadow between them.

“Fay, we’ll forget — what’s behind us,” he said. “Now to find Surprise Valley. Lead on. Nack-yal is gentle. Pull him the way you want to go. We’ll follow.”

Shefford mounted the other saddled mustang, and they set off, Fay in advance. Presently they rode out of this canyon up to level cedar-patched, solid rock, and here Fay turned straight west. Evidently she had been over the ground before. The heights to which he had climbed with her were up to the left, great slopes and looming promontories. And the course she chose was as level and easy as any he could have picked out in that direction.

When a mile or more of this up-and-down travel had been traversed Fay halted and appeared to be at fault. The plateau was losing its rounded, smooth, wavy characteristics, and to the west grew bolder, more rugged, more cut up into low crags and buttes. After a long, sweeping glance Fay headed straight for this rougher country. Thereafter from time to time she repeated this action.

“Fay, how do you know you’re going in the right direction?” asked Shefford, anxiously.

“I never forget any ground I’ve been over. I keep my eyes close ahead. All that seems strange to me is the wrong way. What I’ve seen, before must be the right way, because I saw it when they brought me from Surprise Valley.”

Shefford had to acknowledge that she was following an Indian’s instinct for ground he had once covered.

Still Shefford began to worry, and finally dropped back to question Nas Ta Bega.

“Bi Nai, she has the eye of a Navajo,” replied the Indian. “Look! Iron-shod horses have passed here. See the marks in the stone?”

Shefford indeed made out faint cut tracks that would have escaped his own sight. They had been made long ago, but they were unmistakable.

“She’s following the trail by memory — she must remember the stones, trees, sage, cactus,” said Shefford in surprise.

“Pictures in her mind,” replied the Indian.

Thereafter the farther she progressed the less at fault she appeared and the faster she traveled. She made several miles an hour, and about the middle of the afternoon entered upon the more broken region of the plateau. View became restricted. Low walls, and ruined cliffs of red rock with cedars at their base, and gullies growing into canyon and canyon opening into larger ones — these were passed and crossed and climbed and rimmed in travel that grew more difficult as the going became wilder. Then there was a steady ascent, up and up all the time, though not steep, until another level, green with cedar and pinon, was reached.

It reminded Shefford of the forest near the mouth of the Sagi. It was so dense he could not see far ahead of Fay, and often he lost sight of her entirely. Presently he rode out of the forest into a strip of purple sage. It ended abruptly, and above that abrupt line, seemingly far away, rose a long, red wall. Instantly he recognized that to be the opposite wall of a canyon which as yet he could not see.

Fay was acting strangely and he hurried forward. She slipped off Nack-yal and fell, sprang up and ran wildly, to stand upon a promontory, her arms uplifted, her hair a mass of moving gold in the wind, her attitude one of wild and eloquent significance.

Shefford ran, too, and as he ran the red wall in his eager sight seemed to enlarge downward, deeper and deeper, and then it merged into a strip of green.

Suddenly beneath him yawned a red-walled gulf, a deceiving gulf seen through transparent haze, a softly shining green-and-white valley, strange, wild, beautiful, like a picture in his memory.

“Surprise Valley!” he cried, in wondering recognition.

Fay Larkin waved her arms as if they were wings to carry her swiftly downward, and her plaintive cry fitted the wildness of her manner and the lonely height where she leaned.

Shefford drew her back from the rim.

“Fay, we are here,” he said. “I recognize the valley. I miss only one thing — the arch of stone.”

His words seemed to recall her to reality.

“The arch? That fell when the wall slipped, in the great avalanche. See! There is the place. We can get down there. Oh, let us hurry!”

The Indian reached the rim and his falcon gaze swept the valley. “Ugh!” he exclaimed. He, too, recognized the valley that he had vainly sought for half a year.

“Bring the lassos,” said Shefford.

With Fay leading, they followed the rim toward the head of the valley. Here the wall had caved in, and there was a slope of jumbled rock a thousand feet wide and more than that in depth. It was easy to descend because there were so many rocks waist-high that afforded a handhold. Shefford marked, however, that Fay never took advantage of these. More than once he paused to watch her. Swiftly she went down; she stepped from rock to rock; lightly she crossed cracks and pits; she ran along the sharp and broken edge of a long ledge; she poised on a pointed stone and, sure-footed as a mountain-sheep, she sprang to another that had scarce surface for a foothold; her moccasins flashed, seemed to hold wondrously on any angle; and when a rock tipped or slipped with her she leaped to a surer stand. Shefford watched her performance, so swift, agile, so perfectly balanced, showing such wonderful accord between eye and foot; and then when he swept his gaze down upon that wild valley where she had roamed alone for twelve years he marveled no more.

The farther down he got the greater became the size of rocks, until he found himself amid huge pieces of cliff as large as houses. He lost sight of Fay entirely, and he anxiously threaded a narrow, winding, descending way between the broken masses. Finally he came out upon flat rock again. Fay stood on another rim, looking down. He saw that the slide had moved far out into the valley, and the lower part of it consisted of great sections of wall. In fact, the base of the great wall had just moved out with the avalanche, and this much of it held its vertical position. Looking upward, Shefford was astounded and thrilled to see how far he had descended, how the walls leaned like a great, wide, curving, continuous rim of mountain.

“Here! Here!” called Fay. “Here’s where they got down — where they brought me up. Here are the sticks they used. They stuck them in this crack, down to that ledge.”

Shefford ran to her side and looked down. There was a narrow split in this section of wall and it was perhaps sixty feet in depth. The floor of rock below led out in a ledge, with a sheer drop to the valley level.

As Shefford gazed, pondering on a way to descend lower, the Indian reached his side. He had no sooner looked than he proceeded to act. Selecting one of the sticks, which were strong pieces of cedar, well hewn and trimmed, he jammed it between the walls of the crack till it stuck fast. Then sitting astride this one he jammed in another some three feet below. When he got down upon that one it was necessary for Shefford to drop him a third stick. In a comparatively short time the Indian reached the ledge below. Then he called for the lassos. Shefford threw them down. His next move was an attempt to assist Fay, but she slipped out of his grasp and descended the ladder with a swiftness that made him hold his breath. Still, when his turn came, her spirit so governed him that he went down as swiftly, and even leaped sheer the last ten feet.

Nas Ta Bega and Fay were leaning over the ledge.

“Here’s the place,” she said, excitedly. “Let me down on the rope.”

It took two thirty-foot lassos tied together to reach the floor of the valley. Shefford folded his vest, put it round Fay, and slipped a loop of the lasso under her arms. Then he and Nas Ta Bega lowered her to the grass below. Fay, throwing off the loop, bounded away like a wild creature, uttering the strangest cries he had ever heard, and she disappeared along the wall.

“I’ll go down,” said Shefford to the Indian. “You stay here to help pull us up.”

Hand over hand Shefford descended, and when his feet touched the grass he experienced a shock of the most singular exultation.

“In Surprise Valley!” he breathed, softly. The dream that had come to him with his friend’s story, the years of waiting, wondering, and then the long, fruitless, hopeless search in the desert uplands — these were in his mind as he turned along the wall where Fay had disappeared. He faced a wide terrace, green with grass and moss and starry with strange white flowers, and dark-foliaged, spear-pointed spruce-trees. Below the terrace sloped a bench covered with thick copse, and this merged into a forest of dwarf oaks, and beyond that was a beautiful strip of white aspens, their leaves quivering in the stillness. The air was close, sweet, warm, fragrant, and remarkably dry. It reminded him of the air he had smelled in dry caves under cliffs. He reached a point from where he saw a meadow dotted with red-and-white-spotted cattle and little black burros. There were many of them. And he remembered with a start the agony of toil and peril Venters had endured bringing the progenitors of this stock into the valley. What a strange, wild, beautiful story it all was! But a story connected with this valley could not have been otherwise.

Beyond the meadow, on the other side of the valley, extended the forest, and that ended in the rising bench of thicket, which gave place to green slope and mossy terrace of sharp-tipped spruces — and all this led the eye irresistibly up to the red wall where a vast, dark, wonderful cavern yawned, with its rust-colored streaks of stain on the wall, and the queer little houses of the cliff-dwellers, with their black, vacant, silent windows speaking so weirdly of the unknown past.

Shefford passed a place where the ground had been cultivated, but not as recently as the last six months. There was a scant shock of corn and many meager standing stalks. He became aware of a low, whining hum and a fragrance overpowering in its sweetness. And there round another corner of wall he came upon an orchard all pink and white in blossom and melodious with the buzz and hum of innumerable bees.

He crossed a little stream that had been dammed, went along a pond, down beside an irrigation-ditch that furnished water to orchard and vineyard, and from there he strode into a beautiful cove between two jutting corners of red wall. It was level and green and the spruces stood gracefully everywhere. Beyond their dark trunks he saw caves in the wall.

Suddenly the fragrance of blossom was overwhelmed by the stronger fragrance of smoke from a wood fire. Swiftly he strode under the spruces. Quail fluttered before him as tame as chickens. Big gray rabbits scarcely moved out of his way. The branches above him were full of mockingbirds. And then — there before him stood three figures.

Fay Larkin was held close to the side of a magnificent woman, barbarously clad in garments made of skins and pieces of blanket. Her face worked in noble emotion. Shefford seemed to see the ghost of that fair beauty Venters had said was Jane Withersteen’s. Her hair was gray. Near her stood a lean, stoop-shouldered man whose long hair was perfectly white. His gaunt face was bare of beard. It had strange, sloping, sad lines. And he was staring with mild, surprised eyes.

The moment held Shefford mute till sight of Fay Larkin’s tear-wet face broke the spell. He leaped forward and his strong hands reached for the woman and the man.

“Jane Withersteen!... Lassiter! I have found you!”

“Oh, sir, who are you?” she cried, with rich and deep and quivering voice. “This child came running — screaming. She could not speak. We thought she had gone mad — and escaped to come back to us.”

“I am John Shefford,” he replied, swiftly. “I am a friend of Bern Venters — of his wife Bess. I learned your story. I came west. I’ve searched a year. I found Fay. And we’ve come to take you away.”

“You found Fay? But that masked Mormon who forced her to sacrifice herself to save us!... What of him? It’s not been so many long years — I remember what my father was — and Dyer and Tull — all those cruel churchmen.”

“Waggoner is dead,” replied Shefford.

“Dead? She is free! Oh, what — how did he die?”

“He was killed.”

“Who did it?”

“That’s no matter,” replied Shefford, stonily, and he met her gaze with steady eyes. “He’s out of the way. Fay was never his wife. Fay’s free. We’ve come to take you out of the country. We must hurry. We’ll be tracked — pursued. But we’ve horses and an Indian guide. We’ll get away.... I think it better to leave here at once. There’s no telling how soon we’ll be hunted. Get what things you want to take with you.”

“Oh — yes — Mother Jane, let us hurry!” cried Fay. “I’m so full — I can’t talk — my heart hurts so!”

Jane Withersteen’s face shone with an exceedingly radiant light, and a glory blended with a terrible fear in her eyes.

“Fay! my little Fay!”

Lassiter had stood there with his mild, clear blue eyes upon Shefford.

“I shore am glad to see you — all,” he drawled, and extended his hand as if the meeting were casual. “What’d you say your name was?”

Shefford repeated it as he met the proffered hand.

“How’s Bern an’ Bess?” Lassiter inquired.

“They were well, prosperous, happy when last I saw them.... They had a baby.”

“Now ain’t thet fine?... Jane, did you hear? Bess has a baby. An’, Jane, didn’t I always say Bern would come back to get us out? Shore it’s just the same.”

How cool, easy, slow, and mild this Lassiter seemed! Had the man grown old, Shefford wondered? The past to him manifestly was only yesterday, and the danger of the present was as nothing. Looking in Lassiter’s face, Shefford was baffled. If he had not remembered the greatness of this old gun-man he might have believed that the lonely years in the valley had unbalanced his mind. In an hour like this coolness seemed inexplicable — assuredly would have been impossible in an ordinary man. Yet what hid behind that drawling coolness? What was the meaning of those long, sloping, shadowy lines of the face? What spirit lay in the deep, mild, clear eyes? Shefford experienced a sudden check to what had been his first growing impression of a drifting, broken old man.

“Lassiter, pack what little you can carry — mustn’t be much — and we’ll get out of here,” said Shefford.

“I shore will. Reckon I ain’t a-goin’ to need a pack-train. We saved the clothes we wore in here. Jane never thought it no use. But I figgered we might need them some day. They won’t be stylish, but I reckon they’ll do better ‘n these skins. An’ there’s an old coat thet was Venters’s.”

The mild, dreamy look became intensified in Lassiter’s eyes.

“Did Venters have any hosses when you knowed him?” he asked.

“He had a farm full of horses,” replied Shefford, with a smile. “And there were two blacks — the grandest horses I ever saw. Black Star and Night! You remember, Lassiter?”

“Shore. I was wonderin’ if he got the blacks out. They must be growin’ old by now.... Grand hosses, they was. But Jane had another hoss, a big devil of a sorrel. His name was Wrangle. Did Venters ever tell you about him — an’ thet race with Jerry Card?”

“A hundred times!” replied Shefford.

“Wrangle run the blacks off their legs. But Jane never would believe thet. An’ I couldn’t change her all these years.... Reckon mebbe we’ll get to see them blacks?”

“Indeed, I hope — I believe you will,” replied Shefford, feelingly.

“Shore won’t thet be fine. Jane, did you hear? Black Star an’ Night are livin’ an’ we’ll get to see them.”

But Jane Withersteen only clasped Fay in her arms, and looked at Lassiter with wet and glistening eyes.

Shefford told them to hurry and come to the cliff where the ascent from the valley was to be made. He thought best to leave them alone to make their preparations and bid farewell to the cavern home they had known for so long.

Then he strolled back along the wall, loitering here to gaze into a cave, and there to study crude red paintings in the nooks. And sometimes he halted thoughtfully and did not see anything. At length he rounded a corner of cliff to espy Nas Ta Bega sitting upon the ledge, reposeful and watchful as usual. Shefford told the Indian they would be climbing out soon, and then he sat down to wait and let his gaze rove over the valley.

He might have sat there a long while, so sad and reflective and wondering was his thought, but it seemed a very short time till Fay came in sight with her free, swift grace, and Lassiter and Jane some distance behind. Jane carried a small bundle and Lassiter had a sack over his shoulder that appeared no inconsiderable burden.

“Them beans shore is heavy,” he drawled, as he deposited the sack upon the ground.

Shefford curiously took hold of the sack and was amazed to find that a second and hard muscular effort was required to lift it.

“Beans?” he queried.

“Shore,” replied Lassiter.

“That’s the heaviest sack of beans I ever saw. Why — it’s not possible it can be.... Lassiter, we’ve a long, rough trail. We’ve got to pack light—”

“Wal, I ain’t a-goin’ to leave this here sack behind. Reckon I’ve been all of twelve years in fillin’ it,” he declared, mildly.

Shefford could only stare at him.

“Fay may need them beans,” went on Lassiter.

“Why?”

“Because they’re gold.”

“Gold!” ejaculated Shefford.

“Shore. An’ they represent some work. Twelve years of diggin’ an’ washin’!”

Shefford laughed constrainedly. “Well, Lassiter, that alters the case considerably. A sack of gold nuggets or grains, or beans, as you call them, certainly must not be left behind.... Come, now, we’ll tackle this climbing job.”

He called up to the Indian and, grasping the rope, began to walk up the first slant, and then by dint of hand-over-hand effort and climbing with knees and feet he succeeded, with Nas Ta Bega’s help, in making the ledge. Then he let down the rope to haul up the sack and bundle. That done, he directed Fay to fasten the noose round her as he had fixed it before. When she had complied he called to her to hold herself out from the wall while he and Nas Ta Bega hauled her up.

“Hold the rope tight,” replied Fay, “I’ll walk up.”

And to Shefford’s amaze and admiration, she virtually walked up that almost perpendicular wall by slipping her hands along the rope and stepping as she pulled herself up. There, if never before, he saw the fruit of her years of experience on steep slopes. Only such experience could have made the feat possible.

Jane had to be hauled up, and the task was a painful one for her. Lassiter’s turn came then, and he showed more strength and agility than Shefford had supposed him capable of. From the ledge they turned their attention to the narrow crack with its ladder of sticks. Fay had already ascended and now hung over the rim, her white face and golden hair framed vividly in the narrow stream of blue sky above.

“Mother Jane! Uncle Jim! You are so slow,” she called.

“Wal, Fay, we haven’t been second cousins to a canyon squirrel all these years,” replied Lassiter.

This upper half of the climb bid fair to be as difficult for Jane, if not so painful, as the lower. It was necessary for the Indian to go up and drop the rope, which was looped around her, and then, with him pulling from above and Shefford assisting Jane as she climbed, she was finally gotten up without mishap. When Lassiter reached the level they rested a little while and then faced the great slide of jumbled rocks. Fay led the way, light, supple, tireless, and Shefford never ceased looking at her. At last they surmounted the long slope and, winding along the rim, reached the point where Fay had led out of the cedars.

Nas Ta Bega, then, was the one to whom Shefford looked for every decision or action of the immediate future. The Indian said he had seen a pool of water in a rocky hole, that the day was spent, that here was a little grass for the mustangs, and it would be well to camp right there. So while Nas Ta Bega attended to the mustangs Shefford set about such preparations for camp and supper as their light pack afforded. The question of beds was easily answered, for the mats of soft needles under pinon and cedar would be comfortable places to sleep.

When Shefford felt free again the sun was setting. Lassiter and Jane were walking under the trees. The Indian had returned to camp. But Fay was missing. Shefford imagined he knew where to find her, and upon going to the edge of the forest he saw her sitting on the promontory. He approached her, drawn in spite of a feeling that perhaps he ought to stay away.

“Fay, would you rather be alone?” he asked.

His voice startled her.

“I want you,” she replied, and held out her hand.

Taking it in his own, he sat beside her.

The red sun was at their backs. Surprise Valley lay hazy, dusky, shadowy beneath them. The opposite wall seemed fired by crimson flame, save far down at its base, which the sun no longer touched. And the dark line of red slowly rose, encroaching upon the bright crimson. Changing, transparent, yet dusky veils seemed to float between the walls; long, red rays, where the sun shone through notch or crack in the rim, split the darker spaces; deep down at the floor the forest darkened, the strip of aspen paled, the meadow turned gray; and all under the shelves and in the great caverns a purple gloom deepened. Then the sun set. And swiftly twilight was there below while day lingered above. On the opposite wall the fire died and the stone grew cold.

A canyon night-hawk voiced his lonely, weird, and melancholy cry, and it seemed to pierce and mark the silence.

A pale star, peering out of a sky that had begun to turn blue, marked the end of twilight. And all the purple shadows moved and hovered and changed till, softly and mysteriously, they embraced black night.

Beautiful, wild, strange, silent Surprise Valley! Shefford saw it before and beneath him, a dark abyss now, the abode of loneliness. He imagined faintly what was in Fay Larkin’s heart. For the last time she had seen the sun set there and night come with its dead silence and sweet mystery and phantom shadows, its velvet blue sky and white trains of stars.

He, who had dreamed and longed and searched, found that the hour had been incalculable for him in its import.

XVII. THE TRAIL TO NONNEZOSHE

WHEN SHEFFORD AWOKE next morning and sat up on his bed of pinon boughs the dawn had broken cold with a ruddy gold brightness under the trees. Nas Ta Bega and Lassiter were busy around a camp-fire; the mustangs were haltered near by; Jane Withersteen combed out her long, tangled tresses with a crude wooden comb; and Fay Larkin was not in sight. As she had been missing from the group at sunset, so she was now at sunrise. Shefford went out to take his last look at Surprise Valley.

On the evening before the valley had been a place of dusky red veils and purple shadows, and now it was pink-walled, clear and rosy and green and white, with wonderful shafts of gold slanting down from the notched eastern rim. Fay stood on the promontory, and Shefford did not break the spell of her silent farewell to her wild home. A strange emotion abided with him and he knew he would always, all his life, regret leaving Surprise Valley.

Then the Indian called.

“Come, Fay,” said Shefford, gently.

And she turned away with dark, haunted eyes and a white, still face.

The somber Indian gave a silent gesture for Shefford to make haste. While they had breakfast the mustangs were saddled and packed. And soon all was in readiness for the flight. Fay was given Nack-yal, Jane the saddled horse Shefford had ridden, and Lassiter the Indian’s roan. Shefford and Nas Ta Bega were to ride the blanketed mustangs, and the sixth and last one bore the pack. Nas Ta Bega set off, leading this horse; the others of the party lined in behind, with Shefford at the rear.

Nas Ta Bega led at a brisk trot, and sometimes, on level stretches of ground, at an easy canter; and Shefford had a grim realization of what this flight was going to be for these three fugitives, now so unaccustomed to riding. Jane and Lassiter, however, needed no watching, and showed they had never forgotten how to manage a horse. The Indian back-trailed yesterday’s path for an hour, then headed west to the left, and entered a low pass. All parts of this plateau country looked alike, and Shefford was at some pains to tell the difference of this strange ground from that which he had been over. In another hour they got out of the rugged, broken rock to the wind-worn and smooth, shallow canyon. Shefford calculated that they were coming to the end of the plateau. The low walls slanted lower; the canyon made a turn; Nas Ta Bega disappeared; and then the others of the party. When Shefford turned the corner of wall he saw a short strip of bare, rocky ground with only sky beyond. The Indian and his followers had halted in a group. Shefford rode to them, halted himself, and in one sweeping glance realized the meaning of their silent gaze. But immediately Nas Ta Bega started down; and the mustangs, without word or touch, followed him. Shefford, however, lingered on the promontory.

His gaze seemed impelled and held by things afar — the great yellow-and-purple corrugated world of distance, now on a level with his eyes. He was drawn by the beauty and the grandeur of that scene and transfixed by the realization that he had dared to venture to find a way through this vast, wild, and upflung fastness. He kept looking afar, sweeping the three-quartered circle of horizon till his judgment of distance was confounded and his sense of proportion dwarfed one moment and magnified the next. Then he withdrew his fascinated gaze to adopt the Indian’s method of studying unlimited spaces in the desert — to look with slow, contracted eyes from near to far.

His companions had begun to zigzag down a long slope, bare of rock, with yellow gravel patches showing between the scant strips of green, and here and there a scrub-cedar. Half a mile down, the slope merged into green level. But close, keen gaze made out this level to be a rolling plain, growing darker green, with blue lines of ravines, and thin, undefined spaces that might be mirage. Miles and miles it swept and relied and heaved to lose its waves in apparent darker level. A round, red rock stood isolated, marking the end of the barren plain, and farther on were other round rocks, all isolated, all of different shape. They resembled huge grazing cattle. But as Shefford gazed, and his sight gained strength from steadily holding it to separate features these rocks were strangely magnified. They grew and grew into mounds, castles, domes, crags — great, red, wind-carved buttes. One by one they drew his gaze to the wall of upflung rock. He seemed to see a thousand domes of a thousand shapes and colors, and among them a thousand blue clefts, each one a little mark in his sight, yet which he knew was a canyon. So far he gained some idea of what he saw. But beyond this wide area of curved lines rose another wall, dwarfing the lower, dark red, horizon — long, magnificent in frowning boldness, and because of its limitless deceiving surfaces, breaks, and lines, incomprehensible to the sight of man. Away to the eastward began a winding, ragged, blue line, looping back upon itself, and then winding away again, growing wider and bluer. This line was the San Juan canyon. Where was Joe Lake at that moment? Had he embarked yet on the river — did that blue line, so faint, so deceiving, hold him and the boat? Almost it was impossible to believe. Shefford followed the blue line all its length, a hundred miles, he fancied, down toward the west where it joined a dark, purple, shadowy cleft. And this was the Grand canyon of the Colorado. Shefford’s eye swept along with that winding mark, farther and farther to the west, round to the left, until the cleft, growing larger and coming closer, losing its deception, was seen to be a wild and winding canyon. Still farther to the left, as he swung in fascinated gaze, it split the wonderful wall — a vast plateau now with great red peaks and yellow mesas. The canyon was full of purple smoke. It turned, it gaped, it lost itself and showed again in that chaos of a million cliffs. And then farther on it became again a cleft, a purple line, at last to fail entirely in deceiving distance.

Shefford imagined there was no scene in all the world to equal that. The tranquillity of lesser spaces was not here manifest. Sound, movement, life, seemed to have no fitness here. Ruin was there and desolation and decay. The meaning of the ages was flung at him, and a man became nothing. When he had gazed at the San Juan canyon he had been appalled at the nature of Joe Lake’s Herculean task. He had lost hope, faith. The thing was not possible. But when Shefford gazed at that sublime and majestic wilderness, in which the Grand canyon was only a dim line, he strangely lost his terror and something else came to him from across the shining spaces. If Nas Ta Bega led them safely down to the river, if Joe Lake met them at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco, if they survived the rapids of that terrible gorge, then Shefford would have to face his soul and the meaning of this spirit that breathed on the wind.

He urged his mustang to the descent of the slope, and as he went down, slowly drawing nearer to the other fugitives, his mind alternated between this strange intimation of faith, this subtle uplift of his spirit, and the growing gloom and shadow in his love for Fay Larkin. Not that he loved her less, but more! A possible God hovering near him, like the Indian’s spirit-step on the trail, made his soul the darker for Fay’s crime, and he saw with light, with deeper sadness, with sterner truth.

More than once the Indian turned on his mustang to look up the slope and the light flashed from his dark, somber face. Shefford instinctively looked back himself, and then realized the unconscious motive of the action. Deep within him there had been a premonition of certain pursuit, and the Indian’s reiterated backward glance had at length brought the feeling upward. Thereafter, as they descended, Shefford gradually added to his already wrought emotions a mounting anxiety.

No sign of a trail showed where the base of the slope rolled out to meet the green plain. The earth was gravelly, with dark patches of heavy silt, almost like cinders; and round, black rocks, flinty and glassy, cracked away from the hoofs of the mustangs. There was a level bench a mile wide, then a ravine, and then an ascent, and after that, rounded ridge and ravine, one after the other, like huge swells of a monstrous sea. Indian paint-brush vied in its scarlet hue with the deep magenta of cactus. There was no sage. Soapweed and meager grass and a bunch of cactus here and there lent the green to that barren; and it was green only at a distance. Nas Ta Bega kept on a steady, even trot. The sun climbed. The wind rose and whipped dust from under the mustangs.

Shefford looked back often, and the farther out in the plain he reached the higher loomed the plateau they had descended; and as he faced ahead again the lower sank the red-domed and castled horizon to the fore. The ravines became deeper, with dry rock bottoms, and the ridge-tops sharper, with outcroppings of yellow, crumbling ledges. Once across the central depression of that plain a gradual ascent became evident, and the round rocks grew clearer in sight, began to rise shine and grow. And thereafter every slope brought them nearer.

The sun was straight overhead and hot when Nas Ta Bega halted the party under the first lonely scrub-cedar. They all dismounted to stretch their limbs, and rest the horses. It was not a talkative group, Lassiter’s comments on the never-ending green plain elicited no response. Jane Withersteen looked afar with the past in her eyes. Shefford felt Fay’s wistful glance and could not meet it; indeed, he seemed to want to hide something from her. The Indian bent a falcon gaze on the distant slope, and Shefford did not like that intent, searching, steadfast watchfulness. Suddenly Nas Ta Bega stiffened and whipped the halter he held.

“Ugh!” he exclaimed.

All eyes followed the direction of his dark hand. Puffs of dust rose from the base of the long slope they had descended; tiny dark specks moved with the pace of a snail.

“Shadd!” added the Indian.

“I expected it,” said Shefford, darkly, as he rose.

“An’ who’s Shadd?” drawled Lassiter in his cool, slow speech.

Briefly Shefford explained, and then, looking at Nas Ta Bega, he added:

“The hardest-riding outfit in the country! We can’t get away from them.”

Jane Withersteen was silent, but Fay uttered a low cry. Shefford did not look at either of them. The Indian began swiftly to tighten the saddle-cinches of his roan, and Shefford did likewise for Nack-yal. Then Shefford drew his rifle out of the saddle-sheath and Joe Lake’s big guns from the saddle-bag.

“Here, Lassiter, maybe you haven’t forgotten how to use these,” he said.

The old gun-man started as if he had seen ghosts. His hands grew clawlike as he reached for the guns. He threw open the cylinders, spilled out the shells, snapped back the cylinders. Then he went through motions too swift for Shefford to follow. But Shefford heard the hammers falling so swiftly they blended their clicks almost in one sound. Lassiter reloaded the guns with a speed comparable with the other actions. A remarkable transformation had come over him. He did not seem the same man. The mild eyes had changed; the long, shadowy, sloping lines were tense cords; and there was a cold, ashy shade on his face.

“Twelve years!” he muttered to himself. “I dropped them old guns back there where I rolled the rock.... Twelve years!”

Shefford realized the twelve years were as if they had never been. And he would rather have had this old gun-man with him than a dozen ordinary men.

The Indian spoke rapidly in Navajo, saying that once in the rocks they were safe. Then, after another look at the distant dust-puffs, he wheeled his mustang.

It was doubtful if the party could have kept near him had they been responsible for the gait of their mounts. The fact was that the way the Indian called to his mustang or some leadership in the one rode drew the others to a like trot or climb or canter. For a long time Shefford did not turn round; he knew what to expect. And when he did turn he was startled at the gain made by the pursuers. But he was encouraged as well by the looming, red, rounded peaks seemingly now so close. He could see the dark splits between the sloping curved walls, the pinon patches in the amphitheater under the circled walls. That was a wild place they were approaching, and, once in there, he believed pursuit would be useless. However, there were miles to go still, and those hard-riding devils behind made alarming decrease in the intervening distance. Shefford could see the horses plainly now. How they made the dust fly! He counted up to six — and then the dust and moving line caused the others to be indistinguishable.

At last only a long, gently rising slope separated the fugitives from that labyrinthine network of wildly carved rock. But it was the clear air that made the distance seem short. Mile after mile the mustangs climbed, and when they were perhaps half-way across that last slope to the rocks the first horse of the pursuers mounted to the level behind. In a few moments the whole band was strung out in sight. Nas Ta Bega kept his mustang at a steady walk, in spite of the gaining pursuers. There came a point, however, when the Indian, reaching comparatively level ground, put his mount to a swinging canter. The other mustangs broke into the same gait.

It became a race then, with the couple of miles between fugitives and pursuers only imperceptibly lessened. Nas Ta Bega had saved his mustangs and Shadd had ridden his to the limit. Shefford kept looking back, gripping his rifle, hoping it would not come to a fight, yet slowly losing that reluctance.

Sage began to show on the slope, and other kinds of brush and cedars straggled everywhere. The great rocks loomed closer, the red color mixed with yellow, and the slopes lengthening out, not so steep, yet infinitely longer than they had seemed at a distance.

Shefford ceased to feel the dry wind in his face. They were already in the lee of the wall. He could see the rock-squirrels scampering to their holes. The mustangs valiantly held to the gait, and at last the Indian disappeared between two rounded comers of cliff. The others were close behind. Shefford wheeled once more. Shadd and his gang were a mile in the rear, but coming fast, despite winded horses.

Shefford rode around the wall into a widening space thick with cedars. It ended in a bare slope of smooth rock. Here the Indian dismounted. When the others came up with him he told them to lead their horses and follow. Then he began the ascent of the rock.

It was smooth and hard, though not slippery. There was not a crack. Shefford did not see a broken piece of stone. Nas Ta Bega climbed straight up for a while, and then wound around a swell, to turn this way and that, always going up. Shefford began to see similar mounds of rock all around him, of every shape that could be called a curve. There were yellow domes far above, and small red domes far below. Ridges ran from one hill of rock to another. There were no abrupt breaks, but holes and pits and caves were everywhere, and occasionally, deep down, an amphitheater green with cedar and pinon. The Indian appeared to have a clear idea of where he wanted to go, though there was no vestige of a trail on those bare slopes. At length Shefford was high enough to see back upon the plain, but the pursuers were no longer in sight.

Nas Ta Bega led to the top of that wall, only to disclose to his followers another and a higher wall beyond, with a ridged, bare, wild, and scalloped depression between. Here footing began to be precarious for both man and beast. When the ascent of the second wall began it was necessary to zigzag up, slowly and carefully, taking advantage of every level bulge or depression. They must have consumed half an hour mounting this slope to the summit. Once there, Shefford drew a sharp breath with both backward and forward glances. Shadd and his gang, in single file, showed dark upon the bare stone ridge behind. And to the fore there twisted and dropped and curved the most dangerous slopes Shefford had ever seen. The fugitives had reached the height of stone wall, of the divide, and many of the drops upon this side were perpendicular and too steep to see the bottom.

Nas Ta Bega led along the ridge-top and then started down, following the waves in the rock. He came out upon a round promontory from which there could not have been any turning of a horse. The long slant leading down was at an angle Shefford declared impossible for the animals. Yet the Indian started down. His mustang needed urging, but at last edged upon the steep descent. Shefford and the others had to hold back and wait. It was thrilling to see the intelligent mustang. He did not step. He slid his fore hoofs a few inches at a time and kept directly behind the Indian. If he fell he would knock Nas Ta Bega off his feet and they would both roll down together. There was no doubt in Shefford’s mind that the mustang knew this as well as the Indian. Foot by foot they worked down to a swelling bulge, and here Nas Ta Bega left his mustang and came back for the pack-horse. It was even more difficult to get this beast down. Then the Indian called for Lassiter and Jane and Fay to come down. Shefford began to keep a sharp lookout behind and above, and did not see how the three fared on the slope, but evidently there was no mishap. Nas Ta Bega mounted the slope again, and at the moment sight of Shadd’s dark bays silhouetted against the sky caused Shefford to call out:

“We’ve got to hurry!”

The Indian led one mustang and called to the others. Shefford stepped close behind. They went down in single file, inch by inch, foot by foot, and safely reached the comparative level below.

“Shadd’s gang are riding their horses up and down these walls!” exclaimed Shefford.

“Shore,” replied Lassiter.

Both the women were silent.

Nas Ta Bega led the way swiftly to the right. He rounded a huge dome, climbed a low, rolling ridge, descended and ascended, and came out upon the rim of a steep-walled amphitheater. Along the rim was a yard-wide level, with the chasm to the left and steep slope to the right. There was no time to flinch at the danger, when an even greater danger menaced from the rear. Nas Ta Bega led, and his mustang kept at his heels. One misstep would have plunged the animal to his death. But he was surefooted and his confidence helped the others. At the apex of the curve the only course led away from the rim, and here there was no level. Four of the mustangs slipped and slid down the smooth rock until they stopped in a shallow depression. It cost time to get them out, to straighten pack and saddles. Shefford thought he heard a yell in the rear, but he could not see anything of the gang.

They rounded this precipice only to face a worse one. Shefford’s nerve was sorely tried when he saw steep slants everywhere, all apparently leading down into chasms, and no place a man, let alone a horse, could put a foot with safety. Nevertheless the imperturbable Indian never slacked his pace. Always he appeared to find a way, and he never had to turn back. His winding course, however, did not now cover much distance in a straight line, and herein lay the greatest peril. Any moment Shadd and his men might come within range.

Upon a particularly tedious and dangerous side of rocky hill the fugitives lost so much time that Shefford grew exceedingly alarmed. Still, they accomplished it without accident, and their pursuers did not heave in sight. Perhaps they were having trouble in a bad place.

The afternoon was waning. The red sun hung low above the yellow mesa to the left, and there was a perceptible shading of light.

At last Nas Ta Bega came to a place that halted him. It did not look so bad as places they had successfully passed. Yet upon closer study Shefford did not see how they were to get around the neck of the gully at their feet. Presently the Indian put the bridle over the head of his mustang and left him free. He did likewise for two more mustangs, while Lassiter and Shefford rendered a like service to theirs. Then the Indian started down, with his mustang following him. The pack-animal came next, then Fay and Nack-yal, then Lassiter and his mount, with Jane and hers next, and Shefford last. They followed the Indian, picking their steps swiftly, looking nowhere except at the stone under their feet. The right side of the chasm was rimmed, the curve at the head crossed, and then the real peril of this trap had to be faced. It was a narrow slant of ledge, doubling back parallel with the course already traversed.

A sharp warning cry from Nas Ta Bega scarcely prepared Shefford for hoarse yells, and then a rattling rifle-volley from the top of the slope opposite. Bullets thudded on the cliff, whipped up red dust, and spanged and droned away.

Fay Larkin screamed and staggered back against the wall. Nack-yal was hit, and with frightened snort he reared, pawed the air, and came down, pounding the stone. The mustang behind him went to his knees, sank with his head over the rim, and, slipping off, plunged into the depths. In an instant a dull crash came up.

For a moment there was imminent peril for the horses, more in the yawning hole than in the spanging of badly aimed bullets. Lassiter drew Jane up a little slope out of the way of the frightened mustangs, and Shefford, risking his neck, rushed to Fay. She was holding her arm, which was bleeding. Unheeding the rain of bullets, he half carried, half dragged her along the slope of the low bluff, where he hid behind a corner till the Indian drove the mustangs round it. Shefford’s swift fingers were wet and red with the blood from Fay’s arm when he had bound the wound with his scarf. Lassiter had gotten around with Jane and was calling Shefford to hurry.

It had been Shefford’s idea to halt there and fight. But he did not want to send Fay on alone, so he hurried ahead with her. The Indian had the horses going fast on a long level, overhung by bulging wall. Lassiter and Jane were looking back. Shefford, becoming aware of a steep slope to his left, looked down to see a narrow chasm and great crevices in the cliffs, with bunches of cedars here and there.

Presently Nas Ta Bega disappeared with the mustangs. He had evidently turned off to go down behind the split cliffs. Shefford and Fay caught up with Lassiter and Jane, and, panting, hurrying, looking backward and then forward, they kept on, as best they could, in the Indian’s course. Shefford made sure they had lost him, when he appeared down to the left. Then they all ran to catch up with him. They went around the chasm, and then through one of the narrow cracks to come out upon the rim, among cedars. Here the Indian waited for them. He pointed down another long swell of naked stone to a narrow green split which was evidently different from all these curved pits and holes and abysses, for this one had straight walls and wound away out of sight. It was the head of a canyon.

“Nonnezoshe Boco!” said the Indian.

“Nas Ta Bega, go on!” replied Shefford. “When Shadd comes out on that slope above he can’t see you — where you go down. Hurry on with the horses and women. Lassiter, you go with them. And if Shadd passes me and comes up with you — do your best.... I’m going to ambush that Piute and his gang!”

“Shore you’ve picked out a good place,” replied Lassiter.

In another moment Shefford was alone. He heard the light, soft pat and slide of the hoofs of the mustangs as they went down. Presently that sound ceased.

He looked at the red stain on his hands — from the blood of the girl he loved. And he had to stifle a terrible wrath that shook his frame. In regard to Shadd’s pursuit, it had not been blood that he had feared, but capture for Fay. He and Nas Ta Bega might have expected a shot if they resisted, but to wound that unfortunate girl — it made a tiger out of him. When he had stilled the emotions that weakened and shook him and reached cold and implacable control of himself, he crawled under the cedars to the rim and, well hidden, he watched and waited.

Shadd appeared to be slow for the first time since he had been sighted. With keen eyes Shefford watched the corner where he and the others had escaped from that murderous volley. But Shadd did not come.

The sun had lost its warmth and was tipping the lofty mesa to his right. Soon twilight would make travel on those walls more perilous and darkness would make it impossible. Shadd must hurry or abandon the pursuit for that day. Shefford found himself grimly hopeful.

Suddenly he heard the click of hoofs. It came, faint yet clear, on the still air. He glued his sight upon that corner where he expected the pursuers to appear. More cracks of hoofs pierced his ear, clearer and sharper this time. Presently he gathered that they could not possibly come from beyond the corner he was watching. So he looked far to the left of that place, seeing no one, then far to the right. Out over a bulge of stone he caught sight of the bobbing head of a horse — then another — and still another.

He was astounded. Shadd had gone below that place where the attack had been made and he had come up this steep slope. More horses appeared — to the number of eight. Shefford easily recognized a low, broad, squat rider to be Shadd. Assuredly the Piute did not know this country. Possibly, however, he had feared an ambush. But Shefford grew convinced that Shadd had not expected an ambush, or at least did not fear it, and had mistaken the Indian’s course. Moreover, if he led his gang a few rods farther up that slope he would do worse than make a mistake — he would be facing a double peril.

What fearless horsemen these Indians were! Shadd was mounted, as were three others of his gang. Evidently the white men, the outlaws, were the ones on foot. Shefford thrilled and his veins stung when he saw these pursuers come passing what he considered the danger mark. But manifestly they could not see their danger. Assuredly they were aware of the chasm; however, the level upon which they were advancing narrowed gradually, and they could not tell that very soon they could not go any farther nor could they turn back. The alternative was to climb the slope, and that was a desperate chance.

They came up, now about on a level with Shefford, and perhaps three hundred yards distant. He gripped his rifle with a fatal assurance that he could kill one of them now. Still he waited. Curiosity consumed him because every foot they advanced heightened their peril. Shefford wondered if Shadd would have chosen that course if he had not supposed the Navajo had chosen it first. It was plain that one of the walking Piutes stooped now and then to examine the rock. He was looking for some faint sign of a horse track.

Shadd halted within two hundred yards of where Shefford lay hidden. His keen eye had caught the significance of the narrowing level before he had reached the end. He pointed and spoke. Shefford heard his voice. The others replied. They all looked up at the steep slope, down into the chasm right below them, and across into the cedars. The Piute in the rear succeeded in turning his horse, went back, and began to circle up the slope. The others entered into an argument and they became more closely grouped upon the narrow bench. Their mustangs were lean, wiry, wild, vicious, and Shefford calculated grimly upon what a stampede might mean in that position.

Then Shadd turned his mustang up the slope. Like a goat he climbed. Another Indian in the rear succeeded in pivoting his steed and started back, apparently to circle round and up. The others of the gang appeared uncertain. They yelled hoarsely at Shadd, who halted on the steep slant some twenty paces above them. He spoke and made motions that evidently meant the climb was easy enough. It looked easy for him. His dark face flashed red in the rays of the sun.

At this critical moment Shefford decided to fire. He meant to kill Shadd, hoping if the leader was gone the others would abandon the pursuit. The rifle wavered a little as he aimed, then grew still. He fired. Shadd never flinched. But the fiery mustang, perhaps wounded, certainly terrified, plunged down with piercing, horrid scream. Shadd fell under him. Shrill yells rent the air. Like a thunderbolt the sliding horse was upon men and animals below.

A heavy shock, wild snorts, upflinging heads and hoofs, a terrible tramping, thudding, shrieking melee, then a brown, twisting, tangled mass shot down the slant over the rim!

Shefford dazedly thought he saw men running. He did see plunging horses. One slipped, fell, rolled, and went into the chasm.

Then up from the depths came a crash, a long, slipping roar. In another instant there was a lighter crash and a lighter sliding roar.

Two horses, shaking, paralyzed with fear, were left upon the narrow level. Beyond them a couple of men were crawling along the stone. Up on the level stood the two Indians, holding down frightened horses, and staring at the fatal slope.

And Shefford lay there under the cedar, in the ghastly grip of the moment, hardly comprehending that his ill-aimed shot had been a thunderbolt.

He did not think of shooting at the Piutes; they, however, recovering from their shock, evidently feared the ambush, for they swiftly drew up the slope and passed out of sight. The frightened horses below whistled and tramped along the lower level, finally vanishing. There was nothing left on the bare wall to prove to Shefford that it had been the scene of swift and tragic death. He leaned from his covert and peered over the rim. Hundreds of feet below he saw dark growths of pinyons. There was no sign of a pile of horses and men, and then he realized that he could not tell the number that had perished. The swift finale had been as stunning to him as if lightning had struck near him.

Suddenly it flashed over him what state of suspense and torture Fay and Jane must be in at that very moment. And, leaping up, he ran out of the cedars to the slope behind and hurried down at risk of limb. The sun had set by this time. He hoped he could catch up with the party before dark. He went straight down, and the end of the slope was a smooth, low wall. The Indian must have descended with the horses at some other point. The canyon was about fifty yards wide and it headed under the great slope of Navajo Mountain. These smooth, rounded walls appeared to end at its low rim.

Shefford slid down upon a grassy bank, and finding the tracks of the horses, he followed them. They led along the wall. As soon as he had assured himself that Nas Ta Bega had gone down the canyon he abandoned the tracks and pushed ahead swiftly. He heard the soft rush of running water. In the center of the canyon wound heavy lines of bright-green foliage, bordering a rocky brook. The air was close, warm, and sweet with perfume of flowers. The walls were low and shelving, and soon lost that rounded appearance peculiar to the wind-worn slopes above. Shefford came to where the horses had plowed down a gravelly bank into the clear, swift water of the brook. The little pools of water were still muddy. Shefford drank, finding the water cold and sweet, without the bitter bite of alkali. He crossed and pushed on, running on the grassy levels. Flowers were everywhere, but he did not notice them particularly. The canyon made many leisurely turns, and its size, if it enlarged at all, was not perceptible to him yet. The rims above him were perhaps fifty feet high. Cottonwood-trees began to appear along the brook, and blossoming buck-brush in the corners of wall.

He had traveled perhaps a mile when Nas Ta Bega, appearing to come out of the thicket, confronted him.

“Hello!” called Shefford. “Where’re Fay — and the others?”

The Indian made a gesture that signified the rest of the party were beyond a little way. Shefford took Nas Ta Bega’s arm, and as they walked, and he panted for breath, he told what had happened back on the slopes.

The Indian made one of his singular speaking sweeps of hand, and he scrutinized Shefford’s face, but he received the news in silence. They turned a corner of wall, crossed a wide, shallow, boulder-strewn place in the brook, and mounted the bank to a thicket. Beyond this, from a clump of cottonwoods, Lassiter strode out with a gun in each hand. He had been hiding.

“Shore I’m glad to see you,” he said, and the eyes that piercingly fixed on Shefford were now as keen as formerly they had been mild.

“Gone! Lassiter — they’re gone,” broke out Shefford. “Where’s Fay — and Jane?”

Lassiter called, and presently the women came out of the thick brake, and Fay bounded forward with her swift stride, while Jane followed with eager step and anxious face. Then they all surrounded Shefford.

“It was Shadd — and his gang,” panted Shefford. “Eight in all. Three or four Piutes — the others outlaws. They lost track of us. Went below the place — where they shot at us. And they came up — on a bad slope.”

Shefford described the slope and the deep chasm and how Shadd led up to the point where he saw his mistake and then how the catastrophe fell.

“I shot — and missed,” repeated Shefford, with the sweat in beads on his pale face. “I missed Shadd. Maybe I hit the horse. He plunged — reared — fell back — a terrible fall — right upon that bunch of horses and men below.... In a horrible, wrestling, screaming tangle they slid over the rim! I don’t know how many. I saw some men running along. I saw three other horses plunging. One slipped and went over. ... I have no idea how many, but Shadd and some of his gang went to destruction.”

“Shore thet’s fine!” said Lassiter. “But mebbe I won’t get to use them guns, after all.”

“Hardly on that gang,” laughed Shefford. “The two Piutes and what others escaped turned back. Maybe they’ll meet a posse of Mormons — for of course the Mormons will track us, too — and come back to where Shadd lost his life. That’s an awful place. Even the Piute got lost — couldn’t follow Nas Ta Bega. It would take any pursuers some time to find how we got in here. I believe we need not fear further pursuit. Certainly not to-night or to-morrow. Then we’ll be far down the canyon.”

When Shefford concluded his earnest remarks the faces of Fay and Jane had lost the signs of suppressed dread.

“Nas Ta Bega, make camp here,” said Shefford. “Water — wood — grass — why, this ‘s something like.... Fay, how’s your arm?”

“It hurts,” she replied, simply.

“Come with me down to the brook and let me wash and bind it properly.”

They went, and she sat upon a stone while he knelt beside her and untied his scarf from her arm. As the blood had hardened, it was necessary to slit her sleeve to the shoulder. Using his scarf, he washed the blood from the wound, and found it to be merely a cut, a groove, on the surface.

“That’s nothing,” Shefford said, lightly. “It’ll heal in a day. But there’ll always be a scar. And when we — we get back to civilization, and you wear a pretty gown without sleeves, people will wonder what made this mark on your beautiful arm.”

Fay looked at him with wonderful eyes. “Do women wear gowns without sleeves?” she asked.

“They do.”

“Have I a — beautiful arm?”

She stretched it out, white, blue-veined, the skin fine as satin, the lines graceful and flowing, a round, firm, strong arm.

“The most beautiful I ever saw,” he replied.

But the pleasure his compliment gave her was not communicated to him. His last impression of that right arm had been of its strength, and his mind flashed with lightning swiftness to a picture that haunted him — Waggoner lying dead on the porch with that powerfully driven knife in his breast. Shefford shuddered through all his being. Would this phantom come often to him like that? Hurriedly he bound up her arm with the scarf and did not look at her, and was conscious that she felt a subtle change in him.

The short twilight ended with the fugitives comfortable in a camp that for natural features could not have been improved upon. Darkness found Fay and Jane asleep on a soft mossy bed, a blanket tucked around them, and their faces still and beautiful in the flickering camp-fire light. Lassiter did not linger long awake. Nas Ta Bega, seeing Shefford’s excessive fatigue, urged him to sleep. Shefford demurred, insisting that he share the night-watch. But Nas Ta Bega, by agreeing that Shefford might have the following night’s duty, prevailed upon him.

Shefford seemed to shut his eyes upon darkness and to open them immediately to the light. The stream of blue sky above, the gold tints on the western rim, the rosy, brightening colors down in the canyon, were proofs of the sunrise. This morning Nas Ta Bega proceeded leisurely, and his manner was comforting. When all was in readiness for a start he gave the mustang he had ridden to Shefford, and walked, leading the pack-animal.

The mode of travel here was a selection of the best levels, the best places to cross the brook, the best banks to climb, and it was a process of continual repetition. As the Indian picked out the course and the mustangs followed his lead there was nothing for Shefford to do but take his choice between reflection that seemed predisposed toward gloom and an absorption in the beauty, color, wildness, and changing character of Nonnezoshe Boco.

Assuredly his experience in the desert did not count in it a trip down into a strange, beautiful, lost canyon such as this. It did not widen, though the walls grew higher. They began to lean and bulge, and the narrow strip of sky above resembled a flowing blue river. Huge caverns had been hollowed out by some work of nature, what, he could not tell, though he was sure it could not have been wind. And when the brook ran close under one of these overhanging places the running water made a singular, indescribable sound. A crack from a hoof on a stone rang like a hollow bell and echoed from wall to wall. And the croak of a frog — the only living creature he had so far noted in the canyon — was a weird and melancholy thing.

Fay rode close to him, and his heart seemed to rejoice when she spoke, when she showed how she wanted to be near him, yet, try as he might, he could not respond. His speech to her — what little there was — did not come spontaneously. And he suffered a remorse that he could not be honestly natural to her. Then he would drive away the encroaching gloom, trusting that a little time would dispel it.

“We are deeper down than Surprise Valley,” said Fay.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Here are the pink and yellow sago-lilies. You remember we went once to find the white ones? I have found white lilies in Surprise Valley, but never any pink or yellow.”

Shefford had seen flowers all along the green banks, but he had not marked the lilies. Here he dismounted and gathered several. They were larger than the white ones of higher altitudes, of the same exquisite beauty and fragility, of such rare pink and yellow hues as he had never seen. He gave the flowers to Fay.

“They bloom only where it’s always summer,” she said.

That expressed their nature. They were the orchids of the summer canyon. They stood up everywhere starlike out of the green. It was impossible to prevent the mustangs treading them under hoof. And as the canyon deepened, and many little springs added their tiny volume to the brook, every grassy bench was dotted with lilies, like a green sky star-spangled. And this increasing luxuriance manifested itself in the banks of purple moss and clumps of lavender daisies and great clusters of yellow violets. The brook was lined by blossoming buck-rush; the rocky corners showed the crimson and magenta of cactus; ledges were green with shining moss that sparkled with little white flowers. The hum of bees filled the air.

But by and by this green and colorful and verdant beauty, the almost level floor of the canyon, the banks of soft earth, the thickets and the clumps of cotton-woods, the shelving caverns and the bulging walls — these features gradually were lost, and Nonnezoshe Boco began to deepen in bare red and white stone steps, the walls sheered away from one another, breaking into sections and ledges, and rising higher and higher, and there began to be manifested a dark and solemn concordance with the nature that had created this rent in the earth.

There was a stretch of miles where steep steps in hard red rock alternated with long levels of round boulders. Here one by one the mustangs went lame. And the fugitives, dismounting to spare the faithful beasts, slipped and stumbled over these loose and treacherous stones. Fay was the only one who did not show distress. She was glad to be on foot again and the rolling boulders were as stable as solid rock for her.

The hours passed; the toil increased; the progress diminished; one of the mustangs failed entirely and was left; and all the while the dimensions of Nonnezoshe Boco magnified and its character changed. It became a thousand-foot walled canyon, leaning, broken, threatening, with great yellow slides blocking passage, with huge sections split off from the main wall, with immense dark and gloomy caverns. Strangely, it had no intersecting canyon. It jealously guarded its secret. Its unusual formations of cavern and pillar and half-arch led the mind to expect any monstrous stone-shape left by an avalanche or cataclysm.

Down and down the fugitives toiled. And now the stream-bed was bare of boulders, and the banks of earth. The floods that had rolled down that canyon had here borne away every loose thing. All the floor was bare red and white stone, polished, glistening, slippery, affording treacherous foothold. And the time came when Nas Ta Bega abandoned the stream-bed to take to the rock-strewn and cactus-covered ledges above.

Jane gave out and had to be assisted upon the weary mustang. Fay was persuaded to mount Nack-yal again. Lassiter plodded along. The Indian bent tired steps far in front. And Shefford traveled on after him, footsore and hot.

The canyon widened ahead into a great, ragged, iron-hued amphitheater, and from there apparently turned abruptly at right angles. Sunset rimmed the walls. Shefford wondered dully when the Indian would halt to camp. And he dragged himself onward with eyes down on the rough ground.

When he raised them again the Indian stood on a point of slope with folded arms, gazing down where the canyon veered. Something in Nas Ta Bega’s pose quickened Shefford’s pulse and then his steps. He reached the Indian and the point where he, too, could see beyond that vast jutting wall that had obstructed his view.

A mile beyond all was bright with the colors of sunset, and spanning the canyon in the graceful shape arid beautiful hues of a rainbow was a magnificent stone bridge.

“Nonnezoshe!” exclaimed the Navajo, with a deep and sonorous roll in his voice.

XVIII. AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW

THE RAINBOW BRIDGE was the one great natural phenomenon, the one grand spectacle, which Shefford had ever seen that did not at first give vague disappointment, a confounding of reality, a disenchantment of contrast with what the mind had conceived.

But this thing was glorious. It silenced him, yet did not awe or stun. His body and brain, weary and dull from the toil of travel, received a singular and revivifying freshness. He had a strange, mystic perception of this rosy-hued stupendous arch of stone, as if in a former life it had been a goal he could not reach. This wonder of nature, though all-satisfying, all-fulfilling to his artist’s soul, could not be a resting-place for him, a destination where something awaited him, a height he must scale to find peace, the end of his strife. But it seemed all these. He could not understand his perception or his emotion. Still, here at last, apparently, was the rainbow of his boyish dreams and of his manhood — a rainbow magnified even beyond those dreams, no longer transparent and ethereal, but solidified, a thing of ages, sweeping up majestically from the red walls, its iris-hued arch against the blue sky.

Nas Ta Bega led on down the ledge and Shefford plodded thoughtfully after him. The others followed. A jutting corner of wall again hid the canyon. The Indian was working round to circle the huge amphitheater. It was slow, irritating, strenuous toil, for the way was on a steep slant, rough and loose and dragging. The rocks were as hard and jagged as lava. And the cactus further hindered progress. When at last the long half-circle had been accomplished the golden and rosy lights had faded.

Again the canyon opened to view. All the walls were pale and steely and the stone bridge loomed dark. Nas Ta Bega said camp would be made at the bridge, which was now close. Just before they reached it the Navajo halted with one of his singular actions. Then he stood motionless. Shefford realized that Nas Ta Bega was saying his prayer to this great stone god. Presently the Indian motioned for Shefford to lead the others and the horses on under the bridge. Shefford did so, and, upon turning, was amazed to see the Indian climbing the steep and difficult slope on the other side. All the party watched him until he disappeared behind the huge base of cliff that supported the arch. Shefford selected a level place for camp, some few rods away, and here, with Lassiter, unsaddled and unpacked the lame, drooping mustangs. When this was done twilight had fallen. Nas Ta Bega appeared, coming down the steep slope on this side of the bridge. Then Shefford divined why the Navajo had made that arduous climb. He would not go under the bridge. Nonnezoshe was a Navajo god. And Nas Ta Bega, though educated as a white man, was true to the superstition of his ancestors.

Nas Ta Bega turned the mustangs loose to fare for what scant grass grew on bench and slope. Firewood was even harder to find than grass. When the camp duties had been performed and the simple meal eaten there was gloom gathering in the canyon and the stars had begun to blink in the pale strip of blue above the lofty walls. The place was oppressive and the fugitives mostly silent. Shefford spread a bed of blankets for the women, and Jane at once lay wearily down. Fay stood beside the flickering fire, and Shefford felt her watching him. He was conscious of a desire to get away from her haunting gaze. To the gentle good-night he bade her she made no response.

Shefford moved away into a strange dark shadow cast by the bridge against the pale starlight. It was a weird, black belt, where he imagined he was invisible, but out of which he could see. There was a slab of rock near the foot of the bridge, and here Shefford composed himself to watch, to feel, to think the unknown thing that seemed to be inevitably coming to him.

A slight stiffening of his neck made him aware that he had been continually looking up at the looming arch. And he found that insensibly it had changed and grown. It had never seemed the same any two moments, but that was not what he meant. Near at hand it was too vast a thing for immediate comprehension. He wanted to ponder on what had formed it — to reflect upon its meaning as to age and force of nature, yet all he could do at each moment was to see. White stars hung along the dark curved line. The rim of the arch seemed to shine. The moon must be up there somewhere. The far side of the canyon was now a blank, black wall. Over its towering rim showed a pale glow. It brightened. The shades in the canyon lightened, then a white disk of moon peered over the dark line. The bridge turned to silver, and the gloomy, shadowy belt it had cast blanched and vanished.

Shefford became aware of the presence of Nas Ta Bega. Dark, silent, statuesque, with inscrutable eyes uplifted, with all that was spiritual of the Indian suggested by a somber and tranquil knowledge of his place there, he represented the same to Shefford as a solitary figure of human life brought out the greatness of a great picture. Nonnezoshe Boco needed life, wild life, life of its millions of years — and here stood the dark and silent Indian.

There was a surge in Shefford’s heart and in his mind a perception of a moment of incalculable change to his soul. And at that moment Fay Larkin stole like a phantom to his side and stood there with her uncovered head shining and her white face lovely in the moonlight.

“May I stay with you — a little?” she asked, wistfully. “I can’t sleep.”

“Surely you may,” he replied. “Does your arm hurt too badly, or are you too tired to sleep?”

“No — it’s this place. I — I — can’t tell you how I feel.”

But the feeling was there in her eyes for Shefford to read. Had he too great an emotion — did he read too much — did he add from his soul? For him the wild, starry, haunted eyes mirrored all that he had seen and felt under Nonnezoshe. And for herself they shone eloquently of courage and love.

“I need to talk — and I don’t know how,” she said.

He was silent, but he took her hands and drew her closer.

“Why are you so — so different?” she asked, bravely.

“Different?” he echoed.

“Yes. You are kind — you speak the same to me as you used to. But since we started you’ve been different, somehow.”

“Fay, think how hard and dangerous the trip’s been! I’ve been worried — and sick with dread — with — Oh, you can’t imagine the strain I’m under! How could I be my old self?”

“It isn’t worry I mean.”

He was too miserable to try to find out what she did mean; besides, he believed, if he let himself think about it, he would know what troubled her.

“I — I am almost happy,” she said, softly.

“Fay!... Aren’t you at all afraid?”

“No. You’ll take care of me.... Do — do you love me — like you did before?”

“Why, child! Of course — I love you,” he replied, brokenly, and he drew her closer. He had never embraced her, never kissed her. But there was a whiteness about her then — a wraith — a something from her soul, and he could only gaze at her.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I thought I knew it that — that night. But I’m only finding it out now.... And somehow I had to tell you here.”

“Fay, I haven’t said much to you,” he said, hurriedly, huskily. “I haven’t had a chance. I love you. I — I ask you — will you be my wife?”

“Of course,” she said, simply, but the white, moon-blanched face colored with a dark and leaping blush.

“We’ll be married as soon as we get out of the desert,” he went on. “And we’ll forget — all — all that’s happened. You’re so young. You’ll forget.”

“I’d forgotten already, till this difference came in you. And pretty soon — when I can say something more to you — I’ll forget all except Surprise Valley — and my evenings in the starlight with you.”

“Say it then — quick!”

She was leaning against him, holding his hands in her strong clasp, soulful, tender, almost passionate.

“You couldn’t help it.... I’m to blame.... I remember what I said.”

“What?” he queried in amaze.

“‘YOU CAN KILL HIM!’... I said that. I made you kill him.”

“Kill — whom?” cried Shefford.

“Waggoner. I’m to blame.... That must be what’s made you different. And, oh, I’ve wanted you to know it’s all my fault.... But I wouldn’t be sorry if you weren’t.... I’m glad he’s dead.”

“YOU — THINK — I—” Shefford’s gasping whisper failed in the shock of the revelation that Fay believed he had killed Waggoner. Then with the inference came the staggering truth — her guiltlessness; and a paralyzing joy held him stricken.

A powerful hand fell upon Shefford’s shoulder, startling him. Nas Ta Bega stood there, looking down upon him and Fay. Never had the Indian seemed so dark, inscrutable of face. But in his magnificent bearing, in the spirit that Shefford sensed in him, there were nobility and power and a strange pride.

The Indian kept one hand on Shefford’s shoulder, and with the other he struck himself on the breast. The action was that of an Indian, impressive and stern, significant of an Indian’s prowess.

“My God!” breathed Shefford, very low.

“Oh, what does he mean?” cried Fay.

Shefford held her with shaking hands, trying to speak, to fight a way out of these stultifying emotions.

“Nas Ta Bega — you heard. She thinks — I killed Waggoner!”

All about the Navajo then was dark and solemn disproof of her belief. He did not need to speak. His repetition of that savage, almost boastful blow on his breast added only to the dignity, and not to the denial, of a warrior.

“Fay, he means he killed the Mormon,” said Shefford. “He must have, for I did not!”

“Ah!” murmured Fay, and she leaned to him with passionate, quivering gladness. It was the woman — the human — the soul born in her that came uppermost then; now, when there was no direct call to the wild and elemental in her nature, she showed a heart above revenge, the instinct of a saving right, of truth as Shefford knew them. He took her into his arms and never had he loved her so well.

“Nas Ta Bega, you killed the Mormon,” declared Shefford, with a voice that had gained strength. No silent Indian suggestion of a deed would suffice in that moment. Shefford needed to hear the Navajo speak — to have Fay hear him speak. “Nas Ta Bega, I know I understand. But tell her. Speak so she will know. Tell it as a white man would!”

“I heard her cry out,” replied the Indian, in his slow English. “I waited. When he came I killed him.”

A poignant why was wrenched from Shefford. Nas Ta Bega stood silent.

“BI NAI!” And when that sonorous Indian name rolled in dignity from his lips he silently stalked away into the gloom. That was his answer to the white man.

Shefford bent over Fay, and as the strain on him broke he held her closer and closer and his tears streamed down and his voice broke in exclamations of tenderness and thanksgiving. It did not matter what she had thought, but she must never know what he had thought. He clasped her as something precious he had lost and regained. He was shaken with a passion of remorse. How could he have believed Fay Larkin guilty of murder? Women less wild and less justified than she had been driven to such a deed, yet how could he have believed it of her, when for two days he had been with her, had seen her face, and deep into her eyes? There was mystery in his very blindness. He cast the whole thought from him for ever. There was no shadow between Fay and him. He had found her. He had saved her. She was free. She was innocent. And suddenly, as he seemed delivered from contending tumults within, he became aware that it was no unresponsive creature he had folded to his breast.

He became suddenly alive to the warm, throbbing contact of her bosom, to her strong arms clinging round his neck, to her closed eyes, to the rapt whiteness of her face. And he bent to cold lips that seemed to receive his first kisses as new and strange; but tremulously changed, at last to meet his own, and then to burn with sweet and thrilling fire.

“My darling, my dream’s come true,” he said. “You are my treasure. I found you here at the foot of the rainbow!... What if it is a stone rainbow — if all is not as I had dreamed? I followed a gleam. And it’s led me to love and faith!”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Hours afterward Shefford walked alone to and fro under the bridge. His trouble had given place to serenity. But this night of nights he must live out wide-eyed to its end.

The moon had long since crossed the streak of star-fired blue above and the canyon was black in shadow. At times a current of wind, with all the strangeness of that strange country in its hollow moan, rushed through the great stone arch. At other times there was silence such as Shefford imagined dwelt deep under this rocky world. At still other times an owl hooted, and the sound was nameless. But it had a mocking echo that never ended. An echo of night, silence, gloom, melancholy death, age, eternity!

The Indian lay asleep with his dark face upturned, and the other sleepers lay calm and white in the starlight.

Shefford saw in them the meaning of life and the past — the illimitable train of faces that had shone the stars. There was a spirit in the canyon, and whether or not it was what the Navajo embodied in the great Nonnezoshe, or the life of this present, or the death of the ages, or the nature so magnificently manifested in those silent, dreaming waiting walls — the truth for Shefford was that this spirit was God.

Life was eternal. Man’s immortality lay in himself. Love of a woman was hope — happiness. Brotherhood — that mystic and grand “Bi Nai!” of the Navajo — that was religion.

XIX. THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO

THE NIGHT PASSED, the gloom turned gray, the dawn stole cool and pale into the canyon. When Nas Ta Bega drove the mustangs into camp the lofty ramparts of the walls were rimmed with gold and the dark arch of Nonnezoshe began to lose its steely gray.

The women had rested well and were in better condition to travel. Jane was cheerful and Fay radiant one moment and in a dream the next. She was beginning to live in that wonderful future. They talked more than usual at breakfast, and Lassiter made droll remarks. Shefford, with his great and haunting trouble ended for ever, with now only danger to face ahead, was a different man, but thoughtful and quiet.

This morning the Indian leisurely made preparations for the start. For all the concern he showed he might have known every foot of the canyon below Nonnezoshe. But, for Shefford, with the dawn had returned anxiety, a restless feeling of the need of hurry. What obstacles, what impassable gorges, might lie between this bridge and the river! The Indian’s inscrutable serenity and Fay’s trust, her radiance, the exquisite glow upon her face, sustained Shefford and gave him patience to endure and conceal his dread.

At length the flight was resumed, with Nas Ta Bega leading on foot, and Shefford walking in the rear. A quarter of a mile below camp the Indian led down a declivity into the bottom of the narrow gorge, where the stream ran. He did not gaze backward for a last glance at Nonnezoshe; nor did Jane or Lassiter. Fay, however, checked Nack-yal at the rim of the descent and turned to look behind. Shefford contrasted her tremulous smile, her half-happy good-by to this place, with the white stillness of her face when she had bade farewell to Surprise Valley. Then she rode Nack-yal down into the gorge.

Shefford knew that this would be his last look at the rainbow bridge. As he gazed the tip of the great arch lost its cold, dark stone color and began to shine. The sun had just arisen high enough over some low break in the wall to reach the bridge. Shefford watched. Slowly, in wondrous transformation, the gold and blue and rose and pink and purple blended their hues, softly, mistily, cloudily, until once again the arch was a rainbow.

Ages before life had evolved upon the earth it had spread its grand arch from wall to wall, black and mystic at night, transparent and rosy in the sunrise, at sunset a flaming curve limned against the heavens. When the race of man had passed it would, perhaps, stand there still. It was not for many eyes to see. Only by toil, sweat, endurance, blood, could any man ever look at Nonnezoshe. So it would always be alone, grand, silent, beautiful, unintelligible.

Shefford bade Nonnezoshe a mute, reverent farewell. Then plunging down the weathered slope of the gorge to the stream below, he hurried forward to join the others. They had progressed much farther than he imagined they would have, and this was owing to the fact that the floor of the gorge afforded easy travel. It was gravel on rock bottom, tortuous, but open, with infrequent and shallow downward steps. The stream did not now rush and boil along and tumble over rock-encumbered ledges. In corners the water collected in round, green, eddying pools. There were patches of grass and willows and mounds of moss. Shefford’s surprise equaled his relief, for he believed that the violent descent of Nonnezoshe Boco had been passed. Any turn now, he imagined, might bring the party out upon the river. When he caught up with them he imparted this conviction, which was received with cheer. The hopes of all, except the Indian, seemed mounting; and if he ever hoped or despaired it was never manifest.

Shefford’s anticipation, however, was not soon realized. The fugitives traveled miles farther down Nonnezoshe Boco, and the only changes were that the walls of the lower gorge heightened and merged into those above and that these upper ones towered ever loftier. Shefford had to throw his head straight back to look up at the rims, and the narrow strip of sky was now indeed a flowing stream of blue.

Difficult steps were met, too, yet nothing compared to those of the upper canyon. Shefford calculated that this day’s travel had advanced several hours; and more than ever now he was anticipating the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco. Still another hour went by. And then came striking changes. The canyon narrowed till the walls were scarcely twenty paces apart; the color of stone grew dark red above and black down low; the light of day became shadowed, and the floor was a level, gravelly, winding lane, with the stream meandering slowly and silently.

Suddenly the Indian halted. He turned his ear down the canyon lane. He had heard something. The others grouped round him, but did not hear a sound except the soft flow of water and the heave of the mustangs. Then the Indian went on. Presently he halted again. And again he listened. This time he threw up his head and upon his dark face shone a light which might have been pride.

“Tse ko-n-tsa-igi,” he said.

The others could not understand, but they were impressed.

“Shore he means somethin’ big,” drawled Lassiter.

“Oh, what did he say?” queried Fay in eagerness.

“Nas Ta Bega, tell us,” said Shefford. “We are full of hope.”

“Grand canyon,” replied the Indian.

“How do you know?” asked Shefford.

“I hear the roar of the river.”

But Shefford, listen as he might, could not hear it. They traveled on, winding down the wonderful lane. Every once in a while Shefford lagged behind, let the others pass out of hearing, and then he listened. At last he was rewarded. Low and deep, dull and strange, with some quality to incite dread, came a roar. Thereafter, at intervals, usually at turns in the canyon, and when a faint stir of warm air fanned his cheeks, he heard the sound, growing clearer and louder.

He rounded an abrupt corner to have the roar suddenly fill his ears, to see the lane extend straight to a ragged vent, and beyond that, at some distance, a dark, ragged, bulging wall, like iron. As he hurried forward he was surprised to find that the noise did not increase. Here it kept a strange uniformity of tone and volume. The others of the party passed out of the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco in advance of Shefford, and when he reached it they were grouped upon a bank of sand. A dark-red canyon yawned before them, and through it slid the strangest river Shefford had ever seen. At first glance he imagined the strangeness consisted of the dark-red color of the water, but at the second he was not so sure. All the others, except Nas Ta Bega, eyed the river blankly, as if they did not know what to think. The roar came from round a huge bulging wall downstream. Up the canyon, half a mile, at another turn, there was a leaping rapid of dirty red-white waves and the sound of this, probably, was drowned in the unseen but nearer rapid.

“This is the Grand canyon of the Colorado,” said Shefford. “We’ve come out at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco.... And now to wait for Joe Lake!”

They made camp on a dry, level sand-bar under a shelving wall. Nas Ta Bega collected a pile of driftwood to be used for fire, and then he took the mustangs back up the side canyon to find grass for them. Lassiter appeared unusually quiet, and soon passed from weary rest on the sand to deep slumber. Fay and Jane succumbed to an exhaustion that manifested itself the moment relaxation set in, and they, too, fell asleep. Shefford patrolled the long strip of sand under the wall, and watched up the river for Joe Lake. The Indian returned and went along the river, climbed over the jutting, sharp slopes that reached into the water, and passed out of sight up-stream toward the rapid.

Shefford had a sense that the river and the canyon were too magnificent to be compared with others. Still, all his emotions and sensations had been so wrought upon, he seemed not to have any left by which he might judge of what constituted the difference. He would wait. He had a grim conviction that before he was safely out of this earth-riven crack he would know. One thing, however, struck him, and it was that up the canyon, high over the lower walls, hazy and blue, stood other walls, and beyond and above them, dim in purple distance, upreared still other walls. The haze and the blue and the purple meant great distance, and, likewise, the height seemed incomparable.

The red river attracted him most. Since this was the medium by which he must escape with his party, it was natural that it absorbed him, to the neglect of the gigantic cliffs. And the more he watched the river, studied it, listened to it, imagined its nature, its power, its restlessness, the more he dreaded it. As the hours of the afternoon wore away, and he strolled along and rested on the banks, his first impressions, and what he realized might be his truest ones, were gradually lost. He could not bring them back. The river was changing, deceitful. It worked upon his mind. The low, hollow roar filled his ears and seemed to mock him. Then he endeavored to stop thinking about it, to confine his attention to the gap up-stream where sooner or later he prayed that Joe Lake and his boat would appear. But, though he controlled his gaze, he could not his thought, and his strange, impondering dread of the river augmented.

The afternoon waned. Nas Ta Bega came back to camp and said any likelihood of Joe’s arrival was past for that day. Shefford could not get over an impression of strangeness — of the impossibility of the reality presented to his naked eyes. These lonely fugitives in the huge-walled canyon waiting for a boatman to come down that river! Strange and wild — those were the words which, inadequately at best, suited this country and the situations it produced.

After supper he and Fay walked along the bars of smooth, red sand. There were a few moments when the distant peaks and domes and turrets were glorified in changing sunset hues. But the beauty was fleeting. Fay still showed lassitude. She was quiet, yet cheerful, and the sweetness of her smile, her absolute trust in him, stirred and strengthened anew his spirit. Yet he suffered torture when he thought of trusting Fay’s life, her soul, and her beauty to this strange red river.

Night brought him relief. He could not see the river; only the low roar made its presence known out there in the shadows. And, there being no need to stay awake, he dropped at once into heavy slumber. He was roused by hands dragging at him. Nas Ta Bega bent over him. It was broad daylight. The yellow wall high above was glistening. A fire was crackling and pleasant odors were wafted to him. Fay and Jane and Lassiter sat around the tarpaulin at breakfast. After the meal suspense and strain were manifested in all the fugitives, even the imperturbable Indian being more than usually watchful. His eyes scarcely ever left the black gap where the river slid round the turn above. Soon, as on the preceding day, he disappeared up the ragged, iron-bound shore. There was scarcely an attempt at conversation. A controlling thought bound that group into silence — if Joe Lake was ever going to come he would come to-day.

Shefford asked himself a hundred times if it were possible, and his answer seemed to be in the low, sullen, muffled roar of the river. And as the morning wore on toward noon his dread deepened until all chance appeared hopeless. Already he had begun to have vague and unformed and disquieting ideas of the only avenue of escape left — to return up Nonnezoshe Boco — and that would be to enter a trap.

Suddenly a piercing cry pealed down the canyon. It was followed by echoes, weird and strange, that clapped from wall to wall in mocking concatenation. Nas Ta Bega appeared high on the ragged slope. The cry had been the Indian’s. He swept an arm out, pointing up-stream, and stood like a statue on the iron rocks.

Shefford’s keen gaze sighted a moving something in the bend of the river. It was long, low, dark, and flat, with a lighter object upright in the middle. A boat and a man!

“Joe! It’s Joe!” yelled Shefford, madly. “There!... Look!”

Jane and Fay were on their knees in the sand, clasping each other, pale faces toward that bend in the river.

Shefford ran up the shore toward the Indian. He climbed the jutting slant of rock. The boat was now full in the turn — it moved faster — it was nearing the smooth incline above the rapid. There! it glided down — heaved darkly up — settled back — and disappeared in the frothy, muddy roughness of water. Shefford held his breath and watched. A dark, bobbing object showed, vanished, showed again to enlarge — to take the shape of a big flatboat — and then it rode the swift, choppy current out of the lower end of the rapid.

Nas Ta Bega began to make violent motions, and Shefford, taking his cue, frantically waved his red scarf. There was a five-mile-an-hour current right before them, and Joe must needs see them so that he might sheer the huge and clumsy craft into the shore before it drifted too far down.

Presently Joe did see them. He appeared to be half-naked; he raised aloft both arms, and bellowed down the canyon. The echoes boomed from wall to wall, every one stronger with the deep, hoarse triumph in the Mormon’s voice, till they passed on, growing weaker, to die away in the roar of the river below. Then Joe bent to a long oar that appeared to be fastened to the stern of the boat, and the craft drifted out of the swifter current toward the shore. It reached a point opposite to where Shefford and the Indian waited, and, though Joe made prodigious efforts, it slid on. Still, it also drifted shoreward, and half-way down to the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco Joe threw the end of a rope to the Indian.

“Ho! Ho!” yelled the Mormon, again setting into motion the fiendish echoes. He was naked to the waist; he had lost flesh; he was haggard, worn, dirty, wet. While he pulled on a shirt Nas Ta Bega made the rope fast to a snag of a log of driftwood embedded in the sand, and the boat swung to shore. It was perhaps thirty feet long by half as many wide, crudely built of rough-hewn boards. The steering-gear was a long pole with a plank nailed to the end. The craft was empty save for another pole and plank, Joe’s coat, and a broken-handled shovel. There were water and sand on the flooring. Joe stepped ashore and he was gripped first by Shefford and then by the Indian. He was an unkempt and gaunt giant, yet how steadfast and reliable, how grimly strong to inspire hope!

“Reckon most of me’s here,” he said in reply to greetings. “I’ve had water aplenty. My God! I’ve had WATER!” He rolled out a grim laugh. “But no grub for three days.... Forgot to fetch some!”

How practical he was! He told Fay she looked good for sore eyes, but he needed a biscuit most of all. There was just a second of singular hesitation when he faced Lassiter, and then the big, strong hand of the young Mormon went out to meet the old gunman’s. While they fed him and he ate like a starved man Shefford told of the flight from the village, the rescuing of Jane and Lassiter from Surprise Valley, the descent from the plateau, the catastrophe to Shadd’s gang — and, concluding, Shefford, without any explanation, told that Nas Ta Bega had killed the Mormon Waggoner.

“Reckon I had that figured,” replied Joe. “First off. I didn’t think so.... So Shadd went over the cliff. That’s good riddance. It beats me, though. Never knew that Piute’s like with a horse. And he had some grand horses in his outfit. Pity about them.”

Later when Joe had a moment alone with Shefford he explained that during his ride to Kayenta he had realized Fay’s innocence and who had been responsible for the tragedy. He took Withers, the trader, into his confidence, and they planned a story, which Withers was to carry to Stonebridge, that would exculpate Fay and Shefford of anything more serious than flight. If Shefford got Fay safely out of the country at once that would end the matter for all concerned.

“Reckon I’m some ferry-boatman, too — a FAIRY boatman. Haw! Haw!” he added. “And we’re going through.... Now I want you to help me rig this tarpaulin up over the bow of the boat. If we can fix it up strong it’ll keep the waves from curling over. They filled her four times for me.”

They folded the tarpaulin three times, and with stout pieces of split plank and horseshoe nails from Shefford’s saddle-bags and pieces of rope they rigged up a screen around bow and front corners.

Nas Ta Bega put the saddles in the boat. The mustangs were far up Nonnezoshe Boco and would work their way back to green and luxuriant canyons. The Indian said they would soon become wild and would never be found. Shefford regretted Nack-yal, but was glad the faithful little mustang would be free in one of those beautiful canyons.

“Reckon we’d better be off,” called Joe. “All aboard!” He placed Fay and Jane in a corner of the bow, where they would be spared sight of the rapids. Shefford loosed the rope and sprang aboard. “Pard,” said Joe, “it’s one hell of a river! And now with the snow melting up in the mountains it’s twenty feet above normal and rising fast. But that’s well for us. It covers the stones in the rapids. If it hadn’t been in flood Joe would be an angel now!”

The boat cleared the sand, lazily wheeled in the eddying water, and suddenly seemed caught by some powerful gliding force. When it swept out beyond the jutting wall Shefford saw a quarter of a mile of sliding water that appeared to end abruptly. Beyond lengthened out the gigantic gap between the black and frowning cliffs.

“Wow!” ejaculated Joe. “Drops out of sight there. But that one ain’t much. I can tell by the roar. When you see my hair stand up straight — then watch out!... Lassiter, you look after the women. Shefford, you stand ready to bail out with the shovel, for we’ll sure ship water. Nas Ta Bega, you help here with the oar.”

The roar became a heavy, continuous rumble; the current quickened; little streaks and ridges seemed to race along the boat; strange gurglings rose from under the bow. Shefford stood on tiptoe to see the break in the river below. Swiftly it came into sight — a wonderful, long, smooth, red slant of water, a swelling mound, a huge back-curling wave, another and another, a sea of frothy, uplifting crests, leaping and tumbling and diminishing down to the narrowing apex of the rapid. It was a frightful sight, yet it thrilled Shefford. Joe worked the steering-oar back and forth and headed the boat straight for the middle of the incline. The boat reached the round rim, gracefully dipped with a heavy sop, and went shooting down. The wind blew wet in Shefford’s face. He stood erect, thrilling, fascinated, frightened. Then he seemed to feel himself lifted; the curling wave leaped at the boat; there was a shock that laid him flat; and when he rose to his knees all about him was roar and spray and leaping, muddy waves. Shock after shock jarred the boat. Splashes of water stung his face. And then the jar and the motion, the confusion and roar, gradually lessened until presently Shefford rose to see smooth water ahead and the long, trembling rapid behind.

“Get busy, bailer,” yelled Joe. “Pretty soon you’ll be glad you have to bail — so you can’t see!”

There were several inches of water in the bottom of the boat and Shefford learned for the first time the expediency of a shovel in the art of bailing.

“That tarpaulin worked powerful good,” went on Joe. “And it saves the women. Now if it just don’t bust on a big wave! That one back there was little.”

When Shefford had scooped out all the water he went forward to see how Fay and Jane and Lassiter had fared. The women were pale, but composed. They had covered their heads.

“But the dreadful roar!” exclaimed Fay.

Lassiter looked shaken for once.

“Shore I’d rather taken a chance meetin’ them Mormons on the way out,” he said.

Shefford spoke with an encouraging assurance which he did not himself feel. Almost at the moment he marked a silence that had fallen into the canyon; then it broke to a low, dull, strange roar.

“Aha! Hear that?” The Mormon shook his shaggy head. “Reckon we’re in Cataract canyon. We’ll be standing on end from now on. Hang on to her, boys!”

Danger of this unusual kind had brought out a peculiar levity in the somber Mormon — a kind of wild, gay excitement. His eyes rolled as he watched the river ahead and he puffed out his cheek with his tongue.

The rugged, overhanging walls of the canyon grew sinister in Shefford’s sight. They were jaws. And the river — that made him shudder to look down into it. The little whirling pits were eyes peering into his, and they raced on with the boat, disappeared, and came again, always with the little, hollow gurgles.

The craft drifted swiftly and the roar increased. Another rapid seemed to move up into view. It came at a bend in the canyon. When the breeze struck Shefford’s cheeks he did not this time experience exhilaration. The current accelerated its sliding motion and bore the flatboat straight for the middle of the curve. Shefford saw the bend, a long, dark, narrow, gloomy canyon, and a stretch of contending waters, then, crouching low, he waited for the dip, the race, the shock. They came — the last stopping the boat — throwing it aloft — letting it drop — and crests of angry waves curled over the side. Shefford, kneeling, felt the water slap around him, and in his ears was a deafening roar. There were endless moments of strife and hell and flying darkness of spray all about him, and under him the rocking boat. When they lessened — ceased in violence — he stood ankle-deep in water, and then madly he began to bail.

Another roar deadened his ears, but he did not look up from his toil. And when he had to get down to avoid the pitch he closed his eyes. That rapid passed and with more water to bail, he resumed his share in the manning of the crude craft. It was more than a share — a tremendous responsibility to which he bent with all his might. He heard Joe yell — and again — and again. He heard the increasing roars one after another till they seemed one continuous bellow. He felt the shock, the pitch, the beating waves, and then the lessening power of sound and current. That set him to his task. Always in these long intervals of toil he seemed to see, without looking up, the growing proportions of the canyon. And the river had become a living, terrible thing. The intervals of his tireless effort when he scooped the water overboard were fleeting, and the rides through rapid after rapid were endless periods of waiting terror. His spirit and his hope were overwhelmed by the rush and roar and fury.

Then, as he worked, there came a change — a rest to deafened ears — a stretch of river that seemed quiet after chaos — and here for the first time he bailed the boat clear of water.

Jane and Fay were huddled in a corner, with the flapping tarpaulin now half fallen over them. They were wet and muddy. Lassiter crouched like a man dazed by a bad dream, and his white hair hung, stained and bedraggled, over his face. The Indian and the Mormon, grim, hard, worn, stood silent at the oar.

The afternoon was far advanced and the sun had already descended below the western ramparts. A cool breeze blew up the canyon, laden with a sound that was the same, yet not the same, as those low, dull roars which Shefford dreaded more and more.

Joe Lake turned his ear to the breeze. A stronger puff brought a heavy, quivering rumble. This time he did not vent his gay and wild defiance to the river. He bent lower — listened. Then as the rumble became a strange, deep, reverberating roll, as if the monstrous river were rolling huge stones down a subterranean canyon, Shefford saw with dilating eyes that the Mormon’s hair was rising stiff upon his head.

“Hear that!” said Joe, turning an ashen face to Shefford. “We’ll drop off the earth now. Hang on to the girl, so if we go you can go together.... And, pard, if you’ve a God — pray!”

Nas Ta Bega faced the bend from whence that rumble came, and he was the same dark, inscrutable, impassive Indian as of old. What was death to him?

Shefford felt the strong, rushing love of life surge in him, and it was not for himself he thought, but for Fay and the happiness she merited. He went to her, patted the covered head, and tried with words choking in his throat to give hope. And he leaned with hands gripping the gunwale, with eyes wide open, ready for the unknown.

The river made a quick turn and from round the bend rumbled a terrible uproar. The current racing that way was divided or uncertain, and it gave strange motion to the boat. Joe and Nas Ta Bega shoved desperately upon the oar, all to no purpose. The currents had their will. The bow of the boat took the place of the stern. Then swift at the head of a curved incline it shot beyond the bulging wall.

And Shefford saw an awful place before them. The canyon had narrowed to half its width, and turned almost at right angles. The huge clamor of appalling sound came from under the cliff where the swollen river had to pass and where there was not space. The rapid rushed in gigantic swells right upon the wall, boomed against it, climbed and spread and fell away, to recede and gather new impetus, to leap madly on down the canyon.

Shefford went to his knees, clasped Fay, and Jane, too. But facing this appalling thing he had to look. Courage and despair came to him at the last. This must be the end. With long, buoyant swing the boat sailed down, shot over the first waves, was caught and lifted upon the great swell and impelled straight toward the cliff. Huge whirlpools raced alongside, and from them came a horrible, engulfing roar. Monstrous bulges rose on the other side. All the stupendous power of that mighty river of downward-rushing silt swung the boat aloft, up and up, as the swell climbed the wall. Shefford, with transfixed eyes and harrowed soul, watched the wet black wall. It loomed down upon him. The stern of the boat went high. Then when the crash that meant doom seemed imminent the swell spread and fell back from the wall and the boat never struck at all. By some miraculous chance it had been favored by a strange and momentary receding of the huge spent swell. Then it slid back, was caught and whirled by the current into a red, frothy, up-flung rapids below. Shefford bowed his head over Fay and saw no more, nor felt nor heard. What seemed a long time after that the broken voice of the Mormon recalled him to his labors.

The boat was half full of water. Nas Ta Bega scooped out great sheets of it with his hands. Shefford sprang to aid him, found the shovel, and plunged into the task. Slowly but surely they emptied the boat. And then Shefford saw that twilight had fallen. Joe was working the craft toward a narrow bank of sand, to which, presently, they came, and the Indian sprang out to moor to a rock.

The fugitives went ashore and, weary and silent and drenched, they dropped in the warm sand.

But Shefford could not sleep. The river kept him awake. In the distance it rumbled, low, deep, reverberating, and near at hand it was a thing of mutable mood. It moaned, whined, mocked, and laughed. It had the soul of a devil. It was a river that had cut its way to the bowels of the earth, and its nature was destructive. It harbored no life. Fighting its way through those dead walls, cutting and tearing and wearing, its heavy burden of silt was death, destruction, and decay. A silent river, a murmuring, strange, fierce, terrible, thundering river of the desert! Even in the dark it seemed to wear the hue of blood.

All night long Shefford heard it, and toward the dark hours before dawn, when a restless, broken sleep came to him, his dreams were dreams of a river of sounds.

All the beautiful sounds he knew and loved he heard — the sigh of the wind in the pines, the mourn of the wolf, the cry of the laughing-gull, the murmur of running brooks, the song of a child, the whisper of a woman. And there were the boom of the surf, the roar of the north wind in the forest, the roll of thunder. And there were the sounds not of earth — a river of the universe rolling the planets, engulfing the stars, pouring the sea of blue into infinite space.

Night with its fitful dreams passed. Dawn lifted the ebony gloom out of the canyon and sunlight far up on the ramparts renewed Shefford’s spirit. He rose and awoke the others. Fay’s wistful smile still held its faith. They ate of the gritty, water-soaked food. Then they embarked. The current carried them swiftly down and out of hearing of the last rapid. The character of the river and the canyon changed. The current lessened to a slow, smooth, silent, eddying flow. The walls grew straight, sheer, gloomy, and vast. Shefford noted these features, but he was listening so hard for the roar of the next rapid that he scarcely appreciated them. All the fugitives were listening. Every bend in the canyon — and now the turns were numerous — might hold a rapid. Shefford strained his ears. He imagined the low, dull, strange rumble. He had it in his ears, yet there was the growing sensation of silence.

“Shore this ‘s a dead place,” muttered Lassiter.

“She’s only slowed up for a bigger plunge,” replied Joe. “Listen! Hear that?”

But there was no true sound, Joe only imagined what he expected and hated and dreaded to hear.

Mile after mile they drifted through the silent gloom between those vast and magnificent walls. After the speed, the turmoil, the whirling, shrieking, thundering, the never-ceasing sound and change and motion of the rapids above, this slow, quiet drifting, this utter, absolute silence, these eddying stretches of still water below, worked strangely upon Shefford’s mind and he feared he was going mad.

There was no change to the silence, no help for the slow drift, no lessening of the strain. And the hours of the day passed as moments, the sun crossed the blue gap above, the golden lights hung on the upper walls, the gloom returned, and still there was only the dead, vast, insupportable silence.

There came bends where the current quickened, ripples widened, long lanes of little waves roughened the surface, but they made no sound.

And then the fugitives turned through a V-shaped vent in the canyon. The ponderous walls sheered away from the river. There was space and sunshine, and far beyond this league-wide open rose vermilion-colored cliffs. A mile below the river disappeared in a dark, boxlike passage from which came a rumble that made Shefford’s flesh creep.

The Mormon flung high his arms and let out the stentorian yell that had rolled down to the fugitives as they waited at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco. But now it had a wilder, more exultant note. Strange how he shifted his gaze to Fay Larkin!

“Girl! Get up and look!” he called. “The Ferry! The Ferry!”

Then he bent his brawny back over the steering-oar, and the clumsy craft slowly turned toward the left-hand shore, where a long, low bank of green willows and cottonwoods gave welcome relief to the eyes. Upon the opposite side of the river Shefford saw a boat, similar to the one he was in, moored to the bank.

“Shore, if I ain’t losin’ my eyes, I seen an Injun with a red blanket,” said Lassiter.

“Yes, Lassiter,” cried Shefford. “Look, Fay! Look, Jane! See! Indians — hogans — mustangs — there above the green bank!”

The boat glided slowly shoreward. And the deep, hungry, terrible rumble of the remorseless river became something no more to dread.

XX. WILLOW SPRINGS

TWO DAYS’ TRAVEL from the river, along the saw-toothed range of Echo Cliffs, stood Presbrey’s trading-post, a little red-stone square house in a green and pretty valley called Willow Springs.

It was nearing the time of sunset — that gorgeous hour of color in the Painted Desert — when Shefford and his party rode down upon the post.

The scene lacked the wildness characteristic of Kayenta or Red Lake. There were wagons and teams, white men and Indians, burros, sheep, lambs, mustangs saddled and unsaddled, dogs, and chickens. A young, sweet-faced woman stood in the door of the post and she it was who first sighted the fugitives. Presbrey was weighing bags of wool on a scale, and when she called he lazily turned, as if to wonder at her eagerness.

Then he flung up his head, with its shock of heavy hair, in a start of surprise, and his florid face lost its lazy indolence to become wreathed in a huge smile.

“Haven’t seen a white person in six months!” was his extraordinary greeting.

An hour later Shefford, clean-shaven, comfortably clothed once more, found himself a different man; and when he saw Fay in white again, with a new and indefinable light shining through that old, haunting shadow in her eyes, then the world changed and he embraced perfect happiness.

There was a dinner such as Shefford had not seen for many a day, and such as Fay had never seen, and that brought to Jane Withersteen’s eyes the dreamy memory of the bountiful feasts which, long years ago, had been her pride. And there was a story told to the curious trader and his kind wife — a story with its beginning back in those past years, of riders of the purple sage, of Fay Larkin as a child and then as a wild girl in Surprise Valley, of the flight down Nonnezoshe Boco an the canyon, of a great Mormon and a noble Indian.

Presbrey stared with his deep-set eyes and wagged his tousled head and stared again; then with the quick perception of the practical desert man he said:

“I’m sending teamsters in to Flagstaff to-morrow. Wife and I will go along with you. We’ve light wagons. Three days, maybe — or four — and we’ll be there.... Shefford, I’m going to see you marry Fay Larkin!”

Fay and Jane and Lassiter showed strangely against this background of approaching civilization. And Shefford realized more than ever the loneliness and isolation and wildness of so many years for them.

When the women had retired Shefford and the men talked a while. Then Joe Lake rose to stretch his big frame.

“Friends, reckon I’m all in,” he said. “Good night.” In passing he laid a heavy hand on Shefford’s shoulder. “Well, you got out. I’ve only a queer notion how. But SOME ONE besides an Indian and a Mormon guided you out!... Be good to the girl.... Good-by, pard!”

Shefford grasped the big hand and in the emotion of the moment did not catch the significance of Joe’s last words.

Later Shefford stepped outside into the starlight for a few moments’ quiet walk and thought before he went to bed. It was a white night. The coyotes were yelping. The stars shone steadfast, bright, cold. Nas Ta Bega stalked out of the shadow of the house and joined Shefford. They walked in silence. Shefford’s heart was too full for utterance and the Indian seldom spoke at any time. When Shefford was ready to go in Nas Ta Bega extended his hand.

“Good-by — Bi Nai!” he said, strangely, using English and Navajo in what Shefford supposed to be merely good night. The starlight shone full upon the dark, inscrutable face of the Indian. Shefford bade him good night and then watched him stride away in the silver gloom.

But next morning Shefford understood. Nas Ta Bega and Joe Lake were gone. It was a shock to Shefford. Yet what could he have said to either? Joe had shirked saying good-by to him and Fay. And the Indian had gone out of Shefford’s life as he had come into it.

What these two men represented in Shefford’s uplift was too great for the present to define, but they and the desert that had developed them had taught him the meaning of life. He might fail often, since failure was the lot of his kind, but could he ever fail again in faith in man or God while he had mind to remember the Indian and the Mormon?

Still, though he placed them on a noble height and loved them well, there would always abide with him a sorrow for the Mormon and a sleepless and eternal regret for that Indian on his lonely cedar slope with the spirits of his vanishing race calling him.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Willow Springs appeared to be a lively place that morning. Presbrey was gay and his sweet-faced wife was excited. The teamsters were a jolly, whistling lot. And the lean mustangs kicked and bit at one another. The trader had brought out two light wagons for the trip, and, after the manner of desert men, desired to start at sunrise.

Far across the Painted Desert towered the San Francisco peaks, black-timbered, blue-canyoned, purple-hazed, with white snow, like the clouds, around their summits.

Jane Withersteen looked at the radiant Fay and lived again in her happiness. And at last excitement had been communicated to the old gun-man.

“Shore we’re goin’ to live with Fay an’ John, an’ be near Venters an’ Bess, an’ see the blacks again, Jane.... An’ Venters will tell you, as he did me, how Wrangle run Black Star off his legs!”

All connected with that early start was sweet, sad, hopeful.

And so they rode away from Willow Springs, through the green fields of alfalfa and cotton wood, down the valley with its smoking hogans and whistling mustangs and scarlet-blanketed Indians, and out upon the bare, ridgy, colorful desert toward the rosy sunrise.

EPILOGUE

ON THE OUTSKIRTS of a little town in Illinois there was a farm of rolling pasture-land. And here a beautiful meadow, green and red in clover, merged upon an orchard in the midst of which a brown-tiled roof showed above the trees.

One afternoon in May a group of people, strangely agitated, walked down a shady lane toward the meadow.

“Wal, Jane, I always knew we’d get a look at them hosses again — I shore knew,” Lassiter was saying in the same old, cool, careless drawl. But his clawlike hands shook a little.

“Oh! will they know me?” asked Jane Withersteen, turning to a stalwart man — no other than the dark-faced Venters, her rider of other days.

“Know you? I’ll bet they will,” replied Venters. “What do you say, Bess?”

The shadow brightened in Bess’s somber blue eyes, as if his words had recalled her from a sad and memorable past.

“Black Star will know her, surely,” replied Bess. “Sometimes he points his nose toward the west and watches as if he saw the purple slopes and smelt the sage of Utah! He has never forgotten. But Night has grown deaf and partly blind of late. I doubt if he’d remember.”

Shefford and Fay walked arm in arm in the background.

Out in the meadow two horses were grazing. They were sleek, shiny, long-maned, long-tailed, black as coal, and, though old, still splendid in every line.

“Do you remember them?” whispered Shefford.

“Oh, I only needed to see Black Star,” murmured Fay, her voice quivering. “I can remember being lifted on his back.... How strange! It seems so long ago.... Look! Mother Jane is going out to them.”

Jane Withersteen advanced alone through the clover, and it was with unsteady steps. Presently she halted. What glorious and bitter memories were expressed in her strange, poignant call!

Black Star started and swept up his noble head and looked. But Night went on calmly grazing. Then Jane called again — the same strange call, only louder, and this time broken. Black Star raised his head higher and he whistled a piercing blast. He saw Jane; he knew her as he had remembered the call; and he came pounding toward her. She met him, encircled his neck with her arms, and buried her face in his mane.

“Shore I reckon I’d better never say any more about Wrangle runnin’ the blacks off their legs thet time,” muttered Lassiter, as if to himself.

“Lassiter, you only dreamed that race,” replied Venters, with a smile.

“Oh, Bern, isn’t it good that Black Star remembered her — that she’ll have him — something left of her old home?” asked Bess, wistfully.

“Indeed it is good. But, Bess, Jane Withersteen will find a new spirit and new happiness here.”

Jane came toward them, leading both horses. “Dear friends, I am happy. To-day I bury all regrets. Of the past I shall remember only — my riders of the purple sage.”

Venters smiled his gladness. “And you — Lassiter — what shall you remember?” he queried.

The old gun-man looked at Jane and then at his clawlike hands and then at Fay. His eyes lost their shadow and began to twinkle.

“Wal, I rolled a stone once, but I reckon now thet time Wrangle—”

“Lassiter, I said you dreamed that race. Wrangle never beat the blacks,” interrupted Venters.... “And you, Fay, what shall you remember?”

“Surprise Valley,” replied Fay, dreamily.

“And you — Shefford?”

Shefford shook his head. For him there could never be one memory only. In his heart there would never change or die memories of the wild uplands, of the great towers and walls, of the golden sunsets on the canyon ramparts, of the silent, fragrant valleys where the cedars and the sago-lilies grew, of those starlit nights when his love and faith awoke, of grand and lonely Nonnezoshe, of that red, sullen, thundering, mysterious Colorado River, of a wonderful Indian and a noble Mormon — of all that was embodied for him in the meaning of the rainbow trail.

THE END

The Lone Star Ranger

First published in 1915, this western novel follows the life of Buck Duane, a man who becomes an outlaw, killing a man and going on the run, before eventually redeeming himself in the eyes of the law. The novel takes place in Texas, which is known as the Lone Star State. The title refers to the social isolation (‘lone’) of the main character and how Duane is made a Texas Ranger towards the end of the novel.

The first edition

CONTENTS

BOOK I. THE OUTLAW

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

BOOK II. THE RANGER

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

TO

CAPTAIN JOHN HUGHES

AND HIS TEXAS RANGERS

It may seem strange to you that out of all the stories I heard on the Rio Grande I should choose as first that of Buck Duane — outlaw and gunman.

But, indeed, Ranger Coffee’s story of the last of the Duanes has haunted me, and I have given full rein to imagination and have retold it in my own way. It deals with the old law — the old border days — therefore it is better first. Soon, perchance, I shall have the pleasure of writing of the border of to-day, which in Joe Sitter’s laconic speech, “Shore is ‘most as bad an’ wild as ever!”

In the North and East there is a popular idea that the frontier of the West is a thing long past, and remembered now only in stories. As I think of this I remember Ranger Sitter when he made that remark, while he grimly stroked an unhealed bullet wound. And I remember the giant Vaughn, that typical son of stalwart Texas, sitting there quietly with bandaged head, his thoughtful eye boding ill to the outlaw who had ambushed him. Only a few months have passed since then — when I had my memorable sojourn with you — and yet, in that short time, Russell and Moore have crossed the Divide, like Rangers.

Gentlemen, — I have the honor to dedicate this book to you, and the hope that it shall fall to my lot to tell the world the truth about a strange, unique, and misunderstood body of men — the Texas Rangers — who made the great Lone Star State habitable, who never know peaceful rest and sleep, who are passing, who surely will not be forgotten and will some day come into their own.

ZANE GREY

BOOK I. THE OUTLAW

CHAPTER I

SO IT WAS in him, then — an inherited fighting instinct, a driving intensity to kill. He was the last of the Duanes, that old fighting stock of Texas. But not the memory of his dead father, nor the pleading of his soft-voiced mother, nor the warning of this uncle who stood before him now, had brought to Buck Duane so much realization of the dark passionate strain in his blood. It was the recurrence, a hundred-fold increased in power, of a strange emotion that for the last three years had arisen in him.

“Yes, Cal Bain’s in town, full of bad whisky an’ huntin’ for you,” repeated the elder man, gravely.

“It’s the second time,” muttered Duane, as if to himself.

“Son, you can’t avoid a meetin’. Leave town till Cal sobers up. He ain’t got it in for you when he’s not drinkin’.”

“But what’s he want me for?” demanded Duane. “To insult me again? I won’t stand that twice.”

“He’s got a fever that’s rampant in Texas these days, my boy. He wants gun-play. If he meets you he’ll try to kill you.”

Here it stirred in Duane again, that bursting gush of blood, like a wind of flame shaking all his inner being, and subsiding to leave him strangely chilled.

“Kill me! What for?” he asked.

“Lord knows there ain’t any reason. But what’s that to do with most of the shootin’ these days? Didn’t five cowboys over to Everall’s kill one another dead all because they got to jerkin’ at a quirt among themselves? An’ Cal has no reason to love you. His girl was sweet on you.”

“I quit when I found out she was his girl.”

“I reckon she ain’t quit. But never mind her or reasons. Cal’s here, just drunk enough to be ugly. He’s achin’ to kill somebody. He’s one of them four-flush gun-fighters. He’d like to be thought bad. There’s a lot of wild cowboys who’re ambitious for a reputation. They talk about how quick they are on the draw. T hey ape Bland an’ King Fisher an’ Hardin an’ all the big outlaws. They make threats about joinin’ the gangs along the Rio Grande. They laugh at the sheriffs an’ brag about how they’d fix the rangers. Cal’s sure not much for you to bother with, if you only keep out of his way.”

“You mean for me to run?” asked Duane, in scorn.

“I reckon I wouldn’t put it that way. Just avoid him. Buck, I’m not afraid Cal would get you if you met down there in town. You’ve your father’s eye an’ his slick hand with a gun. What I’m most afraid of is that you’ll kill Bain.”

Duane was silent, letting his uncle’s earnest words sink in, trying to realize their significance.

“If Texas ever recovers from that fool war an’ kills off these outlaws, why, a young man will have a lookout,” went on the uncle. “You’re twenty-three now, an’ a powerful sight of a fine fellow, barrin’ your temper. You’ve a chance in life. But if you go gun-fightin’, if you kill a man, you’re ruined. Then you’ll kill another. It’ll be the same old story. An’ the rangers would make you an outlaw. The rangers mean law an’ order for Texas. This even-break business doesn’t work with them. If you resist arrest they’ll kill you. If you submit to arrest, then you go to jail, an’ mebbe you hang.”

“I’d never hang,” muttered Duane, darkly.

“I reckon you wouldn’t,” replied the old man. “You’d be like your father. He was ever ready to draw — too ready. In times like these, with the Texas rangers enforcin’ the law, your Dad would have been driven to the river. An’, son, I’m afraid you’re a chip off the old block. Can’t you hold in — keep your temper — run away from trouble? Because it’ll only result in you gettin’ the worst of it in the end. Your father was killed in a street-fight. An’ it was told of him that he shot twice after a bullet had passed through his heart. Think of the terrible nature of a man to be able to do that. If you have any such blood in you, never give it a chance.”

“What you say is all very well, uncle,” returned Duane, “but the only way out for me is to run, and I won’t do it. Cal Bain and his outfit have already made me look like a coward. He says I’m afraid to come out and face him. A man simply can’t stand that in this country. Besides, Cal would shoot me in the back some day if I didn’t face him.”

“Well, then, what’re you goin’ to do?” inquired the elder man.

“I haven’t decided — yet.”

“No, but you’re comin’ to it mighty fast. That damned spell is workin’ in you. You’re different to-day. I remember how you used to be moody an’ lose your temper an’ talk wild. Never was much afraid of you then. But now you’re gettin’ cool an’ quiet, an’ you think deep, an’ I don’t like the light in your eye. It reminds me of your father.”

“I wonder what Dad would say to me to-day if he were alive and here,” said Duane.

“What do you think? What could you expect of a man who never wore a glove on his right hand for twenty years?”

“Well, he’d hardly have said much. Dad never talked. But he would have done a lot. And I guess I’ll go down-town and let Cal Bain find me.”

Then followed a long silence, during which Duane sat with downcast eyes, and the uncle appeared lost in sad thought of the future. Presently he turned to Duane with an expression that denoted resignation, and yet a spirit which showed wherein they were of the same blood.

“You’ve got a fast horse — the fastest I know of in this country. After you meet Bain hurry back home. I’ll have a saddle-bag packed for you and the horse ready.”

With that he turned on his heel and went into the house, leaving Duane to revolve in his mind his singular speech. Buck wondered presently if he shared his uncle’s opinion of the result of a meeting between himself and Bain. His thoughts were vague. But on the instant of final decision, when he had settled with himself that he would meet Bain, such a storm of passion assailed him that he felt as if he was being shaken with ague. Yet it was all internal, inside his breast, for his hand was like a rock and, for all he could see, not a muscle about him quivered. He had no fear of Bain or of any other man; but a vague fear of himself, of this strange force in him, made him ponder and shake his head. It was as if he had not all to say in this matter. There appeared to have been in him a reluctance to let himself go, and some voice, some spirit from a distance, something he was not accountable for, had compelled him. That hour of Duane’s life was like years of actual living, and in it he became a thoughtful man.

He went into the house and buckled on his belt and gun. The gun was a Colt.45, six-shot, and heavy, with an ivory handle. He had packed it, on and off, for five years. Before that it had been used by his father. There were a number of notches filed in the bulge of the ivory handle. This gun was the one his father had fired twice after being shot through the heart, and his hand had stiffened so tightly upon it in the death-grip that his fingers had to be pried open. It had never been drawn upon any man since it had come into Duane’s possession. But the cold, bright polish of the weapon showed how it had been used. Duane could draw it with inconceivable rapidity, and at twenty feet he could split a card pointing edgewise toward him.

Duane wished to avoid meeting his mother. Fortunately, as he thought, she was away from home. He went out and down the path toward the gate. The air was full of the fragrance of blossoms and the melody of birds. Outside in the road a neighbor woman stood talking to a countryman in a wagon; they spoke to him; and he heard, but did not reply. Then he began to stride down the road toward the town.

Wellston was a small town, but important in that unsettled part of the great state because it was the trading-center of several hundred miles of territory. On the main street there were perhaps fifty buildings, some brick, some frame, mostly adobe, and one-third of the lot, and by far the most prosperous, were saloons. From the road Duane turned into this street. It was a wide thoroughfare lined by hitching-rails and saddled horses and vehicles of various kinds. Duane’s eye ranged down the street, taking in all at a glance, particularly persons moving leisurely up and down. Not a cowboy was in sight. Duane slackened his stride, and by the time he reached Sol White’s place, which was the first saloon, he was walking slowly. Several people spoke to him and turned to look back after they had passed. He paused at the door of White’s saloon, took a sharp survey of the interior, then stepped inside.

The saloon was large and cool, full of men and noise and smoke. The noise ceased upon his entrance, and the silence ensuing presently broke to the clink of Mexican silver dollars at a monte table. Sol White, who was behind the bar, straightened up when he saw Duane; then, without speaking, he bent over to rinse a glass. All eyes except those of the Mexican gamblers were turned upon Duane; and these glances were keen, speculative, questioning. These men knew Bain was looking for trouble; they probably had heard his boasts. But what did Duane intend to do? Several of the cowboys and ranchers present exchanged glances. Duane had been weighed by unerring Texas instinct, by men who all packed guns. The boy was the son of his father. Whereupon they greeted him and returned to their drinks and cards. Sol White stood with his big red hands out upon the bar; he was a tall, raw-boned Texan with a long mustache waxed to sharp points.

“Howdy, Buck,” was his greeting to Duane. He spoke carelessly and averted his dark gaze for an instant.

“Howdy, Sol,” replied Duane, slowly. “Say, Sol, I hear there’s a gent in town looking for me bad.”

“Reckon there is, Buck,” replied White. “He came in heah aboot an hour ago. Shore he was some riled an’ a-roarin’ for gore. Told me confidential a certain party had given you a white silk scarf, an’ he was hell-bent on wearin’ it home spotted red.”

“Anybody with him?” queried Duane.

“Burt an’ Sam Outcalt an’ a little cowpuncher I never seen before. They-all was coaxin’ trim to leave town. But he’s looked on the flowin’ glass, Buck, an’ he’s heah for keeps.”

“Why doesn’t Sheriff Oaks lock him up if he’s that bad?”

“Oaks went away with the rangers. There’s been another raid at Flesher’s ranch. The King Fisher gang, likely. An’ so the town’s shore wide open.”

Duane stalked outdoors and faced down the street. He walked the whole length of the long block, meeting many people — farmers, ranchers, clerks, merchants, Mexicans, cowboys, and women. It was a singular fact that when he turned to retrace his steps the street was almost empty. He had not returned a hundred yards on his way when the street was wholly deserted. A few heads protruded from doors and around corners. That main street of Wellston saw some such situation every few days. If it was an instinct for Texans to fight, it was also instinctive for them to sense with remarkable quickness the signs of a coming gun-play. Rumor could not fly so swiftly. In less than ten minutes everybody who had been on the street or in the shops knew that Buck Duane had come forth to meet his enemy.

Duane walked on. When he came to within fifty paces of a saloon he swerved out into the middle of the street, stood there for a moment, then went ahead and back to the sidewalk. He passed on in this way the length of the block. Sol White was standing in the door of his saloon.

“Buck, I’m a-tippin’ you off,” he said, quick and low-voiced. “Cal Bain’s over at Everall’s. If he’s a-huntin’ you bad, as he brags, he’ll show there.”

Duane crossed the street and started down. Notwithstanding White’s statement Duane was wary and slow at every door. Nothing happened, and he traversed almost the whole length of the block without seeing a person. Everall’s place was on the corner.

Duane knew himself to be cold, steady. He was conscious of a strange fury that made him want to leap ahead. He seemed to long for this encounter more than anything he had ever wanted. But, vivid as were his sensations, he felt as if in a dream.

Before he reached Everall’s he heard loud voices, one of which was raised high. Then the short door swung outward as if impelled by a vigorous hand. A bow-legged cowboy wearing wooley chaps burst out upon the sidewalk. At sight of Duane he seemed to bound into the air, and he uttered a savage roar.

Duane stopped in his tracks at the outer edge of the sidewalk, perhaps a dozen rods from Everall’s door.

If Bain was drunk he did not show it in his movement. He swaggered forward, rapidly closing up the gap. Red, sweaty, disheveled, and hatless, his face distorted and expressive of the most malignant intent, he was a wild and sinister figure. He had already killed a man, and this showed in his demeanor. His hands were extended before him, the right hand a little lower than the left. At every step he bellowed his rancor in speech mostly curses. Gradually he slowed his walk, then halted. A good twenty-five paces separated the men.

“Won’t nothin’ make you draw, you — !” he shouted, fiercely.

“I’m waitin’ on you, Cal,” replied Duane.

Bain’s right hand stiffened — moved. Duane threw his gun as a boy throws a ball underhand — a draw his father had taught him. He pulled twice, his shots almost as one. Bain’s big Colt boomed while it was pointed downward and he was falling. His bullet scattered dust and gravel at Duane’s feet. He fell loosely, without contortion.

In a flash all was reality for Duane. He went forward and held his gun ready for the slightest movement on the part of Bain. But Bain lay upon his back, and all that moved were his breast and his eyes. How strangely the red had left his face — and also the distortion! The devil that had showed in Bain was gone. He was sober and conscious. He tried to speak, but failed. His eyes expressed something pitifully human. They changed — rolled — set blankly.

Duane drew a deep breath and sheathed his gun. He felt calm and cool, glad the fray was over. One violent expression burst from him. “The fool!”

When he looked up there were men around him.

“Plumb center,” said one.

Another, a cowboy who evidently had just left the gaming-table, leaned down and pulled open Bain’s shirt. He had the ace of spades in his hand. He laid it on Bain’s breast, and the black figure on the card covered the two bullet-holes just over Bain’s heart.

Duane wheeled and hurried away. He heard another man say:

“Reckon Cal got what he deserved. Buck Duane’s first gunplay. Like father like son!”

CHAPTER II

A THOUGHT KEPT repeating itself to Duane, and it was that he might have spared himself concern through his imagining how awful it would be to kill a man. He had no such feeling now. He had rid the community of a drunken, bragging, quarrelsome cowboy.

When he came to the gate of his home and saw his uncle there with a mettlesome horse, saddled, with canteen, rope, and bags all in place, a subtle shock pervaded his spirit. It had slipped his mind — the consequence of his act. But sight of the horse and the look of his uncle recalled the fact that he must now become a fugitive. An unreasonable anger took hold of him.

“The d — d fool!” he exclaimed, hotly. “Meeting Bain wasn’t much, Uncle Jim. He dusted my boots, that’s all. And for that I’ve got to go on the dodge.”

“Son, you killed him — then?” asked the uncle, huskily.

“Yes. I stood over him — watched him die. I did as I would have been done by.”

“I knew it. Long ago I saw it comin’. But now we can’t stop to cry over spilt blood. You’ve got to leave town an’ this part of the country.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Duane.

“She’s away from home. You can’t wait. I’ll break it to her — what she always feared.”

Suddenly Duane sat down and covered his face with his hands.

“My God! Uncle, what have I done?” His broad shoulders shook.

“Listen, son, an’ remember what I say,” replied the elder man, earnestly. “Don’t ever forget. You’re not to blame. I’m glad to see you take it this way, because maybe you’ll never grow hard an’ callous. You’re not to blame. This is Texas. You’re your father’s son. These are wild times. The law as the rangers are laying it down now can’t change life all in a minute. Even your mother, who’s a good, true woman, has had her share in making you what you are this moment. For she was one of the pioneers — the fightin’ pioneers of this state. Those years of wild times, before you was born, developed in her instinct to fight, to save her life, her children, an’ that instinct has cropped out in you. It will be many years before it dies out of the boys born in Texas.”

“I’m a murderer,” said Duane, shuddering.

“No, son, you’re not. An’ you never will be. But you’ve got to be an outlaw till time makes it safe for you to come home.”

“An outlaw?”

“I said it. If we had money an’ influence we’d risk a trial. But we’ve neither. An’ I reckon the scaffold or jail is no place for Buckley Duane. Strike for the wild country, an’ wherever you go an’ whatever you do-be a man. Live honestly, if that’s possible. If it isn’t, be as honest as you can. If you have to herd with outlaws try not to become bad. There are outlaws who ‘re not all bad — many who have been driven to the river by such a deal as this you had. When you get among these men avoid brawls. Don’t drink; don’t gamble. I needn’t tell you what to do if it comes to gun-play, as likely it will. You can’t come home. When this thing is lived down, if that time ever comes, I’ll get word into the unsettled country. It’ll reach you some day. That’s all. Remember, be a man. Goodby.”

Duane, with blurred sight and contracting throat, gripped his uncle’s hand and bade him a wordless farewell. Then he leaped astride the black and rode out of town.

As swiftly as was consistent with a care for his steed, Duane put a distance of fifteen or eighteen miles behind him. With that he slowed up, and the matter of riding did not require all his faculties. He passed several ranches and was seen by men. This did not suit him, and he took an old trail across country. It was a flat region with a poor growth of mesquite and prickly-pear cactus. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of low hills in the distance. He had hunted often in that section, and knew where to find grass and water. When he reached this higher ground he did not, however, halt at the first favorable camping-spot, but went on and on. Once he came out upon the brow of a hill and saw a considerable stretch of country beneath him. It had the gray sameness characterizing all that he had traversed. He seemed to want to see wide spaces — to get a glimpse of the great wilderness lying somewhere beyond to the southwest. It was sunset when he decided to camp at a likely spot he came across. He led the horse to water, and then began searching through the shallow valley for a suitable place to camp. He passed by old camp-sites that he well remembered. These, however, did not strike his fancy this time, and the significance of the change in him did not occur at the moment. At last he found a secluded spot, under cover of thick mesquites and oaks, at a goodly distance from the old trail. He took saddle and pack off the horse. He looked among his effects for a hobble, and, finding that his uncle had failed to put one in, he suddenly remembered that he seldom used a hobble, and never on this horse. He cut a few feet off the end of his lasso and used that. The horse, unused to such hampering of his free movements, had to be driven out upon the grass.

Duane made a small fire, prepared and ate his supper. This done, ending the work of that day, he sat down and filled his pipe. Twilight had waned into dusk. A few wan stars had just begun to show and brighten. Above the low continuous hum of insects sounded the evening carol of robins. Presently the birds ceased their singing, and then the quiet was more noticeable. When night set in and the place seemed all the more isolated and lonely for that Duane had a sense of relief.

It dawned upon him all at once that he was nervous, watchful, sleepless. The fact caused him surprise, and he began to think back, to take note of his late actions and their motives. The change one day had wrought amazed him. He who had always been free, easy, happy, especially when out alone in the open, had become in a few short hours bound, serious, preoccupied. The silence that had once been sweet now meant nothing to him except a medium whereby he might the better hear the sounds of pursuit. The loneliness, the night, the wild, that had always been beautiful to him, now only conveyed a sense of safety for the present. He watched, he listened, he thought. He felt tired, yet had no inclination to rest. He intended to be off by dawn, heading toward the southwest. Had he a destination? It was vague as his knowledge of that great waste of mesquite and rock bordering the Rio Grande. Somewhere out there was a refuge. For he was a fugitive from justice, an outlaw.

This being an outlaw then meant eternal vigilance. No home, no rest, no sleep, no content, no life worth the living! He must be a lone wolf or he must herd among men obnoxious to him. If he worked for an honest living he still must hide his identity and take risks of detection. If he did not work on some distant outlying ranch, how was he to live? The idea of stealing was repugnant to him. The future seemed gray and somber enough. And he was twenty-three years old.

Why had this hard life been imposed upon him?

The bitter question seemed to start a strange iciness that stole along his veins. What was wrong with him? He stirred the few sticks of mesquite into a last flickering blaze. He was cold, and for some reason he wanted some light. The black circle of darkness weighed down upon him, closed in around him. Suddenly he sat bolt upright and then froze in that position. He had heard a step. It was behind him — no — on the side. Some one was there. He forced his hand down to his gun, and the touch of cold steel was another icy shock. Then he waited. But all was silent — silent as only a wilderness arroyo can be, with its low murmuring of wind in the mesquite. Had he heard a step? He began to breathe again.

But what was the matter with the light of his camp-fire? It had taken on a strange green luster and seemed to be waving off into the outer shadows. Duane heard no step, saw no movement; nevertheless, there was another present at that camp-fire vigil. Duane saw him. He lay there in the middle of the green brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His features were wonderfully distinct, clearer than any cameo, more sharply outlined than those of any picture. It was a hard face softening at the threshold of eternity. The red tan of sun, the coarse signs of drunkenness, the ferocity and hate so characteristic of Bain were no longer there. This face represented a different Bain, showed all that was human in him fading, fading as swiftly as it blanched white. The lips wanted to speak, but had not the power. The eyes held an agony of thought. They revealed what might have been possible for this man if he lived — that he saw his mistake too late. Then they rolled, set blankly, and closed in death.

That haunting visitation left Duane sitting there in a cold sweat, a remorse gnawing at his vitals, realizing the curse that was on him. He divined that never would he be able to keep off that phantom. He remembered how his father had been eternally pursued by the furies of accusing guilt, how he had never been able to forget in work or in sleep those men he had killed.

The hour was late when Duane’s mind let him sleep, and then dreams troubled him. In the morning he bestirred himself so early that in the gray gloom he had difficulty in finding his horse. Day had just broken when he struck the old trail again.

He rode hard all morning and halted in a shady spot to rest and graze his horse. In the afternoon he took to the trail at an easy trot. The country grew wilder. Bald, rugged mountains broke the level of the monotonous horizon. About three in the afternoon he came to a little river which marked the boundary line of his hunting territory.

The decision he made to travel up-stream for a while was owing to two facts: the river was high with quicksand bars on each side, and he felt reluctant to cross into that region where his presence alone meant that he was a marked man. The bottom-lands through which the river wound to the southwest were more inviting than the barrens he had traversed. The rest or that day he rode leisurely up-stream. At sunset he penetrated the brakes of willow and cottonwood to spend the night. It seemed to him that in this lonely cover he would feel easy and content. But he did not. Every feeling, every imagining he had experienced the previous night returned somewhat more vividly and accentuated by newer ones of the same intensity and color.

In this kind of travel and camping he spent three more days, during which he crossed a number of trails, and one road where cattle — stolen cattle, probably — had recently passed. Thus time exhausted his supply of food, except salt, pepper, coffee, and sugar, of which he had a quantity. There were deer in the brakes; but, as he could not get close enough to kill them with a revolver, he had to satisfy himself with a rabbit. He knew he might as well content himself with the hard fare that assuredly would be his lot.

Somewhere up this river there was a village called Huntsville. It was distant about a hundred miles from Wellston, and had a reputation throughout southwestern Texas. He had never been there. The fact was this reputation was such that honest travelers gave the town a wide berth. Duane had considerable money for him in his possession, and he concluded to visit Huntsville, if he could find it, and buy a stock of provisions.

The following day, toward evening, he happened upon a road which he believed might lead to the village. There were a good many fresh horse-tracks in the sand, and these made him thoughtful. Nevertheless, he followed the road, proceeding cautiously. He had not gone very far when the sound of rapid hoof-beats caught his ears. They came from his rear. In the darkening twilight he could not see any great distance back along the road. Voices, however, warned him that these riders, whoever they were, had approached closer than he liked. To go farther down the road was not to be thought of, so he turned a little way in among the mesquites and halted, hoping to escape being seen or heard. As he was now a fugitive, it seemed every man was his enemy and pursuer.

The horsemen were fast approaching. Presently they were abreast of Duane’s position, so near that he could hear the creak of saddles, the clink of spurs.

“Shore he crossed the river below,” said one man.

“I reckon you’re right, Bill. He’s slipped us,” replied another.

Rangers or a posse of ranchers in pursuit of a fugitive! The knowledge gave Duane a strange thrill. Certainly they could not have been hunting him. But the feeling their proximity gave him was identical to what it would have been had he been this particular hunted man. He held his breath; he clenched his teeth; he pressed a quieting hand upon his horse. Suddenly he became aware that these horsemen had halted. They were whispering. He could just make out a dark group closely massed. What had made them halt so suspiciously?

“You’re wrong, Bill,” said a man, in a low but distinct voice.

“The idee of hearin’ a hoss heave. You’re wuss’n a ranger. And you’re hell-bent on killin’ that rustler. Now I say let’s go home and eat.”

“Wal, I’ll just take a look at the sand,” replied the man called Bill.

Duane heard the clink of spurs on steel stirrup and the thud of boots on the ground. There followed a short silence which was broken by a sharply breathed exclamation.

Duane waited for no more. They had found his trail. He spurred his horse straight into the brush. At the second crashing bound there came yells from the road, and then shots. Duane heard the hiss of a bullet close by his ear, and as it struck a branch it made a peculiar singing sound. These shots and the proximity of that lead missile roused in Duane a quick, hot resentment which mounted into a passion almost ungovernable. He must escape, yet it seemed that he did not care whether he did or not. Something grim kept urging him to halt and return the fire of these men. After running a couple of hundred yards he raised himself from over the pommel, where he had bent to avoid the stinging branches, and tried to guide his horse. In the dark shadows under mesquites and cottonwoods he was hard put to it to find open passage; however, he succeeded so well and made such little noise that gradually he drew away from his pursuers. The sound of their horses crashing through the thickets died away. Duane reined in and listened. He had distanced them. Probably they would go into camp till daylight, then follow his tracks. He started on again, walking his horse, and peered sharply at the ground, so that he might take advantage of the first trail he crossed. It seemed a long while until he came upon one. He followed it until a late hour, when, striking the willow brakes again and hence the neighborhood of the river, he picketed his horse and lay down to rest. But he did not sleep. His mind bitterly revolved the fate that had come upon him. He made efforts to think of other things, but in vain.

Every moment he expected the chill, the sense of loneliness that yet was ominous of a strange visitation, the peculiarly imagined lights and shades of the night — these things that presaged the coming of Cal Bain. Doggedly Duane fought against the insidious phantom. He kept telling himself that it was just imagination, that it would wear off in time. Still in his heart he did not believe what he hoped. But he would not give up; he would not accept the ghost of his victim as a reality.

Gray dawn found him in the saddle again headed for the river. Half an hour of riding brought him to the dense chaparral and willow thickets. These he threaded to come at length to the ford. It was a gravel bottom, and therefore an easy crossing. Once upon the opposite shore he reined in his horse and looked darkly back. This action marked his acknowledgment of his situation: he had voluntarily sought the refuge of the outlaws; he was beyond the pale. A bitter and passionate curse passed his lips as he spurred his horse into the brakes on that alien shore.

He rode perhaps twenty miles, not sparing his horse nor caring whether or not he left a plain trail.

“Let them hunt me!” he muttered.

When the heat of the day began to be oppressive, and hunger and thirst made themselves manifest, Duane began to look about him for a place to halt for the noon-hours. The trail led into a road which was hard packed and smooth from the tracks of cattle. He doubted not that he had come across one of the roads used by border raiders. He headed into it, and had scarcely traveled a mile when, turning a curve, he came point-blank upon a single horseman riding toward him. Both riders wheeled their mounts sharply and were ready to run and shoot back. Not more than a hundred paces separated them. They stood then for a moment watching each other.

“Mawnin’, stranger,” called the man, dropping his hand from his hip.

“Howdy,” replied Duane, shortly.

They rode toward each other, closing half the gap, then they halted again.

“I seen you ain’t no ranger,” called the rider, “an’ shore I ain’t none.”

He laughed loudly, as if he had made a joke.

“How’d you know I wasn’t a ranger?” asked Duane, curiously. Somehow he had instantly divined that his horseman was no officer, or even a rancher trailing stolen stock.

“Wal,” said the fellow, starting his horse forward at a walk, “a ranger’d never git ready to run the other way from one man.”

He laughed again. He was small and wiry, slouchy of attire, and armed to the teeth, and he bestrode a fine bay horse. He had quick, dancing brown eyes, at once frank and bold, and a coarse, bronzed face. Evidently he was a good-natured ruffian.

Duane acknowledged the truth of the assertion, and turned over in his mind how shrewdly the fellow had guessed him to be a hunted man.

“My name’s Luke Stevens, an’ I hail from the river. Who’re you?” said this stranger.

Duane was silent.

“I reckon you’re Buck Duane,” went on Stevens. “I heerd you was a damn bad man with a gun.”

This time Duane laughed, not at the doubtful compliment, but at the idea that the first outlaw he met should know him. Here was proof of how swiftly facts about gun-play traveled on the Texas border.

“Wal, Buck,” said Stevens, in a friendly manner, “I ain’t presumin’ on your time or company. I see you’re headin’ fer the river. But will you stop long enough to stake a feller to a bite of grub?”

“I’m out of grub, and pretty hungry myself,” admitted Duane.

“Been pushin’ your hoss, I see. Wal, I reckon you’d better stock up before you hit thet stretch of country.”

He made a wide sweep of his right arm, indicating the southwest, and there was that in his action which seemed significant of a vast and barren region.

“Stock up?” queried Duane, thoughtfully.

“Shore. A feller has jest got to eat. I can rustle along without whisky, but not without grub. Thet’s what makes it so embarrassin’ travelin’ these parts dodgin’ your shadow. Now, I’m on my way to Mercer. It’s a little two-bit town up the river a ways. I’m goin’ to pack out some grub.”

Stevens’s tone was inviting. Evidently he would welcome Duane’s companionship, but he did not openly say so. Duane kept silence, however, and then Stevens went on.

“Stranger, in this here country two’s a crowd. It’s safer. I never was much on this lone-wolf dodgin’, though I’ve done it of necessity. It takes a damn good man to travel alone any length of time. Why, I’ve been thet sick I was jest achin’ fer some ranger to come along an’ plug me. Give me a pardner any day. Now, mebbe you’re not thet kind of a feller, an’ I’m shore not presumin’ to ask. But I just declares myself sufficient.”

“You mean you’d like me to go with you?” asked Duane.

Stevens grinned. “Wal, I should smile. I’d be particular proud to be braced with a man of your reputation.”

“See here, my good fellow, that’s all nonsense,” declared Duane, in some haste.

“Shore I think modesty becomin’ to a youngster,” replied Stevens. “I hate a brag. An’ I’ve no use fer these four-flush cowboys thet ‘re always lookin’ fer trouble an’ talkin’ gun-play. Buck, I don’t know much about you. But every man who’s lived along the Texas border remembers a lot about your Dad. It was expected of you, I reckon, an’ much of your rep was established before you thronged your gun. I jest heerd thet you was lightnin’ on the draw, an’ when you cut loose with a gun, why the figger on the ace of spades would cover your cluster of bullet-holes. Thet’s the word thet’s gone down the border. It’s the kind of reputation most sure to fly far an’ swift ahead of a man in this country. An’ the safest, too; I’ll gamble on thet. It’s the land of the draw. I see now you’re only a boy, though you’re shore a strappin’ husky one. Now, Buck, I’m not a spring chicken, an’ I’ve been long on the dodge. Mebbe a little of my society won’t hurt you none. You’ll need to learn the country.”

There was something sincere and likable about this outlaw.

“I dare say you’re right,” replied Duane, quietly. “And I’ll go to Mercer with you.”

Next moment he was riding down the road with Stevens. Duane had never been much of a talker, and now he found speech difficult. But his companion did not seem to mind that. He was a jocose, voluble fellow, probably glad now to hear the sound of his own voice. Duane listened, and sometimes he thought with a pang of the distinction of name and heritage of blood his father had left to him.

CHAPTER III

LATE THAT DAY, a couple of hours before sunset, Duane and Stevens, having rested their horses in the shade of some mesquites near the town of Mercer, saddled up and prepared to move.

“Buck, as we’re lookin’ fer grub, an’ not trouble, I reckon you’d better hang up out here,” Stevens was saying, as he mounted. “You see, towns an’ sheriffs an’ rangers are always lookin’ fer new fellers gone bad. They sort of forget most of the old boys, except those as are plumb bad. Now, nobody in Mercer will take notice of me. Reckon there’s been a thousand men run into the river country to become outlaws since yours truly. You jest wait here an’ be ready to ride hard. Mebbe my besettin’ sin will go operatin’ in spite of my good intentions. In which case there’ll be—”

His pause was significant. He grinned, and his brown eyes danced with a kind of wild humor.

“Stevens, have you got any money?” asked Duane.

“Money!” exclaimed Luke, blankly. “Say, I haven’t owned a two-bit piece since — wal, fer some time.”

“I’ll furnish money for grub,” returned Duane. “And for whisky, too, providing you hurry back here — without making trouble.”

“Shore you’re a downright good pard,” declared Stevens, in admiration, as he took the money. “I give my word, Buck, an’ I’m here to say I never broke it yet. Lay low, an’ look fer me back quick.”

With that he spurred his horse and rode out of the mesquites toward the town. At that distance, about a quarter of a mile, Mercer appeared to be a cluster of low adobe houses set in a grove of cottonwoods. Pastures of alfalfa were dotted by horses and cattle. Duane saw a sheep-herder driving in a meager flock.

Presently Stevens rode out of sight into the town. Duane waited, hoping the outlaw would make good his word. Probably not a quarter of an hour had elapsed when Duane heard the clear reports of a Winchester rifle, the clatter of rapid hoof-beats, and yells unmistakably the kind to mean danger for a man like Stevens. Duane mounted and rode to the edge of the mesquites.

He saw a cloud of dust down the road and a bay horse running fast. Stevens apparently had not been wounded by any of the shots, for he had a steady seat in his saddle and his riding, even at that moment, struck Duane as admirable. He carried a large pack over the pommel, and he kept looking back. The shots had ceased, but the yells increased. Duane saw several men running and waving their arms. Then he spurred his horse and got into a swift stride, so Stevens would not pass him. Presently the outlaw caught up with him. Stevens was grinning, but there was now no fun in the dancing eyes. It was a devil that danced in them. His face seemed a shade paler.

“Was jest comin’ out of the store,” yelled Stevens. “Run plumb into a rancher — who knowed me. He opened up with a rifle. Think they’ll chase us.”

They covered several miles before there were any signs of pursuit, and when horsemen did move into sight out of the cottonwoods Duane and his companion steadily drew farther away.

“No hosses in thet bunch to worry us,” called out Stevens.

Duane had the same conviction, and he did not look back again. He rode somewhat to the fore, and was constantly aware of the rapid thudding of hoofs behind, as Stevens kept close to him. At sunset they reached the willow brakes and the river. Duane’s horse was winded and lashed with sweat and lather. It was not until the crossing had been accomplished that Duane halted to rest his animal. Stevens was riding up the low, sandy bank. He reeled in the saddle. With an exclamation of surprise Duane leaped off and ran to the outlaw’s side.

Stevens was pale, and his face bore beads of sweat. The whole front of his shirt was soaked with blood.

“You’re shot!” cried Duane.

“Wal, who ‘n hell said I wasn’t? Would you mind givin’ me a lift — on this here pack?”

Duane lifted the heavy pack down and then helped Stevens to dismount. The outlaw had a bloody foam on his lips, and he was spitting blood.

“Oh, why didn’t you say so!” cried Duane. “I never thought. You seemed all right.”

“Wal, Luke Stevens may be as gabby as an old woman, but sometimes he doesn’t say anythin’. It wouldn’t have done no good.”

Duane bade him sit down, removed his shirt, and washed the blood from his breast and back. Stevens had been shot in the breast, fairly low down, and the bullet had gone clear through him. His ride, holding himself and that heavy pack in the saddle, had been a feat little short of marvelous. Duane did not see how it had been possible, and he felt no hope for the outlaw. But he plugged the wounds and bound them tightly.

“Feller’s name was Brown,” Stevens said. “Me an’ him fell out over a hoss I stole from him over in Huntsville. We had a shootin’-scrape then. Wal, as I was straddlin’ my hoss back there in Mercer I seen this Brown, an’ seen him before he seen me. Could have killed him, too. But I wasn’t breakin’ my word to you. I kind of hoped he wouldn’t spot me. But he did — an’ fust shot he got me here. What do you think of this hole?”

“It’s pretty bad,” replied Duane; and he could not look the cheerful outlaw in the eyes.

“I reckon it is. Wal, I’ve had some bad wounds I lived over. Guess mebbe I can stand this one. Now, Buck, get me some place in the brakes, leave me some grub an’ water at my hand, an’ then you clear out.”

“Leave you here alone?” asked Duane, sharply.

“Shore. You see, I can’t keep up with you. Brown an’ his friends will foller us across the river a ways. You’ve got to think of number one in this game.”

“What would you do in my case?” asked Duane, curiously.

“Wal, I reckon I’d clear out an’ save my hide,” replied Stevens.

Duane felt inclined to doubt the outlaw’s assertion. For his own part he decided his conduct without further speech. First he watered the horses, filled canteens and water bag, and then tied the pack upon his own horse. That done, he lifted Stevens upon his horse, and, holding him in the saddle, turned into the brakes, being careful to pick out hard or grassy ground that left little signs of tracks. Just about dark he ran across a trail that Stevens said was a good one to take into the wild country.

“Reckon we’d better keep right on in the dark — till I drop,” concluded Stevens, with a laugh.

All that night Duane, gloomy and thoughtful, attentive to the wounded outlaw, walked the trail and never halted till daybreak. He was tired then and very hungry. Stevens seemed in bad shape, although he was still spirited and cheerful. Duane made camp. The outlaw refused food, but asked for both whisky and water. Then he stretched out.

“Buck, will you take off my boots?” he asked, with a faint smile on his pallid face.

Duane removed them, wondering if the outlaw had the thought that he did not want to die with his boots on. Stevens seemed to read his mind.

“Buck, my old daddy used to say thet I was born to be hanged. But I wasn’t — an’ dyin’ with your boots on is the next wust way to croak.”

“You’ve a chance to-to get over this,” said Duane.

“Shore. But I want to be correct about the boots — an’ say, pard, if I do go over, jest you remember thet I was appreciatin’ of your kindness.”

Then he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.

Duane could not find water for the horses, but there was an abundance of dew-wet grass upon which he hobbled them. After that was done he prepared himself a much-needed meal. The sun was getting warm when he lay down to sleep, and when he awoke it was sinking in the west. Stevens was still alive, for he breathed heavily. The horses were in sight. All was quiet except the hum of insects in the brush. Duane listened awhile, then rose and went for the horses.

When he returned with them he found Stevens awake, bright-eyed, cheerful as usual, and apparently stronger.

“Wal, Buck, I’m still with you an’ good fer another night’s ride,” he said. “Guess about all I need now is a big pull on thet bottle. Help me, will you? There! thet was bully. I ain’t swallowin’ my blood this evenin’. Mebbe I’ve bled all there was in me.”

While Duane got a hurried meal for himself, packed up the little outfit, and saddled the horses Stevens kept on talking. He seemed to be in a hurry to tell Duane all about the country. Another night ride would put them beyond fear of pursuit, within striking distance of the Rio Grande and the hiding-places of the outlaws.

When it came time for mounting the horses Stevens said, “Reckon you can pull on my boots once more.” In spite of the laugh accompanying the words Duane detected a subtle change in the outlaw’s spirit.

On this night travel was facilitated by the fact that the trail was broad enough for two horses abreast, enabling Duane to ride while upholding Stevens in the saddle.

The difficulty most persistent was in keeping the horses in a walk. They were used to a trot, and that kind of gait would not do for Stevens. The red died out of the west; a pale afterglow prevailed for a while; darkness set in; then the broad expanse of blue darkened and the stars brightened. After a while Stevens ceased talking and drooped in his saddle. Duane kept the horses going, however, and the slow hours wore away. Duane thought the quiet night would never break to dawn, that there was no end to the melancholy, brooding plain. But at length a grayness blotted out the stars and mantled the level of mesquite and cactus.

Dawn caught the fugitives at a green camping-site on the bank of a rocky little stream. Stevens fell a dead weight into Duane’s arms, and one look at the haggard face showed Duane that the outlaw had taken his last ride. He knew it, too. Yet that cheerfulness prevailed.

“Buck, my feet are orful tired packin’ them heavy boots,” he said, and seemed immensely relieved when Duane had removed them.

This matter of the outlaw’s boots was strange, Duane thought. He made Stevens as comfortable as possible, then attended to his own needs. And the outlaw took up the thread of his conversation where he had left off the night before.

“This trail splits up a ways from here, an’ every branch of it leads to a hole where you’ll find men — a few, mebbe, like yourself — some like me — an’ gangs of no-good hoss-thieves, rustlers, an’ such. It’s easy livin’, Buck. I reckon, though, that you’ll not find it easy. You’ll never mix in. You’ll be a lone wolf. I seen that right off. Wal, if a man can stand the loneliness, an’ if he’s quick on the draw, mebbe lone-wolfin’ it is the best. Shore I don’t know. But these fellers in here will be suspicious of a man who goes it alone. If they get a chance they’ll kill you.”

Stevens asked for water several times. He had forgotten or he did not want the whisky. His voice grew perceptibly weaker.

“Be quiet,” said Duane. “Talking uses up your strength.”

“Aw, I’ll talk till — I’m done,” he replied, doggedly. “See here, pard, you can gamble on what I’m tellin’ you. An’ it’ll be useful. From this camp we’ll — you’ll meet men right along. An’ none of them will be honest men. All the same, some are better’n others. I’ve lived along the river fer twelve years. There’s three big gangs of outlaws. King Fisher — you know him, I reckon, fer he’s half the time livin’ among respectable folks. King is a pretty good feller. It’ll do to tie up with him ant his gang. Now, there’s Cheseldine, who hangs out in the Rim Rock way up the river. He’s an outlaw chief. I never seen him, though I stayed once right in his camp. Late years he’s got rich an’ keeps back pretty well hid. But Bland — I knowed Bland fer years. An’ I haven’t any use fer him. Bland has the biggest gang. You ain’t likely to miss strikin’ his place sometime or other. He’s got a regular town, I might say. Shore there’s some gamblin’ an’ gun-fightin’ goin’ on at Bland’s camp all the time. Bland has killed some twenty men, an’ thet’s not countin’ greasers.”

Here Stevens took another drink and then rested for a while.

“You ain’t likely to get on with Bland,” he resumed, presently. “You’re too strappin’ big an’ good-lookin’ to please the chief. Fer he’s got women in his camp. Then he’d be jealous of your possibilities with a gun. Shore I reckon he’d be careful, though. Bland’s no fool, an’ he loves his hide. I reckon any of the other gangs would be better fer you when you ain’t goin’ it alone.”

Apparently that exhausted the fund of information and advice Stevens had been eager to impart. He lapsed into silence and lay with closed eyes. Meanwhile the sun rose warm; the breeze waved the mesquites; the birds came down to splash in the shallow stream; Duane dozed in a comfortable seat. By and by something roused him. Stevens was once more talking, but with a changed tone.

“Feller’s name — was Brown,” he rambled. “We fell out — over a hoss I stole from him — in Huntsville. He stole it fuss. Brown’s one of them sneaks — afraid of the open — he steals an’ pretends to be honest. Say, Buck, mebbe you’ll meet Brown some day — You an’ me are pards now.”

“I’ll remember, if I ever meet him,” said Duane.

That seemed to satisfy the outlaw. Presently he tried to lift his head, but had not the strength. A strange shade was creeping across the bronzed rough face.

“My feet are pretty heavy. Shore you got my boots off?”

Duane held them up, but was not certain that Stevens could see them. The outlaw closed his eyes again and muttered incoherently. Then he fell asleep. Duane believed that sleep was final. The day passed, with Duane watching and waiting. Toward sundown Stevens awoke, and his eyes seemed clearer. Duane went to get some fresh water, thinking his comrade would surely want some. When he returned Stevens made no sign that he wanted anything. There was something bright about him, and suddenly Duane realized what it meant.

“Pard, you — stuck — to me!” the outlaw whispered.

Duane caught a hint of gladness in the voice; he traced a faint surprise in the haggard face. Stevens seemed like a little child.

To Duane the moment was sad, elemental, big, with a burden of mystery he could not understand.

Duane buried him in a shallow arroyo and heaped up a pile of stones to mark the grave. That done, he saddled his comrade’s horse, hung the weapons over the pommel; and, mounting his own steed, he rode down the trail in the gathering twilight.

CHAPTER IV

TWO DAYS LATER, about the middle of the forenoon, Duane dragged the two horses up the last ascent of an exceedingly rough trail and found himself on top of the Rim Rock, with a beautiful green valley at his feet, the yellow, sluggish Rio Grande shining in the sun, and the great, wild, mountainous barren of Mexico stretching to the south.

Duane had not fallen in with any travelers. He had taken the likeliest-looking trail he had come across. Where it had led him he had not the slightest idea, except that here was the river, and probably the inclosed valley was the retreat of some famous outlaw.

No wonder outlaws were safe in that wild refuge! Duane had spent the last two days climbing the roughest and most difficult trail he had ever seen. From the looks of the descent he imagined the worst part of his travel was yet to come. Not improbably it was two thousand feet down to the river. The wedge-shaped valley, green with alfalfa and cottonwood, and nestling down amid the bare walls of yellow rock, was a delight and a relief to his tired eyes. Eager to get down to a level and to find a place to rest, Duane began the descent.

The trail proved to be the kind that could not be descended slowly. He kept dodging rocks which his horses loosed behind him. And in a short time he reached the valley, entering at the apex of the wedge. A stream of clear water tumbled out of the rocks here, and most of it ran into irrigation-ditches. His horses drank thirstily. And he drank with that fullness and gratefulness common to the desert traveler finding sweet water. Then he mounted and rode down the valley wondering what would be his reception.

The valley was much larger than it had appeared from the high elevation. Well watered, green with grass and tree, and farmed evidently by good hands, it gave Duane a considerable surprise. Horses and cattle were everywhere. Every clump of cottonwoods surrounded a small adobe house. Duane saw Mexicans working in the fields and horsemen going to and fro. Presently he passed a house bigger than the others with a porch attached. A woman, young and pretty he thought, watched him from a door. No one else appeared to notice him.

Presently the trail widened into a road, and that into a kind of square lined by a number of adobe and log buildings of rudest structure. Within sight were horses, dogs, a couple of steers, Mexican women with children, and white men, all of whom appeared to be doing nothing. His advent created no interest until he rode up to the white men, who were lolling in the shade of a house. This place evidently was a store and saloon, and from the inside came a lazy hum of voices.

As Duane reined to a halt one of the loungers in the shade rose with a loud exclamation:

“Bust me if thet ain’t Luke’s hoss!”

The others accorded their interest, if not assent, by rising to advance toward Duane.

“How about it, Euchre? Ain’t thet Luke’s bay?” queried the first man.

“Plain as your nose,” replied the fellow called Euchre.

“There ain’t no doubt about thet, then,” laughed another, “fer Bosomer’s nose is shore plain on the landscape.”

These men lined up before Duane, and as he coolly regarded them he thought they could have been recognized anywhere as desperadoes. The man called Bosomer, who had stepped forward, had a forbidding face which showed yellow eyes, an enormous nose, and a skin the color of dust, with a thatch of sandy hair.

“Stranger, who are you an’ where in the hell did you git thet bay hoss?” he demanded. His yellow eyes took in Stevens’s horse, then the weapons hung on the saddle, and finally turned their glinting, hard light upward to Duane.

Duane did not like the tone in which he had been addressed, and he remained silent. At least half his mind seemed busy with curious interest in regard to something that leaped inside him and made his breast feel tight. He recognized it as that strange emotion which had shot through him often of late, and which had decided him to go out to the meeting with Bain. Only now it was different, more powerful.

“Stranger, who are you?” asked another man, somewhat more civilly.

“My name’s Duane,” replied Duane, curtly.

“An’ how’d you come by the hoss?”

Duane answered briefly, and his words were followed by a short silence, during which the men looked at him. Bosomer began to twist the ends of his beard.

“Reckon he’s dead, all right, or nobody’d hev his hoss an’ guns,” presently said Euchre.

“Mister Duane,” began Bosomer, in low, stinging tones, “I happen to be Luke Stevens’s side-pardner.”

Duane looked him over, from dusty, worn-out boots to his slouchy sombrero. That look seemed to inflame Bosomer.

“An’ I want the hoss an’ them guns,” he shouted.

“You or anybody else can have them, for all I care. I just fetched them in. But the pack is mine,” replied Duane. “And say, I befriended your pard. If you can’t use a civil tongue you’d better cinch it.”

“Civil? Haw, haw!” rejoined the outlaw. “I don’t know you. How do we know you didn’t plug Stevens, an’ stole his hoss, an’ jest happened to stumble down here?”

“You’ll have to take my word, that’s all,” replied Duane, sharply.

“I ain’t takin’ your word! Savvy thet? An’ I was Luke’s pard!”

With that Bosomer wheeled and, pushing his companions aside, he stamped into the saloon, where his voice broke out in a roar.

Duane dismounted and threw his bridle.

“Stranger, Bosomer is shore hot-headed,” said the man Euchre. He did not appear unfriendly, nor were the others hostile.

At this juncture several more outlaws crowded out of the door, and the one in the lead was a tall man of stalwart physique. His manner proclaimed him a leader. He had a long face, a flaming red beard, and clear, cold blue eyes that fixed in close scrutiny upon Duane. He was not a Texan; in truth, Duane did not recognize one of these outlaws as native to his state.

“I’m Bland,” said the tall man, authoritatively. “Who’re you and what’re you doing here?”

Duane looked at Bland as he had at the others. This outlaw chief appeared to be reasonable, if he was not courteous. Duane told his story again, this time a little more in detail.

“I believe you,” replied Bland, at once. “Think I know when a fellow is lying.”

“I reckon you’re on the right trail,” put in Euchre. “Thet about Luke wantin’ his boots took off — thet satisfies me. Luke hed a mortal dread of dyin’ with his boots on.”

At this sally the chief and his men laughed.

“You said Duane — Buck Duane?” queried Bland. “Are you a son of that Duane who was a gunfighter some years back?”

“Yes,” replied Duane.

“Never met him, and glad I didn’t,” said Bland, with a grim humor. “So you got in trouble and had to go on the dodge? What kind of trouble?”

“Had a fight.”

“Fight? Do you mean gun-play?” questioned Bland. He seemed eager, curious, speculative.

“Yes. It ended in gun-play, I’m sorry to say,” answered Duane.

“Guess I needn’t ask the son of Duane if he killed his man,” went on Bland, ironically. “Well, I’m sorry you bucked against trouble in my camp. But as it is, I guess you’d be wise to make yourself scarce.”

“Do you mean I’m politely told to move on?” asked Duane, quietly.

“Not exactly that,” said Bland, as if irritated. “If this isn’t a free place there isn’t one on earth. Every man is equal here. Do you want to join my band?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, even if you did I imagine that wouldn’t stop Bosomer. He’s an ugly fellow. He’s one of the few gunmen I’ve met who wants to kill somebody all the time. Most men like that are fourflushes. But Bosomer is all one color, and that’s red. Merely for your own sake I advise you to hit the trail.”

“Thanks. But if that’s all I’ll stay,” returned Duane. Even as he spoke he felt that he did not know himself.

Bosomer appeared at the door, pushing men who tried to detain him, and as he jumped clear of a last reaching hand he uttered a snarl like an angry dog. Manifestly the short while he had spent inside the saloon had been devoted to drinking and talking himself into a frenzy. Bland and the other outlaws quickly moved aside, letting Duane stand alone. When Bosomer saw Duane standing motionless and watchful a strange change passed quickly in him. He halted in his tracks, and as he did that the men who had followed him out piled over one another in their hurry to get to one side.

Duane saw all the swift action, felt intuitively the meaning of it, and in Bosomer’s sudden change of front. The outlaw was keen, and he had expected a shrinking, or at least a frightened antagonist. Duane knew he was neither. He felt like iron, and yet thrill after thrill ran through him. It was almost as if this situation had been one long familiar to him. Somehow he understood this yellow-eyed Bosomer. The outlaw had come out to kill him. And now, though somewhat checked by the stand of a stranger, he still meant to kill. Like so many desperadoes of his ilk, he was victim of a passion to kill for the sake of killing. Duane divined that no sudden animosity was driving Bosomer. It was just his chance. In that moment murder would have been joy to him. Very likely he had forgotten his pretext for a quarrel. Very probably his faculties were absorbed in conjecture as to Duane’s possibilities.

But he did not speak a word. He remained motionless for a long moment, his eyes pale and steady, his right hand like a claw.

That instant gave Duane a power to read in his enemy’s eyes the thought that preceded action. But Duane did not want to kill another man. Still he would have to fight, and he decided to cripple Bosomer. When Bosomer’s hand moved Duane’s gun was spouting fire. Two shots only — both from Duane’s gun — and the outlaw fell with his right arm shattered. Bosomer cursed harshly and floundered in the dust, trying to reach the gun with his left hand. His comrades, however, seeing that Duane would not kill unless forced, closed in upon Bosomer and prevented any further madness on his part.

CHAPTER V

OF THE OUTLAWS present Euchre appeared to be the one most inclined to lend friendliness to curiosity; and he led Duane and the horses away to a small adobe shack. He tied the horses in an open shed and removed their saddles. Then, gathering up Stevens’s weapons, he invited his visitor to enter the house.

It had two rooms — windows without coverings — bare floors. One room contained blankets, weapons, saddles, and bridles; the other a stone fireplace, rude table and bench, two bunks, a box cupboard, and various blackened utensils.

“Make yourself to home as long as you want to stay,” said Euchre. “I ain’t rich in this world’s goods, but I own what’s here, an’ you’re welcome.”

“Thanks. I’ll stay awhile and rest. I’m pretty well played out,” replied Duane.

Euchre gave him a keen glance.

“Go ahead an’ rest. I’ll take your horses to grass.” Euchre left Duane alone in the house. Duane relaxed then, and mechanically he wiped the sweat from his face. He was laboring under some kind of a spell or shock which did not pass off quickly. When it had worn away he took off his coat and belt and made himself comfortable on the blankets. And he had a thought that if he rested or slept what difference would it make on the morrow? No rest, no sleep could change the gray outlook of the future. He felt glad when Euchre came bustling in, and for the first time he took notice of the outlaw.

Euchre was old in years. What little hair he had was gray, his face clean-shaven and full of wrinkles; his eyes were half shut from long gazing through the sun and dust. He stooped. But his thin frame denoted strength and endurance still unimpaired.

“Hey a drink or a smoke?” he asked.

Duane shook his head. He had not been unfamiliar with whisky, and he had used tobacco moderately since he was sixteen. But now, strangely, he felt a disgust at the idea of stimulants. He did not understand clearly what he felt. There was that vague idea of something wild in his blood, something that made him fear himself.

Euchre wagged his old head sympathetically. “Reckon you feel a little sick. When it comes to shootin’ I run. What’s your age?”

“I’m twenty-three,” replied Duane.

Euchre showed surprise. “You’re only a boy! I thought you thirty anyways. Buck, I heard what you told Bland, an’ puttin’ thet with my own figgerin’, I reckon you’re no criminal yet. Throwin’ a gun in self-defense — thet ain’t no crime!”

Duane, finding relief in talking, told more about himself.

“Huh,” replied the old man. “I’ve been on this river fer years, an’ I’ve seen hundreds of boys come in on the dodge. Most of them, though, was no good. An’ thet kind don’t last long. This river country has been an’ is the refuge fer criminals from all over the states. I’ve bunked with bank cashiers, forgers, plain thieves, an’ out-an’-out murderers, all of which had no bizness on the Texas border. Fellers like Bland are exceptions. He’s no Texan — you seen thet. The gang he rules here come from all over, an’ they’re tough cusses, you can bet on thet. They live fat an’ easy. If it wasn’t fer the fightin’ among themselves they’d shore grow populous. The Rim Rock is no place for a peaceable, decent feller. I heard you tell Bland you wouldn’t join his gang. Thet’ll not make him take a likin’ to you. Have you any money?”

“Not much,” replied Duane.

“Could you live by gamblin’? Are you any good at cards?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t steal hosses or rustle cattle?”

“No.”

“When your money’s gone how’n hell will you live? There ain’t any work a decent feller could do. You can’t herd with greasers. Why, Bland’s men would shoot at you in the fields. What’ll you do, son?”

“God knows,” replied Duane, hopelessly. “I’ll make my money last as long as possible — then starve.”

“Wal, I’m pretty pore, but you’ll never starve while I got anythin’.”

Here it struck Duane again — that something human and kind and eager which he had seen in Stevens. Duane’s estimate of outlaws had lacked this quality. He had not accorded them any virtues. To him, as to the outside world, they had been merely vicious men without one redeeming feature.

“I’m much obliged to you, Euchre,” replied Duane. “But of course I won’t live with any one unless I can pay my share.”

“Have it any way you like, my son,” said Euchre, good-humoredly. “You make a fire, an’ I’ll set about gettin’ grub. I’m a sourdough, Buck. Thet man doesn’t live who can beat my bread.”

“How do you ever pack supplies in here?” asked Duane, thinking of the almost inaccessible nature of the valley.

“Some comes across from Mexico, an’ the rest down the river. Thet river trip is a bird. It’s more’n five hundred miles to any supply point. Bland has mozos, greaser boatmen. Sometimes, too, he gets supplies in from down-river. You see, Bland sells thousands of cattle in Cuba. An’ all this stock has to go down by boat to meet the ships.”

“Where on earth are the cattle driven down to the river?” asked Duane.

“Thet’s not my secret,” replied Euchre, shortly. “Fact is, I don’t know. I’ve rustled cattle for Bland, but he never sent me through the Rim Rock with them.”

Duane experienced a sort of pleasure in the realization that interest had been stirred in him. He was curious about Bland and his gang, and glad to have something to think about. For every once in a while he had a sensation that was almost like a pang. He wanted to forget. In the next hour he did forget, and enjoyed helping in the preparation and eating of the meal. Euchre, after washing and hanging up the several utensils, put on his hat and turned to go out.

“Come along or stay here, as you want,” he said to Duane.

“I’ll stay,” rejoined Duane, slowly.

The old outlaw left the room and trudged away, whistling cheerfully.

Duane looked around him for a book or paper, anything to read; but all the printed matter he could find consisted of a few words on cartridge-boxes and an advertisement on the back of a tobacco-pouch. There seemed to be nothing for him to do. He had rested; he did not want to lie down any more. He began to walk to and fro, from one end of the room to the other. And as he walked he fell into the lately acquired habit of brooding over his misfortune.

Suddenly he straightened up with a jerk. Unconsciously he had drawn his gun. Standing there with the bright cold weapon in his hand, he looked at it in consternation. How had he come to draw it? With difficulty he traced his thoughts backward, but could not find any that was accountable for his act. He discovered, however, that he had a remarkable tendency to drop his hand to his gun. That might have come from the habit long practice in drawing had given him. Likewise, it might have come from a subtle sense, scarcely thought of at all, of the late, close, and inevitable relation between that weapon and himself. He was amazed to find that, bitter as he had grown at fate, the desire to live burned strong in him. If he had been as unfortunately situated, but with the difference that no man wanted to put him in jail or take his life, he felt that this burning passion to be free, to save himself, might not have been so powerful. Life certainly held no bright prospects for him. Already he had begun to despair of ever getting back to his home. But to give up like a white-hearted coward, to let himself be handcuffed and jailed, to run from a drunken, bragging cowboy, or be shot in cold blood by some border brute who merely wanted to add another notch to his gun — these things were impossible for Duane because there was in him the temper to fight. In that hour he yielded only to fate and the spirit inborn in him. Hereafter this gun must be a living part of him. Right then and there he returned to a practice he had long discontinued — the draw. It was now a stern, bitter, deadly business with him. He did not need to fire the gun, for accuracy was a gift and had become assured. Swiftness on the draw, however, could be improved, and he set himself to acquire the limit of speed possible to any man. He stood still in his tracks; he paced the room; he sat down, lay down, put himself in awkward positions; and from every position he practiced throwing his gun — practiced it till he was hot and tired and his arm ached and his hand burned. That practice he determined to keep up every day. It was one thing, at least, that would help pass the weary hours.

Later he went outdoors to the cooler shade of the cottonwoods. From this point he could see a good deal of the valley. Under different circumstances Duane felt that he would have enjoyed such a beautiful spot. Euchre’s shack sat against the first rise of the slope of the wall, and Duane, by climbing a few rods, got a view of the whole valley. Assuredly it was an outlaw settle meet. He saw a good many Mexicans, who, of course, were hand and glove with Bland. Also he saw enormous flat-boats, crude of structure, moored along the banks of the river. The Rio Grande rolled away between high bluffs. A cable, sagging deep in the middle, was stretched over the wide yellow stream, and an old scow, evidently used as a ferry, lay anchored on the far shore.

The valley was an ideal retreat for an outlaw band operating on a big scale. Pursuit scarcely need be feared over the broken trails of the Rim Rock. And the open end of the valley could be defended against almost any number of men coming down the river. Access to Mexico was easy and quick. What puzzled Duane was how Bland got cattle down to the river, and he wondered if the rustler really did get rid of his stolen stock by use of boats.

Duane must have idled considerable time up on the hill, for when he returned to the shack Euchre was busily engaged around the camp-fire.

“Wal, glad to see you ain’t so pale about the gills as you was,” he said, by way of greeting. “Pitch in an’ we’ll soon have grub ready. There’s shore one consolin’ fact round this here camp.”

“What’s that?” asked Duane.

“Plenty of good juicy beef to eat. An’ it doesn’t cost a short bit.”

“But it costs hard rides and trouble, bad conscience, and life, too, doesn’t it?”

“I ain’t shore about the bad conscience. Mine never bothered me none. An’ as for life, why, thet’s cheap in Texas.”

“Who is Bland?” asked Duane, quickly changing the subject. “What do you know about him?”

“We don’t know who he is or where he hails from,” replied Euchre. “Thet’s always been somethin’ to interest the gang. He must have been a young man when he struck Texas. Now he’s middle-aged. I remember how years ago he was soft-spoken an’ not rough in talk or act like he is now. Bland ain’t likely his right name. He knows a lot. He can doctor you, an’ he’s shore a knowin’ feller with tools. He’s the kind thet rules men. Outlaws are always ridin’ in here to join his gang, an’ if it hadn’t been fer the gamblin’ an’ gun-play he’d have a thousand men around him.”

“How many in his gang now?”

“I reckon there’s short of a hundred now. The number varies. Then Bland has several small camps up an’ down the river. Also he has men back on the cattle-ranges.”

“How does he control such a big force?” asked Duane. “Especially when his band’s composed of bad men. Luke Stevens said he had no use for Bland. And I heard once somewhere that Bland was a devil.”

“Thet’s it. He is a devil. He’s as hard as flint, violent in temper, never made any friends except his right-hand men, Dave Rugg an’ Chess Alloway. Bland’ll shoot at a wink. He’s killed a lot of fellers, an’ some fer nothin’. The reason thet outlaws gather round him an’ stick is because he’s a safe refuge, an’ then he’s well heeled. Bland is rich. They say he has a hundred thousand pesos hid somewhere, an’ lots of gold. But he’s free with money. He gambles when he’s not off with a shipment of cattle. He throws money around. An’ the fact is there’s always plenty of money where he is. Thet’s what holds the gang. Dirty, bloody money!”

“It’s a wonder he hasn’t been killed. All these years on the border!” exclaimed Duane.

“Wal,” replied Euchre, dryly, “he’s been quicker on the draw than the other fellers who hankered to kill him, thet’s all.”

Euchre’s reply rather chilled Duane’s interest for the moment. Such remarks always made his mind revolve round facts pertaining to himself.

“Speakin’ of this here swift wrist game,” went on Euchre, “there’s been considerable talk in camp about your throwin’ of a gun. You know, Buck, thet among us fellers — us hunted men — there ain’t anythin’ calculated to rouse respect like a slick hand with a gun. I heard Bland say this afternoon — an’ he said it serious-like an’ speculative — thet he’d never seen your equal. He was watchin’ of you close, he said, an’ just couldn’t follow your hand when you drawed. All the fellers who seen you meet Bosomer had somethin’ to say. Bo was about as handy with a gun as any man in this camp, barrin’ Chess Alloway an’ mebbe Bland himself. Chess is the captain with a Colt — or he was. An’ he shore didn’t like the references made about your speed. Bland was honest in acknowledgin’ it, but he didn’t like it, neither. Some of the fellers allowed your draw might have been just accident. But most of them figgered different. An’ they all shut up when Bland told who an’ what your Dad was. ‘Pears to me I once seen your Dad in a gunscrape over at Santone, years ago. Wal, I put my oar in to-day among the fellers, an’ I says: ‘What ails you locoed gents? Did young Duane budge an inch when Bo came roarin’ out, blood in his eye? Wasn’t he cool an’ quiet, steady of lips, an’ weren’t his eyes readin’ Bo’s mind? An’ thet lightnin’ draw — can’t you-all see thet’s a family gift?’”

Euchre’s narrow eyes twinkled, and he gave the dough he was rolling a slap with his flour-whitened hand. Manifestly he had proclaimed himself a champion and partner of Duane’s, with all the pride an old man could feel in a young one whom he admired.

“Wal,” he resumed, presently, “thet’s your introduction to the border, Buck. An’ your card was a high trump. You’ll be let severely alone by real gun-fighters an’ men like Bland, Alloway, Rugg, an’ the bosses of the other gangs. After all, these real men are men, you know, an’ onless you cross them they’re no more likely to interfere with you than you are with them. But there’s a sight of fellers like Bosomer in the river country. They’ll all want your game. An’ every town you ride into will scare up some cowpuncher full of booze or a long-haired four-flush gunman or a sheriff — an’ these men will be playin’ to the crowd an’ yellin’ for your blood. Thet’s the Texas of it. You’ll have to hide fer ever in the brakes or you’ll have to KILL such men. Buck, I reckon this ain’t cheerful news to a decent chap like you. I’m only tellin’ you because I’ve taken a likin’ to you, an’ I seen right off thet you ain’t border-wise. Let’s eat now, an’ afterward we’ll go out so the gang can see you’re not hidin’.”

When Duane went out with Euchre the sun was setting behind a blue range of mountains across the river in Mexico. The valley appeared to open to the southwest. It was a tranquil, beautiful scene. Somewhere in a house near at hand a woman was singing. And in the road Duane saw a little Mexican boy driving home some cows, one of which wore a bell. The sweet, happy voice of a woman and a whistling barefoot boy — these seemed utterly out of place here.

Euchre presently led to the square and the row of rough houses Duane remembered. He almost stepped on a wide imprint in the dust where Bosomer had confronted him. And a sudden fury beset him that he should be affected strangely by the sight of it.

“Let’s have a look in here,” said Euchre.

Duane had to bend his head to enter the door. He found himself in a very large room inclosed by adobe walls and roofed with brush. It was full of rude benches, tables, seats. At one corner a number of kegs and barrels lay side by side in a rack. A Mexican boy was lighting lamps hung on posts that sustained the log rafters of the roof.

“The only feller who’s goin’ to put a close eye on you is Benson,” said Euchre. “He runs the place an’ sells drinks. The gang calls him Jackrabbit Benson, because he’s always got his eye peeled an’ his ear cocked. Don’t notice him if he looks you over, Buck. Benson is scared to death of every new-comer who rustles into Bland’s camp. An’ the reason, I take it, is because he’s done somebody dirt. He’s hidin’. Not from a sheriff or ranger! Men who hide from them don’t act like Jackrabbit Benson. He’s hidin’ from some guy who’s huntin’ him to kill him. Wal, I’m always expectin’ to see some feller ride in here an’ throw a gun on Benson. Can’t say I’d be grieved.”

Duane casually glanced in the direction indicated, and he saw a spare, gaunt man with a face strikingly white beside the red and bronze and dark skins of the men around him. It was a cadaverous face. The black mustache hung down; a heavy lock of black hair dropped down over the brow; deep-set, hollow, staring eyes looked out piercingly. The man had a restless, alert, nervous manner. He put his hands on the board that served as a bar and stared at Duane. But when he met Duane’s glance he turned hurriedly to go on serving out liquor.

“What have you got against him?” inquired Duane, as he sat down beside Euchre. He asked more for something to say than from real interest. What did he care about a mean, haunted, craven-faced criminal?

“Wal, mebbe I’m cross-grained,” replied Euchre, apologetically. “Shore an outlaw an’ rustler such as me can’t be touchy. But I never stole nothin’ but cattle from some rancher who never missed ’em anyway. Thet sneak Benson — he was the means of puttin’ a little girl in Bland’s way.”

“Girl?” queried Duane, now with real attention.

“Shore. Bland’s great on women. I’ll tell you about this girl when we get out of here. Some of the gang are goin’ to be sociable, an’ I can’t talk about the chief.”

During the ensuing half-hour a number of outlaws passed by Duane and Euchre, halted for a greeting or sat down for a moment. They were all gruff, loud-voiced, merry, and good-natured. Duane replied civilly and agreeably when he was personally addressed; but he refused all invitations to drink and gamble. Evidently he had been accepted, in a way, as one of their clan. No one made any hint of an allusion to his affair with Bosomer. Duane saw readily that Euchre was well liked. One outlaw borrowed money from him: another asked for tobacco.

By the time it was dark the big room was full of outlaws and Mexicans, most of whom were engaged at monte. These gamblers, especially the Mexicans, were intense and quiet. The noise in the place came from the drinkers, the loungers. Duane had seen gambling-resorts — some of the famous ones in San Antonio and El Paso, a few in border towns where license went unchecked. But this place of Jackrabbit Benson’s impressed him as one where guns and knives were accessories to the game. To his perhaps rather distinguishing eye the most prominent thing about the gamesters appeared to be their weapons. On several of the tables were piles of silver — Mexican pesos — as large and high as the crown of his hat. There were also piles of gold and silver in United States coin. Duane needed no experienced eyes to see that betting was heavy and that heavy sums exchanged hands. The Mexicans showed a sterner obsession, an intenser passion. Some of the Americans staked freely, nonchalantly, as befitted men to whom money was nothing. These latter were manifestly winning, for there were brother outlaws there who wagered coin with grudging, sullen, greedy eyes. Boisterous talk and laughter among the drinking men drowned, except at intervals, the low, brief talk of the gamblers. The clink of coin sounded incessantly; sometimes just low, steady musical rings; and again, when a pile was tumbled quickly, there was a silvery crash. Here an outlaw pounded on a table with the butt of his gun; there another noisily palmed a roll of dollars while he studied his opponent’s face. The noises, however, in Benson’s den did not contribute to any extent to the sinister aspect of the place. That seemed to come from the grim and reckless faces, from the bent, intent heads, from the dark lights and shades. There were bright lights, but these served only to make the shadows. And in the shadows lurked unrestrained lust of gain, a spirit ruthless and reckless, a something at once suggesting lawlessness, theft, murder, and hell.

“Bland’s not here to-night,” Euchre was saying. “He left today on one of his trips, takin’ Alloway an’ some others. But his other man, Rugg, he’s here. See him standin’ with them three fellers, all close to Benson. Rugg’s the little bow-legged man with the half of his face shot off. He’s one-eyed. But he can shore see out of the one he’s got. An’, darn me! there’s Hardin. You know him? He’s got an outlaw gang as big as Bland’s. Hardin is standin’ next to Benson. See how quiet an’ unassumin’ he looks. Yes, thet’s Hardin. He comes here once in a while to see Bland. They’re friends, which’s shore strange. Do you see thet greaser there — the one with gold an’ lace on his sombrero? Thet’s Manuel, a Mexican bandit. He’s a great gambler. Comes here often to drop his coin. Next to him is Bill Marr — the feller with the bandana round his head. Bill rode in the other day with some fresh bullet-holes. He’s been shot more’n any feller I ever heard of. He’s full of lead. Funny, because Bill’s no troublehunter, an’, like me, he’d rather run than shoot. But he’s the best rustler Bland’s got — a grand rider, an’ a wonder with cattle. An’ see the tow-headed youngster. Thet’s Kid Fuller, the kid of Bland’s gang. Fuller has hit the pace hard, an’ he won’t last the year out on the border. He killed his sweetheart’s father, got run out of Staceytown, took to stealin’ hosses. An’ next he’s here with Bland. Another boy gone wrong, an’ now shore a hard nut.”

Euchre went on calling Duane’s attention to other men, just as he happened to glance over them. Any one of them would have been a marked man in a respectable crowd. Here each took his place with more or less distinction, according to the record of his past wild prowess and his present possibilities. Duane, realizing that he was tolerated there, received in careless friendly spirit by this terrible class of outcasts, experienced a feeling of revulsion that amounted almost to horror. Was his being there not an ugly dream? What had he in common with such ruffians? Then in a flash of memory came the painful proof — he was a criminal in sight of Texas law; he, too, was an outcast.

For the moment Duane was wrapped up in painful reflections; but Euchre’s heavy hand, clapping with a warning hold on his arm, brought him back to outside things.

The hum of voices, the clink of coin, the loud laughter had ceased. There was a silence that manifestly had followed some unusual word or action sufficient to still the room. It was broken by a harsh curse and the scrape of a bench on the floor. Some man had risen.

“You stacked the cards, you — !”

“Say that twice,” another voice replied, so different in its cool, ominous tone from the other.

“I’ll say it twice,” returned the first gamester, in hot haste. “I’ll say it three times. I’ll whistle it. Are you deaf? You light-fingered gent! You stacked the cards!”

Silence ensued, deeper than before, pregnant with meaning. For all that Duane saw, not an outlaw moved for a full moment. Then suddenly the room was full of disorder as men rose and ran and dived everywhere.

“Run or duck!” yelled Euchre, close to Duane’s ear. With that he dashed for the door. Duane leaped after him. They ran into a jostling mob. Heavy gun-shots and hoarse yells hurried the crowd Duane was with pell-mell out into the darkness. There they all halted, and several peeped in at the door.

“Who was the Kid callin’?” asked one outlaw.

“Bud Marsh,” replied another.

“I reckon them fust shots was Bud’s. Adios Kid. It was comin’ to him,” went on yet another.

“How many shots?”

“Three or four, I counted.”

“Three heavy an’ one light. Thet light one was the Kid’s.38. Listen! There’s the Kid hollerin’ now. He ain’t cashed, anyway.”

At this juncture most of the outlaws began to file back into the room. Duane thought he had seen and heard enough in Benson’s den for one night and he started slowly down the walk. Presently Euchre caught up with him.

“Nobody hurt much, which’s shore some strange,” he said. “The Kid — young Fuller thet I was tellin’ you about — he was drinkin’ an’ losin’. Lost his nut, too, callin’ Bud Marsh thet way. Bud’s as straight at cards as any of ‘em. Somebody grabbed Bud, who shot into the roof. An’ Fuller’s arm was knocked up. He only hit a greaser.”

CHAPTER VI

NEXT MORNING DUANE found that a moody and despondent spell had fastened on him. Wishing to be alone, he went out and walked a trail leading round the river bluff. He thought and thought. After a while he made out that the trouble with him probably was that he could not resign himself to his fate. He abhorred the possibility chance seemed to hold in store for him. He could not believe there was no hope. But what to do appeared beyond his power to tell.

Duane had intelligence and keenness enough to see his peril — the danger threatening his character as a man, just as much as that which threatened his life. He cared vastly more, he discovered, for what he considered honor and integrity than he did for life. He saw that it was bad for him to be alone. But, it appeared, lonely months and perhaps years inevitably must be his. Another thing puzzled him. In the bright light of day he could not recall the state of mind that was his at twilight or dusk or in the dark night. By day these visitations became to him what they really were — phantoms of his conscience. He could dismiss the thought of them then. He could scarcely remember or believe that this strange feat of fancy or imagination had troubled him, pained him, made him sleepless and sick.

That morning Duane spent an unhappy hour wrestling decision out of the unstable condition of his mind. But at length he determined to create interest in all that he came across and so forget himself as much as possible. He had an opportunity now to see just what the outlaw’s life really was. He meant to force himself to be curious, sympathetic, clear-sighted. And he would stay there in the valley until its possibilities had been exhausted or until circumstances sent him out upon his uncertain way.

When he returned to the shack Euchre was cooking dinner.

“Say, Buck, I’ve news for you,” he said; and his tone conveyed either pride in his possession of such news or pride in Duane. “Feller named Bradley rode in this mornin’. He’s heard some about you. Told about the ace of spades they put over the bullet holes in thet cowpuncher Bain you plugged. Then there was a rancher shot at a water-hole twenty miles south of Wellston. Reckon you didn’t do it?”

“No, I certainly did not,” replied Duane.

“Wal, you get the blame. It ain’t nothin’ for a feller to be saddled with gun-plays he never made. An’, Buck, if you ever get famous, as seems likely, you’ll be blamed for many a crime. The border’ll make an outlaw an’ murderer out of you. Wal, thet’s enough of thet. I’ve more news. You’re goin’ to be popular.”

“Popular? What do you mean?”

“I met Bland’s wife this mornin’. She seen you the other day when you rode in. She shore wants to meet you, an’ so do some of the other women in camp. They always want to meet the new fellers who’ve just come in. It’s lonesome for women here, an’ they like to hear news from the towns.”

“Well, Euchre, I don’t want to be impolite, but I’d rather not meet any women,” rejoined Duane.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t. Don’t blame you much. Women are hell. I was hopin’, though, you might talk a little to thet poor lonesome kid.”

“What kid?” inquired Duane, in surprise.

“Didn’t I tell you about Jennie — the girl Bland’s holdin’ here — the one Jackrabbit Benson had a hand in stealin’?”

“You mentioned a girl. That’s all. Tell me now,” replied Duane, abruptly.

“Wal, I got it this way. Mebbe it’s straight, an’ mebbe it ain’t. Some years ago Benson made a trip over the river to buy mescal an’ other drinks. He’ll sneak over there once in a while. An’ as I get it he run across a gang of greasers with some gringo prisoners. I don’t know, but I reckon there was some barterin’, perhaps murderin’. Anyway, Benson fetched the girl back. She was more dead than alive. But it turned out she was only starved an’ scared half to death. She hadn’t been harmed. I reckon she was then about fourteen years old. Benson’s idee, he said, was to use her in his den sellin’ drinks an’ the like. But I never went much on Jackrabbit’s word. Bland seen the kid right off and took her — bought her from Benson. You can gamble Bland didn’t do thet from notions of chivalry. I ain’t gainsayin, however, but thet Jennie was better off with Kate Bland. She’s been hard on Jennie, but she’s kept Bland an’ the other men from treatin’ the kid shameful. Late Jennie has growed into an all-fired pretty girl, an’ Kate is powerful jealous of her. I can see hell brewin’ over there in Bland’s cabin. Thet’s why I wish you’d come over with me. Bland’s hardly ever home. His wife’s invited you. Shore, if she gets sweet on you, as she has on — Wal, thet ‘d complicate matters. But you’d get to see Jennie, an’ mebbe you could help her. Mind, I ain’t hintin’ nothin’. I’m just wantin’ to put her in your way. You’re a man an’ can think fer yourself. I had a baby girl once, an’ if she’d lived she be as big as Jennie now, an’, by Gawd, I wouldn’t want her here in Bland’s camp.”

“I’ll go, Euchre. Take me over,” replied Duane. He felt Euchre’s eyes upon him. The old outlaw, however, had no more to say.

In the afternoon Euchre set off with Duane, and soon they reached Bland’s cabin. Duane remembered it as the one where he had seen the pretty woman watching him ride by. He could not recall what she looked like. The cabin was the same as the other adobe structures in the valley, but it was larger and pleasantly located rather high up in a grove of cottonwoods. In the windows and upon the porch were evidences of a woman’s hand. Through the open door Duane caught a glimpse of bright Mexican blankets and rugs.

Euchre knocked upon the side of the door.

“Is that you, Euchre?” asked a girl’s voice, low, hesitatingly. The tone of it, rather deep and with a note of fear, struck Duane. He wondered what she would be like.

“Yes, it’s me, Jennie. Where’s Mrs. Bland?” answered Euchre.

“She went over to Deger’s. There’s somebody sick,” replied the girl.

Euchre turned and whispered something about luck. The snap of the outlaw’s eyes was added significance to Duane.

“Jennie, come out or let us come in. Here’s the young man I was tellin’ you about,” Euchre said.

“Oh, I can’t! I look so — so—”

“Never mind how you look,” interrupted the outlaw, in a whisper. “It ain’t no time to care fer thet. Here’s young Duane. Jennie, he’s no rustler, no thief. He’s different. Come out, Jennie, an’ mebbe he’ll—”

Euchre did not complete his sentence. He had spoken low, with his glance shifting from side to side.

But what he said was sufficient to bring the girl quickly. She appeared in the doorway with downcast eyes and a stain of red in her white cheek. She had a pretty, sad face and bright hair.

“Don’t be bashful, Jennie,” said Euchre. “You an’ Duane have a chance to talk a little. Now I’ll go fetch Mrs. Bland, but I won’t be hurryin’.”

With that Euchre went away through the cottonwoods.

“I’m glad to meet you, Miss — Miss Jennie,” said Duane. “Euchre didn’t mention your last name. He asked me to come over to—”

Duane’s attempt at pleasantry halted short when Jennie lifted her lashes to look at him. Some kind of a shock went through Duane. Her gray eyes were beautiful, but it had not been beauty that cut short his speech. He seemed to see a tragic struggle between hope and doubt that shone in her piercing gaze. She kept looking, and Duane could not break the silence. It was no ordinary moment.

“What did you come here for?” she asked, at last.

“To see you,” replied Duane, glad to speak.

“Why?”

“Well — Euchre thought — he wanted me to talk to you, cheer you up a bit,” replied Duane, somewhat lamely. The earnest eyes embarrassed him.

“Euchre’s good. He’s the only person in this awful place who’s been good to me. But he’s afraid of Bland. He said you were different. Who are you?”

Duane told her.

“You’re not a robber or rustler or murderer or some bad man come here to hide?”

“No, I’m not,” replied Duane, trying to smile.

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m on the dodge. You know what that means. I got in a shooting-scrape at home and had to run off. When it blows over I hope to go back.”

“But you can’t be honest here?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Oh, I know what these outlaws are. Yes, you’re different.” She kept the strained gaze upon him, but hope was kindling, and the hard lines of her youthful face were softening.

Something sweet and warm stirred deep in Duane as he realized the unfortunate girl was experiencing a birth of trust in him.

“O God! Maybe you’re the man to save me — to take me away before it’s too late.”

Duane’s spirit leaped.

“Maybe I am,” he replied, instantly.

She seemed to check a blind impulse to run into his arms. Her cheek flamed, her lips quivered, her bosom swelled under her ragged dress. Then the glow began to fade; doubt once more assailed her.

“It can’t be. You’re only — after me, too, like Bland — like all of them.”

Duane’s long arms went out and his hands clasped her shoulders. He shook her.

“Look at me — straight in the eye. There are decent men. Haven’t you a father — a brother?”

“They’re dead — killed by raiders. We lived in Dimmit County. I was carried away,” Jennie replied, hurriedly. She put up an appealing hand to him. “Forgive me. I believe — I know you’re good. It was only — I live so much in fear — I’m half crazy — I’ve almost forgotten what good men are like, Mister Duane, you’ll help me?”

“Yes, Jennie, I will. Tell me how. What must I do? Have you any plan?”

“Oh no. But take me away.”

“I’ll try,” said Duane, simply. “That won’t be easy, though. I must have time to think. You must help me. There are many things to consider. Horses, food, trails, and then the best time to make the attempt. Are you watched — kept prisoner?”

“No. I could have run off lots of times. But I was afraid. I’d only have fallen into worse hands. Euchre has told me that. Mrs. Bland beats me, half starves me, but she has kept me from her husband and these other dogs. She’s been as good as that, and I’m grateful. She hasn’t done it for love of me, though. She always hated me. And lately she’s growing jealous. There was’ a man came here by the name of Spence — so he called himself. He tried to be kind to me. But she wouldn’t let him. She was in love with him. She’s a bad woman. Bland finally shot Spence, and that ended that. She’s been jealous ever since. I hear her fighting with Bland about me. She swears she’ll kill me before he gets me. And Bland laughs in her face. Then I’ve heard Chess Alloway try to persuade Bland to give me to him. But Bland doesn’t laugh then. Just lately before Bland went away things almost came to a head. I couldn’t sleep. I wished Mrs. Bland would kill me. I’ll certainly kill myself if they ruin me. Duane, you must be quick if you’d save me.”

“I realize that,” replied he, thoughtfully. “I think my difficulty will be to fool Mrs. Bland. If she suspected me she’d have the whole gang of outlaws on me at once.”

“She would that. You’ve got to be careful — and quick.”

“What kind of woman is she?” inquired Duane.

“She’s — she’s brazen. I’ve heard her with her lovers. They get drunk sometimes when Bland’s away. She’s got a terrible temper. She’s vain. She likes flattery. Oh, you could fool her easy enough if you’d lower yourself to — to—”

“To make love to her?” interrupted Duane.

Jennie bravely turned shamed eyes to meet his.

“My girl, I’d do worse than that to get you away from here,” he said, bluntly.

“But — Duane,” she faltered, and again she put out the appealing hand. “Bland will kill you.”

Duane made no reply to this. He was trying to still a rising strange tumult in his breast. The old emotion — the rush of an instinct to kill! He turned cold all over.

“Chess Alloway will kill you if Bland doesn’t,” went on Jennie, with her tragic eyes on Duane’s.

“Maybe he will,” replied Duane. It was difficult for him to force a smile. But he achieved one.

“Oh, better take me off at once,” she said. “Save me without risking so much — without making love to Mrs. Bland!”

“Surely, if I can. There! I see Euchre coming with a woman.”

“That’s her. Oh, she mustn’t see me with you.”

“Wait — a moment,” whispered Duane, as Jennie slipped indoors. “We’ve settled it. Don’t forget. I’ll find some way to get word to you, perhaps through Euchre. Meanwhile keep up your courage. Remember I’ll save you somehow. We’ll try strategy first. Whatever you see or hear me do, don’t think less of me—”

Jennie checked him with a gesture and a wonderful gray flash of eyes.

“I’ll bless you with every drop of blood in my heart,” she whispered, passionately.

It was only as she turned away into the room that Duane saw she was lame and that she wore Mexican sandals over bare feet.

He sat down upon a bench on the porch and directed his attention to the approaching couple. The trees of the grove were thick enough for him to make reasonably sure that Mrs. Bland had not seen him talking to Jennie. When the outlaw’s wife drew near Duane saw that she was a tall, strong, full-bodied woman, rather good-looking with a fullblown, bold attractiveness. Duane was more concerned with her expression than with her good looks; and as she appeared unsuspicious he felt relieved. The situation then took on a singular zest.

Euchre came up on the porch and awkwardly introduced Duane to Mrs. Bland. She was young, probably not over twenty-five, and not quite so prepossessing at close range. Her eyes were large, rather prominent, and brown in color. Her mouth, too, was large, with the lips full, and she had white teeth.

Duane took her proffered hand and remarked frankly that he was glad to meet her.

Mrs. Bland appeared pleased; and her laugh, which followed, was loud and rather musical.

“Mr. Duane — Buck Duane, Euchre said, didn’t he?” she asked.

“Buckley,” corrected Duane. “The nickname’s not of my choosing.”

“I’m certainly glad to meet you, Buckley Duane,” she said, as she took the seat Duane offered her. “Sorry to have been out. Kid Fuller’s lying over at Deger’s. You know he was shot last night. He’s got fever to-day. When Bland’s away I have to nurse all these shot-up boys, and it sure takes my time. Have you been waiting here alone? Didn’t see that slattern girl of mine?”

She gave him a sharp glance. The woman had an extraordinary play of feature, Duane thought, and unless she was smiling was not pretty at all.

“I’ve been alone,” replied Duane. “Haven’t seen anybody but a sick-looking girl with a bucket. And she ran when she saw me.”

“That was Jen,” said Mrs. Bland. “She’s the kid we keep here, and she sure hardly pays her keep. Did Euchre tell you about her?”

“Now that I think of it, he did say something or other.”

“What did he tell you about me?” bluntly asked Mrs. Bland.

“Wal, Kate,” replied Euchre, speaking for himself, “you needn’t worry none, for I told Buck nothin’ but compliments.”

Evidently the outlaw’s wife liked Euchre, for her keen glance rested with amusement upon him.

“As for Jen, I’ll tell you her story some day,” went on the woman. “It’s a common enough story along this river. Euchre here is a tender-hearted old fool, and Jen has taken him in.”

“Wal, seein’ as you’ve got me figgered correct,” replied Euchre, dryly, “I’ll go in an’ talk to Jennie if I may.”

“Certainly. Go ahead. Jen calls you her best friend,” said Mrs. Bland, amiably. “You’re always fetching some Mexican stuff, and that’s why, I guess.”

When Euchre had shuffled into the house Mrs. Bland turned to Duane with curiosity and interest in her gaze.

“Bland told me about you.”

“What did he say?” queried Duane, in pretended alarm.

“Oh, you needn’t think he’s done you dirt Bland’s not that kind of a man. He said: ‘Kate, there’s a young fellow in camp — rode in here on the dodge. He’s no criminal, and he refused to join my band. Wish he would. Slickest hand with a gun I’ve seen for many a day! I’d like to see him and Chess meet out there in the road.’ Then Bland went on to tell how you and Bosomer came together.”

“What did you say?” inquired Duane, as she paused.

“Me? Why, I asked him what you looked like,” she replied, gayly.

“Well?” went on Duane.

“Magnificent chap, Bland said. Bigger than any man in the valley. Just a great blue-eyed sunburned boy!”

“Humph!” exclaimed Duane. “I’m sorry he led you to expect somebody worth seeing.”

“But I’m not disappointed,” she returned, archly. “Duane, are you going to stay long here in camp?”

“Yes, till I run out of money and have to move. Why?”

Mrs. Bland’s face underwent one of the singular changes. The smiles and flushes and glances, all that had been coquettish about her, had lent her a certain attractiveness, almost beauty and youth. But with some powerful emotion she changed and instantly became a woman of discontent, Duane imagined, of deep, violent nature.

“I’ll tell you, Duane,” she said, earnestly, “I’m sure glad if you mean to bide here awhile. I’m a miserable woman, Duane. I’m an outlaw’s wife, and I hate him and the life I have to lead. I come of a good family in Brownsville. I never knew Bland was an outlaw till long after he married me. We were separated at times, and I imagined he was away on business. But the truth came out. Bland shot my own cousin, who told me. My family cast me off, and I had to flee with Bland. I was only eighteen then. I’ve lived here since. I never see a decent woman or man. I never hear anything about my old home or folks or friends. I’m buried here — buried alive with a lot of thieves and murderers. Can you blame me for being glad to see a young fellow — a gentleman — like the boys I used to go with? I tell you it makes me feel full — I want to cry. I’m sick for somebody to talk to. I have no children, thank God! If I had I’d not stay here. I’m sick of this hole. I’m lonely—”

There appeared to be no doubt about the truth of all this. Genuine emotion checked, then halted the hurried speech. She broke down and cried. It seemed strange to Duane that an outlaw’s wife — and a woman who fitted her consort and the wild nature of their surroundings — should have weakness enough to weep. Duane believed and pitied her.

“I’m sorry for you,” he said.

“Don’t be SORRY for me,” she said. “That only makes me see the — the difference between you and me. And don’t pay any attention to what these outlaws say about me. They’re ignorant. They couldn’t understand me. You’ll hear that Bland killed men who ran after me. But that’s a lie. Bland, like all the other outlaws along this river, is always looking for somebody to kill. He SWEARS not, but I don’t believe him. He explains that gunplay gravitates to men who are the real thing — that it is provoked by the four-flushes, the bad men. I don’t know. All I know is that somebody is being killed every other day. He hated Spence before Spence ever saw me.”

“Would Bland object if I called on you occasionally?” inquired Duane.

“No, he wouldn’t. He likes me to have friends. Ask him yourself when he comes back. The trouble has been that two or three of his men fell in love with me, and when half drunk got to fighting. You’re not going to do that.”

“I’m not going to get half drunk, that’s certain,” replied Duane.

He was surprised to see her eyes dilate, then glow with fire. Before she could reply Euchre returned to the porch, and that put an end to the conversation.

Duane was content to let the matter rest there, and had little more to say. Euchre and Mrs. Bland talked and joked, while Duane listened. He tried to form some estimate of her character. Manifestly she had suffered a wrong, if not worse, at Bland’s hands. She was bitter, morbid, overemotional. If she was a liar, which seemed likely enough, she was a frank one, and believed herself. She had no cunning. The thing which struck Duane so forcibly was that she thirsted for respect. In that, better than in her weakness of vanity, he thought he had discovered a trait through which he could manage her.

Once, while he was revolving these thoughts, he happened to glance into the house, and deep in the shadow of a corner he caught a pale gleam of Jennie’s face with great, staring eyes on him. She had been watching him, listening to what he said. He saw from her expression that she had realized what had been so hard for her to believe. Watching his chance, he flashed a look at her; and then it seemed to him the change in her face was wonderful.

Later, after he had left Mrs. Bland with a meaning “Adios — manana,” and was walking along beside the old outlaw, he found himself thinking of the girl instead of the woman, and of how he had seen her face blaze with hope and gratitude.

CHAPTER VII

THAT NIGHT DUANE was not troubled by ghosts haunting his waking and sleeping hours. He awoke feeling bright and eager, and grateful to Euchre for having put something worth while into his mind. During breakfast, however, he was unusually thoughtful, working over the idea of how much or how little he would confide in the outlaw. He was aware of Euchre’s scrutiny.

“Wal,” began the old man, at last, “how’d you make out with the kid?”

“Kid?” inquired Duane, tentatively.

“Jennie, I mean. What’d you An’ she talk about?”

“We had a little chat. You know you wanted me to cheer her up.”

Euchre sat with coffee-cup poised and narrow eyes studying Duane.

“Reckon you cheered her, all right. What I’m afeared of is mebbe you done the job too well.”

“How so?”

“Wal, when I went in to Jen last night I thought she was half crazy. She was burstin’ with excitement, an’ the look in her eyes hurt me. She wouldn’t tell me a darn word you said. But she hung onto my hands, an’ showed every way without speakin’ how she wanted to thank me fer bringin’ you over. Buck, it was plain to me thet you’d either gone the limit or else you’d been kinder prodigal of cheer an’ hope. I’d hate to think you’d led Jennie to hope more’n ever would come true.”

Euchre paused, and, as there seemed no reply forthcoming, he went on:

“Buck, I’ve seen some outlaws whose word was good. Mine is. You can trust me. I trusted you, didn’t I, takin’ you over there an’ puttin’ you wise to my tryin’ to help thet poor kid?”

Thus enjoined by Euchre, Duane began to tell the conversations with Jennie and Mrs. Bland word for word. Long before he had reached an end Euchre set down the coffee-cup and began to stare, and at the conclusion of the story his face lost some of its red color and beads of sweat stood out thickly on his brow.

“Wal, if thet doesn’t floor me!” he ejaculated, blinking at Duane. “Young man, I figgered you was some swift, an’ sure to make your mark on this river; but I reckon I missed your real caliber. So thet’s what it means to be a man! I guess I’d forgot. Wal, I’m old, an’ even if my heart was in the right place I never was built fer big stunts. Do you know what it’ll take to do all you promised Jen?”

“I haven’t any idea,” replied Duane, gravely.

“You’ll have to pull the wool over Kate Bland’s eyes, ant even if she falls in love with you, which’s shore likely, thet won’t be easy. An’ she’d kill you in a minnit, Buck, if she ever got wise. You ain’t mistaken her none, are you?”

“Not me, Euchre. She’s a woman. I’d fear her more than any man.”

“Wal, you’ll have to kill Bland an’ Chess Alloway an’ Rugg, an’ mebbe some others, before you can ride off into the hills with thet girl.”

“Why? Can’t we plan to be nice to Mrs. Bland and then at an opportune time sneak off without any gun-play?”

“Don’t see how on earth,” returned Euchre, earnestly. “When Bland’s away he leaves all kinds of spies an’ scouts watchin’ the valley trails. They’ve all got rifles. You couldn’t git by them. But when the boss is home there’s a difference. Only, of course, him an’ Chess keep their eyes peeled. They both stay to home pretty much, except when they’re playin’ monte or poker over at Benson’s. So I say the best bet is to pick out a good time in the afternoon, drift over careless-like with a couple of hosses, choke Mrs. Bland or knock her on the head, take Jennie with you, an’ make a rush to git out of the valley. If you had luck you might pull thet stunt without throwin’ a gun. But I reckon the best figgerin’ would include dodgin’ some lead an’ leavin’ at least Bland or Alloway dead behind you. I’m figgerin’, of course, thet when they come home an’ find out you’re visitin’ Kate frequent they’ll jest naturally look fer results. Chess don’t like you, fer no reason except you’re swift on the draw — mebbe swifter ‘n him. Thet’s the hell of this gun-play business. No one can ever tell who’s the swifter of two gunmen till they meet. Thet fact holds a fascination mebbe you’ll learn some day. Bland would treat you civil onless there was reason not to, an’ then I don’t believe he’d invite himself to a meetin’ with you. He’d set Chess or Rugg to put you out of the way. Still Bland’s no coward, an’ if you came across him at a bad moment you’d have to be quicker ‘n you was with Bosomer.”

“All right. I’ll meet what comes,” said Duane, quickly. “The great point is to have horses ready and pick the right moment, then rush the trick through.”

“Thet’s the ONLY chance fer success. An’ you can’t do it alone.”

“I’ll have to. I wouldn’t ask you to help me. Leave you behind!”

“Wal, I’ll take my chances,” replied Euchre, gruffly. “I’m goin’ to help Jennie, you can gamble your last peso on thet. There’s only four men in this camp who would shoot me — Bland, an’ his right-hand pards, an’ thet rabbit-faced Benson. If you happened to put out Bland and Chess, I’d stand a good show with the other two. Anyway, I’m old an’ tired — what’s the difference if I do git plugged? I can risk as much as you, Buck, even if I am afraid of gun-play. You said correct, ‘Hosses ready, the right minnit, then rush the trick.’ Thet much ‘s settled. Now let’s figger all the little details.”

They talked and planned, though in truth it was Euchre who planned, Duane who listened and agreed. While awaiting the return of Bland and his lieutenants it would be well for Duane to grow friendly with the other outlaws, to sit in a few games of monte, or show a willingness to spend a little money. The two schemers were to call upon Mrs. Bland every day — Euchre to carry messages of cheer and warning to Jennie, Duane to blind the elder woman at any cost. These preliminaries decided upon, they proceeded to put them into action.

No hard task was it to win the friendship of the most of those good-natured outlaws. They were used to men of a better order than theirs coming to the hidden camps and sooner or later sinking to their lower level. Besides, with them everything was easy come, easy go. That was why life itself went on so carelessly and usually ended so cheaply. There were men among them, however, that made Duane feel that terrible inexplicable wrath rise in his breast. He could not bear to be near them. He could not trust himself. He felt that any instant a word, a deed, something might call too deeply to that instinct he could no longer control. Jackrabbit Benson was one of these men. Because of him and other outlaws of his ilk Duane could scarcely ever forget the reality of things. This was a hidden valley, a robbers’ den, a rendezvous for murderers, a wild place stained red by deeds of wild men. And because of that there was always a charged atmosphere. The merriest, idlest, most careless moment might in the flash of an eye end in ruthless and tragic action. In an assemblage of desperate characters it could not be otherwise. The terrible thing that Duane sensed was this. The valley was beautiful, sunny, fragrant, a place to dream in; the mountaintops were always blue or gold rimmed, the yellow river slid slowly and majestically by, the birds sang in the cottonwoods, the horses grazed and pranced, children played and women longed for love, freedom, happiness; the outlaws rode in and out, free with money and speech; they lived comfortably in their adobe homes, smoked, gambled, talked, laughed, whiled away the idle hours — and all the time life there was wrong, and the simplest moment might be precipitated by that evil into the most awful of contrasts. Duane felt rather than saw a dark, brooding shadow over the valley.

Then, without any solicitation or encouragement from Duane, the Bland woman fell passionately in love with him. His conscience was never troubled about the beginning of that affair. She launched herself. It took no great perspicuity on his part to see that. And the thing which evidently held her in check was the newness, the strangeness, and for the moment the all-satisfying fact of his respect for her. Duane exerted himself to please, to amuse, to interest, to fascinate her, and always with deference. That was his strong point, and it had made his part easy so far. He believed he could carry the whole scheme through without involving himself any deeper.

He was playing at a game of love — playing with life and deaths Sometimes he trembled, not that he feared Bland or Alloway or any other man, but at the deeps of life he had come to see into. He was carried out of his old mood. Not once since this daring motive had stirred him had he been haunted by the phantom of Bain beside his bed. Rather had he been haunted by Jennie’s sad face, her wistful smile, her eyes. He never was able to speak a word to her. What little communication he had with her was through Euchre, who carried short messages. But he caught glimpses of her every time he went to the Bland house. She contrived somehow to pass door or window, to give him a look when chance afforded. And Duane discovered with surprise that these moments were more thrilling to him than any with Mrs. Bland. Often Duane knew Jennie was sitting just inside the window, and then he felt inspired in his talk, and it was all made for her. So at least she came to know him while as yet she was almost a stranger. Jennie had been instructed by Euchre to listen, to understand that this was Duane’s only chance to help keep her mind from constant worry, to gather the import of every word which had a double meaning.

Euchre said that the girl had begun to wither under the strain, to burn up with intense hope which had flamed within her. But all the difference Duane could see was a paler face and darker, more wonderful eyes. The eyes seemed to be entreating him to hurry, that time was flying, that soon it might be too late. Then there was another meaning in them, a light, a strange fire wholly inexplicable to Duane. It was only a flash gone in an instant. But he remembered it because he had never seen it in any other woman’s eyes. And all through those waiting days he knew that Jennie’s face, and especially the warm, fleeting glance she gave him, was responsible for a subtle and gradual change in him. This change he fancied, was only that through remembrance of her he got rid of his pale, sickening ghosts.

One day a careless Mexican threw a lighted cigarette up into the brush matting that served as a ceiling for Benson’s den, and there was a fire which left little more than the adobe walls standing. The result was that while repairs were being made there was no gambling and drinking. Time hung very heavily on the hands of some two-score outlaws. Days passed by without a brawl, and Bland’s valley saw more successive hours of peace than ever before. Duane, however, found the hours anything but empty. He spent more time at Mrs. Bland’s; he walked miles on all the trails leading out of the valley; he had a care for the condition of his two horses.

Upon his return from the latest of these tramps Euchre suggested that they go down to the river to the boat-landing.

“Ferry couldn’t run ashore this mornin’,” said Euchre. “River gettin’ low an’ sand-bars makin’ it hard fer hosses. There’s a greaser freight-wagon stuck in the mud. I reckon we might hear news from the freighters. Bland’s supposed to be in Mexico.”

Nearly all the outlaws in camp were assembled on the riverbank, lolling in the shade of the cottonwoods. The heat was oppressive. Not an outlaw offered to help the freighters, who were trying to dig a heavily freighted wagon out of the quicksand. Few outlaws would work for themselves, let alone for the despised Mexicans.

Duane and Euchre joined the lazy group and sat down with them. Euchre lighted a black pipe, and, drawing his hat over his eyes, lay back in comfort after the manner of the majority of the outlaws. But Duane was alert, observing, thoughtful. He never missed anything. It was his belief that any moment an idle word might be of benefit to him. Moreover, these rough men were always interesting.

“Bland’s been chased across the river,” said one.

“New, he’s deliverin’ cattle to thet Cuban ship,” replied another.

“Big deal on, hey?”

“Some big. Rugg says the boss hed an order fer fifteen thousand.”

“Say, that order’ll take a year to fill.”

“New. Hardin is in cahoots with Bland. Between ’em they’ll fill orders bigger ‘n thet.”

“Wondered what Hardin was rustlin’ in here fer.”

Duane could not possibly attend to all the conversation among the outlaws. He endeavored to get the drift of talk nearest to him.

“Kid Fuller’s goin’ to cash,” said a sandy-whiskered little outlaw.

“So Jim was tellin’ me. Blood-poison, ain’t it? Thet hole wasn’t bad. But he took the fever,” rejoined a comrade.

“Deger says the Kid might pull through if he hed nursin’.”

“Wal, Kate Bland ain’t nursin’ any shot-up boys these days. She hasn’t got time.”

A laugh followed this sally; then came a penetrating silence. Some of the outlaws glanced good-naturedly at Duane. They bore him no ill will. Manifestly they were aware of Mrs. Bland’s infatuation.

“Pete, ‘pears to me you’ve said thet before.”

“Shore. Wal, it’s happened before.”

This remark drew louder laughter and more significant glances at Duane. He did not choose to ignore them any longer.

“Boys, poke all the fun you like at me, but don’t mention any lady’s name again. My hand is nervous and itchy these days.”

He smiled as he spoke, and his speech was drawled; but the good humor in no wise weakened it. Then his latter remark was significant to a class of men who from inclination and necessity practiced at gun-drawing until they wore callous and sore places on their thumbs and inculcated in the very deeps of their nervous organization a habit that made even the simplest and most innocent motion of the hand end at or near the hip. There was something remarkable about a gun-fighter’s hand. It never seemed to be gloved, never to be injured, never out of sight or in an awkward position.

There were grizzled outlaws in that group, some of whom had many notches on their gun-handles, and they, with their comrades, accorded Duane silence that carried conviction of the regard in which he was held.

Duane could not recall any other instance where he had let fall a familiar speech to these men, and certainly he had never before hinted of his possibilities. He saw instantly that he could not have done better.

“Orful hot, ain’t it?” remarked Bill Black, presently. Bill could not keep quiet for long. He was a typical Texas desperado, had never been anything else. He was stoop-shouldered and bow-legged from much riding; a wiry little man, all muscle, with a square head, a hard face partly black from scrubby beard and red from sun, and a bright, roving, cruel eye. His shirt was open at the neck, showing a grizzled breast.

“Is there any guy in this heah outfit sport enough to go swimmin’?” he asked.

“My Gawd, Bill, you ain’t agoin’ to wash!” exclaimed a comrade.

This raised a laugh in which Black joined. But no one seemed eager to join him in a bath.

“Laziest outfit I ever rustled with,” went on Bill, discontentedly. “Nuthin’ to do! Say, if nobody wants to swim maybe some of you’ll gamble?”

He produced a dirty pack of cards and waved them at the motionless crowd.

“Bill, you’re too good at cards,” replied a lanky outlaw.

“Now, Jasper, you say thet powerful sweet, an’ you look sweet, er I might take it to heart,” replied Black, with a sudden change of tone.

Here it was again — that upflashing passion. What Jasper saw fit to reply would mollify the outlaw or it would not. There was an even balance.

“No offense, Bill,” said Jasper, placidly, without moving.

Bill grunted and forgot Jasper. But he seemed restless and dissatisfied. Duane knew him to be an inveterate gambler. And as Benson’s place was out of running-order, Black was like a fish on dry land.

“Wal, if you-all are afraid of the cairds, what will you bet on?” he asked, in disgust.

“Bill, I’ll play you a game of mumbly peg fer two bits.” replied one.

Black eagerly accepted. Betting to him was a serious matter. The game obsessed him, not the stakes. He entered into the mumbly peg contest with a thoughtful mien and a corded brow. He won. Other comrades tried their luck with him and lost. Finally, when Bill had exhausted their supply of two-bit pieces or their desire for that particular game, he offered to bet on anything.

“See thet turtle-dove there?” he said, pointing. “I’ll bet he’ll scare at one stone or he won’t. Five pesos he’ll fly or he won’t fly when some one chucks a stone. Who’ll take me up?”

That appeared to be more than the gambling spirit of several outlaws could withstand.

“Take thet. Easy money,” said one.

“Who’s goin’ to chuck the stone?” asked another.

“Anybody,” replied Bill.

“Wal, I’ll bet you I can scare him with one stone,” said the first outlaw.

“We’re in on thet, Jim to fire the darnick,” chimed in the others.

The money was put up, the stone thrown. The turtle-dove took flight, to the great joy of all the outlaws except Bill.

“I’ll bet you-all he’ll come back to thet tree inside of five minnits,” he offered, imperturbably.

Hereupon the outlaws did not show any laziness in their alacrity to cover Bill’s money as it lay on the grass. Somebody had a watch, and they all sat down, dividing attention between the timepiece and the tree. The minutes dragged by to the accompaniment of various jocular remarks anent a fool and his money. When four and three-quarter minutes had passed a turtle-dove alighted in the cottonwood. Then ensued an impressive silence while Bill calmly pocketed the fifty dollars.

“But it hadn’t the same dove!” exclaimed one outlaw, excitedly. “This ‘n’is smaller, dustier, not so purple.”

Bill eyed the speaker loftily.

“Wal, you’ll have to ketch the other one to prove thet. Sabe, pard? Now I’ll bet any gent heah the fifty I won thet I can scare thet dove with one stone.”

No one offered to take his wager.

“Wal, then, I’ll bet any of you even money thet you CAN’T scare him with one stone.”

Not proof against this chance, the outlaws made up a purse, in no wise disconcerted by Bill’s contemptuous allusions to their banding together. The stone was thrown. The dove did not fly. Thereafter, in regard to that bird, Bill was unable to coax or scorn his comrades into any kind of wager.

He tried them with a multiplicity of offers, and in vain. Then he appeared at a loss for some unusual and seductive wager. Presently a little ragged Mexican boy came along the river trail, a particularly starved and poor-looking little fellow. Bill called to him and gave him a handful of silver coins. Speechless, dazed, he went his way hugging the money.

“I’ll bet he drops some before he gits to the road,” declared Bill. “I’ll bet he runs. Hurry, you four-flush gamblers.”

Bill failed to interest any of his companions, and forthwith became sullen and silent. Strangely his good humor departed in spite of the fact that he had won considerable.

Duane, watching the disgruntled outlaw, marveled at him and wondered what was in his mind. These men were more variable than children, as unstable as water, as dangerous as dynamite.

“Bill, I’ll bet you ten you can’t spill whatever’s in the bucket thet peon’s packin’,” said the outlaw called Jim.

Black’s head came up with the action of a hawk about to swoop.

Duane glanced from Black to the road, where he saw a crippled peon carrying a tin bucket toward the river. This peon was a half-witted Indian who lived in a shack and did odd jobs for the Mexicans. Duane had met him often.

“Jim, I’ll take you up,” replied Black.

Something, perhaps a harshness in his voice, caused Duane to whirl. He caught a leaping gleam in the outlaw’s eye.

“Aw, Bill, thet’s too fur a shot,” said Jasper, as Black rested an elbow on his knee and sighted over the long, heavy Colt. The distance to the peon was about fifty paces, too far for even the most expert shot to hit a moving object so small as a bucket.

Duane, marvelously keen in the alignment of sights, was positive that Black held too high. Another look at the hard face, now tense and dark with blood, confirmed Duane’s suspicion that the outlaw was not aiming at the bucket at all. Duane leaped and struck the leveled gun out of his hand. Another outlaw picked it up.

Black fell back astounded. Deprived of his weapon, he did not seem the same man, or else he was cowed by Duane’s significant and formidable front. Sullenly he turned away without even asking for his gun.

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT A CONTRAST, Duane thought, the evening of that day presented to the state of his soul!

The sunset lingered in golden glory over the distant Mexican mountains; twilight came slowly; a faint breeze blew from the river cool and sweet; the late cooing of a dove and the tinkle of a cowbell were the only sounds; a serene and tranquil peace lay over the valley.

Inside Duane’s body there was strife. This third facing of a desperate man had thrown him off his balance. It had not been fatal, but it threatened so much. The better side of his nature seemed to urge him to die rather than to go on fighting or opposing ignorant, unfortunate, savage men. But the perversity of him was so great that it dwarfed reason, conscience. He could not resist it. He felt something dying in him. He suffered. Hope seemed far away. Despair had seized upon him and was driving him into a reckless mood when he thought of Jennie.

He had forgotten her. He had forgotten that he had promised to save her. He had forgotten that he meant to snuff out as many lives as might stand between her and freedom. The very remembrance sheered off his morbid introspection. She made a difference. How strange for him to realize that! He felt grateful to her. He had been forced into outlawry; she had been stolen from her people and carried into captivity. They had met in the river fastness, he to instil hope into her despairing life, she to be the means, perhaps, of keeping him from sinking to the level of her captors. He became conscious of a strong and beating desire to see her, talk with her.

These thoughts had run through his mind while on his way to Mrs. Bland’s house. He had let Euchre go on ahead because he wanted more time to compose himself. Darkness had about set in when he reached his destination. There was no light in the house. Mrs. Bland was waiting for him on the porch.

She embraced him, and the sudden, violent, unfamiliar contact sent such a shock through him that he all but forgot the deep game he was playing. She, however, in her agitation did not notice his shrinking. From her embrace and the tender, incoherent words that flowed with it he gathered that Euchre had acquainted her of his action with Black.

“He might have killed you,” she whispered, more clearly; and if Duane had ever heard love in a voice he heard it then. It softened him. After all, she was a woman, weak, fated through her nature, unfortunate in her experience of life, doomed to unhappiness and tragedy. He met her advance so far that he returned the embrace and kissed her. Emotion such as she showed would have made any woman sweet, and she had a certain charm. It was easy, even pleasant, to kiss her; but Duane resolved that, whatever her abandonment might become, he would not go further than the lie she made him act.

“Buck, you love me?” she whispered.

“Yes — yes,” he burst out, eager to get it over, and even as he spoke he caught the pale gleam of Jennie’s face through the window. He felt a shame he was glad she could not see. Did she remember that she had promised not to misunderstand any action of his? What did she think of him, seeing him out there in the dusk with this bold woman in his arms? Somehow that dim sight of Jennie’s pale face, the big dark eyes, thrilled him, inspired him to his hard task of the present.

“Listen, dear,” he said to the woman, and he meant his words for the girl. “I’m going to take you away from this outlaw den if I have to kill Bland, Alloway, Rugg — anybody who stands in my path. You were dragged here. You are good — I know it. There’s happiness for you somewhere — a home among good people who will care for you. Just wait till—”

His voice trailed off and failed from excess of emotion. Kate Bland closed her eyes and leaned her head on his breast. Duane felt her heart beat against his, and conscience smote him a keen blow. If she loved him so much! But memory and understanding of her character hardened him again, and he gave her such commiseration as was due her sex, and no more.

“Boy, that’s good of you,” she whispered, “but it’s too late. I’m done for. I can’t leave Bland. All I ask is that you love me a little and stop your gun-throwing.”

The moon had risen over the eastern bulge of dark mountain, and now the valley was flooded with mellow light, and shadows of cottonwoods wavered against the silver.

Suddenly the clip-clop, clip-clop of hoofs caused Duane to raise his head and listen. Horses were coming down the road from the head of the valley. The hour was unusual for riders to come in. Presently the narrow, moonlit lane was crossed at its far end by black moving objects. Two horses Duane discerned.

“It’s Bland!” whispered the woman, grasping Duane with shaking hands. “You must run! No, he’d see you. That ‘d be worse. It’s Bland! I know his horse’s trot.”

“But you said he wouldn’t mind my calling here,” protested Duane. “Euchre’s with me. It’ll be all right.”

“Maybe so,” she replied, with visible effort at self-control. Manifestly she had a great fear of Bland. “If I could only think!”

Then she dragged Duane to the door, pushed him in.

“Euchre, come out with me! Duane, you stay with the girl! I’ll tell Bland you’re in love with her. Jen, if you give us away I’ll wring your neck.”

The swift action and fierce whisper told Duane that Mrs. Bland was herself again. Duane stepped close to Jennie, who stood near the window. Neither spoke, but her hands were outstretched to meet his own. They were small, trembling hands, cold as ice. He held them close, trying to convey what he felt — that he would protect her. She leaned against him, and they looked out of the window. Duane felt calm and sure of himself. His most pronounced feeling besides that for the frightened girl was a curiosity as to how Mrs. Bland would rise to the occasion. He saw the riders dismount down the lane and wearily come forward. A boy led away the horses. Euchre, the old fox, was talking loud and with remarkable ease, considering what he claimed was his natural cowardice.

“ — that was way back in the sixties, about the time of the war,” he was saying. “Rustlin’ cattle wasn’t nuthin’ then to what it is now. An’ times is rougher these days. This gun-throwin’ has come to be a disease. Men have an itch for the draw same as they used to have fer poker. The only real gambler outside of greasers we ever had here was Bill, an’ I presume Bill is burnin’ now.”

The approaching outlaws, hearing voices, halted a rod or so from the porch. Then Mrs. Bland uttered an exclamation, ostensibly meant to express surprise, and hurried out to meet them. She greeted her husband warmly and gave welcome to the other man. Duane could not see well enough in the shadow to recognize Bland’s companion, but he believed it was Alloway.

“Dog-tired we are and starved,” said Bland, heavily. “Who’s here with you?”

“That’s Euchre on the porch. Duane is inside at the window with Jen,” replied Mrs. Bland.

“Duane!” he exclaimed. Then he whispered low — something Duane could not catch.

“Why, I asked him to come,” said the chief’s wife. She spoke easily and naturally and made no change in tone. “Jen has been ailing. She gets thinner and whiter every day. Duane came here one day with Euchre, saw Jen, and went loony over her pretty face, same as all you men. So I let him come.”

Bland cursed low and deep under his breath. The other man made a violent action of some kind and apparently was quieted by a restraining hand.

“Kate, you let Duane make love to Jennie?” queried Bland, incredulously.

“Yes, I did,” replied the wife, stubbornly. “Why not? Jen’s in love with him. If he takes her away and marries her she can be a decent woman.”

Bland kept silent a moment, then his laugh pealed out loud and harsh.

“Chess, did you get that? Well, by God! what do you think of my wife?”

“She’s lyin’ or she’s crazy,” replied Alloway, and his voice carried an unpleasant ring.

Mrs. Bland promptly and indignantly told her husband’s lieutenant to keep his mouth shut.

“Ho, ho, ho!” rolled out Bland’s laugh.

Then he led the way to the porch, his spurs clinking, the weapons he was carrying rattling, and he flopped down on a bench.

“How are you, boss?” asked Euchre.

“Hello, old man. I’m well, but all in.”

Alloway slowly walked on to the porch and leaned against the rail. He answered Euchre’s greeting with a nod. Then he stood there a dark, silent figure.

Mrs. Bland’s full voice in eager questioning had a tendency to ease the situation. Bland replied briefly to her, reporting a remarkably successful trip.

Duane thought it time to show himself. He had a feeling that Bland and Alloway would let him go for the moment. They were plainly non-plussed, and Alloway seemed sullen, brooding. “Jennie,” whispered Duane, “that was clever of Mrs. Bland. We’ll keep up the deception. Any day now be ready!”

She pressed close to him, and a barely audible “Hurry!” came breathing into his ear.

“Good night, Jennie,” he said, aloud. “Hope you feel better to-morrow.”

Then he stepped out into the moonlight and spoke. Bland returned the greeting, and, though he was not amiable, he did not show resentment.

“Met Jasper as I rode in,” said Bland, presently. “He told me you made Bill Black mad, and there’s liable to be a fight. What did you go off the handle about?”

Duane explained the incident. “I’m sorry I happened to be there,” he went on. “It wasn’t my business.”

“Scurvy trick that ‘d been,” muttered Bland. “You did right. All the same, Duane, I want you to stop quarreling with my men. If you were one of us — that’d be different. I can’t keep my men from fighting. But I’m not called on to let an outsider hang around my camp and plug my rustlers.”

“I guess I’ll have to be hitting the trail for somewhere,” said Duane.

“Why not join my band? You’ve got a bad start already, Duane, and if I know this border you’ll never be a respectable citizen again. You’re a born killer. I know every bad man on this frontier. More than one of them have told me that something exploded in their brain, and when sense came back there lay another dead man. It’s not so with me. I’ve done a little shooting, too, but I never wanted to kill another man just to rid myself of the last one. My dead men don’t sit on my chest at night. That’s the gun-fighter’s trouble. He’s crazy. He has to kill a new man — he’s driven to it to forget the last one.”

“But I’m no gun-fighter,” protested Duane. “Circumstances made me—”

“No doubt,” interrupted Bland, with a laugh. “Circumstances made me a rustler. You don’t know yourself. You’re young; you’ve got a temper; your father was one of the most dangerous men Texas ever had. I don’t see any other career for you. Instead of going it alone — a lone wolf, as the Texans say — why not make friends with other outlaws? You’ll live longer.”

Euchre squirmed in his seat.

“Boss, I’ve been givin’ the boy egzactly thet same line of talk. Thet’s why I took him in to bunk with me. If he makes pards among us there won’t be any more trouble. An’ he’d be a grand feller fer the gang. I’ve seen Wild Bill Hickok throw a gun, an’ Billy the Kid, an’ Hardin, an’ Chess here — all the fastest men on the border. An’ with apologies to present company, I’m here to say Duane has them all skinned. His draw is different. You can’t see how he does it.”

Euchre’s admiring praise served to create an effective little silence. Alloway shifted uneasily on his feet, his spurs jangling faintly, and did not lift his head. Bland seemed thoughtful.

“That’s about the only qualification I have to make me eligible for your band,” said Duane, easily.

“It’s good enough,” replied Bland, shortly. “Will you consider the idea?”

“I’ll think it over. Good night.”

He left the group, followed by Euchre. When they reached the end of the lane, and before they had exchanged a word, Bland called Euchre back. Duane proceeded slowly along the moonlit road to the cabin and sat down under the cottonwoods to wait for Euchre. The night was intense and quiet, a low hum of insects giving the effect of a congestion of life. The beauty of the soaring moon, the ebony canons of shadow under the mountain, the melancholy serenity of the perfect night, made Duane shudder in the realization of how far aloof he now was from enjoyment of these things. Never again so long as he lived could he be natural. His mind was clouded. His eye and ear henceforth must register impressions of nature, but the joy of them had fled.

Still, as he sat there with a foreboding of more and darker work ahead of him there was yet a strange sweetness left to him, and it lay in thought of Jennie. The pressure of her cold little hands lingered in his. He did not think of her as a woman, and he did not analyze his feelings. He just had vague, dreamy thoughts and imaginations that were interspersed in the constant and stern revolving of plans to save her.

A shuffling step roused him. Euchre’s dark figure came crossing the moonlit grass under the cottonwoods. The moment the outlaw reached him Duane saw that he was laboring under great excitement. It scarcely affected Duane. He seemed to be acquiring patience, calmness, strength.

“Bland kept you pretty long,” he said.

“Wait till I git my breath,” replied Euchre. He sat silent a little while, fanning himself with a sombrero, though the night was cool, and then he went into the cabin to return presently with a lighted pipe.

“Fine night,” he said; and his tone further acquainted Duane with Euchre’s quaint humor. “Fine night for love-affairs, by gum!”

“I’d noticed that,” rejoined Duane, dryly.

“Wal, I’m a son of a gun if I didn’t stand an’ watch Bland choke his wife till her tongue stuck out an’ she got black in the face.”

“No!” ejaculated Duane.

“Hope to die if I didn’t. Buck, listen to this here yarn. When I got back to the porch I seen Bland was wakin’ up. He’d been too fagged out to figger much. Alloway an’ Kate had gone in the house, where they lit up the lamps. I heard Kate’s high voice, but Alloway never chirped. He’s not the talkin’ kind, an’ he’s damn dangerous when he’s thet way. Bland asked me some questions right from the shoulder. I was ready for them, an’ I swore the moon was green cheese. He was satisfied. Bland always trusted me, an’ liked me, too, I reckon. I hated to lie black thet way. But he’s a hard man with bad intentions toward Jennie, an’ I’d double-cross him any day.

“Then we went into the house. Jennie had gone to her little room, an’ Bland called her to come out. She said she was undressin’. An’ he ordered her to put her clothes back on. Then, Buck, his next move was some surprisin’. He deliberately thronged a gun on Kate. Yes sir, he pointed his big blue Colt right at her, an’ he says:

“‘I’ve a mind to blow out your brains.’

“‘Go ahead,’ says Kate, cool as could be.

“‘You lied to me,’ he roars.

“Kate laughed in his face. Bland slammed the gun down an’ made a grab fer her. She fought him, but wasn’t a match fer him, an’ he got her by the throat. He choked her till I thought she was strangled. Alloway made him stop. She flopped down on the bed an’ gasped fer a while. When she come to them hardshelled cusses went after her, trying to make her give herself away. I think Bland was jealous. He suspected she’d got thick with you an’ was foolin’ him. I reckon thet’s a sore feelin’ fer a man to have — to guess pretty nice, but not to BE sure. Bland gave it up after a while. An’ then he cussed an’ raved at her. One sayin’ of his is worth pinnin’ in your sombrero: ‘It ain’t nuthin’ to kill a man. I don’t need much fer thet. But I want to KNOW, you hussy!’

“Then he went in an’ dragged poor Jen out. She’d had time to dress. He was so mad he hurt her sore leg. You know Jen got thet injury fightin’ off one of them devils in the dark. An’ when I seen Bland twist her — hurt her — I had a queer hot feelin’ deep down in me, an’ fer the only time in my life I wished I was a gun-fighter.

“Wal, Jen amazed me. She was whiter’n a sheet, an’ her eyes were big and stary, but she had nerve. Fust time I ever seen her show any.

“‘Jennie,’ he said, ‘my wife said Duane came here to see you. I believe she’s lyin’. I think she’s been carryin’ on with him, an’ I want to KNOW. If she’s been an’ you tell me the truth I’ll let you go. I’ll send you out to Huntsville, where you can communicate with your friends. I’ll give you money.’

“Thet must hev been a hell of a minnit fer Kate Bland. If evet I seen death in a man’s eye I seen it in Bland’s. He loves her. Thet’s the strange part of it.

“‘Has Duane been comin’ here to see my wife?’ Bland asked, fierce-like.

“‘No,’ said Jennie.

“‘He’s been after you?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘He has fallen in love with you? Kate said thet.’

“‘I — I’m not — I don’t know — he hasn’t told me.’

“‘But you’re in love with him?’

“‘Yes,’ she said; an’, Buck, if you only could have seen her! She thronged up her head, an’ her eyes were full of fire. Bland seemed dazed at sight of her. An’ Alloway, why, thet little skunk of an outlaw cried right out. He was hit plumb center. He’s in love with Jen. An’ the look of her then was enough to make any feller quit. He jest slunk out of the room. I told you, mebbe, thet he’d been tryin’ to git Bland to marry Jen to him. So even a tough like Alloway can love a woman!

“Bland stamped up an’ down the room. He sure was dyin’ hard.

“‘Jennie,’ he said, once more turnin’ to her. ‘You swear in fear of your life thet you’re tellin’ truth. Kate’s not in love with Duane? She’s let him come to see you? There’s been nuthin’ between them?’

“‘No. I swear,’ answered Jennie; an’ Bland sat down like a man licked.

“‘Go to bed, you white-faced—’ Bland choked on some word or other — a bad one, I reckon — an’ he positively shook in his chair.

“Jennie went then, an’ Kate began to have hysterics. An’ your Uncle Euchre ducked his nut out of the door an’ come home.”

Duane did not have a word to say at the end of Euchre’s long harangue. He experienced relief. As a matter of fact, he had expected a good deal worse. He thrilled at the thought of Jennie perjuring herself to save that abandoned woman. What mysteries these feminine creatures were!

“Wal, there’s where our little deal stands now,” resumed Euchre, meditatively. “You know, Buck, as well as me thet if you’d been some feller who hadn’t shown he was a wonder with a gun you’d now be full of lead. If you’d happen to kill Bland an’ Alloway, I reckon you’d be as safe on this here border as you would in Santone. Such is gun fame in this land of the draw.”

CHAPTER IX

BOTH MEN WERE awake early, silent with the premonition of trouble ahead, thoughtful of the fact that the time for the long-planned action was at hand. It was remarkable that a man as loquacious as Euchre could hold his tongue so long; and this was significant of the deadly nature of the intended deed. During breakfast he said a few words customary in the service of food. At the conclusion of the meal he seemed to come to an end of deliberation.

“Buck, the sooner the better now,” he declared, with a glint in his eye. “The more time we use up now the less surprised Bland’ll be.”

“I’m ready when you are,” replied Duane, quietly, and he rose from the table.

“Wal, saddle up, then,” went on Euchre, gruffly. “Tie on them two packs I made, one fer each saddle. You can’t tell — mebbe either hoss will be carryin’ double. It’s good they’re both big, strong hosses. Guess thet wasn’t a wise move of your Uncle Euchre’s — bringin’ in your hosses an’ havin’ them ready?”

“Euchre, I hope you’re not going to get in bad here. I’m afraid you are. Let me do the rest now,” said Duane.

The old outlaw eyed him sarcastically.

“Thet ‘d be turrible now, wouldn’t it? If you want to know, why, I’m in bad already. I didn’t tell you thet Alloway called me last night. He’s gettin’ wise pretty quick.”

“Euchre, you’re going with me?” queried Duane, suddenly divining the truth.

“Wal, I reckon. Either to hell or safe over the mountain! I wisht I was a gun-fighter. I hate to leave here without takin’ a peg at Jackrabbit Benson. Now, Buck, you do some hard figgerin’ while I go nosin’ round. It’s pretty early, which ‘s all the better.”

Euchre put on his sombrero, and as he went out Duane saw that he wore a gun-and-cartridge belt. It was the first time Duane had ever seen the outlaw armed.

Duane packed his few belongings into his saddlebags, and then carried the saddles out to the corral. An abundance of alfalfa in the corral showed that the horses had fared well. They had gotten almost fat during his stay in the valley. He watered them, put on the saddles loosely cinched, and then the bridles. His next move was to fill the two canvas water-bottles. That done, he returned to the cabin to wait.

At the moment he felt no excitement or agitation of any kind. There was no more thinking and planning to do. The hour had arrived, and he was ready. He understood perfectly the desperate chances he must take. His thoughts became confined to Euchre and the surprising loyalty and goodness in the hardened old outlaw. Time passed slowly. Duane kept glancing at his watch. He hoped to start the thing and get away before the outlaws were out of their beds. Finally he heard the shuffle of Euchre’s boots on the hard path. The sound was quicker than usual.

When Euchre came around the corner of the cabin Duane was not so astounded as he was concerned to see the outlaw white and shaking. Sweat dripped from him. He had a wild look.

“Luck ours — so-fur, Buck!” he panted.

“You don’t look it,” replied Duane.

“I’m turrible sick. Jest killed a man. Fust one I ever killed!”

“Who?” asked Duane, startled.

“Jackrabbit Benson. An’ sick as I am, I’m gloryin’ in it. I went nosin’ round up the road. Saw Alloway goin’ into Deger’s. He’s thick with the Degers. Reckon he’s askin’ questions. Anyway, I was sure glad to see him away from Bland’s. An’ he didn’t see me. When I dropped into Benson’s there wasn’t nobody there but Jackrabbit an’ some greasers he was startin’ to work. Benson never had no use fer me. An’ he up an’ said he wouldn’t give a two-bit piece fer my life. I asked him why.

“‘You’re double-crossin’ the boss an’ Chess,’ he said.

“‘Jack, what ‘d you give fer your own life?’ I asked him.

“He straightened up surprised an’ mean-lookin’. An’ I let him have it, plumb center! He wilted, an’ the greasers run. I reckon I’ll never sleep again. But I had to do it.”

Duane asked if the shot had attracted any attention outside.

“I didn’t see anybody but the greasers, an’ I sure looked sharp. Comin’ back I cut across through the cottonwoods past Bland’s cabin. I meant to keep out of sight, but somehow I had an idee I might find out if Bland was awake yet. Sure enough I run plumb into Beppo, the boy who tends Bland’s hosses. Beppo likes me. An’ when I inquired of his boss he said Bland had been up all night fightin’ with the Senora. An’, Buck, here’s how I figger. Bland couldn’t let up last night. He was sore, an’ he went after Kate again, tryin’ to wear her down. Jest as likely he might have went after Jennie, with wuss intentions. Anyway, he an’ Kate must have had it hot an’ heavy. We’re pretty lucky.”

“It seems so. Well, I’m going,” said Duane, tersely.

“Lucky! I should smiler Bland’s been up all night after a most draggin’ ride home. He’ll be fagged out this mornin’, sleepy, sore, an’ he won’t be expectin’ hell before breakfast. Now, you walk over to his house. Meet him how you like. Thet’s your game. But I’m suggestin’, if he comes out an’ you want to parley, you can jest say you’d thought over his proposition an’ was ready to join his band, or you ain’t. You’ll have to kill him, an’ it ‘d save time to go fer your gun on sight. Might be wise, too, fer it’s likely he’ll do thet same.”

“How about the horses?”

“I’ll fetch them an’ come along about two minnits behind you. ‘Pears to me you ought to have the job done an’ Jennie outside by the time I git there. Once on them hosses, we can ride out of camp before Alloway or anybody else gits into action. Jennie ain’t much heavier than a rabbit. Thet big black will carry you both.”

“All right. But once more let me persuade you to stay — not to mix any more in this,” said Duane, earnestly.

“Nope. I’m goin’. You heard what Benson told me. Alloway wouldn’t give me the benefit of any doubts. Buck, a last word — look out fer thet Bland woman!”

Duane merely nodded, and then, saying that the horses were ready, he strode away through the grove. Accounting for the short cut across grove and field, it was about five minutes’ walk up to Bland’s house. To Duane it seemed long in time and distance, and he had difficulty in restraining his pace. As he walked there came a gradual and subtle change in his feelings. Again he was going out to meet a man in conflict. He could have avoided this meeting. But despite the fact of his courting the encounter he had not as yet felt that hot, inexplicable rush of blood. The motive of this deadly action was not personal, and somehow that made a difference.

No outlaws were in sight. He saw several Mexican herders with cattle. Blue columns of smoke curled up over some of the cabins. The fragrant smell of it reminded Duane of his home and cutting wood for the stove. He noted a cloud of creamy mist rising above the river, dissolving in the sunlight.

Then he entered Bland’s lane.

While yet some distance from the cabin he heard loud, angry voices of man and woman. Bland and Kate still quarreling! He took a quick survey of the surroundings. There was now not even a Mexican in sight. Then he hurried a little. Halfway down the lane he turned his head to peer through the cottonwoods. This time he saw Euchre coming with the horses. There was no indication that the old outlaw might lose his nerve at the end. Duane had feared this.

Duane now changed his walk to a leisurely saunter. He reached the porch and then distinguished what was said inside the cabin.

“If you do, Bland, by Heaven I’ll fix you and her!” That was panted out in Kate Bland’s full voice.

“Let me looser I’m going in there, I tell you!” replied Bland, hoarsely.

“What for?”

“I want to make a little love to her. Ha! ha! It’ll be fun to have the laugh on her new lover.”

“You lie!” cried Kate Bland.

“I’m not saying what I’ll do to her AFTERWARD!” His voice grew hoarser with passion. “Let me go now!”

“No! no! I won’t let you go. You’ll choke the — the truth out of her — you’ll kill her.”

“The TRUTH!” hissed Bland.

“Yes. I lied. Jen lied. But she lied to save me. You needn’t — murder her — for that.”

Bland cursed horribly. Then followed a wrestling sound of bodies in violent straining contact — the scrape of feet — the jangle of spurs — a crash of sliding table or chair, and then the cry of a woman in pain.

Duane stepped into the open door, inside the room. Kate Bland lay half across a table where she had been flung, and she was trying to get to her feet. Bland’s back was turned. He had opened the door into Jennie’s room and had one foot across the threshold. Duane caught the girl’s low, shuddering cry. Then he called out loud and clear.

With cat-like swiftness Bland wheeled, then froze on the threshold. His sight, quick as his action, caught Duane’s menacing unmistakable position.

Bland’s big frame filled the door. He was in a bad place to reach for his gun. But he would not have time for a step. Duane read in his eyes the desperate calculation of chances. For a fleeting instant Bland shifted his glance to his wife. Then his whole body seemed to vibrate with the swing of his arm.

Duane shot him. He fell forward, his gun exploding as it hit into the floor, and dropped loose from stretching fingers. Duane stood over him, stooped to turn him on his back. Bland looked up with clouded gaze, then gasped his last.

“Duane, you’ve killed him!” cried Kate Bland, huskily. “I knew you’d have to!”

She staggered against the wall, her eyes dilating, her strong hands clenching, her face slowly whitening. She appeared shocked, half stunned, but showed no grief.

“Jennie!” called Duane, sharply.

“Oh — Duane!” came a halting reply.

“Yes. Come out. Hurry!”

She came out with uneven steps, seeing only him, and she stumbled over Bland’s body. Duane caught her arm, swung her behind him. He feared the woman when she realized how she had been duped. His action was protective, and his movement toward the door equally as significant.

“Duane,” cried Mrs. Bland.

It was no time for talk. Duane edged on, keeping Jennie behind him. At that moment there was a pounding of iron-shod hoofs out in the lane. Kate Bland bounded to the door. When she turned back her amazement was changing to realization.

“Where ‘re you taking Jen?” she cried, her voice like a man’s. “Get out of my way,” replied Duane. His look perhaps, without speech, was enough for her. In an instant she was transformed into a fury.

“You hound! All the time you were fooling me! You made love to me! You let me believe — you swore you loved me! Now I see what was queer about you. All for that girl! But you can’t have her. You’ll never leave here alive. Give me that girl! Let me — get at her! She’ll never win any more men in this camp.”

She was a powerful woman, and it took all Duane’s strength to ward off her onslaughts. She clawed at Jennie over his upheld arm. Every second her fury increased.

“HELP! HELP! HELP!” she shrieked, in a voice that must have penetrated to the remotest cabin in the valley.

“Let go! Let go!” cried Duane, low and sharp. He still held his gun in his right hand, and it began to be hard for him to ward the woman off. His coolness had gone with her shriek for help. “Let go!” he repeated, and he shoved her fiercely.

Suddenly she snatched a rifle off the wall and backed away, her strong hands fumbling at the lever. As she jerked it down, throwing a shell into the chamber and cocking the weapon, Duane leaped upon her. He struck up the rifle as it went off, the powder burning his face.

“Jennie, run out! Get on a horse!” he said.

Jennie flashed out of the door.

With an iron grasp Duane held to the rifle-barrel. He had grasped it with his left hand, and he gave such a pull that he swung the crazed woman off the floor. But he could not loose her grip. She was as strong as he.

“Kate! Let go!”

He tried to intimidate her. She did not see his gun thrust in her face, or reason had given way to such an extent to passion that she did not care. She cursed. Her husband had used the same curses, and from her lips they seemed strange, unsexed, more deadly. Like a tigress she fought him; her face no longer resembled a woman’s. The evil of that outlaw life, the wildness and rage, the meaning to kill, was even in such a moment terribly impressed upon Duane.

He heard a cry from outside — a man’s cry, hoarse and alarming.

It made him think of loss of time. This demon of a woman might yet block his plan.

“Let go!” he whispered, and felt his lips stiff. In the grimness of that instant he relaxed his hold on the rifle-barrel.

With sudden, redoubled, irresistible strength she wrenched the rifle down and discharged it. Duane felt a blow — a shock — a burning agony tearing through his breast. Then in a frenzy he jerked so powerfully upon the rifle that he threw the woman against the wall. She fell and seemed stunned.

Duane leaped back, whirled, flew out of the door to the porch. The sharp cracking of a gun halted him. He saw Jennie holding to the bridle of his bay horse. Euchre was astride the other, and he had a Colt leveled, and he was firing down the lane. Then came a single shot, heavier, and Euchre’s ceased. He fell from the horse.

A swift glance back showed to Duane a man coming down the lane. Chess Alloway! His gun was smoking. He broke into a run. Then in an instant he saw Duane, and tried to check his pace as he swung up his arm. But that slight pause was fatal. Duane shot, and Alloway was falling when his gun went off. His bullet whistled close to Duane and thudded into the cabin.

Duane bounded down to the horses. Jennie was trying to hold the plunging bay. Euchre lay flat on his back, dead, a bullet-hole in his shirt, his face set hard, and his hands twisted round gun and bridle.

“Jennie, you’ve nerve, all right!” cried Duane, as he dragged down the horse she was holding. “Up with you now! There! Never mind — long stirrups! Hang on somehow!”

He caught his bridle out of Euchre’s clutching grip and leaped astride. The frightened horses jumped into a run and thundered down the lane into the road. Duane saw men running from cabins. He heard shouts. But there were no shots fired. Jennie seemed able to stay on her horse, but without stirrups she was thrown about so much that Duane rode closer and reached out to grasp her arm.

Thus they rode through the valley to the trail that led up over, the steep and broken Rim Rock. As they began to climb Duane looked back. No pursuers were in sight.

“Jennie, we’re going to get away!” he cried, exultation for her in his voice.

She was gazing horror-stricken at his breast, as in turning to look back he faced her.

“Oh, Duane, your shirt’s all bloody!” she faltered, pointing with trembling fingers.

With her words Duane became aware of two things — the hand he instinctively placed to his breast still held his gun, and he had sustained a terrible wound.

Duane had been shot through the breast far enough down to give him grave apprehension of his life. The clean-cut hole made by the bullet bled freely both at its entrance and where it had come out, but with no signs of hemorrhage. He did not bleed at the mouth; however, he began to cough up a reddish-tinged foam.

As they rode on, Jennie, with pale face and mute lips, looked at him.

“I’m badly hurt, Jennie,” he said, “but I guess I’ll stick it out.”

“The woman — did she shoot you?”

“Yes. She was a devil. Euchre told me to look out for her. I wasn’t quick enough.”

“You didn’t have to — to—” shivered the girl.

“No! no!” he replied.

They did not stop climbing while Duane tore a scarf and made compresses, which he bound tightly over his wounds. The fresh horses made fast time up the rough trail. From open places Duane looked down. When they surmounted the steep ascent and stood on top of the Rim Rock, with no signs of pursuit down in the valley, and with the wild, broken fastnesses before them, Duane turned to the girl and assured her that they now had every chance of escape.

“But — your — wound!” she faltered, with dark, troubled eyes. “I see — the blood — dripping from your back!”

“Jennie, I’ll take a lot of killing,” he said.

Then he became silent and attended to the uneven trail. He was aware presently that he had not come into Bland’s camp by this route. But that did not matter; any trail leading out beyond the Rim Rock was safe enough. What he wanted was to get far away into some wild retreat where he could hide till he recovered from his wound. He seemed to feel a fire inside his breast, and his throat burned so that it was necessary for him to take a swallow of water every little while. He began to suffer considerable pain, which increased as the hours went by and then gave way to a numbness. From that time on he had need of his great strength and endurance. Gradually he lost his steadiness and his keen sight; and he realized that if he were to meet foes, or if pursuing outlaws should come up with him, he could make only a poor stand. So he turned off on a trail that appeared seldom traveled.

Soon after this move he became conscious of a further thickening of his senses. He felt able to hold on to his saddle for a while longer, but he was failing. Then he thought he ought to advise Jennie, so in case she was left alone she would have some idea of what to do.

“Jennie, I’ll give out soon,” he said. “No-I don’t mean — what you think. But I’ll drop soon. My strength’s going. If I die — you ride back to the main trail. Hide and rest by day. Ride at night. That trail goes to water. I believe you could get across the Nueces, where some rancher will take you in.”

Duane could not get the meaning of her incoherent reply. He rode on, and soon he could not see the trail or hear his horse. He did not know whether they traveled a mile or many times that far. But he was conscious when the horse stopped, and had a vague sense of falling and feeling Jennie’s arms before all became dark to him.

When consciousness returned he found himself lying in a little hut of mesquite branches. It was well built and evidently some years old. There were two doors or openings, one in front and the other at the back. Duane imagined it had been built by a fugitive — one who meant to keep an eye both ways and not to be surprised. Duane felt weak and had no desire to move. Where was he, anyway? A strange, intangible sense of time, distance, of something far behind weighed upon him. Sight of the two packs Euchre had made brought his thought to Jennie. What had become of her? There was evidence of her work in a smoldering fire and a little blackened coffee-pot. Probably she was outside looking after the horses or getting water. He thought he heard a step and listened, but he felt tired, and presently his eyes closed and he fell into a doze.

Awakening from this, he saw Jennie sitting beside him. In some way she seemed to have changed. When he spoke she gave a start and turned eagerly to him.

“Duane!” she cried.

“Hello. How’re you, Jennie, and how am I?” he said, finding it a little difficult to talk.

“Oh, I’m all right,” she replied. “And you’ve come to — your wound’s healed; but you’ve been sick. Fever, I guess. I did all I could.”

Duane saw now that the difference in her was a whiteness and tightness of skin, a hollowness of eye, a look of strain.

“Fever? How long have we been here?” he asked.

She took some pebbles from the crown of his sombrero and counted them.

“Nine. Nine days,” she answered.

“Nine days!” he exclaimed, incredulously. But another look at her assured him that she meant what she said. “I’ve been sick all the time? You nursed me?”

“Yes.”

“Bland’s men didn’t come along here?”

“No.”

“Where are the horses?”

“I keep them grazing down in a gorge back of here. There’s good grass and water.”

“Have you slept any?”

“A little. Lately I couldn’t keep awake.”

“Good Lord! I should think not. You’ve had a time of it sitting here day and night nursing me, watching for the outlaws. Come, tell me all about it.”

“There’s nothing much to tell.”

“I want to know, anyway, just what you did — how you felt.”

“I can’t remember very well,” she replied, simply. “We must have ridden forty miles that day we got away. You bled all the time. Toward evening you lay on your horse’s neck. When we came to this place you fell out of the saddle. I dragged you in here and stopped your bleeding. I thought you’d die that night. But in the morning I had a little hope. I had forgotten the horses. But luckily they didn’t stray far. I caught them and kept them down in the gorge. When your wounds closed and you began to breathe stronger I thought you’d get well quick. It was fever that put you back. You raved a lot, and that worried me, because I couldn’t stop you. Anybody trailing us could have heard you a good ways. I don’t know whether I was scared most then or when you were quiet, and it was so dark and lonely and still all around. Every day I put a stone in your hat.”

“Jennie, you saved my life,” said Duane.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I did all I knew how to do,” she replied. “You saved mine — more than my life.”

Their eyes met in a long gaze, and then their hands in a close clasp.

“Jennie, we’re going to get away,” he said, with gladness. “I’ll be well in a few days. You don’t know how strong I am. We’ll hide by day and travel by night. I can get you across the river.”

“And then?” she asked.

“We’ll find some honest rancher.”

“And then?” she persisted.

“Why,” he began, slowly, “that’s as far as my thoughts ever got. It was pretty hard, I tell you, to assure myself of so much. It means your safety. You’ll tell your story. You’ll be sent to some village or town and taken care of until a relative or friend is notified.”

“And you?” she inquired, in a strange voice.

Duane kept silence.

“What will you do?” she went on.

“Jennie, I’ll go back to the brakes. I daren’t show my face among respectable people. I’m an outlaw.”

“You’re no criminal!” she declared, with deep passion.

“Jennie, on this border the little difference between an out law and a criminal doesn’t count for much.”

“You won’t go back among those terrible men? You, with your gentleness and sweetness — all that’s good about you? Oh, Duane, don’t — don’t go!”

“I can’t go back to the outlaws, at least not Bland’s band. No, I’ll go alone. I’ll lone-wolf it, as they say on the border. What else can I do, Jennie?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Couldn’t you hide? Couldn’t you slip out of Texas — go far away?”

“I could never get out of Texas without being arrested. I could hide, but a man must live. Never mind about me, Jennie.”

In three days Duane was able with great difficulty to mount his horse. During daylight, by short relays, he and Jennie rode back to the main trail, where they hid again till he had rested. Then in the dark they rode out of the canons and gullies of the Rim Rock, and early in the morning halted at the first water to camp.

From that point they traveled after nightfall and went into hiding during the day. Once across the Nueces River, Duane was assured of safety for her and great danger for himself. They had crossed into a country he did not know. Somewhere east of the river there were scattered ranches. But he was as liable to find the rancher in touch with the outlaws as he was likely to find him honest. Duane hoped his good fortune would not desert him in this last service to Jennie. Next to the worry of that was realization of his condition. He had gotten up too soon; he had ridden too far and hard, and now he felt that any moment he might fall from his saddle. At last, far ahead over a barren mesquite-dotted stretch of dusty ground, he espied a patch of green and a little flat, red ranch-house. He headed his horse for it and turned a face he tried to make cheerful for Jennie’s sake. She seemed both happy and sorry.

When near at hand he saw that the rancher was a thrifty farmer. And thrift spoke for honesty. There were fields of alfalfa, fruit-trees, corrals, windmill pumps, irrigation-ditches, all surrounding a neat little adobe house. Some children were playing in the yard. The way they ran at sight of Duane hinted of both the loneliness and the fear of their isolated lives. Duane saw a woman come to the door, then a man. The latter looked keenly, then stepped outside. He was a sandy-haired, freckled Texan.

“Howdy, stranger,” he called, as Duane halted. “Get down, you an’ your woman. Say, now, air you sick or shot or what? Let me—”

Duane, reeling in his saddle, bent searching eyes upon the rancher. He thought he saw good will, kindness, honesty. He risked all on that one sharp glance. Then he almost plunged from the saddle.

The rancher caught him, helped him to a bench.

“Martha, come out here!” he called. “This man’s sick. No; he’s shot, or I don’t know blood-stains.”

Jennie had slipped off her horse and to Duane’s side. Duane appeared about to faint.

“Air you his wife?” asked the rancher.

“No. I’m only a girl he saved from outlaws. Oh, he’s so paler Duane, Duane!”

“Buck Duane!” exclaimed the rancher, excitedly. “The man who killed Bland an’ Alloway? Say, I owe him a good turn, an’ I’ll pay it, young woman.”

The rancher’s wife came out, and with a manner at once kind and practical essayed to make Duane drink from a flask. He was not so far gone that he could not recognize its contents, which he refused, and weakly asked for water. When that was given him he found his voice.

“Yes, I’m Duane. I’ve only overdone myself — just all in. The wounds I got at Bland’s are healing. Will you take this girl in — hide her awhile till the excitement’s over among the outlaws?”

“I shore will,” replied the Texan.

“Thanks. I’ll remember you — I’ll square it.”

“What ‘re you goin’ to do?”

“I’ll rest a bit — then go back to the brakes.”

“Young man, you ain’t in any shape to travel. See here — any rustlers on your trail?”

“I think we gave Bland’s gang the slip.”

“Good. I’ll tell you what. I’ll take you in along with the girl, an’ hide both of you till you get well. It’ll be safe. My nearest neighbor is five miles off. We don’t have much company.”

“You risk a great deal. Both outlaws and rangers are hunting me,” said Duane.

“Never seen a ranger yet in these parts. An’ have always got along with outlaws, mebbe exceptin’ Bland. I tell you I owe you a good turn.”

“My horses might betray you,” added Duane.

“I’ll hide them in a place where there’s water an’ grass. Nobody goes to it. Come now, let me help you indoors.”

Duane’s last fading sensations of that hard day were the strange feel of a bed, a relief at the removal of his heavy boots, and of Jennie’s soft, cool hands on his hot face.

He lay ill for three weeks before he began to mend, and it was another week then before he could walk out a little in the dusk of the evenings. After that his strength returned rapidly. And it was only at the end of this long siege that he recovered his spirits. During most of his illness he had been silent, moody.

“Jennie, I’ll be riding off soon,” he said, one evening. “I can’t impose on this good man Andrews much longer. I’ll never forget his kindness. His wife, too — she’s been so good to us. Yes, Jennie, you and I will have to say good-by very soon.”

“Don’t hurry away,” she replied.

Lately Jennie had appeared strange to him. She had changed from the girl he used to see at Mrs. Bland’s house. He took her reluctance to say good-by as another indication of her regret that he must go back to the brakes. Yet somehow it made him observe her more closely. She wore a plain, white dress made from material Mrs. Andrews had given her. Sleep and good food had improved her. If she had been pretty out there in the outlaw den now she was more than that. But she had the same paleness, the same strained look, the same dark eyes full of haunting shadows. After Duane’s realization of the change in her he watched her more, with a growing certainty that he would be sorry not to see her again.

“It’s likely we won’t ever see each other again,” he said. “That’s strange to think of. We’ve been through some hard days, and I seem to have known you a long time.”

Jennie appeared shy, almost sad, so Duane changed the subject to something less personal.

Andrews returned one evening from a several days’ trip to Huntsville.

“Duane, everybody’s talkie’ about how you cleaned up the Bland outfit,” he said, important and full of news. “It’s some exaggerated, accordin’ to what you told me; but you’ve shore made friends on this side of the Nueces. I reckon there ain’t a town where you wouldn’t find people to welcome you. Huntsville, you know, is some divided in its ideas. Half the people are crooked. Likely enough, all them who was so loud in praise of you are the crookedest. For instance, I met King Fisher, the boss outlaw of these parts. Well, King thinks he’s a decent citizen. He was tellin’ me what a grand job yours was for the border an’ honest cattlemen. Now that Bland and Alloway are done for, King Fisher will find rustlin’ easier. There’s talk of Hardin movie’ his camp over to Bland’s. But I don’t know how true it is. I reckon there ain’t much to it. In the past when a big outlaw chief went under, his band almost always broke up an’ scattered. There’s no one left who could run thet outfit.”

“Did you hear of any outlaws hunting me?” asked Duane.

“Nobody from Bland’s outfit is huntin’ you, thet’s shore,” replied Andrews. “Fisher said there never was a hoss straddled to go on your trail. Nobody had any use for Bland. Anyhow, his men would be afraid to trail you. An’ you could go right in to Huntsville, where you’d be some popular. Reckon you’d be safe, too, except when some of them fool saloon loafers or bad cowpunchers would try to shoot you for the glory in it. Them kind of men will bob up everywhere you go, Duane.”

“I’ll be able to ride and take care of myself in a day or two,” went on Duane. “Then I’ll go — I’d like to talk to you about Jennie.”

“She’s welcome to a home here with us.”

“Thank you, Andrews. You’re a kind man. But I want Jennie to get farther away from the Rio Grande. She’d never be safe here. Besides, she may be able to find relatives. She has some, though she doesn’t know where they are.”

“All right, Duane. Whatever you think best. I reckon now you’d better take her to some town. Go north an’ strike for Shelbyville or Crockett. Them’s both good towns. I’ll tell Jennie the names of men who’ll help her. You needn’t ride into town at all.”

“Which place is nearer, and how far is it?”

“Shelbyville. I reckon about two days’ ride. Poor stock country, so you ain’t liable to meet rustlers. All the same, better hit the trail at night an’ go careful.”

At sunset two days later Duane and Jennie mounted their horses and said good-by to the rancher and his wife. Andrews would not listen to Duane’s thanks.

“I tell you I’m beholden to you yet,” he declared.

“Well, what can I do for you?” asked Duane. “I may come along here again some day.”

“Get down an’ come in, then, or you’re no friend of mine. I reckon there ain’t nothin’ I can think of — I just happen to remember—” Here he led Duane out of earshot of the women and went on in a whisper. “Buck, I used to be well-to-do. Got skinned by a man named Brown — Rodney Brown. He lives in Huntsville, an’ he’s my enemy. I never was much on fightin’, or I’d fixed him. Brown ruined me — stole all I had. He’s a hoss an’ cattle thief, an’ he has pull enough at home to protect him. I reckon I needn’t say any more.”

“Is this Brown a man who shot an outlaw named Stevens?” queried Duane, curiously.

“Shore, he’s the same. I heard thet story. Brown swears he plugged Stevens through the middle. But the outlaw rode off, an’ nobody ever knew for shore.”

“Luke Stevens died of that shot. I buried him,” said Duane.

Andrews made no further comment, and the two men returned to the women.

“The main road for about three miles, then where it forks take the left-hand road and keep on straight. That what you said, Andrews?”

“Shore. An’ good luck to you both!”

Duane and Jennie trotted away into the gathering twilight. At the moment an insistent thought bothered Duane. Both Luke Stevens and the rancher Andrews had hinted to Duane to kill a man named Brown. Duane wished with all his heart that they had not mentioned it, let alone taken for granted the execution of the deed. What a bloody place Texas was! Men who robbed and men who were robbed both wanted murder. It was in the spirit of the country. Duane certainly meant to avoid ever meeting this Rodney Brown. And that very determination showed Duane how dangerous he really was — to men and to himself. Sometimes he had a feeling of how little stood between his sane and better self and a self utterly wild and terrible. He reasoned that only intelligence could save him — only a thoughtful understanding of his danger and a hold upon some ideal.

Then he fell into low conversation with Jennie, holding out hopeful views of her future, and presently darkness set in. The sky was overcast with heavy clouds; there was no air moving; the heat and oppression threatened storm. By and by Duane could not see a rod in front of him, though his horse had no difficulty in keeping to the road. Duane was bothered by the blackness of the night. Traveling fast was impossible, and any moment he might miss the road that led off to the left. So he was compelled to give all his attention to peering into the thick shadows ahead. As good luck would have it, he came to higher ground where there was less mesquite, and therefore not such impenetrable darkness; and at this point he came to where the road split.

Once headed in the right direction, he felt easier in mind. To his annoyance, however, a fine, misty rain set in. Jennie was not well dressed for wet weather; and, for that matter, neither was he. His coat, which in that dry warm climate he seldom needed, was tied behind his saddle, and he put it on Jennie.

They traveled on. The rain fell steadily; if anything, growing thicker. Duane grew uncomfortably wet and chilly. Jennie, however, fared somewhat better by reason of the heavy coat. The night passed quickly despite the discomfort, and soon a gray, dismal, rainy dawn greeted the travelers.

Jennie insisted that he find some shelter where a fire could be built to dry his clothes. He was not in a fit condition to risk catching cold. In fact, Duane’s teeth were chattering. To find a shelter in that barren waste seemed a futile task. Quite unexpectedly, however, they happened upon a deserted adobe cabin situated a little off the road. Not only did it prove to have a dry interior, but also there was firewood. Water was available in pools everywhere; however, there was no grass for the horses.

A good fire and hot food and drink changed the aspect of their condition as far as comfort went. And Jennie lay down to sleep. For Duane, however, there must be vigilance. This cabin was no hiding-place. The rain fell harder all the time, and the wind changed to the north. “It’s a norther, all right,” muttered Duane. “Two or three days.” And he felt that his extraordinary luck had not held out. Still one point favored him, and it was that travelers were not likely to come along during the storm. Jennie slept while Duane watched. The saving of this girl meant more to him than any task he had ever assumed. First it had been partly from a human feeling to succor an unfortunate woman, and partly a motive to establish clearly to himself that he was no outlaw. Lately, however, had come a different sense, a strange one, with something personal and warm and protective in it.

As he looked down upon her, a slight, slender girl with bedraggled dress and disheveled hair, her face, pale and quiet, a little stern in sleep, and her long, dark lashes lying on her cheek, he seemed to see her fragility, her prettiness, her femininity as never before. But for him she might at that very moment have been a broken, ruined girl lying back in that cabin of the Blands’. The fact gave him a feeling of his importance in this shifting of her destiny. She was unharmed, still young; she would forget and be happy; she would live to be a good wife and mother. Somehow the thought swelled his heart. His act, death-dealing as it had been, was a noble one, and helped him to hold on to his drifting hopes. Hardly once since Jennie had entered into his thought had those ghosts returned to torment him.

To-morrow she would be gone among good, kind people with a possibility of finding her relatives. He thanked God for that; nevertheless, he felt a pang.

She slept more than half the day. Duane kept guard, always alert, whether he was sitting, standing, or walking. The rain pattered steadily on the roof and sometimes came in gusty flurries through the door. The horses were outside in a shed that afforded poor shelter, and they stamped restlessly. Duane kept them saddled and bridled.

About the middle of the afternoon Jennie awoke. They cooked a meal and afterward sat beside the little fire. She had never been, in his observation of her, anything but a tragic figure, an unhappy girl, the farthest removed from serenity and poise. That characteristic capacity for agitation struck him as stronger in her this day. He attributed it, however, to the long strain, the suspense nearing an end. Yet sometimes when her eyes were on him she did not seem to be thinking of her freedom, of her future.

“This time to-morrow you’ll be in Shelbyville,” he said.

“Where will you be?” she asked, quickly.

“Me? Oh, I’ll be making tracks for some lonesome place,” he replied.

The girl shuddered.

“I’ve been brought up in Texas. I remember what a hard lot the men of my family had. But poor as they were, they had a roof over their heads, a hearth with a fire, a warm bed — somebody to love them. And you, Duane — oh, my God! What must your life be? You must ride and hide and watch eternally. No decent food, no pillow, no friendly word, no clean clothes, no woman’s hand! Horses, guns, trails, rocks, holes — these must be the important things in your life. You must go on riding, hiding, killing until you meet—”

She ended with a sob and dropped her head on her knees. Duane was amazed, deeply touched.

“My girl, thank you for that thought of me,” he said, with a tremor in his voice. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

She raised her face, and it was tear-stained, eloquent, beautiful.

“I’ve heard tell — the best of men go to the bad out there. You won’t. Promise me you won’t. I never — knew any man — like you. I — I — we may never see each other again — after to-day. I’ll never forget you. I’ll pray for you, and I’ll never give up trying to — to do something. Don’t despair. It’s never too late. It was my hope that kept me alive — out there at Bland’s — before you came. I was only a poor weak girl. But if I could hope — so can you. Stay away from men. Be a lone wolf. Fight for your life. Stick out your exile — and maybe — some day—”

Then she lost her voice. Duane clasped her hand and with feeling as deep as hers promised to remember her words. In her despair for him she had spoken wisdom — pointed out the only course.

Duane’s vigilance, momentarily broken by emotion, had no sooner reasserted itself than he discovered the bay horse, the one Jennie rode, had broken his halter and gone off. The soft wet earth had deadened the sound of his hoofs. His tracks were plain in the mud. There were clumps of mesquite in sight, among which the horse might have strayed. It turned out, however, that he had not done so.

Duane did not want to leave Jennie alone in the cabin so near the road. So he put her up on his horse and bade her follow. The rain had ceased for the time being, though evidently the storm was not yet over. The tracks led up a wash to a wide flat where mesquite, prickly pear, and thorn-bush grew so thickly that Jennie could not ride into it. Duane was thoroughly concerned. He must have her horse. Time was flying. It would soon be night. He could not expect her to scramble quickly through that brake on foot. Therefore he decided to risk leaving her at the edge of the thicket and go in alone.

As he went in a sound startled him. Was it the breaking of a branch he had stepped on or thrust aside? He heard the impatient pound of his horse’s hoofs. Then all was quiet. Still he listened, not wholly satisfied. He was never satisfied in regard to safety; he knew too well that there never could be safety for him in this country.

The bay horse had threaded the aisles of the thicket. Duane wondered what had drawn him there. Certainly it had not been grass, for there was none. Presently he heard the horse tramping along, and then he ran. The mud was deep, and the sharp thorns made going difficult. He came up with the horse, and at the same moment crossed a multitude of fresh horse-tracks.

He bent lower to examine them, and was alarmed to find that they had been made very recently, even since it had ceased raining. They were tracks of well-shod horses. Duane straightened up with a cautious glance all around. His instant decision was to hurry back to Jennie. But he had come a goodly way through the thicket, and it was impossible to rush back. Once or twice he imagined he heard crashings in the brush, but did not halt to make sure. Certain he was now that some kind of danger threatened.

Suddenly there came an unmistakable thump of horses’ hoofs off somewhere to the fore. Then a scream rent the air. It ended abruptly. Duane leaped forward, tore his way through the thorny brake. He heard Jennie cry again — an appealing call quickly hushed. It seemed more to his right, and he plunged that way. He burst into a glade where a smoldering fire and ground covered with footprints and tracks showed that campers had lately been. Rushing across this, he broke his passage out to the open. But he was too late. His horse had disappeared. Jennie was gone. There were no riders in sight. There was no sound. There was a heavy trail of horses going north. Jennie had been carried off — probably by outlaws. Duane realized that pursuit was out of the question — that Jennie was lost.

CHAPTER X

A HUNDRED MILES from the haunts most familiar with Duane’s deeds, far up where the Nueces ran a trickling clear stream between yellow cliffs, stood a small deserted shack of covered mesquite poles. It had been made long ago, but was well preserved. A door faced the overgrown trail, and another faced down into a gorge of dense thickets. On the border fugitives from law and men who hid in fear of some one they had wronged never lived in houses with only one door.

It was a wild spot, lonely, not fit for human habitation except for the outcast. He, perhaps, might have found it hard to leave for most of the other wild nooks in that barren country. Down in the gorge there was never-failing sweet water, grass all the year round, cool, shady retreats, deer, rabbits, turkeys, fruit, and miles and miles of narrow-twisting, deep canon full of broken rocks and impenetrable thickets. The scream of the panther was heard there, the squall of the wildcat, the cough of the jaguar. Innumerable bees buzzed in the spring blossoms, and, it seemed, scattered honey to the winds. All day there was continuous song of birds, that of the mocking-bird loud and sweet and mocking above the rest.

On clear days — and rare indeed were cloudy days — with the subsiding of the wind at sunset a hush seemed to fall around the little hut. Far-distant dim-blue mountains stood gold-rimmed gradually to fade with the shading of light.

At this quiet hour a man climbed up out of the gorge and sat in the westward door of the hut. This lonely watcher of the west and listener to the silence was Duane. And this hut was the one where, three years before, Jennie had nursed him back to life.

The killing of a man named Sellers, and the combination of circumstances that had made the tragedy a memorable regret, had marked, if not a change, at least a cessation in Duane’s activities. He had trailed Sellers to kill him for the supposed abducting of Jennie. He had trailed him long after he had learned Sellers traveled alone. Duane wanted absolute assurance of Jennie’s death. Vague rumors, a few words here and there, unauthenticated stories, were all Duane had gathered in years to substantiate his belief — that Jennie died shortly after the beginning of her second captivity. But Duane did not know surely. Sellers might have told him. Duane expected, if not to force it from him at the end, to read it in his eyes. But the bullet went too unerringly; it locked his lips and fixed his eyes.

After that meeting Duane lay long at the ranchhouse of a friend, and when he recovered from the wound Sellers had given him he started with two horses and a pack for the lonely gorge on the Nueces. There he had been hidden for months, a prey to remorse, a dreamer, a victim of phantoms.

It took work for him to find subsistence in that rocky fastness. And work, action, helped to pass the hours. But he could not work all the time, even if he had found it to do. Then in his idle moments and at night his task was to live with the hell in his mind.

The sunset and the twilight hour made all the rest bearable. The little hut on the rim of the gorge seemed to hold Jennie’s presence. It was not as if he felt her spirit. If it had been he would have been sure of her death. He hoped Jennie had not survived her second misfortune; and that intense hope had burned into belief, if not surety. Upon his return to that locality, on the occasion of his first visit to the hut, he had found things just as they had left them, and a poor, faded piece of ribbon Jennie had used to tie around her bright hair. No wandering outlaw or traveler had happened upon the lonely spot, which further endeared it to Duane.

A strange feature of this memory of Jennie was the freshness of it — the failure of years, toil, strife, death-dealing to dim it — to deaden the thought of what might have been. He had a marvelous gift of visualization. He could shut his eyes and see Jennie before him just as clearly as if she had stood there in the flesh. For hours he did that, dreaming, dreaming of life he had never tasted and now never would taste. He saw Jennie’s slender, graceful figure, the old brown ragged dress in which he had seen her first at Bland’s, her little feet in Mexican sandals, her fine hands coarsened by work, her round arms and swelling throat, and her pale, sad, beautiful face with its staring dark eyes. He remembered every look she had given him, every word she had spoken to him, every time she had touched him. He thought of her beauty and sweetness, of the few things which had come to mean to him that she must have loved him; and he trained himself to think of these in preference to her life at Bland’s, the escape with him, and then her recapture, because such memories led to bitter, fruitless pain. He had to fight suffering because it was eating out his heart.

Sitting there, eyes wide open, he dreamed of the old homestead and his white-haired mother. He saw the old home life, sweetened and filled by dear new faces and added joys, go on before his eyes with him a part of it.

Then in the inevitable reaction, in the reflux of bitter reality, he would send out a voiceless cry no less poignant because it was silent: “Poor fool! No, I shall never see mother again — never go home — never have a home. I am Duane, the Lone Wolf! Oh, God! I wish it were over! These dreams torture me! What have I to do with a mother, a home, a wife? No bright-haired boy, no dark-eyed girl will ever love me. I am an outlaw, an outcast, dead to the good and decent world. I am alone — alone. Better be a callous brute or better dead! I shall go mad thinking! Man, what is left to you? A hiding-place like a wolf’s — lonely silent days, lonely nights with phantoms! Or the trail and the road with their bloody tracks, and then the hard ride, the sleepless, hungry ride to some hole in rocks or brakes. What hellish thing drives me? Why can’t I end it all? What is left? Only that damned unquenchable spirit of the gun-fighter to live — to hang on to miserable life — to have no fear of death, yet to cling like a leach — to die as gun-fighters seldom die, with boots off! Bain, you were first, and you’re long avenged. I’d change with you. And Sellers, you were last, and you’re avenged. And you others — you’re avenged. Lie quiet in your graves and give me peace!”

But they did not lie quiet in their graves and give him peace.

A group of specters trooped out of the shadows of dusk and, gathering round him, escorted him to his bed.

When Duane had been riding the trails passion-bent to escape pursuers, or passion-bent in his search, the constant action and toil and exhaustion made him sleep. But when in hiding, as time passed, gradually he required less rest and sleep, and his mind became more active. Little by little his phantoms gained hold on him, and at length, but for the saving power of his dreams, they would have claimed him utterly.

How many times he had said to himself: “I am an intelligent man. I’m not crazy. I’m in full possession of my faculties. All this is fancy — imagination — conscience. I’ve no work, no duty, no ideal, no hope — and my mind is obsessed, thronged with images. And these images naturally are of the men with whom I have dealt. I can’t forget them. They come back to me, hour after hour; and when my tortured mind grows weak, then maybe I’m not just right till the mood wears out and lets me sleep.”

So he reasoned as he lay down in his comfortable camp. The night was star-bright above the canon-walls, darkly shadowing down between them. The insects hummed and chirped and thrummed a continuous thick song, low and monotonous. Slow-running water splashed softly over stones in the stream-bed. From far down the canon came the mournful hoot of an owl. The moment he lay down, thereby giving up action for the day, all these things weighed upon him like a great heavy mantle of loneliness. In truth, they did not constitute loneliness.

And he could no more have dispelled thought than he could have reached out to touch a cold, bright star.

He wondered how many outcasts like him lay under this star-studded, velvety sky across the fifteen hundred miles of wild country between El Paso and the mouth of the river. A vast wild territory — a refuge for outlaws! Somewhere he had heard or read that the Texas Rangers kept a book with names and records of outlaws — three thousand known outlaws. Yet these could scarcely be half of that unfortunate horde which had been recruited from all over the states. Duane had traveled from camp to camp, den to den, hiding-place to hiding-place, and he knew these men. Most of them were hopeless criminals; some were avengers; a few were wronged wanderers; and among them occasionally was a man, human in his way, honest as he could be, not yet lost to good.

But all of them were akin in one sense — their outlawry; and that starry night they lay with their dark faces up, some in packs like wolves, others alone like the gray wolf who knew no mate. It did not make much difference in Duane’s thought of them that the majority were steeped in crime and brutality, more often than not stupid from rum, incapable of a fine feeling, just lost wild dogs.

Duane doubted that there was a man among them who did not realize his moral wreck and ruin. He had met poor, half witted wretches who knew it. He believed he could enter into their minds and feel the truth of all their lives — the hardened outlaw, coarse, ignorant, bestial, who murdered as Bill Black had murdered, who stole for the sake of stealing, who craved money to gamble and drink, defiantly ready for death, and, like that terrible outlaw, Helm, who cried out on the scaffold, “Let her rip!”

The wild youngsters seeking notoriety and reckless adventure; the cowboys with a notch on their guns, with boastful pride in the knowledge that they were marked by rangers; the crooked men from the North, defaulters, forgers, murderers, all pale-faced, flat-chested men not fit for that wilderness and not surviving; the dishonest cattlemen, hand and glove with outlaws, driven from their homes; the old grizzled, bow-legged genuine rustlers — all these Duane had come in contact with, had watched and known, and as he felt with them he seemed to see that as their lives were bad, sooner or later to end dismally or tragically, so they must pay some kind of earthly penalty — if not of conscience, then of fear; if not of fear, then of that most terrible of all things to restless, active men — pain, the pang of flesh and bone.

Duane knew, for he had seen them pay. Best of all, moreover, he knew the internal life of the gun-fighter of that select but by no means small class of which he was representative. The world that judged him and his kind judged him as a machine, a killing-machine, with only mind enough to hunt, to meet, to slay another man. It had taken three endless years for Duane to understand his own father. Duane knew beyond all doubt that the gun-fighters like Bland, like Alloway, like Sellers, men who were evil and had no remorse, no spiritual accusing Nemesis, had something far more torturing to mind, more haunting, more murderous of rest and sleep and peace; and that something was abnormal fear of death. Duane knew this, for he had shot these men; he had seen the quick, dark shadow in eyes, the presentiment that the will could not control, and then the horrible certainty. These men must have been in agony at every meeting with a possible or certain foe — more agony than the hot rend of a bullet. They were haunted, too, haunted by this fear, by every victim calling from the grave that nothing was so inevitable as death, which lurked behind every corner, hid in every shadow, lay deep in the dark tube of every gun. These men could not have a friend; they could not love or trust a woman. They knew their one chance of holding on to life lay in their own distrust, watchfulness, dexterity, and that hope, by the very nature of their lives, could not be lasting. They had doomed themselves. What, then, could possibly have dwelt in the depths of their minds as they went to their beds on a starry night like this, with mystery in silence and shadow, with time passing surely, and the dark future and its secret approaching every hour — what, then, but hell?

The hell in Duane’s mind was not fear of man or fear of death. He would have been glad to lay down the burden of life, providing death came naturally. Many times he had prayed for it. But that overdeveloped, superhuman spirit of defense in him precluded suicide or the inviting of an enemy’s bullet. Sometimes he had a vague, scarcely analyzed idea that this spirit was what had made the Southwest habitable for the white man.

Every one of his victims, singly and collectively, returned to him for ever, it seemed, in cold, passionless, accusing domination of these haunted hours. They did not accuse him of dishonor or cowardice or brutality or murder; they only accused him of Death. It was as if they knew more than when they were alive, had learned that life was a divine mysterious gift not to be taken. They thronged about him with their voiceless clamoring, drifted around him with their fading eyes.

CHAPTER XI

AFTER NEARLY SIX months in the Nueces gorge the loneliness and inaction of his life drove Duane out upon the trails seeking anything rather than to hide longer alone, a prey to the scourge of his thoughts. The moment he rode into sight of men a remarkable transformation occurred in him. A strange warmth stirred in him — a longing to see the faces of people, to hear their voices — a pleasurable emotion sad and strange. But it was only a precursor of his old bitter, sleepless, and eternal vigilance. When he hid alone in the brakes he was safe from all except his deeper, better self; when he escaped from this into the haunts of men his force and will went to the preservation of his life.

Mercer was the first village he rode into. He had many friends there. Mercer claimed to owe Duane a debt. On the outskirts of the village there was a grave overgrown by brush so that the rude-lettered post which marked it was scarcely visible to Duane as he rode by. He had never read the inscription. But he thought now of Hardin, no other than the erstwhile ally of Bland. For many years Hardin had harassed the stockmen and ranchers in and around Mercer. On an evil day for him he or his outlaws had beaten and robbed a man who once succored Duane when sore in need. Duane met Hardin in the little plaza of the village, called him every name known to border men, taunted him to draw, and killed him in the act.

Duane went to the house of one Jones, a Texan who had known his father, and there he was warmly received. The feel of an honest hand, the voice of a friend, the prattle of children who were not afraid of him or his gun, good wholesome food, and change of clothes — these things for the time being made a changed man of Duane. To be sure, he did not often speak. The price of his head and the weight of his burden made him silent. But eagerly he drank in all the news that was told him. In the years of his absence from home he had never heard a word about his mother or uncle. Those who were his real friends on the border would have been the last to make inquiries, to write or receive letters that might give a clue to Duane’s whereabouts.

Duane remained all day with this hospitable Jones, and as twilight fell was loath to go and yielded to a pressing invitation to remain overnight. It was seldom indeed that Duane slept under a roof. Early in the evening, while Duane sat on the porch with two awed and hero-worshiping sons of the house, Jones returned from a quick visit down to the post-office. Summarily he sent the boys off. He labored under intense excitement.

“Duane, there’s rangers in town,” he whispered. “It’s all over town, too, that you’re here. You rode in long after sunup. Lots of people saw you. I don’t believe there’s a man or boy that ‘d squeal on you. But the women might. They gossip, and these rangers are handsome fellows — devils with the women.”

“What company of rangers?” asked Duane, quickly.

“Company A, under Captain MacNelly, that new ranger. He made a big name in the war. And since he’s been in the ranger service he’s done wonders. He’s cleaned up some bad places south, and he’s working north.”

“MacNelly. I’ve heard of him. Describe him to me.”

“Slight-built chap, but wiry and tough. Clean face, black mustache and hair. Sharp black eyes. He’s got a look of authority. MacNelly’s a fine man, Duane. Belongs to a good Southern family. I’d hate to have him look you up.”

Duane did not speak.

“MacNelly’s got nerve, and his rangers are all experienced men. If they find out you’re here they’ll come after you. MacNelly’s no gun-fighter, but he wouldn’t hesitate to do his duty, even if he faced sure death. Which he would in this case. Duane, you mustn’t meet Captain MacNelly. Your record is clean, if it is terrible. You never met a ranger or any officer except a rotten sheriff now and then, like Rod Brown.”

Still Duane kept silence. He was not thinking of danger, but of the fact of how fleeting must be his stay among friends.

“I’ve already fixed up a pack of grub,” went on Jones. “I’ll slip out to saddle your horse. You watch here.”

He had scarcely uttered the last word when soft, swift footsteps sounded on the hard path. A man turned in at the gate. The light was dim, yet clean enough to disclose an unusually tall figure. When it appeared nearer he was seen to be walking with both arms raised, hands high. He slowed his stride.

“Does Burt Jones live here?” he asked, in a low, hurried voice.

“I reckon. I’m Burt. What can I do for you?” replied Jones.

The stranger peered around, stealthily came closer, still with his hands up.

“It is known that Buck Duane is here. Captain MacNelly’s camping on the river just out of town. He sends word to Duane to come out there after dark.”

The stranger wheeled and departed as swiftly and strangely as he had come.

“Bust me! Duane, whatever do you make of that?” exclaimed Jones.

“A new one on me,” replied Duane, thoughtfully.

“First fool thing I ever heard of MacNelly doing. Can’t make head nor tails of it. I’d have said offhand that MacNelly wouldn’t double-cross anybody. He struck me as a square man, sand all through. But, hell! he must mean treachery. I can’t see anything else in that deal.”

“Maybe the Captain wants to give me a fair chance to surrender without bloodshed,” observed Duane. “Pretty decent of him, if he meant that.”

“He INVITES YOU out to his camp AFTER DARK. Something strange about this, Duane. But MacNelly’s a new man out here. He does some queer things. Perhaps he’s getting a swelled head. Well, whatever his intentions, his presence around Mercer is enough for us. Duane, you hit the road and put some miles between you the amiable Captain before daylight. To-morrow I’ll go out there and ask him what in the devil he meant.”

“That messenger he sent — he was a ranger,” said Duane.

“Sure he was, and a nervy one! It must have taken sand to come bracing you that way. Duane, the fellow didn’t pack a gun. I’ll swear to that. Pretty odd, this trick. But you can’t trust it. Hit the road, Duane.”

A little later a black horse with muffled hoofs, bearing a tall, dark rider who peered keenly into every shadow, trotted down a pasture lane back of Jones’s house, turned into the road, and then, breaking into swifter gait, rapidly left Mercer behind.

Fifteen or twenty miles out Duane drew rein in a forest of mesquite, dismounted, and searched about for a glade with a little grass. Here he staked his horse on a long lariat; and, using his saddle for a pillow, his saddle-blanket for covering, he went to sleep.

Next morning he was off again, working south. During the next few days he paid brief visits to several villages that lay in his path. And in each some one particular friend had a piece of news to impart that made Duane profoundly thoughtful. A ranger had made a quiet, unobtrusive call upon these friends and left this message, “Tell Buck Duane to ride into Captain MacNelly’s camp some time after night.”

Duane concluded, and his friends all agreed with him, that the new ranger’s main purpose in the Nueces country was to capture or kill Buck Duane, and that this message was simply an original and striking ruse, the daring of which might appeal to certain outlaws.

But it did not appeal to Duane. His curiosity was aroused; it did not, however, tempt him to any foolhardy act. He turned southwest and rode a hundred miles until he again reached the sparsely settled country. Here he heard no more of rangers. It was a barren region he had never but once ridden through, and that ride had cost him dear. He had been compelled to shoot his way out. Outlaws were not in accord with the few ranchers and their cowboys who ranged there. He learned that both outlaws and Mexican raiders had long been at bitter enmity with these ranchers. Being unfamiliar with roads and trails, Duane had pushed on into the heart of this district, when all the time he really believed he was traveling around it. A rifle-shot from a ranch-house, a deliberate attempt to kill him because he was an unknown rider in those parts, discovered to Duane his mistake; and a hard ride to get away persuaded him to return to his old methods of hiding by day and traveling by night.

He got into rough country, rode for three days without covering much ground, but believed that he was getting on safer territory. Twice he came to a wide bottom-land green with willow and cottonwood and thick as chaparral, somewhere through the middle of which ran a river he decided must be the lower Nueces.

One evening, as he stole out from a covert where he had camped, he saw the lights of a village. He tried to pass it on the left, but was unable to because the brakes of this bottom-land extended in almost to the outskirts of the village, and he had to retrace his steps and go round to the right. Wire fences and horses in pasture made this a task, so it was well after midnight before he accomplished it. He made ten miles or more then by daylight, and after that proceeded cautiously along a road which appeared to be well worn from travel. He passed several thickets where he would have halted to hide during the day but for the fact that he had to find water.

He was a long while in coming to it, and then there was no thicket or clump of mesquite near the waterhole that would afford him covert. So he kept on.

The country before him was ridgy and began to show cottonwoods here and there in the hollows and yucca and mesquite on the higher ground. As he mounted a ridge he noted that the road made a sharp turn, and he could not see what was beyond it. He slowed up and was making the turn, which was down-hill between high banks of yellow clay, when his mettlesome horse heard something to frighten him or shied at something and bolted.

The few bounds he took before Duane’s iron arm checked him were enough to reach the curve. One flashing glance showed Duane the open once more, a little valley below with a wide, shallow, rocky stream, a clump of cottonwoods beyond, a somber group of men facing him, and two dark, limp, strangely grotesque figures hanging from branches.

The sight was common enough in southwest Texas, but Duane had never before found himself so unpleasantly close.

A hoarse voice pealed out: “By hell! there’s another one!”

“Stranger, ride down an’ account fer yourself!” yelled another.

“Hands up!”

“Thet’s right, Jack; don’t take no chances. Plug him!”

These remarks were so swiftly uttered as almost to be continuous. Duane was wheeling his horse when a rifle cracked. The bullet struck his left forearm and he thought broke it, for he dropped the rein. The frightened horse leaped. Another bullet whistled past Duane. Then the bend in the road saved him probably from certain death. Like the wind his fleet steed wend down the long hill.

Duane was in no hurry to look back. He knew what to expect. His chief concern of the moment was for his injured arm. He found that the bones were still intact; but the wound, having been made by a soft bullet, was an exceedingly bad one. Blood poured from it. Giving the horse his head, Duane wound his scarf tightly round the holes, and with teeth and hand tied it tightly. That done, he looked back over his shoulder.

Riders were making the dust fly on the hillside road. There were more coming round the cut where the road curved. The leader was perhaps a quarter of a mile back, and the others strung out behind him. Duane needed only one glance to tell him that they were fast and hard-riding cowboys in a land where all riders were good. They would not have owned any but strong, swift horses. Moreover, it was a district where ranchers had suffered beyond all endurance the greed and brutality of outlaws. Duane had simply been so unfortunate as to run right into a lynching party at a time of all times when any stranger would be in danger and any outlaw put to his limit to escape with his life.

Duane did not look back again till he had crossed the ridgy piece of ground and had gotten to the level road. He had gained upon his pursuers. When he ascertained this he tried to save his horse, to check a little that killing gait. This horse was a magnificent animal, big, strong, fast; but his endurance had never been put to a grueling test. And that worried Duane. His life had made it impossible to keep one horse very long at a time, and this one was an unknown quantity.

Duane had only one plan — the only plan possible in this case — and that was to make the river-bottoms, where he might elude his pursuers in the willow brakes. Fifteen miles or so would bring him to the river, and this was not a hopeless distance for any good horse if not too closely pressed. Duane concluded presently that the cowboys behind were losing a little in the chase because they were not extending their horses. It was decidedly unusual for such riders to save their mounts. Duane pondered over this, looking backward several times to see if their horses were stretched out. They were not, and the fact was disturbing. Only one reason presented itself to Duane’s conjecturing, and it was that with him headed straight on that road his pursuers were satisfied not to force the running. He began to hope and look for a trail or a road turning off to right or left. There was none. A rough, mesquite-dotted and yucca-spired country extended away on either side. Duane believed that he would be compelled to take to this hard going. One thing was certain — he had to go round the village. The river, however, was on the outskirts of the village; and once in the willows, he would be safe.

Dust-clouds far ahead caused his alarm to grow. He watched with his eyes strained; he hoped to see a wagon, a few stray cattle. But no, he soon descried several horsemen. Shots and yells behind him attested to the fact that his pursuers likewise had seen these new-comers on the scene. More than a mile separated these two parties, yet that distance did not keep them from soon understanding each other. Duane waited only to see this new factor show signs of sudden quick action, and then, with a muttered curse, he spurred his horse off the road into the brush.

He chose the right side, because the river lay nearer that way. There were patches of open sandy ground between clumps of cactus and mesquite, and he found that despite a zigzag course he made better time. It was impossible for him to locate his pursuers. They would come together, he decided, and take to his tracks.

What, then, was his surprise and dismay to run out of a thicket right into a low ridge of rough, broken rock, impossible to get a horse over. He wheeled to the left along its base. The sandy ground gave place to a harder soil, where his horse did not labor so. Here the growths of mesquite and cactus became scanter, affording better travel but poor cover. He kept sharp eyes ahead, and, as he had expected, soon saw moving dust-clouds and the dark figures of horses. They were half a mile away, and swinging obliquely across the flat, which fact proved that they had entertained a fair idea of the country and the fugitive’s difficulty.

Without an instant’s hesitation Duane put his horse to his best efforts, straight ahead. He had to pass those men. When this was seemingly made impossible by a deep wash from which he had to turn, Duane began to feel cold and sick. Was this the end? Always there had to be an end to an outlaw’s career. He wanted then to ride straight at these pursuers. But reason outweighed instinct. He was fleeing for his life; nevertheless, the strongest instinct at the time was his desire to fight.

He knew when these three horsemen saw him, and a moment afterward he lost sight of them as he got into the mesquite again. He meant now to try to reach the road, and pushed his mount severely, though still saving him for a final burst. Rocks, thickets, bunches of cactus, washes — all operated against his following a straight line. Almost he lost his bearings, and finally would have ridden toward his enemies had not good fortune favored him in the matter of an open burned-over stretch of ground.

Here he saw both groups of pursuers, one on each side and almost within gun-shot. Their sharp yells, as much as his cruel spurs, drove his horse into that pace which now meant life or death for him. And never had Duane bestrode a gamer, swifter, stancher beast. He seemed about to accomplish the impossible. In the dragging sand he was far superior to any horse in pursuit, and on this sandy open stretch he gained enough to spare a little in the brush beyond. Heated now and thoroughly terrorized, he kept the pace through thickets that almost tore Duane from his saddle. Something weighty and grim eased off Duane. He was going to get out in front! The horse had speed, fire, stamina.

Duane dashed out into another open place dotted by few trees, and here, right in his path, within pistol-range, stood horsemen waiting. They yelled, they spurred toward him, but did not fire at him. He turned his horse — faced to the right. Only one thing kept him from standing his ground to fight it out. He remembered those dangling limp figures hanging from the cottonwoods. These ranchers would rather hang an outlaw than do anything. They might draw all his fire and then capture him. His horror of hanging was so great as to be all out of proportion compared to his gun-fighter’s instinct of self-preservation.

A race began then, a dusty, crashing drive through gray mesquite. Duane could scarcely see, he was so blinded by stinging branches across his eyes. The hollow wind roared in his ears. He lost his sense of the nearness of his pursuers. But they must have been close. Did they shoot at him? He imagined he heard shots. But that might have been the cracking of dead snags. His left arm hung limp, almost useless; he handled the rein with his right; and most of the time he hung low over the pommel. The gray walls flashing by him, the whip of twigs, the rush of wind, the heavy, rapid pound of hoofs, the violent motion of his horse — these vied in sensation with the smart of sweat in his eyes, the rack of his wound, the cold, sick cramp in his stomach. With these also was dull, raging fury. He had to run when he wanted to fight. It took all his mind to force back that bitter hate of himself, of his pursuers, of this race for his useless life.

Suddenly he burst out of a line of mesquite into the road. A long stretch of lonely road! How fiercely, with hot, strange joy, he wheeled his horse upon it! Then he was sweeping along, sure now that he was out in front. His horse still had strength and speed, but showed signs of breaking. Presently Duane looked back. Pursuers — he could not count how many — were loping along in his rear. He paid no more attention to them, and with teeth set he faced ahead, grimmer now in his determination to foil them.

He passed a few scattered ranch-houses where horses whistled from corrals, and men curiously watched him fly past. He saw one rancher running, and he felt intuitively that this fellow was going to join in the chase. Duane’s steed pounded on, not noticeably slower, but with a lack of former smoothness, with a strained, convulsive, jerking stride which showed he was almost done.

Sight of the village ahead surprised Duane. He had reached it sooner than he expected. Then he made a discovery — he had entered the zone of wire fences. As he dared not turn back now, he kept on, intending to ride through the village. Looking backward, he saw that his pursuers were half a mile distant, too far to alarm any villagers in time to intercept him in his flight. As he rode by the first houses his horse broke and began to labor. Duane did not believe he would last long enough to go through the village.

Saddled horses in front of a store gave Duane an idea, not by any means new, and one he had carried out successfully before. As he pulled in his heaving mount and leaped off, a couple of ranchers came out of the place, and one of them stepped to a clean-limbed, fiery bay. He was about to get into his saddle when he saw Duane, and then he halted, a foot in the stirrup.

Duane strode forward, grasped the bridle of this man’s horse.

“Mine’s done — but not killed,” he panted. “Trade with me.”

“Wal, stranger, I’m shore always ready to trade,” drawled the man. “But ain’t you a little swift?”

Duane glanced back up the road. His pursuers were entering the village.

“I’m Duane — Buck Duane,” he cried, menacingly. “Will you trade? Hurry!”

The rancher, turning white, dropped his foot from the stirrup and fell back.

“I reckon I’ll trade,” he said.

Bounding up, Duane dug spurs into the bay’s flanks. The horse snorted in fright, plunged into a run. He was fresh, swift, half wild. Duane flashed by the remaining houses on the street out into the open. But the road ended at that village or else led out from some other quarter, for he had ridden straight into the fields and from them into rough desert. When he reached the cover of mesquite once more he looked back to find six horsemen within rifle-shot of him, and more coming behind them.

His new horse had not had time to get warm before Duane reached a high sandy bluff below which lay the willow brakes. As far as he could see extended an immense flat strip of red-tinged willow. How welcome it was to his eye! He felt like a hunted wolf that, weary and lame, had reached his hole in the rocks. Zigzagging down the soft slope, he put the bay to the dense wall of leaf and branch. But the horse balked.

There was little time to lose. Dismounting, he dragged the stubborn beast into the thicket. This was harder and slower work than Duane cared to risk. If he had not been rushed he might have had better success. So he had to abandon the horse — a circumstance that only such sore straits could have driven him to. Then he went slipping swiftly through the narrow aisles.

He had not gotten under cover any too soon. For he heard his pursuers piling over the bluff, loud-voiced, confident, brutal. They crashed into the willows.

“Hi, Sid! Heah’s your hoss!” called one, evidently to the man Duane had forced into a trade.

“Say, if you locoed gents’ll hold up a little I’ll tell you somethin’,” replied a voice from the bluff.

“Come on, Sid! We got him corralled,” said the first speaker.

“Wal, mebbe, an’ if you hev it’s liable to be damn hot. THET FELLER WAS BUCK DUANE!”

Absolute silence followed that statement. Presently it was broken by a rattling of loose gravel and then low voices.

“He can’t git across the river, I tell you,” came to Duane’s ears. “He’s corralled in the brake. I know thet hole.”

Then Duane, gliding silently and swiftly through the willows, heard no more from his pursuers. He headed straight for the river. Threading a passage through a willow brake was an old task for him. Many days and nights had gone to the acquiring of a skill that might have been envied by an Indian.

The Rio Grande and its tributaries for the most of their length in Texas ran between wide, low, flat lands covered by a dense growth of willow. Cottonwood, mesquite, prickly pear, and other growths mingled with the willow, and altogether they made a matted, tangled copse, a thicket that an inexperienced man would have considered impenetrable. From above, these wild brakes looked green and red; from the inside they were gray and yellow — a striped wall. Trails and glades were scarce. There were a few deer-runways and sometimes little paths made by peccaries — the jabali, or wild pigs, of Mexico. The ground was clay and unusually dry, sometimes baked so hard that it left no imprint of a track. Where a growth of cottonwood had held back the encroachment of the willows there usually was thick grass and underbrush. The willows were short, slender poles with stems so close together that they almost touched, and with the leafy foliage forming a thick covering. The depths of this brake Duane had penetrated was a silent, dreamy, strange place. In the middle of the day the light was weird and dim. When a breeze fluttered the foliage, then slender shafts and spears of sunshine pierced the green mantle and danced like gold on the ground.

Duane had always felt the strangeness of this kind of place, and likewise he had felt a protecting, harboring something which always seemed to him to be the sympathy of the brake for a hunted creature. Any unwounded creature, strong and resourceful, was safe when he had glided under the low, rustling green roof of this wild covert. It was not hard to conceal tracks; the springy soil gave forth no sound; and men could hunt each other for weeks, pass within a few yards of each other and never know it. The problem of sustaining life was difficult; but, then, hunted men and animals survived on very little.

Duane wanted to cross the river if that was possible, and, keeping in the brake, work his way upstream till he had reached country more hospitable. Remembering what the man had said in regard to the river, Duane had his doubts about crossing. But he would take any chance to put the river between him and his hunters. He pushed on. His left arm had to be favored, as he could scarcely move it. Using his right to spread the willows, he slipped sideways between them and made fast time. There were narrow aisles and washes and holes low down and paths brushed by animals, all of which he took advantage of, running, walking, crawling, stooping any way to get along. To keep in a straight line was not easy — he did it by marking some bright sunlit stem or tree ahead, and when he reached it looked straight on to mark another. His progress necessarily grew slower, for as he advanced the brake became wilder, denser, darker. Mosquitoes began to whine about his head. He kept on without pause. Deepening shadows under the willows told him that the afternoon was far advanced. He began to fear he had wandered in a wrong direction. Finally a strip of light ahead relieved his anxiety, and after a toilsome penetration of still denser brush he broke through to the bank of the river.

He faced a wide, shallow, muddy stream with brakes on the opposite bank extending like a green and yellow wall. Duane perceived at a glance the futility of his trying to cross at this point. Everywhere the sluggish water raved quicksand bars. In fact, the bed of the river was all quicksand, and very likely there was not a foot of water anywhere. He could not swim; he could not crawl; he could not push a log across. Any solid thing touching that smooth yellow sand would be grasped and sucked down. To prove this he seized a long pole and, reaching down from the high bank, thrust it into the stream. Right there near shore there apparently was no bottom to the treacherous quicksand. He abandoned any hope of crossing the river. Probably for miles up and down it would be just the same as here. Before leaving the bank he tied his hat upon the pole and lifted enough water to quench his thirst. Then he worked his way back to where thinner growth made advancement easier, and kept on up-stream till the shadows were so deep he could not see. Feeling around for a place big enough to stretch out on, he lay down. For the time being he was as safe there as he would have been beyond in the Rim Rock. He was tired, though not exhausted, and in spite of the throbbing pain in his arm he dropped at once into sleep.

CHAPTER XII

SOME TIME DURING the night Duane awoke. A stillness seemingly so thick and heavy as to have substance blanketed the black willow brake. He could not see a star or a branch or tree-trunk or even his hand before his eyes. He lay there waiting, listening, sure that he had been awakened by an unusual sound. Ordinary noises of the night in the wilderness never disturbed his rest. His faculties, like those of old fugitives and hunted creatures, had become trained to a marvelous keenness. A long low breath of slow wind moaned through the willows, passed away; some stealthy, soft-footed beast trotted by him in the darkness; there was a rustling among dry leaves; a fox barked lonesomely in the distance. But none of these sounds had broken his slumber.

Suddenly, piercing the stillness, came a bay of a bloodhound. Quickly Duane sat up, chilled to his marrow. The action made him aware of his crippled arm. Then came other bays, lower, more distant. Silence enfolded him again, all the more oppressive and menacing in his suspense. Bloodhounds had been put on his trail, and the leader was not far away. All his life Duane had been familiar with bloodhounds; and he knew that if the pack surrounded him in this impenetrable darkness he would be held at bay or dragged down as wolves dragged a stag. Rising to his feet, prepared to flee as best he could, he waited to be sure of the direction he should take.

The leader of the hounds broke into cry again, a deep, full-toned, ringing bay, strange, ominous, terribly significant in its power. It caused a cold sweat to ooze out all over Duane’s body. He turned from it, and with his uninjured arm outstretched to feel for the willows he groped his way along. As it was impossible to pick out the narrow passages, he had to slip and squeeze and plunge between the yielding stems. He made such a crashing that he no longer heard the baying of the hounds. He had no hope to elude them. He meant to climb the first cottonwood that he stumbled upon in his blind flight. But it appeared he never was going to be lucky enough to run against one. Often he fell, sometimes flat, at others upheld by the willows. What made the work so hard was the fact that he had only one arm to open a clump of close-growing stems and his feet would catch or tangle in the narrow crotches, holding him fast. He had to struggle desperately. It was as if the willows were clutching hands, his enemies, fiendishly impeding his progress. He tore his clothes on sharp branches and his flesh suffered many a prick. But in a terrible earnestness he kept on until he brought up hard against a cottonwood tree.

There he leaned and rested. He found himself as nearly exhausted as he had ever been, wet with sweat, his hands torn and burning, his breast laboring, his legs stinging from innumerable bruises. While he leaned there to catch his breath he listened for the pursuing hounds. For a long time there was no sound from them. This, however, did not deceive him into any hopefulness. There were bloodhounds that bayed often on a trail, and others that ran mostly silent. The former were more valuable to their owner and the latter more dangerous to the fugitive. Presently Duane’s ears were filled by a chorus of short ringing yelps. The pack had found where he had slept, and now the trail was hot. Satisfied that they would soon overtake him, Duane set about climbing the cottonwood, which in his condition was difficult of ascent.

It happened to be a fairly large tree with a fork about fifteen feet up, and branches thereafter in succession. Duane climbed until he got above the enshrouding belt of blackness. A pale gray mist hung above the brake, and through it shone a line of dim lights. Duane decided these were bonfires made along the bluff to render his escape more difficult on that side. Away round in the direction he thought was north he imagined he saw more fires, but, as the mist was thick, he could not be sure. While he sat there pondering the matter, listening for the hounds, the mist and the gloom on one side lightened; and this side he concluded was east and meant that dawn was near. Satisfying himself on this score, he descended to the first branch of the tree.

His situation now, though still critical, did not appear to be so hopeless as it had been. The hounds would soon close in on him, and he would kill them or drive them away. It was beyond the bounds of possibility that any men could have followed running hounds through that brake in the night. The thing that worried Duane was the fact of the bonfires. He had gathered from the words of one of his pursuers that the brake was a kind of trap, and he began to believe there was only one way out of it, and that was along the bank where he had entered, and where obviously all night long his pursuers had kept fires burning. Further conjecture on this point, however, was interrupted by a crashing in the willows and the rapid patter of feet.

Underneath Duane lay a gray, foggy obscurity. He could not see the ground, nor any object but the black trunk of the tree. Sight would not be needed to tell him when the pack arrived. With a pattering rush through the willows the hounds reached the tree; and then high above crash of brush and thud of heavy paws rose a hideous clamor. Duane’s pursuers far off to the south would hear that and know what it meant. And at daybreak, perhaps before, they would take a short cut across the brake, guided by the baying of hounds that had treed their quarry.

It wanted only a few moments, however, till Duane could distinguish the vague forms of the hounds in the gray shadow below. Still he waited. He had no shots to spare. And he knew how to treat bloodhounds. Gradually the obscurity lightened, and at length Duane had good enough sight of the hounds for his purpose. His first shot killed the huge brute leader of the pack. Then, with unerring shots, he crippled several others. That stopped the baying. Piercing howls arose. The pack took fright and fled, its course easily marked by the howls of the crippled members. Duane reloaded his gun, and, making certain all the hounds had gone, he descended to the ground and set off at a rapid pace to the northward.

The mist had dissolved under a rising sun when Duane made his first halt some miles north of the scene where he had waited for the hounds. A barrier to further progress, in shape of a precipitous rocky bluff, rose sheer from the willow brake. He skirted the base of the cliff, where walking was comparatively easy, around in the direction of the river. He reached the end finally to see there was absolutely no chance to escape from the brake at that corner. It took extreme labor, attended by some hazard and considerable pain to his arm, to get down where he could fill his sombrero with water. After quenching his thirst he had a look at his wound. It was caked over with blood and dirt. When washed off the arm was seen to be inflamed and swollen around the bullet-hole. He bathed it, experiencing a soothing relief in the cool water. Then he bandaged it as best he could and arranged a sling round his neck. This mitigated the pain of the injured member and held it in a quiet and restful position, where it had a chance to begin mending.

As Duane turned away from the river he felt refreshed. His great strength and endurance had always made fatigue something almost unknown to him. However, tramping on foot day and night was as unusual to him as to any other riders of the Southwest, and it had begun to tell on him. Retracing his steps, he reached the point where he had abruptly come upon the bluff, and here he determined to follow along its base in the other direction until he found a way out or discovered the futility of such effort.

Duane covered ground rapidly. From time to time he paused to listen. But he was always listening, and his eyes were ever roving. This alertness had become second nature with him, so that except in extreme cases of caution he performed it while he pondered his gloomy and fateful situation. Such habit of alertness and thought made time fly swiftly.

By noon he had rounded the wide curve of the brake and was facing south. The bluff had petered out from a high, mountainous wall to a low abutment of rock, but it still held to its steep, rough nature and afforded no crack or slope where quick ascent could have been possible. He pushed on, growing warier as he approached the danger-zone, finding that as he neared the river on this side it was imperative to go deeper into the willows. In the afternoon he reached a point where he could see men pacing to and fro on the bluff. This assured him that whatever place was guarded was one by which he might escape. He headed toward these men and approached to within a hundred paces of the bluff where they were. There were several men and several boys, all armed and, after the manner of Texans, taking their task leisurely. Farther down Duane made out black dots on the horizon of the bluff-line, and these he concluded were more guards stationed at another outlet. Probably all the available men in the district were on duty. Texans took a grim pleasure in such work. Duane remembered that upon several occasions he had served such duty himself.

Duane peered through the branches and studied the lay of the land. For several hundred yards the bluff could be climbed. He took stock of those careless guards. They had rifles, and that made vain any attempt to pass them in daylight. He believed an attempt by night might be successful; and he was swiftly coming to a determination to hide there till dark and then try it, when the sudden yelping of a dog betrayed him to the guards on the bluff.

The dog had likely been placed there to give an alarm, and he was lustily true to his trust. Duane saw the men run together and begin to talk excitedly and peer into the brake, which was a signal for him to slip away under the willows. He made no noise, and he assured himself he must be invisible. Nevertheless, he heard shouts, then the cracking of rifles, and bullets began to zip and swish through the leafy covert. The day was hot and windless, and Duane concluded that whenever he touched a willow stem, even ever so slightly, it vibrated to the top and sent a quiver among the leaves. Through this the guards had located his position. Once a bullet hissed by him; another thudded into the ground before him. This shooting loosed a rage in Duane. He had to fly from these men, and he hated them and himself because of it. Always in the fury of such moments he wanted to give back shot for shot. But he slipped on through the willows, and at length the rifles ceased to crack.

He sheered to the left again, in line with the rocky barrier, and kept on, wondering what the next mile would bring.

It brought worse, for he was seen by sharp-eyed scouts, and a hot fusillade drove him to run for his life, luckily to escape with no more than a bullet-creased shoulder.

Later that day, still undaunted, he sheered again toward the trap-wall, and found that the nearer he approached to the place where he had come down into the brake the greater his danger. To attempt to run the blockade of that trail by day would be fatal. He waited for night, and after the brightness of the fires had somewhat lessened he assayed to creep out of the brake. He succeeded in reaching the foot of the bluff, here only a bank, and had begun to crawl stealthily up under cover of a shadow when a hound again betrayed his position. Retreating to the willows was as perilous a task as had ever confronted Duane, and when he had accomplished it, right under what seemed a hundred blazing rifles, he felt that he had indeed been favored by Providence. This time men followed him a goodly ways into the brake, and the ripping of lead through the willows sounded on all sides of him.

When the noise of pursuit ceased Duane sat down in the darkness, his mind clamped between two things — whether to try again to escape or wait for possible opportunity. He seemed incapable of decision. His intelligence told him that every hour lessened his chances for escape. He had little enough chance in any case, and that was what made another attempt so desperately hard. Still it was not love of life that bound him. There would come an hour, sooner or later, when he would wrench decision out of this chaos of emotion and thought. But that time was not yet. He had remained quiet long enough to cool off and recover from his run he found that he was tired. He stretched out to rest. But the swarms of vicious mosquitoes prevented sleep. This corner of the brake was low and near the river, a breeding-ground for the blood-suckers. They sang and hummed and whined around him in an ever-increasing horde. He covered his head and hands with his coat and lay there patiently. That was a long and wretched night. Morning found him still strong physically, but in a dreadful state of mind.

First he hurried for the river. He could withstand the pangs of hunger, but it was imperative to quench thirst. His wound made him feverish, and therefore more than usually hot and thirsty. Again he was refreshed. That morning he was hard put to it to hold himself back from attempting to cross the river. If he could find a light log it was within the bounds of possibility that he might ford the shallow water and bars of quicksand. But not yet! Wearily, doggedly he faced about toward the bluff.

All that day and all that night, all the next day and all the next night, he stole like a hunted savage from river to bluff; and every hour forced upon him the bitter certainty that he was trapped.

Duane lost track of days, of events. He had come to an evil pass. There arrived an hour when, closely pressed by pursuers at the extreme southern corner of the brake, he took to a dense thicket of willows, driven to what he believed was his last stand.

If only these human bloodhounds would swiftly close in on him! Let him fight to the last bitter gasp and have it over! But these hunters, eager as they were to get him, had care of their own skins. They took few risks. They had him cornered.

It was the middle of the day, hot, dusty, oppressive, threatening storm. Like a snake Duane crawled into a little space in the darkest part of the thicket and lay still. Men had cut him off from the bluff, from the river, seemingly from all sides. But he heard voices only from in front and toward his left. Even if his passage to the river had not been blocked, it might just as well have been.

“Come on fellers — down hyar,” called one man from the bluff.

“Got him corralled at last,” shouted another.

“Reckon ye needn’t be too shore. We thought thet more’n once,” taunted another.

“I seen him, I tell you.”

“Aw, thet was a deer.”

“But Bill found fresh tracks an’ blood on the willows.”

“If he’s winged we needn’t hurry.”

“Hold on thar, you boys,” came a shout in authoritative tones from farther up the bluff. “Go slow. You-all air gittin’ foolish at the end of a long chase.”

“Thet’s right, Colonel. Hold ’em back. There’s nothin’ shorer than somebody’ll be stoppin’ lead pretty quick. He’ll be huntin’ us soon!”

“Let’s surround this corner an’ starve him out.”

“Fire the brake.”

How clearly all this talk pierced Duane’s ears! In it he seemed to hear his doom. This, then, was the end he had always expected, which had been close to him before, yet never like now.

“By God!” whispered Duane, “the thing for me to do now — is go out — meet them!”

That was prompted by the fighting, the killing instinct in him. In that moment it had almost superhuman power. If he must die, that was the way for him to die. What else could be expected of Buck Duane? He got to his knees and drew his gun. With his swollen and almost useless hand he held what spare ammunition he had left. He ought to creep out noiselessly to the edge of the willows, suddenly face his pursuers, then, while there was a beat left in his heart, kill, kill, kill. These men all had rifles. The fight would be short. But the marksmen did not live on earth who could make such a fight go wholly against him. Confronting them suddenly he could kill a man for every shot in his gun.

Thus Duane reasoned. So he hoped to accept his fate — to meet this end. But when he tried to step forward something checked him. He forced himself; yet he could not go. The obstruction that opposed his will was as insurmountable as it had been physically impossible for him to climb the bluff.

Slowly he fell back, crouched low, and then lay flat. The grim and ghastly dignity that had been his a moment before fell away from him. He lay there stripped of his last shred of self-respect. He wondered was he afraid; had he, the last of the Duanes — had he come to feel fear? No! Never in all his wild life had he so longed to go out and meet men face to face. It was not fear that held him back. He hated this hiding, this eternal vigilance, this hopeless life. The damnable paradox of the situation was that if he went out to meet these men there was absolutely no doubt of his doom. If he clung to his covert there was a chance, a merest chance, for his life. These pursuers, dogged and unflagging as they had been, were mortally afraid of him. It was his fame that made them cowards. Duane’s keenness told him that at the very darkest and most perilous moment there was still a chance for him. And the blood in him, the temper of his father, the years of his outlawry, the pride of his unsought and hated career, the nameless, inexplicable something in him made him accept that slim chance.

Waiting then became a physical and mental agony. He lay under the burning sun, parched by thirst, laboring to breathe, sweating and bleeding. His uncared-for wound was like a red-hot prong in his flesh. Blotched and swollen from the never-ending attack of flies and mosquitoes his face seemed twice its natural size, and it ached and stung.

On one side, then, was this physical torture; on the other the old hell, terribly augmented at this crisis, in his mind. It seemed that thought and imagination had never been so swift. If death found him presently, how would it come? Would he get decent burial or be left for the peccaries and the coyotes? Would his people ever know where he had fallen? How wretched, how miserable his state! It was cowardly, it was monstrous for him to cling longer to this doomed life. Then the hate in his heart, the hellish hate of these men on his trail — that was like a scourge. He felt no longer human. He had degenerated into an animal that could think. His heart pounded, his pulse beat, his breast heaved; and this internal strife seemed to thunder into his ears. He was now enacting the tragedy of all crippled, starved, hunted wolves at bay in their dens. Only his tragedy was infinitely more terrible because he had mind enough to see his plight, his resemblance to a lonely wolf, bloody-fanged, dripping, snarling, fire-eyed in a last instinctive defiance.

Mounted upon the horror of Duane’s thought was a watching, listening intensity so supreme that it registered impressions which were creations of his imagination. He heard stealthy steps that were not there; he saw shadowy moving figures that were only leaves. A hundred times when he was about to pull trigger he discovered his error. Yet voices came from a distance, and steps and crackings in the willows, and other sounds real enough. But Duane could not distinguish the real from the false. There were times when the wind which had arisen sent a hot, pattering breath down the willow aisles, and Duane heard it as an approaching army.

This straining of Duane’s faculties brought on a reaction which in itself was a respite. He saw the sun darkened by thick slow spreading clouds. A storm appeared to be coming. How slowly it moved! The air was like steam. If there broke one of those dark, violent storms common though rare to the country, Duane believed he might slip away in the fury of wind and rain. Hope, that seemed unquenchable in him, resurged again. He hailed it with a bitterness that was sickening.

Then at a rustling step he froze into the old strained attention. He heard a slow patter of soft feet. A tawny shape crossed a little opening in the thicket. It was that of a dog. The moment while that beast came into full view was an age. The dog was not a bloodhound, and if he had a trail or a scent he seemed to be at fault on it. Duane waited for the inevitable discovery. Any kind of a hunting-dog could have found him in that thicket. Voices from outside could be heard urging on the dog. Rover they called him. Duane sat up at the moment the dog entered the little shaded covert. Duane expected a yelping, a baying, or at least a bark that would tell of his hiding-place. A strange relief swiftly swayed over Duane. The end was near now. He had no further choice. Let them come — a quick fierce exchange of shots — and then this torture past! He waited for the dog to give the alarm.

But the dog looked at him and trotted by into the thicket without a yelp. Duane could not believe the evidence of his senses. He thought he had suddenly gone deaf. He saw the dog disappear, heard him running to and fro among the willows, getting farther and farther away, till all sound from him ceased.

“Thar’s Rover,” called a voice from the bluff-side. “He’s been through thet black patch.”

“Nary a rabbit in there,” replied another.

“Bah! Thet pup’s no good,” scornfully growled another man. “Put a hound at thet clump of willows.”

“Fire’s the game. Burn the brake before the rain comes.”

The voices droned off as their owners evidently walked up the ridge.

Then upon Duane fell the crushing burden of the old waiting, watching, listening spell. After all, it was not to end just now. His chance still persisted — looked a little brighter — led him on, perhaps, to forlorn hope.

All at once twilight settled quickly down upon the willow brake, or else Duane noted it suddenly. He imagined it to be caused by the approaching storm. But there was little movement of air or cloud, and thunder still muttered and rumbled at a distance. The fact was the sun had set, and at this time of overcast sky night was at hand.

Duane realized it with the awakening of all his old force. He would yet elude his pursuers. That was the moment when he seized the significance of all these fortunate circumstances which had aided him. Without haste and without sound he began to crawl in the direction of the river. It was not far, and he reached the bank before darkness set in. There were men up on the bluff carrying wood to build a bonfire. For a moment he half yielded to a temptation to try to slip along the river-shore, close in under the willows. But when he raised himself to peer out he saw that an attempt of this kind would be liable to failure. At the same moment he saw a rough-hewn plank lying beneath him, lodged against some willows. The end of the plank extended in almost to a point beneath him. Quick as a flash he saw where a desperate chance invited him. Then he tied his gun in an oilskin bag and put it in his pocket.

The bank was steep and crumbly. He must not break off any earth to splash into the water. There was a willow growing back some few feet from the edge of the bank. Cautiously he pulled it down, bent it over the water so that when he released it there would be no springing back. Then he trusted his weight to it, with his feet sliding carefully down the bank. He went into the water almost up to his knees, felt the quicksand grip his feet; then, leaning forward till he reached the plank, he pulled it toward him and lay upon it.

Without a sound one end went slowly under water and the farther end appeared lightly braced against the overhanging willows. Very carefully then Duane began to extricate his right foot from the sucking sand. It seemed as if his foot was incased in solid rock. But there was a movement upward, and he pulled with all the power he dared use. It came slowly and at length was free. The left one he released with less difficulty. The next few moments he put all his attention on the plank to ascertain if his weight would sink it into the sand. The far end slipped off the willows with a little splash and gradually settled to rest upon the bottom. But it sank no farther, and Duane’s greatest concern was relieved. However, as it was manifestly impossible for him to keep his head up for long he carefully crawled out upon the plank until he could rest an arm and shoulder upon the willows.

When he looked up it was to find the night strangely luminous with fires. There was a bonfire on the extreme end of the bluff, another a hundred paces beyond. A great flare extended over the brake in that direction. Duane heard a roaring on the wind, and he knew his pursuers had fired the willows. He did not believe that would help them much. The brake was dry enough, but too green to burn readily. And as for the bonfires he discovered that the men, probably having run out of wood, were keeping up the light with oil and stuff from the village. A dozen men kept watch on the bluff scarcely fifty paces from where Duane lay concealed by the willows. They talked, cracked jokes, sang songs, and manifestly considered this outlaw-hunting a great lark. As long as the bright light lasted Duane dared not move. He had the patience and the endurance to wait for the breaking of the storm, and if that did not come, then the early hour before dawn when the gray fog and gloom were over the river.

Escape was now in his grasp. He felt it. And with that in his mind he waited, strong as steel in his conviction, capable of withstanding any strain endurable by the human frame.

The wind blew in puffs, grew wilder, and roared through the willows, carrying bright sparks upward. Thunder rolled down over the river, and lightning began to flash. Then the rain fell in heavy sheets, but not steadily. The flashes of lightning and the broad flares played so incessantly that Duane could not trust himself out on the open river. Certainly the storm rather increased the watchfulness of the men on the bluff. He knew how to wait, and he waited, grimly standing pain and cramp and chill. The storm wore away as desultorily as it had come, and the long night set in. There were times when Duane thought he was paralyzed, others when he grew sick, giddy, weak from the strained posture. The first paling of the stars quickened him with a kind of wild joy. He watched them grow paler, dimmer, disappear one by one. A shadow hovered down, rested upon the river, and gradually thickened. The bonfire on the bluff showed as through a foggy veil. The watchers were mere groping dark figures.

Duane, aware of how cramped he had become from long inaction, began to move his legs and uninjured arm and body, and at length overcame a paralyzing stiffness. Then, digging his hand in the sand and holding the plank with his knees, he edged it out into the river. Inch by inch he advanced until clear of the willows. Looking upward, he saw the shadowy figures of the men on the bluff. He realized they ought to see him, feared that they would. But he kept on, cautiously, noiselessly, with a heart-numbing slowness. From time to time his elbow made a little gurgle and splash in the water. Try as he might, he could not prevent this. It got to be like the hollow roar of a rapid filling his ears with mocking sound. There was a perceptible current out in the river, and it hindered straight advancement. Inch by inch he crept on, expecting to hear the bang of rifles, the spattering of bullets. He tried not to look backward, but failed. The fire appeared a little dimmer, the moving shadows a little darker.

Once the plank stuck in the sand and felt as if it were settling. Bringing feet to aid his hand, he shoved it over the treacherous place. This way he made faster progress. The obscurity of the river seemed to be enveloping him. When he looked back again the figures of the men were coalescing with the surrounding gloom, the fires were streaky, blurred patches of light. But the sky above was brighter. Dawn was not far off.

To the west all was dark. With infinite care and implacable spirit and waning strength Duane shoved the plank along, and when at last he discerned the black border of bank it came in time, he thought, to save him. He crawled out, rested till the gray dawn broke, and then headed north through the willows.

CHAPTER XIII

HOW LONG DUANE was traveling out of that region he never knew. But he reached familiar country and found a rancher who had before befriended him. Here his arm was attended to; he had food and sleep; and in a couple of weeks he was himself again.

When the time came for Duane to ride away on his endless trail his friend reluctantly imparted the information that some thirty miles south, near the village of Shirley, there was posted at a certain cross-road a reward for Buck Duane dead or alive. Duane had heard of such notices, but he had never seen one. His friend’s reluctance and refusal to state for what particular deed this reward was offered roused Duane’s curiosity. He had never been any closer to Shirley than this rancher’s home. Doubtless some post-office burglary, some gun-shooting scrape had been attributed to him. And he had been accused of worse deeds. Abruptly Duane decided to ride over there and find out who wanted him dead or alive, and why.

As he started south on the road he reflected that this was the first time he had ever deliberately hunted trouble. Introspection awarded him this knowledge; during that last terrible flight on the lower Nueces and while he lay abed recuperating he had changed. A fixed, immutable, hopeless bitterness abided with him. He had reached the end of his rope. All the power of his mind and soul were unavailable to turn him back from his fate.

That fate was to become an outlaw in every sense of the term, to be what he was credited with being — that is to say, to embrace evil. He had never committed a crime. He wondered now was crime close to him? He reasoned finally that the desperation of crime had been forced upon him, if not its motive; and that if driven, there was no limit to his possibilities. He understood now many of the hitherto inexplicable actions of certain noted outlaws — why they had returned to the scene of the crime that had outlawed them; why they took such strangely fatal chances; why life was no more to them than a breath of wind; why they rode straight into the jaws of death to confront wronged men or hunting rangers, vigilantes, to laugh in their very faces. It was such bitterness as this that drove these men.

Toward afternoon, from the top of a long hill, Duane saw the green fields and trees and shining roofs of a town he considered must be Shirley. And at the bottom of the hill he came upon an intersecting road. There was a placard nailed on the crossroad sign-post. Duane drew rein near it and leaned close to read the faded print. $1000 REWARD FOR BUCK DUANE DEAD OR ALIVE. Peering closer to read the finer, more faded print, Duane learned that he was wanted for the murder of Mrs. Jeff Aiken at her ranch near Shirley. The month September was named, but the date was illegible. The reward was offered by the woman’s husband, whose name appeared with that of a sheriff’s at the bottom of the placard.

Duane read the thing twice. When he straightened he was sick with the horror of his fate, wild with passion at those misguided fools who could believe that he had harmed a woman. Then he remembered Kate Bland, and, as always when she returned to him, he quaked inwardly. Years before word had gone abroad that he had killed her, and so it was easy for men wanting to fix a crime to name him. Perhaps it had been done often. Probably he bore on his shoulders a burden of numberless crimes.

A dark, passionate fury possessed him. It shook him like a storm shakes the oak. When it passed, leaving him cold, with clouded brow and piercing eye, his mind was set. Spurring his horse, he rode straight toward the village.

Shirley appeared to be a large, pretentious country town. A branch of some railroad terminated there. The main street was wide, bordered by trees and commodious houses, and many of the stores were of brick. A large plaza shaded by giant cottonwood trees occupied a central location.

Duane pulled his running horse and halted him, plunging and snorting, before a group of idle men who lounged on benches in the shade of a spreading cottonwood. How many times had Duane seen just that kind of lazy shirt-sleeved Texas group! Not often, however, had he seen such placid, lolling, good-natured men change their expression, their attitude so swiftly. His advent apparently was momentous. They evidently took him for an unusual visitor. So far as Duane could tell, not one of them recognized him, had a hint of his identity.

He slid off his horse and threw the bridle.

“I’m Buck Duane,” he said. “I saw that placard — out there on a sign-post. It’s a damn lie! Somebody find this man Jeff Aiken. I want to see him.”

His announcement was taken in absolute silence. That was the only effect he noted, for he avoided looking at these villagers. The reason was simple enough; Duane felt himself overcome with emotion. There were tears in his eyes. He sat down on a bench, put his elbows on his knees and his hands to his face. For once he had absolutely no concern for his fate. This ignominy was the last straw.

Presently, however, he became aware of some kind of commotion among these villagers. He heard whisperings, low, hoarse voices, then the shuffle of rapid feet moving away. All at once a violent hand jerked his gun from its holster. When Duane rose a gaunt man, livid of face, shaking like a leaf, confronted him with his own gun.

“Hands up, thar, you Buck Duane!” he roared, waving the gun.

That appeared to be the cue for pandemonium to break loose. Duane opened his lips to speak, but if he had yelled at the top of his lungs he could not have made himself heard. In weary disgust he looked at the gaunt man, and then at the others, who were working themselves into a frenzy. He made no move, however, to hold up his hands. The villagers surrounded him, emboldened by finding him now unarmed. Then several men lay hold of his arms and pinioned them behind his back. Resistance was useless even if Duane had had the spirit. Some one of them fetched his halter from his saddle, and with this they bound him helpless.

People were running now from the street, the stores, the houses. Old men, cowboys, clerks, boys, ranchers came on the trot. The crowd grew. The increasing clamor began to attract women as well as men. A group of girls ran up, then hung back in fright and pity.

The presence of cowboys made a difference. They split up the crowd, got to Duane, and lay hold of him with rough, businesslike hands. One of them lifted his fists and roared at the frenzied mob to fall back, to stop the racket. He beat them back into a circle; but it was some little time before the hubbub quieted down so a voice could be heard.

“Shut up, will you-all?” he was yelling. “Give us a chance to hear somethin’. Easy now — soho. There ain’t nobody goin’ to be hurt. Thet’s right; everybody quiet now. Let’s see what’s come off.”

This cowboy, evidently one of authority, or at least one of strong personality, turned to the gaunt man, who still waved Duane’s gun.

“Abe, put the gun down,” he said. “It might go off. Here, give it to me. Now, what’s wrong? Who’s this roped gent, an’ what’s he done?”

The gaunt fellow, who appeared now about to collapse, lifted a shaking hand and pointed.

“Thet thar feller — he’s Buck Duane!” he panted.

An angry murmur ran through the surrounding crowd.

“The rope! The rope! Throw it over a branch! String him up!” cried an excited villager.

“Buck Duane! Buck Duane!”

“Hang him!”

The cowboy silenced these cries.

“Abe, how do you know this fellow is Buck Duane?” he asked, sharply.

“Why — he said so,” replied the man called Abe.

“What!” came the exclamation, incredulously.

“It’s a tarnal fact,” panted Abe, waving his hands importantly. He was an old man and appeared to be carried away with the significance of his deed. “He like to rid’ his hoss right over us-all. Then he jumped off, says he was Buck Duane, an’ he wanted to see Jeff Aiken bad.”

This speech caused a second commotion as noisy though not so enduring as the first. When the cowboy, assisted by a couple of his mates, had restored order again some one had slipped the noose-end of Duane’s rope over his head.

“Up with him!” screeched a wild-eyed youth.

The mob surged closer was shoved back by the cowboys.

“Abe, if you ain’t drunk or crazy tell thet over,” ordered Abe’s interlocutor.

With some show of resentment and more of dignity Abe reiterated his former statement.

“If he’s Buck Duane how’n hell did you get hold of his gun?” bluntly queried the cowboy.

“Why — he set down thar — an’ he kind of hid his face on his hand. An’ I grabbed his gun an’ got the drop on him.”

What the cowboy thought of this was expressed in a laugh. His mates likewise grinned broadly. Then the leader turned to Duane.

“Stranger, I reckon you’d better speak up for yourself,” he said.

That stilled the crowd as no command had done.

“I’m Buck Duane, all right.” said Duane, quietly. “It was this way—”

The big cowboy seemed to vibrate with a shock. All the ruddy warmth left his face; his jaw began to bulge; the corded veins in his neck stood out in knots. In an instant he had a hard, stern, strange look. He shot out a powerful hand that fastened in the front of Duane’s blouse.

“Somethin’ queer here. But if you’re Duane you’re sure in bad. Any fool ought to know that. You mean it, then?”

“Yes.”

“Rode in to shoot up the town, eh? Same old stunt of you gunfighters? Meant to kill the man who offered a reward? Wanted to see Jeff Aiken bad, huh?”

“No,” replied Duane. “Your citizen here misrepresented things. He seems a little off his head.”

“Reckon he is. Somebody is, that’s sure. You claim Buck Duane, then, an’ all his doings?”

“I’m Duane; yes. But I won’t stand for the blame of things I never did. That’s why I’m here. I saw that placard out there offering the reward. Until now I never was within half a day’s ride of this town. I’m blamed for what I never did. I rode in here, told who I was, asked somebody to send for Jeff Aiken.”

“An’ then you set down an’ let this old guy throw your own gun on you?” queried the cowboy in amazement.

“I guess that’s it,” replied Duane.

“Well, it’s powerful strange, if you’re really Buck Duane.”

A man elbowed his way into the circle.

“It’s Duane. I recognize him. I seen him in more’n one place,” he said. “Sibert, you can rely on what I tell you. I don’t know if he’s locoed or what. But I do know he’s the genuine Buck Duane. Any one who’d ever seen him onct would never forget him.”

“What do you want to see Aiken for?” asked the cowboy Sibert.

“I want to face him, and tell him I never harmed his wife.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m innocent, that’s all.”

“Suppose we send for Aiken an’ he hears you an’ doesn’t believe you; what then?”

“If he won’t believe me — why, then my case’s so bad — I’d be better off dead.”

A momentary silence was broken by Sibert.

“If this isn’t a queer deal! Boys, reckon we’d better send for Jeff.”

“Somebody went fer him. He’ll be comin’ soon,” replied a man.

Duane stood a head taller than that circle of curious faces. He gazed out above and beyond them. It was in this way that he chanced to see a number of women on the outskirts of the crowd. Some were old, with hard faces, like the men. Some were young and comely, and most of these seemed agitated by excitement or distress. They cast fearful, pitying glances upon Duane as he stood there with that noose round his neck. Women were more human than men, Duane thought. He met eyes that dilated, seemed fascinated at his gaze, but were not averted. It was the old women who were voluble, loud in expression of their feelings.

Near the trunk of the cottonwood stood a slender woman in white. Duane’s wandering glance rested upon her. Her eyes were riveted upon him. A soft-hearted woman, probably, who did not want to see him hanged!

“Thar comes Jeff Aiken now,” called a man, loudly.

The crowd shifted and trampled in eagerness.

Duane saw two men coming fast, one of whom, in the lead, was of stalwart build. He had a gun in his hand, and his manner was that of fierce energy.

The cowboy Sibert thrust open the jostling circle of men.

“Hold on, Jeff,” he called, and he blocked the man with the gun. He spoke so low Duane could not hear what he said, and his form hid Aiken’s face. At that juncture the crowd spread out, closed in, and Aiken and Sibert were caught in the circle. There was a pushing forward, a pressing of many bodies, hoarse cries and flinging hands — again the insane tumult was about to break out — the demand for an outlaw’s blood, the call for a wild justice executed a thousand times before on Texas’s bloody soil.

Sibert bellowed at the dark encroaching mass. The cowboys with him beat and cuffed in vain.

“Jeff, will you listen?” broke in Sibert, hurriedly, his hand on the other man’s arm.

Aiken nodded coolly. Duane, who had seen many men in perfect control of themselves under circumstances like these, recognized the spirit that dominated Aiken. He was white, cold, passionless. There were lines of bitter grief deep round his lips. If Duane ever felt the meaning of death he felt it then.

“Sure this ‘s your game, Aiken,” said Sibert. “But hear me a minute. Reckon there’s no doubt about this man bein’ Buck Duane. He seen the placard out at the cross-roads. He rides in to Shirley. He says he’s Buck Duane an’ he’s lookin’ for Jeff Aiken. That’s all clear enough. You know how these gunfighters go lookin’ for trouble. But here’s what stumps me. Duane sits down there on the bench and lets old Abe Strickland grab his gun ant get the drop on him. More’n that, he gives me some strange talk about how, if he couldn’t make you believe he’s innocent, he’d better be dead. You see for yourself Duane ain’t drunk or crazy or locoed. He doesn’t strike me as a man who rode in here huntin’ blood. So I reckon you’d better hold on till you hear what he has to say.”

Then for the first time the drawn-faced, hungry-eyed giant turned his gaze upon Duane. He had intelligence which was not yet subservient to passion. Moreover, he seemed the kind of man Duane would care to have judge him in a critical moment like this.

“Listen,” said Duane, gravely, with his eyes steady on Aiken’s, “I’m Buck Duane. I never lied to any man in my life. I was forced into outlawry. I’ve never had a chance to leave the country. I’ve killed men to save my own life. I never intentionally harmed any woman. I rode thirty miles to-day — deliberately to see what this reward was, who made it, what for. When I read the placard I went sick to the bottom of my soul. So I rode in here to find you — to tell you this: I never saw Shirley before to-day. It was impossible for me to have — killed your wife. Last September I was two hundred miles north of here on the upper Nueces. I can prove that. Men who know me will tell you I couldn’t murder a woman. I haven’t any idea why such a deed should be laid at my hands. It’s just that wild border gossip. I have no idea what reasons you have for holding me responsible. I only know — you’re wrong. You’ve been deceived. And see here, Aiken. You understand I’m a miserable man. I’m about broken, I guess. I don’t care any more for life, for anything. If you can’t look me in the eyes, man to man, and believe what I say — why, by God! you can kill me!”

Aiken heaved a great breath.

“Buck Duane, whether I’m impressed or not by what you say needn’t matter. You’ve had accusers, justly or unjustly, as will soon appear. The thing is we can prove you innocent or guilty. My girl Lucy saw my wife’s assailant.”

He motioned for the crowd of men to open up.

“Somebody — you, Sibert — go for Lucy. That’ll settle this thing.”

Duane heard as a man in an ugly dream. The faces around him, the hum of voices, all seemed far off. His life hung by the merest thread. Yet he did not think of that so much as of the brand of a woman-murderer which might be soon sealed upon him by a frightened, imaginative child.

The crowd trooped apart and closed again. Duane caught a blurred image of a slight girl clinging to Sibert’s hand. He could not see distinctly. Aiken lifted the child, whispered soothingly to her not to be afraid. Then he fetched her closer to Duane.

“Lucy, tell me. Did you ever see this man before?” asked Aiken, huskily and low. “Is he the one — who came in the house that day — struck you down — and dragged mama — ?”

Aiken’s voice failed.

A lightning flash seemed to clear Duane’s blurred sight. He saw a pale, sad face and violet eyes fixed in gloom and horror upon his. No terrible moment in Duane’s life ever equaled this one of silence — of suspense.

“It’s ain’t him!” cried the child.

Then Sibert was flinging the noose off Duane’s neck and unwinding the bonds round his arms. The spellbound crowd awoke to hoarse exclamations.

“See there, my locoed gents, how easy you’d hang the wrong man,” burst out the cowboy, as he made the rope-end hiss. “You-all are a lot of wise rangers. Haw! haw!”

He freed Duane and thrust the bone-handled gun back in Duane’s holster.

“You Abe, there. Reckon you pulled a stunt! But don’t try the like again. And, men, I’ll gamble there’s a hell of a lot of bad work Buck Duane’s named for — which all he never done. Clear away there. Where’s his hoss? Duane, the road’s open out of Shirley.”

Sibert swept the gaping watchers aside and pressed Duane toward the horse, which another cowboy held. Mechanically Duane mounted, felt a lift as he went up. Then the cowboy’s hard face softened in a smile.

“I reckon it ain’t uncivil of me to say — hit that road quick!” he said, frankly.

He led the horse out of the crowd. Aiken joined him, and between them they escorted Duane across the plaza. The crowd appeared irresistibly drawn to follow.

Aiken paused with his big hand on Duane’s knee. In it, unconsciously probably, he still held the gun.

“Duane, a word with you,” he said. “I believe you’re not so black as you’ve been painted. I wish there was time to say more. Tell me this, anyway. Do you know the Ranger Captain MacNelly?”

“I do not,” replied Duane, in surprise.

“I met him only a week ago over in Fairfield,” went on Aiken, hurriedly. “He declared you never killed my wife. I didn’t believe him — argued with him. We almost had hard words over it. Now — I’m sorry. The last thing he said was: ‘If you ever see Duane don’t kill him. Send him into my camp after dark!’ He meant something strange. What — I can’t say. But he was right, and I was wrong. If Lucy had batted an eye I’d have killed you. Still, I wouldn’t advise you to hunt up MacNelly’s camp. He’s clever. Maybe he believes there’s no treachery in his new ideas of ranger tactics. I tell you for all it’s worth. Good-by. May God help you further as he did this day!”

Duane said good-by and touched the horse with his spurs.

“So long, Buck!” called Sibert, with that frank smile breaking warm over his brown face; and he held his sombrero high.

CHAPTER XIV

WHEN DUANE REACHED the crossing of the roads the name Fairfield on the sign-post seemed to be the thing that tipped the oscillating balance of decision in favor of that direction.

He answered here to unfathomable impulse. If he had been driven to hunt up Jeff Aiken, now he was called to find this unknown ranger captain. In Duane’s state of mind clear reasoning, common sense, or keenness were out of the question. He went because he felt he was compelled.

Dusk had fallen when he rode into a town which inquiry discovered to be Fairfield. Captain MacNelly’s camp was stationed just out of the village limits on the other side.

No one except the boy Duane questioned appeared to notice his arrival. Like Shirley, the town of Fairfield was large and prosperous, compared to the innumerable hamlets dotting the vast extent of southwestern Texas. As Duane rode through, being careful to get off the main street, he heard the tolling of a church-bell that was a melancholy reminder of his old home.

There did not appear to be any camp on the outskirts of the town. But as Duane sat his horse, peering around and undecided what further move to make, he caught the glint of flickering lights through the darkness. Heading toward them, he rode perhaps a quarter of a mile to come upon a grove of mesquite. The brightness of several fires made the surrounding darkness all the blacker. Duane saw the moving forms of men and heard horses. He advanced naturally, expecting any moment to be halted.

“Who goes there?” came the sharp call out of the gloom.

Duane pulled his horse. The gloom was impenetrable.

“One man — alone,” replied Duane.

“A stranger?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m trying to find the ranger camp.”

“You’ve struck it. What’s your errand?”

“I want to see Captain MacNelly.”

“Get down and advance. Slow. Don’t move your hands. It’s dark, but I can see.”

Duane dismounted, and, leading his horse, slowly advanced a few paces. He saw a dully bright object — a gun — before he discovered the man who held it. A few more steps showed a dark figure blocking the trail. Here Duane halted.

“Come closer, stranger. Let’s have a look at you,” the guard ordered, curtly.

Duane advanced again until he stood before the man. Here the rays of light from the fires flickered upon Duane’s face.

“Reckon you’re a stranger, all right. What’s your name and your business with the Captain?”

Duane hesitated, pondering what best to say.

“Tell Captain MacNelly I’m the man he’s been asking to ride into his camp — after dark,” finally said Duane.

The ranger bent forward to peer hard at this night visitor. His manner had been alert, and now it became tense.

“Come here, one of you men, quick,” he called, without turning in the least toward the camp-fire.

“Hello! What’s up, Pickens?” came the swift reply. It was followed by a rapid thud of boots on soft ground. A dark form crossed the gleams from the fire-light. Then a ranger loomed up to reach the side of the guard. Duane heard whispering, the purport of which he could not catch. The second ranger swore under his breath. Then he turned away and started back.

“Here, ranger, before you go, understand this. My visit is peaceful — friendly if you’ll let it be. Mind, I was asked to come here — after dark.”

Duane’s clear, penetrating voice carried far. The listening rangers at the camp-fire heard what he said.

“Ho, Pickens! Tell that fellow to wait,” replied an authoritative voice. Then a slim figure detached itself from the dark, moving group at the camp-fire and hurried out.

“Better be foxy, Cap,” shouted a ranger, in warning.

“Shut up — all of you,” was the reply.

This officer, obviously Captain MacNelly, soon joined the two rangers who were confronting Duane. He had no fear. He strode straight up to Duane.

“I’m MacNelly,” he said. “If you’re my man, don’t mention your name — yet.”

All this seemed so strange to Duane, in keeping with much that had happened lately.

“I met Jeff Aiken to-day,” said Duane. “He sent me—”

“You’ve met Aiken!” exclaimed MacNelly, sharp, eager, low. “By all that’s bully!” Then he appeared to catch himself, to grow restrained.

“Men, fall back, leave us alone a moment.”

The rangers slowly withdrew.

“Buck Duane! It’s you?” he whispered, eagerly.

“Yes.”

“If I give my word you’ll not be arrested — you’ll be treated fairly — will you come into camp and consult with me?”

“Certainly.”

“Duane, I’m sure glad to meet you,” went on MacNelly; and he extended his hand.

Amazed and touched, scarcely realizing this actuality, Duane gave his hand and felt no unmistakable grip of warmth.

“It doesn’t seem natural, Captain MacNelly, but I believe I’m glad to meet you,” said Duane, soberly.

“You will be. Now we’ll go back to camp. Keep your identity mum for the present.”

He led Duane in the direction of the camp-fire.

“Pickers, go back on duty,” he ordered, “and, Beeson, you look after this horse.”

When Duane got beyond the line of mesquite, which had hid a good view of the camp-site, he saw a group of perhaps fifteen rangers sitting around the fires, near a long low shed where horses were feeding, and a small adobe house at one side.

“We’ve just had grub, but I’ll see you get some. Then we’ll talk,” said MacNelly. “I’ve taken up temporary quarters here. Have a rustler job on hand. Now, when you’ve eaten, come right into the house.”

Duane was hungry, but he hurried through the ample supper that was set before him, urged on by curiosity and astonishment. The only way he could account for his presence there in a ranger’s camp was that MacNelly hoped to get useful information out of him. Still that would hardly have made this captain so eager. There was a mystery here, and Duane could scarcely wait for it to be solved. While eating he had bent keen eyes around him. After a first quiet scrutiny the rangers apparently paid no more attention to him. They were all veterans in service — Duane saw that — and rugged, powerful men of iron constitution. Despite the occasional joke and sally of the more youthful members, and a general conversation of camp-fire nature, Duane was not deceived about the fact that his advent had been an unusual and striking one, which had caused an undercurrent of conjecture and even consternation among them. These rangers were too well trained to appear openly curious about their captain’s guest. If they had not deliberately attempted to be oblivious of his presence Duane would have concluded they thought him an ordinary visitor, somehow of use to MacNelly. As it was, Duane felt a suspense that must have been due to a hint of his identity.

He was not long in presenting himself at the door of the house.

“Come in and have a chair,” said MacNelly, motioning for the one other occupant of the room to rise. “Leave us, Russell, and close the door. I’ll be through these reports right off.”

MacNelly sat at a table upon which was a lamp and various papers. Seen in the light he was a fine-looking, soldierly man of about forty years, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a bronzed face, shrewd, stern, strong, yet not wanting in kindliness. He scanned hastily over some papers, fussed with them, and finally put them in envelopes. Without looking up he pushed a cigar-case toward Duane, and upon Duane’s refusal to smoke he took a cigar, rose to light it at the lamp-chimney, and then, settling back in his chair, he faced Duane, making a vain attempt to hide what must have been the fulfilment of a long-nourished curiosity.

“Duane, I’ve been hoping for this for two years,” he began.

Duane smiled a little — a smile that felt strange on his face. He had never been much of a talker. And speech here seemed more than ordinarily difficult.

MacNelly must have felt that.

He looked long and earnestly at Duane, and his quick, nervous manner changed to grave thoughtfulness.

“I’ve lots to say, but where to begin,” he mused. “Duane, you’ve had a hard life since you went on the dodge. I never met you before, don’t know what you looked like as a boy. But I can see what — well, even ranger life isn’t all roses.”

He rolled his cigar between his lips and puffed clouds of smoke.

“Ever hear from home since you left Wellston?” he asked, abruptly.

“No.”

“Never a word?”

“Not one,” replied Duane, sadly.

“That’s tough. I’m glad to be able to tell you that up to just lately your mother, sister, uncle — all your folks, I believe — were well. I’ve kept posted. But haven’t heard lately.”

Duane averted his face a moment, hesitated till the swelling left his throat, and then said, “It’s worth what I went through to-day to hear that.”

“I can imagine how you feel about it. When I was in the war — but let’s get down to the business of this meeting.”

He pulled his chair close to Duane’s.

“You’ve had word more than once in the last two years that I wanted to see you?”

“Three times, I remember,” replied Duane.

“Why didn’t you hunt me up?”

“I supposed you imagined me one of those gun-fighters who couldn’t take a dare and expected me to ride up to your camp and be arrested.”

“That was natural, I suppose,” went on MacNelly. “You didn’t know me, otherwise you would have come. I’ve been a long time getting to you. But the nature of my job, as far as you’re concerned, made me cautious. Duane, you’re aware of the hard name you bear all over the Southwest?”

“Once in a while I’m jarred into realizing,” replied Duane.

“It’s the hardest, barring Murrell and Cheseldine, on the Texas border. But there’s this difference. Murrell in his day was known to deserve his infamous name. Cheseldine in his day also. But I’ve found hundreds of men in southwest Texas who’re your friends, who swear you never committed a crime. The farther south I get the clearer this becomes. What I want to know is the truth. Have you ever done anything criminal? Tell me the truth, Duane. It won’t make any difference in my plan. And when I say crime I mean what I would call crime, or any reasonable Texan.”

“That way my hands are clean,” replied Duane.

“You never held up a man, robbed a store for grub, stole a horse when you needed him bad — never anything like that?”

“Somehow I always kept out of that, just when pressed the hardest.”

“Duane, I’m damn glad!” MacNelly exclaimed, gripping Duane’s hand. “Glad for you mother’s sakel But, all the same, in spite of this, you are a Texas outlaw accountable to the state. You’re perfectly aware that under existing circumstances, if you fell into the hands of the law, you’d probably hang, at least go to jail for a long term.”

“That’s what kept me on the dodge all these years,” replied Duane.

“Certainly.” MacNelly removed his cigar. His eyes narrowed and glittered. The muscles along his brown cheeks set hard and tense. He leaned closer to Duane, laid sinewy, pressing fingers upon Duane’s knee.

“Listen to this,” he whispered, hoarsely. “If I place a pardon in your hand — make you a free, honest citizen once more, clear your name of infamy, make your mother, your sister proud of you — will you swear yourself to a service, ANY service I demand of you?”

Duane sat stock still, stunned.

Slowly, more persuasively, with show of earnest agitation, Captain MacNelly reiterated his startling query.

“My God!” burst from Duane. “What’s this? MacNelly, you CAN’T be in earnest!”

“Never more so in my life. I’ve a deep game. I’m playing it square. What do you say?”

He rose to his feet. Duane, as if impelled, rose with him. Ranger and outlaw then locked eyes that searched each other’s souls. In MacNelly’s Duane read truth, strong, fiery purpose, hope, even gladness, and a fugitive mounting assurance of victory.

Twice Duane endeavored to speak, failed of all save a hoarse, incoherent sound, until, forcing back a flood of speech, he found a voice.

“Any service? Every service! MacNelly, I give my word,” said Duane.

A light played over MacNelly’s face, warming out all the grim darkness. He held out his hand. Duane met it with his in a clasp that men unconsciously give in moments of stress.

When they unclasped and Duane stepped back to drop into a chair MacNelly fumbled for another cigar — he had bitten the other into shreds — and, lighting it as before, he turned to his visitor, now calm and cool. He had the look of a man who had justly won something at considerable cost. His next move was to take a long leather case from his pocket and extract from it several folded papers.

“Here’s your pardon from the Governor,” he said, quietly. “You’ll see, when you look it over, that it’s conditional. When you sign this paper I have here the condition will be met.”

He smoothed out the paper, handed Duane a pen, ran his forefinger along a dotted line.

Duane’s hand was shaky. Years had passed since he had held a pen. It was with difficulty that he achieved his signature. Buckley Duane — how strange the name looked!

“Right here ends the career of Buck Duane, outlaw and gunfighter,” said MacNelly; and, seating himself, he took the pen from Duane’s fingers and wrote several lines in several places upon the paper. Then with a smile he handed it to Duane.

“That makes you a member of Company A, Texas Rangers.”

“So that’s it!” burst out Duane, a light breaking in upon his bewilderment. “You want me for ranger service?”

“Sure. That’s it,” replied the Captain, dryly. “Now to hear what that service is to be. I’ve been a busy man since I took this job, and, as you may have heard, I’ve done a few things. I don’t mind telling you that political influence put me in here and that up Austin way there’s a good deal of friction in the Department of State in regard to whether or not the ranger service is any good — whether it should be discontinued or not. I’m on the party side who’s defending the ranger service. I contend that it’s made Texas habitable. Well, it’s been up to me to produce results. So far I have been successful. My great ambition is to break up the outlaw gangs along the river. I have never ventured in there yet because I’ve been waiting to get the lieutenant I needed. You, of course, are the man I had in mind. It’s my idea to start way up the Rio Grande and begin with Cheseldine. He’s the strongest, the worst outlaw of the times. He’s more than rustler. It’s Cheseldine and his gang who are operating on the banks. They’re doing bank-robbing. That’s my private opinion, but it’s not been backed up by any evidence. Cheseldine doesn’t leave evidences. He’s intelligent, cunning. No one seems to have seen him — to know what he looks like. I assume, of course, that you are a stranger to the country he dominates. It’s five hundred miles west of your ground. There’s a little town over there called Fairdale. It’s the nest of a rustler gang. They rustle and murder at will. Nobody knows who the leader is. I want you to find out. Well, whatever way you decide is best you will proceed to act upon. You are your own boss. You know such men and how they can be approached. You will take all the time needed, if it’s months. It will be necessary for you to communicate with me, and that will be a difficult matter. For Cheseldine dominates several whole counties. You must find some way to let me know when I and my rangers are needed. The plan is to break up Cheseldine’s gang. It’s the toughest job on the border. Arresting him alone isn’t to be heard of. He couldn’t be brought out. Killing him isn’t much better, for his select men, the ones he operates with, are as dangerous to the community as he is. We want to kill or jail this choice selection of robbers and break up the rest of the gang. To find them, to get among them somehow, to learn their movements, to lay your trap for us rangers to spring — that, Duane, is your service to me, and God knows it’s a great one!”

“I have accepted it,” replied Duane.

“Your work will be secret. You are now a ranger in my service. But no one except the few I choose to tell will know of it until we pull off the job. You will simply be Buck Duane till it suits our purpose to acquaint Texas with the fact that you’re a ranger. You’ll see there’s no date on that paper. No one will ever know just when you entered the service. Perhaps we can make it appear that all or most of your outlawry has really been good service to the state. At that, I’ll believe it’ll turn out so.”

MacNelly paused a moment in his rapid talk, chewed his cigar, drew his brows together in a dark frown, and went on. “No man on the border knows so well as you the deadly nature of this service. It’s a thousand to one that you’ll be killed. I’d say there was no chance at all for any other man beside you. Your reputation will go far among the outlaws. Maybe that and your nerve and your gun-play will pull you through. I’m hoping so. But it’s a long, long chance against your ever coming back.”

“That’s not the point,” said Duane. “But in case I get killed out there — what—”

“Leave that to me,” interrupted Captain MacNelly. “Your folks will know at once of your pardon and your ranger duty. If you lose your life out there I’ll see your name cleared — the service you render known. You can rest assured of that.”

“I am satisfied,” replied Duane. “That’s so much more than I’ve dared to hope.”

“Well, it’s settled, then. I’ll give you money for expenses. You’ll start as soon as you like — the sooner the better. I hope to think of other suggestions, especially about communicating with me.”

Long after the lights were out and the low hum of voices had ceased round the camp-fire Duane lay wide awake, eyes staring into the blackness, marveling over the strange events of the day. He was humble, grateful to the depths of his soul. A huge and crushing burden had been lifted from his heart. He welcomed this hazardous service to the man who had saved him. Thought of his mother and sister and Uncle Jim, of his home, of old friends came rushing over him the first time in years that he had happiness in the memory. The disgrace he had put upon them would now be removed; and in the light of that, his wasted life of the past, and its probable tragic end in future service as atonement changed their aspects. And as he lay there, with the approach of sleep finally dimming the vividness of his thought, so full of mystery, shadowy faces floated in the blackness around him, haunting him as he had always been haunted.

It was broad daylight when he awakened. MacNelly was calling him to breakfast. Outside sounded voices of men, crackling of fires, snorting and stamping of horses, the barking of dogs. Duane rolled out of his blankets and made good use of the soap and towel and razor and brush near by on a bench — things of rare luxury to an outlaw on the ride. The face he saw in the mirror was as strange as the past he had tried so hard to recall. Then he stepped to the door and went out.

The rangers were eating in a circle round a tarpaulin spread upon the ground.

“Fellows,” said MacNelly, “shake hands with Buck Duane. He’s on secret ranger service for me. Service that’ll likely make you all hump soon! Mind you, keep mum about it.”

The rangers surprised Duane with a roaring greeting, the warmth of which he soon divined was divided between pride of his acquisition to their ranks and eagerness to meet that violent service of which their captain hinted. They were jolly, wild fellows, with just enough gravity in their welcome to show Duane their respect and appreciation, while not forgetting his lone-wolf record. When he had seated himself in that circle, now one of them, a feeling subtle and uplifting pervaded him.

After the meal Captain MacNelly drew Duane aside.

“Here’s the money. Make it go as far as you can. Better strike straight for El Paso, snook around there and hear things. Then go to Valentine. That’s near the river and within fifty miles or so of the edge of the Rim Rock. Somewhere up there Cheseldine holds fort. Somewhere to the north is the town Fairdale. But he doesn’t hide all the time in the rocks. Only after some daring raid or hold-up. Cheseldine’s got border towns on his staff, or scared of him, and these places we want to know about, especially Fairdale. Write me care of the adjutant at Austin. I don’t have to warn you to be careful where you mail letters. Ride a hundred, two hundred miles, if necessary, or go clear to El Paso.”

MacNelly stopped with an air of finality, and then Duane slowly rose.

“I’ll start at once,” he said, extending his hand to the Captain. “I wish — I’d like to thank you.”

“Hell, man! Don’t thank me!” replied MacNelly, crushing the proffered hand. “I’ve sent a lot of good men to their deaths, and maybe you’re another. But, as I’ve said, you’ve one chance in a thousand. And, by Heaven! I’d hate to be Cheseldine or any other man you were trailing. No, not good-by — Adios, Duane! May we meet again!”

BOOK II. THE RANGER

CHAPTER XV

WEST OF THE Pecos River Texas extended a vast wild region, barren in the north where the Llano Estacado spread its shifting sands, fertile in the south along the Rio Grande. A railroad marked an undeviating course across five hundred miles of this country, and the only villages and towns lay on or near this line of steel. Unsettled as was this western Texas, and despite the acknowledged dominance of the outlaw bands, the pioneers pushed steadily into it. First had come the lone rancher; then his neighbors in near and far valleys; then the hamlets; at last the railroad and the towns. And still the pioneers came, spreading deeper into the valleys, farther and wider over the plains. It was mesquite-dotted, cactus-covered desert, but rich soil upon which water acted like magic. There was little grass to an acre, but there were millions of acres. The climate was wonderful. Cattle flourished and ranchers prospered.

The Rio Grande flowed almost due south along the western boundary for a thousand miles, and then, weary of its course, turned abruptly north, to make what was called the Big Bend. The railroad, running west, cut across this bend, and all that country bounded on the north by the railroad and on the south by the river was as wild as the Staked Plains. It contained not one settlement. Across the face of this Big Bend, as if to isolate it, stretched the Ord mountain range, of which Mount Ord, Cathedral Mount, and Elephant Mount raised bleak peaks above their fellows. In the valleys of the foothills and out across the plains were ranches, and farther north villages, and the towns of Alpine and Marfa.

Like other parts of the great Lone Star State, this section of Texas was a world in itself — a world where the riches of the rancher were ever enriching the outlaw. The village closest to the gateway of this outlaw-infested region was a little place called Ord, named after the dark peak that loomed some miles to the south. It had been settled originally by Mexicans — there were still the ruins of adobe missions — but with the advent of the rustler and outlaw many inhabitants were shot or driven away, so that at the height of Ord’s prosperity and evil sway there were but few Mexicans living there, and these had their choice between holding hand-and-glove with the outlaws or furnishing target practice for that wild element.

Toward the close of a day in September a stranger rode into Ord, and in a community where all men were remarkable for one reason or another he excited interest. His horse, perhaps, received the first and most engaging attention — horses in that region being apparently more important than men. This particular horse did not attract with beauty. At first glance he seemed ugly. But he was a giant, black as coal, rough despite the care manifestly bestowed upon him, long of body, ponderous of limb, huge in every way. A bystander remarked that he had a grand head. True, if only his head had been seen he would have been a beautiful horse. Like men, horses show what they are in the shape, the size, the line, the character of the head. This one denoted fire, speed, blood, loyalty, and his eyes were as soft and dark as a woman’s. His face was solid black, except in the middle of his forehead, where there was a round spot of white.

“Say mister, mind tellin’ me his name?” asked a ragged urchin, with born love of a horse in his eyes.

“Bullet,” replied the rider.

“Thet there’s fer the white mark, ain’t it?” whispered the youngster to another. “Say, ain’t he a whopper? Biggest hoss I ever seen.”

Bullet carried a huge black silver-ornamented saddle of Mexican make, a lariat and canteen, and a small pack rolled into a tarpaulin.

This rider apparently put all care of appearances upon his horse. His apparel was the ordinary jeans of the cowboy without vanity, and it was torn and travel-stained. His boots showed evidence of an intimate acquaintance with cactus. Like his horse, this man was a giant in stature, but rangier, not so heavily built. Otherwise the only striking thing about him was his somber face with its piercing eyes, and hair white over the temples. He packed two guns, both low down — but that was too common a thing to attract notice in the Big Bend. A close observer, however, would have noted a singular fact — this rider’s right hand was more bronzed, more weather-beaten than his left. He never wore a glove on that right hand!

He had dismounted before a ramshackle structure that bore upon its wide, high-boarded front the sign, “Hotel.” There were horsemen coming and going down the wide street between its rows of old stores, saloons, and houses. Ord certainly did not look enterprising. Americans had manifestly assimilated much of the leisure of the Mexicans. The hotel had a wide platform in front, and this did duty as porch and sidewalk. Upon it, and leaning against a hitching-rail, were men of varying ages, most of them slovenly in old jeans and slouched sombreros. Some were booted, belted, and spurred. No man there wore a coat, but all wore vests. The guns in that group would have outnumbered the men.

It was a crowd seemingly too lazy to be curious. Good nature did not appear to be wanting, but it was not the frank and boisterous kind natural to the cowboy or rancher in town for a day. These men were idlers; what else, perhaps, was easy to conjecture. Certainly to this arriving stranger, who flashed a keen eye over them, they wore an atmosphere never associated with work.

Presently a tall man, with a drooping, sandy mustache, leisurely detached himself from the crowd.

“Howdy, stranger,” he said.

The stranger had bent over to loosen the cinches; he straightened up and nodded. Then: “I’m thirsty!”

That brought a broad smile to faces. It was characteristic greeting. One and all trooped after the stranger into the hotel. It was a dark, ill-smelling barn of a place, with a bar as high as a short man’s head. A bartender with a scarred face was serving drinks.

“Line up, gents,” said the stranger.

They piled over one another to get to the bar, with coarse jests and oaths and laughter. None of them noted that the stranger did not appear so thirsty as he had claimed to be. In fact, though he went through the motions, he did not drink at all.

“My name’s Jim Fletcher,” said the tall man with the drooping, sandy mustache. He spoke laconically, nevertheless there was a tone that showed he expected to be known. Something went with that name. The stranger did not appear to be impressed.

“My name might be Blazes, but it ain’t,” he replied. “What do you call this burg?”

“Stranger, this heah me-tropoles bears the handle Ord. Is thet new to you?”

He leaned back against the bar, and now his little yellow eyes, clear as crystal, flawless as a hawk’s, fixed on the stranger. Other men crowded close, forming a circle, curious, ready to be friendly or otherwise, according to how the tall interrogator marked the new-comer.

“Sure, Ord’s a little strange to me. Off the railroad some, ain’t it? Funny trails hereabouts.”

“How fur was you goin’?”

“I reckon I was goin’ as far as I could,” replied the stranger, with a hard laugh.

His reply had subtle reaction on that listening circle. Some of the men exchanged glances. Fletcher stroked his drooping mustache, seemed thoughtful, but lost something of that piercing scrutiny.

“Wal, Ord’s the jumpin’-off place,” he said, presently. “Sure you’ve heerd of the Big Bend country?”

“I sure have, an’ was makin’ tracks fer it,” replied the stranger.

Fletcher turned toward a man in the outer edge of the group. “Knell, come in heah.”

This individual elbowed his way in and was seen to be scarcely more than a boy, almost pale beside those bronzed men, with a long, expressionless face, thin and sharp.

“Knell, this heah’s—” Fletcher wheeled to the stranger. “What’d you call yourself?”

“I’d hate to mention what I’ve been callin’ myself lately.”

This sally fetched another laugh. The stranger appeared cool, careless, indifferent. Perhaps he knew, as the others present knew, that this show of Fletcher’s, this pretense of introduction, was merely talk while he was looked over.

Knell stepped up, and it was easy to see, from the way Fletcher relinquished his part in the situation, that a man greater than he had appeared upon the scene.

“Any business here?” he queried, curtly. When he spoke his expressionless face was in strange contrast with the ring, the quality, the cruelty of his voice. This voice betrayed an absence of humor, of friendliness, of heart.

“Nope,” replied the stranger.

“Know anybody hereabouts?”

“Nary one.”

“Jest ridin’ through?”

“Yep.”

“Slopin’ fer back country, eh?”

There came a pause. The stranger appeared to grow a little resentful and drew himself up disdainfully.

“Wal, considerin’ you-all seem so damn friendly an’ oncurious down here in this Big Bend country, I don’t mind sayin’ yes — I am in on the dodge,” he replied, with deliberate sarcasm.

“From west of Ord — out El Paso way, mebbe?”

“Sure.”

“A-huh! Thet so?” Knell’s words cut the air, stilled the room. “You’re from way down the river. Thet’s what they say down there— ‘on the dodge.’... Stranger, you’re a liar!”

With swift clink of spur and thump of boot the crowd split, leaving Knell and the stranger in the center.

Wild breed of that ilk never made a mistake in judging a man’s nerve. Knell had cut out with the trenchant call, and stood ready. The stranger suddenly lost his every semblance to the rough and easy character before manifest in him. He became bronze. That situation seemed familiar to him. His eyes held a singular piercing light that danced like a compass-needle.

“Sure I lied,” he said; “so I ain’t takin’ offense at the way you called me. I’m lookin’ to make friends, not enemies. You don’t strike me as one of them four-flushes, achin’ to kill somebody. But if you are — go ahead an’ open the ball.... You see, I never throw a gun on them fellers till they go fer theirs.”

Knell coolly eyed his antagonist, his strange face not changing in the least. Yet somehow it was evident in his look that here was metal which rang differently from what he had expected. Invited to start a fight or withdraw, as he chose, Knell proved himself big in the manner characteristic of only the genuine gunman.

“Stranger, I pass,” he said, and, turning to the bar, he ordered liquor.

The tension relaxed, the silence broke, the men filled up the gap; the incident seemed closed. Jim Fletcher attached himself to the stranger, and now both respect and friendliness tempered his asperity.

“Wal, fer want of a better handle I’ll call you Dodge,” he said.

“Dodge’s as good as any.... Gents, line up again — an’ if you can’t be friendly, be careful!”

Such was Buck Duane’s debut in the little outlaw hamlet of Ord.

Duane had been three months out of the Nueces country. At El Paso he bought the finest horse he could find, and, armed and otherwise outfitted to suit him, he had taken to unknown trails. Leisurely he rode from town to town, village to village, ranch to ranch, fitting his talk and his occupation to the impression he wanted to make upon different people whom he met. He was in turn a cowboy, a rancher, a cattleman, a stock-buyer, a boomer, a land-hunter; and long before he reached the wild and inhospitable Ord he had acted the part of an outlaw, drifting into new territory. He passed on leisurely because he wanted to learn the lay of the country, the location of villages and ranches, the work, habit, gossip, pleasures, and fears of the people with whom he came in contact. The one subject most impelling to him — outlaws — he never mentioned; but by talking all around it, sifting the old ranch and cattle story, he acquired a knowledge calculated to aid his plot. In this game time was of no moment; if necessary he would take years to accomplish his task. The stupendous and perilous nature of it showed in the slow, wary preparation. When he heard Fletcher’s name and faced Knell he knew he had reached the place he sought. Ord was a hamlet on the fringe of the grazing country, of doubtful honesty, from which, surely, winding trails led down into that free and never-disturbed paradise of outlaws — the Big Bend.

Duane made himself agreeable, yet not too much so, to Fletcher and several other men disposed to talk and drink and eat; and then, after having a care for his horse, he rode out of town a couple of miles to a grove he had marked, and there, well hidden, he prepared to spend the night. This proceeding served a double purpose — he was safer, and the habit would look well in the eyes of outlaws, who would be more inclined to see in him the lone-wolf fugitive.

Long since Duane had fought out a battle with himself, won a hard-earned victory. His outer life, the action, was much the same as it had been; but the inner life had tremendously changed. He could never become a happy man, he could never shake utterly those haunting phantoms that had once been his despair and madness; but he had assumed a task impossible for any man save one like him, he had felt the meaning of it grow strangely and wonderfully, and through that flourished up consciousness of how passionately he now clung to this thing which would blot out his former infamy. The iron fetters no more threatened his hands; the iron door no more haunted his dreams. He never forgot that he was free. Strangely, too, along with this feeling of new manhood there gathered the force of imperious desire to run these chief outlaws to their dooms. He never called them outlaws — but rustlers, thieves, robbers, murderers, criminals. He sensed the growth of a relentless driving passion, and sometimes he feared that, more than the newly acquired zeal and pride in this ranger service, it was the old, terrible inherited killing instinct lifting its hydra-head in new guise. But of that he could not be sure. He dreaded the thought. He could only wait.

Another aspect of the change in Duane, neither passionate nor driving, yet not improbably even more potent of new significance to life, was the imperceptible return of an old love of nature dead during his outlaw days.

For years a horse had been only a machine of locomotion, to carry him from place to place, to beat and spur and goad mercilessly in flight; now this giant black, with his splendid head, was a companion, a friend, a brother, a loved thing, guarded jealously, fed and trained and ridden with an intense appreciation of his great speed and endurance. For years the daytime, with its birth of sunrise on through long hours to the ruddy close, had been used for sleep or rest in some rocky hole or willow brake or deserted hut, had been hated because it augmented danger of pursuit, because it drove the fugitive to lonely, wretched hiding; now the dawn was a greeting, a promise of another day to ride, to plan, to remember, and sun, wind, cloud, rain, sky — all were joys to him, somehow speaking his freedom. For years the night had been a black space, during which he had to ride unseen along the endless trails, to peer with cat-eyes through gloom for the moving shape that ever pursued him; now the twilight and the dusk and the shadows of grove and canon darkened into night with its train of stars, and brought him calm reflection of the day’s happenings, of the morrow’s possibilities, perhaps a sad, brief procession of the old phantoms, then sleep. For years canons and valleys and mountains had been looked at as retreats that might be dark and wild enough to hide even an outlaw; now he saw these features of the great desert with something of the eyes of the boy who had once burned for adventure and life among them.

This night a wonderful afterglow lingered long in the west, and against the golden-red of clear sky the bold, black head of Mount Ord reared itself aloft, beautiful but aloof, sinister yet calling. Small wonder that Duane gazed in fascination upon the peak! Somewhere deep in its corrugated sides or lost in a rugged canon was hidden the secret stronghold of the master outlaw Cheseldine. All down along the ride from El Paso Duane had heard of Cheseldine, of his band, his fearful deeds, his cunning, his widely separated raids, of his flitting here and there like a Jack-o’-lantern; but never a word of his den, never a word of his appearance.

Next morning Duane did not return to Ord. He struck off to the north, riding down a rough, slow-descending road that appeared to have been used occasionally for cattle-driving. As he had ridden in from the west, this northern direction led him into totally unfamiliar country. While he passed on, however, he exercised such keen observation that in the future he would know whatever might be of service to him if he chanced that way again.

The rough, wild, brush-covered slope down from the foothills gradually leveled out into plain, a magnificent grazing country, upon which till noon of that day Duane did not see a herd of cattle or a ranch. About that time he made out smoke from the railroad, and after a couple of hours’ riding he entered a town which inquiry discovered to be Bradford. It was the largest town he had visited since Marfa, and he calculated must have a thousand or fifteen hundred inhabitants, not including Mexicans. He decided this would be a good place for him to hold up for a while, being the nearest town to Ord, only forty miles away. So he hitched his horse in front of a store and leisurely set about studying Bradford.

It was after dark, however, that Duane verified his suspicions concerning Bradford. The town was awake after dark, and there was one long row of saloons, dance-halls, gambling-resorts in full blast. Duane visited them all, and was surprised to see wildness and license equal to that of the old river camp of Bland’s in its palmiest days. Here it was forced upon him that the farther west one traveled along the river the sparser the respectable settlements, the more numerous the hard characters, and in consequence the greater the element of lawlessness. Duane returned to his lodging-house with the conviction that MacNelly’s task of cleaning up the Big Bend country was a stupendous one. Yet, he reflected, a company of intrepid and quick-shooting rangers could have soon cleaned up this Bradford.

The innkeeper had one other guest that night, a long black-coated and wide-sombreroed Texan who reminded Duane of his grandfather. This man had penetrating eyes, a courtly manner, and an unmistakable leaning toward companionship and mint-juleps. The gentleman introduced himself as Colonel Webb, of Marfa, and took it as a matter of course that Duane made no comment about himself.

“Sir, it’s all one to me,” he said, blandly, waving his hand. “I have traveled. Texas is free, and this frontier is one where it’s healthier and just as friendly for a man to have no curiosity about his companion. You might be Cheseldine, of the Big Bend, or you might be Judge Little, of El Paso-it’s all one to me. I enjoy drinking with you anyway.”

Duane thanked him, conscious of a reserve and dignity that he could not have felt or pretended three months before. And then, as always, he was a good listener. Colonel Webb told, among other things, that he had come out to the Big Bend to look over the affairs of a deceased brother who had been a rancher and a sheriff of one of the towns, Fairdale by name.

“Found no affairs, no ranch, not even his grave,” said Colonel Webb. “And I tell you, sir, if hell’s any tougher than this Fairdale I don’t want to expiate my sins there.”

“Fairdale.... I imagine sheriffs have a hard row to hoe out here,” replied Duane, trying not to appear curious.

The Colonel swore lustily.

“My brother was the only honest sheriff Fairdale ever had. It was wonderful how long he lasted. But he had nerve, he could throw a gun, and he was on the square. Then he was wise enough to confine his work to offenders of his own town and neighborhood. He let the riding outlaws alone, else he wouldn’t have lasted at all.... What this frontier needs, sir, is about six companies of Texas Rangers.”

Duane was aware of the Colonel’s close scrutiny.

“Do you know anything about the service?” he asked.

“I used to. Ten years ago when I lived in San Antonio. A fine body of men, sir, and the salvation of Texas.”

“Governor Stone doesn’t entertain that opinion,” said Duane.

Here Colonel Webb exploded. Manifestly the governor was not his choice for a chief executive of the great state. He talked politics for a while, and of the vast territory west of the Pecos that seemed never to get a benefit from Austin. He talked enough for Duane to realize that here was just the kind of intelligent, well-informed, honest citizen that he had been trying to meet. He exerted himself thereafter to be agreeable and interesting; and he saw presently that here was an opportunity to make a valuable acquaintance, if not a friend.

“I’m a stranger in these parts,” said Duane, finally. “What is this outlaw situation you speak of?”

“It’s damnable, sir, and unbelievable. Not rustling any more, but just wholesale herd-stealing, in which some big cattlemen, supposed to be honest, are equally guilty with the outlaws. On this border, you know, the rustler has always been able to steal cattle in any numbers. But to get rid of big bunches — that’s the hard job. The gang operating between here and Valentine evidently have not this trouble. Nobody knows where the stolen stock goes. But I’m not alone in my opinion that most of it goes to several big stockmen. They ship to San Antonio, Austin, New Orleans, also to El Paso. If you travel the stock-road between here and Marfa and Valentine you’ll see dead cattle all along the line and stray cattle out in the scrub. The herds have been driven fast and far, and stragglers are not rounded up.”

“Wholesale business, eh?” remarked Duane. “Who are these — er — big stock-buyers?”

Colonel Webb seemed a little startled at the abrupt query. He bent his penetrating gaze upon Duane and thoughtfully stroked his pointed beard.

“Names, of course, I’ll not mention. Opinions are one thing, direct accusation another. This is not a healthy country for the informer.”

When it came to the outlaws themselves Colonel Webb was disposed to talk freely. Duane could not judge whether the Colonel had a hobby of that subject or the outlaws were so striking in personality and deed that any man would know all about them. The great name along the river was Cheseldine, but it seemed to be a name detached from an individual. No person of veracity known to Colonel Webb had ever seen Cheseldine, and those who claimed that doubtful honor varied so diversely in descriptions of the chief that they confused the reality and lent to the outlaw only further mystery. Strange to say of an outlaw leader, as there was no one who could identify him, so there was no one who could prove he had actually killed a man. Blood flowed like water over the Big Bend country, and it was Cheseldine who spilled it. Yet the fact remained there were no eye-witnesses to connect any individual called Cheseldine with these deeds of violence. But in striking contrast to this mystery was the person, character, and cold-blooded action of Poggin and Knell, the chief’s lieutenants. They were familiar figures in all the towns within two hundred miles of Bradford. Knell had a record, but as gunman with an incredible list of victims Poggin was supreme. If Poggin had a friend no one ever heard of him. There were a hundred stories of his nerve, his wonderful speed with a gun, his passion for gambling, his love of a horse — his cold, implacable, inhuman wiping out of his path any man that crossed it.

“Cheseldine is a name, a terrible name,” said Colonel Webb. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s not only a name. In that case where does the brains of this gang come from? No; there must be a master craftsman behind this border pillage; a master capable of handling those terrors Poggin and Knell. Of all the thousands of outlaws developed by western Texas in the last twenty years these three are the greatest. In southern Texas, down between the Pecos and the Nueces, there have been and are still many bad men. But I doubt if any outlaw there, possibly excepting Buck Duane, ever equaled Poggin. You’ve heard of this Duane?”

“Yes, a little,” replied Duane, quietly. “I’m from southern Texas. Buck Duane then is known out here?”

“Why, man, where isn’t his name known?” returned Colonel Webb. “I’ve kept track of his record as I have all the others. Of course, Duane, being a lone outlaw, is somewhat of a mystery also, but not like Cheseldine. Out here there have drifted many stories of Duane, horrible some of them. But despite them a sort of romance clings to that Nueces outlaw. He’s killed three great outlaw leaders, I believe — Bland, Hardin, and the other I forgot. Hardin was known in the Big Bend, had friends there. Bland had a hard name at Del Rio.”

“Then this man Duane enjoys rather an unusual repute west of the Pecos?” inquired Duane.

“He’s considered more of an enemy to his kind than to honest men. I understand Duane had many friends, that whole counties swear by him — secretly, of course, for he’s a hunted outlaw with rewards on his head. His fame in this country appears to hang on his matchless gun-play and his enmity toward outlaw chiefs. I’ve heard many a rancher say: ‘I wish to God that Buck Duane would drift out here! I’d give a hundred pesos to see him and Poggin meet.’ It’s a singular thing, stranger, how jealous these great outlaws are of each other.”

“Yes, indeed, all about them is singular,” replied Duane. “Has Cheseldine’s gang been busy lately?”

“No. This section has been free of rustling for months, though there’s unexplained movements of stock. Probably all the stock that’s being shipped now was rustled long ago. Cheseldine works over a wide section, too wide for news to travel inside of weeks. Then sometimes he’s not heard of at all for a spell. These lulls are pretty surely indicative of a big storm sooner or later. And Cheseldine’s deals, as they grow fewer and farther between, certainly get bigger, more daring. There are some people who think Cheseldine had nothing to do with the bank-robberies and train-holdups during the last few years in this country. But that’s poor reasoning. The jobs have been too well done, too surely covered, to be the work of greasers or ordinary outlaws.”

“What’s your view of the outlook? How’s all this going to wind up? Will the outlaw ever be driven out?” asked Duane.

“Never. There will always be outlaws along the Rio Grande. All the armies in the world couldn’t comb the wild brakes of that fifteen hundred miles of river. But the sway of the outlaw, such as is enjoyed by these great leaders, will sooner or later be past. The criminal element flock to the Southwest. But not so thick and fast as the pioneers. Besides, the outlaws kill themselves, and the ranchers are slowly rising in wrath, if not in action. That will come soon. If they only had a leader to start the fight! But that will come. There’s talk of Vigilantes, the same hat were organized in California and are now in force in Idaho. So far it’s only talk. But the time will come. And the days of Cheseldine and Poggin are numbered.”

Duane went to bed that night exceedingly thoughtful. The long trail was growing hot. This voluble colonel had given him new ideas. It came to Duane in surprise that he was famous along the upper Rio Grande. Assuredly he would not long be able to conceal his identity. He had no doubt that he would soon meet the chiefs of this clever and bold rustling gang. He could not decide whether he would be safer unknown or known. In the latter case his one chance lay in the fatality connected with his name, in his power to look it and act it. Duane had never dreamed of any sleuth-hound tendency in his nature, but now he felt something like one. Above all others his mind fixed on Poggin — Poggin the brute, the executor of Cheseldine’s will, but mostly upon Poggin the gunman. This in itself was a warning to Duane. He felt terrible forces at work within him. There was the stern and indomitable resolve to make MacNelly’s boast good to the governor of the state — to break up Cheseldine’s gang. Yet this was not in Duane’s mind before a strange grim and deadly instinct — which he had to drive away for fear he would find in it a passion to kill Poggin, not for the state, nor for his word to MacNelly, but for himself. Had his father’s blood and the hard years made Duane the kind of man who instinctively wanted to meet Poggin? He was sworn to MacNelly’s service, and he fought himself to keep that, and that only, in his mind.

Duane ascertained that Fairdale was situated two days’ ride from Bradford toward the north. There was a stage which made the journey twice a week.

Next morning Duane mounted his horse and headed for Fairdale. He rode leisurely, as he wanted to learn all he could about the country. There were few ranches. The farther he traveled the better grazing he encountered, and, strange to note, the fewer herds of cattle.

It was just sunset when he made out a cluster of adobe houses that marked the half-way point between Bradford and Fairdale. Here, Duane had learned, was stationed a comfortable inn for wayfarers.

When he drew up before the inn the landlord and his family and a number of loungers greeted him laconically.

“Beat the stage in, hey?” remarked one.

“There she comes now,” said another. “Joel shore is drivin’ to-night.”

Far down the road Duane saw a cloud of dust and horses and a lumbering coach. When he had looked after the needs of his horse he returned to the group before the inn. They awaited the stage with that interest common to isolated people. Presently it rolled up, a large mud-bespattered and dusty vehicle, littered with baggage on top and tied on behind. A number of passengers alighted, three of whom excited Duane’s interest. One was a tall, dark, striking-looking man, and the other two were ladies, wearing long gray ulsters and veils. Duane heard the proprietor of the inn address the man as Colonel Longstreth, and as the party entered the inn Duane’s quick ears caught a few words which acquainted him with the fact that Longstreth was the Mayor of Fairdale.

Duane passed inside himself to learn that supper would soon be ready. At table he found himself opposite the three who had attracted his attention.

“Ruth, I envy the lucky cowboys,” Longstreth was saying.

Ruth was a curly-headed girl with gray or hazel eyes.

“I’m crazy to ride bronchos,” she said.

Duane gathered she was on a visit to western Texas. The other girl’s deep voice, sweet like a bell, made Duane regard her closer. She had beauty as he had never seen it in another woman. She was slender, but the development of her figure gave Duane the impression she was twenty years old or more. She had the most exquisite hands Duane had ever seen. She did not resemble the Colonel, who was evidently her father. She looked tired, quiet, even melancholy. A finely chiseled oval face; clear, olive-tinted skin, long eyes set wide apart and black as coal, beautiful to look into; a slender, straight nose that had something nervous and delicate about it which made Duane think of a thoroughbred; and a mouth by no means small, but perfectly curved; and hair like jet — all these features proclaimed her beauty to Duane. Duane believed her a descendant of one of the old French families of eastern Texas. He was sure of it when she looked at him, drawn by his rather persistent gaze. There were pride, fire, and passion in her eyes. Duane felt himself blushing in confusion. His stare at her had been rude, perhaps, but unconscious. How many years had passed since he had seen a girl like her! Thereafter he kept his eyes upon his plate, yet he seemed to be aware that he had aroused the interest of both girls.

After supper the guests assembled in a big sitting-room where an open fire place with blazing mesquite sticks gave out warmth and cheery glow. Duane took a seat by a table in the corner, and, finding a paper, began to read. Presently when he glanced up he saw two dark-faced men, strangers who had not appeared before, and were peering in from a doorway. When they saw Duane had observed them they stepped back out of sight.

It flashed over Duane that the strangers acted suspiciously. In Texas in the seventies it was always bad policy to let strangers go unheeded. Duane pondered a moment. Then he went out to look over these two men. The doorway opened into a patio, and across that was a little dingy, dim-lighted bar-room. Here Duane found the innkeeper dispensing drinks to the two strangers. They glanced up when he entered, and one of them whispered. He imagined he had seen one of them before. In Texas, where outdoor men were so rough, bronzed, bold, and sometimes grim of aspect, it was no easy task to pick out the crooked ones. But Duane’s years on the border had augmented a natural instinct or gift to read character, or at least to sense the evil in men; and he knew at once that these strangers were dishonest.

“Hey somethin’?” one of them asked, leering. Both looked Duane up and down.

“No thanks, I don’t drink,” Duane replied, and returned their scrutiny with interest. “How’s tricks in the Big Bend?”

Both men stared. It had taken only a close glance for Duane to recognize a type of ruffian most frequently met along the river. These strangers had that stamp, and their surprise proved he was right. Here the innkeeper showed signs of uneasiness, and seconded the surprise of his customers. No more was said at the instant, and the two rather hurriedly went out.

“Say, boss, do you know those fellows?” Duane asked the innkeeper.

“Nope.”

“Which way did they come?”

“Now I think of it, them fellers rid in from both corners today,” he replied, and he put both hands on the bar and looked at Duane. “They nooned heah, comin’ from Bradford, they said, an’ trailed in after the stage.”

When Duane returned to the sitting-room Colonel Longstreth was absent, also several of the other passengers. Miss Ruth sat in the chair he had vacated, and across the table from her sat Miss Longstreth. Duane went directly to them.

“Excuse me,” said Duane, addressing them. “I want to tell you there are a couple of rough-looking men here. I’ve just seen them. They mean evil. Tell your father to be careful. Lock your doors — bar your windows to-night.”

“Oh!” cried Ruth, very low. “Ray, do you hear?”

“Thank you; we’ll be careful,” said Miss Longstreth, gracefully. The rich color had faded in her cheek. “I saw those men watching you from that door. They had such bright black eyes. Is there really danger — here?”

“I think so,” was Duane’s reply.

Soft swift steps behind him preceded a harsh voice: “Hands up!”

No man quicker than Duane to recognize the intent in those words! His hands shot up. Miss Ruth uttered a little frightened cry and sank into her chair. Miss Longstreth turned white, her eyes dilated. Both girls were staring at some one behind Duane.

“Turn around!” ordered the harsh voice.

The big, dark stranger, the bearded one who had whispered to his comrade in the bar-room and asked Duane to drink, had him covered with a cocked gun. He strode forward, his eyes gleaming, pressed the gun against him, and with his other hand dove into his inside coat pocket and tore out his roll of bills. Then he reached low at Duane’s hip, felt his gun, and took it. Then he slapped the other hip, evidently in search of another weapon. That done, he backed away, wearing an expression of fiendish satisfaction that made Duane think he was only a common thief, a novice at this kind of game.

His comrade stood in the door with a gun leveled at two other men, who stood there frightened, speechless.

“Git a move on, Bill,” called this fellow; and he took a hasty glance backward. A stamp of hoofs came from outside. Of course the robbers had horses waiting. The one called Bill strode across the room, and with brutal, careless haste began to prod the two men with his weapon and to search them. The robber in the doorway called “Rustle!” and disappeared.

Duane wondered where the innkeeper was, and Colonel Longstreth and the other two passengers. The bearded robber quickly got through with his searching, and from his growls Duane gathered he had not been well remunerated. Then he wheeled once more. Duane had not moved a muscle, stood perfectly calm with his arms high. The robber strode back with his bloodshot eyes fastened upon the girls. Miss Longstreth never flinched, but the little girl appeared about to faint.

“Don’t yap, there!” he said, low and hard. He thrust the gun close to Ruth. Then Duane knew for sure that he was no knight of the road, but a plain cutthroat robber. Danger always made Duane exult in a kind of cold glow. But now something hot worked within him. He had a little gun in his pocket. The robber had missed it. And he began to calculate chances.

“Any money, jewelry, diamonds!” ordered the ruffian, fiercely.

Miss Ruth collapsed. Then he made at Miss Longstreth. She stood with her hands at her breast. Evidently the robber took this position to mean that she had valuables concealed there. But Duane fancied she had instinctively pressed her hands against a throbbing heart.

“Come out with it!” he said, harshly, reaching for her.

“Don’t dare touch me!” she cried, her eyes ablaze. She did not move. She had nerve.

It made Duane thrill. He saw he was going to get a chance. Waiting had been a science with him. But here it was hard. Miss Ruth had fainted, and that was well. Miss Longstreth had fight in her, which fact helped Duane, yet made injury possible to her. She eluded two lunges the man made at her. Then his rough hand caught her waist, and with one pull ripped it asunder, exposing her beautiful shoulder, white as snow.

She cried out. The prospect of being robbed or even killed had not shaken Miss Longstreth’s nerve as had this brutal tearing off of half her waist.

The ruffian was only turned partially away from Duane. For himself he could have waited no longer. But for her! That gun was still held dangerously upward close to her. Duane watched only that. Then a bellow made him jerk his head. Colonel Longstreth stood in the doorway in a magnificent rage. He had no weapon. Strange how he showed no fear! He bellowed something again.

Duane’s shifting glance caught the robber’s sudden movement. It was a kind of start. He seemed stricken. Duane expected him to shoot Longstreth. Instead the hand that clutched Miss Longstreth’s torn waist loosened its hold. The other hand with its cocked weapon slowly dropped till it pointed to the floor. That was Duane’s chance.

Swift as a flash he drew his gun and fired. Thud! went his bullet, and he could not tell on the instant whether it hit the robber or went into the ceiling. Then the robber’s gun boomed harmlessly. He fell with blood spurting over his face. Duane realized he had hit him, but the small bullet had glanced.

Miss Longstreth reeled and might have fallen had Duane not supported her. It was only a few steps to a couch, to which he half led, half carried her. Then he rushed out of the room, across the patio, through the bar to the yard. Nevertheless, he was cautious. In the gloom stood a saddled horse, probably the one belonging to the fellow he had shot. His comrade had escaped. Returning to the sitting-room, Duane found a condition approaching pandemonium.

The innkeeper rushed in, pitchfork in hands. Evidently he had been out at the barn. He was now shouting to find out what had happened. Joel, the stage-driver, was trying to quiet the men who had been robbed. The woman, wife of one of the men, had come in, and she had hysterics. The girls were still and white. The robber Bill lay where he had fallen, and Duane guessed he had made a fair shot, after all. And, lastly, the thing that struck Duane most of all was Longstreth’s rage. He never saw such passion. Like a caged lion Longstreth stalked and roared. There came a quieter moment in which the innkeeper shrilly protested:

“Man, what’re you ravin’ aboot? Nobody’s hurt, an’ thet’s lucky. I swear to God I hadn’t nothin’ to do with them fellers!”

“I ought to kill you anyhow!” replied Longstreth. And his voice now astounded Duane, it was so full of power.

Upon examination Duane found that his bullet had furrowed the robber’s temple, torn a great piece out of his scalp, and, as Duane had guessed, had glanced. He was not seriously injured, and already showed signs of returning consciousness.

“Drag him out of here!” ordered Longstreth; and he turned to his daughter.

Before the innkeeper reached the robber Duane had secured the money and gun taken from him; and presently recovered the property of the other men. Joel helped the innkeeper carry the injured man somewhere outside.

Miss Longstreth was sitting white but composed upon the couch, where lay Miss Ruth, who evidently had been carried there by the Colonel. Duane did not think she had wholly lost consciousness, and now she lay very still, with eyes dark and shadowy, her face pallid and wet. The Colonel, now that he finally remembered his women-folk, seemed to be gentle and kind. He talked soothingly to Miss Ruth, made light of the adventure, said she must learn to have nerve out here where things happened.

“Can I be of any service?” asked Duane, solicitously.

“Thanks; I guess there’s nothing you can do. Talk to these frightened girls while I go see what’s to be done with that thick-skulled robber,” he replied, and, telling the girls that there was no more danger, he went out.

Miss Longstreth sat with one hand holding her torn waist in place; the other she extended to Duane. He took it awkwardly, and he felt a strange thrill.

“You saved my life,” she said, in grave, sweet seriousness.

“No, no!” Duane exclaimed. “He might have struck you, hurt you, but no more.”

“I saw murder in his eyes. He thought I had jewels under my dress. I couldn’t bear his touch. The beast! I’d have fought. Surely my life was in peril.”

“Did you kill him?” asked Miss Ruth, who lay listening.

“Oh no. He’s not badly hurt.”

“I’m very glad he’s alive,” said Miss Longstreth, shuddering.

“My intention was bad enough,” Duane went on. “It was a ticklish place for me. You see, he was half drunk, and I was afraid his gun might go off. Fool careless he was!”

“Yet you say you didn’t save me,” Miss Longstreth returned, quickly.

“Well, let it go at that,” Duane responded. “I saved you something.”

“Tell me all about it?” asked Miss Ruth, who was fast recovering.

Rather embarrassed, Duane briefly told the incident from his point of view.

“Then you stood there all the time with your hands up thinking of nothing — watching for nothing except a little moment when you might draw your gun?” asked Miss Ruth.

“I guess that’s about it,” he replied.

“Cousin,” said Miss Longstreth, thoughtfully, “it was fortunate for us that this gentleman happened to be here. Papa scouts — laughs at danger. He seemed to think there was no danger. Yet he raved after it came.”

“Go with us all the way to Fairdale — please?” asked Miss Ruth, sweetly offering her hand. “I am Ruth Herbert. And this is my cousin, Ray Longstreth.”

“I’m traveling that way,” replied Duane, in great confusion. He did not know how to meet the situation.

Colonel Longstreth returned then, and after bidding Duane a good night, which seemed rather curt by contrast to the graciousness of the girls, he led them away.

Before going to bed Duane went outside to take a look at the injured robber and perhaps to ask him a few questions. To Duane’s surprise, he was gone, and so was his horse. The innkeeper was dumfounded. He said that he left the fellow on the floor in the bar-room.

“Had he come to?” inquired Duane.

“Sure. He asked for whisky.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Not to me. I heard him talkin’ to the father of them girls.”

“You mean Colonel Longstreth?”

“I reckon. He sure was some riled, wasn’t he? Jest as if I was to blame fer that two-bit of a hold-up!”

“What did you make of the old gent’s rage?” asked Duane, watching the innkeeper. He scratched his head dubiously. He was sincere, and Duane believed in his honesty.

“Wal, I’m doggoned if I know what to make of it. But I reckon he’s either crazy or got more nerve than most Texans.”

“More nerve, maybe,” Duane replied. “Show me a bed now, innkeeper.”

Once in bed in the dark, Duane composed himself to think over the several events of the evening. He called up the details of the holdup and carefully revolved them in mind. The Colonel’s wrath, under circumstances where almost any Texan would have been cool, nonplussed Duane, and he put it down to a choleric temperament. He pondered long on the action of the robber when Longstreth’s bellow of rage burst in upon him. This ruffian, as bold and mean a type as Duane had ever encountered, had, from some cause or other, been startled. From whatever point Duane viewed the man’s strange indecision he could come to only one conclusion — his start, his check, his fear had been that of recognition. Duane compared this effect with the suddenly acquired sense he had gotten of Colonel Longstreth’s powerful personality. Why had that desperate robber lowered his gun and stood paralyzed at sight and sound of the Mayor of Fairdale? This was not answerable. There might have been a number of reasons, all to Colonel Longstreth’s credit, but Duane could not understand. Longstreth had not appeared to see danger for his daughter, even though she had been roughly handled, and had advanced in front of a cocked gun. Duane probed deep into this singular fact, and he brought to bear on the thing all his knowledge and experience of violent Texas life. And he found that the instant Colonel Longstreth had appeared on the scene there was no further danger threatening his daughter. Why? That likewise Duane could not answer. Then his rage, Duane concluded, had been solely at the idea of HIS daughter being assaulted by a robber. This deduction was indeed a thought-disturber, but Duane put it aside to crystallize and for more careful consideration.

Next morning Duane found that the little town was called Sanderson. It was larger than he had at first supposed. He walked up the main street and back again. Just as he arrived some horsemen rode up to the inn and dismounted. And at this juncture the Longstreth party came out. Duane heard Colonel Longstreth utter an exclamation. Then he saw him shake hands with a tall man. Longstreth looked surprised and angry, and he spoke with force; but Duane could not hear what it was he said. The fellow laughed, yet somehow he struck Duane as sullen, until suddenly he espied Miss Longstreth. Then his face changed, and he removed his sombrero. Duane went closer.

“Floyd, did you come with the teams?” asked Longstreth, sharply.

“Not me. I rode a horse, good and hard,” was the reply.

“Humph! I’ll have a word to say to you later.” Then Longstreth turned to his daughter. “Ray, here’s the cousin I’ve told you about. You used to play with him ten years ago — Floyd Lawson. Floyd, my daughter — and my niece, Ruth Herbert.”

Duane always scrutinized every one he met, and now with a dangerous game to play, with a consciousness of Longstreth’s unusual and significant personality, he bent a keen and searching glance upon this Floyd Lawson.

He was under thirty, yet gray at his temples — dark, smooth-shaven, with lines left by wildness, dissipation, shadows under dark eyes, a mouth strong and bitter, and a square chin — a reckless, careless, handsome, sinister face strangely losing the hardness when he smiled. The grace of a gentleman clung round him, seemed like an echo in his mellow voice. Duane doubted not that he, like many a young man, had drifted out to the frontier, where rough and wild life had wrought sternly but had not quite effaced the mark of good family.

Colonel Longstreth apparently did not share the pleasure of his daughter and his niece in the advent of this cousin. Something hinged on this meeting. Duane grew intensely curious, but, as the stage appeared ready for the journey, he had no further opportunity to gratify it.

CHAPTER XVI

DUANE FOLLOWED THE stage through the town, out into the open, on to a wide, hard-packed road showing years of travel. It headed northwest. To the left rose a range of low, bleak mountains he had noted yesterday, and to the right sloped the mesquite-patched sweep of ridge and flat. The driver pushed his team to a fast trot, which gait surely covered ground rapidly.

The stage made three stops in the forenoon, one at a place where the horses could be watered, the second at a chuck-wagon belonging to cowboys who were riding after stock, and the third at a small cluster of adobe and stone houses constituting a hamlet the driver called Longstreth, named after the Colonel. From that point on to Fairdale there were only a few ranches, each one controlling great acreage.

Early in the afternoon from a ridge-top Duane sighted Fairdale, a green patch in the mass of gray. For the barrens of Texas it was indeed a fair sight. But he was more concerned with its remoteness from civilization than its beauty. At that time, in the early seventies, when the vast western third of Texas was a wilderness, the pioneer had done wonders to settle there and establish places like Fairdale.

It needed only a glance for Duane to pick out Colonel Longstreth’s ranch. The house was situated on the only elevation around Fairdale, and it was not high, nor more than a few minutes’ walk from the edge of the town. It was a low, flat-roofed structure made of red adobe bricks, and covered what appeared to be fully an acre of ground. All was green about it, except where the fenced corrals and numerous barns or sheds showed gray and red.

Duane soon reached the shady outskirts of Fairdale, and entered the town with mingled feelings of curiosity, eagerness, and expectation. The street he rode down was a main one, and on both sides of the street was a solid row of saloons, resorts, hotels. Saddled horses stood hitched all along the sidewalk in two long lines, with a buckboard and team here and there breaking the continuity. This block was busy and noisy.

From all outside appearances Fairdale was no different from other frontier towns, and Duane’s expectations were scarcely realized. As the afternoon was waning he halted at a little inn. A boy took charge of his horse. Duane questioned the lad about Fairdale and gradually drew to the subject most in mind.

“Colonel Longstreth has a big outfit, eh?”

“Reckon he has,” replied the lad. “Doan know how many cowboys. They’re always comin’ and goin’. I ain’t acquainted with half of them.”

“Much movement of stock these days?”

“Stock’s always movin’,” he replied, with a queer look.

“Rustlers?”

But he did not follow up that look with the affirmative Duane expected.

“Lively place, I hear — Fairdale is?”

“Ain’t so lively as Sanderson, but it’s bigger.”

“Yes, I heard it was. Fellow down there was talking about two cowboys who were arrested.”

“Sure. I heered all about that. Joe Bean an’ Brick Higgins — they belong heah, but they ain’t heah much. Longstreth’s boys.”

Duane did not want to appear over-inquisitive, so he turned the talk into other channels.

After getting supper Duane strolled up and down the main street. When darkness set in he went into a hotel, bought cigars, sat around, and watched. Then he passed out and went into the next place. This was of rough crude exterior, but the inside was comparatively pretentious and ablaze with lights. It was full of men coming and going — a dusty-booted crowd that smelled of horses and smoke. Duane sat down for a while, with wide eyes and open ears. Then he hunted up the bar, where most of the guests had been or were going. He found a great square room lighted by six huge lamps, a bar at one side, and all the floor-space taken up by tables and chairs. This was the only gambling place of any size in southern Texas in which he had noted the absence of Mexicans. There was some card-playing going on at this moment. Duane stayed in there for a while, and knew that strangers were too common in Fairdale to be conspicuous. Then he returned to the inn where he had engaged a room.

Duane sat down on the steps of the dingy little restaurant. Two men were conversing inside, and they had not noticed Duane.

“Laramie, what’s the stranger’s name?” asked one.

“He didn’t say,” replied the other.

“Sure was a strappin’ big man. Struck me a little odd, he did. No cattleman, him. How’d you size him?”

“Well, like one of them cool, easy, quiet Texans who’s been lookin’ for a man for years — to kill him when he found him.”

“Right you are, Laramie; and, between you an’ me, I hope he’s lookin’ for Long—”

“‘S — sh!” interrupted Laramie. “You must be half drunk, to go talkie’ that way.”

Thereafter they conversed in too low a tone for Duane to hear, and presently Laramie’s visitor left. Duane went inside, and, making himself agreeable, began to ask casual questions about Fairdale. Laramie was not communicative.

Duane went to his room in a thoughtful frame of mind. Had Laramie’s visitor meant he hoped some one had come to kill Longstreth? Duane inferred just that from the interrupted remark. There was something wrong about the Mayor of Fairdale. Duane felt it. And he felt also, if there was a crooked and dangerous man, it was this Floyd Lawson. The innkeeper Laramie would be worth cultivating. And last in Duane’s thoughts that night was Miss Longstreth. He could not help thinking of her — how strangely the meeting with her had affected him. It made him remember that long-past time when girls had been a part of his life. What a sad and dark and endless void lay between that past and the present! He had no right even to dream of a beautiful woman like Ray Longstreth. That conviction, however, did not dispel her; indeed, it seemed perversely to make her grow more fascinating. Duane grew conscious of a strange, unaccountable hunger, a something that was like a pang in his breast.

Next day he lounged about the inn. He did not make any overtures to the taciturn proprietor. Duane had no need of hurry now. He contented himself with watching and listening. And at the close of that day he decided Fairdale was what MacNelly had claimed it to be, and that he was on the track of an unusual adventure. The following day he spent in much the same way, though on one occasion he told Laramie he was looking for a man. The innkeeper grew a little less furtive and reticent after that. He would answer casual queries, and it did not take Duane long to learn that Laramie had seen better days — that he was now broken, bitter, and hard. Some one had wronged him.

Several days passed. Duane did not succeed in getting any closer to Laramie, but he found the idlers on the corners and in front of the stores unsuspicious and willing to talk. It did not take him long to find out that Fairdale stood parallel with Huntsville for gambling, drinking, and fighting. The street was always lined with dusty, saddled horses, the town full of strangers. Money appeared more abundant than in any place Duane had ever visited; and it was spent with the abandon that spoke forcibly of easy and crooked acquirement. Duane decided that Sanderson, Bradford, and Ord were but notorious outposts to this Fairdale, which was a secret center of rustlers and outlaws. And what struck Duane strangest of all was the fact that Longstreth was mayor here and held court daily. Duane knew intuitively, before a chance remark gave him proof, that this court was a sham, a farce. And he wondered if it were not a blind. This wonder of his was equivalent to suspicion of Colonel Longstreth, and Duane reproached himself. Then he realized that the reproach was because of the daughter. Inquiry had brought him the fact that Ray Longstreth had just come to live with her father. Longstreth had originally been a planter in Louisiana, where his family had remained after his advent in the West. He was a rich rancher; he owned half of Fairdale; he was a cattle-buyer on a large scale. Floyd Lawson was his lieutenant and associate in deals.

On the afternoon of the fifth day of Duane’s stay in Fairdale he returned to the inn from his usual stroll, and upon entering was amazed to have a rough-looking young fellow rush by him out of the door. Inside Laramie was lying on the floor, with a bloody bruise on his face. He did not appear to be dangerously hurt.

“Bo Snecker! He hit me and went after the cash-drawer,” said Laramie, laboring to his feet.

“Are you hurt much?” queried Duane.

“I guess not. But Bo needn’t to have soaked me. I’ve been robbed before without that.”

“Well, I’ll take a look after Bo,” replied Duane.

He went out and glanced down the street toward the center of the town. He did not see any one he could take for the innkeeper’s assailant. Then he looked up the street, and he saw the young fellow about a block away, hurrying along and gazing back.

Duane yelled for him to stop and started to go after him. Snecker broke into a run. Then Duane set out to overhaul him. There were two motives in Duane’s action — one of anger, and the other a desire to make a friend of this man Laramie, whom Duane believed could tell him much.

Duane was light on his feet, and he had a giant stride. He gained rapidly upon Snecker, who, turning this way and that, could not get out of sight. Then he took to the open country and ran straight for the green hill where Longstreth’s house stood. Duane had almost caught Snecker when he reached the shrubbery and trees and there eluded him. But Duane kept him in sight, in the shade, on the paths, and up the road into the courtyard, and he saw Snecker go straight for Longstreth’s house.

Duane was not to be turned back by that, singular as it was. He did not stop to consider. It seemed enough to know that fate had directed him to the path of this rancher Longstreth. Duane entered the first open door on that side of the court. It opened into a corridor which led into a plaza. It had wide, smooth stone porches, and flowers and shrubbery in the center. Duane hurried through to burst into the presence of Miss Longstreth and a number of young people. Evidently she was giving a little party.

Lawson stood leaning against one of the pillars that supported the porch roof; at sight of Duane his face changed remarkably, expressing amazement, consternation, then fear.

In the quick ensuing silence Miss Longstreth rose white as her dress. The young women present stared in astonishment, if they were not equally perturbed. There were cowboys present who suddenly grew intent and still. By these things Duane gathered that his appearance must be disconcerting. He was panting. He wore no hat or coat. His big gun-sheath showed plainly at his hip.

Sight of Miss Longstreth had an unaccountable effect upon Duane. He was plunged into confusion. For the moment he saw no one but her.

“Miss Longstreth — I came — to search — your house,” panted Duane.

He hardly knew what he was saying, yet the instant he spoke he realized that that should have been the last thing for him to say. He had blundered. But he was not used to women, and this dark-eyed girl made him thrill and his heart beat thickly and his wits go scattering.

“Search my house!” exclaimed Miss Longstreth; and red succeeded the white in her cheeks. She appeared astonished and angry. “What for? Why, how dare you! This is unwarrantable!”

“A man — Bo Snecker — assaulted and robbed Jim Laramie,” replied Duane, hurriedly. “I chased Snecker here — saw him run into the house.”

“Here? Oh, sir, you must be mistaken. We have seen no one. In the absence of my father I’m mistress here. I’ll not permit you to search.”

Lawson appeared to come out of his astonishment. He stepped forward.

“Ray, don’t be bothered now,” he said, to his cousin. “This fellow’s making a bluff. I’ll settle him. See here, Mister, you clear out!”

“I want Snecker. He’s here, and I’m going to get him,” replied Duane, quietly.

“Bah! That’s all a bluff,” sneered Lawson. “I’m on to your game. You just wanted an excuse to break in here — to see my cousin again. When you saw the company you invented that excuse. Now, be off, or it’ll be the worse for you.”

Duane felt his face burn with a tide of hot blood. Almost he felt that he was guilty of such motive. Had he not been unable to put this Ray Longstreth out of his mind? There seemed to be scorn in her eyes now. And somehow that checked his embarrassment.

“Miss Longstreth, will you let me search the house?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then — I regret to say — I’ll do so without your permission.”

“You’ll not dare!” she flashed. She stood erect, her bosom swelling.

“Pardon me, yes, I will.”

“Who are you?” she demanded, suddenly.

“I’m a Texas Ranger,” replied Duane.

“A TEXAS RANGER!” she echoed.

Floyd Lawson’s dark face turned pale.

“Miss Longstreth, I don’t need warrants to search houses,” said Duane. “I’m sorry to annoy you. I’d prefer to have your permission. A ruffian has taken refuge here — in your father’s house. He’s hidden somewhere. May I look for him?”

“If you are indeed a ranger.”

Duane produced his papers. Miss Longstreth haughtily refused to look at them.

“Miss Longstreth, I’ve come to make Fairdale a safer, cleaner, better place for women and children. I don’t wonder at your resentment. But to doubt me — insult me. Some day you may be sorry.”

Floyd Lawson made a violent motion with his hands.

“All stuff! Cousin, go on with your party. I’ll take a couple of cowboys and go with this — this Texas Ranger.”

“Thanks,” said Duane, coolly, as he eyed Lawson. “Perhaps you’ll be able to find Snecker quicker than I could.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Lawson, and now he grew livid. Evidently he was a man of fierce quick passions.

“Don’t quarrel,” said Miss Longstreth. “Floyd, you go with him. Please hurry. I’ll be nervous till — the man’s found or you’re sure there’s not one.”

They started with several cowboys to search the house. They went through the rooms searching, calling out, peering into dark places. It struck Duane more than forcibly that Lawson did all the calling. He was hurried, too, tried to keep in the lead. Duane wondered if he knew his voice would be recognized by the hiding man. Be that as it might, it was Duane who peered into a dark corner and then, with a gun leveled, said “Come out!”

He came forth into the flare — a tall, slim, dark-faced youth, wearing sombrero, blouse and trousers. Duane collared him before any of the others could move and held the gun close enough to make him shrink. But he did not impress Duane as being frightened just then; nevertheless, he had a clammy face, the pallid look of a man who had just gotten over a shock. He peered into Duane’s face, then into that of the cowboy next to him, then into Lawson’s, and if ever in Duane’s life he beheld relief it was then. That was all Duane needed to know, but he meant to find out more if he could.

“Who’re you?” asked Duane, quietly.

“Bo Snecker,” he said.

“What’d you hide here for?”

He appeared to grow sullen.

“Reckoned I’d be as safe in Longstreth’s as anywheres.”

“Ranger, what’ll you do with him?” Lawson queried, as if uncertain, now the capture was made.

“I’ll see to that,” replied Duane, and he pushed Snecker in front of him out into the court.

Duane had suddenly conceived the idea of taking Snecker before Mayor Longstreth in the court.

When Duane arrived at the hall where court was held there were other men there, a dozen or more, and all seemed excited; evidently, news of Duane had preceded him. Longstreth sat at a table up on a platform. Near him sat a thick-set grizzled man, with deep eyes, and this was Hanford Owens, county judge. To the right stood a tall, angular, yellow-faced fellow with a drooping sandy mustache. Conspicuous on his vest was a huge silver shield. This was Gorsech, one of Longstreth’s sheriffs. There were four other men whom Duane knew by sight, several whose faces were familiar, and half a dozen strangers, all dusty horsemen.

Longstreth pounded hard on the table to be heard. Mayor or not, he was unable at once to quell the excitement. Gradually, however, it subsided, and from the last few utterances before quiet was restored Duane gathered that he had intruded upon some kind of a meeting in the hall.

“What’d you break in here for,” demanded Longstreth.

“Isn’t this the court? Aren’t you the Mayor of Fairdale?” interrogated Duane. His voice was clear and loud, almost piercing.

“Yes,” replied Longstreth. Like flint he seemed, yet Duane felt his intense interest.

“I’ve arrested a criminal,” said Duane.

“Arrested a criminal!” ejaculated Longstreth. “You? Who’re you?”

“I’m a ranger,” replied Duane.

A significant silence ensued.

“I charge Snecker with assault on Laramie and attempted robbery — if not murder. He’s had a shady past here, as this court will know if it keeps a record.”

“What’s this I hear about you, Bo? Get up and speak for yourself,” said Longstreth, gruffly.

Snecker got up, not without a furtive glance at Duane, and he had shuffled forward a few steps toward the Mayor. He had an evil front, but not the boldness even of a rustler.

“It ain’t so, Longstreth,” he began, loudly. “I went in Laramie’s place fer grub. Some feller I never seen before come in from the hall an’ hit Laramie an’ wrestled him on the floor. I went out. Then this big ranger chased me an’ fetched me here. I didn’t do nothin’. This ranger’s hankerin’ to arrest somebody. Thet’s my hunch, Longstreth.”

Longstreth said something in an undertone to Judge Owens, and that worthy nodded his great bushy head.

“Bo, you’re discharged,” said Longstreth, bluntly. “Now the rest of you clear out of here.”

He absolutely ignored the ranger. That was his rebuff to Duane — his slap in the face to an interfering ranger service. If Longstreth was crooked he certainly had magnificent nerve. Duane almost decided he was above suspicion. But his nonchalance, his air of finality, his authoritative assurance — these to Duane’s keen and practiced eyes were in significant contrast to a certain tenseness of line about his mouth and a slow paling of his olive skin. In that momentary lull Duane’s scrutiny of Longstreth gathered an impression of the man’s intense curiosity.

Then the prisoner, Snecker, with a cough that broke the spell of silence, shuffled a couple of steps toward the door.

“Hold on!” called Duane. The call halted Snecker, as if it had been a bullet.

“Longstreth, I saw Snecker attack Laramie,” said Duane, his voice still ringing. “What has the court to say to that?”

“The court has this to say. West of the Pecos we’ll not aid any ranger service. We don’t want you out here. Fairdale doesn’t need you.”

“That’s a lie, Longstreth,” retorted Duane. “I’ve letters from Fairdale citizens all begging for ranger service.”

Longstreth turned white. The veins corded at his temples. He appeared about to burst into rage. He was at a loss for quick reply.

Floyd Lawson rushed in and up to the table. The blood showed black and thick in his face; his utterance was incoherent, his uncontrollable outbreak of temper seemed out of all proportion to any cause he should reasonably have had for anger. Longstreth shoved him back with a curse and a warning glare.

“Where’s your warrant to arrest Snecker?” shouted Longstreth.

“I don’t need warrants to make arrests. Longstreth, you’re ignorant of the power of Texas Rangers.”

“You’ll come none of your damned ranger stunts out here. I’ll block you.”

That passionate reply of Longstreth’s was the signal Duane had been waiting for. He had helped on the crisis. He wanted to force Longstreth’s hand and show the town his stand.

Duane backed clear of everybody.

“Men! I call on you all!” cried Duane, piercingly. “I call on you to witness the arrest of a criminal prevented by Longstreth, Mayor of Fairdale. It will be recorded in the report to the Adjutant-General at Austin. Longstreth, you’ll never prevent another arrest.”

Longstreth sat white with working jaw.

“Longstreth, you’ve shown your hand,” said Duane, in a voice that carried far and held those who heard. “Any honest citizen of Fairdale can now see what’s plain — yours is a damn poor hand! You’re going to hear me call a spade a spade. In the two years you’ve been Mayor you’ve never arrested one rustler. Strange, when Fairdale’s a nest for rustlers! You’ve never sent a prisoner to Del Rio, let alone to Austin. You have no jail. There have been nine murders during your office — innumerable street-fights and holdups. Not one arrest! But you have ordered arrests for trivial offenses, and have punished these out of all proportion. There have been lawsuits in your court-suits over water-rights, cattle deals, property lines. Strange how in these lawsuits you or Lawson or other men close to you were always involved! Strange how it seems the law was stretched to favor your interest!”

Duane paused in his cold, ringing speech. In the silence, both outside and inside the hall, could be heard the deep breathing of agitated men. Longstreth was indeed a study. Yet did he betray anything but rage at this interloper?

“Longstreth, here’s plain talk for you and Fairdale,” went on Duane. “I don’t accuse you and your court of dishonesty. I say STRANGE! Law here has been a farce. The motive behind all this laxity isn’t plain to me — yet. But I call your hand!”

CHAPTER XVII

DUANE LEFT THE hall, elbowed his way through the crowd, and went down the street. He was certain that on the faces of some men he had seen ill-concealed wonder and satisfaction. He had struck some kind of a hot trait, and he meant to see where it led. It was by no means unlikely that Cheseldine might be at the other end. Duane controlled a mounting eagerness. But ever and anon it was shot through with a remembrance of Ray Longstreth. He suspected her father of being not what he pretended. He might, very probably would, bring sorrow and shame to this young woman. The thought made him smart with pain. She began to haunt him, and then he was thinking more of her beauty and sweetness than of the disgrace he might bring upon her. Some strange emotion, long locked inside Duane’s heart, knocked to be heard, to be let out. He was troubled.

Upon returning to the inn he found Laramie there, apparently none the worse for his injury.

“How are you, Laramie?” he asked.

“Reckon I’m feelin’ as well as could be expected,” replied Laramie. His head was circled by a bandage that did not conceal the lump where he had been struck. He looked pale, but was bright enough.

“That was a good crack Snecker gave you,” remarked Duane.

“I ain’t accusin’ Bo,” remonstrated Laramie, with eyes that made Duane thoughtful.

“Well, I accuse him. I caught him — took him to Longstreth’s court. But they let him go.”

Laramie appeared to be agitated by this intimation of friendship.

“See here, Laramie,” went on Duane, “in some parts of Texas it’s policy to be close-mouthed. Policy and health-preserving! Between ourselves, I want you to know I lean on your side of the fence.”

Laramie gave a quick start. Presently Duane turned and frankly met his gaze. He had startled Laramie out of his habitual set taciturnity; but even as he looked the light that might have been amaze and joy faded out of his face, leaving it the same old mask. Still Duane had seen enough. Like a bloodhound he had a scent.

“Talking about work, Laramie, who’d you say Snecker worked for?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Well, say so now, can’t you? Laramie, you’re powerful peevish to-day. It’s that bump on your head. Who does Snecker work for?”

“When he works at all, which sure ain’t often, he rides for Longstreth.”

“Humph! Seems to me that Longstreth’s the whole circus round Fairdale. I was some sore the other day to find I was losing good money at Longstreth’s faro game. Sure if I’d won I wouldn’t have been sore — ha, ha! But I was surprised to hear some one say Longstreth owned the Hope So joint.”

“He owns considerable property hereabouts,” replied Laramie, constrainedly.

“Humph again! Laramie, like every other fellow I meet in this town, you’re afraid to open your trap about Longstreth. Get me straight, Laramie. I don’t care a damn for Colonel Mayor Longstreth. And for cause I’d throw a gun on him just as quick as on any rustler in Pecos.”

“Talk’s cheap,” replied Laramie, making light of his bluster, but the red was deeper in his face.

“Sure. I know that,” Duane said. “And usually I don’t talk. Then it’s not well known that Longstreth owns the Hope So?”

“Reckon it’s known in Pecos, all right. But Longstreth’s name isn’t connected with the Hope So. Blandy runs the place.”

“That Blandy. His faro game’s crooked, or I’m a locoed bronch. Not that we don’t have lots of crooked faro-dealers. A fellow can stand for them. But Blandy’s mean, back-handed, never looks you in the eyes. That Hope So place ought to be run by a good fellow like you, Laramie.”

“Thanks,” replied he; and Duane imagined his voice a little husky. “Didn’t you hear I used to run it?”

“No. Did you?” Duane said, quickly.

“I reckon. I built the place, made additions twice, owned it for eleven years.”

“Well, I’ll be doggoned.” It was indeed Duane’s turn to be surprised, and with the surprise came a glimmering. “I’m sorry you’re not there now. Did you sell out?”

“No. Just lost the place.”

Laramie was bursting for relief now — to talk, to tell. Sympathy had made him soft.

“It was two years ago-two years last March,” he went on. “I was in a big cattle deal with Longstreth. We got the stock — an’ my share, eighteen hundred head, was rustled off. I owed Longstreth. He pressed me. It come to a lawsuit — an’ I — was ruined.”

It hurt Duane to look at Laramie. He was white, and tears rolled down his cheeks. Duane saw the bitterness, the defeat, the agony of the man. He had failed to meet his obligations; nevertheless, he had been swindled. All that he suppressed, all that would have been passion had the man’s spirit not been broken, lay bare for Duane to see. He had now the secret of his bitterness. But the reason he did not openly accuse Longstreth, the secret of his reticence and fear — these Duane thought best to try to learn at some later time.

“Hard luck! It certainly was tough,” Duane said. “But you’re a good loser. And the wheel turns! Now, Laramie, here’s what. I need your advice. I’ve got a little money. But before I lose it I want to invest some. Buy some stock, or buy an interest in some rancher’s herd. What I want you to steer me on is a good square rancher. Or maybe a couple of ranchers, if there happen to be two honest ones. Ha, ha! No deals with ranchers who ride in the dark with rustlers! I’ve a hunch Fairdale is full of them. Now, Laramie, you’ve been here for years. Sure you must know a couple of men above suspicion.”

“Thank God I do,” he replied, feelingly. “Frank Morton an’ Si Zimmer, my friends an’ neighbors all my prosperous days, an’ friends still. You can gamble on Frank and Si. But if you want advice from me — don’t invest money in stock now.”

“Why?”

“Because any new feller buyin’ stock these days will be rustled quicker ‘n he can say Jack Robinson. The pioneers, the new cattlemen — these are easy pickin’ for the rustlers. Lord knows all the ranchers are easy enough pickin’. But the new fellers have to learn the ropes. They don’t know anythin’ or anybody. An’ the old ranchers are wise an’ sore. They’d fight if they—”

“What?” Duane put in, as he paused. “If they knew who was rustling the stock?”

“Nope.”

“If they had the nerve?”

“Not thet so much.”

“What then? What’d make them fight?”

“A leader!”

“Howdy thar, Jim,” boomed a big voice.

A man of great bulk, with a ruddy, merry face, entered the room.

“Hello, Morton,” replied Laramie. “I’d introduce you to my guest here, but I don’t know his name.”

“Haw! Haw! Thet’s all right. Few men out hyar go by their right names.”

“Say, Morton,” put in Duane, “Laramie gave me a hunch you’d be a good man to tie to. Now, I’ve a little money and before I lose it I’d like to invest it in stock.”

Morton smiled broadly.

“I’m on the square,” Duane said, bluntly. “If you fellows never size up your neighbors any better than you have sized me — well, you won’t get any richer.”

It was enjoyment for Duane to make his remarks to these men pregnant with meaning. Morton showed his pleasure, his interest, but his faith held aloof.

“I’ve got some money. Will you let me in on some kind of deal? Will you start me up as a stockman with a little herd all my own?”

“Wal, stranger, to come out flat-footed, you’d be foolish to buy cattle now. I don’t want to take your money an’ see you lose out. Better go back across the Pecos where the rustlers ain’t so strong. I haven’t had more’n twenty-five hundred herd of stock for ten years. The rustlers let me hang on to a breedin’ herd. Kind of them, ain’t it?”

“Sort of kind. All I hear is rustlers, Morton,” replied Duane, with impatience. “You see, I haven’t ever lived long in a rustler-run county. Who heads the gang, anyway?”

Morton looked at Duane with a curiously amused smile, then snapped his big jaw as if to shut in impulsive words.

“Look here, Morton. It stands to reason, no matter how strong these rustlers are, how hidden their work, however involved with supposedly honest men — they CAN’T last.”

“They come with the pioneers, an’ they’ll last till thar’s a single steer left,” he declared.

“Well, if you take that view of circumstances I just figure you as one of the rustlers.”

Morton looked as if he were about to brain Duane with the butt of his whip. His anger flashed by then, evidently as unworthy of him, and, something striking him as funny, he boomed out a laugh.

“It’s not so funny,” Duane went on. “If you’re going to pretend a yellow streak, what else will I think?”

“Pretend?” he repeated.

“Sure. I know men of nerve. And here they’re not any different from those in other places. I say if you show anything like a lack of sand it’s all bluff. By nature you’ve got nerve. There are a lot of men around Fairdale who’re afraid of their shadows — afraid to be out after dark — afraid to open their mouths. But you’re not one. So I say if you claim these rustlers will last you’re pretending lack of nerve just to help the popular idea along. For they CAN’T last. What you need out here is some new blood. Savvy what I mean?”

“Wal, I reckon I do,” he replied, looking as if a storm had blown over him. “Stranger, I’ll look you up the next time I come to town.”

Then he went out.

Laramie had eyes like flint striking fire.

He breathed a deep breath and looked around the room before his gaze fixed again on Duane.

“Wal,” he replied, speaking low. “You’ve picked the right men. Now, who in the hell are you?”

Reaching into the inside pocket of his buckskin vest, Duane turned the lining out. A star-shaped bright silver object flashed as he shoved it, pocket and all, under Jim’s hard eyes.

“RANGER!” he whispered, cracking the table with his fist. “You sure rung true to me.”

“Laramie, do you know who’s boss of this secret gang of rustlers hereabouts?” asked Duane, bluntly. It was characteristic of him to come sharp to the point. His voice — something deep, easy, cool about him — seemed to steady Laramie.

“No,” replied Laramie.

“Does anybody know?” went on Duane.

“Wal, I reckon there’s not one honest native who KNOWS.”

“But you have your suspicions?”

“We have.”

“Give me your idea about this crowd that hangs round the saloons — the regulars.”

“Jest a bad lot,” replied Laramie, with the quick assurance of knowledge. “Most of them have been here years. Others have drifted in. Some of them work, odd times. They rustle a few steers, steal, rob, anythin’ for a little money to drink an’ gamble. Jest a bad lot!”

“Have you any idea whether Cheseldine and his gang are associated with this gang here?”

“Lord knows. I’ve always suspected them the same gang. None of us ever seen Cheseldine — an’ thet’s strange, when Knell, Poggin, Panhandle Smith, Blossom Kane, and Fletcher, they all ride here often. No, Poggin doesn’t come often. But the others do. For thet matter, they’re around all over west of the Pecos.”

“Now I’m puzzled over this,” said Duane. “Why do men — apparently honest men — seem to be so close-mouthed here? Is that a fact, or only my impression?”

“It’s a sure fact,” replied Laramie, darkly. “Men have lost cattle an’ property in Fairdale — lost them honestly or otherwise, as hasn’t been proved. An’ in some cases when they talked — hinted a little — they was found dead. Apparently held up an robbed. But dead. Dead men don’t talk! Thet’s why we’re close mouthed.”

Duane felt a dark, somber sternness. Rustling cattle was not intolerable. Western Texas had gone on prospering, growing in spite of the hordes of rustlers ranging its vast stretches; but a cold, secret, murderous hold on a little struggling community was something too strange, too terrible for men to stand long.

The ranger was about to speak again when the clatter of hoofs interrupted him. Horses halted out in front, and one rider got down. Floyd Lawson entered. He called for tobacco.

If his visit surprised Laramie he did not show any evidence. But Lawson showed rage as he saw the ranger, and then a dark glint flitted from the eyes that shifted from Duane to Laramie and back again. Duane leaned easily against the counter.

“Say, that was a bad break of yours,” Lawson said. “If you come fooling round the ranch again there’ll be hell.”

It seemed strange that a man who had lived west of the Pecos for ten years could not see in Duane something which forbade that kind of talk. It certainly was not nerve Lawson showed; men of courage were seldom intolerant. With the matchless nerve that characterized the great gunmen of the day there was a cool, unobtrusive manner, a speech brief, almost gentle, certainly courteous. Lawson was a hot-headed Louisianian of French extraction; a man, evidently, who had never been crossed in anything, and who was strong, brutal, passionate, which qualities in the face of a situation like this made him simply a fool.

“I’m saying again, you used your ranger bluff just to get near Ray Longstreth,” Lawson sneered. “Mind you, if you come up there again there’ll be hell.”

“You’re right. But not the kind you think,” Duane retorted, his voice sharp and cold.

“Ray Longstreth wouldn’t stoop to know a dirty blood-tracker like you,” said Lawson, hotly. He did not seem to have a deliberate intention to rouse Duane; the man was simply rancorous, jealous. “I’ll call you right. You cheap bluffer! You four-flush! You damned interfering, conceited ranger!”

“Lawson, I’ll not take offense, because you seem to be championing your beautiful cousin,” replied Duane, in slow speech. “But let me return your compliment. You’re a fine Southerner! Why, you’re only a cheap four-flush — damned, bull-headed RUSTLER!”

Duane hissed the last word. Then for him there was the truth in Lawson’s working passion-blackened face.

Lawson jerked, moved, meant to draw. But how slow! Duane lunged forward. His long arm swept up. And Lawson staggered backward, knocking table and chairs, to fall hard, in a half-sitting posture against the wall.

“Don’t draw!” warned Duane.

“Lawson, git away from your gun!” yelled Laramie.

But Lawson was crazed with fury. He tugged at his hip, his face corded with purple welts, malignant, murderous. Duane kicked the gun out of his hand. Lawson got up, raging, and rushed out.

Laramie lifted his shaking hands.

“What’d you wing him for?” he wailed. “He was drawin’ on you. Kickin’ men like him won’t do out here.”

“That bull-headed fool will roar and butt himself with all his gang right into our hands. He’s just the man I’ve needed to meet. Besides, shooting him would have been murder.”

“Murder!” exclaimed Laramie.

“Yes, for me,” replied Duane.

“That may be true — whoever you are — but if Lawson’s the man you think he is he’ll begin thet secret underground bizness. Why, Lawson won’t sleep of nights now. He an’ Longstreth have always been after me.”

“Laramie, what are your eyes for?” demanded Duane. “Watch out. And now here. See your friend Morton. Tell him this game grows hot. Together you approach four or five men you know well and can absolutely trust. I may need your help.”

Then Duane went from place to place, corner to corner, bar to bar, watching, listening, recording. The excitement had preceded him, and speculation was rife. He thought best to keep out of it. After dark he stole up to Longstreth’s ranch. The evening was warm; the doors were open; and in the twilight the only lamps that had been lit were in Longstreth’s big sitting-room, at the far end of the house. When a buckboard drove up and Longstreth and Lawson alighted, Duane was well hidden in the bushes, so well screened that he could get but a fleeting glimpse of Longstreth as he went in. For all Duane could see, he appeared to be a calm and quiet man, intense beneath the surface, with an air of dignity under insult. Duane’s chance to observe Lawson was lost. They went into the house without speaking and closed the door.

At the other end of the porch, close under a window, was an offset between step and wall, and there in the shadow Duane hid. So Duane waited there in the darkness with patience born of many hours of hiding.

Presently a lamp was lit; and Duane heard the swish of skirts.

“Something’s happened surely, Ruth,” he heard Miss Longstreth say, anxiously. “Papa just met me in the hall and didn’t speak. He seemed pale, worried.”

“Cousin Floyd looked like a thunder-cloud,” said Ruth. “For once he didn’t try to kiss me. Something’s happened. Well, Ray, this had been a bad day.”

“Oh, dear! Ruth, what can we do? These are wild men. Floyd makes life miserable for me. And he teases you unmer—”

“I don’t call it teasing. Floyd wants to spoon,” declared Ruth, emphatically. “He’d run after any woman.”

“A fine compliment to me, Cousin Ruth,” laughed Ray.

“I don’t care,” replied Ruth, stubbornly, “it’s so. He’s mushy. And when he’s been drinking and tries to kiss me — I hate him!”

There were steps on the hall floor.

“Hello, girls!” sounded out Lawson’s voice, minus its usual gaiety.

“Floyd, what’s the matter?” asked Ray, presently. “I never saw papa as he is to-night, nor you so — so worried. Tell me, what has happened?”

“Well, Ray, we had a jar to-day,” replied Lawson, with a blunt, expressive laugh.

“Jar?” echoed both the girls, curiously.

“We had to submit to a damnable outrage,” added Lawson, passionately, as if the sound of his voice augmented his feeling. “Listen, girls; I’ll tell you-all about it.” He coughed, cleared his throat in a way that betrayed he had been drinking.

Duane sunk deeper into the shadow of his covert, and, stiffening his muscles for a protected spell of rigidity, prepared to listen with all acuteness and intensity. Just one word from this Lawson, inadvertently uttered in a moment of passion, might be the word Duane needed for his clue.

“It happened at the town hall,” began Lawson, rapidly. “Your father and Judge Owens and I were there in consultation with three ranchers from out of town. Then that damned ranger stalked in dragging Snecker, the fellow who hid here in the house. He had arrested Snecker for alleged assault on a restaurant-keeper named Laramie. Snecker being obviously innocent, he was discharged. Then this ranger began shouting his insults. Law was a farce in Fairdale. The court was a farce. There was no law. Your father’s office as mayor should be impeached. He made arrests only for petty offenses. He was afraid of the rustlers, highwaymen, murderers. He was afraid or — he just let them alone. He used his office to cheat ranchers and cattlemen in lawsuits. All this the ranger yelled for every one to hear. A damnable outrage. Your father, Ray, insulted in his own court by a rowdy ranger!”

“Oh!” cried Ray Longstreth, in mingled distress and anger.

“The ranger service wants to rule western Texas,” went on Lawson. “These rangers are all a low set, many of them worse than the outlaws they hunt. Some of them were outlaws and gun-fighters before they became rangers. This is one of the worst of the lot. He’s keen, intelligent, smooth, and that makes him more to be feared. For he is to be feared. He wanted to kill. He would kill. If your father had made the least move he would have shot him. He’s a cold-nerved devil — the born gunman. My God, any instant I expected to see your father fall dead at my feet!”

“Oh, Floyd! The unspeakable ruffian!” cried Ray Longstreth, passionately.

“You see, Ray, this fellow, like all rangers, seeks notoriety. He made that play with Snecker just for a chance to rant against your father. He tried to inflame all Fairdale against him. That about the lawsuits was the worst! Damn him! He’ll make us enemies.”

“What do you care for the insinuations of such a man?” said Ray Longstreth, her voice now deep and rich with feeling. “After a moment’s thought no one will be influenced by them. Do not worry, Floyd. Tell papa not to worry. Surely after all these years he can’t be injured in reputation by — by an adventurer.”

“Yes, he can be injured,” replied Floyd, quickly. “The frontier is a queer place. There are many bitter men here — men who have failed at ranching. And your father has been wonderfully successful. The ranger has dropped poison, and it’ll spread.”

CHAPTER XVIII

STRANGERS RODE INTO Fairdale; and other hard-looking customers, new to Duane if not to Fairdale, helped to create a charged and waiting atmosphere. The saloons did unusual business and were never closed. Respectable citizens of the town were awakened in the early dawn by rowdies carousing in the streets.

Duane kept pretty close under cover during the day. He did not entertain the opinion that the first time he walked down-street he would be a target for guns. Things seldom happened that way; and when they did happen so, it was more accident than design. But at night he was not idle. He met Laramie, Morton, Zimmer, and others of like character; a secret club had been formed; and all the members were ready for action. Duane spent hours at night watching the house where Floyd Lawson stayed when he was not up at Longstreth’s. At night he was visited, or at least the house was, by strange men who were swift, stealthy, mysterious — all that kindly disposed friends or neighbors would not have been. Duane had not been able to recognize any of these night visitors; and he did not think the time was ripe for a bold holding-up of one of them. Nevertheless, he was sure such an event would discover Lawson, or some one in that house, to be in touch with crooked men.

Laramie was right. Not twenty-four hours after his last talk with Duane, in which he advised quick action, he was found behind the little bar of his restaurant with a bullet-hole in his breast, dead. No one could be found who had heard a shot. It had been deliberate murder, for upon the bar had been left a piece of paper rudely scrawled with a pencil: “All friends of rangers look for the same.”

This roused Duane. His first move, however, was to bury Laramie. None of Laramie’s neighbors evinced any interest in the dead man or the unfortunate family he had left. Duane saw that these neighbors were held in check by fear. Mrs. Laramie was ill; the shock of her husband’s death was hard on her; and she had been left almost destitute with five children. Duane rented a small adobe house on the outskirts of town and moved the family into it. Then he played the part of provider and nurse and friend.

After several days Duane went boldly into town and showed that he meant business. It was his opinion that there were men in Fairdale secretly glad of a ranger’s presence. What he intended to do was food for great speculation. A company of militia could not have had the effect upon the wild element of Fairdale that Duane’s presence had. It got out that he was a gunman lightning swift on the draw. It was death to face him. He had killed thirty men — wildest rumor of all — it was actually said of him he had the gun-skill of Buck Duane or of Poggin.

At first there had not only been great conjecture among the vicious element, but also a very decided checking of all kinds of action calculated to be conspicuous to a keen-eyed ranger. At the tables, at the bars and lounging-places Duane heard the remarks: “Who’s thet ranger after? What’ll he do fust off? Is he waitin’ fer somebody? Who’s goin’ to draw on him fust — an’ go to hell? Jest about how soon will he be found somewheres full of lead?”

When it came out somewhere that Duane was openly cultivating the honest stay-at-home citizens to array them in time against the other element, then Fairdale showed its wolf-teeth. Several times Duane was shot at in the dark and once slightly injured. Rumor had it that Poggin, the gunman, was coming to meet him. But the lawless element did not rise up in a mass to slay Duane on sight. It was not so much that the enemies of the law awaited his next move, but just a slowness peculiar to the frontier. The ranger was in their midst. He was interesting, if formidable. He would have been welcomed at card-tables, at the bars, to play and drink with the men who knew they were under suspicion. There was a rude kind of good humor even in their open hostility.

Besides, one ranger or a company of rangers could not have held the undivided attention of these men from their games and drinks and quarrels except by some decided move. Excitement, greed, appetite were rife in them. Duane marked, however, a striking exception to the usual run of strangers he had been in the habit of seeing. Snecker had gone or was under cover. Again Duane caught a vague rumor of the coming of Poggin, yet he never seemed to arrive. Moreover, the goings-on among the habitues of the resorts and the cowboys who came in to drink and gamble were unusually mild in comparison with former conduct. This lull, however, did not deceive Duane. It could not last. The wonder was that it had lasted so long.

Duane went often to see Mrs. Laramie and her children. One afternoon while he was there he saw Miss Longstreth and Ruth ride up to the door. They carried a basket. Evidently they had heard of Mrs. Laramie’s trouble. Duane felt strangely glad, but he went into an adjoining room rather than meet them.

“Mrs. Laramie, I’ve come to see you,” said Miss Longstreth, cheerfully.

The little room was not very light, there being only one window and the doors, but Duane could see plainly enough. Mrs. Laramie lay, hollow-checked and haggard, on a bed. Once she had evidently been a woman of some comeliness. The ravages of trouble and grief were there to read in her worn face; it had not, however, any of the hard and bitter lines that had characterized her husband’s.

Duane wondered, considering that Longstreth had ruined Laramie, how Mrs. Laramie was going to regard the daughter of an enemy.

“So you’re Granger Longstreth’s girl?” queried the woman, with her bright, black eyes fixed on her visitor.

“Yes,” replied Miss Longstreth, simply. “This is my cousin, Ruth Herbert. We’ve come to nurse you, take care of the children, help you in any way you’ll let us.”

There was a long silence.

“Well, you look a little like Longstreth,” finally said Mrs. Laramie, “but you’re not at ALL like him. You must take after your mother. Miss Longstreth, I don’t know if I can — if I ought accept anything from you. Your father ruined my husband.”

“Yes, I know,” replied the girl, sadly. “That’s all the more reason you should let me help you. Pray don’t refuse. It will — mean so much to me.”

If this poor, stricken woman had any resentment it speedily melted in the warmth and sweetness of Miss Longstreth’s manner. Duane’s idea was that the impression of Ray Longstreth’s beauty was always swiftly succeeded by that of her generosity and nobility. At any rate, she had started well with Mrs. Laramie, and no sooner had she begun to talk to the children than both they and the mother were won. The opening of that big basket was an event. Poor, starved little beggars! Duane’s feelings seemed too easily roused. Hard indeed would it have gone with Jim Laramie’s slayer if he could have laid eyes on him then. However, Miss Longstreth and Ruth, after the nature of tender and practical girls, did not appear to take the sad situation to heart. The havoc was wrought in that household.

The needs now were cheerfulness, kindness, help, action — and these the girls furnished with a spirit that did Duane good.

“Mrs. Laramie, who dressed this baby?” presently asked Miss Longstreth. Duane peeped in to see a dilapidated youngster on her knee. That sight, if any other was needed, completed his full and splendid estimate of Ray Longstreth and wrought strangely upon his heart.

“The ranger,” replied Mrs. Laramie.

“The ranger!” exclaimed Miss Longstreth.

“Yes, he’s taken care of us all since — since—” Mrs. Laramie choked.

“Oh! So you’ve had no help but his,” replied Miss Longstreth, hastily. “No women. Too bad! I’ll send some one, Mrs. Laramie, and I’ll come myself.”

“It’ll be good of you,” went on the older woman. “You see, Jim had few friends — that is, right in town. And they’ve been afraid to help us — afraid they’d get what poor Jim—”

“That’s awful!” burst out Miss Longstreth, passionately. “A brave lot of friends! Mrs. Laramie, don’t you worry any more. We’ll take care of you. Here, Ruth, help me. Whatever is the matter with baby’s dress?”

Manifestly Miss Longstreth had some difficulty in subduing her emotion.

“Why, it’s on hind side before,” declared Ruth. “I guess Mr. Ranger hasn’t dressed many babies.”

“He did the best he could,” said Mrs. Laramie. “Lord only knows what would have become of us!”

“Then he is — is something more than a ranger?” queried Miss Longstreth, with a little break in her voice.

“He’s more than I can tell,” replied Mrs. Laramie. “He buried Jim. He paid our debts. He fetched us here. He bought food for us. He cooked for us and fed us. He washed and dressed the baby. He sat with me the first two nights after Jim’s death, when I thought I’d die myself. He’s so kind, so gentle, so patient. He has kept me up just by being near. Sometimes I’d wake from a doze, an’, seeing him there, I’d know how false were all these tales Jim heard about him and believed at first. Why, he plays with the children just — just like any good man might. When he has the baby up I just can’t believe he’s a bloody gunman, as they say. He’s good, but he isn’t happy. He has such sad eyes. He looks far off sometimes when the children climb round him. They love him. His life is sad. Nobody need tell me — he sees the good in things. Once he said somebody had to be a ranger. Well, I say, ‘Thank God for a ranger like him!’”

Duane did not want to hear more, so he walked into the room.

“It was thoughtful of you,” Duane said. “Womankind are needed here. I could do so little. Mrs. Laramie, you look better already. I’m glad. And here’s baby, all clean and white. Baby, what a time I had trying to puzzle out the way your clothes went on! Well, Mrs. Laramie, didn’t I tell you — friends would come? So will the brighter side.”

“Yes, I’ve more faith than I had,” replied Mrs. Laramie. “Granger Longstreth’s daughter has come to me. There for a while after Jim’s death I thought I’d sink. We have nothing. How could I ever take care of my little ones? But I’m gaining courage to—”

“Mrs. Laramie, do not distress yourself any more,” said Miss Longstreth. “I shall see you are well cared for. I promise you.”

“Miss Longstreth, that’s fine!” exclaimed Duane. “It’s what I’d have — expected of you.”

It must have been sweet praise to her, for the whiteness of her face burned out in a beautiful blush.

“And it’s good of you, too, Miss Herbert, to come,” added Duane. “Let me thank you both. I’m glad I have you girls as allies in part of my lonely task here. More than glad for the sake of this good woman and the little ones. But both of you be careful about coming here alone. There’s risk. And now I’ll be going. Good-by, Mrs. Laramie. I’ll drop in again to-night. Good-by.”

“Mr. Ranger, wait!” called Miss Longstreth, as he went out. She was white and wonderful. She stepped out of the door close to him.

“I have wronged you,” she said, impulsively.

“Miss Longstreth! How can you say that?” he returned.

“I believed what my father and Floyd Lawson said about you. Now I see — I wronged you.”

“You make me very glad. But, Miss Longstreth, please don’t speak of wronging me. I have been a — a gunman, I am a ranger — and much said of me is true. My duty is hard on others — sometimes on those who are innocent, alas! But God knows that duty is hard, too, on me.”

“I did wrong you. If you entered my home again I would think it an honor. I—”

“Please — please don’t, Miss Longstreth,” interrupted Duane.

“But, sir, my conscience flays me,” she went on. There was no other sound like her voice. “Will you take my hand? Will you forgive me?”

She gave it royally, while the other was there pressing at her breast. Duane took the proffered hand. He did not know what else to do.

Then it seemed to dawn upon him that there was more behind this white, sweet, noble intensity of her than just the making amends for a fancied or real wrong. Duane thought the man did not live on earth who could have resisted her then.

“I honor you for your goodness to this unfortunate woman,” she said, and now her speech came swiftly. “When she was all alone and helpless you were her friend. It was the deed of a man. But Mrs. Laramie isn’t the only unfortunate woman in the world. I, too, am unfortunate. Ah, how I may soon need a friend! Will you be my friend? I’m so alone. I’m terribly worried. I fear — I fear — Oh, surely I’ll need a friend soon — soon. Oh, I’m afraid of what you’ll find out sooner or later. I want to help you. Let us save life if not honor. Must I stand alone — all alone? Will you — will you be—” Her voice failed.

It seemed to Duane that she must have discovered what he had begun to suspect — that her father and Lawson were not the honest ranchers they pretended to be. Perhaps she knew more! Her appeal to Duane shook him deeply. He wanted to help her more than he had ever wanted anything. And with the meaning of the tumultuous sweetness she stirred in him there came realization of a dangerous situation.

“I must be true to my duty,” he said, hoarsely.

“If you knew me you’d know I could never ask you to be false to it.”

“Well, then — I’ll do anything for you.”

“Oh, thank you! I’m ashamed that I believed my cousin Floyd! He lied — he lied. I’m all in the dark, strangely distressed. My father wants me to go back home. Floyd is trying to keep me here. They’ve quarreled. Oh, I know something dreadful will happen. I know I’ll need you if — if — Will you help me?”

“Yes,” replied Duane, and his look brought the blood to her face.

CHAPTER XIX

AFTER SUPPER DUANE stole out for his usual evening’s spying. The night was dark, without starlight, and a stiff wind rustled the leaves. Duane bent his steps toward the Longstreth’s ranchhouse. He had so much to think about that he never knew where the time went. This night when he reached the edge of the shrubbery he heard Lawson’s well-known footsteps and saw Longstreth’s door open, flashing a broad bar of light in the darkness. Lawson crossed the threshold, the door closed, and all was dark again outside. Not a ray of light escaped from the window.

Little doubt there was that his talk with Longstreth would be interesting to Duane. He tiptoed to the door and listened, but could hear only a murmur of voices. Besides, that position was too risky. He went round the corner of the house.

This side of the big adobe house was of much older construction than the back and larger part. There was a narrow passage between the houses, leading from the outside through to the patio.

This passage now afforded Duane an opportunity, and he decided to avail himself of it in spite of the very great danger. Crawling on very stealthily, he got under the shrubbery to the entrance of the passage. In the blackness a faint streak of light showed the location of a crack in the wall. He had to slip in sidewise. It was a tight squeeze, but he entered without the slightest noise. As he progressed the passage grew a very little wider in that direction, and that fact gave rise to the thought that in case of a necessary and hurried exit he would do best by working toward the patio. It seemed a good deal of time was consumed in reaching a vantage-point. When he did get there the crack he had marked was a foot over his head. There was nothing to do but find toe-holes in the crumbling walls, and by bracing knees on one side, back against the other, hold himself up Once with his eye there he did not care what risk he ran. Longstreth appeared disturbed; he sat stroking his mustache; his brow was clouded. Lawson’s face seemed darker, more sullen, yet lighted by some indomitable resolve.

“We’ll settle both deals to-night,” Lawson was saying. “That’s what I came for.”

“But suppose I don’t choose to talk here?” protested Longstreth, impatiently. “I never before made my house a place to—”

“We’ve waited long enough. This place’s as good as any. You’ve lost your nerve since that ranger hit the town. First now, will you give Ray to me?”

“Floyd; you talk like a spoiled boy. Give Ray to you! Why, she’s a woman, and I’m finding out that she’s got a mind of her own. I told you I was willing for her to marry you. I tried to persuade her. But Ray hasn’t any use for you now. She liked you at first. But now she doesn’t. So what can I do?”

“You can make her marry me,” replied Lawson.

“Make that girl do what she doesn’t want to? It couldn’t be done even if I tried. And I don’t believe I’ll try. I haven’t the highest opinion of you as a prospective son-in-law, Floyd. But if Ray loved you I would consent. We’d all go away together before this damned miserable business is out. Then she’d never know. And maybe you might be more like you used to be before the West ruined you. But as matters stand, you fight your own game with her. And I’ll tell you now you’ll lose.”

“What’d you want to let her come out here for?” demanded Lawson, hotly. “It was a dead mistake. I’ve lost my head over her. I’ll have her or die. Don’t you think if she was my wife I’d soon pull myself together? Since she came we’ve none of us been right. And the gang has put up a holler. No, Longstreth, we’ve got to settle things to-night.”

“Well, we can settle what Ray’s concerned in, right now,” replied Longstreth, rising. “Come on; we’ll ask her. See where you stand.”

They went out, leaving the door open. Duane dropped down to rest himself and to wait. He would have liked to hear Miss Longstreth’s answer. But he could guess what it would be. Lawson appeared to be all Duane had thought him, and he believed he was going to find out presently that he was worse.

The men seemed to be absent a good while, though that feeling might have been occasioned by Duane’s thrilling interest and anxiety. Finally he heard heavy steps. Lawson came in alone. He was leaden-faced, humiliated. Then something abject in him gave place to rage. He strode the room; he cursed. Then Longstreth returned, now appreciably calmer. Duane could not but decide that he felt relief at the evident rejection of Lawson’s proposal.

“Don’t fuss about it, Floyd,” he said. “You see I can’t help it. We’re pretty wild out here, but I can’t rope my daughter and give her to you as I would an unruly steer.”

“Longstreth, I can MAKE her marry me,” declared Lawson, thickly.

“How?”

“You know the hold I got on you — the deal that made you boss of this rustler gang?”

“It isn’t likely I’d forget,” replied Longstreth, grimly.

“I can go to Ray, tell her that, make her believe I’d tell it broadcast — tell this ranger — unless she’d marry me.”

Lawson spoke breathlessly, with haggard face and shadowed eyes. He had no shame. He was simply in the grip of passion. Longstreth gazed with dark, controlled fury at this relative. In that look Duane saw a strong, unscrupulous man fallen into evil ways, but still a man. It betrayed Lawson to be the wild and passionate weakling. Duane seemed to see also how during all the years of association this strong man had upheld the weak one. But that time had gone for ever, both in intent on Longstreth’s part and in possibility. Lawson, like the great majority of evil and unrestrained men on the border, had reached a point where influence was futile. Reason had degenerated. He saw only himself.

“But, Floyd, Ray’s the one person on earth who must never know I’m a rustler, a thief, a red-handed ruler of the worst gang on the border,” replied Longstreth, impressively.

Floyd bowed his head at that, as if the significance had just occurred to him. But he was not long at a loss.

“She’s going to find it out sooner or later. I tell you she knows now there’s something wrong out here. She’s got eyes. Mark what I say.”

“Ray has changed, I know. But she hasn’t any idea yet that her daddy’s a boss rustler. Ray’s concerned about what she calls my duty as mayor. Also I think she’s not satisfied with my explanations in regard to certain property.”

Lawson halted in his restless walk and leaned against the stone mantelpiece. He had his hands in his pockets. He squared himself as if this was his last stand. He looked desperate, but on the moment showed an absence of his usual nervous excitement.

“Longstreth, that may well be true,” he said. “No doubt all you say is true. But it doesn’t help me. I want the girl. If I don’t get her — I reckon we’ll all go to hell!”

He might have meant anything, probably meant the worst. He certainly had something more in mind. Longstreth gave a slight start, barely perceptible, like the switch of an awakening tiger. He sat there, head down, stroking his mustache. Almost Duane saw his thought. He had long experience in reading men under stress of such emotion. He had no means to vindicate his judgment, but his conviction was that Longstreth right then and there decided that the thing to do was to kill Lawson. For Duane’s part he wondered that Longstreth had not come to such a conclusion before. Not improbably the advent of his daughter had put Longstreth in conflict with himself.

Suddenly he threw off a somber cast of countenance, and he began to talk. He talked swiftly, persuasively, yet Duane imagined he was talking to smooth Lawson’s passion for the moment. Lawson no more caught the fateful significance of a line crossed, a limit reached, a decree decided than if he had not been present. He was obsessed with himself. How, Duane wondered, had a man of his mind ever lived so long and gone so far among the exacting conditions of the Southwest? The answer was, perhaps, that Longstreth had guided him, upheld him, protected him. The coming of Ray Longstreth had been the entering-wedge of dissension.

“You’re too impatient,” concluded Longstreth. “You’ll ruin any chance of happiness if you rush Ray. She might be won. If you told her who I am she’d hate you for ever. She might marry you to save me, but she’d hate you. That isn’t the way. Wait. Play for time. Be different with her. Cut out your drinking. She despises that. Let’s plan to sell out here — stock, ranch, property — and leave the country. Then you’d have a show with her.”

“I told you we’ve got to stick,” growled Lawson. “The gang won’t stand for our going. It can’t be done unless you want to sacrifice everything.”

“You mean double-cross the men? Go without their knowing? Leave them here to face whatever comes?”

“I mean just that.”

“I’m bad enough, but not that bad,” returned Longstreth. “If I can’t get the gang to let me off, I’ll stay and face the music. All the same, Lawson, did it ever strike you that most of the deals the last few years have been YOURS?”

“Yes. If I hadn’t rung them in there wouldn’t have been any. You’ve had cold feet, and especially since this ranger has been here.”

“Well, call it cold feet if you like. But I call it sense. We reached our limit long ago. We began by rustling a few cattle — at a time when rustling was laughed at. But as our greed grew so did our boldness. Then came the gang, the regular trips, the one thing and another till, before we knew it — before I knew it — we had shady deals, holdups, and MURDERS on our record. Then we HAD to go on. Too late to turn back!”

“I reckon we’ve all said that. None of the gang wants to quit. They all think, and I think, we can’t be touched. We may be blamed, but nothing can be proved. We’re too strong.”

“There’s where you’re dead wrong,” rejoined Longstreth, emphatically. “I imagined that once, not long ago. I was bullheaded. Who would ever connect Granger Longstreth with a rustler gang? I’ve changed my mind. I’ve begun to think. I’ve reasoned out things. We’re crooked, and we can’t last. It’s the nature of life, even here, for conditions to grow better. The wise deal for us would be to divide equally and leave the country, all of us.”

“But you and I have all the stock — all the gain,” protested Lawson.

“I’ll split mine.”

“I won’t — that settles that,” added Lawson, instantly.

Longstreth spread wide his hands as if it was useless to try to convince this man. Talking had not increased his calmness, and he now showed more than impatience. A dull glint gleamed deep in his eyes.

“Your stock and property will last a long time — do you lots of good when this ranger—”

“Bah!” hoarsely croaked Lawson. The ranger’s name was a match applied to powder. “Haven’t I told you he’d be dead soon — any time — same as Laramie is?”

“Yes, you mentioned the — the supposition,” replied Longstreth, sarcastically. “I inquired, too, just how that very desired event was to be brought about.”

“The gang will lay him out.”

“Bah!” retorted Longstreth, in turn. He laughed contemptuously.

“Floyd, don’t be a fool. You’ve been on the border for ten years. You’ve packed a gun and you’ve used it. You’ve been with rustlers when they killed their men. You’ve been present at many fights. But you never in all that time saw a man like this ranger. You haven’t got sense enough to see him right if you had a chance. Neither have any of you. The only way to get rid of him is for the gang to draw on him, all at once. Then he’s going to drop some of them.”

“Longstreth, you say that like a man who wouldn’t care much if he did drop some of them,” declared Lawson; and now he was sarcastic.

“To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t,” returned the other, bluntly. “I’m pretty sick of this mess.”

Lawson cursed in amazement. His emotions were all out of proportion to his intelligence. He was not at all quick-witted. Duane had never seen a vainer or more arrogant man.

“Longstreth, I don’t like your talk,” he said.

“If you don’t like the way I talk you know what you can do,” replied Longstreth, quickly. He stood up then, cool and quiet, with flash of eyes and set of lips that told Duane he was dangerous.

“Well, after all, that’s neither here nor there,” went on Lawson, unconsciously cowed by the other. “The thing is, do I get the girl?”

“Not by any means except her consent.”

“You’ll not make her marry me?”

“No. No,” replied Longstreth, his voice still cold, low-pitched.

“All right. Then I’ll make her.”

Evidently Longstreth understood the man before him so well that he wasted no more words. Duane knew what Lawson never dreamed of, and that was that Longstreth had a gun somewhere within reach and meant to use it. Then heavy footsteps sounded outside tramping upon the porch. Duane might have been mistaken, but he believed those footsteps saved Lawson’s life.

“There they are,” said Lawson, and he opened the door.

Five masked men entered. They all wore coats hiding any weapons. A big man with burly shoulders shook hands with Longstreth, and the others stood back.

The atmosphere of that room had changed. Lawson might have been a nonentity for all he counted. Longstreth was another man — a stranger to Duane. If he had entertained a hope of freeing himself from this band, of getting away to a safer country, he abandoned it at the very sight of these men. There was power here, and he was bound.

The big man spoke in low, hoarse whispers, and at this all the others gathered around him close to the table. There were evidently some signs of membership not plain to Duane. Then all the heads were bent over the table. Low voices spoke, queried, answered, argued. By straining his ears Duane caught a word here and there. They were planning, and they were brief. Duane gathered they were to have a rendezvous at or near Ord.

Then the big man, who evidently was the leader of the present convention, got up to depart. He went as swiftly as he had come, and was followed by his comrades. Longstreth prepared for a quiet smoke. Lawson seemed uncommunicative and unsociable. He smoked fiercely and drank continually. All at once he straightened up as if listening.

“What’s that?” he called, suddenly.

Duane’s strained ears were pervaded by a slight rustling sound.

“Must be a rat,” replied Longstreth.

The rustle became a rattle.

“Sounds like a rattlesnake to me,” said Lawson.

Longstreth got up from the table and peered round the room.

Just at that instant Duane felt an almost inappreciable movement of the adobe wall which supported him. He could scarcely credit his senses. But the rattle inside Longstreth’s room was mingling with little dull thuds of falling dirt. The adobe wall, merely dried mud, was crumbling. Duane distinctly felt a tremor pass through it. Then the blood gushed back to his heart.

“What in the hell!” exclaimed Longstreth.

“I smell dust,” said Lawson, sharply.

That was the signal for Duane to drop down from his perch, yet despite his care he made a noise.

“Did you hear a step?” queried Longstreth.

No one answered. But a heavy piece of the adobe wall fell with a thud. Duane heard it crack, felt it shake.

“There’s somebody between the walls!” thundered Longstreth.

Then a section of the wall fell inward with a crash. Duane began to squeeze his body through the narrow passage toward the patio.

“Hear him!” yelled Lawson. “This side!”

“No, he’s going that way,” yelled Longstreth.

The tramp of heavy boots lent Duane the strength of desperation. He was not shirking a fight, but to be cornered like a trapped coyote was another matter. He almost tore his clothes off in that passage. The dust nearly stifled him. When he burst into the patio it was not a single instant too soon. But one deep gasp of breath revived him and he was up, gun in hand, running for the outlet into the court. Thumping footsteps turned him back. While there was a chance to get away he did not want to fight. He thought he heard someone running into the patio from the other end. He stole along, and coming to a door, without any idea of where it might lead, he softly pushed it open a little way and slipped in.

CHAPTER XX

A LOW CRY greeted Duane. The room was light. He saw Ray Longstreth sitting on her bed in her dressing-gown. With a warning gesture to her to be silent he turned to close the door. It was a heavy door without bolt or bar, and when Duane had shut it he felt safe only for the moment. Then he gazed around the room. There was one window with blind closely drawn. He listened and seemed to hear footsteps retreating, dying away.

Then Duane turned to Miss Longstreth. She had slipped off the bed, half to her knees, and was holding out trembling hands. She was as white as the pillow on her bed. She was terribly frightened. Again with warning hand commanding silence, Duane stepped softly forward, meaning to reassure her.

“Oh!” she whispered, wildly; and Duane thought she was going to faint. When he got close and looked into her eyes he understood the strange, dark expression in them. She was terrified because she believed he meant to kill her, or do worse, probably worse. Duane realized he must have looked pretty hard and fierce bursting into her room with that big gun in hand.

The way she searched Duane’s face with doubtful, fearful eyes hurt him.

“Listen. I didn’t know this was your room. I came here to get away — to save my life. I was pursued. I was spying on — on your father and his men. They heard me, but did not see me. They don’t know who was listening. They’re after me now.”

Her eyes changed from blank gulfs to dilating, shadowing, quickening windows of thought.

Then she stood up and faced Duane with the fire and intelligence of a woman in her eyes.

“Tell me now. You were spying on my father?”

Briefly Duane told her what had happened before he entered her room, not omitting a terse word as to the character of the men he had watched.

“My God! So it’s that? I knew something was terribly wrong here — with him — with the place — the people. And right off I hated Floyd Lawson. Oh, it’ll kill me if — if — It’s so much worse than I dreamed. What shall I do?”

The sound of soft steps somewhere near distracted Duane’s attention, reminded him of her peril, and now, what counted more with him, made clear the probability of being discovered in her room.

“I’ll have to get out of here,” whispered Duane.

“Wait,” she replied. “Didn’t you say they were hunting for you?”

“They sure are,” he returned, grimly.

“Oh, then you mustn’t go. They might shoot you before you got away. Stay. If we hear them you can hide. I’ll turn out the light. I’ll meet them at the door. You can trust me. Wait till all quiets down, if we have to wait till morning. Then you can slip out.”

“I oughtn’t to stay. I don’t want to — I won’t,” Duane replied, perplexed and stubborn.

“But you must. It’s the only safe way. They won’t come here.”

“Suppose they should? It’s an even chance Longstreth’ll search every room and corner in this old house. If they found me here I couldn’t start a fight. You might be hurt. Then — the fact of my being here—”

Duane did not finish what he meant, but instead made a step toward the door. White of face and dark of eye, she took hold of him to detain him. She was as strong and supple as a panther. But she need not have been either resolute or strong, for the clasp of her hand was enough to make Duane weak.

“Up yet, Ray?” came Longstreth’s clear voice, too strained, too eager to be natural.

“No. I’m in bed reading. Good night,” instantly replied Miss Longstreth, so calmly and naturally that Duane marveled at the difference between man and woman. Then she motioned for Duane to hide in the closet. He slipped in, but the door would not close altogether.

“Are you alone?” went on Longstreth’s penetrating voice.

“Yes,” she replied. “Ruth went to bed.”

The door swung inward with a swift scrape and jar. Longstreth half entered, haggard, flaming-eyed. Behind him Duane saw Lawson, and indistinctly another man.

Longstreth barred Lawson from entering, which action showed control as well as distrust. He wanted to see into the room. When he had glanced around he went out and closed the door.

Then what seemed a long interval ensued. The house grew silent once more. Duane could not see Miss Longstreth, but he heard her quick breathing. How long did she mean to let him stay hidden there? Hard and perilous as his life had been, this was a new kind of adventure. He had divined the strange softness of his feeling as something due to the magnetism of this beautiful woman. It hardly seemed possible that he, who had been outside the pale for so many years, could have fallen in love. Yet that must be the secret of his agitation.

Presently he pushed open the closet door and stepped forth. Miss Longstreth had her head lowered upon her arms and appeared to be in distress. At his touch she raised a quivering face.

“I think I can go now — safely,” he whispered.

“Go then, if you must, but you may stay till you’re safe,” she replied.

“I — I couldn’t thank you enough. It’s been hard on me — this finding out — and you his daughter. I feel strange. I don’t understand myself well. But I want you to know — if I were not an outlaw — a ranger — I’d lay my life at your feet.”

“Oh! You have seen so — so little of me,” she faltered.

“All the same it’s true. And that makes me feel more the trouble my coming caused you.”

“You will not fight my father?”

“Not if I can help it. I’m trying to get out of his way.’

“But you spied upon him.”

“I am a ranger, Miss Longstreth.”

“And oh! I am a rustler’s daughter,” she cried. “That’s so much more terrible than I’d suspected. It was tricky cattle deals I imagined he was engaged in. But only to-night I had strong suspicions aroused.”

“How? Tell me.”

“I overheard Floyd say that men were coming to-night to arrange a meeting for my father at a rendezvous near Ord. Father did not want to go. Floyd taunted him with a name.”

“What name?” queried Duane.

“It was Cheseldine.”

“CHESELDINE! My God! Miss Longstreth, why did you tell me that?”

“What difference does that make?”

“Your father and Cheseldine are one and the same,” whispered Duane, hoarsely.

“I gathered so much myself,” she replied, miserably. “But Longstreth is father’s real name.”

Duane felt so stunned he could not speak at once. It was the girl’s part in this tragedy that weakened him. The instant she betrayed the secret Duane realized perfectly that he did love her. The emotion was like a great flood.

“Miss Longstreth, all this seems so unbelievable,” he whispered. “Cheseldine is the rustler chief I’ve come out here to get. He’s only a name. Your father is the real man. I’ve sworn to get him. I’m bound by more than law or oaths. I can’t break what binds me. And I must disgrace you — wreck your lifer Why, Miss Longstreth, I believe I — I love you. It’s all come in a rush. I’d die for you if I could. How fatal — terrible — this is! How things work out!”

She slipped to her knees, with her hands on his.

“You won’t kill him?” she implored. “If you care for me — you won’t kill him?”

“No. That I promise you.”

With a low moan she dropped her head upon the bed.

Duane opened the door and stealthily stole out through the corridor to the court.

When Duane got out into the dark, where his hot face cooled in the wind, his relief equaled his other feelings.

The night was dark, windy, stormy, yet there was no rain. Duane hoped as soon as he got clear of the ranch to lose something of the pain he felt. But long after he had tramped out into the open there was a lump in his throat and an ache in his breast. All his thought centered around Ray Longstreth. What a woman she had turned out to be! He seemed to have a vague, hopeless hope that there might be, there must be, some way he could save her.

CHAPTER XXI

BEFORE GOING TO sleep that night Duane had decided to go to Ord and try to find the rendezvous where Longstreth was to meet his men. These men Duane wanted even more than their leader. If Longstreth, or Cheseldine, was the brains of that gang, Poggin was the executor. It was Poggin who needed to be found and stopped. Poggin and his right-hand men! Duane experienced a strange, tigerish thrill. It was thought of Poggin more than thought of success for MacNelly’s plan. Duane felt dubious over this emotion.

Next day he set out for Bradford. He was glad to get away from Fairdale for a while. But the hours and the miles in no wise changed the new pain in his heart. The only way he could forget Miss Longstreth was to let his mind dwell upon Poggin, and even this was not always effective.

He avoided Sanderson, and at the end of the day and a half he arrived at Bradford.

The night of the day before he reached Bradford, No. 6, the mail and express train going east, was held up by train-robbers, the Wells-Fargo messenger killed over his safe, the mail-clerk wounded, the bags carried away. The engine of No. 6 came into town minus even a tender, and engineer and fireman told conflicting stories. A posse of railroad men and citizens, led by a sheriff Duane suspected was crooked, was made up before the engine steamed back to pick up the rest of the train. Duane had the sudden inspiration that he had been cudgeling his mind to find; and, acting upon it, he mounted his horse again and left Bradford unobserved. As he rode out into the night, over a dark trail in the direction of Ord, he uttered a short, grim, sardonic laugh at the hope that he might be taken for a train-robber.

He rode at an easy trot most of the night, and when the black peak of Ord Mountain loomed up against the stars he halted, tied his horse, and slept until dawn. He had brought a small pack, and now he took his time cooking breakfast. When the sun was well up he saddled Bullet, and, leaving the trail where his tracks showed plain in the ground, he put his horse to the rocks and brush. He selected an exceedingly rough, roundabout, and difficult course to Ord, hid his tracks with the skill of a long-hunted fugitive, and arrived there with his horse winded and covered with lather. It added considerable to his arrival that the man Duane remembered as Fletcher and several others saw him come in the back way through the lots and jump a fence into the road.

Duane led Bullet up to the porch where Fletcher stood wiping his beard. He was hatless, vestless, and evidently had just enjoyed a morning drink.

“Howdy, Dodge,” said Fletcher, laconically.

Duane replied, and the other man returned the greeting with interest.

“Jim, my hoss ‘s done up. I want to hide him from any chance tourists as might happen to ride up curious-like.”

“Haw! haw! haw!”

Duane gathered encouragement from that chorus of coarse laughter.

“Wal, if them tourists ain’t too durned snooky the hoss’ll be safe in the ‘dobe shack back of Bill’s here. Feed thar, too, but you’ll hev to rustle water.”

Duane led Bullet to the place indicated, had care of his welfare, and left him there. Upon returning to the tavern porch Duane saw the group of men had been added to by others, some of whom he had seen before. Without comment Duane walked along the edge of the road, and wherever one of the tracks of his horse showed he carefully obliterated it. This procedure was attentively watched by Fletcher and his companions.

“Wal, Dodge,” remarked Fletcher, as Duane returned, “thet’s safer ‘n prayin’ fer rain.”

Duanes reply was a remark as loquacious as Fletcher’s, to the effect that a long, slow, monotonous ride was conducive to thirst. They all joined him, unmistakably friendly. But Knell was not there, and most assuredly not Poggin. Fletcher was no common outlaw, but, whatever his ability, it probably lay in execution of orders. Apparently at that time these men had nothing to do but drink and lounge around the tavern. Evidently they were poorly supplied with money, though Duane observed they could borrow a peso occasionally from the bartender. Duane set out to make himself agreeable and succeeded. There was card-playing for small stakes, idle jests of coarse nature, much bantering among the younger fellows, and occasionally a mild quarrel. All morning men came and went, until, all told, Duane calculated he had seen at least fifty. Toward the middle of the afternoon a young fellow burst into the saloon and yelled one word:

“Posse!”

From the scramble to get outdoors Duane judged that word and the ensuing action was rare in Ord.

“What the hell!” muttered Fletcher, as he gazed down the road at a dark, compact bunch of horses and riders. “Fust time I ever seen thet in Ord! We’re gettin’ popular like them camps out of Valentine. Wish Phil was here or Poggy. Now all you gents keep quiet. I’ll do the talkin’.”

The posse entered the town, trotted up on dusty horses, and halted in a bunch before the tavern. The party consisted of about twenty men, all heavily armed, and evidently in charge of a clean-cut, lean-limbed cowboy. Duane experienced considerable satisfaction at the absence of the sheriff who he had understood was to lead the posse. Perhaps he was out in another direction with a different force.

“Hello, Jim Fletcher,” called the cowboy.

“Howdy,” replied Fletcher.

At his short, dry response and the way he strode leisurely out before the posse Duane found himself modifying his contempt for Fletcher. The outlaw was different now.

“Fletcher, we’ve tracked a man to all but three miles of this place. Tracks as plain as the nose on your face. Found his camp. Then he hit into the brush, an’ we lost the trail. Didn’t have no tracker with us. Think he went into the mountains. But we took a chance an’ rid over the rest of the way, seein’ Ord was so close. Anybody come in here late last night or early this mornin’?”

“Nope,” replied Fletcher.

His response was what Duane had expected from his manner, and evidently the cowboy took it as a matter of course. He turned to the others of the posse, entering into a low consultation. Evidently there was difference of opinion, if not real dissension, in that posse.

“Didn’t I tell ye this was a wild-goose chase, comin’ way out here?” protested an old hawk-faced rancher. “Them hoss tracks we follored ain’t like any of them we seen at the water-tank where the train was held up.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” replied the leader.

“Wal, Guthrie, I’ve follored tracks all my life—’

“But you couldn’t keep to the trail this feller made in the brush.”

“Gimme time, an’ I could. Thet takes time. An’ heah you go hell-bent fer election! But it’s a wrong lead out this way. If you’re right this road-agent, after he killed his pals, would hev rid back right through town. An’ with them mail-bags! Supposin’ they was greasers? Some greasers has sense, an’ when it comes to thievin’ they’re shore cute.”

“But we sent got any reason to believe this robber who murdered the greasers is a greaser himself. I tell you it was a slick job done by no ordinary sneak. Didn’t you hear the facts? One greaser hopped the engine an’ covered the engineer an’ fireman. Another greaser kept flashin’ his gun outside the train. The big man who shoved back the car-door an’ did the killin’ — he was the real gent, an’ don’t you forget it.”

Some of the posse sided with the cowboy leader and some with the old cattleman. Finally the young leader disgustedly gathered up his bridle.

“Aw, hell! Thet sheriff shoved you off this trail. Mebbe he hed reasons Savvy thet? If I hed a bunch of cowboys with me — I tell you what — I’d take a chance an’ clean up this hole!”

All the while Jim Fletcher stood quietly with his hands in his pockets.

“Guthrie, I’m shore treasurin’ up your friendly talk,” he said. The menace was in the tone, not the content of his speech.

“You can — an’ be damned to you, Fletcher!” called Guthrie, as the horses started.

Fletcher, standing out alone before the others of his clan, watched the posse out of sight.

“Luck fer you-all thet Poggy wasn’t here,” he said, as they disappeared. Then with a thoughtful mien he strode up on the porch and led Duane away from the others into the bar-room. When he looked into Duane’s face it was somehow an entirely changed scrutiny.

“Dodge, where’d you hide the stuff? I reckon I git in on this deal, seein’ I staved off Guthrie.”

Duane played his part. Here was his a tiger after prey he seized it. First he coolly eyed the outlaw and then disclaimed any knowledge whatever of the train-robbery other than Fletcher had heard himself. Then at Fletcher’s persistence and admiration and increasing show of friendliness he laughed occasionally and allowed himself to swell with pride, though still denying. Next he feigned a lack of consistent will-power and seemed to be wavering under Fletcher’s persuasion and grew silent, then surly. Fletcher, evidently sure of ultimate victory, desisted for the time being; however, in his solicitous regard and close companionship for the rest of that day he betrayed the bent of his mind.

Later, when Duane started up announcing his intention to get his horse and make for camp out in the brush, Fletcher seemed grievously offended.

“Why don’t you stay with me? I’ve got a comfortable ‘dobe over here. Didn’t I stick by you when Guthrie an’ his bunch come up? Supposin’ I hedn’t showed down a cold hand to him? You’d be swingin’ somewheres now. I tell you, Dodge, it ain’t square.”

“I’ll square it. I pay my debts,” replied Duane. “But I can’t put up here all night. If I belonged to the gang it ‘d be different.”

“What gang?” asked Fletcher, bluntly.

“Why, Cheseldine’s.”

Fletcher’s beard nodded as his jaw dropped.

Duane laughed. “I run into him the other day. Knowed him on sight. Sure, he’s the king-pin rustler. When he seen me an’ asked me what reason I had for bein’ on earth or some such like — why, I up an’ told him.”

Fletcher appeared staggered.

“Who in all-fired hell air you talkin’ about?”

“Didn’t I tell you once? Cheseldine. He calls himself Longstreth over there.”

All of Fletcher’s face not covered by hair turned a dirty white. “Cheseldine — Longstreth!” he whispered, hoarsely. “Gord Almighty! You braced the—” Then a remarkable transformation came over the outlaw. He gulped; he straightened his face; he controlled his agitation. But he could not send the healthy brown back to his face. Duane, watching this rude man, marveled at the change in him, the sudden checking movement, the proof of a wonderful fear and loyalty. It all meant Cheseldine, a master of men!

“WHO AIR YOU?” queried Fletcher, in a queer, strained voice.

“You gave me a handle, didn’t you? Dodge. Thet’s as good as any. Shore it hits me hard. Jim, I’ve been pretty lonely for years, an’ I’m gettin’ in need of pals. Think it over, will you? See you manana.”

The outlaw watched Duane go off after his horse, watched him as he returned to the tavern, watched him ride out into the darkness — all without a word.

Duane left the town, threaded a quiet passage through cactus and mesquite to a spot he had marked before, and made ready for the night. His mind was so full that he found sleep aloof. Luck at last was playing his game. He sensed the first slow heave of a mighty crisis. The end, always haunting, had to be sternly blotted from thought. It was the approach that needed all his mind.

He passed the night there, and late in the morning, after watching trail and road from a ridge, he returned to Ord. If Jim Fletcher tried to disguise his surprise the effort was a failure. Certainly he had not expected to see Duane again. Duane allowed himself a little freedom with Fletcher, an attitude hitherto lacking.

That afternoon a horseman rode in from Bradford, an outlaw evidently well known and liked by his fellows, and Duane beard him say, before he could possibly have been told the train-robber was in Ord, that the loss of money in the holdup was slight. Like a flash Duane saw the luck of this report. He pretended not to have heard.

In the early twilight at an opportune moment he called Fletcher to him, and, linking his arm within the outlaw’s, he drew him off in a stroll to a log bridge spanning a little gully. Here after gazing around, he took out a roll of bills, spread it out, split it equally, and without a word handed one half to Fletcher. With clumsy fingers Fletcher ran through the roll.

“Five hundred!” he exclaimed. “Dodge, thet’s damn handsome of you, considerin’ the job wasn’t—”

“Considerin’ nothin’,” interrupted Duane. “I’m makin’ no reference to a job here or there. You did me a good turn. I split my pile. If thet doesn’t make us pards, good turns an’ money ain’t no use in this country.”

Fletcher was won.

The two men spent much time together. Duane made up a short fictitious history about himself that satisfied the outlaw, only it drew forth a laughing jest upon Duane’s modesty. For Fletcher did not hide his belief that this new partner was a man of achievements. Knell and Poggin, and then Cheseldine himself, would be persuaded of this fact, so Fletcher boasted. He had influence. He would use it. He thought he pulled a stroke with Knell. But nobody on earth, not even the boss, had any influence on Poggin. Poggin was concentrated ice part of the time; all the rest he was bursting hell. But Poggin loved a horse. He never loved anything else. He could be won with that black horse Bullet. Cheseldine was already won by Duane’s monumental nerve; otherwise he would have killed Duane.

Little by little the next few days Duane learned the points he longed to know; and how indelibly they etched themselves in his memory! Cheseldine’s hiding-place was on the far slope of Mount Ord, in a deep, high-walled valley. He always went there just before a contemplated job, where he met and planned with his lieutenants. Then while they executed he basked in the sunshine before one or another of the public places he owned. He was there in the Ord den now, getting ready to plan the biggest job yet. It was a bank-robbery; but where, Fletcher had not as yet been advised.

Then when Duane had pumped the now amenable outlaw of all details pertaining to the present he gathered data and facts and places covering a period of ten years Fletcher had been with Cheseldine. And herewith was unfolded a history so dark in its bloody regime, so incredible in its brazen daring, so appalling in its proof of the outlaw’s sweep and grasp of the country from Pecos to Rio Grande, that Duane was stunned. Compared to this Cheseldine of the Big Bend, to this rancher, stock-buyer, cattle-speculator, property-holder, all the outlaws Duane had ever known sank into insignificance. The power of the man stunned Duane; the strange fidelity given him stunned Duane; the intricate inside working of his great system was equally stunning. But when Duane recovered from that the old terrible passion to kill consumed him, and it raged fiercely and it could not be checked. If that red-handed Poggin, if that cold-eyed, dead-faced Knell had only been at Ord! But they were not, and Duane with help of time got what he hoped was the upper hand of himself.

CHAPTER XXII

AGAIN INACTION AND suspense dragged at Duane’s spirit. Like a leashed hound with a keen scent in his face Duane wanted to leap forth when he was bound. He almost fretted. Something called to him over the bold, wild brow of Mount Ord. But while Fletcher stayed in Ord waiting for Knell and Poggin, or for orders, Duane knew his game was again a waiting one.

But one day there were signs of the long quiet of Ord being broken. A messenger strange to Duane rode in on a secret mission that had to do with Fletcher. When he went away Fletcher became addicted to thoughtful moods and lonely walks. He seldom drank, and this in itself was a striking contrast to former behavior. The messenger came again. Whatever communication he brought, it had a remarkable effect upon the outlaw. Duane was present in the tavern when the fellow arrived, saw the few words whispered, but did not hear them. Fletcher turned white with anger or fear, perhaps both, and he cursed like a madman. The messenger, a lean, dark-faced, hard-riding fellow reminding Duane of the cowboy Guthrie, left the tavern without even a drink and rode away off to the west. This west mystified and fascinated Duane as much as the south beyond Mount Ord. Where were Knell and Poggin? Apparently they were not at present with the leader on the mountain. After the messenger left Fletcher grew silent and surly. He had presented a variety of moods to Duane’s observation, and this latest one was provocative of thought. Fletcher was dangerous. It became clear now that the other outlaws of the camp feared him, kept out of his way. Duane let him alone, yet closely watched him.

Perhaps an hour after the messenger had left, not longer, Fletcher manifestly arrived at some decision, and he called for his horse. Then he went to his shack and returned. To Duane the outlaw looked in shape both to ride and to fight. He gave orders for the men in camp to keep close until he returned. Then he mounted.

“Come here, Dodge,” he called.

Duane went up and laid a hand on the pommel of the saddle. Fletcher walked his horse, with Duane beside him, till they reached the log bridge, when he halted.

“Dodge, I’m in bad with Knell,” he said. “An’ it ‘pears I’m the cause of friction between Knell an’ Poggy. Knell never had any use fer me, but Poggy’s been square, if not friendly. The boss has a big deal on, an’ here it’s been held up because of this scrap. He’s waitin’ over there on the mountain to give orders to Knell or Poggy, an’ neither one’s showin’ up. I’ve got to stand in the breach, an’ I ain’t enjoyin’ the prospects.”

“What’s the trouble about, Jim?” asked Duane.

“Reckon it’s a little about you, Dodge,” said Fletcher, dryly. “Knell hadn’t any use fer you thet day. He ain’t got no use fer a man onless he can rule him. Some of the boys here hev blabbed before I edged in with my say, an’ there’s hell to pay. Knell claims to know somethin’ about you that’ll make both the boss an’ Poggy sick when he springs it. But he’s keepin’ quiet. Hard man to figger, thet Knell. Reckon you’d better go back to Bradford fer a day or so, then camp out near here till I come back.”

“Why?”

“Wal, because there ain’t any use fer you to git in bad, too.”

“The gang will ride over here any day. If they’re friendly, I’ll light a fire on the hill there, say three nights from to-night. If you don’t see it thet night you hit the trail. I’ll do what I can. Jim Fletcher sticks to his pals. So long, Dodge.”

Then he rode away.

He left Duane in a quandary. This news was black. Things had been working out so well. Here was a setback. At the moment Duane did not know which way to turn, but certainly he had no idea of going back to Bradford. Friction between the two great lieutenants of Cheseldine! Open hostility between one of them and another of the chief’s right-hand men! Among outlaws that sort of thing was deadly serious. Generally such matters were settled with guns. Duane gathered encouragement even from disaster. Perhaps the disintegration of Cheseldine’s great band had already begun. But what did Knell know? Duane did not circle around the idea with doubts and hopes; if Knell knew anything it was that this stranger in Ord, this new partner of Fletcher’s, was no less than Buck Duane. Well, it was about time, thought Duane, that he made use of his name if it were to help him at all. That name had been MacNelly’s hope. He had anchored all his scheme to Duane’s fame. Duane was tempted to ride off after Fletcher and stay with him. This, however, would hardly be fair to an outlaw who had been fair to him. Duane concluded to await developments and when the gang rode in to Ord, probably from their various hiding-places, he would be there ready to be denounced by Knell. Duane could not see any other culmination of this series of events than a meeting between Knell and himself. If that terminated fatally for Knell there was all probability of Duane’s being in no worse situation than he was now. If Poggin took up the quarrel! Here Duane accused himself again — tried in vain to revolt from a judgment that he was only reasoning out excuses to meet these outlaws.

Meanwhile, instead of waiting, why not hunt up Cheseldine in his mountain retreat? The thought no sooner struck Duane than he was hurrying for his horse.

He left Ord, ostensibly toward Bradford, but, once out of sight, he turned off the road, circled through the brush, and several miles south of town he struck a narrow grass-grown trail that Fletcher had told him led to Cheseldine’s camp. The horse tracks along this trail were not less than a week old, and very likely much more. It wound between low, brush-covered foothills, through arroyos and gullies lined with mesquite, cottonwood, and scrub-oak.

In an hour Duane struck the slope of Mount Ord, and as he climbed he got a view of the rolling, black-spotted country, partly desert, partly fertile, with long, bright lines of dry stream-beds winding away to grow dim in the distance. He got among broken rocks and cliffs, and here the open, downward-rolling land disappeared, and he was hard put to it to find the trail. He lost it repeatedly and made slow progress. Finally he climbed into a region of all rock benches, rough here, smooth there, with only an occasional scratch of iron horseshoe to guide him. Many times he had to go ahead and then work to right or left till he found his way again. It was slow work; it took all day; and night found him half-way up the mountain. He halted at a little side-canon with grass and water, and here he made camp. The night was clear and cool at that height, with a dark-blue sky and a streak of stars blinking across. With this day of action behind him he felt better satisfied than he had been for some time. Here, on this venture, he was answering to a call that had so often directed his movements, perhaps his life, and it was one that logic or intelligence could take little stock of. And on this night, lonely like the ones he used to spend in the Nueces gorge, and memorable of them because of a likeness to that old hiding-place, he felt the pressing return of old haunting things — the past so long ago, wild flights, dead faces — and the places of these were taken by one quiveringly alive, white, tragic, with its dark, intent, speaking eyes — Ray Longstreth’s.

That last memory he yielded to until he slept.

In the morning, satisfied that he had left still fewer tracks than he had followed up this trail, he led his horse up to the head of the canon, there a narrow crack in low cliffs, and with branches of cedar fenced him in. Then he went back and took up the trail on foot.

Without the horse he made better time and climbed through deep clefts, wide canons, over ridges, up shelving slopes, along precipices — a long, hard climb — till he reached what he concluded was a divide. Going down was easier, though the farther he followed this dim and winding trail the wider the broken battlements of rock. Above him he saw the black fringe of pinon and pine, and above that the bold peak, bare, yellow, like a desert butte. Once, through a wide gateway between great escarpments, he saw the lower country beyond the range, and beyond this, vast and clear as it lay in his sight, was the great river that made the Big Bend. He went down and down, wondering how a horse could follow that broken trail, believing there must be another better one somewhere into Cheseldine’s hiding-place.

He rounded a jutting corner, where view had been shut off, and presently came out upon the rim of a high wall. Beneath, like a green gulf seen through blue haze, lay an amphitheater walled in on the two sides he could see. It lay perhaps a thousand feet below him; and, plain as all the other features of that wild environment, there shone out a big red stone or adobe cabin, white water shining away between great borders, and horses and cattle dotting the levels. It was a peaceful, beautiful scene. Duane could not help grinding his teeth at the thought of rustlers living there in quiet and ease.

Duane worked half-way down to the level, and, well hidden in a niche, he settled himself to watch both trail and valley. He made note of the position of the sun and saw that if anything developed or if he decided to descend any farther there was small likelihood of his getting back to his camp before dark. To try that after nightfall he imagined would be vain effort.

Then he bent his keen eyes downward. The cabin appeared to be a crude structure. Though large in size, it had, of course, been built by outlaws.

There was no garden, no cultivated field, no corral. Excepting for the rude pile of stones and logs plastered together with mud, the valley was as wild, probably, as on the day of discovery. Duane seemed to have been watching for a long time before he saw any sign of man, and this one apparently went to the stream for water and returned to the cabin.

The sun went down behind the wall, and shadows were born in the darker places of the valley. Duane began to want to get closer to that cabin. What had he taken this arduous climb for? He held back, however, trying to evolve further plans.

While he was pondering the shadows quickly gathered and darkened. If he was to go back to camp he must set out at once. Still he lingered. And suddenly his wide-roving eye caught sight of two horsemen riding up the valley. The must have entered at a point below, round the huge abutment of rock, beyond Duane’s range of sight. Their horses were tired and stopped at the stream for a long drink.

Duane left his perch, took to the steep trail, and descended as fast as he could without making noise. It did not take him long to reach the valley floor. It was almost level, with deep grass, and here and there clumps of bushes. Twilight was already thick down there. Duane marked the location of the trail, and then began to slip like a shadow through the grass and from bush to bush. He saw a bright light before he made out the dark outline of the cabin. Then he heard voices, a merry whistle, a coarse song, and the clink of iron cooking-utensils. He smelled fragrant wood-smoke. He saw moving dark figures cross the light. Evidently there was a wide door, or else the fire was out in the open.

Duane swerved to the left, out of direct line with the light, and thus was able to see better. Then he advanced noiselessly but swiftly toward the back of the house. There were trees close to the wall. He would make no noise, and he could scarcely be seen — if only there was no watch-dog! But all his outlaw days he had taken risks with only his useless life at stake; now, with that changed, he advanced stealthy and bold as an Indian. He reached the cover of the trees, knew he was hidden in their shadows, for at few paces’ distance he had been able to see only their tops. From there he slipped up to the house and felt along the wall with his hands.

He came to a little window where light shone through. He peeped in. He saw a room shrouded in shadows, a lamp turned low, a table, chairs. He saw an open door, with bright flare beyond, but could not see the fire. Voices came indistinctly. Without hesitation Duane stole farther along — all the way to the end of the cabin. Peeping round, he saw only the flare of light on bare ground. Retracing his cautious steps, he paused at the crack again, saw that no man was in the room, and then he went on round that end of the cabin. Fortune favored him. There were bushes, an old shed, a wood-pile, all the cover he needed at that corner. He did not even need to crawl.

Before he peered between the rough corner of wall and the bush growing close to it Duane paused a moment. This excitement was different from that he had always felt when pursued. It had no bitterness, no pain, no dread. There was as much danger here, perhaps more, yet it was not the same. Then he looked.

He saw a bright fire, a red-faced man bending over it, whistling, while he handled a steaming pot. Over him was a roofed shed built against the wall, with two open sides and two supporting posts. Duane’s second glance, not so blinded by the sudden bright light, made out other men, three in the shadow, two in the flare, but with backs to him.

“It’s a smoother trail by long odds, but ain’t so short as this one right over the mountain,” one outlaw was saying.

“What’s eatin’ you, Panhandle?” ejaculated another. “Blossom an’ me rode from Faraway Springs, where Poggin is with some of the gang.”

“Excuse me, Phil. Shore I didn’t see you come in, an’ Boldt never said nothin’.”

“It took you a long time to get here, but I guess that’s just as well,” spoke up a smooth, suave voice with a ring in it.

Longstreth’s voice — Cheseldine’s voice!

Here they were — Cheseldine, Phil Knell, Blossom Kane, Panhandle Smith, Boldt — how well Duane remembered the names! — all here, the big men of Cheseldine’s gang, except the biggest — Poggin. Duane had holed them, and his sensations of the moment deadened sight and sound of what was before him. He sank down, controlled himself, silenced a mounting exultation, then from a less-strained position he peered forth again.

The outlaws were waiting for supper. Their conversation might have been that of cowboys in camp, ranchers at a roundup. Duane listened with eager ears, waiting for the business talk that he felt would come. All the time he watched with the eyes of a wolf upon its quarry. Blossom Kane was the lean-limbed messenger who had so angered Fletcher. Boldt was a giant in stature, dark, bearded, silent. Panhandle Smith was the red-faced cook, merry, profane, a short, bow-legged man resembling many rustlers Duane had known, particularly Luke Stevens. And Knell, who sat there, tall, slim, like a boy in build, like a boy in years, with his pale, smooth, expressionless face and his cold, gray eyes. And Longstreth, who leaned against the wall, handsome, with his dark face and beard like an aristocrat, resembled many a rich Louisiana planter Duane had met. The sixth man sat so much in the shadow that he could not be plainly discerned, and, though addressed, his name was not mentioned.

Panhandle Smith carried pots and pans into the cabin, and cheerfully called out: “If you gents air hungry fer grub, don’t look fer me to feed you with a spoon.”

The outlaws piled inside, made a great bustle and clatter as they sat to their meal. Like hungry men, they talked little.

Duane waited there awhile, then guardedly got up and crept round to the other side of the cabin. After he became used to the dark again he ventured to steal along the wall to the window and peeped in. The outlaws were in the first room and could not be seen.

Duane waited. The moments dragged endlessly. His heart pounded. Longstreth entered, turned up the light, and, taking a box of cigars from the table, he carried it out.

“Here, you fellows, go outside and smoke,” he said. “Knell, come on in now. Let’s get it over.”

He returned, sat down, and lighted a cigar for himself. He put his booted feet on the table.

Duane saw that the room was comfortably, even luxuriously furnished. There must have been a good trail, he thought, else how could all that stuff have been packed in there. Most assuredly it could not have come over the trail he had traveled. Presently he heard the men go outside, and their voices became indistinct. Then Knell came in and seated himself without any of his chief’s ease. He seemed preoccupied and, as always, cold.

“What’s wrong, Knell? Why didn’t you get here sooner?” queried Longstreth.

“Poggin, damn him! We’re on the outs again.”

“What for?”

“Aw, he needn’t have got sore. He’s breakin’ a new hoss over at Faraway, an you know him where a hoss ‘s concerned. That kept him, I reckon, more than anythin’.”

“What else? Get it out of your system so we can go on to the new job.”

“Well, it begins back a ways. I don’t know how long ago — weeks — a stranger rode into Ord an’ got down easy-like as if he owned the place. He seemed familiar to me. But I wasn’t sure. We looked him over, an’ I left, tryin’ to place him in my mind.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Rangy, powerful man, white hair over his temples, still, hard face, eyes like knives. The way he packed his guns, the way he walked an’ stood an’ swung his right hand showed me what he was. You can’t fool me on the gun-sharp. An’ he had a grand horse, a big black.”

“I’ve met your man,” said Longstreth.

“No!” exclaimed Knell. It was wonderful to hear surprise expressed by this man that did not in the least show it in his strange physiognomy. Knell laughed a short, grim, hollow laugh. “Boss, this here big gent drifts into Ord again an’ makes up to Jim Fletcher. Jim, you know, is easy led. He likes men. An’ when a posse come along trailin’ a blind lead, huntin’ the wrong way for the man who held up No. 6, why, Jim — he up an’ takes this stranger to be the fly road-agent an’ cottons to him. Got money out of him sure. An’ that’s what stumps me more. What’s this man’s game? I happen to know, boss, that he couldn’t have held up No. 6.”

“How do you know?” demanded Longstreth.

“Because I did the job myself.”

A dark and stormy passion clouded the chief’s face.

“Damn you, Knell! You’re incorrigible. You’re unreliable. Another break like that queers you with me. Did you tell Poggin?”

“Yes. That’s one reason we fell out. He raved. I thought he was goin’ to kill me.”

“Why did you tackle such a risky job without help or plan?”

“It offered, that’s all. An’ it was easy. But it was a mistake. I got the country an’ the railroad hollerin’ for nothin’. I just couldn’t help it. You know what idleness means to one of us. You know also that this very life breeds fatality. It’s wrong — that’s why. I was born of good parents, an’ I know what’s right. We’re wrong, an’ we can’t beat the end, that’s all. An’ for my part I don’t care a damn when that comes.”

“Fine wise talk from you, Knell,” said Longstreth, scornfully. “Go on with your story.”

“As I said, Jim cottons to the pretender, an’ they get chummy. They’re together all the time. You can gamble Jim told all he knew an’ then some. A little liquor loosens his tongue. Several of the boys rode over from Ord, an’ one of them went to Poggin an’ says Jim Fletcher has a new man for the gang. Poggin, you know, is always ready for any new man. He says if one doesn’t turn out good he can be shut off easy. He rather liked the way this new part of Jim’s was boosted. Jim an’ Poggin always hit it up together. So until I got on the deal Jim’s pard was already in the gang, without Poggin or you ever seein’ him. Then I got to figurin’ hard. Just where had I ever seen that chap? As it turned out, I never had seen him, which accounts for my bein’ doubtful. I’d never forget any man I’d seen. I dug up a lot of old papers from my kit an’ went over them. Letters, pictures, clippin’s, an’ all that. I guess I had a pretty good notion what I was lookin’ for an’ who I wanted to make sure of. At last I found it. An’ I knew my man. But I didn’t spring it on Poggin. Oh no! I want to have some fun with him when the time comes. He’ll be wilder than a trapped wolf. I sent Blossom over to Ord to get word from Jim, an’ when he verified all this talk I sent Blossom again with a message calculated to make Jim hump. Poggin got sore, said he’d wait for Jim, an’ I could come over here to see you about the new job. He’d meet me in Ord.”

Knell had spoken hurriedly and low, now and then with passion. His pale eyes glinted like fire in ice, and now his voice fell to a whisper.

“Who do you think Fletcher’s new man is?”

“Who?” demanded Longstreth.

“BUCK DUANE!”

Down came Longstreth’s boots with a crash, then his body grew rigid.

“That Nueces outlaw? That two-shot ace-of-spades gun-thrower who killed Bland, Alloway — ?”

“An’ Hardin.” Knell whispered this last name with more feeling than the apparent circumstance demanded.

“Yes; and Hardin, the best one of the Rim Rock fellows — Buck Duane!”

Longstreth was so ghastly white now that his black mustache seemed outlined against chalk. He eyed his grim lieutenant. They understood each other without more words. It was enough that Buck Duane was there in the Big Bend. Longstreth rose presently and reached for a flask, from which he drank, then offered it to Knell. He waved it aside.

“Knell,” began the chief, slowly, as he wiped his lips, “I gathered you have some grudge against this Buck Duane.”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t be a fool now and do what Poggin or almost any of you men would — don’t meet this Buck Duane. I’ve reason to believe he’s a Texas Ranger now.”

“The hell you say!” exclaimed Knell.

“Yes. Go to Ord and give Jim Fletcher a hunch. He’ll get Poggin, and they’ll fix even Buck Duane.”

“All right. I’ll do my best. But if I run into Duane—”

“Don’t run into him!” Longstreth’s voice fairly rang with the force of its passion and command. He wiped his face, drank again from the flask, sat down, resumed his smoking, and, drawing a paper from his vest pocket he began to study it.

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” he said, evidently referring to the Duane matter. “Now for the new job. This is October the eighteenth. On or before the twenty-fifth there will be a shipment of gold reach the Rancher’s Bank of Val Verde. After you return to Ord give Poggin these orders. Keep the gang quiet. You, Poggin, Kane, Fletcher, Panhandle Smith, and Boldt to be in on the secret and the job. Nobody else. You’ll leave Ord on the twenty-third, ride across country by the trail till you get within sight of Mercer. It’s a hundred miles from Bradford to Val Verde — about the same from Ord. Time your travel to get you near Val Verde on the morning of the twenty-sixth. You won’t have to more than trot your horses. At two o’clock in the afternoon, sharp, ride into town and up to the Rancher’s Bank. Val Verde’s a pretty big town. Never been any holdups there. Town feels safe. Make it a clean, fast, daylight job. That’s all. Have you got the details?”

Knell did not even ask for the dates again.

“Suppose Poggin or me might be detained?” he asked.

Longstreth bent a dark glance upon his lieutenant.

“You never can tell what’ll come off,” continued Knell. “I’ll do my best.”

“The minute you see Poggin tell him. A job on hand steadies him. And I say again — look to it that nothing happens. Either you or Poggin carry the job through. But I want both of you in it. Break for the hills, and when you get up in the rocks where you can hide your tracks head for Mount Ord. When all’s quiet again I’ll join you here. That’s all. Call in the boys.”

Like a swift shadow and as noiseless Duane stole across the level toward the dark wall of rock. Every nerve was a strung wire. For a little while his mind was cluttered and clogged with whirling thoughts, from which, like a flashing scroll, unrolled the long, baffling order of action. The game was now in his hands. He must cross Mount Ord at night. The feat was improbable, but it might be done. He must ride into Bradford, forty miles from the foothills before eight o’clock next morning. He must telegraph MacNelly to be in Val Verde on the twenty-fifth. He must ride back to Ord, to intercept Knell, face him be denounced, kill him, and while the iron was hot strike hard to win Poggin’s half-won interest as he had wholly won Fletcher’s. Failing that last, he must let the outlaws alone to bide their time in Ord, to be free to ride on to their new job in Val Verde. In the mean time he must plan to arrest Longstreth. It was a magnificent outline, incredible, alluring, unfathomable in its nameless certainty. He felt like fate. He seemed to be the iron consequences falling upon these doomed outlaws.

Under the wall the shadows were black, only the tips of trees and crags showing, yet he went straight to the trail. It was merely a grayness between borders of black. He climbed and never stopped. It did not seem steep. His feet might have had eyes. He surmounted the wall, and, looking down into the ebony gulf pierced by one point of light, he lifted a menacing arm and shook it. Then he strode on and did not falter till he reached the huge shelving cliffs. Here he lost the trail; there was none; but he remembered the shapes, the points, the notches of rock above. Before he reached the ruins of splintered ramparts and jumbles of broken walls the moon topped the eastern slope of the mountain, and the mystifying blackness he had dreaded changed to magic silver light. It seemed as light as day, only soft, mellow, and the air held a transparent sheen. He ran up the bare ridges and down the smooth slopes, and, like a goat, jumped from rock to rock. In this light he knew his way and lost no time looking for a trail. He crossed the divide and then had all downhill before him. Swiftly he descended, almost always sure of his memory of the landmarks. He did not remember having studied them in the ascent, yet here they were, even in changed light, familiar to his sight. What he had once seen was pictured on his mind. And, true as a deer striking for home, he reached the canon where he had left his horse.

Bullet was quickly and easily found. Duane threw on the saddle and pack, cinched them tight, and resumed his descent. The worst was now to come. Bare downward steps in rock, sliding, weathered slopes, narrow black gullies, a thousand openings in a maze of broken stone — these Duane had to descend in fast time, leading a giant of a horse. Bullet cracked the loose fragments, sent them rolling, slid on the scaly slopes, plunged down the steps, followed like a faithful dog at Duane’s heels.

Hours passed as moments. Duane was equal to his great opportunity. But he could not quell that self in him which reached back over the lapse of lonely, searing years and found the boy in him. He who had been worse than dead was now grasping at the skirts of life — which meant victory, honor, happiness. Duane knew he was not just right in part of his mind. Small wonder that he was not insane, he thought! He tramped on downward, his marvelous faculty for covering rough ground and holding to the true course never before even in flight so keen and acute. Yet all the time a spirit was keeping step with him. Thought of Ray Longstreth as he had left her made him weak. But now, with the game clear to its end, with the trap to spring, with success strangely haunting him, Duane could not dispel memory of her. He saw her white face, with its sweet sad lips and the dark eyes so tender and tragic. And time and distance and risk and toil were nothing.

The moon sloped to the west. Shadows of trees and crags now crossed to the other side of him. The stars dimmed. Then he was out of the rocks, with the dim trail pale at his feet. Mounting Bullet, he made short work of the long slope and the foothills and the rolling land leading down to Ord. The little outlaw camp, with its shacks and cabins and row of houses, lay silent and dark under the paling moon. Duane passed by on the lower trail, headed into the road, and put Bullet to a gallop. He watched the dying moon, the waning stars, and the east. He had time to spare, so he saved the horse. Knell would be leaving the rendezvous about the time Duane turned back toward Ord. Between noon and sunset they would meet.

The night wore on. The moon sank behind low mountains in the west. The stars brightened for a while, then faded. Gray gloom enveloped the world, thickened, lay like smoke over the road. Then shade by shade it lightened, until through the transparent obscurity shone a dim light.

Duane reached Bradford before dawn. He dismounted some distance from the tracks, tied his horse, and then crossed over to the station. He heard the clicking of the telegraph instrument, and it thrilled him. An operator sat inside reading. When Duane tapped on the window he looked up with startled glance, then went swiftly to unlock the door.

“Hello. Give me paper and pencil. Quick,” whispered Duane.

With trembling hands the operator complied. Duane wrote out the message he had carefully composed.

“Send this — repeat it to make sure — then keep mum. I’ll see you again. Good-by.”

The operator stared, but did not speak a word.

Duane left as stealthily and swiftly as he had come. He walked his horse a couple miles back on the road and then rested him till break of day. The east began to redden, Duane turned grimly in the direction of Ord.

When Duane swung into the wide, grassy square on the outskirts of Ord he saw a bunch of saddled horses hitched in front of the tavern. He knew what that meant. Luck still favored him. If it would only hold! But he could ask no more. The rest was a matter of how greatly he could make his power felt. An open conflict against odds lay in the balance. That would be fatal to him, and to avoid it he had to trust to his name and a presence he must make terrible. He knew outlaws. He knew what qualities held them. He knew what to exaggerate.

There was not an outlaw in sight. The dusty horses had covered distance that morning. As Duane dismounted he heard loud, angry voices inside the tavern. He removed coat and vest, hung them over the pommel. He packed two guns, one belted high on the left hip, the other swinging low on the right side. He neither looked nor listened, but boldly pushed the door and stepped inside.

The big room was full of men, and every face pivoted toward him. Knell’s pale face flashed into Duane’s swift sight; then Boldt’s, then Blossom Kane’s, then Panhandle Smith’s, then Fletcher’s, then others that were familiar, and last that of Poggin. Though Duane had never seen Poggin or heard him described, he knew him. For he saw a face that was a record of great and evil deeds.

There was absolute silence. The outlaws were lined back of a long table upon which were papers, stacks of silver coin, a bundle of bills, and a huge gold-mounted gun.

“Are you gents lookin’ for me?” asked Duane. He gave his voice all the ringing force and power of which he was capable. And he stepped back, free of anything, with the outlaws all before him.

Knell stood quivering, but his face might have been a mask. The other outlaws looked from him to Duane. Jim Fletcher flung up his hands.

“My Gawd, Dodge, what’d you bust in here fer?” he said, plaintively, and slowly stepped forward. His action was that of a man true to himself. He meant he had been sponsor for Duane and now he would stand by him.

“Back, Fletcher!” called Duane, and his voice made the outlaw jump.

“Hold on, Dodge, an’ you-all, everybody,” said Fletcher. “Let me talk, seein’ I’m in wrong here.”

His persuasions did not ease the strain.

“Go ahead. Talk,” said Poggin.

Fletcher turned to Duane. “Pard, I’m takin’ it on myself thet you meet enemies here when I swore you’d meet friends. It’s my fault. I’ll stand by you if you let me.”

“No, Jim,” replied Duane.

“But what’d you come fer without the signal?” burst out Fletcher, in distress. He saw nothing but catastrophe in this meeting.

“Jim, I ain’t pressin’ my company none. But when I’m wanted bad—”

Fletcher stopped him with a raised hand. Then he turned to Poggin with a rude dignity.

“Poggy, he’s my pard, an’ he’s riled. I never told him a word thet’d make him sore. I only said Knell hadn’t no more use fer him than fer me. Now, what you say goes in this gang. I never failed you in my life. Here’s my pard. I vouch fer him. Will you stand fer me? There’s goin’ to be hell if you don’t. An’ us with a big job on hand!”

While Fletcher toiled over his slow, earnest persuasion Duane had his gaze riveted upon Poggin. There was something leonine about Poggin. He was tawny. He blazed. He seemed beautiful as fire was beautiful. But looked at closer, with glance seeing the physical man, instead of that thing which shone from him, he was of perfect build, with muscles that swelled and rippled, bulging his clothes, with the magnificent head and face of the cruel, fierce, tawny-eyed jaguar.

Looking at this strange Poggin, instinctively divining his abnormal and hideous power, Duane had for the first time in his life the inward quaking fear of a man. It was like a cold-tongued bell ringing within him and numbing his heart. The old instinctive firing of blood followed, but did not drive away that fear. He knew. He felt something here deeper than thought could go. And he hated Poggin.

That individual had been considering Fletcher’s appeal.

“Jim, I ante up,” he said, “an’ if Phil doesn’t raise us out with a big hand — why, he’ll get called, an’ your pard can set in the game.”

Every eye shifted to Knell. He was dead white. He laughed, and any one hearing that laugh would have realized his intense anger equally with an assurance which made him master of the situation.

“Poggin, you’re a gambler, you are — the ace-high, straight-flush hand of the Big Bend,” he said, with stinging scorn. “I’ll bet you my roll to a greaser peso that I can deal you a hand you’ll be afraid to play.”

“Phil, you’re talkin’ wild,” growled Poggin, with both advice and menace in his tone.

“If there’s anythin’ you hate it’s a man who pretends to be somebody else when he’s not. Thet so?”

Poggin nodded in slow-gathering wrath.

“Well, Jim’s new pard — this man Dodge — he’s not who he seems. Oh-ho! He’s a hell of a lot different. But I know him. An’ when I spring his name on you, Poggin, you’ll freeze to your gizzard. Do you get me? You’ll freeze, an’ your hand’ll be stiff when it ought to be lightnin’ — All because you’ll realize you’ve been standin’ there five minutes — five minutes ALIVE before him!”

If not hate, then assuredly great passion toward Poggin manifested itself in Knell’s scornful, fiery address, in the shaking hand he thrust before Poggin’s face. In the ensuing silent pause Knell’s panting could be plainly heard. The other men were pale, watchful, cautiously edging either way to the wall, leaving the principals and Duane in the center of the room.

“Spring his name, then, you—” said Poggin, violently, with a curse.

Strangely Knell did not even look at the man he was about to denounce. He leaned toward Poggin, his hands, his body, his long head all somewhat expressive of what his face disguised.

“BUCK DUANE!” he yelled, suddenly.

The name did not make any great difference in Poggin. But Knell’s passionate, swift utterance carried the suggestion that the name ought to bring Poggin to quick action. It was possible, too, that Knell’s manner, the import of his denunciation the meaning back of all his passion held Poggin bound more than the surprise. For the outlaw certainly was surprised, perhaps staggered at the idea that he, Poggin, had been about to stand sponsor with Fletcher for a famous outlaw hated and feared by all outlaws.

Knell waited a long moment, and then his face broke its cold immobility in an extraordinary expression of devilish glee. He had hounded the great Poggin into something that gave him vicious, monstrous joy.

“BUCK DUANE! Yes,” he broke out, hotly. “The Nueces gunman! That two-shot, ace-of-spades lone wolf! You an’ I — we’ve heard a thousand times of him — talked about him often. An’ here he IN FRONT of you! Poggin, you were backin’ Fletcher’s new pard, Buck Duane. An’ he’d fooled you both but for me. But I know him. An’ I know why he drifted in here. To flash a gun on Cheseldine — on you — on me! Bah! Don’t tell me he wanted to join the gang. You know a gunman, for you’re one yourself. Don’t you always want to kill another man? An’ don’t you always want to meet a real man, not a four-flush? It’s the madness of the gunman, an’ I know it. Well, Duane faced you — called you! An’ when I sprung his name, what ought you have done? What would the boss — anybody — have expected of Poggin? Did you throw your gun, swift, like you have so often? Naw; you froze. An’ why? Because here’s a man with the kind of nerve you’d love to have. Because he’s great — meetin’ us here alone. Because you know he’s a wonder with a gun an’ you love life. Because you an’ I an’ every damned man here had to take his front, each to himself. If we all drew we’d kill him. Sure! But who’s goin’ to lead? Who was goin’ to be first? Who was goin’ to make him draw? Not you, Poggin! You leave that for a lesser man — me — who’ve lived to see you a coward. It comes once to every gunman. You’ve met your match in Buck Duane. An’, by God, I’m glad! Here’s once I show you up!”

The hoarse, taunting voice failed. Knell stepped back from the comrade he hated. He was wet, shaking, haggard, but magnificent.

“Buck Duane, do you remember Hardin?” he asked, in scarcely audible voice.

“Yes,” replied Duane, and a flash of insight made clear Knell’s attitude.

“You met him — forced him to draw — killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Hardin was the best pard I ever had.”

His teeth clicked together tight, and his lips set in a thin line.

The room grew still. Even breathing ceased. The time for words had passed. In that long moment of suspense Knell’s body gradually stiffened, and at last the quivering ceased. He crouched. His eyes had a soul-piercing fire.

Duane watched them. He waited. He caught the thought — the breaking of Knell’s muscle-bound rigidity. Then he drew.

Through the smoke of his gun he saw two red spurts of flame. Knell’s bullets thudded into the ceiling. He fell with a scream like a wild thing in agony.

Duane did not see Knell die. He watched Poggin. And Poggin, like a stricken and astounded man, looked down upon his prostrate comrade.

Fletcher ran at Duane with hands aloft.

“Hit the trail, you liar, or you’ll hev to kill me!” he yelled.

With hands still up, he shouldered and bodied Duane out of the room.

Duane leaped on his horse, spurred, and plunged away.

CHAPTER XXIII

DUANE RETURNED TO Fairdale and camped in the mesquite till the twenty-third of the month. The few days seemed endless. All he could think of was that the hour in which he must disgrace Ray Longstreth was slowly but inexorably coming. In that waiting time he learned what love was and also duty. When the day at last dawned he rode like one possessed down the rough slope, hurdling the stones and crashing through the brush, with a sound in his ears that was not all the rush of the wind. Something dragged at him.

Apparently one side of his mind was unalterably fixed, while the other was a hurrying conglomeration of flashes of thought, reception of sensations. He could not get calmness. By and by, almost involuntarily, he hurried faster on. Action seemed to make his state less oppressive; it eased the weight. But the farther he went on the harder it was to continue. Had he turned his back upon love, happiness, perhaps on life itself?

There seemed no use to go on farther until he was absolutely sure of himself. Duane received a clear warning thought that such work as seemed haunting and driving him could never be carried out in the mood under which he labored. He hung on to that thought. Several times he slowed up, then stopped, only to go on again. At length, as he mounted a low ridge, Fairdale lay bright and green before him not far away, and the sight was a conclusive check. There were mesquites on the ridge, and Duane sought the shade beneath them. It was the noon-hour, with hot, glary sun and no wind. Here Duane had to have out his fight. Duane was utterly unlike himself; he could not bring the old self back; he was not the same man he once had been. But he could understand why. It was because of Ray Longstreth. Temptation assailed him. To have her his wife! It was impossible. The thought was insidiously alluring. Duane pictured a home. He saw himself riding through the cotton and rice and cane, home to a stately old mansion, where long-eared hounds bayed him welcome, and a woman looked for him and met him with happy and beautiful smile. There might — there would be children. And something new, strange, confounding with its emotion, came to life deep in Duane’s heart. There would be children! Ray their mother! The kind of life a lonely outcast always yearned for and never had! He saw it all, felt it all.

But beyond and above all other claims came Captain MacNelly’s. It was then there was something cold and death-like in Duane’s soul. For he knew, whatever happened, of one thing he was sure — he would have to kill either Longstreth or Lawson. Longstreth might be trapped into arrest; but Lawson had no sense, no control, no fear. He would snarl like a panther and go for his gun, and he would have to be killed. This, of all consummations, was the one to be calculated upon.

Duane came out of it all bitter and callous and sore — in the most fitting of moods to undertake a difficult and deadly enterprise. He had fallen upon his old strange, futile dreams, now rendered poignant by reason of love. He drove away those dreams. In their places came the images of the olive-skinned Longstreth with his sharp eyes, and the dark, evil-faced Lawson, and then returned tenfold more thrilling and sinister the old strange passion to meet Poggin.

It was about one o’clock when Duane rode into Fairdale. The streets for the most part were deserted. He went directly to find Morton and Zimmer. He found them at length, restless, somber, anxious, but unaware of the part he had played at Ord. They said Longstreth was home, too. It was possible that Longstreth had arrived home in ignorance.

Duane told them to be on hand in town with their men in case he might need them, and then with teeth locked he set off for Longstreth’s ranch.

Duane stole through the bushes and trees, and when nearing the porch he heard loud, angry, familiar voices. Longstreth and Lawson were quarreling again. How Duane’s lucky star guided him! He had no plan of action, but his brain was equal to a hundred lightning-swift evolutions. He meant to take any risk rather than kill Longstreth. Both of the men were out on the porch. Duane wormed his way to the edge of the shrubbery and crouched low to watch for his opportunity.

Longstreth looked haggard and thin. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he had come out with a gun in his hand. This he laid on a table near the wall. He wore no belt.

Lawson was red, bloated, thick-lipped, all fiery and sweaty from drink, though sober on the moment, and he had the expression of a desperate man in his last stand. It was his last stand, though he was ignorant of that.

“What’s your news? You needn’t be afraid of my feelings,” said Lawson.

“Ray confessed to an interest in this ranger,” replied Longstreth.

Duane thought Lawson would choke. He was thick-necked anyway, and the rush of blood made him tear at the soft collar of his shirt. Duane awaited his chance, patient, cold, all his feelings shut in a vise.

“But why should your daughter meet this ranger?” demanded Lawson, harshly.

“She’s in love with him, and he’s in love with her.”

Duane reveled in Lawson’s condition. The statement might have had the force of a juggernaut. Was Longstreth sincere? What was his game?

Lawson, finding his voice, cursed Ray, cursed the ranger, then Longstreth.

“You damned selfish fool!” cried Longstreth, in deep bitter scorn. “All you think of is yourself — your loss of the girl. Think once of ME — my home — my life!”

Then the connection subtly put out by Longstreth apparently dawned upon the other. Somehow through this girl her father and cousin were to be betrayed. Duane got that impression, though he could not tell how true it was. Certainly Lawson’s jealousy was his paramount emotion.

“To hell with you!” burst out Lawson, incoherently. He was frenzied. “I’ll have her, or nobody else will!”

“You never will,” returned Longstreth, stridently. “So help me God I’d rather see her the ranger’s wife than yours!”

While Lawson absorbed that shock Longstreth leaned toward him, all of hate and menace in his mien.

“Lawson, you made me what I am,” continued Longstreth. “I backed you — shielded you. YOU’RE Cheseldine — if the truth is told! Now it’s ended. I quit you. I’m done!”

Their gray passion-corded faces were still as stones.

“GENTLEMEN!” Duane called in far-reaching voice as he stepped out. “YOU’RE BOTH DONE!”

They wheeled to confront Duane.

“Don’t move! Not a muscle! Not a finger!” he warned.

Longstreth read what Lawson had not the mind to read. His face turned from gray to ashen.

“What d’ye mean?” yelled Lawson, fiercely, shrilly. It was not in him to obey a command, to see impending death.

All quivering and strung, yet with perfect control, Duane raised his left hand to turn back a lapel of his open vest. The silver star flashed brightly.

Lawson howled like a dog. With barbarous and insane fury, with sheer impotent folly, he swept a clawing hand for his gun. Duane’s shot broke his action.

Before Lawson ever tottered, before he loosed the gun, Longstreth leaped behind him, clasped him with left arm, quick as lightning jerked the gun from both clutching fingers and sheath. Longstreth protected himself with the body of the dead man. Duane saw red flashes, puffs of smoke; he heard quick reports. Something stung his left arm. Then a blow like wind, light of sound yet shocking in impact, struck him, staggered him. The hot rend of lead followed the blow. Duane’s heart seemed to explode, yet his mind kept extraordinarily clear and rapid.

Duane heard Longstreth work the action of Lawson’s gun. He heard the hammer click, fall upon empty shells. Longstreth had used up all the loads in Lawson’s gun. He cursed as a man cursed at defeat. Duane waited, cool and sure now. Longstreth tried to lift the dead man, to edge him closer toward the table where his own gun lay. But, considering the peril of exposing himself, he found the task beyond him. He bent peering at Duane under Lawson’s arm, which flopped out from his side. Longstreth’s eyes were the eyes of a man who meant to kill. There was never any mistaking the strange and terrible light of eyes like those. More than once Duane had a chance to aim at them, at the top of Longstreth’s head, at a strip of his side.

Longstreth flung Lawson’s body off. But even as it dropped, before Longstreth could leap, as he surely intended, for the gun, Duane covered him, called piercingly to him:

“Don’t jump for the gun! Don’t! I’ll kill you! Sure as God I’ll kill you!”

Longstreth stood perhaps ten feet from the table where his gun lay Duane saw him calculating chances. He was game. He had the courage that forced Duane to respect him. Duane just saw him measure the distance to that gun. He was magnificent. He meant to do it. Duane would have to kill him.

“Longstreth, listen,” cried Duane, swiftly. “The game’s up. You’re done. But think of your daughter! I’ll spare your life — I’ll try to get you freedom on one condition. For her sake! I’ve got you nailed — all the proofs. There lies Lawson. You’re alone. I’ve Morton and men to my aid. Give up. Surrender. Consent to demands, and I’ll spare you. Maybe I can persuade MacNelly to let you go free back to your old country. It’s for Ray’s sake! Her life, perhaps her happiness, can be saved! Hurry, man! Your answer!”

“Suppose I refuse?” he queried, with a dark and terrible earnestness.

“Then I’ll kill you in your tracks! You can’t move a hand! Your word or death! Hurry, Longstreth! Be a man! For her sake! Quick! Another second now — I’ll kill you!”

“All right, Buck Duane, I give my word,” he said, and deliberately walked to the chair and fell into it.

Longstreth looked strangely at the bloody blot on Duane’s shoulder.

“There come the girls!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Can you help me drag Lawson inside? They mustn’t see him.”

Duane was facing down the porch toward the court and corrals. Miss Longstreth and Ruth had come in sight, were swiftly approaching, evidently alarmed. The two men succeeded in drawing Lawson into the house before the girls saw him.

“Duane, you’re not hard hit?” said Longstreth.

“Reckon not,” replied Duane.

“I’m sorry. If only you could have told me sooner! Lawson, damn him! Always I’ve split over him!”

“But the last time, Longstreth.”

“Yes, and I came near driving you to kill me, too. Duane, you talked me out of it. For Ray’s sake! She’ll be in here in a minute. This’ll be harder than facing a gun.”

“Hard now. But I hope it’ll turn out all right.”

“Duane, will you do me a favor?” he asked, and he seemed shamefaced.

“Sure.”

“Let Ray and Ruth think Lawson shot you. He’s dead. It can’t matter. Duane, the old side of my life is coming back. It’s been coming. It’ll be here just about when she enters this room. And, by God, I’d change places with Lawson if I could!”

“Glad you — said that, Longstreth,” replied Duane. “And sure — Lawson plugged me. It’s our secret.”

Just then Ray and Ruth entered the room. Duane heard two low cries, so different in tone, and he saw two white faces. Ray came to his side, She lifted a shaking hand to point at the blood upon his breast. White and mute, she gazed from that to her father.

“Papa!” cried Ray, wringing her hands.

“Don’t give way,” he replied, huskily. “Both you girls will need your nerve. Duane isn’t badly hurt. But Floyd is — is dead. Listen. Let me tell it quick. There’s been a fight. It — it was Lawson — it was Lawson’s gun that shot Duane. Duane let me off. In fact, Ray, he saved me. I’m to divide my property — return so far as possible what I’ve stolen — leave Texas at once with Duane, under arrest. He says maybe he can get MacNelly, the ranger captain, to let me go. For your sake!”

She stood there, realizing her deliverance, with the dark and tragic glory of her eyes passing from her father to Duane.

“You must rise above this,” said Duane to her. “I expected this to ruin you. But your father is alive. He will live it down. I’m sure I can promise you he’ll be free. Perhaps back there in Louisiana the dishonor will never be known. This country is far from your old home. And even in San Antonio and Austin a man’s evil repute means little. Then the line between a rustler and a rancher is hard to draw in these wild border days. Rustling is stealing cattle, and I once heard a well-known rancher say that all rich cattlemen had done a little stealing Your father drifted out here, and, like a good many others, he succeeded. It’s perhaps just as well not to split hairs, to judge him by the law and morality of a civilized country. Some way or other he drifted in with bad men. Maybe a deal that was honest somehow tied his hands. This matter of land, water, a few stray head of stock had to be decided out of court. I’m sure in his case he never realized where he was drifting. Then one thing led to another, until he was face to face with dealing that took on crooked form. To protect himself he bound men to him. And so the gang developed. Many powerful gangs have developed that way out here. He could not control them. He became involved with them. And eventually their dealings became deliberately and boldly dishonest. That meant the inevitable spilling of blood sooner or later, and so he grew into the leader because he was the strongest. Whatever he is to be judged for, I think he could have been infinitely worse.”

CHAPTER XXIV

ON THE MORNING of the twenty-sixth Duane rode into Bradford in time to catch the early train. His wounds did not seriously incapacitate him. Longstreth was with him. And Miss Longstreth and Ruth Herbert would not be left behind. They were all leaving Fairdale for ever. Longstreth had turned over the whole of his property to Morton, who was to divide it as he and his comrades believed just. Duane had left Fairdale with his party by night, passed through Sanderson in the early hours of dawn, and reached Bradford as he had planned.

That fateful morning found Duane outwardly calm, but inwardly he was in a tumult. He wanted to rush to Val Verde. Would Captain MacNelly be there with his rangers, as Duane had planned for them to be? Memory of that tawny Poggin returned with strange passion. Duane had borne hours and weeks and months of waiting, had endured the long hours of the outlaw, but now he had no patience. The whistle of the train made him leap.

It was a fast train, yet the ride seemed slow.

Duane, disliking to face Longstreth and the passengers in the car, changed his seat to one behind his prisoner. They had seldom spoken. Longstreth sat with bowed head, deep in thought. The girls sat in a seat near by and were pale but composed. Occasionally the train halted briefly at a station. The latter half of that ride Duane had observed a wagon-road running parallel with the railroad, sometimes right alongside, at others near or far away. When the train was about twenty miles from Val Verde Duane espied a dark group of horsemen trotting eastward. His blood beat like a hammer at his temples. The gang! He thought he recognized the tawny Poggin and felt a strange inward contraction. He thought he recognized the clean-cut Blossom Kane, the black-bearded giant Boldt, the red-faced Panhandle Smith, and Fletcher. There was another man strange to him. Was that Knell? No! it could not have been Knell.

Duane leaned over the seat and touched Longstreth on the shoulder.

“Look!” he whispered. Cheseldine was stiff. He had already seen.

The train flashed by; the outlaw gang receded out of range of sight.

“Did you notice Knell wasn’t with them?” whispered Duane.

Duane did not speak to Longstreth again till the train stopped at Val Verde.

They got off the car, and the girls followed as naturally as ordinary travelers. The station was a good deal larger than that at Bradford, and there was considerable action and bustle incident to the arrival of the train.

Duane’s sweeping gaze searched faces, rested upon a man who seemed familiar. This fellow’s look, too, was that of one who knew Duane, but was waiting for a sign, a cue. Then Duane recognized him — MacNelly, clean-shaven. Without mustache he appeared different, younger.

When MacNelly saw that Duane intended to greet him, to meet him, he hurried forward. A keen light flashed from his eyes. He was glad, eager, yet suppressing himself, and the glances he sent back and forth from Duane to Longstreth were questioning, doubtful. Certainly Longstreth did not look the part of an outlaw.

“Duane! Lord, I’m glad to see you,” was the Captain’s greeting. Then at closer look into Duane’s face his warmth fled — something he saw there checked his enthusiasm, or at least its utterance.

“MacNelly, shake hand with Cheseldine,” said Duane, low-voiced.

The ranger captain stood dumb, motionless. But he saw Longstreth’s instant action, and awkwardly he reached for the outstretched hand.

“Any of your men down here?” queried Duane, sharply.

“No. They’re up-town.”

“Come. MacNelly, you walk with him. We’ve ladies in the party. I’ll come behind with them.”

They set off up-town. Longstreth walked as if he were with friends on the way to dinner. The girls were mute. MacNelly walked like a man in a trance. There was not a word spoken in four blocks.

Presently Duane espied a stone building on a corner of the broad street. There was a big sign, “Rancher’s Bank.”

“There’s the hotel,” said MacNelly. “Some of my men are there. We’ve scattered around.”

They crossed the street, went through office and lobby, and then Duane asked MacNelly to take them to a private room. Without a word the Captain complied. When they were all inside Duane closed the door, and, drawing a deep breath as if of relief, he faced them calmly.

“Miss Longstreth, you and Miss Ruth try to make yourselves comfortable now,” he said. “And don’t be distressed.” Then he turned to his captain. “MacNelly, this girl is the daughter of the man I’ve brought to you, and this one is his niece.”

Then Duane briefly related Longstreth’s story, and, though he did not spare the rustler chief, he was generous.

“When I went after Longstreth,” concluded Duane, “it was either to kill him or offer him freedom on conditions. So I chose the latter for his daughter’s sake. He has already disposed of all his property. I believe he’ll live up to the conditions. He’s to leave Texas never to return. The name Cheseldine has been a mystery, and now it’ll fade.”

A few moments later Duane followed MacNelly to a large room, like a hall, and here were men reading and smoking. Duane knew them — rangers!

MacNelly beckoned to his men.

“Boys, here he is.”

“How many men have you?” asked Duane.

“Fifteen.”

MacNelly almost embraced Duane, would probably have done so but for the dark grimness that seemed to be coming over the man. Instead he glowed, he sputtered, he tried to talk, to wave his hands. He was beside himself. And his rangers crowded closer, eager, like hounds ready to run. They all talked at once, and the word most significant and frequent in their speech was “outlaws.”

MacNelly clapped his fist in his hand.

“This’ll make the adjutant sick with joy. Maybe we won’t have it on the Governor! We’ll show them about the ranger service. Duane! how’d you ever do it?”

“Now, Captain, not the half nor the quarter of this job’s done. The gang’s coming down the road. I saw them from the train. They’ll ride into town on the dot — two-thirty.”

“How many?” asked MacNelly.

“Poggin, Blossom Kane, Panhandle Smith, Boldt, Jim Fletcher, and another man I don’t know. These are the picked men of Cheseldine’s gang. I’ll bet they’ll be the fastest, hardest bunch you rangers ever faced.”

“Poggin — that’s the hard nut to crack! I’ve heard their records since I’ve been in Val Verde. Where’s Knell? They say he’s a boy, but hell and blazes!”

“Knell’s dead.”

“Ah!” exclaimed MacNelly, softly. Then he grew businesslike, cool, and of harder aspect. “Duane, it’s your game to-day. I’m only a ranger under orders. We’re all under your orders. We’ve absolute faith in you. Make your plan quick, so I can go around and post the boys who’re not here.”

“You understand there’s no sense in trying to arrest Poggin, Kane, and that lot?” queried Duane.

“No, I don’t understand that,” replied MacNelly, bluntly.

“It can’t be done. The drop can’t be got on such men. If you meet them they shoot, and mighty quick and straight. Poggin! That outlaw has no equal with a gun — unless — He’s got to be killed quick. They’ll all have to be killed. They’re all bad, desperate, know no fear, are lightning in action.”

“Very well, Duane; then it’s a fight. That’ll be easier, perhaps. The boys are spoiling for a fight. Out with your plan, now.”

“Put one man at each end of this street, just at the edge of town. Let him hide there with a rifle to block the escape of any outlaw that we might fail to get. I had a good look at the bank building. It’s well situated for our purpose. Put four men up in that room over the bank — four men, two at each open window. Let them hide till the game begins. They want to be there so in case these foxy outlaws get wise before they’re down on the ground or inside the bank. The rest of your men put inside behind the counters, where they’ll hide. Now go over to the bank, spring the thing on the bank officials, and don’t let them shut up the bank. You want their aid. Let them make sure of their gold. But the clerks and cashier ought to be at their desks or window when Poggin rides up. He’ll glance in before he gets down. They make no mistakes, these fellows. We must be slicker than they are, or lose. When you get the bank people wise, send your men over one by one. No hurry, no excitement, no unusual thing to attract notice in the bank.”

“All right. That’s great. Tell me, where do you intend to wait?”

Duane heard MacNelly’s question, and it struck him peculiarly. He had seemed to be planning and speaking mechanically. As he was confronted by the fact it nonplussed him somewhat, and he became thoughtful, with lowered head.

“Where’ll you wait, Duane?” insisted MacNelly, with keen eyes speculating.

“I’ll wait in front, just inside the door,” replied Duane, with an effort.

“Why?” demanded the Captain.

“Well,” began Duane, slowly, “Poggin will get down first and start in. But the others won’t be far behind. They’ll not get swift till inside. The thing is — they MUSTN’T get clear inside, because the instant they do they’ll pull guns. That means death to somebody. If we can we want to stop them just at the door.”

“But will you hide?” asked MacNelly.

“Hide!” The idea had not occurred to Duane.

“There’s a wide-open doorway, a sort of round hall, a vestibule, with steps leading up to the bank. There’s a door in the vestibule, too. It leads somewhere. We can put men in there. You can be there.”

Duane was silent.

“See here, Duane,” began MacNelly, nervously. “You shan’t take any undue risk here. You’ll hide with the rest of us?”

“No!” The word was wrenched from Duane.

MacNelly stared, and then a strange, comprehending light seemed to flit over his face.

“Duane, I can give you no orders to-day,” he said, distinctly. “I’m only offering advice. Need you take any more risks? You’ve done a grand job for the service — already. You’ve paid me a thousand times for that pardon. You’ve redeemed yourself. — The Governor, the adjutant-general — the whole state will rise up and honor you. The game’s almost up. We’ll kill these outlaws, or enough of them to break for ever their power. I say, as a ranger, need you take more risk than your captain?”

Still Duane remained silent. He was locked between two forces. And one, a tide that was bursting at its bounds, seemed about to overwhelm him. Finally that side of him, the retreating self, the weaker, found a voice.

“Captain, you want this job to be sure?” he asked.

“Certainly.”

“I’ve told you the way. I alone know the kind of men to be met. Just WHAT I’ll do or WHERE I’ll be I can’t say yet. In meetings like this the moment decides. But I’ll be there!”

MacNelly spread wide his hands, looked helplessly at his curious and sympathetic rangers, and shook his head.

“Now you’ve done your work — laid the trap — is this strange move of yours going to be fair to Miss Longstreth?” asked MacNelly, in significant low voice.

Like a great tree chopped at the roots Duane vibrated to that. He looked up as if he had seen a ghost.

Mercilessly the ranger captain went on: “You can win her, Duane! Oh, you can’t fool me. I was wise in a minute. Fight with us from cover — then go back to her. You will have served the Texas Rangers as no other man has. I’ll accept your resignation. You’ll be free, honored, happy. That girl loves you! I saw it in her eyes. She’s—”

But Duane cut him short with a fierce gesture. He lunged up to his feet, and the rangers fell back. Dark, silent, grim as he had been, still there was a transformation singularly more sinister, stranger.

“Enough. I’m done,” he said, somberly. “I’ve planned. Do we agree — or shall I meet Poggin and his gang alone?”

MacNelly cursed and again threw up his hands, this time in baffled chagrin. There was deep regret in his dark eyes as they rested upon Duane.

Duane was left alone.

Never had his mind been so quick, so clear, so wonderful in its understanding of what had heretofore been intricate and elusive impulses of his strange nature. His determination was to meet Poggin; meet him before any one else had a chance — Poggin first — and then the others! He was as unalterable in that decision as if on the instant of its acceptance he had become stone.

Why? Then came realization. He was not a ranger now. He cared nothing for the state. He had no thought of freeing the community of a dangerous outlaw, of ridding the country of an obstacle to its progress and prosperity. He wanted to kill Poggin. It was significant now that he forgot the other outlaws. He was the gunman, the gun-thrower, the gun-fighter, passionate and terrible. His father’s blood, that dark and fierce strain, his mother’s spirit, that strong and unquenchable spirit of the surviving pioneer — these had been in him; and the killings, one after another, the wild and haunted years, had made him, absolutely in spite of his will, the gunman. He realized it now, bitterly, hopelessly. The thing he had intelligence enough to hate he had become. At last he shuddered under the driving, ruthless inhuman blood-lust of the gunman. Long ago he had seemed to seal in a tomb that horror of his kind — the need, in order to forget the haunting, sleepless presence of his last victim, to go out and kill another. But it was still there in his mind, and now it stalked out, worse, more powerful, magnified by its rest, augmented by the violent passions peculiar and inevitable to that strange, wild product of the Texas frontier — the gun-fighter. And those passions were so violent, so raw, so base, so much lower than what ought to have existed in a thinking man. Actual pride of his record! Actual vanity in his speed with a gun. Actual jealousy of any rival!

Duane could not believe it. But there he was, without a choice. What he had feared for years had become a monstrous reality. Respect for himself, blindness, a certain honor that he had clung to while in outlawry — all, like scales, seemed to fall away from him. He stood stripped bare, his soul naked — the soul of Cain. Always since the first brand had been forced and burned upon him he had been ruined. But now with conscience flayed to the quick, yet utterly powerless over this tiger instinct, he was lost. He said it. He admitted it. And at the utter abasement the soul he despised suddenly leaped and quivered with the thought of Ray Longstreth.

Then came agony. As he could not govern all the chances of this fatal meeting — as all his swift and deadly genius must be occupied with Poggin, perhaps in vain — as hard-shooting men whom he could not watch would be close behind, this almost certainly must be the end of Buck Duane. That did not matter. But he loved the girl. He wanted her. All her sweetness, her fire, and pleading returned to torture him.

At that moment the door opened, and Ray Longstreth entered.

“Duane,” she said, softly. “Captain MacNelly sent me to you.”

“But you shouldn’t have come,” replied Duane.

“As soon as he told me I would have come whether he wished it or not. You left me — all of us — stunned. I had no time to thank you. Oh, I do-with all my soul. It was noble of you. Father is overcome. He didn’t expect so much. And he’ll be true. But, Duane, I was told to hurry, and here I’m selfishly using time.”

“Go, then — and leave me. You mustn’t unnerve me now, when there’s a desperate game to finish.”

“Need it be desperate?” she whispered, coming close to him.

“Yes; it can’t be else.”

MacNelly had sent her to weaken him; of that Duane was sure. And he felt that she had wanted to come. Her eyes were dark, strained, beautiful, and they shed a light upon Duane he had never seen before.

“You’re going to take some mad risk,” she said. “Let me persuade you not to. You said — you cared for me — and I — oh, Duane — don’t you — know — ?”

The low voice, deep, sweet as an old chord, faltered and broke and failed.

Duane sustained a sudden shock and an instant of paralyzed confusion of thought.

She moved, she swept out her hands, and the wonder of her eyes dimmed in a flood of tears.

“My God! You can’t care for me?” he cried, hoarsely.

Then she met him, hands outstretched.

“But I do-I do!”

Swift as light Duane caught her and held her to his breast. He stood holding her tight, with the feel of her warm, throbbing breast and the clasp of her arms as flesh and blood realities to fight a terrible fear. He felt her, and for the moment the might of it was stronger than all the demons that possessed him. And he held her as if she had been his soul, his strength on earth, his hope of Heaven, against his lips.

The strife of doubt all passed. He found his sight again. And there rushed over him a tide of emotion unutterably sweet and full, strong like an intoxicating wine, deep as his nature, something glorious and terrible as the blaze of the sun to one long in darkness. He had become an outcast, a wanderer, a gunman, a victim of circumstances; he had lost and suffered worse than death in that loss; he had gone down the endless bloody trail, a killer of men, a fugitive whose mind slowly and inevitably closed to all except the instinct to survive and a black despair; and now, with this woman in his arms, her swelling breast against his, in this moment almost of resurrection, he bent under the storm of passion and joy possible only to him who had endured so much.

“Do you care — a little?” he whispered, unsteadily.

He bent over her, looking deep into the dark wet eyes.

She uttered a low laugh that was half sob, and her arms slipped up to his neck.

“A littler Oh, Duane — Duane — a great deal!”

Their lips met in their first kiss. The sweetness, the fire of her mouth seemed so new, so strange, so irresistible to Duane. His sore and hungry heart throbbed with thick and heavy beats. He felt the outcast’s need of love. And he gave up to the enthralling moment. She met him half-way, returned kiss for kiss, clasp for clasp, her face scarlet, her eyes closed, till, her passion and strength spent, she fell back upon his shoulder.

Duane suddenly thought she was going to faint. He divined then that she had understood him, would have denied him nothing, not even her life, in that moment. But she was overcome, and he suffered a pang of regret at his unrestraint.

Presently she recovered, and she drew only the closer, and leaned upon him with her face upturned. He felt her hands on his, and they were soft, clinging, strong, like steel under velvet. He felt the rise and fall, the warmth of her breast. A tremor ran over him. He tried to draw back, and if he succeeded a little her form swayed with him, pressing closer. She held her face up, and he was compelled to look. It was wonderful now: white, yet glowing, with the red lips parted, and dark eyes alluring. But that was not all. There was passion, unquenchable spirit, woman’s resolve deep and mighty.

“I love you, Duane!” she said. “For my sake don’t go out to meet this outlaw face to face. It’s something wild in you. Conquer it if you love me.”

Duane became suddenly weak, and when he did take her into his arms again he scarcely had strength to lift her to a seat beside him. She seemed more than a dead weight. Her calmness had fled. She was throbbing, palpitating, quivering, with hot wet cheeks and arms that clung to him like vines. She lifted her mouth to his, whispering, “Kiss me!” She meant to change him, hold him.

Duane bent down, and her arms went round his neck and drew him close. With his lips on hers he seemed to float away. That kiss closed his eyes, and he could not lift his head. He sat motionless holding her, blind and helpless, wrapped in a sweet dark glory. She kissed him — one long endless kiss — or else a thousand times. Her lips, her wet cheeks, her hair, the softness, the fragrance of her, the tender clasp of her arms, the swell of her breast — all these seemed to inclose him.

Duane could not put her from him. He yielded to her lips and arms, watching her, involuntarily returning her caresses, sure now of her intent, fascinated by the sweetness of her, bewildered, almost lost. This was what it was to be loved by a woman. His years of outlawry had blotted out any boyish love he might have known. This was what he had to give up — all this wonder of her sweet person, this strange fire he feared yet loved, this mate his deep and tortured soul recognized. Never until that moment had he divined the meaning of a woman to a man. That meaning was physical inasmuch that he learned what beauty was, what marvel in the touch of quickening flesh; and it was spiritual in that he saw there might have been for him, under happier circumstances, a life of noble deeds lived for such a woman.

“Don’t go! Don’t go!” she cried, as he started violently.

“I must. Dear, good-by! Remember I loved you.”

He pulled her hands loose from his, stepped back.

“Ray, dearest — I believe — I’ll come back!” he whispered.

These last words were falsehood.

He reached the door, gave her one last piercing glance, to fix for ever in memory that white face with its dark, staring, tragic eyes.

“DUANE!”

He fled with that moan like thunder, death, hell in his ears.

To forget her, to get back his nerve, he forced into mind the image of Poggin-Poggin, the tawny-haired, the yellow-eyed, like a jaguar, with his rippling muscles. He brought back his sense of the outlaw’s wonderful presence, his own unaccountable fear and hate. Yes, Poggin had sent the cold sickness of fear to his marrow. Why, since he hated life so? Poggin was his supreme test. And this abnormal and stupendous instinct, now deep as the very foundation of his life, demanded its wild and fatal issue. There was a horrible thrill in his sudden remembrance that Poggin likewise had been taunted in fear of him.

So the dark tide overwhelmed Duane, and when he left the room he was fierce, implacable, steeled to any outcome, quick like a panther, somber as death, in the thrall of his strange passion.

There was no excitement in the street. He crossed to the bank corner. A clock inside pointed the hour of two. He went through the door into the vestibule, looked around, passed up the steps into the bank. The clerks were at their desks, apparently busy. But they showed nervousness. The cashier paled at sight of Duane. There were men — the rangers — crouching down behind the low partition. All the windows had been removed from the iron grating before the desks. The safe was closed. There was no money in sight. A customer came in, spoke to the cashier, and was told to come to-morrow.

Duane returned to the door. He could see far down the street, out into the country. There he waited, and minutes were eternities. He saw no person near him; he heard no sound. He was insulated in his unnatural strain.

At a few minutes before half past two a dark, compact body of horsemen appeared far down, turning into the road. They came at a sharp trot — a group that would have attracted attention anywhere at any time. They came a little faster as they entered town; then faster still; now they were four blocks away, now three, now two. Duane backed down the middle of the vestibule, up the steps, and halted in the center of the wide doorway.

There seemed to be a rushing in his ears through which pierced sharp, ringing clip-clop of iron hoofs. He could see only the corner of the street. But suddenly into that shot lean-limbed dusty bay horses. There was a clattering of nervous hoofs pulled to a halt.

Duane saw the tawny Poggin speak to his companions. He dismounted quickly. They followed suit. They had the manner of ranchers about to conduct some business. No guns showed. Poggin started leisurely for the bank door, quickening step a little. The others, close together, came behind him. Blossom Kane had a bag in his left hand. Jim Fletcher was left at the curb, and he had already gathered up the bridles.

Poggin entered the vestibule first, with Kane on one side, Boldt on the other, a little in his rear.

As he strode in he saw Duane.

“HELL’S FIRE!” he cried.

Something inside Duane burst, piercing all of him with cold. Was it that fear?

“BUCK DUANE!” echoed Kane.

One instant Poggin looked up and Duane looked down.

Like a striking jaguar Poggin moved. Almost as quickly Duane threw his arm.

The guns boomed almost together.

Duane felt a blow just before he pulled trigger. His thoughts came fast, like the strange dots before his eyes. His rising gun had loosened in his hand. Poggin had drawn quicker! A tearing agony encompassed his breast. He pulled — pulled — at random. Thunder of booming shots all about him! Red flashes, jets of smoke, shrill yells! He was sinking. The end; yes, the end! With fading sight he saw Kane go down, then Boldt. But supreme torture, bitterer than death, Poggin stood, mane like a lion’s, back to the wall, bloody-faced, grand, with his guns spouting red!

All faded, darkened. The thunder deadened. Duane fell, seemed floating. There it drifted — Ray Longstreth’s sweet face, white, with dark, tragic eyes, fading from his sight... fading.. . fading...

CHAPTER XXV

LIGHT SHONE BEFORE Duane’s eyes — thick, strange light that came and went. For a long time dull and booming sounds rushed by, filling all. It was a dream in which there was nothing; a drifting under a burden; darkness, light, sound, movement; and vague, obscure sense of time — time that was very long. There was fire — creeping, consuming fire. A dark cloud of flame enveloped him, rolled him away.

He saw then, dimly, a room that was strange, strange people moving about over him, with faint voices, far away, things in a dream. He saw again, clearly, and consciousness returned, still unreal, still strange, full of those vague and far-away things. Then he was not dead. He lay stiff, like a stone, with a weight ponderous as a mountain upon him and all his bound body racked in slow, dull-beating agony.

A woman’s face hovered over him, white and tragic-eyed, like one of his old haunting phantoms, yet sweet and eloquent. Then a man’s face bent over him, looked deep into his eyes, and seemed to whisper from a distance: “Duane — Duane! Ah, he knew me!”

After that there was another long interval of darkness. When the light came again, clearer this time, the same earnest-faced man bent over him. It was MacNelly. And with recognition the past flooded back.

Duane tried to speak. His lips were weak, and he could scarcely move them.

“Poggin!” he whispered. His first real conscious thought was for Poggin. Ruling passion — eternal instinct!

“Poggin is dead, Duane; shot to pieces,” replied MacNelly, solemnly. “What a fight he made! He killed two of my men, wounded others. God! he was a tiger. He used up three guns before we downed him.”

“Who-got — away?”

“Fletcher, the man with the horses. We downed all the others. Duane, the job’s done — it’s done! Why, man, you’re—”

“What of — of — HER?”

“Miss Longstreth has been almost constantly at your bedside. She helped the doctor. She watched your wounds. And, Duane, the other night, when you sank low — so low — I think it was her spirit that held yours back. Oh, she’s a wonderful girl. Duane, she never gave up, never lost her nerve for a moment. Well, we’re going to take you home, and she’ll go with us. Colonel Longstreth left for Louisiana right after the fight. I advised it. There was great excitement. It was best for him to leave.”

“Have I — a — chance — to recover?”

“Chance? Why, man,” exclaimed the Captain, “you’ll get well! You’ll pack a sight of lead all your life. But you can stand that. Duane, the whole Southwest knows your story. You need never again be ashamed of the name Buck Duane. The brand outlaw is washed out. Texas believes you’ve been a secret ranger all the time. You’re a hero. And now think of home, your mother, of this noble girl — of your future.”

The rangers took Duane home to Wellston.

A railroad had been built since Duane had gone into exile. Wellston had grown. A noisy crowd surrounded the station, but it stilled as Duane was carried from the train.

A sea of faces pressed close. Some were faces he remembered — schoolmates, friends, old neighbors. There was an upflinging of many hands. Duane was being welcomed home to the town from which he had fled. A deadness within him broke. This welcome hurt him somehow, quickened him; and through his cold being, his weary mind, passed a change. His sight dimmed.

Then there was a white house, his old home. How strange, yet how real! His heart beat fast. Had so many, many years passed? Familiar yet strange it was, and all seemed magnified.

They carried him in, these ranger comrades, and laid him down, and lifted his head upon pillows. The house was still, though full of people. Duane’s gaze sought the open door.

Some one entered — a tall girl in white, with dark, wet eyes and a light upon her face. She was leading an old lady, gray-haired, austere-faced, somber and sad. His mother! She was feeble, but she walked erect. She was pale, shaking, yet maintained her dignity.

The some one in white uttered a low cry and knelt by Duane’s bed. His mother flung wide her arms with a strange gesture.

“This man! They’ve not brought back my boy. This man’s his father! Where is my son? My son — oh, my son!”

When Duane grew stronger it was a pleasure to lie by the west window and watch Uncle Jim whittle his stick and listen to his talk. The old man was broken now. He told many interesting things about people Duane had known — people who had grown up and married, failed, succeeded, gone away, and died. But it was hard to keep Uncle Jim off the subject of guns, outlaws, fights. He could not seem to divine how mention of these things hurt Duane. Uncle Jim was childish now, and he had a great pride in his nephew. He wanted to hear of all of Duane’s exile. And if there was one thing more than another that pleased him it was to talk about the bullets which Duane carried in his body.

“Five bullets, ain’t it?” he asked, for the hundredth time.

“Five in that last scrap! By gum! And you had six before?”

“Yes, uncle,” replied Duane.

“Five and six. That makes eleven. By gum! A man’s a man, to carry all that lead. But, Buck, you could carry more. There’s that nigger Edwards, right here in Wellston. He’s got a ton of bullets in him. Doesn’t seem to mind them none. And there’s Cole Miller. I’ve seen him. Been a bad man in his day. They say he packs twenty-three bullets. But he’s bigger than you — got more flesh.... Funny, wasn’t it, Buck, about the doctor only bein’ able to cut one bullet out of you — that one in your breastbone? It was a forty-one caliber, an unusual cartridge. I saw it, and I wanted it, but Miss Longstreth wouldn’t part with it. Buck, there was a bullet left in one of Poggin’s guns, and that bullet was the same kind as the one cut out of you. By gum! Boy, it’d have killed you if it’d stayed there.”

“It would indeed, uncle,” replied Duane, and the old, haunting, somber mood returned.

But Duane was not often at the mercy of childish old hero-worshiping Uncle Jim. Miss Longstreth was the only person who seemed to divine Duane’s gloomy mood, and when she was with him she warded off all suggestion.

One afternoon, while she was there at the west window, a message came for him. They read it together.

You have saved the ranger service to the Lone Star State

MACNELLEY.

Ray knelt beside him at the window, and he believed she meant to speak then of the thing they had shunned. Her face was still white, but sweeter now, warm with rich life beneath the marble; and her dark eyes were still intent, still haunted by shadows, but no longer tragic.

“I’m glad for MacNelly’s sake as well as the state’s,” said Duane.

She made no reply to that and seemed to be thinking deeply. Duane shrank a little.

“The pain — Is it any worse to-day?” she asked, instantly.

“No; it’s the same. It will always be the same. I’m full of lead, you know. But I don’t mind a little pain.”

“Then — it’s the old mood — the fear?” she whispered. “Tell me.”

“Yes. It haunts me. I’ll be well soon — able to go out. Then that — that hell will come back!”

“No, no!” she said, with emotion.

“Some drunken cowboy, some fool with a gun, will hunt me out in every town, wherever I go,” he went on, miserably. “Buck Duane! To kill Buck Duane!”

“Hush! Don’t speak so. Listen. You remember that day in Val Verde, when I came to you — plead with you not to meet Poggin? Oh, that was a terrible hour for me. But it showed me the truth. I saw the struggle between your passion to kill and your love for me. I could have saved you then had I known what I know now. Now I understand that — that thing which haunts you. But you’ll never have to draw again. You’ll never have to kill another man, thank God!”

Like a drowning man he would have grasped at straws, but he could not voice his passionate query.

She put tender arms round his neck. “Because you’ll have me with you always,” she replied. “Because always I shall be between you and that — that terrible thing.”

It seemed with the spoken thought absolute assurance of her power came to her. Duane realized instantly that he was in the arms of a stronger woman that she who had plead with him that fatal day.

“We’ll — we’ll be married and leave Texas,” she said, softly, with the red blood rising rich and dark in her cheeks.

“Ray!”

“Yes we will, though you’re laggard in asking me, sir.”

“But, dear — suppose,” he replied, huskily, “suppose there might be — be children — a boy. A boy with his father’s blood!”

“I pray God there will be. I do not fear what you fear. But even so — he’ll be half my blood.”

Duane felt the storm rise and break in him. And his terror was that of joy quelling fear. The shining glory of love in this woman’s eyes made him weak as a child. How could she love him — how could she so bravely face a future with him? Yet she held him in her arms, twining her hands round his neck, and pressing close to him. Her faith and love and beauty — these she meant to throw between him and all that terrible past. They were her power, and she meant to use them all. He dared not think of accepting her sacrifice.

“But Ray — you dear, noble girl — I’m poor. I have nothing. And I’m a cripple.”

“Oh, you’ll be well some day,” she replied. “And listen. I have money. My mother left me well off. All she had was her father’s — Do you understand? We’ll take Uncle Jim and your mother. We’ll go to Louisiana — to my old home. It’s far from here. There’s a plantation to work. There are horses and cattle — a great cypress forest to cut. Oh, you’ll have much to do. You’ll forget there. You’ll learn to love my home. It’s a beautiful old place. There are groves where the gray moss blows all day and the nightingales sing all night.”

“My darling!” cried Duane, brokenly. “No, no, no!”

Yet he knew in his heart that he was yielding to her, that he could not resist her a moment longer. What was this madness of love?

“We’ll be happy,” she whispered. “Oh, I know. Come! — come!-come!”

Her eyes were closing, heavy-lidded, and she lifted sweet, tremulous, waiting lips.

With bursting heart Duane bent to them. Then he held her, close pressed to him, while with dim eyes he looked out over the line of low hills in the west, down where the sun was setting gold and red, down over the Nueces and the wild brakes of the Rio Grande which he was never to see again.

It was in this solemn and exalted moment that Duane accepted happiness and faced a new life, trusting this brave and tender woman to be stronger than the dark and fateful passion that had shadowed his past.

It would come back — that wind of flame, that madness to forget, that driving, relentless instinct for blood. It would come back with those pale, drifting, haunting faces and the accusing fading eyes, but all his life, always between them and him, rendering them powerless, would be the faith and love and beauty of this noble woman.

THE END

The Border Legion

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 1

JOAN RANDLE REINED in her horse on the crest of the cedar ridge, and with remorse and dread beginning to knock at her heart she gazed before her at the wild and looming mountain range.

“Jim wasn’t fooling me,” she said. “He meant it. He’s going straight for the border... Oh, why did I taunt him!”

It was indeed a wild place, that southern border of Idaho, and that year was to see the ushering in of the wildest time probably ever known in the West. The rush for gold had peopled California with a horde of lawless men of every kind and class. And the vigilantes and then the rich strikes in Idaho had caused a reflux of that dark tide of humanity. Strange tales of blood and gold drifted into the camps, and prospectors and hunters met with many unknown men.

Joan had quarreled with Jim Cleve, and she was bitterly regretting it. Joan was twenty years old, tall, strong, dark. She had been born in Missouri, where her father had been well-to-do and prominent, until, like many another man of his day, he had impeded the passage of a bullet. Then Joan had become the protegee of an uncle who had responded to the call of gold; and the latter part of her life had been spent in the wilds.

She had followed Jim’s trail for miles out toward the range. And now she dismounted to see if his tracks were as fresh as she had believed. He had left the little village camp about sunrise. Someone had seen him riding away and had told Joan. Then he had tarried on the way, for it was now midday. Joan pondered. She had become used to his idle threats and disgusted with his vacillations. That had been the trouble — Jim was amiable, lovable, but since meeting Joan he had not exhibited any strength of character. Joan stood beside her horse and looked away toward the dark mountains. She was daring, resourceful, used to horses and trails and taking care of herself; and she did not need anyone to tell her that she had gone far enough. It had been her hope to come up with Jim. Always he had been repentant. But this time was different. She recalled his lean, pale face — so pale that freckles she did not know he had showed through — and his eyes, usually so soft and mild, had glinted like steel. Yes, it had been a bitter, reckless face. What had she said to him? She tried to recall it.

The night before at twilight Joan had waited for him. She had given him precedence over the few other young men of the village, a fact she resentfully believed he did not appreciate. Jim was unsatisfactory in every way except in the way he cared for her. And that also — for he cared too much.

When Joan thought how Jim loved her, all the details of that night became vivid. She sat alone under the spruce-trees near the cabin. The shadows thickened, and then lightened under a rising moon. She heard the low hum of insects, a distant laugh of some woman of the village, and the murmur of the brook. Jim was later than usual. Very likely, as her uncle had hinted, Jim had tarried at the saloon that had lately disrupted the peace of the village. The village was growing, and Joan did not like the change. There were too many strangers, rough, loud-voiced, drinking men. Once it had been a pleasure to go to the village store; now it was an ordeal. Somehow Jim had seemed to be unfavorably influenced by these new conditions. Still, he had never amounted to much. Her resentment, or some feeling she had, was reaching a climax. She got up from her seat. She would not wait any longer for him, and when she did see him it would be to tell him a few blunt facts.

Just then there was a slight rustle behind her. Before she could turn someone seized her in powerful arms. She was bent backward in a bearish embrace, so that she could neither struggle nor cry out. A dark face loomed over hers — came closer. Swift kisses closed her eyes, burned her cheeks, and ended passionately on her lips. They had some strange power over her. Then she was released.

Joan staggered back, frightened, outraged. She was so dazed she did not recognize the man, if indeed she knew him. But a laugh betrayed him. It was Jim.

“You thought I had no nerve,” he said. “What do you think of that?”

Suddenly Joan was blindly furious. She could have killed him. She had never given him any right, never made him any promise, never let him believe she cared. And he had dared — ! The hot blood boiled in her cheeks. She was furious with him, but intolerably so with herself, because somehow those kisses she had resented gave her unknown pain and shame. They had sent a shock through all her being. She thought she hated him.

“You — you—” she broke out. “Jim Cleve, that ends you with me!”

“Reckon I never had a beginning with you,” he replied, bitterly. “It was worth a good deal... I’m not sorry... By Heaven — I’ve — kissed you!”

He breathed heavily. She could see how pale he had grown in the shadowy moonlight. She sensed a difference in him — a cool, reckless defiance.

“You’ll be sorry,” she said. “I’ll have nothing to do with you any more.”

“All right. But I’m not, and I won’t be sorry.”

She wondered whether he had fallen under the influence of drink. Jim had never cared for liquor, which virtue was about the only one he possessed. Remembering his kisses, she knew he had not been drinking. There was a strangeness about him, though, that she could not fathom. Had he guessed his kisses would have that power? If he dared again — ! She trembled, and it was not only rage. But she would teach him a lesson.

“Joan, I kissed you because I can’t be a hangdog any longer,” he said. “I love you and I’m no good without you. You must care a little for me. Let’s marry... I’ll—”

“Never!” she replied, like flint. “You’re no good at all.”

“But I am,” he protested, with passion. “I used to do things. But since — since I’ve met you I’ve lost my nerve. I’m crazy for you. You let the other men run after you. Some of them aren’t fit to — to — Oh, I’m sick all the time! Now it’s longing and then it’s jealousy. Give me a chance, Joan.”

“Why?” she queried, coldly. “Why should I? You’re shiftless. You won’t work. When you do find a little gold you squander it. You have nothing but a gun. You can’t do anything but shoot.”

“Maybe that’ll come in handy,” he said, lightly.

“Jim Cleve, you haven’t it in you even to be BAD,” she went on, stingingly.

At that he made a violent gesture. Then he loomed over her. “Joan Handle, do you mean that?” he asked.

“I surely do,” she responded. At last she had struck fire from him. The fact was interesting. It lessened her anger.

“Then I’m so low, so worthless, so spineless that I can’t even be bad?”

“Yes, you are.”

“That’s what you think of me — after I’ve ruined myself for love of you?”

She laughed tauntingly. How strange and hot a glee she felt in hurting him!

“By God, I’ll show you!” he cried, hoarsely.

“What will you do, Jim?” she asked, mockingly.

“I’ll shake this camp. I’ll rustle for the border. I’ll get in with Kells and Gulden... You’ll hear of me, Joan Randle!”

These were names of strange, unknown, and wild men of a growing and terrible legion on the border. Out there, somewhere, lived desperados, robbers, road-agents, murderers. More and more rumor had brought tidings of them into the once quiet village. Joan felt a slight cold sinking sensation at her heart. But this was only a magnificent threat of Jim’s. He could not do such a thing. She would never let him, even if he could. But after the incomprehensible manner of woman, she did not tell him that.

“Bah! You haven’t the nerve!” she retorted, with another mocking laugh.

Haggard and fierce, he glared down at her a moment, and then without another word he strode away. Joan was amazed, and a little sick, a little uncertain: still she did not call him back.

And now at noon of the next day she had tracked him miles toward the mountains. It was a broad trail he had taken, one used by prospectors and hunters. There was no danger of her getting lost. What risk she ran was of meeting some of these border ruffians that had of late been frequent visitors in the village. Presently she mounted again and rode down the ridge. She would go a mile or so farther.

Behind every rock and cedar she expected to find Jim. Surely he had only threatened her. But she had taunted him in a way no man could stand, and if there were any strength of character in him he would show it now. Her remorse and dread increased. After all, he was only a boy — only a couple of years older than she was. Under stress of feeling he might go to any extreme. Had she misjudged him? If she had not, she had at least been brutal. But he had dared to kiss her! Every time she thought of that a tingling, a confusion, a hot shame went over her. And at length Joan marveled to find that out of the affront to her pride, and the quarrel, and the fact of his going and of her following, and especially out of this increasing remorseful dread, there had flourished up a strange and reluctant respect for Jim Cleve.

She climbed another ridge and halted again. This time she saw a horse and rider down in the green. Her heart leaped. It must be Jim returning. After all, then, he had only threatened. She felt relieved and glad, yet vaguely sorry. She had been right in her conviction.

She had not watched long, however, before she saw that this was not the horse Jim usually rode. She took the precaution then to hide behind some bushes, and watched from there. When the horseman approached closer she discerned that instead of Jim it was Harvey Roberts, a man of the village and a good friend of her uncle’s. Therefore she rode out of her covert and hailed him. It was a significant thing that at the sound of her voice Roberts started suddenly and reached for his gun. Then he recognized her.

“Hello, Joan!” he exclaimed, turning her way. “Reckon you give me a scare. You ain’t alone way out here?”

“Yes. I was trailing Jim when I saw you,” she replied. “Thought you were Jim.”

“Trailin’ Jim! What’s up?”

“We quarreled. He swore he was going to the devil. Over on the border! I was mad and told him to go.... But I’m sorry now — and have been trying to catch up with him.”

“Ahuh!... So that’s Jim’s trail. I sure was wonderin’. Joan, it turns off a few miles back an’ takes the trail for the border. I know. I’ve been in there.”

Joan glanced up sharply at Roberts. His scarred and grizzled face seemed grave and he avoided her gaze.

“You don’t believe — Jim’ll really go?” she asked, hurriedly.

“Reckon I do, Joan,” he replied, after a pause. “Jim is just fool enough. He had been gettrn’ recklessler lately. An’, Joan, the times ain’t provocatin’ a young feller to be good. Jim had a bad fight the other night. He about half killed young Bradley. But I reckon you know.”

“I’ve heard nothing,” she replied. “Tell me. Why did they fight?”

“Report was that Bradley talked oncomplementary about you.”

Joan experienced a sweet, warm rush of blood — another new and strange emotion. She did not like Bradley. He had been persistent and offensive.

“Why didn’t Jim tell me?” she queried, half to herself.

“Reckon he wasn’t proud of the shape he left Bradley in,” replied Roberts, with a laugh. “Come on, Joan, an’ make back tracks for home.”

Joan was silent a moment while she looked over the undulating green ridges toward the great gray and black walls. Something stirred deep within her. Her father in his youth had been an adventurer. She felt the thrill and the call of her blood. And she had been unjust to a man who loved her.

“I’m going after him,” she said.

Roberts did not show any surprise. He looked at the position of the sun. “Reckon we might overtake him an’ get home before sundown,” he said, laconically, as he turned his horse. “We’ll make a short cut across here a few miles, an’ strike his trail. Can’t miss it.”

Then he set off at a brisk trot and Joan fell in behind. She had a busy mind, and it was a sign of her preoccupation that she forgot to thank Roberts. Presently they struck into a valley, a narrow depression between the foothills and the ridges, and here they made faster time. The valley appeared miles long. Toward the middle of it Roberts called out to Joan, and, looking down, she saw they had come up with Jim’s trail. Here Roberts put his mount to a canter, and at that gait they trailed Jim out of the valley and up a slope which appeared to be a pass into the mountains. Time flew by for Joan, because she was always peering ahead in the hope and expectation of seeing Jim off in the distance. But she had no glimpse of him. Now and then Roberts would glance around at the westering sun. The afternoon had far advanced. Joan began to worry about home. She had been so sure of coming up with Jim and returning early in the day that she had left no word as to her intentions. Probably by this time somebody was out looking for her.

The country grew rougher, rock-strewn, covered with cedars and patches of pine. Deer crashed out of the thickets and grouse whirred up from under the horses. The warmth of the summer afternoon chilled.

“Reckon we’d better give it up,” called Roberts back to her.

“No — no. Go on,” replied Joan.

And they urged their horses faster. Finally they reached the summit of the slope. From that height they saw down into a round, shallow valley, which led on, like all the deceptive reaches, to the ranges. There was water down there. It glinted like red ribbon in the sunlight. Not a living thing was in sight. Joan grew more discouraged. It seemed there was scarcely any hope of overtaking Jim that day. His trail led off round to the left and grew difficult to follow. Finally, to make matters worse, Roberts’s horse slipped in a rocky wash and lamed himself. He did not want to go on, and, when urged, could hardly walk.

Roberts got off to examine the injury. “Wal, he didn’t break his leg,” he said, which was his manner of telling how bad the injury was. “Joan, I reckon there’ll be some worryin’ back home tonight. For your horse can’t carry double an’ I can’t walk.”

Joan dismounted. There was water in the wash, and she helped Roberts bathe the sprained and swelling joint. In the interest and sympathy of the moment she forgot her own trouble.

“Reckon we’ll have to make camp right here,” said Roberts, looking around. “Lucky I’ve a pack on that saddle. I can make you comfortable. But we’d better be careful about a fire an’ not have one after dark.”

“There’s no help for it,” replied Joan. “Tomorrow we’ll go on after Jim. He can’t be far ahead now.” She was glad that it was impossible to return home until the next day.

Roberts took the pack off his horse, and then the saddle. And he was bending over in the act of loosening the cinches of Joan’s saddle when suddenly he straightened up with a jerk.

“What’s that?”

Joan heard soft, dull thumps on the turf and then the sharp crack of an unshod hoof upon stone. Wheeling, she saw three horsemen. They were just across the wash and coming toward her. One rider pointed in her direction. Silhouetted against the red of the sunset they made dark and sinister figures. Joan glanced apprehensively at Roberts. He was staring with a look of recognition in his eyes. Under his breath he muttered a curse. And although Joan was not certain, she believed that his face had shaded gray.

The three horsemen halted on the rim of the wash. One of them was leading a mule that carried a pack and a deer carcass. Joan had seen many riders apparently just like these, but none had ever so subtly and powerfully affected her.

“Howdy,” greeted one of the men.

And then Joan was positive that the face of Roberts had turned ashen gray.

CHAPTER 2

“IT AIN’T YOU — KELLS?”

Roberts’s query was a confirmation of his own recognition. And the other’s laugh was an answer, if one were needed.

The three horsemen crossed the wash and again halted, leisurely, as if time was no object. They were all young, under thirty. The two who had not spoken were rough-garbed, coarse-featured, and resembled in general a dozen men Joan saw every day. Kells was of a different stamp. Until he looked at her he reminded her of someone she had known back in Missouri; after he looked at her she was aware, in a curious, sickening way, that no such person as he had ever before seen her. He was pale, gray-eyed, intelligent, amiable. He appeared to be a man who had been a gentleman. But there was something strange, intangible, immense about him. Was that the effect of his presence or of his name? Kells! It was only a word to Joan. But it carried a nameless and terrible suggestion. During the last year many dark tales had gone from camp to camp in Idaho — some too strange, too horrible for credence — and with every rumor the fame of Kells had grown, and also a fearful certainty of the rapid growth of a legion of evil men out on the border. But no one in the village or from any of the camps ever admitted having seen this Kells. Had fear kept them silent? Joan was amazed that Roberts evidently knew this man.

Kells dismounted and offered his hand. Roberts took it and shook it constrainedly.

“Where did we meet last?” asked Kells.

“Reckon it was out of Fresno,” replied Roberts, and it was evident that he tried to hide the effect of a memory.

Then Kells touched his hat to Joan, giving her the fleetest kind of a glance. “Rather off the track aren’t you?” he asked Roberts.

“Reckon we are,” replied Roberts, and he began to lose some of his restraint. His voice sounded clearer and did not halt. “Been trailin’ Miss Randle’s favorite hoss. He’s lost. An’ we got farther ‘n we had any idee. Then my hoss went lame. ‘Fraid we can’t start home to-night.”

“Where are you from?”

“Hoadley. Bill Hoadley’s town, back thirty miles or so.”

“Well, Roberts, if you’ve no objection we’ll camp here with you,” continued Kells. “We’ve got some fresh meat.”

With that he addressed a word to his comrades, and they repaired to a cedar-tree near-by, where they began to unsaddle and unpack.

Then Roberts, bending nearer Joan, as if intent on his own pack, began to whisper, hoarsely: “That’s Jack Kells, the California road-agent. He’s a gun fighter — a hell-bent rattlesnake. When I saw him last he had a rope round his neck an’ was bein’ led away to be hanged. I heerd afterward he was rescued by pals. Joan, if the idee comes into his head he’ll kill me. I don’t know what to do. For God’s sake think of somethin’!... Use your woman’s wits!... We couldn’t be in a wuss fix!”

Joan felt rather unsteady on her feet, so that it was a relief to sit down. She was cold and sick inwardly, almost stunned. Some great peril menaced her. Men like Roberts did not talk that way without cause. She was brave; she was not unused to danger. But this must be a different kind, compared with which all she had experienced was but insignificant. She could not grasp Roberts’s intimation. Why should he be killed? They had no gold, no valuables. Even their horses were nothing to inspire robbery. It must be that there was peril to Roberts and to her because she was a girl, caught out in the wilds, easy prey for beasts of evil men. She had heard of such things happening. Still, she could not believe it possible for her. Roberts could protect her. Then this amiable, well-spoken Kells, he was no Western rough — he spoke like an educated man; surely he would not harm her. So her mind revolved round fears, conjectures, possibilities; she could not find her wits. She could not think how to meet the situation, even had she divined what the situation was to be.

While she sat there in the shade of a cedar the men busied themselves with camp duties. None of them appeared to pay any attention to Joan. They talked while they worked, as any other group of campers might have talked, and jested and laughed. Kells made a fire, and carried water, then broke cedar boughs for later camp-fire use; one of the strangers whom they called Bill hobbled the horses; the other unrolled the pack, spread a tarpaulin, and emptied the greasy sacks; Roberts made biscuit dough for the oven.

The sun sank red and a ruddy twilight fell. It soon passed. Darkness had about set in when Roberts came over to Joan, carrying bread, coffee, and venison.

“Here’s your supper, Joan,” he called, quite loud and cheerily, and then he whispered: “Mebbe it ain’t so bad. They-all seem friendly. But I’m scared, Joan. If you jest wasn’t so dam’ handsome, or if only he hadn’t seen you!”

“Can’t we slip off in the dark?” she whispered in return.

“We might try. But it’d be no use if they mean bad. I can’t make up my mind yet what’s comin’ off. It’s all right for you to pretend you’re bashful. But don’t lose your nerve.”

Then he returned to the camp-fire. Joan was hungry. She ate and drank what had been given her, and that helped her to realize reality. And although dread abided with her, she grew curious. Almost she imagined she was fascinated by her predicament. She had always been an emotional girl of strong will and self-restraint. She had always longed for she knew not what — perhaps freedom. Certain places had haunted her. She had felt that something should have happened to her there. Yet nothing ever had happened. Certain books had obsessed her, even when a child, and often to her mother’s dismay; for these books had been of wild places and life on the sea, adventure, and bloodshed. It had always been said of her that she should have been a boy.

Night settled down black. A pale, narrow cloud, marked by a train of stars, extended across the dense blue sky. The wind moaned in the cedars and roared in the replenished camp-fire. Sparks flew away into the shadows. And on the puffs of smoke that blew toward her came the sweet, pungent odor of burning cedar. Coyotes barked off under the brush, and from away on the ridge drifted the dismal defiance of a wolf.

Camp-life was no new thing to Joan. She had crossed the plains in a wagon-train, that more than once had known the long-drawn yell of hostile Indians. She had prospected and hunted in the mountains with her uncle, weeks at a time. But never before this night had the wildness, the loneliness, been so vivid to her.

Roberts was on his knees, scouring his oven with wet sand. His big, shaggy head nodded in the firelight. He seemed pondering and thick and slow. There was a burden upon him. The man Bill and his companion lay back against stones and conversed low. Kells stood up in the light of the blaze. He had a pipe at which he took long pulls and then sent up clouds of smoke. There was nothing imposing in his build or striking in his face, at that distance; but it took no second look to see here was a man remarkably out of the ordinary. Some kind of power and intensity emanated from him. From time to time he appeared to glance in Joan’s direction; still, she could not be sure, for his eyes were but shadows. He had cast aside his coat. He wore a vest open all the way, and a checked soft shirt, with a black tie hanging untidily. A broad belt swung below his hip and in the holster was a heavy gun. That was a strange place to carry a gun, Joan thought. It looked awkward to her. When he walked it might swing round and bump against his leg. And he certainly would have to put it some other place when he rode.

“Say, have you got a blanket for that girl?” asked Kells, removing his pipe from his lips to address Roberts.

“I got saddle-blankets,” responded Roberts. “You see, we didn’t expect to be caught out.”

“I’ll let you have one,” said Kells, walking away from the fire. “It will be cold.” He returned with a blanket, which he threw to Roberts.

“Much obliged,” muttered Roberts.

“I’ll bunk by the fire,” went on the other, and with that he sat down and appeared to become absorbed in thought.

Roberts brought the borrowed blanket and several saddle-blankets over to where Joan was, and laying them down he began to kick and scrape stones and brush aside.

“Pretty rocky place, this here is,” he said. “Reckon you’ll sleep some, though.”

Then he began arranging the blankets into a bed. Presently Joan felt a tug at her riding-skirt. She looked down.

“I’ll be right by you,” he whispered, with his big hand to his mouth, “an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to sleep none.”

Whereupon he returned to the camp-fire. Presently Joan, not because she was tired or sleepy, but because she wanted to act naturally, lay down on the bed and pulled a blanket up over her. There was no more talking among the men. Once she heard the jingle of spurs and the rustle of cedar brush. By and by Roberts came back to her, dragging his saddle, and lay down near her. Joan raised up a little to see Kells motionless and absorbed by the fire. He had a strained and tense position. She sank back softly and looked up at the cold bright stars. What was going to happen to her? Something terrible! The very night shadows, the silence, the presence of strange men, all told her. And a shudder that was a thrill ran over and over her.

She would lie awake. It would be impossible to sleep. And suddenly into her full mind flashed an idea to slip away in the darkness, find her horse, and so escape from any possible menace. This plan occupied her thoughts for a long while. If she had not been used to Western ways she would have tried just that thing. But she rejected it. She was not sure that she could slip away, or find her horse, or elude pursuit, and certainly not sure of her way home. It would be best to stay with Roberts.

When that was settled her mind ceased to race. She grew languid and sleepy. The warmth of the blankets stole over her. She had no idea of sleeping, yet she found sleep more and more difficult to resist. Time that must have been hours passed. The fire died down and then brightened; the shadows darkened and then lightened. Someone now and then got up to throw on wood. The thump of hobbled hoofs sounded out in the darkness. The wind was still and the coyotes were gone. She could no longer open her eyes. They seemed glued shut. And then gradually all sense of the night and the wild, of the drowsy warmth, faded.

When she awoke the air was nipping cold. Her eyes snapped open clear and bright. The tips of the cedars were ruddy in the sunrise. A camp-fire crackled. Blue smoke curled upward. Joan sat up with a rush of memory. Roberts and Kells were bustling round the fire. The man Bill was carrying water. The other fellow had brought in the horses and was taking off the hobbles. No one, apparently, paid any attention to Joan. She got up and smoothed out her tangled hair, which she always wore in a braid down her back when she rode. She had slept, then, and in her boots! That was the first time she had ever done that. When she went down to the brook to bathe her face and wash her hands, the men still, apparently, took no notice of her. She began to hope that Roberts had exaggerated their danger. Her horse was rather skittish and did not care for strange hands. He broke away from the bunch. Joan went after him, even lost sight of camp. Presently, after she caught him, she led him back to camp and tied him up. And then she was so far emboldened as to approach the fire and to greet the men.

“Good morning,” she said, brightly.

Kells had his back turned at the moment. He did not move or speak or give any sign he had heard. The man Bill stared boldly at her, but without a word. Roberts returned her greeting, and as she glanced quickly at him, drawn by his voice, he turned away. But she had seen that his face was dark, haggard, worn.

Joan’s cheer and hope sustained a sudden and violent check. There was something wrong in this group, and she could not guess what it was. She seemed to have a queer, dragging weight at her limbs. She was glad to move over to a stone and sink down upon it. Roberts brought her breakfast, but he did not speak or look at her. His hands shook. And this frightened Joan. What was going to happen? Roberts went back to the camp-fire. Joan had to force herself to eat. There was one thing of which she was sure — that she would need all the strength and fortitude she could summon.

Joan became aware, presently, that Kells was conversing with Roberts, but too low for her to hear what was said. She saw Roberts make a gesture of fierce protest. About the other man there was an air cool, persuading, dominant. He ceased speaking, as if the incident were closed. Roberts hurried and blundered through his task with his pack and went for his horse. The animal limped slightly, but evidently was not in bad shape. Roberts saddled him, tied on the pack. Then he saddled Joan’s horse. That done, he squared around with the front of a man who had to face something he dreaded.

“Come on, Joan. We’re ready,” he called. His voice was loud, but not natural.

Joan started to cross to him when Kells strode between them. She might not have been there, for all the sign this ominous man gave of her presence. He confronted Roberts in the middle of the camp-circle, and halted, perhaps a rod distant.

“Roberts, get on your horse and clear out,” he said.

Roberts dropped his halter and straightened up. It was a bolder action than any he had heretofore given. Perhaps the mask was off now; he was wholly sure of what he had only feared; subterfuge and blindness were in vain; and now he could be a man. Some change worked in his face — a blanching, a setting.

“No, I won’t go without the girl,” he said.

“But you can’t take her!”

Joan vibrated to a sudden start. So this was what was going to happen. Her heart almost stood still. Breathless and quivering, she watched these two men, about whom now all was strangely magnified.

“Reckon I’ll go along with you, then,” replied Roberts.

“Your company’s not wanted.”

“Wal, I’ll go anyway.”

This was only play at words, Joan thought. She divined in Roberts a cold and grim acceptance of something he had expected. And the voice of Kells — what did that convey? Still the man seemed slow, easy, kind, amiable.

“Haven’t you got any sense, Roberts?” he asked.

Roberts made no reply to that.

“Go on home. Say nothing or anything — whatever you like,” continued Kells. “You did me a favor once over in California. I like to remember favors. Use your head now. Hit the trail.”

“Not without her. I’ll fight first,” declared Roberts, and his hands began to twitch and jerk.

Joan did not miss the wonderful intentness of the pale-gray eyes that watched Roberts — his face, his glance, his hands.

“What good will it do to fight?” asked Kells. He laughed coolly. “That won’t help her... You ought to know what you’ll get.”

“Kells — I’ll die before I leave that girl in your clutches,” flashed Roberts. “An’ I ain’t a-goin’ to stand here an’ argue with you. Let her come — or—”

“You don’t strike me as a fool,” interrupted Kells. His voice was suave, smooth, persuasive, cool. What strength — what certainty appeared behind it! “It’s not my habit to argue with fools. Take the chance I offer you. Hit the trail. Life is precious, man!... You’ve no chance here. And what’s one girl more or less to you?”

“Kells, I may be a fool, but I’m a man,” passionately rejoined Roberts. “Why, you’re somethin’ inhuman! I knew that out in the gold-fields. But to think you can stand there — an’ talk sweet an’ pleasant — with no idee of manhood!... Let her come now — or — or I’m a-goin’ for my gun!”

“Roberts, haven’t you a wife — children?”

“Yes, I have,” shouted Roberts, huskily. “An’ that wife would disown me if I left Joan Randle to you. An’ I’ve got a grown girl. Mebbe some day she might need a man to stand between her an’ such as you, Jack Kells!”

All Roberts’ pathos and passion had no effect, unless to bring out by contrast the singular and ruthless nature of Jack Kells.

“Will you hit the trail?”

“No!” thundered Roberts.

Until then Joan Randle had been fascinated, held by the swift interchange between her friend and enemy. But now she had a convulsion of fear. She had seen men fight, but never to the death. Roberts crouched like a wolf at bay. There was a madness upon him. He shook like a rippling leaf. Suddenly his shoulder lurched — his arm swung.

Joan wheeled away in horror, shutting her eyes, covering her ears, running blindly. Then upon her muffled hearing burst the boom of a gun.

CHAPTER 3

JOAN RAN ON, stumbling over rocks and brush, with a darkness before her eyes, the terror in her soul. She was out in the cedars when someone grasped her from behind. She felt the hands as the coils of a snake. Then she was ready to faint, but she must not faint. She struggled away, stood free. It was the man Bill who had caught her. He said something that was unintelligible. She reached for the snag of a dead cedar and, leaning there, fought her weakness, that cold black horror which seemed a physical thing in her mind, her blood, her muscles.

When she recovered enough for the thickness to leave her sight she saw Kells coming, leading her horse and his own. At sight of him a strange, swift heat shot through her. Then she was confounded with the thought of Roberts.

“Ro — Roberts?” she faltered.

Kells gave her a piercing glance. “Miss Randle, I had to take the fight out of your friend,” he said.

“You — you — Is he — dead?”

“I just crippled his gun arm. If I hadn’t he would have hurt somebody. He’ll ride back to Hoadley and tell your folks about it. So they’ll know you’re safe.”

“Safe!” she whispered.

“That’s what I said, Miss Randle. If you’re going to ride out into the border — if it’s possible to be safe out there you’ll be so with me.”

“But I want to go home. Oh, please let me go!”

“I couldn’t think of it.”

“Then — what will you — do with me?”

Again that gray glance pierced her. His eyes were clear, flawless, like crystal, without coldness, warmth, expression. “I’ll get a barrel of gold out of you.”

“How?” she asked, wonderingly.

“I’ll hold you for ransom. Sooner or later those prospectors over there are going to strike gold. Strike it rich! I know that. I’ve got to make a living some way.”

Kells was tightening the cinch on her saddle while he spoke. His voice, his manner, the amiable smile on his intelligent face, they all appeared to come from sincerity. But for those strange eyes Joan would have wholly believed him. As it was, a half doubt troubled her. She remembered the character Roberts had given this man. Still, she was recovering her nerve. It had been the certainty of disaster to Roberts that had made her weaken. As he was only slightly wounded and free to ride home safely, she had not the horror of his death upon her. Indeed, she was now so immensely uplifted that she faced the situation unflinchingly.

“Bill,” called Kells to the man standing there with a grin on his coarse red face, “you go back and help Halloway pack. Then take my trail.”

Bill nodded, and was walking away when Kells called after him: “And say, Bill, don’t say anything to Roberts. He’s easily riled.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed Bill.

His harsh laughter somehow rang jarringly in Joan’s ears. But she was used to violent men who expressed mirth over mirthless jokes.

“Get up, Miss Randle,” said Kells as he mounted. “We’ve a long ride. You’ll need all your strength. So I advise you to come quietly with me and not try to get away. It won’t be any use trying.”

Joan climbed into her saddle and rode after him. Once she looked back in hope of seeing Roberts, of waving a hand to him. She saw his horse standing saddled, and she saw Bill struggling under a pack, but there was no sign of Roberts. Then more cedars intervened and the camp site was lost to view. When she glanced ahead her first thought was to take in the points of Kells’s horse. She had been used to horses all her life. Kells rode a big rangy bay — a horse that appeared to snort speed and endurance. Her pony could never run away from that big brute. Still Joan had the temper to make an attempt to escape, if a favorable way presented.

The morning was rosy, clear, cool; there was a sweet, dry tang in the air; white-tailed deer bounded out of the open spaces; and the gray-domed, glistening mountains, with their bold, black-fringed slopes, overshadowed the close foot-hills.

Joan was a victim to swift vagaries of thought and conflicting emotions. She was riding away with a freebooter, a road-agent, to be held for ransom. The fact was scarcely credible. She could not shake the dread of nameless peril. She tried not to recall Roberts’s words, yet they haunted her. If she had not been so handsome, he had said! Joan knew she possessed good looks, but they had never caused her any particular concern. That Kells had let that influence him — as Roberts had imagined — was more than absurd. Kells had scarcely looked at her. It was gold such men wanted. She wondered what her ransom would be, where her uncle would get it, and if there really was a likelihood of that rich strike. Then she remembered her mother, who had died when she was a little girl, and a strange, sweet sadness abided with her. It passed. She saw her uncle — that great, robust, hearty, splendid old man, with his laugh and his kindness, and his love for her, and his everlasting unquenchable belief that soon he would make a rich gold-strike. What a roar and a stampede he would raise at her loss! The village camp might be divided on that score, she thought, because the few young women in that little settlement hated her, and the young men would have more peace without her. Suddenly her thought shifted to Jim Cleve, the cause of her present misfortune. She had forgotten Jim. In the interval somehow he had grown. Sweet to remember how he had fought for her and kept it secret! After all, she had misjudged him. She had hated him because she liked him. Maybe she did more! That gave her a shock. She recalled his kisses and then flamed all over. If she did not hate him she ought to. He had been so useless; he ran after her so; he was the laughing-stock of the village; his actions made her other admirers and friends believe she cared for him, was playing fast-and-loose with him. Still, there was a difference now. He had terribly transgressed. He had frightened her with threats of dire ruin to himself. And because of that she had trailed him, to fall herself upon a hazardous experience. Where was Jim Cleve now? Like a flash then occurred to her the singular possibility. Jim had ridden for the border with the avowed and desperate intention of finding Kells and Gulden and the bad men of that trackless region. He would do what he had sworn he would. And here she was, the cause of it all, a captive of this notorious Kells! She was being led into that wild border country. Somewhere out there Kells and Jim Cleve would meet. Jim would find her in Kells’s hands. Then there would be hell, Joan thought. The possibility, the certainty, seemed to strike deep into her, reviving that dread and terror. Yet she thrilled again; a ripple that was not all cold coursed through her. Something had a birth in her then, and the part of it she understood was that she welcomed the adventure with a throbbing heart, yet looked with awe and shame and distrust at this new, strange side of her nature.

And while her mind was thus thronged the morning hours passed swiftly, the miles of foot-hills were climbed and descended. A green gap of canon, wild and yellow-walled, yawned before her, opening into the mountain.

Kells halted on the grassy bank of a shallow brook. “Get down. We’ll noon here and rest the horses,” he said to Joan. “I can’t say that you’re anything but game. We’ve done perhaps twenty-five miles this morning.”

The mouth of this canon was a wild, green-flowered, beautiful place. There were willows and alders and aspens along the brook. The green bench was like a grassy meadow. Joan caught a glimpse of a brown object, a deer or bear, stealing away through spruce-trees on the slope. She dismounted, aware now that her legs ached and it was comfortable to stretch them. Looking backward across the valley toward the last foot-hill, she saw the other men, with horses and packs, coming. She had a habit of close observation, and she thought that either the men with the packs had now one more horse than she remembered, or else she had not seen the extra one. Her attention shifted then. She watched Kells unsaddle the horses. He was wiry, muscular, quick with his hands. The big, blue-cylindered gun swung in front of him. That gun had a queer kind of attraction for her. The curved black butt made her think of a sharp grip of hand upon it. Kells did not hobble the horses. He slapped his bay on the haunch and drove him down toward the brook. Joan’s pony followed. They drank, cracked the stones, climbed the other bank, and began to roll in the grass. Then the other men with the packs trotted up. Joan was glad. She had not thought of it before, but now she felt she would rather not be alone with Kells. She remarked then that there was no extra horse in the bunch. It seemed strange, her thinking that, and she imagined she was not clear-headed.

“Throw the packs, Bill,” said Kells.

Another fire was kindled and preparations made toward a noonday meal. Bill and Halloway appeared loquacious, and inclined to steal glances at Joan when Kells could not notice. Halloway whistled a Dixie tune. Then Bill took advantage of the absence of Kells, who went down to the brook, and he began to leer at Joan and make bold eyes at her. Joan appeared not to notice him, and thereafter averted; her gaze. The men chuckled.

“She’s the proud hussy! But she ain’t foolin’ me. I’ve knowed a heap of wimmen.” Whereupon Halloway guffawed, and between them, in lower tones, they exchanged mysterious remarks. Kells returned with a bucket of water.

“What’s got into you men?” he queried.

Both of them looked around, blusteringily innocent.

“Reckon it’s the same that’s ailin’ you,” replied Bill. He showed that among wild, unhampered men how little could inflame and change.

“Boss, it’s the onaccustomed company,” added Halloway, with a conciliatory smile. “Bill sort of warms up. He jest can’t help it. An’ seein’ what a thunderin’ crab he always is, why I’m glad an’ welcome.”

Kells vouchsafed no reply to this and, turning away, continued his tasks. Joan had a close look at his eyes and again she was startled. They were not like eyes, but just gray spaces, opaque openings, with nothing visible behind, yet with something terrible there.

The preparations for the meal went on, somewhat constrainedly on the part of Bill and Halloway, and presently were ended. Then the men attended to it with appetites born of the open and of action. Joan sat apart from them on the bank of the brook, and after she had appeased her own hunger she rested, leaning back in the shade of an alderbush. A sailing shadow crossed near her, and, looking up, she saw an eagle flying above the ramparts of the canon. Then she had a drowsy spell, but she succumbed to it only to the extent of closing her eyes. Time dragged on. She would rather have been in the saddle. These men were leisurely, and Kells was provokingly slow. They had nothing to do with time but waste it. She tried to combat the desire for hurry, for action; she could not gain anything by worry. Nevertheless, resignation would not come to her and her hope began to flag. Something portended evil — something hung in the balance.

The snort and tramp of horses roused her, and upon sitting up she saw the men about to pack and saddle again. Kells had spoken to her only twice so far that day. She was grateful for his silence, but could not understand it. He seemed to have a preoccupied air that somehow did not fit the amiableness of his face. He looked gentle, good-natured; he was soft-spoken; he gave an impression of kindness. But Joan began to realize that he was not what he seemed. He had something on his mind. It was not conscience, nor a burden: it might be a projection, a plan, an absorbing scheme, a something that gained food with thought. Joan wondered doubtfully if it were the ransom of gold he expected to get.

Presently, when all was about in readiness for a fresh start, she rose to her feet. Kells’s bay was not tractable at the moment. Bill held out Joan’s bridle to her and their hands touched. The contact was an accident, but it resulted in Bill’s grasping back at her hand. She jerked it away, scarcely comprehending. Then all under the brown of his face she saw creep a dark, ruddy tide. He reached for her then — put his hand on her breast. It was an instinctive animal action. He meant nothing. She divined that he could not help it. She had lived with rough men long enough to know he had no motive — no thought at all. But at the profanation of such a touch she shrank back, uttering a cry.

At her elbow she heard a quick step and a sharp-drawn breath or hiss.

“AW, JACK!” cried Bill.

Then Kells, in lithe and savage swiftness, came between them. He swung his gun, hitting Bill full in the face. The man fell, limp and heavy, and he lay there, with a bloody gash across his brow. Kells stood over him a moment, slowly lowering the gun. Joan feared he meant to shoot.

“Oh, don’t — don’t!” she cried. “He — he didn’t hurt me.”

Kells pushed her back. When he touched her she seemed to feel the shock of an electric current. His face had not changed, but his eyes were terrible. On the background of gray were strange, leaping red flecks.

“Take your horse,” he ordered. “No. Walk across the brook. There’s a trail. Go up the canon. I’ll come presently. Don’t run and don’t hide. It’ll be the worse for you if you do. Hurry!”

Joan obeyed. She flashed past the open-jawed Halloway, and, running down to the brook, stepped across from stone to stone. She found the trail and hurriedly followed it. She did not look back. It never occurred to her to hide, to try to get away. She only obeyed, conscious of some force that dominated her. Once she heard loud voices, then the shrill neigh of a horse. The trail swung under the left wall of the canon and ran along the noisy brook. She thought she heard shots and was startled, but she could not be sure. She stopped to listen. Only the babble of swift water and the sough of wind in the spruces greeted her ears. She went on, beginning to collect her thoughts, to conjecture on the significance of Kells’s behavior.

But had that been the spring of his motive? She doubted it — she doubted all about him, save that subtle essence of violence, of ruthless force and intensity, of terrible capacity, which hung round him.

A halloo caused her to stop and turn. Two pack-horses were jogging up the trail. Kells was driving them and leading her pony. Nothing could be seen of the other men. Kells rapidly overhauled her, and she had to get out of the trail to let the pack-animals pass. He threw her bridle to her.

“Get up,” he said.

She complied. And then she bravely faced him. “Where are — the other men?”

“We parted company,” he replied, curtly.

“Why?” she persisted.

“Well, if you’re anxious to know, it was because you were winning their — regard — too much to suit me.”

“Winning their regard!” Joan exclaimed, blankly.

Here those gray, piercing eyes went through her, then swiftly shifted. She was quick to divine from that the inference in his words — he suspected her of flirting with those ruffians, perhaps to escape him through them. That had only been his suspicion — groundless after his swift glance at her. Perhaps unconsciousness of his meaning, a simulated innocence, and ignorance might serve her with this strange man. She resolved to try it, to use all her woman’s intuition and wit and cunning. Here was an educated man who was a criminal — an outcast. Deep within him might be memories of a different life. They might be stirred. Joan decided in that swift instant that, if she could understand him, learn his real intentions toward her, she could cope with him.

“Bill and his pard were thinking too much of — of the ransom I’m after,” went on Kells, with a short laugh. “Come on now. Ride close to me.”

Joan turned into the trail with his laugh ringing in her ears. Did she only imagine a mockery in it? Was there any reason to believe a word this man said? She appeared as helpless to see through him as she was in her predicament.

They had entered a canon, such as was typical of that mountain range, and the winding trail which ran beneath the yellow walls was one unused to travel. Joan could not make out any old tracks, except those of deer and cougar. The crashing of wild animals into the chaparral, and the scarcely frightened flight of rabbits and grouse attested to the wildness of the place. They passed an old tumbledown log cabin, once used, no doubt, by prospectors and hunters. Here the trail ended. Yet Kells kept on up the canon. And for all Joan could tell the walls grew only the higher and the timber heavier and the space wilder.

At a turn, when the second pack-horse, that appeared unused to his task, came fully into Joan’s sight, she was struck with his resemblance to some horse with which she was familiar. It was scarcely an impression which she might have received from seeing Kells’s horse or Bill’s or any one’s a few times. Therefore she watched this animal, studying his gait and behavior. It did not take long for her to discover that he was not a pack-horse. He resented that burden. He did not know how to swing it. This made her deeply thoughtful and she watched closer than ever. All at once there dawned on her the fact that the resemblance here was to Roberts’s horse. She caught her breath and felt again that cold gnawing of fear within her. Then she closed her eyes the better to remember significant points about Roberts’s sorrel — a white left front foot, an old diamond brand, a ragged forelock, and an unusual marking, a light bar across his face. When Joan had recalled these, she felt so certain that she would find them on this pack-horse that she was afraid to open her eyes. She forced herself to look, and it seemed that in one glance she saw three of them. Still she clung to hope. Then the horse, picking his way, partially turning toward her, disclosed the bar across his face.

Joan recognized it. Roberts was not on his way home. Kells had lied. Kells had killed him. How plain and fearful the proof! It verified Roberts’s gloomy prophecy. Joan suddenly grew sick and dizzy. She reeled in her saddle. It was only by dint of the last effort of strength and self-control that she kept her seat. She fought the horror as if it were a beast. Hanging over the pommel, with shut eyes, letting her pony find the way, she sustained this shock of discovery and did not let it utterly overwhelm her. And as she conquered the sickening weakness her mind quickened to the changed aspect of her situation. She understood Kells and the appalling nature of her peril. She did not know how she understood him now, but doubt had utterly fled. All was clear, real, grim, present. Like a child she had been deceived, for no reason she could see. That talk of ransom was false. Likewise Kells’s assertion that he had parted company with Halloway and Bill because he would not share the ransom — that, too, was false. The idea of a ransom, in this light, was now ridiculous. From that first moment Kells had wanted her; he had tried to persuade Roberts to leave her, and, failing, had killed him; he had rid himself of the other two men — and now Joan knew she had heard shots back there. Kells’s intention loomed out of all his dark brooding, and it stood clear now to her, dastardly, worse than captivity, or torture, or death — the worst fate that could befall a woman.

The reality of it now was so astounding. True — as true as those stories she had deemed impossible! Because she and her people and friends had appeared secure in their mountain camp and happy in their work and trustful of good, they had scarcely credited the rumors of just such things as had happened to her. The stage held up by roadagents, a lonely prospector murdered and robbed, fights in the saloons and on the trails, and useless pursuit of hardriding men out there on the border, elusive as Arabs, swift as Apaches — these facts had been terrible enough, without the dread of worse. The truth of her capture, the meaning of it, were raw, shocking spurs to Joan Randle’s intelligence and courage. Since she still lived, which was strange indeed in the illuminating light of her later insight into Kells and his kind, she had to meet him with all that was catlike and subtle and devilish at the command of a woman. She had to win him, foil him, kill him — or go to her death. She was no girl to be dragged into the mountain fastness by a desperado and made a plaything. Her horror and terror had worked its way deep into the depths of her and uncovered powers never suspected, never before required in her scheme of life. She had no longer any fear. She matched herself against this man. She anticipated him. And she felt like a woman who had lately been a thoughtless girl, who, in turn, had dreamed of vague old happenings of a past before she was born, of impossible adventures in her own future. Hate and wrath and outraged womanhood were not wholly the secret of Joan Randle’s flaming spirit.

CHAPTER 4

JOAN RANDLE RODE on and on, through the canon, out at its head and over a pass into another canon, and never did she let it be possible for Kells to see her eyes until she knew beyond peradventure of a doubt that they hid the strength and spirit and secret of her soul.

The time came when traveling was so steep and rough that she must think first of her horse and her own safety. Kells led up over a rock-jumbled spur of range, where she had sometimes to follow on foot. It seemed miles across that wilderness of stone. Foxes and wolves trotted over open places, watching stealthily. All around dark mountain peaks stood up. The afternoon was far advanced when Kells started to descend again, and he rode a zigzag course on weathered slopes and over brushy benches, down and down into the canons again.

A lonely peak was visible, sunset-flushed against the blue, from the point where Kells finally halted. That ended the longest ride Joan had ever made in one day. For miles and miles they had climbed and descended and wound into the mountains. Joan had scarcely any idea of direction. She was completely turned around and lost. This spot was the wildest and most beautiful she had ever seen. A canon headed here. It was narrow, low-walled, and luxuriant with grass and wild roses and willow and spruce and balsam. There were deer standing with long ears erect, motionless, curious, tame as cattle. There were moving streaks through the long grass, showing the course of smaller animals slipping away.

Then under a giant balsam, that reached aloft to the rim-wall, Joan saw a little log cabin, open in front. It had not been built very long; some of the log ends still showed yellow. It did not resemble the hunters’ and prospectors’ cabins she had seen on her trips with her uncle.

In a sweeping glance Joan had taken in these features. Kells had dismounted and approached her. She looked frankly, but not directly, at him.

“I’m tired — almost too tired to get off,” she said.

“Fifty miles of rock and brush, up and down! Without a kick!” he exclaimed, admiringly. “You’ve got sand, girl!”

“Where are we?”

“This is Lost Canon. Only a few men know of it. And they are — attached to me. I intend to keep you here.”

“How long?” She felt the intensity of his gaze.

“Why — as long as—” he replied, slowly, “till I get my ransom.”

“What amount will you ask?”

“You’re worth a hundred thousand in gold right now... Maybe later I might let you go for less.”

Joan’s keen-wrought perception registered his covert, scarcely veiled implication. He was studying her.

“Oh, poor uncle. He’ll never, never get so much.”

“Sure he will,” replied Kells, bluntly.

Then he helped her out of the saddle. She was stiff and awkward, and she let herself slide. Kells handled her gently and like a gentleman, and for Joan the first agonizing moment of her ordeal was past. Her intuition had guided her correctly. Kells might have been and probably was the most depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill’s, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult game she had to play.

“You’re a very gallant robber,” she said.

He appeared not to hear that or to note it; he was eying her up and down; and he moved closer, perhaps to estimate her height compared to his own.

“I didn’t know you were so tall. You’re above my shoulder.”

“Yes, I’m very lanky.”

“Lanky! Why you’re not that. You’ve a splendid figure — tall, supple, strong; you’re like a Nez Perce girl I knew once.... You’re a beautiful thing. Didn’t you know that?”

“Not particularly. My friends don’t dare flatter me. I suppose I’ll have to stand it from you. But I didn’t expect compliments from Jack Kells of the Border Legion.”

“Border Legion? Where’d you hear that name?”

“I didn’t hear it. I made it up — thought of it myself.”

“Well, you’ve invented something I’ll use.... And what’s your name — your first name? I heard Roberts use it.”

Joan felt a cold contraction of all her internal being, but outwardly she never so much as nicked an eyelash. “My name’s Joan.”

“Joan!” He placed heavy, compelling hands on her shoulders and turned her squarely toward him.

Again she felt his gaze, strangely, like the reflection of sunlight from ice. She had to look at him. This was her supreme test. For hours she had prepared for it, steeled herself, wrought upon all that was sensitive in her; and now she prayed, and swiftly looked up into his eyes. They were windows of a gray hell. And she gazed into that naked abyss, at that dark, uncovered soul, with only the timid anxiety and fear and the unconsciousness of an innocent, ignorant girl.

“Joan! You know why I brought you here?”

“Yes, of course; you told me,” she replied, steadily. “You want to ransom me for gold.... And I’m afraid you’ll have to take me home without getting any.”

“You know what I mean to do to you,” he went on, thickly.

“Do to me?” she echoed, and she never quivered a muscle. “You — you didn’t say.... I haven’t thought.... But you won’t hurt me, will you? It’s not my fault if there’s no gold to ransom me.”

He shook her. His face changed, grew darker. “You KNOW what I mean.”

“I don’t.” With some show of spirit she essayed to slip out of his grasp. He held her the tighter.

“How old are you?”

It was only in her height and development that Joan looked anywhere near her age. Often she had been taken for a very young girl.

“I’m seventeen,” she replied. This was not the truth. It was a lie that did not falter on lips which had scorned falsehood.

“Seventeen!” he ejaculated in amaze. “Honestly, now?”

She lifted her chin scornfully and remained silent.

“Well, I thought you were a woman. I took you to be twenty-five — at least twenty-two. Seventeen, with that shape! You’re only a girl — a kid. You don’t know anything.”

Then he released her, almost with violence, as if angered at her or himself, and he turned away to the horses. Joan walked toward the little cabin. The strain of that encounter left her weak, but once from under his eyes, certain that she had carried her point, she quickly regained her poise. There might be, probably would be, infinitely more trying ordeals for her to meet than this one had been; she realized, however, that never again would she be so near betrayal of terror and knowledge and self.

The scene of her isolation had a curious fascination for her. Something — and she shuddered — was to happen to her here in this lonely, silent gorge. There were some flat stones made into a rude seat under the balsam-tree, and a swift, yard-wide stream of clear water ran by. Observing something white against the tree, Joan went closer. A card, the ace of hearts, had been pinned to the bark by a small cluster of bullet-holes, every one of which touched the red heart, and one of them had obliterated it. Below the circle of bulletholes, scrawled in rude letters with a lead-pencil, was the name “Gulden.” How little, a few nights back, when Jim Cleve had menaced Joan with the names of Kells and Gulden, had she imagined they were actual men she was to meet and fear! And here she was the prisoner of one of them. She would ask Kells who and what this Gulden was. The log cabin was merely a shed, without fireplace or window, and the floor was a covering of balsam boughs, long dried out and withered. A dim trail led away from it down the canon. If Joan was any judge of trails, this one had not seen the imprint of a horse track for many months. Kells had indeed brought her to a hiding place, one of those, perhaps, that camp gossip said was inaccessible to any save a border hawk. Joan knew that only an Indian could follow the tortuous and rocky trail by which Kells had brought her in. She would never be tracked there by her own people.

The long ride had left her hot, dusty, scratched, with tangled hair and torn habit. She went over to her saddle, which Kells had removed from her pony, and, opening the saddlebag, she took inventory of her possessions. They were few enough, but now, in view of an unexpected and enforced sojourn in the wilds, beyond all calculation of value. And they included towel, soap, toothbrush, mirror and comb and brush, a red scarf, and gloves. It occurred to her how seldom she carried that bag on her saddle, and, thinking back, referred the fact to accident, and then with honest amusement owned that the motive might have been also a little vanity. Taking the bag, she went to a flat stone by the brook and, rolling up her sleeves, proceeded to improve her appearance. With deft fingers she rebraided her hair and arranged it as she had worn it when only sixteen. Then, resolutely, she got up and crossed over to where Kells was unpacking.

“I’ll help you get supper,” she said.

He was on his knees in the midst of a jumble of camp duffle that had been hastily thrown together. He looked up at her — from her shapely, strong, brown arms to the face she had rubbed rosy.

“Say, but you’re a pretty girl!”

He said it enthusiastically, in unstinted admiration, without the slightest subtlety or suggestion; and if he had been the devil himself it would have been no less a compliment, given spontaneously to youth and beauty.

“I’m glad if it’s so, but please don’t tell me,” she rejoined, simply.

Then with swift and business-like movements she set to helping him with the mess the inexperienced pack-horse had made of that particular pack. And when that was straightened out she began with the biscuit dough while he lighted a fire. It appeared to be her skill, rather than her willingness, that he yielded to. He said very little, but he looked at her often. And he had little periods of abstraction. The situation was novel, strange to him. Sometimes Joan read his mind and sometimes he was an enigma. But she divined when he was thinking what a picture she looked there, on her knees before the bread-pan, with flour on her arms; of the difference a girl brought into any place; of how strange it seemed that this girl, instead of lying a limp and disheveled rag under a tree, weeping and praying for home, made the best of a bad situation and unproved it wonderfully by being a thoroughbred.

Presently they sat down, cross-legged, one on each side of the tarpaulin, and began the meal. That was the strangest supper Joan ever sat down to; it was like a dream where there was danger that tortured her; but she knew she was dreaming and would soon wake up. Kells was almost imperceptibly changing. The amiability of his face seemed to have stiffened. The only time he addressed her was when he offered to help her to more meat or bread or coffee. After the meal was finished he would not let her wash the pans and pots, and attended to that himself.

Joan went to the seat by the tree, near the camp-fire. A purple twilight was shadowing the canon. Far above, on the bold peak the last warmth of the afterglow was fading. There was no wind, no sound, no movement. Joan wondered where Jim Cleve was then. They had often sat in the twilight. She felt an unreasonable resentment toward him, knowing she was to blame, but blaming him for her plight. Then suddenly she thought of her uncle, of home, of her kindly old aunt who always worried so about her. Indeed, there was cause to worry. She felt sorrier for them than for herself. And that broke her spirit momentarily. Forlorn, and with a wave of sudden sorrow and dread and hopelessness, she dropped her head upon her knees and covered her face. Tears were a relief. She forgot Kells and the part she must play. But she remembered swiftly — at the rude touch of his hand.

“Here! Are you crying?” he asked, roughly.

“Do you think I’m laughing?” Joan retorted. Her wet eyes, as she raised them, were proof enough.

“Stop it.”

“I can’t help — but cry — a little. I was th — thinking of home — of those who’ve been father and mother to me — since I was a baby. I wasn’t crying — for myself. But they — they’ll be so miserable. They loved me so.”

“It won’t help matters to cry.”

Joan stood up then, no longer sincere and forgetful, but the girl with her deep and cunning game. She leaned close to him in the twilight.

“Did you ever love any one? Did you ever have a sister — a girl like me?”

Kells stalked away into the gloom.

Joan was left alone. She did not know whether to interpret his abstraction, his temper, and his action as favorable or not. Still she hoped and prayed they meant that he had some good in him. If she could only hide her terror, her abhorrence, her knowledge of him and his motive! She built up a bright camp-fire. There was an abundance of wood. She dreaded the darkness and the night. Besides, the air was growing chilly. So, arranging her saddle and blankets near the fire, she composed herself in a comfortable seat to await Kells’s return and developments. It struck her forcibly that she had lost some of her fear of Kells and she did not know why. She ought to fear him more every hour — every minute. Presently she heard his step brushing the grass and then he emerged out of the gloom. He had a load of fire-wood on his shoulder.

“Did you get over your grief?” he asked, glancing down upon her.

“Yes,” she replied.

Kells stooped for a red ember, with which he lighted his pipe, and then he seated himself a little back from the fire. The blaze threw a bright glare over him, and in it he looked neither formidable nor vicious nor ruthless. He asked her where she was born, and upon receiving an answer he followed that up with another question. And he kept this up until Joan divined that he was not so much interested in what he apparently wished to learn as he was in her presence, her voice, her personality. She sensed in him loneliness, hunger for the sound of a voice. She had heard her uncle speak of the loneliness of lonely camp-fires and how all men working or hiding or lost in the wilderness would see sweet faces in the embers and be haunted by soft voices. After all, Kells was human. And she talked as never before in her life, brightly, willingly, eloquently, telling the facts of her eventful youth and girlhood — the sorrow and the joy and some of the dreams — up to the time she had come to Camp Hoadley.

“Did you leave any sweethearts over there at Hoadley?” he asked, after a silence.

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“A whole campful,” she replied, with a laugh, “but admirers is a better name for them.”

“Then there’s no one fellow?”

“Hardly — yet.”

“How would you like being kept here in this lonesome place for — well, say for ever?”

“I wouldn’t like that,” replied Joan. “I’d like this — camping out like this now — if my folks only knew I am alive and well and safe. I love lonely, dreamy places. I’ve dreamed of being in just such a one as this. It seems so far away here — so shut in by the walls and the blackness. So silent and sweet! I love the stars. They speak to me. And the wind in the spruces. Hear it.... Very low, mournful! That whispers to me — to-morrow I’d like it here if I had no worry. I’ve never grown up yet. I explore and climb trees and hunt for little birds and rabbits — young things just born, all fuzzy and sweet, frightened, piping or squealing for their mothers. But I won’t touch one for worlds. I simply can’t hurt anything. I can’t spur my horse or beat him. Oh, I HATE pain!”

“You’re a strange girl to live out here on this border,” he said.

“I’m no different from other girls. You don’t know girls.”

“I knew one pretty well. She put a rope round my neck,” he replied, grimly.

“A rope!”

“Yes, I mean a halter, a hangman’s noose. But I balked her!”

“Oh!... A good girl?”

“Bad! Bad to the core of her black heart — bad as I am!” he exclaimed, with fierce, low passion.

Joan trembled. The man, in an instant, seemed transformed, somber as death. She could not look at him, but she must keep on talking.

“Bad? You don’t seem bad to me — only violent, perhaps, or wild.... Tell me about yourself.”

She had stirred him. His neglected pipe fell from his hand. In the gloom of the camp-fire he must have seen faces or ghosts of his past.

“Why not?” he queried, strangely. “Why not do what’s been impossible for years — open my lips? It’ll not matter — to a girl who can never tell!... Have I forgotten? God! — I have not! Listen, so that you’ll KNOW I’m bad. My name’s not Kells. I was born in the East, and went to school there till I ran away. I was young, ambitious, wild. I stole. I ran away — came West in ‘fifty-one to the gold-fields in California. There I became a prospector, miner, gambler, robber — and road-agent. I had evil in me, as all men have, and those wild years brought it out. I had no chance. Evil and gold and blood — they are one and the same thing. I committed every crime till no place, bad as it might be, was safe for me. Driven and hunted and shot and starved — almost hanged!... And now I’m — Kells! of that outcast crew you named ‘the Border Legion!’ Every black crime but one — the blackest — and that haunting me, itching my hands to-night.”

“Oh, you speak so — so dreadfully!” cried Joan. “What can I say? I’m sorry for you. I don’t believe it all. What — what black crime haunts you? Oh! what could be possible tonight — here in this lonely canon — with only me?”

Dark and terrible the man arose.

“Girl,” he said, hoarsely. “To-night — to-night — I’ll.... What have you done to me? One more day — and I’ll be mad to do right by you — instead of WRONG.... Do you understand that?”

Joan leaned forward in the camp-fire light with outstretched hands and quivering lips, as overcome by his halting confession of one last remnant of honor as she was by the dark hint of his passion.

“No — no — I don’t understand — nor believe!” she cried. “But you frighten me — so! I am all — all alone with you here. You said I’d be safe. Don’t — don’t—”

Her voice broke then and she sank back exhausted in her seat. Probably Kells had heard only the first words of her appeal, for he took to striding back and forth in the circle of the camp-fire light. The scabbard with the big gun swung against his leg. It grew to be a dark and monstrous thing in Joan’s sight. A marvelous intuition born of that hour warned her of Kells’s subjection to the beast in him, even while, with all the manhood left to him, he still battled against it. Her girlish sweetness and innocence had availed nothing, except mock him with the ghost of dead memories. He could not be won or foiled. She must get her hands on that gun — kill him — or — ! The alternative was death for herself. And she leaned there, slowly gathering all the unconquerable and unquenchable forces of a woman’s nature, waiting, to make one desperate, supreme, and final effort.

CHAPTER 5

KELLS STRODE THERE, a black, silent shadow, plodding with bent head, as if all about and above him were demons and furies.

Joan’s perceptions of him, of the night, of the inanimate and imponderable black walls, and of herself, were exquisitely and abnormally keen. She saw him there, bowed under his burden, gloomy and wroth and sick with himself because the man in him despised the coward. Men of his stamp were seldom or never cowards. Their lives did not breed cowardice or baseness. Joan knew the burning in her breast — that thing which inflamed and swept through her like a wind of fire — was hate. Yet her heart held a grain of pity for him. She measured his forbearance, his struggle, against the monstrous cruelty and passion engendered by a wild life among wild men at a wild time. And, considering his opportunities of the long hours and lonely miles, she was grateful, and did not in the least underestimate what it cost him, how different from Bill or Halloway he had been. But all this was nothing, and her thinking of it useless, unless he conquered himself. She only waited, holding on to that steel-like control of her nerves, motionless and silent.

She leaned back against her saddle, a blanket covering her, with wide-open eyes, and despite the presence of that stalking figure and the fact of her mind being locked round one terrible and inevitable thought, she saw the changing beautiful glow of the fire-logs and the cold, pitiless stars and the mustering shadows under the walls. She heard, too, the low rising sigh of the wind in the balsam and the silvery tinkle of the brook, and sounds only imagined or nameless. Yet a stern and insupportable silence weighed her down. This dark canon seemed at the ends of the earth. She felt encompassed by illimitable and stupendous upflung mountains, insulated in a vast, dark, silent tomb.

Kells suddenly came to her, treading noiselessly, and he leaned over her. His visage was a dark blur, but the posture of him was that of a wolf about to spring. Lower he leaned — slowly — and yet lower. Joan saw the heavy gun swing away from his leg; she saw it black and clear against the blaze; a cold, blue light glinted from its handle. And then Kells was near enough for her to see his face and his eyes that were but shadows of flames. She gazed up at him steadily, open-eyed, with no fear or shrinking. His breathing was quick and loud. He looked down at her for an endless moment, then, straightening his bent form, he resumed his walk to and fro.

After that for Joan time might have consisted of moments or hours, each of which was marked by Kells looming over her. He appeared to approach her from all sides; he round her wide-eyed, sleepless; his shadowy glance gloated over her lithe, slender shape; and then he strode away into the gloom. Sometimes she could no longer hear his steps and then she was quiveringly alert, listening, fearful that he might creep upon her like a panther. At times he kept the camp-fire blazing brightly; at others he let it die down. And these dark intervals were frightful for her. The night seemed treacherous, in league with her foe. It was endless. She prayed for dawn — yet with a blank hopelessness for what the day might bring. Could she hold out through more interminable hours? Would she not break from sheer strain? There were moments when she wavered and shook like a leaf in the wind, when the beating of her heart was audible, when a child could have seen her distress. There were other moments when all was ugly, unreal, impossible like things in a nightmare. But when Kells was near or approached to look at her, like a cat returned to watch a captive mouse, she was again strong, waiting, with ever a strange and cold sense of the nearness of that swinging gun. Late in the night she missed him, for how long she had no idea. She had less trust in his absence than his presence. The nearer he came to her the stronger she grew and the clearer of purpose. At last the black void of canon lost its blackness and turned to gray. Dawn was at hand. The horrible endless night, in which she had aged from girl to woman, had passed. Joan had never closed her eyes a single instant.

When day broke she got up. The long hours in which she had rested motionlessly had left her muscles cramped and dead. She began to walk off the feeling. Kells had just stirred from his blanket under the balsam-tree. His face was dark, haggard, lined. She saw him go down to the brook and plunge his hands into the water and bathe his face with a kind of fury. Then he went up to the smoldering fire. There was a gloom, a somberness, a hardness about him that had not been noticeable the day before.

Joan found the water cold as ice, soothing to the burn beneath her skin. She walked away then, aware that Kells did not appear to care, and went up to where the brook brawled from under the cliff. This was a hundred paces from camp, though in plain sight. Joan looked round for her horse, but he was not to be seen. She decided to slip away the first opportunity that offered, and on foot or horseback, any way, to get out of Kells’s clutches if she had to wander, lost in the mountains, till she starved. Possibly the day might be endurable, but another night would drive her crazy. She sat on a ledge, planning and brooding, till she was startled by a call from Kells. Then slowly she retraced her steps.

“Don’t you want to eat?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry,” she replied.

“Well, eat anyhow — if it chokes you,” he ordered.

Joan seated herself while he placed food and drink before her. She did not look at him and did not feel his gaze upon her. Far asunder as they had been yesterday the distance between them to-day was incalculably greater. She ate as much as she could swallow and pushed the rest away. Leaving the camp-fire, she began walking again, here and there, aimlessly, scarcely seeing what she looked at. There was a shadow over her, an impending portent of catastrophe, a moment standing dark and sharp out of the age-long hour. She leaned against the balsam and then she rested in the stone seat, and then she had to walk again. It might have been long, that time; she never knew how long or short. There came a strange flagging, sinking of her spirit, accompanied by vibrating, restless, uncontrollable muscular activity. Her nerves were on the verge of collapse.

It was then that a call from Kells, clear and ringing, thrilled all the weakness from her in a flash, and left her limp and cold. She saw him coming. His face looked amiable again, bright against what seemed a vague and veiled background. Like a mountaineer he strode. And she looked into his strange, gray glance to see unmasked the ruthless power, the leaping devil, the ungovernable passion she had sensed in him.

He grasped her arm and with a single pull swung her to him. “YOU’VE got to pay that ransom!”

He handled her as if he thought she resisted, but she was unresisting. She hung her head to hide her eyes. Then he placed an arm round her shoulders and half led, half dragged her toward the cabin.

Joan saw with startling distinctness the bits of balsam and pine at her feet and pale pink daisies in the grass, and then the dry withered boughs. She was in the cabin.

“Girl!... I’m hungry — for you!” he breathed, hoarsely. And turning her toward him, he embraced her, as if his nature was savage and he had to use a savage force.

If Joan struggled at all, it was only slightly, when she writhed and slipped, like a snake, to get her arm under his as it clasped her neck. Then she let herself go. He crushed her to him. He bent her backward — tilted her face with hard and eager hand. Like a madman, with hot working lips, he kissed her. She felt blinded — scorched. But her purpose was as swift and sure and wonderful as his passion was wild. The first reach of her groping hand found his gun-belt. Swift as light her hand slipped down. Her fingers touched the cold gun — grasped with thrill on thrill — slipped farther down, strong and sure to raise the hammer. Then with a leaping, strung intensity that matched his own she drew the gun. She raised it while her eyes were shut. She lay passive under his kisses — the devouring kisses of one whose manhood had been denied the sweetness, the glory, the fire, the life of woman’s lips. It was a moment in which she met his primitive fury of possession with a woman’s primitive fury of profanation. She pressed the gun against his side and pulled the trigger.

A thundering, muffled, hollow boom! The odor of burned powder stung her nostrils. Kells’s hold on her tightened convulsively, loosened with strange, lessening power. She swayed back free of him, still with tight-shut eyes. A horrible cry escaped him — a cry of mortal agony. It wrenched her. And she looked to see him staggering amazed, stricken, at bay, like a wolf caught in cruel steel jaws. His hands came away from both sides, dripping with blood. They shook till the crimson drops spattered on the wall, on the boughs. Then he seemed to realize and he clutched at her with these bloody hands.

“God Almighty!” he panted. “You shot me!... You — you girl!... You she-cat... You knew — all the time... You she-cat!... Give me — that gun!”

“Kells, get back! I’ll kill you!” she cried. The big gun, outstretched between them, began to waver.

Kells did not see the gun. In his madness he tried to move, to reach her, but he could not; he was sinking. His legs sagged under him, let him down to his knees, and but for the wall he would have fallen. Then a change transformed him. The black, turgid, convulsed face grew white and ghastly, with beads of clammy sweat and lines of torture. His strange eyes showed swiftly passing thought — wonder, fear, scorn — even admiration.

“Joan, you’ve done — for me!” he gasped. “You’ve broken my back!... It’ll kill me! Oh the pain — the pain! And I can’t stand pain! You — you girl! You innocent seventeen-year-old girl! You that couldn’t hurt any creature! You so tender — so gentle!... Bah! you fooled me. The cunning of a woman! I ought — to know. A good woman’s — more terrible than a — bad woman.... But I deserved this. Once I used — to be.... Only, the torture!... Why didn’t you — kill me outright?... Joan — Randle — watch me — die! Since I had — to die — by rope or bullet — I’m glad you — you — did for me.... Man or beast — I believe — I loved you!”

Joan dropped the gun and sank beside him, helpless, horror-stricken, wringing her hands. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, that he drove her to it, that he must let her pray for him. But she could not speak. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth and she seemed strangling.

Another change, slower and more subtle, passed over Kells. He did not see Joan. He forgot her. The white shaded out of his face, leaving a gray like that of his somber eyes. Spirit, sense, life, were fading from him. The quivering of a racked body ceased. And all that seemed left was a lonely soul groping on the verge of the dim borderland between life and death. Presently his shoulders slipped along the wall and he fell, to lie limp and motionless before Joan. Then she fainted.

CHAPTER 6

WHEN JOAN RETURNED to consciousness she was lying half outside the opening of the cabin and above her was a drift of blue gun-smoke, slowly floating upward. Almost as swiftly as perception of that smoke came a shuddering memory. She lay still, listening. She did not hear a sound except the tinkle and babble and gentle rush of the brook. Kells was dead, then. And overmastering the horror of her act was a relief, a freedom, a lifting of her soul out of the dark dread, a something that whispered justification of the fatal deed.

She got up and, avoiding to look within the cabin, walked away. The sun was almost at the zenith. Where had the morning hours gone?

“I must get away,” she said, suddenly. The thought quickened her. Down the canon the horses were grazing. She hurried along the trail, trying to decide whether to follow this dim old trail or endeavor to get out the way she had been brought in. She decided upon the latter. If she traveled slowly, and watched for familiar landmarks, things she had seen once, and hunted carefully for the tracks, she believed she might be successful. She had the courage to try. Then she caught her pony and led him back to camp.

“What shall I take?” she pondered. She decided upon very little — a blanket, a sack of bread and meat, and a canteen of water. She might need a weapon, also. There was only one, the gun with which she had killed Kells. It seemed utterly impossible to touch that hateful thing. But now that she had liberated herself, and at such cost, she must not yield to sentiment. Resolutely she started for the cabin, but when she reached it her steps were dragging. The long, dull-blue gun lay where she had dropped it. And out of the tail of averted eyes she saw a huddled shape along the wall. It was a sickening moment when she reached a shaking hand for the gun. And at that instant a low moan transfixed her.

She seemed frozen rigid. Was the place already haunted? Her heart swelled in her throat and a dimness came before her eyes. But another moan brought a swift realization — Kells was alive. And the cold, clamping sickness, the strangle in her throat, all the feelings of terror, changed and were lost in a flood of instinctive joy. He was not dead. She had not killed him. She did not have blood on her hands. She was not a murderer.

She whirled to look at him. There he lay, ghastly as a corpse. And all her woman’s gladness fled. But there was compassion left to her, and, forgetting all else, she knelt beside him. He was as cold as stone. She felt no stir, no beat of pulse in temple or wrist. Then she placed her ear against his breast. His heart beat weakly.

“He’s alive,” she whispered. “But — he’s dying.... What shall I do?”

Many thoughts flashed across her mind. She could not help him now; he would be dead soon; she did not need to wait there beside him; there was a risk of some of his comrades riding into that rendezvous. Suppose his back was not broken after all! Suppose she stopped the flow of blood, tended him, nursed him, saved his life? For if there were one chance of his living, which she doubted, it must be through her. Would he not be the same savage the hour he was well and strong again? What difference could she make in such a nature? The man was evil. He could not conquer evil. She had been witness to that. He had driven Roberts to draw and had killed him. No doubt he had deliberately and coldly murdered the two ruffians, Bill and Halloway, just so he could be free of their glances at her and be alone with her. He deserved to die there like a dog.

What Joan Randle did was surely a woman’s choice. Carefully she rolled Kells over. The back of his vest and shirt was wet with blood. She got up to find a knife, towel, and water. As she returned to the cabin he moaned again.

Joan had dressed many a wound. She was not afraid of blood. The difference was that she had shed it. She felt sick, but her hands were firm as she cut open the vest and shirt, rolled them aside, and bathed his back. The big bullet had made a gaping wound, having apparently gone through the small of his back. The blood still flowed. She could not tell whether or not Kell’s spine was broken, but she believed that the bullet had gone between bone and muscle, or had glanced. There was a blue welt just over his spine, in line with the course of the wound. She tore her scarf into strips and used it for compresses and bandages. Then she laid him back upon a saddle-blanket. She had done all that was possible for the present, and it gave her a strange sense of comfort. She even prayed for his life, and, if that must go, for his soul. Then she got up. He was unconscious, white, death-like. It seemed that his torture, his near approach to death, had robbed his face of ferocity, of ruthlessness, and of that strange amiable expression. But then, his eyes, those furnace-windows, were closed.

Joan waited for the end to come. The afternoon passed and she did not leave the cabin. It was possible that he might come to and want water. She had once administered to a miner who had been fatally crushed in an avalanche; and never could forget his husky call for water and the gratitude in his eyes.

Sunset, twilight, and night fell upon the canon. And she began to feel solitude as something tangible. Bringing saddle and blankets into the cabin, she made a bed just inside, and, facing the opening and the stars, she lay down to rest, if not to sleep. The darkness did not keep her from seeing the prostrate figure of Kells. He lay there as silent as if he were already dead. She was exhausted, weary for sleep, and unstrung. In the night her courage fled and she was frightened at shadows. The murmuring of insects seemed augmented into a roar; the mourn of wolf and scream of cougar made her start; the rising wind moaned like a lost spirit. Dark fancies beset her. Troop on troop of specters moved out of the black night, assembling there, waiting for Kells to join them. She thought she was riding homeward over the back trail, sure of her way, remembering every rod of that rough travel, until she got out of the mountains, only to be turned back by dead men. Then fancy and dream, and all the haunted gloom of canon and cabin, seemed slowly to merge into one immense blackness.

The sun, rimming the east wall, shining into Joan’s face, awakened her. She had slept hours. She felt rested, stronger. Like the night, something dark had passed away from her. It did not seem strange to her that she should feel that Kells still lived. She knew it. And examination proved her right. In him there had been no change except that he had ceased to bleed. There was just a flickering of life in him, manifest only in his slow, faint heart-beats.

Joan spent most of that day in sitting beside Kells. The whole day seemed only an hour. Sometimes she would look down the canon trail, half expecting to see horsemen riding up. If any of Kells’s comrades happened to come, what could she tell them? They would be as bad as he, without that one trait which had kept him human for a day. Joan pondered upon this. It would never do to let them suspect she had shot Kells. So, carefully cleaning the gun, she reloaded it. If any men came, she would tell them that Bill had done the shooting.

Kells lingered. Joan began to feel that he would live, though everything indicated the contrary. Her intelligence told her he would die, and her feeling said he would not. At times she lifted his head and got water into his mouth with a spoon. When she did this he would moan. That night, during the hours she lay awake, she gathered courage out of the very solitude and loneliness. She had nothing to fear, unless someone came to the canon. The next day in no wise differed from the preceding. And then there came the third day, with no change in Kells till near evening, when she thought he was returning to consciousness. But she must have been mistaken. For hours she watched patiently. He might return to consciousness just before the end, and want to speak, to send a message, to ask a prayer, to feel a human hand at the last.

That night the crescent moon hung over the canon. In the faint light Joan could see the blanched face of Kells, strange and sad, no longer seeming evil. The time came when his lips stirred. He tried to talk. She moistened his lips and gave him a drink. He murmured incoherently, sank again into a stupor, to rouse once more and babble tike a madman. Then he lay quietly for long — so long that sleep was claiming Joan. Suddenly he startled her by calling very faintly but distinctly: “Water! Water!”

Joan bent over him, lifting his head, helping him to drink. She could see his eyes, like dark holes in something white.

“Is — that — you — mother?” he whispered.

“Yes,” replied Joan.

He sank immediately into another stupor or sleep, from which he did not rouse. That whisper of his — mother — touched Joan. Bad men had mothers just the same as any other kind of men. Even this Kells had a mother. He was still a young man. He had been youth, boy, child, baby. Some mother had loved him, cradled him, kissed his rosy baby hands, watched him grow with pride and glory, built castles in her dreams of his manhood, and perhaps prayed for him still, trusting he was strong and honored among men. And here he lay, a shattered wreck, dying for a wicked act, the last of many crimes. It was a tragedy. It made Joan think of the hard lot of mothers, and then of this unsettled Western wild, where men flocked in packs like wolves, and spilled blood like water, and held life nothing.

Joan sought her rest and soon slept. In the morning she did not at once go to Kells. Somehow she dreaded finding him conscious, almost as much as she dreaded the thought of finding him dead. When she did bend over him he was awake, and at sight of her he showed a faint amaze.

“Joan!” he whispered.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Are you — with me still?”

“Of course, I couldn’t leave you.”

The pale eyes shadowed strangely, darkly. “I’m alive yet. And you stayed!... Was it yesterday — you threw my gun — on me?”

“No. Four days ago.”

“Four! Is my back broken?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s a terrible wound. I — I did all I could.”

“You tried to kill me — then tried to save me?”

She was silent to that.

“You’re good — and you’ve been noble,” he said. “But I wish — you’d only been bad. Then I’d curse you — and strangle you — presently.”

“Perhaps you had best be quiet,” replied Joan.

“No. I’ve been shot before. I’ll get over this — if my back’s not broken. How can we tell?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Lift me up.”

“But you might open your wound,” protested Joan.

“Lift me up!” The force of the man spoke even in his low whisper.

“But why — why?” asked Joan.

“I want to see — if I can sit up. If I can’t — give me my gun.”

“I won’t let you have it,” replied Joan. Then she slipped her arms under his and, carefully raising him to a sitting posture, released her hold.

“I’m — a — rank coward — about pain,” he gasped, with thick drops standing out on his white face. “I can’t — stand it.”

But tortured or not, he sat up alone, and even had the will to bend his back. Then with a groan he fainted and fell into Joan’s arms. She laid him down and worked over him for some time before she could bring him to. Then he was wan, suffering, speechless. But she believed he would live and told him so. He received that with a strange smile. Later, when she came to him with broth, he drank it gratefully.

“I’ll beat this out,” he said, weakly. “I’ll recover. My back’s not broken. I’ll get well. Now you bring water and food in here — then go.”

“Go?” she echoed.

“Yes. Don’t go down the canon. You’d be worse off.... Take the back trail. You’ve got a chance to get out.... Go!”

“Leave you here? So weak you can’t lift a cup! I won’t.”

“I’d rather you did.”

“Why?”

“Because in a few days I’ll begin to mend. Then I’ll grow like — myself.... I think — I’m afraid I loved you.... It could only be hell for you. Go now, before it’s too late!... If you stay — till I’m well — I’ll never let you go!”

“Kells, I believe it would be cowardly for me to leave you here alone,” she replied, earnestly. “You can’t help yourself. You’d die.”

“All the better. But I won’t die. I’m hard to kill. Go, I tell you.”

She shook her head. “This is bad for you — arguing. You’re excited. Please be quiet.”

“Joan Randle, if you stay — I’ll halter you — keep you naked in a cave — curse you — beat you — murder you! Oh, it’s in me!... Go, I tell you!”

“You’re out of your head. Once for all — no!” she replied, firmly.

“You — you—” His voice failed in a terrible whisper....

In the succeeding days Kells did not often speak. His recovery was slow — a matter of doubt. Nothing was any plainer than the fact that if Joan had left him he would not have lived long. She knew it. And he knew it. When he was awake, and she came to him, a mournful and beautiful smile lit his eyes. The sight of her apparently hurt him and uplifted him. But he slept twenty hours out of every day, and while he slept he did not need Joan.

She came to know the meaning of solitude. There were days when she did not hear the sound of her own voice. A habit of silence, one of the significant forces of solitude, had grown upon her. Daily she thought less and felt more. For hours she did nothing. When she roused herself, compelled herself to think of these encompassing peaks of the lonely canon walls, the stately trees, all those eternally silent and changless features of her solitude, she hated them with a blind and unreasoning passion. She hated them because she was losing her love for them, because they were becoming a part of her, because they were fixed and content and passionless. She liked to sit in the sun, feel its warmth, see its brightness; and sometimes she almost forgot to go back to her patient. She fought at times against an insidious change — a growing older — a going backward; at other times she drifted through hours that seemed quiet and golden, in which nothing happened. And by and by when she realized that the drifting hours were gradually swallowing up the restless and active hours, then strangely, she remembered Jim Cleve. Memory of him came to save her. She dreamed of him during the long, lonely, solemn days, and in the dark, silent climax of unbearable solitude — the night. She remembered his kisses, forgot her anger and shame, accepted the sweetness of their meaning, and so in the interminable hours of her solitude she dreamed herself into love for him.

Joan kept some record of days, until three weeks or thereabout passed, and then she lost track of time. It dragged along, yet looked at as the past, it seemed to have sped swiftly. The change in her, the growing old, the revelation and responsibility of serf, as a woman, made this experience appear to have extended over months.

Kells slowly became convalescent and then he had a relapse. Something happened, the nature of which Joan could not tell, and he almost died. There were days when his life hung in the balance, when he could not talk; and then came a perceptible turn for the better.

The store of provisions grew low, and Joan began to face another serious situation. Deer and rabbit were plentiful in the canon, but she could not kill one with a revolver. She thought she would be forced to sacrifice one of the horses. The fact that Kells suddenly showed a craving for meat brought this aspect of the situation to a climax. And that very morning while Joan was pondering the matter she saw a number of horsemen riding up the canon toward the cabin. At the moment she was relieved, and experienced nothing of the dread she had formerly felt while anticipating this very event.

“Kells,” she said, quickly, “there are men riding up the trail.”

“Good,” he exclaimed, weakly, with a light on his drawn face. “They’ve been long in — getting here. How many?”

Joan counted them — five riders, and several pack-animals.

“Yes. It’s Gulden.”

“Gulden!” cried Joan, with a start.

Her exclamation and tone made Kells regard her attentively.

“You’ve heard of him? He’s the toughest nut — on this border.... I never saw his like. You won’t be safe. I’m so helpless.... What to say — to tell him!... Joan, if I should happen to croak — you want to get away quick... or shoot yourself.”

How strange to hear this bandit warn her of peril the like of which she had encountered through him! Joan secured the gun and hid it in a niche between the logs. Then she looked out again.

The riders were close at hand now. The foremost one, a man of Herculean build, jumped his mount across the brook, and leaped off while he hauled the horse to a stop. The second rider came close behind him; the others approached leisurely, with the gait of the pack-animals.

“Ho, Kells!” called the big man. His voice had a loud, bold, sonorous kind of ring.

“Reckon he’s here somewheres,” said the other man, presently.

“Sure. I seen his hoss. Jack ain’t goin’ to be far from thet hoss.”

Then both of them approached the cabin. Joan had never before seen two such striking, vicious-looking, awesome men. The one was huge — so wide and heavy and deep-set that he looked short — and he resembled a gorilla. The other was tall, slim, with a face as red as flame, and an expression of fierce keenness. He was stoop shouldered, yet he held his head erect in a manner that suggested a wolf scenting blood.

“Someone here, Pearce,” boomed the big man.

“Why, Gul, if it ain’t a girl!”

Joan moved out of the shadow of the wall of the cabin, and she pointed to the prostrate figure on the blankets.

“Howdy boys!” said Kells, wanly.

Gulden cursed in amaze while Pearce dropped to his knee with an exclamation of concern. Then both began to talk at once. Kells interrupted them by lifting a weak hand.

“No, I’m not going — to cash,” he said. “I’m only starved — and in need of stimulants. Had my back half shot off.”

“Who plugged you, Jack?”

“Gulden, it was your side-partner, Bill.”

“Bill?” Gulden’s voice held a queer, coarse constraint. Then he added, gruffly. “Thought you and him pulled together.”

“Well, we didn’t.”

“And — where’s Bill now?” This time Joan heard a slow, curious, cold note in the heavy voice, and she interpreted it as either doubt or deceit.

“Bill’s dead and Halloway, too,” replied Kells.

Gulden turned his massive, shaggy head in the direction of Joan. She had not the courage to meet the gaze upon her. The other man spoke:

“Split over the girl, Jack?”

“No,” replied Kells, sharply. “They tried to get familiar with — MY WIFE — and I shot them both.”

Joan felt a swift leap of hot blood all over her and then a coldness, a sickening, a hateful weakness.

“Wife!” ejaculated Gulden.

“Your real wife, Jack?” queried Pearce.

“Well, I guess, I’ll introduce you... Joan, here are two of my friends — Sam Gulden and Red Pearce.”

Gulden grunted something.

“Mrs. Kells, I’m glad to meet you,” said Pearce.

Just then the other three men entered the cabin and Joan took advantage of the commotion they made to get out into the air. She felt sick, frightened, and yet terribly enraged. She staggered a little as she went out, and she knew she was as pale as death. These visitors thrust reality upon her with a cruel suddenness. There was something terrible in the mere presence of this Gulden. She had not yet dared to take a good look at him. But what she felt was overwhelming. She wanted to run. Yet escape now was infinitely more of a menace than before. If she slipped away it would be these new enemies who would pursue her, track her like hounds. She understood why Kells had introduced her as his wife. She hated the idea with a shameful and burning hate, but a moment’s reflection taught her that Kells had answered once more to a good instinct. At the moment he had meant that to protect her. And further reflection persuaded Joan that she would be wise to act naturally and to carry out the deception as far as it was possible for her. It was her only hope. Her position had again grown perilous. She thought of the gun she had secreted, and it gave her strength to control her agitation and to return to the cabin outwardly calm.

The men had Kells half turned over with the flesh of his back exposed.

“Aw, Gul, it’s whisky he needs,” said one.

“If you let out any more blood he’ll croak sure,” protested another.

“Look how weak he is,” said Red Pearce.

“It’s a hell of a lot you know,” roared Gulden. “I served my time — but that’s none of your business.... Look here! See that blue spot!” Gulden pressed a huge finger down upon the blue welt on Kells’s back. The bandit moaned. “That’s lead — that’s the bullet,” declared Gulden.

“Wall, if you ain’t correct!” exclaimed Pearce.

Kells turned his head. “When you punched that place — it made me numb all over. Gul, if you’ve located the bullet, cut it out.”

Joan did not watch the operation. As she went away to the seat under the balsam she heard a sharp cry and then cheers. Evidently the grim Gulden had been both swift and successful.

Presently the men came out of the cabin and began to attend to their horses and the pack-train.

Pearce looked for Joan, and upon seeing her called out, “Kells wants you.”

Joan found the bandit half propped up against a saddle with a damp and pallid face, but an altogether different look.

“Joan, that bullet was pressing on my spine,” he said. “Now it’s out, all that deadness is gone. I feel alive. I’ll get well, soon.... Gulden was curious over the bullet. It’s a forty-four caliber, and neither Bill Bailey nor Halloway used that caliber of gun. Gulden remembered. He’s cunning. Bill was as near being a friend to this Gulden as any man I know of. I can’t trust any of these men, particularly Gulden. You stay pretty close by me.”

“Kells, you’ll let me go soon — help me to get home?” implored Joan in a low voice.

“Girl, it’d never be safe now,” he replied.

“Then later — soon — when it is safe?”

“We’ll see.... But you’re my wife now!”

With the latter words the man subtly changed. Something of the power she had felt in him before his illness began again to be manifested. Joan divined that these comrades had caused the difference in him.

“You won’t dare — !” Joan was unable to conclude her meaning. A tight band compressed her breast and throat, and she trembled.

“Will you dare go out there and tell them you’re NOT my wife?” he queried. His voice had grown stronger and his eyes were blending shadows of thought.

Joan knew that she dared not. She must choose the lesser of two evils. “No man — could be such a beast to a woman — after she’d saved his life,” she whispered.

“I could be anything. You had your chance. I told you to go. I said if I ever got well I’d be as I was — before.”

“But you’d have died.”

“That would have been better for you..... Joan, I’ll do this. Marry you honestly and leave the country. I’ve gold. I’m young. I love you. I intend to have you. And I’ll begin life over again. What do you say?”

“Say? I’d die before — I’d marry you!” she panted.

“All right, Joan Randle,” he replied, bitterly. “For a moment I saw a ghost. My old dead better self!... It’s gone.... And you stay with me.”

CHAPTER 7

AFTER DARK KELLS had his men build a fire before the open side of the cabin. He lay propped up on blankets and his saddle, while the others lounged or sat in a half-circle in the light, facing him.

Joan drew her blankets into a corner where the shadows were thick and she could see without being seen. She wondered how she would ever sleep near all these wild men — if she could ever sleep again. Yet she seemed more curious and wakeful than frightened. She had no way to explain it, but she felt the fact that her presence in the camp had a subtle influence, at once restraining and exciting. So she looked out upon the scene with wide-open eyes.

And she received more strongly than ever an impression of wildness. Even the camp-fire seemed to burn wildly; it did not glow and sputter and pale and brighten and sing like an honest camp-fire. It blazed in red, fierce, hurried flames, wild to consume the logs. It cast a baleful and sinister color upon the hard faces there. Then the blackness of the enveloping night was pitchy, without any bold outline of canon wall or companionship of stars. The coyotes were out in force and from all around came their wild sharp barks. The wind rose and mourned weirdly through the balsams.

But it was in the men that Joan felt mostly that element of wildness. Kells lay with his ghastly face clear in the play of the moving flare of light. It was an intelligent, keen, strong face, but evil. Evil power stood out in the lines, in the strange eyes, stranger then ever, now in shadow; and it seemed once more the face of an alert, listening, implacable man, with wild projects in mind, driving him to the doom he meant for others. Pearce’s red face shone redder in that ruddy light. It was hard, lean, almost fleshless, a red mask stretched over a grinning skull. The one they called Frenchy was little, dark, small-featured, with piercing gimlet-like eyes, and a mouth ready to gush forth hate and violence. The next two were not particularly individualized by any striking aspect, merely looking border ruffians after the type of Bill and Halloway. But Gulden, who sat at the end of the half-circle, was an object that Joan could scarcely bring her gaze to study. Somehow her first glance at him put into her mind a strange idea — that she was a woman and therefore of all creatures or things in the world the farthest removed from him. She looked away, and found her gaze returning, fascinated, as if she were a bird and he a snake. The man was of huge frame, a giant whose every move suggested the acme of physical power. He was an animal — a gorilla with a shock of light instead of black hair, of pale instead of black skin. His features might have been hewn and hammered out with coarse, dull, broken chisels. And upon his face, in the lines and cords, in the huge caverns where his eyes hid, and in the huge gash that held strong, white fangs, had been stamped by nature and by life a terrible ferocity. Here was a man or a monster in whose presence Joan felt that she would rather be dead. He did not smoke; he did not indulge in the coarse, good-natured raillery, he sat there like a huge engine of destruction that needed no rest, but was forced to rest because of weaker attachments. On the other hand, he was not sullen or brooding. It was that he did not seem to think.

Kells had been rapidly gaining strength since the extraction of the bullet, and it was evident that his interest was growing proportionately. He asked questions and received most of his replies from Red Pearce. Joan did not listen attentively at first, but presently she regretted that she had not. She gathered that Kells’s fame as the master bandit of the whole gold region of Idaho, Nevada, and northeastern California was a fame that he loved as much as the gold he stole. Joan sensed, through the replies of these men and their attitude toward Kells, that his power was supreme. He ruled the robbers and ruffians in his bands, and evidently they were scattered from Bannack to Lewiston and all along the border. He had power, likewise, over the border hawks not directly under his leadership. During the weeks of his enforced stay in the canon there had been a cessation of operations — the nature of which Joan merely guessed — and a gradual accumulation of idle wailing men in the main camp. Also she gathered, but vaguely, that though Kells had supreme power, the organization he desired was yet far from being consummated. He showed thoughtfulness and irritation by turns, and it was the subject of gold that drew his intensest interest.

“Reckon you figgered right, Jack,” said Red Pearce, and paused as if before a long talk, while he refilled his pipe. “Sooner or later there’ll be the biggest gold strike ever made in the West. Wagon-trains are met every day comin’ across from Salt Lake. Prospectors are workin’ in hordes down from Bannack. All the gulches an’ valleys in the Bear Mountains have their camps. Surface gold everywhere an’ easy to get where there’s water. But there’s diggin’s all over. No big strike yet. It’s bound to come sooner or later. An’ then when the news hits the main-traveled roads an’ reaches back into the mountains there’s goin’ to be a rush that’ll make ‘49 an’ ‘51 look sick. What do you say, Bate?”

“Shore will,” replied a grizzled individual whom Kells had called Bate Wood. He was not so young as his companions, more sober, less wild, and slower of speech. “I saw both ‘49 and ‘51. Them was days! But I’m agreein’ with Red. There shore will be hell on this Idaho border sooner or later. I’ve been a prospector, though I never hankered after the hard work of diggin’ gold. Gold is hard to dig, easy to lose, an’ easy to get from some other feller. I see the signs of a comin’ strike somewhere in this region. Mebbe it’s on now. There’s thousands of prospectors in twos an’ threes an’ groups, out in the hills all over. They ain’t a-goin’ to tell when they do make a strike. But the gold must be brought out. An’ gold is heavy. It ain’t easy hid. Thet’s how strikes are discovered. I shore reckon thet this year will beat ‘49 an’ ‘51. An’ fer two reasons. There’s a steady stream of broken an’ disappointed gold-seekers back-trailin’ from California. There’s a bigger stream of hopeful an’ crazy fortune hunters travelin’ in from the East. Then there’s the wimmen an’ gamblers an’ such thet hang on. An’ last the men thet the war is drivin’ out here. Whenever an’ wherever these streams meet, if there’s a big gold strike, there’ll be the hellishest time the world ever saw!”

“Boys,” said Kells, with a ring in his weak voice, “it’ll be a harvest for my Border Legion.”

“Fer what?” queried Bate Wood, curiously.

All the others except Gulden turned inquiring and interested faces toward the bandit.

“The Border Legion,” replied Kells.

“An’ what’s that?” asked Red Pearce, bluntly.

“Well, if the time’s ripe for the great gold fever you say is coming, then it’s ripe for the greatest band ever organized. I’ll organize. I’ll call it the Border Legion.”

“Count me in as right-hand, pard,” replied Red, with enthusiasm.

“An’ shore me, boss,” added Bate Wood.

The idea was received vociferously, at which demonstration the giant Gulden raised his massive head and asked, or rather growled, in a heavy voice what the fuss was about. His query, his roused presence, seemed to act upon the others, even Kells, with a strange, disquieting or halting force, as if here was a character or an obstacle to be considered. After a moment of silence Red Pearce explained the project.

“Huh! Nothing new in that,” replied Gulden. “I belonged to one once. It was in Algiers. They called it the Royal Legion.”

“Algiers. What’s thet?” asked Bate Wood.

“Africa,” replied Gulden.

“Say, Gul, you’ve been around some,” said Red Pearce, admiringly. “What was the Royal Legion?”

“Nothing but a lot of devils from all over. The border there was the last place. Every criminal was safe from pursuit.”

“What’d you do?”

“Fought among ourselves. Wasn’t many in the Legion when I left.”

“Shore thet ain’t strange!” exclaimed Wood, significantly. But his inference was lost upon Gulden.

“I won’t allow fighting in my Legion,” said Kells, coolly. “I’ll pick this band myself.”

“Thet’s the secret,” rejoined Wood. “The right fellers. I’ve been in all kinds of bands. Why, I even was a vigilante in ‘51.”

This elicited a laugh from his fellows, except the wooden-faced Gulden.

“How many do we want?” asked Red Pearce.

“The number doesn’t matter. But they must be men I can trust and control. Then as lieutenants I’ll need a few young fellows, like you, Red. Nervy, daring, cool, quick of wits.”

Red Pearce enjoyed the praise bestowed upon him and gave his shoulders a swagger. “Speakin’ of that, boss,” he said, “reminds me of a chap who rode into Cabin Gulch a few weeks ago. Braced right into Beard’s place, where we was all playin’ faro, an’ he asks for Jack Kells. Right off we all thought he was a guy who had a grievance, an’ some of us was for pluggin’ him. But I kinda liked him an’ I cooled the gang down. Glad I did that. He wasn’t wantin’ to throw a gun. His intentions were friendly. Of course I didn’t show curious about who or what he was. Reckoned he was a young feller who’d gone bad sudden-like an’ was huntin’ friends. An’ I’m here to say, boss, that he was wild.”

“What’s his name?” asked Kells.

“Jim Cleve, he said,” replied Pearce.

Joan Randle, hidden back in the shadows, forgotten or ignored by this bandit group, heard the name Jim Cleve with pain and fear, but not amaze. From the moment Pearce began his speech she had been prepared for the revelation of her runaway lover’s name. She trembled, and grew a little sick. Jim had made no idle threat. What would she have given to live over again the moment that had alienated him?

“Jim Cleve,” mused Kells. “Never heard of him. And I never forget a name or a face. What’s he like?”

“Clean, rangy chap, big, but not too big,” replied Pearce. “All muscle. Not more’n twenty three. Hard rider, hard fighter, hard gambler an’ drinker — reckless as hell. If only you can steady him, boss! Ask Bate what he thinks.”

“Well!” exclaimed Kells in surprise. “Strangers are everyday occurrences on this border. But I never knew one to impress you fellows as this Cleve.... Bate, what do you say? What’s this Cleve done? You’re an old head. Talk, sense, now.”

“Done?” echoed Wood, scratching his grizzled head. “What in the hell ain’t he done?... He rode in brazener than any feller thet ever stacked up against this outfit. An’ straight-off he wins the outfit. I don’t know how he done it. Mebbe it was because you seen he didn’t care fer anythin’ or anybody on earth. He stirred us up. He won all the money we had in camp — broke most of us — an’ give it all back. He drank more’n the whole outfit, yet didn’t get drunk. He threw his gun on Beady Jones fer cheatin’ an’ then on Beady’s pard, Chick Williams. Didn’t shoot to kill — jest winged ‘em. But say, he’s the quickest and smoothest hand to throw a gun thet ever hit this border. Don’t overlook thet.... Kells, this Jim Cleve’s a great youngster goin’ bad quick. An’ I’m here to add that he’ll take some company along.”

“Bate, you forgot to tell how he handled Luce,” said Red Pearee. “You was there. I wasn’t. Tell Kells that.”

“Luce. I know the man. Go ahead, Bate,” responded Kells.

“Mebbe it ain’t any recommendation fer said Jim Cleve,” replied Wood. “Though it did sorta warm me to him.... Boss, of course, you recollect thet little Brander girl over at Bear Lake village. She’s old Brander’s girl — worked in his store there. I’ve seen you talk sweet to her myself. Wal, it seems the old man an’ some of his boys took to prospectin’ an’ fetched the girl along. Thet’s how I understood it. Luce came bracin’ in over at Cabin Gulch one day. As usual, we was drinkin’ an’ playin’. But young Cleve wasn’t doin’ neither. He had a strange, moody spell thet day, as I recollect. Luce sprung a job on us. We never worked with him or his outfit, but mebbe — you can’t tell what’d come off if it hadn’t been for Cleve. Luce had a job put up to ride down where ole Brander was washin’ fer gold, take what he had — AN’ the girl. Fact was the gold was only incidental. When somebody cornered Luce he couldn’t swear there was gold worth goin’ after. An’ about then Jim Cleve woke up. He cussed Luce somethin’ fearful. An’ when Luce went for his gun, natural-like, why this Jim Cleve took it away from him. An’ then he jumped Luce. He knocked an’ threw him around an’ he near beat him to death before we could interfere. Luce was shore near dead. All battered up — broken bones — an’ what-all I can’t say. We put him to bed an’ he’s there yet, an’ he’ll never be the same man he was.”

A significant silence fell upon the group at the conclusion of Wood’s narrative. Wood had liked the telling, and it made his listeners thoughtful. All at once the pale face of Kells turned slightly toward Gulden.

“Gulden, did you hear that?” asked Kells.

“Yes,” replied the man.

“What do you think about this Jim Cleve — and the job he prevented?”

“Never saw Cleve. I’ll look him up when we get back to camp. Then I’ll go after the Brander girl.”

How strangely his brutal assurance marked a line between him and his companions! There was something wrong, something perverse in this Gulden. Had Kells meant to bring that point out or to get an impression of Cleve?

Joan could not decide. She divined that there was antagonism between Gulden and all the others. And there was something else, vague and intangible, that might have been fear. Apparently Gulden was a criminal for the sake of crime. Joan regarded him with a growing terror — augmented the more because he alone kept eyes upon the corner where she was hidden — and she felt that compared with him the others, even Kells, of whose cold villainy she was assured, were but insignificant men of evil. She covered her head with a blanket to shut out sight of that shaggy, massive head and the great dark caves of eyes.

Thereupon Joan did not see or hear any more of the bandits. Evidently the conversation died down, or she, in the absorption of new thoughts, no longer heard. She relaxed, and suddenly seemed to quiver all over with the name she whispered to herself. “Jim! Jim! Oh, Jim!” And the last whisper was an inward sob. What he had done was terrible. It tortured her. She had not believed it in him. Yet, now she thought, how like him. All for her — in despair and spite — he had ruined himself. He would be killed out there in some drunken brawl, or, still worse, he would become a member of this bandit crew and drift into crime. That was a great blow to Joan — that the curse she had put upon him. How silly, false, and vain had been her coquetry, her indifference! She loved Jim Cleve. She had not known that when she started out to trail him, to fetch him back, but she knew it now. She ought to have known before.

The situation she had foreseen loomed dark and monstrous and terrible in prospect. Just to think of it made her body creep and shudder with cold terror. Yet there was that strange, inward, thrilling burn round her heart. Somewhere and soon she was coming face to face with this changed Jim Cleve — this boy who had become a reckless devil. What would he do? What could she do? Might he not despise her, scorn her, curse her, taking her at Kells’s word, the wife of a bandit? But no! he would divine the truth in the flash of an eye. And then! She could not think what might happen, but it must mean blood-death. If he escaped Kells, how could he ever escape this Gulden — this huge vulture of prey?

Still, with the horror thick upon her, Joan could not wholly give up. The moment Jim Cleve’s name and his ruin burst upon her ears, in the gossip of these bandits, she had become another girl — a girl wholly become a woman, and one with a driving passion to save if it cost her life. She lost her fear of Kells, of the others, of all except Gulden. He was not human, and instinctively she knew she could do nothing with him. She might influence the others, but never Gulden.

The torment in her brain eased then, and gradually she quieted down, with only a pang and a weight in her breast. The past seemed far away. The present was nothing. Only the future, that contained Jim Cleve, mattered to her. She would not have left the clutches of Kells, if at that moment she could have walked forth free and safe. She was going on to Cabin Gulch. And that thought was the last one in her weary mind as she dropped to sleep.

CHAPTER 8

IN THREE DAYS — during which time Joan attended Kells as faithfully as if she were indeed his wife — he thought that he had gained sufficiently to undertake the journey to the main camp, Cabin Gulch. He was eager to get back there and imperious in his overruling of any opposition. The men could take turns at propping him in a saddle. So on the morning of the fourth day they packed for the ride.

During these few days Joan had verified her suspicion that Kells had two sides to his character; or it seemed, rather, that her presence developed a latent or a long-dead side. When she was with him, thereby distracting his attention, he was entirely different from what he was when his men surrounded him. Apparently he had no knowledge of this. He showed surprise and gratitude at Joan’s kindness though never pity or compassion for her. That he had become infatuated with her Joan could no longer doubt. His strange eyes followed her; there was a dreamy light in them; he was mostly silent with her.

Before those few days had come to an end he had developed two things — a reluctance to let Joan leave his sight and an intolerance of the presence of the other men, particularly Gulden. Always Joan felt the eyes of these men upon her, mostly in unobtrusive glances, except Gulden’s. The giant studied her with slow, cavernous stare, without curiosity or speculation or admiration. Evidently a woman was a new and strange creature to him and he was experiencing unfamiliar sensations. Whenever Joan accidentally met his gaze — for she avoided it as much as possible — she shuddered with sick memory of a story she had heard — how a huge and ferocious gorilla had stolen into an African village and run off with a white woman. She could not shake the memory. And it was this that made her kinder to Kells than otherwise would have been possible.

All Joan’s faculties sharpened in this period. She felt her own development — the beginning of a bitter and hard education — an instinctive assimilation of all that nature taught its wild people and creatures, the first thing in elemental life — self-preservation. Parallel in her heart and mind ran a hopeless despair and a driving, unquenchable spirit. The former was fear, the latter love. She believed beyond a doubt that she had doomed herself along with Jim Cleve; she felt that she had the courage, the power, the love to save him, if not herself. And the reason that she did not falter and fail in this terrible situation was because her despair, great as it was, did not equal her love.

That morning, before being lifted upon his horse, Kells buckled on his gun-belt. The sheath and full round of shells and the gun made this belt a burden for a weak man. And so Red Pearce insisted. But Kells laughed in his face. The men, always excepting Gulden, were unfailing in kindness and care. Apparently they would have fought for Kells to the death. They were simple and direct in their rough feelings. But in Kells, Joan thought, was a character who was a product of this border wildness, yet one who could stand aloof from himself and see the possibilities, the unexpected, the meaning of that life. Kells knew that a man and yet another might show kindness and faithfulness one moment, but the very next, out of a manhood retrograded to the savage, out of the circumstance or chance, might respond to a primitive force far sundered from thought or reason, and rise to unbridled action. Joan divined that Kells buckled on his gun to be ready to protect her. But his men never dreamed his motive. Kells was a strong, bad man set among men like him, yet he was infinitely different because he had brains.

On the start of the journey Joan was instructed to ride before Kells and Pearce, who supported the leader in his saddle. The pack-drivers and Bate Wood and Frenchy rode ahead; Gulden held to the rear. And this order was preserved till noon, when the cavalcade halted for a rest in a shady, grassy, and well-watered nook. Kells was haggard, and his brow wet with clammy dew, and lined with pain. Yet he was cheerful and patient. Still he hurried the men through their tasks.

In an hour the afternoon travel was begun. The canon and its surroundings grew more rugged and of larger dimensions. Yet the trail appeared to get broader and better all the time. Joan noticed intersecting trails, running down from side canons and gulches. The descent was gradual, and scarcely evident in any way except in the running water and warmer air.

Kells, tired before the middle of the afternoon, and he would have fallen from his saddle but for the support of his fellows. One by one they held him up. And it was not easy work to ride alongside, holding him up. Joan observed that Gulden did not offer his services. He seemed a part of this gang, yet not of it. Joan never lost a feeling of his presence behind her, and from time to time, when he rode closer, the feeling grew stronger. Toward the close of that afternoon she became aware of Gulden’s strange attention. And when a halt was made for camp she dreaded something nameless.

This halt occurred early, before sunset, and had been necessitated by the fact that Kells was fainting. They laid him out on blankets, with his head in his saddle. Joan tended him, and he recovered somewhat, though he lacked the usual keenness.

It was a busy hour with saddles, packs, horses, with wood to cut and fire to build and meal to cook. Kells drank thirstily, but refused food.

“Joan,” he whispered, at an opportune moment, “I’m only tired — dead for sleep. You stay beside me. Wake me quick — if you want to!”

He closed his eyes wearily, without explaining, and soon slumbered. Joan did not choose to allow these men to see that she feared them or distrusted them or disliked them. She ate with them beside the fire. And this was their first opportunity to be close to her. The fact had an immediate and singular influence. Joan had no vanity, though she knew she was handsome. She forced herself to be pleasant, agreeable, even sweet. Their response was instant and growing. At first they were bold, then familiar and coarse. For years she had been used to rough men of the camps. These however, were different, and their jokes and suggestions had no effect because they were beyond her. And when this became manifest to them that aspect of their relation to her changed. She grasped the fact intuitively, and then she verified it by proof. Her heart beat strong and high. If she could hide her hate, her fear, her abhorrence, she could influence these wild men. But it all depended upon her charm, her strangeness, her femininity. Insensibly they had been influenced, and it proved that in the worst of men there yet survived some good. Gulden alone presented a contrast and a problem. He appeared aware of her presence while he sat there eating like a wolf, but it was as if she were only an object. The man watched as might have an animal.

Her experience at the camp-fire meal inclined her to the belief that, if there were such a possibility as her being safe at all, it would be owing to an unconscious and friendly attitude toward the companions she had been forced to accept. Those men were pleased, stirred at being in her vicinity. Joan came to a melancholy and fearful cognizance of her attraction. While at home she seldom had borne upon her a reality — that she was a woman. Her place, her person were merely natural. Here it was all different. To these wild men, developed by loneliness, fierce-blooded, with pulses like whips, a woman was something that thrilled, charmed, soothed, that incited a strange, insatiable, inexplicable hunger for the very sight of her. They did not realize it, but Joan did.

Presently Joan finished her supper and said: “I’ll go hobble my horse. He strays sometimes.”

“Shore I’ll go, miss,” said Bate Wood. He had never called her Mrs. Kells, but Joan believed he had not thought of the significance. Hardened old ruffian that he was. Joan regarded him as the best of a bad lot. He had lived long, and some of his life had not been bad.

“Let me go,” added Pearce.

“No, thanks. I’ll go myself,” she replied.

She took the rope hobble off her saddle and boldly swung down the trail. Suddenly she heard two or more of the men speak at once, and then, low and clear: “Gulden, where’n hell are you goin’?” This was Red Pearce’s voice.

Joan glanced back. Gulden had started down the trail after her. Her heart quaked, her knees shook, and she was ready to run back. Gulden halted, then turned away, growling. He acted as if caught in something surprising to himself.

“We’re on to you, Gulden,” continued Pearce, deliberately. “Be careful or we’ll put Kells on.”

A booming, angry curse was the response. The men grouped closer and a loud altercation followed. Joan almost ran down the trail and heard no more. If any one of them had started her way now she would have plunged into the thickets like a frightened deer. Evidently, however, they meant to let her alone. Joan found her horse, and before hobbling him she was assailed by a temptation to mount him and ride away. This she did not want to do and would not do under any circumstances; still, she could not prevent the natural instinctive impulse of a woman.

She crossed to the other side of the brook and returned toward camp under the spruce and balsam trees, She did not hurry. It was good to be alone, out of sight of those violent men, away from that constant wearing physical proof of catastrophe. Nevertheless, she did not feel free or safe for a moment; she peered fearfully into the shadows of the rocks and trees; and presently it was a relief to get back to the side of the sleeping Kells. He lay in a deep slumber of exhaustion. She arranged her own saddle and blankets near him, and prepared to meet the night as best she could. Instinctively she took a position where in one swift snatch she could get possession of Kells’s gun.

It was about time of sunset, warm and still in the canon, with rosy lights fading upon the peaks. The men were all busy with one thing and another. Strange it was to see that Gulden, who Joan thought might be a shirker, did twice the work of any man, especially the heavy work. He seemed to enjoy carrying a log that would have overweighted two ordinary men. He was so huge, so active, so powerful that it was fascinating to watch him. They built the camp-fire for the night uncomfortably near Joan’s position; however, remembering how cold the air would become later, she made no objection. Twilight set in and the men, through for the day, gathered near the fire.

Then Joan was not long in discovering that the situation had begun to impinge upon the feelings of each of these men. They looked at her differently. Some of them invented pretexts to approach her, to ask something, to offer service — anything to get near her. A personal and individual note had been injected into the attitude of each. Intuitively Joan guessed that Gulden’s arising to follow her had turned their eyes inward. Gulden remained silent and inactive at the edge of the camp-fire circle of light, which flickered fitfully around him, making him seem a huge, gloomy ape of a man. So far as Joan could tell, Gulden never cast his eyes in her direction. That was a difference which left cause for reflection. Had that hulk of brawn and bone begun to think? Bate Wood’s overtures to Joan were rough, but inexplicable to her because she dared not wholly trust him.

“An’ shore, miss,” he had concluded, in a hoarse whisper, “we-all know you ain’t Kells’s wife. Thet bandit wouldn’t marry no woman. He’s a woman-hater. He was famous fer thet over in California. He’s run off with you — kidnapped you, thet’s shore.... An’ Gulden swears he shot his own men an’ was in turn shot by you. Thet bullet-hole in his back was full of powder. There’s liable to be a muss-up any time.... Shore, miss, you’d better sneak off with me tonight when they’re all asleep. I’ll git grub an’ hosses, an’ take you off to some prospector’s camp. Then you can git home.”

Joan only shook her head. Even if she could have felt trust in Wood — and she was of half a mind to believe him — it was too late. Whatever befell her mattered little if in suffering it she could save Jim Cleve from the ruin she had wrought.

Since this wild experience of Joan’s had begun she had been sick so many times with raw and naked emotions hitherto unknown to her, that she believed she could not feel another new fear or torture. But these strange sensations grew by what they had been fed upon.

The man called Frenchy, was audacious, persistent, smiling, amorous-eyed, and rudely gallant. He cared no more for his companions than if they had not been there. He vied with Pearce in his attention, and the two of them discomfited the others. The situation might have been amusing had it not been so terrible. Always the portent was a shadow behind their interest and amiability and jealousy. Except for that one abrupt and sinister move of Gulden’s — that of a natural man beyond deceit — there was no word, no look, no act at which Joan could have been offended. They were joking, sarcastic, ironical, and sullen in their relation to each other; but to Joan each one presented what was naturally or what he considered his kindest and most friendly front. A young and attractive woman had dropped into the camp of lonely wild men; and in their wild hearts was a rebirth of egotism, vanity, hunger for notice. They seemed as foolish as a lot of cock grouse preening themselves and parading before a single female. Surely in some heart was born real brotherhood for a helpless girl in peril. Inevitably in some of them would burst a flame of passion as it had in Kells.

Between this amiable contest for Joan’s glances and replies, with its possibility of latent good to her, and the dark, lurking, unspoken meaning, such as lay in Gulden’s brooding, Joan found another new and sickening torture.

“Say, Frenchy, you’re no lady’s man,” declared Red Pearce, “an’ you, Bate, you’re too old. Move — pass by — sashay!” Pearce, good-naturedly, but deliberately, pushed the two men back.

“Shore she’s Kells’s lady, ain’t she?” drawled Wood. “Ain’t you all forgettin’ thet?”

“Kells is asleep or dead,” replied Pearce, and he succeeded in getting the field to himself.

“Where’d you meet Kells anyway?” he asked Joan, with his red face bending near hers.

Joan had her part to play. It was difficult, because she divined Pearce’s curiosity held a trap to catch her in a falsehood. He knew — they all knew she was not Kells’s wife. But if she were a prisoner she seemed a willing and contented one. The query that breathed in Pearce’s presence was how was he to reconcile the fact of her submission with what he and his comrades had potently felt as her goodness?

“That doesn’t concern anybody,” replied Joan.

“Reckon not,” said Pearce. Then he leaned nearer with intense face. “What I want to know — is Gulden right? Did you shoot Kells?”

In the dusk Joan reached back and clasped Kells hand.

For a man as weak and weary as he had been, it was remarkable how quickly a touch awakened him. He lifted his head.

“Hello! Who’s that?” he called out, sharply.

Pearce rose guardedly, startled, but not confused. “It’s only me, boss,” he replied. “I was about to turn in, an’ I wanted to know how you are — if I could do anythin’.”

“I’m all right, Red,” replied Kells, coolly. “Clear out and let me alone. All of you.”

Pearce moved away with an amiable good-night and joined the others at the camp-fire. Presently they sought their blankets, leaving Gulden hunching there silent in the gloom.

“Joan, why did you wake me?” whispered Kells.

“Pearce asked me if I shot you,” replied Joan. “I woke you instead of answering him.”

“He did!” exclaimed Kells under his breath. Then he laughed. “Can’t fool that gang. I guess it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’d be well if they knew you shot me.”

He appeared thoughtful, and lay there with the fading flare of the fire on his pale face. But he did not speak again. Presently he fell asleep.

Joan leaned back, within reach of him, with her head in her saddle, and pulling a blanket up over her, relaxed her limbs to rest. Sleep seemed the furthest thing from her. She wondered that she dared to think of it. The night had grown chilly; the wind was sweeping with low roar through the balsams; the fire burned dull and red. Joan watched the black, shapeless hulk that she knew to be Gulden. For a long time he remained motionless. By and by he moved, approached the fire, stood one moment in the dying ruddy glow, his great breadth and bulk magnified, with all about him vague and shadowy, but the more sinister for that. The cavernous eyes were only black spaces in that vast face, yet Joan saw them upon her. He lay down then among the other men and soon his deep and heavy breathing denoted the tranquil slumber of an ox.

For hours through changing shadows and starlight Joan lay awake, while a thousand thoughts besieged her, all centering round that vital and compelling one of Jim Cleve.

Only upon awakening, with the sun in her face, did Joan realize that she had actually slept.

The camp was bustling with activity. The horses were in, fresh and quarrelsome, with ears laid back. Kells was sitting upon a rock near the fire with a cup of coffee in his hand. He was looking better. When he greeted Joan his voice sounded stronger. She walked by Pearce and Frenchy and Gulden on her way to the brook, but they took no notice of her. Bate Wood, however, touched his sombrero and said: “Mornin’, miss.” Joan wondered if her memory of the preceding night were only a bad dream. There was a different atmosphere by daylight, and it was dominated by Kells. Presently she returned to camp refreshed and hungry. Gulden was throwing a pack, which action he performed with ease and dexterity. Pearce was cinching her saddle. Kells was talking, more like his old self than at any time since his injury.

Soon they were on the trail. For Joan time always passed swiftly on horseback. Movement and changing scene were pleasurable to her. The passing of time now held a strange expectancy, a mingled fear and hope and pain, for at the end of this trail was Jim Cleve. In other days she had flouted him, made fun of him, dominated him, everything except loved and feared him. And now she was assured of her love and almost convinced of her fear. The reputation these wild bandits gave Jim was astounding and inexplicable to Joan. She rode the miles thinking of Jim, dreading to meet him, longing to see him, and praying and planning for him.

About noon the cavalcade rode out of the mouth of a canon into a wide valley, surrounded by high, rounded foot-hills. Horses and cattle were grazing on the green levels. A wide, shallow, noisy stream split the valley. Joan could tell from the tracks at the crossing that this place, whatever and wherever it was, saw considerable travel; and she concluded the main rendezvous of the bandits was close at hand.

The pack drivers led across the stream and the valley to enter an intersecting ravine. It was narrow, rough-sided, and floored, but the trail was good. Presently it opened out into a beautiful V-shaped gulch, very different from the high-walled, shut-in canons. It had a level floor, through which a brook flowed, and clumps of spruce and pine, with here and there a giant balsam. Huge patches of wild flowers gave rosy color to the grassy slopes. At the upper end of this gulch Joan saw a number of widely separated cabins. This place, then, was Cabin Gulch.

Upon reaching the first cabin the cavalcade split up. There were men here who hallooed a welcome. Gulden halted with his pack-horse. Some of the others rode on. Wood drove other pack-animals off to the right, up the gentle slope. And Red Pearce, who was beside Kells, instructed Joan to follow them. They rode up to a bench of straggling spruce-trees, in the midst of which stood a large log cabin. It was new, as in fact all the structures in the Gulch appeared to be, and none of them had seen a winter. The chinks between the logs were yet open. This cabin was of the rudest make of notched logs one upon another, and roof of brush and earth. It was low and flat, but very long, and extending before the whole of it was a porch roof supported by posts. At one end was a corral. There were doors and windows with nothing in them. Upon the front wall, outside, hung saddles and bridles.

Joan had a swift, sharp gaze for the men who rose from their lounging to greet the travelers. Jim Cleve was not among them. Her heart left her throat then, and she breathed easier. How could she meet him?

Kells was in better shape than at noon of the preceding day. Still, he had to be lifted off his horse. Joan heard all the men talking at once. They crowded round Pearce, each lending a hand. However, Kells appeared able to walk into the cabin. It was Bate Wood who led Joan inside.

There was a long room, with stone fireplace, rude benches and a table, skins and blankets on the floor, and lanterns and weapons on the wall. At one end Joan saw a litter of cooking utensils and shelves of supplies.

Suddenly Kells’s impatient voice silenced the clamor of questions. “I’m not hurt,” he said. “I’m all right — only weak and tired. Fellows, this girl is my wife.... Joan, you’ll find a room there — at the back of the cabin. Make yourself comfortable.”

Joan was only too glad to act upon his suggestion. A door had been cut through the back wall. It was covered with a blanket. When she swept this aside she came upon several steep steps that led up to a smaller, lighter cabin of two rooms, separated by a partition of boughs. She dropped the blanket behind her and went up the steps. Then she saw that the new cabin had been built against an old one. It had no door or opening except the one by which she had entered. It was light because the chinks between the logs were open. The furnishings were a wide bench of boughs covered with blankets, a shelf with a blurred and cracked mirror hanging above it, a table made of boxes, and a lantern. This room was four feet higher than the floor of the other cabin. And at the bottom of the steps leaned a half-dozen slender trimmed poles. She gathered presently that these poles were intended to be slipped under crosspieces above and fastened by a bar below, which means effectually barricaded the opening. Joan could stand at the head of the steps and peep under an edge of the swinging blanket into the large room, but that was the only place she could see through, for the openings between the logs of each wall were not level. These quarters were comfortable, private, and could be shut off from intruders. Joan had not expected so much consideration from Kells and she was grateful.

She lay down to rest and think. It was really very pleasant here. There were birds nesting in the chinks; a ground squirrel ran along one of the logs and chirped at her; through an opening near her face she saw a wild rose-bush and the green slope of the gulch; a soft, warm, fragrant breeze blew in, stirring her hair. How strange that there could be beautiful and pleasant things here in this robber den; that time was the same here as elsewhere; that the sun shone and the sky gleamed blue. Presently she discovered that a lassitude weighted upon her and she could not keep her eyes open. She ceased trying, but intended to remain awake — to think, to listen, to wait. Nevertheless, she did fall asleep and did not awaken till disturbed by some noise. The color of the western sky told her that the afternoon was far spent. She had slept hours. Someone was knocking. She got up and drew aside the blanket. Bate Wood was standing near the door.

“Now, miss, I’ve supper ready,” he said, “an’ I was reckonin’ you’d like me to fetch yours.”

“Yes, thank you, I would,” replied Joan.

In a few moments Wood returned carrying the top of a box upon which were steaming pans and cups. He handed this rude tray up to Joan.

“Shore I’m a first-rate cook, miss, when I’ve somethin’ to cook,” he said with a smile that changed his hard face.

She returned the smile with her thanks. Evidently Kells had a well-filled larder, and as Joan had fared on coarse and hard food for long, this supper was a luxury and exceedingly appetizing. While she was eating, the blanket curtain moved aside and Kells appeared. He dropped it behind him, but did not step up into the room. He was in his shirt-sleeves, had been clean shaven, and looked a different man.

“How do you like your — home?” he inquired, with a hint of his former mockery.

“I’m grateful for the privacy,” she replied.

“You think you could be worse off, then?”

“I know it.”

“Suppose Gulden kills me — and rules the gang — and takes you?... There’s a story about him, the worst I’ve heard on this border. I’ll tell you some day when I want to scare you bad.”

“Gulden!” Joan shivered as she pronounced the name. “Are you and he enemies?”

“No man can have a friend on this border. We flock together like buzzards. There’s safety in numbers, but we fight together, like buzzards over carrion.”

“Kells, you hate this life?”

“I’ve always hated my life, everywhere. The only life I ever loved was adventure.... I’m willing to try a new one, if you’ll go with me.”

Joan shook her head.

“Why not? I’ll marry you,” he went on, speaking lower. “I’ve got gold; I’ll get more.”

“Where did you get the gold?” she asked

“I’ve relieved a good many overburdened travelers and prospectors,” he replied.

“Kells, you’re a — a villain!” exclaimed Joan, unable to contain her sudden heat. “You must be utterly mad — to ask me to marry you.”

“No, I’m not mad,” he rejoined, with a laugh. “Gulden’s the mad one. He’s crazy. He’s got a twist in his brain. I’m no fool.... I’ve only lost my head over you. But compare marrying me, living and traveling among decent people and comfort, to camps like this. If I don’t get drunk I’ll be half decent to you. But I’ll get shot sooner or later. Then you’ll be left to Gulden.”

“Why do you say HIM?” she queried, in a shudder of curiosity.

“Well, Gulden haunts me.”

“He does me, too. He makes me lose my sense of proportion. Beside him you and the others seem good. But you ARE wicked.”

“Then you won’t marry me and go away somewhere?... Your choice is strange. Because I tell you the truth.”

“Kells! I’m a woman. Something deep in me says you won’t keep me here — you can’t be so base. Not now, after I saved your life! It would be horrible — inhuman. I can’t believe any man born of a woman could do it.”

“But I want you — I love you!” he said, low and hard.

“Love! That’s not love,” she replied in scorn. “God only knows what it is.”

“Call it what you like,” he went on, bitterly. “You’re a young, beautiful, sweet woman. It’s wonderful to be near you. My life has been hell. I’ve had nothing. There’s only hell to look forward to — and hell at the end. Why shouldn’t I keep you here?”

“But, Kells, listen,” she whispered, earnestly, “suppose I am young and beautiful and sweet — as you said. I’m utterly in your power. I’m compelled to seek your protection from even worse men. You’re different from these others. You’re educated. You must have had — a — a good mother. Now you’re bitter, desperate, terrible. You hate life. You seem to think this charm you see in me will bring you something. Maybe a glimpse of joy! But how can it? You know better. How can it... unless I — I love you?”

Kells stared at her, the evil and hardness of his passion corded in his face. And the shadows of comprehending thought in his strange eyes showed the other side of the man. He was still staring at her while he reached to put aside the curtains; then he dropped his head and went out.

Joan sat motionless, watching the door where he had disappeared, listening to the mounting beats of her heart. She had only been frank and earnest with Kells. But he had taken a meaning from her last few words that she had not intended to convey. All that was woman in her — mounting, righting, hating — leaped to the power she sensed in herself. If she could be deceitful, cunning, shameless in holding out to Kells a possible return of his love, she could do anything with him. She knew it. She did not need to marry him or sacrifice herself. Joan was amazed that the idea remained an instant before her consciousness. But something had told her this was another kind of life than she had known, and all that was precious to her hung in the balance. Any falsity was justifiable, even righteous, under the circumstances. Could she formulate a plan that this keen bandit would not see through? The remotest possibility of her even caring for Kells — that was as much as she dared hint. But that, together with all the charm and seductiveness she could summon, might be enough. Dared she try it? If she tried and failed Kells would despise her, and then she was utterly lost. She was caught between doubt and hope. All that was natural and true in her shrank from such unwomanly deception; all that had been born of her wild experience inflamed her to play the game, to match Kells’s villainy with a woman’s unfathomable duplicity.

And while Joan was absorbed in thought the sun set, the light failed, twilight stole into the cabin, and then darkness. All this hour there had been a continual sound of men’s voices in the large cabin, sometimes low and at other times loud. It was only when Joan distinctly heard the name Jim Cleve that she was startled out of her absorption, thrilling and flushing. In her eagerness she nearly fell as she stepped and gropped through the darkness to the door, and as she drew aside the blanket her hand shook.

The large room was lighted by a fire and half a dozen lanterns. Through a faint tinge of blue smoke Joan saw men standing and sitting and lounging around Kells, who had a seat where the light fell full upon him. Evidently a lull had intervened in the talk. The dark faces Joan could see were all turned toward the door expectantly.

“Bring him in, Bate, and let’s look him over,” said Kells.

Then Bate Wood appeared, elbowing his way in, and he had his hand on the arm of a tall, lithe fellow. When they got into the light Joan quivered as if she had been stabbed. That stranger with Wood was Jim Cleve — Jim Cleve in frame and feature, yet not the same she knew.

“Cleve, glad to meet you,” greeted Kells, extending his hand.

“Thanks. Same to you,” replied Cleve, and he met the proffered hand. His voice was cold and colorless, unfamiliar to Joan. Was this man really Jim Cleve?

The meeting of Kells and Cleve was significant because of Kells’s interest and the silent attention of the men of his clan. It did not seem to mean anything to the white-faced, tragic-eyed Cleve. Joan gazed at him with utter amazement. She remembered a heavily built, florid Jim Cleve, an overgrown boy with a good-natured, lazy smile on his full face and sleepy eyes. She all but failed to recognize him in the man who stood there now, lithe and powerful, with muscles bulging in his coarse, white shirt. Joan’s gaze swept over him, up and down, shivering at the two heavy guns he packed, till it was transfixed on his face. The old, or the other, Jim Cleve had been homely, with too much flesh on his face to show force or fire. This man seemed beautiful. But it was a beauty of tragedy. He was as white as Kells, but smoothly, purely white, without shadow or sunburn. His lips seemed to have set with a bitter, indifferent laugh. His eyes looked straight out, piercing, intent, haunted, and as dark as night. Great blue circles lay under them, lending still further depth and mystery. It was a sad, reckless face that wrung Joan’s very heartstrings. She had come too late to save his happiness, but she prayed that it was not too late to save his honor and his soul.

While she gazed there had been further exchange of speech between Kells and Cleve, and she had heard, though not distinguished, what was said. Kells was unmistakably friendly, as were the other men within range of Joan’s sight. Cleve was surrounded; there were jesting and laughter; and then he was led to the long table where several men were already gambling.

Joan dropped the curtain, and in the darkness of her cabin she saw that white, haunting face, and when she covered her eyes she still saw it. The pain, the reckless violence, the hopeless indifference, the wreck and ruin in that face had been her doing. Why? How had Jim Cleve wronged her? He had loved her at her displeasure and had kissed her against her will. She had furiously upbraided him, and when he had finally turned upon her, threatening to prove he was no coward, she had scorned him with a girl’s merciless injustice. All her strength and resolve left her, momentarily, after seeing Jim there. Like a woman, she weakened. She lay on the bed and writhed. Doubt, hopelessness, despair, again seized upon her, and some strange, yearning maddening emotion. What had she sacrificed? His happiness and her own — and both their lives!

The clamor in the other cabin grew so boisterous that suddenly when it stilled Joan was brought sharply to the significance of it. Again she drew aside the curtain and peered out.

Gulden, huge, stolid, gloomy, was entering the cabin. The man fell into the circle and faced Kell with the fire-light dancing in his cavernous eyes.

“Hello, Gulden!” said Kells, coolly. “What ails you?”

“Anybody tell you about Bill Bailey?” asked Gulden, heavily.

Kells did not show the least concern. “Tell me what?”

“That he died in a cabin, down in the valley?”

Kells gave a slight start and his eyes narrowed and shot steely glints. “No. It’s news to me.”

“Kells, you left Bailey for dead. But he lived. He was shot through, but he got there somehow — nobody knows. He was far gone when Beady Jones happened along. Before he died he sent word to me by Beady.... Are you curious to know what it was?”

“Not the least,” replied Kells. “Bailey was — well, offensive to my wife. I shot him.”

“He swore you drew on him in cold blood,” thundered Gulden. “He swore it was for nothing — just so you could be alone with that girl!”

Kells rose in wonderful calmness, with only his pallor and a slight shaking of his hands to betray excitement. An uneasy stir and murmur ran through the room. Red Pearce, nearest at hand, stepped to Kells’s side. All in a moment there was a deadly surcharged atmosphere there.

“Well, he swore right!... Now what’s it to you?”

Apparently the fact and its confession were nothing particular to Gulden, or else he was deep where all considered him only dense and shallow.

“It’s done. Bill’s dead,” continued Gulden. “But why do you double-cross the gang? What’s the game? You never did it before.... That girl isn’t your—”

“Shut up!” hissed Kells. Like a flash his hand flew out with his gun, and all about him was dark menace.

Gulden made no attempt to draw. He did not show surprise nor fear nor any emotion. He appeared plodding in mind. Red Pearce stepped between Kells and Gulden. There was a realization in the crowd, loud breaths, scraping of feet. Gulden turned away. Then Kells resumed his seat and his pipe as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

CHAPTER 9

JOAN TURNED AWAY from the door in a cold clamp of relief. The shadow of death hovered over these men. She must fortify herself to live under that shadow, to be prepared for any sudden violence, to stand a succession of shocks that inevitably would come. She listened. The men were talking and laughing now; there came a click of chips, the spat of a thrown card, the thump of a little sack of gold. Ahead of her lay the long hours of night in which these men would hold revel. Only a faint ray of light penetrated her cabin, but it was sufficient for her to distinguish objects. She set about putting the poles in place to barricade the opening. When she had finished she knew she was safe at least from intrusion. Who had constructed that rude door and for what purpose? Then she yielded to the temptation to peep once more under the edge of the curtain.

The room was cloudy and blue with smoke. She saw Jim Cleve at a table gambling with several ruffians. His back was turned, yet Joan felt the contrast of his attitude toward the game, compared with that of the others. They were tense, fierce, and intent upon every throw of a card. Cleve’s very poise of head and movement of arm betrayed his indifference. One of the gamblers howled his disgust, slammed down his cards, and got up.

“He’s cleaned out,” said one, in devilish glee.

“Naw, he ain’t,” voiced another. “He’s got two fruit-cans full of dust. I saw ‘em.... He’s just lay down — like a poisoned coyote.”

“Shore I’m glad Cleve’s got the luck, fer mebbe he’ll give my gold back,” spoke up another gamester, with a laugh.

“Wal, he certainlee is the chilvalus card sharp,” rejoined the last player. “Jim, was you allus as lucky in love as in cards?”

“Lucky in love?... Sure!” answered Jim Cleve, with a mocking, reckless ring in his voice.

“Funny, ain’t thet, boys? Now there’s the boss. Kells can sure win the gurls, but he’s a pore gambler.” Kells heard this speech, and he laughed with the others. “Hey, you greaser, you never won any of my money,” he said.

“Come an’ set in, boss. Come an’ see your gold fade away. You can’t stop this Jim Cleve. Luck — bull luck straddles his neck. He’ll win your gold — your hosses an’ saddles an’ spurs an’ guns — an’ your shirt, if you’ve nerve enough to bet it.”

The speaker slapped his cards upon the table while he gazed at Cleve in grieved admiration. Kells walked over to the group and he put his hand on Cleve’s shoulder.

“Say youngster,” he said, genially, “you said you were just as lucky in love.... Now I had a hunch some BAD luck with a girl drove you out here to the border.”

Kells spoke jestingly, in a way that could give no offense, even to the wildest of boys, yet there was curiosity, keenness, penetration, in his speech. It had not the slightest effect upon Jim Cleve.

“Bad luck and a girl?... To hell with both!” he said.

“Shore you’re talkin’ religion. Thet’s where both luck an’ gurls come from,” replied the unlucky gamester. “Will one of you hawgs pass the whiskey?”

The increased interest with which Kells looked down upon Jim Cleve was not lost upon Joan. But she had seen enough, and, turning away, she stumbled to the bed and lay there with an ache in her heart.

“Oh,” she whispered to herself, “he is ruined — ruined — ruined!... God forgive me!” She saw bright, cold stars shining between the logs. The night wind swept in cold and pure, with the dew of the mountain in it. She heard the mourn of wolves, the hoot of an owl, the distant cry of a panther, weird and wild. Yet outside there was a thick and lonely silence. In that other cabin, from which she was mercifully shut out, there were different sounds, hideous by contrast. By and by she covered her ears, and at length, weary from thought and sorrow, she drifted into slumber.

Next morning, long after she had awakened, the cabin remained quiet, with no one stirring. Morning had half gone before Wood knocked and gave her a bucket of water, a basin and towels. Later he came with her breakfast. After that she had nothing to do but pace the floor of her two rooms. One appeared to be only an empty shed, long in disuse. Her view from both rooms was restricted to the green slope of the gulch up to yellow crags and the sky. But she would rather have had this to watch than an outlook upon the cabins and the doings of these bandits.

About noon she heard the voice of Kells in low and earnest conversation with someone; she could not, however, understand what was said. That ceased, and then she heard Kells moving around. There came a clatter of hoofs as a horse galloped away from the cabin, after which a knock sounded on the wall.

“Joan,” called Kells. Then the curtain was swept aside and Kells, appearing pale and troubled, stepped into her room.

“What’s the matter?” asked Joan, hurriedly.

“Gulden shot two men this morning. One’s dead. The other’s in bad shape, so Red tells me. I haven’t seen him.”

“Who — who are they?” faltered Joan. She could not think of any man except Jim Cleve.

“Dan Small’s the one’s dead. The other they call Dick. Never heard his last name.”

“Was it a fight?”

“Of course. And Gulden picked it. He’s a quarrelsome man. Nobody can go against him. He’s all the time like some men when they’re drunk. I’m sorry I didn’t bore him last night. I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Red Pearce.”

Kells seemed gloomy and concentrated on his situation and he talked naturally to Joan, as if she were one to sympathize. A bandit, then, in the details of his life, the schemes, troubles, friendships, relations, was no different from any other kind of a man. He was human, and things that might constitute black evil for observers were dear to him, a part of him. Joan feigned the sympathy she could not feel.

“I thought Gulden was your enemy.”

Kells sat down on one of the box seats, and his heavy gun-sheath rested upon the floor. He looked at Joan now, forgetting she was a woman and his prisoner.

“I never thought of that till now,” he said. “We always got along because I understood him. I managed him. The man hasn’t changed in the least. He’s always what he is. But there’s a difference. I noticed that first over in Lost Canon. And Joan, I believe it’s because Gulden saw you.”

“Oh, no!” cried Joan, trembling.

“Maybe I’m wrong. Anyway something’s wrong. Gulden never had a friend or a partner. I don’t misunderstand his position regarding Bailey. What did he care for that soak? Gulden’s cross-grained. He opposes anything or anybody. He’s got a twist in his mind that makes him dangerous.... I wanted to get rid of him. I decided to — after last night. But now it seems that’s no easy job.”

“Why?” asked Joan, curiously.

“Pearce and Wood and Beard, all men I rely on, said it won’t do. They hint Gulden is strong with my gang here, and all through the border. I was wild. I don’t believe it. But as I’m not sure — what can I do?... They’re all afraid of Gulden. That’s it.... And I believe I am, too.”

“You!” exclaimed Joan.

Kells actually looked ashamed. “I believe I am, Joan,” he replied. “That Gulden is not a man. I never was afraid of a real man. He’s — he’s an animal.”

“He made me think of a gorrilla,” said Joan.

“There’s only one man I know who’s not afraid of Gulden. He’s a new-comer here on the border. Jim Cleve he calls himself. A youngster I can’t figure! But he’d slap the devil himself in the face. Cleve won’t last long out here. Yet you can never tell. Men like him, who laugh at death, sometimes avert it for long. I was that way once.... Cleve heard me talking to Pearce about Gulden. And he said, ‘Kells, I’ll pick a fight with this Gulden and drive him out of the camp or kill him.’”

“What did you say?” queried Joan, trying to steady her voice as she averted her eyes.

“I said ‘Jim, that wins me. But I don’t want you killed.’... It certainly was nervy of the youngster. Said it just the same as — as he’d offer to cinch my saddle. Gulden can whip a roomful of men. He’s done it. And as for a killer — I’ve heard of no man with his record.”

“And that’s why you fear him?”

“It’s not,” replied Kells, passionately, as if his manhood had been affronted. “It’s because he’s Gulden. There’s something uncanny about him.... Gulden’s a cannibal!”

Joan looked as if she had not heard aright.

“It’s a cold fact. Known all over the border. Gulden’s no braggart. But he’s been known to talk. He was a sailor — a pirate. Once he was shipwrecked. Starvation forced him to be a cannibal. He told this in California, and in Nevada camps. But no one believed him. A few years ago he got snowed-up in the mountains back of Lewiston. He had two companions with him. They all began to starve. It was absolutely necessary to try to get out. They started out in the snow. Travel was desperately hard. Gulden told that his companions dropped. But he murdered them — and again saved his life by being a cannibal. After this became known his sailor yarns were no longer doubted.... There’s another story about him. Once he got hold of a girl and took her into the mountains. After a winter he returned alone. He told that he’d kept her tied in a cave, without any clothes, and she froze to death.”

“Oh, horrible!” moaned Joan.

“I don’t know how true it is. But I believe it. Gulden is not a man. The worst of us have a conscience. We can tell right from wrong. But Gulden can’t. He’s beneath morals. He has no conception of manhood, such as I’ve seen in the lowest of outcasts. That cave story with the girl — that betrays him. He belongs back in the Stone Age. He’s a thing.... And here on the border, if he wants, he can have all the more power because of what he is.”

“Kells, don’t let him see me!” entreated Joan.

The bandit appeared not to catch the fear in Joan’s tone and look. She had been only a listener. Presently with preoccupied and gloomy mien, he left her alone.

Joan did not see him again, except for glimpses under the curtain, for three days. She kept the door barred and saw no one except Bate Wood, who brought her meals. She paced her cabin like a caged creature. During this period few men visited Kells’s cabin, and these few did not remain long. Joan was aware that Kells was not always at home. Evidently he was able to go out. Upon the fourth day he called to her and knocked for admittance. Joan let him in, and saw that he was now almost well again, once more cool, easy, cheerful, with his strange, forceful air.

“Good day, Joan. You don’t seem to be pining for your — negligent husband.”

He laughed as if he mocked himself, but there was gladness in the very sight of her, and some indefinable tone in his voice that suggested respect.

“I didn’t miss you,” replied Joan. Yet it was a relief to see him.

“No, I imagine not,” he said, dryly. “Well, I’ve been busy with men — with plans. Things are working out to my satisfaction. Red Pearce got around Gulden. There’s been no split. Besides, Gulden rode off. Someone said he went after a little girl named Brander. I hope he gets shot.... Joan, we’ll be leaving Cabin Gulch soon. I’m expecting news that’ll change things. I won’t leave you here. You’ll have to ride the roughest trails. And your clothes are in tatters now. You’ve got to have something to wear.”

“I should think so,” replied Joan, fingering the thin, worn, ragged habit that had gone to pieces. “The first brush I ride through will tear this off.”

“That’s annoying,” said Kells, with exasperation at himself. “Where on earth can I get you a dress? We’re two hundred miles from everywhere. The wildest kind of country.... Say, did you ever wear a man’s outfit?”

“Ye-es, when I went prospecting and hunting with my uncle,” she replied, reluctantly.

Suddenly he had a daring and brilliant smile that changed his face completely. He rubbed his palms together. He laughed as if at a huge joke. He cast a measuring glance up and down her slender form.

“Just wait till I come back,” he said.

He left her and she heard him rummaging around in the pile of trappings she had noted in a corner of the other cabin. Presently he returned carrying a bundle. This he unrolled on the bed and spread out the articles.

“Dandy Dale’s outfit,” he said, with animation. “Dandy was a would-be knight of the road. He dressed the part. But he tried to hold up a stage over here and an unappreciative passenger shot him. He wasn’t killed outright. He crawled away and died. Some of my men found him and they fetched his clothes. That outfit cost a fortune. But not a man among us could get into it.”

There was a black sombrero with heavy silver band; a dark-blue blouse and an embroidered buckskin vest; a belt full of cartridges and a pearl-handled gun; trousers of corduroy; high-top leather boots and gold mounted spurs, all of the finest material and workmanship.

“Joan, I’ll make you a black mask out of the rim of a felt hat, and then you’ll be grand.” He spoke with the impulse and enthusiasm of a boy.

“Kells, you don’t mean me to wear these?” asked Joan, incredulously.

“Certainly. Why not? Just the thing. A little fancy, but then you’re a girl. We can’t hide that. I don’t want to hide it.”

“I won’t wear them,” declared Joan.

“Excuse me — but you will,” he replied, coolly and pleasantly.

“I won’t!” cried Joan. She could not keep cool.

“Joan, you’ve got to take long rides with me. At night sometimes. Wild rides to elude pursuers sometimes. You’ll go into camps with me. You’ll have to wear strong, easy, free clothes. You’ll have to be masked. Here the outfit is — as if made for you. Why, you’re dead lucky. For this stuff is good and strong. It’ll stand the wear, yet it’s fit for a girl.... You put the outfit on, right now.”

“I said I wouldn’t!” Joan snapped.

“But what do you care if it belonged to a fellow who’s dead?... There! See that hole in the shirt. That’s a bullet-hole. Don’t be squeamish. It’ll only make your part harder.”

“Mr. Kells, you seem to have forgotten entirely that I’m a — a girl.”

He looked blank astonishment. “Maybe I have.... I’ll remember. But you said you’d worn a man’s things.”

“I wore my brother’s coat and overalls, and was lost in them,” replied Joan.

His face began to work. Then he laughed uproariously. “I — under — stand. This’ll fit — you — like a glove.... Fine! I’m dying to see you.”

“You never will.”

At that he grew sober and his eyes glinted. “You can’t take a little fun. I’ll leave you now for a while. When I come back you’ll have that suit on!”

There was that in his voice then which she had heard when he ordered men.

Joan looked her defiance.

“If you don’t have it on when I come I’ll — I’ll tear your rags off!... I can do that. You’re a strong little devil, and maybe I’m not well enough yet to put this outfit on you. But I can get help.... If you anger me I might wait for — Gulden!”

Joan’s legs grew weak under her, so that she had to sink on the bed. Kells would do absolutely and literally what he threatened. She understood now the changing secret in his eyes. One moment he was a certain kind of a man and the very next he was incalculably different. She instinctively recognized this latter personality as her enemy. She must use all the strength and wit and cunning and charm to keep his other personality in the ascendancy, else all was futile.

“Since you force me so — then I must,” she said.

Kells left her without another word.

Joan removed her stained and torn dress and her worn-out boots; then hurriedly, for fear Kells might return, she put on the dead boy-bandit’s outfit. Dandy Dale assuredly must have been her counterpart, for his things fitted her perfectly. Joan felt so strange that she scarcely had courage enough to look into the mirror. When she did look she gave a start that was of both amaze and shame. But for her face she never could have recognized herself. What had become of her height, her slenderness? She looked like an audacious girl in a dashing boy masquerade. Her shame was singular, inasmuch as it consisted of a burning hateful consciousness that she had not been able to repress a thrill of delight at her appearance, and that this costume strangely magnified every curve and swell of her body, betraying her feminity as nothing had ever done.

And just at that moment Kells knocked on the door and called, “Joan, are you dressed?”

“Yes,” she replied. But the word seemed involuntary.

Then Kells came in.

It was an instinctive and frantic impulse that made Joan snatch up a blanket and half envelop herself in it. She stood with scarlet face and dilating eyes, trembling in every limb. Kells had entered with an expectant smile and that mocking light in his gaze. Both faded. He stared at the blanket — then at her face. Then he seemed to comprehend this ordeal. And he looked sorry for her.

“Why you — you little — fool!” he exclaimed, with emotion. And that emotion seemed to exasperate him. Turning away from her, he gazed out between the logs. Again, as so many times before, he appeared to be remembering something that was hard to recall, and vague.

Joan, agitated as she was, could not help but see the effect of her unexpected and unconscious girlishness. She comprehended that with the mind of the woman which had matured in her. Like Kells, she too, had different personalities.

“I’m trying to be decent to you,” went on Kells, without turning. “I want to give you a chance to make the best of a bad situation. But you’re a kid — a girl!... And I’m a bandit. A man lost to all good, who means to have you!”

“But you’re NOT lost to all good,” replied Joan, earnestly. “I can’t understand what I do feel. But I know — if it had been Gulden instead of you — that I wouldn’t have tried to hide my — myself behind this blanket. I’m no longer — AFRAID of you. That’s why I acted — so — just like a girl caught.... Oh! can’t you see!”

“No, I can’t see,” he replied. “I wish I hadn’t fetched you here. I wish the thing hadn’t happened. Now it’s too late.”

“It’s never too late.... You — you haven’t harmed me yet.”

“But I love you,” he burst out. “Not like I have. Oh! I see this — that I never really loved any woman before. Something’s gripped me. It feels like that rope at my throat — when they were going to hang me.”

Then Joan trembled in the realization that a tremendous passion had seized upon this strange, strong man. In the face of it she did not know how to answer him. Yet somehow she gathered courage in the knowledge.

Kells stood silent a long moment, looking out at the green slope. And then, as if speaking to himself, he said: “I stacked the deck and dealt myself a hand — a losing hand — and now I’ve got to play it!”

With that he turned to Joan. It was the piercing gaze he bent upon her that hastened her decision to resume the part she had to play. And she dropped the blanket. Kells’s gloom and that iron hardness vanished. He smiled as she had never seen him smile. In that and his speechless delight she read his estimate of her appearance; and, notwithstanding the unwomanliness of her costume, and the fact of his notorious character, she knew she had never received so great a compliment. Finally he found his voice.

“Joan, if you’re not the prettiest thing I ever saw in my life!”

“I can’t get used to this outfit,” said Joan. “I can’t — I won’t go away from this room in it.”

“Sure you will. See here, this’ll make a difference, maybe. You’re so shy.”

He held out a wide piece of black felt that evidently he had cut from a sombrero. This he measured over her forehead and eyes, and then taking his knife he cut it to a desired shape. Next he cut eyeholes in it and fastened to it a loop made of a short strip of buckskin.

“Try that.... Pull it down — even with your eyes. There! — take a look at yourself.”

Joan faced the mirror and saw merely a masked stranger. She was no longer Joan Randle. Her identity had been absolutely lost.

“No one — who ever knew me — could recognize me now,” she murmured, and the relieving thought centered round Jim Cleve.

“I hadn’t figured on that,” replied Kells. “But you’re right.... Joan, if I don’t miss my guess, it won’t be long till you’ll be the talk of mining-towns and camp-fires.”

This remark of Kells’s brought to Joan proof of his singular pride in the name he bore, and proof of many strange stories about bandits and wild women of the border. She had never believed any of these stories. They had seemed merely a part of the life of this unsettled wild country. A prospector would spend a night at a camp-fire and tell a weird story and pass on, never to be seen there again. Could there have been a stranger story than her life seemed destined to be? Her mind whirled with vague, circling thought — Kells and his gang, the wild trails, the camps, and towns, gold and stage-coaches, robbery, fights, murder, mad rides in the dark, and back to Jim Cleve and his ruin.

Suddenly Kells stepped to her from behind and put his arms around her. Joan grew stiff. She had been taken off her guard. She was in his arms and could not face him.

“Joan, kiss me,” he whispered, with a softness, a richer, deeper note in his voice.

“No!” cried Joan, violently.

There was a moment of silence in which she felt his grasp slowly tighten — the heave of his breast.

“Then I’ll make you,” he said. So different was the voice now that another man might have spoken. Then he bent her backward, and, freeing one hand, brought it under her chin and tried to lift her face.

But Joan broke into fierce, violent resistance. She believed she was doomed, but that only made her the fiercer, the stronger. And with her head down, her arms straining, her body hard and rigidly unyielding she fought him all over the room, knocking over the table and seats, wrestling from wall to wall, till at last they fell across the bed and she broke his hold. Then she sprang up, panting, disheveled, and backed away from him. It had been a sharp, desperate struggle on her part and she was stronger than he. He was not a well man. He raised himself and put one hand to his breast. His face was haggard, wet, working with passion, gray with pain. In the struggle she had hurt him, perhaps reopened his wound.

“Did you — knife me — that it hurts so?” he panted, raising a hand that shook.

“I had — nothing.... I just — fought,” cried Joan, breathlessly.

“You hurt me — again — damn you! I’m never free — from pain. But this’s worse.... And I’m a coward.... And I’m a dog, too! Not half a man! — You slip of a girl — and I couldn’t — hold you!”

His pain and shame were dreadful for Joan to see, because she felt sorry for him, and divined that behind them would rise the darker, grimmer force of the man. And she was right, for suddenly he changed. That which had seemed almost to make him abject gave way to a pale and bitter dignity. He took up Dandy Dale’s belt, which Joan had left on the bed, and, drawing the gun from its sheath, he opened the cylinder to see if it was loaded, and then threw the gun at Joan’s feet.

“There! Take it — and make a better job this time,” he said.

The power in his voice seemed to force Joan to pick up the gun.

“What do — you mean?” she queried, haltingly.

“Shoot me again! Put me out of my pain — my misery.... I’m sick of it all. I’d be glad to have you kill me!”

“Kells!” exclaimed Joan, weakly.

“Take your chance — now — when I’ve no strength — to force you.... Throw the gun on me.... Kill me!”

He spoke with a terrible impelling earnestness, and the strength of his will almost hypnotized Joan into execution of his demand.

“You are mad,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you. I couldn’t.... I just want you to — to be — decent to me.”

“I have been — for me. I was only in fun this time — when I grabbed you. But the FEEL of you!... I can’t be decent any more. I see things clear now.... Joan Randle, it’s my life or your soul!”

He rose now, dark, shaken, stripped of all save the truth.

Joan dropped the gun from nerveless grasp.

“Is that your choice?” he asked hoarsely.

“I can’t murder you!”

“Are you afraid of the other men — of Gulden? Is that why you can’t kill me? You’re afraid to be left — to try to get away?”

“I never thought of them.”

“Then — my life or your soul!”

He stalked toward her, loomed over her, so that she put out trembling hands. After the struggle a reaction was coming to her. She was weakening. She had forgotten her plan.

“If you’re merciless — then it must be — my soul,” she whispered. “For I CAN’T murder you.... Could you take that gun now — and press it here — and murder ME?”

“No. For I love you.”

“You don’t love me. It’s a blacker crime to murder the soul than the body.”

Something in his strange eyes inspired Joan with a flashing, reviving divination. Back upon her flooded all that tide of woman’s subtle incalculable power to allure, to charge, to hold. Swiftly she went close to Kells. She stretched out her hands. One was bleeding from rough contract with the log wall during the struggle. Her wrists were red, swollen, bruised from his fierce grasp.

“Look! See what you’ve done. You were a beast. You made me fight like a beast. My hands were claws — my whole body one hard knot of muscle. You couldn’t hold me — you couldn’t kiss me.... Suppose you ARE able to hold me — later. I’ll only be the husk of a woman. I’ll just be a cold shell, doubled-up, unrelaxed, a callous thing never to yield.... All that’s ME, the girl, the woman you say you love — will be inside, shrinking, loathing, hating, sickened to death. You will only kiss — embrace — a thing you’ve degraded. The warmth, the sweetness, the quiver, the thrill, the response, the life — all that is the soul of a woman and makes her lovable will be murdered.”

Then she drew still closer to Kells, and with all the wondrous subtlety of a woman in a supreme moment where a life and a soul hang in the balance, she made of herself an absolute contrast to the fierce, wild, unyielding creature who had fought him off.

“Let me show — you the difference,” she whispered, leaning to him, glowing, soft, eager, terrible, with her woman’s charm. “Something tells me — gives me strength.... What MIGHT be!... Only barely possible — if in my awful plight — you turned out to be a man, good instead of bad!... And — if it were possible — see the differences — in the woman.... I show you — to save my soul!”

She gave the fascinated Kells her hands, slipped into his arms, to press against his breast, and leaned against him an instant, all one quivering, surrendered body; and then lifting a white face, true in its radiance to her honest and supreme purpose to give him one fleeting glimpse of the beauty and tenderness and soul of love, she put warm and tremulous lips to his.

Then she fell away from him, shrinking and terrified. But he stood there as if something beyond belief had happened to him, and the evil of his face, the hard lines, the brute softened and vanished in a light of transformation.

“My God!” he breathed softly. Then he awakened as if from a trance, and, leaping down the steps, he violently swept aside the curtain and disappeared.

Joan threw herself upon the bed and spent the last of her strength in the relief of blinding tears. She had won. She believed she need never fear Kells again. In that one moment of abandon she had exalted him. But at what cost!

CHAPTER 10

NEXT DAY, WHEN Kells called Joan out into the other cabin, she verified her hope and belief, not so much in the almost indefinable aging and sadness of the man, as in the strong intuitive sense that her attraction had magnified for him and had uplifted him.

“You mustn’t stay shut up in there any longer,” he said. “You’ve lost weight and you’re pale. Go out in the air and sun. You might as well get used to the gang. Bate Wood came to me this morning and said he thought you were the ghost of Dandy Dale. That name will stick to you. I don’t care how you treat my men. But if you’re friendly you’ll fare better. Don’t go far from the cabin. And if any man says or does a thing you don’t like — flash your gun. Don’t yell for me. You can bluff this gang to a standstill.”

That was a trial for Joan, when she walked out into the light in Dandy Dale’s clothes. She did not step very straight, and she could feel the cold prick of her face under the mask. It was not shame, but fear that gripped her. She would rather die than have Jim Cleve recognize her in that bold disguise. A line of dusty saddled horses stood heads and bridles down before the cabin, and a number of lounging men ceased talking when she appeared. It was a crowd that smelled of dust and horses and leather and whisky and tobacco. Joan did not recognize any one there, which fact aided her in a quick recovery of her composure. Then she found amusement in the absolute sensation she made upon these loungers. They stared, open-mouthed and motionless. One old fellow dropped his pipe from bearded lips and did not seem to note the loss. A dark young man, dissipated and wild-looking, with years of lawlessness stamped upon his face, was the first to move; and he, with awkward gallantry, but with amiable disposition. Joan wanted to run, yet she forced herself to stand there, apparently unconcerned before this battery of bold and curious eyes. That, once done, made the rest easier. She was grateful for the mask. And with her first low, almost incoherent, words in reply Joan entered upon the second phase of her experience with these bandits. Naturalness did not come soon, but it did come, and with it her wit and courage.

Used as she had become to the villainous countenances of the border ruffians, she yet upon closer study discovered wilder and more abandoned ones. Yet despite that, and a brazen, unconcealed admiration, there was not lacking kindliness and sympathy and good nature. Presently Joan sauntered away, and she went among the tired, shaggy horses and made friends with them. An occasional rider swung up the trail to dismount before Kells’s cabin, and once two riders rode in, both staring — all eyes — at her. The meaning of her intent alertness dawned upon her then. Always, whatever she was doing or thinking or saying, behind it all hid the driving watchfulness for Jim Cleve. And the consciousness of this fixed her mind upon him. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he drunk or gambling or fighting or sleeping? Was he still honest? When she did meet him what would happen? How could she make herself and circumstances known to him before he killed somebody? A new fear had birth and grew — Cleve would recognize her in that disguise, mask and all.

She walked up and down for a while, absorbed with this new idea. Then an unusual commotion among the loungers drew her attention to a group of men on foot surrounding and evidently escorting several horsemen. Joan recognized Red Pearce and Frenchy, and then, with a start, Jim Cleve. They were riding up the trail. Joan’s heart began to pound. She could not meet Jim; she dared not trust this disguise; all her plans were as if they had never been. She forgot Kells. She even forgot her fear of what Cleve might do. The meeting — the inevitable recognition — the pain Jim Cleve must suffer when the fact and apparent significance of her presence there burst upon him, these drove all else from Joan’s mind. Mask or no mask, she could not face his piercing eyes, and like a little coward she turned to enter the cabin.

Before she got in, however, it was forced upon her that something unusual had roused the loungers. They had arisen and were interested in the approaching group. Loud talk dinned in Joan’s ears. Then she went in the door as Kells stalked by, eyes agleam, without even noticing her. Once inside her cabin, with the curtain drawn, Joan’s fear gave place to anxiety and curiosity.

There was no one in the large cabin. Through the outer door she caught sight of a part of the crowd, close together, heads up, all noisy. Then she heard Kells’s authoritative voice, but she could understand nothing. The babel of hoarse voices grew louder. Kells appeared, entering the door with Pearce. Jim Cleve came next, and, once the three were inside, the crowd spilled itself after them like angry bees. Kells was talking, Pearce was talking, but their voices were lost. Suddenly Kells vented his temper.

“Shut up — the lot of you!” he yelled, and his power and position might have been measured by the menace he showed.

The gang became suddenly quiet.

“Now — what’s up?” demanded Kells.

“Keep your shirt on, boss,” replied Pearce, with good humor. “There ain’t much wrong.... Cleve, here, throwed a gun on Gulden, that’s all.”

Kells gave a slight start, barely perceptible, but the intensity of it, and a fleeting tigerish gleam across his face, impressed Joan with the idea that he felt a fiendish joy. Her own heart clamped in a cold amaze.

“Gulden!” Kells’s exclamation was likewise a passionate query.

“No, he ain’t cashed,” replied Pearce. “You can’t kill that bull so easy. But he’s shot up some. He’s layin’ over at Beard’s. Reckon you’d better go over an’ dress them shots.”

“He can rot before I doctor him,” replied Kells. “Where’s Bate Wood?... Bate, you can take my kit and go fix Gulden up. And now, Red, what was all the roar about?”

“Reckon that was Gulden’s particular pards tryin’ to mix it with Cleve an’ Cleve tryin’ to mix it with them — an’ ME in between!... I’m here to say, boss, that I had a time stavin’ off a scrap.”

During this rapid exchange between Kells and his lieutenant, Jim Cleve sat on the edge of the table, one dusty boot swinging so that his spur jangled, a wisp of a cigarette in his lips. His face was white except where there seemed to be bruises under his eyes. Joan had never seen him look like this. She guessed that he had been drunk — perhaps was still drunk. That utterly abandoned face Joan was so keen to read made her bite her tongue to keep from crying out. Yes, Jim was lost.

“What’d they fight about?” queried Kells.

“Ask Cleve,” replied Pearce. “Reckon I’d just as lief not talk any more about him.”

Then Kells turned to Cleve and stepped before him. Somehow these two men face to face thrilled Joan to her depths. They presented such contrasts. Kells was keen, imperious, vital, strong, and complex, with an unmistakable friendly regard for this young outcast. Cleve seemed aloof, detached, indifferent to everything, with a white, weary, reckless scorn. Both men were far above the gaping ruffians around them.

“Cleve, why’d you draw on Gulden?” asked Kells, sharply.

“That’s my business,” replied Cleve, slowly, and with his piercing eyes on Kells he blew a long, thin, blue stream of smoke upward.

“Sure.... But I remember what you asked me the other day — about Gulden. Was that why?”

“Nope,” replied Cleve. “This was my affair.”

“All right. But I’d like to know. Pearce says you’re in bad with Gulden’s friends. If I can’t make peace between you I’ll have to take sides.”

“Kells, I don’t need any one on my side,” said Cleve, and he flung the cigarette away.

“Yes, you do,” replied Kells, persuasively. “Every man on this border needs that. And he’s lucky when he gets it.”

“Well, I don’t ask for it; I don’t want it.”

“That’s your own business, too. I’m not insisting or advising.”

Kells’s force and ability to control men manifested itself in his speech and attitude. Nothing could have been easier than to rouse the antagonism of Jim Cleve, abnormally responding as he was to the wild conditions of this border environment.

“Then you’re not calling my hand?” queried Cleve, with his dark, piercing glance on Kells.

“I pass, Jim,” replied the bandit, easily.

Cleve began to roll another cigarette. Joan saw his strong, brown hands tremble, and she realized that this came from his nervous condition, not from agitation. Her heart ached for him. What a white, somber face, so terribly expressive of the overthrow of his soul! He had fled to the border in reckless fury at her — at himself. There in its wildness he had, perhaps, lost thought of himself and memory of her. He had plunged into the unrestrained border life. Its changing, raw, and fateful excitement might have made him forget, but behind all was the terrible seeking to destroy and be destroyed. Joan shuddered when she remembered how she had mocked this boy’s wounded vanity — how scathingly she had said he did not possess manhood and nerve enough even to be bad.

“See here, Red,” said Kells to Pearce, “tell me what happened — what you saw. Jim can’t object to that.”

“Sure,” replied Pearce, thus admonished. “We was all over at Beard’s an’ several games was on. Gulden rode into camp last night. He’s always sore, but last night it seemed more’n usual. But he didn’t say much an’ nothin’ happened. We all reckoned his trip fell through. Today he was restless. He walked an’ walked just like a cougar in a pen. You know how Gulden has to be on the move. Well, we let him alone, you can bet. But suddenlike he comes up to our table — me an’ Cleve an’ Beard an’ Texas was playin’ cards — an’ he nearly kicks the table over. I grabbed the gold an’ Cleve he saved the whisky. We’d been drinkin’ an’ Cleve most of all. Beard was white at the gills with rage an’ Texas was soffocatin’. But we all was afraid of Gulden, except Cleve, as it turned out. But he didn’t move or look mean. An’ Gulden pounded on the table an’ addressed himself to Cleve.

“‘I’ve a job you’ll like. Come on.’

“‘Job? Say, man, you couldn’t have a job I’d like,’ replied Cleve, slow an’ cool.

“You know how Gulden gets when them spells come over him. It’s just plain cussedness. I’ve seen gunfighters lookin’ for trouble — for someone to kill. But Gulden was worse than that. You all take my hunch — he’s got a screw loose in his nut.

“‘Cleve,’ he said, ‘I located the Brander gold-diggin’s — an’ the girl was there.’

“Some kind of a white flash went over Cleve. An’ we all, rememberin’ Luce, began to bend low, ready to duck. Gulden didn’t look no different from usual. You can’t see any change in him. But I for one felt all hell burnin’ in him.

“‘Oho! You have,’ said Cleve, quick, like he was pleased. ‘An’ did you get her?’

“‘Not yet. Just looked over the ground. I’m pickin’ you to go with me. We’ll split on the gold, an’ I’ll take the girl.’

“Cleve swung the whisky-bottle an’ it smashed on Gulden’s mug, knockin’ him flat. Cleve was up, like a cat, gun burnin’ red. The other fellers were dodgin’ low. An’ as I ducked I seen Gulden, flat on his back, draggin’ at his gun. He stopped short an’ his hand flopped. The side of his face went all bloody. I made sure he’d cashed, so I leaped up an’ grabbed Cleve.

“It’d been all right if Gulden had only cashed. But he hadn’t. He came to an’ bellered fer his gun an’ fer his pards. Why, you could have heard him for a mile.... Then, as I told you, I had trouble in holdin’ back a general mix-up. An’ while he was hollerin’ about it I led them all over to you. Gulden is layin’ back there with his ear shot off. An’ that’s all.”

Kells, with thoughtful mien, turned from Pearce to the group of dark-faced men. “This fight settles one thing,” he said to them. “We’ve got to have organization. If you’re not all a lot of fools you’ll see that. You need a head. Most of you swear by me, but some of you are for Gulden. Just because he’s a bloody devil. These times are the wildest the West ever knew, and they’re growing wilder. Gulden is a great machine for execution. He has no sense of fear. He’s a giant. He loves to fight — to kill. But Gulden’s all but crazy. This last deal proves that. I leave it to your common sense. He rides around hunting for some lone camp to rob. Or some girl to make off with. He does not plan with me or the men whose judgment I have confidence in. He’s always without gold. And so are most of his followers. I don’t know who they are. And I don’t care. But here we split — unless they and Gulden take advice and orders from me. I’m not so much siding with Cleve. Any of you ought to admit that Gulden’s kind of work will disorganize a gang. He’s been with us for long. And he approaches Cleve with a job. Cleve is a stranger. He may belong here, but he’s not yet one of us. Gulden oughtn’t have approached him. It was no straight deal. We can’t figure what Gulden meant exactly, but it isn’t likely he wanted Cleve to go. It was a bluff. He got called.... You men think this over — whether you’ll stick to Gulden or to me. Clear out now.”

His strong, direct talk evidently impressed them, and in silence they crowded out of the cabin, leaving Pearce and Cleve behind.

“Jim, are you just hell-bent on fighting or do you mean to make yourself the champion of every poor girl in these wilds?”

Cleve puffed a cloud of smoke that enveloped his head “I don’t pick quarrels,” he replied.

“Then you get red-headed at the very mention of a girl.”

A savage gesture of Cleve’s suggested that Kells was right.

“Here, don’t get red-headed at me,” called Kells, with piercing sharpness. “I’ll be your friend if you let me.... But declare yourself like a man — if you want me for a friend!”

“Kells, I’m much obliged,” replied Cleve, with a semblance of earnestness. “I’m no good or I wouldn’t be out here... But I can’t stand for these — these deals with girls.”

“You’ll change,” rejoined Kells, bitterly. “Wait till you live a few lonely years out here! You don’t understand the border. You’re young. I’ve seen the gold-fields of California and Nevada. Men go crazy with the gold fever. It’s gold that makes men wild. If you don’t get killed you’ll change. If you live you’ll see life on this border. War debases the moral force of a man, but nothing like what you’ll experience here the next few years. Men with their wives and daughters are pouring into this range. They’re all over. They’re finding gold. They’ve tasted blood. Wait till the great gold strike comes! Then you’ll see men and women go back ten thousand years... And then what’ll one girl more or less matter?”

“Well, you see, Kells, I was loved so devotedly by one and made such a hero of — that I just can’t bear to see any girl mistreated.”

He almost drawled the words, and he was suave and cool, and his face was inscrutable, but a bitterness in his tone gave the lie to all he said and looked.

Pearce caught the broader inference and laughed as if at a great joke. Kells shook his head doubtfully, as if Cleve’s transparent speech only added to the complexity. And Cleve turned away, as if in an instant he had forgotten his comrades.

Afterward, in the silence and darkness of night, Joan Randle lay upon her bed sleepless, haunted by Jim’s white face, amazed at the magnificent madness of him, thrilled to her soul by the meaning of his attack on Gulden, and tortured by a love that had grown immeasurably full of the strength of these hours of suspense and the passion of this wild border.

Even in her dreams Joan seemed to be bending all her will toward that inevitable and fateful moment when she must stand before Jim Cleve. It had to be. Therefore she would absolutely compel herself to meet it, regardless of the tumult that must rise within her. When all had been said, her experience so far among the bandits, in spite of the shocks and suspense that had made her a different girl, had been infinitely more fortunate than might have been expected. She prayed for this luck to continue and forced herself into a belief that it would.

That night she had slept in Dandy Dale’s clothes, except for the boots; and sometimes while turning in restless slumber she had been awakened by rolling on the heavy gun, which she had not removed from the belt. And at such moments, she had to ponder in the darkness, to realize that she, Joan Randle, lay a captive in a bandit’s camp, dressed in a dead bandit’s garb, and packing his gun — even while she slept. It was such an improbable, impossible thing. Yet the cold feel of the polished gun sent a thrill of certainty through her.

In the morning she at least did not have to suffer the shame of getting into Dandy Dale’s clothes, for she was already in them. She found a grain of comfort even in that. When she had put on the mask and sombrero she studied the effect in her little mirror. And she again decided that no one, not even Jim Cleve, could recognize her in that disguise. Likewise she gathered courage from the fact that even her best girl friend would have found her figure unfamiliar and striking where once it had been merely tall and slender and strong, ordinarily dressed. Then how would Jim Cleve ever recognize her? She remembered her voice that had been called a contralto, low and deep; and how she used to sing the simple songs she knew. She could not disguise that voice. But she need not let Jim hear it. Then there was a return of the idea that he would instinctively recognize her — that no disguise could be proof to a lover who had ruined himself for her. Suddenly she realized how futile all her worry and shame. Sooner or later she must reveal her identity to Jim Cleve. Out of all this complexity of emotion Joan divined that what she yearned most for was to spare Cleve the shame consequent upon recognition of her and then the agony he must suffer at a false conception of her presence there. It was a weakness in her. When death menaced her lover and the most inconceivably horrible situation yawned for her, still she could only think of her passionate yearning to have him know, all in a flash, that she loved him, that she had followed him in remorse, that she was true to him and would die before being anything else.

And when she left her cabin she was in a mood to force an issue.

Kells was sitting at the table and being served by Bate Wood.

“Hello, Dandy!” he greeted her, in surprise and pleasure. “This’s early for you.”

Joan returned his greeting and said that she could not sleep all the time.

“You’re coming round. I’ll bet you hold up a stage before a month is out.”

“Hold up a stage?” echoed Joan.

“Sure. It’ll be great fun,” replied Kells, with a laugh. “Here — sit down and eat with me.... Bate, come along lively with breakfast.... It’s fine to see you there. That mask changes you, though. No one can see how pretty you are.... Joan, your admirer, Gulden, has been incapacitated for the present.”

Then in evident satisfaction Kells repeated the story that Joan had heard Red Pearce tell the night before; and in the telling Kells enlarged somewhat upon Jim Cleve.

“I’ve taken a liking to Cleve,” said Kells. “He’s a strange youngster. But he’s more man than boy. I think he’s broken-hearted over some rotten girl who’s been faithless or something. Most women are no good, Joan. A while ago I’d have said ALL women were that, but since I’ve known you I think — I know different. Still, one girl out of a million doesn’t change a world.”

“What will this J — jim C — cleve do — when he sees — me?” asked Joan, and she choked over the name.

“Don’t eat so fast, girl,” said Kells. “You’re only seventeen years old and you’ve plenty of time.... Well, I’ve thought some about Cleve. He’s not crazy like Gulden, but he’s just as dangerous. He’s dangerous because he doesn’t know what he’s doing — has absolutely no fear of death — and then he’s swift with a gun. That’s a bad combination. Cleve will kill a man presently. He’s shot three already, and in Gulden’s case he meant to kill. If once he kills a man — that’ll make him a gun-fighter. I’ve worried a little about his seeing you. But I can manage him, I guess. He can’t be scared or driven. But he may be led. I’ve had Red Pearce tell him you are my wife. I hope he believes it, for none of the other fellows believe it. Anyway, you’ll meet this Cleve soon, maybe to-day, and I want you to be friendly. If I can steady him — stop his drinking — he’ll be the best man for me on this border.”

“I’m to help persuade him to join your band?” asked Joan, and she could not yet control her voice.

“Is that so black a thing?” queried Kells, evidently nettled, and he glared at her.

“I — I don’t know,” faltered Joan. “Is this — this boy a criminal yet?”

“No. He’s only a fine, decent young chap gone wild — gone bad for some girl. I told you that. You don’t seem to grasp the point. If I can control him he’ll be of value to me — he’ll be a bold and clever and dangerous man — he’ll last out here. If I can’t win him, why, he won’t last a week longer. He’ll be shot or knifed in a brawl. Without my control Cleve’ll go straight to the hell he’s headed for.”

Joan pushed back her plate and, looking up, steadily eyed the bandit.

“Kells, I’d rather he ended his — his career quick — and went to — to — than live to be a bandit and murderer at your command.”

Kells laughed mockingly, yet the savage action with which he threw his cup against the wall attested to the fact that Joan had strange power to hurt him.

“That’s your sympathy, because I told you some girl drove him out here,” said the bandit. “He’s done for. You’ll know that the moment you see him. I really think he or any man out here would be the better for my interest. Now, I want to know if you’ll stand by me — put in a word to help influence this wild boy.”

“I’ll — I’ll have to see him first,” replied Joan.

“Well, you take it sort of hard,” growled Kells. Then presently he brightened. “I seem always to forget that you’re only a kid. Listen! Now you do as you like. But I want to warn you that you’ve got to get back the same kind of nerve” — here he lowered his voice and glanced at Bate Wood— “that you showed when you shot me. You’re going to see some sights.... A great gold strike! Men grown gold-mad! Woman of no more account than a puff of cottonseed!... Hunger, toil, pain, disease, starvation, robbery, blood, murder, hanging, death — all nothing, nothing! There will be only gold. Sleepless nights — days of hell — rush and rush — all strangers with greedy eyes! The things that made life will be forgotten and life itself will be cheap. There will be only that yellow stuff — gold — over which men go mad and women sell their souls!”

After breakfast Kells had Joan’s horse brought out of the corral and saddled.

“You must ride some every day. You must keep in condition,” he said. “Pretty soon we may have a chase, and I don’t want it to tear you to pieces.”

“Where shall I ride?” asked Joan.

“Anywhere you like up and down the gulch.”

“Are you going to have me watched?”

“Not if you say you won’t run off.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I promise. And if I change my mind I’ll tell you.”

“Lord! don’t do it, Joan. I — I — Well, you’ve come to mean a good deal to me. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.” As she mounted the horse Kells added, “Don’t stand any raw talk from any of the gang.”

Joan rode away, pondering in mind the strange fact that though she hated this bandit, yet she had softened toward him. His eyes lit when he saw her; his voice mellowed; his manner changed. He had meant to tell her again that he loved her, yet he controlled it. Was he ashamed? Had he seen into the depths of himself and despised what he had imagined love? There were antagonistic forces at war within him.

It was early morning and a rosy light tinged the fresh green. She let the eager horse break into a canter and then a gallop; and she rode up the gulch till the trail started into rough ground. Then turning, she went back, down under the pines and by the cabins, to where the gulch narrowed its outlet into the wide valley. Here she met several dusty horsemen driving a pack-train. One, a jovial ruffian, threw up his hands in mock surrender.

“Hands up, pards!” he exclaimed. “Reckon we’ve run agin’ Dandy Dale come to life.”

His companions made haste to comply and then the three regarded her with bold and roguish eyes. Joan had run square into them round a corner of slope and, as there was no room to pass, she had halted.

“Shore it’s the Dandy Dale we heerd of,” vouchsafed another.

“Thet’s Dandy’s outfit with a girl inside,” added the third.

Joan wheeled her horse and rode back up the trail. The glances of these ruffians seemed to scorch her with the reality of her appearance. She wore a disguise, but her womanhood was more manifest in it than in her feminine garb. It attracted the bold glances of these men. If there were any possible decency among them, this outrageous bandit costume rendered it null. How could she ever continue to wear it? Would not something good and sacred within her be sullied by a constant exposure to the effect she had upon these vile border men? She did not think it could while she loved Jim Cleve; and with thought of him came a mighty throb of her heart to assure her that nothing mattered if only she could save him.

Upon the return trip up the gulch Joan found men in sight leading horses, chopping wood, stretching arms in cabin doors. Joan avoided riding near them, yet even at a distance she was aware of their gaze. One rowdy, half hidden by a window, curved hands round his mouth and called, softly, “Hullo, sweetheart!”

Joan was ashamed that she could feel insulted. She was amazed at the temper which seemed roused in her. This border had caused her feelings she had never dreamed possible to her. Avoiding the trail, she headed for the other side of the gulch. There were clumps of willows along the brook through which she threaded a way, looking for a good place to cross. The horse snorted for water. Apparently she was not going to find any better crossing, so she turned the horse into a narrow lane through the willows and, dismounting on a mossy bank, she slipped the bridle so the horse could drink.

Suddenly she became aware that she was not alone. But she saw no one in front of her or on the other side of her horse. Then she turned. Jim Cleve was in the act of rising from his knees. He had a towel in his hand. His face was wet. He stood no more than ten steps from her.

Joan could not have repressed a little cry to save her life. The surprise was tremendous. She could not move a finger. She expected to hear him call her name.

Cleve stared at her. His face, in the morning light, was as drawn and white as that of a corpse. Only his eyes seemed alive and they were flames. A lightning flash of scorn leaped to them. He only recognized in her a woman, and his scorn was for the creature that bandit garb proclaimed her to be. A sad and bitter smile crossed his face; and then it was followed by an expression that was a lash upon Joan’s bleeding spirit. He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians. That was the unexpected — the impossible — in connection with Jim Cleve. How could she stand there under it — and live?

She jerked at the bridle, and, wading blindly across the brook, she mounted somehow, and rode with blurred sight back to the cabin. Kells appeared busy with men outside and did not accost her. She fled to her cabin and barricaded the door.

Then she hid her face on her bed, covered herself to shut out the light, and lay there, broken-hearted. What had been that other thing she had imagined was shame — that shrinking and burning she had suffered through Kells and his men? What was that compared to this awful thing? A brand of red-hot pitch, blacker and bitterer than death, had been struck brutally across her soul. By the man she loved — whom she would have died to save! Jim Cleve had seen in her only an abandoned creature of the camps. His sad and bitter smile had been for the thought that he could have loved anything of her sex. His scorn had been for the betrayed youth and womanhood suggested by her appearance. And then the thing that struck into Joan’s heart was the fact that her grace and charm of person, revealed by this costume forced upon her, had aroused Jim Cleve’s first response to the evil surrounding him, the first call to that baseness he must be assimilating from these border ruffians. That he could look at her so! The girl he had loved! Joan’s agony lay not in the circumstance of his being as mistaken in her character as he had been in her identity, but that she, of all women, had to be the one who made him answer, like Kells and Gulden and all those ruffians, to the instincts of a beast.

“Oh, he’d been drunk — he was drunk!” whispered Joan. “He isn’t to be blamed. He’s not my old Jim. He’s suffering — he’s changed — he doesn’t care. What could I expect — standing there like a hussy before him — in this — this indecent rig?... I must see him. I must tell him. If he recognized me now — and I had no chance to tell him why I’m here — why I look like this — that I love him — am still good — and true to him — if I couldn’t tell him I’d — I’d shoot myself!”

Joan sobbed out the final words and then broke down. And when the spell had exercised its sway, leaving her limp and shaken and weak, she was the better for it. Slowly calmness returned so that she could look at her wild and furious rush from the spot where she had faced Jim Cleve, at the storm of shame ending in her collapse. She realized that if she had met Jim Cleve here in the dress in which she had left home there would have been the same shock of surprise and fear and love. She owed part of that breakdown to the suspense she had been under and then the suddenness of the meeting. Looking back at her agitation, she felt that it had been natural — that if she could only tell the truth to Jim Cleve the situation was not impossible. But the meeting, and all following it, bore tremendous revelation of how through all this wild experience she had learned to love Jim Cleve. But for his reckless flight and her blind pursuit, and then the anxiety, fear, pain, toil, and despair, she would never have known her woman’s heart and its capacity for love.

CHAPTER 11

FOLLOWING THAT MEETING, with all its power to change and strengthen Joan, there were uneventful days in which she rode the gulch trails and grew able to stand the jests and glances of the bandit’s gang. She thought she saw and heard everything, yet insulated her true self in a callous and unreceptive aloofness from all that affronted her.

The days were uneventful because, while always looking for Jim Cleve, she never once saw him. Several times she heard his name mentioned. He was here and there — at Beard’s off in the mountains. But he did not come to Kells’s cabin, which fact, Joan gathered, had made Kells anxious. He did not want to lose Cleve. Joan peered from her covert in the evenings, and watched for Jim, and grew weary of the loud talk and laughter, the gambling and smoking and drinking. When there seemed no more chance of Cleve’s coming, then Joan went to bed.

On these occasions Joan learned that Kells was passionately keen to gamble, that he was a weak hand at cards, an honest gambler, and, strangely enough, a poor loser. Moreover, when he lost he drank heavily, and under the influence of drink he was dangerous. There were quarrels when curses rang throughout the cabin, when guns were drawn, but whatever Kells’s weaknesses might be, he was strong and implacable in the governing of these men.

That night when Gulden strode into the cabin was certainly not uneventful for Joan. Sight of him sent a chill to her marrow while a strange thrill of fire inflamed her. Was that great hulk of a gorilla prowling about to meet Jim Cleve? Joan thought that it might be the worse for him if he were. Then she shuddered a little to think that she had already been influenced by the wildness around her.

Gulden appeared well and strong, and but for the bandage on his head would have been as she remembered him. He manifested interest in the gambling of the players by surly grunts. Presently he said something to Kells.

“What?” queried the bandit, sharply, wheeling, the better to see Gulden.

The noise subsided. One gamester laughed knowingly.

“Lend me a sack of dust?” asked Gulden.

Kells’s face showed amaze and then a sudden brightness.

“What! You want gold from me?”

“Yes. I’ll pay it back.”

“Gulden, I wasn’t doubting that. But does your asking mean you’ve taken kindly to my proposition?”

“You can take it that way,” growled Gulden. “I want gold.” “I’m mighty glad, Gulden,” replied Kells, and he looked as if he meant it. “I need you. We ought to get along.... Here.”

He handed a small buckskin sack to Gulden. Someone made room for him on the other side of the table, and the game was resumed. It was interesting to watch them gamble. Red Pearce had a scale at his end of the table, and he was always measuring and weighing out gold-dust. The value of the gold appeared to be fifteen dollars to the ounce, but the real value of money did not actuate the gamblers. They spilled the dust on the table and ground as if it were as common as sand. Still there did not seem to be any great quantity of gold in sight. Evidently these were not profitable times for the bandits. More than once Joan heard them speak of a gold strike as honest people spoke of good fortune. And these robbers could only have meant that in case of a rich strike there would be gold to steal. Gulden gambled as he did everything else. At first he won and then he lost, and then he borrowed more from Kells, to win again. He paid back as he had borrowed and lost and won — without feeling. He had no excitement. Joan’s intuition convinced her that if Gulden had any motive at all in gambling it was only an antagonism to men of his breed. Gambling was a contest, a kind of fight.

Most of the men except Gulden drank heavily that night. There had been fresh liquor come with the last pack-train. Many of them were drunk when the game broke up. Red Pearce and Wood remained behind with Kells after the others had gone, and Pearce was clever enough to cheat Kells before he left.

“Boss — thet there Red double — crossed you,” said Bate Wood.

Kells had lost heavily, and he was under the influence of drink. He drove Wood out of the cabin, cursing him sullenly. Then he put in place the several bars that served as a door of his cabin. After that he walked unsteadily around, and all about his action and manner that was not aimless seemed to be dark and intermittent staring toward Joan’s cabin. She felt sickened again with this new aspect of her situation, but she was not in the least afraid of Kells. She watched him till he approached her door and then she drew back a little. He paused before the blanket as if he had been impelled to halt from fear. He seemed to be groping in thought. Then he cautiously and gradually, by degrees, drew aside the blanket. He could not see Joan in the darkness, but she saw him plainly. He fumbled at the poles, and, finding that he could not budge them, he ceased trying. There was nothing forceful or strong about him, such as was manifest when he was sober. He stood there a moment, breathing heavily, in a kind of forlorn, undecided way, and then he turned back. Joan heard him snap the lanterns. The lights went out and all grew dark and silent.

Next morning at breakfast he was himself again, and if he had any knowledge whatever of his actions while he was drunk, he effectually concealed it from Joan.

Later, when Joan went outside to take her usual morning exercise, she was interested to see a rider tearing up the slope on a foam-flecked horse. Men shouted at him from the cabins and then followed without hats or coats. Bate Wood dropped Joan’s saddle and called to Kells. The bandit came hurriedly out.

“Blicky!” he exclaimed, and then he swore under his breath in elation.

“Shore is Blicky!” said Wood, and his unusually mild eyes snapped with a glint unpleasant for Joan to see.

The arrival of this Blicky appeared to be occasion for excitement and Joan recalled the name as belonging to one of Kells’s trusted men. He swung his leg and leaped from his saddle as the horse plunged to a halt. Blicky was a lean, bronzed young man, scarcely out of his teens, but there were years of hard life in his face. He slapped the dust in little puffs from his gloves. At sight of Kells he threw the gloves aloft and took no note of them when they fell. “STRIKE!” he called, piercingly.

“No!” ejaculated Kells, intensely.

Bate Wood let out a whoop which was answered by the men hurrying up the slope.

“Been on — for weeks!” panted Blicky. “It’s big. Can’t tell how big. Me an’ Jesse Smith an’ Handy Oliver hit a new road — over here fifty miles as a crow flies — a hundred by trail. We was plumb surprised. An’ when we met pack-trains an’ riders an’ prairie-schooners an’ a stage-coach we knew there was doin’s over in the Bear Mountain range. When we came to the edge of the diggin’s an’ seen a whalin’ big camp — like a beehive — Jesse an’ Handy went on to get the lay of the land an’ I hit the trail back to you. I’ve been a-comin’ on an’ off since before sundown yesterday.... Jesse gave one look an’ then hollered. He said, ‘Tell Jack it’s big an’ he wants to plan big. We’ll be back there in a day or so with all details.’”

Joan watched Kells intently while he listened to this breathless narrative of a gold strike, and she was repelled by the singular flash of brightness — a radiance — that seemed to be in his eyes and on his face. He did not say a word, but his men shouted hoarsely around Blicky. He walked a few paces to and fro with hands strongly clenched, his lips slightly parted, showing teeth close-shut like those of a mastiff. He looked eager, passionate, cunning, hard as steel, and that strange brightness of elation slowly shaded to a dark, brooding menace. Suddenly he wheeled to silence the noisy men.

“Where’re Pearce and Gulden? Do they know?” he demanded.

“Reckon no one knows but who’s right here,” replied Blicky.

“Red an’ Gul are sleepin’ off last night’s luck,” said Bate Wood.

“Have any of you seen young Cleve?” Kells went on. His voice rang quick and sharp.

No one spoke, and presently Kells cracked his fist into his open hand.

“Come on. Get the gang together at Beard’s.... Boys, the time we’ve been gambling on has come. Jesse Smith saw ‘49 and ‘51. He wouldn’t send me word like this — unless there was hell to pay.... Come on!”

He strode off down the slope with the men close around him, and they met other men on the way, all of whom crowded into the group, jostling, eager, gesticulating.

Joan was left alone. She felt considerably perturbed, especially at Kells’s sharp inquiry for Jim Cleve. Kells might persuade him to join that bandit legion. These men made Joan think of wolves, with Kells the keen and savage leader. No one had given a thought to Blicky’s horse and that neglect in border men was a sign of unusual preoccupation. The horse was in bad shape. Joan took off his saddle and bridle, and rubbed the dust-caked lather from his flanks, and led him into the corral. Then she fetched a bucket of water and let him drink sparingly, a little at a time.

Joan did not take her ride that morning. Anxious and curious, she waited for the return of Kells. But he did not come. All afternoon Joan waited and watched, and saw no sign of him or any of the other men. She knew Kells was forging with red-hot iron and blood that organization which she undesignedly had given a name — the Border Legion. It would be a terrible legion, of that she was assured. Kells was the evil genius to create an unparalleled scheme of crime; this wild and remote border, with its inaccessible fastness for hiding-places, was the place; all that was wanting was the time, which evidently had arrived. She remembered how her uncle had always claimed that the Bear Mountain range would see a gold strike which would disrupt the whole West and amaze the world. And Blicky had said a big strike had been on for weeks. Kells’s prophecy of the wild life Joan would see had not been without warrant. She had already seen enough to whiten her hair, she thought, yet she divined her experience would shrink in comparison with what was to come. Always she lived in the future. She spent sleeping and waking hours in dreams, thoughts, actions, broodings, over all of which hung an ever-present shadow of suspense. When would she meet Jim Cleve again? When would he recognize her? What would he do? What could she do? Would Kells be a devil or a man at the end? Was there any justification of her haunting fear of Gulden — of her suspicion that she alone was the cause of his attitude toward Kells — of her horror at the unshakable presentiment and fancy that he was a gorilla and meant to make off with her? These, and a thousand other fears, some groundless, but many real and present, besieged Joan and left her little peace. What would happen next?

Toward sunset she grew tired of waiting, and hungry, besides, so she went into the cabin and prepared her own meal. About dark Kells strode in, and it took but a glance for Joan to see that matters had not gone to his liking. The man seemed to be burning inwardly. Sight of Joan absolutely surprised him. Evidently in the fever of this momentous hour he had forgotten his prisoner. Then, whatever his obsession, he looked like a man whose eyes were gladdened at sight of her and who was sorry to behold her there. He apologized that her supper had not been provided for her and explained that he had forgotten. The men had been crazy — hard to manage — the issue was not yet settled. He spoke gently. Suddenly he had that thoughtful mien which Joan had become used to associating with weakness in him.

“I wish I hadn’t dragged you here,” he said, taking her hands. “It’s too late. I CAN’T lose you.... But the — OTHER WAY — isn’t too late!”

“What way? What do you mean?” asked Joan.

“Girl, will you ride off with me to-night?” he whispered, hoarsely. “I swear I’ll marry you — and become an honest man. To-morrow will be too late!... Will you?”

Joan shook her head. She was sorry for him. When he talked like this he was not Kells, the bandit. She could not resist a strange agitation at the intensity of his emotion. One moment he had entered — a bandit leader, planning blood, murder; the next, as his gaze found her, he seemed weakened, broken in the shaking grip of a hopeless love for her.

“Speak, Joan!” he said, with his hands tightening and his brow clouding.

“No, Kells,” she replied.

“Why? Because I’m a red-handed bandit?”

“No. Because I — I don’t love you.”

“But wouldn’t you rather be my wife — and have me honest — than become a slave here, eventually abandoned to — to Gulden and his cave and his rope?” Kells’s voice rose as that other side of him gained dominance.

“Yes, I would.... But I KNOW you’ll never harm me — or abandon me to — to that Gulden.”

“HOW do you know?” he cried, with the blood thick at his temples.

“Because you’re no beast any more.... And you — you do love me.”

Kells thrust her from him so fiercely that she nearly fell.

“I’ll get over it.... Then — look out!” he said, with dark bitterness.

With that he waved her back, apparently ordering her to her cabin, and turned to the door, through which the deep voices of men sounded nearer and nearer.

Joan stumbled in the darkness up the rude steps to her room, and, softly placing the poles in readiness to close her door, she composed herself to watch and wait. The keen edge of her nerves, almost amounting to pain, told her that this night of such moment for Kells would be one of singular strain and significance for her. But why she could not fathom. She felt herself caught by the changing tide of events — a tide that must sweep her on to flood. Kells had gone outside. The strong, deep voices’ grew less distinct. Evidently the men were walking away. In her suspense Joan was disappointed. Presently, however, they returned; they had been walking to and fro. After a few moments Kells entered alone. The cabin was now so dark that Joan could barely distinguish the bandit. Then he lighted the lanterns. He hung up several on the wall and placed two upon the table. From somewhere among his effects he produced a small book and a pencil; these, with a heavy, gold-mounted gun, he laid on the table before the seat he manifestly meant to occupy. That done, he began a slow pacing up and down the room, his hands behind his back, his head bent in deep and absorbing thought. What a dark, sinister, plotting figure! Joan had seen many men in different attitudes of thought, but here was a man whose mind seemed to give forth intangible yet terrible manifestations of evil. The inside of that gloomy cabin took on another aspect; there was a meaning in the saddles and bridles and weapons on the wall; that book and pencil and gun seemed to contain the dark deeds of wild men; and all about the bandit hovered a power sinister in its menace to the unknown and distant toilers for gold.

Kells lifted his head, as if listening, and then the whole manner of the man changed. The burden that weighed upon him was thrown aside. Like a general about to inspect a line of soldiers Kells faced the door, keen, stern, commanding. The heavy tread of booted men, the clink of spurs, the low, muffled sound of voices, warned Joan that the gang had arrived. Would Jim Cleve be among them?

Joan wanted a better position in which to watch and listen. She thought a moment, and then carefully felt her way around to the other side of the steps, and here, sitting down with her feet hanging over the drop, she leaned against the wall and through a chink between the logs had a perfect view of the large cabin. The men were filing in silent and intense. Joan counted twenty-seven in all. They appeared to fall into two groups, and it was significant that the larger group lined up on the side nearest Kells, and the smaller back of Gulden. He had removed the bandage, and with a raw, red blotch where his right ear had been shot away, he was hideous. There was some kind of power emanating from him, but it was not that which, was so keenly vital and impelling in Kells. It was brute ferocity, dominating by sheer physical force. In any but muscular clash between Kells and Gulden the latter must lose. The men back of Gulden were a bearded, check-shirted, heavily armed group, the worst of that bad lot. All the younger, cleaner-cut men like Red Pearce and Frenchy and Beady Jones and Williams and the scout Blicky, were on the other side. There were two factions here, yet scarcely an antagonism, except possibly in the case of Kells. Joan felt that the atmosphere was supercharged with suspense and fatality and possibility — and anything might happen. To her great joy, Jim Cleve was not present.

“Where’re Beard and Wood?” queried Kells.

“Workin’ over Beard’s sick hoss,” replied Pearce. “They’ll show up by an’ by. Anythin’ you say goes with them, you know.”

“Did you find young Cleve?”

“No. He camps up in the timber somewheres. Reckon he’ll be along, too.”

Kells sat down at the head of the table, and, taking up the little book, he began to finger it while his pale eyes studied the men before him.

“We shuffled the deck pretty well over at Beard’s,” he said. “Now for the deal.... Who wants cards?... I’ve organized my Border Legion. I’ll have absolute control, whether there’re ten men or a hundred. Now, whose names go down in my book?”

Red Pearce stepped up and labored over the writing of his name. Blicky, Jones, Williams, and others followed suit. They did not speak, but each shook hands with the leader. Evidently Kells exacted no oath, but accepted each man’s free action and his word of honor. There was that about the bandit which made such action as binding as ties of blood. He did not want men in his Legion who had not loyalty to him. He seemed the kind of leader to whom men would be true.

“Kells, say them conditions over again,” requested one of the men, less eager to hurry with the matter.

At this juncture Joan was at once thrilled and frightened to see Jim Cleve enter the cabin. He appeared whiter of face, almost ghastly, and his piercing eyes swept the room, from Kells to Gulden, from men to men. Then he leaned against the wall, indistinct in the shadow. Kells gave no sign that he had noted the advent of Cleve.

“I’m the leader,” replied Kells, deliberately. “I’ll make the plans. I’ll issue orders. No jobs without my knowledge. Equal shares in gold — man to man.... Your word to stand by me!”

A muttering of approval ran through the listening group.

“Reckon I’ll join,” said the man who had wished the conditions repeated. With that he advanced to the table and, apparently not being able to write, he made his mark in the book. Kells wrote the name below. The other men of this contingent one by one complied with Kells’s requirements. This action left Gulden and his group to be dealt with.

“Gulden, are you still on the fence?” demanded Kells, coolly.

The giant strode stolidly forward to the table. As always before to Joan, he seemed to be a ponderous hulk, slow, heavy, plodding, with a mind to match.

“Kells, if we can agree I’ll join,” he said in his sonorous voice.

“You can bet you won’t join unless we do agree,” snapped Kells. “But — see here, Gulden. Let’s be friendly. The border is big enough for both of us. I want you. I need you. Still, if we can’t agree, let’s not split and be enemies. How about it?”

Another muttering among the men attested to the good sense and good will of Kells’s suggestion.

“Tell me what you’re going to do — how you’ll operate,” replied Gulden.

Keils had difficulty in restraining his impatience and annoyance.

“What’s that to you or any of you?” he queried. “You all know I’m the man to think of things. That’s been proved. First it takes brains. I’ll furnish them. Then it takes execution. You and Pearce and the gang will furnish that. What more do you need to know?”

“How’re you going to operate?” persisted Gulden.

Kells threw up both hands as if it was useless to argue or reason with this desperado.

“All right, I’ll tell you,” he replied. “Listen.... I can’t say what definite plans I’ll make till Jesse Smith reports, and then when I get on the diggings. But here’s a working basis. Now don’t miss a word of this, Gulden — nor any of you men. We’ll pack our outfits down to this gold strike. We’ll build cabins on the outskirts of the town, and we won’t hang together. The gang will be spread out. Most of you must make a bluff at digging gold. Be like other miners. Get in with cliques and clans. Dig, drink, gamble like the rest of them. Beard will start a gambling-place. Red Pearce will find some other kind of work. I’ll buy up claims — employ miners to work them. I’ll disguise myself and get in with the influential men and have a voice in matters. You’ll all be scouts. You’ll come to my cabin at night to report. We’ll not tackle any little jobs. Miners going out with fifty or a hundred pounds of gold — the wagons — the stage-coach — these we’ll have timed to rights, and whoever I detail on the job will hold them up. You must all keep sober, if that’s possible. You must all absolutely trust to my judgment. You must all go masked while on a job. You must never speak a word that might direct suspicion to you. In this way we may work all summer without detection. The Border Legion will become mysterious and famous. It will appear to be a large number of men, operating all over. The more secretive we are the more powerful the effect on the diggings. In gold-camps, when there’s a strike, all men are mad. They suspect each other. They can’t organize. We shall have them helpless.... And in short, if it’s as rich a strike as looks due here in these hills, before winter we can pack out all the gold our horses can carry.”

Kells had begun under restraint, but the sound of his voice, the liberation of his great idea, roused him to a passion. The man radiated with passion. This, then, was his dream — the empire he aspired to.

He had a powerful effect upon his listeners, except Gulden; and it was evident to Joan that the keen bandit was conscious of his influence. Gulden, however, showed nothing that he had not already showed. He was always a strange, dominating figure. He contested the relations of things. Kells watched him — the men watched him — and Jim Cleve’s piercing eyes glittered in the shadow, fixed upon that massive face. Manifestly Gulden meant to speak, but in his slowness there was no laboring, no pause from emotion. He had an idea and it moved like he moved.

“DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES!” The words boomed deep from his cavernous chest, a mutter that was a rumble, with something almost solemn in its note and certainly menacing, breathing murder. As Kells had propounded his ideas, revealing his power to devise a remarkable scheme and his passion for gold, so Gulden struck out with the driving inhuman blood-lust that must have been the twist, the knot, the clot in his brain. Kells craved notoriety and gold; Gulden craved to kill. In the silence that followed his speech these wild border ruffians judged him, measured him, understood him, and though some of them grew farther aloof from him, more of them sensed the safety that hid in his terrible implication.

But Kells rose against him.

“Gulden, you mean when we steal gold — to leave only dead men behind?” he queried, with a hiss in his voice.

The giant nodded grimly.

“But only fools kill — unless in self-defense,” declared Kells, passionately.

“We’d last longer,” replied Gulden, imperturbably.

“No — no. We’d never last so long. Killings rouse a mining-camp after a while — gold fever or no. That means a vigilante band.”

“We can belong to the vigilantes, just as well as to your Legion,” said Gulden.

The effect of this was to make Gulden appear less of a fool than Kells supposed him. The ruffians nodded to one another. They stirred restlessly. They were animated by a strange and provocative influence. Even Red Pearce and the others caught its subtlety. It was evil predominating in evil hearts. Blood and death loomed like a shadow here. The keen Kells saw the change working toward a transformation and he seemed craftily fighting something within him that opposed this cold ruthlessness of his men.

“Gulden, suppose I don’t see it your way?” he asked.

“Then I won’t join your Legion.”

“What WILL you do?”

“I’ll take the men who stand by me and go clean up that gold-camp.”

From the fleeting expression on Kells’s face Joan read that he knew Gulden’s project would defeat his own and render both enterprises fatal.

“Gulden, I don’t want to lose you,” he said.

“You won’t lose me if you see this thing right,” replied Gulden. “You’ve got the brains to direct us. But, Kells, you’re losing your nerve.... It’s this girl you’ve got here!”

Gulden spoke without rancor or fear or feeling of any kind. He merely spoke the truth. And it shook Kells with an almost ungovernable fury.

Joan saw the green glare of his eyes — his gray working face — the flutter of his hand. She had an almost superhuman insight into the workings of his mind. She knew that then — he was fighting whether or not to kill Gulden on the spot. And she recognized that this was the time when Kells must kill Gulden or from that moment see a gradual diminishing of his power on the border. But Kells did not recognize that crucial height of his career. His struggle with his fury and hate showed that the thing uppermost in his mind was the need of conciliating Gulden and thus regaining a hold over the men.

“Gulden, suppose we waive the question till we’re on the grounds?” he suggested.

“Waive nothing. It’s one or the other with me,” declared Gulden.

“Do you want to be leader of this Border Legion?” went on Kells, deliberately.

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

Gulden appeared at a loss for an instant reply. “I want plenty to do,” he replied, presently. “I want to be in on everything. I want to be free to kill a man when I like.”

“When you like!” retorted Kells, and added a curse. Then as if by magic his dark face cleared and there was infinite depth and craftiness in him. His opposition, and that hint of hate and loathing which detached him from Gulden, faded from his bearing. “Gulden, I’ll split the difference between us. I’ll leave you free to do as you like. But all the others — every man — must take orders from me.”

Gulden reached out a huge hand. His instant acceptance evidently amazed Kells and the others.

“LET HER RIP!” Gulden exclaimed. He shook Kells’s hand and then laboriously wrote his name in the little book.

In that moment Gulden stood out alone in the midst of wild abandoned men. What were Kells and this Legion to him? What was the stealing of more or less gold?

“Free to do as you like except fight my men,” said Kells. “That’s understood.”

“If they don’t pick a fight with me,” added the giant, and he grinned.

One by one his followers went through with the simple observances that Kells’s personality made a serious and binding compact.

“Anybody else?” called Kells, glancing round. The somberness was leaving his face.

“Here’s Jim Cleve,” said Pearce, pointing toward the wall.

“Hello, youngster! Come here. I’m wanting you bad,” said Kells.

Cleve sauntered out of the shadow, and his glittering eyes were fixed on Gulden. There was an instant of waiting. Gulden looked at Cleve. Then Kells quickly strode between them.

“Say, I forgot you fellows had trouble,” he said. He attended solely to Gulden. “You can’t renew your quarrel now. Gulden, we’ve all fought together more or less, and then been good friends. I want Cleve to join us, but not against your ill will. How about it?”

“I’ve no ill will,” replied the giant, and the strangeness of his remark lay in its evident truth. “But I won’t stand to lose my other ear!”

Then the ruffians guffawed in hoarse mirth. Gulden, however, did not seem to see any humor in his remark. Kells laughed with the rest. Even Cleve’s white face relaxed into a semblance of a smile.

“That’s good. We’re getting together,” declared Kells. Then he faced Cleve, all about him expressive of elation, of assurance, of power. “Jim, will you draw cards in this deal?”

“What’s the deal?” asked Cleve.

Then in swift, eloquent speech Kells launched the idea of his Border Legion, its advantages to any loose-footed, young outcast, and he ended his brief talk with much the same argument he had given Joan. Back there in her covert Joan listened and watched, mindful of the great need of controlling her emotions. The instant Jim Cleve had stalked into the light she had been seized by a spasm of trembling.

“Kells, I don’t care two straws one way or another,” replied Cleve.

The bandit appeared nonplussed. “You don’t care whether you join my Legion or whether you don’t?”

“Not a damn,” was the indifferent answer.

“Then do me a favor,” went on Kells. “Join to please me. We’ll be good friends. You’re in bad out here on the border. You might as well fall in with us.”

“I’d rather go alone.”

“But you won’t last.”

“It’s a lot I care.”

The bandit studied the reckless, white face. “See here, Cleve — haven’t you got the nerve to be bad — thoroughly bad?”

Cleve gave a start as if he had been stung. Joan shut her eyes to blot out what she saw in his face. Kells had used part of the very speech with which she had driven Jim Cleve to his ruin. And those words galvanized him. The fatality of all this! Joan hated herself. Those very words of hers would drive this maddened and heartbroken boy to join Kells’s band. She knew what to expect from Jim even before she opened her eyes; yet when she did open them it was to see him transformed and blazing.

Then Kells either gave way to leaping passion or simulated it in the interest of his cunning.

“Cleve, you’re going down for a woman?” he queried, with that sharp, mocking ring in his voice.

“If you don’t shut up you’ll get there first,” replied Cleve, menacingly.

“Bah!... Why do you want to throw a gun on me? I’m your friend: You’re sick. You’re like a poisoned pup. I say if you’ve got nerve you won’t quit. You’ll take a run for your money. You’ll see life. You’ll fight. You’ll win some gold. There are other women. Once I thought I would quit for a woman. But I didn’t. I never found the right one till I had gone to hell — out here on this border.... If you’ve got nerve, show me. Be a man instead of a crazy youngster. Spit out the poison.... Tell it before us all!... Some girl drove you to us?”

“Yes — a girl!” replied Cleve, hoarsely, as if goaded.

“It’s too late to go back?”

“Too late!”

“There’s nothing left but wild life that makes you forget?”

“Nothing.... Only I — can’t forget!” he panted.

Cleve was in a torture of memory, of despair, of weakness. Joan saw how Kells worked upon Jim’s feelings. He was only a hopeless, passionate boy in the hands of a strong, implacable man. He would be like wax to a sculptor’s touch. Jim would bend to this bandit’s will, and through his very tenacity of love and memory be driven farther on the road to drink, to gaming, and to crime.

Joan got to her feet, and with all her woman’s soul uplifting and inflaming her she stood ready to meet the moment that portended.

Kells made a gesture of savage violence. “Show your nerve!... Join with me!... You’ll make a name on this border that the West will never forget!”

That last hint of desperate fame was the crafty bandit’s best trump. And it won. Cleve swept up a weak and nervous hand to brush the hair from his damp brow. The keenness, the fire, the aloofness had departed from him. He looked shaken as if by something that had been pointed out as his own cowardice.

“Sure, Kells,” he said, recklessly. “Let me in the game.... And — by God — I’ll play — the hand out!” He reached for the pencil and bent over the book.

“Wait!... Oh, WAIT!” cried Joan. The passion of that moment, the consciousness of its fateful portent and her situation, as desperate as Cleve’s, gave her voice a singularly high and piercingly sweet intensity. She glided from behind the blanket — out of the shadow — into the glare of the lanterns — to face Kells and Cleve.

Kells gave one astounded glance at her, and then, divining her purpose, he laughed thrillingly and mockingly, as if the sight of her was a spur, as if her courage was a thing to admire, to permit, and to regret.

“Cleve, my wife, Dandy Dale,” he said, suave and cool. “Let her persuade you — one way or another!”

The presence of a woman, however disguised, following her singular appeal, transformed Cleve. He stiffened erect and the flush died out of his face, leaving it whiter than ever, and the eyes that had grown dull quickened and began to burn. Joan felt her cheeks blanch. She all but fainted under that gaze. But he did not recognize her, though he was strangely affected.

“Wait!” she cried again, and she held to that high voice, so different from her natural tone. “I’ve been listening. I’ve heard all that’s been said. Don’t join this Border Legion.... You’re young — and still, honest. For God’s sake — don’t go the way of these men! Kells will make you a bandit.... Go home — boy — go home!”

“Who are you — to speak to me of honesty — of home?” Cleve demanded.

“I’m only a — a woman.... But I can feel how wrong you are.... Go back to that girl — who — who drove you to the border.... She must repent. In a day you’ll be too late.... Oh, boy, go home! Girls never know their minds — their hearts. Maybe your girl — loved you!... Oh, maybe her heart is breaking now!”

A strong, muscular ripple went over Cleve, ending in a gesture of fierce protest. Was it pain her words caused, or disgust that such as she dared mention the girl he had loved? Joan could not tell. She only knew that Cleve was drawn by her presence, fascinated and repelled, subtly responding to the spirit of her, doubting what he heard and believing with his eyes.

“You beg me not to become a bandit?” he asked, slowly, as if revolving a strange idea.

“Oh, I implore you!”

“Why?”

“I told you. Because you’re still good at heart. You’ve only been wild.... Because—”

“Are you the wife of Kells?” he flashed at her.

A reply seemed slowly wrenched from Joan’s reluctant lips. “No!”

The denial left a silence behind it. The truth that all knew when spoken by her was a kind of shock. The ruffians gaped in breathless attention. Kells looked on with a sardonic grin, but he had grown pale. And upon the face of Cleve shone an immeasurable scorn.

“Not his wife!” exclaimed Cleve, softly.

His tone was unendurable to Joan. She began to shrink. A flame curled within her. How he must hate any creature of her sex!

“And you appeal to me!” he went on. Suddenly a weariness came over him. The complexity of women was beyond him. Almost he turned his back upon her. “I reckon such as you can’t keep me from Kells — or blood — or hell!”

“Then you’re a narrow-souled weakling — born to crime!” she burst out in magnificent wrath. “For however appearances are against me — I am a good woman!”

That stunned him, just as it drew Kells upright, white and watchful. Cleve seemed long in grasping its significance. His face was half averted. Then he turned slowly, all strung, and his hands clutched quiveringly at the air. No man of coolness and judgment would have addressed him or moved a step in that strained moment. All expected some such action as had marked his encounter with Luce and Gulden.

Then Cleve’s gaze in unmistakable meaning swept over Joan’s person. How could her appearance and her appeal be reconciled? One was a lie! And his burning eyes robbed Joan of spirit.

“He forced me to — to wear these,” she faltered. “I’m his prisoner. I’m helpless.”

With catlike agility Cleve leaped backward, so that he faced all the men, and when his hands swept to a level they held gleaming guns. His utter abandon of daring transfixed these bandits in surprise as much as fear. Kells appeared to take most to himself the menace.

“I CRAWL!” he said, huskily. “She speaks the God’s truth.... But you can’t help matters by killing me. Maybe she’d be worse off!”

He expected this wild boy to break loose, yet his wit directed him to speak the one thing calculated to check Cleve.

“Oh, don’t shoot!” moaned Joan.

“You go outside,” ordered Cleve. “Get on a horse and lead another near the door.... Go! I’ll take you away from this.”

Both temptation and terror assailed Joan. Surely that venture would mean only death to Jim and worse for her. She thrilled at the thought — at the possibility of escape — at the strange front of this erstwhile nerveless boy. But she had not the courage for what seemed only desperate folly.

“I’ll stay,” she whispered. “You go!”

“Hurry, woman!”

“No! No!”

“Do you want to stay with this bandit?”

“Oh, I must!”

“Then you love him?”

All the fire of Joan’s heart flared up to deny the insult and all her woman’s cunning fought to keep back words that inevitably must lead to revelation. She drooped, unable to hold up under her shame, yet strong to let him think vilely of her, for his sake. That way she had a barest chance.

“Get out of my sight!” he ejaculated, thickly. “I’d have fought for you.”

Again that white, weary scorn radiated from him. Joan bit her tongue to keep from screaming. How could she live under this torment? It was she, Joan Randle, that had earned that scorn, whether he knew her or not. She shrank back, step by step, almost dazed, sick with a terrible inward, coldness, blinded by scalding tears. She found her door and stumbled in.

“Kells, I’m what you called me.” She heard Cleve’s voice, strangely far off. “There’s no excuse... unless I’m not just right in my head about women.... Overlook my break or don’t — as you like. But if you want me I’m ready for your Border Legion!”

CHAPTER 12

THOSE BITTER WORDS of Cleve’s, as if he mocked himself, were the last Joan heard, and they rang in her ears and seemed to reverberate through her dazed mind like a knell of doom. She lay there, all blackness about her, weighed upon by an insupportable burden; and she prayed that day might never dawn for her; a nightmare of oblivion ended at last with her eyes opening to the morning light.

She was cold and stiff. She had lain uncovered all the long hours of night. She had not moved a finger since she had fallen upon the bed, crushed by those bitter words with which Cleve had consented to join Kells’s Legion. Since then Joan felt that she had lived years. She could not remember a single thought she might have had during those black hours; nevertheless, a decision had been formed in her mind, and it was that to-day she would reveal herself to Jim Cleve if it cost both their lives. Death was infinitely better than the suspense and fear and agony she had endured; and as for Jim, it would at least save him from crime.

Joan got up, a little dizzy and unsteady upon her feet. Her hands appeared clumsy and shaky. All the blood in her seemed to surge from heart to brain and it hurt her to breathe. Removing her mask, she bathed her face and combed her hair. At first she conceived an idea to go out without her face covered, but she thought better of it. Cleve’s reckless defiance had communicated itself to her. She could not now be stopped.

Kells was gay and excited that morning. He paid her compliments. He said they would soon be out of this lonely gulch and she would see the sight of her life — a gold strike. She would see men wager a fortune on the turn of a card, lose, laugh, and go back to the digging. He said he would take her to Sacramento and ‘Frisco and buy her everything any girl could desire. He was wild, voluble, unreasoning — obsessed by the anticipated fulfilment of his dream.

It was rather late in the morning and there were a dozen or more men in and around the cabin, all as excited as Kells. Preparations were already under way for the expected journey to the gold-field. Packs were being laid out, overhauled, and repacked; saddles and bridles and weapons were being worked over; clothes were being awkwardly mended. Horses were being shod, and the job was as hard and disagreeable for men as for horses. Whenever a rider swung up the slope, and one came every now and then, all the robbers would leave off their tasks and start eagerly for the newcomer. The name Jesse Smith was on everybody’s lips. Any hour he might be expected to arrive and corroborate Blicky’s alluring tale.

Joan saw or imagined she saw that the glances in the eyes of these men were yellow, like gold fire. She had seen miners and prospectors whose eyes shone with a strange glory of light that gold inspired, but never as those of Kells’s bandit Legion. Presently Joan discovered that, despite the excitement, her effect upon them was more marked then ever, and by a difference that she was quick to feel. But she could not tell what this difference was — how their attitude had changed. Then she set herself the task of being useful. First she helped Bate Wood. He was roughly kind. She had not realized that there was sadness about her until he whispered: “Don’t be downcast, miss. Mebbe it’ll come out right yet!” That amazed Joan. Then his mysterious winks and glances, the sympathy she felt in him, all attested to some kind of a change. She grew keen to learn, but she did not know how. She felt the change in all the men. Then she went to Pearce and with all a woman’s craft she exaggerated the silent sadness that had brought quick response from Wood. Red Pearce was even quicker. He did not seem to regard her proximity as that of a feminine thing which roused the devil in him. Pearce could not be other than coarse and vulgar, but there was pity in him. Joan sensed pity and some other quality still beyond her. This lieutenant of the bandit Kells was just as mysterious as Wood. Joan mended a great jagged rent in his buckskin shirt. Pearce appeared proud of her work; he tried to joke; he said amiable things. Then as she finished he glanced furtively round; he pressed her hand: “I had a sister once!” he whispered. And then with a dark and baleful hate: “Kells! — he’ll get his over in the gold-camp!”

Joan turned away from Pearce still more amazed. Some strange, deep undercurrent was working here. There had been unmistakable hate for Kells in his dark look and a fierce implication in his portent of fatality. What had caused this sudden impersonal interest in her situation? What was the meaning of the subtle animosity toward the bandit leader? Was there no honor among evil men banded together for evil deeds? Were jealousy, ferocity, hate and faithlessness fostered by this wild and evil border life, ready at an instant’s notice to break out? Joan divined the vain and futile and tragical nature of Kell’s great enterprise. It could not succeed. It might bring a few days or weeks of fame, of blood-stained gold, of riotous gambling, but by its very nature it was doomed. It embraced failure and death.

Joan went from man to man, keener now on the track of this inexplicable change, sweetly and sadly friendly to each; and it was not till she encountered the little Frenchman that the secret was revealed. Frenchy was of a different race. Deep in the fiber of his being inculcated a sentiment, a feeling, long submerged in the darkness of a wicked life, and now that something came fleeting out of the depths — and it was respect for a woman. To Joan it was a flash of light. Yesterday these ruffians despised her; to-day they respected her. So they had believed what she had so desperately flung at Jim Cleve. They believed her good, they pitied her, they respected her, they responded to her effort to turn a boy back from a bad career. They were bandits, desperados, murderers, lost, but each remembered in her a mother or a sister. What each might have felt or done had he possessed her, as Kells possessed her, did not alter the case as it stood. A strange inconsistency of character made them hate Kells for what they might not have hated in themselves. Her appeal to Cleve, her outburst of truth, her youth and misfortune, had discovered to each a human quality. As in Kells something of nobility still lingered, a ghost among his ruined ideals, so in the others some goodness remained. Joan sustained an uplifting divination — no man was utterly bad. Then came the hideous image of the giant Gulden, the utter absence of soul in him, and she shuddered. Then came the thought of Jim Cleve, who had not believed her, who had bitterly made the fatal step, who might in the strange reversion of his character be beyond influence.

And it was at the precise moment when this thought rose to counteract the hope revived by the changed attitude of the men that Joan looked out to see Jim Cleve sauntering up, careless, untidy, a cigarette between his lips, blue blotches on his white face, upon him the stamp of abandonment. Joan suffered a contraction of heart that benumbed her breast. She stood a moment battling with herself. She was brave enough, desperate enough, to walk straight up to Cleve, remove her mask and say, “I am Joan!” But that must be a last resource. She had no plan, yet she might force an opportunity to see Cleve alone.

A shout rose above the hubbub of voices. A tall man was pointing across the gulch where dust-clouds showed above the willows. Men crowded round him, all gazing in the direction of his hand, all talking at once.

“Jesse Smith’s hoss, I swear!” shouted the tall man. “Kells, come out here!”

Kells appeared, dark and eager, at the door, and nimbly he leaped to the excited group. Pearce and Wood and others followed.

“What’s up?” called the bandit. “Hello! Who’s that riding bareback?”

“He’s shore cuttin’ the wind,” said Wood.

“Blicky!” exclaimed the tall man. “Kells, there’s news. I seen Jesse’s hoss.”

Kells let out a strange, exultant cry. The excited talk among the men gave place, to a subdued murmur, then subsided. Blicky was running a horse up the road, hanging low over him, like an Indian. He clattered to the bench, scattered the men in all directions. The fiery horse plunged and pounded. Blicky was gray of face and wild of aspect.

“Jesse’s come!” he yelled, hoarsely, at Kells. “He jest fell off his hoss — all in! He wants you — an’ all the gang! He’s seen a million dollars in gold-dust!”

Absolute silence ensued after that last swift and startling speech. It broke to a commingling of yells and shouts. Blicky wheeled his horse and Kells started on a run. And there was a stampede and rush after him.

Joan grasped her opportunity. She had seen all this excitement, but she had not lost sight of Cleve. He got up from a log and started after the others. Joan flew to him, grasped him, startled him with the suddenness of her onslaught. But her tongue seemed cloven to the roof of her mouth, her lips weak and mute. Twice she strove to speak.

“Meet me — there! — among the pines — right away!” she whispered, with breathless earnestness. “It’s life — or death — for me!”

As she released his arm he snatched at her mask. But she eluded him.

“Who ARE you?” he flashed.

Kells and his men were piling into the willows, leaping the brook, hurrying on. They had no thought but to get to Jesse Smith to hear of the gold strike. That news to them was as finding gold in the earth was to honest miners.

“Come!” cried Joan. She hurried away toward the corner of the cabin, then halted to see if he was following. He was, indeed. She ran round behind the cabin, out on the slope, halting at the first trees. Cleve came striding after her. She ran on, beginning to pant and stumble. The way he strode, the white grimness of him, frightened her. What would he, do? Again she went on, but not running now. There were straggling pines and spruces that soon hid the cabins. Beyond, a few rods, was a dense clump of pines, and she made for that. As she reached it she turned fearfully. Only Cleve was in sight. She uttered a sob of mingled relief, joy, and thankfulness. She and Cleve had not been observed. They would be out of sight in this little pine grove. At last! She could reveal herself, tell him why she was there, that she loved him, that she was as good as ever she had been. Why was she shaking like a leaf in the wind? She saw Cleve through a blur. He was almost running now. Involuntarily she fled into the grove. It was dark and cool; it smelled sweetly of pine; there were narrow aisles and little sunlit glades. She hurried on till a fallen tree blocked her passage. Here she turned — she would wait — the tree was good to lean against. There came Cleve, a dark, stalking shadow. She did not remember him like that. He entered the glade.

“Speak again!” he said, thickly. “Either I’m drunk or crazy!”

But Joan could not speak. She held out hands that shook — swept them to her face — tore at the mask. Then with a gasp she stood revealed.

If she had stabbed him straight through the heart he could not have been more ghastly. Joan saw him, in all the terrible transfiguration that came over him, but she had no conceptions, no thought of what constituted that change. After that check to her mind came a surge of joy.

“Jim!... Jim! It’s Joan!” she breathed, with lips almost mute.

“JOAN!” he gasped, and the sound of his voice seemed to be the passing from horrible doubt to certainty.

Like a panther he leaped at her, fastened a powerful hand at the neck of her blouse, jerked her to her knees, and began to drag her. Joan fought his iron grasp. The twisting and tightening of her blouse choked her utterance. He did not look down upon her, but she could see him, the rigidity of his body set in violence, the awful shade upon his face, the upstanding hair on his head. He dragged her as if she had been an empty sack. Like a beast he was seeking a dark place — a hole to hide her. She was strangling; a distorted sight made objects dim; and now she struggled instinctively. Suddenly the clutch at her neck loosened; gaspingly came the intake of air to her lungs; the dark-red veil left her eyes. She was still upon her knees. Cleve stood before her, like a gray-faced demon, holding his gun level, ready to fire.

“Pray for your soul — and mine!”

“Jim! Oh Jim!... Will you kill yourself, too?”

“Yes! But pray, girl — quick!”

“Then I pray to God — not for my soul — but just for one more moment of life... TO TELL YOU, JIM!”

Cleve’s face worked and the gun began to waver. Her reply had been a stroke of lightning into the dark abyss of his jealous agony.

Joan saw it, and she raised her quivering face, and she held up her arms to him. “To tell — you — Jim!” she entreated.

“What?” he rasped out.

“That I’m innocent — that I’m as good — a girl — as ever.. ever.... Let me tell you.... Oh, you’re mistaken — terribly mistaken.”

“Now, I know I’m drunk.... You, Joan Randle! You in that rig! You the companion of Jack Kells! Not even his wife! The jest of these foul-mouthed bandits! And you say you’re innocent — good?... When you refused to leave him!”

“I was afraid to go — afraid you’d be killed,” she moaned, beating her breast.

It must have seemed madness to him, a monstrous nightmare, a delirium of drink, that Joan Randle was there on her knees in a brazen male attire, lifting her arms to him, beseeching him, not to spare her life, but to believe in her innocence.

Joan burst into swift, broken utterance: “Only listen! I trailed you out — twenty miles from Hoadley. I met Roberts. He came with me. He lamed his horse — we had to camp. Kells rode down on us. He had two men. They camped there. Next morning he — killed Roberts — made off with me.... Then he killed his men — just to have me — alone to himself.... We crossed a range — camped in the canon. There he attacked me — and I — I shot him!... But I couldn’t leave him — to die!” Joan hurried on with her narrative, gaining strength and eloquence as she saw the weakening of Cleve. “First he said I was his wife to fool that Gulden — and the others,” she went on. “He meant to save me from them. But they guessed or found out.... Kells forced me into these bandit clothes. He’s depraved, somehow. And I had to wear something. Kells hasn’t harmed me — no one has. I’ve influence over him. He can’t resist it. He’s tried to force me to marry him. And he’s tried to give up to his evil intentions. But he can’t. There’s good in him. I can make him feel it.... Oh, he loves me, and I’m not afraid of him any more.... It has been a terrible time for me, Jim, but I’m still — the same girl you knew — you used to—”

Cleve dropped the gun and he waved his hand before his eyes as if to dispel a blindness.

“But why — why?” he asked, incredulously. “Why did you leave Hoadley? That’s forbidden. You knew the risk.”

Joan gazed steadily up at him, to see the whiteness slowly fade out of his face. She had imagined it would be an overcoming of pride to betray her love, but she had been wrong. The moment was so full, so overpowering, that she seemed dumb. He had ruined himself for her, and out of that ruin had come the glory of her love. Perhaps it was all too late, but at least he would know that for love of him she had in turn sacrificed herself.

“Jim,” she whispered, and with the first word of that betrayal a thrill, a tremble, a rush went over her, and all her blood seemed hot at her neck and face, “that night when you kissed me I was furious. But the moment you had gone I repented. I must have — cared for you then, but I didn’t know.... Remorse seized me. And I set out on your trail to save you from yourself. And with the pain and fear and terror there was sometimes — the — the sweetness of your kisses. Then I knew I cared.... And with the added days of suspense and agony — all that told me of your throwing your life away — there came love.... Such love as otherwise I’d never have been big enough for! I meant to find you — to save you — to send you home!... I have found you, maybe too late to save your life, but not your soul, thank God!... That’s why I’ve been strong enough to hold back Kells. I love you, Jim!... I love you! I couldn’t tell you enough. My heart is bursting.... Say you believe me! Say you know I’m good — true to you — your Joan!... And kiss me — like you did that night when we were such blind fools. A boy and a girl who didn’t know — and couldn’t tell! — Oh, the sadness of it!.... Kiss me, Jim, before I — drop — at your feet!... If only you — believe—”

Joan was blinded by tears and whispering she knew not what when Cleve broke from his trance and caught her to his breast. She was fainting — hovering at the border of unconsciousness when his violence held her back from oblivion. She seemed wrapped to him and held so tightly there was no breath in her body, no motion, no stir of pulse. That vague, dreamy moment passed. She heard his husky, broken accents — she felt the pound of his heart against her breast. And he began to kiss her as she had begged him to. She quickened to thrilling, revivifying life. And she lifted her face, and clung round his neck, and kissed him, blindly, sweetly, passionately, with all her heart and soul in her lips, wanting only one thing in the world — to give that which she had denied him.

“Joan!... Joan!... Joan!” he murmured when their lips parted. “Am I dreaming — drunk — or crazy?”

“Oh, Jim, I’m real — you have me in your arms,” she whispered. “Dear Jim — kiss me again — and say you believe me.”

“Believe you?... I’m out of my mind with joy.... You loved me! You followed me!... And — that idea of mine — only an absurd, vile suspicion! I might have known — had I been sane!”

“There.... Oh, Jim!... Enough of madness. We’ve got to plan. Remember where we are. There’s Kells, and this terrible situation to meet!”

He stared at her, slowly realizing, and then it was his turn to shake. “My God! I’d forgotten. I’ll HAVE to kill you now!”

A reaction set in. If he had any self-control left he lost it, and like a boy whose fling into manhood had exhausted his courage he sank beside her and buried his face against her. And he cried in a low, tense, heartbroken way. For Joan it was terrible to hear him. She held his hand to her breast and implored him not to weaken now. But he was stricken with remorse — he had run off like a coward, he had brought her to this calamity — and he could not rise under it. Joan realized that he had long labored under stress of morbid emotion. Only a supreme effort could lift him out of it to strong and reasoning equilibrium, and that must come from her.

She pushed him away from her, and held him back where he must see her, and white-hot with passionate purpose, she kissed him. “Jim Cleve, if you’ve NERVE enough to be BAD you’ve nerve enough to save the girl who LOVES you — who BELONGS to you!”

He raised his face and it flashed from red to white. He caught the subtlety of her antithesis. With the very two words which had driven him away under the sting of cowardice she uplifted him; and with all that was tender and faithful and passionate in her meaning of surrender she settled at once and forever the doubt of his manhood. He arose trembling in every limb. Like a dog he shook himself. His breast heaved. The shades of scorn and bitterness and abandon might never have haunted his face. In that moment he had passed from the reckless and wild, sick rage of a weakling to the stern, realizing courage of a man. His suffering on this wild border had developed a different fiber of character; and at the great moment, the climax, when his moral force hung balanced between elevation and destruction, the woman had called to him, and her unquenchable spirit passed into him.

“There’s only one thing — to get away,” he said.

“Yes, but that’s a terrible risk,” she replied.

“We’ve a good chance now. I’ll get horses. We can slip away while they’re all excited.”

“No — no. I daren’t risk so much. Kells would find out at once. He’d be like a hound on our trail. But that’s not all. I’ve a horror of Gulden. I can’t explain. I FEEL it. He would know — he would take the trail. I’d never try to escape with Gulden in camp.... Jim, do you know what he’s done?”

“He’s a cannibal. I hate the sight of him. I tried to kill him. I wish I had killed him.”

“I’m never safe while he’s near.”

“Then I will kill him.”

“Hush! you’ll not be desperate unless you have to be.... Listen. I’m safe with Kells for the present. And he’s friendly to you. Let us wait. I’ll keep trying to influence him. I have won the friendship of some of his men. We’ll stay with him — travel with him. Surely we’d have a better chance to excape after we reach that gold-camp. You must play your part. But do it without drinking and fighting. I couldn’t bear that. We’ll see each other somehow. We’ll plan. Then we’ll take the first chance to get away.”

“We might never have a better chance than we’ve got right now,” he remonstrated.

“It may seem so to you. But I KNOW. I haven’t watched these ruffians for nothing. I tell you Gulden has split with Kells because of me. I don’t know how I know. And I think I’d die of terror out on the trail with two hundred miles to go — and that gorilla after me.”

“But, Joan, if we once got away Gulden would never take you alive,” said Jim, earnestly. “So you needn’t fear that.”

“I’ve uncanny horror of him. It’s as if he were a gorilla — and would take me off even if I were dead!... No, Jim, let us wait. Let me select the time. I can do it. Trust me. Oh, Jim, now that I’ve saved you from being a bandit, I can do anything. I can fool Kells or Pearce or Wood — any of them, except Gulden.”

“If Kells had to choose now between trailing you and rushing for the gold-camp, which would he do?”

“He’d trail me,” she said.

“But Kells is crazy over gold. He has two passions. To steal gold, and to gamble with it.”

“That may be. But he’d go after me first. So would Gulden. We can’t ride these hills as they do. We don’t know the trails — the water. We’d get lost. We’d be caught. And somehow I know that Gulden and his gang would find us first.”

“You’re probably right, Joan,” replied Cleve. “But you condemn me to a living death.... To let you out of my sight with Kells or any of them! It’ll be worse almost than my life was before.”

“But, Jim, I’ll be safe,” she entreated. “It’s the better choice of two evils. Our lives depend on reason, waiting, planning. And, Jim, I want to live for you.”

“My brave darling, to hear you say that!” he exclaimed, with deep emotion. “When I never expected to see you again!... But the past is past. I begin over from this hour. I’ll be what you want — do what you want.”

Joan seemed irresistibly drawn to him again, and the supplication, as she lifted her blushing face, and the yielding, were perilously sweet.

“Jim, kiss me and hold me — the way — you did that night!”

And it was not Joan who first broke that embrace.

“Find my mask,” she said.

Cleve picked up his gun and presently the piece of black felt. He held it as if it were a deadly thing.

“Put it on me.”

He slipped the cord over her head and adjusted the mask so the holes came right for her eyes.

“Joan, it hides the — the GOODNESS of you,” he cried. “No one can see your eyes now. No one will look at your face. That rig shows your — shows you off so! It’s not decent.... But, O Lord! I’m bound to confess how pretty, how devilish, how seductive you are! And I hate it.”

“Jim, I hate it, too. But we must stand it. Try not to shame me any more.... And now good-by. Keep watch for me — as I will for you — all the time.”

Joan broke from him and glided out of the grove, away under the straggling pines, along the slope. She came upon her horse and she led him back to the corral. Many of the horses had strayed. There was no one at the cabin, but she saw men striding up the slope, Kells in the lead. She had been fortunate. Her absence could hardly have been noted. She had just strength left to get to her room, where she fell upon the bed, weak and trembling and dizzy and unutterably grateful at her deliverance from the hateful, unbearable falsity of her situation.

CHAPTER 13

IT WAS AFTERNOON before Joan could trust herself sufficiently to go out again, and when she did she saw that she attracted very little attention from the bandits.

Kells had a springy step, a bright eye, a lifted head, and he seemed to be listening. Perhaps he was — to the music of his sordid dreams. Joan watched him sometimes with wonder. Even a bandit — plotting gold robberies, with violence and blood merely means to an end — built castles in the air and lived with joy!

All that afternoon the bandits left camp in twos and threes, each party with pack burros and horses, packed as Joan had not seen them before on the border. Shovels and picks and old sieves and pans, these swinging or tied in prominent places, were evidence that the bandits meant to assume the characters of miners and prospectors. They whistled and sang. It was a lark. The excitement had subsided and the action begun. Only in Kells, under his radiance, could be felt the dark and sinister plot. He was the heart of the machine.

By sundown Kells, Pearce, Wood, Jim Cleve, and a robust, grizzled bandit, Jesse Smith, were left in camp. Smith was lame from his ride, and Joan gathered that Kells would have left camp but for the fact that Smith needed rest. He and Kells were together all the time, talking endlessly. Joan heard them argue a disputed point — would the men abide by Kells’s plan and go by twos and threes into the gold-camp, and hide their relations as a larger band? Kells contended they would and Smith had his doubts.

“Jack, wait till you see Alder Creek!” ejaculated Smith, wagging his grizzled head. “Three thousand men, old an’ young, of all kinds — gone gold — crazy! Alder Creek has got California’s ‘49 and’ ‘51 cinched to the last hole!” And the bandit leader rubbed his palms in great glee.

That evening they all had supper together in Kell’s cabin. Bate Wood grumbled because he had packed most of his outfit. It so chanced that Joan sat directly opposite Jim Cleve, and while he ate he pressed her foot with his under the table. The touch thrilled Joan. Jim did not glance at her, but there was such a change in him that she feared it might rouse Kells’s curiosity. This night, however, the bandit could not have seen anything except a gleam of yellow. He talked, he sat at table, but did not eat. After supper he sent Joan to her cabin, saying they would be on the trail at daylight. Joan watched them awhile from her covert. They had evidently talked themselves out, and Kells grew thoughtful. Smith and Pearce went outside, apparently to roll their beds on the ground under the porch roof. Wood, who said he was never a good sleeper, smoked his pipe. And Jim Cleve spread blankets along the wall in the shadow and and lay down. Joan could see his eyes shining toward the door. Of course he was thinking of her. But could he see her eyes? Watching her chance, she slipped a hand from behind the curtain, and she knew Cleve saw it. What a comfort that was! Joan’s heart swelled. All might yet be well. Jim Cleve would be near her while she slept. She could sleep now without those dark dreams — without dreading to awaken to the light. Again she saw Kells pacing the room, silent, bent, absorbed, hands behind his back, weighted with his burden. It was impossible not to feel sorry for him. With all his intelligence and cunning power, his cause was hopeless. Joan knew that as she knew so many other things without understanding why. She had not yet sounded Jesse Smith, but not a man of all the others was true to Kells. They would be of his Border Legion, do his bidding, revel in their ill-gotten gains, and then, when he needed them most, be false to him.

When Joan was awakened her room was shrouded in gray gloom. A bustle sound from the big cabin, and outside horses stamped and men talked.

She sat alone at breakfast and ate by lantern-light. It was necessary to take a lantern back to her cabin, and she was so long in her preparations there that Kells called again. Somehow she did not want to leave this cabin. It seemed protective and private, and she feared she might not find such quarters again. Besides, upon the moment of leaving she discovered that she had grown attached to the place where she had suffered and thought and grown so much.

Kells had put out the lights. Joan hurried through the cabin and outside. The gray obscurity had given way to dawn. The air was cold, sweet, bracing with the touch of mountain purity in it. The men, except Kells, were all mounted, and the pack-train was in motion. Kells dragged the rude door into position, and then, mounting, he called to Joan to follow. She trotted her horse after him, down the slope, across the brook and through the wet willows, and out upon the wide trail. She glanced ahead, discerning that the third man from her was Jim Cleve; and that fact, in the start for Alder Creek, made all the difference in the world.

When they rode out of the narrow defile into the valley the sun was rising red and bright in a notch of the mountains. Clouds hung over distant peaks, and the patches of snow in the high canons shone blue and pink. Smith in the lead turned westward up the valley. Horses trooped after the cavalcade and had to be driven back. There were also cattle in the valley, and all these Kells left behind like an honest rancher who had no fear for his stock. Deer stood off with long ears pointed forward, watching the horses go by. There were flocks of quail, and whirring grouse, and bounding jack-rabbits, and occasionally a brace of sneaking coyotes. These and the wild flowers, and the waving meadow-grass, the yellow-stemmed willows, and the patches of alder, all were pleasurable to Joan’s eyes and restful to her mind.

Smith soon led away from this valley up out of the head of a ravine, across a rough rock-strewn ridge, down again into a hollow that grew to be a canon. The trail was bad. Part of the time it was the bottom of a boulder-strewn brook where the horses slipped on the wet, round stones. Progress was slow and time passed. For Joan, however, it was a relief; and the slower they might travel the better she would like it. At the end of that journey there were Gulden and the others, and the gold-camp with its illimitable possibilities for such men.

At noon the party halted for a rest. The camp site was pleasant and the men were all agreeable. During the meal Kells found occasion to remark to Cleve:

“Say youngster, you’ve brightened up. Must be because of our prospects over here.”

“Not that so much,” replied Cleve. “I quit the whisky. To be honest, Kells, I was almost seeing snakes.”

“I’m glad you quit. When you’re drinking you’re wild. I never yet saw the man who could drink hard and keep his head. I can’t. But I don’t drink much.”

His last remark brought a response in laughter. Evidently his companions thought he was joking. He laughed himself and actually winked at Joan.

It happened to be Cleve whom Kells told to saddle Joan’s horse, and as Joan tried the cinches, to see if they were too tight to suit her, Jim’s hand came in contact with hers. That touch was like a message. Joan was thrilling all over as she looked at Jim, but he kept his face averted. Perhaps he did not trust his eyes.

Travel was resumed up the canon and continued steadily, though leisurely. But the trail was so rough, and so winding, that Joan believed the progress did not exceed three miles an hour. It was the kind of travel in which a horse could be helped and that entailed attention to the lay of the ground. Before Joan realized the hours were flying, the afternoon had waned. Smith kept on, however, until nearly dark before halting for camp.

The evening camp was a scene of activity, and all except Joan had work to do. She tried to lend a hand, but Wood told her to rest. This she was glad to do. When called to supper she had almost fallen asleep. After a long day’s ride the business of eating precluded conversation. Later, however, the men began to talk between puffs on their pipes, and from the talk no one could have guessed that here was a band of robbers on their way to a gold camp. Jesse Smith had a sore foot and he was compared to a tenderfoot on his first ride. Smith retaliated in kind. Every consideration was shown Joan, and Wood particularly appeared assiduous in his desire for her comfort. All the men except Cleve paid her some kind attention; and he, of course, neglected her because he was afraid to go near her. Again she felt in Red Pearce a condemnation of the bandit leader who was dragging a girl over hard trails, making her sleep in the open, exposing her to danger and to men like himself and Gulden. In his own estimate Pearce, like every one of his kind, was not so slow as the others.

Joan watched and listened from her blankets, under a leafy tree, some few yards from the camp-fire. Once Kells turned to see how far distant she was, and then, lowering his voice, he told a story. The others laughed. Pearce followed with another, and he, too, took care that Joan could not hear. They grew closer for the mirth, and Smith, who evidently was a jolly fellow, set them to roaring. Jim Cleve laughed with them.

“Say, Jim, you’re getting over it,” remarked Kells.

“Over what?”

Kells paused, rather embarrassed for a reply, as evidently in the humor of the hour he had spoken a thought better left unsaid. But there was no more forbidding atmosphere about Cleve. He appeared to have rounded to good-fellowship after a moody and quarrelsome drinking spell.

“Why, over what drove you out here — and gave me a lucky chance at you,” replied Kells, with a constrained laugh.

“Oh, you mean the girl?... Sure, I’m getting over that, except when I drink.”

“Tell us, Jim,” said Kells, curiously.

“Aw, you’ll give me the laugh!” retorted Cleve.

“No, we won’t unless your story’s funny.”

“You can gamble it wasn’t funny,” put in Red Pearce.

They all coaxed him, yet none of them, except Kells, was particularly curious; it was just that hour when men of their ilk were lazy and comfortable and full fed and good-humored round the warm, blazing camp-fire.

“All right,” replied Cleve, and apparently, for all his complaisance, a call upon memory had its pain. “I’m from Montana. Range-rider in winter and in summer I prospected. Saved quite a little money, in spite of a fling now and then at faro and whisky.... Yes, there was a girl, I guess yes. She was pretty. I had a bad case over her. Not long ago I left all I had — money and gold and things — in her keeping, and I went prospecting again. We were to get married on my return. I stayed out six months, did well, and got robbed of all my dust.”

Cleve was telling this fabrication in a matter-of-fact way, growing a little less frank as he proceeded, and he paused while he lifted sand and let it drift through his fingers, watching it curiously. All the men were interested and Kells hung on every word.

“When I got back,” went on Cleve, “my girl had married another fellow. She’d given him all I left with her. Then I got drunk. While I was drunk they put up a job on me. It was her word that disgraced me and run me out of town.... So I struck west and drifted to the border.”

“That’s not all,” said Kells, bluntly.

“Jim, I reckon you ain’t tellin’ what you did to thet lyin’ girl an’ the feller. How’d you leave them?” added Pearce.

But Cleve appeared to become gloomy and reticent.

“Wimmen can hand the double-cross to a man, hey, Kells?” queried Smith, with a broad grin.

“By gosh! I thought you’d been treated powerful mean!” exclaimed Bate Wood, and he was full of wrath.

“A treacherous woman!” exclaimed Kells, passionately. He had taken Cleve’s story hard. The man must have been betrayed by women, and Cleve’s story had irritated old wounds.

Directly Kells left the fire and repaired to his blankets, near where Joan lay. Probably he believed her asleep, for he neither looked nor spoke. Cleve sought his bed, and likewise Wood and Smith. Pearce was the last to leave, and as he stood up the light fell upon his red face, lean and bold like an Indian’s. Then he passed Joan, looking down upon her and then upon the recumbent figure of Kells; and if his glance was not baleful and malignant, as it swept over the bandit, Joan believed her imagination must be vividly weird, and running away with her judgment.

The next morning began a day of toil. They had to climb over the mountain divide, a long, flat-topped range of broken rocks. Joan spared her horse to the limit of her own endurance. If there were a trail Smith alone knew it, for none was in evidence to the others. They climbed out of the notched head of the canon, and up a long slope of weathered shale that let the horses slide back a foot for every yard gained, and through a labyrinth of broken cliffs, and over bench and ridge to the height of the divide. From there Joan had a magnificent view. Foot-hills rolled round heads below, and miles away, in a curve of the range, glistened Bear Lake. The rest here at this height was counteracted by the fact that the altitude affected Joan. She was glad to be on the move again, and now the travel was downhill, so that she could ride. Still it was difficult, for horses were more easily lamed in a descent. It took two hours to descend the distance that had consumed all the morning to ascend. Smith led through valley after valley between foot-hills, and late in the afternoon halted by a spring in a timbered spot.

Joan ached in every muscle and she was too tired to care what happened round the camp-fire. Jim had been close to her all day and that had kept up her spirit. It was not yet dark when she lay down for the night.

“Sleep well, Dandy Dale,” said Kells, cheerfully, yet not without pathos. “Alder Creek to-morrow!... Then you’ll never sleep again!”

At times she seemed to feel that he regretted her presence, and always this fancy came to her with mocking or bantering suggestion that the costume and mask she wore made her a bandit’s consort, and she could not escape the wildness of this gold-seeking life. The truth was that Kells saw the insuperable barrier between them, and in the bitterness of his love he lied to himself, and hated himself for the lie.

About the middle of the afternoon of the next day the tired cavalcade rode down out of the brush and rock into a new, broad, dusty road. It was so new that the stems of the cut brush along the borders were still white. But that road had been traveled by a multitude.

Out across the valley in the rear Joan saw a canvas-topped wagon, and she had not ridden far on the road when she saw a bobbing pack-burros to the fore. Kells had called Wood and Smith and Pearce and Cleve together, and now they went on in a bunch, all driving the pack-train. Excitement again claimed Kells; Pearce was alert and hawk-eyed; Smith looked like a hound on a scent; Cleve showed genuine feeling. Only Bate Wood remained proof to the meaning of that broad road.

All along, on either side, Joan saw wrecks of wagons, wheels, harness, boxes, old rags of tents blown into the brush, dead mules and burros. It seemed almost as if an army had passed that way. Presently the road crossed a wide, shallow brook of water, half clear and half muddy; and on the other side the road followed the course of the brook. Joan heard Smith call the stream Alder Creek, and he asked Kells if he knew what muddied water meant. The bandit’s eyes flashed fire. Joan thrilled, for she, too, knew that up-stream there were miners washing earth for gold.

A couple of miles farther on creek and road entered the mouth of a wide spruce-timbered gulch. These trees hid any view of the slopes or floor of the gulch, and it was not till several more miles had been passed that the bandit rode out into what Joan first thought was a hideous slash in the forest made by fire. But it was only the devastation wrought by men. As far as she could see the timber was down, and everywhere began to be manifested signs that led her to expect habitations. No cabins showed, however, in the next mile. They passed out of the timbered part of the gulch into one of rugged, bare, and stony slopes, with bunches of sparse alder here and there. The gulch turned at right angles and a great gray slope shut out sight of what lay beyond. But, once round that obstruction, Kells halted his men with short, tense exclamation.

Joan saw that she stood high up on the slope, looking down upon the gold-camp. It was an interesting scene, but not beautiful. To Kells it must have been so, but to Joan it was even more hideous than the slash in the forest. Here and there, everywhere, were rude dugouts, little huts of brush, an occasional tent, and an occasional log cabin; and as she looked farther and farther these crude habitations of miners magnified in number and in dimensions till the white and black broken, mass of the town choked the narrow gulch.

“Wal, boss, what do you say to thet diggin’s?” demanded Jesse Smith.

Kells drew a deep breath. “Old forty-niner, this beats all I ever saw!”

“Shore I’ve seen Sacramento look like thet!” added Bate Wood.

Pearce and Cleve gazed with fixed eyes, and, however different their emotions, they rivaled each other in attention.

“Jesse, what’s the word?” queried Kells, with a sharp return to the business of the matter.

“I’ve picked a site on the other side of camp. Best fer us,” he replied.

“Shall we keep to the road?”

“Certain-lee,” he returned, with his grin.

Kells hesitated, and felt of his beard, probably conjecturing the possibilities of recognition.

“Whiskers make another man of you. Reckon you needn’t expect to be known over here.”

That decided Kells. He pulled his sombrero well down, shadowing his face. Then he remembered Joan and made a slight significant gesture at her mask.

“Kells, the people in this here camp wouldn’t look at an army ridin’ through,” responded Smith. “It’s every man fer hisself. An’ wimmen, say! there’s all kinds. I seen a dozen with veils, an’ them’s the same as masks.” Nevertheless, Kells had Joan remove the mask and pull her sombrero down, and instructed her to ride in the midst of the group. Then they trotted on, soon catching up with the jogging pack-train.

What a strange ride that was for Joan! The slope resembled a magnified ant-hill with a horde of frantic ants in action. As she drew closer she saw these ants were men, digging for gold. Those near at hand could be plainly seen — rough, ragged, bearded men and smooth-faced boys. Farther on and up the slope, along the waterways and ravines, were miners so close they seemed almost to interfere with one another. The creek bottom was alive with busy, silent, violent men, bending over the water, washing and shaking and paddling, all desperately intent upon something. They had not time to look up. They were ragged, unkempt, barearmed and bare-legged, every last one of them with back bent. For a mile or more Kells’s party trotted through this part of the diggings, and everywhere, on rocky bench and gravel bar and gray slope, were holes with men picking and shoveling in them. Some were deep and some were shallow; some long trenches and others mere pits. If all of these prospectors were finding gold, then gold was everywhere. And presently Joan did not need to have Kells tell her that all of these diggers were finding dust. How silent they were — how tense! They were not mechanical. It was a soul that drove them. Joan had seen many men dig for gold, and find a little now and then, but she had never seen men dig when they knew they were going to strike gold. That made the strange difference.

Joan calculated she must have seen a thousand miners in less than two miles of the gulch, and then she could not see up the draws and washes that intersected the slope, and she could not see beyond the camp.

But it was not a camp which she was entering; it was a tent-walled town, a city of squat log cabins, a long, motley, checkered jumble of structures thrown up and together in mad haste. The wide road split it in the middle and seemed a stream of color and life. Joan rode between two lines of horses, burros, oxen, mules, packs and loads and canvas-domed wagons and gaudy vehicles resembling gipsy caravans. The street was as busy as a beehive and as noisy as a bedlam. The sidewalks were rough-hewn planks and they rattled under the tread of booted men. There were tents on the ground and tents on floors and tents on log walls. And farther on began the lines of cabins-stores and shops and saloons — and then a great, square, flat structure with a flaring sign in crude gold letters, “Last Nugget,” from which came the creak of iddles and scrape of boots, and hoarse mirth. Joan saw strange, wild-looking creatures — women that made her shrink; and several others of her sex, hurrying along, carrying sacks or buckets, worn and bewildered-looking women, the sight of whom gave her a pang. She saw lounging Indians and groups of lazy, bearded men, just like Kells’s band, and gamblers in long, black coats, and frontiersmen in fringed buckskin, and Mexicans with swarthy faces under wide, peaked sombreros; and then in great majority, dominating that stream of life, the lean and stalwart miners, of all ages, in their check shirts and high boots, all packing guns, jostling along, dark-browed, somber, and intent. These last were the workers of this vast beehive; the others were the drones, the parasites.

Kell’s party rode on through the town, and Smith halted them beyond the outskirts, near a grove of spruce-trees, where camp was to be made.

Joan pondered over her impression of Alder Creek. It was confused; she had seen too much. But out of what she had seen and heard loomed two contrasting features: a throng of toiling miners, slaves to their lust for gold and actuated by ambitions, hopes, and aims, honest, rugged, tireless workers, but frenzied in that strange pursuit; and a lesser crowd, like leeches, living for and off the gold they did not dig with blood of hand and sweat of brow.

Manifestly Jesse Smith had selected the spot for Kells’s permanent location at Alder Creek with an eye for the bandit’s peculiar needs. It was out of sight of town, yet within a hundred rods of the nearest huts, and closer than that to a sawmill. It could be approached by a shallow ravine that wound away toward the creek. It was backed up against a rugged bluff in which there was a narrow gorge, choked with pieces of weathered cliff; and no doubt the bandits could go and come in that direction. There was a spring near at hand and a grove of spruce-trees. The ground was rocky, and apparently unfit for the digging of gold.

While Bate Wood began preparations for supper, and Cleve built the fire, and Smith looked after the horses, Kells and Pearce stepped off the ground where the cabin was to be erected. They selected a level bench down upon which a huge cracked rock, as large as a house, had rolled. The cabin was to be backed up against this stone, and in the rear, under cover of it, a secret exit could be made and hidden. The bandit wanted two holes to his burrow.

When the group sat down to the meal the gulch was full of sunset colors. And, strangely, they were all some shade of gold. Beautiful golden veils, misty, ethereal, shone in rays across the gulch from the broken ramparts; and they seemed so brilliant, so rich, prophetic of the treasures of the hills. But that golden sunset changed. The sun went down red, leaving a sinister shadow over the gulch, growing darker and darker. Joan saw Cleve thoughtfully watching this transformation, and she wondered if he had caught the subtle mood of nature. For whatever had been the hope and brightness, the golden glory of this new Eldorado, this sudden uprising Alder Creek with its horde of brave and toiling miners, the truth was that Jack Kells and Gulden had ridden into the camp and the sun had gone down red. Joan knew that great mining-camps were always happy, rich, free, lucky, honest places till the fame of gold brought evil men. And she had not the slightest doubt that the sun of Alder Creek’s brief and glad day had set forever.

Twilight was stealing down from the hills when Kells announced to his party: “Bate, you and Jesse keep camp. Pearce, you look out for any of the gang. But meet in the dark!... Cleve, you can go with me.” Then he turned to Joan. “Do you want to go with us to see the sights or would you rather stay here?”

“I’d like to go, if only I didn’t look so — so dreadful in this suit,” she replied.

Kells laughed, and the camp-fire glare lighted the smiling faces of Pearce and Smith.

“Why, you’ll not be seen. And you look far from dreadful.”

“Can’t you give me a — a longer coat?” faltered Joan.

Cleve heard, and without speaking he went to his saddle and unrolled his pack. Inside a slicker he had a gray coat. Joan had seen it many a time, and it brought a pang with memories of Hoadley. Had that been years ago? Cleve handed this coat to Joan.

“Thank you,” she said.

Kells held the coat for her and she slipped into it. She seemed lost. It was long, coming way below her hips, and for the first time in days she felt she was Joan Randle again.

“Modesty is all very well in a woman, but it’s not always becoming,” remarked Kells. “Turn up your collar.... Pull down your hat — farther — There! If you won’t go as a youngster now I’ll eat Dandy Dale’s outfit and get you silk dresses. Ha-ha!”

Joan was not deceived by his humor. He might like to look at her in that outrageous bandit costume; it might have pleased certain vain and notoriety-seeking proclivities of his, habits of his California road-agent days; but she felt that notwithstanding this, once she had donned the long coat he was relieved and glad in spite of himself. Joan had a little rush of feeling. Sometimes she almost liked this bandit. Once he must have been something very different.

They set out, Joan between Kells and Cleve. How strange for her! She had daring enough to feel for Jim’s hand in the dark and to give it a squeeze. Then he nearly broke her fingers. She felt the fire in him. It was indeed a hard situation for him. The walking was rough, owing to the uneven road and the stones. Several times Joan stumbled and her spurs jangled. They passed ruddy camp-fires, where steam and smoke arose with savory odors, where red-faced men were eating; and they passed other camp-fires, burned out and smoldering. Some tents had dim lights, throwing shadows on the canvas, and others were dark. There were men on the road, all headed for town, gay, noisy and profane.

Then Joan saw uneven rows of lights, some dim and some bright, and crossing before them were moving dark figures. Again Kells bethought himself of his own disguise, and buried his chin in his scarf and pulled his wide-brimmed hat down so that hardly a glimpse of his face could be seen. Joan could not have recognized him at the distance of a yard.

They walked down the middle of the road, past the noisy saloons, past the big, flat structure with its sign “Last Nugget” and its open windows, where shafts of light shone forth, and all the way down to the end of town. Then Kells turned back. He scrutinized each group of men he met. He was looking for members of his Border Legion. Several times he left Cleve and Joan standing in the road while he peered into saloons. At these brief intervals Joan looked at Cleve with all her heart in her eyes. He never spoke. He seemed under a strain. Upon the return, when they reached the Last Nugget, Kells said:

“Jim, hang on to her like grim death! She’s worth more than all the gold in Alder Creek!”

Then they started for the door.

Joan clung to Cleve on one side, and on the other, instinctively with a frightened girl’s action, she let go Kells’s arm and slipped her hand in his. He seemed startled. He bent to her ear, for the din made ordinary talk indistinguishable. That involuntary hand in his evidently had pleased and touched him, even hurt him, for his whisper was husky.

“It’s all right — you’re perfectly safe.”

First Joan made out a glare of smoky lamps, a huge place full of smoke and men and sounds. Kells led the way slowly. He had his own reason for observance. There was a stench that sickened Joan — a blended odor of tobacco and rum and wet sawdust and smoking oil. There was a noise that appeared almost deafening — the loud talk and vacant laughter of drinking men, and a din of creaky fiddles and scraping boots and boisterous mirth. This last and dominating sound came from an adjoining room, which Joan could see through a wide opening. There was dancing, but Joan could not see the dancers because of the intervening crowd. Then her gaze came back to the features nearer at hand. Men and youths were lined up to a long bar nearly as high as her head. Then there were excited shouting groups round gambling games. There were men in clusters, sitting on upturned kegs, round a box for a table, and dirty bags of gold-dust were in evidence. The gamblers at the cards were silent, in strange contrast with the others; and in each group was at least one dark-garbed, hard-eyed gambler who was not a miner. Joan saw boys not yet of age, flushed and haggard, wild with the frenzy of winning and cast down in defeat. There were jovial, grizzled, old prospectors to whom this scene and company were pleasant reminders of bygone days. There were desperados whose glittering eyes showed they had no gold with which to gamble.

Joan suddenly felt Kells start and she believed she heard a low, hissing exclamation. And she looked for the cause. Then she saw familiar dark faces; they belonged to men of Kells’s Legion. And with his broad back to her there sat the giant Gulden. Already he and his allies had gotten together in defiance of or indifference to Kells’s orders. Some of them were already under the influence of drink, but, though they saw Kells, they gave no sign of recognition. Gulden did not see Joan, and for that she was thankful. And whether or not his presence caused it, the fact was that she suddenly felt as much of a captive as she had in Cabin Gulch, and feared that here escape would be harder because in a community like this Kells would watch her closely.

Kells led Joan and Cleve from one part of the smoky hall to another, and they looked on at the games and the strange raw life manifested there. The place was getting packed with men. Kells’s party encountered Blicky and Beady Jones together. They passed by as strangers. Then Joan saw Beard and Chick Williams arm in arm, strolling about, like roystering miners. Williams telegraphed a keen, fleeting glance at Kells, then went on, to be lost in the crowd. Handy Oliver brushed by Kells, jostled him, apparently by accident, and he said, “Excuse me, mister!” There were other familiar faces. Kells’s gang were all in Alder Creek and the dark machinations of the bandit leader had been put into operation. What struck Joan forcibly was that, though there were hilarity and comradeship, they were not manifested in any general way. These miners were strangers to one another; the groups were strangers; the gamblers were strangers; the newcomers were strangers; and over all hung an atmosphere of distrust. Good fellowship abided only in the many small companies of men who stuck together. The mining-camps that Joan had visited had been composed of an assortment of prospectors and hunters who made one big, jolly family. This was a gold strike, and the difference was obvious. The hunting for gold was one thing, in its relation to the searchers; after it had been found, in a rich field, the conditions of life and character changed. Gold had always seemed wonderful and beautiful to Joan; she absorbed here something that was the nucleus of hate. Why could not these miners, young and old, stay in their camps and keep their gold? That was the fatality. The pursuit was a dream — a glittering allurement; the possession incited a lust for more, and that was madness. Joan felt that in these reckless, honest miners there was a liberation of the same wild element which was the driving passion of Kells’s Border Legion. Gold, then, was a terrible thing.

“Take me in there,” said Joan, conscious of her own excitement, and she indicated the dance-hall.

Kells laughed as if at her audacity. But he appeared reluctant.

“Please take me — unless—” Joan did not know what to add, but she meant unless it was not right for her to see any more. A strange curiosity had stirred in her. After all, this place where she now stood was not greatly different from the picture imagination had conjured up. That dance-hall, however, was beyond any creation of Joan’s mind.

“Let me have a look first,” said Kells, and he left Joan with Cleve.

When he had gone Joan spoke without looking at Cleve, though she held fast to his arm.

“Jim, it could be dreadful here — all in a minute!” she whispered.

“You’ve struck it exactly,” he replied. “All Alder Creek needed to make it hell was Kells and his gang.”

“Thank Heaven I turned you back in time!... Jim, you’d have — have gone the pace here.”

He nodded grimly. Then Kells returned and led them back through the room to another door where spectators were fewer. Joan saw perhaps a dozen couples of rough, whirling, jigging dancers in a half-circle of watching men. The hall was a wide platform of boards with posts holding a canvas roof. The sides, were open; the lights were situated at each end-huge, round, circus tent lamps. There were rude benches and tables where reeling men surrounded a woman. Joan saw a young miner in dusty boots and corduroys lying drunk or dead in the sawdust. Her eyes were drawn back to the dancers, and to the dance that bore some semblance to a waltz. In the din the music could scarcely be heard. As far as the men were concerned this dance was a bold and violent expression of excitement on the part of some, and for the rest a drunken, mad fling. Sight of the women gave Joan’s curiosity a blunt check. She felt queer. She had not seen women like these, and their dancing, their actions, their looks, were beyond her understanding. Nevertheless, they shocked her, disgusted her, sickened her. And suddenly when it dawned upon her in unbelievable vivid suggestion that they were the wildest and most terrible element of this dark stream of humanity lured by gold, then she was appalled.

“Take me out of here!” she besought Kells, and he led her out instantly. They went through the gambling-hall and into the crowded street, back toward camp.

“You saw enough,” said Kells, “but nothing to what will break out by and by. This camp is new. It’s rich. Gold is the cheapest thing. It passes from hand to hand. Ten dollars an ounce. Buyers don’t look at the scales. Only the gamblers are crooked. But all this will change.”

Kells did not say what that change might be, but the click of his teeth was expressive. Joan did not, however, gather from it, and the dark meaning of his tone, that the Border Legion would cause this change. That was in the nature of events. A great strike of gold might enrich the world, but it was a catastrophe.

Long into the night Joan lay awake, and at times, stirring the silence, there was wafted to her on a breeze the low, strange murmur of the gold-camp’s strife.

Joan slept late next morning, and was awakened by the unloading of lumber. Teams were drawing planks from the sawmill. Already a skeleton framework for Kells’s cabin had been erected. Jim Cleve was working with the others, and they were sacrificing thoroughness to haste. Joan had to cook her own breakfast, which task was welcome, and after it had been finished she wished for something more to occupy her mind. But nothing offered. Finding a comfortable seat among some rocks where she would be inconspicuous, she looked on at the building of Kells’s cabin. It seemed strange, and somehow comforting, to watch Jim Cleve work. He had never been a great worker. Would this experience on the border make a man of him? She felt assured of that.

If ever a cabin sprang up like a mushroom, that bandit rendezvous was the one. Kells worked himself, and appeared no mean hand. By noon the roof of clapboards was on, and the siding of the same material had been started. Evidently there was not to a be a fireplace inside.

Then a teamster drove up with a wagon-load of purchases Kells had ordered. Kells helped unload this and evidently was in search of articles. Presently he found them, and then approached Joan, to deposit before her an assortment of bundles little and big.

“There Miss Modestly,” he said. “Make yourself some clothes. You can shake Dandy Dale’s outfit, except when we’re on the trail.... And, say, if you knew what I had to pay for this stuff you’d think there was a bigger robber in Alder Creek than Jack Kells.... And, come to think of it, my name’s now Blight. You’re my daughter, if any one asks.” Joan was so grateful to him for the goods and the permission to get out of Dandy Dale’s suit as soon as possible, that she could only smile her thanks. Kells stared at her, then turned abruptly away. Those little unconscious acts of hers seemed to affect him strangely. Joan remembered that he had intended to parade her in Dandy Dale’s costume to gratify some vain abnormal side of his bandit’s proclivities. He had weakened. Here was another subtle indication of the deterioration of the evil of him. How far would it go? Joan thought dreamily, and with a swelling heart, of her influence upon this hardened bandit, upon that wild boy, Jim Cleve.

All that afternoon, and part of the evening in the campfire light, and all of the next day Joan sewed, so busy that she scarcely lifted her eyes from her work. The following day she finished her dress, and with no little pride, for she had both taste and skill. Of the men, Bate Wood had been most interested in her task; and he would let things burn on the fire to watch her.

That day the rude cabin was completed. It contained one long room; and at the back a small compartment partitioned off from the rest, and built against and around a shallow cavern in the huge rock. This compartment was for Joan. There were a rude board door with padlock and key, a bench upon which blankets had been flung, a small square hole cut in the wall to serve as a window. What with her own few belongings and the articles of furniture that Kells bought for her, Joan soon had a comfortable room, even a luxury compared to what she had been used to for weeks. Certain it was that Kells meant to keep her a prisoner, or virtually so. Joan had no sooner spied the little window than she thought that it would be possible for Jim Cleve to talk to her there from the outside.

Kells verified Joan’s suspicion by telling her that she was not to leave the cabin of her own accord, as she had been permitted to do back in Cabin Gulch; and Joan retorted that there she had made him a promise not to run away, which promise she now took back. That promise had worried her. She was glad to be honest with Kells. He gazed at her somberly.

“You’ll be worse off it you do — and I’ll be better off,” he said. And then as an afterthought he added: “Gulden might not think you — a white elephant on his hands!... Remember his way, the cave and the rope!”

So, instinctively or cruelly he chose the right name to bring shuddering terror into Joan’s soul.

CHAPTER 14

JOAN’S OPPORTUNITY FOR watching Kells and his men and overhearing their colloquies was as good as it had been back in Cabin Gulch. But it developed that where Kells had been open and frank he now became secret and cautious. She was aware that men, singly and in couples, visited him during the early hours of the night, and they had conferences in low, earnest tones. She could peer out of her little window and see dark, silent forms come up from the ravine at the back of the cabin, and leave the same way. None of them went round to the front door, where Bate Wood smoked and kept guard. Joan was able to hear only scraps of these earnest talks; and from part of one she gathered that for some reason or other Kells desired to bring himself into notice. Alder Creek must be made to know that a man of importance had arrived. It seemed to Joan that this was the very last thing which Kells ought to do. What magnificent daring the bandit had! Famous years before in California — with a price set upon his life in Nevada — and now the noted, if unknown, leader of border robbers in Idaho, he sought to make himself prominent, respected, and powerful. Joan found that in spite of her horror at the sinister and deadly nature of the bandit’s enterprise she could not avoid an absorbing interest in his fortunes.

Next day Joan watched for an opportunity to tell Jim Cleve that he might come to her little window any time after dark to talk and plan with her. No chance presented itself. Joan wore the dress she had made, to the evident pleasure of Bate Wood and Pearce. They had conceived as strong an interest in her fortunes as she had in Kells’s. Wood nodded his approval and Pearce said she was a lady once more. Strange it was to Joan that this villain Pearce, whom she could not have dared trust, grew open in his insinuating hints of Kells’s blackguardism. Strange because Pearce was absolutely sincere!

When Jim Cleve did see Joan in her dress the first time he appeared so glad and relieved and grateful that she feared he might betray himself, so she got out of his sight.

Not long after that Kells called her from her room. He wore his somber and thoughtful cast of countenance. Red Pearce and Jesse Smith were standing at attention. Cleve was sitting on the threshold of the door and Wood leaned against the wall.

“Is there anything in the pack of stuff I bought you that you could use for a veil?” asked Kells of Joan.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Get it,” he ordered. “And your hat, too.”

Joan went to her room and returned with the designated articles, the hat being that which she had worn when she left Hoadley.

“That’ll do. Put it on — over your face — and let’s see how you look.”

Joan complied with this request, all the time wondering what Kells meant.

“I want it to disguise you, but not to hide your youth — your good looks,” he said, and he arranged it differently about her face. “There!... You’d sure make any man curious to see you now.... Put on the hat.”

Joan did so. Then Kells appeared to become more forcible.

“You’re to go down into the town. Walk slow as far as the Last Nugget. Cross the road and come back. Look at every man you meet or see standing by. Don’t be in the least frightened. Pearce and Smith will be right behind you. They’d get to you before anything could happen.... Do you understand?”

“Yes,” replied Joan.

Red Pearce stirred uneasily. “Jack, I’m thinkin’ some rough talk’ll come her way,” he said, darkly.

“Will you shut up!” replied Kells in quick passion. He resented some implication. “I’ve thought of that. She won’t hear what’s said to her.... Here,” and he turned again to Joan, “take some cotton — or anything — and stuff up your ears. Make a good job of it.”

Joan went back to her room and, looking about for something with which to execute Kells’s last order, she stripped some soft, woolly bits from a fleece-lined piece of cloth. With these she essayed to deaden her hearing. Then she returned. Kells spoke to her, but, though she seemed dully to hear his voice, she could not distinguish what he said. She shook her head. With that Kells waved her out upon her strange errand.

Joan brushed against Cleve as she crossed the threshold. What would he think of this? She would not see his face. When she reached the first tents she could not resist the desire to look back. Pearce was within twenty yards of her and Smith about the same distance farther back. Joan was more curious than anything else. She divined that Kells wanted her to attract attention, but for what reason she was at a loss to say. It was significant that he did not intend to let her suffer any indignity while fulfilling this mysterious mission.

Not until Joan got well down the road toward the Last Nugget did any one pay any attention to her. A Mexican jabbered at her, showing his white teeth, flashing his sloe-black eyes. Young miners eyed her curiously, and some of them spoke. She met all kinds of men along the plank walk, most of whom passed by, apparently unobserving. She obeyed Kells to the letter. But for some reason she was unable to explain, when she got to the row of saloons, where lounging, evil-eyed rowdies accosted her, she found she had to disobey him, at least in one particular. She walked faster. Still that did not make her task much easier. It began to be an ordeal. The farther she got the bolder men grew. Could it have been that Kells wanted this sort of thing to happen to her? Joan had no idea what these men meant, but she believed that was because for the time being she was deaf. Assuredly their looks were not a compliment to any girl. Joan wanted to hurry now, and she had to force herself to walk at a reasonable gait. One persistent fellow walked beside her for several steps. Joan was not fool enough not to realize now that these wayfarers wanted to make her acquaintance. And she decided she would have something to say to Kells when she got back.

Below the Last Nugget she crossed the road and started upon the return trip. In front of this gambling-hell there were scattered groups of men, standing, and going in. A tall man in black detached himself and started out, as if to intercept her. He wore a long black coat, a black bow tie, and a black sombrero. He had little, hard, piercing eyes, as black as his dress. He wore gloves and looked immaculate, compared with the other men. He, too, spoke to Joan, turned to walk with her. She looked straight ahead now, frightened, and she wanted to run. He kept beside her, apparently talking. Joan heard only the low sound of his voice. Then he took her arm, gently, but with familiarity. Joan broke from him and quickened her pace.

“Say, there! Leave thet girl alone!”

This must have been yelled, for Joan certainly heard it. She recognized Red Pearce’s voice. And she wheeled to look. Pearce had overhauled the gambler, and already men were approaching. Involuntarily Joan halted. What would happen? The gambler spoke to Pearce, made what appeared deprecating gestures, as if to explain. But Pearce looked angry.

“I’ll tell her daddy!” he shouted.

Joan waited for no more. She almost ran. There would surely be a fight. Could that have been Kells’s intention? Whatever it was, she had been subjected to a mortifying and embarrassing affront. She was angry, and she thought it might be just as well to pretend to be furious. Kells must not use her for his nefarious schemes. She hurried on, and, to her surprise, when she got within sight of the cabin both Pearce and Smith had almost caught up with her. Jim Cleve sat where she had last seen him. Also Kells was outside. The way he strode to and fro showed Joan his anxiety. There was more to this incident than she could fathom. She took the padding from her ears, to her intense relief, and, soon reaching the cabin, she tore off the veil and confronted Kells.

“Wasn’t that a — a fine thing for you to do?” she demanded, furiously. And with the outburst she felt her face blazing. “If I’d any idea what you meant — you couldn’t — have driven me!... I trusted you. And you sent me down there on some — shameful errand of yours. You’re no gentleman!”

Joan realized that her speech, especially the latter part, was absurd. But it had a remarkable effect upon Kells. His face actually turned red. He stammered something and halted, seemingly at a loss for words. How singularly the slightest hint of any act or word of hers that approached a possible respect or tolerance worked upon this bandit! He started toward Joan appealingly, but she passed him in contempt and went to her room. She heard him cursing Pearce in a rage, evidently blaming his lieutenant for whatever had angered her.

“But you wanted her insulted!” protested Pearce, hotly.

“You mullet-head!” roared Kells. “I wanted some man — any man — to get just near enough to her so I could swear she’d been insulted. You let her go through that camp to meet real insult!... Why — ! Pearce, I’ve a mind to shoot you!”

“Shoot!” retorted Pearce. “I obeyed orders as I saw them.... An’ I want to say right here thet when it comes to anythin’ concernin’ this girl you’re plumb off your nut. That’s what. An’ you can like it or lump it! I said before you’d split over this girl. An’ I say it now!”

Through the door Joan had a glimpse of Cleve stepping between the angry men. This seemed unnecessary, however, for Pearce’s stinging assertion had brought Kells to himself. There were a few more words, too low for Joan’s ears, and then, accompanied by Smith, the three started off, evidently for the camp. Joan left her room and watched them from the cabin door. Bate Wood sat outside smoking.

“I’m declarin’ my hand,” he said to Joan, feelingly. “I’d never hev stood for thet scurvy trick. Now, miss, this’s the toughest camp I ever seen. I mean tough as to wimmen! For it ain’t begun to fan guns an’ steal gold yet.”

“Why did Kells want me insulted?” asked Joan.

“Wal, he’s got to hev a reason for raisin’ an orful fuss,” replied Wood.

“Fuss?”

“Shore,” replied Wood, dryly.

“What for?”

“Jest so he can walk out on the stage,” rejoined Wood, evasively.

“It’s mighty strange,” said Joan.

“I reckon all about Mr. Kells is some strange these days. Red Pearce had it correct. Kells is a-goin’ to split on you!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Wal, he’ll go one way an’ the gang another.”

“Why?” asked Joan, earnestly.

“Miss, there’s some lot of reasons,” said Wood, deliberately. “Fust, he did for Halloway an’ Bailey, not because they wanted to treat you as he meant to, but just because he wanted to be alone. We’re all wise thet you shot him — an’ thet you wasn’t his wife. An’ since then we’ve seen him gradually lose his nerve. He organized his Legion an’ makes his plan to run this Alder Creek red. He still hangs on to you. He’d kill any man thet batted an eye at you.... An’ through all this, because he’s not Jack Kells of old, he’s lost his pull with the gang. Sooner or later he’ll split.”

“Have I any real friends among you?” asked Joan.

“Wal, I reckon.”

“Are you my friend, Bate Wood?” she went on in sweet wistfulness.

The grizzled old bandit removed his pipe and looked at her with a glint in his bloodshot eyes,

“I shore am. I’ll sneak you off now if you’ll go. I’ll stick a knife in Kells if you say so.”

“Oh, no, I’m afraid to run off — and you needn’t harm Kells. After all, he’s good to me.”

“Good to you!... When he keeps you captive like an Indian would? When he’s given me orders to watch you — keep you locked up?”

Wood’s snort of disgust and wrath was thoroughly genuine. Still Joan knew that she dared not trust him, any more than Pearce or the others. Their raw emotions would undergo a change if Kells’s possession of her were transferred to them. It occurred to Joan, however, that she might use Wood’s friendliness to some advantage.

“So I’m to be locked up?” she asked.

“You’re supposed to be.”

“Without any one to talk to?”

“Wal, you’ll hev me, when you want. I reckon thet ain’t much to look forward to. But I can tell you a heap of stories. An’ when Kells ain’t around, if you’re careful not to get me ketched, you can do as you want.”

“Thank you, Bate. I’m going to like you,” replied Joan, sincerely, and then she went back to her room. There was sewing to do, and while she worked she thought, so that the hours sped. When the light got so poor that she could sew no longer she put the work aside and stood at her little window, watching the sunset. From the front of the cabin came the sound of subdued voices. Probably Kells and his men had returned, and she was sure of this when she heard the ring of Bate Wood’s ax.

All at once an object darker than the stones arrested Joan’s gaze. There was a man sitting on the far side of the little ravine. Instantly she recognized Jim Cleve. He was looking at the little window — at her. Joan believed he was there for just that purpose. Making sure that no one else was near to see, she put out her hand and waved it. Jim gave a guarded perceptible sign that he had observed her action, and almost directly got up and left. Joan needed no more than that to tell her how Jim’s idea of communicating with her corresponded with her own. That night she would talk with him and she was thrilled through. The secrecy, the peril, somehow lent this prospect a sweetness, a zest, a delicious fear. Indeed, she was not only responding to love, but to daring, to defiance, to a wilder nameless element born of her environment and the needs of the hour.

Presently, Bate Wood called her in to supper. Pearce, Smith, and Cleve were finding seats at the table, but Kells looked rather sick. Joan observed him then more closely. His face was pale and damp, strangely shaded as if there were something dark under the pale skin. Joan had never seen him appear like this, and she shrank as from another and forbidding side of the man. Pearce and Smith acted naturally, ate with relish, and talked about the gold-diggings. Cleve, however, was not as usual; and Joan could not quite make out what constituted the dissimilarity. She hurried through her own supper and back to her room.

Already it was dark outside. Joan lay down to listen and wait. It seemed long, but probably was not long before she heard the men go outside, and the low thump of their footsteps as they went away. Then came the rattle and bang of Bate Wood’s attack on the pans and pots. Bate liked to cook, but he hated to clean up afterward. By and by he settled down outside for his evening smoke and there was absolute quiet. Then Joan rose to stand at the window. She could see the dark mass of rock overhanging the cabin, the bluff beyond, and the stars. For the rest all was gloom.

She did not have to wait long. A soft step, almost indistinguishable, made her pulse beat quicker. She put her face out of the window, and on the instant a dark form seemed to loom up to meet her out of the shadow. She could not recognize that shape, yet she knew it belonged to Cleve.

“Joan,” he whispered.

“Jim,” she replied, just as low and gladly.

He moved closer, so that the hand she had gropingly put out touched him, then seemed naturally to slip along his shoulder, round his neck. And his face grew clearer in the shadow. His lips met hers, and Joan closed her eyes to that kiss. What hope, what strength for him and for her now in that meeting of lips!

“Oh, Jim! I’m so glad — to have you near — to touch you,” she whispered.

“Do you love me still?” he whispered back, tensely.

“Still? More — more!”

“Say it, then.”

“Jim, I love you!”

And their lips met again and clung, and it was he who drew back first.

“Dearest, why didn’t you let me make a break to get away with you — before we came to this camp?”

“Oh, Jim, I told you. I was afraid. We’d have been caught. And Gulden—”

“We’ll never have half the chance here. Kells means to keep you closely guarded. I heard the order. He’s different now. He’s grown crafty and hard. And the miners of this Alder Creek! Why, I’m more afraid to trust them than men like Wood or Pearce. They’ve gone clean crazy. Gold-mad! If you shouted for your life they wouldn’t hear you. And if you could make them hear they wouldn’t believe. This camp has sprung up in a night. It’s not like any place I ever heard of. It’s not human. It’s so strange — so — Oh, I don’t know what to say. I think I mean that men in a great gold strike become like coyotes at a carcass. You’ve seen that. No relation at all!”

“I’m frightened, too, Jim. I wish I’d had the courage to run when we were back in Cabin Gulch, But don’t ever give up, not for a second! We can get away. We must plan and wait. Find out where we are — how far from Hoadley — what we must expect — whether it’s safe to approach any one in this camp.”

“Safe! I guess not, after to-day,” he whispered, grimly.

“Why? What’s happened?” she asked quickly.

“Joan, have you guessed yet why Kells sent you down into camp alone?”

“No.”

“Listen.... I went with Kells and Smith and Pearce. They hurried straight to the Last Nugget. There was a crowd of men in front of the place. Pearce walked straight up to one — a gambler by his clothes. And he said in a loud voice. ‘Here’s the man!’... The gambler looked startled, turned pale, and went for his gun. But Kells shot him!... He fell dead, without a word. There was a big shout, then silence. Kells stood there with his smoking gun. I never saw the man so cool — so masterful. Then he addressed the crowd: ‘This gambler insulted my daughter! My men here saw him. My name’s Blight. I came here to buy up gold claims. And I want to say this: Your Alder Creek has got the gold. But it needs some of your best citizens to run it right, so a girl can be safe on the street.’”

“Joan, I tell you it was a magnificent bluff,” went on Jim, excitedly. “And it worked. Kells walked away amid cheers. He meant to give an impression of character and importance. He succeeded. So far as I could tell, there wasn’t a man present who did not show admiration for him. I saw that dead gambler kicked.”

“Jim!” breathed Joan. “He killed him — just for that?”

“Just for that — the bloody devil!”

“But still — what for? Oh, it was cold-blooded murder.”

“No, an even break. Kells made the gambler go for his gun. I’ll have to say that for Kells.”

“It doesn’t change the thing. I’d forgotten what a monster he is.”

“Joan, his motive is plain. This new gold-camp has not reached the blood-spilling stage yet. It hadn’t, I should say. The news of this killing will fly. It’ll focus minds on this claim-buyer, Blight. His deed rings true — like that of an honest man with a daughter to protect. He’ll win sympathy. Then he talks as if he were prosperous. Soon he’ll be represented in this changing, growing population as a man of importance. He’ll play the card for all he’s worth. Meanwhile, secretly he’ll begin to rob the miners. It’ll be hard to suspect him. His plot is just like the man — great!”

“Jim, oughtn’t we tell?” whispered Joan, trembling.

“I’ve thought of that. Somehow I seem to feel guilty. But whom on earth could we tell? We wouldn’t dare speak here.... Remember — you’re a prisoner. I’m supposed to be a bandit — one of the Border Legion. How to get away from here and save our lives — that’s what tortures me.”

“Something tells me we’ll escape, if only we can plan the right way. Jim, I’ll have to be penned here, with nothing to do but wait. You must come every night!... Won’t you?”

For an answer he kissed her again.

“Jim, what’ll you do meanwhile?” she asked, anxiously.

“I’m going to work a claim. Dig for gold. I told Kells so to-day, and he was delighted. He said he was afraid his men wouldn’t like the working part of his plan. It’s hard to dig gold. Easy to steal it. But I’ll dig a hole as big as a hill!... Wouldn’t it be funny if I struck it rich?”

“Jim, you’re getting the fever.”

“Joan, if I did happen to run into a gold-pocket — there’re lots of them found — would — you — marry me?”

The tenderness, the timidity, and the yearning in Cleve’s voice told Joan as never before how he had hoped and feared and despaired. She patted his cheek with her hand, and in the darkness, with her heart swelling to make up for what she had done to him, she felt a boldness and a recklessness, sweet, tumultuous, irresistible.

“Jim, I’ll marry you — whether you strike gold or not,” she whispered.

And there was another blind, sweet moment. Then Cleve tore himself away, and Joan leaned at the window, watching the shadow, with tears in her eyes and an ache in her breast.

From that day Joan lived a life of seclusion in the small room. Kells wanted it so, and Joan thought best for the time being not to take advantage of Bate Wood’s duplicity. Her meals were brought to her by Wood, who was supposed to unlock and lock her door. But Wood never turned the key in that padlock.

Prisoner though Joan was, the days and nights sped swiftly.

Kells was always up till late in the night and slept half of the next morning. It was his wont to see Joan every day about noon. He had a care for his appearance. When he came in he was dark, forbidding, weary, and cold. Manifestly he came to her to get rid of the imponderable burden of the present. He left it behind him. He never spoke a word of Alder Creek, of gold, of the Border Legion. Always he began by inquiring for her welfare, by asking what he could do for her, what he could bring her. Joan had an abhorrence of Keils in his absence that she never felt when he was with her; and the reason must have been that she thought of him, remembered him as the bandit, and saw him as another and growing character. Always mindful of her influence, she was as companionable, as sympathetic, as cheerful, and sweet as it was possible for her to be. Slowly he would warm and change under her charm, and the grim gloom, the dark strain, would pass from him. When that left he was indeed another person. Frankly he told Joan that the glimpse of real love she had simulated back there in Cabin Gulch was seldom out of his mind. No woman had ever kissed him like she had. That kiss had transfigured him. It haunted him. If he could not win kisses like that from Joan’s lips, of her own free will, then he wanted none. No other woman’s lips would ever touch his. And he begged Joan in the terrible earnestness of a stern and hungering outcast for her love. And Joan could only sadly shake her head and tell him she was sorry for him, that the more she really believed he loved her the surer she was that he would give her up. Then always he passionately refused. He must have her to keep, to look at as his treasure, to dream over, and hope against hope that she would love him some day. Women sometimes learned to love their captors, he said; and if she only learned, then he would take her away to Australia, to distant lands. But most of all he begged her to show him again what it meant to be loved by a good woman. And Joan, who knew that her power now lay in her unattainableness, feigned a wavering reluctance, when in truth any surrender was impossible. He left her with a spirit that her presence gave him, in a kind of trance, radiant, yet with mocking smile, as if he foresaw the overthrow of his soul through her, and in the light of that his waning power over his Legion was as nothing.

In the afternoon he went down into camp to strengthen the associations he had made, to buy claims, and to gamble. Upon his return Joan, peeping through a crack between the boards, could always tell whether he had been gambling, whether he had won or lost.

Most of the evenings he remained in his cabin, which after dark became a place of mysterious and stealthy action. The members of his Legion visited him, sometimes alone, never more than two together. Joan could hear them slipping in at the hidden aperture in the back of the cabin; she could hear the low voices, but seldom what was said; she could hear these night prowlers as they departed. Afterward Kells would have the lights lit, and then Joan could see into the cabin. Was that dark, haggard man Kells? She saw him take little buckskin sacks full of gold-dust and hide them under the floor. Then he would pace the room in his old familiar manner, like a caged tiger. Later his mood usually changed with the advent of Wood and Pearce and Smith and Cleve, who took turns at guard and going down into camp. Then Kells would join them in a friendly game for small stakes. Gambler though he was, he refused to allow any game there that might lead to heavy wagering. From the talk sometimes Joan learned that he played for exceedingly large stakes with gamblers and prosperous miners, usually with the same result — a loss. Sometimes he won, however, and then he would crow over Pearce and Smith, and delight in telling them how cunningly he had played.

Jim Cleve had his bed up under the bulge of bluff, in a sheltered nook. Kells had appeared to like this idea, for some reason relative to his scout system, which he did not explain. And Cleve was happy about it because this arrangement left him absolutely free to have his nightly rendezvous with Joan at her window, sometime between dark and midnight. Her bed was right under the window: if awake she could rest on her knees and look out; and if she was asleep he could thrust a slender stick between the boards to awaken her. But the fact was that Joan lived for these stolen meetings, and unless he could not come until very late she waited wide-eyed and listening for him. Then, besides, as long as Kells was stirring in the cabin she spent her time spying upon him.

Jim Cleve had gone to an unfrequented part of the gulch, for no particular reason, and here he had located his claim. The very first day he struck gold. And Kells, more for advertisement than for any other motive, had his men stake out a number of claims near Cleve’s, and bought them. Then they had a little field of their own. All found the rich pay-dirt, but it was Cleve to whom the goddess of fortune turned her bright face. As he had been lucky at cards, so he was lucky at digging. His claim paid big returns. Kells spread the news, and that part of the gulch saw a rush of miners.

Every night Joan had her whispered hour with Cleve, and each succeeding one was the sweeter. Jim had become a victim of the gold fever. But, having Joan to steady him, he did not lose his head. If he gambled it was to help out with his part. He was generous to his comrades. He pretended to drink, but did not drink at all. Jim seemed to regard his good fortune as Joan’s also. He believed if he struck it rich he could buy his sweetheart’s freedom. He claimed that Kells was drunk for gold to gamble away. Joan let Jim talk, but she coaxed him and persuaded him to follow a certain line of behavior, she planned for him, she thought for him, she influenced him to hide the greater part of his gold-dust, and let it be known that he wore no gold-belt. She had a growing fear that Jim’s success was likely to develop a temper in him inimical to the cool, waiting, tolerant policy needed to outwit Kells in the end. It seemed the more gold Jim acquired the more passionate he became, the more he importuned Joan, the more he hated Kells. Gold had gotten into his blood, and it was Joan’s task to keep him sane. Naturally she gained more by yielding herself to Jim’s caresses than by any direct advice or admonishment. It was her love that held Jim in check.

One night, the instant their hands met Joan knew that Jim was greatly excited or perturbed.

“Joan,” he whispered, thrillingly, with his lips at her ear, “I’ve made myself solid with Kells! Oh, the luck of it!”

“Tell me!” whispered Joan, and she leaned against those lips.

“It was early to-night at the Nugget. I dropped in as usual. Kells was playing faro again with that gambler they call Flash. He’s won a lot of Kells’s gold — a crooked gambler. I looked on. And some of the gang were there — Pearce, Blicky, Handy Oliver, and of course Gulden, but all separated. Kells was losing and sore. But he was game. All at once he caught Flash in a crooked trick, and he yelled in a rage. He sure had the gang and everybody else looking. I expected — and so did all the gang — to see Kells pull his gun. But strange how gambling affects him! He only cursed Flash — called him right. You know that’s about as bad as death to a professional gambler in a place like Alder Creek. Flash threw a derringer on Kells. He had it up his sleeve. He meant to kill Kells, and Kells had no chance. But Flash, having the drop, took time to talk, to make his bluff go strong with the crowd. And that’s where he made a mistake. I jumped and knocked the gun out of his hand. It went off — burned my wrist. Then I slugged Mr. Flash good — he didn’t get up.... Kells called the crowd around and, showing the cards as they lay, coolly proved that Flash was what everybody suspected. Then Kells said to me — I’ll never forget how he looked: ‘Youngster, he meant to do for me. I never thought of my gun. You see!... I’ll kill him the next time we meet.... I’ve owed my life to men more than once. I never forget. You stood pat with me before. And now you’re ace high!’”

“Was it fair of you?” asked Joan.

“Yes. Flash is a crooked gambler. I’d rather be a bandit.... Besides, all’s fair in love! And I was thinking of you when I saved Kells!”

“Flash will be looking for you,” said Joan, fearfully.

“Likely. And if he finds me he wants to be quick. But Kells will drive him out of camp or kill him. I tell you, Kells is the biggest man in Alder Creek. There’s talk of office — a mayor and all that — and if the miners can forget gold long enough they’ll elect Kells. But the riffraff, these bloodsuckers who live off the miners, they’d rather not have any office in Alder Creek.”

And upon another night Cleve in serious and somber mood talked about the Border Legion and its mysterious workings. The name had found prominence, no one knew how, and Alder Creek knew no more peaceful sleep. This Legion was supposed to consist of a strange, secret band of unknown bandits and road-agents, drawing its members from all that wild and trackless region called the border. Rumor gave it a leader of cunning and ruthless nature. It operated all over the country at the same time, and must have been composed of numerous smaller bands, impossible to detect. Because its victims never lived to tell how or by whom they had been robbed! This Legion worked slowly and in the dark. It did not bother to rob for little gain. It had strange and unerring information of large quantities of gold-dust. Two prospectors going out on the Bannack road, packing fifty pounds of gold, were found shot to pieces. A miner named Black, who would not trust his gold to the stage-express, and who left Adler Creek against advice, was never seen or heard of again. Four other miners of the camp, known to carry considerable gold, were robbed and killed at night on their way to their cabins. And another was found dead in his bed. Robbers had crept to his tent, slashed the canvas, murdered him while he slept, and made off with his belt of gold.

An evil day of blood had fallen upon Alder Creek. There were terrible and implacable men in the midst of the miners, by day at honest toil, learning who had gold, and murdering by night. The camp had never been united, but this dread fact disrupted any possible unity. Every man, or every little group of men, distrusted the other, watched and spied and lay awake at night. But the robberies continued, one every few days, and each one left no trace. For dead men could not talk.

Thus was ushered in at Alder Creek a regime of wildness that had no parallel in the earlier days of ‘49 and ‘51. Men frenzied by the possession of gold or greed for it responded to the wildness of that time and took their cue from this deadly and mysterious Border Legion. The gold-lust created its own blood-lust. Daily the population of Alder Creek grew in the new gold-seekers and its dark records kept pace. With distrust came suspicion and with suspicion came fear, and with fear came hate — and these, in already distorted minds, inflamed a hell. So that the most primitive passions of mankind found outlet and held sway. The operations of the Border Legion were lost in deeds done in the gambling dens, in the saloons, and on the street, in broad day. Men fought for no other reason than that the incentive was in the charged air. Men were shot at gaming-tables — and the game went on. Men were killed in the dance-halls, dragged out, marking a line of blood on the rude floor — and the dance went on. Still the pursuit of gold went on, more frenzied than ever, and still the greater and richer claims were struck. The price of gold soared and the commodities of life were almost beyond the dreams of avarice. It was a tune in which the worst of men’s natures stalked forth, hydra-headed and deaf, roaring for gold, spitting fire, and shedding blood. It was a time when gold and fire and blood were one. It was a tune when a horde of men from every class and nation, of all ages and characters, met on a field were motives and ambitions and faiths and traits merged into one mad instinct of gain. It was worse than the time of the medieval crimes of religion; it made war seem a brave and honorable thing; it robbed manhood of that splendid and noble trait, always seen in shipwrecked men or those hopelessly lost in the barren north, the divine will not to retrograde to the savage. It was a time, for all it enriched the world with yellow treasure, when might was right, when men were hopeless, when death stalked rampant. The sun rose gold and it set red. It was the hour of Gold!

One afternoon late, while Joan was half dreaming, half dozing the hours away, she was thoroughly aroused by the tramp of boots and loud voices of excited men. Joan slipped to the peephole in the partition. Bate Wood had raised a warning hand to Kells, who stood up, facing the door. Red Pearce came bursting in, wild-eyed and violent. Joan imagined he was about to cry out that Kells had been betrayed.

“Kells, have you — heard?” he panted.

“Not so loud, you — !” replied Kells, coolly. “My name’s Blight.... Who’s with you?”

“Only Jesse an’ some of the gang. I couldn’t steer them away. But there’s nothin’ to fear.”

“What’s happened? What haven’t I heard?”

“The camp’s gone plumb ravin’ crazy.... Jim Cleve found the biggest nugget ever dug in Idaho!... THIRTY POUNDS!”

Kells seemed suddenly to inflame, to blaze with white passion. “Good for Jim!” he yelled, ringingly. He could scarcely have been more elated if he had made the strike himself.

Jesse Smith came stamping in, with a crowd elbowing their way behind him. Joan had a start of the old panic at sight of Gulden. For once the giant was not slow nor indifferent. His big eyes glared. He brought back to Joan the sickening sense of the brute strength of his massive presence. Some of his cronies were with him. For the rest, there were Blicky and Handy Oliver and Chick Williams. The whole group bore resemblance to a pack of wolves about to leap upon its prey. Yet, in each man, excepting Gulden, there was that striking aspect of exultation.

“Where’s Jim?” demanded Kells.

“He’s comin’ along,” replied Pearce. “He’s sure been runnin’ a gantlet. His strike stopped work in the diggin’s. What do you think of that, Kells? The news spread like smoke before wind. Every last miner in camp has jest got to see thet lump of gold.”

“Maybe I don’t want to see it!” exclaimed Kells. “A thirty-pounder! I heard of one once, sixty pounds, but I never saw it. You can’t believe till you see.”

“Jim’s comin’ up the road now,” said one of the men near the door. “Thet crowd hangs on.... But I reckon he’s shakin’ them.”

“What’ll Cleve do with this nugget?”

Gulden’s big voice, so powerful, yet feelingless, caused a momentary silence. The expression of many faces changed. Kells looked startled, then annoyed.

“Why, Gulden, that’s not my affair — nor yours,” replied Kells. “Cleve dug it and it belongs to him.”

“Dug or stole — it’s all the same,” responded Gulden.

Kell’s threw up his hands as if it were useless and impossible to reason with this man.

Then the crowd surged round the door with shuffling boots and hoarse, mingled greetings to Cleve, who presently came plunging in out of the melee.

His face wore a flush of radiance; his eyes were like diamonds. Joan thrilled and thrilled at sight of him. He was beautiful. Yet there was about him a more striking wildness. He carried a gun in one hand and in the other an object wrapped in his scarf. He flung this upon the table in front of Kells. It made a heavy, solid thump. The ends of the scarf flew aside, and there lay a magnificent nugget of gold, black and rusty in parts, but with a dull, yellow glitter in others.

“Boss, what’ll you bet against that?” cried Cleve, with exulting laugh. He was like a boy.

Kells reached for the nugget as if it were not an actual object, and when his hands closed on it he fondled it and weighed it and dug his nails into it and tasted it.

“My God!” he ejaculated, in wondering ecstasy. Then this, and the excitement, and the obsession all changed into sincere gladness. “Jim, you’re born lucky. You, the youngster born unlucky in love! Why, you could buy any woman with this!”

“Could I? Find me one,” responded Cleve, with swift boldness.

Kells laughed. “I don’t know any worth so much.”

“What’ll I do with it?” queried Cleve.

“Why, you fool youngster! Has it turned your head, too? What’d you do with the rest of your dust? You’ve certainly been striking it rich.”

“I spent it — lost it — lent it — gave some away and — saved a little.”

“Probably you’ll do the same with this. You’re a good fellow, Jim.”

“But this nugget means a lot of money. Between six and seven thousand dollars.”

“You won’t need advice how to spend it, even if it was a million.... Tell me, Jim, how’d you strike it?”

“Funny about that,” replied Cleve. “Things were poor for several days. Dug off branches into my claim. One grew to be a deep hole in gravel, hard to dig. My claim was once the bed of a stream, full of rocks that the water had rolled down once. This hole sort of haunted me. I’d leave it when my back got so sore I couldn’t bend, but always I’d return. I’d say there wasn’t a darned grain of gold in that gravel; then like a fool I’d go back and dig for all I was worth. No chance of finding blue dirt down there! But I kept on. And to-day when my pick hit what felt like a soft rock — I looked and saw the gleam of gold!... You ought to have seen me claw out that nugget! I whooped and brought everybody around. The rest was a parade.... Now I’m embarrassed by riches. What to do with it?”

“Wal, go back to Montana an’ make thet fool girl sick,” suggested one of the men who had heard Jim’s fictitious story of himself.

“Dug or stole is all the same!” boomed the imperturbable Gulden.

Kells turned white with rage, and Cleve swept a swift and shrewd glance at the giant.

“Sure, that’s my idea,” declared Cleve. “I’ll divide as — as we planned.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” retorted Kells. “You dug for that gold and it’s yours.”

“Well, boss, then say a quarter share to you and the same to me — and divide the rest among the gang.”

“No!” exclaimed Kells, violently.

Joan imagined he was actuated as much by justice to Cleve as opposition to Gulden.

“Jim Cleve, you’re a square pard if I ever seen one,” declared Pearce, admiringly. “An’ I’m here to say thet I wouldn’t hev a share of your nugget.”

“Nor me,” spoke up Jesse Smith.

“I pass, too,” said Chick Williams.

“Jim, if I was dyin’ fer a drink I wouldn’t stand fer thet deal,” added Blicky, with a fine scorn.

These men, and others who spoke or signified their refusal, attested to the living truth that there was honor even among robbers. But there was not the slightest suggestion of change in Gulden’s attitude or of those back of him.

“Share and share alike for me!” he muttered, grimly, with those great eyes upon the nugget.

Kells, with an agile bound, reached the table and pounded it with his fist, confronting the giant.

“So you say!” he hissed in dark passion. “You’ve gone too far, Gulden. Here’s where I call you!... You don’t get a gram of that gold nugget. Jim’s worked like a dog. If he digs up a million I’ll see he gets it all. Maybe you loafers haven’t a hunch what Jim’s done for you. He’s helped our big deal more than you or I. His honest work has made it easy for me to look honest. He’s supposed to be engaged to marry my daughter. That more than anything was a blind. It made my stand, and I tell you that stand is high in this camp. Go down there and swear Blight is Jack Kells! See what you get!... That’s all.... I’m dealing the cards in this game!”

Kells did not cow Gulden — for it was likely the giant lacked the feeling of fear — but he overruled him by sheer strength of spirit.

Gulden backed away stolidly, apparently dazed by his own movements; then he plunged out the door, and the ruffians who had given silent but sure expression of their loyalty tramped after him.

“Reckon thet starts the split!” declared Red Pearce.

“Suppose you’d been in Jim’s place!” flashed Kells.

“Jack, I ain’t sayin’ a word. You was square. I’d want you to do the same by me.... But fetchin’ the girl into the deal—”

Kells’s passionate and menacing gesture shut Pearce’s lips. He lifted a hand, resignedly, and went out.

“Jim,” said Kells, earnestly, “take my hunch. Hide your nugget. Don’t send it out with the stage to Bannack. It’d never get there.... And change the place where you sleep!”

“Thanks,” replied Cleve, brightly. “I’ll hide my nugget all right. And I’ll take care of myself.”

Later that night Joan waited at her window for Jim. It was so quiet that she could hear the faint murmur of the shallow creek. The sky was dusky blue; the stars were white, the night breeze sweet and cool. Her first flush of elation for Jim having passed, she experienced a sinking of courage. Were they not in peril enough without Jim’s finding a fortune? How dark and significant had been Kells’s hint! There was something splendid in the bandit. Never had Joan felt so grateful to him. He was a villain, yet he was a man. What hatred he showed for Gulden! These rivals would surely meet in a terrible conflict — for power — for gold. And for her! — she added, involuntarily, with a deep, inward shudder. Once the thought had flashed through her mind, it seemed like a word of revelation.

Then she started as a dark form rose out of the shadow under her and a hand clasped hers. Jim! and she lifted her face.

“Joan! Joan! I’m rich! rich!” he babbled, wildly.

“Ssssh!” whispered Joan, softly, in his ear. “Be careful. You’re wild to-night.... I saw you come in with the nugget. I heard you.... Oh, you lucky Jim! I’ll tell you what to do with it!”

“Darling! It’s all yours. You’ll marry me now?”

“Sir! Do you take me for a fortune-hunter? I marry you for your gold? Never!”

“Joan!”

“I’ve promised,” she said.

“I won’t go away now. I’ll work my claim,” he began, excitedly. And he went on so rapidly that Joan could not keep track of his words. He was not so cautious as formerly. She remonstrated with him, all to no purpose. Not only was he carried away by possession of gold and assurance of more, but he had become masterful, obstinate, and illogical. He was indeed hopeless to-night — the gold had gotten into his blood. Joan grew afraid he would betray their secret and realized there had come still greater need for a woman’s wit. So she resorted to a never-failing means of silencing him, of controlling him — her lips on his.

CHAPTER 15

FOR SEVERAL NIGHTS these stolen interviews were apparently the safer because of Joan’s tender blinding of her lover. But it seemed that in Jim’s condition of mind this yielding of her lips and her whispers of love had really been a mistake. Not only had she made the situation perilously sweet for herself, but in Jim’s case she had added the spark to the powder. She realized her blunder when it was too late. And the fact that she did not regret it very much, and seemed to have lost herself in a defiant, reckless spell, warned her again that she, too, was answering to the wildness of the time and place. Joan’s intelligence had broadened wonderfully in this period of her life, just as all her feelings had quickened. If gold had developed and intensified and liberated the worst passions of men, so the spirit of that atmosphere had its baneful effect upon her. Joan deplored this, yet she had the keenness to understand that it was nature fitting her to survive.

Back upon her fell that weight of suspense — what would happen next? Here in Alder Creek there did not at present appear to be the same peril which had menaced her before, but she would suffer through fatality to Cleve or Kells. And these two slept at night under a shadow that held death, and by day they walked on a thin crust over a volcano. Joan grew more and more fearful of the disclosures made when Kells met his men nightly in the cabin. She feared to hear, but she must hear, and even if she had not felt it necessary to keep informed of events, the fascination of the game would have impelled her to listen. And gradually the suspense she suffered augmented into a magnified, though vague, assurance of catastrophe, of impending doom. She could not shake off the gloomy presentiment. Something terrible was going to happen. An experience begun as tragically as hers could only end in a final and annihilating stroke. Yet hope was unquenchable, and with her fear kept pace a driving and relentless spirit.

One night at the end of a week of these interviews, when Joan attempted to resist Jim, to plead with him, lest in his growing boldness he betray them, she found him a madman.

“I’ll pull you right out of this window,” he said, roughly, and then with his hot face pressed against hers tried to accomplish the thing he threatened.

“Go on — pull me to pieces!” replied Joan, in despair and pain. “I’d be better off dead! And — you — hurt me — so!”

“Hurt you!” he whispered, hoarsely, as if he had never dreamed of such possibility. And then suddenly he was remorseful. He begged her to forgive him. His voice was broken, husky, pleading. His remorse, like every feeling of his these days, was exaggerated, wild, with that raw tinge of gold-blood in it. He made so much noise that Joan, more fearful than ever of discovery, quieted him with difficulty.

“Does Kells see you often — these days?” asked Jim, suddenly.

Joan had dreaded this question, which she had known would inevitably come. She wanted to lie; she knew she ought to lie; but it was impossible.

“Every day,” she whispered. “Please — Jim — never mind that. Kells is good — he’s all right to me.... And you and I have so little time together.”

“Good!” exclaimed Cleve. Joan felt the leap of his body under her touch. “Why, if I’d tell you what he sends that gang to do — you’d — you’d kill him in his sleep.”

“Tell me,” replied Joan. She had a morbid, irresistible desire to learn.

“No.... And WHAT does Kells do — when he sees you every day?”

“He talks.”

“What about?”

“Oh, everything except about what holds him here. He talks to me to forget himself.”

“Does he make love to you?”

Joan maintained silence. What would she do with this changed and hopeless Jim Cleve?

“Tell me!” Jim’s hands gripped her with a force that made her wince. And now she grew as afraid of him as she had been for him. But she had spirit enough to grow angry, also.

“Certainly he does.”

Jim Cleve echoed her first word, and then through grinding teeth he cursed. “I’m going to — stop it!” he panted, and his eyes looked big and dark and wild in the starlight.

“You can’t. I belong to Kells. You at least ought to have sense enough to see that.”

“Belong to him!... For God’s sake! By what right?”

“By the right of possession. Might is right here on the border. Haven’t you told me that a hundred times? Don’t you hold your claim — your gold — by the right of your strength? It’s the law of this border. To be sure Kells stole me. But just now I belong to him. And lately I see his consideration — his kindness in the light of what he could do if he held to that border law.... And of all the men I’ve met out here Kells is the least wild with this gold fever. He sends his men out to do murder for gold; he’d sell his soul to gamble for gold; but just the same, he’s more of a man than—”

“Joan!” he interrupted, piercingly. “You love this bandit!”

“You’re a fool!” burst out Joan.

“I guess — I — am,” he replied in terrible, slow earnestness. He raised himself and appeared to loom over her and released his hold.

But Joan fearfully retained her clasp on his arm, and when he surged to get away she was hard put to it to hold him.

“Jim! Where are you going?”

He stood there a moment, a dark form against the night shadow, like an outline of a man cut from black stone.

“I’ll just step around — there.”

“Oh, what for?” whispered Joan.

“I’m going to kill Kells.”

Joan got both arms round his neck and with her head against him she held him tightly, trying, praying to think how to meet this long-dreaded moment. After all, what was the use to try? This was the hour of Gold! Sacrifice, hope, courage, nobility, fidelity — these had no place here now. Men were the embodiment of passion — ferocity. They breathed only possession, and the thing in the balance was death. Women were creatures to hunger and fight for, but womanhood was nothing. Joan knew all this with a desperate hardening certainty, and almost she gave in. Strangely, thought of Gulden flashed up to make her again strong! Then she raised her face and began the old pleading with Jim, but different this time, when it seemed that absolutely all was at stake. She begged him, she importuned him, to listen to reason, to be guided by her, to fight the wildness that had obsessed him, to make sure that she would not be left alone. All in vain! He swore he would kill Kells and any other bandit who stood in the way of his leading her free out of that cabin. He was wild to fight. He might never have felt fear of these robbers. He would not listen to any possibility of defeat for himself, or the possibility that in the event of Kells’s death she would be worse off. He laughed at her strange, morbid fears of Gulden. He was immovable.

“Jim!... Jim! You’ll break my heart!” she whispered, wailingly. “Oh! WHAT can I do?”

Then Joan released her clasp and gave up to utter defeat. Cleve was silent. He did not seem to hear the shuddering little sobs that shook her. Suddenly he bent close to her.

“There’s one thing you can do. If you’ll do it I won’t kill Kells. I’ll obey your every word.”

“What is it? Tell me!”

“Marry me!” he whispered, and his voice trembled.

“MARRY YOU!” exclaimed Joan. She was confounded. She began to fear Jim was out of his head.

“I mean it. Marry me. Oh, Joan, will you — will you? It’ll make the difference. That’ll steady me. Don’t you want to?”

“Jim, I’d be the happiest girl in the world if — if I only COULD marry you!” she breathed, passionately.

“But will you — will you? Say yes! Say yes!”

“YES!” replied Joan in her desperation. “I hope that pleases you. But what on earth is the use to talk about it now?”

Cleve seemed to expand, to grow taller, to thrill under her nervous hands. And then he kissed her differently. She sensed a shyness, a happiness, a something hitherto foreign to his attitude. It was spiritual, and somehow she received an uplift of hope.

“Listen,” he whispered. “There’s a preacher down in camp. I’ve seen him — talked with him. He’s trying to do good in that hell down there. I know I can trust him. I’ll confide in him — enough. I’ll fetch him up here tomorrow night — about this time. Oh, I’ll be careful — very careful. And he can marry us right here by the window. Joan, will you do it?... Somehow, whatever threatens you or me — that’ll be my salvation!... I’ve suffered so. It’s been burned in my heart that YOU would never marry me. Yet you say you love me!... Prove it!... MY WIFE!... Now, girl, a word will make a man of me!”

“Yes!” And with the word she put her lips to his with all her heart in them. She felt him tremble. Yet almost instantly he put her from him.

“Look for me to-morrow about this time,” he whispered. “Keep your nerve.... Good night.”

That night Joan dreamed strange, weird, unremembered dreams. The next day passed like a slow, unreal age. She ate little of what was brought to her. For the first time she denied Kells admittance and she only vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of voices in Kells’s room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel between Kells and his men did not distract her.

At sunset she leaned out of the little window, and only then, with the gold fading on the peaks and the shadow gathering under the bluff, did she awaken to reality. A broken mass of white cloud caught the glory of the sinking sun. She had never seen a golden radiance like that. It faded and dulled. But a warm glow remained. At twilight and then at dusk this glow lingered.

Then night fell. Joan was exceedingly sensitive to the sensations of light and shadow, of sound and silence, of dread and hope, of sadness and joy.

That pale, ruddy glow lingered over the bold heave of the range in the west. It was like a fire that would not go out, that would live to-morrow, and burn golden. The sky shone with deep, rich blue color fired with a thousand stars, radiant, speaking, hopeful. And there was a white track across the heavens. The mountains flung down their shadows, impenetrable, like the gloomy minds of men; and everywhere under the bluffs and slopes, in the hollows and ravines, lay an enveloping blackness, hiding its depth and secret and mystery.

Joan listened. Was there sound or silence? A faint and indescribably low roar, so low that it might have been real or false, came on the soft night breeze. It was the roar of the camp down there — the strife, the agony, the wild life in ceaseless action — the strange voice of gold, roaring greed and battle and death over the souls of men. But above that, presently, rose the murmur of the creek, a hushed and dreamy flow of water over stones. It was hurrying to get by this horde of wild men, for it must bear the taint of gold and blood. Would it purge itself and clarify in the valleys below, on its way to the sea? There was in its murmur an imperishable and deathless note of nature, of time; and this was only a fleeting day of men and gold.

Only by straining her ears could Joan hear these sounds, and when she ceased that, then she seemed to be weighed upon and claimed by silence. It was not a silence like that of Lost Canon, but a silence of solitude where her soul stood alone. She was there on earth, yet no one could hear her mortal cry. The thunder of avalanches or the boom of the sea might have lessened her sense of utter loneliness.

And that silence fitted the darkness, and both were apostles of dread. They spoke to her. She breathed dread on that silent air and it filled her breast. There was nothing stable in the night shadows. The ravine seemed to send forth stealthy, noiseless shapes, specter and human, man and phantom, each on the other’s trail.

If Jim would only come and let her see that he was safe for the hour! A hundred times she imagined she saw him looming darker than the shadows. She had only to see him now, to feel his hand, and dread might be lost. Love was something beyond the grasp of mind. Love had confounded Jim Cleve; it had brought up kindness and honor from the black depths of a bandit’s heart; it had transformed her from a girl into a woman. Surely with all its greatness it could not be lost; surely in the end it must triumph over evil.

Joan found that hope was fluctuating, but eternal. It took no stock of intelligence. It was a matter of feeling. And when she gave rein to it for a moment, suddenly it plunged her into sadness. To hope was to think! Poor Jim! It was his fool’s paradise. Just to let her be his wife! That was the apex of his dream. Joan divined that he might yield to her wisdom, he might become a man, but his agony would be greater. Still, he had been so intense, so strange, so different that she could not but feel joy in his joy.

Then at a soft footfall, a rustle, and a moving shadow Joan’s mingled emotions merged into a poignant sense of the pain and suspense and tenderness of the actual moment.

“Joan — Joan,” came the soft whisper.

She answered, and there was a catch in her breath.

The moving shadow split into two shadows that stole closer, loomed before her. She could not tell which belonged to Jim till he touched her. His touch was potent. It seemed to electrify her.

“Dearest, we’re here — this is the parson,” said Jim, like a happy boy. “I—”

“Ssssh!” whispered Joan. “Not so loud.... Listen!”

Kells was holding a rendezvous with members of his Legion. Joan even recognized his hard and somber tone, and the sharp voice of Red Pearce, and the drawl of Handy Oliver.

“All right. I’ll be quiet,” responded Cleve, cautiously. “Joan, you’re to answer a few questions.”

Then a soft hand touched Joan, and a voice differently keyed from any she had heard on the border addressed her.

“What is your name?” asked the preacher.

Joan told him.

“Can you tell anything about yourself? This young man is — is almost violent. I’m not sure. Still I want to—”

“I can’t tell much,” replied Joan, hurriedly. “I’m an honest girl. I’m free to — to marry him. I — I love him!... Oh, I want to help him. We — we are in trouble here. I daren’t say how.”

“Are you over eighteen?” “Yes, sir.”

“Do your parents object to this young man?”

“I have no parents. And my uncle, with whom I lived before I was brought to this awful place, he loves Jim. He always wanted me to marry him.”

“Take his hand, then.”

Joan felt the strong clasp of Jim’s fingers, and that was all which seemed real at the moment. It seemed so dark and shadowy round these two black forms in front of her window. She heard a mournful wail of a lone wolf and it intensified the weird dream that bound her. She heard her shaking, whispered voice repeating the preacher’s words. She caught a phrase of a low-murmured prayer. Then one dark form moved silently away. She was alone with Jim.

“Dearest Joan!” he whispered. “It’s over! It’s done!... Kiss me!”

She lifted her lips and Jim seemed to kiss her more sweetly, with less violence.

“Oh, Joan, that you’d really have me! I can’t believe it.... Your HUSBAND.”

That word dispelled the dream and the pain which had held Joan, leaving only the tenderness, magnified now a hundredfold.

And that instant when she was locked in Cleve’s arms, when the silence was so beautiful and full, she heard the heavy pound of a gun-butt upon the table in Kells’s room.

“Where is Cleve?” That was the voice of Kells, stern, demanding.

Joan felt a start, a tremor run over Jim. Then he stiffened.

“I can’t locate him,” replied Red Pearce. “It was the same last night an’ the one before. Cleve jest disappears these nights — about this time.... Some woman’s got him!”

“He goes to bed. Can’t you find where he sleeps?”

“No.”

“This job’s got to go through and he’s got to do it.”

“Bah!” taunted Pearce. “Gulden swears you can’t make Cleve do a job. And so do I!”

“Go out and yell for Cleve!... Damn you all! I’ll show you!”

Then Joan heard the tramp of heavy boots, then a softer tramp on the ground outside the cabin. Joan waited, holding her breath. She felt Jim’s heart beating. He stood like a post. He, like Joan, was listening, as if for a trumpet of doom.

“HALLO, JIM!” rang out Pearce’s stentorian call. It murdered the silence. It boomed under the bluff, and clapped in echo, and wound away, mockingly. It seemed to have shrieked to the whole wild borderland the breaking-point of the bandit’s power.

So momentous was the call that Jim Cleve seemed to forget Joan, and she let him go without a word. Indeed, he was gone before she realized it, and his dark form dissolved in the shadows. Joan waited, listening with abated breathing. On this side of the cabin there was absolute silence. She believed that Jim would slip around under cover of night and return by the road from camp. Then what would he do? The question seemed to puzzle her.

Joan leaned there at her window for moments greatly differing from those vaguely happy ones just passed. She had sustained a shock that had left her benumbed with a dull pain. What a rude, raw break the voice of Kells had made in her brief forgetfulness! She was returning now to reality. Presently she would peer through the crevice between the boards into the other room, and she shrank from the ordeal. Kells, and whoever was with him, maintained silence. Occasionally she heard the shuffle of a boot and a creak of the loose floor boards. She waited till anxiety and fear compelled her to look.

The lamps were burning; the door was wide open. Apparently Kells’s rule of secrecy had been abandoned. One glance at Kells was enough to show Joan that he was sick and desperate. Handy Oliver did not wear his usual lazy good humor. Red Pearce sat silent and sullen, a smoking, unheeded pipe in his hand. Jesse Smith was gloomy. The only other present was Bate Wood, and whatever had happened had in no wise affected him. These bandits were all waiting. Presently quick footsteps on the path outside caused them all to look toward the door. That tread was familiar to Joan, and suddenly her mouth was dry, her tongue stiff. What was Jim Cleve coming to meet? How sharp and decided his walk! Then his dark form crossed the bar of light outside the door, and he entered, bold and cool, and with a weariness that must have been simulated.

“Howdy boys!” he said.

Only Kells greeted him in response. The bandit eyed him curiously. The others added suspicion to their glances.

“Did you hear Red’s yell?” queried Kells, presently.

“I’d have heard that roar if I’d been dead,” replied Cleve, bluntly. “And I didn’t like it!... I was coming up the road and I heard Pearce yell. I’ll bet every man in camp heard it.”

“How’d you know Pearce yelled for you?”

“I recognized his voice.”

Cleve’s manner recalled to Joan her first sight of him over in Cabin Gulch. He was not so white or haggard, but his eyes were piercing, and what had once been recklessness now seemed to be boldness. He deliberately studied Pearce. Joan trembled, for she divined what none of these robbers knew, and it was that Pearce was perilously near death. It was there for Joan to read in Jim’s dark glance.

“Where’ve you been all these nights?” queried the bandit leader.

“Is that any of your business — when you haven’t had need of me?” returned Cleve.

“Yes, it’s my business. And I’ve sent for you. You couldn’t be found.”

“I’ve been here for supper every night.”

“I don’t talk to any men in daylight. You know my hours for meeting. And you’ve not come.”

“You should have told me. How was I to know?”

“I guess you’re right. But where’ve you been?”

“Down in camp. Faro, most of the time. Bad luck, too.”

Red Pearce’s coarse face twisted into a scornful sneer. It must have been a lash to Kells.

“Pearce says you’re chasing a woman,” retorted the bandit leader.

“Pearce lies!” flashed Cleve. His action was as swift. And there he stood with a gun thrust hard against Pearce’s side.

“JIM! Don’t kill him!” yelled Kells, rising.

Pearce’s red face turned white. He stood still as a stone, with his gaze fixed in fascinated fear upon Cleve’s gun.

A paralyzing surprise appeared to hold the group.

“Can you prove what you said?” asked Cleve, low and hard.

Joan knew that if Pearce did have the proof which would implicate her he would never live to tell it.

“Cleve — I don’t — know nothin’,” choked out Pearce. “I jest figgered — it was a woman!”

Cleve slowly lowered the gun and stepped back. Evidently that satisfied him. But Joan had an intuitive feeling that Pearce lied.

“You want to be careful how you talk about me,” said Cleve.

Kells purled out a suspended breath and he flung the sweat from his brow. There was about him, perhaps more than the others, a dark realization of how close the call had been for Pearce.

“Jim, you’re not drunk?”

“No.”

“But you’re sore?”

“Sure I’m sore. Pearce put me in bad with you, didn’t he?”

“No. You misunderstood me. Red hasn’t a thing against you. And neither he nor anybody else could put you in bad with me.”

“All right. Maybe I was hasty. But I’m not wasting time these days,” replied Cleve. “I’ve no hard feelings.... Pearce, do you want to shake hands — or hold that against me?”

“He’ll shake, of course,” said Kells.

Pearce extended his hand, but with a bad grace. He was dominated. This affront of Cleve’s would rankle in him.

“Kells, what do you want with me?” demanded Cleve.

A change passed over Kells, and Joan could not tell just what it was, but somehow it seemed to suggest a weaker man.

“Jim, you’ve been a great card for me,” began Kells, impressively. “You’ve helped my game — and twice you saved my life. I think a lot of you.... If you stand by me now I swear I’ll return the trick some day.... Will you stand by me?”

“Yes,” replied Cleve, steadily, but he grew pale. “What’s the trouble?”

“By — , it’s bad enough!” exclaimed Kells, and as he spoke the shade deepened in his haggard face. “Gulden has split my Legion. He has drawn away more than half my men. They have been drunk and crazy ever since. They’ve taken things into their own hands. You see the result as well as I. That camp down there is fire and brimstone. Some one of that drunken gang has talked. We’re none of us safe any more. I see suspicion everywhere. I’ve urged getting a big stake and then hitting the trail for the border. But not a man sticks to me in that. They all want the free, easy, wild life of this gold-camp. So we’re anchored till — till... But maybe it’s not too late. Pearce, Oliver, Smith — all the best of my Legion — profess loyalty to me. If we all pull together maybe we can win yet. But they’ve threatened to split, too. And it’s all on your account!”

“Mine?” ejaculated Cleve.

“Yes. Now it’s nothing to make you flash your gun. Remember you said you’d stand by me.... Jim, the fact is — all the gang to a man believe you’re double-crossing me!”

“In what way?” queried Cleve, blanching.

“They think you’re the one who has talked. They blame you for the suspicion that’s growing.”

“Well, they’re absolutely wrong,” declared Cleve, in a ringing voice.

“I know they are. Mind you I’m not hinting I distrust you. I don’t. I swear by you. But Pearce—”

“So it’s Pearce,” interrupted Cleve, darkly. “I thought you said he hadn’t tried to put me in bad with you.”

“He hasn’t. He simply spoke his convictions. He has a right to them. So have all the men. And, to come to the point, they all think you’re crooked because you’re honest!”

“I don’t understand,” replied Cleve, slowly.

“Jim, you rode into Cabin Gulch, and you raised some trouble. But you were no bandit. You joined my Legion, but you’ve never become a bandit. Here you’ve been an honest miner. That suited my plan and it helped. But it’s got so it doesn’t suit my men. You work every day hard. You’ve struck it rich. You’re well thought of in Alder Creek. You’ve never done a dishonest thing. Why, you wouldn’t turn a crooked trick in a card game for a sack full of gold. This has hurt you with my men. They can’t see as I see, that you’re as square as you are game. They see you’re an honest miner. They believe you’ve got into a clique — that you’ve given us away. I don’t blame Pearce or any of my men. This is a time when men’s intelligence, if they have any, doesn’t operate. Their brains are on fire. They see gold and whisky and blood, and they feel gold and whisky and blood. That’s all. I’m glad that the gang gives you the benefit of a doubt and a chance to stand by me.”

“A chance!”

“Yes. They’ve worked out a job for you alone. Will you undertake it?”

“I’ll have to,” replied Cleve.

“You certainly will if you want the gang to justify my faith in you. Once you pull off a crooked deal, they’ll switch and swear by you. Then we’ll get together, all of us, and plan what to do about Gulden and his outfit. They’ll run our heads, along with their own, right into the noose.”

“What is this — this job?” labored Cleve. He was sweating now and his hair hung damp over his brow. He lost that look which had made him a bold man and seemed a boy again, weak, driven, bewildered.

Kells averted his gaze before speaking again. He hated to force this task upon Cleve. Joan felt, in the throbbing pain of the moment, that if she never had another reason to like this bandit, she would like him for the pity he showed.

“Do you know a miner named Creede?” asked Kells, rapidly.

“A husky chap, short, broad, something like Gulden for shape, only not so big — fellow with a fierce red beard?” asked Cleve.

“I never saw him,” replied Kells. “But Pearce has. How does Cleve’s description fit Creede?”

“He’s got his man spotted,” answered Pearce.

“All right, that’s settled,” went on Kells, warming to his subject. “This fellow Creede wears a heavy belt of gold. Blicky never makes a mistake. Creede’s partner left on yesterday’s stage for Bannack. He’ll be gone a few days. Creede is a hard worker-one of the hardest. Sometimes he goes to sleep at his supper. He’s not the drinking kind. He’s slow, thick-headed. The best time for this job will be early in the evening — just as soon as his lights are out. Locate the tent. It stands at the head of a little wash and there’s a bleached pine-tree right by the tent. To-morrow night as soon as it gets dark crawl up this wash — be careful — wait till the right time — then finish the job quick!”

“How — finish — it?” asked Cleve, hoarsely.

Kells was scintillating now, steely, cold, radiant. He had forgotten the man before him in the prospect of the gold.

“Creede’s cot is on the side of the tent opposite the tree. You won’t have to go inside. Slit the canvas. It’s a rotten old tent. Kill Creede with your knife.... Get his belt.... Be bold, cautious, swift! That’s your job. Now what do you say?”

“All right,” responded Cleve, somberly, and with a heavy tread he left the room.

After Jim had gone Joan still watched and listened. She was in distress over his unfortunate situation, but she had no fear that he meant to carry out Kells’s plan. This was a critical time for Jim, and therefore for her. She had no idea what Jim could do; all she thought was what he would not do.

Kells gazed triumphantly at Pearce. “I told you the youngster would stand by me. I never put him on a job before.”

“Reckon I figgered wrong, boss,” replied Pearce.

“He looked sick to me, but game,” said Handy Oliver. “Kells is right, Red, an’ you’ve been sore-headed over nothin’!”

“Mebbe. But ain’t it good figgerin’ to make Cleve do some kind of a job, even if he is on the square?”

They all acquiesced to this, even Kells slowly nodding his head.

“Jack, I’ve thought of another an’ better job for young Cleve,” spoke up Jesse Smith, with his characteristic grin.

“You’ll all be setting him jobs now,” replied Kells. “What’s yours?”

“You spoke of plannin’ to get together once more — what’s left of us. An’ there’s thet bull-head Gulden.”

“You’re sure right,” returned the leader, grimly, and he looked at Smith as if he would welcome any suggestion.

“I never was afraid to speak my mind,” went on Smith. Here he lost his grin and his coarse mouth grew hard. “Gulden will have to be killed if we’re goin’ to last!”

“Wood, what do you say?” queried Kells, with narrowing eyes.

Bate Wood nodded as approvingly as if he had been asked about his bread.

“Oliver, what do you say?”

“Wal, I’d love to wait an’ see Gul hang, but if you press me, I’ll agree to stand pat with the cards Jesse’s dealt,” replied Handy Oliver.

Then Kells turned with a bright gleam upon his face. “And you — Pearce?”

“I’d say yes in a minute if I’d not have to take a hand in thet job,” replied Pearce, with a hard laugh. “Gulden won’t be so easy to kill. He’ll pack a gunful of lead. I’ll gamble if the gang of us cornered him in this cabin he’d do for most of us before we killed him.”

“Gul sleep alone, no one knows where,” said Handy Oliver. “An’ he can’t be surprised. Red’s correct. How’re we goin’ to kill him?”

“If you gents will listen you’ll find out,” rejoined Jesse Smith. “Thet’s the job for young Cleve. He can do it. Sure Gulden never was afraid of any man. But somethin’ about Cleve bluffed him. I don’t know what. Send Cleve out after Gulden. He’ll call him face to face, anywhere, an’ beat him to a gun!... Take my word for it.”

“Jesse, that’s the grandest idea you ever had,” said Kells, softly. His eyes shone. The old power came back to his face. “I split on Gulden. With him once out of the way — !”

“Boss, are you goin’ to make thet Jim Cleve’s second job?” inquired Pearce, curiously.

“I am,” replied Kells, with his jaw corded and stiff. “If he pulls thet off you’ll never hear a yap from me so long as I live. An’ I’ll eat out of Cleve’s hand.”

Joan could bear to hear no more. She staggered to her bed and fell there, all cramped as if in a cold vise. However Jim might meet the situation planned for murdering Creede, she knew he would not shirk facing Gulden with deadly intent. He hated Gulden because she had a horror of him. Would these hours of suspense never end? Must she pass from one torture to another until — ?

Sleep did not come for a long time. And when it did she suffered with nightmares from which it seemed she could never awaken.

The day, when at last it arrived, was no better than the night. It wore on endlessly, and she who listened so intently found it one of the silent days. Only Bate Wood remained at the cabin. He appeared kinder than usual, but Joan did not want to talk. She ate her meals, and passed the hours watching from the window and lying on the bed. Dusk brought Kells and Pearce and Smith, but not Jim Cleve. Handy Oliver and Blicky arrived at supper-time.

“Reckon Jim’s appetite is pore,” remarked Bate Wood, reflectively. “He ain’t been in to-day.”

Some of the bandits laughed, but Kells had a twinge, if Joan ever saw a man have one. The dark, formidable, stern look was on his face. He alone of the men ate sparingly, and after the meal he took to his bent posture and thoughtful pacing. Joan saw the added burden of another crime upon his shoulders. Conversation, which had been desultory, and such as any miners or campers might have indulged in, gradually diminished to a word here and there, and finally ceased. Kells always at this hour had a dampening effect upon his followers. More and more he drew aloof from them, yet he never realized that. He might have been alone. But often he glanced out of the door, and appeared to listen. Of course he expected Jim Cleve to return, but what did he expect of him? Joan had a blind faith that Jim would be cunning enough to fool Kells and Pearce. So much depended upon it!

Some of the bandits uttered an exclamation. Then silently, like a shadow, Jim Cleve entered.

Joan’s heart leaped and seemed to stand still. Jim could not have locked more terrible if he were really a murderer. He opened his coat. Then he flung a black object upon the table and it fell with a soft, heavy, sodden thud. It was a leather belt packed with gold.

When Kells saw that he looked no more at the pale Cleve. His clawlike hand swept out for the belt, lifted and weighed it. Likewise the other bandits, with gold in sight, surged round Kells, forgetting Cleve.

“Twenty pounds!” exclaimed Kells, with a strange rapture in his voice.

“Let me heft it?” asked Pearce, thrillingly.

Joan saw and heard so much, then through a kind of dimness, that she could not wipe away, her eyes beheld Jim. What was the awful thing that she interpreted from his face, his mien? Was this a part he was playing to deceive Kells? The slow-gathering might of her horror came with the meaning of that gold-belt. Jim had brought back the gold-belt of the miner Creede. He had, in his passion to remain near her, to save her in the end, kept his word to Kells and done the ghastly deed.

Joan reeled and sank back upon the bed, blindly, with darkening sight and mind.

CHAPTER 16

JOAN RETURNED TO consciousness with a sense of vague and unlocalized pain which she thought was that old, familiar pang of grief. But once fully awakened, as if by a sharp twinge, she became aware that the pain was some kind of muscular throb in her shoulder. The instant she was fully sure of this the strange feeling ceased. Then she lay wide-eyed in the darkness, waiting and wondering.

Suddenly the slight sharp twing was repeated. It seemed to come from outside her flesh. She shivered a little, thinking it might be a centipede. When she reached for her shoulder her hand came in contact with a slender stick that had been thrust through a crack between the boards. Jim was trying to rouse her. This had been his method on several occasions when she had fallen asleep after waiting long for him.

Joan got up to the window, dizzy and sick with the resurging memory of Jim’s return to Kells with that gold-belt.

Jim rose out of the shadow and felt for her, clasped her close. Joan had none of the old thrill; her hands slid loosely round his; and every second the weight inwardly grew heavier.

“Joan! I had a time waking you,” whispered Jim, and then he kissed her. “Why, you’re as cold as ice.”

“Jim — I — I must have fainted,” she replied.

“What for?” “I was peeping into Kells’s cabin, when you — you—”

“Poor kid!” he interrupted, tenderly. “You’ve had so much to bear!... Joan, I fooled Kells. Oh, I was slick!... He ordered me out on a job — to kill a miner! Fancy that! And what do you think? I know Creede well. He’s a good fellow. I traded my big nugget for his gold-belt!”

“You TRADED — you — didn’t — kill him!” faltered Joan.

“Hear the child talk!” exclaimed Cleve, with a low laugh.

Joan suddenly clung to him with all her might, quivering in a silent joy. It had not occurred to Jim what she might have thought.

“Listen,” he went on. “I traded my nugget. It was worth a great deal more than Creede’s gold-belt. He knew this. He didn’t want to trade. But I coaxed him. I persuaded him to leave camp — to walk out on the road to Bannack. To meet the stage somewhere and go on to Bannack, and stay a few days. He sure was curious. But I kept my secret.... Then I came back here, gave the belt to Kells, told him I had followed Creede in the dark, had killed him and slid him into a deep hole in the creek.... Kells and Pearce — none of them paid any attention to my story. I had the gold-belt. That was enough. Gold talks — fills the ears of these bandits.... I have my share of Creede’s gold-dust in my pocket. Isn’t that funny? Alas for my — YOUR big nugget! But we’ve got to play the game. Besides, I’ve sacks and cans of gold hidden away. Joan, what’ll we do with it all? You’re my wife now. And, oh! If we can only get away with it you’ll be rich!”

Joan could not share his happiness any more than she could understand his spirit. She remembered.

“Jim — dear — did Kells tell you what your — next job was to be?” she whispered, haltingly.

Cleve swore under his breath, but loud enough to make Joan swiftly put her hand over his lips and caution him.

“Joan, did you hear that about Gulden?” he asked.

“Oh yes.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you. Yes, I’ve got my second job. And this one I can’t shirk or twist around.”

Joan held to him convulsively. She could scarcely speak.

“Girl, don’t lose your nerve!” he said, sternly. “When you married me you made me a man. I’ll play my end of the game. Don’t fear for me. You plan when we can risk escape. I’ll obey you to the word.”

“But Jim — oh, Jim!” she moaned. “You’re as wild as these bandits. You can’t see your danger.... That terrible Gulden!... You don’t mean to meet him — fight him?... Say you won’t!”

“Joan, I’ll meet him — and I’ll KILL him,” whispered Jim, with a piercing intensity. “You never knew I was swift with a gun. Well, I didn’t, either, till I struck the border. I know now. Kells is the only man I’ve seen who can throw a gun quicker than I. Gulden is a big bull. He’s slow. I’ll get into a card-game with him — I’ll quarrel over gold — I’ll smash him as I did once before — and this time I won’t shoot off his ear. I’ve my nerve now. Kells swore he’d do anything for me if I stand by him now. I will. You never can tell. Kells is losing his grip. And my standing by him may save you.”

Joan drew a deep breath. Jim Cleve had indeed come into manhood. She crushed down her womanish fears and rose dauntless to the occasion. She would never weaken him by a lack of confidence.

“Jim, Kells’s plot draws on to a fatal close,” she said, earnestly. “I feel it. He’s doomed. He doesn’t realize that yet. He hopes and plots on. When he falls, then he’ll be great — terrible. We must get away before that comes. What you said about Creede has given me an idea. Suppose we plan to slip out some night soon, and stop the stage next day on its way to Bannack?”

“I’ve thought of that. But we must have horses.”

“Let’s go afoot. We’d be safer. There’d not be so much to plan.”

“But if we go on foot we must pack guns and grub — and there’s my gold-dust. Fifty pounds or more! It’s yours, Joan.... You’ll need it all. You love pretty clothes and things. And now I’ll get them for you or — or die.”

“Hush! That’s foolish talk, with our very lives at stake. Let me plan some more. Oh, I think so hard!... And, Jim, there’s another thing. Red Pearce was more than suspicious about your absence from the cabin at certain hours. What he hinted to Kells about a woman in the case! I’m afraid he suspects or knows.”

“He had me cold, too,” replied Cleve, thoughtfully. “But he swore he knew nothing.”

“Jim, trust a woman’s instinct. Pearce lied. That gun at his side made him a liar. He knew you’d kill him if he betrayed himself by a word. Oh, look out for him!”

Cleve did not reply. It struck Joan that he was not listening, at least to her. His head was turned, rigid and alert. He had his ear to the soft wind. Suddenly Joan heard a faint rustle-then another. They appeared to come from the corner of the cabin. Silently Cleve sank down into the shadow and vanished. Low, stealthy footsteps followed, but Joan was not sure whether or not Cleve made them. They did not seem to come from the direction he usually took. Besides, when he was careful he never made the slightest noise. Joan strained her ears, only to catch the faint sounds of the night. She lay back upon her bed, worried and anxious again, and soon the dread returned. There were to be no waking or sleeping hours free from this portent of calamity.

Next morning Joan awaited Kells, as was her custom, but he did not appear. This was the third time in a week that he had forgotten or avoided her or had been prevented from seeing her. Joan was glad, yet the fact was not reassuring. The issue for Kells was growing from trouble to disaster.

Early in the afternoon she heard Kells returning from camp. He had men with him. They conversed in low, earnest tones. Joan was about to spy up on them when Kells’s step approached her door. He rapped and spoke:

“Put on Dandy Dale’s suit and mask, and come out here,” he said.

The tone of his voice as much as the content of his words startled Joan so that she did not at once reply.

“Do you hear?” he called, sharply.

“Yes,” replied Joan.

Then he went back to his men, and the low, earnest conversation was renewed.

Reluctantly Joan took down Dandy Dale’s things from the pegs, and with a recurring shame she divested herself of part of her clothes and donned the suit and boots and mask and gun. Her spirit rose, however, at the thought that this would be a disguise calculated to aid her in the escape with Cleve. But why had Kells ordered the change? Was he in danger and did he mean to flee from Alder Creek? Joan found the speculation a relief from that haunting, persistent thought of Jim Cleve and Gulden. She was eager to learn, still she hesitated at the door. It was just as hard as ever to face those men.

But it must be, so with a wrench she stepped out boldly.

Kells looked worn and gray. He had not slept. But his face did not wear the shade she had come to associate with his gambling and drinking. Six other men were present, and Joan noted coats and gloves and weapons and spurs. Kells turned to address her. His face lighted fleetingly.

“I want you to be ready to ride any minute,” he said.

“Why?” asked Joan.

“We may HAVE to, that’s all,” he replied.

His men, usually so keen when they had a chance to ogle Joan, now scarcely gave her a glance. They were a dark, grim group, with hard eyes and tight lips. Handy Oliver was speaking.

“I tell you, Gulden swore he seen Creede — on the road — in the lamplight — last night AFTER Jim Cleve got here.”

“Gulden must have been mistaken,” declared Kells, impatiently.

“He ain’t the kind to make mistakes,” replied Oliver.

“Gul’s seen Creede’s ghost, thet’s what,” suggested Blicky, uneasily. “I’ve seen a few in my time.”

Some of the bandits nodded gloomily.

“Aw!” burst out Red Pearce. “Gulden never seen a ghost in his life. If he seen Creede he’s seen him ALIVE!”

“Shore you’re right, Red,” agreed Jesse Smith.

“But, men — Cleve brought in Creede’s belt — and we’ve divided the gold,” said Kells. “You all know Creede would have to be dead before that belt could be unbuckled from him. There’s a mistake.”

“Boss, it’s my idee thet Gul is only makin’ more trouble,” put in Bate Wood. “I seen him less than an hour ago. I was the first one Gul talked to. An’ he knew Jim Cleve did for Creede. How’d he know? Thet was supposed to be a secret. What’s more, Gul told me Cleve was on the job to kill him. How’d he ever find thet out?... Sure as God made little apples Cleve never told him!”

Kells’s face grew livid and his whole body vibrated. “Maybe one of Gulden’s gang was outside, listening when we planned Cleve’s job,” he suggested. But his look belied his hope.

“Naw! There’s a nigger in the wood-pile, you can gamble on thet,” blurted out the sixth bandit, a lean faced, bold-eye, blond-mustached fellow whose name Joan had never heard.

“I won’t believe it,” replied Kells, doggedly. “And you, Budd, you’re accusing somebody present of treachery — or else Cleve. He’s the only one not here who knew.”

“Wal, I always said thet youngster was slick,” replied Budd.

“Will you accuse him to his face?”

“I shore will. Glad of the chance.”

“Then you’re drunk or just a fool.”

“Thet so?”

“Yes, that’s so,” flashed Kells. “You don’t know Cleve. He’ll kill you. He’s lightning with a gun. Do you suppose I’d set him on Gulden’s trail if I wasn’t sure? Why I wouldn’t care to—”

“Here comes Cleve,” interrupted Pearce, sharply.

Rapid footsteps sounded without. Then Joan saw Jim Cleve darken the doorway. He looked keen and bold. Upon sight of Joan in her changed attire he gave a slight start.

“Budd, here’s Cleve,” called out Red Pearce, mockingly. “Now, say it to his face!”

In the silence that ensued Pearce’s spirit dominated the moment with its cunning, hate, and violence. But Kells savagely leaped in front of the men, still master of the situation.

“Red, what’s got into you?” he hissed. “You’re cross-grained lately. You’re sore. Any more of this and I’ll swear you’re a disorganizer.... Now, Budd, you keep your mouth shut. And you, Cleve, you pay no heed to Budd if he does gab.... We’re in bad and all the men have chips on their shoulders. We’ve got to stop fighting among ourselves.”

“Wal, boss, there’s a power of sense in a good example,” dryly remarked Bate Wood. His remark calmed Kells and eased the situation.

“Jim, did you meet Gulden?” queried Kells, eagerly.

“Can’t find him anywhere,” replied Cleve. “I’ve loafed in the saloons and gambling-hells where he hangs out. But he didn’t show up. He’s in camp. I know that for a fact. He’s laying low for some reason.”

“Gulden’s been tipped off, Jim,” said Kells, earnestly. “He told Bate Wood you were out to kill him.”

“I’m glad. It wasn’t a fair hand you were going to deal him,” responded Cleve. “But who gave my job away? Someone in this gang wants me done for — more than Gulden.”

Cleve’s flashing gaze swept over the motionless men and fixed hardest upon Red Pearce. Pearce gave back hard look for hard look.

“Gulden told Oliver more,” continued Kells, and he pulled Cleve around to face him. “Gulden swore he saw Creede alive last night.... LATE LAST NIGHT!”

“That’s funny,” replied Cleve, without the flicker of an eyelash.

“It’s not funny. But it’s queer. Gulden hasn’t the moral sense to lie. Bate says he wants to make trouble between you and me. I doubt that. I don’t believe Gulden could see a ghost, either. He’s simply mistaken some miner for Creede.”

“He sure has, unless Creede came back to life. I’m not sitting on his chest now, holding him down.”

Kells drew back, manifestly convinced and relieved. This action seemed to be a magnet for Pearce. He detached himself from the group, and, approaching Kells, tapped him significantly on the shoulder; and whether by design or accident the fact was that he took a position where Kells was between him and Cleve.

“Jack, you’re being double-crossed here — an’ by more ‘n one,” he said, deliberately. “But if you want me to talk you’ve got to guarantee no gun-play.”

“Speak up, Red,” replied Kells, with a glinting eye. “I swear there won’t be a gun pulled.”

The other men shifted from one foot to another and there were deep-drawn breaths. Jim Cleve alone seemed quiet and cool. But his eyes were ablaze.

“Fust off an’ for instance here’s one who’s double-crossin’ you,” said Pearce, in slow, tantalizing speech, as if he wore out this suspense to torture Kells. And without ever glancing at Joan he jerked a thumb, in significant gesture, at her.

Joan leaned back against the wall, trembling and cold all over. She read Pearce’s mind. He knew her secret and meant to betray her and Jim. He hated Kells and wanted to torture him. If only she could think quickly and speak! But she seemed dumb and powerless.

“Pearce, what do you mean?” demanded Kells.

“The girl’s double-crossin’ you,” replied Pearce. With the uttered words he grew pale and agitated.

Suddenly Kells appeared to become aware of Joan’s presence and that the implication was directed toward her. Then, many and remarkable as had been the changes Joan had seen come over him, now occurred one wholly greater. It had all his old amiability, his cool, easy manner, veiling a deep and hidden ruthlessness, terrible in contrast.

“Red, I thought our talk concerned men and gold and — things,” he said, with a cool, slow softness that had a sting, “but since you’ve nerve enough or are crazy enough to speak of — her — why, explain your meaning.”

Pearce’s jaw worked so that he could scarcely talk. He had gone too far — realized it too late.

“She meets a man — back there — at her window,” he panted. “They whisper in the dark for hours. I’ve watched an’ heard them. An’ I’d told you before, but I wanted to make sure who he was.... I know him now!... An’ remember I seen him climb in an’ out—”

Kells’s whole frame leaped. His gun was a flash of blue and red and white all together. Pearce swayed upright, like a tree chopped at the roots, and then fell, face up, eyes set — dead. The bandit leader stood over him with the smoking gun.

“My Gawd, Jack!” gasped Handy Oliver. “You swore no one would pull a gun — an’ here you’ve killed him yourself!... YOU’VE DOUBLE-CROSSED YOURSELF! An’ if I die for it I’ve got to tell you Red wasn’t lyin’ then!”

Kells’s radiance fled, leaving him ghastly. He stared at Oliver.

“You’ve double-crossed yourself an’ your pards,” went on Oliver, pathetically. “What’s your word amount to? Do you expect the gang to stand for this?... There lays Red Pearce dead. An’ for what? Jest once — relyin’ on your oath — he speaks out what might have showed you. An’ you kill him!... If I knowed what he knowed I’d tell you now with thet gun in your hand! But I don’t know. Only I know he wasn’t lyin’.... Ask the girl!... An’ as for me, I reckon I’m through with you an’ your Legion. You’re done, Kells — your head’s gone — you’ve broke over thet slip of a woman!”

Oliver spoke with a rude and impressive dignity. When he ended he strode out into the sunlight.

Kells was shaken by this forceful speech, yet he was not in any sense a broken man. “Joan — you heard Pearce,” said he, passionately. “He lied about you. I had to kill him. He hinted — Oh, the low-lived dog! He could not know a good woman. He lied — and there he is — dead! I wouldn’t fetch him back for a hundred Legions!”

“But it — it wasn’t — all — a lie,” said Joan, and her words came haltingly because a force stronger than her cunning made her speak. She had reached a point where she could not deceive Kells to save her life.

“WHAT!” he thundered.

“Pearce told the truth — except that no one ever climbed in my window. That’s false. No one could climb in. It’s too small.... But I did whisper — to someone.”

Kells had to moisten his lips to speak. “Who?”

“I’ll never tell you.”

“Who?... I’ll kill him!”

“No — no. I won’t tell. I won’t let you kill another man on my account.”

“I’ll choke it out of you.”

“You can’t. There’s no use to threaten me, or hurt me, either.”

Kells seemed dazed. “Whisper! For hours! In the dark!... But, Joan, what for? Why such a risk?”

Joan shook her head.

“Were you just unhappy — lonesome? Did some young miner happen to see you there in daylight — then come at night? Wasn’t it only accident? Tell me.”

“I won’t — and I won’t because I don’t want you to spill more blood.”

“For my sake,” he queried, with the old, mocking tone. Then he grew dark with blood in his face, fierce with action of hands and body as he bent nearer her. “Maybe you like him too well to see him shot?... Did you — whisper often to this stranger?”

Joan felt herself weakening. Kells was so powerful in spirit and passion that she seemed unable to fight him. She strove to withhold her reply, but it burst forth, involuntarily.

“Yes — often.”

That roused more than anger and passion. Jealousy flamed from him and it transformed him into a devil.

“You held hands out of that window — and kissed — in the dark?” he cried, with working lips.

Joan had thought of this so fearfully and intensely — she had battled so to fortify herself to keep it secret — that he had divined it, had read her mind. She could not control herself. The murder of Pearce had almost overwhelmed her. She had not the strength to bite her tongue. Suggestion alone would have drawn her then — and Kells’s passionate force was hypnotic.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He appeared to control a developing paroxysm of rage.

“That settles you,” he declared darkly. “But I’ll do one more decent thing by you. I’ll marry you.” Then he wheeled to his men. “Blicky, there’s a parson down in camp. Go on the run. Fetch him back if you have to push him with a gun.”

Blicky darted through the door and his footsteps thudded out of hearing.

“You can’t force me to marry you,” said Joan. “I — I won’t open my lips.”

“That’s your affair. I’ve no mind to coax you,” he replied, bitterly. “But if you don’t I’ll try Gulden’s way with a woman.... You remember. Gulden’s way! A cave and a rope!”

Joan’s legs gave out under her and she sank upon a pile of blankets. Then beyond Kells she saw Jim Cleve. With all that was left of her spirit she flashed him a warning — a meaning — a prayer not to do the deed she divined was his deadly intent. He caught it and obeyed. And he flashed back a glance which meant that, desperate as her case was, it could never be what Kells threatened.

“Men, see me through this,” said Kells to the silent group. “Then any deal you want — I’m on. Stay here or — sack the camp! Hold up the stage express with gold for Bannack! Anything for a big stake! Then the trail and the border.”

He began pacing the floor. Budd and Smith strolled outside. Bate Wood fumbled in his pockets for pipe and tobacco. Cleve sat down at the table and leaned on his hands. No one took notice of the dead Pearce. Here was somber and terrible sign of the wildness of the border clan — that Kells could send out for a parson to marry him to a woman he hopelessly loved, there in the presence of murder and death, with Pearce’s distorted face upturned in stark and ghastly significance.

It might have been a quarter of an hour, though to Joan it seemed an endless time, until footsteps and voices outside announced the return of Blicky.

He held by the arm a slight man whom he was urging along with no gentle force. This stranger’s face presented as great a contrast to Blicky’s as could have been imagined. His apparel proclaimed his calling. There were consternation and bewilderment in his expression, but very little fear.

“He was preachin’ down there in a tent,” said Blicky, “an I jest waltzed him up without explainin’.”

“Sir, I want to be married at once,” declared Kells, peremptorily.

“Certainly. I’m at your service,” replied the preacher. “But I deplore the — the manner in which I’ve been approached.”

“You’ll excuse haste,” rejoined the bandit. “I’ll pay you well.” Kells threw a small buckskin sack of gold-dust upon the table, and then he turned to Joan. “Come, Joan,” he said, in the tone that brooked neither resistance nor delay.

It was at that moment that the preacher first noticed Joan. Was her costume accountable for his start? Joan had remembered his voice and she wondered if he would remember hers. Certainly Jim had called her Joan more than once on the night of the marriage. The preacher’s eyes grew keener. He glanced from Joan to Kells, and then at the other men, who had come in. Jim Cleve stood behind Jesse Smith’s broad person, and evidently the preacher did not see him. That curious gaze, however, next discovered the dead man on the floor. Then to the curiosity and anxiety upon the preacher’s face was added horror.

“A minister of God is needed here, but not in the capacity you name,” he said. “I’ll perform no marriage ceremony in the presence of — murder.”

“Mr. Preacher, you’ll marry me quick or you’ll go along with him,” replied Kells, deliberately.

“I cannot be forced.” The preacher still maintained some dignity, but he had grown pale.

“I can force you. Get ready now!... Joan, come here!”

Kells spoke sternly, yet something of the old, self-mocking spirit was in his tone. His intelligence was deriding the flesh and blood of him, the beast, the fool. It spoke that he would have his way and that the choice was fatal for him.

Joan shook her head. In one stride Kells reached her and swung her spinning before him. The physical violence acted strangely upon Joan — roused her rage.

“I wouldn’t marry you to save my life — even if I could!” she burst out.

At her declaration the preacher gave a start that must have been suspicion or confirmation, or both. He bent low to peer into the face of the dead Pearce. When he arose he was shaking his head. Evidently he had decided that Pearce was not the man to whom he had married Joan.

“Please remove your mask,” he said to Joan.

She did so, swiftly, without a tremor. The preacher peered into her face again, as he had upon the night he had married her to Jim. He faced Kells again.

“I am beyond your threats,” he said, now with calmness. “I can’t marry you to a woman who already has a husband.... But I don’t see that husband here.”

“You don’t see that husband here!” echoed the bewildered Kells. He stared with open mouth. “Say, have you got a screw loose?”

The preacher, in his swift glance, had apparently not observed the half-hidden Cleve. Certainly it appeared now that he would have no attention for any other than Kells. The bandit was a study. His astonishment was terrific and held him like a chain. Suddenly he lurched.

“What did you say?” he roared, his face flaming.

“I can’t marry you to a woman who already has a husband.”

Swift as light the red flashed out of Kells’s face. “Did you ever see her before?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the preacher.

“Where and when?”

“Here — at the back of this cabin — a few nights ago.”

It hurt Joan to look at Kells now, yet he seemed wonderful to behold. She felt as guilty as if she had really been false to him. Her heart labored high in her breast. This was the climax — the moment of catastrophe. Another word and Jim Cleve would be facing Kells. The blood pressure in Joan’s throat almost strangled her.

“At the back of this cabin!... At her window?”

“Yes.”

“What were you there for?”

“In my capacity as minister. I was summoned to marry her.”

“To marry her?” gasped Kells.

“Yes. She is Joan Randle, from Hoadley, Idaho. She is over eighteen. I understood she was detained here against her will. She loved an honest young miner of the camp. He brought me up here one night. And I married them.”

“YOU — MARRIED — THEM!”

“Yes.”

Kells was slow in assimilating the truth and his action corresponded with his mind. Slowly his hand moved toward his gun. He drew it, threw it aloft. And then all the terrible evil in the man flamed forth. But as he deliberately drew down on the preacher Blicky leaped forward and knocked up the gun. Flash and report followed; the discharge went into the roof. Blicky grasped Kells’s arm and threw his weight upon it to keep it down.

“I fetched thet parson here,” he yelled, “an you ain’t a-goin’ to kill him!... Help, Jesse!... He’s crazy! He’ll do it!”

Jesse Smith ran to Blicky’s aid and tore the gun out of Kells’s hand. Jim Cleve grasped the preacher by the shoulders and, whirling him around, sent him flying out of the door.

“Run for your life!” he shouted.

Blicky and Jesse Smith were trying to hold the lunging Kells.

“Jim, you block the door,” called Jesse. “Bate, you grab any loose guns an’ knives.... Now, boss, rant an’ be damned!”

They released Kells and backed away, leaving him the room. Joan’s limbs seemed unable to execute her will.

“Joan! It’s true,” he exclaimed, with whistling breath.

“Yes.”

“WHO?” he bellowed.

“I’ll never tell.”

He reached for her with hands like claws, as if he meant to tear her, rend her. Joan was helpless, weak, terrified. Those shaking, clutching hands reached for her throat and yet never closed round it. Kells wanted to kill her, but he could not. He loomed over her, dark, speechless, locked in his paroxysm of rage. Perhaps then came a realization of ruin through her. He hated her because he loved her. He wanted to kill her because of that hate, yet he could not harm her, even hurt her. And his soul seemed in conflict with two giants — the evil in him that was hate, and the love that was good. Suddenly he flung her aside. She stumbled over Pearce’s body, almost falling, and staggered back to the wall. Kells had the center of the room to himself. Like a mad steer in a corral he gazed about, stupidly seeking some way to escape. But the escape Kells longed for was from himself. Then either he let himself go or was unable longer to control his rage. He began to plunge around. His actions were violent, random, half insane. He seemed to want to destroy himself and everything. But the weapons were guarded by his men and the room contained little he could smash. There was something magnificent in his fury, yet childish and absurd. Even under its influence and his abandonment he showed a consciousness of its futility. In a few moments the inside of the cabin was in disorder and Kells seemed a disheveled, sweating, panting wretch. The rapidity and violence of his action, coupled with his fury, soon exhausted him. He fell from plunging here and there to pacing the floor. And even the dignity of passion passed from him. He looked a hopeless, beaten, stricken man, conscious of defeat.

Jesse Smith approached the bandit leader. “Jack, here’s your gun,” he said. “I only took it because you was out of your head.... An’ listen, boss. There’s a few of us left.”

That was Smith’s expression of fidelity, and Kells received it with a pallid, grateful smile.

“Bate, you an’ Jim clean up this mess,” went on Smith. “An’, Blicky, come here an’ help me with Pearce. We’ll have to plant him.”

The stir begun by the men was broken by a sharp exclamation from Cleve.

“Kells, here comes Gulden — Beady Jones, Williams, Beard!”

The bandit raised his head and paced back to where he could look out.

Bate Wood made a violent and significant gesture. “Somethin’ wrong,” he said, hurriedly. “An’ it’s more’n to do with Gul!... Look down the road. See thet gang. All excited an’ wavin’ hands an’ runnin’. But they’re goin’ down into camp.”

Jesse Smith turned a gray face toward Kells. “Boss, there’s hell to pay! I’ve seen THET kind of excitement before.”

Kells thrust the men aside and looked out. He seemed to draw upon a reserve strength, for he grew composed even while he gazed. “Jim, get in the other room,” he ordered, sharply. “Joan — you go, too. Keep still.”

Joan hurried to comply. Jim entered after her and closed the door. Instinctively they clasped hands, drew close together.

“Jim, what does it mean?” she whispered, fearfully. “Gulden!”

“He must be looking for me,” replied Jim. “But there’s more doing. Did you see that crowd down the road?”

“No. I couldn’t see out.”

“Listen.”

Heavy tramp boots sounded without. Silently Joan led Jim to the crack between the boards through which she had spied upon the bandits. Jim peeped through, and Joan saw his hand go to his gun. Then she looked.

Gulden was being crowded into the cabin by fierce, bulging-jawed men who meant some kind of dark business. The strangest thing about that entrance was its silence. In a moment they were inside, confronting Kells with his little group. Beard, Jones, Williams, former faithful allies of Kells, showed a malignant opposition. And the huge Gulden resembled an enraged gorilla. For an instant his great, pale, cavernous eyes glared. He had one hand under his coat and his position had a sinister suggestion. But Kells stood cool and sure. When Gulden moved Kells’s gun was leaping forth. But he withheld his fire, for Gulden had only a heavy round object wrapped in a handkerchief.

“Look there!” he boomed, and he threw the object on the table.

The dull, heavy, sodden thump had a familiar ring. Joan heard Jim gasp and his hand tightened spasmodically upon hers.

Slowly the ends of the red scarf slid down to reveal an irregularly round, glinting lump. When Joan recognized it her heart seemed to burst.

“Jim Cleve’s nugget!” ejaculated Kells. “Where’d you get that?”

Gulden leaned across the table, his massive jaw working. “I found it on the miner Creede,” replied the giant, stridently.

Then came a nervous shuffling of boots on the creaky boards. In the silence a low, dull murmur of distant voices could be heard, strangely menacing. Kells stood transfixed, white as a sheet.

“On Creede!”

“Yes.”

“Where was his — his body?”

“I left it out on the Bannack trail.”

The bandit leader appeared mute.

“Kells, I followed Creede out of camp last night,” fiercely declared Gulden.... “I killed him!... I found this nugget on him!”

CHAPTER 17

APPARENTLY TO KELLS that nugget did not accuse Jim Cleve of treachery. Not only did this possibility seem lost upon the bandit leader, but also the sinister intent of Gulden and his associates.

“Then Jim didn’t kill Creede!” cried Kells.

A strange light flashed across his face. It fitted the note of gladness in his exclamation. How strange that in his amaze there should be relief instead of suspicion! Joan thought she understood Kells. He was glad that he had not yet made a murderer out of Cleve.

Gulden appeared slow in rejoining. “I told you I got Creede,” he said. “And we want to know if this says to you what it says to us.”

His huge, hairy hand tapped the nugget. Then Kells caught the implication.

“What does it say to you?” he queried, coolly, and he eyed Gulden and then the grim men behind him.

“Somebody in the gang is crooked. Somebody’s giving you the double-cross. We’ve known that for long. Jim Cleve goes out to kill Creede. He comes in with Creede’s gold-belt — and a lie!... We think Cleve is the crooked one.”

“No! You’re way off, Gulden,” replied Kells, earnestly. “That boy is absolutely square. He’s lied to me about Creede. But I can excuse that. He lost his nerve. He’s only a youngster. To knife a man in his sleep — that was too much for Jim!... And I’m glad! I see it all now. Jim’s swapped his big nugget for Creede’s belt. And in the bargain he exacted that Creede hit the trail out of camp. You happened to see Creede and went after him yourself.... Well, I don’t see where you’ve any kick coming. For you’ve ten times the money in Cleve’s nugget that there was in a share of Creede’s gold.”

“That’s not my kick,” declared Gulden. “What you say about Cleve may be true. But I don’t believe it. And the gang is sore. Things have leaked out. We’re watched. We’re not welcome in the gambling-places any more. Last night I was not allowed to sit in the game at Belcher’s.”

“You think Cleve has squealed?” queried Kells.

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet you every ounce of dust I’ve got that you’re wrong,” declared Kells. “A straight, square bet against anything you want to put up!”

Kells’s ringing voice was nothing if not convincing.

“Appearances are against Cleve,” growled Gulden, dubiously. Always he had been swayed by the stronger mind of the leader.

“Sure they are,” agreed Kells.

“Then what do you base your confidence on?”

“Just my knowledge of men. Jim Cleve wouldn’t squeal.... Gulden, did anybody tell you that?”

“Yes,” replied Gulden, slowly. “Red Pearce.”

“Pearce was a liar,” said Kells, bitterly. “I shot him for lying to me.”

Gulden stared. His men muttered and gazed at one another and around the cabin.

“Pearce told me you set Cleve to kill me,” suddenly spoke up the giant.

If he expected to surprise Kells he utterly failed.

“That’s another and bigger lie,” replied the bandit leader, disgustedly. “Gulden, do you think my mind’s gone?”

“Not quite,” replied Gulden, and he seemed as near a laugh as was possible for him.

“Well, I’ve enough mind left not to set a boy to kill such a man as you.”

Gulden might have been susceptible to flattery. He turned to his men. They, too, had felt Kells’s subtle influence. They were ready to veer round like weather-vanes.

“Red Pearce has cashed, an’ he can’t talk for himself,” said Beady Jones, as if answering to the unspoken thought of all.

“Men, between you and me, I had more queer notions about Pearce than Cleve,” announced Gulden, gruffly. “But I never said so because I had no proof.”

“Red shore was sore an’ strange lately,” added Chick Williams. “Me an’ him were pretty thick once — but not lately.”

The giant Gulden scratched his head and swore. Probably he had no sense of justice and was merely puzzled.

“We’re wastin’ a lot of time,” put in Beard, anxiously. “Don’t fergit there’s somethin’ comin’ off down in camp, an’ we ain’t sure what.”

“Bah! Haven’t we heard whispers of vigilantes for a week?” queried Gulden.

Then some one of the men looked out of the door and suddenly whistled.

“Who’s thet on a hoss?”

Gulden’s gang crowded to the door.

“Thet’s Handy Oliver.”

“No!”

“Shore is. I know him. But it ain’t his hoss.... Say, he’s hurryin’.”

Low exclamations of surprise and curiosity followed. Kells and his men looked attentively, but no one spoke. The clatter of hoofs on the stony road told of a horse swiftly approaching — pounding to a halt before the cabin.

“Handy!... Air you chased?... What’s wrong?... You shore look pale round the gills.” These and other remarks were flung out the door.

“Where’s Kells? Let me in,” replied Oliver, hoarsely.

The crowd jostled and split to admit the long, lean Oliver. He stalked straight toward Kells, till the table alone stood between them. He was gray of face, breathing hard, resolute and stern.

“Kells, I throwed — you — down!” he said, with outstretched hand. It was a gesture of self-condemnation and remorse.

“What of that?” demanded Kells, with his head leaping like the strike of an eagle.

“I’m takin’ it back!”

Kells met the outstretched hand with his own and wrung it. “Handy, I never knew you to right — about — face. But I’m glad.... What’s changed you so quickly?”

“VIGILANTES!”

Kells’s animation and eagerness suddenly froze. “VIGILANTES!” he ground out.

“No rumor, Kells, this time. I’ve sure some news.... Come close, all you fellows. You, Gulden, come an’ listen. Here’s where we git together closer’n ever.”

Gulden surged forward with his group. Handy Oliver was surrounded by pale, tight faces, dark-browed and hardeyed.

He gazed at them, preparing them for a startling revelation. “Men, of all the white-livered traitors as ever was Red Pearce was the worst!” he declared, hoarsely.

No one moved or spoke.

“AN’ HE WAS A VIGILANTE!”

A low, strange sound, almost a roar, breathed through the group.

“Listen now an’ don’t interrupt. We ain’t got a lot of time.... So never mind how I happened to find out about Pearce. It was all accident, an’ jest because I put two an’ two together.... Pearce was approached by one of this secret vigilante band, an’ he planned to sell the Border Legion outright. There was to be a big stake in it for him. He held off day after day, only tippin’ off some of the gang. There’s Dartt an’ Singleton an’ Frenchy an’ Texas all caught red-handed at jobs. Pearce put the vigilantes to watchin’ them jest to prove his claim.... Aw! I’ve got the proofs! Jest wait. Listen to me!... You all never in your lives seen a snake like Red Pearce. An’ the job he had put up on us was grand. To-day he was to squeal on the whole gang. You know how he began on Kells — an’ how with his oily tongue he asked a guarantee of no gun-play. But he figgered Kells wrong for once. He accused Kells’s girl an’ got killed for his pains. Mebbe it was part of his plan to git the girl himself. Anyway, he had agreed to betray the Border Legion to-day. An’ if he hadn’t been killed by this time we’d all be tied up, ready for the noose!... Mebbe thet wasn’t a lucky shot of the boss’s. Men, I was the first to declare myself against Kells, an’ I’m here now to say thet I was a fool. So you’ve all been fools who’ve bucked against him. If this ain’t provin’ it, what can!

“But I must hustle with my story.... They was havin’ a trial down at the big hall, an’ thet place was sure packed. No diggin’ gold to-day!... Think of what thet means for Alder Creek. I got inside where I could stand on a barrel an’ see. Dartt an’ Singleton an’ Frenchy an’ Texas was bein’ tried by a masked court. A man near me said two of them had been proved guilty. It didn’t take long to make out a case against Texas an’ Frenchy. Miners there recognized them an’ identified them. They was convicted an’ sentenced to be hung!.. Then the offer was made to let them go free out of the border if they’d turn state’s evidence an’ give away the leader an’ men of the Border Legion. Thet was put up to each prisoner. Dartt he never answered at all. An’ Singleton told them to go to hell. An’ Texas he swore he was only a common an’ honest road-agent, an’ never heard of the Legion. But the Frenchman showed a yellow streak. He might have taken the offer. But Texas cussed him tumble, an’ made him ashamed to talk. But if they git Frenchy away from Texas they’ll make him blab. He’s like a greaser. Then there was a delay. The big crowd of miners yelled for ropes. But the vigilantes are waitin’, an’ it’s my hunch they’re waitin’ for Pearce.”

“So! And where do we stand?” cried Kells, clear and cold.

“We’re not spotted yet, thet’s certain,” replied Oliver, “else them masked vigilantes would have been on the job before now. But it’s not sense to figger we can risk another day.... I reckon it’s hit the trail back to Cabin Gulch.”

“Gulden, what do you say?” queried Kells, sharply.

“I’ll go or stay — whatever you want,” replied the giant. In this crisis he seemed to be glad to have Kells decide the issue. And his followers resembled sheep ready to plunge after the leader.

But though Kells, by a strange stroke, had been made wholly master of the Legion, he did not show the old elation or radiance. Perhaps he saw more clearly than ever before. Still he was quick, decisive, strong, equal to the occasion.

“Listen — all of you,” he said. “Our horses and outfits are hidden in a gulch several miles below camp. We’ve got to go that way. We can’t pack any grub or stuff from here. We’ll risk going through camp. Now leave here two or three at a time, and wait down there on the edge of the crowd for me. When I come we’ll stick together. Then all do as I do.”

Gulden put the nugget under his coat and strode out, accompanied by Budd and Jones. They hurried away. The others went in couples. Soon only Bate Wood and Handy Oliver were left with Kells.

“Now you fellows go,” said Kells. “Be sure to round up the gang down there and wait for me.”

When they had gone he called for Jim and Joan to come out.

All this time Joan’s hand had been gripped in Jim’s, and Joan had been so absorbed that she had forgotten the fact. He released her and faced her, silent, pale. Then he went out. Joan swiftly followed.

Kells was buckling on his spurs. “You heard?” he said, the moment he saw Jim’s face.

“Yes,” replied Jim.

“So much the better. We’ve got to rustle.... Joan, put on that long coat of Cleve’s. Take off your mask.... Jim, get what gold you have, and hurry. If we’re gone when you come back hurry down the road. I want you with me.”

Cleve stalked out, and Joan ran into her room and put on the long coat. She had little time to choose what possessions she could take; and that choice fell upon the little saddle-bag, into which she hurriedly stuffed comb and brush and soap — all it would hold. Then she returned to the larger room.

Kells had lifted a plank of the floor, and was now in the act of putting small buckskin sacks of gold into his pockets. They made his coat bulge at the sides.

“Joan, stick some meat and biscuits in your pockets,” he said. “I’d never get hungry with my pockets full of gold. But you might.”

Joan rummaged around in Bate Wood’s rude cupboard.

“These biscuits are as heavy as gold — and harder,” she said.

Kells flashed a glance at her that held pride, admiration, and sadness. “You are the gamest girl I ever knew! I wish I’d — But that’s too late!... Joan, if anything happens to me stick close to Cleve. I believe you can trust him. Come on now.”

Then he strode out of the cabin. Joan had almost to run to keep up with him. There were no other men now in sight. She knew that Jim would follow soon, because his gold-dust was hidden in the cavern back of her room, and he would not need much time to get it. Nevertheless, she anxiously looked back. She and Kells had gone perhaps a couple of hundred yards before Jim appeared, and then he came on the run. At a point about opposite the first tents he joined Kells.

“Jim, how about guns?” asked the bandit.

“I’ve got two,” replied Cleve.

“Good! There’s no telling — Jim, I’m afraid of the gang. They’re crazy. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. It’s a hard proposition.”

“We’ll get away, all right. Don’t worry about that. But the gang will never come together again.” This singular man spoke with melancholy. “Slow up a little now,” he added. “We don’t want to attract attention.... But where is there any one to see us?... Jim, did I have you figured right about the Creede job?”

“You sure did. I just lost my nerve.”

“Well, no matter.”

Then Kells appeared to forget that. He stalked on with keen glances searching everywhere, until suddenly, when he saw round a bend of the road, he halted with grating teeth. That road was empty all the way to the other end of camp, but there surged a dark mob of men. Kells stalked forward again. The Last Nugget appeared like an empty barn. How vacant and significant the whole center of camp! Kells did not speak another word.

Joan hurried on between Kells and Cleve. She was trying to fortify herself to meet what lay at the end of the road. A strange, hoarse roar of men and an upflinging of arms made her shudder. She kept her eyes lowered and clung to the arms of her companions.

Finally they halted. She felt the crowd before she saw it. A motley assemblage with what seemed craned necks and intent backs! They were all looking forward and upward. But she forced her glance down.

Kells stood still. Jim’s grip was hard upon her arm. Presently men grouped round Kells. She heard whispers. They began to walk slowly, and she was pushed and led along. More men joined the group. Soon she and Kells and Jim were hemmed in a circle. Then she saw the huge form of Gulden, the towering Oliver, and Smith and Blicky, Beard, Jones, Williams, Budd, and others. The circle they formed appeared to be only one of many groups, all moving, whispering, facing from her. Suddenly a sound like the roar of a wave agitated that mass of men. It was harsh, piercing, unnatural, yet it had a note of wild exultation. Then came the stamp and surge, and then the upflinging of arms, and then the abrupt strange silence, broken only by a hiss or an escaping breath, like a sob. Beyond all Joan’s power to resist was a deep, primitive desire to look.

There over the heads of the mob — from the bench of the slope — rose grotesque structures of new-hewn lumber. On a platform stood black, motionless men in awful contrast with a dangling object that doubled up and curled upon itself in terrible convulsions. It lengthened while it swayed; it slowed its action while it stretched. It took on the form of a man. He swung by a rope round his neck. His head hung back. His hands beat. A long tremor shook the body; then it was still, and swayed to and fro, a dark, limp thing.

Joan’s gaze was riveted in horror. A dim, red haze made her vision imperfect. There was a sickening riot within her.

There were masked men all around the platform — a solid phalanx of them on the slope above. They were heavily armed. Other masked men stood on the platform. They seemed rigid figures — stiff, jerky when they moved. How different from the two forms swaying below!

The structure was a rude scaffold and the vigilantes had already hanged two bandits.

Two others with hands bound behind their backs stood farther along the platform under guard. Before each dangled a noose.

Joan recognized Texas and Frenchy. And on the instant the great crowd let out a hard breath that ended in silence.

The masked leader of the vigilantes was addressing Texas: “We’ll spare your life if you confess. Who’s the head of this Border Legion?”

“Shore it’s Red Pearce!... Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“We’ll give you one more chance,” came the curt reply.

Texas appeared to become serious and somber. “I swear to God it’s Pearce!” he declared.

“A lie won’t save you. Come, the truth! We think we know, but we want proof! Hurry!”

“You can go where it’s hot!” responded Texas.

The leader moved his hand and two other masked men stepped forward.

“Have you any message to send any one — anything to say?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Have you any request to make?”

“Hang that Frenchman before me! I want to see him kick.”

Nothing more was said. The two men adjusted the noose round the doomed man’s neck. Texas refused the black cap. And he did not wait for the drop to be sprung. He walked off the platform into space as Joan closed her eyes.

Again that strange, full, angry, and unnatural roar waved through the throng of watchers. It was terrible to hear. Joan felt the violent action of that crowd, although the men close round her were immovable as stones. She imagined she could never open her eyes to see Texas hanging there. Yet she did — and something about his form told her that he had died instantly. He had been brave and loyal even in dishonor. He had more than once spoken a kind word to her. Who could tell what had made him an outcast? She breathed a prayer for his soul.

The vigilantes were bolstering up the craven Frenchy. He could not stand alone. They put the rope round his neck and lifted him off the platform — then let him down. He screamed in his terror. They cut short his cries by lifting him again. This time they held him up several seconds. His face turned black. His eyes bulged. His breast heaved. His legs worked with the regularity of a jumping-jack. They let him down and loosened the noose. They were merely torturing him to wring a confession from him. He had been choked severely and needed a moment to recover. When he did it was to shrink back in abject terror from that loop of rope dangling before his eyes.

The vigilante leader shook the noose in his face and pointed to the swaying forms of the dead bandits.

Frenchy frothed at the mouth as he shrieked out words in his native tongue, but any miner there could have translated their meaning.

The crowd heaved forward, as if with one step, then stood in a strained silence.

“Talk English!” ordered the vigilante.

“I’ll tell! I’ll tell!”

Joan became aware of a singular tremor in Kells’s arm, which she still clasped. Suddenly it jerked. She caught a gleam of blue. Then the bellow of a gun almost split her ears. Powder burned her cheek. She saw Frenchy double up and collapse on the platform.

For an instant there was a silence in which every man seemed petrified. Then burst forth a hoarse uproar and the stamp of many boots. All in another instant pandemonium broke out. The huge crowd split in every direction. Joan felt Cleve’s strong arm around her — felt herself borne on a resistless tide of yelling, stamping, wrestling men. She had a glimpse of Kells’s dark face drawing away from her; another of Gulden’s giant form in Herculean action, tossing men aside like ninepins; another of weapons aloft. Savage, wild-eyed men fought to get into the circle whence that shot had come. They broke into it, but did not know then whom to attack or what to do. And the rushing of the frenzied miners all around soon disintegrated Kells’s band and bore its several groups in every direction. There was not another shot fired.

Joan was dragged and crushed in the melee. Not for rods did her feet touch the ground. But in the clouds of dust and confusion of struggling forms she knew Jim still held her, and she clasped him with all her strength. Presently her feet touched the earth; she was not jostled and pressed; then she felt free to walk; and with Jim urging her they climbed a rock-strewn slope till a cabin impeded further progress. But they had escaped the stream.

Below was a strange sight. A scaffold shrouded in dust-clouds; a band of bewildered vigilantes with weapons drawn, waiting for they knew not what; three swinging, ghastly forms and a dead man on the platform; and all below, a horde of men trying to escape from one another. That shot of Kells’s had precipitated a rush. No miner knew who the vigilantes were nor the members of the Border Legion. Every man there expected a bloody battle — distrusted the man next to him — and had given way to panic. The vigilantes had tried to crowd together for defense and all the others had tried to escape. It was a wild scene, born of wild justice and blood at fever-heat, the climax of a disordered time where gold and violence reigned supreme. It could only happen once, but it was terrible while it lasted. It showed the craven in men; it proved the baneful influence of gold; it brought, in its fruition, the destiny of Alder Creek Camp. For it must have been that the really brave and honest men in vast majority retraced their steps while the vicious kept running. So it seemed to Joan.

She huddled against Jim there in the shadow of the cabin wall, and not for long did either speak. They watched and listened. The streams of miners turned back toward the space around the scaffold where the vigilantes stood grouped, and there rose a subdued roar of excited voices. Many small groups of men conversed together, until the vigilante leader brought all to attention by addressing the populace in general. Joan could not hear what he said and had no wish to hear.

“Joan, it all happened so quickly, didn’t it?” whispered Jim, shaking his head as if he was not convinced of reality.

“Wasn’t he — terrible!” whispered Joan in reply.

“He! Who?”

“Kells.” In her mind the bandit leader dominated all that wild scene.

“Terrible, if you like. But I’d say great!... The nerve of him! In the face of a hundred vigilantes and thousands of miners! But he knew what that shot would do!”

“Never! He never thought of that,” declared Joan, earnestly. “I felt him tremble. I had a glimpse of his face.... Oh!... First in his mind was his downfall, and, second, the treachery of Frenchy. I think that shot showed Kells as utterly desperate, but weak. He couldn’t have helped it — if that had been the last bullet in his gun.”

Jim Cleve looked strangely at Joan, as if her eloquence was both persuasive and incomprehensible.

“Well, that was a lucky shot for us — and him, too.”

“Do you think he got away?” she asked, eagerly.

“Sure. They all got away. Wasn’t that about the maddest crowd you ever saw?”

“No wonder. In a second every man there feared the man next to him would shoot. That showed the power of Kells’s Border Legion. If his men had been faithful and obedient he never would have fallen.”

“Joan! You speak as if you regret it!”

“Oh, I am ashamed,” replied Joan. “I don’t mean that. I don’t know what I do mean. But still I’m sorry for Kells. I suffered so much.... Those long, long hours of suspense.... And his fortunes seemed my fortunes — my very life — and yours, too, Jim.”

“I think I understand, dear,” said Jim, soberly.

“Jim, what’ll we do now? Isn’t it strange to feel free?”

“I feel as queer as you. Let me think,” replied Jim.

They huddled there in comparative seclusion for a long time after that. Joan tried to think of plans, but her mind seemed, unproductive. She felt half dazed. Jim, too, appeared to be laboring under the same kind of burden. Moreover, responsibility had been added to his.

The afternoon waned till the sun tipped the high range in the west. The excitement of the mining populace gradually wore away, and toward sunset strings of men filed up the road and across the open. The masked vigilantes disappeared, and presently only a quiet and curious crowd was left round the grim scaffold and its dark swinging forms. Joan’s one glance showed that the vigilantes had swung Frenchy’s dead body in the noose he would have escaped by treachery. They had hanged him dead. What a horrible proof of the temper of these newborn vigilantes! They had left the bandits swinging. What sight was so appalling as these limp, dark, swaying forms? Dead men on the ground had a dignity — at least the dignity of death. And death sometimes had a majesty. But here both life and death had been robbed and there was only horror. Joan felt that all her life she would be haunted.

“Joan, we’ve got to leave Alder Creek,” declared Cleve, finally. He rose to his feet. The words seemed to have given him decision. “At first I thought every bandit in the gang would run as far as he could from here. But — you can’t tell what these wild men will do. Gulden, for instance! Common sense ought to make them hide for a spell. Still, no matter what’s what, we must leave.... Now, how to go?”

“Let’s walk. If we buy horses or wait for the stage we’ll have to see men here — and I’m afraid—”

“But, Joan, there’ll be bandits along the road sure. And the trails, wherever they are, would be less safe.”

“Let’s travel by night and rest by day.”

“That won’t do, with so far to go and no pack.”

“Then part of the way.”

“No. We’d better take the stage for Bannack. If it starts at all it’ll be under armed guard. The only thing is — will it leave soon?... Come, Joan, we’ll go down into camp.”

Dusk had fallen and lights had begun to accentuate the shadows. Joan kept close beside Jim, down the slope, and into the road. She felt like a guilty thing and every passing man or low-conversing group frightened her. Still she could not help but see that no one noticed her or Jim, and she began to gather courage. Jim also acquired confidence. The growing darkness seemed a protection. The farther up the street they passed, the more men they met. Again the saloons were in full blast. Alder Creek had returned to the free, careless tenor of its way. A few doors this side of the Last Nugget was the office of the stage and express company. It was a wide tent with the front canvas cut out and a shelf-counter across the opening. There was a dim, yellow lamplight. Half a dozen men lounged in front, and inside were several more, two of whom appeared to be armed guards. Jim addressed no one in particular.

“When does the next stage leave for Bannack?”

A man looked up sharply from the papers that littered a table before him. “It leaves when we start it,” he replied, curtly.

“Well, when will that be?”

“What’s that to you?” he replied, with a question still more curt.

“I want to buy seats for two.”

“That’s different. Come in and let’s look you over.... Hello! it’s young Cleve. I didn’t recognize you. Excuse me. We’re a little particular these days.”

The man’s face lighted. Evidently he knew Jim and thought well of him. This reassured Joan and stilled the furious beating of her heart. She saw Jim hand over a sack of gold, from which the agent took the amount due for the passage. Then he returned the sack and whispered something in Jim’s ear. Jim rejoined her and led her away, pressing her arm close to his side.

“It’s all right,” he whispered, excitedly. “Stage leaves just before daylight. It used to leave in the middle of the fore-noon. But they want a good start to-morrow.”

“They think it might be held up?”

“He didn’t say so. But there’s every reason to suspect that.... Joan, I sure hope it won’t. Me with all this gold. Why, I feel as if I weighed a thousand pounds.”

“What’ll we do now?” she inquired.

Jim halted in the middle of the road. It was quite dark now. The lights of the camp were flaring; men were passing to and fro; the loose boards on the walks rattled to their tread; the saloons had begun to hum; and there was a discordant blast from the Last Nugget.

“That’s it — what’ll we do?” he asked in perplexity.

Joan had no idea to advance, but with the lessening of her fear and the gradual clearing of her mind she felt that she would not much longer be witless.

“We’ve got to eat and get some rest,” said Jim, sensibly.

“I’ll try to eat — but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight,” replied Joan.

Jim took her to a place kept by a Mexican. It appeared to consist of two tents, with opening in front and door between. The table was a plank resting upon two barrels, and another plank, resting upon kegs, served as a seat. There was a smoking lamp that flickered. The Mexican’s tableware was of a crudeness befitting his house, but it was clean and he could cook — two facts that Joan appreciated after her long experience of Bate Wood. She and Jim were the only customers of the Mexican, who spoke English rather well and was friendly. Evidently it pleased him to see the meal enjoyed. Both the food and the friendliness had good effect upon Jim Cleve. He ceased to listen all the time and to glance furtively out at every footstep.

“Joan, I guess it’ll turn out all right,” he said, clasping her hand as it rested upon the table. Suddenly he looked bright-eyed and shy. He leaned toward her. “Do you remember — we are married?” he whispered.

Joan was startled. “Of course,” she replied hastily. But had she forgotten?

“You’re my wife.”

Joan looked at him and felt her nerves begin to tingle. A soft, warm wave stole over her.

Like a boy he laughed. “This was our first meal together — on our honeymoon!”

“Jim!” The blood burned in Joan’s face.

“There you sit — you beautiful... But you’re not a girl now. You’re Dandy Dale.”

“Don’t call me that!” exclaimed Joan.

“But I shall — always. We’ll keep that bandit suit always. You can dress up sometimes to show off — to make me remember — to scare the — the kids—”

“Jim Cleve!”

“Oh, Joan, I’m afraid to be happy. But I can’t help it. We’re going to get away. You belong to me. And I’ve sacks and sacks of gold-dust. Lord! I’ve no idea how much! But you can never spend all the money. Isn’t it just like a dream?”

Joan smiled through tears, and failed trying to look severe.

“Get me and the gold away — safe — before you crow,” she said.

That sobered him. He led her out again into the dark street with its dark forms crossing to and fro before the lights.

“It’s a long time before morning. Where can I take you — so you can sleep a little?” he muttered.

“Find a place where we can sit down and wait,” she suggested.

“No.” He pondered a moment. “I guess there’s no risk.”

Then he led her up the street and through that end of camp out upon the rough, open slope. They began to climb. The stars were bright, but even so Joan stumbled often over the stones. She wondered how Jim could get along so well in the dark and she clung to his arm. They did not speak often, and then only in whispers. Jim halted occasionally to listen or to look up at the bold, black bluff for his bearings. Presently he led her among broken fragments of cliff, and half carried her over rougher ground, into a kind of shadowy pocket or niche.

“Here’s where I slept,” he whispered.

He wrapped a blanket round her, and then they sat down against the rock, and she leaned upon his shoulder.

“I have your coat and the blanket, too,” she said. “Won’t you be cold?”

He laughed. “Now don’t talk any more. You’re white and fagged-out. You need to rest — to sleep.”

“Sleep? How impossible!” she murmured.

“Why, your eyes are half shut now.... Anyway, I’ll not talk to you. I want to think.”

“Jim!... kiss me — good night,” she whispered.

He bent over rather violently, she imagined. His head blotted out the light of the stars. He held her tightly for a moment. She felt him shake. Then he kissed her on the cheek and abruptly drew away. How strange he seemed!

For that matter, everything was strange. She had never seen the stars so bright, so full of power, so close. All about her the shadows gathered protectingly, to hide her and Jim. The silence spoke. She saw Jim’s face in the starlight and it seemed so keen, so listening, so thoughtful, so beautiful. He would sit there all night, wide-eyed and alert, guarding her, waiting for the gray of dawn. How he had changed! And she was his wife! But that seemed only a dream. It needed daylight and sight of her ring to make that real.

A warmth and languor stole over her; she relaxed comfortably; after all, she would sleep. But why did that intangible dread hang on to her soul? The night was so still and clear and perfect — a radiant white night of stars — and Jim was there, holding her — and to-morrow they would ride away. That might be, but dark, dangling shapes haunted her, back in her mind, and there, too, loomed Kells. Where was he now? Gone — gone on his bloody trail with his broken fortunes and his desperate bitterness! He had lost her. The lunge of that wild mob had parted them. A throb of pain and shame went through her, for she was sorry. She could not understand why, unless it was because she had possessed some strange power to instil or bring up good in him. No woman could have been proof against that. It was monstrous to know that she had power to turn him from an evil life, yet she could not do it. It was more than monstrous to realize that he had gone on spilling blood and would continue to go on when she could have prevented it — could have saved many poor miners who perhaps had wives or sweethearts somewhere. Yet there was no help for it. She loved Jim Cleve. She might have sacrificed herself, but she would not sacrifice him for all the bandits and miners on the border.

Joan felt that she would always be haunted and would always suffer that pang for Kells. She would never lie down in the peace and quiet of her home, wherever that might be, without picturing Kells, dark and forbidding and burdened, pacing some lonely cabin or riding a lonely trail or lying with his brooding face upturned to the lonely stars. Sooner or later he would meet his doom. It was inevitable. She pictured over that sinister scene of the dangling forms; but no — Kells would never end that way. Terrible as he was, he had not been born to be hanged. He might be murdered in his sleep, by one of that band of traitors who were traitors because in the nature of evil they had to be. But more likely some gambling-hell, with gold and life at stake, would see his last fight. These bandits stole gold and gambled among themselves and fought. And that fight which finished Kells must necessarily be a terrible one. She seemed to see into a lonely cabin where a log fire burned low and lamps flickered and blue smoke floated in veils and men lay prone on the floor — Kells, stark and bloody, and the giant Gulden, dead at last and more terrible in death, and on the rude table bags of gold and dull, shining heaps of gold, and scattered on the floor, like streams of sand and useless as sand, dust of gold — the Destroyer.

CHAPTER 18

ALL JOAN’S FANCIES and dreams faded into obscurity, and when she was aroused it seemed she had scarcely closed her eyes. But there was the gray gloom of dawn. Jim was shaking her gently.

“No, you weren’t sleepy — it’s just a mistake,” he said, helping her to arise. “Now we’ll get out of here.”

They threaded a careful way out of the rocks, then hurried down the slope. In the grayness Joan saw the dark shape of a cabin and it resembled the one Kells had built. It disappeared. Presently when Jim led her into a road she felt sure that this cabin had been the one where she had been a prisoner for so long. They hurried down the road and entered the camp. There were no lights. The tents and cabins looked strange and gloomy. The road was empty. Not a sound broke the stillness. At the bend Joan saw a stage-coach and horses looming up in what seemed gray distance. Jim hurried her on.

They reached the stage. The horses were restive. The driver was on the seat, whip and reins in hand. Two men sat beside him with rifles across their knees. The door of the coach hung open. There were men inside, one of whom had his head out of the window. The barrel of a rifle protruded near him. He was talking in a low voice to a man apparently busy at the traces.

“Hello, Cleve! You’re late,” said another man, evidently the agent. “Climb aboard. When’ll you be back?”

“I hardly know,” replied Cleve, with hesitation.

“All right. Good luck to you.” He closed the coach door after Joan and Jim. “Let ’em go, Bill.”

The stage started with a jerk. To Joan what an unearthly creak and rumble it made, disturbing the silent dawn! Jim squeezed her hand with joy. They were on the way!

Joan and Jim had a seat to themselves. Opposite sat three men — the guard with his head half out of the window, a bearded miner who appeared stolid or drowsy, and a young man who did not look rough and robust enough for a prospector. None of the three paid any particular attention to Joan and Jim.

The road had a decided slope down-hill, and Bill, the driver, had the four horses on a trot. The rickety old stage appeared to be rattling to pieces. It lurched and swayed, and sometimes jolted over rocks and roots. Joan was hard put to it to keep from being bumped off the seat. She held to a brace on one side and to Jim on the other. And when the stage rolled down into the creek and thumped over boulders Joan made sure that every bone in her body would be broken. This crossing marked the mouth of the gulch, and on the other side the road was smooth.

“We’re going the way we came,” whispered Jim in her ear.

This was surprising, for Joan had been sure that Bannack lay in the opposite direction. Certainly this fact was not reassuring to her. Perhaps the road turned soon.

Meanwhile the light brightened, the day broke, and the sun reddened the valley. Then it was as light inside the coach as outside. Joan might have spared herself concern as to her fellow-passengers. The only one who noticed her was the young man, and he, after a stare and a half-smile, lapsed into abstraction. He looked troubled, and there was about him no evidence of prosperity. Jim held her hand under a fold of the long coat, and occasionally he spoke of something or other outside that caught his eye. And the stage rolled on rapidly, seemingly in pursuit of the steady roar of hoofs.

Joan imagined she recognized the brushy ravine out of which Jesse Smith had led that day when Kells’s party came upon the new road. She believed Jim thought so, too, for he gripped her hand unusually hard. Beyond that point Joan began to breathe more easily. There seemed no valid reason now why every mile should not separate them farther from the bandits, and she experienced relief.

Then the time did not drag so. She wanted to talk to Jim, yet did not, because of the other passengers. Jim himself appeared influenced by their absorption in themselves. Besides, the keen, ceaseless vigilance of the guard was not without its quieting effect. Danger lurked ahead in the bends of that road. Joan remembered hearing Kells say that the Bannack stage had never been properly held up by road-agents, but that when he got ready for the job it would be done right. Riding grew to be monotonous and tiresome. With the warmth of the sun came the dust and flies, and all these bothered Joan. She did not have her usual calmness, and as the miles steadily passed her nervousness increased.

The road left the valley and climbed between foot-hills and wound into rockier country. Every dark gulch brought to Joan a trembling, breathless spell. What places for ambush! But the stage bowled on.

At last her apprehensions wore out and she permitted herself the luxury of relaxing, of leaning back and closing her eyes. She was tired, drowsy, hot. There did not seem to be a breath of air.

Suddenly Joan’s ears burst to an infernal crash of guns. She felt the whip and sting of splinters sent flying by bullets. Harsh yells followed, then the scream of a horse in agony, the stage lurching and slipping to a halt, and thunder of heavy guns overhead.

Jim yelled at her — threw her down on the seat. She felt the body of the guard sink against her knees. Then she seemed to feel, to hear through an icy, sickening terror.

A scattering volley silenced the guns above. Then came the pound of hoofs, the snort of frightened horses.

“Jesse Smith! Stop!” called Jim, piercingly.

“Hold on thar, Beady!” replied a hoarse voice. “Damn if it ain’t Jim Cleve!”

“Ho, Gul!” yelled another voice, and Joan recognized it as Blicky’s.

Then Jim lifted her head, drew her up. He was white with fear.

“Dear — are — you — hurt?”

“No. I’m only — scared,” she replied.

Joan looked out to see bandits on foot, guns in hand, and others mounted, all gathering near the coach. Jim opened the door, and, stepping out, bade her follow. Joan had to climb over the dead guard. The miner and the young man huddled down on their seat.

“If it ain’t Jim an’ Kells’s girl — Dandy Dale!” ejaculated Smith. “Fellers, this means somethin’.... Say, youngster, hope you ain’t hurt — or the girl?”

“No. But that’s not your fault,” replied Cleve. “Why did you want to plug the coach full of lead?”

“This beats me,” said Smith. “Kells sent you out in the stage! But when he gave us the job of holdin’ it up he didn’t tell us you’d be in there.... When an’ where’d you leave him?”

“Sometime last night — in camp — near our cabin,” replied Jim, quick as a flash. Manifestly he saw his opportunity “He left Dandy Dale with me. Told us to take the stage this morning. I expected him to be in it or to meet us.”

“Didn’t you have no orders?”

“None, except to take care of the girl till he came. But he did tell me he’d have more to say.”

Smith gazed blankly from Cleve to Blicky, and then at Gulden, who came slowly forward, his hair ruffed, his gun held low. Joan followed the glance of his great gray eyes, and she saw the stage-driver hanging dead over his seat, and the guards lying back of him. The off-side horse of the leaders lay dead in his traces, with his mate nosing at him.

“Who’s in there?” boomed Gulden, and he thrust hand and gun in at the stage door. “Come out!”

The young man stumbled out, hands above his head, pallid and shaking, so weak he could scarcely stand.

Gulden prodded the bearded miner. “Come out here, you!”

The man appeared to be hunched forward in a heap.

“Guess he’s plugged,” said Smith. “But he ain’t cashed. Hear him breathe?... Heaves like a sick hoss.”

Gulden reached with brawny arm and with one pull he dragged the miner off the seat and out into the road, where he flopped with a groan. There was blood on his neck and hands. Gulden bent over him, tore at his clothes, tore harder at something, and then, with a swing, he held aloft a broad, black belt, sagging heavy with gold.

“Hah!” he boomed. It was just an exclamation, horrible to hear, but it did not express satisfaction or exultation. He handed the gold-belt to the grinning Budd, and turned to the young man.

“Got any gold?”

“No. I — I wasn’t a miner,” replied the youth huskily.

Gulden felt for a gold-belt, then slapped at his pockets. “Turn round!” ordered the giant.

“Aw, Gul let him go!” remonstrated Jesse Smith.

Blicky laid a restraining hand upon Gulden’s broad shoulder.

“Turn round!” repeated Gulden, without the slightest sign of noticing his colleagues.

But the youth understood and he turned a ghastly livid hue.

“For God’s sake — don’t murder me!” he gasped. “I had — nothing — no gold — no gun!”

Gulden spun him round like a top and pushed him forward. They went half a dozen paces, then the youth staggered, and turning, he fell on his knees.

“Don’t — kill — me!” he entreated.

Joan, seeing Jim Cleve stiffen and crouch, thought of him even in that horrible moment; and she gripped his arm with all her might. They must endure.

The other bandits muttered, but none moved a hand.

Gulden thrust out the big gun. His hair bristled on his head, and his huge frame seemed instinct with strange vibration, like some object of tremendous weight about to plunge into resistless momentum.

Even the stricken youth saw his doom. “Let — me — pray!” he begged.

Joan did not fault, but a merciful unclamping of muscle-bound rigidity closed her eyes.

“Gul!” yelled Blicky, with passion. “I ain’t a-goin’ to let you kill this kid! There’s no sense in it. We’re spotted back in Alder Creek.... Run, kid! Run!”

Then Joan opened her eyes to see the surly Gulden’s arm held by Blicky, and the youth running blindly down the road. Joan’s relief and joy were tremendous. But still she answered to the realizing shock of what Gulden had meant to do. She leaned against Cleve, all within and without a whirling darkness of fire. The border wildness claimed her then. She had the spirit, though not the strength, to fight. She needed the sight and sound of other things to restore her equilibrium. She would have welcomed another shock, an injury. And then she was looking down upon the gasping miner. He was dying. Hurriedly Joan knelt beside him to lift his head. At her call Cleve brought a canteen. But the miner could not drink and he died with some word unspoken.

Dizzily Joan arose, and with Cleve half supporting her she backed off the road to a seat on the bank. She saw the bandits now at business-like action. Blicky and Smith were cutting the horses out of their harness: Beady Jones, like a ghoul, searched the dead men; the three bandits whom Joan knew only by sight were making up a pack; Budd was standing beside the stage with his, expectant grin; and Gulden, with the agility of the gorilla he resembled, was clambering over the top of the stage. Suddenly from under the driver’s seat he hauled a buckskin sack. It was small, but heavy. He threw it down to Budd, almost knocking over that bandit. Budd hugged the sack and yelled like an Indian. The other men whooped and ran toward him. Gulden hauled out another sack. Hands to the number of a dozen stretched clutchingly. When he threw the sack there was a mad scramble. They fought, but it was only play. They were gleeful. Blicky secured the prize and he held it aloft in triumph. Assuredly he would have waved it had it not been so heavy. Gulden drew out several small sacks, which he provokingly placed on the seat in front of him. The bandits below howled in protest. Then the giant, with his arm under the seat, his huge frame bowed, heaved powerfully upon something, and his face turned red. He halted in his tugging to glare at his bandit comrades below. If his great cavernous eyes expressed any feeling it was analogous to the reluctance manifest in his posture — he regretted the presence of his gang. He would rather have been alone. Then with deep-muttered curse and mighty heave he lifted out a huge buckskin sack, tied and placarded and marked.

“ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!” he boomed.

It seemed to Joan then that a band of devils surrounded the stage, all roaring at the huge, bristling demon above, who glared and bellowed down at them.

Finally Gulden stilled the tumult, which, after all, was one of frenzied joy.

“Share and share alike!” he thundered, now black in the face. “Do you fools want to waste time here on the road, dividing up this gold?”

“What you say goes,” shouted Budd.

There was no dissenting voice.

“What a stake!” ejaculated Blicky. “Gul, the boss had it figgered. Strange, though, he hasn’t showed up!”

“Where’ll we go?” queried Gulden. “Speak up, you men.”

The unanimous selection was Cabin Gulch. Plainly Gulden did not like this, but he was just.

“All right. Cabin Gulch it is. But nobody outside of Kells and us gets a share in this stake.”

Many willing hands made short work of preparation. Gulden insisted on packing all the gold upon his saddle, and had his will. He seemed obsessed; he never glanced at Joan. It was Jesse Smith who gave the directions and orders. One of the stage-horses was packed. Another, with a blanket for a saddle, was given Cleve to ride. Blicky gallantly gave his horse to Joan, shortened his stirrups to fit her, and then whistled at the ridgy back of the stage-horse he elected to ride. Gulden was in a hurry, and twice he edged off, to be halted by impatient calls. Finally the cavalcade was ready; Jesse Smith gazed around upon the scene with the air of a general overlooking a vanquished enemy.

“Whoever fust runs acrost this job will have blind staggers, don’t you forgit thet!”

“What’s Kells goin’ to figger?” asked Blicky, sharply.

“Nothin’ fer Kells! He wasn’t in at the finish!” declared Budd.

Blicky gazed darkly at him, but made no comment.

“I tell you Blick, I can’t git this all right in my head,” said Smith.

“Say, ask Jim again. Mebbe, now the job’s done, he can talk,” suggested Blicky.

Jim Cleve heard and appeared ready for that question.

“I don’t know much more than I told you. But I can guess. Kells had this big shipment of gold spotted. He must have sent us in the stage for some reason. He said he’d tell me what to expect and do. But he didn’t come back. Sure he knew you’d do the job. And just as sure he expected to be on hand. He’ll turn up soon.”

This ruse of Jim’s did not sound in the least logical or plausible to Joan, but it was readily accepted by the bandits. Apparently what they knew of Kells’s movements and plans since the break-up at Alder Creek fitted well with Cleve’s suggestions.

“Come on!” boomed Gulden, from the fore. “Do you want to rot here?”

Then without so much as a backward glance at the ruin they left behind the bandits fell into line. Jesse Smith led straight off the road into a shallow brook and evidently meant to keep in it. Gulden followed; next came Beady Jones; then the three bandits with the pack-horse and the other horses; Cleve and Joan, close together, filed in here; and last came Budd and Blicky. It was rough, slippery traveling and the riders spread out. Cleve, however, rode beside Joan. Once, at an opportune moment, he leaned toward her.

“We’d better run for it at the first chance,” he said, somberly.

“No!... GULDEN!” Joan had to moisten her lips to speak the monster’s name.

“He’ll never think of you while he has all that gold.”

Joan’s intelligence grasped this, but her morbid dread, terribly augmented now, amounted almost to a spell. Still, despite the darkness of her mind, she had a flash of inspiration and of spirit.

“Kells is my only hope!... If he doesn’t join us soon — then we’ll run!... And if we can’t escape that” — Joan made a sickening gesture toward the fore— “you must kill me before — before—”

Her voice trailed off, failing.

“I will!” he promised through locked teeth.

And then they rode on, with dark, faces bent over the muddy water and treacherous stones.

When Jesse Smith led out of that brook it was to ride upon bare rock. He was not leaving any trail. Horses and riders were of no consideration. And he was a genius for picking hard ground and covering it. He never slackened his gait, and it seemed next to impossible to keep him in sight.

For Joan the ride became toil and the toil became pain. But there was no rest. Smith kept mercilessly onward. Sunset and twilight and night found the cavalcade still moving. Then it halted just as Joan was about to succumb. Jim lifted her off her horse and laid her upon the grass. She begged for water, and she drank and drank. But she wanted no food. There was a heavy, dull beating in her ears, a band tight round her forehead. She was aware of the gloom, of the crackling of fires, of leaping shadows, of the passing of men to and fro near her, and, most of all, rendering her capable of a saving shred of self-control, she was aware of Jim’s constant companionship and watchfulness. Then sounds grew far off and night became a blur.

Morning when it came seemed an age removed from that hideous night. Her head had cleared, and but for the soreness of body and limb she would have begun the day strong. There appeared little to eat and no time to prepare it. Gulden was rampant for action. Like a miser he guarded the saddle packed with gold. This tune his comrades were as eager as he to be on the move. All were obsessed by the presence of gold. Only one hour loomed in their consciousness — that of the hour of division. How fatal and pitiful and terrible! Of what possible use or good was gold to them?

The ride began before sunrise. It started and kept on at a steady trot. Smith led down out of the rocky slopes and fastnesses into green valleys. Jim Cleve, riding bareback on a lame horse, had his difficulties. Still he kept close beside or behind Joan all the way. They seldom spoke, and then only a word relative to this stern business of traveling in the trail of a hard-riding bandit. Joan bore up better this day, as far as her mind was concerned. Physically she had all she could do to stay in the saddle. She learned of what steel she was actually made — what her slender frame could endure. That day’s ride seemed a thousand miles long, and never to end. Yet the implacable Smith did finally halt, and that before dark.

Camp was made near water. The bandits were a jovial lot, despite a lack of food. They talked of the morrow. All — the world — lay beyond the next sunrise. Some renounced their pipes and sought their rest just to hurry on the day. But Gulden, tireless, sleepless, eternally vigilant, guarded the saddle of gold and brooded over it, and seemed a somber giant carved out of the night. And Blicky, nursing some deep and late-developed scheme, perhaps in Kells’s interest or his own, kept watch over Gulden and all.

Jim cautioned Joan to rest, and importuned her and promised to watch while she slept.

Joan saw the stars through her shut eyelids. All the night seemed to press down and softly darken.

The sun was shining red when the cavalcade rode up Cabin Gulch. The grazing cattle stopped to watch and the horses pranced and whistled. There were flowers and flitting birds, and glistening dew on leaves, and a shining swift flow of water — the brightness of morning and nature smiled in Cabin Gulch.

Well indeed Joan remembered the trail she had ridden so often. How that clump of willow where first she had confronted Jim thrilled her now! The pines seemed welcoming her. The gulch had a sense of home in it for her, yet it was fearful. How much had happened there! What might yet happen!

Then a clear, ringing call stirred her pulse. She glanced up the slope. Tall and straight and dark, there on the bench, with hand aloft, stood the bandit Kells.

CHAPTER 19

THE WEARY, DUSTY cavalcade halted on the level bench before the bandit’s cabin. Gulden boomed a salute to Kells. The other men shouted greeting. In the wild exultation of triumph they still held him as chief. But Kells was not deceived. He even passed by that heavily laden, gold-weighted saddle. He had eyes only for Joan.

“Girl, I never was so glad to see any one!” he exclaimed in husky amaze. “How did it happen? I never—”

Jim Cleve leaned over to interrupt Kells. “It was great, Kells — that idea of yours putting us in the stagecoach you meant to hold up,” said Cleve, with a swift, meaning glance. “But it nearly was the end of us. You didn’t catch up. The gang didn’t know we were inside, and they shot the old stage full of holes.”

“Aha! So that’s it,” replied Kells, slowly. “But the main point is — you brought her through. Jim, I can’t ever square that.”

“Oh, maybe you can,” laughed Cleve, as he dismounted.

Suddenly Kells became aware of Joan’s exhaustion and distress. “Joan, you’re not hurt?” he asked in swift anxiety.

“No, only played out.”

“You look it. Come.” He lifted her out of the saddle and, half carrying, half leading her, took her into the cabin, and through the big room to her old apartment. How familiar it seemed to Joan! A ground-squirrel frisked along a chink between the logs, chattering welcome. The place was exactly as Joan had left it.

Kells held Joan a second, as if he meant to embrace her, but he did not. “Lord, it’s good to see you! I never expected to again.... But you can tell me all about yourself after you rest.... I was just having breakfast. I’ll fetch you some.”

“Were you alone here?” asked Joan.

“Yes. I was with Bate and Handy—”

“Hey, Kells!” roared the gang, from the outer room.

Kells held aside the blanket curtain so that Joan was able to see through the door. The men were drawn up in a half-circle round the table, upon which were the bags of gold.

Kells whistled low. “Joan, there’ll be trouble now,” he said, “but don’t you fear. I’ll not forget you.”

Despite his undoubted sincerity Joan felt a subtle change in him, and that, coupled with the significance of his words, brought a return of the strange dread. Kells went out and dropped the curtain behind him. Joan listened.

“Share and share alike!” boomed the giant Gulden.

“Say!” called Kells, gaily, “aren’t you fellows going to eat first?”

Shouts of derision greeted his sally.

“I’ll eat gold-dust,” added Budd.

“Have it your own way, men,” responded Kells. “Blicky, get the scales down off of that shelf.... Say, I’ll bet anybody I’ll have the most dust by sundown.”

More shouts of derision were flung at him.

“Who wants to gamble now?”

“Boss, I’ll take thet bet.”

“Haw! Haw! You won’t look so bright by sundown.”

Then followed a moment’s silence, presently broken by a clink of metal on the table.

“Boss, how’d you ever git wind of this big shipment of gold?” asked Jesse Smith.

“I’ve had it spotted. But Handy Oliver was the scout.”

“We’ll shore drink to Handy!” exclaimed one of the bandits.

“An’ who was sendin’ out this shipment?” queried the curious Smith. “Them bags are marked all the same.”

“It was a one-man shipment,” replied Kells. “Sent out by the boss miner of Alder Creek. They call him Overland something.”

That name brought Joan to her feet with a thrilling fire. Her uncle, old Bill Hoadley, was called “Overland.” Was it possible that the bandits meant him? It could hardly be; that name was a common one in the mountains.

“Shore, I seen Overland lots of times,” said Budd. “An’ he got wise to my watchin’ him.”

“Somebody tipped it off that the Legion was after his gold,” went on Kells. “I suppose we have Pearce to thank for that. But it worked out well for us. The hell we raised there at the lynching must have thrown a scare into Overland. He had nerve enough to try to send his dust to Bannack on the very next stage. He nearly got away with it, too. For it was only lucky accident that Handy heard the news.”

The name Overland drew Joan like a magnet and she arose to take her old position, where she could peep in upon the bandits. One glance at Jim Cleve told her that he, too, had been excited by the name. Then it occurred to Joan that her uncle could hardly have been at Alder Creek without Jim knowing it. Still, among thousands of men, all wild and toiling and self-sufficient, hiding their identities, anything might be possible. After a few moments, however, Joan leaned to the improbability of the man being her uncle.

Kells sat down before the table and Blicky stood beside him with the gold-scales. The other bandits lined up opposite. Jim Cleve stood to one side, watching, brooding.

“You can’t weigh it all on these scales,” said Blicky.

“That’s sure,” replied Kells. “We’ll divide the small bags first.... Ten shares — ten equal parts!... Spill out the bags. Blick. And hurry. Look how hungry Gulden looks!... Somebody cook your breakfast while we divide the gold.”

“Haw! Haw!”

“Ho! Ho!”

“Who wants to eat?”

The bandits were gay, derisive, scornful, eager, like a group of boys, half surly, half playful, at a game.

“Wal, I shore want to see my share weighted,” drawled Budd.

Kells moved — his gun flashed — he slammed it hard upon the table.

“Budd, do you question my honesty?” he asked, quick and hard.

“No offense, boss. I was just talkin’.”

That quick change of Kells’s marked a subtle difference in the spirit of the bandits and the occasion. Gaiety and good humor and badinage ended. There were no more broad grins or friendly leers or coarse laughs. Gulden and his groups clustered closer to the table, quiet, intense, watchful, suspicious.

It did not take Kells and his assistant long to divide the smaller quantity of the gold.

“Here, Gulden,” he said, and handed the giant a bag. Jesse.... Bossert.... Pike.... Beady.... Braverman... “Blicky.”

“Here, Jim Cleve, get in the game,” he added, throwing a bag at Jim. It was heavy. It hit Jim with a thud and dropped to the ground. He stooped to reach it.

“That leaves one for Handy and one for me,” went on Kells. “Blicky, spill out the big bag.”

Presently Joan saw a huge mound of dull, gleaming yellow. The color of it leaped to the glinting eyes of the bandits. And it seemed to her that a shadow hovered over them. The movements of Kells grew tense and hurried. Beads of sweat stood out upon his brow. His hands were not steady.

Soon larger bags were distributed to the bandits. That broke the waiting, the watchfulness, but not the tense eagerness. The bandits were now like leashed hounds. Blicky leaned before Kells and hit the table with his fist.

“Boss, I’ve a kick comin’,” he said.

“Come on with it,” replied the leader.

“Ain’t Gulden a-goin’ to divide up thet big nugget?”

“He is if he’s square.”

A chorus of affirmatives from the bandits strengthened Kells’s statement. Gulden moved heavily and ponderously, and he pushed some of his comrades aside to get nearer to Kells.

“Wasn’t it my right to do a job by myself — when I wanted?” he demanded.

“No. I agreed to let you fight when you wanted. To kill a man when you liked!... That was the agreement.”

“What’d I kill a man for?”

No one answered that in words, but the answer was there, in dark faces.

“I know what I meant,” continued Gulden. “And I’m going to keep this nugget.”

There was a moment’s silence. It boded ill to the giant.

“So — he declares himself,” said Blicky, hotly. “Boss, what you say goes.”

“Let him keep it,” declared Kells, scornfully. “I’ll win it from him and divide it with the gang.”

That was received with hoarse acclaims by all except Gulden. He glared sullenly. Kells stood up and shook a long finger in the giant’s face.

“I’ll win your nugget,” he shouted. “I’ll beat you at any game.... I call your hand.... Now if you’ve got any nerve!”

“Come on!” boomed the giant, and he threw his gold down upon the table with a crash.

The bandits closed in around the table with sudden, hard violence, all crowding for seats.

“I’m a-goin’ to set in the game!” yelled Blicky.

“We’ll all set in,” declared Jesse Smith.

“Come on!” was Gulden’s acquiescence.

“But we all can’t play at once,” protested Kells. “Let’s make up two games.”

“Naw!”

“Some of you eat, then, while the others get cleaned out.”

“Thet’s it — cleaned out!” ejaculated Budd, meanly. “You seem to be sure, Kells. An’ I guess I’ll keep shady of thet game.”

“That’s twice for you, Budd,” flashed the bandit leader. “Beware of the third time!”

“Hyar, fellers, cut the cards fer who sets in an’ who sets out,” called Blicky, and he slapped a deck of cards upon the table.

With grim eagerness, as if drawing lots against fate, the bandits bent over and drew cards. Budd, Braverman, and Beady Jones were the ones excluded from the game.

“Beady, you fellows unpack those horses and turn them loose. And bring the stuff inside,” said Kells.

Budd showed a surly disregard, but the other two bandits got up willingly and went out.

Then the game began, with only Cleve standing, looking on. The bandits were mostly silent; they moved their hands, and occasionally bent forward. It was every man against his neighbor. Gulden seemed implacably indifferent and played like a machine. Blicky sat eager and excited, under a spell. Jesse Smith was a slow, cool, shrewed gambler. Bossert and Pike, two ruffians almost unknown to Joan, appeared carried away by their opportunity. And Kells began to wear that strange, rapt, weak expression that gambling gave him.

Presently Beady Jones and Braverman bustled in, carrying the packs. Then Budd jumped up and ran to them. He returned to the table, carrying a demijohn, which he banged upon the table.

“Whisky!” exclaimed Kells. “Take that away. We can’t drink and gamble.”

“Watch me!” replied Blicky.

“Let them drink, Kells,” declared Gulden. “We’ll get their dust quicker. Then we can have our game.”

Kells made no more comment. The game went on and the aspect of it changed. When Kells himself began to drink, seemingly unconscious of the fact, Joan’s dread increased greatly, and, leaving the peep-hole, she lay back upon the bed. Always a sword had hung over her head. Time after time by some fortunate circumstance or by courage or wit or by an act of Providence she had escaped what strangely menaced. Would she escape it again? For she felt the catastrophe coming. Did Jim recognize that fact? Remembering the look on his face, she was assured that he did. Then he would be quick to seize upon any possible chance to get her away; and always he would be between her and those bandits. At most, then, she had only death to fear — death that he would mercifully deal to her if the worst came. And as she lay there listening to the slow-rising murmur of the gamblers, with her thought growing clearer, she realized it was love of Jim and fear for him — fear that he would lose her — that caused her cold dread and the laboring breath and the weighted heart. She had cost Jim this terrible experience and she wanted to make up to him for it, to give him herself and all her life.

Joan lay there a long time, thinking and suffering, while the strange, morbid desire to watch Kells and Gulden grew stronger and stronger, until it was irresistible. Her fate, her life, lay in the balance between these two men. She divined that.

She returned to her vantage-point, and as she glanced through she vibrated to a shock. The change that had begun subtly, intangibly, was now a terrible and glaring difference. That great quantity of gold, the equal chance of every gambler, the marvelous possibilities presented to evil minds, and the hell that hid in that black bottle — these had made playthings of every bandit except Gulden. He was exactly the same as ever. But to see the others sent a chill of ice along Joan’s veins. Kells was white and rapt. Plain to see — he had won! Blicky was wild with rage. Jesse Smith sat darker, grimmer, but no longer cool. There was hate in the glance he fastened upon Kells as he bet. Beady Jones and Braverman showed an inflamed and impotent eagerness to take their turn. Budd sat in the game now, and his face wore a terrible look. Joan could not tell what passion drove him, but she knew he was a loser. Pike and Bossert likewise were losers, and stood apart, sullen, watching with sick, jealous rage. Jim Cleve had reacted to the strain, and he was white, with nervous, clutching hands and piercing glances. And the game went on with violent slap of card or pound of fist upon the table, with the slide of a bag of gold or the little, sodden thump of its weight, with savage curses at loss and strange, raw exultation at gain, with hurry and violence — more than all, with the wildness of the hour and the wildness of these men, drawing closer and closer to the dread climax that from the beginning had been foreshadowed.

Suddenly Budd rose and bent over the table, his cards clutched in a shaking hand, his face distorted and malignant, his eyes burning at Kells. Passionately he threw the cards down.

“There!” he yelled, hoarsely, and he stilled the noise.

“No good!” replied Kells, tauntingly. “Is there any other game you play?”

Budd bent low to see the cards in Kells’s hand, and then, straightening his form, he gazed with haggard fury at the winner. “You’ve done me!... I’m cleaned — I’m busted!” he raved.

“You were easy. Get out of the game,” replied Kells, with an exultant contempt. It was not the passion of play that now obsessed him, but the passion of success.

“I said you done me,” burst out Budd, insanely. “You’re slick with the cards!”

The accusation acted like magic to silence the bandits, to check movement, to clamp the situation. Kells was white and radiant; he seemed careless and nonchalant.

“All right, Budd,” he replied, but his tone did not suit his strange look. “That’s three times for you!”

Swift as a flash he shot. Budd fell over Gulden, and the giant with one sweep of his arm threw the stricken bandit off. Budd fell heavily, and neither moved nor spoke.

“Pass me the bottle,” went on Kells, a little hoarse shakiness in his voice. “And go on with the game!”

“Can I set in now?” asked Beady Jones, eagerly.

“You and Jack wait. This’s getting to be all between Kells an’ me,” said Gulden.

“We’ve sure got Blicky done!” exclaimed Kells. There was something taunting about the leader’s words. He did not care for the gold. It was the fight to win. It was his egotism.

“Make this game faster an’ bigger, will you?” retorted Blicky, who seemed inflamed.

“Boss, a little luck makes you lofty,” interposed Jesse Smith in dark disdain. “Pretty soon you’ll show yellow clear to your gizzard!”

The gold lay there on the table. It was only a means to an end. It signified nothing. The evil, the terrible greed, the brutal lust, were in the hearts of the men. And hate, liberated, rampant, stalked out unconcealed, ready for blood.

“Gulden, change the game to suit these gents,” taunted Kells.

“Double stakes. Cut the cards!” boomed the giant, instantly.

Blicky lasted only a few more deals of the cards, then he rose, loser of all his share, a passionate and venomous bandit, ready for murder. But he kept his mouth shut and looked wary.

“Boss, can’t we set in now?” demanded Beady Jones.

“Say, Beady, you’re in a hurry to lose your gold,” replied Kells. “Wait till I beat Gulden and Smith.”

Luck turned against Jesse Smith. He lost first to Gulden, then to Kells, and presently he rose, a beaten, but game man. He reached for the whisky.

“Fellers, I reckon I can enjoy Kells’s yellow streak more when I ain’t playin’,” he said.

The bandit leader eyed Smith with awakening rancor, as if a persistent hint of inevitable weakness had its effect. He frowned, and the radiance left his face for the forbidding cast.

“Stand around, you men, and see some real gambling,” he said.

At this moment in the contest Kells had twice as much gold as Gulden, there being a huge mound of little buckskin sacks in front of him.

They began staking a bag at a time and cutting the cards, the higher card winning. Kells won the first four cuts. How strangely that radiance returned to his face! Then he lost and won, and won and lost. The other bandits grouped around, only Jones and Braverman now manifesting any eagerness. All were silent. There were suspense, strain, mystery in the air. Gulden began to win consistently and Kells began to change. It was a sad and strange sight to see this strong man’s nerve and force gradually deteriorate under a fickle fortune. The time came when half the amount he had collected was in front of Gulden. The giant was imperturbable. He might have been a huge animal, or destiny, or something inhuman that knew the run of luck would be his. As he had taken losses so he greeted gains — with absolute indifference. While Kells’s hands shook the giant’s were steady and slow and sure. It must have been hateful to Kells — this faculty of Gulden’s to meet victory identically as he met defeat. The test of a great gambler’s nerve was not in sustaining loss, but in remaining cool with victory. The fact grew manifest that Gulden was a great gambler and Kells was not. The giant had no emotion, no imagination. And Kells seemed all fire and whirling hope and despair and rage. His vanity began to bleed to death. This game was the deciding contest. The scornful and exultant looks of his men proved how that game was going. Again and again Kells’s unsteady hand reached for one of the whisky bottles. Once with a low curse he threw an empty bottle through the door.

“Hey, boss, ain’t it about time—” began Jesse Smith. But whatever he had intended to say, he thought better of, withholding it. Kells’s sudden look and movement were unmistakable.

The goddess of chance, as false as the bandit’s vanity, played with him. He brightened under a streak of winning. But just as his face began to lose its haggard shade, to glow, the tide again turned against him. He lost and lost, and with each bag of gold-dust went something of his spirit. And when he was reduced to his original share he indeed showed that yellow streak which Jesse Smith had attributed to him. The bandit’s effort to pull himself together, to be a man before that scornful gang, was pitiful and futile. He might have been magnificent, confronted by other issues, of peril or circumstance, but there he was craven. He was a man who should never have gambled.

One after the other, in quick succession, he lost the two bags of gold, his original share. He had lost utterly. Gulden had the great heap of dirty little buckskin sacks, so significant of the hidden power within.

Joan was amazed and sick at sight of Kells then, and if it had been possible she would have withdrawn her gaze. But she was chained there. The catastrophe was imminent.

Kells stared down at the gold. His jaw worked convulsively. He had the eyes of a trapped wolf. Yet he seemed not wholly to comprehend what had happened to him.

Gulden rose, slow, heavy, ponderous, to tower over his heap of gold. Then this giant, who had never shown an emotion, suddenly, terribly blazed.

“One more bet — a cut of the cards — my whole stake of gold!” he boomed.

The bandits took a stride forward as one man, then stood breathless.

“One bet!” echoed Kells, aghast. “Against what?”

“AGAINST THE GIRL!”

Joan sank against the wall, a piercing torture in her breast. She clutched the logs to keep from falling. So that was the impending horror. She could not unrivet her eyes from the paralyzed Kells, yet she seemed to see Jim Cleve leap straight up, and then stand, equally motionless, with Kells.

“One cut of the cards — my gold against the girl!” boomed the giant.

Kells made a movement as if to go for his gun. But it failed. His hand was a shaking leaf.

“You always bragged on your nerve!” went on Gulden, mercilessly. “You’re the gambler of the border!... Come on.”

Kells stood there, his doom upon him. Plain to all was his torture, his weakness, his defeat. It seemed that with all his soul he combated something, only to fail.

“ONE CUT — MY GOLD AGAINST YOUR GIRL!”

The gang burst into one concerted taunt. Like snarling, bristling wolves they craned their necks at Kells.

“No, damn — you! No!” cried Kells, in hoarse, broken fury. With both hands before him he seemed to push back the sight of that gold, of Gulden, of the malignant men, of a horrible temptation.

“Reckon, boss, thet yellow streak is operatin’!” sang out Jesse Smith.

But neither gold, nor Gulden, nor men, nor taunts ruined Kells at this perhaps most critical crisis of his life. It was the mad, clutching, terrible opportunity presented. It was the strange and terrible nature of the wager. What vision might have flitted through the gambler’s mind! But neither vision of loss nor gain moved him. There, licking like a flame at his soul, consuming the good in him at a blast, overpowering his love, was the strange and magnificent gamble. He could not resist it.

Speechless, with a motion of his hand, he signified his willingness.

“Blicky, shuffle the cards,” boomed Gulden.

Blicky did so and dropped the deck with a slap in the middle of the table.

“Cut!” called Gulden.

Kells’s shaking hand crept toward the deck.

Jim Cleve suddenly appeared to regain power of speech and motion. “Don’t, Kells, don’t!” he cried, piercingly, as he leaped forward.

But neither Kells nor the others heard him, or even saw his movement.

Kells cut the deck. He held up his card. It was the king of hearts. What a transformation! His face might have been that of a corpse suddenly revivified with glorious, leaping life.

“Only an ace can beat thet!” muttered Jesse Smith into the silence.

Gulden reached for the deck as if he knew every card left was an ace. His cavernous eyes gloated over Kells. He cut, and before he looked himself he let Kells see the card.

“You can’t beat my streak!” he boomed.

Then he threw the card upon the table. It was the ace of spades.

Kells seemed to shrivel, to totter, to sink. Jim Cleve went quickly to him, held to him.

“Kells, go say good — by to your girl!” boomed Gulden. “I’ll want her pretty soon.... Come on, you Beady and Braverman. Here’s your chance to get even.”

Gulden resumed his seat, and the two bandits invited to play were eager to comply, while the others pressed close once more.

Jim Cleve led the dazed Kells toward the door into Joan’s cabin. For Joan just then all seemed to be dark.

When she recovered she was lying on the bed and Jim was bending over her. He looked frantic with grief and desperation and fear.

“Jim! Jim!” she moaned, grasping his hands. He helped her to sit up. Then she saw Kells standing there. He looked abject, stupid, drunk. Yet evidently he had begun to comprehend the meaning of his deed.

“Kells,” began Cleve, in low, hoarse tones, as he stepped forward with a gun. “I’m going to kill you — and Joan — and myself!”

Kells stared at Cleve. “Go ahead. Kill me. And kill the girl, too. That’ll be better for her now. But why kill yourself?”

“I love her. She’s my wife!”

The deadness about Kells suddenly changed. Joan flung herself before him.

“Kells — listen,” she whispered in swift, broken passion. “Jim Cleve was — my sweetheart — back in Hoadley. We quarreled. I taunted him. I said he hadn’t nerve enough — even to be bad. He left me — bitterly enraged. Next day I trailed him. I wanted to fetch him back.... You remember — how you met me with Robert — how you killed Roberts? And all the rest?... When Jim and I met out here — I was afraid to tell you. I tried to influence him. I succeeded — till we got to Alder Creek. There he went wild. I married him — hoping to steady him.... Then the day of the lynching — we were separated from you in the crowd. That night we hid — and next morning took the stage. Gulden and his gang held up the stage. They thought you had put us there. We fooled them, but we had to come on — here to Cabin Gulch — hoping to tell — that you’d let us go.... And now — now—”

Joan had not strength to go on. The thought of Gulden made her faint.

“It’s true, Kells,” added Cleve, passionately, as he faced the incredulous bandit. “I swear it. Why, you ought to see now!”

“My God, boy, I DO see!” gasped Kells. That dark, sodden thickness of comprehension and feeling, indicative of the hold of drink, passed away swiftly. The shock had sobered him.

Instantly Joan saw it — saw in him the return of the other and better Kells, how stricken with remorse. She slipped to her knees and clasped her arms around him. He tried to break her hold, but she held on.

“Get up!” he ordered, violently. “Jim, pull her away!... Girl, don’t do that in front of me... I’ve just gambled away—”

“Her life, Kells, only that, I swear,” cried Cleve.

“Kells, listen,” began Joan, pleadingly. “You will not let that — that CANNIBAL have me?”

“No, by God!” replied Kells, thickly. “I was drunk — crazy.... Forgive me, girl! You see — how did I know — what was coming?... Oh, the whole thing is hellish!”

“You loved me once,” whispered Joan, softly. “Do you love me still?... Kells, can’t you see? It’s not too late to save my life — and YOUR soul!... Can’t you see? You have been bad. But if you save me now — from Gulden — save me for this boy I’ve almost ruined — you — you.... God will forgive you!... Take us away — go with us — and never come back to the border.”

“Maybe I can save you,” he muttered, as if to himself. He appeared to want to think, but to be bothered by the clinging arms around him. Joan felt a ripple go over his body and he seemed to heighten, and the touch of his hands thrilled.

Then, white and appealing, Cleve added his importunity.

“Kells, I saved your life once. You said you’d remember it some day. Now — now!... For God’s sake don’t make me shoot her!”

Joan rose from her knees, but she still clasped Kells. She seemed to feel the mounting of his spirit, to understand how in this moment he was rising out of the depths. How strangely glad she was for him!

“Joan, once you showed me what the love of a good woman really was. I’ve never seen the same since then. I’ve grown better in one way — worse in all others.... I let down. I was no man for the border. Always that haunted me. Believe me, won’t you — despite all?”

Joan felt the yearning in him for what he dared not ask. She read his mind. She knew he meant, somehow, to atone for his wrong.

“I’ll show you again,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you more. If I’d never loved Jim Cleve — if I’d met you, I’d have loved you.... And, bandit or not, I’d have gone with you to the end of the world!”

“Joan!” The name was almost a sob of joy and pain. Sight of his face then blinded Joan with her tears. But when he caught her to him, in a violence that was a terrible renunciation, she gave her embrace, her arms, her lips without the vestige of a lie, with all of womanliness and sweetness and love and passion. He let her go and turned away, and in that instant Joan had a final divination that this strange man could rise once to heights as supreme as the depths of his soul were dark. She dashed away her tears and wiped the dimness from her eyes. Hope resurged. Something strong and sweet gave her strength.

When Kells wheeled he was the Kells of her earlier experience — cool, easy, deadly, with the smile almost amiable, and the strange, pale eyes. Only the white radiance of him was different. He did not look at her.

“Jim, will you do exactly what I tell you?”

“Yes, I promise,” replied Jim.

“How many guns have you?”

“Two.”

“Give me one of them.”

Cleve held out the gun that all the while he had kept in his hand. Kells took it and put it in his pocket.

“Pull your other gun — be ready,” said he, swiftly. “But don’t you shoot once till I go down!... Then do your best.... Save the last bullet for Joan — in case—”

“I promise,” replied Cleve, steadily.

Then Kells drew a knife from a sheath at his belt. It had a long, bright blade. Joan had seen him use it many a time round the camp-fire. He slipped the blade up his sleeve, retaining the haft of the knife in his hand. He did not speak another word. Nor did he glance at Joan again. She had felt his gaze while she had embraced him, as she raised her lips. That look had been his last. Then he went out. Jim knelt beside the door, peering between post and curtain.

Joan staggered to the chink between the logs. She would see that fight if it froze her blood — the very marrow of her bones.

The gamblers were intent upon their game. Not a dark face looked up as Kells sauntered toward the table. Gulden sat with his back to the door. There was a shaft of sunlight streaming in, and Kells blocked it, sending a shadow over the bent heads of the gamesters. How significant that shadow — a blackness barring gold! Still no one paid any attention to Kells.

He stepped closer. Suddenly he leaped into swift and terrible violence. Then with a lunge he drove the knife into Gulden’s burly neck.

Up heaved the giant, his mighty force overturning table and benches and men. An awful boom, strangely distorted and split, burst from him.

Then Kells blocked the door with a gun in each hand, but only the one in his right hand spurted white and red. Instantly there followed a mad scramble — hoarse yells, over which that awful roar of Gulden’s predominated — and the bang of guns. Clouds of white smoke veiled the scene, and with every shot the veil grew denser. Red flashes burst from the ground where men were down, and from each side of Kells. His form seemed less instinct with force; it had shortened; he was sagging. But at intervals the red spurt and report of his gun showed he was fighting. Then a volley from one side made him stagger against the door. The clear spang of a Winchester spoke above the heavy boom of the guns.

Joan’s eyesight recovered from its blur or else the haze of smoke drifted, for she saw better. Gulden’s actions fascinated her, horrified her. He had evidently gone crazy. He groped about the room, through the smoke, to and fro before the fighting, yelling bandits, grasping with huge hands for something. His sense of direction, his equilibrium, had become affected. His awful roar still sounded above the din, but it was weakening. His giant’s strength was weakening. His legs bent and buckled under him. All at once he whipped out his two big guns and began to fire as he staggered — at random. He killed the wounded Blicky. In the melee he ran against Jesse Smith and thrust both guns at him. Jesse saw the peril and with a shriek he fired point-blank at Gulden. Then as Gulden pulled triggers both men fell. But Gulden rose, bloody-browed, bawling, still a terrible engine of destruction. He seemed to glare in one direction and shoot in another. He pointed the guns and apparently pulled the triggers long after the shots had all been fired.

Kells was on his knees now with only one gun. This wavered and fell, wavered and fell. His left arm hung broken. But his face flashed white through the thin, drifting clouds of smoke.

Besides Gulden the bandit Pike was the only one not down, and he was hard hit. When he shot his last he threw the gun away, and, drawing a knife, he made at Kells. Kells shot once more, and hit Pike, but did not stop him. Silence, after the shots and yells, seemed weird, and the groping giant, trying to follow Pike, resembled a huge phantom. With one wrench he tore off a leg of the overturned table and brandished that. He swayed now, and there was a whistle where before there had been a roar.

Pike fell over the body of Blicky and got up again. The bandit leader staggered to his feet, flung the useless gun in Pike’s face, and closed with him in weak but final combat. They lurched and careened to and fro, with the giant Gulden swaying after them. Thus they struggled until Pike moved under Gulden’s swinging club. The impetus of the blow carried Gulden off his balance. Kells seized the haft of the knife still protruding from the giant’s neck, and he pulled upon it with all his might. Gulden heaved up again, and the movement enabled Kells to pull out the knife. A bursting gush of blood, thick and heavy, went flooding before the giant as he fell.

Kells dropped the knife, and, tottering, surveyed the scene before him — the gasping Gulden, and all the quiet forms. Then he made a few halting steps, and dropped near the door.

Joan tried to rush out, but what with the unsteadiness of her limbs and Jim holding her as he went out, too, she seemed long in getting to Kells.

She knelt beside him, lifted his head. His face was white — his eyes were open. But they were only the windows of a retreating soul. He did not know her. Consciousness was gone. Then swiftly life fled.

CHAPTER 20

CLEVE STEADIED JOAN in her saddle, and stood a moment beside her, holding her hands. The darkness seemed clearing before her eyes and the sick pain within her seemed numbing out.

“Brace up! Hang — to your saddle!” Jim was saying, earnestly. “Any moment some of the other bandits might come.... You lead the way. I’ll follow and drive the pack-horse.”

“But, Jim, I’ll never be able to find the back-trail,” said Joan.

“I think you will. You’ll remember every yard of the trail on which you were brought in here. You won’t realize that till you see.”

Joan started and did not look back. Cabin Gulch was like a place in a dream. It was a relief when she rode out into the broad valley. The grazing horses lifted their heads to whistle. Joan saw the clumps of bushes and the flowers, the waving grass, but never as she had seen them before. How strange that she knew exactly which way to turn, to head, to cross! She trotted her horse so fast that Jim called to say he could not drive a pack-animal and keep to her gait. Every rod of the trail lessened a burden. Behind was something hideous and incomprehensible and terrible; before beckoned something beginning to seem bright. And it was not the ruddy, calm sunset, flooding the hills with color. That something called from beyond the hills.

She led straight to a camp-site she remembered long before she came to it; and the charred logs of the fire, the rocks, the tree under which she had lain — all brought back the emotions she had felt there. She grew afraid of the twilight, and when night settled down there were phantoms stalking in the shadows. When Cleve, in his hurried camp duties, went out of her sight, she wanted to cry out to him, but had not the voice; and when he was close still she trembled and was cold. He wrapped blankets round her and held her in his arms, yet the numb chill and the dark clamp of mind remained with her. Long she lay awake. The stars were pitiless. When she shut her eyes the blackness seemed unendurable. She slept, to wake out of nightmare, and she dared sleep no more. At last the day came.

For Joan that faint trail seemed a broad road, blazoned through the wild canons and up the rocky fastness and through the thick brakes. She led on and on and up and down, never at fault, with familiar landmarks near and far. Cleve hung close to her, and now his call to her or to the pack-horse took on a keener note. Every rough and wild mile behind them meant so much. They did not halt at the noon hour. They did not halt at the next camp-site, still more darkly memorable to Joan. And sunset found them miles farther on, down on the divide, at the head of Lost Canon.

Here Joan ate and drank, and slept the deep sleep of exhaustion. Sunrise found them moving, and through the winding, wild canon they made fast travel. Both time and miles passed swiftly. At noon they reached the little open cabin, and they dismounted for a rest and a drink at the spring. Joan did not speak a word here. That she could look into the cabin where she had almost killed a bandit, and then, through silent, lonely weeks, had nursed him back to life, was a proof that the long ride and distance were helping her, sloughing away the dark deadlock to hope and brightness. They left the place exactly as they had found it, except that Cleve plucked the card from the bark of the balsam-tree — Gulden’s ace — of — hearts target with its bullet — holes.

Then they rode on, out of that canon, over the rocky ridge, down into another canon, on and on, past an old camp-site, along a babbling brook for miles, and so at last out into the foot — hills.

Toward noon of the next day, when approaching a clump of low trees in a flat valley, Joan pointed ahead.

“Jim — it was in there — where Roberts and I camped — and—”

“You ride around. I’ll catch up with you,” replied Cleve.

She made a wide detour, to come back again to her own trail, so different here. Presently Cleve joined her. His face was pale and sweaty, and he looked sick. They rode on silently, and that night they camped without water on her own trail, made months before. The single tracks were there, sharp and clear in the earth, as if imprinted but a day.

Next morning Joan found that as the wild border lay behind her so did the dark and hateful shadow of gloom. Only the pain remained, and it had softened. She could think now.

Jim Cleve cheered up. Perhaps it was her brightening to which he responded. They began to talk and speech liberated feeling. Miles of that back-trail they rode side by side, holding hands, driving the pack-horse ahead, and beginning to talk of old associations. Again it was sunset when they rode down the hill toward the little village of Hoadley. Joan’s heart was full, but Jim was gay.

“Won’t I have it on your old fellows!” he teased. But he was grim, too.

“Jim! You — won’t tell — just yet!” she faltered.

“I’ll introduce you as my wife! They’ll all think we eloped.”

“No. They’ll say I ran after you!... Please, Jim! Keep it secret a little. It’ll be hard for me. Aunt Jane will never understand.”

“Well, I’ll keep it secret till you want to tell — for two things,” he said.

“What?”

“Meet me to — night, under the spruces where we had that quarrel. Meet just like we did then, but differently. Will you?”

“I’ll be — so glad.”

“And put on your mask now!... You know, Joan, sooner or later your story will be on everybody’s tongue. You’ll be Dandy Dale as long as you live near this border. Wear the mask, just for fun. Imagine your Aunt Jane — and everybody!”

“Jim! I’d forgotten how I look!” exclaimed Joan in dismay. “I didn’t bring your long coat. Oh, I can’t face them in this suit!”

“You’ll have to. Besides, you look great. It’s going to tickle me — the sensation you make. Don’t you see, they’ll never recognize you till you take the mask off.... Please, Joan.”

She yielded, and donned the black mask, not without a twinge. And thus they rode across the log bridge over the creek into the village. The few men and women they met stared in wonder, and, recognizing Cleve, they grew excited. They followed, and others joined them.

“Joan, won’t it be strange if Uncle Bill really is the Overland of Alder Creek? We’ve packed out every pound of Overland’s gold. Oh! I hope — I believe he’s your uncle.... Wouldn’t it be great, Joan?”

But Joan could not answer. The word gold was a stab. Besides, she saw Aunt Jane and two neighbors standing before a log cabin, beginning to show signs of interest in the approaching procession.

Joan fell back a little, trying to screen herself behind Jim. Then Jim halted with a cheery salute.

“For the land’s sake!” ejaculated a sweet-faced, gray-haired woman.

“If it isn’t Jim Cleve!” cried another.

Jim jumped off and hugged the first speaker. She seemed overjoyed to see him and then overcome. Her face began to work.

“Jim! We always hoped you’d — you’d fetch Joan back!”

“Sure!” shouted Jim, who had no heart now for even an instant’s deception. “There she is!”

“Who?... What?”

Joan slipped out of her saddle and, tearing off the mask, she leaped forward with a little sob.

“Auntie! Auntie!... It’s Joan — alive — well!... Oh, so glad to be home!... Don’t look at my clothes — look at me!”

Aunt Jane evidently sustained a shock of recognition, joy, amaze, consternation, and shame, of which all were subservient to the joy. She cried over Joan and murmured over her. Then, suddenly alive to the curious crowd, she put Joan from her.

“You — you wild thing! You desperado! I always told Bill you’d run wild some day!... March in the house and get out of that indecent rig!”

That night under the spruces, with the starlight piercing the lacy shadows, Joan waited for Jim Cleve. It was one of the white, silent, mountain nights. The brook murmured over the stones and the wind rustled the branches.

The wonder of Joan’s home-coming was in learning that Uncle Bill Hoadley was indeed Overland, the discoverer of Alder Creek. Years and years of profitless toil had at last been rewarded in this rich gold strike.

Joan hated to think of gold. She had wanted to leave the gold back in Cabin Gulch, and she would have done so had Jim permitted it. And to think that all that gold which was not Jim Cleve’s belonged to her uncle! She could not believe it.

Fatal and terrible forever to Joan would be the significance of gold. Did any woman in the world or any man know the meaning of gold as well as she knew it? How strange and enlightening and terrible had been her experience! She had grown now not to blame any man, honest miner or bloody bandit. She blamed only gold. She doubted its value. She could not see it a blessing. She absolutely knew its driving power to change the souls of men. Could she ever forget that vast ant-hill of toiling diggers and washers, blind and deaf and dumb to all save gold?

Always limned in figures of fire against the black memory would be the forms of those wild and violent bandits! Gulden, the monster, the gorilla, the cannibal! Horrible as was the memory of him, there was no horror in thought of his terrible death. That seemed to be the one memory that did not hurt.

But Kells was indestructible — he lived in her mind. Safe out of the border now and at home, she could look back clearly. Still all was not clear and never would be. She saw Kells the ruthless bandit, the organizer, the planner, and the blood-spiller. He ought have no place in a good woman’s memory. Yet he had. She never condoned one of his deeds or even his intentions. She knew her intelligence was not broad enough to grasp the vastness of his guilt. She believed he must have been the worst and most terrible character on that wild border. That border had developed him. It had produced the time and the place and the man. And therein lay the mystery. For over against this bandit’s weakness and evil she could contrast strength and nobility. She alone had known the real man in all the strange phases of his nature, and the darkness of his crime faded out of her mind. She suffered remorse — almost regret. Yet what could she have done? There had been no help for that impossible situation as, there was now no help for her in a right and just placing of Kells among men. He had stolen her — wantonly murdering for the sake of lonely, fruitless hours with her; he had loved her — and he had changed; he had gambled away her soul and life — a last and terrible proof of the evil power of gold; and in the end he had saved her — he had gone from her white, radiant, cool, with strange, pale eyes and his amiable, mocking smile, and all the ruthless force of his life had expended itself in one last magnificent stand. If only he had known her at the end — when she lifted his head! But no — there had been only the fading light — the strange, weird look of a retreating soul, already alone forever.

A rustling of leaves, a step thrilled Joan out of her meditation.

Suddenly she was seized from behind, and Jim Cleve showed that though he might be a joyous and grateful lover, he certainly would never be an actor. For if he desired to live over again that fatal meeting and quarrel which had sent them out to the border, he failed utterly in his part. There was possession in the gentle grasp of his arms and bliss in the trembling of his lips.

“Jim, you never did it that way!” laughed Joan. “If you had — do you think I could ever have been furious?”

Jim in turn laughed happily. “Joan, that’s exactly the way I stole upon you and mauled you!”.

“You think so! Well, I happen to remember. Now you sit here and make believe you are Joan. And let me be Jim Cleve!... I’ll show you!”

Joan stole away in the darkness, and noiselessly as a shadow she stole back — to enact that violent scene as it lived in her memory.

Jim was breathless, speechless, choked.

“That’s how you treated me,” she said.

“I — I don’t believe I could have — been such a — a bear!” panted Jim.

“But you were. And consider — I’ve not half your strength.”

“Then all I say is — you did right to drive me off.... Only you should never have trailed me out to the border.”

“Ah!... But, Jim, in my fury I discovered my love!”

Wildfire

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER I

FOR SOME REASON the desert scene before Lucy Bostil awoke varying emotions — a sweet gratitude for the fullness of her life there at the Ford, yet a haunting remorse that she could not be wholly content — a vague loneliness of soul — a thrill and a fear for the strangely calling future, glorious, unknown.

She longed for something to happen. It might be terrible, so long as it was wonderful. This day, when Lucy had stolen away on a forbidden horse, she was eighteen years old. The thought of her mother, who had died long ago on their way into this wilderness, was the one drop of sadness in her joy. Lucy loved everybody at Bostil’s Ford and everybody loved her. She loved all the horses except her father’s favorite racer, that perverse devil of a horse, the great Sage King.

Lucy was glowing and rapt with love for all she beheld from her lofty perch: the green-and-pink blossoming hamlet beneath her, set between the beauty of the gray sage expanse and the ghastliness of the barren heights; the swift Colorado sullenly thundering below in the abyss; the Indians in their bright colors, riding up the river trail; the eagle poised like a feather on the air, and a beneath him the grazing cattle making black dots on the sage; the deep velvet azure of the sky; the golden lights on the bare peaks and the lilac veils in the far ravines; the silky rustle of a canyon swallow as he shot downward in the sweep of the wind; the fragrance of cedar, the flowers of the spear-pointed mescal; the brooding silence, the beckoning range, the purple distance.

Whatever it was Lucy longed for, whatever was whispered by the wind and written in the mystery of the waste of sage and stone, she wanted it to happen there at Bostil’s Ford. She had no desire for civilization, she flouted the idea of marrying the rich rancher of Durango. Bostil’s sister, that stern but lovable woman who had brought her up and taught her, would never persuade her to marry against her will. Lucy imagined herself like a wild horse — free, proud, untamed, meant for the desert; and here she would live her life. The desert and her life seemed as one, yet in what did they resemble each other — in what of this scene could she read the nature of her future?

Shudderingly she rejected the red, sullen, thundering river, with its swift, changeful, endless, contending strife — for that was tragic. And she rejected the frowning mass of red rock, upreared, riven and split and canyoned, so grim and aloof — for that was barren. But she accepted the vast sloping valley of sage, rolling gray and soft and beautiful, down to the dim mountains and purple ramparts of the horizon. Lucy did not know what she yearned for, she did not know why the desert called to her, she did not know in what it resembled her spirit, but she did know that these three feelings were as one, deep in her heart. For ten years, every day of her life, she had watched this desert scene, and never had there been an hour that it was not different, yet the same. Ten years — and she grew up watching, feeling — till from the desert’s thousand moods she assimilated its nature, loved her bonds, and could never have been happy away from the open, the color, the freedom, the wildness. On this birthday, when those who loved her said she had become her own mistress, she acknowledged the claim of the desert forever. And she experienced a deep, rich, strange happiness.

Hers always then the mutable and immutable desert, the leagues and leagues of slope and sage and rolling ridge, the great canyons and the giant cliffs, the dark river with its mystic thunder of waters, the pine-fringed plateaus, the endless stretch of horizon, with its lofty, isolated, noble monuments, and the bold ramparts with their beckoning beyond! Hers always the desert seasons: the shrill, icy blast, the intense cold, the steely skies, the fading snows; the gray old sage and the bleached grass under the pall of the spring sand-storms; the hot furnace breath of summer, with its magnificent cloud pageants in the sky, with the black tempests hanging here and there over the peaks, dark veils floating down and rainbows everywhere, and the lacy waterfalls upon the glistening cliffs and the thunder of the red floods; and the glorious golden autumn when it was always afternoon and time stood still! Hers always the rides in the open, with the sun at her back and the wind in her face! And hers surely, sooner or later, the nameless adventure which had its inception in the strange yearning of her heart and presaged its fulfilment somewhere down that trailless sage-slope she loved so well!

Bostil’s house was a crude but picturesque structure of red stone and white clay and bleached cottonwoods, and it stood at the outskirts of the cluster of green-inclosed cabins which composed the hamlet. Bostil was wont to say that in all the world there could hardly be a grander view than the outlook down that gray sea of rolling sage, down to the black-fringed plateaus and the wild, blue-rimmed and gold-spired horizon.

One morning in early spring, as was Bostil’s custom, he ordered the racers to be brought from the corrals and turned loose on the slope. He loved to sit there and watch his horses graze, but ever he saw that the riders were close at hand, and that the horses did not get out on the slope of sage. He sat back and gloried in the sight. He owned bands of mustangs; near by was a field of them, fine and mettlesome and racy; yet Bostil had eyes only for the blooded favorites. Strange it was that not one of these was a mustang or a broken wild horse, for many of the riders’ best mounts had been captured by them or the Indians. And it was Bostil’s supreme ambition to own a great wild stallion. There was Plume, a superb mare that got her name from the way her mane swept in the wind when she was on the ran; and there was Two Face, like a coquette, sleek and glossy and running and the huge, rangy bay, Dusty Ben; and the black stallion Sarchedon; and lastly Sage King, the color of the upland sage, a racer in build, a horse splendid and proud and beautiful.

“Where’s Lucy?” presently asked Bostil.

As he divided his love, so he divided his anxiety.

Some rider had seen Lucy riding off, with her golden hair flying in the wind. This was an old story.

“She’s up on Buckles?” Bostil queried, turning sharply to the speaker.

“Reckon so,” was the calm reply.

Bostil swore. He did not have a rider who could equal him in profanity.

“Farlane, you’d orders. Lucy’s not to ride them hosses, least of all Buckles. He ain’t safe even for a man.”

“Wal, he’s safe fer Lucy.”

“But didn’t I say no?”

“Boss, it’s likely you did, fer you talk a lot,” replied Farlane. “Lucy pulled my hat down over my eyes — told me to go to thunder — an’ then, zip! she an’ Buckles were dustin’ it fer the sage.”

“She’s got to keep out of the sage,” growled Bostil. “It ain’t safe for her out there.... Where’s my glass? I want to take a look at the slope. Where’s my glass?”

The glass could not be found.

“What’s makin’ them dust-clouds on the sage? Antelope? ... Holley, you used to have eyes better ‘n me. Use them, will you?”

A gray-haired, hawk-eyed rider, lean and worn, approached with clinking spurs.

“Down in there,” said Bostil, pointing.

“Thet’s a bunch of hosses,” replied Holley.

“Wild hosses?”

“I take ’em so, seein’ how they throw thet dust.”

“Huh! I don’t like it. Lucy oughtn’t be ridin’ round alone.”

“Wal, boss, who could catch her up on Buckles? Lucy can ride. An’ there’s the King an’ Sarch right under your nose — the only hosses on the sage thet could outrun Buckles.”

Farlane knew how to mollify his master and long habit had made him proficient. Bostil’s eyes flashed. He was proud of Lucy’s power over a horse. The story Bostil first told to any stranger happening by the Ford was how Lucy had been born during a wild ride — almost, as it were, on the back of a horse. That, at least, was her fame, and the riders swore she was a worthy daughter of such a mother. Then, as Farlane well knew, a quick road to Bostil’s good will was to praise one of his favorites.

“Reckon you spoke sense for once, Farlane,” replied Bostil, with relief. “I wasn’t thinkin’ so much of danger for Lucy.... But she lets thet half-witted Creech go with her.”

“No, boss, you’re wrong,” put in Holley, earnestly. “I know the girl. She has no use fer Joel. But he jest runs after her.”

“An’ he’s harmless,” added Farlane.

“We ain’t agreed,” rejoined Bostil, quickly. “What do you say, Holley?”

The old rider looked thoughtful and did not speak for long.

“Wal, Yes an’ no,” he answered, finally. “I reckon Lucy could make a man out of Joel. But she doesn’t care fer him, an’ thet settles thet.... An’ maybe Joel’s leanin’ toward the bad.”

“If she meets him again I’ll rope her in the house,” declared Bostil.

Another clear-eyed rider drew Bostil’s attention from the gray waste of rolling sage.

“Bostil, look! Look at the King! He’s watchin’ fer somethin’.... An’ so’s Sarch.”

The two horses named were facing a ridge some few hundred yards distant, and their heads were aloft and ears straight forward. Sage King whistled shrilly and Sarchedon began to prance.

“Boys, you’d better drive them in,” said Bostil. “They’d like nothin’ so well as gettin’ out on the sage.... Hullo! what’s thet shootin’ up behind the ridge?”

“No more ‘n Buckles with Lucy makin’ him run some,” replied Holley, with a dry laugh.

“If it ain’t! ... Lord! look at him come!”

Bostil’s anger and anxiety might never have been. The light of the upland rider’s joy shone in his keen gaze. The slope before him was open, and almost level, down to the ridge that had hidden the missing girl and horse. Buckles was running for the love of running, as the girl low down over his neck was riding for the love of riding. The Sage King whistled again, and shot off with graceful sweep to meet them; Sarchedon plunged after him; Two Face and Plume jealously trooped down, too, but Dusty Ben, after a toss of his head, went on grazing. The gray and the black met Buckles and could not turn in time to stay with him. A girl’s gay scream pealed up the slope, and Buckles went lower and faster. Sarchedon was left behind. Then the gray King began to run as if before he had been loping. He was beautiful in action. This was play — a game — a race — plainly dominated by the spirit of the girl. Lucy’s hair was a bright stream of gold in the wind. She rode bareback. It seemed that she was hunched low over Buckles with her knees high on his back — scarcely astride him at all. Yet her motion was one with the horse. Again that wild, gay scream pealed out — call or laugh or challenge. Sage King, with a fleetness that made the eyes of Bostil and his riders glisten, took the lead, and then sheered off to slow down, while Buckles thundered past. Lucy was pulling him hard, and had him plunging to a halt, when the rider Holley ran out to grasp his bridle. Buckles was snorting and his ears were laid back. He pounded the ground and scattered the pebbles.

“No use, Lucy,” said Bostil. “You can’t beat the King at your own game, even with a runnin’ start.”

Lucy Bostil’s eyes were blue, as keen as her father’s, and now they flashed like his. She had a hand twisted in the horse’s long mane, and as, lithe and supple, she slipped a knee across his broad back she shook a little gantleted fist at Bostil’s gray racer.

“Sage King, I hate you!” she called, as if the horse were human. “And I’ll beat you some day!”

Bostil swore by the gods his Sage King was the swiftest horse in all that wild upland country of wonderful horses. He swore the great gray could look back over his shoulder and run away from any broken horse known to the riders.

Bostil himself was half horse, and the half of him that was human he divided between love of his fleet racers and his daughter Lucy. He had seen years of hard riding on that wild Utah border where, in those days, a horse meant all the world to a man. A lucky strike of grassy upland and good water south of the Rio Colorado made him rich in all that he cared to own. The Indians, yet unspoiled by white men, were friendly. Bostil built a boat at the Indian crossing of the Colorado and the place became known as Bostil’s Ford. From time to time his personality and his reputation and his need brought horse-hunters, riders, sheep-herders, and men of pioneer spirit, as well as wandering desert travelers, to the Ford, and the lonely, isolated hamlet slowly grew. North of the river it was more than two hundred miles to the nearest little settlement, with only a few lonely ranches on the road; to the west were several villages, equally distant, but cut off for two months at a time by the raging Colorado, flooded by melting snow up in the mountains. Eastward from the Ford stretched a ghastly, broken, unknown desert of canyons. Southward rolled the beautiful uplands, with valleys of sage and grass, and plateaus of pine and cedar, until this rich rolling gray and green range broke sharply on a purple horizon line of upflung rocky ramparts and walls and monuments, wild, dim, and mysterious.

Bostil’s cattle and horses were numberless, and many as were his riders, he always could use more. But most riders did not abide long with Bostil, first because some of them were of a wandering breed, wild-horse hunters themselves; and secondly, Bostil had two great faults: he seldom paid a rider in money, and he never permitted one to own a fleet horse. He wanted to own all the fast horses himself. And in those days every rider, especially a wild-horse hunter, loved his steed as part of himself. If there was a difference between Bostil and any rider of the sage, it was that, as he had more horses, so he had more love.

Whenever Bostil could not get possession of a horse he coveted, either by purchase or trade, he invariably acquired a grievance toward the owner. This happened often, for riders were loath to part with their favorites. And he had made more than one enemy by his persistent nagging. It could not be said, however, that he sought to drive hard bargains. Bostil would pay any price asked for a horse.

Across the Colorado, in a high, red-walled canyon opening upon the river, lived a poor sheep-herder and horse-trader named Creech. This man owned a number of thoroughbreds, two of which he would not part with for all the gold in the uplands. These racers, Blue Roan and Peg, had been captured wild on the ranges by Ute Indians and broken to racing. They were still young and getting faster every year. Bostil wanted them because he coveted them and because he feared them. It would have been a terrible blow to him if any horse ever beat the gray. But Creech laughed at all offers and taunted Bostil with a boast that in another summer he would see a horse out in front of the King.

To complicate matters and lead rivalry into hatred young Joel Creech, a great horseman, but worthless in the eyes of all save his father, had been heard to say that some day he would force a race between the King and Blue Roan. And that threat had been taken in various ways. It alienated Bostil beyond all hope of reconciliation. It made Lucy Bostil laugh and look sweetly mysterious. She had no enemies and she liked everybody. It was even gossiped by the women of Bostil’s Ford that she had more than liking for the idle Joel. But the husbands of these gossips said Lucy was only tender-hearted. Among the riders, when they sat around their lonely camp-fires, or lounged at the corrals of the Ford, there was speculation in regard to this race hinted by Joel Creech. There never had been a race between the King and Blue Roan, and there never would be, unless Joel were to ride off with Lucy. In that case there would be the grandest race ever run on the uplands, with the odds against Blue Roan only if he carried double. If Joel put Lucy up on the Roan and he rode Peg there would be another story. Lucy Bostil was a slip of a girl, born on a horse, as strong and supple as an Indian, and she could ride like a burr sticking in a horse’s mane. With Blue Roan carrying her light weight she might run away from any one up on the King — which for Bostil would be a double tragedy, equally in the loss of his daughter and the beating of his best-beloved racer. But with Joel on Peg, such a race would end in heartbreak for all concerned, for the King would outrun Peg, and that would bring riders within gunshot.

It had always been a fascinating subject, this long-looked-for race. It grew more so when Joel’s infatuation for Lucy became known. There were fewer riders who believed Lucy might elope with Joel than there were who believed Joel might steal his father’s horses. But all the riders who loved horses and all the women who loved gossip were united in at least one thing, and that was that something like a race or a romance would soon disrupt the peaceful, sleepy tenor of Bostil’s Ford.

In addition to Bostil’s growing hatred for the Creeches, he had a great fear of Cordts, the horse-thief. A fear ever restless, ever watchful. Cordts hid back in the untrodden ways. He had secret friends among the riders of the ranges, faithful followers back in the canyon camps, gold for the digging, cattle by the thousand, and fast horses. He had always gotten what he wanted — except one thing. That was a certain horse. And the horse was Sage King.

Cordts was a bad man, a product of the early gold-fields of California and Idaho, an outcast from that evil wave of wanderers retreating back over the trails so madly traveled westward. He became a lord over the free ranges. But more than all else he was a rider. He knew a horse. He was as much horse as Bostil. Cordts rode into this wild free-range country, where he had been heard to say that a horse-thief was meaner than a poisoned coyote. Nevertheless, he became a horse-thief. The passion he had conceived for the Sage King was the passion of a man for an unattainable woman. Cordts swore that he would never rest, that he would not die, till he owned the King. So there was reason for Bostil’s great fear.

CHAPTER II

BOSTIL WENT TOWARD the house with his daughter, turning at the door to call a last word to his riders about the care of his horses.

The house was a low, flat, wide structure, with a corridor running through the middle, from which doors led into the adobe-walled rooms. The windows were small openings high up, evidently intended for defense as well as light, and they had rude wooden shutters. The floor was clay, covered everywhere by Indian blankets. A pioneer’s home it was, simple and crude, yet comfortable, and having the rare quality peculiar to desert homes it was cool in summer and warm in winter.

As Bostil entered with his arm round Lucy a big hound rose from the hearth. This room was immense, running the length of the house, and it contained a huge stone fireplace, where a kettle smoked fragrantly, and rude home-made chairs with blanket coverings, and tables to match, and walls covered with bridles, guns, pistols, Indian weapons and ornaments, and trophies of the chase. In a far corner stood a work-bench, with tools upon it and horse trappings under it. In the opposite corner a door led into the kitchen. This room was Bostil’s famous living-room, in which many things had happened, some of which had helped make desert history and were never mentioned by Bostil.

Bostil’s sister came in from the kitchen. She was a huge person with a severe yet motherly face. She had her hands on her hips, and she cast a rather disapproving glance at father and daughter.

“So you’re back again?” she queried, severely.

“Sure, Auntie,” replied the girl, complacently.

“You ran off to get out of seeing Wetherby, didn’t you?”

Lucy stared sweetly at her aunt.

“He was waiting for hours,” went on the worthy woman. “I never saw a man in such a stew.... No wonder, playing fast and loose with him the way you do.”

“I told him No!” flashed Lucy.

“But Wetherby’s not the kind to take no. And I’m not satisfied to let you mean it. Lucy Bostil, you don’t know your mind an hour straight running. You’ve fooled enough with these riders of your Dad’s. If you’re not careful you’ll marry one of them.... One of these wild riders! As bad as a Ute Indian! ... Wetherby is young and he idolizes you. In all common sense why don’t you take him?”

“I don’t care for him,” replied Lucy.

“You like him as well as anybody.... John Bostil, what do you say? You approved of Wetherby. I heard you tell him Lucy was like an unbroken colt and that you’d—”

“Sure, I like Jim,” interrupted Bostil; and he avoided Lucy’s swift look.

“Well?” demanded his sister.

Evidently Bostil found himself in a corner between two fires. He looked sheepish, then disgusted.

“Dad!” exclaimed Lucy, reproachfully.

“See here, Jane,” said Bostil, with an air of finality, “the girl is of age to-day — an’ she can do what she damn pleases!”

“That’s a fine thing for you to say,” retorted Aunt Jane. “Like as not she’ll be fetching that hang-dog Joel Creech up here for you to support.”

“Auntie!” cried Lucy, her eyes blazing.

“Oh, child, you torment me — worry me so,” said the disappointed woman. “It’s all for your sake.... Look at you, Lucy Bostil! A girl of eighteen who comes of a family! And you riding around and going around as you are now — in a man’s clothes!”

“But, you dear old goose, I can’t ride in a woman’s skirt,” expostulated Lucy. “Mind you, Auntie, I can RIDE!”

“Lucy, if I live here forever I’d never get reconciled to a Bostil woman in leather pants. We Bostils were somebody once, back in Missouri.”

Bostil laughed. “Yes, an’ if I hadn’t hit the trail west we’d be starvin’ yet. Jane, you’re a sentimental old fool. Let the girl alone an’ reconcile yourself to this wilderness.”

Aunt Jane’s eyes were wet with tears. Lucy, seeing them, ran to her and hugged and kissed her.

“Auntie, I will promise — from to-day — to have some dignity. I’ve been free as a boy in these rider clothes. As I am now the men never seem to regard me as a girl. Somehow that’s better. I can’t explain, but I like it. My dresses are what have caused all the trouble. I know that. But if I’m grown up — if it’s so tremendous — then I’ll wear a dress all the time, except just WHEN I ride. Will that do, Auntie?”

“Maybe you will grow up, after all,” replied Aunt Jane, evidently surprised and pleased.

Then Lucy with clinking spurs ran away to her room.

“Jane, what’s this nonsense about young Joel Creech?” asked Bostil, gruffly.

“I don’t know any more than is gossiped. That I told you. Have you ever asked Lucy about him?”

“I sure haven’t,” said Bostil, bluntly.

“Well, ask her. If she tells you at all she’ll tell the truth. Lucy’d never sleep at night if she lied.”

Aunt Jane returned to her housewifely tasks, leaving Bostil thoughtfully stroking the hound and watching the fire. Presently Lucy returned — a different Lucy — one that did not rouse his rider’s pride, but thrilled his father’s heart. She had been a slim, lithe, supple, disheveled boy, breathing the wild spirit of the open and the horse she rode. She was now a girl in the graceful roundness of her slender form, with hair the gold of the sage at sunset, and eyes the blue of the deep haze of distance, and lips the sweet red of the upland rose. And all about her seemed different.

“Lucy — you look — like — like she used to be,” said Bostil, unsteadily.

“My mother!” murmured Lucy.

But these two, so keen, so strong, so alive, did not abide long with sad memories.

“Lucy, I want to ask you somethin’,” said Bostil, presently. “What about this young Joel Creech?”

Lucy started as if suddenly recalled, then she laughed merrily. “Dad, you old fox, did you see him ride out after me?”

“No. I was just askin’ on — on general principles.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lucy, is there anythin’ between you an’ Joel?” he asked, gravely.

“No,” she replied, with her clear eyes up to his.

Bostil thought of a bluebell. “I’m beggin’ your pardon,” he said, hastily.

“Dad, you know how Joel runs after me. I’ve told you. I let him till lately. I liked him. But that wasn’t why. I felt sorry for him — pitied him.”

“You did? Seems an awful waste,” replied Bostil.

“Dad, I don’t believe Joel is — perfectly right in his mind,” Lucy said, solemnly.

“Haw! haw! Fine compliments you’re payin’ yourself.”

“Listen. I’m serious. I mean I’ve grown to see — looking back — that a slow, gradual change has come over Joel since he was kicked in the head by a mustang. I’m sure no one else has noticed it.”

“Goin’ batty over you. That’s no unusual sign round this here camp. Look at—”

“We’re talking about Joel Creech. Lately he has done some queer things. To-day, for instance. I thought I gave him the slip. But he must have been watching. Anyway, to my surprise he showed up on Peg. He doesn’t often get Peg across the river. He said the feed was getting scarce over there. I was dying to race Buckles against Peg, but I remembered you wouldn’t like that.”

“I should say not,” said Bostil, darkly.

“Well, Joel caught up to me — and he wasn’t nice at all. He was worse to-day. We quarreled. I said I’d bet he’d never follow me again and he said he’d bet he would. Then he got sulky and hung back. I rode away, glad to be rid of him, and I climbed to a favorite place of mine. On my way home I saw Peg grazing on the rim of the creek, near that big spring-hole where the water’s so deep and clear. And what do you think? There was Joel’s head above the water. I remembered in our quarrel I had told him to go wash his dirty face. He was doing it. I had to laugh. When he saw me — he — then — then he—” Lucy faltered, blushing with anger and shame.

“Well, what then?” demanded Bostil, quietly.

“He called, ‘Hey, Luce — take off your clothes and come in for a swim!’”

Bostil swore.

“I tell you I was mad,” continued Lucy, “and just as surprised. That was one of the queer things. But never before had he dared to — to-”

“Insult you. Then what ‘d you do?” interrupted Bostil, curiously.

“I yelled, ‘I’ll fix you, Joel Creech!’... His clothes were in a pile on the bank. At first I thought I’d throw them in the water, but when I got to them I thought of something better. I took up all but his shoes, for I remembered the ten miles of rock and cactus between him and home, and I climbed up on Buckles. Joel screamed and swore something fearful. But I didn’t look back. And Peg, you know — maybe you don’t know — but Peg is fond of me, and he followed me, straddling his bridle all the way in. I dropped Joel’s clothes down the ridge a ways, right in the trail, so he can’t miss them. And that’s all.... Dad, was it — was it very bad?”

“Bad! Why, you ought to have thrown your gun on him. At least bounced a rock off his head! But say, Lucy, after all, maybe you’ve done enough. I guess you never thought of it.”

“What?”

“The sun is hot to-day. Hot! An’ if Joel’s as crazy an’ mad as you say he’ll not have sense enough to stay in the water or shade till the sun’s gone down. An’ if he tackles that ten miles before he’ll sunburn himself within an inch of his life.”

“Sunburn? Oh, Dad! I’m sorry,” burst out Lucy, contritely. “I never thought of that. I’ll ride back with his clothes.”

“You will not,” said Bostil.

“Let me send some one, then,” she entreated.

“Girl, haven’t you the nerve to play your own game? Let Creech get his lesson. He deserves it.... An’ now, Lucy, I’ve two more questions to ask.”

“Only two?” she queried, archly. “Dad, don’t scold me with questions.”

“What shall I say to Wetherby for good an’ all?”

Lucy’s eyes shaded dreamily, and she seemed to look beyond the room, out over the ranges.

“Tell him to go back to Durango and forget the foolish girl who can care only for the desert and a horse.”

“All right. That is straight talk, like an Indian’s. An’ now the last question — what do you want for a birthday present?”

“Oh, of course,” she cried, gleefully clapping her hands. “I’d forgotten that. I’m eighteen!”

“You get that old chest of your mother’s. But what from me?”

“Dad, will you give me anything I ask for?”

“Yes, my girl.”

“Anything — any HORSE?”

Lucy knew his weakness, for she had inherited it.

“Sure; any horse but the King.”

“How about Sarchedon?”

“Why, Lucy, what’d you do with that big black devil? He’s too high. Seventeen hands high! You couldn’t mount him.”

“Pooh! Sarch KNEELS for me.”

“Child, listen to reason. Sarch would pull your arms out of their sockets.”

“He has got an iron jaw,” agreed Lucy. “Well, then — how about Dusty Ben?” She was tormenting her father and she did it with glee.

“No — not Ben. He’s the faithfulest hoss I ever owned. It wouldn’t be fair to part with him, even to you. Old associations ... a rider’s loyalty ... now, Lucy, you know—”

“Dad, you’re afraid I’d train and love Ben into beating the King. Some day I’ll ride some horse out in front of the gray. Remember, Dad! ... Then give me Two Face.”

“Sure not her, Lucy. Thet mare can’t be trusted. Look why we named her Two Face.”

“Buckles, then, dear generous Daddy who longs to give his grown-up girl ANYTHING!”

“Lucy, can’t you be satisfied an’ happy with your mustangs? You’ve got a dozen. You can have any others on the range. Buckles ain’t safe for you to ride.”

Bostil was notably the most generous of men, the kindest of fathers. It was an indication of his strange obsession, in regard to horses, that he never would see that Lucy was teasing him. As far as horses were concerned he lacked a sense of humor. Anything connected with his horses was of intense interest.

“I’d dearly love to own Plume,” said Lucy, demurely.

Bostil had grown red in the face and now he was on the rack. The monstrous selfishness of a rider who had been supreme in his day could not be changed.

“Girl, I — I thought you hadn’t no use for Plume,” he stammered.

“I haven’t — the jade! She threw me once. I’ve never forgiven her .... Dad, I’m only teasing you. Don’t I know you couldn’t give one of those racers away? You couldn’t!”

“Lucy, I reckon you’re right,” Bostil burst out in immense relief.

“Dad, I’ll bet if Cordts gets me and holds me as ransom for the King — as he’s threatened — you’ll let him have me!”

“Lucy, now thet ain’t funny!” complained the father.

“Dear Dad, keep your old racers! But, remember, I’m my father’s daughter. I can love a horse, too. Oh, if I ever get the one I want to love! A wild horse — a desert stallion — pure Arabian — broken right by an Indian! If I ever get him, Dad, you look out! For I’ll run away from Sarch and Ben — and I’ll beat the King!”

The hamlet of Bostil’s Ford had a singular situation, though, considering the wonderful nature of that desert country, it was not exceptional. It lay under the protecting red bluff that only Lucy Bostil cared to climb. A hard-trodden road wound down through rough breaks in the canyon wall to the river. Bostil’s house, at the head of the village, looked in the opposite direction, down the sage slope that widened like a colossal fan. There was one wide street bordered by cottonwoods and cabins, and a number of gardens and orchards, beginning to burst into green and pink and white. A brook ran out of a ravine in the huge bluff, and from this led irrigation ditches. The red earth seemed to blossom at the touch of water.

The place resembled an Indian encampment — quiet, sleepy, colorful, with the tiny-streams of water running everywhere, and lazy columns of blue wood-smoke rising. Bostil’s Ford was the opposite of a busy village, yet its few inhabitants, as a whole, were prosperous. The wants of pioneers were few. Perhaps once a month the big, clumsy flatboat was rowed across the river with horses or cattle or sheep. And the season was now close at hand when for weeks, sometimes months, the river was unfordable. There were a score of permanent families, a host of merry, sturdy children, a number of idle young men, and only one girl — Lucy Bostil. But the village always had transient inhabitants — friendly Utes and Navajos in to trade, and sheep-herders with a scraggy, woolly flock, and travelers of the strange religious sect identified with Utah going on into the wilderness. Then there were always riders passing to and fro, and sometimes unknown ones regarded with caution. Horse-thieves sometimes boldly rode in, and sometimes were able to sell or trade. In the matter of horse-dealing Bostil’s Ford was as bold as the thieves.

Old Brackton, a man of varied Western experience, kept the one store, which was tavern, trading-post, freighter’s headquarters, blacksmith’s shop, and any thing else needful. Brackton employed riders, teamsters, sometimes Indians, to freight supplies in once a month from Durango. And that was over two hundred miles away. Sometimes the supplies did not arrive on time — occasionally not at all. News from the outside world, except that elicited from the taciturn travelers marching into Utah, drifted in at intervals. But it was not missed. These wilderness spirits were the forerunners of a great, movement, and as such were big, strong, stern, sufficient unto themselves. Life there was made possible by horses. The distant future, that looked bright to far-seeing men, must be and could only be fulfilled through the endurance and faithfulness of horses. And then, from these men, horses received the meed due them, and the love they were truly worth. The Navajo was a nomad horseman, an Arab of the Painted Desert, and the Ute Indian was close to him. It was they who developed the white riders of the uplands as well as the wild-horse wrangler or hunter.

Brackton’s ramshackle establishment stood down at the end of the village street. There was not a sawed board in all that structure, and some of the pine logs showed how they had been dropped from the bluff. Brackton, a little old gray man, with scant beard, and eyes like those of a bird, came briskly out to meet an incoming freighter. The wagon was minus a hind wheel, but the teamster had come in on three wheels and a pole. The sweaty, dust-caked, weary, thin-ribbed mustangs, and the gray-and-red-stained wagon, and the huge jumble of dusty packs, showed something of what the journey had been.

“Hi thar, Red Wilson, you air some late gettin’ in,” greeted old Brackton.

Red Wilson had red eyes from fighting the flying sand, and red dust pasted in his scraggy beard, and as he gave his belt an upward hitch little red clouds flew from his gun-sheath.

“Yep. An’ I left a wheel an’ part of the load on the trail,” he said.

With him were Indians who began to unhitch the teams. Riders lounging in the shade greeted Wilson and inquired for news. The teamster replied that travel was dry, the water-holes were dry, and he was dry. And his reply gave both concern and amusement.

“One more trip out an’ back — thet’s all, till it rains,” concluded Wilson.

Brackton led him inside, evidently to alleviate part of that dryness.

Water and grass, next to horses, were the stock subject of all riders.

“It’s got oncommon hot early,” said one.

“Yes, an’ them northeast winds — hard this spring,” said another.

“No snow on the uplands.”

“Holley seen a dry spell comin’. Wal, we can drift along without freighters. There’s grass an’ water enough here, even if it doesn’t rain.”

“Sure, but there ain’t none across the river.”

“Never was, in early season. An’ if there was it’d be sheeped off.”

“Creech’ll be fetchin’ his hosses across soon, I reckon.”

“You bet he will. He’s trainin’ for the races next month.”

“An’ when air they comin’ off?”

“You got me. Mebbe Van knows.”

Some one prodded a sleepy rider who lay all his splendid lithe length, hat over his eyes. Then he sat up and blinked, a lean-faced, gray-eyed fellow, half good-natured and half resentful.

“Did somebody punch me?”

“Naw, you got nightmare! Say, Van, when will the races come off?”

“Huh! An’ you woke me for thet? ... Bostil says in a few weeks, soon as he hears from the Indians. Plans to have eight hundred Indians here, an’ the biggest purses an’ best races ever had at the Ford.”

“You’ll ride the King again?”

“Reckon so. But Bostil is kickin’ because I’m heavier than I was,” replied the rider.

“You’re skin an’ bones at thet.”

“Mebbe you’ll need to work a little off, Van. Some one said Creech’s Blue Roan was comin’ fast this year.”

“Bill, your mind ain’t operatin’,” replied Van, scornfully. “Didn’t I beat Creech’s hosses last year without the King turnin’ a hair?”

“Not if I recollect, you didn’t. The Blue Roan wasn’t runnin’.”

Then they argued, after the manner of friendly riders, but all earnest, an eloquent in their convictions. The prevailing opinion was that Creech’s horse had a chance, depending upon condition and luck.

The argument shifted upon the arrival of two new-comers, leading mustangs and apparently talking trade. It was manifest that these arrivals were not loath to get the opinions of others.

“Van, there’s a hoss!” exclaimed one.

“No, he ain’t,” replied Van.

And that diverse judgment appeared to be characteristic throughout. The strange thing was that Macomber, the rancher, had already traded his mustang and money to boot for the sorrel. The deal, whether wise or not, had been consummated. Brackton came out with Red Wilson, and they had to have their say.

“Wal, durned if some of you fellers ain’t kind an’ complimentary,” remarked Macomber, scratching his head. “But then every feller can’t have hoss sense.” Then, looking up to see Lucy Bostil coming along the road, he brightened as if with inspiration.

Lucy was at home among them, and the shy eyes of the younger riders, especially Van, were nothing if not revealing. She greeted them with a bright smile, and when she saw Brackton she burst out:

“Oh, Mr. Brackton, the wagon’s in, and did my box come? ... To-day’s my birthday.”

“‘Deed it did, Lucy; an’ many more happy ones to you!” he replied, delighted in her delight. “But it’s too heavy for you. I’ll send it up — or mebbe one of the boys—”

Five riders in unison eagerly offered their services and looked as if each had spoken first. Then Macomber addressed her:

“Miss Lucy, you see this here sorrel?”

“Ah! the same lazy crowd and the same old story — a horse trade!” laughed Lucy.

“There’s a little difference of opinion,” said Macomber, politely indicating the riders. “Now, Miss Lucy, we-all know you’re a judge of a hoss. And as good as thet you tell the truth. Thet ain’t in some hoss-traders I know.... What do you think of this mustang?”

Macomber had eyes of enthusiasm for his latest acquisition, but some of the cock-sureness had been knocked out of him by the blunt riders.

“Macomber, aren’t you a great one to talk?” queried Lucy, severely. “Didn’t you get around Dad and trade him an old, blind, knock-kneed bag of bones for a perfectly good pony — one I liked to ride?”

The riders shouted with laughter while the rancher struggled with confusion.

“‘Pon my word, Miss Lucy, I’m surprised you could think thet of such an old friend of yours — an’ your Dad’s, too. I’m hopin’ he doesn’t side altogether with you.”

“Dad and I never agree about a horse. He thinks he got the best of you. But you know, Macomber, what a horse-thief you are. Worse than Cordts!”

“Wal, if I got the best of Bostil I’m willin’ to be thought bad. I’m the first feller to take him in.... An’ now, Miss Lucy, look over my sorrel.”

Lucy Bostil did indeed have an eye for a horse. She walked straight up to the wild, shaggy mustang with a confidence born of intuition and experience, and reached a hand for his head, not slowly, nor yet swiftly. The mustang looked as if he was about to jump, but he did not. His eyes showed that he was not used to women.

“He’s not well broken,” said Lucy. “Some Navajo has beaten his head in breaking him.”

Then she carefully studied the mustang point by point.

“He’s deceiving at first because he’s good to look at,” said Lucy. “But I wouldn’t own him. A saddle will turn on him. He’s not vicious, but he’ll never get over his scare. He’s narrow between the eyes — a bad sign. His ears are stiff — and too close. I don’t see anything more wrong with him.”

“You seen enough,” declared Macomber. “An’ so you wouldn’t own him?”

“You couldn’t make me a present of him — even on my birthday.”

“Wal, now I’m sorry, for I was thinkin’ of thet,” replied Macomber, ruefully. It was plain that the sorrel had fallen irremediably in his estimation.

“Macomber, I often tell Dad all you horse-traders get your deserts now and then. It’s vanity and desire to beat the other man that’s your downfall.”

Lucy went away, with Van shouldering her box, leaving Macomber trying to return the banter of the riders. The good-natured raillery was interrupted by a sharp word from one of them.

“Look! Darn me if thet ain’t a naked Indian comin’!”

The riders whirled to see an apparently nude savage approaching, almost on a run.

“Take a shot at thet, Bill,” said another rider. “Miss Lucy might see — No, she’s out of sight. But, mebbe some other woman is around.”

“Hold on, Bill,” called Macomber. “You never saw an Indian run like thet.”

Some of the riders swore, others laughed, and all suddenly became keen with interest.

“Sure his face is white, if his body’s red!”

The strange figure neared them. It was indeed red up to the face, which seemed white in contrast. Yet only in general shape and action did it resemble a man.

“Damned if it ain’t Joel Creech!” sang out Bill Stark.

The other riders accorded their wondering assent.

“Gone crazy, sure!”

“I always seen it comin’.”

“Say, but ain’t he wild? Foamin’ at the mouth like a winded hoss!”

Young Creech was headed down the road toward the ford across which he had to go to reach home. He saw the curious group, slowed his pace, and halted. His face seemed convulsed with rage and pain and fatigue. His body, even to his hands, was incased in a thick, heavy coating of red adobe that had caked hard.

“God’s sake — fellers—” he panted, with eyes rolling, “take this— ‘dobe mud off me! ... I’m dyin’!”

Then he staggered into Brackton’s place. A howl went up from the riders and they surged after him.

That evening after supper Bostil stamped in the big room, roaring with laughter, red in the face; and he astonished Lucy and her aunt to the point of consternation.

“Now — you’ve — done — it — Lucy Bostil!” he roared.

“Oh dear! Oh dear!” exclaimed Aunt Jane.

“Done what?” asked Lucy, blankly.

Bostil conquered his paroxysm, and, wiping his moist red face, he eyed Lucy in mock solemnity.

“Joel!” whispered Lucy, who had a guilty conscience.

“Lucy, I never heard the beat of it.... Joel’s smarter in some ways than we thought, an’ crazier in others. He had the sun figgered, but what’d he want to run through town for? Why, never in my life have I seen such tickled riders.”

“Dad!” almost screamed Lucy. “What did Joel do?”

“Wal, I see it this way. He couldn’t or wouldn’t wait for sundown. An’ he wasn’t hankerin’ to be burned. So he wallows in a ‘dobe mud-hole an’ covers himself thick with mud. You know that ‘dobe mud! Then he starts home. But he hadn’t figgered on the ‘dobe gettin’ hard, which it did — harder ‘n rock. An’ thet must have hurt more ‘n sunburn. Late this afternoon he came runnin’ down the road, yellin’ thet he was dyin’. The boys had conniption fits. Joel ain’t over-liked, you know, an’ here they had one on him. Mebbe they didn’t try hard to clean him off. But the fact is not for hours did they get thet ‘dobe off him. They washed an’ scrubbed an’ curried him, while he yelled an’ cussed. Finally they peeled it off, with his skin I guess. He was raw, an’ they say, the maddest feller ever seen in Bostil’s Ford!”

Lucy was struggling between fear and mirth. She did not look sorry. “Oh! Oh! Oh, Dad!”

“Wasn’t it great, Lucy?”

“But what — will he — do?” choked Lucy.

“Lord only knows. Thet worries me some. Because he never said a word about how he come to lose his clothes or why he had the ‘dobe on him. An’ sure I never told. Nobody knows but us.”

“Dad, he’ll do something terrible to me!” cried Lucy, aghast at her premonition.

CHAPTER III

THE DAYS DID not pass swiftly at Bostil’s Ford. And except in winter, and during the spring sand-storms, the lagging time passed pleasantly. Lucy rode every day, sometimes with Van, and sometimes alone. She was not over-keen about riding with Van — first, because he was in love with her; and secondly, in spite of that, she could not beat him when he rode the King. They were training Bostil’s horses for the much-anticipated races.

At last word arrived from the Utes and Navajos that they accepted Bostil’s invitation and would come in force, which meant, according to Holley and other old riders, that the Indians would attend about eight hundred strong.

“Thet old chief, Hawk, is comin’,” Holley informed Bostil. “He hasn’t been here fer several years. Recollect thet bunch of colts he had? They’re bosses, not mustangs.... So you look out, Bostil!”

No rider or rancher or sheepman, in fact, no one, ever lost a chance to warn Bostil. Some of it was in fun, but most of it was earnest. The nature of events was that sooner or later a horse would beat the King. Bostil knew that as well as anybody, though he would not admit it. Holley’s hint made Bostil look worried. Most of Bostil’s gray hairs might have been traced to his years of worry about horses.

The day he received word from the Indians he sent for Brackton, Williams, Muncie, and Creech to come to his house that night. These men, with Bostil, had for years formed in a way a club, which gave the Ford distinction. Creech was no longer a friend of Bostil’s, but Bostil had always been fair-minded, and now he did not allow his animosities to influence him. Holley, the veteran rider, made the sixth member of the club.

Bostil had a cedar log blazing cheerily in the wide fireplace, for these early spring nights in the desert were cold.

Brackton was the last guest to arrive. He shuffled in without answering the laconic greetings accorded him, and his usually mild eyes seemed keen and hard.

“John, I reckon you won’t love me fer this here I’ve got to tell you, to-night specially,” he said, seriously.

“You old robber, I couldn’t love you anyhow,” retorted Bostil. But his humor did not harmonize with the sudden gravity of his look. “What’s up?”

“Who do you suppose I jest sold whisky to?”

“I’ve no idea,” replied Bostil. Yet he looked as if he was perfectly sure.

“Cordts! ... Cordts, an’ four of his outfit. Two of them I didn’t know. Bad men, judgin’ from appearances, let alone company. The others was Hutchinson an’ — Dick Sears.”

“DICK SEARS!” exclaimed Bostil.

Muncie and Williams echoed Bostil. Holley appeared suddenly interested. Creech alone showed no surprise.

“But Sears is dead,” added Bostil.

“He was dead — we thought,” replied Brackton, with a grim laugh. “But he’s alive again. He told me he’d been in Idaho fer two years, in the gold-fields. Said the work was too hard, so he’d come back here. Laughed when he said it, the little devil! I’ll bet he was thinkin’ of thet wagon-train of mine he stole.”

Bostil gazed at his chief rider.

“Wal, I reckon we didn’t kill Sears, after all,” replied Holley. “I wasn’t never sure.”

“Lord! Cordts an’ Sears in camp,” ejaculated Bostil, and he began to pace the room.

“No, they’re gone now,” said Brackton.

“Take it easy, boss. Sit down,” drawled Holley. “The King is safe, an’ all the racers. I swear to thet. Why, Cordts couldn’t chop into thet log-an’-wire corral if he an’ his gang chopped all night! They hate work. Besides, Farlane is there, an’ the boys.”

This reassured Bostil, and he resumed his chair. But his hand shook a little.

“Did Cordts have anythin’ to say?” he asked.

“Sure. He was friendly an’ talkative,” replied Brackton. “He came in just after dark. Left a man I didn’t see out with the hosses. He bought two big packs of supplies, an’ some leather stuff, an’, of course, ammunition. Then some whisky. Had plenty of gold an’ wouldn’t take no change. Then while his men, except Sears, was carryin’ out the stuff, he talked.”

“Go on. Tell me,” said Bostil.

“Wal, he’d been out north of Durango an’ fetched news. There’s wild talk back there of a railroad goin’ to be built some day, joinin’ east an’ west. It’s interestin’, but no sense to it. How could they build a railroad through thet country?”

“North it ain’t so cut up an’ lumpy as here,” put in Holley.

“Grandest idea ever thought of for the West,” avowed Bostil. “If thet railroad ever starts we’ll all get rich.... Go on, Brack.”

“Then Cordts said water an’ grass was peterin’ out back on the trail, same as Red Wilson said last week. Finally he asked, ‘How’s my friend Bostil?’ I told him you was well. He looked kind of thoughtful then, an’ I knew what was comin’....’How’s the King?’ ‘Grand’ I told him— ‘grand.’ ‘When is them races comin’ off?’ I said we hadn’t planned the time yet, but it would be soon — inside of a month or two. ‘Brackton,’ he said, sharp-like, ‘is Bostil goin’ to pull a gun on me at sight?’ ‘Reckon he is,’ I told him. ‘Wal, I’m not powerful glad to know thet.... I hear Creech’s blue hoss will race the King this time. How about it?’ ‘Sure an’ certain this year. I’ve Creech’s an’ Bostil’s word for thet.’ Cordts put his hand on my shoulder. You ought to ‘ve seen his eyes!...’I want to see thet race.... I’m goin’ to.’ ‘Wal,’ I said, ‘you’ll have to stop bein’ — You’ll need to change your bizness.’ Then, Bostil, what do you think? Cordts was sort of eager an’ wild. He said thet was a race he jest couldn’t miss. He swore he wouldn’t turn a trick or let a man of his gang stir a hand till after thet race, if you’d let him come.”

A light flitted across Bostil’s face.

“I know how Cordts feels,” he said.

“Wal, it’s a queer deal,” went on Brackton. “Fer a long time you’ve meant to draw on Cordts when you meet. We all know thet.”

“Yes, I’ll kill him!” The light left Bostil’s face. His voice sounded differently. His mouth opened, drooped strangely at the corners, then shut in a grim, tense line. Bostil had killed more than one man. The memory, no doubt, was haunting and ghastly.

“Cordts seemed to think his word was guarantee of his good faith. He said he’d send an Indian in here to find out if he can come to the races. I reckon, Bostil, thet it wouldn’t hurt none to let him come. An’ hold your gun hand fer the time he swears he’ll be honest. Queer deal, ain’t it, men? A hoss-thief turnin’ honest jest to see a race! Beats me! Bostil, it’s a cheap way to get at least a little honesty from Cordts. An’ refusin’ might rile him bad. When all’s said Cordts ain’t as bad as he could be.”

“I’ll let him come,” replied Bostil, breathing deep. “But it’ll be hard to see him, rememberin’ how he’s robbed me, an’ what he’s threatened. An’ I ain’t lettin’ him come to bribe a few weeks’ decency from him. I’m doin’ it for only one reason.... Because I know how he loves the King — how he wants to see the King run away from the field thet day! Thet’s why!”

There was a moment of silence, during which all turned to Creech. He was a stalwart man, no longer young, with a lined face, deep-set, troubled eyes, and white, thin beard.

“Bostil, if Cordts loves the King thet well, he’s in fer heartbreak,” said Creech, with a ring in his voice.

Down crashed Bostil’s heavy boots and fire flamed in his gaze. The other men laughed, and Brackton interposed:

“Hold on, you boy riders!” he yelled. “We ain’t a-goin’ to have any arguments like thet.... Now, Bostil, it’s settled, then? You’ll let Cordts come?”

“Glad to have him,” replied Bostil.

“Good. An’ now mebbe we’d better get down to the bizness of this here meetin’.”

They seated themselves around the table, upon which Bostil laid an old and much-soiled ledger and a stub of a lead-pencil.

“First well set the time,” he said, with animation, “an’ then pitch into details.... What’s the date?”

No one answered, and presently they all looked blankly from one to the other.

“It’s April, ain’t it?” queried Holley.

That assurance was as close as they could get to the time of year.

“Lucy!” called Bostil, in a loud voice.

She came running in, anxious, almost alarmed.

“Goodness! you made us jump! What on earth is the matter?”

“Lucy, we want to know the date,” replied Bostil.

“Date! Did you have to scare Auntie and me out of our wits just for that?”

“Who scared you? This is important, Lucy. What’s the date?”

“It’s a week to-day since last Tuesday,” answered Lucy, sweetly.

“Huh! Then it’s Tuesday again,” said Bostil, laboriously writing it down. “Now, what’s the date?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Remember? I never knew.”

“Dad! ... Last Tuesday was my birthday — the day you DID NOT give me a horse!”

“Aw, so it was,” rejoined Bostil, confused at her reproach. “An’ thet date was — let’s see — April sixth.... Then this is April thirteenth. Much obliged, Lucy. Run back to your aunt now. This hoss talk won’t interest you.”

Lucy tossed her head. “I’ll bet I’ll have to straighten out the whole thing.” Then with a laugh she disappeared.

“Three days beginnin — say June first. June first — second, an’ third. How about thet for the races?”

Everybody agreed, and Bostil laboriously wrote that down. Then they planned the details. Purses and prizes, largely donated by Bostil and Muncie, the rich members of the community, were recorded. The old rules were adhered to. Any rider or any Indian could enter any horse in any race, or as many horses as he liked in as many races. But by winning one race he excluded himself from the others. Bostil argued for a certain weight in riders, but the others ruled out this suggestion. Special races were arranged for the Indians, with saddles, bridles, blankets, guns as prizes.

All this appeared of absorbing interest to Bostil. He perspired freely. There was a gleam in his eye, betraying excitement. When it came to arranging the details of the big race between the high-class racers, then he grew intense and harder to deal with. Many points had to go by vote. Muncie and Williams both had fleet horses to enter in this race; Holley had one; Creech had two; there were sure to be several Indians enter fast mustangs; and Bostil had the King and four others to choose from. Bostil held out stubbornly for a long race. It was well known that Sage King was unbeatable in a long race. If there were any chance to beat him it must be at short distance. The vote went against Bostil, much to his chagrin, and the great race was set down for two miles.

“But two miles! ... Two miles!” he kept repeating. “Thet’s Blue Roan’s distance. Thet’s his distance. An’ it ain’t fair to the King!”

His guests, excepting Creech, argued with him, explained, reasoned, showed him that it was fair to all concerned. Bostil finally acquiesced, but he was not happy. The plain fact was that he was frightened.

When the men were departing Bostil called Creech back into the sitting-room. Creech appeared surprised, yet it was evident that he would have been glad to make friends with Bostil.

“What’ll you take for the roan?” Bostil asked, tersely,’ as if he had never asked that before.

“Bostil, didn’t we thresh thet out before — an’ FELL out over it?” queried Creech, with a deprecating spread of his hands.

“Wal, we can fall in again, if you’ll sell or trade the hoss.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“You need money an’ hosses, don’t you?” demanded Bostil, brutally. He had no conscience in a matter of horse-dealing.

“Lord knows, I do,” replied Creech.

“Wal, then, here’s your chance. I’ll give you five hundred in gold an’ Sarchedon to boot.”

Creech looked as if he had not heard aright. Bostil repeated the offer.

“No,” replied Creech.

“I’ll make it a thousand an’ throw Plume in with Sarch,” flashed Bostil.

“No!” Creech turned pale and swallowed hard.

“Two thousand an’ Dusty Ben along with the others?” This was an unheard-of price to pay for any horse. Creech saw that Bostil was desperate. It was an almost overpowering temptation. Evidently Creech resisted it only by applying all his mind to the thought of his clean-limbed, soft-eyed, noble horse.

Bostil did not give Creech time to speak. “Twenty-five hundred an’ Two Face along with the rest!”

“My God, Bostil — stop it! I can’t PART with Blue Roan. You’re rich an’ you’ve no heart. Thet I always knew. At least to me you never had, since I owned them two racers. Didn’t I beg you, a little time back, to lend me a few hundred? To meet thet debt? An’ you wouldn’t, unless I’d sell the hosses. An’ I had to lose my sheep. Now I’m a poor man — gettin’ poorer all the time. But I won’t sell or trade Blue Roan, not for all you’ve got!”

Creech seemed to gain strength with his speech and passion with the strength. His eyes glinted at the hard, paling face of his rival. He raised a clenching fist.

“An’ by G — d, I’m goin’ to win thet race!”

During that week Lucy had heard many things about Joel Creech, and some of them were disquieting.

Some rider had not only found Joel’s clothes on the trail, but he had recognized the track of the horse Lucy rode, and at once connected her with the singular discovery. Coupling that with Joel’s appearance in the village incased in a heaving armor of adobe, the riders guessed pretty close to the truth. For them the joke was tremendous. And Joel Creech was exceedingly sensitive to ridicule. The riders made life unbearable for him. They had fun out of it as long as Joel showed signs of taking the joke manfully, which was not long, and then his resentment won their contempt. That led to sarcasm on their part and bitter anger on his. It came to Lucy’s ears that Joel began to act and talk strangely. She found out that the rider Van had knocked Joel down in Brackton’s store and had kicked a gun out of his hand. Van laughed off the rumor and Brackton gave her no satisfaction. Moreover, she heard no other rumors. The channels of gossip had suddenly closed to her. Bostil, when questioned by Lucy, swore in a way that amazed her, and all he told her was to leave Creech alone. Finally, when Muncie discharged Joel, who worked now and then, Lucy realized that something was wrong with Joel and that she was to blame for it.

She grew worried and anxious and sorry, but she held her peace, and determined to find out for herself what was wrong. Every day when she rode out into the sage she expected to meet him, or at least see him somewhere; nevertheless days went by and there was no sign of him.

One afternoon she saw some Indians driving sheep down the river road toward the ford, and, acting upon impulse, she turned her horse after them.

Lucy seldom went down the river road. Riding down and up was merely work, and a horse has as little liking for it as she had. Usually it was a hot, dusty trip, and the great, dark, overhanging walls had a depressing effect, upon her. She always felt awe at the gloomy canyon and fear at the strange, murmuring red river. But she started down this afternoon in the hope of meeting Joel. She had a hazy idea of telling him she was sorry for what she had done, and of asking him to forget it and pay no more heed to the riders.

The sheep raised a dust-cloud in the sandy wash where the road wound down, and Lucy hung back to let them get farther ahead. Gradually the tiny roar of pattering hoofs and the blended bleating and baaing died away. The dust-cloud, however, hung over the head of the ravine, and Lucy had to force Sarchedon through it. Sarchedon did not mind sand and dust, but he surely hated the smell of sheep. Lucy seldom put a spur to Sarchedon; still, she gave him a lash with her quirt, and then he went on obediently, if disgustedly. He carried his head like a horse that wondered why his mistress preferred to drive him down into an unpleasant hole when she might have been cutting the sweet, cool sage wind up on the slope.

The wash, with its sand and clay walls, dropped into a gulch, and there was an end of green growths. The road led down over solid rock. Gradually the rims of the gorge rose, shutting out the light and the cliffs. It was a winding road and one not safe to tarry on in a stormy season. Lucy had seen boulders weighing a ton go booming down that gorge during one of the sudden fierce desert storms, when a torrent of water and mud and stone went plunging on to the river. The ride through here was short, though slow. Lucy always had time to adjust her faculties for the overpowering contrast these lower regions presented. Long before she reached the end of the gorge she heard the sullen thunder of the river. The river was low, too, for otherwise there would have been a deafening roar.

Presently she came out upon a lower branch of the canyon, into a great red-walled space, with the river still a thousand feet below, and the cliffs towering as high above her. The road led down along this rim where to the left all was open, across to the split and peaked wall opposite. The river appeared to sweep round a bold, bulging corner a mile above. It was a wide, swift, muddy, turbulent stream. A great bar of sand stretched out from the shore. Beyond it, through the mouth of an intersecting canyon, could be seen a clump of cottonwoods and willows that marked the home of the Creeches. Lucy could not see the shore nearest her, as it was almost directly under her. Besides, in this narrow road, on a spirited horse, she was not inclined to watch the scenery. She hurried Sarchedon down and down, under the overhanging brows of rock, to where the rim sloped out and failed. Here was a half-acre of sand, with a few scant willows, set down seemingly in a dent at the base of the giant, beetling cliffs. The place was light, though the light seemed a kind of veiled red, and to Lucy always ghastly. She could not have been joyous with that river moaning before her, even if it had been up on a level, in the clear and open day. As a little girl eight years old she had conceived a terror and hatred of this huge, jagged rent so full of red haze and purple smoke and the thunder of rushing waters. And she had never wholly outgrown it. The joy of the sun and wind, the rapture in the boundless open, the sweetness in the sage — these were not possible here. Something mighty and ponderous, heavy as those colossal cliffs, weighted down her spirit. The voice of the river drove out any dream. Here was the incessant frowning presence of destructive forces of nature. And the ford was associated with catastrophe — to sheep, to horses and to men.

Lucy rode across the bar to the shore where the Indians were loading the sheep into an immense rude flatboat. As the sheep were frightened, the loading was no easy task. Their bleating could be heard above the roar of the river. Bostil’s boatmen, Shugrue and Somers, stood knee-deep in the quicksand of the bar, and their efforts to keep free-footed were as strenuous as their handling of the sheep. Presently the flock was all crowded on board, the Indians followed, and then the boatmen slid the unwieldy craft off the sand-bar. Then, each manning a clumsy oar, they pulled up-stream. Along shore were whirling, slow eddies, and there rowing was possible. Out in that swift current it would have been folly to try to contend with it, let alone make progress. The method of crossing was to row up along the shore as far as a great cape of rock jutting out, and there make into the current, and while drifting down pull hard to reach the landing opposite. Heavily laden as the boat was, the chances were not wholly in favor of a successful crossing.

Lucy watched the slow, laborious struggle of the boatmen with the heavy oars until she suddenly remembered the object of her visit down to the ford. She appeared to be alone on her side of the river. At the landing opposite, however, were two men; and presently Lucy recognized Joel Creech and his father. A second glance showed Indians with burros, evidently waiting for the boat. Joel Creech jumped into a skiff and shoved off. The elder man, judging by his motions, seemed to be trying to prevent his son from leaving the shore. But Joel began to row up-stream, keeping close to the shore. Lucy watched him. No doubt he had seen her and was coming across. Either the prospect of meeting him or the idea of meeting him there in the place where she was never herself made her want to turn at once and ride back home. But her stubborn sense of fairness overruled that. She would hold her ground solely in the hope of persuading Joel to be reasonable. She saw the big flatboat sweep into line of sight at the same time Joel turned into the current. But while the larger craft drifted slowly the other way, the smaller one came swiftly down and across. Joel swept out of the current into the eddy, rowed across that, and slid the skiff up on the sand-bar. Then he stepped out. He was bareheaded and barefooted, but it was not that which made him seem a stranger to Lucy.

“Are you lookin’ fer me?” he shouted.

Lucy waved a hand for him to come up.

Then he approached. He was a tall, lean young man, stoop-shouldered and bow-legged from much riding, with sallow, freckled face, a thin fuzz of beard, weak mouth and chin, and eyes remarkable for their small size and piercing quality and different color. For one was gray and the other was hazel. There was no scar on his face, but the irregularity of his features reminded one who knew that he had once been kicked in the face by a horse.

Creech came up hurriedly, in an eager, wild way that made Lucy suddenly pity him. He did not seem to remember that the stallion had an antipathy for him. But Lucy, if she had forgotten, would have been reminded by Sarchedon’s action.

“Look out, Joel!” she called, and she gave the black’s head a jerk. Sarchedon went up with a snort and came down pounding the sand. Quick as an Indian Lucy was out of the saddle.

“Lemme your quirt,” said Joel, showing his teeth like a wolf.

“No. I wouldn’t let you hit Sarch. You beat him once, and he’s never forgotten,” replied Lucy.

The eye of the horse and the man met and clashed, and there was a hostile tension in their attitudes. Then Lucy dropped the bridle and drew Joel over to a huge drift-log, half buried in the sand. Here she sat down, but Joel remained standing. His gaze was now all the stranger for its wistfulness. Lucy was quick to catch a subtle difference in him, but she could not tell wherein it lay.

“What’d you want?” asked Joel.

“I’ve heard a lot of things, Joel,” replied Lucy, trying to think of just what she wanted to say.

“Reckon you have,” said Joel, dejectedly, and then he sat down on the log and dug holes in the sand with his bare feet.

Lucy had never before seen him look tired, and it seemed that some of the healthy brown of his cheeks had thinned out. Then Lucy told him, guardedly, a few of the rumors she had heard.

“All thet you say is nothin’ to what’s happened,” he replied, bitterly. “Them riders mocked the life an’ soul out of me.”

“But, Joel, you shouldn’t be so — so touchy,” said Lucy, earnestly. “After all, the joke WAS on you. Why didn’t you take it like a man?”

“But they knew you stole my clothes,” he protested.

“Suppose they did. That wasn’t much to care about. If you hadn’t taken it so hard they’d have let up on you.”

“Mebbe I might have stood that. But they taunted me with bein’ — loony about you.”

Joel spoke huskily. There was no doubt that he had been deeply hurt. Lucy saw tears in his eyes, and her first impulse was to put a hand on his and tell him how sorry she was. But she desisted. She did not feel at her ease with Joel.

“What’d you and Van fight about?” she asked, presently. Joel hung his head. “I reckon I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you.”

“You’re ashamed of it?”

Joel’s silence answered that.

“You said something about me?” Lucy could not resist her curiosity, back of which was a little heat. “It must have been — bad — else Van wouldn’t have struck you.”

“He hit me — he knocked me flat,” passionately said Joel.

“And you drew a gun on him?”

“I did, an’ like a fool I didn’t wait till I got up. Then he kicked me! ... Bostil’s Ford will never be big enough fer me an’ Van now.”

“Don’t talk foolish. You won’t fight with Van.... Joel, maybe you deserved what you got. You say some — some rude things.”

“I only said I’d pay you back,” burst out Joel.

“How?”

“I swore I’d lay fer you — an’ steal your clothes — so you’d have to run home naked.”

There was indeed something lacking in Joel, but it was not sincerity. His hurt had rankled deep and his voice trembled with indignation.

“But, Joel, I don’t go swimming in spring-holes,” protested Lucy, divided between amusement and annoyance.

“I meant it, anyhow,” said Joel, doggedly.

“Are you absolutely honest? Is that all you said to provoke Van?”

“It’s all, Lucy, I swear.”

She believed him, and saw the unfortunate circumstance more than ever her fault. “I’m sorry, Joel. I’m much to blame. I shouldn’t have lost my temper and played that trick with your clothes.... If you’d only had sense enough to stay out till after dark! But no use crying over spilt milk. Now, if you’ll do your share I’ll do mine. I’ll tell the boys I was to blame. I’ll persuade them to let you alone. I’ll go to Muncie—”

“No you won’t go cryin’ small fer me!” blurted out Joel.

Lucy was surprised to see pride in him. “Joel, I’ll not make it appear—”

“You’ll not say one word about me to any one,” he went on, with the blood beginning to darken his face. And now he faced her. How strange the blaze in his differently colored eyes! “Lucy Bostil, there’s been thet done an’ said to me which I’ll never forgive. I’m no good in Bostil’s Ford. Mebbe I never was much. But I could get a job when I wanted it an’ credit when I needed it. Now I can’t get nothin’. I’m no good! ... I’m no good! An’ it’s your fault!”

“Oh, Joel, what can I do?” cried Lucy.

“I reckon there’s only one way you can square me,” he replied, suddenly growing pale. But his eyes were like flint. He certainly looked to be in possession of all his wits.

“How?” queried Lucy, sharply.

“You can marry me. Thet’ll show thet gang! An’ it’ll square me. Then I’ll go back to work an’ I’ll stick. Thet’s all, Lucy Bostil.”

Manifestly he was laboring under strong suppressed agitation. That moment was the last of real strength and dignity ever shown by Joel Creech.

“But, Joel, I can’t marry you — even if I am to blame for your ruin,” said Lucy, simply.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t love you.”

“I reckon thet won’t make any difference, if you don’t love some one else.”

Lucy gazed blankly at him. He began to shake, and his eyes grew wild. She rose from the log.

“Do you love anybody else?” he asked, passionately.

“None of your business!” retorted Lucy. Then, at a strange darkening of his face, an aspect unfamiliar to her, she grew suddenly frightened.

“It’s Van!” he said, thickly.

“Joel, you’re a fool!”

That only infuriated him.

“So they all say. An’ they got my old man believin’ it, too. Mebbe I am.... But I’m a-goin’ to kill Van!”

“No! No! Joel, what are you saying? I don’t love Van. I don’t care any more for him than for any other rider — or — or you.”

“Thet’s a lie, Lucy Bostil!”

“How dare you say I lie?” demanded Lucy. “I’ve a mind to turn my back on you. I’m trying to make up for my blunder and you — you insult me!”

“You talk sweet ... but talk isn’t enough. You made me no-good .... Will you marry me?”

“I will not!” And Lucy, with her blood up, could not keep contempt out of voice and look, and she did not care. That was the first time she had ever shown anything, approaching ridicule for Joel. The effect was remarkable. Like a lash upon a raw wound it made him writhe; but more significant to Lucy was the sudden convulsive working of his features and the wildness of his eyes. Then she turned her back, not from contempt, but to hurry away from him.

He leaped after her and grasped her with rude hands.

“Let me go!” cried Lucy, standing perfectly motionless. The hard clutch of his fingers roused a fierce, hot anger.

Joel did not heed her command. He was forcing her back. He talked incoherently. One glimpse of his face added terror to Lucy’s fury.

“Joel, you’re out of your head!” she cried, and she began to wrench and writhe out of his grasp. Then ensued a short, sharp struggle. Joel could not hold Lucy, but he tore her blouse into shreds. It seemed to Lucy that he did that savagely. She broke free from him, and he lunged at her again. With all her strength she lashed his face with the heavy leather quirt. That staggered him. He almost fell.

Lucy bounded to Sarchedon. In a rush she was up in the saddle. Joel was running toward her. Blood on his face! Blood on his hands! He was not the Joel Creech she knew.

“Stop!” cried Lucy, fiercely. “I’ll run you down!”

The big black plunged at a touch of spur and came down quivering, ready to bolt.

Creech swerved to one side. His face was lividly white except where the bloody welts crossed it. His jaw seemed to hang loosely, making speech difficult.

“Jest fer — thet—” he panted, hoarsely, “I’ll lay fer you — an’ I’ll strip you — an’ I’ll tie you on a hoss — an’ I’ll drive you naked through Bostil’s Ford!”

Lucy saw the utter futility of all her good intentions. Something had snapped in Joel Creech’s mind. And in hers kindness had given precedence to a fury she did not know was in her. For the second time she touched a spur to Sarchedon. He leaped out, flashed past Creech, and thundered up the road. It was all Lucy could do to break his gait at the first steep rise.

CHAPTER IV

THREE WILD-HORSE HUNTERS made camp one night beside a little stream in the Sevier Valley, five hundred miles, as a crow flies, from Bostil’s Ford.

These hunters had a poor outfit, excepting, of course, their horses. They were young men, rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the saddle, bronzed like Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed. Two of them appeared to be tired out, and lagged at the camp-fire duties. When the meager meal was prepared they sat, cross-legged, before a ragged tarpaulin, eating and drinking in silence.

The sky in the west was rosy, slowly darkening. The valley floor billowed away, ridged and cut, growing gray and purple and dark. Walls of stone, pink with the last rays of the setting sun, inclosed the valley, stretching away toward a long, low, black mountain range.

The place was wild, beautiful, open, with something nameless that made the desert different from any other country. It was, perhaps, a loneliness of vast stretches of valley and stone, clear to the eye, even after sunset. That black mountain range, which looked close enough to ride to before dark, was a hundred miles distant.

The shades of night fell swiftly, and it was dark by the time the hunters finished the meal. Then the campfire had burned low. One of the three dragged branches of dead cedars and replenished the fire. Quickly it flared up, with the white flame and crackle characteristic of dry cedar. The night wind had risen, moaning through the gnarled, stunted cedars near by, and it blew the fragrant wood-smoke into the faces of the two hunters, who seemed too tired to move.

“I reckon a pipe would help me make up my mind,” said one.

“Wal, Bill,” replied the other, dryly, “your mind’s made up, else you’d not say smoke.”

“Why?”

“Because there ain’t three pipefuls of thet precious tobacco left.”

“Thet’s one apiece, then.... Lin, come an’ smoke the last pipe with us.”

The tallest of the three, he who had brought the firewood, stood in the bright light of the blaze. He looked the born rider, light, lithe, powerful.

“Sure, I’ll smoke,” he replied.

Then, presently, he accepted the pipe tendered him, and, sitting down beside the fire, he composed himself to the enjoyment which his companions evidently considered worthy of a decision they had reached.

“So this smokin’ means you both want to turn back?” queried Lin, his sharp gaze glancing darkly bright in the glow of the fire.

“Yep, we’ll turn back. An’, Lordy! the relief I feel!” replied one.

“We’ve been long comin’ to it, Lin, an’ thet was for your sake,” replied the other.

Lin slowly pulled at his pipe and blew out the smoke as if reluctant to part with it. “Let’s go on,” he said, quietly.

“No. I’ve had all I want of chasin’ thet damn wild stallion,” returned Bill, shortly.

The other spread wide his hands and bent an expostulating look upon the one called Lin. “We’re two hundred miles out,” he said. “There’s only a little flour left in the bag. No coffee! Only a little salt! All the hosses except your big Nagger are played out. We’re already in strange country. An’ you know what we’ve heerd of this an’ all to the south. It’s all canyons, an’ somewheres down there is thet awful canyon none of our people ever seen. But we’ve heerd of it. An awful cut-up country.”

He finished with a conviction that no one could say a word against the common sense of his argument. Lin was silent, as if impressed.

Bill raised a strong, lean, brown hand in a forcible gesture. “We can’t ketch Wildfire!”

That seemed to him, evidently, a more convincing argument than his comrade’s.

“Bill is sure right, if I’m wrong, which I ain’t,” went on the other. “Lin, we’ve trailed thet wild stallion for six weeks. Thet’s the longest chase he ever had. He’s left his old range. He’s cut out his band, an’ left them, one by one. We’ve tried every trick we know on him. An’ he’s too smart for us. There’s a hoss! Why, Lin, we’re all but gone to the dogs chasin’ Wildfire. An’ now I’m done, an’ I’m glad of it.”

There was another short silence, which presently Bill opened his lips to break.

“Lin, it makes me sick to quit. I ain’t denyin’ thet for a long time I’ve had hopes of ketchin’ Wildfire. He’s the grandest hoss I ever laid eyes on. I reckon no man, onless he was an Arab, ever seen as good a one. But now, thet’s neither here nor there.... We’ve got to hit the back trail.”

“Boys, I reckon I’ll stick to Wildfire’s tracks,” said Lin, in the same quiet tone.

Bill swore at him, and the other hunter grew excited and concerned.

“Lin Slone, are you gone plumb crazy over thet red hoss?”

“I — reckon,” replied Slone. The working of his throat as he swallowed could be plainly seen by his companions.

Bill looked at his ally as if to confirm some sudden understanding between them. They took Slone’s attitude gravely and they wagged their heads doubtfully, as they might have done had Slone just acquainted them with a hopeless and deathless passion for a woman. It was significant of the nature of riders that they accepted his attitude and had consideration for his feelings. For them the situation subtly changed. For weeks they had been three wild-horse wranglers on a hard chase after a valuable stallion. They had failed to get even close to him. They had gone to the limit of their endurance and of the outfit, and it was time to turn back. But Slone had conceived that strange and rare longing for a horse — a passion understood, if not shared, by all riders. And they knew that he would catch Wildfire or die in the attempt. From that moment their attitude toward Slone changed as subtly as had come the knowledge of his feeling. The gravity and gloom left their faces. It seemed they might have regretted what they had said about the futility of catching Wildfire. They did not want Slone to see or feel the hopelessness of his task.

“I tell you, Lin,” said Bill, “your hoss Nagger’s as good as when we started.”

“Aw, he’s better,” vouchsafed the other rider. “Nagger needed to lose some weight. Lin, have you got an extra set of shoes for him?”

“No full set. Only three left,” replied Lin, soberly.

“Wal, thet’s enough. You can keep Nagger shod. An’ MEBBE thet red stallion will get sore feet an’ go lame. Then you’d stand a chance.”

“But Wildfire keeps travelin’ the valleys — the soft ground,” said Slone.

“No matter. He’s leavin’ the country, an’ he’s bound to strike sandstone sooner or later. Then, by gosh! mebbe he’ll wear off them hoofs.”

“Say, can’t he ring bells offen the rocks?” exclaimed Bill. “Oh, Lordy! what a hoss!”

“Boys, do you think he’s leavin’ the country?” inquired Slone, anxiously.

“Sure he is,” replied Bill. “He ain’t the first stallion I’ve chased off the Sevier range. An’ I know. It’s a stallion thet makes for new country, when you push him hard.”

“Yep, Lin, he’s sure leavin’,” added the other comrade. “Why, he’s traveled a bee-line for days! I’ll bet he’s seen us many a time. Wildfire’s about as smart as any man. He was born wild, an’ his dam was born wild, an’ there you have it. The wildest of all wild creatures — a wild stallion, with the intelligence of a man! A grand hoss, Lin, but one thet’ll be hell, if you ever ketch him. He has killed stallions all over the Sevier range. A wild stallion thet’s a killer! I never liked him for thet. Could he be broke?”

“I’ll break him,” said Lin Slone, grimly. “It’s gettin’ him thet’s the job. I’ve got patience to break a hoss. But patience can’t catch a streak of lightnin’.”

“Nope; you’re right,” replied Bill. “If you have some luck you’ll get him — mebbe. If he wears out his feet, or if you crowd him into a narrow canyon, or ran him into a bad place where he can’t get by you. Thet might happen. An’ then, with Nagger, you stand a chance. Did you ever tire thet hoss?”

“Not yet.”

“An’ how fur did you ever run him without a break? Why, when we ketched thet sorrel last year I rode Nagger myself — thirty miles, most at a hard gallop. An’ he never turned a hair!”

“I’ve beat thet,” replied Lin. “He could run hard fifty miles — mebbe more. Honestly, I never seen him tired yet. If only he was fast!”

“Wal, Nagger ain’t so durned slow, come to think of thet,” replied Bill, with a grunt. “He’s good enough for you not to want another hoss.”

“Lin, you’re goin’ to wear out Wildfire, an’ then trap him somehow — is thet the plan?” asked the other comrade.

“I haven’t any plan. I’ll just trail him, like a cougar trails a deer.”

“Lin, if Wildfire gives you the slip he’ll have to fly. You’ve got the best eyes for tracks of any wrangler in Utah.”

Slone accepted the compliment with a fleeting, doubtful smile on his dark face. He did not reply, and no more was said by his comrades. They rolled with backs to the fire. Slone put on more wood, for the keen wind was cold and cutting; and then he lay down, his head in his saddle, with a goatskin under him and a saddle-blanket over him.

All three were soon asleep. The wind whipped the sand and ashes and smoke over the sleepers. Coyotes barked from near in darkness, and from the valley ridge came the faint mourn of a hunting wolf. The desert night grew darker and colder.

The Stewart brothers were wild-horse hunters for the sake of trades and occasional sales. But Lin Slone never traded nor sold a horse he had captured. The excitement of the game, and the lure of the desert, and the love of a horse were what kept him at the profitless work. His type was rare in the uplands.

These were the early days of the settlement of Utah, and only a few of the hardiest and most adventurous pioneers had penetrated the desert in the southern part of that vast upland. And with them came some of that wild breed of riders to which Slone and the Stewarts belonged. Horses were really more important and necessary than men; and this singular fact gave these lonely riders a calling.

Before the Spaniards came there were no horses in the West. Those explorers left or lost horses all over the southwest. Many of them were Arabian horses of purest blood. American explorers and travelers, at the outset of the nineteenth century, encountered countless droves of wild horses all over the plains. Across the Grand Canyon, however, wild horses were comparatively few in number in the early days; and these had probably come in by way of California.

The Stewarts and Slone had no established mode of catching wild horses. The game had not developed fast enough for that. Every chase of horse or drove was different; and once in many attempts they met with success.

A favorite method originated by the Stewarts was to find a water-hole frequented by the band of horses or the stallion wanted, and to build round this hole a corral with an opening for the horses to get in. Then the hunters would watch the trap at night, and if the horses went in to drink, a gate was closed across the opening. Another method of the Stewarts was to trail a coveted horse up on a mesa or highland, places which seldom had more than one trail of ascent and descent, and there block the escape, and cut lines of cedars, into which the quarry was ran till captured. Still another method, discovered by accident, was to shoot a horse lightly in the neck and sting him. This last, called creasing, was seldom successful, and for that matter in any method ten times as many horses were killed as captured.

Lin Slone helped the Stewarts in their own way, but he had no especial liking for their tricks. Perhaps a few remarkable captures of remarkable horses had spoiled Slone. He was always trying what the brothers claimed to be impossible. He was a fearless rider, but he had the fault of saving his mount, and to kill a wild horse was a tragedy for him. He would much rather have hunted alone, and he had been alone on the trail of the stallion Wildfire when the Stewarts had joined him.

Lin Slone awoke next morning and rolled out of his blanket at his usual early hour. But he was not early enough to say good-by to the Stewarts. They were gone.

The fact surprised him and somehow relieved him. They had left him more than his share of the outfit, and perhaps that was why they had slipped off before dawn. They knew him well enough to know that he would not have accepted it. Besides, perhaps they felt a little humiliation at abandoning a chase which he chose to keep up. Anyway, they were gone, apparently without breakfast.

The morning was clear, cool, with the air dark like that before a storm, and in the east, over the steely wall of stone, shone a redness growing brighter.

Slone looked away to the west, down the trail taken by his comrades, but he saw nothing moving against that cedar-dotted waste.

“Good-by,” he said, and he spoke as if he was saying good-by to more than comrades.

“I reckon I won’t see Sevier Village soon again — an’ maybe never,” he soliloquized.

There was no one to regret him, unless it was old Mother Hall, who had been kind to him on those rare occasions when he got out of the wilderness. Still, it was with regret that he gazed away across the red valley to the west. Slone had no home. His father and mother had been lost in the massacre of a wagon-train by Indians, and he had been one of the few saved and brought to Salt Lake. That had happened when he was ten years old. His life thereafter had been hard, and but for his sturdy Texas training he might not have survived. The last five years he had been a horse-hunter in the wild uplands of Nevada and Utah.

Slone turned his attention to the pack of supplies. The Stewarts had divided the flour and the parched corn equally, and unless he was greatly mistaken they had left him most of the coffee and all of the salt.

“Now I hold that decent of Bill an’ Abe,” said Slone, regretfully. “But I could have got along without it better ‘n they could.”

Then he swiftly set about kindling a fire and getting a meal. In the midst of his task a sudden ruddy brightness fell around him. Lin Slone paused in his work to look up.

The sun had risen over the eastern wall.

“Ah!” he said, and drew a deep breath.

The cold, steely, darkling sweep of desert had been transformed. It was now a world of red earth and gold rocks and purple sage, with everywhere the endless straggling green cedars. A breeze whipped in, making the fire roar softly. The sun felt warm on his cheek. And at the moment he heard the whistle of his horse.

“Good old Nagger!” he said. “I shore won’t have to track you this mornin’.”

Presently he went off into the cedars to find Nagger and the mustang that he used to carry a pack. Nagger was grazing in a little open patch among the trees, but the pack-horse was missing. Slone seemed to know in what direction to go to find the trail, for he came upon it very soon. The pack-horse wore hobbles, but he belonged to the class that could cover a great deal of ground when hobbled. Slone did not expect the horse to go far, considering that the grass thereabouts was good. But in a wild-horse country it was not safe to give any horse a chance. The call of his wild brethren was irresistible. Slone, however, found the mustang standing quietly in a clump of cedars, and, removing the hobbles, he mounted and rode back to camp. Nagger caught sight of him and came at his call.

This horse Nagger appeared as unique in his class as Slone was rare among riders. Nagger seemed of several colors, though black predominated. His coat was shaggy, almost woolly, like that of a sheep. He was huge, raw-boned, knotty, long of body and long of leg, with the head of a war charger. His build did not suggest speed. There appeared to be something slow and ponderous about him, similar to an elephant, with the same suggestion of power and endurance. Slone discarded the pack-saddle and bags. The latter were almost empty. He roped the tarpaulin on the back of the mustang, and, making a small bundle of his few supplies, he tied that to the tarpaulin. His blanket he used for a saddle-blanket on Nagger. Of the utensils left by the Stewarts he chose a couple of small iron pans, with long handles. The rest he left. In his saddle-bags he had a few extra horseshoes, some nails, bullets for his rifle, and a knife with a heavy blade.

“Not a rich outfit for a far country,” he mused. Slone did not talk very much, and when he did he addressed Nagger and himself simultaneously. Evidently he expected a long chase, one from which he would not return, and light as his outfit was it would grow too heavy.

Then he mounted and rode down the gradual slope, facing the valley and the black, bold, flat mountain to the southeast. Some few hundred yards from camp he halted Nagger and bent over in the saddle to scrutinize the ground.

The clean-cut track of a horse showed in the bare, hard sand. The hoof-marks were large, almost oval, perfect in shape, and manifestly they were beautiful to Lin Slone. He gazed at them for a long time, and then he looked across the dotted red valley up the vast ridgy steps, toward the black plateau and beyond. It was the look that an Indian gives to a strange country. Then Slone slipped off the saddle and knelt to scrutinize the horse tracks. A little sand had blown into the depressions, and some of it was wet and some of it was dry. He took his time about examining it, and he even tried gently blowing other sand into the tracks, to compare that with what was already there. Finally he stood up and addressed Nagger.

“Reckon we won’t have to argue with Abe an’ Bill this mornin’,” he said, with satisfaction. “Wildfire made that track yesterday, before sun-up.”

Thereupon Slone remounted and put Nagger to a trot. The pack-horse followed with an alacrity that showed he had no desire for loneliness.

As straight as a bee-line Wildfire had left a trail down into the floor of the valley. He had not stopped to graze, and he had not looked for water. Slone had hoped to find a water-hole in one of the deep washes in the red earth, but if there had been any water there Wildfire would have scented it. He had not had a drink for three days that Slone knew of. And Nagger had not drunk for forty hours. Slone had a canvas water-bag hanging over the pommel, but it was a habit of his to deny himself, as far as possible, till his horse could drink also. Like an Indian, Slone ate and drank but little.

It took four hours of steady trotting to reach the middle and bottom of that wide, flat valley. A network of washes cut up the whole center of it, and they were all as dry as bleached bone. To cross these Slone had only to keep Wildfire’s trail. And it was proof of Nagger’s quality that he did not have to veer from the stallion’s course.

It was hot down in the lowland. The heat struck up, reflected from the sand. But it was a March sun, and no more than pleasant to Slone. The wind rose, however, and blew dust and sand in the faces of horse and rider. Except lizards, Slone did not see any living things.

Miles of low greasewood and sparse yellow sage led to the first almost imperceptible rise of the valley floor on that side. The distant cedars beckoned to Slone. He was not patient, because he was on the trail of Wildfire; but, nevertheless, the hours seemed short.

Slone had no past to think about, and the future held nothing except a horse, and so his thoughts revolved the possibilities connected with this chase of Wildfire. The chase was hopeless in such country as he was traversing, and if Wildfire chose to roam around valleys like this one Slone would fail utterly. But the stallion had long ago left his band of horses, and then, one by one his favorite consorts, and now he was alone, headed with unerring instinct for wild, untrammeled ranges. He had been used to the pure, cold water and the succulent grass of the cold desert uplands. Assuredly he would not tarry in such barren lands as these.

For Slone an ever-present and growing fascination lay in Wildfire’s clear, sharply defined tracks. It was as if every hoof-mark told him something. Once, far up the interminable ascent, he found on a ridge-top tracks showing where Wildfire had halted and turned.

“Ha, Nagger!” cried Slone, exultingly. “Look there! He’s begun facin’ about. He’s wonderin’ if we’re still after him. He’s worried.... But we’ll keep out of sight — a day behind.”

When Slone reached the cedars the sun was low down in the west. He looked back across the fifty miles of valley to the colored cliffs and walls. He seemed to be above them now, and the cool air, with tang of cedar and juniper, strengthened the impression that he had climbed high.

A mile or more ahead of him rose a gray cliff with breaks in it and a line of dark cedars or pinyons on the level rims. He believed these breaks to be the mouths of canyons, and so it turned out. Wildfire’s trail led into the mouth of a narrow canyon with very steep and high walls. Nagger snorted his perception of water, and the mustang whistled. Wildfire’s tracks led to a point under the wall where a spring gushed forth. There were mountain-lion and deer tracks also, as well as those of smaller game.

Slone made camp here. The mustang was tired. But Nagger, upon taking a long drink, rolled in the grass as if he had just begun the trip. After eating, Slone took his rifle and went out to look for deer. But there appeared to be none at hand. He came across many lion tracks and saw, with apprehension, where one had taken Wildfire’s trail. Wildfire had grazed up the canyon, keeping on and on, and he was likely to go miles in a night. Slone reflected that as small as were his own chances of getting Wildfire, they were still better than those of a mountain-lion. Wildfire was the most cunning of all animals — a wild stallion; his speed and endurance were incomparable; his scent as keen as those animals that relied wholly upon scent to warn them of danger, and as for sight, it was Slone’s belief that no hoofed creature, except the mountain-sheep used to high altitudes, could see as far as a wild horse.

It bothered Slone a little that he was getting into a lion country. Nagger showed nervousness, something unusual for him. Slone tied both horses with long halters and stationed them on patches of thick grass. Then he put a cedar stump on the fire and went to sleep. Upon awakening and going to the spring he was somewhat chagrined to see that deer had come down to drink early. Evidently they were numerous. A lion country was always a deer country, for the lions followed the deer.

Slone was packed and saddled and on his way before the sun reddened the canyon wall. He walked the horses. From time to time he saw signs of Wildfire’s consistent progress. The canyon narrowed and the walls grew lower and the grass increased. There was a decided ascent all the time. Slone could find no evidence that the canyon had ever been traveled by hunters or Indians. The day was pleasant and warm and still. Every once in a while a little breath of wind would bring a fragrance of cedar and pinyon, and a sweet hint of pine and sage. At every turn he looked ahead, expecting to see the green of pine and the gray of sage. Toward the middle of the afternoon, coming to a place where Wildfire had taken to a trot, he put Nagger to that gait, and by sundown had worked up to where the canyon was only a shallow ravine. And finally it turned once more, to lose itself in a level where straggling pines stood high above the cedars, and great, dark-green silver spruces stood above the pines. And here were patches of sage, fresh and pungent, and long reaches of bleached grass. It was the edge of a forest. Wildfire’s trail went on. Slone came at length to a group of pines, and here he found the remains of a camp-fire, and some flint arrow-heads. Indians had been in there, probably having come from the opposite direction to Slone’s. This encouraged him, for where Indians could hunt so could he. Soon he was entering a forest where cedars and pinyons and pines began to grow thickly. Presently he came upon a faintly defined trail, just a dim, dark line even to an experienced eye. But it was a trail, and Wildfire had taken it.

Slone halted for the night. The air was cold. And the dampness of it gave him an idea there were snow-banks somewhere not far distant. The dew was already heavy on the grass. He hobbled the horses and put a bell on Nagger. A bell might frighten lions that had never heard one. Then he built a fire and cooked his meal.

It had been long since he had camped high up among the pines. The sough of the wind pleased him, like music. There had begun to be prospects of pleasant experience along with the toil of chasing Wildfire. He was entering new and strange and beautiful country. How far might the chase take him? He did not care. He was not sleepy, but even if he had been it developed that he must wait till the coyotes ceased their barking round his camp-fire. They came so close that he saw their gray shadows in the gloom. But presently they wearied of yelping at him and went away. After that the silence, broken only by the wind as it roared and lulled, seemed beautiful to Slone. He lost completely that sense of vague regret which had remained with him, and he forgot the Stewarts. And suddenly he felt absolutely free, alone, with nothing behind to remember, with wild, thrilling, nameless life before him. Just then the long mourn of a timber wolf wailed in with the wind. Seldom had he heard the cry of one of those night wanderers. There was nothing like it — no sound like it to fix in the lone camper’s heart the great solitude and the wild.

CHAPTER V

IN THE EARLY morning when all was gray and the big, dark pines were shadowy specters, Slone was awakened by the cold. His hands were so numb that he had difficulty starting a fire. He stood over the blaze, warming them. The air was nipping, clear and thin, and sweet with frosty fragrance.

Daylight came while he was in the midst of his morning meal. A white frost covered the ground and crackled under his feet as he went out to bring in the horses. He saw fresh deer tracks. Then he went back to camp for his rifle. Keeping a sharp lookout for game, he continued his search for the horses.

The forest was open and park-like. There were no fallen trees or evidences of fire. Presently he came to a wide glade in the midst of which Nagger and the pack-mustang were grazing with a herd of deer. The size of the latter amazed Slone. The deer he had hunted back on the Sevier range were much smaller than these. Evidently these were mule deer, closely allied to the elk. They were so tame they stood facing him curiously, with long ears erect. It was sheer murder to kill a deer standing and watching like that, but Slone was out of meat and hungry and facing a long, hard trip. He shot a buck, which leaped spasmodically away, trying to follow the herd, and fell at the edge of the glade. Slone cut out a haunch, and then, catching the horses, he returned to camp, where he packed and saddled, and at once rode out on the dim trail.

The wildness of the country he was entering was evident in the fact that as he passed the glade where he had shot the deer a few minutes before, there were coyotes quarreling over the carcass.

Stone could see ahead and on each side several hundred yards, and presently he ascertained that the forest floor was not so level as he had supposed. He had entered a valley or was traversing a wide, gently sloping pass. He went through thickets of juniper, and had to go around clumps of quaking aspen. The pines grew larger and farther apart. Cedars and pinyons had been left behind, and he had met with no silver spruces after leaving camp. Probably that point was the height of a divide. There were banks of snow in some of the hollows on the north side. Evidently the snow had very recently melted, and it was evident also that the depth of snow through here had been fully ten feet, judging from the mutilation of the juniper-trees where the deer, standing on the hard, frozen crust, had browsed upon the branches.

The quiet of the forest thrilled Slone. And the only movement was the occasional gray flash of a deer or coyote across a glade. No birds of any species crossed Stone’s sight. He came, presently, upon a lion track in the trail, made probably a day before. Slone grew curious about it, seeing how it held, as he was holding, to Wildfire’s tracks. After a mile or so he made sure the lion had been trailing the stallion, and for a second he felt a cold contraction of his heart. Already he loved Wildfire, and by virtue of all this toil of travel considered the wild horse his property.

“No lion could ever get close to Wildfire,” he soliloquized, with a short laugh. Of that he was absolutely certain.

The sun rose, melting the frost, and a breath of warm air, laden with the scent of pine, moved heavily under the huge, yellow trees. Slone passed a point where the remains of an old camp-fire and a pile of deer antlers were further proof that Indians visited this plateau to hunt. From this camp broader, more deeply defined trails led away to the south and east. Slone kept to the east trail, in which Wildfire’s tracks and those of the lion showed clearly. It was about the middle of the forenoon when the tracks of the stallion and lion left the trail to lead up a little draw where grass grew thick. Slone followed, reading the signs of Wildfire’s progress, and the action of his pursuer, as well as if he had seen them. Here the stallion had plowed into a snow-bank, eating a hole two feet deep; then he had grazed around a little; then on and on; there his splendid tracks were deep in the soft earth. Slone knew what to expect when the track of the lion veered from those of the horse, and he followed the lion tracks. The ground was soft from the late melting of snow, and Nagger sunk deep. The lion left a plain track. Here he stole steadily along; there he left many tracks at a point where he might have halted to make sure of his scent. He was circling on the trail of the stallion, with cunning intent of ambush. The end of this slow, careful stalk of the lion, as told in his tracks, came upon the edge of a knoll where he had crouched to watch and wait.

From this perch he had made a magnificent spring — Slone estimating it to be forty feet — but he had missed the stallion. There were Wildfire’s tracks again, slow and short, and then deep and sharp where in the impetus of fright he had sprung out of reach. A second leap of the lion, and then lessening bounds, and finally an abrupt turn from Wildfire’s trail told the futility of that stalk. Slone made certain that Wildfire was so keen that as he grazed along he had kept to open ground.

Wildfire had run for a mile, then slowed down to a trot, and he had circled to get back to the trail he had left. Slone believed the horse was just so intelligent. At any rate, Wildfire struck the trail again, and turned at right angles to follow it.

Here the forest floor appeared perfectly level. Patches of snow became frequent, and larger as Slone went on. At length the patches closed up, and soon extended as far as he could see. It was soft, affording difficult travel. Slone crossed hundreds of deer tracks, and the trail he was on eventually became a deer runway.

Presently, far down one of the aisles between the great pines Slone saw what appeared to be a yellow cliff, far away. It puzzled him. And as he went on he received the impression that the forest dropped out of sight ahead. Then the trees grew thicker, obstructing his view. Presently the trail became soggy and he had to help his horse. The mustang floundered in the soft snow and earth. Cedars and pinyons appeared again, making travel still more laborious.

All at once there came to Slone a strange consciousness of light and wind and space and void. On the instant his horse halted with a snort. Slone quickly looked up. Had he come to the end of the world? An abyss, a canyon, yawned beneath him, beyond all comparison in its greatness. His keen eye, educated to desert distance and dimension, swept down and across, taking in the tremendous truth, before it staggered his comprehension. But a second sweeping glance, slower, becoming intoxicated with what it beheld, saw gigantic cliff-steps and yellow slopes dotted with cedars, leading down to clefts filled with purple smoke, and these led on and on to a ragged red world of rock, bare, shining, bold, uplifted in mesa, dome, peak, and crag, clear and strange in the morning light, still and sleeping like death.

This, then, was the great canyon, which had seemed like a hunter’s fable rather than truth. Slone’s sight dimmed, blurring the spectacle, and he found that his eyes had filled with tears. He wiped them away and looked again and again, until he was confounded by the vastness and the grandeur and the vague sadness of the scene. Nothing he had ever looked at had affected him like this canyon, although the Stewarts had tried to prepare him for it.

It was the horse-hunter’s passion that reminded him of his pursuit. The deer trail led down through a break in the wall. Only a few rods of it could be seen. This trail was passable, even though choked with snow. But the depth beyond this wall seemed to fascinate Slone and hold him back, used as he was to desert trails. Then the clean mark of Wildfire’s hoof brought back the old thrill.

“This place fits you, Wildfire,” muttered Slone, dismounting.

He started down, leading Nagger. The mustang followed. Slone kept to the wall side of the trail, fearing the horses might slip. The snow held firmly at first and Slone had no trouble. The gap in the rim-rock widened to a slope thickly grown over with cedars and pinyons and manzanita. This growth made the descent more laborious, yet afforded means at least for Slone to go down with less danger. There was no stopping. Once started, the horses had to keep on. Slone saw the impossibility of ever climbing out while that snow was there. The trail zigzagged down and down. Very soon the yellow wall hung tremendously over him, straight up. The snow became thinner and softer. The horses began to slip. They slid on their haunches. Fortunately the slope grew less steep, and Slone could see below where it reached out to comparatively level ground. Still, a mishap might yet occur. Slone kept as close to Nagger as possible, helping him whenever he could do it. The mustang slipped, rolled over, and then slipped past Slone, went down the slope to bring up in a cedar. Slone worked down to him and extricated him. Then the huge Nagger began to slide. Snow and loose rock slid with him, and so did Slone. The little avalanche stopped of its own accord, and then Slone dragged Nagger on down and down, presently to come to the end of the steep descent. Slone looked up to see that he had made short work of a thousand-foot slope. Here cedars and pinyons grew thickly enough to make a forest. The snow thinned out to patches, and then failed. But the going remained bad for a while as the horses sank deep in a soft red earth. This eventually grew more solid and finally dry. Slone worked out of the cedars to what appeared a grassy plateau inclosed by the great green-and-white slope with its yellow wall over hanging, and distant mesas and cliffs. Here his view was restricted. He was down on the first bench of the great canyon. And there was the deer trail, a well-worn path keeping to the edge of the slope. Slone came to a deep cut in the earth, and the trail headed it, where it began at the last descent of the slope. It was the source of a canyon. He could look down to see the bare, worn rock, and a hundred yards from where he stood the earth was washed from its rims and it began to show depth and something of that ragged outline which told of violence of flood. The trail headed many canyons like this, all running down across this bench, disappearing, dropping invisibly. The trail swung to the left under the great slope, and then presently it climbed to a higher bench. Here were brush and grass and huge patches of sage, so pungent that it stung Slone’s nostrils. Then he went down again, this time to come to a clear brook lined by willows. Here the horses drank long and Slone refreshed himself. The sun had grown hot. There was fragrance of flowers he could not see and a low murmur of a waterfall that was likewise invisible. For most of the time his view was shut off, but occasionally he reached a point where through some break he saw towers gleaming red in the sun. A strange place, a place of silence, and smoky veils in the distance. Time passed swiftly. Toward the waning of the afternoon he began to climb to what appeared to be a saddle of land, connecting the canyon wall on the left with a great plateau, gold-rimmed and pine-fringed, rising more and more in his way as he advanced. At sunset Slone was more shut in than for several hours. He could tell the time was sunset by the golden light on the cliff wall again overhanging him. The slope was gradual up to this pass to the saddle, and upon coming to a spring, and the first pine-trees, he decided to halt for a camp. The mustang was almost exhausted.

Thereupon he hobbled the horses in the luxuriant grass round the spring, and then unrolled his pack. Once as dusk came stealing down, while he was eating his meal, Nagger whistled in fright. Slone saw a gray, pantherish form gliding away into the shadows. He took a quick shot at it, but missed.

“It’s a lion country, all right,” he said. And then he set about building a big fire on the other side of the grassy plot, so to have the horses between fires. He cut all the venison into thin strips, and spent an hour roasting them. Then he lay down to rest, and he said: “Wonder where Wildfire is to-night? Am I closer to him? Where’s he headin’ for?”

The night was warm and still. It was black near the huge cliff, and overhead velvety blue, with stars of white fire. It seemed to him that he had become more thoughtful and observing of the aspects of his wild environment, and he felt a welcome consciousness of loneliness. Then sleep came to him and the night seemed short. In the gray dawn he arose refreshed.

The horses were restive. Nagger snorted a welcome. Evidently they had passed an uneasy night. Slone found lion tracks at the spring and in sandy places. Presently he was on his way up to the notch between the great wall and the plateau. A growth of thick scrub-oak made travel difficult. It had not appeared far up to that saddle, but it was far. There were straggling pine-trees and huge rocks that obstructed his gaze. But once up he saw that the saddle was only a narrow ridge, curved to slope up on both sides.

Straight before Slone and under him opened the canyon, blazing and glorious along the peaks and ramparts, where the rising sun struck, misty and smoky and shadowy down in those mysterious depths.

It took an effort not to keep on gazing. But Slone turned to the grim business of his pursuit. The trail he saw leading down had been made by Indians. It was used probably once a year by them; and also by wild animals, and it was exceedingly steep and rough. Wildfire had paced to and fro along the narrow ridge of that saddle, making many tracks, before he had headed down again. Slone imagined that the great stallion had been daunted by the tremendous chasm, but had finally faced it, meaning to put this obstacle between him and his pursuers. It never occurred to Slone to attribute less intelligence to Wildfire than that. So, dismounting, Slone took Nagger’s bridle and started down. The mustang with the pack was reluctant. He snorted and whistled and pawed the earth. But he would not be left alone, so he followed.

The trail led down under cedars that fringed a precipice. Slone was aware of this without looking. He attended only to the trail and to his horse. Only an Indian could have picked out that course, and it was cruel to put a horse to it. But Nagger was powerful, sure-footed, and he would go anywhere that Slone led him. Gradually Slone worked down and away from the bulging rim-wall. It was hard, rough work, and risky because it could not be accomplished slowly. Brush and rocks, loose shale and weathered slope, long, dusty inclines of yellow earth, and jumbles of stone — these made bad going for miles of slow, zigzag trail down out of the cedars. Then the trail entered what appeared to be a ravine.

That ravine became a canyon. At its head it was a dry wash, full of gravel and rocks. It began to cut deep into the bowels of the earth. It shut out sight of the surrounding walls and peaks. Water appeared from under a cliff and, augmented by other springs, became a brook. Hot, dry, and barren at its beginning, this cleft became cool and shady and luxuriant with grass and flowers and amber moss with silver blossoms. The rocks had changed color from yellow to deep red. Four hours of turning and twisting, endlessly down and down, over boulders and banks and every conceivable roughness of earth and rock, finished the pack-mustang; and Slone mercifully left him in a long reach of canyon where grass and water never failed. In this place Slone halted for the noon hour, letting Nagger have his fill of the rich grazing. Nagger’s three days in grassy upland, despite the continuous travel by day, had improved him. He looked fat, and Slone had not yet caught the horse resting. Nagger was iron to endure. Here Slone left all the outfit except what was on his saddle, and the sack containing the few pounds of meat and supplies, and the two utensils. This sack he tied on the back of his saddle, and resumed his journey.

Presently he came to a place where Wildfire had doubled on his trail and had turned up a side canyon. The climb out was hard on Slone, if not on Nagger. Once up, Slone found himself upon a wide, barren plateau of glaring red rock and clumps of greasewood and cactus. The plateau was miles wide, shut in by great walls and mesas of colored rock. The afternoon sun beat down fiercely. A blast of wind, as if from a furnace, swept across the plateau, and it was laden with red dust. Slone walked here, where he could have ridden. And he made several miles of up-and-down progress over this rough plateau. The great walls of the opposite side of the canyon loomed appreciably closer. What, Slone wondered, was at the bottom of this rent in the earth? The great desert river was down there, of course, but he knew nothing of it. Would that turn back Wildfire? Slone thought grimly how he had always claimed Nagger to be part fish and part bird. Wildfire was not going to escape.

By and by only isolated mescal plants with long, yellow-plumed spears broke the bare monotony of the plateau. And Slone passed from red sand and gravel to a red, soft shale, and from that to hard, red rock. Here Wildfire’s tracks were lost, the first time in seven weeks. But Slone had his direction down that plateau with the cleavage lines of canyons to right and left. At times Slone found a vestige of the old Indian trail, and this made him doubly sure of being right. He did not need to have Wildfire’s tracks. He let Nagger pick the way, and the horse made no mistake in finding the line of least resistance. But that grew harder and harder. This bare rock, like a file, would soon wear Wildfire’s hoofs thin. And Slone rejoiced. Perhaps somewhere down in this awful chasm he and Nagger would have it out with the stallion. Slone began to look far ahead, beginning to believe that he might see Wildfire. Twice he had seen Wildfire, but only at a distance. Then he had resembled a running streak of fire, whence his name, which Slone had given him.

This bare region of rock began to be cut up into gullies. It was necessary to head them or to climb in and out. Miles of travel really meant little progress straight ahead. But Slone kept on. He was hot and Nagger was hot, and that made hard work easier. Sometimes on the wind came a low thunder. Was it a storm or an avalanche slipping or falling water? He could not tell. The sound was significant and haunting.

Of one thing he was sure — that he could not have found his back-trail. But he divined he was never to retrace his steps on this journey. The stretch of broken plateau before him grew wilder and bolder of outline, darker in color, weirder in aspect, and progress across it grew slower, more dangerous. There were many places Nagger should not have been put to — where a slip meant a broken leg. But Slone could not turn back. And something besides an indomitable spirit kept him going. Again the sound resembling thunder assailed his ears, louder this time. The plateau appeared to be ending in a series of great capes or promontories. Slone feared he would soon come out upon a promontory from which he might see the impossibility of further travel. He felt relieved down in the gullies, where he could not see far. He climbed out of one, presently, from which there extended a narrow ledge with a slant too perilous for any horse. He stepped out upon that with far less confidence than Nagger. To the right was a bulge of low wall, and a few feet to the left a dark precipice. The trail here was faintly outlined, and it was six inches wide and slanting as well. It seemed endless to Slone, that ledge. He looked only down at his feet and listened to Nagger’s steps. The big horse trod carefully, but naturally, and he did not slip. That ledge extended in a long curve, turning slowly away from the precipice, and ascending a little at the further end. Slone, drew a deep breath of relief when he led Nagger up on level rock.

Suddenly a strange yet familiar sound halted Slone, as if he had been struck. The wild, shrill, high-pitched, piercing whistle of a stallion! Nagger neighed a blast in reply and pounded the rock with his iron-shod hoofs. With a thrill Slone looked ahead.

There, some few hundred yards distant, on a promontory, stood a red horse.

“My Lord! ... It’s Wildfire!” breathed Slone, tensely.

He could not believe his sight. He imagined he was dreaming. But as Nagger stamped and snorted defiance Slone looked with fixed and keen gaze, and knew that beautiful picture was no lie.

Wildfire was as red as fire. His long mane, wild in the wind, was like a whipping, black-streaked flame. Silhouetted there against that canyon background he seemed gigantic, a demon horse, ready to plunge into fiery depths. He was looking back over his shoulder, his head very high, and every line of him was instinct with wildness. Again he sent out that shrill, air-splitting whistle. Slone understood it to be a clarion call to Nagger. If Nagger had been alone Wildfire would have killed him. The red stallion was a killer of horses. All over the Utah ranges he had left the trail of a murderer. Nagger understood this, too, for he whistled back in rage and terror. It took an iron arm to hold him. Then Wildfire plunged, apparently down, and vanished from Slone’s sight.

Slone hurried onward, to be blocked by a huge crack in the rocky plateau. This he had to head. And then another and like obstacle checked his haste to reach that promontory. He was forced to go more slowly. Wildfire had been close only as to sight. And this was the great canyon that dwarfed distance and magnified proximity. Climbing down and up, toiling on, he at last learned patience. He had seen Wildfire at close range. That was enough. So he plodded on, once more returning to careful regard of Nagger. It took an hour of work to reach the point where Wildfire had disappeared.

A promontory indeed it was, overhanging a valley a thousand feet below. A white torrent of a stream wound through it. There were lines of green cottonwoods following the winding course. Then Slone saw Wildfire slowly crossing the flat toward the stream. He had gone down that cliff, which to Slone looked perpendicular.

Wildfire appeared to be walking lame. Slone, making sure of this, suffered a pang. Then, when the significance of such lameness dawned upon him he whooped his wild joy and waved his hat. The red stallion must have heard, for he looked up. Then he went on again and waded into the stream, where he drank long. When he started to cross, the swift current drove him back in several places. The water wreathed white around him. But evidently it was not deep, and finally he crossed. From the other side he looked up again at Nagger and Slone, and, going on, he soon was out of sight in the cottonwoods.

“How to get down!” muttered Slone.

There was a break in the cliff wall, a bare stone slant where horses had gone down and come up. That was enough for Slone to know. He would have attempted the descent if he were sure no other horse but Wildfire had ever gone down there. But Slone’s hair began to rise stiff on his head. A horse like Wildfire, and mountain sheep and Indian ponies, were all very different from Nagger. The chances were against Nagger.

“Come on, old boy. If I can do it, you can,” he said.

Slone had never seen a trail as perilous as this. He was afraid for his horse. A slip there meant death. The way Nagger trembled in every muscle showed his feelings. But he never flinched. He would follow Slone anywhere, providing Slone rode him or led him. And here, as riding was impossible, Slone went before. If the horse slipped there would be a double tragedy, for Nagger would knock his master off the cliff. Slone set his teeth and stepped down. He did not let Nagger see his fear. He was taking the greatest risk he had ever run.

The break in the wall led to a ledge, and the ledge dropped from step to step, and these had bare, slippery slants between. Nagger was splendid on a bad trail. He had methods peculiar to his huge build and great weight. He crashed down over the stone steps, both front hoofs at once. The slants he slid down on his haunches with his forelegs stiff and the iron shoes scraping. He snorted and heaved and grew wet with sweat. He tossed his head at some of the places. But he never hesitated and it was impossible for him to go slowly. Whenever Slone came to corrugated stretches in the trail he felt grateful. But these were few. The rock was like smooth red iron. Slone had never seen such hard rock. It took him long to realize that it was marble. His heart seemed a tense, painful knot in his breast, as if it could not beat, holding back in the strained suspense. But Nagger never jerked on the bridle. He never faltered. Many times he slipped, often with both front feet, but never with all four feet. So he did not fall. And the red wall began to loom above Slone. Then suddenly he seemed brought to a point where it was impossible to descend. It was a round bulge, slanting fearfully, with only a few little rough surfaces to hold a foot. Wildfire had left a broad, clear-swept mark at that place, and red hairs on some of the sharp points. He had slid down. Below was an offset that fortunately prevented further sliding, Slone started to walk down this place, but when Nagger began to slide Slone had to let go the bridle and jump. Both he and the horse landed safely. Luck was with them. And they went on, down and down, to reach the base of the great wall, scraped and exhausted, wet with sweat, but unhurt. As Slone gazed upward he felt the impossibility of believing what he knew to be true. He hugged and petted the horse. Then he led on to the roaring stream.

It was green water white with foam. Slone waded in and found the water cool and shallow and very swift. He had to hold to Nagger to keep from being swept downstream. They crossed in safety. There in the sand showed Wildfire’s tracks. And here were signs of another Indian camp, half a year old.

The shade of the cottonwoods was pleasant. Slone found this valley oppressively hot. There was no wind and the sand blistered his feet through his boots. Wildfire held to the Indian trail that had guided him down into this wilderness of worn rock. And that trail crossed the stream at every turn of the twisting, narrow valley. Slone enjoyed getting into the water. He hung his gun over the pommel and let the water roll him. A dozen times he and Nagger forded the rushing torrent. Then they came to a box-like closing of the valley to canyon walls, and here the trail evidently followed the stream bed. There was no other way. Slone waded in, and stumbled, rolled, and floated ahead of the sturdy horse. Nagger was wet to his breast, but he did not fall. This gulch seemed full of a hollow rushing roar. It opened out into a wide valley. And Wildfire’s tracks took to the left side and began to climb the slope.

Here the traveling was good, considering what had been passed. Once up out of the valley floor Slone saw Wildfire far ahead, high on the slope. He did not appear to be limping, but he was not going fast. Slone watched as he climbed. What and where would be the end of this chase?

Sometimes Wildfire was plain in his sight for a moment, but usually he was hidden by rocks. The slope was one great talus, a jumble of weathered rock, fallen from what appeared a mountain of red and yellow wall. Here the heat of the sun fell upon him like fire. The rocks were so hot Slone could not touch them with bare hand. The close of the afternoon was approaching, and this slope was interminably long. Still, it was not steep, and the trail was good.

At last from the height of slope Wildfire appeared, looking back and down. Then he was gone. Slone plodded upward. Long before he reached that summit be heard the dull rumble of the river. It grew to be a roar, yet it seemed distant. Would the great desert river stop Wildfire in his flight? Slone doubted it. He surmounted the ridge, to find the canyon opening in a tremendous gap, and to see down, far down, a glittering, sun-blasted slope merging into a deep, black gulch where a red river swept and chafed and roared.

Somehow the river was what he had expected to see. A force that had cut and ground this canyon could have been nothing but a river like that. The trail led down, and Slone had no doubt that it crossed the river and led up out of the canyon. He wanted to stay there and gaze endlessly and listen. At length he began the descent. As he proceeded it seemed that the roar of the river lessened. He could not understand why this was so. It took half an hour to reach the last level, a ghastly, black, and iron-ribbed canyon bed, with the river splitting it. He had not had a glimpse of Wildfire on this side of the divide, but he found his tracks, and they led down off the last level, through a notch in the black bank of marble to a sand-bar and the river.

Wildfire had walked straight off the sand into the water. Slone studied the river and shore. The water ran slow, heavily, in sluggish eddies. From far up the canyon came the roar of a rapid, and from below the roar of another, heavier and closer. The river appeared tremendous, in ways Slone felt rather than realized, yet it was not swift. Studying the black, rough wall of rock above him, he saw marks where the river had been sixty feet higher than where he stood on the sand. It was low, then. How lucky for him that he had gotten there before flood season! He believed Wildfire had crossed easily, and he knew Nagger could make it. Then he piled and tied his supplies and weapons high on the saddle, to keep them dry, and looked for a place to take to the water.

Wildfire had sunk deep before reaching the edge. Manifestly he had lunged the last few feet. Slone found a better place, and waded in, urging Nagger. The big horse plunged, almost going under, and began to swim. Slone kept up-stream beside him. He found, presently, that the water was thick and made him tired, so it was necessary to grasp a stirrup and be towed. The river appeared only a few hundred feet wide, but probably it was wider than it looked. Nagger labored heavily near the opposite shore; still, he landed safely upon a rocky bank. There were patches of sand in which Wildfire’s tracks showed so fresh that the water had not yet dried out of them.

Slone rested his horse before attempting to climb out of that split in the rock. However, Wildfire had found an easy ascent. On this side of the canyon the bare rock did not predominate. A clear trail led up a dusty, gravelly slope, upon which scant greasewood and cactus appeared. Half an hour’s climbing brought Slone to where he could see that he was entering a vast valley, sloping up and narrowing to a notch in the dark cliffs, above which towered the great red wall and about that the slopes of cedar and the yellow rim-rock.

And scarcely a mile distant, bright in the westering sunlight, shone the red stallion, moving slowly.

Slone pressed on steadily. Just before dark he came to an ideal spot to camp. The valley had closed up, so that the lofty walls cast shadows that met. A clump of cottonwoods surrounding a spring, abundance of rich grass, willows and flowers lining the banks, formed an oasis in the bare valley. Slone was tired out from the day of ceaseless toil down and up, and he could scarcely keep his eyes open. But he tried to stay awake. The dead silence of the valley, the dry fragrance, the dreaming walls, the advent of night low down, when up on the ramparts the last red rays of the sun lingered, the strange loneliness — these were sweet and comforting to him.

And that night’s sleep was as a moment. He opened his eyes to see the crags and towers and peaks and domes, and the lofty walls of that vast, broken chaos of canyons across the river. They were now emerging from the misty gray of dawn, growing pink and lilac and purple under the rising sun.

He arose and set about his few tasks, which, being soon finished, allowed him an early start.

Wildfire had grazed along no more than a mile in the lead. Slone looked eagerly up the narrowing canyon, but he was not rewarded by a sight of the stallion. As he progressed up a gradually ascending trail he became aware of the fact that the notch he had long looked up to was where the great red walls closed in and almost met. And the trail zigzagged up this narrow vent, so steep that only a few steps could be taken without rest. Slone toiled up for an hour — an age — till he was wet, burning, choked, with a great weight on his chest. Yet still he was only half-way up that awful break between the walls. Sometimes he could have tossed a stone down upon a part of the trail, only a few rods below, yet many, many weary steps of actual toil. As he got farther up the notch widened. What had been scarcely visible from the valley below was now colossal in actual dimensions. The trail was like a twisted mile of thread between two bulging mountain walls leaning their ledges and fronts over this tilted pass.

Slone rested often. Nagger appreciated this and heaved gratefully at every halt. In this monotonous toil Slone forgot the zest of his pursuit. And when Nagger suddenly snorted in fright Slone was not prepared for what he saw.

Above him ran a low, red wall, around which evidently the trail led. At the curve, which was a promontory, scarcely a hundred feet in an airline above him, he saw something red moving, bobbing, coming out into view. It was a horse.

Wildfire — no farther away than the length of three lassoes!

There he stood looking down. He fulfilled all of Slone’s dreams. Only he was bigger. But he was so magnificently proportioned that he did not seem heavy. His coat was shaggy and red. It was not glossy. The color was what made him shine. His mane was like a crest, mounting, then failing low. Slone had never seen so much muscle on a horse. Yet his outline was graceful, beautiful. The head was indeed that of the wildest of all wild creatures — a stallion born wild — and it was beautiful, savage, splendid, everything but noble. Whatever Wildfire was, he was a devil, a murderer — he had no noble attributes. Slone thought that if a horse could express hate, surely Wildfire did then. It was certain that he did express curiosity and fury.

Slone shook a gantleted fist at the stallion, as if the horse were human. That was a natural action for a rider of his kind. Wildfire turned away, showed bright against the dark background, and then disappeared.

CHAPTER VI

THAT WAS THE last Slone saw of Wildfire for three days.

It took all of this day to climb out of the canyon. The second was a slow march of thirty miles into a scrub cedar and pinyon forest, through which the great red and yellow walls of the canyon could be seen. That night Slone found a water-hole in a rocky pocket and a little grass for Nagger. The third day’s travel consisted of forty miles or more through level pine forest, dry and odorous, but lacking the freshness and beauty of the forest on the north side of the canyon. On this south side a strange feature was that all the water, when there was any, ran away from the rim. Slone camped this night at a muddy pond in the woods, where Wildfire’s tracks showed plainly.

On the following day Slone rode out of the forest into a country of scanty cedars, bleached and stunted, and out of this to the edge of a plateau, from which the shimmering desert flung its vast and desolate distances, forbidding and menacing. This was not the desert upland country of Utah, but a naked and bony world of colored rock and sand — a painted desert of heat and wind and flying sand and waterless wastes and barren ranges. But it did not daunt Slone. For far down on the bare, billowing ridges moved a red speck, at a snail’s pace, a slowly moving dot of color which was Wildfire.

On open ground like this, Nagger, carrying two hundred and fifty pounds, showed his wonderful quality. He did not mind the heat nor the sand nor the glare nor the distance nor his burden. He did not tire. He was an engine of tremendous power.

Slone gained upon Wildfire, and toward evening of that day he reached to within half a mile of the stallion. And he chose to keep that far behind. That night he camped where there was dry grass, but no water.

Next day he followed Wildfire down and down, over the endless swell of rolling red ridges, bare of all but bleached white grass and meager greasewood, always descending in the face of that painted desert of bold and ragged steps. Slone made fifty miles that day, and gained the valley bed, where a slender stream ran thin and spread over a wide sandy bottom. It was salty water, but it was welcome to both man and beast.

The following day he crossed, and the tracks of Wildfire were still wet on the sand-bars. The stallion was slowing down. Slone saw him, limping along, not far in advance. There was a ten-mile stretch of level ground, blown hard as rock, from which the sustenance had been bleached, for not a spear of grass grew there. And following that was a tortuous passage through a weird region of clay dunes, blue and violet and heliotrope and lavender, all worn smooth by rain and wind. Wildfire favored the soft ground now. He had deviated from his straight course. And he was partial to washes and dips in the earth where water might have lodged. And he was not now scornful of a green-scummed water-hole with its white margin of alkali. That night Slone made camp with Wildfire in plain sight. The stallion stopped when his pursuers stopped. And he began to graze on the same stretch with Nagger. How strange this seemed to Slone!

Here at this camp was evidence of Indians. Wildfire had swung round to the north in his course. Like any pursued wild animal, he had began to circle. And he had pointed his nose toward the Utah he had left.

Next morning Wildfire was not in sight, but he had left his tracks in the sand. Slone trailed him with Nagger at a trot. Toward the head of this sandy flat Slone came upon old corn-fields, and a broken dam where the water had been stored, and well-defined trails leading away to the right. Somewhere over there in the desert lived Indians. At this point Wildfire abandoned the trail he had followed for many days and cut out more to the north. It took all the morning hours to climb three great steps and benches that led up to the summit of a mesa, vast in extent. It turned out to be a sandy waste. The wind rose and everywhere were moving sheets of sand, and in the distance circular yellow dust-devils, rising high like waterspouts, and back down in the sun-scorched valley a sandstorm moved along majestically, burying the desert in its yellow pall.

Then two more days of sand and another day of a slowly rising ground growing from bare to gray and gray to green, and then to the purple of sage and cedar — these three grinding days were toiled out with only one water-hole.

And Wildfire was lame and in distress and Nagger was growing gaunt and showing strain; and Slone, haggard and black and worn, plodded miles and miles on foot to save his horse.

Slone felt that it would be futile to put the chase to a test of speed. Nagger could never head that stallion. Slone meant to go on and on, always pushing Wildfire, keeping him tired, wearied, and worrying him, till a section of the country was reached where he could drive Wildfire into some kind of a natural trap. The pursuit seemed endless. Wildfire kept to open country where he could not be surprised.

There came a morning when Slone climbed to a cedared plateau that rose for a whole day’s travel, and then split into a labyrinthine maze of canyons. There were trees, grass, water. It was a high country, cool and wild, like the uplands he had left. For days he camped on Wildfire’s trail, always relentlessly driving him, always watching for the trap he hoped to find. And the red stallion spent much of this time of flight in looking backward. Whenever Slone came in sight of him he had his head over his shoulder, watching. And on the soft ground of these canyons he had begun to recover from his lameness. But this did not worry Slone. Sooner or later Wildfire would go down into a high-walled wash, from which there would be no outlet; or he would wander into a box-canyon; or he would climb out on a mesa with no place to descend, unless he passed Slone; or he would get cornered on a soft, steep slope where his hoofs would sink deep and make him slow. The nature of the desert had changed. Slone had entered a wonderful region, the like of which he had not seen — a high plateau crisscrossed in every direction by narrow canyons with red walls a thousand feet high.

And one of the strange turning canyons opened into a vast valley of monuments.

The plateau had weathered and washed away, leaving huge sections of stone walls, all standing isolated, different in size and shape, but all clean-cut, bold, with straight lines. They stood up everywhere, monumental, towering, many-colored, lending a singular and beautiful aspect to the great green-and-gray valley, billowing away to the north, where dim, broken battlements mounted to the clouds.

The only living thing in Slone’s sight was Wildfire. He shone red down on the green slope.

Slone’s heart swelled. This was the setting for that grand horse — a perfect wild range. But also it seemed the last place where there might be any chance to trap the stallion. Still that did not alter Slone’s purpose, though it lost to him the joy of former hopes. He rode down the slope, out upon the billowing floor of the valley. Wildfire looked back to see his pursuers, and then the solemn stillness broke to a wild, piercing whistle.

Day after day, camping where night found him, Slone followed the stallion, never losing sight of him till darkness had fallen. The valley was immense and the monuments miles apart. But they always seemed close together and near him. The air magnified everything. Slone lost track of time. The strange, solemn, lonely days and the silent, lonely nights, and the endless pursuit, and the wild, weird valley — these completed the work of years on Slone and he became satisfied, unthinking, almost savage.

The toil and privation had worn him down and he was like iron. His garments hung in tatters; his boots were ripped and soleless. Long since his flour had been used up, and all his supplies except the salt. He lived on the meat of rabbits, but they were scarce, and the time came when there were none. Some days he did not eat. Hunger did not make him suffer. He killed a desert bird now and then, and once a wildcat crossing the valley. Eventually he felt his strength diminishing, and then he took to digging out the pack-rats and cooking them. But these, too, were scarce. At length starvation faced Slone. But he knew he would not starve. Many times he had been within rifle-shot of Wildfire. And the grim, forbidding thought grew upon him that he must kill the stallion. The thought seemed involuntary, but his mind rejected it. Nevertheless, he knew that if he could not catch the stallion he would kill him. That had been the end of many a desperate rider’s pursuit of a coveted horse.

While Slone kept on his merciless pursuit, never letting Wildfire rest by day, time went on just as relentlessly. Spring gave way to early summer. The hot sun bleached the grass; water-holes failed out in the valley, and water could be found only in the canyons; and the dry winds began to blow the sand. It was a sandy valley, green and gray only at a distance, and out toward the north there were no monuments, and the slow heave of sand lifted toward the dim walls.

Wildfire worked away from this open valley, back to the south end, where the great monuments loomed, and still farther back, where they grew closer, till at length some of them were joined by weathered ridges to the walls of the surrounding plateau. For all that Slone could see, Wildfire was in perfect condition. But Nagger was not the horse he had been. Slone realized that in one way or another the pursuit was narrowing down to the end.

He found a water-hole at the head of a wash in a split in the walls, and here he let Nagger rest and graze one whole day — the first day for a long time that he had not kept the red stallion in sight. That day was marked by the good fortune of killing a rabbit, and while eating it his gloomy, fixed mind admitted that he was starving. He dreaded the next sunrise. But he could not hold it back. There, behind the dark monuments, standing sentinel-like, the sky lightened and reddened and burst into gold and pink, till out of the golden glare the sun rose glorious. And Slone, facing the league-long shadows of the monuments, rode out again into the silent, solemn day, on his hopeless quest.

For a change Wildfire had climbed high up a slope of talus, through a narrow pass, rounded over with drifting sand. And Slone gazed down into a huge amphitheater full of monuments, like all that strange country. A basin three miles across lay beneath him. Walls and weathered slants of rock and steep slopes of reddish-yellow sand inclosed this oval depression. The floor was white, and it seemed to move gently or radiate with heat-waves. Studying it, Slone made out that the motion was caused by wind in long bleached grass. He had crossed small areas of this grass in different parts of the region.

Wildfire’s tracks led down into this basin, and presently Slone, by straining his eyes, made out the red spot that was the stallion.

“He’s lookin’ to quit the country,” soliloquized Slone, as he surveyed the scene.

With keen, slow gaze Slone studied the lay of wall and slope, and when he had circled the huge depression he made sure that Wildfire could not get out except by the narrow pass through which he had gone in. Slone sat astride Nagger in the mouth of this pass — a wash a few yards wide, walled by broken, rough rock on one side and an insurmountable slope on the other.

“If this hole was only little, now,” sighed Slone, as he gazed at the sweeping, shimmering oval floor, “I might have a chance. But down there — we couldn’t get near him.”

There was no water in that dry bowl. Slone reflected on the uselessness of keeping Wildfire down there, because Nagger could not go without water as long as Wildfire. For the first time Slone hesitated. It seemed merciless to Nagger to drive him down into this hot, windy hole. The wind blew from the west, and it swooped up the slope, hot, with the odor of dry, dead grass.

But that hot wind stirred Slone with an idea, and suddenly he was tense, excited, glowing, yet grim and hard.

“Wildfire, I’ll make you run with your namesake in that high grass,” called Slone. The speech was full of bitter failure, of regret, of the hardness of a rider who could not give up the horse to freedom.

Slone meant to ride down there and fire the long grass. In that wind there would indeed be wildfire to race with the red stallion. It would perhaps mean his death; at least it would chase him out of that hole, where to follow him would be useless.

“I’d make you hump now to get away if I could get behind you,” muttered Slone. He saw that if he could fire the grass on the other side the wind of flame would drive Wildfire straight toward him. The slopes and walls narrowed up to the pass, but high grass grew to within a few rods of where Slone stood. But it seemed impossible to get behind Wildfire.

“At night — then — I could get round him,” said Slone, thinking hard and narrowing his gaze to scan the circle of wall and slope. “Why not? ... No wind at night. That grass would burn slow till mornin’ — till the wind came up — an’ it’s been west for days.”

Suddenly Slone began to pound the patient Nagger and to cry out to him in wild exultance.

“Old horse, we’ve got him! ... We’ve got him! ... We’ll put a rope on him before this time to-morrow!”

Slone yielded to his strange, wild joy, but it did not last long, soon succeeding to sober, keen thought. He rode down into the bowl a mile, making absolutely certain that Wildfire could not climb out on that side. The far end, beyond the monuments, was a sheer wall of rock. Then he crossed to the left side. Here the sandy slope was almost too steep for even him to go up. And there was grass that would burn. He returned to the pass assured that Wildfire had at last fallen into a trap the like Slone had never dreamed of. The great horse was doomed to run into living flame or the whirling noose of a lasso.

Then Slone reflected. Nagger had that very morning had his fill of good water — the first really satisfying drink for days. If he was rested that day, on the morrow he would be fit for the grueling work possibly in store for him. Slone unsaddled the horse and turned him loose, and with a snort he made down the gentle slope for the grass. Then Slone carried his saddle to a shady spot afforded by a slab of rock and a dwarf cedar, and here he composed himself to rest and watch and think and wait.

Wildfire was plainly in sight no more than two miles away. Gradually he was grazing along toward the monuments and the far end of the great basin. Slone believed, because the place was so large, that Wildfire thought there was a way out on the other side or over the slopes or through the walls. Never before had the far-sighted stallion made a mistake. Slone suddenly felt the keen, stabbing fear of an outlet somewhere. But it left him quickly. He had studied those slopes and walls. Wildfire could not get out, except by the pass he had entered, unless he could fly.

Slone lay in the shade, his head propped on his saddle, and while gazing down into the shimmering hollow he began to plan. He calculated that he must be able to carry fire swiftly across the far end of the basin, so that he would not be absent long from the mouth of the pass. Fire was always a difficult matter, since he must depend only on flint and steel. He decided to wait till dark, build a fire with dead cedar sticks, and carry a bundle of them with burning ends. He felt assured that the wind caused by riding would keep them burning. After he had lighted the grass all he had to do was to hurry back to his station and there await developments.

The day passed slowly, and it was hot. The heat-waves rose in dark, wavering lines and veils from the valley. The wind blew almost a gale. Thin, curling sheets of sand blew up over the crests of the slopes, and the sound it made was a soft, silken rustling, very low. The sky was a steely blue above and copper close over the distant walls.

That afternoon, toward the close, Slone ate the last of the meat. At sunset the wind died away and the air cooled. There was a strip of red along the wall of rock and on the tips of the monuments, and it lingered there for long, a strange, bright crown. Nagger was not far away, but Wildfire had disappeared, probably behind one of the monuments.

When twilight fell Slone went down after Nagger and, returning with him, put on bridle and saddle. Then he began to search for suitable sticks of wood. Farther back in the pass he found stunted dead cedars, and from these secured enough for his purpose. He kindled a fire and burnt the ends of the sticks into red embers. Making a bundle of these, he put them under his arm, the dull, glowing ends backward, and then mounted his horse.

It was just about dark when he faced down into the valley. When he reached level ground he kept to the edge of the left slope and put Nagger to a good trot. The grass and brush were scant here, and the color of the sand was light, so he had no difficulty in traveling.

From time to time his horse went through grass, and its dry, crackling rustle, showing how it would burn, was music to Slone. Gradually the monuments began to loom up, bold and black against the blue sky, with stars seemingly hanging close over them. Slone had calculated that the basin was smaller than it really was, in both length and breadth. This worried him. Wildfire might see or hear or scent him, and make a break back to the pass and thus escape. Slone was glad when the huge, dark monuments were indistinguishable from the black, frowning wall. He had to go slower here, because of the darkness. But at last he reached the slow rise of jumbled rock that evidently marked the extent of weathering on that side. Here he turned to the right and rode out into the valley. The floor was level and thickly overgrown with long, dead grass and dead greasewood, as dry as tinder. It was easy to account for the dryness; neither snow nor rain had visited that valley for many months. Slone whipped one of the sticks in the wind and soon had the smoldering end red and showering sparks. Then he dropped the stick in the grass, with curious intent and a strange feeling of regret.

Instantly the grass blazed with a little sputtering roar. Nagger snorted. “Wildfire!” exclaimed Slone. That word was a favorite one with riders, and now Slone used it both to call out his menace to the stallion and to express his feeling for that blaze, already running wild.

Without looking back Slone rode across the valley, dropping a glowing stick every quarter of a mile. When he reached the other side there were a dozen fires behind him, burning slowly, with white smoke rising lazily. Then he loped Nagger along the side back to the sandy ascent, and on up to the mouth of the pass. There he searched for tracks. Wildfire had not gone out, and Slone experienced relief and exultation. He took up a position in the middle of the narrowest part of the pass, and there, with Nagger ready for anything, he once more composed himself to watch and wait.

Far across the darkness of the valley, low down, twelve lines of fire, widely separated, crept toward one another. They appeared thin and slow, with only an occasional leaping flame. And some of the black spaces must have been monuments, blotting out the creeping snail-lines of red. Slone watched, strangely fascinated.

“What do you think of that?” he said, aloud, and he meant his query for Wildfire.

As he watched the lines perceptibly lengthened and brightened and pale shadows of smoke began to appear. Over at the left of the valley the two brightest fires, the first he had started, crept closer and closer together. They seemed long in covering distance. But not a breath of wind stirred, and besides they really might move swiftly, without looking so to Slone. When the two lines met a sudden and larger blaze rose.

“Ah!” said the rider, and then he watched the other lines creeping together. How slowly fire moved, he thought. The red stallion would have every chance to run between those lines, if he dared. But a wild horse feared nothing like fire. This one would not run the gantlet of flames. Nevertheless, Slone felt more and more relieved as the lines closed. The hours of the night dragged past until at length one long, continuous line of fire spread level across the valley, its bright, red line broken only where the monuments of stone were silhouetted against it.

The darkness of the valley changed. The light of the moon changed. The radiance of the stars changed. Either the line of fire was finding denser fuel to consume or it was growing appreciably closer, for the flames began to grow, to leap, and to flare.

Slone strained his ears for the thud of hoofs on sand.

The time seemed endless in its futility of results, but fleeting after it had passed; and he could tell how the hours fled by the ever-recurring need to replenish the little fire he kept burning in the pass.

A broad belt of valley grew bright in the light, and behind it loomed the monuments, weird and dark, with columns of yellow and white smoke wreathing them.

Suddenly Slone’s sensitive ear vibrated to a thrilling sound. He leaned down to place his ear to the sand. Rapid, rhythmic beat of hoofs made him leap to his feet, reaching for his lasso with right hand and a gun with his left.

Nagger lifted his head, sniffed the air, and snorted. Slone peered into the black belt of gloom that lay below him. It would be hard to see a horse there, unless he got high enough to be silhouetted against that line of fire now flaring to the sky. But he heard the beat of hoofs, swift, sharp, louder — louder. The night shadows were deceptive. That wonderful light confused him, made the place unreal. Was he dreaming? Or had the long chase and his privations unhinged his mind? He reached for Nagger. No! The big black was real, alive, quivering, pounding the sand. He scented an enemy.

Once more Slone peered down into the void or what seemed a void. But it, too, had changed, lightened. The whole valley was brightening. Great palls of curling smoke rose white and yellow, to turn back as the monuments met their crests, and then to roll upward, blotting out the stars. It was such a light as he had never seen, except in dreams. Pale moonlight and dimmed starlight and wan dawn all vague and strange and shadowy under the wild and vivid light of burning grass.

In the pale path before Slone, that fanlike slope of sand which opened down into the valley, appeared a swiftly moving black object, like a fleeting phantom. It was a phantom horse. Slone felt that his eyes, deceived by his mind, saw racing images. Many a wild chase he had lived in dreams on some far desert. But what was that beating in his ears — sharp, swift, even, rhythmic? Never had his ears played him false. Never had he heard things in his dreams. That running object was a horse and he was coming like the wind. Slone felt something grip his heart. All the time and endurance and pain and thirst and suspense and longing and hopelessness — the agony of the whole endless chase — closed tight on his heart in that instant.

The running horse halted just in the belt of light cast by the burning grass. There he stood sharply defined, clear as a cameo, not a hundred paces from Slone. It was Wildfire.

Slone uttered an involuntary cry. Thrill on thrill shot through him. Delight and hope and fear and despair claimed him in swift, successive flashes. And then again the ruling passion of a rider held him — the sheer glory of a grand and unattainable horse. For Slone gave up Wildfire in that splendid moment. How had he ever dared to believe he could capture that wild stallion? Slone looked and looked, filling his mind, regretting nothing, sure that the moment was reward for all he had endured.

The weird lights magnified Wildfire and showed him clearly. He seemed gigantic. He shone black against the fire. His head was high, his mane flying. Behind him the fire flared and the valley-wide column of smoke rolled majestically upward, and the great monuments seemed to retreat darkly and mysteriously as the flames advanced beyond them. It was a beautiful, unearthly spectacle, with its silence the strangest feature.

But suddenly Wildfire broke that silence with a whistle which to Slone’s overstrained faculties seemed a blast as piercing as the splitting sound of lightning. And with the whistle Wildfire plunged up toward the pass. Slone yelled at the top of his lungs and fired his gun before he could terrorize the stallion and drive him back down the slope. Soon Wildfire became again a running black object, and then he disappeared.

The great line of fire had gotten beyond the monuments and now stretched unbroken across the valley from wall to slope. Wildfire could never pierce that line of flames. And now Slone saw, in the paling sky to the east, that dawn was at hand.

CHAPTER VII

SLONE LOOKED GRIMLY glad when simultaneously with the first red flash of sunrise a breeze fanned his cheek. All that was needed now was a west wind. And here came the assurance of it.

The valley appeared hazy and smoky, with slow, rolling clouds low down where the line of fire moved. The coming of daylight paled the blaze of the grass, though here and there Slone caught flickering glimpses of dull red flame. The wild stallion kept to the center of the valley, restlessly facing this way and that, but never toward the smoke. Slone made sure that Wildfire gradually gave ground as the line of smoke slowly worked toward him.

Every moment the breeze freshened, grew steadier and stronger, until Slone saw that it began to clear the valley of the low-hanging smoke. There came a time when once more the blazing line extended across from slope to slope.

Wildfire was cornered, trapped. Many times Slone nervously uncoiled and recoiled his lasso. Presently the great chance of his life would come — the hardest and most important throw he would ever have with a rope. He did not miss often, but then he missed sometimes, and here he must be swift and sure. It annoyed him that his hands perspired and trembled and that something weighty seemed to obstruct his breathing. He muttered that he was pretty much worn out, not in the best of condition for a hard fight with a wild horse. Still he would capture Wildfire; his mind was unalterably set there. He anticipated that the stallion would make a final and desperate rush past him; and he had his plan of action all outlined. What worried him was the possibility of Wildfire doing some unforeseen feat at the very last. Slone was prepared for hours of strained watching, and then a desperate effort, and then a shock that might kill Wildfire and cripple Nagger, or a long race and fight.

But he soon discovered that he was wrong about the long watch and wait. The wind had grown strong and was driving the fire swiftly. The flames, fanned by the breeze, leaped to a formidable barrier. In less than an hour, though the time seemed only a few moments to the excited Slone, Wildfire had been driven down toward the narrowing neck of the valley, and he had begun to run, to and fro, back and forth. Any moment, then, Slone expected him to grow terrorized and to come tearing up toward the pass.

Wildfire showed evidence of terror, but he did not attempt to make the pass. Instead he went at the right-hand slope of the valley and began to climb. The slope was steep and soft, yet the stallion climbed up and up. The dust flew in clouds; the gravel rolled down, and the sand followed in long streams. Wildfire showed his keenness by zigzagging up the slope.

“Go ahead, you red devil!” yelled Slone. He was much elated. In that soft bank Wildfire would tire out while not hurting himself.

Slone watched the stallion in admiration and pity and exultation. Wildfire did not make much headway, for he slipped back almost as much as he gained. He attempted one place after another where he failed. There was a bank of clay, some few feet high, and he could not round it at either end or surmount it in the middle. Finally he literally pawed and cut a path, much as if he were digging in the sand for water. When he got over that he was not much better off. The slope above was endless and grew steeper, more difficult toward the top. Slone knew absolutely that no horse could climb over it. He grew apprehensive, however, for Wildfire might stick up there on the slope until the line of fire passed. The horse apparently shunned any near proximity to the fire, and performed prodigious efforts to escape.

“He’ll be ridin’ an avalanche pretty soon,” muttered Slone.

Long sheets of sand and gravel slid down to spill thinly over the low bank. Wildfire, now sinking to his knees, worked steadily upward till he had reached a point halfway up the slope, at the head of a long, yellow bank of treacherous-looking sand. Here he was halted by a low bulge, which he might have surmounted had his feet been free. But he stood deep in the sand. For the first time he looked down at the sweeping fire, and then at Slone.

Suddenly the bank of sand began to slide with him. He snorted in fright. The avalanche started slowly and was evidently no mere surface slide. It was deep. It stopped — then started again — and again stopped. Wildfire appeared to be sinking deeper and deeper. His struggles only embedded him more firmly. Then the bank of sand, with an ominous, low roar, began to move once more. This time it slipped swiftly. The dust rose in a cloud, almost obscuring the horse. Long streams of gravel rattled down, and waterfalls of sand waved over the steps of the slope.

Just as suddenly the avalanche stopped again. Slone saw, from the great oval hole it had left above, that it was indeed deep. That was the reason it did not slide readily. When the dust cleared away Slone saw the stallion, sunk to his flanks in the sand, utterly helpless.

With a wild whoop Slone leaped off Nagger, and, a lasso in each hand, he ran down the long bank. The fire was perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, and, since the grass was thinning out, it was not coming so fast as it had been. The position of the stallion was half-way between the fire and Slone, and a hundred yards up the slope.

Like a madman Slone climbed up through the dragging, loose sand. He was beside himself with a fury of excitement. He fancied his eyes were failing him, that it was not possible the great horse really was up there, helpless in the sand. Yet every huge stride Slone took brought him closer to a fact he could not deny. In his eagerness he slipped, and fell, and crawled, and leaped, until he reached the slide which held Wildfire prisoner.

The stallion might have been fast in quicksand, up to his body, for all the movement he could make. He could move only his head. He held that up, his eyes wild, showing the whites, his foaming mouth wide open, his teeth gleaming. A sound like a scream rent the air. Terrible fear and hate were expressed in that piercing neigh. And shaggy, wet, dusty red, with all of brute savageness in the look and action of his head, he appeared hideous.

As Slone leaped within roping distance the avalanche slipped a foot or two, halted, slipped once more, and slowly started again with that low roar. He did not care whether it slipped or stopped. Like a wolf he leaped closer, whirling his rope. The loop hissed round his head and whistled as he flung it. And when fiercely he jerked back on the rope, the noose closed tight round Wildfire’s neck.

“By G — d — I — got — a rope — on him!” cried Slone, in hoarse pants.

He stared, unbelieving. It was unreal, that sight — unreal like the slow, grinding movement of the avalanche under him. Wildfire’s head seemed a demon head of hate. It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend. That horrible scream could not be the scream of a horse.

Slone was a wild-horse hunter, a rider, and when that second of incredulity flashed by, then came the moment of triumph. No moment could ever equal that one, when he realized he stood there with a rope around that grand stallion’s neck. All the days and the miles and the toil and the endurance and the hopelessness and the hunger were paid for in that moment. His heart seemed too large for his breast.

“I tracked — you!” he cried, savagely. “I stayed — with you! ... An’ I got a rope — on you! An’ — I’ll ride you — you red devil!”

The passion of the man was intense. That endless, racking pursuit had brought out all the hardness the desert had engendered in him. Almost hate, instead of love, spoke in Slone’s words. He hauled on the lasso, pulling the stallion’s head down and down. The action was the lust of capture as well as the rider’s instinctive motive to make the horse fear him. Life was unquenchably wild and strong in that stallion; it showed in the terror which made him hideous. And man and beast somehow resembled each other in that moment which was inimical to noble life.

The avalanche slipped with little jerks, as if treacherously loosing its hold for a long plunge. The line of fire below ate at the bleached grass and the long column of smoke curled away on the wind.

Slone held the taut lasso with his left hand, and with the right he swung the other rope, catching the noose round Wildfire’s nose. Then letting go of the first rope he hauled on the other, pulling the head of the stallion far down. Hand over hand Slone closed in on the horse. He leaped on Wildfire’s head, pressed it down, and, holding it down on the sand with his knees, with swift fingers he tied the noose in a hackamore — an improvised halter. Then, just as swiftly, he bound his scarf tight round Wildfire’s head, blindfolding him.

“All so easy!” exclaimed Slone, under his breath. “Lord! who would believe it! ... Is it a dream?”

He rose and let the stallion have a free head.

“Wildfire, I got a rope on you — an’ a hackamore — an’ a blinder,” said Slone. “An’ if I had a bridle I’d put that on you.... Who’d ever believe you’d catch yourself, draggin’ in the sand?”

Slone, finding himself failing on the sand, grew alive to the augmented movement of the avalanche. It had begun to slide, to heave and bulge and crack. Dust rose in clouds from all around. The sand appeared to open and let him sink to his knees. The rattle of gravel was drowned in a soft roar. Then he shot down swiftly, holding the lassoes, keeping himself erect, and riding as if in a boat. He felt the successive steps of the slope, and then the long incline below, and then the checking and rising and spreading of the avalanche as it slowed down on the level. All movement then was checked violently. He appeared to be half buried in sand. While he struggled to extricate himself the thick dust blew away and settled so that he could see. Wildfire lay before him, at the edge of the slide, and now he was not so deeply embedded as he had been up on the slope. He was struggling and probably soon would have been able to get out. The line of fire was close now, but Slone did not fear that.

At his shrill whistle Nagger bounded toward him, obedient, but snorting, with ears laid back. He halted. A second whistle started him again. Slone finally dug himself out of the sand, pulled the lassoes out, and ran the length of them toward Nagger. The black showed both fear and fight. His eyes roiled and he half shied away.

“Come on!” called Slone, harshly.

He got a hand on the horse, pulled him round, and, mounting in a flash, wound both lassoes round the pommel of the saddle.

“Haul him out, Nagger, old boy!” cried Slone, and he dug spurs into the black.

One plunge of Nagger’s slid the stallion out of the sand. Snorting, wild, blinded, Wildfire got up, shaking in every limb. He could not see his enemies. The blowing smoke, right in his nose, made scent impossible. But in the taut lassoes he sensed the direction of his captors. He plunged, rearing at the end of the plunge, and struck out viciously with his hoofs. Slone, quick with spur and bridle, swerved Nagger aside and Wildfire, off his balance, went down with a crash. Slone dragged him, stretched him out, pulled him over twice before he got forefeet planted. Once up, he reared again, screeching his rage, striking wildly with his hoofs. Slone wheeled aside and toppled him over again.

“Wildfire, it’s no fair fight,” he called, grimly. “But you led me a chase.... An’ you learn right now I’m boss!”

Again he dragged the stallion. He was ruthless. He would have to be so, stopping just short of maiming or killing the horse, else he would never break him. But Wildfire was nimble. He got to his feet and this time he lunged out. Nagger, powerful as he was, could not sustain the tremendous shock, and went down. Slone saved himself with a rider’s supple skill, falling clear of the horse, and he leaped again into the saddle as Nagger pounded up. Nagger braced his huge frame and held the plunging stallion. But the saddle slipped a little, the cinches cracked. Slone eased the strain by wheeling after Wildfire.

The horses had worked away from the fire, and Wildfire, free of the stifling smoke, began to break and lunge and pitch, plunging round Nagger in a circle, running blindly, but with unerring scent. Slone, by masterly horsemanship, easily avoided the rushes, and made a pivot of Nagger, round which the wild horse dashed in his frenzy. It seemed that he no longer tried to free himself. He lunged to kill.

“Steady, Nagger, old boy!” Slone kept calling. “He’ll never get at you.... If he slips that blinder I’ll kill him!”

The stallion was a fiend in his fury, quicker than a panther, wonderful on his feet, and powerful as an ox. But he was at a disadvantage. He could not see. And Slone, in his spoken intention to kill Wildfire should the scarf slip, acknowledged that he never would have a chance to master the stallion. Wildfire was bigger, faster, stronger than Slone had believed, and as for spirit, that was a grand and fearful thing to see.

The soft sand in the pass was plowed deep before Wildfire paused in his mad plunges. He was wet and heaving. His red coat seemed to blaze. His mane stood up and his ears lay flat.

Slone uncoiled the lassoes from the pommel and slacked them a little. Wildfire stood up, striking at the air, snorting fiercely. Slone tried to wheel Nagger in close behind the stallion. Both horse and man narrowly escaped the vicious hoofs. But Slone had closed in. He took a desperate chance and spurred Nagger in a single leap as Wildfire reared again. The horses collided. Slone hauled the lassoes tight. The impact threw Wildfire off his balance, just as Slone had calculated, and as the stallion plunged down on four feet Slone spurred Nagger close against him. Wildfire was a little in the lead. He could only half rear now, for the heaving, moving Nagger, always against him, jostled him down, and Slone’s iron arm hauled on the short ropes. When Wildfire turned to bite, Slone knocked the vicious nose back with a long swing of his fist.

Up the pass the horses plunged. With a rider’s wild joy Slone saw the long green-and-gray valley, and the isolated monuments in the distance. There, on that wide stretch, he would break Wildfire. How marvelously luck had favored him at the last!

“Run, you red devil!” Slone called. “Drag us around now till you’re done!”

They left the pass and swept out upon the waste of sage. Slone realized, from the stinging of the sweet wind in his face, that Nagger was being pulled along at a tremendous pace. The faithful black could never have made the wind cut so. Lower the wild stallion stretched and swifter he ran, till it seemed to Slone that death must end that thunderbolt race.

CHAPTER VIII

LUCY BOSTIL HAD called twice to her father and he had not answered. He was out at the hitching-rail, with Holley, the rider, and two other men. If he heard Lucy he gave no sign of it. She had on her chaps and did not care to go any farther than the door where she stood.

“Somers has gone to Durango an’ Shugrue is out huntin’ hosses,” Lucy heard Bostil say, gruffly.

“Wal now, I reckon I could handle the boat an’ fetch Creech’s hosses over,” said Holley.

Bostil raised an impatient hand, as if to wave aside Holley’s assumption.

Then one of the other two men spoke up. Lucy had seen him before, but did not know his name.

“Sure there ain’t any need to rustle the job. The river hain’t showed any signs of risin’ yet. But Creech is worryin’. He allus is worryin’ over them hosses. No wonder! Thet Blue Roan is sure a hoss. Yesterday at two miles he showed Creech he was a sight faster than last year. The grass is gone over there. Creech is grainin’ his stock these last few days. An’ thet’s expensive.”

“How about the flat up the canyon?” queried Bostil. “Ain’t there any grass there?”

“Reckon not. It’s the dryest spell Creech ever had,” replied the other. “An’ if there was grass it wouldn’t do him no good. A landslide blocked the only trail up.”

“Bostil, them hosses, the racers special, ought to be brought acrost the river,” said Holley, earnestly. He loved horses and was thinking of them.

“The boat’s got to be patched up,” replied Bostil, shortly.

It occurred to Lucy that her father was also thinking of Creech’s thoroughbreds, but not like Holley. She grew grave and listened intently.

There was an awkward pause. Creech’s rider, whoever he was, evidently tried to conceal his anxiety. He flicked his boots with a quirt. The boots were covered with wet mud. Probably he had crossed the river very recently.

“Wal, when will you have the hosses fetched over?” he asked, deliberately. “Creech’ll want to know.”

“Just as soon as the boat’s mended,” replied Bostil. “I’ll put Shugrue on the job to-morrow.”

“Thanks, Bostil. Sure, thet’ll be all right. Creech’ll be satisfied,” said the rider, as if relieved. Then he mounted, and with his companion trotted down the lane.

The lean, gray Holley bent a keen gaze upon Bostil. But Bostil did not notice that; he appeared preoccupied in thought.

“Bostil, the dry winter an’ spring here ain’t any guarantee thet there wasn’t a lot of snow up in the mountains.” Holley’s remark startled Bostil.

“No — it ain’t — sure,” he replied.

“An’ any mornin’ along now we might wake up to hear the Colorado boomin’,” went on Holley, significantly.

Bostil did not reply to that.

“Creech hain’t lived over there so many years. What’s he know about the river? An’ fer that matter, who knows anythin’ sure about thet hell-bent river?”

“It ain’t my business thet Creech lives over there riskin’ his stock every spring,” replied Bostil, darkly.

Holley opened his lips to speak, hesitated, looked away from Bostil, and finally said, “No, it sure ain’t.” Then he turned and walked away, head bent in sober thought. Bostil came toward the open door where Lucy stood. He looked somber. At her greeting he seemed startled.

“What?” he said.

“I just said, ‘Hello, Dad,’” she replied, demurely. Yet she thoughtfully studied her father’s dark face.

“Hello yourself.... Did you know Van got throwed an’ hurt?”

“Yes.”

Bostil swore under his breath. “There ain’t any riders on the range thet can be trusted,” he said, disgustedly. “They’re all the same. They like to get in a bunch an’ jeer each other an’ bet. They want MEAN hosses. They make good hosses buck. They haven’t any use for a hoss thet won’t buck. They all want to give a hoss a rakin’ over.... Think of thet fool Van gettin’ throwed by a two-dollar Ute mustang. An’ hurt so he can’t ride for days! With them races comin’ soon! It makes me sick.”

“Dad, weren’t you a rider once?” asked Lucy.

“I never was thet kind.”

“Van will be all right in a few days.”

“No matter. It’s bad business. If I had any other rider who could handle the King I’d let Van go.”

“I can get just as much out of the King as Van can,” said Lucy, spiritedly.

“You!” exclaimed Bostil. But there was pride in his glance.

“I know I can.”

“You never had any use for Sage King,” said Bostil, as if he had been wronged.

“I love the King a little, and hate him a lot,” laughed Lucy.

“Wal, I might let you ride at thet, if Van ain’t in shape,” rejoined her father.

“I wouldn’t ride him in the race. But I’ll keep him in fine fettle.”

“I’ll bet you’d like to see Sarch beat him,” said Bostil, jealously.

“Sure I would,” replied Lucy, teasingly. “But, Dad, I’m afraid Sarch never will beat him.”

Bostil grunted. “See here. I don’t want any weight up on the King. You take him out for a few days. An’ ride him! Savvy thet?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Give him miles an’ miles — an’ then comin’ home, on good trails, ride him for all your worth.... Now, Lucy, keep your eye open. Don’t let any one get near you on the sage.”

“I won’t.... Dad, do you still worry about poor Joel Creech?”

“Not Joel. But I’d rather lose all my stock then have Cordts or Dick Sears get within a mile of you.”

“A mile!” exclaimed Lucy, lightly, though a fleeting shade crossed her face. “Why, I’d run away from him, if I was on the King, even if he got within ten yards of me.”

“A mile is close enough, my daughter,” replied Bostil. “Don’t ever forget to keep your eye open. Cordts has sworn thet if he can’t steal the King he’ll get you.”

“Oh! he prefers the horse to me.”

“Wal, Lucy, I’ve a sneakin’ idea thet Cordts will never leave the uplands unless he gets you an’ the King both.”

“And, Dad — you consented to let that horse-thief come to our races?” exclaimed Lucy, with heat.

“Why not? He can’t do any harm. If he or his men get uppish, the worse for them. Cordts gave his word not to turn a trick till after the races.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes. But his men might break loose, away from his sight. Especially thet Dick Sears. He’s a bad man. So be watchful whenever you ride out.”

As Lucy went down toward the corrals she was thinking deeply. She could always tell, woman-like, when her father was excited or agitated. She remembered the conversation between him and Creech’s rider. She remembered the keen glance old Holley had bent upon him. And mostly she remembered the somber look upon his face. She did not like that. Once, when a little girl, she had seen it and never forgotten it, nor the thing that it was associated with — something tragical which had happened in the big room. There had been loud, angry voices of men — and shots — and then the men carried out a long form covered with a blanket. She loved her father, but there was a side to him she feared. And somehow related to that side was his hardness toward Creech and his intolerance of any rider owning a fast horse and his obsession in regard to his own racers. Lucy had often tantalized her father with the joke that if it ever came to a choice between her and his favorites they would come first. But was it any longer a joke? Lucy felt that she had left childhood behind with its fun and fancies, and she had begun to look at life thoughtfully.

Sight of the corrals, however, and of the King prancing around, drove serious thoughts away. There were riders there, among them Farlane, and they all had pleasant greetings for her.

“Farlane, Dad says I’m to take out Sage King,” announced Lucy.

“No!” ejaculated Farlane, as he pocketed his pipe.

“Sure. And I’m to RIDE him. You know how Dad means that.”

“Wal, now, I’m doggoned!” added Farlane, looking worried and pleased at once. “I reckon, Miss Lucy, you — you wouldn’t fool me?”

“Why, Farlane!” returned Lucy, reproachfully. “Did I ever do a single thing around horses that you didn’t want me to?”

Farlane rubbed his chin beard somewhat dubiously. “Wal, Miss Lucy, not exactly while you was around the hosses. But I reckon when you onct got up, you’ve sorta forgot a few times.”

All the riders laughed, and Lucy joined them.

“I’m safe when I’m up, you know that,” she replied.

They brought out the gray, and after the manner of riders who had the care of a great horse and loved him, they curried and combed and rubbed him before saddling him.

“Reckon you’d better ride Van’s saddle,” suggested Farlane. “Them races is close now, an’ a strange saddle—”

“Of course. Don’t change anything he’s used to, except the stirrups,” replied Lucy.

Despite her antipathy toward Sage King, Lucy could not gaze at him without all a rider’s glory in a horse. He was sleek, so graceful, so racy, so near the soft gray of the sage, so beautiful in build and action. Then he was the kind of a horse that did not have to be eternally watched. He was spirited and full of life, eager to run, but when Farlane called for him to stand still he obeyed. He was the kind of a horse that a child could have played around in safety. He never kicked. He never bit. He never bolted. It was splendid to see him with Farlane or with Bostil. He did not like Lucy very well, a fact that perhaps accounted for Lucy’s antipathy. For that matter, he did not like any woman. If he had a bad trait, it came out when Van rode him, but all the riders, and Bostil, too, claimed that Van was to blame for that.

“Thar, I reckon them stirrups is right,” declared Farlane. “Now, Miss Lucy, hold him tight till he wears off thet edge. He needs work.”

Sage King would not kneel for Lucy as Sarchedon did, and he was too high for her to mount from the ground, so she mounted from a rock. She took to the road, and then the first trail into the sage, intending to trot him ten or fifteen miles down into the valley, and give him some fast, warm work on the return.

The day was early in May and promised to grow hot. There was not a cloud in the blue sky. The wind, laden with the breath of sage, blew briskly from the west. All before Lucy lay the vast valley, gray and dusky gray, then blue, then purple where the monuments stood, and, farther still, dark ramparts of rock. Lucy had a habit of dreaming while on horseback, a habit all the riders had tried to break, but she did not give it rein while she rode Sarchedon, and assuredly now, up on the King, she never forgot him for an instant. He shied at mockingbirds and pack-rats and blowing blossoms and even at butterflies; and he did it, Lucy thought, just because he was full of mischief. Sage King had been known to go steady when there had been reason to shy. He did not like Lucy and he chose to torment her. Finally he earned a good dig from a spur, and then, with swift pounding of hoofs, he plunged and veered and danced in the sage. Lucy kept her temper, which was what most riders did not do, and by patience and firmness pulled Sage King out of his prancing back into the trail. He was not the least cross-grained, and, having had his little spurt, he settled down into easy going.

In an hour Lucy was ten miles or more from home, and farther down in the valley than she had ever been. In fact, she had never before been down the long slope to the valley floor. How changed the horizon became! The monuments loomed up now, dark, sentinel-like, and strange. The first one, a great red rock, seemed to her some five miles away. It was lofty, straight-sided, with a green slope at its base. And beyond that the other monuments stretched out down the valley. Lucy decided to ride as far as the first one before turning back. Always these monuments had fascinated her, and this was her opportunity to ride near one. How lofty they were, how wonderfully colored, and how comely!

Presently, over the left, where the monuments were thicker, and gradually merged their slopes and lines and bulk into the yellow walls, she saw low, drifting clouds of smoke.

“Well, what’s that, I wonder?” she mused. To see smoke on the horizon in that direction was unusual, though out toward Durango the grassy benches would often burn over. And these low clouds of smoke resembled those she had seen before.

“It’s a long way off,” she added.

So she kept on, now and then gazing at the smoke. As she grew nearer to the first monument she was surprised, then amazed, at its height and surpassing size. It was mountain-high — a grand tower — smooth, worn, glistening, yellow and red. The trail she had followed petered out in a deep wash, and beyond that she crossed no more trails. The sage had grown meager and the greasewoods stunted and dead; and cacti appeared on barren places. The grass had not failed, but it was not rich grass such as the horses and cattle grazed upon miles back on the slope. The air was hot down here. The breeze was heavy and smelled of fire, and the sand was blowing here and there. She had a sense of the bigness, the openness of this valley, and then she realized its wildness and strangeness. These lonely, isolated monuments made the place different from any she had visited. They did not seem mere standing rocks. They seemed to retreat all the time as she approached, and they watched her. They interested her, made her curious. What had formed all these strange monuments? Here the ground was level for miles and miles, to slope gently up to the bases of these huge rocks. In an old book she had seen pictures of the Egyptian pyramids, but these appeared vaster, higher, and stranger, and they were sheerly perpendicular.

Suddenly Sage King halted sharply, shot up his ears, and whistled. Lucy was startled. That from the King meant something. Hastily, with keen glance she swept the foreground. A mile on, near the monument, was a small black spot. It seemed motionless. But the King’s whistle had proved it to be a horse. When Lucy had covered a quarter of the intervening distance she could distinguish the horse and that there appeared some thing strange about his position. Lucy urged Sage King into a lope and soon drew nearer. The black horse had his head down, yet he did not appear to be grazing. He was as still as a statue. He stood just outside a clump of greasewood and cactus.

Suddenly a sound pierced the stillness. The King jumped and snorted in fright. For an instant Lucy’s blood ran cold, for it was a horrible cry. Then she recognized it as the neigh of a horse in agony. She had heard crippled and dying horses utter that long-drawn and blood-curdling neigh. The black horse had not moved, so the sound could not have come from him. Lucy thought Sage King acted more excited than the occasion called for. Then remembering her father’s warning, she reined in on top of a little knoll, perhaps a hundred yards from where the black horse stood, and she bent her keen gaze forward.

It was a huge, gaunt, shaggy black horse she saw, with the saddle farther up on his shoulders than it should have been. He stood motionless, as if utterly exhausted. His forelegs were braced, so that he leaned slightly back. Then Lucy saw a rope. It was fast to the saddle and stretched down into the cactus. There was no other horse in sight, nor any living thing. The immense monument dominated the scene. It seemed stupendous to Lucy, sublime, almost frightful.

She hesitated. She knew there was another horse, very likely at the other end of that lasso. Probably a rider had been thrown, perhaps killed. Certainly a horse had been hurt. Then on the moment rang out the same neigh of agony, only weaker and shorter. Lucy no longer feared an ambush. That was a cry which could not be imitated by a man or forced from a horse. There was probably death, certainly suffering, near at hand. She spurred the King on.

There was a little slope to descend, a wash to cross, a bench to climb — and then she rode up to the black horse. Sage King needed harder treatment than Lucy had ever given him.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, pulling him down. Suddenly, as she felt him tremble, she realized that he was frightened. “That’s funny!” Then when she got him quiet she looked around.

The black horse was indeed huge. His mane, his shaggy flanks, were lathered as if he had been smeared with heavy soap-suds. He raised his head to look at her. Lucy, accustomed to horses all her life, saw that this one welcomed her arrival. But he was almost ready to drop.

Two taut lassoes stretched from the pommel of his saddle down a little into a depression full of brush and cactus and rocks. Then Lucy saw a red horse. He was down in a bad position. She heard his low, choking heaves. Probably he had broken legs or back. She could not bear to see a horse in pain. She would do what was possible, even to the extent of putting him out of his misery, if nothing else could be done. Yet she scanned the surroundings closely, and peered into the bushes and behind the rocks before she tried to urge Sage King closer. He refused to go nearer, and Lucy dismounted.

The red horse was partly hidden by overbending brush. He had plunged into a hole full of cactus. There was a hackamore round his nose and a tight noose round his neck. The one round his neck was also round his forelegs. And both lassoes were held taut by the black horse. A torn and soiled rider’s scarf hung limp round the red horse’s nose, kept from falling off by the hackamore.

“A wild horse, a stallion, being broken!” exclaimed Lucy, instantly grasping the situation. “Oh! where’s the rider?”

She gazed around, ran to and fro, glanced down the little slope, and beyond, but she did not see anything resembling the form of a man. Then she ran back.

Lucy took another quick look at the red stallion. She did not believe either his legs or back were hurt. He was just played out and tangled and tied in the ropes, and could not get up. The shaggy black horse stood there braced and indomitable. But he, likewise, was almost ready to drop. Looking at the condition of both horses and the saddle and ropes, Lucy saw what a fight there had been, and a race! Where was the rider? Thrown, surely, and back on the trail, perhaps dead or maimed.

Lucy went closer to the stallion so that she could almost touch him. He saw her. He was nearly choked. Foam and blood wheezed out with his heaves. She must do something quickly. And in her haste she pricked her arms and shoulders on the cactus.

She led the black horse closer in, letting the ropes go, slack. The black seemed as glad of that release as she was. What a faithful brute he looked! Lucy liked his eyes.

Then she edged down in among the cactus and brush. The red horse no longer lay in a strained position. He could lift his head. Lucy saw that the noose still held tight round his neck. Fearlessly she jerked it loose. Then she backed away, but not quite out of his reach. He coughed and breathed slowly, with great heaves. Then he snorted.

“You’re all right now,” said Lucy, soothingly. Slowly she reached a hand toward his head. He drew it back as far as he could. She stepped around, closer, and more back of him, and put a hand on him, gently, for an instant. Then she slipped out of the brush and, untying one lasso from the pommel, she returned to the horse and pulled it from round his legs. He was free now, except the hackamore, and that rope was slack. Lucy stood near him, watching him, talking to him, waiting for him to get up. She could not be sure he was not badly hurt till he stood up. At first he made no efforts to rise. He watched Lucy, less fearfully, she imagined. And she never made a move. She wanted him to see, to understand that she had not hurt him and would not hurt him. It began to dawn upon her that he was magnificent.

Finally, with a long, slow heave he got to his feet. Lucy led him out of the hole to open ground. She seemed somehow confident. There occurred to her only one way to act.

“A little horse sense, as Dad would say,” she soliloquized, and then, when she got him out of the brush, she stood thrilled and amazed.

“Oh, what a wild, beautiful horse! What a giant! He’s bigger than the King. Oh, if Dad could see him!”

The red stallion did not appear to be hurt. The twitching of his muscles must have been caused by the cactus spikes embedded in him. There were drops of blood all over one side. Lucy thought she dared to try to pull these thorns out. She had never in her life been afraid of any horse. Farlane, Holley, all the riders, and her father, too, had tried to make her realize the danger in a horse, sooner or later. But Lucy could not help it; she was not afraid; she believed that the meanest horse was actuated by natural fear of a man; she was not a man and she had never handled a horse like a man. This red stallion showed hate of the black horse and the rope that connected them; he showed some spirit at the repeated blasts of Sage King. But he showed less fear of her.

“He has been a proud, wild stallion,” mused Lucy. “And he’s now broken — terribly broken — all but ruined.”

Then she walked up to him naturally and spoke softly, and reached a hand for his shoulder.

“Whoa, Reddy. Whoa now.... There. That’s a good fellow. Why, I wouldn’t rope you or hit you. I’m only a girl.”

He drew up, made a single effort to jump, which she prevented, and then he stood quivering, eying her, while she talked soothingly, and patted him and looked at him in the way she had found infallible with most horses. Lucy believed horses were like people, or easier to get along with. Presently she gently pulled out one of the cactus spikes. The horse flinched, but he stood. Lucy was slow, careful, patient, and dexterous. The cactus needles were loose and easily removed or brushed off. At length she got him free of them, and was almost as proud as she was glad. The horse had gradually dropped his head; he was tired and his spirit was broken.

“Now, what shall I do?” she queried. “I’ll take the back trail of these horses. They certainly hadn’t been here long before I saw them. And the rider may be close. If not I’ll take the horses home.”

She slipped the noose from the stallion’s head, leaving the hackamore, and, coiling the loose lasso, she hung it over the pommel of the black’s saddle. Then she took up his bridle.

“Come on,” she called.

The black followed her, and the stallion, still fast to him by the lasso Lucy had left tied, trooped behind with bowed head. Lucy was elated. But Sage King did not like the matter at all. Lucy had to drop the black’s bridle and catch the King, and then ride back to lead the other again.

A broad trail marked the way the two horses had come, and it led off to the left, toward where the monuments were thickest, and where the great sections of wall stood, broken and battlemented. Lucy was hard put to it to hold Sage King, but the horses behind plodded along. The black horse struck Lucy as being an ugly, but a faithful and wonderful animal. He understood everything. Presently she tied the bridle she was leading him by to the end of her own lasso, and thus let him drop back a few yards, which lessened the King’s fretting.

Intent on the trail, Lucy failed to note time or distance till the looming and frowning monuments stood aloft before her. What weird effect they had! Each might have been a colossal statue left there to mark the work of the ages. Lucy realized that the whole vast valley had once been solid rock, just like the monuments, and through the millions of years the softer parts had eroded and weathered and blown away — gone with the great sea that had once been there. But the beauty, the solemnity, the majesty of these monuments fascinated her most. She passed the first one, a huge square butte, and then the second, a ragged, thin, double shaft, and then went between two much alike, reaching skyward in the shape of monstrous mittens. She watched and watched them, sparing a moment now and then to attend to the trail. She noticed that she was coming into a region of grass, and faint signs of water in the draws. She was getting high again, not many miles now from the wall of rock.

All at once Sage King shied, and Lucy looked down to see a man lying on the ground. He lay inert. But his eyes were open — dark, staring eyes. They moved. And he called. But Lucy could not understand him.

In a flash she leaped off the King. She ran to the prostrate man — dropped to her knees.

“Oh!” she cried. His face was ghastly. “Oh! are you — you badly hurt?”

“Lift me — my head,” he said, faintly.

She raised his head. What a strained, passionate, terrible gaze he bent upon the horses.

“Boy, they’re mine — the black an’ the red!” he cried.

“They surely must be,” replied Lucy. “Oh! tell me. Are you hurt?”

“Boy! did you catch them — fetch them back — lookin’ for me?”

“I sure did.”

“You caught-that red devil — an’ fetched him — back to me?” went on the wondering, faint voice. “Boy — oh — boy!”

He lifted a long, ragged arm and pulled Lucy down. The action amazed her equally as his passion of gratitude. He might have been injured, but he had an arm of iron. Lucy was powerless. She felt her face against his — and her breast against his. The pounding of his heart was like blows. The first instant she wanted to laugh, despite her pity. Then the powerful arm — the contact affected her as nothing ever before. Suppose this crippled rider had taken her for a boy — She was not a boy! She could not help being herself. And no man had ever put a hand on her. Consciousness of this brought shame and anger. She struggled so violently that she freed herself. And he lay back.

“See here — that’s no way to act — to hug — a person,” she cried, with flaming cheeks.

“Boy, I—”

“I’m NOT a boy. I’m a girl.”

“What!”

Lucy tore off her sombrero, which had been pulled far forward, and this revealed her face fully, and her hair came tumbling down. The rider gazed, stupefied. Then a faint tinge of red colored his ghastly cheeks.

“A girl! ... Why — why ‘scuse me, miss. I — I took you — for a boy.”

He seemed so astounded, he looked so ashamed, so scared, and withal, so haggard and weak, that Lucy immediately recovered her equanimity.

“Sure I’m a girl. But that’s no matter.... You’ve been thrown. Are you hurt?”

He smiled a weak assent.

“Badly?” she queried. She did not like the way he lay — so limp, so motionless.

“I’m afraid so. I can’t move.”

“Oh! ... What shall I do?”

“Can you — get me water?” he whispered, with dry lips.

Lucy flew to her horse to get the small canteen she always carried. But that had been left on her saddle, and she had ridden Van’s. Then she gazed around. The wash she had crossed several times ran near where the rider lay. Green grass and willows bordered it. She ran down and, hurrying along, searched for water. There was water in places, yet she had to go a long way before she found water that was drinkable. Filling her sombrero, she hurried back to the side of the rider. It was difficult to give him a drink.

“Thanks, miss,” he said, gratefully. His voice was stronger and less hoarse.

“Have you any broken bones?” asked Lucy.

“I don’t know. I can’t feel much.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Hardly. I feel sort of thick.”

Lucy, being an intelligent girl, born in the desert and used to its needs, had not often encountered a situation with which she was unable to cope.

“Let me feel if you have any broken bones.... THAT arm isn’t broken, I’m positive.”

The rider smiled faintly again. How he stared with his strained, dark eyes! His face showed ghastly through the thin, soft beard and the tan. Lucy found his right arm badly bruised, but not broken. She made sure his collar-bones and shoulder-blades were intact. Broken ribs were harder to locate; still, as he did not feel pain from pressure, she concluded there were no fractures there. With her assistance he moved his legs, proving no broken bones there.

“I’m afraid it’s my — spine,” he said.

“But you raised your head once,” she replied. “If your back was — was broken or injured you couldn’t raise your head.”

“So I couldn’t. I guess I’m just knocked out. I was — pretty weak before Wildfire knocked me — off Nagger.”

“Wildfire?”

“That’s the red stallion’s name.”

“Oh, he’s named already?”

“I named him — long ago. He’s known on many a range.”

“Where?”

“I think far north of here. I — trailed him — days — weeks — months. We crossed the great canyon—”

“The Grand Canyon?”

“It must be that.”

“The Grand Canyon is down there,” said Lucy, pointing. “I live on it.... You’ve come a long way.”

“Hundreds of miles! ... Oh, the ground I covered that awful canyon country! ... But I stayed with Wildfire. An’ I put a rope on him. An’ he got away.... An’ it was a boy — no — a GIRL who — saved him for me — an’ maybe saved my life, too!”

Lucy looked away from the dark, staring eyes. A light in them confused her.

“Never mind me. You say you were weak? Have you been ill?”

“No, miss, just starved.... I starved on Wildfire’s trail.”

Lucy ran to her saddle and got the biscuits out of the pockets of her coat, and she ran back to the rider.

“Here. I never thought. Oh, you’ve had a hard time of it! I understand. That wonderful flame of a horse! I’d have stayed, too. My father was a rider once. Bostil. Did you ever hear of him?”

“Bostil. The name — I’ve heard.” Then the rider lay thinking, as he munched a biscuit. “Yes, I remember, but it was long ago. I spent a night with a wagon-train, a camp of many men and women, religious people, working into Utah. Bostil had a boat at the crossing of the Fathers.”

“Yes, they called the Ferry that.”

“I remember well now. They said Bostil couldn’t count his horses — that he was a rich man, hard on riders — an’ he’d used a gun more than once.”

Lucy bowed her head. “Yes, that’s my dad.”

The rider did not seem to see how he had hurt her.

“Here we are talking — wasting time,” she said. “I must start home. You can’t be moved. What shall I do?”

“That’s for you to say, Bostil’s daughter.”

“My name’s Lucy,” replied the girl, blushing painfully, “I mean I’ll be glad to do anything you think best.”

“You’re very good.”

Then he turned his face away. Lucy looked closely at him. He was indeed a beggared rider. His clothes and his boots hung in tatters. He had no hat, no coat, no vest. His gaunt face bore traces of what might have been a fine, strong comeliness, but now it was only thin, worn, wan, pitiful, with that look which always went to a woman’s heart. He had the look of a homeless rider. Lucy had seen a few of his wandering type, and his story was so plain. But he seemed to have a touch of pride, and this quickened her interest.

“Then I’ll do what I think best for you,” said Lucy.

First she unsaddled the black Nagger. With the saddle she made a pillow for the rider’s head, and she covered him with the saddle blanket. Before she had finished this task he turned his eyes upon her. And Lucy felt she would be haunted. Was he badly hurt, after all? It seemed probable. How strange he was!

“I’ll water the horses — then tie Wildfire here on a double rope. There’s grass.”

“But you can’t lead him,” replied the rider.

“He’ll follow me.”

“That red devil!” The rider shuddered as he spoke.

Lucy had some faint inkling of what a terrible fight that had been between man and horse. “Yes; when I found him he was broken. Look at him now.”

But the rider did not appear to want to see the stallion. He gazed up at Lucy, and she saw something in his eyes that made her think of a child. She left him, had no trouble in watering the horses, and haltered Wildfire among the willows on a patch of grass. Then she returned.

“I’ll go now,” she said to the rider.

“Where?”

“Home. I’ll come back to-morrow, early, and bring some one to help you—”

“Girl, if YOU want to help me more — bring me some bread an’ meat. Don’t tell any one. Look what a ragamuffin I am.... An’ there’s Wildfire. I don’t want him seen till I’m — on my feet again. I know riders.... That’s all. If you want to be so good — come.”

“I’ll come,” replied Lucy, simply.

“Thank you. I owe you — a lot.... What did you say your name was?”

“Lucy — Lucy Bostil.”

“Oh, I forgot.... Are you sure you tied Wildfire good an’ tight?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll go now. I hope you’ll be better to-morrow.”

Lucy hesitated, with her hand on the King’s bridle. She did not like to leave this young man lying there helpless on the desert. But what else could she do? What a strange adventure had befallen her! At the following thought that it was not yet concluded she felt a little stir of excitement at her pulses. She was so strangely preoccupied that she forgot it was necessary for her to have a step to mount Sage King. She realized it quickly enough when she attempted it. Then she led him off in the sage till she found a rock. Mounting, she turned him straight across country, meaning to cut out miles of travel that would have been necessary along her back-trail. Once she looked back. The rider was not visible; the black horse, Nagger, was out of sight, but Wildfire, blazing in the sun, watched her depart.

CHAPTER IX

LUCY BOSTIL COULD not control the glow of strange excitement under which she labored, but she could put her mind on the riding of Sage King. She did not realize, however, that she was riding him under the stress and spell of that excitement.

She had headed out to make a short cut, fairly sure of her direction, yet she was not unaware of the fact that she would be lost till she ran across her trail. That might be easy to miss and time was flying. She put the King to a brisk trot, winding through the aisles of the sage.

Soon she had left the monument region and was down on the valley floor again. From time to time she conquered a desire to look back. Presently she was surprised and very glad to ride into a trail where she saw the tracks she had made coming out. With much relief she turned Sage King into this trail, and then any anxiety she had felt left her entirely. But that did not mitigate her excitement. She eased the King into a long, swinging lope. And as he warmed to the work she was aroused also. It was hard to hold him in, once he got out of a trot, and after miles and miles of this, when she thought best to slow down he nearly pulled her arms off. Still she finally got him in hand. Then followed miles of soft and rough going, which seemed long and tedious. Beyond that was the home stretch up the valley, whose gradual slope could be seen only at a distance. Here was a straight, broad trail, not too soft nor too hard, and for all the years she could remember riders had tried out and trained their favorites on that course.

Lucy reached down to assure herself that the cinch was tight, then she pulled her sombrero down hard, slackened the bridle, and let the King go. He simply broke his gait, he was so surprised. Lucy saw him trying to look back at her, as if he could not realize that this young woman rider had given him a free rein. Perhaps one reason he disliked her had been always and everlastingly that tight rein. Like the wary horse he was he took to a canter, to try out what his new freedom meant.

“Say, what’s the matter with you?” called Lucy, disdainfully. “Are you lazy? Or don’t you believe I can ride you?”

Whereupon she dug him with her spurs. Sage King snorted. His action shifted marvelously. Thunder rolled from under his hoofs. And he broke out of that clattering roar into his fleet stride, where his hoof-beats were swift, regular, rhythmic.

Lucy rode him with teeth and fists clenched, bending low. After all, she thought, it was no trick to ride him. In that gait he was dangerous, for a fall meant death; but he ran so smoothly that riding him was easy and certainly glorious. He went so fast that the wind blinded her. The trail was only a white streak in blurred gray. She could not get her breath; the wind seemed to whip the air away from her. And then she felt the lessening of the tremendous pace. Sage King had run himself out and the miles were behind her. Gradually her sight became clear, and as the hot and wet horse slowed down, satisfied with his wild run, Lucy realized that she was up on the slope only a few miles from home. Suddenly she thought she saw something dark stir behind a sage-bush just ahead. Before she could move a hand at the bridle Sage King leaped with a frantic snort. It was a swerving, nimble, tremendous bound. He went high. Lucy was unseated, but somehow clung on, and came down with him, finding the saddle. And it seemed, while in the air, she saw a long, snaky, whipping loop of rope shoot out and close just where Sage King’s legs had been.

She screamed. The horse broke and ran. Lucy, righting herself, looked back to see Joel Creech holding a limp lasso. He had tried to rope the King.

The blood of her father was aroused in Lucy. She thought of the horse — not herself. If the King had not been so keen-sighted, so swift, he would have gone down with a broken leg. Lucy never in her life had been so furious.

Joel shook his fist at her and yelled, “I’d ‘a’ got you — on any other hoss!”

She did not reply, though she had to fight herself to keep from pulling her gun and shooting at him. She guided the running horse back into the trail, rapidly leaving Creech out of sight.

“He’s gone crazy, that’s sure,” said Lucy. “And he means me harm!”

She ran the King clear up to the corrals, and he was still going hard when she turned down the lane to the barns. Then she pulled him in.

Farlane was there to meet her. She saw no other riders and was glad.

“Wal, Miss Lucy, the King sure looks good,” said Farlane, as she jumped off and flung him the bridle. “He’s just had about right, judgin’.... Say, girl, you’re all pale! Oh, say, you wasn’t scared of the King, now?”

“No,” replied Lucy, panting.

“Wal, what’s up, then?” The rider spoke in an entirely different voice, and into his clear, hazel eyes a little dark gleam shot.

“Joel Creech waylaid me out in the sage — and — and tried to catch me.” Lucy checked herself. It might not do to tell how Joel had tried to catch her.

“He did? An’ you on the King!” Farlane laughed, as if relieved. “Wal, he’s tried thet before. Miss Lucy. But when you was up on the gray — thet shows Joel’s crazy, sure.”

“He sure is. Farlane, I — I am mad!”

“Wal, cool off, Miss Lucy. It ain’t nothin’ to git set up about. An’ don’t tell the old man.”

“Why not?” demanded Lucy.

“Wal, because he’s in a queer sort of bad mood lately. It wouldn’t be safe. He hates them Creeches. So don’t tell him.”

“All right, Farlane, I won’t. Don’t you tell, either,” replied Lucy, soberly.

“Sure I’ll keep mum. But if Joel doesn’t watch out I’ll put a crimp in him myself.”

Lucy hurried away down the lane and entered the house without meeting any one. In her room she changed her clothes and lay down to rest and think.

Strangely enough, Lucy might never have encountered Joel Creech out in the sage, for all the thought she gave him. Her mind was busy with the crippled rider. Who was he? Where was he from? What strange passion he had shown over the recovery of that wonderful red horse! Lucy could not forget the feeling of his iron arm when he held her in a kind of frenzied gratitude. A wild upland rider, living only for a wild horse! How like Indians some of these riders! Yet this fellow had seemed different from most of the uncouth riders she had known. He spoke better. He appeared to have had some little schooling. Lucy did not realize that she was interested in him. She thought she was sorry for him and interested in the stallion. She began to compare Wildfire with Sage King, and if she remembered rightly Wildfire, even in his disheveled state, had appeared a worthy rival of the King. What would Bostil say at sight of that flame-colored stallion? Lucy thrilled.

Later she left her room to see if the hour was opportune for her plan to make up a pack of supplies for the rider. Her aunt was busy in the kitchen, and Bostil had not come in. Lucy took advantage of the moment to tie up a pack and carry it to her room. Somehow the task pleased her. She recalled the lean face of the rider. And that recalled his ragged appearance. Why not pack up an outfit of clothes? Bostil had a stock-room full of such accessories for his men. Then Lucy, glowing with the thought, hurried to Bostil’s stock-room, and with deft hands and swift judgment selected an outfit for the rider, even down to a comb and razor. All this she carried quickly to her room, where in her thoughtfulness she added a bit of glass from a broken mirror, and soap and a towel. Then she tied up a second pack.

Bostil did not come home to supper, a circumstance that made Lucy’s aunt cross. They ate alone, and, waiting awhile, were rather late in clearing away the table. After this Lucy had her chance in the dusk of early evening, and she carried both packs way out into the sage and left them near the trail.

“Hope a coyote doesn’t come along,” she said. That possibility, however, did not worry her as much as getting those packs up on the King. How in the world would she ever do it?

She hurried back to the house, stealthily keeping to the shadow of the cottonwoods, for she would have faced an embarrassing situation if she had met her father, even had he been in a good humor. And she reached the sitting-room unobserved. The lamps had been lighted and a log blazed on the hearth. She was reading when Bostil entered.

“Hello, Lucy!” he said.

He looked tired, and Lucy knew he had been drinking, because when he had been he never offered to kiss her. The strange, somber shade was still on his face, but it brightened somewhat at sight of her. Lucy greeted him as always.

“Farlane tells me you handled the King great — better ‘n Van has worked him lately,” said Bostil. “But don’t tell him I told you.”

That was sweet praise from Farlane. “Oh, Dad, it could hardly be true,” expostulated Lucy. “Both you and Farlane are a little sore at Van now.”

“I’m a lot sore,” replied Bostil, gruffly.

“Anyway, how did Farlane know how I handled Sage King?” queried Lucy.

“Wal, every hair on a hoss talks to Farlane, so Holley says.... Lucy, you take the King out every day for a while. Ride him now an’ watch out! Joel Creech was in the village to-day. He sure sneaked when he seen me. He’s up to some mischief.”

Lucy did not want to lie and she did not know what to say. Presently Bostil bade her good night. Lucy endeavored to read, but her mind continually wandered back to the adventure of the day.

Next morning she had difficulty in concealing her impatience, but luck favored her. Bostil was not in evidence, and Farlane, for once, could spare no more time than it took to saddle Sage King. Lucy rode out into the sage, pretty sure that no one watched her.

She had hidden the packs near the tallest bunch of greasewood along the trail; and when she halted behind it she had no fear of being seen from the corrals. She got the packs. The light one was not hard to tie back of the saddle, but the large one was a very different matter. She decided to carry it in front. There was a good-sized rock near, upon which she stepped, leading Sage King alongside; and after an exceedingly trying moment she got up, holding the pack. For a wonder Sage King behaved well.

Then she started off, holding the pack across her lap, and she tried the King’s several gaits to see which one would lend itself more comfortably to the task before her. The trouble was that Sage King had no slow gait, even his walk was fast. And Lucy was compelled to hold him into that. She wanted to hurry, but that seemed out of the question. She tried to keep from gazing out toward the monuments, because they were so far away.

How would she find the crippled rider? It flashed into her mind that she might find him dead, and this seemed horrible. But her common sense persuaded her that she would find him alive and better. The pack was hard to hold, and Sage King fretted at the monotonous walk. The hours dragged. The sun grew hot. And it was noon, almost, when she reached the point where she cut off the trail to the left. Thereafter, with the monuments standing ever higher, and the distance perceptibly lessening, the minutes passed less tediously.

At length she reached the zone of lofty rocks, and found them different, how, she could not tell. She rode down among them, and was glad when she saw the huge mittens — her landmarks. At last she espied the green-bordered wash and the few cedar-trees. Then a horse blazed red against the sage and another shone black. That sight made Lucy thrill. She rode on, eager now, but moved by the strangeness of the experience.

Before she got quite close to the cedars she saw a man. He took a few slow steps out of the shade. His back was bent. Lucy recognized the rider, and in her gladness to see him on his feet she cried out. Then, when Sage King reached the spot, Lucy rolled the pack off to the ground.

“Oh, that was a job!” she cried.

The rider looked up with eyes that seemed keener, less staring than she remembered. “You came? ... I was afraid you wouldn’t,” he said.

“Sure I came.... You’re better — not badly hurt?” she said, gravely, “I — I’m so glad.”

“I’ve got a crimp in my back, that’s all.”

Lucy was quick to see that after the first glance at her he was all eyes for Sage King. She laughed. How like a rider! She watched him, knowing that presently he would realize what a horse she was riding. She slipped off and threw the bridle, and then, swiftly untying the second pack, she laid it down.

The rider, with slow, painful steps and bent back, approached Sage King and put a lean, strong, brown hand on him, and touched him as if he wished to feel if he were real. Then he whistled softly. When he turned to Lucy his eyes shone with a beautiful light.

“It’s Sage King, Bostil’s favorite,” said Lucy.

“Sage King! ... He looks it.... But never a wild horse?”

“No.”

“A fine horse,” replied the rider. “Of course he can run?” This last held a note of a rider’s jealousy.

Lucy laughed. “Run! ... The King is Bostil’s favorite. He can run away from any horse in the uplands.”

“I’ll bet you Wildfire can beat him,” replied the rider, with a dark glance.

“Come on!” cried Lucy, daringly.

Then the rider and girl looked more earnestly at each other. He smiled in a way that changed his face — brightened out the set hardness.

“I reckon I’ll have to crawl,” he said, ruefully. “But maybe I can ride in a few days — if you’ll come back again.”

His remark brought to Lucy the idea that of course she would hardly see this rider again after to-day. Even if he went to the Ford, which event was unlikely, he would not remain there long. The sensation of blankness puzzled her, and she felt an unfamiliar confusion.

“I — I’ve brought you — some things,” she said, pointing to the larger pack.

“Grub, you mean?”

“No.”

“That was all I asked you for, miss,” he said, somewhat stiffly.

“Yes, but — I — I thought—” Lucy became unaccountably embarrassed. Suppose this strange rider would be offended. “Your clothes were — so torn.... And no wonder you were thrown — in those boots! ... So I thought I’d—”

“You thought I needed clothes as bad as grub,” he said, bitterly. “I reckon that’s so.”

His look, more than his tone, cut Lucy; and involuntarily she touched his arm. “Oh, you won’t refuse to take them! Please don’t!”

At her touch a warmth came into his face. “Take them? I should smile I will.”

He tried to reach down to lift the pack, but as it was obviously painful for him to bend, Lucy intercepted him.

“But you’ve had no breakfast,” she protested. “Why not eat before you open that pack?”

“Nope. I’m not hungry.... Maybe I’ll eat a little, after I dress up.” He started to walk away, then turned. “Miss Bostil, have you been so good to every wanderin’ rider you happened to run across?”

“Good!” she exclaimed, flushing. She dropped her eyes before his. “Nonsense. ... Anyway, you’re the first wandering rider I ever met — like this.”

“Well, you’re good,” he replied, with emotion. Then he walked away with slow, stiff steps and disappeared behind the willows in the little hollow.

Lucy uncoiled the rope on her saddle and haltered Sage King on the best grass near at hand. Then she opened the pack of supplies, thinking the while that she must not tarry here long.

“But on the King I can run back like the wind,” she mused.

The pack contained dried fruits and meat and staples, also an assortment of good things to eat that were of a perishable nature, already much the worse for the long ride. She spread all this out in the shade of a cedar. The utensils were few — two cups, two pans, and a tiny pot. She gathered wood, and arranged it for a fire, so that the rider could start as soon as he came back. He seemed long in coming. Lucy waited, yet still he did not return. Finally she thought of the red stallion, and started off down the wash to take a look at him. He was grazing. He had lost some of the dirt and dust and the bedraggled appearance. When he caught sight of her he lifted his head high and whistled. How wild he looked! And his whistle was shrill, clear, strong. Both the other horses answered it. Lucy went on closer to Wildfire. She was fascinated now.

“If he doesn’t know me!” she cried. Never had she been so pleased. She had expected every sign of savageness on his part, and certainly had not intended to go near him. But Wildfire did not show fear or hate in his recognition. Lucy went directly to him and got a hand on him. Wildfire reared a little and shook a little, but this disappeared presently under her touch. He held his head very high and watched her with wonderful eyes. Gradually she drew his head down. Standing before him, she carefully and slowly changed the set of the hackamore, which had made a welt on his nose. It seemed to have been her good fortune that every significant move she had made around this stallion had been to mitigate his pain. Lucy believed he knew this as well as she knew it. Her theory, an often disputed one, was that horses were as intelligent as human beings and had just the same fears, likes, and dislikes. Lucy knew she was safe when she untied the lasso from the strong root where she had fastened it, and led the stallion down the wash to a pool of water. And she stood beside him with a hand on his shoulder while he bent his head to sniff at the water. He tasted it, plainly with disgust. It was stagnant water, full of vermin. But finally he drank. Lucy led him up the wash to another likely place, and tied him securely.

When she got back to the camp in the cedars the rider was there, on his knees, kindling the fire. His clean-shaved face and new apparel made him vastly different. He was young, and, had he not been so gaunt, he would have been fine-looking, Lucy thought.

“Wildfire remembered me,” Lucy burst out. “He wasn’t a bit scary. Let me handle him. Followed me to water.”

“He’s taken to you,” replied the rider, seriously. “I’ve heard of the like, but not so quick. Was he in a bad fix when you got to him yesterday?”

Lucy explained briefly.

“Aha! ... If that red devil has any love in him I’ll never get it. I wish I could have done so much for him. But always when he sees me he’ll remember.”

Lucy saw that the rider was in difficulties. He could not bend his back, and evidently it pained him to try. His brow was moist.

“Let me do that,” she said.

“Thanks. It took about all my strength to get into this new outfit,” he said, relinquishing, his place to Lucy.

When she looked up from her task, presently, he was sitting in the shade of the cedar, watching her. He had the expression of a man who hardly believed what he saw.

“Did you have any trouble gettin’ away, without tellin’ — about me?” he asked.

“No. But I sure had a job with those packs,” she replied.

“You must be a wonder with a horse.”

As far as vanity was concerned Lucy had only one weakness — and he had touched upon it.

“Well, Dad and Holley and Farlane argue much about me. Still, I guess they all agree I can ride.”

“Holley an’ Farlane are riders?” he questioned.

“Yes, Dad’s right-hand men.”

“Your dad hires many riders, I supposed?”

“Sure I never heard of him turning any rider down, at least not without a try.”

“I wonder if he would give me a job?”

Lucy glanced up quickly. The idea surprised her — pleased her. “In a minute,” she replied. “And he’d be grand to you. You see, he’d have an eye for Wildfire.”

The rider nodded his head as if he understood how that would be.

“And of course you’d never sell nor trade Wildfire?” went on Lucy.

The rider’s smile was sad, but it was conclusive.

“Then you’d better stay away from Bostil,” returned Lucy, shortly.

He remained silent, and Lucy, busy about the campfire, did not speak again till the simple fare was ready. Then she spread a tarpaulin in the shade.

“I’m pretty hungry myself,” she said. “But I don’t suppose I know what hunger is.”

“After a while a fellow loses the feelin’ of hunger,” he replied. “I reckon it’ll come back quick.... This all looks good.”

So they began to eat. Lucy’s excitement, her sense of the unreality of this adventure, in no wise impaired her appetite. She seemed acutely sensitive to the perceptions of the moment. The shade of the cedars was cool. And out on the desert she could see the dark smoky veils of heat lifting. The breeze carried a dry odor of sand and grass. She heard bees humming by. And all around the great isolated monuments stood up, red tops against the blue sky. It was a silent, dreaming, impressive place, where she felt unlike herself.

“I mustn’t stay long,” she said, suddenly remembering.

“Will you come back — again?” he asked.

The question startled Lucy. “Why — I — I don’t know.... Won’t you ride in to the Ford just as soon as you’re able?”

“I reckon not.”

“But it’s the only place where there’s people in hundreds of miles. Surely you won’t try to go back the way you came?”

“When Wildfire left that country I left it. We can’t back.”

“Then you’ve no people — no one you care for?” she asked, in sweet seriousness.

“There’s no one. I’m an orphan. My people were lost in an Indian massacre — with a wagon-train crossin’ Wyomin’. A few escaped, an’ I was one of the youngsters. I had a tough time, like a stray dog, till I grew up. An’ then I took to the desert.”

“Oh, I see. I — I’m sorry,” replied Lucy. “But that’s not very different from my dad’s story, of his early years.... What will you do now?”

“I’ll stay here till my back straightens out.... Will you ride out again?”

“Yes,” replied Lucy, without looking at him; and she wondered if it were really she who was speaking.

Then he asked her about the Ford, and Bostil, and the ranches and villages north, and the riders and horses. Lucy told him everything she knew and could think of, and, lastly, after waxing eloquent on the horses of the uplands, particularly Bostil’s, she gave him a graphic account of Cordts and Dick Sears.

“Horse-thieves!” exclaimed the rider, darkly. There was a grimness as well as fear in his tone. “I’ve heard of Sears, but not Cordts. Where does this band hang out?”

“No one knows. Holley says they hide up in the canyon country. None of the riders have ever tried to track them far. It would be useless. Holley says there are plateaus of rich grass and great forests. The Ute Indians say that much, too. But we know little about the wild country.”

“Aren’t there any hunters at Bostil’s Ford?”

“Wild-horse hunters, you mean?”

“No. Bear an’ deer hunters.”

“There’s none. And I suppose that’s why we’re not familiar with the wild canyon country. I’d like to ride in there sometime and camp. But our people don’t go in for that. They love the open ranges. No one I know, except a half-witted boy, ever rode down among these monuments. And how wonderful a place! It can’t be more than twenty miles from home.... I must be going soon. I’m forgetting Sage King. Did I tell you I was training him for the races?”

“No, you didn’t. What races? Tell me,” he replied, with keen interest.

Then Lucy told him about the great passion of her father — about the long, time-honored custom of free-for-all races, and the great races that had been run in the past; about the Creeches and their swift horses; about the rivalry and speculation and betting; and lastly about the races to be run in a few weeks — races so wonderful in prospect that even the horse-thief, Cordts, had begged to be allowed to attend.

“I’m going to see the King beat Creech’s roan,” shouted the rider, with red in his cheeks and a flash in his eye.

His enthusiasm warmed Lucy’s interest, yet it made her thoughtful. Ideas flashed into her mind. If the rider attended the races he would have that fleet stallion with him. He could not be separated from the horse that had cost him so dearly. What would Bostil and Holley and Farlane say at sight of Wildfire? Suppose Wildfire was to enter the races! It was probable that he could run away from the whole field — even beat the King. Lucy thrilled and thrilled. What a surprise it would be! She had the rider’s true love of seeing the unheralded horse win over the favorite. She had for years wanted to see a horse — and ride a horse — out in front of Sage King. Then suddenly all these flashing ideas coruscated seemingly into a gleam — a leaping, radiant, wonderful thought. Irresistibly it burst from her.

“Let ME ride your Wildfire in the great race?” she cried, breathlessly.

His response was instantaneous — a smile that was keen and sweet and strong, and a proffered hand. Impulsively Lucy clasped that hand with both hers.

“You don’t mean it,” she said. “Oh, it’s what Auntie would call one of my wild dreams! ... And I’m growing up — they say.... But — Oh, if I could ride Wildfire against the field in that race.... If I ONLY COULD!”

She was on fire with the hope, flushing, tingling. She was unconscious of her effect upon the rider, who gazed at her with a new-born light in his eyes.

“You can ride him. I reckon I’d like to see that race just as much as Bostil or Cordts or any man.... An’ see here, girl, Wildfire can beat this gray racer of your father’s.”

“Oh!” cried Lucy.

“Wildfire can beat the King,” repeated the rider, intensely. “The tame horse doesn’t step on this earth that can run with Wildfire. He’s a stallion. He has been a killer of horses. It’s in him to KILL. If he ran a race it would be that instinct in him.”

“How can we plan it?” went on Lucy, impulsively. She had forgotten to withdraw her hands from his. “It must be a surprise — a complete surprise. If you came to the Ford we couldn’t keep it secret. And Dad or Farlane would prevent me, somehow.”

“It’s easy. Ride out here as often as you can. Bring a light saddle an’ let me put you up on Wildfire. You’ll run him, train him, get him in shape. Then the day of the races or the night before I’ll go in an’ hide out in the sage till you come or send for Wildfire.”

“Oh, it’ll be glorious,” she cried, with eyes like stars. “I know just where to have you hide. A pile of rocks near the racecourse. There’s a spring and good grass. I could ride out to you just before the big race, and we’d come back, with me on Wildfire. The crowd always stays down at the end of the racecourse. Only the starters stay out there.... Oh, I can see Bostil when that red stallion runs into sight!”

“Well, is it settled?” queried the rider, strangely.

Lucy was startled into self-consciousness by his tone.

How strangely he must have felt. And his eyes were piercing.

“You mean — that I ride Wildfire?” she replied, shyly. “Yes, if you’ll let me.”

“I’ll be proud.”

“You’re very good.... And do you think Wildfire can beat the King?”

“I know it.”

“How do you?”

“I’ve seen both horses.”

“But it will be a grand race.”

“I reckon so. It’s likely to be the grandest ever seen. But Wildfire will win because he’s run wild all his life — an’ run to kill other horses.... The only question is — CAN you ride him?”

“Yes. I never saw the horse I couldn’t ride. Bostil says there are some I can’t ride. Farlane says not. Only two horses have thrown me, the King and Sarchedon. But that was before they knew me. And I was sort of wild. I can make your Wildfire love me.”

“THAT’S the last part of it I’d ever doubt,” replied the rider. “It’s settled, then. I’ll camp here. I’ll be well in a few days. Then I’ll take Wildfire in hand. You will ride out whenever you have a chance, without bein’ seen. An’ the two of us will train the stallion to upset that race.”

“Yes — then — it’s settled.”

Lucy’s gaze was impelled and held by the rider’s. Why was he so pale? But then he had been injured — weakened. This compact between them had somehow changed their relation. She seemed to have known him long.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Lin Slone,” replied the rider.

Then she released her hands. “I must ride in now. If this isn’t a dream I’ll come back soon.” She led Sage King to a rock and mounted him.

“It’s good to see you up there,” said Slone. “An’ that splendid horse! ... He knows what he is. It’ll break Bostil’s heart to see that horse beat.”

“Dad’ll feel bad, but it’ll do him good,” replied Lucy.

That was the old rider’s ruthless spirit speaking out of his daughter’s lips.

Slone went close to the King and, putting a hand on the pommel, he looked up at Lucy. “Maybe — it is — a dream — an’ you won’t come back,” he said, with unsteady voice.

“Then I’ll come in dreams,” she flashed. “Be careful of yourself.... Good-by.”

And at a touch the impatient King was off. From far up the slope near a monument Lucy looked back. Slone was watching her. She waved a gauntleted hand — and then looked back no more.

CHAPTER X

TWO WEEKS SLIPPED by on the wings of time and opportunity and achievement, all colored so wonderfully for Lucy, all spelling that adventure for which she had yearned.

Lucy was riding down into the sage toward the monuments with a whole day before her. Bostil kept more and more to himself, a circumstance that worried her, though she thought little about it. Van had taken up the training of the King; and Lucy had deliberately quarreled with him so that she would be free to ride where she listed. Farlane nagged her occasionally about her rides into the sage, insisting that she must not go so far and stay so long. And after Van’s return to work he made her ride Sarchedon.

Things had happened at the Ford which would have concerned Lucy greatly had she not been over-excited about her own affairs. Some one had ambushed Bostil in the cottonwoods near his house and had shot at him, narrowly missing him. Bostil had sworn he recognized the shot as having come from a rifle, and that he knew to whom it belonged. The riders did not believe this, and said some boy, shooting at a rabbit or coyote, had been afraid to confess he had nearly hit Bostil. The riders all said Bostil was not wholly himself of late. The river was still low. The boat had not been repaired. And Creech’s horses were still on the other side.

These things concerned Lucy, yet they only came and went swiftly through her mind. She was obsessed by things intimately concerning herself.

“Oh, I oughtn’t to go,” she said, aloud. But she did not even check Sarchedon’s long swing, his rocking-chair lope. She had said a hundred times that she ought not go again out to the monuments. For Lin Slone had fallen despairingly, terribly in love with her.

It was not this, she averred, but the monuments and the beautiful Wildfire that had woven a spell round her she could not break. She had ridden Wildfire all through that strange region of monuments and now they claimed something of her. Just as wonderful was Wildfire’s love for her. The great stallion hated Slone and loved Lucy. Of all the remarkable circumstances she had seen or heard about a horse, this fact was the most striking. She could do anything with him. All that savageness and wildness disappeared when she approached him. He came at her call. He whistled at sight of her. He sent out a ringing blast of disapproval when she rode away. Every day he tried to bite or kick Slone, but he was meek under Lucy’s touch.

But this morning there came to Lucy the first vague doubt of herself. Once entering her mind, that doubt became clear. And then she vowed she liked Slone as she might a brother. And something within her accused her own conviction. The conviction was her real self, and the accusation was some other girl lately born in her. Lucy did not like this new person. She was afraid of her. She would not think of her unless she had to.

“I never cared for him — that way,” she said, aloud. “I don’t — I couldn’t — ever — I — I — love Lin Slone!”

The spoken thought — the sound of the words played havoc with Lucy’s self-conscious calmness. She burned. She trembled. She was in a rage with herself. She spurred Sarchedon into a run and tore through the sage, down into the valley, running him harder than she should have run him. Then she checked him, and, penitent, petted him out of all proportion to her thoughtlessness. The violent exercise only heated her blood and, if anything, increased this sudden and new torment. Why had she discarded her boy’s rider outfit and chaps for a riding-habit made by her aunt, and one she had scorned to wear? Some awful, accusing voice thundered in Lucy’s burning ears that she had done this because she was ashamed to face Lin Slone any more in that costume — she wanted to appear different in his eyes, to look like a girl. If that shameful suspicion was a fact why was it — what did it mean? She could not tell, yet she was afraid of the truth.

All of a sudden Lin Slone stood out clearer in her mental vision — the finest type of a rider she had ever known — a strong, lithe, magnificent horseman, whose gentleness showed his love for horses, whose roughness showed his power — a strange, intense, lonely man in whom she had brought out pride, gratitude, kindness, passion, and despair. She felt her heart swell at the realization that she had changed him, made him kinder, made him divide his love as did her father, made him human, hopeful, longing for a future unfettered by the toils of desert allurement. She could not control her pride. She must like him very much. She confessed that, honestly, without a qualm. It was only bewildering moments of strange agitation and uncertainty that bothered her. She had refused to be concerned by them until they had finally impinged upon her peace of mind. Then they accused her; now she accused herself. She ought not go to meet Lin Slone any more.

“But then — the race!” she murmured. “I couldn’t give that up.... And oh! I’m afraid the harm is done! What can I do?”

After the race — what then? To be sure, all of Bostil’s Ford would know she had been meeting Slone out in the sage, training his horse. What would people say?

“Dad will simply be radiant, IF he can buy Wildfire — and a fiend if he can’t,” she muttered.

Lucy saw that her own impulsiveness had amounted to daring. She had gone too far. She excused that — for she had a rider’s blood — she was Bostil’s girl. But she had, in her wildness and joy and spirit, spent many hours alone with a rider, to his undoing. She could not excuse that. She was ashamed. What would he say when she told him she could see him no more? The thought made her weak. He would accept and go his way — back to that lonely desert, with only a horse.

“Wildfire doesn’t love him!” she said.

And the scarlet fired her neck and cheek and temple. That leap of blood seemed to release a riot of emotions. What had been a torment became a torture. She turned Sarchedon homeward, but scarcely had faced that way when she wheeled him again. She rode slowly and she rode swiftly. The former was hateful because it held her back — from what she no longer dared think; the latter was fearful because it hurried her on swiftly, irresistibly to her fate.

Lin Slone had changed his camp and had chosen a pass high up where the great walls had began to break into sections. Here there was intimacy with the sheer cliffs of red and yellow. Wide avenues between the walls opened on all points of the compass, and that one to the north appeared to be a gateway down into the valley of monuments. The monuments trooped down into the valley to spread out and grow isolated in the distance. Slone’s camp was in a clump of cedars surrounding a spring. There was grass and white sage where rabbits darted in and out.

Lucy did not approach this camp from that roundabout trail which she had made upon the first occasion of her visiting Slone. He had found an opening in the wall, and by riding this way into the pass Lucy cut off miles. In fact, the camp was not over fifteen miles from Bostil’s Ford. It was so close that Lucy was worried lest some horse-tracker should stumble on the trail and follow her up into the pass.

This morning she espied Slone at his outlook on a high rock that had fallen from the great walls. She always looked to see if he was there, and she always saw him. The days she had not come, which were few, he had spent watching for her there. His tasks were not many, and he said he had nothing to do but wait for her. Lucy had a persistent and remorseful, yet sweet memory of Slone at his lonely lookout. Here was a fine, strong, splendid young man who had nothing to do but watch for her — a waste of precious hours!

She waved her hand from afar, and he waved in reply. Then as she reached the cedared part of the pass Slone was no longer visible. She put Sarchedon to a run up the hard, wind-swept sand, and reached the camp before Slone had climbed down from his perch.

Lucy dismounted reluctantly. What would he say about the riding-habit that she wore? She felt very curious to learn, and shyer than ever before, and altogether different. The skirt made her more of a girl, it seemed.

“Hello, Lin!” she called. There was nothing in her usual greeting to betray the state of her mind.

“Good mornin’ — Lucy,” he replied, very slowly. He was looking at her, she thought, with different eyes. And he seemed changed, too, though he had long been well, and his tall, lithe rider’s form, his lean, strong face, and his dark eyes were admirable in her sight. Only this morning, all because she had worn a girl’s riding-skirt instead of boy’s chaps, everything seemed different. Perhaps her aunt had been right, after all, and now things were natural.

Slone gazed so long at her that Lucy could not keep silent. She laughed.

“How do you like — me — in this?”

“I like you much better,” Slone said, bluntly.

“Auntie made this — and she’s been trying to get me to ride in it.”

“It changes you, Lucy.... But can you ride as well?”

“I’m afraid not.... What’s Wildfire going to think of me?”

“He’ll like you better, too.... Lucy, how’s the King comin’ on?”

“Lin, I’ll tell you, if I wasn’t as crazy about Wildfire as you are, I’d say he’ll have to kill himself to beat the King,” replied Lucy, with gravity.

“Sometimes I doubt, too,” said Slone. “But I only have to look at Wildfire to get back my nerve.... Lucy, that will be the grandest race ever run!”

“Yes,” sighed Lucy.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want Wildfire to win?”

“Yes and no. But I’m going to beat the King, anyway.... Bring on your Wildfire!”

Lucy unsaddled Sarchedon and turned him loose to graze while Slone went out after Wildfire. And presently it appeared that Lucy might have some little time to wait. Wildfire had lately been trusted to hobbles, which fact made it likely that he had strayed.

Lucy gazed about her at the great looming red walls and out through the avenues to the gray desert beyond. This adventure of hers would soon have an end, for the day of the races was not far distant, and after that it was obvious she would not have occasion to meet Slone. To think of never coming to the pass again gave Lucy a pang. Unconsciously she meant that she would never ride up here again, because Slone would not be here. A wind always blew through the pass, and that was why the sand was so clean and hard. To-day it was a pleasant wind, not hot, nor laden with dust, and somehow musical in the cedars. The blue smoke from Slone’s fire curled away and floated out of sight. It was lonely, with the haunting presence of the broken walls ever manifest. But the loneliness seemed full of content. She no longer wondered at Slone’s desert life. That might be well for a young man, during those years when adventure and daring called him, but she doubted that it would be well for all of a man’s life. And only a little of it ought to be known by a woman. She saw how the wildness and loneliness and brooding of such a life would prevent a woman’s development. Yet she loved it all and wanted to live near it, so that when the need pressed her she could ride out into the great open stretches and see the dark monuments grow nearer and nearer, till she was under them, in the silent and colored shadows.

Slone returned presently with Wildfire. The stallion shone like a flame in the sunlight. His fear and hatred of Slone showed in the way he obeyed. Slone had mastered him, and must always keep the upper hand of him. It had from the first been a fight between man and beast, and Lucy believed it would always be so.

But Wildfire was a different horse when he saw Lucy. Day by day evidently Slone loved him more and tried harder to win a little of what Wildfire showed at sight of Lucy. Still Slone was proud of Lucy’s control over the stallion. He was just as much heart and soul bent on winning the great race as Lucy was. She had ridden Wildfire bareback at first, and then they had broken him to the saddle.

It was serious business, that training of Wildfire, and Slone had peculiar ideas regarding it. Lucy rode him up and down the pass until he was warm. Then Slone got on Sarchedon. Wildfire always snorted and showed fight at sight of Sage King or Nagger, and the stallion Sarchedon infuriated him because Sarchedon showed fight, too. Slone started out ahead of Lucy, and then they raced down the long pass. The course was hard-packed sand. Fast as Sarchedon was, and matchless as a horseman as was Slone, the race was over almost as soon as it began. Wildfire ran indeed like fire before the wind. He wanted to run, and the other horse made him fierce. Like a burr Lucy stuck low over his neck, a part of the horse, and so light he would not have known he was carrying her but for the repeated calls in his ears. Lucy never spurred him. She absolutely refused to use spurs on him. This day she ran away from Slone, and, turning at the end of the two-mile course they had marked out, she loped Wildfire back. Slone turned with her, and they were soon in camp. Lucy did not jump off. She was in a transport. Every race kindled a mounting fire in her. She was scarlet of face, out of breath, her hair flying. And she lay on Wildfire’s neck and hugged him and caressed him and talked to him in low tones of love.

Slone dismounted and got Sarchedon out of the way, then crossed to where Lucy still fondled Wildfire. He paused a moment to look at her, but when she saw him he started again, and came close up to her as she sat the saddle.

“You went past me like a bullet,” he said.

“Oh, can’t he run!” murmured Lucy.

“Could he beat the King to-day?”

Slone had asked that question every day, more than once.

“Yes, he could — to-day. I know it,” replied Lucy. “Oh — I get so — so excited. I — I make a fool of myself — over him. But to ride him — going like that — Lin! it’s just glorious!”

“You sure can ride him,” replied Slone. “I can’t see a fault anywhere — in him — or in your handling him. He never breaks. He goes hard, but he saves something. He gets mad — fierce — all the time, yet he WANTS to go your way. Lucy, I never saw the like of it. Somehow you an’ Wildfire make a combination. You can’t be beat.”

“Do I ride him — well?” she asked, softly.

“I could never ride him so well.”

“Oh, Lin — you just want to please me. Why, Van couldn’t ride with you.”

“I don’t care, Lucy,” replied Slone, stoutly. “You rode this horse perfect. I’ve found fault with you on the King, on your mustangs, an’ on this black horse Sarch. But on Wildfire! You grow there.”

“What will Dad say, and Farlane, and Holley, and Van? Oh, I’ll crow over Van,” said Lucy. “I’m crazy to ride Wildfire out before all the Indians and ranchers and riders, before the races, just to show him off, to make them stare.”

“No, Lucy. The best plan is to surprise them all. Enter your horse for the race, but don’t show up till all the riders are at the start.”

“Yes, that’ll be best.... And, Lin, only five days more — five days!”

Her words made Slone thoughtful, and Lucy, seeing that, straightway grew thoughtful, too.

“Sure — only five days more,” repeated Slone, slowly.

His tone convinced Lucy that he meant to speak again as he had spoken once before, precipitating the only quarrel they had ever had.

“Does ANY ONE at Bostil’s Ford know you meet me out here?” he asked, suddenly.

“Only Auntie. I told her the other day. She had been watching me. She thought things. So I told her.”

“What did she say?” went on Slone, curiously.

“She was mad,” replied Lucy. “She scolded me. She said.... But, anyway, I coaxed her not to tell on me.”

“I want to know what she said,” spoke up the rider, deliberately.

Lucy blushed, and it was a consciousness of confusion as well as Slone’s tone that made her half-angry.

“She said when I was found out there’d be a — a great fuss at the Ford. There would be talk. Auntie said I’m now a grown-up girl.... Oh, she carried on! ... Bostil would likely shoot you. And if he didn’t some of the riders would.... Oh, Lin, it was perfectly ridiculous the way Auntie talked.”

“I reckon not,” replied Slone. “I’m afraid I’ve done wrong to let you come out here.... But I never thought. I’m not used to girls. I’ll — I’ll deserve what I get for lettin’ you came.”

“It’s my own business,” declared Lucy, spiritedly. “And I guess they’d better let you alone.”

Slone shook his head mournfully. He was getting one of those gloomy spells that Lucy hated. Nevertheless, she felt a stir of her pulses.

“Lucy, there won’t be any doubt about my stand — when I meet Bostil,” said Slone. Some thought had animated him.

“What do you mean?” Lucy trembled a little.

There was a sternness about Slone, a dignity that seemed new. “I’ll ask him to — to let you marry me.”

Lucy stared aghast. Slone appeared in dead earnest.

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed, shortly.

“I reckon the possibility is — that,” replied Slone, bitterly, “but my motive isn’t.”

“It is. Why, you’ve known me only a few days.... Dad would be mad. Like as not he’d knock you down.... I tell you, Lin, my dad is — is pretty rough. And just at this time of the races.... And if Wildfire beats the King! ... Whew!”

“WHEN Wildfire beats the King, not IF,” corrected Slone.

“Dad will be dangerous,” warned Lucy. “Please don’t — don’t ask him that. Then everybody would know I — I — you — you—”

“That’s it. I want everybody at your home to know.”

“But it’s a little place,” flashed Lucy. “Every one knows me. I’m the only girl. There have been — other fellows who.... And oh! I don’t want you made fun of!”

“Why?” he asked.

Lucy turned away her head without answering. Something deep within her was softening her anger. She must fight to keep angry; and that was easy enough, she thought, if she could only keep in mind Slone’s opposition to her. Strangely, she discovered that it had been sweet to find him always governed by her desire or will.

“Maybe you misunderstand,” he began, presently. And his voice was not steady. “I don’t forget I’m only — a beggarly rider. I couldn’t have gone into the Ford at all — I was such a ragamuffin—”

“Don’t talk like that!” interrupted Lucy, impatiently.

“Listen,” he replied. “My askin’ Bostil for you doesn’t mean I’ve any hope. ... It’s just I want him an’ everybody to know that I asked.”

“But Dad — everybody will think that YOU think there’s reason — why — I — why, you OUGHT to ask,” burst out Lucy, with scarlet face.

“Sure, that’s it,” he replied.

“But there’s no reason. None! Not a reason under the sun,” retorted Lucy, hotly. “I found you out here. I did you a — a little service. We planned to race Wildfire. And I came out to ride him.... That’s all.”

Slone’s dark, steady gaze disconcerted Lucy. “But, no one knows me, and we’ve been alone in secret.”

“It’s not altogether — that. I — I told Auntie,” faltered Lucy.

“Yes, just lately.”

“Lin Slone, I’ll never forgive you if you ask Dad that,” declared Lucy, with startling force.

“I reckon that’s not so important.”

“Oh! — so you don’t care.” Lucy felt herself indeed in a mood not comprehensible to her. Her blood raced. She wanted to be furious with Slone, but somehow she could not wholly be so. There was something about him that made her feel small and thoughtless and selfish. Slone had hurt her pride. But the thing that she feared and resented and could not understand was the strange gladness Slone’s declaration roused in her. She tried to control her temper so she could think. Two emotions contended within her — one of intense annoyance at the thought of embarrassment surely to follow Slone’s action, and the other a vague, disturbing element, all sweet and furious and inexplicable. She must try to dissuade him from approaching her father.

“Please don’t go to Dad.” She put a hand on Slone’s arm as he stood close up to Wildfire.

“I reckon I will,” he said.

“Lin!” In that word there was the subtle, nameless charm of an intimacy she had never granted him until that moment. He seemed drawn as if by invisible wires. He put a shaking hand on hers and crushed her gauntleted fingers. And Lucy, in the current now of her woman’s need to be placated if not obeyed, pressed her small hand to his. How strange to what lengths a little submission to her feeling had carried her! Every spoken word, every movement, seemed to exact more from her. She did not know herself.

“Lin! ... Promise not to — speak to Dad!”

“No.” His voice rang.

“Don’t give me away — don’t tell my Dad!”

“What?” he queried, incredulously.

Lucy did not understand what. But his amazed voice, his wide-open eyes of bewilderment, seemed to aid her into piercing the maze of her own mind. A hundred thoughts whirled together, and all around them was wrapped the warm, strong feeling of his hand on hers. What did she mean that he would tell her father? There seemed to be a deep, hidden self in her. Up out of these depths came a whisper, like a ray of light, and it said to her that there was more hope for Lin Slone than he had ever had in one of his wildest dreams.

“Lin, if you tell Dad — then he’ll know — and there WON’T be any hope for you!” cried Lucy, honestly.

If Slone caught the significance of her words he did not believe it.

“I’m goin’ to Bostil after the race an’ ask him. That’s settled,” declared Slone, stubbornly.

At this Lucy utterly lost her temper. “Oh! you — you fool!” she cried.

Slone drew back suddenly as if struck, and a spot of dark blood leaped to his lean face. “No! It seems to me the right way.”

“Right or wrong there’s no sense in it — because — because. Oh! can’t you see?”

“I see more than I used to,” he replied. “I was a fool over a horse. An’ now I’m a fool over a girl.... I wish you’d never found me that day!”

Lucy whirled in the saddle and made Wildfire jump. She quieted him, and, leaping off, threw the bridle to Slone. “I won’t ride your horse in the race!” she declared with sudden passion. She felt herself shaking all over.

“Lucy Bostil, I wish I was as sure of Heaven as I am you’ll be up on Wildfire in that race,” he said.

“I won’t ride your horse.”

“MY horse. Oh, I see.... But you’ll ride Wildfire.”

“I won’t.”

Slone suddenly turned white, and his eyes flashed dark fire. “You won’t be able to help ridin’ him any more than I could help it.”

“A lot you know about me, Lin Slone!” returned Lucy, with scorn. “I can be as — as bull-headed as you, any day.”

Slone evidently controlled his temper, though his face remained white. He even smiled at her.

“You are Bostil’s daughter,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You are blood an’ bone, heart an’ soul a rider, if any girl ever was. You’re a wonder with a horse — as good as any man I ever saw. You love Wildfire. An’ look — how strange! That wild stallion — that killer of horses, why he follows you, he whistles for you, he runs like lightnin’ for you; he LOVES you.”

Slone had attacked Lucy in her one weak point. She felt a force rending her. She dared not look at Wildfire. Yes — all, that was true Slone had said. How desperately hard to think of forfeiting the great race she knew she could win!

“Never! I’ll never ride your Wildfire AGAIN!” she said, very, low.

“MINE! ... So that’s the trouble. Well, Wildfire won’t be mine when you ride the race.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Lucy. “You’ll sell him to Bostil.... Bah! you couldn’t ...”

“Sell Wildfire! — after what it cost me to catch an’ break him? ... Not for all your father’s lands an’ horses an’ money!”

Slone’s voice rolled out with deep, ringing scorn. And Lucy, her temper quelled, began to feel the rider’s strength, his mastery of the situation, and something vague, yet splendid about him that hurt her.

Slone strode toward her. Lucy backed against the cedar-tree and could go no farther. How white he was now! Lucy’s heart gave a great, fearful leap, for she imagined Slone intended to take her in his arms. But he did not.

“When you ride — Wildfire in that — race he’ll be — YOURS!” said Slone, huskily.

“How can that be?” questioned Lucy, in astonishment.

“I give him to you.”

“You — give — Wildfire — to me?” gasped Lucy.

“Yes. Right now.”

The rider’s white face and dark eyes showed the strain of great and passionate sacrifice.

“Lin Slone! ... I can’t — understand you.”

“You’ve got to ride Wildfire in that race. You’ve got to beat the King.... So I give Wildfire to you. An’ now you can’t help but ride him.”

“Why — why do you give him — to me?” faltered Lucy.

All her pride and temper had vanished, and she seemed lost in blankness.

“Because you love Wildfire. An’ Wildfire loves you.... If that isn’t reason enough — then ... because I love him — as no rider ever loved a horse.... An’ I love you as no man ever loved a girl!”

Slone had never before spoken words of love to Lucy. She dropped her head. She knew of his infatuation. But he had always been shy except once when he had been bold, and that had caused a quarrel. With a strange pain at her breast Lucy wondered why Slone had not spoken that way before? It made as great a change in her as if she had been born again. It released something. A bolt shot back in her heart. She knew she was quivering like a leaf, with no power to control her muscles. She knew if she looked up then Slone might see the depths of her soul. Even with her hands shutting out the light she thought the desert around had changed and become all mellow gold and blue and white, radiant as the moonlight of dreams — and that the monuments soared above them grandly, and were beautiful and noble, like the revelations of love and joy to her. And suddenly she found herself sitting at the foot of the cedar, weeping, with tear-wet hands over her face.

“There’s nothin’ to — to cry about,” Slone was saying. “But I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“Will — you — please — fetch Sarch?” asked Lucy, tremulously.

While Slone went for the horse and saddled him Lucy composed herself outwardly. And she had two very strong desires — one to tell Slone something, and the other to run. She decided she would do both together.

Slone brought Sarchedon. Lucy put on her gauntlets, and, mounting the horse, she took a moment to arrange her skirts before she looked down at Slone. He was now pale, rather than white, and instead of fire in his eyes there was sadness. Lucy felt the swelling and pounding of her heart — and a long, delicious shuddering thrill that ran over her.

“Lin, I won’t take Wildfire,” she said.

“Yes, you will. You can’t refuse. Remember he’s grown to look to you. It wouldn’t be right by the horse.”

“But he’s all you have in the world,” she protested. Yet she knew any protestations would be in vain.

“No. I have good old faithful Nagger.”

“Would you go try to hunt another wild stallion — like Wildfire?” asked Lucy, curiously. She was playing with the wonderful sweet consciousness of her power to render happiness when she chose.

“No more horse-huntin’ for me,” declared Slone. “An’ as for findin’ one like Wildfire — that’d never be.”

“Suppose I won’t accept him?”

“How could you refuse? Not for me but for Wildfire’s sake! ... But if you could be mean an’ refuse, why, Wildfire can go back to the desert.”

“No!” exclaimed Lucy.

“I reckon so.”

Lucy paused a moment. How dry her tongue seemed! And her breathing was labored! An unreal shimmering gleam shone on all about her. Even the red stallion appeared enveloped in a glow. And the looming monuments looked down upon her, paternal, old, and wise, bright with the color of happiness.

“Wildfire ought to have several more days’ training — then a day of rest — and then the race,” said Lucy, turning again to look at Slone.

A smile was beginning to change the hardness of his face. “Yes, Lucy,” he said.

“And I’ll HAVE to ride him?”

“You sure will — if he’s ever to beat the King.”

Lucy’s eyes flashed blue. She saw the crowd — the curious, friendly Indians — the eager riders — the spirited horses — the face of her father — and last the race itself, such a race as had never been ran, so swift, so fierce, so wonderful.

“Then Lin,” began Lucy, with a slowly heaving breast, “if I accept Wildfire will you keep him for me — until ... and if I accept him, and tell you why, will you promise to say—”

“Don’t ask me again!” interrupted Slone, hastily. “I WILL speak to Bostil.”

“Wait, will you ... promise not to say a word — a single word to ME — till after the race?”

“A word — to you! What about?” he queried, wonderingly. Something in his eyes made Lucy think of the dawn.

“About — the — Because — Why, I’m — I’ll accept your horse.”

“Yes,” he replied, swiftly.

Lucy settled herself in the saddle and, shortening the bridle, she got ready to spur Sarchedon into a bolt.

“Lin, I’ll accept Wildfire because I love you.”

Sarchedon leaped forward. Lucy did not see Slone’s face nor hear him speak. Then she was tearing through the sage, out past the whistling Wildfire, with the wind sweet in her face. She did not look back.

CHAPTER XI

ALL THROUGH MAY there was an idea, dark and sinister, growing in Bostil’s mind. Fiercely at first he had rejected it as utterly unworthy of the man he was. But it returned. It would not be denied. It was fostered by singular and unforeseen circumstances. The meetings with Creech, the strange, sneaking actions of young Joel Creech, and especially the gossip of riders about the improvement in Creech’s swift horse — these things appeared to loom larger and larger and to augment in Bostil’s mind the monstrous idea which he could not shake off. So he became brooding and gloomy.

It appeared to be an indication of his intense preoccupation of mind that he seemed unaware of Lucy’s long trips down into the sage. But Bostil had observed them long before Holley and other riders had approached him with the information.

“Let her alone,” he growled to his men. “I gave her orders to train the King. An’ after Van got well mebbe Lucy just had a habit of ridin’ down there. She can take care of herself.”

To himself, when alone, Bostil muttered: “Wonder what the kid has looked up now? Some mischief, I’ll bet!”

Nevertheless, he did not speak to her on the subject. Deep in his heart he knew he feared his keen-eyed daughter, and during these days he was glad she was not in evidence at the hours when he could not very well keep entirely to himself. Bostil was afraid Lucy might divine what he had on his mind. There was no one else he cared for. Holley, that old hawk-eyed rider, might see through him, but Bostil knew Holley would be loyal, whatever he saw.

Toward the end of the month, when Somers returned from horse-hunting, Bostil put him and Shugrue to work upon the big flatboat down at the crossing. Bostil himself went down, and he walked — a fact apt to be considered unusual if it had been noticed.

“Put in new planks,” was his order to the men. “An’ pour hot tar in the cracks. Then when the tar dries shove her in ... but I’ll tell you when.”

Every morning young Creech rowed over to see if the boat was ready to take the trip across to bring his father’s horses back. The third morning of work on the boat Bostil met Joel down there. Joel seemed eager to speak to Bostil. He certainly was a wild-looking youth.

“Bostil, my ole man is losin’ sleep waitin’ to git the hosses over,” he said, frankly. “Feed’s almost gone.”

“That’ll be all right, Joel,” replied Bostil. “You see, the river ain’t begun to raise yet.... How’re the hosses comin’ on?”

“Grand, sir — grand!” exclaimed the simple Joel. “Peg is runnin’ faster than last year, but Blue Roan is leavin’ her a mile. Dad’s goin’ to bet all he has. The roan can’t lose this year.”

Bostil felt like a bull bayed at by a hound. Blue Roan was a young horse, and every season he had grown bigger and faster. The King had reached the limit of his speed. That was great, Bostil knew, and enough to win over any horse in the uplands, providing the luck of the race fell even. Luck, however, was a fickle thing.

“I was advisin’ Dad to swim the hosses over,” declared Joel, deliberately.

“A-huh! You was? ... An’ why?” rejoined Bostil.

Joel’s simplicity and frankness vanished, and with them his rationality. He looked queer. His contrasting eyes shot little malignant gleams. He muttered incoherently, and moved back toward the skiff, making violent gestures, and his muttering grew to shouting, though still incoherent. He got in the boat and started to row back over the river.

“Sure he’s got a screw loose,” observed Somers. Shugrue tapped his grizzled head significantly.

Bostil made no comment. He strode away from his men down to the river shore, and, finding a seat on a stone, he studied the slow eddying red current of the river and he listened. If any man knew the strange and remorseless Colorado, that man was Bostil. He never made any mistakes in anticipating what the river was going to do.

And now he listened, as if indeed the sullen, low roar, the murmuring hollow gurgle, the sudden strange splash, were spoken words meant for his ears alone. The river was low. It seemed tired out. It was a dirty red in color, and it swirled and flowed along lingeringly. At times the current was almost imperceptible; and then again it moved at varying speed. It seemed a petulant, waiting, yet inevitable stream, with some remorseless end before it. It had a thousand voices, but not the one Bostil listened to hear.

He plodded gloomily up the trail, resting in the quiet, dark places of the canyon, loath to climb out into the clear light of day. And once in the village, Bostil shook himself as if to cast off an evil, ever-present, pressing spell.

The races were now only a few days off. Piutes and Navajos were camped out on the sage, and hourly the number grew as more came in. They were building cedar sunshades. Columns of blue smoke curled up here and there. Mustangs and ponies grazed everywhere, and a line of Indians extended along the racecourse, where trials were being held. The village was full of riders, horse-traders and hunters, and ranchers. Work on the ranges had practically stopped for the time being, and in another day or so every inhabitant of the country would be in Bostil’s Ford.

Bostil walked into the village, grimly conscious that the presence of the Indians and riders and horses, the action and color and bustle, the near approach of the great race-day — these things that in former years had brought him keen delight and speculation — had somehow lost their tang. He had changed. Something was wrong in him. But he must go among these visitors and welcome them as of old; he who had always been the life of these racing-days must be outwardly the same. And the task was all the harder because of the pleasure shown by old friends among the Indians and the riders at meeting him. Bostil knew he had been a cunning horse-trader, but he had likewise been a good friend. Many were the riders and Indians who owed much to him. So everywhere he was hailed and besieged, until finally the old excitement of betting and bantering took hold of him and he forgot his brooding.

Brackton’s place, as always, was a headquarters for all visitors. Macomber had just come in full of enthusiasm and pride over the horse he had entered, and he had money to wager. Two Navajo chiefs, called by white men Old Horse and Silver, were there for the first time in years. They were ready to gamble horse against horse. Cal Blinn and his riders of Durango had arrived; likewise Colson, Sticks, and Burthwait, old friends and rivals of Bostil’s.

For a while Brackton’s was merry. There was some drinking and much betting. It was characteristic of Bostil that he would give any odds asked on the King in a race; and, furthermore, he would take any end of wagers on other horses. As far as his own horses were concerned he bet shrewdly, but in races where his horses did not figure he seemed to find fun in the betting, whether or not he won.

The fact remained, however, that there were only two wagers against the King, and both were put up by Indians. Macomber was betting on second or third place for his horse in the big race. No odds of Bostil’s tempted him.

“Say, where’s Wetherby?” rolled out Bostil. “He’ll back his hoss.”

“Wetherby’s ridin’ over to-morrow,” replied Macomber. “But you gotta bet him two to one.”

“See hyar, Bostil,” spoke up old Cal Blinn, “you jest wait till I git an eye on the King’s runnin’. Mebbe I’ll go you even money.”

“An’ as fer me, Bostil,” said Colson, “I ain’t set up yit which hoss I’ll race.”

Burthwait, an old rider, came forward to Brackton’s desk and entered a wager against the field that made all the men gasp.

“By George! pard, you ain’t a-limpin’ along!” ejaculated Bostil, admiringly, and he put a hand on the other’s shoulder.

“Bostil, I’ve a grand hoss,” replied Burthwait. “He’s four years old, I guess, fer he was born wild, an’ you never seen him.”

“Wild hoss? ... Huh!” growled Bostil. “You must think he can run.”

“Why, Bostil, a streak of lightnin’ ain’t anywheres with him.”

“Wal, I’m glad to hear it,” said Bostil, gruffly. “Brack, how many hosses entered now for the big race?”

The lean, gray Brackton bent earnestly over his soiled ledger, while the riders and horsemen round him grew silent to listen.

“Thar’s the Sage King by Bostil,” replied Brackton. “Blue Roan an’ Peg, by Creech; Whitefoot, by Macomber; Rocks, by Holley; Hoss-shoes, by Blinn; Bay Charley, by Burthwait. Then thar’s the two mustangs entered by Old Hoss an’ Silver — an’ last — Wildfire, by Lucy Bostil.”

“What’s thet last?” queried Bostil.

“Wildfire, by Lucy Bostil,” repeated Brackton.

“Has the girl gone an’ entered a hoss?”

“She sure has. She came in to-day, regular an’ business-like, writ her name an’ her hoss’s — here ’tis — an’ put up the entrance money.”

“Wal, I’ll be d — d!” exclaimed Bostil. He was astonished and pleased. “She said she’d do it. But I didn’t take no stock in her talk.... An’ the hoss’s name?”

“Wildfire.”

“Huh! ... Wildfire. Mebbe thet girl can’t think of names for hosses! What’s this hoss she calls Wildfire?”

“She sure didn’t say,” replied Brackton. “Holley an’ Van an’ some more of the boys was here. They joked her a little. You oughter seen the look Lucy give them. But fer once she seemed mum. She jest walked away mysterious like.”

“Lucy’s got a pony off some Indian, I reckon,” returned Bostil, and he laughed. “Then thet makes ten hosses entered so far?”

“Right. An’ there’s sure to be one more. I guess the track’s wide enough for twelve.”

“Wal, Brack, there’ll likely be one hoss out in front an’ some stretched out behind,” replied Bostil, dryly. “The track’s sure wide enough.”

“Won’t thet be a grand race!” exclaimed an enthusiastic rider. “Wisht I had about a million to bet!”

“Bostil, I ‘most forgot,” went on Brackton, “Cordts sent word by the Piutes who come to-day thet he’d be here sure.”

Bostil’s face subtly changed. The light seemed to leave it. He did not reply to Brackton — did not show that he heard the comment on all sides. Public opinion was against Bostil’s permission to allow Cordts and his horse-thieves to attend the races. Bostil appeared grave, regretful. Yet it was known by all that in the strangeness and perversity of his rider’s nature he wanted Cordts to see the King win that race. It was his rider’s vanity and defiance in the teeth of a great horse-thief. But no good would come of Cordts’s presence — that much was manifest.

There was a moment of silence. All these men, if they did not fear Bostil, were sometimes uneasy when near him. Some who were more reckless than discreet liked to irritate him. That, too, was a rider’s weakness.

“When’s Creech’s hosses comin’ over?” asked Colson, with sudden interest.

“Wal, I reckon — soon,” replied Bostil, constrainedly, and he turned away.

By the time he got home all the excitement of the past hour had left him and gloom again abided in his mind. He avoided his daughter and forgot the fact of her entering a horse in the race. He ate supper alone, without speaking to his sister. Then in the dusk he went out to the corrals and called the King to the fence. There was love between master and horse. Bostil talked low, like a woman, to Sage King. And the hard old rider’s heart was full and a lump swelled in his throat, for contact with the King reminded him that other men loved other horses.

Bostil returned to the house and went to his room, where he sat thinking in the dark. By and by all was quiet. Then seemingly with a wrench he bestirred himself and did what for him was a strange action. Removing his boots, he put on a pair of moccasins. He slipped out of the house; he kept to the flagstone of the walk; he took to the sage till out of the village, and then he sheered round to the river trail. With the step and sureness and the eyes of an Indian he went down through that pitch-black canyon to the river and the ford.

The river seemed absolutely the same as during the day. He peered through the dark opaqueness of gloom. It moved there, the river he knew, shadowy, mysterious, murmuring. Bostil went down to the edge of the water, and, sitting there, he listened. Yes — the voices of the stream were the same. But after a long time he imagined there was among them an infinitely low voice, as if from a great distance. He imagined this; he doubted; he made sure; and then all seemed fancy again. His mind held only one idea and was riveted round it. He strained his hearing, so long, so intently, that at last he knew he had heard what he was longing for. Then in the gloom he took to the trail, and returned home as he had left, stealthily, like an Indian.

But Bostil did not sleep nor rest.

Next morning early he rode down to the river. Somers and Shugrue had finished the boat and were waiting. Other men were there, curious and eager. Joel Creech, barefooted and ragged, with hollow eyes and strange actions, paced the sands.

The boat was lying bottom up. Bostil examined the new planking and the seams. Then he straightened his form.

“Turn her over,” he ordered. “Shove her in. An’ let her soak up to-day.”

The men seemed glad and relieved. Joel Creech heard and he came near to Bostil.

“You’ll — you’ll fetch Dad’s hosses over?” he queried.

“Sure. To-morrow,” replied Bostil, cheerily.

Joel smiled, and that smile showed what might have been possible for him under kinder conditions of life. “Now, Bostil, I’m sorry fer what I said,” blurted Joel.

“Shut up. Go tell your old man.”

Joel ran down to his skiff and, leaping in, began to row vigorously across. Bostil watched while the workmen turned the boat over and slid it off the sand-bar and tied it securely to the mooring. Bostil observed that not a man there saw anything unusual about the river. But, for that matter, there was nothing to see. The river was the same.

That night when all was quiet in and around the village Bostil emerged from his house and took to his stealthy stalk down toward the river.

The moment he got out into the night oppression left him. How interminable the hours had been! Suspense, doubt, anxiety, fear no longer burdened him. The night was dark, with only a few stars, and the air was cool. A soft wind blew across his heated face. A neighbor’s dog, baying dismally, startled Bostil. He halted to listen, then stole on under the cottonwoods, through the sage, down the trail, into the jet-black canyon. Yet he found his way as if it had been light. In the darkness of his room he had been a slave to his indecision; now in the darkness of the looming cliffs he was free, resolved, immutable.

The distance seemed short. He passed out of the narrow canyon, skirted the gorge over the river, and hurried down into the shadowy amphitheater under the looming walls.

The boat lay at the mooring, one end resting lightly the sand-bar. With strong, nervous clutch Bostil felt the knots of the cables. Then he peered into the opaque gloom of that strange and huge V-shaped split between the great canyon walls. Bostil’s mind had begun to relax from the single idea. Was he alone? Except for the low murmur of the river there was dead silence — a silence like no other — a silence which seemed held under imprisoning walls. Yet Bostil peered long into the shadows. Then he looked up. The ragged ramparts far above frowned bold and black at a few cold stars, and the blue of its sky was without the usual velvety brightness. How far it was up to that corrugated rim! All of a sudden Bostil hated this vast ebony pit.

He strode down to the water and, sitting upon the stone he had occupied so often, he listened. He turned his ear up-stream, then down-stream, and to the side, and again up-stream and listened.

The river seemed the same.

It was slow, heavy, listless, eddying, lingering, moving — the same apparently as for days past. It splashed very softly and murmured low and gurgled faintly. It gave forth fitful little swishes and musical tinkles and lapping sounds. It was flowing water, yet the proof was there of tardiness. Now it was almost still, and then again it moved on. It was a river of mystery telling a lie with its low music. As Bostil listened all those soft, watery sounds merged into what seemed a moaning, and that moaning held a roar so low as to be only distinguishable to the ear trained by years.

No — the river was not the same. For the voice of its soft moaning showed to Bostil its meaning. It called from the far north — the north of great ice-clad peaks beginning to glisten under the nearing sun; of vast snow-filled canyons dripping and melting; of the crystal brooks suddenly colored and roiled and filled bank-full along the mountain meadows; of many brooks plunging down and down, rolling the rocks, to pour their volume into the growing turbid streams on the slopes. It was the voice of all that widely separated water spilled suddenly with magical power into the desert river to make it a mighty, thundering torrent, red and defiled, terrible in its increasing onslaught into the canyon, deep, ponderous, but swift — the Colorado in flood.

And as Bostil heard that voice he trembled. What was the thing he meant to do? A thousand thoughts assailed him in answer and none were clear. A chill passed over him. Suddenly he felt that the cold stole up from his feet. They were both in the water. He pulled them out and, bending down, watched the dim, dark line of water. It moved up and up, inch by inch, swiftly. The river was on the rise!

Bostil leaped up. He seemed possessed of devils. A rippling hot gash of blood fired his every vein and tremor after tremor shook him.

“By G — d! I had it right — she’s risin’!” he exclaimed, hoarsely.

He stared in fascinated certainty at the river. All about it and pertaining to it had changed. The murmur and moan changed to a low, sullen roar. The music was gone. The current chafed at its rock-bound confines. Here was an uneasy, tormented, driven river! The light from the stars shone on dark, glancing, restless waters, uneven and strange. And while Bostil watched, whether it was a short time or long, the remorseless, destructive nature of the river showed itself.

Bostil began to pace the sands. He thought of those beautiful race-horses across the river.

“It’s not too late!” he muttered. “I can get the boat over an’ back — yet!”

He knew that on the morrow the Colorado in flood would bar those horses, imprison them in a barren canyon, shut them in to starve.

“It’d be hellish! ... Bostil, you can’t do it. You ain’t thet kind of a man.... Bostil poison a water-hole where hosses loved to drink, or burn over grass! ... What would Lucy think of you? ... No, Bostil, you’ve let spite rule bad. Hurry now and save them hosses!”

He strode down to the boat. It swung clear now, and there was water between it and the shore. Bostil laid hold of the cables. As he did so he thought of Creech and a blackness enfolded him. He forgot Creech’s horses. Something gripped him, burned him — some hard and bitter feeling which he thought was hate of Creech. Again the wave of fire ran over him, and his huge hands strained on the cables. The fiend of that fiendish river had entered his soul. He meant ruin to a man. He meant more than ruin. He meant to destroy what his enemy, his rival loved. The darkness all about him, the gloom and sinister shadow of the canyon, the sullen increasing roar of the’ river — these lent their influence to the deed, encouraged him, drove him onward, fought and strangled the resistance in his heart. As he brooded all the motives for the deed grew like that remorseless river. Had not his enemy’s son shot at him from ambush? Was not his very life at stake? A terrible blow must be dealt Creech, one that would crush him or else lend him manhood enough to come forth with a gun. Bostil, in his torment, divined that Creech would know who had ruined him. They would meet then, as Bostil had tried more than once to bring about a meeting. Bostil saw into his soul, and it was a gulf like this canyon pit where the dark and sullen river raged. He shrank at what he saw, but the furies of passion held him fast. His hands tore at the cables. Then he fell to pacing to and fro in the gloom. Every moment the river changed its voice. In an hour flood would be down. Too late, then! Bostil again remembered the sleek, slim, racy thoroughbreds — Blue Roan, a wild horse he had longed to own, and Peg, a mare that had no equal in the uplands. Where did Bostil’s hate of a man stand in comparison with love of a horse? He began to sweat and the sweat burned him.

“How soon’ll Creech hear the river an’ know what’s comin’?” muttered Bostil, darkly. And that question showed him how he was lost. All this strife of doubt and fear and horror were of no use. He meant to doom Creech’s horses. The thing had been unalterable from the inception of the insidious, hateful idea. It was irresistible. He grew strong, hard, fierce, and implacable. He found himself. He strode back to the cables. The knots, having dragged in the water, were soaking wet and swollen. He could not untie them. Then he cut one strand after another. The boat swung out beyond his reach.

Instinctively Bostil reached to pull it back.

“My God! ... It’s goin’!” he whispered. “What have I done?”

He — Bostil — who had made this Crossing of the Fathers more famous as Bostil’s Ford — he — to cut the boat adrift! The thing was inconceivable.

The roar of the river rose weird and mournful and incessant, with few breaks, and these were marked by strange ripping and splashing sounds made as the bulges of water broke on the surface. Twenty feet out the boat floated, turning a little as it drifted. It seemed loath to leave. It held on the shore eddy. Hungrily, spitefully the little, heavy waves lapped it. Bostil watched it with dilating eyes. There! the current caught one end and the water rose in a hollow splash over the corner. An invisible hand, like a mighty giant’s, seemed to swing the boat out. It had been dark; now it was opaque, now shadowy, now dim. How swift this cursed river! Was there any way in which Bostil could recover his boat? The river answered him with hollow, deep mockery. Despair seized upon him. And the vague shape of the boat, spectral and instinct with meaning, passed from Bostil’s strained gaze.

“So help me God, I’ve done it!” he groaned, hoarsely. And he staggered back and sat down. Mind and heart and soul were suddenly and exquisitely acute to the shame of his act. Remorse seized upon his vitals. He suffered physical agony, as if a wolf gnawed him internally.

“To hell with Creech an’ his hosses, but where do I come in as a man?” he whispered. And he sat there, arms tight around his knees, locked both mentally and physically into inaction.

The rising water broke the spell and drove him back. The river was creeping no longer. It swelled. And the roar likewise swelled. Bostil hurried across the flat to get to the rocky trail before he was cut off, and the last few rods he waded in water up to his knees.

“I’ll leave no trail there,” he muttered, with a hard laugh. It sounded ghastly to him, like the laugh of the river.

And there at the foot of the rocky trail he halted to watch and listen. The old memorable boom came to his ears. The flood was coming. For twenty-three years he had heard the vanguard boom of the Colorado in flood. But never like this, for in the sound he heard the strife and passion of his blood, and realized himself a human counterpart of that remorseless river. The moments passed and each one saw a swelling of the volume of sound. The sullen roar just below him was gradually lost in a distant roar. A steady wind now blew through the canyon. The great walls seemed to gape wider to prepare for the torrent. Bostil backed slowly up the trail as foot by foot the water rose. The floor of the amphitheater was now a lake of choppy, angry waves. The willows bent and seethed in the edge of the current. Beyond ran an uneven, bulging mass that resembled some gray, heavy moving monster. In the gloom Bostil could see how the river turned a corner of wall and slanted away from it toward the center, where it rose higher. Black objects that must have been driftwood appeared on this crest. They showed an instant, then flashed out of sight. The boom grew steadier, closer, louder, and the reverberations, like low detonations of thunder, were less noticeable because all sounds were being swallowed up.

A harder breeze puffed into Bostil’s face. It brought a tremendous thunder, as if all the colossal walls were falling in avalanche. Bostil knew the crest of the flood had turned the corner above and would soon reach him. He watched. He listened, but sound had ceased. His ears seemed ringing and they hurt. All his body felt cold, and he backed up and up, with dead feet.

The shadows of the canyon lightened. A river-wide froth, like a curtain, moved down, spreading mushroom-wise before it, a rolling, heaving maelstrom. Bostil ran to escape the great wave that surged into the amphitheater, up and up the rocky trail. When he turned again he seemed to look down into hell. Murky depths, streaked by pale gleams, and black, sinister, changing forms yawned beneath them. He watched with fixed eyes until once more the feeling of filled ears left him and an awful thundering boom assured him of actualities. It was only the Colorado in flood.

CHAPTER XII

BOSTIL SLEPT THAT night, but his sleep was troubled, and a strange, dreadful roar seemed to run through it, like a mournful wind over a dark desert. He was awakened early by a voice at his window. He listened. There came a rap on the wood.

“Bostil! ... Bostil!” It was Holley’s voice.

Bostil rolled off the bed. He had slept without removing any apparel except his boots.

“Wal, Hawk, what d’ye mean wakin’ a man at this unholy hour?” growled Bostil.

Holley’s face appeared above the rude sill. It was pale and grave, with the hawk eyes like glass. “It ain’t so awful early,” he said. “Listen, boss.”

Bostil halted in the act of pulling on a boot. He looked at his man while he listened. The still air outside seemed filled with low boom, like thunder at a distance. Bostil tried to look astounded.

“Hell! ... It’s the Colorado! She’s boomin’!”

“Reckon it’s hell all right — for Creech,” replied Holley. “Boss, why didn’t you fetch them hosses over?”

Bostil’s face darkened. He was a bad man to oppose — to question at times. “Holley, you’re sure powerful anxious about Creech. Are you his friend?”

“Naw! I’ve little use fer Creech,” replied Holley. “An’ you know thet. But I hold for his hosses as I would any man’s.”

“A-huh! An’ what’s your kick?”

“Nothin’ — except you could have fetched them over before the flood come down. That’s all.”

The old horse-trader and his right-hand rider looked at each other for a moment in silence. They understood each other. Then Bostil returned to the task of pulling on wet boots and Holley went away.

Bostil opened his door and stepped outside. The eastern ramparts of the desert were bright red with the rising sun. With the night behind him and the morning cool and bright and beautiful, Bostil did not suffer a pang nor feel a regret. He walked around under the cottonwoods where the mocking-birds were singing. The shrill, screeching bray of a burro split the morning stillness, and with that the sounds of the awakening village drowned that sullen, dreadful boom of the river. Bostil went in to breakfast.

He encountered Lucy in the kitchen, and he did not avoid her. He could tell from her smiling greeting that he seemed to her his old self again. Lucy wore an apron and she had her sleeves rolled up, showing round, strong, brown arms. Somehow to Bostil she seemed different. She had been pretty, but now she was more than that. She was radiant. Her blue eyes danced. She looked excited. She had been telling her aunt something, and that worthy woman appeared at once shocked and delighted. But Bostil’s entrance had caused a mysterious break in everything that had been going on, except the preparation of the morning meal.

“Now I rode in on some confab or other, that’s sure,” said Bostil, good-naturedly.

“You sure did, Dad,” replied Lucy, with a bright smile.

“Wal, let me sit in the game,” he rejoined.

“Dad, you can’t even ante,” said Lucy.

“Jane, what’s this kid up to?” asked Bostil, turning to his sister.

“The good Lord only knows!” replied Aunt Jane, with a sigh.

“Kid? ... See here, Dad, I’m eighteen long ago. I’m grown up. I can do as I please, go where I like, and anything.... Why, Dad, I could get — married.”

“Haw! haw!” laughed Bostil. “Jane, hear the girl.”

“I hear her, Bostil,” sighed Aunt Jane.

“Wal, Lucy, I’d just like to see you fetch some fool love-sick rider around when I’m feelin’ good,” said Bostil.

Lucy laughed, but there was a roguish, daring flash in her eyes. “Dad, you do seem to have all the young fellows scared. Some day maybe one will ride along — a rider like you used to be — that nobody could bluff.... And he can have me!”

“A-huh! ... Lucy, are you in fun?”

Lucy tossed her bright head, but did not answer.

“Jane, what’s got into her?” asked Bostil, appealing to his sister.

“Bostil, she’s in fun, of course,” declared Aunt Jane. “Still, at that, there’s some sense in what she says. Come to your breakfast, now.”

Bostil took his seat at the table, glad that he could once more be amiable with his women-folk. “Lucy, to-morrow’ll be the biggest day Bostil’s Ford ever seen,” he said.

“It sure will be, Dad. The biggest SURPRISING day the Ford ever had,” replied Lucy.

“Surprisin’?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Who’s goin’ to get surprised?”

“Everybody.”

Bostil said to himself that he had been used to Lucy’s banter, but during his moody spell of days past he had forgotten how to take her or else she was different.

“Brackton tells me you’ve entered a hoss against the field.”

“It’s an open race, isn’t it?”

“Open as the desert, Lucy,” he replied. “What’s this hoss Wildfire you’ve entered?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” taunted Lucy.

“If he’s as good as his name you might be in at the finish.... But, Lucy, my dear, talkin’ good sense now — you ain’t a-goin’ to go up on some unbroken mustang in this big race?”

“Dad, I’m going to ride a horse.”

“But, Lucy, ain’t it a risk you’ll be takin’ — all for fun?”

“Fun! ... I’m in dead earnest.”

Bostil liked the look of her then. She had paled a little; her eyes blazed; she was intense. His question had brought out her earnestness, and straightway Bostil became thoughtful. If Lucy had been a boy she would have been the greatest rider on the uplands; and even girl as she was, superbly mounted, she would have been dangerous in any race.

“Wal, I ain’t afraid of your handlin’ of a hoss,” he said, soberly. “An’ as long as you’re in earnest I won’t stop you. But, Lucy, no bettin’. I won’t let you gamble.”

“Not even with you?” she coaxed.

Bostil stared at the girl. What had gotten into her? “What’ll you bet?” he, queried, with blunt curiosity.

“Dad, I’ll go you a hundred dollars in gold that I finish one — two — three.”

Bostil threw back his head to laugh heartily. What a chip of the old block she was! “Child, there’s some fast hosses that’ll be back of the King. You’d be throwin’ away money.”

Blue fire shone in his daughter’s eyes. She meant business, all right, and Bostil thrilled with pride in her.

“Dad, I’ll bet you two hundred, even, that I beat the King!” she flashed.

“Wal, of all the nerve!” ejaculated Bostil. “No, I won’t take you up. Reckon I never before turned down an even bet. Understand, Lucy, ridin’ in the race is enough for you.”

“All right, Dad,” replied Lucy, obediently.

At that juncture Bostil suddenly shoved back his plate and turned his face to the open door. “Don’t I hear a runnin’ hoss?”

Aunt Jane stopped the noise she was making, and Lucy darted to the door. Then Bostil heard the sharp, rhythmic hoof-beats he recognized. They shortened to clatter and pound — then ceased somewhere out in front of the house.

“It’s the King with Van up,” said Lucy, from the door. “Dad, Van’s jumped off — he’s coming in ... he’s running. Something has happened.... There are other horses coming — riders — Indians.”

Bostil knew what was coming and prepared himself. Rapid footsteps sounded without.

“Hello, Miss Lucy! Where’s Bostil?”

A lean, supple rider appeared before the door. It was Van, greatly excited.

“Come in, boy,” said Bostil. “What’re you flustered about?”

Van strode in, spurs jangling, cap in hand. “Boss, there’s — a sixty-foot raise — in the river!” Van panted.

“Oh!” cried Lucy, wheeling toward her father.

“Wal, Van, I reckon I knowed thet,” replied Bostil. “Mebbe I’m gettin’ old, but I can still hear.... Listen.”

Lucy tiptoed to the door and turned her head sidewise and slowly bowed it till she stiffened. Outside were, sounds of birds and horses and men, but when a lull came it quickly filled with a sullen, low boom.

“Highest flood we — ever seen,” said Van.

“You’ve been down?” queried Bostil, sharply.

“Not to the river,” replied Van. “I went as far as — where the gulch opens — on the bluff. There was a string of Navajos goin’ down. An’ some comin’ up. I stayed there watchin’ the flood, an’ pretty soon Somers come up the trail with Blakesley an’ Brack an’ some riders.... An’ Somers hollered out, ‘The boat’s gone!’”

“Gone!” exclaimed Bostil, his loud cry showing consternation.

“Oh, Dad! Oh, Van!” cried Lucy, with eyes wide and lips parted.

“Sure she’s gone. An’ the whole place down there — where the willows was an’ the sand-bar — it was deep under water.”

“What will become of Creech’s horses?” asked Lucy, breathlessly.

“My God! ain’t it a shame!” went on Bostil, and he could have laughed aloud at his hypocrisy. He felt Lucy’s blue eyes riveted upon his face.

“Thet’s what we all was sayin’,” went on Van. “While we was watchin’ the awful flood an’ listenin’ to the deep bum — bum — bum of rollin’ rocks some one seen Creech an’ two Piutes leadin’ the hosses up thet trail where the slide was. We counted the hosses — nine. An’ we saw the roan shine blue in the sunlight.”

“Piutes with Creech!” exclaimed Bostil, the deep gloom in his eyes lighting. “By all thet’s lucky! Mebbe them Indians can climb the hosses out of thet hole an’ find water an’ grass enough.”

“Mebbe,” replied Van, doubtfully. “Sure them Piutes could if there’s a chance. But there ain’t any grass.”

“It won’t take much grass travelin’ by night.”

“So lots of the boys say. But the Navajos they shook their heads. An’ Farlane an’ Holley, why, they jest held up their hands.”

“With them Indians Creech has a chance to get his hosses out,” declared Bostil. He was sure of his sincerity, but he was not certain that his sincerity was not the birth of a strange, sudden hope. And then he was able to meet the eyes of his daughter. That was his supreme test.

“Oh, Dad, why, why didn’t you hurry Creech’s horses over?” said Lucy, with her tears falling.

Something tight within Bostil’s breast seemed to ease and lessen. “Why didn’t I? ... Wal, Lucy, I reckon I wasn’t in no hurry to oblige Creech. I’m sorry now.”

“It won’t be so terrible if he doesn’t lose the horses,” murmured Lucy.

“Where’s young Joel Creech?” asked Bostil.

“He stayed on this side last night,” replied Van. “Fact is, Joel’s the one who first knew the flood was on. Some one said he said he slept in the canyon last night. Anyway, he’s ravin’ crazy now. An’ if he doesn’t do harm to some one or hisself I’ll miss my guess.”

“A-huh!” grunted Bostil. “Right you are.”

“Dad, can’t anything be done to help Creech now?” appealed Lucy, going close to her father.

Bostil put his arm around her and felt immeasurably relieved to have the golden head press close to his shoulder. “Child, we can’t fly acrost the river. Now don’t you cry about Creech’s hosses. They ain’t starved yet. It’s hard luck. But mebbe it’ll turn out so Creech’ll lose only the race. An’, Lucy, it was a dead sure bet he’d have lost thet anyway.”

Bostil fondled his daughter a moment, the first time in many a day, and then he turned to his rider at the door. “Van, how’s the King?”

“Wild to run, Bostil, jest plumb wild. There won’t be any hoss with the ghost of a show to-morrow.”

Lucy raised her drooping head. “Is THAT so, Van Sickle? ... Listen here. If you and Sage King don’t get more wild running to-morrow than you ever had I’ll never ride again!” With this retort Lucy left the room.

Van stared at the door and then at Bostil. “What’d I say, Bostil?” he asked, plaintively. “I’m always r’ilin’ her.”

“Cheer up, Van. You didn’t say much. Lucy is fiery these days. She’s got a hoss somewhere an’ she’s goin’ to ride him in the race. She offered to bet on him — against the King! It certainly beat me all hollow. But see here, Van. I’ve a hunch there’s a dark hoss goin’ to show up in this race. So don’t underrate Lucy an’ her mount, whatever he is. She calls him Wildfire. Ever see him?”

“I sure haven’t. Fact is, I haven’t seen Lucy for days an’ days. As for the hunch you gave, I’ll say I was figurin’ Lucy for some real race. Bostil, she doesn’t MAKE a hoss run. He’ll run jest to please her. An’ Lucy’s lighter ‘n a feather. Why, Bostil, if she happened to ride out there on Blue Roan or some other hoss as fast I’d — I’d jest wilt.”

Bostil uttered a laugh full of pride in his daughter. “Wal, she won’t show up on Blue Roan,” he replied, with grim gruffness. “Thet’s sure as death.... Come on out now. I want a look at the King.”

Bostil went into the village. All day long he was so busy with a thousand and one things referred to him, put on him, undertaken by him, that he had no time to think. Back in his mind, however, there was a burden of which he was vaguely conscious all the time. He worked late into the night and slept late the next morning.

Never in his life had Bostil been gloomy or retrospective on the day of a race. In the press of matters he had only a word for Lucy, but that earned a saucy, dauntless look. He was glad when he was able to join the procession of villagers, visitors, and Indians moving out toward the sage.

The racecourse lay at the foot of the slope, and now the gray and purple sage was dotted with more horses and Indians, more moving things and colors, than Bostil had ever seen there before. It was a spectacle that stirred him. Many fires sent up blue columns of smoke from before the hastily built brush huts where the Indians cooked and ate. Blankets shone bright in the sun; burros grazed and brayed; horses whistled piercingly across the slope; Indians lolled before the huts or talked in groups, sitting and lounging on their ponies; down in the valley, here and there, were Indians racing, and others were chasing the wiry mustangs. Beyond this gay and colorful spectacle stretched the valley, merging into the desert marked so strikingly and beautifully by the monuments.

Bostil was among the last to ride down to the high bench that overlooked the home end of the racecourse. He calculated that there were a thousand Indians and whites congregated at that point, which was the best vantage-ground to see the finish of a race. And the occasion of his arrival, for all the gaiety, was one of dignity and importance. If Bostil reveled in anything it was in an hour like this. His liberality made this event a great race-day. The thoroughbreds were all there, blanketed, in charge of watchful riders. In the center of the brow of this long bench lay a huge, flat rock which had been Bostil’s seat in the watching of many a race. Here were assembled his neighbors and visitors actively interested in the races, and also the important Indians of both tribes, all waiting for him.

As Bostil dismounted, throwing the bridle to a rider, he saw a face that suddenly froze the thrilling delight of the moment. A tall, gaunt man with cavernous black eyes and huge, drooping black mustache fronted him and seemed waiting. Cordts! Bostil had forgotten. Instinctively Bostil stood on guard. For years he had prepared himself for the moment when he would come face to face with this noted horse-thief.

“Bostil, how are you?” said Cordts. He appeared pleasant, and certainly grateful for being permitted to come there. From his left hand hung a belt containing two heavy guns.

“Hello, Cordts,” replied Bostil, slowly unbending. Then he met the other’s proffered hand.

“I’ve bet heavy on the King,” said Cordts.

For the moment there could have been no other way to Bostil’s good graces, and this remark made the gruff old rider’s hard face relax.

“Wal, I was hopin’ you’d back some other hoss, so I could take your money,” replied Bostil.

Cordts held out the belt and guns to Bostil. “I want to enjoy this race,” he said, with a smile that somehow hinted of the years he had packed those guns day and night.

“Cordts, I don’t want to take your guns,” replied Bostil, bluntly. “I’ve taken your word an’ that’s enough.”

“Thanks, Bostil. All the same, as I’m your guest I won’t pack them,” returned Cordts, and he hung the belt on the horn of Bostil’s saddle. “Some of my men are with me. They were all right till they got outside of Brackton’s whisky. But now I won’t answer for them.”

“Wal, you’re square to say thet,” replied Bostil. “An’ I’ll run this race an’ answer for everybody.”

Bostil recognized Hutchinson and Dick Sears, but the others of Cordts’s gang he did not know. They were a hard-looking lot. Hutchinson was a spare, stoop-shouldered, red-faced, squinty-eyed rider, branded all over with the marks of a bad man. And Dick Sears looked his notoriety. He was a little knot of muscle, short and bow-legged, rough in appearance as cactus. He wore a ragged slouch-hat pulled low down. His face and stubby beard were dust-colored, and his eyes seemed sullen, watchful. He made Bostil think of a dusty, scaly, hard, desert rattlesnake. Bostil eyed this right-hand man of Cordts’s and certainly felt no fear of him, though Sears had the fame of swift and deadly skill with a gun. Bostil felt that he was neither afraid nor loath to face Sears in gun-play, and he gazed at the little horse-thief in a manner that no one could mistake. Sears was not drunk, neither was he wholly free from the unsteadiness caused by the bottle. Assuredly he had no fear of Bostil and eyed him insolently. Bostil turned away to the group of his riders and friends, and he asked for his daughter.

“Lucy’s over there,” said Farlane, pointing to a merry crowd.

Bostil waved a hand to her, and Lucy, evidently mistaking his action, came forward, leading one of her ponies. She wore a gray blouse with a red scarf, and a skirt over overalls and boots. She looked pale, but she was smiling, and there was a dark gleam of excitement in her blue eyes. She did not have on her sombrero. She wore her hair in a braid, and had a red band tight above her forehead. Bostil took her in all at a glance. She meant business and she looked dangerous. Bostil knew once she slipped out of that skirt she could ride with any rider there. He saw that she had become the center toward which all eyes shifted. It pleased him. She was his, like her mother, and as beautiful and thoroughbred as any rider could wish his daughter.

“Lucy, where’s your hoss?” he asked, curiously.

“Never you mind, Dad. I’ll be there at the finish,” she replied.

“Red’s your color for to-day, then?” he questioned, as he put a big hand on the bright-banded head.

She nodded archly.

“Lucy, I never thought you’d flaunt red in your old Dad’s face. Red, when the color of the King is like the sage out yonder. You’ve gone back on the King.”

“No, Dad, I never was for Sage King, else I wouldn’t wear red to-day.”

“Child, you sure mean to run in this race — the big one?”

“Sure and certain.”

“Wal, the only bitter drop in my cup to-day will be seein’ you get beat. But if you ran second I’ll give you a present thet’ll make the purse look sick.”

Even the Indian chiefs were smiling. Old Horse, the Navajo, beamed benignly upon this daughter of the friend of the Indians. Silver, his brother chieftain, nodded as if he understood Bostil’s pride and regret. Some of the young riders showed their hearts in their eyes. Farlane tried to look mysterious, to pretend he was in Lucy’s confidence.

“Lucy, if you are really goin’ to race I’ll withdraw my hoss so you can win,” said Wetherby, gallantly.

Bostil’s sonorous laugh rolled down the slope.

“Miss Lucy, I sure hate to run a hoss against yours,” said old Cal Blinn. Then Colson, Sticks, Burthwait, the other principals, paid laughing compliments to the bright-haired girl.

Bostil enjoyed this hugely until he caught the strange intensity of regard in the cavernous eyes of Cordts. That gave him a shock. Cordts had long wanted this girl as much probably as he wanted Sage King. There were dark and terrible stories that stained the name of Cordts. Bostil regretted his impulse in granting the horse-thief permission to attend the races. Sight of Lucy’s fair, sweet face might inflame this Cordts — this Kentuckian who had boasted of his love of horses and women. Behind Cordts hung the little dust-colored Sears, like a coiled snake, ready to strike. Bostil felt stir in him a long-dormant fire — a stealing along his veins, a passion he hated.

“Lucy, go back to the women till you’re ready to come out on your hoss,” he said. “An’ mind you, be careful to-day!”

He gave her a meaning glance, which she understood perfectly, he saw, and then he turned to start the day’s sport.

The Indian races run in twos and threes, and on up to a number that crowded the racecourse; the betting and yelling and running; the wild and plunging mustangs; the heat and dust and pounding of hoofs; the excited betting; the surprises and defeats and victories, the trial tests of the principals, jealously keeping off to themselves in the sage; the endless moving, colorful procession, gaudy and swift and thrilling — all these Bostil loved tremendously.

But they were as nothing to what they gradually worked up to — the climax — the great race.

It was afternoon when all was ready for this race, and the sage was bright gray in the westering sun. Everybody was resting, waiting. The tense quiet of the riders seemed to settle upon the whole assemblage. Only the thoroughbreds were restless. They quivered and stamped and tossed their small, fine heads. They knew what was going to happen. They wanted to run. Blacks, bays, and whites were the predominating colors; and the horses and mustangs were alike in those points of race and speed and spirit that proclaimed them thoroughbreds.

Bostil himself took the covering off his favorite. Sage King was on edge. He stood out strikingly in contrast with the other horses. His sage-gray body was as sleek and shiny as satin. He had been trained to the hour. He tossed his head as he champed the bit, and every moment his muscles rippled under his fine skin. Proud, mettlesome, beautiful!

Sage King was the favorite in the betting, the Indians, who were ardent gamblers, plunging heavily on him.

Bostil saddled the horse and was long at the task.

Van stood watching. He was pale and nervous. Bostil saw this.

“Van,” he said, “it’s your race.”

The rider reached a quick hand for bridle and horn, and when his foot touched the stirrup Sage King was in the air. He came down, springy-quick, graceful, and then he pranced into line with the other horses.

Bostil waved his hand. Then the troop of riders and racers headed for the starting-point, two miles up the valley. Macomber and Blinn, with a rider and a Navajo, were up there as the official starters of the day.

Bostil’s eyes glistened. He put a friendly hand on Cordts’s shoulder, an action which showed the stress of the moment. Most of the men crowded around Bostil. Sears and Hutchinson hung close to Cordts. And Holley, keeping near his employer, had keen eyes for other things than horses.

Suddenly he touched Bostil and pointed down the slope. “There’s Lucy,” he said. “She’s ridin’ out to join the bunch.”

“Lucy! Where? I’d forgotten my girl! ... Where?”

“There,” repeated Holly, and he pointed. Others of the group spoke up, having seen Lucy riding down.

“She’s on a red hoss,” said one.

“‘Pears all-fired big to me — her hoss,” said another. “Who’s got a glass?”

Bostil had the only field-glass there and he was using it. Across the round, magnified field of vision moved a giant red horse, his mane waving like a flame. Lucy rode him. They were moving from a jumble of broken rocks a mile down the slope. She had kept her horse hidden there. Bostil felt an added stir in his pulse-beat. Certainly he had never seen a horse like this one. But the distance was long, the glass not perfect; he could not trust his sight. Suddenly that sight dimmed.

“Holley, I can’t make out nothin’,” he complained. “Take the glass. Give me a line on Lucy’s mount.”

“Boss, I don’t need the glass to see that she’s up on a HOSS,” replied Holley, as he took the glass. He leveled it, adjusted it to his eyes, and then looked long. Bostil grew impatient. Lucy was rapidly overhauling the troop of racers on her way to the post. Nothing ever hurried or excited Holley.

“Wal, can’t you see any better ‘n me?” queried Bostil, eagerly.

“Come on, Holl, give us a tip before she gits to the post,” spoke up a rider.

Cordts showed intense eagerness, and all the group were excited. Lucy’s advent, on an unknown horse that even her father could not disparage, was the last and unexpected addition to the suspense. They all knew that if the horse was fast Lucy would be dangerous.

Holley at last spoke: “She’s up on a wild stallion. He’s red, like fire. He’s mighty big — strong. Looks as if he didn’t want to go near the bunch. Lord! what action! ... Bostil, I’d say — a great hoss!”

There was a moment’s intense silence in the group round Bostil. Holley was never known to mistake a horse or to be extravagant in judgment or praise.

“A wild stallion!” echoed Bostil. “A-huh! An’ she calls him Wildfire. Where’d she get him? ... Gimme thet glass.”

But all Bostil could make out was a blur. His eyes were wet. He realized now that his first sight of Lucy on the strange horse had been clear and strong, and it was that which had dimmed his eyes.

“Holley, you use the glass — an’ tell me what comes off,” said Bostil, as he wiped his eyes with his scarf. He was relieved to find that his sight was clearing. “My God! if I couldn’t see this finish!”

Then everybody watched the close, dark mass of horses and riders down the valley. And all waited for Holley to speak. “They’re linin’ up,” began the rider. “Havin’ some muss, too, it ‘pears.... Bostil, thet red hoss is raisin’ hell! He wants to fight. There! he’s up in the air.... Boys, he’s a devil — a hoss-killer like all them wild stallions.... He’s plungin’ at the King — strikin’! There! Lucy’s got him down. She’s handlin’ him.... Now they’ve got the King on the other side. Thet’s better. But Lucy’s hoss won’t stand. Anyway, it’s a runnin’ start.... Van’s got the best position. Foxy Van! ... He’ll be leadin’ before the rest know the race’s on.... Them Indian mustangs are behavin’ scandalous. Guess the red stallion scared ‘em. Now they’re all lined up back of the post.... Ah! gun-smoke! They move.... It looks like a go.”

Then Holley was silent, strained, in watching. So were all the watchers silent. Bostil saw far down the valley a moving, dark line of horses.

“THEY’RE OFF! THEY’RE OFF!” called Holley, thrillingly.

Bostil uttered a deep and booming yell, which rose above the shouts of the men round him and was heard even in the din of Indian cries. Then as quickly as the yells had risen they ceased.

Holley stood up on the rock with leveled glass.

“Mac’s dropped the flag. It’s a sure go. Now! ... Van’s out there front — inside. The King’s got his stride. Boss, the King’s stretchin’ out! ... Look! Look! see thet red hoss leap! ... Bostil, he’s runnin’ down the King! I knowed it. He’s like lightnin’. He’s pushin’ the King over — off the course! See him plunge! Lord! Lucy can’t pull him! She goes up — down — tossed — but she sticks like a burr. Good, Lucy! Hang on! ... My Gawd, Bostil, the King’s thrown! He’s down! ... He comes up, off the course. The others flash by.... Van’s out of the race! ... An’, Bostil — an’, gentlemen, there ain’t anythin’ more to this race but a red hoss!”

Bostil’s heart gave a great leap and then seemed to stand still. He was half cold, half hot.

What a horrible, sickening disappointment. Bostil rolled out a cursing query. Holley’s answer was short and sharp. The King was out! Bostil raved. He could not see. He could not believe. After all the weeks of preparation, of excitement, of suspense — only this! There was no race. The King was out! The thing did not seem possible. A thousand thoughts flitted through Bostil’s mind. Rage, impotent rage, possessed him. He cursed Van, he swore he would kill that red stallion. And some one shook him hard. Some one’s incisive words cut into his thick, throbbing ears: “Luck of the game! The King ain’t beat! He’s only out!”

Then the rider’s habit of mind asserted itself and Bostil began to recover. For the King to fall was hard luck. But he had not lost the race! Anguish and pride battled for mastery over him. Even if the King were out it was a Bostil who would win the great race.

“He ain’t beat!” muttered Bostil. “It ain’t fair! He’s run off the track by a wild stallion!”

His dimmed sight grew clear and sharp. And with a gasp he saw the moving, dark line take shape as horses. A bright horse was in the lead. Brighter and larger he grew. Swiftly and more swiftly he came on. The bright color changed to red. Bostil heard Holley calling and Cordts calling — and other voices, but he did not distinguish what was said. The line of horses began to bob, to bunch. The race looked close, despite what Holley had said. The Indians were beginning to lean forward, here and there uttering a short, sharp yell. Everything within Bostil grew together in one great, throbbing, tingling mass. His rider’s eye, keen once more, caught a gleam of gold above the red, and that gold was Lucy’s hair. Bostil forgot the King.

Then Holley bawled into his ear, “They’re half-way!”

The race was beautiful. Bostil strained his eyes. He gloried in what he saw — Lucy low over the neck of that red stallion. He could see plainer now. They were coming closer. How swiftly! What a splendid race! But it was too swift — it would not last. The Indians began to yell, drowning the hoarse shouts of the riders. Out of the tail of his eye Bostil saw Cordts and Sears and Hutchinson. They were acting like crazy men. Strange that horse-thieves should care! The million thrills within Bostil coalesced into one great shudder of rapture. He grew wet with sweat. His stentorian voice took up the call for Lucy to win.

“Three-quarters!” bowled Holley into Bostil’s ear. “An’ Lucy’s give thet wild hoss free rein! Look, Bostil! You never in your life seen a hoss ran like thet!”

Bostil never had. His heart swelled. Something shook him. Was that his girl — that tight little gray burr half hidden in the huge stallion’s flaming mane? The distance had been close between Lucy and the bunched riders.

But it lengthened. How it widened! That flame of a horse was running away from the others. And now they were close — coming into the home stretch. A deafening roar from the onlookers engulfed all other sounds. A straining, stamping, arm-flinging horde surrounded Bostil.

Bostil saw Lucy’s golden hair whipping out from the flame-streaked mane. And then he could only see that red brute of a horse. Wildfire before the wind! Bostil thought of the leaping prairie flame, storm-driven.

On came the red stallion — on — on! What a tremendous stride! What a marvelous recovery! What ease! What savage action!

He flashed past, low, pointed, long, going faster every magnificent stride — winner by a dozen lengths.

CHAPTER XIII

WILDFIRE RAN ON down the valley far beyond the yelling crowd lined along the slope. Bostil was deaf to the throng; he watched the stallion till Lucy forced him to stop and turn.

Then Bostil whirled to see where Van was with the King. Most of the crowd surged down to surround the racers, and the yells gave way to the buzz of many voices. Some of the ranchers and riders remained near Bostil, all apparently talking at once. Bostil gathered that Holley’s Whitefoot had ran second, and the Navajo’s mustang third. It was Holley himself who verified what Bostil had heard. The old rider’s hawk eyes were warm with delight.

“Boss, he run second!” Holley kept repeating.

Bostil had the heart to shake hands with Holley and say he was glad, when it was on his lips to blurt out there had been no race. Then Bostil’s nerves tingled at sight of Van trotting the King up the course toward the slope. Bostil watched with searching eyes. Sage King did not appear to be injured. Van rode straight up the slope and leaped off. He was white and shaking.

The King’s glossy hide was dirty with dust and bits of cactus and brush. He was not even hot. There did not appear to be a bruise or mark on him. He whinnied and rubbed his face against Bostil, and then, flinching, he swept up his head, ears high. Both fear and fire shone in his eyes.

“Wal, Van, get it out of your system,” said Bostil, kindly. He was a harder loser before a race was run than after he had lost it.

“Thet red hoss run in on the King before the start an’ scared the race out of him,” replied Van, swiftly. “We had a hunch, you know, but at thet Lucy’s hoss was a surprise. I’ll say, sir, thet Lucy rode her wild hoss an’ handled him. Twice she pulled him off the King. He meant to kill the King! ... Ask any of the boys.... We got started. I took the lead, sir. The King was in the lead. I never looked back till I heard Lucy scream. She couldn’t pull Wildfire. He was rushin’ the King — meant to kill him. An’ Sage King wanted to fight. If I could only have kept him runnin’! Thet would have been a race! ... But Wildfire got in closer an’ closer. He crowded us. He bit at the King’s flank an’ shoulder an’ neck. Lucy pulled till I yelled she’d throw the hoss an’ kill us both. Then Wildfire jumped for us. Runnin’ an’ strikin’ with both feet at once! Bostil, thet hoss’s hell! Then he hit us an’ down we went. I had a bad spill. But the King’s not hurt an’ thet’s a blessed wonder.”

“No race, Van! It was hard luck. Take him home,” said Bostil.

Van’s story of the accident vindicated Bostil’s doubts. A new horse had appeared on the scene, wild and swift and grand, but Sage King was still unbeaten in a fair race. There would come a reckoning, Bostil grimly muttered. Who owned this Wildfire?

Holley might as well have read his mind. “Reckon this feller ridin’ up will take down the prize money,” remarked Holley, and he pointed to a man who rode a huge, shaggy, black horse and was leading Lucy’s pony.

“A-huh!” exclaimed Bostil. “A strange rider.”

“An’ here comes Lucy coaxin’ the stallion back,” added Holley.

“A wild stallion never clear broke!” ejaculated Cordts.

All the men looked and all had some remark of praise for Lucy and her mount.

Bostil gazed with a strange, irresistible attraction. Never had he expected to live to see a wild stallion like this one, to say nothing of his daughter mounted on him, with the record of having put Sage King out of the race!

A thousand pairs of eyes watched Wildfire. He pranced out there beyond the crowd of men and horses. He did not want to come closer. Yet he did not seem to fight his rider. Lucy hung low over his neck, apparently exhausted, and she was patting him and caressing him. There were horses and Indians on each side of the race track, and between these lines Lucy appeared reluctant to come.

Bostil strode down and, waving and yelling for everybody to move back to the slope, he cleared the way and then stood out in front alone.

“Ride up, now,” he called to Lucy.

It was then Bostil discovered that Lucy did not wear a spur and she had neither quirt nor whip. She turned Wildfire and he came prancing on, head and mane and tail erect. His action was beautiful, springy, and every few steps, as Lucy touched him, he jumped with marvelous ease and swiftness.

Bostil became all eyes. He did not see his daughter as she paraded the winner before the applauding throng. And Bostil recorded in his mind that which he would never forget — a wild stallion, with unbroken spirit; a giant of a horse, glistening red, with mane like dark-striped, wind-blown flame, all muscle, all grace, all power; a neck long and slender and arching to the small, savagely beautiful head; the jaws open, and the thin-skinned, pink-colored nostrils that proved the Arabian blood; the slanting shoulders and the deep, broad chest, the powerful legs and knees not too high nor too low, the symmetrical dark hoofs that rang on the little stones — all these marks so significant of speed and endurance. A stallion with a wonderful physical perfection that matched the savage, ruthless spirit of the desert killer of horses!

Lucy waved her hand, and the strange rider to whom Holley had called attention strode out of the crowd toward Wildfire.

Bostil’s gaze took in the splendid build of this lithe rider, the clean-cut face, the dark eye. This fellow had a shiny, coiled lasso in hand. He advanced toward Wildfire. The stallion snorted and plunged. If ever Bostil saw hate expressed by a horse he saw it then. But he seemed to be tractable to the control of the girl. Bostil swiftly grasped the strange situation. Lucy had won the love of the savage stallion. That always had been the secret of her power. And she had hated Sage King because he alone had somehow taken a dislike to her. Horses were as queer as people, thought Bostil.

The rider walked straight up to the trembling Wildfire. When Wildfire plunged and reared up and up the rider leaped for the bridle and with an iron arm pulled the horse down. Wildfire tried again, almost lifting the rider, but a stinging cut from the lasso made him come to a stand. Plainly the rider held the mastery.

“Dad!” called Lucy, faintly.

Bostil went forward, close, while the rider held Wildfire. Lucy was as wan-faced as a flower by moonlight. Her eyes were dark with emotions, fear predominating. Then for Bostil the half of his heart that was human reasserted itself. Lucy was only a girl now, and weakening. Her fear, her pitiful little smile, as if she dared not hope for her father’s approval yet could not help it, touched Bostil to the quick, and he opened his arms. Lucy slid down into them.

“Lucy, girl, you’ve won the King’s race an’ double-crossed your poor old dad!”

“Oh, Dad, I never knew — I never dreamed Wildfire — would jump the King,” Lucy faltered. “I couldn’t hold him. He was terrible.... It made me sick.... Daddy, tell me Van wasn’t hurt — or the King!”

“The hoss’s all right an’ so’s Van,” replied Bostil. “Don’t cry, Lucy. It was a fool trick you pulled off, but you did it great. By Gad! you sure was ridin’ thet red devil.... An’ say, it’s all right with me!”

Lucy did not faint then, but she came near it. Bostil put her down and led her through the lines of admiring Indians and applauding riders, and left her with the women.

When he turned again he was in time to see the strange rider mount Wildfire. It was a swift and hazardous mount, the stallion being in the air. When he came down he tore the turf and sent it flying, and when he shot up again he was doubled in a red knot, bristling with fiery hair, a furious wild beast, mad to throw the rider. Bostil never heard as wild a scream uttered by a horse. Likewise he had never seen so incomparable a horseman as this stranger. Indians and riders alike thrilled at a sight which was after their own hearts. The rider had hooked his long spurs under the horse and now appeared a part of him. He could not be dislodged. This was not a bucking mustang, but a fierce, powerful, fighting stallion. No doubt, thought Bostil, this fight took place every time the rider mounted his horse. It was the sort of thing riders loved. Most of them would not own a horse that would not pitch. Bostil presently decided, however, that in the case of this red stallion no rider in his right senses would care for such a fight, simply because of the extraordinary strengths, activity, and ferocity of the stallion.

The riders were all betting the horse would throw the stranger. And Bostil, seeing the gathering might of Wildfire’s momentum, agreed with them. No horseman could stick on that horse. Suddenly Wildfire tripped in the sage, and went sprawling in the dust, throwing his rider ahead. Both man and beast were quick to rise, but the rider had a foot in the stirrup before Wildfire was under way. Then the horse plunged, ran free, came circling back, and slowly gave way to the rider’s control. Those few moments of frenzied activity had brought out the foam and the sweat — Wildfire was wet. The man pulled him in before Bostil and dismounted.

“Sometimes I ride him, then sometimes I don’t,” he said, with a smile.

Bostil held out his hand. He liked this rider. He would have liked the frank face, less hard than that of most riders, and the fine, dark eyes, straight and steady, even if their possessor had not come with the open sesame to Bostil’s regard — a grand, wild horse, and the nerve to ride him.

“Wal, you rode him longer ‘n any of us figgered,” said Bostil, heartily shaking the man’s hand. “I’m Bostil. Glad to meet you.”

“My name’s Slone — Lin Slone,” replied the rider, frankly. “I’m a wild-horse hunter an’ hail from Utah.”

“Utah? How’d you ever get over? Wal, you’ve got a grand hoss — an’ you put a grand rider up on him in the race.... My girl Lucy—”

Bostil hesitated. His mind was running swiftly. Back of his thoughts gathered the desire and the determination to get possession of this horse Wildfire. He had forgotten what he might have said to this stranger under different circumstances. He looked keenly into Slone’s face and saw no fear, no subterfuge. The young man was honest.

“Bostil, I chased this wild horse days an’ weeks an’ months, hundreds of miles — across the canyon an’ the river—”

“No!” interrupted Bostil, blankly.

“Yes. I’ll tell you how later.... Out here somewhere I caught Wildfire, broke him as much as he’ll ever be broken. He played me out an’ got away. Your girl rode along — saved my horse — an’ saved my life, too. I was in bad shape for days. But I got well — an’ — an’ then she wanted me to let her run Wildfire in the big race. I couldn’t refuse.... An’ it would have been a great race but for the unlucky accident to Sage King. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Slone, it jarred me some, thet disappointment. But it’s over,” replied Bostil. “An’ so thet’s how Lucy found her hoss. She sure was mysterious.... Wal, wal.” Bostil became aware of others behind him. “Holley, shake hands with Slone, hoss-wrangler out of Utah.... You, too, Cal Blinn.... An’ Macomber — an’ Wetherby, meet my friend here — young Slone.... An’, Cordts, shake hands with a feller thet owns a grand hoss!”

Bostil laughed as he introduced the horse-thief to Slone. The others laughed, too, even Cordts joining in. There was much of the old rider daredevil spirit left in Bostil, and it interested and amused him to see Cordts and Slone meet. Assuredly Slone had heard of the noted stealer of horses. The advantage was certainly on Cordts’s side, for he was good-natured and pleasant while Slone stiffened, paling slightly as he faced about to acknowledge the introduction.

“Howdy, Slone,” drawled Cordts, with hand outstretched. “I sure am glad to meet yuh. I’d like to trade the Sage King for this red stallion!”

A roar of laughter greeted this sally, all but Bostil and Slone joining in. The joke was on Bostil, and he showed it. Slone did not even smile.

“Howdy, Cordts,” he replied. “I’m glad to meet you — so I’ll know you when I see you again.”

“Wal, we’re all good fellers to-day,” interposed Bostil. “An’ now let’s ride home an’ eat. Slone, you come with me.”

The group slowly mounted the slope where the horses waited. Macomber, Wetherby, Burthwait, Blinn — all Bostil’s friends proffered their felicitations to the young rider, and all were evidently prepossessed with him.

The sun was low in the west; purple shades were blotting out the gold lights down the valley; the day of the great races was almost done. Indians were still scattered here and there in groups; others were turning out the mustangs; and the majority were riding and walking with the crowd toward the village.

Bostil observed that Cordts had hurried ahead of the group and now appeared to be saying something emphatic to Dick Sears and Hutchinson. Bostil heard Cordts curse. Probably he was arraigning the sullen Sears. Cordts had acted first rate — had lived up to his word, as Bostil thought he would do. Cordts and Hutchinson mounted their horses and rode off, somewhat to the left of the scattered crowd. But Sears remained behind. Bostil thought this strange and put it down to the surliness of the fellow, who had lost on the races. Bostil, wishing Sears would get out of his sight, resolved never to make another blunder like inviting horse-thieves to a race.

All the horses except Wildfire stood in a bunch back on the bench. Sears appeared to be fussing with the straps on his saddle. And Bostil could not keep his glance from wandering back to gloat over Wildfire’s savage grace and striking size.

Suddenly there came a halt in the conversation of the men, a curse in Holley’s deep voice, a violent split in the group. Bostil wheeled to see Sears in a menacing position with two guns leveled low.

“Don’t holler!” he called. “An’ don’t move!”

“What ‘n the h — l now, Sears?” demanded Bostil.

“I’ll bore you if you move — thet’s what!” replied Sears. His eyes, bold, steely, with a glint that Bostil knew, vibrated as he held in sight all points before him. A vicious little sand-rattlesnake about to strike!

“Holley, turn yer back!” ordered Sears.

The old rider, who stood foremost of the group’ instantly obeyed, with hands up. He took no chances here, for he alone packed a gun. With swift steps Sears moved, pulled Holley’s gun, flung it aside into the sage.

“Sears, it ain’t a hold-up!” expostulated Bostil. The act seemed too bold, too wild even for Dick Sears.

“Ain’t it?” scoffed Sears, malignantly. “Bostil, I was after the King. But I reckon I’ll git the hoss thet beat him!”

Bostil’s face turned dark-blood color and his neck swelled. “By Gawd, Sears! You ain’t a-goin’ to steal this boy’s hoss!”

“Shut up!” hissed the horse-thief. He pushed a gun close to Bostil. “I’ve always laid fer you! I’m achin’ to bore you now. I would but fer scarin’ this hoss. If you yap again I’ll KILL YOU, anyhow, an’ take a chance!”

All the terrible hate and evil and cruelty and deadliness of his kind burned in his eyes and stung in his voice.

“Sears, if it’s my horse you want you needn’t kill Bostil,” spoke up Slone. The contrast of his cool, quiet voice eased the terrible strain.

“Lead him round hyar!” snapped Sears.

Wildfire appeared more shy of the horses back of him than of the men. Slone was able to lead him, however, to within several paces of Sears. Then Slone dropped the reins. He still held a lasso which was loosely coiled, and the loop dropped in front of him as he backed away.

Sears sheathed the left-hand gun. Keeping the group covered with the other, he moved backward, reaching for the hanging reins. Wildfire snorted, appeared about to jump. But Sears got the reins. Bostil, standing like a stone, his companions also motionless, could not help but admire the daring of this upland horse-thief. How was he to mount that wild stallion? Sears was noted for two qualities — his nerve before men and his skill with horses. Assuredly he would not risk an ordinary mount. Wildfire began to suspect Sears — to look at him instead of the other horses. Then quick as a cat Sears vaulted into the saddle. Wildfire snorted and lifted his forefeet in a lunge that meant he would bolt.

Sears in vaulting up had swung the gun aloft. He swept it down, but waveringly, for Wildfire had begun to rear.

Bostil saw how fatal that single instant would have been for Sears if he or Holley had a gun.

Something whistled. Bostil saw the leap of Slone’s lasso — the curling, snaky dart of the noose which flew up to snap around Sears. The rope sung taut. Sears was swept bodily clean from the saddle, to hit the ground in sodden impact.

Almost swifter than Bostil’s sight was the action of Slone — flashing by — in the air — himself on the plunging horse. Sears shot once, twice. Then Wildfire bolted as his rider whipped the lasso round the horn. Sears, half rising, was jerked ten feet. An awful shriek was throttled in his throat.

A streak of dust on the slope — a tearing, parting line in the sage!

Bostil stood amazed. The red stallion made short plunges. Slone reached low for the tripping reins. When he straightened up in the saddle Wildfire broke wildly into a run.

It was characteristic of Holley that at this thrilling, tragic instant he walked over into the sage to pick up his gun.

“Throwed a gun on me, got the drop, an’ pitched mine away!” muttered Holley, in disgust. The way he spoke meant that he was disgraced.

“My Gawd! I was scared thet Sears would get the hoss!” rolled out Bostil.

Holley thought of his gun; Bostil thought of the splendid horse. The thoughts were characteristic of these riders. The other men, however, recovering from a horror-broken silence, burst out in acclaim of Slone’s feat.

“Dick Sears’s finish! Roped by a boy rider!” exclaimed Cal Blinn, fervidly.

“Bostil, that rider is worthy of his horse,” said Wetherby. “I think Sears would have bored you. I saw his finger pressing — pressing on the trigger. Men like Sears can’t help but pull at that stage.”

“Thet was the quickest trick I ever seen,” declared Macomber.

They watched Wildfire run down the slope, out into the valley, with a streak of rising dust out behind. They all saw when there ceased to be that peculiar rising of dust. Wildfire appeared to shoot ahead at greater speed. Then he slowed up. The rider turned him and faced back toward the group, coming at a stiff gallop. Soon Wildfire breasted the slope, and halted, snorting, shaking before the men. The lasso was still trailing out behind, limp and sagging. There was no weight upon it now.

Bostil strode slowly ahead. He sympathized with the tension that held Slone; he knew why the rider’s face was gray, why his lips only moved mutely, why there was horror in the dark, strained eyes, why the lean, strong hands, slowly taking up the lasso, now shook like leaves in the wind.

There was only dust on the lasso. But Bostil knew — they all knew that none the less it had dealt a terrible death to the horse-thief.

Somehow Bostil could not find words for what he wanted to say. He put a hand on the red stallion — patted his shoulder. Then he gripped Slone close and hard. He was thinking how he would have gloried in a son like this young, wild rider. Then he again faced his comrades.

“Fellers, do you think Cordts was in on thet trick?” he queried.

“Nope. Cordts was on the square,” replied Holley. “But he must have seen it comin’ an’ left Sears to his fate. It sure was a fittin’ last ride for a hoss-thief.”

Bostil sent Holley and Farlane on ahead to find Cordts and Hutchinson, with their comrades, to tell them the fate of Sears, and to warn them to leave before the news got to the riders.

The sun was setting golden and red over the broken battlements of the canyons to the west. The heat of the day blew away on a breeze that bent the tips of the sage-brush. A wild song drifted back from the riders to the fore. And the procession of Indians moved along, their gay trappings and bright colors beautiful in the fading sunset light.

When Bostil and, his guests arrived at the corrals, Holley, with Farlane and other riders, were waiting.

“Boss,” said Holley, “Cordts an’ his outfit never rid in. They was last seen by some Navajos headin’ for the canyon.”

“Thet’s good!” ejaculated Bostil, in relief. “Wal boys, look after the hosses. ... Slone, just turn Wildfire over to the boys with instructions, an’ feel safe.”

Farlane scratched his head and looked dubious. “I’m wonderin’ how safe it’ll be fer us.”

“I’ll look after him,” said Slone.

Bostil nodded as if he had expected Slone to refuse to let any rider put the stallion away for the night. Wildfire would not go into the barn, and Slone led him into one of the high-barred corrals. Bostil waited, talking with his friends, until Slone returned, and then they went toward the house.

“I reckon we couldn’t get inside Brack’s place now,” remarked Bostil. “But in a case like this I can scare up a drink.” Lights from the windows shone bright through the darkness under the cottonwoods. Bostil halted at the door, as if suddenly remembering, and he whispered, huskily: “Let’s keep the women from learnin’ about Sears — to-night, anyway.”

Then he led the way through the big door into the huge living-room. There were hanging-lights on the walls and blazing sticks on the hearth. Lucy came running in to meet them. It did not escape Bostil’s keen eyes that she was dressed in her best white dress. He had never seen her look so sweet and pretty, and, for that matter, so strange. The flush, the darkness of her eyes, the added something in her face, tender, thoughtful, strong — these were new. Bostil pondered while she welcomed his guests. Slone, who had hung back, was last in turn. Lucy greeted him as she had the others. Slone met her with awkward constraint. The gray had not left his face. Lucy looked up at him again, and differently.

“What — what has happened?” she asked.

It annoyed Bostil that Slone and all the men suddenly looked blank.

“Why, nothin’,” replied Slone, slowly, “‘cept I’m fagged out.”

Lucy, or any other girl, could have seen that he, was evading the truth. She flashed a look from Slone to her father.

“Until to-day we never had a big race that something dreadful didn’t happen,” said Lucy. “This was my day — my race. And, oh! I wanted it to pass without — without—”

“Wal, Lucy dear,” replied Bostil, as she faltered. “Nothin’ came off thet’d make you feel bad. Young Slone had a scare about his hoss. Wildfire’s safe out there in the corral, an’ he’ll be guarded like the King an’ Sarch. Slone needs a drink an’ somethin’ to eat, same as all of us.”

Lucy’s color returned and her smile, but Bostil noted that, while she was serving them and brightly responsive to compliments, she gave more than one steady glance at Slone. She was deep, thought Bostil, and it angered him a little that she showed interest in what concerned this strange rider.

Then they had dinner, with twelve at table. The wives of Bostil’s three friends had been helping Aunt Jane prepare the feast, and they added to the merriment. Bostil was not much given to social intercourse — he would have preferred to be with his horses and riders — but this night he outdid himself as host, amazed his sister Jane, who evidently thought he drank too much, and delighted Lucy. Bostil’s outward appearance and his speech and action never reflected all the workings of his mind. No one would ever know the depth of his bitter disappointment at the outcome of the race. With Creech’s Blue Roan out of the way, another horse, swifter and more dangerous, had come along to spoil the King’s chance. Bostil felt a subtly increasing covetousness in regard to Wildfire, and this colored all his talk and action. The upland country, vast and rangy, was for Bostil too small to hold Sage King and Wildfire unless they both belonged to him. And when old Cal Blinn gave a ringing toast to Lucy, hoping to live to see her up on Wildfire in the grand race that must be run with the King, Bostil felt stir in him the birth of a subtle, bitter fear. At first he mocked it. He — Bostil — afraid to race! It was a lie of the excited mind. He repudiated it. Insidiously it returned. He drowned it down — smothered it with passion. Then the ghost of it remained, hauntingly.

After dinner Bostil with the men went down to Brackton’s, where Slone and the winners of the day received their prizes.

“Why, it’s more money than I ever had in my whole life!” exclaimed Slone, gazing incredulously at the gold.

Bostil was amused and pleased, and back of both amusement and pleasure was the old inventive, driving passion to gain his own ends.

Bostil was abnormally generous in many ways; monstrously selfish in one way.

“Slone, I seen you didn’t drink none,” he said, curiously.

“No; I don’t like liquor.”

“Do you gamble?”

“I like a little bet — on a race,” replied Slone, frankly.

“Wal, thet ain’t gamblin’. These fool riders of mine will bet on the switchin’ of a hoss’s tail.” He drew Slone a little aside from the others, who were interested in Brackton’s delivery of the different prizes. “Slone, how’d you like to ride for me?”

Slone appeared surprised. “Why, I never rode for any one,” he replied, slowly. “I can’t stand to be tied down. I’m a horse-hunter, you know.”

Bostil eyed the young man, wondering what he knew about the difficulties of the job offered. It was no news to Bostil that he was at once the best and the worst man to ride for in all the uplands.

“Sure, I know. But thet doesn’t make no difference,” went on Bostil, persuasively. “If we got along — wal, you’d save some of thet yellow coin you’re jinglin’. A roamin’ rider never builds no corral!”

“Thank you, Bostil,” replied Slone, earnestly. “I’ll think it over. It would seem kind of tame now to go back to wild-horse wranglin’, after I’ve caught Wildfire. I’ll think it over. Maybe I’ll do it, if you’re sure I’m good enough with rope an’ horse.”

“Wal, by Gawd!” blurted out Bostil. “Holley says he’d rather you throwed a gun on him than a rope! So would I. An’ as for your handlin’ a hoss, I never seen no better.”

Slone appeared embarrassed and kept studying the gold coins in his palm. Some one touched Bostil, who, turning, saw Brackton at his elbow. The other men were now bantering with the Indians.

“Come now while I’ve got a minnit,” said Brackton, taking up a lantern. “I’ve somethin’ to show you.”

Bostil followed Brackton, and Slone came along. The old man opened a door into a small room, half full of stores and track. The lantern only dimly lighted the place.

“Look thar!” And Brackton flashed the light upon a man lying prostrate.

Bostil recognized the pale face of Joel Creech. “Brack! ... What’s this? Is he dead?” Bostil sustained a strange, incomprehensible shock. Sight of a dead man had never before shocked him.

“Nope, he ain’t dead, which if he was might be good for this community,” replied Brackton. “He’s only fallen in a fit. Fust off I reckoned he was drunk. But it ain’t thet.”

“Wal, what do you want to show him to me for?” demanded Bostil, gruffly.

“I reckoned you oughter see him.”

“An’ why, Brackton?”

Brackton set down the lantern and, pushing Slone outside, said: “Jest a minnit, son,” and then he closed the door. “Joel’s been on my hands since the flood cut him off from home,” said Brackton. “An’ he’s been some trial. But nobody else would have done nothin’ for him, so I had to. I reckon I felt sorry for him. He cried like a baby thet had lost its mother. Then he gets wild-lookin’ an’ raved around. When I wasn’t busy I kept an eye on him. But some of the time I couldn’t, an’ he stole drinks, which made him wuss. An’ when I seen he was tryin’ to sneak one of my guns, I up an’ gets suspicious. Once he said, ‘My dad’s hosses are goin’ to starve, an’ I’m goin’ to kill somebody!’ He was out of his head an’ dangerous. Wal, I was worried some, but all I could do was lock up my guns. Last night I caught him confabin’ with some men out in the dark, behind the store. They all skedaddled except Joel, but I recognized Cordts. I didn’t like this, nuther. Joel was surly an’ ugly. An’ when one of the riders called him he said: ‘Thet boat NEVER DRIFTED OFF. Fer the night of the flood I went down there myself an’ tied the ropes. They never come untied. Somebody cut them — jest before the flood — to make sure my dad’s hosses couldn’t be crossed. Somebody figgered the river an’ the flood. An’ if my dad’s hosses starve I’m goin’ to kill somebody!’”

Brackton took up the lantern and placed a hand on the door ready to go out.

“Then a rider punched Joel — I never seen who — an’ Joel had a fit. I dragged him in here. An’ as you see, he ain’t come to yet.”

“Wal, Brackton, the boy’s crazy,” said Bostil.

“So I reckon. An’ I’m afeared he’ll burn us out — he’s crazy on fires, anyway — or do somethin’ like.”

“He’s sure a problem. Wal, we’ll see,” replied Bostil, soberly.

And they went out to find Slone waiting. Then Bostil called his guests, and with Slone also accompanying him, went home.

Bostil threw off the recurring gloom, and he was good-natured when Lucy came to his room to say good night. He knew she had come to say more than that.

“Hello, daughter!” he said. “Aren’t you ashamed to come facin’ your poor old dad?”

Lucy eyed him dubiously. “No, I’m not ashamed. But I’m still a little — afraid.”

“I’m harmless, child. I’m a broken man. When you put Sage King out of the race you broke me.”

“Dad, that isn’t funny. You make me an — angry when you hint I did something underhand.”

“Wal, you didn’t consult ME.”

“I thought it would be fun to surprise you all. Why, you’re always delighted with a surprise in a race, unless it beats you.... Then, it was my great and only chance to get out in front of the King. Oh, how grand it’d have been! Dad, I’d have run away from him the same as the others!”

“No, you wouldn’t,” declared Bostil.

“Dad, Wildfire can beat the King!”

“Never, girl! Knockin’ a good-tempered hoss off his pins ain’t beatin’ him in a runnin’-race.”

Then father and daughter fought over the old score, the one doggedly, imperturbably, the other spiritedly, with flashing eyes. It was different this time, however, for it ended in Lucy saying Bostil would never risk another race. That stung Bostil, and it cost him an effort to control his temper.

“Let thet go now. Tell me all about how you saved Wildfire, an’ Slone, too.”

Lucy readily began the narrative, and she had scarcely started before Bostil found himself intensely interested. Soon he became absorbed. That was the most thrilling and moving kind of romance to him, like his rider’s dreams.

“Lucy, you’re sure a game kid,” he said, fervidly, when she had ended. “I reckon I don’t blame Slone for fallin’ in love with you.”

“Who said THAT!” inquired Lucy.

“Nobody. But it’s true — ain’t it?”

She looked up with eyes as true as ever they were, yet a little sad, he thought, a little wistful and wondering, as if a strange and grave thing confronted her.

“Yes, Dad — it’s — it’s true,” she answered, haltingly.

“Wal, you didn’t need to tell me, but I’m glad you did.”

Bostil meant to ask her then if she in any sense returned the rider’s love, but unaccountably he could not put the question. The girl was as true as ever — as good as gold. Bostil feared a secret that might hurt him. Just as sure as life was there and death but a step away, some rider, sooner or later, would win this girl’s love. Bostil knew that, hated it, feared it. Yet he would never give his girl to a beggarly rider. Such a man as Wetherby ought to win Lucy’s hand. And Bostil did not want to know too much at present; he did not want his swift-mounting animosity roused so soon. Still he was curious, and, wanting to get the drift of Lucy’s mind, he took to his old habit of teasing.

“Another moonstruck rider!” he said. “Your eyes are sure full moons, Lucy. I’d be ashamed to trifle with these poor fellers.”

“Dad!”

“You’re a heartless flirt — same as your mother was before she met ME.”

“I’m not. And I don’t believe mother was, either,” replied Lucy. It was easy to strike fire from her.

“Wal, you did dead wrong to ride out there day after day meetin’ Slone, because — young woman — if he ever has the nerve to ask me for you I’ll beat him up bad.”

“Then you’d be a brute!” retorted Lucy.

“Wal, mebbe,” returned Bostil, secretly delighted and surprised at Lucy’s failure to see through him. But she was looking inward. He wondered what hid there deep in her. “But I can’t stand for the nerve of thet.”

“He — he means to — to ask you.”

“The h —— .... A-huh!”

Lucy did not catch the slip of tongue. She was flushing now. “He said he’d never have let me meet him out there alone — unless — he — he loved me — and as our neighbors and the riders would learn of it — and talk — he wanted you and them to know he’d asked to — to marry me.”

“Wal, he’s a square young man!” ejaculated Bostil, involuntarily. It was hard for Bostil to hide his sincerity and impulsiveness; much harder than to hide unworthy attributes. Then he got back on the other track. “That’ll make me treat him decent, so when he rides up to ask for you I’ll let him off with, ‘No!”

Lucy dropped her head. Bostil would have given all he had, except his horses, to feel sure she did not care for Slone.

“Dad — I said— ‘No’ — for myself,” she murmured.

This time Bostil did not withhold the profane word of surprise. “... So he’s asked you, then? Wal, wal! When?”

“To-day — out there in the rocks where he waited with Wildfire for me. He — he—”

Lucy slipped into her father’s arms, and her slender form shook. Bostil instinctively felt what she then needed was her mother. Her mother was dead, and he was only a rough, old, hard rider. He did not know what to do — to say. His heart softened and he clasped her close. It hurt him keenly to realize that he might have been a better, kinder father if it were not for the fear that she would find him out. But that proved he loved her, craved her respect and affection.

“Wal, little girl, tell me,” he said.

“He — he broke his word to me.”

“A-huh! Thet’s too bad. An’ how did he?”

“He — he—” Lucy seemed to catch her tongue.

Bostil was positive she had meant to tell him something and suddenly changed her mind. Subtly the child vanished — a woman remained. Lucy sat up self-possessed once more. Some powerfully impelling thought had transformed her. Bostil’s keen sense gathered that what she would not tell was not hers to reveal. For herself, she was the soul of simplicity and frankness.

“Days ago I told him I cared for him,” she went on. “But I forbade him to speak of it to me. He promised. I wanted to wait till after the race — till after I had found courage to confess to you. He broke his word.... Today when he put me up on Wildfire he — he suddenly lost his head.”

The slow scarlet welled into Lucy’s face and her eyes grew shamed, but bravely she kept facing her father.

“He — he pulled me off — he hugged me — he k-kissed me.... Oh, it was dreadful — shameful! ... Then I gave him back — some — something he had given me. And I told him I — I hated him — and I told him, ‘No!’”

“But you rode his hoss in the race,” said Bostil.

Lucy bowed her head at that. “I — I couldn’t resist!”

Bostil stroked the bright head. What a quandary for a thick-skulled old horseman! “Wal, it seems to me Slone didn’t act so bad, considerin’. You’d told him you cared for him. If it wasn’t for thet! ... I remember I did much the same to your mother. She raised the devil, but I never seen as she cared any less for me.”

“I’ll never forgive him,” Lucy cried, passionately. “I hate him. A man who breaks his word in one thing will do it in another.”

Bostil sadly realized that his little girl had reached womanhood and love, and with them the sweet, bitter pangs of life. He realized also that here was a crisis when a word — an unjust or lying word from him would forever ruin any hope that might still exist for Slone. Bostil realized this acutely, but the realization was not even a temptation.

“Wal, listen. I’m bound to confess your new rider is sure swift. An’, Lucy, to-day if he hadn’t been as swift with a rope as he is in love — wal, your old daddy might be dead!”

She grew as white as her dress. “Oh, Dad! I KNEW something had happened,” she cried, reaching for him.

Then Bostil told her how Dick Sears had menaced him — how Slone had foiled the horse-thief. He told the story bluntly, but eloquently, with all a rider’s praise. Lucy rose with hands pressed against her breast. When had Bostil seen eyes like those — dark, shining, wonderful? Ah! he remembered her mother’s once — only once, as a girl.

Then Lucy kissed him and without a word fled from the room.

Bostil stared after her. “D — n me!” he swore, as he threw a boot against the wall. “I reckon I’ll never let her marry Slone, but I just had to tell her what I think of him!”

CHAPTER XIV

SLONE LAY WIDE awake under an open window, watching the stars glimmer through the rustling foliage of the cottonwoods. Somewhere a lonesome hound bayed. Very faintly came the silvery tinkle of running water.

For five days Slone had been a guest of Bostil’s, and the whole five days had been torment.

On the morning of the day after the races Lucy had confronted him. Would he ever forget her eyes — her voice? “Bless you for saving my dad!” she had said. “It was brave.... But don’t let dad fool you. Don’t believe in his kindness. Above all, don’t ride for him! He only wants Wildfire, and if he doesn’t get him he’ll hate you!”

That speech of Lucy’s had made the succeeding days hard for Slone. Bostil loaded him with gifts and kindnesses, and never ceased importuning him to accept his offers. But for Lucy, Slone would have accepted. It was she who cast the first doubt of Bostil into his mind. Lucy averred that her father was splendid and good in every way except in what pertained to fast horses; there he was impossible.

The great stallion that Slone had nearly sacrificed his life to catch was like a thorn in the rider’s flesh. Slone lay there in the darkness, restless, hot, rolling from side to side, or staring out at the star-studded sky — miserably unhappy all on account of that horse. Almost he hated him. What pride he had felt in Wildfire! How he had gloried in the gift of the stallion to Lucy! Then, on the morning of the race had come that unexpected, incomprehensible and wild act of which he had been guilty. Yet not to save his life, his soul, could he regret it! Was it he who had been responsible, or an unknown savage within him? He had kept his word to Lucy, when day after day he had burned with love until that fatal moment when the touch of her, as he lifted her to Wildfire’s saddle, had made a madman out of him. He had swept her into his arms and held her breast to his, her face before him, and he had kissed the sweet, parting lips till he was blind.

Then he had learned what a little fury she was. Then he learned how he had fallen, what he had forfeited. In his amaze at himself, in his humility and shame, he had not been able to say a word in his own defense. She did not know yet that his act had been ungovernable and that he had not known what he was doing till too late. And she had finished with: “I’ll ride Wildfire in the race — but I won’t have him — and I won’t have YOU! NO!”

She had the steel and hardness of her father.

For Slone, the watching of that race was a blend of rapture and despair. He lived over in mind all the time between the race and this hour when he lay there sleepless and full of remorse. His mind was like a racecourse with many races; and predominating in it was that swift, strange, stinging race of his memory of Lucy Bostil’s looks and actions.

What an utter fool he was to believe she had meant those tender words when, out there under the looming monuments, she had accepted Wildfire! She had been an impulsive child. Her scorn and fury that morning of the race had left nothing for him except footless fancies. She had mistaken love of Wildfire for love of him. No, his case was hopeless with Lucy, and if it had not been so Bostil would have made it hopeless. Yet there were things Slone could not fathom — the wilful, contradictory, proud and cold and unaccountably sweet looks and actions of the girl. They haunted Slone. They made him conscious he had a mind and tortured him with his development. But he had no experience with girls to compare with what was happening now. It seemed that accepted fact and remembered scorn and cold certainty were somehow at variance with hitherto unknown intuitions and instincts. Lucy avoided him, if by chance she encountered him alone. When Bostil or Aunt Jane or any one else was present Lucy was kind, pleasant, agreeable. What made her flush red at sight of him and then, pale? Why did she often at table or in the big living-room softly brush against him when it seemed she could have avoided that? Many times he had felt some inconceivable drawing power, and looked up to find her eyes upon him, strange eyes full of mystery, that were suddenly averted. Was there any meaning attachable to the fact that his room was kept so tidy and neat, that every day something was added to its comfort or color, that he found fresh flowers whenever he returned, or a book, or fruit, or a dainty morsel to eat, and once a bunch of Indian paint-brush, wild flowers of the desert that Lucy knew he loved? Most of all, it was Lucy’s eyes which haunted Slone — eyes that had changed, darkened, lost their audacious flash, and yet seemed all the sweeter. The glances he caught, which he fancied were stolen — and then derided his fancy — thrilled him to his heart. Thus Slone had spent waking hours by day and night, mad with love and remorse, tormented one hour by imagined grounds for hope and resigned to despair the next.

Upon the sixth morning of his stay at Bostil’s Slone rose with something of his former will reasserting itself. He could not remain in Bostil’s home any longer unless he accepted Bostil’s offer, and this was not to be thought of. With a wrench Slone threw off the softening indecision and hurried out to find Bostil while the determination was hot.

Bostil was in the corral with Wildfire. This was the second time Slone had found him there. Wildfire appeared to regard Bostil with a much better favor than he did his master. As Slone noted this a little heat stole along his veins. That was gall to a rider.

“I like your hoss,” said Bostil, with gruff frankness. But a tinge of red showed under his beard.

“Bostil, I’m sorry I can’t take you up on the job,” rejoined Slone, swiftly. “It’s been hard for me to decide. You’ve been good to me. I’m grateful. But it’s time I was tellin’ you.”

“Why can’t you?” demanded Bostil, straightening up with a glint in his big eyes. It was the first time he had asked Slone that.

“I can’t ride for you,” replied Slone, briefly.

“Anythin’ to do with Lucy?” queried Bostil.

“How so?” returned Slone, conscious of more heat.

“Wal, you was sweet on her an’ she wouldn’t have you,” replied Bostil.

Slone felt the blood swell and boil in his veins. This Bostil could say as harsh and hard things as repute gave him credit for.

“Yes, I AM sweet on Lucy, an’ she won’t have me,” said Slone, steadily. “I asked her to let me come to you an’ tell you I wanted to marry her. But she wouldn’t.”

“Wal, it’s just as good you didn’t come, because I might....” Bostil broke off his speech and began again. “You don’t lack nerve, Slone. What’d you have to offer Lucy?”

“Nothin’ except — But that doesn’t matter,” replied Slone, cut to the quick by Bostil’s scorn. “I’m glad you know, an’ so much for that.”

Bostil turned to look at Wildfire once more, and he looked long. When he faced around again he was another man. Slone felt the powerful driving passion of this old horse-trader.

“Slone, I’ll give you pick of a hundred mustangs an’ a thousand dollars for Wildfire!”

So he unmasked his power in the face of a beggarly rider! Though it struck Slone like a thunderbolt, he felt amused. But he did not show that. Bostil had only one possession, among all his uncounted wealth, that could win Wildfire from his owner.

“No,” said Slone, briefly.

“I’ll double it,” returned Bostil, just as briefly.

“No!”

“I’ll—”

“Save your breath, Bostil,” flashed Slone. “You don’t know me. But let me tell you — you CAN’T BUY my horse!”

The great veins swelled and churned in Bostil’s bull neck; a thick and ugly contortion worked in his face; his eyes reflected a sick rage.

Slone saw that two passions shook Bostil — one, a bitter, terrible disappointment, and the other, the passion of a man who could not brook being crossed. It appeared to Slone that the best thing he could do was to get away quickly, and to this end he led Wildfire out of the corral to the stable courtyard, and there quickly saddled him. Then he went into another corral for his other horse, Nagger, and, bringing him out, returned to find Bostil had followed as far as the court. The old man’s rage apparently had passed or had been smothered.

“See here,” he began, in thick voice, “don’t be a d — fool an’ ruin your chance in life. I’ll—”

“Bostil, my one chance was ruined — an’ you know who did it,” replied Slone, as he gathered Nagger’s rope and Wildfire’s bridle together. “I’ve no hard feelin’s.... But I can’t sell you my horse. An’ I can’t ride for you — because — well, because it would breed trouble.”

“An’ what kind?” queried Bostil.

Holley and Farlane and Van, with several other riders, had come up and were standing open-mouthed. Slone gathered from their manner and expression that anything might happen with Bostil in such a mood.

“We’d be racin’ the King an’ Wildfire, wouldn’t we?” replied Slone.

“An’ supposin’ we would?” returned Bostil, ominously. His huge frame vibrated with a slight start.

“Wildfire would run off with your favorite — an’ you wouldn’t like that,” answered Slone. It was his rider’s hot blood that prompted him to launch this taunt. He could not help it.

“You wild-hoss chaser,” roared Bostil, “your Wildfire may be a bloody killer, but he can’t beat the King in a race!”

“Excuse ME, Bostil, but Wildfire did beat the King!”

This was only adding fuel to the fire. Slone saw Holley making signs that must have meant silence would be best. But Slone’s blood was up. Bostil had rubbed him the wrong way.

“You’re a lair!” declared Bostil, with a tremendous stride forward. Slone saw then how dangerous the man really was. “It was no race. Your wild hoss knocked the King off the track.”

“Sage King had the lead, didn’t he? Why didn’t he keep it?”

Bostil was like a furious, intractable child whose favorite precious treasure had been broken; and he burst out into a torrent of incoherent speech, apparently reasons why this and that were so. Slone did not make out what Bostil meant and he did not care. When Bostil got out of breath Slone said:

“We’re both wastin’ talk. An’ I’m not wantin’ you to call me a liar twice. ... Put your rider up on the King an’ come on, right now. I’ll—”

“Slone, shut up an’ chase yourself,” interrupted Holley

“You go to h — l!” returned Slone, coolly.

There was a moment’s silence, in which Slone took Holley’s measure. The hawk-eyed old rider may have been square, but he was then thinking only of Bostil.

“What am I up, against here?” demanded Slone. “Am I goin’ to be shot because I’m takin’ my own part? Holley, you an’ the rest of your pards are all afraid of this old devil. But I’m not — an’ you stay out of this.”

“Wal, son, you needn’t git riled,” replied Holley, placatingly. “I was only tryin’ to stave off talk you might be sorry for.”

“Sorry for nothin’! I’m goin’ to make this great horse-trader, this rich an’ mighty rancher, this judge of grand horses, this BOSTIL! ... I’m goin’ to make him race the King or take water!” Then Slone turned to Bostil. That worthy evidently had been stunned by the rider who dared call him to his face. “Come on! Fetch the King! Let your own riders judge the race!”

Bostil struggled both to control himself and to speak. “Naw! I ain’t goin’ to see thet red hoss-killer jump the King again!”

“Bah! you’re afraid. You know there’d be no girl on his back. You know he can outrun the King an’ that’s why you want to buy him.”

Slone caught his breath then. He realized suddenly, at Bostil’s paling face, that perhaps he had dared too much. Yet, maybe the truth flung into this hard old rider’s teeth was what he needed more than anything else. Slone divined, rather than saw, that he had done an unprecedented thing.

“I’ll go now, Bostil.”

Slone nodded a good-by to the riders, and, turning away, he led the two horses down the lane toward the house. It scarcely needed sight of Lucy under the cottonwoods to still his anger and rouse his regret. Lucy saw him coming, and, as usual, started to avoid meeting him, when sight of the horses, or something else, caused her to come toward him instead.

Slone halted. Both Wildfire and Nagger whinnied at sight of the girl. Lucy took one flashing glance at them, at Slone, and then she evidently guessed what was amiss.

“Lucy, I’ve done it now — played hob, sure,” said Slone.

“What?” she cried.

“I called your dad — called him good an’ hard — an’ he — he—”

“Lin! Oh, don’t say Dad.” Lucy’s face whitened and she put a swift hand upon his arm — a touch that thrilled him. “Lin! there’s blood — on your face. Don’t — don’t tell me Dad hit you?”

“I should say not,” declared Slone, quickly lifting his hand to his face. “Must be from my cut, that blood. I barked my hand holdin’ Wildfire.”

“Oh! I — I was sick with — with—” Lucy faltered and broke off, and then drew back quickly, as if suddenly conscious of her actions and words.

Then Slone began to relate everything that had been said, and before he concluded his story his heart gave a wild throb at the telltale face and eyes of the girl.

“You said that to Dad!” she cried, in amaze and fear and admiration. “Oh, Dad richly deserved it! But I wish you hadn’t. Oh, I wish you hadn’t!”

“Why?” asked Slone.

But she did not answer that. “Where are you going?” she questioned.

“Come to think of that, I don’t know,” replied Slone, blankly. “I started back to fetch my things out of my room. That’s as far as my muddled thoughts got.”

“Your things? ... Oh!” Suddenly she grew intensely white. The little freckles that had been so indistinct stood out markedly, and it was as if she had never had any tan. One brown hand went to her breast, the other fluttered to his arm again. “You mean to — to go away — for good.”

“Sure. What else can I do?”

“Lin! ... Oh, there comes Dad! He mustn’t see me. I must run.... Lin, don’t leave Bostil’s Ford — don’t go — DON’T!”

Then she flew round the corner of the house, to disappear. Slone stood there transfixed and thrilling. Even Bostil’s heavy tread did not break the trance, and a meeting would have been unavoidable had not Bostil turned down the path that led to the back of the house. Slone, with a start collecting his thoughts, hurried into the little room that had been his and gathered up his few belongings. He was careful to leave behind the gifts of guns, blankets, gloves, and other rider’s belongings which Bostil had presented to him. Thus laden, he went outside and, tingling with emotions utterly sweet and bewildering, he led the horses down into the village.

Slone went down to Brackton’s, and put the horses into a large, high-fenced pasture adjoining Brackton’s house. Slone felt reasonably sure his horses would be safe there, but he meant to keep a mighty close watch on them. And old Brackton, as if he read Slone’s mind, said this: “Keep your eye on thet daffy boy, Joel Creech. He hangs round my place, sleeps out somewheres, an’ he’s crazy about hosses.”

Slone did not need any warning like that, nor any information to make him curious regarding young Creech. Lucy had seen to that, and, in fact, Slone was anxious to meet this half-witted fellow who had so grievously offended and threatened Lucy. That morning, however, Creech did not put in an appearance. The village had nearly returned to its normal state now, and the sleepy tenor of its way. The Indians, had been the last to go, but now none remained. The days were hot while the sun stayed high, and only the riders braved its heat.

The morning, however, did not pass without an interesting incident. Brackton approached Slone with an offer that he take charge of the freighting between the Ford and Durango. “What would I do with Wildfire?” was Slone’s questioning reply, and Brackton held up his hands. A later incident earned more of Slone’s attention. He had observed a man in Brackton’s store, and it chanced that this man heard Slone’s reply to Brackton’s offer, and he said: “You’ll sure need to corral thet red stallion. Grandest hoss I ever seen!”

That praise won Slone, and he engaged in conversation with the man, who said his name was Vorhees. It developed soon that Vorhees owned a little house, a corral, and a patch of ground on a likely site up under the bluff, and he was anxious to sell cheap because he had a fine opportunity at Durango, where his people lived. What interested Slone most was the man’s remark that he had a corral which could not be broken into. The price he asked was ridiculously low if the property was worth anything. An idea flashed across Slone’s mind. He went up to Vorhees’s place and was much pleased with everything, especially the corral, which had been built by a man who feared horse-thieves as much as Bostil. The view from the door of the little cabin was magnificent beyond compare. Slone remembered Lucy’s last words. They rang like bells in his ears. “Don’t go — don’t!” They were enough to chain him to Bostil’s Ford until the crack of doom. He dared not dream of what they meant. He only listened to their music as they pealed over and over in his ears.

“Vorhees, are you serious?” he asked. “The money you ask is little enough.”

“It’s enough an’ to spare,” replied the man. “An’ I’d take it as a favor of you.”

“Well, I’ll go you,” said Slone, and he laughed a little irrationally. “Only you needn’t tell right away that I bought you out.”

The deal was consummated, leaving Slone still with half of the money that had been his prize in the race. He felt elated. He was rich. He owned two horses — one the grandest in all the uplands, the other the faithfulest — and he owned a neat little cabin where it was a joy to sit and look out, and a corral which would let him sleep at night, and he had money to put into supplies and furnishings, and a garden. After he drank out of the spring that bubbled from under the bluff he told himself it alone was worth the money.

“Looks right down on Bostil’s place,” Slone soliloquized, with glee. “Won’t he just be mad! An’ Lucy! ... Whatever’s she goin’ to think?”

The more Slone looked around and thought, the more he became convinced that good fortune had knocked at his door at last. And when he returned to Brackton’s he was in an exultant mood. The old storekeeper gave him a nudge and pointed underhand to a young man of ragged aspect sitting gloomily on a box. Slone recognized Joel Creech. The fellow surely made a pathetic sight, and Slone pitied him. He looked needy and hungry.

“Say,” said Slone, impulsively, “want to help me carry some grub an’ stuff?”

“Howdy!” replied Creech, raising his head. “Sure do.”

Slone sustained the queerest shock of his life when he met the gaze of those contrasting eyes. Yet he did not believe that his strange feeling came from sight of different-colored eyes. There was an instinct or portent in that meeting.

He purchased a bill of goods from Brackton, and, with Creech helping, carried it up to the cabin under the bluff. Three trips were needed to pack up all the supplies, and meanwhile Creech had but few words to say, and these of no moment. Slone offered him money, which he refused.

“I’ll help you fix up, an’ eat a bite,” he said. “Nice up hyar.”

He seemed rational enough and certainly responded to kindness. Slone found that Vorhees had left the cabin so clean there was little cleaning to do. An open fireplace of stone required some repair and there was wood to cut.

“Joel, you start a fire while I go down after my horses,” said Slone.

Young Creech nodded and Slone left him there. It was not easy to catch Wildfire, nor any easier to get him into the new corral; but at last Slone saw him safely there. And the bars and locks on the gate might have defied any effort to open or break them quickly. Creech was standing in the doorway, watching the horses, and somehow Slone saw, or imagined he saw, that Creech wore a different aspect.

“Grand wild hoss! He did what Blue was a-goin’ to do — beat thet there d — d Bostil’s King!”

Creech wagged his head. He was gloomy and strange. His eyes were unpleasant to look into. His face changed. And he mumbled. Slone pitied him the more, but wished to see the last of him. Creech stayed on, however, and grew stranger and more talkative during the meal. He repeated things often — talked disconnectedly, and gave other indications that he was not wholly right in his mind. Yet Slone suspected that Creech’s want of balance consisted only in what concerned horses and the Bostils. And Slone, wanting to learn all he could, encouraged Creech to talk about his father and the racers and the river and boat, and finally Bostil.

Slone became convinced that, whether young Creech was half crazy or not, he knew his father’s horses were doomed, and that the boat at the ferry had been cut adrift. Slone could not understand why he was convinced, but he was. Finally Creech told how he had gone down to the river only a day before; how he had found the flood still raging, but much lower; how he had worked round the cliffs and had pulled up the rope cables to find they had been cut.

“You see, Bostil cut them when he didn’t need to,” continued Creech, shrewdly. “But he didn’t know the flood was comin’ down so quick. He was afeared we’d come across an’ git the boat thet night. An’ he meant to take away them cut cables. But he hadn’t no time.”

“Bostil?” queried Slone, as he gazed hard at Creech. The fellow had told that rationally enough. Slone wondered if Bostil could have been so base. No! and yet — when it came to horses Bostil was scarcely human.

Slone’s query served to send Creech off on another tangent which wound up in dark, mysterious threats. Then Slone caught the name of Lucy. It abruptly killed his sympathy for Creech.

“What’s the girl got to do with it?” he demanded, angrily. “If you want to talk to me don’t use her name.”

“I’ll use her name when I want,” shouted Creech.

“Not to me!”

“Yes, to you, mister. I ain’t carin’ a d — n fer you!”

“You crazy loon!” exclaimed Slone, with impatience and disgust added to anger. “What’s the use of being decent to you?”

Creech crouched low, his hands digging like claws into the table, as if he were making ready to spring. At that instant he was hideous.

“Crazy, am I?” he yelled. “Mebbe not d — n crazy! I kin tell you’re gone on Lucy Bostil! I seen you with her out there in the rocks the mornin’ of the race. I seen what you did to her. An’ I’m a-goin’ to tell it! ... An’ I’m a-goin’ to ketch Lucy Bostil an’ strip her naked, an’ when I git through with her I’ll tie her on a hoss an’ fire the grass! By Gawd! I am!” Livid and wild, he breathed hard as he got up, facing Slone malignantly.

“Crazy or not, here goes!” muttered Slone, grimly; and, leaping up, with one blow he knocked Creech half out of the door, and then kicked him the rest of the way. “Go on and have a fit!” cried Slone. “I’m liable to kill you if you don’t have one!”

Creech got up and ran down the path, turning twice on the way. Then he disappeared among the trees.

Slone sat down. “Lost my temper again!” he said. “This has been a day. Guess I’d better cool off right now an’ stay here.... That poor devil! Maybe he’s not so crazy. But he’s wilder than an Indian. I must warn Lucy.... Lord! I wonder if Bostil could have held back repairin’ that boat, an’ then cut it loose? I wonder? Yesterday I’d have sworn never. To-day—”

Slone drove the conclusion of that thought out of his consciousness before he wholly admitted it. Then he set to work cutting the long grass from the wet and shady nooks under the bluff where the spring made the ground rich. He carried an armful down to the corral. Nagger was roaming around outside, picking grass for himself. Wildfire snorted as always when he saw Slone, and Slone as always, when time permitted, tried to coax the stallion to him. He had never succeeded, nor did he this time. When he left the bundle of grass on the ground and went outside Wildfire readily came for it.

“You’re that tame, anyhow, you hungry red devil,” said Slone, jealously. Wildfire would take a bunch of grass from Lucy Bostil’s hand. Slone’s feelings had undergone some reaction, though he still loved the horse. But it was love mixed with bitterness. More than ever he made up his mind that Lucy should have Wildfire. Then he walked around his place, planning the work he meant to start at once.

Several days slipped by with Slone scarcely realizing how they flew. Unaccustomed labor tired him so that he went to bed early and slept like a log. If it had not been for the ever-present worry and suspense and longing, in regard to Lucy, he would have been happier than ever he could remember. Almost at once he had become attached to his little home, and the more he labored to make it productive and comfortable the stronger grew his attachment. Practical toil was not conducive to daydreaming, so Slone felt a loss of something vague and sweet. Many times he caught himself watching with eager eyes for a glimpse of Lucy Bostil down there among the cottonwoods. Still, he never saw her, and, in fact, he saw so few villagers that the place began to have a loneliness which endeared it to him the more. Then the view down the gray valley to the purple monuments was always thrillingly memorable to Slone. It was out there Lucy had saved his horse and his life. His keen desert gaze could make out even at that distance the great, dark monument, gold-crowned, in the shadow of which he had heard Lucy speak words that had transformed life for him. He would ride out there some day. The spell of those looming grand shafts of colored rock was still strong upon him.

One morning Slone had a visitor — old Brackton. Slone’s cordiality died on his lips before it was half uttered. Brackton’s former friendliness was not in evidence. Indeed, he looked at Slone with curiosity and disfavor.

“Howdy, Slone! I jest wanted to see what you was doin’ up hyar,” he said.

Slone spread his hands and explained in few words.

“So you took over the place, hey? We all figgered thet. But Vorhees was mum. Fact is, he was sure mysterious.” Brackton sat down and eyed Slone with interest. “Folks are talkin’ a lot about you,” he said, bluntly.

“Is that so?”

“You ‘pear to be a pretty mysterious kind of a feller, Slone. I kind of took a shine to you at first, an’ thet’s why I come up hyar to tell you it’d be wise fer you to vamoose.”

“What!” exclaimed Slone.

Brackton repeated substantially what he had said, then, pausing an instant, continued: “I’ve no call to give you a hunch, but I’ll do it jest because I did like you fust off.”

The old man seemed fussy and nervous and patronizing and disparaging all at once.

“What’d you beat up thet poor Joel Creech fer?” demanded Brackton.

“He got what he deserved,” replied Slone, and the memory, coming on the head of this strange attitude of Brackton’s, roused Slone’s temper.

“Wal, Joel tells some queer things about you — fer instance, how you took advantage of little Lucy Bostil, grabbin’ her an’ maulin’ her the way Joel seen you.”

“D — n the loon!” muttered Slone, rising to pace the path.

“Wal, Joel’s a bit off, but he’s not loony all the time. He’s seen you an’ he’s tellin’ it. When Bostil hears it you’d better be acrost the canyon!”

Slone felt the hot, sick rush of blood to his face, and humiliation and rage overtook him.

“Joel’s down at my house. He had fits after you beat him, an’ he ‘ain’t got over them yet. But he could blab to the riders. Van Sickle’s lookin’ fer you. An’ to-day when I was alone with Joel he told me some more queer things about you. I shut him up quick. But I ain’t guaranteein’ I can keep him shut up.”

“I’ll bet you I shut him up,” declared Slone. “What more did the fool say?”

“Slone, hev you been round these hyar parts — down among the monuments — fer any considerable time?” queried Brackton.

“Yes, I have — several weeks out there, an’ about ten days or so around the Ford.”

“Where was you the night of the flood?”

The shrewd scrutiny of the old man, the suspicion, angered Slone.

“If it’s any of your mix, I was out on the slope among the rocks. I heard that flood comin’ down long before it got here,” replied Slone, deliberately.

Brackton averted his gaze, and abruptly rose as if the occasion was ended. “Wal, take my hunch an’ leave!” he said, turning away.

“Brackton, if you mean well, I’m much obliged,” returned Slone, slowly, ponderingly. “But I’ll not take the hunch.”

“Suit yourself,” added Brackton, coldly, and he went away.

Slone watched him go down the path and disappear in the lane of cottonwoods.

“I’ll be darned!” muttered Slone. “Funny old man. Maybe Creech’s not the only loony one hereabouts.”

Slone tried to laugh off the effect of the interview, but it persisted and worried him all day. After supper he decided to walk down into the village, and would have done so but for the fact that he saw a man climbing his path. When he recognized the rider Holley he sensed trouble, and straightway he became gloomy. Bostil’s right-hand man could not call on him for any friendly reason. Holley came up slowly, awkwardly, after the manner of a rider unused to walking. Slone had built a little porch on the front of his cabin and a bench, which he had covered with goatskins. It struck him a little strangely that he should bend over to rearrange these skins just as Holley approached the porch.

“Howdy, son!” was the rider’s drawled remark. “Sure makes — me — puff to climb — up this mountain.”

Slone turned instantly, surprised at the friendly tone, doubting his own ears, and wanting to verify them. He was the more surprised to see Holley unmistakably amiable.

“Hello, Holley! How are you?” he replied. “Have a seat.”

“Wal, I’m right spry fer an old bird. But I can’t climb wuth a d — n .... Say, this here beats Bostil’s view.”

“Yes, it’s fine,” replied Slone, rather awkwardly, as he sat down on the porch step. What could Holley want with him? This old rider was above curiosity or gossip.

“Slone, you ain’t holdin’ it ag’in me — thet I tried to shut you up the other day?” he drawled, with dry frankness.

“Why, no, Holley, I’m not. I saw your point. You were right. But Bostil made me mad.”

“Sure! He’d make anybody mad. I’ve seen riders bite themselves, they was so mad at Bostil. You called him, an’ you sure tickled all the boys. But you hurt yourself, fer Bostil owns an’ runs this here Ford.”

“So I’ve discovered,” replied Slone.

“You got yourself in bad right off, fer Bostil has turned the riders ag’in you, an’ this here punchin’ of Creech has turned the village folks ag’in you. What’d pitch into him fer?”

Slone caught the kindly interest and intent of the rider, and it warmed him as Brackton’s disapproval had alienated him.

“Wal, I reckon I’d better tell you,” drawled Holley, as Slone hesitated, “thet Lucy wants to know IF you beat up Joel an’ WHY you did.”

“Holley! Did she ask you to find out?”

“She sure did. The girl’s worried these days, Slone.... You see, you haven’t been around, an’ you don’t know what’s comin’ off.”

“Brackton was here to-day an’ he told me a good deal. I’m worried, too,” said Slone, dejectedly.

“Thet hoss of yours, Wildfire, he’s enough to make you hated in Bostil’s camp, even if you hadn’t made a fool of yourself, which you sure have.”

Slone dropped his head as admission.

“What Creech swears he seen you do to Miss Lucy, out there among the rocks, where you was hid with Wildfire — is there any truth in thet?” asked Holley, earnestly. “Tell me, Slone. Folks believe it. An’ it’s hurt you at the Ford. Bostil hasn’t heard it yet, an’ Lucy she doesn’t know. But I’m figgerin’ thet you punched Joel because he throwed it in your face.”

“He did, an’ I lambasted him,” replied Slone, with force.

“You did right. But what I want to know, is it true what Joel seen?”

“It’s true, Holley. But what I did isn’t so bad — so bad as he’d make it look.”

“Wal, I knowed thet. I knowed fer a long time how Lucy cares fer you,” returned the old rider, kindly.

Slone raised his head swiftly, incredulously. “Holley! You can’t be serious.”

“Wal, I am. I’ve been sort of a big brother to Lucy Bostil for eighteen years. I carried her in these here hands when she weighed no more ‘n my spurs. I taught her how to ride — what she knows about hosses. An’ she knows more ‘n her dad. I taught her to shoot. I know her better ‘n anybody. An’ lately she’s been different. She’s worried an’ unhappy.”

“But Holley, all that — it doesn’t seem—”

“I reckon not,” went on Holley, as Slone halted. “I think she cares fer you. An’ I’m your friend, Slone. You’re goin’ to buck up ag’in some hell round here sooner or later. An’ you’ll need a friend.”

“Thanks — Holley,” replied Slone, unsteadily. He thrilled under the iron grasp of the rider’s hard hand.

“You’ve got another friend you can gamble on,” said Holley, significantly.

“Another! Who?”

“Lucy Bostil. An’ don’t you fergit thet. I’ll bet she’ll raise more trouble than Bostil when she hears what Joel Creech is tellin’. Fer she’s bound to hear it. Van Sickle swears he’s a-goin’ to tell her an’ then beat you up with a quirt.”

“He is, is he?” snapped Slone, darkly.

“I’ve a hunch Lucy’s guessed why you punched Joel. But she wants to know fer sure. Now, Slone, I’ll tell her why.”

“Oh, don’t!” said Slone, involuntarily.

“Wal, it’ll be better comin’ from you an’ me. Take my word fer thet. I’ll prepare Lucy. An’ she’s as good a scrapper as Bostil, any day.”

“It all scares me,” replied Slone. He did feel panicky, and that was from thoughts of what shame might befall Lucy. The cold sweat oozed out of every pore. What might not Bostil do? “Holley, I love the girl. So I — I didn’t insult her. Bostil will never understand. An’ what’s he goin’ to do when he finds out?”

“Wal, let’s hope you won’t git any wuss’n you give Joel.”

“Let Bostil beat me!” ejaculated Slone. “I think I’m willin — now — the — way I feel. But I’ve a temper, and Bostil rubs me the wrong way.”

“Wall leave your gun home, an’ fight Bostil. You’re pretty husky. Sure he’ll lick you, but mebbe you could give the old cuss a black eye.” Holley laughed as if the idea gave him infinite pleasure.

“Fight Bostil? ... Lucy would hate me!” cried Slone.

“Nix! You don’t know thet kid. If the old man goes after you Lucy’ll care more fer you. She’s jest like him in some ways.” Holley pulled out a stubby black pipe and, filling and lighting it, he appeared to grow more thoughtful. “It wasn’t only Lucy thet sent me up here to see you. Bostil had been pesterin’ me fer days. But I kept fightin’ shy of it till Lucy got hold of me.”

“Bostil sent you? Why?”

“Reckon you can guess. He can’t sleep, thinkin’ about your red hoss. None of us ever seen Bostil have sich a bad case. He raised Sage King. But he’s always been crazy fer a great wild stallion. An’ here you come along — an’ your hoss jumps the King — an’ there’s trouble generally.”

“Holley, do you think Wildfire can beat Sage King?” asked Slone, eagerly.

“Reckon I do. Lucy says so, an’ I’ll back her any day. But, son, I ain’t paradin’ what I think. I’d git in bad myself. Farlane an’ the other boys, they’re with Bostil. Van he’s to blame fer thet. He’s takin’ a dislike to you, right off. An’ what he tells Bostil an’ the boys about thet race don’t agree with what Lucy tells me. Lucy says Wildfire ran fiery an’ cranky at the start. He wanted to run round an’ kill the King instead of racin’. So he was three lengths behind when Macomber dropped the flag. Lucy says the King got into his stride. She knows. An’ there Wildfire comes from behind an’ climbs all over the King! ... Van tells a different story.”

“It came off just as Lucy told you,” declared Slone. “I saw every move.”

“Wal, thet’s neither here nor there. What you’re up ag’in is this. Bostil is sore since you called him. But he holds himself in because he hasn’t given up hope of gittin’ Wildfire. An’, Slone, you’re sure wise, ain’t you, thet if Bostil doesn’t buy him you can’t stay on here?”

“I’m wise. But I won’t sell Wildfire,” replied Slone, doggedly.

“Wal, I’d never wasted my breath tellin’ you all this if I hadn’t figgered about Lucy. You’ve got her to think of.”

Slone turned on Holley passionately. “You keep hintin’ there’s a hope for me, when I know there’s none!”

“You’re only a boy,” replied Holley. “Son, where there’s life there’s hope. I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you agin thet I know Lucy Bostil.”

Slone could not stand nor walk nor keep still. He was shaking from head to foot.

“Wildfire’s not mine to sell. He’s Lucy’s!” confessed Slone.

“The devil you say!” ejaculated Holley, and he nearly dropped his pipe.

“I gave Wildfire to her. She accepted him. It was DONE. Then — then I lost my head an’ made her mad.... An’ — she said she’d ride him in the race, but wouldn’t keep him. But he IS hers.”

“Oho! I see. Slone, I was goin’ to advise you to sell Wildfire — all on account of Lucy. You’re young an’ you’d have a big start in life if you would. But Lucy’s your girl an’ you give her the hoss.... Thet settles thet!”

“If I go away from here an’ leave Wildfire for Lucy — do you think she could keep him? Wouldn’t Bostil take him from her?”

“Wal, son, if he tried thet on Lucy she’d jump Wildfire an’ hit your trail an’ hang on to it till she found you.”

“What’ll you tell Bostil?” asked Slone, half beside himself.

“I’m consarned if I know,” replied Holley. “Mebbe I’ll think of some idee. I’ll go back now. An’ say, son, I reckon you’d better hang close to home. If you meet Bostil down in the village you two’d clash sure. I’ll come up soon, but it’ll be after dark.”

“Holley, all this is — is good of you,” said Slone. “I — I’ll—”

“Shut up, son,” interrupted the rider, dryly. “Thet’s your only weakness, so far as I can see. You say too much.”

Holley started down then, his long, clinking spurs digging into the steep path. He left Slone a prey to deep thoughts at once anxious and dreamy.

Next day Slone worked hard all day, looking forward to nightfall, expecting that Holley would come up. He tried to resist the sweet and tantalizing anticipation of a message from Lucy, but in vain. The rider had immeasurably uplifted Slone’s hope that Lucy, at least, cared for him. Not for a moment all day could Slone drive away the hope. At twilight he was too eager to eat — too obsessed to see the magnificent sunset. But Holley did not come, and Slone went to bed late, half sick with disappointment.

The next day was worse. Slone found work irksome, yet he held to it. On the third day he rested and dreamed, and grew doubtful again, and then moody. On the fourth day Slone found he needed supplies that he must obtain from the store. He did not forget Holley’s warning, but he disregarded it, thinking there would scarcely be a chance of meeting Bostil at midday.

There were horses standing, bridles down, before Brackton’s place, and riders lounging at the rail and step. Some of these men had been pleasant to Slone on earlier occasions. This day they seemed not to see him. Slone was tingling all over when he went into the store. Some deviltry was afoot! He had an angry thought that these riders could not have minds of their own. Just inside the door Slone encountered Wetherby, the young rancher from Durango. Slone spoke, but Wetherby only replied with an insolent stare. Slone did not glance at the man to whom Wetherby was talking. Only a few people were inside the store, and Brackton was waiting upon them. Slone stood back a little in the shadow. Brackton had observed his entrance, but did not greet him. Then Slone absolutely knew that for him the good will of Bostil’s Ford was a thing of the past.

Presently Brackton was at leisure, but he showed no disposition to attend to Slone’s wants. Then Slone walked up to the counter and asked for supplies.

“Have you got the money?” asked Brackton, as if addressing one he would not trust.

“Yes,” replied Slone, growing red under an insult that he knew Wetherby had heard.

Brackton handed out the supplies and received the money, without a word. He held his head down. It was a singular action for a man used to dealing fairly with every one. Slone felt outraged. He hurried out of the place, with shame burning him, with his own eyes downcast, and in his hurry he bumped square into a burly form. Slone recoiled — looked up. Bostil! The old rider was eying him with cool speculation.

“Wal, are you drunk?” he queried, without any particular expression.

Yet the query was to Slone like a blow. It brought his head up with a jerk, his glance steady and keen on Bostil’s.

“Bostil, you know I don’t drink,” he said.

“A-huh! I know a lot about you, Slone.... I heard you bought Vorhees’s place, up on the bench.”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you it was mortgaged to me for more’n it’s worth?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Did he make over any papers to you?”

“No.”

“Wal, if it interests you I’ll show you papers thet proves the property’s mine.”

Slone suffered a pang. The little home had grown dearer and dearer to him.

“All right, Bostil. If it’s yours — it’s yours,” he said, calmly enough.

“I reckon I’d drove you out before this if I hadn’t felt we could make a deal.”

“We can’t agree on any deal, Bostil,” replied Slone, steadily. It was not what Bostil said, but the way he said it, the subtle meaning and power behind it, that gave Slone a sense of menace and peril. These he had been used to for years; he could meet them. But he was handicapped here because it seemed that, though he could meet Bostil face to face, he could not fight him. For he was Lucy’s father. Slone’s position, the impotence of it, rendered him less able to control his temper.

“Why can’t we?” demanded Bostil. “If you wasn’t so touchy we could. An’ let me say, young feller, thet there’s more reason now thet you DO make a deal with me.”

“Deal? What about?”

“About your red hoss.”

“Wildfire! ... No deals, Bostil,” returned Slone, and made as if to pass him.

The big hand that forced Slone back was far from gentle, and again he felt the quick rush of blood.

“Mebbe I can tell you somethin’ thet’ll make you sell Wildfire,” said Bostil.

“Not if you talked yourself dumb!” flashed Slone. There was no use to try to keep cool with this Bostil, if he talked horses. “I’ll race Wildfire against the King. But no more.”

“Race! Wal, we don’t run races around here without stakes,” replied Bostil, with deep scorn. “An’ what can you bet? Thet little dab of prize money is gone, an’ wouldn’t be enough to meet me. You’re a strange one in these parts. I’ve pride an’ reputation to uphold. You brag of racin’ with me — an’ you a beggarly rider! ... You wouldn’t have them clothes an’ boots if my girl hadn’t fetched them to you.”

The riders behind Bostil laughed. Wetherby’s face was there in the door, not amused, but hard with scorn and something else. Slone felt a sickening, terrible gust of passion. It fairly shook him. And as the wave subsided the quick cooling of skin and body pained him like a burn made with ice.

“Yes, Bostil, I’m what you say,” responded Slone, and his voice seemed to fill his ears. “But you’re dead wrong when you say I’ve nothin’ to bet on a race.”

“An’ what’ll you bet?”

“My life an’ my horse!”

The riders suddenly grew silent and intense. Bostil vibrated to that. He turned white. He more than any rider on the uplands must have felt the nature of that offer.

“Ag’in what?” he demanded, hoarsely.

“YOUR DAUGHTER LUCY!”

One instant the surprise held Bostil mute and motionless. Then he seemed to expand. His huge bulk jerked into motion and he bellowed like a mad bull.

Slone saw the blow coming, made no move to avoid it. The big fist took him square on the mouth and chin and laid him flat on the ground. Sight failed Slone for a little, and likewise ability to move. But he did not lose consciousness. His head seemed to have been burst into rays and red mist that blurred his eyes. Then these cleared away, leaving intense pain. He started to get up, his brain in a whirl. Where was his gun? He had left it at home. But for that he would have killed Bostil. He had already killed one man. The thing was a burning flash — then all over! He could do it again. But Bostil was Lucy’s father!

Slone gathered up the packages of supplies, and without looking at the men he hurried away. He seemed possessed of a fury to turn and run back. Some force, like an invisible hand, withheld him. When he reached the cabin he shut himself in, and lay on his bunk, forgetting that the place did not belong to him, alive only to the mystery of his trouble, smarting with the shame of the assault upon him. It was dark before he composed himself and went out, and then he had not the desire to eat. He made no move to open the supplies of food, did not even make a light. But he went out to take grass and water to the horses. When he returned to the cabin a man was standing at the porch. Slone recognized Holley’s shape and then his voice.

“Son, you raised the devil to-day.”

“Holley, don’t you go back on me!” cried Slone. “I was driven!”

“Don’t talk so loud,” whispered the rider in return. “I’ve only a minnit. ... Here — a letter from Lucy.... An’, son, don’t git the idee thet I’ll go back on you.”

Slone took the letter with trembling fingers. All the fury and gloom instantly fled. Lucy had written him! He could not speak.

“Son, I’m double-crossin’ the boss, right this minnit!” whispered Holley, hoarsely. “An’ the same time I’m playin’ Lucy’s game. If Bostil finds out he’ll kill me. I mustn’t be ketched up here. But I won’t lose track of you — wherever you go.”

Holley slipped away stealthily in the dusk, leaving Slone with a throbbing heart.

“Wherever you go!” he echoed. “Ah! I forgot! I can’t stay here.”

Lucy’s letter made his fingers tingle — made them so hasty and awkward that he had difficulty in kindling blaze enough to see to read. The letter was short, written in lead-pencil on the torn leaf of a ledger. Slone could not read rapidly — those years on the desert had seen to that — and his haste to learn what Lucy said bewildered him. At first all the words blurred:

“Come at once to the bench in the cottonwoods. I’ll meet you there. My heart is breaking. It’s a lie — a lie — what they say. I’ll swear you were with me the night the boat was cut adrift. I KNOW you didn’t do that. I know who.... Oh, come! I will stick to you. I will run off with you. I love you!”

CHAPTER XV

SLONE’S HEART LEAPED to his throat, and its beating choked his utterances of rapture and amaze and dread. But rapture dominated the other emotions. He could scarcely control the impulse to run to meet Lucy, without a single cautious thought.

He put the precious letter inside his blouse, where it seemed to warm his breast. He buckled on his gun-belt, and, extinguishing the light, he hurried out.

A crescent moon had just tipped the bluff. The village lanes and cabins and trees lay silver in the moon-light. A lonesome coyote barked in the distance. All else was still. The air was cool, sweet, fragrant. There appeared to be a glamour of light, of silence, of beauty over the desert.

Slone kept under the dark lee of the bluff and worked around so that he could be above the village, where there was little danger of meeting any one. Yet presently he had to go out of the shadow into the moon-blanched lane. Swift and silent as an Indian he went along, keeping in the shade of what trees there were, until he came to the grove of cottonwoods. The grove was a black mystery lanced by silver rays. He slipped in among the trees, halting every few steps to listen. The action, the realization had helped to make him cool, to steel him, though never before in his life had he been so exalted. The pursuit and capture of Wildfire, at one time the desire of his heart, were as nothing to this. Love had called him — and life — and he knew death hung in the balance. If Bostil found him seeking Lucy there would be blood spilled. Slone quaked at the thought, for the cold and ghastly oppression following the death he had meted out to Sears came to him at times. But such thoughts were fleeting; only one thought really held his mind — and the one was that Lucy loved him, had sent strange, wild, passionate words to him.

He found the narrow path, its white crossed by slowly moving black bars of shadow, and stealthily he followed this, keen of eye and ear, stopping at every rustle. He well knew the bench Lucy had mentioned. It was in a remote corner of the grove, under big trees near the spring. Once Slone thought he had a glimpse of white. Perhaps it was only moonlight. He slipped on and on, and when beyond the branching paths that led toward the house he breathed freer. The grove appeared deserted. At last he crossed the runway from the spring, smelled the cool, wet moss and watercress, and saw the big cottonwood, looming dark above the other trees. A patch of moonlight brightened a little glade just at the edge of dense shade cast by the cottonwood. Here the bench stood. It was empty!

Slone’s rapture vanished. He was suddenly chilled. She was not there! She might have been intercepted. He would not see her. The disappointment, the sudden relaxation, was horrible. Then a white, slender shape flashed from beside the black tree-trunk and flew toward him. It was noiseless, like a specter, and swift as the wind. Was he dreaming? He felt so strange. Then — the white shape reached him and he knew.

Lucy leaped into his arms.

“Lin! Lin! Oh, I’m so — so glad to see you!” she whispered. She seemed breathless, keen, new to him, not in the least afraid nor shy. Slone could only hold her. He could not have spoken, even if she had given him a chance. “I know everything — what they accuse you of — how the riders treated you — how my dad struck you. Oh! ... He’s a brute! I hate him for that. Why didn’t you keep out of his way? ... Van saw it all. Oh, I hate him, too! He said you lay still — where you fell! ... Dear Lin, that blow may have hurt you dreadfully — shamed you because you couldn’t strike back at my dad — but it reached me, too. It hurt me. It woke my heart.... Where — where did he hit you? Oh, I’ve seen him hit men! His terrible fists!”

“Lucy, never mind,” whispered Slone. “I’d stood to be shot just for this.”

He felt her hands softly on his face, feeling around tenderly till they found the swollen bruise on mouth and chin.

“Ah! ... He struck you. And I — I’ll kiss you,” she whispered. “If kisses will make it well — it’ll be well!”

She seemed strange, wild, passionate in her tenderness. She lifted her face and kissed him softly again and again and again, till the touch that had been exquisitely painful to his bruised lips became rapture. Then she leaned back in his arms, her hands on his shoulders, white-faced, dark-eyed, and laughed up in his face, lovingly, daringly, as if she defied the world to change what she had done.

“Lucy! Lucy! ... He can beat me — again!” said Slone, low and hoarsely.

“If you love me you’ll keep out of his way,” replied the girl.

“If I love you? ... My God! ... I’ve felt my heart die a thousand times since that mornin’ — when — when you—”

“Lin, I didn’t know,” she interrupted, with sweet, grave earnestness. “I know now!”

And Slone could not but know, too, looking at her; and the sweetness, the eloquence, the noble abandon of her avowal sounded to the depths of him. His dread, his resignation, his shame, all sped forever in the deep, full breath of relief with which he cast off that burden. He tasted the nectar of happiness, the first time in his life. He lifted his head — never, he knew, to lower it again. He would be true to what she had made him.

“Come in the shade,” he whispered, and with his arm round her he led her to the great tree-trunk. “Is it safe for you here? An’ how long can you stay?”

“I had it out with Dad — left him licked once in his life,” she replied. “Then I went to my room, fastened the door, and slipped out of my window. I can stay out as long as I want. No one will know.”

Slone’s heart throbbed. She was his. The clasp of her hands on his, the gleam of her eyes, the white, daring flash of her face in the shadow of the moon — these told him she was his. How it had come about was beyond him, but he realized the truth. What a girl! This was the same nerve which she showed when she had run Wildfire out in front of the fleetest horses in the uplands.

“Tell me, then,” he began, quietly, with keen gaze roving under the trees and eyes strained tight, “tell me what’s come off.”

“Don’t you know?” she queried, in amaze.

“Only that for some reason I’m done in Bostil’s Ford. It can’t be because I punched Joel Creech. I felt it before I met Bostil at the store. He taunted me. We had bitter words. He told before all of them how the outfit I wore you gave me. An’ then I dared him to race the King. My horse an’ my life against YOU!”

“Yes, I know,” she whispered, softly. “It’s all over town.... Oh, Lin! it was a grand bet! And Bostil four-flushed, as the riders say. For days a race between Wildfire and the King had been in the air. There’ll never be peace in Bostil’s Ford again till that race is run.”

“But, Lucy, could Bostil’s wantin’ Wildfire an’ hatin’ me because I won’t sell — could that ruin me here at the Ford?”

“It could. But, Lin, there’s more. Oh, I hate to tell you!” she whispered, passionately. “I thought you’d know.... Joel Creech swore you cut the ropes on the ferry-boat and sent it adrift.”

“The loon!” ejaculated Slone, and he laughed low in both anger and ridicule. “Lucy, that’s only a fool’s talk.”

“He’s crazy. Oh, if I ever get him in front of me again when I’m on Sarch — I’ll — I’ll....” She ended with a little gasp and leaned a moment against Slone. He felt her heart beat — felt the strong clasp of her hands. She was indeed Bostil’s flesh and blood, and there was that in her dangerous to arouse.

“Lin, the folks here are queer,” she resumed, more calmly. “For long years Dad has ruled them. They see with his eyes and talk with his voice. Joel Creech swore you cut those cables. Swore he trailed you. Brackton believed him. Van believed him. They told my father. And he — my dad — God forgive him! he jumped at that. The village as one person now believes you sent the boat adrift so Creech’s horses could not cross and you could win the race.”

“Lucy, if it wasn’t so — so funny I’d be mad as — as—” burst out Slone.

“It isn’t funny. It’s terrible.... I know who cut those cables. .. Holley knows.... DAD knows — an’, oh, Lin — I — hate — I hate my own father!”

“My God!” gasped Slone, as the full signification burst upon him. Then his next thought was for Lucy. “Listen, dear — you mustn’t say that,” he entreated. “He’s your father. He’s a good man every way except when he’s after horses. Then he’s half horse. I understand him. I feel sorry for him.... An’ if he’s throwed the blame on me, all right. I’ll stand it. What do I care? I was queered, anyhow, because I wouldn’t part with my horse. It can’t matter so much if people think I did that just to help win a race. But if they knew your — your father did it, an’ if Creech’s horses starve, why it’d be a disgrace for him — an’ you.”

“Lin Slone — you’ll accept the blame!” she whispered, with wide, dark eyes on him, hands at his shoulders.

“Sure I will,” replied Slone. “I can’t be any worse off.”

“You’re better than all of them — my rider!” she cried, full-voiced and tremulous. “Lin, you make me love you so — it — it hurts!” And she seemed about to fling herself into his arms again. There was a strangeness about her — a glory. “But you’ll not take the shame of that act. For I won’t let you. I’ll tell my father I was with you when the boat was cut loose. He’ll believe me.”

“Yes, an’ he’ll KILL me!” groaned Slone. “Good Lord! Lucy, don’t do that!”

“I will! An’ he’ll not kill you. Lin, Dad took a great fancy to you. I know that. He thinks he hates you. But in his heart he doesn’t. If he got hold of Wildfire — why, he’d never be able to do enough for you. He never could make it up. What do you think? I told him you hugged and kissed me shamefully that day.”

“Oh, Lucy! you didn’t?” implored Slone.

“I sure did. And what do you think? He said he once did the same to my mother! ... No, Lin, Dad’d never kill you for anything except a fury about horses. All the fights he ever had were over horse deals. The two men — he — he—” Lucy faltered and her shudder was illuminating to Slone. “Both of them — fights over horse trades!”

“Lucy, if I’m ever unlucky enough to meet Bostil again I’ll be deaf an’ dumb. An’ now you promise me you won’t tell him you were with me that night.”

“Lin, if the occasion comes, I will — I couldn’t help it,” replied Lucy.

“Then fight shy of the occasion,” he rejoined, earnestly. “For that would be the end of Lin Slone!”

“Then — what on earth can — we do?” Lucy said, with sudden break of spirit.

“I think we must wait. You wrote in your letter you’d stick to me — you’d—” He could not get the words out, the thought so overcame him.

“If it comes to a finish, I’ll go with you,” Lucy returned, with passion rising again.

“Oh! to ride off with you, Lucy — to have you all to myself — I daren’t think of it. But that’s only selfish.”

“Maybe it’s not so selfish as you believe. If you left the Ford — now — it’d break my heart. I’d never get over it.”

“Lucy! You love me — that well?”

Then their lips met again and their hands locked, and they stood silent, straining toward each other. He held the slight form, so pliant, so responsive, so alive, close to him, and her face lay hidden on his breast; and he looked out over her head into the quivering moonlit shadows. The night was as still as one away on the desert far from the abode of men. It was more beautiful than any dream of a night in which he had wandered far into strange lands where wild horses were and forests lay black under moon-silvered peaks.

“We’ll run — then — if it comes to a finish,” said Slone, huskily. “But I’ll wait. I’ll stick it out here. I’ll take what comes. So — maybe I’ll not disgrace you more.”

“I told Van I — I gloried in being hugged by you that day,” she replied, and her little defiant laugh told what she thought of the alleged disgrace.

“You torment him,” remonstrated Slone. “You set him against us. It would be better to keep still.”

“But my blood is up!” she said, and she pounded his shoulder with her fist. “I’ll fight — I’ll fight! ... I couldn’t avoid Van. It was Holley who told me Van was threatening you. And when I met Van he told me how everybody said you insulted me — had been worse than a drunken rider — and that he’d beat you half to death. So I told Van Joel Creech might have seen us — I didn’t doubt that — but he didn’t see that I liked being hugged.”

“What did Van say then?” asked Slone, all aglow with his wonderful joy.

“He wilted. He slunk away.... And so I’ll tell them all.”

“But, Lucy, you’ve always been so — so truthful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, to say you liked being hugged that day was — was a story, wasn’t it?”

“That was what made me so furious,” she admitted, shyly. “I was surprised when you grabbed me off Wildfire. And my heart beat — beat — beat so when you hugged me. And when you kissed me I — I was petrified. I knew I liked it then — and I was furious with myself.”

Slone drew a long, deep breath of utter enchantment. “You’ll take back Wildfire?”

“Oh, Lin — don’t — ask — me,” she implored.

“Take him back — an’ me with him.”

“Then I will. But no one must know that yet.”

They drew apart then.

“An’ now you must go,” said Slone, reluctantly. “Listen. I forgot to warn you about Joel Creech. Don’t ever let him near you. He’s crazy an’ he means evil.”

“Oh, I know, Lin! I’ll watch. But I’m not afraid of him.”

“He’s strong, Lucy. I saw him lift bags that were hefty for me.... Lucy, do you ride these days?”

“Every day. If I couldn’t ride I couldn’t live.”

“I’m afraid,” said Slone, nervously. “There’s Creech an’ Cordts — both have threatened you.”

“I’m afraid of Cordts,” replied Lucy, with a shiver. “You should have seen him look at me race-day. It made me hot with anger, yet weak, too, somehow. But Dad says I’m never in any danger if I watch out. And I do. Who could catch me on Sarch?”

“Any horse can be tripped in the sage. You told me how Joel tried to rope Sage King. Did you ever tell your dad that?”

“I forgot. But then I’m glad I didn’t. Dad would shoot for that, quicker than if Joel tried to rope him.... Don’t worry, Lin, I always pack a gun.”

“But can you use it?”

Lucy laughed. “Do you think I can only ride?”

Slone remembered that Holley had said he had taught Lucy how to shoot as well as ride. “You’ll be watchful — careful,” he said, earnestly.

“Oh, Lin, you need to be that more than I.... What will you do?”

“I’ll stay up at the little cabin I thought I owned till to-day.”

“Didn’t you buy it?” asked Lucy, quickly.

“I thought I did. But ... never mind. Maybe I won’t get put out just yet. An’ when will I see you again?”

“Here, every night. Wait till I come,” she replied. “Good night, Lin.”

“I’ll — wait!” he exclaimed, with a catch in his voice. “Oh, my luck! ... I’ll wait, Lucy, every day — hopin’ an’ prayin’ that this trouble will lighten. An’ I’ll wait at night — for you!”

He kissed her good-by and watched the slight form glide away, flit to and fro, white in the dark patches, grow indistinct and vanish. He was left alone in the silent grove.

Slone stole back to the cabin and lay sleepless and tranced, watching the stars, till late that night.

All the next day he did scarcely anything but watch and look after his horses and watch and drag the hours out and dream despite his dread. But no one visited him. The cabin was left to him that day.

It had been a hot day, with great thunderhead, black and creamy white clouds rolling down from the canyon country. No rain had fallen at the Ford, though storms near by had cooled the air. At sunset Slone saw a rainbow bending down, ruddy and gold, connecting the purple of cloud with the purple of horizon.

Out beyond the valley the clouds were broken, showing rifts of blue, and they rolled low, burying the heads of the monuments, creating a wild and strange spectacle. Twilight followed, and appeared to rise to meet the darkening clouds. And at last the gold on the shafts faded; the monuments faded; and the valley grew dark.

Slone took advantage of the hour before moonrise to steal down into the grove, there to wait for Lucy. She came so quickly he scarcely felt that he waited at all; and then the time spent with her, sweet, fleeting, precious, left him stronger to wait for her again, to hold himself in, to cease his brooding, to learn faith in something deeper than he could fathom.

The next day he tried to work, but found idle waiting made the time fly swifter because in it he could dream. In the dark of the rustling cottonwoods he met Lucy, as eager to see him as he was to see her, tender, loving, remorseful — a hundred sweet and bewildering things all so new, so unbelievable to Slone.

That night he learned that Bostil had started for Durango with some of his riders. This trip surprised Slone and relieved him likewise, for Durango was over two hundred miles distant, and a journey there even for the hard riders was a matter of days.

“He left no orders for me,” Lucy said, “except to behave myself.... Is this behaving?” she whispered, and nestled close to Slone, audacious, tormenting as she had been before this dark cloud of trouble. “But he left orders for Holley to ride with me and look after me. Isn’t that funny? Poor old Holley! He hates to doublecross Dad, he says.”

“I’m glad Holley’s to look after you,” replied Slone. “Yesterday I saw you tearin’ down into the sage on Sarch. I wondered what you’d do, Lucy, if Cordts or that loon Creech should get hold of you?”

“I’d fight!”

“But, child, that’s nonsense. You couldn’t fight either of them.”

“Couldn’t I? Well, I just could. I’d — I’d shoot Cordts. And I’d whip Joel Creech with my quirt. And if he kept after me I’d let Sarch run him down. Sarch hates him.”

“You’re a brave sweetheart,” mused Slone. “Suppose you were caught an’ couldn’t get away. Would you leave a trail somehow?”

“I sure would.”

“Lucy, I’m a wild-horse hunter,” he went on, thoughtfully, as if speaking to himself. “I never failed on a trail. I could track you over bare rock.”

“Lin, I’ll leave a trail, so never fear,” she replied. “But don’t borrow trouble. You’re always afraid for me. Look at the bright side. Dad seems to have forgotten you. Maybe it all isn’t so bad as we thought. Oh, I hope so! ... How is my horse, Wildfire? I want to ride him again. I can hardly keep from going after him.”

And so they whispered while the moments swiftly passed.

It was early during the afternoon of the next day that Slone, hearing the clip-clop of unshod ponies, went outside to look. One part of the lane he could see plainly, and into it stalked Joel Creech, leading the leanest and gauntest ponies Slone had ever seen. A man as lean and gaunt as the ponies stalked behind.

The sight shocked Slone. Joel Creech and his father! Slone had no proof, because he had never seen the elder Creech, yet strangely he felt convinced of it. And grim ideas began to flash into his mind. Creech would hear who was accused of cutting the boat adrift. What would he say? If he believed, as all the villagers believed, then Bostil’s Ford would become an unhealthy place for Lin Slone. Where were the great race-horses — Blue Roan and Peg — and the other thoroughbreds? A pang shot through Slone.

“Oh, not lost — not starved?” he muttered. “That would be hell!”

Yet he believed just this had happened. How strange he had never considered such an event as the return of Creech.

“I’d better look him up before he looks me,” said Slone.

It took but an instant to strap on his belt and gun. Then Slone strode down his path, out into the lane toward Brackton’s. Whatever before boded ill to Slone had been nothing to what menaced him now. He would have a man to face — a man whom repute called just, but stern.

Before Slone reached the vicinity of the store he saw riders come out to meet the Creech party. It so happened there were more riders than usually frequented Brackton’s at that hour. The old storekeeper came stumbling out and raised his hands. The riders could be heard, loud-voiced and excited. Slone drew nearer, and the nearer he got the swifter he strode. Instinct told him that he was making the right move. He would face this man whom he was accused of ruining. The poor mustangs hung their heads dejectedly.

“Bags of bones,” some rider loudly said.

And then Slone drew dose to the excited group. Brackton held the center; he was gesticulating; his thin voice rose piercingly.

“Creech! Whar’s Peg an’ the Roan? Gawd Almighty, man! You ain’t meanin’ them cayuses thar are all you’ve got left of thet grand bunch of hosses?”

There was scarcely a sound. All the riders were still. Slone fastened his eyes on Creech. He saw a gaunt, haggard face almost black with dust — worn and sad — with big eyes of terrible gloom. He saw an unkempt, ragged form that had been wet and muddy, and was now dust-caked.

Creech stood silent in a dignity of despair that wrung Slone’s heart. His silence was an answer. It was Joel Creech who broke the suspense.

“Didn’t I tell you-all what’d happen?” he shrilled. “PARCHED AN’ STARVED!”

“Aw no!” chorused the riders.

Brackton shook all over. Tears dimmed his eyes — tears that he had no shame for. “So help me Gawd — I’m sorry!” was his broken exclamation.

Slone had forgotten himself and possible revelation concerning him. But when Holley appeared close to him with a significant warning look, Slone grew keen once more on his own account. He felt a hot flame inside him — a deep and burning anger at the man who might have saved Creech’s horses. And he, like Brackton, felt sorrow for Creech, and a rider’s sense of loss, of pain. These horses — these dumb brutes — faithful and sometimes devoted, had to suffer an agonizing death because of the selfishness of men.

“I reckon we’d all like to hear what come off, Creech, if you don’t feel too bad to tell us,” said Brackton.

“Gimme a drink,” replied Creech.

“Wal, d — n my old head!” exclaimed Brackton. “I’m gittin’ old. Come on in. All of you! We’re glad to see Creech home.”

The riders filed in after Brackton and the Creeches. Holley stayed close beside Slone, both of them in the background.

“I heerd the flood comin’ thet night,” said Creech to his silent and tense-faced listeners. “I heerd it miles up the canyon. ‘Peared a bigger roar than any flood before. As it happened, I was alone, an’ it took time to git the hosses up. If there’d been an Indian with me — or even Joel — mebbe—” His voice quavered slightly, broke, and then he resumed. “Even when I got the hosses over to the landin’ it wasn’t too late — if only some one had heerd me an’ come down. I yelled an’ shot. Nobody heerd. The river was risin’ fast. An’ thet roar had begun to make my hair raise. It seemed like years the time I waited there.... Then the flood came down — black an’ windy an’ awful. I had hell gittin’ the hosses back.

“Next mornin’ two Piutes come down. They had lost mustangs up on the rocks. All the feed on my place was gone. There wasn’t nothin’ to do but try to git out. The Piutes said there wasn’t no chance north — no water — no grass — an’ so I decided to go south, if we could climb over thet last slide. Peg broke her leg there, an’ — I — I had to shoot her. But we climbed out with the rest of the bunch. I left it then to the Piutes. We traveled five days west to head the canyons. No grass an’ only a little water, salt at thet. Blue Roan was game if ever I seen a game hoss. Then the Piutes took to workin’ in an’ out an’ around, not to git out, but to find a little grazin’. I never knowed the earth was so barren. One by one them hosses went down.... An’ at last, I couldn’t — I couldn’t see Blue Roan starvin’ — dyin’ right before my eyes — an’ I shot him, too.... An’ what hurts me most now is thet I didn’t have the nerve to kill him fust off.”

There was a long pause in Creech’s narrative.

“Them Piutes will git paid if ever I can pay them. I’d parched myself but for them.... We circled an’ crossed them red cliffs an’ then the strip of red sand, an’ worked down into the canyon. Under the wall was a long stretch of beach — sandy — an’ at the head of this we found Bostil’s boat.”

“Wal, — !” burst out the profane Brackton. “Bostil’s boat! ... Say, ‘ain’t Joel told you yet about thet boat?”

“No, Joel ‘ain’t said a word about the boat,” replied Creech. “What about it?”

“It was cut loose jest before the flood.”

Manifestly Brackton expected this to be staggering to Creech. But he did not even show surprise.

“There’s a rider here named Slone — a wild-hoss wrangler,” went on Brackton, “an’ Joel swears this Slone cut the boat loose so’s he’d have a better chance to win the race. Joel swears he tracked this feller Slone.”

For Slone the moment was fraught with many emotions, but not one of them was fear. He did not need the sudden force of Holley’s strong hand, pushing him forward. Slone broke into the group and faced Creech.

“It’s not true. I never cut that boat loose,” he declared ringingly.

“Who’re you?” queried Creech.

“My name’s Slone. I rode in here with a wild horse, an’ he won a race. Then I was blamed for this trick.”

Creech’s steady, gloomy eyes seemed to pierce Slone through. They were terrible eyes to look into, yet they held no menace for him. “An’ Joel accused you?”

“So they say. I fought with him — struck him for an insult to a girl.”

“Come round hyar, Joel,” called Creech, sternly. His big, scaly, black hand closed on the boy’s shoulder. Joel cringed under it. “Son, you’ve lied. What for?”

Joel showed abject fear of his father. “He’s gone on Lucy — an’ I seen him with her,” muttered the boy.

“An’ you lied to hurt Slone?”

Joel would not reply to this in speech, though that was scarcely needed to show he had lied. He seemed to have no sense of guilt. Creech eyed him pityingly and then pushed him back.

“Men, my son has done this rider dirt,” said Creech. “You-all see thet. Slone never cut the boat loose.... An’ say, you-all seem to think cuttin’ thet boat loose was the crime.... No! Thet wasn’t the crime. The crime was keepin’ the boat out of the water fer days when my hosses could have been crossed.”

Slone stepped back, forgotten, it seemed to him. Both joy and sorrow swayed him. He had been exonerated. But this hard and gloomy Creech — he knew things. And Slone thought of Lucy.

“Who did cut thet thar boat loose?” demanded Brackton, incredulously.

Creech gave him a strange glance. “As I was sayin’, we come on the boat fast at the head of the long stretch. I seen the cables had been cut. An’ I seen more’n thet.... Wal, the river was high an’ swift. But this was a long stretch with good landin’ way below on the other side. We got the boat in, an’ by rowin’ hard an’ driftin’ we got acrost, leadin’ the hosses. We had five when we took to the river. Two went down on the way over. We climbed out then. The Piutes went to find some Navajos an’ get hosses. An’ I headed fer the Ford — made camp twice. An’ Joel seen me comin’ out a ways.”

“Creech, was there anythin’ left in thet boat?” began Brackton, with intense but pondering curiosity. “Anythin’ on the ropes — or so — thet might give an idee who cut her loose?”

Creech made no reply to that. The gloom burned darker in his eyes. He seemed a man with a secret. He trusted no one there. These men were all friends of his, but friends under strange conditions. His silence was tragic, and all about the man breathed vengeance.

CHAPTER XVI

NO MOON SHOWED that night, and few stars twinkled between the slow-moving clouds. The air was thick and oppressive, full of the day’s heat that had not blown away. A dry storm moved in dry majesty across the horizon, and the sheets and ropes of lightning, blazing white behind the black monuments, gave weird and beautiful grandeur to the desert.

Lucy Bostil had to evade her aunt to get out of the house, and the window, that had not been the means of exit since Bostil left, once more came into use. Aunt Jane had grown suspicious of late, and Lucy, much as she wanted to trust her with her secret, dared not do it. For some reason unknown to Lucy, Holley had also been hard to manage, particularly to-day. Lucy certainly did not want Holley to accompany her on her nightly rendezvous with Slone. She changed her light gown to the darker and thicker riding-habit.

There was a longed-for, all-satisfying flavor in this night adventure — something that had not all to do with love. The stealth, the outwitting of guardians, the darkness, the silence, the risk — all these called to some deep, undeveloped instinct in her, and thrilled along her veins, cool, keen, exciting. She had the blood in her of the greatest adventurer of his day.

Lucy feared she was a little late. Allaying the suspicions of Aunt Jane and changing her dress had taken time. Lucy burned with less cautious steps. Still she had only used caution in the grove because she had promised Slone to do so. This night she forgot or disregarded it. And the shadows were thick — darker than at any other time when she had undertaken this venture. She had always been a little afraid of the dark — a fact that made her contemptuous of herself. Nevertheless, she did not peer into the deeper pits of gloom. She knew her way and could slip swiftly along with only a rustle of leaves she touched.

Suddenly she imagined she heard a step and she halted, still as a tree-trunk. There was no reason to be afraid of a step. It had been a surprise to her that she had never encountered a rider walking and smoking under the trees. Listening, she assured herself she had been mistaken, and then went on. But she looked back. Did she see a shadow — darker than others — moving? It was only her imagination. Yet she sustained a slight chill. The air seemed more oppressive, or else there was some intangible and strange thing hovering in it. She went on — reached the lane that divided the grove. But she did not cross at once. It was lighter in this lane; she could see quite far.

As she stood there, listening, keenly responsive to all the influences of the night, she received an impression that did not have its origin in sight nor sound. And only the leaves touched her — and only their dry fragrance came to her. But she felt a presence — a strange, indefinable presence.

But Lucy was brave, and this feeling, whatever it might be, angered her. She entered the lane and stole swiftly along toward the end of the grove. Paths crossed the lane at right angles, and at these points she went swifter. It would be something to tell Slone — she had been frightened. But thought of him drove away her fear and nervousness, and her anger with herself.

Then she came to a wider path. She scarcely noted it and passed on. Then came a quick rustle — a swift shadow. Between two steps — as her heart leaped — violent arms swept her off the ground. A hard hand was clapped over her mouth. She was being carried swiftly through the gloom.

Lucy tried to struggle. She could scarcely move a muscle. Iron arms wrapped her in coils that crushed her. She tried to scream, but her lips were tight-pressed. Her nostrils were almost closed between two hard fingers that smelled of horse.

Whoever had her, she was helpless. Lucy’s fury admitted of reason. Then both succumbed to a paralyzing horror. Cordts had got her! She knew it. She grew limp as a rag and her senses dulled. She almost fainted. The sickening paralysis of her faculties lingered. But she felt her body released — she was placed upon her feet — she was shaken by a rough hand. She swayed, and but for that hand might have fallen. She could see a tall, dark form over her, and horses, and the gloomy gray open of the sage slope. The hand left her face.

“Don’t yap, girl!” This command in a hard, low voice pierced her ears. She saw the glint of a gun held before her. Instinctive fear revived her old faculties. The horrible sick weakness, the dimness, the shaking internal collapse all left her.

“I’ll — be — quiet!” she faltered. She knew what her father had always feared had come to pass. And though she had been told to put no value on her life, in that event, she could not run. All in an instant — when life had been so sweet — she could not face pain or death.

The man moved back a step. He was tall, gaunt, ragged. But not like Cordts! Never would she forget Cordts. She peered up at him. In the dim light of the few stars she recognized Joel Creech’s father.

“Oh, thank God!” she whispered, in the shock of blessed relief. “I thought — you were — Cordts!”

“Keep quiet,” he whispered back, sternly, and with rough hand he shook her.

Lucy awoke to realities. Something evil menaced her, even though this man was not Cordts. Her mind could not grasp it. She was amazed — stunned. She struggled to speak, yet to keep within that warning command.

“What — on earth — does this — mean?” she gasped, very low. She had no sense of fear of Creech. Once, when he and her father had been friends, she had been a favorite of Creech’s. When a little girl she had ridden his knee many times. Between Creech and Cordts there was immeasurable distance. Yet she had been violently seized and carried out into the sage and menaced.

Creech leaned down. His gaunt face, lighted by terrible eyes, made her recoil. “Bostil ruined me — an’ killed my hosses,” he whispered, grimly. “An’ I’m takin’ you away. An’ I’ll hold you in ransom for the King an’ Sarchedon — an’ all his racers!”

“Oh!” cried Lucy, in startling surprise that yet held a pang. “Oh, Creech! ... Then you mean me no harm!”

The man straightened up and stood a moment, darkly silent, as if her query had presented a new aspect of the case. “Lucy Bostil, I’m a broken man an’ wild an’ full of hate. But God knows I never thought of thet — of harm to you.... No, child, I won’t harm you. But you must obey an’ go quietly, for there’s a devil in me.”

“Where will you take me?” she asked.

“Down in the canyons, where no one can track me,” he said. “It’ll be hard goin’ fer you, child, an’ hard fare.... But I’m strikin’ at Bostil’s heart as he has broken mine. I’ll send him word. An’ I’ll tell him if he won’t give his hosses thet I’ll sell you to Cordts.”

“Oh, Creech — but you wouldn’t!” she whispered, and her hand went to his brawny arm.

“Lucy, in thet case I’d make as poor a blackguard as anythin’ else I’ve been,” he said, forlornly. “But I’m figgerin’ Bostil will give up his hosses fer you.”

“Creech, I’m afraid he won’t. You’d better give me up. Let me go back. I’ll never tell. I don’t blame you. I think you’re square. My dad is.... But, oh, don’t make ME suffer! You used to — to care for me, when I was little.”

“Thet ain’t no use,” he replied. “Don’t talk no more.... Git up hyar now an’ ride in front of me.”

He led her to a lean mustang. Lucy swung into the saddle. She thought how singular a coincidence it was that she had worn a riding-habit. It was dark and thick, and comfortable for riding. Suppose she had worn the flimsy dress, in which she had met Slone every night save this one? Thought of Slone gave her a pang. He would wait and wait and wait. He would go back to his cabin, not knowing what had befallen her.

Suddenly Lucy noticed another man, near at hand, holding two mustangs. He mounted, rode before her, and then she recognized Joel Creech. Assurance of this brought back something of the dread. But the father could control the son!

“Ride on,” said Creech, hitting her horse from behind.

And Lucy found herself riding single file, with two men and a pack-horse, out upon the windy, dark sage slope. They faced the direction of the monuments, looming now and then so weirdly black and grand against the broad flare of lightning-blazed sky.

Ever since Lucy had reached her teens there had been predictions that she would be kidnapped, and now the thing had come to pass. She was in danger, she knew, but in infinitely less than had any other wild character of the uplands been her captor. She believed, if she went quietly and obediently with Creech, that she would be, at least, safe from harm. It was hard luck for Bostil, she thought, but no worse than he deserved. Retribution had overtaken him. How terribly hard he would take the loss of his horses! Lucy wondered if he really ever would part with the King, even to save her from privation and peril. Bostil was more likely to trail her with his riders and to kill the Creeches than to concede their demands. Perhaps, though, that threat to sell her to Cordts would frighten the hard old man.

The horses trotted and swung up over the slope, turning gradually, evidently to make a wide detour round the Ford, until Lucy’s back was toward the monuments. Before her stretched the bleak, barren, dark desert, and through the opaque gloom she could see nothing. Lucy knew she was headed for the north, toward the wild canyons, unknown to the riders. Cordts and his gang hid in there. What might not happen if the Creeches fell in with Cordts? Lucy’s confidence sustained a check. Still, she remembered the Creeches were like Indians. And what would Slone do? He would ride out on her trail. Lucy shivered for the Creeches if Slone ever caught up with them, and remembering his wild-horse-hunter’s skill at tracking, and the fleet and tireless Wildfire, she grew convinced that Creech could not long hold her captive. For Slone would be wary. He would give no sign of his pursuit. He would steal upon the Creeches in the dark and — Lucy shivered again. What an awful fate had been that of Dick Sears!

So as she rode on Lucy’s mind was full. She was used to riding, and in the motion of a horse there was something in harmony with her blood. Even now, with worry and dread and plotting strong upon her, habit had such power over her that riding made the hours fleet. She was surprised to be halted, to see dimly low, dark mounds of rock ahead.

“Git off,” said Creech.

“Where are we?” asked Lucy.

“Reckon hyar’s the rocks. An’ you sleep some, fer you’ll need it.” He spread a blanket, laid her saddle at the head of it, and dropped another blanket. “What I want to know is — shall I tie you up or not?” asked Creech. “If I do you’ll git sore. An’ this’ll be the toughest trip you ever made.”

“You mean will I try to get away from you — or not?” queried Lucy.

“Jest thet.”

Lucy pondered. She divined some fineness of feeling in this coarse man. He wanted to spare her not only pain, but the necessity of watchful eyes on her every moment. Lucy did not like to promise not to try to escape, if opportunity presented. Still, she reasoned, that once deep in the canyons, where she would be in another day, she would be worse off if she did get away. The memory of Cordts’s cavernous, hungry eyes upon her was not a small factor in Lucy’s decision.

“Creech, if I give my word not to try to get away, would you believe me?” she asked.

Creech was slow in replying. “Reckon I would,” he said, finally.

“All right, I’ll give it.”

“An’ thet’s sense. Now you lay down.”

Lucy did as she was bidden and pulled the blanket over her. The place was gloomy and still. She heard the sound of mustangs’ teeth on grass, and the soft footfalls of the men. Presently these sounds ceased. A cold wind blew over her face and rustled in the sage near her. Gradually the chill passed away, and a stealing warmth took its place. Her eyes grew tired. What had happened to her? With eyes closed she thought it was all a dream. Then the feeling of the hard saddle as a pillow under her head told her she was indeed far from her comfortable little room. What would poor Aunt Jane do in the morning when she discovered who was missing? What would Holley do? When would Bostil return? It might be soon and it might be days. And Slone — Lucy felt sorriest for him. For he loved her best. She thrilled at thought of Slone on that grand horse — on her Wildfire. And with her mind running on and on, seemingly making sleep impossible, the thoughts at last became dreams. Lucy awakened at dawn. One hand ached with cold, for it had been outside the blanket. Her hard bed had cramped her muscles. She heard the crackling of fire and smelled cedar smoke. In the gray of morning she saw the Creeches round a camp-fire.

Lucy got up then. Both men saw her, but made no comment. In that cold, gray dawn she felt her predicament more gravely. Her hair was damp. She had ridden nearly all night without a hat. She had absolutely nothing of her own except what was on her body. But Lucy thanked her lucky stars that she had worn the thick riding-suit and her boots, for otherwise, in a summer dress, her condition would soon have been miserable.

“Come an’ eat,” said Creech. “You have sense — an’ eat if it sticks in your throat.”

Bostil had always contended in his arguments with riders that a man should eat heartily on the start of a trip so that the finish might find him strong. And Lucy ate, though the coarse fare sickened her. Once she looked curiously at Joel Creech. She felt his eyes upon her, but instantly he averted them. He had grown more haggard and sullen than ever before.

The Creeches did not loiter over the camp tasks. Lucy was left to herself. The place appeared to be a kind of depression from which the desert rolled away to a bulge against the rosy east, and the rocks behind rose broken and yellow, fringed with cedars.

“Git the hosses in, if you want to,” Creech called to her, and then as Lucy started off to where the mustangs grazed she heard him curse his son. “Come back hyar! Leave the girl alone or I’ll rap you one!”

Lucy drove three of the mustangs into camp, where Creech began to saddle them. The remaining one, the pack animal, Lucy found among the scrub cedars at the base of the low cliffs. When she drove him in Creech was talking hard to Joel, who had mounted.

“When you come back, work up this canyon till you git up. It heads on the pine plateau. I can’t miss seein’ you, or any one, long before you git up on top. An’ you needn’t come without Bostil’s hosses. You know what to tell Bostil if he threatens you, or refuses to send his hosses, or turns his riders on my trail. Thet’s all. Now git!”

Joel Creech rode away toward the rise in the rolling, barren desert.

“An’ now we’ll go on,” said Creech to Lucy.

When he had gotten all in readiness he ordered Lucy to follow closely in his tracks. He entered a narrow cleft in the low cliffs which wound in and out, and was thick with sage and cedars. Lucy, riding close to the cedars, conceived the idea of plucking the little green berries and dropping them on parts of the trail where their tracks would not show. Warily she filled the pockets of her jacket.

Creech led the way without looking back, and did not seem to care where the horses stepped. The time had not yet come, Lucy concluded, when he was ready to hide his trail. Presently the narrow cleft opened into a low-walled canyon, full of debris from the rotting cliffs, and this in turn opened into a main canyon with mounting yellow crags. It appeared to lead north. Far in the distance above rims and crags rose in a long, black line like a horizon of dark cloud.

Creech crossed this wide canyon and entered one of the many breaks in the wall. This one was full of splintered rock and weathered shale — the hardest kind of travel for both man and beast. Lucy was nothing if not considerate of a horse, and here she began to help her animal in all the ways a good rider knows. Much as this taxed her attention, she remembered to drop some of the cedar berries upon hard ground or rocks. And she knew she was leaving a trail for Slone’s keen eyes.

That day was the swiftest and the most strenuous in all Lucy Bostil’s experience in the open. At sunset, when Creech halted in a niche in a gorge between lowering cliffs, Lucy fell off her horse and lay still and spent on the grass.

Creech had a glance of sympathy and admiration for her, but he did not say anything about the long day’s ride. Lucy never in her life before appreciated rest nor the softness of grass nor the relief at the end of a ride. She lay still with a throbbing, burning ache in all her body. Creech, after he had turned the horses loose, brought her a drink of cold water from the brook she heard somewhere near by.

“How — far — did — we — come?” she whispered.

“By the way round I reckon nigh on to sixty miles,” he replied. “But we ain’t half thet far from where we camped last night.”

Then he set to work at camp tasks. Lucy shook her head when he brought her food, but he insisted, and she had to force it down. Creech appeared rough but kind. After she had become used to the hard, gaunt, black face she saw sadness and thought in it. One thing Lucy had noticed was that Creech never failed to spare a horse, if it was possible. He would climb on foot over bad places.

Night soon mantled the gorge in blackness thick as pitch. Lucy could not tell whether her eyes were open or shut, so far as what she saw was concerned. Her eyes seemed filled, however, with a thousand pictures of the wild and tortuous canyons and gorges through which she had ridden that day. The ache in her limbs and the fever in her blood would not let her sleep. It seemed that these were forever to be a part of her. For twelve hours she had ridden and walked with scarce a thought of the nature of the wild country, yet once she lay down to rest her mind was an endless hurrying procession of pictures — narrow red clefts choked with green growths — yellow gorges and weathered slides — dusty, treacherous divides connecting canyons — jumbles of ruined cliffs and piles of shale — miles and miles and endless winding miles yellow, low, beetling walls. And through it all she had left a trail.

Next day Creech climbed out of that low-walled canyon, and Lucy saw a wild, rocky country cut by gorges, green and bare, or yellow and cedared. The long, black-fringed line she had noticed the day before loomed closer; overhanging this crisscrossed region of canyons. Every half-hour Creech would lead them downward and presently climb out again. There were sand and hard ground and thick turf and acres and acres of bare rock where even a shod horse would not leave a track.

But the going was not so hard — there was not so much travel on foot for Lucy — and she finished that day in better condition than the first one.

Next day Creech proceeded with care and caution. Many times he left the direct route, bidding Lucy wait for him, and he would ride to the rims of canyons or the tops of ridges of cedar forests, and from these vantage-points he would survey the country. Lucy gathered after a while that he was apprehensive of what might be encountered, and particularly so of what might be feared in pursuit. Lucy thought this strange, because it was out of the question for any one to be so soon on Creech’s trail.

These peculiar actions of Creech were more noticeable on the third day, and Lucy grew apprehensive herself. She could not divine why. But when Creech halted on a high crest that gave a sweeping vision of the broken table-land they had traversed Lucy made out for herself faint moving specks miles behind.

“I reckon you see thet,” said Creech

“Horses,” replied Lucy.

He nodded his head gloomily, and seemed pondering a serious question.

“Is some one trailing us?” asked Lucy, and she could not keep the tremor out of her voice.

“Wal, I should smile! Fer two days — an’ it sure beats me. They’ve never had a sight of us. But they keep comin’.”

“They! Who?” she asked, swiftly.

“I hate to tell you, but I reckon I ought. Thet’s Cordts an’ two of his gang.”

“Oh — don’t tell me so!” cried Lucy, suddenly terrified. Mention of Cordts had not always had power to frighten her, but this time she had a return of that shaking fear which had overcome her in the grove the night she was captured.

“Cordts all right,” replied Creech. “I knowed thet before I seen him. Fer two mornin’s back I seen his hoss grazin in thet wide canyon. But I thought I’d slipped by. Some one seen us. Or they seen our trail. Anyway, he’s after us. What beats me is how he sticks to thet trail. Cordts never was no tracker. An’ since Dick Sears is dead there ain’t a tracker in Cordts’s outfit. An’ I always could hide my tracks.... Beats me!”

“Creech, I’ve been leaving a trail,” confessed Lucy.

“What!”

Then she told him how she had been dropping cedar berries and bits of cedar leaves along the bare and stony course they had traversed.

“Wal, I’m—” Creech stifled an oath. Then he laughed, but gruffly. “You air a cute one. But I reckon you didn’t promise not to do thet.... An’ now if Cordts gits you there’ll be only yourself to blame.”

“Oh!” cried Lucy, frantically looking back. The moving specks were plainly in sight. “How can he know he’s trailing me?”

“Thet I can’t say. Mebbe he doesn’t know. His hosses air fresh, though, an’ if I can’t shake him he’ll find out soon enough who he’s trailin’.”

“Go on! We must shake him. I’ll never do THAT again! ... For God’s sake, Creech, don’t let him get me!”

And Creech led down off the high open land into canyons again.

The day ended, and the night seemed a black blank to Lucy. Another sunrise found Creech leading on, sparing neither Lucy nor the horses. He kept on a steady walk or trot, and he picked out ground less likely to leave any tracks. Like an old deer he doubled on his trail. He traveled down stream-beds where the water left no trail. That day the mustangs began to fail. The others were wearing out.

The canyons ran like the ribs of a wash-board. And they grew deep and verdant, with looming, towered walls. That night Lucy felt lost in an abyss. The dreaming silence kept her awake many moments while sleep had already seized upon her eyelids. And then she dreamed of Cordts capturing her, of carrying her miles deeper into these wild and purple cliffs, of Slone in pursuit on the stallion Wildfire, and of a savage fight. And she awoke terrified and cold in the blackness of the night.

On the next day Creech traveled west. This seemed to Lucy to be far to the left of the direction taken before. And Lucy, in spite of her utter weariness, and the necessity of caring for herself and her horse, could not but wonder at the wild and frowning canyon. It was only a tributary of the great canyon, she supposed, but it was different, strange, impressive, yet intimate, because all about it was overpowering, near at hand, even the beetling crags. And at every turn it seemed impossible to go farther over that narrow and rock-bestrewn floor. Yet Creech found a way on.

Then came hours of climbing such slopes and benches and ledges as Lucy had not yet encountered. The grasping spikes of dead cedar tore her dress to shreds, and many a scratch burned her flesh. About the middle of the afternoon Creech led up over the last declivity, a yellow slope of cedar, to a flat upland covered with pine and high bleached grass. They rested.

“We’ve fooled Cordts, you can be sure of thet,” said Creech. “You’re a game kid, an’, by Gawd! if I had this job to do over I’d never tackle it again!”

“Oh, you’re sure we’ve lost him?” implored Lucy.

“Sure as I am of death. An’ we’ll make surer in crossin’ this bench. It’s miles to the other side where I’m to keep watch fer Joel. An’ we won’t leave a track all the way.”

“But this grass?” questioned Lucy. “It’ll show our tracks.”

“Look at the lanes an’ trails between. All pine mats thick an’ soft an’ springy. Only an Indian could follow us hyar on Wild Hoss Bench.”

Lucy gazed before her under the pines. It was a beautiful forest, with trees standing far apart, yet not so far but that their foliage intermingled. A dry fragrance, thick as a heavy perfume, blew into her face. She could not help but think of fire — how it would race through here, and that recalled Joel Creech’s horrible threat. Lucy shuddered and put away the memory. “I can’t go — any farther — to-day,” she said.

Creech looked at her compassionately. Then Lucy became conscious that of late he had softened.

“You’ll have to come,” he said. “There’s no water on this side, short of thet canyon-bed. An’ acrost there’s water close under the wall.”

So they set out into the forest. And Lucy found that after all she could go on. The horses walked and on the soft, springy ground did not jar her. Deer and wild turkey abounded there and showed little alarm at sight of the travelers. And before long Lucy felt that she would become intoxicated by the dry odor. It was so strong, so thick, so penetrating. Yet, though she felt she would reel under its influence, it revived her.

The afternoon passed; the sun set off through the pines, a black-streaked, golden flare; twilight shortly changed to night. The trees looked spectral in the gloom, and the forest appeared to grow thicker. Wolves murmured, and there were wild cries of cat and owl. Lucy fell asleep on her horse. At last, sometime late in the night, when Creech lifted her from the saddle and laid her down, she stretched out on the soft mat of pine needles and knew no more.

She did not awaken until the afternoon of the next day. The site where Creech had made his final camp overlooked the wildest of all that wild upland country. The pines had scattered and trooped around a beautiful park of grass that ended abruptly upon bare rock. Yellow crags towered above the rim, and under them a yawning narrow gorge, overshadowed from above, blue in its depths, split the end of the great plateau and opened out sheer into the head of the canyon, which, according to Creech, stretched away through that wilderness of red stone and green clefts. When Lucy’s fascinated gaze looked afar she was stunned at the vast, billowy, bare surfaces. Every green cleft was a short canyon running parallel with this central and longer one. The dips and breaks showed how all these canyons were connected. They led the gaze away, descending gradually to the dim purple of distance — the bare, rolling desert upland.

Lucy did nothing but gaze. She was unable to walk or eat that day. Creech hung around her with a remorse he apparently felt, yet could not put into words.

“Do you expect Joel to come up this big canyon?”

“I reckon I do — some day,” replied Creech. “An’ I wish he’d hurry.”

“Does he know the way?”

“Nope. But he’s good at findin’ places. An’ I told him to stick to the main canyon. Would you believe you could ride offer this rim, straight down thar fer fifty miles, an’ never git off your hoss?”

“No, I wouldn’t believe it possible.”

“Wal, it’s so. I’ve done it. An’ I didn’t want to come up thet way because I’d had to leave tracks.”

“Do you think we’re safe — from Cordts now?” she asked.

“I reckon so. He’s no tracker.”

“But suppose he does trail us?”

“Wal, I reckon I’ve a shade the best of Cordts at gun-play, any day.”

Lucy regarded the man in surprise. “Oh, it’s so — strange!” she said. “You’d fight for me. Yet you dragged me for days over these awful rocks! ... Look at me, Creech. Do I look much like Lucy Bostil?”

Creech hung his head. “Wal, I reckoned I wasn’t a blackguard, but I AM.”

“You used to care for me when I was little. I remember how I used to take rides on your knee.”

“Lucy, I never thought of thet when I ketched you. You was only a means to an end. Bostil hated me. He ruined me. I give up to revenge. An’ I could only git thet through you.”

“Creech, I’m not defending Dad. He’s — he’s no good where horses are concerned. I know he wronged you. Then why didn’t you wait and meet him like a man instead of dragging me to this misery?”

“Wal, I never thought of thet, either. I wished I had.” He grew gloomier then and relapsed into silent watching.

Lucy felt better next day, and offered to help Creech at the few camp duties. He would not let her. There was nothing to do but rest and wait, and the idleness appeared to be harder on Creech than on Lucy. He had always been exceedingly active. Lucy divined that every hour his remorse grew keener, and she did all she could think of to make it so. Creech made her a rude brush by gathering small roots and binding them tightly and cutting the ends square. And Lucy, after the manner of an Indian, got the tangles out of her hair. That day Creech seemed to want to hear Lucy’s voice, and so they often fell into conversation. Once he said, thoughtfully:

“I’m tryin’ to remember somethin’ I heerd at the Ford. I meant to ask you—” Suddenly he turned to her with animation. He who had been so gloomy and lusterless and dead showed a bright eagerness. “I heerd you beat the King on a red hoss — a wild hoss! ... Thet must have been a joke — like one of Joel’s.”

“No. It’s true. An’ Dad nearly had a fit!”

“Wal!” Creech simply blazed with excitement. “I ain’t wonderin’ if he did. His own girl! Lucy, come to remember, you always said you’d beat thet gray racer.... Fer the Lord’s sake tell me all about it.”

Lucy warmed to him because, broken as he was, he could be genuinely glad some horse but his own had won a race. Bostil could never have been like that. So Lucy told him about the race — and then she had to tell about Wildfire, and then about Slone. But at first all of Creech’s interest centered round Wildfire and the race that had not really been run. He asked a hundred questions. He was as pleased as a boy listening to a good story. He praised Lucy again and again. He crowed over Bostil’s discomfiture. And when Lucy told him that Slone had dared her father to race, had offered to bet Wildfire and his own life against her hand, then Creech was beside himself.

“This hyar Slone — he CALLED Bostil’s hand!”

“He’s a wild-horse hunter. And HE can trail us!”

“Trail us! Slone? Say, Lucy, are you in love with him?”

Lucy uttered a strange little broken sound, half laugh, half sob. “Love him! Ah!”

“An’ your Dad’s ag’in him! Sure Bostil’ll hate any rider with a fast hoss. Why didn’t the darn fool sell his stallion to your father?”

“He gave Wildfire to me.”

“I’d have done the same. Wal, now, when you git back home what’s comin’ of it all?”

Lucy shook her head sorrowfully. “God only knows. Dad will never own Wildfire, and he’ll never let me marry Slone. And when you take the King away from him to ransom me — then my life will be hell, for if Dad sacrifices Sage King, afterward he’ll hate me as the cause of his loss.”

“I can sure see the sense of all that,” replied Creech, soberly. And he pondered.

Lucy saw through this man as if he had been an inch of crystal water. He was no villain, and just now in his simplicity, in his plodding thought of sympathy for her he was lovable.

“It’s one hell of a muss, if you’ll excuse my talk,” said Creech. “An’ I don’t like the looks of what I ‘pear to be throwin’ in your way.... But see hyar, Lucy, if Bostil didn’t give up — or, say, he gits the King back, thet wouldn’t make your chance with Slone any brighter.”

“I don’t know.”

“Thet race will have to be ran!”

“What good will that do?” cried Lucy, with tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to lose Dad. I — I — love him — mean as he is. And it’ll kill me to lose Lin. Because Wildfire can beat Sage King, and that means Dad will be forever against him.”

“Couldn’t this wild-horse feller LET the King win thet race?”

“Oh, he could, but he wouldn’t.”

“Can’t you be sweet round him — fetch him over to thet?”

“Oh, I could, but I won’t.”

Creech might have been plotting the happiness of his own daughter, he was so deeply in earnest.

“Wal, mebbe you don’t love each other so much, after all.... Fast hosses mean much to a man in this hyar country. I know, fer I lost mine! ... But they ain’t all.... I reckon you young folks don’t love so much, after all.”

“But — we — do!” cried Lucy, with a passionate sob. All this talk had unnerved her.

“Then the only way is fer Slone to lie to Bostil.”

“Lie!” exclaimed Lucy.

“Thet’s it. Fetch about a race, somehow — one Bostil can’t see — an’ then lie an’ say the King run Wildfire off his legs.”

Suddenly it occurred to Lucy that one significance of this idea of Creech’s had not dawned upon him. “You forget that soon my father will no longer own Sage King or Sarchedon or Dusty Ben — or any racer. He loses them or me, I thought. That’s what I am here for.”

Creech’s aspect changed. The eagerness and sympathy fled from his face, leaving it once more hard and stern. He got up and stood a tall, dark, and gloomy man, brooding over his loss, as he watched the canyon. Still, there was in him then a struggle that Lucy felt. Presently he bent over and put his big hand on her head. It seemed gentle and tender compared with former contacts, and it made Lucy thrill. She could not see his face. What did he mean? She divined something startling, and sat there trembling in suspense.

“Bostil won’t lose his only girl — or his favorite hoss! ... Lucy, I never had no girl. But it seems I’m rememberin’ them rides you used to have on my knee when you was little!”

Then he strode away toward the forest. Lucy watched him with a full heart, and as she thought of his overcoming the evil in him when her father had yielded to it, she suffered poignant shame. This Creech was not a bad man. He was going to let her go, and he was going to return Bostil’s horses when they came. Lucy resolved with a passionate determination that her father must make ample restitution for the loss Creech had endured. She meant to tell Creech so.

Upon his return, however, he seemed so strange and forbidding again that her heart failed her. Had he reconsidered his generous thought? Lucy almost believed so. These old horse-traders were incomprehensible in any relation concerning horses. Recalling Creech’s intense interest in Wildfire and in the inevitable race to be run between him and Sage King, Lucy almost believed that Creech would sacrifice his vengeance just to see the red stallion beat the gray. If Creech kept the King in ransom for Lucy he would have to stay deeply hidden in the wild breaks of the canyon country or leave the uplands. For Bostil would never let that deed go unreckoned with. Like Bostil, old Creech was half horse and half human. The human side had warmed to remorse. He had regretted Lucy’s plight; he wanted her to be safe at home again and to find happiness; he remembered what she had been to him when she was a little girl. Creech’s other side was more complex.

Before the evening meal ended Lucy divined that Creech was dark and troubled because he had resigned himself to a sacrifice harder than it had seemed in the first flush of noble feeling. But she doubted him no more. She was safe. The King would be returned. She would compel her father to pay Creech horse for horse. And perhaps the lesson to Bostil would be worth all the pain of effort and distress of mind that it had cost her.

That night as she lay awake listening to the roar of the wind in the pines a strange premonition — like a mysterious voice — came to her with the assurance that Slone was on her trail.

On the following day Creech appeared to have cast off the brooding mood. Still, he was not talkative. He applied himself to constant watching from the rim.

Lucy began to feel rested. That long trip with Creech had made her thin and hard and strong. She spent the hours under the shade of a cedar on the rim that protected her from sun and wind. The wind, particularly, was hard to stand. It blew a gale out of the west, a dry, odorous, steady rush that roared through the pine-tops and flattened the long, white grass. This day Creech had to build up a barrier of rock round his camp-fire, to keep it from blowing away. And there was a constant danger of firing the grass.

Once Lucy asked Creech what would happen in that case.

“Wal, I reckon the grass would burn back even ag’in thet wind,” replied Creech. “I’d hate to see fire in the woods now before the rains come. It’s been the longest, dryest spell I ever lived through. But fer thet my hosses — This hyar’s a west wind, an’ it’s blowin’ harder every day. It’ll fetch the rains.”

Next day about noon, when both wind and heat were high, Lucy was awakened from a doze. Creech was standing near her. When he turned his long gaze away from the canyon he was smiling. It was a smile at once triumphant and sad.

“Joel’s comin’ with the hosses!”

Lucy jumped up, trembling and agitated. “Oh! ... Where? Where?”

Creech pointed carefully with bent hand, like an Indian, and Lucy either could not get the direction or see far enough.

“Right down along the base of thet red wall. A line of hosses. Jest like a few crawlin’ ants’ ... An’ now they’re creepin’ out of sight.”

“Oh, I can’t see them!” cried Lucy. “Are you SURE?”

“Positive an’ sartin,” he replied. “Joel’s comin’. He’ll be up hyar before long. I reckon we’d jest as well let him come. Fer there’s water an’ grass hyar. An’ down below grass is scarce.”

It seemed an age to Lucy, waiting there, until she did see horses zigzagging the ridges below. They disappeared, and then it was another age before they reappeared close under the bulge of wall. She thrilled at sight of Sage King and Sarchedon. She got only a glimpse of them. They must pass round under her to climb a split in the wall, and up a long draw that reached level ground back in the forest. But they were near, and Lucy tried to wait. Creech showed eagerness at first, and then went on with his camp-fire duties. While in camp he always cooked a midday meal.

Lucy saw the horses first. She screamed out. Creech jumped up in alarm.

Joel Creech, mounted on Sage King, and leading Sarchedon, was coming at a gallop. The other horses were following.

“What’s his hurry?” demanded Lucy. “After climbing out of that canyon Joel ought not to push the horses.”

“He’ll git it from me if there’s no reason,” growled Creech. “Them hosses is wet.”

“Look at Sarch! He’s wild. He always hated Joel.”

“Wal, Lucy, I reckon I ain’t likin’ this hyar. Look at Joel!” muttered Creech, and he strode out to meet his son.

Lucy ran out too, and beyond him. She saw only Sage King. He saw her, recognized her, and, whistled even while Joel was pulling him in. For once the King showed he was glad to see Lucy. He had been having rough treatment. But he was not winded — only hot and wet. She assured herself of that, then ran to quiet the plunging Sarch. He came down at once, and pushed his big nose almost into her face. She hugged his great, hot neck. He was quivering all over. Lucy heard the other horses pounding up; she recognized Two Face’s high whinny, like a squeal; and in her delight she was about to run to them when Creech’s harsh voice arrested her. And sight of Joel’s face suddenly made her weak.

“What’d you say?” demanded Creech.

“I’d a good reason to run the hosses up-hill — thet’s what!” snapped Joel. He was frothing at the mouth.

“Out with it!”

“Cordts an’ Hutch!”

“What?” roared Creech, grasping the pale Joel and shaking him.

“Cordts an’ Hutch rode in behind me down at thet cross canyon. They seen me. An’ they’re after me hard!”

Creech gave close and keen scrutiny to the strange face of his son. Then he wheeled away.

“Help me pack. An’ you, too, Lucy. We’ve got to rustle out of hyar.”

Lucy fought a sick faintness that threatened to make her useless. But she tried to help, and presently action made her stronger.

The Creeches made short work of that breaking of camp. But when it came to getting the horses there appeared danger of delay. Sarchedon had led Dusty Ben and Two Face off in the grass. When Joel went for them they galloped away toward the woods. Joel ran back.

“Son, you’re a smart hossman!” exclaimed Creech, in disgust.

“Shall I git on the King an’ ketch them?”

“No. Hold the King.” Creech went out after Plume, but the excited and wary horse eluded him. Then Creech gave up, caught his own mustangs, and hurried into camp.

“Lucy, if Cordts gits after Sarch an’ the others it’ll be as well fer us,” he said.

Soon they were riding into the forest, Creech leading, Lucy in the center, and Joel coming behind on the King. Two unsaddled mustangs carrying the packs were driven in front. Creech limited the gait to the best that the pack-horses could do. They made fast time. The level forest floor, hard and springy, afforded the best kind of going.

A cold dread had once more clutched Lucy’s heart. What would be the end of this flight? The way Creech looked back increased her dread. How horrible it would be if Cordts accomplished what he had always threatened — to run off with both her and the King! Lucy lost her confidence in Creech. She did not glance again at Joel. Once had been enough. She rode on with heavy heart. Anxiety and dread and conjecture and a gradual sinking of spirit weighed her down. Yet she never had a clearer perception of outside things. The forest loomed thicker and darker. The sky was seen only through a green, crisscross of foliage waving in the roaring gale. This strong wind was like a blast in Lucy’s face, and its keen dryness cracked her lips.

When they rode out of the forest, down a gentle slope of wind-swept grass, to an opening into a canyon Lucy was surprised to recognize the place. How quickly the ride through the forest had been made!

Creech dismounted. “Git off, Lucy. You, Joel, hurry an’ hand me the little pack.... Now I’ll take Lucy an’ the King down in hyar. You go thet way with the hosses an’ make as if you was hidin’ your trail, but don’t. Do you savvy?”

Joel shook his head. He looked sullen, somber, strange. His father repeated what he had said.

“You’re wantin’ Cordts to split on the trail?” asked Joel.

“Sure. He’ll ketch up with you sometime. But you needn’t be afeared if he does.”

“I ain’t a-goin’ to do thet.”

“Why not?” Creech demanded, slowly, with a rising voice.

“I’m a-goin’ with you. What d’ye mean, Dad, by this move? You’ll be headin’ back fer the Ford. An’ we’d git safer if we go the other way.”

Creech evidently controlled his temper by an effort. “I’m takin’ Lucy an’ the King back to Bostil.”

Joel echoed those words, slowly divining them. “Takin’ them BOTH! The girl.... An’ givin’ up the King!”

“Yes, both of them. I’ve changed my mind, Joel. Now — you—”

But Creech never finished what he meant to say. Joel Creech was suddenly seized by a horrible madness. It was then, perhaps, that the final thread which linked his mind to rationality stretched and snapped. His face turned green. His strange eyes protruded. His jaw worked. He frothed at the mouth. He leaped, apparently to get near his father, but he missed his direction. Then, as if sight had come back, he wheeled and made strange gestures, all the while cursing incoherently. The father’s shocked face began to show disgust. Then part of Joel’s ranting became intelligible.

“Shut up!” suddenly roared Creech.

“No, I won’t!” shrieked Joel, wagging his head in spent passion. “An’ you ain’t a-goin’ to take thet girl home.... I’ll take her with me.... An’ you take the hosses home!”

“You’re crazy!” hoarsely shouted Creech, his face going black. “They allus said so. But I never believed thet.”

“An’ if I’m crazy, thet girl made me.... You know what I’m a-goin’ to do? ... I’ll strip her naked — an’ I’ll—”

Lucy saw old Creech lunge and strike. She heard the sodden blow. Joel went down. But he scrambled up with his eyes and mouth resembling those of a mad hound Lucy once had seen. The fact that he reached twice for his gun and could not find it proved the breaking connection of nerve and sense. Creech jumped and grappled with Joel. There was a wrestling, strained struggle. Creech’s hair stood up and his face had a kind of sick fury, and he continued to curse and command. They fought for the possession of the gun. But Joel seemed to have superhuman strength. His hold on the gun could not be broken. Moreover, he kept straining to point the gun at his father. Lucy screamed. Creech yelled hoarsely. But the boy was beyond reason or help, and he was beyond over powering! Lucy saw him bend his arm in spite of the desperate hold upon it and fire the gun. Creech’s hoarse entreaties ceased as his hold on Joel broke. He staggered. His arms went up with a tragic, terrible gesture. He fell. Joel stood over him, shaking and livid, but he showed only the vaguest realization of the deed. His actions were instinctive. He was the animal that had clawed himself free. Further proof of his aberration stood out in the action of sheathing his gun; he made the motion to do so, but he only dropped it in the grass.

Sight of that dropped gun broke Lucy’s spell of horror, which had kept her silent but for one scream. Suddenly her blood leaped like fire in her veins. She measured the distance to Sage King. Joel was turning. Then Lucy darted at the King, reached him, and, leaping, was half up on him when he snorted and jumped, not breaking her hold, but keeping her from getting up. Then iron hands clutched her and threw her, like an empty sack, to the grass.

Joel Creech did not say a word. His distorted face had the deriding scorn of a superior being. Lucy lay flat on her back, watching him. Her mind worked swiftly. She would have to fight for her body and her life. Her terror had fled with her horror. She was not now afraid of this demented boy. She meant to fight, calculating like a cunning Indian, wild as a trapped wildcat.

Lucy lay perfectly still, for she knew she had been thrown near the spot where the gun lay. If she got her hands on that gun she would kill Joel. It would be the action of an instant. She watched Joel while he watched her. And she saw that he had his foot on the rope round Sage King’s neck. The King never liked a rope. He was nervous. He tossed his head to get rid of it. Creech, watching Lucy all the while, reached for the rope, pulled the King closer and closer, and untied the knot. The King stood then, bridle down and quiet. Instead of a saddle he wore a blanket strapped round him.

It seemed that Lucy located the gun without turning her eyes away from Joel’s. She gathered all her force — rolled over swiftly — again — got her hands on the gun just as Creech leaped like a panther upon her. His weight crushed her flat — his strength made her hand-hold like that of a child. He threw the gun aside. Lucy lay face down, unable to move her body while he stood over her. Then he struck her, not a stunning blow, but just the hard rap a cruel rider gives to a horse that wants its own way. Under that blow Lucy’s spirit rose to a height of terrible passion. Still she did not lose her cunning; the blow increased it. That blow showed Joel to be crazy. She might outwit a crazy man, where a man merely wicked might master her.

Creech tried to turn her. Lucy resisted. And she was strong. Resistance infuriated Creech. He cuffed her sharply. This action only made him worse. Then with hands like steel claws he tore away her blouse.

The shock of his hands on her bare flesh momentarily weakened Lucy, and Creech dragged at her until she lay seemingly helpless before him.

And Lucy saw that at the sight of her like this something had come between Joel Creech’s mad motives and their execution. Once he had loved her — desired her. He looked vague. He stroked her shoulder. His strange eyes softened, then blazed with a different light. Lucy divined that she was lost unless she could recall his insane fury. She must begin that terrible fight in which now the best she could hope for was to make him kill her quickly.

Swift and vicious as a cat she fastened her teeth in his arm. She bit deep and held on. Creech howled like a dog. He beat her. He jerked and wrestled. Then he lifted her, and the swing of her body tore the flesh loose from his arm and broke her hold. Lucy half rose, crawled, plunged for the gun. She got it, too, only to have Creech kick it out of her hand. The pain of that brutal kick was severe, but when he cut her across the bare back with the rope she shrieked out. Supple and quick, she leaped up and ran. In vain! With a few bounds he had her again, tripped her up. Lucy fell over the dead body of the father. Yet even that did not shake her desperate nerve. All the ferocity of a desert-bred savage culminated in her, fighting for death.

Creech leaned down, swinging the coiled rope. He meant to do more than lash her with it. Lucy’s hands flashed up, closed tight in his long hair. Then with a bellow he jerked up and lifted her sheer off the ground. There was an instant in which Lucy felt herself swung and torn; she saw everything as a whirling blur; she felt an agony in her wrists at which Creech was clawing. When he broke her hold there were handfuls of hair in Lucy’s fists.

She fell again and had not the strength to rise. But Creech was raging, and little of his broken speech was intelligible. He knelt with a sharp knee pressing her down. He cut the rope. Nimbly, like a rider in moments of needful swiftness, he noosed one end of the rope round her ankle, then the end of the other piece round her wrist. He might have been tying up an unbroken mustang. Rising, he retained hold on both ropes. He moved back, sliding them through his hands. Then with a quick move he caught up Sage King’s bridle.

Creech paused a moment, darkly triumphant. A hideous success showed in his strange eyes. A long-cherished mad vengeance had reached its fruition. Then he led the horse near to Lucy.

Warily he reached down. He did not know Lucy’s strength was spent. He feared she might yet escape. With hard, quick grasp he caught her, lifted her, threw her over the King’s back. He forced her down.

Lucy’s resistance was her only salvation, because it kept him on the track of his old threat. She resisted all she could. He pulled her arms down round the King’s neck and tied them close. Then he pulled hard on the rope on her ankle and tied that to her other ankle.

Lucy realized that she was bound fast. Creech had made good most of his threat. And now in her mind the hope of the death she had sought changed to the hope of life that was possible. Whatever power she had ever had over the King was in her voice. If only Creech would slip the bridle or cut the reins — if only Sage King could be free to run!

Lucy could turn her face far enough to see Creech. Like a fiend he was reveling in his work. Suddenly he picked up the gun.

“Look a-hyar!” he called, hoarsely.

With eyes on her, grinning horribly, he walked a few paces to where the long grass had not been trampled or pressed down. The wind, whipping up out of the canyon, was still blowing hard. Creech put the gun down in the grass and fired.

Sage King plunged. But he was not gun-shy. He steadied down with a pounding of heavy hoofs. Then Lucy could see again. A thin streak of yellow smoke rose — a little snaky flame — a slight crackling hiss! Then as the wind caught the blaze there came a rushing, low roar. Fire, like magic, raced and spread before the wind toward the forest.

Lucy had forgotten that Creech had meant to drive her into fire. The sudden horror of it almost caused collapse. Commotion within — cold and quake and nausea and agony — deadened her hearing and darkened her sight. But Creech’s hard hands quickened her. She could see him then, though not clearly. His face seemed inhuman, misshapen, gray. His hands pulled at her arms — a last precaution to see that she was tightly bound. Then with the deft fingers of a rider he slipped Sage King’s bridle.

Lucy could not trust her sight. What made the King stand so still? His ears went up — stiff — pointed!

Creech stepped back and laid a violent hand on Lucy’s garments. She bent — twisted her neck to watch him. But her sight grew no clearer. Still she saw he meant to strip her naked. He braced himself for a strong, ripping pull. His yellow teeth showed deep in his lip. His contrasting eyes were alight with insane joy.

But he never pulled. Something attracted his attention. He looked. He saw something. The beast in him became human — the madness changed to rationality — the devil to a craven! His ashen lips uttered a low, terrible cry.

Lucy felt the King trembling in every muscle. She knew that was flight. She expected his loud snort, and was prepared for it when it rang out. In a second he would bolt. She knew that. She thrilled. She tried to call to him, but her lips were weak. Creech seemed paralyzed. The King shifted his position, and Lucy’s last glimpse of Creech was one she would never forget. It was as if Creech faced burning hell!

Then the King whistled and reared. Lucy heard swift, dull, throbbing beats. Beats of a fast horse’s hoofs on the run! She felt a surging thrill of joy. She could not think. All of her blood and bone and muscle seemed to throb. Suddenly the air split to a high-pitched, wild, whistling blast. It pierced to Lucy’s mind. She knew that whistle.

“Wildfire!” she screamed, with bursting heart.

The King gave a mighty convulsive bound of terror. He, too, knew that whistle. And in that one great bound he launched out into a run. Straight across the line of burning grass! Lucy felt the sting of flame. Smoke blinded and choked her. Then clear, dry, keen wind sung in her ears and whipped her hair. The light about her darkened. The King had headed into the pines. The heavy roar of the gale overhead struck Lucy with new and torturing dread. Sage King once in his life was running away, bridleless, and behind him there was fire on the wings of the wind.

CHAPTER XVII

FOR THE FIRST time in his experience Bostil found that horse-trading palled upon him. This trip to Durango was a failure. Something was wrong. There was a voice constantly calling into his inner ear — a voice to which he refused to listen. And during the five days of the return trip the strange mood grew upon him.

The last day he and his riders covered over fifty miles and reached the Ford late at night. No one expected them, and only the men on duty at the corrals knew of the return. Bostil, much relieved to get home, went to bed and at once fell asleep.

He awakened at a late hour for him. When he dressed and went out to the kitchen he found that his sister had learned of his return and had breakfast waiting.

“Where’s the girl?” asked Bostil.

“Not up yet,” replied Aunt Jane.

“What!”

“Lucy and I had a tiff last night and she went to her room in a temper.”

“Nothin’ new about thet.”

“Holley and I have had our troubles holding her in. Don’t you forget that.”

Bostil laughed. “Wal, call her an’ tell her I’m home.”

Aunt Jane did as she was bidden. Bostil finished his breakfast. But Lucy did not come.

Bostil began to feel something strange, and, going to Lucy’s door, he knocked. There was no reply. Bostil pushed open the door. Lucy was not in evidence, and her room was not as tidy as usual. He saw her white dress thrown upon the bed she had not slept in. Bostil gazed around with a queer contraction of the heart. That sense of something amiss grew stronger. Then he saw a chair before the open window. That window was rather high, and Lucy had placed a chair before it so that she could look out or get out. Bostil stretched his neck, looked out, and in the red earth beneath the window he saw fresh tracks of Lucy’s boots. Then he roared for Jane.

She came running, and between Bostil’s furious questions and her own excited answers there was nothing arrived at. But presently she spied the white dress, and then she ran to Lucy’s closet. From there she turned a white face to Bostil.

“She put on her riding-clothes!” gasped Aunt Jane.

“Supposin’ she did! Where is she?” demanded Bostil.

“SHE’S RUN OFF WITH SLONE!”

Bostil could not have been shocked or hurt any more acutely by a knife-thrust. He glared at his sister.

“A-huh! So thet’s the way you watch her!”

“Watch her? It wasn’t possible. She’s — well, she’s as smart as you are.... Oh, I knew she’d do it! She was wild in love with him!”

Bostil strode out of the room and the house. He went through the grove and directly up the path to Slone’s cabin. It was empty, just as Bostil expected to find it.

The bars of the corral were down. Both Slone’s horses were gone. Presently Bostil saw the black horse Nagger down in Brackton’s pasture.

There were riders in front of Brackton’s. All spoke at once to Bostil, and he only yelled for Brackton. The old man came hurriedly out, alarmed.

“Where’s this Slone?” demanded Bostil.

“Slone!” ejaculated Brackton. “I’m blessed if I know. Ain’t he home?”

“No. An’ he’s left his black hoss in your field.”

“Wal, by golly, thet’s news to me.... Bostil, there’s been strange doin’s lately.” Brackton seemed at a loss for words. “Mebbe Slone got out because of somethin’ thet come off last night.... Now, Joel Creech an’ — an’—”

Bostil waited to hear no more. What did he care about the idiot Creech? He strode down the lane to the corrals. Farlane, Van, and other riders were there, leisurely as usual. Then Holley appeared, coming out of the barn. He, too, was easy, cool, natural, lazy. None of these riders knew what was amiss. But instantly a change passed over them. It came because Bostil pulled a gun. “Holley, I’ve a mind to bore you!”

The old hawk-eyed rider did not flinch or turn a shade off color. “What fer?” he queried. But his customary drawl was wanting.

“I left you to watch Lucy.... An’ she’s gone!”

Holley showed genuine surprise and distress. The other riders echoed Bostil’s last word. Bostil lowered the gun.

“I reckon what saves you is you’re the only tracker thet’d have a show to find this cussed Slone.”

Holley now showed no sign of surprise, but the other riders were astounded.

“Lucy’s run off with Slone,” added Bostil.

“Wal, if she’s gone, an’ if he’s gone, it’s a cinch,” replied Holley, throwing up his hands. “Boss, she double-crossed me same as you! ... She promised faithful to stay in the house.”

“Promises nothin’!” roared Bostil. “She’s in love with this wild-hoss wrangler! She met him last night!”

“I couldn’t help thet,” retorted Holley. “An’ I trusted the girl.”

Bostil tossed his hands. He struggled with his rage. He had no fear that Lucy would not soon be found. But the opposition to his will made him furious.

Van left the group of riders and came close to Bostil. “It ain’t an hour back thet I seen Slone ride off alone on his red hoss.”

“What of thet?” demanded Bostil. “Sure she was waitin’ somewheres. They’d have too much sense to go together.... Saddle up, you boys, an’ we’ll—”

“Say, Bostil, I happen to know Slone didn’t see Lucy last night,” interrupted Holley.

“A-huh! Wal, you’d better talk out.”

“I trusted Lucy,” said Holley. “But all the same, knowin’ she was in love, I jest wanted to see if any girl in love could keep her word.... So about dark I went down the grove an’ watched fer Slone. Pretty soon I seen him. He sneaked along the upper end an’ I follered. He went to thet bench up by the biggest cottonwood. An’ he waited a long time. But Lucy didn’t come. He must have waited till midnight. Then he left. I watched him go back — seen him go up to his cabin.”

“Wal, if she didn’t meet him, where was she? She wasn’t in her room.”

Bostil gazed at Holley and the other riders, then back to Holley. What was the matter with this old rider? Bostil had never seen Holley seem so strange. The whole affair began to loom strangely, darkly. Some portent quickened Bostil’s lumbering pulse. It seemed that Holley’s mind must have found an obstacle to thought. Suddenly the old rider’s face changed — the bronze was blotted out — a grayness came, and then a dead white.

“Bostil, mebbe you ‘ain’t been told yet thet — thet Creech rode in yesterday.... He lost all his racers! He had to shoot both Peg an’ Roan!”

Bostil’s thought suffered a sudden, blank halt. Then, with realization, came the shock for which he had long been prepared.

“A-huh! Is thet so? ... Wal, an’ what did he say?”

Holley laughed a grim, significant laugh that curdled Bostil’s blood. “Creech said a lot! But let thet go now.... Come with me.”

Holley started with rapid strides down the lane. Bostil followed. And he heard the riders coming behind. A dark and gloomy thought settled upon Bostil. He could not check that, but he held back impatience and passion.

Holley went straight to Lucy’s window. He got down on his knees to scrutinize the tracks.

“Made more ‘n twelve hours ago,” he said, swiftly. “She had on her boots, but no spurs.... Now let’s see where she went.”

Holley began to trail Lucy’s progress through the grove, silently pointing now and then to a track. He went swifter, till Bostil had to hurry. The other men came whispering after them.

Holley was as keen as a hound on scent.

“She stopped there,” he said, “mebbe to listen. Looks like she wanted to cross the lane, but she didn’t: here she got to goin’ faster.”

Holley reached an intersecting path and suddenly halted stock-still, pointing at a big track in the dust.

“My God! ... Bostil, look at thet!”

One riving pang tore through Bostil — and then he was suddenly his old self, facing the truth of danger to one he loved. He saw beside the big track a faint imprint of Lucy’s small foot. That was the last sign of her progress and it told a story.

“Bostil, thet ain’t Slone’s track,” said Holley, ringingly.

“Sure it ain’t. Thet’s the track of a big man,” replied Bostil.

The other riders, circling round with bent heads, all said one way or another that Slone could not have made the trail.

“An’ whoever he was grabbed Lucy up — made off with her?” asked Bostil.

“Plain as if we seen it done!” exclaimed Holley. There was fire in the clear, hawk eyes.

“Cordts!” cried Bostil, hoarsely.

“Mebbe — mebbe. But thet ain’t my idee.... Come on.”

Holley went so fast he almost ran, and he got ahead of Bostil. Finally several hundred yards out in the sage he halted, and again dropped to his knees. Bostil and the riders hurried on.

“Keep back; don’t stamp round so close,” ordered Holley. Then like a man searching for lost gold in sand and grass he searched the ground. To Bostil it seemed a long time before he got through. When he arose there was a dark and deadly certainty in his face, by which Bostil knew the worst had befallen Lucy.

“Four mustangs an’ two men last night,” said Holley, rapidly. “Here’s where Lucy was set down on her feet. Here’s where she mounted.... An’ here’s the tracks of a third man — tracks made this mornin’.”

Bostil straightened up and faced Holley as if ready to take a death-blow. “I’m reckonin’ them last is Slone’s tracks.”

“Yes, I know them,” replied Holley.

“An’ — them — other tracks? Who made them?”

“CREECH AN’ HIS SON!”

Bostil felt swept away by a dark, whirling flame. And when it passed he lay in his barn, in the shade of the loft, prostrate on the fragrant hay. His strength with his passion was spent. A dull ache remained. The fight was gone from him. His spirit was broken. And he looked down into that dark abyss which was his own soul.

By and by the riders came for him, got him up, and led him out. He shook them off and stood breathing slowly. The air felt refreshing; it cooled his hot, tired brain. It did not surprise him to see Joel Creech there, cringing behind Holley.

Bostil lifted a hand for some one to speak. And Holley came a step forward. His face was haggard, but its white tenseness was gone. He seemed as if he were reluctant to speak, to inflict more pain.

“Bostil,” he began, huskily, “you’re to send the King — an’ Sarch — an’ Ben an’ Two Face an’ Plume to ransom Lucy! ... If you won’t — then Creech’ll sell her to Cordts!”

What a strange look came into the faces of the riders! Did, they think he cared more for horseflesh than for his own flesh and blood?

“Send the King — an’ all he wants.... An’ send word fer Creech to come back to the Ford.... Tell him I said — my sin found me out!”

Bostil watched Joel Creech ride the King out upon the slope, driving the others ahead. Sage King wanted to run. Sarchedon was wild and unruly. They passed out of sight. Then Bostil turned to his silent riders.

“Boys, seein’ the King go thet way wasn’t nothin’.... But what crucifies me is — WILL THET FETCH HER BACK?”

“God only knows!” replied Holley. “Mebbe not — I reckon not! ... But, Bostil, you forget Slone is out there on Lucy’s trail. Out there ahead of Joel! Slone he’s a wild-hoss hunter — the keenest I ever seen. Do you think Creech can shake him on a trail? He’ll kill Creech, an’ he’ll lay fer Joel goin’ back — an’ he’ll kill him.... An’ I’ll bet my all he’ll ride in here with Lucy an’ the King!”

“Holley, you ain’t figurin’ on thet red hoss of Slone’s ridin’ down the King?”

Holley laughed as if Bostil’s query was the strangest thing of all that poignant day. “Naw. Slone’ll lay fer Joel an’ rope him like he roped Dick Sears.”

“Holley, I reckon you see — clearer ‘n me,” said Bostil, plaintively. “‘Pears as if I never had a hard knock before. Fer my nerve’s broke. I can’t hope.... Lucy’s gone! ... Ain’t there anythin’ to do but wait?”

“Thet’s all. Jest wait. If we went out on Joel’s trail we’d queer the chance of Creech’s bein’ honest. An’ we’d queer Slone’s game. I’d hate to have him trailin’ me.”

CHAPTER XVIII

ON THE DAY that old Creech repudiated his son, Slone with immeasurable relief left Brackton’s without even a word to the rejoicing Holley, and plodded up the path to his cabin.

After the first flush of elation had passed he found a peculiar mood settling down upon him. It was as if all was not so well as he had impulsively conceived. He began to ponder over this strange depression, to think back. What had happened to dash the cup from his lips? Did he regret being freed from guilt in the simple minds of the villagers — regret it because suspicion would fall upon Lucy’s father? No; he was sorry for the girl, but not for Bostil. It was not this new aspect of the situation at the Ford that oppressed him.

He trailed his vague feelings back to a subtle shock he had sustained in a last look at Creech’s dark, somber face. It had been the face of a Nemesis. All about Creech breathed silent, revengeful force. Slone worked out in his plodding thought why that fact should oppress him; and it was because in striking Bostil old Creech must strike through Bostil’s horses and his daughter.

Slone divined it — divined it by the subtle, intuitive power of his love for Lucy. He did not reconsider what had been his supposition before Creech’s return — that Creech would kill Bostil. Death would be no revenge. Creech had it in him to steal the King and starve him or to do the same and worse with Lucy. So Slone imagined, remembering Creech’s face.

Before twilight set in Slone saw the Creeches riding out of the lane into the sage, evidently leaving the Ford. This occasioned Slone great relief, but only for a moment. What the Creeches appeared to be doing might not be significant. And he knew if they had stayed in the village that he would have watched them as closely as if he thought they were trying to steal Wildfire.

He got his evening meal, cared for his horses, and just as darkness came on he slipped down into the grove for his rendezvous with Lucy. Always this made his heart beat and his nerves thrill, but to-night he was excited. The grove seemed full of moving shadows, all of which he fancied were Lucy. Reaching the big cottonwood, he tried to compose himself on the bench to wait. But composure seemed unattainable. The night was still, only the crickets and the soft rustle of leaves breaking a dead silence. Slone had the ears of a wild horse in that he imagined sounds he did not really hear. Many a lonely night while he lay watching and waiting in the dark, ambushing a water-hole where wild horses drank, he had heard soft treads that were only the substance of dreams. That was why, on this night when he was overstrained, he fancied he saw Lucy coming, a silent, moving shadow, when in reality she did not come. That was why he thought he heard very stealthy steps.

He waited. Lucy did not come. She had never failed before and he knew she would come. Waiting became hard. He wanted to go back toward the house — to intercept her on the way. Still he kept to his post, watchful, listening, his heart full. And he tried to reason away his strange dread, his sense of a need of hurry. For a time he succeeded by dreaming of Lucy’s sweetness, of her courage, of what a wonderful girl she was. Hours and hours he had passed in such dreams. One dream in particular always fascinated him, and it was one in which he saw the girl riding Wildfire, winning a great race for her life. Another, just as fascinating, but so haunting that he always dispelled it, was a dream where Lucy, alone and in peril, fought with Cordts or Joel Creech for more than her life. These vague dreams were Slone’s acceptance of the blood and spirit in Lucy. She was Bostil’s daughter. She had no sense of fear. She would fight. And though Slone always thrilled with pride, he also trembled with dread.

At length even wilder dreams of Lucy’s rare moments, when she let herself go, like a desert whirlwind, to envelop him in all her sweetness, could not avail to keep Slone patient. He began to pace to and fro under the big tree. He waited and waited. What could have detained her? Slone inwardly laughed at the idea that either Holley or Aunt Jane could keep his girl indoors when she wanted to come out to meet him. Yet Lucy had always said something might prevent. There was no reason for Slone to be concerned. He was mistaking his thrills and excitement and love and disappointment for something in which there was no reality. Yet he could not help it. The longer he waited the more shadows glided beneath the cottonwoods, the more faint, nameless sounds he heard.

He waited long after he became convinced she would not come. Upon his return through the grove he reached a point where the unreal and imaginative perceptions were suddenly and stunningly broken. He did hear a step. He kept on, as before, and in the deep shadow he turned. He saw a man just faintly outlined. One of the riders had been watching him — had followed him! Slone had always expected this. So had Lucy. And now it had happened. But Lucy had been too clever. She had not come. She had found out or suspected the spy and she had outwitted him. Slone had reason to be prouder of Lucy, and he went back to his cabin free from further anxiety.

Before he went to sleep, however, he heard the clatter of a number of horses in the lane. He could tell they were tired horses. Riders returning, he thought, and instantly corrected that, for riders seldom came in at night. And then it occurred to him that it might be Bostil’s return. But then it might be the Creeches. Slone had an uneasy return of puzzling thoughts. These, however, did not hinder drowsiness, and, deciding that the first thing in the morning he would trail the Creeches, just to see where they had gone, he fell asleep.

In the morning the bright, broad day, with its dispelling reality, made Slone regard himself differently. Things that oppressed him in the dark of night vanished in the light of the sun. Still, he was curious about the Creeches, and after he had done his morning’s work he strolled out to take up their trail. It was not hard to follow in the lane, for no other horses had gone in that direction since the Creeches had left.

Once up on the wide, windy slope the reach and color and fragrance seemed to call to Slone irresistibly, and he fell to trailing these tracks just for the love of a skill long unused. Half a mile out the road turned toward Durango. But the Creeches did not continue on that road. They entered the sage. Instantly Slone became curious.

He followed the tracks to a pile of rocks where the Creeches had made a greasewood fire and had cooked a meal. This was strange — within a mile of the Ford, where Brackton and others would have housed them. What was stranger was the fact that the trail started south from there and swung round toward the village.

Slone’s heart began to thump. But he forced himself to think only of these tracks and not any significance they might have. He trailed the men down to a bench on the slope, a few hundred yards from Bostil’s grove, and here a trampled space marked where a halt had been made and a wait.

And here Slone could no longer restrain conjecture and dread. He searched and searched. He got on his knees. He crawled through the sage all around the trampled space. Suddenly his heart seemed to receive a stab. He had found prints of Lucy’s boots in the soft earth! And he leaped up, wild and fierce, needing to know no more.

He ran back to his cabin. He never thought of Bostil, of Holley, of anything except the story revealed in those little boot-tracks. He packed a saddle-bag with meat and biscuits, filled a canvas water-bottle, and, taking them and his rifle, he hurried out to the corral. First he took Nagger down to Brackton’s pasture and let him in. Then returning, he went at the fiery stallion as he had not gone in many a day, roped him, saddled him, mounted him, and rode off with a hard, grim certainty that in Wildfire was Lucy’s salvation.

Four hours later Slone halted on the crest of a ridge, in the cover of sparse cedars, and surveyed a vast, gray, barren basin yawning and reaching out to a rugged, broken plateau.

He expected to find Joel Creech returning on the back-trail, and he had taken the precaution to ride on one side of the tracks he was following. He did not want Joel to cross his trail. Slone had long ago solved the meaning of the Creeches’ flight. They would use Lucy to ransom Bostil’s horses, and more than likely they would not let her go back. That they had her was enough for Slone. He was grim and implacable.

The eyes of the wild-horse hunter had not searched that basin long before they picked out a dot which was not a rock or a cedar, but a horse. Slone watched it grow, and, hidden himself, he held his post until he knew the rider was Joel Creech. Slone drew his own horse back and tied him to a sage-bush amidst some scant grass. Then he returned to watch. It appeared Creech was climbing the ridge below Slone, and some distance away. It was a desperate chance Joel ran then, for Slone had set out to kill him. It was certain that if Joel had happened to ride near instead of far, Slone could not have helped but kill him. As it was, he desisted because he realized that Joel would acquaint Bostil with the abducting of Lucy, and it might be that this would be well.

Slone was shaking when young Creech passed up and out of sight over the ridge — shaking with the deadly grip of passion such as he had never known. He waited, slowly gaining control, and at length went back for Wildfire.

Then he rode boldly forth on the trail. He calculated that old Creech would take Lucy to some wild retreat in the canyons and there wait for Joel and the horses. Creech had almost certainly gone on and would be unaware of a pursuer so closely on his trail. Slone took the direction of the trail, and he saw a low, dark notch in the rocky wall in the distance. After that he paid no more attention to choosing good ground for Wildfire than he did to the trail. The stallion was more tractable than Slone had ever found him. He loved the open. He smelled the sage and the wild. He settled down into his long, easy, swinging lope which seemed to eat up the miles. Slone was obsessed with thoughts centering round Lucy, and time and distance were scarcely significant.

The sun had dipped full red in a golden west when Slone reached the wall of rocks and the cleft where Creech’s tracks and Lucy’s, too, marked the camp. Slone did not even dismount. Riding on into the cleft, he wound at length into a canyon and out of that into a larger one, where he found that Lucy had remembered to leave a trail, and down this to a break in a high wall, and through it to another winding, canyon. The sun set, but Slone kept on as long as he could see the trail, and after that, until an intersecting canyon made it wise for him to halt.

There were rich grass and sweet water for his horse. He himself was not hungry, but he ate; he was not sleepy, but he slept. And daylight found him urging Wildfire in pursuit. On the rocky places Slone found the cedar berries Lucy had dropped. He welcomed sight of them, but he did not need them. This man Creech could never hide a trail from him, Slone thought grimly, and it suited him to follow that trail at a rapid trot. If he lost the tracks for a distance he went right on, and he knew where to look for them ahead. There was a vast difference between the cunning of Creech and the cunning of a wild horse. And there was an equal difference between the going and staying powers of Creech’s mustangs and Wildfire. Yes, Slone divined that Lucy’s salvation would be Wildfire, her horse. The trail grew rougher, steeper, harder, but the stallion kept his eagerness and his pace. On many an open length of canyon or height of wild upland Slone gazed ahead hoping to see Creech’s mustangs. He hoped for that even when he knew he was still too far behind. And then, suddenly, in the open, sandy flat of an intersecting canyon he came abruptly on a fresh trail of three horses, one of them shod.

The surprise stunned him. For a moment he gazed stupidly at these strange tracks. Who had made them? Had Creech met allies? Was that likely when the man had no friends? Pondering the thing, Slone went slowly on, realizing that a new and disturbing feature confronted him. Then when these new tracks met the trail that Creech had left Slone found that these strangers were as interested in Creech’s tracks as he was. Slone found their boot-marks in the sand — the hand-prints where some one had knelt to scrutinize Creech’s trail.

Slone led his horse and walked on, more and more disturbed in mind. When he came to a larger, bare, flat canyon bottom, where the rock had been washed clear of sand, he found no more cedar berries. They had been picked up. At the other extreme edge of this stony ground he found crumpled bits of cedar and cedar berries scattered in one spot, as if thrown there by some one who read their meaning.

This discovery unnerved Slone. It meant so much. And if Slone had any hope or reason to doubt that these strangers had taken up the trail for good, the next few miles dispelled it. They were trailing Creech.

Suddenly Slone gave a wild start, which made Wildfire plunge.

“CORDTS!” whispered Slone and the cold sweat oozed out of every pore.

These canyons were the hiding-places of the horse-thief. He and two of his men had chanced upon Creech’s trail; and perhaps their guess at its meaning was like Slone’s. If they had not guessed they would soon learn. It magnified Slone’s task a thousandfold. He had a moment of bitter, almost hopeless realization before a more desperate spirit awoke in him. He had only more men to kill — that was all. These upland riders did not pack rifles, of that Slone was sure. And the sooner he came up with Cordts the better. It was then he let Wildfire choose his gait and the trail. Sunset, twilight, dusk, and darkness came with Slone keeping on and on. As long as there were no intersecting canyons or clefts or slopes by which Creech might have swerved from his course, just so long Slone would travel. And it was late in the night when he had to halt.

Early next day the trail led up out of the red and broken gulches to the cedared uplands. Slone saw a black-rimmed, looming plateau in the distance. All these winding canyons, and the necks of the high ridges between, must run up to that great table-land.

That day he lost two of the horse tracks. He did not mark the change for a long time after there had been a split in the party that had been trailing Creech. Then it was too late for him to go back to investigate, even if that had been wise. He kept on, pondering, trying to decide whether or not he had been discovered and was now in danger of ambush ahead and pursuit from behind. He thought that possibly Cordts had split his party, one to trail along after Creech, the others to work around to head him off. Undoubtedly Cordts knew this broken canyon country and could tell where Creech was going, and knew how to intercept him.

The uncertainty wore heavily upon Slone. He grew desperate. He had no time to steal along cautiously. He must be the first to get to Creech. So he held to the trail and went as rapidly as the nature of the ground would permit, expecting to be shot at from any clump of cedars. The trail led down again into a narrow canyon with low walls. Slone put all his keenness on what lay before him.

Wildfire’s sudden break and upflinging of head and his snort preceded the crack of a rifle. Slone knew he had been shot at, although he neither felt nor heard the bullet. He had no chance to see where the shot came from, for Wildfire bolted, and needed as much holding and guiding as Slone could give. He ran a mile. Then Slone was able to look about him. Had he been shot at from above or behind? He could not tell. It did not matter, so long as the danger was not in front. He kept a sharp lookout, and presently along the right canyon rim, five hundred feet above him, he saw a bay horse, and a rider with a rifle. He had been wrong, then, about these riders and their weapons. Slone did not see any wisdom in halting to shoot up at this pursuer, and he spurred Wildfire just as a sharp crack sounded above. The bullet thudded into the earth a few feet behind him. And then over bad ground, with the stallion almost unmanageable, Slone ran a gantlet of shots. Evidently the man on the rim had smooth ground to ride over, for he easily kept abreast of Slone. But he could not get the range. Fortunately for Slone, broken ramparts above checked the tricks of that pursuer, and Slone saw no more of him.

It afforded him great relief to find that Creech’s trail turned into a canyon on the left; and here, with the sun already low, Slone began to watch the clumps of cedars and the jumbles of rock. But he was not ambushed. Darkness set in, and, being tired out, he was about to halt for the night when he caught the flicker of a campfire. The stallion saw it, too, but did not snort. Slone dismounted and, leading him, went cautiously forward on foot, rifle in hand.

The canyon widened at a point where two breaks occurred, and the less-restricted space was thick with cedar and pinyon. Slone could tell by the presence of these trees and also by a keener atmosphere that he was slowly getting to a higher attitude. This camp-fire must belong to Cordts or the one man who had gone on ahead. And Slone advanced boldly. He did not have to make up his mind what to do.

But he was amazed to see several dark forms moving to and fro before the bright camp-fire, and he checked himself abruptly. Considering a moment, Slone thought he had better have a look at these fellows. So he tied Wildfire and, taking to the darker side of the canyon, he stole cautiously forward.

The distance was considerable, as he had calculated. Soon, however, he made out the shadowy outlines of horses feeding in the open. He hugged the canyon wall for fear they might see him. As luck would have it the night breeze was in his favor. Stealthily he stole on, in the deep shadow of the wall, and under the cedars, until he came to a point opposite the camp-fire, and then he turned toward it. He went slowly, carefully, noiselessly, and at last he crawled through the narrow aisles between thick sage-brush. Another clump of cedars loomed up, and he saw the flickering of firelight upon the pale-green foliage.

He heard gruff voices before he raised himself to look, and by this he gauged his distance. He was close enough — almost too close. But as he crouched in dark shade and there were no horses near, he did not fear discovery.

When he peered out from his covert the first thing to strike and hold his rapid glance was the slight figure of a girl. Slone stifled a gasp in his throat. He thought he recognized Lucy. Stunned, he crouched down again with his hands clenched round his rifle. And there he remained for a long moment of agony before reason asserted itself over emotion. Had he really seen Lucy? He had heard of a girl now and then in the camps of these men, especially Cordts. Maybe Creech had fallen in with comrades. No, he could not have had any comrades there but horse-thieves, and Creech was above that. If Creech was there he had been held up by Cordts; if Lucy only was with the gang, Creech had been killed.

Slone had to force himself to look again. The girl had changed her position. But the light shone upon the men. Creech was not one of the three, nor Cordts, nor any man Slone had seen before. They were not honest men, judging from their hard, evil looks. Slone was nonplussed and he was losing self-control. Again he lowered himself and waited. He caught the word “Durango” and “hosses” and “fer enough in,” the meaning of which was, vague. Then the girl laughed. And Slone found himself trembling with joy. Beyond any doubt that laugh could not have been Lucy’s.

Slone stole back as he had come, reached the shadow of the wall, and drew away until he felt it safe to walk quickly. When he reached the place where he expected to find Wildfire he did not see him. Slone looked and looked. Perhaps he had misjudged distance and place in the gloom. Still, he never made mistakes of that nature. He searched around till he found the cedar stump to which he had tied the lasso. In the gloom he could not see it, and when he reached out he did not feel it. Wildfire was gone! Slone sank down, overcome. He cursed what must have been carelessness, though he knew he never was careless with a horse. What had happened? He did not know. But Wildfire was gone — and that meant Lucy’s doom and his! Slone shook with cold.

Then, as he leaned against the stump, wet and shaking, familiar sound met his ears. It was made by the teeth of a grazing horse — a slight, keen, tearing cut. Wildfire was close at hand! With a sweep Slone circled the stump and he found the knot of the lasso. He had missed it. He began to gather in the long rope, and soon felt the horse. In the black gloom against the wall Slone could not distinguish Wildfire.

“Whew!” he muttered, wiping the sweat off his face. “Good Lord! ... All for nothin’.”

It did not take Slone long to decide to lead the horse and work up the canyon past the campers. He must get ahead of them, and once there he had no fear of them, either by night or day. He really had no hopes of getting by undiscovered, and all he wished for was to get far enough so that he could not be intercepted. The grazing horses would scent Wildfire or he would scent them.

For a wonder Wildfire allowed himself to be led as well as if he had been old, faithful Nagger. Slone could not keep close in to the wall for very long, on account of the cedars, but he managed to stay in the outer edge of shadow cast by the wall. Wildfire winded the horses, halted, threw up his head. But for some reason beyond Slone the horse did not snort or whistle. As he knew Wildfire he could have believed him intelligent enough and hateful enough to betray his master.

It was one of the other horses that whistled an alarm. This came at a point almost even with the camp-fire. Slone, holding Wildfire down, had no time to get into a stirrup, but leaped to the saddle and let the horse go. There were hoarse yells and then streaks of fire and shots. Slone heard the whizz of heavy bullets, and he feared for Wildfire. But the horse drew swiftly away into the darkness. Slone could not see whether the ground was smooth or broken, and he left that to Wildfire. Luck favored them, and presently Slone pulled him in to a safe gait, and regretted only that he had not had a chance to take a shot at that camp.

Slone walked the horse for an hour, and then decided that he could well risk a halt for the night.

Before dawn he was up, warming his chilled body by violent movements, and forcing himself to eat.

The rim of the west wall changed from gray to pink. A mocking-bird burst into song. A coyote sneaked away from the light of day. Out in the open Slone found the trail made by Creech’s mustangs and by the horse of Cordts’s man. The latter could not be very far ahead. In less than an hour Slone came to a clump of cedars where this man had camped. An hour behind him!

This canyon was open, with a level and narrow floor divided by a deep wash. Slone put Wildfire to a gallop. The narrow wash was no obstacle to Wildfire; he did not have to be urged or checked. It was not long before Slone saw a horseman a quarter of a mile ahead, and he was discovered almost at the same time. This fellow showed both surprise and fear. He ran his horse. But in comparison with Wildfire that horse seemed sluggish. Slone would have caught up with him very soon but for a change in the lay of the land. The canyon split up and all of its gorges and ravines and washes headed upon the pine-fringed plateau, now only a few miles distant. The gait of the horses had to be reduced to a trot, and then a walk. The man Slone was after left Creech’s trail and took to a side cleft. Slone, convinced he would soon overhaul him, and then return to take up Creech’s trail, kept on in pursuit. Then Slone was compelled to climb. Wildfire was so superior to the other’s horse, and Slone was so keen at choosing ground and short cuts, that he would have been right upon him but for a split in the rock which suddenly yawned across his path. It was impassable. After a quick glance Slone abandoned the direct pursuit, and, turning along this gulch, he gained a point where the horse-thief would pass under the base of the rim-wall, and here Slone would have him within easy rifle shot.

And the man, intent on getting out of the canyon, rode into the trap, approaching to within a hundred yards of Slone, who suddenly showed himself on foot, rifle in hand. The deep gulch was a barrier to Slone’s further progress, but his rifle dominated the situation.

“Hold on!” he called, warningly.

“Hold on yerself!” yelled the other, aghast, as he halted his horse. He gazed down and evidently was quick to take in the facts.

Slone had meant to kill this man without even a word, yet now when the moment had come a feeling almost of sickness clouded his resolve. But he leveled the rifle.

“I got it on you,” he called.

“Reckon you hev. But see hyar—”

“I can hit you anywhere.”

“Wal, I’ll take yer word fer thet.”

“All right. Now talk fast.... Are you one of Cordts’s gang?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you alone?”

“We split down hyar.”

“Did you know I was on this trail?”

“Nope. I didn’t sure, or you’d never ketched me, red hoss or no.”

“Who were you trailin’?”

“Ole Creech an’ the girl he kidnapped.”

Slone felt the leap of his blood and the jerk it gave the rifle as his tense finger trembled on the trigger.

“Girl.... What girl?” he called, hoarsely.

“Bostil’s girl.”

“Why did Cordts split on the trail?”

“He an’ Hutch went round fer some more of the gang, an’ to head off Joel Creech when he comes in with Bostil’s hosses.”

Slone was amazed to find how the horse thieves had calculated; yet, on second thought, the situation, once the Creeches had been recognized, appeared simple enough.

“What was your game?” he demanded.

“I was follerin’ Creech jest to find out where he’d hole up with the girl.”

“What’s Cordts’s game — AFTER he heads Joel Creech?”

“Then he’s goin’ fer the girl.”

Slone scarcely needed to be told all this, but the deliberate words from the lips of one of Cordts’s gang bore a raw, brutal proof of Lucy’s peril. And yet Slone could not bring himself to kill this man in cold blood. He tried, but in vain.

“Have you got a gun?” called Slone, hoarsely.

“Sure.”

“Ride back the other way! ... If you don’t lose me I’ll kill you!”

The man stared. Slone saw the color return to his pale face. Then he turned his horse and rode back out of sight. Slone heard him rolling the stones down the long, rough slope; and when he felt sure the horse-thief had gotten a fair start he went back to mount Wildfire in pursuit.

This trailer of Lucy never got back to Lucy’s trail — never got away.

But Slone, when that day’s hard, deadly pursuit ended, found himself lost in the canyons. How bitterly he cursed both his weakness in not shooting the man at sight, and his strength in following him with implacable purpose! For to be fair, to give the horse-thief a chance for his life, Slone had lost Lucy’s trail. The fact nearly distracted him. He spent a sleepless night of torture.

All next day, like a wild man, he rode and climbed and descended, spurred by one purpose, pursued by suspense and dread. That night he tied Wildfire near water and grass and fell into the sleep of exhaustion.

Morning came. But with it no hope. He had been desperate. And now he was in a frightful state. It seemed that days and days had passed, and nights that were hideous with futile nightmares.

He rode down into a canyon with sloping walls, and broken, like all of these canyons under the great plateau. Every canyon resembled another. The upland was one vast network. The world seemed a labyrinth of canyons among which he was hopelessly lost. What would — what had become of Lucy? Every thought in his whirling brain led back to that — and it was terrible.

Then — he was gazing transfixed down upon the familiar tracks left by Creech’s mustangs. Days old, but still unfollowed!

CHAPTER XIX

THAT TRACK LED up the narrowing canyon to its head at the base of the plateau.

Slone, mindful of his horse, climbed on foot, halting at the zigzag turns to rest. A long, gradually ascending trail mounted the last slope, which when close at hand was not so precipitous as it appeared from below. Up there the wind, sucked out of the canyons, swooped and twisted hard.

At last Slone led Wildfire over the rim and halted for another breathing-spell. Before him was a beautiful, gently sloping stretch of waving grass leading up to the dark pine forest from which came a roar of wind. Beneath Slone the wild and whorled canyon breaks extended, wonderful in thousands of denuded surfaces, gold and red and yellow, with the smoky depths between.

Wildfire sniffed the wind and snorted. Slone turned, instantly alert. The wild horse had given an alarm. Like a flash Slone leaped into the saddle. A faint cry, away from the wind, startled Slone. It was like a cry he had heard in dreams. How overstrained his perceptions! He was not really sure of anything, yet on the instant he was tense.

Straggling cedars on his left almost wholly obstructed Slone’s view. Wildfire’s ears and nose were pointed that way. Slone trotted him down toward the edge of this cedar clump so that he could see beyond. Before he reached it, however, he saw something blue, moving, waving, lifting.

“Smoke!” muttered Slone. And he thought more of the danger of fire on that windy height than he did of another peril to himself.

Wildfire was hard to hold as he rounded the edge of the cedars.

Slone saw a line of leaping flame, a line of sweeping smoke, the grass on fire ... horses! — a man!

Wildfire whistled his ringing blast of hate and menace, his desert challenge to another stallion.

The man whirled to look.

Slone saw Joel Creech — and Sage King — and Lucy, half naked, bound on his back!

Joy, agony, terror in lightning-swift turns, paralyzed Slone. But Wildfire lunged out on the run.

Sage King reared in fright, came down to plunge away, and with a magnificent leap cleared the line of fire.

Slone, more from habit than thought, sat close in the saddle. A few of Wildfire’s lengthening strides, quickened Slone’s blood. Then Creech moved, also awaking from a stupefying surprise, and he snatched up a gun and fired. Slone saw the spurts of red, the puffs of white. But he heard nothing. The torrent of his changed blood, burning and terrible, filled his ears with hate and death.

He guided the running stallion. In a few tremendous strides Wildfire struck Creech, and Slone had one glimpse of an awful face. The impact was terrific. Creech went hurtling through the air, limp and broken, to go down upon a rock, his skull cracking like a melon.

The horse leaped over the body and the stone, and beyond he leaped the line of burning grass.

Slone saw the King running into the forest. He saw poor Lucy’s white body swinging with the horse’s motion. One glance showed the great gray to be running wild. Then the hate and passion cleared away, leaving suspense and terror.

Wildfire reached the pines. There down the open aisles between the black trees ran the fleet gray racer. Wildfire saw him and snorted. The King was a hundred yards to the fore.

“Wildfire — it’s come — the race — the race!” called Slone. But he could not hear his own call. There was a roar overhead, heavy, almost deafening. The wind! the wind! Yet that roar did not deaden a strange, shrieking crack somewhere behind. Wildfire leaped in fright. Slone turned. Fire had run up a pine-tree, which exploded as if the trunk were powder!

“MY GOD! A RACE WITH FIRE! ... LUCY! LUCY!”

In that poignant cry Slone uttered his realization of the strange fate that had waited for the inevitable race between Wildfire and the King; he uttered his despairing love for Lucy, and his acceptance of death for her and himself. No horse could outrun wind-driven fire in a dry pine forest. Slone had no hope of that. How perfectly fate and time and place and horses, himself and his sweetheart, had met! Slone damned Joel Creech’s insane soul to everlasting torment. To think — to think his idiotic and wild threat had come true — and come true with a gale in the pine-tops! Slone grew old at the thought, and the fact seemed to be a dream. But the dry, pine-scented air made breathing hard; the gray racer, carrying that slender, half-naked form, white in the forest shade, lengthened into his fleet and beautiful stride; the motion of Wildfire, so easy, so smooth, so swift, and the fierce reach of his head shooting forward — all these proved that it was no dream.

Tense questions pierced the dark chaos of Slone’s mind — what could he do? Run the King down! Make ‘him kill Lucy! Save her from horrible death by fire!

The red horse had not gained a yard on the gray. Slone, keen to judge distance, saw this, and for the first time he doubted Wildfire’s power to ran down the King. Not with such a lead! It was hopeless — so hopeless —

He turned to look back. He saw no fire, no smoke — only the dark trunks, and the massed green foliage in violent agitation against the blue sky. That revived a faint hope. If he could get a few miles ahead, before the fire began to leap across the pine-crests, then it might be possible to run out of the forest if it were not wide.

Then a stronger hope grew. It seemed that foot by foot Wildfire was gaining on the King. Slone studied the level forest floor sliding toward him. He lost his hope — then regained it again, and then he spurred the horse. Wildfire hated that as he hated Slone. But apparently he did not quicken his strides. And Slone could not tell if he lengthened them. He was not running near his limit but, after the nature of such a horse, left to choose his gait, running slowly, but rising toward his swiftest and fiercest.

Slone’s rider’s blood never thrilled to that race, for his blood had curdled. The sickness within rose to his mind. And that flashed up whenever he dared to look forward at Lucy’s white form. Slone could not bear this sight; it almost made him reel, yet he was driven to look. He saw that the King carried no saddle, so with Lucy on him he was light. He ought to run all day with only that weight. Wildfire carried a heavy saddle, a pack, a water bag, and a rifle. Slone untied the pack and let it drop. He almost threw aside the water-bag, but something withheld his hand, and also he kept his rifle. What were a few more pounds to this desert stallion in his last run? Slone knew it was Wildfire’s greatest and last race.

Suddenly Slone’s ears rang with a terrible on-coming roar. For an instant the unknown sound stiffened him, robbed him of strength. Only the horn of the saddle, hooking into him, held him on. Then the years of his desert life answered to a call more than human.

He had to race against fire. He must beat the flame to the girl he loved. There were miles of dry forest, like powder. Fire backed by a heavy gale could rage through dry pine faster than any horse could run. He might fail to save Lucy. Fate had given him a bitter ride. But he swore a grim oath that he would beat the flame. The intense and abnormal rider’s passion in him, like Bostil’s, dammed up, but never fully controlled, burst within him, and suddenly he awoke to a wild and terrible violence of heart and soul. He had accepted death; he had no fear. All that he wanted to do, the last thing he wanted to do, was to ride down the King and kill Lucy mercifully. How he would have gloried to burn there in the forest, and for a million years in the dark beyond, to save the girl!

He goaded the horse. Then he looked back.

Through the aisles of the forest he saw a strange, streaky, murky something moving, alive, shifting up and down, never an instant the same. It must have been the wind — the heat before the fire. He seemed to see through it, but there was nothing beyond, only opaque, dim, mustering clouds. Hot puffs shot forward into his face. His eyes smarted and stung. His ears hurt and were growing deaf. The tumult was the rear of avalanches, of maelstroms, of rushing seas, of the wreck of the uplands and the ruin of the earth. It grew to be so great a roar that he no longer heard. There was only silence.

And he turned to face ahead. The stallion stretched low on a dead run; the tips of the pines were bending before the wind; and Wildfire, the terrible thing for which his horse was named, was leaping through the forest. But there was no sound.

Ahead of Slone, down the aisles, low under the trees spreading over the running King, floated swiftly some medium, like a transparent veil. It was neither smoke nor air. It carried faint pin points of light, sparks, that resembled atoms of dust floating in sunlight. It was a wave of heat driven before the storm of fire. Slone did not feel pain, but he seemed to be drying up, parching. And Lucy must be suffering now. He goaded the stallion, raking his flanks. Wildfire answered with a scream and a greater speed. All except Lucy and Sage King and Wildfire seemed so strange and unreal — the swift rush between the pines, now growing ghostly in the dimming light, the sense of a pursuing, overpowering force, and yet absolute silence.

Slone fought the desire to look back. But he could not resist it. Some horrible fascination compelled him. All behind had changed. A hot wind, like a blast from a furnace, blew light, stinging particles into his face. The fire was racing in the tree-tops, while below all was yet clear. A lashing, leaping flame engulfed the canopy of pines. It was white, seething, inconceivably swift, with a thousand flashing tongues. It traveled ahead of smoke. It was so thin he could see the branches through it, and the fiery clouds behind. It swept onward, a sublime and an appalling spectacle. Slone could not think of what it looked like. It was fire, liberated, freed from the bowels of the earth, tremendous, devouring. This, then, was the meaning of fire. This, then, was the horrible fate to befall Lucy.

But no! He thought he must be insane not to be overcome in spirit. Yet he was not. He would beat the flame to Lucy. He felt the loss of something, some kind of a sensation which he ought to have had. Still he rode that race to kill his sweetheart better than any race he had ever before ridden. He kept his seat; he dodged the snags; he pulled the maddened horse the shortest way, he kept the King running straight.

No horse had ever run so magnificent a race! Wildfire was outracing wind and fire, and he was overhauling the most noted racer of the uplands against a tremendous handicap. But now he was no longer racing to kill the King; he was running in terror. For miles he held that long, swift, wonderful stride without a break. He was running to his death, whether or not he distanced the fire. Nothing could stop him now but a bursting heart.

Slone untied his lasso and coiled the noose. Almost within reach of the King! One throw — one sudden swerve — and the King would go down. Lucy would know only a stunning shock. Slone’s heart broke. Could he kill her — crush that dear golden head? He could not, yet he must! He saw a long, curved, red welt on Lucy’s white shoulders. What was that? Had a branch lashed her? Slone could not see her face. She could not have been dead or in a faint, for she was riding the King, bound as she was!

Closer and closer drew Wildfire. He seemed to go faster and faster as that wind of flame gained upon them. The air was too thick to breathe. It had an irresistible weight. It pushed horses and riders onward in their flight — straws on the crest of a cyclone.

Again Slone looked back and again the spectacle was different. There was a white and golden fury of flame above, beautiful and blinding; and below, farther back, an inferno of glowing fire, black-streaked, with trembling, exploding puffs and streams of yellow smoke. The aisles between the burning pines were smoky, murky caverns, moving and weird. Slone saw fire shoot from the tree-tops down the trunks, and he saw fire shoot up the trunks, like trains of powder. They exploded like huge rockets. And along the forest floor leaped the little flames. His eyes burned and blurred till all merged into a wide, pursuing storm too awful for the gaze of man.

Wildfire was running down the King. The great gray had not lessened his speed, but he was breaking. Slone felt a ghastly triumph when he began to whirl the noose of the lasso round his head. Already he was within range. But he held back his throw which meant the end of all. And as he hesitated Wildfire suddenly whistled one shrieking blast.

Slone looked. Ahead there was light through the forest! Slone saw a white, open space of grass. A park? No — the end of the forest! Wildfire, like a demon, hurtled onward, with his smoothness of action gone, beginning to break, within a length of the King.

A cry escaped Slone — a cry as silent as if there had been no deafening roar — as wild as the race, and as terrible as the ruthless fire. It was the cry of life — instead of death. Both Sage King and Wildfire would beat the flame.

Then, with the open just ahead, Slone felt a wave of hot wind rolling over him. He saw the lashing tongues of flame above him in the pines. The storm had caught him. It forged ahead. He was riding under a canopy of fire. Burning pine cones, like torches, dropped all around him. He had a terrible blank sense of weight, of suffocation, of the air turning to fire.

Then Wildfire, with his nose at Sage King’s flank, flashed out of the pines into the open. Slone saw a grassy wide reach inclining gently toward a dark break in the ground with crags rising sheer above it, and to the right a great open space.

Slone felt that clear air as the breath of deliverance. His reeling sense righted. There — the King ran, blindly going to his death. Wildfire was breaking fast. His momentum carried him. He was almost done.

Slone roped the King, and holding hard, waited for the end. They ran on, breaking, breaking. Slone thought he would have to throw the King, for they were perilously near the deep cleft in the rim. But Sage King went to his knees.

Slone leaped off just as Wildfire fell. How the blade flashed that released Lucy! She was wet from the horse’s sweat and foam. She slid off into Slone’s arms, and he called her name. Could she hear above that roar back there in the forest? The pieces of rope hung to her wrists and Slone saw dark bruises, raw and bloody. She fell against him. Was she dead? His heart contracted. How white the face! No; he saw her breast heave against his! And he cried aloud, incoherently in his joy. She was alive. She was not badly hurt. She stirred. She plucked at him with nerveless hands. She pressed close to him. He heard a smothered voice, yet so full, so wonderful!

“Put — your — coat — on me!” came somehow to his ears.

Slone started violently. Abashed, shamed to realize he had forgotten she was half nude, he blindly tore off his coat, blindly folded it around her.

“Lin! Lin!” she cried.

“Lucy — Oh! are y-you—” he replied, huskily.

“I’m not hurt. I’m all right.”

“But that wretch, Joel. He—”

“He’d killed his father — just a — minute — before you came. I fought him! Oh! ... But I’m all right.... Did you—”

“Wildfire ran him down — smashed him.... Lucy! this can’t be true.... Yet I feel you! Thank God!”

With her free hand Lucy returned his clasp. She seemed to be strong. It was a precious moment for Slone, in which he was uplifted beyond all dreams.

“Let me loose — a second,” she said. “I want to — get in your coat.”

She laughed as he released her. She laughed! And Slone thrilled with unutterable sweetness at that laugh.

As he turned away he felt a swift wind, then a strange impact from an invisible force that staggered him, then the rend of flesh. After that came the heavy report of a gun.

Slone fell. He knew he had been shot. Following the rending of his flesh came a hot agony. It was in his shoulder, high up, and the dark, swift fear for his life was checked.

Lucy stood staring down at him, unable to comprehend, slowly paling. Her hands clasped the coat round her. Slone saw her, saw the edge of streaming clouds of smoke above her, saw on the cliff beyond the gorge two men, one with a smoking gun half leveled.

If Slone had been inattentive to his surroundings before, the sight of Cordts electrified him.

“Lucy! drop down! quick!”

“Oh, what’s happened? You — you—”

“I’ve been shot. Drop down, I tell you. Get behind the horse an’ pull my rifle.”

“Shot!” exclaimed Lucy, blankly.

“Yes — Yes.... My God! Lucy, he’s goin’ to shoot again!”

It was then Lucy Bostil saw Cordts across the gulch. He was not fifty yards distant, plainly recognizable, tall, gaunt, sardonic. He held the half-leveled gun ready as if waiting. He had waited there in ambush. The clouds of smoke rolled up above him, hiding the crags.

“CORDTS!” Bostil’s blood spoke in the girl’s thrilling cry.

“Hunch down, Lucy!” cried Slone. “Pull my rifle.... I’m only winged — not hurt. Hurry! He’s goin’—”

Another heavy report interrupted Slone. The bullet missed, but Slone made a pretense, a convulsive flop, as if struck.

“Get the rifle! Quick!” he called.

But Lucy misunderstood his ruse to deceive Cordts. She thought he had been hit again. She ran to the fallen Wildfire and jerked the rifle from its sheath.

Cordts had begun to climb round a ledge, evidently a short cut to get down and across. Hutchinson saw the rifle and yelled to Cordts. The horse-thief halted, his dark face gleaming toward Lucy.

When Lucy rose the coat fell from her nude shoulders. And Slone, watching, suddenly lost his agony of terror for her and uttered a pealing cry of defiance and of rapture.

She swept up the rifle. It wavered. Hutchinson was above, and Cordts, reaching up, yelled for help. Hutchinson was reluctant. But the stronger force dominated. He leaned down — clasped Cordts’s outstretched hands, and pulled. Hutchinson bawled out hoarsely. Cordts turned what seemed a paler face. He had difficulty on the slight footing. He was slow.

Slone tried to call to Lucy to shoot low, but his lips had drawn tight after his one yell. Slone saw her white, rounded shoulders bent, with cold, white face pressed against the rifle, with slim arms quivering and growing tense, with the tangled golden hair blowing out.

Then she shot.

Slone’s glance shifted. He did not see the bullet strike up dust. The figures of the men remained the same — Hutchinson straining, Cordts.... No, Cordts was not the same! A strange change seemed manifest in his long form. It did not seem instinct with effort. Yet it moved.

Hutchinson also was acting strangely, yelling, heaving, wrestling. But he could not help Cordts. He lifted violently, raised Cordts a little, and then appeared to be in peril of losing his balance.

Cordts leaned against the cliff. Then it dawned upon Slone that Lucy had hit the horse-thief. Hard hit! He would not — he could not let go of Hutchinson. His was a death clutch. The burly Hutchinson slipped from his knee-hold, and as he moved Cordts swayed, his feet left the ledge, he hung, upheld only by the tottering comrade.

What a harsh and terrible cry from Hutchinson! He made one last convulsive effort and it doomed him. Slowly he lost his balance. Cordts’s dark, evil, haunting face swung round. Both men became lax and plunged, and separated. The dust rose from the rough steps. Then the dark forms shot down — Cordts falling sheer and straight, Hutchinson headlong, with waving arms — down and down, vanishing in the depths. No sound came up. A little column of yellow dust curled from the fatal ledge and, catching the wind above, streamed away into the drifting clouds of smoke.

CHAPTER XX

A DARKNESS, LIKE the streaming clouds overhead, seemed to blot out Slone’s sight, and then passed away, leaving it clearer.

Lucy was bending over him, binding a scarf round his shoulder and under his arm. “Lin! It’s nothing!” she was saying, earnestly. “Never touched a bone!”

Slone sat up. The smoke was clearing away. Little curves of burning grass were working down along the rim. He put out a hand to grasp Lucy, remembering in a flash. He pointed to the ledge across the chasm.

“They’re — gone!” cried Lucy, with a strange and deep note in her voice. She shook violently. But she did not look away from Slone.

“Wildfire! The King!” he added, hoarsely.

“Both where they dropped. Oh, I’m afraid to — to look.... And, Lin, I saw Sarch, Two Face, and Ben and Plume go down there.”

She had her back to the chasm where the trail led down, and she pointed without looking.

Slone got up, a little unsteady on his feet and conscious of a dull pain.

“Sarch will go straight home, and the others will follow him,” said Lucy. “They got away here where Joel came up the trail. The fire chased them out of the woods. Sarch will go home. And that’ll fetch the riders.”

“We won’t need them if only Wildfire and the King—” Slone broke off and grimly, with a catch in his breath, turned to the horses.

How strange that Slone should run toward the King while Lucy ran to Wildfire!

Sage King was a beaten, broken horse, but he would live to run another race.

Lucy was kneeling beside Wildfire, sobbing and crying: “Wildfire! Wildfire!”

All of Wildfire was white except where he was red, and that red was not now his glossy, flaming skin. A terrible muscular convulsion as of internal collapse grew slower and slower. Yet choked, blinded, dying, killed on his feet, Wildfire heard Lucy’s voice.

“Oh, Lin! Oh, Lin!” moaned Lucy.

While they knelt there the violent convulsions changed to slow heaves.

“He run the King down — carryin’ weight — with a long lead to overcome!” Slone muttered, and he put a shaking hand on the horse’s wet neck.

“Oh, he beat the King!” cried Lucy. “But you mustn’t — you CAN’T tell Dad!”

“What CAN we tell him?”

“Oh, I know. Old Creech told me what to say!”

A change, both of body and spirit, seemed to pass over the great stallion.

“WILDFIRE! WILDFIRE!”

Again the rider called to his horse, with a low and piercing cry. But Wildfire did not hear.

The morning sun glanced brightly over the rippling sage which rolled away from the Ford like a gray sea.

Bostil sat on his porch, a stricken man. He faced the blue haze of the north, where days before all that he had loved had vanished. Every day, from sunrise till sunset, he had been there, waiting and watching. His riders were grouped near him, silent, awed by his agony, awaiting orders that never came.

From behind a ridge puffed up a thin cloud of dust. Bostil saw it and gave a start. Above the sage appeared a bobbing, black object — the head of a horse. Then the big black body followed.

“Sarch!” exclaimed Bostil.

With spurs clinking the riders ran and trooped behind him.

“More hosses back,” said Holley, quietly.

“Thar’s Plume!” exclaimed Farlane.

“An’ Two Face!” added Van.

“Dusty Ben!” said another.

“RIDERLESS!” finished Bostil.

Then all were intensely quiet, watching the racers come trotting in single file down the ridge. Sarchedon’s shrill neigh, like a whistle-blast, pealed in from the sage. From, fields and corrals clamored the answer attended by the clattering of hundreds of hoofs.

Sarchedon and his followers broke from trot to canter — canter to gallop — and soon were cracking their hard hoofs on the stony court. Like a swarm of bees the riders swooped down upon the racers, caught them, and led them up to Bostil.

On Sarchedon’s neck showed a dry, dust-caked stain of reddish tinge. Holley, the old hawk-eyed rider, had precedence in the examination.

“Wal, thet’s a bullet-mark, plain as day,” said Holley.

“Who shot him?” demanded Bostil.

Holley shook his gray head.

“He smells of smoke,” put in Farlane, who had knelt at the black’s legs. “He’s been runnin’ fire. See thet! Fetlocks all singed!”

All the riders looked, and then with grave, questioning eyes at one another.

“Reckon thar’s been hell!” muttered Holley, darkly.

Some of the riders led the horses away toward the corrals. Bostil wheeled to face the north again. His brow was lowering; his cheek was pale and sunken; his jaw was set.

The riders came and went, but Bostil kept his vigil. The hours passed. Afternoon came and wore on. The sun lost its brightness and burned red.

Again dust-clouds, now like reddened smoke, puffed over the ridge. A horse carrying a dark, thick figure appeared above the sage.

Bostil leaped up. “Is thet a gray hoss — or am — I blind?” he called, unsteadily.

The riders dared not answer. They must be sure. They gazed through narrow slits of eyelids; and the silence grew intense.

Holley shaded the hawk eyes with his hand. “Gray he is — Bostil — gray as the sage.... AN’ SO HELP ME GOD IF HE AIN’T THE KING!”

“Yes, it’s the King!” cried the riders, excitedly. “Sure! I reckon! No mistake about thet! It’s the King!”

Bostil shook his huge frame, and he rubbed his eyes as if they had become dim, and he stared again.

“Who’s thet up on him?”

“Slone. I never seen his like on a hoss,” replied Holley.

“An’ what’s — he packin’?” queried Bostil, huskily.

Plain to all keen eyes was the glint of Lucy Bostil’s golden hair. But only Holley had courage to speak.

“It’s Lucy! I seen thet long ago.”

A strange, fleeting light of joy died out of Bostil’s face. The change once more silenced his riders. They watched the King trotting in from the sage. His head drooped. He seemed grayer than ever and he limped. But he was Sage King, splendid as of old, all the more gladdening to the riders’ eyes because he had been lost. He came on, quickening a little to the clamoring welcome from the corrals.

Holley put out a swift hand. “Bostil — the girl’s alive — she’s smilin’!” he called, and the cool voice was strangely different.

The riders waited for Bostil. Slone rode into the courtyard. He was white and weary, reeling in the saddle. A bloody scarf was bound round his shoulder. He held Lucy in his arms. She had on his coat. A wan smile lighted her haggard face.

Bostil, cursing deep, like muttering thunder, strode out. “Lucy! You ain’t bad hurt?” he implored, in a voice no one had ever heard before.

“I’m — all right — Dad,” she said, and slipped down into his arms.

He kissed the pale face and held her up like a child, and then, carrying her to the door of the house, he roared for Aunt Jane.

When he reappeared the crowd of riders scattered from around Slone. But it seemed that Bostil saw only the King. The horse was caked with dusty lather, scratched and disheveled, weary and broken, yet he was still beautiful. He raised his drooping head and reached for his master with a look as soft and dark and eloquent as a woman’s.

No rider there but felt Bostil’s passion of doubt and hope. Had the King been beaten? Bostil’s glory and pride were battling with love. Mighty as that was, it did not at once overcome his fear of defeat.

Slowly the gaze of Bostil moved away from Sage King and roved out to the sage and back, as if he expected to see another horse. But no other horse was in sight. At last his hard eyes rested upon the white-faced Slone.

“Been some — hard ridin’?” he queried, haltingly. All there knew that had not been the question upon his lips.

“Pretty hard — yes,” replied Slone. He was weary, yet tight-lipped, intense.

“Now — them Creeches?” slowly continued Bostil.

“Dead.”

A murmur ran through the listening riders, and they drew closer.

“Both of them?”

“Yes. Joel killed his father, fightin’ to get Lucy.... An’ I ran — Wildfire over Joel — smashed him!”

“Wal, I’m sorry for the old man,” replied Bostil, gruffly. “I meant to make up to him.... But thet fool boy! ... An’ Slone — you’re all bloody.”

He stepped forward and pulled the scarf aside. He was curious and kindly, as if it was beyond him to be otherwise. Yet that dark cold something, almost sullen clung round him.

“Been bored, eh? Wal, it ain’t low, an’ thet’s good. Who shot you?”

“Cordts.”

“CORDTS!” Bostil leaned forward in sudden, fierce eagerness.

“Yes, Cordts.... His outfit run across Creech’s trail an’ we bunched. I can’t tell now.... But we had — hell! An’ Cordts is dead — so’s Hutch — an’ that other pard of his.... Bostil, they’ll never haunt your sleep again!”

Slone finished with a strange sternness that seemed almost bitter.

Bostil raised both his huge fists. The blood was bulging his thick neck. It was another kind of passion that obsessed him. Only some violent check to his emotion prevented him from embracing Slone. The huge fists unclenched and the big fingers worked.

“You mean to tell me you did fer Cordts an’ Hutch what you did fer Sears?” he boomed out.

“They’re dead — gone, Bostil — honest to God!” replied Slone.

Holley thrust a quivering, brown hand into Bostil’s face. “What did I tell you?” he shouted. “Didn’t I say wait?”

Bostil threw away all that deep fury of passion, and there seemed only a resistless and speechless admiration left. Then ensued a moment of silence. The riders watched Slone’s weary face as it drooped, and Bostil, as he loomed over him.

“Where’s the red stallion?” queried Bostil. That was the question hard to get out.

Slone raised eyes dark with pain, yet they flashed as he looked straight up into Bostil’s face. “Wildfire’s dead!”

“DEAD!” ejaculated Bostil.

Another moment of strained exciting suspense.

“Shot?” he went on.

“No.”

“What killed him?”

“The King, sir! ... Killed him on his feet!”

Bostil’s heavy jaw bulged and quivered. His hand shook as he laid it on Sage King’s mane — the first touch since the return of his favorite.

“Slone — what — is it?” he said, brokenly, with voice strangely softened. His face became transfigured.

“Sage King killed Wildfire on his feet.... A grand race, Bostil! ... But Wildfire’s dead — an’ here’s the King! Ask me no more. I want to forget.”

Bostil put his arm around the young man’s shoulder. “Slone, if I don’t know what you feel fer the loss of thet grand hoss, no rider on earth knows! ... Go in the house. Boys, take him in — all of you — an’ look after him.”

Bostil wanted to be alone, to welcome the King, to lead him back to the home corral, perhaps to hide from all eyes the change and the uplift that would forever keep him from wronging another man.

The late rains came and like magic, in a few days, the sage grew green and lustrous and fresh, the gray turning to purple.

Every morning the sun rose white and hot in a blue and cloudless sky. And then soon the horizon line showed creamy clouds that rose and spread and darkened. Every afternoon storms hung along the ramparts and rainbows curved down beautiful and ethereal. The dim blackness of the storm-clouds was split to the blinding zigzag of lightning, and the thunder rolled and boomed, like the Colorado in flood.

The wind was fragrant, sage-laden, no longer dry and hot, but cool in the shade.

Slone and Lucy never rode down so far as the stately monuments, though these held memories as hauntingly sweet as others were poignantly bitter. Lucy never rode the King again. But Slone rode him, learned to love him. And Lucy did not race any more. When Slone tried to stir in her the old spirit all the response he got was a wistful shake of head or a laugh that hid the truth or an excuse that the strain on her ankles from Joel Creech’s lasso had never mended. The girl was unutterably happy, but it was possible that she would never race a horse again.

She rode Sarchedon, and she liked to trot or lope along beside Slone while they linked hands and watched the distance. But her glance shunned the north, that distance which held the wild canyons and the broken battlements and the long, black, pine-fringed plateau.

“Won’t you ever ride with me, out to the old camp, where I used to wait for you?” asked Slone.

“Some day,” she said, softly.

“When?”

“When — when we come back from Durango,” she replied, with averted eyes and scarlet cheek. And Slone was silent, for that planned trip to Durango, with its wonderful gift to be, made his heart swell.

And so on this rainbow day, with storms all around them, and blue sky above, they rode only as far as the valley. But from there, before they turned to go back, the monuments appeared close, and they loomed grandly with the background of purple bank and creamy cloud and shafts of golden lightning. They seemed like sentinels — guardians of a great and beautiful love born under their lofty heights, in the lonely silence of day, in the star-thrown shadow of night. They were like that love. And they held Lucy and Slone, calling every day, giving a nameless and tranquil content, binding them true to love, true to the sage and the open, true to that wild upland home.

THE END

The Up Trail

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

...When I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes; how at each stage of the construction roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, gambling, drinking, quarreling, and murdering like wolves; and then when I go on to remember that all this epical turmoil was conducted by gentlemen in frock-coats, with a view to nothing more extraordinary than a fortune and a subsequent visit to Paris — it seems to me as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live, as if it brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of social rank, and offered to some great writer the busiest, the most extended, and the most varied subject for an enduring literary work. If it be romance, if it be contrast, if it be heroism that we require, what was Troy to this?

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

In ACROSS THE PLAINS

CHAPTER 1

IN THE EARLY sixties a trail led from the broad Missouri, swirling yellow and turgid between its green-groved borders, for miles and miles out upon the grassy Nebraska plains, turning westward over the undulating prairie, with its swales and billows and long, winding lines of cottonwoods, to a slow, vast heave of rising ground — Wyoming — where the herds of buffalo grazed and the wolf was lord and the camp-fire of the trapper sent up its curling blue smoke from beside some lonely stream; on and on over the barren lands of eternal monotony, all so gray and wide and solemn and silent under the endless sky; on, ever on, up to the bleak, black hills and into the waterless gullies and through the rocky gorges where the deer browsed and the savage lurked; then slowly rising to the pass between the great bold peaks, and across the windy uplands into Utah, with its verdant valleys, green as emeralds, and its haze-filled canons and wonderful wind-worn cliffs and walls, and its pale salt lakes, veiled in the shadows of stark and lofty rocks, dim, lilac-colored, austere, and isolated; ever onward across Nevada, and ever westward, up from desert to mountain, up into California, where the white streams rushed and roared and the stately pines towered, and seen from craggy heights, deep down, the little blue lakes gleamed like gems; finally sloping to the great descent, where the mountain world ceased and where, out beyond the golden land, asleep and peaceful, stretched the illimitable Pacific, vague and grand beneath the setting sun.

CHAPTER 2

DEEP IN THE Wyoming hills lay a valley watered by a stream that ran down from Cheyenne Pass; a band of Sioux Indians had an encampment there. Viewed from the summit of a grassy ridge, the scene was colorful and idle and quiet, in keeping with the lonely, beautiful valley. Cottonwoods and willows showed a bright green; the course of the stream was marked in dark where the water ran, and light where the sand had bleached; brown and black dots scattered over the valley were in reality grazing horses; lodge-pole tents gleamed white in the sun, and tiny bits of red stood out against the white; lazy wreaths of blue smoke rose upward.

The Wyoming hills were split by many such valleys and many such bare, grassy ridges sloped up toward the mountains. Upon the side of one ridge, the highest, there stood a solitary mustang, haltered with a lasso. He was a ragged, shaggy, wild beast, and there was no saddle or bridle on him, nothing but the halter. He was not grazing, although the bleached white grass grew long and thick under his hoofs. He looked up the slope, in a direction indicated by his pointing ears, and watched a wavering movement of the long grass.

It was wild up on that ridge, bare of everything except grass, and the strange wavering had a nameless wildness in its motion. No stealthy animal accounted for that trembling — that forward undulating quiver. It wavered on to the summit of the ridge.

What a wide and wonderful prospect opened up to view from this lofty point! Ridge after ridge sloped up to the Wyoming hills, and these in turn raised their bleak, dark heads toward the mountains, looming pale and gray, with caps of snow, in the distance. Out beyond the ridges, indistinct in the glare, stretched an illimitable expanse, gray and dull — that was the prairie-land. An eagle, lord of all he surveyed, sailed round and round in the sky.

Below this grassy summit yawned a valley, narrow and long, losing itself by turns to distant east and west; and through it ran a faint, white, winding line which was the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail.

There came a moment when the wavering in the grass ceased on the extreme edge of the slope. Then it parted to disclose the hideous visage of a Sioux Indian in war paint. His dark, piercing, malignant glance was fixed upon the St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. His half-naked body rested at ease; a rifle lay under his hand.

There he watched while the hours passed. The sun moved on in its course until it tipped the peaks with rose. Far down the valley black and white objects appeared, crawling round the bend. The Indian gave an almost imperceptible start, but there was no change in his expression. He watched as before.

These moving objects grew to be oxen and prairie-schooners — a small caravan traveling east. It wound down the trail and halted in a circle on the bank of a stream.

The Indian scout slid backward, and the parted grass, slowly closing, hid from his dark gaze the camp scene below. He wormed his way back well out of sight; then rising, he ran over the summit of the ridge to leap upon his mustang and ride wildly down the slope.

CHAPTER 3

BILL HORN, LEADER of that caravan, had a large amount of gold which he was taking back East. No one in his party, except a girl, knew that he had the fortune.

Horn had gone West at the beginning of the gold strikes, but it was not until ‘53 that any success attended his labors. Later he struck it rich, and in 1865, as soon as the snow melted on the mountain passes, he got together a party of men and several women and left Sacramento. He was a burly miner, bearded and uncouth, of rough speech and taciturn nature, and absolutely fearless.

At Ogden, Utah, he had been advised not to attempt to cross the Wyoming hills with so small a party, for the Sioux Indians had gone on the war-path.

Horn was leading his own caravan and finding for himself the trail that wound slowly eastward. He did not have a scout or hunter with him. Eastward-traveling caravans were wont to be small and poorly outfitted, for only the homesick, the failures, the wanderers, and the lawless turned their faces from the Golden State. At the start Horn had eleven men, three women, and the girl. On the way he had killed one of the men; and another, together with his wife, had yielded to persuasion of friends at Ogden and had left the party. So when Horn halted for camp one afternoon in a beautiful valley in the Wyoming hills there were only nine men with him.

On a long journey through wild country strangers grow close together or far apart. Bill Horn did not think much of the men who had accepted the chance he offered them, and daily he grew more aloof. They were not a responsible crowd, and the best he could get out of them was the driving of oxen and camp chores indifferently done. He had to kill the meat and find the water and keep the watch. Upon entering the Wyoming hills region Horn showed a restlessness and hurry and anxiety. This in no wise affected the others. They continued to be aimless and careless as men who had little to look forward to.

This beautiful valley offered everything desirable for a camp site except natural cover or protection in case of attack. But Horn had to take the risk. The oxen were tired, the wagons had to be greased, and it was needful to kill meat. Here was an abundance of grass, a clear brook, wood for camp-fires, and sign of game on all sides.

“Haul round — make a circle!” Horn ordered the drivers of the oxen.

This was the first time he had given this particular order, and the men guffawed or grinned as they hauled the great, clumsy prairie-schooners into a circle. The oxen were unhitched; the camp duffle piled out; the ring of axes broke the stillness; fires were started.

Horn took his rifle and strode away up the brook to disappear in the green brush of a ravine.

It was early in the evening, with the sun not yet out of sight behind a lofty ridge that topped the valley slope. High grass, bleached white, shone brightly on the summit. Soon several columns of blue smoke curled lazily aloft until, catching the wind high up, they were swept away. Meanwhile the men talked at their tasks.

“Say, pard, did you come along this here Laramie Trail goin’ West?” asked one.

“Nope. I hit the Santa Fe Trail,” was the reply.

“How about you, Jones?”

“Same fer me.”

“Wal,” said another, “I went round to California by ship, an’ I’d hev been lucky to drown.”

“An’ now we’re all goin’ back poorer than when we started,” remarked a third.

“Pard, you’ve said somethin’.”

“Wal, I seen a heap of gold, if I didn’t find any.”

“Jones, has this here Bill Horn any gold with him?”

“He acts like it,” answered Jones. “An’ I heerd he struck it rich out thar.”

The men appeared divided in their opinions of Bill Horn. From him they drifted to talk of possible Indian raids and scouted the idea; then they wondered if the famous Pony Express had been over this Laramie Trail; finally they got on the subject of a rumored railroad to be built from East to West.

“No railroad can’t be built over this trail,” said Jones, bluntly.

“Sure not. But couldn’t more level ground be dug?” asked another.

“Dug? Across them Utah deserts an’ up them mountains? Hell! Men sure hev more sense than thet,” exclaimed the third.

And so they talked and argued at their tasks.

The women, however, had little to say. One, the wife of the loquacious Jones, lived among past associations of happy years that would not come again — a sober-faced, middle-aged woman. The other woman was younger, and her sad face showed traces of a former comeliness. They called her Mrs. Durade. The girl was her daughter Allie. She appeared about fifteen years old, and was slight of form. Her face did not seem to tan. It was pale. She looked tired, and was shy and silent, almost ashamed. She had long, rich, chestnut-colored hair which she wore in a braid. Her eyes were singularly large and dark, and violet in color.

“It’s a long, long way we are from home yet,” sighed Mrs. Jones.

“You call East home!” replied Mrs. Durade, bitterly.

“For land’s sake! Yes, I do,” exclaimed the other. “If there was a home in that California, I never saw it. Tents and log cabins and mud-holes! Such places for a woman to live. Oh, I hated that California! A lot of wild men, all crazy for gold. Gold that only a few could find and none could keep!... I pray every night to live to get back home.”

Mrs. Durade had no reply; she gazed away over the ridges toward the east with a haunting shadow in her eyes.

Just then a rifle-shot sounded from up in the ravine. The men paused in their tasks and looked at one another. Then reassured by this exchange of glances, they fell to work again. But the women cast apprehensive eyes around. There was no life in sight except the grazing oxen. Presently Horn appeared carrying a deer slung over his shoulders.

Allie ran to meet him. She and Horn were great friends. To her alone was he gentle and kind. She saw him pause at the brook, then drop the deer carcass and bend over the ground, as if to search for something. When Allie reached his side he was on his knees examining a moccasin print in the sand.

“An Indian track!” exclaimed Allie.

“Allie, it sure ain’t anythin’ else,” he replied. “Thet is what I’ve been lookin’ fer.... A day old — mebbe more.”

“Uncle Bill, is there any danger?” she asked, fearfully gazing up the slope.

“Lass, we’re in the Wyoming hills, an’ I wish to the Lord we was out,” he answered.

Then he picked up the deer carcass, a heavy burden, and slung it, hoofs in front, over his shoulders.

“Let me carry your gun,” said Allie.

They started toward camp.

“Lass, listen,” began Horn, earnestly. “Mebbe there’s no need to fear. But I don’t like Injun tracks. Not these days. Now I’m goin’ to scare this lazy outfit. Mebbe thet’ll make them rustle. But don’t you be scared.”

In camp the advent of fresh venison was hailed with satisfaction.

“Wal, I’ll gamble the shot thet killed this meat was heerd by Injuns,” blurted out Horn, as he deposited his burden on the grass and whipped out his hunting-knife. Then he glared at the outfit of men he had come to despise.

“Horn, I reckon you ‘pear more set up about Injuns than usual,” remarked Jones.

“Fresh Sioux track right out thar along the brook.”

“No!”

“Sioux!” exclaimed another.

“Go an’ look fer yourself.”

Not a man of them moved a step. Horn snorted his disdain and without more talk began to dress the deer.

Meanwhile the sun set behind the ridge and the day seemed far spent. The evening meal of the travelers was interrupted when Horn suddenly leaped up and reached for his rifle.

“Thet’s no Injun, but I don’t like the looks of how he’s comin’.”

All gazed in the direction in which Horn pointed. A horse and rider were swiftly approaching down the trail from the west. Before any of the startled campers recovered from their surprise the horse reached the camp. The rider hauled up short, but did not dismount.

“Hello!” he called. The man was not young. He had piercing gray eyes and long hair. He wore fringed gray buckskin, and carried a long, heavy, muzzle-loading rifle.

“I’m Slingerland — trapper in these hyar parts,” he went on, with glance swiftly taking in the group. “Who’s boss of this caravan?”

“I am — Bill Horn,” replied the leader, stepping out.

“Thar’s a band of Sioux redskins on your trail.”

Horn lifted his arms high. The other men uttered exclamations of amaze and dread. The women were silent.

“Did you see them?” asked Horn.

“Yes, from a ridge back hyar ten miles. I saw them sneakin’ along the trail an’ I knowed they meant mischief. I rode along the ridges or I’d been hyar sooner.”

“How many Injuns?”

“I counted fifteen. They were goin’ along slow. Like as not they’ve sent word fer more. There’s a big Sioux camp over hyar in another valley.”

“Are these Sioux on the war-path?”

“I saw dead an’ scalped white men a few days back,” replied Slingerland.

Horn grew as black as a thundercloud, and he cursed the group of pale-faced men who had elected to journey eastward with him.

“You’ll hev to fight,” he ended, brutally, “an’ thet’ll be some satisfaction to me.”

“Horn, there’s soldiers over hyar in camp,” went on Slingerland. “Do you want me to ride after them?”

“Soldiers!” ejaculated Horn.

“Yes. They’re with a party of engineers surveyin’ a line fer a railroad. Reckon I could git them all hyar in time to save you — IF them Sioux keep comin’ slow.... I’ll go or stay hyar with you.”

“Friend, you go — an’ ride thet hoss!”

“All right. You hitch up an’ break camp. Keep goin’ hard down the trail, an’ I’ll fetch the troops an’ head off the redskins.”

“Any use to take to the hills?” queried Horn, sharply.

“I reckon not. You’ve no hosses. You’d be tracked down. Hurry along. Thet’s best.... An’ say, I see you’ve a young girl hyar. I can take her up behind me.”

“Allie, climb up behind him,” said Horn, motioning to the girl.

“I’ll stay with mother,” she replied.

“Go child — go!” entreated Mrs. Durade.

Others urged her, but she shook her head. Horn’s big hand trembled as he held it out, and for once there was no trace of hardness about his face.

“Allie, I never had no lass of my own.... I wish you’d go with him. You’d be safe — an’ you could take my—”

“No!” interrupted the girl.

Slingerland gave her a strange, admiring glance, then turned his quick gray eyes upon Horn. “Anythin’ I can take?”

Horn hesitated. “No. It was jest somethin’ I wanted the girl to hev.”

Slingerland touched his shaggy horse and called over his shoulder: “Rustle out of hyar!” Then he galloped down the trail, leaving the travelers standing aghast.

“Break camp!” thundered Horn.

A scene of confusion followed. In a very short while the prairie-schooners were lumbering down the valley. Twilight came just as the flight got under way. The tired oxen were beaten to make them run. But they were awkward and the loads were heavy. Night fell, and the road was difficult to follow. The wagons rolled and bumped and swayed from side to side; camp utensils and blankets dropped from them. One wagon broke down. The occupants, frantically gathering together their possessions, ran ahead to pile into the one in front.

Horn drove on and on at a gait cruel to both men and beasts. The women were roughly shaken. Hours passed and miles were gained. That valley led into another with an upgrade, rocky and treacherous. Horn led on foot and ordered the men to do likewise. The night grew darker. By and by further progress became impossible, for the oxen failed and a wild barrier of trees and rocks stopped the way.

Then the fugitives sat and shivered and waited for dawn. No one slept. All listened intently to the sounds of the lonely night, magnified now by their fears. Horn strode to and fro with his rifle — a grim, dark, silent form. Whenever a wolf mourned, or a cat squalled, or a night bird voiced the solitude, or a stone rattled off the cliff, the fugitives started up quiveringly alert, expecting every second to hear the screeching yell of the Sioux. They whispered to keep up a flickering courage. And the burly Horn strode to and fro, thoughtful, as though he were planning something, and always listening. Allie sat in one of the wagons close to her mother. She was wide awake and not so badly scared. All through this dreadful journey her mother had not seemed natural to Allie, and the farther they traveled eastward the stranger she grew. During the ride that night she had moaned and shuddered, and had clasped Allie close; but when the flight had come to a forced end she grew silent.

Allie was young and hopeful. She kept whispering to her mother that the soldiers would come in time.

“That brave fellow in buckskin — he’ll save us,” said Allie.

“Child, I feel I’ll never see home again,” finally whispered Mrs. Durade.

“Mother!”

“Allie, I must tell you — I must!” cried Mrs. Durade, very low and fiercely. She clung to her daughter.

“Tell me what?” whispered Allie.

“The truth — the truth! Oh, I’ve deceived you all your life!”

“Deceived me! Oh, mother! Then tell me — now.”

“Child — you’ll forgive me — and never — hate me?” cried the mother, brokenly.

“Mother, how can you talk so! I love you.” And Allie clasped the shaking form closer. Then followed a silence during which Mrs. Durade recovered her composure.

“Allie, I ran off with Durade before you were born,” began the mother, swiftly, as if she must hurry out her secret. “Durade is not your father.... Your name is Lee. Your father is Allison Lee. I’ve heard he’s a rich man now.... Oh, I want to get back — to give you to him — to beg his forgiveness.... We were married in New Orleans in 1847. My father made me marry him. I never loved Allison Lee. He was not a kind man — not the sort I admired.... I met Durade. He was a Spaniard — a blue-blooded adventurer. I ran off with him. We joined the gold-seekers traveling to California. You were born out there in 1850.... It has been a hard life. But I taught you — I did all I could for you. I kept my secret from you — and his!... Lately I could endure it no longer. I’ve run off from Durade.”

“Oh, mother, I knew we were running off from him!” cried Allie, breathlessly. “And I know he will follow us.”

“Indeed, I fear he will,” replied the mother. “But Lord spare me his revenge!”

“Mother! Oh, it is terrible!... He is not my father. I never loved him. I couldn’t.... But, mother, you must have loved him!”

“Child, I was Durade’s slave,” she replied, sadly.

“Then why did you run away? He was kind — good to us.”

“Allie, listen. Durade was a gambler — a man crazy to stake all on the fall of a card. He did not love gold. But he loved games of chance. It was a terrible passion with him. Once he meant to gamble my honor away. But that other gambler was too much of a man. There are gamblers who are men!... I think I began to hate Durade from that time.... He was a dishonest gambler. He made me share in his guilt. My face lured miners to his dens.... My face — for I was beautiful once!... Oh, I sunk so low! But he forced me.... Thank God I left him — before it was too late — too late for you.”

“Mother, he will follow us!” cried Allie.

“But he shall never have you. I’ll kill him before I let him get you,” replied the mother.

“He’d never harm me, mother, whatever he is,” murmured Allie.

“Child, he would use you exactly as he used me. He wanted me to let him have you — already. He wanted to train you — he said you’d be beautiful some day.”

“Mother!” gasped Allie, “is THAT what he meant?”

“Forget him, child. And forget your mother’s guilt!... I’ve suffered. I’ve repented.... All I ask of God is to take you safely home to Allison Lee — the father whom you have never known.”

The night hour before dawn grew colder and blacker. A great silence seemed wedged down between the ebony hills. The stars were wan. No cry of wolf or moan of wind disturbed the stillness. And the stars grew warmer. The black east changed and paled. Dawn was at hand. An opaque and obscure grayness filled the world; all had changed, except that strange, oppressive, and vast silence of the wild.

That silence was broken by the screeching, blood-curdling yell of the Sioux.

At times these bloody savages attacked without warning and in the silence of the grave; again they sent out their war-cries, chilling the hearts of the bravest. Perhaps that warning yell was given only when doom was certain.

Horn realized the dread omen and accepted it. He called the fugitives to him and, choosing the best-protected spot among the rocks and wagons, put the women in the center.

“Now, men — if it’s the last for us — let it be fight! Mebbe we can hold out till the troops come.”

Then in the gray gloom of dawn he took a shovel; prying up a piece of sod, he laid it aside and began to dig. And while he dug he listened for another war-screech and gazed often and intently into the gloom. But there was no sound and nothing to see. When he had dug a hole several feet deep he carried an armful of heavy leather bags and deposited them in it. Then he went back to the wagon for another armful. The men, gray-faced as the gloom, watched him fill up the hole, carefully replace the sod, and stamp it down.

He stood for an instant gazing down, as if he had buried the best of his life. Then he laughed grim and hard.

“There’s my gold! If any man wins through this he can have it!”

Bill Horn divined that he would never live to touch his treasure again. He who had slaved for gold and had risked all for it cared no more what might become of it. Gripping his rifle, he turned to await the inevitable.

Moments of awful suspense passed. Nothing but the fitful beating of hearts came to the ears of the fugitives — ears that strained to the stealthy approach of the red foe — ears that throbbed prayerfully for the tramp of the troopers’ horses. But only silence ensued, a horrible silence, more nerve-racking than the clash of swift, sure death.

Then out of the gray gloom burst jets of red flame; rifles cracked, and the air suddenly filled with hideous clamor. The men began to shoot at gliding shadows, grayer than the gloom. And every shot brought a volley in return. Smoke mingled with the gloom. In the slight intervals between rifleshots there were swift, rustling sounds and sharp thuds from arrows. Then the shrill strife of sound became continuous; it came from all around and closed in upon the doomed caravan. It swelled and rolled away and again there was silence.

CHAPTER 4

IN 1865, JUST after the war, a party of engineers was at work in the Wyoming hills on a survey as hazardous as it was problematical. They had charge of the laying out of the Union Pacific Railroad.

This party, escorted by a company of United States troops under Colonel Dillon, had encountered difficulties almost insurmountable. And now, having penetrated the wild hills to the eastern slope of the Rockies they were halted by a seemingly impassable barrier — a gorge too deep to fill, too wide to bridge.

General Lodge, chief engineer of the corps, gave an order to one of his assistants. “Put young Neale on the job. If we ever survey a line through this awful place we’ll owe it to him.”

The assistant, Baxter, told an Irishman standing by and smoking a short, black pipe to find Neale and give him the chief’s orders. The Irishman, Casey by name, was raw-boned, red-faced, and hard-featured, a man inured to exposure and rough life. His expression was one of extreme and fixed good humor, as if his face had been set, mask-like, during a grin. He removed the pipe from his lips.

“Gineral, the flag I’ve been holdin’ fer thot dom’ young surveyor is the wrong color. I want a green flag.”

Baxter waved the Irishman to his errand, but General Lodge looked up from the maps and plans before him with a faint smile. He had a dark, stern face and the bearing of a soldier.

“Casey, you can have any color you like,” he said. “Maybe green would change our luck.”

“Gineral, we’ll niver git no railroad built, an’ if we do it’ll be the Irish thot builds it,” responded Casey, and went his way.

Truly only one hope remained — that the agile and daring Neale, with his eye of a mountaineer and his genius for estimating distance and grade, might run a line around the gorge.

While waiting for Neale the engineers went over the maps and drawings again and again, with the earnestness of men who could not be beaten.

Lodge had been a major-general in the Civil War just ended, and before that he had traveled through this part of the West many times, and always with the mighty project of a railroad looming in his mind. It had taken years to evolve the plan of a continental railroad, and it came to fruition at last through many men and devious ways, through plots and counterplots. The wonderful idea of uniting East and West by a railroad originated in one man’s brain; he lived for it, and finally he died for it. But the seeds he had sown were fruitful. One by one other men divined and believed, despite doubt and fear, until the day arrived when Congress put the Government of the United States, the army, a group of frock-coated directors, and unlimited gold back of General Lodge, and bade him build the road.

In all the length and breadth of the land no men but the chief engineer and his assistants knew the difficulty, the peril of that undertaking. The outside world was interested, the nation waited, mostly in doubt. But Lodge and his engineers had been seized by the spirit of some great thing to be, in the making of which were adventure, fortune, fame, and that strange call of life which foreordained a heritage for future generations. They were grim; they were indomitable.

Warren Neale came hurrying up. He was a New Englander of poor family, self-educated, wild for adventure, keen for achievement, eager, ardent, bronze-faced, and keen-eyed, under six feet in height, built like a wedge, but not heavy — a young man of twenty-three with strong latent possibilities of character.

General Lodge himself explained the difficulties of the situation and what the young surveyor was expected to do. Neale flushed with pride; his eyes flashed; his jaw set. But he said little while the engineers led him out to the scene of the latest barrier. It was a rugged gorge, old and yellow and crumbled, cedar-fringed at the top, bare and white at the bottom. The approach to it was through a break in the walls, so that the gorge really extended both above and below this vantage-point.

“This is the only pass through these foot-hills,” said Engineer Henney, the eldest of Lodge’s corps.

The passage ended where the break in the walls fronted abruptly upon the gorge. It was a wild scene. Only inspired and dauntless men could have entertained any hope of building a railroad through such a place. The mouth of the break was narrow; a rugged slope led up to the left; to the right a huge buttress of stone wall bulged over the gorge; across stood out the seamed and cracked cliffs, and below yawned the abyss. The nearer side of the gorge could only be guessed at.

Neale crawled to the extreme edge of the precipice, and, lying flat, he tried to discover what lay beneath. Evidently he did not see much, for upon getting up he shook his head. Then he gazed at the bulging wall.

“The side of that can be blown off,” he muttered.

“But what’s around the corner? If it’s straight stone wall for miles and miles we are done,” said Boone, another of the engineers.

“The opposite wall is just that,” added Henney. “A straight stone wall.”

General Lodge gazed at the baffling gorge. His face became grimmer, harder. “It seems impossible to go on, but we must go on!” he said.

A short silence ensued. The engineers faced one another like men confronted by a last and crowning hindrance. Then Neale laughed. He appeared cool and confident.

“It only looks bad,” he said. “We’ll climb to the top and I’ll go down over the wall on a rope.”

Neale had been let down over many precipices in those stony hills. He had been the luckiest, the most daring and successful of all the men picked out and put to perilous tasks. No one spoke of the accidents that had happened, or even the fatal fall of a lineman who a few weeks before had ventured once too often. Every rod of road surveyed made the engineers sterner at their task, just as it made them keener to attain final success.

The climb to the top of the bluff was long and arduous. The whole corps went, and also some of the troopers.

“I’ll need a long rope,” Neale had said to King, his lineman.

It was this order that made King take so much time in ascending the bluff. Besides, he was a cowboy, used to riding, and could not climb well.

“Wal — I — shore — rustled — all the line — aboot heah,” he drawled, pantingly, as he threw lassoes and coils of rope at Neale’s feet.

Neale picked up some of the worn pieces. He looked dubious. “Is this all you could get?” he asked.

“Shore is. An’ thet includes what Casey rustled from the soldiers.”

“Help me knot these,” went on Neale.

“Wal, I reckon this heah time I’ll go down before you,” drawled King.

Neale laughed and looked curiously at his lineman. Back somewhere in Nebraska this cowboy from Texas had attached himself to Neale. They worked together; they had become friends. Larry Red King made no bones of the fact that Texas had grown too hot for him. He had been born with an itch to shoot. To Neale it seemed that King made too much of a service Neale had rendered — the mere matter of a helping hand. Still, there had been danger.

“Go down before me!” exclaimed Neale.

“I reckon,” replied King.

“You will not,” rejoined the other, bluntly. “I may not need you at all. What’s the sense of useless risk?”

“Wal, I’m goin’ — else I throw up my job.”

“Oh, hell!” burst out Neale as he strained hard on a knot. Again he looked at his lineman, this time with something warmer than curiosity in his glance.

Larry Red King was tall, slim, hard as iron, and yet undeniably graceful in outline — a singularly handsome and picturesque cowboy with flaming hair and smooth, red face and eyes of flashing blue. From his belt swung a sheath holding a heavy gun.

“Wal, go ahaid,” added Neale, mimicking his comrade. “An’ I shore hope thet this heah time you-all get aboot enough of your job.”

One by one the engineers returned from different points along the wall, and they joined the group around Neale and King.

“Test that rope,” ordered General Lodge.

The long rope appeared to be amply strong. When King fastened one end round his body under his arms the question arose among the engineers, just as it had arisen for Neale, whether or not it was needful to let the lineman down before the surveyor. Henney, who superintended this sort of work, decided it was not necessary.

“I reckon I’ll go ahaid,” said King. Like all Texans of his type, Larry King was slow, easy, cool, careless. Moreover, he gave a singular impression of latent nerve, wildness, violence.

There seemed every assurance of a deadlock when General Lodge stepped forward and addressed his inquiry to Neale.

“Larry thinks the rope will break. So he wants to go first,” replied Neale.

There were broad smiles forthcoming, yet no one laughed. This was one of the thousands of strange human incidents that must be enacted in the building of the railroad. It might have been humorous, but it was big. It fixed the spirit and it foreshadowed events.

General Lodge’s stern face relaxed, but he spoke firmly. “Obey orders,” he admonished Larry King.

The loop was taken from Larry’s waist and transferred to Neale’s. Then all was made ready to let the daring surveyor with his instrument down over the wall.

Neale took one more look at the rugged front of the cliff. When he straightened up the ruddy bronze had left his face.

“There’s a bulge of rock. I can’t see what’s below it,” he said. “No use for signals. I’ll go down the length of the rope and trust to find a footing. I can’t be hauled up.”

They all conceded this silently.

Then Neale sat down, let his legs dangle over the wall, firmly grasped his instrument, and said to the troopers who held the rope, “All right!”

They lowered him foot by foot.

It was windy and the dust blew up from under the wall. Black canon swifts, like swallows, darted out with rustling wings, uttering frightened twitterings. The engineers leaned over, watching Neale’s progress. Larry King did not look over the precipice. He watched the slowly slipping rope as knot by knot it passed over. It fascinated him.

“He’s reached the bulge of rock,” called Baxter, craning his neck.

“There, he’s down — out of sight!” exclaimed Henney.

Casey, the flagman, leaned farther out than any other. “Phwat a dom’ sthrange way to build a railroad, I sez,” he remarked.

The gorge lay asleep in the westering sun, silent, full of blue haze. Seen from this height, far above the break where the engineers had first halted, it had the dignity and dimensions of a canon. Its walls had begun to change color in the sunset light.

Foot by foot the soldiers let the rope slip, until probably two hundred had been let out, and there were scarcely a hundred feet left. By this time all that part of the cable which had been made of lassoes had passed over; the remainder consisted of pieces of worn and knotted and frayed rope, at which the engineers began to gaze fearfully.

“I don’t like this,” said Henney, nervously. “Neale surely ought to have found a ledge or bench or slope by now.”

Instinctively the soldiers held back, reluctantly yielding inches where before they had slacked away feet. But intent as was their gaze, it could not rival that of the cowboy.

“Hold!” he yelled, suddenly pointing to where the strained rope curved over the edge of the wall.

The troopers held hard. The rope ceased to pay out. The strain seemed to increase. Larry King pointed with a lean hand.

“It’s a-goin’ to break!”

His voice, hoarse and swift, checked the forward movement of the engineers. He plunged to his knees before the rope and reached clutchingly, as if he wanted to grasp it, yet dared not.

“Ropes was my job! Old an’ rotten! It’s breakin’!”

Even as he spoke the rope snapped. The troopers, thrown off their balance, fell backward. Baxter groaned; Boone and Henney cried out in horror; General Lodge stood aghast, dazed. Then they all froze rigid in the position of intense listening.

A dull sound puffed up from the gorge, a low crash, then a slow-rising roar and rattle of sliding earth and rock. It diminished and ceased with the hollow cracking of stone against stone.

Casey broke the silence among the listening men with a curse. Larry Red King rose from his knees, holding the end of the snapped rope, which he threw from him with passionate violence. Then with action just as violent he unbuckled his belt and pulled it tighter and buckled it again. His eyes were blazing with blue lightning; they seemed to accuse the agitated engineers of deliberate murder. But he turned away without speaking and hurried along the edge of the gorge, evidently searching for a place to go down.

General Lodge ordered the troopers to follow King and if possible recover Neale’s body.

“That lad had a future,” said old Henney, sadly. “We’ll miss him.”

Boone’s face expressed sickness and horror.

Baxter choked. “Too bad!” he murmured, “but what’s to be done?”

The chief engineer looked away down the shadowy gorge where the sun was burning the ramparts red. To have command of men was hard, bitter. Death stalked with his orders. He foresaw that the building of this railroad was to resemble the war in which he had sent so many lads and men to bloody graves.

The engineers descended the long slope and returned to camp, a mile down the narrow valley. Fires were blazing; columns of smoke were curling aloft; the merry song and reckless laugh of soldiers were ringing out, so clear in the still air; horses were neighing and stamping.

Colonel Dillon reported to General Lodge that one of the scouts had sighted a large band of Sioux Indians encamped in a valley not far distant. This tribe had gone on the war-path and had begun to harass the engineers. Neale’s tragic fate was forgotten in the apprehension of what might happen when the Sioux discovered the significance of that surveying expedition.

“The Sioux could make the building of the U. P. impossible,” said Henney, always nervous and pessimistic.

“No Indians — nothing can stop us!” declared his chief.

The troopers sent to follow Larry King came back to camp, saying that they had lost him and that they could not find any place where it was possible to get down into that gorge.

In the morning Larry King had not returned.

Detachments of troopers were sent in different directions to try again. And the engineers went out once more to attack their problem. Success did not attend the efforts of either party, and at sunset, when all had wearily returned to camp, Larry King was still absent. Then he was given up for lost.

But before dark the tall cowboy limped into camp, dusty and torn, carrying Neale’s long tripod and surveying instrument. It looked the worse for a fall, but apparently was not badly damaged. King did not give the troopers any satisfaction. Limping on to the tents of the engineers, he set down the instrument and called. Boone was the first to come out, and his summons brought Henney, Baxter, and the younger members of the corps. General Lodge, sitting at his campfire some rods away, and bending over his drawings, did not see King’s arrival.

No one detected any difference in the cowboy, except that he limped. Slow, cool, careless he was, yet somehow vital and impelling. “Wal, we run the line around — four miles up the gorge whar the crossin’ is easy. Only ninety-foot grade to the mile.”

The engineers looked at him as if he were crazy.

“But Neale! He fell — he’s dead!” exclaimed Henney.

“Daid? Wal, no, Neale ain’t daid,” drawled Larry.

“Where is he, then?”

“I reckon he’s comin’ along back heah.”

“Is he hurt?”

“Shore. An’ hungry, too, which is what I am,” replied Larry, as he limped away.

Some of the engineers hurried out in the gathering dusk to meet Neale, while others went to General Lodge with the amazing story.

The chief received the good news quietly but with intent eyes. “Bring Neale and King here — as soon as their needs have been seen to,” he ordered. Then he called after Baxter, “Ninety feet to the mile, you said?”

“Ninety-foot grade, so King reported.”

“By all that’s lucky!” breathed the chief, as if his load had been immeasurably lightened. “Send those boys to me.”

Some of the soldiers had found Neale down along the trail and were helping him into camp. He was crippled and almost exhausted. He made light of his condition, yet he groaned when he dropped into a seat before the fire.

Some one approached Larry King to inform him that the general wanted to see him.

“Wal, I’m hungry — an’ he ain’t my boss,” replied Larry, and went on with his meal. It was well known that the Southerner would not talk.

But Neale talked; he blazed up in eloquent eulogy of his lineman; before an hour had passed away every one in camp knew that Larry had saved Neale’s life. Then the loquacious Casey, intruding upon the cowboy’s reserve, got roundly cursed for his pains.

“G’wan out among thim Sooz Injuns an’ be a dead hero, thin,” retorted Casey, as the cowboy stalked off to be alone in the gloom. Evidently Casey was disappointed not to get another cursing, for he turned to his comrade, McDermott, an axman. “Say, Mac, phwot do you make of cowboys?”

“I tell ye, Pat, I make of thim thet you’ll be full of bulletholes before this railroad’s built.”

“Thin, b’gosh, I’ll hould drink fer a long time yit,” replied Casey.

Later General Lodge visited Neale and received the drawings and figures that made plain solution of what had been a formidable problem.

“It was easy, once I landed under that bulge of cliff,” said Neale. “There’s a slope of about forty-five degrees — not all rock. And four miles up the gorge peters out. We can cross. I got to where I could see the divide — and oh! there is where our troubles begin. The worst is all to come.”

“You’ve said it,” replied the chief, soberly. “We can’t follow the trail and get the grade necessary. We’ve got to hunt up a pass.”

“We’ll find one,” said Neale, hopefully.

“Neale, you’re ambitious and you’ve the kind of spirit that never gives up. I’ve watched your work from the start. You’ll make a big position for yourself with this railroad, if you only live through the building of it.”

“Oh, I’ll live through it, all right,” replied Neale, laughing. “I’m like a cat — always on my feet — and have nine lives besides.”

“You surely must! How far did you fall this time?”

“Not far. I landed in a tree, where my instrument stuck. But I crashed down, and got a hard knock on the head. When Larry found me I was unconscious and sliding for another precipice.”

“That Texan seems attached to you.”

“Well, if he wasn’t before he will be now,” said Neale, feelingly. “I’ll tell you, General, Larry’s red-headed, a droll, lazy Southerner, and he’s made fun of by the men. But they don’t understand him. They certainly can’t see how dangerous he is. Only I don’t mean that. I do mean that he’s true like steel.”

“Yes, he showed that. When the rope snapped I was sure he’d pull a gun on us.... Neale, I would like to have had you and Larry Red King with me through the war.”

“Thank you, General Lodge.... But I like the prospects now.”

“Neale, you’re hungry for wild life?”

“Yes,” replied Neale, simply.

“I said as much. I felt very much the same way when I was your age. And you like our prospects?... Well, you’ve thought things out. Neale, the building of the U. P. will be hell!”

“General, I can see that. It sort of draws me — two ways — the wildness of it and then to accomplish something.”

“My lad, I hope you will accomplish something big without living out all the wildness.”

“You think I might lose my head?” queried Neale.

“You are excitable and quick-tempered. Do you drink?”

“Yes — a little,” answered the young man. “But I don’t care for liquor.”

“Don’t drink, Neale,” said the chief, earnestly. “Of course it doesn’t matter now, for we’re only a few men out here in the wilds. But when our work is done over the divide, we must go back along the line. You know ground has been broken and rails laid west of Omaha. The work’s begun. I hear that Omaha is a beehive. Thousands of idle men are flocking West. The work will be military. We must have the army to protect us, and we will hire all the soldiers who apply. But there will be hordes of others — the dregs of the war and all the bad characters of the frontier. They will flock to the construction camp. Millions of dollars will go along with the building. Gold!... Where it’s all coming from I have no idea. The Government backs us with the army — that’s all. But the gold will be forthcoming. I have that faith.... And think, lad, what it will mean in a year or two. Ten thousand soldiers in one camp out here in these wild hills. And thousands of others — honest merchants and dishonest merchants, whisky men, gamblers, desperadoes, bandits, and bad women. Niggers, Greasers, Indians, all together moving from camp to camp, where there can be no law.”

“It will be great!” exclaimed Neale, with shining eyes.

“It will be terrible,” muttered the elder man, gravely. Then, as he got up and bade his young assistant good night, the somberness had returned to his eyes and the weight to his shoulders. He did not underestimate his responsibility nor the nature of his task, and he felt the coming of nameless and unknown events beyond all divining.

Henney was Neale’s next visitor. The old engineer appeared elated, but for the moment he apparently forgot everything else in his solicitude for the young man’s welfare.

Presently, after he had been reassured, the smile came back to his face.

“The chief has promoted you,” he said.

“What!” exclaimed Neale, starting up.

“It’s a fact. He just talked it over with Baxter and me. This last job of yours pleased him mightily... and so you go up.”

“Go up!... To what?” queried Neale, eagerly.

“Well, that’s why he consulted us, I guess,” laughed Henney. “You see, we sort of had to make something to promote you to, for the present.”

“Oh, I see! I was wondering what job there could be,” replied Neale, and he laughed, too. “What did the chief say?”

“He said a lot. Figured you’d land at the top if the U. P. is ever built.... Chief engineer!... Superintendent of maintenance of way!”

“Good Lord!” breathed Neale. “You’re not in earnest?”

“Wal, I shore am, as your cowboy pard says,” returned Henney. And then he spoke with real earnestness. “Listen, Neale. Here’s the matter in a nutshell. You will be called upon to run these particular and difficult surveys, just as yesterday. But no more of the routine for you. Added to that, you will be sent forward and back, inspecting, figuring. You can make your headquarters with us or in the construction camps, as suits your convenience. All this, of course, presently, when we get farther on. So you will be in a way free — your own boss a good deal of the time. And fitting yourself for that ‘maintenance of way’ job. In fact, the chief said that — he called you Maintenance-of-Way Neale. Well, I congratulate you. And my advice is keep on as you’ve begun — go straight — look out for your wildness and temper.... That’s all. Good night.”

Then he went out, leaving Neale speechless.

Neale had many callers that night, and the last was Larry Red King. The cowboy stooped to enter the tent.

“Wal, how aboot you-all?” he drawled.

“Not so good, Red,” replied Neale. “My head’s hot and I’ve got a lot of pain. I think I’m going to be a little flighty. Would you mind getting your blankets and staying with me tonight?”

“I reckon I’d be glad,” answered King. He put a hand on Neale’s face. “You shore have fever.” He left the tent, to return presently with a roll of blankets and a canteen. Then he awkwardly began to bathe Neale’s face with cold water. There was a flickering camp-fire outside that threw shadows on the wall of the tent. By its light Neale saw that King’s left hand was bandaged and that he used it clumsily.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” he queried.

“I reckon nawthin’.”

“Why is it bound up, then?”

“Wal, some one sent thet fool army doctor to me an’ he said I had two busted bones in it.”

“He did! I had no idea you were hurt. You never said a word. And you carried me and my instrument all day — with a broken hand!”

“Wal, I ain’t so shore it’s broke.”

Neale swore at his friend and then he fell asleep. King watched beside him, ever and anon rewetting the hot brow.

The camp-fire died out, and at length the quietness of late night set in. The wind mourned and lulled by intervals; a horse thudded his hoofs now and then; there were the soft, steady footsteps of the sentry on guard, and the wild cry of a night bird.

CHAPTER 5

NEALE HAD NOT been wrong when he told the engineers that once they had a line surveyed across the gorge and faced the steep slopes of the other side their troubles would be magnified.

They found themselves deeper in the Wyoming hills, a range of mountains that had given General Lodge great difficulty upon former exploring trips, and over which a pass had not yet been discovered.

The old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail wound along the base of these slopes and through the valleys. But that trail was not possible for a railroad. A pass must be found — a pass that would give a grade of ninety feet to the mile. These mountains had short slopes, and they were high.

It turned out that the line as already surveyed through ravines and across the gorge had to be abandoned. The line would have to go over the hills. To that end the camp was moved east again to the first slopes of the Wyoming hills; from there the engineers began to climb. They reached the base of the mountains, where they appeared to be halted for good and all.

The second line, so far as it went, overlooked the Laramie Trail, which fact was proof that the old trail-finders had as keen eyes as engineers.

With a large band of hostile Sioux watching their movements the engineer corps found it necessary to have the troops close at hand all the time. The surveyors climbed the ridges while the soldiers kept them in sight from below. Day after day this futile search for a pass went on. Many of the ridges promised well, only to end in impassable cliffs or breaks or ascents too steep. There were many slopes and they all looked alike. It took hard riding and hard climbing. The chief and his staff were in despair. Must their great project fail because of a few miles of steep ascent? They would not give up.

The vicinity of Cheyenne Pass seemed to offer encouragement. Camp was made in the valley on a creek. From here observations were taken. One morning the chief, with his subordinates and a scout, ascended the creek and then through the pass to the summit. Again the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail lay in sight. And again the troops rode along it, with the engineers above.

The chief with his men rode on and up farther than usual; farther than they ought to have gone unattended. Once the scout halted and gazed intently across the valley.

“Smoke signals over thar,” he said.

The engineers looked long, but none of them saw any smoke. They moved on. But the scout called them back.

“Thet bunch of redskins has split on us. Fust thing we’ll run into some of them.”

It was Neale’s hawk eye that first sighted Indians. “Look! Look!” he cried, in great excitement, as he pointed with shaking finger.

Down a grassy slope of a ridge Indians were riding, evidently to head off the engineers, to get between them and the troops.

“Wal, we’re in fer it now,” declared the scout. “We can’t get back the way we come up.”

The chief gazed coolly at the Indians and then at the long ridge sloping away from the summit. He had been in tight places before.

“Ride!” was his order.

“Let’s fight!” cried Neale.

The band of eight men were well armed and well mounted, and if imperative, could have held off the Sioux for a time. But General Lodge and the scout headed across a little valley and up a higher ridge, from which they expected to sight the troops. They rode hard and climbed fast, but it took a quarter of an hour to gain the ridge-top. Sure enough the troops were in sight, but far away, and the Sioux were cutting across to get in front.

It was a time for quick judgment. The scout said they could not ride down over the ridge, and the chief decided they must follow along it. The going got to be hard and rough. One by one the men dismounted to lead their horses. Neale, who rode a mettlesome bay, could scarcely keep up.

“Take mine,” called Larry King, as he turned to Neale.

“Red, I’ll handle this stupid beast or—”

“Wal, you ain’t handlin’ him,” interrupted King. “Hosses is my job, you know.”

Red took the bridle from Neale and in one moment the balky horse recognized a master arm.

“By Heaven! we’ve got to hurry!” called Neale.

It did seem that the Indians would head them off. Neale and King labored over the rocky ground as best they could, and by dint of hard effort came up with their party. The Indians were quartering the other ridge, riding as if on level ground. The going grew rougher. Baxter’s horse slipped and lamed his right fore leg. Henney’s saddle turned, and more valuable time was lost. All the men drew their rifles. At every dip of ground they expected to come to a break that would make a stand inevitable.

From one point on the ridge they had a good view of the troops.

“Signal!” ordered the chief.

They yelled and shot and waved hats and scarfs. No use — the soldiers kept moving on at a snail pace far below.

“On — down the ridge!” was the order.

“Wal, General, thet looks bad to me,” objected the scout. Red King shoved his lean, brown hand between them. There was a flame in his flashing, blue glance as it swept the slowly descending ridge.

“Judgin’ the lay of land is my job,” he said, in his cool way. “We’ll git down heah or not at all.”

Neale was sore, lame, and angry as well. He kept gazing across at the Sioux. “Let’s stop — and fight,” he panted. “We can — whip — that bunch.”

“We may have to fight, but not yet,” replied the chief. “Come on.”

They scrambled on over rocky places, up and down steep banks. Here and there were stretches where it was possible to ride, and over these they made better time. The Indians fell out of sight under the side of the ridge, and this fact was disquieting, for no one could tell how soon they would show up again or in what quarter. This spurred the men to sterner efforts.

Meanwhile the sun was setting and the predicament of the engineers grew more serious. A shout from Neale, who held up the rear, warned all that the Indians had scaled the ridge behind them and now were in straightaway pursuit. Thereupon General Lodge ordered his men to face about with rifles ready. This move checked the Sioux. They halted out of range.

“They’re waitin’ fer dark to set in,” said the scout.

“Come on! We’ll get away yet,” said the chief, grimly. They went on, and darkness began to fall about them. This increased both the difficulty and the danger. On the other hand, it enabled them to try and signal the troops with fire. One of them would hurry ahead and build a fire while the others held back to check the Indians if they appeared. And at length their signals were answered by the troops. Thus encouraged, the little band of desperate men plunged on down the slope. And just when night set in black — the fateful hour that would have precipitated the Indian attack — the troops met the engineers on the slope. The Indians faded away into the gloom without firing a shot. There was a general rejoicing. Neale, however, complained that he would rather have fought them.

“Wal, I shore was achin’ fer trouble,” drawled his faithful ally, King.

The flagman, Casey, removed his black pipe to remark, “All thet cloimb without a foight.”

General Lodge’s first word to Colonel Dillon was evidently inspired by Casey’s remark.

“Colonel, did you have steep work getting up to us?”

“Yes, indeed, straight up out of the valley,” was the rejoinder.

But General Lodge did not go back to camp by this short cut down the valley. He kept along the ridge, and it led for miles slowly down to the plain. There in the starlight he faced his assistants with singular fire and earnestness.

“Men, we’ve had a bad scare and a hard jaunt, but we’ve found our pass over the Wyoming hills. To-morrow we’ll run a line up that long ridge. We’ll name it Sherman Pass.... Thanks to those red devils!”

On the following morning Neale was awakened from a heavy, dreamless sleep by a hard dig in the ribs.

“Neale — air you daid?” Larry was saying. “Wake up! An’ listen to thet.”

Neale heard the clear, ringing notes of a bugle-call. He rolled out of his blankets. “What’s up, Red?” he cried, reaching for his boots.

“Wal, I reckon them Injuns,” drawled Red.

It was just daylight. They found the camp astir — troopers running for horses, saddles, guns.

“Red, you get our horses and I’ll see what’s up,” cried Neale.

The cowboy strode off, hitching at his belt. Neale ran forward into camp. He encountered Lieutenant Leslie, whom he knew well, and who told him a scout had come in with news of a threatened raid; Colonel Dillon had ordered out a detachment of troopers.

“I’m going,” shouted Neale. “Where’s that scout?”

Neale soon descried a buckskin-clad figure, and he made toward it. The man, evidently a trapper or hunter, carried a long, brown rifle, and he had a powder-horn and bullet-pouch slung over his shoulder. There was a knife in his belt. Neale went directly up to the man.

“My name’s Neale,” he said. “Can I be of any help?”

He encountered a pair of penetrating gray eyes.

“My name’s Slingerland,” replied the other, as he offered his hand. “Are you an officer?”

“No. I’m a surveyor. But I can ride and shoot. I’ve a cowboy with me — a Texan. He’ll go. What’s happened?”

“Wal, I ain’t sure yet. But I fear the wust. I got wind of some Sioux thet was trailin’ some prairie-schooners up in the hills. I warned the boss — told him to break camp an’ run. Then I come fer the troops. But the troops had changed camp an’ I jest found them. Reckon we’ll be too late.”

“Was it a caravan?” inquired Neale, intensely interested.

“Six wagons. Only a few men. Two wimmen. An’ one girl.”

“Girl!” exclaimed Neale.

“Yes. I reckon she was about sixteen. A pretty girl with big, soft eyes. I offered to take her up behind me on my hoss. An’ they all wanted her to come. But she wouldn’t.... I hate to think—”

Slingerland did not finish his thought aloud. Just then Larry rode up, leading Neale’s horse. Slingerland eyed the lithe cowboy.

“Howdy!” drawled Larry. He did not seem curious or eager, and his cool, easy, reckless air was in sharp contrast to Neale’s fiery daring.

“Red, you got the rifles, I see,” said Neale.

“Sure, an’ I rustled some biscuits.”

In a few moments the troops were mounted and ready. Slingerland led them up the valley at a rapid trot and soon started to climb. When he reached the top he worked up for a mile, and then, crossing over, went down into another valley. Up and down he led, over ridge after ridge, until a point was reached where the St. Vrain and Laramie Trail could be seen in the valley below. From there he led them along the top of the ridge, and just as the sun rose over the hills he pointed down to a spot where the caravan had been encamped. They descended into this valley. There in the trail were fresh tracks of unshod horses.

“We ain’t fur behind, but I reckon fur enough to be too late,” said Slingerland. And he clenched a big fist.

On this level trail he led at a gallop, with the troops behind in the clattering roar. They made short work of that valley. Then rougher ground hindered speedy advance.

Presently Slingerland sighted something that made him start. It proved to be the charred skeleton of a prairie-schooner. The oxen were nowhere to be seen.

Then they saw that a little beyond blankets and camp utensils littered the trail. Still farther on the broad wheel-tracks sheered off the road, where the hurried drivers had missed the way in the dark. This was open, undulating ground, rock-strewn and overgrown with brush. A ledge of rock, a few scraggy trees, and more black, charred remains of wagons marked the final scene of the massacre.

Neale was the first man who dismounted, and Larry King was the second. They had outstripped the more cautious troopers.

“My Gawd!” breathed Larry.

Neale gripped his rifle with fierce hands and strode forward between two of the burned wagons. Naked, mutilated bodies, bloody and ghastly, lay in horrible positions. All had been scalped.

Slingerland rode up with the troops, and all dismounted, cursing and muttering.

Colonel Dillon ordered a search for anything to identify the dead. There was nothing. All had been burned or taken away. Of the camp implements, mostly destroyed, there were two shovels left, one with a burnt handle. These were used by the troopers to dig graves.

Neale had at first been sickened by the ghastly spectacle. He walked aside a little way and sat down upon a rock. His face was wet with clammy sweat. A gnawing rage seemed to affect him in the pit of the stomach. This was his first experience with the fiendish work of the savages. A whirl of thoughts filled his mind.

Suddenly he fancied he heard a low moan. He started violently. “Well, I’m hearing things,” he muttered, soberly.

It made him so nervous that he got up and walked back to where the troopers were digging. He saw the body of a woman being lowered into a grave and the sight reminded him of what Slingerland had said. He saw the scout searching around and he went over to him.

“Have you found the girl?” he asked.

“Not yet. I reckon the devils made off with her. They’d take her, if she happened to be alive.”

“God! I hope she’s dead.”

“Wal, son, so does Al Slingerland.”

More searching failed to find the body of the girl. She was given up as lost.

“I’ll find out if she was took captive,” said Slingerland. “This Sioux band has been friendly with me.”

“Man, they’re on the war-path,” rejoined Dillon.

“Wal, I’ve traded with them same Sioux when they was on the war-path.... This massacre sure is awful, an’ the Sioux will hev to be extarminated. But they hev their wrongs. An’ Injuns is Injuns.”

Slabs of rock were laid upon the graves. Then the troopers rode away.

Neale and Slingerland and Larry King were the last to mount. And it was at this moment that Neale either remembered the strange, low moan or heard it again. He reined in his horse.

“I’m going back,” he called.

“What fer?” Slingerland rejoined.

Larry King wheeled his mount and trotted back to Neale.

“Red, I’m not satisfied,” said Neale, and told his friend what he thought he had heard.

“Boy, you’re oot of yur haid!” expostulated Red.

“Maybe I am. But I’m going back. Are you coming?”

“Shore,” replied Red, with his easy good nature.

Slingerland sat his horse and watched while he waited. The dust-cloud that marked the troops drew farther away.

Neale dismounted, threw his bridle, and looked searchingly around. But Larry, always more comfortable on horseback than on land, kept his saddle. Suddenly Neale felt inexplicably drawn in a certain direction — toward a rocky ledge. Still he heard nothing except the wind in the few scraggy trees. All the ground in and around the scene of the massacre had been gone over; there was no need to examine it again. Neale had nothing tangible upon which to base his strange feeling. Yet absurd or not, he refused to admit it was fancy or emotion. Some voice had called him. He swore it. If he did not make sure he would always be haunted. So with clear, deliberate eyes he surveyed the scene. Then he strode for the ledge of rock.

Tufts of sage grew close at its base. He advanced among them. The surface of the rock was uneven — and low down a crack showed. At that instant a slow, sobbing, gasping intake of breath electrified Neale.

“Red — come here!” he yelled, in a voice that made the cowboy jump.

Neale dropped to his knees and parted the tufts of sage. Lower down the crack opened up. On the ground, just inside that crack he saw the gleam of a mass of chestnut hair. His first flashing thought was that here was a scalp the red devils did not get.

Then Red King was kneeling beside him — bending forward. “It’s a girl!” he ejaculated.

“Yes — the one Slingerland told me about — the girl with big eyes,” replied Neale. He put a hand softly on her head. It was warm. Her hair felt silky, and the touch sent a quiver over him. Probably she was dying.

Slingerland came riding up. “Wal, boys, what hev you found?” he asked, curiously.

“That girl,” replied Neale.

The reply brought Slingerland sliding out of his saddle.

Neale hesitated a moment, then reaching into the aperture, he got his hands under the girl’s arms and carefully drew her out upon the grass. She lay face down, her hair a tumbled mass, her body inert. Neale’s quick eye searched for bloodstains, but found none.

“I remember thet hair,” said Slingerland. “Turn her over.”

“I reckon we’ll see then where she’s hurt,” muttered Red King.

Evidently Neale thought the same, for he was plainly afraid to place her on her back.

“Slingerland, she’s not such a little girl,” he said, irrelevantly. Then he slipped his hands under her arms again. Suddenly he felt something wet and warm and sticky. He pulled a hand out. It was blood-stained.

“Aw!” exclaimed Red.

“Son, what’d you expect?” demanded Slingerland. “She got shot or cut, an’ in her fright she crawled in thar. Come, over with her. Let’s see. She might live.”

This practical suggestion acted quickly upon Neale. He turned the girl over so that her head lay upon his knees. The face thus exposed was deathly pale, set like stone in horror. The front of her dress was a bloody mass, and her hands were red.

“Stabbed in the breast!” exclaimed King.

“No,” replied Slingerland. “If she’d been stabbed she’d been scalped, too. Mebbe thet blood comes from an arrow an’ she might hev pulled it out.”

Neale bent over her with swift scrutiny. “No cut or hole in her dress!”

“Boys, thar ain’t no marks on her — only thet blood,” added Slingerland, hopefully.

Neale tore open the front of her blouse and slipped his hand in upon her breast. It felt round, soft, warm under his touch, but quiet. He shook his head.

“Those moans I heard must have been her last dying breaths,” he said.

“Mebbe. But she shore doesn’t look daid to me,” replied King. “I’ve seen daid people. Put your hand on her heart.”

Neale had been feeling for heart pulsations on her right side. He shifted his hand. Instantly through the soft swell of her breast throbbed a beat-beat-beat. The beatings were regular and not at all faint.

“Good Lord, what a fool I am!” he cried. “She’s alive! Her heart’s going! There’s not a wound on her!”

“Wal, we can’t see any, thet’s sure,” replied Slingerland.

“She might hev a fatal hurt, all the same,” suggested King.

“No!” exclaimed Neale. “That blood’s from some one else — most likely her murdered mother.... Red, run for some water. Fetch it in your hat. Slingerland, ride after the troops.”

Slingerland rose and mounted his horse. “Wal, I’ve an idee. Let’s take the girl to my cabin. Thet’s not fur from hyar. It’s a long ride to the camp. An’ if she needs the troop doctor we can fetch him to my place.”

“But the Sioux?”

“Wal, she’d be safer with me. The Injuns an’ me are friends.”

“All right. Good. But you ride after the troops, anyhow, and tell Dillon about the girl — that we’re going to your cabin.” Slingerland galloped away after the dust cloud down the trail.

Neale gazed strangely down at the face of the girl he had rescued. Her lips barely parted to make again the low moan. So that was what had called to him. No — not all! There was something more than this feeble cry that had brought him back to search; there had been some strong and nameless and inexplicable impulse. Neale believed in his impulses — in those strange ones which came to him at intervals. So far in his life girls had been rather negative influences. But this girl, or the fact that he had saved her, or both impressions together, struck deep into him; life would never again be quite the same to Warren Neale.

Red King came striding back with a sombrero full of water.

“Take your scarf and wash that blood off her hands before she comes to and sees it,” said Neale.

The cowboy was awkward at the task, but infinitely gentle. “Poor kid! I’ll bet she’s alone in the world now.”

Neale wet his scarf and bathed the girl’s face. “If she’s only fainted she ought to be reviving now. But I’m afraid—”

Then suddenly her eyes opened. They were large, violet-hued, covered with a kind of veil or film, as though sleep had not wholly gone; and they were unseeingly, staringly set with horror. Her breast heaved with a sharply drawn breath; her hands groped and felt for something to hold; her body trembled. Suddenly she sat up. She was not weak. Her motions were violent. The dazed, horror-stricken eyes roved around, but did not fasten upon anything.

“Aw! Gone crazy!” muttered King, pityingly.

It did seem so. She put her hands to her ears as if to shut out a horrible sound. And she screamed. Neale grasped her shoulders, turned her round, and forced her into such a position that her gaze must meet his.

“You’re safe!” he cried sharply. “The Indians have gone! I’m a white man!”

It seemed as though his piercing voice stirred her reason. She stared at him. Her face changed. Her lips parted and her hand, shaking like a leaf, covered them, clutched at them. The other hand waved before her as if to brush aside some haunting terror.

Neale held that gaze with all his power — dominant, masterful, masculine. He repeated what he had said.

Then it became a wonderful and terrible sight to watch her, to divine in some little way the dark and awful state of her mind. The lines, the tenseness, the shade, the age faded out of her face; the deep-set frown smoothed itself out of her brow and it became young. Neale saw those staring eyes fix upon his; he realized a dull, opaque blackness of horror, hideous veils let down over the windows of a soul, images of hell limned forever on a mind. Then that film, that unseeing cold thing, like the shade of sleep or of death, passed from her eyes. Now they suddenly were alive, great dark-violet gulfs, full of shadows, dilating, changing into exquisite and beautiful lights.

“I’m a white man!” he said, tensely. “You’re saved! The Indians are gone!”

She understood him. She realized the meaning of his words. Then, with a low, agonized, and broken cry she shut her eyes tight and reached blindly out with both hands; she screamed aloud. Shock claimed her again. Horror and fear convulsed her, and it must have been fear that was uppermost. She clutched Neale with fingers of steel, in a grip he could not have loosened without breaking her bones.

“Red, you saw — she was right in her mind for a moment — you saw?” burst out Neale.

“Shore I saw. She’s only scared now,” replied King. “It must hev been hell fer her.”

At this juncture Slingerland came riding up to them. “Did she come around?” he inquired, curiously gazing at the girl as she clung to Neale.

“Yes, for a moment,” replied Neale.

“Wal, thet’s good.... I caught up with Dillon. Told him. He was mighty glad we found her. Cussed his troopers some. Said he’d explain your absence, an’ we could send over fer anythin’.”

“Let’s go, then,” said Neale. He tried to loosen the girl’s hold on him, but had to give it up. Taking her in his arms, he rose and went toward his horse. King had to help him mount with his burden. Neale did not imagine he would ever forget that spot, but he took another long look to fix the scene indelibly on his memory. The charred wagons, the graves, the rocks over which the naked, gashed bodies had been flung, the three scraggy trees close together, and the ledge with the dark aperture at the base — he gazed at them all, and then turned his horse to follow Slingerland.

CHAPTER 6

SOME TEN MILES from the scene of the massacre and perhaps fifteen from the line surveyed by the engineers, Slingerland lived in a wild valley in the heart of the Wyoming hills.

The ride there was laborsome and it took time, but Neale scarcely noted either fact. He paid enough attention to the trail to fix landmarks and turnings in his mind, so that he would remember how to find the way there again. He was, however, mostly intent upon the girl he was carrying.

Twice that he knew of her eyes opened during the ride. But it was to see nothing and only to grip him tighter, if that were possible. Neale began to imagine that he had been too hopeful. Her body was a dead weight and cold. Those two glimpses he had of her opened eyes hurt him. What should he do when she did come to herself? She would be frantic with horror and grief and he would be helpless. In a case like hers it might have been better if she had been killed.

The last mile to Slingerland’s lay through a beautiful green valley with steep sides almost like a canon — trees everywhere, and a swift, clear brook running over a bed of smooth rock. The trail led along this brook up to where the valley boxed and the water boiled out of a great spring in a green glade overhung by bushy banks and gray rocks above. A rude cabin with a red-stone chimney and clay-chinked cracks between the logs, stuffed to bursting with furs and pelts and horns and traps, marked the home of the trapper.

“Wal, we’re hyar,” sung out Slingerland, and in the cheery tones there was something which told that the place was indeed home to him.

“Shore is a likely-lookin’ camp,” drawled Red, throwing his bridle. “Been heah a long time, thet cabin.”

“Me an’ my pard was the first white men in these hyar hills,” replied Slingerland. “He’s gone now.” Then he turned to Neale. “Son, you must be tired. Thet was a ways to carry a girl nigh onto dead.... Look how white! Hand her down to me.”

The girl’s hands slipped nervelessly and limply from their hold upon Neale. Slingerland laid her on the grass in a shady spot. The three men gazed down upon her, all sober, earnest, doubtful.

“I reckon we can’t do nothin’ but wait,” said the trapper.

Red King shook his head as if the problem were beyond him.

Neale did not voice his thought, yet he wanted to be the first person her eyes should rest upon when she did return to consciousness.

“Wal, I’ll set to work an’ clean out a place fer her,” said Slingerland.

“We’ll help,” rejoined Neale. “Red, you have a look at the horses.”

“I’ll slip the saddles an’ bridles,” replied King, “an’ let ’em go. Hosses couldn’t be chased out of heah.”

Slingerland’s cabin consisted really of two adjoining cabins with a door between, one part being larger and of later construction. Evidently he used the older building as a storeroom for his pelts. When all these had been removed the room was seen to be small, with two windows, a table, and a few other crude articles of home-made furniture. The men cleaned this room and laid down a carpet of deer hides, fur side up. A bed was made of a huge roll of buffalo skins, flattened and shaped, and covered with Indian blankets. When all this had been accomplished the trapper removed his fur cap, scratched his grizzled head, and appealed to Neale and King.

“I reckon you can fetch over some comfortable-like necessaries — fixin’s fer a girl,” he suggested.

Red King laughed in his cool, easy, droll way. “Shore, we’ll rustle fer a lookin’-glass, an’ hair-brush, an’ such as girls hev to hev. Our camp is full of them things.”

But Neale did not see any humor in Slingerland’s perplexity or in the cowboy’s facetiousness. It was the girl’s serious condition that worried him, not her future comfort.

“Run out thar!” called Slingerland, sharply.

Neale, who was the nearest to the door, bolted outside, to see the girl sitting up, her hair disheveled, her manner wild in the extreme. At sight of him she gave a start, sudden and violent, and uttered a sharp cry. When Neale reached her it was to find her shaking all over. Terrible fear had never been more vividly shown, yet Neale believed she saw in him a white man, a friend. But the fear in her was still stronger than reason.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name’s Neale — Warren Neale,” he replied, sitting down beside her. He took one of the shaking hands in his. He was glad that she talked rationally.

“Where am I?”

“This is the home of a trapper. I brought you here. It was the best — in fact, the only place.”

“You saved me — from — from those devils?” she queried, hoarsely, and again the cold and horrible shade veiled her eyes.

“Yes — yes — but don’t think of them — they’re gone,” replied Neale, hastily. The look of her distressed and frightened him. He did not know what to say.

The girl fell back with a poignant cry and covered her eyes as if to shut out a hateful and appalling sight. “My — mother!” she moaned, and shuddered with agony. “They — murdered — her!... Oh! the terrible yells!... I saw — killed — every man — Mrs. Jones! My mother — she fell — she never spoke! Her blood was on me!... I crawled away — I hid!... The Indians — they tore — hacked — scalped — burned!... I couldn’t die! — I saw!... Oh! — Oh! — Oh!” Then she fell to moaning in inarticulate fashion.

Slingerland and King came out and looked down at the girl.

“Wal, the life’s strong in her,” said the trapper. “I reckon I know when life is strong in any critter. She’ll git over thet. All we can do now is to watch her an’ keep her from doin’ herself harm. Take her in an’ lay her down.”

For two days and nights Neale watched over her, except for the hours she slept, when he divided his vigil with King. She had periods of consciousness, in which she knew Neale, but most of the time she raved or tossed or moaned or lay like one dead. On the third day, however. Neale felt encouraged. She awoke weak and somber, but quiet and rational. Neale talked earnestly to her, in as sensible a way as he knew how, speaking briefly of the tragic fate that had been hers, bidding her force it out of her mind by taking interest in her new surroundings. She listened to him, but did not seem impressed. It was a difficult matter to get her to eat. She did not want to move. At length Neale told her that he must go back to the camp of the engineers, where he had work to do; he promised that he would return to see her soon and often. She did not speak or raise her eyes when he left her.

Outside, when Red brought up the horses, Slingerland said to Neale: “See hyar, son, I reckon you needn’t worry. She’ll come around all right.”

“Shore she will,” corroborated the cowboy. “Time’ll cure her. I’m from Texas, whar sudden death is plentiful in all families.”

Neale shook his head. “I’m not so sure,” he said. “That girl’s more sensitively and delicately organized than you fellows see. I doubt if she’ll ever recover from the shock. It’ll take a mighty great influence.... But let’s hope for the best. Now, Slingerland, take care of her as best you can. Shut her in when you leave camp. I’ll ride over as often as possible. If she gets so she will talk, then we can find out if she has any relatives, and if so I’ll take her to them. If not I’ll do whatever else I can for her.”

“Wal, son, I like the way you’re makin’ yourself responsible fer thet kid,” replied the trapper. “I never had no wife nor daughter. But I’m thinkin’ — wouldn’t it jest be hell to be a girl — tender an’ young an’ like Neale said — an’ sudden hev all you loved butchered before your eyes?”

“It shore would,” said Red, feelingly. “An’ thet’s what she sees all the time.”

“Slingerland, do we run any chance of meeting Indians?” queried Neale.

“I reckon not. Them Sioux will git fur away from hyar after thet massacre. But you want to keep sharp eyes out, an’ if you do meet any, jest ride an’ shoot your way through. You’ve the best horses I’ve seen. Whar’d you git them?”

“They belong to King. He’s a cowboy.”

“Hosses was my job. An’ we can shore ride away from any redskins,” replied King.

“Wal, good luck, an’ come back soon,” was Slingerland’s last word.

So they parted. The cowboy led the way with the steady, easy, trotting walk that saved a horse yet covered distance; in three hours they were hailed by a trooper outpost, and soon they were in camp.

Shortly after their arrival the engineers returned, tired, dusty, work-stained, and yet in unusually good spirits. They had run the line up over Sherman Pass, and now it seemed their difficulties were to lessen as the line began to descend from the summit of the divide. Neale’s absence had been noticed, for his services were in demand. But all the men rejoiced in his rescue of the little girl, and were sympathetic and kind in their inquiries. It seemed to Neale that his chief looked searchingly at him, as if somehow the short absence had made a change in him. Neale himself grew conscious of a strange difference in his inner nature; he could not forget the girl, her helplessness, her pathetic plight.

“Well, it’s curious,” he soliloquized. “But — it’s not so, either. I’m sorry for her.”

And he remembered the strange change in her eyes when he had watched the shadow of horror and death and blood fade away before the natural emotions of youth and life and hope.

Next day Neale showed more than ever his value to the engineering corps, and again won a word of quiet praise from his chief. He liked the commendation of his superiors. He began to believe heart and soul in the coming greatness of the railroad. And that strenuous week drove his faithful lineman, King, to unwonted complaint.

Larry tugged at his boots and groaned as he finally pulled them off. They were full of holes, at which he gazed ruefully. “Shore I’ll be done with this heah job when they’re gone,” he said.

“Why do you work in high-heeled boots?” inquired Neale. “You can’t walk or climb in them. No wonder they’re full of holes.”

“Wal, I couldn’t wear no boots like yours,” declared Red.

“You’ll have to. Another day will about finish them, and your feet, too.”

Red eyed his boss with interest. “You-all cussed me to-day because I was slow,” he complained.

“Larry, you always are slow, except with a horse or gun. And lately you’ve been — well, you don’t move out of your tracks.”

Neale often exaggerated out of a desire to tease his friend. Nobody else dared try and banter King.

“Wal, I didn’t sign up with this heah outfit to run up hills all day,” replied Red.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll get Casey to be my lineman. No, I’ve a better idea. Casey is slow, too. I’ll use one of the niggers.”

Red King gave a hitch to his belt and a cold gleam chased away the lazy blue warmth from his eyes. “Go ahaid,” he drawled, “an’ they’ll bury the nigger to-morrow night.”

Neale laughed. He knew Red hated darkies — he suspected the Texan had thrown a gun on more than a few — and he knew there surely would be a funeral in camp if he changed his lineman.

“All right, Red. I don’t want blood spilled,” he said, cheerfully. “I’ll be a martyr and put up with you.... What do you say to a day off? Let’s ride over to Slingerland’s.”

The cowboy’s red face slowly wrinkled into a smile. “Wal, I shore was wonderin’ what in the hell made you rustle so lately. I reckon nothin’ would suit me better. I’ve been wonderin’, too, about our little girl.”

“Red, let’s wade through camp and see what we can get to take over.”

“Man, you mean jest steal?” queried King, in mild surprise.

“No. We’ll ask for things. But if we can’t get what we want that way — why, we’ll have to do the other thing,” replied Neale, thoughtfully. “Slingerland did not have even a towel over there. Think of that girl! She’s been used to comfort, if not luxury. I could tell.... Let’s see. I’ve a mirror and an extra brush.... Red, come on.”

Eagerly they went over their scant belongings, generously appropriating whatever might be made of possible use to an unfortunate girl in a wild and barren country. Then they fared forth into the camp. Every one in the corps contributed something. The chief studied Neale’s heated face, and a smile momentarily changed his stern features — a wise smile, a little sad, and full of light.

“I suppose you’ll marry her,” he said.

Neale blushed like a girl. “It — that hadn’t occurred to me, sir,” he stammered.

Lodge laughed, but his glance was kind. “Sure you’ll marry her,” he said. “You saved her life. And, boy, you’ll be a big man of the U. P. some day. Chief engineer or superintendent of maintenance of way or some other big job. What could be finer? Romance, boy. The little waif of the caravan — you’ll send her back to Omaha to school; she’ll grow into a beautiful woman! She’ll have a host of admirers, but you’ll be the king of the lot — sure.”

Neale got out of the tent with tingling ears. He was used to the badinage of the men, and had always retaliated with a sharp and ready tongue. But this half-kind, half-humorous talk encroached upon what he felt to be the secret side of his nature — the romantic and the dreamful side — to which such fancies were unconscionably dear.

Early the next morning Neale and King rode out on the way to Slingerland’s.

The sun was warm when they reached the valley through which ran the stream that led up to the cabin. Spring was in the air. The leaves of cottonwood and willow added their fresh emerald to the darker green of the pine. Bluebells showed in the grass along the trail; there grew lavender and yellow flowers unfamiliar to Neale; trout rose and splashed on the surface of the pools; and the way was melodious with the humming of bees and the singing of birds.

Slingerland saw them coming and strode out to meet them with hearty greeting.

“Is she all right?” queried Neale, abruptly.

“No, she ain’t,” replied Slingerland, shaking his shaggy head. “She won’t eat or move or talk. She’s wastin’ away. She jest sits or lays with that awful look in her eyes.”

“Can’t you make her talk?”

“Wal, she’ll say no to ‘most anythin’. There was three times she asked when you was comin’ back. Then she quit askin’. I reckon she’s forgot you. But she’s never forgot thet bloody massacre. It’s there in her eyes.”

Neale dismounted, and, untying the pack from his saddle, he laid it down, removed saddle and bridle; then he turned the horse loose. He did this automatically while his mind was busy.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Over thar under the pines whar the brook spills out of the spring. Thet’s the only place she’ll walk to. I believe she likes to listen to the water. An’ she’s always afraid.”

“I’ve fetched a pack of things for her,” said Neale. “Come on, Red.”

“Shore you go alone,” replied the cowboy, hanging back. “Girls is not my job.”

So Neale approached alone. The spot was green, fragrant, shady, bright with flowers, musical with murmuring water. Presently he spied her — a drooping, forlorn little figure. The instant he saw her he felt glad and sad at once. She started quickly at his step and turned. He remembered the eyes, but hardly the face. It had grown thinner and whiter than the one he had in mind.

“My Lord! she’s going to die!” breathed Neale. “What can I do — what can I say to her?”

He walked directly but slowly up to her, aware of her staring eyes, and confused by them.

“Hello! little girl, I’ve brought you some things,” he said, and tried to speak cheerfully.

“Oh — is — it you?” she said, brokenly.

“Yes, it’s Neale. I hope you’ve not forgotten me.”

There came a fleeting change over her, but not in her face, he thought, because not a muscle moved, and the white stayed white. It must have been in her eyes, though he could not certainly tell. He bent over to untie the pack.

“I’ve brought you a lot of things,” he said. “Hope you’ll find them useful. Here—”

She did not look at the open pack or pay any attention to him. The drooping posture had been resumed, together with the somber staring at the brook. Neale watched her in despair, and, watching, he divined that only the most infinite patience and magnetism and power could bring her out of her brooding long enough to give nature a chance. He recognized how unequal he was to the task. But the impossible or the unattainable had always roused Neale’s spirit. Defeat angered him. This girl was alive; she was not hurt physically; he believed she could be made to forget that tragic night of blood and death. He set his teeth and swore he would display the tact of a woman, the patience of a saint, the skill of a physician, the love of a father — anything to hold back this girl from the grave into which she was fading. Reaching out, he touched her.

“Can you understand me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she murmured. Her voice was thin, far away, an evident effort.

“I saved your life.”

“I wish you had let me die.” Her reply was quick with feeling, and it thrilled Neale because it was a proof that he could stimulate or aggravate her mind.

“But I DID save you. Now you owe me something.”

“What?”

“Why, gratitude — enough to want to live, to try to help yourself.”

“No — no,” she whispered, and relapsed into the somber apathy.

Neale could scarcely elicit another word from her; then by way of change he held out different articles he had brought — scarfs, a shawl, a mirror — and made her look at them. Her own face in the mirror did not interest her. He tried to appeal to a girl’s vanity. She had none.

“Your hair is all tangled,” he said, bringing forth comb and brush. “Here, smooth it out.”

“No — no — no,” she moaned.

“All right, I’ll do it for you,” he countered. Surprised at finding her passive when he had expected resistance, he began to comb out the tangled tresses. In his earnestness he did not perceive how singular his action might seem to an onlooker. She had a mass of hair that quickly began to smooth out and brighten under his hand. He became absorbed in his task and failed to see the approach of Larry King.

The cowboy was utterly amazed, and presently he grinned his delight. Evidently the girl was all right and no longer to be feared.

“Wal, shore thet’s fine,” he drawled. “Neale, I always knowed you was a lady’s man.” And Larry sat down beside them.

The girl’s face was half hidden under the mass of hair, and her head was lowered. Neale gave Larry a warning glance, meant to convey that he was not to be funny.

“This is my cowboy friend, Larry Red King,” said Neale. “He was with me when I — I found you.”

“Larry — Red — King,” murmured the girl. “My name is — Allie.”

Again Neale had penetrated into her close-locked mind. What she said astounded him so that he dropped the brush and stared at Larry. And Larry lost his grin; he caught a glimpse of her face, and his own grew troubled.

“Allie — I shore — am glad to meet you,” he said, and there was more feeling in his voice than Neale had ever before heard. Larry was not slow of comprehension. He began to talk in his drawling way. Neale heard him with a smile he tried to hide, but he liked Larry the better for his simplicity. This gun-throwing cowboy had a big heart.

Larry, however, did not linger for long. His attempts to get the girl to talk grew weaker and ended; then, after another glance at the tragic, wan face he got up and thoughtfully slouched away.

“So your name is Allie,” said Neale. “Well, Allie what?”

She did not respond to one out of a hundred questions, and this query found no lodgment in her mind.

“Will you braid your hair now?” he asked.

The answer was the low and monotonous negative, but, nevertheless, her hands sought her hair and parted it, and began to braid it mechanically. This encouraged Neale more than anything else; it showed him that there were habits of mind into which he could turn her. Finally he got her to walk along the brook and also to eat and drink.

At the end of that day he was more exhausted than he would have been after a hard climb. Yet he was encouraged to think that he could get some kind of passive unconscious obedience from her.

“Reckon you’d better stay over to-morrow,” suggested Slingerland. His concern for the girl could not have been greater had she been his own daughter. “Allie — thet was her name, you said. Wal, it’s pretty an’ easy to say.”

Next day Allie showed an almost imperceptible improvement. It might have been Neale’s imagination leading him to believe that there were really grounds for hope. The trapper and the cowboy could not get any response from her, but there was certain proof that he could. The conviction moved him to deep emotion.

An hour before sunset Neale decided to depart, and told Larry to get the horses. Then he went to Allie, undecided what to say, feeling that he must have tortured her this day with his ceaseless importunities. How small the chance that he might again awaken the springs of life interest. Yet the desire was strong within him to try.

“Allie.” He repeated her name before she heard him. Then she looked up. The depths — the tragic lonesomeness — of her eyes — haunted Neale.

“I’m going back. I’ll come again soon.”

She made a quick movement — seized his arm. He remembered the close, tight grip of her hands.

“Don’t go!” she implored. Black fear stared out of her eyes.

Neale was thunderstruck at the suddenness of her speech — at its intensity. Also he felt an unfamiliar kind of joy. He began to explain that he must return to work, that he would soon come to see her again; but even as he talked she faded back into that dull and somber apathy.

Neale rode away with only one conviction gained from the developments of the two days; it was that he would be restless and haunted until he could go to her again. Something big and moving — something equal to his ambition for his work on the great railroad — had risen in him and would not be denied.

CHAPTER 7

NEALE RODE TO Slingerland’s cabin twice during the ensuing fortnight, but did not note any improvement in Allie’s condition or demeanor. The trapper, however, assured Neale that she was gradually gaining a little and taking some slight interest in things; he said that if Neale could only spend enough time there the girl might recover. This made Neale thoughtful.

General Lodge and his staff had decided to station several engineers in camp along the line of the railroad for the purpose of studying the drift of snow. It was important that all information possible should be obtained during the next few winters. There would be severe hardships attached to this work, but Neale volunteered to serve, and the chief complimented him warmly. He was to study the action of the snowdrift along Sherman Pass.

Upon his next visit to Slingerland Neale had the project soberly in mind and meant to broach it upon the first opportunity.

This morning, when Neale and King rode up to the cabin, Allie did not appear as upon the last occasion of their arrival. Neale missed her.

Slingerland came out with his usual welcome.

“Where’s Allie?” asked Neale.

“Wal, she went in jest now. She saw you comin’ an’ then run in to hide, I reckon. Girls is queer critters.”

“She watched for me — for us — and then ran?” queried Neale, curiously.

“Wal, she ain’t done nothin’ but watch fer you since you went away last. An’, son, thet’s a new wrinkle fer Allie, An’ run? Wal, like a skeered deer.”

“Wonder what that means?” pondered Neale. Whatever it meant, it sent a little tingle of pleasure along his pulses. “Red, I want to have a serious talk with Slingerland,” he announced, thoughtfully.

“Shore; go ahaid an’ talk,” drawled the Southerner, as he slipped his saddle and turned his horse loose with a slap on the flank. “I reckon I’ll take a gun an’ stroll off fer a while.”

Neale led the trapper aside to a shady spot under the pines and there unburdened himself of his plan for the winter.

“Son, you’ll freeze to death!” ejaculated the trapper.

“I must build a cabin, of course, and prepare for severe weather,” replied Neale.

Slingerland shook his shaggy head. “I reckon you ain’t knowin’ these winters hyar as I know them. But thet long ridge you call Sherman Pass — it ain’t so fur we couldn’t get thar on snow-shoes except in the wust weather. I reckon you can stay with me hyar.”

“Good!” exclaimed Neale. “And now about Allie.”

“Wal, what about her?”

“Shall I leave her here or send her back to Omaha with the first caravan, or let her go to Fort Fetterman with the troops?”

“Son, she’s your charge, but I say leave her hyar, ‘specially now you can be with us. She’d die or go crazy if you sent her. Why, she won’t even say if she’s got a livin’ relation. I reckon she hain’t. She’d be better hyar. I’ve come to be fond of Allie. She’s strange. She’s like a spirit. But she’s more human lately.”

“I’m glad you say that, Slingerland,” replied Neale. “What to do about her had worried me. I’ll decide right now. I’ll leave her with you, and I hope to Heaven I’m doing best by her.”

“Wal, she ain’t strong enough to travel fur. We didn’t think of thet.”

“That settles it, then,” said Neale, in relief. “Time enough to decide when she is well again.... Tell me about her.”

“Son, thar’s nuthin’ to tell. She’s done jest the same, except fer thet takin’ to watchin’ fer you. Reckon thet means a good deal.”

“What?”

“Wal, I don’t figger girls as well as I do other critters,” answered Slingerland, reflectively. “But I’d say Allie shows interest in you.”

“Slingerland! You don’t mean she — she cares for me?” demanded Neale.

“I don’t know. Mebbe not. Mebbe she’s beyond carin’. But I believe you an’ thet red memory of bloody death air all she ever thinks of. An’ mostly of it.”

“Then it’ll be a fight between me and that memory?”

“So I take it, son. But recollect I ain’t no mind-doctor. I jest feel you could make her fergit thet hell if you tried hard enough.”

“I’ll try — hard as I can,” replied Neale, resolutely, yet with a certain softness. “I’m sorry for her. I saved her. Why shouldn’t I do everything possible?”

“Wal, she’s alone.”

“No, Allie has friends — you and King and me. That’s three.”

“Son, I reckon you don’t figger me. Listen. You’re a fine, strappin’ young feller an’ good-lookin’. More ‘n thet, you’ve got some — some quality like an Injun’s — thet you can feel but can’t tell about. You needn’t be insulted, fer I know Injuns thet beat white men holler fer all thet’s noble. Anyway, you attract. An’ now if you keep on with all thet — thet — wal, usin’ yourself to make Allie fergit the bloody murder of all she loved, to make her mind clear again — why, sooner or later she’s a-goin’ to breathe an’ live through you. Jest as a flower lives offen the sun. Thet’s all, I reckon.”

Neale’s bronze cheek had paled a little. “Well, if that’s all, that’s easy,” he replied, with a cool, bright smile which showed the latent spirit in him. “If it’s only that — why she can have me.... Slingerland, I’ve no ties now. The last one was broken when my mother died — not long ago. I’m alone, too.... I’d do as much for any innocent girl — but for this poor child Allie — whose life I saved — I’d do anything.”

Slingerland shoved out a horny hand and made a giant grip express what evidently just then he could not express in speech.

Upon returning to the cabin they found Allie had left her room. From appearances Neale concluded that she had made little use of the things he had brought her. He was conscious of something akin to impatience. He was not sure what he did feel. The situation had subtly changed and grown, all in that brief talk with Slingerland. Neale slowly walked out toward the brook, where he expected to find her. It struck him suddenly that if she had watched for him all week and had run when he came, then she must have wanted to see him, but was afraid or shy or perverse. How like any girl! Possibly in the week past she had unconsciously grown a little away from her grief.

“I’ll try something new on you, Allie,” he muttered, and the boy in him that would never grow into a man meant to be serious even in his fun.

Allie sat in the shady place under the low pine where the brook spilled out of the big spring. She drooped and appeared oblivious to her surroundings. A stray gleam of sunlight, touching her hair, made it shine bright. Neale’s quick eye took note of the fact that she had washed the blood-stain from the front of her dress. He was glad. What hope had there been for her so long as she sat hour after hour with her hands pressed to that great black stain on her dress — that mark where her mother’s head had rested? Neale experienced a renewal of hope. He began to whistle, and, drawing his knife, he went into the brush to cut a fishing-pole. The trout in this brook had long tempted his fisherman’s eye, and upon this visit he had brought a line and hooks. He made a lot of noise all for Allie’s benefit; then, tramping out of the brush, he began to trim the rod within twenty feet of where she sat. He whistled; he even hummed a song while he was rigging up the tackle. Then it became necessary to hunt for some kind of bait, and he went about this with pleasure, both because he liked the search and because, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Allie was watching him. Therefore he redoubled his efforts at pretending to be oblivious of her presence and at keeping her continually aware of his. He found crickets, worms, and grubs under the dead pine logs, and with this fine variety of bait he approached the brook.

The first cast Neale made fetched a lusty trout, and right there his pretensions of indifference vanished, together with his awareness of Allie’s proximity. Neale loved to fish. He had not yet indulged his favorite pastime in the West. He saw trout jumping everywhere. It was a beautiful little stream, rocky, swift here and eddying there, clear as crystal, murmurous with tiny falls, and bordered by a freshness of green and gold; there were birds singing in the trees, but over all seemed to hang the quiet of the lonely hills. Neale forgot Allie — forgot that he had meant to discover if she could be susceptible to a little neglect. The brook was full of trout, voracious and tame; they had never been angled for. He caught three in short order.

When his last bait, a large and luscious grub, struck the water there was a swirl, a splash, a tug. Neale excitedly realized that he had hooked a father of the waters. It leaped. That savage leap, the splash, the amazing size of the fish, inflamed in Neale the old boyish desire to capture, and, forgetting what little skill he possessed, he gave a mighty pull. The rod bent double. Out with a vicious splash lunged the huge, glistening trout, to dangle heavily for an instant in the air. Neale thought he heard a cry behind him. He was sitting down, in awkward posture. But he lifted and swung. The line snapped. The fish dropped in the grass and began to thresh. Frantically Neale leaped to prevent the escape of the hugest trout he had ever seen. There was a dark flash — a commotion before him. Then he stood staring in bewilderment at Allie, who held the wriggling trout by the gills.

“You don’t know how to fish!” she exclaimed, with great severity.

“I don’t, eh?” ejaculated Neale, blankly.

“You should play a big trout. You lifted him right out. He broke your line. He’d have — gotten — away — but for me.”

She ended, panting a little from her exertion and quick speech. A red spot showed in each white cheek. Her eyes were resolute and flashing. It dawned upon Neale that he had never before seen a tinge of color in her face, nor any of the ordinary feelings of life glancing in her eyes. Now she seemed actually pretty. He had made a discovery — perhaps he had now another means to distract her from herself. Then the squirming trout drew his attention and he took it from her.

“What a whopper! Oh, say, Allie, isn’t he a beauty? I could hug — I — You bet I’m thankful. You were quick.... He certainly is slippery.”

Allie dropped to her knees and wiped her hands on the grass while Neale killed the fish and strung it upon a willow with the others he had caught. Then turning to Allie, he started to tell her how glad he was to see her again, to ask her if she were glad to see him. But upon looking at her he decided to try and keep her mind from herself. She was different now and he liked the difference. He feared he might frighten it away.

“Will you help me get more bait?” he asked.

Allie nodded and got up. Then Neale noticed her feet were bare. Poor child! She had no shoes and he did not know how to procure any suitable footwear in that wilderness.

“Have you ever fished for trout?” he asked, as he began to dig under a rotting log.

“Yes. In California,” she replied, with sudden shadowing of her eyes.

“Let’s go down the brook,” said Neale, hastily, fearful that he had been tactless. “There are some fine holes below.”

She walked beside him, careful of the sharp stones that showed here and there. Presently they came to a likely-looking pool.

“If you hook another big one don’t try to pull him right out,” admonished Allie.

Neale could scarcely conceal his delight, and in his effort to appear natural made a poor showing at this pool, losing two fish and scaring others so they would not rise.

“Allie, won’t you try?” he asked, offering the rod.

“I’d rather look on. You like it so much.”

“How do you know that?” he asked, more to hear her talk than from curiosity.

“You grow so excited,” she said.

Thankfully he accepted the realization that after all these weeks of silence it was possible to make her speak. But he must exercise extreme caution. One wrong word might send her back into that apathy — that senseless, voiceless trance.

In every pool where Neale cast he caught or lost a trout. He was enjoying himself tremendously and at the same time feeling a warmth in his heart that was not entirely due to the exhilaration of fishing. Below the head of the valley, where the stream began and the cabin nestled, the ground was open, like a meadow, with grass and flowers growing to the edge of the water. There were deep, swirling pools running under the banks, and in these Neale hooked fish he could not handle with his poor tackle, and they broke away. But he did not care. There was a brightness, a beauty, a fragrance along the stream that seemed to enhance the farther down he went. Presently they came to a place where the water rushed over a rocky bed, and here Neale wanted to cross. He started to wade, curious and eager to see what Allie would do.

“I can’t wade that,” she called.

Neale returned to her side. “I’ll carry you,” he said. “You hold the rod. We’ll leave the fish here.” Then he lifted her in his arms. How light she was — how much lighter than upon that first occasion of his carrying her. He slipped in the middle of the brook and nearly fell with her. Allie squealed. The sound filled Neale with glee. After all, and whatever she had gone through, she was feminine — she was a girl — she was squeamish. Thereupon he slipped purposely and made a heroic effort to save himself. She clasped his neck convulsively with her free arm, and as he recovered his balance her head bumped into his and her hair got into his eyes. He laughed. This was great fun. But it could scarcely have been the exertion that made his heart beat out of time. At last he gained the opposite bank.

“You nearly fell with me,” she said.

“Well, I’d have got wet, too,” he replied, wondering if it were possible to make her laugh or even smile. If he could do that to-day, even in the smallest degree, he would be assured that happiness might come back to her.

Soon they met Larry, who came stooping along, burdened with a deer carcass on his shoulder. Relieving himself, he hailed them.

“How air you-all?” he drawled, addressing himself mostly to Allie.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Allie, he’s my friend and partner,” replied Neale. “Larry King. But I call him Red — for obvious reasons.”

“Wal, Miss Allie, I reckon no tall kick would be a-comin’ if you was to call me Red,” drawled Larry. “Or better — Reddy. No other lady ever had thet honor.”

Allie looked at him steadily, as if this was the first time she had seen him, but she did not reply. And Larry, easily disconcerted, gathered up his burden and turned toward camp.

“Wal, I’m shore wishin’ you-all good luck,” he called, significantly.

Neale shot a quick glance at Allie to see if the cowboy’s good-humored double meaning had occurred to her. But apparently she had not heard. She seemed to be tiring. Her lips were parted and she panted.

“Are you tired? Shall we go back?” he asked.

“No — I like it,” she returned, slowly, as if the thought were strange to her.

They fished on, and presently came to a wide, shallow place with smooth rock bottom, where the trail crossed. Neale waded across alone. And he judged that the water in the middle might come up to Allie’s knees.

“Come on,” he called.

Allie hesitated. She gathered up her faded skirt, slowly waded in and halted, uncertain of her footing. She was not afraid, Neale decided, and neither did she seem aware that her slender, shapely legs gleamed white against the dark water.

“Won’t you come and carry me?” she asked.

“Indeed I won’t,” replied Neale. “Carry a big girl like you!”

She took him seriously and moved a little farther. “My feet slip so,” she said.

It became fascinating to watch her. The fun of it — the pleasure of seeing a girl wade a brook, innocently immodest, suddenly ceased for Neale. There was something else. He had only meant to tease; he was going to carry her; he started back. And then he halted. There was a strange earnestness in Allie’s face — a deliberateness in her intent, out of all proportion to the exigency of the moment. It was as if she must cross that brook. But she kept halting. “Come on!” Neale called. And she moved again. Every time this happened she seemed to be compelled to go on. When she got into the swift water, nearly to her knees, then she might well have faltered. Yet she did not falter. All at once Neale discovered that she was weak. She did not have the strength to come on. It was that which made her slip and halt. What then made her try so bravely? How strange that she tried at all! Stranger than all was her peculiar attitude toward the task — earnest, sober, grave, forced.

Neale was suddenly seized with surprise and remorse. That which actuated this girl Allie was merely the sound of his voice — the answer to his demand. He plunged in and reached her just as she was slipping. He carried her back to the side from which she had started. It cost him an effort not to hold her close. Whatever she was — orphan or waif, left alone in the world by a murdering band of Sioux — an unfortunate girl to be cared for, succored, pitied — none of these considerations accounted for the change that his power over her had wrought in him.

“You’re not strong,” he said, as he put her down.

“Was that it?” she asked, with just a touch of wonder. “I used to wade — anywhere.”

He spoke little on the way back up the brook, for he hesitated to tell her that he must return to his camp so as to be ready for important work on the morrow, and not until they were almost at the cabin did he make up his mind. She received the intelligence in silence, and upon reaching the cabin she went to her room.

Neale helped Larry and Slingerland with the task of preparing a meal that all looked forward to having Allie share with them. However, when Slingerland called her there was no response.

Neale found her sunk in the old, hopeless, staring, brooding mood. He tried patience at first, and gentleness, but without avail. She would not come with him. The meal was eaten without her. Later Neale almost compelled her to take a little food. He felt discouraged again. Time had flown all too swiftly, and there was Larry coming with the horses and sunset not far off. It might be weeks, even months, before he would see her again.

“Allie, are you ever going to cheer up?” he demanded.

“No — no,” she sighed.

He put his hand under her chin, and, forcing her face up, studied it earnestly. Strained, white, bloodless, thin, with drooping lips and tragic eyes, it was not a beautiful, not even a pretty face. But it might have been one — very easily. The veiled, mournful eyes did not evade his; indeed, they appeared to stare deeply, hopelessly, yearningly. If he could only say and do the right thing to kill that melancholia. She needed to be made to live. Suddenly he had the impulse to kiss her. That, no doubt, was owing to the proximity of her lips. But he must not kiss her. She might care for him some day — it was natural to imagine she would. But she did not care now, and that made kisses impossible.

“You just won’t cheer up?” he went on.

“No — no.”

“But you were so different out there by the brook.”

She made no reply. The veil grew darker, more shadowy, over her eyes. Neale divined a deadness in her.

“I’m going away,” he said, sharply.

“Yes.”

“Do you care?” He went on, with greater intensity.

She only stared at him.

“You MUST care!” he exclaimed.

“Why?” she asked, dully.

“Why!... Because — because—” he stammered, angry with himself. After all, why should she care?

“I wish — you’d — left me — to die!” she moaned.

“Oh! Allie! Allie!” began Neale, in distress. Then he caught the different quality in her voice. It carried feeling. She was thinking again. He swore that he would overcome this malady of hers, and he grew keen, subtle, on fire with his resolve. He watched her. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her gently. She slid off the pile of buffalo robes to her knees before him. Then she showed the only hint of shyness he had ever noted in her. Perhaps it was fear. At any rate, she half averted her face, so that her loosened hair hid it.

“Allie! Allie! Listen! Have you nothing to LIVE for?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why, yes, you have.”

“What?”

“Why, I — The thing is — Allie — you have ME!” he said, a little hoarsely. Then he laughed. How strange his laugh sounded! He would always remember that rude room of logs and furs and the kneeling girl in the dim light.

“YOU!”

“Yes, me,” he replied, with a ring in his voice. Never before had she put wonder in a word. He had struck the right chord at last. Now it seemed that he held a live creature under his hands, as if the deadness and the dread apathy had gone away forever with the utterance of that one syllable. This was a big moment. If only he could make up to her for what she had lost! He felt his throat swell, and speech was difficult.

“Allie, do you understand me now? You — have something — to live for!... Do you hear?”

When his ear caught the faint “Yes” he suddenly grew glad and strong with what he felt to be a victory over her gloom and despair.

“Listen. I’m going to my work,” he began, swiftly. “I’ll be gone weeks — maybe more. BUT I’LL COME BACK!... Early in the fall. I’ll be with you all winter. I’m to work here on the pass.... Then — then — Well, I’ll be a big man on the U. P. some day. Chief engineer or superintendent of maintenance of way.... You’re all alone — maybe you’ll care for me some day. I’ll work hard. It’s a great idea — this railroad. When it’s done — and I’ve my big job — will you — you’ll marry me then?”

Neale heard her gasp and felt her quiver. He let go of her and stood up, for fear he might suddenly take her in his arms. His words had been shock enough. He felt remorse, anxiety, tenderness, and yet he was glad. Some delicate and fine consciousness in him told him he had not done wrong, even if he had been dominating. She was alone in the world; he had saved her life. His heart beat quick and heavy.

“Good-by, Allie.... I’ll come back. Never forget!”

She stayed motionless on her knees with the mass of hair hiding her face, and she neither spoke nor made a sign.

Neale went out. The air seemed to wave in his face, cool and relieving. Larry was there with the horses. Slingerland stood by with troubled eyes. Both men stared at Neale. He was aware of that, and conscious of his agitation. And suddenly, as always at a climax of emotion, he swiftly changed and grew cool.

“Red, old pard, congratulate me! I’m engaged to marry Allie!” he said, with a low laugh that had pride in it.

“Wal, damn me!” ejaculated Larry King. Then he shot out the hand that was so quick with rope and gun. “Put her thar! Shore if you hadn’t made up to her I’d have.... An’, Neale, if you say Pard, I’m yours till I’m daid!”

“Pard!” replied Neale, as he met the outstretched hand.

Slingerland’s hard and wrinkled face softened.

“Strange how we all cottoned to thet girl! No — I reckon it ain’t so strange. Wal, it’s as it oughter be. You saved her. May you both be happy, son!”

Neale slipped a ring from his little finger.

“Give Allie this. Tell her it’s my pledge. I’ll come back to her. And she must think of that.”

CHAPTER 8

THAT SUMMER THE engineers crossed the Wyoming hills and ran the line on into Utah, where they met the surveying party working in from the Pacific.

The initial step of the great construction work was done, the engineers with hardship and loss of life had proved that a railroad across the Rockies was a possibility. Only, they had little conception of the titanic labor involved in the building.

For Neale the months were hard, swift, full. It came to him that love of the open and the wild was incorporated in his ambition for achievement. He wondered if he would have felt the one without the other. Camp life and the daily climbing over the ridges made of him a lithe, strong, sure-footed mountaineer. They made even the horse-riding cowboy a good climber, though nothing, Neale averred, would ever straighten Larry’s bow legs.

Only two incidents or accidents marred the work and pleasure of those fruitful weeks.

The first happened in camp. There was a surly stake-driver by the name of Shurd who was lazy and otherwise offensive among hard-working men. Having been severely handled by Neale, he had nursed a grievance and only waited for an opportunity for revenge. Neale was quick-tempered, and prone to sharp language and action when irritated or angered. Shurd, passing through the camp, either drunk or unusually surly, had kicked Neale’s instrument out of his way. Some one saw him do it and told Neale. Thereupon Neale, in high dudgeon, had sought out the fellow. Larry King, always Neale’s shadow, came slouching after with his cowboy’s gait. They found Shurd at the camp of the teamsters and other laborers. Neale did not waste many words. He struck Shurd a blow that staggered him, and would have followed it up with more had not the man, suddenly furious, plunged away to pick up a heavy stake with which he made at Neale to brain him.

Neale could not escape. He yelled at Shurd, trying to intimidate him.

Then came a shot from behind. It broke Shurd’s arm. The stake fell and the man began to bawl curses.

“Get out of heah!” called Larry King, advancing slowly. The maddened Shurd tried to use the broken arm, perhaps to draw on King. Thereupon the cowboy, with gun low and apparently not aiming, shot again, this time almost tearing Shurd’s arm off. Then he prodded Shurd with the cocked gun. The man turned ghastly. He seemed just now to have realized the nature of this gaunt flaming-eyed cowboy.

“Shore your mind ain’t workin’,” said Larry. “Get out of heah. Mozey over to thet camp doctor or you’ll never need one.”

Shurd backed away, livid and shaking, and presently he ran.

“Red!...” expostulated Neale. “You — you shot him all up! You nearly killed him.”

“Why in hell don’t you pack a gun?” drawled Larry.

“Red, you’re — you’re — I don’t know what to call you. I’d have licked him, club and all.”

“Mebbe,” replied the cowboy, as he sheathed the big gun. “Neale. I’m used to what you ain’t. Shore I can see death a-comin’. Wal, every day the outfit grows wilder. A little whisky ‘ll burn hell loose along this heah U.P. line.”

Larry strode on in the direction Shurd had taken. Neale pondered a moment, perplexed, and grateful to his comrade. He heard remarks among the laborers, and he saw the flagman Casey remove his black pipe from his lips — an unusual occurrence.

“Mac, it wus thot red-head cowboy wot onct p’inted his gun at me!” burst out Casey.

“Did yez see him shoot?” replied Mac, with round eyes. “Niver aimed an’ yit he hit!”

Mike Shane, the third of the trio of Irish laborers in Neale’s corps, was a little runt of a sandy-haired wizened man, and he spoke up: “Begorra, he’s wan of thim Texas Jacks. He’d loike to kill yez, Pat Casey, an’ if he ever throwed thot cannon at yez, why, runnin’ ‘d be slow to phwat yez ‘d do.”

“I niver run in me loife,” declared Casey, doggedly.

Neale went his way. It was noted that from that day he always carried a gun, preferably a rifle when it was possible. In the use of the long gun he was an adept, but when it came to Larry’s kind of a gun Neale needed practice. Larry could draw his gun and shoot twice before Neale could get his hand on his weapon.

It was through Neale’s habit of carrying the rifle out on his surveying trips that the second incident came about.

One day in early summer Neale was waiting near a spring for Larry to arrive with the horses. On this occasion the cowboy was long in coming. Neale fell asleep in the shade of some bushes and was awakened by the thud of hoofs. He sat up to see Larry in the act of kneeling at the brook to drink. At the same instant a dark moving object above Larry attracted Neale’s quick eye. It was an Indian sneaking along with a gun ready to level. Quick as a flash Neale raised his own weapon and fired. The Indian fell and lay still.

Larry’s drink was rudely disturbed by plunging horses. When he had quieted them he turned to Neale.

“So you-all was heah. Shore you scared me. What’d you shoot at?”

Neale stared and pointed. His hand shook. He felt cold, sick, hard, yet he held the rifle ready to fire again. Larry dropped the bridles and, pulling his gun, he climbed the bank with unusual quickness for him. Neale saw him stand over the Indian.

“Wal, plumb center!” he called, with a new note in his usually indolent voice. “Come heah!”

“No!” shouted Neale, violently. “Is he dead?”

“Daid! Wal, I should smile.... An’ mebbe he ain’t alone.”

The cowboy ran down to his horse and Neale followed suit. They rode up on the ridge to reconnoiter, but saw no moving objects.

“I reckon thet redskin was shore a-goin’ to plug me,” drawled Larry, as they trotted homeward.

“He certainly was,” replied Neale, with a shudder.

Larry reached a long hand to Neale’s shoulder. He owed his life to his friend. But he did not speak of that. Instead he glanced wisely at Neale and laughed.

“Kinda weak in the middle, eh?” he said. “I felt thet way once.... Pard, if you ever get r’iled you’ll be shore bad.”

For Neale shooting at an Indian was strikingly different from boyish dreams of doing it. He had acted so swiftly that it seemed it must have been instinctive. Yet thinking back, slowly realizing the nature of the repellent feeling within him, he remembered a bursting gush of hot blood, a pantherish desire to leap, to strike — and then cool, stern watchfulness. The whole business had been most unpleasant.

Upon arriving at camp they reported the incident, and they learned Indians had showed up at various points along the line. Troopers had been fired upon. Orders were once more given that all work must be carried on under the protection of the soldiers, so that an ambush would be unlikely. Meanwhile a detachment of troops would be sent out to drive back the band of Sioux.

These two hard experiences made actuality out of what Neale’s chief had told him would be a man’s game in a wild time. This work on the U. P. was not play or romance. But the future unknown called alluringly to him. In his moments of leisure, by the camp-fire at night, he reflected and dreamed and wondered. And these reflections always turned finally to memory of Allie.

The girl he had saved seemed far away in mind as well as in distance. He tried to call up her face — to see it in the ruddy embers. But he could visualize only her eyes. They were unforgettable — the somber, haunting shadows of thoughts of death. Yet he remembered that once or twice they had changed, had become wonderful, with promise of exceeding beauty.

It seemed incredible that he had pledged himself. But he had no regrets. Time had not made any difference, only it had shown him that his pity and tenderness were not love. Still there had been another emotion connected with Allie — a strange thing too subtle and brief for him to analyze; when away from her he lost it. Could that have been love? He thought of the day she waded the brook, the feel of her as he carried her in his arms; and of that last sight of her, on her knees in the cabin, her face hidden, her slender form still as a statue. His own heart was touched. Yet this was not love. It was enough for Neale to feel that he had done what he would have applauded in another man, that he seemed the better for his pledge, that the next meeting with Allie was one he looked forward to with a strange, new interest.

September came and half sped by before Neale, with Larry and an engineer named Service, arrived at the head of Sherman Pass with pack-burros and supplies, ready to begin the long vigil of watching the snow drift over the line in winter.

They were to divide the pass between them, Service to range the upper half and Neale the lower. As there were but few trees up in that locality, and these necessary for a large supply of fire-wood, they decided not to attempt building a cabin for Service, but to dig a dugout. This was a hole hollowed out in a hillside and covered with a roof of branches and earth.

No small job, indeed, was it to build a satisfactory dugout — one that was not conspicuous from every ridge for Indian eyes to spy out — and warm and dry and safe. They started several before they completed one.

“It’ll be lonesomer for you — and colder,” observed Neale.

“I won’t mind that,” replied the other.

“We’ll see each other before the snow flies, surely.”

“Not unless you come up. I’m no climber. I’ve got a bad leg.”

“I’ll come, then. We may have weeks of fine weather yet. I’m going to hunt some.”

“Good luck to you.”

So these comrades parted. They were only two of the intrepid engineers selected to brave the perils and hardships of that wild region in winter, to serve the great cause.

The golds and purples of autumn mingled with the predominating green of Slingerland’s valley. In one place beaver had damned the stream, forming a small lake, and here cranes and other aquatic birds had congregated. Neale saw beaver at work, and deer on the hillside.

“It’s been three months,” he soliloquized, as he paused at the ford which Allie had so bravely and weakly tried to cross at his bidding. “Three months! So much can have happened. But Slingerland is safe from Indians. I hope — I believe I’ll find her well.”

He was a prey to dread and yet he did not hurry. Larry, driving the pack-train, drew on ahead and passed out of sight in a green bend of the brook. At length Neale saw a column of blue smoke curling up above the trees, and that sight relieved him. If the trapper was there, the girl would be with him.

At this moment his horse shot up his long ears and snorted.

A gray form glided out of the green and began to run down the trail toward him — a lithe, swift girl in buckskin.

“An Indian girl!” ejaculated Neale.

But her face was white, her hair tawny and flying in the wind. Could that be Allie? It must be she. It was.

“Lord! I’m in for it!” muttered Neale, dismounting, and he gazed with eager eyes. She was approaching quickly.

“Neale! You’ve come!” she cried, and ran straight upon him.

He hardly recognized her face or her voice, but what she said proclaimed her to be Allie. She enveloped him. Her arms, strong, convulsive, clasped him. Up came her face, white, gleaming, joyous, strange to Neale, but he knew somehow that it was held up to be kissed. Dazedly he kissed her — felt cool sweet lips touch his lips again and then again.

“Allie!... I — I hardly knew you!” was his greeting. Now he was holding her, and he felt her press her head closely to his breast, felt the intensity of what must have been her need of physical contact to make sure he was here in the flesh. And as he held her, looking down upon her, he recognized the little head and the dull gold and ripple of chestnut hair. Yes — it was Allie. But this new Allie was taller — up to his shoulder — and lithe and full-bosomed and strong. This was not the frail girl he had left.

“I thought — you’d — never, never come,” she murmured, clinging to him.

“It was — pretty long,” he replied, unsteadily. “But I’ve come.... And I’m very glad to see you.”

“You didn’t know me,” she said, shyly. “You looked — it.”

“Well, no wonder. I left a thin, pale little girl, all eyes — and what do I find?... Let me look at you.”

She drew back and stood before him, shy and modest, but without a trace of embarrassment, surely the sweetest and loveliest girl he had ever beheld. Some remembered trace he found in her features, perhaps the look, the shape of her eyes — all else was unfamiliar. And that all else was a white face, blue-veined, with rich blood slowly mantling to the broad brow, with sweet red lips haunting in their sadness, with glorious eyes, like violets drenched in dew, shadowy, exquisite, mournful and deep, yet radiant with beautiful light.

Neale recognized her beauty at the instant he realized her love, and he was so utterly astounded at the one, and overwhelmed with the other, that he was mute. A powerful reaction took place within him, so strong that it helped to free him from the other emotions. He found his tongue and controlled his glance.

“I took you for an Indian girl in all this buckskin,” he said.

“Dress, leggings, moccasins, I made them all myself,” she replied, sweeping a swift hand from fringe to beads. “Not a single button! Oh, it was hard — so much work! But they’re more comfortable than any clothes I ever had.”

“So you’ve not been — altogether idle since I left?”

“Since that day,” and she blushed exquisitely at the words, “I’ve been doing everything under the sun except that grieving which you disliked — everything — cooking, sewing, fishing, bathing, climbing, riding, shooting — AND watching for you.”

“That accounts,” he replied, musingly.

“For what?”

“Your — your improvement. You seem happy — and well.”

“Do you mean the activity accounts for that — or my watching for you?” she queried, archly. She was quick, bright, roguish. Neale had no idea what qualities she might have possessed before that fateful massacre, but she was bewilderingly different from the sick-minded girl he had tried so hard to interest and draw out of her gloom. He was so amazed, so delighted with her, and so confused with his own peculiar state of mind, that he could not be natural. Then his mood shifted and a little heat at his own stupidity aroused his wits.

“Allie, I want to realize what’s happened,” he said. “Let’s sit down here. We sat here once before, if you remember. Slingerland can wait to see me.”

Neale’s horse grazed along the green border of the brook. The water ran with low, swift rush; there were bees humming round the autumn flowers and a fragrance of wood-smoke wafted down from the camp; over all lay the dreaming quietness of the season and the wild.

Allie sat down upon the rock, but Neale, changing his mind, stood beside her. Still he did not trust himself to face her. He was unsettled, uncertain. All this was like a dream.

“So you watched for me?” he asked, gently.

“For hours and days and weeks,” she sighed.

“Then you — cared — cared a little for me?”

She kept silence. And he, wanting intensely to look up, did not.

“Tell me,” he insisted, with a hint of the old dominance. He remembered again the scene at the crossing of the brook. Could he control this wonderful girl now?

“Of course,” she replied.

“But — how do you care?” he added, more forcibly. He felt ashamed, yet he could not resist it. What was happening to him?

“I — I love you.” Her voice was low, almost faltering, rich with sweetness, and full of some unutterable emotion.

Neale sustained a shock. He never could have told how that affected him, except in his sudden fury at himself. Then he stole a glance at her. Her eyes were downcast, hidden under long lashes; her face was soft and sweet, dreaming and spiritual, singularly pure; her breast heaved under the beaded buckskin. Neale divined she had never dreamed of owing him anything except the maiden love which quivered on her tremulous lips and hovered in the exquisite light of her countenance. And now he received a great and impelling change in his spirit, an uplift, a splendid and beautiful consciousness of his good fortune. But what could he say to her? If only he could safely pass over this moment, so he could have time to think, to find himself. Another glance at her encouraged him. She expected nothing — not a word; she took all for granted. She was lost in dreams of her soul.

He looked down again to see her hand — small, shapely, strong and brown; and upon the third finger he espied his ring. He had forgotten to look to see if she wore it. Then softly he touched it and drew her hand in his.

“My ring. Oh, Allie!” he whispered.

The response was a wonderful purple blaze of her eyes. He divined then that his ring had been the tangible thing upon which she had reconstructed her broken life.

“You rode away — so quickly — I had no chance to — tell,” she replied, haltingly and low-voiced. All was sweet shame about her now, and he had to fight himself to keep from gathering her to his breast. Verily this meeting between Allie and him was not what he had anticipated.

He kissed her hand.

“You’ve all the fall and all the winter to tell me such sweet things,” he said. “Perhaps to-morrow I’ll find my tongue and tell you something.”

“Tell me now,” she said, quickly.

“Well, you’re beautiful,” he replied, with strong feeling.

“Really?” she smiled, and that smile was the first he had ever seen upon her face. It brought out the sadness, the very soul of her great beauty. “I used to be pretty,” she went on, naively. “But if I remember how I used to look I’m not pretty any more.”

Neale laughed. He had begun to feel freer, and to accept this unparalleled situation with some composure.

“Tell me,” he said, with gentle voice and touch— “tell me your name. Allie — what?”

“Didn’t you ever know?” she asked.

“You said Allie. That was all.”

He feared this call to her memory, yet he wanted to put her to a test. Her eyes dilated — the light shaded; they grew sad, dark, humid gulfs of thought. But the old, somber veil, the insane, brooding stare, did not return.

“Allie what?” he repeated.

Then the tears came, softening and dimming the pain. “Allie Lee,” she said.

CHAPTER 9

SLINGERLAND APPEARED YOUNGER to Neale. The burden of loneliness did not weigh upon him, and the habit of silence had been broken. Neale guessed why, and was actually jealous.

“Wal, it’s beyond my calculatin’,” the trapper said, out by the spring, where Neale followed him. “She jest changed thet’s all. Not so much at first, though she sparked up after I give her your ring. I reckon it come little by little. An’ one day, why, the cabin was full of sunshine!... Since then I’ve seen how she’s growed an’ brightened. Workin’, runnin’ after me — an’ always watchin’ fer you. Allie’s changed to what she is now. Onct, fur back, I recollect she said she had you to live fer. Mebbe thet’s the secret. Anyhow, she loves you as I never seen any man loved.... An’, son, I reckon you oughter be somewhars near the kingdom of heaven!”

Neale stole oil by himself and walked in the twilight. The air was warm and sultry, full of fragrance and the low chirp of crickets. Within his breast was a full uneasy sensation of imminent catastrophe. Something was rising in him — great — terrible — precious. It bewildered him to try to think of himself, of his strange emotions, when his mind seemed to hold only Allie.

What then had happened? After a long absence up in the mountains he had returned to Slingerland’s valley home, and to the little girl he had rescued and left there. He had left her frail, sick-minded, silent, somber, a pale victim to a horrible memory. He had found her an amazing contrast to what she had been in the past. She had grown strong, active, swift. She was as lovely as a wild rose. No dream of his idle fancy, but a fact! Then last — stirring him even as he tried to clarify and arrange this magic, this mystery — had come the unbelievable, the momentous and dazzling assurance that she loved him. It was so plain that it seemed unreal. While near her he saw it, yet could not believe his eyes; he felt it, but doubted his sensibilities. But now, away from the distraction of her presence and with Slingerland’s eloquent words ringing in his ears, he realized the truth. Love of him had saved the girl’s mind and had made her beautiful and wonderful. He had heard of the infinite transforming power of love; here in Allie Lee was its manifestation. Whether or not he deserved such a blessing was not the question. It was his, and he felt unutterably grateful and swore he would be worthy of this great gift.

Darkness had set in when Neale returned to the cabin, the interior of which was lighted by blazing sticks in a huge stone fireplace.

Slingerland was in the shadow, busy as usual, but laughing at some sally of Larry’s. The cowboy and Allie, however, were in plain sight. Neale needed only one look at Larry to divine what had come over that young man. Allie appeared perplexed.

“He objects to my calling him Mr. King and even Larry,” she said.

Larry suddenly looked sheepish.

“Allie, this cowboy is a bad fellow with guns, ropes, horses — and I suspect with girls,” replied Neale, severely.

“Neale, he doesn’t look bad,” she rejoined. “You’re fooling me.... He wants me to call him Reddy.”

“Ahuh!” grunted Neale. He laughed grimly at himself, for again he had felt a pang of jealousy. He knew what to expect from Larry or any other young man who ever had the wonderful good luck to get near Allie Lee. “All right, call him Reddy,” he went on. “I guess I can allow my future wife so much familiarity with my pard.”

This confused Allie out of her sweet gravity, and she blushed.

“Shore you’re mighty kind,” drawled Larry, recovering. “More ‘n I reckoned on from a fellar who’s shore lost his haid.”

“I’ve lost more ‘n that,” retorted Neale, “and I’m afraid a certain wild young cowboy I know has lost as much.”

“Wal, I reckon somethin’ abbot this heah place of Slingerland’s draws on a fellar,” admitted Larry, resignedly.

Allie did not long stay embarrassed by their sallies.

“Neale, tell me—”

“See heah, Allie, if you call me Reddy an’ him only Neale — why he’s a-goin’ to pitch into me,” interrupted Larry, with twinkling eyes. “An’ he’s shore a bad customer when he’s r’iled.”

“Only Neale? What does he mean?” inquired Allie.

“Beyond human conjecture,” replied Neale, laughing.

“Wal, don’t you know his front name?” asked Larry.

“Neale. I call him that,” she replied.

“Haw! Haw! But it ain’t thet.”

“Allie, my name is Warren,” said Neale. “You’ve forgotten.”

“Oh!... Well, it’s always been Neale — and always will be.”

Larry rose and stretched his long arms for the pipe on the rude stone chimney.

“Slingerland,” he drawled, “these heah young people need to find out who they are. An’ I reckon we’d do wal to go out an’ smoke an’ talk.”

The trapper came forth from the shadows, and as he filled his pipe his keen, bright gaze shifted from the task to his friends.

“It’s good to see you an’ hyar you,” he said. “I was a youngster once I missed — but thet’s no matter.... Live while you may!... Larry, come with me. I’ve got a trap to set yit.”

Allie flashed a glance at them.

“It’s not so. You never set traps after dark.”

“Wal, child, any excuse is better ‘n none. Neale wouldn’t never git to hyar you say all thet sweet talk as is comin’ to him — if two old fools hung round.”

“Slingerland, I’ve throwed a gun for less ‘n thet,” drawled Larry. “Aboot the fool part I ain’t shore, but I was twenty-five yesterday — an’ I’m sixteen to-day.”

They lit their pipes with red embers scraped from the fire, and with wise nods at Neale and Allie passed out into the dark.

Allie’s eyes were upon Neale, with shy, eloquent intent, and directly the others had departed she changed her seat to one close to Neale; she nestled against his shoulder, her face to the fire.

“They thought we wanted to make love, didn’t they?” she said, dreamily.

“I guess they did,” replied Neale.

He was intensely fascinated. Did she want him to make love to her? A look at her face was enough to rebuke him for the thought. The shadows from the flickering fire played over her.

“Tell me all about yourself,” she said. “Then about your work.”

Neale told all that he thought would interest her about his youth in the East with a widowed mother, the home that was broken up after she died, and his working his way through a course of civil engineering.

“I was twenty when I first read about this U. P. railroad project,” he went on. “That was more than three years ago. It decided me on my career. I determined to be an engineer and be in the building of the road. No one had any faith in the railroad. I used to be laughed at. But I stuck. And — well, I had to steal some rides to get as far west as Omaha.

“That was more than a year ago. I stayed there — waiting. Nothing was sure, except that the town grew like a mushroom. It filled with soldiers — and the worst crowd I ever saw. You can bet I was shaky when I finally got an audience with General Lodge and his staff. They had an office in a big storehouse. The place was full of men — soldiers and tramps. It struck me right off what a grim and discouraged bunch those engineers looked. I didn’t understand them, but I do now.... Well, I asked for a job. Nobody appeared to hear me. It was hard to make yourself heard. I tried again — louder. An old engineer, whom I know now — Henney — waved me aside. Just as if a job was unheard of!”

Neale quickened and warmed as he progressed, aware now of a little hand tight in his, of an interest that would have made any story-telling a pleasure.

“Well, I felt sick. Then mad. When I get mad I do things. I yelled at that bunch: ‘Here, you men! I’ve walked and stole rides to get here. I’m a surveyor. You’re going to build a railroad. I want a job and I’m going to get it.’

“My voice quieted the hubbub. The old engineer, Henney, looked queerly at me.

“‘Young man, there’s not going to be any railroad.’

“Then I blurted out that there WAS going to be a railroad. Some one spoke up: ‘Who said that? Fetch him here.’ Pretty soon I was looking at Major-General Lodge. He was just from the war and he looked it. Stern and dark, with hard lines and keen eyes. He glanced me over.

“‘There is going to be a railroad?’ he questioned sharply.

“‘Of course there is,’ I replied. I felt foolish, disappointed.

“‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘and I’ll never forget his eyes.’

“‘I can use a few more young fellows like you.’ And that’s how I got on the staff.

“Well, we ran a quick survey west to the Bad Lands — for it was out here that we must find success or failure. And Allie, it’s all been like the biggest kind of an adventure. The troops and horses and camps and trails — the Indian country with its threats from out of the air — the wild places with their deer, buffalo, panthers, trappers like Slingerland, scouts, and desperadoes. It began to get such a hold on me that I was wild. That might have been bad for me but for my work. I did well. Allie, I ran lines for the U. P. that no other engineer could run.”

Neale paused, as much from the squeeze Allie suddenly gave him as for an instant’s rest to catch his breath.

“I mean I had the nerve to tackle cliffs and dangerous slopes,” he went on. Then he told how Larry Red King had saved his life, and that recollection brought back his service to the cowboy; then naturally followed the two dominating incidents of the summer.

Allie lifted a blanched face and darkening eyes. “Neale! You were in danger.”

“Oh, not much, I guess. But Red thought so.”

“He saved you again!... I — I’ll never forget that.”

“Anyway, we’re square, for he’d have got shot sure the day the Indian sneaked up on him.” Allie shuddered and shrank back to Neale, while he hastily resumed his story. “We’re great pards now, Red and I. He doesn’t say much, but his acts tell. He will not let me alone. He follows me everywhere. It’s a joke among the men.... Well Allie, it seems unbelievable that we have crossed the mountains and the desert — grade ninety feet to the mile! The railroad can and will be built. I wish I could tell you how tremendously all this has worked upon me — upon all the engineers. But somehow I can’t. It chokes me. The idea is big. But the work — what shall I call that?... Allie, if you can, imagine some spirit seizing hold of you and making you see difficulties as joys — impossible tasks as only things to strike fire from genius, perils of death as merely incidents of daring adventure to treasure in memory — well that’s something like it. The idea of the U. P. has got me. I believe in it. I shall see it accomplished.... I’ll live it all.”

Allie moved her head on his shoulder, and, looking up at him with eyes that made him ashamed of his egotism, she said, “Then, when it’s done you’ll be chief of engineers or superintendent of maintenance of way?”

She had remembered his very words.

“Allie, I hope so,” he replied, thrilling at her faith. “I’ll work — I’ll get some big position.”

Next day ushered in for Neale a well-earned rest, and he proceeded to enjoy it to the full.

The fall had always been Neale’s favorite season. Here, as elsewhere, the aspect of it was flaming and golden, but different from what he had known hitherto. Dreaming silence of autumn held the wildness and loneliness of the Wyoming hills. The sage shone gray and purple, the ridges yellow and gold; the valleys were green and amber and red. No dust, no heat, no wind — a clear, blue, cloudless sky, sweet odors in the still air — it was a beautiful time.

Days passed and nights passed, as if on wings. Every waking hour drew him closer to this incomparable girl who had arisen upon his horizon like a star. He knew the hour was imminent when he must read his heart. He fought it off; he played with his bliss. Allie was now his shadow instead of the faithful Larry, although the cowboy was often with them, adapting himself to the changed conditions, too big and splendid to be envious or jealous. They fished down the brook, and always at the never-to-be-forgotten ford he would cross first and turn to see her follow. She could never understand why Neale would delight in carrying her across at other points, yet made her ford this one by herself.

“It’s such a bother to take off moccasins and leggings,” she would say.

They rode horseback up and down the trails that Slingerland assured them were safe. And it was the cowboy Larry who lent his horse and taught her a flying mount; he said she would make a rider.

In the afternoons they would climb the high ridge, and on the summit sit in the long whitening grass and gaze out over the dim and purple vastness of the plains. In the twilight they walked under the pines. When night set in and the air grew cold they would watch the ruddy fire on the hearth and see pictures of the future there, and feel a warmth on hand and cheek that was not all from the cheerful blaze.

Neale found it strange to realize how his attachment for Larry had changed to love. All Neale’s spiritual being was undergoing a great and vital change, but this was not the reason he loved Larry. It was because of Allie. The cowboy was a Texan and he had inherited the Southerner’s fine and chivalric regard for women. Neale never knew whether Larry had ever had a sister or a sweetheart or a girl friend. But at sight Larry had become Allie’s own; not a brother or a friend or a lover, but something bigger and higher. The man expanded under her smiles, her teasing, her playfulness, her affection. Neale had no pang in divining the love Larry bore Allie. Drifter, cowboy, gun-thrower, man-killer, whatever he had been, the light of this girl’s beautiful eyes, her voice, her touch, had worked the last marvel in man — forgetfulness of self. And so Neale loved him.

It made Neale quake inwardly to think of the change being wrought in himself. It made him thoughtful of many things. There was much in life utterly new to him. He had listened to a moan in his keen ear; he had felt a call of something helpless; he had found a gleam of chestnut hair; he had stirred two other men to help him befriend a poor, broken-hearted, half-crazed orphan girl. And, lo! the world had changed, his friends had grown happier in their unloved lives, a strange strength had come to him, and, sweetest, most wonderful of all, in the place of the helpless and miserable waif appeared a woman, lovely of face and form, with only a ghost of sadness haunting her eyes, a woman adorable and bright, with the magic of love on her lips.

October came. In the early morning and late afternoon a keen cold breath hung in the air. Slingerland talked of a good prospect for fur. He chopped great stores of wood. Larry climbed the hills with his rifle. Neale walked the trails hand in hand with Allie.

He had never sought to induce her to speak of her past, though at times the evidence of refinement and education and mystery around her made strong appeal to him. She could, tell her story whenever she liked or never — it did not greatly matter.

Then, — one day, quite naturally, but with a shame she did not try to conceal, she confided to him part of the story her mother had told her that dark night when the Sioux were creeping upon the caravan.

Neale was astounded, agitated, intensely concerned.

“Allie!... Your father lives!” he exclaimed.

“Yes.”

“Then I must find him — take you to him.”

“Do what you think best,” she replied, sadly. “But I never saw him. I’ve no love for him. And he never knew I was born.”

“Is it possible? How strange!... If any man could see you now! Allie, do you resemble your mother?”

“Yes, we were alike.”

“Where is your father?” Neale went on, curiously.

“How should I know? It was in New Orleans that mother ran off from him. I — I never blamed her — since she said what she said.... Do you? Will this — make any difference to you?”

“My God, no! But I’m so — so thunderstruck.... This man — this Durade — tell me more of him.”

“He was a Spaniard of high degree, an adventurer, a gambler. He was mad to gamble. He forced my mother to use her beauty to lure men to his gambling-hell.... Oh, it’s terrible to remember. She said he meant to use me for that purpose. That’s why she left him. But in a way he was good to me. I can see so many things now to prove he was wicked.... And mother said he would follow her — track her to the end of the world.”

“Allie! If he should find you some day!” exclaimed Neale, hoarsely.

She put her arms up round his neck. And that, following a terrible pang of dread in Neale’s breast, was too much for him. The tide burst. Love had long claimed him, but its utterance had been withheld. He had been happy in her happiness. He had trained himself to spare her.

“But some day — I’ll be — your wife,” she whispered.

“Soon? Soon?” he returned, trembling.

The scarlet fired her temples, her brow, darkening the skin under her bright hair.

“That’s for you to say.”

She held up her lips, tremulous and sweet.

Neale realized the moment had come. There had never been but the one kiss between them — that of the meeting upon his return in September.

“Allie, I love you!” He spoke thickly.

“And I love you,” she replied, with sweet courage.

“This news you’ve told — this man Durade,” he went on, hoarsely, “I’m suddenly alive — stinging — wild!... If I lost you!”

“Dear, you will never lose me — never in this world or any other,” she replied, tenderly.

“My work, my hope, my life, they all get spirit now from you... Allie! You’re sweet — oh, so sweet! You’re glorious!” he rang out, passionately.

Surprise momentarily checked the rising response of her feeling.

“Neale! You’ve never before said — such-things!... And the way you look!”

“How do I look?” he queried, seeing the joyousness of her surprise.

Then she laughed and that was new to him — a sound low, unutterably rich and full, sweet-toned like a bell, and all resonant of youth.

“Oh, you look like Durade when he was gambling away his soul... You should see him!”

“Well, how’s that?”

“So white — so terrible — so piercing!”

Neale drew her closer, slipped her arms farther up round his neck. “I’m gambling my soul away now,” he said. “If I kiss you I lose it — and I must!”

“Must what?” she whispered, with all a woman’s charm.

“I must kiss you!”

“Then hurry!”

So their lips met.

In the sweetness of that embrace, in the simplicity and answering passion of her kiss, in the overwhelming sense of her gift of herself, heart and soul, he found a strength, a restraint, a nobler fire that gave him peace.

Allie was to amaze Neale again before the sun set on that memorable day.

“I forgot to tell you about the gold!” she exclaimed, her face paling.

“Gold!” ejaculated Neale.

“Yes. He buried it — there — under the biggest of the three trees together. Near a rock! Oh, I can see him now!”

“Him! Who? Allie, what’s this wild talk?”

She pressed his hand to enjoin silence.

“Listen! Horn had gold. How much I don’t know. But it must have been a great deal. He owned the caravan with which we left California. Horn grew to like me. But he hated all the rest.... That night we ended the awful ride! The wagons stalled!... The grayness of dawn — the stillness — oh, I feel them now!... That terrible Indian yell rang out. All my life I’ll hear it!... Then Horn dug a hole. He buried his gold.... And he said whoever escaped could have it. He had no hope.”

“Allie, you’re a mine of surprises. Buried gold! What next?”

“Neale, I wonder — did the Sioux find that gold?” she asked.

“It’s not likely. There certainly wasn’t any hole left open around that place. I saw every inch of ground under those trees.... Allie, I’ll go there to-morrow and hunt for it.”

“Let me go,” she implored. “Ah! I forgot! No — no!... There must be my mother’s grave.”

“Yes, it’s there. I saw. I will mark it.... Allie, how glad I am that you can speak of her — of her past — her grave there without weakening. You are brave! But forget... Allie, if I find that gold it’ll be yours.”

“No. Yours.”

“But I wasn’t one of the caravan. He did not give it to any outsider. You escaped. Therefore it will belong to you.”

“Dearest, I am yours.”

Next day, without acquainting Slingerland or Larry with his purpose, Neale rode down the valley trail.

He expected the road to cross the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail, but if it did cross he could not find the place. It was easy to lose bearings in these hills. Neale had to abandon the hunt for that day, and turning back, with some annoyance at his failure, he decided that it would be best to take Larry and Slingerland into his confidence.

Allie was waiting for him at the brook ford.

“Oh, it was gone!” she cried.

“Allie, I couldn’t find the place. Come, ride back and let me walk beside you.... We’ll have fun telling Larry and Slingerland.”

“Neale, let me tell them,” she begged.

“Go ahead. Make a strong story. Larry always had leanings toward gold-strikes.”

And that night, after supper, when the log fire had begun to blaze, and all were comfortable before it, Allie glanced demurely at Larry and said:

“Reddy, if you had known that I was heiress to great wealth, would you have proposed to me?”

Slingerland roared. Larry seemed utterly stricken.

“Wealth!” he echoed, feebly.

“Yes. Gold! Lots of gold!”

Slingerland’s merry face suddenly grew curious and earnest.

Larry struggled with his discomfiture.

“I reckon I’d done thet anyhow — without knowin’ you was rich — if it hadn’t been fer this heah U. P. surveyor fellar.”

And then the joke was on Allie, as her blushes proved. Neale came to her rescue and told the story of Horn’s buried gold, and of his own search that day for the place.

“Shore I’ll find it,” declared Larry. “We’ll go to-morrow....”

Slingerland stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“If thar’s gold been buried thar it’s sure an’ certain thar yet,” he said. “But I’m afraid we won’t git thar tomorrow.”

“Why not? Surely you or Larry can find the place?”

“Listen.”

Neale listened while he was watching Allie’s parted lips and speaking eyes. A low, whining wind swept through the trees and over the roof of the cabin.

“Thet wind says snow,” declared the trapper.

Neale went outside. The wind struck him cold and keen, with a sharp edge to it. The stars showed pale and dim through hazy atmosphere. Assuredly there was a storm brewing. Neale returned to the fire, shivering and holding his palms to the heat.

“Cold, you bet, with the wind rising,” he said. “But, Slingerland, suppose it does snow. Can’t we go, anyhow?”

“It ain’t likely. You see, it snows up hyar. Mebbe we’ll be snowed in fer a spell. An’ thet valley is open down thar. In deep snow what could we find? We’ll wait an’ see.”

On the morrow a storm raged and all was dim through a ghostly, whirling pall. The season of drifting snow had come, and Neale’s winter work had begun.

Five miles by short cut over the ridges curved the long survey over which Neale must keep watch; and the going and coming were Neale’s hardest toil. It was laborsome to trudge up and down in soft snow.

That first snow of winter, however, did not last long, except in the sheltered places. Fortunately for Neale, almost all of his section of the survey ran over open ground. But this fact augured seriously for his task when the dry and powdery snow of midwinter began to fall and sweep before the wind and drift over the lee side of the ridge.

During the first week of tramping he thoroughly learned the lay of the land, the topography of his particular stretch of Sherman Pass. And one day, taking an early start from camp, he set forth to make his first call upon his nearest associate in this work, the engineer Service. Once high up on the pass he found the snow had not all melted, and still higher it lay white and unbroken as far as he could see. The air was keener up there. Neale gathered that Service would have a colder job than his own, if it was not so long and hard.

He found Service at home in his dugout, warm and comfortable and in excellent spirits. They compared notes, and even in this early work they decided it would be a wise plan for the engineering staff to study the problem of drifting snow.

Neale enjoyed a meal with Service, and then, early in the afternoon, he started back on his long tramp homeward. He gathered from his visit that Service did not mind the lonesomeness, but that he did suffer from the cold more than he had expected. Service was not an active, full-blooded man, and Neale had some misgivings. Judging from the trapper’s remarks, winter high up in the Wyoming hills was something to dread.

November brought the real storms — the gray banks of rolling cloud, the rain and sleet and snow and ice, and the wind. Neale concluded he had never before faced a real wind, and when, one day on a ridge-top, he was blown off his feet he was sure of it. Some days he could not go out at all. Other days it was not imperative, for it was only during and after snow-storms that he could make observations. He learned to travel on snow-shoes, and ten miles of such traveling up and down the steep slopes was the most killing hard toil he had ever attempted. After such trips he would reach the cabin utterly fagged out, too tired to eat, too weary, to talk, almost too dead to hear the solicitations of his friends or to appreciate Allie’s tender, anxious care. If he had not been strong and robust and in good training to begin with, he would have failed under the burden. Gradually he grew used to the strenuous toil, and became hardened, tough, and enduring.

Though Neale hated the cold and the wind, there were moments when an exceedingly keen exhilaration uplifted him. These experiences visited him while on the heights, looking far over the snowy ridges to, the white, monotonous plain or up toward the shining peaks. All seemed barren and cold. He never saw a living creature or a track upon those slopes. When the sun shone all was so dazzlingly, glaringly white that his eyes were struck by temporary blindness.

Upon one of the milder days, which were getting rarer in mid-December, Neale again visited his comrade on the summit. He found Service in bad shape. In falling down a slippery ledge he had injured or broken his lame leg. Neale, with great concern, tried to ascertain the nature and extent of the harm done, but he was unable to do so. Service was practically helpless, although not suffering any great pain. The two of them decided, at length, that he had not broken any bones, but that it was necessary to move him to where he could be waited upon and treated, or else some one must be brought in to take care of him. Neale deliberated a moment.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, finally. “You can be moved down to Slingerland’s cabin without pain to you. I’ll get Slingerland and his sled. You’ll be more comfortable there. It’ll be better all around.”

So that was decided upon. And Neale, after doing all he could for Service, and assuring him that he would return in less than twenty-four hours, turned his steps for the valley.

The sunset that night struck him as singularly dull, pale, menacing. He understood its meaning later, when Slingerland said they were in for another storm. Before dark the wind began to moan through the trees like lost spirits. The trapper shook his shaggy head ominously.

“Reckon thet sounds bad to me,” he said. And from moan it rose to wail, and from wail to roar.

That alarmed Neale. He went outside and Slingerland followed. Snow was sweeping down-light, dry, powdery. The wind was piercingly cold. Slingerland yelled something, but Neale could not distinguish what. When they got back inside the trapper said:

“Blizzard!”

Neale grew distressed.

“Wal, no use to worry about Service,” argued the trapper. “If it is a blizzard we can’t git up thar, thet’s all. Mebbe this’ll not be so bad. But I ain’t bettin’ on thet.”

Even Allie couldn’t cheer Neale that night. Long after she and the others had retired he kept up the fire and listened to the roar of the wind. When the fire died down a little the cabin grew uncomfortably cold, and this fact attested to a continually dropping temperature. But he hoped against hope and finally sought his blankets.

Morning came, but the cabin was almost as dark as by night. A blinding, swirling snow-storm obscured the sun.

A blizzard raged for forty-eight hours. When the snow finally ceased falling the cold increased until Neale guessed the temperature might be forty degrees below zero. The trapper claimed sixty. It was necessary to stay indoors till the weather moderated.

On the fifth morning Slingerland was persuaded to attempt the trip to aid Service. Larry wanted to accompany them, but Slingerland said he had better stay with Allie. So, muffled up, the two men set out on snow-shoes, dragging a sled. A crust had frozen on the snow, otherwise traveling would have been impossible. Once up on the slope the north wind hit them square in the face. Heavily clad as he was, Neale thought the very marrow in his bones would freeze. That wind blew straight through him. There were places where it took both men to hold the sled to keep it from getting away. They were blown back one step for every two steps they made. On the exposed heights they could not walk upright. At last, after hours of desperate effort, they got over the ridge to a sheltered side along which they labored up to Service’s dugout.

Up there the snow had blown away in places, leaving bare spots, bleak, icy, barren, stark. No smoke appeared to rise above the dugout. The rude habitation looked as though no man had been there that winter. Neale glanced in swift dismay at Slingerland.

“Son, look fer the wust,” he said. “An’ we hain’t got time to waste.”

They pushed open the canvas framework of a door and, stooping low, passed inside. Neale’s glance saw first the fireplace, where no fire had burned for days. Snow had sifted into the dugout and lay in little drifts everywhere. The blankets on the bunk covered Service, hiding his face. Both men knew before they uncovered him what his fate had been.

“Frozen to death!” gasped Neale.

Service lay white, rigid, like stone, with no sign of suffering upon his face.

“He jest went to sleep — an’ never woke up,” declared Slingerland.

“Thank God for that!” exclaimed Neale. “Oh, why did I not stay with him?”

“Too late, son. An’ many a good man will go to his death before thet damn railroad is done.”

Neale searched for Service’s notes and letters and valuables which could be turned over to the engineering staff.

Slingerland found a pick and shovel, which Neale remembered to have used in building the dugout; and with these the two men toiled at the frozen sand and gravel to open up a grave; It was like digging in stone. At length they succeeded. Then, rolling Service in the blankets and tarpaulin, they lowered him into the cold ground and hurriedly filled up his grave.

It was a grim, gruesome task. Another nameless grave! Neale had already seen nine graves. This one was up the slope not a hundred feet from the line of survey.

“Slingerland,” exclaimed Neale, “the railroad will run along there! Trains will pass this spot. In years to come travelers will look out of the train windows along here. Boys riding away to seek their fortunes! Bride and groom on their honeymoon! Thousands of people — going, coming, busy, happy at their own affairs, full of their own lives — will pass by poor Service’s grave and never know it’s there!”

“Wal, son, if people must hev railroads, they must kill men to build them,” replied the trapper.

Neale conceived the idea that Slingerland did, not welcome the coming of the steel rails. The thought shocked him. But then, he reflected, a trapper would not profit by the advance of civilization.

With the wind in their backs Neale and Slingerland were practically blown home. They made it up between them to keep knowledge of the tragedy from Allie. So ended the coldest and hardest and grimmest day Neale had ever known.

The winter passed, the snows melted, the winds quieted, and spring came.

Long since Neale had decided to leave Allie with Slingerland that summer. She would be happy there, and she wished to stay until Neale could take her with him. That seemed out of the question for the present. A construction camp full of troopers and laborers was no place for Allie. Neale dreaded the idea of taking her to Omaha. Always in his mind were haunting fears of this Spaniard, Durade, who had ruined Allie’s mother, and of the father whom Allie had never seen. Neale instinctively felt that these men were to crop up somewhere in his life, and before they did appear he wanted to marry Allie. She was now little more than sixteen years old.

Neale’s plans for the summer could not be wholly known until he had reported to the general staff, which might be at Fort Fetterman or North Platte or all the way back in Omaha. But it was probable that he would be set to work with the advancing troops and trains and laborers. Engineers had to accompany both the grading gangs and the rail gangs.

Neale, in his talks with Larry and Slingerland, had dwelt long and conjecturingly upon what life was going to be in the construction camps.

To Larry what might happen was of little moment. He lived in the present. But Neale was different. He had to be anticipating events; he lived in the future, his mind was centered on future work, achievement, and what he might go through in attaining his end. Slingerland was his appreciative listener.

“Wal,” he would say, shaking his grizzled head, “I reckon I don’t believe all your General Lodge says is goin’ to happen.”

“But, man, can’t you imagine what it will be?” protested Neale. “Take thousands of soldiers — the riffraff of the war — and thousands of laborers of all classes, niggers, greasers, pigtail chinks, and Irish. Take thousands of men who want to earn an honest dollar, but not honestly. All the gamblers, outlaws, robbers, murderers, criminals, adventurers in the States, and perhaps many from abroad, will be on the trail. Think, man, of the money — the gold! Millions spilled out in these wilds!... And last and worst — the bad women!”

Slingerland showed his amazement at the pictures drawn by Neale, especially at the final one.

“Wal, I reckon thet’s all guff too,” he said. “A lot of bad women out in these wilds ain’t to be feared. Supposin’ thar was a lot of them which ain’t likely — how’d they ever git out to the camps?”

“Slingerland, the trains — the trains will follow the laying of the rails!”

“Oho! An’ you mean thar’ll be towns grow up overnightall full of bad people who ain’t workin’ on the railroad, but jest followin’ the gold?”

“Exactly. Now listen. Remember all these mixed gangs — the gold — and the bad women — out here in the wild country — no law — no restraint — no fear, except of death — drinking-hells — gambling-hells — dancing-hells! What’s going to happen?”

The trapper meditated a while, stroking his beard, and then he said: “Wal, thar ain’t enough gold to build thet railroad — an’ if thar was it couldn’t never be done!”

“Ah!” cried Neale, raising his head sharply. “It’s a matter of gold first. Streams of gold! And then — can it be done?”

One day, as the time for Neale’s departure grew closer, Slingerland’s quiet and peaceful valley was violated by a visit from four rough-looking men.

They rode in without packs. It was significant to Neale that Larry swore at sight of them, and then in his cool, easy way sauntered between them and the cabin door, where Allie stood with astonishment fixed on her beautiful face. The Texan always packed his heavy gun, and certainly no Western men would mistake his quality. These visitors were civil enough, asked for a little tobacco, and showed no sign of evil intent.

“Way off the beaten track up hyar,” said one.

“Yes. I’m a trapper,” replied Slingerland. “Whar do you hail from?”

“Ogden. We’re packin’ east.”

“Much travel on the trail?”

“Right smart fer wild country. An’ all goin’ east. We hain’t met an outfit headin’ west. Hev you heerd any talk of a railroad buildin’ out of Omaha?”

Here Larry put a word in.

“Shore. We’ve had soldiers campin’ around aboot all heah.”

“Soldiers!” ejaculated one of the gang.

“Shore, the road’s bein’ built by soldiers.”

The men made no further comment and turned away without any good-bys. Slingerland called out to them to have an eye open for Indians on the war-path.

“Wal, I don’t like the looks of them fellars,” he declared.

Neale likewise took an unfavorable view of the visit, but Larry scouted the idea of there being any danger in a gang like that.

“Shore they’d be afraid of a man,” he declared.

“Red, can you look at men and tell whether or not there’s danger in them?” inquired Neale.

“I shore can. One man could bluff thet outfit.... But I reckon I’d hate to have them find Allie aboot heah alone.”

“I can take care of myself,” spoke up Allie, spiritedly.

Neale and Slingerland, for all their respect for the cowboy’s judgment, regarded the advent of these visitors as a forerunner of an evil time for lonely trappers.

“I’ll hev to move back deeper in the mountains, away from the railroad,” said Slingerland.

This incident also put a different light upon the intention Neale had of hunting for the buried gold. Just now he certainly did not want to risk being seen digging gold or packing it away; and Slingerland was just as loath to have it concealed in or near his cabin.

“Wal, seein’ we’re not sure it’s really there, let’s wait till you come back in summer or fall,” he suggested. “If it’s thar it’ll stay thar.”

All too soon the dawn came for Neale’s departure with Larry. Allie was braver than he. At the last he was white and shaken. She kissed Larry.

“Reddy, you’ll take care of yourself — and him,” she said.

“Allie, I shore will. Good-by.” Larry rode down the trail in the dim gray dawn.

“Watch sharp for Indians,” she breathed, and her face whitened momentarily. Then the color returned. Her eyes welled full of sweet, soft light.

“Allie, I can’t go,” said Neale, hoarsely. The clasp of her arms unnerved him.

“You must. It’s your work. Remember the big job!... Dearest! Dearest! Hurry — and — go!”

Neale could no longer see her face clearly. He did not know what he was saying.

“You’ll always — love me?” he implored.

“Do you need to ask? All my life!... I promise.”

“Kiss me, then,” he whispered, hoarsely, blindly leaning down. “It’s hell — to leave you!... Wonderful girl — treasure — precious — Allie!... Kiss me — enough!... I—”

She held him with strong and passionate clasp and kissed him again and again.

“Good-by!” Her last word was low, choked, poignant, and had in it a mournful reminder of her old tragic woe.

Then he was alone. Mounting clumsily, with blurred eyes, he rode into the winding trail.

CHAPTER 10

NEALE AND KING traveled light, without pack-animals, and at sunrise they reached the main trail.

It bore evidence of considerable use and was no longer a trail, but a highroad. Fresh tracks of horses and oxen, wagon-wheel ruts, dead camp-fires, and scattered brush that had been used for wind-breaks — all these things attested to the growing impetus of that movement; soon it was to become extraordinary.

All this was Indian country. Neale and his companion had no idea whether or not the Sioux had left their winter quarters for the war-path. But it was a vast region, and the Indians could not be everywhere. Neale and King took chances, as had all these travelers, though perhaps the risk was not so great, because they rode fleet horses. They discovered no signs of Indians, and it appeared as if they were alone in a wilderness.

They covered sixty miles from early dawn to dark, with a short rest at noon, and reached Fort Fetterman safely without incident or accident. Troops were there, but none of the U. P. engineering staff. Neale did not meet any soldiers with whom he was acquainted. Orders were there for him, however, to report to North Platte as soon as it was possible to reach there. Troops were to be moving soon, so Neale learned, and the long journey could be made in comparative safety.

Here Neale received the tidings that forty miles of railroad had been built during the last summer, and trains had been run that distance west from Omaha. His heart swelled. Not for many a week had he heard anything favorable to the great U. P. project, and here was news of rails laid, trains run. Already this spring the graders were breaking ground far ahead of the rail-layers. Report and rumor at the fort had it that lively times had attended the construction. But the one absorbing topic was the Sioux Indians, who were expected to swarm out of the hills that summer and give the troops hot work.

In due time Neale and Larry arrived at North Platte, which was little more than a camp. The construction gangs were not expected to reach there until late in the fall. Baxter was at North Platte, with a lame surveyor, and no other helpers; consequently he hailed Neale and Larry with open arms. A summer’s work on the hot monotonous plains stared Neale in the face, but he must resign himself to the inevitable. He worked, as always, with that ability and energy which had made him invaluable to his superiors. Here, however, the labor was a dull, hot grind, without any thrills. Neale filled the long days with duty and seldom let his mind-wander. In leisure hours, however, he dreamed of Allie and the future. He found no trouble in passing time that way. Also he watched eagerly for arrivals from the west, whom he questioned about Indians in the Wyoming hills; and from troops or travelers coming from the east he heard all the news of the advancing railroad construction. It was absorbingly interesting, yet Neale could credit so few of the tales.

The summer and early fall passed.

Neale was ordered to Omaha. The news stunned him. He had built all his hopes on another winter out in the Wyoming hills, and this disappointment was crushing. It made him ill for a day. He almost threw up his work. It did not seem possible to live that interminable stretch without seeing Allie Lee. The nature of his commission, however, brought once again to mind the opportunity that knocked at his door. Neale had run all the different surveys for bridges in the Wyoming hills and now he was needed in the office of the staff, where plans and drawings were being made. Again he bowed to the inevitable. But he determined to demand in the spring that he be sent ahead to the forefront of the construction work.

Another disappointment seemed in order. Larry King refused to go any farther back east. Neale was exceedingly surprised.

“Do you throw up your job?” he asked.

“Shore not. I can work heah,” replied Larry.

“There won’t be any outside work on these bleak plains in winter.”

“Wal, I reckon I’ll loaf, then,” he drawled.

Neale could not change him. Larry vowed he would take his old place with Neale next spring, if it should be open to him.

“But why? Red, I can’t figure you,” protested Neale.

“Pard, I reckon I’m fur enough back east right heah,” said Larry, significantly.

A light dawned upon Neale. “Red! You’ve done something bad!” exclaimed Neale, in genuine dismay.

“Wal, I don’t know jest how bad it was, but it shore was hell,” replied Larry, with a grin.

“Red, you aren’t afraid,” asserted Neale, positively.

The cowboy flushed and looked insulted. “If any one but you said thet to me he’d hev to eat it.”

“I beg your pardon, old man. But I’m surprised. It doesn’t seem like you.... And then — Lord! I’ll miss you.”

“No more ‘n I’ll miss you, pard,” replied Larry.

Suddenly Neale had a happy thought. “Red, you go back to Slingerland’s and help take care of Allie. I’d feel she was safer.”

“Wal, she might be safer, but I wouldn’t be,” declared the cowboy, bluntly.

“You red-head! What do you mean?” demanded Neale.

“I mean this heah. If I stayed around another winter near Allie Lee — with her alone, fer thet trapper never set up before thet fire — I’d — why, Neale, I’d ambush you like an Injun when you come back!”

“You wouldn’t,” rejoined Neale. He wanted to laugh but had no mirth.

Larry did not mean that, but neither did he mean to be funny. “I’ll be hangin’ round heah, waitin’ fer you. It’s only a few months. Go on to your work, pard. You’ll be a big man on the road some day.”

Neale left North Platte with a wagon-train.

After a long, slow journey the point was reached where the graders had left off work for that year. Here had been a huge construction camp; and the bare and squalid place looked as if it once had been a town of crudest make, suddenly wrecked by a cyclone and burned by prairie fire. Fifty miles farther on, representing two more long, tedious, and unendurable days, and Neale heard the whistle of a locomotive. It came from far off. But it was a whistle. He yelled, and the men journeying with him joined in.

Smoke showed on the horizon, together with a wide, low, uneven line of shacks and tents.

Neale was all eyes when he rode into that construction camp. The place was a bedlam. A motley horde of men appeared to be doing everything under the sun but work, and most of them seemed particularly eager to board a long train of box-cars and little old passenger-coaches. Neale made a dive for the train, and his sojourn in that camp was a short and exciting one of ten minutes.

He felt unutterably proud. He had helped survey the line along which the train was now rattling and creaking and swaying. All that swiftly passed under his keen eyes was recorded in his memory — the uncouth crowd of laborers, the hardest lot he had ever seen; the talk, noise, smoke; the rickety old clattering coaches; the wayside dumps and heaps and wreckage. But they all seemed parts of a beautiful romance to him. Neale saw through the eyes of golden ambition and illimitable dreams.

And not for a moment of that endless ride, with interminable stops, did he weary of the two hundred and sixty miles of rails laid that year, and of the forty miles of the preceding year. Then came Omaha, a beehive — the making of a Western metropolis!

Neale plunged into the bewildering turmoil of plans, tasks, schemes, land-grants, politics, charters, inducements, liens and loans, Government and army and State and national interests, grafts and deals and bosses — all that mass of selfish and unselfish motives, all that wealth of cunning and noble aims, all that congested assemblage of humanity which went to make up the building of the Union Pacific.

Neale was a dreamer, like the few men whose minds had first given birth to the wonderful idea of a railroad from East to West. Neale found himself confronted by a singularly disturbing fact. However grand this project, its political and mercenary features could not be beautiful to him. Why could not all men be right-minded about a noble cause and work unselfishly for the development of the West and the future generations? It was a melancholy thing to learn that men of sincere and generous purpose had spent their all trying to raise the money to build the Union Pacific; on the other hand, it was a satisfaction to hear that many capitalists with greedy claws had ruined themselves in like efforts.

The President of the United States and Congress had their own troubles at the close of the war, and the Government could do but little money-raising with land-grants and loans. But they offered a great bonus to the men who would build the railroad.

The first construction company subscribed over a million and a half dollars, and paid in one-quarter of that. The money went so swiftly that it opened the company’s eyes to the insatiable gulf beneath that enterprise, and they quit.

Thereupon what was called the Credit Mobilier was inaugurated, and it became both famous and infamous.

It was a type of the construction company by which it was the custom to build railroads at that time. The directors, believing that whatever money was to be made out of the Union Pacific must be collected during the construction period, organized a clever system for just this purpose.

An extravagant sum was to be paid to the Credit Mobilier for the construction work, thus securing for stockholders of the Union Pacific, who now controlled the Credit Mobilier, the bonds loaned by the United States Government.

The operations of the Credit Mobilier finally gave rise to one of the most serious political scandals in the history of the United States Congress.

The cost of all material was high, and it rose with leaps and bounds until it was prodigious. Omaha had no railroad entering it from the east, and so all the supplies, materials, engines, cars, machinery, and laborers had to be transported from St. Louis up the swift Missouri on boats. This in itself was a work calling for the limit of practical management and energy. Out on the prairie-land, for hundreds of miles, were to be found no trees, no wood, scarcely any brush. The prairie-land was beautiful ground for buffalo, but it was a most barren desert for the exigencies of railroad men. Moreover, not only did wood and fuel and railroad-ties have to be brought from afar, but also stone for bridges and abutments. Then thousands of men had to be employed, and those who hired out for reasonable money soon learned that others were getting more; having the company at their mercy, they demanded exorbitant wages in their turn.

One of the peculiar features of the construction, a feature over which Neale grew impotently furious, was the law that when a certain section of so many miles had been laid and equipped the Government of the United States would send out expert commissioners, who would go over the line and pass judgment upon the finished work. No two groups of commissioners seemed to agree. These experts, who had their part to play in the bewildering and labyrinthine maze of men’s contrary plans and plots, reported that certain sections would have to be done over again.

The particular fault found with one of these sections was the alleged steepness of the grade, and as Neale had been the surveyor in charge, he soon heard of his poor work. He went over his figures and notes with the result that he called on Henney and absolutely swore that the grade was right. Henney swore too, in a different and more forcible way, but he agreed with Neale and advised him to call upon the expert commissioners.

Neale did so, and found them, with one exception, open to conviction. The exception was a man named Allison Lee. The name Lee gave Neale a little shock. He was a gray-looking man, with lined face, and that concentrated air which Neale had learned to associate with those who were high in the affairs of the U. P.

Neale stated that his business was to show that his work had been done right, and he had the figures to prove it. Mr. Lee replied that the survey was poor and would have to be done over.

“Are you a surveyor?” queried Neale, sharply, with the blood beating in his temples.

“I have some knowledge of civil engineering,” replied the commissioner.

“Well, it can’t be very much,” declared Neale, whose temper was up.

“Young man, be careful what you say,” replied the other.

“But Mr. — Mr. Lee — listen to me, will you?” burst out Neale. “It’s all here in my notes. You’ve hurried over the line and you just slipped up a foot or so in your observations of that section.”

Mr. Lee refused to look at the notes and waved Neale aside.

“It’ll hurt my chances for a big job,” Neale said, stubbornly.

“You probably will lose your job, judging from the way you address your superiors.”

That finished Neale. He grew perfectly white.

“All this expert-commissioner business is rot,” he flung at Lee. “Rot! Lodge knows it. Henney knows it. We all do. And so do you. It’s a lot of damn red tape! Every last man who can pull a stroke with the Government runs in here to annoy good efficient engineers who are building the road. It’s an outrage. It’s more. It’s not honest... That section has forty miles in it. Five miles you claim must be resurveyed — regraded — relaid. Forty-six thousand dollars a mile!... That’s the secret — two hundred and thirty thousand dollars more for a construction company!”

Neale left the office and, returning to Henney, repeated the interview to him word for word. Henney complimented Neale’s spirit, but deplored the incident. It could do no good and might do harm. Many of these commissioners were politicians, working in close touch with the directors, and not averse to bleeding the Credit Mobilier.

All the engineers, including the chief, though he was noncommittal, were bitter about this expert-commissioner law. If a good road-bed had been surveyed, the engineers knew more about it than any one else. They were the pioneers of the work. It was exceedingly annoying and exasperating to have a number of men travel leisurely in trains over the line and criticize the labors of engineers who had toiled in heat and cold and wet, with brain and heart in the task. But it was so.

In May, 1866, a wagon-train escorted by troops rolled into the growing camp of North Platte, and the first man to alight was Warren Neale, strong, active, eager-eyed as ever, but older and with face pale from his indoor work and hope long deferred.

The first man to greet him was Larry King, in whom time did not make changes.

They met as long-separated brothers.

“Red how’re your horses?” was Neale’s query, following the greeting.

“Wintered well, but cost me all I had. I’m shore busted,” replied Larry.

“I’ve plenty of money,” said Neale, “and what’s mine is yours. Come on, Red. We’ll get light packs and hit the trail for the Wyoming hills.”

“Wal, I reckoned so... Neale, it’s shore goin’ to be risky. The Injuns are on the rampage already. You see how this heah camp has growed. Men ridin’ in all since winter broke. An’ them from west tell some hard stories.”

“I’ve got to go,” replied Neale, with emotion. “It’s nearly a year since I saw Allie. Not a word between us in all that time!... Red, I can’t stand it longer.”

“Shore, I know,” replied King, hastily. “You ain’t reckonin’ I wanted to crawfish? I’ll go. We’ll pack light, hit the trail at night, an’ hide up in the daytime.”

Neale had arrived in North Platte before noon, and before sunset he and King were far out on the swelling slopes of plainland, riding toward the west.

Traveling by night, camping by day, they soon left behind them the monotonous plains of Nebraska. The Sioux had been active for two summers along the southern trails of Wyoming. The Texan’s long training on the ranges stood them in good stead here. His keen eye for tracks and smoke and distant objects, his care in hiding trails and selecting camps, and his skill and judgment in all pertaining to the horses — these things made the journey possible. For they saw Indian signs more than once before the Wyoming hills loomed up in the distance. More than one flickering camp-fire they avoided by a wide detour.

Slingerland’s valley showed all the signs of early summer. The familiar trail, however, bore no tracks of horses or man or beast. A heavy rain had fallen recently and it would have obliterated tracks.

Neale’s suspense sustained the added burden of dread. In the oppressive silence of the valley he read some nameless reason for fear. The trail seemed the same, the brook flowed and murmured as of old, the trees shone soft and green, but Neale sensed a difference. He dared not look at Larry for confirmation of his fears. The valley had not of late been lived in!

Neale rode hard up the trail under the pines. A blackened heap lay where once the cabin had stood. Neale’s heart gave a terrible leap and then seemed to cease beating. He could not breathe nor speak nor move. His eyes were fixed on the black remains of Slingerland’s cabin.

“Gawd Almighty!” gasped Larry, and he put out a shaking hand to clutch Neale. “The Injuns! I always feared this — spite of Slingerland’s talk.”

The feel of Larry’s fierce fingers, like hot, stinging arrows in his flesh, pierced Neale’s mind and made him realize what his stunned faculties had failed to grasp. It seemed to loosen the vise-like hold upon his muscles, to liberate his tongue.

He fell off his horse.

“Red! Look — look around!”

Allie was gone! The disappointment at not seeing her was crushing, and the fear of utter loss was terrible. Neale lay on the ground, blind, sick, full of agony, with his fingers tearing at the grass. The evil presentiments that had haunted him for months had not been groundless fancies. Perhaps Allie had called to him again, in another hour of calamity, and this time he had not responded. She was gone! That idea struck him cold. It meant the most dreadful of all happenings. For a while he lay there, prostrate under the shock. He was dimly aware of Larry’s coming and sitting down beside him.

“No sign of any one,” he said, huskily. “Not even a track!... Thet fire must hev been about two weeks ago. Mebbe more, but not much. There’s been a big rain an’ the ground’s all washed clean an’ smooth ... Not a track!”

It was the cowboy’s habit to calculate the past movements of people and horses by the nature of the tracks they left.

Then Neale awoke to violence. He sprang up and rushed to the ruins of the cabin, frantically tore and dug around the burnt embers, and did not leave off until he had overhauled the whole pile. There was nothing but ashes and embers. Whereupon he ran to the empty corrals, to the sheds, to the wood-pile, to the spring, and all around the space once so habitable. There was nothing to reward his fierce energy — nothing to scrutinize. Already grass was springing in the trails and upon spots that had once been bare.

Neale halted, sweating, hot, wild, before his friend. Larry avoided his gaze.

“She’s gone!... She’s gone!” Neale panted.

“Wal, mebbe Slingerland moved camp an’ burned this place,” suggested Larry. “He was sore after them four road-agents rustled in heah.”

“No — no. He’d have left the cabin. In case he moved — Allie was to write me a note — telling me how to find them. I remember — we picked out the place to hide the note... Oh! she’s gone! She’s gone!”

“Wal, then, mebbe Slingerland got away an’ the cabin was burned after.”

“I can’t hope that... I tell you — it means hell’s opened up before me.”

“Wal, it’s tough, I know, Neale, but mebbe—”

Neale wheeled fiercely upon him. “You’re only saying those things! You don’t believe them! Tell me what you do really think.”

“Lord, pard, it couldn’t be no wuss,” replied Larry, his lean face working. “I figger only one way. This heah. Slingerland had left Allie alone... Then — she was made away with an’ the cabin burned.”

“Indians?”

“Mebbe. But I lean more to the idee of an outfit like thet one what was heah.”

Neale groaned in his torture. “Not that, Reddy — not that!... The Indians would kill her — scalp her — or take her captive into their tribe... But a gang of cutthroat ruffians like these... My God! if I KNEW that had happened it’d kill me.”

Larry swore at his friend. “It can’t do no good to go to pieces,” he expostulated. “Let’s do somethin’.”

“What — in Heaven’s name!” cried Neale, in despair.

“Wal, we can rustle up every trail in these heah Black Hills. Mebbe we

can find Slingerland.”

Then began a search — frantic, desperate, and forlorn on the part of

Neale; faithful and dogged and keen on the part of King. Neale was like

a wild man. He heeded no advice or caution. Only the cowboy’s iron arm

saved Neale and his horse. It was imperative to find water and grass,

and to eat, necessary things which Neale seemed to have forgotten. He

seldom slept or rested or ate. They risked meeting the Sioux in every

valley and on every ridge. Neale would have welcomed the sight of

Indians; he would have rushed into peril in the madness of his grief.

Still, there was hope! He lived all the hours in utter agony of mind,

but his heart did not give up.

They coursed far and near, always keeping to the stream beds, for if Slingerland had made another camp it would be near water. More than one trail led nowhere; more than one horse track roused hopes that were futile. The Wyoming hills country was surely a lonely and a wild one, singularly baffling to the searchers, for in two weeks of wide travel it did not yield a sign or track of man. Neale and King used up all their scant supply of food, threw away all their outfit except a bag of salt, and went on, living on the meat they shot.

Then one day, unexpectedly, they came upon two trappers by a beaver-dam. Neale was overcome by his emotion; he sensed that from these men he would learn something. The first look from them told him that his errand was known.

“Howdy!” greeted Larry. “It shore is good to see you men — the fust we’ve come on in an awful hunt through these heah hills.”

“Thar ain’t any doubt thet you look it, friend,” replied one of the trappers.

“We’re huntin’ fer Slingerland. Do you happen to know him?”

“Knowed Al fer years. He went through hyar a week ago — jest after the big rain, wasn’t it, Bill?”

“Wal, to be exact it was eight days ago,” replied the comrade Bill.

“Was — he — alone?” asked Larry, thickly.

“Sure, an’ lookin’ sick. He lost his girl not long since, he said, an’ it broke him bad.”

“Lost her! How?”

“Wal, he was sure it wasn’t redskins,” rejoined the trapper, reflectively. “Slingerland stood in with the Sioux — traded with ‘em. He—”

“Tell me quick!” hoarsely interrupted Neale. “What happened to Allie Lee?”

“Fellars, my pard heah is hurt deep,” said Larry. “The girl you spoke of was his sweetheart.”

“Young man, we only know what Al told us,” replied the trapper. “He

said the only time he ever left the lass alone was the very day she was

taken. Al come home to find the cabin red-hot ashes. Everythin’ gone. No

sign of the lass. No sign of murder. She was jest carried off. There was

tracks — hoss tracks an’ boot tracks, to the number of three or four men

an’ hosses. Al trailed ‘em. But thet very night he had to hold up to

keep from bein’ drowned, as we had to hyar. Wal, next day he couldn’t

find any tracks. But he kept on huntin’ fer a few days, an’ then give

up. He said she’d be dead by then — said she wasn’t the kind thet could

have lived more ‘n a day with men like them. Some hard customers are

driftin’ by from the gold-fields. An’ Bill an’ I, hyar, ain’t in love

with this railroad idee. It ‘ll ruin the country fer trappin’ an’

livin’.”

Some weeks later a gaunt and ragged cowboy limped into North

Platte, walking beside a broken horse, upon the back of which swayed and

reeled a rider tied in the saddle.

It was not a sight to interest any except the lazy or the curious, for in that day such things were common in North Platte. The horse had bullet creases on his neck; the rider wore a bloody shirt; the gaunt pedestrian had a bandaged arm.

Neale lay ill of a deeper wound while the bullet-hole healed in his side. Day and night Larry tended him or sat by him or slept near him in a shack on the outskirts of the camp. Shock, grief, starvation, exhaustion, loss of blood and sleep — all these brought Warren Neale close to death. He did not care to live. It was the patient, loyal friend who fought fever and heartbreak and the ebbing tide of life.

Baxter and Henney visited North Platte and called to see him, and later the chief came and ordered Larry to take Neale to the tents of the corps. Every one was kind, solicitous, earnest. He had been missed. The members of his corps knew the strange story of Allie Lee; they guessed the romance and grieved over the tragedy. They did all they could do, and the troop doctor added his attention; but it was the nursing, the presence, and the spirit of Larry King that saved Neale.

He got well and went back to work with the cowboy for his helper.

In that camp of toil and disorder none but the few with whom Neale was brought in close touch noted anything singular about him. The engineers, however, observed that he did not work so well, nor so energetically, nor so accurately. His enthusiasm was lacking. The cowboy, always with him, was the one who saw the sudden spells of somber abstraction and the poignant, hopeless, sleepless pain, the eternal regret. And as Neale slackened in his duty Larry King grew more faithful.

Neale began to drink and gamble. For long the cowboy fought, argued, appealed against this order of things, and then, failing to change or persuade Neale, he went to gambling and drinking with him. But then it was noted that Neale never got under the influence of liquor or lost materially at cards. The cowboy spilled the contents of Neale’s glass and played the game into his hands.

Both of them shrank instinctively from the women of the camp. The sight

of anything feminine hurt.

North Platte stirred with the quickening stimulus of the approach

of the rails and the trains, and the army of soldiers whose duty was to

protect the horde of toilers, and the army of tradesmen and parasites

who lived off them.

The construction camp of the graders moved on westward, keeping ahead of the camps of the layers.

The first train that reached North Platte brought directors of the U. P. R. — among them Warburton and Rudd and Rogers; also Commissioners Lee and Dunn and a host of followers on a tour of inspection.

The five miles of Neale’s section of road that the commissioners had judged at fault had been torn up, resurveyed, and relaid.

Neale rode back over the line with Baxter and surveyed the renewed part. Then, returning to North Platte, he precipitated consternation among directors and commissioners and engineers, as they sat in council, by throwing on the table figures of the new survey identical with his old data.

“Gentlemen, the five miles of track torn up and rebuilt had precisely the same grade, to an inch!” he declared, with ringing scorn.

Baxter corroborated his statement. The commissioners roared and the directors demanded explanations.

“I’ll explain it,” shouted Neale. “Forty-six thousand dollars a mile! Five miles — two hundred and thirty thousand dollars! Spent twice! Taken twice by the same construction company!”

Warburton, a tall, white-haired man in a frock-coat, got up and pounded the table with his fist. “Who is this young engineer?” he thundered. “He has the nerve to back his work instead of sneaking to get a bribe. And he tells the truth. We’re building twice — spending twice when once is enough!”

An uproar ensued. Neale had cast a bomb into the council. Every man there and all the thousands in camp knew that railroad ties cost several dollars each; that wages were abnormally high, often demanded in advance, and often paid twice; that parallel with the great spirit of the work ran a greedy and cunning graft. It seemed to be inevitable, considering the nature and proportions of the enterprise. An absurd law sent out the commissioners, the politicians appointed them, and both had fat pickings. The directors likewise played both ends against the middle; they received the money from the stock sales and loans; they paid it out to the construction companies; and as they employed and owned these companies the money returned to their own pockets. But more than one director was fired by the spirit of the project — the good to be done — the splendid achievement — the trade to come from across the Pacific. The building of the road meant more to some of them than a mere fortune.

Warburton was the lion of this group, and he roared down the dissension. Then with a whirl he grasped Neale round the shoulders and shoved him face to face with the others.

“Here’s the kind of man we want on this job!” he shouted, with red face and bulging jaw. “His name’s Neale. I’ve heard of some of his surveys. You’ve all seen him face this council. That only, gentlemen, is the spirit which can build the U. P. R. Let’s push him up. Let’s send him to Washington with those figures. Let’s break this damned idiotic law for appointing commissioners to undo the work of efficient men.”

Opportunity was again knocking at Neale’s door.

Allison Lee arose in the flurry, and his calm, cold presence, the steel of his hard gray eyes, and the motion of his hand entitled him to a voice.

“Mr. Warburton — and gentlemen,” he said, “I remember this young engineer Neale. When I got here to-day I inquired about him, remembering that he had taken severe exception to the judgment of the commissioners about that five miles of road-bed. I learned he is a strange, excitable young fellow, who leaves his work for long wild trips and who is a drunkard and a gambler. It seems to me somewhat absurd seriously to consider the false report with which he has excited this council.”

“It’s not false,” retorted Neale, with flashing eyes. Then he appealed to Warburton and he was white and eloquent. “You directors know better. This man. Lee is no engineer. He doesn’t know a foot-grade from a forty-five-degree slope. Not a man in that outfit had the right or the knowledge to pass judgment on our work. It’s political. It’s a damned outrage. It’s graft.”

Another commissioner bounced up with furious gestures.

“We’ll have you fired!” he shouted.

Neale looked at him and back at Allison Lee and then at Warburton.

“I quit,” he declared, with scorn. “To hell with your rotten railroad!”

Another hubbub threatened in the big tent. Some one yelled for quiet.

And suddenly there was quiet, but it did not come from that individual’s call. A cowboy had detached himself from the group of curious onlookers and had confronted the council with two big guns held low.

“Red! Hold on!” cried Neale.

It was Larry. One look at him blanched Neale’s face.

“Everybody sit still an’ let me talk,” drawled Larry, with the cool, reckless manner that now seemed so deadly.

No one moved, and the silence grew unnatural. The cowboy advanced a few strides. His eyes, with a singular piercing intentness, were bent upon Allison Lee, yet seemed to hold all the others in sight. He held one gun in direct alignment with Lee, low down, and with the other he rapped on the table. The gasp that went up from round that table proved that some one saw the guns were both cocked.

“Did I understand you to say Neale lied aboot them surveyin’ figgers?” he queried, gently.

Allison Lee turned as white as a corpse. The cowboy radiated some dominating force, but the chill in his voice was terrible. It meant that life was nothing to him — nor death. What was the U. P. R. to him, or its directors, or its commissioners, or the law? There was no law in that wild camp but the law in his hands. And he knew it.

“Did you say my pard lied?” he repeated.

Allison Lee struggled and choked over a halting, “No.”

The cowboy backed away, slowly, carefully, with soft steps, and he faced the others as he moved.

“I reckon thet’s aboot all,” he said, and, slipping into the crowd, he was gone.

CHAPTER 11

AFTER NEALE AND Larry left, Slingerland saw four seasons swing round, in which no visitors disturbed the loneliness of his valley.

All this while he did not leave Allie Lee alone, or at least out of hearing. When he went to tend his traps or to hunt, to chop wood or to watch the trail, Allie always accompanied him. She grew strong and supple; she could walk far and carry a rifle or a pack; she was keen of eye and ear, and she loved the wilds; she not only was of help to him, but she made the time pass swiftly.

When a year passed after the departure of Neale and Larry King it seemed to Slingerland that they would never return. There was peril on the trails these days. He grew more and more convinced of some fatality, but he did not confide his fears to Allie. She was happy and full of trust; every day, almost every hour, she looked for Neale. The long wait did not drag her down; she was as fresh and hopeful as ever and the rich bloom mantled her cheek. Slingerland had not the heart to cast a doubt into her happiness. He let her live her dreams.

There came a day that spring when it was imperative for him to visit a distant valley, where he had left traps he now needed, and as the distance was long and time short he decided to go alone. Allie laughed at the idea of being unsafe at the cabin.

“I can take care of myself,” she said. “I’m not afraid.” Slingerland scarcely doubted her. She had nerve, courage; she knew how to use a gun; and underneath her softness and tenderness was a spirit that would not flinch at anything. Still he did not feel satisfied with the idea of leaving her alone, and it was with a wrench that he did it now.

Moreover, he was longer at the journey than he had anticipated. The moment he turned his face homeward, a desire to hurry, an anxiety, a dread fastened upon him. A presentiment of evil gathered. But, encumbered as he was with heavy traps, he could not travel swiftly. It was late afternoon when he topped the last ridge between him and home.

What Slingerland saw caused him to drop his traps and gaze aghast. A heavy column of smoke rose above the valley. His first thought was of Sioux. But he doubted if the Indians would betray his friendship. The cabin had caught on fire by accident or else a band of wandering desperadoes had happened along to ruin him. He ran down the slope, stole down round to the group of pines, and under cover, cautiously, approached the spot where his cabin had stood.

It was a heap of smoking logs and probably had burned for hours. There was no sign of Allie or of any one. Then he ran into the glade. Almost at once he saw boot-tracks and hoof-tracks, while pelts and hides and furs lay scattered around, as if they had been discarded for choicer ones.

“Robbers!” muttered Slingerland. “An’ they’ve got the lass!”

He shook under the roughest blow he had ever been dealt; his conscience flayed him; his distress over Allie’s fate was so keen and unfamiliar that, used as he was to prompt decision and action, he remained stock-still, staring at the ruins of his home.

Presently he roused himself. He had no hopes. He knew the nature of men who had done this deed. But it was possible that he might overtake them. In the dust he found four sizes of boot-tracks and he took the trail down the valley.

Then he became aware that a storm was imminent and that the air had become cold and raw. Rain began to fall, and darkness came quickly. Slingerland sought the shelter of a near-by ledge, and there, hungry, cold, wet, and unhappy, he waited for sleep that would not come.

It rained hard all night and by morning the brook had become a yellow flood and the trail was under water. Toward noon the rain turned to a drizzly snow, and finally ceased. Slingerland passed on down the valley, searching for tracks. The ground everywhere had been washed clean and smooth. When he reached the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail it looked as though a horse had not passed there in months. He spent another wretched night, and next day awoke to the necessities of life. Except for his rifle, and his horses, and a few traps back up in the hills, he had nothing to show for years of hard and successful work. But that did not matter. He had begun with as little and he could begin again. He killed meat, satisfied his hunger, and cooked more that he might carry with him. Then he spent two more days in that locality, until he had crossed every outlet from his valley. Not striking a track, he saw nothing but defeat.

That moment was bitter. “If Neale’d happen along hyar now he’d kill me — an’ sarve me right,” muttered the trapper.

But he believed that Neale, too, had gone the way of so many who had braved these wilds. Slingerland saw in the fate of Neale and Allie the result of civilization marching westward. If before he had disliked the idea of the railroad entering his wild domain, he hated it now. Before that survey the Indians had been peaceful; no dangerous men rode the trails. What right had the Government to steal land from the Indians, to break treaties, to run a steam track across the plains and mountains? Slingerland foresaw the bloodiest period ever known in the West, before that work should be completed. It had struck him deep — this white-man movement across the Wyoming hills, and it was not the loss of all he had worked for that he minded. For years his life had been lonely, and then suddenly it had been full. Never again would it be either.

Slingerland turned his back to the trail made by the advancing march of the empire-builders, and sought the seclusion of the more inaccessible hills.

“Some day I’ll work out with a load of pelts,” he said, “an’ then mebbe I’ll hyar what become of Neale — an’ her.”

He found, as one of his kind knew how to find, the valleys where no white man had trod — where the game abounded and was tame — where if the red man came he was friendly — where the silent days and lonely nights slowly made more bearable his memory of Allie Lee.

CHAPTER 12

ALLIE LEE POSSESSED a mind at once active and contemplative. While she dreamed of Neale and their future she busied herself with many tasks, and a whole year flew by without a lagging or melancholy hour.

Neale, she believed, had been detained or sent back to Omaha, or given more important work than formerly. She divined Slingerland’s doubt, but she would not give it room in her consciousness. Her heart told her that all was well with Neale, and that sooner or later he would return to her.

In Allie love had worked magic. It had freed her from a horrible black memory. She had been alone; she had wanted to die so as to forget those awful yells and screams — the murder — the blood — the terror and the anguish; she had nothing to want to live for; she had almost hated those two kind men who tried so hard to make her forget. Then suddenly, she never quite remembered when, she had seen Neale with different eyes. A few words, a touch, a gift, and a pledge — and life had been transformed for Allie Lee. Like a flower blooming overnight, her heart had opened to love, and all the distemper in her blood and all the blackness in her mind were dispelled. The relief from pain and dread was so great that love became a beautiful and all-absorbing passion. Freed then, and strangely happy, she took to the life around her as naturally as if she had been born there, and she grew like a wild flower. Neale returned to her that autumn to make perfect the realization of her dreams. When he went away she could still be happy. She owed it to him to be perfect in joy, faith, love, and duty; and her adversity had discovered to her an inward courage and an indomitable will. She lived for Neale.

Summer, autumn, winter passed, short days full of solitude, beauty, thought, and anticipation, and always achievement, for she could not stay idle. When the first green brightened the cottonwoods and willows along the brook she knew that before their leaves had attained their full growth Neale would be on his way to her. A strange and inexplicable sense of the heart told her that he was coming.

More than once that spring had she bent over the mossy rock to peer down at her face mirrored in the crystal spring. Neale had made her aware of her beauty, and she was proud of it, since it seemed to be such a strange treasure to him.

On the May morning that Slingerland left her alone she was startled by the clip-clop of horses trotting up the trail a few hours after his departure.

Her first thought was that Neale and Larry had returned. All her being suddenly radiated with rapture. She flew to the door.

Four horsemen rode into the clearing, but Neale was not among them.

Allie’s joy was short-lived, and the reaction to disappointment was a violent, agonizing wrench. She lost all control of her muscles for a moment, and had to lean against the cabin to keep from falling.

By this time the foremost rider had pulled in his horse near the door. He was a young giant with hulking shoulders, ruddy-faced, bold-eyed, ugly-mouthed. He reminded Allie of some one she had seen in California. He stared hard at her.

“Hullo! Ain’t you Durade’s girl?” he asked, in gruff astonishment.

Then Allie knew she had seen him out in the gold-fields.

“No, I’m not,” she replied.

“A-huh! You look uncommon like her.... Anybody home round here?”

“Slingerland went over the hill,” said Allie. “He’ll be back presently.”

The fellow brushed her aside and went into the cabin. Then the other three riders arrived.

“Mornin’, miss,” said one, a grizzled veteran, who might have been miner, trapper, or bandit. The other two reined in behind him. One wore a wide-brimmed black sombrero from under which a dark, sinister face gleamed. The last man had sandy hair and light roving eyes.

“Whar’s Fresno?” he asked.

“I’m inside,” replied the man called Fresno, and he appeared at the door. He stretched out a long arm and grasped Allie before she could avoid him. When she began to struggle the huge hand closed on her wrist until she could have screamed with pain.

“Hold on, girl! It won’t do you no good to jerk, an’ if you holler I’ll choke you,” he said. “Fellers, get inside the cabin an’ rustle around lively.”

With one pull he hauled Allie toward his horse, and, taking a lasso off his saddle, he roped her arms to her sides and tied her to the nearest tree.

“Keep mum now or it ‘ll be the wuss fer you,” he ordered; then he went into the cabin.

They were a bad lot, and Slingerland’s reason for worry had at last been justified. Allie did not fully realize her predicament until she found herself bound to the tree. Then she was furious, and strained with all her might to slip free of the rope. But the efforts were useless; she only succeeded in bruising her arms for nothing. When she desisted she was ready to succumb to despair, until a flashing thought of Neale, of the agony that must be his if he lost her or if harm befell her, drew her up sharply, thrillingly. A girl’s natural and instinctive fear was vanquished by her love.

She heard the robbers knocking things about in the cabin. They threw bales of beaver pelts out of the door. Presently Fresno reappeared carrying a buckskin sack in which Slingerland kept his money and few valuables, and the others followed, quarreling over a cane-covered demijohn in which there had once been liquor.

“Nary a drop!” growled the one who got possession of it. And with rage he threw the thing back into the cabin, where it crashed into the fire.

“Sandy, you’ve scattered the fire,” protested the grizzled robber, as he glanced into the cabin. “Them furs is catchin’.”

“Let ’em burn!” called Fresno. “We got all we want. Come on.”

“But what’s the sense burnin’ the feller’s cabin down?”

“Nuthin’ ‘ll burn,” said the dark-faced man, “an’ if it does it ‘ll look like Indians’ work. Savvy, Old Miles?”

They shuffled out together. Evidently Fresno was the leader, or at least the strongest force. He looked at the sack in his hand and then at Allie.

“You fellers fight over thet,” he said, and, throwing the sack on the ground, he strode toward Allie.

The three men all made a rush for the sack and Sandy got it. The other two pressed round him, not threateningly, but aggressively, sure of their rights.

“I’ll divide,” said Sandy, as he mounted his horse. “Wait till we make camp. You fellers pack the beavers.”

Fresno untied Allie from the tree, but he left the lasso round her; holding to it and her arm, he rudely dragged her to his horse.

“Git up, an’ hurry,” he ordered.

Allie mounted. The stirrups were too long.

“You fellers clear out,” called Fresno, “an ketch me one of them hosses we seen along the brook.”

While he readjusted the stirrups, Allie looked down upon him. He was an uncouth ruffian, and his touch gave her an insupportable disgust. He wore no weapons, but his saddle holster contained a revolver and the sheath a Winchester. Allie could have shot him and made a run for it, and she had the nerve to attempt it. The others, however, did not get out of sight before Fresno had the stirrups adjusted. He strode after them, leading the horse. Allie glanced back to see a thin stream of smoke coming out of the cabin door. Then she faced about, desperately resolved to take any chance to get away. She decided that she would not be safe among these men for very long. Whatever she was to do she must do that day, and she only awaited her opportunity.

At the ford Sandy caught one of Slingerland’s horses — a mustang and a favorite of Allie’s, and one she could ride. He was as swift as the wind. Once upon him, she could run away from any horse which these robbers rode. Fresno put the end of the lasso round the mustang’s neck.

“Can you ride bareback?” he asked Allie.

Allie lied. Her first thought was to lead them astray as to her skill with a horse; and then it occurred to her that if she rode Fresno’s saddle there might be an opportunity to use the gun.

Fresno leaped astride the mustang, and was promptly bucked off. The other men guffawed. Fresno swore and, picking himself up, tried again. This time the mustang behaved better, but it was plain he did not like the weight. Then Fresno started off, leading his own horse, and at a trot that showed he wanted to cover ground.

Allie heard the others quarreling over something, probably the gold Slingerland had been so many years in accumulating.

They rode on to where the valley opened into another, along which wound the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. They kept to this, traveling east for a few miles, and then entered an intersecting valley, where some distance up they had a camp. They had not taken the precaution to hide either packs or mules, and so far as Allie could tell they had no fear of Indians. Probably they had crossed from California, and, being dishonest and avoiding caravans and camps, they had not become fully acquainted with the perils of that region.

It was about noon when they arrived at this place. The sun was becoming blurred and a storm appeared brewing. Fresno dismounted, dropping the halter of the mustang. Then he let go his own bridle. The eyes he bent on Allie made her turn hers away as from something that could scorch and stain. He pulled her off the saddle, rudely, with coarse and meaning violence.

Allie pushed him back and faced him. In a way she had been sheltered all her life, yet she had lived among such men as this man, and she knew that resistance or pleadings were useless; they would only inflame him. She was not ready yet to court death.

“Wait,” she said.

“A-huh!” he grunted, breathing heavily. He was an animal, slow-witted and brutal.

“Fresno, I am Durade’s girl!” she went on.

“I thought I knowed you. But you’re grown to be a woman an’ a dam’ pretty one.”

Allie drew him aside, farther from the others, who had renewed a loud altercation. “Fresno, it’s gold you want,” she affirmed, rather than asked.

“Sure. But no small stake like thet’d be my choice ag’in’ you,” he leered, jerking a thumb back at his companions.

“You remember Horn?” went on Allie.

“Horn! The miner who made thet big strike out near Sacramento?”

“Yes, that’s who I mean,” replied Allie, hurriedly. “We — we left California in his caravan. He brought all his gold with him.”

Fresno showed a growing interest.

“We were attacked by Sioux.... Horn buried all that gold — on the spot. All — all the others were killed — except me.... And I know where—” Allie shuddered with what the words brought up. But no memory could weaken her.

Fresno opened his large mouth to bawl this unexpected news to his comrades.

“Don’t call them — don’t tell them,” Allie whispered. “There’s only one condition. I’ll take you where that gold’s hidden.”

“Girl, I can make you tell,” he replied, menacingly.

“No, you can’t.”

“You ain’t so smart you think I’ll let you go — jest for some gold?” he queried. “Gold’ll be cheap along this trail soon. An’ girls like you are scarce.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.... Get rid of the others — and I’ll take you where Horn buried his gold.”

Fresno stared at her. He grinned. The idea evidently surprised and flattered him; yet it was perplexing.

“But Frank — he’s my pard — thet one with the black hat,” he protested. “I couldn’t do no dirt to Frank.... What’s your game, girl? I’ll beat you into tellin’ me where thet gold is.”

“Beating won’t make me tell,” replied Allie, with intensity. “Nothing will — if I don’t want to. My game is for my life. You know I’ve no chance among four men like you.”

“Aw, I don’t know about thet,” he blustered. “I can take care of you.... But, say, if you’d stand fer Frank, mebbe I’ll take you up.... Girl, are you lyin’ about thet gold?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t the trapper dig it up? You must hev told him.”

“Because he was afraid to keep it in or near his cabin. We meant to leave it until we were ready to get out of the country.”

That appeared plausible to Fresno and he grew more thoughtful.

Meanwhile the altercation among the other three ruffians assumed proportions that augured a fight.

“I’ll divide this sack when I git good an’ ready,” declared Sandy.

“But, pard, thet’s no square deal,” protested Old Miles. “I’m a-gittin’ mad. I seen you meant to keep it all.”

The dark-faced ruffian shoved a menacing fist under Sandy’s nose. “When do I git mine?” he demanded.

Fresno wheeled and called, “Frank, you come here!”

The other approached sullenly. “Fresno, thet Sandy is whole hog or none!” he exclaimed.

“Let ’em fight it out,” replied Fresno. “We’ve got a bigger game.... Besides, they’ll shoot each other up. Then we’ll hev it all. Come, give ’em elbow room.”

He led Allie and his horse away a little distance.

“Fetch them packs, Frank,” he called. The mustang followed, and presently Frank came with one of the packs. Fresno slipped the saddle from his horse, and, laying it under a tree, he pulled gun and rifle from their sheaths. The gun he stuck in his belt; the rifle he leaned against a branch.

“Sandy’ll plug Old Miles in jest another minnit,” remarked Fresno.

“What’s this other game?” queried Frank, curiously.

“It’s gold, Frank — gold,” replied Fresno; and in few words he told his comrade about Horn’s buried treasure. But he did not mention the condition under which the girl would reveal its hiding-place. Evidently he had no doubt that he could force her to tell.

“Let’s rustle,” cried Frank, his dark face gleaming. “We want to git out of this country quick.”

“You bet! An’ I wonder when we’ll be fetchin’ up with them railroad camps we heerd about... Camps full of gold an’ whisky an’ wimmen!”

“We’ve enough on our hands now,” replied Frank. “Let’s rustle fer thet—”

A gun-shot interrupted him. Then a hoarse curse rang out — and then two more reports from a different gun.

“Them last was Sandy’s,” observed Fresno, coolly. “An’ of course they landed... Go see if Old Miles hit Sandy.”

Frank strode off under the trees.

Allie had steeled herself to anything, and those shots warned her that now she had two less enemies to contend with, and that she must be quick to seize the first opportunity to act. She could leap upon the mustang, and if she was lucky she could get away. She could jump for the Winchester and surely shoot one of these villains, perhaps both of them. But the spirit that gave her the nerve to attempt either plan bade her wait, not too long, but longer, in the hope of a more favorable moment.

Frank returned to Fresno, and he carried the sack of gold that had caused dissension. Fresno laughed.

“Sandy’s plugged hard — low down,” said Frank. “He can’t live. An’ Old Miles is croaked.”

“A-huh! Frank, I’ll go git the other packs. An’ you see what’s in this sack,” said Fresno.

When he got out of sight, Allie slipped the lasso from her waist.

“I don’t need that hanging to me,” she said.

“Sure you don’t, sweetheart,” replied the ruffian Frank. “Thet man Fresno is rough with ladies. Now I’m gentle.... Come an’ let me spill this sack in your lap.”

“I guess not,” replied Allie.

“Wal, you’re sure a cat... Look at her eyes!... All right, don’t git mad at me.”

He spilled the contents of the sack out on the sand, and bent over it.

What had made Allie’s eyes flash was the recognition of her opportunity. She did not hesitate an instant. First she looked to see just where the mustang stood. He was near, with the rope dragging, half coiled. Allie suddenly noticed the head and ears of the mustang. He heard something. She looked up the valley slope and saw a file of Indians riding down, silhouetted against the sky. They were coming fast. For an instant Allie’s senses reeled. Then she rallied. Her situation was desperate — almost hopeless. But here was the issue of life or death, and she met it.

In one bound she had the rifle. Long before, she had ascertained that it was loaded. The man Frank heard the click of the raising hammer.

“What’re you doin’?” he demanded, fiercely.

“Don’t get up!” warned Allie. She stepped backward nearer the mustang. “Look up the slope!... Indians!”

But he paid no heed. He jumped up and strode toward her.

“Look, man!” cried Allie, piercingly. He came on. Then Fresno appeared, running, white of face.

Allie, without leveling the rifle, fired at Frank, even as his clutching hands struck the weapon.

He halted, with sudden gasp, sank to his knees, fell against the tree, and then staggered up again.

Allie had to drop the rifle to hold the frightened mustang. She mounted him, urged him away, and hauled in the dragging lasso. Once clear of brush and stones, he began to run. Allie saw a clear field ahead, but there were steep rocky slopes boxing the valley. She would be hemmed in. She got the mustang turned, and ran among the trees, keeping far over to the left. She heard beating hoofs off to the right, crashings in brush, and then yells. An opening showed the slope alive with Indians riding hard. Some were heading down, and others up the valley to cut off her escape; the majority were coming straight for the clumps of trees.

Fresno burst out of cover mounted on Sandy’s bay horse. He began to shoot. And the Indians fired in reply. All along the slopes rose white puffs of smoke, and bullets clipped dust from the ground in front of Allie. Fresno drew ahead. The bay horse was swift. Allie pulled her mustang more to the left, hoping to get over the ridge, which on that side was not high. To her dismay, Indians appeared there, too. She wheeled back to the first course and saw that she must attempt what Fresno was trying.

Then the robber Frank appeared, riding out of the cedars. The Indian riders closed rapidly in on him, shooting all the time. His horse was hit, and stumbling, it almost threw the rider. Then the horse ran wildly — could not be controlled. One Indian was speeding from among the others. He had a bow bent double, and suddenly it straightened. Allie saw dust fly from Frank’s back. He threw up his arms and slid off under the horse, the saddle slipping with him. The horse, wounded and terrorized, began to plunge, dragging man and saddle.

Ahead, far to the right, Fresno was gaining on his pursuers. He was out of range now, but the Indians kept shooting. Then Allie’s situation became so perilous that she saw only the Indians to the left, with their mustangs stretched out so as to intercept her before she got out into the wider valley.

Her mustang did not need to be goaded. The yells behind and on all sides, and the whistling bullets, drove him to his utmost. Allie had all she could do to ride him. She was nearly blinded by the stinging wind, yet she saw those lithe, half-naked savages dropping gradually back and she knew that she was gaining. Her hair became loose and streamed in the wind. She heard the yells then. No more rifles cracked. Her pursuers had discovered that she was a girl and were bent on her capture.

Fleet and strong the mustang ran, sure-footed, leaping the washes, and outdistancing the pursuers on the left. Allie thought she could turn into the big valley and go down the main trail before the Indians chasing Fresno discovered her. But vain hope! Across the width of the valley where it opened out, a string of Indians appeared, riding back to meet her.

A long dust line, dotted with bobbing objects, to the right. Behind a close-packed bunch of hard riders. In front an opening trap of yelling savages. She was lost. And suddenly she remembered the fate of her mother. Her spirit sank, her strength fled. Everything blurred around her. She lost control of the mustang. She felt him turning, slowing, the yells burst hideously in her ears. Like her mother’s — her fate. A roar of speedy hoof-beats seemed to envelop her, and her nostrils were filled with dust. They were upon her. She prayed for a swift stroke — then for her soul. All darkened — her senses were failing. Neale’s face glimmered there — in space — and again was lost. She was slipping — slipping — A rude and powerful hold fastened upon her. Then all faded.

CHAPTER 13

WHEN ALLIE LEE came back from that black gap in her consciousness she was lying in a circular tent of poles and hides.

For a second she was dazed. But the Indian designs and trappings in the tent brought swift realization — she had been brought captive to the Sioux encampment. She raised her head. She was lying on a buffalo robe; her hands and feet were bound; the floor was littered with blankets and beaded buckskin garments. Through a narrow opening she saw that the day was far spent; Indians and horses passed to and fro; there was a bustle outside and jabber of Indian jargon; the wind blew hard and drops of rain pattered on the tent.

Allie could scarcely credit the evidence of her own senses. Here she was alive! She tried to see and feel if she had been hurt. Her arms and body appeared bruised, and they ached, but she was not in any great pain. Her hopes arose. If the Sioux meant to kill her they would have done it at once. They might intend to reserve her for torture, but more likely their object was to make her a captive in the tribe. In that case Slingerland would surely find her and get her freedom.

Rain began to fall more steadily. Allie smelled smoke and saw the reflection of fires on the wall of the tent. Presently a squaw entered. She was a huge woman, evidently old, very dark of face, and wrinkled. She carried a bowl and platter which she set down, and, grunting, she began to untie Allie’s hands. Then she gave the girl a not ungentle shake. Allie sat up.

“Do you — do they mean — to harm and kill me?” asked Allie.

The squaw shook her head to indicate she did not understand, but her gestures toward the things she had brought were easy to interpret. Allie partook of the Indian food, which was coarse and unpalatable, but it satisfied her hunger. When she had finished the squaw laboriously tied the thongs round Allie’s wrists, and, pushing her back on the robe, covered her up and left her.

After that it grew dark rapidly, and the rain increased to a torrent. Allie, hardly realizing how cold she had been, began to warm up under the woolly robe. The roar of the rain drowned all other sounds outside. She wondered if Slingerland had returned to his cabin, and, if so, what he had done. She felt sorry for him. He would take the loss hard. But he would trail her; he would hear of a white girl captive in the Sioux camp and she would soon be free. How fortunate she was! A star of Providence had watched over her. The prayer she had breathed had been answered. She thought of Neale. She would live for him; she would pray and fight off harm; she would find him if he could not find her. And lying there bound and helpless in an Indian camp, captive of the relentless Sioux, for all she knew in peril of death, with the roar of wind and rain around her, and the darkness like pitch, she yet felt her pulses throb and thrill and her spirit soar at remembrance of the man she loved. In the end she would find Neale; and it was with his name trembling on her lips that she fell asleep.

More than once during the night she awoke in the pitchy darkness to hear the wind blow and the rain roar. The dawn broke cold and gray, and the storm gradually diminished. Allie lay alone for hours, beginning to suffer by reason of her bonds and cramped limbs. The longer she was left alone the more hopeful her case seemed.

In the afternoon she was visited by the squaw, released and fed as before. Allie made signs that she wanted to have her feet free, so that she could get up and move about. The squaw complied with her wishes. Allie could scarcely stand; she felt dizzy; a burning, aching sensation filled her limbs.

Presently the old woman led her out. Allie saw a great number of tents, many horses and squaws and children, but few braves. The encampment lay in a wide valley, similar to all the valleys of that country, except that it was larger. A stream in flood swept yellow and noisy along the edge of the encampment. The children ran at sight of Allie, and the women stared. It was easy to see that they disapproved of her. The few braves looked at her with dark, steady, unfathomable eyes. The camp appeared rich in color — in horses and trappings; evidently this tribe was not poor. Allie saw utensils, blankets, clothing — many things never made by Indians.

She was led to a big lodge with a tent adjoining. Inside an old Indian brave, grizzled and shrunken, smoked before a fire; and as Allie was pushed into the tent a young Indian squaw appeared. She was small, with handsome, scornful face and dark, proud eyes, gorgeously clad in elaborate beaded and fringed buckskin — evidently an Indian princess or a chief’s wife. She threw Allie a venomous glance as she went out. Allie heard the old squaw’s grunting voice, and the young one’s quick and passionate answers.

There was nothing for Allie to do but await developments. She rested, rubbing her sore wrists and ankles, thankful she had been left unbound. She saw that she was watched, particularly by the young woman, who often walked to the opening to glance in. The interior of this tent presented a contrast to the other in which she had been confined. It was dry and clean, with floor of rugs and blankets; and all around hung beaded and painted and feathered articles, some for wear, and others for what purpose she could not guess.

The afternoon passed without further incident until the old squaw entered, manifestly to feed Allie, and tie her up as heretofore. The younger squaw came in to watch the latter process.

Allie spoke to her and held out her bound hands appealingly. This elicited no further response than an intent look.

Night came. Allie lay awake a good while, and then she fell asleep. Next morning she was awakened by an uproar. Whistling and trampling mustangs, whoops of braves, the babel of many voices, barking of dogs, movement, bustle, sound — all attested to the return of the warriors. Allie’s heart sank for a moment; this would be the time of trial for her. But the clamor subsided without any disturbance near her tent. By and by the old squaw returned to attend to her needs. This time on the way out she dropped a blanket curtain between the tent and the lodge.

Soon Indians entered the lodge, quite a number, with squaws among them, judging by their voices. A harangue ensued, lasting an hour or more; it interested Allie, especially because at times she heard and recognized the quick, passionate utterance of the young squaw.

Soon Allie’s old attendant shuffled in, and unbound her, then, lifting the curtain she motioned to Allie to come out. Allie went into the lodge. An early sun lighted the place brightly. It was full of Indians. In the center stood a striking figure, probably a chief, tall and lean, with scars on his naked breast. His face was bronze, with deep lines, somber and bitter, and cruel thin lips, and eyes that glittered like black fire. His head had the poise of an eagle.

His piercing glance scarcely rested an instant upon Allie. He motioned for her to be taken away. Allie, as she was led back, got a glimpse of the young squaw. Sullen, with bowed head, and dark rich blood thick in her face, with heaving breast and clenched hands, she presented a picture of outraged pride and jealousy.

Probably the chief had decided to claim Allie as his captive, a decision which would be fiercely resented by the young Indian bride.

The camp quieted down after that. Allie peeped through a slit between the hides of which her tent was constructed, and she saw no one but squaws and children. The mustangs appeared worn out. Evidently the braves and warriors were resting after a hard ride or fight or foray.

Nothing happened. The hours dragged. Allie heard the breathing of heavy sleepers. About dark she was fed again and bound.

That night she was awakened by a gentle shake. A hand moved from her shoulder to her lips. The pale moonlight filtered into the tent. Allie saw a figure kneeling beside her and she heard a whispered “‘Sh-s-s-sh!” Then her hands and feet were freed. She divined then that the young squaw had come to let her go, in the dead of night. Her heart throbbed high as her liberator held up a side of the tent. Allie crawled out. A bright moon soared in the sky. The camp was silent. The young woman slipped after her, and with a warning gesture to be silent she led Allie away toward the slope of the valley. It was a goodly distance. Not a sound disturbed the peace of the beautiful night. The air was cold and still. Allie shivered and trembled. This was the most exciting adventure of all. She felt a sudden tenderness and warmth for this Indian girl. Once the squaw halted, with ear intent, listening. Allie’s heart stopped beating. But no bark of dog, no sound of pursuit, justified alarm. At last they reached the base of the slope.

The Indian pointed high toward the ridge-top. She made undulating motions of her hand, as if to picture the topography of the ridges, and the valleys between; then kneeling, she made a motion with her finger on the ground that indicated a winding trail. Whereupon she stealthily glided away — all without a spoken word.

Allie was left alone — free — with direction how to find the trail. But what use was it for her to find it in that wilderness? Still, her star kept drawing her spirit. She began to climb. The slope was grassy, and her light feet left little trace. She climbed and climbed until she thought her heart would burst. Once upon the summit, she fell in the grass and rested.

Far below in the moon-blanched valley lay the white tents and the twinkling camp-fires. The bay of a dog floated up to her. It was a tranquil, beautiful scene. Rising, she turned her back upon it, with a muttered prayer for the Indian girl whose jealousy and generosity had freed her, and again she faced the ridge-top and the unknown wilderness.

A wolf mourned, and the sound, clear and sharp, startled her. But remembering Slingerland’s word that no beast would be likely to harm her in the warm season, she was reassured. Soon she had crossed the narrow back of the ridge, to see below another valley like the one she had left, but without the tents and fires. Descent was easy and she covered ground swiftly. She feared lest she should come upon a stream in flood. Again she mounted a slope, zigzagging up, going slowly, reserving her strength, pausing often to rest and to listen, and keeping a straight line with the star she had marked. Climbing was hard work, however slowly she went, just as going down was a relief to her wearied legs.

In this manner she climbed four ridges and crossed three valleys before a rest became imperative. Now dawn was near, as was evidenced by the paling stars and the gray in the east. It would be well for her to remain on high ground while day broke.

So she rested, but, soon cooling off, she suffered with the cold. Huddling down in the grass against a stone, and facing the east, she waited for dawn to break.

The stars shut their eyes; the dark blue of sky turned gray; a pale light seemed to suffuse itself throughout the east. The valley lay asleep in shadow, the ridges awoke in soft gray mist. Far down over the vastness and openness of the plains appeared a ruddy glow. It warmed, it changed, it brightened. A sea of cloudy vapors, serene and motionless, changed to rose and pink; and a red curve slid up over the distant horizon. All that world of plain and cloud and valley and ridge quickened as with the soul of day, while it colored with the fire of sun. Red, radiant, glorious, the sun rose.

It was the dispeller of gloom, the bringer of hope. Allie Lee, lost on the heights, held out her arms to the east and the sun, and she cried: “Oh, God!... Oh, Neale — Neale!”

When she turned to look down into the valley below she saw the white winding ribbon-like trail, and with her eyes she followed it to where the valley opened wide upon the plains.

She must go down the slope to the cover of the trees and brush, and there work along eastward, ever with eye alert. She must meet with travelers within a few days, or perish of starvation, or again fall into the hands of the Sioux. Thirst she did not fear, for the recent heavy rain had left waterholes everywhere.

With action her spirit lightened and the numbness of hands and feet left her. Time passed swiftly. The sun stood straight overhead before she realized she had walked miles; and it declined westward as she skulked like an Indian from tree to tree, from bush to bush, along the first bench of the valley floor.

Night overtook her at the gateway of the valley. The vast monotony of the plains opened before her like a gulf. She feared it. She found a mound of earth with a wind-worn shelf in its side and overgrown with sage; and into this she crawled, curled in the sand and prayed and slept.

Next day she took up a position a few hundred yards from the trail and followed its course, straining her eyes to see before and behind her, husbanding her strength with frequent rests, and drinking from every pool.

That day, like its predecessor, passed swiftly by and left her well out upon the huge, billowy bosom of the plains. Again she sought a hiding-place, but none offered. There was no warmth in the sand, and the night wind arose, cold and moaning. She could not sleep. The whole empty world seemed haunted. Rustlings of the sage, seepings of the sand, gusts of the wind, the night, the loneliness, the faithless stars and a treacherous moon that sank, the wailing of wolves — all these things worked upon her mind and spirit until she lost her courage. She feared to shut her eyes or cover her face, for then she could not see the stealthy forms stalking her out of the gloom. She prayed no more to her star.

“Oh, God, have you forsaken me?” she moaned.

How relentless the grip of the endless hours! The black night held fast. And yet when she had grown nearly mad waiting for the dawn, it finally broke, ruddy and bright, with the sun, as always, a promise of better things to come.

Allie found no water that day. She suffered from the lack of it, but hunger appeared to have left her. Her strength diminished, yet she walked and plodded miles on miles, always gazing both hopelessly and hopefully along the winding trail.

At the close of the short and merciful day despair seized upon Allie’s mind. With night came gloom and the memory of her mother’s fate. She still clung to a strange faith that all would soon be well. But reason, fact, reality, these present things pointed to certain doom — starvation — death by thirst — or Indians! A thousand times she imagined she heard the fleet hoof-beating of many mustangs. Only the tiny pats of the broken sage leaves in the wind!

It was a dark and cloudy night, warmer and threatening rain. She kept continually turning round and round to see what it was that came creeping up behind her so stealthily. How horrible was the dark — the blackness that showed invisible things! A wolf sent up his hungry, lonely cry. She did not fear this reality so much as she feared the intangible. If she lived through this night, there would be another like it to renew the horror. She would rather not live. Like a creature beset by foes all around she watched; she faced every little sound; she peered into the darkness, instinctively unable to give up, to end the struggle, to lie down and die.

Neale seemed to be with her. He was alive. He was thinking of her at that very moment. He would expect her to overcome self and accident and calamity. He spoke to her out of the distance and his voice had the old power, stronger than fear, exhaustion, hopelessness, insanity. He could call her back from the grave.

And so the night passed.

In the morning, when the sun lit the level land, far down the trail westward gleamed a long white line of moving wagons.

Allie uttered a wild and broken cry, in which all the torture shuddered out of her heart. Again she was saved! That black doubt was shame to her spirit. She prayed her thanksgiving, and vowed in her prayers that no adversity, however cruel, could ever again shake her faith or conquer her spirit.

She was going on to meet Neale. Life was suddenly sweet again, unutterably full, blazing like the sunrise. He was there — somewhere to the eastward.

She waited. The caravan was miles away. But it was no mirage, no trick of the wide plain! She watched. If the hours of night had been long, what were these hours of day with life and the chance of happiness ever advancing?

At last she saw the scouts riding in front and alongside, and the plodding oxen. It was a large caravan, well equipped for defense.

She left the little rise of ground and made for the trail. How uneven the walking! She staggered. Her legs were weak. But she gained the trail and stood there. She waved. They were not so far away. Surely she would be seen. She staggered on — waved again.

There! The leading scout had halted. He pointed. Other riders crowded around him. The caravan came to a stop.

Allie heard voices. She waved her arms and tried to run. A scout dismounted, advanced to meet her, rifle ready. The caravan feared a Sioux trick. Allie described a lean, gray old man; now he was rapidly striding toward her.

“It’s a white gal!” she heard him shout.

Others ran forward as she staggered to meet them.

“I’m alone — I’m — lost!” she faltered.

“A white gal in Injun dress,” said another.

And then kind hands were outstretched to her.

“I’m — running — away... Indians!” panted Allie.

“Whar?” asked the lean old scout.

“Over the ridges — miles — twenty miles — more. They had me. I got — away... four — three days ago.”

The group around Allie opened to admit another man.

“Who’s this — who’s this?” called a quick voice, soft and liquid, yet with a quality of steel in it.

Allie had heard that voice. She saw a tall man in long black coat and wide black hat and flowered vest and flowing tie. Her heart contracted.

“ALLIE!” rang the voice.

She looked up to see a dark, handsome face — a Spanish face with almond eyes, sloe-black and magnetic — a face that suddenly blazed.

She recognized the man with whom her mother had run away — the man she had long believed her father — the adventurer Durade! Then she fainted.

CHAPTER 14

ALLIE RECOVERED TO find herself lying in a canvas-covered wagon, and being worked over by several sympathetic women. She did not see Durade. But she knew she had not been mistaken. The wagon was rolling along as fast as oxen could travel. Evidently the caravan had been alarmed by the proximity of the Sioux and was making as much progress as possible.

Allie did not answer many questions. She drank thirstily, but she was too exhausted to eat.

“Whose caravan?” was the only query she made.

“Durade’s,” replied one woman, and it was evident from the way she spoke that this was a man of consequence.

As Allie lay there, slowly succumbing to weariness and drowsiness, she thought of the irony of fate that had let her escape the Sioux only to fall into the hands of Durade. Still, there was hope. Durade was traveling toward the east. Out there somewhere he would meet Neale, and then blood would be spilled. She had always regarded Durade strangely, wondering that in spite of his kindness to her she could not really care for him. She understood now and hated him passionately. And if there was any one she feared it was Durade. Allie lost herself in the past, seeing the stream of mixed humanity that passed through Durade’s gambling-halls. No doubt he was on his way, first to search for her mother, and secondly, to profit by the building of the railroad. But he would never find her mother. Allie was glad.

At length she fell asleep and slept long, then dozed at intervals. The caravan halted. Allie heard the familiar sing-song calls to the oxen. Soon all was bustle about her, and this fully awakened her. In a moment or more she must expect to be face to face with Durade. What should she tell him? How much should she let him know? Not one word about her mother! He would be less afraid of her if he found out that the mother was dead. Durade had always feared Allie’s mother.

The women with whom Allie had ridden helped her out of the wagon, and, finding her too weak to stand, they made a bed for her on the ground. The camp site appeared to be just the same as any other part of that monotonous plain-land, but evidently there was a stream or water-hole near by. Allie saw her companions were the only women in the caravan; they were plain persons, blunt, yet kind, used to hard, honest work, and probably wives of defenders of the wagon-train.

They could not conceal their curiosity in regard to Allie, nor their wonder. She had heard them whispering together whenever they came near.

Presently Allie saw Durade. He was approaching. How well she remembered him! Yet the lapse of time and the change between her childhood and the present seemed incalculable. He spoke to the women, motioning in her direction. His bearing and action were that of a man of education, and a gentleman. Yet he looked what her mother had called him — a broken man of class, an adventurer, a victim of base passions.

He came and knelt by Allie. “How are you now?” he asked. His voice was gentle and courteous, different from that of the other men.

“I can’t stand up,” replied Allie.

“Are you hurt?”

“No — only worn out.”

“You escaped from Indians?”

“Yes — a tribe of Sioux. They intended to keep me captive. But a young squaw freed me — led me off.”

He paused as if it was an effort to speak, and a long, thin, shapely hand went to his throat. “Your mother?” he asked, hoarsely. Suddenly his face had turned white.

Allie gazed straight into his eyes, with wonder, pain, suspicion. “My mother! I’ve not seen her for nearly two years.”

“My God! What happened? You lost her? You became separated?... Indians — bandits?... Tell me!”

“I have — no — more to tell,” said Allie. His pain revived her own. She pitied Durade. He had changed — aged — there were lines in his face that were new to her.

“I spent a year in and around Ogden, searching,” went on Durade. “Tell me — more.”

“No!” cried Allie.

“Do you know, then?” he asked, very low.

“I’m not your daughter — and mother ran off from you. Yes, I know that,” replied Allie, bitterly.

“But I brought you up — took care of you — helped educate you,” protested Durade, with agitation. “You were my own child, I thought. I was always kind to you. I — I loved the mother in the daughter.”

“Yes, I know.... But you were wicked.”

“If you won’t tell me it must mean she’s still alive,” he replied, swiftly. “She’s not dead;... I’ll find her. I’ll make her come back to me — or kill her... After all these years — to leave me!”

He seemed wrestling with mingled emotions. The man was proud and strong, but defeat in life, in the crowning passion of life, showed in his white face. The evil in him was not manifest then.

“Where have you lived all this time?” he asked, presently.

“Back in the hills with a trapper.”

“You have grown. When I saw you I thought it was the ghost of your mother. You are just as she was when we met.”

He seemed lost in sad retrospection. Allie saw streaks of gray in his once jet-black hair.

“What will you do?” asked Allie.

He was startled. The softness left him. A blaze seemed to leap under skin and eyes, and suddenly he was different — he was Durade the gambler, instinct with the lust of gold and life.

“Your mother left me for YOU,” he said, with terrible bitterness. “And the game has played you into my hands. I’ll keep you. I’ll hold you to get even with her.”

Allie felt stir in her the fear she had had of him in her childhood when she disobeyed. “But you can’t keep me against my will — not among people we’ll meet eastward.”

“I can, and I will!” he declared, softly, but implacably. “We’re not going East. We’ll be in rougher places than the gold-camps of California. There’s no law but gold and guns out here... But — if you speak of me to any one may your God have mercy on you!”

The blaze of him betrayed the Spaniard. He meant more than dishonor, torture, and death. The evil in him was rampant. The love that had been the only good in an abnormal and disordered mind had turned to hate.

Allie knew him. He was the first person who had ever dominated her through sheer force of will. Unless she abided by his command her fate would be worse than if she had stayed captive among the Sioux. This man was not an American. His years among men of later mold had not changed the Old World cruelty of his nature. She recognized the fact in utter despair. She had not strength left to keep her eyes open.

After a while Allie grew conscious that Durade had left her. She felt like a creature that had been fascinated by a deadly snake and then left to itself; in the mean time she could do nothing but wait. Shudderingly, mournfully, she resigned herself to the feeling that she must stay under Durade’s control until a dominance stronger than his should release her. Neale seemed suddenly to have retreated far into the past, to have gone out of the realm of her consciousness. And yet the sound of his voice, the sight of his face, would make instantly that spirit of hers — his spirit — to leap like a tigress in her defense. But where was Neale? The habits of life were all powerful; and all her habits had been formed under Durade’s magnetic eye. Neale retreated and so did spirit, courage, hope. Love remained, despairing, yet unquenchable.

Allie’s resignation established a return to normal feelings. She ate and grew stronger; she slept and was refreshed.

The caravan moved on about twenty-five miles a day. At the next camp Allie tried walking again, to find her feet were bruised, her legs cramped, and action awkward and painful. But she persevered, and the tingling of revived circulation was like needles pricking her flesh. She limped from one camp-fire to another; and all the rough men had a kind word or question or glance for her. Allie did not believe they were all honest men. Durade had employed a large force, and apparently he had taken on every one who applied. Miners, hunters, scouts, and men of no hall-mark except that of wildness composed the mixed caravan. It spoke much for Durade that they were under control. Allie well remembered hearing her mother say that he had a genius for drawing men to him and managing them.

Once during her walk, when every one appeared busy, a big fellow with hulking shoulders and bandaged head stepped beside her.

“Girl,” he whispered, “if you want a knife slipped into Durade, tell him about me!”

Allie recognized the whisper before she did the heated, red face with its crooked nose and bold eyes and ugly mouth. Fresno! He must have escaped from the Sioux and fallen in with Durade.

Allie shrunk from him. Durade, compared with this kind of ruffian, was a haven of refuge. She passed on without a sign. But Fresno was safe from her. This meeting made her aware of an impulse to run back to Durade, instinctively, just as she had when a child. He had ruined her mother; he had meant to make a lure of her, the daughter; he had showed what his vengeance would be upon that mother, just as he had showed Allie her doom should she betray him. But notwithstanding all this, Durade was not Fresno, nor like any of those men whose eyes seemed to burn her.

She returned to the wagon and to the several women and men attached to it, with the assurance that there were at least some good persons in that motley caravan crew.

The women, naturally curious and sympathetic, questioned her in one way and another. Who was she, what had happened to her, where were her people or friends? How had she ever escaped robbers and Indians in that awful country? Was she really Durade’s daughter?

Allie did not tell much about herself, and finally she was left in peace.

The lean old scout who had first seen Allie as she staggered into the trail told her it was over a hundred miles to the first camp of the railroad-builders.

“Down-hill all the way,” he concluded. “An’ we’ll make it in a jiffy.”

Nevertheless, it took nearly all of four days to sight the camp of the traders — the advance-guard of the great construction work.

In those four days Allie had recovered her bloom, her health, her strength — everything except the wonderful assurance which had been hers. Durade had spoken daily with her, and had been kind, watchful, like a guardian.

It was with a curious thrill that Allie gazed around as she rode into the construction camp — horses and men and implements all following the line of Neale’s work. Could Neale be there? If so, how dead was her heart to his nearness?

The tents of the workers, some new and white, others soiled and ragged, stretched everywhere; large tents belched smoke and resounded with the ring of hammers on anvil; soldiers stood on guard; men, red-shirted and blue-shirted, swarmed as thick as ants; in a wide hollow a long line of horses, in double row, heads together, pulled hay from a rack as long as the line, and they pulled and snorted and bit at one another; a strong smell of hay and burning wood mingled with the odor of hot coffee and steaming beans; fires blazed on all sides; under another huge tent, or many tents without walls, stretched wooden tables and benches; on the scant sage and rocks and brush, and everywhere upon the tents, lay in a myriad of colors and varieties the lately washed clothes of the toilers; and through the wide street of the camp clattered teams and swearing teamsters, dragging plows with clanking chains and huge scoops turned upside down. Bordering the camp, running east as far as eye could see, stretched a high, flat, yellow lane, with the earth hollowed away from it, so that it stood higher than the level plain — and this was the work of the graders, the road-bed of the Union Pacific Railroad, the U. P. Trail.

This camp appeared to be Durade’s destination. His caravan rode through and halted on the outskirts of the far side. Preparations began for what Allie concluded was to be a permanent halt. At once began a significant disintegration of Durade’s party. One by one the scouts received payment from their employer, and with horse and pack disappeared toward the camp. The lean old fellow who had taken kindly interest in Allie looked in at the opening of the canvas over her wagon, and, wishing her luck, bade her good-by. The women likewise said good-by, informing her that they were going on home. Not one man among those left would Allie have trusted.

During the hurried settling of camp Durade came to Allie.

“Allie,” he said, “you don’t have to keep cooped up in there unless I tell you. But don’t talk to any one — and don’t go that way.”

He pointed toward the humming camp. “That place beats any gold-diggings I ever saw,” he concluded.

The tall, scant sage afforded Allie some little seclusion, and she walked there until Durade called her to supper. She ate alone on a wagon-seat, and when twilight fell she climbed into her wagon, grateful that it was high off the ground and so inclosed her from all except sound.

Darkness came; the fire died down; the low voices of Durade and his men, and of callers who visited them, flowed continuously.

Then, presently, there arose a strange murmur, unlike any sound Allie had ever heard. It swelled into a low, distant roar. She was curious about it. Peeping out of her wagon-cover she saw where the darkness flared to yellow with a line of lights — torches or lanterns or fires. Crossing and re-crossing these lights were black objects, in twos and threes and dozens. And from this direction floated the strange, low roar. Suddenly she realized. It was the life of the camp. Hundreds and thousands of men were there together, and as the night advanced the low roar rose and fell, and lulled away to come again — strange, sad, hideous, mirthful. For a long time Allie could not sleep.

Next morning Durade called her. When she unlaced the canvas flaps, it was to see the sun high and to hear the bustle of work all about her.

Durade brought her breakfast and gave her instructions. While he was about in the daytime she might come out and do what she could to amuse herself; but when he was absent or at night she must be in her wagon-tent, laced in, and she was not to answer any call. She would be guarded by Stitt, one of his men, a deaf mute, faithful to his interests, and who had orders to handle her roughly should she disobey. Allie would not have been inclined to mutiny, even without the fear and abhorrence she felt of this ugly and deformed mute.

That day Durade caused to be erected tents, canopies, tables, benches, and last a larger tent, into which the tables and benches were carried. Fresno worked hard, as did all the men except Stitt, who had nothing to do but watch Allie’s wagon. Wearily the time passed for her. How many days must she spend thus, watching idly, because there was nothing else to do? Still, back in her consciousness there was a vague and growing thought. Sooner or later Neale would appear in the flesh, as he now came to her in her dreams.

That night Allie, peeping out, saw by the fire and torch-light a multitude of men drawn to Durade’s large tent. Mexicans, Negroes, Irishmen — all kinds of men passed, loud and profane, careless and reckless, quarrelsome and loquacious. Soon there arose in her ears the long-forgotten but now familiar sounds of a gambling-hell in full blast. The rolling rattle of the wheel, sharp, strident, and keen, intermingled with the strange rich false clink of gold.

It needed only a few days and nights for Allie Lee to divine Durade’s retrogression. Before this he had been a gambler for the sake of gambling, even a sportsman in his evil way; now he seemed possessed of an unscrupulous intent, a strange, cold, devouring passion to get gold and more gold — always more gold. Allie divined evidence of this, saw it, heard it. The man had struck the descent, and he was all the more dangerous for his lapse from his former standards, poor as they had been.

Not a week had elapsed before the gambling-hell roared all night. Allie got most of her sleep during the day. She tried to shut out what sound she could, and tried to be deaf to the rest. But she had to hear the angry brawls, pistol-shots, and shrill cries; yes, and the trample of heavy boots as men dragged a dead gamester out to the ditch.

Day was a relief, a blessing. Allie was frequently cooped up in her narrow canvas-covered wagon, but she saw from there the life of the grading camp.

There were various bosses — the boarding boss, who fed the laborers; the stable boss, who had charge of the teams; the grading boss, who ruled the diggers and scrapers; and the time-keeper boss, who kept track of the work of all.

In the early morning a horde of hungry men stampeded the boarding-tents where the cooks and waiters made mad haste to satisfy loud and merry demands. At sunset the same horde dropped in, dirty and hot and lame, and fought for seats while others waited for their turn.

Out on the level plain stretched the hundreds of teams, moving on and returning, the drivers shouting, the horses bending. The hot sun glared, the wind whipped up the dust, the laborers speeded up to the shout of the boss. And ever westward crept the low, level, yellow bank of sand and gravel — the road-bed of the first transcontinental railway.

Thus the daytime had its turmoil, too, but this last was splendid, like the toil of heroes united to gain some common end. And the army of soldiers waited, ever keen-eyed, for the skulking Sioux.

Mull, the boss of the camp, became a friend of Durade’s. The wily Spaniard could draw to him any class of men. This Mull had been a driver of truck-horses in New York, and now he was a driver of men.

He was huge, like a bull, heavy-lipped and red-cheeked, hairy and coarse, with big sunken eyes. A brute — a caveman. He drank; he gambled. He was at once a bully and a pirate. Responsible to no one but his contractor, he hated the contractor and he hated his job. He was great in his place, brutal with fist and foot, a gleaner of results from hard men at a hard time.

He won gold from Durade, or, as Fresno guffawed to a comrade, he had been allowed to win it. Durade picked his man. He had big schemes and he needed Mull.

Benton was Durade’s objective point — Benton, the great and growing camp-city, where gold and blood were spilled in the dusty streets and life roared like a blast from hell.

All that Allie heard of Benton increased her dread, and at last she determined that she would run any risk rather than be taken there. And so one night, as soon as it grew dark, she slipped out of the wagon and, under cover of darkness, made her escape.

CHAPTER 15

THE BUILDING OF the U. P. R. as it advanced westward caused many camps and towns to spring up and flourish, like mushrooms, in a single night; and trains were run as far as the rails were laid.

Therefore strange towns and communities were born, like to nothing that the world had ever seen before.

Warren Neale could not get away from the fascination of the work and life, even though he had lost all his ambition and was now nothing more than an ordinary engineer, insignificant and idle. He began to drink and gamble in North Platte, more in a bitter defiance to fate than from any real desire; then with Larry King he drifted out to Kearney.

At Kearney, Larry got into trouble — characteristic trouble. In a quarrel with a construction boss named Smith, Larry accused Smith of being the crooked tool of the crooked commissioners who had forced Neale to quit his job. Smith grew hot and profane. The cowboy promptly slapped his face. Then Smith, like the fool he was, went after his gun. He never got it out.

It distressed Neale greatly that Larry had shot up a man — and a railroad man at that. No matter what Larry said, Neale knew the shooting was on his account. This deed made the cowboy a marked man. It changed him, also, toward Neale, inasmuch as that he saw his wildness, was making small Neale’s chances of returning to work. Larry never ceased importuning Neale to go back to his job. After shooting Smith the cowboy made one more eloquent appeal to Neale and then left for Cheyenne. Neale followed him.

Cheyenne was just sobering up after its brief and tempestuous reign as headquarters town, and though depleted and thin, it was now making a bid for permanency. But the sting and wildness of life had departed with the construction operations, and now Benton had become the hub of the railway universe.

Neale boarded a train for Benton and watched with bitterness the familiar landmarks he had learned to know so well while surveying the line. He was no longer connected with the great project — no more a necessary part of the great movement.

Beyond Medicine Bow the grass and the green failed and the immense train of freight-cars and passenger-coaches, loaded to capacity, clattered on into arid country. Gray and red, the drab and fiery colors of the desert lent the ridges character — forbidding and barren.

From a car window Neale got his first glimpse of the wonderful terminus city, and for once his old thrills returned. He recalled the distance — seven hundred — no, six hundred and ninety-eight miles from Omaha. So far westward was Benton.

It lay in the heart of barrenness, alkali, and desolation, on the face of the windy desert, alive with dust-devils, sweeping along, yellow and funnel-shaped — a huge blocked-out town, and set where no town could ever live. Benton was prey for sun, wind, dust, drought, and the wind was terribly and insupportably cold. No sage, no cedars, no grass, not even a cactus-bush, nothing green or living to relieve the eye, which swept across the gray and the white, through the dust, to the distant bare and desolate hills of drab.

The hell that was reported to abide at Benton was in harmony with its setting.

The immense train clattered and jolted to a stop. A roar of wind, a cloud of powdery dust, a discordant and unceasing din of voices, came through the open windows of the car. The heterogeneous mass of humanity with which Neale had traveled jostled out, struggling with packs and bags.

Neale, carrying his bag, stepped off into half a foot of dust. He saw a disintegrated crowd of travelers that had just arrived, and of travelers ready to depart — soldiers, Indians, Mexicans, Negroes, loafers, merchants, tradesmen, laborers, an ever-changing and ever-remarkable spectacle of humanity. He saw stage-coaches with hawkers bawling for passengers bound to Salt Lake, Ogden, Montana, Idaho; he saw a wide white street — white with dust where it was not thronged with moving men and women, and lined by tents and canvas houses and clapboard structures, together with the strangest conglomeration of painted and printed signs that ever advertised anything in the world.

A woman, well clad, young, not uncomely, but with hungry eyes like those of a hawk, accosted Neale. He drew away. In the din he had not heard what she said. A boy likewise spoke to him; a greaser tried to take his luggage; a man jostling him felt of his pocket; and as Neale walked on he was leered at, importuned, jolted, accosted, and all but mobbed.

So this was Benton.

A pistol-shot pierced the din. Some one shouted. A wave of the crowd indicated commotion somewhere; and then the action and noise went on precisely as before. Neale crossed five intersecting streets; evidently the wide street he was on must be the main one.

In that walk of five blocks he saw thousands of persons, but they were not the soldiers who protected the line, nor the laborers who made the road. These were the travelers, the business people, the stragglers, the nondescripts, the parasites, the criminals, the desperadoes, and the idlers — all who must by hook or crook live off the builders.

Neale was conscious of a sudden exhilaration. The spirit was still in him. After all, his defeated ambition counted for nothing in the great sum of this work. How many had failed! He thought of the nameless graves already dotting the slopes along the line and already forgotten. It would be something to live through the heyday of Benton.

Under a sign, “Hotel,” he entered a door in a clapboard house. The place was as crude as an unfinished barn. Paying in advance for lodgings, he went to the room shown him — a stall with a door and a bar, a cot and a bench, a bowl and a pitcher. Through cracks he could see out over an uneven stretch of tents and houses. Toward the edge of town stood a long string of small tents and several huge ones, which might have been the soldiers’ quarters.

Neale went out in search of a meal and entered the first restaurant. It was merely a canvas house stretched over poles, with compartments at the back. High wooden benches served as tables, low benches as seats. The floor was sand. At one table sat a Mexican, an Irishman, and a Negro. The Irishman was drunk. The Negro came to wait on Neale, and, receiving an order, went to the kitchen. The Irishman sidled over to Neale.

“Say, did yez hear about Casey?” he inquired, in very friendly fashion.

“No, I didn’t,” replied Neale. He remembered Casey, the flagman, but probably there were many Caseys in that camp.

“There wus a foight, out on the line, yisteddy,” went on the fellow, “an’ the dom’ redskins chased the gang to the troop-train. Phwat do you think? A bullet knocked Casey’s pipe out of his mouth, as he wus runnin’, an’ b’gorra, Casey sthopped fer it an’ wus all shot up.”

“Is he dead?” inquired Neale.

“Not yit. No bullets can’t kill Casey.”

“Was his pipe a short, black one?”

“It wus thot.”

“And did Casey have it everlastingly in his mouth?”

“He shlept in it.”

Neale knew that particular Casey, and he examined this loquacious Irishman more closely. He recognized him as Pat Shane, one of the trio he had known during the survey in the hills two years ago. The recognition was like a stab to Neale. Memory of the Wyoming hills — of the lost Allie Lee — cut him to the quick. Shane had aged greatly. There were scars on his face that Neale had not seen before.

“Mister, don’t I know yez?” leered Shane, studying Neale with bleary eyes.

Neale did not care to be remembered. The waiter brought his dinner, which turned out to be a poor one at a high price. After eating, Neale went out and began to saunter along the walk. The sun had set and the wind had gone down. There was no flying dust. The street was again crowded with men, but nothing like it had been after the arrival of the train. No one paid much attention to Neale. On that walk he counted nineteen saloons, and probably some of the larger places were of like nature, but not so wide open to the casual glance.

Neale strolled through the town from end to end, and across the railroad outside the limits, to a high bank, where he sat down. The desert was beautiful away to the west, with its dull, mottled hues backed by gold and purple, with its sweep and heave and notched horizon. Near at hand it seemed drab and bare. He watched a long train of flat and box cars come in, and saw that every car swarmed with soldiers and laborers. The train discharged its load of thousands, and steamed back for more.

Twilight fell. All hours were difficult for Neale, but twilight was the most unendurable, for it had been the hour Allie Lee loved best, and during which she and Neale had walked hand in hand along the brook, back there in the lovely and beautiful valley in the hills. Neale could not sit still long; he could not rest, nor sleep well, nor work, nor indeed be of any use to himself or to any one, and all because he was haunted and driven by the memory of Allie Lee. And at such quiet hours as this, in the midst of the turmoil he had sought for weeks, a sadness filled his soul, and an eternal remorse. The love that had changed him and the life that had failed him seemed utterly misrelated.

To and fro he paced on the bare ridge while twilight shadowed. A star twinkled in the west, a night wind began to seep the sand. The desert, vast, hidden, mysterious, yet so free and untrammeled, darkened.

Lights began to flash up along the streets of Benton, and presently Neale became aware of a low and mounting hum, like a first stir of angry bees.

The loud and challenging strains of a band drew Neale toward the center of the main street, where men were pouring into a big tent.

He halted outside and watched. This strident, businesslike, quick-step music and the sight of the men and women attracted thereby made Neale realize that Benton had arisen in a day and would die out in a night; its life would be swift, vile, and deadly.

When the band ceased a sudden roar came from inside the big tent, a commingling of the rough voices of men and the humming of wheels, the clinking of glasses and gold, the rattling of dice, the hoarse call of a dealer, the shuffling of feet — a roar pierced now and then by the shrill, vacant, soundless laugh of a woman.

It was that last sound which almost turned Neale away from the door. He shunned women. But this place fascinated him. He went in under the flaming lamps.

The place was crowded — a huge tent stretched over a framework of wood, and it was full of people, din, smoke, movement. The floor was good planking covered with sand. Walking was possible only round the narrow aisles between groups at tables.

Neale’s sauntering brought him to the bar. It had to him a familiar look, and afterward he learned that it had been brought complete from St. Louis, where he had seen it in a saloon. It seemed a huge, glittering, magnificent monstrosity in that coarse, bare setting. Wide mirrors, glistening bottles, paintings of nude women, row after row of polished glasses, a brawny, villainous barkeeper, with three attendants, all working fast, a line of rough, hoarse men five deep before the counter — all these things constituted a scene that had the aspects of a city and yet was redolent with an atmosphere no city ever knew. The drinkers were not all rough men. There were elegant black-hatted, frock-coated men of leisure in that line — not directors and commissioners and traveling guests of the U. P. R., but gentlemen of chance. Gamblers!

The band now began a different strain of dance music. Neale slowly worked his way around. At the end of the big tent a wide door opened into another big room — a dance-hall, full of dancers.

Neale had seen nothing like this in the other construction camps.

A ball was in progress. Just now it was merry, excited, lively. Neale got inside and behind the row of crowded benches; he stood up against a post to watch. Probably two-hundred people were in the hall, most of them sitting. How singular, it struck Neale, to see good-looking, bare-armed and bare-necked young women dancing there, and dancing well! There were other women — painted, hollow-eyed — sad wrecks of womanhood. The male dancers were young men, as years counted, mostly unfamiliar with the rhythmic motion of feet to a tune, and they bore the rough stamp of soldiers and laborers. But there were others, as there had been before the bar, who wore their clothes differently, who had a different poise and swing — young men, like Neale, whose earlier years had known some of the graces of society. They did not belong there; the young women did not belong there. The place seemed unreal. This was a merry scene, apparently with little sign, at that moment, of what it actually meant. Neale sensed its undercurrent.

He left the dance-hall. Of the gambling games, he liked best both to watch and to play poker. It had interest for him. The winning or losing of money was not of great moment. Poker was not all chance or luck, such as the roll of a ball, the turn of a card, or the facing up of dice. Presently he became one of an interested group round a table watching four men play poker.

One, a gambler in black, immaculate in contrast to his companions, had a white, hard, expressionless face, with eyes of steel and thin lips. His hands were wonderful. Probably they never saw the sunlight, certainly no labor. They were as swift as light, too swift for the glance of an eye. But when he dealt the cards he was slow, careful, deliberate. The stakes were gold, and the largest heap lay in front of him. One of his opponents was a giant of a fellow, young, with hulking shoulders, heated face, and broken nose — a desperado if Neale ever saw one. The other two players called this strapping brute Fresno. The little man with a sallow face like a wolf was evidently too intent on the game to look up. He appeared to be losing. Beside his small pile of gold stood an empty tumbler. The other and last player was a huge, bull-necked man whom Neale had seen before. It was difficult to place him, but after studying the red cheeks and heavy, drooping mustache, and hearing the loud voice, he recognized him as a boss of graders — a head boss. Presently the sallow-faced player called him Mull, and then Neale remembered him well.

Several of the watchers round this table lounged away, leaving a better vantage-place for Neale.

“May I sit in the game?” he inquired, during a deal.

“Certainly,” replied the gambler.

“Naw. We gotta nough,” said the sallow man, and he glanced from Neale to the gambler as if he suspected them. Gamblers often worked in pairs.

“I just came to Benton,” added Neale, reading the man’s thought. “I never saw the gentleman in black before.”

“What th’ hell!” rumbled Mull, grabbing up his cards.

Fresno leered.

The gambler leaned back and his swift white hands flashed. Neale believed he had a derringer up each sleeve. A wrong word now would precipitate a fight.

“Excuse me,” said Neale, hastily. “I don’t want to make trouble. I just said I never saw this gentleman before.”

“Nor I him,” returned the gambler, courteously. “My name is Place Hough and my word is not doubted.”

Neale had heard of this famous Mississippi River gambler. So, evidently, had the other three players. The game proceeded, and when it came to Hough’s deal Mull bet hard and lost all. His big, hairy hands shook. He looked at Fresno and the other fellow, but not at Hough.

“I’m broke,” he said, gruffly, and got up from the bench.

He strode past Hough, and behind him; then as if suddenly, instinctively, answering to fury, he whipped out a gun.

Neale, just as instinctively, grasped the rising hand.

“Hold on, there!” he called. “Would you shoot a man in the back?”

And Neale, whose grip was powerful, caused the other to drop the gun. Neale kicked it aside. Fresno got up.

“Whar’s your head, Mull?” he growled. “Git out of this!”

Attention had been attracted to Mull. Some one picked up the gun. The sallow-faced man rose, holding out his hand for it. Hough did not even turn around.

“I was goin’ to hold him up,” said Mull. He glared fiercely at Neale, wrenched his hand free, and with his comrades disappeared in the crowd.

The gambler rose and shook down his sleeves. The action convinced Neale that he had held a little gun in each hand. “I saw him draw,” he said. “You saved his life!... Nevertheless, I appreciate your action. My name is Place Hough. Will you drink with me?”

“Sure.... My name is Neale.”

They approached the bar and drank together.

“A railroad man, I take it?” asked Hough.

“I was. I’m foot-loose now.”

A fleeting smile crossed the gambler’s face. “Benton is bad enough, without you being foot-loose.”

“All these camps are tough,” replied Neale.

“I was in North Platte, Kearney, Cheyenne, and Medicine Bow during their rise,” said Hough. “They were tough. But they were not Benton. And the next camp west, which will be the last — it will be Roaring Hell. What will be its name?”

“Why is Benton worse?” inquired Neale.

“The big work is well under way now, with a tremendous push from behind. There are three men for every man’s work. That lays off two men each day. Drunk or dead. The place is wild — far off. There’s gold — hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold dumped off the trains. Benton has had one payday. That day was the sight of my life!... Then... there are women.”

“I saw a few in the dance-hall,” replied Neale.

“Then you haven’t looked in at Stanton’s?”

“Who’s he?”

“Stanton is not a man,” replied Hough.

Neale glanced inquiringly over his glass.

“Beauty Stanton, they call her,” went on Hough. “I saw her in New Orleans years ago when she was a very young woman — notorious then. She had the beauty and she led the life... did Beauty Stanton.”

Neale made no comment, and Hough, turning to pay for the drinks, was accosted by several men. They wanted to play poker.

“Gentlemen, I hate to take your money,” he said. “But I never refuse to sit in a game. Neale, will you join us?”

They found a table just vacated. Neale took two of the three strangers to be prosperous merchants or ranchers from the Missouri country. The third was a gambler by profession. Neale found himself in unusually sharp company. He did not have a great deal of money. So in order to keep clear-headed he did not drink. And he began to win, not by reason of excellent judgment, but because he was lucky. He had good cards all the time, and part of the time very strong ones. It struck him presently that these remarkable hands came during Hough’s deal, and he wondered if the gambler was deliberately manipulating the cards to his advantage. At any rate, he won hundreds of dollars.

“Mr. Neale, do you always hold such cards?” asked one of the men.

“Why, sure,” replied Neale. He could not help being excited and elated.

“Well, he can’t be beat,” said the other.

“Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,” remarked the third of the trio. “I pass.”

Hough was looking straight at Neale when this last remark was made. And Neale suddenly lost his smile, his flush. The gambler dropped his glance.

“Play the game and don’t get personal in your remarks,” he said. “This is poker.”

Neale continued to win, but his excitement did not return, nor his elation. A random word from a strange man had power to sting him. Unlucky in love! Alas! What was luck, gold — anything to him any more!

By the time the game was ended Neale felt a friendly interest in Hough that was difficult to define or explain; and the conviction gained upon him that the gambler had deliberately dealt him those remarkable cards.

“Let’s see,” said Hough, consulting his watch. “Twelve o’clock! Stanton’s will be humming. We’ll go in.”

Neale did not want to show his reluctance, yet he did hot know just what to say. After all, he was drifting. So he went.

It seemed that all the visitors who had been in the gambling-hall had gravitated to this other dance-hall. The entrance appeared to be through a hotel. At least Neale saw the hotel sign. The building was not made of canvas, but painted wood in sections, like the scenes of a stage. Men were coming and going; the hum of music and gaiety came from the rear; there were rugs, pictures, chairs; this place, whatever its nature, made pretensions. Neale did not see any bar.

They entered a big room full of people, apparently doing nothing. From the opposite side, where the dance-hall opened, came a hum that seemed at once music and discordance, gaiety and wildness, with a strange, carrying undertone raw and violent.

Hough led Neale across the room to where he could look into the dance-hall.

Neale saw a mad, colorful flash and whirl of dancers.

Hough whispered in Neale’s ear: “Stanton throws the drunks out of here.”

No, it appeared the dancers were not drunk with liquor. But there was evidence of other drunkenness than that of the bottle. The floor was crowded. Looking at the mass, Neale could only see whirling, heated faces, white, clinging arms, forms swaying round and round, a wild rhythm without grace, a dance in which music played no real part, where men and women were lost. Neale had never seen a sight like that. He was stunned. There were no souls here. Only beasts of men, and women for whom there was no name. If death stalked in that camp, as Hough had intimated, and hell was there, then the two could not meet too soon.

If the mass and the spirit and the sense of the scene dismayed Neale, the living beings, the creatures, the women — for the men were beyond him — confounded him with pity, consternation, and stinging regret. He had loved two women — his mother and Allie — so well that he ought to love all women because they were of the same sex. Yet how impossible! Had these creatures any sex? Yet they were — at least many were — young, gay, pretty, wild, full of life. They had swift suppleness, smiles, flashing eyes, a look at once intent and yet vacant. But few onlookers would have noticed that. The eyes for which the dance was meant saw the mad whirl, the bare flesh, the brazen glances, the close embrace.

The music ended, the dancers stopped, the shuffling ceased. There were no seats unoccupied, so the dancers walked around or formed in groups.

“Well, I see Ruby has spotted you,” observed Hough.

Neale did not gather exactly what the gambler meant, yet he associated the remark with a girl dressed in red who had paused at the door with others and looked directly at Neale. At that moment some one engaged Hough’s attention.

The girl would have been striking in any company. Neale thought her neither beautiful nor pretty, but he kept on looking. Her arms were bare, her dress cut very low. Her face offered vivid contrast to the carmine on her lips. It was a round, soft face, with narrow eyes, dark, seductive, bold. She tilted her head to one side and suddenly smiled at Neale. It startled him. It was a smile with the shock of a bullet. It held Neale, so that when she crossed to him he could not move. He felt rather than saw Hough return to his side. The girl took hold of the lapels of Neale’s coat. She looked up. Her eyes were dark, with what seemed red shadows deep in them. She had white teeth. The carmined lips curled in a smile — a smile, impossible to believe, of youth and sweetness, that disclosed a dimple in her cheek. She was pretty. She was holding him, pulling him a little toward her.

“I like you!” she exclaimed.

The suddenness of the incident, the impossibility of what was happening, made Neale dumb. He felt her, saw her as he were in a dream. Her face possessed a peculiar fascination. The sleepy, seductive eyes; the provoking half-smile, teasing, alluring; the red lips, full and young through the carmine paint; all of her seemed to breathe a different kind of a power than he had ever before experienced — unspiritual, elemental, strong as some heady wine. She represented youth, health, beauty, terribly linked with evil wisdom, and a corrupt and irresistible power, possessing a base and mysterious affinity for man.

The breath and the charm and the pestilence of her passed over Neale like fire.

“Sweetheart, will you dance with me?” she asked, with her head tilted to one side and her half-open veiled eyes on his.

“No,” replied Neale. He put her from him, gently but coldly.

She showed slow surprise. “Why not? Can’t you dance? You don’t look like a gawk.”

“Yes, I can dance,” replied Neale.

“Then will you dance with me?” she retorted, and red spots showed through the white on her cheeks.

“I told you no,” replied Neale.

His reply transported her into a sudden fury. She swung her hand viciously. Hough caught it, saving Neale from a sounding slap in the face.

“Ruby, don’t lose your temper,” remonstrated the gambler.

“He insulted me!” she cried, passionately.

“He did not. Ruby, you’re spoiled—”

“Spoiled — hell!... Didn’t he look at me, flirt with me? That’s why I asked him to dance. Then he insulted me. I’ll make Cordy shoot him up for it.”

“No, you won’t,” replied Hough, and he pulled her toward his companion, a tall woman with golden hair. “Stanton, shut her up.”

The woman addressed spoke a few words in Ruby’s ear. Then the girl flounced away. But she spoke with withering scorn to Neale.

“What in hell did you come in here for, you big handsome stiff?”

With that she was lost amid her mirthful companions.

Hough turned to Neale. “The girl’s a favorite. You ruffled her vanity... you see. That’s Benton. If you had happened to be alone you would have had gunplay. Be careful after this.”

“But I didn’t flirt with her,” protested Neale. “I only looked at her — curiously, of course. And I said I wouldn’t dance.”

Hough laughed. “You’re young in Benton. Neale, let me introduce to you the lady who saved you from some inconvenience.... Miss Stanton — Mr. Neale.”

And that was how Neale met Beauty Stanton. It seemed she had done him a service. He thanked her. Neale’s manner with women was courteous and deferential. It showed strangely here by contrast. The Stanton woman was superb, not more than thirty years old, with a face that must have been lovely once and held the haunting ghost of beauty still. Her hair was dead gold; her eyes were large and blue, with dark circles under them; and her features had a clear-cut classic regularity.

“Where’s Ancliffe?” asked Hough, addressing Stanton. She pointed, and Hough left them.

“Neale, you’re new here,” affirmed the woman, rather curiously.

“Didn’t I look like it? I can’t forget what that girl said,” replied Neale.

“Tell me.”

“She asked me what in the hell I came here for. And she called me—”

“Oh, I heard what Ruby called you. It’s a wonder it wasn’t worse. She can swear like a trooper. The men are mad over Ruby. It’d be just like her to fall in love with you for snubbing her.”

“I hope she doesn’t,” replied Neale, constrainedly.

“May I ask — what did you come here for?”

“You mean here to your dance-hall? Why, Hough brought me. I met him. We played cards and—”

“No. I mean what brought you to Benton?”

“I just drifted here.... I’m looking for a — a lost friend,” said Neale.

“No work? But you’re no spiker or capper or boss. I know that sort. And I can spot a gambler a mile. The whole world meets out here in Benton. But not many young men like you wander into my place.”

“Like me? How so?”

“The men here are wolves on the scent for flesh; like bandits on the trail of gold.... But you — you’re like my friend Ancliffe.”

“Who is he?” asked Neale, politely.

“WHO is he? God only knows. But he’s an Englishman and a gentleman. It’s a pity men like Ancliffe and you drift out here.”

She spoke seriously. She had the accent and manner of breeding.

“Why, Miss Stanton?” inquired Neale. He was finding another woman here and it was interesting to him.

“Because it means wasted life. You don’t work. You’re not crooked. You can’t do any good. And only a knife in the back or a bullet from some drunken bully’s gun awaits you.”

“That isn’t a very hopeful outlook, I’ll admit,” replied Neale, thoughtfully.

At this point Hough returned with a pale, slender man whose clothes and gait were not American. He introduced him as Ancliffe. Neale felt another accession of interest. Benton might be hell, but he was meeting new types of men and women. Ancliffe was fair; he had a handsome face that held a story, and tired blue eyes that looked out upon the world wearily and mildly, without curiosity and without hope. An Englishman of broken fortunes.

“Just arrived, eh?” he said to Neale. “Rather jolly here, don’t you think?”

“A fellow’s not going to stagnate in Benton,” replied Neale.

“Not while he’s alive,” interposed Stanton.

“Miss Stanton, that idea seems to persist with you — the brevity of life,” said Neale, smiling. “What are the average days for a mortal in this bloody Benton?”

“Days! You mean hours. I call the night blessed that some one is not dragged out of my place. And I don’t sell drinks.... I’ve saved Ancliffe’s life nine times I know of. Either he hasn’t any sense or he wants to get killed.”

“I assure you it’s the former,” said the Englishman.

“But, my friends, I’m serious,” she returned, earnestly. “This awful place is getting on my nerves.... Mr. Neale here, he would have had to face a gun already but for me.”

“Miss Stanton, I appreciate your kindness,” replied Neale. “But it doesn’t follow that if I had to face a gun I’d be sure to go down.”

“You can throw a gun?” questioned Hough.

“I had a cowboy gun-thrower for a partner for years, out on the surveying of the road. He’s the friend I mentioned.”

“Boy, you’re courting death!” exclaimed Stanton.

Then the music started up again. Conversation was scarcely worth while during the dancing. Neale watched as before. Twice as he gazed at the whirling couples he caught the eyes of the girl Ruby bent upon him. They were expressive of pique, resentment, curiosity. Neale did not look that way any more. Besides, his attention was drawn elsewhere. Hough yelled in his ear to watch the fun. A fight had started. A strapping fellow wearing a belt containing gun and bowie-knife had jumped upon a table just as the music stopped. He was drunk. He looked like a young workman ambitious to be a desperado.

“Ladies an’ gennelmen,” he bawled, “I been — requested t’ sing.”

Yells and hoots answered him. He glared ferociously around, trying to pick out one of his insulters. Trouble was brewing. Something was thrown at him from behind and it struck him. He wheeled, unsteady upon his feet. Then several men, bareheaded and evidently attendants of the hall, made a rush for him. The table was upset. The would-be singer went down in a heap, and he was pounced upon, handled like a sack, and thrown out. The crowd roared its glee.

“The worst of that is those fellows always come back drunk and ugly,” said Stanton. “Then we all begin to run or dodge.”

“Your men didn’t lose time with that rowdy,” remarked Neale.

“I’ve hired all kinds of men to keep order,” she replied. “Laborers, ex-sheriffs, gunmen, bad men. The Irish are the best on the job. But they won’t stick. I’ve got eight men here now, and they are a tough lot. I’m scared to death of them. I believe they rob my guests. But what can I do? Without some aid I couldn’t run the place. It’ll be the death of me.”

Neale did not doubt that. A shadow surely hovered over this strange woman, but he was surprised at the seriousness with which she spoke. Evidently she tried to preserve order, to avert fights and bloodshed, so that licentiousness could go on unrestrained. Neale believed they must go hand in hand. He did not see how it would be possible for a place like this to last long. It could not. The life of the place brought out the worst in men. It created opportunities. Neale watched them pass, seeing the truth in the red eyes, the heavy lids, the open mouths, the look and gait and gesture. A wild frenzy had fastened upon their minds. He found an added curiosity in studying the faces of Ancliffe and Hough. The Englishman had run his race. Any place would suit him for the end. Neale saw this and marveled at the man’s ease and grace and amiability. He reminded Neale of Larry Red King — the same cool, easy, careless air. Ancliffe would die game. Hough was not affected by this sort of debauched life any more than he would have been by any other kind. He preyed on men. He looked on with cold, gray, expressionless face. Possibly he, too, would find an end in Benton sooner or later.

These reflections, passing swiftly, made Neale think of himself. What was true for others must be true for him. The presence of any of these persons — of Hough and Ancliffe, of himself, in Beauty Stanton’s gaudy resort was sad proof of a disordered life.

Some one touched him, interrupted his thought.

“You’ve had trouble?”, asked Stanton, who had turned from the others.

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, we’ve all had that.... You seem young to me.”

Hough turned to speak to Stanton. “Ruby’s going to make trouble.”

“No!” exclaimed the woman, with eyes lighting.

Neale then saw that the girl Ruby, with a short, bold-looking fellow who packed a gun, and several companions of both sexes, had come in from the dance-hall and had taken up a position near him. Stanton went over to them. She drew Ruby aside and talked to her. The girl showed none of the passion that had marked her manner a little while before. Presently Stanton returned.

“Ruby’s got over her temper,” she said, with evident relief, to Neale. “She asked me to say that she apologized. It’s just what I told you. She’ll fall madly in love with you for what you did.... She’s of good family, Neale. She has a sister she talks much of, and a home she could go back to if she wasn’t ashamed.”

“That so?” replied Neale, thoughtfully. “Let me talk to her.”

At a slight sign from Stanton, Ruby joined the group.

“Ruby, you’ve already introduced yourself to this gentleman, but not so nicely as you might have done,” said Beauty.

“I’m sorry,” replied Ruby. A certain wistfulness showed in her low tones.

“Maybe I was rude,” said Neale. “I didn’t intend to be. I couldn’t dance with any one here — or anywhere....” Then he spoke to her in a lower tone. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I won a thousand dollars to-night. I’ll give you half of it if you’ll go home.”

The girl shrank as if she had received a stab. Then she stiffened.

“Why don’t you go home?” she retorted. “We’re all going to hell out here, and the gamest will get there soonest.”

She glared at Neale an instant, white-faced and hard, and then, rejoining her companions, she led them away.

Beauty Stanton seemed to have received something of the check that had changed the girl Ruby.

“Gentlemen, you are my only friends in Benton. But these are business hours.”

Presently she leaned toward Neale and whispered to him: “Boy, you’re courting death. Some one — something has hurt you. But you’re young.... GO HOME!”

Then she bade him good night and left the group.

He looked on in silence after that. And presently, when Ancliffe departed, he was glad to follow Hough into the street. There the same confusion held. A loud throng hurried by, as if bent on cramming into a few hours the life that would not last long.

Neale was interested to inquire more about Ancliffe. And the gambler replied that the Englishman had come from no one knew where; that he did not go to extremes in drinking or betting; that evidently he had become attached to Beauty Stanton; that surely he must be a ruined man of class who had left all behind him, and had become like so many out there — a leaf in the storm.

“Stanton took to you,” went on Hough. “I saw that.... And poor Ruby! I’ll tell you, Neale, I’m sorry for some of these women.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Women of this class are strange to you, Neale. But I’ve mixed with them for years. Of course Benton sets a pace no man ever saw before. Still, even the hardest and vilest of these scullions sometimes shows an amazing streak of good. And women like Ruby and Beauty Stanton, whose early surroundings must have been refined — they are beyond understanding. They will cut your heart out for a slight, and sacrifice their lives for sake of a courteous word. It was your manner that cut Ruby and won Beauty Stanton. They meet with neither coldness nor courtesy out here. It must be bitter as gall for a woman like Stanton to be treated as you treated her — with respect. Yet see how it got her.”

“I didn’t see anything in particular,” replied Neale.

“You were too excited and disgusted with the whole scene,” said Hough as they reached the roaring lights of the gambling-hell. “Will you go in and play again? There are always open games.”

“No, I guess not — unless you think—”

“Boy, I think nothing except that I liked your company and that I owed you a service. Good night.”

Neale walked to his lodgings tired and thoughtful and moody. Behind him the roar lulled and swelled. It was three o’clock in the morning. He wondered when these night-hawks slept. He wondered where Larry was. As for himself, he found slumber not easily gained. Dawn was lighting the east when he at last fell asleep.

CHAPTER 16

NEALE SLEPT UNTIL late the next day and awoke with the pang that a new day always gave him now. He arose slowly, gloomily, with the hateful consciousness that he had nothing to do. He had wanted to be alone, and now loneliness was bad for him.

“If I were half a man I’d get out of here, quick!” he muttered, in scorn. And he thought of the broken Englishman, serene and at ease, settled with himself. And he thought of the girl Ruby who had flung the taunt at him. Not for a long time would he forget that. Certainly this abandoned girl was not a coward. She was lost, but she was magnificent.

“I guess I’ll leave Benton,” he soliloquized. But the place, the wildness, fascinated him. “No! I guess I’ll stay.”

It angered him that he was ashamed of himself. He was a victim of many moods, and underneath every one of them was the steady ache, the dull pain, the pang in his breast, deep in the bone.

As he left his lodgings he heard the whistle of a train. The scene down the street was similar to the one which had greeted him the day before, only the dust was not blowing so thickly. He went into a hotel for his meal and fared better, watching the hurry and scurry of men. After he had finished he strolled toward the station.

Benton had two trains each day now. This one, just in, was long and loaded to its utmost capacity. Neale noticed an Indian arrow sticking fast over a window of one of the coaches. There were flat cars loaded with sections of houses, and box-cars full of furniture. Benton was growing every day. At least a thousand persons got off that train, adding to the dusty, jostling melee.

Suddenly Neale came face to face with Larry King.

“Red!” he yelled, and made at the cowboy.

“I’m shore glad to see you,” drawled Larry. “What ‘n hell busted loose round heah?”

Neale drew Larry out of the crowd. He carried a small pack done up in a canvas covering.

“Red, your face looks like home to a man in a strange land,” declared Neale. “Where are your horses?”

Larry looked less at his ease.

“Wal, I sold them.”

“Sold them! Those great horses? Oh, Red, you didn’t!”

“Hell! It costs money to ride on this heah U.P.R. thet we built, an’ I had no money.”

“But what did you sell them for? I — I cared for those horses.”

“Will you keep quiet aboot my hosses?”

Neale had never before seen the tinge of gray in that red-bronze face.

“But I told you to straighten up!”

“Wal, who hasn’t?” retorted Larry.

“You haven’t! Don’t lie.”

“If you put it thet way, all right. Now what’re you-all goin’ to do aboot it?”

“I’ll lick you good,” declared Neale, hotly. He was angry with Larry, but angrier with himself that he had been the cause of the cowboy’s loss of work and of his splendid horses.

“Lick me!” ejaculated Larry. “You mean beat me up?”

“Yes. You deserve it.”

Larry took him in earnest and seemed very much concerned. Neale could almost have laughed at the cowboy’s serious predicament.

“Wal, I reckon I ain’t much of a fighter with my fists,” said Larry, soberly. “So come an’ get it over.”

“Oh, damn you, Red!... I wouldn’t lay a hand on you. And I am sick, I’m so glad to see you!... I thought you got here ahead of me.”

Neale’s voice grew full and trembling.

Larry became confused, his red face grew redder, and the keen blue flash of his eyes softened.

“Wal, I heerd what a tough place this heah Benton was — so I jest come.”

Larry ended this speech lamely, but the way he hitched at his belt was conclusive.

“Wal, by Gawd! Look who’s heah!” he suddenly exclaimed.

Neale wheeled with a start. He saw a scout, in buckskin, a tall form with the stride of a mountaineer, strangely familiar.

“Slingerland!” he cried.

The trapper bounded at them, his tanned face glowing, his gray eyes glad.

“Boys, it’s come at last! I knowed I’d run into you some day,” he said, and he gripped them with horny hands.

Neale tried to speak, but a terrible cramp in his throat choked him. He appealed with his hands to Slingerland. The trapper lost his smile and the iron set returned to his features.

Larry choked over his utterance. “Al-lie! What aboot — her?”

“Boys, it’s broke me down!” replied Slingerland, hoarsely. “I swear to you I never left Allie alone fer a year — an’ then — the fust time — when she made me go — I come back an’ finds the cabin burnt.... She’s gone! Gone!... No redskin job. That damned riffraff out of Californy. I tracked ‘em. Then a hell of a storm comes up. No tracks left! All’s lost! An’ I goes back to my traps in the mountains.”

“What — became — of — her?” whispered Neale.

Slingerland looked away from him.

“Son! You remember Allie. She’d die, quick!... Wouldn’t she, Larry?”

“Shore. Thet girl — couldn’t — hev lived a day,” replied Larry, thickly.

Neale plunged blindly away from his friends. Then the torture in his breast seemed to burst. The sobs came, heavy, racking. He sank upon a box and bowed his head. There Larry and Slingerland found him.

The cowboy looked down with helpless pain. “Aw, pard — don’t take it — so hard,” he implored.

But he knew and Slingerland knew that sympathy could do no good here. There was no hope, no help. Neale was stricken. They stood there, the elder man looking all the sadness and inevitableness of that wild life, and the younger, the cowboy, slowly changing to iron.

“Slingerland, you-all said some Californy outfit got Allie?” he queried.

“I’m sure an’ sartin,” replied the trapper. “Them days there wasn’t any travelin’ west, so early after winter. You recollect them four bandits as rode in on us one day? They was from Californy.”

“Wal, I’ll be lookin’ fer men with thet Californy brand,” drawled King, and in his slow, easy, cool speech there was a note deadly and terrible.

Neale slowly ceased his sobbing. “My nerve’s gone,” he said, shakily.

“No. It jest broke you all up to see Slingerland. An’ it shore did me, too,” replied Larry.

“It’s hard, but—” Slingerland could not finish his thought.

“Slingerland, I’m glad to see you, even if it did cut me,” said Neale, more rationally. “I’m surprised, too. Are you here with a load of pelts?”

“No. Boys, I hed to give up trappin’. I couldn’t stand the loneliness — after — after... An’ now I’m killin’ buffalo meat for the soldiers an’ the construction gangs. Jest got in on thet train with a car-load of fresh meat.”

“Buffalo meat,” echoed Neale. His mind wandered.

“Son, how’s your work goin’?”

Neale shook his head.

The cowboy, answering for him, said, “We kind of chucked the work, Slingerland.”

“What? Are you hyar in Benton, doin’ nothin’?”

“Shore. Thet’s the size of it.”

The trapper made a vehement gesture of disapproval and he bent a scrutinizing gaze upon Neale.

“Son, you’ve not gone an’ — an’—”

“Yes,” replied Neale, throwing out his hands. “I quit. I couldn’t work. I CAN’T work. I CAN’T rest or stand still!”

A spasm of immense regret contracted the trapper’s face. And Larry King, looking away over the sordid, dusty passing throng, cursed under his breath. Neale was the first to recover his composure.

“Let’s say no more. What’s done is done,” he said. “Suppose you take us on one of your buffalo-hunts.”

Slingerland grasped at straws. “Wal, now, thet ain’t a bad idee. I can use you,” he replied, eagerly. “But it’s hard an’ dangerous work. We git chased by redskins often. An’ you’d hev to ride. I reckon, Neale, you’re good enough on a hoss. But our cowboy friend hyar, he can’t ride, as I recollect your old argyments.”

“My job was hosses,” drawled Larry.

“An’ besides, you’ve got to shoot straight, which Reddy hasn’t hed experience of,” went on Slingerland, with a broader smile.

“I seen you was packin’ a Winchester all shiny an’ new,” replied Larry. “Shore I’m in fer anythin’ with ridin’ an’ shootin’.”

Neale and Larry accepted the proposition then and there.

“You’ll need to buy rifles an’ shells, thet’s all,” said Slingerland. “I’ve hosses an’ outfit over at the work-camp, an’ I’ve been huntin’ east of thar. Come on, we’ll go to a store. Thet train’s goin’ back soon.”

“Wal, I come in on thet train an’ now I’m leavin’ on it,” drawled Larry. “Shore is funny. Without even lookin’ over this heah Benton.”

On the ride eastward Slingerland inquired if Neale and Larry had ever gone back to the scene of the massacre of the caravan where Horn had buried his gold.

Neale had absolutely forgotten the buried gold. Probably when he and Larry had scoured the wild hills for trace of Allie they had passed down the valley where the treasure had been hidden. Slingerland gave the same reason for his oversight. They talked about the gold and planned, when the railroad reached the foot-hills, to go after it.

Both Indians and buffalo were sighted from the train before the trio got to the next camp.

“I reckon I don’t like thet,” declared Slingerland. “I was friendly with the Sioux. But now thet I’ve come down hyar to kill off their buffalo fer the whites they’re ag’in’ me. I know thet. An’ I allus regarded them buffalo as Injun property. If it wasn’t thet I seen this railroad means the end of the buffalo, an’ the Indians, too, I’d never hev done it. Thet I’ll swar.”

It was night when they reached their destination. How quiet and dark after Benton! Neale was glad to get there. He wondered if he could conquer his unrest. Would he go on wandering again? He doubted himself and dismissed the thought. Perhaps the companionship of his old friends and the anticipation of action would effect a change in him.

Neale and Larry spent the night in Slingerland’s tent. Next morning the trapper was ready with horses at an early hour, but, owing to the presence of Sioux in the vicinity, it was thought best to wait for the work-train and ride out on the plains under its escort.

By and by the train, with its few cars and half a hundred workmen, was ready, and the trapper and his comrades rode out alongside. Some few miles from camp the train halted at a place where stone-work and filling awaited the laborers. Neale was again interested, in spite of himself. Yet his love for that railroad was quite as hopeless as other things in his life.

These laborers were picked men, all soldiers, and many Irish; they stacked their guns before taking up shovels and bars.

“Dom me if it ain’t me ould fri’nd Neale!” exclaimed a familiar voice.

And there stood Casey, with the same old grin, the same old black pipe.

Neale’s first feeling of pleasure at seeing the old flagman was counteracted by one of dismay at the possibility of coming in contact with old acquaintances. It would hurt him to meet General Lodge or any of the engineers who had predicted a future for him.

Shane and McDermott were also in this gang, and they slouched forward.

“It’s thot gun-throwin’ cowboy as wuz onct goin’ to kill Casey!” exclaimed McDermott, at sight of Larry.

Neale, during the few moments of reunion with his old comrades of the survey, received a melancholy insight into himself and a clearer view of them. The great railroad had gone on, growing, making men change. He had been passed by. He was no longer a factor. Along with many, many other men, he had retrograded. The splendid spirit of the work had not gone from him, but it had ceased to govern his actions. He had ceased to grow. But these uncouth Irishmen, they had changed. In many ways they were the same slow, loquacious, quarreling trio as before, but they showed the effect of toil, of fight, of growth under the great movement and its spirit — the thing which great minds had embodied; and these laborers were no longer ordinary men. Something shone out of them. Neale saw it. He felt an inexplicable littleness in their presence. They had gone on; he had been left. They would toil and fight until they filled nameless graves. He, too, would find a nameless grave, he thought, but he would not lie in it as one of these. The moment was poignant for Neale, exceedingly bitter, and revealing.

Slingerland was not long in sighting buffalo. After making a careful survey of the rolling country for lurking Indians he rode out with Neale, Larry, and two other men — Brush and an Irishman named Pat — who were to skin the buffalo the hunters killed, and help load the meat into wagons which would follow.

“It ain’t no trick to kill buffalo,” Slingerland was saying to his friends. “But I don’t want old bulls an’ old cows killed. An’ when you’re ridin’ fast an’ the herd is bunched it’s hard to tell the difference. You boys stick close to me an’ watch me first. An’ keep one eye peeled fer Injuns!”

Slingerland approached the herd without alarming it, until some little red calves on the outskirts of the herd became frightened. Then the herd lumbered off, raising a cloud of dust. The roar of hoofs was thunderous.

“Ride!” yelled Slingerland.

Not the least interesting sight to Neale was Larry riding away from them. He was whacking the buffalo on the rumps with his bare hand before Slingerland and Neale got near enough to shoot.

At the trapper’s first shot the herd stampeded. Thereafter it took fine riding to keep up, to choose the level ground, and to follow Slingerland’s orders. Neale got up in the thick of the rolling din and dust. The pursuit liberated something fierce within him which gave him a measure of freedom from his constant pain. All before spread the great bobbing herd. The wind whistled, the dust choked him, the gravel stung his face, the strong, even action of his horse was exhilarating. He lost track of Larry, but he stayed close to Slingerland. The trapper kept shooting at intervals. Neale saw the puffs of smoke, but in the thundering din he could not hear a report. It seemed impossible for him to select the kind of buffalo Slingerland wanted shot. Neale could not tell one from the other. He rode right upon their flying heels. Unable, finally, to restrain himself from shooting, he let drive and saw a beast drop and roll over. Neale rode on.

Presently out of a lane in the dust he thought he saw Slingerland pass. He reined toward the side. Larry was riding furiously at him, and Slingerland’s horse was stretched out, heading straight away. The trapper madly waved his arms. Neale spurred toward them. Something was amiss. Larry’s face flashed in the sun. He whirled his horse to take Neale’s course and then he pointed.

Neale thrilled as he looked. A few hundred rods in the rear rode a band of Sioux, coming swiftly. A cloud of dust rose behind them. They had, no doubt, been hiding in the vicinity of the grazing buffalo, lying in wait.

As Neale closed in on Larry he saw the cowboy’s keen glance measuring distance and speed.

“We shore got to ride!” was what Larry apparently yelled, though the sound of words drifted as a faint whisper to Neale. But the roar of buffalo hoofs was rapidly diminishing.

Then Neale realized what it meant to keep close to the cowboy. Every moment Larry turned round both to watch the Indians and to have a glance at his comrade. They began to gain on Slingerland. Brush was riding for dear life off to the right, and the Irishman, Pat, still farther in that direction, was in the most perilous situation of all. Already the white skipping streaks of dust from bullets whipped up in front of him. The next time Neale looked back the Sioux had split up; some were riding hard after Brush and Pat; the majority were pursuing the other three hunters, cutting the while a little to the right, for Slingerland was working round toward the work-train. Neale saw the smoke of the engine and then the train. It seemed far away. And he was sure the Indians were gaining. What incomparable riders! They looked half naked, dark, gleaming, low over their mustangs, feathers and trappings flying in the wind — a wild and panic-provoking sight.

“Don’t ride so close!” yelled Larry. “They’re spreadin’!”

Neale gathered that the Indians were riding farther apart because they soon expected to be in range of bullets; and Larry wanted Neale to ride farther from him for the identical reason.

Neale saw the first white puff of smoke from a rifle of the leader. The bullet hit far behind. More shots kept raising the dust, the last time still a few yards short.

“Gawd! Look!” yelled Larry. “The devils hit Pat’s hoss!”

Neale saw the Irishman go down with his horse, plunge in the dust, and then roll over and lie still.

“They got him!” he yelled at Larry.

“Ride thet hoss!” came back grimly and appealingly from the cowboy.

Neale rode as he had never before ridden. Fortunately his horse was fresh and fast, and that balanced the driving the cowboy was giving his mount. For a long distance they held their own with the Sioux. They had now gained a straight-away course for the work-train, so that with the Sioux behind they had only to hold out for a few miles. Brush appeared as well off as they were. Slingerland led by perhaps a hundred feet, far over to the left, and he was wholly out of range.

It took a very short time at that pace to cover a couple of miles. And then the Indians began to creep up closer and closer. Again they were shooting. Neale heard the reports and each one made him flinch in expectation of feeling the burn of a bullet. Brush was now turning to fire his rifle.

Neale bethought himself of his own Winchester, which he was carrying in his hand. Dropping the rein over the horn of his saddle, he turned half round. How close, how red, how fierce these Sioux were! He felt his hair rise stiff under his hat. And at the same instant a hot wrath rushed over him, madness to fight, to give back blow for blow. Just then several of the Indians fired. He heard the sharp cracks, then the spats of bullets striking the ground; he saw the little streaks of dust in front of him. Then the whistle of lead. That made him shoot in return. His horse lunged forward, almost throwing him, and ran the faster for his fright. Neale heard Larry begin to shoot. It became a running duel now, with the Indians scattering wide, riding low, yelling like demons, and keeping up a continuous volley. They were well armed with white men’s guns. Neale worked the lever of his rifle while he looked ahead for an instant to see where his horse was running; then he wheeled quickly and took a snap shot at the nearest Indian, no more than three hundred yards distant now. He saw where his bullet, going wide, struck up the dust. It was desperately hard to shoot from the back of a scared horse. Neale did not notice that Larry’s shots were any more effective than his own. He grew certain that the Sioux were gaining faster now. But the work-train was not far away. He saw the workmen on top of the cars waving their arms. Rougher ground, though, on this last stretch.

Larry was drawing ahead. He had used all the shells in his rifle and now with hand and spur was goading his horse.

Suddenly Neale heard the soft thud of lead striking flesh. His horse leaped with a piercing snort of terror, and Neale thought he was going down. But he recovered, and went plunging on, still swift and game, though with uneven gait. Larry yelled. His red face flashed back over his shoulder. He saw something was wrong with Neale’s horse and he pulled his own.

“Save your own life!” yelled Neale, fiercely. It enraged him to see the cowboy holding back to let him come up. But he could not prevent it.

“He’s hit!” shouted Larry.

“Yes, but not badly,” shouted Neale, in reply. “Spread out!”

The cowboy never swerved a foot. He watched Neale’s horse with keen, sure eyes.

“He’s breakin’! Mebbe he can’t last!”

Bullets whistled all around Neale now. He heard them strike the stones on the ground and sing away; he saw them streak through the scant grass; he felt the tug at his shoulder where one cut through his coat, stinging the skin. That touch, light as it was, drove the panic out of him. The strange darkness before his eyes, hard to see through, passed away. He wheeled to shoot again, and with deliberation he aimed as best he could. Yet he might as well have tried to hit flying birds. He emptied the Winchester.

Then, hunching low in the saddle, Neale hung on. Slingerland was close to the train; Brush on his side appeared to be about out of danger; the pursuit had narrowed down to Neale and Larry. The anger and the grimness faded from Neale. He did not want to go plunging down in front of those lean wild mustangs, to be ridden over and trampled and mutilated. The thought sickened him. The roar of pursuing hoofs grew distinct, but Neale did not look back.

Another roar broke on his ear — the clamor of the Irish soldier-laborers as they yelled and fired.

“Pull him! Pull him!” came the piercing cry from Larry.

Neale was about to ride his frantic horse straight into the work-train. Desperately he hauled the horse up and leaped off. Larry was down, waiting, and his mount went plunging away. Bullets were pattering against the sides of the cars, from which puffed streaks of flame and smoke.

“Up wid yez, lads!” sang out a cheery voice. Casey’s grin and black pipe appeared over the rim of the car, and his big hands reached down.

One quick and straining effort and Neale was up, over the side, to fall on the floor in a pile of sand and gravel. All whirled dim round him for a second. His heart labored. He was wet and hot and shaking.

“Shure yez ain’t hit now!” exclaimed Casey.

Larry’s nervous hands began to slide and press over Neale’s quivering body.

“No — I’m — all — safe!” panted Neale.

The engine whistled shrilly, as if in defiance of the Indians, and with a jerk and rattle the train started.

Neale recovered to find himself in a novel and thrilling situation. The car was of a gondola type, being merely a flat-car, with sides about four feet high, made of such thick oak planking that bullets did not penetrate it. Besides himself and Larry there were half a dozen soldiers, all kneeling at little port-holes. Neale peeped over the rim. In a long thinned-out line the Sioux were circling round the train, hiding on the off sides of their mustangs, and shooting from these difficult positions. They were going at full speed, working in closer. A bullet, striking the rim of the car and showering splinters in Neale’s face, attested to the fact that the Sioux were still to be feared, even from a moving fort. Neale dropped back and, reloading his rifle, found a hole from which to shoot. He emptied his magazine before he realized it. But what with his trembling hands, the jerking of the train, and the swift motion of the Indians, he did not do any harm to the foe.

Suddenly, with a jolt, the train halted.

“Blocked ag’in, b’gorra,” said Casey, calmly. “Me pipe’s out. Sandy, gimme a motch.”

The engine whistled two shrill blasts.

“What’s that for?” asked Neale, quickly.

“Them’s for the men in the foist car to pile over the engine an’ remove obstruchtions from the track,” replied Casey.

Neale dared to risk a peep over the top of the car. The Sioux were circling closer to the front of the train. All along a half-dozen cars ahead of Neale puffs of smoke and jets of flame shot out. Heavy volleys were being fired. The attack of the savages seemed to be concentrating forward, evidently to derail the engine or kill the engineer.

Casey pulled Neale down. “Risky fer yez,” he said. “Use a port-hole an’ foight.”

“My shells are gone,” replied Neale.

He lay well down in the car then, and listened to the uproar, and watched the Irish trio. When the volleys and the fiendish yells mingled he could not hear anything else. There were intervals, however, when the uproar lulled for a moment.

Casey got his black pipe well lit, puffed a cloud of smoke, and picked up his rifle.

“Drill, ye terriers, drill!” he sang, and shoved his weapon through a port-hole. He squinted, over the breech.

“Mac, it’s the same bunch as attacked us day before yisteddy,” he observed.

“It shure ain’t,” replied McDermott. “There’s a million of thim to-day.”

He aimed his rifle as if following a moving object, and fired.

“Mac, you git excited in a foight. Now I niver do. An’ I’ve seen thot pinto hoss an’ thot dom’ redskin a lot of times. I’ll kill him yit.”

Casey kept squinting and aiming, and then, just as he pressed the trigger, the train started with a sudden lurch.

“Sp’iled me aim! Thot engineer’s savin’ of the Sooz tribe!... Drill, ye terriers, drill! Drill, ye terriers, drill!... Shane, I don’t hear yez shootin’.”

“How’n hell can I shoot whin me eye is full of blood?” demanded Shane.

Neale then saw blood on Shane’s face. He crawled quietly to the Irishman.

“Man, are you shot? Let me see.”

“Jist a bullet hit me, loike,” replied Shane.

Neale found that a bullet, perhaps glancing from the wood, had cut a gash over Shane’s eye, from which the blood poured. Shane’s hands and face and shirt were crimson. Neale bound a scarf tightly over the wound.

“Let me take the rifle now,” he said.

“Thanks, lad. I ain’t hurted. An’ hev Casey make me loife miserable foriver? Not much. He’s a harrd mon, thot Casey.”

Shane crouched back to his port-hole, with his bloody bandaged face and his bloody hands. And just then the train stopped with a rattling crash.

“Whin we git beyond thim ties as was scattered along here mebbe we’ll go on in,” remarked McDermott.

“Mac, yez looks on the gloomy side,” replied Casey. Then quickly he aimed the shot. “I loike it better whin we ain’t movin’,” he soliloquized, with satisfaction. “Thot red-skin won’t niver scalp a soldier of the U. P. R.... Drill, ye terriers! Drill, ye terriers, drill!”

The engine whistle shrieked out and once more the din of conflict headed to the front. Neale lay there, seeing the reality of what he had so often dreamed. These old soldiers, these toilers with rail and sledge and shovel, these Irishmen with the rifles, they were the builders of the great U. P. R. Glory might never be theirs, but they were the battle-scarred heroes. They were as used to fighting as to working. They dropped their sledges or shovels to run for their guns.

Again the train started up and had scarcely gotten under way when with jerk and bump it stopped once more. The conflict grew fiercer as the Indians became more desperate. But evidently they were kept from closing in, for during the thick of the heaviest volleying the engine again began to puff and the wheels to grind. Slowly the train moved on. Like hail the bullets pattered against the car. Smoke drifted away on the wind.

Neale lay there, watching these cool men who fought off the savages. No doubt Casey and Shane and McDermott were merely three of many thousands engaged in building and defending the U. P. R. This trio liked the fighting, perhaps better than the toiling. Casey puffed his old black pipe, grinned and aimed, shot and reloaded, sang his quaint song, and joked with his comrades, all in the same cool, quiet way. If he knew that the shadow of death hung over the train, he did not show it. He was not a thinker. Casey was a man of action. Only once he yelled, and that was when he killed the Indian on the pinto mustang.

Shane grew less loquacious and he dropped and fumbled over his rifle, but he kept on shooting. Neale saw him feel the hot muzzle of his gun and shake his bandaged head. The blood trickled down his cheek.

McDermott plied his weapon, and ever and anon he would utter some pessimistic word, or presage dire disaster, or remind Casey that his scalp was destined to dry in a Sioux’s lodge, or call on Shane to hit something to save his life, or declare the engine was off the track. He rambled on. But it was all talk. The man had gray hairs and he was a born fighter.

This time the train gained more headway, and evidently had passed the point where the Indians could find obstructions to place on the track. Neale saw through a port-hole that the Sioux were dropping back from the front of the train and were no longer circling. Their firing had become desultory. Medicine Bow was in sight. The engine gathered headway.

“We’ll git the rest of the day off,” remarked Casey, complacently. “Shane, yez are dom’ quiet betoimes. An’ Mac, I shure showed yez up to-day.”

“Ye DID not,” retorted McDermott. “I kilt jist twinty-nine Sooz!”

“Jist thorty wus moine. An’, Mac, as they wus only about fifthy of thim, yez must be a liar.”

The train drew on toward Medicine Bow. Firing ceased. Neale stood up to see the Sioux riding away. Their ranks did not seem noticeably depleted.

“Drill, ye terriers, drill!” sang Casey, as he wiped his sweaty and begrimed rifle. “Mac, how many Sooz did Shane kill?”

“B’gorra, he ain’t said yit,” replied McDermott. “Say, Shane.... CASEY!”

Neale whirled at the sharp change of tone.

Shane lay face down on the floor of the car, his bloody hands gripping his rifle. His position was inert, singularly expressive.

Neale strode toward him. But Casey reached him first. He laid a hesitating hand on Shane’s shoulder.

“Shane, old mon!” he said, but the cheer was not in his voice.

Casey dropped his pipe! Then he turned his comrade over. Shane had done his best and his last for the U. P. R.

CHAPTER 17

NEALE AND LARRY and Slingerland planned to go into the hills late in the fall, visit Slingerland’s old camp, and then try to locate the gold buried by Horn. For the present Larry meant to return to Benton, and Neale, though vacillating as to his own movements, decided to keep an eye on the cowboy.

The trapper’s last words to Neale were interesting. “Son,” he said, “there’s a feller hyar in Medicine Bow who says as how he thought your pard Larry was a bad cowpuncher from the Pan Handle of Texas.”

“Bad?” queried Neale.

“Wal, he meant a gun-throwin’ bad man, I take it.”

“Don’t let Reddy overhear you say it,” replied Neale, “and advise your informant to be careful. I’ve always had a hunch that Reddy was really somebody.”

“Benton ‘ll work on the cowboy,” continued Slingerland, earnestly. “An’, son, I ain’t so all-fired sure of you.”

“I’ll take what comes,” returned Neale, shortly. “Good-bye, old friend. And if you can use us for buffalo-hunting without the ‘dom’ Sooz,’ as Casey says; why, we’ll come.”

After Slingerland departed Neale carried with him a memory of the trapper’s reluctant and wistful good-bye. It made Neale think — where were he and Larry going? Friendships in this wild West were stronger ties than he had known elsewhere.

The train arrived at Benton after dark. And the darkness seemed a windy gulf out of which roared yellow lights and excited men. The tents, with the dim lights through the canvas, gleamed pale and obscure, like so much of the life they hid. The throngs hurried, the dust blew, the band played, the barkers clamored for their trade.

Neale found the more pretentious hotels overcrowded, and he was compelled to go to his former lodgings, where he and Larry were accommodated.

“Now, we’re here, what ‘ll we do?” queried Neale, more to himself. He felt as if driven. And the mood he hated and feared was impinging upon his mind.

“Shore we’ll eat,” replied Larry.

“Then what?”

“Wal, I reckon we’ll see what’s goin’ on in this heah Benton.”

As a matter of fact, Neale reflected, there was nothing to do that he wanted to do.

“You-all air gettin’ the blues,” said Larry, with solicitude.

“Red, I’m never free of them.”

Larry put his hands on Neale’s shoulder. Demonstration of this kind was rare in the cowboy.

“Pard, are we goin’ to see this heah Benton, an’ then brace, an’ go back to work?”

“No. I can’t hold a job,” replied Neale, bitterly.

“You’re showin’ a yellow streak? You’re done, as you told Slingerland? Nothin’ ain’t no good?... Life’s over, fer all thet’s sweet an’ right? Is thet your stand?”

“Yes, it must be, Reddy,” said Neale, with scorn of himself. “But you — it needn’t apply to you.”

“I reckon I’m sorry,” rejoined Larry, ignoring Neale’s last words. “I always hoped you’d get over Allie’s loss.... You had so much to live fer.”

“Reddy, I wish the bullet that hit Shane to-day had hit me instead.... You needn’t look like that. I mean it. To-day when the Sioux chased us my hair went stiff and my heart was in my mouth. I ran for my life as if I loved it. But that was my miserable cowardice.... I’m sick of the game.”

“Are you in daid earnest?” asked Larry, huskily.

Neale nodded gloomily. He did not even regret the effect of his speech upon the cowboy. He divined that somehow the moment was as critical and fateful for Larry, but he did not care. The black spell was enfolding him. All seemed hard, cold, monstrous within his breast. He could not love anything. He was lost. He realized the magnificent loyalty of this simple Texan, who was his true friend.

“Reddy, for God’s sake don’t make me ashamed to look you in the eyes,” appealed Neale. “I want to go on. You know!”

“Wal, I reckon there ain’t anythin’ to hold me now,” drawled Larry. He had changed as he spoke. He had aged. The dry humor of the cowboy, the amiable ease, were wanting.

“Oh, forgive my utter selfishness!” burst out Neale. “I’m not the man I was. But don’t think I don’t love you.”

They went out together, and the hum of riotous Benton called them; the lights beckoned and the melancholy night engulfed them.

Next morning late, on the way to breakfast, Neale encountered a young man whose rough, bronzed face somehow seemed familiar.

At sight of Neale this young fellow brightened and he lunged forward.

“Neale! Lookin’ for you was like huntin’ for a needle in a haystack.”

Neale could not place him, and he did not try hard for recognition, for that surely would recall his former relations to the railroad.

“I don’t remember you,” replied Neale.

“I’ll bet Larry does,” said the stranger, with a grin at the cowboy.

“Shore. Your name’s Campbell an’ you was a lineman for Baxter,” returned Larry.

“Right you are,” said Campbell, offering his hand to Neale, and then to Larry. He appeared both glad and excited.

“I guess I recall you now,” said Neale, thoughtfully. “You said — you were hunting me?”

“Well, I should smile!” returned Campbell, and handed Neale a letter.

Neale tore it open and hastily perused its contents. It was a brief, urgent request from Baxter that Neale should return to work. The words, almost like an order, made Neale’s heart swell for a moment. He stood there staring at the paper. Larry read the letter over his shoulder.

“Pard, shore I was expectin’ jest thet there, an’ I say go!” exclaimed Larry.

Neale slowly shook his head.

Campbell made a quick, nervous movement. “Neale, I was to say — tell — There’s more ‘n your old job waitin’ for you.”

“What do you mean?” queried Neale.

“That’s all, except the corps have struck a snag out here west of Benton. It’s a bad place. You an’ Henney were west in the hills when this survey was made. It’s a deep wash — bad grade an’ curves. The gang’s stuck. An’ Baxter swore, ‘We’ve got to have Neale back on the job!’”

“Where’s Henney?” asked Neale, rather thickly. Campbell’s words affected him powerfully.

“Henney had to go to Omaha. Boone is sick at Fort Fetterman. Baxter has only a new green hand out there, an’ they’ve sure struck a snag.”

“That’s too bad,” replied Neale, still thoughtfully. “Is — the chief — is General Lodge there?”

“Yes. There’s a trooper camp. Colonel Dillon an’ some of the officers have their wives out on a little visit to see the work. They couldn’t stand Benton.”

“Well — you thank Baxter and tell him I’m sorry I must refuse,” said Neale.

“You won’t come!” ejaculated Campbell.

Neale shook his head. Larry reached out with big, eager hands.

“See heah, pard, I reckon you will go.”

Campbell acted strangely, as if he wanted to say more, but did not have authority to do so. He looked dismayed. Then he said: “All right, Neale. I’ll take your message. But you can expect me back.”

And he went on his way.

“Neale, shore there’s somethin’ in the wind,” said Larry. “Wal, it jest tickles me. They can’t build the railroad without you.”

“Would you go back to work?” queried Neale.

“Shore I would if they’d have me. But I reckon thet little run-in of mine with Smith has made bad feelin’. An’ come to think of thet, if I did go back I’d only have to fight some of Smith’s friends. An’ I reckon I’d better not go. It’d only make trouble for you.”

“Me!... You heard me refuse.”

“Shore I heerd you,” drawled Larry, softly, “but you’re goin’ back if I have to hawg-tie you an’ pack you out there on a hoss.”

Neale said no more. If he had said another word he would have betrayed himself to his friend. He yearned for his old work. To think that the engineer corps needed him filled him with joy. But at the same time he knew what an effort it would take to apply himself to any task. He hated to attempt it. He doubted himself. He was morbid. All that day he wandered around at Larry’s heels, half oblivious of what was going on. After dark he slipped away from his friend to be alone. And being alone in the dark quietness brought home to him the truth of a strange, strong growth, out of the depths of him, that was going to overcome his morbid craving to be idle, to drift, to waste his life on a haunting memory.

He could not sleep that night, and so was awake when Larry lounged in, slow and heavy. The cowboy was half-drunk. Neale took him to task, and they quarreled. Finally Larry grew silent and fell asleep. After that Neale likewise dropped into slumber.

In the morning Larry was again his old, cool, easy, reckless self, and had apparently forgotten Neale’s sharp words. Neale, however, felt a change in himself. This was the first morning for a long time that he had not hated the coming of daylight.

When he and Larry went out the sun was high. For Neale there seemed something more than sunshine in the air. At sight of Campbell, waiting in the same place in which they had encountered him yesterday, Neale’s pulses quickened.

Campbell greeted them with a bright smile. “I’m back,” he said.

“So I see,” replied Neale, constrainedly.

“I’ve a message for you from the chief,” announced Campbell.

“The chief!” exclaimed Neale.

Larry edged closer to them, with the characteristic hitch at his belt, and his eyes flashed.

“He asks as a personal favor that you come out to see him,” replied Campbell.

Neale flushed. “General Lodge asks that!” he echoed. There was a slow heat stirring all through him.

“Yes. Will you go?”

“I — I guess I’ll have to,” replied Neale. He did not feel that he was deciding. He had to go. But this did not prove that he must take up his old work.

Larry swung his hand on Neale’s shoulder, almost staggering him. The cowboy beamed.

“Go in to breakfast,” he said. “Order for me, too. I’ll be back.”

“You want to hurry,” rejoined Campbell. “We’ve only a half-hour to eat an’ catch the work-train.”

Larry strode back toward the lodging-house. And it was Campbell who led Neale into the restaurant and ordered the meal. Neale’s mind was not in a whirl, nor dazed, but he did not get much further in thought than the remarkable circumstance of General Lodge sending for him personally. Meanwhile Campbell rapidly talked about masonry, road-beds, washouts, and other things that Neale heard but did not clearly understand. Then Larry returned. He carried Neale’s bag, which he deposited carefully on the bench.

“I reckon you might as well take it along,” he drawled.

Neale felt himself being forced along an unknown path.

They indulged in little further conversation while hurriedly eating breakfast. That finished, they sallied forth toward the station. Campbell clambered aboard the work-train.

“Come on, Larry,” he said.

And Neale joined in the request. “Yes, come,” he said.

“Wal, seein’ as how I want you-all to get on an’ the rail-road built, I reckon I’d better not go,” drawled Larry. His blue eyes shone warm upon his friend.

“Larry, I’ll be back in a day or so,” said Neale.

“Aw, now, pard, you stay. Go back on the job an’ stick,” appealed the cowboy.

“No. I quit and I’ll stay quit. I might help out — for a day — just as a favor. But—” Neale shook his head.

“I reckon, if you care anythin’ aboot me, you’ll shore stick.”

“Larry, you’ll go to the bad if I leave you here alone,” protested Neale.

“Wel, if you stay we’ll both go,” replied Larry, sharply. He had changed subtly. “It’s in me to go to hell — I reckon I’ve gone — but that ain’t so for you.”

“Two’s company,” said Neale, with an attempt at lightness. But it was a pretense. Larry worried him.

“Listen. If you go back on the job — then it ‘ll be all right for you to run in heah to see me once in a while. But if you throw up this chance I’ll—”

Larry paused. His ruddy tan had faded slightly.

Neale eyed him, aware of a hard and tense contraction of the cowboy’s throat.

“Well, what ‘ll you do?” queried Neale, shortly.

Larry threw back his head, and the subtle, fierce tensity seemed to leave him.

“Wal, the day you come back I’ll clean out Stanton’s place — jest to start entertainin’ you,” he replied, with his slow drawl as marked as ever it was.

A stir of anger in Neale’s breast subsided with the big, warm realization of this wild cowboy’s love for him and the melancholy certainty that Larry would do exactly as he threatened.

“Suppose I come back and beat you all up?” suggested Neale.

“Wal, thet won’t make a dam’ bit of difference,” replied Larry, seriously.

Whereupon Neale soberly bade his friend good-bye and boarded the train.

The ride appeared slow and long, dragged out by innumerable stops. All along the line laborers awaited the train to unload supplies. At the end of the line there was a congestion Neale had not observed before in all the work. Freight-cars, loaded with stone and iron beams and girders for bridge-work, piles of ties and piles of rails, and gangs of idle men attested to the delay caused by an obstacle to progress. The sight aggressively stimulated Neale. He felt very curious to learn the cause of the setback, and his old scorn of difficulties flashed up.

The camp Neale’s guide led him to was back some distance from the construction work. It stood in a little valley through which ran a stream. There was one large building, low and flat, made of boards and canvas, adjoining a substantial old log cabin; and clustered around, though not close together, were a considerable number of tents. Troopers were in evidence, some on duty and many idle. In the background, the slopes of the valley were dark green with pine and cedar.

At the open door of the building Neale met Baxter face to face, and that worthy’s greeting left Neale breathless and aghast, yet thrilling with sheer gladness.

“What’re you up against?” asked Neale.

“The boss ‘ll talk to you. Get in there!” Baxter replied, and pushed Neale inside. It was a big room, full of smoke, noise, men, tables, papers. There were guns stacked under port-holes. Some one spoke to Neale, but he did not see who it was. All the faces he saw so swiftly appeared vague, yet curious and interested. Then Baxter halted him at a table. Once again Neale faced his chief. Baxter announced something. Neale did not hear the words plainly.

General Lodge looked older, sterner, more worn. He stood up.

“Hello, Neale!” he said, offering his hand, and the flash of a smile went over his grim face.

“Come in here,” continued the chief, and he led Neale into another room, of different aspect. It was small; the walls were of logs; new boards had been recently put in the floor; new windows had been cut; and it contained Indian blankets, chairs, a couch.

Here General Lodge bent a stern and piercing gaze upon his former lieutenant.

“Neale, you failed me when you quit your job,” he said. “You were my right-hand man. You quit me in my hour of need.”

“General, I — I was furious at that rotten commissioner deal,” replied Neale, choking. What he had done now seemed an offense to his chief. “My work was ordered done over!”

“Neale, that was nothing to what I’ve endured. You should have grit your teeth — and gone on. That five miles of reconstruction was nothing — nothing.”

In his chief’s inflexible voice, in the worn, shadowed face, Neale saw the great burden, and somehow he was reminded of Lincoln, and a passion of remorse seized him. Why had he not been faithful to this steadfast man who had needed him!

“It seemed — so much to me,” faltered Neale.

“Why did you not look at that as you have looked at so many physical difficulties — the running of a survey, for instance?”

“I — I guess I have a yellow streak.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” went on the chief. Evidently he had been disappointed in Neale.

“I might have come — only Larry, my friend — he got into it, and I was afraid he’d kill somebody,” replied Neale.

“That cowboy — he was a great fellow, but gone wrong. He shot one of the bosses — Smith.”

“Yes, I know. Did — did Smith die?”

“No, but he’ll never be any more good for the U. P. R., that’s certain.... Where is your friend now?”

“I left him in Benton.”

“Benton!” exclaimed the chief, bitterly. “I am responsible for Benton. This great work of my life is a hell on wheels, moving on and on.... Your cowboy friend has no doubt found his place — and his match — in Benton.”

“Larry has broken loose from me — from any last restraint.”

“Neale, what have you been doing?”

And at that Neale dropped his head.

“Idling in the camps — drifting from one place to the next — drinking, gambling, eh?”

“I’m ashamed to say, sir, that of late I have been doing just those things,” replied Neale, and he raised his gaze to his chief’s.

“But you haven’t been associating with those camp women!” exclaimed General Lodge, with his piercing eyes dark on Neale.

“No!” cried Neale. The speech had hurt him.

“I’m glad to hear that — gladder than you can guess. I was afraid — But no matter.... What you did do is bad enough. You ought to be ashamed. A young man with your intelligence, your nerve, your gifts! I have not had a single man whose chances compared with yours. If you had stuck you’d be at the head of my engineer corps right now. Baxter is played out. Boone is ill. Henney had to take charge of the shops in Omaha.... And you, with fortune and fame awaiting you, throw up your job to become a bum... to drink and gamble away your life in these rotten camps!”

General Lodge’s scorn flayed Neale.

“Sir, you may not know I — I lost some one — very dear to me. After that I didn’t seem to care.” Neale turned to the window. He was ashamed of what blurred his eyes. “If it hadn’t been for that — I’d never have failed you.”

The chief strode to Neale and put a hand on his shoulder. “Son, I believe you. Maybe I’ve been a little hard. Let’s forget it.” His tone softened and there was a close pressure of his hand. “The thing is now — will you come back on the job?”

“Baxter’s note — Campbell said they’d struck a snag here. You mean help them get by that?”

“Snag! I guess it is a snag. It bids fair to make all our labor and millions of dollars — wasted.... But I’m not asking you to come back just to help us over this snag. I mean will you come back for good — and stick?”

Neale was lifted out of the gloom into which memory had plunged him. He turned to his chief and found him another person. There was a light on his face and eagerness on his lips, and the keen, stern eyes were soft.

“Son, will you come back — stand by me till the finish?” repeated General Lodge, his voice deep and full. There was more here than just the relation of employer to his lieutenant.

“Yes, sir, I’ll come back,” replied Neale, in low voice.

Their hands met.

“Good!” exclaimed the chief.

Then he deliberately took out his watch and studied it. His hand trembled slightly. He did not raise his eyes again to Neale’s face.

“I’ll call you — later,” he said. “You stay here. I’ll send some one in.”

With that he went out.

Neale remained standing, his eyes fixed on the gray-green slope, seen through the window. He seemed a trifle unsteady on his feet, and he braced himself with a knee against the couch. His restraint, under extreme agitation, began to relax. A flooding splendid thought filled his mind — his chief had called him back to the great work.

Presently the door behind him opened and closed very softly. Then he heard a low, quick gasp. Some one had entered. Suddenly the room seemed strange, full, charged with terrible portent. And he turned as if a giant hand had heavily swung him around.

It was not light at the other end of the room, yet he saw a slight figure of a girl backed against the door. Her outline was familiar. Haunting ghost of his dreams! Bewildered and speechless, he stared, trembling all over. The figure moved, swayed. A faint, sweet voice called, piercing his heart like a keen blade. All of a sudden he had gone mad, he thought; this return to his old work had disordered his mind. The tremor of his body succeeded to a dizziness; his breast seemed about to burst.

“NEALE!” called the sweet voice. She was coming toward him swiftly. “IT’S ALLIE — ALIVE AND WELL!”

Neale felt lifted, as if by invisible wings. His limbs were useless — had lost strength and feeling. The room whirled around him, and in that whirl appeared Allie Lee’s face. Alive — flushed — radiant! Recognition brought a maddening check — a shock — and Neale’s sight darkened. Tender, fluttering hands caught him; soft strong arms enfolded him convulsively.

CHAPTER 18

NEALE SEEMED TO come into another world — a paradise. His eyes doubted the exquisite azure blue — the fleecy cloud — the golden sunshine.

There was a warm, wet cheek pressed close to his, bright chestnut strands of hair over his face, tight little hands clutching his breast. He scarcely breathed while he realized that Allie Lee lived. Then he felt so weak that he could hardly move.

“Allie — you’re not dead?” he whispered.

With a start she raised her head. It was absolutely the face of Allie Lee.

“I’m the livest girl you ever saw,” she replied, with a little low laugh of joy.

“Allie — then you’re actually alive — safe — here!” he exclaimed, in wild assurance.

“Yes — yes.... With you again! Isn’t it glorious? But, oh! I gave you a shock. You frightened me so. Neale, are you well?”

“I wasn’t — but I am now.”

He trembled as he gazed at her. Yes, it was Allie’s face — incomparable, unforgettable. She might have been a little thin and strained. But time and whatever she had endured had only enhanced her loveliness. No harm had befallen her — that was written in the white glow of her face, in the violet eyes, dark and beautiful, with the brave soul shining through their haunting shadows, in the perfect lips, tremulous and tender with love.

“Neale, they told me you gave up your work — were going to the bad,” she said, with an eloquence of distress changing her voice and expression.

“Yes. Allie Lee, I loved you so well — that after I lost you — I cared for nothing.”

“You gave up—”

“Allie,” he interrupted, passionately, “don’t talk of ME!... You haven’t kissed me!”

Allie blushed. “I haven’t?... That’s all you know!”

“Have you?”

“Yes I have — I have.... I was afraid I’d strangled you!”

“I never felt it. I lost all sense of feeling.... Kiss me now! Prove you’re alive and love me still!”

And then presently, when Neale caught his breath again, it was to whisper, “Precious Allie!”

“Am I alive? Do I love you?” she whispered, her eyes like purple stars, her face flooded with a dark rose color.

“I’m forced to believe it, but you must prove it often,” he replied. Then he drew her to a seat beside him. “I’ve had many dreams of you, yet not one like this.... How is it you are alive? By what Providence?... I shall pray to Providence all my life. How do you come to be here? Tell me, quick.”

She leaned close against him. “That’s easy,” she replied. “Only sometime I want to tell you all — everything.... Do you remember the four ruffians who visited Slingerland’s cabin one day when we were all there? Well, they came back one day, the first time Slingerland ever left me alone. They fired the cabin and carried me off. Then they fought among themselves. Two were killed. I made up my mind to get on a horse and run. Just as I was ready I spied Indians riding down. I had to shoot the ruffian Frank. But I didn’t kill him. Then I got on a horse and tried to ride away. The Indians captured me — took me to their camp. There an Indian girl freed me — led me away at night. I found a trail and walked — oh, nights and days it seemed. Then I fell in with a caravan. I thought I was saved. But the leader of that caravan turned out to be Durade.”

“Durade!” echoed Neale, intensely.

“Yes. He was traveling east. He treated me well, but threatened me. When we reached the construction camp, somewhere back there, he started his gambling-place. One night I escaped. I walked all that night — all the next day. And I was about ready to drop when I found this camp. It was night again. I saw the lights. They took me in. Mrs. Dillon and the other women were so kind, so good to me. I told them very little about myself. I only wanted to be hidden here and have them send for you. Then they brought General Lodge, your chief, to see me. He was kind, too. He promised to get you here. It has been a whole terrible week of waiting.... But now—”

“Allie,” burst out Neale, “they never told me a word about you — never gave me a hint. They sent for me to come back to my job. I could have come a day sooner — the day Campbell found me.... Oh!”

“I know they did not find you at once. And I learned yesterday they had located you. That eased my mind. A day more or less — what was that?... But they were somehow strange about you. Then Mrs. Dillon told me how the chief had been disappointed in you — how he had needed you — how he must have you back.”

“Good Lord! Getting me back would have been easy enough if they had only told me!” exclaimed Neale, impatiently.

“Dear, maybe that was just it. I suspect General Lodge cared enough for you to want you to come back to your job for your sake — for his sake — for sake of the railroad. And not for me.”

“Aha!” breathed Neale, softly. “I wonder!... Allie, how cheap, how little I felt awhile ago, when he talked to me. I never was so ashamed in my life. He called me.... But that’s over.... You said Durade had you. Allie, that scares me to death.”

“It scares me, too,” she replied. “For I’m in more danger hidden here than when he had me.”

“Oh no! How can that be?”

“He would kill me for running away,” she shuddered, paling. “But while I was with him, obedient — I don’t think he would have done me harm. I’m more afraid now than when I was his prisoner.”

“I’ll take a bunch of soldiers and go after Durade,” said Neale, grimly.

“No. Don’t do that. Let him alone. Just get me away safely, far out of his reach.”

“But, Allie, that’s not possible now,” declared Neale, “I’m certainly not going to lose sight of you, now I’ve got you again. And I must go back to work. I promised.”

“I can stay here — or go along with you to other camps, and be careful to veil myself and hide.”

“But that’s not safe — not the best plan,” protested Neale. Then he gave a start; his face darkened. “I’ll put Larry King on Durade’s trail.”

“Oh no, Neale! Don’t do that! Please don’t do that! Larry would kill him.”

“I rather guess Larry would. And why not?”

“I don’t want Durade killed. It would be dreadful. He never hurt me. Let him alone. After all, he seems to be the only father I ever knew. Oh, I don’t care for him. I despise him.... But let him live.... He will soon forget me. He is mad to gamble. This railroad of gold is a rich stake for him. He will not last long, nor will any of his kind.”

Neale shook his head doubtfully. “It doesn’t seem wise to me — letting him go.... Allie, does he use his right name — Durade?”

“No.”

“What does he look like? You described him once to me, but I’ve forgotten.”

Allie resolutely refused to tell him and once more entreated Neale to let well enough alone, to keep her hidden from the mob, and not to seek Durade.

“He has a bad gang,” she added. “They might kill you. And do you — you think I’d — ever be — able to live longer without you?”

Whereupon Neale forgot all about Durade and vengeance, and everything but the nearness and sweetness of this girl.

“When shall we get married?” he asked, presently.

This simple question caused Allie to avert her face, and just at that moment there came a knock on the door. Allie made a startled movement.

“Come in,” called Neale.

It was his chief who entered. General Lodge’s face wore the smile that softened it. Then it showed surprise.

“Neale, you’re transfigured!”

Neale’s laugh rang out. “Behold cause — even for that,” he replied, indicating the blushing Allie.

“Son, I didn’t have to play my trump card to fetch you back to work,” said the general.

“If you only had!” exclaimed Neale.

Allie got up, shyly and with difficulty disengaged her hand from Neale’s.

“You — you must want to talk,” she said, and then she fled.

“A wonderful girl, Neale. We’re all in love with her,” declared the chief. “She dropped down on us one night — asked for protection and you. She does not talk much. All we know is that she is the girl you saved back in the hills and has been kept a prisoner. Here she hides, by day and night. She will not talk. But we know she fears some one.”

“Yes, indeed she does,” replied Neale, seriously. And then briefly he told General Lodge Allie’s story as related by her.

“Well!” ejaculated the chief. “If that doesn’t beat me!... What are you going to do?”

“I’ll keep her close. Surely she will be safe here — hidden — with the soldiers about.”

“Of course. But you can never tell what’s going to happen. If she could be gotten to Omaha — now—”

“No — no,” replied Neale, almost violently. He could not bear the thought of parting with Allie, now just when he had found her. Then the chief’s suggestion had reminded Neale of the possibility of Allie’s father materializing. And the idea was attended by a vague dread.

“I appreciate how you feel. Don’t worry about it, Neale.”

“What’s this snag the engineers are up against?” queried Neale, abruptly changing the subject.

“We’re stuck. It’s an engineering problem that I hope — and expect you to solve.”

“Who ran this survey in the first place?”

“It’s Baxter’s work — with the men he had under him then,” replied the chief. “Somebody blundered. His later surveys make over one hundred feet grade to the mile. That won’t do. We’ve got to get down to ninety feet. Baxter’s stuck. The new surveyor is floundering. Oh, it’s bad business. Neale... I don’t sleep of nights.”

“No wonder,” returned Neale, and he felt suddenly the fiery grip of his old state of mind toward all the engineering obstacles. “I’m going out to look over the ground.”

“I’ll send Baxter and some of the men with you.”

“No, thanks,” replied Neale. “I’d rather — take up my job all alone out there.”

The chief’s acquiescence was silent and eloquent.

Neale strode outdoors. The color of things, the feel of wind, the sounds of men and horses all about him, had remarkably changed, just as he himself had incalculably changed; General Lodge had said — transfigured!

He walked down to the construction line and went among the idle men and the strings of cars, the piles of rails and the piles of ties. He seemed to absorb in them again. Then he walked down the loose, unspiked ties to where they ended, and so on along the graded road-bed to the point where his quick eyes recognized the trouble. They swiftly took in what had been done and what had been attempted. How much needless work begun and completed in the building of the railroad! He clambered around in the sand, up and down the ravine, over the rocks, along the stream for half a mile, and it was laborious work. But how good to pant and sweat once more! He retraced his steps. Then he climbed the long slope of the hill. The wind up there blew him a welcome, and the sting and taste of dust were sweet. His steps was swift. And then again he loitered, with keen, roving glance studying the lay of the ground. Neale’s was the deductive method of arriving at conclusions. Today he was inspired. And at length there blazed suddenly his solution to the problem.

Then he gazed over the rolling hills with contemplative and dreamy vision. They were beautiful, strong, changeless — and he divined now how they might have helped him if he had only looked with seeing eyes.

Late that afternoon, tired and dusty, he tramped into the big office room. General Lodge was pacing the floor, chewing at his cigar; Baxter sat over blueprint papers, and his face was weary; Colonel Dillon, Campbell, and several other young men were there.

Neale saw that his manner of entrance, or the look of him, or both together, struck these men singularly. He laughed.

“It was great — going back to my job!” he exclaimed.

Baxter sat up. General Lodge threw away his cigar with an action that suggested a sudden vitalizing of a weary but indomitable spirit.

“Did you find the snag we’ve struck?” asked Baxter, slowly.

“No,” replied Neale.

“Aha! Well, I’ll have to take you out tomorrow and show you.”

The chief’s keen eyes began to shine as they studied Neale.

“No, couldn’t find any snag, Baxter, old boy... and the reason is because there’s no snag to find.”

Baxter stared and his worn face reddened. “Boy, somethin’s gone to your head,” he retorted.

“Wal, I should smile, as Larry would say.”

Baxter pounded the table. “Neale, it’s no smiling matter,” he said harshly. “You come back here, your eye and mind — fresh, but even so, it can’t be you make light of this difficulty. You can’t — you can’t—”

“But I do!” cried Neale, his manner subtly changing.

Baxter got up. His shaking hand rustled a paper he held. “I know you — of old. You’ve tormented me often. You’re a boy... But here — this — this thing has stumped me. I’ve had no one to help... and I’m getting old — this damned railroad has made me old. If — if you saw a way out — tell me—”

Baxter faltered. Indeed he had aged. Neale saw the growth of the great railroad with its problems in the face and voice of the old engineer.

“Listen,” said Neale, swiftly. “A half-mile down from where you struck your snag we’ll change the course of that stream... We’ll change the line — set a compound curve by intersections — and we’ll get much less than a ninety-foot grade to the mile.”

Then he turned to General Lodge. “Chief, Baxter had so many problems — so much on his mind — that he couldn’t think... The work will go on tomorrow.”

“But, Neale, you went out without any instrument,” protested the chief.

“I didn’t need one.”

“Son, are you sure? This has been a stumper. What you say — seems too good — too—”

“Am I sure?” cried Neale, gaily. “Look at Baxter’s face!”

Indeed, one look at the old engineer was confirmation enough.

Neale was made much of that night. The chief and his engineers, the officers and their wives, all vied with one another in their efforts to celebrate Neale’s return to work. The dinner party was merry, yet earnest, too. Baxter made a speech, his fine old face alight with gladness as he extolled youth and genius and the inspiring power of bright eyes. Neale had to answer. His voice was deep and full as he said that Providence had returned him to his work and to a happiness he had believed lost. He denied the genius attributed to him, but not the inspiring power of bright eyes. And he paid a fine tribute to Baxter.

Through all this gaiety and earnestness Allie’s lips were mute, and her cheeks flushed and paled by turns. It was an ordeal for her, both confusing and poignant. At last she and Neale got away alone to the cabin room where they had met earlier in the day.

They stood at the open window, close together, hands locked, gazing out over the quiet valley. The moon was full, and broad belts of silver light lay in strong contrast to black shadows. The hour was late. The sentries paced their beats.

Allie stirred and lifted her face to Neale’s. “What they said about you makes me almost as happy as to see you again,” she said.

“They said! Who? What?” asked Neale, dreamily.

“Oh, I heard, I remember!... For instance, Mr. Baxter said you had genius.”

“He was just eulogizing me,” replied Neale. “What he said about your bright eyes was more to the point, I think.”

“It’s sweet to believe I could inspire you. But I know — and you know — that if I had not been here you would have seen through the engineering problem just the same... Now, be honest.”

“Yes, I would,” replied Neale, frankly. “Though perhaps not so swiftly. I could see through stone today.”

“And that proves your worth. Your duty it always has been — to stand by your chief. Oh, I love him!... He seems so much younger today. You have encouraged them all... Oh, dear Neale, there is something noble in what you can do for him. Can’t you see it?”

“Yes, Allie, indeed I do.”

“Promise me — never to fail him again.”

“I promise.”

“No matter what happens to me. I am alive, safe, well... and I’m yours. But something might happen — you can never tell, and I don’t refer particularly to Durade and his gang. I mean, life and everything is uncertain out here. So promise me, no matter what happens, that you’ll stand by your work.”

“I promise that, too,” replied Neale, huskily. “But you frighten me. You fear — for yourself?”

“No, I don’t,” she protested.

“Fate could not be so brutal — to take you from me. Anyway, I’ll not think of it.”

“Do not. Nor will I... I wouldn’t have asked you — only this night has shown me your opportunity. I’m so proud — so proud. You’ll be great some day.”

“Well, if you’re so proud — if you think I’m so wonderful — why haven’t you rewarded me for that little job today?”

“Reward you!... How?”

“How do you suppose?”

She was pale, eloquent, grave. But he was low-voiced, gay, intense.

“Dear Neale — what — what can I do?... I have nothing... so big a thing as you did today!”

“Child! You can kiss me.”

Allie’s sweet gravity changed. She smiled. “I shore can, as Larry used to say. That’s my privilege. But you spoke of a reward. My kisses — they are yours — and as many as the — the grains of sand out there. But they are not reward.”

“No?... Listen. For just one kiss — if I had to earn it so — I would dig that roadbed out there, carry every tie and rail with my bare hands, drive every spike—”

“Neale, you talk like a boy. Something, indeed, has gone to your head.”

“Yes, indeed, it has. It’s your face — In the moonlight.”

She hid her blushes for a moment on his breast.

“I — I want to be serious,” she whispered. “I want to thank God for my good fortune. To think of you and your work!... The future! And you — you only want kisses.”

“Well, since your future must be largely made up of kisses, suppose you begin your work — right now.”

“Oh, you’re teasing! Yet when you ask of me — whatever you ask — I have no mind — no will. Something drags at me... I feel it now — as I used to — when you made me wade the brook.”

“Oh! That’s my sweetest memory of you. How it haunted me!”

They stood silent for a while. Out in the moon — blanched space the sentries trod monotonously. A coyote yelped, sharp and wild. The wind moaned low. Suddenly Neale shook himself, as if awakening.

“Allie, it grows late. We must say good night... Today has been blessed. I am grateful to the depths of my heart... But I won’t let you go — until my reward—”

She raised her face, white and noble in the moonlight.

CHAPTER 19

NEALE SLEPT IN a tent, and when he was suddenly awakened it was bright daylight. His ears vibrated to a piercing blast. For an instant he could not distinguish the sound. But when it ceased he knew it had been a ringing bugle-call. Following that came the voices and movements of excited troopers.

He rolled from his blankets to get into boots and coat and rush out. The troopers appeared all around him in hurried orderly action. Neale asked a soldier what was up.

“Redskins, b’gorra — before brikfast!” was the disgusted reply.

Neale thought of Allie and his heart contracted. A swift glance on all sides, however, failed to see any evidence of attack on the camp. He espied General Lodge and Colonel Dillon among a group before the engineers’ quarters. Neale hurried up.

“Good morning, Neale,” said the chief, grimly. “You’re back on the job, all right.”

And Colonel Dillon added, “A little action to celebrate your return, Neale!”

“What’s happened?” queried Neale, shortly.

“We just got a telegraph message: ‘Big force — Sioux.’ That’s all. The operator says the wire was cut in the middle of the message.”

“Big force — Sioux!” repeated Neale. “Between here and Benton?”

“Of course. We sent a scout on horseback down along the line.”

“Neale, you’ll find guns inside. Help yourself,” said General Lodge. “You’ll take breakfast with us in the cabin. We don’t know what’s up yet. But it looks bad for us — having the women here. This cabin is no fort.”

“General, we can have all those railroad ties hustled here and throw up defenses,” suggested the officer.

“That’s a good idea. But the troopers will have to carry them. That work-train won’t get out here today.”

“It’s not likely. But we can use the graders from the camp up the line... Neale, go in and get guns and a bite to eat. I’ll have a horse here ready for you. I want you to ride out after those graders.”

“All right,” replied Neale, rapidly. “Have you told — Do the women know yet what’s up?”

“Yes. And that girl of yours has nerve. Hurry, Neale.”

Neale rode away on his urgent errand without having seen Allie. His orders had been to run the horse. It was some distance to the next grading camp — how far he did not know. And the possibility of his return being cut off by Indians had quickened Neale into a realization of the grave nature of the situation.

He had difficulty climbing down and up the gorge, but, once across it, there was the graded road-bed, leading straight to the next camp. This road-bed was soft, and not easy going for a horse. Neale found better ground along the line, on hard ground, and here he urged the fresh horse to a swift and steady gait.

The distance was farther than he had imagined, and probably exceeded ten miles. He rode at a gallop through a wagontrain camp, which, from its quiet looks, was not connected with the work on the railroad, straight on into the midst of two hundred or more graders just about to begin the day’s work. His advent called a halt to everything. Sharply and briefly Neale communicated the orders given him. Then he wheeled his horse for the return trip.

When he galloped through the wagon-train camp several rough-appearing men hailed him curiously.

“Indians!” yelled Neale, as he swept on.

He glanced back once to see a tall, dark-faced man wearing a frock-coat speak to the others and then wildly fling out his arms.

It was down-hill on the way back, and the horse, now thoroughly heated and excited, ran his swiftest. Far down the line Neale saw columns of smoke rolling upward. They appeared farther on than his camp, yet they caused him apprehension. His cheek blanched at the thought that the camp containing Allie Lee might be surrounded by Indians. His fears, however, were groundless, for soon he saw the white tents and the cabins, with the smoke columns rising far below.

Neale rode into camp from the west in time to see Dillon’s scout galloping hard up from the east. Neale dismounted before the waiting officers to give his report.

“Good!” replied Dillon. “You certainly made time. We can figure on those graders in an hour or so?”

“Yes. There were horses enough for half the gang,” answered Neale.

“Now for Anderson’s report,” muttered the officer.

Anderson was the scout. He rode up on a foam-lashed mustang, and got off, dark and grimy with dust. His report was that he had been unable to get in touch with any soldiers or laborers along the line, but he had seen enough with his own eyes. Half-way between the camp and Benton a large force of Sioux had torn up the track, halted and fired the work-train. A desperate battle was being fought, with the odds against the workmen, for the reason that the train of box-cars was burning. Troops must be rushed to the rescue.

Colonel Dillon sent a trooper with orders to saddle the horses.

This sent a cold chill through Neale. “General, if the Sioux rounded us up here in this camp we’d be hard put to it,” he said, forcibly.

“Right you are, Neale. The high slopes, rocks, and trees would afford cover. Whoever picked out this location for a camp wasn’t thinking of Indians... But we need scarcely expect an attack here.”

“Suppose we get the women away — to the hills,” suggested Neale.

Anderson shook his head. “They might be worse off. Here you’ve shelter, water, food, and men coming. That’s a big force of Sioux. They’ll have lookouts on all the hills.”

It was decided to leave a detachment of soldiers under Lieutenant Brady, who was to remain in camp until the arrival of the graders, and then follow hard on Colonel Dillon’s trail.

Besides Allie Lee there were five other women in camp, and they all came out to see the troops ride away. Neale heard Colonel Dillon assure his wife that he did not think there was any danger. But the color failed to return to her face. The other women, excepting Allie, were plainly frightened. Neale found new pride in Allie. She showed little fear of the Sioux.

General Lodge rode beside Colonel Dillon at the head of the troops. They left camp on a trot, raising a cloud of dust, and quickly disappeared round the curve of the hill. The troopers who were left behind stacked their guns and sallied out after railroad ties with which to build defenses. Anderson, the scout, rode up the slope to a secluded point from which he was to keep watch. The women were instructed to stay inside the log cabin that adjoined the flimsy quarters of the engineers. Baxter, with his assistants, overhauled the guns and ammunition left; and Neale gathered up all the maps and plans and drawings and put them in a bag close at hand.

Time passed swiftly, and in another half-hour the graders began to arrive. They came riding in bareback, sometimes two on one horse, flourishing their guns — a hundred or more red-faced Irishmen spoiling for a fight. Their advent eased Neale’s dread. Still, a strange feeling weighed upon him and he could not understand it or shake it. He had no optimism for the moment. He judged it to be over-emotion, a selfish and rather exaggerated fear for Allie’s safety.

Lieutenant Brady then departed with his soldiers, leaving the noisy laborers to carry ties and erect bulwarks. The Irish, as ever, growled and voiced their complaints at finding work instead of fighting.

“Hurry an’ fetch on yez dirn Sooz!” was the cry sent after Brady, and that request voiced the spirit of the gang.

In an hour they had piled a fence of railroad ties, six feet high, around the engineers’ quarters. This task had scarcely been done when Anderson was discovered riding recklessly down the slope. Baxter threw up his hands.

“We’re going to have it,” he said. “Neale, I’m not so young as I was.”

Anderson rode in behind the barricade and dismounted. “Sioux!”

The graders greeted this information with loud hurrahs. But when Anderson pointed out a large band of Sioux filing down from the hilltop the enthusiasm was somewhat checked. It was the largest hostile force of Sioux that Neale had ever seen. The sight of the lean, wild figures stirred Neale’s blood, and then again sent that cold chill over him. The Indians rode down the higher slope and turned off at the edge of the timber out of rifle-range. Here they got off their mustangs and apparently held a council. Neale plainly saw a befeathered chieftain point with long arm. Then the band moved, disintegrated, and presently seemed to have melted into the ground.

“Men, we’re in for a siege!” yelled old Baxter.

At this juncture the women came running out, badly frightened.

“The Indians! The Indians!” cried Mrs. Dillon. “We saw them — behind the cabin — creeping down through the rocks.”

“Get inside — stay in the cabin!” ordered Baxter.

Allie was the last one crowded in. Neale, as he half forced her inside, was struck with a sudden wild change in her expression.

“There! There!” she whispered, trying to point.

Just then rifle-shots and the spattering of bullets made quick work urgent.

“Go — get inside the log walls,” said Neale, as he shoved Allie in.

Excitement prevailed among the graders. They began to run under cover of the inclosure and some began to shoot aimlessly.

“Anderson, take some men! Go to the back of the cabin!” shouted Baxter.

The scout called for men to follow him and ran out. So many of the graders essayed to follow that they blocked the narrow opening between the inclosure and house. Suddenly one of them in the rear sheered round so that he looked at Neale. It was but a momentary glance, but Neale sensed recognition there. Then the man was gone and Neale sustained a strange surprise. That face had been familiar, but he could not recall where he had ever seen it. The red, leering, evil visage, with its prominent, hard features, grew more vivid in memory, as Neale’s mind revolved closer to discovery.

“Inside with you, Neale,” yelled Baxter.

Baxter and Neale, with the four young engineers, took to the several rooms of the log cabin, where each selected an aperture between the logs or a window through which to fire upon the Indians. But Neale soon ascertained that there was nothing to shoot at, outside of some white puffs of smoke rising from behind rocks on the slope. There was absolutely not a sign of an Indian. The graders were firing, but Neale believed they would have done better to save their powder. Bullets pattered against the logs; now and then a leaden pellet sang through a window, to thud into the wall. Neale shut the heavy door leading from the cabin into the engineers’ quarters, for bullets were ripped through from one side to the other of this canvas-and-clapboard structure. Then Neale passed from room to room, searching for Allie. Two of the engineers were kneeling at a chink between the logs, aiming and firing in great excitement. Campbell had sustained a slight wound and looked white with rage and fear. Baxter was peeping from behind the rude jamb of a window.

“Nothin’ to shoot at, boy,” he said, in exasperation.

“Wait. Listen to that bunch of Irish shoot. They’re wasting powder.”

“We’ve plenty of ammunition. Let ’em shoot. They may not hit any redskins, but they’ll scare ‘em.”

“We can hold out here — if the troopers hurry back,” said Neale.

“Sure. But maybe they’re hard at it, too. I’ve no hope this is the same bunch of Sioux that held up the work-train.”

“Neither have I. And if the troops don’t get here before dark—”

Neale halted, and Baxter shook his gray head.

“That would be bad,” he said. “But we’ve squeezed out of narrow places before, buildin’ this U. P. R.”

Neale found the women in the large room, between the corner of the walls and a huge stone fireplace. They were quiet. Allie leaped at sight of Neale. Her hands trembled as she grasped him.

“Neale!” she whispered. “I saw Fresno!”

“Who’s he?” queried Neale, blankly.

“He’s one of Durade’s gang.”

“No!” exclaimed Neale. He drew Allie aside. “You’re scared.”

“I’d never forget Fresno,” she replied, positively. “He was one of the four ruffians who burned Slingerland’s cabin and made off with me.”

Then Neale shook with a violent start. He grasped Allie tight.

“I saw him, too. Just before I came in. I saw one of the men that visited us at Slingerland’s.... Big, hulking fellow — red, ugly face — bad look.”

“That’s Fresno. He and the gang must have been camped with those graders you brought here. Oh, I’m more afraid of Fresno’s gang than of the Indians.”

“But Allie — they don’t know you’re here. You’re safe. The troops will be back soon, and drive these Indians away.”

Allie clung to Neale, and again he felt something of the terror these ruffians had inspired in her. He reassured her, assuming a confidence he was far from feeling, and cautioned her to stay in that protected corner. Then he went in the other room to his station. It angered Neale, and alarmed him, that another peril perhaps menaced Allie. And he prayed for the return of the troops.

The day passed swiftly, in intense watchfulness on the part of the defenders, and in a waiting game on the part of the besiegers. They kept up a desultory firing all afternoon. Now and then a reckless grader running from post to post drew a volley from the Sioux; and likewise something that looked like an Indian would call forth shots from the defenses. But there was no real fighting.

It developed that the Sioux were waiting for night. A fiery arrow, speeding from a bow in the twilight, left a curve of sparks in the air, like a falling rocket. It appeared to be a signal for demoniacal yells on all sides. Rifle-shots ceased to come from the slopes. As darkness fell gleams of little fires shot up from all around. The Sioux were preparing to shoot volleys of burning arrows down into the camp.

Anderson hurried in to consult with Baxter. “We’re surrounded,” he said, tersely. “The redskins are goin’ to try burnin’ us out. We’re in a mighty tight place.”

“What’s to be done?” asked Baxter.

Anderson shook his head.

On the instant there was a dull spat of an object striking the roof over their heads. This sound was followed by a long, shrill yell.

“That was a burnin’ arrow,” declared Anderson.

The men, as of one accord, ran out through the engineers’ quarters to the open. It was now dark. Little fires dotted the hillsides. A dull red speck, like an ember, showed over the roof, darkened, and disappeared. Then a streak of fire shot out from the black slope and sped on clear over the camp.

“Sooner or later they’ll make a go of that,” muttered Anderson.

Neale heard the scout’s horse, that had been left there in the inclosure.

“Anderson, suppose I jump your horse. It’s dark as pitch. I could run through — reach the troops. I’ll take a chance.”

“I had that idee myself,” replied Anderson. “But it seems to me if them troopers wasn’t havin’ hell they’d been here long ago. I’m lookin’ for them every minnit. They’ll come. An’ we’ve got to fight fire now till they get here.”

“But there’s no fire yet,” said Baxter.

“There will be,” replied Anderson. “But mebbe we can put it out as fast as they start it. Plenty of water here. An’ it’s dark. What I’m afraid of is they’ll fire the tents out there, an’ then it ‘ll be light as day. We can’t risk climbin’ over the roofs.”

“Neale, go inside — call the boys out,” said Baxter.

Neale had to feel his way through the rooms. He called to his comrades, and then to the women to keep up their courage — that surely the troops would soon return.

When he went out again the air appeared full of fiery streaks. Shouts of the graders defiantly answered the yells of the savages. Showers of sparks were dropping upon the camp. The Sioux had ceased shooting their rifles for the present, and, judging from their yells, they had crawled down closer under the cover of night.

Presently a bright light flared up outside of the inclosure. One of the tents had caught fire. The Indians yelled triumphantly. Neale and his companions crouched back in the shadow. The burning tent set fire to the tent adjoining. They blazed up like paper, lighting the camp and slopes. But not an Indian was visible. They stopped yelling. Then Neale heard the thudding of arrows. Almost at once the roof of the engineers’ quarters, which was merely strips of canvas over a wooden frame, burst into flames. In a single moment the roof of the cabin was blazing. More tents ignited, flared up, and the scene became almost as light as day. Rifles again began to crack. The crafty Indians poured a hail of bullets into the inclosure and the walls of the buildings. Still not an Indian was visible for the defenders to shoot at.

Anderson, Neale, and Baxter were in grim consultation. They agreed on the scout’s dictum: “Reckon the game’s up. Hustle the women out.”

Neale crawled along the inclosure to the opening. On that side of the buildings there was dark shadow. But it was lifting. He ran along the wall, and he heard the whistle of bullets. Back of the cabin the Indians appeared to have gathered in force. Neale got to the corner and peered round. The blazing tents lighted up this end. He saw the graders break and run, some on his side of the cabin. He clambered in. A door of this room was open, and through it Neale saw the roof of the engineers’ quarters blazing. He heard the women screaming. Evidently they too were running out to the in-closure. Neale hurried into the room where he had left Allie. He called. There was no answer, but a growing roar outside apparently drowned his voice. It was dark in this room. He felt along the wall, the fireplace, the corner. Allie was not there. The room was empty. His hands groping low along the floor came in contact with the bag he had left in Allie’s charge. It contained the papers he had taken the precaution to save. Probably in her flight to escape from the burning cabin she had dropped it. But that was not like Allie: she would have clung to the bag while strength and sense were hers. Perhaps she had not gotten out of the cabin. Neale searched again, growing more and more aware of the strife outside. He heard the crackling of wood over his head. Evidently the cabin was burning like tinder. There were men in the back room, fighting, yelling, crowding. Neale could see only dim, burly forms and the flashes of guns. Smoke floated thickly there. Some one, on the inside or outside, was beating out the door with an axe.

He decided quickly that whatever Allie might have done she would not have gone into that room. He retraced his steps, groping, feeling everywhere in the dark.

Suddenly the crackling, the shots, the yells ceased, or were drowned in a volume of greater sound. Neale ran to the window. The flare from the burning tents was dying down. But into the edge of the circle of light he saw loom a line of horsemen.

“Troopers!” he cried, joyfully. A great black pressing weight seemed lifted off his mind. The troops would soon rout that band of sneaking Sioux.

Neale ran to the back room, where, above the din outside, he made himself heard. But for all he could see or hear his tidings of rescue did not at once affect the men there. Then he forgot them and the fight outside in his search for Allie. The cabin was on fire, and he did not mean to leave it until he was absolutely sure she was not hidden or lying in a faint in some corner. And he had not made sure of that until the burning roof began to fall in. Then he leaped out the window and ran back to the inclosure.

The blaze here was no longer bright, but Neale could see distinctly. Some of the piles of ties were burning. The heat had begun to drive the men out. Troopers were everywhere. And it appeared the rattle of rifles was receding up the valley. The Sioux had retreated.

Here Neale continued his search for Allie. He found Mrs. Dillon and her companions, but Allie was not with them. All he could learn from the frightened women was that Allie had been in their company when they started to run from the cabin. They had not seen her since.

Still Neale did not despair, though his heart sank. Allie was hiding somewhere. Frantically he searched the inclosure, questioned every man he met, rushed back to the burning cabin, where the fire drove him out. But there was no trace of Allie.

Then the conviction of calamity settled upon him. While the cabin burned, and the troopers and graders watched, Neale now searched for the face of the man he had recognized — the ruffian Allie called Fresno. This search was likewise fruitless.

The following hours were a hideous, slow nightmare for Neale. He had left one hope — that daylight would disclose Allie somewhere.

Day eventually dawned. It disclosed many facts. The Sioux had departed, and if they had suffered any loss there was no evidence of it. The engineers’ quarters, cabin, and tents had burned to the ground. Utensils, bedding, food, grain, tools, and instruments — everything of value except the papers Neale had saved — had gone up in smoke. The troopers who had rescued the work-train must now depend upon that train for new supplies. Many of the graders had been wounded, some seriously, but none fatally. Nine of them were missing, as was Allie Lee.

The blow was terrible for Neale. Yet he did not sink under it. He did not consider the opinion of his sympathetic friends that Allie had wildly run out of the burning cabin to fall into the hands of the Sioux. He returned with the graders to their camp; and it was no surprise to him to find the wagon-train, that had tarried near, gone in the night. He trailed that wagon-train to the next camp, where on the busy road he lost the wheel-tracks. Next day he rode horseback all the way in to Benton. But all his hunting and questioning availed nothing. Gloom, heartsickness, and despair surged in upon him, but he did not think of giving up. He remembered all Allie had told him. Those fiends had gotten her again. He believed now all that she had said; and there was something of hope in the thought that if Durade had found her again she would at least not be at the mercy of ruffians like Fresno. But this was a forlorn hope. Still, it upheld Neale and determined him to seek her during the time in which his work did not occupy him.

And thus it came about that Neale plodded through his work along the line during the day, and late in the afternoon rode back with the laborers to Benton. If Allie Lee lived she must be in Benton.

CHAPTER 20

NEALE TOOK UP lodgings with his friend Larry. He did not at first tell the cowboy about his recovery of Allie Lee and then her loss for the second time; and when finally he could not delay the revelation any longer he regretted that he had been compelled to tell.

Larry took the news hard. He inclined to the idea that she had fallen again into the hands of the Indians. Nevertheless, he showed himself terribly bitter against men of the Fresno stamp, and in fact against all the outlaw, ruffianly, desperado class so numerous in Benton.

Neale begged Larry to be cautious, to go slow, to ferret out things, and so help him, instead of making it harder to locate Allie through his impetuosity.

“Pard, I reckon Allie’s done for,” said Larry, gloomily.

“No — no! Larry, I feel she’s alive — well. If she were dead or — or — well, wouldn’t I know?” protested Neale.

But Larry was not convinced. He had seen the hard side of border life; he knew the odds against Allie.

“Reckon I’ll look fer that Fresno,” he said.

And deeper than before he plunged into Benton’s wild life.

One evening Neale, on returning from work to his lodgings, found the cowboy there. In the dim light Larry looked strange. He had his gun-belt in his hands. Neale turned up the lamp.

“Hello, Red! What’s the matter? You look pale and sick,” said Neale.

“They wanted to throw me out of thet dance ball,” said Larry.

“Which one?”

“Stanton’s.”

“Well, DID they?” inquired Neale.

“Wal, I reckon not. I walked. An’ some night I’ll shore clean out thet hall.”

Neale did not know what to make of Larry’s appearance. The cowboy seemed to be relaxing. His lips, that had been tight, began to quiver, and his hands shook. Then he swung the heavy gun-belt with somber and serious air, as if he were undecided about leaving it off even when about to go to bed.

“Red, you’ve thrown a gun!” exclaimed Neale.

Larry glanced at him, and Neale sustained a shock.

“Shore,” drawled Larry.

“By Heaven! I knew you would,” declared Neale, excitedly, and he clenched his fist. “Did you — you kill some one?”

“Pard, I reckon he’s daid,” mused the cowboy. “I didn’t look to see.... Fust gun I’ve throwed fer long.... It ‘ll come back now, shorer ‘n hell!”

“What ‘ll come back?” queried Neale.

Larry did not answer this.

“Who’d you shoot?” Neale went on.

“Pard, I reckon it ain’t my way to gab a lot,” replied Larry.

“But you’ll tell ME,” insisted Neale, passionately. He jerked the gun and belt from Larry, and threw them on the bed. “All right,” drawled Larry, taking a deep breath. “I went into Stanton’s hall the other night, an’ a pretty girl made eyes at me. Wal, I shore asked her to dance. I reckon we’d been good pards if we’d been let alone. But there’s a heap of fellers runnin’ her an’ some of them didn’t cotton to me. One they called Cordy — he shore did get offensive. He’s the four-flush, loud kind. I didn’t want to make any trouble for the girl Ruby — thet’s her name — so I was mighty good-natured.... I dropped in Stanton’s to-day. Ruby spotted me fust off, an’ SHE asked me to dance. Shore I’m no dandy dancer, but I tried to learn. We was gettin’ along powerful nice when in comes Cordy, hoppin’ mad. He had a feller with him. An’ both had been triflin’ with red liquor. You oughter seen the crowd get back. Made me think Cordy an’ his pard had blowed a lot round heah an’ got a rep. Wal, I knowed they was bluff. Jest mean, ugly four-flushers. Shore they didn’t an’ couldn’t know nothin’ of me. I reckon I was only thet long-legged, red-headed galoot from Texas. Anyhow, I was made to understand it might get hot sudden-like if I didn’t clear out. I left it to the girl. An’ some of them girls is full of hell. Ruby jest stood there scornful an’ sassy, with her haid leanin’ to one side, her eyes half-shut, an’ a little smile on her face. I’d call her more ‘n hell. A nice girl gone wrong. Them kind shore is the dangerest.... Wal, she says: ‘Reddy, are you goin’ to let them run you out of heah? They haven’t any strings on me.’ So I slapped Cordy’s face an’ told him to shut up. He let out a roar an’ got wild with his hands, like them four-flush fellers do who wants to look real bad. I says, pretty sharplike, ‘Don’t make any moves now!’ An’ the darned fool went fer his gun!... Wal, I caught his hand, twisted the gun away from him, poked him in the ribs with it, an’ then shoved it back in his belt. He was crazy, but pretty pale an’ surprised. Shore I acted sudden-like. Then I says, ‘My festive gent, if you THINK of thet move again you’ll be stiff before you start it.’... Guess he believed me.”

Larry paused in his narrative, wiped his face, and moistened his lips. Evidently he was considerably shaken.

“Well, go on,” said Neale, impatiently.

“Thet was all right so far as it went,” resumed Larry. “But the pard of Cordy’s — he was half-drunk an’ a big brag, anyhow. He took up Cordy’s quarrel. He hollered so he stopped the music an’ drove ‘most everybody out of the hall. They was peepin’ in at the door. But Ruby stayed. There’s a game kid, an’ I’m goin’ to see her to-morrow.”

“You are not,” declared Neale. “Hurry up. Finish your story.”

“Wal, the big bloke swaggered all over me, an’ I seen right off thet he didn’t have sense enough to be turned. Then I got cold. I always used to.... He says, ‘Are you goin’ to keep away from Ruby?’

“An’ I says, very polite, ‘I reckon not.’

“Then he throws hisself in shape, like he meant to leap over a hoss, an’ hollers, ‘Pull yer gun!’

“I asks, very innocent, ‘What for, mister?’

“An’ he bawls fer the crowd. ‘‘Cause I’m a-goin’ to bore you, an’ I never kill a man till he goes fer his gun.’

“To thet I replies, more considerate: ‘But it ain’t fair. You’d better get the fust shot.’

“Then the fool hollers, ‘Redhead!’

“Thet settled him. I leaps over QUICK, slugged him one — lefthanded. He staggered, but he didn’t fall.... Then he straightens an’ goes fer his gun.”

Larry halted again. He looked as if he had been insulted, and a bitter irony sat upon his lips.

“I seen, when he dropped, thet he never got his hand to his gun at all.... Jest as I’d reckoned.... Wal, what made me sick was that my bullet went through him an’ then some of them thin walls — an’ hit a girl in another house. She’s bad hurt.... They ought to have walls thet’d stop a bullet.”

Neale heard the same narrative from the lips of Ancliffe, and it differed only in the essential details of the cowboy’s consummate coolness. Ancliffe, who was an eye-witness of the encounter, declared that drink or passion or bravado had no part in determining Larry’s conduct. Ancliffe talked at length about the cowboy. Evidently he had been struck with Larry’s singular manner and look and action. Ancliffe had all an Englishman’s intelligent observing powers, and the conclusion he drew was that Larry had reacted to a situation familiar to him.

Neale took more credence in what Slingerland had told him at Medicine Bow. That night Hough and then many other acquaintances halted Neale to gossip about Larry Reel King.

The cowboy had been recognized by Texans visiting Benton. They were cattle barons and they did not speak freely of King until ready to depart from the town. Larry’s right name was Fisher. He had a brother — a famous Texas outlaw called King Fisher. Larry had always been Red Fisher, and when he left Texas he was on the way to become as famous as his brother. Texas had never been too hot for Red until he killed a sheriff. He was a born gun-fighter, and was well known on all the ranches from the Pan Handle to the Rio Grande. He had many friends, he was a great horseman, a fine cowman. He had never been notorious for bad habits or ugly temper. Only he had an itch to throw a gun and he was unlucky in always running into trouble. Trouble gravitated to him. His red head was a target for abuse, and he was sensitive and dangerous because of that very thing. Texas, the land of gunfighters, had seen few who were equal to him in cool nerve and keen eye and swift hand.

Neale did not tell Larry what he had heard. The cowboy changed subtly, but not in his attitude toward Neale. Benton and its wildness might have been his proper setting. So many rough and bad men, inspired by the time and place, essayed to be equal to Benton. But they lasted a day and were forgotten. The great compliment paid to Larry King was the change in the attitude of this wild camp. He had been one among many — a stranger. In time when the dance-halls grew quiet as he entered and the gambling-hells suspended their games. His fame increased as from lip to lip his story passed, always gaining something. Jealousy, hatred, and fear grew with his fame. It was hinted that he was always seeking some man or men from California. He had been known to question new arrivals: “Might you-all happen to be from California? Have you ever heard of an outfit that made off with a girl out heah in the hills?”

Neale, not altogether in the interest of his search for Allie, became a friend and companion of Place Hough. Ancliffe sought him, also, and he was often in the haunts of these men. They did not take so readily to Larry King. The cowboy had become a sort of nervous factor in any community; his presence was not conducive to a comfortable hour. For Larry, though he still drawled his talk and sauntered around, looked the name the Texan visitors had left him. His flashing blue eyes, cold and intent and hard in his naming red face, his blazing red hair, his stalking form, and his gun swinging low — these characteristics were so striking as to make his presence always felt. Beauty Stanton insisted the cowboy had ruined her business and that she had a terror of him. But Neale doubted the former statement. All business, good and bad, grew in Benton. It was strange that as this attractive and notorious woman conceived a terror of Larry, she formed an infatuation for Neale. He would have been blind to it but for the dry humor of Place Hough, and the amiable indifference of Ancliffe, who had anticipated a rival in Neale. Their talk, like most talk, drifted through Neale’s ears. What did he care? Both Hough and Ancliffe began to loom large to Neale. They wasted every day, every hour; and yet, underneath the one’s cold, passionless pursuit of gold, and the other’s serene and gentle quest for effacement there was something finer left of other years. Benton was full of gamblers and broken men who had once been gentlemen. Neale met them often — gambled with them, watched them. He measured them all. They had given life up, but within him there was a continual struggle. He swore to himself, as he had to Larry, that life was hopeless without Allie Lee — yet there was never a sleeping or a waking hour that he gave up hope. The excitement and allurement of the dance-halls, though he admitted their power, were impossible for him; and he frequented them, as he went everywhere else, only in search of a possible clue.

Gambling, then, seemed the only excuse open to him for his presence in Benton’s sordid halls. And he had to bear as best he could the baseness of his associates; of course, women had free run of all the places in Benton.

At first Neale was flirted with and importuned. Then he was scorned. Then he was let alone. Finally, as time went on, always courteous, even considerate of the women who happened in his way, but blind and cold to the meaning of their looks and words, he was at last respected and admired.

There was always a game in the big gambling-place, and in fact the greatest stakes were played for by gamblers like Hough, pitted against each other. But most of the time was reserved for the fleecing of the builders of the U. P. R., the wage-earners whose gold was the universal lure and the magnet. Neale won money in those games in which he played with Place Hough. His winnings he scattered or lost in games where he was outpointed or cheated.

One day a number of Eastern capitalists visited Benton. The fame of the town drew crowds of the curious and greedy. And many of these transient visitors wanted to have their fling at the gambling-hells and dancing-halls. There was a contagion in the wildness that affected even the selfish. It would be something to remember and boast of when Benton with its wild life should be a thing of the past.

Place Hough met old acquaintances among some St. Louis visitors, who were out to see the road and Benton, and perhaps to find investments; and he assured them blandly that their visit would not be memorable unless he relieved them of their surplus cash. So a game with big stakes was begun. Neale, with Hough and five of the visitors, made up the table.

Eastern visitors worked upon Neale’s mood, but he did not betray it. He was always afraid he would come face to face with some of the directors, whom he did not care to meet in such surroundings. And so, while gambling, he seldom looked up from his cards. The crowd came and went, but he never saw it.

This big game attracted watchers. The visitors were noisy; they drank a good deal; they lost with an equanimity that excited interest, even in Benton. The luck for Neale seesawed back and forth. Then he lost steadily until he had to borrow from Hough.

About this time Beauty Stanton, with Ruby and another woman, entered the room, and were at once attracted by the game, to the evident pleasure of the visitors. And then, unexpectedly, Larry Red King stalked in and lounged forward, cool, easy, careless, his cigarette half smoked, his blue eyes keen.

“Hey! is that him?” whispered one of the visitors, indicating Larry.

“That’s Red,” replied Hough. “I hope he’s not looking for one of you gentlemen.”

They laughed, but not spontaneously.

“I’ve seen his like in Dodge City,” said one.

“Ask him to sit in the game,” said another.

“No. Red’s a card-sharp,” replied Hough. “And I’d hate to see him catch one of you pulling a crooked deal.”

They lapsed back into the intricacies and fascination of poker.

Neale, however, found the game unable to hold his undivided attention. Larry was there, looking and watching, and he made Neale’s blood run cold. The girl Ruby stood close at hand, with her half-closed eyes, mysterious and sweet, upon him, and Beauty Stanton came up behind him.

“Neale, I’ll bring you luck,” she said, and put her hand on his shoulder.

Neale’s luck did change. Fortune faced about abruptly, with its fickle inconsistency, and Neale had a run of cards that piled the gold and bills before him and brought a crowd ten deep around the table. When the game broke up Neale had won three thousand dollars.

“See! I brought you luck,” whispered Beauty Stanton in his ear. And across the table Ruby smiled hauntingly and mockingly.

Neale waved the crowd toward the bar. Only the women and Larry refused the invitation. Ruby gravitated irresistibly toward the cowboy.

“Aren’t you connected with the road?” inquired one of the visitors, drinking next to Neale.

“Yes,” replied Neale.

“Saw you in Omaha at the office of the company. My name’s Blair. I sell supplies to Commissioner Lee. He has growing interests along the road.”

Neale’s lips closed and he set down his empty glass. Excusing himself, he went back to the group he had left. Larry sat on the edge of the table; Ruby stood close to him and she was talking; Stanton and the other woman had taken chairs.

“Wal, I reckon you made a rake-off,” drawled Larry, as Neale came up. “Lend me some money, pard.”

Neale glanced at Larry and from him to the girl. She dropped her eyes.

“Ruby, do you like Larry?” he queried.

“Sure do,” replied the girl.

“Reddy, do you like Ruby?” went on Neale.

Beauty Stanton smiled her interest. The other woman came back from nowhere to watch Neale. Larry regarded his friend in mild surprise.

“I reckon it was a turrible case of love at fust sight,” he drawled.

“I’ll call your bluff!” flashed Neale. “I’ve just won three thousand dollars. I’ll give it to you. Will you take it and leave Benton — go back — no! go west — begin life over again?”

“Together, you mean!” exclaimed Beauty Stanton, as she rose with a glow on her faded face. No need to wonder why she had been named Beauty.

“Yes, together,” replied Neale, in swift steadiness. “You’ve started bad. But you’re young. It’s never too late. With this money you can buy a ranch — begin all over again.”

“Pard, haven’t you seen too much red liquor?” drawled Larry.

The girl shook her head. “Too late!” she said, softly.

“Why?”

“Larry is bad, but he’s honest. I’m both bad and dishonest.”

“Ruby, I wouldn’t call you dishonest,” returned Neale, bluntly. “Bad — yes. And wild! But if you had a chance?”

“No,” she said.

“You’re both slated for hell. What’s the sense of it?”

“I don’t see that you’re slated for heaven,” retorted Ruby.

“Wal, I shore say echo,” drawled Larry, as he rolled a cigarette. “Pard, you’re drunk this heah minnit.”

“I’m not drunk. I appeal to you, Miss Stanton,” protested Neale.

“You certainly are not drunk,” she replied. “You’re just—”

“Crazy,” interrupted Ruby.

They laughed.

“Maybe I do have queer impulses,” replied Neale, as he felt his face grow white. “Every once in a while I see a flash — of — of I don’t know what. I could do something big — even — now — if my heart wasn’t dead.”

“Mine’s in its grave,” said Ruby, bitterly. “Come, Stanton, let’s get out of this. Find me men who talk of drink and women.”

Neale deliberately reached out and stopped her as she turned away. He faced her.

“You’re no four-flush,” he said. “You’re game. You mean to play this out to a finish.... But you’re no — no maggot like the most. You can think. You’re afraid to talk to me.”

“I’m afraid of no man. But you — you’re a fool — a sky-pilot. You’re—”

“The thing is — it’s not too late.”

“It is too late!” she cried, with trembling lips.

Neale saw and felt his dominance over her.

“It is NEVER too late!” he responded, with all his force. “I can prove that.”

She looked at him mutely. The ghost of another girl stood there instead of the wild Ruby of Benton.

“Pard, you’re drunk shore!” ejaculated Larry, as he towered over them and gave his belt a hitch. The cowboy sensed events.

“I’ve annoyed you more than once,” said Neale. “This’s the last.... So tell me the truth.... Could I take you away from this life?”

“Take me?... How — man?”

“I — I don’t know. But somehow.... I’d hold it — as worthy — to save a girl like you — ANY girl — from hell.”

“But — how?” she faltered. The bitterness, the irony, the wrong done by her life, was not manifest now.

“You refused my plan with Larry.... Come, let me find a home for you — with good people.”

“My God — he’s not in earnest!” gasped the girl to her women friends.

“I am in earnest,” said Neale.

Then the tension of the girl relaxed. Her face showed a rebirth of soul.

“I can’t accept,” she replied. If she thanked him it was with a look. Assuredly her eyes had never before held that gaze for Neale. Then she left the room, and presently Stanton’s companion followed her. But Beauty Stanton remained. She appeared amazed, even dismayed.

Larry lighted his cigarette. “Shore I’d call thet a square kid,” he said. “Neale, if you get any drunker you’ll lose all thet money.”

“I’ll lose it anyhow,” replied Neale, absent-mindedly.

“Wal, stake me right heah an’ now.”

At that Neale generously and still absent-mindedly delivered to Larry a handful of gold and notes that he did not count.

“Hell! I ain’t no bank,” protested the cowboy.

Hough and Ancliffe joined them and with amusement watched Larry try to find pockets enough for his small fortune.

“Easy come, easy go in Benton,” said the gambler, with a smile. Then his glance, alighting upon the quiet Stanton, grew a little puzzled. “Beauty, what ails you?” he asked.

She was pale and her expressive eyes were fixed upon Neale. Hough’s words startled her.

“What ails me?... Place, I’ve had a forgetful moment — a happy one — and I’m deathly sick!”

Ancliffe stared in surprise. He took her literally.

Beauty Stanton looked at Neale again. “Will you come to see me?” she asked, with sweet directness.

“Thank you — no,” replied Neale. He was annoyed. She had asked him that before, and he had coldly but courteously repelled what he thought were her advances. This time he was scarcely courteous.

The woman flushed. She appeared about to make a quick and passionate reply, in anger and wounded pride, but she controlled the impulse. She left the room with Ancliffe.

“Neale, do you know Stanton is infatuated with you?” asked Hough, thoughtfully.

“Nonsense!” replied Neale.

“She is, though. These women can’t fool me. I told you days ago I suspected that. Now I’ll gamble on it. And you know how I play my cards.”

“She saw me win a pile of money,” said Neale, with scorn.

“I’ll bet you can’t make her take a dollar of it. Any amount you want and any odds.”

Neale would not accept the wager. What was he talking about, anyway? What was this drift of things? His mind did not seem clear. Perhaps he had drunk too much. The eyes of both Ruby and Beauty Stanton troubled him. What had he done to these women?

“Neale, you’re more than usually excited to-day,” observed Hough. “Probably was the run of luck. And then you spouted to the women.” Neale confessed his offer to Ruby and Larry, and then his own impulse.

“Ruby called me a fool — crazy — a sky-pilot. Maybe I am.”

“Sky-pilot! Well, the little devil!” laughed Hough. “I’ll gamble she called you that before you declared yourself.”

“Before, yes. I tell you, Hough, I have crazy impulses. They’ve grown on me out here. They burst like lightning out of a clear sky. I would have done just that thing for Ruby.... Mad, you say?... Why, man, she’s not hopeless! There was something deep behind that impulse. Strange — not understandable! I’m at the mercy of every hour I spend here. Benton has got into my blood. And I see how Benton is a product of this great advance of progress — of civilization — the U. P. R. We’re only atoms in a force no one can understand.... Look at Reddy King. That cowboy was set — fixed like stone in his character. But Benton has called to the worst and wildest in him. He’ll do something terrible. Mark what I say. We’ll all do something terrible. You, too, Place Hough, with all your cold, implacable control. The moment will come, born out of this abnormal time. I can’t explain, but I feel. There’s a work-shop in this hell of Benton. Invisible, monstrous, and nameless!... Nameless like the new graves dug every day out here on the desert.... How few of the honest toilers dream of the spirit that is working on them. That Irishman, Shane, think of him. He fought while his brains oozed from a hole in his head; I saw, but I didn’t know then. I wanted to take his place. He said, no, he wasn’t hurt, and Casey would laugh at him. Aye, Casey would have laughed!.... They are men. There are thousands of them. The U. P. R. goes on. It can’t be stopped. It has the momentum of a great nation pushing it on from behind.... And I, who have lost all I cared for, and you, who are a drone among the bees, and Ruby and Stanton with their kind, poor creatures sucked into the vortex; yes, and that mob of leeches, why we all are so stung by that nameless spirit that we are stirred beyond ourselves and dare both height and depth of impossible things.”

“You must be drunk,” said Place, gravely, “and yet what you say hits me hard. I’m a gambler. But sometimes — there are moments when I might be less or more. There’s mystery in the air. This Benton is a chaos. Those hairy toilers of the rails! I’ve watched them hammer and lift and dig and fight. By day they sweat and they bleed, they sing and joke and quarrel — and go on with the work. By night they are seized by the furies. They fight among themselves while being plundered and murdered by Benton’s wolves. Heroic by day — hellish by night.... And so, spirit or what — they set the pace.”

Next afternoon, when parasitic Benton awoke, it found the girl Ruby dead in her bed.

Her door had to be forced. She had not been murdered. She had destroyed much of the contents of a trunk. She had dressed herself in simple garments that no one in Benton had ever seen. It did not appear what means she had employed to take her life. She was only one of many. More than one girl of Benton’s throng had sought the same short road and cheated life of further pain.

When Neale heard about it, upon his return to Benton, late that afternoon, Ruby was in her grave. It suited him to walk out in the twilight and stand awhile in the silence beside the bare sandy mound. No stone — no mark. Another nameless grave! She had been a child once, with dancing eyes and smiles, loved by some one, surely, and perhaps mourned by some one living. The low hum of Benton’s awakening night life was borne faintly on the wind. The sand seeped; the coyotes wailed; and yet there was silence. Twilight lingered. Out on the desert the shadows deepened.

By some chance the grave of the scarlet woman adjoined that of a laborer who had been killed by a blast. Neale remembered the spot. He had walked out there before. A morbid fascination often drew him to view that ever-increasing row of nameless graves. As the workman had given his life to the road, so had the woman. Neale saw a significance in the parallel.

Neale returned to the town troubled in mind. He remembered the last look Ruby had given him. Had he awakened conscience in her? Upon questioning Hough, he learned that Ruby had absented herself from the dancing-hall and had denied herself to all on that last night of her life.

There was to be one more incident relating to this poor girl before Benton in its mad rush should forget her.

Neale divined the tragedy before it came to pass, but he was as powerless to prevent it as any other spectator in Beauty Stanton’s hall.

Larry King reacted in his own peculiar way to the news of Ruby’s suicide, and the rumored cause. He stalked into that dancing-hall, where his voice stopped the music and the dancers.

“Come out heah!” he shouted to the pale Cordy.

And King spun the man into the center of the hall, where he called him every vile name known to the camp, scorned and slapped and insulted him, shamed him before that breathless crowd, goaded him at last into a desperate reaching for his gun, and killed him as he drew it.

CHAPTER 21

BENTON SLOWED AND quieted down a few days before pay-day, to get ready for the great rush. Only the saloons and dance-halls and gambling-hells were active, and even here the difference was manifest.

The railroad-yard was the busiest place in the town, for every train brought huge loads of food, merchandise, and liquor, the transporting of which taxed the teamsters to their utmost.

The day just before pay-day saw the beginning of a singular cycle of change. Gangs of laborers rode in on the work-trains from the grading-camps and the camps at the head of the rails, now miles west of Benton. A rest of several days inevitably followed the visit of the pay-car. It was difficult to keep enough men at work to feed and water the teams, and there would have been sorry protection from the Indians had not the troops been on duty. Pay-days were not off-days for the soldiers.

Steady streams of men flowed toward Benton from east and west; and that night the hum of Benton was merry, subdued, waiting.

Bright and early the town with its added thousands awoke. The morning was clear, rosy, fresh. On the desert the colors changed from soft gray to red and the whirls of dust, riding the wind, resembled little clouds radiant with sunset hues. Silence and solitude and unbroken level reigned outside in infinite contrast to the seething town. Benton resembled an ant-heap at break of day. A thousand songs arose, crude and coarse and loud, but full of joy. Pay-day and vacation were at hand!

“Then drill, my Paddies, drill!

Drill, my heroes, drill!

Drill all day,

No sugar in your tay,

Workin’ on the U. P. Railway.”

Casey was one Irish trooper of thousands who varied the song and tune to suit his taste. The content alone they all held. Drill! They were laborers who could turn into regiments at a word.

They shaved their stubby beards and donned their best — a bronzed, sturdy, cheery army of wild boys. The curse rested but lightly upon their broad shoulders.

Strangely enough, the morning began without the gusty wind so common to that latitude, and the six inches of powdery white dust did not rise. The wind, too, waited. The powers of heaven smiled in the clear, quiet morning, but the powers of hell waited — for the hours to come, the night and the darkness.

At nine o’clock a mob of five thousand men had congregated around the station, most of them out in the open, on the desert side of the track. They were waiting for the pay-train to arrive. This hour was the only orderly one that Benton ever saw. There were laughter, profanity, play — a continuous hum, but compared to Benton’s usual turmoil, it was pleasant. The workmen talked in groups, and, like all crowds of men sober and unexcited, they were given largely to badinage and idle talk.

“Wot was ut I owed ye, Moike?” asked a strapping grader.

Mike scratched his head. “Wor it thorty dollars this toime?”

“It wor,” replied the other. “Moike, yez hev a mimory.”

A big Negro pushed out his huge jaw and blustered at his fellows.

“I’s a-gwine to bust thet yaller nigger’s haid,” he declared.

“Bill, he’s your fr’en’. Cool down, man, cool down,” replied a comrade.

A teamster was writing a letter in lead-pencil, using a board over his knees.

“Jim, you goin’ to send money home?” queried a fellow-laborer.

“I am that, an’ first thing when I get my pay,” was the reply.

“Reminds me, I owe for this suit I’m wearin’. I’ll drop in an’ settle.”

A group of spikers held forth on a little bank above the railroad track, at a point where a few weeks before they had fastened those very rails with lusty blows.

“Well, boys, I think I see the smoke of our pay-dirt, way down the line,” said one.

“Bandy, your eyes are pore,” replied another.

“Yep, she’s comin’,” said another. “‘Bout time, for I haven’t two-bits to my name.”

“Boys, no buckin’ the tiger for me to-day,” declared Bandy.

He was laughed at by all except one quiet comrade who gazed thoughtfully eastward, back over the vast and rolling country. This man was thinking of home, of wife and little girl, of what pay-day meant for them.

Bandy gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder.

“Frank, you got drunk an’ laid out all night, last payday.”

Frank remembered, but he did not say what he had forgotten that last pay-day.

A long and gradual slope led from Benton down across the barren desert toward Medicine Bow. The railroad track split it and narrowed to a mere thread upon the horizon. The crowd of watching, waiting men saw smoke rise over that horizon line, and a dark, flat, creeping object. Through the big throng ran a restless murmur. The train was in sight. It might have been a harbinger of evil, for a subtle change, nervous, impatient, brooding, visited that multitude. A slow movement closed up the disintegrated crowd and a current of men worked forward to encounter resistance and opposing currents. They had begun to crowd for advantageous positions closer to the pay-car so as to be the first in line.

A fight started somewhere, full of loud curses and dull blows; and then a jostling mass tried the temper of the slow-marching men. Some boss yelled an order from a box-car, and he was hooted. There was no order. When the train whistled for Benton a hoarse and sustained shout ran through the mob, not from all lips, nor from any massed group, but taken up from man to man — a strange sound, the first note of calling Benton.

The train arrived. Troops alighting preserved order near the pay-car; and out of the dense mob a slow stream of men flowed into the car at one end and out again at the other.

Bates, a giant digger and a bully, was the first man in the line, the first to get his little share of the fortunes in gold passing out of the car that day.

Long before half of that mob had received its pay Bates lay dead upon a sanded floor, killed in a drunken brawl.

And the Irishman Mike had received his thirty dollars.

And the big Negro had broken the head of his friend.

And the teamster had forgotten to send money home.

And his comrade had neglected to settle for the suit of clothes he was wearing.

And Bandy, for all his vows, had gone straight for bucking the tiger.

And Frank, who had gotten drunk last pay-day, had been mindful of wife and little girl far away and had done his duty.

As the spirit of the gangs changed with the coming of the gold, so did that of the day.

The wind began to blow, the dust began to fly, the sun began to burn; and the freshness and serenity of the morning passed.

Main street in Benton became black-streaked with men, white-sheeted with dust. There was a whining whistle in the wind as it swooped down. It complained; it threatened; it strengthened; and from the heating desert it blew in stiflingly hot. A steady tramp, tramp, tramp rattled the loose boards as the army marched down upon Benton. It moved slowly, the first heave of a great mass getting under way. Stores and shops, restaurants and hotels and saloons, took toll from these first comers. Benton swallowed up the builders as fast as they marched from the pay-train. It had an insatiable maw. The bands played martial airs, and soldiers who had lived through the Rebellion felt the thrill and the quick-step and the call of other days.

Toward afternoon Benton began to hurry. The hour was approaching when crowded halls and tents must make room for fresh and unspent gangs. The swarms of men still marched up the street. Benton was gay and noisy and busy then. White shirts and blue and red plaid held their brightness despite the dust. Gaudily dressed women passed in and out of the halls. All was excitement, movement, color, merriment, and dust and wind and heat. The crowds moved on because they were pushed on. Music, laughter, shuffling feet and clinking glass, a steady tramp, voices low and voices loud, the hoarse brawl of the barker — all these varying elements merged into a roar — a roar that started with a merry note and swelled to a nameless din.

The sun set, the twilight fell, the wind went down, the dust settled, and night mantled Benton. The roar of the day became subdued. It resembled the purr of a gorging hyena. The yellow and glaring torches, the bright lamps, the dim, pale lights behind tent walls, all accentuated the blackness of the night and filled space with shadows, like specters. Benton’s streets were full of drunken men, staggering back along the road upon which they had marched in. No woman now showed herself. The darkness seemed a cloak, cruel yet pitiful. It hid the flight of a man running from fear; it softened the sounds of brawling and deadened the pistol-shot. Under its cover soldiers slunk away sobered and ashamed, and murderous bandits waited in ambush, and brawny porters dragged men by the heels, and young gamblers in the flush of success hurried to new games, and broken wanderers sought some place to rest, and a long line of the vicious, of mixed dialect, and of different colors, filed down in the dark to the tents of lust.

Life indoors that night in Benton was monstrous, wonderful, and hideous.

Every saloon was packed, and every dive and room filled with a hoarse, violent mob of furious men: furious with mirth, furious with drink, furious with wildness — insane and lecherous, spilling gold and blood.

The gold that did not flow over the bars went into the greedy hands of the cold, swift gamblers or into the clutching fingers of wild-eyed women. The big gambling-hell had extra lights, extra attendants, extra tables; and there round the great glittering mirror-blazing bar struggled and laughed and shouted a drink-sodden mass of humanity. And all through the rest of the big room groups and knots of men stood and sat around the tables, intent, absorbed, obsessed, listening with strained ears, watching with wild eyes, reaching with shaking hands — only to gasp and throw down their cards and push rolls of gold toward cold-faced gamblers, with a muttered curse. This was the night of golden harvest for the black-garbed, steel-nerved, cold-eyed card-sharps. They knew the brevity of time, and of hour, and of life.

In the dancing-halls there was a maddening whirl, an immense and incredible hilarity, a wild fling of unleashed, burly men, an honest drunken spree. But there was also the hideous, red-eyed drunkenness that did not spring from drink; the unveiled passion, the brazen lure, the raw, corrupt, and terrible presence of bad women in absolute license at a wild and baneful hour.

That was the last pay-day Beauty Stanton’s dancing-hall ever saw. Likewise it was to be the last she would ever see. In the madness of that night there was written finality — the end. Benton had reached its greatest, wildest, blackest, vilest. But not its deadliest! That must come — later — as an aftermath. But the height or the depth was reached.

The scene at midnight was unreal, livid, medieval. Dance of cannibals, dance of sun-worshipers, dance of Apaches on the war-path, dance of cliff-dwellers wild over the massacre of a dreaded foe — only these orgies might have been comparable to that whirl of gold and lust in Beauty Stanton’s parlors.

Benton seemed breathing hard, laboring under its load of evil, dancing toward its close.

Night wore on and the hour of dawn approached. The lamps were dead; the tents were dark; the music was stilled; and the low, soft roar was but a hollow mockery of its earlier strength.

Like specters men staggered slowly and wanderingly through the gray streets. Gray ghosts! All was gray. A vacant laugh pealed out and a strident curse, and then again the low murmur prevailed. Benton was going to rest. Weary, drunken, spent nature sought oblivion — on disordered beds, on hard floors, and in dusty corners. An immense and hovering shadow held the tents and halls and streets. Through this opaque gloom the silent and the mumbling revelers reeled along. Louder voices broke the spell only for an instant. Death lay in the middle of the main street, in the dust — and no passing man halted. It lay as well down the side streets in sandy ditches, and on tent floors, and behind the bar of the gambling-hell, and in a corner of Beauty Stanton’s parlor. Likewise death had his counterpart in hundreds of prostrate men, who lay in drunken stupor, asleep, insensible to the dust in their faces. No one answered the low moans of the man who, stabbed and robbed, had crawled so far and could crawl no farther.

But the dawn would not stay back in order to hide Benton’s hideousness. The gray lifted out of the streets, the shadows lightened, the east kindled, and the sweet, soft freshness of a desert dawn came in on the gentle breeze.

And when the sun arose, splendid and golden, with its promise and beauty, it shone upon a ghastly, silent, motionless sleeping Benton.

CHAPTER 22

TO ALLIE LEE, again a prisoner in the clutches of Durade, the days in Benton had been mysterious, the nights dreadful. In fear and trembling she listened with throbbing ears to footsteps and low voices, ceaseless, as of a passing army, and a strange, muffled roar, rising and swelling and dying.

Durade’s caravan had entered Benton in the dark. Allie had gotten an impression of wind and dust, lights and many noisy hurried men, and a crowded jumble of tents. She had lived in the back room of a canvas house. A door opened out into a little yard, fenced high with many planks, over or through which she could not see. Here she had been allowed to walk. She had seen Durade once, the morning after Fresno and his gang had brought her to Benton, when he had said that meals would be sent her, and that she must stay there until he had secured better quarters. He threatened to kill her if he caught her in another attempt to escape. Allie might have scaled the high fence, but she was more afraid of the unknown peril outside than she was of him.

She listened to the mysterious life of Benton, wondering and fearful; and through the hours there came to her the nameless certainty of something tremendous and terrible that was to happen to her. But spirit and hope were unquenchable. Not prayer nor reason nor ignorance was the source of her sustained and inexplicable courage. A star shone over her destiny or a good angel hovered near. She sensed in a vague and perplexing way that she must be the center of a mysterious cycle of events. The hours were fraught with strain and suspense, yet they passed fleetingly. A glorious and saving moment was coming — a meeting that would be as terrible as sweet. Benton held her lover Neale and her friend Larry. They were searching for her. She felt their nearness. It was that which kept her alive. She knew the truth with her heart. And while she thrilled at the sound of every step, she also shuddered, for there was Durade with his desperadoes. Blood would be spilled. Somewhere, somehow, that meeting would come. Neale would rush to her. And the cowboy! ... Allie remembered the red blaze of his face, the singular, piercing blue of his eye, his cool, easy, careless air, his drawling speech — and underneath all his lazy gentleness a deadliness of blood and iron.

So Allie Lee listened to all sounds, particularly to all footsteps, waiting for that one which was to make her heart stand still.

Some one had entered the room adjoining hers and was now fumbling at the rude door which had always been barred from the other side. It opened. Stitt, the mute who attended and guarded her, appeared, carrying bundles. Entering, he deposited these upon Allie’s bed. Then he made signs for her to change from the garb she wore to the clothes contained in the bundles. Further, he gave her to understand that she was to hurry, that she was to be taken away. With that he went out, shutting and barring the door after him.

Allie’s hands shook as she opened the packages. That very hour might bring her freedom. She was surprised to find a complete outfit of woman’s apparel, well made and of fine material. Benton, then, had stores and women. Hurriedly she made the change, which was very welcome. The dress did not fit her as well as it might have done, but the bonnet and cloak were satisfactory, as were also the little boots. She found a long, dark veil and wondered if she was expected to put that on.

A knocking at the door preceded a call, “Allie, are you ready?”

“Yes,” she replied.

The door opened. Durade entered. He appeared thinner than she had ever seen him, with more white in or beneath his olive complexion, and there were marks of strain and of passion on his face. Allie knew he labored under some strong, suppressed excitement. More and more he seemed to lose something of his old character — of the stately Spanish manner.

“Put that veil on,” he said. “I’m not ready for Benton to see you.”

“Are you — taking me away?” she asked.

“Only down the street. I’ve a new place,” he replied. “Come. Stitt will bring your things.”

Allie could not see very well through the heavy veil and she stumbled over the rude threshold. Durade took hold of her arm and presently led her out into the light. The air was hot, windy, dusty. The street was full of hurrying and lounging men. Allie heard different snatches of speech as she and Durade went on. Some stared and leered at her, at which times Durade’s hold tightened on her arm and his step quickened. She was certain no one looked at Durade. Some man jostled her, another pinched her arm. Her ears tingled with unfamiliar coarse speech.

They walked through heavy sand and dust, then along a board walk, to turn aside before what was apparently a new brick structure, but a closer view proved it to be only painted wood. The place rang hollow with a sound of hammers. It looked well, but did not feel stable underfoot. Durade led her through two large hall-like rooms into a small one, light and newly furnished.

“The best Benton afforded,” said Durade, waving his hand. “You’ll be comfortable. There are books — newspapers. Here’s a door opening into a little room. It’s dark, but there’s water, towel, soap. And you’ve a mirror.... Allie, this is luxury to what you’ve had to put up with.”

“It is, indeed,” she replied, removing her veil, and then the cloak and bonnet. “But — am I to be shut up here?”

“Yes. Sometimes at night early I’ll take you out to walk. But Benton is—”

“What?” she asked, as he paused.

“Benton will not last long,” he finished, with a shrug of his shoulders. “There’ll be another one of these towns out along the line. We’ll go there. And then to Omaha.”

More than once he had hinted at going on eastward.

“I’ll find your mother — some day,” he added, darkly. “If I didn’t believe that I’d do differently by you.”

“Why?”

“I want her to see you as good as she left you. Then!... Are you ever going to tell me how she gave me the slip?”

“She’s dead, I told you.”

“Allie, that’s a lie. She’s hiding in some trapper’s cabin or among the Indians. I should have hunted all over that country where you met my caravan. But the scouts feared the Sioux. The Sioux! We had to run. And so I never got the truth of your strange appearance on that trail.”

Allie had learned that reiteration of the fact of her mother’s death only convinced Durade the more that she must be living. While he had this hope she was safe so long as she obeyed him. A dark and sinister meaning lay covert in his words. She doubted not that he had the nature and the power to use her in order to be revenged upon her mother. That passion and gambling appeared to be all for which he lived.

Suddenly he seized her fiercely in his arms. “You’re the picture of HER!”

Then slowly he released her and the corded red of his neck subsided. His action had been that of a man robbed of all he loved, who remembered, in a fury of violent longing, hate, and despair, what he had lost in life. Allie was left alone.

She gazed around the room that she expected to be her prison for an indefinite length of time. Walls and ceiling were sections, locking together, and in some places she could see through the cracks. One side opened upon a tent wall; the other into another room; the small glass windows upon a house of canvas. When Allie put her hand against any part of her room she found that it swayed and creaked. She understood then that this house had been made in sections, transported to Benton by train, and hurriedly thrown together.

She looked next at the newspapers. How strange to read news of the building of the U. P. R.! The name of General Lodge, chief engineer, made Allie tremble. He had predicted a fine future for Warren Neale. She read that General Lodge now had a special train and that he contemplated an inspection trip out as far as the rails were laid. She read that the Pacific Construction Company was reputed to be crossing the Sierra Nevada, that there were ten thousand Chinamen at work on the road, that the day when East and West were to meet was sure to come. Eagerly she searched, her heart thumping, for the name of Neale, but she did not find it. She read in one paper that the Sioux were active along the line between Medicine Bow and Kearney. Every day the workmen would sight a band of Indians, and, growing accustomed to the sight, they would become careless, and so many lost their lives. A massacre had occurred out on the western end of the road, where the construction gangs were working. Day after day the Sioux had prowled around without attacking, until the hardy and reckless laborers lost fear and caution. Then, one day, a grading gang working a mile from the troops was set upon by a band of swiftly riding warriors, and before they could raise a gun in defense were killed and scalped in their tracks.

Allie read on. She devoured the news. Manifestly the world was awakening to the reality of the great railroad. How glad Neale must be! Always he had believed in the greatness and the reality of the U. P. R. Somewhere along that line he was working — perhaps every night he rode into Benton. Her emotions overwhelmed her as she thought of him so near, and for a moment she could not see the print. Neale would never again believe she was dead. And indeed she did live! She breathed — she was well, strong, palpitating. She was sitting here in Benton, reading about the building of the railroad. She wondered with a pang what her disappearance would mean to Neale. He had said his life would be over if he lost her again. She shivered.

Suddenly her eye rested on printed letters, familiar and startling. Allison Lee!

“Allison Lee!” she breathed, very low. “MY FATHER!” And she read that Allison Lee, commissioner of the U. P. R. and contractor for big jobs along the line, would shortly leave his home in Council Bluffs, to meet some of the directors in New York City in the interests of the railroad. “If Durade and he ever meet!” she whispered. And in that portent she saw loom on the gambler’s horizon another cloud. In his egotism and passion and despair he was risking more than he knew. He could not hope to keep her a prisoner for very long. Allie felt again the gathering surety of an approaching climax.

“My danger is, he may harm me, use me for his gambling lure, or kill me,” she murmured. And her prevision of salvation contended with the dark menace of the hour. But, as always, she rose above hopelessness.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of the mute, Stitt, who brought her a few effects left at the former place, and then a tray holding her dinner. That day passed swiftly.

Darkness came, bringing a strange augmentation of the sounds with which Allie had become familiar. She did not use her lamp, for she had become accustomed to being without one, and she seemed to be afraid of a light. Only a dim, pale glow came in at her window. But the roar of Benton — that grew as night fell. She had heard something similar in the gold-camps of California and in the grading-camps where Durade had lingered; this was at once the same and yet vastly different. She lay listening and thinking. The low roar was that of human beings, and any one of its many constituents seemed difficult to distinguish. Voices — footsteps — movement — music — mirth — dancing — clink of gold and glasses — the high, shrill laugh of a woman — the loud, vacant laugh of a man — sudden gust of dust-laden wind sweeping overhead... all these blended in the mysterious sound that voiced the strife and agony of Benton. For hours it kept her awake; and when she did fall asleep it was so late in the night that, upon awakening next day, she thought it must be noon or later.

That day passed and another night came. It brought a change in that the house she was in became alive and roaring. Durade had gotten his establishment under way. Allie lay in sleepless suspense. Rough, noisy, thick-voiced men appeared to be close to her, in one of the rooms adjoining hers, and outside in the tents. The room, however, into which hers opened was not entered. Dawn had come before Allie fell asleep.

Thus days passed during which she saw only the attendant, Stitt, and Allie began to feel a strain that she believed would be even harder on her than direct contact with Benton life. While she was shut up there, what chance had she of ever seeing Neale or Larry even if they were in Benton? Durade had said he would take her outdoors occasionally, but she had not seen him. Restlessness and gloom began to weigh upon her and she was in continual conflict with herself. She began to think of disobeying Durade. Something would happen to him sooner or later, and in that event what was she to do? Why not try and escape? Whatever the evil of Benton, it was possible that she might not fall into bad hands. Anything would be better than her confinement here, with no sight of the sun, with no one to speak to, with nothing to do but brood and fight her fancies and doubts, and listen to that ceaseless, soft, mysterious din. Allie believed she could not long bear that. Now and then occurred a change in her mind which frightened her. It was a regurgitation of the old tide of somber horror which had submerged her after the murder of her mother.

She was working herself into a frenzied state when unexpectedly Durade came to her room. At first glance she hardly knew him. He looked thin and worn; his eyes glittered; his hands shook; and the strange radiance that emanated from him when his passion for gambling had been crowned with success shone stronger than Allie had ever seen it.

“Allie, the time’s come,” he said. He seemed to be looking back into the past.

“What time?” she asked.

“For you to do for me — as your mother did before you.”

“I — I — don’t understand.”

“Make yourself beautiful!”

“Beautiful!... How?” Allie had an inkling of what it meant, but all her mind repudiated the horrible suggestion.

Durade laughed. He had indeed changed. He seemed a weaker man. Benton was acting powerfully upon him.

“How little vanity you have!... Allie, you are beautiful now or at any time. You’ll be so when you’re old or dead.... I mean for you to show more of your beauty.... Let down your hair. Braid it a little. Put on a white waist. Open it at the neck.... You remember how your mother did.”

Allie stared at him, slowly paling. She could not speak. It had come — the crisis that she had dreaded.

“You look like a ghost!” Durade exclaimed. “Like she did, years ago when I told her — this same thing — the first time!”

“You mean to use me — as you used her?” faltered Allie.

“Yes. But you needn’t be afraid or sick. I’ll always be with you.”

“What am I to do?”

“Be ready in the afternoon when I call you.”

“I know now why my mother hated you,” burst out Allie. For the first time she too hated him, and felt the stronger for it.

“She’ll pay for that hate, and so will you,” he replied, passionately. His physical action seemed involuntary — a shrinking as if from a stab. Then followed swift violence. He struck Allie across the mouth with his open hand, a hard blow, almost knocking her down.

“Don’t let me hear that from you again!” he continued, furiously.

With that he left the room, closing but not barring the door.

Allie put her hand to her lips. They were bleeding. She tasted her own warm and salty blood. Then there was born in her something that burned and throbbed and swelled and drove out all her vacillations. That blow was what she had needed. There was a certainty now as to her peril, just as there was imperious call for her to help herself and save herself.

“Neale or Larry will visit Durade’s,” she soliloquized, with her pulses beating fast. “And if they do not come — some one else will... some man I can trust.”

Therefore she welcomed Durade’s ultimatum. She paid more heed to the brushing and arranging of her hair, and to her appearance, than ever before in her life. The white of her throat and neck mantled red as she exposed them, intentionally, for the gaze of men. Her beauty was to be used as had been her mother’s. But there would be some one who would understand, some one to pity and help her.

She had not long to meditate and wait. She heard the heavy steps and voices of men entering the room next hers.

Presently Durade called her. With a beating heart Allie rose and pushed open the door. From that moment there never would be any more monotony for her — nor peace — nor safety. Yet she was glad, and faced the room bravely, for Neale or Larry might be there.

Durade had furnished this larger place luxuriously, and evidently intended to use it for a private gambling-den, where he would bring picked gamesters. Allie saw about eight or ten men who resembled miners or laborers.

Durade led her to a table that had been placed under some shelves which were littered with bottles and glasses. He gave her instructions what to do when called upon, saying that Stitt would help her; then motioning her to a chair, he went back to the men. It was difficult for her to raise her eyes, and she could not at once do so.

“Durade, who’s the girl?” asked a man.

The gambler vouchsafed for reply only a mysterious smile.

“Bet she’s from California,” said another. “They bloom like that out there.”

“Now, ain’t she your daughter?” queried a third.

But Durade chose to be mysterious. In that he left his guests license for covert glances without the certainty which would permit of brutal boldness.

They gathered around a table to play faro. Then Durade called for drinks. This startled Allie and she hastened to comply with his demand. When she lifted her eyes and met the glances of these men — she had a strange feeling that somehow recalled the California days. Her legs were weak under her; a hot anger labored under her breast; she had to drag her reluctant feet across the room. Her spirit sank, and then leaped. It whispered that looks and words and touches could only hurt and shame her for this hour of her evil plight. They must rouse her resistance and cunning wit. It was a fact that she was helpless for the present. But she still lived, and her love was infinite.

Fresno was there, throwing dice with two soldiers. To his ugliness had been added something that had robbed his face of the bronze tinge of outdoor life and had given it red and swollen lines and shades of beastly greed. Benton had made a bad man worse.

Mull was there, heavier than when he had ruled the grading-camp, sodden with drink, thick-lipped and red-cheeked, burly, brutal, and still showing in every action and loud word the bully. He was whirling a wheel and rolling a ball and calling out in his heavy voice. With him was a little, sallow-faced man, like a wolf, with sneaky, downcast eyes and restless hands. He answered to the name of Andy. These two were engaged in fleecing several blue-shirted, half-drunken spikers.

Durade was playing faro with four other men, or at least there were that number seated with him. One, whose back was turned toward Allie, wore black, and looked and seemed different from the others. He did not talk nor drink. Evidently his winning aggravated Durade. Presently Durade addressed the man as Jones.

Then there were several others standing around, dividing their attention between Allie and the gamblers. The door opened occasionally, and each time a different man entered, held a moment’s whispered conversation with Durade, and then went out. These men were of the same villainous aspect that characterized Fresno. Durade had surrounded himself with lieutenants and comrades who might be counted upon to do anything.

Allie was not long in gathering this fact, nor that there were subtle signs of suspicion among the gamesters. Most of them had gotten under the influence of drink that Durade kept ordering. Evidently he furnished this liquor free and with a purpose.

The afternoon’s play ended shortly. So far as Allie could see, Jones, the man in black, a pale, thin-lipped, cold-eyed gambler, was the only guest to win. Durade’s manner was not pleasant while he paid over his debts. Durade always had been a poor loser.

“Jones, you’ll sit in to-morrow,” said Durade.

“Maybe,” replied the other.

“Why not? You’re winner,” retorted Durade, hot-headed in an instant.

“Winners are choosers,” returned Jones, with an enigmatic smile. His hard, cold eyes shifted to Allie and seemed to pierce her, then went back to Durade and Mull and Fresno. Plain it was to Allie, with her woman’s intuition, that if Jones returned it would not be because he trusted that trio. Durade apparently made an effort to swallow his resentment, but the gambling pallor of his face had never been more marked. He went out with Jones, and the others slowly followed.

Fresno approached Allie.

“Hullo, gurly! You sure look purtier than in thet buckskin outfit,” he leered.

Allie got up, ready for fight or defense. Durade had forgotten her.

Fresno saw her glance at the door.

“He’s goin’ to the bad,” he went on, with his big hand indicating the door. “Benton’s too hot fer his kind. He’ll not git up some fine mornin’.... An’ you’d better cotton to me. You ain’t his kin — an’ he hates you an’ you hate him. I seen thet. I’m no fool. I’m sorta gone on you. I wish I hadn’t fetched you back to him.”

“Fresno, I’ll tell Durade,” replied Allie, forcing her lips to be firm. If she expected to intimidate him she was disappointed.

Fresno leered wisely. “You’d better not. Fer I’ll kill him, an’ then you’ll be a sweet little chunk of meat among a lot of wolves!”

He laughed and his large frame lurched closer. He wore a heavy gun and a knife in his belt. Also there protruded the butt of a pistol from the inside of his open vest. Allie felt the heat from his huge body, and she smelled the whisky upon him, and sensed the base, faithless, malignant animalism of the desperado. Assuredly, if he had any fear, it was not of Durade.

“I’m sorta gone on you myself,” repeated Fresno. “An’ Durade’s a greaser. He’s runnin’ a crooked game. All these games are crooked. But Benton won’t stand for a polite greaser who talks sweet an’ gambles crooked. Mebbe’ no one’s told you what this place Benton is.”

“I haven’t heard. Tell me,” replied Allie. She might learn from any one.

Fresno appeared at fault for speech. “Benton’s a beehive,” he replied, presently. “An’ when the bees come home with their honey, why, the red ants an’ scorpions an’ centipedes an’ rattlesnakes git busy. I’ve seen some places in my time, but — Benton beats ’em all.... Say, I’ll sneak you out at nights to see what’s goin’ on, an’ I’ll treat you handsome. I’m sorta—”

The entrance of Durade cut short Fresno’s further speech. “What are you saying to her?” demanded Durade, in anger.

“I was jest tellin’ her about what a place Benton is,” replied Fresno.

“Allie, is that true?” queried Durade, sharply.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Fresno, I did not like your looks.”

“Boss, if you don’t like ’em you know what you can do,” rejoined Fresno, impudently, and he lounged out of the room.

“Allie, these men are all bad,” said Durade. “You must avoid them when my back’s turned. I cannot run my place without them, so I am compelled to endure much.”

Allie’s attendant came in with her supper and she went to her room.

Thus began Allie Lee’s life as an unwilling and innocent accomplice of Durade in his retrogression from the status of a gambler to that of a criminal. In California he had played the game, diamond cut diamond. But he had broken. His hope, spirit, luck, nerve were gone. The bottle and Benton had almost destroyed his skill at professional gambling.

The days passed swiftly. Every afternoon Durade introduced a new company to his private den. Few ever came twice. In this there was a grain of hope, for if all the men in Benton, or out on the road, could only pass through Durade’s hall, the time would come when she would meet Neale or Larry. She lived for that. She was constantly on the lookout for a man she could trust with her story. Honest-faced laborers were not wanting in the stream of visitors Durade ushered into her presence, but either they were drunk or obsessed by gambling, or she found no opportunity to make her appeal.

These afternoons grew to be hideous for Allie. She had been subjected to every possible attention, annoyance, indignity, and insult, outside of direct violence. She could only shut her eyes and ears and lips. Fresno found many opportunities to approach her, sometimes in Durade’s presence, the gambler being blind to all but the cards and gold. At such times Allie wished she was sightless and deaf and feelingless. But after she was safely in her room again she told herself nothing had happened. She was still the same as she had always been. And sleep obliterated quickly what she had suffered. Every day was one nearer to that fateful and approaching moment. And when that moment did come what would all this horror amount to? It would fade — be as nothing. She would not let words and eyes harm her. They were not tangible — they had no substance for her. They made her sick with rage and revolt at the moment, but they had no power, no taint, no endurance. They were evil passing winds.

As she saw Durade’s retrogression, so she saw the changes in all about him. His winnings were large and his strange passion for play increased with them. The free gold that enriched Fresno and Mull and Andy only augmented their native ferocity. There were also Durade’s other helpers — Black, his swarthy doorkeeper, a pallid fellow called Dayss, who always glanced behind him, and Grist, a short, lame, bullet-headed, silent man — all of them under the spell of the green cloth.

With Durade’s success had come the craze for bigger stakes, and these could only be played for with other gamblers. So the black-frocked, cold-faced sharps became frequent visitors at Durade’s. Jones, the professional, won on that second visit — a fatal winning for him. Allie saw the giant Fresno suddenly fling himself upon Jones and bear him to the floor. Then Allie fled to her room. But she heard curses — a shot — a groan — Durade’s loud voice proclaiming that the gambler had cheated — and then the scraping of a heavy body being dragged out.

This murder horrified Allie, yet sharpened her senses. Providence had protected her. Durade had grown rich — wild — vain — mad to pit himself against the coolest and most skilful gamblers in Benton — and therefore his end was imminent. Allie lay in the dark, listening to Benton’s strange wailing roar, sad, yet hideous, and out of what she had seen and heard, and from the mournful message on the night wind, she realized how closely associated were gold and evil and men, and how inevitably they must lead to lawlessness and to bloodshed and to death.

CHAPTER 23

NEALE CONCEIVED AN idea that he was in line for the long-looked-for promotion. Neither the chief nor Baxter gave any suggestion of a hint of such possibility, but more and more, as the work rapidly progressed, Neale had been intrusted with important inspections.

Long since he had discovered his talent for difficult engineering problems, and with experience had come confidence in his powers. He had been sent from place to place, in each case with favorable results. General Lodge consulted him, Baxter relied upon him, the young engineers learned from him. And when Baxter and his assistants were sent on ahead into the hills Neale had an enormous amount of work on his hands. Still he usually managed to get back to Benton at night.

Whereupon he became a seeker, a searcher; he believed there was not a tent or a hut or a store or a hall in the town that he had not visited. But he found no clue of Allie; he never encountered the well-remembered face of the bandit Fresno. He saw more than one Spaniard and many Mexicans, not one of whom could have been the gambler Durade.

But Benton was too full, too changeful, too secret to be thoroughly searched in little time. Neale bore his burden, although it grew heavier each day. And his growing work on the railroad was his salvation.

One morning he went to the telegraph station, expecting orders from General Lodge. He found the chief’s special train at the station, headed east.

“Neale, I’m off for Omaha,” said Lodge. “Big pow-wow. The directors roaring again!”

“What about?” queried Neale, always alive to interest of that nature.

“Cost of the construction. What else? Neale, there are two kinds of men building the U. P. R. — men who see the meaning of the great work, and the men who see only the gold in it.”

“And they conflict!... That’s what you mean?”

“Exactly. We’ve been years on the job now, and the nearer the meeting of rails from west to east the harder become our problems. Henney is played out, Boone is ill, Baxter won’t last much longer. If I were not an old soldier, I would be done up now.”

“Chief, I can see only success,” replied Neale, with spirit.

“Assuredly. We see with the same eyes,” said General Lodge, smiling. “Neale, I’ve a job for you that will make you gray-headed.”

“Hardly that,” returned Neale, laughing.

“Do you remember the survey we made out here in the hills for Number Ten Bridge? Made over two years ago.”

“I’m not likely to forget it.”

“Well, the rails are within twenty miles of Number Ten. They’ll be there presently — and no piers to cross on.”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know. The report came in only last night. It’s a queer document. Here it is. Study it at your leisure.... It seems a big force of men have been working there for months. Piers have been put in — only to sink.”

“Sink!” ejaculated Neale. “WHEW! That’s a stumper!... Chief, the survey is mine. I’ll never forget how I worked on it.”

“Could you have made a mistake?”

“Of course,” replied Neale, readily. “But I’d never believe that unless I saw it. A tough job it was — but just the kind of work I eat up.”

“Well, you can go out and eat it up some more.”

“That means I’ll have to camp out there. I can’t get back to Benton.”

“No, you can’t. And isn’t that just as well?” queried the chief, with his keen, dark glance on Neale. “Son, I’ve heard your name coupled with gamblers — and that Stanton woman.”

“No doubt. I know them. I’ve been — seeking some trace of — Allie.”

“You still hope to find her? You still imagine some of this riffraff Benton gang made off with her?”

“Yes.”

“Son, it’s scarcely possible,” said Lodge, earnestly. “Anderson claims the Sioux got her. We all incline to that.... Oh, it’s hard, Neale.... Love and life are only atoms under the iron heel of the U. P. R.... It’s too late now. You can’t forget — no — but you must not risk your life — your opportunities — your reputation.”

Neale turned away his face for a moment and was silent. An engine whistled; a bell began to ring; some train official called to General Lodge. The chief held up his hand for a little more delay.

“I’m off,” he said rapidly. “Neale, you’ll go out to Number Ten and take charge.”

That surprised and thrilled Neale into eagerness.

“Who are the engineers?”

“Blake and Coffee. I don’t know them. Henney sent them out from Omaha. They’re well recommended. But that’s no matter. Something is wrong. You’re to have full charge of engineers, bosses, masons. In fact, I’ve sent word out to that effect.”

“Who’s the contractor?” asked Neale.

“I don’t know. But whoever he is he has made a pile of money out of this job. And the job’s not done. That’s what galls me.”

“Well, chief, it will be done,” said Neale, sharp with determination.

“Good! Neale, I’ll start east with another load off my shoulders.... And, son, if you throw up a bridge so there’ll be no delay, something temporary for the rails and the work-train, and then plan piers right for Number Ten — well — you’ll hear from it, that’s all.” They shook hands.

“I may be gone a week or a month — I can’t tell,” went on the chief. “But when I do come I’ll probably have a trainload of directors, commissioners, stockholders.”

“Bring them on,” said Neale. “Maybe if they saw more of what we’re up against they wouldn’t holler so.”

“Right.... Remember, you’ve full charge and that I trust you implicitly. Good-by and good luck!”

The chief boarded his train as it began to move. Neale watched it leave the station, and with a swelling heart he realized that he had been placed high, that his premonition of advancement had not been without warrant.

The work-train was backing into the station and would depart westward in short order. Neale hurried to his lodgings to pack his few belongings. Larry was lying on his cot, fully dressed and asleep. Neale shook him.

“Wake up, you lazy son-of-a-gun!” shouted Neale.

Larry opened his eyes. “Wal, what’s wrong? Is it last night or to-morrow?”

“Larry, I’m off. Got charge of a big job.”

“Is thet all?” drawled Larry, sleepily. “Why, shore I always knowed you’d be chief engineer some day.”

“Pard — sit up,” said Neale, unsteadily. “Will you stay sober — and watch — and listen for some news of Allie?... Till I come back to Benton?”

“Neale, air you still dreamin’?” asked Larry, incredulously.

“Will you do that much for me?”

“Shore.”

“Thank you, old friend. Good-by now. I’ve got to rustle.” He left Larry sitting on his cot, staring at nothing. On the way to the station Neale encountered the gambler, Place Hough, who, despite his nocturnal habits, was an early riser. In the excitement of the hour Neale gave way to an impulse. Briefly he told Hough about Allie — her disappearance and probable hidden presence in Benton, and he asked the gambler to keep his eyes and ears open. Hough seemed both surprised and pleased with the confidence, and he said he would go out of his way to help Neale.

Neale had to run to catch the train. A brawny Irishman extended a red-sleeved arm to help him up.

“Up wid yez. Thor!”

Neale found himself with bag and rifle and blanket sprawling on the gravel-covered floor of a flat car. Casey, the old lineman, grinned at him over the familiar short, black pipe.

“B’gorra, it’s me ould fri’nd Neale.”

“It sure is. How’re you Casey?”

“Pritty good fur an ould soldier.... An’ it’s news I hear of yez, me boy.”

“What news?”

“Shure yez hed a boost. Gineral Lodge hisself wor tellin’ Grady, the boss, that yez had been given charge of Number Ten.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“I’m dom’ glad to hear ut,” declared the Irishman. “But yez hev a hell of a job in thot Number Ten.”

“So I’ve been told. What do you know about it, Casey?”

“Shure ut ain’t much. A fri’nd of mine was muxin’ mortor over there. An’ he sez whin the crick was dry ut hed a bottom, but whin wet ut shure hed none.”

“Then I have got a job on my hands,” replied Neale, grimly.

Those days it took the work-train several hours to reach the end of the rails. Neale rode by some places with a profound satisfaction in the certainty that but for him the track would not yet have been spiked there. Construction was climbing fast into the hills. He wondered when and where would be the long-looked-for meeting of the rails connecting East with West. Word had drifted over the mountains that the Pacific division of the construction was already in Utah.

At the camp Colonel Dillon offered Neale an escort of troopers out to Number Ten, but Neale decided he could make better time alone. There had been no late sign of the Indians in that locality and he knew both the road and the trail.

Early next morning, mounted on a fast horse, he set out. It was a melancholy ride. Several times he had been over that ground, once traveling west with Larry, full of ardor and joy at the prospect of soon seeing Allie Lee, and again on the return, in despair at the loss of her.

He rode the twenty miles in three hours. The camp of dirty tents was clustered in a hot valley surrounded by hills sparsely fringed with trees. Neale noted the timber as a lucky augury to his enterprise. It was an idle camp full of lolling laborers.

As Neale dismounted a Mexican came forward.

“Look after the horse,” said Neale, and, taking his luggage, he made for a big tent with a fly extended in front. Several men sat on camp-chairs round a table. One of them got up and stepped out.

“Where’s Blake and Coffee?” inquired Neale.

“I’m Blake,” was the reply, “and there’s Coffee. Are you Mr. Neale?”

“Yes.”

“Coffee, here’s our new boss,” called Blake as he took part of Neale’s baggage.

Coffee appeared to be a sunburnt, middle-aged man, rather bluff and hearty in his greeting. The younger engineer, Blake, was a tanned, thin-faced individual, with a shifty gaze and constrained manner. The third fellow they introduced as a lineman named Somers. Neale had not anticipated a cordial reception and felt disposed to be generous.

“Have you got quarters for me here?” he inquired.

“Sure. There’s lots of room and a cot,” replied Coffee.

They carried Neale’s effects inside the tent. It was large and spare, containing table and lamp, boxes for seats, several cots, and bags.

“It’s hot. Got any drinking-water?” asked Neale, taking off his coat. Next he opened his bag to take things out, then drank thirstily of the water offered him. He did not care much for this part of his new task. These engineers might be sincere and competent, but he had been sent on to judge their work, and the situation was not pleasant. Neale had observed many engineers come and go during his experience on the road; and that fact, together with the authority given him and his loyalty to, the chief, gave him cause for worry. He hoped, and he was ready to believe, that these engineers had done their best on an extremely knotty problem.

“We got Lodge’s telegram last night,” said Coffee. “Kinda sudden. It jarred us.”

“No doubt. I’m sorry. What was the message?”

“Lodge never wastes words,” replied the engineer, shortly. But he did not vouchsafe the information for which Neale had asked.

Neale threw his note-book upon the dusty table and, sitting down on the box, he looked up at the men. Both engineers were studying him intently, almost eagerly, Neale imagined.

“Number Ten’s a tough nut to crack, eh?” he inquired.

“We’ve been here three months,” replied Blake.

“Wait till you see that quicksand hole,” added Coffee.

“Quicksand! It was a dry, solid stream-bed when I ran the line through here and drew the plans for Number Ten,” declared Neale.

Coffee and Blake stared blandly at him. So did the lineman Somers.

“You? Did YOU draw the plans we — we’ve been working on?” asked Coffee.

“Yes, I did,” answered Neale, slowly. It struck him that Blake had paled slightly. Neale sustained a slight shock of surprise and antagonism. He bent over his note-book, opening it to a clean page. Fighting his first impressions, he decided they had arisen from the manifest dismay of the engineers and their consciousness of a blunder.

“Let’s get down to notes,” Neale went on, taking up his pencil. “You’ve been here three months?”

“Yes.”

“With what force?”

“Two hundred men on and off.”

“Who’s the gang boss?”

“Colohan. He’s had some of the biggest contracts along the line.”

Neale was about to inquire the name of the contractor, but he refrained, governed by one of his peculiar impulses.

“Anybody working when you got here?” he went on.

“Yes. Masons had been cutting stone for six weeks.”

“What’s been done?”

Coffee laughed harshly. “We got the three piers in — good and solid on dry bottom. Then along comes the rain — and our work melts into the quicksand. Since then we’ve been trying to do it over.”

“But why did this happen in the first place?”

Coffee spread wide his arms. “Ask me something easy. Why was the bottom dry and solid? Why did it rain? Why did solid earth turn into quicksand?”

Neale slapped the note-book shut and rose to his feet. “Gentlemen, that is not the talk of engineers,” he said, deliberately.

“The hell you say! What is it, then?” burst out Coffee, his face flushing redder.

“I’ll inform you later,” replied Neale, turning to the lineman. “Somers, tell this gang boss, Colohan, I want him.”

Neale left the tent. He had started to walk away when he heard Blake speak up in a fierce undertone.

“Didn’t I tell you? We’re up against it!”

And Coffee growled a reply Neale could not understand. But the tone of it was conclusive. These men had made a serious blunder and were blaming each other, hating each other for it. Neale was conscious of anger. This section of line came under his survey, and he had been proud to be given such important and difficult work. Incompetent or careless engineers had bungled Number Ten. Neale strode on among the idle and sleeping laborers, between the tents, and then past the blacksmith’s shop and the feed corrals down to the river.

A shallow stream of muddy water came murmuring down from the hills. It covered the wide bed that Neale remembered had been a dry, sand-and-gravel waste. On each side the abutment piers had been undermined and washed out. Not a stone remained in sight. The banks were hollowed inward and shafts of heavy boards were sliding down. In the middle of the stream stood a coffer-dam in course of building, and near it another that had collapsed. These frameworks almost hid the tip of the middle pier, which had evidently slid over and was sinking on its side. There was no telling what had been sunk in that hole. All the surroundings — the tons of stone, cut and uncut, the piles of muddy lumber, the platforms and rafts, the crevices in the worn shores up and down both sides — all attested to the long weeks of fruitless labor and to the engulfing mystery of that shallow, murmuring stream.

Neale returned thoughtfully to camp. Blake and Coffee were sitting under the fly in company with a stalwart Irishman.

“Fine sink-hole you picked out for Number Ten, don’t you think?” queried Blake.

Neale eyed his interrogator with somewhat of a penetrating glance. Blake did not meet that gaze frankly.

“Yes, it’s a sink-hole, all right, and — no mistake,” replied Neale. “It’s just what I calculated when I ran the plans.... Did you follow those plans?”

Blake appeared about to reply when Coffee cut him short “Certainly we did,” he snapped.

“Then where are the breakwaters?” asked Neale, sharply.

“Breakwaters?” ejaculated Coffee. His surprise was sincere.

“Yes, breakwaters,” retorted Neale. “I drew plans for breakwaters to be built up-stream so that in high water the rapid current would be directed equally between the piers, and not against them.”

“Oh yes! Why — we must have got — it mixed,” replied Coffee. “Thought they were to be built last. Wasn’t that it, Blake?”

“Sure,” replied his colleague, but his tone lacked something.

“Ah — I see,” said Neale, slowly.

Then the big Irishman got up to extend a huge hand. “I’m Colohan,” he boomed.

Neale liked the bronzed, rough face, good-natured and intelligent. And he was aware of a shrewd pair of gray eyes taking his measure. Why these men seemed to want to look through Neale might have been natural enough, but somehow it struck him strangely. He had come there to help them, not to discharge them. Colohan, however, did not rouse Neale’s antagonism as the others had done.

“Colohan, are you sick of this job?” queried Neale, after greeting the boss.

“Yes — an’ no,” replied Colohan.

“You want to quit, then?” went on Neale, bluntly. The Irishman evidently took this curt query as a foreword of the coming dismissal. He looked shamed, crestfallen, at a loss to reply.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” continued Neale. “I’m not going to fire you. But if you are sick of the job you can quit. I’ll boss the gang myself... The rails will be here in ten days, and I’m going to have a trestle over that hole so the rails can cross. No holding up the work at this stage of the game... There’s near five thousand men in the gangs back along the line — coming fast. They’ve all got just one idea — success. The U. P. R. is going through. Soon out here the rails will meet.... Colohan, make it a matter of your preference. Will you stick?”

“You bet!” he replied, heartily. A ruddy glow emanated from his face. Neale was quick to sense that this Irishman, like Casey, had an honest love for the railroad, whatever he might feel for the labor.

“Get on the job, then,” ordered Neale, cheerily. “We’ll hustle while there’s daylight. We’ll have that trestle ready when the rails get here.”

Coffee laughed scornfully. “Neale, that sounds fine, but it’s impossible until the trains get here with piles and timbers, iron, and other stuff. We meant to run up a trestle then.”

“I dare say,” replied Neale. “But the U. P. R. did not start that way, and never would finish that way.”

“Well, you’ll have your troubles,” declared Coffee. “Troubles!... Do you imagine I’m going to think of MYSELF?” retorted Neale. These fellows were beginning to get on his nerves. Coffee grew sullen, Blake shifted uneasily from foot to foot, Colohan beamed upon Neale. “Come on with them orders,” he said.

“Right!... Send men up on the hills to cut and trim trees for piles and beams.... Find a way or make one for horses to snake down these timbers. Haul that pile-driver down to the river and set it up.... Have the engineer start up steam and try out.... Look the blacksmith shop over to see if there’s iron enough. If not, telegraph Benton for more — for whatever you want — and send wagons back to the end of the rails.... That’s all for this time, Colohan.”

“All right, chief,” replied the boss, and he saluted. Then he turned sneeringly to Blake and Coffee. “Did you hear them orders? I’m not takin’ none from you again. They’re from the chief.”

Colohan’s manner or tone or the word chief amazed Coffee. He looked nasty.

“Go on and work, then, you big Irish Paddy,” he said, violently. “Your chief-blarney doesn’t fool us. You’re only working to get on the right side of your new boss.... Let me tell you — you’re in this Number Ten deal as deep — as deep as we are.”

It had developed that there was hatred between these men. Colohan’s face turned fiery red, and, looming over Coffee, he looked the quick-tempered and dangerous nature of his class. “Coffee, I’m sayin’ this to your face right now. I ain’t deep in this Number Ten deal.... I obeyed orders — an’ damn strange ones, some of them.”

Neale intervened and perhaps prevented a clash. “Don’t quarrel, men. Sure there’s bound to be a little friction for a day or so. But we’ll soon get to working.”

Colohan strode away without another word. His brawny shoulders were expressive of a doubt.

“Get me my plans for Number Ten construction,” said Neale, pleasantly, for he meant to do his share at making the best of it.

Blake brought the plans and spread them out on the table.

“Will you both go over them with me?” inquired Neale.

“What’s the use?” returned Coffee, disgustedly. “Neale, you’re thick-headed.”

“Yes, I guess so,” rejoined Neale, constrainedly. “That’s why General Lodge sent me up here — over your clear heads.”

No retort was forthcoming from the two disgruntled engineers. Neale went into the tent and drew a seat up to the table. He wanted to be alone — to study his plans — to think about the whole matter. He found his old figures and drawings as absorbing as a good story; still, there came breaks in his attention. Blake walked into the tent several times, as if to speak, and each time he retired silently. Again, some messenger brought a telegram to one of the engineers outside, and it must have caused the whispered colloquy that followed. Finally they went away, and Neale, getting to work in earnest, was not disturbed until called for supper.

Neale ate at a mess-table with the laborers, and enjoyed his meal. The Paddies always took to him. One thing he gathered early was the fact that Number Ten bridge was a joke with the men. This sobered Neale and he left the cheery, bantering company for a quiet walk alone.

It was twilight down in the valley, while still daylight up on the hilltops. A faint glow remained from the sunset, but it faded as Neale looked. He walked a goodly distance from camp, so as to be out of earshot. The cool night air was pleasant after the hot day. It fanned his face. And the silence, the darkness, the stars calmed him. A lonely wolf mourned from the heights, and the long wail brought to mind Slingerland’s cabin. Then it was only a quick step to memory of Allie Lee; and Neale drifted from the perplexities and problems of his new responsibility to haunting memories, hopes, doubts, fears.

When he returned to the tent he espied a folded paper on the table in the yellow lamplight. It was a telegram addressed to him. It said that back salaries and retention of engineers were at his discretion, and was signed Lodge. This message nonplussed Neale. The chief must mean that Blake and Coffee would not be paid for past work nor kept for future work unless Neale decided otherwise. While he was puzzling over this message the engineers came in.

“Say, what do you make of this?” demanded Neale, and he shoved the telegram across the table toward them.

Both men read it. Coffee threw his coat over on his cot and then lit his pipe.

“What I make of this is — I lose three months’ back pay... nine hundred dollars,” he replied, puffing a cloud of smoke.

“And I lose six hundred,” supplemented Blake.

Neale leaned back and gazed up at his subordinates. He felt a subtle change in them. They had arrived at some momentous decision.

“But this message reads at my discretion,” said Neale. “It’s a plain surprise to me. I’ve no intention of making you lose your back pay, or of firing you, either.”

“You’ll probably do both — unless we can get together,” asserted Coffee.

“Well, can’t we get together?”

“That remains to be seen,” was the enigmatic reply.

“Ill need you both,” went on Neale, thoughtfully. “We’ve a big job. We’ve got to put a force of men on the piers while we’re building the trestle... Maybe I’ll fall down myself. Heavens! I’ve made blunders myself. I can’t condemn you fellows. I’m willing to call off all talk about past performances and begin over again.”

Neale felt that this proposition should have put another light on the question, that it should have been received appreciatively if not enthusiastically. But he was somewhat taken aback by the fact that it was not.

“Ahem! Well, we can talk it over to-morrow,” yawned Coffee.

Neale made no more overtures, busied himself with his notes for an hour, and then sought his cot.

Next morning, bright and early, Neale went down to the river to make his close inspection of what had been done toward building Number Ten. From Colohan he ascertained the number of shafts and coffer-dams sunk; from the masons he learned the amount of stone cut to patterns. And he was not only amazed and astounded, but overwhelmed, and incensed beyond expression. The labor had been prodigious. Hundreds of tons of material had been sunk there; and that meant that hundreds of thousands of dollars also had been sunk.

Upon investigation Neale found that, although many cribbings had been sunk for the piers, they had never been put deep enough. And there were coffer-dams that did not dam at all — useless, senseless wastes of time and material, not to say wages. His plans called for fifty thirty-foot piles driven to bedrock, which, according to the excavations he had had made at the time of survey, was forty feet below the surface. Not a pile had been driven! There had been no solid base for any of the cribbings! No foundations for the piers!

At the discovery the blood burned hot in Neale’s face and neck.

“No blunder! No incompetence! No misreading of my plans! But a rotten, deliberate deal!... Work done over and over again! Oh, I see it all now! General Lodge knew it without ever coming here. The same old story! That black stain — that dishonor on the great work! ... Graft! Graft!”

He clambered out of the wet and muddy hole and up the bank. Then he saw Blake sauntering across the flat toward him. Neale sat down abruptly to hide his face and fury, giving himself the task of scraping mud from his boots. When Blake got there Neale had himself fairly well in hand.

“Hello, Neale!” said Blake, suavely. “Collected some mud, I see. It’s sure a dirty job.”

“Yes, it’s been dirty in more ways than mud, I guess,” replied Neale. The instant his voice sounded in his ears it unleashed his temper.

“Sure has been a pile of money — dirty government money — sunk in there,” rejoined Blake. He spoke with assurance that surprised Neale into a desire to see how far he would go.

“Blake, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.”

A moment of silence passed before Blake spoke again. “Sure. And it’ll blow you good, too,” he said, breathing hard.

“Every man has his price,” replied Neale, lightly.

Then he felt a big, soft roll of bills stuffed into his hand. He took it, trembling all over. He wanted to spring erect, to fling that bribe in its giver’s face. But he could, control himself a moment longer.

“Blake, who’s the contractor on this job?” he queried, rapidly.

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t.”

“Well, we supposed you knew. It’s Lee.”

Neale started as if he had received a stab; the name hurt him in one way and was a shock in another.

“Allison Lee — the commissioner?” he asked, thickly.

“Sure. Oh, we’re in right, Neale,” replied Blake, with a laugh of relief.

Swift as an Indian, and as savagely, Neale sprang up. He threw the roll of bills into Blake’s face.

“You try to bribe me! ME!” burst out Neale, passionately. “You think I’ll take your dirty money — cover up your crooked job! Why, you sneak! You thief! You dog!”

He knocked Blake down. “Hold — on — Neale!” gasped Blake. He raised himself on his elbow, half stunned.

“Pick up that money,” ordered Neale, and he threatened Blake again. “Hurry!... Now march for camp!”

Neale walked the young engineer into the presence of his superior. Coffee sat his table under the fly, with Somers and another man. Colohan appeared on the moment, and there were excited comments from others near by. Coffee stood up. His face turned yellow. His lips snarled.

“Coffee, here’s your side partner,” called Neale, and his voice was biting. “I’ve got you both dead to rights, you liars!... You never even tried to work on my plans for Number Ten.”

“Neale, what in hell do you suppose we’re out here for?” demanded Coffee, harshly. “They’re all getting a slice of this money. There’s barrels of it. The directors of the road are crooked. They play both ends against the middle. They borrow money from the government and then pay it out to themselves. You’re one of these dreamers. You’re Lodge’s pet. But you can’t scare me.”

“Coffee, if there was any law out here for stealing you’d go to jail,” declared Neale. “You’re a thief, same as this pup who tried to bribe me. You’re worse. You’ve held up the line. You’ve ordered your rotten work done over and over again. This is treachery to General Lodge — to Henney, who sent you out here. And to me it’s — it’s — there’s no name low enough. I surveyed the line through here. I drew the plans for Number Ten. And I’m going to prove you both cheats. You and your contractor.”

“Neale, there’s more than us in the deal,” said Coffee sullenly.

Colohan strode close, big and formidable. “If you mean me, you’re a liar,” he declared. “An’ don’t say it!” Coffee was plainly intimidated, and Colohan turned to Neale. “Boss, I swear I wasn’t in on this deal. Lately I guessed it was all wrong. But all I could do was obey orders.”

“Neale, you can’t prove anything,” sneered Coffee. “If you have any sense you’ll shut up. I tell you this is only a LITTLE deal. I’m on the inside. I know financiers, commissioners, Congressmen, and Senators — and I told you before the directors are all in on this U. P. R. pickings. You’re a fool!”

“Maybe. But I’m no thief,” retorted Neale.

“Shut up, will you?” shouted Coffee, who plainly did not take kindly to that epithet before the gathering crowd. “I’m no thief... Men get shot out here for saying less than that.”

Neale laughed. He read Coffee’s mind. That worthy, responding to the wildness of the time and place, meant to cover his tracks one way or another. And Neale had not lived long with Larry Red King for nothing.

“Coffee, you ARE a thief,” declared Neale, striding forward. “The worst kind. Because you stole without risk. You can’t be punished. But I’ll carry this deal higher than you.” And quick as a flash Neale snatched some telegrams from Coffee’s vest pocket. The act infuriated Coffee. His face went purple.

“Hand ’em back!” he yelled, his arm swinging back to his hip.

“I’ll bet there’s a telegram here from Lee, and I’m entitled to keep it,” responded Neale, coolly and slowly.

Then as Coffee furiously jammed his hand back for his gun Neale struck him. Coffee fell with the overturned table out in the sand. His gun dropped as he dropped. Neale was there light and quick. He snatched up the gun.

“Coffee, you and Blake are to understand you’re fired,” said Neale. “Fired off the job and out of camp, just as you are.”

Fifteen days later the work-train crossed Number Ten on a trestle and the construction progressed with new impetus.

Not many days later a train of different character crept slowly foot by foot over that temporary bridge. It carried passenger-coaches, a private car containing the directors of the railroad, and General Lodge’s special car. The engine was decorated with flags and the engineer whistled a piercing blast as he rolled out upon the structure. Number Ten had been the last big obstacle.

As fortune would have it, Neale happened on the moment to be standing in a significant and thrilling position, for himself and for all who saw him. And that happened to be in the middle of the stream opposite the trestle on the masonry of the middle pier, now two feet above the coffer-dam. He was as wet and muddy as the laborers with him.

Engineer, fireman, brakemen, and passengers cheered him. For Neale the moment was unexpected and simply heart-swelling. Never in his life had he felt so proud. And yet, stinging among these sudden sweet emotions was a nameless pang.

Presently Neale espied General Lodge leaning out of a window of his car. He was waving. Neale pointed down at his feet, at the solid masonry; and then, circling his mouth with his hands, he yelled with all his might:

“Bed-rock!”

His chief yelled back, “You’re a soldier!”

That perhaps in the excitement and joy of the moment was the greatest praise the army officer could render. Nothing could have pleased Neale more.

The train passed over the trestle and on out of sight. Upon its return, about the middle of the afternoon, it stopped in camp. A messenger came with word for Neale to report at once to the directors. He hurried to his tent to secure his papers, and then, wet and muddy, he entered the private car of the directors.

It contained only four men — General Lodge, and Warburton, Rogers, and Rudd. All except the tall, white-haired Warburton were comfortable in shirt-sleeves, smoking with a table between them. The instant Neale entered their presence he divined that he faced a big moment in his life.

The chiefs manner, like Larry King’s when there was something in the wind, seemed quiet, easy, potential. His searching glance held warmth and a gleam that thrilled Neale. But he was ceremonious, not permitting himself his old familiarity before these dignitaries of the great railroad.

“Gentlemen, you remember Mr. Neale,” said Lodge.

They were cordial — pleasant.

Warburton vigorously shook Neale’s hand, and leaned back, after the manner of matured men, to look Neale over.

“Young man, I’m glad to meet you again,” he declared, in his big voice. “Remember him! Well, I do — though he’s thinner, older.”

“Small wonder,” interposed the chief. “He’s been doing a man’s work.”

“Neale, back there in Omaha you got sore — you quit us,” went on Warburton, reprovingly. “That was bad business. I cottoned to you — and I might have — But no matter. You’re with us again.”

“Mr. Warburton, I’m ashamed of that,” replied Neale, hastily. “But I was hot-headed... am so still, I fear.”

“So am I. So is Lodge. So is any man worth a damn,” replied the director.

“Mr. Neale, you look cool enough now,” observed Rogers, smiling. “Wish I was as wet and cool as you are. It’s hot — in this desert.”

Warburton took off his frock-coat. “You gentlemen aren’t going to have any the best of me... And now, Neale, tell us things.”

Neale looked at his papers and then at his chief. “For instance,” said Lodge, “tell us about Blake and Coffee.”

“Haven’t you seen them — heard from them?” inquired Neale.

“No. Henney has not, either. And they were his men.”

“Gentlemen, I’m afraid I lost my head in regard to them.”

“Explain, please,” said Warburton. “We will judge your conduct.”

It was a rather difficult moment for Neale, because his actions regarding the two engineers now appeared to have been the result of violent temper, rather than a dignified exercise of authority. But then as he remembered Blake’s offer and Coffee’s threat the heat thrilled along his nerves; and that stirred him to forceful expression.

“I drove them both out of this camp.”

“Why?” queried Warburton, sharply.

“Blake tried to bribe me, and Coffee—”

“One at a time,” interrupted Warburton, and he thrust a strong hand through his hair, ruffling it. He began to scent battle. “What did Blake try to bribe you to do?”

“He didn’t say. But he meant me to cover their tracks.”

“So!... And what did Coffee do?”

“He tried to pull a gun on me.”

“Why? Be explicit, please.”

“Well, he threatened me. And I laughed at him — called him names.”

“What names?”

“Quite a lot, if I remember. The one he objected to was thief... I repeated that, and snatched some telegrams from his pocket. He tried to draw his gun on me — and then I drove them both out of camp. They got through safely, for they were seen in Benton.”

“Sir, it appears to me you lost your head to good purpose,” said Warburton. “Now just what were the tracks they wanted you to cover?”

“I drew the original plans for Number Ten. They had not followed them. To be exact, they did not drive piles to hold the cribbings for the piers. They did not go deep enough. They sank shafts, they built coffer-dams, they put in piers over and over again. There was forty feet of quicksand under all their work and of course it slipped and sank.”

Warburton slowly got up. He was growing purple in the face. His hair seemed rising. He doubled a huge fist. “Over and over again!” he roared, furiously. “Over and over again! Lodge, do you hear that?”

“Yes. Sounds kind of familiar to me,” replied the chief, with one of his rare smiles. He was beyond rage now. He saw the end. He alone, perhaps, had realized the nature of that great work. And that smile had been sad as well as triumphant.

Warburton stamped up and down the car aisle. Manifestly he wanted to smash something or to take out his anger upon his comrades. That was not the quick rage of a moment; it seemed the bursting into flame of a smoldering fire. He used language more suited to one of Benton’s dance-halls than the private car of the directors of the Union Pacific Railroad. Once he stooped over Lodge, pounded the table.

“Three hundred thousand dollars sunk in that quicksand hole!” he thundered. “Over and over again! That’s what galls me. Work done over and over — unnecessary — worse than useless — all for dirty gold! Not for the railroad, but for gold!... God! what a band of robbers we’ve dealt with!... Lodge, why in hell didn’t you send Neale out here at the start?”

A shadow lay dark in the chiefs lined face. Why had he not done a million other things? Why, indeed! He did not answer the irate director.

“Three hundred thousand dollars sunk in that hole — for nothing!” shouted Warburton, in a final explosion.

The other two directors laughed. “Pooh!” exclaimed Rogers, softly. “What is that? A drop in the bucket! Consult your note-book, Warburton.”

And that speech cooled the fighting director. It contained volumes. It evidently struck home. Warburton growled, he mopped his red face, he fell into a seat.

“Lodge, excuse me,” he said, apologetically. “What our fine young friend here told me was like some one stepping on my gouty foot. I’ve been maybe a little too zealous — too exacting. Then I’m old and testy... What does it matter? How could it have been prevented? Alas! it’s black like that hideous Benton... But we’re coming out into the light. Lodge, didn’t you tell me this Number Ten bridge was the last obstacle?”

“I did. The rails will go down now fast and straight till they meet out there in Utah! Soon!”

Warburton became composed. The red died out of his face. He looked at Neale.

“Young man, can YOU put permanent piers in that sink-hole?”

“Yes. They are started, on bed-rock,” replied Neale.

“Bed-rock!” he repeated, and remained gazing at Neale fixedly. Then he turned to Lodge. “Do you remember that wild red-head cowboy — Neale’s friend — when he said, ‘I reckon thet’s aboot all?’... I’ll never forget him... Lodge, say we have Lee and his friend Senator Dunn come in, and get it over. An’ thet’ll be aboot all!”

“Thank Heaven!” replied the chief, fervently. He called to his porter, but as no one replied, General Lodge rose and went into the next car.

Neale had experienced a disturbing sensation in his breast. Lee! Allison Lee! The mere name made him shake. He could not understand, but he felt there was more reason for its effect on him than his relation to Allison Lee as a contractor. Somewhere there was a man named Lee who was Allie’s father, and Neale knew he would meet him some day.

Then when the chief walked back into the car with several frock-coated individuals, Neale did recognize in the pale face of one a resemblance to the girl he loved.

There were no greetings. This situation had no formalities. Warburton faced them and he seemed neither cold nor hot.

“Mr. Lee, as a director of the road I have to inform you that, following the reports of our engineer here, your present contracts are void and you will not get any more.”

A white radiance of rage swiftly transformed Allison Lee. His eyes seemed to blaze purple out of his white face.

And Neale knew him to be Allie’s father — saw the beauty and fire of her eyes in his.

“Warburton! You’ll reconsider. I have great influence—”

“To hell with your influence!” retorted Warburton, the lion in him rising. “The builders — the directors — the owners of the U. P. R. are right here in this car. Do you understand that? Do you demand that I call a spade a spade?”

“I have been appointed by Congress. I will—”

“Congress or no Congress, you will never rebuild a foot of this railroad,” thundered Warburton. He stood there glaring, final, assured. “For the sake of your — your government connections, let us say — let well enough alone.”

“This upstart boy of an engineer!” burst out Lee, in furious resentment. “Who is he? How dare he accuse or report against me?”

“Mr. Lee, your name has never been mentioned by him,” replied the director.

Lee struggled for self-control. “But, Warburton, it’s preposterous!” he protested. “This wild boy — the associate of desperadoes — his report, whatever it is — absurd! Absurd as opposed to my position! A cub surveyor — slick with tongue and figures — to be thrown in my face! It’s outrageous! I’ll have him—”

Warburton held up a hand and impelled Lee to silence. In that gesture Neale read what stirred him to his soul. It was coming. He saw it again in General Lodge’s fleeting, rare smile. He held his breath. The old pang throbbed in his breast.

“Lee, pray let me enlighten you and Senator Dunn,” said Warburton, sonorously, “and terminate this awkward interview... When the last spike is driven out here — presently — Mr. Neale will be chief engineer of maintenance of way of the Union Pacific Railroad.”

CHAPTER 24

SO FOR NEALE the wonderful dream had come to pass, and but for the memory that made all hours of life bitter his cup of joy would have been full.

He made his headquarters in Benton and spent his days riding east or west over the line, taking up the great responsibility he had long trained for — the maintaining of the perfect condition of the railroad.

Toward the end of that month Neale was summoned to Omaha.

The message had been signed Warburton. Upon arriving at the terminus of the road Neale found a marvelous change even in the short time since he had been there. Omaha had become a city. It developed that Warburton had been called back to New York, leaving word for Neale to wait for orders.

Neale availed himself of this period to acquaint himself with the men whom he would deal with in the future. Among them, and in the roar of the railroad shops and the bustle of the city, he lost, perhaps temporarily, that haunting sense of pain and gloom. Despite himself the deference shown him was flattering, and his old habit of making friends reasserted itself. His place was assured now. There were rumors in the air of branch lines for the Union Pacific. He was consulted for advice, importuned for positions, invited here and there. So that the days in Omaha were both profitable and pleasurable.

Then came a telegram from Warburton calling him to Washington, D.C.

It took more than two days to get there, and the time dragged slowly for Neale. It seemed to him that his importance grew as he traveled, a fact which was amusing to him. All this resembled a dream.

When he reached the hotel designated in the telegram it was to receive a warm greeting from Warburton.

“It’s a long trip to make for nothing,” said the director. “And that’s what it amounts to now. I thought I’d need you to answer a few questions for me. But you’ll not be questioned officially, and so you’d better keep a close mouth... We’ve raised the money. The completion of the U.P.R. is assured.”

Neale could only conjecture what those questions might have been, for the director offered no explanation. And this circumstance recalled to mind his former impression of the complexity of the financial and political end of the construction. Warburton took him to dinner and later to a club, and introduced him to many men.

For this alone Neale was glad that he had been summoned to the capital. He met Senators, Congressmen, and other government officials, and many politicians and prominent men, all of whom, he was surprised to note, were well informed regarding the Union Pacific. He talked with them, but answered questions guardedly. And he listened to discussions and talks covering every phase of the work, from the Credit Mobilier to the Chinese coolies that were advancing from the west to meet the Paddies of his own division.

How strange to realize that the great railroad had its nucleus, its impetus, and its completion in such a center as this! Here were the frock-coated, soft-voiced, cigar-smoking gentlemen among whom Warburton and his directors had swung the colossal enterprise. What a vast difference between these men and the builders! With the handsome white-haired Warburton, and his associates, as they smoked their rich cigars and drank their wine, Neale contrasted Casey and McDermott and many another burly spiker or teamster out on the line. Each class was necessary to this task. These Easterners talked of money, of gold, as a grade foreman might have talked of gravel. They smoked and conversed at ease, laughing at sallies, gossiping over what was a tragedy west of North Platte; and about them was an air of luxury, of power, of importance, and a singular grace that Neale felt rather than saw.

Strangest of all to him was the glimpse he got into the labyrinthine plot built around the stock, the finance, the gold that was constructing the road. He was an engineer, with a deductive habit of mind, but he would never be able to trace the intricacy of this monumental aggregation of deals. Yet he was hugely, interested. Much of the scorn and disgust he had felt out on the line for the mercenaries connected with the work he forgot here among these frock-coated gentlemen.

An hour later Neale accompanied Warburton to the station where the director was to board a train for his return to New York.

“You’ll start back to-morrow,” said Warburton. “I’ll see you soon, I hope — out there in Utah where the last spike is to be driven. That will be THE day — THE hour!... It will be celebrated all over the United States.”

Neale returned to his hotel, trying to make out the vital thing that had come to him on this hurried and apparently useless journey. His mind seemed in a whirl. Yet as he pondered, there gradually loomed up the reflection that in the eastern, or constructive, end of the great plan there were the same spirits of evil and mystery as existed in the western, or building, end. Here big men were interested, involved; out there bigger men sweat and burned and aged and died. The difference was that these toilers gave all for an ideal while the directors and their partners thought only of money, of profits.

Neale restrained what might have been contempt, but he thought that if these financiers could have seen the life of the diggers and spikers as he knew it they might be actuated by a nobler motive. Before he dropped to sleep that night he concluded that his trip to Washington, and the recognition accorded him by Warburton’s circle, had fixed a new desire in his heart to heave some more rails and drive some more spikes for the railroad he loved so well. To him the work had been something for which he had striven with all his might and for which he had risked his life. Not only had his brain been given to the creation, but his muscles had ached from the actual physical toil attendant upon this biggest of big jobs.

When Neale at last reached Benton it was night. Benton and night! And he had forgotten. A mob of men surged down and up on the train. Neale had extreme difficulty in getting off at all. But the excitement, the hurry, the discordant and hoarse medley of many voices, were unusual at that hour around the station, even for strenuous Benton. All these men were carrying baggage. Neale shouted questions into passing ears, until at length some fellow heard and yelled a reply.

The last night of Benton!

He understood then. The great and vile construction camp had reached the end of its career. It was being torn down — moved away — depopulated. There was an exodus. In another forty-eight hours all that had been Benton, with its accumulated life and gold and toil, would be incorporated in another and a greater and a last camp — Roaring City.

The contrast to the beautiful Washington, the check to his half-dreaming memory of what he had experienced there, the sudden plunge into this dim — lighted, sordid, and roaring hell, all brought about in Neale a revulsion of feeling.

And with the sinking of his spirit there returned the old haunting pangs — the memory of Allie Lee, the despairing doubts of life or death for her. Beyond the camp loomed the dim hills, mystical, secretive, and unchangeable. If she were out there among them, dead or alive, to know it would be a blessed relief. It was this horror of Benton that he feared.

He walked the street, up and down, up and down, until the hour was late and he was tired. All the halls and saloons were blazing in full blast. Once he heard low, hoarse cries and pistol-shots — and then again quick, dull, booming guns. How strange they should make him shiver! But all seemed strange. From these sounds he turned away, not knowing what to do or where to go, since sleep or rest was impossible. Finally he went into a gambling-den and found a welcome among players whose faces he knew.

It was Benton’s last night, and there was something in the air, menacing, terrible.

Neale gave himself up to the spirit of the hour and the game. He had almost forgotten himself when a white, jeweled hand flashed over his shoulder, to touch it softly. He heard his name whispered. Looking up, he saw the flushed and singularly radiant face of Beauty Stanton.

CHAPTER 25

THE AFTERNOON AND night of pay-day in Benton, during which Allie Lee was barred in her room, were hideous, sleepless, dreadful hours. Her ears were filled with Benton’s roar — whispers and wails and laughs; thick shouts of drunken men; the cold voices of gamblers; clink of gold and clink of glasses; a ceaseless tramp and shuffle of boots; pistol-shots muffled and far away, pistol-shots ringing and near at hand; the angry hum of brawling men; and strangest of all this dreadful roar were the high-pitched, piercing voices of women, in songs without soul, in laughter without mirth, in cries wild and terrible and mournful.

Allie lay in the dark, praying for the dawn, shuddering at this strife of sound, fearful that any moment the violence of Benton would burst through the flimsy walls of her room to destroy her. But the roar swelled and subsided and died away; the darkness gave place to gray light and then dawn; the sun arose, the wind began to blow. Now Benton slept, the sleep of sheer exhaustion.

Her mirror told Allie the horror of that night. Her face was white; her eyes were haunted by terrors, with great dark shadows beneath. She could not hold her hands steady.

Late that afternoon there were stirrings and sounds in Durade’s hall. The place had awakened. Presently Durade himself brought her food and drink. He looked haggard, worn, yet radiant. He did not seem to note Allie’s condition or appearance.

“That deaf and dumb fool who waited on you is gone,” said Durade. “Yesterday was pay-day in Benton... Many are gone... Allie, I won fifty thousand dollars in gold!”

“Isn’t that enough?” she asked.

He did not hear her, but went on talking of his winnings, of gold, of games, and of big stakes coming. His lips trembled, his eyes glittered, his fingers clawed at the air.

For Allie it was a relief when Durade left her. He had almost reached the apex of his fortunes and the inevitable end. Allie realized that if she were ever to lift a hand to save herself she must do so at once.

This was a fixed and desperate thought in her mind when Durade called her to her work.

Allie always entered that private den of Durade’s with eyes cast down. She had been scorched too often by the glances of men. As she went in this time she felt the presence of gamblers, but they were quieter than those to whom she had become accustomed. Durade ordered her to fetch drinks, then he went on talking, rapidly, in excitement, elated, boastful, almost gay.

Allie did not look up. As she carried the tray to the large table she heard a man whisper low: “By jove!... Hough, that’s the girl!”

Then she heard a slight, quick intake of breath, and the exclamation, “Good God!”

Both voices thrilled Allie. The former seemed the low, well-modulated, refined, and drawling speech of an Englishman; the latter was keen, quick, soft, and full of genuine emotion. Allie returned to her chair by the sideboard before she ventured to look up. Durade was playing cards with four men, three of whom were black-garbed, after the manner of professional gamblers. The other player wore gray, and a hat of unusual shape, with wide, loose, cloth band. He removed his hat as he caught Allie’s glance, and she associated the act with the fact of her presence. She thought that this must be the man whose voice had proclaimed him English. He had a fair face, lined and shadowed and dissipated, with tired blue eyes and a blond mustache that failed to altogether hide a well-shaped mouth. It was the kindest and saddest face Allie had ever seen there. She read its story. In her extremity she had acquired a melancholy wisdom in the judgment of the faces of the men drifting through Durade’s hall. What Allie had heard in this Englishman’s voice she saw in his features. He did not look at her again. He played cards wearily, carelessly, indifferently, with his mind plainly on something else.

“Ancliffe, how many cards?” called one of the black-garbed men.

The Englishman threw down his cards. “None,” he said.

The game was interrupted by a commotion in the adjoining room, which was the public gambling-hall of Durade’s establishment.

“Another fight!” exclaimed Durade, impatiently. “And only Mull and Fresno showed up to-day.”

Harsh voices and heavy stamps were followed by a pistol-shot. Durade hurriedly arose.

“Gentlemen, excuse me,” he said, and went out. One of the gamblers also left the room, and another crossed it to peep through the door.

This left the Englishman sitting at the table with the last gambler, whose back was turned toward Allie. She saw the Englishman lean forward to speak. Then the gambler arose and, turning, came directly toward her.

“My name is Place Hough,” he said, speaking rapidly and low. “I am a gambler — but gentleman. I’ve heard strange rumors about you, and now I see for myself. Are you Allie Lee?”

Allie’s heart seemed to come to her throat. She shook all over, and she gazed with piercing intensity at the man. When he had arisen from the table he had appeared the same black-garbed, hard-faced gambler as any of the others. But looked at closely, he was different. Underneath the cold, expressionless face worked something mobile and soft. His eyes were of crystal clearness and remarkable for a penetrating power. They shone with wonder, curiosity, sympathy.

Allie instinctively trusted the voice and then consciously trusted the man. “Oh, sir, I am — distressed — ill from fright!” she faltered. “If I only dared—”

“You dare tell me,” he interrupted, swiftly. “Be quick. Are you here willingly with this man?”

“Oh no!”

“What then?”

“Oh, sir — you do not think — I—”

“I knew you were good, innocent — the moment I laid eyes on you,... Who are you?”

“Allie Lee. My father is Allison Lee.”

“Whew!” The gambler whistled softly and, turning, glanced at the door, then beckoned Ancliffe. The Englishman arose. In the adjoining rooms sounds of strife were abating.

“Ancliffe, this girl is Allie Lee — daughter of Allison Lee — a big man of the U.P.R.... Something terribly wrong here.” And he whispered to Ancliffe.

Allie became aware of the Englishman’s scrutiny, doubtful, sad, yet kind and curious. Indeed these men had heard of her.

“Hough, you must be mistaken,” he said.

Allie felt a sudden rush of emotion. Her opportunity had come. “I am Allie Lee. My mother ran off with Durade — to California. He used her as a lure to draw men to his gambling-hells — as he uses me now... Two years ago we escaped — started east with a caravan. The Indians attacked us. I crawled under a rock — escaped the massacre. I—”

“Never mind all your story,” interrupted Hough. “We haven’t time for that. I believe you... You are held a close prisoner?”

“Oh yes — locked and barred. I never get out. I have been threatened so — that until now I feared to tell anyone. But Durade — he is going mad. I — I can bear it no longer.”

“Miss Lee, you shall not bear it,” declared Ancliffe. “We’ll take you out of here.”

“How?” queried Hough, shortly.

Ancliffe was for walking right out with her, but Hough shook his head.

“Listen,” began Allie, hurriedly. “He would kill me the instant I tried to escape. He loved my mother. He does not believe she is dead. He lives only to be revenged upon her... He has a desperate gang here. Fresno, Mull, Stitt, Black, Grist, Dayss, a greaser called Mex, and others — all the worst of bad men. You cannot get me out of here alive except by some trick.”

“How about bringing the troops?”

“Durade would kill me the first thing.”

“Could we steal you out at night?”

“I don’t see how. They are awake all night. I am barred in, watched ... Better work on Durade’s weakness. Gold! He’s mad for gold. When the fever’s on him he might gamble me away — or sell me for gold.”

Hough’s cold eyes shone like fire in ice. He opened his lips to speak — then quickly motioned Ancliffe back to the table. They had just seated themselves when the two gamblers returned, followed by Durade. He was rubbing his hands in satisfaction.

“What was the fuss about?” queried Hough, tipping the ashes off his cigar.

“Some drunks after money they had lost.”

“And got thrown out for their pains?” inquired Ancliffe.

“Yes. Mull and Fresno are out there now.”

The game was taken up again. Allie sensed a different note in it. The gambler Hough now faced her in his position at the table; and behind every card he played there seemed to be intense purpose and tremendous force. Ancliffe soon left the game. But he appeared fascinated where formerly he had been indifferent. Soon it developed that Hough, by his spirit and skill, was driving his opponents, inciting their passion for play, working upon their feelings. Durade seemed the weakest gambler, though he had the best luck. Good luck balanced his excited play. The two other gamblers pitted themselves against Hough.

The shadows of evening had begun to darken the room when Durade called for lights. A slim, sloe-eyed, pantherish-moving Mexican came in to execute the order. He wore a belt with a knife in it and looked like a brigand. When he had lighted the lamps he approached Durade and spoke in Spanish. Durade replied in the same tongue. Then the Mexican went out. One of the gamblers lost and arose from the table.

“Gentlemen, may I go out for more money and return to the game?” he asked.

“Certainly,” replied Hough.

Durade assented with bad grace.

The game went on and grew in interest. Probably the Mexican had reported the fact of its possibilities, or perhaps Durade had sent out word of some nature. For one by one his villainous lieutenants came in, stepping softly, gleaming-eyed.

“Durade, have you stopped play outside?” queried Hough.

“Supper-time. Not much going on,” replied Mull.

Hough watched this speaker with keen coolness.

“I did not address you,” he said.

Durade, catching the drift, came out of his absorption of play long enough to say that with a big game at hand he did not want to risk any interruption. He spoke frankly, but he did not look sincere.

Presently the second gambler announced that he would consider it a favor to be allowed to go out and borrow money. Then he left hurriedly. Durade and Hough played alone; and the luck seesawed from one to the other until both the other players returned. They did not come alone. Two more black-frocked, black-sombreroed, cold-faced individuals accompanied them.

“May we sit in?” they asked.

“With pleasure,” replied Hough.

Durade frowned and the glow left his face. Though the luck was still with him, it was evident that he did not favor added numbers. Yet the man’s sensitiveness to any change immediately manifested itself when he won the first large stake. His radiance returned and also his vanity.

Hough interrupted the game by striking the table with his hand. The sound seemed hard, metallic, yet his hand was empty. Any attentive observer would have become aware that Hough had a gun up his sleeve. But Durade did not catch the significance.

“I object to that man leaning over the table,” said Hough, and he pointed to the lounging Fresno.

“Thet so?” leered the ugly giant. He looked bold and vicious.

“Do not address me,” ordered Hough.

Fresno backed away silently from the cold-faced gambler.

“Don’t mind him, Hough,” protested Durade. “They’re all excited. Big stakes always work them up.”

“Send them out so we can play without annoyance.”

“No,” replied Durade, sharply. “They can watch the game.”

“Ancliffe,” called Hough, just as sharply, “fetch some of my friends to watch this game. Don’t forget Neale and Larry King.”

Allie, who was watching and listening with strained faculties, nearly fainted at the sudden mention of her lover Neale and her friend Larry. She went blind for a second; the room turned round and round; she thought her heart would burst with joy.

The Englishman hurried out.

Durade looked up with a passionate and wolfish swiftness.

“What do you mean?”

“I want some of my friends to watch the game,” replied Hough.

“But I don’t allow that red-headed cowboy gun-fighter to come into my place.”

“That is regrettable, for you will make an exception this time... Durade, you don’t stand well in Benton. I do.”

The Spaniard’s eyes glittered. “You insinuate — SENOR—”

“Yes,” interposed Hough, and his cold, deliberate voice dominated the explosive Durade. “Do you remember a gambler named Jones?... He was shot in this room... If I should happen to be shot here — in the same way — you and your gang would not last long in Benton!”

Durade’s face grew livid with rage and fear. And in that moment the mask was off. The nature of the Spaniard stood forth. Another manifest fact was that Durade had not before matched himself against a gambler of Hough’s caliber.

“Well, are you only a bluff or do we go on with the game?” inquired Hough.

Durade choked back his rage and signified with a motion of his hand that play should be resumed.

Allie fastened her eyes upon the door. She was in a tumult of emotion. Despite that, her mind revolved wild and intermittent ideas as to the risk of letting Neale see and recognize her there. Yet her joy was so overpowering that she believed if he entered the door she would rush to him and trust in God to save her. In God and Reddy King! She remembered the cowboy, and a thrill linked all her emotions. Durade and his gang would face a terrible reckoning if Reddy King ever entered to see her there.

Moments passed. The gambling went on. The players spoke low; the spectators were silent. Discordant sounds from outside disturbed the quiet.

Allie stared fixedly at the door. Presently it opened. Ancliffe entered with several men, all quick in movement, alert of eye. But Neale and Larry King were not among them. Allie’s heart sank like lead. The revulsion of feeling, the disappointment, was sickening. She saw Ancliffe shake his head, and divined in the action that he had not been able to find the friends Hough wanted particularly. Then Allie felt the incredible strangeness of being glad that Neale was not to find her there — that Larry was not to throw his guns on Durade’s crowd. There might be a chance of her being liberated without violence.

This reaction left her weak and dazed for a while. Still she heard the low voices of the gamesters, the slap of cards and clink of gold. Her wits had gone from her ever since the mention of Neale. She floundered in a whirl of thoughts and fears until gradually she recovered self-possession. Whatever instinct or love or spirit had guided her had done so rightly. She had felt Neale’s presence in Benton. It was stingingly sweet to realize that. Her heart swelled with pangs of fullest measure. Surely he again believed her dead. Soon he would come upon her — face to face — somewhere. He would learn she was alive — unharmed — true to him with all her soul. Indians, renegade Spaniards, Benton with its terrors, a host of EVIL men, not these nor anything else could keep her from Neale forever. She had believed that always, but never as now, in the clearness of this beautiful spiritual insight. Behind her belief was something unfathomable and great. Not the movement of progress as typified by those men who had dreamed of the railroad, nor the spirit of the unconquerable engineers as typified by Neale, nor the wildness of wild youth like Larry King, nor the heroic labor and simplicity and sacrifice of common men, nor the inconceivable passion of these gamblers for gold, nor the mystery hidden in the mad laughter of these fallen women, strange and sad on the night wind — not any of these things nor all of them, wonderful and incalculable as they were, loomed so great as the spirit that upheld Allie Lee.

When she raised her head again the gambling scene had changed. Only three men played — Hough, Durade, and another. And even as Allie looked this third player threw his cards into the deck and with silent gesture rose from the table to take a position with the other black-garbed gamblers standing behind Hough. The blackness of their attire contrasted strongly with the whiteness of their faces. They had lost gold, which fact meant little to them. But there was something big and significant in their presence behind Hough. Gamblers leagued against a crooked gambling-hell! Durade had lost a fortune, yet not all his fortune. He seemed a haggard, flaming-eyed wreck of the once debonair Durade. His hair was wet and dishevelled, his collar was open, his hand wavered. Blood trickled down from his lower lip. He saw nothing except the gold, the cards, and that steel-nerved, gray-faced, implacable Hough. Behind him lined up his gang, nervous, strained, frenzied, with eyes on the gold — hate-filled, murderous eyes.

Allie slipped into her room, leaving the door ajar so she could peep out, and there she paced the floor, waiting, listening for what she dared not watch. The gambler Hough would win all that Durade had, and then stake it against her. That was what Allie believed. She had no doubts of Hough’s winning her, too, but she doubted if he could take her away. There would be a fight. And if there was a fight, then that must be the end of Durade. For this gambler, Hough, with his unshakable nerve, his piercing eyes, his wonderful white hands, swift as light — he would at the slightest provocation kill Durade.

Suddenly Allie was arrested by a loud, long suspiration — a heave of heavy breaths in the room of the gamblers. A chair scraped, noisily breaking the silence, which instantly clamped down again.

“Durade, you’re done!” It was the cold, ringing voice of Hough.

Allie ran to the door, peeped through the crack. Durade sat there like a wild beast bound. Hough stood erect over a huge golden pile on the table. The others seemed stiff in their tracks.

“There’s a fortune here,” went on Hough, indicating the gold. “All I had — all our gentlemen opponents had — all YOU had... I have won it all!”

Durade’s eyes seemed glued to that dully glistening heap. He could not even look up at the coldly passionate Hough.

“All! All!” echoed Durade.

Then Hough, like a striking hawk, bent toward the Spaniard. “Durade, have you anything more to bet?”

Durade was the only man who moved. Slowly he arose, shaking in every limb, and not till he became erect did he unrivet his eyes from that yellow heap on the table.

“Senor — do you — mock me?” he gasped, hoarsely.

“I offer you my winnings — ALL — FOR THE GIRL YOU HAVE HERE!”

“You are crazy!” ejaculated the Spaniard.

“Certainly... But hurry! Do you accept?”

“Senor, I would not sell that girl for all the gold of the Indies,” replied Durade, instantly. No vacillation — no indecision in him here. Hough’s offer held no lure for this Spaniard who had committed many crimes for gold.

“BUT YOU’LL GAMBLE HER!” asserted Hough, and now indeed his words were mockery. In one splendid gesture he swept his winnings into the middle of the table, and the gold gave out a ringing clash. As a gambler he read the soul of his opponent.

Durade’s jaw worked convulsively, as if he had difficulty in holding it firm enough for utterance. What he would not sell for any price he would risk on a gambler’s strange faith in chance.

“All my winnings against this girl,” went on Hough, relentlessly. Scorn and a taunting dare and an insidious persuasion mingled with the passion of his offer. He knew how to inflame. Durade, as a gambler, was a weakling in the grasp of a giant. “Come!... Do you accept?”

Durade’s body leaped, as if an irresistible current had been shot into it.

“Si, Senor!” he cried, with power and joy in his voice. In that moment, no doubt the greatest in his life of gambling, he unconsciously went back to the use of his mother tongue.

Actuated by one impulse, Hough and Durade sat down at the table. The others crowded around. Fresno lurched close, with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

“I was onto Hough,” he said to his nearest ally. “It’s the girl he’s after!”

The gamblers cut the cards for who should deal. Hough won. For him victory seemed to exist in the suspense of the very silence, in the charged atmosphere of the room. He began to shuffle the cards. His hands were white, shapely, perfect, like a woman’s, and yet not beautiful. The spirit, the power, the ruthless nature in them had no relation to beauty. How marvelously swift they moved — too swift for the gaze to follow. And the incomparable dexterity with which he manipulated the cards gave forth the suggestion as to what he could do with them. In those gleaming hands, in the flying cards, in the whole intenseness of the gambler there showed the power and the intent to win. The crooked Durade had met his match, a match who toyed with him. If there were an element of chance in this short game it was that of the uncertainty of life, not of Durade’s chance to win. He had no chance. No eye, no hand could have justly detected Hough in the slightest deviation from honesty. Yet all about the man in that tense moment proved what a gambler really was.

Durade called in a whisper for two cards, and he received them with trembling fingers. Terrible hope and exultation transformed his face.

“I’ll take three,” said Hough, calmly. With deliberate care and slowness, in strange contrast to his former motions, he took, one by one, three cards from the deck. Then he looked at them, and just as calmly dropped all his cards, face up, on the table, disclosing what he knew to be an unbeatable hand.

Durade stared. A thick cry escaped him.

Swiftly Hough rose. “Durade, I have won.” Then he turned to his friends. “Gentlemen, please pocket this gold.”

With that he stepped to Allie’s door. He saw her peering out. “Come, Miss Lee,” he said.

Allie stepped out, trembling and unsteady on her feet.

The Spaniard now seemed compelled to look up from the gold Hough’s comrades were pocketing. When he saw Allie another slow and remarkable transformation came over him. At first he started slightly at Hough’s hand on Allie’s arm. The radiance of his strange passion for gold, that had put a leaping glory into his haggard face, faded into a dark and mounting surprise. A blaze burned away the shadows. His eyes betrayed an unsupportable sense of loss and the spirit that repudiated it. For a single instant he was magnificent — and perhaps in that instant race and blood spoke; then, with bewildering suddenness, surely with the suddenness of a memory, he became a black, dripping-faced victim of unutterable and unquenchable hate.

Allie recoiled in the divination that Durade saw her mother in her. No memory, no love, no gold, no wager, could ever thwart the Spaniard.

“Senor, you tricked me!” he whispered.

“I beat you at your own game,” said Hough. “My friends and your men heard the stake — saw the game.”

“Senor, I would not — bet — that girl — for any stake!”

“You have LOST her... Let me warn you, Durade. Be careful, once in your life!... You’re welcome to what gold is left there.”

Durade shoved back the gold so fiercely that he upset the table, and its contents jangled on the floor. The spill and the crash of a scattered fortune released Durade’s men from their motionless suspense. They began to pick up the coins.

The Spaniard was halted by the gleam of a derringer in Hough’s hand. Hissing like a snake, Durade stood still, momentarily held back by a fear that quickly gave place to insane rage.

“Shoot him!” said Ancliffe, with a coolness which proved his foresight.

One of Hough’s friends swung a cane, smashing a lamp; then with like swift action he broke the other lamp, instantly plunging the room into darkness. This appeared to be the signal for Durade’s men to break loose into a mad scramble for the gold. Durade began to scream and rush forward.

Allie felt herself drawn backward, along the wall, through her door. It was not so dark in there. She distinguished Hough and Ancliffe. The latter closed the door. Hough whispered to Allie, though the din in the other room made such caution needless.

“Can we get out this way?” he asked.

“There’s a window,” replied Allie.

“Ancliffe, open it and get her out. I’ll stop Durade if he comes in. Hurry!”

While the Englishman opened the window Hough stood in front of the door with both arms extended. Allie could just see his tall form in the pale gloom. Pandemonium had begun in the other room, with Durade screaming for lights, and his men yelling and fighting for the gold, and Hough’s friends struggling to get out. But they did not follow Hough into this room and evidently must have thought he had escaped through the other door.

“Come,” said Ancliffe, touching Allie.

He helped her get out, and followed laboriously. Then he softly called to Hough. The gambler let himself down swiftly and noiselessly.

“Now what?” he muttered.

They appeared to be in a narrow alley between a house of boards and a house of canvas. Excited voices sounded inside this canvas structure and evidently alarmed Hough, for with a motion he enjoined silence and led Allie through the dark passage out into a gloomy square surrounded by low, dark structures. Ancliffe followed close behind.

The night was dark, with no stars showing. A cool wind blew in Allie’s face, refreshing her after her long confinement. Hough began groping forward. This square had a rough board floor and a skeleton framework. It had been a house of canvas. Some of the partitions were still standing.

“Look for a door — any place to get out,” whispered Hough to Ancliffe, as they came to the opposite side of this square space. Hough, with Allie close at his heels, went to the right while Ancliffe went to the left. Hough went so far, then muttering, drew Allie back again to the point whence they had started. Ancliffe was there.

“No place! All boarded up tight,” he whispered.

“Same on this side. We’ll have to—”

“Listen!” exclaimed Ancliffe, holding up his hand.

There appeared to be noise all around, but mostly on the other side of the looming canvas house, behind which was the alleyway that led to Durade’s hall. Gleams of light flashed through the gloom. Durade’s high, quick voice mingled with hoarser and deeper tones. Some one in the canvas house was talking to Durade, who apparently must have been in Allie’s room and at her window.

“See hyar, Greaser, we ain’t harborin’ any of your outfit, an’ we’ll plug the fust gent we see,” called a surly voice.

Durade’s staccato tones succeeded it. “Did you see them?”

“We heerd them gettin’ out the winder.”

Durade’s voice rose high in Spanish curses. Then he called:

“Fresno — Mull — take men — go around the street. They can’t get away ... You, Mex, get down in there with the gang.”

Lower voices answered, questioning, eager, but indistinct.

“Kill him — bring her back — and you can have the gold,” shouted Durade.

Following that came the heavy tramp of boots and the low roar of angry men.

Hough leaned toward Ancliffe. “They’ve got us penned in.”

“Yes. But it’s pretty dark here. And they’ll be slow. You watch while I tear a hole through somewhere,” replied Ancliffe.

He was perfectly cool and might have been speaking of some casual incident. He extinguished his cigarette, dropped it, then put on his gloves.

Hough loomed tall and dark. His face showed pale in the shadow. He stood with his elbows stiff against his sides, a derringer in each hand.

“I wish I had heavier guns,” he said.

Allie’s thrill of emotion spent itself in a shudder of realization. Calmly and chivalrously these two strangers had taken a stand against her enemies and with a few cool words and actions had accepted whatever might betide.

“I must tell you — oh, I must!” she whispered, with her hand on Hough’s arm. “I heard you send for Neale and Larry King... It made my heart stop!... Neale — Warren Neale is my sweetheart. See, I wear his ring!... Reddy King is my dearest friend — my brother!...”

Hough bent low to peer into Allie’s face — to see her ring. Then he turned to Ancliffe.

“How things work out!... I always suspected what was wrong with Neale. Now I know — after seeing his girl.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Ancliffe.

“Well, I’ll block Durade’s gang. Will you save the girl?”

“Assuredly,” answered the imperturbable Englishman. “Where shall I take her?”

“Where CAN she be safe? The troop camp? No, too far,... Aha! take her to Stanton. Tell Stanton the truth. Stanton will hide her. Then find Neale and King.”

Hough turned to Allie. “I’m glad you spoke — about Neale,” he said, and there was a curious softness in his voice. “I owe him a great deal. I like him... Ancliffe will get you out of here — and safely back to Neale.”

Allie knew somehow — from something in his tone, his presence — that he would never leave this gloomy inclosure. She heard Ancliffe ripping a board off the wall or fence, and that sound seemed alarmingly loud. The voices no longer were heard behind the canvas house. The wind whipped through the bare framework. Somewhere at a distance were music and revelry. Benton’s night roar had begun. Over all seemed to hang a menacing and ponderous darkness.

Suddenly a light appeared moving slowly from the most obscure corner of the space, perhaps fifty paces distant.

Hough drew Allie closer to Ancliffe. “Get behind me,” he whispered.

A sharp ripping and splitting of wood told of Ancliffe’s progress; also it located the fugitives for Durade’s gang. The light vanished; quick voices rasped out; then stealthy feet padded over the boards.

Allie saw or imagined she saw gliding forms black against the pale gloom. She was so close to Ancliffe that he touched her as he worked. Turning, she beheld a ray of light through an aperture he had made.

Suddenly the gloom split to a reddish flare. It revealed dark forms. A gun cracked. Allie heard the heavy thud of a bullet against the wall. Then Hough shot. His derringer made a small, spiteful report. It was followed by a cry — a groan. Other guns cracked. Bullets pattered on the wood. Allie heard the spat of lead striking Hough. It had a sickening sound. He moved as if from a blow. A volley followed and Allie saw the bright flashes. All about her bullets were whistling and thudding. She knew with a keen horror every time Hough was struck. Hoarse yells and strangling cries mixed with the diminishing shots.

Then Ancliffe grasped her and pushed her through a vent he had made. Allie crawled backward and she could see Hough still standing in front. It seemed that he swayed. Then as she rose further her view was cut off. Although she had not looked around, she was aware of a dimly lighted storeroom. Outside the shots had ceased. She heard something heavy fall suddenly; then a patter of quick, light footsteps.

Ancliffe essayed to get through the opening feet first. It was a tight squeeze, or else some one held him back. There came a crashing of wood; Ancliffe’s body whirled in the aperture and he struggled violently. Allie heard hissing, sibilant Spanish utterances. She stood petrified, certain that Durade had attacked Ancliffe. Suddenly the Englishman crashed through, drawing a supple, twisting, slender man with him. He held this man by the throat with one hand and by the wrist with the other. Allie recognized Durade’s Mexican ally. He gripped a knife and the blade was bloody.

Once inside, where Ancliffe could move, he handled the Mexican with deliberate and remorseless ease. Allie saw him twist and break the arm which held the knife. Not that sight, but the eyes of the Mexican made Allie close her own. When she opened them, at a touch, Ancliffe stood beside her and the Mexican lay quivering. Ancliffe held the bloody knife; he hid it under his coat.

“Come,” he said. His voice seemed thin.

“But Hough! We must—”

Ancliffe’s strange gesture froze Allie’s lips. She followed him — clung close to him. There were voices near — and persons. All seemed to fall back before the Englishman. He strode on. Indeed, his movements appeared unnatural. They went down a low stairway, out into the dark. Lights were there to the right, and hurrying forms. Ancliffe ran with her in the other direction. Only dim, pale lamps shone through tents. Down this side street it was quiet and dark. Allie stumbled, too. He turned a corner and proceeded rapidly toward bright lights. The houses loomed big. Down that way many people passed to and fro. Allie’s senses recognized a new sound — a confusion of music, dancing, hilarity, all distinct, near at hand. She could scarcely keep up with Ancliffe. He did not speak nor look to right or left.

At the corner of a large house — a long structure which sent out gleams of light — Ancliffe opened a door and pulled Allie into a hallway, dark near at hand, but brilliant at the other end. He drew her along this passage, striding slower now and unsteadily. He turned into another hall lighted by lamps. Music and gaiety seemed to sweep stunningly into Allie’s face. But Allie saw only one person there — a Negress. As Ancliffe halted, the Negress rose from her seat. She was frightened.

“Call Stanton — quick!” he panted. He thrust gold at her. “Tell no one else!”

Then he opened a door, pushed Allie into a handsomely furnished parlor, and, closing the door, staggered to a couch, upon which he fell. His face wore a singular look, remarkable for its whiteness. All its weary, careless indifference had vanished.

As he lay back his hands loosed their hold of his coat and fell away all bloody. The knife slid to the floor. A crimson froth flecked his lips.

“Oh — Heaven! You were — stabbed!” gasped Allie, sinking to her knees.

“If Stanton doesn’t come in time — tell her what happened — ask her to fetch Neale to you,” he said. He spoke with extreme difficulty and a fluttering told of blood in his throat. Allie could not speak. She could not pray. But her sight and her perception were abnormally keen. Ancliffe’s strange, dear gaze rested upon her, and it seemed to Allie that he smiled, not with lips or face, but in spirit. How strange and beautiful.

Then Allie heard a rush of silk at the door. It opened — closed. A woman of fair face, bare of arm and neck, glittering with diamonds, swept into the parlor. She had great, dark-blue eyes full of shadows and they flashed from Ancliffe to Allie and back again.

“What’s happened? You’re pale as death!... Ancliffe! Your hands — your breast!... My God!”

She bent over him. “Stanton, I’ve been — cut up — and Hough is — dead.”

“Oh, this horrible Benton!” cried the woman.

“Don’t faint... Hear me. You remember we were curious about a girl — Durade had in his place. This is she — Allie Lee. She is innocent. Durade held her for revenge. He had loved — then hated her mother... Hough won all Durade’s gold — and then the girl... But we had to fight... Stanton, this Allie Lee is Neale’s sweetheart... He believes her dead... You hide her — bring Neale to her.”

Quickly she replied, “I promise you, Ancliffe, I promise... How strange — what you tell!... But not strange for Benton!... Ancliffe! Speak to me! — Oh, he is going!”

With her first words a subtle change passed over Ancliffe. It was the release of his will. His whole body sank. Under the intense whiteness of his face a cold gray shade began to creep. His last conscious instant spent itself in the strange gaze Allie had felt before, and now she had a vague perception that in some way it expressed a blessing and a deliverance. The instant the beautiful light turned inward, as if to illumine the darkness of his soul, she divined what he had once been, his ruin, his secret and eternal remorse — and the chance to die that had made him great.

So, forgetful of the other beside her, Allie Lee watched Ancliffe, sustained by a nameless spirit, feeling with tragic pity her duty as a woman — to pray for him, to stay beside him, that he might not be alone when he died.

And while she watched, with the fading of that singular radiance, there returned to his face a slow, careless weariness.

“He’s gone!” murmured Stanton, rising. A dignity had come to her. “Dead! And we knew nothing of him — not his real name — nor his place ... But even Benton could not keep him from dying like an English gentleman.”

She took Allie by the hand, led her out of the parlor and across the hall into a bedroom. Then she faced Allie, wonderingly, with all a woman’s sympathy, and something else that Allie sensed as a sweet and poignant wistfulness.

“Are you — Neale’s sweetheart?” she asked, very low.

“Oh — please — find him — for me!” sobbed Allie.

The tenderness in this woman’s voice and look and touch was what Allie needed more than anything, and it made her a trembling child. How strangely, hesitatingly, with closing eyes, this woman reached to fold her in gentle arms. What a tumult Allie felt throbbing in the full breast where she laid her head.

“Allie Lee!... and he thinks you dead,” she murmured, brokenly. “I will bring him — to you.”

When she released Allie years and shadows no longer showed in her face. Her eyes were tear-wet and darkening; her lips were tremulous. At that moment there was something beautiful and terrible about her.

But Allie could not understand.

“You stay here,” she said. “Be very quiet... I will bring Neale.”

Opening the door, she paused on the threshold, to glance down the hall first, and then back to Allie. Her smile was beautiful. She closed the door and locked it. Allie heard the soft swish of silk dying away.

CHAPTER 26

BEAUTY STANTON THREW a cloak over her bare shoulders and, hurriedly leaving the house by the side entrance, she stood a moment, breathless and excited, in the dark and windy street.

She had no idea why she halted there, for she wanted to run. But the instant she got out into the cool night air a check came to action and thought. Strange sensations poured in upon her — the darkness, lonesome and weird; the wailing wind with its weight of dust; the roar of Benton’s main thoroughfare; and the low, strange murmur, neither musical nor mirthful, behind her, from that huge hall she called her home. Stranger even than these emotions were the swelling and aching of her heart, the glow and quiver of her flesh, thrill on thrill, deep, like bursting pages of joy never before experienced, the physical sense of a touch, inexplicable in its power.

On her bare breast a place seemed to flush and throb and glow. “Ah!” murmured Beauty Stanton. “That girl laid her face here — over my heart! What was I to do?” she murmured. “Oh yes — to find her sweetheart — Neale!” Then she set off rapidly, but if she had possessed wings or the speed of the wind she could not have kept pace with her thoughts.

She turned the corner of the main street and glided among the hurrying throng. Men stood in groups, talking excitedly. She gathered that there had been fights. More than once she was addressed familiarly, but she did not hear what was said. The wide street seemed strange, dark, dismal, the lights yellow and flaring, the wind burdened, the dark tide of humanity raw, wild animal, unstable. Above the lights and the throngs hovered a shadow — not the mantle of night nor the dark desert sky.

Her steps took familiar ground, yet she seemed not to know this Benton.

“Once I was like Allie Lee!” she whispered. “Not so many years ago.”

And the dark tide of men, the hurry and din, the wind and dust, the flickering lights, all retreated spectral — like to the background of a mind returned to youth, hope, love, home. She saw herself at eighteen — yes, Beauty Stanton even then, possessed of a beauty that was her ruin; at school, the favorite of a host of boys and girls; at home, where the stately oaks were hung with silver moss and the old Colonial house rang with song of sister and sport of brother, where a sweet-faced, gentle-voiced mother —

“Ah... Mother!” And at that word the dark tide of men seemed to rise and swell at her, to trample her sacred memory as inevitably and brutally as it had used her body.

Only the piercing pang of that memory remained with Beauty Stanton. She was a part of Benton. She was treading the loose board-walk of the great and vile construction camp. She might draw back from leer and touch, but none the less was she there, a piece of this dark, bold, obscure life. She was a cog in the wheel, a grain of dust in the whirlwind, a morsel of flesh and blood for the hungry maw of a wild and passing monster of progress.

Her hurried steps carried her on with her errand. Neale! She knew where to find him. Often she had watched him play, always regretfully, conscious that he did not fit there. His indifference had baffled her as it had piqued her professional vanity. Men had never been indifferent to her; she had seen them fight for her mocking smiles. But Neale! He had been stone to her charm, yet kind, gracious, deferential. Always she had felt strangely shamed when he stood bareheaded before her. Beauty Stanton had foregone respect. Yet respect was what she yearned for. The instincts of her girlhood, surviving, made a whited sepulcher of her present life. She could not bear Neale’s indifference and she had failed to change it. Her infatuation, born of that hot-bed of Benton life, had beaten and burned itself to destruction against a higher and better love — the only love of her womanhood. She would have slaved for him. But he had passed her by, absorbed with his own secret, working toward some fateful destiny, lost, perhaps, like all the others there.

And now she learned that the mystery of him — his secret — was the same old agony of love that sent so many on endless, restless roads — Allie Lee! and he believed her dead!

After all the bitterness, life had moments of sweetest joy. Fate was being a little kind to her — Beauty Stanton. It would be from her lips Neale would hear that Allie Lee was alive — Beauty Stanton’s soul seemed to soar with the realization of how that news would uplift Neale, craze him with happiness, change his life, save him. He was going to hear the blessed tidings from a woman whom he had scorned. Always afterward, then, he would think of Beauty Stanton with a grateful heart. She was to be the instrument of his salvation. Hough and Ancliffe had died to save Allie Lee from the vile clutch of Benton; but to Beauty Stanton, the woman of ill-fame, had been given the power. She gloried in it. Allie Lee was safely hidden in her house. The iniquity of her establishment furnished a haven for the body and life and soul of innocent Allie Lee. Beauty Stanton marveled at the strange ways of life. If she could have prayed, if she had ever dared to hope for some splendid duty, some atonement to soften the dark, grim ending of her dark career, it would not have been for so much as fate had now dealt to her. She was overwhelmed with her opportunity.

All at once she reached the end of the street. On each side the wall of lighted tents and houses ceased. Had she missed her way — gone down a side street to the edge of the desert? No. The rows of lights behind assured her this was the main street. Yet she was far from the railroad station. The crowds of men hurried by, as always. Before her reached a leveled space, dimly lighted, full of moving objects, and noise of hammers and wagons, and harsh voices. Then suddenly she remembered.

Benton was being evacuated. Tents and houses were being taken down and loaded on trains to be hauled to the next construction camp. Benton’s day was done! This was the last night. She had forgotten that the proprietor of her hall, from whom she rented it, had told her that early on the morrow he would take it down section by section, load it on the train, and put it together again for her in the next town. In forty-eight hours Benton would be a waste place of board floors, naked frames, debris and sand, ready to be reclaimed by the desert. It would be gone like a hideous nightmare, and no man would believe what had happened there.

The gambling-hell where she had expected to find Neale had vanished, in a few hours, as if by magic. Beauty Stanton retraced her steps. She would find Neale in one of the other places — the Big Tent, perhaps.

This hall was unusually crowded, and the scene had the number of men, though not the women and the hilarity and the gold, that was characteristic of pay-day in Benton. All the tables in the gambling-room were occupied.

Beauty Stanton stepped into this crowded room, her golden head uncovered, white and rapt and strangely dark-eyed, with all the beauty of her girlhood returned, and added to it that of a woman transformed, supreme in her crowning hour. As a bad woman, infatuated and piqued, she had failed to allure Neale to baseness; now as a good woman, with pure motive, she would win his friendship, his eternal gratitude.

Stanton had always been a target for eyes, yet never as now, when she drew every gaze like a dazzling light in a dark room.

As soon as she saw Neale she forgot every one else in that hall. He was gambling. He did not look up. His brow was somber and dark. She approached — stood behind him. Some of the players spoke to her, familiarly, as was her bitter due. Then Neale turned apparently to bow with his old courtesy. Thrill on thrill coursed over her. Always he had showed her respect, deference.

Her heart was full. She had never before enjoyed a moment like this. She was about to separate him from the baneful and pernicious life of the camps — to tender him a gift of unutterable happiness — to give all of him back to the work of the great railroad.

She put a trembling hand on his shoulder — bent over him. “Neale — come with me,” she whispered.

He shook his head.

“Yes! Yes!” she returned, her voice thrilling with emotion.

Wearily, with patient annoyance, he laid down his cards and looked up. His dark eyes held faint surprise and something that she thought might be pity.

“Miss Stanton — pardon me — but please understand — No!”

Then he turned and, picking up his cards, resumed the game.

Beauty Stanton suffered a sudden vague check. It was as if a cold thought was trying to enter a warm and glowing mind. She found speech difficult. She could not get off the track of her emotional flight. Her woman’s wit, tact, knowledge of men, would not operate.

“Neale!... Come with — me!” she cried, brokenly. “There’s—”

Some men laughed coarsely. That did not mean anything to Stanton until she saw how it affected Neale. His face flushed red and his hands clenched the cards.

“Say, Neale,” spoke up this brutal gamester, with a sneer, “never mind us. Go along with your lady friend... You’re ahead of the game — as I reckon she sees.”

Neale threw the cards in the man’s face; then, rising, he bent over to slap him so violently as to knock him off his chair.

The crash stilled the room. Every man turned to watch.

Neale stood up, his right arm down, menacingly. The gambler arose, cursing, but made no move to draw a weapon.

Beauty Stanton could not, to save her life, speak the words she wanted to say. Something impeding, totally unexpected, seemed to have arisen.

“Neale — come with — me!” was all she could say.

“No!” he declared, vehemently, with a gesture of disgust and anger.

That, following the coarse implication of the gambler, conveyed to Stanton what all these men imagined. The fools! The fools! A hot vibrating change occurred in her emotion, but she controlled it. Neale turned his back upon her. The crowd saw and many laughed. Stanton felt the sting of her pride, the leap of her blood. She was misunderstood, but what was that to her? As Neale stepped away she caught his arm — held him while she tried to get close to him so she could whisper. He shook her off. His face was black with anger. He held up one hand in a gesture that any woman would have understood and hated. It acted powerfully upon Beauty Stanton. Neale believed she was importuning him. To him her look, whisper, touch had meant only the same as to these coarse human animals gaping and grinning as they listened. The sweetest and best and most exalted moment she had ever known was being made bitter as gall, sickening, hateful. She must speak openly, she must make him understand.

“Allie Lee!... At my house!” burst out Stanton, and then, as if struck by lightning she grew cold, stiff-lipped.

The change in Neale was swift, terrible. Not comprehension, but passion transformed him into a gray-faced man, amazed, furious, agonized, acting in seeming righteous and passionate repudiation of a sacrilege.

“ ——  — !” His voice hurled out a heinous name, the one epithet that could inflame and burn and curl Beauty Stanton’s soul into hellish revolt. Gray as ashes, fire-eyed, he appeared about to kill her. He struck her — hard — across the mouth.

“Don’t breathe that name!”

Beauty Stanton’s fear suddenly broke. Blindly she ran out into the street. She fell once — jostled against a rail. The lights blurred; the street seemed wavering; the noise about her filtered through deadened ears; the stalking figures before her were indistinct and unreal.

“He struck me! He called me ——  — !” she gasped. And the exaltation of the last hour vanished as if it had never been. All the passion of her stained and evil years leaped into ascendency. “Hell — hell! I’ll have him knifed — I’ll see him dying! I’ll wet my hands in his blood! I’ll spit in his face as he dies!”

So she gasped out, staggering along the street toward her house. There is no flame of hate so sudden and terrible and intense as that of the lost woman. Beauty Stanton’s blood had turned to vitriol. Men had wronged her, ruined her, dragged her down into the mire. One by one, during her dark career, the long procession of men she had known had each taken something of the good and the virtuous in her, only to leave behind something evil in exchange. She was what they had made her. Her soul was a bottomless gulf, black and bitter as the Dead Sea. Her heart was a volcano, seething, turgid, full of contending fires. Her body was a receptacle into which Benton had poured its dregs. The weight of all the iron and stone used in the construction of the great railroad was the burden upon her shoulders. These dark streams of humanity passing her in the street, these beasts of men, these hairy-breasted toilers, had found in her and her kind the strength or the incentive to endure, to build, to go on. And one of them, stupid, selfish, merciless, a man whom she had really loved, who could have made her better, to whom she had gone with only hope for him and unselfish abnegation for herself — he had put a vile interpretation upon her appeal, he had struck her before a callous crowd, he had called her the name for which there was no pardon from her class, a name that evoked all the furies and the powers of hell.

“Oh, to cut him — to torture him — to burn him alive... But it would not be enough!” she panted.

And into the mind that had been lately fixed in happy consciousness of her power of good there flashed a thousand scintillating, corruscating gleams of evil thought. And then came a crowning one, an inspiration straight from hell.

“By God! I’ll make of Allie Lee the thing I am! The thing he struck — the thing he named!”

The woman in Beauty Stanton ceased to be. All that breathed, in that hour, was what men had made her. Revenge, only a word! Murder, nothing! Life, an implacable, inexplicable, impossible flux and reflux of human passion! Reason, intelligence, nobility, love, womanhood, motherhood — all the heritage of her sex — had been warped by false and abnormal and terrible strains upon her physical and emotional life. No tigress, no cannibal, no savage, no man, no living creature except a woman of grace who knew how far she had fallen could have been capable of Beauty Stanton’s deadly and immutable passion to destroy. Thus life and nature avenged her. Her hate was immeasurable. She who could have walked naked and smiling down the streets of Benton or out upon the barren desert to die for the man she loved had in her the inconceivable and mysterious passion of the fallen woman; she could become a flame, a scourge, a fatal wind, a devastation. She was fire to man; to her own sex, ice. Stanton reached her house and entered. Festivities in honor of the last night of Benton were already riotously in order. She placed herself well back in the shadow and watched the wide door.

“The first man who enters I’ll give him this key!” she hissed.

She was unsteady on her feet. All her frame quivered. The lights in the hall seemed to have a reddish tinge. She watched. Several men passed out. Then a tall, stalking form appeared, entering.

A ball of fire in Stanton’s breast leaped and burst. She had recognized in that entering form the wildest, the most violent and the most dangerous man in Benton — Larry Red King.

Stanton stepped forward and for the first time in the cowboy’s presence she did not experience that singular chill of gloom which he was wont to inspire in her.

Her eyes gloated over King. Tall, lean, graceful, easy, with his flushed ruddy face and his flashing blue eyes and the upstanding red hair, he looked exactly what he was — a handsome red devil, fearing no man or thing, hell-bent in his cool, reckless wildness.

He appeared to be half-drunk. Stanton was trained to read the faces of men who entered there; and what she saw in King’s added the last and crowning throb of joy to her hate. If she had been given her pick of the devils in Benton she would have selected this stalking, gun-packing cowboy.

“Larry, I’ve a new girl here,” she said. “Come.”

“Evenin’, Miss — Stanton,” he drawled. He puffed slightly, after the manner of men under the influence of liquor, and a wicked, boyish, heated smile crossed his face.

She led him easily. But his heavy gun bumped against her, giving her little cold shudders. The passage opened into a wide room, which in turn opened into her dancing-hall. She saw strange, eager, dark faces among the men present, but in her excitement she did not note them particularly. She led Larry across the wide room, up a stairway to another hall, and down this to the corner of an intersecting passageway.

“Take — this — key!” she whispered. Her hand shook. She felt herself to be a black and monstrous creature. All of Benton seemed driving her. She was another woman. This was her fling at a rotten world, her slap in Neale’s face. But she could not speak again; her lips failed. She pointed to a door.

She waited long enough to see the stalking, graceful cowboy halt in front of the right door. Then she fled.

CHAPTER 27

FOR MANY MOMENTS after the beautiful bare-armed woman closed and locked the door Allie Lee sat in ecstasy, in trembling anticipation of Neale.

Gradually, however, in intervals of happy mind-wanderings, other thoughts intruded. This little bedroom affected her singularly and she was at a loss to account for the fact. It did not seem that she was actually afraid to be there, for she was glad. Fear of Durade and his gang recurred, but she believed that the time of her deliverance was close at hand. Possibly Durade, with some of his men, had been killed in the fight with Hough. Then she remembered having heard the Spaniard order Fresno and Mull to go round by the street. They must be on her trail at this very moment. Ancliffe had been seen, and not much time could elapse before her whereabouts would be discovered. But Allie bore up bravely. She was in the thick of grim and bloody and horrible reality. Those brave men, strangers to her, had looked into her face, questioned her, then had died for her. It was all so unbelievable. In another room, close to her, lay Ancliffe, dead. Allie tried not to think of him; of the remorseless way in which he had killed the Mexican; of the contrast between this action and his gentle voice and manner. She tried not to think of the gambler Hough — the cold iron cast of his face as he won Durade’s gold, the strange, intent look which he gave her a moment before the attack. There was something magnificent in Ancliffe’s bringing her to a refuge while he was dying; there was something magnificent in Hough’s standing off the gang. Allie divined that through her these two men had fought and died for something in themselves as well as for her honor and life.

The little room seemed a refuge for Allie, yet it was oppressive, as had been the atmosphere of the parlor where Ancliffe lay. But this oppressiveness was not death. Allie had become familiar with death near at hand. This refuge made her flesh creep.

The room was not the home of any one — it was not inhabited, it was not livable. Yet it contained the same kind of furniture Durade had bought for her and it was clean and comfortable. Still, Allie shrank from touching anything. Through the walls came the low, strange, discordant din to which she had become accustomed — an intense, compelling blend of music, song, voice, and step actuated by one spirit. Then at times she imagined she heard distant hammering and the slap of a falling board.

Probably Allie had not stayed in this room many moments when she began to feel that she had been there hours. Surely the woman would return soon with Neale. And the very thoughts drove all else out of her mind, leaving her palpitating with hope, sick with longing.

Footsteps outside distracted her from the nervous, dreamy mood. Some one was coming along the hall. Her heart gave a wild bound — then sank. The steps passed by her door. She heard the thick, maudlin voice of a man and the hollow, trilling laugh of a girl.

Allie’s legs began to grow weak under her. The strain, the suspense, the longing grew to be too much for her and occasioned a revulsion of feeling. She had let her hopes carry her too high.

Suddenly the door-handle rattled and turned. Allie was brought to a stifling expectancy, motionless in the center of the room. Some one was outside at the door. Could it be Neale? It must be! Her sensitive ears caught short, puffing breaths — then the click of a key in the lock. Allie stood there in an anguish of suspense, with the lift of her heart almost suffocating her. Like a leaf in the wind she quivered.

Whoever was out there fumbled at the key. Then the lock rasped, the handle turned, the door opened. A tall man swaggered in, with head bent sideways, his hand removing the key from the lock. Before he saw Allie he closed the door. With that he faced around.

Allie recognized the red face, the flashing eyes, the flaming hair.

“Larry!” she cried, with bursting heart. She took a quick step, ready to leap into his arms, but his violent start checked her. Larry staggered back — put a hand out. His face was heated and flushed as Allie had never seen it. A stupid surprise showed there. Slowly his hand moved up to cross his lips, to brush through his red hair; then with swifter movement it swept back to feel the door, as if he wanted the touch of tangible things.

“Reckon I’m seein’ ’em again!” he muttered to himself. “Oh, Larry — I’m Allie Lee!” she cried, holding out her hands.

She saw the color fade out of his face. A shock seemed to go over his body. He took a couple of dragging strides toward her. His eyes had the gaze of a man who did not believe what he saw. The hand he reached out shook.

“I’m no ghost! Larry, don’t — you — know me?” she faltered. Indeed he must have thought her a phantom. Great, clammy drops stood out upon his brow.

“Dear old — redhead!” she whispered, brokenly, with a smile of agony and joy. He would know her when she spoke that way — called him the name she had tormented him with — the name no one else would have dared to use.

Then she saw he believed in her reality. His face began to work. She threw her arms about him — she gave up to a frenzy of long-deferred happiness. Where Larry was there would Neale be.

“Allie — it ain’t — you?” he asked, hoarsely, as he hugged her close.

“Oh, Larry — yes — yes — and I’ll die of joy!” she whispered.

“Then you shore ain’t — daid?” he went on, incredulously.

How sweet to Allie was the old familiar Southern drawl!

“Dead? Never....Why, I’ve kissed you!... and you haven’t kissed me back.”

She felt his breast heave as he lifted her off her feet to kiss her awkwardly, boyishly.

“Shore — the world’s comin’ to an end!... But mebbe I’m only drunk!”

He held her close, towering over her, while he gazed around him and down at her, shaking his head, muttering again in bewilderment.

“Reddy dear — where, oh, where is Neale?” she breathed, all her heart in her voice.

As he released her Allie felt a difference. His whole body seemed to gather, to harden, then vibrate, as if he had been stung.

“My Gawd!” he whispered in hoarse accents of amaze and horror. “Is it you — Allie — here?”

“Of course it’s I,” replied Allie, blankly.

His face turned white to the lips.

“Reddy, what in the world is wrong?” she gasped, beginning to wring her hands.

Suddenly he leaped at her. With rude, iron grasp he forced her back, under the light, and fixed piercing eyes upon hers. He bent closer. Allie was frightened, yet fascinated. His gaze hurt with its intensity, its strange, penetrating power. Allie could not bear it.

“Allie, look at me,” he said, low and hard. “For I reckon you mayn’t hev very long to live!”

Allie struggled weakly. He looked so gray, grim, and terrible. But she could resist neither his strength nor his spirit. She lay quiet and met the clear, strange fire of his eyes. In a few swift moments he had changed utterly.

“Larry — aren’t — you — drunk?” she faltered.

“I was, but now I’m sober.... Girl, kiss me again!”

In wonder and fear Allie complied, now flushing scarlet.

“I — I was never so happy,” she whispered. “But Larry — you — you frighten me.... I—”

“Happy!” ejaculated Larry. Then he let her go and stood up, breathing hard. “There’s a hell of a lie heah somewheres — but it ain’t in you.”

“Larry, talk sense. I’m weak from long waiting. Oh, tell me of Neale!”

What a strange, curious, incomprehensible glance he gave her!

“Allie — Neale’s heah in Benton. I can take you to him in ten minutes. Do you want me to?”

“Want you to!... Reddy! I’ll die if you don’t take me — at once!” she cried, in anguish.

Again Larry loomed over her. This time he took her hands. “How long had you been heah — before I came?” he asked.

“Half an hour, perhaps; maybe less. But it seemed long.”

“Do you — know — what kind of a house you’re in — this heah room — what it means?” he went on, very low and huskily.

“No, I don’t,” she replied, instantly, with sudden curiosity. Questions and explanations rushed to her lips. But this strangely acting Larry dominated her.

“No other man — came in heah? I — was the first?”

“Yes.”

Then Larry King seemed to wrestle with — himself — with the hold drink had upon him — with that dark and sinister oppression so thick in the room. Allie thrilled to see his face grow soft and light up with the smile she remembered. How strange to feel in Larry King a spirit of gladness, of gratefulness for something beyond her understanding! Again he drew her close. And Allie, keen to read and feel him, wondered why he seemed to want to hide the sight of his face.

“Wal — I reckon — I was nigh onto bein’ drunk,” he said, haltingly. “Shore is a bad habit of mine — Allie.... Makes me think of a lot of — guff — jest the same as it makes me see snakes — an’ things.... I’ll quit drinkin’, Allie.... Never will touch liquor again — now if you’ll jest forgive.”

He spoke gently, huskily, with tears in his voice, and he broke off completely.

“Forgive! Larry, boy, there’s nothing to forgive — except your not hurrying me to — to him!”

She felt the same violent start in him. He held her a moment longer. Then, when he let go of her and stepped back Allie saw the cowboy as of old, cool and easy, yet somehow menacing, as he had been that day the strangers rode into Slingerland’s camp.

“Allie — thet woman Stanton locked you in heah?” queried Larry.

“Yes. Then she—”

Larry’s quick gesture enjoined silence. Stealthy steps sounded out in the hall. They revived Allie’s fear of Durade and his men. It struck her suddenly that Larry must be ignorant of the circumstances that had placed her there.

The cowboy unlocked the door — peeped out. As he turned, how clear and cold his blue eyes flashed!

“I’ll get you out of heah,” he whispered. “Come.”

They went out. The passage was empty. Allie clung closely to him. At the corner, where the halls met, he halted to listen. Only the low hum of voices came up.

“Larry, I must tell you,” whispered Allie. “Durade and his gang are after me. Fresno — Mull — Black — Dayss — you know them?”

“I — reckon,” he replied, swallowing hard. “My Gawd! you poor little girl! With that gang after you! An’ Stanton! I see all now.... She says to me, ‘Larry, I’ve a new girl heah’.... Wal, Beauty Stanton, thet was a bad deal for you — damn your soul!”

Trembling, Allie opened her lips to speak, but again the cowboy motioned her to be quiet. He need not have done it, for he suddenly seemed terrible, wild, deadly, rendering her mute.

“Allie if I call to you, duck behind me an’ hold on to me. I’ll take you out of heah.”

Then he put her on his left side and led her down the righthand passage toward the wide room Allie remembered. She looked on into the dance-hall. Larry did not hurry. He sauntered carelessly, yet Allie felt how intense he was. They reached the head of the stairway. The room was full of men and girls. The woman Stanton was there and, wheeling, she uttered a cry that startled Allie. Was this white, glaring-eyed, drawn-faced woman the one who had gone for Neale? Allie began to shake. She saw and heard with startling distinctness. The woman’s cry had turned every face toward the stairway, and the buzz of voices ceased.

Stanton ran to the stairway, started up, and halted, raising a white arm in passionate gesture.

“Where are you taking that girl?” she called, stridently.

Larry stepped down, drawing Allie with him. “I’m takin’ her to Neale.”

Stanton shrieked and waved her arms. Indeed, she seemed another woman from the one upon whose breast Allie had laid her head just a little while before.

“No, you won’t take her to Neale!” cried Stanton.

The cowboy stepped down slowly, guardedly, but he kept on. Allie saw men run out of the crowded dance-hall into the open space behind Stanton. Dark, hateful, well-remembered faces of Fresno — Mull — Black! Allie pressed the cowboy’s arm to warn him, and he, letting go of her, appeared to motion her behind him.

“Stanton! Get out of my way!” yelled Larry. His voice rang with a wild, ruthless note; it carried far and stiffened every figure except that of the frantic woman. With convulsed face, purple in its fury, and the hot eyes of a beast of prey she ran right up at the cowboy, heedless of the gun he held leveled low down.

He shot her. She swayed backward, uttering a low and horrible cry, and even as she swayed her face blanched and her eyes changed. She fell heavily, with her golden hair loosening and her bare white arms spreading wide. Then in the horror-stricken silence she lay there, still conscious, but with an awful hunted realization in the eyes fixed upon the cowboy, a great growing splotch of blood darkening the white of her dress.

Larry King did not look at Stanton and he kept moving down the steps; he was walking faster now, and he drew Allie behind him. The first of that stunned group to awake to action was the giant Fresno, as, with blind, unreasoning passion, he attempted to draw upon the cowboy. The boom of Larry’s big gun and the crash of Fresno as he fell woke the spellbound crowd into an uproar. Screaming women and shouting men rushed madly back into the dance-hall.

Larry turned toward the hallway leading to the street. Mull and Black began shooting as he turned, and hit him, for Allie, holding fast to him, felt the vibrating shock of his body. With two swift shots Larry killed both men. Mull fell across the width of the hall. And as Allie stumbled over his body she looked down to see his huge head, his ruddy face, and the great ox-eyes, rolling and ghastly. In that brief glance she saw him die.

The cowboy strode fast now. Allie, with hands clenched in his coat, clung desperately to him. Hollow booms of guns filled the passageway, and hoarse shouts of alarmed men sounded from the street. Burned powder smoke choked Allie. The very marrow of her bones seemed curdled. She saw the red belches of fire near and far; she passed a man floundering and bellowing on the floor; she felt Larry jerk back as if struck, and then something hot grazed her shoulder. A bullet had torn clear through him, from breast to back. He staggered, but he went on. Another man lay on the threshold of the wide door, his head down the step, and his pallid face blood-streaked. A smoking gun lay near his twitching hand. That pallid face belonged to Dayss.

Larry King staggered out into an empty street, looking up and down. “Wal, I reckon — thet’s — aboot — all!” he drawled, with low, strangled utterance.

Then swaying from side to side he strode swiftly, almost falling forward, holding tight to Allie. They drew away from the brighter lights. Allie was dimly aware of moving forms ahead and across the street. Once, fearfully, she looked back, to see if they were followed.

The cowboy halted, tottering against a house, He seemed pale and smiling.

“Run — Allie!” he whispered.

“No — no — no!” she replied, clinging to him. “You’re shot!... Oh, Larry — come on!”

“TELL — MY PARD — NEALE—”

His head fell back hard against the wood and his body, sagging, lodged there. Life had passed out of the gray face. Larry Red King died standing, with a gun in each hand, and the name of his friend the last word upon his lips.

“Oh, Larry — Larry!” moaned Allie.

She could not run. She could scarcely walk. Dark forms loomed up. Her strength failed, and as she reeled, sinking down, rude hands grasped her. Above her bent the gleaming face and glittering eyes of Durade.

CHAPTER 28

BEAUTY STANTON OPENED her eyes to see blue sky through the ragged vents of a worn-out canvas tent. An unusual quietness all around added to the strange unreality of her situation. She heard only a low, mournful seeping of wind-blown sand. Where was she? What had happened? Was this only a vivid, fearful dream?

She felt stiff, unable to move. Did a ponderous weight hold her down? Her body seemed immense, full of dull, horrible ache, and she had no sensation of lower limbs except a creeping cold.

Slowly she moved her eyes around. Yes, she was in a tent — an abandoned tent, old, ragged, dirty; and she lay on the bare ground. Through a wide tear in the canvas she saw a stretch of flat ground covered with stakes and boards and denuded frameworks and piles of debris. Then grim reality entered her consciousness. Benton was evacuated. Benton was depopulated. Benton — houses, tents, people — had moved away.

During her unconsciousness, perhaps while she had been thought dead, she had been carried to this abandoned tent. A dressing-gown covered her, the one she always put on in the first hours after arising. The white dress she had worn last night — was it last night? — still adorned her, but all her jewelry had been taken. Then she remembered being lifted to a couch and cried over by her girls, while awestruck men came to look at her and talk among themselves. But she had heard how the cowboy’s shot had doomed her — how he had fought his way out, only to fall dead in the street and leave the girl to be taken by Durade.

Now Beauty Stanton realized that she had been left alone in an abandoned tent of an abandoned camp — to die. She became more conscious then of dull physical agony. But neither fear of death nor thought of pain occupied her mind. That suddenly awoke to remorse. With the slow ebbing of her life evil had passed out. If she had been given a choice between the salvation of her soul and to have Neale with her in her last moments, to tell him the truth, to beg his forgiveness, to die in his arms, she would have chosen the latter. Would not some trooper come before she died, some one to whom she could intrust a message? Some grave-digger! For the great U. P. R. buried the dead it left in its bloody tracks!

With strange, numb hands Stanton searched the pockets of her dressing-gown, to find, at length, a little account-book with pencil attached. Then, with stiffened fingers, but acute mind, she began to write to Neale. As she wrote into each word went something of the pang, the remorse, the sorrow, the love she felt; and when that letter was ended she laid the little book on her breast and knew for the first time in many years — peace.

She endured the physical agony; she did not cry out, or complain, or repent, or pray. Most of the spiritual emotion and life left in her had gone into the letter. Memory called up only the last moments of her life — when she saw Ancliffe die; when she folded innocent Allie Lee to the breast that had always yearned for a child; when Neale in his monstrous stupidity had misunderstood her; when he had struck her before the grinning crowd, and in burning words branded her with the one name unpardonable to her class; when at the climax of a morbid and all-consuming hate, a hate of the ruined woman whose body and mind had absorbed the vile dregs, the dark fire and poison, of lustful men, she had inhumanly given Allie Lee to the man she had believed the wildest, most depraved, and most dangerous brute in all Benton; when this Larry King, by some strange fatality, becoming as great as he was wild, had stalked out to meet her like some red and terrible death.

She remembered now that strange, icy gloom and shudder she had always felt in the presence of the cowboy. Within her vitals now was the same cold, deadly, sickening sensation, and it was death. Always she had anticipated it, but vaguely, unrealizingly.

Larry King had lifted the burden of her life. She would have been glad — if only Neale had understood her! That was her last wavering conscious thought.

Now she drifted from human consciousness to the instinctive physical struggle of the animal to live, and that was not strong. There came a moment, the last, between life and death, when Beauty Stanton’s soul lingered on the threshold of its lonely and eternal pilgrimage, and then drifted across into the gray shadows, into the unknown, out to the great beyond.

Casey leaned on his spade while he wiped the sweat from his brow and regarded his ally McDermott. Between them yawned a grave they had been digging and near at hand lay a long, quiet form wrapped in old canvas.

“Mac, I’ll be domned if I loike this job,” said Casey, drawing hard at his black pipe.

“Yez want to be a directhor of the U. P. R., huh?” replied McDermott.

“Shure an’ I’ve did ivery job but run an ingine.... It’s imposed on we are, Mac. Thim troopers niver work. Why couldn’t they plant these stiffs?”

“Casey, I reckon no wan’s bossin’ us. Benton picked up an’ moved yistiday. An’ we’ll be goin’ soon wid the graveltrain. It’s only dacent of us to bury the remains of Benton. An’ shure yez ought to be glad to see that orful red-head cowboy go under the ground.”

“An’ fer why?” queried Casey.

“Didn’t he throw a gun on yez once an’ scare the daylights out of yez?”

“Mac, I wuz as cool as a coocumber. An’ as to buryin’ Larry King, I’m proud an’ sorry. He wuz Neale’s fri’nd.”

“My Gawd! but he wor chain lightnin’, Casey. They said he shot the woman Stanton, too.”

“Mac, thet wore a dom’ lie, I bet,” replied Casey. “He shot up Stanton’s hall, an’ a bullet from some of thim wot was foightin’ him must hev hit her.”

“Mebbe. But it wor bad bizness. That cowboy hit iviry wan of thim fellars in the same place. Shure, they niver blinked afther.”

“An’ Mac, the best an’ dirtiest job we’ve had on this,” Casey’s huge hand indicated a row of freshly filled graves, “U. P. was the plantin’ of thim fellars,” over which the desert sand was seeping. Then dropping his spade, he bent to the quiet figure.

“Lay hold, Mac,” he said.

They lowered the corpse into the hole. Casey stood up, making a sign of the cross before him.

“He wor a man!”

Then they filled the grave.

“Mac, wouldn’t it be dacent to mark where Larry King’s buried? A stone or wooden cross with his name?”

McDermott wrinkled his red brow and scratched his sandy beard. Then he pointed. “Casey, wot’s the use? See, the blowin’ sand’s kivered all the graves.”

“Mac, yez wor always hell at shirkin’ worrk. Come on, now, Drill, ye terrier, drill!”

They quickly dug another long, narrow hole. Then, taking a rude stretcher, they plodded away in the direction of a dilapidated tent that appeared to be the only structure left of Benton. Casey entered ahead of his comrade.

“Thot’s sthrange!”

“Wot?” queried McDermott.

“Didn’t yez kiver her face whin we laid her down here?”

“Shure an’ I did, Casey.”

“An’ that face has a different look now!... Mac, see here!”

Casey stooped to pick up a little book from the woman’s breast. His huge fingers opened it with difficulty.

“Mac, there’s wroitin’ in ut!” he exclaimed.

“Wal, rade, ye baboon.”

“Oh, I kin rade ut, though I ain’t much of a wroiter meself,” replied Casey, and then laboriously began to decipher the writing. He halted suddenly and looked keenly at McDermott.

“Wot the divil!... B’gorra, ut’s to me fri’nd Neale — an’ a love letter — an’—”

“Wal, kape it, thin, fer Neale an’ be dacent enough to rade no more.”

Lifting Beauty Stanton, they carried her out into the sunlight. Her white face was a shadowed and tragic record.

“Mac, she wor shure a handsome woman,” said Casey, “an’ a loidy.”

“Casey, yez are always sorry fer somebody.... Thot Stanton wuz a beauty an’ she mebbe wuz a loidy. But she wuz dom’ bad.”

“Mac, I knowed long ago thot the milk of human kindness hed curdled in yez. An’ yez hev no brains.”

“I’m as intilligint as yez any day,” retorted McDermott.

“Thin why hedn’t yez seen thot this poor woman was alive whin we packed her out here? She come to an’ writ thot letter to Neale — thin she doied!”

“My Gawd! Casey, yez ain’t meanin’ ut!” ejaculated McDermott, aghast.

Casey nodded grimly, and then he knelt to listen at Stanton’s breast. “Stone dead now — thot’s shure.”

For her shroud these deliberate men used strippings of canvas from the tent, and then, carrying her up the bare and sandy slope, they lowered her into the grave next to the one of the cowboy.

Again Casey made a sign of the cross. He worked longer at the filling in than his comrade, and patted the mound of sand hard and smooth. When he finished, his pipe was out. He relighted it.

“Wal, Beauty Stanton, shure yez hev a cleaner grave than yez hed a bed.... Nice white desert sand.... An’ prisintly no man will ivir know where yez come to lay.”

The laborers shouldered their spades and plodded away.

The wind blew steadily in from the desert seeping the sand in low, thin sheets. Afternoon waned, the sun sank, twilight crept over the barren waste. There were no sounds but the seep of sand, the moan of wind, the mourn of wolf. Loneliness came with the night that mantled Beauty Stanton’s grave. Shadows trooped in from the desert and the darkness grew black. On that slope the wind always blew, and always the sand seeped, dusting over everything, imperceptibly changing the surface of the earth. The desert was still at work. Nature was no respecter of graves. Life was nothing. Radiant, cold stars blinked pitilessly out of the vast blue-black vault of heaven. But there hovered a spirit beside this woman’s last resting-place — a spirit like the night, sad, lonely, silent, mystical, immense.

And as it hovered over hers so it hovered over other nameless graves.

In the eternal workshop of nature, the tenants of these unnamed and forgotten graves would mingle dust of good with dust of evil, and by the divinity of death resolve equally into the elements again.

The place that had known Benton knew it no more. Coyotes barked dismally down what had been the famous street of the camp and prowled in and out of the piles of debris and frames of wood. Gone was the low, strange roar that had been neither music nor mirth nor labor. Benton remained only a name.

The sun rose upon a squalid scene — a wide flat area where stakes and floors and frames mingled with all the flotsam and jetsam left by a hurried and profligate populace, moving on to another camp. Daylight found no man there nor any living creature. And all day the wind blew the dust and sheets of sand over the place where had reigned such strife of toil and gold and lust and blood and death. A train passed that day, out of which engineer and fireman gazed with wondering eyes at what had been Benton. Like a mushroom it had arisen, and like a dust-storm on the desert wind it had roared away, bearing its freight of labor, of passion, and of evil. Benton had become a name — a fabulous name.

But nature seemed more merciful than life. For it began to hide what man had left — the scars of habitations where hell had held high carnival. Sunset came, then night and the starlight. The lonely hours were winged, as if in a hurry to resolve back into the elements the flimsy remains of that great camp.

And that spot was haunted.

CHAPTER 29

CASEY LEFT BENTON on the work-train. It was composed of a long string of box — and flat-cars loaded with stone, iron, gravel, ties — all necessaries for the up-keep of the road. The engine was at the rear end, pushing instead of pulling; and at the extreme front end there was a flat-car loaded with gravel. A number of laborers rode on this car, among whom was Casey. In labor or fighting this Irishman always gravitated to the fore.

All along the track, from outside of Benton to the top of a long, slow rise of desert were indications of the fact that Indians had torn up the track or attempted to derail trains.

The signs of Sioux had become such an every-day matter in the lives of the laborers that they were indifferent and careless. Thus isolated, unprotected groups of men, out some distance from the work-train, often were swooped down upon by Indians and massacred.

The troopers had gone on with the other trains that carried Benton’s inhabitants and habitations.

Casey and his comrades had slow work of it going westward, as it was necessary to repair the track and at the same time to keep vigilant watch for the Sioux. They expected the regular train from the east to overtake them, but did not even see its smoke. There must have been a wreck or telegraph messages to hold it back at Medicine Bow.

Toward sunset the work-train reached the height of desert land that sloped in long sweeping lines down to the base of the hills.

At this juncture a temporary station had been left in the shape of several box-cars where the telegraph operators and a squad of troopers lived.

As the work-train lumbered along to the crest of this heave of barren land Casey observed that some one at the station was excitedly waving a flag. Thereupon Casey, who acted as brakeman, signaled the engineer.

“Dom’ coorious that,” remarked Casey to his comrade McDermott. “Thim operators knowed we’d stop, anyway.”

That was the opinion of the several other laborers on the front car. And when the work-train halted, that car had run beyond the station a few rods. Casey and his comrades jumped off.

A little group of men awaited them. The operator, a young fellow named Collins, was known to Casey. He stood among the troopers, pale-faced and shaking.

“Casey, who’s in charge of the train?” he asked, nervously.

The Irishman’s grin enlarged, making it necessary for him to grasp his pipe.

“Shure the engineer’s boss of the train an’ I’m boss of the gang.”

More of the work-train men gathered round the group, and the engineer with his fireman approached.

“You’ve got to hold up here,” said Collins.

Casey removed his pipe to refill it. “Ah-huh!” he grunted.

“Wire from Medicine Bow — order to stop General Lodge’s train — three hundred Sioux in ambush near this station — Lodge’s train between here and Roaring City,” breathlessly went on the operator.

“An’ the message come from Medicine Bow!” ejaculated Casey, while his men gaped and muttered.

“Yes. It must have been sent here last night. But O’Neil, the night operator, was dead. Murdered by Indians while we slept.”

“Thot’s hell!” replied Casey, seriously, as he lit his pipe.

“The message went through to Medicine Bow. Stacey down there sent it back to me. I tried to get Hills at Roaring City. No go! The wire’s cut!”

“An’ shure the gineral’s train has left — wot’s that new camp — Roarin’ wot?”

“Roaring City.... General Lodge went through two days ago with a private train. He had soldiers, as usual. But no force to stand off three hundred Sioux, or even a hundred.”

“Wal, the gineral must hev lift Roarin’ City — else thot message niver would hev come.”

“So I think.... Now what on earth can we do? The engineer of his train can’t stop for orders short of this station, for the reason that there are no stations.”

“An’ thim Sooz is in ambush near here?” queried Casey, reflectively. “Shure thot could only be in wan place. I rimimber thot higher, narrer pass.”

“Right. It’s steep up-grade coming east. Train can be blocked. General Lodge with his staff and party — and his soldiers — would be massacred without a chance to fight. That pass always bothered us for fear of ambush. Now the Sioux have come west far enough to find it.... No chance on earth for a train there — not if it carried a thousand soldiers.”

“Wal, if the gineral an’ company was sthopped somewhere beyond thot pass?” queried Casey, shrewdly, as he took a deep pull at his pipe.

“Then at least they could fight. They have stood off attacks before. They might hold out for the train following, or even run back.”

“Thin, Collins, we’ve only got to sthop the gineral’s train before it reaches thot dom’ trap.”

“But we can’t!” cried Collins. “The wire is cut. It wouldn’t help matters if it weren’t. I thought when I saw your train we might risk sending the engine on alone. But your engine is behind all these loaded cars. No switch. Oh, it is damnable!”

“Collins, there’s more domnable things than yez ever heerd of.... I’ll sthop Gineral Lodge!”

The brawny Irishman wheeled and strode back toward the front car of the train. All the crowd, — to a man, muttering and gaping, followed him. Casey climbed up on the gravel-car.

“Casey, wot in hell would yez be afther doin’?” demanded McDermott.

Casey grinned at his old comrade. “Mac, yez do me a favor. Uncouple the car.”

McDermott stepped between the cars and the rattle and clank of iron told that he had complied with Casey’s request. Collins, with all the men on the ground, grasped Casey’s idea.

“By God! Casey can you do it? There’s down-grade for twenty miles. Once start this gravel-car and she’ll go clear to the hills. But — but—”

“Collins, it’ll be aisy. I’ll slip through thot pass loike oil. Thim Sooz won’t be watchin’ this way. There’s a curve. They won’t hear till too late. An’ shure they don’t niver obsthruct a track till the last minute.”

“But, Casey, once through the pass you can’t control that gravel-car. The brakes won’t hold. You’ll run square into the general’s train — wreck it!”

“Naw! I’ve got a couple of ties, an’ if thot wreck threatens I’ll heave a tie off on the track an’ derail me private car.”

“Casey, it’s sure death!” exclaimed Collins. His voice and the pallor of his face and the beads of sweat all proclaimed him new to the U. P. R.

“Me boy, nothin’s shure whin yez are drillin’ with the Paddies.”

Casey was above surprise and beyond disdain. He was a huge, toil-hardened, sun-reddened, hard-drinking soldier of the railroad, a loquacious Irishman whose fixed grin denied him any gravity, a foreman of his gang. His chief delight was to outdo his bosom comrade, McDermott. He did not realize that he represented an unconquerable and unquenchable spirit. Neither did his comrade know. But under Casey’s grin shone something simple, radiant, hard as steel.

“Put yer shoulders ag’in’ an’ shove me off,” he ordered.

Like automatons the silent laborers started the car.

“Drill, ye terriers, drill! Drill, ye terriers, drill!” sang Casey, as he stood at the wheel-brake.

The car gathered momentum. McDermott was the last to let go.

“Good luck to yez!” he shouted, hoarsely.

“Mac, tell thim yez saw me!” called Casey. Then he waved his hand in good-by to the crowd. Their response was a short, ringing yell. They watched the car glide slowly out of sight.

For a few moments Casey was more concerned with the fact that a breeze had blown out his pipe than with anything else. Skilful as years had made him, he found unusual difficulty in relighting it, and he would not have been beyond stopping the car to accomplish that imperative need. When he had succeeded and glanced back the station was out of sight.

Casey fixed his eyes upon the curve of the track ahead where it disappeared between the sage-covered sandy banks. Here the grade was scarcely perceptible to any but experienced eyes. And the gravel-car crept along as if it would stop any moment. But Casey knew that it was not likely to stop, and if it did he could start it again. A heavy-laden car like this, once started, would run a long way on a very little grade. What worried him was the creaking and rattle of wheels, sounds that from where he stood were apparently very loud.

He turned the curve into a stretch of straight track where there came a perceptible increase in the strength of the breeze against his face. While creeping along at this point he scooped out a hole in the gravel mound on the car, making a place that might afford some protection from Indian bullets and arrows. That accomplished, he had nothing to do but hold on to the wheel-brake, and gaze ahead.

It seemed a long time before the speed increased sufficiently to insure him against any danger of a stop. The wind began to blow his hair and whip away the smoke of his pipe. And the car began to cover distance. Several miles from the station he entered the shallow mouth of a gully where the grade increased. His speed accelerated correspondingly until he was rolling along faster than a man could run. The track had been built on the right bank of the gully which curved between low bare hills, and which grew deeper and of a rougher character. Casey had spiked many of the rails over which he passed.

He found it necessary to apply the brake so that he would not take the sharp curves at dangerous speed. The brake did not work well and gave indications that it would not stand a great deal. With steady, rattling creak, and an occasional clank, the car rolled on.

If Casey remembered the lay of the land, there was a long, straight stretch of track, ending in several curves, the last of which turned sharply into the narrow cut where the Sioux would ambush and obstruct the train. At this point it was Casey’s intention to put off the brake and let his car run wild.

It seemed an endless time before he reached the head of that stretch. Then he let go of the wheel. And the gravel-car began to roll on faster.

Casey appeared to be grimly and conscientiously concerned over his task, and he was worried about the outcome. He must get his car beyond that narrow cut. If it jumped the track or ran into an obstruction, or if the Sioux spied him in time, then his work would not be well done. He welcomed the gathering momentum, yet was fearful of the curve he saw a long distance ahead. When he reached that he would be going at a high rate of speed — too fast to take the curve safely.

A little dimness came to Casey’s eyes. Years of hot sun and dust and desert wind had not made his eyes any stronger. The low gray walls, the white bleached rocks, the shallow stream of water, the fringe of brush, and the long narrowing track — all were momentarily indistinct in his sight. His breast seemed weighted. Over and over in his mind revolved the several possibilities that awaited him at the cut, and every rod of the distance now added to his worry. It grew to be dread. Chances were against him. The thing intrusted to him was not in his control. Casey resented this. He had never failed at a job. The U. P. R. had to be built — and who could tell? — if the chief engineer and all his staff and the directors of the road were massacred by the Sioux, perhaps that might be a last and crowning catastrophe.

Casey had his first cold thrill. And his nerves tightened for the crisis, while his horny hands gripped on the brake. The car was running wild, with a curve just ahead. It made an unearthly clatter. The Indians would hear that. But they would have to be swift, if he stayed on the track. Almost before he realized it the car lurched at the bend. Casey felt the off-side wheels leave the rail, heard the scream of the inside wheels grinding hard. But for his grip on the wheel he would have been thrown. The wind whistled in his ears. With a sudden lurch the car seemed to rise. Casey thought it had jumped the track. But it banged back, righted itself, rounded the curve.

Here the gully widened — sent off branches. Casey saw hundreds of horses — but not an Indian. He rolled swiftly on, crossed a bridge, and saw more horses. His grim anticipation became a reality. The Sioux were in the ambush. What depended on him and his luck! Casey’s red cheek blanched, but it was not with fear for himself. Not yet on this ride had he entertained one thought concerning his own personal relation to its fragile possibilities.

To know the Sioux were there made a tremendous difference. A dark and terrible sternness actuated Casey. He projected his soul into that clattering car of iron and wood. And it was certain he prayed. His hair stood straight up. There! the narrow cut in the hill! the curve of the track! He was pounding at it. The wheels shrieked. Looking up, he saw only the rocks and gray patches of brush and the bare streak of earth. No Indian showed.

His gaze strained to find an obstruction on the track. The car rode the curve on two wheels. It seemed alive. It entered the cut with hollow, screeching roar. The shade of the narrow place was gloomy. Here! It must happen! Casey’s heart never lifted its ponderous weight. Then, shooting round the curve, he saw an open track and bright sunlight beyond.

Above the roar of wheels sounded spatting reports of rifles. Casey forgot to dodge into his gravel shelter. He was living a strange, dragging moment — an age. Out shot the car into the light. Likewise Casey’s dark blankness of mind ended. His heart lifted with a mighty throb. There shone the gray endless slope, stretching out and down to the black hills in the distance. Shrill wild yells made Casey wheel. The hillside above the cut was colorful and spotted with moving objects. Indians! Puffs of white smoke arose. Casey felt the light impact of lead. Glancing bright streaks darted down. They were arrows. Two thudded into the gravel, one into the wood. Then something tugged at his shoulder. Another arrow! Suddenly the shaft was there in his sight, quivering in his flesh. It bit deep. With one wrench he tore it out and shook it aloft at the Sioux. “Oh bate yez dom’ Sooz!” he yelled, in fierce defiance. The long screeching clamor of baffled rage and the scattering volley of rifle-shots kept up until the car passed out of range.

Casey faced ahead. The Sioux were behind him. He had a free track. Far down the gray valley, where the rails disappeared, were low streaks of black smoke from a locomotive. The general’s train was coming.

The burden of worry and dread that had been Casey’s was now no more — vanished as if by magic. His job had not yet been completed, but he had won. He never glanced back at the Sioux. They had failed in their first effort at ambushing the cut, and Casey knew the troops would prevent a second attempt. Casey faced ahead. The whistle of wind filled his ears, the dry, sweet odor of the desert filled his nostrils. His car was on a straight track, rolling along down-grade, half a mile a minute. And Casey, believing he might do well to slow up gradually, lightly put on the brake. But it did not hold. He tried again. The brake had broken.

He stood at the wheel, his eyes clear now, watching ahead. The train down in the valley was miles away, not yet even a black dot in the gray. The smoke, however, began to lift.

Casey was suddenly struck by a vague sense that something was wrong with him.

“Phwat the hell!” he muttered. Then his mind, strangely absorbed, located the trouble. His pipe had gone out! Casey stooped in the hole he had made in the gravel, and there, knocking his pipe in his palm, he found the ashes cold. When had that ever happened before? Casey wagged his head. For his pipe to go cold and he not to know! Things were happening on the U. P. R. these days. Casey refilled his pipe, and, with the wind whistling over him, he relit it. He drew deep and long, stood up, grasped the wheel, and felt all his blood change.

“Me poipe goin’ cold — that wor funny!” soliloquized Casey.

The phenomenon appeared remarkable to him. Indeed, it stood alone. He measured the nature of this job by that forgetfulness. And memories thrilled him. With his eye clear on the track that split the gray expanse, with his whole being permeated by the soothing influence of smoke, with his task almost done, Casey experienced an unprecedented thing for him — he lived over past performances and found them vivid, thrilling, somehow sweet. Battles of the Civil War; the day he saved a flag; and, better, the night he saved Pat Shane, who had lived only to stop a damned Sioux bullet; many and many an adventure with McDermott, who, just a few minutes past, had watched him with round, shining eyes; and the fights he had seen and shared — all these things passed swiftly through Casey’s mind and filled him with a lofty and serene pride.

He was pleased with himself; more pleased with what McDermott would think. Casey’s boyhood did not return to him, but his mounting exhilaration and satisfaction were boyish. It was great to ride this way!... There! he saw a long, black dot down in the gray. The train!... General Lodge had once shaken hands with Casey.

Somebody had to do these things, since the U. P. R. must reach across to the Pacific. A day would come when a splendid passenger-train would glide smoothly down this easy grade where Casey jolted along on his gravel-car. The fact loomed large in the simplicity of the Irishman’s mind. He began to hum his favorite song. Facing westward, he saw the black dot grow into a long train. Likewise he saw the beauty of the red-gold sunset behind the hills. Casey gloried in the wildness of the scene — in the meaning of his ride — particularly in his loneliness. He seemed strangely alone there on that vast gray slope — a man and somehow accountable for all these things. He felt more than he understood. His long-tried nerves and courage and strength had never yielded this wonderful buoyancy and sense of loftiness. He was Casey — Casey who had let all the gang run for shelter from the Sioux while he had remained for one last and final drive at a railroad spike. But the cool, devil-may-care indifference, common to all his comrades as well as to himself, was not the strongest factor in the Casey of to-day. Up out of the rugged and dormant soul had burst the spirit of a race embodied in one man. Casey was his own audience, and the light upon him was the glory of the setting sun. A nightingale sang in his heart, and he realized that this was his hour. Here the bloody, hard years found their reward. Not that he had ever wanted one or thought of one, but it had come — out of the toil, the pain, the weariness. So his nerves tingled, his pulses beat, his veins glowed, his heart throbbed; and all the new, sweet, young sensations of a boy wildly reveling in the success of his first great venture, all the vague, strange, deep, complex emotions of a man who has become conscious of what he is giving to the world — these shook Casey by storm, and life had no more to give. He knew that, whatever he was, whatever this incomprehensible driving spirit in him, whatever his unknown relation to man and to duty, there had been given him in the peril just passed, in this wonderful ride, a gift splendid and divine.

Casey rolled on, and the train grew plain in his sight. When perhaps several miles of track lay between him and the approaching engine, he concluded it was time to get ready. Lifting one of the heavy ties, he laid it in front where he could quickly shove it off with his foot.

Then he stood up. It was certain that he looked backward, but at no particular thing — just an instinctive glance. With his foot on the tie he steadied himself so that he could push it off and leap instantly after.

And at that moment he remembered the little book he had found on Beauty Stanton’s breast, and which contained the letter to his friend Neale. Casey deliberated in spite of the necessity for haste. Then he took the book from his pocket.

“B’gorra, yez niver can tell, an’ thim U. P. R. throopers hev been known to bury a mon widout searchin’ his pockets,” he said.

And he put the little book between the teeth that held his pipe. Then he shoved off the tie and leaped.

CHAPTER 30

NEALE, AGHAST AND full of bitter amaze and shame at himself, fled from the gambling-hall where he had struck Beauty Stanton. How beside himself with rage and torture he had been! That woman to utter Allie Lee’s name! Inconceivable! Could she know his story?

He tramped the dark streets, and the exercise and the cool wind calmed him. Then the whistle of an engine made him decide to leave Benton at once, on the first train out. Hurriedly he got his baggage and joined the throng which even at that late hour was making for the station.

A regret that was pain burned deep in him — somehow inexplicable. He, like other men, had done things that must be forgotten. What fatality in the utterance of a single name — what power to flay!

From a window of an old coach he looked out upon the dim lights and pale tent shapes.

“The last — of Benton!... Thank God!” he murmured, brokenly. Well he realized how Providence had watched over him there. And slowly the train moved out upon the dark, windy desert.

It took Neale nearly forty-eight hours to reach the new camp — Roaring City. A bigger town than Benton had arisen, and more was going up — tents and clapboard houses, sheds and cabins — the same motley jumble set under beetling red Utah bluffs.

Neale found lodgings. Being without food or bed or wash for two days and nights was not helpful to the task he must accomplish — the conquering of his depression. He ate and slept long, and the following day he took time to make himself comfortable and presentable before he sallied forth to find the offices of the engineer corps. Then he walked on as directed, and heard men talking of Indian ambushes and troops.

When at length he reached the headquarters of the engineer corps he was greeted with restraint by his old officers and associates; was surprised and at a loss to understand their attitude.

Even in General Lodge there was a difference. Neale gathered at once that something had happened to put out of his chief’s mind the interest that officer surely must have in Neale’s trip to Washington. And after greeting him, the first thing General Lodge said gave warrant to the rumors of trouble with Indians.

“My train was to have been ambushed at Deep Cut,” he explained. “Big force of Sioux. We were amazed to find them so far west. It would have been a massacre — but for Casey.... We have no particulars yet, for the wire is cut. But we know what Casey did. He ran the gantlet of the Indians through that cut.... He was on a gravel-car running wild down-hill. You know the grade, Neale.... Of course his intention was to hold up my train — block us before we reached the ambushed cut. There must have been a broken brake, for he derailed the car not half a mile ahead of us. My engineer saw the runaway flat-car and feared a collision.... Casey threw a railroad tie — on the track — in front of him.... We found him under the car — crushed — dying—”

General Lodge’s voice thickened and slowed a little. He looked down. His face appeared quite pale.

Neale began to quiver in the full presaging sense of a revelation.

“My engineer, Tom Daley, reached Casey’s side just the instant before he died,” said General Lodge, resuming his story. “In fact, Daley was the only one of us who did see Casey alive.... Casey’s last words were ‘ambush — Sooz—’ Deep Cut,’ and then ‘me fri’nd Neale!’... We were at a loss to understand what he meant — that is, at first. We found Casey with this little note-book and his pipe tight between his teeth.”

The chief gave the note-book to Neale, who received it with a trembling hand.

“You can see the marks of Casey’s teeth in the leather. It was difficult to extract the book. He held on like grim death. Oh! Casey was grim death.... We could not pull his black pipe out at all. We left it between his set jaws, where it always had been — where it belonged.... I ordered him interred that way.... So they buried him out there along the track.” The chief’s low voice ceased, and he stood motionless a moment, his brow knotted, his eyes haunted, yet bright with a glory of tribute to a hero.

Neale heard the ticking of a watch and the murmur of the street outside. He felt the soft little note-book in his hand. And the strangest sensation shuddered over him. He drew his breath sharply.

When General Lodge turned again to face him, Neale saw him differently — aloof, somehow removed, indistinct.

“Casey meant that note-book for you,” said the general, “It belonged to the woman, Beauty Stanton. It contained a letter, evidently written while she was dying.... This developed when Daley began to read aloud. We all heard. The instant I understood it was a letter intended for you I took the book. No more was read. We were all crowded round Daley — curious, you know. There were visitors on my train — and your enemy Lee. I’m sorry — but, no matter. You see it couldn’t be helped.... That’s all....”

Neale was conscious of calamity. It lay in his hand. “Poor old Casey!” he murmured. Then he remembered. Stanton dying! What had happened? He could not trust himself to read that message before Lodge, and, bowing, he left the room. But he had to grope his way through the lobby, so dim had become his sight. By the time he reached the street he had lost his self-control. Something burnt his hand. It was the little leather note-book. He had not the nerve to open it. What had been the implication in General Lodge’s strange words?

He gazed with awe at the tooth-marks on the little book. How had Casey come by anything of Beauty Stanton’s? Could it be true that she was dead?

Then again he was accosted in the street. A heavy hand, a deep voice arrested his progress. His eyes, sweeping up from the path, saw fringed and beaded buckskin, a stalwart form, a bronzed and bearded face, and keen, gray eyes warm with the light of gladness. He was gripped in hands of iron.

“Son! hyar you air — an’ it’s the savin’ of me!” exclaimed a deep, familiar voice.

“Slingerland!” cried Neale, and he grasped his old friend as a drowning man at an anchor-rope. “My God! What will happen next?... Oh, I’m glad to find you!... All these years! Slingerland, I’m in trouble!”

“Son, I reckon I know,” replied the other.

Neale shivered. Why did men look at him so? This old trapper had too much simplicity, too big a heart, to hide his pity.

“Come! Somewhere — out of the crowd!” cried Neale, dragging at Slingerland. “Don’t talk. Don’t tell me anything. Wait!... I’ve a letter here — that’s going to be hell!”

Neale stumbled along out of the crowded street, he did not know where, and with death in his soul he opened Beauty Stanton’s book. And he read:

You called me that horrible name. You struck me. You’ve killed me. I lie here dying. Oh, Neale! I’m dying — and I loved you. I came to you to prove it. If you had not been so blind — so stupid! My prayer is that some one will see this I’m writing — and take it to you.

Ancliffe brought your sweetheart, Allie Lee, to me — to hide her from Durade. He told me to find you and then he died. He had been stabbed in saving her from Durade’s gang. And Hough, too, was killed.

Neale, I looked at Allie Lee, and then I understood your ruin. You fool! She was not dead, but alive. Innocent and sweet like an angel! Ah, the wonder of it in Benton! Neale, she did not know — did not feel the kind of a woman I am. She changed me — crucified me. She put her face on my breast. And I have that touch with me now, blessed, softening.

I locked her in a room and hurried out to find you. For the first time in years I had a happy moment. I understood why you had never cared for me. I respected you. Then I would have gone to hell for you. It was my joy that you must owe your happiness to me — that I would be the one to give you back Allie Lee and hope, and the old, ambitious life. Oh, I gloried in my power. It was sweet. You would owe every kiss of hers, every moment of pride, to the woman you had repulsed. That was to be my revenge.

And I found you, and in the best hour of my bitter life — when I had risen above the woman of shame, above thought of self — then you, with hellish stupidity, imagined I was seeking you — YOU for myself! Your annoyance, your scorn, robbed me of my wits. I could not tell you. I could only speak her name and bid you come.

You branded me before that grinning crowd, you struck me! And the fires of hell — MY hell — burst in my heart. I ran out of there — mad to kill your soul — to cause you everlasting torment. I swore I would give that key of Allie Lee’s room to the first man who entered my house.

The first man was Larry Red King. He was drunk. He looked wild. I welcomed him. I sent him to her room.

But Larry King was your friend. I had forgotten that. He came out with her. He was sober and terrible. Like the mad woman that I was I rushed at him to tear her away. He shot me. I see his eyes now. But oh, thank God, he shot me! It was a deliverance.

I fell on the stairs, but I saw that flaming-faced devil kill four of Durade’s men. He got Allie Lee out. Later I heard he had been killed and that Durade had caught the girl.

Neale, hurry to find her. Kill that Spaniard. No man could tell why he has spared her, but I tell you he will not spare her long.

Don’t ever forget Hough or Ancliffe or that terrible cowboy. Ancliffe’s death was beautiful. I am cold. It’s hard to write. All is darkening. I hear the moan of wind. Forgive me! Neale, the difference between me and Allie Lee — is a good man’s love. Men are blind to woman’s agony. She laid her cheek here — on my breast. I — who always wanted a child. I shall die alone. No — I think God is here. There is some one! After all, I was a woman. Neale forgive —

CHAPTER 31

“WOR I THERE?” echoed McDermott, as he wiped the clammy sweat from his face. “B’gosh, I wor!”

It was half-past five. There appeared to be an unusual number of men on the street, not so hurried and business-like and merry as generally, and given to collecting in groups, low-voiced and excited.

General Lodge drew McDermott inside. “Come. You need a bracer. Man, you look sick,” he said.

At the bar McDermott’s brown and knotty hand shook as he lifted a glass and gulped a drink of whisky.

“Gineral, I ain’t the mon I wuz,” complained McDermott. “Casey’s gone! An’ we had hell wid the Injuns gittin’ here. An’ thin jest afther I stepped off the train — it happened.”

“What happened? I’ve heard conflicting reports. My men are out trying to get news. Tell me, Sandy,” replied the general, eagerly.

“Afther hearin’ of Casey’s finish I was shure needin’ stimulants,” began the Irishman. “An’ prisintly I drhopped into that Durade’s Palace. I had my drink, an’ thin went into the big room where the moosic wuz. It shure wuz a palace. A lot of thim swells with frock-coats wuz there. B’gorra they ain’t above buckin’ the tiger. Some of thim I knew. That Misther Lee, wot wuz once a commissioner of the U. P., he wor there with a party of friends.

“An’ I happened to be close by thim whin a gurl come out. She was shure purty. But thot sad! Her eyes wor turrible hauntin’, an’ roight off I wanted to start a foight. She wor lookin’ fer Durade, as I seen afterwards.

“Wal, the minnit that Lee seen the gurl he acted strange. I wuz standin’ close an’ I went closer. ‘Most exthraordinary rezemblance,’ he kept sayin’. An’ thin he dug into his vest fer a pocket-book, an’ out of that he took a locket. He looked at it — thin at the little gurl who looked so sad. Roight off he turned the color of a sheet. ‘Gintlemen, look!’ he sez. They all looked, an’ shure wuz sthruck with somethin’.

“‘Gintlemen,’ sez Lee, ‘me wife left me years ago — ran off West wid a gambler. If she iver hed a child — thot gurl is thot child. Fer she’s the livin’ image of me wife nineteen years ago!’

“Some of thim laughed at him — some of thim stared. But Lee wuz dead in earnest an’ growin’ more excited ivery min nit. I heerd him mutter low: ‘My Gawd! it can’t be! Her child!... In a gamblin’ hell! But that face!... Ah! where else could I expect the child of such a mother?’

“An’ Lee went closer to where the gurl was waitin’. His party follered an’ I follered too.... Jest whin the moosic sthopped an’ the gurl looked up — thin she seen Lee. Roight out he sthepped away from the crowd. He wuz whiter ‘n a ghost. An’ the gurl she seemed paralyzed. Sthrange it wor to see how she an’ him looked alike thin.

“The crowd seen somethin’ amiss, an’ went quiet, starin’ an’ nudgin’.... Gineral, dom’ me if the gurl’s face didn’t blaze. I niver seen the loike. An’ she sthepped an’ come straight fer Lee. An’ whin she sthopped she wuz close enough to touch him. Her eyes wor great burnin’ holes an’ her face shone somethin’ wonderful.

“Lee put up a shakin’ hand.

“‘Gurl,’ he sez, ‘did yez iver hear of Allison Lee?’

“An’ all her seemed to lift.

“‘He is my father!’ she cried. ‘I am Allie Lee!’

“Ah! thin that crowd wuz split up by a mon wot hurried through. He wuz a greaser — one of thim dandies on dress an’ diamonds — a handsome, wicked-lookin’ gambler. Seein’ the gurl, he snarled, ‘Go back there!’ an’ he pointed. She niver even looked at him.

“Some wan back of me sez thot’s Durade. Wal, it was! An’ sudden he seen who the gurl wuz watchin’ — Lee.

“Thot Durade turned green an’ wild-eyed an’ stiff. But thot couldn’t hould a candle to Lee. Shure he turned into a fiend. He bit out a Spanish name, nothin’ loike Durade.

“An’ loike a hissin’ snake Durade sez, ‘Allison Lee!’

“Thin there wuz a dead-lock between thim two men, wid the crowd waitin’ fer hell to pay. Life-long inimies, sez I, to meself, an’ I hed the whole story.

“Durade began to limber up. Any man what knows a greaser would have been lookin’ fer blood. ‘She — wint — back — to yez!’ panted Durade.

“‘No — thief — Spanish dog! I have not seen her for nineteen years,’ sez Lee.

“The gurl spoke up: ‘Mother is dead! Killed by Injuns!’

“Thin Lee cried out, ‘Did she leave HIM?’

“‘Yes, she did,’ sez the gurl. ‘She wuz goin’ back. Home! Takin’ me home. But the caravan wuz attacked by Injuns. An’ all but me wor massacred.”

“Durade cut short the gurl’s spache. If I iver seen a reptoile it wuz thin.

“‘Lee, they both left me,’ he hisses. ‘I tracked them. I lost the mother, but caught the daughter.’

“Thin thot Durade lost his spache fer a minnit, foamin’ at the mouth wid rage. If yez niver seen a greaser mad thin yez niver seen the rale thin’. His face changed yaller an’ ould an’ wrinkled, wid spots of red. His lip curled up loike a wolf’s, an’ his eyes — they wint down to little black points of hell’s fire. He wuz crazy.

“‘Look at her!’ he yelled. ‘Allie Lee! Flesh an’ blood yez can’t deny! Her baby!... An’ she’s been my slave — my dog to beat an’ kick! She’s been through Benton! A toy fer the riff-raff of the camps!... She’s as vile an’ black an’ lost as her treacherous mother!’

“Allison Lee shrunk under thot shame. But the gurl! Lord! she niver looked wot she was painted by thot devil. She stood white an’ still, like an angel above judgment.

“Durade drew one of thim little derringers. An’ sudden he hild it on Lee, hissin’ now in his greaser talk. I niver seen sich hellish joy on a human face. Murder was nothin’ to thot look.

“Jist thin I seen Neale an’ Slingerland, an’, by Gawd! I thought I’d drop. They seemed to loom up. The girl screamed wild-loike an’ she swayed about to fall. Neale leaped in front of Lee.

“‘Durade!’ he spit out, an’ dom’ me if I didn’t expect to see the roof fly off.”

McDermott wiped his moist face and tipped his empty glass to his lips, and swallowed hard. His light-blue eyes held a glint.

“Gineral,” he went on, “yez know Neale. How big he is! Wot nerve he’s got! There niver wor a mon his equal on the U. P. ‘ceptin’ Casey.... But me, nor any wan, nor yez, either, ever seen Neale loike he wuz thin. He niver hesitated an inch, but wint roight fer Durade. Any dom’ fool, even a crazy greaser, would hev seen his finish in Neale. Durade changed quick from hot to cold. An’ he shot Neale.

“Neale laughed. Funny ringin’ sort of laugh, full of thot same joy Durade hed sung out to Lee. Hate an’ love of blood it wor. Yez would hev thought Neale felt wonderful happy to sthop a bullet.

“Thin his hand shot out an’ grabbed Durade.... He jerked him off his feet an’ swung him round. The little derringer flew, an’ Sandy McDermott wuz the mon who picked it up. It’ll be Neale’s whin I see him.... Durade jabbered fer help. But no wan come. Thot big trapper Slingerland stood there with two guns, an’ shure he looked bad. Neale slung Durade around, spillin’ some fellars who didn’t dodge quick, an’ thin he jerked him up backwards.

“An’ Durade come up with a long knife in the one hand he had free.

“Neale yelled, ‘Lee, take the gurl out!’

“I seen thin she hed fainted in Lee’s arms. He lifted her — moved away — an’ thin I seen no more of thim.

“Durade made wild an’ wicked lunges at Neale, only to be jerked off his balance. I heerd the bones crack in the arm Neale held. The greaser screamed. Sudden he wuz turned agin, an’ swung backwards so thot Neale grabbed the other arm — the wan wot held the knife. It wuz a child in the grasp of a giant. Neale shure looked beautiful, I niver wished so much in me loife fer Casey as thin. He would hev enjoyed thot foight, fer he bragged of his friendship fer Neale. An’—”

“Go on, man, end your story!” ordered the general, breathlessly.

“Wal, b’gorra, there wuz more crackin’ of bones, an’ sich screams as I niver heerd from a mon. Tumble, blood-curdlin’!... Neale held both Durade’s hands an’ wuz squeezin’ thot knife-handle so the greaser couldn’t let go.

“Thin Neale drew out thot hand of Durade’s — the wan wot held the knife — an’ made Durade jab himself, low down!... My Gawd! how thot jenteel Spaniard howled! I seen the blade go in an’ come out red. Thin Slingerland tore thim apart, an’ the greaser fell. He warn’t killed. Mebbe he ain’t goin’ to croak. But he’ll shure hev to l’ave Roarin’ City, an he’ll shure be a cripple fer loife.”

McDermott looked at the empty glass.

“That’s all, Gineral. An’ if it’s jist the same to yez I’ll hev another drink.”

CHAPTER 32

THE MERE SIGHT of Warren Neale had transformed life for Allie Lee. The shame of being forced to meet degraded men, the pain from Durade’s blows, the dread that every hour he would do the worst by her or kill her, the sudden and amazing recognition between her and her father — these became dwarfed and blurred in the presence of the glorious truth that Neale was there.

She had recognized him with reeling senses and through darkening eyes. She had seen him leap before her father to confront that glittering-eyed Durade. She had neither fear for him nor pity for the Spaniard.

Sensations of falling, of being carried, of the light and dust and noise of the street, of men around her, of rooms and the murmur of voices, of being worked over and spoken to by a kindly woman, of swallowing what was put to her mouth, of answering questions, of letting other clothes be put upon her; she was as if in a trance, aware of all going on about her, but with consciousness riveted upon one stunning fact — his presence. When she was left alone this state gradually wore away, and there remained a throbbing, quivering suspense of love. Her despair had ended. The spirit that had upheld her through all the long, dark hours had reached its fulfilment.

She lay on a couch in a small room curtained off from another, the latter large and light, and from which came a sound of low voices. She heard the quick tread of men; a door opened.

“Lee, I congratulate you. A narrow escape!” exclaimed a deep voice, with something sharp, authoritative in it.

“General Lodge, it was indeed a narrow shave for me,” replied another voice, low and husky.

Allie slowly sat up, with the dreamy waiting abstraction less strong. Her father, Allison Lee, and General Lodge, Neale’s old chief, were there in the other room.

“Neale almost killed Durade! Broke him! Cut him all up!” said the general, with agitation. “I had it from McDermott, one of my spikers — a reliable man.... Neale was shot — perhaps cut, too.... But he doesn’t seem to know it.”

Allie sprang up, transfixed and thrilling.

“Neale almost killed — him!” echoed Allison Lee, hoarsely. Then followed a sound of a chair falling.

“Indeed, Allison, it’s true,” broke in a strange voice. “The street’s full of men — all talking — all stirred up.”

Other men entered the room.

“Is Neale here?” queried General Lodge, sharply.

“They’re trying to hold him up — in the office. The boys want to pat him on the back.... Durade was not liked,” replied some one.

“Is Neale badly hurt?”

“I don’t know. He looked it. He was all bloody.”

“Colonel Dillon, did you see Neale?” went on the sharp, eager voice.

“Yes. He seemed dazed — wild. Probably badly hurt. Yet he moved steadily. No one could stop him,” answered another strange voice.

“Ah! here comes McDermott!” exclaimed General Lodge. Allie’s ears throbbed to a slow, shuffling, heavy tread. Her consciousness received the fact of Neale’s injury, but her heart refused to accept it as perilous. God could not mock her faith by a last catastrophe.

“Sandy — you’ve seen Neale?”

Allie loved this sharp, keen voice for its note of dread. “Shure. B’gorra, yez couldn’t hilp seein’ him. He’s as big as a hill an’ his shirt’s as red as Casey’s red wan. I wint to give him the little gun wot Durade pulled on him. Dom’ me! he looked roight at me an’ niver seen me,” replied the Irishman.

“Lee, you will see Neale?” queried General Lodge. There was a silence.

“No,” presently came a cold reply. “It is not necessary. He saved me — injury perhaps. I am grateful. I’ll reward him.”

“How?” rang General Lodge’s voice.

“Gold, of course. Neale was a gambler. Probably he had a grudge against this Durade.... I need not meet Neale, it seems, I am somewhat — overwrought. I wish to spare myself further excitement.”

“Lee — listen!” returned General Lodge, violently. “Neale is a splendid young man — the nerviest, best engineer I ever knew. I predicted great things for him. They have come true.”

“That doesn’t interest me.”

“You’ll hear it, anyhow. He saved the life of this girl who has turned out to be your daughter. He took care of her. He loved her — was engaged to marry her.... Then he lost her. And after that he was half mad. It nearly ruined him.”

“I do not credit that. It was gambling, drink — and bad women that ruined him.”

“No!”

“But, pardon me, General. If — as you intimate — there was an attachment between him and my unfortunate child, would he have become an associate of gamblers and vicious women?”

“He would not. The nature of his fury, the retribution he visited upon this damned Spaniard, prove the manner of man he is.”

“Wild indeed. But hardly from a sense of loyalty. These camps breed blood-spillers. I heard you say that.”

“You’ll hear me say something more, presently,” retorted the other, with heat scarcely controlled. “But we’re wasting time. I don’t insist that you see Neale. That’s your affair. It seems to me the least you could do would be to thank him. I certainly advise you not to offer him gold. I do insist, however, that you let him see the girl!”

“No!”

“But, man.... Say, McDermott, go fetch Neale in here.”

Allie Lee heard all this strange talk with consternation. An irresistible magnet drew her toward those curtains, which she grasped with trembling hands, ready, but not able, to part them and enter the room. It seemed that in there was a friend of Neale’s whom she was going to love, and an enemy whom she was going to hate. As for Neale seeing her — at once — only death could rob her of that.

“General Lodge, I have no sympathy for Neale,” came the cold voice of Allison Lee.

There was no reply. Some one coughed. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and a hum of distant voices.

“You forget,” continued Lee, “what happened not many hours ago when your train was saved by that dare-devil Casey — the little book held tight in his locked teeth — the letter meant for this Neale from one of Benton’s camp-women.... Your engineer read enough. You heard. I heard.... A letter from a dying woman. She accused Neale of striking her — of killing her.... She said she was dying, but she loved him.... Do you remember that, General Lodge?”

“Yes, alas!... Lee, I don’t deny that. But—”

“There are no buts.”

“Lee, you’re hard, hard as steel. Appearances seem against Neale. I don’t seek to extenuate them. But I know men. Neale might have fallen — it seems he must have. These are terrible times. In anger or drink Neale might have struck this woman.... But kill her — No!”

A gleam pierced Allie Lee’s dark bewilderment. They meant Beauty Stanton, that beautiful, fair woman with such a white, soft bosom and such sad eyes — she whom Larry King had shot. What a tangle of fates and lives! She could tell them why Beauty Stanton was dying. Then other words, like springing fire, caught Allie’s thought, and a sickening ripple of anguish convulsed her. They believed Beauty Stanton had loved Neale — had — Allie would have died before admitting that last thought to her consciousness. For a second the room turned black. Her hold on the curtains kept her from falling. With frantic and terrible earnestness — the old dominance Neale had acquired over her — she clung to the one truth that mattered. She loved Neale — belonged to him — and he was there! That they were about to meet again was as strange and wonderful a thing as had ever happened. What had she not endured? What must he have gone through? The fiery, stinging nature of her new and sudden pain she could not realize.

Again the strong speech became distinct to her.

“... You’ll stay here — and you, Dillon.... Don’t any one leave this room.... Lee, you can leave, if you want. But we’ll see Neale, and so will Allie Lee.”

Allie spread the curtains and stood there. No one saw her. All the men faced the door through which sounded slow, heavy tread of boots. An Irishman entered. Then a tall man. Allie’s troubled soul suddenly calmed. She saw Neale.

Slowly he advanced a few steps. Another man entered, and Allie knew him by his buckskin garb. Neale turned, his face in the light. And a poignant cry leaped up from Allie’s heart to be checked on her lips. Was this her young and hopeful and splendid lover? She recognized him, yet now did not know him. He stood bareheaded, and her swift, all-embracing glance saw the gray over his temples, and the eyes that looked out from across the border of a dark hell, and face white as death and twitching with spent passion.

“Mr. — Lee,” he panted, very low, and the bloody patch on his shirt heaved with his breath, “my only — regret — is — I didn’t — think to make — Durade — tell the truth.... He lied.... He wanted to — revenge himself — on Allie’s mother — through Allie.... What he said — about Allie — was a lie — as black as his heart. He meant evil — for her. But — somehow she was saved. He was a tiger — playing — and he waited — too long. You must realize — her innocence — and understand. God has watched over Allie Lee! It was not luck — nor accident. But innocence!... Hough died to save her! Then Ancliffe! Then my old friend — Larry King! These men — broken — gone to hell — out here — felt an innocence that made them — mad — as I have just been.... That is proof — if you need it.... Men of ruined lives — could not rise — and die — as they did — victims of a false impression — of innocence.... They knew!”

Neale’s voice sank to a whisper, his eyes intent to read belief in the cold face of Allison Lee.

“I thank you, Neale, for your service to me and your defense of her,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Sir — I — I—”

“Can I reward you in any way?”

The gray burned out of Neale’s face. “I ask — nothing — except that you believe me.”

Lee did not grant this, nor was there any softening of his cold face.

“I would like to ask you a few questions,” he said. “General Lodge here informed me that you saved my — my daughter’s life long ago.... Can you tell me what became of her mother?”

“She was in the caravan — massacred by Sioux,” replied Neale. “I saw her buried. Her grave is not so many miles from here.”

Then a tremor changed Allison Lee’s expression. He turned away an instant: his hand closed tight; he bit his lips. This evidence of feeling in him relaxed the stony scrutiny of the watchers, and they shifted uneasily on their feet.

Allie stood watching — waiting, with her heart at her lips.

“Where did you take my daughter?” queried Lee, presently.

“To the home of a trapper. My friend — Slingerland,” replied Neale, indicating the buckskin-clad figure. “She lived there — slowly recovering. You don’t know that she lost her mind — for a while. But she recovered.... And during an absence of Slingerland’s — she was taken away.”

“Were you and she — sweethearts?”

“Yes.”

“And engaged to marry?”

“Of course,” replied Neale, dreamily.

“That cannot be now.”

“I understand. I didn’t expect — I didn’t think....”

Allie Lee had believed many times that her heart was breaking, but now she knew it had never broken till then. Why did he not turn to see her waiting there — stricken motionless and voiceless, wild to give the lie to those cold, strange words?

“Then, Neale — if you will not accept anything from me, let us terminate this painful interview,” said Allison Lee.

“I’m sorry. I only wanted to tell you — and ask to see — Allie — a moment,” replied Neale.

“No. It might cause a breakdown. I don’t want to risk anything that might prevent my taking the next train with her.”

“Going to take her — back East?” asked Neale, as if talking to himself.

“Certainly.”

“Then — I — won’t see her!” Neale murmured, dazedly.

At this juncture General Lodge stepped out. His face was dark, his mouth stern.

His action caused a breaking of the strange, vise-like clutch — the mute and motionless spell — that had fallen upon Allie. She felt the gathering of tremendous forces in her; in an instant she would show these stupid men the tumult of a woman’s heart.

“Lee, be generous,” spoke up General Lodge, feelingly. “Let Neale see the girl.”

“I said no!” snapped Lee.

“But why not, in Heaven’s name?”

“Why? I told you why,” declared Lee, passionately.

“But, Lee — that implication may not be true. We didn’t read all that letter,” protested General Lodge.

“Ask him.”

Then the general turned to Neale. “Boy — tell me — did this Stanton woman love you — did you strike her? Did you—” The general’s voice failed.

Neale faced about with a tragic darkening of his face. “To my shame — it is true,” he said, clearly.

Then Allie Lee swept forward. “Oh, Neale!”

He seemed to rise and leap at once. And she ran straight into his arms. No man, no trouble, no mystery, no dishonor, no barrier — nothing could have held her back the instant she saw how the sight of her, how the sound of her voice, had transformed Neale. For one tumultuous, glorious, terrible moment she clung to his neck, blind, her heart bursting. Then she fell back with hands seeking her breast.

“I heard!” she cried. “I know nothing of Beauty Stanton’s letter.... But you didn’t shoot her. It was Larry. I saw him do it.”

“Allie!” he whispered.

At last he had realized her actual presence, the safety of her body and soul; and all that had made him strange and old and grim and sad vanished in a beautiful transfiguration.

“You know Larry did it!” implored Allie. “Tell them so.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied. “But I did worse. I—”

She saw him shaken by an agony of remorse; and that agony was communicated to her.

“Neale! she loved you?”

He bowed his head.

“Oh!” Her cry was almost mute, full of an unutterable realization of tragic fatality for her. “And you — you—”

Allison Lee strode between them facing Neale. “See! She knows... and if you would spare her — go!” he exclaimed.

“She knows — what?” gasped Neale, in a frenzy between doubt and certainty.

Allie felt a horrible, nameless, insidious sense of falsity — a nightmare unreality — an intangible Neale, fated, drifting away from her.

“Good-bye — Allie!... Bless you! I’ll be — happy — knowing — you’re—” He choked, and the tears streamed down his face. It was a face convulsed by renunciation, not by guilt. Whatever he had done, it was not base.

“DON’T LET ME — GO!... I — FORGIVE YOU!” she burst out. She held out her arms. “THERE’S NO ONE IN THE WORLD BUT YOU!”

But Neale plunged away, upheld by Slingerland, and Allie’s world grew suddenly empty and black.

The train swayed and creaked along through the Night with that strain and effort which told of upgrade. The oil-lamps burned dimly in corners of the coach. There were soldiers at open windows looking out. There were passengers asleep sitting up and lying down and huddled over their baggage.

But Allie Lee was not asleep. She lay propped up with pillows and blankets, covered by a heavy coat. Her window was open, and a cool desert wind softly blew her hair. She stared out into the night, and the wheels seemed to be grinding over her crushed heart.

It was late. An old moon, misshapen and pale, shone low down over a dark, rugged horizon. Clouds hid the stars. The desert void seemed weirdly magnified by the wan light, and all that shadowy waste, silent, lonely, bleak, called out to Allie Lee the desolation of her soul. For what had she been saved? The train creaked on, and every foot added to her woe. Her unquenchable spirit, pure as a white flame that had burned so wonderfully through the months of her peril, flickered now that her peril ceased to be. She had no fount of emotion left to draw upon, else she would have hated this creaking train.

It moved on. And there loomed bold outlines of rock and ridge familiar to her. They had been stamped upon her memory by the strain of her lonely wanderings along that very road. She knew every rod of the way, dark, lonely, wild as it was. In the midst of that stark space lay the spot where Benton had been. A spot lost in the immensity of the desert. If she had been asleep she would have awakened while passing there. There was not a light. Flat patches and pale gleams, a long, wan length of bare street, shadows everywhere — these marked Benton’s grave.

Allie stared with strained eyes. They were there — in the blackness — those noble men who had died for her in vain. No — not in vain! She breathed a prayer for them — a word of love for Larry. Larry, the waster of life, yet the faithful, the symbol of brotherhood. As long as she lived she would see him stalk before her with his red, blazing fire, his magnificent effrontery, his supreme will. He, who had been the soul of chivalry, the meekest of men before a woman, the inheritor of a reverence for womanhood, had ruthlessly shot out of his way that wonderful white-armed Beauty Stanton.

She, too, must lie there in the shadow. Allie shivered with the cool desert wind that blew in her face from the shadowy spaces. She shut her eyes to hide the dim passing traces of terrible Benton and the darkness that hid the lonely graves.

The train moved on and on, leaving what had been Benton far behind; and once more Allie opened her weary eyes to the dim, obscure reaches of the desert. Her heart beat very slowly under its leaden weight, its endless pang. Her blood flowed at low ebb. She felt the long-forgotten recurrence of an old morbid horror, like a poison lichen fastening upon the very spring of life. It passed and came again, and left her once more. Her thoughts wandered back along the night track she had traversed, until again her ears were haunted by that strange sound which had given Roaring City its name. She had been torn away from hope, love, almost life itself. Where was Neale? He had turned from her, obedient to Allison Lee and the fatal complexity and perversenes’s of life. The vindication of her spiritual faith and the answer to her prayers lay in the fact that she had been saved; but rather than to be here in this car, daughter of a rich father, but separated from Neale, she would have preferred to fill one of the nameless graves in Benton.

CHAPTER 33

THE SUN SET pale-gold and austere as Neale watched the train bear Allie Lee away. No thought of himself entered into that solemn moment of happiness. Allie Lee — alive — safe — her troubles ended — on her way home with her father! The long train wound round the bold bluff and at last was gone. For Neale the moment held something big, final. A phase — a part of his life ended there.

“Son, it’s over,” said Slingerland, who watched with him. “Allie’s gone home — back to whar she belongs — to come into her own. Thank God! An’ you — why this day turns you back to whar you was once.... Allie owes her life to you an’ her father’s life. Think, son, of these hyar times — how much wuss it might hev been.”

Neale’s sense of thankfulness was unutterable. Passively he went with Slingerland, silent and gentle. The trapper dressed his wounds, tended him, kept men away from him, and watched by him as if he were a sick child.

Neale suffered only the weakness following the action and stress of great passion. His mind seemed full of beautiful solemn bells of blessing, resonant, ringing the wonder of an everlasting unchangeable truth. Night fell — the darkness thickened — the old trapper kept his vigil — and Neale sank to sleep, and the sweet, low-toned bells claimed him in his dreams.

How strange for Neale to greet a dawn without hatred! He and Slingerland had breakfast together.

“Son, will you go into the hills with me?” asked the old trapper.

“Yes, some day, when the railroad’s built,” replied Neale, thoughtfully.

Slingerland’s keen eyes quickened. “But the railroad’s about done — an’ you need a vacation,” he insisted.

“Yes,” Neale answered, dreamily.

“Son, mebbe you ought to wait awhile. You’re packin’ a bullet somewhar in your carcass.”

“It’s here,” said Neale, putting his hand to his breast, high up toward the shoulder. “I feel it — a dull, steady, weighty pain.... But that’s nothing. I hope I always have it.”

“Wal, I don’t.... An’, son, you ain’t never goin’ back to drink an’ cards-an’ all thet hell?... Not now!”

Neale’s smile was a promise, and the light of it was instantly reflected on the rugged face of the trapper.

“Reckon I needn’t asked thet. Wal, I’ll be sayin’ good-bye.... You kin expect me back some day.... To see the meetin’ of the rails from east an’ west — an’ to pack you off to my hills.”

Neale rode out of Roaring City on the work-train, sitting on a flat-car with a crowd of hairy-breasted, red-shirted laborers.

That train carried hundreds of men, tons of steel rails, thousands of ties; and also it was equipped to feed the workers and to fight Indians. It ran to the end of the rails, about forty miles out of Roaring City.

Neale sought out Reilly, the boss. This big Irishman was in the thick of the start of the day — which was like a battle. Neale waited in the crowd, standing there in his shirt-sleeves, with the familiar bustle and color strong as wine to his senses. At last Reilly saw him and shoved out a huge paw.

“Hullo, Neale! I’m glad to see ye.... They tell me ye did a dom’ foine job.”

“Reilly, I need work,” said Neale.

“But, mon — ye was shot!” ejaculated the boss.

“I’m all right.”

“Ye look thot an’ no mistake.... Shure, now, ye ain’t serious about work? You — that’s chafe of all thim engineer jobs?”

“I want to work with my hands. Let me heave ties or carry rails or swing a sledge — for just a few days. I’ve explained to General Lodge. It’s a kind of vacation for me.”

Reilly gazed with keen, twinkling eyes at Neale. “Ye can’t be drunk an’ look sober.”

“Reilly, I’m sober — and in dead earnest,” appealed Neale. “I want to go back — be in the finish — to lay some rails — drive some spikes.”

The boss lost his humorous, quizzing expression. “Shure — shure,” replied Reilly, as if he saw, but failed to comprehend. “Ye’re on.... An’ more power to ye!”

He sent Neale out with the gang detailed to heave railroad ties.

A string of flat-cars, loaded with rails and ties, stood on the track where the work of yesterday had ended. Beyond stretched the road-bed, yellow, level, winding as far as eye could see. The sun beat down hot; the dry, scorching desert breeze swept down from the bare hills, across the waste; dust flew up in puffs; uprooted clumps of sage, like balls, went rolling along; and everywhere the veils of heat rose from the sun-baked earth.

“Drill, ye terriers, drill!” rang out a cheery voice. And Neale remembered Casey.

Neale’s gang was put to carrying ties. Neale got hold of the first tie thrown off the car.

“Phwat the hell’s ye’re hurry!” protested his partner. This fellow was gnarled and knotted, brick-red in color, with face a network of seams, and narrow, sun-burnt slits for eyes. He answered to the name of Pat.

They carried the tie out to the end of the rails and dropped it on the level road-bed. Men there set it straight and tamped the gravel around it. Neale and his partner went back for another, passing a dozen couples carrying ties forward. Behind these staggered the rows of men burdened with the heavy iron rails.

So the day’s toil began.

Pat had glanced askance at Neale, and then had made dumb signs to his fellow-laborers, indicating his hard lot in being yoked to this new wild man on the job. But his ridicule soon changed to respect. Presently he offered his gloves to Neale. They were refused.

“But, fri’nd, ye ain’t tough loike me,” he protested.

“Pat, they’ll put you to bed to-night — if you stay with me,” replied Neale.

“The hell ye say! Come on, thin!”

At first Neale had no sensations of heat, weariness, thirst, or pain. He dragged the little Irishman forward to drop the ties — then strode back ahead of him. Neale was obsessed by a profound emotion. This was a new beginning for him. For him the world and life had seemed to cease when yesternight the sun sank and Allie Lee passed out of sight. His motive in working there, he imagined, was to lay a few rails, drive a few spikes along the last miles of the road that he had surveyed. He meant to work this way only a little while, till the rails from east met those from west.

This profound emotion seemed accompanied by a procession of thoughts, each thought in turn, like a sun with satellites, reflecting its radiance upon them and rousing strange, dreamy, full-hearted fancies... Allie lived — as good, as innocent as ever, incomparably beautiful — sad-eyed, eloquent, haunting. From that mighty thought sprang both Neale’s exaltation and his activity. He had loved her so well that conviction of her death had broken his heart, deadened his ambition, ruined his life. But since, by the mercy of God and the innocence that had made men heroic, she had survived all peril, all evil, then had begun a colossal overthrow in Neale’s soul of the darkness, the despair, the hate, the indifference. He had been flung aloft, into the heights, and he had seen into heaven. He asked for nothing in the world. All-satisfied, eternally humble, grateful with every passionate drop of blood throbbing through his heart, he dedicated all his spiritual life to memory. And likewise there seemed a tremendous need in him of sustained physical action, even violence. He turned to the last stages of the construction of the great railroad.

What fine comrades these hairy-breasted toilers made! Neale had admired them once; now he loved them. Every group seemed to contain a trio like that one he had known so well — Casey, Shane, and McDermott. Then he divined that these men were all alike. They all toiled, swore, fought, drank, gambled. Hundreds of them went to nameless graves. But the work went on — the great, driving, united heart beat on.

Neale was under its impulse, in another sense.

When he lifted a tie and felt the hard, splintering wood, he wondered where it had come from, what kind of a tree it was, who had played in its shade, how surely birds had nested in it and animals had grazed beneath it. Between him and that square log of wood there was an affinity. Somehow his hold upon it linked him strangely to a long past, intangible spirit of himself. He must cling to it, lest he might lose that illusive feeling. Then when he laid it down he felt regret fade into a realization that the yellow-gravel road-bed also inspirited him. He wanted to feel it, work in it, level it, make it somehow his own.

When he strode back for another load his magnifying eyes gloated over the toilers in action — the rows of men carrying and laying rails, and the splendid brawny figures of the spikers, naked to the waist, swinging the heavy sledges. The blows rang out spang — spang — spang! Strong music, full of meaning! When his turn came to be a spiker, he would love that hardest work of all.

The engine puffed smoke and bumped the cars ahead, little by little as the track advanced; men on the train carried ties and rails forward, filling the front cars as fast as they were emptied; long lines of laborers on the ground passed to and fro, burdened going forward, returning empty-handed; the rails and the shovels and the hammers and the picks all caught the hot gleam from the sun; the dust swept up in sheets; the ring, the crash, the thump, the scrape of iron and wood and earth in collision filled the air with a sound rising harshly above the song and laugh and curse of men.

A shifting, colorful, strenuous scene of toil!

Gradually Neale felt that he was fitting into this scene, becoming a part of it, an atom once more in the great whole. He doubted while he thrilled. Clearly as he saw, keenly as he felt, he yet seemed bewildered. Was he not gazing out at this construction work through windows of his soul, once more painted, colored, beautiful, because the most precious gift he might have prayed for had been given him — life and hope for Allie Lee?

He did not know. He could not think.

His comrade, Pat, wiped floods of sweat from his scarlet face. “I’ll be domned if ye ain’t a son-of-a-gun fer worrk!” he complained.

“Pat, we’ve been given the honor of pace-makers. They’ve got to keep up with us. Come on,” replied Neale.

“Be gad! there ain’t a mon in the gang phwat’ll trade fer me honor, thin,” declared Pat. “Fri’nd, I’d loike to live till next pay-day.”

“Come on, then, work up an appetite,” rejoined Neale.

“Shure I’ll die.... An’ I’d loike to ask, beggin’ ye’re pardon, hevn’t ye got some Irish in ye?”

“Yes, a little.”

“I knowed thot.... All roight, I’ll die with ye, thin.”

In half an hour Pat was in despair again. He had to rest.

“Phwat’s — ye’re — name?” he queried.

“Neale.”

“It ought to be Casey. Fer there was niver but wan loike ye — an’ he was Casey.... Mon, ye’re sweatin’ blood roight now!”

Pat pointed at Neale’s red, wet shirt. Neale slapped his breast, and drops of blood and sweat spattered from under his hand.

“An’ shure ye’re hands are bladin’, too!” ejaculated Pat.

They were, indeed, but Neale had not noted that.

The boss, Reilly, passing by, paused to look and grin.

“Pat, yez got some one to kape up with to-day. We’re half a mile ahead of yestidy this time.”

Then he turned to Neale.

“I’ve seen one in yer class — Casey by name. An’ thot’s talkin’.”

He went his way. And Neale, plodding on, saw the red face of the great Casey, with its set grin and the black pipe. Swiftly then he saw it as he had heard of it last, and a shadow glanced fleetingly across the singular radiance of his mind.

The shrill whistle of the locomotive halted the work and called the men to dinner and rest. Instantly the scene changed. The slow, steady, rhythmic motions of labor gave place to a scramble back to the long line of cars. Then the horde of sweaty toilers sought places in the shade, and ate and drank and smoked and rested. As the spirit of work had been merry, so was that of rest, with always a dry, grim earnestness in the background.

Neale slowed down during the afternoon, to the unconcealed thankfulness of his partner. The burn of the sun, the slippery sweat, the growing ache of muscles, the never-ending thirst, the lessening of strength — these sensations impinged upon Neale’s emotion and gradually wore to the front of his consciousness. His hands grew raw, his back stiff and sore, his feet crippled. The wound in his breast burned and bled and throbbed. At the end of the day he could scarcely walk.

He rode in with the laborers, slept twelve hours, and awoke heavy-limbed, slow, and aching. But he rode out to work, and his second day was one of agony.

The third was a continual fight between will and body, between spirit and pain. But so long as he could step and lift he would work on. From that time he slowly began to mend.

Then came his siege with the rails. That was labor which made carrying ties seem light. He toiled on, sweating thin, wearing hard, growing clearer of mind. As pain subsided, and weariness of body no longer dominated him, slowly thought and feeling returned until that morning dawned when, like a flash of lightning illuminating his soul, the profound and exalted emotion again possessed him. Soon he came to divine that the agony of toil and his victory over weak flesh had added to his strange happiness. Hour after hour he bent his back and plodded beside his comrades, doing his share, burdened as they were, silent, watchful, listening, dreaming, keen to note the progress of the road, yet deep in his own intense abstraction. He seemed to have two minds. He saw every rod of the ten miles of track laid every day, knew, as only an engineer could know, the wonder of such progress; and, likewise, always in his sight, in his mind, shone a face, red-lipped, soulful, lovely like a saint’s, with mournful violet eyes, star-sweet in innocence. Life had given Allie Lee back to him — to his love and his memory; and all that could happen to him now must be good. At first he had asked for nothing, so grateful was he to fate, but now he prayed for hours and days and nights to remember.

The day came when Neale graduated into the class of spikers. This division of labor to him had always represented the finest spirit of the building. The drivers — the spikers — the men who nailed the rails — who riveted the last links — these brawny, half-naked wielders of the sledges, bronzed as Indians, seemed to embody both the romance and the achievement. Neale experienced a subtle perception with the first touch and lift and swing of the great hammer. And there seemed born in him a genius for the stroke. He had a free, easy swing, with tremendous power. He could drive so fast that his comrade on the opposite rail, and the carriers and layers, could not keep up with him. Moments of rest seemed earned. During these he would gaze with glinting eyes back at the gangs and the trains, at the smoke, dust, and movement; and beyond toward the east.

One day he drove spikes for hours, with the gangs in uninterrupted labor around him, while back a mile along the road the troopers fought the Sioux; and all this time, when any moment he might be ordered to drop his sledge for a rifle, he listened to the voice in his memory and saw the face.

Another day dawned in which he saw the grading gangs return from work ahead. They were done. Streams of horses, wagons, and men on the return! They had met the graders from the west, and the two lines of road-bed had been connected. As these gangs passed, cheer on cheer greeted them from the rail-layers. It was a splendid moment.

From lip to lip then went the word that the grading-gangs from east and west had passed each other in plain sight, working on, grading on for a hundred miles farther than necessary. They had met and had passed on, side by side, doubling the expense of construction.

This knowledge gave Neale a melancholy reminder of the dishonest aspect of the road-building. And he thought of many things. The spirit of the work was grand, the labor heroic, but, alas! side by side with these splendid and noble attributes stalked the specters of greed and gold and lust of blood and of death.

But neither knowledge such as this, nor peril from Indians, nor the toil-pangs of a galley slave had power to change Neale’s supreme state of joy.

He gazed back toward the east, and then with mighty swing he drove a spike. He loved Allie Lee beyond all conception, and next he loved the building of the railroad.

When such thoughts came he went back to pure sensations, the great, bold peaks looming dark, the winding, level road-bed, the smoky desert-land, reflecting heat, the completed track and gangs of moving men like bright ants in the sunlight, and the exhaust of the engines, the old song, “Drill, ye terriers, drill!” the ring and crash and thud and scrape of labor, the whistle of the seeping sand on the wind, the feel of the heavy sledge that he could wield as a toy, the throb of pulse, the smell of dust and sweat, the sense of his being there, his action, his solidarity, his physical brawn — once more manhood.

But at last human instincts encroached upon Neale’s superlative detachment from self. It seemed all of a sudden that he stepped toward an east-bound train. When he reached the coach something halted him — a thought — where was he going? The west-bound work-train was the one he wanted. He laughed, a little grimly. Certainly he had grown absentminded. And straightway he became thoughtful, in a different way. Not many moments of reflection were needed to assure him that he had moved toward the east-bound train with the instinctive idea of going to Allie Lee. The thing amazed him.

“But she — she’s gone out of my life,” he soliloquized. “And I am — I was glad!”

The lightning-swift shift to past tense enlightened Neale.

He went out to work. That work still loomed splendid to him, but it seemed not the same. He saw and felt the majesty of common free men, sweating and bleeding and groaning over toil comparable to the building of the Pyramids; he felt the best that had ever been in him quicken and broaden as he rubbed elbows with these simple, elemental toilers; with them he had gotten down to the level of truth. His old genius for achievement, the practical and scientific side of him, still thrilled with the battle of strong hands against the natural barriers of the desert. He saw the thousands of plodding, swearing, fighting, blaspheming, joking laborers on the field of action — saw the picture they made, red and bronzed and black, dust-begrimed; and how here with the ties and the rails and the road-bed was the heart of that epical turmoil. What approach could great and rich engineers and directors have made to that vast enterprise without these sons of brawn? Neale now saw what he had once dreamed, and that was the secret of his longing to get down to the earth with these men.

He loved to swing that sledge, to hear the spang of the steel ring out. He had a sheer physical delight in the power of his body, long since thinned-out, hardened, tough as the wood into which he drove the spikes. He loved his new comrade, Pat, the gnarled and knotted little Irishman who cursed and complained of his job and fought his fellow-workers, yet who never lagged, never shirked, and never failed, though his days of usefulness must soon be over. Soon Pat would drop by the roadside, a victim to toil and whisky and sun. And he was great in his obscurity. He wore a brass tag with a number; he signed his wage receipt with a cross; he cared only for drink and a painted hag in a squalid tent; yet in all the essentials that Neale now called great his friend Pat reached up to them — the spirit to work, to stand his share, to go on, to endure, to fulfill his task.

Neale might have found salvation in this late-developed and splendid relation to labor and to men. But there was a hitch in his brain. He would see all that was beautiful and strenuous and progressive around him; and then, in a flash, that hiatus in his mind would operate to make him hopeless. Then he would stand as in a trance, with far-away gaze in his eyes, until his fellow-spiker would recall him to his neglected work. These intervals of abstraction grew upon him until he would leave off in the act of driving a spike.

And sometimes in these strange intervals he longed for his old friend, brother, shadow — Larry Red King. He held to Larry’s memory, though with it always would return that low, strange roar of Benton’s gold and lust and blood and death. Neale did not understand the mystery of what he had been through. It had been a phase of wildness never to be seen again by his race. His ambition and effort, his fall, his dark siege with hell, his friendship and loss, his agony and toil, his victory, were all symbolical of the progress of a great movement. In his experience lay hid all that development.

The coming of night was always a relief now, for with the end of the day’s work he need no longer fight his battle. It was a losing battle — that he knew. Shunning everybody, he paced to and fro out on the dark, windy desert, under the lonely, pitiless stars.

His longing to see Allie Lee grew upon him. While he had believed her dead he had felt her spirit hovering near him, in every shadow, and her voice whispered on the wind. She was alive now, but gone away, far distant, over mountains and plains, out of his sight and reach, somewhere to take up a new life alien to his. What would she do? Could she bear, it? Never would she forget him — be faithless to his memory! Yet she was young and her life had been hard. She might yield to that cold Allison Lee’s dictation. In happy surroundings her beauty and sweetness would bring a crowd of lovers to her.

“But that’s all — only natural,” muttered Neale, in perplexity. “I want her to forget — to be happy — to find a home.... For her to grow old — alone! No! She must love some man — marry—”

And with the spoken words Neale’s heart contracted. He knew that he lied to himself. If she ever cared for another man, that would be the end of Warren Neale. But then, he was ended, anyhow. Jealousy, strange, new, horrible, added to Neale’s other burdens, finished him. He had the manhood to try to fight selfishness, but he had failed to subdue it; and he had nothing left to fight his consuming love and hatred of life and terrible loneliness and that fierce thing — jealousy. He had saved Allie Lee! Why had he given her up? He had stained his hands with blood for her sake. And that awful moment came back to him when, maddened by the sting of a bullet, he had gloried in the cracking of Durade’s bones, in the ghastly terror and fear of death upon the Spaniard’s face, in the feel of the knife-blade as he forced Durade to stab himself. Always Neale had been haunted by this final scene of his evil life in the construction camps. A somber and spectral shape, intangible, gloomy-faced, often, attended him in the shadow. He justified his deed, for Durade would have killed Allison Lee. But that fact did not prevent the haunting shape, the stir in the dark air, the nameless step upon Neale’s trail.

And jealousy, stronger than all except fear, wore Neale out of his exaltation, out of his dream, out of his old disposition to work. He could persist in courage if not in joy. But jealous longing would destroy him — he felt that. It was so powerful, so wonderful that it brought back to him words and movements which until then he had been unable to recall.

And he lived over the past. Much still baffled him, yet gradually more and more of what had happened became clear specifically in his memory. He could not think from the present back over the past. He had to ponder the other way. One day, leaning on his sledge, Neale’s torturing self, morbid, inquisitive, growing by what it fed on, whispered another question to his memory.

“What were some of the last words she spoke to me?” And there, limned white on the dark background of his mind, the answer appeared, “NEALE, I FORGIVE YOU!”

He recalled her face, the tragic eyes, the outstretched arms.

“Forgive me! For what?” Neale muttered, dazed and troubled. He dropped his sledge and remained standing there, though the noon whistle called the gang to dinner. Looking out across the hot, smoky, arid desert he saw again that scene where he had appealed to Allison Lee.

The picture was etched out vividly, and again he lived through those big moments of emotion.

The room full of men — Lee’s cold acceptance of fact, his thanks, his offer, his questions, his refusal — General Lodge’s earnest solicitation — the rapid exchange of passionate words between them — the query put to Neale and his answer — the sudden appearance of Allie, shocking his heart with rapture — her sweet, wild words — and so the end! How vivid now — how like flashes of lightning in his mind!

“Lee thought I’d killed Stanton,” muttered Neale, in intense perplexity. “But she — she told them Larry did it.... What a strange idea Lee had — and General Lodge, too. He defended me.... Ah!”

Suddenly Neale drew from his pocket the little leather note-book that had been Stanton’s, and which contained her letter to him. With trembling hands he opened it. Again this letter was to mean a revelation.

General Lodge had said his engineer had read aloud only the first of that message to Neale; and from this Allison Lee and all the listeners had formed their impressions.

Neale read these first lines.

“No wonder they imagined I killed her!” he exclaimed. “She accuses me. But she never meant what they imagined she meant. Why, that evidence could hang me!... Allie told them she saw Larry do it. And it’s common knowledge now — I’ve heard it here.... What, then, had Allie to forgive — to forgive with eyes that will haunt me to my grave?”

Then the truth burst upon him with merciless and stunning force.

“My God! Allie believed what they all believed — what I must have blindly made seem true!... That I was Beauty Stanton’s lover!”

CHAPTER 34

THE HOME TO which Allie Lee was brought stood in the outskirts of Omaha upon a wooded bank above the river.

Allie watched the broad, yellow Missouri swirling by. She liked best to be alone outdoors in the shade of the trees. In the weeks since her arrival there she had not recovered from the shock of meeting Neale only to be parted from him.

But the comfort, the luxury of her home, the relief from constant dread, such as she had known for years, the quiet at night — these had been so welcome, so saving, that her burden of sorrow seemed endurable. Yet in time she came to see that the finding of a father and a home had only added to her bitterness.

Allison Lee’s sister, an elderly woman of strong character, resented the home-bringing of this strange, lost daughter. Allie had found no sympathy in her. For a while neighbors and friends of the Lees’ flocked to the house and were kind, gracious, attentive to Allie. Then somehow her story, or part of it, became gossip. Her father, sensitive, cold, embittered by the past, suffered intolerable shame at the disgrace of a wife’s desertion and a daughter’s notoriety. Allie’s presence hurt him; he avoided her as much as possible; the little kindnesses that he had shown, and his feelings of pride in her beauty and charm, soon vanished. There was no love between them. Allie had tried hard to care for him, but her heart seemed to be buried in that vast grave of the West. She was obedient, dutiful, passive, but she could not care for him. And there came a day when she realized that he did not believe she had come unscathed through the wilds of the gold-fields and the vileness of the construction camps. She bore this patiently, though it stung her. But the loss of respect for her father did not come until she heard men in his study, loud-voiced and furious, wrangle over contracts and accuse him of double-dealing.

Later he told her that he had become involved in financial straits, and that unless he could raise a large sum by a certain date he would be ruined.

And it was this day that Allie sat on a bench in the little arbor and watched the turbulent river. She was sorry for her father, but she could not help him. Moreover, alien griefs did not greatly touch her. Her own grief was deep and all-enfolding. She was heart-sick, and always yearning — yearning for that she dared not name.

The day was hot, sultry; no birds sang, but the locusts were noisy; the air was full of humming bees.

Allie watched the river. She was idle because her aunt would not let her work. She could only remember and suffer. The great river soothed her. Where did it come from and where did it go? And what was to become of her? Almost it would have been better —

A servant interrupted her. “Missy, heah’s a gennelman to see yo’,” announced the Negro girl.

Allie looked. She thought she saw a tall, buckskin-clad man carrying a heavy pack. Was she dreaming or had she lost her mind? She got up, shaking in every limb. This tall man moved; he seemed real; his bronzed face beamed. He approached; he set the pack down on the bench. Then his keen, clear eyes pierced Allie.

“Wal, lass,” he said, gently.

The familiar voice was no dream, no treachery of her mind. Slingerland! She could not speak. She could hardly see. She swayed into his arms. Then when she felt the great, strong clasp and the softness of buckskin on her face and the odor of pine and sage — and desert dust, she believed in his reality.

Her heart seemed to collapse. All within her was riot.

“Neale!” she whispered, in anguish.

“All right an’ workin’ hard. He sent me,” replied Slingerland, swift to get his message out.

Allie quivered and closed her eyes and leaned against him. A beautiful something pervaded her soul. Slowly the tumult within her breast subsided. She recovered.

“Uncle Al!” she called him, tenderly.

“Wal, I should smile! An’ glad to see you — why Lord! I’d never tell you!... You’re white an’ shaky, lass.... Set down hyar — on the bench — beside me. Thar!... Allie, I’ve a powerful lot to tell you.”

“Wait! To see you — and to hear — of him — almost killed me with joy,” she panted. Her little hands, once so strong and brown, but now thin and white, fastened tight in the fringe of his buckskin hunting-coat.

“Lass, sight of you sort of makes me young agin — but — Allie, those are not the happy eyes I remember.”

“I — am very unhappy,” she whispered.

“Wal, if thet ain’t too bad! Shore it’s natural you’d be downhearted, losin’ Neale thet way.”

“It’s not all — that,” she murmured, and then she told him.

“Wal, wal!” ejaculated the trapper, stroking his beard in thoughtful sorrow. “But I reckon thet’s natural, too. You’re strange hyar, an’ thet story will hang over you.... Lass, with all due respect to your father, I reckon you’d better come back to me an’ Neale.”

“Did he tell you — to say that?” she whispered, tremulously.

“Lord, no!” ejaculated Slingerland.

“Does he — care — for me still?”

“Lass, he’s dyin’ fer you — an’ I never spoke a truer word.”

Allie shuddered close to him, blinded, stormed by an exquisite bitter-sweet fury of love. She seemed rising, uplifted, filled with rich, strong joy.

“I forgave him,” she murmured, dreamily low to herself.

“War, mebbe you’ll be right glad you did — presently,” said Slingerland, with animation. “‘Specially when thar wasn’t nothin’ much to forgive.”

Allie became mute. She could not lift her eyes.

“Lass, listen!” began Slingerland. “After you left Roarin’ City Neale went at hard work. Began by heavin’ ties an’ rails, an’ now he’s slingin’ a sledge.... This was amazin’ to me. I seen him only onct since, an’ thet was the other day. But I heerd about him. I rode over to Roarin’ City several times. An’ I made it my bizness to find out about Neale.... He never came into the town at all. They said he worked like a slave the first day, bleedin’ hard. But he couldn’t be stopped. An’ the work didn’t kill him, though thar was some as swore it would. They said he changed, an’ when he toughened up thar was never but one man as could equal him, an’ thet was an Irish feller named Casey. I heerd it was somethin’ worth while to see him sling a sledge.... Wal, I never seen him do it, but mebbe I will yet.

“A few days back I met him gettin’ off a train at Roarin’ City. Lord! I hardly knowed him! He stood like an Injun, with the big muscles bulgin’, an’ his face was clean an’ dark, his eye like fire.... He nearly shook the daylights out of me. ‘Slingerland, I want you!’ he kept yellin’ at me. An’ I said, ‘So it ‘pears, but what fer?’ Then he told me he was goin’ after the gold thet Horn had buried along the old Laramie Trail. Wal, I took my outfit, an’ we rode back into the hills. You remember them. Wal, we found the gold, easy enough, an’ we packed it back to Roarin’ City. Thar Neale sent me off on a train to fetch the gold to you. An’ hyar I I am an’ thar’s the gold.”

Allie stared at the pack, bewildered by Slingerland’s story. Suddenly she sat up and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

“Gold! Horn’s gold! But it’s not mine! Did Neale send it to me?”

“Every ounce,” replied the trapper, soberly. “I reckon it’s yours. Thar was no one else left — an’ you recollect what Horn said. Lass, it’s yours — an’ I’m goin’ to make you keep it.”

“How much is there?” queried Allie, with thrills of curiosity. How well she remembered Horn! He had told her he had no relatives. Indeed, the gold was hers.

“Wal, Neale an’ me couldn’t calkilate how much, hevin’ nothin’ to weigh the gold. But it’s a fortune.”

Allie turned from the pack to the earnest face of the trapper. There had been many critical moments in her life, but never one with the suspense, the fullness, the inevitableness of this.

“Did Neale send anything else?” she flashed.

“Wal, yes, an’ I was comin’ to thet,” replied Slingerland, as he unlaced the front of his hunting-frock. Presently he drew forth a little leather note-book, which he handed to Allie. She took it while looking up at him. Never had she seen his face radiate such strange emotion. She divined it to be the supreme happiness inherent in the power to give happiness.

Allie trembled. She opened the little book. Surely it would contain a message that would be as sweet as life to dying eyes. She read a name, written in ink, in a clear script: “Beauty Stanton.”

Her pulses ceased to beat, her blood to flow, her heart to throb. All seemed to freeze within her except her mind. And that leaped fearfully over the first lines of a letter — then feverishly on to the close — only to fly back and read again. Then she dropped the book. She hid her face on Slingerland’s breast. She clutched him with frantic hands. She clung there, her body all held rigid, as if some extraordinary strength or inspiration or joy had suddenly inhibited weakness.

“Wal, lass, hyar you’re takin’ it powerful hard — an’ I made sure—”

“Hush!” whispered Allie, raising her face. She kissed him. Then she sprang up like a bent sapling released. She met Slingerland’s keen gaze — saw him start — then rise as if the better to meet a shock.

“I am going back West with you,” she said, coolly.

“Wal, I knowed you’d go.”

“Divide that gold. I’ll leave half for my father.” Slingerland’s great hands began to pull at the pack.

“Thar’s a train soon. I calkilated to stay over a day. But the sooner the better.... Lass, will you run off or tell him?”

“I’ll tell him. He can’t stop me, even if he would.... The gold will save him from ruin....He will let me go.”

She stooped to pick up the little leather note-book and placed it in her bosom. Her heart seemed to surge against it. The great river rolled on — rolled on — magnified in her sight. A thick, rich, beautiful light shone under the trees. What was this dance of her blood while she seemed so calm, so cool, so sure?

“Does he have any idea — that I might return to him?” she asked.

“None, lass, none! Thet I’ll swear,” declared Slingerland. “When I left him at Roarin’ City the other day he was — wal, like he used to be. The boy come out in him again, not jest the same, but brave. Sendin’ thet gold an’ thet little book made him happy.... I reckon Neale found his soul then. An’ he never expects to see you again in this hyar world.”

CHAPTER 35

BUILDING A RAILROAD grew to be an exact and wonderful science with the men of the Union Pacific, from engineers down to the laborers who ballasted and smoothed the road-bed.

Wherever the work-trains stopped there began a hum like a bee-hive. Gangs loaded rails on a flat-car, and the horses or mules were driven at a gallop to the front. There two men grasped the end of a rail and began to slide it off. In couples, other laborers of that particular gang laid hold, and when they had it off the car they ran away with it to drop it in place. While they were doing this other gangs followed with more rails. Four rails laid to the minute! When one of the cars was empty it was tipped off the track to make room for the next one. And as that next one passed the first was levered back again on the rails to return for another load.

Four rails down to the minute! It was Herculean toil. The men who fitted the rails were cursed the most frequently, because they took time, a few seconds, when there was no time.

Then the spikers! These brawny, half-naked, sweaty giants — what a grand spanging music of labor rang from under their hammers! Three strokes to a spike for most spikers! Only two strokes for such as Casey or Neale! Ten spikes to a rail — four hundred rails to a mile! ... How many million times had brawny arms swung and sledges clanged!

Forward every day the work-trains crept westward, closer and closer to that great hour when they would meet the work-trains coming east.

The momentum now of the road-laying was tremendous. The spirit that nothing could stop had become embodied in a scientific army of toilers, a mass, a machine, ponderous, irresistible, moving on to the meeting of the rails.

Every day the criss-cross of ties lengthened out along the winding road-bed, and the lines of glistening rails kept pace with them. The sun beat down hot — the dust flew in sheets and puffs — the smoky veils floated up from the desert. Red-shirted toilers, blue-shirted toilers, half-naked toilers, sweat and bled, and laughed grimly, and sucked at their pipes, and bent their broad backs. The pace had quickened to the limit of human endurance. Fury of sound filled the air. Its rhythmical pace was the mighty gathering impetus of a last heave, a last swing.

Promontory Point was the place destined to be famous as the meeting of the rails.

On that summer day in 1869, which was to complete the work, special trains arrived from west and east. The Governor of California, who was also president of the western end of the line, met the Vice-President of the United States and the directors of the Union Pacific. Mormons from Utah were there in force. The Government was represented by officers and soldiers in uniform; and these, with their military band, lent the familiar martial air to the last scene of the great enterprise. Here mingled the Irish and Negro laborers from the east with the Chinese and Mexican from the west. Then the eastern paddies laid the last rails on one end, while the western coolies laid those on the other. The rails joined. Spikes were driven, until the last one remained.

The Territory of Arizona had presented a spike of gold, silver, and iron; Nevada had given one of silver, and a railroad tie of laurel wood; and the last spike of all — of solid gold — was presented by California.

The driving of the last spike was to be heard all over the United States. Omaha was the telegraphic center. The operator here had informed all inquirers, “When the last spike is driven at Promontory Point we will say, ‘Done!’”

The magic of the wire was to carry that single message abroad over the face of the land.

The President of the United States was to be congratulated, as were the officers of the army, and the engineers of the work. San Francisco had arranged a monster celebration marked by the booming of cannon and enthusiastic parades. Free railroad tickets into Sacramento were to fill that city with jubilant crowds. At Omaha cannons were to be fired, business abandoned, and the whole city given over to festivity. Chicago was to see a great parade and decoration. In New York a hundred guns were to boom out the tidings. Trinity Church was to have special services, and the famous chimes were to play “Old Hundred.” In Philadelphia a ringing of the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall would initiate a celebration. And so it would be in all prominent cities of the Union.

Neale was at Promontory Point that summer day. He stood aloof from the crowd, on a little bank, watching with shining eyes.

To him the scene was great, beautiful, final.

Only a few hundreds of that vast army of laborers were present at the meeting of the rails, but enough were there to represent the whole. Neale’s glances were swift and gathering. His comrades, Pat and McDermott, sat near, exchanging lights for their pipes. They seemed reposeful, and for them the matter was ended. Broken hulks of toilers of the rails! Neither would labor any more. A burly Negro, with crinkly, bullet-shaped head, leaned against a post; a brawny spiker, naked to the waist, his wonderful shoulders and arms brown, shiny, knotted, scarred, stood near, sledge in hand; a group of Irishmen, red-and blue-shirted, puffed their black pipes and argued; swarthy, sloe-eyed Mexicans, with huge sombreros on their knees, lolled in the shade of a tree, talking low in their mellow tones and fingering cigarettes; Chinamen, with long pig-tails and foreign dress, added strangeness and colorful contrast.

Neale heard the low murmur of voices of the crowd, and the slow puffing of the two engines, head on, only a few yards apart, so strikingly different in shape. Then followed the pounding of hoofs and tread of many feet, the clang of iron as the last rail went down. How clear, sweet, spanging the hammer blows! And there was the old sighing sweep of the wind. Then came a gun-shot, the snort of a horse, a loud laugh.

Neale heard all with sensitive, recording ears.

“Mac, yez are so dom’ smart — now tell me who built the U. P.?” demanded Pat.

“Thot’s asy. Me fri’nd Casey did, b’gorra,” retorted McDermott.

“Loike hell he did! It was the Irish.”

“Shure, thot’s phwat I said,” McDermott replied.

“Wal, thin, phwat built the U. P.? Tell me thot. Yez knows so much.”

McDermott scratched his sun-blistered, stubble-field of a face, and grinned. “Whisky built the eastern half, an’ cold tay built the western half.”

Pat regarded his comrade with considerable respect. “Mac, shure yez is intilligint,” he granted. “The Irish lived on whisky an’ the Chinamons on tay.... Wal, yez is so dom’ orful smart, mebbe yez can tell me who got the money for thot worrk.”

“B’gorra, I know where ivery dollar wint,” replied McDermott.

And so they argued on, oblivious to the impressive last stage.

Neale sensed the rest, the repose in the attitude of all the laborers present. Their hour was done. And they accepted that with the equanimity with which they had met the toil, the heat and thirst, the Sioux. A splendid, rugged, loquacious, crude, elemental body of men, unconscious of heroism. Those who had survived the five long years of toil and snow and sun, and the bloody Sioux, and the roaring camps, bore the scars, the furrows, the gray hairs of great and wild times.

A lane opened up in the crowd to the spot where the rails had met.

Neale got a glimpse of his associates, the engineers, as they stood near the frock-coated group of dignitaries and directors. Then Neale felt the stir and lift of emotion, as if he were on a rising wave. His blood began to flow fast and happily. He was to share their triumphs. The moment had come. Some one led him back to his post of honor as the head of the engineer corps.

A silence fell then over that larger, denser multitude. It grew impressive, charged, waiting.

Then a man of God offered up a prayer. His voice floated dreamily to Neale. When he had ceased there were slow, dignified movements of frock-coated men as they placed in position the last spike.

The silver sledge flashed in the sunlight and fell. The sound of the driving-stroke did not come to Neale with the familiar spang of iron; it was soft, mellow, golden.

A last stroke! The silence vibrated to a deep, hoarse acclaim from hundreds of men — a triumphant, united hurrah, simultaneously sent out with that final message, “Done!”

A great flood of sound, of color seemed to wave over Neale. His eyes dimmed with salt tears, blurring the splendid scene. The last moment had passed — that for which he had stood with all faith, all spirit — and the victory was his. The darkness passed out of his soul.

Then, as he stood there, bareheaded, at the height of this all-satisfying moment, when the last echoing melody of the sledge had blended in the roar of the crowd, a strange feeling of a presence struck Neale. Was it spiritual — was it divine — was it God? Or was it only baneful, fateful — the specter of his accomplished work — a reminder of the long, gray future?

A hand slipped into his — small, soft, trembling, exquisitely thrilling. Neale became still as a stone — transfixed. He knew that touch. No dream, no fancy, no morbid visitation! He felt warm flesh — tender, clinging fingers; and then the pulse of blood that beat of hope — love — life — Allie Lee!

CHAPTER 36

SLINGERLAND SAW ALLIE Lee married to Neale by that minister of God whose prayer had followed the joining of the rails.

And to the old trapper had fallen the joy and the honor of giving the bride away and of receiving her kiss, as though he had been her father. Then the happy congratulations from General Lodge and his staff; the merry dinner given the couple, and its toasts warm with praise of the bride’s beauty and the groom’s luck and success; Neale’s strange, rapt happiness and Allie’s soul shining through her dark-blue eyes — this hour was to become memorable for Slingerland’s future dreams.

Slingerland’s sight was not clear when, as the train pulled away, he waved a last good-bye to his young friends. Now he had no hope, no prayer left unanswered, except to be again in his beloved hills.

Abruptly he hurried away to the corrals where his pack-train was all in readiness to start. He did not speak to a man. He had packed a dozen burros — the largest and completest pack-train he had ever driven. The abundance of carefully selected supplies, tools, and traps should last him many years — surely all the years that he would live.

Slingerland did not intend to return to civilization, and he never even looked back at that blotch on the face of the bluff — that hideous Roaring City.

He drove the burros at a good trot, his mind at once busy and absent, happy with the pictures of that last hour, gloomy with the undefined, unsatisfied cravings of his heart. Friendship with Neale, affection for Allie, acquainted him with the fact that he had missed something in life — not friendship, for he had had hunter friends, but love, perhaps of a sweetheart, surely love of a daughter.

For the rest the old trapper was glad to see the last of habitations, and of men, and of the railroad. Slingerland hated that great, shining steel band of progress connecting East and West. Every ringing sledge-hammer blow had sung out the death-knell of the trapper’s calling. This railroad spelled the end of the wilderness. What one group of greedy men had accomplished others would imitate; and the grass of the plains would be burned, the forests blackened, the fountains dried up in the valleys, and the wild creatures of the mountains driven and hunted and exterminated. The end of the buffalo had come — the end of the Indian was in sight — and that of the fur-bearing animal and his hunter must follow soon with the hurrying years.

Slingerland hated the railroad, and he could not see as Neale did, or any of the engineers or builders. This old trapper had the vision of the Indian — that far-seeing eye cleared by distance and silence, and the force of the great, lonely hills. Progress was great, but nature undespoiled was greater. If a race could not breed all stronger men, through its great movements, it might better not breed any, for the bad over-multiplied the good, and so their needs magnified into greed. Slingerland saw many shining bands of steel across the plains and mountains, many stations and hamlets and cities, a growing and marvelous prosperity from timber, mines, farms, and in the distant end — a gutted West.

He made his first camp on a stream watering a valley twenty miles from the railroad. There were Indian tracks on the trails. But he had nothing to fear from Indians. That night, though all was starry and silent around him as he lay, he still held the insupportable feeling.

Next day he penetrated deeper into the foothills, and soon he had gained the fastnesses of the mountains. No longer did he meet trails except those of deer and wildcat and bear. And so day after day he drove his burros, climbing and descending the rocky ways, until he had penetrated to the very heart of the great wild range.

In all his roaming over untrodden lands he had never come into such a wild place. No foot, not — even an Indian’s, had ever desecrated this green valley with its clear, singing stream, its herds of tame deer, its curious beaver, its pine-covered slopes, its looming, gray, protective peaks. And at last he was satisfied to halt there — to build his cabin and his corral.

Discontent and longing, and then hate, passed into oblivion. These useless passions could not long survive in such an environment. By and by the old trapper’s only link with the past was memory of a stalwart youth, and of a girl with violet eyes, and of their sad and wonderful romance, in which he had played a happy part.

The rosy dawn, the days of sun and cloud, the still, windy nights, the solemn stars, the moon-blanched valley with its grazing herds, the beautiful wild mourn of the hunting wolf and the whistle of the stag, and always and ever the murmur of the stream — in these, and in the solitude and loneliness of their haunts, he found his goal, his serenity, the truth and best of remaining life for him.

CHAPTER 37

A BAND OF Sioux warriors rode out upon a promontory of the hills, high above the great expanse of plain. Long, lean arms were raised and pointed.

A chief dismounted and strode to the front of his band. His war-bonnet trailed behind him; there were unhealed scars upon his bronze body; his face was old, full of fine, wavy lines, stern, craggy, and inscrutable; his eyes were dark, arrowy lightnings.

They beheld, far out and down upon the plain, a long, low, moving object leaving a trail of smoke. It was a train on the railroad. It came from the east and crept toward the west. The chief watched it, and so did his warriors. No word was spoken, no sign made, no face changed.

But what was in the mind and the heart and the soul of that great chief?

This beast that puffed smoke and spat fire and shrieked like a devil of an alien tribe; that split the silence as hideously as the long track split the once smooth plain; that was made of iron and wood; this thing of the white man’s, coming from out of the distance where the Great Spirit lifted the dawn, meant the end of the hunting-grounds and the doom of the Indian. Blood had flowed; many warriors lay in their last sleep under the trees; but the iron monster that belched fire had gone only to return again. Those white men were many as the needles of the pines. They fought and died, but always others came.

The chief was old and wise, taught by sage and star and mountain and wind and the loneliness of the prairie-land. He recognized a superior race, but not a nobler one. White men would glut the treasures of water and earth. The Indian had been born to hunt his meat, to repel his red foes, to watch the clouds and serve his gods. But these white men would come like a great flight of grasshoppers to cover the length and breadth of the prairie-land. The buffalo would roll away, like a dust-cloud, in the distance, and never return. No meat for the Indian — no grass for his mustang — no place for his home. The Sioux must fight till he died or be driven back into waste places where grief and hardship would end him.

Red and dusky, the sun was setting beyond the desert. The old chief swept aloft his arm, and then in his acceptance of the inevitable bitterness he stood in magnificent austerity, somber as death, seeing in this railroad train creeping, fading into the ruddy sunset, a symbol of the destiny of the Indian — vanishing — vanishing — vanishing —

The Desert of Wheat

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER I

LATE IN JUNE the vast northwestern desert of wheat began to take on a tinge of gold, lending an austere beauty to that endless, rolling, smooth world of treeless hills, where miles of fallow ground and miles of waving grain sloped up to the far-separated homes of the heroic men who had conquered over sage and sand.

These simple homes of farmers seemed lost on an immensity of soft gray and golden billows of land, insignificant dots here and there on distant hills, so far apart that nature only seemed accountable for those broad squares of alternate gold and brown, extending on and on to the waving horizon-line. A lonely, hard, heroic country, where flowers and fruit were not, nor birds and brooks, nor green pastures. Whirling strings of dust looped up over fallow ground, the short, dry wheat lay back from the wind, the haze in the distance was drab and smoky, heavy with substance.

A thousand hills lay bare to the sky, and half of every hill was wheat and half was fallow ground; and all of them, with the shallow valleys between, seemed big and strange and isolated. The beauty of them was austere, as if the hand of man had been held back from making green his home site, as if the immensity of the task had left no time for youth and freshness. Years, long years, were there in the round-hilled, many-furrowed gray old earth. And the wheat looked a century old. Here and there a straight, dusty road stretched from hill to hill, becoming a thin white line, to disappear in the distance. The sun shone hot, the wind blew hard; and over the boundless undulating expanse hovered a shadow that was neither hood of dust nor hue of gold. It was not physical, but lonely, waiting, prophetic, and weird. No wild desert of wastelands, once the home of other races of man, and now gone to decay and death, could have shown so barren an acreage. Half of this wandering patchwork of squares was earth, brown and gray, curried and disked, and rolled and combed and harrowed, with not a tiny leaf of green in all the miles. The other half had only a faint golden promise of mellow harvest; and at long distance it seemed to shimmer and retreat under the hot sun. A singularly beautiful effect of harmony lay in the long, slowly rising slopes, in the rounded hills, in the endless curving lines on all sides. The scene was heroic because of the labor of horny hands; it was sublime because not a hundred harvests, nor three generations of toiling men, could ever rob nature of its limitless space and scorching sun and sweeping dust, of its resistless age-long creep back toward the desert that it had been.

Here was grown the most bounteous, the richest and finest wheat in all the world. Strange and unfathomable that so much of the bread of man, the staff of life, the hope of civilization in this tragic year 1917, should come from a vast, treeless, waterless, dreary desert!

This wonderful place was an immense valley of considerable altitude called the Columbia Basin, surrounded by the Cascade Mountains on the west, the Coeur d’Alene and Bitter Root Mountains on the east, the Okanozan range to the north, and the Blue Mountains to the south. The valley floor was basalt, from the lava flow of volcanoes in ages past. The rainfall was slight except in the foot-hills of the mountains. The Columbia River, making a prodigious and meandering curve, bordered on three sides what was known as the Bend country. South of this vast area, across the range, began the fertile, many-watered region that extended on down into verdant Oregon. Among the desert hills of this Bend country, near the center of the Basin, where the best wheat was raised, lay widely separated little towns, the names of which gave evidence of the mixed population. It was, of course, an exceedingly prosperous country, a fact manifest in the substantial little towns, if not in the crude and unpretentious homes of the farmers. The acreage of farms ran from a section, six hundred and forty acres, up into the thousands.

Upon a morning in early July, exactly three months after the United States had declared war upon Germany, a sturdy young farmer strode with darkly troubled face from the presence of his father. At the end of a stormy scene he had promised his father that he would abandon his desire to enlist in the army.

Kurt Dorn walked away from the gray old clapboard house, out to the fence, where he leaned on the gate. He could see for miles in every direction, and to the southward, away on a long yellow slope, rose a stream of dust from a motor-car.

“Must be Anderson — coming to dun father,” muttered young Dorn.

This was the day, he remembered, when the wealthy rancher of Ruxton was to look over old Chris Dorn’s wheat-fields. Dorn owed thirty-thousand dollars and interest for years, mostly to Anderson. Kurt hated the debt and resented the visit, but he could not help acknowledging that the rancher had been lenient and kind. Long since Kurt had sorrowfully realized that his father was illiterate, hard, grasping, and growing worse with the burden of years.

“If we had rain now — or soon — that section of Bluestem would square father,” soliloquized young Dorn, as with keen eyes he surveyed a vast field of wheat, short, smooth, yellowing in the sun. But the cloudless sky, the haze of heat rather betokened a continued drought.

There were reasons, indeed, for Dorn to wear a dark and troubled face as he watched the motor-car speed along ahead of its stream of dust, pass out of sight under the hill, and soon reappear, to turn off the main road and come toward the house. It was a big, closed car, covered with dust. The driver stopped it at the gate and got out.

“Is this Chris Dorn’s farm?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Kurt.

Whereupon the door of the car opened and out stepped a short, broad man in a long linen coat.

“Come out, Lenore, an’ shake off the dust,” he said, and he assisted a young woman to step out. She also wore a long linen coat, and a veil besides. The man removed his coat and threw it into the car. Then he took off his sombrero to beat the dust off of that.

“Phew! The Golden Valley never seen dust like this in a million years!… I’m chokin’ for water. An’ listen to the car. She’s boilin’!”

Then, as he stepped toward Kurt, the rancher showed himself to be a well-preserved man of perhaps fifty-five, of powerful form beginning to sag in the broad shoulders, his face bronzed by long exposure to wind and sun. He had keen gray eyes, and their look was that of a man used to dealing with his kind and well disposed toward them.

“Hello! Are you young Dorn?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” replied Kurt, stepping out.

“I’m Anderson, from Ruxton, come to see your dad. This is my girl Lenore.”

Kurt acknowledged the slight bow from the veiled young woman, and then, hesitating, he added, “Won’t you come in?”

“No, not yet. I’m chokin’ for air an’ water. Bring us a drink,” replied Anderson.

Kurt hurried away to get a bucket and tin cup. As he drew water from the well he was thinking rather vaguely that it was somehow embarrassing — the fact of Mr. Anderson being accompanied by his daughter. Kurt was afraid of his father. But then, what did it matter? When he returned to the yard he found the rancher sitting in the shade of one of the few apple-trees, and the young lady was standing near, in the act of removing bonnet and veil. She had thrown the linen coat over the seat of an old wagon-bed that lay near.

“Good water is scarce here, but I’m glad we have some,” said Kurt; then as he set down the bucket and offered a brimming cupful to the girl he saw her face, and his eyes met hers. He dropped the cup and stared. Then hurriedly, with flushing face, he bent over to recover and refill it.

“Ex-excuse me. I’m — clumsy,” he managed to say, and as he handed the cup to her he averted his gaze. For more than a year the memory of this very girl had haunted him. He had seen her twice — the first time at the close of his one year of college at the University of California, and the second time on the street in Spokane. In a glance he had recognized the strong, lithe figure, the sunny hair, the rare golden tint of her complexion, the blue eyes, warm and direct. And he had sustained a shock which momentarily confused him.

“Good water, hey?” dissented Anderson, after drinking a second cup. “Boy that’s wet, but it ain’t water to drink. Come down in the foot-hills an’ I’ll show you. My ranch ‘s called ‘Many Waters,’ an’ you can’t keep your feet dry.”

“I wish we had some of it here,” replied Kurt, wistfully, and he waved a hand at the broad, swelling slopes. The warm breath that blew in from the wheatlands felt dry and smelled dry.

“You’re in for a dry spell?” inquired Anderson, with interest that was keen, and kindly as well.

“Father says so. And I fear it, too — for he never makes a mistake in weather or crops.”

“A hot, dry spell!… This summer?… Hum!… Boy, do you know that wheat is the most important thing in the world to-day?”

“You mean on account of the war,” replied Kurt. “Yes, I know. But father doesn’t see that. All he sees is — if we have rain we’ll have bumper crops. That big field there would be a record — at war prices.… And he wouldn’t be ruined!”

“Ruined?… Oh, he means I’d close on him.… Hum!… Say, what do you see in a big wheat yield — if it rains?”

“Mr. Anderson, I’d like to see our debt paid, but I’m thinking most of wheat for starving peoples. I — I’ve studied this wheat question. It’s the biggest question in this war.”

Kurt had forgotten the girl and was unaware of her eyes bent steadily upon him. Anderson had roused to the interest of wheat, and to a deeper study of the young man.

“Say, Dorn, how old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-four. And Kurt’s my first name,” was the reply.

“Will this farm fall to you?”

“Yes, if my father does not lose it.”

“Hum!… Old Dorn won’t lose it, never fear. He raises the best wheat in this section.”

“But father never owned the land. We have had three bad years. If the wheat fails this summer — we lose the land, that’s all.”

“Are you an — American?” queried Anderson, slowly, as if treading on dangerous ground.

“I am,” snapped Kurt. “My mother was American. She’s dead. Father is German. He’s old. He’s rabid since the President declared war. He’ll never change.”

“That’s hell. What ‘re you goin’ to do if your country calls you?”

“Go!” replied Kurt, with flashing eyes. “I wanted to enlist. Father and I quarreled over that until I had to give in. He’s hard — he’s impossible.… I’ll wait for the draft and hope I’m called.”

“Boy, it’s that spirit Germany’s roused, an’ the best I can say is, God help her!… Have you a brother?”

“No. I’m all father has.”

“Well, it makes a tough place for him, an’ you, too. Humor him. He’s old. An’ when you’re called — go an’ fight. You’ll come back.”

“If I only knew that — it wouldn’t be so hard.”

“Hard? It sure is hard. But it’ll be the makin’ of a great country. It’ll weed out the riffraff.… See here, Kurt, I’m goin’ to give you a hunch. Have you had any dealin’s with the I.W.W.?”

“Yes, last harvest we had trouble, but nothing serious. When I was in Spokane last month I heard a good deal. Strangers have approached us here, too — mostly aliens. I have no use for them, but they always get father’s ear. And now!… To tell the truth, I’m worried.”

“Boy, you need to be,” replied Anderson, earnestly. “We’re all worried. I’m goin’ to let you read over the laws of that I.W.W. organization. You’re to keep mum now, mind you. I belong to the Chamber of Commerce in Spokane. Somebody got hold of these by-laws of this so-called labor union. We’ve had copies made, an’ every honest farmer in the Northwest is goin’ to read them. But carryin’ one around is dangerous, I reckon, these days. Here.”

Anderson hesitated a moment, peered cautiously around, and then, slipping folded sheets of paper from his inside coat pocket, he evidently made ready to hand them to Kurt.

“Lenore, where’s the driver?” he asked.

“He’s under the car,” replied the girl

Kurt thrilled at the soft sound of her voice. It was something to have been haunted by a girl’s face for a year and then suddenly hear her voice.

“He’s new to me — that driver — an’ I ain’t trustin’ any new men these days,” went on Anderson. “Here now, Dorn. Read that. An’ if you don’t get red-headed—”

Without finishing his last muttered remark, he opened the sheets of manuscript and spread them out to the young man.

Curiously, and with a little rush of excitement, Kurt began to read. The very first rule of the I.W.W. aimed to abolish capital. Kurt read on with slowly growing amaze, consternation, and anger. When he had finished, his look, without speech, was a question Anderson hastened to answer.

“It’s straight goods,” he declared. “Them’s the sure-enough rules of that gang. We made certain before we acted. Now how do they strike you?”

“Why, that’s no labor union!” replied Kurt, hotly. “They’re outlaws, thieves, blackmailers, pirates. I — I don’t know what!”

“Dorn, we’re up against a bad outfit an’ the Northwest will see hell this summer. There’s trouble in Montana and Idaho. Strangers are driftin’ into Washington from all over. We must organize to meet them — to prevent them gettin’ a hold out here. It’s a labor union, mostly aliens, with dishonest an’ unscrupulous leaders, some of them Americans. They aim to take advantage of the war situation. In the newspapers they rave about shorter hours, more pay, acknowledgment of the union. But any fool would see, if he read them laws I showed you, that this I.W.W. is not straight.”

“Mr. Anderson, what steps have you taken down in your country?” queried Kurt.

“So far all I’ve done was to hire my hands for a year, give them high wages, an’ caution them when strangers come round to feed them an’ be civil an’ send them on.”

“But we can’t do that up here in the Bend,” said Dorn, seriously. “We need, say, a hundred thousand men in harvest-time, and not ten thousand all the rest of the year.”

“Sure you can’t. But you’ll have to organize somethin’. Up here in this desert you could have a heap of trouble if that outfit got here strong enough. You’d better tell every farmer you can trust about this I.W.W.”

“I’ve only one American neighbor, and he lives six miles from here,” replied Dorn. “Olsen over there is a Swede, and not a naturalized citizen, but I believe he’s for the U.S. And there’s—”

“Dad,” interrupted the girl, “I believe our driver is listening to your very uninteresting conversation.”

She spoke demurely, with laughter in her low voice. It made Dorn dare to look at her, and he met a blue blaze that was instantly averted.

Anderson growled, evidently some very hard names, under his breath; his look just then was full of characteristic Western spirit. Then he got up.

“Lenore, I reckon your talk ‘ll be more interesting than mine,” he said, dryly. “I’ll go see Dorn an’ get this business over.”

“I’d rather go with you,” hurriedly replied Kurt; and then, as though realizing a seeming discourtesy in his words, his face flamed, and he stammered: “I — I don’t mean that. But father is in bad mood. We just quarreled. — I told you — about the war. And — Mr. Anderson, — I’m — I’m a little afraid he’ll—”

“Well, son, I’m not afraid,” interrupted the rancher. “I’ll beard the old lion in his den. You talk to Lenore.”

“Please don’t speak of the war,” said Kurt, appealingly.

“Not a word unless he starts roarin’ at Uncle Sam,” declared Anderson, with a twinkle in his eyes, and turned toward the house.

“He’ll roar, all right,” said Kurt, almost with a groan. He knew what an ordeal awaited the rancher, and he hated the fact that it could not be avoided. Then Kurt was confused, astounded, infuriated with himself over a situation he had not brought about and could scarcely realize. He became conscious of pride and shame, and something as black and hopeless as despair.

“Haven’t I seen you — before?” asked the girl.

The query surprised and thrilled Kurt out of his self-centered thought.

“I don’t know. Have you? Where?” he answered, facing her. It was a relief to find that she still averted her face.

“At Berkeley, in California, the first time, and the second at Spokane, in front of the Davenport,” she replied.

“First — and — second?… You — you remembered both times!” he burst out, incredulously.

“Yes. I don’t see how I could have helped remembering.” Her laugh was low, musical, a little hurried, yet cool.

Dorn was not familiar with girls. He had worked hard all his life, there among those desert hills, and during the few years his father had allowed him for education. He knew wheat, but nothing of the eternal feminine. So it was impossible for him to grasp that this girl was not wholly at her ease. Her words and the cool little laugh suddenly brought home to Kurt the immeasurable distance between him and a daughter of one of the richest ranchers in Washington.

“You mean I — I was impertinent,” he began, struggling between shame and pride. “I — I stared at you.… Oh, I must have been rude.… But, Miss Anderson, I — I didn’t mean to be. I didn’t think you saw me — at all. I don’t know what made me do that. It never happened before. I beg your pardon.”

A subtle indefinable change, perceptible to Dorn, even in his confused state, came over the girl.

“I did not say you were impertinent,” she returned. “I remembered seeing you — notice me, that is all.”

Self-possessed, aloof, and kind, Miss Anderson now became an impenetrable mystery to Dorn. But that only accentuated the distance she had intimated lay between them. Her kindness stung him to recover his composure. He wished she had not been kind. What a singular chance that had brought her here to his home — the daughter of a man who came to demand a long-unpaid debt! What a dispelling of the vague thing that had been only a dream! Dorn gazed away across the yellowing hills to the dim blue of the mountains where rolled the Oregon. Despite the color, it was gray — like his future.

“I heard you tell father you had studied wheat,” said the girl, presently, evidently trying to make conversation.

“Yes, all my life,” replied Kurt. “My study has mostly been under my father. Look at my hands.” He held out big, strong hands, scarred and knotted, with horny palms uppermost, and he laughed. “I can be proud of them, Miss Anderson.… But I had a splendid year in California at the university and I graduated from the Washington State Agricultural College.”

“You love wheat — the raising of it, I mean?” she inquired.

“It must be that I do, though I never had such a thought. Wheat is so wonderful. No one can guess who does not know it!… The clean, plump grain, the sowing on fallow ground, the long wait, the first tender green, and the change day by day to the deep waving fields of gold — then the harvest, hot, noisy, smoky, full of dust and chaff, and the great combine-harvesters with thirty-four horses. Oh! I guess I do love it all.… I worked in a Spokane flour-mill, too, just to learn how flour is made. There is nothing in the world so white, so clean, so pure as flour made from the wheat of these hills!”

“Next you’ll be telling me that you can bake bread,” she rejoined, and her laugh was low and sweet. Her eyes shone with soft blue gleams.

“Indeed I can! I bake all the bread we use,” he said, stoutly. “And I flatter myself I can beat any girl you know.”

“You can beat mine, I’m sure. Before I went to college I did pretty well. But I learned too much there. Now my mother and sisters, and brother Jim, all the family except dad, make fun of my bread.”

“You have a brother? How old is he?”

“One brother — Jim, we call him. He — he is just past twenty-one.” She faltered the last few words.

Kurt felt on common ground with her then. The sudden break in her voice, the change in her face, the shadowing of the blue eyes — these were eloquent.

“Oh, it’s horrible — this need of war!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” he replied, simply. “But maybe your brother will not be called.”

“Called! Why, he refused to wait for the draft! He went and enlisted. Dad patted him on the back.… If anything happens to him it’ll kill my mother. Jim is her idol. It’d break my heart.… Oh, I hate the very name of Germans!”

“My father is German,” said Kurt. “He’s been fifty years in America — eighteen years here on this farm. He always hated England. Now he’s bitter against America.… I can see a side you can’t see. But I don’t blame you — for what you said.”

“Forgive me. I can’t conceive of meaning that against any one who’s lived here so long.… Oh, it must be hard for you.”

“I’ll let my father think I’m forced to join the army. But I’m going to fight against his people. We are a house divided against itself.”

“Oh, what a pity!” The girl sighed and her eyes were dark with brooding sorrow.

A step sounded behind them. Mr. Anderson appeared, sombrero off, mopping a very red face. His eyes gleamed, with angry glints; his mouth and chin were working. He flopped down with a great, explosive breath.

“Kurt, your old man is a — a — son of a gun!” he exclaimed, vociferously; manifestly, liberation of speech was a relief.

The young man nodded seriously and knowingly. “I hope, sir — he — he—”

“He did — you just bet your life! He called me a lot in German, but I know cuss words when I hear them. I tried to reason with him — told him I wanted my money — was here to help him get that money off the farm, some way or other. An’ he swore I was a capitalist — an enemy to labor an’ the Northwest — that I an’ my kind had caused the war.”

Kurt gazed gravely into the disturbed face of the rancher. Miss Anderson had wide-open eyes of wonder.

“Sure I could have stood all that,” went on Anderson, fuming. “But he ordered me out of the house. I got mad an’ wouldn’t go. Then — by George! he pulled my nose an’ called me a bloody Englishman!”

Kurt groaned in the disgrace of the moment. But, amazingly, Miss Anderson burst into a silvery peal of laughter.

“Oh, dad!… that’s — just too — good for — anything! You met your — match at last.… You know you always — boasted of your drop of English blood.… And you’re sensitive — about your big nose!”

“He must be over seventy,” growled Anderson, as if seeking for some excuse to palliate his restraint. “I’m mad — but it was funny.” The working of his face finally set in the huge wrinkles of a laugh.

Young Dorn struggled to repress his own mirth, but unguardedly he happened to meet the dancing blue eyes of the girl, merry, provocative, full of youth and fun, and that was too much for him. He laughed with them.

“The joke’s on me,” said Anderson. “An’ I can take one.… Now, young man, I think I gathered from your amiable dad that if the crop of wheat was full I’d get my money. Otherwise I could take over the land. For my part, I’d never do that, but the others interested might do it, even for the little money involved. I tried to buy them out so I’d have the whole mortgage. They would not sell.”

“Mr. Anderson, you’re a square man, and I’ll do—” declared Kurt.

“Come out an’ show me the wheat,” interrupted Anderson. “Lenore, do you want to go with us?”

“I do,” replied the daughter, and she took up her hat to put it on.

Kurt led them through the yard, out past the old barn, to the edge of the open slope where the wheat stretched away, down and up, as far as the eye could see.

CHAPTER II

“WE’VE GOT OVER sixteen hundred acres in fallow ground, a half-section in rye, another half in wheat — Turkey Red — and this section you see, six hundred and forty acres, in Bluestem,” said Kurt.

Anderson’s keen eyes swept from near at hand to far away, down the gentle, billowy slope and up the far hillside. The wheat was two feet high, beginning to be thick and heavy at the heads, as if struggling to burst. A fragrant, dry, wheaty smell, mingled with dust, came on the soft summer breeze, and a faint silken rustle. The greenish, almost blue color near at hand gradually in the distance grew lighter, and then yellow, and finally took on a tinge of gold. There was a living spirit in that vast wheat-field.

“Dorn, it’s the finest wheat I’ve seen!” exclaimed Anderson, with the admiration of the farmer who aspired high. “In fact, it’s the only fine field of wheat I’ve seen since we left the foot-hills. How is that?”

“Late spring and dry weather,” replied Dorn. “Most of the farmers’ reports are poor. If we get rain over the Bend country we’ll have only an average yield this year. If we don’t get rain — then flat failure.”

Miss Anderson evinced an interest in the subject and she wanted to know why this particular field, identical with all the others for miles around, should have a promise of a magnificent crop when the others had no promise at all.

“This section lay fallow a long time,” replied Dorn. “Snow lasted here on this north slope quite a while. My father used a method of soil cultivation intended to conserve moisture. The seed wheat was especially selected. And if we have rain during the next ten days this section of Bluestem will yield fifty bushels to the acre.”

“Fifty bushels!” ejaculated Anderson.

“Bluestem? Why do you call it that when it’s green and yellow?” queried the girl.

“It’s a name. There are many varieties of wheat. Bluestem is best here in this desert country because it resists drought, it produces large yield, it does not break, and the flour-mills rate it very high. Bluestem is not good in wet soils.”

Anderson tramped along the edge of the field, peering down, here and there pulling a shaft of wheat and examining it. The girl gazed with dreamy eyes across the undulating sea. And Dorn watched her.

“We have a ranch — thousands of acres — but not like this,” she said.

“What’s the difference?” asked Dorn.

She appeared pensive and in doubt.

“I hardly know. What would you call this — this scene?”

“Why, I call it the desert of wheat! But no one else does,” he replied.

“I named father’s ranch ‘Many Waters.’ I think those names tell the difference.”

“Isn’t my desert beautiful?”

“No. It has a sameness — a monotony that would drive me mad. It looks as if the whole world had gone to wheat. It makes me think — oppresses me. All this means that we live by wheat alone. These bare hills! They’re too open to wind and sun and snow. They look like the toil of ages.”

“Miss Anderson, there is such a thing as love for the earth — the bare brown earth. You know we came from dust, and to dust we return! These fields are human to my father. And they have come to speak to me — a language I don’t understand yet. But I mean — w hat you see — the growing wheat here, the field of clods over there, the wind and dust and glare and heat, the eternal sameness of the open space — these are the things around which my life has centered, and when I go away from them I am not content.”

Anderson came back to the young couple, carrying some heads of wheat in his hand.

“Smut!” he exclaimed, showing both diseased and healthy specimens of wheat. “Had to hunt hard to find that. Smut is the bane of all wheat-growers. I never saw so little of it as there is here. In fact, we know scarcely nothin’ about smut an’ its cure, if there is any. You farmers who raise only grain have got the work down to a science. This Bluestem is not bearded wheat, like Turkey Red. Has that beard anythin’ to do with smut?”

“I think not. The parasite, or fungus, lives inside the wheat.”

“Never heard that before. No wonder smut is the worst trouble for wheat-raisers in the Northwest. I’ve fields literally full of smut. An’ we never are rid of it. One farmer has one idea, an’ some one else another. What could be of greater importance to a farmer? We’re at war. The men who claim to know say that wheat will win the war. An’ we lose millions of bushels from this smut. That’s to say it’s a terrible fact to face. I’d like to get your ideas.”

Dorn, happening to glance again at Miss Anderson, an act that seemed to be growing habitual, read curiosity and interest, and something more, in her direct blue eyes. The circumstance embarrassed him, though it tugged at the flood-gates of his knowledge. He could talk about wheat, and he did like to. Yet here was a girl who might be supposed to be bored. Still, she did not appear to be. That warm glance was not politeness.

“Yes, I’d like to hear every word you can say about wheat,” she said, with an encouraging little nod.

“Sure she would,” added Anderson, with an affectionate hand on her shoulder. “She’s a farmer’s daughter. She’ll be a farmer’s wife.”

He laughed at this last sally. The girl blushed. Dorn smiled and shook his head doubtfully.

“I imagine that good fortune will never befall a farmer,” he said.

“Well, if it should,” she replied, archly, “just consider how I might surprise him with my knowledge of wheat.… Indeed, Mr. Dorn, I am interested. I’ve never been in the Bend before — in your desert of wheat. I never before felt the greatness of loving the soil — or caring for it — of growing things from seed. Yet the Bible teaches that, and I read my Bible. Please tell us. The more you say the more I’ll like it.”

Dorn was not proof against this eloquence. And he quoted two of his authorities, Heald and Woolman, of the State Agricultural Experiment Station, where he had studied for two years.

“Bunt, or stinking smut, is caused by two different species of microscopic fungi which live as parasites in the wheat plant. Both are essentially similar in their effects and their life-history. Tilletia tritici, or the rough-spored variety, is the common stinking smut of the Pacific regions, while Tilletia foetans, or the smooth-spored species, is the one generally found in the eastern United States.

“The smut ‘berries,’ or ‘balls,’ from an infected head contain millions of minute bodies, the spores or ‘seeds’ of the smut fungus. These reproduce the smut in somewhat the same way that a true seed develops into a new plant. A single smut ball of average size contains a sufficient number of spores to give one for each grain of wheat in five or six bushels. It takes eight smut spores to equal the diameter of a human hair. Normal wheat grains from an infected field may have so many spores lodged on their surface as to give them a dark color, but other grains which show no difference in color to the naked eye may still contain a sufficient number of spores to produce a smutty crop if seed treatment is not practised.

“When living smut spores are introduced into the soil with the seed wheat, or exist in the soil in which smut-free wheat is sown, a certain percentage of the wheat plants are likely to become infected. The smut spore germinates and produces first a stage of the smut plant in the soil. This first stage never infects a young seedling direct, but gives rise to secondary spores, or sporida, from which infection threads may arise and penetrate the shoot of a young seedling and reach the growing point. Here the fungus threads keep pace with the growth of the plant and reach maturity at or slightly before harvest-time.

“Since this disease is caused by an internal parasite, it is natural to expect certain responses to its presence. It should be noted first that the smut fungus is living at the expense of its host plant, the wheat, and its effect on the host may be summarized as follows: The consumption of food, the destruction of food in the sporulating process, and the stimulating or retarding effect on normal physiological processes.

“Badly smutted plants remain in many cases under-size and produce fewer and smaller heads. In the Fife and Bluestem varieties the infected heads previous to maturity exhibit a darker green color, and remain green longer than the normal heads. In some varieties the infected heads stand erect, when normal ones begin to droop as a result of the increasing weight of the ripening grain.

“A crop may become infected with smut in a number of different ways. Smut was originally introduced with the seed, and many farmers are still planting it every season with their seed wheat. Wheat taken from a smutty crop will have countless numbers of loose spores adhering to the grains, also a certain number of unbroken smut balls. These are always a source of danger, even when the seed is treated with fungicides before sowing.

“There are also chances for the infection of a crop if absolutely smut-free seed is employed. First, soil infection from a previous smutty crop; second, soil infection from wind-blown spores. Experiments have shown that separated spores from crushed smut balls lose their effective power in from two to three months, provided the soil is moist and loose, and in no case do they survive a winter.

“It does not seem probable that wheat smut will be controlled by any single practice, but rather by the combined use of various methods: crop rotation; the use of clean seed; seed treatment with fungicides; cultural practices and breeding; and selection of varieties.

“Failure to practise crop rotation is undoubtedly one of the main explanations for the general prevalence of smut in the wheat-fields of eastern Washington. Even with an intervening summer fallow, the smut from a previous crop may be a source of infection. Experience shows that a fall stubble crop is less liable to smut infection than a crop following summer fallow. The apparent explanation for this condition is the fact that the summer fallow becomes infected with wind-blown spores, while in a stubble crop the wind-blown spores, as well as those originating from the previous crop, are buried in plowing.

“If clean seed or properly treated seed had been used by all farmers we should never have had a smut problem. High per cents. of smut indicate either soil infection or imperfect treatment. The principle of the chemical treatment is to use a poison which will kill the superficial spores of the smut and not materially injure the germinating power of the seed. The hot-water treatment is only recommended when one of the chemical ‘steeps’ is not effective.

“Certain cultural practices are beneficial in reducing the amount of smut in all cases, while the value of others depends to some extent upon the source of the smut spores. The factors which always influence the amount of smut are the temperature of the soil during the germinating period, the amount of soil moisture, and the depth of seeding. Where seed-borne spores are the only sources of infection, attention to the three factors mentioned will give the only cultural practices for reducing the amount of smut.

“Early seeding has been practised by various farmers, and they report a marked reduction in smut.

“The replowing of the summer fallow after the first fall rains is generally effective in reducing the amount of smut.

“Very late planting — that is, four or five weeks after the first good fall rains — is also an effective practice. Fall tillage of summer fallow, other than plowing, seems to be beneficial.

“No smut-immune varieties of wheat are known, but the standard varieties show varying degrees of resistance. Spring wheats generally suffer less from smut than winter varieties. This is not due to any superior resistance, but rather to the fact that they escape infection. If only spring wheats were grown our smut problem would largely disappear; but a return to this practice is not suggested, since the winter wheats are much more desirable. It seems probable that the conditions which prevail during the growing season may have considerable influence on the per cent of smut in any given variety.”

When Dorn finished his discourse, to receive the thanks of his listeners, they walked back through the yard toward the road. Mr. Anderson, who led the way, halted rather abruptly.

“Hum! Who’re those men talkin’ to my driver?” he queried.

Dorn then saw a couple of strangers standing near the motor-car, engaged in apparently close conversation with the chauffeur. Upon the moment they glanced up to see Mr. Anderson approaching, and they rather hurriedly departed. Dorn had noted a good many strangers lately — men whose garb was not that of farmers, whose faces seemed foreign, whose actions were suspicious.

“I’ll bet a hundred they’re I.W.W.’s,” declared Anderson. “Take my hunch, Dorn.”

The strangers passed on down the road without looking back.

“Wonder where they’ll sleep to-night?” muttered Dorn.

Anderson rather sharply asked his driver what the two men wanted. And the reply he got was that they were inquiring about work.

“Did they speak English?” went on the rancher.

“Well enough to make themselves understood,” replied the driver.

Dorn did not get a good impression from the shifty eyes and air of taciturnity of Mr. Anderson’s man, and it was evident that the blunt rancher restrained himself. He helped his daughter into the car, and then put on his long coat. Next he shook hands with Dorn.

“Young man, I’ve enjoyed meetin’ you, an’ have sure profited from same,” he said. “Which makes up for your dad! I’ll run over here again to see you — around harvest-time. An’ I’ll be wishin’ for that rain.”

“Thank you. If it does rain I’ll be happy to see you,” replied Dorn, with a smile.

“Well, if it doesn’t rain I won’t come. I’ll put it off another year, an’ cuss them other fellers into holdin’ off, too.”

“You’re very kind. I don’t know how I’d — we’d ever repay you in that case.”

“Don’t mention it. Say, how far did you say it was to Palmer? We’ll have lunch there.”

“It’s fifteen miles — that way,” answered Dorn. “If it wasn’t for — for father I’d like you to stay — and break some of my bread.”

Dorn was looking at the girl as he spoke. Her steady gaze had been on him ever since she entered the car, and in the shade of her hat and the veil she was adjusting her eyes seemed very dark and sweet and thoughtful. She brightly nodded her thanks as she held the veil aside with both hands.

“I wish you luck. Good-by,” she said, and closed the veil.

Still, Dorn could see her eyes through it, and now they were sweeter, more mysterious, more provocative of haunting thoughts. It flashed over him with dread certainty that he had fallen in love with her. The shock struck him mute. He had no reply for the rancher’s hearty farewell. Then the car lurched away and dust rose in a cloud.

CHAPTER III

WITH A STRANGE knocking of his heart, high up toward his throat, Kurt Dorn stood stock-still, watching the moving cloud of dust until it disappeared over the hill.

No doubt entered his mind. The truth, the fact, was a year old — a long-familiar and dreamy state — but its meaning had not been revealed to him until just a moment past. Everything had changed when she looked out with that sweet, steady gaze through the parted veil and then slowly closed it. She had changed. There was something intangible about her that last moment, baffling, haunting. He leaned against a crooked old gate-post that as a boy he had climbed, and the thought came to him that this spot would all his life be vivid and poignant in his memory. The first sight of a blue-eyed, sunny-haired girl, a year and more before, had struck deep into his unconscious heart; a second sight had made her an unforgettable reality: and a third had been the realization of love.

It was sad, regrettable, incomprehensible, and yet somehow his inner being swelled and throbbed. Her name was Lenore Anderson. Her father was one of the richest men in the state of Washington. She had one brother, Jim, who would not wait for the army draft. Kurt trembled and a hot rush of tears dimmed his eyes. All at once his lot seemed unbearable. An immeasurable barrier had arisen between him and his old father — a hideous thing of blood, of years, of ineradicable difference; the broad acres of wheatland so dear to him were to be taken from him; love had overcome him with headlong rush, a love that could never be returned; and cruelest of all, there was the war calling him to give up his home, his father, his future, and to go out to kill and to be killed.

It came to him while he leaned there, that, remembering the light of Lenore Anderson’s eyes, he could not give up to bitterness and hatred, whatever his misfortunes and his fate. She would never be anything to him, but he and her brother Jim and many other young Americans must be incalculable all to her. That thought saved Kurt Dorn. There were other things besides his own career, his happiness; and the way he was placed, however unfortunate from a selfish point of view, must not breed a morbid self-pity.

The moment of his resolution brought a flash, a revelation of what he owed himself. The work and the thought and the feeling of his last few weeks there at home must be intensified. He must do much and live greatly in little time. This was the moment of his renunciation, and he imagined that many a young man who had decided to go to war had experienced a strange spiritual division of self. He wondered also if that moment was not for many of them a let-down, a throwing up of ideals, a helpless retrograding and surrender to the brutalizing spirit of war. But it could never be so for him. It might have been had not that girl come into his life.

The bell for the midday meal roused Kurt from his profound reverie, and he plodded back to the house. Down through the barnyard gate he saw the hired men coming, and a second glance discovered to him that two unknown men were with them. Watching for a moment, Kurt recognized the two strangers that had been talking to Mr. Anderson’s driver. They seemed to be talking earnestly now. Kurt saw Jerry, a trusty and long-tried employee, rather unceremoniously break away from these strangers. But they followed him, headed him off, and with vehement nods and gesticulations appeared to be arguing with him. The other hired men pushed closer, evidently listening. Finally Jerry impatiently broke away and tramped toward the house. These strangers sent sharp words after him — words that Kurt could not distinguish, though he caught the tone of scorn. Then the two individuals addressed themselves to the other men; and in close contact the whole party passed out of sight behind the barn.

Thoughtfully Kurt went into the house. He meant to speak to Jerry about the strangers, but he wanted to consider the matter first. He had misgivings. His father was not in the sitting-room, nor in the kitchen. Dinner was ready on the table, and the one servant, an old woman who had served the Dorns for years, appeared impatient at the lack of promptness in the men. Both father and son, except on Sundays, always ate with the hired help. Kurt stepped outside to find Jerry washing at the bench.

“Jerry, what’s keeping the men?” queried Kurt.

“Wal, they’re palaverin’ out there with two I.W.W. fellers,” replied Jerry.

Kurt reached for the rope of the farm-bell, and rang it rather sharply. Then he went in to take his place at the table, and Jerry soon followed. Old man Dorn did not appear, which fact was not unusual. The other hired men did not enter until Jerry and Kurt were half done with the meal. They seemed excited and somewhat boisterous, Kurt thought, but once they settled down to eating, after the manner of hungry laborers, they had little to say. Kurt, soon finishing his dinner, went outdoors to wait for Jerry. That individual appeared to be long in coming, and loud voices in the kitchen attested to further argument. At last, however, he lounged out and began to fill a pipe.

“Jerry, I want to talk to you,” said Kurt. “Let’s get away from the house.”

The hired man was a big, lumbering fellow, gnarled like an old oak-tree. He had a good-natured face and honest eyes.

“I reckon you want to hear about them I.W.W. fellers?” he asked, as they walked away.

“Yes,” replied Kurt.

“There’s been a regular procession of them fellers, the last week or so, walkin’ through the country,” replied Jerry. “To-day’s the first time any of them got to me. But I’ve heerd talk. Sunday when I was in Palmer the air was full of rumors.”

“Rumors of what?” queried Kurt.

“All kinds,” answered Jerry, nonchalantly scratching his stubby beard. “There’s an army of I.W.W.’s comin’ in from eastward. Idaho an’ Montana are gittin’ a dose now. Short hours; double wages; join the union; sabotage, whatever thet is; capital an’ labor fight; threats if you don’t fall in line; an’ Lord knows what all.”

“What did those two fellows want of you?”

“Wanted us to join the I.W.W.,” replied the laborer.

“Did they want a job?”

“Not as I heerd. Why, one of them had a wad of bills thet would choke a cow. He did most of the talkin’. The little feller with the beady eyes an’ the pock-marks, he didn’t say much. He’s Austrian an’ not long in this country. The big stiff — Glidden, he called himself — must be some shucks in thet I.W.W. He looked an’ talked oily at first — very persuadin’; but when I says I wasn’t goin’ to join no union he got sassy an’ bossy. They made me sore, so I told him to go to hell. Then he said the I.W.W. would run the whole Northwest this summer — wheat-fields, lumberin’, fruit-harvestin’, railroadin’ — the whole kaboodle, an’ thet any workman who wouldn’t join would git his, all right.”

“Well, Jerry, what do you think about this organization?” queried Kurt, anxiously.

“Not much. It ain’t a square deal. I ain’t got no belief in them. What I heerd of their threatenin’ methods is like the way this Glidden talks. If I owned a farm I’d drive such fellers off with a whip. There’s goin’ to be bad doin’s if they come driftin’ strong into the Bend.”

“Jerry, are you satisfied with your job?”

“Sure. I won’t join the I.W.W. An’ I’ll talk ag’in’ it. I reckon a few of us will hev to do all the harvestin’. An’, considerin’ thet, I’ll take a dollar a day more on my wages.”

“If father does not agree to that, I will,” said Kurt. “Now how about the other men?”

“Wal, they all air leanin’ toward promises of little work an’ lots of pay,” answered Jerry, with a laugh. “Morgan’s on the fence about joinin’. But Andrew agreed. He’s Dutch an’ pig-headed. Jansen’s only too glad to make trouble fer his boss. They’re goin’ to lay off the rest of to-day an’ talk with Glidden. They all agreed to meet down by the culvert. An’ thet’s what they was arguin’ with me fer — wanted me to come.”

“Where’s this man Glidden?” demanded Kurt. “I’ll give him a piece of my mind.”

“I reckon he’s hangin’ round the farm — out of sight somewhere.”

“All right, Jerry. Now you go back to work. You’ll never lose anything by sticking to us, I promise you that. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

Kurt strode back to the house, and his entrance to the kitchen evidently interrupted a colloquy of some kind. The hired men were still at table. They looked down at their plates and said nothing. Kurt left the sitting-room door open, and, turning, he asked Martha if his father had been to dinner.

“No, an’ what’s more, when I called he takes to roarin’ like a mad bull,” replied the woman.

Kurt crossed the sitting-room to knock upon his father’s door. The reply forthcoming did justify the old woman’s comparison. It certainly caused the hired men to evacuate the kitchen with alacrity. Old Chris Dorn’s roar at his son was a German roar, which did not soothe the young man’s rising temper. Of late the father had taken altogether to speaking German. He had never spoken English well. And Kurt was rapidly approaching the point where he would not speak German. A deadlock was in sight, and Kurt grimly prepared to meet it. He pounded on the locked door.

“The men are going to lay off,” he called.

“Who runs this farm?” was the thundered reply.

“The I.W.W. is going to run it if you sulk indoors as you have done lately,” yelled Kurt. He thought that would fetch his father stamping out, but he had reckoned falsely. There was no further sound. Leaving the room in high dudgeon, Kurt hurried out to catch the hired men near at hand and to order them back to work. They trudged off surlily toward the barn.

Then Kurt went on to search for the I.W.W. men, and after looking up and down the road, and all around, he at length found them behind an old strawstack. They were comfortably sitting down, backs to the straw, eating a substantial lunch. Kurt was angry and did not care. His appearance, however, did not faze the strangers. One of them, an American, was a man of about thirty years, clean-shaven, square-jawed, with light, steely, secretive gray eyes, and a look of intelligence and assurance that did not harmonize with his motley garb. His companion was a foreigner, small of stature, with eyes like a ferret and deep pits in his sallow face.

“Do you know you’re trespassing?” demanded Kurt.

“You grudge us a little shade, eh, even to eat a bite?” said the American. He wrapped a paper round his lunch and leisurely rose, to fasten penetrating eyes upon the young man. “That’s what I heard about you rich farmers of the Bend.”

“What business have you coming here?” queried Kurt, with sharp heat. “You sneak out of sight of the farmers. You trespass to get at our men and with a lot of lies and guff you make them discontented with their jobs. I’ll fire these men just for listening to you.”

“Mister Dorn, we want you to fire them. That’s my business out here,” replied the American.

“Who are you, anyway?”

“That’s my business, too.”

Kurt passed from hot to cold. He could not miss the antagonism of this man, a bold and menacing attitude.

“My foreman says your name’s Glidden,” went on Kurt, cooler this time, “and that you’re talking I.W.W. as if you were one of its leaders; that you don’t want a job; that you’ve got a wad of money; that you coax, then threaten; that you’ve intimidated three of our hands.”

“Your Jerry’s a marked man,” said Glidden, shortly.

“You impudent scoundrel!” exclaimed Kurt. “Now you listen to this. You’re the first I.W.W. man I’ve met. You look and talk like an American. But if you are American you’re a traitor. We’ve a war to fight! War with a powerful country! Germany! And you come spreading discontent in the wheat-fields,… when wheat means life!… Get out of here before I—”

“We’ll mark you, too, Mister Dorn, and your wheat-fields,” snapped Glidden.

With one swift lunge Kurt knocked the man flat and then leaped to stand over him, watching for a move to draw a weapon. The little foreigner slunk back out of reach.

“I’ll start a little marking myself,” grimly said Kurt. “Get up!”

Slowly Glidden moved from elbow to knees, and then to his feet. His cheek was puffing out and his nose was bleeding. The light-gray eyes were lurid.

“That’s for your I.W.W.!” declared Kurt. “The first rule of your I.W.W. is to abolish capital, hey?”

Kurt had not intended to say that. It slipped out in his fury. But the effect was striking. Glidden gave a violent start and his face turned white. Abruptly he hurried away. His companion shuffled after him. Kurt stared at them, thinking the while that if he had needed any proof of the crookedness of the I.W.W. he had seen it in Glidden’s guilty face. The man had been suddenly frightened, and surprise, too, had been prominent in his countenance. Then Kurt remembered how Anderson had intimated that the secrets of the I.W.W. had been long hidden. Kurt, keen and quick in his sensibilities, divined that there was something powerful back of this Glidden’s cunning and assurance. Could it be only the power of a new labor organization? That might well be great, but the idea did not convince Kurt. During a hurried and tremendous preparation by the government for war, any disorder such as menaced the country would be little short of a calamity. It might turn out a fatality. This so-called labor union intended to take advantage of a crisis to further its own ends. Yet even so, that fact did not wholly explain Glidden and his subtlety. Some nameless force loomed dark and sinister back of Glidden’s meaning, and it was not peril to the wheatlands of the Northwest alone.

Like a huge dog Kurt shook himself and launched into action. There were sense and pleasure in muscular activity, and it lessened the habit of worry. Soon he ascertained that only Morgan had returned to work in the fields. Andrew and Jansen were nowhere to be seen. Jansen had left four horses hitched to a harrow. Kurt went out to take up the work thus abandoned.

It was a long field, and if he had earned a dollar for every time he had traversed its length, during the last ten years, he would have been a rich man. He could have walked it blindfolded. It was fallow ground, already plowed, disked, rolled, and now the last stage was to harrow it, loosening the soil, conserving the moisture.

Morgan, far to the other side of this section, had the better of the job, for his harrow was a new machine and he could ride while driving the horses. But Kurt, using an old harrow, had to walk. The four big horses plodded at a gait that made Kurt step out to keep up with them. To keep up, to drive a straight line, to hold back on the reins, was labor for a man. It spoke well for Kurt that he had followed that old harrow hundreds of miles, that he could stand the strain, that he loved both the physical sense and the spiritual meaning of the toil.

Driving west, he faced a wind laden with dust as dry as powder. At every sheeted cloud, whipping back from the hoofs of the horses and the steel spikes of the harrow, he had to bat his eyes to keep from being blinded. The smell of dust clogged his nostrils. As soon as he began to sweat under the hot sun the dust caked on his face, itching, stinging, burning. There was dust between his teeth.

Driving back east was a relief. The wind whipped the dust away from him. And he could catch the fragrance of the newly turned soil. How brown and clean and earthy it looked! Where the harrow had cut and ridged, the soil did not look thirsty and parched. But that which was unharrowed cried out for rain. No cloud in the hot sky, except the yellow clouds of dust!

On that trip east across the field, which faced the road, Dorn saw pedestrians in twos and threes passing by. Once he was hailed, but made no answer. He would not have been surprised to see a crowd, yet travelers were scarce in that region. The sight of these men, some of them carrying bags and satchels, was disturbing to the young farmer. Where were they going? All appeared outward bound toward the river. They came, of course, from the little towns, the railroads, the cities. At this season, with harvest-time near at hand, it had been in former years no unusual sight to see strings of laborers passing by. But this year they came earlier, and in greater numbers.

With the wind in his face, however, Dorn saw nothing but the horses and the brown line ahead, and half the time they were wholly obscured in yellow dust. He began thinking about Lenore Anderson, just pondering that strange, steady look of a girl’s eyes; and then he did not mind the dust or heat or distance. Never could he be cheated of his thoughts. And those of her, even the painful ones, gave birth to a comfort that he knew must abide with him henceforth on lonely labors such as this, perhaps in the lonelier watches of a soldier’s duty. She had been curious, aloof, then sympathetic; she had studied his face; she had been an eloquent-eyed listener to his discourse on wheat. But she had not guessed his secret. Not until her last look — strange, deep, potent — had he guessed that secret himself.

So, with mind both busy and absent, Kurt Dorn harrowed the fallow ground abandoned by his men; and when the day was done, with the sun setting hot and coppery beyond the dim, dark ranges, he guided the tired horses homeward and plodded back of them, weary and spent.

He was to learn from Morgan, at the stables, that the old man had discharged both Andrew and Jansen. And Jansen, liberating some newly assimilated poison, had threatened revenge. He would see that any hired men would learn a thing or two, so that they would not sign up with Chris Dorn. In a fury the old man had driven Jansen out into the road.

Sober and moody, Kurt put the horses away, and, washing the dust grime from sunburnt face and hands, he went to his little attic room, where he changed his damp and sweaty clothes. Then he went down to supper with mind made up to be lenient and silent with his old and sorely tried father.

Chris Dorn sat in the light of the kitchen lamps. He was a huge man with a great, round, bullet-shaped head and a shock of gray hair and bristling, grizzled beard. His face was broad, heavy, and seemed sodden with dark, brooding thought. His eyes, under bushy brows, were pale gleams of fire. He looked immovable as to both bulk and will.

Never before had Kurt Dorn so acutely felt the fixed, contrary, ruthless nature of his parent. Never had the distance between them seemed so great. Kurt shivered and sighed at once. Then, being hungry, he fell to eating in silence. Presently the old man shoved his plate back, and, wiping his face, he growled, in German:

“I discharged Andrew and Jansen.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Kurt. “It wasn’t good judgment. What’ll we do for hands?”

“I’ll hire more. Men are coming for the harvest.”

“But they all belong to the I.W.W.,” protested Kurt.

“And what’s that?”

In scarcely subdued wrath Kurt described in detail, and to the best of his knowledge, what the I.W.W. was, and he ended by declaring the organization treacherous to the United States.

“How’s that?” asked old Dorn, gruffly.

Kurt was actually afraid to tell his father, who never read newspapers, who knew little of what was going on, that if the Allies were to win the war it was wheat that would be the greatest factor. Instead of that he said if the I.W.W. inaugurated strikes and disorder in the Northwest it would embarrass the government.

“Then I’ll hire I.W.W. men,” said old Dorn.

Kurt battled against a rising temper. This blind old man was his father.

“But I’ll not have I.W.W. men on the farm,” retorted Kurt. “I just punched one I.W.W. solicitor.”

“I’ll run this farm. If you don’t like my way you can leave,” darkly asserted the father.

Kurt fell back in his chair and stared at the turgid, bulging forehead and hard eyes before him. What could be behind them? Had the war brought out a twist in his father’s brain? Why were Germans so impossible?

“My Heavens! father, would you turn me out of my home because we disagree?” he asked, desperately.

“In my country sons obey their fathers or they go out for themselves.”

“I’ve not been a disobedient son,” declared Kurt. “And here in America sons have more freedom — more say.”

“America has no sense of family life — no honest government. I hate the country.”

A ball of fire seemed to burst in Kurt.

“That kind of talk infuriates me,” he blazed. “I don’t care if you are my father. Why in the hell did you come to America? Why did you stay? Why did you marry my mother — an American woman?… That’s rot — just spiteful rot! I’ve heard you tell what life was in Europe when you were a boy. You ran off. You stayed in this country because it was a better country than yours.… Fifty years you’ve been in America — many years on this farm. And you love this land.… My God! father, can’t you and men like you see the truth?”

“Aye, I can,” gloomily replied the old man. “The truth is we’ll lose the land. That greedy Anderson will drive me off.”

“He will not. He’s fine — generous,” asserted Kurt, earnestly. “All he wanted was to see the prospects of the harvest and perhaps to help you. Anderson has not had interest on his money for three years. I’ll bet he’s paid interest demanded by the other stockholders in that bank you borrowed from. Why, he’s our friend!”

“Aye, and I see more,” boomed the father. “He fetched his lass up here to make eyes at my son. I saw her — the sly wench!… Boy, you’ll not marry her!”

Kurt choked back his mounting rage.

“Certainly I never will,” he said, bitterly. “But I would if she’d have me.”

“What!” thundered Dorn, his white locks standing up and shaking like the mane of a lion. “That wheat banker’s daughter! Never! I forbid it. You shall not marry any American girl.”

“Father, this is idle, foolish rant,” cried Kurt, with a high warning note in his voice. “I’ve no idea of marrying.… But if I had one — whom else could I marry except an American girl?”

“I’ll sell the wheat — the land. We’ll go back to Germany!”

That was maddening to Kurt. He sprang up, sending dishes to the floor with a crash. He bent over to pound the table with a fist. Violent speech choked him and he felt a cold, tight blanching of his face.

“Listen!” he rang out. “If I go to Germany it’ll be as a soldier — to kill Germans!… I’m done — I’m through with the very name.… Listen to the last words I’ll ever speak to you in German — the last! To hell with Germany!”

Then Kurt plunged, blind in his passion, out of the door into the night. And as he went he heard his father cry out, brokenly:

“My son! Oh, my son!”

The night was dark and cool. A faint wind blew across the hills, and it was dry, redolent, sweet. The sky seemed an endless curving canopy of dark blue blazing with myriads of stars.

Kurt staggered out of the yard, down along the edge of a wheat-field, to one of the straw-stacks, and there he flung himself down in an agony.

“Oh, I’m ruined — ruined!” he moaned. “The break — has come!… Poor old dad!”

He leaned there against the straw, shaking and throbbing, with a cold perspiration bathing face and body. Even the palms of his hands were wet. A terrible fit of anger was beginning to loose its hold upon him. His breathing was labored in gasps and sobs. Unutterable stupidity of his father — horrible cruelty of his position! What had he ever done in all his life to suffer under such a curse? Yet almost he clung to his wrath, for it had been righteous. That thing, that infernal twist in the brain, that was what was wrong with his father. His father who had been fifty years in the United States! How simple, then, to understand what was wrong with Germany.

“By God! I am — American!” he panted, and it was as if he called to the grave of his mother, over there on the dark, windy hill.

That tremendous uprising of his passion had been a vortex, an end, a decision. And he realized that even to that hour there had been a drag in his blood. It was over now. The hell was done with. His soul was free. This weak, quaking body of his housed his tainted blood and the emotions of his heart, but it could not control his mind, his will. Beat by beat the helpless fury in him subsided, and then he fell back and lay still for a long time, eyes shut, relaxed and still.

A hound bayed mournfully; the insects chirped low, incessantly; the night wind rustled the silken heads of wheat.

After a while the young man sat up and looked at the heavens, at the twinkling white stars, and then away across the shadows of round hills in the dusk. How lonely, sad, intelligible, and yet mystic the night and the scene!

What came to him then was revealing, uplifting — a source of strength to go on. He was not to blame for what had happened; he could not change the future. He had a choice between playing the part of a man or that of a coward, and he had to choose the former. There seemed to be a spirit beside him — the spirit of his mother or of some one who loved him and who would have him be true to an ideal, and, if needful, die for it. No night in all his life before had been like this one. The dreaming hills with their precious rustling wheat meant more than even a spirit could tell. Where had the wheat come from that had seeded these fields? Whence the first and original seeds, and where were the sowers? Back in the ages! The stars, the night, the dark blue of heaven hid the secret in their impenetrableness. Beyond them surely was the answer, and perhaps peace.

Material things — life, success — such as had inspired Kurt Dorn, on this calm night lost their significance and were seen clearly. They could not last. But the wheat there, the hills, the stars — they would go on with their task. Passion was the dominant side of a man declaring itself, and that was a matter of inheritance. But self-sacrifice, with its mercy, its succor, its seed like the wheat, was as infinite as the stars. He had long made up his mind, yet that had not given him absolute restraint. The world was full of little men, but he refused to stay little. This war that had come between him and his father had been bred of the fumes of self-centered minds, turned with an infantile fatality to greedy desires. His poor old blinded father could be excused and forgiven. There were other old men, sick, crippled, idle, who must suffer pain, but whose pain could be lightened. There were babies, children, women, who must suffer for the sins of men, but that suffering need no longer be, if men became honest and true.

His sudden up-flashing love had a few hours back seemed a calamity. But out there beside the whispering wheat, under the passionless stars, in the dreaming night, it had turned into a blessing. He asked nothing but to serve. To serve her, his country, his future! All at once he who had always yearned for something unattainable had greatness thrust upon him. His tragical situation had evoked a spirit from the gods.

To kiss that blue-eyed girl’s sweet lips would be a sum of joy, earthly, all-satisfying, precious. The man in him trembled all over at the daring thought. He might revel in such dreams, and surrender to them, since she would never know, but the divinity he sensed there in the presence of those stars did not dwell on a woman’s lips. Kisses were for the present, the all too fleeting present; and he had to concern himself with what he might do for one girl’s future. It was exquisitely sad and sweet to put it that way, though Kurt knew that if he had never seen Lenore Anderson he would have gone to war just the same. He was not making an abstract sacrifice.

The wheat-fields rolling before him, every clod of which had been pressed by his bare feet as a boy; the father whose changeless blood had sickened at the son of his loins; the life of hope, freedom, of action, of achievement, of wonderful possibility — these seemed lost to Kurt Dorn, a necessary renunciation when he yielded to the call of war.

But no loss, no sting of bullet or bayonet, no torturing victory of approaching death, could balance in the scale against the thought of a picture of one American girl — blue-eyed, red-lipped, golden-haired — as she stepped somewhere in the future, down a summer lane or through a blossoming orchard, on soil that was free.

CHAPTER IV

TOWARD THE END of July eastern Washington sweltered under the most torrid spell of heat on record. It was a dry, high country, noted for an equable climate, with cool summers and mild winters. And this unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the atmosphere been free from humidity.

The haze of heat seemed like a pall of thin smoke from distant forest fires. The sun rose, a great, pale-red ball, hot at sunrise, and it soared blazing-white at noon, to burn slowly westward through a cloudless, coppery sky, at last to set sullen and crimson over the ranges.

Spokane, being the only center of iron, steel, brick, and masonry in this area, resembled a city of furnaces. Business was slack. The asphalt of the streets left clean imprints of a pedestrian’s feet; bits of newspaper stuck fast to the hot tar. Down by the gorge, where the great green river made its magnificent plunges over the falls, people congregated, tarried, and were loath to leave, for here the blowing mist and the air set into motion by the falling water created a temperature that was relief.

Citizens talked of the protracted hot spell, of the blasted crops, of an almost sure disaster to the wheat-fields, and of the activities of the I.W.W. Even the war, for the time being, gave place to the nearer calamities impending.

Montana had taken drastic measures against the invading I.W.W. The Governor of Idaho had sent word to the camps of the organization that they had five days to leave that state. Spokane was awakening to the menace of hordes of strange, idle men who came in on the westbound freight-trains. The railroads had been unable to handle the situation. They were being hard put to it to run trains at all. The train crews that refused to join the I.W.W. had been threatened, beaten, shot at, and otherwise intimidated.

The Chamber of Commerce sent an imperative appeal to representative wheat-raisers, ranchers, lumbermen, farmers, and bade them come to Spokane to discuss the situation. They met at the Hotel Davenport, where luncheon was served in one of the magnificently appointed dining-halls of that most splendid hotel in the West.

The lion of this group of Spokane capitalists was Riesinberg, a man of German forebears, but all American in his sympathies, with a son already in the army. Riesinberg was president of a city bank and of the Chamber of Commerce. His first words to the large assembly of clean-cut, square-jawed, intent-eyed Westerners were: “Gentlemen, we are here to discuss the most threatening and unfortunate situation the Northwest was ever called upon to meet.” His address was not long, but it was stirring. The Chamber of Commerce could provide unlimited means, could influence and control the state government; but it was from the visitors invited to this meeting, the men of the outlying districts which were threatened, that objective proofs must come and the best methods of procedure.

The first facts to come out were that many crops were ruined already, but, owing to the increased acreage that year, a fair yield was expected; that wheat in the Bend would be a failure, though some farmers here and there would harvest well; that the lumber districts were not operating, on account of the I.W.W.

Then it was that the organization of men who called themselves the Industrial Workers of the World drew the absorbed attention of the meeting. Depredations already committed stunned the members of the Chamber of Commerce.

President Riesinberg called upon Beardsley, a prominent and intelligent rancher of the southern wheat-belt. Beardsley said:

“It is difficult to speak with any moderation of the outrageous eruption of the I.W.W. It is nothing less than rebellion, and the most effective means of suppressing rebellion is to apply a little of that ‘direct action’ which is the favorite diversion of the I.W.W.’s.

“The I.W.W. do not intend to accomplish their treacherous aims by anything so feeble as speech; they scorn the ballot-box. They are against the war, and their method of making known their protest is by burning our grain, destroying our lumber, and blowing up freight-trains. They seek to make converts not by argument, but by threats and intimidation.

“We read that Western towns are seeking to deport these rebels. In the old days we can imagine more drastic measures would have been taken. The Westerners were handy with the rope and the gun in those days. We are not counseling lynch law, but we think deportation is too mild a punishment.

“We are too ‘civilized’ to apply the old Roman law, ‘Spare the conquered and extirpate the rebels,’ but at least we could intern them. The British have found it practicable to put German prisoners to work at useful employment. Why couldn’t we do the same with our rebel I.W.W.’s?”

Jones, a farmer from the Yakima Valley, told that business men, housewives, professional men, and high-school boys and girls would help to save the crop of Washington to the nation in case of labor trouble. Steps already had been taken to mobilize workers in stores, offices, and homes for work in the orchards and grain-fields, should the I.W.W. situation seriously threaten harvests.

Pledges to go into the hay or grain fields or the orchards, with a statement of the number of days they were willing to work, had been signed by virtually all the men in North Yakima.

Helmar, lumberman from the Blue Mountains, spoke feelingly; he said:

“My company is the owner of a considerable amount of timbered lands and timber purchased from the state and from individuals. We have been engaged in logging that land until our operations have been stopped and our business paralyzed by an organization which calls itself the Industrial Workers of the World, and by members of that organization, and other lawless persons acting in sympathy with them.

“Our employees have been threatened with physical violence and death.

“Our works are picketed by individuals who camp out in the forests and who intimidate and threaten our employees.

“Open threats have been made that our works, our logs, and our timber will all be burned.

“Sabotage is publicly preached in the meetings, and in the literature of the organization it is advised and upheld.

“The open boast is made that the lumbering industry, with all other industry, will be paralyzed by this organization, by the destruction of property used in industry and by the intimidation of laborers who are willing to work.

“A real and present danger to the property of my company exists. Unless protection is given to us it will probably be burned and destroyed. Our lawful operations cannot be conducted because laborers who are willing to work are fearful of their lives and are subject to abuse, threats, and violence. Our camps, when in operation, are visited by individuals belonging to the said organization, and the men peaceably engaged in them threatened with death if they do not cease work. All sorts of injury to property by the driving of spikes in logs, the destruction of logs, and other similar acts are encouraged and recommended.

“As I pointed out to the sheriff of our county, the season is a very dry one and the woods are and will be, unless rain comes, in danger of disastrous fires. The organization and its members have openly and repeatedly asserted that they will burn the logs in the woods and burn the forests of this company and other timber-holders before they will permit logging operations to continue.

“Many individuals belonging to the organization are camped in the open in the timbered country, and their very presence is a fire menace. They are engaged in no business except to interfere with the industry and to interfere with the logging of this company and others who engaged in the logging business.

“We have done what we could in a lawful manner to continue our operations and to protect our employees. We are now helpless, and place the responsibility for the protection of our property and the protection of our employees upon the board of county commissioners and upon the officers of the county.”

Next President Riesinberg called upon a young reporter to read paragraphs of an I.W.W. speech he had heard made to a crowd of three hundred workmen. It was significant that several members of the Chamber of Commerce called for a certain paragraph to be reread. It was this:

“If you working-men could only stand together you could do in this country what has been done in Russia,” declared the I.W.W. orator. “You know what the working-men did there to the slimy curs, the gunmen, and the stool-pigeons of the capitalistic class. They bumped them off. They sent them up to say, ‘Good morning, Jesus.’”

After a moment of muttering and another silence the president again addressed the meeting:

“Gentlemen, we have Anderson of Golden Valley with us to-day. If there are any of you present who do not know him, you surely have heard of him. His people were pioneers. He was born in Washington. He is a type of the men who have made the Northwest. He fought the Indians in early days and packed a gun for the outlaws — and to-day, gentlemen, he owns a farm as big as Spokane County. We want to hear from him.”

When Anderson rose to reply it was seen that he was pale and somber. Slowly he gazed at the assembly of waiting men, bowed; then he began, impressively:

“Gentlemen an’ friends, I wish I didn’t have to throw a bomb into this here camp-fire talk. But I’ve got to. You’re all talkin’ I.W.W. Facts have been told showin’ a strange an’ sudden growth of this here four-flush labor union. We’ve had dealin’s with them for several years. But this year it’s different.… All at once they’ve multiplied and strengthened. There’s somethin’ behind them. A big unseen hand is stackin’ the deck.… An’, countrymen, that tremendous power is German gold!”

Anderson’s deep voice rang like a bell. His hearers sat perfectly silent. No surprise showed, but faces grew set and hard. After a pause of suspense, in which his denunciation had time to sink in, Anderson resumed:

“A few weeks ago a young man, a stranger, came to me an’ asked for a job. He could do anythin’, he said. An’ I hired him to drive my car. But he wasn’t much of a driver. We went up in the Bend country one day, an’ on that trip I got suspicious of him. I caught him talkin’ to what I reckoned was I.W.W. men. An’ then, back home again, I watched him an’ kept my ears open. It didn’t take long for me to find discontent among my farm-hands. I hire about a hundred hands on my ranches durin’ the long off season, an’ when harvest comes round a good many more. All I can get, in fact.… Well, I found my hands quittin’ me, which was sure onusual. An’ I laid it to that driver.

“One day not long ago I run across him hobnobbin’ with the strange man I’d seen talkin’ with him on the Bend trip. But my driver — Nash, he calls himself — didn’t see me. That night I put a cowboy to watch him. An’ what this cowboy heard, put together two an’ two, was that Nash was assistant to an I.W.W. leader named Glidden. He had sent for Glidden to come to look over my ranch. Both these I.W.W. men had more money than they could well carry — lots of it gold! The way they talked of this money proved that they did not know the source, but the supply was unlimited.

“Next day Glidden could not be found. But my cowboy had learned enough to show his methods. If these proselyters could not coax or scare trusted men to join the I.W.W., they tried to corrupt them with money. An’ in most cases they’re successful. I’ve not yet sprung anythin’ on my driver, Nash. But he can’t get away, an’ meanwhile I’ll learn much by watchin’ him. Maybe through Nash I can catch Glidden. An’ so, gentlemen, here we have a plain case. An’ the menace is enough to chill the heart of every loyal citizen. Any way you put it, if harvests can’t be harvested, if wheat-fields an’ lumber forests are burned, if the state militia has to be called out — any way you put it our government will be hampered, our supplies kept from our allies — an’ so the cause of Germany will be helped.

“The I.W.W. have back of them an organized power with a definite purpose. There can hardly be any doubt that that power is Germany. The agitators an’ leaders throughout the country are well paid. Probably they, as individuals, do not know who pays them. Undoubtedly a little gang of men makes the deals, handles the money. We read that every U.S. attorney is investigating the I.W.W. The government has determined to close down on them. But lawyers an’ law are slow to act. Meanwhile the danger to us is at hand.

“Gentlemen, to finish let me say that down in my country we’re goin’ to rustle the I.W.W. in the good old Western way.”

CHAPTER V

GOLDEN VALLEY WAS the Garden of Eden of the Northwest. The southern slope rose to the Blue Mountains, whence flowed down the innumerable brooks that, uniting to form streams and rivers, abundantly watered the valley.

The black reaches of timber extended down to the grazing-uplands, and these bordered on the sloping golden wheat-fields, which in turn contrasted so vividly with the lower green alfalfa-pastures; then came the orchards with their ruddy, mellow fruit, and lastly the bottom-lands where the vegetable-gardens attested to the wonderful richness of the soil. From the mountain-side the valley seemed a series of colored benches, stepping down, black to gray, and gray to gold, and gold to green with purple tinge, and on to the perfectly ordered, many-hued floor with its innumerable winding, tree-bordered streams glinting in the sunlight.

The extremes of heat and cold never visited Golden Valley. Spokane and the Bend country, just now sweltering in a torrid zone, might as well have been in the Sahara, for all the effect it had on this garden spot of all the Inland Empire. It was hot in the valley, but not unpleasant. In fact, the greatest charm in this secluded vale was its pleasant climate all the year round. No summer cyclones, no winter blizzards, no cloudbursts or bad thunderstorms. It was a country that, once lived in, could never be left.

There were no poor inhabitants in that great area of twenty-five hundred miles; and there were many who were rich. Prosperous little towns dotted the valley floor; and the many smooth, dusty, much-used roads all led to Ruxton, a wealthy and fine city.

Anderson, the rancher, had driven his car to Spokane. Upon his return he had with him a detective, whom he expected to use in the I.W.W. investigations, and a neighbor rancher. They had left Spokane early and had endured almost insupportable dust and heat. A welcome change began as they slid down from the bare desert into the valley; and once across the Copper River, Anderson began to breathe freer and to feel he was nearing home.

“God’s country!” he said, as he struck the first low swell of rising land, where a cool wind from off the wooded and watered hills greeted his face. Dust there still was, but it seemed a different kind and smelled of apple-orchards and alfalfa-fields. Here were hard, smooth roads, and Anderson sped his car miles and miles through a country that was a verdant fragrant bower, and across bright, shady streams and by white little hamlets.

At Huntington he dropped his neighbor rancher, and also the detective, Hall, who was to go disguised into the districts overrun by the I.W.W. A further run of forty miles put him on his own property.

Anderson owned a string of farms and ranches extending from the bottom-lands to the timber-line of the mountains. They represented his life of hard work and fair dealing. Many of these orchard and vegetable lands he had tenant farmers work on shares. The uplands or wheat and grass he operated himself. As he had accumulated property he had changed his place of residence from time to time, at last to build a beautiful and permanent home farther up on the valley slope than any of the others.

It was a modern house, white, with a red roof. Situated upon a high level bench, with the waving gold fields sloping up from it and the green squares of alfalfa and orchards below, it appeared a landmark from all around, and could be plainly seen from Vale, the nearest little town, five miles away.

Anderson had always loved the open, and he wanted a place where he could see the sun rise over the distant valley gateway, and watch it set beyond the bold black range in the west. He could sit on his front porch, wide and shady, and look down over two thousand acres of his own land. But from the back porch no eye could have encompassed the limit of his broad, swelling slopes of grain and grass.

From the main road he drove up to the right of the house, where, under a dip of wooded slope, clustered barns, sheds, corrals, granaries, engine and machinery houses, a store, and the homes of hired men — a little village in itself.

The sounds he heard were a welcome home — the rush of swift water not twenty yards from where he stopped the car in the big courtyard, the pound of hoofs on the barn floor, the shrill whistle of a stallion that saw and recognized him, the drawling laugh of his cowboys and the clink of their spurs as they became aware of his return.

Nash, the suspected driver, was among those who hurried to meet the car.

Anderson’s keen, covert glance made note of the driver’s worried and anxious face.

“Nash, she’ll need a lookin’ over,” he said, as he uncovered bundles in the back seat and lifted them out.

“All right, sir,” replied Nash, eagerly. A note of ended strain was significant in his voice.

“Here, you Jake,” cheerily called Anderson to a raw-boned, gaunt-faced fellow who wore the garb of a cowboy.

“Boss, I’m powerful glad to see you home,” replied Jake, as he received bundle after bundle until he was loaded down. Then he grinned. “Mebbe you want a pack-boss.”

“You’re hoss enough for me. Come on,” he said, and, waving the other men aside, he turned toward the green, shady hill above which the red and white of the house just showed.

A bridge crossed the rushing stream. Here Jake dropped some of the bundles, and Anderson recovered them. As he straightened up he looked searchingly at the cowboy. Jake’s yellow-gray eyes returned the gaze. And that exchange showed these two of the same breed and sure of each other.

“Nawthin’ come off, boss,” he drawled, “but I’m glad you’re home.”

“Did Nash leave the place?” queried Anderson.

“Twice, at night, an’ he was gone long. I didn’t foller him because I seen he didn’t take no luggage, an’ thet boy has some sporty clothes. He was sure comin’ back.”

“Any sign of his pard — that Glidden?”

“Nope. But there’s been more’n one new feller snookin’ round.”

“Have you heard from any of the boys with the cattle?”

“Yep. Bill Weeks rode down. He said a bunch of I.W.W.’s were campin’ above Blue Spring. Thet means they’ve moved on down to the edge of the timber an’ oncomfortable near our wheat. Bill says they’re killin’ our stock fer meat.”

“Hum!… How many in the gang?” inquired Anderson, darkly. His early dealings with outlaw rustlers had not left him favorably inclined toward losing a single steer.

“Wal, I reckon we can’t say. Mebbe five hundred, countin’ all along the valley on this side. Then we hear there’s more on the other… Boss, if they git ugly we’re goin’ to lose stock, wheat, an’ mebbe some blood.”

“So many as that!” ejaculated the rancher, in amaze.

“They come an’ go, an’ lately they’re most comin’,” replied Jake.

“When do we begin cuttin’ grain?”

“I reckon to-morrow. Adams didn’t want to start till you got back. It’ll be barley an’ oats fer a few days, an’ then the wheat — if we can git the men.”

“An’ has Adams hired any?”

“Yes, a matter of twenty or so. They swore they wasn’t I.W.W.’s, but Adams says, an’ so do I, thet some of them are men who first claimed to our old hands thet they did belong to the I.W.W.”

“An’ so we’ve got to take a chance if we’re goin’ to harvest two thousand acres of wheat?”

“I reckon, boss.”

“Any reports from Ruxton way?”

“Wal, yes. But I reckon you’d better git your supper ‘fore I tell you, boss.”

“Jake, you said nothin’ had come off.”

“Wal, nawthin’ has around here. Come on now, boss. Miss Lenore says I was to keep my mouth shut.”

“Jake, who’s your boss? Me or Lenore?”

“Wal, you air. But I ain’t disobeyin’ Miss Lenore.”

Anderson walked the rest of the way up the shady path to the house without saying any more to Jake. The beautiful white house stood clear of the grove, bright in the rays of the setting sun. A barking of dogs greeted Anderson, and then the pattering of feet. His daughters appeared on the porch. Kathleen, who was ten, made a dive for him, and Rose, who was fourteen, came flying after her. Both girls were screaming joyously. Their sunny hair danced. Lenore waited for him at the step, and as he mounted the porch, burdened by the three girls, his anxious, sadly smiling wife came out to make perfect the welcome home. No — not perfect, for Anderson’s joy held a bitter drop, the absence of his only son!

“Oh, dad, what-all did you fetch me?” cried Kathleen, and she deserted her father for the bundle-laden Jake.

“And me!” echoed Rose.

Even Lenore, in the happiness of her father’s return, was not proof against the wonder and promise of those many bundles.

They all went within, through a hall to a great, cozy living-room. Mrs. Anderson’s very first words, after her welcoming smile, were a half-faltered:

“Any — news of — Jim?”

“Why — yes,” replied Anderson, hesitatingly.

Suddenly the three sisters were silent. How closely they resembled one another then — Lenore, a budding woman; Rose, a budding girl; and Kathleen, a rosy, radiant child! Lenore lost a little of her bloom.

“What news, father?” she asked.

“Haven’t you heard from him?” returned Anderson.

“Not for a whole week. He wrote the day he reached Spokane. But then he hardly knew anything except that he’d enlisted.”

“I’m sure glad Jim didn’t wait for the draft,” replied the father. “Well, mother an’ girls, Jim was gone when I got to Spokane. All I heard was that he was well when he left for Frisco an’ strong for the aviation corps.”

“Then he means to — to be an aviator,” said Lenore, with quivering lips.

“Sure, if he can get in. An’ he’s wise. Jim knows engines. He has a knack for machinery. An’ nerve! No boy ever had more. He’ll make a crack flier.”

“But — the danger!” whispered the boy’s mother, with a shudder.

“I reckon there’ll be a little danger, mother,” replied Anderson, cheerfully. “We’ve got to take our chance on Jim. There’s one sure bet. If he had stayed home he’d been fightin’ I.W.W.’s!”

That trying moment passed. Mrs. Anderson said that she would see to supper being put on the table at once. The younger girls began untying the bundles. Lenore studied her father’s face a moment.

“Jake, you run along,” she said to the waiting cowboy. “Wait till after supper before you worry father.”

“I’ll do thet, Miss Lenore,” drawled Jake, “an’ if he wants worryin’ he’ll hev to look me up.”

“Lass, I’m only tired, not worried,” replied Anderson, as Jake shuffled out with jingling spurs.

“Did anything serious happen in Spokane?” she asked anxiously.

“No. But Spokane men are alive to serious trouble ahead,” replied her father. “I spoke to the Chamber of Commerce — sure exploded a bomb in that camp. Then I had conferences with a good many different men. Fact is they ran me pretty hard. Couldn’t have slept much, anyhow, in that heat. Lass, this is the place to live!… I’d rather die here than live in Spokane, in summer.”

“Did you see the Governor?”

“Yes, an’ he wasn’t as anxious about the Golden Valley as the Bend country. He’s right, too. We’re old Westerners here. We can handle trouble. But they’re not Americans up there in the Bend.”

“Father, we met one American,” said Lenore, dreamily.

“By George! we did!… An’ that reminds me. There was a government official from Washington, come out to Spokane to investigate conditions. I forget his name. He asked to meet me an’ he was curious about the Bend — its loyalty to the U.S. I told him all I knew an’ what I thought. An’ then he said he was goin’ to motor through that wheat-belt an’ talk to what Americans he could find, an’ impress upon them that they could do as much as soldiers to win the war. Wheat — bread — that’s our great gun in this war, Lenore!… I knew this, but I was made pretty blamed sober by that government man. I told him by all means to go to Palmer an’ to have a talk with young Dorn. I sure gave that boy a good word. Poor lad! He’s true blue. An’ to think of him with that old German devil. Old Dorn has always had a hard name. An’ this war has brought out the German cussedness.”

“Father, I’m glad you spoke well of the young man,” said Lenore, still dreamily.

“Hum! You never told me what you thought,” replied her father, with a quick glance of inquiry at her. Lenore was gazing out of the window, away across the wheat-fields and the range. Anderson watched her a moment, and then resumed: “If I can get away I’m goin’ to drive up to see Dorn again pretty soon. Do you want to go?”

Lenore gave a little start, as if the question had surprised her.

“I — I hardly think so,” she replied.

“It’s just as well,” he said. “That’ll be a hard ride.… Guess I’ll clean up a little for supper.”

Anderson left the room, and, while Kathleen and Rose gleefully squabbled over the bundles, Lenore continued to gaze dreamily out of the window.

That night Lenore went early to her room, despite the presence of some young people from a neighboring village. She locked her door and sat in the dark beside her open window.

An early moon silvered the long slopes of wheat and made the alfalfa squares seem black. A cool, faint, sweet breeze fanned her cheek. She could smell the fragrance of apples, of new-mown hay, and she could hear the low murmur of running water. A hound bayed off somewhere in the fields. There was no other sound. It was a quiet, beautiful, pastoral scene. But somehow it did not comfort Lenore.

She seemed to doubt the sincerity of what she saw there and loved so well. Moon-blanched and serene, lonely and silent, beautiful and promising, the wide acres of “Many Waters,” and the silver slopes and dark mountains beyond, did not tell the truth. ‘Way over the dark ranges a hideous war had stretched out a red hand to her country. Her only brother had left his home to fight, and there was no telling if he would ever come back. Evil forces were at work out there in the moonlight. There had come a time for her to be thoughtful.

Her father’s asking her to ride to the Bend country had caused some strange little shock of surprise. Lenore had dreamed without thinking. Here in the darkness and silence, watching the crescent moon slowly sink, she did think. And it was to learn that she remembered singularly well the first time she had seen young Dorn, and still more vividly the second time, but the third time seemed both clear and vague. Enough young men had been smitten with Lenore to enable her to gauge the symptoms of these easy-come, easy-go attractions. In fact, they rather repelled her. But she had found Dorn’s manner striking, confusing, and unforgettable. And why that should be so interested her intelligence.

It was confusing to discover that she could not lay it to the sympathy she had felt for an American boy in a difficult position, because she had often thought of him long before she had any idea who he was or where he lived.

In the very first place, he had been unforgettable for two reasons — because he had been so struck at sight of her that he had gazed unconsciously, with a glow on his face and a radiance in his eye, as of a young poet spellbound at an inspiration; and because he seemed the physical type of young man she had idealized — a strong, lithe-limbed, blond giant, with a handsome, frank face, clear-cut and smooth, ruddy-cheeked and blue-eyed.

Only after meeting him out there in the desert of wheat had she felt sympathy for him. And now with intelligence and a woman’s intuition, barring the old, insidious, dreamy mood, Lenore went over in retrospect all she could remember of that meeting. And the truth made her sharply catch her breath. Dorn had fallen in love with her. Intuition declared that, while her intelligence repudiated it. Stranger than all was the thrill which began somewhere in the unknown depths of her and mounted, to leave her tingling all over. She had told her father that she did not want to ride to the Bend country. But she did want to go! And that thought, flashing up, would not be denied. To want to meet a strange young man again was absolutely a new and irritating discovery for Lenore. It mystified her, because she had not had time to like Dorn. Liking an acquaintance had nothing to do with the fact. And that stunned her.

“Could it be — love at first sight?” she whispered, incredulously, as she stared out over the shadowing fields.

“For me? Why, how absurd — impossible!… I — I only remembered him — a big handsome boy with blazing eyes.… And now I’m sorry for him!”

To whisper her amaze and doubt and consternation only augmented the instinctive recurring emotion. She felt something she could not explain. And that something was scarcely owing to this young man’s pitiful position between duty to his father and love for his country. It had to do with his blazing eyes; intangible, dreamlike perceptions of him as not real, of vague sweet fancies that retreated before her introspective questioning. What alarmed Lenore was a tendency of her mind to shirk this revealing analysis. Never before had she been afraid to look into herself. But now she was finding unplumbed wells of feeling, secret chambers of dreams into which she had never let the light, strange instinctive activities, more physical than mental. When in her life before had she experienced a nameless palpitation of her heart?

Long she sat there, staring out into the night. And the change in the aspect of the broad spaces, now dark and impenetrable and mysterious, seemed like the change in the knowledge of herself. Once she had flattered herself that she was an inch of crystal water; now she seemed a complex, aloof, and contrary creature, almost on the verge of tumultuous emotions.

She said her prayers that night, a girlish habit resumed since her brother had declared his intention of enlisting in the army. And to that old prayer, which her mother had prayed before her, she added an appeal of her own. Strange that young Dorn’s face should flash out of gloom! It was there, and her brother’s was fading.

“I wonder — will he and Jim — meet over there — on the battle-field!” she whispered. She hoped they would. Like tigers those boys would fight the Germans. Her heart beat high. Then a cold wind seemed to blow over her. It had a sickening weight. If that icy and somber wind could have been traced to its source, then the mystery of life would have been clear. But that source was the cause of war, as its effect was the horror of women. A hideous and monstrous thing existed out there in the darkness. Lenore passionately loved her brother, and this black thing had taken him away. Why could not women, who suffered most, have some word in the regulation of events? If women could help govern the world there would be no wars.

At last encroaching drowsiness dulled the poignancy of her feelings and she sank to sleep.

CHAPTER VI

SINGING OF BIRDS at her window awakened Lenore. The dawn streamed in bright and sweetly fragrant. The wheat-fields seemed a rosy gold, and all that open slope called to her thrillingly of the beauty of the world and the happiness of youth. It was not possible to be morbid at dawn. “I hear! I hear!” she whispered. “From a thousand slopes far and wide!”

At the breakfast-table, when there came opportunity, she looked up serenely and said, “Father, on second thought I will go the Bend, thank you!”

Anderson laid down his knife and fork and his eyes opened wide in surprise. “Changed your mind!” he exclaimed.

“That’s a privilege I have, you know,” she replied, calmly.

Mrs. Anderson appeared more anxious than surprised. “Daughter, don’t go. That will be a fearful ride.”

“Hum! Sure glad to have you, lass,” added Anderson, with his keen eyes on her.

“Let me go, too,” begged Rose.

Kathleen was solemnly gazing at Lenore, with the wise, penetrating eyes of extreme youth.

“Lenore, I’ll bet you’ve got a new beau up there,” she declared.

Lenore flushed scarlet. She was less angry with her little sister than with the incomprehensible fact of a playful word bringing the blood stingingly to her neck and face.

“Kitty, you forget your manners,” she said, sharply.

“Kit is fresh. She’s an awful child,” added Rose, with a superior air.

“I didn’t say a thing,” cried Kathleen, hotly. “Lenore, if it isn’t true, why’d you blush so red?”

“Hush, you silly children!” ordered the mother, reprovingly.

Lenore was glad to finish that meal and to get outdoors. She could smile now at that shrewd and terrible Kitty, but recollection of her father’s keen eyes was confusing. Lenore felt there was really nothing to blush for; still, she could scarcely tell her father that upon awakening this morning she had found her mind made up — that only by going to the Bend country could she determine the true state of her feelings. She simply dared not accuse herself of being in unusually radiant spirits because she was going to undertake a long, hard ride into a barren, desert country.

The grave and thoughtful mood of last night had gone with her slumbers. Often Lenore had found problems decided for her while she slept. On this fresh, sweet summer morning, with the sun bright and warm, presaging a hot and glorious day, Lenore wanted to run with the winds, to wade through the alfalfa, to watch with strange and renewed pleasure the waves of shadow as they went over the wheat. All her life she had known and loved the fields of waving gold. But they had never been to her what they had become overnight. Perhaps this was because it had been said that the issue of the great war, the salvation of the world, and its happiness, its hope, depended upon the millions of broad acres of golden grain. Bread was the staff of life. Lenore felt that she was changing and growing. If anything should happen to her brother Jim she would be heiress to thousands of acres of wheat. A pang shot through her heart. She had to drive the cold thought away. And she must learn — must know the bigness of this question. The women of the country would be called upon to help, to do their share.

She ran down through the grove and across the bridge, coming abruptly upon Nash, her father’s driver. He had the car out.

“Good morning,” he said, with a smile, doffing his cap.

Lenore returned his greeting and asked if her father intended to go anywhere.

“No. I’m taking telegrams to Huntington.”

“Telegrams? What’s the matter with the ‘phone?” she queried.

“Wire was cut yesterday.”

“By I.W.W. men?”

“So your father says. I don’t know.”

“Something ought to be done to those men,” said Lenore, severely.

Nash was a dark-browed, heavy-jawed young man, with light eyes and hair. He appeared to be intelligent and had some breeding, but his manner when alone with Lenore — he had driven her to town several times — was not the same as when her father was present. Lenore had not bothered her mind about it. But to-day the look in his eyes was offensive to her.

“Between you and me, Lenore, I’ve sympathy for those poor devils,” he said.

Lenore drew back rather haughtily at this familiar use of her first name. “It doesn’t concern me,” she said, coldly and turned away.

“Won’t you ride along with me? I’m driving around for the mail,” he called after her.

“No,” returned Lenore, shortly, and hurried on out of earshot. The impertinence of the fellow!

“Mawnin’, Miss Lenore!” drawled a cheery voice. The voice and the jingle of spurs behind her told Lenore of the presence of the best liked of all her father’s men.

“Good morning, Jake! Where’s my dad?”

“Wal, he’s with Adams, an’ I wouldn’t be Adams for no money,” replied the cowboy.

“Neither would I,” laughed Lenore.

“Reckon you ain’t ridin’ this mawnin’. You sure look powerful fine, Miss Lenore, but you can’t ride in thet dress.”

“Jake, nothing but an aeroplane would satisfy me to-day.”

“Want to fly, hey? Wal, excuse me from them birds. I seen one, an’ thet’s enough for me.… An’, changin’ the subject, Miss Lenore, beggin’ your pardon — you ain’t ridin’ in the car much these days.”

“No, Jake, I’m not,” she replied, and looked at the cowboy. She would have trusted Jake as she would her brother Jim. And now he looked earnest.

“Wal, I’m sure glad. I heerd Nash call an’ ask you to go with him. I seen his eyes when he said it.… Sure I know you’d never look at the likes of him. But I want to tell you — he ain’t no good. I’ve been watchin’ him. Your dad’s orders. He’s mixed up with the I.W.W.’s. But thet ain’t what I mean. It’s — He’s — I—”

“Thank you, Jake,” replied Lenore, as the cowboy floundered. “I appreciate your thought of me. But you needn’t worry.”

“I was worryin’ a little,” he said. “You see, I know men better ‘n your dad, an’ I reckon this Nash would do anythin’.”

“What’s father keeping him for?”

“Wal, Anderson wants to find out a lot about thet I.W.W., an’ he ain’t above takin’ risks to do it, either.”

The stable-boys and men Lenore passed all had an eager good morning for her. She often boasted to her father that she could run “Many Waters” as well as he. Sometimes there were difficulties that Lenore had no little part in smoothing over. The barns and corrals were familiar places to her, and she insisted upon petting every horse, in some instances to Jake’s manifest concern.

“Some of them bosses are bad,” he insisted.

“To be sure they are — when wicked cowboys cuff and kick them,” replied Lenore, laughingly.

“Wal, if I’m wicked, I’m a-goin’ to war,” said Jake, reflectively. “Them Germans bother me.”

“But, Jake, you don’t come in the draft age, do you?”

“Jest how old do you think I am?”

“Sometimes about fourteen, Jake.”

“Much obliged. Wal, the fact is I’m over age, but I’ll gamble I can pack a gun an’ shoot as straight an’ eat as much as any young feller.”

“I’ll bet so, too, Jake. But I hope you won’t go. We absolutely could not run this ranch without you.”

“Sure I knew thet. Wal then, I reckon I’ll hang around till you’re married, Miss Lenore,” he drawled.

Again the scarlet mantled Lenore’s cheeks.

“Good. We’ll have many harvests then, Jake, and many rides,” she replied.

“Aw, I don’t know—” he began.

But Lenore ran away so that she could hear no more.

“What’s the matter with me that people — that Jake should — ?” she began, and ended with a hand on each soft, hot cheek. There was something different about her, that seemed certain. And if her eyes were as bright as the day, with its deep blue and white clouds and shining green and golden fields, then any one might think what he liked and have proof for his tormenting.

“But married! I? Not much. Do I want a husband getting shot?”

The path Lenore trod so lightly led along a great peach and apple orchard where the trees were set far apart and the soil was cultivated, so that not a weed nor a blade of grass showed. The fragrance of fruit in the air, however, did not come from this orchard, for the trees were young and the reddening fruit rare. Down the wide aisles she saw the thick and abundant green of the older orchards.

At length Lenore reached the alfalfa-fields, and here among the mounds of newly cut hay that smelled so fresh and sweet she wanted to roll, and she had to run. Two great wagons with four horses each were being loaded. Lenore knew all the workmen except one. Silas Warner, an old, gray-headed farmer, had been with her father as long as she could remember.

“Whar you goin’, lass?” he called, as he halted to wipe his red face with a huge bandana. “It’s too hot to run the way you’re a-doin’.”

“Oh, Silas, it’s a grand morning!” she replied.

“Why, so ’tis! Pitchin’ hay hyar made me think it was hot,” he said, as she tripped on. “Now, lass, don’t go up to the wheat-fields.”

But Lenore heard heedlessly, and she ran on till she came to the uncut alfalfa, which impeded her progress. A wonderful space of green and purple stretched away before her, and into it she waded. It came up to her knees, rich, thick, soft, and redolent of blossom and ripeness. Hard tramping it soon got to be. She grew hot and breathless, and her legs ached from the force expended in making progress through the tangled hay. At last she was almost across the field, far from the cutters, and here she flung herself, to roll and lie flat and gaze up through the deep azure of sky, wonderingly, as if to penetrate its secret. And then she hid her face in the fragrant thickness that seemed to force a whisper from her.

“I wonder — how will I feel — when I see him — again.… Oh, I wonder!”

The sound of the whispered words, the question, the inevitableness of something involuntary, proved traitors to her happy dreams, her assurance, her composure. She tried to burrow under the hay, to hide from that tremendous bright-blue eye, the sky. Suddenly she lay very quiet, feeling the strange glow and throb and race of her blood, sensing the mystery of her body, trying to trace the thrills, to control this queer, tremulous, internal state. But she found she could not think clearly; she could only feel. And she gave up trying. It was sweet to feel.

She rose and went on. Another field lay beyond, a gradual slope, covered with a new growth of alfalfa. It was a light green — a contrast to the rich darkness of that behind her. At the end of this field ran a swift little brook, clear and musical, open to the sky in places, and in others hidden under flowery banks. Birds sang from invisible coverts; a quail sent up clear flutelike notes; and a lark caroled, seemingly out of the sky.

Lenore wet her feet crossing the brook, and, climbing the little knoll above, she sat down upon a stone to dry them in the sun. It had a burn that felt good. No matter how hot the sun ever got there, she liked it. Always there seemed air to breathe and the shade was pleasant.

From this vantage-point, a favorite one with Lenore, she could see all the alfalfa-fields, the hill crowned by the beautiful white-and-red house, the acres of garden, and the miles of orchards. The grazing and grain fields began behind her.

The brook murmured below her and the birds sang. She heard the bees humming by. The air out here was clear of scent of fruit and hay, and it bore a drier odor, not so sweet. She could see the workmen, first those among the alfalfa, and then the men, and women, too, bending over on the vegetable-gardens. Likewise she could see the gleam of peaches, apples, pears and plums — a colorful and mixed gleam, delightful to the eye.

Wet or dry, it seemed that her feet refused to stay still, and once again she was wandering. A gray, slate-colored field of oats invited her steps, and across this stretch she saw a long yellow slope of barley, where the men were cutting. Beyond waved the golden fields of wheat. Lenore imagined that when she reached them she would not desire to wander farther.

There were two machines cutting on the barley slope, one drawn by eight horses, and the other by twelve. When Lenore had crossed the oat-field she discovered a number of strange men lounging in the scant shade of a line of low trees that separated the fields. Here she saw Adams, the foreman; and he espied her at the same moment. He had been sitting down, talking to the men. At once he rose to come toward Lenore.

“Is your father with you?” he asked.

“No; he’s too slow for me,” replied Lenore. “Who are these men?”

“They’re strangers looking for jobs.”

“I.W.W. men?” queried Lenore, in lower voice.

“Surely must be,” he replied. Adams was not a young, not a robust man, and he seemed to carry a burden of worry. “Your father said he would come right out.”

“I hope he doesn’t,” said Lenore, bluntly. “Father has a way with him, you know.”

“Yes, I know. And it’s the way we’re needing here in the Valley,” replied the foreman, significantly.

“Is that the new harvester-thresher father just bought?” asked Lenore, pointing to the huge machine, shining and creeping behind the twelve horses.

“Yes, that’s the McCormack and it’s a dandy,” returned Adams. “With machines like that we can get along without the I.W.W.”

“I want a ride on it,” declared Lenore, and she ran along to meet the harvester. She waved her hand to the driver, Bill Jones, another old hand, long employed by her father. Bill hauled back on the many-branched reins, and when the horses stopped the clattering, whirring roar of the machine also ceased.

“Howdy, miss! Reckon this ‘s a regular I.W.W. hold-up.”

“Worse than that, Bill,” gaily replied Lenore as she mounted the platform where another man sat on a bag of barley. Lenore did not recognize him. He looked rugged and honest, and beamed upon her.

“Watch out fer yer dress,” he said, pointing with grimy hand to the dusty wheels and braces so near her.

“Let me drive, Bill?” she asked.

“Wal, now, I wisht I could,” he replied, dryly. “You sure can drive, miss. But drivin’ ain’t all this here job.”

“What can’t I do? I’ll bet you—”

“I never seen a girl that could throw anythin’ straight. Did you?”

“Well, not so very. I forgot how you drove the horses.… Go ahead. Don’t let me delay the harvest.”

Bill called sonorously to his twelve horses, and as they bent and strained and began to bob their heads, the clattering roar filled the air. Also a cloud of dust and thin, flying streams of chaff enveloped Lenore. The high stalks of barley, in wide sheets, fell before the cutter upon an apron, to be carried by feeders into the body of the machine. The straw, denuded of its grain, came out at the rear, to be dropped, while the grain streamed out of a tube on the side next to Lenore, to fall into an open sack. It made a short shift of harvesting.

Lenore liked the even, nodding rhythm of the plodding horses, and the way Bill threw a pebble from a sack on his seat, to hit this or that horse not keeping in line or pulling his share. Bill’s aim was unerring. He never hit the wrong horse, which would have been the case had he used a whip. The grain came out in so tiny a stream that Lenore wondered how a bag was ever filled. But she saw presently that even a tiny stream, if running steadily, soon made bulk. That was proof of the value of small things, even atoms.

No marvel was it that Bill and his helper were as grimy as stokers of a furnace. Lenore began to choke with the fine dust and to feel her eyes smart and to see it settle on her hands and dress. She then had appreciation of the nature of a ten-hour day for workmen cutting eighteen acres of barley. How would they ever cut the two thousand acres of wheat? No wonder many men were needed. Lenore sympathized with the operators of that harvester-thresher, but she did not like the dirt. If she had been a man, though, that labor, hard as it was, would have appealed to her. Harvesting the grain was beautiful, whether in the old, slow method of threshing or with one of these modern man-saving machines.

She jumped off, and the big, ponderous thing, almost gifted with intelligence, it seemed to Lenore, rolled on with its whirring roar, drawing its cloud of dust, and leaving behind a litter of straw.

It developed then that Adams had walked along with the machine, and he now addressed her.

“Will you be staying here till your father comes?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Adams. Why do you ask?”

“You oughtn’t come out here alone or go back alone.… All these strange men! Some of them hard customers! You’ll excuse me, miss, but this harvest is not like other harvests.”

“I’ll wait for my father and I’ll not go out of sight,” replied Lenore. Thanking the foreman for his thoughtfulness, she walked away, and soon she stood at the edge of the first wheat-field.

The grain was not yet ripe but near at hand it was a pale gold. The wind, out of the west, waved and swept the wheat, while the almost imperceptible shadows followed.

A road half overgrown with grass and goldenrod bordered the wheat-field, and it wound away down toward the house. Her father appeared mounted on the white horse he always rode. Lenore sat down in the grass to wait for him. Nodding stalks of goldenrod leaned to her face. When looked at closely, how truly gold their color! Yet it was not such a gold as that of the rich blaze of ripe wheat. She was admitting to her consciousness a jealousy of anything comparable to wheat. And suddenly she confessed that her natural love for it had been augmented by a subtle growing sentiment. Not sentiment about the war or the need of the Allies or meaning of the staff of life. She had sensed young Dorn’s passion for wheat and it had made a difference to her.

“No use lying to myself!” she soliloquized. “I think of him!.. I can’t help it… I ran out here, wild, restless, unable to reason… just because I’d decided to see him again — to make sure I — I really didn’t care.… How furious — how ridiculous I’ll feel — when — when—”

Lenore did not complete her thought, because she was not sure. Nothing could be any truer than the fact that she had no idea how she would feel. She began sensitively to distrust herself. She who had always been so sure of motives, so contented with things as they were, had been struck by an absurd fancy that haunted because it was fiercely repudiated and scorned, that would give her no rest until it was proven false. But suppose it were true!

A succeeding blankness of mind awoke to the clip-clop of hoofs and her father’s cheery halloo.

Anderson dismounted and, throwing his bridle, he sat down heavily beside her.

“You can ride back home,” he said.

Lenore knew she had been reproved for her wandering out there, and she made a motion to rise. His big hand held her down.

“No hurry, now I’m here. Grand day, ain’t it? An’ I see the barley’s goin’. Them sacks look good to me.”

Lenore waited with some perturbation. She had a guilty conscience and she feared he meant to quiz her about her sudden change of front regarding the Bend trip. So she could not look up and she could not say a word.

“Jake says that Nash has been tryin’ to make up to you. Any sense in what he says?” asked her father, bluntly.

“Why, hardly. Oh, I’ve noticed Nash is — is rather fresh, as Rose calls it,” replied Lenore, somewhat relieved at this unexpected query.

“Yes, he’s been makin’ eyes at Rose. She told me,” replied Anderson.

“Discharge him,” said Lenore, forcibly.

“So I ought. But let me tell you, Lenore. I’ve been hopin’ to get Nash dead to rights.”

“What more do you want?” she demanded.

“I mean regardin’ his relation to the I.W.W.… Listen. Here’s the point. Nash has been tracked an’ caught in secret talks with prominent men in this country. Men of foreign blood an’ mebbe foreign sympathies. We’re at the start of big an’ bad times in the good old U.S. No one can tell how bad. Well, you know my position in the Golden Valley. I’m looked to. Reckon this I.W.W. has got me a marked man. I’m packin’ two guns right now. An’ you bet Jake is packin’ the same. We don’t travel far apart any more this summer.”

Lenore had started shudderingly and her look showed her voiceless fear.

“You needn’t tell your mother,” he went on, more intimately. “I can trust you an’ … To come back to Nash. He an’ this Glidden — you remember, one of those men at Dorn’s house — they are usin’ gold. They must have barrels of it. If I could find out where that gold comes from! Probably they don’t know. But I might find out if men here in our own country are hatchin’ plots with the I.W.W.”

“Plots! What for?” queried Lenore, breathlessly.

“To destroy my wheat, to drive off or bribe the harvest-hands, to cripple the crop yield in the Northwest; to draw the militia here; in short, to harass an’ weaken an’ slow down our government in its preparation against Germany.”

“Why, that is terrible!” declared Lenore.

“I’ve a hunch from Jake — there’s a whisper of a plot to put me out of the way,” said Anderson, darkly.

“Oh — good Heavens! You don’t mean it!” cried Lenore, distractedly.

“Sure I do. But that’s no way for Anderson’s daughter to take it. Our women have got to fight, too. We’ve all got to meet these German hired devils with their own weapons. Now, lass, you know you’ll get these wheatlands of mine some day. It’s in my will. That’s because you, like your dad, always loved the wheat. You’d fight, wouldn’t you, to save your grain for our soldiers — bread for your own brother Jim — an’ for your own land?”

“Fight! Would I?” burst out Lenore, with a passionate little cry.

“Good! Now you’re talkin’!” exclaimed her father.

“I’ll find out about this Nash — if you’ll let me,” declared Lenore, as if inspired.

“How? What do you mean, girl?”

“I’ll encourage him. I’ll make him think I’m a wishy-washy moonstruck girl, smitten with him. All’s fair in war!… If he means ill by my father—”

Anderson muttered low under his breath and his big hand snapped hard at the nodding goldenrod.

“For my sake — to help me — you’d encourage Nash — flirt with him a little — find out all you could?”

“Yes, I would!” she cried, deliberately. But she wanted to cover her face with her hands. She trembled slightly, then grew cold, with a sickening disgust at this strange, new, uprising self.

“Wait a minute before you say too much,” went on Anderson. “You’re my best-beloved child, my Lenore, the lass I’ve been so proud of all my life. I’d spill blood to avenge an insult to you.… But, Lenore, we’ve entered upon a terrible war. People out here, especially the women, don’t realize it yet. But you must realize it. When I said good-by to Jim, my son, I — I felt I’d never look upon his face again!… I gave him up. I could have held him back — got exemption for him. But, no, by God! I gave him up — to make safety and happiness and prosperity for — say, your children, an’ Rose’s, an’ Kathleen’s.… I’m workin’ now for the future. So must every loyal man an’ every loyal woman! We love our own country. An’ I ask you to see as I see the terrible danger to that country. Think of you an’ Rose an’ Kathleen bein’ treated like those poor Belgian girls! Well, you’d get that an’ worse if the Germans won this war. An’ the point is, for us to win, every last one of us must fight, sacrifice to that end, an’ hang together.”

Anderson paused huskily and swallowed hard while he looked away across the fields. Lenore felt herself drawn by an irresistible power. The west wind rustled through the waving wheat. She heard the whir of the threshers. Yet all seemed unreal. Her father’s passion had made this place another world.

“So much for that,” resumed Anderson. “I’m goin’ to do my best. An’ I may make blunders. I’ll play the game as it’s dealt out to me. Lord knows I feel all in the dark. But it’s the nature of the effort, the spirit, that’ll count. I’m goin’ to save most of the wheat on my ranches. An’ bein’ a Westerner who can see ahead, I know there’s goin’ to be blood spilled.… I’d give a lot to know who sent this Nash spyin’ on me. I’m satisfied now he’s an agent, a spy, a plotter for a gang that’s marked me. I can’t prove it yet, but I feel it. Maybe nothin’ worth while — worth the trouble — will ever be found out from him. But I don’t figure that way. I say play their own game an’ take a chance.… If you encouraged Nash you’d probably find out all about him. The worst of it is could you be slick enough? Could a girl as fine an’ square an’ high-spirited as you ever double-cross a man, even a scoundrel like Nash? I reckon you could, considerin’ the motive. Women are wonderful.… Well, if you can fool him, make him think he’s a winner, flatter him till he swells up like a toad, promise to elope with him, be curious, jealous, make him tell where he goes, whom he meets, show his letters, all without ever sufferin’ his hand on you, I’ll give my consent. I’d think more of you for it. Now the question is, can you do it?”

“Yes,” whispered Lenore.

“Good!” exploded Anderson, in a great relief. Then he began to mop his wet face. He arose, showing the weight of heavy guns in his pockets, and he gazed across the wheat-fields. “That wheat’ll be ripe in a week. It sure looks fine.… Lenore, you ride back home now. Don’t let Jake pump you. He’s powerful curious. An’ I’ll go give these I.W.W.’s a first dose of Anderson.”

He turned away without looking at her, and he hesitated, bending over to pluck a stem of goldenrod.

“Lass — you’re — you’re like your mother”, he said, unsteadily. “An’ she helped me win out durin’ my struggle here. You’re brave an’ you’re big.”

Lenore wanted to say something, to show her feeling, to make her task seem lighter, but she could not speak.

“We’re pards now — with no secrets”, he continued, with a different note in his voice. “An’ I want you to know that it ain’t likely Nash or Glidden will get out of this country alive.”

CHAPTER VII

THREE DAYS LATER, Lenore accompanied her father on the ride to the Bend country. She sat in the back seat of the car with Jake — an arrangement very gratifying to the cowboy, but received with ill-concealed displeasure by the driver, Nash. They had arranged to start at sunrise, and it became manifest that Nash had expected Lenore to sit beside him all during the long ride. It was her father, however, who took the front seat, and behind Nash’s back he had slyly winked at Lenore, as if to compliment her on the evident success of their deep plot. Lenore, at the first opportunity that presented, shot Nash a warning glance which was sincere enough. Jake had begun to use keen eyes, and there was no telling what he might do.

The morning was cool, sweet, fresh, with a red sun presaging a hot day. The big car hummed like a droning bee and seemed to cover the miles as if by magic. Lenore sat with face uncovered, enjoying the breeze and the endless colorful scene flashing by, listening to Jake’s amusing comments, and trying to keep back thought of what discovery might await her before the end of this day.

Once across the Copper River, they struck the gradual ascent, and here the temperature began to mount and the dust to fly. Lenore drew her veils close and, leaning comfortably back, she resigned herself to wait and to endure.

By the flight of a crow it was about a hundred miles from Anderson’s ranch to Palmer; but by the round-about roads necessary to take the distance was a great deal longer. Lenore was well aware when they got up on the desert, and the time came when she thought she would suffocate. There appeared to be intolerable hours in which no one spoke and only the hum and creak of the machine throbbed in her ears. She could not see through her veils and did not part them until a stop was made at Palmer.

Her father got out, sputtering and gasping, shaking the dust in clouds from his long linen coat. Jake, who always said he lived on dust and heat, averred it was not exactly a regular fine day. Lenore looked out, trying to get a breath of air. Nash busied himself with the hot engine.

The little country town appeared dead, and buried under dust. There was not a person in sight nor a sound to be heard. The sky resembled molten lead, with a blazing center too bright for the gaze of man.

Anderson and Jake went into the little hotel to get some refreshments. Lenore preferred to stay in the car, saying she wanted only a cool drink. The moment the two men were out of sight Nash straightened up to gaze darkly and hungrily at Lenore.

“This’s a good a chance as we’ll get,” he said, in an eager, hurried whisper.

“For what?” asked Lenore, aghast.

“To run off,” he replied, huskily.

Lenore had proceeded so cleverly to carry out her scheme that in three days Nash had begun to implore and demand that she elope with him. He had been so much of a fool. But she as yet had found out but little about him. His right name was Ruenke. He was a socialist. He had plenty of money and hinted of mysterious sources for more.

At this Lenore hid her face, and while she fell back in pretended distress, she really wanted to laugh. She had learned something new in these few days, and that was to hate.

“Oh no! no!” she murmured. “I — I can’t think of that — yet.”

“But why not?” he demanded, in shrill violence. His gloved hand clenched on the tool he held.

“Mother has been so unhappy — with my brother Jim — off to the war. I — I just couldn’t — now. Harry, you must give me time. It’s all so — so sudden. Please wait!”

Nash appeared divided between two emotions. Lenore watched him from behind her parted veil. She had been astonished to find out that, side by side with her intense disgust and shame at the part she was playing, there was a strong, keen, passionate interest in it, owing to the fact that, though she could prove little against this man, her woman’s intuition had sensed his secret deadly antagonism toward her father. By little significant mannerisms and revelations he had more and more betrayed the German in him. She saw it in his overbearing conceit, his almost instant assumption that he was her master. At first Lenore feared him, but, as she learned to hate him she lost her fear. She had never been alone with him except under such circumstances as this; and she had decided she would not be.

“Wait?” he was expostulating. “But it’s going to get hot for me.”

“Oh!… What do you mean?” she begged. “You frighten me.”

“Lenore, the I.W.W. will have hard sledding in this wheat country. I belong to that. I told you. But the union is run differently this summer. And I’ve got work to do — that I don’t like, since I fell in love with you. Come, run off with me and I’ll give it up.”

Lenore trembled at this admission. She appeared to be close upon further discovery.

“Harry, how wildly you talk!” she exclaimed. “I hardly know you. You frighten me with your mysterious talk.… Have — a — a little consideration for me.”

Nash strode back to lean into the car. Behind his huge goggles his eyes gleamed. His gloved hand closed hard on her arm.

“It is sudden. It’s got to be sudden,” he said, in fierce undertone. “You must trust me.”

“I will. But you must confide in me,” she replied, earnestly. “I’m not quite a fool. You’re rushing me — too — too—”

Suddenly he released her, threw up his hand, then quickly stepped back to the front of the car. Jake stood in the door of the hotel. He had seen that action of Nash’s. Then Anderson appeared, followed by a boy carrying a glass of water for Lenore. They approached the car, Jake sauntering last, with his curious gaze on Nash.

“Go in an’ get a bite an’ a drink,” said Anderson to the driver. “An’ hurry.”

Nash obeyed. Jake’s eyes never left him until he entered the door. Then Jake stepped in beside Lenore.

“Thet water’s wet, anyhow,” he drawled.

“We’ll get a good cold drink at Dorn’s,” said Anderson. “Lass, how are you makin’ it?”

“Fine,” she replied, smiling.

“So I seen,” significantly added Jake, with a piercing glance at her.

Lenore realized then that she would have to confide in Jake or run the risk of having violence done to Nash. So she nodded wisely at the cowboy and winked mischievously, and, taking advantage of Anderson’s entering the car, she whispered in Jake’s ear: “I’m finding out things. Tell you — later.”

The cowboy looked anything but convinced; and he glanced with narrowed eyes at Nash as that worthy hurried back to the car.

With a lurch and a leap the car left Palmer behind in a cloud of dust. The air was furnace-hot, oppressive, and exceedingly dry. Lenore’s lips smarted so that she continually moistened them. On all sides stretched dreary parched wheat-fields. Anderson shook his head sadly. Jake said: “Ain’t thet too bad? Not half growed, an’ sure too late now.”

Near at hand Lenore saw the short immature dirty-whitish wheat, and she realized that it was ruined.

“It’s been gettin’ worse, Jake,” remarked Anderson. “Most of this won’t be cut at all. An’ what is cut won’t yield seedlings. I see a yellow patch here an’ there on the north slopes, but on the most part the Bend’s a failure.”

“Father, you remember Dorn’s section, that promised so well?” asked Lenore.

“Yes. But it promised only in case of rain. I look for the worst,” replied Anderson, regretfully.

“It looks like storm-clouds over there,” said Lenore, pointing far ahead.

Through the drifting veils of heat, far across the bare, dreamy hills of fallow and the blasted fields of wheat, stood up some huge white columnar clouds, a vivid contrast to the coppery sky.

“By George! there’s a thunderhead!” exclaimed Anderson. “Jake, what do you make of that?”

“Looks good to me,” replied Jake, who was always hopeful.

Lenore bore the hot wind and the fine, choking dust without covering her face. She wanted to see all the hills and valleys of this desert of wheat. Her heart beat a little faster as, looking across that waste on waste of heroic labor, she realized she was nearing the end of a ride that might be momentous for her. The very aspect of that wide, treeless expanse, with all its overwhelming meaning, seemed to make her a stronger and more thoughtful girl. If those endless wheat-fields were indeed ruined, what a pity, what a tragedy! Not only would young Dorn be ruined, but perhaps many other toiling farmers. Somehow Lenore felt no hopeless certainty of ruin for the young man in whom she was interested.

“There, on that slope!” spoke up Anderson, pointing to a field which was yellow in contrast to the surrounding gray field. “There’s a half-section of fair wheat.”

But such tinges of harvest gold were not many in half a dozen miles of dreary hills. Where were the beautiful shadows in the wheat? wondered Lenore. Not a breath of wind appeared to stir across those fields.

As the car neared the top of a hill the road curved into another, and Lenore saw a dusty flash of another car passing on ahead.

Suddenly Jake leaned forward.

“Boss, I seen somethin’ throwed out of thet car — into the wheat,” he said.

“What? — Mebbe it was a bottle,” replied Anderson, peering ahead.

“Nope. Sure wasn’t thet.… There! I seen it again. Watch, boss!”

Lenore strained her eyes and felt a stir of her pulses. Jake’s voice was perturbing. Was it strange that Nash slowed up a little where there was no apparent need? Then Lenore saw a hand flash out of the side of the car ahead and throw a small, glinting object into the wheat.

“There! Seen it again,” said Jake.

“I saw!… Jake, mark that spot.… Nash, slow down,” yelled Anderson.

Lenore gathered from the look of her father and the cowboy that something was amiss, but she could not guess what it might be. Nash bent sullenly at his task of driving.

“I reckon about here,” said Jake, waving his hand.

“Stop her,” ordered Anderson, and as the car came to a halt he got out, followed by Jake.

“Wal, I marked it by thet rock,” declared the cowboy.

“So did I,” responded Anderson. “Let’s get over the fence an’ find what it was they threw in there.”

Jake rested a lean hand on a post and vaulted the fence. But Anderson had to climb laboriously and painfully over the barbed-wire obstruction. Lenore marveled at his silence and his persistence. Anderson hated wire fences. Presently he got over, and then he divided his time between searching in the wheat and peering after the strange car that was drawing far away.

Lenore saw Jake pick up something and scrutinize it.

“I’ll be dog-goned!” he muttered. Then he approached Anderson. “What is thet?”

“Jake, you can lambaste me if I ever saw the likes,” replied Anderson. “But it looks bad. Let’s rustle after that car.”

As Anderson clambered into his seat once more he looked dark and grim.

“Catch that car ahead,” he tersely ordered Nash. Whereupon the driver began to go through his usual motions in starting.

“Lenore, what do you make of this?” queried Anderson, turning to show her a small cake of some gray substance, soft and wet to the touch.

“I don’t know what it is,” replied Lenore, wonderingly. “Do you?”

“No. An’ I’d give a lot — Say, Nash, hurry! Overhaul that car!”

Anderson turned to see why his order had not been obeyed. He looked angry. Nash made hurried motions. The car trembled, the machinery began to whir — then came a tremendous buzzing roar, a violent shaking of the car, followed by sharp explosions, and silence.

“You stripped the gears!” shouted Anderson, with the red fading out of his face.

“No; but something’s wrong,” replied Nash. He got out to examine the engine.

Anderson manifestly controlled strong feeling. Lenore saw Jake’s hand go to her father’s shoulder. “Boss,” he whispered, “we can’t ketch thet car now.” Anderson resigned himself, averted his face so that he could not see Nash, who was tinkering with the engine. Lenore believed then that Nash had deliberately stalled the engine or disordered something, so as to permit the escape of the strange car ahead. She saw it turn off the long, straight road ahead and disappear to the right. After some minutes’ delay Nash resumed his seat and started the car once more.

From the top of the next hill Lenore saw the Dorn farm and home. All the wheat looked parched. She remembered, however, that the section of promising grain lay on the north slope, and therefore out of sight from where she was.

“Looks as bad as any,” said Anderson. “Good-by to my money.”

Lenore shut her eyes and thought of herself, her inward state. She seemed calm, and glad to have that first part of the journey almost ended. Her motive in coming was not now the impelling thing that had actuated her.

When next the car slowed down she heard her father say, “Drive in by the house.”

Then Lenore, opening her eyes, saw the gate, the trim little orchard with its scant shade, the gray old weatherbeaten house which she remembered so well. The big porch looked inviting, as it was shady and held an old rocking-chair and a bench with blue cushions. A door stood wide open. No one appeared to be on the premises.

“Nash, blow your horn an’ then hunt around for somebody,” said Anderson. “Come, get out, Lenore. You must be half dead.”

“Oh no. Only half dust and half fire,” replied Lenore, laughing, as she stepped out. What a relief to get rid of coat, veils, bonnet, and to sit on a shady porch where a faint breeze blew! Just at that instant she heard a low, distant rumbling. Thunder! It thrilled her. Jake brought her a cold, refreshing drink, and she sent him back after another. She wet her handkerchief and bathed her hot face. It was indeed very comfortable there after that long hot ride.

“Miss Lenore, I seen thet Nash pawin’ you,” said the cowboy, “an’ by Gosh! I couldn’t believe my eyes!”

“Not so loud! Jake, the young gentleman imagines I’m in love with him,” replied Lenore.

“Wall, I’ll remove his imagining’,” declared Jake, coolly.

“Jake, you will do nothing.”

“Ahuh! Then you air in love with him?”

Lenore was compelled to explain to this loyal cowboy just what the situation meant. Whereupon Jake swore his amaze, and said, “I’m a-goin’ to lick him, anyhow, fer thet!” And he caught up the tin cup and shuffled away.

Footsteps and voices sounded on the path, upon which presently appeared Anderson and young Dorn.

“Father’s gone to Wheatly,” he was saying. “But I’m glad to tell you we’ll pay twenty thousand dollars on the debt as soon as we harvest. If it rains we’ll pay it all and have thirty thousand left.”

“Good! I sure hope it rains. An’ that thunder sounds hopeful,” responded Anderson.

“It’s been hopeful like that for several days, but no rain,” said Dorn. And then, espying Lenore, he seemed startled out of his eagerness. He flushed slightly. “I — I didn’t see — you had brought your daughter.”

He greeted her somewhat bashfully. And Lenore returned the greeting calmly, watching him steadily and waiting for the nameless sensations she had imagined would attend this meeting. But whatever these might be, they did not come to overwhelm her. The gladness of his voice, as he had spoken so eagerly to her father about the debt, had made her feel very kindly toward him. It might have been natural for a young man to resent this dragging debt. But he was fine. She observed, as he sat down, that, once the smile and flush left his face, he seemed somewhat thinner and older than she had pictured him. A shadow lay in his eyes and his lips were sad. He had evidently been working, upon their arrival. He wore overalls, dusty and ragged; his arms, bare to the elbow, were brown and muscular; his thin cotton shirt was wet with sweat and it clung to his powerful shoulders.

Anderson surveyed the young man with friendly glance.

“What’s your first name?” he queried, with his blunt frankness.

“Kurt,” was the reply.

“Is that American?”

“No. Neither is Dorn. But Kurt Dorn is an American.”

“Hum! So I see, an’ I’m powerful glad.… An’ you’ve saved the big section of promisin’ wheat?”

“Yes. We’ve been lucky. It’s the best and finest wheat father ever raised. If it rains the yield will go sixty bushels to the acre.”

“Sixty? Whew!” ejaculated Anderson.

Lenore smiled at these wheat men, and said: “It surely will rain — and likely storm to-day. I am a prophet who never fails.”

“By George! that’s true! Lenore has anybody beat when it comes to figurin’ the weather,” declared Anderson.

Dorn looked at her without speaking, but his smile seemed to say that she could not help being a prophet of good, of hope, of joy.

“Say, Lenore, how many bushels in a section at sixty per acre?” went on Anderson.

“Thirty-eight thousand four hundred,” replied Lenore.

“An’ what’ll you sell for?” asked Anderson of Dorn.

“Father has sold at two dollars and twenty-five cents a bushel,” replied Dorn.

“Good! But he ought to have waited. The government will set a higher price.… How much will that come to, Lenore?”

Dorn’s smile, as he watched Lenore do her mental arithmetic, attested to the fact that he already had figured out the sum.

“Eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars,” replied Lenore. “Is that right?”

“An’ you’ll have thirty thousand dollars left after all debts are paid?” inquired Anderson.

“Yes, sir. I can hardly realize it. That’s a fortune — for one section of wheat. But we’ve had four bad seasons.… Oh, if it only rains to-day!”

Lenore turned her cheek to the faint west wind. And then she looked long at the slowly spreading clouds, white and beautiful, high up near the sky-line, and dark and forbidding down along the horizon.

“I knew a girl who could feel things move when no one else could,” said Lenore. “I’m sensitive like that — at least about wind and rain. Right now I can feel rain in the air.”

“Then you have brought me luck,” said Dorn, earnestly. “Indeed I guess my luck has turned. I hated the idea of going away with that debt unpaid.”

“Are you — going away?” asked Lenore, in surprise.

“Yes, rather,” he replied, with a short, sardonic laugh. He fumbled in a pocket of his overalls and drew forth a paper which he opened. A flame burned the fairness from his face; his eyes darkened and shone with peculiar intensity of pride. “I was the first man drafted in this Bend country.… My number was the first called!”

“Drafted!” echoed Lenore, and she seemed to be standing on the threshold of an amazing and terrible truth.

“Lass, we forget,” said her father, rather thickly.

“Oh, but — why?” cried Lenore. She had voiced the same poignant appeal to her brother Jim. Why need he — why must he go to war? What for? And Jim had called out a bitter curse on the Germans he meant to kill.

“Why?” returned Dorn, with the sad, thoughtful shadow returning to his eyes. “How many times have I asked myself that?… In one way, I don’t know.… I haven’t told father yet!… It’s not for his sake.… But when I think deeply — when I can feel and see — I mean I’m going for my country.… For you and your sisters.”

Like a soldier then Lenore received her mortal blow facing him who dealt it, and it was a sudden overwhelming realization of love. No confusion, no embarrassment, no shame attended the agony of that revelation. Outwardly she did not seem to change at all. She felt her father’s eyes upon her; but she had no wish to hide the tumult of her heart. The moment made her a woman. Where was the fulfilment of those vague, stingingly sweet dreamy fancies of love? Where was her maiden reserve, that she so boldly recognized an unsolicited passion? Her eyes met Dorn’s steadily, and she felt some vital and compelling spirit pass from her to him. She saw him struggle with what he could not understand. It was his glance that wavered and fell, his hand that trembled, his breast that heaved. She loved him. There had been no beginning. Always he had lived in her dreams. And like her brother he was going to kill and to be killed.

Then Lenore gazed away across the wheat-fields. The shadows came waving toward her. A stronger breeze fanned her cheeks. The heavens were darkening and low thunder rolled along the battlements of the great clouds.

“Say, Kurt, what do you make of this?” asked Anderson. Lenore, turning, saw her father hold out the little gray cake that Jake had found in the wheat-field.

Young Dorn seized it quickly, felt and smelled and bit it.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked, with excitement.

Anderson related the circumstance of its discovery.

“It’s a preparation, mostly phosphorus,” replied Dorn. “When the moisture evaporates it will ignite — set fire to any dry substance.… That is a trick of the I.W.W. to burn the wheat-fields.”

“By all that’s —— !” swore Anderson, with his jaw bulging. “Jake an’ I knew it meant bad. But we didn’t know what.”

“I’ve been expecting tricks of all kinds,” said Dorn. “I have four men watching the section.”

“Good! Say, that car turned off to the right back here some miles.… But, worse luck, the I.W.W.’s can work at night.”

“We’ll watch at night, too,” replied Dorn.

Lenore was conscious of anger encroaching upon the melancholy splendor of her emotions, and the change was bitter.

“When the rain comes, won’t it counteract the ignition of that phosphorus?” she asked, eagerly, for she knew that rain would come.

“Only for the time being. It ‘ll be just as dry this time to-morrow as it is now.”

“Then the wheat’s goin’ to burn,” declared Anderson, grimly. “If that trick has been worked all over this country you’re goin’ to have worse ‘n a prairie fire. The job on hand is to save this one section that has a fortune tied up in it.”

“Mr. Anderson, that job looks almost hopeless, in the light of this phosphorus trick. What on earth can be done? I’ve four men. I can’t hire any more, because I can’t trust these strangers. And how can four men — or five, counting me, watch a square mile of wheat day and night?”

The situation looked hopeless to Lenore and she was sick. What cruel fates toyed with this young farmer! He seemed to be sinking under this last crowning blow. There in the sky, rolling up and rumbling, was the long-deferred rain-storm that meant freedom from debt, and a fortune besides. But of what avail the rain if it was to rush the wheat to full bursting measure only for the infernal touch of the foreigner?

Anderson, however, was no longer a boy. He had dealt with many and many a trial. Never was he plunged into despair until after the dread crisis had come to pass. His red forehead, frowning and ridged with swelling blood-vessels, showed the bent of his mind.

“Oh, it is hard!” said Lenore to Dorn. “I’m so sorry! But don’t give up. While there’s life there’s hope!”

He looked up with tears in his eyes.

“Thank you.… I did weaken. You see I’ve let myself believe too much — for dad’s sake. I don’t care about the money for myself.… Money! What good will money be to me — now? It’s over for me.… To get the wheat cut — harvested — that’s all I hoped.… The army — war — France — I go to be—”

“Hush!” whispered Lenore, and she put a soft hand upon his lips, checking the end of that bitter speech. She felt him start, and the look she met pierced her soul. “Hush!… It’s going to rain!… Father will find some way to save the wheat!… And you are coming home — after the war!”

He crushed her hand to his hot lips.

“You make me — ashamed. I won’t give — up,” he said, brokenly. “And when I’m over — there — in the trenches, I’ll think—”

“Dorn, listen to this,” rang out Anderson. “We’ll fool that I.W.W. gang.…It’s a-goin’ to rain. So far so good. To-morrow you take this cake of phosphorus an’ ride around all over the country. Show it an’ tell the farmers their wheat’s goin’ to burn. An’ offer them whose fields are already ruined — that fire can’t do no more harm — offer them big money to help you save your section. Half a hundred men could put out a fire if one did start. An’ these neighbors of yours, some of them will jump at a chance to beat the I.W.W.… Boy, it can be done!”

He ended with a big fist held aloft in triumph.

“See! Didn’t I tell you?” murmured Lenore, softly. It touched her deeply to see Dorn respond to hope. His haggard face suddenly warmed and glowed.

“I never thought of that,” he burst out, radiantly. “We can save the wheat.… Mr. Anderson, I — I can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t try,” replied the rancher.

“I tell you it will rain,” cried Lenore, gaily. “Let’s walk out there — watch the storm come across the hills. I love to see the shadows blow over the wheat.”

Lenore became aware, as she passed the car, that Nash was glaring at her in no unmistakable manner. She had forgotten all about him. The sight of his jealous face somehow added to her strange exhilaration.

They crossed the road from the house, and, facing the west, had free prospect of the miles of billowy hills and the magnificent ordnance of the storm-clouds. The deep, low mutterings of thunder seemed a grand and welcome music. Lenore stole a look at Dorn, to see him, bareheaded, face upturned, entranced. It was only a rain-storm coming! Down in the valley country such storms were frequent at this season, too common for their meaning to be appreciated. Here in the desert of wheat rain was a blessing, life itself.

The creamy-white, rounded edge of the approaching clouds came and coalesced, spread and mushroomed. Under them the body of the storm was purple, lit now and then by a flash of lightning. Long, drifting veils of rain, gray as thin fog, hung suspended between sky and earth.

“Listen!” exclaimed Dorn.

A warm wind, laden with dry scent of wheat, struck Lenore’s face and waved her hair. It brought a silken, sweeping rustle, a whispering of the bearded grain. The soft sound thrilled Lenore. It seemed a sweet, hopeful message that waiting had been rewarded, that the drought could be broken. Again, and more beautiful than ever before in her life, she saw the waves of shadow as they came forward over the wheat. Rippling, like breezes over the surface of a golden lake, they came in long, broken lines, moving, following, changing, until the whole wheat-field seemed in shadowy motion.

The cloud pageant rolled on above and beyond. Lenore felt a sweet drop of rain splash upon her upturned face. It seemed like a caress. There came a pattering around her. Suddenly rose a damp, faint smell of dust. Beyond the hill showed a gray pall of rain, coming slowly, charged with a low roar. The whisper of the sweeping wheat was swallowed up.

Lenore stood her ground until heavy rain drops fell thick and fast upon her, sinking through her thin waist to thrill her flesh; and then, with a last gay call to those two man lovers of wheat and storms, she ran for the porch.

There they joined her, Anderson puffing and smiling, Dorn still with that rapt look upon his face. The rain swept up and roared on the roof, while all around was streaked gray.

“Boy, there’s your thirty-thousand-dollar rain!” shouted Anderson.

But Dorn did not hear. Once he smiled at Lenore as if she were the good fairy who had brought about this miracle. In his look Lenore had deeper realization of him, of nature, and of life. She loved rain, but always, thenceforth, she would reverence it. Fresh, cool fragrance of a renewed soil filled the air. All that dusty gray hue of the earth had vanished, and it was wet and green and bright. Even as she gazed the water seemed to sink in as it fell, a precious relief to thirsty soil. The thunder rolled away eastward and the storm passed. The thin clouds following soon cleared away from the western sky, rain-washed and blue, with a rainbow curving down to bury its exquisite hues in the golden wheat.

CHAPTER VIII

THE JOURNEY HOMEWARD held many incalculable differences from the uncertain doubts and fears that had tormented Lenore on the outward trip.

For a long time she felt the warm, tight clasp of Dorn’s hand on hers as he had said good-by. Very evidently he believed that was to be his last sight of her. Lenore would never forget the gaze that seemed to try to burn her image on his memory forever. She felt that they would meet again. Solemn thoughts revolved in her mind; still, she was not unhappy. She had given much unsought, but the return to her seemed growing every moment that she lived.

The dust had been settled by the rain for many miles; however, beyond Palmer there began to show evidences that the storm had thinned out or sheered off, because the road gradually grew dry again. When dust rose once more Lenore covered her face, although, obsessed as she was by the deep change in herself, neither dust nor heat nor distance affected her greatly. Like the miles the moments sped by. She was aware through closed eyes when darkness fell. Stops were frequent after the Copper River had been crossed, and her father appeared to meet and question many persons in the towns they passed. Most of his questioning pertained to the I.W.W. And even excited whispering by her father and Jake had no power to interest her. It was midnight when they reached “Many Waters” and Lenore became conscious of fatigue.

Nash crowded in front of Jake as she was about to step out, and assisted her. He gave her arm a hard squeeze and fiercely whispered in her ear, “To-morrow!”

The whisper was trenchant with meaning and thoroughly aroused Lenore. But she gave no sign and moved away.

“I seen strangers sneakin’ off in the dark,” Jake was whispering to Anderson.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” replied Anderson. “I’ll take Lenore up to the house an’ come back.”

It was pitch black up the path through the grove and Lenore had to cling to her father.

“Is there — any danger?” she whispered.

“We’re lookin’ for anythin’,” replied Anderson, slowly.

“Will you be careful?”

“Sure, lass. I’ll take no foolish risks. I’ve got men watchin’ the house an’ ranch. But I’d better have the cowboys down. There’s Jake — he spots some prowlin’ coyotes the minute we reach home.”

Anderson unlocked and opened the door. The hall was dark and quiet. He turned on the electric light. Lenore was detaching her veil.

“You look pale,” he said, solicitously. “No wonder. That was a ride. But I’m glad we went. I saved Dorn’s wheat.”

“I’m glad, too, father. Good-night!”

He bade her good-night, and went out, locking the door. Then his rapid footsteps died away. Wearily Lenore climbed the stairs and went to her room.

She was awakened from deep slumber by Kathleen, who pulled and tugged at her.

“Lenorry, I thought you was dead, your eyes were shut so tight,” declared the child. “Breakfast is waiting. Did you fetch me anything?”

“Yes, a new sister,” replied Lenore, dreamily.

Kathleen’s eyes opened wide. “Where?”

Lenore place a hand over her heart.

“Here.”

“Oh, you do look funny.… Get up, Lenorry. Did you hear the shooting last night?”

Instantly Lenore sat up and stared.

“No. Was there any?”

“You bet. But I don’t know what it was all about.”

Lenore dispelled her dreamy state, and, hurriedly dressing, she went down to breakfast. Her father and Rose were still at the table.

“Hello, big eyes!” was his greeting.

And Rose, not to be outdone, chirped, “Hello, old sleepy-head!”

Lenore’s reply lacked her usual spontaneity. And she felt, if she did not explain, the wideness of her eyes. Her father did not look as if anything worried him. It was a way of his, however, not to show stress or worry. Lenore ate in silence until Rose left the dining-room, and then she asked her father if there had been shooting.

“Sure,” he replied, with a broad smile. “Jake turned his guns loose on them prowlin’ men last night. By George! you ought to have heard them run. One plumped into the gate an’ went clear over it, to fall like a log. Another fell into the brook an’ made more racket than a drownin’ horse. But it was so dark we couldn’t catch them.”

“Jake shot to frighten them?” inquired Lenore.

“Not much. He stung one I.W.W., that’s sure. We heard a cry, an’ this mornin’ we found some blood.”

“What do you suppose these — these night visitors wanted?”

“No tellin’. Jake thinks one of them looked an’ walked like the man Nash has been meetin’. Anyway, we’re not takin’ much more chance on Nash. I reckon it’s dangerous keepin’ him around. I’ll have him drive me to-day — over to Vale, an’ then to Huntington. You can go along. That’ll be your last chance to pump him. Have you found out anythin’?”

Lenore told what had transpired between her and the driver. Anderson’s face turned fiery red.

“That ain’t much to help us,” declared, angrily. “But it shows him up.… So his real name’s Ruenke? Fine American name, I don’t think! That man’s a spy an’ a plotter. An’ before he’s another day older I’m goin’ to corner him. It’s a sure go I can’t hold Jake in any longer.”

To Lenore it was a further indication of her father’s temper that when they went down to enter the car he addressed Nash in cool, careless, easy speech. It made Lenore shiver. She had heard stories of her father’s early career among hard men.

Jake was there, dry, caustic, with keen, quiet eyes that any subtle, clever man would have feared. But Nash’s thought seemed turned mostly inward.

Lenore took the front seat in the car beside the driver. He showed unconscious response to that action.

“Jake, aren’t you coming?” she asked, of the cowboy.

“Wal, I reckon it’ll be sure dull fer you without me. Nobody to talk to while your dad fools around. But I can’t go. Me an’ the boys air a-goin’ to hang some I.W.W.’s this mawnin’, an’ I can’t miss thet fun.”

Jake drawled his speech and laughed lazily as he ended it. He was just boasting, as usual, but his hawklike eyes were on Nash. And it was certain that Nash turned pale.

Lenore had no reply to make. Her father appeared to lose patience with Jake, but after a moment’s hesitation decided not to voice it.

Nash was not a good nor a careful driver under any circumstances, and this morning it was evident he did not have his mind on his business. There were bumps in the orchard road where the irrigation ditches crossed.

“Say, you ought to be drivin’ a hay-wagon,” called Anderson, sarcastically.

At Vale he ordered the car stopped at the post-office, and, telling Lenore he might be detained a few moments, he went in. Nash followed, and presently came back with a package of letters. Upon taking his seat in the car he assorted the letters, one of which, a large, thick envelope, manifestly gave him excited gratification. He pocketed them and turned to Lenore.

“Ah! I see you get letters — from a woman,” she said, pretending a poison sweetness of jealousy.

“Certainly. I’m not married yet,” he replied. “Lenore, last night—”

“You will never be married — to me — while you write to other women. Let me see that letter!… Let me read it — all of them!”

“No, Lenore — not here. And don’t speak so loud. Your father will be coming any minute.… Lenore, he suspects me. And that cowboy knows things. I can’t go back to the ranch.”

“Oh, you must come!”

“No. If you love me you’ve got to run off with me to-day.”

“But why the hurry?” she appealed.

“It’s getting hot for me.”

“What do you mean by that? Why don’t you explain to me? As long as you are so strange, so mysterious, how can I trust you? You ask me to run off with you, yet you don’t put confidence in me.”

Nash grew pale and earnest, and his hands shook.

“But if I do confide in you, then will you come with me?” he queried, breathlessly.

“I’ll not promise. Maybe what you have to tell will prove — you — you don’t care for me.”

“It ‘ll prove I do,” he replied, passionately.

“Then tell me.” Lenore realized she could no longer play the part she had assumed. But Nash was so stirred by his own emotions, so carried along in a current, that he did not see the difference in her.

“Listen. I tell you it’s getting hot for me,” he whispered. “I’ve been put here — close to Anderson — to find out things and to carry out orders. Lately I’ve neglected my job because I fell in love with you. He’s your father. If I go on with plans — and harm comes to him — I’ll never get you. Is that clear?”

“It certainly is,” replied Lenore, and she felt a tightness at her throat.

“I’m no member of the I.W.W.,” he went on. “Whatever that organization might have been last year, it’s gone wild this year.… There are interests that have used the I.W.W. I’m only an agent, and I’m not high up, either. I see what the government will do to the I.W.W. if the Northwest leaves any of it. But just now there’re plots against a few big men like your father. He’s to be ruined. His crops and ranches destroyed. And he’s to be killed. It’s because he’s so well known and has so much influence that he was marked. I told you the I.W.W. was being used to make trouble. They are being stirred up by agitators, bribed and driven, all for the purpose of making a great disorder in the Northwest.”

“Germany!” whispered Lenore.

“I can’t say. But men are all over, and these men work in secret. There are American citizens in the Northwest — one right in this valley — who have plotted to ruin your father.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“No, I do not.”

“You are for Germany, of course?”

“I have been. My people are German. But I was born in the U.S. And if it suits me I will be for America. If you come with me I’ll throw up this dirty job, advise Glidden to shift the plot from your father to some other man—”

“So it’s Glidden!” exclaimed Lenore.

Nash bit his lip, and for the first time looked at Lenore without thinking of himself. And surprise dawned in his eyes.

“Yes, Glidden. You saw him speak to me up in the Bend, the first time your father went to see Dorn’s wheat. Glidden’s playing the I.W.W. against itself. He means to drop out of this deal with big money.…Now I’ll save your father if you’ll stick to me.”

Lenore could no longer restrain herself. This man was not even big in his wickedness. Lenore divined that his later words held no truth.

“Mr. Ruenke, you are a detestable coward,” she said, with quivering scorn. “I let you imagine — Oh! I can’t speak it!… You — you—”

“God! You fooled me!” he ejaculated, his jaw falling in utter amaze.

“You were contemptibly easy. You’d better jump out of this car and run. My father will shoot you.”

“You deceitful — cat!” he cried, haltingly, as anger overcame his astonishment. “I’ll—”

Anderson’s big bulk loomed up behind Nash. Lenore gasped as she saw her father, for his eyes were upon her and he had recognized events.

“Say, Mister Ruenke, the postmaster says you get letters here under different names,” said Anderson, bluntly.

“Yes — I — I — get them — for a friend,” stammered the driver, as his face turned white.

“You lyin’ German pup!… I’ll look over them letters!” Anderson’s big hand shot out to clutch Nash, holding him powerless, and with the other hand he searched Nash’s inside coat pockets, to tear forth a packet of letters. Then Anderson released him and stepped back. “Get out of that car!” he thundered.

Nash made a slow movement, as if to comply, then suddenly he threw on the power. The car jerked forward.

Anderson leaped to get one hand on the car door, the other on Nash. He almost pulled the driver out of his seat. But Nash held on desperately, and the car, gaining momentum, dragged Anderson. He could not get his feet up on the running-board, and suddenly he fell.

Lenore screamed and tore frantically at the handle of the door. Nash struck her, jerked her back into the seat. She struggled until the car shot full speed ahead. Then it meant death for her to leap out.

“Sit still, or you’ll kill yourself.” shouted Nash, hoarsely.

Lenore fell back, almost fainting, with the swift realization of what had happened.

CHAPTER IX

KURT DORN HAD indeed no hope of ever seeing Lenore Anderson again, and he suffered a pang that seemed to leave his heart numb, though Anderson’s timely visit might turn out as providential as the saving rain-storm. The wheat waved and rustled as if with renewed and bursting life. The exquisite rainbow still shone, a beautiful promise, in the sky. But Dorn could not be happy in that moment.

This day Lenore Anderson had seemed a bewildering fulfilment of the sweetness he had imagined was latent in her. She had meant what was beyond him to understand. She had gently put a hand to his lips, to check the bitter words, and he had dared to kiss her soft fingers. The thrill, the sweetness, the incomprehensible and perhaps imagined response of her pulse would never leave him. He watched the big car until it was out of sight.

The afternoon was only half advanced and there were numberless tasks to do. He decided he could think and plan while he worked. As he was about to turn away he espied another automobile, this one coming from the opposite direction to that Anderson had taken. The sight of it reminded Dorn of the I.W.W. trick of throwing phosphorus cakes into the wheat. He was suspicious of that car. It slowed down in front of the Dorn homestead, turned into the yard, and stopped near where Dorn stood. The dust had caked in layers upon it. Someone hailed him and asked if this was the Dorn farm. Kurt answered in the affirmative, whereupon a tall man, wearing a long linen coat, opened the car door to step out. In the car remained the driver and another man.

“My name is Hall,” announced the stranger, with a pleasant manner. “I’m from Washington, D.C. I represent the government and am in the Northwest in the interest of the Conservation Commission. Your name has been recommended to me as one of the progressive young wheat-growers of the Bend; particularly that you are an American, located in a country exceedingly important to the United States just now — a country where foreign-born people predominate.”

Kurt, somewhat startled and awed, managed to give a courteous greeting to his visitor, and asked him into the house. But Mr. Hall preferred to sit outdoors on the porch. He threw off hat and coat, and, taking an easy chair, he produced some cigars.

“Will you smoke?” he asked, offering one.

Kurt declined with thanks. He was aware of this man’s penetrating, yet kindly scrutiny of him, and he had begun to wonder. This was no ordinary visitor.

“Have you been drafted?” abruptly queried Mr. Hall.

“Yes, sir. Mine was the first number,” replied Kurt, with a little pride.

“Do you want exemption?” swiftly came the second query.

It shocked Dorn, then stung him.

“No,” he said, forcibly.

“Your father’s sympathy is with Germany, I understand.”

“Well, sir, I don’t know how you understand that, but it’s true — to my regret and shame.”

“You want to fight?” went on the official.

“I hate the idea of war. But I — I guess I want to fight. Maybe that’s because I’m feeling scrappy over these I.W.W. tricks.”

“Dorn, the I.W.W. is only one of the many phases of war that we must meet,” returned Mr. Hall, and then for a moment he thoughtfully drew upon his cigar.

“Young man, I like your talk. And I’ll tell you a secret. My name’s not Hall. Never mind my name. For you it’s Uncle Sam!”

Whereupon, with a winning and fascinating manner that seemed to Kurt at once intimate and flattering, he began to talk fluently of the meaning of his visit, and of its cardinal importance. The government was looking far ahead, preparing for a tremendous, and perhaps a lengthy, war. The food of the country must be conserved. Wheat was one of the most vital things in the whole world, and the wheat of America was incalculably precious — only the government knew how precious. If the war was short a wheat famine would come afterward; if it was long, the famine would come before the war ended. But it was inevitable. The very outcome of the war itself depended upon wheat.

The government expected a nation-wide propaganda by the German interests which would be carried on secretly and boldly, in every conceivable way, to alienate the labor organizations, to bribe or menace the harvesters, to despoil crops, and particularly to put obstacles in the way of the raising and harvesting, the transporting and storing of wheat. It would take an army to protect the nation’s grain.

Dorn was earnestly besought by this official to compass his district, to find out who could be depended upon by the United States and who was antagonistic, to impress upon the minds of all his neighbors the exceeding need of greater and more persistent cultivation of wheat.

“I accept. I’ll do my best,” replied Kurt, grimly. “I’ll be going some the next two weeks.”

“It’s deplorable that most of the wheat in this section is a failure,” said the official. “But we must make up for that next year. I see you have one magnificent wheat-field. But, fact is, I heard of that long before I got here.”

“Yes? Where?” ejaculated Kurt, quick to catch a significance in the other’s words.

“I’ve motored direct from Wheatly. And I’m sorry to say that what I have now to tell you is not pleasant.… Your father sold this wheat for eighty thousand dollars in cash. The money was seen to be paid over by a mill-operator of Spokane.… And your father is reported to be suspiciously interested in the I.W.W. men now at Wheatly.”

“Oh, that’s awful!” exclaimed Kurt, with a groan. “How did you learn that?”

“From American farmers — men that I had been instructed to approach, the same as in your case. The information came quite by accident, however, and through my inquiring about the I.W.W.”

“Father has not been rational since the President declared war. He’s very old. I’ve had trouble with him. He might do anything.”

“My boy, there are multitudes of irrational men nowadays and the number is growing.… I advise you to go at once to Wheatly and bring your father home. It was openly said that he was taking risks with that large sum of money.”

“Risks! Why, I can’t understand that. The wheat’s not harvested yet, let alone hauled to town. And to-day I learned the I.W.W. are working a trick with cakes of phosphorus, to burn the wheat.”

Kurt produced the cake of phosphorus and explained its significance to the curious official.

“Cunning devils! Who but a German would ever have thought of that?” he exclaimed. “German science! To such ends the Germans put their supreme knowledge!”

“I wonder what my father will say about this phosphorus trick. I just wonder. He loves the wheat. His wheat has taken prizes at three world’s fairs. Maybe to see our wheat burn would untwist that twist in his brain and make him American.”

“I doubt it. Only death changes the state of a real German, physical, moral, and spiritual. Come, ride back to Glencoe with me. I’ll drop you there. You can hire a car and make Wheatly before dark.”

Kurt ran indoors, thinking hard as he changed clothes. He told the housekeeper to tell Jerry he was called away and would be back next day. Putting money and a revolver in his pocket, he started out, but hesitated and halted. He happened to think that he was a poor shot with a revolver and a fine one with a rifle. So he went back for his rifle, a small high-power, repeating gun that he could take apart and hide under his coat. When he reached the porch the official glanced from the weapon to Kurt’s face and said, with a flash of spirit:

“It appears that you are in earnest!”

“I am. Something told me to take this,” responded Kurt, as he dismounted the rifle. “I’ve already had one run-in with an I.W.W. I know tough customers when I see them. These foreigners are the kind I don’t want near me. And if I see one trying to fire the wheat I’ll shoot his leg off.”

“I’m inclined to think that Uncle Sam would not deplore your shooting a little higher.… Dorn, you’re fine! You’re all I heard you were! Shake hands!”

Kurt tingled all over as he followed the official out to the car and took the seat given him beside the driver. “Back to Glencoe,” was the order. And then, even if conversation had been in order, it would scarcely have been possible. That driver could drive! He had no fear and he knew his car. Kurt could drive himself, but he thought that if he had been as good as this fellow he would have chosen one of two magnificent services for the army — an ambulance-driver at the front or an aeroplane scout.

On the way to Glencoe several squads of idling and marching men were passed, all of whom bore the earmarks of the I.W.W. Sight of them made Kurt hug his gun and wonder at himself. Never had he been a coward, but neither had he been one to seek a fight. This suave, distinguished government official, by his own significant metaphor, Uncle Sam gone abroad to find true hearts, had wrought powerfully upon Kurt’s temper. He sensed events. He revolved in mind the need for him to be cool and decisive when facing the circumstances that were sure to arise.

At Glencoe, which was reached so speedily that Kurt could scarcely credit his eyes, the official said; “You’ll hear from me. Good-by and good luck!”

Kurt hired a young man he knew to drive him over to Wheatly. All the way Kurt brooded about his father’s strange action. The old man had left home before the rain-storm. How did he know he could guarantee so many bushels of wheat as the selling-price indicated? Kurt divined that his father had acted upon one of his strange weather prophecies. For he must have been absolutely sure of rain to save the wheat.

Darkness had settled down when Kurt reached Wheatly and left the car at the railroad station. Wheatly was a fairly good-sized little town. There seemed to be an unusual number of men on the dark streets. Dim lights showed here and there. Kurt passed several times near groups of conversing men, but he did not hear any significant talk.

Most of the stores were open and well filled with men, but to Kurt’s sharp eyes there appeared to be much more gossip going on than business. The town was not as slow and quiet as was usual with Bend towns. He listened for war talk, and heard none. Two out of every three men who spoke in his hearing did not use the English language. Kurt went into the office of the first hotel he found. There was no one present. He glanced at an old register lying on the desk. No guests had registered for several days.

Then Kurt went out and accosted a man leaning against a hitching-rail.

“What’s going on in this town?”

The man stood rather indistinctly in the uncertain light. Kurt, however, made out his eyes and they were regarding him suspiciously.

“Nothin’ onusual,” was the reply.

“Has harvesting begun in these parts?”

“Some barley cut, but no wheat. Next week, I reckon.”

“How’s the wheat?”

“Some bad an’ some good.”

“Is this town a headquarters for the I.W.W.?”

“No. But there’s a big camp of I.W.W.’s near here. Reckon you’re one of them union fellers?”

“I am not,” declared Kurt, bluntly.

“Reckon you sure look like one, with thet gun under your coat.”

“Are you going to hire I.W.W. men?” asked Kurt, ignoring the other’s observation.

“I’m only a farm-hand,” was the sullen reply. “An’ I tell you I won’t join no I.W.W.”

Kurt spared himself a moment to give this fellow a few strong proofs of the fact that any farm-hand was wise to take such a stand against the labor organization. Leaving the fellow gaping and staring after him, Kurt crossed the street to enter another hotel. It was more pretentious than the first, with a large, well lighted office. There were loungers at the tables. Kurt walked to the desk. A man leaned upon his elbows. He asked Kurt if he wanted a room. This man, evidently the proprietor, was a German, though he spoke English.

“I’m not sure,” replied Kurt. “Will you let me look at the register?”

The man shoved the book around. Kurt did not find the name he sought.

“My father, Chris Dorn, is in town. Can you tell me where I’ll find him?”

“So you’re young Dorn,” replied the other, with instant change to friendliness. “I’ve heard of you. Yes, the old man is here. He made a big wheat deal to-day. He’s eating his supper.”

Kurt stepped to the door indicated, and, looking into the dining-room, he at once espied his father’s huge head with its shock of gray hair. He appeared to be in earnest colloquy with a man whose bulk matched his own. Kurt hesitated, and finally went back to the desk.

“Who’s the big man with my father?” he asked.

“He is a big man, both ways. Don’t you know him?” rejoined the proprietor, in a lower voice.

“I’m not sure,” answered Kurt. The lowered tone had a significance that decided Kurt to admit nothing.

“That’s Neuman from Ruxton, one of the biggest wheat men in Washington.”

Kurt repressed a whistle of surprise. Neuman was Anderson’s only rival in the great, fertile valley. What were Neuman and Chris Dorn doing with their heads together?

“I thought he was Neuman,” replied Kurt, feeling his way. “Is he in on the big deal with father?”

“Which one?” queried the proprietor, with shrewd eyes, taking Kurt’s measure. “You’re in on both, of course.”

“Sure. I mean the wheat sale, not the I.W.W. deal,” replied Kurt. He hazarded a guess with that mention of the I.W.W. No sooner had the words passed his lips than he divined he was on the track of sinister events.

“Your father sold out to that Spokane miller. No, Neuman is not in on that.”

“I was surprised to hear father had sold the wheat. Was it speculation or guarantee?”

“Old Chris guaranteed sixty bushels. There were friends of his here who advised against it. Did you have rain over there?”

“Fine. The wheat will go over sixty bushels. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”

“When it rained you hurried over to boost the price. Well, it’s too late.”

“Is Glidden here?” queried Kurt, hazarding another guess.

“Don’t talk so loud,” warned the proprietor. “Yes, he just got here in a car with two other men. He’s up-stairs having supper in his room.”

“Supper!” Kurt echoed the word, and averted his face to hide the leap of his blood. “That reminds me, I’m hungry.”

He went into the big, dimly lighted dining-room. There was a shelf on one side as he went in, and here, with his back turned to the room, he laid the disjointed gun and his hat. Several newspapers lying near attracted his eye. Quickly he slipped them under and around the gun, and then took a seat at the nearest table. A buxom German waitress came for his order. He gave it while he gazed around at his grim-faced old father and the burly Neuman, and his ears throbbed to the beat of his blood. His hand trembled on the table. His thoughts flashed almost too swiftly for comprehension. It took a stern effort to gain self-control.

Evil of some nature was afoot. Neuman’s presence there was a strange, disturbing fact. Kurt had made two guesses, both alarmingly correct. If he had any more illusions or hopes, he dispelled them. His father had been won over by this arch conspirator of the I.W.W. And, despite his father’s close-fistedness where money was concerned, that eighty thousand dollars, or part of it, was in danger.

Kurt wondered how he could get possession of it. If he could he would return it to the bank and wire a warning to the Spokane buyer that the wheat was not safe. He might persuade his father to turn over the amount of the debt to Anderson. While thinking and planning, Kurt kept an eye on his father and rather neglected his supper. Presently, when old Dorn and Neuman rose and left the dining-room, Kurt followed them. His father was whispering to the proprietor over the desk, and at Kurt’s touch he glared his astonishment.

“You here! What for?” he demanded, gruffly, in German.

“I had to see you,” replied Kurt, in English.

“Did it rain?” was the old man’s second demand, husky and serious.

“The wheat is made, if we can harvest it,” answered Kurt.

The blaze of joy on old Dorn’s face gave Kurt a twinge of pain. He hated to dispel it. “Come aside, here, a minute,” he whispered, and drew his father over to a corner under a lamp. “I’ve got bad news. Look at this!” He produced the cake of phosphorus, careful to hide it from other curious eyes there, and with swift, low words he explained its meaning. He expected an outburst of surprise and fury, but he was mistaken.

“I know about that,” whispered his father, hoarsely. “There won’t be any thrown in my wheat.”

“Father! What assurance have you of that?” queried Kurt, astounded.

The old man nodded his gray head wisely. He knew, but he did not speak.

“Do you think these I.W.W. plotters will spare your wheat?” asked Kurt. “You are wrong. They may lie to your face. But they’ll betray you. The I.W.W. is backed by — by interests that want to embarrass the government.”

“What government?”

“Why, ours — the U.S. government!”

“That’s not my government. The more it’s embarrassed the better it will suit me.”

In the stress of the moment Kurt had forgotten his father’s bitter and unchangeable hatred.

“But you’re — you’re stupid,” he hissed, passionately. “That government has protected you for fifty years.”

Old Dorn growled into his beard. His huge ox-eyes rolled. Kurt realized then finally how implacable and hopeless he was — how utterly German. Then Kurt importuned him to return the eighty thousand dollars to the bank until he was sure the wheat was harvested and hauled to the railroad.

“My wheat won’t burn,” was old Dorn’s stubborn reply.

“Well, then, give me Anderson’s thirty thousand. I’ll take it to him at once. Our debt will be paid. We’ll have it off our minds.”

“No hurry about that,” replied his father.

“But there is hurry,” returned Kurt, in a hot whisper. “Anderson came to see you to-day. He wants his money.”

“Neuman holds the small end of that debt. I’ll pay him. Anderson can wait.”

Kurt felt no amaze. He expected anything. But he could scarcely contain his fury. How this old man, his father, whom he had loved — how he had responded to the influences that must destroy him!

“Anderson shall not wait,” declared Kurt. “I’ve got some say in this matter. I’ve worked like a dog in those wheat-fields. I’ve a right to demand Anderson’s money. He needs it. He has a tremendous harvest on his hands.”

Old Dorn shook his huge head in somber and gloomy thought. His broad face, his deep eyes, seemed to mask and to hide. It was an expression Kurt had seldom seen there, but had always hated. It seemed so old to Kurt, that alien look, something not born of his time.

“Anderson is a capitalist,” said Chris Dorn, deep in his beard. “He seeks control of farmers and wheat in the Northwest. Ranch after ranch he’s gained by taking up and foreclosing mortgages. He’s against labor. He grinds down the poor. He cheated Neuman out of a hundred thousand bushels of wheat. He bought up my debt. He meant to ruin me. He—”

“You’re talking I.W.W. rot,” whispered Kurt, shaking with the effort to subdue his feelings. “Anderson is fine, big, square — a developer of the Northwest. Not an enemy! He’s our friend. Oh! if only you had an American’s eyes, just for a minute!… Father, I want that money for Anderson.”

“My son, I run my own business,” replied Dorn, sullenly, with a pale fire in his opaque eyes. “You’re a wild boy, unfaithful to your blood. You’ve fallen in love with an American girl.… Anderson says he needs money!”… With hard, gloomy face the old man shook his head. “He thinks he’ll harvest!” Again that strange shake of finality. “I know what I know.… I keep my money.… We’ll have other rule.… I keep my money.”

Kurt had vibrated to those most significant words and he stared speechless at his father.

“Go home. Get ready for harvest,” suddenly ordered old Dorn, as if he had just awakened to the fact of Kurt’s disobedience in lingering here.

“All right, father,” replied Kurt, and, turning on his heel, he strode outdoors.

When he got beyond the light he turned and went back to a position where in the dark he could watch without being seen. His father and the hotel proprietor were again engaged in earnest colloquy. Neuman had disappeared. Kurt saw the huge shadow of a man pass across a drawn blind in a room up-stairs. Then he saw smaller shadows, and arms raised in vehement gesticulation. The very shadows were sinister. Men passed in and out of the hotel. Once old Dorn came to the door and peered all around. Kurt observed that there was a dark side entrance to this hotel. Presently Neuman returned to the desk and said something to old Dorn, who shook his head emphatically, and then threw himself into a chair, in a brooding posture that Kurt knew well. He had seen it so often that he knew it had to do with money. His father was refusing demands of some kind. Neuman again left the office, this time with the proprietor. They were absent some little time.

During this period Kurt leaned against a tree, hidden in the shadow, with keen eyes watching and with puzzled, anxious mind. He had determined, in case his father left that office with Neuman, on one of those significant disappearances, to slip into the hotel at the side entrance and go up-stairs to listen at the door of the room with the closely drawn blind. Neuman returned soon with the hotel man, and the two of them half led, half dragged old Dorn out into the street. They took the direction toward the railroad. Kurt followed at a safe distance on the opposite side of the street. Soon they passed the stores with lighted windows, then several dark houses, and at length the railroad station. Perhaps they were bound for the train. Kurt heard rumbling in the distance. But they went beyond the station, across the track, and turned to the right.

Kurt was soft-footed and keen-eyed. He just kept the dim shadows in range. They were heading for some freight-cars that stood upon a side-track. The dark figures disappeared behind them. Then one figure reappeared, coming back. Kurt crouched low. This man passed within a few yards of Kurt and he was whispering to himself. After he was safely out of earshot Kurt stole on stealthily until he reached the end of the freight-cars. Here he paused, listening. He thought he heard low voices, but he could not see the men he was following. No doubt they were waiting in the secluded gloom for the other men apparently necessary for that secret conference. Kurt had sensed this event and he had determined to be present. He tried not to conjecture. It was best for him to apply all his faculties to the task of slipping unseen and unheard close to these men who had involved his father in some dark plot.

Not long after Kurt hid himself on the other side of the freight-car he heard soft-padded footsteps and subdued voices. Dark shapes appeared to come out of the gloom. They passed him. He distinguished low, guttural voices, speaking German. These men, three in number, were scarcely out of sight when Kurt laid his rifle on the projecting shelf of the freight-car and followed them.

Presently he came to deep shadow, where he paused. Low voices drew him on again, then a light made him thrill. Now and then the light appeared to be darkened by moving figures. A dark object loomed up to cut off Kurt’s view. It was a pile of railroad ties, and beyond it loomed another. Stealing along these, he soon saw the light again, quite close. By its glow he recognized his father’s huge frame, back to him, and the burly Neuman on the other side, and Glidden, whose dark face was working as he talked. These three were sitting, evidently on a flat pile of ties, and the other two men stood behind. Kurt could not make out the meaning of the low voices. Pressing closer to the freight-car, he cautiously and noiselessly advanced.

Glidden was importuning with expressive hands and swift, low utterance. His face gleamed dark, hard, strong, intensely strung with corded, quivering muscles, with eyes apparently green orbs of fire. He spoke in German.

Kurt dared not go closer unless he wanted to be discovered, and not yet was he ready for that. He might hear some word to help explain his father’s strange, significant intimations about Anderson.

“…must — have — money,” Glidden was saying. To Kurt’s eyes treachery gleamed in that working face. Neuman bent over to whisper gruffly in Dorn’s ear. One of the silent men standing rubbed his hands together. Old Dorn’s head was bowed. Then Glidden spoke so low and so swiftly that Kurt could not connect sentences, but with mounting blood he stood transfixed and horrified, to gather meaning from word on word, until he realized Anderson’s doom, with other rich men of the Northwest, was sealed — that there were to be burnings of wheat-fields and of storehouses and of freight-trains — destruction everywhere.

“I give money,” said old Dorn, and with heavy movement he drew from inside his coat a large package wrapped in newspaper. He laid it before him in the light and began to unwrap it. Soon there were disclosed two bundles of bills — the eighty thousand dollars.

Kurt thrilled in all his being. His poor father was being misled and robbed. A melancholy flash of comfort came to Kurt! Then at sight of Glidden’s hungry eyes and working face and clutching hands Kurt pulled his hat far down, drew his revolver, and leaped forward with a yell, “Hands up!”

He discharged the revolver right in the faces of the stunned plotters, and, snatching up the bundle of money, he leaped over the light, knocking one of the men down, and was gone into the darkness, without having slowed in the least his swift action.

Wheeling round the end of the freight-car, he darted back, risking a hard fall in the darkness, and ran along the several cars to the first one, where he grasped his rifle and kept on. He heard his father’s roar, like that of a mad bull, and shrill yells from the other men. Kurt laughed grimly. They would never catch him in the dark. While he ran he stuffed the money into his inside coat pockets. Beyond the railroad station he slowed down to catch his breath. His breast was heaving, his pulse hammering, and his skin was streaming. The excitement was the greatest under which he had ever labored.

“Now — what shall — I do?” he panted. A freight-train was lumbering toward him and the head-light was almost at the station. The train appeared to be going slowly through without stopping. Kurt hurried on down the track a little farther. Then he waited. He would get on that train and make his way somehow to Ruxton, there to warn Anderson of the plot against his life.

CHAPTER X

KURT RODE TO Adrian on that freight, and upon arriving in the yards there he jumped off, only to mount another, headed south. He meant to be traveling while it was dark. No passenger-trains ran at night and he wanted to put as much distance between him and Wheatly as possible before daylight.

He had piled into an open box-car. It was empty, at least of freight, and the floor appeared to have a thin covering of hay. The train, gathering headway, made a rattling rolling roar. Kurt hesitated about getting up and groping back in the pitch-black corners of the car. He felt that it contained a presence besides his own. And suddenly he was startled by an object blacker than the shadow, that sidled up close to him. Kurt could not keep the cold chills from chasing up and down his back. The object was a man, who reached for Kurt and felt of him with a skinny hand.

“I.W.W.?” he whispered, hoarsely, in Kurt’s ear.

“Yes,” replied Kurt.

“Was that Adrian where you got on?”

“It sure was,” answered Kurt, with grim humor.

“Than you’re the feller?”

“Sure,” replied Kurt. It was evident that he had embarked upon an adventure.

“When do we stall this freight?”

“Not while we’re on it, you can gamble.”

Other dark forms sidled out of the gloomy depths of that cavern-like corner and drew close to Kurt. He realized that he had fallen in with I.W.W. men who apparently had taken him for an expected messenger or leader. He was importuned for tobacco, drink, and money, and he judged that his begging companions consisted of an American tramp, an Austrian, a negro, and a German. Fine society to fall into! That eighty thousand dollars became a tremendous burden.

“How many men on this freight?” queried Kurt, thinking he could ask questions better than answer them. And he was told there were about twenty-five, all of whom expected money. At this information Kurt rather closely pressed his hand upon the revolver in his side coat pocket. By asking questions and making judicious replies he passed what he felt was the dark mark in that mixed company of I.W.W. men; and at length, one by one, they melted away to their warmer corners, leaving Kurt by the door. He did not mind the cold. He wanted to be where, at the first indication of a stop, he could jump off the train.

With his hand on his gun and hugging the bulging coat pockets close to him, Kurt settled himself for what he believed would be interminable hours. He strained eyes and ears for a possible attack from the riffraff I.W.W. men hidden there in the car. And that was why, perhaps, that it seemed only a short while until the train bumped and slowed, preparatory to stopping. The instant it was safe Kurt jumped out and stole away in the gloom. A fence obstructed further passage. He peered around to make out that he was in a road. Thereupon he hurried along it until he was out of hearing of the train. There was light in the east, heralding a dawn that Kurt surely would welcome. He sat down to wait, and addressed to his bewildered judgment a query as to whether or not he ought to keep on carrying the burdensome rifle. It was not only heavy, but when daylight came it might attract attention, and his bulging coat would certainly invite curiosity. He was in a predicament; nevertheless, he decided to hang on to the rifle.

He almost fell asleep, waiting there with his back against a fence-post. The dawn came, and then the rosy sunrise. And he discovered, not half a mile away, a good-sized town, where he believed he surely could hire an automobile.

Waiting grew to be so tedious that he decided to risk the early hour, and proceeded toward the town. Upon the outskirts he met a farmer boy, who, in reply to a question, said that the town was Connell. Kurt found another early riser in the person of a blacksmith who evidently was a Yankee and proud of it. He owned a car that he was willing to hire out on good security. Kurt satisfied him on that score, and then proceeded to ask how to get across the Copper River and into Golden Valley. The highway followed the railroad from that town to Kahlotus, and there crossed a big trunk-line railroad, to turn south toward the river.

In half an hour, during which time Kurt was enabled to breakfast, the car was ready. It was a large car, rather ancient and the worse for wear, but its owner assured Kurt that it would take him where he wanted to go and he need not be afraid to drive fast. With that inspiring knowledge Kurt started off.

Before ten o’clock Kurt reached Kilo, far across the Copper River, with the Blue Mountains in sight, and from there less confusing directions to follow. He had been lucky. He had passed the wreck of the freight-train upon which he had ridden from Adrian; his car had been surrounded by rough men, and only quick wits saved him at least delay; he had been hailed by more than one group of tramping I.W.W. men; and he had passed camps and freight-yards where idlers were congregated. And lastly, he had seen, far across the valley, a pall of smoke from forest fire.

He was going to reach “Many Waters” in time to warn Anderson, and that fact gave him strange exultation. When it was assured and he had the eighty thousand dollars deposited in a bank he could feel that his gray, gloomy future would have several happy memories. How would Lenore Anderson feel toward a man who had saved her father? The thought was too rich, too sweet for Kurt to dwell upon.

Before noon Kurt began to climb gradually up off the wonderfully fertile bottom-lands where the endless orchards and boundless gardens delighted his eye, and the towns grew fewer and farther between. Kurt halted at Huntington for water, and when he was about ready to start a man rushed out of a store, glanced hurriedly up and down the almost deserted street, and, espying Kurt, ran to him.

“Message over ‘phone! I.W.W.! Hell to pay!” he cried, excitedly.

“What’s up? Tell me the message,” replied Kurt, calmly.

“It just come — from Vale. Anderson, the big rancher! He ‘phoned to send men out on all roads — to stop his car! His daughter’s in it! She’s been made off with! I.W.W.’s!”

Kurt’s heart leaped. The bursting blood burned through him and receded to leave him cold, tingling. Anything might happen to him this day! He reached inside the seat to grasp the disjointed rifle, and three swift movements seemed to serve to unwrap it and put the pieces together.

“What else did Anderson say?” he asked, sharply.

“That likely the car would head for the hills, where the I.W.W.’s are camped.”

“What road from here leads that way?”

“Take the left-hand road at the end of town,” replied the man, more calmly. “Ten miles down you’ll come to a fork. There’s where the I.W.W.’s will turn off to go up into the foot-hills. Anderson just ‘phoned. You can head off his car if it’s on the hill road. But you’ll have to drive.… Do you know Anderson’s car? Don’t you want men with you?”

“No time!” called Kurt, as he leaped into the seat and jammed on the power.

“I’ll send cars all over,” shouted the man, as Kurt whirred away.

Kurt’s eyes and hands and feet hurt with the sudden intensity of strain. All his nervous force seemed set upon the one great task of driving and guiding that car at the limit of its speed. Huntington flashed behind, two indistinct streaks of houses. An open road, slightly rising, stretched ahead. The wind pressed so hard that he could scarcely breathe. The car gave forth a humming roar.

Kurt’s heart labored, swollen and tight, high in his breast, and his thoughts were swift, tumultuous. An agony of dread battled with a dominating but strange certainty. He felt belief in his luck. Circumstances one by one had led to this drive, and in every one passed by he felt the direction of chance.

He sped by fields of wheat, a wagon that he missed by an inch, some stragglers on the road, and then, far ahead, he saw a sign-post of the forks. As he neared it he gradually shut off the power, to stop at the cross-roads. There he got out to search for fresh car tracks turning up to the right. There were none. If Anderson’s car was coming on that road he would meet it.

Kurt started again, but at reasonable speed, while his eyes were sharp on the road ahead. It was empty. It sloped down for a long way, and made a wide curve to the right, along the base of hilly pastureland, and then again turned. And just as Kurt’s keen gaze traveled that far a big automobile rounded the bend, coming fast. He recognized the red color, the shape of the car.

“Anderson’s!” he cried, with that same lift of his heart, that bursting gush of blood. “No dream!… I see it!… And I’ll stop it!”

The advantage was all his. He would run along at reasonable speed, choose a narrow place, stop his car so as to obstruct the road, and get out with his rifle.

It seemed a long stretch down that long slope, and his car crept along while the other gradually closed the gap. Slower and slower Kurt ran, then turned half across the road and stopped. When he stepped out the other car was two hundred yards or more distant. Kurt saw when the driver slackened his speed. There appeared to be only two people in the car, both in front. But Kurt could not be sure of that until it was only fifty yards away.

Then he swung out his rifle and waved for the driver to stop. But he did not stop. Kurt heard a scream. He saw a white face. He saw the driver swing his hand across that white face, dashing it back.

“Halt!” yelled Kurt, at the top of his lungs.

But the driver hunched down and put on the power. The red car leaped. As it flashed by Kurt recognized Nash and Anderson’s daughter. She looked terrified. Kurt dared not shoot, for fear of hitting the girl. Nash swerved, took the narrow space left him, smashing the right front wheel of Kurt’s car, and got by.

Kurt stepped aside and took a quick shot at the tire of Nash’s left hind wheel. He missed. His heart sank and he was like ice as he risked another. The little high-power bullet struck and blew the tire off the wheel. Nash’s car lurched, skidded into the bank not thirty yards away.

With a bound Kurt started for it, and he was there when Nash had twisted out of his seat and over the door.

“Far enough! Don’t move!” ordered Kurt, presenting the rifle.

Nash was ghastly white, with hunted eyes and open mouth, and his hands shook.

“Oh it’s — Kurt Dorn!” cried a broken voice.

Kurt saw the girl fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at Kurt as if to make sure of her deliverance.

“Miss Anderson — if he’s harmed you—” broke out Kurt, hoarsely.

“Oh!… Don’t kill him!… He hasn’t touched me,” she replied, wildly.

“But your lips are bleeding.”

“Are they?” She put a trembling hand to them. “He — he struck me.… That’s nothing… But you — you have saved me — from God only knows what!”

“I have! From him?” demanded Kurt. “What is he?”

“He’s a German!” returned Lenore, and red burned out of the white of her cheeks. “Secret agent — I.W.W.!… Plotter against my father’s life!… Oh, he knocked father off the car — dragged him!… He ran the car away — with me — forced me back — he struck me!… Oh, if I were a man!”

Nash responded with a passion that made his face drip with sweat and distort into savage fury of defeat and hate.

“You two-faced cat!” he hissed. “You made love to me! You fooled me! You let me—”

“Shut up!” thundered Kurt. “You German dog! I can’t murder you, because I’m American. Do you get that? But I’ll beat you within an inch of your life!”

As Kurt bent over to lay down the rifle, Nash darted a hand into the seat for weapon of some kind. But Kurt, in a rush, knocked him over the front guard. Nash howled. He scrambled up with bloody mouth. Kurt was on him again.

“Take that!” cried Kurt, low and hard, as he swung his arm. The big fist that had grasped so many plow-handles took Nash full on that bloody mouth and laid him flat. “Come on, German! Get out of the trench!”

Like a dog Nash thrashed and crawled, scraping his hands in the dirt, to jump up and fling a rock that Kurt ducked by a narrow margin. Nash followed it, swinging wildly, beating at his adversary.

Passion long contained burst in Kurt. He tasted the salt of his own blood where he had bitten his lips. Nash showed as in a red haze. Kurt had to get his hands on this German, and when he did it liberated a strange and terrible joy in him. No weapon would have sufficed. Hardly aware of Nash’s blows, Kurt tore at him, swung and choked him, bore him down on the bank, and there beat him into a sodden, bloody-faced heap.

Only then did a cry of distress, seemingly from far off, pierce Kurt’s ears. Miss Anderson was pulling at him with frantic hands.

“Oh, don’t kill him! Please don’t kill him!” she was crying. “Kurt! — for my sake, don’t kill him!”

That last poignant appeal brought Kurt to his senses. He let go of Nash. He allowed the girl to lead him back. Panting hard, he tried to draw a deep, full breath.

“Oh, he doesn’t move!” whispered Lenore, with wide eyes on Nash.

“Miss Anderson — he’s not — even insensible,” panted Kurt. “But he’s licked — good and hard.”

The girl leaned against the side of the car, with a hand buried in her heaving breast. She was recovering. The gray shade left her face. Her eyes, still wide and dark and beginning to glow with softer emotions, were upon Kurt.

“You — you were the one to come,” she murmured. “I prayed. I was terribly frightened. Ruenke was taking me — to the I.W.W. camp, up in the hills.”

“Ruenke?” queried Kurt.

“Yes, that’s his German name.”

Kurt awoke to the exigencies of the situation. Searching in the car, he found a leather belt. With this he securely bound Ruenke’s hands behind his back, then rolled him down into the road.

“My first German prisoner,” said Kurt, half seriously. “Now, Miss Anderson, we must be doing things. We don’t want to meet a lot of I.W.W.’s out here. My car is out of commission. I hope yours is not broken.”

Kurt got into the car and found, to his satisfaction, that it was not damaged so far as running-gear was concerned. After changing the ruined tire he backed down the road and turned to stop near where Ruenke lay. Opening the rear door, Kurt picked him up as if he had been a sack of wheat and threw him into the car. Next he secured the rifle that had been such a burden and had served him so well in the end.

“Get in, Miss Anderson,” he said, “and show me where to drive you home.”

She got in beside him, making a grimace as she saw Ruenke lying behind her. Kurt started and ran slowly by the damaged car.

“He knocked a wheel off. I’ll have to send back.”

“Oh, I thought it was all over when we hit!” said the girl.

Kurt experienced a relaxation that was weakening. He could hardly hold the wheel and his mood became one of exaltation.

“Father suspected this Ruenke,” went on Lenore. “But he wanted to find out things from him. And I — I undertook — to twist Mr. Germany round my finger. I made a mess of it.… He lied. I didn’t make love to him. But I listened to his love-making, and arrogant German love-making it was! I’m afraid I made eyes at him and let him believe I was smitten.… Oh, and all for nothing! I’m ashamed… But he lied!”

Her confidence, at once pathetic and humorous and contemptuous, augmented Kurt’s Homeric mood. He understood that she would not even let him, for a moment, have a wrong impression of her.

“It must have been hard,” agreed Kurt. “Didn’t you find out anything at all?”

“Not much,” she replied. Then she put a hand on his sleeve. “Your knuckles are all bloody.”

“So they are. I got that punching our German friend.”

“Oh, how you did beat him!” she cried. “I had to look. My ire was up, too!… It wasn’t very womanly — of me — that I gloried in the sight.”

“But you cried out — you pulled me away!” exclaimed Kurt.

“That was because I was afraid you’d kill him,” she replied.

Kurt swerved his glance, for an instant, to her face. It was at once flushed and pale, with the deep blue of downcast eyes shadowy through her long lashes, exceedingly sweet and beautiful to Kurt’s sight. He bent his glance again to the road ahead. Miss Anderson felt kindly and gratefully toward him, as was, of course, natural. But she was somehow different from what she had seemed upon the other occasions he had seen her. Kurt’s heart was full to bursting.

“I might have killed him,” he said. “I’m glad — you stopped me. That — that frenzy of mine seemed to be the breaking of a dam. I have been dammed up within. Something had to break. I’ve been unhappy for a long time.”

“I saw that. What about?” she replied.

“The war, and what it’s done to father. We’re estranged. I hate everything German. I loved the farm. My chance in life is gone. The wheat debt — the worry about the I.W.W. — and that’s not all.”

Again she put a gentle hand on his sleeve and left it there for a moment. The touch thrilled all through Kurt.

“I’m sorry. Your position is sad. But maybe it is not utterly hopeless. You — you’ll come back after the war.”

“I don’t know that I want to come back,” he said. “For then — it’d be just as bad — worse.… Miss Anderson, it won’t hurt to tell you the truth.… A year ago — that first time I saw you — I fell in love with you. I think — when I’m away — over in France — I’d like to feel that you know. It can’t hurt you. And it’ll be sweet to me.… I fought against the — the madness. But fate was against me.… I saw you again.… And it was all over with me!”

He paused, catching his breath. She was perfectly quiet. He looked on down the winding road. There were dust-clouds in the distance.

“I’m afraid I grew bitter and moody,” he went on. “But the last forty-eight hours have changed me forever… I found that my poor old dad had been won over by these unscrupulous German agents of the I.W.W. But I saved his name.… I’ve got the money he took for the wheat we may never harvest. But if we do harvest I can pay all our debt.… Then I learned of a plot to ruin your father — to kill him!… I was on my way to ‘Many Waters.’ I can warn him.… Last of all I have saved you.”

The little hand dropped away from his coat sleeve. A soft, half-smothered cry escaped her. It seemed to him she was about to weep in her exceeding pity.

“Miss Anderson, I — I’d rather not have — you pity me.”

“Mr. Dorn, I certainly don’t pity you,” she replied, with an unexpected, strange tone. It was full. It seemed to ring in his ears.

“I know there never was and never could be any hope for me. I — I—”

“Oh, you know that!” murmured the soft, strange voice.

But Kurt could not trust his ears and he had to make haste to terminate the confession into which his folly and emotion had betrayed him. He scarcely heard her words.

“Yes.… I told you why I wanted you to know.… And now forget that — and when I’m gone — if you think of me ever, let it be about how much better it made me — to have all this good luck — to help your father and to save you!”

The dust-cloud down the road came from a string of automobiles, flying along at express speed. Kurt saw them with relief.

“Here come the cars on your trail,” he called out. “Your father will be in one of them.”

Kurt opened the door of the car and stepped down. He could not help his importance or his pride. Anderson, who came running between two cars that had stopped abreast, was coatless and hatless, covered with dust, pale and fire-eyed.

“Mr. Anderson, your daughter is safe — unharmed,” Kurt assured him.

“My girl!” cried the father, huskily, and hurried to where she leaned out of her seat.

“All right, dad,” she cried, as she embraced him. “Only a little shaky yet.”

It was affecting for Dorn to see that meeting, and through it to share something of its meaning. Anderson’s thick neck swelled and colored, and his utterance was unintelligible. His daughter loosened her arm from round him and turned her face toward Kurt. Then he imagined he saw two blue stars, sweetly, strangely shining upon him.

“Father, it was our friend from the Bend,” she said. “He happened along.”

Anderson suddenly changed to the cool, smiling man Kurt remembered.

“Howdy, Kurt?” he said, and crushed Kurt’s hand. “What’d you do to him?”

Kurt made a motion toward the back of the car. Then Anderson looked over the seats. With that he opened the door and in one powerful haul he drew Ruenke sliding out into the road. Ruenke’s bruised and bloody face was uppermost, a rather gruesome sight. Anderson glared down upon him, while men from the other cars crowded around. Ruenke’s eyes resembled those of a cornered rat. Anderson’s jaw bulged, his big hands clenched.

“Bill, you throw this fellow in your car and land him in jail. I’ll make a charge against him,” said the rancher.

“Mr. Anderson, I can save some valuable time,” interposed Kurt. “I’ve got to return a car I broke down. And there’s my wheat. Will you have one of these men drive me back?”

“Sure. But won’t you come home with us?” said Anderson.

“I’d like to. But I must get home,” replied Kurt. “Please let me speak a few words for your ear alone.” He drew Anderson aside and briefly told about the eighty thousand dollars; threw back his coat to show the bulging pockets. Then he asked Anderson’s advice.

“I’d deposit the money an’ wire the Spokane miller,” returned the rancher. “I know him. He’ll leave the money in the bank till your wheat is safe. Go to the national bank in Kilo. Mention my name.”

Then Kurt told Anderson of the plot against his fortunes and his life.

“Neuman! I.W.W.! German intrigue!” growled the rancher. “All in the same class!… Dorn, I’m forewarned, an’ that’s forearmed. I’ll beat this outfit at their own game.”

They returned to Anderson’s car. Kurt reached inside for his rifle.

“Aren’t you going home with us?” asked the girl.

“Why, Miss Anderson, I — I’m sorry. I — I’d love to see ‘Many Waters,’” floundered Kurt. “But I can’t go now. There’s no need. I must hurry back to — to my troubles.”

“I wanted to tell you something — at home,” she returned, shyly.

“Tell me now,” said Kurt.

She gave him such a glance as he had never received in his life. Kurt felt himself as wax before those blue eyes. She wanted to thank him. That would be sweet, but would only make his ordeal harder. He steeled himself.

“You won’t come?” she asked, and her smile was wistful.

“No — thank you ever so much.”

“Will you come to see me before you — you go to war?”

“I’ll try.”

“But you must promise. You’ve done so much for me and my father.… I — I want you to come to see me — at my home.”

“Then I’ll come,” he replied.

Anderson clambered into the car beside his daughter and laid his big hands on the wheel.

“Sure he’ll come, or we’ll go after him,” he declared, heartily. “So long, son.”

CHAPTER XI

LATE IN THE forenoon of the next day Kurt Dorn reached home. A hot harvest wind breathed off the wheat-fields. It swelled his heart to see the change in the color of that section of Bluestem — the gold had a tinge of rich, ripe brown.

Kurt’s father awaited him, a haggard, gloomy-faced man, unkempt and hollow-eyed.

“Was it you who robbed me?” he shouted hoarsely.

“Yes,” replied Kurt. He had caught the eager hope and fear in the old man’s tone. Kurt expected that confession would bring on his father’s terrible fury, a mood to dread. But old Dorn showed immense relief. He sat down in his relaxation from what must have been intense strain. Kurt saw a weariness, a shade, in the gray lined face that had never been there before.

“What did you do with the money?” asked the old man.

“I banked it in Kilo,” replied Kurt. “Then I wired your miller in Spokane.… So you’re safe if we can harvest the wheat.”

Old Dorn nodded thoughtfully. There had come a subtle change in him. Presently he asked Kurt if men had been hired for the harvest.

“No. I’ve not seen any I would trust,” replied Kurt, and then he briefly outlined Anderson’s plan to insure a quick and safe harvesting of the grain. Old Dorn objected to this on account of the expense. Kurt argued with him and patiently tried to show him the imperative need of it. Dorn, apparently, was not to be won over; however, he was remarkably mild in comparison with what Kurt had expected.

“Father, do you realize now that the men you were dealing with at Wheatly are dishonest? I mean with you. They would betray you.”

Old Dorn had no answer for this. Evidently he had sustained some kind of shock that he was not willing to admit.

“Look here, father,” went on Kurt, in slow earnestness. He spoke in English, because nothing would make him break his word and ever again speak a word of German. And his father was not quick to comprehend English. “Can’t you see that the I.W.W. mean to cripple us wheat farmers this harvest?”

“No,” replied old Dorn, stubbornly.

“But they do. They don’t want work. If they accept work it is for a chance to do damage. All this I.W.W. talk about more wages and shorter hours is deceit. They make a bold face of discontent. That is all a lie. The I.W.W. is out to ruin the great wheat-fields and the great lumber forests of the Northwest.”

“I do not believe that,” declared his father, stoutly. “What for?”

Kurt meant to be careful of that subject.

“No matter what for. It does not make any difference what it’s for. We’ve got to meet it to save our wheat.… Now won’t you believe me? Won’t you let me manage the harvest?”

“I will not believe,” replied old Dorn, stubbornly. “Not about my wheat. I know they mean to destroy. They are against rich men like Anderson. But not me or my wheat!”

“There is where you are wrong. I’ll prove it in a very few days. But in that time I can prepare for them and outwit them. Will you let me?”

“Go ahead,” replied old Dorn, gruffly.

It was a concession that Kurt was amazed and delighted to gain. And he set about at once to act upon it. He changed his clothes and satisfied his hunger; then, saddling his horse, he started out to visit his farmer neighbors.

The day bade fair to be rich in experience. Jerry, the foreman, was patrolling his long beat up and down the highway. Jerry carried a shot-gun and looked like a sentry. The men under him were on the other side of the section of wheat, and the ground was so rolling that they could not be seen from the highway. Jerry was unmistakably glad and relieved to see Kurt.

“Some goin’s-on,” he declared, with a grin. “Since you left there’s been one hundred and sixteen I.W.W. tramps along this here road.”

“Have you had any trouble?” inquired Kurt.

“Wal, I reckon it wasn’t trouble, but every time I took a peg at some sneak I sort of broke out sweatin’ cold.”

“You shot at them?”

“Sure I shot when I seen any loafin’ along in the dark. Two of them shot back at me, an’ after thet I wasn’t particular to aim high.… Reckon I’m about dead for sleep.”

“I’ll relieve you to-night,” replied Kurt. “Jerry, doesn’t the wheat look great?”

“Wal, I reckon. An’ walkin’ along here when it’s quiet an’ no wind blowin’, I can just hear the wheat crack. It’s gittin’ ripe fast, an’ sure the biggest crop we ever raised.… But I’m tellin’ you — when I think how we’ll ever harvest it my insides just sinks like lead!”

Kurt then outlined Anderson’s plan, which was received by the foreman with eager approval and the assurance that the neighbor farmers would rally to his call.

Kurt found his nearest neighbor, Olsen, cutting a thin, scarcely ripe barley. Olsen was running a new McCormack harvester, and appeared delighted with the machine, but cast down by the grain prospects. He did not intend to cut his wheat at all. It was a dead loss.

“Two sections — twelve hundred an’ eighty acres!” he repeated, gloomily. “An’ the third bad year! Dorn, I can’t pay the interest to my bank.”

Olsen’s sun-dried and wind-carved visage was as hard and rugged and heroic as this desert that had resisted him for years. Kurt saw under the lines and the bronze all the toil and pain and unquenchable hope that had made Olsen a type of the men who had cultivated this desert of wheat.

“I’ll give you five hundred dollars to help me harvest,” said Kurt, bluntly, and briefly stated his plan.

Olsen whistled. He complimented Anderson’s shrewd sense. He spoke glowingly of that magnificent section of wheat that absolutely must be saved. He promised Kurt every horse and every man on his farm. But he refused the five hundred dollars.

“Oh, say, you’ll have to accept it,” declared Kurt.

“You’ve done me good turns,” asserted Olsen.

“But nothing like this. Why, this will be a rush job, with all the men and horses and machines and wagons I can get. It’ll cost ten — fifteen thousand dollars to harvest that section. Even at that, and paying Anderson, we’ll clear twenty thousand or more. Olsen, you’ve got to take the money.”

“All right, if you insist. I’m needin’ it bad enough,” replied Olsen.

Further conversation with Olsen gleaned the facts that he was the only farmer in their immediate neighborhood who did not have at least a little grain worth harvesting. But the amount was small and would require only slight time. Olsen named farmers that very likely would not take kindly to Dorn’s proposition, and had best not be approached. The majority, however, would stand by him, irrespective of the large wage offered, because the issue was one to appeal to the pride of the Bend farmers. Olsen appeared surprisingly well informed upon the tactics of the I.W.W., and predicted that they would cause trouble, but be run out of the country. He made the shrewd observation that when even those farmers who sympathized with Germany discovered that their wheat-fields were being menaced by foreign influences and protected by the home government, they would experience a change of heart. Olsen said the war would be a good thing for the United States, because they would win it, and during the winning would learn and suffer and achieve much.

Kurt rode away from Olsen in a more thoughtful frame of mind. How different and interesting the points of view of different men! Olsen had never taken the time to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. There had never been anything to force him to do it. But his understanding of the worth of the United States and his loyalty to it were manifest in his love for his wheatlands. In fact, they were inseparable. Probably there were millions of pioneers, emigrants, aliens, all over the country who were like Olsen, who needed the fire of the crucible to mold them into a unity with Americans. Of such, Americans were molded!

Kurt rode all day, and when, late that night, he got home, weary and sore and choked, he had enlisted the services of thirty-five farmers to help him harvest the now famous section of wheat.

His father had plainly doubted the willingness of these neighbors to abandon their own labors, for the Bend exacted toil for every hour of every season, whether rich or poor in yield. Likewise he was plainly moved by the facts. His seamed and shaded face of gloom had a moment of light.

“They will make short work of this harvest,” he said, thoughtfully.

“I should say so,” retorted Kurt. “We’ll harvest and haul that grain to the railroad in just three days.”

“Impossible!” ejaculated Dorn.

“You’ll see,” declared Kurt. “You’ll see who’s managing this harvest.”

He could not restrain his little outburst of pride. For the moment the great overhanging sense of calamity that for long had haunted him faded into the background. It did seem sure that they would save this splendid yield of wheat. How much that meant to Kurt — in freedom from debt, in natural love of the fruition of harvest, in the loyalty to his government! He realized how strange and strong was the need in him to prove he was American to the very core of his heart. He did not yet understand that incentive, but he felt it.

After eating dinner Kurt took his rifle and went out to relieve Jerry.

“Only a few more days and nights!” he exclaimed to his foreman. “Then we’ll have all the harvesters in the country right in our wheat.”

“Wal, a hell of a lot can happen before then,” declared Jerry, pessimistically.

Kurt was brought back to realities rather suddenly. But questioning Jerry did not elicit any new or immediate cause for worry. Jerry appeared tired out.

“You go get some sleep,” said Kurt.

“All right. Bill’s been dividin’ this night watch with me. I reckon he’ll be out when he wakes up,” replied Jerry, and trudged away.

Kurt shouldered his rifle and slowly walked along the road with a strange sense that he was already doing army duty in protecting property which was at once his own and his country’s.

The night was dark, cool, and quiet. The heavens were starry bright. A faint breeze brought the tiny crackling of the wheat. From far distant came the bay of a hound. The road stretched away pale and yellow into the gloom. In the silence and loneliness and darkness, in all around him, and far across the dry, whispering fields, there was an invisible presence that had its affinity in him, hovered over him shadowless and immense, and waved in the bursting wheat. It was life. He felt the wheat ripening. He felt it in reawakened tenderness for his old father and in the stir of memory of Lenore Anderson. The past active and important hours had left little room for thought of her.

But now she came back to him, a spirit in keeping with his steps, a shadow under the stars, a picture of sweet, wonderful young womanhood. His whole relation of thought toward her had undergone some marvelous change. The most divine of gifts had been granted him — an opportunity to save her from harm, perhaps from death. He had served her father. How greatly he could not tell, but if measured by the gratitude in her eyes it would have been infinite. He recalled that expression — blue, warm, soft, and indescribably strange with its unuttered hidden meaning. It was all-satisfying for him to realize that she had been compelled to give him a separate and distinct place in her mind. He must stand apart from all others she knew. It had been his fortune to preserve her happiness and the happiness that she must be to sisters and mother, and that some day she would bestow upon some lucky man. They would all owe it to him. And Lenore Anderson knew he loved her.

These things had transformed his relation of thought toward her. He had no regret, no jealousy, no fear. Even the pang of suppressed and overwhelming love had gone with his confession.

But he did remember her presence, her beauty, her intent blue glance, and the faint, dreaming smile of her lips — remembered them with a thrill, and a wave of emotion, and a contraction of his heart. He had promised to see her once more, to afford her the opportunity, no doubt, to thank him, to try to make him see her gratitude. He would go, but he wished it need not be. He asked no more. And seeing her again might change his fulness of joy to something of pain.

So Kurt trod the long road in the darkness and silence, pausing, and checking his dreams now and then, to listen and to watch. He heard no suspicious sounds, nor did he meet any one. The night was melancholy, with a hint of fall in its cool breath.

Soon he would be walking a beat in one of the training-camps, with a bugle-call in his ears and the turmoil of thousands of soldiers in the making around him: soon, too, he would be walking the deck of a transport, looking back down the moon-blanched wake of the ship toward home, listening to the mysterious moan of the ocean; and then soon feeling under his feet the soil of a foreign country, with hideous and incomparable war shrieking its shell furies and its man anguish all about him. But no matter how far away he ever got, he knew Lenore Anderson would be with him as she was there on that dim, lonely starlit country road.

And in these long hours of his vigil Kurt Dorn divined a relation between his love for Lenore Anderson and a terrible need that had grown upon him. A need of his heart and his soul! More than he needed her, if even in his wildest dreams he had permitted himself visions of an earthly paradise, he needed to prove to his blood and his spirit that he was actually and truly American. He had no doubt of his intelligence, his reason, his choice. The secret lay hidden in the depths of him, and he knew it came from the springs of the mother who had begotten him. His mother had given him birth, and by every tie he was mostly hers.

Kurt had been in college during the first year of the world war. And his name, his fair hair and complexion, his fluency in German, and his remarkable efficiency in handicrafts had opened him to many a hint, many a veiled sarcasm that had stung him like a poison brand. There was injustice in all this war spirit. It changed the minds of men and women. He had not doubted himself until those terrible scenes with his father, and, though he had reacted to them as an American, he had felt the drawing, burning blood tie. He hated everything German and he knew he was wrong in doing so. He had clear conception in his mind of the difference between the German war motives and means, and those of the other nations.

Kurt’s problem was to understand himself. His great fight was with his own soul. His material difficulties and his despairing love had suddenly been transformed, so that they had lent his spirit wings. How many poor boys and girls in America must be helplessly divided between parents and country! How many faithful and blind parents, obedient to the laws of mind and heart, set for all time, must see a favorite son go out to fight against all they had held sacred!

That was all bad enough, but Kurt had more to contend with. No illusions had he of a chastened German spirit, a clarified German mind, an unbrutalized German heart. Kurt knew his father. What would change his father? Nothing but death! Death for himself or death for his only son! Kurt had an incalculable call to prove forever to himself that he was free. He had to spill his own blood to prove himself, or he had to spill that of an enemy. And he preferred that it should be his own. But that did not change a vivid and terrible picture which haunted him at times. He saw a dark, wide, and barren shingle of the world, a desert of desolation made by man, where strange, windy shrieks and thundering booms and awful cries went up in the night, and where drifting palls of smoke made starless sky, and bursts of reddish fires made hell.

Suddenly Kurt’s slow pacing along the road was halted, as was the trend of his thought. He was not sure he had heard a sound. But he quivered all over. The night was far advanced now; the wind was almost still; the wheat was smooth and dark as the bosom of a resting sea. Kurt listened. He imagined he heard, far away, the faint roar of an automobile. But it might have been a train on the railroad. Sometimes on still nights he caught sounds like that.

Then a swish in the wheat, a soft thud, very low, unmistakably came to Kurt’s ear. He listened, turning his ear to the wind. Presently he heard it again — a sound relating both to wheat and earth. In a hot flash he divined that some one had thrown fairly heavy bodies into the wheat-fields. Phosphorus cakes! Kurt held his breath while he peered down the gloomy road, his heart pounding, his hands gripping the rifle. And when he descried a dim form stealthily coming toward him he yelled, “Halt!”

Instantly the form wavered, moved swiftly, with quick pad of footfalls. Kurt shot once — twice — three times — and aimed as best he could to hit. The form either fell or went on out of sight in the gloom. Kurt answered the excited shouts of his men, calling them to come across to him. Then he went cautiously down the road, peering on the ground for a dark form. But he failed to find it, and presently had to admit that in the dark his aim had been poor. Bill came out to relieve Kurt, and together they went up and down the road for a mile without any glimpse of a skulking form. It was almost daylight when Kurt went home to get a few hours’ sleep.

CHAPTER XII

NEXT DAY WAS one of the rare, blistering-hot days with a furnace wind that roared over the wheat-fields. The sky was steely and the sun like copper. It was a day which would bring the wheat to a head.

At breakfast Jerry reported that fresh auto tracks had been made on the road during the night; and that dust and wheat all around the great field showed a fresh tramping.

Kurt believed a deliberate and particular attempt had been made to insure the destruction of the Dorn wheat-field. And he ordered all hands out to search for the dangerous little cakes of phosphorus.

It was difficult to find them. The wheat was almost as high as a man’s head and very thick. To force a way through it without tramping it down took care and time. Besides, the soil was soft, and the agents who had perpetrated this vile scheme had perfectly matched the color. Kurt almost stepped on one of the cakes before he saw it. His men were very slow in finding any. But Kurt’s father seemed to walk fatally right to them, for in a short hundred yards he found three. They caused a profound change in this gloomy man. Not a word did he utter, but he became animated by a tremendous energy.

The search was discouraging. It was like hunting for dynamite bombs that might explode at any moment. All Kurt’s dread of calamity returned fourfold. The intense heat of the day, that would ripen the wheat to bursting, would likewise sooner or later ignite the cakes of phosphorus. And when Jerry found a cake far inside the field, away from the road, showing that powerful had been the arm that had thrown it there, and how impossible it would be to make a thorough search, Kurt almost succumbed to discouragement. Still, he kept up a frenzied hunting and inspired the laborers to do likewise.

About ten o’clock an excited shout from Bill drew Kurt’s attention, and he ran along the edge of the field. Bill was sweaty and black, yet through it all Kurt believed he saw the man was pale. He pointed with shaking hand toward Olsen’s hill.

Kurt vibrated to a shock. He saw a long circular yellow column rising from the hill, slanting away on the strong wind.

“Dust!” he cried, aghast.

“Smoke!” replied Bill, hoarsely.

The catastrophe had fallen. Olsen’s wheat was burning. Kurt experienced a profound sensation of sadness. What a pity! The burning of wheat — the destruction of bread — when part of the world was starving! Tears dimmed his eyes as he watched the swelling column of smoke.

Bill was cursing, and Kurt gathered that the farm-hand was predicting fires all around. This was inevitable. But it meant no great loss for most of the wheat-growers whose yield had failed. For Kurt and his father, if fire got a hold in their wheat, it meant ruin. Kurt’s sadness was burned out by a slow and growing rage.

“Bill, go hitch up to the big mower,” ordered Kurt. “We’ll have to cut all around our field. Bring drinking water and whatever you can lay a hand on … anything to fight fire!”

Bill ran thumping away over the clods. Then it happened that Kurt looked toward his father. The old man was standing with his arms aloft, his face turned toward the burning wheat, and he made a tragic figure that wrung Kurt’s heart.

Jerry came running up. “Fire! Fire! Olsen’s burnin’! Look! By all thet’s dirty, them I.W.W.’s hev done it!… Kurt, we’re in fer hell! Thet wind’s blowin’ straight this way.”

“Jerry, we’ll fight till we drop,” replied Kurt. “Tell the men and father to keep on searching for phosphorus cakes.… Jerry, you keep to the high ground. Watch for fires starting on our land. If you see one yell for us and make for it. Wheat burns slow till it gets started. We can put out fires if we’re quick.”

“Kurt, there ain’t no chance on earth fer us!” yelled Jerry, pale with anger. His big red hands worked. “If fire starts we’ve got to hev a lot of men.… By Gawd! if I ain’t mad!”

“Don’t quit, Jerry,” said Kurt, fiercely. “You never can tell. It looks hopeless. But we’ll never give up. Hustle now!”

Jerry shuffled off as old Dorn came haltingly, as if stunned, toward Kurt. But Kurt did not want to face his father at that moment. He needed to fight to keep up his own courage.

“Never mind that!” yelled Kurt, pointing at Olsen’s hill. “Keep looking for those damned pieces of phosphorus!”

With that Kurt dove into the wheat, and, sweeping wide his arms to make a passage, he strode on, his eyes bent piercingly upon the ground close about him. He did not penetrate deeper into the wheat from the road than the distance he estimated a strong arm could send a stone. Almost at once his keen sight was rewarded. He found a cake of phosphorus half buried in the soil. It was dry, hard and hot either from the sun or its own generating power. That inspired Kurt. He hurried on. Long practice enabled him to slip through the wheat as a barefoot country boy could run through the corn-fields. And his passion gave him the eyes of a hunting hawk sweeping down over the grass. To and fro he passed within the limits he had marked, oblivious to time and heat and effort. And covering that part of the wheat-field bordering the road he collected twenty-seven cakes of phosphorus, the last few of which were so hot they burnt his hands.

Then he had to rest. He appeared as wet as if he had been plunged into water; his skin burned, his eyes pained, his breast heaved. Panting and spent, he lay along the edge of the wheat, with closed eyelids and lax muscles.

When he recovered he rose and went back along the road. The last quarter of the immense wheat-field lay upon a slope of a hill, and Kurt had to mount this before he could see the valley. From the summit he saw a sight that caused him to utter a loud exclamation. Many columns of smoke were lifting from the valley, and before him the sky was darkened. Olsen’s hill was as if under a cloud. No flames showed anywhere, but in places the line of smoke appeared to be approaching.

“It’s a thousand to one against us,” he said, bitterly, and looked at his watch. He was amazed to see that three hours had passed since he had given orders to the men. He hurried back to the house. No one was there except the old servant, who was wringing her hands and crying that the house would burn. Throwing the cakes of phosphorus into a watering-trough, Kurt ran into the kitchen, snatched a few biscuits, and then made for the fields, eating as he went.

He hurried down a lane that bordered the big wheat-field. On this side was fallow ground for half the length of the section, and the other half was ripe barley, dry as tinder, and beyond that, in line with the burning fields, a quarter-section of blasted wheat. The men were there. Kurt saw at once that other men with horses and machines were also there. Then he recognized Olsen and two other of his neighbors. As he ran up he was equally astounded and out of breath, so that he could not speak. Old Dorn sat with gray head bowed on his hand.

“Hello!” shouted Olsen. His grimy face broke into a hard smile. “Fires all over! Wheat’s burnin’ like prairie grass! Them chips of phosphorus are sure from hell!… We’ve come over to help.”

“You — did! You left — your fields!” gasped Kurt.

“Sure. They’re not much to leave. And we’re goin’ to save this section of yours or bust tryin’!… I sent my son in his car, all over, to hurry men here with horses, machines, wagons.”

Kurt was overcome. He could only wring Olsen’s hand. Here was an answer to one of his brooding, gloomy queries. Something would be gained, even if the wheat was lost. Kurt had scarcely any hope left.

“What’s to be done?” he panted, hoarsely. In this extremity Olsen seemed a tower of strength. This sturdy farmer was of Anderson’s breed, even if he was a foreigner. And he had fought fires before.

“If we have time we’ll mow a line all around your wheat,” replied Olsen.

“Reckon we won’t have time,” interposed Jerry, pointing to a smoke far down in the corner of the stunted wheat. “There’s a fire startin’.”

“They’ll break out all over,” said Olsen, and he waved a couple of his men away. One had a scythe and the other a long pole with a wet burlap bag tied on one end. They hurried toward the little cloud of smoke.

“I found a lot of cakes over along the road,” declared Kurt, with a grim surety that he had done that well.

“They’ve surrounded your wheat,” returned Olsen. “But if enough men get here we’ll save the whole section.… Lucky you’ve got two wells an’ that watertank. We’ll need all the water we can get. Keep a man pumpin’. Fetch all the bags an’ brooms an’ scythes. I’ll post lookouts along this lane to watch for fires breakin’ out in the big field. When they do we’ve got to run an’ cut an’ beat them out.… It won’t be long till most of this section is surrounded by fire.”

Thin clouds of smoke were then blowing across the fields and the wind that carried them was laden with an odor of burning wheat. To Kurt it seemed to be the fragrance of baking bread.

“How’d it be to begin harvestin’?” queried Jerry. “Thet wheat’s ripe.”

“No combines should be risked in there until we’re sure the danger’s past,” replied Olsen. “There! I see more of our neighbors comin’ down the road. We’re goin’ to beat the I.W.W.”

That galvanized Kurt into action and he found himself dragging Jerry back to the barns. They hitched a team to a heavy wagon, in record time, and then began to load with whatever was available for fighting fire. They loaded a barrel, and with huge buckets filled it with water. Leaving Jerry to drive, Kurt rushed back to the fields. During his short absence more men, with horses and machines, had arrived; fire had broken out in the stunted wheat, and also, nearer at hand, in the barley. Kurt saw his father laboring like a giant. Olsen was taking charge, directing the men. The sky was obscured now, and all the west was thick with yellow smoke. The south slopes and valley floor were clouding. Only in the east, over the hill, did the air appear clear. Back of Kurt, down across the barley and wheat on the Dorn land, a line of fire was creeping over the hill. This was on the property adjoining Olsen’s. Gremniger, the owner, had abandoned his own fields. At the moment he was driving a mower along the edge of the barley, cutting a nine-foot path. Men behind him were stacking the sheaves. The wind was as hot as if from a blast-furnace; the air was thick and oppressive; the light of day was growing dim.

Kurt, mounted on the seat of one of the combine threshers, surveyed with rapid and anxious gaze all the points around him, and it lingered over the magnificent sweep of golden wheat. The wheat bowed in waves before the wind, and the silken rustle, heard above the confusion of yelling men, was like a voice whispering to Kurt. Somehow his dread lessened then and other emotions predominated. He saw more and more farmers arrive, in cars, in wagons, with engines and threshers, until the lane was lined with them and men were hurrying everywhere.

Suddenly Kurt espied a slender column of smoke rising above the wheat out in front of him toward the highway. This was the first sign of fire in the great section that so many farmers had come to protect. Yelling for help, he leaped off the seat and ran with all his might toward the spot. Breasting that thick wheat was almost as hard as breasting waves. Jerry came yelling after him, brandishing a crude beater; and both of them reached the fire at once. It was a small circle, burning slowly. Madly Kurt rushed in to tear and stamp as if the little hissing flames were serpents. He burned his hands through his gloves and his feet through his boots. Jerry beat hard, accompanying his blows with profane speech plainly indicating that he felt he was at work on the I.W.W. In short order they put out this little fire. Returning to his post, Kurt watched until he was called to lend a hand down in the stunted wheat.

Fire had crossed and had gotten a hold on Dorn’s lower field. Here the wheat was blasted and so burned all the more fiercely. Horses and mowers had to be taken away to the intervening barley-field. A weird, smoky, and ruddy darkness enveloped the scene. Dim red fire, in lines and dots and curves, appeared on three sides, growing larger and longer, meeting in some places, crisscrossed by black figures of threshing men belaboring the flames. Kurt came across his father working like a mad-man. Kurt warned him not to overexert himself, and the father never heard. Now and then his stentorian yell added to the medley of cries and shouts and blows, and the roar of the wind fanning the flames.

Kurt was put to beating fire in the cut wheat. He stood with flames licking at his boots. It was astonishing how tenacious the fire appeared, how it crept along, eating up the mowed wheat. All the men that could be spared there were unable to check it and keep it out of the standing grain. When it reached this line it lifted a blaze, flamed and roared, and burned like wildfire in grass. The men were driven back, threshing and beating, all to no avail. Kurt fell into despair. There was no hope. It seemed like an inferno.

Flaring high, the light showed the black, violently agitated forms of the fighters, and the clouds of yellow smoke, coalescing and drifting, changing to dark and soaring high.

Olsen had sent three mowers abreast down the whole length of the barley-field before the fire reached that line. It was a wise move, and if anything could do so it would save the day. The leaping flame, thin and high, and a mile long, curled down the last of the standing wheat and caught the fallen barley. But here its speed was checked. It had to lick a way along the ground.

In desperation, in unabated fury, the little army of farmers and laborers, with no thought of personal gain, with what seemed to Kurt a wonderful and noble spirit, attacked this encroaching line of fire like men whose homes and lives and ideals had been threatened with destruction. Kurt’s mind worked as swiftly as his tireless hands. This indeed was being in a front line of battle. The scene was weird, dark, fitful, at times impressive and again unreal. These neighbors of his, many of them aliens, some of them Germans, when put to this vital test, were proving themselves. They had shown little liking for the Dorns, but here was love of wheat, and so, in some way, loyalty to the government that needed it. Here was the answer of the Northwest to the I.W.W. No doubt if the perpetrators of that phosphorus trick could have been laid hold of then, blood would have been shed. Kurt sensed in the fierce energy, in the dark, grimy faces, shining and wet under the light, in the hoarse yell and answering shout, a nameless force that was finding itself and centering on one common cause.

His old father toiled as ten men. That burly giant pushed ever in the lead, and his hoarse call and strenuous action told of more than a mercenary rage to save his wheat.

Fire never got across that swath of cut barley. It was beaten out as if by a thousand men. Shadow and gloom enveloped the fighters as they rested where their last strokes had fallen. Over the hills faint reflection of dying flames lit up the dark clouds of smoke. The battle seemed won.

Then came the thrilling cry: “Fire! Fire!”

One of the outposts came running out of the dark.

“Fire! the other side! Fire!” rang out Olsen’s yell.

Kurt ran with the gang pell-mell through the dark, up the barley slope, to see a long red line, a high red flare, and lifting clouds of ruddy smoke. Fire in the big wheat-field! The sight inflamed him, carried him beyond his powers, and all he knew was that he became the center of a dark and whirling mêlée encircled by living flames that leaped only to be beaten down. Whether that threshing chaos of fire and smoke and wheat was short or long was beyond him to tell but the fire was extinguished to the last spark.

Walking back with the weary crowd, Kurt felt a clearer breeze upon his face. Smoke was not flying so thickly. Over the western hill, through a rift in the clouds, peeped a star. The only other light he saw twinkled far down the lane. It was that of a lantern. Dark forms barred it now and then. Slowly Kurt recovered his breath. The men were talking and tired voices rang with assurance that the fire was beaten.

Some one called Kurt. The voice was Jerry’s. It seemed hoarse and strained. Kurt could see the lean form of his man, standing in the light of the lantern. A small dark group of men, silent and somehow impressive, stood off a little in the shadow.

“Here I am, Jerry,” called Kurt, stepping forward. Just then Olsen joined Jerry.

“Boy, we’ve beat the I.W.W.’s, but — but—” he began, and broke off huskily.

“What’s the matter?” queried Kurt, and a cold chill shot over him.

Jerry plucked at his sleeve.

“Your old man — your dad — he’s overworked hisself,” whispered Jerry. “It’s tough.… Nobody could stop him.”

Kurt felt that the fulfilment of his icy, sickening dread had come. Jerry’s dark face, even in the uncertain light, was tragic.

“Boy, his heart went back on him — he’s dead!” said Olsen, solemnly.

Kurt pushed the kind hands aside. A few steps brought him to where, under the light of the lantern, lay his father, pale and still, with a strange softening of the iron cast of intolerance.

“Dead!” whispered Kurt, in awe and horror. “Father! Oh, he’s gone! — without a word—”

Again Jerry plucked at Kurt’s sleeve.

“I was with him,” said Jerry. “I heard him fall an’ groan.… I had the light. I bent over, lifted his head.… An’ he said, speaking English, ‘Tell my son — I was wrong!’… Then he died. An’ thet was all.”

Kurt staggered away from the whispering, sympathetic foreman, out into the darkness, where he lifted his face in the thankfulness of a breaking heart.

It had, indeed, taken the approach of death to change his hard old father. “Oh, he meant — that if he had his life to live over again — he would be different!” whispered Kurt. That was the one great word needed to reconcile Kurt to his father.

The night had grown still except for the murmuring of the men. Smoke veiled the horizon. Kurt felt an intense and terrible loneliness. He was indeed alone in the world. A hard, tight contraction of throat choked back a sob. If only he could have had a word with his father! But no grief, nothing could detract from the splendid truth of his father’s last message. In the black hours soon to come Kurt would have that to sustain him.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BRIGHT SUN of morning disclosed that wide, rolling region of the Bend to be a dreary, blackened waste surrounding one great wheat-field, rich and mellow and golden.

Kurt Dorn’s neighbor, Olsen, in his kind and matter-of-fact way, making obligation seem slight, took charge of Kurt’s affairs, and made the necessary and difficult decisions. Nothing must delay the harvesting and transporting of the wheat. The women folk arranged for the burial of old Chris Dorn.

Kurt sat and moved about in a gloomy kind of trance for a day and a half, until his father was laid to rest beside his mother, in the little graveyard on the windy hill. After that his mind slowly cleared. He kept to himself the remainder of that day, avoiding the crowd of harvesters camping in the yard and adjacent field; and at sunset he went to a lonely spot on the verge of the valley, where with sad eyes he watched the last rays of sunlight fade over the blackened hills. All these hours had seemed consecrated to his father’s memory, to remembered acts of kindness and of love, of the relation that had gone and would never be again. Reproach and remorse had abided with him until that sunset hour, when the load eased off his heart.

Next morning he went out to the wheat-field.

What a wonderful harvesting scene greeted Kurt Dorn! Never had its like been seen in the Northwest, nor perhaps in any other place. A huge pall of dust, chaff, and smoke hung over the vast wheat-field, and the air seemed charged with a roar. The glaring gold of the wheat-field appeared to be crisscrossed everywhere with bobbing black streaks of horses — bays, blacks, whites, and reds; by big, moving painted machines, lifting arms and puffing straw; by immense wagons piled high with sheaves of wheat, lumbering down to the smoking engines and the threshers that sent long streams of dust and chaff over the lifting straw-stacks; by wagons following the combines to pick up the plump brown sacks of wheat; and by a string of empty wagons coming in from the road.

Olsen was rushing thirty combine threshers, three engine threshing-machines, forty wagon-teams, and over a hundred men well known to him. There was a guard around the field. This unprecedented harvest had attracted many spectators from the little towns. They had come in cars and on horseback and on foot. Olsen trusted no man on that field except those he knew.

The wonderful wheat-field was cut into a thousand squares and angles and lanes and curves. The big whirring combines passed one another, stopped and waited and turned out of the way, leaving everywhere little patches and cubes of standing wheat, that soon fell before the onslaught of the smaller combines. This scene had no regularity. It was one of confusion; of awkward halts, delays, hurries; of accident. The wind blew clouds of dust and chaff, alternately clearing one space to cloud another. And a strange roar added the last heroic touch to this heroic field. It was indeed the roar of battle — men and horses governing the action of machinery, and all fighting time. For in delay was peril to the wheat.

Once Kurt ran across the tireless and implacable Olsen. He seemed a man of dust and sweat and fury.

“She’s half cut an’ over twenty thousand bushels gone to the railroad!” he exclaimed. “An’ we’re speedin’ up.”

“Olsen, I don’t get what’s going on,” replied Kurt. “All this is like a dream.”

“Wake up. You’ll be out of debt an’ a rich man in three days,” added Olsen, and went his way.

In the afternoon Kurt set out to work as he had never worked in his life. There was need of his strong hands in many places, but he could not choose any one labor and stick by it for long. He wanted to do all. It was as if this was not a real and wonderful harvest of his father’s greatest wheat yield, but something that embodied all years, all harvests, his father’s death, the lifting of the old, hard debt, the days when he had trod the fields barefoot, and this day when, strangely enough, all seemed over for him. Peace dwelt with him, yet no hope. Behind his calm he could have found the old dread, had he cared to look deeply. He loved these heroic workers of the fields. It had been given to him — a great task — to be the means of creating a test for them, his neighbors under a ban of suspicion; and now he could swear they were as true as the gold of the waving wheat. More than a harvest was this most strenuous and colorful of all times ever known in the Bend; it had a significance that uplifted him. It was American.

First Kurt began to load bags of wheat, as they fell from the whirring combines, into the wagons. For his powerful arms a full bag, containing two bushels, was like a toy for a child. With a lift and a heave he threw a bag into a wagon. They were everywhere, these brown bags, dotting the stubble field, appearing as if by magic in the wake of the machines. They rolled off the platforms. This toil, because it was hard and heavy, held Kurt for an hour, but it could not satisfy his enormous hunger to make that whole harvest his own. He passed to pitching sheaves of wheat and then to driving in the wagons. From that he progressed to a seat on one of the immense combines, where he drove twenty-four horses. No driver there was any surer than Kurt of his aim with the little stones he threw to spur a lagging horse. Kurt had felt this when, as a boy, he had begged to be allowed to try his hand; he liked the shifty cloud of fragrant chaff, now and then blinding and choking him; and he liked the steady, rhythmic tramps of hooves and the roaring whir of the great complicated machine. It fascinated him to see the wide swath of nodding wheat tremble and sway and fall, and go sliding up into the inside of that grinding maw, and come out, straw and dust and chaff, and a slender stream of gold filling the bags.

This day Kurt Dorn was gripped by the unknown. Some far-off instinct of future drove him, set his spiritual need, and made him register with his senses all that was so beautiful and good and heroic in the scene about him.

Strangely, now and then a thought of Lenore Anderson entered his mind and made sudden havoc. It tended to retard action. He trembled and thrilled with a realization that every hour brought closer the meeting he could not avoid. And he discovered that it was whenever this memory recurred that he had to leave off his present task and rush to another. Only thus could he forget her.

The late afternoon found him feeding sheaves of wheat to one of the steam-threshers. He stood high upon a platform and pitched sheaves from the wagons upon the sliding track of the ponderous, rattling threshing-machine. The engine stood off fifty yards or more, connected by an endless driving-belt to the thresher. Here indeed were whistle and roar and whir, and the shout of laborers, and the smell of smoke, sweat, dust, and wheat. Kurt had arms of steel. If they tired he never knew it. He toiled, and he watched the long spout of chaff and straw as it streamed from the thresher to lift, magically, a glistening, ever-growing stack. And he felt, as a last and cumulative change, his physical effort, and the physical adjuncts of the scene, pass into something spiritual, into his heart and his memory.

The end of that harvest-time came as a surprise to Kurt. Obsessed with his own emotions, he had actually helped to cut the wheat and harvest it; he had seen it go swath by swath, he had watched the huge wagons lumber away and the huge straw-stacks rise without realizing that the hours of this wonderful harvest were numbered.

Sight of Olsen coming in from across the field, and the sudden cessation of roar and action, made Kurt aware of the end. It seemed a calamity. But Olsen was smiling through his dust-caked face. About him were relaxation, an air of finality, and a subtle pride.

“We’re through,” he said. “She tallies thirty-eight thousand, seven hundred an’ forty-one bushels. It’s too bad the old man couldn’t live to hear that.”

Olsen gripped Kurt’s hand and wrung it.

“Boy, I reckon you ought to take that a little cheerfuller,” he went on. “But — well it’s been a hard time.… The men are leavin’ now. In two hours the last wagons will unload at the railroad. The wheat will all be in the warehouse. An’ our worry’s ended.”

“I — I hope so,” responded Kurt. He seemed overcome with the passionate longing to show his gratitude to Olsen. But the words would not flow. “I — I don’t know how to thank you.… All my life—”

“We beat the I.W.W.,” interposed the farmer, heartily. “An’ now what’ll you do, Dorn?”

“Why, I’ll hustle to Kilo, get my money, send you a check for yourself and men, pay off the debt to Anderson, and then—”

But Kurt did not conclude his speech. His last words were thought-provoking.

“It’s turned out well,” said Olsen, with satisfaction, and, shaking hands again with Kurt, he strode back to his horses.

At last the wide, sloping field was bare, except for the huge straw-stacks. A bright procession lumbered down the road, led by the long strings of wagons filled with brown bags. A strange silence had settled down over the farm. The wheat was gone. That waving stretch of gold had fallen to the thresher and the grain had been hauled away. The neighbors had gone, leaving Kurt rich in bushels of wheat, and richer for the hearty farewells and the grips of horny hands. Kurt’s heart was full.

It was evening. Kurt had finished his supper. Already he had packed a few things to take with him on the morrow. He went out to the front of the house. Stars were blinking. There was a low hum of insects from the fields. He missed the soft silken rustle of the wheat. And now it seemed he could sit there in the quiet darkness, in that spot which had been made sweet by Lenore Anderson’s presence, and think of her, the meeting soon to come. The feeling abiding with him then must have been happiness, because he was not used to it. Without deserving anything, he had asked a great deal of fate, and, lo! it had been given him. All was well that ended well. He realized now the terrible depths of despair into which he had allowed himself to be plunged. He had been weak, wrong, selfish. There was something that guided events.

He needed to teach himself all this, with strong and repeated force, so that when he went to give Lenore Anderson the opportunity to express her gratitude, to see her sweet face again, and to meet the strange, warm glance of her blue eyes, so mysterious and somehow mocking, he could be a man of restraint, of pride, like any American, like any other college man she knew. This was no time for a man to leave a girl bearing a burden of his unsolicited love, haunted, perhaps, by a generous reproach that she might have been a little to blame. He had told her the truth, and so far he had been dignified. Now let him bid her good-by, leaving no sorrow for her, and, once out of her impelling presence, let come what might come. He could love her then; he could dare what he had never dared; he could surrender himself to the furious, insistent sweetness of a passion that was sheer bliss in its expression. He could imagine kisses on the red lips that were not for him.

A husky shout from somewhere in the rear of the house diverted Kurt’s attention. He listened. It came again. His name! It seemed a strange call from out of the troubled past that had just ended. He hurried through the house to the kitchen. The woman stood holding a lamp, staring at Jerry.

Jerry appeared to have sunk against the wall. His face was pallid, with drops of sweat standing out, with distorted, quivering lower jaw. He could not look at Kurt. He could not speak. With shaking hand he pointed toward the back of the house.

Filled with nameless dread, Kurt rushed out. He saw nothing unusual, heard nothing. Rapidly he walked out through the yard, and suddenly he saw a glow in the sky above the barns. Then he ran, so that he could get an unobstructed view of the valley.

The instant he obtained this he halted as if turned to stone. The valley was a place of yellow light. He stared. With the wheat-fields all burned, what was the meaning of such a big light? That broad flare had a center, low down on the valley floor. As he gazed a monstrous flame leaped up, lighting colossal pillars of smoke that swirled upward, and showing plainer than in day the big warehouse and lines of freight-cars at the railroad station, eight miles distant.

“My God!” gasped Kurt. “The warehouse — my wheat — on fire!”

Clear and unmistakable was the horrible truth. Kurt heard the roar of the sinister flames. Transfixed, he stood there, at first hardly able to see and to comprehend. For miles the valley was as light as at noonday. An awful beauty attended the scene. How lurid and sinister the red heart of that fire? How weird and hellish and impressive of destruction those black, mountain-high clouds of smoke! He saw the freight-cars disappear under this fierce blazing and smoking pall. He watched for what seemed endless moments. He saw the changes of that fire, swift and terrible. And only then did Kurt Dorn awaken to the full sense of the calamity.

“All that work — Olsen’s sacrifice — and the farmers’ — my father’s death — all for nothing!” whispered Kurt. “They only waited — those fiends — to fire the warehouse and the cars!”

The catastrophe had fallen. The wheat was burning. He was ruined. His wheatland must go to Anderson. Kurt thought first and most poignantly of the noble farmers who had sacrificed the little in their wheat-fields to save the much in his. Never could he repay them.

Then he became occupied with a horrible heat that seemed to have come from the burning warehouse to all his pulses and veins and to his heart and his soul.

This fiendish work, as had been forecast, was the work of the I.W.W. Behind it was Glidden and perhaps behind him was the grasping, black lust of German might. Kurt’s loss was no longer abstract or problematical. It was a loss so real and terrible that it confounded him. He shook and gasped and reeled. He wrung his hands and beat his breast while the tumult swayed him, the physical hate at last yielding up its significance. What then, was his great loss? He could not tell. The thing was mighty, like the sense of terror and loneliness in the black night. Not the loss for his farmer neighbors, so true in his hour of trial! Not the loss of his father, nor the wheat, nor the land, nor his ruined future! But it must be a loss, incalculable and insupportable, to his soul. His great ordeal had been the need, a terrible and incomprehensible need, to kill something intangible in himself. He had meant to do it. And now the need was shifted, subject to a baser instinct. If there was German blood in him, poisoning the very wells of his heart he could have spilled it, and so, whether living or dead, have repudiated the taint. That was now clear in his consciousness. But a baser spark had ignited all the primitive passion of the forebears he felt burning and driving within him. He felt no noble fire. He longed to live, to have a hundredfold his strength and fury, to be gifted with a genius for time and place and bloody deed, to have the war-gods set him a thousand opportunities, to beat with iron mace and cut with sharp bayonet and rend with hard hand — to kill and kill and kill the hideous thing that was German.

CHAPTER XIV

KURT RUSHED BACK to the house. Encountering Jerry, he ordered him to run and saddle a couple of horses. Then Kurt got his revolver and a box of shells, and, throwing on his coat, he hurried to the barn. Jerry was leading out the horses. It took but short work to saddle them. Jerry was excited and talkative. He asked Kurt many questions, which excited few replies.

When Kurt threw himself into the saddle Jerry yelled, “Which way?”

“Down the trail!” replied Kurt, and was off.

“Aw, we’ll break our necks!” came Jerry’s yell after him.

Kurt had no fear of the dark. He knew that trail almost as well by night as by day. His horse was a mettlesome colt that had not been worked during the harvest, and he plunged down the dim, winding trail as if, indeed, to verify Jerry’s fears. Presently the thin, pale line that was the trail disappeared on the burned wheat-ground. Here Kurt was at fault as to direction, but he did not slacken the pace for that. He heard Jerry pounding along in the rear, trying to catch up. The way the colt jumped ditches and washes and other obstructions proved his keen sight. Kurt let him go. And then the ride became both perilous and thrilling.

Kurt could not see anything on the blackened earth. But he knew from the contour of the hills just about where to expect to reach the fence and the road. And he did not pull the horse too soon. When he found the gate he waited for Jerry, who could be heard calling from the darkness. Kurt answered him.

“Here’s the gate!” yelled Kurt, as Jerry came galloping up. “Good road all the way now!”

“Lickity-cut then!” shouted Jerry to whom the pace had evidently communicated enthusiasm.

The ride then became a race, with Kurt drawing ahead. Kurt could see the road, a broad, pale belt, dividing the blackness on either side; and he urged the colt to a run. The wind cut short Kurt’s breath, beat at his ears, and roared about them. Closer and closer drew the red flare of the dying fire, casting long rays of light into Kurt’s eyes.

The colt was almost run out when he entered the circle of reddish flare. Kurt saw the glowing ruins of the elevators and a long, fiery line of box-cars burned to the wheels. Men were running and shouting round in front of the little railroad station, and several were on the roof with brooms and buckets. The freight-house had burned, and evidently the station itself had been on fire. Across the wide street of the little village the roof of a cottage was burning. Men were on top of it, beating the shingles. Hoarse yells greeted Kurt as he leaped out of the saddle. He heard screams of frightened women. On the other side of the burned box-cars a long, thin column of sparks rose straight upward. Over the ruins of the elevators hung a pall of heavy smoke. Just then Jerry came galloping up, his lean face red in the glow.

“Thet you, Kurt! Say, the sons of guns are burnin’ down the town.” He leaped off. “Lemme have your bridle. I’ll tie the hosses up. Find out what we can do.”

Kurt ran here and there, possessed by impotent rage. The wheat was gone! That fact gave him a hollow, sickening pang. He met farmers he knew. They all threw up their hands at sight of him. Not one could find a voice. Finally he met Olsen. The little wheat farmer was white with passion. He carried a gun.

“Hello, Dorn! Ain’t this hell? They got your wheat!” he said hoarsely.

“Olsen! How’d it happen? Wasn’t anybody set to guard the elevators?”

“Yes. But the I.W.W.’s drove all the guards off but Grimm, an’ they beat him up bad. Nobody had nerve enough to shoot.”

“Olsen, if I run into the Glidden I’ll kill him,” declared Kurt.

“So will I.… But, Dorn, they’re a hard crowd. They’re over there on the side, watchin’ the fire. A gang of them! Soon as I can get the men together we’ll drive them out of town. There’ll be a fight, if I don’t miss my guess.”

“Hurry the men! Have all of them get their guns! Come on!”

“Not yet, Dorn. We’re fightin’ fire yet. You an’ Jerry help all you can.”

Indeed, it appeared there was danger of more than one cottage burning. The exceedingly dry weather of the past weeks had made shingles like tinder, and wherever a glowing spark fell on them there straightway was a smoldering fire. Water, a scarce necessity in that region, had been used until all wells and pumps became dry. It was fortunate that most of the roofs of the little village had been constructed of galvanized iron. Beating out blazes and glowing embers with brooms was not effective enough. When it appeared that the one cottage nearest the rain of sparks was sure to go, Kurt thought of the railroad watertank below the station. He led a number of men with buckets to the tank, and they soon drowned out the smoldering places.

Meanwhile the blazes from the box-cars died out, leaving only the dull glow from the red heap that had once been the elevators. However, this gave forth light enough for any one to be seen a few rods distant. Sparks had ceased to fall, and from that source no further danger need be apprehended. Olsen had been going from man to man, sending those who were not armed home for guns. So it came about that half an hour after Kurt’s arrival a score of farmers, villagers, and a few railroaders were collected in a group, listening to the pale-faced Olsen.

“Men, there’s only a few of us, an’ there’s hundreds, mebbe, in thet I.W.W. gang, but we’ve got to drive them off,” he said, doggedly. “There’s no tellin’ what they’ll do if we let them hang around any longer. They know we’re weak in numbers. We’ve got to do some shootin’ to scare them away.”

Kurt seconded Olsen in ringing voice.

“They’ve threatened your homes,” he said. “They’ve burned my wheat — ruined me. They were the death of my father.… These are facts I’m telling you. We can’t wait for law or for militia. We’ve got to meet this I.W.W. invasion. They have taken advantage of the war situation. They’re backed by German agents. It’s now a question of our property. We’ve got to fight!”

The crowd made noisy and determined response. Most of them had small weapons; a few had shot-guns or rifles.

“Come on, men,” called Olsen. “I’ll do the talkin’. An’ if I say shoot, why, you shoot!”

It was necessary to go around the long line of box-cars. Olsen led the way, with Kurt just back of him. The men spoke but little and in whispers. At the left end of the line the darkness was thick enough to make objects indistinct.

Once around the corner, Kurt plainly descried a big dark crowd of men whose faces showed red in the glow of the huge pile of embers which was all that remained of the elevators. They did not see Olsen’s men.

“Hold on,” whispered Olsen. “If we get in a fight here we’ll be in a bad place. We’ve nothin’ to hide behind. Let’s go off — more to the left — an’ come up behind those freight-cars on the switches. That’ll give us cover an’ we’ll have the I.W.W.’s in the light.”

So he led off to the left, keeping in the shadow, and climbed between several lines of freight-cars, all empty, and finally came out behind the I.W.W.’s. Olsen led to within fifty yards of them, and was halted by some observant member of the gang who sat with the others on top of a flat-car.

This man’s yell stilled the coarse talk and laughter of the gang.

“What’s that?” shouted a cold, clear voice with authority in it.

Kurt thought he recognized the voice, and it caused a bursting, savage sensation in his blood.

“Here’s a bunch of farmers with guns!” yelled the man from the flat-car.

Olsen halted his force near one of the detached lines of box-cars, which he probably meant to take advantage of in case of a fight.

“Hey, you I.W.W.’s!” he shouted, with all his might.

There was a moment’s silence.

“There’s no I.W.W.’s here,” replied the authoritative voice.

Kurt was sure now that he recognized Glidden’s voice. Excitement and anger then gave place to deadly rage.

“Who are you?” yelled Olsen.

“We’re tramps watchin’ the fire,” came the reply.

“You set that fire!”

“No, we didn’t.”

Kurt motioned Olsen to be silent, as with lifting breast he took an involuntary step forward.

“Glidden, I know you!” he shouted, in hard, quick tones. “I’m Kurt Dorn. I’ve met you. I know your voice.… Take your gang — get out of here — or we’ll kill you!”

This pregnant speech caused a blank dead silence. Then came a white flash, a sharp report. Kurt heard the thud of a bullet striking some one near him. The man cried out, but did not fall.

“Spread out an’ hide!” ordered Olsen. “An’ shoot fer keeps!”

The little crowd broke and melted into the shadows behind and under the box-cars. Kurt crawled under a car and between the wheels, from which vantage-point he looked out. Glidden’s gang were there in the red glow, most of them now standing. The sentry who had given the alarm still sat on top of the flat-car, swinging his legs. His companions, however, had jumped down. Kurt heard men of his own party crawling and whispering behind him, and he saw dim, dark, sprawling forms under the far end of the car.

“Boss, the hayseeds have run off,” called the man from the flat car.

Laughter and jeers greeted this sally.

Kurt concluded it was about time to begin proceedings. Resting his revolver on the side of the wheel behind which he lay, he took steady aim at the sentry, holding low. Kurt was not a good shot with a revolver and the distance appeared to exceed fifty yards. But as luck would have it, when he pulled trigger the sentry let out a loud bawl of terror and pain, and fell off the car to the ground. Flopping and crawling like a crippled chicken, he got out of sight below.

Kurt’s shot was a starter for Olsen’s men. Four or five of the shot-guns boomed at once; then the second barrels were discharged, along with a sharper cracking of small arms. Pandemonium broke loose in Glidden’s gang. No doubt, at least, of the effectiveness of the shot-guns! A medley of strange, sharp, enraged, and anguished cries burst upon the air, a prelude to a wild stampede. In a few seconds that lighted spot where the I.W.W. had grouped was vacant, and everywhere were fleeing forms, some swift, others slow. So far as Kurt could see, no one had been fatally injured. But many had been hurt, and that fact augured well for Olsen’s force.

Presently a shot came from some hidden enemy. It thudded into the wood of the car over Kurt. Some one on his side answered it, and a heavy bullet, striking iron, whined away into the darkness. Then followed flash here and flash there, with accompanying reports and whistles of lead. From behind and under and on top of cars opened up a fire that proved how well armed these so-called laborers were. Their volley completely drowned the desultory firing of Olsen’s squad.

Kurt began to wish for one of the shot-guns. It was this kind of weapon that saved Olsen’s followers. There were a hundred chances to one of missing an I.W.W. with a single bullet, while a shot-gun, aimed fairly well, was generally productive of results. Kurt stopped wasting his cartridges. Some one was hurt behind his car and he crawled out to see. A villager named Schmidt had been wounded in the leg, not seriously, but bad enough to disable him. He had been using a double-barreled breech-loading shot-gun, and he wore a vest with rows of shells in the pockets across the front. Kurt borrowed gun and ammunition; and with these he hurried back to his covert, grimly sure of himself. At thought of Glidden he became hot all over, and this heat rather grew with the excitement of battle.

With the heavy fowling-piece loaded, Kurt peeped forth from behind his protecting wheel and watched keenly for flashes or moving dark figures. The I.W.W. had begun to reserve their fire, to shift their positions, and to spread out, judging from a wider range of the reports. It looked as if they meant to try and surround Olsen’s band. It was extraordinary — the assurance and deadly intent of this riffraff gang of tramp labor-agitators. In preceding years a crowd of I.W.W. men had been nothing to worry a rancher. Vastly different it seemed now. They acted as if they had the great war back of them.

Kurt crawled out of his hiding-place, and stole from car to car, in search of Olsen. At last he found the rancher, in company with several men, peering from behind a car. One of his companions was sitting down and trying to wrap something round his foot.

“Olsen, they’re spreading out to surround us,” whispered Kurt.

“That’s what Bill here just said,” replied Olsen, nervously. “If this keeps up we’ll be in a tight place. What’ll we do, Dorn?”

“We mustn’t break and run, of all things,” said Kurt. “They’d burn the village. Tell our men to save their shells.… If I only could get some cracks at a bunch of them together — with this big shot-gun!”

“Say, we’ve been watchin’ that car — the half-size one, there — next the high box-car,” whispered Olsen.

“It’s full of them. Sometimes we see a dozen shots come from it, all at once.”

“Olsen, I’ve an idea,” returned Kurt, excitedly. “You fellows keep shooting — attract their attention. I’ll slip below, climb on top of a box-car, and get a rake-off at that bunch.”

“It’s risky, Dorn,” said Olsen, with hesitation. “But if you could get in a few tellin’ shots — start that gang on the run!”

“I’ll try it,” rejoined Kurt, and forthwith stole off back toward the shadow. It struck him that there was more light then when the attack began. The fire had increased, or perhaps the I.W.W. had started another; at any rate, the light was growing stronger, and likewise the danger greater. As he crossed an open space a bullet whizzed by him, and then another zipped by to strike up the gravel ahead. These were not random shots. Some one was aiming at him. How strange and rage-provoking to be shot at deliberately! What a remarkable experience for a young wheat farmer! Raising wheat in the great Northwest had assumed responsibilities. He had to run, and he was the more furious because of that. Another bullet, flying wide, hummed to his left before he gained the shelter of the farthest line of freight-cars. Here he hid and watched. The firing appeared to be all behind him, and, thus encouraged, he stole along to the end of the line of cars, and around. A bright blaze greeted his gaze. An isolated car was on fire. Kurt peered forth to make sure of his bearings, and at length found the high derrick by which he had marked the box-car that he intended to climb.

He could see plainly, and stole up to his objective point, with little risk to himself until he climbed upon the box-car. He crouched low, almost on hands and knees, and finally gained the long shadow of a shed between the tracks. Then he ran past the derrick to the dark side of the car. He could now plainly see the revolver flashes and could hear the thud and spang of their bullets striking. Drawing a deep breath, Kurt climbed up the iron ladder on the dark side of the car.

He had the same sensation that possessed him when he was crawling to get a pot-shot at a flock of wild geese. Only this was mightily more exciting. He did not forget the risk. He lay flat and crawled little by little. Every moment he expected to be discovered. Olsen had evidently called more of his men to his side, for they certainly were shooting diligently. Kurt heard a continuous return fire from the car he was risking so much to get a shot at. At length he was within a yard of the end of the car — as far as he needed to go. He rested a moment. He was laboring for breath, sweating freely, on fire with thrills.

His plan was to raise himself on one knee and fire as many double shots as possible. Presently he lifted his head to locate the car. It was half in the bright light, half in the shadow, lengthwise toward him, about sixty or seventy yards distant, and full of men. He dropped his head, tingling all over. It was a disappointment that the car stood so far away. With fine shot he could not seriously injure any of the I.W.W. contingent, but he was grimly sure of the fright and hurt he could inflict. In his quick glance he had seen flashes of their guns, and many red faces, and dark, huddled forms.

Kurt took four shells and set them, end up, on the roof of the car close to him. Then, cocking the gun, he cautiously raised himself to one knee. He discharged both barrels at once. What a boom and what a terrified outburst of yells! Swiftly he broke the gun, reloaded, fired as before, and then again. The last two shots were fired at the men piling frantically over the side of the car, yelling with fear. Kurt had heard the swishing pattering impact of those swarms of small shot. The I.W.W. gang ran pell-mell down the open track, away from Kurt and toward the light. As he reloaded the gun he saw men running from all points to join the gang. With an old blunderbuss of a shot-gun he had routed the I.W.W. It meant relief to Olsen’s men; but Kurt had yet no satisfaction for the burning of his wheat, for the cruel shock that had killed his father.

“Come on, Olsen!” he yelled, at the top of his lungs. “They’re a lot of cowards!”

Then in his wild eagerness he leaped off the car. The long jump landed him jarringly, but he did not fall or lose hold of the gun. Recovering his balance, he broke into a run. Kurt was fast on his feet. Not a young man of his neighborhood nor any of his college-mates could outfoot him in a race. And then these I.W.W. fellows ran like stiff-legged tramps, long unused to such mode of action. And some of them were limping as they ran. Kurt gained upon them. When he got within range he halted short and freed two barrels. A howl followed the report. Some of the fleeing ones fell, but were dragged up and on by companions. Kurt reloaded and, bounding forward like a deer, yelling for Olsen, he ran until he was within range, then stopped to shoot again. Thus he continued until the pursued got away from the circle of light. Kurt saw the gang break up, some running one way and some another. There were sheds and cars and piles of lumber along the track, affording places to hide. Kurt was halted by the discovery that he had no more ammunition. Panting, he stopped short, realizing that he had snapped an empty gun at men either too tired or too furious or too desperate to run any farther.

“He’s out of shells!” shouted a low, hard voice that made Kurt leap. He welcomed the rush of dark forms, and, swinging the gun round his head, made ready to brain the first antagonist who neared him. But some one leaped upon him from behind. The onslaught carried him to his knees. Bounding up, he broke the gun stock on the head of his assailant, who went down in a heap. Kurt tried to pull his revolver. It became impossible, owing to strong arms encircling him. Wrestling, he freed himself, only to be staggered by a rush of several men, all pouncing upon him at once. Kurt went down, but, once down, he heaved so powerfully that he threw off the whole crew. Up again, like a cat, he began to fight. Big and strong and swift, with fists like a blacksmith’s, Kurt bowled over this assailant and that one. He thought he recognized Glidden in a man who kept out of his reach and who was urging on the others. Kurt lunged at him and finally got his hands on him. That was fatal for Kurt, because in his fury he forgot Glidden’s comrades. In one second his big hand wrenched a yell of mortal pain out of Glidden; then a combined attack of the others rendered Kurt powerless. A blow on the head stunned him — made all dark.

CHAPTER XV

IT SEEMED THAT Kurt did not altogether lose consciousness, for he had vague sensations of being dragged along the ground. Presently the darkness cleared from his mind and he opened his eyes. He lay on his back. Looking up, he saw stars through the thin, broken clouds of smoke. A huge pile of railroad ties loomed up beside him.

He tried to take note of his situation. His hands were tied in front of him, not so securely, he imagined, that he could not work them free. His legs had not been tied. Both his head and shoulder, on the left side, pained him severely. Upon looking around, Kurt presently made out the dark form of a man. He appeared rigid with attention, but that evidently had no relation to Kurt. The man was listening and watching for his comrades. Kurt heard no voices or shots. After a little while, however, he thought he heard distant footsteps on the gravel. He hardly knew what to make of his predicament. If there was only one guard over him, escape did not seem difficult, unless that guard had a gun.

“Hello, you!” he called.

“Hello, yourself” replied the man, jerking up in evident surprise.

“What’s your name?” inquired Kurt, amiably.

“Well, it ain’t J.J. Hill or Anderson,” came the gruff response.

Kurt laughed. “But you would be one of those names if you could, now wouldn’t you?” went on Kurt.

“My name is Dennis,” gloomily returned the man.

“It certainly is. That is the name of all I.W.W.’s,” said Kurt.

“Say, are you the fellow who had the shot-gun?”

“I sure am,” replied Kurt.

“I ought to knock you on the head.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll have to eat standing up for a month.”

“Yes?” queried Kurt.

“The seat of my pants must have made a good target, for you sure pasted it full of birdshot.”

Kurt smothered a laugh. Then he felt the old anger leap up. “Didn’t you burn my wheat?”

“Are you that young Dorn?”

“Yes, I am,” replied Kurt, hotly.

“Well, I didn’t burn one damn straw of your old wheat.”

“You didn’t! But you’re with these men? You’re an I.W.W. You’ve been fighting these farmers here.”

“If you want to know, I’m a tramp,” said the man, bitterly. “Years ago I was a prosperous oil-producer in Ohio. I had a fine oil-field. Along comes a big fellow, tries to buy me out, and, failing that, he shot off dynamite charges into the ground next my oil-field.… Choked my wells! Ruined me!… I came west — went to farming. Along comes a corporation, steals my water for irrigation — and my land went back to desert.… So I quit working and trying to be honest. It doesn’t pay. The rich men are getting all the richer at the expense of the poor. So now I’m a tramp.”

“Friend, that’s a hard-luck story,” said Kurt. “It sure makes me think.… But I’ll tell you what — you don’t belong to this I.W.W. outfit, even if you are a tramp.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re American! That’s why.”

“Well, I know I am. But I can be American and travel with a labor union, can’t I?”

“No. This I.W.W. is no labor union. It never was. Their very first rule is to abolish capital. They’re anarchists. And now they’re backed by German money. The I.W.W. is an enemy to America. All this hampering of railroads, destruction of timber and wheat, is an aid to Germany in the war. The United States is at war! My God! man, can’t you see it’s your own country that must suffer for such deals as this wheat-burning to-night?”

“The hell you say!” ejaculated the man, in amaze.

“This Glidden is a German agent — perhaps a spy. He’s no labor leader. What does he care for the interests of such men as you?”

“Young man, if you don’t shut up you’ll give me a hankering to go back to real work.”

“I hope I do. Let me give you a hunch. Throw down this I.W.W. outfit. Go to Ruxton and get Anderson of ‘Many Waters’ ranch to give you a job. Tell him who you are and that I sent you.”

“Anderson of ‘Many Waters,’ hey? Well, maybe it’ll surprise you to know that Glidden is operating there, has a lot of men there, and is going there from here.”

“No, it doesn’t surprise me. I hope he does go there. For if he does he’ll get killed.”

“Sssssh!” whispered the guard. “Here comes some of the gang.”

Kurt heard low voices and soft footfalls. Some dark forms loomed up.

“Bradford, has he come to yet?” queried the brutal voice of Glidden.

“Nope,” replied the guard. “I guess he had a hard knock. He’s never budged.”

“We’ve got to beat it out of here,” said Glidden. “It’s long after midnight. There’s a freight-train down the track. I want all the gang to board it. You run along, Bradford, and catch up with the others.”

“What’re you going to do with this young fellow?” queried Bradford, curiously.

“That’s none of your business,” returned Glidden.

“Maybe not. But I reckon I’ll ask, anyhow. You want me to join your I.W.W., and I’m asking questions. Labor strikes — standing up for your rights — is one thing, and burning wheat or slugging young farmers is another. Are you going to let this Dorn go?”

Kurt could plainly see the group of five men, Bradford standing over the smaller Glidden, and the others strung and silent in the intensity of the moment.

“I’ll cut his throat,” hissed Glidden.

Bradford lunged heavily. The blow he struck Glidden was square in the face. Glidden would have had a hard fall but for the obstruction in the shape of his comrades, upon whom he was knocked. They held him up. Glidden sagged inertly, evidently stunned or unconscious. Bradford backed guardedly away out of their reach, then, wheeling, he began to run with heavy, plodding strides.

Glidden’s comrades seemed anxiously holding him up, peering at him, but no one spoke. Kurt saw his opportunity. With one strong wrench he freed his hands. Feeling in his pocket for his gun, he was disturbed to find that it had been taken. He had no weapon. But he did not hesitate. Bounding up, he rushed like a hurricane upon the unprepared group. He saw Glidden’s pale face upheld to the light of the stars, and by it saw that Glidden was recovering. With all his might Kurt swung as he rushed, and the blow he gave the I.W.W. leader far exceeded Bradford’s. Glidden was lifted so powerfully against one of his men that they both fell. Then Kurt, striking right and left, beat down the other two, and, leaping over them, he bounded away into the darkness. Shrill piercing yells behind him lent him wings.

But he ran right into another group of I.W.W. men, dozens in number, he thought, and by the light of what appeared to be a fire they saw him as quickly as he saw them. The yells behind were significant enough. Kurt had to turn to run back, and he had to run the gauntlet of the men he had assaulted. They promptly began to shoot at Kurt. The whistle of lead was uncomfortably close. Never had he run so fleetly. When he flashed past the end of the line of cars, into comparative open, he found himself in the light of a new fire. This was a shed perhaps a score of rods or less from the station. Some one was yelling beyond this, and Kurt thought he recognized Jerry’s voice, but he did not tarry to make sure. Bullets scattering the gravel ahead of him and singing around his head, and hoarse cries behind, with a heavy-booted tread of pursuers, gave Kurt occasion to hurry. He flew across the freight-yard, intending to distance his pursuers, then circle round the station to the village.

Once he looked back. The gang, well spread out, was not far behind him, just coming into the light of the new fire. No one in it could ever catch him, of that Kurt was sure.

Suddenly a powerful puff of air, like a blast of wind, seemed to lift him. At the same instant a dazzling, blinding, yellow blaze illuminated the whole scene. The solid earth seemed to rock under Kurt’s flying feet, and then a terrific roar appalled him. He was thrown headlong through the air, and all about him seemed streaks and rays and bursts of fire. He alighted to plow through the dirt until the momentum of force had been expended. Then he lay prone, gasping and choking, almost blind, but sensitive to the rain of gravel and debris, the fearful cries of terrified men, taste of smoke and dust, and the rank smell of exploded gasoline.

Kurt got up to grope his way through the murky darkness. He could escape now. If that explosion had not killed his pursuers it had certainly scared them off. He heard men running and yelling off to the left. A rumble of a train came from below the village. Finally Kurt got clear of the smoke, to find that he had wandered off into one of the fields opposite the station. Here he halted to rest a little and to take cognizance of his condition. It surprised him to find out that he was only bruised, scratched, and sore. He had expected to find himself full of bullets.

“Whew! They blew up the gasoline-shed!” he soliloquized. “But some of them miscalculated, for if I don’t lose my guess there was a bunch of I.W.W. closer to that gasoline than I was.… Some adventure!… I got another punch at Glidden. I felt it in my bones that I’d get a crack at him. Oh, for another!… And that Bradford! He did make me think. How he slugged Glidden! Good! Good! There’s your old American spirit coming out.”

Kurt sat down to rest and to listen. He found he needed a rest. The only sound he heard was the rumbling of a train, gradually drawing away. A heavy smoke rose from the freight-yard, but there were no longer any blazes or patches of red fire. Perhaps the explosion had smothered all the flames.

It had been a rather strenuous evening, he reflected. A good deal of satisfaction lay in the fact that he had severely punished some of the I.W.W. members, if he had not done away with any of them.

When he thought of Glidden, however, he did not feel any satisfaction. His fury was gone, but in its place was a strong judgment that such men should be made examples. He certainly did not want to run across Glidden again, because if he did he would have blood on his hands.

Kurt’s chance meeting with the man Bradford seemed far the most interesting, if not thrilling, incident of the evening. It opened up a new point of view. How many of the men of that motley and ill-governed I.W.W. had grievances like Bradford’s? Perhaps there were many. Kurt tried to remember instances when, in the Northwest wheat country, laborers and farmers had been cheated or deceived by men of large interests. It made him grave to discover that he could recall many such instances. His own father had long nursed a grievance against Anderson. Neuman, his father’s friend, had a hard name. And there were many who had profited by the misfortune of others. That, after all, was a condition of life. He took it for granted, then, that all members of the I.W.W. were not vicious or dishonest. He was glad to have this proof. The I.W.W. had been organized by labor agitators, and they were the ones to blame, and their punishment should be severest. Kurt began to see where the war, cruel as it would be, was going to be of immeasurable benefit to the country.

It amazed Kurt, presently, to note that dawn was at hand. He waited awhile longer, wanting to be sure not to meet any lingering members of the I.W.W. It appeared, indeed, that they had all gone.

He crossed the freight-yard. A black ruin, still smoldering, lay where the elevators had been. That wonderful wheat yield of his had been destroyed. In the gray dawn it was hard to realize. He felt a lump in his throat. Several tracks were littered with the remains of burned freight-cars. When Kurt reached the street he saw men in front of the cottages. Some one hailed him, and then several shouted. They met him half-way. Jerry and Olsen were in the party.

“We was pretty much scared,” said Jerry, and his haggard face showed his anxiety.

“Boy, we thought the I.W.W. had made off with you,” added Olsen, extending his hand.

“Not much! Where are they?” replied Kurt.

“Gone on a freight-train. When Jerry blew up the gasoline-shed that fixed the I.W.W.”

“Jerry, did you do that?” queried Kurt.

“I reckon.”

“Well, you nearly blew me off the map. I was running, just below the shed. When that explosion came I was lifted and thrown a mile. Thought I’d never light!”

“So far as we can tell, nobody was killed,” said Olsen. “Some of our fellows have got bullet-holes to nurse. But no one is bad hurt.”

“That’s good. I guess we came out lucky,” replied Kurt.

“You must have had some fight, runnin’ off that way after the I.W.W.’s. We heard you shootin’ an’ the I.W.W.’s yellin’. That part was fun. Tell us what happened to you.”

So Kurt had to narrate his experiences from the time he stole off with the big shot-gun until his friends saw him again. It made rather a long story, which manifestly was of exceeding interest to the villagers.

“Dorn,” said one of the men, “you an’ Jerry saved this here village from bein’ burned.”

“We all had a share. I’m sure glad they’re gone. Now what damage was done?”

It turned out that there had been little hurt to the property of the villagers. Some freight-cars full of barley, loaded and billed by the railroad people, had been burned, and this loss of grain would probably be paid for by the company. The loss of wheat would fall upon Kurt. In the haste of that great harvest and its transportation to the village no provision had been made for loss. The railroad company had not accepted his wheat for transportation, and was not liable.

“Olsen, according to our agreement I owe you fifteen thousand dollars,” said Kurt.

“Yes, but forget it,” replied Olsen. “You’re the loser here.”

“I’ll pay it,” replied Kurt.

“But, boy, you’re ruined!” ejaculated the farmer. “You can’t pay that big price now. An’ we don’t expect it.”

“Didn’t you leave your burning fields to come help us save ours?” queried Kurt.

“Sure. But there wasn’t much of mine to burn.”

“And so did many of the other men who came to help. I tell you, Olsen, that means a great deal to me. I’ll pay my debt or — or—”

“But how can you?” interrupted Olsen, reasonably. “Sometime, when you raise another crop like this year, then you could pay.”

“The farm will bring that much more than I owe Anderson.”

“You’ll give up the farm?” exclaimed Olsen.

“Yes. I’ll square myself.”

“Dorn, we won’t take that money,” said the farmer, deliberately.

“You’ll have to take it. I’ll send you a check soon — perhaps to-morrow.”

“Give up your land!” repeated Olsen. “Why, that’s unheard of! Land in your family so many years!… What will you do?”

“Olsen, I waited for the draft just on account of my father. If it had not been for him I’d have enlisted. Anyway, I’m going to war.”

That silenced the little group of grimy-faced men.

“Jerry, get our horses and we’ll ride home,” said Kurt.

The tall foreman strode off. Kurt sensed something poignant in the feelings of the men, especially Olsen. This matter of the I.W.W. dealing had brought Kurt and his neighbors closer together. And he thought it a good opportunity for a few words about the United States and the war and Germany. So he launched forth into an eloquent expression of some of his convictions. He was still talking when Jerry returned with the horses. At length he broke off, rather abruptly, and, saying good-by, he mounted.

“Hold on, Kurt,” called Olsen, and left the group to lay a hand on the horse and to speak low. “What you said struck me deep. It applies pretty hard to us of the Bend. We’ve always been farmers, with no thought of country. An’ that’s because we left our native country to come here. I’m not German an’ I’ve never been for Germany. But many of my neighbors an’ friends are Germans. This war never has come close till now. I know Germans in this country. They have left their fatherland an’ they are lost to that fatherland!… It may take some time to stir them up, to make them see, but the day will come.… Take my word for it, Dorn, the German-Americans of the Northwest, when it comes to a pinch, will find themselves an’ be true to the country they have adopted.”

CHAPTER XVI

THE SUN WAS up, broad and bright, burning over the darkened wheat-fields, when Kurt and Jerry reached home. Kurt had never seen the farm look like that — ugly and black and bare. But the fallow ground, hundreds of acres of it, billowing away to the south, had not suffered any change of color or beauty. To Kurt it seemed to smile at him, to bid him wait for another spring.

And that thought was poignant, for he remembered he must leave at once for “Many Waters.”

He found, when he came to wash the blood and dirt from his person, that his bruises were many. There was a lump on his head, and his hands were skinned. After changing his clothes and packing a few things in a valise, along with his papers, he went down to breakfast. Though preoccupied in mind, he gathered that both the old housekeeper and Jerry were surprised and dismayed to see him ready to leave. He had made no mention of his intentions. And it struck him that this, somehow, was going to be hard.

Indeed, when the moment came he found that speech was difficult and his voice not natural.

“Martha — Jerry — I’m going away for good,” he said, huskily. “I mean to make over the farm to Mr. Anderson. I’ll leave you in charge here — and recommend that you be kept on. Here’s your money up to date.… I’m going away to the war — and the chances are I’ll never come back.”

The old housekeeper, who had been like a mother to him for many years, began to cry; and Jerry struggled with a regret that he could not speak.

Abruptly Kurt left them and hurried out of the house. How strange that difficult feelings had arisen — emotions he had never considered at all! But the truth was that he was leaving his home forever. All was explained in that.

First he went to the graves of his father and mother, out on the south slope, where there were always wind and sun. The fire had not desecrated the simple burying-ground. There was no grass. But a few trees and bushes kept it from appearing bare.

Kurt sat down in the shade near his mother’s grave and looked away across the hills with dim eyes. Something came to him — a subtle assurance that his mother approved of his going to war. Kurt remembered her — slow, quiet, patient, hard-working, dominated by his father.

The slope was hot and still, with only a rustling of leaves in the wind. The air was dry. Kurt missed the sweet fragrance of wheat. What odor there was seemed to be like that of burning weeds. The great, undulating open of the Bend extended on three sides. His parents had spent the best of their lives there and had now been taken to the bosom of the soil they loved. It seemed natural. Many were the last resting-places of toilers of the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had gone back to the earth from which they had sprung. The dwelling-places of men were beautiful; it was only life that was sad. In this poignant, revealing hour Kurt could not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy slope. It was not for any man to understand to the uttermost the meaning of life.

When he left he made his way across some of the fallow land and some of the stubble fields that had yielded, alas! so futilely, such abundant harvest. His boyhood days came back to him, when he used to crush down the stubble with his bare feet. Every rod of the way revealed some memory. He went into the barn and climbed into the huge, airy loft. It smelled of straw and years of dust and mice. The swallows darted in and out, twittering. How friendly they were! Year after year they had returned to their nests — the young birds returning to the homes of the old. Home even for birds was a thing of first and vital importance.

It was a very old barn that had not many more useful years to stand. Kurt decided that he would advise that it be strengthened. There were holes in the rough shingling and boards were off the sides. In the corners and on the rafters was an accumulation of grain dust as thick as snow. Mice ran in and out, almost as tame as the swallows. He seemed to be taking leave of them. He recalled that he used to chase and trap mice with all a boy’s savage ingenuity. But that boyish instinct, along with so many things so potential then, was gone now.

Best of all he loved the horses. Most of these were old and had given faithful service for many years. Indeed, there was one — Old Badge — that had carried Kurt when he was a boy. Once he and a neighbor boy had gone to the pasture to fetch home the cows. Old Badge was there, and nothing would do but that they ride him. From the fence Kurt mounted to his broad back. Then the neighbor boy, full of the devil, had struck Old Badge with a stick. The horse set off at a gallop for home with Kurt, frantically holding on, bouncing up and down on his back. That had been the ride of Kurt’s life. His father had whipped him, too, for the adventure.

How strangely vivid and thought-compelling were these ordinary adjuncts to his life there on the farm. It was only upon giving them up that he discovered their real meaning. The hills of bare fallow and of yellow slope, the old barn with its horses, swallows, mice, and odorous loft, the cows and chickens — these appeared to Kurt, in the illuminating light of farewell, in their true relation to him. For they, and the labor of them, had made him what he was.

Slowly he went back to the old house and climbed the stairs. Only three rooms were there up-stairs, and one of these, his mother’s, had not been opened for a long time. It seemed just the same as when he used to go to her with his stubbed toes and his troubles. She had died in that room. And now he was a man, going out to fight for his country. How strange! Why? In his mother’s room he could not answer that puzzling question. It stung him, and with a last look, a good-by, and a word of prayer on his lips, he turned to his own little room.

He entered and sat down on the bed. It was small, with the slope of the roof running down so low that he had learned to stoop when close to the wall. There was no ceiling. Bare yellow rafters and dark old shingles showed. He could see light through more than one little hole. The window was small, low, and without glass. How many times he had sat there, leaning out in the hot dusk of summer nights, dreaming dreams that were never to come true. Alas for the hopes and illusions of boyhood! So long as he could remember, this room was most closely associated with his actions and his thoughts. It was a part of him. He almost took it into his confidence as if it were human. Never had he become what he had dared to dream he would, yet, somehow, at that moment he was not ashamed. It struck him then what few belongings he really had. But he had been taught to get along with little.

Living in that room was over for him. He was filled with unutterable sadness. Yet he would not have had it any different. Bigger, and selfless things called to him. He was bidding farewell to his youth and all that it related to. A solemn procession of beautiful memories passed through his mind, born of the nights there in that room of his boyhood, with the wind at the eaves and the rain pattering on the shingles. What strong and vivid pictures! No grief, no pain, no war could rob him of this best heritage from the past.

He got up to go. And then a blinding rush of tears burned his eyes. This room seemed dearer than all the rest of his home. It was hard to leave. His last look was magnified, transformed. “Good-by!” he whispered, with a swelling constriction in his throat. At the head of the dark old stairway he paused a moment, and then with bowed head he slowly descended.

CHAPTER XVII

AN AUGUST TWILIGHT settled softly down over “Many Waters” while Lenore Anderson dreamily gazed from her window out over the darkening fields so tranquil now after the day’s harvest toil.

Of late, in thoughtful hours such as this, she had become conscious of strain, of longing. She had fought out a battle with herself, had confessed her love for Kurt Dorn, and, surrendering to the enchantment of that truth, had felt her love grow with every thought of him and every beat of a thrilling pulse. In spite of a longing that amounted to pain and a nameless dread she could not deny, she was happy. And she waited, with a woman’s presaging sense of events, for a crisis that was coming.

Presently she heard her father down-stairs, his heavy tread and hearty voice. These strenuous harvest days left him little time for his family. And Lenore, having lost herself in her dreams, had not, of late, sought him out in the fields. She was waiting, and, besides, his keen eyes, at once so penetrating and so kind, had confused her. Few secrets had she ever kept from her father.

“Where’s Lenore?” she heard him ask, down in the dining-room.

“Lenorry’s mooning,” replied Kathleen, with a giggle.

“Ah-huh? Well, whereabouts is she moonin’?” went on Anderson.

“Why, in her room!” retorted the child. “And you can’t get a word out of her with a crowbar.”

Anderson’s laugh rang out with a jingle of tableware. He was eating his supper. Then Lenore heard her mother and Rose and Kathleen all burst out with news of a letter come that day from Jim, away training to be a soldier. It was Rose who read this letter aloud to her father, and outside of her swift, soft voice the absolute silence attested to the attention of the listeners. Lenore’s heart shook as she distinguished a phrase here and there, for Jim’s letter had been wonderful for her. He had gained weight! He was getting husky enough to lick his father! He was feeling great! There was not a boy in the outfit who could beat him to a stuffed bag of a German soldier! And he sure could make some job with that old bayonet! So ran Jim’s message to the loved ones at home. Then a strange pride replaced the quake in Lenore’s heart. Not now would she have had Jim stay home. She had sacrificed him. Something subtler than thought told her she would never see him again. And, oh, how dear he had become!

Then Anderson roared his delight in that letter and banged the table with his fist. The girls excitedly talked in unison. But the mother was significantly silent. Lenore forgot them presently and went back to her dreaming. It was just about dark when her father called.

“Lenore.”

“Yes, father,” she replied.

“I’m comin’ up,” he said, and his heavy tread sounded in the hall. It was followed by the swift patter of little feet. “Say, you kids go back. I want to talk to Lenore.”

“Daddy,” came Kathleen’s shrill, guilty whisper, “I was only in fun — about her mooning.”

The father laughed again and slowly mounted the stairs. Lenore reflected uneasily that he seldom came to her room. Also, when he was most concerned with trouble he usually sought her.

“Hello! All in the dark?” he said, as he came in. “May I turn on the light?”

Lenore assented, though not quite readily. But Anderson did not turn on the light. He bumped into things on the way to where she was curled up in her window-seat, and he dropped wearily into Lenore’s big arm-chair.

“How are you, daddy?” she inquired.

“Dog tired, but feelin’ fine,” he replied. “I’ve got a meetin’ at eight an’ I need a rest. Reckon I’d like to smoke — an’ talk to you — if you don’t mind.”

“I’d sure rather listen to my dad than any one,” she replied, softly. She knew he had come with news or trouble or need of help. He always began that way. She could measure his mood by the preliminaries before his disclosure. And she fortified herself.

“Wasn’t that a great letter from the boy?” began Anderson, as he lit a cigar. By the flash of the match Lenore got a glimpse of his dark and unguarded face. Indeed, she did well to fortify herself.

“Fine!… He wrote it to me. I laughed. I swelled with pride. It sent my blood racing. It filled me with fight.… Then I sneaked up here to cry.”

“Ah-huh!” exclaimed Anderson, with a loud sigh. Then for a moment of silence the end of his cigar alternately paled and glowed. “Lenore, did you get any — any kind of a hunch from Jim’s letter?”

“I don’t exactly understand what you mean,” replied Lenore.

“Did somethin’ — strange an’ different come to you?” queried Anderson, haltingly, as if words were difficult to express what he meant.

“Why, yes — I had many strange feelings.”

“Jim’s letter was just like he talks. But to me it said somethin’ he never meant an’ didn’t know.… Jim will never come back!”

“Yes, dad — I divined just that,” whispered Lenore.

“Strange about that,” mused Anderson, with a pull on his cigar.

And then followed a silence. Lenore felt how long ago her father had made his sacrifice. There did not seem to be any need for more words about Jim. But there seemed a bigness in the bond of understanding between her and her father. A cause united them, and they were sustained by unfaltering courage. The great thing was the divine spark in the boy who could not have been held back. Lenore gazed out into the darkening shadows. The night was very still, except for the hum of insects, and the cool air felt sweet on her face. The shadows, the silence, the sleeping atmosphere hovering over “Many Waters,” seemed charged with a quality of present sadness, of the inexplicable great world moving to its fate.

“Lenore, you haven’t been around much lately,” resumed Anderson. “Sure you’re missed. An’ Jake swears a lot more than usual.”

“Father, you told me to stay at home,” she replied.

“So I did. An’ I reckon it’s just as well. But when did you ever before mind me?”

“Why, I always obey you,” replied Lenore, with her low laugh.

“Ah-huh! Not so I’d notice it.… Lenore, have you seen the big clouds of smoke driftin’ over ‘Many Waters’ these last few days?”

“Yes. And I’ve smelled smoke, too.… From forest fire, is it not?”

“There’s fire in some of the timber, but the wind’s wrong for us to get smoke from the foot-hills.”

“Then where does the smoke come from?” queried Lenore, quickly.

“Some of the Bend wheat country’s been burned over.”

“Burned! You mean the wheat?”

“Sure.”

“Oh! What part of the Bend?”

“I reckon it’s what you called young Dorn’s desert of wheat.”

“Oh, what a pity!… Have you had word?”

“Nothin’ but rumors yet. But I’m fearin’ the worst an’ I’m sorry for our young friend.”

A sharp pain shot through Lenore’s breast, leaving behind an ache.

“It will ruin him!” she whispered.

“Aw no, not that bad,” declared Anderson, and there was a red streak in the dark where evidently he waved his cigar in quick, decisive action. “It’ll only be tough on him an’ sort of embarrassin’ for me — an’ you. That boy’s proud.… I’ll bet he raised hell among them I.W.W.’s, if he got to them.” And Anderson chuckled with the delight he always felt in the Western appreciation of summary violence justly dealt.

Lenore felt the rising tide of her anger. She was her father’s daughter, yet always had been slow to wrath. That was her mother’s softness and gentleness tempering the hard spirit of her father. But now her blood ran hot, beating and bursting about her throat and temples. And there was a leap and quiver to her body.

“Dastards! Father, those foreign I.W.W. devils should be shot!” she cried, passionately. “To ruin those poor, heroic farmers! To ruin that — that boy! It’s a crime! And, oh, to burn his beautiful field of wheat — with all his hopes! Oh, what shall I call that!”

“Wal, lass, I reckon it’d take stronger speech than any you know,” responded Anderson. “An’ I’m usin’ that same.”

Lenore sat there trembling, with hot tears running down her cheeks, with her fists clenched so tight that her nails cut into her palms. Rage only proved to her how impotent she was to avert catastrophe. How bitter and black were some trials! She shrank with a sense of acute pain at thought of the despair there must be in the soul of Kurt Dorn.

“Lenore,” began Anderson, slowly — his tone was stronger, vibrant with feeling— “you love this young Dorn!”

A tumultuous shock shifted Lenore’s emotions. She quivered as before, but this was a long, shuddering thrill shot over her by that spoken affirmation. What she had whispered shyly and fearfully to herself when alone and hidden — what had seemed a wonderful and forbidden secret — her father had spoken out. Lenore gasped. Her anger fled as it had never been. Even in the dark she hid her face and tried to grasp the wild, whirling thoughts and emotions now storming her. He had not asked. He had affirmed. He knew. She could not deceive him even if she would. And then for a moment she was weak, at the mercy of contending tides.

“Sure I seen he was in love with you,” Anderson was saying. “Seen that right off, an’ I reckon I’d not thought much of him if he hadn’t been.… But I wasn’t sure of you till the day Dorn saved you from Ruenke an’ fetched you back. Then I seen. An’ I’ve been waitin’ for you to tell me.”

“There’s — nothing — to tell,” faltered Lenore.

“I reckon there is,” he replied. Leaning over, he threw his cigar out of the window and took hold of her.

Lenore had never felt him so impelling. She was not proof against the strong, warm pressure of his hand. She felt in its clasp, as she had when a little girl, a great and sure safety. It drew her irresistibly. She crept into his arms and buried her face on his shoulder, and she had a feeling that if she could not relieve her heart it would burst.

“Oh, d — dad,” she whispered, with a soft, hushed voice that broke tremulously at her lips, “I — I love him!… I do love him.… It’s terrible!… I knew it — that last time you took me to his home — when he said he was going to war.… And, oh, now you know!”

Anderson held her tight against his broad breast that lifted her with its great heave. “Ah-huh! Reckon that’s some relief. I wasn’t so darn sure,” said Anderson. “Has he spoken to you?”

“Spoken! What do you mean?”

“Has Dorn told you he loved you?”

Lenore lifted her face. If that confession of hers had been relief to her father it had been more so to her. What had seemed terrible began to feel natural. Still, she was all intense, vibrating, internally convulsed.

“Yes, he has,” she replied, shyly. “But such a confession! He told it as if to explain what he thought was boldness on his part. He had fallen in love with me at first sight!… And then meeting me was too much for him. He wanted me to know. He was going away to war. He asked nothing.… He seemed to apologize for — for daring to love me. He asked nothing. And he has absolutely not the slightest idea I care for him.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Anderson. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Dad, he is proud,” replied Lenore, dreamily. “He’s had a hard struggle out there in his desert of wheat. They’ve always been poor. He imagines there’s a vast distance between an heiress of ‘Many Waters’ and a farmer boy. Then, more than all, I think, the war has fixed a morbid trouble in his mind. God knows it must be real enough! A house divided against itself is what he called his home. His father is German. He is American. He worshiped his mother, who was a native of the United States. He has become estranged from his father. I don’t know — I’m not sure — but I felt that he was obsessed by a calamity in his German blood. I divined that was the great reason for his eagerness to go to war.”

“Wal, Kurt Dorn’s not goin’ to war,” replied her father. “I fixed that all right.”

An amazing and rapturous start thrilled over Lenore. “Daddy!” she cried, leaping up in his arms, “what have you done?”

“I got exemption for him, that’s what,” replied Anderson, with great satisfaction.

“Exemption!” exclaimed Lenore, in bewilderment.

“Don’t you remember the government official from Washington? You met him in Spokane. He was out West to inspire the farmers to raise more wheat. There are many young farmers needed a thousand times more on the wheat-fields than on the battle-fields. An’ Kurt Dorn is one of them. That boy will make the biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest. I recommended exemption for Dorn. An’ he’s exempted an’ doesn’t know it.”

“Doesn’t know! He’ll never accept exemption,” declared Lenore.

“Lass, I’m some worried myself,” rejoined Anderson. “Reckon you’ve explained Dorn to me — that somethin’ queer about him.… But he’s sensible. He can be told things. An’ he’ll see how much more he’s needed to raise wheat than to kill Germans.”

“But, father — suppose he wants to kill Germans?” asked Lenore, earnestly. How strangely she felt things about Dorn that she could not explain.

“Then, by George! it’s up to you, my girl,” replied her father, grimly. “Understand me. I’ve no sentiment about Dorn in this matter. One good wheat-raiser is worth a dozen soldiers. To win the war — to feed our country after the war — why, only a man like me knows what it ‘ll take! It means millions of bushels of wheat!… I’ve sent my own boy. He’ll fight with the best or the worst of them. But he’d never been a man to raise wheat. All Jim ever raised is hell. An’ his kind is needed now. So let him go to war. But Dorn must be kept home. An’ that’s up to Lenore Anderson.”

“Me!… Oh — how?” cried Lenore, faintly.

“Woman’s wiles, daughter,” said Anderson, with his frank laugh. “When Dorn comes let me try to show him his duty. The Northwest can’t spare young men like him. He’ll see that. If he has lost his wheat he’ll come down here to make me take the land in payment of the debt. I’ll accept it. Then he’ll say he’s goin’ to war, an’ then I’ll say he ain’t.… We’ll have it out. I’ll offer him such a chance here an’ in the Bend that he’d have to be crazy to refuse. But if he has got a twist in his mind — if he thinks he’s got to go out an’ kill Germans — then you’ll have to change him.”

“But, dad, how on earth can I do that?” implored Lenore, distracted between hope and joy and fear.

“You’re a woman now. An’ women are in this war up to their eyes. You’ll be doin’ more to keep him home than if you let him go. He’s moony about you. You can make him stay. An’ it’s your future — your happiness.… Child, no Anderson ever loves twice.”

“I cannot throw myself into his arms,” whispered Lenore, very low.

“Reckon I didn’t mean you to,” returned Anderson, gruffly.

“Then — if — if he does not ask me to — to marry him — how can I—”

“Lenore, no man on earth could resist you if you just let yourself be sweet — as sweet as you are sometimes. Dorn could never leave you!”

“I’m not so sure of that, daddy,” she murmured.

“Then take my word for it,” he replied, and he got up from the chair, though still holding her. “I’ll have to go now.… But I’ve shown my hand to you. Your happiness is more to me than anythin’ else in this world. You love that boy. He loves you. An’ I never met a finer lad! Wal, here’s the point. He need be no slacker to stay home. He can do more good here. Then outside of bein’ a wheat man for his army an’ his country he can be one for me. I’m growin’ old, my lass!… Here’s the biggest ranch in Washington to look after, an’ I want Kurt Dorn to look after it.… Now, Lenore, do we understand each other?”

She put her arms around his neck. “Dear old daddy, you’re the wonderfulest father any girl ever had! I would do my best — I would obey even if I did not love Kurt Dorn.… To hear you speak so of him — oh, its sweet! It — chokes me!… Now, good-night.… Hurry, before I—”

She kissed him and gently pushed him out of the room. Then before the sound of his slow footfalls had quite passed out of hearing she lay prone upon her bed, her face buried in the pillow, her hands clutching the coverlet, utterly surrendered to a breaking storm of emotion. Terrible indeed had come that presaged crisis of her life. Love of her wild brother Jim, gone to atone forever for the errors of his youth; love of her father, confessing at last the sad fear that haunted him; love of Dorn, that stalwart clear-eyed lad who set his face so bravely toward a hopeless, tragic fate — these were the burden of the flood of her passion, and all they involved, rushing her from girlhood into womanhood, calling to her with imperious desires, with deathless loyalty.

CHAPTER XVIII

AFTER LENORE’S PAROXYSM of emotion had subsided and she lay quietly in the dark, she became aware of soft, hurried footfalls passing along the path below her window. At first she paid no particular heed to them, but at length the steady steps became so different in number, and so regular in passing every few moments, that she was interested to go to her window and look out. Watching there awhile, she saw a number of men, whispering and talking low, come from the road, pass under her window, and disappear down the path into the grove. Then no more came. Lenore feared at first these strange visitors might be prowling I.W.W. men. She concluded, however, that they were neighbors and farm-hands, come for secret conference with her father.

Important events were pending, and her father had not taken her into his confidence! It must be, then, something that he did not wish her to know. Only a week ago, when the I.W.W. menace had begun to be serious, she had asked him how he intended to meet it, and particularly how he would take sure measures to protect himself. Anderson had laughed down her fears, and Lenore, absorbed in her own tumult, had been easily satisfied. But now, with her curiosity there returned a two-fold dread.

She put on a cloak and went down-stairs. The hour was still early. She heard the girls with her mother in the sitting-room. As Lenore slipped out she encountered Jake. He appeared to loom right out of the darkness and he startled her.

“Howdy, Miss Lenore!” he said. “Where might you be goin’?”

“Jake, I’m curious about the men I heard passing by my window,” she replied. Then she observed that Jake had a rifle under his arm, and she added, “What are you doing with that gun?”

“Wal, I’ve sort of gone back to packin’ a Winchester,” replied Jake.

Lenore missed his smile, ever ready for her. Jake looked somber.

“You’re on guard!” she exclaimed.

“I reckon. There’s four of us boys round the house. You’re not goin’ off thet step, Miss Lenore.”

“Oh, ah-huh!” replied Lenore, imitating her father, and bantering Jake, more for the fun of it than from any intention of disobeying him. “Who’s going to keep me from it?”

“I am. Boss’s orders, Miss Lenore. I’m dog-gone sorry. But you sure oughtn’t to be outdoors this far,” replied Jake.

“Look here, my cowboy dictator. I’m going to see where those men went,” said Lenore, and forthwith she stepped down to the path.

Then Jake deliberately leaned his rifle against a post and, laying hold of her with no gentle hands, he swung her in one motion back upon the porch. The broad light streaming out of the open door showed that, whatever his force meant, it had paled his face to exercise it.

“Why, Jake — to handle me that way!” cried Lenore, in pretended reproach. She meant to frighten or coax the truth out of him. “You hurt me!”

“I’m beggin’ your pardon if I was rough,” said Jake. “Fact is, I’m a little upset an’ I mean bizness.”

Whereupon Lenore stepped back to close the door, and then, in the shadow, she returned to Jake and whispered: “I was only in fun. I would not think of disobeying you. But you can trust me. I’ll not tell, and I’ll worry less if I know what’s what.… Jake, is father in danger?”

“I reckon. But the best we could do was to make him stand fer a guard. There’s four of us cowpunchers with him all day, an’ at night he’s surrounded by guards. There ain’t much chance of his gittin’ hurt. So you needn’t worry about thet.”

“Who are these men I heard passing? Where are they from?”

“Farmers, ranchers, cowboys, from all over this side of the river.”

“There must have been a lot of them,” said Lenore, curiously.

“Reckon you never heerd the quarter of what’s come to attend Anderson’s meetin’.”

“What for? Tell me, Jake.”

The cowboy hesitated. Lenore heard his big hand slap round the rifle-stock.

“We’ve orders not to tell thet,” he replied.

“But, Jake, you can tell me. You always tell me secrets. I’ll not breathe it.”

Jake came closer to her, and his tall head reached to a level with hers, where she stood on the porch. Lenore saw his dark, set face, his gleaming eyes.

“Wal, it’s jest this here,” he whispered, hoarsely. “Your dad has organized vigilantes, like he belonged to in the early days.… An’ it’s the vigilantes thet will attend to this I.W.W. outfit.”

Those were thrilling words to Jake, as was attested by his emotion, and they surely made Lenore’s knees knock together. She had heard many stories from her father of that famous old vigilante band, secret, making the law where there was no law.

“Oh, I might have expected that of dad!” she murmured.

“Wal, it’s sure the trick out here. An’ your father’s the man to deal it. There’ll be dog-goned little wheat burned in this valley, you can gamble on thet.”

“I’m glad. I hate the very thought.… Jake, you know about Mr. Dorn’s misfortune?”

“No, I ain’t heerd about him. But I knowed the Bend was burnin’ over, an’ of course I reckoned Dorn would lose his wheat. Fact is, he had the only wheat up there worth savin’ … Wal, these I.W.W.’s an’ their German bosses hev put it all over the early days when rustlin’ cattle, holdin’ up stage-coaches, an’ jest plain cussedness was stylish.”

“Jake, I’d rather have lived back in the early days,” mused Lenore.

“Me too, though I ain’t no youngster,” he replied. “Reckon you’d better go in now, Miss Lenore.… Don’t you worry none or lose any sleep.”

Lenore bade the cowboy good-night and went to the sitting-room. Her mother sat preoccupied, with sad and thoughtful face. Rose was writing many pages to Jim. Kathleen sat at the table, surreptitiously eating while she was pretending to read.

“My, but you look funny, Lenorry!” she cried.

“Why don’t you laugh, then?” retorted Lenore.

“You’re white. Your eyes are big and purple. You look like a starved cannibal.… If that’s what it’s like to be in love — excuse me — I’ll never fall for any man!”

“You ought to be in bed. Mother I recommend the baby of the family be sent up-stairs.”

“Yes, child, it’s long past your bedtime,” said Mrs. Anderson.

“Aw, no!” wailed Kathleen.

“Yes,” ordered her mother.

“But you’d never thought of it — if Lenorry hadn’t said so,” replied Kathleen.

“You should obey Lenore,” reprovingly said Mrs. Anderson.

“What? Me! Mind her!” burst out Kathleen, hotly, as she got up to go. “Well, I guess not!” Kathleen backed to the door and opened it. Then making a frightful face at Lenore, most expressive of ridicule and revenge, she darted up-stairs.

“My dear, will you write to your brother?” inquired Mrs. Anderson.

“Yes,” replied Lenore. “I’ll send mine with Rose’s.”

Mrs. Anderson bade the girls good-night and left the room. After that nothing was heard for a while except the scratching of pens.

It was late when Lenore retired, yet she found sleep elusive. The evening had made subtle, indefinable changes in her. She went over in mind all that had been said to her and which she felt, with the result that one thing remained to torment and perplex and thrill her — to keep Kurt Dorn from going to war.

Next day Lenore did not go out to the harvest fields. She expected Dorn might arrive at any time, and she wanted to be there when he came. Yet she dreaded the meeting. She had to keep her hands active that day, so in some measure to control her mind. A thousand times she felt herself on the verge of thrilling and flushing. Her fancy and imagination seemed wonderfully active. The day was more than usually golden, crowned with an azure blue, like the blue of the Pacific. She worked in her room, helped her mother, took up her knitting, and sewed upon a dress, and even lent a hand in the kitchen. But action could not wholly dull the song in her heart. She felt unutterably young, as if life had just opened, with haunting, limitless, beautiful possibilities. Never had the harvest-time been so sweet.

Anderson came in early from the fields that day. He looked like a farm-hand, with his sweaty shirt, his dusty coat, his begrimed face. And when he kissed Lenore he left a great smear on her cheek.

“That’s a harvest kiss, my lass,” he said, with his big laugh. “Best of the whole year!”

“It sure is, dad,” she replied. “But I’ll wait till you wash your face before I return it. How’s the harvest going?”

“We had trouble to-day,” he said.

“What happened?”

“Nothin’ much, but it was annoyin’. We had some machines crippled, an’ it took most of the day to fix them.… We’ve got a couple of hundred hands at work. Some of them are I.W.W.’s, that’s sure. But they all swear they are not an’ we have no way to prove it. An’ we couldn’t catch them at their tricks.… All the same, we’ve got half your big wheat-field cut. A thousand acres, Lenore!… Some of the wheat ‘ll go forty bushels to the acre, but mostly under that.”

“Better than last harvest,” Lenore replied, gladly. “We are lucky.… Father, did you hear any news from the Bend?”

“Sure did,” he replied, and patted her head. “They sent me a message up from Vale.… Young Dorn wired from Kilo he’d be here to-day.”

“To-day!” echoed Lenore, and her heart showed a tendency to act strangely.

“Yep. He’ll be here soon,” said Anderson, cheerfully. “Tell your mother. Mebbe he’ll come for supper. An’ have a room ready for him.”

“Yes, father,” replied Lenore.

“Wal, if Dorn sees you as you look now — sleeves rolled up, apron on, flour on your nose — a regular farmer girl — an’ sure huggable, as Jake says — you won’t have no trouble winnin’ him.”

“How you talk!” exclaimed Lenore, with burning cheeks. She ran to her room and made haste to change her dress.

But Dorn did not arrive in time for supper. Eight o’clock came without his appearing, after which, with keen disappointment, Lenore gave up expecting him that night. She was in her father’s study, helping him with the harvest notes and figures, when Jake knocked and entered.

“Dorn’s here,” he announced.

“Good. Fetch him in,” replied Anderson.

“Father, I — I’d rather go,” whispered Lenore.

“You stay right along by your dad,” was his reply, “an’ be a real Anderson.”

When Lenore heard Dorn’s step in the hall the fluttering ceased in her heart and she grew calm. How glad she would be to see him! It had been the suspense of waiting that had played havoc with her feelings.

Then Dorn entered with Jake. The cowboy set down a bag and went out. He seemed strange to Lenore and very handsome in his gray flannel suit.

As he stepped forward in greeting Lenore saw how white he was, how tragic his eyes. There had come a subtle change in his face. It hurt her.

“Miss Anderson, I’m glad to see you,” he said, and a flash of red stained his white cheeks. “How are you?”

“Very well, thank you,” she replied, offering her hand. “I’m glad to see you.”

They shook hands, while Anderson boomed out: “Hello, son! I sure am glad to welcome you to ‘Many Waters.’”

No doubt as to the rancher’s warm and hearty greeting! It warmed some of the coldness out of Dorn’s face.

“Thank you. It’s good to come — yet it’s — it’s hard.”

Lenore saw his throat swell. His voice seemed low and full of emotion.

“Bad news to tell,” said Anderson. “Wal, forget it.… Have you had supper?”

“Yes. At Huntington. I’d have been here sooner, but we punctured a tire. My driver said the I.W.W. was breaking bottles on the roads.”

“I.W.W. Now where’d I ever hear that name?” asked Anderson, quizzically. “Bustin’ bottles, hey! Wal, they’ll be bustin’ their heads presently.… Sit down, Dorn. You look fine, only you’re sure pale.”

“I lost my father,” said Dorn.

“What! Your old man? Dead?… Aw, that’s tough!”

Lenore felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to go to Dorn. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she said.

“That is a surprise,” went on Anderson, rather huskily. “My Lord! But it’s only round the corner for every man.… Come on, tell us all about it, an’ the rest of the bad news.… Get it over. Then, mebbe Lenore n’ me—”

But Anderson did not conclude his last sentence.

Dorn’s face began to work as he began to talk, and his eyes were dark and deep, burning with gloom.

“Bad news it is, indeed.… Mr. Anderson, the I.W.W. marked us.… You’ll remember your suggestion about getting my neighbors to harvest our wheat in a rush. I went all over, and almost all of them came. We had been finding phosphorus everywhere. Then, on the hot day, fires broke out all around. My neighbors left their own burning fields to save ours. We fought fire. We fought fire all around us, late into the night.… My father had grown furious, maddened at the discovery of how he had been betrayed by Glidden. You remember the — the plot, in which some way my father was involved. He would not believe the I.W.W. meant to burn his wheat. And when the fires broke out he worked like a mad-man.… It killed him!… I was not with him when he died. But Jerry, our foreman was.… And my father’s last words were, ‘Tell my son I was wrong.’… Thank God he sent me that message! I think in that he confessed the iniquity of the Germans.… Well, my neighbor, Olsen, managed the harvest. He sure rushed it. I’d have given a good deal for you and Miss Anderson to have seen all those big combines at work on one field. It was great. We harvested over thirty-eight thousand bushels and got all the wheat safely to the elevators at the station.… And that night the I.W.W. burned the elevators!”

Anderson’s face turned purple. He appeared about to explode. There was a deep rumbling within his throat that Lenore knew to be profanity restrained on account of her presence. As for her own feelings, they were a strange mixture of sadness for Dorn and pride in her father’s fury, and something unutterably sweet in the revelation about to be made to this unfortunate boy. But she could not speak a word just then, and it appeared that her father was in the same state.

Evidently the telling of his story had relieved Dorn. The strain relaxed in his white face and it lost a little of its stern fixity. He got up and, opening his bag, he took out some papers.

“Mr. Anderson, I’d like to settle all this right now,” he said. “I want it off my mind.”

“Go ahead, son, an’ settle,” replied Anderson, thickly. He heaved a big sigh and then sat down, fumbling for a match to light his cigar. When he got it lighted he drew in a big breath and with it manifestly a great draught of consoling smoke.

“I want to make over the — the land — in fact, all the property — to you — to settle mortgage and interest,” went on Dorn, earnestly, and then paused.

“All right. I expected that,” returned Anderson, as he emitted a cloud of smoke.

“The only thing is—” here Dorn hesitated, evidently with difficult speech— “the property is worth more than the debt.”

“Sure. I know,” said Anderson, encouragingly.

“I promised our neighbors big money to harvest our wheat. You remember you told me to offer it. Well, they left their own wheat and barley fields to burn, and they saved ours. And then they harvested it and hauled it to the railroad.… I owe Andrew Olsen fifteen thousand dollars for himself and the men who worked with him.… If I could pay that — I’d — almost be happy.… Do you think my property is worth that much more than the debt?”

“I think it is — just about,” replied Anderson. “We’ll mail the money to Olsen.… Lenore, write out a check to Andrew Olsen for fifteen thousand.”

Lenore’s hand trembled as she did as her father directed. It was the most poorly written check she had ever drawn. Her heart seemed too big for her breast just then. How cool and calm her father was! Never had she loved him quite so well as then. When she looked up from her task it was to see a change in Kurt Dorn that suddenly dimmed her eyes.

“There, send this to Olsen,” said Anderson. “We’ll run into town in a day or so an’ file the papers.”

Lenore had to turn her gaze away from Dorn. She heard him in broken, husky accents try to express his gratitude.

“Ah-huh! Sure — sure!” interrupted Anderson, hastily. “Now listen to me. Things ain’t so bad as they look.… For instance, we’re goin’ to fool the I.W.W. down here in the valley.”

“How can you? There are so many,” returned Dorn.

“You’ll see. We’re just waitin’ a chance.”

“I saw hundreds of I.W.W. men between her and Kilo.”

“Can you tell an I.W.W. from any other farm-hand?” asked Anderson.

“Yes, I can,” replied Dorn, grimly.

“Wal, I reckon we need you round here powerful much,” said the rancher, dryly. “Dorn, I’ve got a big proposition to put up to you.”

Lenore, thrilling at her father’s words, turned once more. Dorn appeared more composed.

“Have you?” he inquired, in surprise.

“Sure. But there’s no hurry about tellin’ you. Suppose we put it off.”

“I’d rather hear it now. My stay here must be short. I — I — You know—”

“Hum! Sure I know.… Wal then, it’s this: Will you go in business with me? Want you to work that Bend wheat-farm of yours for me — on half shares.… More particular I want you to take charge of ‘Many Waters.’ You see, I’m — not so spry as I used to be. It’s a big job, an’ I’ve a lot of confidence in you. You’ll live here, of course, an’ run to an’ fro with one of my cars. I’ve some land-development schemes — an’, to cut it short, there’s a big place waitin’ for you in the Northwest.”

“Mr. Anderson!” cried Dorn, in a kind of rapturous amaze. Red burned out the white of his face. “That’s great! It’s too great to come true. You’re good!… If I’m lucky enough to come back from the war—”

“Son, you’re not goin’ to war!” interposed Anderson.

“What!” exclaimed Dorn, blankly. He stared as if he had not heard aright.

Anderson calmly repeated his assertion. He was smiling; he looked kind; but underneath that showed the will that had made him what he was.

“But I am!” flashed the young man, as if he had been misunderstood.

“Listen. You’re like all boys — hot-headed an’ hasty. Let me talk a little,” resumed Anderson. And he began to speak of the future of the Northwest. He painted that in the straight talk of a farmer who knew, but what he predicted seemed like a fairy-tale. Then he passed to the needs of the government and the armies, and lastly the people of the nation. All depended upon the farmer! Wheat was indeed the staff of life and of victory! Young Dorn was one of the farmers who could not be spared. Patriotism was a noble thing. Fighting, however, did not alone constitute a duty and loyalty to the nation. This was an economic war, a war of peoples, and the nation that was the best fed would last longest. Adventure and the mistaken romance of war called indeed to all red-blooded young Americans. It was good that they did call. But they should not call the young farmer from his wheat-fields.

“But I’ve been drafted!” Dorn spoke with agitation. He seemed bewildered by Anderson’s blunt eloquence. His intelligence evidently accepted the elder man’s argument, but something instinctive revolted.

“There’s exemption, my boy. Easy in your case,” replied Anderson.

“Exemption!” echoed Dorn, and a dark tide of blood rose to his temples. “I wouldn’t — I couldn’t ask for that!”

“You don’t need to,” said the rancher. “Dorn, do you recollect that Washington official who called on you some time ago?”

“Yes,” replied Dorn, slowly.

“Did he say anythin’ about exemption?”

“No. He asked me if I wanted it, that’s all.”

“Wal, you had it right then. I took it upon myself to get exemption for you. That government official heartily approved of my recommendin’ exemption for you. An’ he gave it.”

“Anderson! You took — it upon — yourself—” gasped Dorn, slowly rising. If he had been white-faced before, he was ghastly now.

“Sure I did.… Good Lord! Dorn, don’t imagine I ever questioned your nerve.… It’s only you’re not needed — or rather, you’re needed more at home.… I let my son Jim go to war. That’s enough for one family!”

But Dorn did not grasp the significance of Anderson’s reply.

“How dared you? What right had you?” he demanded passionately.

“No right at all, lad,” replied Anderson. “I just recommended it an’ the official approved it.”

“But I refuse!” cried Dorn, with ringing fury. “I won’t accept exemption.”

“Talk sense now, even if you are mad,” returned Anderson, rising. “I’ve paid you a high compliment, young man, an’ offered you a lot. More ‘n you see, I guess.… Why won’t you accept exemption?”

“I’m going to war!” was the grim, hard reply.

“But you’re needed here. You’d be more of a soldier here. You could do more for your country than if you gave a hundred lives. Can’t you see that?”

“Yes, I can,” assented Dorn, as if forced.

“You’re no fool, an’ you’re a loyal American. Your duty is to stay home an’ raise wheat.”

“I’ve a duty to myself,” returned Dorn, darkly.

“Son, your fortune stares you right in the face — here. Are you goin’ to turn from it?”

“Yes.”

“You want to get in that war? You’ve got to fight?”

“Yes.”

“Ah-huh!” Anderson threw up his hands in surrender. “Got to kill some Germans, hey?… Why not come out to my harvest fields an’ hog-stick a few of them German I.W.W.’s?”

Dorn had no reply for that.

“Wal, I’m dog-gone sorry,” resumed Anderson. “I see it’s a tough place for you, though I can’t understand. You’ll excuse me for mixin’ in your affairs.… An’ now, considerin’ other ways I’ve really helped you, I hope you’ll stay at my home for a few days. We all owe you a good deal. My family wants to make up to you. Will you stay?”

“Thank you — yes — for a few days,” replied Dorn.

“Good! That’ll help some. Mebbe, after runnin’ around ‘Many Waters’ with Le — with the girls — you’ll begin to be reasonable. I hope so.”

“You think me ungrateful!” exclaimed Dorn, shrinking.

“I don’t think nothin’,” replied Anderson. “I turn you over to Lenore.” He laughed as he pronounced Dorn’s utter defeat. And his look at Lenore was equivalent to saying the issue now depended upon her, and that he had absolutely no doubt of its outcome. “Lenore, take him in to meet mother an’ the girls, an’ entertain him. I’ve got work to do.”

Lenore felt the blushes in her cheeks and was glad Dorn did not look at her. He seemed locked in somber thought. As she touched him and bade him come he gave a start; then he followed her into the hall. Lenore closed her father’s door, and the instant she stood alone with Dorn a wonderful calmness came to her.

“Miss Anderson, I’d rather not — not meet your mother and sisters to-night,” said Dorn. “I’m upset. Won’t it be all right to wait till to-morrow?”

“Surely. But I think they’ve gone to bed,” replied Lenore, as she glanced into the dark sitting-room. “So they have.… Come, let us go into the parlor.”

Lenore turned on the shaded lights in the beautiful room. How inexplicable was the feeling of being alone with him, yet utterly free of the torment that had possessed her before! She seemed to have divined an almost insurmountable obstacle in Dorn’s will. She did not have her father’s assurance. It made her tremble to realize her responsibility — that her father’s earnest wishes and her future of love or woe depended entirely upon what she said and did. But she felt that indeed she had become a woman. And it would take a woman’s wit and charm and love to change this tragic boy.

“Miss — Anderson,” he began, brokenly, with restraint let down, “your father — doesn’t understand. I’ve got to go.… And even if I am spared — I couldn’t ever come back.… To work for him — all the time in love with you — I couldn’t stand it.… He’s so good. I know I could care for him, too.… Oh, I thought I was bitterly resigned — hard — inhuman. But all this makes it — so — so much worse.”

He sat down heavily, and, completely unnerved, he covered his face with his hands. His shoulders heaved and short, strangled sobs broke from him.

Lenore had to overcome a rush of tenderness. It was all she could do to keep from dropping to her knees beside him and slipping her arms around his neck. In her agitation she could not decide whether that would be womanly or not; only, she must make no mistakes. A hot, sweet flush went over her when she thought that always as a last resort she could reveal her secret and use her power. What would he do when he discovered she loved him?

“Kurt, I understand,” she said, softly, and put a hand on his shoulder. And she stood thus beside him, sadly troubled, vaguely divining that her presence was helpful, until he recovered his composure. As he raised his head and wiped tears from his eyes he made no excuses for his weakness, nor did he show any shame.

“Miss Anderson—” he began.

“Please call me Lenore. I feel so — so stiff when you are formal. My friends call me Lenore,” she said.

“You mean — you consider me your friend?” he queried.

“Indeed I do,” she replied, smiling.

“I — I’m afraid I misunderstood your asking me to visit you,” he said. “I thank you. I’m proud and glad that you call me your friend. It will be splendid to remember — when I am over there.”

“I wonder if we could talk of anything except trouble and war,” replied Lenore, plaintively. “If we can’t, then let’s look at the bright side.”

“Is there a bright side?” he asked, with his sad smile.

“Every cloud, you know.… For instance, if you go to war—”

“Not if. I am going,” he interrupted.

“Oh, so you say,” returned Lenore, softly. And she felt deep in her the inception of a tremendous feminine antagonism. It stirred along her pulse. “Have your own way, then. But I say, if you go, think how fine it will be for me to get letters from you at the front — and to write you!”

“You’d like to hear from me?… You would answer?” he asked, breathlessly.

“Assuredly. And I’ll knit socks for you.”

“You’re — very good,” he said, with strong feeling.

Lenore again saw his eyes dim. How strangely sensitive he was! If he exaggerated such a little kindness as she had suggested, if he responded to it with such emotion, what would he do when the great and marvelous truth of her love was flung in his face? The very thought made Lenore weak.

“You’ll go to training-camp,” went on Lenore, “and because of your wonderful physique and your intelligence you will get a commission. Then you’ll go to — France.” Lenore faltered a little in her imagined prospect. “You’ll be in the thick of the great battles. You’ll give and take. You’ll kill some of those — those — Germans. You’ll be wounded and you’ll be promoted.… Then the Allies will win. Uncle Sam’s grand army will have saved the world.… Glorious!… You’ll come back — home to us — to take the place dad offered you.… There! that is the bright side.”

Indeed, the brightness seemed reflected in Dorn’s face.

“I never dreamed you could be like this,” he said, wonderingly.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know just what I mean. Only you’re different from my — my fancies. Not cold or — or proud.”

“You’re beginning to get acquainted with me, that’s all. After you’ve been here awhile—”

“Please don’t make it so hard for me,” he interrupted, appealingly. “I can’t stay.”

“Don’t you want to?” she asked.

“Yes. And I will stay a couple of days. But no longer. It’ll be hard enough to go then.”

“Perhaps I — we’ll make it so hard for you that you can’t go.”

Then he gazed piercingly at her, as if realizing a will opposed to his, a conviction not in sympathy with his.

“You’re going to keep this up — this trying to change my mind?”

“I surely am,” she replied, both wistfully and wilfully.

“Why? I should think you’d respect my sense of duty.”

“Your duty is more here than at the front. The government man said so. My father believes it. So do I.… You have some other — other thing you think duty.”

“I hate Germans!” he burst out, with a dark and terrible flash.

“Who does not?” she flashed back at him, and she rose, feeling as if drawn by a powerful current. She realized then that she must be prepared any moment to be overwhelmed by the inevitable climax of this meeting. But she prayed for a little more time. She fought her emotions.

She saw him tremble. “Lenore, I’d better run off in the night,” he said.

Instinctively, with swift, soft violence, she grasped his hands. Perhaps the moment had come. She was not afraid, but the suddenness of her extremity left her witless.

“You would not!… That would be unkind — not like you at all.… To run off without giving me a chance — without good-by!… Promise me you will not.”

“I promise,” he replied, wearily, as if nonplussed by her attitude. “You said you understood me. But I can’t understand you.”

She released his hands and turned away. “I promise — that you shall understand — very soon.”

“You feel sorry for me. You pity me. You think I’ll only be cannon-fodder for the Germans. You want to be nice, kind, sweet to me — to send me away with better thoughts.… Isn’t that what you think?”

He was impatient, almost angry. His glance blazed at her. All about him, his tragic face, his sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold on to his manliness and to keep his faith in nobler thoughts — these challenged Lenore’s compassion, her love, and her woman’s combative spirit to save and to keep her own. She quivered again on the brink of betraying herself. And it was panic alone that held her back.

“Kurt — I think — presently I’ll give you the surprise of your life,” she replied, and summoned a smile.

How obtuse he was! How blind! Perhaps the stress of his emotion, the terrible sense of his fate, left him no keenness, no outward penetration. He answered her smile, as if she were a child whose determined kindness made him both happy and sad.

“I dare say you will,” he replied. “You Andersons are full of surprises.… But I wish you would not do any more for me. I am like a dog. The kinder you are to me the more I love you.… How dreadful to go away to war — to violence and blood and death — to all that’s brutalizing — with my heart and mind full of love for a noble girl like you! — If I come to love you any more I’ll not be a man.”

To Lenore he looked very much of a man, so tall and lithe and white-faced, with his eyes of fire, his simplicity, and his tragic refusal of all that was for most men the best of life. Whatever his ideal, it was magnificent. Lenore had her chance then, but she was absolutely unable to grasp it. Her blood beat thick and hot. If she could only have been sure of herself! Or was it that she still cared too much for herself? The moment had not come. And in her tumult there was a fleeting fury at Dorn’s blindness, at his reverence of her, that he dare not touch her hand. Did he imagine she was stone?

“Let us say good night,” she said. “You are worn out. And I am — not just myself. To-morrow we’ll be — good friends.… Father will take you to your room.”

Dorn pressed the hand she offered, and, saying good-night, he followed her to the hall. Lenore tapped on the door of her father’s study, then opened it.

“Good night, dad. I’m going up,” she said. “Will you look after Kurt?”

“Sure. Come in, son,” replied her father.

Lenore felt Dorn’s strange, intent gaze upon her as she passed him. Lightly she ran up-stairs and turned at the top. The hall was bright and Dorn stood full in the light, his face upturned. It still wore the softer expression of those last few moments. Lenore waved her hand, and he smiled. The moment was natural. Youth to youth! Lenore felt it. She marveled that he did not. A sweet devil of wilful coquetry possessed her.

“Oh, did you say you wouldn’t go?” she softly called.

“I said only good night,” he replied.

“If you don’t go, then you will never be General Dorn, will you? What a pity!”

“I’ll go. And then it will be— ‘Private Dorn — missing. No relatives,’” he replied.

That froze Lenore. Her heart quaked. She gazed down upon him with all her soul in her eyes. She knew it and did not care. But he could not see.

“Good night, Kurt Dorn,” she called, and ran to her room.

Composure did not come to her until she was ready for bed, with the light out and in her old seat at the window. Night and silence and starlight always lent Lenore strength. She prayed to them now and to the spirit she knew dwelt beyond them. And then she whispered what her intelligence told her was an unalterable fact — Kurt Dorn could never be changed. But her sympathy and love and passion, all that was womanly emotion, stormed at her intelligence and refused to listen to it.

Nothing short of a great shock would divert Dorn from his tragic headlong rush toward the fate he believed unalterable. Lenore sensed a terrible, sinister earnestness in him. She could not divine its meaning. But it was such a driving passion that no man possessing it and free to the violence of war could ever escape death. Even if by superhuman strife, and the guidance of Providence, he did escape death, he would have lost something as precious as life. If Dorn went to war at all — if he ever reached those blood-red trenches, in the thick of fire and shriek and ferocity — there to express in horrible earnestness what she vaguely felt yet could not define — then so far as she was concerned she imagined that she would not want him to come back.

That was the strength of spirit that breathed out of the night and the silence to her. Dorn would go to war as no ordinary soldier, to obey, to fight, to do his duty; but for some strange, unfathomable obsession of his own. And, therefore, if he went at all he was lost. War, in its inexplicable horror, killed the souls of endless hordes of men. Therefore, if he went at all she, too, was lost to the happiness that might have been hers. She would never love another man. She could never marry. She would never have a child.

So his soul and her happiness were in the balance weighed against a woman’s power. It seemed to Lenore that she felt hopelessly unable to carry the issue to victory; and yet, on the other hand, a tumultuous and wonderful sweetness of sensation called to her, insidiously, of the infallible potency of love. What could she do to save Dorn’s life and his soul? There was only one answer to that. She would do anything. She must make him love her to the extent that he would have no will to carry out this desperate intent. There was little time to do that. The gradual growth of affection through intimacy and understanding was not possible here. It must come as a flash of lightning. She must bewilder him with the revelation of her love, and then by all its incalculable power hold him there.

It was her father’s wish; it would be the salvation of Dorn; it meant all to her. But if to keep him there would make him a slacker, Lenore swore she would die before lifting her lips to his. The government would rather he stayed to raise wheat than go out and fight men. Lenore saw the sanity, the cardinal importance of that, as her father saw it. So from all sides she was justified. And sitting there in the darkness and silence, with the cool wind in her face, she vowed she would be all woman, all sweetness, all love, all passion, all that was feminine and terrible, to keep Dorn from going to war.

CHAPTER XIX

LENORE AWAKENED EARLY. The morning seemed golden. Birds were singing at her window. What did that day hold in store for her? She pressed a hand hard on her heart as if to hold it still. But her heart went right on, swift, exultant, throbbing with a fullness that was almost pain.

Early as she awakened, it was, nevertheless, late when she could direct her reluctant steps down-stairs. She had welcomed every little suggestion and task to delay the facing of her ordeal.

There was merriment in the sitting-room, and Dorn’s laugh made her glad. The girls were at him, and her father’s pleasant, deep voice chimed in. Evidently there was a controversy as to who should have the society of the guest. They had all been to breakfast. Mrs. Anderson expressed surprise at Lenore’s tardiness, and said she had been called twice. Lenore had heard nothing except the birds and the music of her thoughts. She peeped into the sitting-room.

“Didn’t you bring me anything?” Kathleen was inquiring of Dorn.

Dorn was flushed and smiling. Anderson stood beaming upon them, and Rose appeared to be inclined toward jealousy.

“Why — you see — I didn’t even know Lenore had a little sister,” Dorn explained.

“Oh!” exclaimed Kathleen, evidently satisfied. “All Lenorry’s beaux bring me things. But I believe I’m going to like you best.”

Lenore had intended to say good morning. She changed her mind, however, at Kathleen’s naïve speech, and darted back lest she be seen. She felt the blood hot in her cheeks. That awful, irrepressible Kathleen! If she liked Dorn she would take possession of him. And Kathleen was lovable, irresistible. Lenore had a sudden thought that Kathleen would aid the good cause if she could be enlisted. While Lenore ate her breakfast she listened to the animated conversation in the sitting-room. Presently her father came in.

“Hello, Lenore! Did you get up?” he greeted her, cheerily.

“I hardly ever did, it seems.… Dad, the day was something to face,” she said.

“Ah-huh! It’s like getting up to work. Lenore, the biggest duty of life is to hide your troubles.… Dorn looks like a human bein’ this mornin’. The kids have won him. I reckon he needs that sort of cheer. Let them have him. Then after a while you fetch him out to the wheat-field. Lenore, our harvestin’ is half done. Every day I’ve expected some trick or deviltry. But it hasn’t come yet.”

“Are any of the other ranchers having trouble?” she inquired.

“I hear rumors of bad work. But facts told by ranchers an’ men who were here only yesterday make little of the rumors. All that burnin’ of wheat an’ timber, an’ the destruction of machines an’ strikin’ of farm-hands, haven’t hit Golden Valley yet. We won’t need any militia here, you can bet on that.”

“Father, it won’t do to be over-confident,” she said, earnestly. “You know you are the mark for the I.W.W. sabotage. If you are not careful — any moment—”

Lenore paused with a shudder.

“Lass, I’m just like I was in the old rustlin’ days. An’ I’ve surrounded myself with cowboys like Jake an’ Bill, an’ old hands who pack guns an’ keep still, as in the good old Western days. We’re just waitin’ for the I.W.W.’s to break loose.”

“Then what?” queried Lenore.

“Wal, we’ll chase that outfit so fast it’ll be lost in dust,” he replied.

“But if you chase them away, it ‘ll only be into another state, where they’ll make trouble for other farmers. You don’t do any real good.”

“My dear, I reckon you’ve said somethin’ strong,” he replied, soberly, and went out.

Then Kathleen came bouncing in. Her beautiful eyes were full of mischief and excitement. “Lenorry, your new beau has all the others skinned to a frazzle,” she said.

For once Lenore did not scold Kathleen, but drew her close and whispered: “Do you want to please me? Do you want me to do everything for you?”

“I sure do,” replied Kathleen, with wonderful eyes.

“Then be nice, sweet, good to him.… make him love you.… Don’t tease him about my other beaux. Think how you can make him like ‘Many Waters.’”

“Will you promise — everything?” whispered Kathleen, solemnly. Evidently Lenore’s promises were rare and reliable.

“Yes. Cross my heart. There! And you must not tell.”

Kathleen was a precocious child, with all the potentialities of youth. She could not divine Lenore’s motive, but she sensed a new and fascinating mode of conduct for herself. She seemed puzzled a little at Lenore’s earnestness.

“It’s a bargain,” she said, soberly, as if she had accepted no slight gauge.

“Now, Kathleen, take him all over the gardens, the orchards, the corrals and barns,” directed Lenore. “Be sure to show him the horses — my horses, especially. Take him round the reservoir — and everywhere except the wheat-fields. I want to take him there myself. Besides, father does not want you girls to go out to the harvest.”

Kathleen nodded and ran back to the sitting-room. Lenore heard them all go out together. Before she finished breakfast her mother came in again.

“Lenore, I like Mr. Dorn,” she said, meditatively. “He has an old-fashioned manner that reminds me of my boy friends when I was a girl. I mean he’s more courteous and dignified than boys are nowadays. A splendid-looking boy, too. Only his face is so sad. When he smiles he seems another person.”

“No wonder he’s sad,” replied Lenore, and briefly told Kurt Dorn’s story.

“Ah!” sighed Mrs. Anderson. “We have fallen upon evil days.… Poor boy!… Your father seems much interested in him. And you are too, my daughter?”

“Yes, I am,” replied Lenore, softly.

Two hours later she heard Kathleen’s gay laughter and pattering feet. Lenore took her wide-brimmed hat and went out on the porch. Dorn was indeed not the same somber young man he had been.

“Good morning, Kurt,” said Lenore, extending her hand.

The instant he greeted her she saw the stiffness, the aloofness had gone from him. Kathleen had made him feel at home. He looked younger. There was color in his face.

“Kathleen, I’ll take charge of Mr. Dorn now, if you will allow me that pleasure.”

“Lenorry, I sure hate to give him up. We sure had a fine time.”

“Did he like ‘Many Waters’?”

“Well, if he didn’t he’s a grand fibber,” replied Kathleen. “But he did. You can’t fool me. I thought I’d never get him back to the house.” Then, as she tripped up the porch steps, she shook a finger at Dorn. “Remember!”

“I’ll never forget,” said Dorn, and he was as earnest as he was amiable. Then, as she disappeared, he exclaimed to Lenore, “What an adorable little girl!”

“Do you like Kathleen?”

“Like her!” Dorn laughed in a way to make light of such words. “My life has been empty. I see that.”

“Come, we’ll go out to the wheat-fields,” said Lenore. “What do you think of ‘Many Waters’? This is harvest-time. You see ‘Many Waters’ at its very best.”

“I can hardly tell you,” he replied. “All my life I’ve lived on my barren hills. I seem to have come to another world. ‘Many Waters’ is such a ranch as I never dreamed of. The orchards, the fruit, the gardens — and everywhere running water! It all smells so fresh and sweet. And then the green and red and purple against that background of blazing gold!… ‘Many Waters’ is verdant and fruitful. The Bend is desert.”

“Now that you’ve been here, do you like it better than your barren hills?” asked Lenore.

Kurt hesitated. “I don’t know,” he answered, slowly. “But maybe that desert I’ve lived in accounts for much I lack.”

“Would you like to stay at ‘Many Waters’ — if you weren’t going to war?”

“I might prefer ‘Many Waters’ to any place on earth. It’s a paradise. But I would not chose to stay here.”

“Why? When you return — you know — my father will need you here. And if anything should happen to him I will have to run the ranch. Then I would need you.”

Dorn stopped in his tracks and gazed at her as if there were slight misgivings in his mind.

“Lenore, if you owned this ranch would you want me — me for your manager?” he asked, bluntly.

“Yes,” she replied.

“You would? Knowing I was in love with you?”

“Well, I had forgotten that,” she replied, with a little laugh. “It would be rather embarrassing — and funny, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would,” he said, grimly, and walked on again. He made a gesture of keen discomfiture. “I knew you hadn’t taken me seriously.”

“I believed you, but I could not take you very seriously,” she murmured.

“Why not?” he demanded, as if stung, and his eyes flashed on her.

“Because your declaration was not accompanied by the usual — question — that a girl naturally expects under such circumstances.”

“Good Heaven! You say that?… Lenore Anderson, you think me insincere because I did not ask you to marry me,” he asserted, with bitter pathos.

“No. I merely said you were not — very serious,” she replied. It was fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she drove him to desperation she would reward him.

“I am going to war,” he began, passionately, “to fight for you and your sisters.… I am ruined.… The only noble and holy feeling left to me — that I can have with me in the dark hours — is my love for you. If you do not believe that, I am indeed the most miserable of beggars! Most boys going to the front leave many behind whom they love. I have no one but you.… don’t make me a coward.”

“I believe you. Forgive me,” she said.

“If I had asked you to marry me — me — why, I’d have been a selfish, egotistical fool. You are far above me. And I want you to know I know it.… But even if I had not — had the blood I have — even if I had been prosperous instead of ruined, I’d never have asked you, unless I came back whole from the war.”

They had been walking out the lane during this conversation and had come close to the wheat-field. The day was hot, but pleasant, the dry wind being laden with harvest odors. The hum of the machines was like the roar in a flour-mill.

“If you go to war — and come back whole — ?” began Lenore, tantalizingly. She meant to have no mercy upon him. It was incredible how blind he was. Yet how glad that made her. He resembled his desert hills, barren of many little things, but rich in hidden strength, heroic of mold.

“Then just to add one more to the conquests girls love I’ll — I’ll propose to you,” he declared, banteringly.

“Beware, boy! I might accept you,” she exclaimed.

His play was short-lived. He could not be gay, even under her influence.

“Please don’t jest,” he said, frowning. “Can’t we talk of something besides love and war?”

“They seem to be popular just now,” she replied, audaciously. “Anyway, all’s fair — you know.”

“No, it is not fair,” he returned, low-voiced and earnest. “So once for all let me beg of you, don’t jest. Oh, I know you’re sweet. You’re full of so many wonderful, surprising words and looks. I can’t understand you.… But I beg of you, don’t make me a fool!”

“Well, if you pay such compliments and if I — want them — what then? You are very original, very gallant, Mr. Kurt Dorn, and I — I rather like you.”

“I’ll get angry with you,” he threatened.

“You couldn’t.… I’m the only girl you’re going to leave behind — and if you got angry I’d never write to you.”

It thrilled Lenore and wrung her heart to see how her talk affected him. He was in a torment. He believed she spoke lightly, girlishly, to tease him — that she was only a gay-hearted girl, fancy-free and just a little proud of her conquest over even him.

“I surrender. Say what you like,” he said, resignedly. “I’ll stand anything — just to get your letters.”

“If you go I’ll write as often as you want me to,” she replied.

With that they emerged upon the harvest-field. Machines and engines dotted the golden slope, and wherever they were located stood towering straw-stacks. Horses and men and wagons were strung out as far as the eye could see. Long streams of chaff and dust and smoke drifted upward.

“Lenore, there’s trouble in the very air,” said Dorn. “Look!”

She saw a crowd of men gathering round one of the great combine-harvesters. Some one was yelling.

“Let’s stay away from trouble,” replied Lenore. “We’ve enough of our own.”

“I’m going over there,” declared Dorn. “Perhaps you’d better wait for me — or go back.”

“Well! You’re the first boy who ever—”

“Come on,” he interrupted, with grim humor. “I’d rather enjoy your seeing me break loose — as I will if there’s any I.W.W. trickery.”

Before they got to the little crowd Lenore both heard and saw her father. He was in a rage and not aware of her presence. Jake and Bill, the cowboys, hovered over him. Anderson strode to and fro, from one side of the harvester to the other. Lenore did not recognize any of the harvest-hands, and even the driver was new to her. They were not a typical Western harvest crew, that was certain. She did not like their sullen looks, and Dorn’s muttered imprecation, the moment he neared them, confirmed her own opinion.

Anderson’s foreman stood gesticulating, pale and anxious of face.

“No, I don’t hold you responsible,” roared the rancher. “But I want action.… I want to know why this machine’s broke down.”

“It was in perfect workin’ order,” declared the foreman. “I don’t know why it broke down.”

“That’s the fourth machine in two days. No accident, I tell you,” shouted Anderson. Then he espied Dorn and waved a grimy hand. “Come here, Dorn,” he called, and stepped out of the group of dusty men. “Somethin’ wrong here. This new harvester’s broke down. It’s a McCormack an’ new to us. But it has worked great an’ I jest believe it’s been tampered with… Do you know these McCormack harvesters?”

“Yes. They’re reliable,” replied Dorn.

“Ah-huh! Wal, get your coat off an’ see what’s been done to this one.”

Dorn took off his coat and was about to throw it down, when Lenore held out her hand for it.

“Unhitch the horses,” said Dorn.

Anderson gave this order, which was complied with. Then Dorn disappeared around or under the big machine.

“Lenore, I’ll bet he tells us somethin’ in a minute,” said Anderson to her. “These new claptraps are beyond me. I’m no mechanic.”

“Dad, I don’t like the looks of your harvest-hands,” whispered Lenore.

“Wal, this is a sample of the lot I hired. No society for you, my lass!”

“I’m going to stay now,” she replied.

Dorn appeared to be raising a racket somewhere out of sight under or inside the huge harvester. Rattling and rasping sounds, creaks and cracks, attested to his strong and impatiently seeking hands.

Presently he appeared. His white shirt had been soiled by dust and grease. There was chaff in his fair hair. In one grimy hand he held a large monkey-wrench. What struck Lenore most was the piercing intensity of his gaze as he fixed it upon her father.

“Anderson, I knew right where to find it,” he said, in a sharp, hard voice. “This monkey-wrench was thrown upon the platform, carried to the elevator into the thresher.… Your machine is torn to pieces inside — out of commission!”

“Ah-huh!” exclaimed Anderson, as if the truth was a great relief.

“Where’d that monkey-wrench come from?” asked the foreman, aghast. “It’s not ours. I don’t buy that kind.”

Anderson made a slight, significant motion to the cowboys. They lined up beside him, and, like him, they looked dangerous.

“Come here, Kurt,” he said, and then, putting Lenore before him, he moved a few steps aside, out of earshot of the shifty-footed harvest-hands. “Say, you called the turn right off, didn’t you?”

“Anderson, I’ve had a hard experience, all in one harvest-time,” replied Dorn. “I’ll bet you I can find out who threw this wrench into your harvester.”

“I don’t doubt you, my lad. But how?”

“It had to be thrown by one of these men near the machine. That harvester hasn’t run twenty feet from where the trick was done.… Let these men face me. I’ll find the guilty one.”

“Wait till we get Lenore out of the way,” replied Anderson

“Boss, me an’ Bill can answer fer thet outfit as it stands, an’ no risks fer nobody,” put in Jake, coolly.

Anderson’s reply was cut short by a loud explosion. It frightened Lenore. She imagined one of the steam-engines had blown up.

“That thresher’s on fire,” shouted Dorn, pointing toward a big machine that was attached by an endless driving belt to an engine.

The workmen, uttering yells and exclamations, ran toward the scene of the new accident, leaving Anderson, his daughter, and the foreman behind. Smoke was pouring out of the big harvester. The harvest-hands ran wildly around, shouting and calling, evidently unable to do anything. The line of wagons full of wheat-sheaves broke up; men dragged at the plunging horses. Then flame followed the smoke out of the thresher.

“I’ve heard of threshers catchin’ fire,” said Anderson, as if dumfounded, “but I never seen one.… Now how on earth did that happen?”

“Another trick, Anderson,” replied Dorn. “Some I.W.W. has stuffed a handful of matches into a wheat-sheaf. Or maybe a small bomb!”

“Ah-huh!… Come on, let’s go over an’ see my money burn up.… Kurt, I’m gettin’ some new education these days.”

Dorn appeared to be unable to restrain himself. He hurried on ahead of the others. And Anderson whispered to Lenore, “I’ll bet somethin’s comin’ off!”

This alarmed Lenore, yet it also thrilled her.

The threshing-machine burned like a house of cards. Farm-hands came running from all over the field. But nothing, manifestly, could be done to save the thresher. Anderson, holding his daughter’s arm, calmly watched it burn. There was excitement all around; it had not been communicated, however, to the rancher. He looked thoughtful. The foreman darted among the groups of watchers and his distress was very plain. Dorn had gotten out of sight. Lenore still held his coat and wondered what he was doing. She was thoroughly angry and marveled at her father’s composure. The big thresher was reduced to a blazing, smoking hulk in short order.

Dorn came striding up. His face was pale and his mouth set.

“Mr. Anderson, you’ve got to make a strong stand — and quick,” he said, deliberately.

“I reckon. An’ I’m ready, if it’s the right time,” replied the rancher. “But what can we prove?”

“That’s proof,” declared Dorn, pointing at the ruined thresher. “Do you know all your honest hands?”

“Yes, an’ I’ve got enough to clean up this outfit in no time. We’re only waitin’.”

“What for?”

“Wal, I reckon for what’s just come off.”

“Don’t let them go any farther.… Look at these fellows. Can’t you tell the I.W.W.’s from the others?”

“No, I can’t unless I count all the new harvest-hands I.W.W.’s.”

“Every one you don’t know here is in with that gang,” declared Dorn, and he waved a swift hand at the groups. His eyes swept piercingly over, and apparently through, the men nearest at hand.

At this juncture Jake and Bill, with two other cowboys, strode up to Anderson.

“Another accident, boss,” said Jake, sarcastically. “Ain’t it about time we corralled some of this outfit?”

Anderson did not reply. He had suddenly imitated Lenore, who had become solely bent upon Dorn’s look. That indeed was cause for interest. It was directed at a member of the nearest group — a man in rough garb, with slouch-hat pulled over his eyes. As Lenore looked she saw this man, suddenly becoming aware of Dorn’s scrutiny, hastily turn and walk away.

“Hold on!” called Dorn, his voice a ringing command. It halted every moving person on that part of the field. Then Dorn actually bounded across the intervening space.

“Come on, boys,” said Anderson, “get in this. Dorn’s spotted some one, an’ now that’s all we want.… Lenore, stick close behind me. Jake, you keep near her.”

They moved hastily to back up Dorn, who had already reached the workman he had halted. Anderson took out a whistle and blew such a shrill blast that it deafened Lenore, and must have been heard all over the harvest-field. Not improbably that was a signal agreed upon between Anderson and his men. Lenore gathered that all had been in readiness for a concerted movement and that her father believed Dorn’s action had brought the climax.

“Haven’t I seen you before?” queried Dorn, sharply.

The man shook his head and kept it bent a little, and then he began to edge back nearer to the stragglers, who slowly closed into a group behind him. He seemed nervous, shifty.

“He can’t speak English,” spoke up one of them, gruffly.

Dorn looked aggressive and stern. Suddenly his hand flashed out to snatch off the slouch-hat which hid the fellow’s face. Amazingly, a gray wig came with it. This man was not old. He had fair thick hair.

For a moment Dorn gazed at the slouch-hat and wig. Then with a fierce action he threw them down and swept a clutching hand for the man. The fellow dodged and, straightening up, he reached for a gun. But Dorn lunged upon him. Then followed a hard grappling sound and a hoarse yell. Something bright glinted in the sun. It made a sweeping circle, belched fire and smoke. The report stunned Lenore. She shut her eyes and clung to her father. She heard cries, a scuffling, sodden blows.

“Jake! Bill!” called Anderson. “Hold on! No gun-play yet! Dorn’s makin’ hash out of that fellow.… But watch the others sharp!”

Then Lenore looked again. Dorn had twisted the man around and was in the act of stripping off the further disguise of beard, disclosing the pale and convulsed face of a comparatively young man.

“Glidden!” burst out Dorn. His voice had a terrible ring of furious amaze. His whole body seemed to gather as in a knot and then to spring. The man called Glidden went down before that onslaught, and his gun went flying aside.

Three of Glidden’s group started for it. The cowboy Bill leaped forward, a gun in each hand. “Hyar!… Back!” he yelled. And then all except the two struggling principals grew rigid.

Lenore’s heart was burning in her throat. The movements of Dorn were too swift for her sight. But Glidden she saw handled as if by a giant. Up and down he seemed thrown, with bloody face, flinging arms, while he uttered hoarse bawls. Dorn’s form grew more distinct. It plunged and swung in frenzied energy. Lenore heard men running and yells from all around. Her father spread wide his arm before her, so that she had to bend low to see. He shouted a warning. Jake was holding a gun thrust forward.

“Boss, he’s goin’ to kill Glidden!” said the cowboy, in a low tone.

Anderson’s reply was incoherent, but its meaning was plain.

Lenore’s lips and tongue almost denied her utterance. “Oh!… Don’t let him!”

The crowd behind the wrestling couple swayed back and forth, and men changed places here and there. Bill strode across the space, guns leveled. Evidently this action was due to the threatening movements of several workmen who crouched as if to leap on Dorn as he whirled in his fight with Glidden.

“Wal, it’s about time!” yelled Anderson, as a number of lean, rangy men, rushing from behind, reached Bill’s side, there to present an armed and threatening front.

All eyes now centered on Dorn and Glidden. Lenore, seeing clearly for the first time, suffered a strange, hot paroxysm of emotion never before experienced by her. It left her weak. It seemed to stultify the cry that had been trying to escape her. She wanted to scream that Dorn must not kill the man. Yet there was a ferocity in her that froze the cry. Glidden’s coat and blouse were half torn off; blood covered him; he strained and flung himself weakly in that iron clutch. He was beaten and bent back. His tongue hung out, bloody, fluttering with strangled cries. A ghastly face, appalling in its fear of death!

Lenore broke her mute spell of mingled horror and passion.

“For God’s sake, don’t let Dorn kill him!” she implored.

“Why not?” muttered Anderson. “That’s Glidden. He killed Dorn’s father — burned his wheat — ruined him!”

“Dad — for my — sake!” she cried brokenly.

“Jake, stop him!” yelled Anderson. “Pull him off!”

As Lenore saw it, with eyes again half failing her, Jake could not separate Dorn from his victim.

“Leggo, Dorn!” he yelled. “You’re cheatin’ the gallows!…Hey, Bill, he’s a bull!… Help, hyar — quick!”

Lenore did not see the resulting conflict, but she could tell by something that swayed the crowd when Glidden had been freed.

“Hold up this outfit!” yelled Anderson to his men. “Come on, Jake, drag him along.” Jake appeared, leading the disheveled and wild-eyed Dorn. “Son, you did my heart good, but there was some around here who didn’t want you to spill blood. An’ that’s well. For I am seein’ red.…Jake, you take Dorn an’ Lenore a piece toward the house, then hurry back.”

Then Lenore felt that she had hold of Dorn’s arm and she was listening to Jake without understanding a word he said, while she did hear her father’s yell of command, “Line up there, you I.W.W.’s!”

Jake walked so swiftly that Lenore had to run to keep up. Dorn stumbled. He spoke incoherently. He tried to stop. At this Lenore clasped his arm and cried, “Oh, Kurt, come home with me!”

They hurried down the slope. Lenore kept looking back. The crowd appeared bunched now, with little motion. That relieved her. There was no more fighting.

Presently Dorn appeared to go more willingly. He had relaxed. “Let go, Jake,” he said. “I’m — all right — now. That arm hurts.”

“Wal, you’ll excuse me, Dorn, for handlin’ you rough.… Mebbe you don’t remember punchin’ me one when I got between you an’ Glidden?”

“Did I?… I couldn’t see, Jake,” said Dorn. His voice was weak and had a spent ring of passion in it. He did not look at Lenore, but kept his face turned toward the cowboy.

“I reckon this ‘s fur enough,” rejoined Jake, halting and looking back. “No one comin’. An’ there’ll be hell to pay out there. You go on to the house with Miss Lenore.… Will you?”

“Yes,” replied Dorn.

“Rustle along, then.… An’ you, Miss Lenore, don’t you worry none about us.”

Lenore nodded and, holding Dorn’s arm closely, she walked as fast as she could down the lane.

“I — I kept your coat,” she said, “though I never thought of it — till just now.”

She was trembling all over, hot and cold by turns, afraid to look up at him, yet immensely proud of him, with a strange, sickening dread. He walked rather dejectedly now, or else bent somewhat from weakness. She stole a quick glance at his face. It was white as a sheet. Suddenly she felt something wet and warm trickle from his arm down into her hand. Blood! She shuddered, but did not lose her hold. After a faintish instant there came a change in her.

“Are you — hurt?” she asked.

“I guess — not. I don’t know,” he said.

“But the — the blood,” she faltered.

He held up his hands. His knuckles were bloody and it was impossible to tell whether from injury to them or not. But his left forearm was badly cut.

“The gun cut me.… And he bit me, too,” said Dorn. “I’m sorry you were there.… What a beastly spectacle for you!”

“Never mind me,” she murmured. “I’m all right now!… But, oh!—”

She broke off eloquently.

“Was it you who had the cowboys pull me off him? Jake said, as he broke me loose, ‘For Miss Lenore’s sake!’”

“It was dad who sent them. But I begged him to.”

“That was Glidden, the I.W.W. agitator and German agent.… He — just the same as murdered my father.… He burned my wheat — lost my all!”

“Yes, I — I know, Kurt,” whispered Lenore.

“I meant to kill him!”

“That was easy to tell.… Oh, thank God, you did not!… Come, don’t let us stop.” She could not face the piercing, gloomy eyes that went through her.

“Why should you care?.… Some one will have to kill Glidden.”

“Oh, do not talk so,” she implored. “Surely, now you’re glad you did not?”

“I don’t understand myself. But I’m certainly sorry you were there.… There’s a beast in men — in me!… I had a gun in my pocket. But do you think I’d have used it?… I wanted to feel his flesh tear, his bones break, his blood spurt—”

“Kurt!”

“Yes!… That was the Hun in me!” he declared, in sudden bitter passion.

“Oh, my friend, do not talk so!” she cried. “You make me — Oh, there is no Hun in you!”

“Yes, that’s what ails me!”

“There is not!” she flashed back, roused to passion. “You had been made desperate. You acted as any wronged man! You fought. He tried to kill you. I saw the gun. No one could blame you.… I had my own reason for begging dad to keep you from killing him — a selfish woman’s reason!… But I tell you I was so furious — so wrought up — that if it had been any man but you — he should have killed him!”

“Lenore, you’re beyond my understanding,” replied Dorn, with emotion. “But I thank you — for excusing me — for standing up for me.”

“It was nothing.…Oh, how you bleed!.… Doesn’t that hurt?”

“I’ve no pain — no feeling at all — except a sort of dying down in me of what must have been hell.”

They reached the house and went in. No one was there, which fact relieved Lenore.

“I’m glad mother and the girls won’t see you,” she said, hurriedly. “Go up to your room. I’ll bring bandages.”

He complied without any comment. Lenore searched for what she needed to treat a wound and ran up-stairs. Dorn was sitting on a chair in his room, holding his arm, from which blood dripped to the floor. He smiled at her.

“You would be a pretty Red Cross nurse,” he said.

Lenore placed a bowl of water on the floor and, kneeling beside Dorn, took his arm and began to bathe it. He winced. The blood covered her fingers.

“My blood on your hands!” he exclaimed, morbidly. “German blood!”

“Kurt, you’re out of your head,” retorted Lenore, hotly. “If you dare to say that again I’ll—” She broke off.

“What will you do?”

Lenore faltered. What would she do? A revelation must come, sooner or later, and the strain had begun to wear upon her. She was stirred to her depths, and instincts there were leaping. No sweet, gentle, kindly sympathy would avail with this tragic youth. He must be carried by storm. Something of the violence he had shown with Glidden seemed necessary to make him forget himself. All his whole soul must be set in one direction. He could not see that she loved him, when she had looked it, acted it, almost spoken it. His blindness was not to be endured.

“Kurt Dorn, don’t dare to — to say that again!”

She ceased bathing his arm, and looked up at him suddenly quite pale.

“I apologize. I am only bitter,” he said. “Don’t mind what I say.… It’s so good of you — to do this.”

Then in silence Lenore dressed his wound, and if her heart did beat unwontedly, her fingers were steady and deft. He thanked her, with moody eyes seeing far beyond her.

“When I lie — over there — with—”

“If you go!” she interrupted. He was indeed hopeless. “I advise you to rest a little.”

“I’d like to know what becomes of Glidden,” he said.

“So should I. That worries me.”

“Weren’t there a lot of cowboys with guns?”

“So many that there’s no need for you to go out — and start another fight.”

“I did start it, didn’t I?”

“You surely did,” She left him then, turning in the doorway to ask him please to be quiet and let the day go by without seeking those excited men again. He smiled, but he did not promise.

For Lenore the time dragged between dread and suspense. From her window she saw a motley crowd pass down the lane to the main road. No harvesters were working. At the noon meal only her mother and the girls were present. Word had come that the I.W.W. men were being driven from “Many Waters.” Mrs. Anderson worried, and Lenore’s sisters for once were quiet. All afternoon the house was lifeless. No one came or left. Lenore listened to every little sound. It relieved her that Dorn had remained in his room. Her hope was that the threatened trouble had been averted, but something told her that the worst was yet to come.

It was nearly supper-time when she heard the men returning. They came in a body, noisy and loitering, as if reluctant to break away from one another. She heard the horses tramp into the barns and the loud voices of drivers.

When she went down-stairs she encountered her father. He looked impressive, triumphant! His effort at evasion did not deceive Lenore. But she realized at once that in this instance she could not get any news from him. He said everything was all right and that I.W.W. men were to be deported from Washington. But he did not want any supper, and he had a low-voiced, significant interview with Dorn. Lenore longed to know what was pending. Dorn’s voice, when he said at his door, “Anderson, I’ll go!” was ringing, hard, and deadly. It frightened Lenore. Go where? What were they going to do? Lenore thought of the vigilantes her father had organized.

Supper-time was an ordeal. Dorn ate a little; then excusing himself, he went back to his room. Lenore got through the meal somehow, and, going outside, she encountered Jake. The moment she questioned him she knew something extraordinary had taken place or was about to take place. She coaxed and entreated. For once Jake was hard to manage. But the more excuses he made, the more he evaded her, the greater became Lenore’s need to know. And at last she wore the cowboy out. He could not resist her tears, which began to flow in spite of her.

“See hyar, Miss Lenore, I reckon you care a heap fer young Dorn — beggin’ your pardon?” queried Jake.

“Care for him!… Jake, I love him.”

“Then take a hunch from me an’ keep him home — with you — to-night.”

“Does father want Kurt Dorn to go — wherever he’s going?”

“Wal, I should smile! Your dad likes the way Dorn handles I.W.W.’s,” replied Jake, significantly.

“Vigilantes!” whispered Lenore.

CHAPTER XX

LENORE WAITED FOR Kurt, and stood half concealed behind the curtains. It had dawned upon her that she had an ordeal at hand. Her heart palpitated. She heard his quick step on the stairs. She called before she showed herself.

“Hello!… Oh, but you startled me!” he exclaimed. He had been surprised, too, at the abrupt meeting. Certainly he had not been thinking of her. His pale, determined face attested to stern and excitable thought.

He halted before her.

“Where are you going?” asked Lenore.

“To see your father.”

“What about?”

“It’s rather important,” he replied, with hesitation.

“Will it take long?”

He showed embarrassment. “I — He — We’ll be occupied ‘most all evening.”

“Indeed!… Very well. If you’d rather be — occupied — than spend the evening with me!” Lenore turned away, affecting a disdainful and hurt manner.

“Lenore, it’s not that,” he burst out. “I — I’d rather spend an evening with you than anybody else — or do anything.”

“That’s very easy to say, Mr. Dorn,” she returned, lightly.

“But it’s true,” he protested.

“Come out of the hall. Father will hear us,” she said, and led him into the room. It was not so light in there, but what light there was fell upon his face and left hers in shadow.

“I’ve made an — an appointment for to-night,” he declared, with difficulty.

“Can’t you break it?” she asked.

“No. That would lay me open to — to cowardice — perhaps your father’s displeasure.”

“Kurt Dorn, it’s brave to give up some things!… And if you go you’ll incur my displeasure.”

“Go!” he ejaculated, staring at her.

“Oh, I know!… And I’m — well, not flattered to see you’d rather go hang I.W.W.’s than stay here with me.” Lenore did not feel the assurance and composure with which she spoke. She was struggling with her own feelings. She believed that just as soon as she and Kurt understood each other — faced each other without any dissimulation — then she would feel free and strong. If only she could put the situation on a sincere footing! She must work for that. Her difficulty was with a sense of falsity. There was no time to plan. She must change his mind.

Her words had made him start.

“Then you know?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry for that,” he replied, soberly, as he brushed a hand up through his wet hair.

“But you will stay home?”

“No,” he returned, shortly, and he looked hard.

“Kurt, I don’t want you mixed up with any lynching-bees,” she said, earnestly.

“I’m a citizen of Washington. I’ll join the vigilantes. I’m American. I’ve been ruined by these I.W.W.’s. No man in the West has lost so much! Father — home — land — my great harvest of wheat!… Why shouldn’t I go?”

“There’s no reason except — me,” she replied, rather unsteadily.

He drew himself up, with a deep breath, as if fortifying himself. “That’s a mighty good reason.… But you will be kinder if you withdraw your objections.”

“Can’t you conceive of any reason why I — I beg you not to go?”

“I can’t,” he replied, staring at her. It seemed that every moment he spent in her presence increased her effect upon him. Lenore felt this, and that buoyed up her failing courage.

“Kurt, you’ve made a very distressing — a terrible and horrible blunder,” she said, with a desperation that must have seemed something else to him.

“My heavens! What have I done?” he gasped, his face growing paler. How ready he was to see more catastrophe! It warmed her heart and strengthened her nerve.

The moment had come. Even if she did lose her power of speech she still could show him what his blunder was. Nothing in all her life had ever been a hundredth part as hard as this. Yet, as the words formed, her whole heart seemed to be behind them, forcing them out. If only he did not misunderstand!

Then she looked directly at him and tried to speak. Her first attempt was inarticulate, her second was a whisper, “Didn’t you ever — think I — I might care for you?”

It was as if a shock went over him, leaving him trembling. But he did not look as amazed as incredulous. “No, I certainly never did,” he said.

“Well — that’s your blunder — for I — I do. You — you never — never — asked me.”

“You do what — care for me?… What on earth do you mean by that?”

Lenore was fighting many emotions now, the one most poignant being a wild desire to escape, which battled with an equally maddening one to hide her face on his breast.

Yet she could see how white he had grown — how different. His hands worked convulsively and his eyes pierced her very soul.

“What should a girl mean — telling she cared?”

“I don’t know. Girls are beyond me,” he replied, stubbornly.

“Indeed that’s true. I’ve felt so far beyond you — I had to come to this.”

“Lenore,” he burst out, hoarsely, “you talk in riddles! You’ve been so strange, yet so fine, so sweet! And now you say you care for me!… Care?… What does that mean? A word can drive me mad. But I never dared to hope. I love you — love you — love you — my God! you’re all I’ve left to love. I—”

“Do you think you’ve a monopoly on all the love in the world?” interrupted Lenore, coming to her real self. His impassioned declaration was all she needed. Her ordeal was over.

It seemed as if he could not believe his ears or eyes.

“Monopoly! World!” he echoed. “Of course I don’t. But—”

“Kurt, I love you just as much as — as you love me.… So there!”

Lenore had time for one look at his face before he enveloped her. What a relief to hide her own! It was pressed to his breast very closely. Her eyes shut, and she felt hot tears under the lids. All before her darkened sight seemed confusion, whirling chaos. It seemed that she could not breathe and, strangely, did not need to. How unutterably happy she felt! That was an age-long moment — wonderful for her own relief and gladness — full of changing emotions. Presently Kurt appeared to be coming to some semblance of rationality. He released her from that crushing embrace, but still kept an arm around her while he held her off and looked at her.

“Lenore, will you kiss me?” he whispered.

She could have cried out in sheer delight at the wonder of that whisper in her ear. It had been she who had changed the world for Kurt Dorn.

“Yes — presently,” she replied, with a tremulous little laugh. “Wait till — I get my breath—”

“I was beside myself — am so yet,” he replied, low voiced as if in awe. “I’ve been lifted to heaven.… It cannot be true. I believe, yet I’ll not be sure till you kiss me.… You — Lenore Anderson, this girl of my dreams! Do you love me — is it true?”

“Yes, Kurt, indeed I do — very dearly,” she replied, and turned to look up into his face. It was transfigured. Lenore’s heart swelled as a deep and profound emotion waved over her.

“Please kiss me — then.”

She lifted her face, flushing scarlet. Their lips met. Then with her head upon his shoulder and her hands closely held she answered the thousand and one questions of a bewildered and exalted lover who could not realize the truth. Lenore laughed at him and eloquently furnished proof of her own obsession, and told him how and why and when it all came about.

Not for hours did Kurt come back to actualities. “I forgot about the vigilantes,” he exclaimed, suddenly. “It’s too late now.… How the time has flown!… Oh, Lenore, thought of other things breaks in, alas!”

He kissed her hand and got up. Another change was coming over him. Lenore had long expected the moment when realization would claim his attention. She was prepared.

“Yes, you forgot your appointment with dad and the vigilantes. You’ve missed some excitement and violence.”

His face had grown white again — grave now and troubled. “May I speak to your father?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“If I come back from the war — well — not crippled — will you promise to marry me?”

“Kurt, I promise now.”

That seemed to shake him. “But, Lenore, it is not fair to you. I don’t believe a soldier should bind a girl by marriage or engagement before he goes to war. She should be free.… I want you to be free.”

“That’s for you to say,” she replied, softly. “But for my part, I don’t want to be free — if you go away to war.”

“If!… I’m going,” he said, with a start. “You don’t want to be free? Lenore, would you be engaged to me?”

“My dear boy, of course I would.… It seems I am, doesn’t it?” she replied, with one of her deep, low laughs.

He gazed at her, fascinated, worked upon by overwhelming emotions. “Would you marry me — before I go?”

“Yes,” she flashed.

He bent and bowed then under the storm. Stumbling to her, almost on his knees, he brokenly expressed his gratitude, his wonder, his passion, and the terrible temptation that he must resist, which she must help him to resist.

“Kurt, I love you. I will see things through your eyes, if I must. I want to be a comfort to you, not a source of sorrow.”

“But, Lenore, what comfort can I find?… To leave you now is going to be horrible!… To part from you now — I don’t see how I can.”

Then Lenore dared to broach the subject so delicate, so momentous.

“You need not part from me. My father has asked me to try to keep you home. He secured exemption for you. You are more needed here than at the front. You can feed many soldiers. You would be doing your duty — with honor!… You would be a soldier. The government is going to draft young men for farm duty. Why not you? There are many good reasons why you would be better than most young men. Because you know wheat. And wheat is to become the most important thing in the world. No one misjudges your loyalty.… And surely you see that the best service to your country is what you can do best.”

He sat down beside her, with serious frown and somber eyes. “Lenore, are you asking me not to go to war?”

“Yes, I am,” she replied. “I have thought it all over. I’ve given up my brother. I’d not ask you to stay home if you were needed at the front as much as here. That question I have had out with my conscience.… Kurt, don’t think me a silly, sentimental girl. Events of late have made me a woman.”

He buried his face in his hands. “That’s the most amazing of all — you — Lenore Anderson, my American girl — asking me not to go to war.”

“But, dear, it is not so amazing. It’s reasonable. Your peculiar point of view makes it look different. I am no weak, timid, love-sick girl afraid to let you go!… I’ve given you good, honorable, patriotic reasons for your exemption from draft. Can you see that?”

“Yes. I grant all your claims. I know wheat well enough to tell you that if vastly more wheat-raising is not done the world will starve. That would hold good for the United States in forty years without war.”

“Then if you see my point why are you opposed to it?” she asked.

“Because I am Kurt Dorn,” he replied, bitterly.

His tone, his gloom made her shiver. It would take all her intelligence and wit and reason to understand him, and vastly more than that to change him. She thought earnestly. This was to be an ordeal profoundly more difficult than the confession of her love. It was indeed a crisis dwarfing the other she had met. She sensed in him a remarkably strange attitude toward this war, compared with that of her brother or other boys she knew who had gone.

“Because you are Kurt Dorn,” she said, thoughtfully. “It’s in the name, then.… But I think it a pretty name — a good name. Have I not consented to accept it as mine — for life?”

He could not answer that. Blindly he reached out with a shaking hand, to find hers, to hold it close. Lenore felt the tumult in him. She was shocked. A great tenderness, sweet and motherly, flooded over her.

“Dearest, in this dark hour — that was so bright a little while ago — you must not keep anything from me,” she replied. “I will be true to you. I will crush my selfish hopes. I will be your mother.… tell me why you must go to war because you are Kurt Dorn.”

“My father was German. He hated this country — yours and mine. He plotted with the I.W.W. He hated your father and wanted to destroy him.… Before he died he realized his crime. For so I take the few words he spoke to Jerry. But all the same he was a traitor to my country. I bear his name. I have German in me.… And by God I’m going to pay!”

His deep, passionate tones struck into Lenore’s heart. She fought with a rising terror. She was beginning to understand him. How helpless she felt — how she prayed for inspiration — for wisdom!

“Pay!… How?” she asked.

“In the only way possible. I’ll see that a Dorn goes to war — who will show his American blood — who will fight and kill — and be killed!”

His passion, then, was more than patriotism. It had its springs in the very core of his being. He had, it seemed, a debt that he must pay. But there was more than this in his grim determination. And Lenore divined that it lay hidden in his bitter reference to his German blood. He hated that — doubted himself because of it. She realized now that to keep him from going to war would be to make him doubt his manhood and eventually to despise himself. No longer could she think of persuading him to stay home. She must forget herself. She knew then that she had the power to keep him and she could use it, but she must not do so. This tragic thing was a matter of his soul. But if he went to war with this bitter obsession, with this wrong motive, this passionate desire to spill blood in him that he hated, he would lose his soul. He must be changed. All her love, all her woman’s flashing, subtle thought concentrated on this fact. How strange the choice that had been given her! Not only must she relinquish her hope of keeping him home, but she must perhaps go to desperate ends to send him away with a changed spirit. The moment of decision was agony for her.

“Kurt, this is a terrible hour for both of us,” she said, “but, thank Heaven, you have confessed to me. Now I will confess to you.”

“Confess?… You?… What nonsense!” he exclaimed. But in his surprise he lifted his head from his hands to look at her.

“When we came in here my mind was made up to make you stay home. Father begged me to do it, and I had my own selfish motive. It was love. Oh, I do love you, Kurt, more than you can dream of!… I justified my resolve. I told you that. But I wanted you. I wanted your love — your presence. I longed for a home with you as husband — master — father to my babies. I dreamed of all. It filled me with terror to think of you going to war. You might be crippled — mangled — murdered.… Oh, my dear, I could not bear the thought!… So I meant to overcome you. I had it all planned. I meant to love you — to beg you — to kiss you — to make you stay—”

“Lenore, what are you saying?” he cried, in shocked amaze.

She flung her arms round his neck. “Oh, I could — I could have kept you!” she answered, low voiced and triumphant. “It fills me with joy.… Tell me I could have kept you — tell me.”

“Yes. I’ve no power to resist you. But I might have hated—”

“Hush!… It’s all might have.… I’ve risen above myself.”

“Lenore, you distress me. A little while ago you bewildered me with your sweetness and love.… Now — you look like an angel or a goddess.… Oh, to have your face like this — always with me! Yet it distresses me — so terrible in purpose. What are you about to tell me? I see something—”

“Listen,” she broke in. “I meant to make you weak. I implore you now to be strong. You must go to war! But with all my heart and soul I beg you to go with a changed spirit.… You were about to do a terrible thing. You hated the German in you and meant to kill it by violence. You despised the German blood and you meant to spill it. Like a wild man you would have rushed to fight, to stab and beat, to murder — and you would have left your breast open for a bayonet-thrust.… Oh, I know it!… Kurt, you are horribly wrong. That is no way to go to war.… War is a terrible business, but men don’t wage it for motives such as yours. We Americans all have different strains of blood — English — French — German. One is as good as another. You are obsessed — you are out of your head on this German question. You must kill that idea — kill it with one bayonet-thrust of sense.… You must go to war as my soldier — with my ideal. Your country has called you to help uphold its honor, its pledged word. You must fight to conquer an enemy who threatens to destroy freedom.… You must be brave, faithful, merciful, clean — an American soldier!… You are only one of a million. You have no personal need for war. You are as good, as fine, as noble as any man — my choice, sir, of all the men in the world!… I am sending you. I am giving you up.… Oh, my darling — you will never know how hard it is!… But go! Your life has been sad. You have lost so much. I feel in my woman’s heart what will be — if only you’ll change — if you see God in this as I see. Promise me. Love that which you hated. Prove for yourself what I believe. Trust me — promise me… Then — oh, I know God will send you back to me!”

He fell upon his knees before her to bury his face in her lap. His whole frame shook. His hands plucked at her dress. A low sob escaped him.

“Lenore,” he whispered, brokenly, “I can’t see God in this — for me!… I can’t promise!”

CHAPTER XXI

THIRTY MASKED MEN sat around a long harvest mess-table. Two lanterns furnished light enough to show a bare barnlike structure, the rough-garbed plotters, the grim set of hard lips below the half-masks, and big hands spread out, ready to draw from the hat that was passing.

The talk was low and serious. No names were spoken. A heavy man, at the head of the table, said: “We thirty, picked men, represent the country. Let each member here write on his slip of paper his choice of punishment for the I.W.W.’s — death or deportation.…”

The members of the band bent their masked faces and wrote in a dead silence. A noiseless wind blew through the place. The lanterns flickered; huge shadows moved on the walls. When the papers had been passed back to the leader he read them.

“Deportation,” he announced. “So much for the I.W.W. men.… Now for the leader.… But before we vote on what to do with Glidden let me read an extract from one of his speeches. This is authentic. It has been furnished by the detective lately active in our interest. Also it has been published. I read it because I want to bring home to you all an issue that goes beyond our own personal fortunes here.”

Leaning toward the flickering flare of the lantern, the leader read from a slip of paper: “If the militia are sent out here to hinder the I.W.W. we will make it so damned hot for the government that no troops will be able to go to France.… I don’t give a damn what this country is fighting for.… I am fighting for the rights of labor.… American soldiers are Uncle Sam’s scabs in disguise.”

The deep, impressive voice ended. The leader’s huge fist descended upon the table with a crash. He gazed up and down the rows of sinister masked figures. “Have you anything to say?”

“No,” replied one.

“Pass the slips,” said another.

And then a man, evidently on in years, for his hair was gray and he looked bent, got up. “Neighbors,” he began “I lived here in the early days. For the last few years I’ve been apologizing for my home town. I don’t want to apologize for it any longer.”

He sat down. And a current seemed to wave from him around that dark square of figures. The leader cleared his throat as if he had much to say, but he did not speak. Instead he passed the hat. Each man drew forth a slip of paper and wrote upon it. The action was not slow. Presently the hat returned round the table to the leader. He spilled its contents, and with steady hand picked up the first slip of paper.

“Death!” he read, sonorously, and laid it down to pick up another. Again he spoke that grim word. The third brought forth the same, and likewise the next, and all, until the verdict had been called out thirty times.

“At daylight we’ll meet,” boomed out that heavy voice. “Instruct Glidden’s guards to make a show of resistance.… We’ll hang Glidden to the railroad bridge. Then each of you get your gangs together. Round up all the I.W.W.’s. Drive them to the railroad yard. There we’ll put them aboard a railroad train of empty cars. And that train will pass under the bridge where Glidden will be hanging.… We’ll escort them out of the country.”

That August dawn was gray and cool, with gold and pink beginning to break over the dark eastern ranges. The town had not yet awakened. It slept unaware of the stealthy forms passing down the gray road and of the distant hum of motor-cars and trot of hoofs.

Glidden’s place of confinement was a square warehouse, near the edge of town. Before the improvised jail guards paced up and down, strangely alert.

Daylight had just cleared away the gray when a crowd of masked men appeared as if by magic and bore down upon the guards. There was an apparent desperate resistance, but, significantly, no cries or shots. The guards were overpowered and bound.

The door of the jail yielded to heavy blows of an ax. In the corner of a dim, bare room groveled Glidden, bound so that he had little use of his body. But he was terribly awake. When six men entered he asked, hoarsely: “What’re you — after?… What — you mean?”

They jerked him erect. They cut the bonds from his legs. They dragged him out into the light of breaking day.

When he saw the masked and armed force he cried: “My God!… What’ll you — do with me?”

Ghastly, working, sweating, his face betrayed his terror.

“You’re to be hanged by the neck,” spoke a heavy, solemn voice.

The man would have collapsed but for the strong hands that upheld him.

“What — for?” he gasped.

“For I.W.W. crimes — for treason — for speeches no American can stand in days like these.” Then this deep-voiced man read to Glidden words of his own.

“Do you recognize that?”

Glidden saw how he had spoken his own doom. “Yes, I said that,” he had nerve left to say. “But — I insist on arrest — trial — justice!… I’m no criminal.… I’ve big interests behind me.… You’ll suffer—”

A loop of a lasso, slung over his head and jerked tight, choked off his intelligible utterance. But as the silent, ruthless men dragged him away he gave vent to terrible, half-strangled cries.

The sun rose red over the fertile valley — over the harvest fields and the pastures and the orchards, and over the many towns that appeared lost in the green and gold of luxuriance.

In the harvest districts west of the river all the towns were visited by swift-flying motor-cars that halted long enough for a warning to be shouted to the citizens, “Keep off the streets!”

Simultaneously armed forces of men, on foot and on horseback, too numerous to count, appeared in the roads and the harvest fields.

They accosted every man they met. If he were recognized or gave proof of an honest identity he was allowed to go; otherwise he was marched along under arrest. These armed forces were thorough in their search, and in the country districts they had an especial interest in likely camping-places, and around old barns and straw-stacks. In the towns they searched every corner that was big enough to hide a man.

So it happened that many motley groups of men were driven toward the railroad line, where they were held until a freight-train of empty cattle-cars came along. This train halted long enough to have the I.W.W. contingent driven aboard, with its special armed guard following, and then it proceeded on to the next station. As stations were many, so were the halts, and news of the train with its strange freight flashed ahead. Crowds lined the railroad tracks. Many boys and men in these crowds carried rifles and pistols which they leveled at the I.W.W. prisoners as the train passed. Jeers and taunts and threats accompanied this presentation of guns.

Before the last station of that wheat district was reached full three hundred members of the I.W.W., or otherwise suspicious characters, were packed into the open cars. At the last stop the number was greatly augmented, and the armed forces were cut down to the few guards who were to see the I.W.W. deported from the country. Here provisions and drinking-water were put into the cars. And amid a hurrahing roar of thousands the train with its strange load slowly pulled out.

It did not at once gather headway. The engine whistled a prolonged blast — a signal or warning not lost on many of its passengers.

From the front cars rose shrill cries that alarmed the prisoners in the rear. The reason soon became manifest. Arms pointed and eyes stared at the figure of a man hanging from a rope fastened to the center of a high bridge span under which the engine was about to pass.

The figure swayed in the wind. It turned half-way round, disclosing a ghastly, distorted face, and a huge printed placard on the breast, then it turned back again. Slowly the engine drew one car-load after another past the suspended body of the dead man. There were no more cries. All were silent in that slow-moving train. All faces were pale, all eyes transfixed.

The placard on the hanged man’s breast bore in glaring red a strange message: Last warning. 3-7-77.

The figures were the ones used in the frontier days by vigilantes.

CHAPTER XXII

A DUSTY MOTOR-CAR climbed the long road leading up to the Neuman ranch. It was not far from Wade, a small hamlet of the wheat-growing section, and the slopes of the hills, bare and yellow with waving grain, bore some semblance to the Bend country. Four men — a driver and three cowboys — were in the automobile.

A big stone gate marked the entrance to Neuman’s ranch. Cars and vehicles lined the roadside. Men were passing in and out. Neuman’s home was unpretentious, but his barns and granaries and stock-houses were built on a large scale.

“Bill, are you goin’ in with me after this pard of the Kaiser’s?” inquired Jake, leisurely stretching himself as the car halted. He opened the door and stiffly got out. “Gimme a hoss any day fer gittin’ places!”

“Jake, my regard fer your rep as Anderson’s foreman makes me want to hug the background,” replied Bill. “I’ve done a hell of a lot these last forty-eight hours.”

“Wal, I reckon you have, Bill, an’ no mistake.… But I was figgerin’ on you wantin’ to see the fun.”

“Fun!… Jake, it ‘ll be fun enough fer me to sit hyar an’ smoke in the shade, an’ watch fer you to come a-runnin’ from thet big German devil.… Pard, they say he’s a bad man!”

“Sure. I know thet. All them Germans is bad.”

“If the boss hadn’t been so dog-gone strict about gun-play I’d love to go with you,” responded Bill. “But he didn’t give me no orders. You’re the whole outfit this round-up.”

“Bill, you’d have to take orders from me,” said Jake, coolly.

“Sure. Thet’s why I come with Andy.”

The other cowboy, called Andy, manifested uneasiness, and he said: “Aw, now, Jake, you ain’t a-goin’ to ask me to go in there?… An’ me hatin’ Germans the way I do!”

“Nope. I guess I’ll order Bill to go in an’ fetch Neuman out,” replied Jake, complacently, as he made as if to re-enter the car.

Bill collapsed in his seat. “Jake,” he expostulated, weakly, “this job was given you because of your rep fer deploomacy.… Sure I haven’t none of thet.… An’ you, Jake, why you’re the smoothest an’ slickest talker thet ever come to the Northwest.”

Evidently Jake had a vulnerable point. He straightened up with a little swagger. “Wal, you watch me,” he said. “I’ll fetch the big Dutchman eatin’ out of my hand.… An’ say, when we git him in the car an’ start back let’s scare the daylights out of him.”

“Thet’d be powerful fine. But how?”

“You fellers take a hunch from me,” replied Jake. And he strode off up the lane toward the ranch-house.

Jake had been commissioned to acquaint Neuman with the fact that recent developments demanded his immediate presence at “Many Waters.” The cowboy really had a liking for the job, though he pretended not to.

Neuman had not yet begun harvesting. There were signs to Jake’s experienced eye that the harvest-hands were expected this very day. Jake fancied he knew why the rancher had put off his harvesting. And also he knew that the extra force of harvest-hands would not appear. He was regarded with curiosity by the women members of the Neuman household, and rather enjoyed it. There were several comely girls in evidence. Jake did not look a typical Northwest foreman and laborer. Booted and spurred, with his gun swinging visibly, and his big sombrero and gaudy scarf, he looked exactly what he was, a cowman of the open ranges.

His inquiries elicited the fact that Neuman was out in the fields, waiting for the harvest-hands.

“Wal, if he’s expectin’ thet outfit of I.W.W.’s he’ll never harvest,” said Jake, “for some of them is hanged an’ the rest run out of the country.”

Jake did not wait to see the effect of his news. He strode back toward the fields, and with the eye of a farmer he appraised the barns and corrals, and the fields beyond. Neuman raised much wheat, and enough alfalfa to feed his stock. His place was large and valuable, but not comparable to “Many Waters.”

Out in the wheat-fields were engines with steam already up, with combines and threshers and wagons waiting for the word to start. Jake enjoyed the keen curiosity roused by his approach. Neuman strode out from a group of waiting men. He was huge of build, ruddy-faced and bearded, with deep-set eyes.

“Are you Neuman?” inquired Jake.

“That’s me,” gruffly came the reply.

“I’m Anderson’s foreman. I’ve been sent over to tell you thet you’re wanted pretty bad at ‘Many Waters.’”

The man stared incredulously. “What?… Who wants me?”

“Anderson. An’ I reckon there’s more — though I ain’t informed.”

Neuman rumbled a curse. Amaze dominated him. “Anderson!… Well, I don’t want to see him,” he replied.

“I reckon you don’t,” was the cowboy’s cool reply.

The rancher looked him up and down. However familiar his type was to Anderson, it was strange to Neuman. The cowboy breathed a potential force. The least significant thing about his appearance was that swinging gun. He seemed cool and easy, with hard, keen eyes. Neuman’s face took a shade off color.

“But I’m going to harvest to-day,” he said. “I’m late. I’ve a hundred hands coming.”

“Nope. You haven’t none comin’,” asserted Jake.

“What!” ejaculated Neuman.

“Reckon it’s near ten o’clock,” said the cowboy. “We run over here powerful fast.”

“Yes, it’s near ten,” bellowed Neuman, on the verge of a rage.… “I haven’t harvest-hands coming!… What’s this talk?”

“Wal, about nine-thirty I seen all your damned I.W.W.’s, except what was shot an’ hanged, loaded in a cattlecar an’ started out of the country.”

A blow could not have hit harder than the cowboy’s biting speech. Astonishment and fear shook Neuman before he recovered control of himself.

“If it’s true, what’s that to me?” he bluffed, in hoarse accents.

“Neuman, I didn’t come to answer questions,” said the cowboy, curtly. “My boss jest sent me fer you, an’ if you bucked on comin’, then I was to say it was your only chance to avoid publicity an’ bein’ run out of the country.”

Neuman was livid of face now and shaking all over his huge frame.

“Anderson threatens me!” he shouted. “Anderson suspicions me!… Gott in Himmel!… Me he always cheated! An’ now he insults—”

“Say, it ain’t healthy to talk like thet about my boss,” interrupted Jake, forcibly. “An’ we’re wastin’ time. If you don’t go with me we’ll be comin’ back — the whole outfit of us!… Anderson means you’re to face his man!”

“What man?”

“Dorn. Young Dorn, son of old Chris Dorn of the Bend.… Dorn has some things to tell you thet you won’t want made public.… Anderson’s givin’ you a square deal. If it wasn’t fer thet I’d sling my gun on you!… Do you git my hunch?”

The name of Dorn made a slack figure of the aggressive Neuman.

“All right — I go,” he said, gruffly, and without a word to his men he started off.

Jake followed him. Neuman made a short cut to the gate, thus avoiding a meeting with any of his family. At the road, however, some men observed him and called in surprise, but he waved them back.

“Bill, you an’ Andy collect yourselves an’ give Mr. Neuman a seat,” said Jake, as he opened the door to allow the farmer to enter.

The two cowboys gave Neuman the whole of the back seat, and they occupied the smaller side seats. Jake took his place beside the driver.

“Burn her up!” was his order.

The speed of the car made conversation impossible until the limits of a town necessitated slowing down. Then the cowboys talked. For all the attention they paid to Neuman, he might as well not have been present. Before long the driver turned into a road that followed a railroad track for several miles and then crossed it to enter a good-sized town. The streets were crowded with people and the car had to be driven slowly. At this juncture Jake suggested.

“Let’s go down by the bridge.”

“Sure,” agreed his allies.

Then the driver turned down a still more peopled street that sloped a little and evidently overlooked the railroad tracks. Presently they came in sight of a railroad bridge, around which there appeared to be an excited yet awestruck throng. All faces were turned up toward the swaying form of a man hanging by a rope tied to the high span of the bridge.

“Wal, Glidden’s hangin’ there yet,” remarked Jake, cheerfully.

With a violent start Neuman looked out to see the ghastly placarded figure, and then he sank slowly back in his seat. The cowboys apparently took no notice of him. They seemed to have forgotten his presence.

“Funny they’d cut all the other I.W.W.’s down an’ leave Glidden hangin’ there,” observed Bill.

“Them vigilantes sure did it up brown,” added Andy. “I was dyin’ to join the band. But they didn’t ask me.”

“Nor me,” replied Jake, regretfully. “An’ I can’t understand why, onless it was they was afeared I couldn’t keep a secret.”

“Who is them vigilantes, anyhow?” asked Bill, curiously.

“Wal, I reckon nobody knows. But I seen a thousand armed men this mornin’. They sure looked bad. You ought to have seen them poke the I.W.W.’s with cocked guns.”

“Was any one shot?” queried Andy.

“Not in the daytime. Nobody killed by this Citizens’ Protective League, as they call themselves. They just rounded up all the suspicious men an’ herded them on to thet cattle-train an’ carried them off. It was at night when the vigilantes worked — masked an’ secret an’ sure bloody. Jest like the old vigilante days! … An’ you can gamble they ain’t through yet.”

“Uncle Sam won’t need to send any soldiers here.”

“Wal, I should smile not. Thet’d be a disgrace to the Northwest. It was a bad time fer the I.W.W. to try any tricks on us.”

Jake shook his lean head and his jaw bulged. He might have been haranguing, cowboy-like, for the benefit of the man they feigned not to notice, but it was plain, nevertheless, that he was angry.

“What gits me wuss ‘n them I.W.W.’s is the skunks thet give Uncle Sam the double-cross,” said Andy, with dark face. “I’ll stand fer any man an’ respect him if he’s aboveboard an’ makes his fight in the open. But them coyotes thet live off the land an’ pretend to be American when they ain’t — they make me pisen mad.”

“I heerd the vigilantes has marked men like thet,” observed Bill.

“I’ll give you a hunch, fellers,” replied Jake, grimly. “By Gawd! the West won’t stand fer traitors!”

All the way to “Many Waters,” where it was possible to talk and be heard, the cowboys continued in like strain. And not until the driver halted the car before Anderson’s door did they manifest any awareness of Neuman.

“Git out an’ come in,” said Jake to the pallid, sweating rancher.

He led Neuman into the hall and knocked upon Anderson’s study door. It was opened by Dorn.

“Wal, hyar we are,” announced Jake, and his very nonchalance attested to pride.

Anderson was standing beside his desk. He started, and his hand flashed back significantly as he sighted his rival and enemy.

“No gun-play, boss, was your orders,” said Jake. “An’ Neuman ain’t packin’ no gun.”

It was plain that Anderson made a great effort at restraint. But he failed. And perhaps the realization that he could not kill this man liberated his passion. Then the two big ranchers faced each other — Neuman livid and shaking, Anderson black as a thunder-cloud.

“Neuman, you hatched up a plot with Glidden to kill me,” said Anderson, bitterly.

Neuman, in hoarse, brief answer, denied it.

“Sure! Deny it. What do we care? … We’ve got you, Neuman,” burst out Anderson, his heavy voice ringing with passion. “But it’s not your low-down plot thet’s r’iled me. There’s been a good many men who’ve tried to do away with me. I’ve outplayed you in many a deal. So your personal hate for me doesn’t count. I’m sore — an’ you an’ me can’t live in the same place, because you’re a damned traitor. You’ve lived here for twenty years. You’ve grown rich off the country. An’ you’d sell us to your rotten Germany. What I think of you for that I’m goin’ to tell you.”

Anderson paused to take a deep breath. Then he began to curse Neuman. All the rough years of his frontier life, as well as the quieter ones of his ranching days, found expression in the swift, thunderous roll of his terrible scorn. Every vile name that had ever been used by cowboy, outlaw, gambler, leaped to Anderson’s stinging tongue. All the keen, hard epithets common to the modern day he flung into Neuman’s face. And he ended with a profanity that was as individual in character as its delivery was intense.

“I’m callin’ you for my own relief,” he concluded, “an’ not that I expect to get under your hide.”

Then he paused. He wiped the beaded drops from his forehead, and he coughed and shook himself. His big fists unclosed. Passion gave place to dignity.

“Neuman, it’s a pity you an’ men like you can’t see the truth. That’s the mystery to me — why any one who had spent half a lifetime an’ prospered here in our happy an’ beautiful country could ever hate it. I never will understand that. But I do understand that America will never harbor such men for long. You have your reasons, I reckon. An’ no doubt you think you’re justified. That’s the tragedy. You run off from hard-ruled Germany. You will not live there of your own choice. You succeed here an’ live in peace an’ plenty.… An’, by God! you take up with a lot of foreign riffraff an’ double-cross the people you owe so much!… What’s wrong with your mind?… Think it over.… An’ that’s the last word I have for you.”

Anderson, turning to his desk, took up a cigar and lighted it. He was calm again. There was really sadness where his face had shown only fury. Then he addressed Dorn.

“Kurt, it’s up to you now,” he said. “As my superintendent an’ some-day partner, what you’ll say goes with me.… I don’t know what bein’ square would mean in relation to this man.”

Anderson sat down heavily in his desk chair and his face became obscured in cigar smoke.

“Neuman, do you recognize me?” asked Dorn, with his flashing eyes on the rancher.

“No,” replied Neuman.

“I’m Chris Dorn’s son. My father died a few days ago. He overtaxed his heart fighting fire in the wheat … Fire set by I.W.W. men. Glidden’s men! … They burned our wheat. Ruined us!”

Neuman showed shock at the news, at the sudden death of an old friend, but he did not express himself in words.

“Do you deny implication in Glidden’s plot to kill Anderson?” demanded Dorn.

“Yes,” replied Neuman.

“Well, you’re a liar!” retorted Dorn. “I saw you with Glidden and my father. I followed you at Wheatly — out along the railroad tracks. I slipped up and heard the plot. It was I who snatched the money from my father.”

Neuman’s nerve was gone, but with his stupid and stubborn process of thought he still denied, stuttering incoherently.

“Glidden has been hanged,” went on Dorn. “A vigilante band has been organized here in the valley. Men of your known sympathy will not be safe, irrespective of your plot against Anderson. But as to that, publicity alone will be enough to ruin you.… Americans of the West will not tolerate traitors.… Now the question you’ve got to decide is this. Will you take the risks or will you sell out and leave the country?”

“I’ll sell out,” replied Neuman.

“What price do you put on your ranch as it stands?”

“One hundred thousand dollars.”

Dorn turned to Anderson and asked, “Is it worth that much?”

“No. Seventy-five thousand would be a big price,” replied the rancher.

“Neuman, we will give you seventy-five thousand for your holdings. Do you accept?”

“I have no choice,” replied Neuman, sullenly.

“Choice!” exclaimed Dorn. “Yes, you have. And you’re not being cheated. I’ve stated facts. You are done in this valley. You’re ruined now! And Glidden’s fate stares you in the face.… Will you sell and leave the country?”

“Yes,” came the deep reply, wrenched from a stubborn breast.

“Go draw up your deeds, then notify us,” said Dorn, with finality.

Jake opened the door. Stolidly and slowly Neuman went out, precisely as he had entered, like a huge man in conflict with unintelligible thoughts.

“Send him home in the car,” called Anderson.

CHAPTER XXIII

FOR TWO FLEETING days Lenore Anderson was happy when she forgot, miserable when she remembered. Then the third morning dawned.

At the breakfast-table her father had said, cheerily, to Dorn: “Better take off your coat an’ come out to the fields. We’ve got some job to harvest that wheat with only half-force.… But, by George! my trouble’s over.”

Dorn looked suddenly blank, as if Anderson’s cheery words had recalled him to the realities of life. He made an incoherent excuse and left the table.

“Ah-huh!” Anderson’s characteristic exclamation might have meant little or much. “Lenore, what ails the boy?”

“Nothing that I know of. He has been as — as happy as I am,” she replied.

“Then it’s all settled?”

“Father, I — I—”

Kathleen’s high, shrill, gleeful voice cut in: “Sure it’s settled! Look at Lenorry blush!”

Lenore indeed felt the blood stinging face and neck. Nevertheless, she laughed.

“Come into my room,” said Anderson.

She followed him there, and as he closed the door she answered his questioning look by running into his arms and hiding her face.

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” the rancher ejaculated, with emotion. He held her and patted her shoulder with his big hand. “Tell me, Lenore.”

“There’s little to tell,” she replied, softly. “I love him — and he loves me so — so well that I’ve been madly happy — in spite of — of—”

“Is that all?” asked Anderson, dubiously.

“Is not that enough?”

“But Dorn’s lovin’ you so well doesn’t say he’ll not go to war.”

And it was then that forgotten bitterness returned to poison Lenore’s cup of joy.

“Ah!”… she whispered.

“Good Lord! Lenore, you don’t mean you an’ Dorn have been alone all the time these few days — an’ you haven’t settled that war question?” queried Anderson, in amaze.

“Yes.… How strange!… But since — well, since something happened — we — we forgot,” she replied, dreamily.

“Wal, go back to it,” said Anderson, forcibly. “I want Dorn to help me.… Why, he’s a wonder!… He’s saved the situation for us here in the valley. Every rancher I know is praisin’ him high. An’ he sure treated Neuman square. An’ here I am with three big wheat-ranches on my hands!… Lenore, you’ve got to keep him home.”

“Dad!… I — I could not!” replied Lenore. She was strangely realizing an indefinable change in herself. “I can’t try to keep him from going to war. I never thought of that since — since we confessed our love.… But it’s made some difference.… It’ll kill me, I think, to let him go — but I’d die before I’d ask him to stay home.”

“Ah-huh!” sighed Anderson, and, releasing her, he began to pace the room. “I don’t begin to understand you, girl. But I respect your feelin’s. It’s a hell of a muddle!… I’d forgotten the war myself while chasin’ off them I.W.W.’s.… But this war has got to be reckoned with!… Send Dorn to me!”

Lenore found Dorn playing with Kathleen. These two had become as brother and sister.

“Kurt, dad wants to see you,” said Lenore seriously.

Dorn looked startled, and the light of fun on his face changed to a sober concern.

“You told him?”

“Yes, Kurt, I told him what little I had to tell.”

He gave her a strange glance and then slowly went toward her father’s study. Lenore made a futile attempt to be patient. She heard her father’s deep voice, full and earnest, and she heard Dorn’s quick, passionate response. She wondered what this interview meant. Anderson was not one to give up easily. He had set his heart upon holding this capable young man in the great interests of the wheat business. Lenore could not understand why she was not praying that he be successful. But she was not. It was inexplicable and puzzling — this change in her — this end of her selfishness. Yet she shrank in terror from an impinging sacrifice. She thrust the thought from her with passionate physical gesture and with stern effort of will.

Dorn was closeted with her father for over an hour. When he came out he was white, but apparently composed. Lenore had never seen his eyes so piercing as when they rested upon her.

“Whew!” he exclaimed, and wiped his face. “Your father has my poor old dad — what does Kathleen say? — skinned to a frazzle!”

“What did he say?” asked Lenore, anxiously.

“A lot — and just as if I didn’t know it all better than he knows,” replied Dorn, sadly. “The importance of wheat; his three ranches and nobody to run them; his growing years; my future and a great opportunity as one of the big wheat men of the Northwest; the present need of the government; his only son gone to war, which was enough for his family.… And then he spoke of you — heiress to ‘Many Waters’ — what a splendid, noble girl you were — like your mother! What a shame to ruin your happiness — your future!… He said you’d make the sweetest of wives — the truest of mothers!… Oh, my God!”

Lenore turned away her face, shocked to her heart by his tragic passion. Dorn was silent for what seemed a long time.

“And — then he cussed me — hard — as no doubt I deserved,” added Dorn.

“But — what did you say?” she whispered.

“I said a lot, too,” replied Dorn, remorsefully.

“Did — did you — ?” began Lenore, and broke off, unable to finish.

“I arrived — to where I am now — pretty dizzy,” he responded, with a smile that was both radiant and sorrowful. He took her hands and held them close. “Lenore!… if I come home from the war — still with my arms and legs — whole — will you marry me?”

“Only come home alive, and no matter what you lose, yes! — yes!” she whispered, brokenly.

“But it’s a conditional proposal, Lenore,” he insisted. “You must never marry half a man.”

“I will marry you!” she cried, passionately.

It seemed to her that she loved him all the more, every moment, even though he made it so hard for her. Then through blurred, dim eyes she saw him take something from his pocket and felt him put a ring on her finger.

“It fits! Isn’t that lucky,” he said, softly. “My mother’s ring, Lenore.…”

He kissed her hand.

Kathleen was standing near them, open-eyed and open-mouthed, in an ecstasy of realization.

“Kathleen, your sister has promised to marry me — when I come from the war,” said Dorn to the child.

She squealed with delight, and, manifestly surrendering to a long-considered temptation, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close.

“It’s perfectly grand!” she cried. “But what a chump you are for going at all — when you could marry Lenorry!”

That was Kathleen’s point of view, and it must have coincided somewhat with Mr. Anderson’s.

“Kathleen, you wouldn’t have me be a slacker?” asked Dorn, gently.

“No. But we let Jim go,” was her argument.

Dorn kissed her, then turned to Lenore. “Let’s go out to the fields.”

It was not a long walk to the alfalfa, but by the time she got there Lenore’s impending woe was as if it had never been. Dorn seemed strangely gay and unusually demonstrative; apparently he forgot the war-cloud in the joy of the hour. That they were walking in the open seemed not to matter to him.

“Kurt, some one will see you,” Lenore remonstrated.

“You’re more beautiful than ever to-day,” he said, by way of answer, and tried to block her way.

Lenore dodged and ran. She was fleet, and eluded him down the lane, across the cut field, to a huge square stack of baled alfalfa. But he caught her just as she got behind its welcome covert. Lenore was far less afraid of him than of laughing eyes. Breathless, she backed up against the stack.

“You’re — a — cannibal!” she panted. But she did not make much resistance.

“You’re — a goddess!” he replied.

“Me!… Of what?”

“Why, of ‘Many Waters’!… Goddess of wheat!… The sweet, waving wheat, rich and golden — the very spirit of life!”

“If anybody sees you — mauling me — this way — I’ll not seem a goddess to him.… My hair is down — my waist — Oh, Kurt!”

Yet it did not very much matter how she looked or what happened. Beyond all was the assurance of her dearness to him. Suddenly she darted away from him again. Her heart swelled, her spirit soared, her feet were buoyant and swift. She ran into the uncut alfalfa. It was thick and high, tangling round her feet. Here her progress was retarded. Dorn caught up with her. His strong hands on her shoulders felt masterful, and the sweet terror they inspired made her struggle to get away.

“You shall — not — hold me!” she cried.

“But I will. You must be taught — not to run,” he said, and wrapped her tightly in his arms.

“Now surrender your kisses meekly!”

“I — surrender!… But, Kurt, someone will see… Dear, we’ll go back — or — somewhere—”

“Who can see us here but the birds?” he said, and the strong hands held her fast. “You will kiss me — enough — right now — even if the whole world — looked on!” he said, ringingly. “Lenore, my soul!… Lenore, I love you!”

He would not be denied. And if she had any desire to deny him it was lost in the moment. She clasped his neck and gave him kiss for kiss.

But her surrender made him think of her. She felt his effort to let her go.

Lenore’s heart felt too big for her breast. It hurt. She clung to his hand and they walked on across the field and across a brook, up the slope to one of Lenore’s favorite seats. And there she wanted to rest. She smoothed her hair and brushed her dress, aware of how he watched her, with his heart in his eyes.

Had there ever in all the years of the life of the earth been so perfect a day? How dazzling the sun! What heavenly blue the sky! And all beneath so gold, so green! A lark caroled over Lenore’s head and a quail whistled in the brush below. The brook babbled and gurgled and murmured along, happy under the open sky. And a soft breeze brought the low roar of the harvest fields and the scent of wheat and dust and straw.

Life seemed so stingingly full, so poignant, so immeasurably worth living, so blessed with beauty and richness and fruitfulness.

“Lenore, your eyes are windows — and I can see into your soul. I can read — and first I’m uplifted and then I’m sad.”

It was he who talked and she who listened. This glorious day would be her strength when the — Ah! but she would not complete a single bitter thought.

She led him away, up the slope, across the barley-field, now cut and harvested, to the great, swelling golden spaces of wheat. Far below, the engines and harvesters were humming. Here the wheat waved and rustled in the wind. It was as high as Lenore’s head.

“It’s fine wheat,” observed Dorn. “But the wheat of my desert hills was richer, more golden, and higher than this.”

“No regrets to-day!” murmured Lenore, leaning to him.

There was magic in those words — the same enchantment that made the hours fly. She led him, at will, here and there along the rustling-bordered lanes. From afar they watched the busy harvest scene, with eyes that lingered long on a great, glittering combine with its thirty-two horses plodding along.

“I can drive them. Thirty-two horses!” she asserted, proudly.

“No!”

“Yes. Will you come? I will show you.”

“It is a temptation,” he said, with a sigh. “But there are eyes there. They would break the spell.”

“Who’s talking about eyes now?” she cried.

They spent the remainder of that day on the windy wheat-slope, high up, alone, with the beauty and richness of “Many Waters” beneath them. And when the sun sent its last ruddy and gold rays over the western hills, and the weary harvesters plodded homeward, Lenore still lingered, loath to break the spell. For on the way home, she divined, he would tell her he was soon to leave.

Sunset and evening star! Their beauty and serenity pervaded Lenore’s soul. Surely there was a life somewhere else, beyond in that infinite space. And the defeat of earthly dreams was endurable.

They walked back down the wheat lanes hand in hand, as dusk shadowed the valley; and when they reached the house he told her gently that he must go.

“But — you will stay to-night?” she whispered.

“No. It’s all arranged,” he replied, thickly. “They’re to drive me over — my train’s due at eight.… I’ve kept it — till the last few minutes.”

They went in together.

“We’re too late for dinner,” said Lenore, but she was not thinking of that, and she paused with head bent. “I — I want to say good-by to you — here.” She pointed to the dim, curtained entrance of the living-room.

“I’d like that, too,” he replied. “I’ll go up and get my bag. Wait.”

Lenore slowly stepped to that shadowed spot beyond the curtains where she had told her love to Dorn; and there she stood, praying and fighting for strength to let him go, for power to conceal her pain. The one great thing she could do was to show him that she would not stand in the way of his duty to himself. She realized then that if he had told her sooner, if he were going to remain one more hour at “Many Waters,” she would break down and beseech him not to leave her.

She saw him come down-stairs with his small hand-bag, which he set down. His face was white. His eyes burned. But her woman’s love made her divine that this was not a shock to his soul, as it was to hers, but stimulation — a man’s strange spiritual accounting to his fellow-men.

He went first into the dining-room, and Lenore heard her mother’s and sisters’ voices in reply to his. Presently he came out to enter her father’s study. Lenore listened, but heard no sound there. Outside, a motor-car creaked and hummed by the window, to stop by the side porch. Then the door of her father’s study opened and closed, and Dorn came to where she was standing.

Lenore did precisely as she had done a few nights before, when she had changed the world for him. But, following her kiss, there was a terrible instant when, with her arms around his neck, she went blind at the realization of loss. She held to him with a savage intensity of possession. It was like giving up life. She knew then, as never before, that she had the power to keep him at her side. But a thought saved her from exerting it — the thought that she could not make him less than other men — and so she conquered.

“Lenore, I want you to think always — how you loved me,” he said.

“Loved you? Oh, my boy! It seems your lot has been hard. You’ve toiled — you’ve lost all — and now…”

“Listen,” he interrupted, and she had never heard his voice like that. “The thousands of boys who go to fight regard it a duty. For our country!… I had that, but more.… My father was German… and he was a traitor. The horror for me is that I hate what is German in me.… I will have to kill that. But you’ve helped me.… I know I’m American. I’ll do my duty, whatever it is. I would have gone to war only a beast with my soul killed before I ever got there.… With no hope — no possibility of return!… But you love me!… Can’t you see — how great the difference?”

Lenore understood and felt it in his happiness. “Yes, Kurt, I know.… Thank God, I’ve helped you.… I want you to go. I’ll pray always. I believe you will come back to me.… Life could not be so utterly cruel…” She broke off.

“Life can’t rob me now — nor death,” he cried, in exaltation. “I have your love. Your face will always be with me — as now — lovely and brave!… Not a tear!… And only that sweet smile like an angel’s!… Oh, Lenore, what a girl you are!”

“Say good-by — and go,” she faltered. Another moment would see her weaken.

“Yes, I must hurry.” His voice was a whisper — almost gone. He drew a deep breath. “Lenore — my promised wife — my star for all the black nights — God bless you — keep you!… Good-by!”

She spent all her strength in her embrace, all her soul in the passion of her farewell kiss. Then she stood alone, tottering, sinking. The swift steps, now heavy and uneven, passed out of the hall — the door closed — the motor-car creaked and rolled away — the droning hum ceased.

For a moment of despairing shock, before the storm broke, Lenore blindly wavered there, unable to move from the spot that had seen the beginning and the end of her brief hour of love. Then she summoned strength to drag herself to her room, to lock her door.

Alone! In the merciful darkness and silence and loneliness!… She need not lie nor play false nor fool herself here. She had let him go! Inconceivable and monstrous truth! For what?… It was not now with her, that deceiving spirit which had made her brave. But she was a woman. She fell upon her knees beside her bed, shuddering.

That moment was the beginning of her sacrifice, the sacrifice she shared in common now with thousands of other women. Before she had pitied; now she suffered. And all that was sweet, loving, noble, and motherly — all that was womanly — rose to meet the stretch of gray future, with its endless suspense and torturing fear, its face of courage for the light of day, its despair for the lonely night, and its vague faith in the lessons of life, its possible and sustaining and eternal hope of God.

CHAPTER XXIV

CAMP — , October — .

Dear Sister Lenore, — It’s been long since I wrote you. I’m sorry, dear. But I haven’t just been in shape to write. Have been transferred to a training-camp not far from New York. I don’t like it. The air is raw, penetrating, different from our high mountain air in the West. So many gray, gloomy days! And wet — why you never saw a rain in Washington! Fine bunch of boys, though. We get up in the morning at 4:30. Sweep the streets of the camp! I’m glad to get up and sweep, for I’m near frozen long before daylight. Yesterday I peeled potatoes till my hands were cramped. Nine million spuds, I guess! I’m wearing citizen’s clothes — too thin, by gosh! — and sleeping in a tent, on a canvas cot, with one blanket. Wouldn’t care a — (scoose me, sis) — I wouldn’t mind if I had a real gun, and some real fighting to look forward to. Some life, I don’t think! But I meant to tell you why I’m here.

You remember how I always took to cowboys. Well, I got chummy with a big cow puncher from Montana. His name was Andersen. Isn’t that queer? His name same as mine except for the last e where I have o. He’s a Swede or Norwegian. True-blue American? Well, I should smile. Like all cowboys! He’s six feet four, broad as a door, with a flat head of an Indian, and a huge, bulging chin. Not real handsome, but say! he’s one of the finest fellows that ever lived. We call him Montana.

There were a lot of rough-necks in our outfit, and right away I got in bad. You know I never was much on holding my temper. Anyway, I got licked powerful fine, as dad would say, and I’d been all beaten up but for Montana. That made us two fast friends, and sure some enemies, you bet.

We had the tough luck to run into six of the rough-necks, just outside of the little town, where they’d been drinking. I never heard the name of one of that outfit. We weren’t acquainted at all. Strange how they changed my soldier career, right at the start! This day, when we met them, they got fresh, and of course I had to start something. I soaked that rough-neck, sis, and don’t you forget it. Well, it was a fight, sure. I got laid out — not knocked out, for I could see — but I wasn’t any help to pard Montana. It looked as if he didn’t need any. The rough-necks jumped him. Then, one after another, he piled them up in the road. Just a swing — and down went each one — cold. But the fellow I hit came to and, grabbing up a pick-handle, with all his might he soaked Montana over the head. What an awful crack! Montana went down, and there was blood everywhere.

They took Montana to the hospital, sewed up his head. It wasn’t long before he seemed all right again, but he told me sometimes he felt queer. Then they put us on a troop-train, with boys from California and all over, and we came East. I haven’t seen any of those other Western boys, though, since we got here.

One day, without any warning, Montana keeled over, down and out. Paralysis! They took him to a hospital in New York. No hope, the doctors said, and he was getting worse all the time. But some New York surgeon advised operation, anyway. So they opened that healed-over place in his head, where the pick-handle hit — and what do you think they found? A splinter off that pick-handle, stuck two inches under his skull, in his brain! They took it out. Every day they expected Montana to die. But he didn’t. But he will die. I went over to see him. He’s unconscious part of the time — crazy the rest. No part of his right side moves! It broke me all up. Why couldn’t that soak he got have been on the Kaiser’s head?

I tell you, Lenore, a fellow has his eye teeth cut in this getting ready to go to war. It makes me sick. I enlisted to fight, not to be chased into a climate that doesn’t agree with me — not to sweep roads and juggle a wooden gun. There are a lot of things, but say! I’ve got to cut out that kind of talk.

I feel almost as far away from you all as if I were in China. But I’m nearer France! I hope you’re well and standing pat, Lenore. Remember, you’re dad’s white hope. I was the black sheep, you know. Tell him I don’t regard my transfer as a disgrace. The officers didn’t and he needn’t. Give my love to mother and the girls. Tell them not to worry. Maybe the war will be over before — I’ll write you often now, so cheer up.

Your loving brother,

Jim.

Camp — , October — .

My Dearest Lenore, — If my writing is not very legible it is because my hand shakes when I begin this sweet and sacred privilege of writing to my promised wife. My other letter was short, and this is the second in the weeks since I left you. What an endless time! You must understand and forgive me for not writing oftener and for not giving you definite address.

I did not want to be in the Western regiment, for reasons hard to understand. I enlisted in New York and am trying hard to get into the Rainbow Division, with some hope of success. There is nothing to me in being a member of a crack regiment, but it seems that this one will see action first of all American units. I don’t want to be an officer, either.

How will it be possible for me to write you as I want to — letters that will be free of the plague of myself — letters that you can treasure if I never come back? Sleeping and waking, I never forget the wonderful truth of your love for me. It did not seem real when I was with you, but, now that we are separated, I know that it is real. Mostly my mind contains only two things — this constant memory of you, and that other terrible thing of which I will not speak. All else that I think or do seems to be mechanical.

The work, the training, is not difficult for me, though so many boys find it desperately hard. You know I followed a plow, and that is real toil. Right now I see the brown fallow hills and the great squares of gold. But visions or thoughts of home are rare. That is well, for they hurt like a stab. I cannot think now of a single thing connected with my training here that I want to tell you. Yet some things I must tell. For instance, we have different instructors, and naturally some are more forcible than others. We have one at whom the boys laugh. He tickles them. They like him. But he is an ordeal for me. The reason is that in our first bayonet practice, when we rushed and thrust a stuffed bag, he made us yell, “God damn you, German — die!” I don’t imagine this to be general practice in army exercises, but the fact is he started us that way. I can’t forget. When I begin to charge with a bayonet those words leap silently, but terribly, to my lips. Think of this as reality, Lenore — a sad and incomprehensible truth in 1917. All in me that is spiritual, reasonable, all that was once hopeful, revolts at this actuality and its meaning. But there is another side, that dark one, which revels in anticipation. It is the cave-man in me, hiding by night, waiting with a bludgeon to slay. I am beginning to be struck by the gradual change in my comrades. I fancied that I alone had suffered a retrogression. I have a deep consciousness of baseness that is going to keep me aloof from them. I seem to be alone with my own soul. Yet I seem to be abnormally keen to impressions. I feel what is going on in the soldiers’ minds, and it shocks me, set me wondering, forces me to doubt myself. I keep saying it must be my peculiar way of looking at things.

Lenore, I remember your appeal to me. Shall I ever forget your sweet face — your sad eyes when you bade me hope in God? — I am trying, but I do not see God yet. Perhaps that is because of my morbidness — my limitations. Perhaps I will face him over there, when I go down into the Valley of the Shadow. One thing, however, I do begin to see is that there is a divinity in men. Slowly something divine is revealing itself to me. To give up work, property, friends, sister, mother, home, sweetheart, to sacrifice all and go out to fight for country, for honor — that indeed is divine. It is beautiful. It inspires a man and lifts his head. But, alas! if he is a thinking man, when he comes in contact with the actual physical preparation for war, he finds that the divinity was the hour of his sacrifice and that, to become a good soldier, he must change, forget, grow hard, strong, merciless, brutal, humorous, and callous, all of which is to say base. I see boys who are tender-hearted, who love life, who were born sufferers, who cannot inflict pain! How many silent cries of protest, of wonder, of agony, must go up in the night over this camp! The sum of them would be monstrous. The sound of them, if voiced, would be a clarion blast to the world. It is sacrifice that is divine, and not the making of an efficient soldier.

I shall write you endlessly. The action of writing relieves me. I feel less burdened now. Sometimes I cannot bear the burden of all this unintelligible consciousness. My mind is not large enough. Sometimes I feel that I am going to be every soldier and every enemy — each one in his strife or his drifting or his agony or his death. But despite that feeling I seem alone in a horde. I make no friends. I have no way to pass my leisure but writing. I can hardly read at all. When off duty the boys amuse themselves in a hundred ways — going to town, the theaters, and movies; chasing the girls (especially that to judge by their talk); play; boxing; games; and I am sorry to add, many of them gamble and drink. But I cannot do any of these things. I cannot forget what I am here for. I cannot forget that I am training to kill men. Never do I forget that soon I will face death. What a terrible, strange, vague thrill that sends shivering over me! Amusement and forgetfulness are past for Kurt Dorn. I am concerned with my soul. I am fighting that black passion which makes of me a sleepless watcher and thinker.

If this war only lets me live long enough to understand its meaning! Perhaps that meaning will be the meaning of life, in which case I am longing for the unattainable. But underneath it all must be a colossal movement of evolution, of spiritual growth — or of retrogression. Who knows? When I ask myself what I am going to fight for, I answer — for my country, as a patriot — for my hate, as an individual. My time is almost up. I go on duty. The rain is roaring on the thin roof. How it rains in this East! Whole days and nights it pours. I cannot help but think of my desert hills, always so barren and yellow, with the dust-clouds whirling. One day of this rain, useless and wasted here, would have saved the Bend crop of wheat. Nature is almost as inscrutable as God.

Lenore, good-by for this time. Think of me, but not as lonely or unhappy or uncomfortable out there in the cold, raw, black, wet night. I will be neither. Some one — a spirit — will keep beside me as I step the beat. I have put unhappiness behind me. And no rain or mud or chill will ever feaze me.

Yours with love,

Kurt Dorn.

Camp — , October — .

Dear Sister Lenore, — After that little letter of yours I could do nothing more than look up another pin like the one I sent Kathleen. I inclose it. Hope you will wear it.

I’m very curious to see what your package contains. It hasn’t arrived yet. All the mail comes late. That makes the boys sore.

The weather hasn’t been so wet lately as when I last wrote, but it’s colder. Believe me these tents are not steam-heated! But we grin and try to look happy. It’s not the most cheerful thing to hear the old call in the morning and tumble out in the cold gray dawn. Say! I’ve got two blankets now. Two! Just time for mess, then we hike down the road. I’m in for artillery now, I guess. The air service really fascinated me, but you can’t have what you want in this business.

Saturday. — This letter will be in sections. No use sending you a little dab of news now and then. I’ll write when I can, and mail when the letter assumes real proportions. Your package arrived and I was delighted. I think I slept better last night on your little pillow than any night since we were called out. My pillow before was your sleeveless jersey.

It’s after three A.M. and I’m on guard — that is, battery guard, and I have to be up from midnight to reveille, not on a post, but in my tent, so that if any of my men (I’m a corporal now), whom I relieve every two hours, get into trouble they can call me. Non-coms. go on guard once in six days, so about every sixth night I get along with no sleep.

We have been ordered to do away with all personal property except shaving outfit and absolutely necessary articles. We can’t keep a foot-locker, trunk, valise, or even an ordinary soap-box in our tents. Everything must be put in one barrack bag, a canvas sack just like a laundry-bag.

Thank the girls for the silk handkerchief and candy they sent. I sure have the sweetest sisters of any boy I know. I never appreciated them when I had them. I’m learning bitter truths these days. And tell mother I’ll write her soon. Thank her for the pajamas and the napkins. Tell her I’m sorry a soldier has no use for either.

This morning I did my washing of the past two weeks, and I was so busy that I didn’t hear the bugle blow, and thereby got on the “black book.” Which means that I won’t get any time off soon.

Before I forget, Lenore, let me tell you that I’ve taken ten thousand dollars’ life insurance from the government, in your favor as beneficiary. This costs me only about six and a half dollars per month, and in case of my death — Well, I’m a soldier, now. Please tell Rose I’ve taken a fifty-dollar Liberty Bond of the new issue for her. This I’m paying at the rate of five dollars per month and it will be delivered to her at the end of ten months. Both of these, of course, I’m paying out of my government pay as a soldier. The money dad sent me I spent like water, lent to the boys, threw away. Tell him not to send me any more. Tell him the time has come for Jim Anderson to make good. I’ve a rich dad and he’s the best dad any harum-scarum boy ever had. I’m going to prove more than one thing this trip.

We hear so many rumors, and none of them ever come true. One of them is funny — that we have so many rich men with political influence in our regiment that we will never get to France! Isn’t that the limit? But it’s funny because, if we have rich men, I’d like to see them. Still, there are thirty thousand soldiers here, and in my neck of the woods such rumors are laughed and cussed at. We hear also that we’re going to be ordered South. I wish that would come true. It’s so cold and drab and muddy and monotonous.

My friend Montana fooled everybody. He didn’t die. He seems to be hanging on. Lately he recovered consciousness. Told me he had no feeling on his left side, except sometimes his hand itched, you know, like prickly needles. But Montana will never be any good again. That fine big cowboy! He’s been one grand soldier. It sickens me sometimes to think of the difference between what thrilled me about this war game and what we get. Maybe, though — There goes my call. I must close. Love to all.

Jim.

New York City, October — .

Dearest Lenore, — It seems about time that I had a letter from you. I’m sure letters are on the way, but they do not come quickly. The boys complain of the mail service. Isn’t it strange that there is not a soul to write me except you? Jeff, my farm-hand, will write me whenever I write him, which I haven’t done yet.

I’m on duty here in New York at an armory bazaar. It’s certainly the irony of fate. Why did the officer pick on me, I’d like to know? But I’ve never complained of an order so far, and I’m standing it. Several of us — and they chose the husky boys — have been sent over here, for absolutely no purpose that I can see except to exhibit ourselves in uniform. It’s a woman’s bazaar, to raise money for war-relief work and so on. The hall is almost as large as that field back of your house, and every night it is packed with people, mostly young. My comrades are having fun out of it, but I feel like a fish out of water.

Just the same, Lenore, I’m learning more every day. If I was not so disgusted I’d think this was a wonderful opportunity. As it is, I regard it only as an experience over which I have no control and that interests me in spite of myself. New York is an awful place — endless, narrow, torn-up streets crowded with hurrying throngs, taxicabs, cars, and full of noise and dust. I am always choked for air. And these streets reek. Where do the people come from and where are they going? They look wild, as if they had to go somewhere, but did not know where that was. I’ve no time or inclination to see New York, though under happier circumstances I think I’d like to.

People in the East seem strange to me. Still, as I never mingled with many people in the West, I cannot say truly whether Eastern people are different from Western people. But I think so. Anyway, while I was in Spokane, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles I did not think people were greatly concerned about the war. Denver people appeared not to realize there was a war. But here in New York everything is war. You can’t escape it. You see that war will soon obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral and belligerent, pacifist and militarist. Since I wrote you last I’ve tried to read the newspapers sent to us. It’s hard to tell you which makes me the sicker — the prattle of the pacifist or the mathematics of the military experts. Both miss the spirit of men. Neither has any soul. I think the German minds must all be mathematical.

But I want to write about the women and girls I see, here in New York, in the camps and towns, on the trains, everywhere. Lenore, the war has thrown them off their balance. I have seen and studied at close hand women of all classes. Believe me, as the boys say, I have thought more than twice whether or not I would tell you the stark truth. But somehow I am impelled to. I have an overwhelming conviction that all American girls and mothers should know what the truth is. They will never be told, Lenore, and most would never believe if they were told. And that is one thing wrong with people.

I believe every soldier, from the time he enlists until the war is ended, should be kept away from women. This is a sweeping statement and you must take into account the mind of him who makes it. But I am not leaping at conclusions. The soldier boys have terrible peril facing them long before they get to the trenches. Not all, or nearly all, the soldiers are going to be vitally affected by the rottenness of great cities or by the mushroom hotbeds of vice springing up near the camps. These evils exist and are being opposed by military and government, by police and Y.M.C.A., and good influence of good people. But they will never wholly stamp it out.

Nor do I want to say much about the society women who are “rushing” the officers. There may be one here and there with her heart in the right place, but with most of them it must be, first, this something about war that has unbalanced women; and secondly, a fad, a novelty, a new sentimental stunt, a fashion set by some leader. Likewise I want to say but little about the horde of common, street-chasing, rattled-brained women and girls who lie in wait for soldiers at every corner, so to speak. All these, to be sure, may be unconsciously actuated by motives that do not appear on the surface; and if this be true, their actions are less bold, less raw than they look.

What I want to dwell upon is my impression of something strange, unbalanced, incomprehensible, about the frank conduct of so many well-educated, refined, and good women I see; and about the eagerness, restlessness, the singular response of nice girls to situations that are not natural.

To-night a handsome, stylishly gowned woman of about thirty came up to me with a radiant smile and a strange brightness in her eyes. There were five hundred couples dancing on the floor, and the music and sound of sliding feet made it difficult to hear her. She said: “You handsome soldier boy! Come dance with me?” I replied politely that I did not dance. Then she took hold of me and said, “I’ll teach you.” I saw a wedding-ring on the hand she laid on my arm. Then I looked straight at her, “Madam, very soon I’ll be learning the dance of death over in France, and my mind’s concerned with that.” She grew red with anger. She seemed amazed. And she snapped, “Well, you are a queer soldier!” Later I watched her flirting and dancing with an officer.

Overtures and advances innumerable have been made to me, ranging from the assured possession-taking onslaught like this woman’s to the slight, subtle something, felt more than seen, of a more complex nature. And, Lenore, I blush to tell you this, but I’ve been mobbed by girls. They have a thousand ways of letting a soldier know! I could not begin to tell them. But I do not actually realize what it is that is conveyed, that I know; and I am positive the very large majority of soldiers misunderstand. At night I listen to the talks of my comrades, and, well — if the girls only heard! Many times I go out of hearing, and when I cannot do that I refuse to hear.

Lenore, I am talking about nice girls now. I am merciless. There are many girls like you — they seem like you, though none so pretty. I mean, you know, there are certain manners and distinctions that at once mark a really nice girl. For a month I’ve been thrown here and there, so that it seems I’ve seen as many girls as soldiers. I have been sent to different entertainments given for soldiers. At one place a woman got up and invited the girls to ask the boys to dance. At another a crowd of girls were lined up wearing different ribbons, and the boys marched along until each one found the girl wearing a ribbon to match the one he wore. That was his partner. It was interesting to see the eager, mischievous, brooding eyes of these girls as they watched and waited. Just as interesting was it to see this boy’s face when he found his partner was ugly, and that boy swell with pride when he found he had picked a “winner.” It was all adventure for both boys and girls. But I saw more than that in it. Whenever I could not avoid meeting a girl I tried to be agreeable and to talk about war, and soldiers, and what was going on. I did not dance, of course, and I imagine more than one girl found me a “queer soldier.”

It always has touched me, though, to see and feel the sweetness, graciousness, sympathy, kindness, and that other indefinable something, in the girls I have met. How they made me think of you, Lenore! No doubt about their hearts, their loyalty, their Americanism. Every soldier who goes to France can fight for some girl! They make you feel that. I believe I have gone deeper than most soldiers in considering what I will call war-relation of the sexes. If it is normal, then underneath it all is a tremendous inscrutable design of nature or God. If that be true, actually true, then war must be inevitable and right! How horrible! My thoughts confound me sometimes. Anyway, the point I want to make is this: I heard an officer tell an irate father, whose two daughters had been insulted by soldiers: “My dear sir, it is regrettable. These men will be punished. But they are not greatly to blame, because so many girls throw themselves at their heads. Your daughters did not, of course, but they should not have come here.” That illustrates the fixed idea of the military, all through the ranks — Women throw themselves at soldiers! It is true that they do. But the idea is false, nevertheless, because the mass of girls are misunderstood.

Misunderstood! — I can tell you why. Surely the mass of American girls are nice, fine, sweet, wholesome. They are young. The news of war liberates something in them that we can find no name for. But it must be noble. A soldier! The very name, from childhood, is one to make a girl thrill. What then the actual thing, the uniform, invested somehow with chivalry and courage, the clean-cut athletic young man, somber and fascinating with his intent eyes, his serious brow, or his devil-may-care gallantry, the compelling presence of him that breathes of his sacrifice, of his near departure to privation, to squalid, comfortless trenches, to the fire and hell of war, to blood and agony and death — in a word to fight, fight, fight for women!… So through this beautiful emotion women lose their balance and many are misunderstood. Those who would not and could not be bold are susceptible to advances that in an ordinary time would not affect them. War invests a soldier with a glamour. Love at first sight, flirtations, rash intimacies, quick engagements, immediate marriages. The soldier who is soon going away to fight and perhaps to die strikes hard at the very heart of a girl. Either she is not her real self then, or else she is suddenly transported to a womanhood that is instinctive, elemental, universal for the future. She feels what she does not know. She surrenders because there is an imperative call to the depths of her nature. She sacrifices because she is the inspiritor of the soldier, the reward for his loss, the savior of the race. If women are the spoils of barbarous conquerors, they are also the sinews, the strength, the soul of defenders.

And so, however you look at it, war means for women sacrifice, disillusion, heartbreak, agony, doom. I feel that so powerfully that I am overcome; I am sick at the gaiety and playing; I am full of fear, wonder, admiration, and hopeless pity for them.

No man can tell what is going on in the souls of soldiers while noble women are offering love and tenderness, throwing themselves upon the altar of war, hoping blindly to send their great spirits marching to the front. Perhaps the man who lives through the war will feel the change in his soul if he cannot tell it. Day by day I think I see a change in my comrades. As they grow physically stronger they seem to grow spiritually lesser. But maybe that is only my idea. I see evidences of fear, anger, sullenness, moodiness, shame. I see a growing indifference to fatigue, toil, pain. As these boys harden physically they harden mentally. Always, ‘way off there is the war, and that seems closely related to the near duty here — what it takes to make a man. These fellows will measure men differently after this experience with sacrifice, obedience, labor, and pain. In that they will become great. But I do not think these things stimulate a man’s mind. Changes are going on in me, some of which I am unable to define. For instance, physically I am much bigger and stronger than I was. I weigh one hundred and eighty pounds! As for my mind, something is always tugging at it. I feel that it grows tired. It wants to forget. In spite of my will, all of these keen desires of mine to know everything lag and fail often, and I catch myself drifting. I see and feel and hear without thinking. I am only an animal then. At these times sight of blood, or a fight, or a plunging horse, or a broken leg — and these sights are common — affects me little until I am quickened and think about the meaning of it all. At such moments I have a revulsion of feeling. With memory comes a revolt, and so on, until I am the distressed, inquisitive, and morbid person I am now. I shudder at what war will make me. Actual contact with earth, exploding guns, fighting comrades, striking foes, will make brutes of us all. It is wrong to shed another man’s blood. If life was meant for that why do we have progress? I cannot reconcile a God with all this horror. I have misgivings about my mind. If I feel so acutely here in safety and comfort, what shall I feel over there in peril and agony? I fear I shall laugh at death. Oh, Lenore, consider that! To laugh in the ghastly face of death! If I yield utterly to a fiendish joy of bloody combat, then my mind will fail, and that in itself would be evidence of God.

I do not read over my letters to you, I just write. Forgive me if they are not happier. Every hour I think of you. At night I see your face in the shadow of the tent wall. And I love you unutterably.

Faithfully,

Kurt Dorn.

Camp —— , November — ,

Dear Sister, — It’s bad news I’ve got for you this time. Something bids me tell you, though up to now I’ve kept unpleasant facts to myself.

The weather has knocked me out. My cold came back, got worse and worse. Three days ago I had a chill that lasted for fifteen minutes. I shook like a leaf. It left me, and then I got a terrible pain in my side. But I didn’t give in, which I feel now was a mistake. I stayed up till I dropped.

I’m here in the hospital. It’s a long shed with three stoves, and a lot of beds with other sick boys. My bed is far away from a stove. The pain is bad yet, but duller, and I’ve fever. I’m pretty sick, honey. Tell mother and dad, but not the girls. Give my love to all. And don’t worry. It’ll all come right in the end. This beastly climate’s to blame.

Later, — It’s night now. I was interrupted. I’ll write a few more lines. Hope you can read them. It’s late and the wind is moaning outside. It’s so cold and dismal. The fellow in the bed next to me is out of his head. Poor devil! He broke his knee, and they put off the operation — too busy! So few doctors and so many patients! And now he’ll lose his leg. He’s talking about home. Oh, Lenore! Home! I never knew what home was — till now.

I’m worse to-night. But I’m always bad at night. Only, to-night I feel strange. There’s a weight on my chest, besides the pain. That moan of wind makes me feel so lonely. There’s no one here — and I’m so cold. I’ve thought a lot about you girls and mother and dad. Tell dad I made good.

Jim

CHAPTER XXV

JIM’S LAST LETTER was not taken seriously by the other members of the Anderson family. The father shook his head dubiously. “That ain’t like Jim,” but made no other comment. Mrs. Anderson sighed. The young sisters were not given to worry. Lenore, however, was haunted by an unwritten meaning in her brother’s letter.

Weeks before, she had written to Dorn and told him to hunt up Jim. No reply had yet come from Dorn. Every day augmented her uneasiness, until it was dreadful to look for letters that did not come. All this fortified her, however, to expect calamity. Like a bolt out of the clear sky it came in the shape of a telegram from Camp —— saying that Jim was dying.

The shock prostrated the mother. Jim had been her favorite. Mr. Anderson left at once for the East. Lenore had the care of her mother and the management of “Many Waters” on her hands, which duties kept her mercifully occupied. Mrs. Anderson, however, after a day, rallied surprisingly. Lenore sensed in her mother the strength of the spirit that sacrificed to a noble and universal cause. It seemed to be Mrs. Anderson’s conviction that Jim had been shot, or injured by accident in gun-training, or at least by a horse. Lenore did not share her mother’s idea and was reluctant to dispel it. On the evening of the fifth day after Mr. Anderson’s departure a message came, saying that he had arrived too late to see Jim alive. Mrs. Anderson bore the news bravely, though she weakened perceptibly.

The family waited then for further news. None came. Day after day passed. Then one evening, while Lenore strolled in the gloaming, Kathleen came running to burst out with the announcement of their father’s arrival. He had telephoned from Vale for a car to meet him.

Not long after that, Lenore, who had gone to her room, heard the return of the car and recognized her father’s voice. She ran down in time to see him being embraced by the girls, and her mother leaning with bowed head on his shoulder.

“Yes, I fetched Jim — back,” he said, steadily, but very low. “It’s all arranged.… An’ we’ll bury him to-morrow.”

“Oh — dad!” cried Lenore.

“Hello, my girl!” he replied, and kissed her. “I’m sorry to tell you I couldn’t locate Kurt Dorn.… That New York — an’ that trainin’ camp!”

He held up his hands in utter futility of expression. Lenore’s quick eyes noted his face had grown thin and haggard, and she made sure with a pang that his hair was whiter.

“I’m sure glad to be home,” he said, with a heavy expulsion of breath. “I want to clean up an’ have a bite to eat.”

Lenore was so disappointed at failing to hear from Dorn that she did not think how singular it was her father did not tell more about Jim. Later he seemed more like himself, and told them simply that Jim had contracted pneumonia and died without any message for his folk at home. This prostrated Mrs. Anderson again.

Later Lenore sought her father in his room. He could not conceal from her that he had something heartrending on his mind. Then there was more than tragedy in his expression. Lenore felt a leap of fear at what seemed her father’s hidden anger. She appealed to him — importuned him. Plainer it came to her that he wanted to relieve himself of a burden. Then doubling her persuasions, she finally got him to talk.

“Lenore, it’s not been so long ago that right here in this room Jim begged me to let him enlist. He wasn’t of age. But would I let him go — to fight for the honor of our country — for the future safety of our home?… We all felt the boy’s eagerness, his fire, his patriotism. Wayward as he’s been, we suddenly were proud of him. We let him go. We gave him up. He was a part of our flesh an’ blood — sent by us Andersons — to do our share.”

Anderson paused in his halting speech, and swallowed hard. His white face twitched strangely and his brow was clammy. Lenore saw that his piercing gaze looked far beyond her for the instant that he broke down.

“Jim was a born fighter,” the father resumed. “He wasn’t vicious. He just had a leanin’ to help anybody. As a lad he fought for his little pards — always on the right side — an’ he always fought fair.… This opportunity to train for a soldier made a man of him. He’d have made his mark in the war. Strong an’ game an’ fierce, he’d … he’d … Well, he’s dead — he’s dead!… Four months after enlistment he’s dead.… An’ he never had a rifle in his hands! He never had his hands on a machine-gun or a piece of artillery!… He never had a uniform! He never had an overcoat! He never …”

Then Mr. Anderson’s voice shook so that he had to stop to gain control. Lenore was horrified. She felt a burning stir within her.

“Lemme get this — out,” choked Anderson, his face now livid, his veins bulging. “I’m drove to tell it. I was near all day locatin’ Jim’s company. Found the tent where he’d lived. It was cold, damp, muddy. Jim’s messmates spoke high of him. Called him a prince!… They all owed him money. He’d done many a good turn for them. He had only a thin blanket, an’ he caught cold. All the boys had colds. One night he gave that blanket to a boy sicker than he was. Next day he got worse.… There was miles an’ miles of them tents. I like to never found the hospital where they’d sent Jim. An’ then it was six o’clock in the mornin’ — a raw, bleak day that’d freeze one of us to the marrow. I had trouble gettin’ in. But a soldier went with me an’ — an’ …”

Anderson’s voice went to a whisper, and he looked pityingly at Lenore.

“That hospital was a barn. No doctors! Too early.… The nurses weren’t in sight. I met one later, an’, poor girl! she looked ready to drop herself!… We found Jim in one of the little rooms. No heat! It was winter there.… Only a bed!… Jim lay on the floor, dead! He’d fallen or pitched off the bed. He had on only his underclothes that he had on — when he — left home.… He was stiff — an’ must have — been dead — a good while.”

Lenore held out her trembling hands. “Dead — Jim dead — like that!” she faltered.

“Yes. He got pneumonia,” replied Anderson, hoarsely. “The camp was full of it.”

“But — my God! Were not the — the poor boys taken care of?” implored Lenore, faintly.

“It’s a terrible time. All was done that could be done!”

“Then — it was all — for nothing?”

“All! All! Our boy an’ many like him — the best blood of our country — Western blood — dead because … because …”

Anderson’s voice failed him.

“Oh, Jim! Oh, my brother!… Dead like a poor neglected dog! Jim — who enlisted to fight — for—”

Lenore broke down then and hurried away to her room.

With great difficulty Mrs. Anderson was revived, and it became manifest that the prop upon which she had leaned had been slipped from under her. The spirit which had made her strong to endure the death of her boy failed when the sordid bald truth of a miserable and horrible waste of life gave the lie to the splendid fighting chance Jim had dreamed of.

When Anderson realized that she was fading daily he exhausted himself in long expositions of the illness and injury and death common to armies in the making. More deaths came from these causes than from war. It was the elision of the weaker element — the survival of the fittest; and some, indeed very many, mothers must lose their sons that way. The government was sound at the core, he claimed; and his own rage was at the few incompetents and profiteers. These must be weeded out — a process that was going on. The gigantic task of a government to draft and prepare a great army and navy was something beyond the grasp of ordinary minds. Anderson talked about what he had seen and heard, proving the wonderful stride already made. But all that he said now made no impression upon Mrs. Anderson. She had made her supreme sacrifice for a certain end, and that was as much the boy’s fiery ambition to fight as it was her duty, common with other mothers, to furnish a man at the front. What a hopeless, awful sacrifice! She sank under it.

Those were trying days for Lenore, just succeeding her father’s return; and she had little time to think of herself. When the mail came, day after day, without a letter from Dorn, she felt the pang in her breast grow heavier. Intimations crowded upon her of impending troubles that would make the present ones seem light.

It was not long until the mother was laid to rest beside the son.

When that day ended, Lenore and her father faced each other in her room, where he had always been wont to come for sympathy. They gazed at each other, with hard, dry eyes. Stark-naked truth — grim reality — the nature of this catastrophe — the consciousness of war — dawned for each in the look of the other. Brutal shock and then this second exceeding bitter woe awakened their minds to the futility of individual life.

“Lenore — it’s over!” he said, huskily, as he sank into a chair. “Like a nightmare!… What have I got to live for?”

“You have us girls,” replied Lenore. “And if you did not have us there would be many others for you to live for.… Dad, can’t you see — now?”

“I reckon. But I’m growin’ old an’ mebbe I’ve quit.”

“No, dad, you’ll never quit. Suppose all we Americans quit. That’d mean a German victory. Never! Never! Never!”

“By God! you’re right!” he ejaculated, with the trembling strain of his face suddenly fixing. Blood and life shot into his eyes. He got up heavily and began to stride to and fro before her. “You see clearer than me. You always did, Lenore.”

“I’m beginning to see, but I can’t tell you,” replied Lenore, closing her eyes. Indeed, there seemed a colossal vision before her, veiled and strange. “Whatever happens, we cannot break. It’s because of the war. We have our tasks — greater now than ever we believe could be thrust upon us. Yours to show men what you are made of! To raise wheat as never before in your life! Mine to show my sisters and my friends — all the women — what their duty is. We must sacrifice, work, prepare, and fight for the future.”

“I reckon,” he nodded solemnly. “Loss of mother an’ Jim changes this damned war. Whatever’s in my power to do must go on. So some one can take it up when I—”

“That’s the great conception, dad,” added Lenore, earnestly. “We are tragically awakened. We’ve been surprised — terribly struck in the dark. Something monstrous and horrible!… I can feel the menace in it for all — over every family in this broad land.”

“Lenore, you said once that Jim — Now, how’d you know it was all over for him?”

“A woman’s heart, dad. When I said good-by to Jim I knew it was good-by forever.”

“Did you feel that way about Kurt Dorn?”

“No. He will come back to me. I dream it. It’s in my spirit — my instinct of life, my flesh-and-blood life of the future — it’s in my belief in God. Kurt Dorn’s ordeal will be worse than death for him. But I believe as I pray — that he will come home alive.”

“Then, after all, you do hope,” said her father. “Lenore, when I was down East, I seen what women were doin’. The bad women are good an’ the good women are great. I think women have more to do with war then men, even if they do stay home. It must be because women are mothers.… Lenore, you’ve bucked me up. I’ll go at things now. The need for wheat next year will be beyond calculation. I’ll buy ten thousand acres of that wheatland round old Chris Dorn’s farm. An’ my shot at the Germans will be wheat. I’ll raise a million bushels!”

Next morning in the mail was a long, thick envelope addressed to Lenore in handwriting that shook her heart and made her fly to the seclusion of her room.

New York City, November — .

DEAREST, — when you receive this I will be in France.

Then Lenore sustained a strange shock. The beloved handwriting faded, the thick sheets of paper fell; and all about her seemed dark and whirling, as the sudden joy and excitement stirred by the letter changed to sickening pain.

“France! He’s in France?” she whispered. “Oh, Kurt!” A storm of love and terror burst over her. It had the onset and the advantage of a bewildering surprise. It laid low, for the moment, her fortifications of sacrifice, strength, and resolve. She had been forced into womanhood, and her fear, her agony, were all the keener for the intelligence and spirit that had repudiated selfish love. Kurt Dorn was in France in the land of the trenches! Strife possessed her and had a moment of raw, bitter triumph. She bit her lips and clenched her fists, to restrain the impulse to rush madly around the room, to scream out her fear and hate. With forcing her thought, with hard return to old well-learned arguments, there came back the nobler emotions. But when she took up the letter again, with trembling hands, her heart fluttered high and sick, and she saw the words through blurred eyes.

…I’ll give the letter to an ensign, who has promised to mail it the moment he gets back to New York.

Lenore, your letter telling me about Jim was held up in the mail. But thank goodness, I got it in time. I’d already been transferred, and expected orders any day to go on board the transport, where I am writing now. I’d have written you, or at least telegraphed you, yesterday, after seeing Jim, if I had not expected to see him again to-day. But this morning we were marched on board and I cannot even get this letter off to you.

Lenore, your brother is a very sick boy. I lost some hours finding him. They did not want to let me see him. But I implored — said that I was engaged to his sister — and finally I got in. The nurse was very sympathetic. But I didn’t care for the doctors in charge. They seemed hard, hurried, brusque. But they have their troubles. The hospital was a long barracks, and it was full of cripples.

The nurse took me into a small, bare room, too damp and cold for a sick man, and I said so. She just looked at me.

Jim looks like you more than any other of the Andersons. I recognized that at the same moment I saw how very sick he was. They had told me outside that he had a bad case of pneumonia. He was awake, perfectly conscious, and he stared at me with eyes that set my heart going.

“Hello, Jim!” I said, and offered my hand, as I sat down on the bed. He was too weak to shake hands.

“Who’re you?” he asked. He couldn’t speak very well. When I told him my name and that I was his sister’s fiancé his face changed so he did not look like the same person. It was beautiful. Oh, it showed how homesick he was! Then I talked a blue streak about you, about the girls, about “Many Waters” — how I lost my wheat, and everything. He was intensely interested, and when I got through he whispered that he guessed Lenore had picked a “winner.” What do you think of that? He was curious about me, and asked me questions till the nurse made him stop. I was never so glad about anything as I was about the happiness it evidently gave him to meet me and hear from home. I promised to come next day if we did not sail. Then he showed what I must call despair. He must have been passionately eager to get to France. The nurse dragged me out. Jim called weakly after me: “Good-by, Kurt. Stick some Germans for me!” I’ll never forget his tone nor his look.… Lenore, he doesn’t expect to get over to France.

I questioned the nurse, and she shook her head doubtfully. She looked sad. She said Jim had been the lion of his regiment. I questioned a doctor, and he was annoyed. He put me off with a sharp statement that Jim was not in danger. But I think he is. I hope and pray he recovers.

Thursday.

We sailed yesterday. It was a wonderful experience, leaving Hoboken. Our transport and the dock looked as if they had a huge swarm of yellow bees hanging over everything. The bees were soldiers. The most profound emotion I ever had — except the one when you told me you loved me — came over me as the big boat swung free of the dock — of the good old U.S., of home. I wanted to jump off and swim through the eddying green water to the piles and hide in them till the boat had gone. As we backed out, pulled up tugs, and got started down the river, my thrills increased, until we passed the Statue of Liberty — and then I couldn’t tell how I felt. One thing, I could not see very well.… I gazed beyond the colossal statue that France gave to the U.S.— ‘way across the water and the ships and the docks toward the West that I was leaving. Feeling like mine then only comes once to a man in his life. First I seemed to see all the vast space, the farms, valleys, woods, deserts, rivers, and mountains between me and my golden wheat-hills. Then I saw my home, and it was as if I had a magnificent photograph before my very eyes. A sudden rush of tears blinded me. Such a storm of sweetness, regret, memory! Then at last you — you as you stood before me last, the very loveliest girl in all the world. My heart almost burst, and in the wild, sick pain of the moment I had a strange, comforting flash of thought that a man who could leave you must be impelled by something great in store for him. I feel that. I told you once. To laugh at death! That is what I shall do. But perhaps that is not the great experience which will come to me.

I saw the sun set in the sea, ‘way back toward the western horizon, where the thin, dark line that was land disappeared in the red glow. The wind blows hard. The water is rough, dark gray, and cold. I like the taste of the spray. Our boat rolls heavily and many boys are already sick. I do not imagine the motion will affect me. It is stuffy below-deck. I’ll spend what time I can above, where I can see and feel. It was dark just now when I came below. And as I looked out into the windy darkness and strife I was struck by the strangeness of the sea and how it seemed to be like my soul. For a long time I have been looking into my soul, and I find such ceaseless strife, such dark, unlit depths, such chaos. These thoughts and emotions, always with me, keep me from getting close to my comrades. No, not me, but it keeps them away from me. I think they regard me strangely. They all talk of submarines. They are afraid. Some will lose sleep at night. But I never think of a submarine when I gaze out over the tumbling black waters. What I think of, what I am going after, what I need seems far, far away. Always! I am no closer now than when I was at your home. So it has not to do with distance. And Lenore, maybe it has not to do with trenches or Germans.

Wednesday.

It grows harder to get a chance to write and harder for me to express myself. When I could write I have to work or am on duty; when I have a little leisure I am somehow clamped. This old chugging boat beats the waves hour after hour, all day and all night. I can feel the vibration when I’m asleep. Many things happen that would interest you, just the duty and play of the soldiers, for that matter, and the stories I hear going from lip to lip, and the accidents. Oh! so much happens. But all these rush out of my mind the moment I sit down to write. There is something at work in me as vast and heaving as the ocean.

At first I had a fear, a dislike of the ocean. But that is gone. It is indescribable to stand on the open deck at night as we are driving on and on and on — to look up at the grand, silent stars, that know, that understand, yet are somehow merciless — to look out across the starlit, moving sea. Its ceaseless movement at first distressed me; now I feel that it is perpetually moving to try to become still. To seek a level! To find itself! To quiet down to peace! But that will never be. And I think if the ocean is not like the human heart, then what is it like?

This voyage will be good for me. The hard, incessant objective life, the physical life of a soldier, somehow comes to a halt on board ship. And every hour now is immeasurable for me. Whatever the mystery of life, of death, of what drives me, of why I cannot help fight the demon in me, of this thing called war — the certainty is that these dark, strange nights on the sea have given me a hope and faith that the truth is not utterly unattainable.

Sunday.

We’re in the danger zone now, with destroyers around us and a cruiser ahead. I am all eyes and ears. I lose sleep at night from thinking so hard. The ship doctor stopped me the other day — studied my face. Then he said: “You’re too intense. You think too hard.… Are you afraid?” And I laughed in his face. “Absolutely no!” I told him. “Then forget — and mix with the boys. Play — cut up — fight — do anything but think!” That doctor is a good chap, but he doesn’t figure Kurt Dorn if he imagines the Germans can kill me by making me think.

We’re nearing France now, and the very air is charged. An aeroplane came out to meet us — welcome us, I guess, and it flew low. The soldiers went wild. I never had such a thrill. That air game would just suit me, if I were fitted for it. But I’m no mechanic. Besides, I’m too big and heavy. My place will be in the front line with a bayonet. Strange how a bayonet fascinates me!

They say we can’t write home anything about the war. I’ll write you something, whenever I can. Don’t be unhappy if you do not hear often — or if my letters cease to come. My heart and my mind are full of you. Whatever comes to me — the training over here — the going to the trenches — the fighting — I shall be safe if only I can remember you.

With love,

Kurt.

Lenore carried that letter in her bosom when she went out to walk in the fields, to go over the old ground she and Kurt had trod hand in hand. From the stone seat above the brook she watched the sunset. All was still except the murmur of the running water, and somehow she could not long bear that. As the light began to shade on the slopes, she faced them, feeling, as always, a strength come to her from their familiar lines. Twilight found her high above the ranch, and absolutely alone. She would have this lonely hour, and then, all her mind and energy must go to what she knew was imperative duty. She would work to the limit of her endurance.

It was an autumn twilight, with a cool wind, gray sky, and sad, barren slopes. The fertile valley seemed half obscured in melancholy haze, and over toward the dim hills beyond night had already fallen. No stars, no moon, no afterglow of sunset illumined the grayness that in this hour seemed prophetic of Lenore’s future.

“‘Safe!’ he said. ‘I shall be safe if only I can remember you,’” she whispered to herself, wonderingly. “What did he mean?”

Pondering the thought, she divined it had to do with Dorn’s singular spiritual mood. He had gone to lend his body as so much physical brawn, so much weight, to a concerted movement of men, but his mind was apart from a harmony with that. Lenore felt that whatever had been the sacrifice made by Kurt Dorn, it had been passed with his decision to go to war. What she prayed for then was something of his spirit.

Slowly, in the gathering darkness, she descended the long slope. The approaching night seemed sad, with autumn song of insects. All about her breathed faith, from the black hills above, the gray slopes below, from the shadowy void, from the murmuring of insect life in the grass. The rugged fallow ground under her feet seemed to her to be a symbol of faith — faith that winter would come and pass — the spring sun and rain would burst the seeds of wheat — and another summer would see the golden fields of waving grain. If she did not live to see them, they would be there just the same; and so life and nature had faith in its promise. That strange whisper was to Lenore the whisper of God.

CHAPTER XXVI

THROUGH THE PALE obscurity of a French night, cool, raw, moist, with a hint of spring in its freshness, a line of soldiers plodded along the lonely, melancholy lanes. Wan starlight showed in the rifts between the clouds. Neither dark nor light, the midnight hour had its unreality in this line of marching men; and its reality in the dim, vague hedges, its spectral posts, its barren fields.

Rain had ceased to fall, but a fine, cold, penetrating mist filled the air. The ground was muddy in places, slippery in others; and here and there it held pools of water ankle-deep. The stride of the marching men appeared short and dragging, without swing or rhythm. It was weary, yet full of the latent power of youth, of unused vitality. Stern, clean-cut, youthful faces were set northward, unchanging in the shadowy, pale gleams of the night. These faces lifted intensely whenever a strange, muffled, deep-toned roar rolled out of the murky north. The night looked stormy, but that rumble was not thunder. Fifty miles northward, beyond that black and mysterious horizon, great guns were booming war.

Sometimes, as the breeze failed, the night was silent except for the slow, sloppy tramp of the marching soldiers. Then the low voices were hushed. When the wind freshened again it brought at intervals those deep, significant detonations which, as the hours passed, seemed to grow heavier and more thunderous.

At length a faint gray light appeared along the eastern sky, and gradually grew stronger. The dawn of another day was close at hand. It broke as if reluctantly, cold and gray and sunless.

The detachment of United States troops halted for camp outside of the French village of A —— .

Kurt Dorn was at mess with his squad.

The months in France had flown away on wings of training and absorbing and waiting. Dorn had changed incalculably. But all he realized of it was that he weighed one hundred and ninety pounds and that he seemed to have lived a hundred swift lives. All that he saw and felt became part of him. His comrades had been won to him as friends by virtue of his ever-ready helping hand, by his devotion to training, by his close-lipped acceptance of all the toils and knocks and pains common to the making of a soldier. The squad lived together as one large family of brothers. Dorn’s comrades had at first tormented him with his German name; they had made fun of his abstraction and his letter-writing; they had misunderstood his aloofness. But the ridicule died away, and now, in the presaged nature of events, his comrades, all governed by the physical life of the soldier, took him for a man.

Perhaps it might have been chance, or it might have been true of all the American squads, but the fact was that Dorn’s squad was a strangely assorted set of young men. Perhaps that might have been Dorn’s conviction from coming to live long with them. They were a part of the New York Division of the — th, all supposed to be New York men. As a matter of fact, this was not true. Dorn was a native of Washington. Sanborn was a thick-set, sturdy fellow with the clear brown tan and clear brown eyes of the Californian. Brewer was from South Carolina, a lean, lanky Southerner, with deep-set dark eyes. Dixon hailed from Massachusetts, from a fighting family, and from Harvard, where he had been a noted athlete. He was a big, lithe, handsome boy, red-faced and curly-haired. Purcell was a New-Yorker, of rich family, highly connected, and his easy, clean, fine ways, with the elegance of his person, his blond distinction, made him stand out from his khaki-clad comrades, though he was clad identically with them. Rogers claimed the Bronx to be his home and he was proud of it. He was little, almost undersized, but a knot of muscle, a keen-faced youth with Irish blood in him. These particular soldiers of the squad were closest to Dorn.

Corporal Bob Owens came swinging in to throw his sombrero down.

“What’s the orders, Bob?” some one inquired.

“We’re going to rest here,” he replied.

The news was taken impatiently by several and agreeably by the majority. They were all travel-stained and worn. Dorn did not comment on the news, but the fact was that he hated the French villages. They were so old, so dirty, so obsolete, so different from what he had been accustomed to. But he loved the pastoral French countryside, so calm and picturesque. He reflected that soon he would see the devastation wrought by the Huns.

“Any news from the front?” asked Dixon.

“I should smile,” replied the corporal, grimly.

“Well, open up, you clam!”

Owens thereupon told swiftly and forcibly what he had heard. More advance of the Germans — it was familiar news. But somehow it was taken differently here within sound of the guns. Dorn studied his comrades, wondering if their sensations were similar to his. He expressed nothing of what he felt, but all the others had something to say. Hard, cool, fiery, violent speech that differed as those who uttered it differed, yet its predominant note rang fight.

“Just heard a funny story,” said Owens, presently.

“Spring it,” somebody replied.

“This comes from Berlin, so they say. According to rumor, the Kaiser and the Crown Prince seldom talk to each other. They happened to meet the other day. And the Crown Prince said: ‘Say, pop, what got us into this war?’

“The Emperor replied, ‘My son, I was deluded.’

“‘Oh, sire, impossible!’ exclaimed the Prince. ‘How could it be?’

“‘Well, some years ago I was visited by a grinning son-of-a-gun from New York — no other than the great T.R. I took him around. He was most interested in my troops. After he had inspected them, and particularly the Imperial Guard, he slapped me on the back and shouted, “Bill, you could lick the world!” … And, my son, I fell for it!’”

This story fetched a roar from every soldier present except Dorn. An absence of mirth in him had been noted before.

“Dorn, can’t you laugh!” protested Dixon.

“Sure I can — when I hear something funny,” replied Dorn.

His comrades gazed hopelessly at him.

“My Lawd! boy, thet was shore funny,” drawled Brewer with his lazy Southern manner.

“Kurt, you’re not human,” said Owens, sadly. “That’s why they call you Demon Dorn.”

All the boys in the squad had nicknames. In Dorn’s case several had been applied by irrepressible comrades before one stuck. The first one received a poor reception from Kurt. The second happened to be a great blunder for the soldier who invented it. He was not in Dorn’s squad, but he knew Dorn pretty well, and in a moment of deviltry he had coined for Dorn the name “Kaiser Dorn.” Dorn’s reaction to this appellation was discomfiting and painful for the soldier. As he lay flat on the ground, where Dorn had knocked him, he had struggled with a natural rage, quickly to overcome it. He showed the right kind of spirit. He got up. “Dorn, I apologize. I was only in fun. But some fun is about as funny as death.” On the way out he suggested a more felicitous name — Demon Dorn. Somehow the boys took to that. It fitted many of Dorn’s violent actions in training, especially the way he made a bayonet charge. Dorn objected strenuously. But the name stuck. No comrade or soldier ever again made a hint of Dorn’s German name or blood.

“Fellows, if a funny story can’t make Dorn laugh, he’s absolutely a dead one,” said Owens.

“Spring a new one, quick,” spoke up some one. “Gee! it’s great to laugh.… Why, I’ve not heard from home for a month!”

“Dorn, will you beat it so I can spring this one?” queried Owens.

“Sure,” replied Dorn, amiably, as he started away. “I suppose you think me one of these I-dare-you-to-make-me-laugh sort of chaps.”

“Forget her, Dorn — come out of it!” chirped up Rogers.

To Dorn’s regret, he believed that he failed his comrades in one way, and he was always trying to make up for it. Part of the training of a soldier was the ever-present need and duty of cheerfulness. Every member of the squad had his secret, his own personal memory, his inner consciousness that he strove to keep hidden. Long ago Dorn had divined that this or that comrade was looking toward the bright side, or pretending there was one. They all played their parts. Like men they faced this incomprehensible duty, this tremendous separation, this dark and looming future, as if it was only hard work that must be done in good spirit. But Dorn, despite all his will, was mostly silent, aloof, brooding, locked up in his eternal strife of mind and soul. He could not help it. Notwithstanding all he saw and divined of the sacrifice and pain of his comrades, he knew that his ordeal was infinitely harder. It was natural that they hoped for the best. He had no hope.

“Boys,” said Owens, “there’s a squad of Blue Devils camped over here in an old barn. Just back from the front. Some one said there wasn’t a man in it who hadn’t had a dozen wounds, and some twice that many. We must see that bunch. Bravest soldiers of the whole war! They’ve been through the three years — at Verdun — on the Marne — and now this awful Flanders drive. It’s up to us to see them.”

News like this thrilled Dorn. During all the months he had been in France the deeds and valor of these German-named Blue Devils had come to him, here and there and everywhere. Dorn remembered all he heard, and believed it, too, though some of the charges and some of the burdens attributed to these famed soldiers seemed unbelievable. His opportunity had now come. With the moving up to the front he would meet reality; and all within him, the keen, strange eagerness, the curiosity that perplexed, the unintelligible longing, the heat and burn of passion, quickened and intensified.

Not until late in the afternoon, however, did off duty present an opportunity for him to go into the village. It looked the same as the other villages he had visited, and the inhabitants, old men, old women and children, all had the somber eyes, the strained, hungry faces, the oppressed look he had become accustomed to see. But sad as were these inhabitants of a village near the front, there was never in any one of them any absence of welcome to the Americans. Indeed, in most people he met there was a quick flashing of intense joy and gratitude. The Americans had come across the sea to fight beside the French. That was the import, tremendous and beautiful.

Dorn met Dixon and Rogers on the main street of the little village. They had been to see the Blue Devils.

“Better stay away from them,” advised Dixon, dubiously.

“No!… Why?” ejaculated Dorn.

Dixon shook his head. “Greatest bunch I ever looked at. But I think they resented our presence. Pat and I were talking about them. It’s strange, Dorn, but I believe these Blue Devils that have saved France and England, and perhaps America, too, don’t like our being here.”

“Impossible!” replied Dorn.

“Go and see for yourself,” put in Rogers. “I believe we all ought to look them over.”

Thoughtfully Dorn strode on in the direction indicated, and presently he arrived at the end of the village, where in an old orchard he found a low, rambling, dilapidated barn, before which clusters of soldiers in blue lounged around smoking fires. As he drew closer he saw that most of them seemed fixed in gloomy abstraction. A few were employed at some task of hand, and several bent over the pots on fires. Dorn’s sweeping gaze took in the whole scene, and his first quick, strange impression was that these soldiers resembled ghouls who had lived in dark holes of mud.

Kurt meant to make the most of his opportunity. To him, in his peculiar need, this meeting would be of greater significance than all else that had happened to him in France. The nearest soldier sat on a flattened pile of straw around which the ground was muddy. At first glance Kurt took him to be an African, so dark were face and eyes. No one heeded Kurt’s approach. The moment was poignant to Kurt. He spoke French fairly well, so that it was emotion rather than lack of fluency which made his utterance somewhat unintelligible. The soldier raised his head. His face seemed a black flash — his eyes piercingly black, staring, deep, full of terrible shadow. They did not appear to see in Kurt the man, but only the trim, clean United States army uniform. Kurt repeated his address, this time more clearly.

The Frenchman replied gruffly, and bent again over the faded worn coat he was scraping with a knife. Then Kurt noticed two things — the man’s great, hollow, spare frame and the torn shirt, stained many colors, one of which was dark red. His hands resembled both those of a mason, with the horny callous inside, and those of a salt-water fisherman, with bludgy fingers and barked knuckles that never healed.

Dorn had to choose his words slowly, because of unfamiliarity with French, but he was deliberate, too, because he wanted to say the right thing. His eagerness made the Frenchman glance up again. But while Dorn talked of the long waits, the long marches, the arrival at this place, the satisfaction at nearing the front, his listener gave no sign that he heard. But he did hear, and so did several of his comrades.

“We’re coming strong,” he went on, his voice thrilling. “A million of us this year! We’re untrained. We’ll have to split up among English and French troops and learn how from you. But we’ve come — and we’ll fight!”

Then the Frenchman put on his coat. That showed him to be an officer. He wore medals. The dark glance he then flashed over Dorn was different from his first. It gave Dorn both a twinge of shame and a thrill of pride. It took in Dorn’s characteristic Teutonic blond features, and likewise an officer’s swift appreciation of an extraordinarily splendid physique.

“You’ve German blood,” he said.

“Yes. But I’m American,” replied Dorn, simply, and he met that soul-searching black gaze with all his intense and fearless spirit. Dorn felt that never in his life had he been subjected to such a test of his manhood, of his truth.

“My name’s Huon,” said the officer, and he extended one of the huge deformed hands.

“Mine’s Dorn,” replied Kurt, meeting that hand with his own.

Whereupon the Frenchman spoke rapidly to the comrade nearest him, so rapidly that all Kurt could make of what he said was that here was an American soldier with a new idea. They drew closer, and it became manifest that the interesting idea was Kurt’s news about the American army. It was news here, and carefully pondered by these Frenchmen, as slowly one by one they questioned him. They doubted, but Dorn convinced them. They seemed to like his talk and his looks. Dorn’s quick faculties grasped the simplicity of these soldiers. After three terrible years of unprecedented warfare, during which they had performed the impossible, they did not want a fresh army to come along and steal their glory by administering a final blow to a tottering enemy. Gazing into those strange, seared faces, beginning to see behind the iron mask, Dorn learned the one thing a soldier lives, fights, and dies for — glory.

Kurt Dorn was soon made welcome. He was made to exhaust his knowledge of French. He was studied by eyes that had gleamed in the face of death. His hand was wrung by hands that had dealt death. How terribly he felt that! And presently, when his excitement and emotion had subsided to the extent that he could really see what he looked at, then came the reward of reality, with all its incalculable meaning expressed to him in the gleaming bayonets, in the worn accoutrements, in the greatcoats like clapboards of mud, in the hands that were claws, in the feet that hobbled, in the strange, wonderful significance of bodily presence, standing there as proof of valor, of man’s limitless endurance. In the faces, ah! there Dorn read the history that made him shudder and lifted him beyond himself. For there in those still, dark faces, of boys grown old in three years, shone the terror of war and the spirit that had resisted it.

Dorn, in his intensity, in the over-emotion of his self-centered passion, so terribly driven to prove to himself something vague yet all-powerful, illusive yet imperious, divined what these Blue Devil soldiers had been through. His mind was more than telepathic. Almost it seemed that souls were bared to him. These soldiers, quiet, intent, made up a grim group of men. They seemed slow, thoughtful, plodding, wrapped and steeped in calm. But Dorn penetrated all this, and established the relation between it and the nameless and dreadful significance of their weapons and medals and uniforms and stripes, and the magnificent vitality that was now all but spent.

Dorn might have resembled a curious, adventure-loving boy, to judge from his handling of rifles and the way he slipped a strong hand along the gleaming bayonet-blades. But he was more than the curious youth: he had begun to grasp a strange, intangible something for which he had no name. Something that must be attainable for him! Something that, for an hour or a moment, would make him a fighter not to be slighted by these supermen!

Whatever his youth or his impelling spirit of manhood, the fact was that he inspired many of these veterans of the bloody years to Homeric narratives of the siege of Verdun, of the retreat toward Paris, of the victory of the Marne, and lastly of the Kaiser’s battle, this last and most awful offensive of the resourceful and frightful foe.

Brunelle told how he was the last survivor of a squad at Verdun who had been ordered to hold a breach made in a front stone wall along the out posts. How they had faced a bombardment of heavy guns — a whistling, shrieking, thundering roar, pierced by the higher explosion of a bursting shell — smoke and sulphur and gas — the crumbling of walls and downward fling of shrapnel. How the lives of soldiers were as lives of gnats hurled by wind and burned by flame. Death had a manifold and horrible diversity. A soldier’s head, with ghastly face and conscious eyes, momentarily poised in the air while the body rode away invisibly with an exploding shell! He told of men blown up, shot through and riddled and brained and disemboweled, while their comrades, grim and unalterable, standing in a stream of blood, lived through the rain of shells, the smashing of walls, lived to fight like madmen the detachment following the bombardment, and to kill them every one.

Mathie told of the great retreat — how men who had fought for days, who were unbeaten and unafraid, had obeyed an order they hated and could not understand, and had marched day and night, day and night, eating as they toiled on, sleeping while they marched, on and on, bloody-footed, desperate, and terrible, filled with burning thirst and the agony of ceaseless motion, on with dragging legs and laboring breasts and red-hazed eyes, on and onward, unquenchable, with the spirit of France.

Sergeant Delorme spoke of the sudden fierce about-face at the Marne, of the irresistible onslaught of men whose homes had been invaded, whose children had been murdered, whose women had been enslaved, of a ruthless fighting, swift and deadly, and lastly of a bayonet charge by his own division, running down upon superior numbers, engaging them in hand-to-hand conflict, malignant and fatal, routing them over a field of blood and death.

“Monsieur Dorn, do you know the French use of a bayonet?” asked Delorme.

“No,” replied Dorn.

“Allons! I will show you,” he said, taking up two rifles and handing one to Dorn. “Come. It is so — and so — a trick. The boches can’t face cold steel.… Ah, monsieur, you have the supple wrists of a juggler! You have the arms of a giant! You have the eyes of a duelist! You will be one grand spitter of German pigs!”

Dorn felt the blanching of his face, the tingling of his nerves, the tightening of his muscles. A cold and terrible meaning laid hold of him even in the instant when he trembled before this flaming-eyed French veteran who complimented him while he instructed. How easily, Dorn thought, could this soldier slip the bright bayonet over his guard and pierce him from breast to back! How horrible the proximity of that sinister blade, with its glint, its turn, its edge, so potently expressive of its history! Even as Dorn crossed bayonets with this inspired Frenchman he heard a soldier comrade say that Delorme had let daylight through fourteen boches in that memorable victory of the Marne.

“You are very big and strong and quick, monsieur,” said the officer Huon, simply. “In bayonet-work you will be a killer of boches.”

In their talk and practice and help, in their intent to encourage the young American soldier, these Blue Devils one and all dealt in frank and inevitable terms of death. That was their meaning in life. It was immeasurably horrible for Dorn, because it seemed a realization of his imagined visions. He felt like a child among old savages of a war tribe. Yet he was fascinated by this close-up suggestion of man to man in battle, of German to American, of materialist to idealist, and beyond all control was the bursting surge of his blood. The exercises he had gone through, the trick he had acquired, somehow had strange power to liberate his emotion.

The officer Huon spoke English, and upon his words Dorn hung spellbound.

“You Americans have the fine dash, the nerve. You will perform wonders. But you don’t realize what this war is. You will perish of sheer curiosity to see or eagerness to fight. But these are the least of the horrors of this war.

“Actual fighting is to me a relief, a forgetfulness, an excitement, and is so with many of my comrades. We have survived wounds, starvation, shell-shock, poison gas and fire, the diseases of war, the awful toil of the trenches. And each and every one of us who has served long bears in his mind the particular horror that haunts him. I have known veterans to go mad at the screaming of shells. I have seen good soldiers stand upon a trench, inviting the fire that would end suspense. For a man who hopes to escape alive this war is indeed the ninth circle of hell.

“My own particular horrors are mud, water, and cold. I have lived in dark, cold mud-holes so long that my mind concerning them is not right. I know it the moment I come out to rest. Rest! Do you know that we cannot rest? The comfort of this dirty old barn, of these fires, of this bare ground is so great that we cannot rest, we cannot sleep, we cannot do anything. When I think of the past winter I do not remember injury and agony for myself, or the maimed and mangled bodies of my comrades. I remember only the horrible cold, the endless ages of waiting, the hopeless misery of the dugouts, foul, black rat-holes that we had to crawl into through sticky mud and filthy water. Mud, water, and cold, with the stench of the dead clogging your nostrils! That to me is war!… Les Misérables! You Americans will never know that, thank God. For it could not be endured by men who did not belong to this soil. After all, the filthy water is half blood and the mud is part of the dead of our people.”

Huon talked on and on, with the eloquence of a Frenchman who relieves himself of a burden. He told of trenches dug in a swamp, lived in and fought in, and then used for the graves of the dead, trenches that had to be lived in again months afterward. The rotting dead were everywhere. When they were covered the rain would come to wash away the earth, exposing them again. That was the strange refrain of this soldier’s moody lament — the rain that fell, the mud that forever held him rooted fast in the tracks of his despair. He told of night and storm, of a weary squad of men, lying flat, trying to dig in under cover of rain and darkness, of the hell of cannonade over and around them. He told of hours that blasted men’s souls, of death that was a blessing, of escape that was torture beyond the endurance of humans. Crowning that night of horrors piled on horrors, when he had seen a dozen men buried alive in mud lifted by a monster shell, when he had seen a refuge deep underground opened and devastated by a like projectile, came a cloud-burst that flooded the trenches and the fields, drowning soldiers whose injuries and mud-laden garments impeded their movements, and rendering escape for the others an infernal labor and a hideous wretchedness, unutterable and insupportable.

Round the camp-fires the Blue Devils stood or lay, trying to rest. But the habit of the trenches was upon them. Dorn gazed at each and every soldier, so like in strange resemblance, so different in physical characteristics; and the sad, profound, and terrifying knowledge came to him of what they must have in their minds. He realized that all he needed was to suffer and fight and live through some little part of the war they had endured and then some truth would burst upon him. It was there in the restless steps, in the prone forms, in the sunken, glaring eyes. What soldiers, what men, what giants! Three and a half years of unnamable and indescribable fury of action and strife of thought! Not dead, nor stolid like oxen, were these soldiers of France. They had a simplicity that seemed appalling. We have given all; we have stood in the way, borne the brunt, saved you — this was flung at Dorn, not out of their thought, but from their presence. The fact that they were there was enough. He needed only to find these bravest of brave warriors real, alive, throbbing men.

Dorn lingered there, loath to leave. The great lesson of his life held vague connection in some way with this squad of French privates. But he could not pierce the veil. This meeting came as a climax to four months of momentous meetings with the best and the riffraff of many nations. Dorn had studied, talked, listened, and learned. He who had as yet given nothing, fought no enemy, saved no comrade or refugee or child in all this whirlpool of battling millions, felt a profound sense of his littleness, his ignorance. He who had imagined himself unfortunate had been blind, sick, self-centered. Here were soldiers to whom comfort and rest were the sweetest blessings upon the earth, and they could not grasp them. No more could they grasp them than could the gaping civilians and the distinguished travelers grasp what these grand hulks of veteran soldiers had done. Once a group of civilians halted near the soldiers. An officer was their escort. He tried to hurry them on, but failed. Delorme edged away into the gloomy, damp barn rather than meet such visitors. Some of his comrades followed suit. Ferier, the incomparable of the Blue Devils, the wearer of all the French medals and the bearer of twenty-five wounds received in battle — he sneaked away, afraid and humble and sullen, to hide himself from the curious. That action of Ferier’s was a revelation to Dorn. He felt a sting of shame. There were two classes of people in relation to this war — those who went to fight and those who stayed behind. What had Delorme or Mathie or Ferier to do with the world of selfish, comfortable, well-fed men? Dorn heard a million voices of France crying out the bitter truth — that if these war-bowed veterans ever returned alive to their homes it would be with hopes and hearts and faiths burned out, with hands forever lost to their old use, with bodies that the war had robbed.

Dorn bade his new-made friends adieu, and in the darkening twilight he hurried toward his own camp.

“If I could go back home now, honorably and well, I would never do it,” he muttered. “I couldn’t bear to live knowing what I know now — unless I had laughed at this death, and risked it — and dealt it!”

He was full of gladness, of exultation, in contemplation of the wonderful gift the hours had brought him. More than any men of history or present, he honored these soldiers the Germans feared. Like an Indian, Dorn respected brawn, courage, fortitude, silence, aloofness.

“There was a divinity in those soldiers,” he soliloquized. “I felt it in their complete ignorance of their greatness. Yet they had pride, jealousy. Oh, the mystery of it all!… When my day comes I’ll last one short and terrible hour. I would never make a soldier like one of them. No American could. They are Frenchmen whose homes have been despoiled.”

In the tent of his comrades that night Dorn reverted from old habit, and with a passionate eloquence he told all he had seen and heard, and much that he had felt. His influence on these young men, long established, but subtle and unconscious, became in that hour a tangible fact. He stirred them. He felt them thoughtful and sad, and yet more unflinching, stronger and keener for the inevitable day.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE MONSTROUS POSSIBILITY that had consumed Kurt Dorn for many months at last became an event — he had arrived on the battle-front in France.

All afternoon the company of United States troops had marched from far back of the line, resting, as darkness came on, at a camp of reserves, and then going on. Artillery fire had been desultory during this march; the big guns that had rolled their thunder miles and miles were now silent. But an immense activity and a horde of soldiers back of the lines brought strange leaden oppression to Kurt Dorn’s heart.

The last slow travel of his squad over dark, barren space and through deep, narrow, winding lanes in the ground had been a nightmare ending to the long journey. France had not yet become clear to him; he was a stranger in a strange land; in spite of his tremendous interest and excitement, all seemed abstract matters of his feeling, the plague of himself made actuality the substance of dreams. That last day, the cumulation of months of training and travel, had been one in which he had observed, heard, talked and felt in a nervous and fevered excitement. But now he imagined he could not remember any of it. His poignant experience with the Blue Devils had been a reality he could never forget, but now this blackness of subterranean cavern, this damp, sickening odor of earth, this presence of men, the strange, muffled sounds — all these were unreal. How had he come here? His mind labored with a burden strangely like that on his chest. A different, utterly unfamiliar emotion seemed rising over him. Maybe that was because he was very tired and very sleepy. Sometime that night he must go on duty. He ought to sleep. It was impossible. He could not close his eyes. An effort to attend to what he was actually doing disclosed the fact that he was listening with all his strength. For what? He could not answer then. He heard the distant, muffled sounds, and low voices nearer, and thuds and footfalls. His comrades were near him; he heard their breathing; he felt their presence. They were strained and intense; like him, they were locked up in their own prison of emotions.

Always heretofore, on nights that he lay sleepless, Dorn had thought of the two things dearest on earth to him — Lenore Anderson and the golden wheat-hills of his home. This night he called up Lenore’s image. It hung there in the blackness, a dim, pale phantom of her sweet face, her beautiful eyes, her sad lips, and then it vanished. Not at all could he call up a vision of his beloved wheat-fields. So the suspicion that something was wrong with his mind became a certainty. It angered him, quickened his sensitiveness, even while he despaired. He ground his teeth and clenched his fists and swore to realize his presence there, and to rise to the occasion as had been his vaunted ambition.

Suddenly he felt something slimy and hairy against his wrist — then a stinging bite. A rat! A trench rat that lived on flesh! He flung his arm violently and beat upon the soft earth. The incident of surprise and disgust helped Dorn at least in one way. His mind had been set upon a strange and supreme condition of his being there, of an emotion about to overcome him. The bite of a rat, drawing blood, made a literal fact of his being a soldier, in a dugout at the front waiting in the blackness for his call to go on guard. This incident proved to Dorn his limitations, and that he was too terribly concerned with his feelings ever to last long as a soldier. But he could not help himself. His pulse, his heart, his brain, all seemed to beat, beat, beat with a nameless passion.

Was he losing his nerve — was he afraid? His denial did not reassure him. He understood that patriotism and passion were emotions, and that the realities of a soldier’s life were not.

Dorn forced himself to think of realities, hoping thus to get a grasp upon his vanishing courage. And memory helped him. Not so many days, weeks, months back he had been a different man. At Bordeaux, when his squad first set foot upon French soil! That was a splendid reality. How he had thrilled at the welcome of the French sailors!

Then he thought of the strenuous round of army duties, of training tasks, of traveling in cold box-cars, of endless marches, of camps and villages, of drills and billets. Never to be forgotten was that morning, now seemingly long ago, when an officer had ordered the battalion to pack. “We are going to the front!” he announced. Magic words! What excitement, what whooping, what bragging and joy among the boys, what hurry and bustle and remarkable efficiency! That had been a reality of actual experience, but the meaning of it, the terrible significance, had been beyond the mind of any American.

“I’m here — at the front — now,” whispered Dorn to himself. “A few rods away are Germans!” … Inconceivable — no reality at all! He went on with his swift account of things, with his mind ever sharpening, with that strange, mounting emotion flooding to the full, ready to burst its barriers. When he and his comrades had watched their transport trains move away — when they had stood waiting for their own trains — had the idea of actual conflict yet dawned upon them? Dorn had to answer No. He remembered that he had made few friends among the inhabitants of towns and villages where he had stayed. What leisure time he got had been given to a seeking out of sailors, soldiers, and men of all races, with whom he found himself in remarkable contact. The ends of the world brought together by one war! How could his memory ever hold all that had come to him? But it did. Passion liberated it. He saw now that his eye was a lens, his mind a sponge, his heart a gulf.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of American troops in France, what honor it was to be in the chosen battalion to go to the front! Dorn lived only with his squad, but he felt the envy of the whole army. What luck! To be chosen from so many — to go out and see the game through quickly! He began to consider that differently now. The luck might be with the soldiers left behind. Always, underneath Dorn’s perplexity and pondering, under his intelligence and spirit at their best, had been a something deeply personal, something of the internal of him, a selfish instinct. It was the nature of man — self-preservation.

Like a tempest swept over Dorn the most significant ordeal and lesson of his experience in France — that wonderful reality when he met the Blue Devils and they took him in. However long he lived, his life must necessarily be transformed from contact with those great men.

The night march over the unending roads, through the gloom and the spectral starlight, with the dull rumblings of cannon shocking his heart — that Dorn lived over, finding strangely a minutest detail of observation and a singular veracity of feeling fixed in his memory.

Afternoon of that very day, at the reserve camp somewhere back there, had brought an officer’s address to the soldiers, a strong and emphatic appeal as well as order — to obey, to do one’s duty, to take no chances, to be eternally vigilant, to believe that every man had advantage on his side, even in war, if he were not a fool or a daredevil. Dorn had absorbed the speech, remembered every word, but it all seemed futile now. Then had come the impressive inspection of equipment, a careful examination of gas-masks, rifles, knapsacks. After that the order to march!

Dorn imagined that he had remembered little, but he had remembered all. Perhaps the sense of strange unreality was only the twist in his mind. Yet he did not know where he was — what part of France — how far north or south on the front line — in what sector. Could not that account for the sense of feeling lost?

Nevertheless, he was there at the end of all this incomprehensible journey. He became possessed by an irresistible desire to hurry. Once more Dorn attempted to control the far-flinging of his thoughts — to come down to earth. The earth was there under his hand, soft, sticky, moldy, smelling vilely. He dug his fingers into it, until the feel of something like a bone made him jerk them out. Perhaps he had felt a stone. A tiny, creeping, chilly shudder went up his back. Then he remembered, he felt, he saw his little attic room, in the old home back among the wheat-hills of the Northwest. Six thousand miles away! He would never see that room again. What unaccountable vagary of memory had ever recalled it to him? It faded out of his mind.

Some of his comrades whispered; now and then one rolled over; none snored, for none of them slept. Dorn felt more aloof from them than ever. How isolated each one was, locked in his own trouble! Every one of them, like himself, had a lonely soul. Perhaps they were facing it. He could not conceive of a careless, thoughtless, emotionless attitude toward this first night in the front-line trench.

Dorn gradually grew more acutely sensitive to the many faint, rustling, whispering sounds in and near the dugout.

A soldier came stooping into the opaque square of the dugout door. His rifle, striking the framework, gave out a metallic clink. This fellow expelled a sudden heavy breath as if throwing off an oppression.

“Is that you, Sanborn?” This whisper Dorn recognized as Dixon’s. It was full of suppressed excitement.

“Yes.”

“Guess it’s my turn next. How — how does it go?”

Sanborn’s laugh had an odd little quaver. “Why, so far as I know, I guess it’s all right. Damn queer, though. I wish we’d got here in daytime.… But maybe that wouldn’t help.”

“Humph!… Pretty quiet out there?”

“So Bob says, but what’s he know — more than us? I heard guns up the line, and rifle-fire not so far off.”

“Can you see any—”

“Not a damn thing — yet everything,” interrupted Sanborn, enigmatically.

“Dixon!” called Owens, low and quickly, from the darkness.

Dixon did not reply. His sudden hard breathing, the brushing of his garments against the door, then swift, soft steps dying away attested to the fact of his going.

Dorn tried to compose himself to rest, if not to sleep. He heard Sanborn sit down, and then apparently stay very still for some time. All of a sudden he whispered to himself. Dorn distinguished the word “hell.”

“What’s ailin’ you, pard?” drawled Brewer.

Sanborn growled under his breath, and when some one else in the dugout quizzed him curiously he burst out: “I’ll bet you galoots the state of California against a dill pickle that when your turn comes you’ll be sick in your gizzards!”

“We’ll take our medicine,” came in the soft, quiet voice of Purcell.

No more was said. The men all pretended to fall asleep, each ashamed to let his comrade think he was concerned.

A short, dull, heavy rumble seemed to burst the outer stillness. For a moment the dugout was silent as a tomb. No one breathed. Then came a jar of the earth, a creaking of shaken timbers. Some one gasped involuntarily. Another whispered:

“By God! the real thing!”

Dorn wondered how far away that jarring shell had alighted. Not so far! It was the first he had ever heard explode near him. Roaring of cannon, exploding of shell — this had been a source of every-day talk among his comrades. But the jar, the tremble of the earth, had a dreadful significance. Another rumble, another jar, not so heavy or so near this time, and then a few sharply connected reports, clamped Dorn as in a cold vise. Machine-gun shots! Many thousand machine-gun shots had he heard, but none with the life and the spite and the spang of these. Did he imagine the difference? Cold as he felt, he began to sweat, and continually, as he wiped the palms of his hands, they grew wet again. A queer sensation of light-headedness and weakness seemed to possess him. The roots of his will-power seemed numb. Nevertheless, all the more revolving and all-embracing seemed his mind.

The officer in his speech a few hours back had said the sector to which the battalion had been assigned was alive. By this he meant that active bombardment, machine-gun fire, hand-grenade throwing, and gas-shelling, or attack in force might come any time, and certainly must come as soon as the Germans suspected the presence of an American force opposite them.

That was the stunning reality to Dorn — the actual existence of the Huns a few rods distant. But realization of them had not brought him to the verge of panic. He would not flinch at confronting the whole German army. Nor did he imagine he put a great price upon his life. Nor did he have any abnormal dread of pain. Nor had the well-remembered teachings of the Bible troubled his spirit. Was he going to be a coward because of some incalculable thing in him or force operating against him? Already he sat there, shivering and sweating, with the load on his breast growing laborsome, with all his sensorial being absolutely at keenest edge.

Rapid footfalls halted his heart-beats. They came from above, outside the dugout, from the trench.

“Dorn, come out!” called the corporal.

Dorn’s response was instant. But he was as blind as if he had no eyes, and he had to feel his way to climb out. The indistinct, blurred form of the corporal seemed half merged in the pale gloom of the trench. A cool wind whipped at Dorn’s hot face. Surcharged with emotion, the nature of which he feared, Dorn followed the corporal, stumbling and sliding over the wet boards, knocking bits of earth from the walls, feeling a sick icy gripe in his bowels. Some strange light flared up — died away. Another rumble, distinct, heavy, and vibrating! To his left somewhere the earth received a shock. Dorn felt a wave of air that was not wind.

The corporal led the way past motionless men peering out over the top of the wall, and on to a widening, where an abutment of filled bags loomed up darkly. Here the corporal cautiously climbed up breaks in the wall and stooped behind the fortification. Dorn followed. His legs did not feel natural. Something was lost out of them. Then he saw the little figure of Rogers beside him. Dorn’s turn meant Rogers’s relief. How pale against the night appeared the face of Rogers! As he peered under his helmet at Dorn a low whining passed in the air overhead. Rogers started slightly. A thump sounded out there, interrupting the corporal, who had begun to speak. He repeated his order to Dorn, bending a little to peer into his face. Dorn tried to open his lips to say he did not understand, but his lips were mute. Then the corporal led Rogers away.

That moment alone, out in the open, with the strange, windy pall of night — all-enveloping, with the flares, like sheet-lightning, along the horizon, with a rumble here and a roar there, with whistling fiends riding the blackness above, with a series of popping, impelling reports seemingly close in front — that drove home to Kurt Dorn a cruel and present and unescapable reality.

At that instant, like bitter fate, shot up a rocket, or a star-flare of calcium light, bursting to expose all underneath in pitiless radiance. With a gasp that was a sob, Dorn shrank flat against the wall, staring into the fading circle, feeling a creep of paralysis. He must be seen. He expected the sharp, biting series of a machine-gun or the bursting of a bomb. But nothing happened, except that the flare died away. It had come from behind his own lines. Control of his muscles had almost returned when a heavy boom came from the German side. Miles away, perhaps, but close! That boom meant a great shell speeding on its hideous mission. It would pass over him. He listened. The wind came from that side. It was cold; it smelled of burned powder; it carried sounds he was beginning to appreciate — shots, rumbles, spats, and thuds, whistles of varying degree, all isolated sounds. Then he caught a strange, low moaning. It rose. It was coming fast. It became an o-o-o-O-O-O! Nearer and nearer! It took on a singing whistle. It was passing — no — falling!… A mighty blow was delivered to the earth — a jar — a splitting shock to windy darkness; a wave of heavy air was flung afar — and then came the soft, heavy thumping of falling earth.

That shell had exploded close to the place where Dorn stood. It terrified him. It reduced him to a palpitating, stricken wretch, utterly unable to cope with the terror. It was not what he had expected. What were words, anyhow? By words alone he had understood this shell thing. Death was only a word, too. But to be blown to atoms! It came every moment to some poor devil; it might come to him. But that was not fighting. Somewhere off in the blackness a huge iron monster belched this hell out upon defenseless men. Revolting and inconceivable truth!

It was Dorn’s ordeal that his mentality robbed this hour of novelty and of adventure, that while his natural, physical fear incited panic and nausea and a horrible, convulsive internal retching, his highly organized, exquisitely sensitive mind, more like a woman’s in its capacity for emotion, must suffer through imagining the infinite agonies that he might really escape. Every shell then must blow him to bits; every agony of every soldier must be his.

But he knew what his duty was, and as soon as he could move he began to edge along the short beat. Once at the end he drew a deep and shuddering breath, and, fighting all his involuntary instincts, he peered over the top. An invisible thing whipped close over his head. It did not whistle; it cut. Out in front of him was only thick, pale gloom, with spectral forms, leading away to the horizon, where flares, like sheet-lightning of a summer night’s storm, ran along showing smoke and bold, ragged outlines. Then he went to the other end to peer over there. His eyes were keen, and through long years of habit at home, going about at night without light, he could see distinctly where ordinary sight would meet only a blank wall. The flat ground immediately before him was bare of living or moving objects. That was his duty as sentinel here — to make sure of no surprise patrol from the enemy lines. It helped Dorn to realize that he could accomplish this duty even though he was in a torment.

That space before him was empty, but it was charged with current. Wind, shadow, gloom, smoke, electricity, death, spirit — whatever that current was, Dorn felt it. He was more afraid of that than the occasional bullets which zipped across. Sometimes shots from his own squad rang out up and down the line. Off somewhat to the north a machine-gun on the Allies’ side spoke now and then spitefully. Way back a big gun boomed. Dorn listened to the whine of shells from his own side with a far different sense than that with which he heard shells whine from the enemy. How natural and yet how unreasonable! Shells from the other side came over to destroy him; shells from his side went back to save him. But both were shot to kill! Was he, the unknown and shrinking novice of a soldier, any better than an unknown and shrinking soldier far across there in the darkness? What was equality? But these were Germans! That thing so often said — so beaten into his brain — did not convince out here in the face of death.

Four o’clock! With the gray light came a gradually increasing number of shells. Most of them struck far back. A few, to right and left, dropped near the front line. The dawn broke — such a dawn as he never dreamed of — smoky and raw, with thunder spreading to a circle all around the horizon.

He was relieved. On his way in he passed Purcell at the nearest post. The elegant New-Yorker bore himself with outward calm. But in the gray dawn he looked haggard and drawn. Older! That flashed through Dorn’s mind. A single night had contained years, more than years. Others of the squad had subtly changed. Dixon gave him a penetrating look, as if he wore a mask, under which was a face of betrayal, of contrast to that soldier bearing, of youth that was gone forever.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SQUAD OF men to which Dorn belonged had to be on the lookout continually for an attack that was inevitable. The Germans were feeling out the line, probably to verify spy news of the United States troops taking over a sector. They had not, however, made sure of this fact.

The gas-shells came over regularly, making life for the men a kind of suffocation most of the time. And the great shells that blew enormous holes in front and in back of their position never allowed a relaxation from strain. Drawn and haggard grew the faces that had been so clean-cut and brown and fresh.

One evening at mess, when the sector appeared quiet enough to permit of rest, Rogers was talking to some comrades before the door of the dugout.

“It sure got my goat, that little promenade of ours last night over into No Man’s Land,” he said. “We had orders to slip out and halt a German patrol that was supposed to be stealing over to our line. We crawled on our bellies, looking and listening every minute. If that isn’t the limit! My heart was in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. And for the first moments, if I’d run into a Hun, I’d had no more strength than a rabbit. But all seemed clear. It was not a bright night — sort of opaque and gloomy — shadows everywhere. There wasn’t any patrol coming. But Corporal Owens thought he heard men farther on working with wire. We crawled some more. And we must have got pretty close to the enemy lines — in fact, we had — when up shot one of those damned calcium flares. We all burrowed into the ground. I was paralyzed. It got as light as noon — strange greenish-white flare. It magnified. Flat as I lay, I saw the German embankments not fifty yards away. I made sure we were goners. Slowly the light burned out. Then that machine-gun you all heard began to rattle. Something queer about the way every shot of a machine-gun bites the air. We heard the bullets, low down, right over us. Say, boys, I’d almost rather be hit and have it done with!… We began to crawl back. I wanted to run. We all wanted to. But Owens is a nervy guy and he kept whispering. Another machine-gun cut loose, and bullets rained over us. Like hail they hit somewhere ahead, scattering the gravel. We’d almost reached our line when Smith jumped up and ran. He said afterward that he just couldn’t help himself. The suspense was awful. I know. I’ve been a clerk in a bank! Get that? And there I was under a hail of Hun lead, without being able to understand why, or feel that any time had passed since giving up my job to go to war. Queer how I saw my old desk!… Well, that’s how Smith got his. I heard the bullets spat him, sort of thick and soft.… Ugh!… Owens and I dragged him along, and finally into the trench. He had a bullet through his shoulder and leg. Guess he’ll live, all right.… Boys, take this from me. Nobody can tell you what a machine-gun is like. A rifle, now, is not so much. You get shot at, and you know the man must reload and aim. That takes time. But a machine-gun! Whew! It’s a comb — a fine-toothed comb — and you’re the louse it’s after! You hear that steady rattle, and then you hear bullets everywhere. Think of a man against a machine-gun! It’s not a square deal.”

Dixon was one of the listeners. He laughed.

“Rogers, I’d like to have been with you. Next time I’ll volunteer. You had action — a run for your money. That’s what I enlisted for. Standing still — doing nothing but wait — that drives me half mad. My years of football have made action necessary. Otherwise I go stale in mind and body.… Last night, before you went on that scouting trip, I had been on duty two hours. Near midnight. The shelling had died down. All became quiet. No flares — no flashes anywhere. There was a luminous kind of glow in the sky — moonlight through thin clouds. I had to listen and watch. But I couldn’t keep back my thoughts. There I was, a soldier, facing No Man’s Land, across whose dark space were the Huns we have come to regard as devils in brutality, yet less than men.… And I thought of home. No man knows what home really is until he stands that lonely midnight guard. A shipwrecked sailor appreciates the comforts he once had; a desert wanderer, lost and starving, remembers the food he once wasted; a volunteer soldier, facing death in the darkness, thinks of his home! It is a hell of a feeling!… And, thinking of home, I remembered my girl. I’ve been gone four months — have been at the front seven days (or is it seven years?) and last night in the darkness she came to me. Oh yes! she was there! She seemed reproachful, as she was when she coaxed me not to enlist. My girl was not one of the kind who sends her lover to war and swears she will die an old maid unless he returns. Mine begged me to stay home, or at least wait for the draft. But I wasn’t built that way. I enlisted. And last night I felt the bitterness of a soldier’s fate. All this beautiful stuff is bunk!… My girl is a peach. She had many admirers, two in particular that made me run my best down the stretch. One is club-footed. He couldn’t fight. The other is all yellow. Him she liked best. He had her fooled, the damned slacker.… I wish I could believe I’d get safe back home, with a few Huns to my credit — the Croix de Guerre — and an officer’s uniform. That would be great. How I could show up those fellows!… But I’ll get killed — as sure as God made little apples I’ll get killed — and she will marry one of the men who would not fight!”

It was about the middle of a clear morning, still cold, but the sun was shining. Guns were speaking intermittently. Those soldiers who were off duty had their gas-masks in their hands. All were gazing intently upward.

Dorn sat a little apart from them. He, too, looked skyward, and he was so absorbed that he did not hear the occasional rumble of a distant gun. He was watching the airmen at work — the most wonderful and famous feature of the war. It absolutely enthralled Dorn. As a boy he had loved to watch the soaring of the golden eagles, and once he had seen a great wide-winged condor, swooping along a mountain-crest. How he had envied them the freedom of the heights — the loneliness of the unscalable crags — the companionship of the clouds! Here he gazed and marveled at the man-eagles of the air.

German planes had ventured over the lines, flying high, and English planes had swept up to intercept them. One was rising then not far away, climbing fast, like a fish-hawk with prey in its claws. Its color, its framework, its propeller, and its aviator showed distinctly against the sky. The buzzing, high-pitched drone of its motor floated down.

The other aeroplanes, far above, had lost their semblance to mechanical man-driven machines. They were now the eagles of the air. They were rising, circling, diving in maneuvers that Dorn knew meant pursuit. But he could not understand these movements. To him the air-battle looked as it must have looked to an Indian. Birds of prey in combat! Dorn recalled verses he had learned as a boy, written by a poet who sang of future wars in the air. What he prophesied had come true. Was there not a sage now who could pierce the veil of the future and sing of such a thing as sacred human life? Dorn had his doubts. Poets and dreamers appeared not to be the men who could halt materialism. Strangely then, as Dorn gazed bitterly up at these fierce fliers who fought in the heavens, he remembered the story of the three wise men and of Bethlehem. Was it only a story? Where on this sunny spring morning was Christ, and the love of man for man?

At that moment one of the forward aeroplanes, which was drifting back over the enemy lines, lost its singular grace of slow, sweeping movement. It poised in the air. It changed shape. It pitched as if from wave to wave of wind. A faint puff of smoke showed. Tiny specks, visible to Dorn’s powerful eyes, seemed to detach themselves and fall, to be followed by the plane itself in sheer downward descent.

Dorn leaped to his feet. What a thrilling and terrible sight! His comrades stood bareheaded, red faces uplifted, open-mouthed and wild with excitement, not daring to disobey orders and yell at the top of their lungs. Dorn felt, strong above the softened wonder and thought of a moment back, a tingling, pulsating wave of gushing blood go over him. Like his comrades, he began to wave his arms and stamp and bite his tongue.

Swiftly the doomed plane swept down out of sight. Gone! At that instant something which had seemed like a bird must have become a broken mass. The other planes drifted eastward.

Dorn gasped, and broke the spell on him. He was hot and wet with sweat, quivering with a frenzy. How many thousand soldiers of the Allies had seen that downward flight of the boche? Dorn pitied the destroyed airman, hated himself, and had all the fury of savage joy that had been in his comrades.

Dorn, relieved from guard and firing-post, rushed back to the dugout. He needed the dark of that dungeon. He crawled in and, searching out the remotest, blackest corner, hidden from all human eyes, and especially his own, he lay there clammy and wet all over, with an icy, sickening rend, like a wound, in the pit of his stomach. He shut his eyes, but that did not shut out what he saw. “So help me God!” he whispered to himself.… Six endless months had gone to the preparation of a deed that had taken one second! That transformed him! His life on earth, his spirit in the beyond, could never be now what they might have been. And he sobbed through grinding teeth as he felt the disintegrating, agonizing, irremediable forces at work on body, mind, and soul.

He had blown out the brains of his first German.

Fires of hell, in two long lines, bordering a barren, ghastly, hazy strip of land, burst forth from the earth. From holes where men hid poured thunder of guns and stream of smoke and screeching of iron. That worthless strip of land, barring deadly foes, shook as with repeated earthquakes. Huge spouts of black and yellow earth lifted, fountain-like, to the dull, heavy bursts of shells. Pound and jar, whistle and whine, long, broken rumble, and the rattling concatenation of quick shots like metallic cries, exploding hail-storm of iron in the air, a desert over which thousands of puffs of smoke shot up and swelled and drifted, the sliding crash far away, the sibilant hiss swift overhead. Boom! Weeeee — eeeeooooo! from the east. Boom! Weeeee — eeeeooooo! from the west.

At sunset there was no let-up. The night was all the more hideous. Along the horizon flashed up the hot sheets of lightning that were not of a summer storm. Angry, lurid, red, these upflung blazes and flames illumined the murky sky, showing in the fitful and flickering intervals wagons driving toward the front, and patrols of soldiers running toward some point, and great upheavals of earth spread high.

This heavy cannonading died away in the middle of the night until an hour before dawn, when it began again with redoubled fury and lasted until daybreak.

Dawn came reluctantly, Dorn thought. He was glad. It meant a charge. Another night of that hellish shrieking and bursting of shells would kill his mind, if not his body. He stood on guard at a fighting-post. Corporal Owens lay at his feet, wounded slightly. He would not retire. As the cannons ceased he went to sleep. Rogers stood close on one side, Dixon on the other. The squad had lived through that awful night. Soldiers were bringing food and drink to them. All appeared grimly gay.

Dorn was not gay. But he knew this was the day he would laugh in the teeth of death. A slumbrous, slow heat burned deep in him, like a covered fire, fierce and hot at heart, awaiting the wind. Watching there, he did not voluntarily move a muscle, yet all his body twitched like that of the trained athlete, strained to leap into the great race of his life.

An officer came hurrying through. The talking hushed. Men on guard, backs to the trench, never moved their eyes from the forbidden land in front. The officer spoke. Look for a charge! Reserves were close behind. He gave his orders and passed on.

Then an Allied gun opened up with a boom. The shell moaned on over. Dorn saw where it burst, sending smoke and earth aloft. That must have been a signal for a bombardment of the enemy all along this sector, for big and little guns began to thunder and crack.

The spectacle before Dorn’s hard, keen eyes was one that he thought wonderful. Far across No Man’s Land, which sloped somewhat at that point in the plain, he saw movement of troops and guns. His eyes were telescopic. Over there the ground appeared grassy in places, with green ridges rising, and patches of brush and straggling trees standing out clearly. Faint, gray-colored squads of soldiers passed in sight with helmets flashing in the sun; guns were being hauled forward; mounted horsemen dashed here and there, vanishing and reappearing; and all through that wide area of color and action shot up live black spouts of earth crowned in white smoke that hung in the air after the earth fell back. They were beautiful, these shell-bursts. Round balls of white smoke magically appeared in the air, to spread and drift; long, yellow columns or streaks rose here, and there leaped up a fan-shaped, dirty cloud, savage and sinister; sometimes several shells burst close together, dashing the upflung sheets of earth together and blending their smoke; at intervals a huge, creamy-yellow explosion, like a geyser, rose aloft to spread and mushroom, then to detach itself from the heavier body it had upheaved, and float away, white and graceful, on the wind.

Sinister beauty! Dorn soon lost sight of that. There came a gnawing at his vitals. The far scene of action could not hold his gaze. That dark, uneven, hummocky break in the earth, which was a goodly number of rods distant, yet now seemed close, drew a startling attention. Dorn felt his eyes widen and pop. Spots and dots, shiny, illusive, bobbed along that break, behind the mounds, beyond the farther banks. A yell as from one lusty throat ran along the line of which Dorn’s squad held the center. Dorn’s sight had a piercing intensity. All was hard under his grip — his rifle, the boards and bags against which he leaned. Corporal Owens rose beside him, bareheaded, to call low and fiercely to his men.

The gray dots and shiny spots leaped up magically and appallingly into men. German soldiers! Boches! Huns on a charge! They were many, but wide apart. They charged, running low.

Machine-gun rattle, rifle-fire, and strangled shouts blended along the line. From the charging Huns seemed to come a sound that was neither battle-cry nor yell nor chant, yet all of them together. The gray advancing line thinned at points opposite the machine-guns, but it was coming fast.

Dorn cursed his hard, fumbling hands, which seemed so eager and fierce that they stiffened. They burned, too, from their grip on the hot rifle. Shot after shot he fired, missing. He could not hit a field full of Huns. He dropped shells, fumbled with them at the breech, loaded wildly, aimed at random, pulled convulsively. His brain was on fire. He had no anger, no fear, only a great and futile eagerness. Yell and crack filled his ears. The gray, stolid, unalterable Huns must be driven back. Dorn loaded, crushed his rifle steady, pointed low at a great gray bulk, and fired. That Hun pitched down out of the gray advancing line. The sight almost overcame Dorn. Dizzy, with blurred eyes, he leaned over his gun. His abdomen and breast heaved, and he strangled over his gorge. Almost he fainted. But violence beside him somehow, great heaps of dust and gravel flung over him, hoarse, wild yells in his ears, roused him. The boches were on the line! He leaped up. Through the dust he saw charging gray forms, thick and heavy. They plunged, as if actuated by one will. Bulky blond men, ashen of face, with eyes of blue fire and brutal mouths set grim — Huns!

Up out of the shallow trench sprang comrades on each side of Dorn. No rats to be cornered in a hole! Dorn seemed drawn by powerful hauling chains. He did not need to climb! Four big Germans appeared simultaneously upon the embankment of bags. They were shooting. One swung aloft an arm and closed fist. He yelled like a demon. He was a bomb-thrower. On the instant a bullet hit Dorn, tearing at the side of his head, stinging excruciatingly, knocking him down, flooding his face with blood. The shock, like a weight, held him down, but he was not dazed. A body, khaki-clad, rolled down beside him, convulsively flopped against him. He bounded erect, his ears filled with a hoarse and clicking din, his heart strangely lifting in his breast.

Only one German now stood upon the embankment of bags and he was the threatening bomb-thrower. The others were down — gray forms wrestling with brown. Dixon was lunging at the bomb-thrower, and, reaching him with the bayonet, ran him through the belly. He toppled over with an awful cry and fell hard on the other side of the wall of loaded bags. The bomb exploded. In the streaky burst Dixon seemed to charge in bulk — to be flung aside like a leaf by a gale.

Little Rogers had engaged an enemy who towered over him. They feinted, swung, and cracked their guns together, then locked bayonets. Another German striding from behind stabbed Rogers in the back. He writhed off the bloody bayonet, falling toward Dorn, showing a white face that changed as he fell, with quiver of torture and dying eyes.

That dormant inhibited self of Dorn suddenly was no more. Fast as a flash he was upon the murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged through him, and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the bloody bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of the other German. Dorn saw not the visage of the foe — only the thick-set body, and this he ripped open in one mighty slash. The German’s life spilled out horribly.

Dorn leaped over the bloody mass. Owens lay next, wide-eyed, alive, but stricken. Purcell fought with clubbed rifle, backing away from several foes. Brewer was being beaten down. Gray forms closing in! Dorn saw leveled small guns,, flashes of red, the impact of lead striking him. But he heard no shots. The roar in his ears was the filling of a gulf. Out of that gulf pierced his laugh. Gray forms — guns — bullets — bayonets — death — he laughed at them. His moment had come. Here he would pay. His immense and terrible joy bridged the ages between the past and this moment when he leaped light and swift, like a huge cat, upon them. They fired and they hit, but Dorn sprang on, tigerishly, with his loud and nameless laugh. Bayonets thrust at him were straws. These enemies gave way, appalled. With sweep and lunge he killed one and split a second’s skull before the first had fallen. A third he lifted and upset and gored, like a bull, in one single stroke. The fourth and last of that group, screaming his terror and fury, ran in close to get beyond that sweeping blade. He fired as he ran. Dorn tripped him heavily, and he had scarcely struck the ground when that steel transfixed his bulging throat.

Brewer was down, but Purcell had been reinforced. Soldiers in brown came on the run, shooting, yelling, brandishing. They closed in on the Germans, and Dorn ran into that mêlée to make one thrust at each gray form he encountered.

Shriller yells along the line — American yells — the enemy there had given ground! Dorn heard. He saw the gray line waver. He saw reserves running to aid his squad. The Germans would be beaten back. There was whirling blackness in his head through which he seemed to see. The laugh broke hoarse and harsh from his throat. Dust and blood choked him.

Another gray form blocked his leaping way. Dorn saw only low down, the gray arms reaching with bright, unstained blade. His own bloody bayonet clashed against it, locked, and felt the helplessness of the arms that wielded it. An instant of pause — a heaving, breathless instinct of impending exhaustion — a moment when the petrific mace of primitive man stayed at the return of the human — then with bloody foam on his lips Dorn spent his madness.

A supple twist — the French trick — and Dorn’s powerful lunge, with all his ponderous weight, drove his bayonet through the enemy’s lungs.

“Ka — ma — rod!” came the strange, strangling cry.

A weight sagged down on Dorn’s rifle. He did not pull out the bayonet, but as it lowered with the burden of the body his eyes, fixed at one height, suddenly had brought into their range the face of his foe.

A boy — dying on his bayonet! Then came a resurrection of Kurt Dorn’s soul. He looked at what must be his last deed as a soldier. His mind halted. He saw only the ghastly face, the eyes in which he expected to see hate, but saw only love of life, suddenly reborn, suddenly surprised at death.

“God save you, German! I’d give my life for yours!”

Too late! Dorn watched the youth’s last clutching of empty fingers, the last look of consciousness at his conqueror, the last quiver. The youth died and slid back off the rigid bayonet. War of men!

A heavy thud sounded to the left of Dorn. A bursting flash hid the face of his German victim. A terrific wind, sharp and hard as nails, lifted Dorn into roaring blackness.…

CHAPTER XXIX

“MANY WATERS” SHONE white and green under the bright May sunshine. Seen from the height of slope, the winding brooks looked like silver bands across a vast belt of rainy green and purple that bordered the broad river in the bottom-lands. A summer haze filled the air, and hints of gold on the waving wheat slopes presaged an early and bountiful harvest.

It was warm up there on the slope where Lenore Anderson watched and brooded. The breeze brought fragrant smell of fresh-cut alfalfa and the rustling song of the wheat. The stately house gleamed white down on the terraced green knoll; horses and cattle grazed in the pasture; workmen moved like snails in the brown gardens; a motor-car crept along the road far below, with its trail of rising dust.

Two miles of soft green wheat-slope lay between Lenore and her home. She had needed the loneliness and silence and memory of a place she had not visited for many months. Winter had passed. Summer had come with its birds and flowers. The wheat-fields were again waving, beautiful, luxuriant. But life was not as it had been for Lenore Anderson.

Kurt Dorn, private, mortally wounded! — So had read the brief and terrible line in a Spokane newspaper, publishing an Associated Press despatch of Pershing’s casualty-list. No more! That had been the only news of Kurt Dorn for a long time. A month had dragged by, of doubt, of hope, of slow despairing.

Up to the time of that fatal announcement Lenore had scarcely noted the fleeting of the days. With all her spirit and energy she had thrown herself into the organizing of the women of the valley to work for the interests of the war. She had made herself a leader who spared no effort, no sacrifice, no expense in what she considered her duty. Conservation of food, intensive farm production, knitting for soldiers, Liberty Loans and Red Cross — these she had studied and mastered, to the end that the women of the great valley had accomplished work which won national honor. It had been excitement, joy, and a strange fulfilment for her. But after the shock caused by the fatal news about Dorn she had lost interest, though she had worked on harder than ever.

Just a night ago her father had gazed at her and then told her to come to his office. She did so. And there he said: “You’re workin’ too hard. You’ve got to quit.”

“Oh no, dad. I’m only tired to-night,” she had replied. “Let me go on. I’ve planned so—”

“No!” he said, banging his desk. “You’ll run yourself down.”

“But, father, these are war-times. Could I do less — could I think of—”

“You’ve done wonders. You’ve been the life of this work. Some one else can carry it on now. You’d kill yourself. An’ this war has cost the Andersons enough.”

“Should we count the cost?” she asked.

Anderson had sworn. “No, we shouldn’t. But I’m not goin’ to lose my girl. Do you get that hunch?… I’ve bought bonds by the bushel. I’ve given thousands to your relief societies. I gave up my son Jim — an’ that cost us mother.… I’m raisin’ a million bushels of wheat this year that the government can have. An’ I’m starvin’ to death because I don’t get what I used to eat.… Then this last blow — Dorn! — that fine young wheat-man, the best — Aw! Lenore…”

“But, dad, is — isn’t there any — any hope?”

Anderson was silent.

“Dad,” she had pleaded, “if he were really dead — buried — oh! wouldn’t I feel it?”

“You’ve overworked yourself. Now you’ve got to rest,” her father had replied, huskily.

“But, dad …”

“I said no.… I’ve a heap of pride in what you’ve done. An’ I sure think you’re the best Anderson of the lot. That’s all. Now kiss me an’ go to bed.”

That explained how Lenore came to be alone, high up’ on the vast wheat-slope, watching and feeling, with no more work to do. The slow climb there had proved to her how much she needed rest. But work even under strain or pain would have been preferable to endless hours to think, to remember, to fight despair.

Mortally wounded! She whispered the tragic phrase. When? Where? How had her lover been mortally wounded? That meant death. But no other word had come and no spiritual realization of death abided in her soul. It seemed impossible for Lenore to accept things as her father and friends did. Nevertheless, equally impossible was it not to be influenced by their practical minds. Because of her nervousness, of her overstrain, she had lost a good deal of her mental poise; and she divined that the only help for that was certainty of Dorn’s fate. She could bear the shock if only she could know positively. And leaning her face in her hands, with the warm wind blowing her hair and bringing the rustle of the wheat, she prayed for divination.

No answer! Absolutely no mystic consciousness of death — of an end to her love here on earth! Instead of that breathed a strong physical presence of life all about her, in the swelling, waving slopes of wheat, in the beautiful butterflies, in the singing birds low down and the soaring eagles high above — life beating and surging in her heart, her veins, unquenchable and indomitable. It gave the lie to her morbidness. But it seemed only a physical state. How could she find any tangible hold on realities?

She lifted her face to the lonely sky, and her hands pressed to her breast where the deep ache throbbed heavily.

“It’s not that I can’t give him up,” she whispered, as if impelled to speak. “I can. I have given him up. It’s this torture of suspense. Oh, not to know!… But if that newspaper had claimed him one of the killed, I’d not believe.”

So Lenore trusted more to the mystic whisper of her woman’s soul than to all the unproven outward things. Still trust as she might, the voice of the world dinned in her ears, and between the two she was on the rack. Loss of Jim — loss of her mother — what unfilled gulfs in her heart! She was one who loved only few, but these deeply. To-day when they were gone was different from yesterday when they were here — different because memory recalled actual words, deeds, kisses of loved ones whose life was ended. Utterly futile was it for Lenore to try to think of Dorn in that way. She saw his stalwart form down through the summer haze, coming with his springy stride through the wheat. Yet — the words — mortally wounded! They had burned into her thought so that when she closed her eyes she saw them, darkly red, against the blindness of sight. Pain was a sluggish stream with source high in her breast, and it moved with her unquickened blood. If Dorn were really dead, what would become of her? Selfish question for a girl whose lover had died for his country! She would work, she would be worthy of him, she would never pine, she would live to remember. But, ah! the difference to her! Never for her who had so loved the open, the silken rustle of the wheat and the waving shadows, the green-and-gold slopes, the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, the voice of child and the sweetness of life — never again would these be the same to her, if Dorn were gone forever.

That ache in her heart had communicated itself to all her being. It filled her mind and her body. Tears stung her eyes, and again they were dry when tears would have soothed. Just as any other girl she wept, and then she burned with fever. A longing she had only faintly known, a physical thing which she had resisted, had become real, insistent, beating. Through love and loss she was to be denied a heritage common to all women. A weariness dragged at her. Noble spirit was not a natural thing. It must be intelligence seeing the higher. But to be human was to love life, to hate death, to faint under loss, to throb and pant with heavy sighs, to lie sleepless in the long dark night, to shrink with unutterable sadness at the wan light of dawn, to follow duty with a laggard sense, to feel the slow ebb of vitality and not to care, to suffer with a breaking heart.

Sunset hour reminded Lenore that she must not linger there on the slope. So, following the grass-grown lane between the sections of wheat, she wended a reluctant way homeward. Twilight was falling when she reached the yard. The cooling air was full of a fragrance of flowers freshly watered. Kathleen appeared on the path, evidently waiting for her. The girl was growing tall. Lenore remembered with a pang that her full mind had left little time for her to be a mother to this sister. Kathleen came running, excited and wide-eyed.

“Lenore, I thought you’d never come,” she said. “I know something. Only dad told me not to tell you.”

“Then don’t,” replied Lenore, with a little start.

“But I’d never keep it,” burst out Kathleen, breathlessly. “Dad’s going to New York.”

Lenore’s heart contracted. She did not know how she felt. Somehow it was momentous news.

“New York! What for?” she asked.

“He says it’s about wheat. But he can’t fool me. He told me not to mention it to you.”

The girl was keen. She wanted to prepare Lenore, yet did not mean to confide her own suppositions. Lenore checked a rush of curiosity. They went into the house. Lenore hurried to change her outing clothes and boots and then went down to supper. Rose sat at table, but her father had not yet come in. Lenore called him. He answered, and presently came tramping into the dining-room, blustering and cheerful. Not for many months had Lenore given her father such close scrutiny as she did then. He was not natural, and he baffled her. A fleeting, vague hope that she had denied lodgment in her mind seemed to have indeed been wild and unfounded. But the very fact that her father was for once unfathomable made this situation remarkable. All through the meal Lenore trembled, and she had to force herself to eat.

“Lenore, I’d like to see you,” said her father, at last, as he laid down his napkin and rose. Almost he convinced her then that nothing was amiss or different, and he would have done so if he had not been too clever, too natural. She rose to follow, catching Kathleen’s whisper:

“Don’t let him put it over on you, now!”

Anderson lighted a big cigar, as always after supper, but to Lenore’s delicate sensitiveness he seemed to be too long about it.

“Lenore, I’m takin’ a run to New York — leave to-night at eight — an’ I want you to sort of manage while I’m gone. Here’s some jobs I want the men to do — all noted down here — an’ you’ll answer letters, ‘phone calls, an’ all that. Not much work, you know, but you’ll have to hang around. Somethin’ important might turn up.”

“Yes, dad. I’ll be glad to,” she replied. “Why — why this sudden trip?”

Anderson turned away a little and ran his hand over the papers on his desk. Did she only imagine that his hand shook a little?

“Wheat deals, I reckon — mostly,” he said. “An’ mebbe I’ll run over to Washington.”

He turned then, puffing at his cigar, and calmly met her direct gaze. If there were really more than he claimed in his going, he certainly did not intend to tell her. Lenore tried to still her mounting emotion. These days she seemed all imagination. Then she turned away her face.

“Will you try to find out if Kurt Dorn died of his wound — and all about him?” she asked, steadily, but very low.

“Lenore, I sure will!” he exclaimed, with explosive emphasis. No doubt the sincerity of that reply was an immense relief to Anderson. “Once in New York, I can pull wires, if need be. I absolutely promise you I’ll find out — what — all you want to know.”

Lenore bade him good-by and went to her room, where calmness deserted her for a while. Upon recovering, she found that the time set for her father’s departure had passed. Strangely, then the oppression that had weighed upon her so heavily eased and lifted. The moment seemed one beyond her understanding. She attributed her relief, however, to the fact that her father would soon end her suspense in regard to Kurt Dorn.

In the succeeding days Lenore regained her old strength and buoyancy, and something of a control over the despondency which at times had made life misery.

A golden day of sunlight and azure blue of sky ushered in the month of June. “Many Waters” was a world of verdant green. Lenore had all she could do to keep from flying to the slopes. But as every day now brought nearer the possibility of word from her father, she stayed at home. The next morning about nine o’clock, while she was at her father’s desk, the telephone-bell rang. It did that many times every morning, but this ring seemed to electrify Lenore. She answered the call hurriedly.

“Hello, Lenore, my girl! How are you?” came rolling on the wire.

“Dad! Dad! Is it — you?” cried Lenore, wildly.

“Sure is. Just got here. Are you an’ the girls O.K.?”

“We’re well — fine. Oh, dad …”

“You needn’t send the car. I’ll hire one.”

“Yes — yes — but, dad — Oh, tell me …”

“Wait! I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She heard him slam up the receiver, and she leaned there, palpitating, with the queer, vacant sounds of the telephone filling her ear.

“Five minutes!” Lenore whispered. In five more minutes she would know. They seemed an eternity. Suddenly a flood of emotion and thought threatened to overwhelm her. Leaving the office, she hurried forth to find her sisters, and not until she had looked everywhere did she remember that they were visiting a girl friend. After this her motions seemed ceaseless; she could not stand or sit still, and she was continually going to the porch to look down the shady lane. At last a car appeared, coming fast. Then she ran indoors quite aimlessly and out again. But when she recognized her father all her outward fears and tremblings vanished. The broad, brown flash of his face was reality. He got out of the car lightly for so heavy a man, and, taking his valise, he dismissed the chauffeur. His smile was one of gladness, and his greeting a hearty roar.

Lenore met him at the porch steps, seeing in him, feeling as she embraced him, that he radiated a strange triumph and finality.

“Say, girl, you look somethin’ like your old self,” he said, holding her by the shoulders. “Fine! But you’re a woman now.… Where are the kids?”

“They’re away,” replied Lenore.

“How you stare!” laughed Anderson, as with arm round her he led her in. “Anythin’ queer about your dad’s handsome mug?”

His jocular tone did not hide his deep earnestness. Never had Lenore felt him so forceful. His ruggedness seemed to steady her nerves that again began to fly. Anderson took her into his office, closed the door, threw down his valise.

“Great to be home!” he exploded, with heavy breath.

Lenore felt her face blanch; and that intense quiver within her suddenly stilled.

“Tell me — quick!” she whispered.

He faced her with flashing eyes, and all about him changed. “You’re an Anderson! You can stand shock?”

“Any — any shock but suspense.”

“I lied about the wheat deal — about my trip to New York. I got news of Dorn. I was afraid to tell you.”

“Yes?”

“Dorn is alive,” went on Anderson.

Lenore’s hands went out in mute eloquence.

“He was all shot up. He can’t live,” hurried Anderson, hoarsely. “But he’s alive — he’ll live to see you.”

“Oh! I knew, I knew!” whispered Lenore clasping her hands. “Oh, thank God!”

“Lenore, steady now. You’re gettin’ shaky. Brace there, my girl!… Dorn’s alive. I’ve brought him home. He’s here.”

“Here!” screamed Lenore.

“Yes. They’ll have him here in half an hour.”

Lenore fell into her father’s arms, blind and deaf to all outward things. The light of day failed. But her consciousness did not fade. Before it seemed a glorious radiance that was the truth lost for the moment, blindly groping, in whirling darkness. When she did feel herself again it was as a weak, dizzy, palpitating child, unable to stand. Her father, in alarm, and probable anger with himself, was coaxing and swearing in one breath. Then suddenly the joy that had shocked Lenore almost into collapse forced out the weakness with amazing strength. She blazed. She radiated. She burst into utterance too swift to understand.

“Hold on there, girl!” interrupted Anderson. “You’ve got the bit in your teeth.… Listen, will you? Let me talk. Well — well, there now.… Sure, it’s all right, Lenore. You made me break it sudden-like.… Listen. There’s all summer to talk. Just now you want to get a few details. Get ’em straight.… Dorn is on the way here. They put his stretcher — we’ve been packin’ him on one — into a motor-truck. There’s a nurse come with me — a man nurse. We’d better put Dorn in mother’s room. That’s the biggest an’ airiest. You hurry an’ open up the windows an’ fix the bed.… An’ don’t go out of your head with joy. It’s sure more ‘n we ever hoped for to see him alive, to get him home. But he’s done for, poor boy! He can’t live.… An’ he’s in such shape that I don’t want you to see him when they fetch him in. Savvy, girl! You’ll stay in your room till we call you. An’ now rustle.”

Lenore paced and crouched and lay in her room, waiting, listening with an intensity that hurt. When a slow procession of men, low-voiced and soft-footed, carried Kurt Dorn into the house and up-stairs Lenore trembled with a storm of emotion. All her former agitation, love, agony, and suspense, compared to what she felt then, was as nothing. Not the joy of his being alive, not the terror of his expected death, had so charged her heart as did this awful curiosity to see him, to realize him.

At last a step — a knock — her father’s voice: “Lenore — come!”

Her ordeal of waiting was over. All else she could withstand. That moment ended her weakness. Her blood leaped with the irresistable, revivifying current of her spirit. Unlocking the door, Lenore stepped out. Her father stood there with traces of extreme worry fading from his tired face. At sight of her they totally vanished.

“Good! You’ve got nerve. You can see him now alone. He’s unconscious. But he’s not been greatly weakened by the trip. His vitality is wonderful. He comes to once in a while. Sometimes he’s rational. Mostly, though, he’s out of his head. An’ his left arm is gone.”

Anderson said all this rapidly and low while they walked down the hall toward the end room which had not been used since Mrs. Anderson’s death. The door was ajar. Lenore smelled strong, pungent odors of antiseptics.

Anderson knocked softly.

“Come out, you men, an’ let my girl see him,” he called.

Doctor Lowell, the village practitioner Lenore had known for years, tiptoed out, important and excited.

“Lenore, it’s to bad,” he said, kindly, and he shook his head.

Another man glided out with the movements of a woman. He was not young. His aspect was pale, serious.

“Lenore, this is Mr. Jarvis, the nurse.… Now — go in, an’ don’t forget what I said.”

She closed the door and leaned back against it, conscious of the supreme moment of her life. Dorn’s face, strange yet easily recognizable, appeared against the white background of the bed. That moment was supreme because it showed him there alive, justifying the spiritual faith which had persisted in her soul. If she had ever, in moments of distraction, doubted God, she could never doubt again.

The large room had been bright, with white curtains softly blowing inward from the open windows. As she crept forward, not sure on her feet, all seemed to blur, so that when she leaned over the still face to kiss it she could not see clearly. Her lips quivered with that kiss and with her sob of thankfulness.

“My soldier!”

She prayed then, with her head beside his on the pillow, and through that prayer and the strange stillness of her lover she received a subtle shock. Sweet it was to touch him as she bent with eyes hidden. Terrible it would be to look — to see how the war had wrecked him. She tried to linger there, all tremulous, all gratitude, all woman and mother. But an incalculable force lifted her up from her knees.

“Ah!” she gasped, as she saw him with cleared sight. A knife-blade was at her heart. Kurt Dorn lay before her gaze — a man, and not the boy she had sacrificed to war — a man by a larger frame, and by older features, and by a change difficult to grasp.

These features seemed a mask, transparent, unable to hide a beautiful, sad, stern, and ruthless face beneath, which in turn slowly gave to her startled gaze sloping lines of pain and shades of gloom, and the pale, set muscles of forced manhood, and the faint hectic flush of fever and disorder and derangement. A livid, angry scar, smooth, yet scarcely healed, ran from his left temple back as far as she could see. That established his identity as a wounded soldier brought home from the war. Otherwise to Lenore his face might have been that of an immortal suddenly doomed with the curse of humanity, dying in agony. She had expected to see Dorn bronzed, haggard, gaunt, starved, bearded and rough-skinned, bruised and battered, blinded and mutilated, with gray in his fair hair. But she found none of these. Her throbbing heart sickened and froze at the nameless history recorded in his face. Was it beyond her to understand what had been his bitter experience? Would she never suffer his ordeal? Never! That was certain. An insupportable sadness pervaded her soul. It was not his life she thought of, but the youth, the nobility, the splendor of him that war had destroyed. No intuition, no divination, no power so penetrating as a woman’s love! By that piercing light she saw the transformed man. He knew. He had found out all of physical life. His hate had gone with his blood. Deeds — deeds of terror had left their imprint upon his brow, in the shadows under his eyes, that resembled blank walls potent with invisible meaning. Lenore shuddered through all her soul as she read the merciless record of the murder he had dealt, of the strong and passionate duty that had driven him, of the eternal remorse. But she did not see or feel that he had found God; and, stricken as he seemed, she could not believe he was near to death.

This last confounding thought held her transfixed and thrilling, gazing down at Dorn, until her father entered to break the spell and lead her away.

CHAPTER XXX

IT WAS NIGHT. Lenore should have been asleep, but she sat up in the dark by the window. Underneath on the porch, her father, with his men as audience, talked like a torrent. And Lenore, hearing what otherwise would never have gotten to her ears, found listening irresistible. Slow, dragging footsteps and the clinking of spurs attested to the approach of cowboys.

“Howdy, boys! Sit down an’ be partic’lar quiet. Here’s some smokes. I’m wound up an’ gotta go off or bust,” Anderson said, “Well, as I was sayin’, we folks don’t know there’s a war, from all outward sign here in the Northwest. But in that New York town I just come from — God Almighty! what goin’s-on! Boys, I never knew before how grand it was to be American. New York’s got the people, the money, an’ it’s the outgoin’ an’ incomin’ place of all pertainin’ to this war. The Liberty Loan drive was on. The streets were crowded. Bands an’ parades, grand-opera stars singin’ on the corners, famous actors sellin’ bonds, flags an’ ribbons an’ banners everywhere, an’ every third man you bumped into wearin’ some kind of uniform! An’ the women were runnin’ wild, like a stampede of two-year-olds.… I rode down Fifth Avenue on one of them high-topped buses with seats on. Talk about your old stage-coach — why, these ‘buses had ’em beat a mile! I’ve rode some in my day, but this was the ride of my life. I couldn’t hear myself think. Music at full blast, roar of traffic, voices like whisperin’ without end, flash of red an’ white an’ blue, shine of a thousand automobiles down that wonderful street that’s like a canon! An’ up overhead a huge cigar-shaped balloon, an’ then an airplane sailin’ swift an’ buzzin’ like a bee. Them was the first air-ships I ever seen. No wonder — Jim wanted to—”

Anderson’s voice broke a little at this juncture and he paused. All was still except the murmur of the running water and the song of the insects. Presently Anderson cleared his throat and resumed:

“I saw five hundred Australian soldiers just arrived in New York by way of Panama. Lean, wiry boys like Arizona cowboys. Looked good to me! You ought to have heard the cheerin’. Roar an’ roar, everywhere they marched along. I saw United States sailors, marines, soldiers, airmen, English officers, an’ Scotch soldiers. Them last sure got my eye. Funny plaid skirts they wore — an’ they had bare legs. Three I saw walked lame. An’ all had medals. Some one said the Germans called these Scotch ‘Ladies from hell.’ … When I heard that I had to ask questions, an’ I learned these queer-lookin’ half-women-dressed fellows were simply hell with cold steel. An’ after I heard that I looked again an’ wondered why I hadn’t seen it. I ought to know men!… Then I saw the outfit of Blue Devil Frenchmen that was sent over to help stimulate the Liberty Loan. An’ when I seen them I took off my hat. I’ve knowed a heap of tough men an’ bad men an’ handy men an’ fightin’ men in my day, but I reckoned I never seen the like of the Blue Devils. I can’t tell you why, boys. Blue Devils is another German name for a regiment of French soldiers. They had it on the Scotch-men. Any Western man, just to look at them, would think of Wild Bill an’ Billy the Kid an’ Geronimo an’ Custer, an’ see that mebbe the whole four mixed in one might have made a Blue Devil.

“My young friend Dorn, that’s dyin’ up-stairs, now — he had a name given him. ‘Pears that this war-time is like the old days when we used to hit on right pert names for everybody.… Demon Dorn they called him, an’ he got that handle before he ever reached France. The boys of his outfit gave it to him because of the way he run wild with a bayonet. I don’t want my girl Lenore ever to know that.

“A soldier named Owens told me a lot. He was the corporal of Dorn’s outfit, a sort of foreman, I reckon. Anyway, he saw Dorn every day of the months they were in the service, an’ the shell that done Dorn made a cripple of Owens. This fellow Owens said Dorn had not got so close to his bunk-mates until they reached France. Then he begun to have influence over them. Owens didn’t know how he did it — in fact, never knew it at all until the outfit got to the front, somewhere in northern France, in the first line. They were days in the first line, close up to the Germans, watchin’ an’ sneakin’ all the time, shootin’ an’ dodgin’, but they never had but one real fight.

“That was when one mornin’ the Germans came pilin’ over on a charge, far outnumberin’ our boys. Then it happened. Lord! I wish I could remember how Owens told that scrap! Boys, you never heard about a real scrap. It takes war like this to make men fighters.… Listen, now, an’ I’ll tell you some of the things that come off durin’ this German charge. I’ll tell them just as they come to mind. There was a boy named Griggs who ran the German barrage — an’ that’s a gantlet — seven times to fetch ammunition to his pards. Another boy, on the same errand, was twice blown off the road by explodin’ shells, an’ then went back. Owens told of two of his company who rushed a bunch of Germans, killed eight of them, an’ captured their machine-gun. Before that German charge a big shell came over an’ kicked up a hill of mud. Next day the Americans found their sentinel buried in mud, dead at his post, with his bayonet presented.

“Owens was shot just as he jumped up with his pards to meet the chargin’ Germans. He fell an’ dragged himself against a wall of bags, where he lay watchin’ the fight. An’ it so happened that he faced Dorn’s squad, which was attacked by three times their number. He saw Dorn shot — go down, an’ thought he was done — but no! Dorn came up with one side of his face all blood. Dixon, a college football man, rushed a German who was about to throw a bomb. Dixon got him, an’ got the bomb, too, when it went off. Little Rogers, an Irish boy, mixed it with three Germans, an’ killed one before he was bayoneted in the back. Then Dorn, like the demon they’d named him, went on the stampede. He had a different way with a bayonet, so Owens claimed. An’ Dorn was heavy, powerful, an’ fast. He lifted an’ slung those two Germans, one after another, quick as that! — like you’d toss a couple of wheat sheafs with your pitchfork, an’ he sent them rollin’, with blood squirtin’ all over. An’ then four more Germans were shootin’ at him. Right into their teeth Dorn run — laughin’ wild an’ terrible, Owens said, an’ the Germans couldn’t stop that flashin’ bayonet. Dorn ripped them all open, an’ before they’d stopped floppin’ he was on the bunch that’d killed Brewer an’ were makin’ it hard for his other pards.… Whew! — Owens told it all as if it’d took lots of time, but that fight was like lightnin’ an’ I can’t remember how it was. Only Demon Dorn laid out nine Germans before they retreated. Nine! Owens seen him do it, like a mad bull loose. Then the shell came over that put Dorn out, an’ Owens, too.

“Well, Dorn had a mangled arm, an’ many wounds. They amputated his arm in France, patched him up, an’ sent him back to New York with a lot of other wounded soldiers. They expected him to die long ago. But he hangs on. He’s full of lead now. What a hell of a lot of killin’ some men take!… My boy Jim would have been like that!

“So there, boys, you have a little bit of American fightin’ come home to you, straight an’ true. I say that’s what the Germans have roused. Well, it was a bad day for them when they figgered everythin’ on paper, had it all cut an’ dried, but failed to see the spirit of men!”

Lenore tore herself away from the window so that she could not hear any more, and in the darkness of her room she began to pace to and fro, beginning to undress for bed, shaking in some kind of a frenzy, scarcely knowing what she was about, until sundry knocks from furniture and the falling over a chair awakened her to the fact that she was in a tumult.

“What — am I — doing!” she panted, in bewilderment, reaching out in the dark to turn on the light.

Like awakening from a nightmare, she saw the bright light flash up. It changed her feeling. Who was this person whose image stood reflected in the mirror? Lenore’s recognition of herself almost stunned her. What had happened? She saw that her hair fell wildly over her bare shoulders; her face shone white, with red spots in her cheeks; her eyes seemed balls of fire; her lips had a passionate, savage curl; her breast, bare and heaving, showed a throbbing, tumultuous heart. And as she realized how she looked, it struck her that she felt an inexplicable passion. She felt intense as steel, hot as fire, quivering with the pulsation of rapid blood, a victim to irrepressible thrills that rushed over her from the very soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. Something glorious, terrible, and furious possessed her. When she understood what it was she turned out the light and fell upon the bed, where, as the storm slowly subsided, she thought and wondered and sorrowed, and whispered to herself.

The tale of Dorn’s tragedy had stirred to the depths the primitive, hidden, and unplumbed in the unknown nature of her. Just now she had looked at herself, at her two selves — the white-skinned and fair-haired girl that civilization had produced — and the blazing, panting, savage woman of the bygone ages. She could not escape from either. The story of Demon Dorn’s terrible fight had retrograded her, for the moment, to the female of the species, more savage and dangerous than the male. No use to lie! She had gloried in his prowess. He was her man, gone out with club, to beat down the brutes that would steal her from him.

“Alas! What are we? What am I?” she whispered. “Do I know myself? What could I not have done a moment ago?”

She had that primitive thing in her, and, though she shuddered to realize it, she had no regret. Life was life. That Dorn had laid low so many enemies was grand to her, and righteous, since these enemies were as cavemen come for prey. Even now the terrible thrills chased over her. Demon Dorn! What a man! She had known just what he would do — and how his spiritual life would go under. The woman of her gloried in his fight and the soul of her sickened at its significance. No hope for any man or any woman except in God!

These men, these boys, like her father and Jake, like Dorn and his comrades — how simple, natural, inevitable, elemental they were! They loved a fight. They might hate it, too, but they loved it most. Life of men was all strife, and the greatness in them came out in war. War searched out the best and the worst in men. What were wounds, blood, mangled flesh, agony, and death to men — to those who went out for liberation of something unproven in themselves? Life was only a breath. The secret must lie in the beyond, for men could not act that way for nothing. Some hidden purpose through the ages!

Anderson had summoned a great physician, a specialist of world renown. Lenore, of course, had not been present when the learned doctor examined Kurt Dorn, but she was in her father’s study when the report was made. To Lenore this little man seemed all intellect, all science, all electric current.

He stated that Dorn had upward of twenty-five wounds, some of them serious, most trivial, and all of them combined not necessarily fatal. Many soldiers with worse wounds had totally recovered. Dorn’s vitality and strength had been so remarkable that great loss of blood and almost complete lack of nourishment had not brought about the present grave condition.

“He will die, and that is best for him,” said the specialist. “His case is not extraordinary. I saw many like it in France during the first year of war when I was there. But I will say that he must have been both physically and mentally above the average before he went to fight. My examination extended through periods of his unconsciousness and aberration. Once, for a little time, he came to, apparently sane. The nurse said he had noticed several periods of this rationality during the last forty-eight hours. But these, and the prolonged vitality, do not offer any hope.

“An emotion of exceeding intensity and duration has produced lesions in the kinetic organs. Some passion has immeasurably activated his brain, destroying brain cells which might not be replaced. If he happened to live he might be permanently impaired. He might be neurasthenic, melancholic, insane at times, or even grow permanently so.… It is very sad. He appears to have been a fine young man. But he will die, and that really is best for him.”

Thus the man of science summed up the biological case of Kurt Dorn. When he had gone Anderson wore the distressed look of one who must abandon his last hope. He did not understand, though he was forced to believe. He swore characteristically at the luck, and then at the great specialist.

“I’ve known Indian medicine-men who could give that doctor cards an’ spades,” he exploded, with gruff finality.

Lenore understood her father perfectly and imagined she understood the celebrated scientist. The former was just human and the latter was simply knowledge. Neither had that which caused her to go out alone into the dark night and look up beyond the slow-rising slope to the stars. These men, particularly the scientist, lacked something. He possessed all the wonderful knowledge of body and brain, of the metabolism and chemistry of the organs, but he knew nothing of the source of life. Lenore accorded science its place in progress, but she hated its elimination of the soul. Stronger than ever, strength to endure and to trust pervaded her spirit. The dark night encompassing her, the vast, lonely heave of wheat-slope, the dim sky with its steady stars — these were voices as well as tangible things of the universe, and she was in mysterious harmony with them. “Lift thine eyes to the hills from whence cometh thy help!”

The day following the specialist’s visit Dorn surprised the family doctor, the nurse, Anderson, and all except Lenore by awakening to a spell of consciousness which seemed to lift, for the time at least, the shadow of death.

Kathleen was the first to burst in upon Lenore with the wonderful news. Lenore could only gasp her intense eagerness and sit trembling, hands over her heart, while the child babbled.

“I listened, and I peeped in,” was Kathleen’s reiterated statement. “Kurt was awake. He spoke, too, but very soft. Say, he knows he’s at ‘Many Waters.’ I heard him say, ‘Lenore’.… Oh, I’m so happy, Lenore — that before he dies he’ll know you — talk to you.”

“Hush, child!” whispered Lenore. “Kurt’s not going to die.”

“But they all say so. That funny little doctor yesterday — he made me tired — but he said so. I heard him as dad put him into the car.”

“Yes, Kathie, I heard him, too, but I do not believe,” replied Lenore, dreamily.

“Kurt doesn’t look so — so sick,” went on Kathleen. “Only — only I don’t know what — different, I guess. I’m crazy to go in — to see him. Lenore, will they ever let me?”

Their father’s abrupt entrance interrupted the conversation. He was pale, forceful, as when issues were at stake but were undecided.

“Kathie, go out,” he said.

Lenore rose to face him.

“My girl — Dorn’s come to — an’ he’s asked for you. I was for lettin’ him see you. But Lowell an’ Jarvis say no — not yet.… Now he might die any minute. Seems to me he ought to see you. It’s right. An’ if you say so—”

“Yes,” replied Lenore.

“By Heaven! He shall see you, then,” said Anderson, breathing hard. “I’m justified even — even if it…” He did not finish his significant speech, but left her abruptly.

Presently Lenore was summoned. When she left her room she was in the throes of uncontrolled agitation, and all down the long hallway she fought herself. At the half-open door she paused to lean against the wall. There she had the will to still her nerves, to acquire serenity; and she prayed for wisdom to make her presence and her words of infinite good to Dorn in this crisis.

She was not aware of when she moved — how she ever got to Dorn’s bedside. But seemingly detached from her real self, serene, with emotions locked, she was there looking down upon him.

“Lenore!” he said, with far-off voice that just reached her. Gladness shone from his shadowy eyes.

“Welcome home — my soldier boy!” she replied. Then she bent to kiss his cheek and to lay hers beside it.

“I never — hoped — to see you — again,” he went on.

“Oh, but I knew!” murmured Lenore, lifting her head. His right hand, brown, bare, and rough, lay outside the coverlet upon his breast. It was weakly reaching for her. Lenore took it in both hers, while she gazed steadily down into his eyes. She seemed to see then how he was comparing the image he had limned upon his memory with her face.

“Changed — you’re older — more beautiful — yet the same,” he said. “It seems — long ago.”

“Yes, long ago. Indeed I am older. But — all’s well that ends well. You are back.”

“Lenore, haven’t you — been told — I can’t live?”

“Yes, but it’s untrue,” she replied, and felt that she might have been life itself speaking.

“Dear, something’s gone — from me. Something vital gone — with the shell that — took my arm.”

“No!” she smiled down upon him. All the conviction of her soul and faith she projected into that single word and serene smile — all that was love and woman in her opposing death. A subtle, indefinable change came over Dorn.

“Lenore — I paid — for my father,” he whispered. “I killed Huns!… I spilled the — blood in me — I hated!… But all was wrong — wrong!”

“Yes, but you could not help that,” she said, piercingly. “Blame can never rest upon you. You were only an — American soldier.… Oh, I know! You were magnificent.… But your duty that way is done. A higher duty awaits you.”

His eyes questioned sadly and wonderingly.

“You must be the great sower of wheat.”

“Sower of wheat?” he whispered, and a light quickened in that questioning gaze.

“There will be starving millions after this war. Wheat is the staff of life. You must get well.… Listen!”

She hesitated, and sank to her knees beside the bed. “Kurt, the day you’re able to sit up I’ll marry you. Then I’ll take you home — to your wheat-hills.”

For a second Lenore saw him transformed with her spirit, her faith, her love, and it was that for which she had prayed. She had carried him beyond the hopelessness, beyond incredulity. Some guidance had divinely prompted her. And when his mute rapture suddenly vanished, when he lost consciousness and a pale gloom and shade fell upon his face, she had no fear.

In her own room she unleashed the strange bonds on her feelings and suffered their recurrent surge and strife, until relief and calmness returned to her. Then came a flashing uplift of soul, a great and beautiful exaltation. Lenore felt that she had been gifted with incalculable power. She had pierced Dorn’s fatalistic consciousness with the truth and glory of possible life, as opposed to the dark and evil morbidity of war. She saw for herself the wonderful and terrible stairs of sand which women had been climbing all the ages, and must climb on to the heights of solid rock, of equality, of salvation for the human race. She saw woman, the primitive, the female of the species, but she saw her also as the mother of the species, made to save as well as perpetuate, learning from the agony of child-birth and child-care the meaning of Him who said, “Thou shalt not kill!” Tremendous would be the final resistance of woman to the brutality of man. Women were to be the saviors of humanity. It seemed so simple and natural that it could not be otherwise. Lenore realized, with a singular conception of the splendor of its truth, that when most women had found themselves, their mission in life, as she had found hers, then would come an end to violence, to greed, to hate, to war, to the black and hideous imperfection of mankind.

With all her intellect and passion Lenore opposed the theory of the scientist and biologists. If they proved that strife and fight were necessary to the development of man, that without violence and bloodshed and endless contention the race would deteriorate, then she would say that it would be better to deteriorate and to die. Women all would declare against that, and in fact would never believe. She would never believe with her heart, but if her intellect was forced to recognize certain theories, then she must find a way to reconcile life to the inscrutable designs of nature. The theory that continual strife was the very life of plants, birds, beasts, and men seemed verified by every reaction of the present; but if these things were fixed materialistic rules of the existence of animated forms upon the earth, what then was God, what was the driving force in Kurt Dorn that made war-duty some kind of murder which overthrew his mind, what was the love in her heart of all living things, and the nameless sublime faith in her soul?

“If we poor creatures must fight,” said Lenore, and she meant this for a prayer, “let the women fight eternally against violence, and let the men forever fight their destructive instincts!”

From that hour the condition of Kurt Dorn changed for the better. Doctor Lowell admitted that Lenore had been the one medicine which might defeat the death that all except she had believed inevitable.

Lenore was permitted to see him a few minutes every day, for which fleeting interval she must endure the endless hours. But she discovered that only when he was rational and free from pain would they let her go in. What Dorn’s condition was all the rest of the time she could not guess. But she began to get inklings that it was very bad.

“Dad, I’m going to insist on staying with Kurt as — as long as I want,” asserted Lenore, when she had made up her mind.

This worried Anderson, and he appeared at a loss for words.

“I told Kurt I’d marry him the very day he could sit up,” continued Lenore.

“By George! that accounts,” exclaimed her father. “He’s been tryin’ to sit up, an’ we’ve had hell with him.”

“Dad, he will get well. And all the sooner if I can be with him more. He loves me. I feel I’m the only thing that counteracts — the — the madness in his mind — the death in his soul.”

Anderson made one of his violent gestures. “I believe you. That hits me with a bang. It takes a woman!… Lenore, what’s your idea?”

“I want to — to marry him,” murmured Lenore. “To nurse him — to take him home to his wheat-fields.”

“You shall have your way,” replied Anderson, beginning to pace the floor. “It can’t do any harm. It might save him. An’ anyway, you’ll be his wife — if only for … By George! we’ll do it. You never gave me a wrong hunch in your life … but, girl, it’ll be hard for you to see him when — when he has the spells.”

“Spells!” echoed Lenore.

“Yes. You’ve been told that he raves. But you didn’t know how. Why, it gets even my nerve! It fascinated me, but once was enough. I couldn’t stand to see his face when his Huns come back to him.”

“His Huns!” ejaculated Lenore, shuddering. “What do you mean?”

“Those Huns he killed come back to him. He fights them. You see him go through strange motions, an’ it’s as if his left arm wasn’t gone. He used his right arm — an’ the motions he makes are the ones he made when he killed the Huns with his bayonet. It’s terrible to watch him — the look on his face!.… I heard at the hospital in New York that in France they photographed him when he had one of the spells.… I’d hate to have you see him then. But maybe after Doctor Lowell explains it, you’ll understand.”

“Poor boy! How terrible for him to live it all over! But when he gets well — when he has his wheat-hills and me to fill his mind — those spells will fade.”

“Maybe — maybe. I hope so. Lord knows it’s all beyond me. But you’re goin’ to have your way.”

Doctor Lowell explained to Lenore that Dorn, like all mentally deranged soldiers, dreamed when he was asleep, and raved when he was out of his mind, of only one thing — the foe. In his nightmares Dorn had to be held forcibly. The doctor said that the remarkable and hopeful indication about Dorn’s condition was a gradual daily gain in strength and a decline in the duration and violence of his bad spells.

This assurance made Lenore happy. She began to relieve the worn-out nurse during the day, and she prepared herself for the first ordeal of actual experience of Dorn’s peculiar madness. But Dorn watched her many hours and would not or could not sleep while she was there; and the tenth day of his stay at “Many Waters” passed without her seeing what she dreaded. Meanwhile he grew perceptibly better.

The afternoon came when Anderson brought a minister. Then a few moments sufficed to make Lenore Dorn’s wife.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE REMARKABLE HAPPENED. Scarcely had the minister left when Kurt Dorn’s smiling wonder and happiness sustained a break, as sharp and cold and terrible as if nature had transformed him from man to beast.

His face became like that of a gorilla. Struggling up, he swept his right arm over and outward with singular twisting energy. A bayonet-thrust! And for him his left arm was still intact! A savage, unintelligible battle-cry, yet unmistakably German, escaped his lips.

Lenore stood one instant petrified. Her father, grinding his teeth, attempted to lead her away. But as Dorn was about to pitch off the bed, Lenore, with piercing cry, ran to catch him and force him back. There she held him, subdued his struggles, and kept calling with that intensity of power and spirit which must have penetrated even his delirium. Whatever influence she exerted, it quieted him, changed his savage face, until he relaxed and lay back passive and pale. It was possible to tell exactly when his reason returned, for it showed in the gaze he fixed upon Lenore.

“I had — one — of my fits!” he said, huskily.

“Oh — I don’t know what it was,” replied Lenore, with quavering voice. Her strength began to leave her now. Her arms that had held him so firmly began to slip away.

“Son, you had a bad spell,” interposed Anderson, with his heavy breathing. “First one she’s seen.”

“Lenore, I laid out my Huns again,” said Dorn, with a tragic smile. “Lately I could tell when — they were coming back.”

“Did you know just now?” queried Lenore.

“I think so. I wasn’t really out of my head. I’ve known when I did that. It’s a strange feeling — thought — memory … and action drives it away. Then I seem always to want to — kill my Huns all over again.”

Lenore gazed at him with mournful and passionate tenderness. “Do you remember that we were just married?” she asked.

“My wife!” he whispered.

“Husband!… I knew you were coming home to me.… I knew you would not die.… I know you will get well.”

“I begin to feel that, too. Then — maybe the black spells will go away.”

“They must or — or you’ll lose me,” faltered Lenore. “If you go on killing your Huns over and over — it’ll be I who will die.”

She carried with her to her room a haunting sense of Dorn’s reception of her last speech. Some tremendous impression it made on him, but whether of fear of domination or resolve, or all combined, she could not tell. She had weakened in mention of the return of his phantoms. But neither Dorn nor her father ever guessed that, once in her room, she collapsed from sheer feminine horror at the prospect of seeing Dorn change from a man to a gorilla, and to repeat the savage orgy of remurdering his Huns. That was too much for Lenore. She who had been invincible in faith, who could stand any tests of endurance and pain, was not proof against a spectacle of Dorn’s strange counterfeit presentment of the actual and terrible killing he had performed with a bayonet.

For days after that she was under a strain which she realized would break her if it was not relieved. It appeared to be solely her fear of Dorn’s derangement. She was with him almost all the daylight hours, attending him, watching him sleep, talking a little to him now and then, seeing with joy his gradual improvement, feeling each day the slow lifting of the shadow over him, and yet every minute of every hour she waited in dread for the return of Dorn’s madness. It did not come. If it recurred at night she never was told. Then after a week a more pronounced change for the better in Dorn’s condition marked a lessening of the strain upon Lenore. A little later it was deemed safe to dismiss the nurse. Lenore dreaded the first night vigil. She lay upon a couch in Dorn’s room and never closed her eyes. But he slept, and his slumber appeared sound at times, and then restless, given over to dreams. He talked incoherently, and moaned; and once appeared to be drifting into a nightmare, when Lenore awakened him. Next day he sat up and said he was hungry. Thereafter Lenore began to lose her dread.

“Well, son, let’s talk wheat,” said Anderson, cheerily, one beautiful June morning, as he entered Dorn’s room.

“Wheat!” sighed Dorn, with a pathetic glance at his empty sleeve. “How can I even do a man’s work again in the fields?”

Lenore smiled bravely at him. “You will sow more wheat than ever, and harvest more, too.”

“I should smile,” corroborated Anderson.

“But how? I’ve only one arm,” said Dorn.

“Kurt, you hug me better with that one arm than you ever did with two arms.” replied Lenore, in sublime assurance.

“Son, you lose that argument,” roared Anderson. “Me an’ Lenore stand pat. You’ll sow more an’ better wheat than ever — than any other man in the Northwest. Get my hunch?… Well, I’ll tell you later.… Now see here, let me declare myself about you. I seen it worries you more an’ more, now you’re gettin’ well. You miss that good arm, an’ you feel the pain of bullets that still lodge somewhere’s in you, an’ you think you’ll be a cripple always. Look things in the face square. Sure, compared to what you once was, you’ll be a cripple. But Kurt Dorn weighin’ one hundred an’ ninety let loose on a bunch of Huns was some man! My Gawd!… Forget that, an’ forget that you’ll never chop a cord of wood again in a day. Look at facts like me an’ Lenore. We gave you up. An’ here you’re with us, comin’ along fine, an’ you’ll be able to do hard work some day, if you’re crazy about it. Just think how good that is for Lenore, an’ me, too.… Now listen to this.” Anderson unfolded a newspaper and began to read:

“Continued improvement, with favorable weather conditions, in the winter-wheat states and encouraging messages from the Northwest warrant an increase of crop estimates made two weeks ago and based mainly upon the government’s report. In all probability the yield from winter fields will slightly exceed 600,000,000 bushels. Increase of acreage in the spring states in unexpectedly large. For example, Minnesota’s Food Administrator says the addition in his state is 40 per cent, instead of the early estimate of 20 per cent. Throughout the spring area the plants have a good start and are in excellent condition. It may be that the yield will rise to 300,000,000 bushels, making a total of about 900,000,000. From such a crop 280,000,000 could be exported in normal times, and by conservation the surplus can easily be enlarged to 350,000,000 or even 400,000,000. In Canada also estimates of acreage increase have been too low. It was said that the addition in Alberta was 20 per cent., but recent reports make it 40 per cent. Canada may harvest a crop of 300,000,000 bushels, or nearly 70,000,000 more than last year’s. Our allies in Europe can safely rely upon the shipment of 500,000,000 bushels from the United States and Canada.

“After the coming harvest there will be an ample supply of wheat for the foes of Germany at ports which can easily be reached. In addition, the large surplus stocks in Australia and Argentina will be available when ships can be spared for such service. And the ships are coming from the builders. For more than a year to come there will be wheat enough for our war partners, the Belgians, and the northern European neutral countries with which we have trade agreements.”

Lenore eagerly watched her husband’s face in pleasurable anticipation, yet with some anxiety. Wheat had been a subject little touched upon and the war had never been mentioned.

“Great!” he exclaimed, with a glow in his cheeks. “I’ve been wanting to ask.… Wheat for the Allies and neutrals — for more than a year!… Anderson, the United States will feed and save the world!”

“I reckon. Son, we’re sendin’ thousands of soldiers a day now — ships are buildin’ fast — aeroplanes comin’ like a swarm of bees — money for the government to burn — an’ every American gettin’ mad.… Dorn, the Germans don’t know they’re ruined!… What do you say?”

Dorn looked very strange. “Lenore, help me stand up,” he asked, with strong tremor in his voice.

“Oh, Kurt, you’re not able yet,” appealed Lenore.

“Help me. I want you to do it.”

Lenore complied, wondering and frightened, yet fascinated, too. She helped him off the bed and steadied him on his feet. Then she felt him release himself so he stood free.

“What do I say? Anderson I say this. I killed Germans who had grown up with a training and a passion for war. I’ve been a farmer. I did not want to fight. Duty and hate forced me. The Germans I met fell before me. I was shell-shot, shocked, gassed, and bayoneted. I took twenty-five wounds, and then it was a shell that downed me. I saw my comrades kill and kill before they fell. That is American. Our enemies are driven, blinded, stolid, brutal, obsessed, and desperate. They are German. They lack — not strength nor efficiency nor courage — but soul.”

White and spent, Dorn then leaned upon Lenore and got back upon his bed. His passion had thrilled her. Anderson responded with an excitement he plainly endeavored to conceal.

“I get your hunch,” he said. “If I needed any assurance, you’ve given it to me. To hell with the Germans! Let’s don’t talk about them any more.… An’ to come back to our job. Wheat! Son, I’ve plans that ‘ll raise your hair. We’ll harvest a bumper crop at ‘Many Waters’ in July. An’ we’ll sow two thousand acres of winter wheat. So much for ‘Many Waters.’ — I got mad this summer. I blowed myself. I bought about all the farms around yours up in the Bend country. Big harvest of spring wheat comin’. You’ll superintend that harvest, an’ I’ll look after ours here.… An’ you’ll sow ten thousand acres of fallow on your own rich hills — this fall. Do you get that? Ten thousand acres?”

“Anderson!” gasped Dorn.

“Yes, Anderson,” mimicked the rancher. “My blood’s up. But I’d never have felt so good about it if you hadn’t come back. The land’s not all paid for, but it’s ours. We’ll meet our notes. I’ve been up there twice this spring. You’d never know a few hills had burned over last harvest. Olsen, an’ your other neighbors, or most of them, will work the land on half-shares. You’ll be boss. An’ sure you’ll be well for fall sowin’. That’ll make you the biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest.”

“My sower of wheat!” murmured Lenore, seeing his rapt face through tears.

“Dreams are coming true,” he said, softly. “Lenore, just after I saw you the second time — and fell so in love with you — I had vain dreams of you. But even my wildest never pictured you as the wife of a wheat farmer. I never dreamed you loved wheat.”

“But, ah, I do!” replied Lenore. “Why, when I was born dad bought ‘Many Waters’ and sowed the slopes in wheat. I remember how he used to take me up to the fields all green or golden. I’ve grown up with wheat. I’d never want to live anywhere away from it. Oh, you must listen to me some day while I tell you what I know — about the history and romance of wheat.”

“Begin,” said Dorn, with a light of pride and love and wonder in his gaze.

“Leave that for some other time,” interposed Anderson. “Son, would it surprise you if I’d tell you that I’ve switched a little in my ideas about the I.W.W.?”

“No,” replied Dorn.

“Well, things happen. What made me think hard was the way that government man got results from the I.W.W. in the lumber country. You see, the government had to have an immense amount of timber for ships, an’ spruce for aeroplanes. Had to have it quick. An’ all the lumbermen an’ loggers were I.W.W. — or most of them. Anyhow, all the strikin’ lumbermen last summer belonged to the I.W.W. These fellows believed that under the capitalistic order of labor the workers an’ their employers had nothin’ in common, an’ the government was hand an’ glove with capital. Now this government official went up there an’ convinced the I.W.W. that the best interest of the two were identical. An’ he got the work out of them, an’ the government got the lumber. He dealt with them fairly. Those who were on the level he paid high an’ considered their wants. Those who were crooked he punished accordin’ to their offense. An’ the innocent didn’t have to suffer with the guilty.

“That deal showed me how many of the I.W.W. could be handled. An’ we’ve got to reckon with the I.W.W. Most all the farm-hands in the country belong to it. This summer I’ll give the square harvesters what they want, an’ that’s a big come-down for me. But I won’t stand any monkey-bizness from sore-headed disorganizers. If men want to work they shall have work at big pay. You will follow out this plan up in the Bend country. We’ll meet this labor union half-way. After the war there may come trouble between labor an capital. It begins to seem plain to me that men who work hard ought to share somethin’ of the profits. If that doesn’t settle the trouble, then we’ll know we’re up against an outfit with socialist an’ anarchist leaders. Time enough then to resort to measures I regret we practised last summer.”

“Anderson, you’re fine — you’re as big as the hills!” burst out Dorn. “But you know there was bad blood here last summer. Did you ever get proof that German money backed the I.W.W. to strike and embarrass our government?”

“No. But I believe so, or else the I.W.W. leaders took advantage of a critical time. I’m bound to say that now thousands of I.W.W. laborers are loyal to the United States, and that made me switch.”

“I’ll deal with them the same way,” responded Dorn, with fervor.

Then Lenore interrupted their discussion, and, pleading that Dorn was quite worn out from excitement and exertion, she got her father to leave the room.

The following several days Lenore devoted to the happy and busy task of packing what she wanted to take to Dorn’s home. She had set the date, but had reserved the pleasure of telling him. Anderson had agreed to her plan and decided to accompany them.

“I’ll take the girls,” he said. “It’ll be a fine ride for them. We’ll stay in the village overnight an’ come back home next day.… Lenore, it strikes me sudden-like, your leavin’.… What will become of me?”

All at once he showed the ravages of pain and loss that the last year had added to his life of struggle. Lenore embraced him and felt her heart full.

“Dad, I’m not leaving you,” she protested. “He’ll get well up there — find his balance sooner among those desert wheat-hills. We will divide our time between the two places. Remember, you can run up there any day. Your interests are there now. Dad, don’t think of it as separation. Kurt has come into our family — and we’re just going to be away some of the time.”

Thus she won back a smile to the worn face.

“We’ve all got a weak spot,” he said, musingly. “Mine is here — an’ it’s a fear of growin’ old an’ bein’ left alone. That’s selfish. But I’ve lived, an’ I reckon I’ve no more to ask for.”

Lenore could not help being sad in the midst of her increasing happiness. Joy to some brought to others only gloom! Life was sunshine and storm — youth and age.

This morning she found Kathleen entertaining Dorn. This was the second time the child had been permitted to see him, and the immense novelty had not yet worn off. Kathleen was a hero-worshiper. If she had been devoted to Dorn before his absence, she now manifested symptoms of complete idolatry. Lenore had forbidden her to question Dorn about anything in regard to the war. Kathleen never broke her promises, but it was plain that Dorn had read the mute, anguished wonder and flame in her eyes when they rested upon his empty sleeve, and evidently had told her things. Kathleen was white, wide-eyed, and beautiful then, with all a child’s imagination stirred.

“I’ve been telling Kathie how I lost my arm,” explained Dorn.

“I hate Germans! I hate war!” cried Kathleen, passionately.

“My dear, hate them always,” said Dorn.

When Kathleen had gone Lenore asked Dorn if he thought it was right to tell the child always to hate Germans.

“Right!” exclaimed Dorn, with a queer laugh. Every day now he showed signs of stronger personality. “Lenore, what I went through has confused my sense of right and wrong. Some day perhaps it will all come clear. But, Lenore, all my life, if I live to be ninety, I shall hate Germans.”

“Oh, Kurt, it’s too soon for you to — to be less narrow, less passionate,” replied Lenore, with hesitation. “I understand. The day will come when you’ll not condemn a people because of a form of government — of military class.”

“It will never come,” asserted Dorn, positively. “Lenore, people in our country do not understand. They are too far away from realities. But I was six months in France. I’ve seen the ruined villages, thousands of refugees — and I’ve met the Huns at the front. I know I’ve seen the realities. In regard to this war I can only feel. You’ve got to go over there and see for yourself before you realize. You can understand this — that but for you and your power over me I’d be a worn-out, emotionally burnt out man. But through you I seem to be reborn. Still, I shall hate Germans all my life, and in the after-life, what ever that may be. I could give you a thousand reasons. One ought to suffice. You’ve read, of course, about the regiment of Frenchmen called Blue Devils. I met some of them — got friendly with them. They are great — beyond words to tell! One of them told me that when his regiment drove the Huns out of his own village he had found his mother disemboweled, his wife violated and murdered, his sister left a maimed thing to become the mother of a Hun, his daughter carried off, and his little son crippled for life! … These are cold facts. As long as I live I will never forget the face of that Frenchman when he told me. Had he cause to hate the Huns? Have I?… I saw all that in the faces of those Huns who would have killed me if they could.”

Lenore covered her face with her hands. “Oh — horrible! … Is there nothing — no hope — only…?” She faltered and broke down.

“Lenore, because there’s hate does not prove there’s nothing left.… Listen. The last fight I had was with a boy. I didn’t know it when we met. I was rushing, head down, bayonet low. I saw only his body, his blade that clashed with mine. To me his weapon felt like a toy in the hands of a child. I swept it aside — and lunged. He screamed ‘Kamarad!’ before the blade reached him. Too late! I ran him through. Then I looked. A boy of nineteen! He never ought to have been forced to meet me. It was murder. I saw him die on my bayonet. I saw him slide off it and stretch out.… I did not hate him then. I’d have given my life for his. I hated what he represented.… That moment was the end of me as a soldier. If I had not been in range of the exploding shell that downed me I would have dropped my rifle and have stood strengthless before the next Hun.… So you see, though I killed them, and though I hate now, there’s something — something strange and inexplicable.”

“That something is the divine in you. It is God!… Oh, believe it, my husband!” cried Lenore.

Dorn somberly shook his head. “God! I did not find God out there. I cannot see God’s hand in this infernal war.”

“But I can. What called you so resistlessly? What made you go?”

“You know. The debt I thought I ought to pay. And duty to my country.”

“Then when the debt was paid, the duty fulfilled — when you stood stricken at sight of that poor boy dying on your bayonet — what happened in your soul?”

“I don’t know. But I saw the wrong of war. The wrong to him — the wrong to me! I thought of no one else. Certainly not of God!”

“If you had stayed your bayonet — if you had spared that boy, as you would have done had you seen or heard him in time — what would that have been?”

“Pity, maybe, or scorn to slay a weaker foe.”

“No, no, no — I can’t accept that,” replied Lenore, passionately. “Can you see beyond the physical?”

“I see only that men will fight and that war will come again. Out there I learned the nature of men.”

“If there’s divinity in you there’s divinity in every man. That will oppose war — end it eventually. Men are not taught right. Education and religion will bring peace on earth, good-will to man.”

“No, they will not. They never have done so. We have educated men and religious men. Yet war comes despite them. The truth is that life is a fight. Civilization is only skin-deep. Underneath man is still a savage. He is a savage still because he wants the same he had to have when he lived in primitive state. War isn’t necessary to show how every man fights for food, clothing, shelter. To-day it’s called competition in business. Look at your father. He has fought and beaten men like Neuman. Look at the wheat farmers in my country. Look at the I.W.W. They all fight. Look at the children. They fight even at their games. Their play is a make-believe battle or escaping or funeral or capture. It must be then that some kind of strife was implanted in the first humans and that it is necessary to life.”

“Survival of the fittest!” exclaimed Lenore, in earnest bitterness. “Kurt, we have changed. You are facing realities and I am facing the infinite. You represent the physical, and I the spiritual. We must grow into harmony with each other. We can’t ever hope to learn the unattainable truth of life. There is something beyond us — something infinite which I believe is God. My soul finds it in you.… The first effects of the war upon you have been trouble, sacrifice, pain, and horror. You have come out of it impaired physically and with mind still clouded. These will pass, and therefore I beg of you don’t grow fixed in absolute acceptance of the facts of evolution and materialism. They cannot be denied, I grant. I see that they are realities. But also I see beyond them. There is some great purpose running through the ages. In our day the Germans have risen, and in the eyes of most of the world their brutal force tends to halt civilization and kill idealism. But that’s only apparent — only temporary. We shall come out of this dark time better, finer, wiser. The history of the world is a proof of a slow growth and perfection. It will never be attained. But is not the growth a beautiful and divine thing? Does it now oppose a hopeless prospect?… Life is inscrutable. When I think — only think without faith — all seems so futile. The poet says we are here as on a darkling plain, swept by confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.… Trust me, my husband! There is something in woman — the instinct of creation — the mother — that feels what cannot be expressed. It is the hope of the world.”

“The mother!” burst out Dorn. “I think of that — in you.… Suppose I have a son, and war comes in his day. Suppose he is killed, as I killed that poor boy!… How, then, could I reconcile that with this, this something you feel so beautifully? This strange sense of God! This faith in a great purpose of the ages!”

Lenore trembled in the exquisite pain of the faith which she prayed was beginning to illumine Dorn’s dark and tragic soul.

“If we are blessed with a son — and if he must go to war — to kill and be killed — you will reconcile that with God because our son shall have been taught what you should have been taught — what must be taught to all the sons of the future.”

“What will — that be?” queried Dorn.

“The meaning of life — the truth of immortality,” replied Lenore. “We live on — we improve. That is enough for faith.”

“How will that prevent war?”

“It will prevent it — in the years to come. Mothers will take good care that children from babyhood shall learn the consequences of fight — of war. Boys will learn that if the meaning of war to them is the wonder of charge and thunder of cannon and medals of distinction, to their mothers the meaning is loss and agony. They will learn the terrible difference between your fury and eagerness to lunge with bayonet and your horror of achievement when the disemboweled victims lie before you. The glory of a statue to the great general means countless and nameless graves of forgotten soldiers. The joy of the conquering army contrasts terribly with the pain and poverty and unquenchable hate of the conquered.”

“I see what you mean,” rejoined Dorn. “Such teaching of children would change the men of the future. It would mean peace for the generations to come. But as for my boy — it would make him a poor soldier. He would not be a fighter. He would fall easy victim to the son of the father who had not taught this beautiful meaning of life and terror of war. I’d want my son to be a man.”

“That teaching — would make him — all the more a man,” said Lenore, beginning to feel faint.

“But not in the sense of muscle, strength, courage, endurance. I’d rather there never was peace than have my son inferior to another man’s.”

“My hope for the future is that all men will come to teach their sons the wrong of violence.”

“Lenore, never will that day come,” replied Dorn.

She saw in him the inevitableness of the masculine attitude; the difference between man and woman; the preponderance of blood and energy over the higher motives. She felt a weak little woman arrayed against the whole of mankind. But she could not despair. Unquenchable as the sun was this fire within her.

“But it might come?” she insisted, gently, but with inflexible spirit.

“Yes, it might — if men change!”

“You have changed.”

“Yes. I don’t know myself.”

“If we do have a boy, will you let me teach him what I think is right?” Lenore went on, softly.

“Lenore! As if I would not!” he exclaimed. “I try to see your way, but just because I can’t I’ll never oppose you. Teach me if you can!”

She kissed him and knelt beside his bed, grieved to see shadow return to his face, yet thrilling that the way seemed open for her to inspire. But she must never again choose to talk of war, of materialism, of anything calculated to make him look into darkness of his soul, to ponder over the impairment of his mind. She remembered the great specialist speaking of lesions of the organic system, of a loss of brain cells. Her inspiration must be love, charm, care — a healing and building process. She would give herself in all the unutterableness and immeasurableness of her woman’s heart. She would order her life so that it would be a fulfilment of his education, of a heritage from his fathers, a passion born in him, a noble work through which surely he could be saved — the cultivation of wheat.

“Do you love me?” she whispered.

“Do I!… Nothing could ever change my love for you.”

“I am your wife, you know.”

The shadow left his face.

“Are you? Really? Lenore Anderson…”

“Lenore Dorn. It is a beautiful name now.”

“It does sound sweet. But you — my wife? Never will I believe!”

“You will have to — very soon.”

“Why?” A light, warm and glad and marveling, shone in his eyes. Indeed, Lenore felt then a break in the strange aloofness of him — in his impersonal, gentle acceptance of her relation to him.

“To-morrow I’m going to take you home to your wheat-hills.”

CHAPTER XXXII

LENORE TOLD HER conception of the history and the romance of wheat to Dorn at this critical time when it was necessary to give a trenchant call to hope and future.

In the beginning man’s struggle was for life and the mainstay of life was food. Perhaps the original discoverer of wheat was a meat-eating savage who, in roaming the forests and fields, forced by starvation to eat bark and plant and berry, came upon a stalk of grain that chewed with strange satisfaction. Perhaps through that accident he became a sower of wheat.

Who actually were the first sowers of wheat would never be known. They were older than any history, and must have been among the earliest of the human race.

The development of grain produced wheat, and wheat was ground into flour, and flour was baked into bread, and bread had for untold centuries been the sustenance and the staff of life.

Centuries ago an old Chaldean priest tried to ascertain if wheat had ever grown wild. That question never was settled. It was universally believed, however, that wheat had to have the cultivation of man. Nevertheless, the origin of the plant must have been analogous to that of other plants. Wheat-growers must necessarily have been people who stayed long in one place. Wandering tribes could not till and sow the fields. The origin of wheat furnished a legendary theme for many races, and mythology contained tales of wheat-gods favoring chosen peoples. Ancient China raised wheat twenty-seven centuries before Christ; grains of wheat had been found in prehistoric ruins; the dwellers along the Nile were not blind to the fertility of the valley. In the days of the Pharaohs the old river annually inundated its low banks, enriching the soil of vast areas, where soon a green-and-gold ocean of wheat waved and shone under the hot Egyptian sun. The Arabs, on their weird beasts of burden, rode from the desert wastes down to the land of waters and of plenty. Rebekah, when she came to fill her earthen pitcher at the palm-shaded well, looked out with dusky, dreamy eyes across the golden grain toward the mysterious east. Moses, when he stood in the night, watching his flock on the starlit Arabian waste, felt borne to him on the desert wind a scent of wheat. The Bible said, “He maketh peace in thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat.”

Black-bread days of the Middle Ages, when crude grinding made impure flour, were the days of the oppressed peasant and the rich landowner, dark days of toil and poverty and war, of blight and drought and famine; when common man in his wretchedness and hunger cried out, “Bread or blood!”

But with the spreading of wheat came the dawn of a higher civilization; and the story of wheat down to modern times showed the development of man. Wheat-fields of many lands, surrounding homes of prosperous farmers; fruitful toil of happy peoples; the miller and his humming mill!

When wheat crossed the ocean to America it came to strange and wonderful fulfilment of its destiny. America, fresh, vast, and free, with its sturdy pioneers ever spreading the golden grain westward; with the advancing years when railroad lines kept pace with the indomitable wheat-sowers; with unprecedented harvests yielding records to each succeeding year; with boundless fields tilled and planted and harvested by machines that were mechanical wonders; with enormous floor-mills, humming and whirring, each grinding daily ten thousand barrels of flour, pouring like a white stream from the steel rolls, pure, clean, and sweet, the whitest and finest in the world!

America, the new county, became in 1918 the salvation of starving Belgium, the mainstay of England, the hope of France! Wheat for the world! Wheat — that was to say food, strength, fighting life for the armies opposed to the black, hideous, medieval horde of Huns! America to succor and to save, to sacrifice and to sow, rising out of its peaceful slumber to a mighty wrath, magnificent and unquenchable, throwing its vast resources of soil, its endless streams of wheat, into the gulf of war! It was an exalted destiny for a people. Its truth was a blazing affront in the face of age-old autocracy. Fields and toil and grains of wheat, first and last, the salvation of mankind, the freedom and the food of the world!

Far up the slow-rising bulge of valley slope above the gleaming river two cars climbed leisurely and rolled on over the height into what seemed a bare and lonely land of green.

It was a day in June, filled with a rich, thick, amber light, with a fragrant warm wind blowing out of the west.

At a certain point on this road, where Anderson always felt compelled to halt, he stopped the car this day and awaited the other that contained Lenore and Dorn.

Lenore’s joy in the ride was reflected in her face. Dorn rested comfortably beside her, upon an improvised couch. As he lay half propped up by pillows he could see out across the treeless land that he knew. His eyes held a look of the returned soldier who had never expected to see his native land again. Lenore, sensitive to every phase of his feeling, watched him with her heart mounting high.

Anderson got out of his car, followed by Kathleen, who looked glad and mischievous and pretty as a wild rose.

“I just never can get by this place,” explained the rancher, as he came and stood so that he could put a hand on Dorn’s knee. “Look, son — an’ Lenore, don’t you miss this.”

“Never fear, dad,” replied Lenore, “it was I who first told you to look here.”

“Terrible big and bare, but grand!” exclaimed Kathleen.

Lenore looked first at Dorn’s face as he gazed away across the length and breadth of land. Could that land mean as much to him as it did before he went to war? Infinitely more, she saw, and rejoiced. Her faith was coming home to her in verities. Then she thrilled at the wide prospect before her.

It was a scene that she knew could not be duplicated in the world. Low, slow-sloping, billowy green hills, bare and smooth with square brown patches, stretched away to what seemed infinite distance. Valleys and hills, with less fallow ground than ever before, significant and striking: lost the meager details of clumps of trees and dots of houses in a green immensity. A million shadows out of the west came waving over the wheat. They were ripples of an ocean of grain. No dust-clouds, no bleached roads, no yellow hills to-day! June, and the desert found its analogy only in the sweep and reach! A thousand hills billowing away toward that blue haze of mountain range where rolled the Oregon. Acreage and mileage seemed insignificant. All was green — green, the fresh and hopeful color, strangely serene and sweet and endless under the azure sky. Beautiful and lonely hills they were, eloquent of toil, expressive with the brown squares in the green, the lowly homes of men, the long lines of roads running everywhither, overwhelmingly pregnant with meaning — wheat — wheat — wheat — nothing but wheat, a staggering visual manifestation of vital need, of noble promise.

“That — that!” rolled out Anderson, waving his big hand, as if words were useless. “Only a corner of the great old U.S.!… What would the Germans say if they could look out over this?… What do you say, Lenore?”

“Beautiful!” she replied, softly. “Like the rainbow in the sky — God’s promise of life!”

“An’, Kathie, what do you say?” went on Anderson.

“Some wheat-fields!” replied Kathleen, with an air of woman’s wisdom. “Fetch on your young wheat-sowers, dad, and I’ll pick out a husband.”

“An’ you, son?” finished Anderson, as if wistfully, yet heartily playing his last card. He was remembering Jim — the wild but beloved son — the dead soldier. He was fearful for the crowning hope of his years.

“As ye sow — so shall ye reap!” was Dorn’s reply, strong and thrilling. And Lenore felt her father’s strange, heart-satisfying content.

Twilight crept down around the old home on the hill.

Dorn was alone, leaning at the window. He had just strength to lean there, with uplifted head. Lenore had left him alone, divining his wish. As she left him there came a sudden familiar happening in his brain, like a snap-back, and the contending tide of gray forms — the Huns — rushed upon him. He leaned there at the window, but just the same he awaited the shock on the ramparts of the trench. A ferocious and terrible storm of brain, that used to have its reaction in outward violence, now worked inside him, like a hot wind that drove his blood. During the spell he fought out his great fight — again for the thousandth time he rekilled his foes. That storm passed through him without an outward quiver.

His Huns — charged again — bayoneted again — and he felt acute pain in the left arm that was gone. He felt the closing of the hand which was not there. His Huns lay in the shadow, stark and shapeless, with white faces upward — a line of dead foes, remorseless and abhorrent to him, forever damned by his ruthless spirit. He saw the boy slide off his bayonet, beyond recall, murdered by some evil of which Dorn had been the motion. Then the prone, gray forms vanished in the black gulf of Dorn’s brain.

“Lenore will never know — how my Huns come back to me,” he whispered.

Night with its trains of stars! Softly the darkness unfolded down over the dim hills, lonely, tranquil, sweet. A night-bird caroled. The song of insects, very faint and low, came to him like a still, sad music of humanity, from over the hills, far away, in the strife-ridden world. The world of men was there and life was incessant, monstrous, and inconceivable. This old home of his — the old house seemed full of well-remembered sounds of mouse and cricket and leaf against the roof and soft night wind at the eaves — sounds that brought his boyhood back, his bare feet on the stairs, his father’s aloofness, his mother’s love.

Then clearly floated to him a slow sweeping rustle of the wheat. Breast-high it stood down there, outside his window, a moving body, higher than the gloom. That rustle was a voice of childhood, youth, and manhood, whispering to him, thrilling as never before. It was a growing rustle, different from that when the wheat had matured. It seemed to change and grow in volume, in meaning. The night wind bore it, but life — bursting life was behind it, and behind that seemed to come a driving and a mighty spirit. Beyond the growth of the wheat, beyond its life and perennial gift, was something measureless and obscure, infinite and universal. Suddenly Dorn saw that something as the breath and the blood and the spirit of wheat — and of man. Dust and to dust returned they might be, but this physical form was only the fleeting inscrutable moment on earth, springing up, giving birth to seed, dying out for that ever-increasing purpose which ran through the ages.

A soft footfall sounded on the stairs. Lenore came. She leaned over him and the starlight fell upon her face, sweet, luminous, beautiful. In the sense of her compelling presence, in the tender touch of her hands, in the whisper of woman’s love, Dorn felt uplifted high above the dark pale of the present with its war and pain and clouded mind to wheat — to the fertile fields of a golden age to come.

The Man of the Forest

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER I

AT SUNSET HOUR the forest was still, lonely, sweet with tang of fir and spruce, blazing in gold and red and green; and the man who glided on under the great trees seemed to blend with the colors and, disappearing, to have become a part of the wild woodland.

Old Baldy, highest of the White Mountains, stood up round and bare, rimmed bright gold in the last glow of the setting sun. Then, as the fire dropped behind the domed peak, a change, a cold and darkening blight, passed down the black spear-pointed slopes over all that mountain world.

It was a wild, richly timbered, and abundantly watered region of dark forests and grassy parks, ten thousand feet above sea-level, isolated on all sides by the southern Arizona desert — the virgin home of elk and deer, of bear and lion, of wolf and fox, and the birthplace as well as the hiding-place of the fierce Apache.

September in that latitude was marked by the sudden cool night breeze following shortly after sundown. Twilight appeared to come on its wings, as did faint sounds, not distinguishable before in the stillness.

Milt Dale, man of the forest, halted at the edge of a timbered ridge, to listen and to watch. Beneath him lay a narrow valley, open and grassy, from which rose a faint murmur of running water. Its music was pierced by the wild staccato yelp of a hunting coyote. From overhead in the giant fir came a twittering and rustling of grouse settling for the night; and from across the valley drifted the last low calls of wild turkeys going to roost.

To Dale’s keen ear these sounds were all they should have been, betokening an unchanged serenity of forestland. He was glad, for he had expected to hear the clipclop of white men’s horses — which to hear up in those fastnesses was hateful to him. He and the Indian were friends. That fierce foe had no enmity toward the lone hunter. But there hid somewhere in the forest a gang of bad men, sheep-thieves, whom Dale did not want to meet.

As he started out upon the slope, a sudden flaring of the afterglow of sunset flooded down from Old Baldy, filling the valley with lights and shadows, yellow and blue, like the radiance of the sky. The pools in the curves of the brook shone darkly bright. Dale’s gaze swept up and down the valley, and then tried to pierce the black shadows across the brook where the wall of spruce stood up, its speared and spiked crest against the pale clouds. The wind began to moan in the trees and there was a feeling of rain in the air. Dale, striking a trail, turned his back to the fading afterglow and strode down the valley.

With night at hand and a rain-storm brewing, he did not head for his own camp, some miles distant, but directed his steps toward an old log cabin. When he reached it darkness had almost set in. He approached with caution. This cabin, like the few others scattered in the valleys, might harbor Indians or a bear or a panther. Nothing, however, appeared to be there. Then Dale studied the clouds driving across the sky, and he felt the cool dampness of a fine, misty rain on his face. It would rain off and on during the night. Whereupon he entered the cabin.

And the next moment he heard quick hoof-beats of trotting horses. Peering out, he saw dim, moving forms in the darkness, quite close at hand. They had approached against the wind so that sound had been deadened. Five horses with riders, Dale made out — saw them loom close. Then he heard rough voices. Quickly he turned to feel in the dark for a ladder he knew led to a loft; and finding it, he quickly mounted, taking care not to make a noise with his rifle, and lay down upon the floor of brush and poles. Scarcely had he done so when heavy steps, with accompaniment of clinking spurs, passed through the door below into the cabin.

“Wal, Beasley, are you here?” queried a loud voice.

There was no reply. The man below growled under his breath, and again the spurs jingled.

“Fellars, Beasley ain’t here yet,” he called. “Put the hosses under the shed. We’ll wait.”

“Wait, huh!” came a harsh reply. “Mebbe all night — an’ we got nuthin’ to eat.”

“Shut up, Moze. Reckon you’re no good for anythin’ but eatin’. Put them hosses away an’ some of you rustle fire-wood in here.”

Low, muttered curses, then mingled with dull thuds of hoofs and strain of leather and heaves of tired horses.

Another shuffling, clinking footstep entered the cabin.

“Snake, it’d been sense to fetch a pack along,” drawled this newcomer.

“Reckon so, Jim. But we didn’t, an’ what’s the use hollerin’? Beasley won’t keep us waitin’ long.”

Dale, lying still and prone, felt a slow start in all his blood — a thrilling wave. That deep-voiced man below was Snake Anson, the worst and most dangerous character of the region; and the others, undoubtedly, composed his gang, long notorious in that sparsely settled country. And the Beasley mentioned — he was one of the two biggest ranchers and sheep-raisers of the White Mountain ranges. What was the meaning of a rendezvous between Snake Anson and Beasley? Milt Dale answered that question to Beasley’s discredit; and many strange matters pertaining to sheep and herders, always a mystery to the little village of Pine, now became as clear as daylight.

Other men entered the cabin.

“It ain’t a-goin’ to rain much,” said one. Then came a crash of wood thrown to the ground.

“Jim, hyar’s a chunk of pine log, dry as punk,” said another.

Rustlings and slow footsteps, and then heavy thuds attested to the probability that Jim was knocking the end of a log upon the ground to split off a corner whereby a handful of dry splinters could be procured.

“Snake, lemme your pipe, an’ I’ll hev a fire in a jiffy.”

“Wal, I want my terbacco an’ I ain’t carin’ about no fire,” replied Snake.

“Reckon you’re the meanest cuss in these woods,” drawled Jim.

Sharp click of steel on flint — many times — and then a sound of hard blowing and sputtering told of Jim’s efforts to start a fire. Presently the pitchy blackness of the cabin changed; there came a little crackling of wood and the rustle of flame, and then a steady growing roar.

As it chanced, Dale lay face down upon the floor of the loft, and right near his eyes there were cracks between the boughs. When the fire blazed up he was fairly well able to see the men below. The only one he had ever seen was Jim Wilson, who had been well known at Pine before Snake Anson had ever been heard of. Jim was the best of a bad lot, and he had friends among the honest people. It was rumored that he and Snake did not pull well together.

“Fire feels good,” said the burly Moze, who appeared as broad as he was black-visaged. “Fall’s sure a-comin’... Now if only we had some grub!”

“Moze, there’s a hunk of deer meat in my saddle-bag, an’ if you git it you can have half,” spoke up another voice.

Moze shuffled out with alacrity.

In the firelight Snake Anson’s face looked lean and serpent-like, his eyes glittered, and his long neck and all of his long length carried out the analogy of his name.

“Snake, what’s this here deal with Beasley?” inquired Jim.

“Reckon you’ll l’arn when I do,” replied the leader. He appeared tired and thoughtful.

“Ain’t we done away with enough of them poor greaser herders — for nothin’?” queried the youngest of the gang, a boy in years, whose hard, bitter lips and hungry eyes somehow set him apart from his comrades.

“You’re dead right, Burt — an’ that’s my stand,” replied the man who had sent Moze out. “Snake, snow ‘ll be flyin’ round these woods before long,” said Jim Wilson. “Are we goin’ to winter down in the Tonto Basin or over on the Gila?”

“Reckon we’ll do some tall ridin’ before we strike south,” replied Snake, gruffly.

At the juncture Moze returned.

“Boss, I heerd a hoss comin’ up the trail,” he said.

Snake rose and stood at the door, listening. Outside the wind moaned fitfully and scattering raindrops pattered upon the cabin.

“A-huh!” exclaimed Snake, in relief.

Silence ensued then for a moment, at the end of which interval Dale heard a rapid clip-clop on the rocky trail outside. The men below shuffled uneasily, but none of them spoke. The fire cracked cheerily. Snake Anson stepped back from before the door with an action that expressed both doubt and caution.

The trotting horse had halted out there somewhere.

“Ho there, inside!” called a voice from the darkness.

“Ho yourself!” replied Anson.

“That you, Snake?” quickly followed the query.

“Reckon so,” returned Anson, showing himself.

The newcomer entered. He was a large man, wearing a slicker that shone wet in the firelight. His sombrero, pulled well down, shadowed his face, so that the upper half of his features might as well have been masked. He had a black, drooping mustache, and a chin like a rock. A potential force, matured and powerful, seemed to be wrapped in his movements.

“Hullo, Snake! Hullo, Wilson!” he said. “I’ve backed out on the other deal. Sent for you on — on another little matter... particular private.”

Here he indicated with a significant gesture that Snake’s men were to leave the cabin.

“A-huh! ejaculated Anson, dubiously. Then he turned abruptly. Moze, you an’ Shady an’ Burt go wait outside. Reckon this ain’t the deal I expected.... An’ you can saddle the hosses.”

The three members of the gang filed out, all glancing keenly at the stranger, who had moved back into the shadow.

“All right now, Beasley,” said Anson, low-voiced. “What’s your game? Jim, here, is in on my deals.”

Then Beasley came forward to the fire, stretching his hands to the blaze.

“Nothin’ to do with sheep,” replied he.

“Wal, I reckoned not,” assented the other. “An’ say — whatever your game is, I ain’t likin’ the way you kept me waitin’ an’ ridin’ around. We waited near all day at Big Spring. Then thet greaser rode up an’ sent us here. We’re a long way from camp with no grub an’ no blankets.”

“I won’t keep you long,” said Beasley. “But even if I did you’d not mind — when I tell you this deal concerns Al Auchincloss — the man who made an outlaw of you!”

Anson’s sudden action then seemed a leap of his whole frame. Wilson, likewise, bent forward eagerly. Beasley glanced at the door — then began to whisper.

“Old Auchincloss is on his last legs. He’s goin’ to croak. He’s sent back to Missouri for a niece — a young girl — an’ he means to leave his ranches an’ sheep — all his stock to her. Seems he has no one else.... Them ranches — an’ all them sheep an’ hosses! You know me an’ Al were pardners in sheep-raisin’ for years. He swore I cheated him an’ he threw me out. An’ all these years I’ve been swearin’ he did me dirt — owed me sheep an’ money. I’ve got as many friends in Pine — an’ all the way down the trail — as Auchincloss has.... An’ Snake, see here—”

He paused to draw a deep breath and his big hands trembled over the blaze. Anson leaned forward, like a serpent ready to strike, and Jim Wilson was as tense with his divination of the plot at hand.

“See here,” panted Beasley. “The girl’s due to arrive at Magdalena on the sixteenth. That’s a week from to-morrow. She’ll take the stage to Snowdrop, where some of Auchincloss’s men will meet her with a team.”

“A-huh!” grunted Anson as Beasley halted again. “An’ what of all thet?”

“She mustn’t never get as far as Snowdrop!”

“You want me to hold up the stage — an’ get the girl?”

“Exactly.”

“Wal — an’ what then?”

“Make off with her.... She disappears. That’s your affair. ... I’ll press my claims on Auchincloss — hound him — an’ be ready when he croaks to take over his property. Then the girl can come back, for all I care.... You an’ Wilson fix up the deal between you. If you have to let the gang in on it don’t give them any hunch as to who an’ what. This ‘ll make you a rich stake. An’ providin’, when it’s paid, you strike for new territory.”

“Thet might be wise,” muttered Snake Anson. “Beasley, the weak point in your game is the uncertainty of life. Old Al is tough. He may fool you.”

“Auchincloss is a dyin’ man,” declared Beasley, with such positiveness that it could not be doubted.

“Wal, he sure wasn’t plumb hearty when I last seen him.... Beasley, in case I play your game — how’m I to know that girl?”

“Her name’s Helen Rayner,” replied Beasley, eagerly. “She’s twenty years old. All of them Auchinclosses was handsome an’ they say she’s the handsomest.”

“A-huh!... Beasley, this ‘s sure a bigger deal — an’ one I ain’t fancyin’.... But I never doubted your word.... Come on — an’ talk out. What’s in it for me?”

“Don’t let any one in on this. You two can hold up the stage. Why, it was never held up.... But you want to mask.... How about ten thousand sheep — or what they bring at Phenix in gold?”

Jim Wilson whistled low.

“An’ leave for new territory?” repeated Snake Anson, under his breath.

“You’ve said it.”

“Wal, I ain’t fancyin’ the girl end of this deal, but you can count on me.... September sixteenth at Magdalena — an’ her name’s Helen — an’ she’s handsome?”

“Yes. My herders will begin drivin’ south in about two weeks. Later, if the weather holds good, send me word by one of them an’ I’ll meet you.”

Beasley spread his hands once more over the blaze, pulled on his gloves and pulled down his sombrero, and with an abrupt word of parting strode out into the night.

“Jim, what do you make of him?” queried Snake Anson.

“Pard, he’s got us beat two ways for Sunday,” replied Wilson.

“A-huh!... Wal, let’s get back to camp.” And he led the way out.

Low voices drifted into the cabin, then came snorts of horses and striking hoofs, and after that a steady trot, gradually ceasing. Once more the moan of wind and soft patter of rain filled the forest stillness.

CHAPTER II

Milt Dale quietly sat up to gaze, with thoughtful eyes, into the gloom.

HE WAS THIRTY years old. As a boy of fourteen he had run off from his school and home in Iowa and, joining a wagon-train of pioneers, he was one of the first to see log cabins built on the slopes of the White Mountains. But he had not taken kindly to farming or sheep-raising or monotonous home toil, and for twelve years he had lived in the forest, with only infrequent visits to Pine and Show Down and Snowdrop. This wandering forest life of his did not indicate that he did not care for the villagers, for he did care, and he was welcome everywhere, but that he loved wild life and solitude and beauty with the primitive instinctive force of a savage.

And on this night he had stumbled upon a dark plot against the only one of all the honest white people in that region whom he could not call a friend.

“That man Beasley!” he soliloquized. “Beasley — in cahoots with Snake Anson!... Well, he was right. Al Auchincloss is on his last legs. Poor old man! When I tell him he’ll never believe ME, that’s sure!”

Discovery of the plot meant to Dale that he must hurry down to Pine.

“A girl — Helen Rayner — twenty years old,” he mused. “Beasley wants her made off with.... That means — worse than killed!”

Dale accepted facts of life with that equanimity and fatality acquired by one long versed in the cruel annals of forest lore. Bad men worked their evil just as savage wolves relayed a deer. He had shot wolves for that trick. With men, good or bad, he had not clashed. Old women and children appealed to him, but he had never had any interest in girls. The image, then, of this Helen Rayner came strangely to Dale; and he suddenly realized that he had meant somehow to circumvent Beasley, not to befriend old Al Auchincloss, but for the sake of the girl. Probably she was already on her way West, alone, eager, hopeful of a future home. How little people guessed what awaited them at a journey’s end! Many trails ended abruptly in the forest — and only trained woodsmen could read the tragedy.

“Strange how I cut across country to-day from Spruce Swamp,” reflected Dale. Circumstances, movements, usually were not strange to him. His methods and habits were seldom changed by chance. The matter, then, of his turning off a course out of his way for no apparent reason, and of his having overheard a plot singularly involving a young girl, was indeed an adventure to provoke thought. It provoked more, for Dale grew conscious of an unfamiliar smoldering heat along his veins. He who had little to do with the strife of men, and nothing to do with anger, felt his blood grow hot at the cowardly trap laid for an innocent girl.

“Old Al won’t listen to me,” pondered Dale. “An’ even if he did, he wouldn’t believe me. Maybe nobody will.... All the same, Snake Anson won’t get that girl.”

With these last words Dale satisfied himself of his own position, and his pondering ceased. Taking his rifle, he descended from the loft and peered out of the door. The night had grown darker, windier, cooler; broken clouds were scudding across the sky; only a few stars showed; fine rain was blowing from the northwest; and the forest seemed full of a low, dull roar.

“Reckon I’d better hang up here,” he said, and turned to the fire. The coals were red now. From the depths of his hunting-coat he procured a little bag of salt and some strips of dried meat. These strips he laid for a moment on the hot embers, until they began to sizzle and curl; then with a sharpened stick he removed them and ate like a hungry hunter grateful for little.

He sat on a block of wood with his palms spread to the dying warmth of the fire and his eyes fixed upon the changing, glowing, golden embers. Outside, the wind continued to rise and the moan of the forest increased to a roar. Dale felt the comfortable warmth stealing over him, drowsily lulling; and he heard the storm-wind in the trees, now like a waterfall, and anon like a retreating army, and again low and sad; and he saw pictures in the glowing embers, strange as dreams.

Presently he rose and, climbing to the loft, he stretched himself out, and soon fell asleep.

When the gray dawn broke he was on his way, ‘cross-country, to the village of Pine.

During the night the wind had shifted and the rain had ceased. A suspicion of frost shone on the grass in open places. All was gray — the parks, the glades — and deeper, darker gray marked the aisles of the forest. Shadows lurked under the trees and the silence seemed consistent with spectral forms. Then the east kindled, the gray lightened, the dreaming woodland awoke to the far-reaching rays of a bursting red sun.

This was always the happiest moment of Dale’s lonely days, as sunset was his saddest. He responded, and there was something in his blood that answered the whistle of a stag from a near-by ridge. His strides were long, noiseless, and they left dark trace where his feet brushed the dew-laden grass.

Dale pursued a zigzag course over the ridges to escape the hardest climbing, but the “senacas” — those parklike meadows so named by Mexican sheep-herders — were as round and level as if they had been made by man in beautiful contrast to the dark-green, rough, and rugged ridges. Both open senaca and dense wooded ridge showed to his quick eye an abundance of game. The cracking of twigs and disappearing flash of gray among the spruces, a round black lumbering object, a twittering in the brush, and stealthy steps, were all easy signs for Dale to read. Once, as he noiselessly emerged into a little glade, he espied a red fox stalking some quarry, which, as he advanced, proved to be a flock of partridges. They whirred up, brushing the branches, and the fox trotted away. In every senaca Dale encountered wild turkeys feeding on the seeds of the high grass.

It had always been his custom, on his visits to Pine, to kill and pack fresh meat down to several old friends, who were glad to give him lodging. And, hurried though he was now, he did not intend to make an exception of this trip.

At length he got down into the pine belt, where the great, gnarled, yellow trees soared aloft, stately, and aloof from one another, and the ground was a brown, odorous, springy mat of pine-needles, level as a floor. Squirrels watched him from all around, scurrying away at his near approach — tiny, brown, light-striped squirrels, and larger ones, russet-colored, and the splendid dark-grays with their white bushy tails and plumed ears.

This belt of pine ended abruptly upon wide, gray, rolling, open land, almost like a prairie, with foot-hills lifting near and far, and the red-gold blaze of aspen thickets catching the morning sun. Here Dale flushed a flock of wild turkeys, upward of forty in number, and their subdued color of gray flecked with white, and graceful, sleek build, showed them to be hens. There was not a gobbler in the flock. They began to run pell-mell out into the grass, until only their heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dale caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and as they saw him and darted into the timber he took a quick shot at the hindmost. His bullet struck low, as he had meant it to, but too low, and the coyote got only a dusting of earth and pine-needles thrown up into his face. This frightened him so that he leaped aside blindly to butt into a tree, rolled over, gained his feet, and then the cover of the forest. Dale was amused at this. His hand was against all the predatory beasts of the forest, though he had learned that lion and bear and wolf and fox were all as necessary to the great scheme of nature as were the gentle, beautiful wild creatures upon which they preyed. But some he loved better than others, and so he deplored the inexplicable cruelty.

He crossed the wide, grassy plain and struck another gradual descent where aspens and pines crowded a shallow ravine and warm, sun-lighted glades bordered along a sparkling brook. Here he heard a turkey gobble, and that was a signal for him to change his course and make a crouching, silent detour around a clump of aspens. In a sunny patch of grass a dozen or more big gobblers stood, all suspiciously facing in his direction, heads erect, with that wild aspect peculiar to their species. Old wild turkey gobblers were the most difficult game to stalk. Dale shot two of them. The others began to run like ostriches, thudding over the ground, spreading their wings, and with that running start launched their heavy bodies into whirring flight. They flew low, at about the height of a man from the grass, and vanished in the woods.

Dale threw the two turkeys over his shoulder and went on his way. Soon he came to a break in the forest level, from which he gazed down a league-long slope of pine and cedar, out upon the bare, glistening desert, stretching away, endlessly rolling out to the dim, dark horizon line.

The little hamlet of Pine lay on the last level of sparsely timbered forest. A road, running parallel with a dark-watered, swift-flowing stream, divided the cluster of log cabins from which columns of blue smoke drifted lazily aloft. Fields of corn and fields of oats, yellow in the sunlight, surrounded the village; and green pastures, dotted with horses and cattle, reached away to the denser woodland. This site appeared to be a natural clearing, for there was no evidence of cut timber. The scene was rather too wild to be pastoral, but it was serene, tranquil, giving the impression of a remote community, prosperous and happy, drifting along the peaceful tenor of sequestered lives.

Dale halted before a neat little log cabin and a little patch of garden bordered with sunflowers. His call was answered by an old woman, gray and bent, but remarkably spry, who appeared at the door.

“Why, land’s sakes, if it ain’t Milt Dale!” she exclaimed, in welcome.

“Reckon it’s me, Mrs. Cass,” he replied. “An’ I’ve brought you a turkey.”

“Milt, you’re that good boy who never forgits old Widow Cass.... What a gobbler! First one I’ve seen this fall. My man Tom used to fetch home gobblers like that.... An’ mebbe he’ll come home again sometime.”

Her husband, Tom Cass, had gone into the forest years before and had never returned. But the old woman always looked for him and never gave up hope.

“Men have been lost in the forest an’ yet come back,” replied Dale, as he had said to her many a time.

“Come right in. You air hungry, I know. Now, son, when last did you eat a fresh egg or a flapjack?”

“You should remember,” he answered, laughing, as he followed her into a small, clean kitchen.

“Laws-a’-me! An’ thet’s months ago,” she replied, shaking her gray head. “Milt, you should give up that wild life — an’ marry — an’ have a home.”

“You always tell me that.”

“Yes, an’ I’ll see you do it yet.... Now you set there, an’ pretty soon I’ll give you thet to eat which ‘ll make your mouth water.”

“What’s the news, Auntie?” he asked.

“Nary news in this dead place. Why, nobody’s been to Snowdrop in two weeks!... Sary Jones died, poor old soul — she’s better off — an’ one of my cows run away. Milt, she’s wild when she gits loose in the woods. An’ you’ll have to track her, ‘cause nobody else can. An’ John Dakker’s heifer was killed by a lion, an’ Lem Harden’s fast hoss — you know his favorite — was stole by hoss-thieves. Lem is jest crazy. An’ that reminds me, Milt, where’s your big ranger, thet you’d never sell or lend?”

“My horses are up in the woods, Auntie; safe, I reckon, from horse-thieves.”

“Well, that’s a blessin’. We’ve had some stock stole this summer, Milt, an’ no mistake.”

Thus, while preparing a meal for Dale, the old woman went on recounting all that had happened in the little village since his last visit. Dale enjoyed her gossip and quaint philosophy, and it was exceedingly good to sit at her table. In his opinion, nowhere else could there have been such butter and cream, such ham and eggs. Besides, she always had apple pie, it seemed, at any time he happened in; and apple pie was one of Dale’s few regrets while up in the lonely forest.

“How’s old Al Auchincloss?” presently inquired Dale.

“Poorly — poorly,” sighed Mrs. Cass. “But he tramps an’ rides around same as ever. Al’s not long for this world.... An’, Milt, that reminds me — there’s the biggest news you ever heard.”

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Dale, to encourage the excited old woman.

“Al has sent back to Saint Joe for his niece, Helen Rayner. She’s to inherit all his property. We’ve heard much of her — a purty lass, they say.... Now, Milt Dale, here’s your chance. Stay out of the woods an’ go to work.... You can marry that girl!”

“No chance for me, Auntie,” replied Dale, smiling.

The old woman snorted. “Much you know! Any girl would have you, Milt Dale, if you’d only throw a kerchief.”

“Me!... An’ why, Auntie?” he queried, half amused, half thoughtful. When he got back to civilization he always had to adjust his thoughts to the ideas of people.

“Why? I declare, Milt, you live so in the woods you’re like a boy of ten — an’ then sometimes as old as the hills.... There’s no young man to compare with you, hereabouts. An’ this girl — she’ll have all the spunk of the Auchinclosses.”

“Then maybe she’d not be such a catch, after all,” replied Dale.

“Wal, you’ve no cause to love them, that’s sure. But, Milt, the Auchincloss women are always good wives.”

“Dear Auntie, you’re dreamin’,” said Dale, soberly. “I want no wife. I’m happy in the woods.”

“Air you goin’ to live like an Injun all your days, Milt Dale?” she queried, sharply.

“I hope so.”

“You ought to be ashamed. But some lass will change you, boy, an’ mebbe it’ll be this Helen Rayner. I hope an’ pray so to thet.”

“Auntie, supposin’ she did change me. She’d never change old Al. He hates me, you know.”

“Wal, I ain’t so sure, Milt. I met Al the other day. He inquired for you, an’ said you was wild, but he reckoned men like you was good for pioneer settlements. Lord knows the good turns you’ve done this village! Milt, old Al doesn’t approve of your wild life, but he never had no hard feelin’s till thet tame lion of yours killed so many of his sheep.”

“Auntie, I don’t believe Tom ever killed Al’s sheep,” declared Dale, positively.

“Wal, Al thinks so, an’ many other people,” replied Mrs. Cass, shaking her gray head doubtfully. “You never swore he didn’t. An’ there was them two sheep-herders who did swear they seen him.”

“They only saw a cougar. An’ they were so scared they ran.”

“Who wouldn’t? Thet big beast is enough to scare any one. For land’s sakes, don’t ever fetch him down here again! I’ll never forgit the time you did. All the folks an’ children an’ hosses in Pine broke an’ run thet day.”

“Yes; but Tom wasn’t to blame. Auntie, he’s the tamest of my pets. Didn’t he try to put his head on your lap an’ lick your hand?”

“Wal, Milt, I ain’t gainsayin’ your cougar pet didn’t act better ‘n a lot of people I know. Fer he did. But the looks of him an’ what’s been said was enough for me.”

“An’ what’s all that, Auntie?”

“They say he’s wild when out of your sight. An’ thet he’d trail an’ kill anythin’ you put him after.”

“I trained him to be just that way.”

“Wal, leave Tom to home up in the woods — when you visit us.”

Dale finished his hearty meal, and listened awhile longer to the old woman’s talk; then, taking his rifle and the other turkey, he bade her good-by. She followed him out.

“Now, Milt, you’ll come soon again, won’t you — jest to see Al’s niece — who’ll be here in a week?”

“I reckon I’ll drop in some day.... Auntie, have you seen my friends, the Mormon boys?”

“No, I ‘ain’t seen them an’ don’t want to,” she retorted. “Milt Dale, if any one ever corrals you it’ll be Mormons.”

“Don’t worry, Auntie. I like those boys. They often see me up in the woods an’ ask me to help them track a hoss or help kill some fresh meat.”

“They’re workin’ for Beasley now.”

“Is that so?” rejoined Dale, with a sudden start. “An’ what doin’?”

“Beasley is gettin’ so rich he’s buildin’ a fence, an’ didn’t have enough help, so I hear.”

“Beasley gettin’ rich!” repeated Dale, thoughtfully. “More sheep an’ horses an’ cattle than ever, I reckon?”

“Laws-a’-me! Why, Milt, Beasley ‘ain’t any idea what he owns. Yes, he’s the biggest man in these parts, since poor old Al’s took to failin’. I reckon Al’s health ain’t none improved by Beasley’s success. They’ve bad some bitter quarrels lately — so I hear. Al ain’t what he was.”

Dale bade good-by again to his old friend and strode away, thoughtful and serious. Beasley would not only be difficult to circumvent, but he would be dangerous to oppose. There did not appear much doubt of his driving his way rough-shod to the dominance of affairs there in Pine. Dale, passing down the road, began to meet acquaintances who had hearty welcome for his presence and interest in his doings, so that his pondering was interrupted for the time being. He carried the turkey to another old friend, and when he left her house he went on to the village store. This was a large log cabin, roughly covered with clapboards, with a wide plank platform in front and a hitching-rail in the road. Several horses were standing there, and a group of lazy, shirt-sleeved loungers.

“I’ll be doggoned if it ain’t Milt Dale!” exclaimed one.

“Howdy, Milt, old buckskin! Right down glad to see you,” greeted another.

“Hello, Dale! You air shore good for sore eyes,” drawled still another.

After a long period of absence Dale always experienced a singular warmth of feeling when he met these acquaintances. It faded quickly when he got back to the intimacy of his woodland, and that was because the people of Pine, with few exceptions — though they liked him and greatly admired his outdoor wisdom — regarded him as a sort of nonentity. Because he loved the wild and preferred it to village and range life, they had classed him as not one of them. Some believed him lazy; others believed him shiftless; others thought him an Indian in mind and habits; and there were many who called him slow-witted. Then there was another side to their regard for him, which always afforded him good-natured amusement. Two of this group asked him to bring in some turkey or venison; another wanted to hunt with him. Lem Harden came out of the store and appealed to Dale to recover his stolen horse. Lem’s brother wanted a wild-running mare tracked and brought home. Jesse Lyons wanted a colt broken, and broken with patience, not violence, as was the method of the hard-riding boys at Pine. So one and all they besieged Dale with their selfish needs, all unconscious of the flattering nature of these overtures. And on the moment there happened by two women whose remarks, as they entered the store, bore strong testimony to Dale’s personality.

“If there ain’t Milt Dale!” exclaimed the older of the two. “How lucky! My cow’s sick, an’ the men are no good doctorin’. I’ll jest ask Milt over.”

“No one like Milt!” responded the other woman, heartily.

“Good day there — you Milt Dale!” called the first speaker. “When you git away from these lazy men come over.”

Dale never refused a service, and that was why his infrequent visits to Pine were wont to be prolonged beyond his own pleasure.

Presently Beasley strode down the street, and when about to enter the store he espied Dale.

“Hullo there, Milt!” he called, cordially, as he came forward with extended hand. His greeting was sincere, but the lightning glance he shot over Dale was not born of his pleasure. Seen in daylight, Beasley was a big, bold, bluff man, with strong, dark features. His aggressive presence suggested that he was a good friend and a bad enemy.

Dale shook hands with him.

“How are you, Beasley?”

“Ain’t complainin’, Milt, though I got more work than I can rustle. Reckon you wouldn’t take a job bossin’ my sheep-herders?”

“Reckon I wouldn’t,” replied Dale. “Thanks all the same.”

“What’s goin’ on up in the woods?”

“Plenty of turkey an’ deer. Lots of bear, too. The Indians have worked back on the south side early this fall. But I reckon winter will come late an’ be mild.”

“Good! An’ where ‘re you headin’ from?”

“‘Cross-country from my camp,” replied Dale, rather evasively.

“Your camp! Nobody ever found that yet,” declared Beasley, gruffly.

“It’s up there,” said Dale.

“Reckon you’ve got that cougar chained in your cabin door?” queried Beasley, and there was a barely distinguishable shudder of his muscular frame. Also the pupils dilated in his hard brown eyes.

“Tom ain’t chained. An’ I haven’t no cabin, Beasley.”

“You mean to tell me that big brute stays in your camp without bein’ hog-tied or corralled!” demanded Beasley.

“Sure he does.”

“Beats me! But, then, I’m queer on cougars. Have had many a cougar trail me at night. Ain’t sayin’ I was scared. But I don’t care for that brand of varmint.... Milt, you goin’ to stay down awhile?”

“Yes, I’ll hang around some.”

“Come over to the ranch. Glad to see you any time. Some old huntin’ pards of yours are workin’ for me.”

“Thanks, Beasley. I reckon I’ll come over.”

Beasley turned away and took a step, and then, as if with an after-thought, he wheeled again.

“Suppose you’ve heard about old Al Auchincloss bein’ near petered out?” queried Beasley. A strong, ponderous cast of thought seemed to emanate from his features. Dale divined that Beasley’s next step would be to further his advancement by some word or hint.

“Widow Cass was tellin’ me all the news. Too bad about old Al,” replied Dale.

“Sure is. He’s done for. An’ I’m sorry — though Al’s never been square—”

“Beasley,” interrupted Dale, quickly, “you can’t say that to me. Al Auchincloss always was the whitest an’ squarest man in this sheep country.”

Beasley gave Dale a fleeting, dark glance.

“Dale, what you think ain’t goin’ to influence feelin’ on this range,” returned Beasley, deliberately. “You live in the woods an’—”

“Reckon livin’ in the woods I might think — an’ know a whole lot,” interposed Dale, just as deliberately. The group of men exchanged surprised glances. This was Milt Dale in different aspect. And Beasley did not conceal a puzzled surprise.

“About what — now?” he asked, bluntly.

“Why, about what’s goin’ on in Pine,” replied Dale.

Some of the men laughed.

“Shore lots goin’ on — an’ no mistake,” put in Lem Harden.

Probably the keen Beasley had never before considered Milt Dale as a responsible person; certainly never one in any way to cross his trail. But on the instant, perhaps, some instinct was born, or he divined an antagonism in Dale that was both surprising and perplexing.

“Dale, I’ve differences with Al Auchincloss — have had them for years,” said Beasley. “Much of what he owns is mine. An’ it’s goin’ to come to me. Now I reckon people will be takin’ sides — some for me an’ some for Al. Most are for me.... Where do you stand? Al Auchincloss never had no use for you, an’ besides he’s a dyin’ man. Are you goin’ on his side?”

“Yes, I reckon I am.”

“Wal, I’m glad you’ve declared yourself,” rejoined Beasley, shortly, and he strode away with the ponderous gait of a man who would brush any obstacle from his path.

“Milt, thet’s bad — makin’ Beasley sore at you,” said Lem Harden. “He’s on the way to boss this outfit.”

“He’s sure goin’ to step into Al’s boots,” said another.

“Thet was white of Milt to stick up fer poor old Al,” declared Lem’s brother.

Dale broke away from them and wended a thoughtful way down the road. The burden of what he knew about Beasley weighed less heavily upon him, and the close-lipped course he had decided upon appeared wisest. He needed to think before undertaking to call upon old Al Auchincloss; and to that end he sought an hour’s seclusion under the pines.

CHAPTER III

IN THE AFTERNOON, Dale, having accomplished some tasks imposed upon him by his old friends at Pine, directed slow steps toward the Auchincloss ranch.

The flat, square stone and log cabin of unusually large size stood upon a little hill half a mile out of the village. A home as well as a fort, it had been the first structure erected in that region, and the process of building had more than once been interrupted by Indian attacks. The Apaches had for some time, however, confined their fierce raids to points south of the White Mountain range. Auchincloss’s house looked down upon barns and sheds and corrals of all sizes and shapes, and hundreds of acres of well-cultivated soil. Fields of oats waved gray and yellow in the afternoon sun; an immense green pasture was divided by a willow-bordered brook, and here were droves of horses, and out on the rolling bare flats were straggling herds of cattle.

The whole ranch showed many years of toil and the perseverance of man. The brook irrigated the verdant valley between the ranch and the village. Water for the house, however, came down from the high, wooded slope of the mountain, and had been brought there by a simple expedient. Pine logs of uniform size had been laid end to end, with a deep trough cut in them, and they made a shining line down the slope, across the valley, and up the little hill to the Auchincloss home. Near the house the hollowed halves of logs had been bound together, making a crude pipe. Water ran uphill in this case, one of the facts that made the ranch famous, as it had always been a wonder and delight to the small boys of Pine. The two good women who managed Auchincloss’s large household were often shocked by the strange things that floated into their kitchen with the ever-flowing stream of clear, cold mountain water.

As it happened this day Dale encountered Al Auchincloss sitting in the shade of a porch, talking to some of his sheep-herders and stockmen. Auchincloss was a short man of extremely powerful build and great width of shoulder. He had no gray hairs, and he did not look old, yet there was in his face a certain weariness, something that resembled sloping lines of distress, dim and pale, that told of age and the ebb-tide of vitality. His features, cast in large mold, were clean-cut and comely, and he had frank blue eyes, somewhat sad, yet still full of spirit.

Dale had no idea how his visit would be taken, and he certainly would not have been surprised to be ordered off the place. He had not set foot there for years. Therefore it was with surprise that he saw Auchincloss wave away the herders and take his entrance without any particular expression.

“Howdy, Al! How are you?” greeted Dale, easily, as he leaned his rifle against the log wall.

Auchincloss did not rise, but he offered his hand.

“Wal, Milt Dale, I reckon this is the first time I ever seen you that I couldn’t lay you flat on your back,” replied the rancher. His tone was both testy and full of pathos.

“I take it you mean you ain’t very well,” replied Dale. “I’m sorry, Al.”

“No, it ain’t thet. Never was sick in my life. I’m just played out, like a hoss thet had been strong an’ willin’, an’ did too much.... Wal, you don’t look a day older, Milt. Livin’ in the woods rolls over a man’s head.”

“Yes, I’m feelin’ fine, an’ time never bothers me.”

“Wal, mebbe you ain’t such a fool, after all. I’ve wondered lately — since I had time to think.... But, Milt, you don’t git no richer.”

“Al, I have all I want an’ need.”

“Wal, then, you don’t support anybody; you don’t do any good in the world.”

“We don’t agree, Al,” replied Dale, with his slow smile.

“Reckon we never did.... An’ you jest come over to pay your respects to me, eh?”

“Not altogether,” answered Dale, ponderingly. “First off, I’d like to say I’ll pay back them sheep you always claimed my tame cougar killed.”

“You will! An’ how’d you go about that?”

“Wasn’t very many sheep, was there?

“A matter of fifty head.”

“So many! Al, do you still think old Tom killed them sheep?”

“Humph! Milt, I know damn well he did.”

“Al, now how could you know somethin’ I don’t? Be reasonable, now. Let’s don’t fall out about this again. I’ll pay back the sheep. Work it out—”

“Milt Dale, you’ll come down here an’ work out that fifty head of sheep!” ejaculated the old rancher, incredulously.

“Sure.”

“Wal, I’ll be damned!” He sat back and gazed with shrewd eyes at Dale. “What’s got into you, Milt? Hev you heard about my niece thet’s comin’, an’ think you’ll shine up to her?”

“Yes, Al, her comin’ has a good deal to do with my deal,” replied Dale, soberly. “But I never thought to shine up to her, as you hint.”

“Haw! Haw! You’re just like all the other colts hereabouts. Reckon it’s a good sign, too. It’ll take a woman to fetch you out of the woods. But, boy, this niece of mine, Helen Rayner, will stand you on your head. I never seen her. They say she’s jest like her mother. An’ Nell Auchincloss — what a girl she was!”

Dale felt his face grow red. Indeed, this was strange conversation for him.

“Honest, Al—” he began.

“Son, don’t lie to an old man.”

“Lie! I wouldn’t lie to any one. Al, it’s only men who live in towns an’ are always makin’ deals. I live in the forest, where there’s nothin’ to make me lie.”

“Wal, no offense meant, I’m sure,” responded Auchincloss. “An’ mebbe there’s somethin’ in what you say... We was talkin’ about them sheep your big cat killed. Wal, Milt, I can’t prove it, that’s sure. An’ mebbe you’ll think me doddery when I tell you my reason. It wasn’t what them greaser herders said about seein’ a cougar in the herd.”

“What was it, then?” queried Dale, much interested.

“Wal, thet day a year ago I seen your pet. He was lyin’ in front of the store an’ you was inside tradin’, fer supplies, I reckon. It was like meetin’ an enemy face to face. Because, damn me if I didn’t know that cougar was guilty when he looked in my eyes! There!”

The old rancher expected to be laughed at. But Dale was grave.

“Al, I know how you felt,” he replied, as if they were discussing an action of a human being. “Sure I’d hate to doubt old Tom. But he’s a cougar. An’ the ways of animals are strange... Anyway, Al, I’ll make good the loss of your sheep.”

“No, you won’t,” rejoined Auchincloss, quickly. “We’ll call it off. I’m takin’ it square of you to make the offer. Thet’s enough. So forget your worry about work, if you had any.”

“There’s somethin’ else, Al, I wanted to say,” began Dale, with hesitation. “An’ it’s about Beasley.”

Auchincloss started violently, and a flame of red shot into his face. Then he raised a big hand that shook. Dale saw in a flash how the old man’s nerves had gone.

“Don’t mention — thet — thet greaser — to me!” burst out the rancher. “It makes me see — red.... Dale, I ain’t overlookin’ that you spoke up fer me to-day — stood fer my side. Lem Harden told me. I was glad. An’ thet’s why — to-day — I forgot our old quarrel.... But not a word about thet sheep-thief — or I’ll drive you off the place!”

“But, Al — be reasonable,” remonstrated Dale. “It’s necessary thet I speak of — of Beasley.”

“It ain’t. Not to me. I won’t listen.”

“Reckon you’ll have to, Al,” returned Dale. “Beasley’s after your property. He’s made a deal—”

“By Heaven! I know that!” shouted Auchincloss, tottering up, with his face now black-red. “Do you think thet’s new to me? Shut up, Dale! I can’t stand it.”

“But Al — there’s worse,” went on Dale, hurriedly. “Worse! Your life’s threatened — an’ your niece, Helen — she’s to be—”

“Shut up — an’ clear out!” roared Auchincloss, waving his huge fists.

He seemed on the verge of a collapse as, shaking all over, he backed into the door. A few seconds of rage had transformed him into a pitiful old man.

“But, Al — I’m your friend—” began Dale, appealingly.

“Friend, hey?” returned the rancher, with grim, bitter passion. “Then you’re the only one.... Milt Dale, I’m rich an’ I’m a dyin’ man. I trust nobody... But, you wild hunter — if you’re my friend — prove it!... Go kill thet greaser sheep-thief! DO somethin’ — an’ then come talk to me!”

With that he lurched, half falling, into the house, and slammed the door.

Dale stood there for a blank moment, and then, taking up his rifle, he strode away.

Toward sunset Dale located the camp of his four Mormon friends, and reached it in time for supper.

John, Roy, Joe, and Hal Beeman were sons of a pioneer Mormon who had settled the little community of Snowdrop. They were young men in years, but hard labor and hard life in the open had made them look matured. Only a year’s difference in age stood between John and Roy, and between Roy and Joe, and likewise Joe and Hal. When it came to appearance they were difficult to distinguish from one another. Horsemen, sheep-herders, cattle-raisers, hunters — they all possessed long, wiry, powerful frames, lean, bronzed, still faces, and the quiet, keen eyes of men used to the open.

Their camp was situated beside a spring in a cove surrounded by aspens, some three miles from Pine; and, though working for Beasley, near the village, they had ridden to and fro from camp, after the habit of seclusion peculiar to their kind.

Dale and the brothers had much in common, and a warm regard had sprang up. But their exchange of confidences had wholly concerned things pertaining to the forest. Dale ate supper with them, and talked as usual when he met them, without giving any hint of the purpose forming in his mind. After the meal he helped Joe round up the horses, hobble them for the night, and drive them into a grassy glade among the pines. Later, when the shadows stole through the forest on the cool wind, and the camp-fire glowed comfortably, Dale broached the subject that possessed him.

“An’ so you’re working for Beasley?” he queried, by way of starting conversation.

“We was,” drawled John. “But to-day, bein’ the end of our month, we got our pay an’ quit. Beasley sure was sore.”

“Why’d you knock off?”

John essayed no reply, and his brothers all had that quiet, suppressed look of knowledge under restraint.

“Listen to what I come to tell you, then you’ll talk,” went on Dale. And hurriedly he told of Beasley’s plot to abduct Al Auchincloss’s niece and claim the dying man’s property.

When Dale ended, rather breathlessly, the Mormon boys sat without any show of surprise or feeling. John, the eldest, took up a stick and slowly poked the red embers of the fire, making the white sparks fly.

“Now, Milt, why’d you tell us thet?” he asked, guardedly.

“You’re the only friends I’ve got,” replied Dale. “It didn’t seem safe for me to talk down in the village. I thought of you boys right off. I ain’t goin’ to let Snake Anson get that girl. An’ I need help, so I come to you.”

“Beasley’s strong around Pine, an’ old Al’s weakenin’. Beasley will git the property, girl or no girl,” said John.

“Things don’t always turn out as they look. But no matter about that. The girl deal is what riled me.... She’s to arrive at Magdalena on the sixteenth, an’ take stage for Snowdrop.... Now what to do? If she travels on that stage I’ll be on it, you bet. But she oughtn’t to be in it at all. ... Boys, somehow I’m goin’ to save her. Will you help me? I reckon I’ve been in some tight corners for you. Sure, this ‘s different. But are you my friends? You know now what Beasley is. An’ you’re all lost at the hands of Snake Anson’s gang. You’ve got fast hosses, eyes for trackin’, an’ you can handle a rifle. You’re the kind of fellows I’d want in a tight pinch with a bad gang. Will you stand by me or see me go alone?”

Then John Beeman, silently, and with pale face, gave Dale’s hand a powerful grip, and one by one the other brothers rose to do likewise. Their eyes flashed with hard glint and a strange bitterness hovered around their thin lips.

“Milt, mebbe we know what Beasley is better ‘n you,” said John, at length. “He ruined my father. He’s cheated other Mormons. We boys have proved to ourselves thet he gets the sheep Anson’s gang steals.... An’ drives the herds to Phenix! Our people won’t let us accuse Beasley. So we’ve suffered in silence. My father always said, let some one else say the first word against Beasley, an’ you’ve come to us!”

Roy Beeman put a hand on Dale’s shoulder. He, perhaps, was the keenest of the brothers and the one to whom adventure and peril called most. He had been oftenest with Dale, on many a long trail, and he was the hardest rider and the most relentless tracker in all that range country.

“An’ we’re goin’ with you,” he said, in a strong and rolling voice.

They resumed their seats before the fire. John threw on more wood, and with a crackling and sparkling the blaze curled up, fanned by the wind. As twilight deepened into night the moan in the pines increased to a roar. A pack of coyotes commenced to pierce the air in staccato cries.

The five young men conversed long and earnestly, considering, planning, rejecting ideas advanced by each. Dale and Roy Beeman suggested most of what became acceptable to all. Hunters of their type resembled explorers in slow and deliberate attention to details. What they had to deal with here was a situation of unlimited possibilities; the horses and outfit needed; a long detour to reach Magdalena unobserved; the rescue of a strange girl who would no doubt be self-willed and determined to ride on the stage — the rescue forcible, if necessary; the fight and the inevitable pursuit; the flight into the forest, and the safe delivery of the girl to Auchincloss.

“Then, Milt, will we go after Beasley?” queried Roy Beeman, significantly.

Dale was silent and thoughtful.

“Sufficient unto the day!” said John. “An’ fellars, let’s go to bed.”

They rolled out their tarpaulins, Dale sharing Roy’s blankets, and soon were asleep, while the red embers slowly faded, and the great roar of wind died down, and the forest stillness set in.

CHAPTER IV

HELEN RAYNER HAD been on the westbound overland train fully twenty-four hours before she made an alarming discovery.

Accompanied by her sister Bo, a precocious girl of sixteen, Helen had left St. Joseph with a heart saddened by farewells to loved ones at home, yet full of thrilling and vivid anticipations of the strange life in the Far West. All her people had the pioneer spirit; love of change, action, adventure, was in her blood. Then duty to a widowed mother with a large and growing family had called to Helen to accept this rich uncle’s offer. She had taught school and also her little brothers and sisters; she had helped along in other ways. And now, though the tearing up of the roots of old loved ties was hard, this opportunity was irresistible in its call. The prayer of her dreams had been answered. To bring good fortune to her family; to take care of this beautiful, wild little sister; to leave the yellow, sordid, humdrum towns for the great, rolling, boundless open; to live on a wonderful ranch that was some day to be her own; to have fulfilled a deep, instinctive, and undeveloped love of horses, cattle, sheep, of desert and mountain, of trees and brooks and wild flowers — all this was the sum of her most passionate longings, now in some marvelous, fairylike way to come true.

A check to her happy anticipations, a blank, sickening dash of cold water upon her warm and intimate dreams, had been the discovery that Harve Riggs was on the train. His presence could mean only one thing — that he had followed her. Riggs had been the worst of many sore trials back there in St. Joseph. He had possessed some claim or influence upon her mother, who favored his offer of marriage to Helen; he was neither attractive, nor good, nor industrious, nor anything that interested her; he was the boastful, strutting adventurer, not genuinely Western, and he affected long hair and guns and notoriety. Helen had suspected the veracity of the many fights he claimed had been his, and also she suspected that he was not really big enough to be bad — as Western men were bad. But on the train, in the station at La Junta, one glimpse of him, manifestly spying upon her while trying to keep out of her sight, warned Helen that she now might have a problem on her hands.

The recognition sobered her. All was not to be a road of roses to this new home in the West. Riggs would follow her, if he could not accompany her, and to gain his own ends he would stoop to anything. Helen felt the startling realization of being cast upon her own resources, and then a numbing discouragement and loneliness and helplessness. But these feelings did not long persist in the quick pride and flash of her temper. Opportunity knocked at her door and she meant to be at home to it. She would not have been Al Auchincloss’s niece if she had faltered. And, when temper was succeeded by genuine anger, she could have laughed to scorn this Harve Riggs and his schemes, whatever they were. Once and for all she dismissed fear of him. When she left St. Joseph she had faced the West with a beating heart and a high resolve to be worthy of that West. Homes had to be made out there in that far country, so Uncle Al had written, and women were needed to make homes. She meant to be one of these women and to make of her sister another. And with the thought that she would know definitely what to say to Riggs when he approached her, sooner or later, Helen dismissed him from mind.

While the train was in motion, enabling Helen to watch the ever-changing scenery, and resting her from the strenuous task of keeping Bo well in hand at stations, she lapsed again into dreamy gaze at the pine forests and the red, rocky gullies and the dim, bold mountains. She saw the sun set over distant ranges of New Mexico — a golden blaze of glory, as new to her as the strange fancies born in her, thrilling and fleeting by. Bo’s raptures were not silent, and the instant the sun sank and the color faded she just as rapturously importuned Helen to get out the huge basket of food they had brought from home.

They had two seats, facing each other, at the end of the coach, and piled there, with the basket on top, was luggage that constituted all the girls owned in the world. Indeed, it was very much more than they had ever owned before, because their mother, in her care for them and desire to have them look well in the eyes of this rich uncle, had spent money and pains to give them pretty and serviceable clothes.

The girls sat together, with the heavy basket on their knees, and ate while they gazed out at the cool, dark ridges. The train clattered slowly on, apparently over a road that was all curves. And it was supper-time for everybody in that crowded coach. If Helen had not been so absorbed by the great, wild mountain-land she would have had more interest in the passengers. As it was she saw them, and was amused and thoughtful at the men and women and a few children in the car, all middle-class people, poor and hopeful, traveling out there to the New West to find homes. It was splendid and beautiful, this fact, yet it inspired a brief and inexplicable sadness. From the train window, that world of forest and crag, with its long bare reaches between, seemed so lonely, so wild, so unlivable. How endless the distance! For hours and miles upon miles no house, no hut, no Indian tepee! It was amazing, the length and breadth of this beautiful land. And Helen, who loved brooks and running streams, saw no water at all.

Then darkness settled down over the slow-moving panorama; a cool night wind blew in at the window; white stars began to blink out of the blue. The sisters, with hands clasped and heads nestled together, went to sleep under a heavy cloak.

Early the next morning, while the girls were again delving into their apparently bottomless basket, the train stopped at Las Vegas.

“Look! Look!” cried Bo, in thrilling voice. “Cowboys! Oh, Nell, look!”

Helen, laughing, looked first at her sister, and thought how most of all she was good to look at. Bo was little, instinct with pulsating life, and she had chestnut hair and dark-blue eyes. These eyes were flashing, roguish, and they drew like magnets.

Outside on the rude station platform were railroad men, Mexicans, and a group of lounging cowboys. Long, lean, bow-legged fellows they were, with young, frank faces and intent eyes. One of them seemed particularly attractive with his superb build, his red-bronze face and bright-red scarf, his swinging gun, and the huge, long, curved spurs. Evidently he caught Bo’s admiring gaze, for, with a word to his companions, he sauntered toward the window where the girls sat. His gait was singular, almost awkward, as if he was not accustomed to walking. The long spurs jingled musically. He removed his sombrero and stood at ease, frank, cool, smiling. Helen liked him on sight, and, looking to see what effect he had upon Bo, she found that young lady staring, frightened stiff.

“Good mawnin’,” drawled the cowboy, with slow, good-humored smile. “Now where might you-all be travelin’?”

The sound of his voice, the clean-cut and droll geniality; seemed new and delightful to Helen.

“We go to Magdalena — then take stage for the White Mountains,” replied Helen.

The cowboy’s still, intent eyes showed surprise.

“Apache country, miss,” he said. “I reckon I’m sorry. Thet’s shore no place for you-all... Beggin’ your pawdin — you ain’t Mormons?”

“No. We’re nieces of Al Auchincloss,” rejoined Helen.

“Wal, you don’t say! I’ve been down Magdalena way an’ heerd of Al.... Reckon you’re goin’ a-visitin’?”

“It’s to be home for us.”

“Shore thet’s fine. The West needs girls.... Yes, I’ve heerd of Al. An old Arizona cattle-man in a sheep country! Thet’s bad.... Now I’m wonderin’ — if I’d drift down there an’ ask him for a job ridin’ for him — would I get it?”

His lazy smile was infectious and his meaning was as clear as crystal water. The gaze he bent upon Bo somehow pleased Helen. The last year or two, since Bo had grown prettier all the time, she had been a magnet for admiring glances. This one of the cowboy’s inspired respect and liking, as well as amusement. It certainly was not lost upon Bo.

“My uncle once said in a letter that he never had enough men to run his ranch,” replied Helen, smiling.

“Shore I’ll go. I reckon I’d jest naturally drift that way — now.”

He seemed so laconic, so easy, so nice, that he could not have been taken seriously, yet Helen’s quick perceptions registered a daring, a something that was both sudden and inevitable in him. His last word was as clear as the soft look he fixed upon Bo.

Helen had a mischievous trait, which, subdue it as she would, occasionally cropped out; and Bo, who once in her wilful life had been rendered speechless, offered such a temptation.

“Maybe my little sister will put in a good word for you — to Uncle Al,” said Helen. Just then the train jerked, and started slowly. The cowboy took two long strides beside the car, his heated boyish face almost on a level with the window, his eyes, now shy and a little wistful, yet bold, too, fixed upon Bo.

“Good-by — Sweetheart!” he called.

He halted — was lost to view.

“Well!” ejaculated Helen, contritely, half sorry, half amused. “What a sudden young gentleman!”

Bo had blushed beautifully.

“Nell, wasn’t he glorious!” she burst out, with eyes shining.

“I’d hardly call him that, but he was — nice,” replied Helen, much relieved that Bo had apparently not taken offense at her.

It appeared plain that Bo resisted a frantic desire to look out of the window and to wave her hand. But she only peeped out, manifestly to her disappointment.

“Do you think he — he’ll come to Uncle Al’s?” asked Bo.

“Child, he was only in fun.”

“Nell, I’ll bet you he comes. Oh, it’d be great! I’m going to love cowboys. They don’t look like that Harve Riggs who ran after you so.”

Helen sighed, partly because of the reminder of her odious suitor, and partly because Bo’s future already called mysteriously to the child. Helen had to be at once a mother and a protector to a girl of intense and wilful spirit.

One of the trainmen directed the girls’ attention to a green, sloping mountain rising to a bold, blunt bluff of bare rock; and, calling it Starvation Peak, he told a story of how Indians had once driven Spaniards up there and starved them. Bo was intensely interested, and thereafter she watched more keenly than ever, and always had a question for a passing trainman. The adobe houses of the Mexicans pleased her, and, then the train got out into Indian country, where pueblos appeared near the track and Indians with their bright colors and shaggy wild mustangs — then she was enraptured.

“But these Indians are peaceful!” she exclaimed once, regretfully.

“Gracious, child! You don’t want to see hostile Indians, do you?” queried Helen.

“I do, you bet,” was the frank rejoinder.

“Well, I’LL bet that I’ll be sorry I didn’t leave you with mother.”

“Nell — you never will!”

They reached Albuquerque about noon, and this important station, where they had to change trains, had been the first dreaded anticipation of the journey. It certainly was a busy place — full of jabbering Mexicans, stalking, red-faced, wicked-looking cowboys, lolling Indians. In the confusion Helen would have been hard put to it to preserve calmness, with Bo to watch, and all that baggage to carry, and the other train to find; but the kindly brakeman who had been attentive to them now helped them off the train into the other — a service for which Helen was very grateful.

“Albuquerque’s a hard place,” confided the trainman. “Better stay in the car — and don’t hang out the windows.... Good luck to you!”

Only a few passengers were in the car and they were Mexicans at the forward end. This branch train consisted of one passenger-coach, with a baggage-car, attached to a string of freight-cars. Helen told herself, somewhat grimly, that soon she would know surely whether or not her suspicions of Harve Riggs had warrant. If he was going on to Magdalena on that day he must go in this coach. Presently Bo, who was not obeying admonitions, drew her head out of the window. Her eyes were wide in amaze, her mouth open.

“Nell! I saw that man Riggs!” she whispered. “He’s going to get on this train.”

“Bo, I saw him yesterday,” replied Helen, soberly.

“He’s followed you — the — the—”

“Now, Bo, don’t get excited,” remonstrated Helen. “We’ve left home now. We’ve got to take things as they come. Never mind if Riggs has followed me. I’ll settle him.”

“Oh! Then you won’t speak — have anything to do with him?”

“I won’t if I can help it.”

Other passengers boarded the train, dusty, uncouth, ragged men, and some hard-featured, poorly clad women, marked by toil, and several more Mexicans. With bustle and loud talk they found their several seats.

Then Helen saw Harve Riggs enter, burdened with much luggage. He was a man of about medium height, of dark, flashy appearance, cultivating long black mustache and hair. His apparel was striking, as it consisted of black frock-coat, black trousers stuffed in high, fancy-topped boots, an embroidered vest, and flowing tie, and a black sombrero. His belt and gun were prominent. It was significant that he excited comment among the other passengers.

When he had deposited his pieces of baggage he seemed to square himself, and, turning abruptly, approached the seat occupied by the girls. When he reached it he sat down upon the arm of the one opposite, took off his sombrero, and deliberately looked at Helen. His eyes were light, glinting, with hard, restless quiver, and his mouth was coarse and arrogant. Helen had never seen him detached from her home surroundings, and now the difference struck cold upon her heart.

“Hello, Nell!” he said. “Surprised to see me?”

“No,” she replied, coldly.

“I’ll gamble you are.”

“Harve Riggs, I told you the day before I left home that nothing you could do or say mattered to me.”

“Reckon that ain’t so, Nell. Any woman I keep track of has reason to think. An’ you know it.”

“Then you followed me — out here?” demanded Helen, and her voice, despite her control, quivered with anger.

“I sure did,” he replied, and there was as much thought of himself in the act as there was of her.

“Why? Why? It’s useless — hopeless.”

“I swore I’d have you, or nobody else would,” he replied, and here, in the passion of his voice there sounded egotism rather than hunger for a woman’s love. “But I reckon I’d have struck West anyhow, sooner or later.”

“You’re not going to — all the way — to Pine?” faltered Helen, momentarily weakening.

“Nell, I’ll camp on your trail from now on,” he declared.

Then Bo sat bolt-upright, with pale face and flashing eyes.

“Harve Riggs, you leave Nell alone,” she burst out, in ringing, brave young voice. “I’ll tell you what — I’ll bet — if you follow her and nag her any more, my uncle Al or some cowboy will run you out of the country.”

“Hello, Pepper!” replied Riggs, coolly. “I see your manners haven’t improved an’ you’re still wild about cowboys.”

“People don’t have good manners with — with—”

“Bo, hush!” admonished Helen. It was difficult to reprove Bo just then, for that young lady had not the slightest fear of Riggs. Indeed, she looked as if she could slap his face. And Helen realized that however her intelligence had grasped the possibilities of leaving home for a wild country, and whatever her determination to be brave, the actual beginning of self-reliance had left her spirit weak. She would rise out of that. But just now this flashing-eyed little sister seemed a protector. Bo would readily adapt herself to the West, Helen thought, because she was so young, primitive, elemental.

Whereupon Bo turned her back to Riggs and looked out of the window. The man laughed. Then he stood up and leaned over Helen.

“Nell, I’m goin’ wherever you go,” he said, steadily. “You can take that friendly or not, just as it pleases you. But if you’ve got any sense you’ll not give these people out here a hunch against me. I might hurt somebody.... An’ wouldn’t it be better — to act friends? For I’m goin’ to look after you, whether you like it or not.”

Helen had considered this man an annoyance, and later a menace, and now she must declare open enmity with him. However disgusting the idea that he considered himself a factor in her new life, it was the truth. He existed, he had control over his movements. She could not change that. She hated the need of thinking so much about him; and suddenly, with a hot, bursting anger, she hated the man.

“You’ll not look after me. I’ll take care of myself,” she said, and she turned her back upon him. She heard him mutter under his breath and slowly move away down the car. Then Bo slipped a hand in hers.

“Never mind, Nell,” she whispered. “You know what old Sheriff Haines said about Harve Riggs. ‘A four-flush would-be gun-fighter! If he ever strikes a real Western town he’ll get run out of it.’ I just wish my red-faced cowboy had got on this train!”

Helen felt a rush of gladness that she had yielded to Bo’s wild importunities to take her West. The spirit which had made Bo incorrigible at home probably would make her react happily to life out in this free country. Yet Helen, with all her warmth and gratefulness, had to laugh at her sister.

“Your red-faced cowboy! Why, Bo, you were scared stiff. And now you claim him!”

“I certainly could love that fellow,” replied Bo, dreamily.

“Child, you’ve been saying that about fellows for a long time. And you’ve never looked twice at any of them yet.”

“He was different.... Nell, I’ll bet he comes to Pine.”

“I hope he does. I wish he was on this train. I liked his looks, Bo.”

“Well, Nell dear, he looked at ME first and last — so don’t get your hopes up.... Oh, the train’s starting!... Good-by, Albu-ker — what’s that awful name?... Nell, let’s eat dinner. I’m starved.”

Then Helen forgot her troubles and the uncertain future, and what with listening to Bo’s chatter, and partaking again of the endless good things to eat in the huge basket, and watching the noble mountains, she drew once more into happy mood.

The valley of the Rio Grande opened to view, wide near at hand in a great gray-green gap between the bare black mountains, narrow in the distance, where the yellow river wound away, glistening under a hot sun. Bo squealed in glee at sight of naked little Mexican children that darted into adobe huts as the train clattered by, and she exclaimed her pleasure in the Indians, and the mustangs, and particularly in a group of cowboys riding into town on spirited horses. Helen saw all Bo pointed out, but it was to the wonderful rolling valley that her gaze clung longest, and to the dim purple distance that seemed to hold something from her. She had never before experienced any feeling like that; she had never seen a tenth so far. And the sight awoke something strange in her. The sun was burning hot, as she could tell when she put a hand outside the window, and a strong wind blew sheets of dry dust at the train. She gathered at once what tremendous factors in the Southwest were the sun and the dust and the wind. And her realization made her love them. It was there; the open, the wild, the beautiful, the lonely land; and she felt the poignant call of blood in her — to seek, to strive, to find, to live. One look down that yellow valley, endless between its dark iron ramparts, had given her understanding of her uncle. She must be like him in spirit, as it was claimed she resembled him otherwise.

At length Bo grew tired of watching scenery that contained no life, and, with her bright head on the faded cloak, she went to sleep. But Helen kept steady, farseeing gaze out upon that land of rock and plain; and during the long hours, as she watched through clouds of dust and veils of heat, some strong and doubtful and restless sentiment seemed to change and then to fix. It was her physical acceptance — her eyes and her senses taking the West as she had already taken it in spirit.

A woman should love her home wherever fate placed her, Helen believed, and not so much from duty as from delight and romance and living. How could life ever be tedious or monotonous out here in this tremendous vastness of bare earth and open sky, where the need to achieve made thinking and pondering superficial?

It was with regret that she saw the last of the valley of the Rio Grande, and then of its paralleled mountain ranges. But the miles brought compensation in other valleys, other bold, black upheavals of rock, and then again bare, boundless yellow plains, and sparsely cedared ridges, and white dry washes, ghastly in the sunlight, and dazzling beds of alkali, and then a desert space where golden and blue flowers bloomed.

She noted, too, that the whites and yellows of earth and rock had begun to shade to red — and this she knew meant an approach to Arizona. Arizona, the wild, the lonely, the red desert, the green plateau — Arizona with its thundering rivers, its unknown spaces, its pasture-lands and timber-lands, its wild horses, cowboys, outlaws, wolves and lions and savages! As to a boy, that name stirred and thrilled and sang to her of nameless, sweet, intangible things, mysterious and all of adventure. But she, being a girl of twenty, who had accepted responsibilities, must conceal the depths of her heart and that which her mother had complained was her misfortune in not being born a boy.

Time passed, while Helen watched and learned and dreamed. The train stopped, at long intervals, at wayside stations where there seemed nothing but adobe sheds and lazy Mexicans, and dust and heat. Bo awoke and began to chatter, and to dig into the basket. She learned from the conductor that Magdalena was only two stations on. And she was full of conjectures as to who would meet them, what would happen. So Helen was drawn back to sober realities, in which there was considerable zest. Assuredly she did not know what was going to happen. Twice Riggs passed up and down the aisle, his dark face and light eyes and sardonic smile deliberately forced upon her sight. But again Helen fought a growing dread with contemptuous scorn. This fellow was not half a man. It was not conceivable what he could do, except annoy her, until she arrived at Pine. Her uncle was to meet her or send for her at Snowdrop, which place, Helen knew, was distant a good long ride by stage from Magdalena. This stage-ride was the climax and the dread of all the long journey, in Helen’s considerations.

“Oh, Nell!” cried Bo, with delight. “We’re nearly there! Next station, the conductor said.”

“I wonder if the stage travels at night,” said Helen, thoughtfully.

“Sure it does!” replied the irrepressible Bo.

The train, though it clattered along as usual, seemed to Helen to fly. There the sun was setting over bleak New Mexican bluffs, Magdalena was at hand, and night, and adventure. Helen’s heart beat fast. She watched the yellow plains where the cattle grazed; their presence, and irrigation ditches and cottonwood-trees told her that the railroad part of the journey was nearly ended. Then, at Bo’s little scream, she looked across the car and out of the window to see a line of low, flat, red-adobe houses. The train began to slow down. Helen saw children run, white children and Mexican together; then more houses, and high upon a hill an immense adobe church, crude and glaring, yet somehow beautiful.

Helen told Bo to put on her bonnet, and, performing a like office for herself, she was ashamed of the trembling of her fingers. There were bustle and talk in the car.

The train stopped. Helen peered out to see a straggling crowd of Mexicans and Indians, all motionless and stolid, as if trains or nothing else mattered. Next Helen saw a white man, and that was a relief. He stood out in front of the others. Tall and broad, somehow striking, he drew a second glance that showed him to be a hunter clad in gray-fringed buckskin, and carrying a rifle.

CHAPTER V

HERE, THERE WAS no kindly brakeman to help the sisters with their luggage. Helen bade Bo take her share; thus burdened, they made an awkward and laborious shift to get off the train.

Upon the platform of the car a strong hand seized Helen’s heavy bag, with which she was straining, and a loud voice called out:

“Girls, we’re here — sure out in the wild an’ woolly West!”

The speaker was Riggs, and he had possessed himself of part of her baggage with action and speech meant more to impress the curious crowd than to be really kind. In the excitement of arriving Helen had forgotten him. The manner of sudden reminder — the insincerity of it — made her temper flash. She almost fell, encumbered as she was, in her hurry to descend the steps. She saw the tall hunter in gray step forward close to her as she reached for the bag Riggs held.

“Mr. Riggs, I’ll carry my bag,” she said.

“Let me lug this. You help Bo with hers,” he replied, familiarly.

“But I want it,” she rejoined, quietly, with sharp determination. No little force was needed to pull the bag away from Riggs.

“See here, Helen, you ain’t goin’ any farther with that joke, are you?” he queried, deprecatingly, and he still spoke quite loud.

“It’s no joke to me,” replied Helen. “I told you I didn’t want your attention.”

“Sure. But that was temper. I’m your friend — from your home town. An’ I ain’t goin’ to let a quarrel keep me from lookin’ after you till you’re safe at your uncle’s.”

Helen turned her back upon him. The tall hunter had just helped Bo off the car. Then Helen looked up into a smooth bronzed face and piercing gray eyes.

“Are you Helen Rayner?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“My name’s Dale. I’ve come to meet you.”

“Ah! My uncle sent you?” added Helen, in quick relief.

“No; I can’t say Al sent me,” began the man, “but I reckon—”

He was interrupted by Riggs, who, grasping Helen by the arm, pulled her back a step.

“Say, mister, did Auchincloss send you to meet my young friends here?” he demanded, arrogantly.

Dale’s glance turned from Helen to Riggs. She could not read this quiet gray gaze, but it thrilled her.

“No. I come on my own hook,” he answered.

“You’ll understand, then — they’re in my charge,” added Riggs.

This time the steady light-gray eyes met Helen’s, and if there was not a smile in them or behind them she was still further baffled.

“Helen, I reckon you said you didn’t want this fellow’s attention.”

“I certainly said that,” replied Helen, quickly. Just then Bo slipped close to her and gave her arm a little squeeze. Probably Bo’s thought was like hers — here was a real Western man. That was her first impression, and following swiftly upon it was a sensation of eased nerves.

Riggs swaggered closer to Dale.

“Say, Buckskin, I hail from Texas—”

“You’re wastin’ our time an’ we’ve need to hurry,” interrupted Dale. His tone seemed friendly. “An’ if you ever lived long in Texas you wouldn’t pester a lady an’ you sure wouldn’t talk like you do.”

“What!” shouted Riggs, hotly. He dropped his right hand significantly to his hip.

“Don’t throw your gun. It might go off,” said Dale.

Whatever Riggs’s intention had been — and it was probably just what Dale evidently had read it — he now flushed an angry red and jerked at his gun.

Dale’s hand flashed too swiftly for Helen’s eye to follow it. But she heard the thud as it struck. The gun went flying to the platform and scattered a group of Indians and Mexicans.

“You’ll hurt yourself some day,” said Dale.

Helen had never heard a slow, cool voice like this hunter’s. Without excitement or emotion or hurry, it yet seemed full and significant of things the words did not mean. Bo uttered a strange little exultant cry.

Riggs’s arm had dropped limp. No doubt it was numb. He stared, and his predominating expression was surprise. As the shuffling crowd began to snicker and whisper, Riggs gave Dale a malignant glance, shifted it to Helen, and then lurched away in the direction of his gun.

Dale did not pay any more attention to him. Gathering up Helen’s baggage, he said, “Come on,” and shouldered a lane through the gaping crowd. The girls followed close at his heels.

“Nell! what ‘d I tell you?” whispered Bo. “Oh, you’re all atremble!”

Helen was aware of her unsteadiness; anger and fear and relief in quick succession had left her rather weak. Once through the motley crowd of loungers, she saw an old gray stage-coach and four lean horses. A grizzled, sunburned man sat on the driver’s seat, whip and reins in hand. Beside him was a younger man with rifle across his knees. Another man, young, tall, lean, dark, stood holding the coach door open. He touched his sombrero to the girls. His eyes were sharp as he addressed Dale.

“Milt, wasn’t you held up?”

“No. But some long-haired galoot was tryin’ to hold up the girls. Wanted to throw his gun on me. I was sure scared,” replied Dale, as he deposited the luggage.

Bo laughed. Her eyes, resting upon Dale, were warm and bright. The young man at the coach door took a second look at her, and then a smile changed the dark hardness of his face.

Dale helped the girls up the high step into the stage, and then, placing the lighter luggage, in with them, he threw the heavier pieces on top.

“Joe, climb up,” he said.

“Wal, Milt,” drawled the driver, “let’s ooze along.”

Dale hesitated, with his hand on the door. He glanced at the crowd, now edging close again, and then at Helen.

“I reckon I ought to tell you,” he said, and indecision appeared to concern him.

“What?” exclaimed Helen.

“Bad news. But talkin’ takes time. An’ we mustn’t lose any.”

“There’s need of hurry?” queried Helen, sitting up sharply.

“I reckon.”

“Is this the stage to Snowdrop?

“No. That leaves in the mornin’. We rustled this old trap to get a start to-night.”

“The sooner the better. But I — I don’t understand,” said Helen, bewildered.

“It’ll not be safe for you to ride on the mornin’ stage,” returned Dale.

“Safe! Oh, what do you mean?” exclaimed Helen. Apprehensively she gazed at him and then back at Bo.

“Explainin’ will take time. An’ facts may change your mind. But if you can’t trust me—”

“Trust you!” interposed Helen, blankly. “You mean to take us to Snowdrop?”

“I reckon we’d better go roundabout an’ not hit Snowdrop,” he replied, shortly.

“Then to Pine — to my uncle — Al Auchincloss?

“Yes, I’m goin’ to try hard.”

Helen caught her breath. She divined that some peril menaced her. She looked steadily, with all a woman’s keenness, into this man’s face. The moment was one of the fateful decisions she knew the West had in store for her. Her future and that of Bo’s were now to be dependent upon her judgments. It was a hard moment and, though she shivered inwardly, she welcomed the initial and inevitable step. This man Dale, by his dress of buckskin, must be either scout or hunter. His size, his action, the tone of his voice had been reassuring. But Helen must decide from what she saw in his face whether or not to trust him. And that face was clear bronze, unlined, unshadowed, like a tranquil mask, clean-cut, strong-jawed, with eyes of wonderful transparent gray.

“Yes, I’ll trust you,” she said. “Get in, and let us hurry. Then you can explain.”

“All ready, Bill. Send ’em along,” called Dale.

He had to stoop to enter the stage, and, once in, he appeared to fill that side upon which he sat. Then the driver cracked his whip; the stage lurched and began to roll; the motley crowd was left behind. Helen awakened to the reality, as she saw Bo staring with big eyes at the hunter, that a stranger adventure than she had ever dreamed of had began with the rattling roll of that old stage-coach.

Dale laid off his sombrero and leaned forward, holding his rifle between his knees. The light shone better upon his features now that he was bareheaded. Helen had never seen a face like that, which at first glance appeared darkly bronzed and hard, and then became clear, cold, aloof, still, intense. She wished she might see a smile upon it. And now that the die was cast she could not tell why she had trusted it. There was singular force in it, but she did not recognize what kind of force. One instant she thought it was stern, and the next that it was sweet, and again that it was neither.

“I’m glad you’ve got your sister,” he said, presently.

“How did you know she’s my sister?”

“I reckon she looks like you.”

“No one else ever thought so,” replied Helen, trying to smile.

Bo had no difficulty in smiling, as she said, “Wish I was half as pretty as Nell.”

“Nell. Isn’t your name Helen?” queried Dale.

“Yes. But my — some few call me Nell.”

“I like Nell better than Helen. An’ what’s yours?” went on Dale, looking at Bo.

“Mine’s Bo. Just plain B-o. Isn’t it silly? But I wasn’t asked when they gave it to me,” she replied.

“Bo. It’s nice an’ short. Never heard it before. But I haven’t met many people for years.”

“Oh! we’ve left the town!” cried Bo. “Look, Nell! How bare! It’s just like desert.”

“It is desert. We’ve forty miles of that before we come to a hill or a tree.”

Helen glanced out. A flat, dull-green expanse waved away from the road on and on to a bright, dark horizon-line, where the sun was setting rayless in a clear sky. Open, desolate, and lonely, the scene gave her a cold thrill.

“Did your uncle Al ever write anythin’ about a man named Beasley?” asked Dale.

“Indeed he did,” replied Helen, with a start of surprise. “Beasley! That name is familiar to us — and detestable. My uncle complained of this man for years. Then he grew bitter — accused Beasley. But the last year or so not a word!”

“Well, now,” began the hunter, earnestly, “let’s get the bad news over. I’m sorry you must be worried. But you must learn to take the West as it is. There’s good an’ bad, maybe more bad. That’s because the country’s young.... So to come right out with it — this Beasley hired a gang of outlaws to meet the stage you was goin’ in to Snowdrop — to-morrow — an’ to make off with you.”

“Make off with me?” ejaculated Helen, bewildered.

“Kidnap you! Which, in that gang, would be worse than killing you!” declared Dale, grimly, and he closed a huge fist on his knee.

Helen was utterly astounded.

“How hor-rible!” she gasped out. “Make off with me!... What in Heaven’s name for?”

Bo gave vent to a fierce little utterance.

“For reasons you ought to guess,” replied Dale, and he leaned forward again. Neither his voice nor face changed in the least, but yet there was a something about him that fascinated Helen. “I’m a hunter. I live in the woods. A few nights ago I happened to be caught out in a storm an’ I took to an old log cabin. Soon as I got there I heard horses. I hid up in the loft. Some men rode up an’ come in. It was dark. They couldn’t see me. An’ they talked. It turned out they were Snake Anson an’ his gang of sheep-thieves. They expected to meet Beasley there. Pretty soon he came. He told Anson how old Al, your uncle, was on his last legs — how he had sent for you to have his property when he died. Beasley swore he had claims on Al. An’ he made a deal with Anson to get you out of the way. He named the day you were to reach Magdalena. With Al dead an’ you not there, Beasley could get the property. An’ then he wouldn’t care if you did come to claim it. It ‘d be too late.... Well, they rode away that night. An’ next day I rustled down to Pine. They’re all my friends at Pine, except old Al. But they think I’m queer. I didn’t want to confide in many people. Beasley is strong in Pine, an’ for that matter I suspect Snake Anson has other friends there besides Beasley. So I went to see your uncle. He never had any use for me because he thought I was lazy like an Indian. Old Al hates lazy men. Then we fell out — or he fell out — because he believed a tame lion of mine had killed some of his sheep. An’ now I reckon that Tom might have done it. I tried to lead up to this deal of Beasley’s about you, but old Al wouldn’t listen. He’s cross — very cross. An’ when I tried to tell him, why, he went right out of his head. Sent me off the ranch. Now I reckon you begin to see what a pickle I was in. Finally I went to four friends I could trust. They’re Mormon boys — brothers. That’s Joe out on top, with the driver. I told them all about Beasley’s deal an’ asked them to help me. So we planned to beat Anson an’ his gang to Magdalena. It happens that Beasley is as strong in Magdalena as he is in Pine. An’ we had to go careful. But the boys had a couple of friends here — Mormons, too, who agreed to help us. They had this old stage.... An’ here you are.” Dale spread out his big hands and looked gravely at Helen and then at Bo.

“You’re perfectly splendid!” cried Bo, ringingly. She was white; her fingers were clenched; her eyes blazed.

Dale appeared startled out of his gravity, and surprised, then pleased. A smile made his face like a boy’s. Helen felt her body all rigid, yet slightly trembling. Her hands were cold. The horror of this revelation held her speechless. But in her heart she echoed Bo’s exclamation of admiration and gratitude.

“So far, then,” resumed Dale, with a heavy breath of relief. “No wonder you’re upset. I’ve a blunt way of talkin’.... Now we’ve thirty miles to ride on this Snowdrop road before we can turn off. To-day sometime the rest of the boys — Roy, John, an’ Hal — were to leave Show Down, which’s a town farther on from Snowdrop. They have my horses an’ packs besides their own. Somewhere on the road we’ll meet them — to-night, maybe — or tomorrow. I hope not to-night, because that ‘d mean Anson’s gang was ridin’ in to Magdalena.”

Helen wrung her hands helplessly.

“Oh, have I no courage?” she whispered.

“Nell, I’m as scared as you are,” said Bo, consolingly, embracing her sister.

“I reckon that’s natural,” said Dale, as if excusing them. “But, scared or not, you both brace up. It’s a bad job. But I’ve done my best. An’ you’ll be safer with me an’ the Beeman boys than you’d be in Magdalena, or anywhere else, except your uncle’s.”

“Mr. — Mr. Dale,” faltered Helen, with her tears falling, “don’t think me a coward — or — or ungrateful. I’m neither. It’s only I’m so — so shocked. After all we hoped and expected — this — this — is such a — a terrible surprise.”

“Never mind, Nell dear. Let’s take what comes,” murmured Bo.

“That’s the talk,” said Dale. “You see, I’ve come right out with the worst. Maybe we’ll get through easy. When we meet the boys we’ll take to the horses an’ the trails. Can you ride?”

“Bo has been used to horses all her life and I ride fairly well,” responded Helen. The idea of riding quickened her spirit.

“Good! We may have some hard ridin’ before I get you up to Pine. Hello! What’s that?”

Above the creaking, rattling, rolling roar of the stage Helen heard a rapid beat of hoofs. A horse flashed by, galloping hard.

Dale opened the door and peered out. The stage rolled to a halt. He stepped down and gazed ahead.

“Joe, who was that?” he queried.

“Nary me. An’ Bill didn’t know him, either,” replied Joe. “I seen him ‘way back. He was ridin’ some. An’ he slowed up goin’ past us. Now he’s runnin’ again.”

Dale shook his head as if he did not like the circumstances.

“Milt, he’ll never get by Roy on this road,” said Joe.

“Maybe he’ll get by before Roy strikes in on the road.”

“It ain’t likely.”

Helen could not restrain her fears. “Mr. Dale, you think he was a messenger — going ahead to post that — that Anson gang?”

“He might be,” replied Dale, simply.

Then the young man called Joe leaned out from the seat above and called: “Miss Helen, don’t you worry. Thet fellar is more liable to stop lead than anythin’ else.”

His words, meant to be kind and reassuring, were almost as sinister to Helen as the menace to her own life. Long had she known how cheap life was held in the West, but she had only known it abstractly, and she had never let the fact remain before her consciousness. This cheerful young man spoke calmly of spilling blood in her behalf. The thought it roused was tragic — for bloodshed was insupportable to her — and then the thrills which followed were so new, strange, bold, and tingling that they were revolting. Helen grew conscious of unplumbed depths, of instincts at which she was amazed and ashamed.

“Joe, hand down that basket of grub — the small one with the canteen,” said Dale, reaching out a long arm. Presently he placed a cloth-covered basket inside the stage. “Girls, eat all you want an’ then some.”

“We have a basket half full yet,” replied Helen.

“You’ll need it all before we get to Pine.... Now, I’ll ride up on top with the boys an’ eat my supper. It’ll be dark, presently, an’ we’ll stop often to listen. But don’t be scared.”

With that he took his rifle and, closing the door, clambered up to the driver’s seat. Then the stage lurched again and began to roll along.

Not the least thing to wonder at of this eventful evening was the way Bo reached for the basket of food. Helen simply stared at her.

“Bo, you CAN’T EAT!” she exclaimed.

“I should smile I can,” replied that practical young lady. “And you’re going to if I have to stuff things in your mouth. Where’s your wits, Nell? He said we must eat. That means our strength is going to have some pretty severe trials.... Gee! it’s all great — just like a story! The unexpected — why, he looks like a prince turned hunter! — long, dark, stage journey — held up — fight — escape — wild ride on horses — woods and camps and wild places — pursued — hidden in the forest — more hard rides — then safe at the ranch. And of course he falls madly in love with me — no, you, for I’ll be true to my Las Vegas lover—”

“Hush, silly! Bo, tell me, aren’t you SCARED?”

“Scared! I’m scared stiff. But if Western girls stand such things, we can. No Western girl is going to beat ME!”

That brought Helen to a realization of the brave place she had given herself in dreams, and she was at once ashamed of herself and wildly proud of this little sister.

“Bo, thank Heaven I brought you with me!” exclaimed Helen, fervently. “I’ll eat if it chokes me.”

Whereupon she found herself actually hungry, and while she ate she glanced out of the stage, first from one side and then from the other. These windows had no glass and they let the cool night air blow in. The sun had long since sunk. Out to the west, where a bold, black horizon-line swept away endlessly, the sky was clear gold, shading to yellow and blue above. Stars were out, pale and wan, but growing brighter. The earth appeared bare and heaving, like a calm sea. The wind bore a fragrance new to Helen, acridly sweet and clean, and it was so cold it made her fingers numb.

“I heard some animal yelp,” said Bo, suddenly, and she listened with head poised.

But Helen heard nothing save the steady clip-clop of hoofs, the clink of chains, the creak and rattle of the old stage, and occasionally the low voices of the men above.

When the girls had satisfied hunger and thirst, night had settled down black. They pulled the cloaks up over them, and close together leaned back in a corner of the seat and talked in whispers. Helen did not have much to say, but Bo was talkative.

“This beats me!” she said once, after an interval. “Where are we, Nell? Those men up there are Mormons. Maybe they are abducting us!”

“Mr. Dale isn’t a Mormon,” replied Helen.

“How do you know?”

“I could tell by the way he spoke of his friends.”

“Well, I wish it wasn’t so dark. I’m not afraid of men in daylight.... Nell, did you ever see such a wonderful looking fellow? What’d they call him? Milt — Milt Dale. He said he lived in the woods. If I hadn’t fallen in love with that cowboy who called me — well, I’d be a goner now.”

After an interval of silence Bo whispered, startlingly, “Wonder if Harve Riggs is following us now?”

“Of course he is,” replied Helen, hopelessly.

“He’d better look out. Why, Nell, he never saw — he never — what did Uncle Al used to call it? — sav — savvied — that’s it. Riggs never savvied that hunter. But I did, you bet.”

“Savvied! What do you mean, Bo?”

“I mean that long-haired galoot never saw his real danger. But I felt it. Something went light inside me. Dale never took him seriously at all.”

“Riggs will turn up at Uncle Al’s, sure as I’m born,” said Helen.

“Let him turn,” replied Bo, contemptuously. “Nell, don’t you ever bother your head again about him. I’ll bet they’re all men out here. And I wouldn’t be in Harve Riggs’s boots for a lot.”

After that Bo talked of her uncle and his fatal illness, and from that she drifted back to the loved ones at home, now seemingly at the other side of the world, and then she broke down and cried, after which she fell asleep on Helen’s shoulder.

But Helen could not have fallen asleep if she had wanted to.

She had always, since she could remember, longed for a moving, active life; and for want of a better idea she had chosen to dream of gipsies. And now it struck her grimly that, if these first few hours of her advent in the West were forecasts of the future, she was destined to have her longings more than fulfilled.

Presently the stage rolled slower and slower, until it came to a halt. Then the horses heaved, the harnesses clinked, the men whispered. Otherwise there was an intense quiet. She looked out, expecting to find it pitch-dark. It was black, yet a transparent blackness. To her surprise she could see a long way. A shooting-star electrified her. The men were listening. She listened, too, but beyond the slight sounds about the stage she heard nothing. Presently the driver clucked to his horses, and travel was resumed.

For a while the stage rolled on rapidly, evidently downhill, swaying from side to side, and rattling as if about to fall to pieces. Then it slowed on a level, and again it halted for a few moments, and once more in motion it began a laborsome climb. Helen imagined miles had been covered. The desert appeared to heave into billows, growing rougher, and dark, round bushes dimly stood out. The road grew uneven and rocky, and when the stage began another descent its violent rocking jolted Bo out of her sleep and in fact almost out of Helen’s arms.

“Where am I?” asked Bo, dazedly.

“Bo, you’re having your heart’s desire, but I can’t tell you where you are,” replied Helen.

Bo awakened thoroughly, which fact was now no wonder, considering the jostling of the old stage.

“Hold on to me, Nell!... Is it a runaway?”

“We’ve come about a thousand miles like this, I think,” replied Helen. “I’ve not a whole bone in my body.”

Bo peered out of the window.

“Oh, how dark and lonesome! But it’d be nice if it wasn’t so cold. I’m freezing.”

“I thought you loved cold air,” taunted Helen.

“Say, Nell, you begin to talk like yourself,” responded Bo.

It was difficult to hold on to the stage and each other and the cloak all at once, but they succeeded, except in the roughest places, when from time to time they were bounced around. Bo sustained a sharp rap on the head.

“Oooooo!” she moaned. “Nell Rayner, I’ll never forgive you for fetching me on this awful trip.”

“Just think of your handsome Las Vegas cowboy,” replied Helen.

Either this remark subdued Bo or the suggestion sufficed to reconcile her to the hardships of the ride.

Meanwhile, as they talked and maintained silence and tried to sleep, the driver of the stage kept at his task after the manner of Western men who knew how to get the best out of horses and bad roads and distance.

By and by the stage halted again and remained at a standstill for so long, with the men whispering on top, that Helen and Bo were roused to apprehension.

Suddenly a sharp whistle came from the darkness ahead.

“Thet’s Roy,” said Joe Beeman, in a low voice.

“I reckon. An’ meetin’ us so quick looks bad,” replied Dale. “Drive on, Bill.”

“Mebbe it seems quick to you,” muttered the driver, “but if we hain’t come thirty mile, an’ if thet ridge thar hain’t your turnin’-off place, why, I don’t know nothin’.”

The stage rolled on a little farther, while Helen and Bo sat clasping each other tight, wondering with bated breath what was to be the next thing to happen.

Then once more they were at a standstill. Helen heard the thud of boots striking the ground, and the snorts of horses.

“Nell, I see horses,” whispered Bo, excitedly. “There, to the side of the road... and here comes a man.... Oh, if he shouldn’t be the one they’re expecting!”

Helen peered out to see a tall, dark form, moving silently, and beyond it a vague outline of horses, and then pale gleams of what must have been pack-loads.

Dale loomed up, and met the stranger in the road.

“Howdy, Milt? You got the girl sure, or you wouldn’t be here,” said a low voice.

“Roy, I’ve got two girls — sisters,” replied Dale.

The man Roy whistled softly under his breath. Then another lean, rangy form strode out of the darkness, and was met by Dale.

“Now, boys — how about Anson’s gang?” queried Dale.

“At Snowdrop, drinkin’ an’ quarrelin’. Reckon they’ll leave there about daybreak,” replied Roy.

“How long have you been here?”

“Mebbe a couple of hours.”

“Any horse go by?”

“No.”

“Roy, a strange rider passed us before dark. He was hittin’ the road. An’ he’s got by here before you came.”

“I don’t like thet news,” replied Roy, tersely. “Let’s rustle. With girls on hossback you’ll need all the start you can get. Hey, John?”

“Snake Anson shore can foller hoss tracks,” replied the third man.

“Milt, say the word,” went on Roy, as he looked up at the stars. “Daylight not far away. Here’s the forks of the road, an’ your hosses, an’ our outfit. You can be in the pines by sunup.”

In the silence that ensued Helen heard the throb of her heart and the panting little breaths of her sister. They both peered out, hands clenched together, watching and listening in strained attention.

“It’s possible that rider last night wasn’t a messenger to Anson,” said Dale. “In that case Anson won’t make anythin’ of our wheel tracks or horse tracks. He’ll go right on to meet the regular stage. Bill, can you go back an’ meet the stage comin’ before Anson does?”

“Wal, I reckon so — an’ take it easy at thet,” replied Bill.

“All right,” continued Dale, instantly. “John, you an’ Joe an’ Hal ride back to meet the regular stage. An’ when you meet it get on an’ be on it when Anson holds it up.”

“Thet’s shore agreeable to me,” drawled John.

“I’d like to be on it, too,” said Roy, grimly.

“No. I’ll need you till I’m safe in the woods. Bill, hand down the bags. An’ you, Roy, help me pack them. Did you get all the supplies I wanted?”

“Shore did. If the young ladies ain’t powerful particular you can feed them well for a couple of months.”

Dale wheeled and, striding to the stage, he opened the door.

“Girls, you’re not asleep? Come,” he called.

Bo stepped down first.

“I was asleep till this — this vehicle fell off the road back a ways,” she replied.

Roy Beeman’s low laugh was significant. He took off his sombrero and stood silent. The old driver smothered a loud guffaw.

“Veehicle! Wal, I’ll be doggoned! Joe, did you hear thet? All the spunky gurls ain’t born out West.”

As Helen followed with cloak and bag Roy assisted her, and she encountered keen eyes upon her face. He seemed both gentle and respectful, and she felt his solicitude. His heavy gun, swinging low, struck her as she stepped down.

Dale reached into the stage and hauled out baskets and bags. These he set down on the ground.

“Turn around, Bill, an’ go along with you. John an’ Hal will follow presently,” ordered Dale.

“Wal, gurls,” said Bill, looking down upon them, “I was shore powerful glad to meet you-all. An’ I’m ashamed of my country — offerin’ two sich purty gurls insults an’ low-down tricks. But shore you’ll go through safe now. You couldn’t be in better company fer ridin’ or huntin’ or marryin’ or gittin’ religion—”

“Shut up, you old grizzly!” broke in Dale, sharply.

“Haw! Haw! Good-by, gurls, an’ good luck!” ended Bill, as he began to whip the reins.

Bo said good-by quite distinctly, but Helen could only murmur hers. The old driver seemed a friend.

Then the horses wheeled and stamped, the stage careened and creaked, presently to roll out of sight in the gloom.

“You’re shiverin’,” said Dale, suddenly, looking down upon Helen. She felt his big, hard hand clasp hers. “Cold as ice!”

“I am c-cold,” replied Helen. “I guess we’re not warmly dressed.”

“Nell, we roasted all day, and now we’re freezing,” declared Bo. “I didn’t know it was winter at night out here.”

“Miss, haven’t you some warm gloves an’ a coat?” asked Roy, anxiously. “It ‘ain’t begun to get cold yet.”

“Nell, we’ve heavy gloves, riding-suits and boots — all fine and new — in this black bag,” said Bo, enthusiastically kicking a bag at her feet.

“Yes, so we have. But a lot of good they’ll do us, to-night,” returned Helen.

“Miss, you’d do well to change right here,” said Roy, earnestly. “It’ll save time in the long run an’ a lot of sufferin’ before sunup.”

Helen stared at the young man, absolutely amazed with his simplicity. She was advised to change her traveling-dress for a riding-suit — out somewhere in a cold, windy desert — in the middle of the night — among strange young men!

“Bo, which bag is it?” asked Dale, as if she were his sister. And when she indicated the one, he picked it up. “Come off the road.”

Bo followed him, and Helen found herself mechanically at their heels. Dale led them a few paces off the road behind some low bushes.

“Hurry an’ change here,” he said. “We’ll make a pack of your outfit an’ leave room for this bag.”

Then he stalked away and in a few strides disappeared.

Bo sat down to begin unlacing her shoes. Helen could just see her pale, pretty face and big, gleaming eyes by the light of the stars. It struck her then that Bo was going to make eminently more of a success of Western life than she was.

“Nell, those fellows are n-nice,” said Bo, reflectively. “Aren’t you c-cold? Say, he said hurry!”

It was beyond Helen’s comprehension how she ever began to disrobe out there in that open, windy desert, but after she had gotten launched on the task she found that it required more fortitude than courage. The cold wind pierced right through her. Almost she could have laughed at the way Bo made things fly.

“G-g-g-gee!” chattered Bo. “I n-never w-was so c-c-cold in all my life. Nell Rayner, m-may the g-good Lord forgive y-you!”

Helen was too intent on her own troubles to take breath to talk. She was a strong, healthy girl, swift and efficient with her hands, yet this, the hardest physical ordeal she had ever experienced, almost overcame her. Bo outdistanced her by moments, helped her with buttons, and laced one whole boot for her. Then, with hands that stung, Helen packed the traveling-suits in the bag.

“There! But what an awful mess!” exclaimed Helen. “Oh, Bo, our pretty traveling-dresses!”

“We’ll press them t-to-morrow — on a l-log,” replied Bo, and she giggled.

They started for the road. Bo, strange to note, did not carry her share of the burden, and she seemed unsteady on her feet.

The men were waiting beside a group of horses, one of which carried a pack.

“Nothin’ slow about you,” said Dale, relieving Helen of the grip. “Roy, put them up while I sling on this bag.”

Roy led out two of the horses.

“Get up,” he said, indicating Bo. “The stirrups are short on this saddle.”

Bo was an adept at mounting, but she made such awkward and slow work of it in this instance that Helen could not believe her eyes.

“Haw ‘re the stirrups?” asked Roy. “Stand in them. Guess they’re about right.... Careful now! Thet hoss is skittish. Hold him in.”

Bo was not living up to the reputation with which Helen had credited her.

“Now, miss, you get up,” said Roy to Helen. And in another instant she found herself astride a black, spirited horse. Numb with cold as she was, she yet felt the coursing thrills along her veins.

Roy was at the stirrups with swift hands.

“You’re taller ‘n I guessed,” he said. “Stay up, but lift your foot.... Shore now, I’m glad you have them thick, soft boots. Mebbe we’ll ride all over the White Mountains.”

“Bo, do you hear that?” called Helen.

But Bo did not answer. She was leaning rather unnaturally in her saddle. Helen became anxious. Just then Dale strode back to them.

“All cinched up, Roy?”

“Jest ready,” replied Roy.

Then Dale stood beside Helen. How tall he was! His wide shoulders seemed on a level with the pommel of her saddle. He put an affectionate hand on the horse.

“His name’s Ranger an’ he’s the fastest an’ finest horse in this country.”

“I reckon he shore is — along with my bay,” corroborated Roy.

“Roy, if you rode Ranger he’d beat your pet,” said Dale. “We can start now. Roy, you drive the pack-horses.”

He took another look at Helen’s saddle and then moved to do likewise with Bo’s.

“Are you — all right?” he asked, quickly.

Bo reeled in her seat.

“I’m n-near froze,” she replied, in a faint voice. Her face shone white in the starlight. Helen recognized that Bo was more than cold.

“Oh, Bo!” she called, in distress.

“Nell, don’t you worry, now.”

“Let me carry you,” suggested Dale.

“No. I’ll s-s-stick on this horse or d-die,” fiercely retorted Bo.

The two men looked up at her white face and then at each other. Then Roy walked away toward the dark bunch of horses off the road and Dale swung astride the one horse left.

“Keep close to me,” he said.

Bo fell in line and Helen brought up the rear.

Helen imagined she was near the end of a dream. Presently she would awaken with a start and see the pale walls of her little room at home, and hear the cherry branches brushing her window, and the old clarion-voiced cock proclaim the hour of dawn.

CHAPTER VI

THE HORSES TROTTED. And the exercise soon warmed Helen, until she was fairly comfortable except in her fingers. In mind, however, she grew more miserable as she more fully realized her situation. The night now became so dark that, although the head of her horse was alongside the flank of Bo’s, she could scarcely see Bo. From time to time Helen’s anxious query brought from her sister the answer that she was all right.

Helen had not ridden a horse for more than a year, and for several years she had not ridden with any regularity. Despite her thrills upon mounting, she had entertained misgivings. But she was agreeably surprised, for the horse, Ranger, had an easy gait, and she found she had not forgotten how to ride. Bo, having been used to riding on a farm near home, might be expected to acquit herself admirably. It occurred to Helen what a plight they would have been in but for the thick, comfortable riding outfits.

Dark as the night was, Helen could dimly make out the road underneath. It was rocky, and apparently little used. When Dale turned off the road into the low brush or sage of what seemed a level plain, the traveling was harder, rougher, and yet no slower. The horses kept to the gait of the leaders. Helen, discovering it unnecessary, ceased attempting to guide Ranger. There were dim shapes in the gloom ahead, and always they gave Helen uneasiness, until closer approach proved them to be rocks or low, scrubby trees. These increased in both size and number as the horses progressed. Often Helen looked back into the gloom behind. This act was involuntary and occasioned her sensations of dread. Dale expected to be pursued. And Helen experienced, along with the dread, flashes of unfamiliar resentment. Not only was there an attempt afoot to rob her of her heritage, but even her personal liberty. Then she shuddered at the significance of Dale’s words regarding her possible abduction by this hired gang. It seemed monstrous, impossible. Yet, manifestly it was true enough to Dale and his allies. The West, then, in reality was raw, hard, inevitable.

Suddenly her horse stopped. He had come up alongside Bo’s horse. Dale had halted ahead, and apparently was listening. Roy and the pack-train were out of sight in the gloom.

“What is it?” whispered Helen.

“Reckon I heard a wolf,” replied Dale.

“Was that cry a wolf’s?” asked Bo. “I heard. It was wild.”

“We’re gettin’ up close to the foot-hills,” said Dale. “Feel how much colder the air is.”

“I’m warm now,” replied Bo. “I guess being near froze was what ailed me.... Nell, how ‘re you?”

“I’m warm, too, but—” Helen answered.

“If you had your choice of being here or back home, snug in bed — which would you take?” asked Bo.

“Bo!” exclaimed Helen, aghast.

“Well, I’d choose to be right here on this horse,” rejoined Bo.

Dale heard her, for he turned an instant, then slapped his horse and started on.

Helen now rode beside Bo, and for a long time they climbed steadily in silence. Helen knew when that dark hour before dawn had passed, and she welcomed an almost imperceptible lightening in the east. Then the stars paled. Gradually a grayness absorbed all but the larger stars. The great white morning star, wonderful as Helen had never seen it, lost its brilliance and life and seemed to retreat into the dimming blue.

Daylight came gradually, so that the gray desert became distinguishable by degrees. Rolling bare hills, half obscured by the gray lifting mantle of night, rose in the foreground, and behind was gray space, slowly taking form and substance. In the east there was a kindling of pale rose and silver that lengthened and brightened along a horizon growing visibly rugged.

“Reckon we’d better catch up with Roy,” said Dale, and he spurred his horse.

Ranger and Bo’s mount needed no other urging, and they swung into a canter. Far ahead the pack-animals showed with Roy driving them. The cold wind was so keen in Helen’s face that tears blurred her eyes and froze her cheeks. And riding Ranger at that pace was like riding in a rocking-chair. That ride, invigorating and exciting, seemed all too short.

“Oh, Nell, I don’t care — what becomes of — me!” exclaimed Bo, breathlessly.

Her face was white and red, fresh as a rose, her eyes glanced darkly blue, her hair blew out in bright, unruly strands. Helen knew she felt some of the physical stimulation that had so roused Bo, and seemed so irresistible, but somber thought was not deflected thereby.

It was clear daylight when Roy led off round a knoll from which patches of scrubby trees — cedars, Dale called them — straggled up on the side of the foot-hills.

“They grow on the north slopes, where the snow stays longest,” said Dale.

They descended into a valley that looked shallow, but proved to be deep and wide, and then began to climb another foot-hill. Upon surmounting it Helen saw the rising sun, and so glorious a view confronted her that she was unable to answer Bo’s wild exclamations.

Bare, yellow, cedar-dotted slopes, apparently level, so gradual was the ascent, stretched away to a dense ragged line of forest that rose black over range after range, at last to fail near the bare summit of a magnificent mountain, sunrise-flushed against the blue sky.

“Oh, beautiful!” cried Bo. “But they ought to be called Black Mountains.”

“Old Baldy, there, is white half the year,” replied Dale.

“Look back an’ see what you say,” suggested Roy.

The girls turned to gaze silently. Helen imagined she looked down upon the whole wide world. How vastly different was the desert! Verily it yawned away from her, red and gold near at hand, growing softly flushed with purple far away, a barren void, borderless and immense, where dark-green patches and black lines and upheaved ridges only served to emphasize distance and space.

“See thet little green spot,” said Roy, pointing. “Thet’s Snowdrop. An’ the other one— ‘way to the right — thet’s Show Down.”

“Where is Pine?” queried Helen, eagerly.

“Farther still, up over the foot-hills at the edge of the woods.”

“Then we’re riding away from it.”

“Yes. If we’d gone straight for Pine thet gang could overtake us. Pine is four days’ ride. An’ by takin’ to the mountains Milt can hide his tracks. An’ when he’s thrown Anson off the scent, then he’ll circle down to Pine.”

“Mr. Dale, do you think you’ll get us there safely — and soon?” asked Helen, wistfully.

“I won’t promise soon, but I promise safe. An’ I don’t like bein’ called Mister,” he replied.

“Are we ever going to eat?” inquired Bo, demurely.

At this query Roy Beeman turned with a laugh to look at Bo. Helen saw his face fully in the light, and it was thin and hard, darkly bronzed, with eyes like those of a hawk, and with square chin and lean jaws showing scant, light beard.

“We shore are,” he replied. “Soon as we reach the timber. Thet won’t be long.”

“Reckon we can rustle some an’ then take a good rest,” said Dale, and he urged his horse into a jog-trot.

During a steady trot for a long hour, Helen’s roving eyes were everywhere, taking note of the things from near to far — the scant sage that soon gave place to as scanty a grass, and the dark blots that proved to be dwarf cedars, and the ravines opening out as if by magic from what had appeared level ground, to wind away widening between gray stone walls, and farther on, patches of lonely pine-trees, two and three together, and then a straggling clump of yellow aspens, and up beyond the fringed border of forest, growing nearer all the while, the black sweeping benches rising to the noble dome of the dominant mountain of the range.

No birds or animals were seen in that long ride up toward the timber, which fact seemed strange to Helen. The air lost something of its cold, cutting edge as the sun rose higher, and it gained sweeter tang of forest-land. The first faint suggestion of that fragrance was utterly new to Helen, yet it brought a vague sensation of familiarity and with it an emotion as strange. It was as if she had smelled that keen, pungent tang long ago, and her physical sense caught it before her memory.

The yellow plain had only appeared to be level. Roy led down into a shallow ravine, where a tiny stream meandered, and he followed this around to the left, coming at length to a point where cedars and dwarf pines formed a little grove. Here, as the others rode up, he sat cross-legged in his saddle, and waited.

“We’ll hang up awhile,” he said. “Reckon you’re tired?”

“I’m hungry, but not tired yet,” replied Bo.

Helen dismounted, to find that walking was something she had apparently lost the power to do. Bo laughed at her, but she, too, was awkward when once more upon the ground.

Then Roy got down. Helen was surprised to find him lame. He caught her quick glance.

“A hoss threw me once an’ rolled on me. Only broke my collar-bone, five ribs, one arm, an’ my bow-legs in two places!”

Notwithstanding this evidence that he was a cripple, as he stood there tall and lithe in his homespun, ragged garments, he looked singularly powerful and capable.

“Reckon walkin’ around would be good for you girls,” advised Dale. “If you ain’t stiff yet, you’ll be soon. An’ walkin’ will help. Don’t go far. I’ll call when breakfast’s ready.”

A little while later the girls were whistled in from their walk and found camp-fire and meal awaiting them. Roy was sitting cross-legged, like an Indian, in front of a tarpaulin, upon which was spread a homely but substantial fare. Helen’s quick eye detected a cleanliness and thoroughness she had scarcely expected to find in the camp cooking of men of the wilds. Moreover, the fare was good. She ate heartily, and as for Bo’s appetite, she was inclined to be as much ashamed of that as amused at it. The young men were all eyes, assiduous in their service to the girls, but speaking seldom. It was not lost upon Helen how Dale’s gray gaze went often down across the open country. She divined apprehension from it rather than saw much expression in it.

“I — declare,” burst out Bo, when she could not eat any more, “this isn’t believable. I’m dreaming.... Nell, the black horse you rode is the prettiest I ever saw.”

Ranger, with the other animals, was grazing along the little brook. Packs and saddles had been removed. The men ate leisurely. There was little evidence of hurried flight. Yet Helen could not cast off uneasiness. Roy might have been deep, and careless, with a motive to spare the girls’ anxiety, but Dale seemed incapable of anything he did not absolutely mean.

“Rest or walk,” he advised the girls. “We’ve got forty miles to ride before dark.”

Helen preferred to rest, but Bo walked about, petting the horses and prying into the packs. She was curious and eager.

Dale and Roy talked in low tones while they cleaned up the utensils and packed them away in a heavy canvas bag.

“You really expect Anson ‘ll strike my trail this mornin’?” Dale was asking.

“I shore do,” replied Roy.

“An’ how do you figure that so soon?”

“How’d you figure it — if you was Snake Anson?” queried Roy, in reply.

“Depends on that rider from Magdalena,” Said Dale, soberly. “Although it’s likely I’d seen them wheel tracks an’ hoss tracks made where we turned off. But supposin’ he does.”

“Milt, listen. I told you Snake met us boys face to face day before yesterday in Show Down. An’ he was plumb curious.”

“But he missed seein’ or hearin’ about me,” replied Dale.

“Mebbe he did an’ mebbe he didn’t. Anyway, what’s the difference whether he finds out this mornin’ or this evenin’?”

“Then you ain’t expectin’ a fight if Anson holds up the stage?”

“Wal, he’d have to shoot first, which ain’t likely. John an’ Hal, since thet shootin’-scrape a year ago, have been sort of gun-shy. Joe might get riled. But I reckon the best we can be shore of is a delay. An’ it’d be sense not to count on thet.”

“Then you hang up here an’ keep watch for Anson’s gang — say long enough so’s to be sure they’d be in sight if they find our tracks this mornin’. Makin’ sure one way or another, you ride ‘cross-country to Big Spring, where I’ll camp to-night.”

Roy nodded approval of that suggestion. Then without more words both men picked up ropes and went after the horses. Helen was watching Dale, so that when Bo cried out in great excitement Helen turned to see a savage yellow little mustang standing straight up on his hind legs and pawing the air. Roy had roped him and was now dragging him into camp.

“Nell, look at that for a wild pony!” exclaimed Bo.

Helen busied herself getting well out of the way of the infuriated mustang. Roy dragged him to a cedar near by.

“Come now, Buckskin,” said Roy, soothingly, and he slowly approached the quivering animal. He went closer, hand over hand, on the lasso. Buckskin showed the whites of his eyes and also his white teeth. But he stood while Roy loosened the loop and, slipping it down over his head, fastened it in a complicated knot round his nose.

“Thet’s a hackamore,” he said, indicating the knot. “He’s never had a bridle, an’ never will have one, I reckon.”

“You don’t ride him?” queried Helen.

“Sometimes I do,” replied Roy, with a smile. “Would you girls like to try him?”

“Excuse me,” answered Helen.

“Gee!” ejaculated Bo. “He looks like a devil. But I’d tackle him — if you think I could.”

The wild leaven of the West had found quick root in Bo Rayner.

“Wal, I’m sorry, but I reckon I’ll not let you — for a spell,” replied Roy, dryly.

“He pitches somethin’ powerful bad.”

“Pitches. You mean bucks?”

“I reckon.”

In the next half-hour Helen saw more and learned more about how horses of the open range were handled than she had ever heard of. Excepting Ranger, and Roy’s bay, and the white pony Bo rode, the rest of the horses had actually to be roped and hauled into camp to be saddled and packed. It was a job for fearless, strong men, and one that called for patience as well as arms of iron. So that for Helen Rayner the thing succeeding the confidence she had placed in these men was respect. To an observing woman that half-hour told much.

When all was in readiness for a start Dale mounted, and said, significantly: “Roy, I’ll look for you about sundown. I hope no sooner.”

“Wal, it’d be bad if I had to rustle along soon with bad news. Let’s hope for the best. We’ve been shore lucky so far. Now you take to the pine-mats in the woods an’ hide your trail.”

Dale turned away. Then the girls bade Roy good-by, and followed. Soon Roy and his buckskin-colored mustang were lost to sight round a clump of trees.

The unhampered horses led the way; the pack-animals trotted after them; the riders were close behind. All traveled at a jog-trot. And this gait made the packs bob up and down and from side to side. The sun felt warm at Helen’s back and the wind lost its frosty coldness, that almost appeared damp, for a dry, sweet fragrance. Dale drove up the shallow valley that showed timber on the levels above and a black border of timber some few miles ahead. It did not take long to reach the edge of the forest.

Helen wondered why the big pines grew so far on that plain and no farther. Probably the growth had to do with snow, but, as the ground was level, she could not see why the edge of the woods should come just there.

They rode into the forest.

To Helen it seemed a strange, critical entrance into another world, which she was destined to know and to love. The pines were big, brown-barked, seamed, and knotted, with no typical conformation except a majesty and beauty. They grew far apart. Few small pines and little underbrush flourished beneath them. The floor of this forest appeared remarkable in that it consisted of patches of high silvery grass and wide brown areas of pine-needles. These manifestly were what Roy had meant by pine-mats. Here and there a fallen monarch lay riven or rotting. Helen was presently struck with the silence of the forest and the strange fact that the horses seldom made any sound at all, and when they did it was a cracking of dead twig or thud of hoof on log. Likewise she became aware of a springy nature of the ground. And then she saw that the pine-mats gave like rubber cushions under the hoofs of the horses, and after they had passed sprang back to place again, leaving no track. Helen could not see a sign of a trail they left behind. Indeed, it would take a sharp eye to follow Dale through that forest. This knowledge was infinitely comforting to Helen, and for the first time since the flight had begun she felt a lessening of the weight upon mind and heart. It left her free for some of the appreciation she might have had in this wonderful ride under happier circumstances.

Bo, however, seemed too young, too wild, too intense to mind what the circumstances were. She responded to reality. Helen began to suspect that the girl would welcome any adventure, and Helen knew surely now that Bo was a true Auchincloss. For three long days Helen had felt a constraint with which heretofore she had been unfamiliar; for the last hours it had been submerged under dread. But it must be, she concluded, blood like her sister’s, pounding at her veins to be set free to race and to burn.

Bo loved action. She had an eye for beauty, but she was not contemplative. She was now helping Dale drive the horses and hold them in rather close formation. She rode well, and as yet showed no symptoms of fatigue or pain. Helen began to be aware of both, but not enough yet to limit her interest.

A wonderful forest without birds did not seem real to her. Of all living creatures in nature Helen liked birds best, and she knew many and could imitate the songs of a few. But here under the stately pines there were no birds. Squirrels, however, began to be seen here and there, and in the course of an hour’s travel became abundant. The only one with which she was familiar was the chipmunk. All the others, from the slim bright blacks to the striped russets and the white-tailed grays, were totally new to her. They appeared tame and curious. The reds barked and scolded at the passing cavalcade; the blacks glided to some safe branch, there to watch; the grays paid no especial heed to this invasion of their domain.

Once Dale, halting his horse, pointed with long arm, and Helen, following the direction, descried several gray deer standing in a glade, motionless, with long ears up. They made a wild and beautiful picture. Suddenly they bounded away with remarkable springy strides.

The forest on the whole held to the level, open character, but there were swales and stream-beds breaking up its regular conformity. Toward noon, however, it gradually changed, a fact that Helen believed she might have observed sooner had she been more keen. The general lay of the land began to ascend, and the trees to grow denser.

She made another discovery. Ever since she had entered the forest she had become aware of a fullness in her head and a something affecting her nostrils. She imagined, with regret, that she had taken cold. But presently her head cleared somewhat and she realized that the thick pine odor of the forest had clogged her nostrils as if with a sweet pitch. The smell was overpowering and disagreeable because of its strength. Also her throat and lungs seemed to burn.

When she began to lose interest in the forest and her surroundings it was because of aches and pains which would no longer be denied recognition. Thereafter she was not permitted to forget them and they grew worse. One, especially, was a pain beyond all her experience. It lay in the muscles of her side, above her hip, and it grew to be a treacherous thing, for it was not persistent. It came and went. After it did come, with a terrible flash, it could be borne by shifting or easing the body. But it gave no warning. When she expected it she was mistaken; when she dared to breathe again, then, with piercing swiftness, it returned like a blade in her side. This, then, was one of the riding-pains that made a victim of a tenderfoot on a long ride. It was almost too much to be borne. The beauty of the forest, the living creatures to be seen scurrying away, the time, distance — everything faded before that stablike pain. To her infinite relief she found that it was the trot that caused this torture. When Ranger walked she did not have to suffer it. Therefore she held him to a walk as long as she dared or until Dale and Bo were almost out of sight; then she loped him ahead until he had caught up.

So the hours passed, the sun got around low, sending golden shafts under the trees, and the forest gradually changed to a brighter, but a thicker, color. This slowly darkened. Sunset was not far away.

She heard the horses splashing in water, and soon she rode up to see the tiny streams of crystal water running swiftly over beds of green moss. She crossed a number of these and followed along the last one into a more open place in the forest where the pines were huge, towering, and far apart. A low, gray bluff of stone rose to the right, perhaps one-third as high as the trees. From somewhere came the rushing sound of running water.

“Big Spring,” announced Dale. “We camp here. You girls have done well.”

Another glance proved to Helen that all those little streams poured from under this gray bluff.

“I’m dying for a drink,” cried Bo with her customary hyperbole.

“I reckon you’ll never forget your first drink here,” remarked Dale.

Bo essayed to dismount, and finally fell off, and when she did get to the ground her legs appeared to refuse their natural function, and she fell flat. Dale helped her up.

“What’s wrong with me, anyhow?” she demanded, in great amaze.

“Just stiff, I reckon,” replied Dale, as he led her a few awkward steps.

“Bo, have you any hurts?” queried Helen, who still sat her horse, loath to try dismounting, yet wanting to beyond all words.

Bo gave her an eloquent glance.

“Nell, did you have one in your side, like a wicked, long darning-needle, punching deep when you weren’t ready?”

“That one I’ll never get over!” exclaimed Helen, softly. Then, profiting by Bo’s experience, she dismounted cautiously, and managed to keep upright. Her legs felt like wooden things.

Presently the girls went toward the spring.

“Drink slow,” called out Dale.

Big Spring had its source somewhere deep under the gray, weathered bluff, from which came a hollow subterranean gurgle and roar of water. Its fountainhead must have been a great well rushing up through the cold stone.

Helen and Bo lay flat on a mossy bank, seeing their faces as they bent over, and they sipped a mouthful, by Dale’s advice, and because they were so hot and parched and burning they wanted to tarry a moment with a precious opportunity.

The water was so cold that it sent a shock over Helen, made her teeth ache, and a singular, revivifying current steal all through her, wonderful in its cool absorption of that dry heat of flesh, irresistible in its appeal to thirst. Helen raised her head to look at this water. It was colorless as she had found it tasteless.

“Nell — drink!” panted Bo. “Think of our — old spring — in the orchard — full of pollywogs!”

And then Helen drank thirstily, with closed eyes, while a memory of home stirred from Bo’s gift of poignant speech.

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST CAMP duty Dale performed was to throw a pack off one of the horses, and, opening it, he took out tarpaulin and blankets, which he arranged on the ground under a pine-tree.

“You girls rest,” he said, briefly.

“Can’t we help?” asked Helen, though she could scarcely stand.

“You’ll be welcome to do all you like after you’re broke in.”

“Broke in!” ejaculated Bo, with a little laugh. “I’m all broke UP now.”

“Bo, it looks as if Mr. Dale expects us to have quite a stay with him in the woods.”

“It does,” replied Bo, as slowly she sat down upon the blankets, stretched out with a long sigh, and laid her head on a saddle. “Nell, didn’t he say not to call him Mister?”

Dale was throwing the packs off the other horses.

Helen lay down beside Bo, and then for once in her life she experienced the sweetness of rest.

“Well, sister, what do you intend to call him?” queried Helen, curiously.

“Milt, of course,” replied Bo.

Helen had to laugh despite her weariness and aches.

“I suppose, then, when your Las Vegas cowboy comes along you will call him what he called you.”

Bo blushed, which was a rather unusual thing for her.

“I will if I like,” she retorted. “Nell, ever since I could remember you’ve raved about the West. Now you’re OUT West, right in it good and deep. So wake up!”

That was Bo’s blunt and characteristic way of advising the elimination of Helen’s superficialities. It sank deep. Helen had no retort. Her ambition, as far as the West was concerned, had most assuredly not been for such a wild, unheard-of jaunt as this. But possibly the West — a living from day to day — was one succession of adventures, trials, tests, troubles, and achievements. To make a place for others to live comfortably some day! That might be Bo’s meaning, embodied in her forceful hint. But Helen was too tired to think it out then. She found it interesting and vaguely pleasant to watch Dale.

He hobbled the horses and turned them loose. Then with ax in hand he approached a short, dead tree, standing among a few white-barked aspens. Dale appeared to advantage swinging the ax. With his coat off, displaying his wide shoulders, straight back, and long, powerful arms, he looked a young giant. He was lithe and supple, brawny but not bulky. The ax rang on the hard wood, reverberating through the forest. A few strokes sufficed to bring down the stub. Then he split it up. Helen was curious to see how he kindled a fire. First he ripped splinters out of the heart of the log, and laid them with coarser pieces on the ground. Then from a saddlebag which hung on a near-by branch he took flint and steel and a piece of what Helen supposed was rag or buckskin, upon which powder had been rubbed. At any rate, the first strike of the steel brought sparks, a blaze, and burning splinters. Instantly the flame leaped a foot high. He put on larger pieces of wood crosswise, and the fire roared.

That done, he stood erect, and, facing the north, he listened. Helen remembered now that she had seen him do the same thing twice before since the arrival at Big Spring. It was Roy for whom he was listening and watching. The sun had set and across the open space the tips of the pines were losing their brightness.

The camp utensils, which the hunter emptied out of a sack, gave forth a jangle of iron and tin. Next he unrolled a large pack, the contents of which appeared to be numerous sacks of all sizes. These evidently contained food supplies. The bucket looked as if a horse had rolled over it, pack and all. Dale filled it at the spring. Upon returning to the camp-fire he poured water into a washbasin, and, getting down to his knees, proceeded to wash his hands thoroughly. The act seemed a habit, for Helen saw that while he was doing it he gazed off into the woods and listened. Then he dried his hands over the fire, and, turning to the spread-out pack, he began preparations for the meal.

Suddenly Helen thought of the man and all that his actions implied. At Magdalena, on the stage-ride, and last night, she had trusted this stranger, a hunter of the White Mountains, who appeared ready to befriend her. And she had felt an exceeding gratitude. Still, she had looked at him impersonally. But it began to dawn upon her that chance had thrown her in the company of a remarkable man. That impression baffled her. It did not spring from the fact that he was brave and kind to help a young woman in peril, or that he appeared deft and quick at camp-fire chores. Most Western men were brave, her uncle had told her, and many were roughly kind, and all of them could cook. This hunter was physically a wonderful specimen of manhood, with something leonine about his stature. But that did not give rise to her impression. Helen had been a school-teacher and used to boys, and she sensed a boyish simplicity or vigor or freshness in this hunter. She believed, however, that it was a mental and spiritual force in Dale which had drawn her to think of it.

“Nell, I’ve spoken to you three times,” protested Bo, petulantly. “What ‘re you mooning over?”

“I’m pretty tired — and far away, Bo,” replied Helen. “What did you say?”

“I said I had an e-normous appetite.”

“Really. That’s not remarkable for you. I’m too tired to eat. And afraid to shut my eyes. They’d never come open. When did we sleep last, Bo?”

“Second night before we left home,” declared Bo.

“Four nights! Oh, we’ve slept some.”

“I’ll bet I make mine up in this woods. Do you suppose we’ll sleep right here — under this tree — with no covering?”

“It looks so,” replied Helen, dubiously.

“How perfectly lovely!” exclaimed Bo, in delight. “We’ll see the stars through the pines.”

“Seems to be clouding over. Wouldn’t it be awful if we had a storm?”

“Why, I don’t know,” answered Bo, thoughtfully. “It must storm out West.”

Again Helen felt a quality of inevitableness in Bo. It was something that had appeared only practical in the humdrum home life in St. Joseph. All of a sudden Helen received a flash of wondering thought — a thrilling consciousness that she and Bo had begun to develop in a new and wild environment. How strange, and fearful, perhaps, to watch that growth! Bo, being younger, more impressionable, with elemental rather than intellectual instincts, would grow stronger more swiftly. Helen wondered if she could yield to her own leaning to the primitive. But how could anyone with a thoughtful and grasping mind yield that way? It was the savage who did not think.

Helen saw Dale stand erect once more and gaze into the forest.

“Reckon Roy ain’t comin’,” he soliloquized. “An’ that’s good.” Then he turned to the girls. “Supper’s ready.”

The girls responded with a spirit greater than their activity. And they ate like famished children that had been lost in the woods. Dale attended them with a pleasant light upon his still face.

“To-morrow night we’ll have meat,” he said.

“What kind?” asked Bo.

“Wild turkey or deer. Maybe both, if you like. But it’s well to take wild meat slow. An’ turkey — that ‘ll melt in your mouth.”

“Uummm!” murmured Bo, greedily. “I’ve heard of wild turkey.”

When they had finished Dale ate his meal, listening to the talk of the girls, and occasionally replying briefly to some query of Bo’s. It was twilight when he began to wash the pots and pans, and almost dark by the time his duties appeared ended. Then he replenished the campfire and sat down on a log to gaze into the fire. The girls leaned comfortably propped against the saddles.

“Nell, I’ll keel over in a minute,” said Bo. “And I oughtn’t — right on such a big supper.”

“I don’t see how I can sleep, and I know I can’t stay awake,” rejoined Helen.

Dale lifted his head alertly.

“Listen.”

The girls grew tense and still. Helen could not hear a sound, unless it was a low thud of hoof out in the gloom. The forest seemed sleeping. She knew from Bo’s eyes, wide and shining in the camp-fire light, that she, too, had failed to catch whatever it was Dale meant.

“Bunch of coyotes comin’,” he explained.

Suddenly the quietness split to a chorus of snappy, high-strung, strange barks. They sounded wild, yet they held something of a friendly or inquisitive note. Presently gray forms could be descried just at the edge of the circle of light. Soft rustlings of stealthy feet surrounded the camp, and then barks and yelps broke out all around. It was a restless and sneaking pack of animals, thought Helen; she was glad after the chorus ended and with a few desultory, spiteful yelps the coyotes went away.

Silence again settled down. If it had not been for the anxiety always present in Helen’s mind she would have thought this silence sweet and unfamiliarly beautiful.

“Ah! Listen to that fellow,” spoke up Dale. His voice was thrilling.

Again the girls strained their ears. That was not necessary, for presently, clear and cold out of the silence, pealed a mournful howl, long drawn, strange and full and wild.

“Oh! What’s that?” whispered Bo.

“That’s a big gray wolf — a timber-wolf, or lofer, as he’s sometimes called,” replied Dale. “He’s high on some rocky ridge back there. He scents us, an’ he doesn’t like it.... There he goes again. Listen! Ah, he’s hungry.”

While Helen listened to this exceedingly wild cry — so wild that it made her flesh creep and the most indescribable sensations of loneliness come over her — she kept her glance upon Dale.

“You love him?” she murmured involuntarily, quite without understanding the motive of her query.

Assuredly Dale had never had that question asked of him before, and it seemed to Helen, as he pondered, that he had never even asked it of himself.

“I reckon so,” he replied, presently.

“But wolves kill deer, and little fawns, and everything helpless in the forest,” expostulated Bo.

The hunter nodded his head.

“Why, then, can you love him?” repeated Helen.

“Come to think of it, I reckon it’s because of lots of reasons,” returned Dale. “He kills clean. He eats no carrion. He’s no coward. He fights. He dies game.... An’ he likes to be alone.”

“Kills clean. What do you mean by that?”

“A cougar, now, he mangles a deer. An’ a silvertip, when killin’ a cow or colt, he makes a mess of it. But a wolf kills clean, with sharp snaps.”

“What are a cougar and a silvertip?”

“Cougar means mountain-lion or panther, an’ a silvertip is a grizzly bear.”

“Oh, they’re all cruel!” exclaimed Helen, shrinking.

“I reckon. Often I’ve shot wolves for relayin’ a deer.”

“What’s that?”

“Sometimes two or more wolves will run a deer, an’ while one of them rests the other will drive the deer around to his pardner, who’ll, take up the chase. That way they run the deer down. Cruel it is, but nature, an’ no worse than snow an’ ice that starve deer, or a fox that kills turkey-chicks breakin’ out of the egg, or ravens that pick the eyes out of new-born lambs an’ wait till they die. An’ for that matter, men are crueler than beasts of prey, for men add to nature, an’ have more than instincts.”

Helen was silenced, as well as shocked. She had not only learned a new and striking viewpoint in natural history, but a clear intimation to the reason why she had vaguely imagined or divined a remarkable character in this man. A hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their meat or horns, or for some lust for blood — that was Helen’s definition of a hunter, and she believed it was held by the majority of people living in settled states. But the majority might be wrong. A hunter might be vastly different, and vastly more than a tracker and slayer of game. The mountain world of forest was a mystery to almost all men. Perhaps Dale knew its secrets, its life, its terror, its beauty, its sadness, and its joy; and if so, how full, how wonderful must be his mind! He spoke of men as no better than wolves. Could a lonely life in the wilderness teach a man that? Bitterness, envy, jealousy, spite, greed, and hate — these had no place in this hunter’s heart. It was not Helen’s shrewdness, but a woman’s intuition, which divined that.

Dale rose to his feet and, turning his ear to the north, listened once more.

“Are you expecting Roy still?” inquired Helen.

“No, it ain’t likely he’ll turn up to-night,” replied Dale, and then he strode over to put a hand on the pine-tree that soared above where the girls lay. His action, and the way he looked up at the tree-top and then at adjacent trees, held more of that significance which so interested Helen.

“I reckon he’s stood there some five hundred years an’ will stand through to-night,” muttered Dale.

This pine was the monarch of that wide-spread group.

“Listen again,” said Dale.

Bo was asleep. And Helen, listening, at once caught low, distant roar.

“Wind. It’s goin’ to storm,” explained Dale. “You’ll hear somethin’ worth while. But don’t be scared. Reckon we’ll be safe. Pines blow down often. But this fellow will stand any fall wind that ever was.... Better slip under the blankets so I can pull the tarp up.”

Helen slid down, just as she was, fully dressed except for boots, which she and Bo had removed; and she laid her head close to Bo’s. Dale pulled the tarpaulin up and folded it back just below their heads.

“When it rains you’ll wake, an’ then just pull the tarp up over you,” he said.

“Will it rain?” Helen asked. But she was thinking that this moment was the strangest that had ever happened to her. By the light of the camp-fire she saw Dale’s face, just as usual, still, darkly serene, expressing no thought. He was kind, but he was not thinking of these sisters as girls, alone with him in a pitch-black forest, helpless and defenseless. He did not seem to be thinking at all. But Helen had never before in her life been so keenly susceptible to experience.

“I’ll be close by an’ keep the fire goin’ all night,” he said.

She heard him stride off into the darkness. Presently there came a dragging, bumping sound, then a crash of a log dropped upon the fire. A cloud of sparks shot up, and many pattered down to hiss upon the damp ground. Smoke again curled upward along the great, seamed tree-trunk, and flames sputtered and crackled.

Helen listened again for the roar of wind. It seemed to come on a breath of air that fanned her cheek and softly blew Bo’s curls, and it was stronger. But it died out presently, only to come again, and still stronger. Helen realized then that the sound was that of an approaching storm. Her heavy eyelids almost refused to stay open, and she knew if she let them close she would instantly drop to sleep. And she wanted to hear the storm-wind in the pines.

A few drops of cold rain fell upon her face, thrilling her with the proof that no roof stood between her and the elements. Then a breeze bore the smell of burnt wood into her face, and somehow her quick mind flew to girlhood days when she burned brush and leaves with her little brothers. The memory faded. The roar that had seemed distant was now back in the forest, coming swiftly, increasing in volume. Like a stream in flood it bore down. Helen grew amazed, startled. How rushing, oncoming, and heavy this storm-wind! She likened its approach to the tread of an army. Then the roar filled the forest, yet it was back there behind her. Not a pine-needle quivered in the light of the camp-fire. But the air seemed to be oppressed with a terrible charge. The roar augmented till it was no longer a roar, but an on-sweeping crash, like an ocean torrent engulfing the earth. Bo awoke to cling to Helen with fright. The deafening storm-blast was upon them. Helen felt the saddle-pillow move under her head. The giant pine had trembled to its very roots. That mighty fury of wind was all aloft, in the tree-tops. And for a long moment it bowed the forest under its tremendous power. Then the deafening crash passed to roar, and that swept on and on, lessening in volume, deepening in low detonation, at last to die in the distance.

No sooner had it died than back to the north another low roar rose and ceased and rose again. Helen lay there, whispering to Bo, and heard again the great wave of wind come and crash and cease. That was the way of this storm-wind of the mountain forest.

A soft patter of rain on the tarpaulin warned Helen to remember Dale’s directions, and, pulling up the heavy covering, she arranged it hoodlike over the saddle. Then, with Bo close and warm beside her, she closed her eyes, and the sense of the black forest and the wind and rain faded. Last of all sensations was the smell of smoke that blew under the tarpaulin.

When she opened her eyes she remembered everything, as if only a moment had elapsed. But it was daylight, though gray and cloudy. The pines were dripping mist. A fire crackled cheerily and blue smoke curled upward and a savory odor of hot coffee hung in the air. Horses were standing near by, biting and kicking at one another. Bo was sound asleep. Dale appeared busy around the camp-fire. As Helen watched the hunter she saw him pause in his task, turn his ear to listen, and then look expectantly. And at that juncture a shout pealed from the forest. Helen recognized Roy’s voice. Then she heard a splashing of water, and hoof-beats coming closer. With that the buckskin mustang trotted into camp, carrying Roy.

“Bad mornin’ for ducks, but good for us,” he called.

“Howdy, Roy!” greeted Dale, and his gladness was unmistakable. “I was lookin’ for you.”

Roy appeared to slide off the mustang without effort, and his swift hands slapped the straps as he unsaddled. Buckskin was wet with sweat and foam mixed with rain. He heaved. And steam rose from him.

“Must have rode hard,” observed Dale.

“I shore did,” replied Roy. Then he espied Helen, who had sat up, with hands to her hair, and eyes staring at him.

“Mornin’, miss. It’s good news.”

“Thank Heaven!” murmured Helen, and then she shook Bo. That young lady awoke, but was loath to give up slumber. “Bo! Bo! Wake up! Mr. Roy is back.”

Whereupon Bo sat up, disheveled and sleepy-eyed.

“Oh-h, but I ache!” she moaned. But her eyes took in the camp scene to the effect that she added, “Is breakfast ready?”

“Almost. An’ flapjacks this mornin’,” replied Dale.

Bo manifested active symptoms of health in the manner with which she laced her boots. Helen got their traveling-bag, and with this they repaired to a flat stone beside the spring, not, however, out of earshot of the men.

“How long are you goin’ to hang around camp before tellin’ me?” inquired Dale.

“Jest as I figgered, Milt,” replied Roy. “Thet rider who passed you was a messenger to Anson. He an’ his gang got on our trail quick. About ten o’clock I seen them comin’. Then I lit out for the woods. I stayed off in the woods close enough to see where they come in. An’ shore they lost your trail. Then they spread through the woods, workin’ off to the south, thinkin’, of course, thet you would circle round to Pine on the south side of Old Baldy. There ain’t a hoss-tracker in Snake Anson’s gang, thet’s shore. Wal, I follered them for an hour till they’d rustled some miles off our trail. Then I went back to where you struck into the woods. An’ I waited there all afternoon till dark, expectin’ mebbe they’d back-trail. But they didn’t. I rode on a ways an’ camped in the woods till jest before daylight.”

“So far so good,” declared Dale.

“Shore. There’s rough country south of Baldy an’ along the two or three trails Anson an’ his outfit will camp, you bet.”

“It ain’t to be thought of,” muttered Dale, at some idea that had struck him.

“What ain’t?”

“Goin’ round the north side of Baldy.”

“It shore ain’t,” rejoined Roy, bluntly.

“Then I’ve got to hide tracks certain — rustle to my camp an’ stay there till you say it’s safe to risk takin’ the girls to Pine.”

“Milt, you’re talkin’ the wisdom of the prophets.”

“I ain’t so sure we can hide tracks altogether. If Anson had any eyes for the woods he’d not have lost me so soon.

“No. But, you see, he’s figgerin’ to cross your trail.”

“If I could get fifteen or twenty mile farther on an’ hide tracks certain, I’d feel safe from pursuit, anyway,” said the hunter, reflectively.

“Shore an’ easy,” responded Roy, quickly. “I jest met up with some greaser sheep-herders drivin’ a big flock. They’ve come up from the south an’ are goin’ to fatten up at Turkey Senacas. Then they’ll drive back south an’ go on to Phenix. Wal, it’s muddy weather. Now you break camp quick an’ make a plain trail out to thet sheep trail, as if you was travelin’ south. But, instead, you ride round ahead of thet flock of sheep. They’ll keep to the open parks an’ the trails through them necks of woods out here. An’, passin’ over your tracks, they’ll hide ‘em.”

“But supposin’ Anson circles an’ hits this camp? He’ll track me easy out to that sheep trail. What then?”

“Jest what you want. Goin’ south thet sheep trail is downhill an’ muddy. It’s goin’ to rain hard. Your tracks would get washed out even if you did go south. An’ Anson would keep on thet way till he was clear off the scent. Leave it to me, Milt. You’re a hunter. But I’m a hoss-tracker.”

“All right. We’ll rustle.”

Then he called the girls to hurry.

CHAPTER VIII

ONCE ASTRIDE THE horse again, Helen had to congratulate herself upon not being so crippled as she had imagined. Indeed, Bo made all the audible complaints.

Both girls had long water-proof coats, brand-new, and of which they were considerably proud. New clothes had not been a common event in their lives.

“Reckon I’ll have to slit these,” Dale had said, whipping out a huge knife.

“What for?” had been Bo’s feeble protest.

“They wasn’t made for ridin’. An’ you’ll get wet enough even if I do cut them. An’ if I don’t, you’ll get soaked.”

“Go ahead,” had been Helen’s reluctant permission.

So their long new coats were slit half-way up the back. The exigency of the case was manifest to Helen, when she saw how they came down over the cantles of the saddles and to their boot-tops.

The morning was gray and cold. A fine, misty rain fell and the trees dripped steadily. Helen was surprised to see the open country again and that apparently they were to leave the forest behind for a while. The country was wide and flat on the right, and to the left it rolled and heaved along a black, scalloped timber-line. Above this bordering of the forest low, drifting clouds obscured the mountains. The wind was at Helen’s back and seemed to be growing stronger. Dale and Roy were ahead, traveling at a good trot, with the pack-animals bunched before them. Helen and Bo had enough to do to keep up.

The first hour’s ride brought little change in weather or scenery, but it gave Helen an inkling of what she must endure if they kept that up all day. She began to welcome the places where the horses walked, but she disliked the levels. As for the descents, she hated those. Ranger would not go down slowly and the shake-up she received was unpleasant. Moreover, the spirited black horse insisted on jumping the ditches and washes. He sailed over them like a bird. Helen could not acquire the knack of sitting the saddle properly, and so, not only was her person bruised on these occasions, but her feelings were hurt. Helen had never before been conscious of vanity. Still, she had never rejoiced in looking at a disadvantage, and her exhibitions here must have been frightful. Bo always would forge to the front, and she seldom looked back, for which Helen was grateful.

Before long they struck into a broad, muddy belt, full of innumerable small hoof tracks. This, then, was the sheep trail Roy had advised following. They rode on it for three or four miles, and at length, coming to a gray-green valley, they saw a huge flock of sheep. Soon the air was full of bleats and baas as well as the odor of sheep, and a low, soft roar of pattering hoofs. The flock held a compact formation, covering several acres, and grazed along rapidly. There were three herders on horses and several pack-burros. Dale engaged one of the Mexicans in conversation, and passed something to him, then pointed northward and down along the trail. The Mexican grinned from ear to ear, and Helen caught the quick “SI, SENOR! GRACIAS, SENOR!” It was a pretty sight, that flock of sheep, as it rolled along like a rounded woolly stream of grays and browns and here and there a black. They were keeping to a trail over the flats. Dale headed into this trail and, if anything, trotted a little faster.

Presently the clouds lifted and broke, showing blue sky and one streak of sunshine. But the augury was without warrant. The wind increased. A huge black pall bore down from the mountains and it brought rain that could be seen falling in sheets from above and approaching like a swiftly moving wall. Soon it enveloped the fugitives.

With head bowed, Helen rode along for what seemed ages in a cold, gray rain that blew almost on a level. Finally the heavy downpour passed, leaving a fine mist. The clouds scurried low and dark, hiding the mountains altogether and making the gray, wet plain a dreary sight. Helen’s feet and knees were as wet as if she had waded in water. And they were cold. Her gloves, too, had not been intended for rain, and they were wet through. The cold bit at her fingers so that she had to beat her hands together. Ranger misunderstood this to mean that he was to trot faster, which event was worse for Helen than freezing.

She saw another black, scudding mass of clouds bearing down with its trailing sheets of rain, and this one appeared streaked with white. Snow! The wind was now piercingly cold. Helen’s body kept warm, but her extremities and ears began to suffer exceedingly. She gazed ahead grimly. There was no help; she had to go on. Dale and Roy were hunched down in their saddles, probably wet through, for they wore no rain-proof coats. Bo kept close behind them, and plain it was that she felt the cold.

This second storm was not so bad as the first, because there was less rain. Still, the icy keenness of the wind bit into the marrow. It lasted for an hour, during which the horses trotted on, trotted on. Again the gray torrent roared away, the fine mist blew, the clouds lifted and separated, and, closing again, darkened for another onslaught. This one brought sleet. The driving pellets stung Helen’s neck and cheeks, and for a while they fell so thick and so hard upon her back that she was afraid she could not hold up under them. The bare places on the ground showed a sparkling coverlet of marbles of ice.

Thus, storm after storm rolled over Helen’s head. Her feet grew numb and ceased to hurt. But her fingers, because of her ceaseless efforts to keep up the circulation, retained the stinging pain. And now the wind pierced right through her. She marveled at her endurance, and there were many times that she believed she could not ride farther. Yet she kept on. All the winters she had ever lived had not brought such a day as this. Hard and cold, wet and windy, at an increasing elevation — that was the explanation. The air did not have sufficient oxygen for her blood.

Still, during all those interminable hours, Helen watched where she was traveling, and if she ever returned over that trail she would recognize it. The afternoon appeared far advanced when Dale and Roy led down into an immense basin where a reedy lake spread over the flats. They rode along its margin, splashing up to the knees of the horses. Cranes and herons flew on with lumbering motion; flocks of ducks winged swift flight from one side to the other. Beyond this depression the land sloped rather abruptly; outcroppings of rock circled along the edge of the highest ground, and again a dark fringe of trees appeared.

How many miles! wondered Helen. They seemed as many and as long as the hours. But at last, just as another hard rain came, the pines were reached. They proved to be widely scattered and afforded little protection from the storm.

Helen sat her saddle, a dead weight. Whenever Ranger quickened his gait or crossed a ditch she held on to the pommel to keep from falling off. Her mind harbored only sensations of misery, and a persistent thought — why did she ever leave home for the West? Her solicitude for Bo had been forgotten. Nevertheless, any marked change in the topography of the country was registered, perhaps photographed on her memory by the torturing vividness of her experience.

The forest grew more level and denser. Shadows of twilight or gloom lay under the trees. Presently Dale and Roy, disappeared, going downhill, and likewise Bo. Then Helen’s ears suddenly filled with a roar of rapid water. Ranger trotted faster. Soon Helen came to the edge of a great valley, black and gray, so full of obscurity that she could not see across or down into it. But she knew there was a rushing river at the bottom. The sound was deep, continuous, a heavy, murmuring roar, singularly musical. The trail was steep. Helen had not lost all feeling, as she had believed and hoped. Her poor, mistreated body still responded excruciatingly to concussions, jars, wrenches, and all the other horrible movements making up a horse-trot.

For long Helen did not look up. When she did so there lay a green, willow-bordered, treeless space at the bottom of the valley, through which a brown-white stream rushed with steady, ear-filling roar.

Dale and Roy drove the pack-animals across the stream, and followed, going deep to the flanks of their horses. Bo rode into the foaming water as if she had been used to it all her days. A slip, a fall, would have meant that Bo must drown in that mountain torrent.

Ranger trotted straight to the edge, and there, obedient to Helen’s clutch on the bridle, he halted. The stream was fifty feet wide, shallow on the near side, deep on the opposite, with fast current and big waves. Helen was simply too frightened to follow.

“Let him come!” yelled Dale. “Stick on now!... Ranger!”

The big black plunged in, making the water fly. That stream was nothing for him, though it seemed impassable to Helen. She had not the strength left to lift her stirrups and the water surged over them. Ranger, in two more plunges, surmounted the bank, and then, trotting across the green to where the other horses stood steaming under some pines, he gave a great heave and halted.

Roy reached up to help her off.

“Thirty miles, Miss Helen,” he said, and the way he spoke was a compliment.

He had to lift her off and help her to the tree where Bo leaned. Dale had ripped off a saddle and was spreading saddle-blankets on the ground under the pine.

“Nell — you swore — you loved me!” was Bo’s mournful greeting. The girl was pale, drawn, blue-lipped, and she could not stand up.

“Bo, I never did — or I’d never have brought you to this — wretch that I am!” cried Helen. “Oh, what a horrible ride!”

Rain was falling, the trees were dripping, the sky was lowering. All the ground was soaking wet, with pools and puddles everywhere. Helen could imagine nothing but a heartless, dreary, cold prospect. Just then home was vivid and poignant in her thoughts. Indeed, so utterly miserable was she that the exquisite relief of sitting down, of a cessation of movement, of a release from that infernal perpetual-trotting horse, seemed only a mockery. It could not be true that the time had come for rest.

Evidently this place had been a camp site for hunters or sheep-herders, for there were remains of a fire. Dale lifted the burnt end of a log and brought it down hard upon the ground, splitting off pieces. Several times he did this. It was amazing to see his strength, his facility, as he split off handfuls of splinters. He collected a bundle of them, and, laying them down, he bent over them. Roy wielded the ax on another log, and each stroke split off a long strip. Then a tiny column of smoke drifted up over Dale’s shoulder as he leaned, bareheaded, sheltering the splinters with his hat. A blaze leaped up. Roy came with an armful of strips all white and dry, out of the inside of a log. Crosswise these were laid over the blaze, and it began to roar. Then piece by piece the men built up a frame upon which they added heavier woods, branches and stumps and logs, erecting a pyramid through which flames and smoke roared upward. It had not taken two minutes. Already Helen felt the warmth on her icy face. She held up her bare, numb hands.

Both Dale and Roy were wet through to the skin, yet they did not tarry beside the fire. They relieved the horses. A lasso went up between two pines, and a tarpaulin over it, V-shaped and pegged down at the four ends. The packs containing the baggage of the girls and the supplies and bedding were placed under this shelter.

Helen thought this might have taken five minutes more. In this short space of time the fire had leaped and flamed until it was huge and hot. Rain was falling steadily all around, but over and near that roaring blaze, ten feet high, no water fell. It evaporated. The ground began to steam and to dry. Helen suffered at first while the heat was driving out the cold. But presently the pain ceased.

“Nell, I never knew before how good a fire could feel,” declared Bo.

And therein lay more food for Helen’s reflection.

In ten minutes Helen was dry and hot. Darkness came down upon the dreary, sodden forest, but that great camp-fire made it a different world from the one Helen had anticipated. It blazed and roared, cracked like a pistol, hissed and sputtered, shot sparks everywhere, and sent aloft a dense, yellow, whirling column of smoke. It began to have a heart of gold.

Dale took a long pole and raked out a pile of red embers upon which the coffee-pot and oven soon began to steam.

“Roy, I promised the girls turkey to-night,” said the hunter.

“Mebbe to-morrow, if the wind shifts. This ‘s turkey country.”

“Roy, a potato will do me!” exclaimed Bo. “Never again will I ask for cake and pie! I never appreciated good things to eat. And I’ve been a little pig, always. I never — never knew what it was to be hungry — until now.”

Dale glanced up quickly.

“Lass, it’s worth learnin’,” he said.

Helen’s thought was too deep for words. In such brief space had she been transformed from misery to comfort!

The rain kept on falling, though it appeared to grow softer as night settled down black. The wind died away and the forest was still, except for the steady roar of the stream. A folded tarpaulin was laid between the pine and the fire, well in the light and warmth, and upon it the men set steaming pots and plates and cups, the fragrance from which was strong and inviting.

“Fetch the saddle-blanket an’ set with your backs to the fire,” said Roy.

Later, when the girls were tucked away snugly in their blankets and sheltered from the rain, Helen remained awake after Bo had fallen asleep. The big blaze made the improvised tent as bright as day. She could see the smoke, the trunk of the big pine towering aloft, and a blank space of sky. The stream hummed a song, seemingly musical at times, and then discordant and dull, now low, now roaring, and always rushing, gurgling, babbling, flowing, chafing in its hurry.

Presently the hunter and his friend returned from hobbling the horses, and beside the fire they conversed in low tones.

“Wal, thet trail we made to-day will be hid, I reckon,” said Roy, with satisfaction.

“What wasn’t sheeped over would be washed out. We’ve had luck. An’ now I ain’t worryin’,” returned Dale.

“Worryin’? Then it’s the first I ever knowed you to do.”

“Man, I never had a job like this,” protested the hunter.

“Wal, thet’s so.”

“Now, Roy, when old Al Auchincloss finds out about this deal, as he’s bound to when you or the boys get back to Pine, he’s goin’ to roar.”

“Do you reckon folks will side with him against Beasley?”

“Some of them. But Al, like as not, will tell folks to go where it’s hot. He’ll bunch his men an’ strike for the mountains to find his nieces.”

“Wal, all you’ve got to do is to keep the girls hid till I can guide him up to your camp. Or, failin’ thet, till you can slip the girls down to Pine.”

“No one but you an’ your brothers ever seen my senaca. But it could be found easy enough.”

“Anson might blunder on it. But thet ain’t likely.”

“Why ain’t it?”

“Because I’ll stick to thet sheep-thief’s tracks like a wolf after a bleedin’ deer. An’ if he ever gets near your camp I’ll ride in ahead of him.”

“Good!” declared Dale. “I was calculatin’ you’d go down to Pine, sooner or later.”

“Not unless Anson goes. I told John thet in case there was no fight on the stage to make a bee-line back to Pine. He was to tell Al an’ offer his services along with Joe an’ Hal.”

“One way or another, then, there’s bound to be blood spilled over this.”

“Shore! An’ high time. I jest hope I get a look down my old ‘forty-four’ at thet Beasley.”

“In that case I hope you hold straighter than times I’ve seen you.”

“Milt Dale, I’m a good shot,” declared Roy, stoutly.

“You’re no good on movin’ targets.”

“Wal, mebbe so. But I’m not lookin’ for a movin’ target when I meet up with Beasley. I’m a hossman, not a hunter. You’re used to shootin’ flies off deer’s horns, jest for practice.”

“Roy, can we make my camp by to-morrow night?” queried Dale, more seriously.

“We will, if each of us has to carry one of the girls. But they’ll do it or die. Dale, did you ever see a gamer girl than thet kid Bo?”

“Me! Where’d I ever see any girls?” ejaculated Dale. “I remember some when I was a boy, but I was only fourteen then. Never had much use for girls.”

“I’d like to have a wife like that Bo,” declared Roy, fervidly.

There ensued a moment’s silence.

“Roy, you’re a Mormon an’ you already got a wife,” was Dale’s reply.

“Now, Milt, have you lived so long in the woods thet you never heard of a Mormon with two wives?” returned Roy, and then he laughed heartily.

“I never could stomach what I did hear pertainin’ to more than one wife for a man.”

“Wal, my friend, you go an’ get yourself ONE. An’ see then if you wouldn’t like to have TWO.”

“I reckon one ‘d be more than enough for Milt Dale.”

“Milt, old man, let me tell you thet I always envied you your freedom,” said Roy, earnestly. “But it ain’t life.”

“You mean life is love of a woman?”

“No. Thet’s only part. I mean a son — a boy thet’s like you — thet you feel will go on with your life after you’re gone.”

“I’ve thought of that — thought it all out, watchin’ the birds an’ animals mate in the woods.... If I have no son I’ll never live hereafter.”

“Wal,” replied Roy, hesitatingly, “I don’t go in so deep as thet. I mean a son goes on with your blood an’ your work.”

“Exactly... An’, Roy, I envy you what you ve got, because it’s out of all bounds for Milt Dale.”

Those words, sad and deep, ended the conversation. Again the rumbling, rushing stream dominated the forest. An owl hooted dismally. A horse trod thuddingly near by and from that direction came a cutting tear of teeth on grass.

A voice pierced Helen’s deep dreams and, awaking, she found Bo shaking and calling her.

“Are you dead?” came the gay voice.

“Almost. Oh, my back’s broken,” replied Helen. The desire to move seemed clamped in a vise, and even if that came she believed the effort would be impossible.

“Roy called us,” said Bo. “He said hurry. I thought I’d die just sitting up, and I’d give you a million dollars to lace my boots. Wait, sister, till you try to pull on one of those stiff boots!”

With heroic and violent spirit Helen sat up to find that in the act her aches and pains appeared beyond number. Reaching for her boots, she found them cold and stiff. Helen unlaced one and, opening it wide, essayed to get her sore foot down into it. But her foot appeared swollen and the boot appeared shrunken. She could not get it half on, though she expended what little strength seemed left in her aching arms. She groaned.

Bo laughed wickedly. Her hair was tousled, her eyes dancing, her cheeks red.

“Be game!” she said. “Stand up like a real Western girl and PULL your boot on.”

Whether Bo’s scorn or advice made the task easier did not occur to Helen, but the fact was that she got into her boots. Walking and moving a little appeared to loosen the stiff joints and ease that tired feeling. The water of the stream where the girls washed was colder than any ice Helen had ever felt. It almost paralyzed her hands. Bo mumbled, and blew like a porpoise. They had to run to the fire before being able to comb their hair. The air was wonderfully keen. The dawn was clear, bright, with a red glow in the east where the sun was about to rise.

“All ready, girls,” called Roy. “Reckon you can help yourselves. Milt ain’t comin’ in very fast with the hosses. I’ll rustle off to help him. We’ve got a hard day before us. Yesterday wasn’t nowhere to what to-day ‘ll be.”

“But the sun’s going to shine?” implored Bo.

“Wal, you bet,” rejoined Roy, as he strode off.

Helen and Bo ate breakfast and had the camp to themselves for perhaps half an hour; then the horses came thudding down, with Dale and Roy riding bareback.

By the time all was in readiness to start the sun was up, melting the frost and ice, so that a dazzling, bright mist, full of rainbows, shone under the trees.

Dale looked Ranger over, and tried the cinches of Bo’s horse.

“What’s your choice — a long ride behind the packs with me — or a short cut over the hills with Roy?” he asked.

“I choose the lesser of two rides,” replied Helen, smiling.

“Reckon that ‘ll be easier, but you’ll know you’ve had a ride,” said Dale, significantly.

“What was that we had yesterday?” asked Bo, archly.

“Only thirty miles, but cold an’ wet. To-day will be fine for ridin’.”

“Milt, I’ll take a blanket an’ some grub in case you don’t meet us to-night,” said Roy. “An’ I reckon we’ll split up here where I’ll have to strike out on thet short cut.”

Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen’s limbs were so stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without assistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the canyon, which on that side was not steep. It was brown pine forest, with here and there a clump of dark, silver-pointed evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope was surmounted Helen’s aches were not so bad. The saddle appeared to fit her better, and the gait of the horse was not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful forest-land, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along the rim, with the white rushing stream in plain sight far below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.

Dale reined in and peered down at the pine-mat.

“Fresh deer sign all along here,” he said, pointing.

“Wal, I seen thet long ago,” rejoined Roy.

Helen’s scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply defined.

“We may never get a better chance,” said Dale. “Those deer are workin’ up our way. Get your rifle out.”

Travel was resumed then, with Roy a little in advance of the pack-train. Presently he dismounted, threw his bridle, and cautiously peered ahead. Then, turning, he waved his sombrero. The pack-animals halted in a bunch. Dale beckoned for the girls to follow and rode up to Roy’s horse. This point, Helen saw, was at the top of an intersecting canuon. Dale dismounted, without drawing his rifle from its saddle-sheath, and approached Roy.

“Buck an’ two does,” he said, low-voiced. “An’ they’ve winded us, but don’t see us yet.... Girls, ride up closer.”

Following the directions indicated by Dale’s long arm, Helen looked down the slope. It was open, with tall pines here and there, and clumps of silver spruce, and aspens shining like gold in the morning sunlight. Presently Bo exclaimed: “Oh, look! I see! I see!” Then Helen’s roving glance passed something different from green and gold and brown. Shifting back to it she saw a magnificent stag, with noble spreading antlers, standing like a statue, his head up in alert and wild posture. His color was gray. Beside him grazed two deer of slighter and more graceful build, without horns.

“It’s downhill,” whispered Dale. “An’ you’re goin’ to overshoot.”

Then Helen saw that Roy had his rifle leveled.

“Oh, don’t!” she cried.

Dale’s remark evidently nettled Roy. He lowered the rifle.

“Milt, it’s me lookin’ over this gun. How can you stand there an’ tell me I’m goin’ to shoot high? I had a dead bead on him.”

“Roy, you didn’t allow for downhill... Hurry. He sees us now.”

Roy leveled the rifle and, taking aim as before, he fired. The buck stood perfectly motionless, as if he had indeed been stone. The does, however, jumped with a start, and gazed in fright in every direction.

“Told you! I seen where your bullet hit thet pine — half a foot over his shoulder. Try again an’ aim at his legs.”

Roy now took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy’s lead had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see, the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The does leaped after him.

“Doggone the luck!” ejaculated Roy, red in the face, as he worked the lever of his rifle. “Never could shoot downhill, nohow!”

His rueful apology to the girls for missing brought a merry laugh from Bo.

“Not for worlds would I have had you kill that beautiful deer!” she exclaimed.

“We won’t have venison steak off him, that’s certain,” remarked Dale, dryly. “An’ maybe none off any deer, if Roy does the shootin’.”

They resumed travel, sheering off to the right and keeping to the edge of the intersecting canuon. At length they rode down to the bottom, where a tiny brook babbled through willows, and they followed this for a mile or so down to where it flowed into the larger stream. A dim trail overgrown with grass showed at this point.

“Here’s where we part,” said Dale. “You’ll beat me into my camp, but I’ll get there sometime after dark.”

“Hey, Milt, I forgot about thet darned pet cougar of yours an’ the rest of your menagerie. Reckon they won’t scare the girls? Especially old Tom?”

“You won’t see Tom till I get home,” replied Dale.

“Ain’t he corralled or tied up?”

“No. He has the run of the place.”

“Wal, good-by, then, an’ rustle along.”

Dale nodded to the girls, and, turning his horse, he drove the pack-train before him up the open space between the stream and the wooded slope.

Roy stepped off his horse with that single action which appeared such a feat to Helen.

“Guess I’d better cinch up,” he said, as he threw a stirrup up over the pommel of his saddle. “You girls are goin’ to see wild country.”

“Who’s old Tom?” queried Bo, curiously.

“Why, he’s Milt’s pet cougar.”

“Cougar? That’s a panther — a mountain-lion, didn’t he say?”

“Shore is. Tom is a beauty. An’ if he takes a likin’ to you he’ll love you, play with you, maul you half to death.”

Bo was all eyes.

“Dale has other pets, too?” she questioned, eagerly.

“I never was up to his camp but what it was overrun with birds an’ squirrels an’ vermin of all kinds, as tame as tame as cows. Too darn tame, Milt says. But I can’t figger thet. You girls will never want to leave thet senaca of his.”

“What’s a senaca?” asked Helen, as she shifted her foot to let him tighten the cinches on her saddle.

“Thet’s Mexican for park, I guess,” he replied. “These mountains are full of parks; an’, say, I don’t ever want to see no prettier place till I get to heaven.... There, Ranger, old boy, thet’s tight.”

He slapped the horse affectionately, and, turning to his own, he stepped and swung his long length up.

“It ain’t deep crossin’ here. Come on,” he called, and spurred his bay.

The stream here was wide and it looked deep, but turned out to be deceptive.

“Wal, girls, here beginneth the second lesson,” he drawled, cheerily. “Ride one behind the other — stick close to me — do what I do — an’ holler when you want to rest or if somethin’ goes bad.”

With that he spurred into the thicket. Bo went next and Helen followed. The willows dragged at her so hard that she was unable to watch Roy, and the result was that a low-sweeping branch of a tree knocked her hard on the head. It hurt and startled her, and roused her mettle. Roy was keeping to the easy trot that covered ground so well, and he led up a slope to the open pine forest. Here the ride for several miles was straight, level, and open. Helen liked the forest to-day. It was brown and green, with patches of gold where the sun struck. She saw her first bird — big blue grouse that whirred up from under her horse, and little checkered gray quail that appeared awkward on the wing. Several times Roy pointed out deer flashing gray across some forest aisle, and often when he pointed Helen was not quick enough to see.

Helen realized that this ride would make up for the hideous one of yesterday. So far she had been only barely conscious of sore places and aching bones. These she would bear with. She loved the wild and the beautiful, both of which increased manifestly with every mile. The sun was warm, the air fragrant and cool, the sky blue as azure and so deep that she imagined that she could look far up into it.

Suddenly Roy reined in so sharply that he pulled the bay up short.

“Look!” he called, sharply.

Bo screamed.

“Not thet way! Here! Aw, he’s gone!”

“Nell! It was a bear! I saw it! Oh! not like circus bears at all!” cried Bo.

Helen had missed her opportunity.

“Reckon he was a grizzly, an’ I’m jest as well pleased thet he loped off,” said Roy. Altering his course somewhat, he led to an old rotten log that the bear had been digging in. “After grubs. There, see his track. He was a whopper shore enough.”

They rode on, out to a high point that overlooked canuon and range, gorge and ridge, green and black as far as Helen could see. The ranges were bold and long, climbing to the central uplift, where a number of fringed peaks raised their heads to the vast bare dome of Old Baldy. Far as vision could see, to the right lay one rolling forest of pine, beautiful and serene. Somewhere down beyond must have lain the desert, but it was not in sight.

“I see turkeys ‘way down there,” said Roy, backing away. “We’ll go down and around an’ mebbe I’ll get a shot.”

Descent beyond a rocky point was made through thick brush. This slope consisted of wide benches covered with copses and scattered pines and many oaks. Helen was delighted to see the familiar trees, although these were different from Missouri oaks. Rugged and gnarled, but not tall, these trees spread wide branches, the leaves of which were yellowing. Roy led into a grassy glade, and, leaping off his horse, rifle in hand, he prepared to shoot at something. Again Bo cried out, but this time it was in delight. Then Helen saw an immense flock of turkeys, apparently like the turkeys she knew at home, but these had bronze and checks of white, and they looked wild. There must have been a hundred in the flock, most of them hens. A few gobblers on the far side began the flight, running swiftly off. Helen plainly heard the thud of their feet. Roy shot once — twice — three times. Then rose a great commotion and thumping, and a loud roar of many wings. Dust and leaves whirling in the air were left where the turkeys had been.

“Wal, I got two,” said Roy, and he strode forward to pick up his game. Returning, he tied two shiny, plump gobblers back of his saddle and remounted his horse. “We’ll have turkey to-night, if Milt gets to camp in time.”

The ride was resumed. Helen never would have tired riding through those oak groves, brown and sear and yellow, with leaves and acorns falling.

“Bears have been workin’ in here already,” said Roy. “I see tracks all over. They eat acorns in the fall. An’ mebbe we’ll run into one yet.”

The farther down he led the wilder and thicker grew the trees, so that dodging branches was no light task. Ranger did not seem to care how close he passed a tree or under a limb, so that he missed them himself; but Helen thereby got some additional bruises. Particularly hard was it, when passing a tree, to get her knee out of the way in time.

Roy halted next at what appeared a large green pond full of vegetation and in places covered with a thick scum. But it had a current and an outlet, proving it to be a huge, spring. Roy pointed down at a muddy place.

“Bear-wallow. He heard us comin’. Look at thet little track. Cub track. An’ look at these scratches on this tree, higher ‘n my head. An old she-bear stood up, an’ scratched them.”

Roy sat his saddle and reached up to touch fresh marks on the tree.

“Woods’s full of big bears,” he said, grinning. “An’ I take it particular kind of this old she rustlin’ off with her cub. She-bears with cubs are dangerous.”

The next place to stir Helen to enthusiasm was the glen at the bottom of this canuon. Beech-trees, maples, aspens, overtopped by lofty pines, made dense shade over a brook where trout splashed on the brown, swirling current, and leaves drifted down, and stray flecks of golden sunlight lightened the gloom. Here was hard riding to and fro across the brook, between huge mossy boulders, and between aspens so close together that Helen could scarce squeeze her knees through.

Once more Roy climbed out of that canuon, over a ridge into another, down long wooded slopes and through scrub-oak thickets, on and on till the sun stood straight overhead. Then he halted for a short rest, unsaddled the horses to let them roll, and gave the girls some cold lunch that he had packed. He strolled off with his gun, and, upon returning, resaddled and gave the word to start.

That was the last of rest and easy traveling for the girls. The forest that he struck into seemed ribbed like a washboard with deep ravines so steep of slope as to make precarious travel. Mostly he kept to the bottom where dry washes afforded a kind of trail. But it was necessary to cross these ravines when they were too long to be headed, and this crossing was work.

The locust thickets characteristic of these slopes were thorny and close knit. They tore and scratched and stung both horses and riders. Ranger appeared to be the most intelligent of the horses and suffered less. Bo’s white mustang dragged her through more than one brambly place. On the other hand, some of these steep slopes, were comparatively free of underbrush. Great firs and pines loomed up on all sides. The earth was soft and the hoofs sank deep. Toward the bottom of a descent Ranger would brace his front feet and then slide down on his haunches. This mode facilitated travel, but it frightened Helen. The climb out then on the other side had to be done on foot.

After half a dozen slopes surmounted in this way Helen’s strength was spent and her breath was gone. She felt light-headed. She could not get enough air. Her feet felt like lead, and her riding-coat was a burden. A hundred times, hot and wet and throbbing, she was compelled to stop. Always she had been a splendid walker and climber. And here, to break up the long ride, she was glad to be on her feet. But she could only drag one foot up after the other. Then, when her nose began to bleed, she realized that it was the elevation which was causing all the trouble. Her heart, however, did not hurt her, though she was conscious of an oppression on her breast.

At last Roy led into a ravine so deep and wide and full of forest verdure that it appeared impossible to cross. Nevertheless, he started down, dismounting after a little way. Helen found that leading Ranger down was worse than riding him. He came fast and he would step right in her tracks. She was not quick enough to get away from him. Twice he stepped on her foot, and again his broad chest hit her shoulder and threw her flat. When he began to slide, near the bottom, Helen had to run for her life.

“Oh, Nell! Isn’t — this — great?” panted Bo, from somewhere ahead.

“Bo — your — mind’s — gone,” panted Helen, in reply.

Roy tried several places to climb out, and failed in each. Leading down the ravine for a hundred yards or more, he essayed another attempt. Here there had been a slide, and in part the earth was bare. When he had worked up this, he halted above, and called:

“Bad place! Keep on the up side of the hosses!”

This appeared easier said than done. Helen could not watch Bo, because Ranger would not wait. He pulled at the bridle and snorted.

“Faster you come the better,” called Roy.

Helen could not see the sense of that, but she tried. Roy and Bo had dug a deep trail zigzag up that treacherous slide. Helen made the mistake of starting to follow in their tracks, and when she realized this Ranger was climbing fast, almost dragging her, and it was too late to get above. Helen began to labor. She slid down right in front of Ranger. The intelligent animal, with a snort, plunged out of the trail to keep from stepping on her. Then he was above her.

“Lookout down there,” yelled Roy, in warning. “Get on the up side!”

But that did not appear possible. The earth began to slide under Ranger, and that impeded Helen’s progress. He got in advance of her, straining on the bridle.

“Let go!” yelled Roy.

Helen dropped the bridle just as a heavy slide began to move with Ranger. He snorted fiercely, and, rearing high, in a mighty plunge he gained solid ground. Helen was buried to her knees, but, extricating herself, she crawled to a safe point and rested before climbing farther.

“Bad cave-in, thet,” was Roy’s comment, when at last she joined him and Bo at the top.

Roy appeared at a loss as to which way to go. He rode to high ground and looked in all directions. To Helen, one way appeared as wild and rough as another, and all was yellow, green, and black under the westering sun. Roy rode a short distance in one direction, then changed for another.

Presently he stopped.

“Wal, I’m shore turned round,” he said.

“You’re not lost?” cried Bo.

“Reckon I’ve been thet for a couple of hours,” he replied, cheerfully. “Never did ride across here I had the direction, but I’m blamed now if I can tell which way thet was.”

Helen gazed at him in consternation.

“Lost!” she echoed.

CHAPTER IX

A SILENCE ENSUED, fraught with poignant fear for Helen, as she gazed into Bo’s whitening face. She read her sister’s mind. Bo was remembering tales of lost people who never were found.

“Me an’ Milt get lost every day,” said Roy. “You don’t suppose any man can know all this big country. It’s nothin’ for us to be lost.”

“Oh!... I was lost when I was little,” said Bo.

“Wal, I reckon it’d been better not to tell you so offhand like,” replied Roy, contritely. “Don’t feel bad, now. All I need is a peek at Old Baldy. Then I’ll have my bearin’. Come on.”

Helen’s confidence returned as Roy led off at a fast trot. He rode toward the westering sun, keeping to the ridge they had ascended, until once more he came out upon a promontory. Old Baldy loomed there, blacker and higher and closer. The dark forest showed round, yellow, bare spots like parks.

“Not so far off the track,” said Roy, as he wheeled his horse. “We’ll make camp in Milt’s senaca to-night.”

He led down off the ridge into a valley and then up to higher altitude, where the character of the forest changed. The trees were no longer pines, but firs and spruce, growing thin and exceedingly tall, with few branches below the topmost foliage. So dense was this forest that twilight seemed to have come.

Travel was arduous. Everywhere were windfalls that had to be avoided, and not a rod was there without a fallen tree. The horses, laboring slowly, sometimes sank knee-deep into the brown duff. Gray moss festooned the tree-trunks and an amber-green moss grew thick on the rotting logs.

Helen loved this forest primeval. It was so still, so dark, so gloomy, so full of shadows and shade, and a dank smell of rotting wood, and sweet fragrance of spruce. The great windfalls, where trees were jammed together in dozens, showed the savagery of the storms. Wherever a single monarch lay uprooted there had sprung up a number of ambitious sons, jealous of one another, fighting for place. Even the trees fought one another! The forest was a place of mystery, but its strife could be read by any eye. The lightnings had split firs clear to the roots, and others it had circled with ripping tear from top to trunk.

Time came, however, when the exceeding wildness of the forest, in density and fallen timber, made it imperative for Helen to put all her attention on the ground and trees in her immediate vicinity. So the pleasure of gazing ahead at the beautiful wilderness was denied her. Thereafter travel became toil and the hours endless.

Roy led on, and Ranger followed, while the shadows darkened under the trees. She was reeling in her saddle, half blind and sick, when Roy called out cheerily that they were almost there.

Whatever his idea was, to Helen it seemed many miles that she followed him farther, out of the heavy-timbered forest down upon slopes of low spruce, like evergreen, which descended sharply to another level, where dark, shallow streams flowed gently and the solemn stillness held a low murmur of falling water, and at last the wood ended upon a wonderful park full of a thick, rich, golden light of fast-fading sunset.

“Smell the smoke,” said Roy. “By Solomon! if Milt ain’t here ahead of me!”

He rode on. Helen’s weary gaze took in the round senaca, the circling black slopes, leading up to craggy rims all gold and red in the last flare of the sun; then all the spirit left in her flashed up in thrilling wonder at this exquisite, wild, and colorful spot.

Horses were grazing out in the long grass and there were deer grazing with them. Roy led round a corner of the fringed, bordering woodland, and there, under lofty trees, shone a camp-fire. Huge gray rocks loomed beyond, and then cliffs rose step by step to a notch in the mountain wall, over which poured a thin, lacy waterfall. As Helen gazed in rapture the sunset gold faded to white and all the western slope of the amphitheater darkened.

Dale’s tall form appeared.

“Reckon you’re late,” he said, as with a comprehensive flash of eye he took in the three.

“Milt, I got lost,” replied Roy.

“I feared as much.... You girls look like you’d done better to ride with me,” went on Dale, as he offered a hand to help Bo off. She took it, tried to get her foot out of the stirrups, and then she slid from the saddle into Dale’s arms. He placed her on her feet and, supporting her, said, solicitously: “A hundred-mile ride in three days for a tenderfoot is somethin’ your uncle Al won’t believe.... Come, walk if it kills you!”

Whereupon he led Bo, very much as if he were teaching a child to walk. The fact that the voluble Bo had nothing to say was significant to Helen, who was following, with the assistance of Roy.

One of the huge rocks resembled a sea-shell in that it contained a hollow over which the wide-spreading shelf flared out. It reached toward branches of great pines. A spring burst from a crack in the solid rock. The campfire blazed under a pine, and the blue column of smoke rose just in front of the shelving rock. Packs were lying on the grass and some of them were open. There were no signs here of a permanent habitation of the hunter. But farther on were other huge rocks, leaning, cracked, and forming caverns, some of which perhaps he utilized.

“My camp is just back,” said Dale, as if he had read Helen’s mind. “To-morrow we’ll fix up comfortable-like round here for you girls.”

Helen and Bo were made as easy as blankets and saddles could make them, and the men went about their tasks.

“Nell — isn’t this — a dream?” murmured Bo.

“No, child. It’s real — terribly real,” replied Helen. “Now that we’re here — with that awful ride over — we can think.”

“It’s so pretty — here,” yawned Bo. “I’d just as lief Uncle Al didn’t find us very soon.”

“Bo! He’s a sick man. Think what the worry will be to him.”

“I’ll bet if he knows Dale he won’t be so worried.”

“Dale told us Uncle Al disliked him.”

“Pooh! What difference does that make?... Oh, I don’t know which I am — hungrier or tireder!”

“I couldn’t eat to-night,” said Helen, wearily.

When she stretched out she had a vague, delicious sensation that that was the end of Helen Rayner, and she was glad. Above her, through the lacy, fernlike pine-needles, she saw blue sky and a pale star just showing. Twilight was stealing down swiftly. The silence was beautiful, seemingly undisturbed by the soft, silky, dreamy fall of water. Helen closed her eyes, ready for sleep, with the physical commotion within her body gradually yielding. In some places her bones felt as if they had come out through her flesh; in others throbbed deep-seated aches; her muscles appeared slowly to subside, to relax, with the quivering twinges ceasing one by one; through muscle and bone, through all her body, pulsed a burning current.

Bo’s head dropped on Helen’s shoulder. Sense became vague to Helen. She lost the low murmur of the waterfall, and then the sound or feeling of some one at the campfire. And her last conscious thought was that she tried to open her eyes and could not.

When she awoke all was bright. The sun shone almost directly overhead. Helen was astounded. Bo lay wrapped in deep sleep, her face flushed, with beads of perspiration on her brow and the chestnut curls damp. Helen threw down the blankets, and then, gathering courage — for she felt as if her back was broken — she endeavored to sit up. In vain! Her spirit was willing, but her muscles refused to act. It must take a violent spasmodic effort. She tried it with shut eyes, and, succeeding, sat there trembling. The commotion she had made in the blankets awoke Bo, and she blinked her surprised blue eyes in the sunlight.

“Hello — Nell! do I have to — get up?” she asked, sleepily.

“Can you?” queried Helen.

“Can I what?” Bo was now thoroughly awake and lay there staring at her sister.

“Why — get up.”

“I’d like to know why not,” retorted Bo, as she made the effort. She got one arm and shoulder up, only to flop back like a crippled thing. And she uttered the most piteous little moan. “I’m dead! I know — I am!”

“Well, if you’re going to be a Western girl you’d better have spunk enough to move.”

“A-huh!” ejaculated Bo. Then she rolled over, not without groans, and, once upon her face, she raised herself on her hands and turned to a sitting posture. “Where’s everybody?... Oh, Nell, it’s perfectly lovely here. Paradise!”

Helen looked around. A fire was smoldering. No one was in sight. Wonderful distant colors seemed to strike her glance as she tried to fix it upon near-by objects. A beautiful little green tent or shack had been erected out of spruce boughs. It had a slanting roof that sloped all the way from a ridge-pole to the ground; half of the opening in front was closed, as were the sides. The spruce boughs appeared all to be laid in the same direction, giving it a smooth, compact appearance, actually as if it had grown there.

“That lean-to wasn’t there last night?” inquired Bo.

“I didn’t see it. Lean-to? Where’d you get that name?”

“It’s Western, my dear. I’ll bet they put it up for us.... Sure, I see our bags inside. Let’s get up. It must be late.”

The girls had considerable fun as well as pain in getting up and keeping each other erect until their limbs would hold them firmly. They were delighted with the spruce lean-to. It faced the open and stood just under the wide-spreading shelf of rock. The tiny outlet from the spring flowed beside it and spilled its clear water over a stone, to fall into a little pool. The floor of this woodland habitation consisted of tips of spruce boughs to about a foot in depth, all laid one way, smooth and springy, and so sweetly odorous that the air seemed intoxicating. Helen and Bo opened their baggage, and what with use of the cold water, brush and comb, and clean blouses, they made themselves feel as comfortable as possible, considering the excruciating aches. Then they went out to the campfire.

Helen’s eye was attracted by moving objects near at hand. Then simultaneously with Bo’s cry of delight Helen saw a beautiful doe approaching under the trees. Dale walked beside it.

“You sure had a long sleep,” was the hunter’s greeting. “I reckon you both look better.”

“Good morning. Or is it afternoon? We’re just able to move about,” said Helen.

“I could ride,” declared Bo, stoutly. “Oh, Nell, look at the deer! It’s coming to me.”

The doe had hung back a little as Dale reached the camp-fire. It was a gray, slender creature, smooth as silk, with great dark eyes. It stood a moment, long ears erect, and then with a graceful little trot came up to Bo and reached a slim nose for her outstretched hand. All about it, except the beautiful soft eyes, seemed wild, and yet it was as tame as a kitten. Then, suddenly, as Bo fondled the long ears, it gave a start and, breaking away, ran back out of sight under the pines.

“What frightened it?” asked Bo.

Dale pointed up at the wall under the shelving roof of rock. There, twenty feet from the ground, curled up on a ledge, lay a huge tawny animal with a face like that of a cat.

“She’s afraid of Tom,” replied Dale. “Recognizes him as a hereditary foe, I guess. I can’t make friends of them.”

“Oh! So that’s Tom — the pet lion!” exclaimed Bo. “Ugh! No wonder that deer ran off!”

“How long has he been up there?” queried Helen, gazing fascinated at Dale’s famous pet.

“I couldn’t say. Tom comes an’ goes,” replied Dale. “But I sent him up there last night.”

“And he was there — perfectly free — right over us — while we slept!” burst out Bo.

“Yes. An’ I reckon you slept the safer for that.”

“Of all things! Nell, isn’t he a monster? But he doesn’t look like a lion — an African lion. He’s a panther. I saw his like at the circus once.”

“He’s a cougar,” said Dale. “The panther is long and slim. Tom is not only long, but thick an’ round. I’ve had him four years. An’ he was a kitten no bigger ‘n my fist when I got him.”

“Is he perfectly tame — safe?” asked Helen, anxiously.

“I’ve never told anybody that Tom was safe, but he is,” replied Dale. “You can absolutely believe it. A wild cougar wouldn’t attack a man unless cornered or starved. An’ Tom is like a big kitten.”

The beast raised his great catlike face, with its sleepy, half-shut eyes, and looked down upon them.

“Shall I call him down?” inquired Dale.

For once Bo did not find her voice.

“Let us — get a little more used to him — at a distance,” replied Helen, with a little laugh.

“If he comes to you, just rub his head an’ you’ll see how tame he is,” said Dale. “Reckon you’re both hungry?”

“Not so very,” returned Helen, aware of his penetrating gray gaze upon her.

“Well, I am,” vouchsafed Bo.

“Soon as the turkey’s done we’ll eat. My camp is round between the rocks. I’ll call you.”

Not until his broad back was turned did Helen notice that the hunter looked different. Then she saw he wore a lighter, cleaner suit of buckskin, with no coat, and instead of the high-heeled horseman’s boots he wore moccasins and leggings. The change made him appear more lithe.

“Nell, I don’t know what you think, but I call him handsome,” declared Bo.

Helen had no idea what she thought.

“Let’s try to walk some,” she suggested.

So they essayed that painful task and got as far as a pine log some few rods from their camp. This point was close to the edge of the park, from which there was an unobstructed view.

“My! What a place!” exclaimed Bo, with eyes wide and round.

“Oh, beautiful!” breathed Helen.

An unexpected blaze of color drew her gaze first. Out of the black spruce slopes shone patches of aspens, gloriously red and gold, and low down along the edge of timber troops of aspens ran out into the park, not yet so blazing as those above, but purple and yellow and white in the sunshine. Masses of silver spruce, like trees in moonlight, bordered the park, sending out here and there an isolated tree, sharp as a spear, with under-branches close to the ground. Long golden-green grass, resembling half-ripe wheat, covered the entire floor of the park, gently waving to the wind. Above sheered the black, gold-patched slopes, steep and unscalable, rising to buttresses of dark, iron-hued rock. And to the east circled the rows of cliff-bench, gray and old and fringed, splitting at the top in the notch where the lacy, slumberous waterfall, like white smoke, fell and vanished, to reappear in wider sheet of lace, only to fall and vanish again in the green depths.

It was a verdant valley, deep-set in the mountain walls, wild and sad and lonesome. The waterfall dominated the spirit of the place, dreamy and sleepy and tranquil; it murmured sweetly on one breath of wind, and lulled with another, and sometimes died out altogether, only to come again in soft, strange roar.

“Paradise Park!” whispered Bo to herself.

A call from Dale disturbed their raptures. Turning, they hobbled with eager but painful steps in the direction of a larger camp-fire, situated to the right of the great rock that sheltered their lean-to. No hut or house showed there and none was needed. Hiding-places and homes for a hundred hunters were there in the sections of caverned cliffs, split off in bygone ages from the mountain wall above. A few stately pines stood out from the rocks, and a clump of silver spruce ran down to a brown brook. This camp was only a step from the lean-to, round the corner of a huge rock, yet it had been out of sight. Here indeed was evidence of a hunter’s home — pelts and skins and antlers, a neat pile of split fire-wood, a long ledge of rock, well sheltered, and loaded with bags like a huge pantry-shelf, packs and ropes and saddles, tools and weapons, and a platform of dry brush as shelter for a fire around which hung on poles a various assortment of utensils for camp.

“Hyar — you git!” shouted Dale, and he threw a stick at something. A bear cub scampered away in haste. He was small and woolly and brown, and he grunted as he ran. Soon he halted.

“That’s Bud,” said Dale, as the girls came up. “Guess he near starved in my absence. An’ now he wants everythin’, especially the sugar. We don’t have sugar often up here.”

“Isn’t he dear? Oh, I love him!” cried Bo. “Come back, Bud. Come, Buddie.”

The cub, however, kept his distance, watching Dale with bright little eyes.

“Where’s Mr. Roy?” asked Helen.

“Roy’s gone. He was sorry not to say good-by. But it’s important he gets down in the pines on Anson’s trail. He’ll hang to Anson, an’ in case they get near Pine he’ll ride in to see where your uncle is.”

“What do you expect?” questioned Helen, gravely.

“‘Most anythin’,” he replied. “Al, I reckon, knows now. Maybe he’s rustlin’ into the mountains by this time. If he meets up with Anson, well an’ good, for Roy won’t be far off. An’ sure if he runs across Roy, why they’ll soon be here. But if I were you I wouldn’t count on seein’ your uncle very soon. I’m sorry. I’ve done my best. It sure is a bad deal.”

“Don’t think me ungracious,” replied Helen, hastily. How plainly he had intimated that it must be privation and annoyance for her to be compelled to accept his hospitality! “You are good — kind. I owe you much. I’ll be eternally grateful.”

Dale straightened as he looked at her. His glance was intent, piercing. He seemed to be receiving a strange or unusual portent. No need for him to say he had never before been spoken to like that!

“You may have to stay here with me — for weeks — maybe months — if we’ve the bad luck to get snowed in,” he said, slowly, as if startled at this deduction. “You’re safe here. No sheep-thief could ever find this camp. I’ll take risks to get you safe into Al’s hands. But I’m goin’ to be pretty sure about what I’m doin’.... So — there’s plenty to eat an’ it’s a pretty place.”

“Pretty! Why, it’s grand!” exclaimed Bo. “I’ve called it Paradise Park.”

“Paradise Park,” he repeated, weighing the words. “You’ve named it an’ also the creek. Paradise Creek! I’ve been here twelve years with no fit name for my home till you said that.”

“Oh, that pleases me!” returned Bo, with shining eyes.

“Eat now,” said Dale. “An’ I reckon you’ll like that turkey.”

There was a clean tarpaulin upon which were spread steaming, fragrant pans — roast turkey, hot biscuits and gravy, mashed potatoes as white as if prepared at home, stewed dried apples, and butter and coffee. This bounteous repast surprised and delighted the girls; when they had once tasted the roast wild turkey, then Milt Dale had occasion to blush at their encomiums.

“I hope — Uncle Al — doesn’t come for a month,” declared Bo, as she tried to get her breath. There was a brown spot on her nose and one on each cheek, suspiciously close to her mouth.

Dale laughed. It was pleasant to hear him, for his laugh seemed unused and deep, as if it came from tranquil depths.

“Won’t you eat with us?” asked Helen.

“Reckon I will,” he said, “it’ll save time, an’ hot grub tastes better.”

Quite an interval of silence ensued, which presently was broken by Dale.

“Here comes Tom.”

Helen observed with a thrill that the cougar was magnificent, seen erect on all-fours, approaching with slow, sinuous grace. His color was tawny, with spots of whitish gray. He had bow-legs, big and round and furry, and a huge head with great tawny eyes. No matter how tame he was said to be, he looked wild. Like a dog he walked right up, and it so happened that he was directly behind Bo, within reach of her when she turned.

“Oh, Lord!” cried Bo, and up went both of her hands, in one of which was a huge piece of turkey. Tom took it, not viciously, but nevertheless with a snap that made Helen jump. As if by magic the turkey vanished. And Tom took a closer step toward Bo. Her expression of fright changed to consternation.

“He stole my turkey!”

“Tom, come here,” ordered Dale, sharply. The cougar glided round rather sheepishly. “Now lie down an’ behave.”

Tom crouched on all-fours, his head resting on his paws, with his beautiful tawny eyes, light and piercing, fixed upon the hunter.

“Don’t grab,” said Dale, holding out a piece of turkey. Whereupon Tom took it less voraciously.

As it happened, the little bear cub saw this transaction, and he plainly indicated his opinion of the preference shown to Tom.

“Oh, the dear!” exclaimed Bo. “He means it’s not fair.... Come, Bud — come on.”

But Bud would not approach the group until called by Dale. Then he scrambled to them with every manifestation of delight. Bo almost forgot her own needs in feeding him and getting acquainted with him. Tom plainly showed his jealousy of Bud, and Bud likewise showed his fear of the great cat.

Helen could not believe the evidence of her eyes — that she was in the woods calmly and hungrily partaking of sweet, wild-flavored meat — that a full-grown mountain lion lay on one side of her and a baby brown bear sat on the other — that a strange hunter, a man of the forest, there in his lonely and isolated fastness, appealed to the romance in her and interested her as no one else she had ever met.

When the wonderful meal was at last finished Bo enticed the bear cub around to the camp of the girls, and there soon became great comrades with him. Helen, watching Bo play, was inclined to envy her. No matter where Bo was placed, she always got something out of it. She adapted herself. She, who could have a good time with almost any one or anything, would find the hours sweet and fleeting in this beautiful park of wild wonders.

But merely objective actions — merely physical movements, had never yet contented Helen. She could run and climb and ride and play with hearty and healthy abandon, but those things would not suffice long for her, and her mind needed food. Helen was a thinker. One reason she had desired to make her home in the West was that by taking up a life of the open, of action, she might think and dream and brood less. And here she was in the wild West, after the three most strenuously active days of her career, and still the same old giant revolved her mind and turned it upon herself and upon all she saw.

“What can I do?” she asked Bo, almost helplessly.

“Why, rest, you silly!” retorted Bo. “You walk like an old, crippled woman with only one leg.”

Helen hoped the comparison was undeserved, but the advice was sound. The blankets spread out on the grass looked inviting and they felt comfortably warm in the sunshine. The breeze was slow, languorous, fragrant, and it brought the low hum of the murmuring waterfall, like a melody of bees. Helen made a pillow and lay down to rest. The green pine-needles, so thin and fine in their crisscross network, showed clearly against the blue sky. She looked in vain for birds. Then her gaze went wonderingly to the lofty fringed rim of the great amphitheater, and as she studied it she began to grasp its remoteness, how far away it was in the rarefied atmosphere. A black eagle, sweeping along, looked of tiny size, and yet he was far under the heights above. How pleasant she fancied it to be up there! And drowsy fancy lulled her to sleep.

Helen slept all afternoon, and upon awakening, toward sunset, found Bo curled beside her. Dale had thoughtfully covered them with a blanket; also he had built a camp-fire. The air was growing keen and cold.

Later, when they had put their coats on and made comfortable seats beside the fire, Dale came over, apparently to visit them.

“I reckon you can’t sleep all the time,” he said. “An’ bein’ city girls, you’ll get lonesome.”

“Lonesome!” echoed Helen. The idea of her being lonesome here had not occurred to her.

“I’ve thought that all out,” went on Dale, as he sat down, Indian fashion, before the blaze. “It’s natural you’d find time drag up here, bein’ used to lots of people an’ goin’s-on, an’ work, an’ all girls like.”

“I’d never be lonesome here,” replied Helen, with her direct force.

Dale did not betray surprise, but he showed that his mistake was something to ponder over.

“Excuse me,” he said, presently, as his gray eyes held hers. “That’s how I had it. As I remember girls — an’ it doesn’t seem long since I left home — most of them would die of lonesomeness up here.” Then he addressed himself to Bo. “How about you? You see, I figured you’d be the one that liked it, an’ your sister the one who wouldn’t.”

“I won’t get lonesome very soon,” replied Bo.

“I’m glad. It worried me some — not ever havin’ girls as company before. An’ in a day or so, when you’re rested, I’ll help you pass the time.”

Bo’s eyes were full of flashing interest, and Helen asked him, “How?”

It was a sincere expression of her curiosity and not doubtful or ironic challenge of an educated woman to a man of the forest. But as a challenge he took it.

“How!” he repeated, and a strange smile flitted across his face. “Why, by givin’ you rides an’ climbs to beautiful places. An’ then, if you’re interested,’ to show you how little so-called civilized people know of nature.”

Helen realized then that whatever his calling, hunter or wanderer or hermit, he was not uneducated, even if he appeared illiterate.

“I’ll be happy to learn from you,” she said.

“Me, too!” chimed in Bo. “You can’t tell too much to any one from Missouri.”

He smiled, and that warmed Helen to him, for then he seemed less removed from other people. About this hunter there began to be something of the very nature of which he spoke — a stillness, aloofness, an unbreakable tranquillity, a cold, clear spirit like that in the mountain air, a physical something not unlike the tamed wildness of his pets or the strength of the pines.

“I’ll bet I can tell you more ‘n you’ll ever remember,” he said.

“What ‘ll you bet?” retorted Bo.

“Well, more roast turkey against — say somethin’ nice when you’re safe an’ home to your uncle Al’s, runnin’ his ranch.”

“Agreed. Nell, you hear?”

Helen nodded her head.

“All right. We’ll leave it to Nell,” began Dale, half seriously. “Now I’ll tell you, first, for the fun of passin’ time we’ll ride an’ race my horses out in the park. An’ we’ll fish in the brooks an’ hunt in the woods. There’s an old silvertip around that you can see me kill. An’ we’ll climb to the peaks an’ see wonderful sights.... So much for that. Now, if you really want to learn — or if you only want me to tell you — well, that’s no matter. Only I’ll win the bet!... You’ll see how this park lies in the crater of a volcano an’ was once full of water — an’ how the snow blows in on one side in winter, a hundred feet deep, when there’s none on the other. An’ the trees — how they grow an’ live an’ fight one another an’ depend on one another, an’ protect the forest from storm-winds. An’ how they hold the water that is the fountains of the great rivers. An’ how the creatures an’ things that live in them or on them are good for them, an’ neither could live without the other. An’ then I’ll show you my pets tame an’ untamed, an’ tell you how it’s man that makes any creature wild — how easy they are to tame — an’ how they learn to love you. An’ there’s the life of the forest, the strife of it — how the bear lives, an’ the cats, an’ the wolves, an’ the deer. You’ll see how cruel nature is how savage an’ wild the wolf or cougar tears down the deer — how a wolf loves fresh, hot blood, an’ how a cougar unrolls the skin of a deer back from his neck. An’ you’ll see that this cruelty of nature — this work of the wolf an’ cougar — is what makes the deer so beautiful an’ healthy an’ swift an’ sensitive. Without his deadly foes the deer would deteriorate an’ die out. An’ you’ll see how this principle works out among all creatures of the forest. Strife! It’s the meanin’ of all creation, an’ the salvation. If you’re quick to see, you’ll learn that the nature here in the wilds is the same as that of men — only men are no longer cannibals. Trees fight to live — birds fight — animals fight — men fight. They all live off one another. An’ it’s this fightin’ that brings them all closer an’ closer to bein’ perfect. But nothin’ will ever be perfect.”

“But how about religion?” interrupted Helen, earnestly.

“Nature has a religion, an’ it’s to live — to grow — to reproduce, each of its kind.”

“But that is not God or the immortality of the soul,” declared Helen.

“Well, it’s as close to God an’ immortality as nature ever gets.”

“Oh, you would rob me of my religion!”

“No, I just talk as I see life,” replied Dale, reflectively, as he poked a stick into the red embers of the fire. “Maybe I have a religion. I don’t know. But it’s not the kind you have — not the Bible kind. That kind doesn’t keep the men in Pine an’ Snowdrop an’ all over — sheepmen an’ ranchers an’ farmers an’ travelers, such as I’ve known — the religion they profess doesn’t keep them from lyin’, cheatin’, stealin’, an’ killin’. I reckon no man who lives as I do — which perhaps is my religion — will lie or cheat or steal or kill, unless it’s to kill in self-defense or like I’d do if Snake Anson would ride up here now. My religion, maybe, is love of life — wild life as it was in the beginnin’ — an’ the wind that blows secrets from everywhere, an’ the water that sings all day an’ night, an’ the stars that shine constant, an’ the trees that speak somehow, an’ the rocks that aren’t dead. I’m never alone here or on the trails. There’s somethin’ unseen, but always with me. An’ that’s It! Call it God if you like. But what stalls me is — where was that Spirit when this earth was a ball of fiery gas? Where will that Spirit be when all life is frozen out or burned out on this globe an’ it hangs dead in space like the moon? That time will come. There’s no waste in nature. Not the littlest atom is destroyed. It changes, that’s all, as you see this pine wood go up in smoke an’ feel somethin’ that’s heat come out of it. Where does that go? It’s not lost. Nothin’ is lost. So, the beautiful an’ savin’ thought is, maybe all rock an’ wood, water an’ blood an’ flesh, are resolved back into the elements, to come to life somewhere again sometime.”

“Oh, what you say is wonderful, but it’s terrible!” exclaimed Helen. He had struck deep into her soul.

“Terrible? I reckon,” he replied, sadly.

Then ensued a little interval of silence.

“Milt Dale, I lose the bet,” declared Bo, with earnestness behind her frivolity.

“I’d forgotten that. Reckon I talked a lot,” he said, apologetically. “You see, I don’t get much chance to talk, except to myself or Tom. Years ago, when I found the habit of silence settlin’ down on me, I took to thinkin’ out loud an’ talkin’ to anythin’.”

“I could listen to you all night,” returned Bo, dreamily.

“Do you read — do you have books?” inquired Helen, suddenly.

“Yes, I read tolerable well; a good deal better than I talk or write,” he replied. “I went to school till I was fifteen. Always hated study, but liked to read. Years ago an old friend of mine down here at Pine — Widow Cass — she gave me a lot of old books. An’ I packed them up here. Winter’s the time I read.”

Conversation lagged after that, except for desultory remarks, and presently Dale bade the girls good night and left them. Helen watched his tall form vanish in the gloom under the pines, and after he had disappeared she still stared.

“Nell!” called Bo, shrilly. “I’ve called you three times. I want to go to bed.”

“Oh! I — I was thinking,” rejoined Helen, half embarrassed, half wondering at herself. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I should smile you didn’t,” retorted Bo. “Wish you could just have seen your eyes. Nell, do you want me to tell you something?

“Why — yes,” said Helen, rather feebly. She did not at all, when Bo talked like that.

“You’re going to fall in love with that wild hunter,” declared Bo in a voice that rang like a bell.

Helen was not only amazed, but enraged. She caught her breath preparatory to giving this incorrigible sister a piece of her mind. Bo went calmly on.

“I can feel it in my bones.”

“Bo, you’re a little fool — a sentimental, romancing, gushy little fool!” retorted Helen. “All you seem to hold in your head is some rot about love. To hear you talk one would think there’s nothing else in the world but love.”

Bo’s eyes were bright, shrewd, affectionate, and laughing as she bent their steady gaze upon Helen.

“Nell, that’s just it. There IS nothing else!”

CHAPTER X

THE NIGHT OF sleep was so short that it was difficult for Helen to believe that hours had passed. Bo appeared livelier this morning, with less complaint of aches.

“Nell, you’ve got color!” exclaimed Bo. “And your eyes are bright. Isn’t the morning perfectly lovely?... Couldn’t you get drunk on that air? I smell flowers. And oh! I’m hungry!”

“Bo, our host will soon have need of his hunting abilities if your appetite holds,” said Helen, as she tried to keep her hair out of her eyes while she laced her boots.

“Look! there’s a big dog — a hound.”

Helen looked as Bo directed, and saw a hound of unusually large proportions, black and tan in color, with long, drooping ears. Curiously he trotted nearer to the door of their hut and then stopped to gaze at them. His head was noble, his eyes shone dark and sad. He seemed neither friendly nor unfriendly.

“Hello, doggie! Come right in — we won’t hurt you,” called Bo, but without enthusiasm.

This made Helen laugh. “Bo, you’re simply delicious,” she said. “You’re afraid of that dog.”

“Sure. Wonder if he’s Dale’s. Of course he must be.”

Presently the hound trotted away out of sight. When the girls presented themselves at the camp-fire they espied their curious canine visitor lying down. His ears were so long that half of them lay on the ground.

“I sent Pedro over to wake you girls up,” said Dale, after greeting them. “Did he scare you?”

“Pedro. So that’s his name. No, he didn’t exactly scare me. He did Nell, though. She’s an awful tenderfoot,” replied Bo.

“He’s a splendid-looking dog,” said Helen, ignoring her sister’s sally. “I love dogs. Will he make friends?”

“He’s shy an’ wild. You see, when I leave camp he won’t hang around. He an’ Tom are jealous of each other. I had a pack of hounds an’ lost all but Pedro on account of Tom. I think you can make friends with Pedro. Try it.”

Whereupon Helen made overtures to Pedro, and not wholly in vain. The dog was matured, of almost stern aloofness, and manifestly not used to people. His deep, wine-dark eyes seemed to search Helen’s soul. They were honest and wise, with a strange sadness.

“He looks intelligent,” observed Helen, as she smoothed the long, dark ears.

“That hound is nigh human,” responded Dale. “Come, an’ while you eat I’ll tell you about Pedro.”

Dale had gotten the hound as a pup from a Mexican sheep-herder who claimed he was part California bloodhound. He grew up, becoming attached to Dale. In his younger days he did not get along well with Dale’s other pets and Dale gave him to a rancher down in the valley. Pedro was back in Dale’s camp next day. From that day Dale began to care more for the hound, but he did not want to keep him, for various reasons, chief of which was the fact that Pedro was too fine a dog to be left alone half the time to shift for himself. That fall Dale had need to go to the farthest village, Snowdrop, where he left Pedro with a friend. Then Dale rode to Show Down and Pine, and the camp of the Beemans’ and with them he trailed some wild horses for a hundred miles, over into New Mexico. The snow was flying when Dale got back to his camp in the mountains. And there was Pedro, gaunt and worn, overjoyed to welcome him home. Roy Beeman visited Dale that October and told that Dale’s friend in Snowdrop had not been able to keep Pedro. He broke a chain and scaled a ten-foot fence to escape. He trailed Dale to Show Down, where one of Dale’s friends, recognizing the hound, caught him, and meant to keep him until Dale’s return. But Pedro refused to eat. It happened that a freighter was going out to the Beeman camp, and Dale’s friend boxed Pedro up and put him on the wagon. Pedro broke out of the box, returned to Show Down, took up Dale’s trail to Pine, and then on to the Beeman camp. That was as far as Roy could trace the movements of the hound. But he believed, and so did Dale, that Pedro had trailed them out on the wild-horse hunt. The following spring Dale learned more from the herder of a sheepman at whose camp he and the Beemans; had rested on the way into New Mexico. It appeared that after Dale had left this camp Pedro had arrived, and another Mexican herder had stolen the hound. But Pedro got away.

“An’ he was here when I arrived,” concluded Dale, smiling. “I never wanted to get rid of him after that. He’s turned out to be the finest dog I ever knew. He knows what I say. He can almost talk. An’ I swear he can cry. He does whenever I start off without him.”

“How perfectly wonderful!” exclaimed Bo. “Aren’t animals great?... But I love horses best.”

It seemed to Helen that Pedro understood they were talking about him, for he looked ashamed, and swallowed hard, and dropped his gaze. She knew something of the truth about the love of dogs for their owners. This story of Dale’s, however, was stranger than any she had ever heard.

Tom, the cougar, put in an appearance then, and there was scarcely love in the tawny eyes he bent upon Pedro. But the hound did not deign to notice him. Tom sidled up to Bo, who sat on the farther side of the tarpaulin table-cloth, and manifestly wanted part of her breakfast.

“Gee! I love the look of him,” she said. “But when he’s close he makes my flesh creep.”

“Beasts are as queer as people,” observed Dale. “They take likes an’ dislikes. I believe Tom has taken a shine to you an’ Pedro begins to be interested in your sister. I can tell.”

“Where’s Bud?” inquired Bo.

“He’s asleep or around somewhere. Now, soon as I get the work done, what would you girls like to do?”

“Ride!” declared Bo, eagerly.

“Aren’t you sore an’ stiff?”

“I am that. But I don’t care. Besides, when I used to go out to my uncle’s farm near Saint Joe I always found riding to be a cure for aches.”

“Sure is, if you can stand it. An’ what will your sister like to do?” returned Dale, turning to Helen.

“Oh, I’ll rest, and watch you folks — and dream,” replied Helen.

“But after you’ve rested you must be active,” said Dale, seriously. “You must do things. It doesn’t matter what, just as long as you don’t sit idle.”

“Why?” queried Helen, in surprise. “Why not be idle here in this beautiful, wild place? just to dream away the hours — the days! I could do it.”

“But you mustn’t. It took me years to learn how bad that was for me. An’ right now I would love nothin’ more than to forget my work, my horses an’ pets — everythin’, an’ just lay around, seein’ an’ feelin’.”

“Seeing and feeling? Yes, that must be what I mean. But why — what is it? There are the beauty and color — the wild, shaggy slopes — the gray cliffs — the singing wind — the lulling water — the clouds — the sky. And the silence, loneliness, sweetness of it all.”

“It’s a driftin’ back. What I love to do an’ yet fear most. It’s what makes a lone hunter of a man. An’ it can grow so strong that it binds a man to the wilds.”

“How strange!” murmured Helen. “But that could never bind ME. Why, I must live and fulfil my mission, my work in the civilized world.”

It seemed to Helen that Dale almost imperceptibly shrank at her earnest words.

“The ways of Nature are strange,” he said. “I look at it different. Nature’s just as keen to wean you back to a savage state as you are to be civilized. An’ if Nature won, you would carry out her design all the better.”

This hunter’s talk shocked Helen and yet stimulated her mind.

“Me — a savage? Oh no!” she exclaimed. “But, if that were possible, what would Nature’s design be?”

“You spoke of your mission in life,” he replied. “A woman’s mission is to have children. The female of any species has only one mission — to reproduce its kind. An’ Nature has only one mission — toward greater strength, virility, efficiency — absolute perfection, which is unattainable.”

“What of mental and spiritual development of man and woman?” asked Helen.

“Both are direct obstacles to the design of Nature. Nature is physical. To create for limitless endurance for eternal life. That must be Nature’s inscrutable design. An’ why she must fail.”

“But the soul!” whispered Helen.

“Ah! When you speak of the soul an’ I speak of life we mean the same. You an’ I will have some talks while you’re here. I must brush up my thoughts.”

“So must I, it seems,” said Helen, with a slow smile. She had been rendered grave and thoughtful. “But I guess I’ll risk dreaming under the pines.”

Bo had been watching them with her keen blue eyes.

“Nell, it’d take a thousand years to make a savage of you,” she said. “But a week will do for me.”

“Bo, you were one before you left Saint Joe,” replied Helen. “Don’t you remember that school-teacher Barnes who said you were a wildcat and an Indian mixed? He spanked you with a ruler.”

“Never! He missed me,” retorted Bo, with red in her cheeks. “Nell, I wish you’d not tell things about me when I was a kid.”

“That was only two years ago,” expostulated Helen, in mild surprise.

“Suppose it was. I was a kid all right. I’ll bet you—” Bo broke up abruptly, and, tossing her head, she gave Tom a pat and then ran away around the corner of cliff wall.

Helen followed leisurely.

“Say, Nell,” said Bo, when Helen arrived at their little green ledge-pole hut, “do you know that hunter fellow will upset some of your theories?”

“Maybe. I’ll admit he amazes me — and affronts me, too, I’m afraid,” replied Helen. “What surprises me is that in spite of his evident lack of schooling he’s not raw or crude. He’s elemental.”

“Sister dear, wake up. The man’s wonderful. You can learn more from him than you ever learned in your life. So can I. I always hated books, anyway.”

When, a little later, Dale approached carrying some bridles, the hound Pedro trotted at his heels.

“I reckon you’d better ride the horse you had,” he said to Bo.

“Whatever you say. But I hope you let me ride them all, by and by.”

“Sure. I’ve a mustang out there you’ll like. But he pitches a little,” he rejoined, and turned away toward the park. The hound looked after him and then at Helen.

“Come, Pedro. Stay with me,” called Helen.

Dale, hearing her, motioned the hound back. Obediently Pedro trotted to her, still shy and soberly watchful, as if not sure of her intentions, but with something of friendliness about him now. Helen found a soft, restful seat in the sun facing the park, and there composed herself for what she felt would be slow, sweet, idle hours. Pedro curled down beside her. The tall form of Dale stalked across the park, out toward the straggling horses. Again she saw a deer grazing among them. How erect and motionless it stood watching Dale! Presently it bounded away toward the edge of the forest. Some of the horses whistled and ran, kicking heels high in the air. The shrill whistles rang clear in the stillness.

“Gee! Look at them go!” exclaimed Bo, gleefully, coming up to where Helen sat. Bo threw herself down upon the fragrant pine-needles and stretched herself languorously, like a lazy kitten. There was something feline in her lithe, graceful outline. She lay flat and looked up through the pines.

“Wouldn’t it be great, now,” she murmured, dreamily, half to herself, “if that Las Vegas cowboy would happen somehow to come, and then an earthquake would shut us up here in this Paradise valley so we’d never get out?”

“Bo! What would mother say to such talk as that?” gasped Helen.

“But, Nell, wouldn’t it be great?”

“It would be terrible.”

“Oh, there never was any romance in you, Nell Rayner,” replied Bo. “That very thing has actually happened out here in this wonderful country of wild places. You need not tell me! Sure it’s happened. With the cliff-dwellers and the Indians and then white people. Every place I look makes me feel that. Nell, you’d have to see people in the moon through a telescope before you’d believe that.”

“I’m practical and sensible, thank goodness!”

“But, for the sake of argument,” protested Bo, with flashing eyes, “suppose it MIGHT happen. Just to please me, suppose we DID get shut up here with Dale and that cowboy we saw from the train. Shut in without any hope of ever climbing out.... What would you do? Would you give up and pine away and die? Or would you fight for life and whatever joy it might mean?”

“Self-preservation is the first instinct,” replied Helen, surprised at a strange, deep thrill in the depths of her. “I’d fight for life, of course.”

“Yes. Well, really, when I think seriously I don’t want anything like that to happen. But, just the same, if it DID happen I would glory in it.”

While they were talking Dale returned with the horses.

“Can you bridle an’ saddle your own horse?” he asked.

“No. I’m ashamed to say I can’t,” replied Bo.

“Time to learn then. Come on. Watch me first when I saddle mine.”

Bo was all eyes while Dale slipped off the bridle from his horse and then with slow, plain action readjusted it. Next he smoothed the back of the horse, shook out the blanket, and, folding it half over, he threw it in place, being careful to explain to Bo just the right position. He lifted his saddle in a certain way and put that in place, and then he tightened the cinches.

“Now you try,” he said.

According to Helen’s judgment Bo might have been a Western girl all her days. But Dale shook his head and made her do it over.

“That was better. Of course, the saddle is too heavy for you to sling it up. You can learn that with a light one. Now put the bridle on again. Don’t be afraid of your hands. He won’t bite. Slip the bit in sideways.... There. Now let’s see you mount.”

When Bo got into the saddle Dale continued: “You went up quick an’ light, but the wrong way. Watch me.”

Bo had to mount several times before Dale was satisfied. Then he told her to ride off a little distance. When Bo had gotten out of earshot Dale said to Helen: “She’ll take to a horse like a duck takes to water.” Then, mounting, he rode out after her.

Helen watched them trotting and galloping and running the horses round the grassy park, and rather regretted she had not gone with them. Eventually Bo rode back, to dismount and fling herself down, red-cheeked and radiant, with disheveled hair, and curls damp on her temples. How alive she seemed! Helen’s senses thrilled with the grace and charm and vitality of this surprising sister, and she was aware of a sheer physical joy in her presence. Bo rested, but she did not rest long. She was soon off to play with Bud. Then she coaxed the tame doe to eat out of her hand. She dragged Helen off for wild flowers, curious and thoughtless by turns. And at length she fell asleep, quickly, in a way that reminded Helen of the childhood now gone forever.

Dale called them to dinner about four o’clock, as the sun was reddening the western rampart of the park. Helen wondered where the day had gone. The hours had flown swiftly, serenely, bringing her scarcely a thought of her uncle or dread of her forced detention there or possible discovery by those outlaws supposed to be hunting for her. After she realized the passing of those hours she had an intangible and indescribable feeling of what Dale had meant about dreaming the hours away. The nature of Paradise Park was inimical to the kind of thought that had habitually been hers. She found the new thought absorbing, yet when she tried to name it she found that, after all, she had only felt. At the meal hour she was more than usually quiet. She saw that Dale noticed it and was trying to interest her or distract her attention. He succeeded, but she did not choose to let him see that. She strolled away alone to her seat under the pine. Bo passed her once, and cried, tantalizingly:

“My, Nell, but you’re growing romantic!”

Never before in Helen’s life had the beauty of the evening star seemed so exquisite or the twilight so moving and shadowy or the darkness so charged with loneliness. It was their environment — the accompaniment of wild wolf-mourn, of the murmuring waterfall, of this strange man of the forest and the unfamiliar elements among which he made his home.

Next morning, her energy having returned, Helen shared Bo’s lesson in bridling and saddling her horse, and in riding. Bo, however, rode so fast and so hard that for Helen to share her company was impossible. And Dale, interested and amused, yet anxious, spent most of his time with Bo. It was thus that Helen rode all over the park alone. She was astonished at its size, when from almost any point it looked so small. The atmosphere deceived her. How clearly she could see! And she began to judge distance by the size of familiar things. A horse, looked at across the longest length of the park, seemed very small indeed. Here and there she rode upon dark, swift, little brooks, exquisitely clear and amber-colored and almost hidden from sight by the long grass. These all ran one way, and united to form a deeper brook that apparently wound under the cliffs at the west end, and plunged to an outlet in narrow clefts. When Dale and Bo came to her once she made inquiry, and she was surprised to learn from Dale that this brook disappeared in a hole in the rocks and had an outlet on the other side of the mountain. Sometime he would take them to the lake it formed.

“Over the mountain?” asked Helen, again remembering that she must regard herself as a fugitive. “Will it be safe to leave our hiding-place? I forget so often why we are here.”

“We would be better hidden over there than here,” replied Dale. “The valley on that side is accessible only from that ridge. An’ don’t worry about bein’ found. I told you Roy Beeman is watchin’ Anson an’ his gang. Roy will keep between them an’ us.”

Helen was reassured, yet there must always linger in the background of her mind a sense of dread. In spite of this, she determined to make the most of her opportunity. Bo was a stimulus. And so Helen spent the rest of that day riding and tagging after her sister.

The next day was less hard on Helen. Activity, rest, eating, and sleeping took on a wonderful new meaning to her. She had really never known them as strange joys. She rode, she walked, she climbed a little, she dozed under her pine-tree, she worked helping Dale at camp-fire tasks, and when night came she said she did not know herself. That fact haunted her in vague, deep dreams. Upon awakening she forgot her resolve to study herself. That day passed. And then several more went swiftly before she adapted herself to a situation she had reason to believe might last for weeks and even months.

It was afternoon that Helen loved best of all the time of the day. The sunrise was fresh, beautiful; the morning was windy, fragrant; the sunset was rosy, glorious; the twilight was sad, changing; and night seemed infinitely sweet with its stars and silence and sleep. But the afternoon, when nothing changed, when all was serene, when time seemed to halt, that was her choice, and her solace.

One afternoon she had camp all to herself. Bo was riding. Dale had climbed the mountain to see if he could find any trace of tracks or see any smoke from camp-fire. Bud was nowhere to be seen, nor any of the other pets. Tom had gone off to some sunny ledge where he could bask in the sun, after the habit of the wilder brothers of his species. Pedro had not been seen for a night and a day, a fact that Helen had noted with concern. However, she had forgotten him, and therefore was the more surprised to see him coming limping into camp on three legs.

“Why, Pedro! You have been fighting. Come here,” she called.

The hound did not look guilty. He limped to her and held up his right fore paw. The action was unmistakable. Helen examined the injured member and presently found a piece of what looked like mussel-shell embedded deeply between the toes. The wound was swollen, bloody, and evidently very painful. Pedro whined. Helen had to exert all the strength of her fingers to pull it out. Then Pedro howled. But immediately he showed his gratitude by licking her hand. Helen bathed his paw and bound it up.

When Dale returned she related the incident and, showing the piece of shell, she asked: “Where did that come from? Are there shells in the mountains?”

“Once this country was under the sea,” replied Dale. “I’ve found things that ‘d make you wonder.”

“Under the sea!” ejaculated Helen. It was one thing to have read of such a strange fact, but a vastly different one to realize it here among these lofty peaks. Dale was always showing her something or telling her something that astounded her.

“Look here,” he said one day. “What do you make of that little bunch of aspens?”

They were on the farther side of the park and were resting under a pine-tree. The forest here encroached upon the park with its straggling lines of spruce and groves of aspen. The little clump of aspens did not differ from hundreds Helen had seen.

“I don’t make anything particularly of it,” replied Helen, dubiously. “Just a tiny grove of aspens — some very small, some larger, but none very big. But it’s pretty with its green and yellow leaves fluttering and quivering.”

“It doesn’t make you think of a fight?”

“Fight? No, it certainly does not,” replied Helen.

“Well, it’s as good an example of fight, of strife, of selfishness, as you will find in the forest,” he said. “Now come over, you an’ Bo, an’ let me show you what I mean.”

“Come on, Nell,” cried Bo, with enthusiasm. “He’ll open our eyes some more.”

Nothing loath, Helen went with them to the little clump of aspens.

“About a hundred altogether,” said Dale. “They’re pretty well shaded by the spruces, but they get the sunlight from east an’ south. These little trees all came from the same seedlings. They’re all the same age. Four of them stand, say, ten feet or more high an’ they’re as large around as my wrist. Here’s one that’s largest. See how full-foliaged he is — how he stands over most of the others, but not so much over these four next to him. They all stand close together, very close, you see. Most of them are no larger than my thumb. Look how few branches they have, an’ none low down. Look at how few leaves. Do you see how all the branches stand out toward the east an’ south — how the leaves, of course, face the same way? See how one branch of one tree bends aside one from another tree. That’s a fight for the sunlight. Here are one — two — three dead trees. Look, I can snap them off. An’ now look down under them. Here are little trees five feet high — four feet high — down to these only a foot high. Look how pale, delicate, fragile, unhealthy! They get so little sunshine. They were born with the other trees, but did not get an equal start. Position gives the advantage, perhaps.”

Dale led the girls around the little grove, illustrating his words by action. He seemed deeply in earnest.

“You understand it’s a fight for water an’ sun. But mostly sun, because, if the leaves can absorb the sun, the tree an’ roots will grow to grasp the needed moisture. Shade is death — slow death to the life of trees. These little aspens are fightin’ for place in the sunlight. It is a merciless battle. They push an’ bend one another’s branches aside an’ choke them. Only perhaps half of these aspens will survive, to make one of the larger clumps, such as that one of full-grown trees over there. One season will give advantage to this saplin’ an’ next year to that one. A few seasons’ advantage to one assures its dominance over the others. But it is never sure of holdin’ that dominance. An ‘if wind or storm or a strong-growin’ rival does not overthrow it, then sooner or later old age will. For there is absolute and continual fight. What is true of these aspens is true of all the trees in the forest an’ of all plant life in the forest. What is most wonderful to me is the tenacity of life.”

And next day Dale showed them an even more striking example of this mystery of nature.

He guided them on horseback up one of the thick, verdant-wooded slopes, calling their attention at various times to the different growths, until they emerged on the summit of the ridge where the timber grew scant and dwarfed. At the edge of timber-line he showed a gnarled and knotted spruce-tree, twisted out of all semblance to a beautiful spruce, bent and storm-blasted, with almost bare branches, all reaching one’ way. The tree was a specter. It stood alone. It had little green upon it. There seemed something tragic about its contortions. But it was alive and strong. It had no rivals to take sun or moisture. Its enemies were the snow and wind and cold of the heights.

Helen felt, as the realization came to her, the knowledge Dale wished to impart, that it was as sad as wonderful, and as mysterious as it was inspiring. At that moment there were both the sting and sweetness of life — the pain and the joy — in Helen’s heart. These strange facts were going to teach her — to transform her. And even if they hurt, she welcomed them.

CHAPTER XI

“I’LL RIDE YOU if it breaks — my neck!” panted Bo, passionately, shaking her gloved fist at the gray pony.

Dale stood near with a broad smile on his face. Helen was within earshot, watching from the edge of the park, and she felt so fascinated and frightened that she could not call out for Bo to stop. The little gray mustang was a beauty, clean-limbed and racy, with long black mane and tail, and a fine, spirited head. There was a blanket strapped on his back, but no saddle. Bo held the short halter that had been fastened in a hackamore knot round his nose. She wore no coat; her blouse was covered with grass and seeds, and it was open at the neck; her hair hung loose and disheveled; one side of her face bore a stain of grass and dirt and a suspicion of blood; the other was red and white; her eyes blazed; beads of sweat stood out on her brow and wet places shone on her cheeks. As she began to strain on the halter, pulling herself closer to the fiery pony, the outline of her slender shape stood out lithe and strong.

Bo had been defeated in her cherished and determined ambition to ride Dale’s mustang, and she was furious. The mustang did not appear to be vicious or mean. But he was spirited, tricky, mischievous, and he had thrown her six times. The scene of Bo’s defeat was at the edge of the park, where thick moss and grass afforded soft places for her to fall. It also afforded poor foothold for the gray mustang, obviously placing him at a disadvantage. Dale did not bridle him, because he had not been broken to a bridle; and though it was harder for Bo to try to ride him bareback, there was less risk of her being hurt. Bo had begun in all eagerness and enthusiasm, loving and petting the mustang, which she named “Pony.” She had evidently anticipated an adventure, but her smiling, resolute face had denoted confidence. Pony had stood fairly well to be mounted, and then had pitched and tossed until Bo had slid off or been upset or thrown. After each fall Bo bounced up with less of a smile, and more of spirit, until now the Western passion to master a horse had suddenly leaped to life within her. It was no longer fun, no more a daring circus trick to scare Helen and rouse Dale’s admiration. The issue now lay between Bo and the mustang.

Pony reared, snorting, tossing his head, and pawing with front feet.

“Pull him down!” yelled Dale.

Bo did not have much weight, but she had strength, an she hauled with all her might, finally bringing him down.

“Now hold hard an’ take up rope an’ get in to him,” called Dale. “Good! You’re sure not afraid of him. He sees that. Now hold him, talk to him, tell him you’re goin’ to ride him. Pet him a little. An’ when he quits shakin’, grab his mane an’ jump up an’ slide a leg over him. Then hook your feet under him, hard as you can, an’ stick on.”

If Helen had not been so frightened for Bo she would have been able to enjoy her other sensations. Creeping, cold thrills chased over her as Bo, supple and quick, slid an arm and a leg over Pony and straightened up on him with a defiant cry. Pony jerked his head down, brought his feet together in one jump, and began to bounce. Bo got the swing of him this time and stayed on.

“You’re ridin’ him,” yelled Dale. “Now squeeze hard with your knees. Crack him over the head with your rope.... That’s the way. Hang on now an’ you’ll have him beat.”

The mustang pitched all over the space adjacent to Dale and Helen, tearing up the moss and grass. Several times he tossed Bo high, but she slid back to grip him again with her legs, and he could not throw her. Suddenly he raised his head and bolted. Dale answered Bo’s triumphant cry. But Pony had not run fifty feet before he tripped and fell, throwing Bo far over his head. As luck would have it — good luck, Dale afterward said — she landed in a boggy place and the force of her momentum was such that she slid several yards, face down, in wet moss and black ooze.

Helen uttered a scream and ran forward. Bo was getting to her knees when Dale reached her. He helped her up and half led, half carried her out of the boggy place. Bo was not recognizable. From head to foot she was dripping black ooze.

“Oh, Bo! Are you hurt?” cried Helen.

Evidently Bo’s mouth was full of mud.

“Pp — su — tt! Ough! Whew!” she sputtered. “Hurt? No! Can’t you see what I lit in? Dale, the sun-of-a-gun didn’t throw me. He fell, and I went over his head.”

“Right. You sure rode him. An’ he tripped an’ slung you a mile,” replied Dale. “It’s lucky you lit in that bog.”

“Lucky! With eyes and nose stopped up? Oooo! I’m full of mud. And my nice — new riding-suit!”

Bo’s tones indicated that she was ready to cry. Helen, realizing Bo had not been hurt, began to laugh. Her sister was the funniest-looking object that had ever come before her eyes.

“Nell Rayner — are you — laughing — at me?” demanded Bo, in most righteous amaze and anger.

“Me laugh-ing? N-never, Bo,” replied Helen. “Can’t you see I’m just — just—”

“See? You idiot! my eyes are full of mud!” flashed Bo. “But I hear you. I’ll — I’ll get even.”

Dale was laughing, too, but noiselessly, and Bo, being blind for the moment, could not be aware of that. By this time they had reached camp. Helen fell flat and laughed as she had never laughed before. When Helen forgot herself so far as to roll on the ground it was indeed a laughing matter. Dale’s big frame shook as he possessed himself of a towel and, wetting it at the spring, began to wipe the mud off Bo’s face. But that did not serve. Bo asked to be led to the water, where she knelt and, with splashing, washed out her eyes, and then her face, and then the bedraggled strands of hair.

“That mustang didn’t break my neck, but he rooted my face in the mud. I’ll fix him,” she muttered, as she got up. “Please let me have the towel, now.... Well! Milt Dale, you’re laughing!”

“Ex-cuse me, Bo. I — Haw! haw! haw!” Then Dale lurched off, holding his sides.

Bo gazed after him and then back at Helen.

“I suppose if I’d been kicked and smashed and killed you’d laugh,” she said. And then she melted. “Oh, my pretty riding-suit! What a mess! I must be a sight.... Nell, I rode that wild pony — the sun-of-a-gun! I rode him! That’s enough for me. YOU try it. Laugh all you want. It was funny. But if you want to square yourself with me, help me clean my clothes.”

Late in the night Helen heard Dale sternly calling Pedro. She felt some little alarm. However, nothing happened, and she soon went to sleep again. At the morning meal Dale explained.

“Pedro an’ Tom were uneasy last night. I think there are lions workin’ over the ridge somewhere. I heard one scream.”

“Scream?” inquired Bo, with interest.

“Yes, an’ if you ever hear a lion scream you will think it a woman in mortal agony. The cougar cry, as Roy calls it, is the wildest to be heard in the woods. A wolf howls. He is sad, hungry, and wild. But a cougar seems human an’ dyin’ an’ wild. We’ll saddle up an’ ride over there. Maybe Pedro will tree a lion. Bo, if he does will you shoot it?”

“Sure,” replied Bo, with her mouth full of biscuit.

That was how they came to take a long, slow, steep ride under cover of dense spruce. Helen liked the ride after they got on the heights. But they did not get to any point where she could indulge in her pleasure of gazing afar over the ranges. Dale led up and down, and finally mostly down, until they came out within sight of sparser wooded ridges with parks lying below and streams shining in the sun.

More than once Pedro had to be harshly called by Dale. The hound scented game.

“Here’s an old kill,” said Dale, halting to point at some bleached bones scattered under a spruce. Tufts of grayish-white hair lay strewn around.

“What was it?” asked Bo.

“Deer, of course. Killed there an’ eaten by a lion. Sometime last fall. See, even the skull is split. But I could not say that the lion did it.”

Helen shuddered. She thought of the tame deer down at Dale’s camp. How beautiful and graceful, and responsive to kindness!

They rode out of the woods into a grassy swale with rocks and clumps of some green bushes bordering it. Here Pedro barked, the first time Helen had heard him. The hair on his neck bristled, and it required stern calls from Dale to hold him in. Dale dismounted.

“Hyar, Pede, you get back,” he ordered. “I’ll let you go presently.... Girls, you’re goin’ to see somethin’. But stay on your horses.”

Dale, with the hound tense and bristling beside him, strode here and there at the edge of the swale. Presently he halted on a slight elevation and beckoned for the girls to ride over.

“Here, see where the grass is pressed down all nice an’ round,” he said, pointing. “A lion made that. He sneaked there, watchin’ for deer. That was done this mornin’. Come on, now. Let’s see if we can trail him.”

Dale stooped now, studying the grass, and holding Pedro. Suddenly he straightened up with a flash in his gray eyes.

“Here’s where he jumped.”

But Helen could not see any reason why Dale should say that. The man of the forest took a long stride then another.

“An’ here’s where that lion lit on the back of the deer. It was a big jump. See the sharp hoof tracks of the deer.” Dale pressed aside tall grass to show dark, rough, fresh tracks of a deer, evidently made by violent action.

“Come on,” called Dale, walking swiftly. “You’re sure goin’ to see somethin’ now.... Here’s where the deer bounded, carryin’ the lion.”

“What!” exclaimed Bo, incredulously.

“The deer was runnin’ here with the lion on his back. I’ll prove it to you. Come on, now. Pedro, you stay with me. Girls, it’s a fresh trail.” Dale walked along, leading his horse, and occasionally he pointed down into the grass. “There! See that! That’s hair.”

Helen did see some tufts of grayish hair scattered on the ground, and she believed she saw little, dark separations in the grass, where an animal had recently passed. All at once Dale halted. When Helen reached him Bo was already there and they were gazing down at a wide, flattened space in the grass. Even Helen’s inexperienced eyes could make out evidences of a struggle. Tufts of gray-white hair lay upon the crushed grass. Helen did not need to see any more, but Dale silently pointed to a patch of blood. Then he spoke:

“The lion brought the deer down here an’ killed him. Probably broke his neck. That deer ran a hundred yards with the lion. See, here’s the trail left where the lion dragged the deer off.”

A well-defined path showed across the swale.

“Girls, you’ll see that deer pretty quick,” declared Dale, starting forward. “This work has just been done. Only a few minutes ago.”

“How can you tell?” queried Bo.

“Look! See that grass. It has been bent down by the deer bein’ dragged over it. Now it’s springin’ up.”

Dale’s next stop was on the other side of the swale, under a spruce with low, spreading branches. The look of Pedro quickened Helen’s pulse. He was wild to give chase. Fearfully Helen looked where Dale pointed, expecting to see the lion. But she saw instead a deer lying prostrate with tongue out and sightless eyes and bloody hair.

“Girls, that lion heard us an’ left. He’s not far,” said Dale, as he stooped to lift the head of the deer. “Warm! Neck broken. See the lion’s teeth an’ claw marks.... It’s a doe. Look here. Don’t be squeamish, girls. This is only an hourly incident of everyday life in the forest. See where the lion has rolled the skin down as neat as I could do it, an’ he’d just begun to bite in there when he heard us.”

“What murderous work, The sight sickens me!” exclaimed Helen.

“It is nature,” said Dale, simply.

“Let’s kill the lion,” added Bo.

For answer Dale took a quick turn at their saddle-girths, and then, mounting, he called to the hound. “Hunt him up, Pedro.”

Like a shot the hound was off.

“Ride in my tracks an’ keep close to me,” called Dale, as he wheeled his horse.

“We’re off!” squealed Bo, in wild delight, and she made her mount plunge.

Helen urged her horse after them and they broke across a corner of the swale to the woods. Pedro was running straight, with his nose high. He let out one short bark. He headed into the woods, with Dale not far behind. Helen was on one of Dale’s best horses, but that fact scarcely manifested itself, because the others began to increase their lead. They entered the woods. It was open, and fairly good going. Bo’s horse ran as fast in the woods as he did in the open. That frightened Helen and she yelled to Bo to hold him in. She yelled to deaf ears. That was Bo’s great risk — she did not intend to be careful. Suddenly the forest rang with Dale’s encouraging yell, meant to aid the girls in following him. Helen’s horse caught the spirit of the chase. He gained somewhat on Bo, hurdling logs, sometimes two at once. Helen’s blood leaped with a strange excitement, utterly unfamiliar and as utterly resistless. Yet her natural fear, and the intelligence that reckoned with the foolish risk of this ride, shared alike in her sum of sensations. She tried to remember Dale’s caution about dodging branches and snags, and sliding her knees back to avoid knocks from trees. She barely missed some frightful reaching branches. She received a hard knock, then another, that unseated her, but frantically she held on and slid back, and at the end of a long run through comparatively open forest she got a stinging blow in the face from a far-spreading branch of pine. Bo missed, by what seemed only an inch, a solid snag that would have broken her in two. Both Pedro and Dale got out of Helen’s sight. Then Helen, as she began to lose Bo, felt that she would rather run greater risks than be left behind to get lost in the forest, and she urged her horse. Dale’s yell pealed back. Then it seemed even more thrilling to follow by sound than by sight. Wind and brush tore at her. The air was heavily pungent with odor of pine. Helen heard a wild, full bay of the hound, ringing back, full of savage eagerness, and she believed Pedro had roused out the lion from some covert. It lent more stir to her blood and it surely urged her horse on faster.

Then the swift pace slackened. A windfall of timber delayed Helen. She caught a glimpse of Dale far ahead, climbing a slope. The forest seemed full of his ringing yell. Helen strangely wished for level ground and the former swift motion. Next she saw Bo working down to the right, and Dale’s yell now came from that direction. Helen followed, got out of the timber, and made better time on a gradual slope down to another park.

When she reached the open she saw Bo almost across this narrow open ground. Here Helen did not need to urge her mount. He snorted and plunged at the level and he got to going so fast that Helen would have screamed aloud in mingled fear and delight if she had not been breathless.

Her horse had the bad luck to cross soft ground. He went to his knees and Helen sailed out of the saddle over his head. Soft willows and wet grass broke her fall. She was surprised to find herself unhurt. Up she bounded and certainly did not know this new Helen Rayner. Her horse was coming, and he had patience with her, but he wanted to hurry. Helen made the quickest mount of her experience and somehow felt a pride in it. She would tell Bo that. But just then Bo flashed into the woods out of sight. Helen fairly charged into that green foliage, breaking brush and branches. She broke through into open forest. Bo was inside, riding down an aisle between pines and spruces. At that juncture Helen heard Dale’s melodious yell near at hand. Coming into still more open forest, with rocks here and there, she saw Dale dismounted under a pine, and Pedro standing with fore paws upon the tree-trunk, and then high up on a branch a huge tawny colored lion, just like Tom.

Bo’s horse slowed up and showed fear, but he kept on as far as Dale’s horse. But Helen’s refused to go any nearer. She had difficulty in halting him. Presently she dismounted and, throwing her bridle over a stump, she ran on, panting and fearful, yet tingling all over, up to her sister and Dale.

“Nell, you did pretty good for a tenderfoot,” was Bo’s greeting.

“It was a fine chase,” said Dale. “You both rode well. I wish you could have seen the lion on the ground. He bounded — great long bounds with his tail up in the air — very funny. An’ Pedro almost caught up with him. That scared me, because he would have killed the hound. Pedro was close to him when he treed. An’ there he is — the yellow deer-killer. He’s a male an’ full grown.”

With that Dale pulled his rifle from its saddle-sheath and looked expectantly at Bo. But she was gazing with great interest and admiration up at the lion.

“Isn’t he just beautiful?” she burst out. “Oh, look at him spit! Just like a cat! Dale, he looks afraid he might fall off.”

“He sure does. Lions are never sure of their balance in a tree. But I never saw one make a misstep. He knows he doesn’t belong there.”

To Helen the lion looked splendid perched up there. He was long and round and graceful and tawny. His tongue hung out and his plump sides heaved, showing what a quick, hard run he had been driven to. What struck Helen most forcibly about him was something in his face as he looked down at the hound. He was scared. He realized his peril. It was not possible for Helen to watch him killed, yet she could not bring herself to beg Bo not to shoot. Helen confessed she was a tenderfoot.

“Get down, Bo, an’ let’s see how good a shot you are, said Dale. Bo slowly withdrew her fascinated gaze from the lion and looked with a rueful smile at Dale.

“I’ve changed my mind. I said I would kill him, but now I can’t. He looks so — so different from what I’d imagined.”

Dale’s answer was a rare smile of understanding and approval that warmed Helen’s heart toward him. All the same, he was amused. Sheathing the gun, he mounted his horse.

“Come on, Pedro,” he called. “Come, I tell you,” he added, sharply, “Well, girls, we treed him, anyhow, an’ it was fun. Now we’ll ride back to the deer he killed an’ pack a haunch to camp for our own use.”

“Will the lion go back to his — his kill, I think you called it?” asked Bo.

“I’ve chased one away from his kill half a dozen times. Lions are not plentiful here an’ they don’t get overfed. I reckon the balance is pretty even.”

This last remark made Helen inquisitive. And as they slowly rode on the back-trail Dale talked.

“You girls, bein’ tender-hearted an’ not knowin’ the life of the forest, what’s good an’ what’s bad, think it was a pity the poor deer was killed by a murderous lion. But you’re wrong. As I told you, the lion is absolutely necessary to the health an’ joy of wild life — or deer’s wild life, so to speak. When deer were created or came into existence, then the lion must have come, too. They can’t live without each other. Wolves, now, are not particularly deer-killers. They live off elk an’ anythin’ they can catch. So will lions, for that matter. But I mean lions follow the deer to an’ fro from winter to summer feedin’-grounds. Where there’s no deer you will find no lions. Well, now, if left alone deer would multiply very fast. In a few years there would be hundreds where now there’s only one. An’ in time, as the generations passed, they’d lose the fear, the alertness, the speed an’ strength, the eternal vigilance that is love of life — they’d lose that an’ begin to deteriorate, an’ disease would carry them off. I saw one season of black-tongue among deer. It killed them off, an’ I believe that is one of the diseases of over-production. The lions, now, are forever on the trail of the deer. They have learned. Wariness is an instinct born in the fawn. It makes him keen, quick, active, fearful, an’ so he grows up strong an’ healthy to become the smooth, sleek, beautiful, soft-eyed, an’ wild-lookin’ deer you girls love to watch. But if it wasn’t for the lions, the deer would not thrive. Only the strongest an’ swiftest survive. That is the meanin’ of nature. There is always a perfect balance kept by nature. It may vary in different years, but on the whole, in the long years, it averages an even balance.”

“How wonderfully you put it!” exclaimed Bo, with all her impulsiveness. “Oh, I’m glad I didn’t kill the lion.”

“What you say somehow hurts me,” said Helen, wistfully, to the hunter. “I see — I feel how true — how inevitable it is. But it changes my — my feelings. Almost I’d rather not acquire such knowledge as yours. This balance of nature — how tragic — how sad!”

“But why?” asked Dale. “You love birds, an’ birds are the greatest killers in the forest.”

“Don’t tell me that — don’t prove it,” implored Helen. “It is not so much the love of life in a deer or any creature, and the terrible clinging to life, that gives me distress. It is suffering. I can’t bear to see pain. I can STAND pain myself, but I can’t BEAR to see or think of it.”

“Well,” replied. Dale, thoughtfully, “There you stump me again. I’ve lived long in the forest an’ when a man’s alone he does a heap of thinkin’. An’ always I couldn’t understand a reason or a meanin’ for pain. Of all the bafflin’ things of life, that is the hardest to understand an’ to forgive — pain!”

That evening, as they sat in restful places round the camp-fire, with the still twilight fading into night, Dale seriously asked the girls what the day’s chase had meant to them. His manner of asking was productive of thought. Both girls were silent for a moment.

“Glorious!” was Bo’s brief and eloquent reply.

“Why?” asked. Dale, curiously. “You are a girl. You’ve been used to home, people, love, comfort, safety, quiet.”

“Maybe that is just why it was glorious,” said Bo, earnestly. “I can hardly explain. I loved the motion of the horse, the feel of wind in my face, the smell of the pine, the sight of slope and forest glade and windfall and rocks, and the black shade under the spruces. My blood beat and burned. My teeth clicked. My nerves all quivered. My heart sometimes, at dangerous moments, almost choked me, and all the time it pounded hard. Now my skin was hot and then it was cold. But I think the best of that chase for me was that I was on a fast horse, guiding him, controlling him. He was alive. Oh, how I felt his running!”

“Well, what you say is as natural to me as if I felt it,” said Dale. “I wondered. You’re certainly full of fire, An’, Helen, what do you say?”

“Bo has answered you with her feelings,” replied Helen, “I could not do that and be honest. The fact that Bo wouldn’t shoot the lion after we treed him acquits her. Nevertheless, her answer is purely physical. You know, Mr. Dale, how you talk about the physical. I should say my sister was just a young, wild, highly sensitive, hot-blooded female of the species. She exulted in that chase as an Indian. Her sensations were inherited ones — certainly not acquired by education. Bo always hated study. The ride was a revelation to me. I had a good many of Bo’s feelings — though not so strong. But over against them was the opposition of reason, of consciousness. A new-born side of my nature confronted me, strange, surprising, violent, irresistible. It was as if another side of my personality suddenly said: ‘Here I am. Reckon with me now!’ And there was no use for the moment to oppose that strange side. I — the thinking Helen Rayner, was powerless. Oh yes, I had such thoughts even when the branches were stinging my face and I was thrilling to the bay of the hound. Once my horse fell and threw me.... You needn’t look alarmed. It was fine. I went into a soft place and was unhurt. But when I was sailing through the air a thought flashed: this is the end of me! It was like a dream when you are falling dreadfully. Much of what I felt and thought on that chase must have been because of what I have studied and read and taught. The reality of it, the action and flash, were splendid. But fear of danger, pity for the chased lion, consciousness of foolish risk, of a reckless disregard for the serious responsibility I have taken — all these worked in my mind and held back what might have been a sheer physical, primitive joy of the wild moment.”

Dale listened intently, and after Helen had finished he studied the fire and thoughtfully poked the red embers with his stick. His face was still and serene, untroubled and unlined, but to Helen his eyes seemed sad, pensive, expressive of an unsatisfied yearning and wonder. She had carefully and earnestly spoken, because she was very curious to hear what he might say.

“I understand you,” he replied, presently. “An’ I’m sure surprised that I can. I’ve read my books — an’ reread them, but no one ever talked like that to me. What I make of it is this. You’ve the same blood in you that’s in Bo. An’ blood is stronger than brain. Remember that blood is life. It would be good for you to have it run an’ beat an’ burn, as Bo’s did. Your blood did that a thousand years or ten thousand before intellect was born in your ancestors. Instinct may not be greater than reason, but it’s a million years older. Don’t fight your instincts so hard. If they were not good the God of Creation would not have given them to you. To-day your mind was full of self-restraint that did not altogether restrain. You couldn’t forget yourself. You couldn’t FEEL only, as Bo did. You couldn’t be true to your real nature.”

“I don’t agree with you,” replied Helen, quickly. “I don’t have to be an Indian to be true to myself.”

“Why, yes you do,” said Dale.

“But I couldn’t be an Indian,” declared Helen, spiritedly. “I couldn’t FEEL only, as you say Bo did. I couldn’t go back in the scale, as you hint. What would all my education amount to — though goodness knows it’s little enough — if I had no control over primitive feelings that happened to be born in me?”

“You’ll have little or no control over them when the right time comes,” replied Dale. “Your sheltered life an’ education have led you away from natural instincts. But they’re in you an’ you’ll learn the proof of that out here.”

“No. Not if I lived a hundred years in the West,” asserted Helen.

“But, child, do you know what you’re talkin’ about?”

Here Bo let out a blissful peal of laughter.

“Mr. Dale!” exclaimed Helen, almost affronted. She was stirred. “I know MYSELF, at least.”

“But you do not. You’ve no idea of yourself. You’ve education, yes, but not in nature an’ life. An’ after all, they are the real things. Answer me, now — honestly, will you?”

“Certainly, if I can. Some of your questions are hard to answer.”

“Have you ever been starved?” he asked.

“No,” replied Helen.

“Have you ever been lost away from home?”

“No.”

“Have you ever faced death — real stark an’ naked death, close an’ terrible?”

“No, indeed.”

“Have you ever wanted to kill any one with your bare hands?”

“Oh, Mr. Dale, you — you amaze me. No!... No!”

“I reckon I know your answer to my last question, but I’ll ask it, anyhow.... Have you ever been so madly in love with a man that you could not live without him?”

Bo fell off her seat with a high, trilling laugh. “Oh, you two are great!”

“Thank Heaven, I haven’t been,” replied Helen, shortly.

“Then you don’t know anythin’ about life,” declared Dale, with finality.

Helen was not to be put down by that, dubious and troubled as it made her.

“Have you experienced all those things?” she queried, stubbornly.

“All but the last one. Love never came my way. How could it? I live alone. I seldom go to the villages where there are girls. No girl would ever care for me. I have nothin’.... But, all the same, I understand love a little, just by comparison with strong feelin’s I’ve lived.”

Helen watched the hunter and marveled at his simplicity. His sad and penetrating gaze was on the fire, as if in its white heart to read the secret denied him. He had said that no girl would ever love him. She imagined he might know considerably less about the nature of girls than of the forest.

“To come back to myself,” said Helen, wanting to continue the argument. “You declared I didn’t know myself. That I would have no self-control. I will!”

“I meant the big things of life,” he said, patiently.

“What things?”

“I told you. By askin’ what had never happened to you I learned what will happen.”

“Those experiences to come to ME!” breathed Helen, incredulously. “Never!”

“Sister Nell, they sure will — particularly the last-named one — the mad love,” chimed in Bo, mischievously, yet believingly.

Neither Dale nor Helen appeared to hear her interruption.

“Let me put it simpler,” began Dale, evidently racking his brain for analogy. His perplexity appeared painful to him, because he had a great faith, a great conviction that he could not make clear. “Here I am, the natural physical man, livin’ in the wilds. An’ here you come, the complex, intellectual woman. Remember, for my argument’s sake, that you’re here. An’ suppose circumstances forced you to stay here. You’d fight the elements with me an’ work with me to sustain life. There must be a great change in either you or me, accordin’ to the other’s influence. An’ can’t you see that change must come in you, not because of anythin’ superior in me — I’m really inferior to you — but because of our environment? You’d lose your complexity. An’ in years to come you’d be a natural physical woman, because you’d live through an’ by the physical.”

“Oh dear, will not education be of help to the Western woman?” queried Helen, almost in despair.

“Sure it will,” answered Dale, promptly. “What the West needs is women who can raise an’ teach children. But you don’t understand me. You don’t get under your skin. I reckon I can’t make you see my argument as I feel it. You take my word for this, though. Sooner or later you WILL wake up an’ forget yourself. Remember.”

“Nell, I’ll bet you do, too,” said Bo, seriously for her. “It may seem strange to you, but I understand Dale. I feel what he means. It’s a sort of shock. Nell, we’re not what we seem. We’re not what we fondly imagine we are. We’ve lived too long with people — too far away from the earth. You know the Bible says something like this: ‘Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.’ Where DO we come from?”

CHAPTER XII

Days passed.

EVERY MORNING HELEN awoke with a wondering question as to what this day would bring forth, especially with regard to possible news from her uncle. It must come sometime and she was anxious for it. Something about this simple, wild camp life had begun to grip her. She found herself shirking daily attention to the clothes she had brought West. They needed it, but she had begun to see how superficial they really were. On the other hand, camp-fire tasks had come to be a pleasure. She had learned a great deal more about them than had Bo. Worry and dread were always impinging upon the fringe of her thoughts — always vaguely present, though seldom annoying. They were like shadows in dreams. She wanted to get to her uncle’s ranch, to take up the duties of her new life. But she was not prepared to believe she would not regret this wild experience. She must get away from that in order to see it clearly, and she began to have doubts of herself.

Meanwhile the active and restful outdoor life went on. Bo leaned more and more toward utter reconciliation to it. Her eyes had a wonderful flash, like blue lightning; her cheeks were gold and brown; her hands tanned dark as an Indian’s.

She could vault upon the gray mustang, or, for that matter, clear over his back. She learned to shoot a rifle accurately enough to win Dale’s praise, and vowed she would like to draw a bead upon a grizzly bear or upon Snake Anson.

“Bo, if you met that grizzly Dale said has been prowling round camp lately you’d run right up a tree,” declared Helen, one morning, when Bo seemed particularly boastful.

“Don’t fool yourself,” retorted Bo.

“But I’ve seen you run from a mouse!”

“Sister, couldn’t I be afraid of a mouse and not a bear?”

“I don’t see how.”

“Well, bears, lions, outlaws, and other wild beasts are to be met with here in the West, and my mind’s made up,” said Bo, in slow-nodding deliberation.

They argued as they had always argued, Helen for reason and common sense and restraint, Bo on the principle that if she must fight it was better to get in the first blow.

The morning on which this argument took place Dale was a long time in catching the horses. When he did come in he shook his head seriously.

“Some varmint’s been chasin’ the horses,” he said, as he reached for his saddle. “Did you hear them snortin’ an’ runnin’ last night?”

Neither of the girls had been awakened.

“I missed one of the colts,” went on Dale, “an’ I’m goin’ to ride across the park.”

Dale’s movements were quick and stern. It was significant that he chose his heavier rifle, and, mounting, with a sharp call to Pedro, he rode off without another word to the girls.

Bo watched him for a moment and then began to saddle the mustang.

“You won’t follow him?” asked Helen, quickly.

“I sure will,” replied Bo. “He didn’t forbid it.”

“But he certainly did not want us.”

“He might not want you, but I’ll bet he wouldn’t object to me, whatever’s up,” said Bo, shortly.

“Oh! So you think—” exclaimed Helen, keenly hurt. She bit her tongue to keep back a hot reply. And it was certain that a bursting gush of anger flooded over her. Was she, then, such a coward? Did Dale think this slip of a sister, so wild and wilful, was a stronger woman than she? A moment’s silent strife convinced her that no doubt he thought so and no doubt he was right. Then the anger centered upon herself, and Helen neither understood nor trusted herself.

The outcome proved an uncontrollable impulse. Helen began to saddle her horse. She had the task half accomplished when Bo’s call made her look up.

“Listen!”

Helen heard a ringing, wild bay of the hound.

“That’s Pedro,” she said, with a thrill.

“Sure. He’s running. We never heard him bay like that before.”

“Where’s Dale?”

“He rode out of sight across there,” replied Bo, pointing. “And Pedro’s running toward us along that slope. He must be a mile — two miles from Dale.”

“But Dale will follow.”

“Sure. But he’d need wings to get near that hound now. Pedro couldn’t have gone across there with him... just listen.”

The wild note of the hound manifestly stirred Bo to irrepressible action. Snatching up Dale’s lighter rifle, she shoved it into her saddle-sheath, and, leaping on the mustang, she ran him over brush and brook, straight down the park toward the place Pedro was climbing. For an instant Helen stood amazed beyond speech. When Bo sailed over a big log, like a steeple-chaser, then Helen answered to further unconsidered impulse by frantically getting her saddle fastened. Without coat or hat she mounted. The nervous horse bolted almost before she got into the saddle. A strange, trenchant trembling coursed through all her veins. She wanted to scream for Bo to wait. Bo was out of sight, but the deep, muddy tracks in wet places and the path through the long grass afforded Helen an easy trail to follow. In fact, her horse needed no guiding. He ran in and out of the straggling spruces along the edge of the park, and suddenly wheeled around a corner of trees to come upon the gray mustang standing still. Bo was looking up and listening.

“There he is!” cried Bo, as the hound bayed ringingly, closer to them this time, and she spurred away.

Helen’s horse followed without urging. He was excited. His ears were up. Something was in the wind. Helen had never ridden along this broken end of the park, and Bo was not easy to keep up with. She led across bogs, brooks, swales, rocky little ridges, through stretches of timber and groves of aspen so thick Helen could scarcely squeeze through. Then Bo came out into a large open offshoot of the park, right under the mountain slope, and here she sat, her horse watching and listening. Helen rode up to her, imagining once that she had heard the hound.

“Look! Look!” Bo’s scream made her mustang stand almost straight up.

Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat go lumbering across an opening on the slope.

“It’s a grizzly! He’ll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!” cried Bo, with intense excitement.

“Bo! That bear is running down! We — we must get — out of his road,” panted Helen, in breathless alarm.

“Dale hasn’t had time to be close.... Oh, I wish he’d come! I don’t know what to do.”

“Ride back. At least wait for him.”

Just then Pedro spoke differently, in savage barks, and following that came a loud growl and crashings in the brush. These sounds appeared to be not far up the slope.

“Nell! Do you hear? Pedro’s fighting the bear,” burst out Bo. Her face paled, her eyes flashed like blue steel. “The bear ‘ll kill him!”

“Oh, that would be dreadful!” replied Helen, in distress. “But what on earth can we do?”

“HEL-LO, DALE!” called Bo, at the highest pitch of her piercing voice.

No answer came. A heavy crash of brush, a rolling of stones, another growl from the slope told Helen that the hound had brought the bear to bay.

“Nell, I’m going up,” said Bo, deliberately.

“No-no! Are you mad?” returned Helen.

“The bear will kill Pedro.”

“He might kill you.”

“You ride that way and yell for Dale,” rejoined Bo.

“What will — you do?” gasped Helen.

“I’ll shoot at the bear — scare him off. If he chases me he can’t catch me coming downhill. Dale said that.”

“You’re crazy!” cried Helen, as Bo looked up the slope, searching for open ground. Then she pulled the rifle from its sheath.

But Bo did not hear or did not care. She spurred the mustang, and he, wild to run, flung grass and dirt from his heels. What Helen would have done then she never knew, but the fact was that her horse bolted after the mustang. In an instant, seemingly, Bo had disappeared in the gold and green of the forest slope. Helen’s mount climbed on a run, snorting and heaving, through aspens, brush, and timber, to come out into a narrow, long opening extending lengthwise up the slope.

A sudden prolonged crash ahead alarmed Helen and halted her horse. She saw a shaking of aspens. Then a huge brown beast leaped as a cat out of the woods. It was a bear of enormous size. Helen’s heart stopped — her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. The bear turned. His mouth was open, red and dripping. He looked shaggy, gray. He let out a terrible bawl. Helen’s every muscle froze stiff. Her horse plunged high and sidewise, wheeling almost in the air, neighing his terror. Like a stone she dropped from the saddle. She did not see the horse break into the woods, but she heard him. Her gaze never left the bear even while she was falling, and it seemed she alighted in an upright position with her back against a bush. It upheld her. The bear wagged his huge head from side to side. Then, as the hound barked close at hand, he turned to run heavily uphill and out of the opening.

The instant of his disappearance was one of collapse for Helen. Frozen with horror, she had been unable to move or feel or think. All at once she was a quivering mass of cold, helpless flesh, wet with perspiration, sick with a shuddering, retching, internal convulsion, her mind liberated from paralyzing shock. The moment was as horrible as that in which the bear had bawled his frightful rage. A stark, icy, black emotion seemed in possession of her. She could not lift a hand, yet all of her body appeared shaking. There was a fluttering, a strangling in her throat. The crushing weight that surrounded her heart eased before she recovered use of her limbs. Then, the naked and terrible thing was gone, like a nightmare giving way to consciousness. What blessed relief! Helen wildly gazed about her. The bear and hound were out of sight, and so was her horse. She stood up very dizzy and weak. Thought of Bo then seemed to revive her, to shock different life and feeling throughout all her cold extremities. She listened.

She heard a thudding of hoofs down the slope, then Dale’s clear, strong call. She answered. It appeared long before he burst out of the woods, riding hard and leading her horse. In that time she recovered fully, and when he reached her, to put a sudden halt upon the fiery Ranger, she caught the bridle he threw and swiftly mounted her horse. The feel of the saddle seemed different. Dale’s piercing gray glance thrilled her strangely.

“You’re white. Are you hurt?” he said.

“No. I was scared.”

“But he threw you?”

“Yes, he certainly threw me.”

“What happened?”

“We heard the hound and we rode along the timber. Then we saw the bear — a monster — white — coated—”

“I know. It’s a grizzly. He killed the colt — your pet. Hurry now. What about Bo?”

“Pedro was fighting the bear. Bo said he’d be killed. She rode right up here. My horse followed. I couldn’t have stopped him. But we lost Bo. Right there the bear came out. He roared. My horse threw me and ran off. Pedro’s barking saved me — my life, I think. Oh! that was awful! Then the bear went up — there.... And you came.”

“Bo’s followin’ the hound!” ejaculated Dale. And, lifting his hands to his mouth, he sent out a stentorian yell that rolled up the slope, rang against the cliffs, pealed and broke and died away. Then he waited, listening. From far up the slope came a faint, wild cry, high-pitched and sweet, to create strange echoes, floating away to die in the ravines.

“She’s after him!” declared Dale, grimly.

“Bo’s got your rifle,” said Helen. “Oh, we must hurry.”

“You go back,” ordered Dale, wheeling his horse.

“No!” Helen felt that word leave her lips with the force of a bullet.

Dale spurred Ranger and took to the open slope. Helen kept at his heels until timber was reached. Here a steep trail led up. Dale dismounted.

“Horse tracks — bear tracks — dog tracks,” he said, bending over. “We’ll have to walk up here. It’ll save our horses an’ maybe time, too.”

“Is Bo riding up there?” asked Helen, eying the steep ascent.

“She sure is.” With that Dale started up, leading his horse. Helen followed. It was rough and hard work. She was lightly clad, yet soon she was hot, laboring, and her heart began to hurt. When Dale halted to rest Helen was just ready to drop. The baying of the hound, though infrequent, inspirited her. But presently that sound was lost. Dale said bear and hound had gone over the ridge and as soon as the top was gained he would hear them again.

“Look there,” he said, presently, pointing to fresh tracks, larger than those made by Bo’s mustang. “Elk tracks. We’ve scared a big bull an’ he’s right ahead of us. Look sharp an’ you’ll see him.”

Helen never climbed so hard and fast before, and when they reached the ridge-top she was all tuckered out. It was all she could do to get on her horse. Dale led along the crest of this wooded ridge toward the western end, which was considerably higher. In places open rocky ground split the green timber. Dale pointed toward a promontory.

Helen saw a splendid elk silhouetted against the sky. He was a light gray over all his hindquarters, with shoulders and head black. His ponderous, wide-spread antlers towered over him, adding to the wildness of his magnificent poise as he stood there, looking down into the valley, no doubt listening for the bay of the hound. When he heard Dale’s horse he gave one bound, gracefully and wonderfully carrying his antlers, to disappear in the green.

Again on a bare patch of ground Dale pointed down. Helen saw big round tracks, toeing in a little, that gave her a chill. She knew these were grizzly tracks.

Hard riding was not possible on this ridge crest, a fact that gave Helen time to catch her breath. At length, coming out upon the very summit of the mountain, Dale heard the hound. Helen’s eyes feasted afar upon a wild scene of rugged grandeur, before she looked down on this western slope at her feet to see bare, gradual descent, leading down to sparsely wooded bench and on to deep-green canuon.

“Ride hard now!” yelled Dale. “I see Bo, an’ I’ll have to ride to catch her.”

Dale spurred down the slope. Helen rode in his tracks and, though she plunged so fast that she felt her hair stand up with fright, she saw him draw away from her. Sometimes her horse slid on his haunches for a few yards, and at these hazardous moments she got her feet out of the stirrups so as to fall free from him if he went down. She let him choose the way, while she gazed ahead at Dale, and then farther on, in the hope of seeing Bo. At last she was rewarded. Far Down the wooded bench she saw a gray flash of the little mustang and a bright glint of Bo’s hair. Her heart swelled. Dale would soon overhaul Bo and come between her and peril. And on the instant, though Helen was unconscious of it then, a remarkable change came over her spirit. Fear left her. And a hot, exalting, incomprehensible something took possession of her.

She let the horse run, and when he had plunged to the foot of that slope of soft ground he broke out across the open bench at a pace that made the wind bite Helen’s cheeks and roar in her ears. She lost sight of Dale. It gave her a strange, grim exultance. She bent her eager gaze to find the tracks of his horse, and she found them. Also she made out the tracks of Bo’s mustang and the bear and the hound. Her horse, scenting game, perhaps, and afraid to be left alone, settled into a fleet and powerful stride, sailing over logs and brush. That open bench had looked short, but it was long, and Helen rode down the gradual descent at breakneck speed. She would not be left behind. She had awakened to a heedlessness of risk. Something burned steadily within her. A grim, hard anger of joy! When she saw, far down another open, gradual descent, that Dale had passed Bo and that Bo was riding the little mustang as never before, then Helen flamed with a madness to catch her, to beat her in that wonderful chase, to show her and Dale what there really was in the depths of Helen Rayner.

Her ambition was to be short-lived, she divined from the lay of the land ahead, but the ride she lived then for a flying mile was something that would always blanch her cheeks and prick her skin in remembrance.

The open ground was only too short. That thundering pace soon brought Helen’s horse to the timber. Here it took all her strength to check his headlong flight over deadfalls and between small jack-pines. Helen lost sight of Bo, and she realized it would take all her wits to keep from getting lost. She had to follow the trail, and in some places it was hard to see from horseback.

Besides, her horse was mettlesome, thoroughly aroused, and he wanted a free rein and his own way. Helen tried that, only to lose the trail and to get sundry knocks from trees and branches. She could not hear the hound, nor Dale. The pines were small, close together, and tough. They were hard to bend. Helen hurt her hands, scratched her face, barked her knees. The horse formed a habit suddenly of deciding to go the way he liked instead of the way Helen guided him, and when he plunged between saplings too close to permit easy passage it was exceedingly hard on her. That did not make any difference to Helen. Once worked into a frenzy, her blood stayed at high pressure. She did not argue with herself about a need of desperate hurry. Even a blow on the head that nearly blinded her did not in the least retard her. The horse could hardly be held, and not at all in the few open places.

At last Helen reached another slope. Coming out upon canuon rim, she heard Dale’s clear call, far down, and Bo’s answering peal, high and piercing, with its note of exultant wildness. Helen also heard the bear and the hound fighting at the bottom of this canuon.

Here Helen again missed the tracks made by Dale and Bo. The descent looked impassable. She rode back along the rim, then forward. Finally she found where the ground had been plowed deep by hoofs, down over little banks. Helen’s horse balked at these jumps. When she goaded him over them she went forward on his neck. It seemed like riding straight downhill. The mad spirit of that chase grew more stingingly keen to Helen as the obstacles grew. Then, once more the bay of the hound and the bawl of the bear made a demon of her horse. He snorted a shrill defiance. He plunged with fore hoofs in the air. He slid and broke a way down the steep, soft banks, through the thick brush and thick clusters of saplings, sending loose rocks and earth into avalanches ahead of him. He fell over one bank, but a thicket of aspens upheld him so that he rebounded and gained his feet. The sounds of fight ceased, but Dale’s thrilling call floated up on the pine-scented air.

Before Helen realized it she was at the foot of the slope, in a narrow canuon-bed, full of rocks and trees, with a soft roar of running water filling her ears. Tracks were everywhere, and when she came to the first open place she saw where the grizzly had plunged off a sandy bar into the water. Here he had fought Pedro. Signs of that battle were easy to read. Helen saw where his huge tracks, still wet, led up the opposite sandy bank.

Then down-stream Helen did some more reckless and splendid riding. On level ground the horse was great. Once he leaped clear across the brook. Every plunge, every turn Helen expected to come upon Dale and Bo facing the bear. The canuon narrowed, the stream-bed deepened. She had to slow down to get through the trees and rocks. Quite unexpectedly she rode pell-mell upon Dale and Bo and the panting Pedro. Her horse plunged to a halt, answering the shrill neighs of the other horses.

Dale gazed in admiring amazement at Helen.

“Say, did you meet the bear again?” he queried, blankly.

“No. Didn’t — you — kill him?” panted Helen, slowly sagging in her saddle.

“He got away in the rocks. Rough country down here.”

Helen slid off her horse and fell with a little panting cry of relief. She saw that she was bloody, dirty, disheveled, and wringing wet with perspiration. Her riding habit was torn into tatters. Every muscle seemed to burn and sting, and all her bones seemed broken. But it was worth all this to meet Dale’s penetrating glance, to see Bo’s utter, incredulous astonishment.

“Nell — Rayner!” gasped Bo.

“If — my horse ‘d been — any good — in the woods,” panted Helen, “I’d not lost — so much time — riding down this mountain. And I’d caught you — beat you.”

“Girl, did you RIDE down this last slope?” queried Dale.

“I sure did,” replied Helen, smiling.

“We walked every step of the way, and was lucky to get down at that,” responded Dale, gravely. “No horse should have been ridden down there. Why, he must have slid down.”

“We slid — yes. But I stayed on him.”

Bo’s incredulity changed to wondering, speechless admiration. And Dale’s rare smile changed his gravity.

“I’m sorry. It was rash of me. I thought you’d go back.... But all’s well that ends well.... Helen, did you wake up to-day?”

She dropped her eyes, not caring to meet the questioning gaze upon her.

“Maybe — a little,” she replied, and she covered her face with her hands. Remembrance of his questions — of his assurance that she did not know the real meaning of life — of her stubborn antagonism — made her somehow ashamed. But it was not for long.

“The chase was great,” she said. “I did not know myself. You were right.”

“In how many ways did you find me right?” he asked.

“I think all — but one,” she replied, with a laugh and a shudder. “I’m near starved NOW — I was so furious at Bo that I could have choked her. I faced that horrible brute.... Oh, I know what it is to fear death!... I was lost twice on the ride — absolutely lost. That’s all.”

Bo found her tongue. “The last thing was for you to fall wildly in love, wasn’t it?”

“According to Dale, I must add that to my new experiences of to-day — before I can know real life,” replied Helen, demurely.

The hunter turned away. “Let us go,” he said, soberly.

CHAPTER XIII

AFTER MORE DAYS of riding the grassy level of that wonderfully gold and purple park, and dreamily listening by day to the ever-low and ever-changing murmur of the waterfall, and by night to the wild, lonely mourn of a hunting wolf, and climbing to the dizzy heights where the wind stung sweetly, Helen Rayner lost track of time and forgot her peril.

Roy Beeman did not return. If occasionally Dale mentioned Roy and his quest, the girls had little to say beyond a recurrent anxiety for the old uncle, and then they forgot again. Paradise Park, lived in a little while at that season of the year, would have claimed any one, and ever afterward haunted sleeping or waking dreams.

Bo gave up to the wild life, to the horses and rides, to the many pets, and especially to the cougar, Tom. The big cat followed her everywhere, played with her, rolling and pawing, kitten-like, and he would lay his massive head in her lap to purr his content. Bo had little fear of anything, and here in the wilds she soon lost that.

Another of Dale’s pets was a half-grown black bear named Muss. He was abnormally jealous of little Bud and he had a well-developed hatred of Tom, otherwise he was a very good-tempered bear, and enjoyed Dale’s impartial regard. Tom, however, chased Muss out of camp whenever Dale’s back was turned, and sometimes Muss stayed away, shifting for himself. With the advent of Bo, who spent a good deal of time on the animals, Muss manifestly found the camp more attractive. Whereupon, Dale predicted trouble between Tom and Muss.

Bo liked nothing better than a rough-and-tumble frolic with the black bear. Muss was not very big nor very heavy, and in a wrestling bout with the strong and wiry girl he sometimes came out second best. It spoke well of him that he seemed to be careful not to hurt Bo. He never bit or scratched, though he sometimes gave her sounding slaps with his paws. Whereupon, Bo would clench her gauntleted fists and sail into him in earnest.

One afternoon before the early supper they always had, Dale and Helen were watching Bo teasing the bear. She was in her most vixenish mood, full of life and fight. Tom lay his long length on the grass, watching with narrow, gleaming eyes.

When Bo and Muss locked in an embrace and went down to roll over and over, Dale called Helen’s attention to the cougar.

“Tom’s jealous. It’s strange how animals are like people. Pretty soon I’ll have to corral Muss, or there’ll be a fight.”

Helen could not see anything wrong with Tom except that he did not look playful.

During supper-time both bear and cougar disappeared, though this was not remarked until afterward. Dale whistled and called, but the rival pets did not return. Next morning Tom was there, curled up snugly at the foot of Bo’s bed, and when she arose he followed her around as usual. But Muss did not return.

The circumstance made Dale anxious. He left camp, taking Tom with him, and upon returning stated that he had followed Muss’s track as far as possible, and then had tried to put Tom on the trail, but the cougar would not or could not follow it. Dale said Tom never liked a bear trail, anyway, cougars and bears being common enemies. So, whether by accident or design, Bo lost one of her playmates.

The hunter searched some of the slopes next day and even went up on one of the mountains. He did not discover any sign of Muss, but he said he had found something else.

“Bo you girls want some more real excitement?” he asked.

Helen smiled her acquiescence and Bo replied with one of her forceful speeches.

“Don’t mind bein’ good an’ scared?” he went on.

“You can’t scare me,” bantered Bo. But Helen looked doubtful.

“Up in one of the parks I ran across one of my horses — a lame bay you haven’t seen. Well, he had been killed by that old silvertip. The one we chased. Hadn’t been dead over an hour. Blood was still runnin’ an’ only a little meat eaten. That bear heard me or saw me an’ made off into the woods. But he’ll come back to-night. I’m goin’ up there, lay for him, an’ kill him this time. Reckon you’d better go, because I don’t want to leave you here alone at night.”

“Are you going to take Tom?” asked Bo.

“No. The bear might get his scent. An’, besides, Tom ain’t reliable on bears. I’ll leave Pedro home, too.”

When they had hurried supper, and Dale had gotten in the horses, the sun had set and the valley was shadowing low down, while the ramparts were still golden. The long zigzag trail Dale followed up the slope took nearly an hour to climb, so that when that was surmounted and he led out of the woods twilight had fallen. A rolling park extended as far as Helen could see, bordered by forest that in places sent out straggling stretches of trees. Here and there, like islands, were isolated patches of timber.

At ten thousand feet elevation the twilight of this clear and cold night was a rich and rare atmospheric effect. It looked as if it was seen through perfectly clear smoked glass. Objects were singularly visible, even at long range, and seemed magnified. In the west, where the afterglow of sunset lingered over the dark, ragged, spruce-speared horizon-line, there was such a transparent golden line melting into vivid star-fired blue that Helen could only gaze and gaze in wondering admiration.

Dale spurred his horse into a lope and the spirited mounts of the girls kept up with him. The ground was rough, with tufts of grass growing close together, yet the horses did not stumble. Their action and snorting betrayed excitement. Dale led around several clumps of timber, up a long grassy swale, and then straight westward across an open flat toward where the dark-fringed forest-line raised itself wild and clear against the cold sky. The horses went swiftly, and the wind cut like a blade of ice. Helen could barely get her breath and she panted as if she had just climbed a laborsome hill. The stars began to blink out of the blue, and the gold paled somewhat, and yet twilight lingered. It seemed long across that flat, but really was short. Coming to a thin line of trees that led down over a slope to a deeper but still isolated patch of woods, Dale dismounted and tied his horse. When the girls got off he haltered their horses also.

“Stick close to me an’ put your feet down easy,” he whispered. How tall and dark he loomed in the fading light! Helen thrilled, as she had often of late, at the strange, potential force of the man. Stepping softly, without the least sound, Dale entered this straggly bit of woods, which appeared to have narrow byways and nooks. Then presently he came to the top of a well-wooded slope, dark as pitch, apparently. But as Helen followed she perceived the trees, and they were thin dwarf spruce, partly dead. The slope was soft and springy, easy to step upon without noise. Dale went so cautiously that Helen could not hear him, and sometimes in the gloom she could not see him. Then the chill thrills ran over her. Bo kept holding on to Helen, which fact hampered Helen as well as worked somewhat to disprove Bo’s boast. At last level ground was reached. Helen made out a light-gray background crossed by black bars. Another glance showed this to be the dark tree-trunks against the open park.

Dale halted, and with a touch brought Helen to a straining pause. He was listening. It seemed wonderful to watch him bend his head and stand as silent and motionless as one of the dark trees.

“He’s not there yet,” Dale whispered, and he stepped forward very slowly. Helen and Bo began to come up against thin dead branches that were invisible and then cracked. Then Dale knelt down, seemed to melt into the ground.

“You’ll have to crawl,” he whispered.

How strange and thrilling that was for Helen, and hard work! The ground bore twigs and dead branches, which had to be carefully crawled over; and lying flat, as was necessary, it took prodigious effort to drag her body inch by inch. Like a huge snake, Dale wormed his way along.

Gradually the wood lightened. They were nearing the edge of the park. Helen now saw a strip of open with a high, black wall of spruce beyond. The afterglow flashed or changed, like a dimming northern light, and then failed. Dale crawled on farther to halt at length between two tree-trunks at the edge of the wood.

“Come up beside me,” he whispered.

Helen crawled on, and presently Bo was beside her panting, with pale face and great, staring eyes, plain to be seen in the wan light.

“Moon’s comin’ up. We’re just in time. The old grizzly’s not there yet, but I see coyotes. Look.”

Dale pointed across the open neck of park to a dim blurred patch standing apart some little distance from the black wall.

“That’s the dead horse,” whispered Dale. “An’ if you watch close you can see the coyotes. They’re gray an’ they move.... Can’t you hear them?”

Helen’s excited ears, so full of throbs and imaginings, presently registered low snaps and snarls. Bo gave her arm a squeeze.

“I hear them. They’re fighting. Oh, gee!” she panted, and drew a long, full breath of unutterable excitement.

“Keep quiet now an’ watch an’ listen,” said the hunter.

Slowly the black, ragged forest-line seemed to grow blacker and lift; slowly the gray neck of park lightened under some invisible influence; slowly the stars paled and the sky filled over. Somewhere the moon was rising. And slowly that vague blurred patch grew a little clearer.

Through the tips of the spruce, now seen to be rather close at hand, shone a slender, silver crescent moon, darkening, hiding, shining again, climbing until its exquisite sickle-point topped the trees, and then, magically, it cleared them, radiant and cold. While the eastern black wall shaded still blacker, the park blanched and the border-line opposite began to stand out as trees.

“Look! Look!” cried Bo, very low and fearfully, as she pointed.

“Not so loud,” whispered Dale.

“But I see something!”

“Keep quiet,” he admonished.

Helen, in the direction Bo pointed, could not see anything but moon-blanched bare ground, rising close at hand to a little ridge.

“Lie still,” whispered Dale. “I’m goin’ to crawl around to get a look from another angle. I’ll be right back.”

He moved noiselessly backward and disappeared. With him gone, Helen felt a palpitating of her heart and a prickling of her skin.

“Oh, my! Nell! Look!” whispered Bo, in fright. “I know I saw something.”

On top of the little ridge a round object moved slowly, getting farther out into the light. Helen watched with suspended breath. It moved out to be silhouetted against the sky — apparently a huge, round, bristling animal, frosty in color. One instant it seemed huge — the next small — then close at hand — and far away. It swerved to come directly toward them. Suddenly Helen realized that the beast was not a dozen yards distant. She was just beginning a new experience — a real and horrifying terror in which her blood curdled, her heart gave a tremendous leap and then stood still, and she wanted to fly, but was rooted to the spot — when Dale returned to her side.

“That’s a pesky porcupine,” he whispered. “Almost crawled over you. He sure would have stuck you full of quills.”

Whereupon he threw a stick at the animal. It bounced straight up to turn round with startling quickness, and it gave forth a rattling sound; then it crawled out of sight.

“Por — cu — pine!” whispered Bo, pantingly. “It might — as well — have been — an elephant!”

Helen uttered a long, eloquent sigh. She would not have cared to describe her emotions at sight of a harmless hedgehog.

“Listen!” warned Dale, very low. His big hand closed over Helen’s gauntleted one. “There you have — the real cry of the wild.”

Sharp and cold on the night air split the cry of a wolf, distant, yet wonderfully distinct. How wild and mournful and hungry! How marvelously pure! Helen shuddered through all her frame with the thrill of its music, the wild and unutterable and deep emotions it aroused. Again a sound of this forest had pierced beyond her life, back into the dim remote past from which she had come.

The cry was not repeated. The coyotes were still. And silence fell, absolutely unbroken.

Dale nudged Helen, and then reached over to give Bo a tap. He was peering keenly ahead and his strained intensity could be felt. Helen looked with all her might and she saw the shadowy gray forms of the coyotes skulk away, out of the moonlight into the gloom of the woods, where they disappeared. Not only Dale’s intensity, but the very silence, the wildness of the moment and place, seemed fraught with wonderful potency. Bo must have felt it, too, for she was trembling all over, and holding tightly to Helen, and breathing quick and fast.

“A-huh!” muttered Dale, under his breath.

Helen caught the relief and certainty in his exclamation, and she divined, then, something of what the moment must have been to a hunter.

Then her roving, alert glance was arrested by a looming gray shadow coming out of the forest. It moved, but surely that huge thing could not be a bear. It passed out of gloom into silver moonlight. Helen’s heart bounded. For it was a great frosty-coated bear lumbering along toward the dead horse. Instinctively Helen’s hand sought the arm of the hunter. It felt like iron under a rippling surface. The touch eased away the oppression over her lungs, the tightness of her throat. What must have been fear left her, and only a powerful excitement remained. A sharp expulsion of breath from Bo and a violent jerk of her frame were signs that she had sighted the grizzly.

In the moonlight he looked of immense size, and that wild park with the gloomy blackness of forest furnished a fit setting for him. Helen’s quick mind, so taken up with emotion, still had a thought for the wonder and the meaning of that scene. She wanted the bear killed, yet that seemed a pity.

He had a wagging, rolling, slow walk which took several moments to reach his quarry. When at length he reached it he walked around with sniffs plainly heard and then a cross growl. Evidently he had discovered that his meal had been messed over. As a whole the big bear could be seen distinctly, but only in outline and color. The distance was perhaps two hundred yards. Then it looked as if he had begun to tug at the carcass. Indeed, he was dragging it, very slowly, but surely.

“Look at that!” whispered Dale. “If he ain’t strong!... Reckon I’ll have to stop him.”

The grizzly, however, stopped of his own accord, just outside of the shadow-line of the forest. Then he hunched in a big frosty heap over his prey and began to tear and rend.

“Jess was a mighty good horse,” muttered Dale, grimly; “too good to make a meal for a hog silvertip.”

Then the hunter silently rose to a kneeling position, swinging the rifle in front of him. He glanced up into the low branches of the tree overhead.

“Girls, there’s no tellin’ what a grizzly will do. If I yell, you climb up in this tree, an’ do it quick.”

With that he leveled the rifle, resting his left elbow on his knee. The front end of the rifle, reaching out of the shade, shone silver in the moonlight. Man and weapon became still as stone. Helen held her breath. But Dale relaxed, lowering the barrel.

“Can’t see the sights very well,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Remember, now — if I yell you climb!”

Again he aimed and slowly grew rigid. Helen could not take her fascinated eyes off him. He knelt, bareheaded, and in the shadow she could make out the gleam of his clear-cut profile, stern and cold.

A streak of fire and a heavy report startled her. Then she heard the bullet hit. Shifting her glance, she saw the bear lurch with convulsive action, rearing on his hind legs. Loud clicking snaps must have been a clashing of his jaws in rage. But there was no other sound. Then again Dale’s heavy gun boomed. Helen heard again that singular spatting thud of striking lead. The bear went down with a flop as if he had been dealt a terrific blow. But just as quickly he was up on all-fours and began to whirl with hoarse, savage bawls of agony and fury. His action quickly carried him out of the moonlight into the shadow, where he disappeared. There the bawls gave place to gnashing snarls, and crashings in the brush, and snapping of branches, as he made his way into the forest.

“Sure he’s mad,” said Dale, rising to his feet. “An’ I reckon hard hit. But I won’t follow him to-night.”

Both the girls got up, and Helen found she was shaky on her feet and very cold.

“Oh-h, wasn’t — it — won-wonder-ful!” cried Bo.

“Are you scared? Your teeth are chatterin’,” queried Dale.

“I’m — cold.”

“Well, it sure is cold, all right,” he responded. “Now the fun’s over, you’ll feel it.... Nell, you’re froze, too?”

Helen nodded. She was, indeed, as cold as she had ever been before. But that did not prevent a strange warmness along her veins and a quickened pulse, the cause of which she did not conjecture.

“Let’s rustle,” said Dale, and led the way out of the wood and skirted its edge around to the slope. There they climbed to the flat, and went through the straggling line of trees to where the horses were tethered.

Up here the wind began to blow, not hard through the forest, but still strong and steady out in the open, and bitterly cold. Dale helped Bo to mount, and then Helen.

“I’m — numb,” she said. “I’ll fall off — sure.”

“No. You’ll be warm in a jiffy,” he replied, “because we’ll ride some goin’ back. Let Ranger pick the way an’ you hang on.”

With Ranger’s first jump Helen’s blood began to run. Out he shot, his lean, dark head beside Dale’s horse. The wild park lay clear and bright in the moonlight, with strange, silvery radiance on the grass. The patches of timber, like spired black islands in a moon-blanched lake, seemed to harbor shadows, and places for bears to hide, ready to spring out. As Helen neared each little grove her pulses shook and her heart beat. Half a mile of rapid riding burned out the cold. And all seemed glorious — the sailing moon, white in a dark-blue sky, the white, passionless stars, so solemn, so far away, the beckoning fringe of forest-land at once mysterious and friendly, and the fleet horses, running with soft, rhythmic thuds over the grass, leaping the ditches and the hollows, making the bitter wind sting and cut. Coming up that park the ride had been long; going back was as short as it was thrilling. In Helen, experiences gathered realization slowly, and it was this swift ride, the horses neck and neck, and all the wildness and beauty, that completed the slow, insidious work of years. The tears of excitement froze on her cheeks and her heart heaved full. All that pertained to this night got into her blood. It was only to feel, to live now, but it could be understood and remembered forever afterward.

Dale’s horse, a little in advance, sailed over a ditch. Ranger made a splendid leap, but he alighted among some grassy tufts and fell. Helen shot over his head. She struck lengthwise, her arms stretched, and slid hard to a shocking impact that stunned her.

Bo’s scream rang in her ears; she felt the wet grass under her face and then the strong hands that lifted her. Dale loomed over her, bending down to look into her face; Bo was clutching her with frantic hands. And Helen could only gasp. Her breast seemed caved in. The need to breathe was torture.

“Nell! — you’re not hurt. You fell light, like a feather. All grass here.... You can’t be hurt!” said Dale, sharply.

His anxious voice penetrated beyond her hearing, and his strong hands went swiftly over her arms and shoulders, feeling for broken bones.

“Just had the wind knocked out of you,” went on Dale. “It feels awful, but it’s nothin’.”

Helen got a little air, that was like hot pin-points in her lungs, and then a deeper breath, and then full, gasping respiration.

“I guess — I’m not hurt — not a bit,” she choked out.

“You sure had a header. Never saw a prettier spill. Ranger doesn’t do that often. I reckon we were travelin’ too fast. But it was fun, don’t you think?”

It was Bo who answered. “Oh, glorious!... But, gee! I was scared.”

Dale still held Helen’s hands. She released them while looking up at him. The moment was realization for her of what for days had been a vague, sweet uncertainty, becoming near and strange, disturbing and present. This accident had been a sudden, violent end to the wonderful ride. But its effect, the knowledge of what had got into her blood, would never change. And inseparable from it was this man of the forest.

CHAPTER XIV

ON THE NEXT morning Helen was awakened by what she imagined had been a dream of some one shouting. With a start she sat up. The sunshine showed pink and gold on the ragged spruce line of the mountain rims. Bo was on her knees, braiding her hair with shaking hands, and at the same time trying to peep out.

And the echoes of a ringing cry were cracking back from the cliffs. That had been Dale’s voice.

“Nell! Nell! Wake up!” called Bo, wildly. “Oh, some one’s come! Horses and men!”

Helen got to her knees and peered out over Bo’s shoulder. Dale, standing tall and striking beside the campfire, was waving his sombrero. Away down the open edge of the park came a string of pack-burros with mounted men behind. In the foremost rider Helen recognized Roy Beeman.

“That first one’s Roy!” she exclaimed. “I’d never forget him on a horse.... Bo, it must mean Uncle Al’s come!”

“Sure! We’re born lucky. Here we are safe and sound — and all this grand camp trip.... Look at the cowboys.... LOOK! Oh, maybe this isn’t great!” babbled Bo.

Dale wheeled to see the girls peeping out.

“It’s time you’re up!” he called. “Your uncle Al is here.”

For an instant after Helen sank back out of Dale’s sight she sat there perfectly motionless, so struck was she by the singular tone of Dale’s voice. She imagined that he regretted what this visiting cavalcade of horsemen meant — they had come to take her to her ranch in Pine. Helen’s heart suddenly began to beat fast, but thickly, as if muffled within her breast.

“Hurry now, girls,” called Dale.

Bo was already out, kneeling on the flat stone at the little brook, splashing water in a great hurry. Helen’s hands trembled so that she could scarcely lace her boots or brush her hair, and she was long behind Bo in making herself presentable. When Helen stepped out, a short, powerfully built man in coarse garb and heavy boots stood holding Bo’s hands.

“Wal, wal! You favor the Rayners,” he was saying, “I remember your dad, an’ a fine feller he was.”

Beside them stood Dale and Roy, and beyond was a group of horses and riders.

“Uncle, here comes Nell,” said Bo, softly.

“Aw!” The old cattle-man breathed hard as he turned.

Helen hurried. She had not expected to remember this uncle, but one look into the brown, beaming face, with the blue eyes flashing, yet sad, and she recognized him, at the same instant recalling her mother.

He held out his arms to receive her.

“Nell Auchincloss all over again!” he exclaimed, in deep voice, as he kissed her. “I’d have knowed you anywhere!”

“Uncle Al!” murmured Helen. “I remember you — though I was only four.”

“Wal, wal, — that’s fine,” he replied. “I remember you straddled my knee once, an’ your hair was brighter — an’ curly. It ain’t neither now.... Sixteen years! An’ you’re twenty now? What a fine, broad-shouldered girl you are! An’, Nell, you’re the handsomest Auchincloss I ever seen!”

Helen found herself blushing, and withdrew her hands from his as Roy stepped forward to pay his respects. He stood bareheaded, lean and tall, with neither his clear eyes nor his still face, nor the proffered hand expressing anything of the proven quality of fidelity, of achievement, that Helen sensed in him.

“Howdy, Miss Helen? Howdy, Bo?” he said. “You all both look fine an’ brown.... I reckon I was shore slow rustlin’ your uncle Al up here. But I was figgerin’ you’d like Milt’s camp for a while.”

“We sure did,” replied Bo, archly.

“Aw!” breathed Auchincloss, heavily. “Lemme set down.”

He drew the girls to the rustic seat Dale had built for them under the big pine.

“Oh, you must be tired! How — how are you?” asked Helen, anxiously.

“Tired! Wal, if I am it’s jest this here minit. When Joe Beeman rode in on me with thet news of you — wal, I jest fergot I was a worn-out old hoss. Haven’t felt so good in years. Mebbe two such young an’ pretty nieces will make a new man of me.”

“Uncle Al, you look strong and well to me,” said Bo. “And young, too, and—”

“Haw! Haw! Thet ‘ll do,” interrupted Al. “I see through you. What you’ll do to Uncle Al will be aplenty.... Yes, girls, I’m feelin’ fine. But strange — strange! Mebbe thet’s my joy at seein’ you safe — safe when I feared so thet damned greaser Beasley—”

In Helen’s grave gaze his face changed swiftly — and all the serried years of toil and battle and privation showed, with something that was not age, nor resignation, yet as tragic as both.

“Wal, never mind him — now,” he added, slowly, and the warmer light returned to his face. “Dale — come here.”

The hunter stepped closer.

“I reckon I owe you more ‘n I can ever pay,” said Auchincloss, with an arm around each niece.

“No, Al, you don’t owe me anythin’,” returned Dale, thoughtfully, as he looked away.

“A-huh!” grunted Al. “You hear him, girls.... Now listen, you wild hunter. An’ you girls listen.... Milt, I never thought you much good, ‘cept for the wilds. But I reckon I’ll have to swallow thet. I do. Comin’ to me as you did — an’ after bein’ druv off — keepin’ your council an’ savin’ my girls from thet hold-up, wal, it’s the biggest deal any man ever did for me.... An’ I’m ashamed of my hard feelin’s, an’ here’s my hand.”

“Thanks, Al,” replied Dale, with his fleeting smile, and he met the proffered hand. “Now, will you be makin’ camp here?”

“Wal, no. I’ll rest a little, an’ you can pack the girls’ outfit — then we’ll go. Sure you’re goin’ with us?”

“I’ll call the girls to breakfast,” replied Dale, and he moved away without answering Auchincloss’s query.

Helen divined that Dale did not mean to go down to Pine with them, and the knowledge gave her a blank feeling of surprise. Had she expected him to go?

“Come here, Jeff,” called Al, to one of his men.

A short, bow-legged horseman with dusty garb and sun-bleached face hobbled forth from the group. He was not young, but he had a boyish grin and bright little eyes. Awkwardly he doffed his slouch sombrero.

“Jeff, shake hands with my nieces,” said Al. “This ‘s Helen, an’ your boss from now on. An’ this ‘s Bo, fer short. Her name was Nancy, but when she lay a baby in her cradle I called her Bo-Peep, an’ the name’s stuck.... Girls, this here’s my foreman, Jeff Mulvey, who’s been with me twenty years.”

The introduction caused embarrassment to all three principals, particularly to Jeff.

“Jeff, throw the packs an’ saddles fer a rest,” was Al’s order to his foreman.

“Nell, reckon you’ll have fun bossin’ thet outfit,” chuckled Al. “None of ‘em’s got a wife. Lot of scalawags they are; no women would have them!”

“Uncle, I hope I’ll never have to be their boss,” replied Helen.

“Wal, you’re goin’ to be, right off,” declared Al. “They ain’t a bad lot, after all. An’ I got a likely new man.”

With that he turned to Bo, and, after studying her pretty face, he asked, in apparently severe tone, “Did you send a cowboy named Carmichael to ask me for a job?”

Bo looked quite startled.

“Carmichael! Why, Uncle, I never heard that name before,” replied Bo, bewilderedly.

“A-huh! Reckoned the young rascal was lyin’,” said Auchincloss. “But I liked the fellar’s looks an’ so let him stay.”

Then the rancher turned to the group of lounging riders.

“Las Vegas, come here,” he ordered, in a loud voice.

Helen thrilled at sight of a tall, superbly built cowboy reluctantly detaching himself from the group. He had a red-bronze face, young like a boy’s. Helen recognized it, and the flowing red scarf, and the swinging gun, and the slow, spur-clinking gait. No other than Bo’s Las Vegas cowboy admirer!

Then Helen flashed a look at Bo, which look gave her a delicious, almost irresistible desire to laugh. That young lady also recognized the reluctant individual approaching with flushed and downcast face. Helen recorded her first experience of Bo’s utter discomfiture. Bo turned white then red as a rose.

“Say, my niece said she never heard of the name Carmichael,” declared Al, severely, as the cowboy halted before him. Helen knew her uncle had the repute of dealing hard with his men, but here she was reassured and pleased at the twinkle in his eye.

“Shore, boss, I can’t help thet,” drawled the cowboy. “It’s good old Texas stock.”

He did not appear shamefaced now, but just as cool, easy, clear-eyed, and lazy as the day Helen had liked his warm young face and intent gaze.

“Texas! You fellars from the Pan Handle are always hollerin’ Texas. I never seen thet Texans had any one else beat — say from Missouri,” returned Al, testily.

Carmichael maintained a discreet silence, and carefully avoided looking at the girls.

“Wal, reckon we’ll all call you Las Vegas, anyway,” continued the rancher. “Didn’t you say my niece sent you to me for a job?”

Whereupon Carmichael’s easy manner vanished.

“Now, boss, shore my memory’s pore,” he said. “I only says—”

“Don’t tell me thet. My memory’s not p-o-r-e,” replied Al, mimicking the drawl. “What you said was thet my niece would speak a good word for you.”

Here Carmichael stole a timid glance at Bo, the result of which was to render him utterly crestfallen. Not improbably he had taken Bo’s expression to mean something it did not, for Helen read it as a mingling of consternation and fright. Her eyes were big and blazing; a red spot was growing in each cheek as she gathered strength from his confusion.

“Well, didn’t you?” demanded Al.

From the glance the old rancher shot from the cowboy to the others of his employ it seemed to Helen that they were having fun at Carmichael’s expense.

“Yes, sir, I did,” suddenly replied the cowboy.

“A-huh! All right, here’s my niece. Now see thet she speaks the good word.”

Carmichael looked at Bo and Bo looked at him. Their glances were strange, wondering, and they grew shy. Bo dropped hers. The cowboy apparently forgot what had been demanded of him.

Helen put a hand on the old rancher’s arm.

“Uncle, what happened was my fault,” she said. “The train stopped at Las Vegas. This young man saw us at the open window. He must have guessed we were lonely, homesick girls, getting lost in the West. For he spoke to us — nice and friendly. He knew of you. And he asked, in what I took for fun, if we thought you would give him a job. And I replied, just to tease Bo, that she would surely speak a good word for him.”

“Haw! Haw! So thet’s it,” replied Al, and he turned to Bo with merry eyes. “Wal, I kept this here Las Vegas Carmichael on his say-so. Come on with your good word, unless you want to see him lose his job.”

Bo did not grasp her uncle’s bantering, because she was seriously gazing at the cowboy. But she had grasped something.

“He — he was the first person — out West — to speak kindly to us,” she said, facing her uncle.

“Wal, thet’s a pretty good word, but it ain’t enough,” responded Al.

Subdued laughter came from the listening group. Carmichael shifted from side to side.

“He — he looks as if he might ride a horse well,” ventured Bo.

“Best hossman I ever seen,” agreed Al, heartily.

“And — and shoot?” added Bo, hopefully.

“Bo, he packs thet gun low, like Jim Wilson an’ all them Texas gun-fighters. Reckon thet ain’t no good word.”

“Then — I’ll vouch for him,” said Bo, with finality.

“Thet settles it.” Auchincloss turned to the cowboy. “Las Vegas, you’re a stranger to us. But you’re welcome to a place in the outfit an’ I hope you won’t never disappoint us.”

Auchincloss’s tone, passing from jest to earnest, betrayed to Helen the old rancher’s need of new and true men, and hinted of trying days to come.

Carmichael stood before Bo, sombrero in hand, rolling it round and round, manifestly bursting with words he could not speak. And the girl looked very young and sweet with her flushed face and shining eyes. Helen saw in the moment more than that little by-play of confusion.

“Miss — Miss Rayner — I shore — am obliged,” he stammered, presently.

“You’re very welcome,” she replied, softly. “I — I got on the next train,” he added.

When he said that Bo was looking straight at him, but she seemed not to have heard.

“What’s your name?” suddenly she asked.

“Carmichael.”

“I heard that. But didn’t uncle call you Las Vegas?”

“Shore. But it wasn’t my fault. Thet cow-punchin’ outfit saddled it on me, right off. They Don’t know no better. Shore I jest won’t answer to thet handle.... Now — Miss Bo — my real name is Tom.”

“I simply could not call you — any name but Las Vegas,” replied Bo, very sweetly.

“But — beggin’ your pardon — I — I don’t like thet,” blustered Carmichael.

“People often get called names — they don’t like,” she said, with deep intent.

The cowboy blushed scarlet. Helen as well as he got Bo’s inference to that last audacious epithet he had boldly called out as the train was leaving Las Vegas. She also sensed something of the disaster in store for Mr. Carmichael. Just then the embarrassed young man was saved by Dale’s call to the girls to come to breakfast.

That meal, the last for Helen in Paradise Park, gave rise to a strange and inexplicable restraint. She had little to say. Bo was in the highest spirits, teasing the pets, joking with her uncle and Roy, and even poking fun at Dale. The hunter seemed somewhat somber. Roy was his usual dry, genial self. And Auchincloss, who sat near by, was an interested spectator. When Tom put in an appearance, lounging with his feline grace into the camp, as if he knew he was a privileged pet, the rancher could scarcely contain himself.

“Dale, it’s thet damn cougar!” he ejaculated.

“Sure, that’s Tom.”

“He ought to be corralled or chained. I’ve no use for cougars,” protested Al.

“Tom is as tame an’ safe as a kitten.”

“A-huh! Wal, you tell thet to the girls if you like. But not me! I’m an old hoss, I am.”

“Uncle Al, Tom sleeps curled up at the foot of my bed,” said Bo.

“Aw — what?”

“Honest Injun,” she responded. “Well, isn’t it so?”

Helen smilingly nodded her corroboration. Then Bo called Tom to her and made him lie with his head on his stretched paws, right beside her, and beg for bits to eat.

“Wal! I’d never have believed thet!” exclaimed Al, shaking his big head. “Dale, it’s one on me. I’ve had them big cats foller me on the trails, through the woods, moonlight an’ dark. An’ I’ve heard ’em let out thet awful cry. They ain’t any wild sound on earth thet can beat a cougar’s. Does this Tom ever let out one of them wails?”

“Sometimes at night,” replied Dale.

“Wal, excuse me. Hope you don’t fetch the yaller rascal down to Pine.”

“I won’t.”

“What’ll you do with this menagerie?”

Dale regarded the rancher attentively. “Reckon, Al, I’ll take care of them.”

“But you’re goin’ down to my ranch.”

“What for?”

Al scratched his head and gazed perplexedly at the hunter. “Wal, ain’t it customary to visit friends?”

“Thanks, Al. Next time I ride down Pine way — in the spring, perhaps — I’ll run over an’ see how you are.”

“Spring!” ejaculated Auchincloss. Then he shook his head sadly and a far-away look filmed his eyes. “Reckon you’d call some late.”

“Al, you’ll get well now. These, girls — now — they’ll cure you. Reckon I never saw you look so good.”

Auchincloss did not press his point farther at that time, but after the meal, when the other men came to see Dale’s camp and pets, Helen’s quick ears caught the renewal of the subject.

“I’m askin’ you — will you come?” Auchincloss said, low and eagerly.

“No. I wouldn’t fit in down there,” replied Dale.

“Milt, talk sense. You can’t go on forever huntin’ bear an’ tamin’ cats,” protested the old rancher.

“Why not?” asked the hunter, thoughtfully.

Auchincloss stood up and, shaking himself as if to ward off his testy temper, he put a hand on Dale’s arm.

“One reason is you’re needed in Pine.”

“How? Who needs me?”

“I do. I’m playin’ out fast. An’ Beasley’s my enemy. The ranch an’ all I got will go to Nell. Thet ranch will have to be run by a man an’ HELD by a man. Do you savvy? It’s a big job. An’ I’m offerin’ to make you my foreman right now.”

“Al, you sort of take my breath,” replied Dale. “An’ I’m sure grateful. But the fact is, even if I could handle the job, I — I don’t believe I’d want to.”

“Make yourself want to, then. Thet ‘d soon come. You’d get interested. This country will develop. I seen thet years ago. The government is goin’ to chase the Apaches out of here. Soon homesteaders will be flockin’ in. Big future, Dale. You want to get in now. An’—”

Here Auchincloss hesitated, then spoke lower:

“An’ take your chance with the girl!... I’ll be on your side.”

A slight vibrating start ran over Dale’s stalwart form.

“Al — you’re plumb dotty!” he exclaimed.

“Dotty! Me? Dotty!” ejaculated Auchincloss. Then he swore. “In a minit I’ll tell you what you are.”

“But, Al, that talk’s so — so — like an old fool’s.”

“Huh! An’ why so?”

“Because that — wonderful girl would never look at me,” Dale replied, simply.

“I seen her lookin’ already,” declared Al, bluntly.

Dale shook his head as if arguing with the old rancher was hopeless.

“Never mind thet,” went on Al. “Mebbe I am a dotty old fool— ‘specially for takin’ a shine to you. But I say again — will you come down to Pine and be my foreman?”

“No,” replied Dale.

“Milt, I’ve no son — an’ I’m — afraid of Beasley.” This was uttered in an agitated whisper.

“Al, you make me ashamed,” said Dale, hoarsely. “I can’t come. I’ve no nerve.”

“You’ve no what?”

“Al, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I’m afraid I’d find out if I came down there.”

“A-huh! It’s the girl!”

“I don’t know, but I’m afraid so. An’ I won’t come.”

“Aw yes, you will—”

Helen rose with beating heart and tingling ears, and moved away out of hearing. She had listened too long to what had not been intended for her ears, yet she could not be sorry. She walked a few rods along the brook, out from under the pines, and, standing in the open edge of the park, she felt the beautiful scene still her agitation. The following moments, then, were the happiest she had spent in Paradise Park, and the profoundest of her whole life.

Presently her uncle called her.

“Nell, this here hunter wants to give you thet black hoss. An’ I say you take him.”

“Ranger deserves better care than I can give him,” said Dale. “He runs free in the woods most of the time. I’d be obliged if she’d have him. An’ the hound, Pedro, too.”

Bo swept a saucy glance from Dale to her sister.

“Sure she’ll have Ranger. Just offer him to ME!”

Dale stood there expectantly, holding a blanket in his hand, ready to saddle the horse. Carmichael walked around Ranger with that appraising eye so keen in cowboys.

“Las Vegas, do you know anything about horses?” asked Bo.

“Me! Wal, if you ever buy or trade a hoss you shore have me there,” replied Carmichael.

“What do you think of Ranger?” went on Bo.

“Shore I’d buy him sudden, if I could.”

“Mr. Las Vegas, you’re too late,” asserted Helen, as she advanced to lay a hand on the horse.

“Ranger is mine.”

Dale smoothed out the blanket and, folding it, he threw it over the horse; and then with one powerful swing he set the saddle in place.

“Thank you very much for him,” said Helen, softly.

“You’re welcome, an’ I’m sure glad,” responded Dale, and then, after a few deft, strong pulls at the straps, he continued. “There, he’s ready for you.”

With that he laid an arm over the saddle, and faced Helen as she stood patting and smoothing Ranger. Helen, strong and calm now, in feminine possession of her secret and his, as well as her composure, looked frankly and steadily at Dale. He seemed composed, too, yet the bronze of his fine face was a trifle pale.

“But I can’t thank you — I’ll never be able to repay you — for your service to me and my sister,” said Helen.

“I reckon you needn’t try,” Dale returned. “An’ my service, as you call it, has been good for me.”

“Are you going down to Pine with us?”

“No.”

“But you will come soon?”

“Not very soon, I reckon,” he replied, and averted his gaze.

“When?”

“Hardly before spring.”

“Spring?... That is a long time. Won’t you come to see me sooner than that?”

“If I can get down to Pine.”

“You’re the first friend I’ve made in the West,” said Helen, earnestly.

“You’ll make many more — an’ I reckon soon forget him you called the man of the forest.”

“I never forget any of my friends. And you’ve been the — the biggest friend I ever had.”

“I’ll be proud to remember.”

“But will you remember — will you promise to come to Pine?”

“I reckon.”

“Thank you. All’s well, then.... My friend, goodby.”

“Good-by,” he said, clasping her hand. His glance was clear, warm, beautiful, yet it was sad.

Auchincloss’s hearty voice broke the spell. Then Helen saw that the others were mounted. Bo had ridden up close; her face was earnest and happy and grieved all at once, as she bade good-by to Dale. The pack-burros were hobbling along toward the green slope. Helen was the last to mount, but Roy was the last to leave the hunter. Pedro came reluctantly.

It was a merry, singing train which climbed that brown odorous trail, under the dark spruces. Helen assuredly was happy, yet a pang abided in her breast.

She remembered that half-way up the slope there was a turn in the trail where it came out upon an open bluff. The time seemed long, but at last she got there. And she checked Ranger so as to have a moment’s gaze down into the park.

It yawned there, a dark-green and bright-gold gulf, asleep under a westering sun, exquisite, wild, lonesome. Then she saw Dale standing in the open space between the pines and the spruces. He waved to her. And she returned the salute.

Roy caught up with her then and halted his horse. He waved his sombrero to Dale and let out a piercing yell that awoke the sleeping echoes, splitting strangely from cliff to cliff.

“Shore Milt never knowed what it was to be lonesome,” said Roy, as if thinking aloud. “But he’ll know now.”

Ranger stepped out of his own accord and, turning off the ledge, entered the spruce forest. Helen lost sight of Paradise Park. For hours then she rode along a shady, fragrant trail, seeing the beauty of color and wildness, hearing the murmur and rush and roar of water, but all the while her mind revolved the sweet and momentous realization which had thrilled her — that the hunter, this strange man of the forest, so deeply versed in nature and so unfamiliar with emotion, aloof and simple and strong like the elements which had developed him, had fallen in love with her and did not know it.

CHAPTER XV

DALE STOOD WITH face and arm upraised, and he watched Helen ride off the ledge to disappear in the forest. That vast spruce slope seemed to have swallowed her. She was gone! Slowly Dale lowered his arm with gesture expressive of a strange finality, an eloquent despair, of which he was unconscious.

He turned to the park, to his camp, and the many duties of a hunter. The park did not seem the same, nor his home, nor his work.

“I reckon this feelin’s natural,” he soliloquized, resignedly, “but it’s sure queer for me. That’s what comes of makin’ friends. Nell an’ Bo, now, they made a difference, an’ a difference I never knew before.”

He calculated that this difference had been simply one of responsibility, and then the charm and liveliness of the companionship of girls, and finally friendship. These would pass now that the causes were removed.

Before he had worked an hour around camp he realized a change had come, but it was not the one anticipated. Always before he had put his mind on his tasks, whatever they might be; now he worked while his thoughts were strangely involved.

The little bear cub whined at his heels; the tame deer seemed to regard him with deep, questioning eyes, the big cougar padded softly here and there as if searching for something.

“You all miss them — now — I reckon,” said Dale. “Well, they’re gone an’ you’ll have to get along with me.”

Some vague approach to irritation with his pets surprised him. Presently he grew both irritated and surprised with himself — a state of mind totally unfamiliar. Several times, as old habit brought momentary abstraction, he found himself suddenly looking around for Helen and Bo. And each time the shock grew stronger. They were gone, but their presence lingered. After his camp chores were completed he went over to pull down the lean-to which the girls had utilized as a tent. The spruce boughs had dried out brown and sear; the wind had blown the roof awry; the sides were leaning in. As there was now no further use for this little habitation, he might better pull it down. Dale did not acknowledge that his gaze had involuntarily wandered toward it many times. Therefore he strode over with the intention of destroying it.

For the first time since Roy and he had built the lean-to he stepped inside. Nothing was more certain than the fact that he experienced a strange sensation, perfectly incomprehensible to him. The blankets lay there on the spruce boughs, disarranged and thrown back by hurried hands, yet still holding something of round folds where the slender forms had nestled. A black scarf often worn by Bo lay covering the pillow of pine-needles; a red ribbon that Helen had worn on her hair hung from a twig. These articles were all that had been forgotten. Dale gazed at them attentively, then at the blankets, and all around the fragrant little shelter; and he stepped outside with an uncomfortable knowledge that he could not destroy the place where Helen and Bo had spent so many hours.

Whereupon, in studious mood, Dale took up his rifle and strode out to hunt. His winter supply of venison had not yet been laid in. Action suited his mood; he climbed far and passed by many a watching buck to slay which seemed murder; at last he jumped one that was wild and bounded away. This he shot, and set himself a Herculean task in packing the whole carcass back to camp. Burdened thus, he staggered under the trees, sweating freely, many times laboring for breath, aching with toil, until at last he had reached camp. There he slid the deer carcass off his shoulders, and, standing over it, he gazed down while his breast labored. It was one of the finest young bucks he had ever seen. But neither in stalking it, nor making a wonderful shot, nor in packing home a weight that would have burdened two men, nor in gazing down at his beautiful quarry, did Dale experience any of the old joy of the hunter.

“I’m a little off my feed,” he mused, as he wiped sweat from his heated face. “Maybe a little dotty, as I called Al. But that’ll pass.”

Whatever his state, it did not pass. As of old, after a long day’s hunt, he reclined beside the camp-fire and watched the golden sunset glows change on the ramparts; as of old he laid a hand on the soft, furry head of the pet cougar; as of old he watched the gold change to red and then to dark, and twilight fall like a blanket; as of old he listened to the dreamy, lulling murmur of the water fall. The old familiar beauty, wildness, silence, and loneliness were there, but the old content seemed strangely gone.

Soberly he confessed then that he missed the happy company of the girls. He did not distinguish Helen from Bo in his slow introspection. When he sought his bed he did not at once fall to sleep. Always, after a few moments of wakefulness, while the silence settled down or the wind moaned through the pines, he had fallen asleep. This night he found different. Though he was tired, sleep would not soon come. The wilderness, the mountains, the park, the camp — all seemed to have lost something. Even the darkness seemed empty. And when at length Dale fell asleep it was to be troubled by restless dreams.

Up with the keen-edged, steely-bright dawn, he went at the his tasks with the springy stride of the deer-stalker.

At the end of that strenuous day, which was singularly full of the old excitement and action and danger, and of new observations, he was bound to confess that no longer did the chase suffice for him.

Many times on the heights that day, with the wind keen in his face, and the vast green billows of spruce below him, he had found that he was gazing without seeing, halting without object, dreaming as he had never dreamed before.

Once, when a magnificent elk came out upon a rocky ridge and, whistling a challenge to invisible rivals, stood there a target to stir any hunter’s pulse, Dale did not even raise his rifle. Into his ear just then rang Helen’s voice: “Milt Dale, you are no Indian. Giving yourself to a hunter’s wildlife is selfish. It is wrong. You love this lonely life, but it is not work. Work that does not help others is not a real man’s work.”

From that moment conscience tormented him. It was not what he loved, but what he ought to do, that counted in the sum of good achieved in the world. Old Al Auchincloss had been right. Dale was wasting strength and intelligence that should go to do his share in the development of the West. Now that he had reached maturity, if through his knowledge of nature’s law he had come to see the meaning of the strife of men for existence, for place, for possession, and to hold them in contempt, that was no reason why he should keep himself aloof from them, from some work that was needed in an incomprehensible world.

Dale did not hate work, but he loved freedom. To be alone, to live with nature, to feel the elements, to labor and dream and idle and climb and sleep unhampered by duty, by worry, by restriction, by the petty interests of men — this had always been his ideal of living. Cowboys, riders, sheep-herders, farmers — these toiled on from one place and one job to another for the little money doled out to them. Nothing beautiful, nothing significant had ever existed in that for him. He had worked as a boy at every kind of range-work, and of all that humdrum waste of effort he had liked sawing wood best. Once he had quit a job of branding cattle because the smell of burning hide, the bawl of the terrified calf, had sickened him. If men were honest there would be no need to scar cattle. He had never in the least desired to own land and droves of stock, and make deals with ranchmen, deals advantageous to himself. Why should a man want to make a deal or trade a horse or do a piece of work to another man’s disadvantage? Self-preservation was the first law of life. But as the plants and trees and birds and beasts interpreted that law, merciless and inevitable as they were, they had neither greed nor dishonesty. They lived by the grand rule of what was best for the greatest number.

But Dale’s philosophy, cold and clear and inevitable, like nature itself, began to be pierced by the human appeal in Helen Rayner’s words. What did she mean? Not that he should lose his love of the wilderness, but that he realize himself! Many chance words of that girl had depth. He was young, strong, intelligent, free from taint of disease or the fever of drink. He could do something for others. Who? If that mattered, there, for instance, was poor old Mrs. Cass, aged and lame now; there was Al Auchincloss, dying in his boots, afraid of enemies, and wistful for his blood and his property to receive the fruit of his labors; there were the two girls, Helen and Bo, new and strange to the West, about to be confronted by a big problem of ranch life and rival interests. Dale thought of still more people in the little village of Pine — of others who had failed, whose lives were hard, who could have been made happier by kindness and assistance.

What, then, was the duty of Milt Dale to himself? Because men preyed on one another and on the weak, should he turn his back upon a so-called civilization or should he grow like them? Clear as a bell came the answer that his duty was to do neither. And then he saw how the little village of Pine, as well as the whole world, needed men like him. He had gone to nature, to the forest, to the wilderness for his development; and all the judgments and efforts of his future would be a result of that education.

Thus Dale, lying in the darkness and silence of his lonely park, arrived at a conclusion that he divined was but the beginning of a struggle.

It took long introspection to determine the exact nature of that struggle, but at length it evolved into the paradox that Helen Rayner had opened his eyes to his duty as a man, that he accepted it, yet found a strange obstacle in the perplexing, tumultuous, sweet fear of ever going near her again.

Suddenly, then, all his thought revolved around the girl, and, thrown off his balance, he weltered in a wilderness of unfamiliar strange ideas.

When he awoke next day the fight was on in earnest. In his sleep his mind had been active. The idea that greeted him, beautiful as the sunrise, flashed in memory of Auchincloss’s significant words, “Take your chance with the girl!”

The old rancher was in his dotage. He hinted of things beyond the range of possibility. That idea of a chance for Dale remained before his consciousness only an instant. Stars were unattainable; life could not be fathomed; the secret of nature did not abide alone on the earth — these theories were not any more impossible of proving than that Helen Rayner might be for him.

Nevertheless, her strange coming into his life had played havoc, the extent of which he had only begun to realize.

For a month he tramped through the forest. It was October, a still golden, fulfilling season of the year; and everywhere in the vast dark green a glorious blaze of oak and aspen made beautiful contrast. He carried his rifle, but he never used it. He would climb miles and go this way and that with no object in view. Yet his eye and ear had never been keener. Hours he would spend on a promontory, watching the distance, where the golden patches of aspen shone bright out of dark-green mountain slopes. He loved to fling himself down in an aspen-grove at the edge of a senaca, and there lie in that radiance like a veil of gold and purple and red, with the white tree-trunks striping the shade. Always, whether there were breeze or not, the aspen-leaves quivered, ceaselessly, wonderfully, like his pulses, beyond his control. Often he reclined against a mossy rock beside a mountain stream to listen, to watch, to feel all that was there, while his mind held a haunting, dark-eyed vision of a girl. On the lonely heights, like an eagle, he sat gazing down into Paradise Park, that was more and more beautiful, but would never again be the same, never fill him with content, never be all and all to him.

Late in October the first snow fell. It melted at once on the south side of the park, but the north slopes and the rims and domes above stayed white.

Dale had worked quick and hard at curing and storing his winter supply of food, and now he spent days chopping and splitting wood to burn during the months he would be snowed-in. He watched for the dark-gray, fast-scudding storm-clouds, and welcomed them when they came. Once there lay ten feet of snow on the trails he would be snowed-in until spring. It would be impossible to go down to Pine. And perhaps during the long winter he would be cured of this strange, nameless disorder of his feelings.

November brought storms up on the peaks. Flurries of snow fell in the park every day, but the sunny south side, where Dale’s camp lay, retained its autumnal color and warmth. Not till late in winter did the snow creep over this secluded nook.

The morning came at last, piercingly keen and bright, when Dale saw that the heights were impassable; the realization brought him a poignant regret. He had not guessed how he had wanted to see Helen Rayner again until it was too late. That opened his eyes. A raging frenzy of action followed, in which he only tired himself physically without helping himself spiritually.

It was sunset when he faced the west, looking up at the pink snow-domes and the dark-golden fringe of spruce, and in that moment he found the truth.

“I love that girl! I love that girl!” he spoke aloud, to the distant white peaks, to the winds, to the loneliness and silence of his prison, to the great pines and to the murmuring stream, and to his faithful pets. It was his tragic confession of weakness, of amazing truth, of hopeless position, of pitiful excuse for the transformation wrought in him.

Dale’s struggle ended there when he faced his soul. To understand himself was to be released from strain, worry, ceaseless importuning doubt and wonder and fear. But the fever of unrest, of uncertainty, had been nothing compared to a sudden upflashing torment of love.

With somber deliberation he set about the tasks needful, and others that he might make — his camp-fires and meals, the care of his pets and horses, the mending of saddles and pack-harness, the curing of buckskin for moccasins and hunting-suits. So his days were not idle. But all this work was habit for him and needed no application of mind.

And Dale, like some men of lonely wilderness lives who did not retrograde toward the savage, was a thinker. Love made him a sufferer.

The surprise and shame of his unconscious surrender, the certain hopelessness of it, the long years of communion with all that was wild, lonely, and beautiful, the wonderfully developed insight into nature’s secrets, and the sudden-dawning revelation that he was no omniscient being exempt from the ruthless ordinary destiny of man — all these showed him the strength of his manhood and of his passion, and that the life he had chosen was of all lives the one calculated to make love sad and terrible.

Helen Rayner haunted him. In the sunlight there was not a place around camp which did not picture her lithe, vigorous body, her dark, thoughtful eyes, her eloquent, resolute lips, and the smile that was so sweet and strong. At night she was there like a slender specter, pacing beside him under the moaning pines. Every camp-fire held in its heart the glowing white radiance of her spirit.

Nature had taught Dale to love solitude and silence, but love itself taught him their meaning. Solitude had been created for the eagle on his crag, for the blasted mountain fir, lonely and gnarled on its peak, for the elk and the wolf. But it had not been intended for man. And to live always in the silence of wild places was to become obsessed with self — to think and dream — to be happy, which state, however pursued by man, was not good for him. Man must be given imperious longings for the unattainable.

It needed, then, only the memory of an unattainable woman to render solitude passionately desired by a man, yet almost unendurable. Dale was alone with his secret; and every pine, everything in that park saw him shaken and undone.

In the dark, pitchy deadness of night, when there was no wind and the cold on the peaks had frozen the waterfall, then the silence seemed insupportable. Many hours that should have been given to slumber were paced out under the cold, white, pitiless stars, under the lonely pines.

Dale’s memory betrayed him, mocked his restraint, cheated him of any peace; and his imagination, sharpened by love, created pictures, fancies, feelings, that drove him frantic.

He thought of Helen Rayner’s strong, shapely brown hand. In a thousand different actions it haunted him. How quick and deft in camp-fire tasks! how graceful and swift as she plaited her dark hair! how tender and skilful in its ministration when one of his pets had been injured! how eloquent when pressed tight against her breast in a moment of fear on the dangerous heights! how expressive of unutterable things when laid on his arm!

Dale saw that beautiful hand slowly creep up his arm, across his shoulder, and slide round his neck to clasp there. He was powerless to inhibit the picture. And what he felt then was boundless, unutterable. No woman had ever yet so much as clasped his hand, and heretofore no such imaginings had ever crossed his mind, yet deep in him, somewhere hidden, had been this waiting, sweet, and imperious need. In the bright day he appeared to ward off such fancies, but at night he was helpless. And every fancy left him weaker, wilder.

When, at the culmination of this phase of his passion, Dale, who had never known the touch of a woman’s lips, suddenly yielded to the illusion of Helen Rayner’s kisses, he found himself quite mad, filled with rapture and despair, loving her as he hated himself. It seemed as if he had experienced all these terrible feelings in some former life and had forgotten them in this life. He had no right to think of her, but he could not resist it. Imagining the sweet surrender of her lips was a sacrilege, yet here, in spite of will and honor and shame, he was lost.

Dale, at length, was vanquished, and he ceased to rail at himself, or restrain his fancies. He became a dreamy, sad-eyed, camp-fire gazer, like many another lonely man, separated, by chance or error, from what the heart hungered most for. But this great experience, when all its significance had clarified in his mind, immeasurably broadened his understanding of the principles of nature applied to life.

Love had been in him stronger than in most men, because of his keen, vigorous, lonely years in the forest, where health of mind and body were intensified and preserved. How simple, how natural, how inevitable! He might have loved any fine-spirited, healthy-bodied girl. Like a tree shooting its branches and leaves, its whole entity, toward the sunlight, so had he grown toward a woman’s love. Why? Because the thing he revered in nature, the spirit, the universal, the life that was God, had created at his birth or before his birth the three tremendous instincts of nature — to fight for life, to feed himself, to reproduce his kind. That was all there was to it. But oh! the mystery, the beauty, the torment, and the terror of this third instinct — this hunger for the sweetness and the glory of a woman’s love!

CHAPTER XVI

HELEN RAYNER DROPPED her knitting into her lap and sat pensively gazing out of the window over the bare yellow ranges of her uncle’s ranch.

The winter day was bright, but steely, and the wind that whipped down from the white-capped mountains had a keen, frosty edge. A scant snow lay in protected places; cattle stood bunched in the lee of ridges; low sheets of dust scurried across the flats.

The big living-room of the ranch-house was warm and comfortable with its red adobe walls, its huge stone fireplace where cedar logs blazed, and its many-colored blankets. Bo Rayner sat before the fire, curled up in an armchair, absorbed in a book. On the floor lay the hound Pedro, his racy, fine head stretched toward the warmth.

“Did uncle call?” asked Helen, with a start out of her reverie.

“I didn’t hear him,” replied Bo.

Helen rose to tiptoe across the floor, and, softly parting some curtains, she looked into the room where her uncle lay. He was asleep. Sometimes he called out in his slumbers. For weeks now he had been confined to his bed, slowly growing weaker. With a sigh Helen returned to her window-seat and took up her work.

“Bo, the sun is bright,” she said. “The days are growing longer. I’m so glad.”

“Nell, you’re always wishing time away. For me it passes quickly enough,” replied the sister.

“But I love spring and summer and fall — and I guess I hate winter,” returned Helen, thoughtfully.

The yellow ranges rolled away up to the black ridges and they in turn swept up to the cold, white mountains. Helen’s gaze seemed to go beyond that snowy barrier. And Bo’s keen eyes studied her sister’s earnest, sad face.

“Nell, do you ever think of Dale?” she queried, suddenly.

The question startled Helen. A slow blush suffused neck and cheek.

“Of course,” she replied, as if surprised that Bo should ask such a thing.

“I — I shouldn’t have asked that,” said Bo, softly, and then bent again over her book.

Helen gazed tenderly at that bright, bowed head. In this swift-flying, eventful, busy winter, during which the management of the ranch had devolved wholly upon Helen, the little sister had grown away from her. Bo had insisted upon her own free will and she had followed it, to the amusement of her uncle, to the concern of Helen, to the dismay and bewilderment of the faithful Mexican housekeeper, and to the undoing of all the young men on the ranch.

Helen had always been hoping and waiting for a favorable hour in which she might find this wilful sister once more susceptible to wise and loving influence. But while she hesitated to speak, slow footsteps and a jingle of spurs sounded without, and then came a timid knock. Bo looked up brightly and ran to open the door.

“Oh! It’s only — YOU!” she uttered, in withering scorn, to the one who knocked.

Helen thought she could guess who that was.

“How are you-all?” asked a drawling voice.

“Well, Mister Carmichael, if that interests you — I’m quite ill,” replied Bo, freezingly.

“Ill! Aw no, now?”

“It’s a fact. If I don’t die right off I’ll have to be taken back to Missouri,” said Bo, casually.

“Are you goin’ to ask me in?” queried Carmichael, bluntly. “It’s cold — an’ I’ve got somethin’ to say to—”

“To ME? Well, you’re not backward, I declare,” retorted Bo.

“Miss Rayner, I reckon it ‘ll be strange to you — findin’ out I didn’t come to see you.”

“Indeed! No. But what was strange was the deluded idea I had — that you meant to apologize to me — like a gentleman.... Come in, Mr. Carmichael. My sister is here.”

The door closed as Helen turned round. Carmichael stood just inside with his sombrero in hand, and as he gazed at Bo his lean face seemed hard. In the few months since autumn he had changed — aged, it seemed, and the once young, frank, alert, and careless cowboy traits had merged into the making of a man. Helen knew just how much of a man he really was. He had been her mainstay during all the complex working of the ranch that had fallen upon her shoulders.

“Wal, I reckon you was deluded, all right — if you thought I’d crawl like them other lovers of yours,” he said, with cool deliberation.

Bo turned pale, and her eyes fairly blazed, yet even in what must have been her fury Helen saw amaze and pain.

“OTHER lovers? I think the biggest delusion here is the way you flatter yourself,” replied Bo, stingingly.

“Me flatter myself? Nope. You don’t savvy me. I’m shore hatin’ myself these days.”

“Small wonder. I certainly hate you — with all my heart!”

At this retort the cowboy dropped his head and did not see Bo flaunt herself out of the room. But he heard the door close, and then slowly came toward Helen.

“Cheer up, Las Vegas,” said Helen, smiling. “Bo’s hot-tempered.”

“Miss Nell, I’m just like a dog. The meaner she treats me the more I love her,” he replied, dejectedly.

To Helen’s first instinct of liking for this cowboy there had been added admiration, respect, and a growing appreciation of strong, faithful, developing character. Carmichael’s face and hands were red and chapped from winter winds; the leather of wrist-bands, belt, and boots was all worn shiny and thin; little streaks of dust fell from him as he breathed heavily. He no longer looked the dashing cowboy, ready for a dance or lark or fight.

“How in the world did you offend her so?” asked Helen. “Bo is furious. I never saw her so angry as that.”

“Miss Nell, it was jest this way,” began Carmichael. “Shore Bo’s knowed I was in love with her. I asked her to marry me an’ she wouldn’t say yes or no.... An’, mean as it sounds — she never run away from it, thet’s shore. We’ve had some quarrels — two of them bad, an’ this last’s the worst.”

“Bo told me about one quarrel,” said Helen. “It was — because you drank — that time.”

“Shore it was. She took one of her cold spells an’ I jest got drunk.”

“But that was wrong,” protested Helen.

“I ain’t so shore. You see, I used to get drunk often — before I come here. An’ I’ve been drunk only once. Back at Las Vegas the outfit would never believe thet. Wal, I promised Bo I wouldn’t do it again, an’ I’ve kept my word.”

“That is fine of you. But tell me, why is she angry now?”

“Bo makes up to all the fellars,” confessed Carmichael, hanging his head. “I took her to the dance last week — over in the town-hall. Thet’s the first time she’d gone anywhere with me. I shore was proud.... But thet dance was hell. Bo carried on somethin’ turrible, an’ I—”

“Tell me. What did she do?” demanded Helen, anxiously. “I’m responsible for her. I’ve got to see that she behaves.”

“Aw, I ain’t sayin’ she didn’t behave like a lady,” replied Carmichael. “It was — she — wal, all them fellars are fools over her — an’ Bo wasn’t true to me.”

“My dear boy, is Bo engaged to you?”

“Lord — if she only was!” he sighed.

“Then how can you say she wasn’t true to you? Be reasonable.”

“I reckon now, Miss Nell, thet no one can be in love an’ act reasonable,” rejoined the cowboy. “I don’t know how to explain, but the fact is I feel thet Bo has played the — the devil with me an’ all the other fellars.”

“You mean she has flirted?”

“I reckon.”

“Las Vegas, I’m afraid you’re right,” said Helen, with growing apprehension. “Go on. Tell me what’s happened.”

“Wal, thet Turner boy, who rides for Beasley, he was hot after Bo,” returned Carmichael, and he spoke as if memory hurt him. “Reckon I’ve no use for Turner. He’s a fine-lookin’, strappin’, big cow-puncher, an’ calculated to win the girls. He brags thet he can, an’ I reckon he’s right. Wal, he was always hangin’ round Bo. An’ he stole one of my dances with Bo. I only had three, an’ he comes up to say this one was his; Bo, very innocent — oh, she’s a cute one! — she says, ‘Why, Mister Turner — is it really yours?’ An’ she looked so full of joy thet when he says to me, ‘Excoose us, friend Carmichael,’ I sat there like a locoed jackass an’ let them go. But I wasn’t mad at thet. He was a better dancer than me an’ I wanted her to have a good time. What started the hell was I seen him put his arm round her when it wasn’t just time, accordin’ to the dance, an’ Bo — she didn’t break any records gettin’ away from him. She pushed him away — after a little — after I near died. Wal, on the way home I had to tell her. I shore did. An’ she said what I’d love to forget. Then — then, Miss Nell, I grabbed her — it was outside here by the porch an’ all bright moonlight — I grabbed her an’ hugged an’ kissed her good. When I let her go I says, sorta brave, but I was plumb scared — I says, ‘Wal, are you goin’ to marry me now?’”

He concluded with a gulp, and looked at Helen with woe in his eyes.

“Oh! What did Bo do?” breathlessly queried Helen.

“She slapped me,” he replied. “An’ then she says, I did like you best, but NOW I hate you!’ An’ she slammed the door in my face.”

“I think you made a great mistake,” said Helen, gravely.

“Wal, if I thought so I’d beg her forgiveness. But I reckon I don’t. What’s more, I feel better than before. I’m only a cowboy an’ never was much good till I met her. Then I braced. I got to havin’ hopes, studyin’ books, an’ you know how I’ve been lookin’ into this ranchin’ game. I stopped drinkin’ an’ saved my money. Wal, she knows all thet. Once she said she was proud of me. But it didn’t seem to count big with her. An’ if it can’t count big I don’t want it to count at all. I reckon the madder Bo is at me the more chance I’ve got. She knows I love her — thet I’d die for her — thet I’m a changed man. An’ she knows I never before thought of darin’ to touch her hand. An’ she knows she flirted with Turner.”

“She’s only a child,” replied Helen. “And all this change — the West — the wildness — and you boys making much of her — why, it’s turned her head. But Bo will come out of it true blue. She is good, loving. Her heart is gold.”

“I reckon I know, an’ my faith can’t be shook,” rejoined Carmichael, simply. “But she ought to believe thet she’ll make bad blood out here. The West is the West. Any kind of girls are scarce. An’ one like Bo — Lord! we cowboys never seen none to compare with her. She’ll make bad blood an’ some of it will be spilled.”

“Uncle Al encourages her,” said Helen, apprehensively. “It tickles him to hear how the boys are after her. Oh, she doesn’t tell him. But he hears. And I, who must stand in mother’s place to her, what can I do?”

“Miss Nell, are you on my side?” asked the cowboy, wistfully. He was strong and elemental, caught in the toils of some power beyond him.

Yesterday Helen might have hesitated at that question. But to-day Carmichael brought some proven quality of loyalty, some strange depth of rugged sincerity, as if she had learned his future worth.

“Yes, I am,” Helen replied, earnestly. And she offered her hand.

“Wal, then it ‘ll shore turn out happy,” he said, squeezing her hand. His smile was grateful, but there was nothing in it of the victory he hinted at. Some of his ruddy color had gone. “An’ now I want to tell you why I come.”

He had lowered his voice. “Is Al asleep?” he whispered.

“Yes,” replied Helen. “He was a little while ago.”

“Reckon I’d better shut his door.”

Helen watched the cowboy glide across the room and carefully close the door, then return to her with intent eyes. She sensed events in his look, and she divined suddenly that he must feel as if he were her brother.

“Shore I’m the one thet fetches all the bad news to you,” he said, regretfully.

Helen caught her breath. There had indeed been many little calamities to mar her management of the ranch — loss of cattle, horses, sheep — the desertion of herders to Beasley — failure of freighters to arrive when most needed — fights among the cowboys — and disagreements over long-arranged deals.

“Your uncle Al makes a heap of this here Jeff Mulvey,” asserted Carmichael.

“Yes, indeed. Uncle absolutely relies on Jeff,” replied Helen.

“Wal, I hate to tell you, Miss Nell,” said the cowboy, bitterly, “thet Mulvey ain’t the man he seems.”

“Oh, what do you mean?”

“When your uncle dies Mulvey is goin’ over to Beasley an’ he’s goin’ to take all the fellars who’ll stick to him.”

“Could Jeff be so faithless — after so many years my uncle’s foreman? Oh, how do you know?”

“Reckon I guessed long ago. But wasn’t shore. Miss Nell, there’s a lot in the wind lately, as poor old Al grows weaker. Mulvey has been particular friendly to me an’ I’ve nursed him along, ‘cept I wouldn’t drink. An’ his pards have been particular friends with me, too, more an’ more as I loosened up. You see, they was shy of me when I first got here. To-day the whole deal showed clear to me like a hoof track in soft ground. Bud Lewis, who’s bunked with me, come out an’ tried to win me over to Beasley — soon as Auchincloss dies. I palavered with Bud an’ I wanted to know. But Bud would only say he was goin’ along with Jeff an’ others of the outfit. I told him I’d reckon over it an’ let him know. He thinks I’ll come round.”

“Why — why will these men leave me when — when — Oh, poor uncle! They bargain on his death. But why — tell me why?”

“Beasley has worked on them — won them over,” replied Carmichael, grimly. “After Al dies the ranch will go to you. Beasley means to have it. He an’ Al was pards once, an’ now Beasley has most folks here believin’ he got the short end of thet deal. He’ll have papers — shore — an’ he’ll have most of the men. So he’ll just put you off an’ take possession. Thet’s all, Miss Nell, an’ you can rely on its bein’ true.”

“I — I believe you — but I can’t believe such — such robbery possible,” gasped Helen.

“It’s simple as two an’ two. Possession is law out here. Once Beasley gets on the ground it’s settled. What could you do with no men to fight for your property?”

“But, surely, some of the men will stay with me?”

“I reckon. But not enough.”

“Then I can hire more. The Beeman boys. And Dale would come to help me.”

“Dale would come. An’ he’d help a heap. I wish he was here,” replied Carmichael, soberly. “But there’s no way to get him. He’s snowed-up till May.”

“I dare not confide in uncle,” said Helen, with agitation. “The shock might kill him. Then to tell him of the unfaithfulness of his old men — that would be cruel.... Oh, it can’t be so bad as you think.”

“I reckon it couldn’t be no worse. An’ — Miss Nell, there’s only one way to get out of it — an’ thet’s the way of the West.”

“How?” queried Helen, eagerly.

Carmichael lunged himself erect and stood gazing down at her. He seemed completely detached now from that frank, amiable cowboy of her first impressions. The redness was totally gone from his face. Something strange and cold and sure looked out of his eyes.

“I seen Beasley go in the saloon as I rode past. Suppose I go down there, pick a quarrel with him — an’ kill him?”

Helen sat bolt-upright with a cold shock.

“Carmichael! you’re not serious?” she exclaimed.

“Serious? I shore am. Thet’s the only way, Miss Nell. An’ I reckon it’s what Al would want. An’ between you an’ me — it would be easier than ropin’ a calf. These fellars round Pine don’t savvy guns. Now, I come from where guns mean somethin’. An’ when I tell you I can throw a gun slick an’ fast, why I shore ain’t braggin’. You needn’t worry none about me, Miss Nell.”

Helen grasped that he had taken the signs of her shocked sensibility to mean she feared for his life. But what had sickened her was the mere idea of bloodshed in her behalf.

“You’d — kill Beasley — just because there are rumors of his — treachery?” gasped Helen.

“Shore. It’ll have to be done, anyhow,” replied the cowboy.

“No! No! It’s too dreadful to think of. Why, that would be murder. I — I can’t understand how you speak of it — so — so calmly.”

“Reckon I ain’t doin’ it calmly. I’m as mad as hell,” said Carmichael, with a reckless smile.

“Oh, if you are serious then, I say no — no — no! I forbid you. I don’t believe I’ll be robbed of my property.”

“Wal, supposin’ Beasley does put you off — an’ takes possession. What ‘re you goin’ to say then?” demanded the cowboy, in slow, cool deliberation.

“I’d say the same then as now,” she replied.

He bent his head thoughtfully while his red hands smoothed his sombrero.

“Shore you girls haven’t been West very long,” he muttered, as if apologizing for them. “An’ I reckon it takes time to learn the ways of a country.”

“West or no West, I won’t have fights deliberately picked, and men shot, even if they do threaten me,” declared Helen, positively.

“All right, Miss Nell, shore I respect your wishes,” he returned. “But I’ll tell you this. If Beasley turns you an’ Bo out of your home — wal, I’ll look him up on my own account.”

Helen could only gaze at him as he backed to the door, and she thrilled and shuddered at what seemed his loyalty to her, his love for Bo, and that which was inevitable in himself.

“Reckon you might save us all some trouble — now if you’d — just get mad — an’ let me go after thet greaser.”

“Greaser! Do you mean Beasley?”

“Shore. He’s a half-breed. He was born in Magdalena, where I heard folks say nary one of his parents was no good.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’m thinking of humanity of law and order. Of what is right.”

“Wal, Miss Nell, I’ll wait till you get real mad — or till Beasley—”

“But, my friend, I’ll not get mad,” interrupted Helen. “I’ll keep my temper.”

“I’ll bet you don’t,” he retorted. “Mebbe you think you’ve none of Bo in you. But I’ll bet you could get so mad — once you started — thet you’d be turrible. What ‘ve you got them eyes for, Miss Nell, if you ain’t an Auchincloss?”

He was smiling, yet he meant every word. Helen felt the truth as something she feared.

“Las Vegas, I won’t bet. But you — you will always come to me — first — if there’s trouble.”

“I promise,” he replied, soberly, and then went out.

Helen found that she was trembling, and that there was a commotion in her breast. Carmichael had frightened her. No longer did she hold doubt of the gravity of the situation. She had seen Beasley often, several times close at hand, and once she had been forced to meet him. That time had convinced her that he had evinced personal interest in her. And on this account, coupled with the fact that Riggs appeared to have nothing else to do but shadow her, she had been slow in developing her intention of organizing and teaching a school for the children of Pine. Riggs had become rather a doubtful celebrity in the settlements. Yet his bold, apparent badness had made its impression. From all reports he spent his time gambling, drinking, and bragging. It was no longer news in Pine what his intentions were toward Helen Rayner. Twice he had ridden up to the ranch-house, upon one occasion securing an interview with Helen. In spite of her contempt and indifference, he was actually influencing her life there in Pine. And it began to appear that the other man, Beasley, might soon direct stronger significance upon the liberty of her actions.

The responsibility of the ranch had turned out to be a heavy burden. It could not be managed, at least by her, in the way Auchincloss wanted it done. He was old, irritable, irrational, and hard. Almost all the neighbors were set against him, and naturally did not take kindly to Helen.

She had not found the slightest evidence of unfair dealing on the part of her uncle, but he had been a hard driver. Then his shrewd, far-seeing judgment had made all his deals fortunate for him, which fact had not brought a profit of friendship.

Of late, since Auchincloss had grown weaker and less dominating, Helen had taken many decisions upon herself, with gratifying and hopeful results. But the wonderful happiness that she had expected to find in the West still held aloof. The memory of Paradise Park seemed only a dream, sweeter and more intangible as time passed, and fuller of vague regrets. Bo was a comfort, but also a very considerable source of anxiety. She might have been a help to Helen if she had not assimilated Western ways so swiftly. Helen wished to decide things in her own way, which was as yet quite far from Western. So Helen had been thrown more and more upon her own resources, with the cowboy Carmichael the only one who had come forward voluntarily to her aid.

For an hour Helen sat alone in the room, looking out of the window, and facing stern reality with a colder, graver, keener sense of intimacy than ever before. To hold her property and to live her life in this community according to her ideas of honesty, justice, and law might well be beyond her powers. To-day she had been convinced that she could not do so without fighting for them, and to fight she must have friends. That conviction warmed her toward Carmichael, and a thoughtful consideration of all he had done for her proved that she had not fully appreciated him. She would make up for her oversight.

There were no Mormons in her employ, for the good reason that Auchincloss would not hire them. But in one of his kindlier hours, growing rare now, he had admitted that the Mormons were the best and the most sober, faithful workers on the ranges, and that his sole objection to them was just this fact of their superiority. Helen decided to hire the four Beemans and any of their relatives or friends who would come; and to do this, if possible, without letting her uncle know. His temper now, as well as his judgment, was a hindrance to efficiency. This decision regarding the Beemans; brought Helen back to Carmichael’s fervent wish for Dale, and then to her own.

Soon spring would be at hand, with its multiplicity of range tasks. Dale had promised to come to Pine then, and Helen knew that promise would be kept. Her heart beat a little faster, in spite of her business-centered thoughts. Dale was there, over the black-sloped, snowy-tipped mountain, shut away from the world. Helen almost envied him. No wonder he loved loneliness, solitude, the sweet, wild silence and beauty of Paradise Park! But he was selfish, and Helen meant to show him that. She needed his help. When she recalled his physical prowess with animals, and imagined what it must be in relation to men, she actually smiled at the thought of Beasley forcing her off her property, if Dale were there. Beasley would only force disaster upon himself. Then Helen experienced a quick shock. Would Dale answer to this situation as Carmichael had answered? It afforded her relief to assure herself to the contrary. The cowboy was one of a blood-letting breed; the hunter was a man of thought, gentleness, humanity. This situation was one of the kind that had made him despise the littleness of men. Helen assured herself that he was different from her uncle and from the cowboy, in all the relations of life which she had observed while with him. But a doubt lingered in her mind. She remembered his calm reference to Snake Anson, and that caused a recurrence of the little shiver Carmichael had given her. When the doubt augmented to a possibility that she might not be able to control Dale, then she tried not to think of it any more. It confused and perplexed her that into her mind should flash a thought that, though it would be dreadful for Carmichael to kill Beasley, for Dale to do it would be a calamity — a terrible thing. Helen did not analyze that strange thought. She was as afraid of it as she was of the stir in her blood when she visualized Dale.

Her meditation was interrupted by Bo, who entered the room, rebellious-eyed and very lofty. Her manner changed, which apparently owed its cause to the fact that Helen was alone.

“Is that — cowboy gone?” she asked.

“Yes. He left quite some time ago,” replied Helen.

“I wondered if he made your eyes shine — your color burn so. Nell, you’re just beautiful.”

“Is my face burning?” asked Helen, with a little laugh. “So it is. Well, Bo, you’ve no cause for jealousy. Las Vegas can’t be blamed for my blushes.”

“Jealous! Me? Of that wild-eyed, soft-voiced, two-faced cow-puncher? I guess not, Nell Rayner. What ‘d he say about me?”

“Bo, he said a lot,” replied Helen, reflectively. “I’ll tell you presently. First I want to ask you — has Carmichael ever told you how he’s helped me?”

“No! When I see him — which hasn’t been often lately — he — I — Well, we fight. Nell, has he helped you?”

Helen smiled in faint amusement. She was going to be sincere, but she meant to keep her word to the cowboy. The fact was that reflection had acquainted her with her indebtedness to Carmichael.

“Bo, you’ve been so wild to ride half-broken mustangs — and carry on with cowboys — and read — and sew — and keep your secrets that you’ve had no time for your sister or her troubles.”

“Nell!” burst out Bo, in amaze and pain. She flew to Helen and seized her hands. “What ‘re you saying?”

“It’s all true,” replied Helen, thrilling and softening. This sweet sister, once aroused, would be hard to resist. Helen imagined she should hold to her tone of reproach and severity.

“Sure it’s true,” cried Bo, fiercely. “But what’s my fooling got to do with the — the rest you said? Nell, are you keeping things from me?”

“My dear, I never get any encouragement to tell you my troubles.”

“But I’ve — I’ve nursed uncle — sat up with him — just the same as you,” said Bo, with quivering lips.

“Yes, you’ve been good to him.”

“We’ve no other troubles, have we, Nell?”

“You haven’t, but I have,” responded Helen, reproachfully.

“Why — why didn’t you tell me?” cried Bo, passionately. “What are they? Tell me now. You must think me a — a selfish, hateful cat.”

“Bo, I’ve had much to worry me — and the worst is yet to come,” replied Helen. Then she told Bo how complicated and bewildering was the management of a big ranch — when the owner was ill, testy, defective in memory, and hard as steel — when he had hoards of gold and notes, but could not or would not remember his obligations — when the neighbor ranchers had just claims — when cowboys and sheep-herders were discontented, and wrangled among themselves — when great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep had to be fed in winter — when supplies had to be continually freighted across a muddy desert and lastly, when an enemy rancher was slowly winning away the best hands with the end in view of deliberately taking over the property when the owner died. Then Helen told how she had only that day realized the extent of Carmichael’s advice and help and labor — how, indeed, he had been a brother to her — how —

But at this juncture Bo buried her face in Helen’s breast and began to cry wildly.

“I — I — don’t want — to hear — any more,” she sobbed.

“Well, you’ve got to hear it,” replied Helen, inexorably “I want you to know how he’s stood by me.”

“But I hate him.”

“Bo, I suspect that’s not true.”

“I do — I do.”

“Well, you act and talk very strangely then.”

“Nell Rayner — are — you — you sticking up for that — that devil?”

“I am, yes, so far as it concerns my conscience,” rejoined Helen, earnestly. “I never appreciated him as he deserved — not until now. He’s a man, Bo, every inch of him. I’ve seen him grow up to that in three months. I’d never have gotten along without him. I think he’s fine, manly, big. I—”

“I’ll bet — he’s made love — to you, too,” replied Bo, woefully.

“Talk sense,” said Helen, sharply. “He has been a brother to me. But, Bo Rayner, if he HAD made love to me I — I might have appreciated it more than you.”

Bo raised her face, flushed in part and also pale, with tear-wet cheeks and the telltale blaze in the blue eyes.

“I’ve been wild about that fellow. But I hate him, too,” she said, with flashing spirit. “And I want to go on hating him. So don’t tell me any more.”

Whereupon Helen briefly and graphically related how Carmichael had offered to kill Beasley, as the only way to save her property, and how, when she refused, that he threatened he would do it anyhow.

Bo fell over with a gasp and clung to Helen.

“Oh — Nell! Oh, now I love him more than — ever,” she cried, in mingled rage and despair.

Helen clasped her closely and tried to comfort her as in the old days, not so very far back, when troubles were not so serious as now.

“Of course you love him,” she concluded. “I guessed that long ago. And I’m glad. But you’ve been wilful — foolish. You wouldn’t surrender to it. You wanted your fling with the other boys. You’re — Oh, Bo, I fear you have been a sad little flirt.”

“I — I wasn’t very bad till — till he got bossy. Why, Nell, he acted — right off — just as if he OWNED me. But he didn’t.... And to show him — I — I really did flirt with that Turner fellow. Then he — he insulted me.... Oh, I hate him!”

“Nonsense, Bo. You can’t hate any one while you love him,” protested Helen.

“Much you know about that,” flashed Bo. “You just can! Look here. Did you ever see a cowboy rope and throw and tie up a mean horse?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Do you have any idea how strong a cowboy is — how his hands and arms are like iron?”

“Yes, I’m sure I know that, too.”

“And how savage he is?”

“Yes.”

“And how he goes at anything he wants to do?”

“I must admit cowboys are abrupt,” responded Helen, with a smile.

“Well, Miss Rayner, did you ever — when you were standing quiet like a lady — did you ever have a cowboy dive at you with a terrible lunge — grab you and hold you so you couldn’t move or breathe or scream — hug you till all your bones cracked — and kiss you so fierce and so hard that you wanted to kill him and die?”

Helen had gradually drawn back from this blazing-eyed, eloquent sister, and when the end of that remarkable question came it was impossible to reply.

“There! I see you never had that done to you,” resumed Bo, with satisfaction. “So don’t ever talk to me.”

“I’ve heard his side of the story,” said Helen, constrainedly.

With a start Bo sat up straighter, as if better to defend herself.

“Oh! So you have? And I suppose you’ll take his part — even about that — that bearish trick.”

“No. I think that rude and bold. But, Bo, I don’t believe he meant to be either rude or bold. From what he confessed to me I gather that he believed he’d lose you outright or win you outright by that violence. It seems girls can’t play at love out here in this wild West. He said there would be blood shed over you. I begin to realize what he meant. He’s not sorry for what he did. Think how strange that is. For he has the instincts of a gentleman. He’s kind, gentle, chivalrous. Evidently he had tried every way to win your favor except any familiar advance. He did that as a last resort. In my opinion his motives were to force you to accept or refuse him, and in case you refused him he’d always have those forbidden stolen kisses to assuage his self-respect — when he thought of Turner or any one else daring to be familiar with you. Bo, I see through Carmichael, even if I don’t make him clear to you. You’ve got to be honest with yourself. Did that act of his win or lose you? In other words, do you love him or not?”

Bo hid her face.

“Oh, Nell! it made me see how I loved him — and that made me so — so sick I hated him.... But now — the hate is all gone.”

CHAPTER XVII

WHEN SPRING CAME at last and the willows drooped green and fresh over the brook and the range rang with bray of burro and whistle of stallion, old Al Auchincloss had been a month in his grave.

To Helen it seemed longer. The month had been crowded with work, events, and growing, more hopeful duties, so that it contained a world of living. The uncle had not been forgotten, but the innumerable restrictions to development and progress were no longer manifest. Beasley had not presented himself or any claim upon Helen; and she, gathering confidence day by day, began to believe all that purport of trouble had been exaggerated.

In this time she had come to love her work and all that pertained to it. The estate was large. She had no accurate knowledge of how many acres she owned, but it was more than two thousand. The fine, old, rambling ranch-house, set like a fort on the last of the foot-hills, corrals and fields and barns and meadows, and the rolling green range beyond, and innumerable sheep, horses, cattle — all these belonged to Helen, to her ever-wondering realization and ever-growing joy. Still, she was afraid to let herself go and be perfectly happy. Always there was the fear that had been too deep and strong to forget so soon.

This bright, fresh morning, in March, Helen came out upon the porch to revel a little in the warmth of sunshine and the crisp, pine-scented wind that swept down from the mountains. There was never a morning that she did not gaze mountainward, trying to see, with a folly she realized, if the snow had melted more perceptibly away on the bold white ridge. For all she could see it had not melted an inch, and she would not confess why she sighed. The desert had become green and fresh, stretching away there far below her range, growing dark and purple in the distance with vague buttes rising. The air was full of sound — notes of blackbirds and the baas of sheep, and blasts from the corrals, and the clatter of light hoofs on the court below.

Bo was riding in from the stables. Helen loved to watch her on one of those fiery little mustangs, but the sight was likewise given to rousing apprehensions. This morning Bo appeared particularly bent on frightening Helen. Down the lane Carmichael appeared, waving his arms, and Helen at once connected him with Bo’s manifest desire to fly away from that particular place. Since that day, a month back, when Bo had confessed her love for Carmichael, she and Helen had not spoken of it or of the cowboy. The boy and girl were still at odds. But this did not worry Helen. Bo had changed much for the better, especially in that she devoted herself to Helen and to her work. Helen knew that all would turn out well in the end, and so she had been careful of her rather precarious position between these two young firebrands.

Bo reined in the mustang at the porch steps. She wore a buckskin riding-suit which she had made herself, and its soft gray with the touches of red beads was mightily becoming to her. Then she had grown considerably during the winter and now looked too flashing and pretty to resemble a boy, yet singularly healthy and strong and lithe. Red spots shone in her cheeks and her eyes held that ever-dangerous blaze.

“Nell, did you give me away to that cowboy?” she demanded.

“Give you away!” exclaimed Helen, blankly.

“Yes. You know I told you — awhile back — that I was wildly in love with him. Did you give me away — tell on me?”

She might have been furious, but she certainly was not confused.

“Why, Bo! How could you? No. I did not,” replied Helen.

“Never gave him a hint?”

“Not even a hint. You have my word for that. Why? What’s happened?”

“He makes me sick.”

Bo would not say any more, owing to the near approach of the cowboy.

“Mawnin’, Miss Nell,” he drawled. “I was just tellin’ this here Miss Bo-Peep Rayner—”

“Don’t call me that!” broke in Bo, with fire in her voice.

“Wal, I was just tellin’ her thet she wasn’t goin’ off on any more of them long rides. Honest now, Miss Nell, it ain’t safe, an’—”

“You’re not my boss,” retorted Bo.

“Indeed, sister, I agree with him. You won’t obey me.”

“Reckon some one’s got to be your boss,” drawled Carmichael. “Shore I ain’t hankerin’ for the job. You could ride to Kingdom Come or off among the Apaches — or over here a ways” — at this he grinned knowingly— “or anywheres, for all I cared. But I’m workin’ for Miss Nell, an’ she’s boss. An’ if she says you’re not to take them rides — you won’t. Savvy that, miss?”

It was a treat for Helen to see Bo look at the cowboy.

“Mis-ter Carmichael, may I ask how you are going to prevent me from riding where I like?”

“Wal, if you’re goin’ worse locoed this way I’ll keep you off’n a hoss if I have to rope you an’ tie you up. By golly, I will!”

His dry humor was gone and manifestly he meant what he said.

“Wal,” she drawled it very softly and sweetly, but venomously, “if — you — ever — touch — me again!”

At this he flushed, then made a quick, passionate gesture with his hand, expressive of heat and shame.

“You an’ me will never get along,” he said, with a dignity full of pathos. “I seen thet a month back when you changed sudden-like to me. But nothin’ I say to you has any reckonin’ of mine. I’m talkin’ for your sister. It’s for her sake. An’ your own.... I never told her an’ I never told you thet I’ve seen Riggs sneakin’ after you twice on them desert rides. Wal, I tell you now.”

The intelligence apparently had not the slightest effect on Bo. But Helen was astonished and alarmed.

“Riggs! Oh, Bo, I’ve seen him myself — riding around. He does not mean well. You must be careful.”

“If I ketch him again,” went on Carmichael, with his mouth lining hard, “I’m goin’ after him.”

He gave her a cool, intent, piercing look, then he dropped his head and turned away, to stride back toward the corrals.

Helen could make little of the manner in which her sister watched the cowboy pass out of sight.

“A month back — when I changed sudden-like,” mused Bo. “I wonder what he meant by that.... Nell, did I change — right after the talk you had with me — about him?”

“Indeed you did, Bo,” replied Helen. “But it was for the better. Only he can’t see it. How proud and sensitive he is! You wouldn’t guess it at first. Bo, your reserve has wounded him more than your flirting. He thinks it’s indifference.”

“Maybe that ‘ll be good for him,” declared Bo. “Does he expect me to fall on his neck? He’s that thick-headed! Why, he’s the locoed one, not me.”

“I’d like to ask you, Bo, if you’ve seen how he has changed?” queried Helen, earnestly. “He’s older. He’s worried. Either his heart is breaking for you or else he fears trouble for us. I fear it’s both. How he watches you! Bo, he knows all you do — where you go. That about Riggs sickens me.”

“If Riggs follows me and tries any of his four-flush desperado games he’ll have his hands full,” said Bo, grimly. “And that without my cowboy protector! But I just wish Riggs would do something. Then we’ll see what Las Vegas Tom Carmichael cares. Then we’ll see!”

Bo bit out the last words passionately and jealously, then she lifted her bridle to the spirited mustang.

“Nell, don’t you fear for me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

Helen watched her ride away, all but willing to confess that there might be truth in what Bo said. Then Helen went about her work, which consisted of routine duties as well as an earnest study to familiarize herself with continually new and complex conditions of ranch life. Every day brought new problems. She made notes of all that she observed, and all that was told her, which habit she had found, after a few weeks of trial, was going to be exceedingly valuable to her. She did not intend always to be dependent upon the knowledge of hired men, however faithful some of them might be.

This morning on her rounds she had expected developments of some kind, owing to the presence of Roy Beeman and two of his brothers, who had arrived yesterday. And she was to discover that Jeff Mulvey, accompanied by six of his co-workers and associates, had deserted her without a word or even sending for their pay. Carmichael had predicted this. Helen had half doubted. It was a relief now to be confronted with facts, however disturbing. She had fortified herself to withstand a great deal more trouble than had happened. At the gateway of the main corral, a huge inclosure fenced high with peeled logs, she met Roy Beeman, lasso in hand, the same tall, lean, limping figure she remembered so well. Sight of him gave her an inexplicable thrill — a flashing memory of an unforgettable night ride. Roy was to have charge of the horses on the ranch, of which there were several hundred, not counting many lost on range and mountain, or the unbranded colts.

Roy took off his sombrero and greeted her. This Mormon had a courtesy for women that spoke well for him. Helen wished she had more employees like him.

“It’s jest as Las Vegas told us it ‘d be,” he said, regretfully. “Mulvey an’ his pards lit out this mornin’. I’m sorry, Miss Helen. Reckon thet’s all because I come over.”

“I heard the news,” replied Helen. “You needn’t be sorry, Roy, for I’m not. I’m glad. I want to know whom I can trust.”

“Las Vegas says we’re shore in for it now.”

“Roy, what do you think?”

“I reckon so. Still, Las Vegas is powerful cross these days an’ always lookin’ on the dark side. With us boys, now, it’s sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. But, Miss Helen, if Beasley forces the deal there will be serious trouble. I’ve seen thet happen. Four or five years ago Beasley rode some greasers off their farms an’ no one ever knowed if he had a just claim.”

“Beasley has no claim on my property. My uncle solemnly swore that on his death-bed. And I find nothing in his books or papers of those years when he employed Beasley. In fact, Beasley was never uncle’s partner. The truth is that my uncle took Beasley up when he was a poor, homeless boy.”

“So my old dad says,” replied Roy. “But what’s right don’t always prevail in these parts.”

“Roy, you’re the keenest man I’ve met since I came West. Tell me what you think will happen.”

Beeman appeared flattered, but he hesitated to reply. Helen had long been aware of the reticence of these outdoor men.

“I reckon you mean cause an’ effect, as Milt Dale would say,” responded Roy, thoughtfully.

“Yes. If Beasley attempts to force me off my ranch what will happen?”

Roy looked up and met her gaze. Helen remembered that singular stillness, intentness of his face.

“Wal, if Dale an’ John get here in time I reckon we can bluff thet Beasley outfit.”

“You mean my friends — my men would confront Beasley — refuse his demands — and if necessary fight him off?”

“I shore do,” replied Roy.

“But suppose you’re not all here? Beasley would be smart enough to choose an opportune time. Suppose he did put me off and take possession? What then?”

“Then it ‘d only be a matter of how soon Dale or Carmichael — or I — got to Beasley.”

“Roy! I feared just that. It haunts me. Carmichael asked me to let him go pick a fight with Beasley. Asked me, just as he would ask me about his work! I was shocked. And now you say Dale — and you—”

Helen choked in her agitation.

“Miss Helen, what else could you look for? Las Vegas is in love with Miss Bo. Shore he told me so. An’ Dale’s in love with you!... Why, you couldn’t stop them any more ‘n you could stop the wind from blowin’ down a pine, when it got ready.... Now, it’s some different with me. I’m a Mormon an’ I’m married. But I’m Dale’s pard, these many years. An’ I care a powerful sight for you an’ Miss Bo. So I reckon I’d draw on Beasley the first chance I got.”

Helen strove for utterance, but it was denied her. Roy’s simple statement of Dale’s love had magnified her emotion by completely changing its direction. She forgot what she had felt wretched about. She could not look at Roy.

“Miss Helen, don’t feel bad,” he said, kindly. “Shore you’re not to blame. Your comin’ West hasn’t made any difference in Beasley’s fate, except mebbe to hurry it a little. My dad is old, an’ when he talks it’s like history. He looks back on happenin’s. Wal, it’s the nature of happenin’s that Beasley passes away before his prime. Them of his breed don’t live old in the West.... So I reckon you needn’t feel bad or worry. You’ve got friends.”

Helen incoherently thanked him, and, forgetting her usual round of corrals and stables, she hurried back toward the house, deeply stirred, throbbing and dim-eyed, with a feeling she could not control. Roy Beeman had made a statement that had upset her equilibrium. It seemed simple and natural, yet momentous and staggering. To hear that Dale loved her — to hear it spoken frankly, earnestly, by Dale’s best friend, was strange, sweet, terrifying. But was it true? Her own consciousness had admitted it. Yet that was vastly different from a man’s open statement. No longer was it a dear dream, a secret that seemed hers alone. How she had lived on that secret hidden deep in her breast!

Something burned the dimness from her eyes as she looked toward the mountains and her sight became clear, telescopic with its intensity. Magnificently the mountains loomed. Black inroads and patches on the slopes showed where a few days back all bad been white. The snow was melting fast. Dale would soon be free to ride down to Pine. And that was an event Helen prayed for, yet feared as she had never feared anything.

The noonday dinner-bell startled Helen from a reverie that was a pleasant aftermath of her unrestraint. How the hours had flown! This morning at least must be credited to indolence.

Bo was not in the dining-room, nor in her own room, nor was she in sight from window or door. This absence had occurred before, but not particularly to disturb Helen. In this instance, however, she grew worried. Her nerves presaged strain. There was an overcharge of sensibility in her feelings or a strange pressure in the very atmosphere. She ate dinner alone, looking her apprehension, which was not mitigated by the expressive fears of old Maria, the Mexican woman who served her.

After dinner she sent word to Roy and Carmichael that they had better ride out to look for Bo. Then Helen applied herself resolutely to her books until a rapid clatter of hoofs out in the court caused her to jump up and hurry to the porch. Roy was riding in.

“Did you find her?” queried Helen, hurriedly.

“Wasn’t no track or sign of her up the north range,” replied Roy, as he dismounted and threw his bridle. “An’ I was ridin’ back to take up her tracks from the corral an’ trail her. But I seen Las Vegas comin’ an’ he waved his sombrero. He was comin’ up from the south. There he is now.”

Carmichael appeared swinging into the lane. He was mounted on Helen’s big black Ranger, and he made the dust fly.

“Wal, he’s seen her, thet’s shore,” vouchsafed Roy, with relief, as Carmichael rode up.

“Miss Nell, she’s comin’,” said the cowboy, as he reined in and slid down with his graceful single motion. Then in a violent action, characteristic of him, he slammed his sombrero down on the porch and threw up both arms. “I’ve a hunch it’s come off!”

“Oh, what?” exclaimed Helen.

“Now, Las Vegas, talk sense,” expostulated Roy. “Miss Helen is shore nervous to-day. Has anythin’ happened?”

“I reckon, but I don’t know what,” replied Carmichael, drawing a long breath. “Folks, I must be gettin’ old. For I shore felt orful queer till I seen Bo. She was ridin’ down the ridge across the valley. Ridin’ some fast, too, an’ she’ll be here right off, if she doesn’t stop in the village.”

“Wal, I hear her comin’ now,” said Roy. “An’ — if you asked me I’d say she WAS ridin’ some fast.”

Helen heard the light, swift, rhythmic beat of hoofs, and then out on the curve of the road that led down to Pine she saw Bo’s mustang, white with lather, coming on a dead run.

“Las Vegas, do you see any Apaches?” asked Roy, quizzingly.

The cowboy made no reply, but he strode out from the porch, directly in front of the mustang. Bo was pulling hard on the bridle, and had him slowing down, but not controlled. When he reached the house it could easily be seen that Bo had pulled him to the limit of her strength, which was not enough to halt him. Carmichael lunged for the bridle and, seizing it, hauled him to a standstill.

At close sight of Bo Helen uttered a startled cry. Bo was white; her sombrero was gone and her hair undone; there were blood and dirt on her face, and her riding-suit was torn and muddy. She had evidently sustained a fall. Roy gazed at her in admiring consternation, but Carmichael never looked at her at all. Apparently he was examining the horse. “Well, help me off — somebody,” cried Bo, peremptorily. Her voice was weak, but not her spirit.

Roy sprang to help her off, and when she was down it developed that she was lame.

“Oh, Bo! You’ve had a tumble,” exclaimed Helen, anxiously, and she ran to assist Roy. They led her up the porch and to the door. There she turned to look at Carmichael, who was still examining the spent mustang.

“Tell him — to come in,” she whispered.

“Hey, there, Las Vegas!” called Roy. “Rustle hyar, will you?”

When Bo had been led into the sitting-room and seated in a chair Carmichael entered. His face was a study, as slowly he walked up to Bo.

“Girl, you — ain’t hurt?” he asked, huskily.

“It’s no fault of yours that I’m not crippled — or dead or worse,” retorted Bo. “You said the south range was the only safe ride for me. And there — I — it happened.”

She panted a little and her bosom heaved. One of her gauntlets was gone, and the bare band, that was bruised and bloody, trembled as she held it out.

“Dear, tell us — are you badly hurt?” queried Helen, with hurried gentleness.

“Not much. I’ve had a spill,” replied Bo. “But oh! I’m mad — I’m boiling!”

She looked as if she might have exaggerated her doubt of injuries, but certainly she had not overestimated her state of mind. Any blaze Helen had heretofore seen in those quick eyes was tame compared to this one. It actually leaped. Bo was more than pretty then. Manifestly Roy was admiring her looks, but Carmichael saw beyond her charm. And slowly he was growing pale.

“I rode out the south range — as I was told,” began Bo, breathing hard and trying to control her feelings. “That’s the ride you usually take, Nell, and you bet — if you’d taken it to-day — you’d not be here now.... About three miles out I climbed off the range up that cedar slope. I always keep to high ground. When I got up I saw two horsemen ride out of some broken rocks off to the east. They rode as if to come between me and home. I didn’t like that. I circled south. About a mile farther on I spied another horseman and he showed up directly in front of me and came along slow. That I liked still less. It might have been accident, but it looked to me as if those riders had some intent. All I could do was head off to the southeast and ride. You bet I did ride. But I got into rough ground where I’d never been before. It was slow going. At last I made the cedars and here I cut loose, believing I could circle ahead of those strange riders and come round through Pine. I had it wrong.”

Here she hesitated, perhaps for breath, for she had spoken rapidly, or perhaps to get better hold on her subject. Not improbably the effect she was creating on her listeners began to be significant. Roy sat absorbed, perfectly motionless, eyes keen as steel, his mouth open. Carmichael was gazing over Bo’s head, out of the window, and it seemed that he must know the rest of her narrative. Helen knew that her own wide-eyed attention alone would have been all-compelling inspiration to Bo Rayner.

“Sure I had it wrong,” resumed Bo. “Pretty soon heard a horse behind. I looked back. I saw a big bay riding down on me. Oh, but he was running! He just tore through the cedars. ... I was scared half out of my senses. But I spurred and beat my mustang. Then began a race! Rough going — thick cedars — washes and gullies I had to make him run — to keep my saddle — to pick my way. Oh-h-h! but it was glorious! To race for fun — that’s one thing; to race for your life is another! My heart was in my mouth — choking me. I couldn’t have yelled. I was as cold as ice — dizzy sometimes — blind others — then my stomach turned — and I couldn’t get my breath. Yet the wild thrills I had!... But I stuck on and held my own for several miles — to the edge of the cedars. There the big horse gained on me. He came pounding closer — perhaps as close as a hundred yards — I could hear him plain enough. Then I had my spill. Oh, my mustang tripped — threw me ‘way over his head. I hit light, but slid far — and that’s what scraped me so. I know my knee is raw.... When I got to my feet the big horse dashed up, throwing gravel all over me — and his rider jumped off.... Now who do you think he was?”

Helen knew, but she did not voice her conviction. Carmichael knew positively, yet he kept silent. Roy was smiling, as if the narrative told did not seem so alarming to him.

“Wal, the fact of you bein’ here, safe an’ sound, sorta makes no difference who thet son-of-a-gun was,” he said.

“Riggs! Harve Riggs!” blazed Bo. “The instant I recognized him I got over my scare. And so mad I burned all through like fire. I don’t know what I said, but it was wild — and it was a whole lot, you bet.

“You sure can ride,’ he said.

“I demanded why he had dared to chase me, and he said he had an important message for Nell. This was it: ‘Tell your sister that Beasley means to put her off an’ take the ranch. If she’ll marry me I’ll block his deal. If she won’t marry me, I’ll go in with Beasley.’ Then he told me to hurry home and not to breathe a word to any one except Nell. Well, here I am — and I seem to have been breathing rather fast.”

She looked from Helen to Roy and from Roy to Las Vegas. Her smile was for the latter, and to any one not overexcited by her story that smile would have told volumes.

“Wal, I’ll be doggoned!” ejaculated Roy, feelingly.

Helen laughed.

“Indeed, the working of that man’s mind is beyond me.... Marry him to save my ranch? I wouldn’t marry him to save my life!”

Carmichael suddenly broke his silence.

“Bo, did you see the other men?”

“Yes. I was coming to that,” she replied. “I caught a glimpse of them back in the cedars. The three were together, or, at least, three horsemen were there. They had halted behind some trees. Then on the way home I began to think. Even in my fury I had received impressions. Riggs was SURPRISED when I got up. I’ll bet he had not expected me to be who I was. He thought I was NELL!... I look bigger in this buckskin outfit. My hair was up till I lost my hat, and that was when I had the tumble. He took me for Nell. Another thing, I remember — he made some sign — some motion while I was calling him names, and I believe that was to keep those other men back.... I believe Riggs had a plan with those other men to waylay Nell and make off with her. I absolutely know it.”

“Bo, you’re so — so — you jump at wild ideas so,” protested Helen, trying to believe in her own assurance. But inwardly she was trembling.

“Miss Helen, that ain’t a wild idee,” said Roy, seriously. “I reckon your sister is pretty close on the trail. Las Vegas, don’t you savvy it thet way?”

Carmichael’s answer was to stalk out of the room.

“Call him back!” cried Helen, apprehensively.

“Hold on, boy!” called Roy, sharply.

Helen reached the door simultaneously with Roy. The cowboy picked up his sombrero, jammed it on his head, gave his belt a vicious hitch that made the gun-sheath jump, and then in one giant step he was astride Ranger.

“Carmichael! Stay!” cried Helen.

The cowboy spurred the black, and the stones rang under iron-shod hoofs.

“Bo! Call him back! Please call him back!” importuned Helen, in distress.

“I won’t,” declared Bo Rayner. Her face shone whiter now and her eyes were like fiery flint. That was her answer to a loving, gentle-hearted sister; that was her answer to the call of the West.

“No use,” said Roy, quietly. “An’ I reckon I’d better trail him up.”

He, too, strode out and, mounting his horse, galloped swiftly away.

It turned out that Bo, was more bruised and scraped and shaken than she had imagined. One knee was rather badly cut, which injury alone would have kept her from riding again very soon. Helen, who was somewhat skilled at bandaging wounds, worried a great deal over these sundry blotches on Bo’s fair skin, and it took considerable time to wash and dress them. Long after this was done, and during the early supper, and afterward, Bo’s excitement remained unabated. The whiteness stayed on her face and the blaze in her eyes. Helen ordered and begged her to go to bed, for the fact was Bo could not stand up and her hands shook.

“Go to bed? Not much,” she said. “I want to know what he does to Riggs.”

It was that possibility which had Helen in dreadful suspense. If Carmichael killed Riggs, it seemed to Helen that the bottom would drop out of this structure of Western life she had begun to build so earnestly and fearfully. She did not believe that he would do so. But the uncertainty was torturing.

“Dear Bo,” appealed Helen, “you don’t want — Oh! you do want Carmichael to — to kill Riggs?”

“No, I don’t, but I wouldn’t care if he did,” replied Bo, bluntly.

“Do you think — he will?”

“Nell, if that cowboy really loves me he read my mind right here before he left,” declared Bo. “And he knew what I thought he’d do.”

“And what’s — that?” faltered Helen.

“I want him to round Riggs up down in the village — somewhere in a crowd. I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is. And insulted, slapped, kicked — driven out of Pine!”

Her passionate speech still rang throughout the room when there came footsteps on the porch. Helen hurried to raise the bar from the door and open it just as a tap sounded on the door-post. Roy’s face stood white out of the darkness. His eyes were bright. And his smile made Helen’s fearful query needless.

“How are you-all this evenin’?” he drawled, as he came in.

A fire blazed on the hearth and a lamp burned on the table. By their light Bo looked white and eager-eyed as she reclined in the big arm-chair.

“What ‘d he do?” she asked, with all her amazing force.

“Wal, now, ain’t you goin’ to tell me how you are?”

“Roy, I’m all bunged up. I ought to be in bed, but I just couldn’t sleep till I hear what Las Vegas did. I’d forgive anything except him getting drunk.”

“Wal, I shore can ease your mind on thet,” replied Roy. “He never drank a drop.”

Roy was distractingly slow about beginning the tale any child could have guessed he was eager to tell. For once the hard, intent quietness, the soul of labor, pain, and endurance so plain in his face was softened by pleasurable emotion. He poked at the burning logs with the toe of his boot. Helen observed that he had changed his boots and now wore no spurs. Then he had gone to his quarters after whatever had happened down in Pine.

“Where IS he?” asked Bo.

“Who? Riggs? Wal, I don’t know. But I reckon he’s somewhere out in the woods nursin’ himself.”

“Not Riggs. First tell me where HE is.”

“Shore, then, you must mean Las Vegas. I just left him down at the cabin. He was gettin’ ready for bed, early as it is. All tired out he was an’ thet white you wouldn’t have knowed him. But he looked happy at thet, an’ the last words he said, more to himself than to me, I reckon, was, ‘I’m some locoed gent, but if she doesn’t call me Tom now she’s no good!’”

Bo actually clapped her hands, notwithstanding that one of them was bandaged.

“Call him Tom? I should smile I will,” she declared, in delight. “Hurry now — what ‘d—”

“It’s shore powerful strange how he hates thet handle Las Vegas,” went on Roy, imperturbably.

“Roy, tell me what he did — what TOM did — or I’ll scream,” cried Bo.

“Miss Helen, did you ever see the likes of thet girl?” asked Roy, appealing to Helen.

“No, Roy, I never did,” agreed Helen. “But please — please tell us what has happened.”

Roy grinned and rubbed his hands together in a dark delight, almost fiendish in its sudden revelation of a gulf of strange emotion deep within him. Whatever had happened to Riggs had not been too much for Roy Beeman. Helen remembered hearing her uncle say that a real Westerner hated nothing so hard as the swaggering desperado, the make-believe gunman who pretended to sail under the true, wild, and reckoning colors of the West.

Roy leaned his lithe, tall form against the stone mantelpiece and faced the girls.

“When I rode out after Las Vegas I seen him ‘way down the road,” began Roy, rapidly. “An’ I seen another man ridin’ down into Pine from the other side. Thet was Riggs, only I didn’t know it then. Las Vegas rode up to the store, where some fellars was hangin’ round, an’ he spoke to them. When I come up they was all headin’ for Turner’s saloon. I seen a dozen hosses hitched to the rails. Las Vegas rode on. But I got off at Turner’s an’ went in with the bunch. Whatever it was Las Vegas said to them fellars, shore they didn’t give him away. Pretty soon more men strolled into Turner’s an’ there got to be ‘most twenty altogether, I reckon. Jeff Mulvey was there with his pards. They had been drinkin’ sorta free. An’ I didn’t like the way Mulvey watched me. So I went out an’ into the store, but kept a-lookin’ for Las Vegas. He wasn’t in sight. But I seen Riggs ridin’ up. Now, Turner’s is where Riggs hangs out an’ does his braggin’. He looked powerful deep an’ thoughtful, dismounted slow without seein’ the unusual number of hosses there, an’ then he slouches into Turner’s. No more ‘n a minute after Las Vegas rode down there like a streak. An’ just as quick he was off an’ through thet door.”

Roy paused as if to gain force or to choose his words. His tale now appeared all directed to Bo, who gazed at him, spellbound, a fascinated listener.

“Before I got to Turner’s door — an’ thet was only a little ways — I heard Las Vegas yell. Did you ever hear him? Wal, he’s got the wildest yell of any cow-puncher I ever beard. Quicklike I opened the door an’ slipped in. There was Riggs an’ Las Vegas alone in the center of the big saloon, with the crowd edgin’ to the walls an’ slidin’ back of the bar. Riggs was whiter ‘n a dead man. I didn’t hear an’ I don’t know what Las Vegas yelled at him. But Riggs knew an’ so did the gang. All of a sudden every man there shore seen in Las Vegas what Riggs had always bragged HE was. Thet time comes to every man like Riggs.

“‘What ‘d you call me?’ he asked, his jaw shakin’.

“‘I ‘ain’t called you yet,’ answered Las Vegas. ‘I just whooped.’

“‘What d’ye want?’

“‘You scared my girl.’

“‘The hell ye say! Who’s she?’ blustered Riggs, an’ he began to take quick looks ‘round. But he never moved a hand. There was somethin’ tight about the way he stood. Las Vegas had both arms half out, stretched as if he meant to leap. But he wasn’t. I never seen Las Vegas do thet, but when I seen him then I understood it.

“‘You know. An’ you threatened her an’ her sister. Go for your gun,’ called Las Vegas, low an’ sharp.

“Thet put the crowd right an’ nobody moved. Riggs turned green then. I almost felt sorry for him. He began to shake so he’d dropped a gun if he had pulled one.

“‘Hyar, you’re off — some mistake — I ‘ain’t seen no gurls — I—’

“‘Shut up an’ draw!’ yelled Las Vegas. His voice just pierced holes in the roof, an’ it might have been a bullet from the way Riggs collapsed. Every man seen in a second more thet Riggs wouldn’t an’ couldn’t draw. He was afraid for his life. He was not what he had claimed to be. I don’t know if he had any friends there. But in the West good men an’ bad men, all alike, have no use for Riggs’s kind. An’ thet stony quiet broke with haw — haw. It shore was as pitiful to see Riggs as it was fine to see Las Vegas.

“When he dropped his arms then I knowed there would be no gun-play. An’ then Las Vegas got red in the face. He slapped Riggs with one hand, then with the other. An’ he began to cuss him. I shore never knowed thet nice-spoken Las Vegas Carmichael could use such language. It was a stream of the baddest names known out here, an’ lots I never heard of. Now an’ then I caught somethin’ like low-down an’ sneak an’ four-flush an’ long-haired skunk, but for the most part they was just the cussedest kind of names. An’ Las Vegas spouted them till he was black in the face, an’ foamin’ at the mouth, an’ hoarser ‘n a bawlin’ cow.

“When he got out of breath from cussin’ he punched Riggs all about the saloon, threw him outdoors, knocked him down an’ kicked him till he got kickin’ him down the road with the whole haw-hawed gang behind. An’ he drove him out of town!”

CHAPTER XVIII

FOR TWO DAYS Bo was confined to her bed, suffering considerable pain, and subject to fever, during which she talked irrationally. Some of this talk afforded Helen as vast an amusement as she was certain it would have lifted Tom Carmichael to a seventh heaven.

The third day, however, Bo was better, and, refusing to remain in bed, she hobbled to the sitting-room, where she divided her time between staring out of the window toward the corrals and pestering Helen with questions she tried to make appear casual. But Helen saw through her case and was in a state of glee. What she hoped most for was that Carmichael would suddenly develop a little less inclination for Bo. It was that kind of treatment the young lady needed. And now was the great opportunity. Helen almost felt tempted to give the cowboy a hint.

Neither this day, nor the next, however, did he put in an appearance at the house, though Helen saw him twice on her rounds. He was busy, as usual, and greeted her as if nothing particular had happened.

Roy called twice, once in the afternoon, and again during the evening. He grew more likable upon longer acquaintance. This last visit he rendered Bo speechless by teasing her about another girl Carmichael was going to take to a dance. Bo’s face showed that her vanity could not believe this statement, but that her intelligence of young men credited it with being possible. Roy evidently was as penetrating as he was kind. He made a dry, casual little remark about the snow never melting on the mountains during the latter part of March; and the look with which he accompanied this remark brought a blush to Helen’s cheek.

After Roy had departed Bo said to Helen: “Confound that fellow! He sees right through me.”

“My dear, you’re rather transparent these days,” murmured Helen.

“You needn’t talk. He gave you a dig,” retorted Bo. “He just knows you’re dying to see the snow melt.”

“Gracious! I hope I’m not so bad as that. Of course I want the snow melted and spring to come, and flowers—”

“Hal Ha! Ha!” taunted Bo. “Nell Rayner, do you see any green in my eyes? Spring to come! Yes, the poet said in the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. But that poet meant a young woman.”

Helen gazed out of the window at the white stars.

“Nell, have you seen him — since I was hurt?” continued Bo, with an effort.

“Him? Who?”

“Oh, whom do you suppose? I mean Tom!” she responded, and the last word came with a burst.

“Tom? Who’s he? Ah, you mean Las Vegas. Yes, I’ve seen him.”

“Well, did he ask a-about me?”

“I believe he did ask how you were — something like that.”

“Humph! Nell, I don’t always trust you.” After that she relapsed into silence, read awhile, and dreamed awhile, looking into the fire, and then she limped over to kiss Helen good night and left the room.

Next day she was rather quiet, seeming upon the verge of one of the dispirited spells she got infrequently. Early in the evening, just after the lights had been lit and she had joined Helen in the sitting-room, a familiar step sounded on the loose boards of the porch.

Helen went to the door to admit Carmichael. He was clean-shaven, dressed in his dark suit, which presented such marked contrast from his riding-garb, and he wore a flower in his buttonhole. Nevertheless, despite all this style, he seemed more than usually the cool, easy, careless cowboy.

“Evenin’, Miss Helen,” he said, as he stalked in. “Evenin’, Miss Bo. How are you-all?”

Helen returned his greeting with a welcoming smile.

“Good evening — TOM,” said Bo, demurely.

That assuredly was the first time she had ever called him Tom. As she spoke she looked distractingly pretty and tantalizing. But if she had calculated to floor Carmichael with the initial, half-promising, wholly mocking use of his name she had reckoned without cause. The cowboy received that greeting as if he had heard her use it a thousand times or had not heard it at all. Helen decided if he was acting a part he was certainly a clever actor. He puzzled her somewhat, but she liked his look, and his easy manner, and the something about him that must have been his unconscious sense of pride. He had gone far enough, perhaps too far, in his overtures to Bo.

“How are you feelin’?” he asked.

“I’m better to-day,” she replied, with downcast eyes. “But I’m lame yet.”

“Reckon that bronc piled you up. Miss Helen said there shore wasn’t any joke about the cut on your knee. Now, a fellar’s knee is a bad place to hurt, if he has to keep on ridin’.”

“Oh, I’ll be well soon. How’s Sam? I hope he wasn’t crippled.”

“Thet Sam — why, he’s so tough he never knowed he had a fall.”

“Tom — I — I want to thank you for giving Riggs what he deserved.”

She spoke it earnestly, eloquently, and for once she had no sly little intonation or pert allurement, such as was her wont to use on this infatuated young man.

“Aw, you heard about that,” replied Carmichael, with a wave of his hand to make light of it. “Nothin’ much. It had to be done. An’ shore I was afraid of Roy. He’d been bad. An’ so would any of the other boys. I’m sorta lookin’ out for all of them, you know, actin’ as Miss Helen’s foreman now.”

Helen was unutterably tickled. The effect of his speech upon Bo was stupendous. He had disarmed her. He had, with the finesse and tact and suavity of a diplomat, removed himself from obligation, and the detachment of self, the casual thing be apparently made out of his magnificent championship, was bewildering and humiliating to Bo. She sat silent for a moment or two while Helen tried to fit easily into the conversation. It was not likely that Bo would long be at a loss for words, and also it was immensely probable that with a flash of her wonderful spirit she would turn the tables on her perverse lover in a twinkling. Anyway, plain it was that a lesson had sunk deep. She looked startled, hurt, wistful, and finally sweetly defiant.

“But — you told Riggs I was your girl!” Thus Bo unmasked her battery. And Helen could not imagine how Carmichael would ever resist that and the soft, arch glance which accompanied it.

Helen did not yet know the cowboy, any more than did Bo.

“Shore. I had to say thet. I had to make it strong before thet gang. I reckon it was presumin’ of me, an’ I shore apologize.”

Bo stared at him, and then, giving a little gasp, she drooped.

“Wal, I just run in to say howdy an’ to inquire after you-all,” said Carmichael. “I’m goin’ to the dance, an’ as Flo lives out of town a ways I’d shore better rustle.... Good night, Miss Bo; I hope you’ll be ridin’ Sam soon. An’ good night, Miss Helen.”

Bo roused to a very friendly and laconic little speech, much overdone. Carmichael strode out, and Helen, bidding him good-by, closed the door after him.

The instant he had departed Bo’s transformation was tragic.

“Flo! He meant Flo Stubbs — that ugly, cross-eyed, bold, little frump!”

“Bo!” expostulated Helen. “The young lady is not beautiful, I grant, but she’s very nice and pleasant. I liked her.”

“Nell Rayner, men are no good! And cowboys are the worst!” declared Bo, terribly.

“Why didn’t you appreciate Tom when you had him?” asked Helen.

Bo had been growing furious, but now the allusion, in past tense, to the conquest she had suddenly and amazingly found dear quite broke her spirit. It was a very pale, unsteady, and miserable girl who avoided Helen’s gaze and left the room.

Next day Bo was not approachable from any direction. Helen found her a victim to a multiplicity of moods, ranging from woe to dire, dark broodings, from them to’ wistfulness, and at last to a pride that sustained her.

Late in the afternoon, at Helen’s leisure hour, when she and Bo were in the sitting-room, horses tramped into the court and footsteps mounted the porch. Opening to a loud knock, Helen was surprised to see Beasley. And out in the court were several mounted horsemen. Helen’s heart sank. This visit, indeed, had been foreshadowed.

“Afternoon, Miss Rayner,” said Beasley, doffing his sombrero. “I’ve called on a little business deal. Will you see me?”

Helen acknowledged his greeting while she thought rapidly. She might just as well see him and have that inevitable interview done with.

“Come in,” she said, and when he had entered she closed the door. “My sister, Mr. Beasley.”

“How d’ you do, Miss?” said the rancher, in bluff, loud voice.

Bo acknowledged the introduction with a frigid little bow.

At close range Beasley seemed a forceful personality as well as a rather handsome man of perhaps thirty-five, heavy of build, swarthy of skin, and sloe-black of eye, like that of the Mexicans whose blood was reported to be in him. He looked crafty, confident, and self-centered. If Helen had never heard of him before that visit she would have distrusted him.

“I’d called sooner, but I was waitin’ for old Jose, the Mexican who herded for me when I was pardner to your uncle,” said Beasley, and he sat down to put his huge gloved hands on his knees.

“Yes?” queried Helen, interrogatively.

“Jose rustled over from Magdalena, an’ now I can back up my claim.... Miss Rayner, this hyar ranch ought to be mine an’ is mine. It wasn’t so big or so well stocked when Al Auchincloss beat me out of it. I reckon I’ll allow for thet. I’ve papers, an’ old Jose for witness. An’ I calculate you’ll pay me eighty thousand dollars, or else I’ll take over the ranch.”

Beasley spoke in an ordinary, matter-of-fact tone that certainly seemed sincere, and his manner was blunt, but perfectly natural.

“Mr. Beasley, your claim is no news to me,” responded Helen, quietly. “I’ve heard about it. And I questioned my uncle. He swore on his death-bed that he did not owe you a dollar. Indeed, he claimed the indebtedness was yours to him. I could find nothing in his papers, so I must repudiate your claim. I will not take it seriously.”

“Miss Rayner, I can’t blame you for takin’ Al’s word against mine,” said Beasley. “An’ your stand is natural. But you’re a stranger here an’ you know nothin’ of stock deals in these ranges. It ain’t fair to speak bad of the dead, but the truth is thet Al Auchincloss got his start by stealin’ sheep an’ unbranded cattle. Thet was the start of every rancher I know. It was mine. An’ we none of us ever thought of it as rustlin’.”

Helen could only stare her surprise and doubt at this statement.

“Talk’s cheap anywhere, an’ in the West talk ain’t much at all,” continued Beasley. “I’m no talker. I jest want to tell my case an’ make a deal if you’ll have it. I can prove more in black an’ white, an’ with witness, than you can. Thet’s my case. The deal I’d make is this.... Let’s marry an’ settle a bad deal thet way.”

The man’s direct assumption, absolutely without a qualifying consideration for her woman’s attitude, was amazing, ignorant, and base; but Helen was so well prepared for it that she hid her disgust.

“Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can’t accept your offer,” she replied.

“Would you take time an’ consider?” he asked, spreading wide his huge gloved hands.

“Absolutely no.”

Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.

“Thet means I’ll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you off,” he said.

“Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a sum? I don’t owe it. And I certainly won’t be put off my property. You can’t put me off.”

“An’ why can’t I?” he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.

“Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it,” declared Helen, forcibly.

“Who ‘re you goin’ to prove it to — thet I’m dishonest?”

“To my men — to your men — to the people of Pine — to everybody. There’s not a person who won’t believe me.”

He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet fascinated by her statement or else by the quality and appearance of her as she spiritedly defended her cause.

“An’ how ‘re you goin’ to prove all thet?” he growled.

“Mr. Beasley, do you remember last fall when you met Snake Anson with his gang up in the woods — and hired him to make off with me?” asked Helen, in swift, ringing words.

The dark olive of Beasley’s bold face shaded to a dirty white.

“Wha-at?” he jerked out, hoarsely.

“I see you remember. Well, Milt Dale was hidden in the loft of that cabin where you met Anson. He heard every word of your deal with the outlaw.”

Beasley swung his arm in sudden violence, so hard that he flung his glove to the floor. As he stooped to snatch it up he uttered a sibilant hiss. Then, stalking to the door, he jerked it open, and slammed it behind him. His loud voice, hoarse with passion, preceded the scrape and crack of hoofs.

Shortly after supper that day, when Helen was just recovering her composure, Carmichael presented himself at the open door. Bo was not there. In the dimming twilight Helen saw that the cowboy was pale, somber, grim.

“Oh, what’s happened?” cried Helen.

“Roy’s been shot. It come off in Turner’s saloon But he ain’t dead. We packed him over to Widow Cass’s. An’ he said for me to tell you he’d pull through.”

“Shot! Pull through!” repeated Helen, in slow, unrealizing exclamation. She was conscious of a deep internal tumult and a cold checking of blood in all her external body.

“Yes, shot,” replied Carmichael, fiercely.

“An’, whatever he says, I reckon he won’t pull through.”

“O Heaven, how terrible!” burst out Helen. “He was so good — such a man! What a pity! Oh, he must have met that in my behalf. Tell me, what happened? Who shot him?”

“Wal, I don’t know. An’ thet’s what’s made me hoppin’ mad. I wasn’t there when it come off. An’ he won’t tell me.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know thet, either. I reckoned first it was because he wanted to get even. But, after thinkin’ it over, I guess he doesn’t want me lookin’ up any one right now for fear I might get hurt. An’ you’re goin’ to need your friends. Thet’s all I can make of Roy.”

Then Helen hurriedly related the event of Beasley’s call on her that afternoon and all that had occurred.

“Wal, the half-breed son-of-a-greaser!” ejaculated Carmichael, in utter confoundment. “He wanted you to marry him!”

“He certainly did. I must say it was a — a rather abrupt proposal.”

Carmichael appeared to be laboring with speech that had to be smothered behind his teeth. At last he let out an explosive breath.

“Miss Nell, I’ve shore felt in my bones thet I’m the boy slated to brand thet big bull.”

“Oh, he must have shot Roy. He left here in a rage.”

“I reckon you can coax it out of Roy. Fact is, all I could learn was thet Roy come in the saloon alone. Beasley was there, an’ Riggs—”

“Riggs!” interrupted Helen.

“Shore, Riggs. He come back again. But he’d better keep out of my way.... An’ Jeff Mulvey with his outfit. Turner told me he heard an argument an’ then a shot. The gang cleared out, leavin’ Roy on the floor. I come in a little later. Roy was still layin’ there. Nobody was doin’ anythin’ for him. An’ nobody had. I hold that against Turner. Wal, I got help an’ packed Roy over to Widow Cass’s. Roy seemed all right. But he was too bright an’ talky to suit me. The bullet hit his lung, thet’s shore. An’ he lost a sight of blood before we stopped it. Thet skunk Turner might have lent a hand. An’ if Roy croaks I reckon I’ll—”

“Tom, why must you always be reckoning to kill somebody?” demanded Helen, angrily.

“‘Cause somebody’s got to be killed ‘round here. Thet’s why!” he snapped back.

“Even so — should you risk leaving Bo and me without a friend?” asked Helen, reproachfully.

At that Carmichael wavered and lost something of his sullen deadliness.

“Aw, Miss Nell, I’m only mad. If you’ll just be patient with me — an’ mebbe coax me.... But I can’t see no other way out.”

“Let’s hope and pray,” said Helen, earnestly. “You spoke of my coaxing Roy to tell who shot him. When can I see him?”

“To-morrow, I reckon. I’ll come for you. Fetch Bo along with you. We’ve got to play safe from now on. An’ what do you say to me an’ Hal sleepin’ here at the ranch-house?”

“Indeed I’d feel safer,” she replied. “There are rooms. Please come.”

“Allright. An’ now I’ll be goin’ to fetch Hal. Shore wish I hadn’t made you pale an’ scared like this.”

About ten o’clock next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo into Pine, and tied up the team before Widow Cass’s cottage.

The peach and apple-trees were mingling blossoms of pink and white; a drowsy hum of bees filled the fragrant air; rich, dark-green alfalfa covered the small orchard flat; a wood fire sent up a lazy column of blue smoke; and birds were singing sweetly.

Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquillity a man lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had been somber and reticent enough to rouse the gravest fears.

Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn, but cheerful old woman whom Helen had come to know as her friend.

“My land! I’m thet glad to see you, Miss Helen,” she said. “An’ you’ve fetched the little lass as I’ve not got acquainted with yet.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Cass. How — how is Roy?” replied Helen, anxiously scanning the wrinkled face.

“Roy? Now don’t you look so scared. Roy’s ‘most ready to git on his hoss an’ ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was a-comin’. An’ he made me hold a lookin’-glass for him to shave. How’s thet fer a man with a bullet-hole through him! You can’t kill them Mormons, nohow.”

She led them into a little sitting-room, where on a couch underneath a window Roy Beeman lay. He was wide awake and smiling, but haggard. He lay partly covered with a blanket. His gray shirt was open at the neck, disclosing bandages.

“Mornin’ — girls,” he drawled. “Shore is good of you, now, comin’ down.”

Helen stood beside him, bent over him, in her earnestness, as she greeted him. She saw a shade of pain in his eyes and his immobility struck her, but he did not seem badly off. Bo was pale, round-eyed, and apparently too agitated to speak. Carmichael placed chairs beside the couch for the girls.

“Wal, what’s ailin’ you this nice mornin’?” asked Roy, eyes on the cowboy.

“Huh! Would you expect me to be wearin’ the smile of a fellar goin’ to be married?” retorted Carmichael.

“Shore you haven’t made up with Bo yet,” returned Roy.

Bo blushed rosy red, and the cowboy’s face lost something of its somber hue.

“I allow it’s none of your d — darn bizness if SHE ain’t made up with me,” he said.

“Las Vegas, you’re a wonder with a hoss an’ a rope, an’ I reckon with a gun, but when it comes to girls you shore ain’t there.”

“I’m no Mormon, by golly! Come, Ma Cass, let’s get out of here, so they can talk.”

“Folks, I was jest a-goin’ to say thet Roy’s got fever an’ he oughtn’t t’ talk too much,” said the old woman. Then she and Carmichael went into the kitchen and closed the door.

Roy looked up at Helen with his keen eyes, more kindly piercing than ever.

“My brother John was here. He’d just left when you come. He rode home to tell my folks I’m not so bad hurt, an’ then he’s goin’ to ride a bee-line into the mountains.”

Helen’s eyes asked what her lips refused to utter.

“He’s goin’ after Dale. I sent him. I reckoned we-all sorta needed sight of thet doggone hunter.”

Roy had averted his gaze quickly to Bo.

“Don’t you agree with me, lass?”

“I sure do,” replied Bo, heartily.

All within Helen had been stilled for the moment of her realization; and then came swell and beat of heart, and inconceivable chafing of a tide at its restraint.

“Can John — fetch Dale out — when the snow’s so deep?” she asked, unsteadily.

“Shore. He’s takin’ two hosses up to the snow-line. Then, if necessary, he’ll go over the pass on snow-shoes. But I bet him Dale would ride out. Snow’s about gone except on the north slopes an’ on the peaks.”

“Then — when may I — we expect to see Dale?”

“Three or four days, I reckon. I wish he was here now.... Miss Helen, there’s trouble afoot.”

“I realize that. I’m ready. Did Las Vegas tell you about Beasley’s visit to me?”

“No. You tell me,” replied Roy.

Briefly Helen began to acquaint him with the circumstances of that visit, and before she had finished she made sure Roy was swearing to himself.

“He asked you to marry him! Jerusalem!... Thet I’d never have reckoned. The — low-down coyote of a greaser!... Wal, Miss Helen, when I met up with Senor Beasley last night he was shore spoilin’ from somethin’; now I see what thet was. An’ I reckon I picked out the bad time.”

“For what? Roy, what did you do?”

“Wal, I’d made up my mind awhile back to talk to Beasley the first chance I had. An’ thet was it. I was in the store when I seen him go into Turner’s. So I followed. It was ‘most dark. Beasley an’ Riggs an’ Mulvey an’ some more were drinkin’ an’ powwowin’. So I just braced him right then.”

“Roy! Oh, the way you boys court danger!”

“But, Miss Helen, thet’s the only way. To be afraid MAKES more danger. Beasley ‘peared civil enough first off. Him an’ me kept edgin’ off, an’ his pards kept edgin’ after us, till we got over in a corner of the saloon. I don’t know all I said to him. Shore I talked a heap. I told him what my old man thought. An’ Beasley knowed as well as I thet my old man’s not only the oldest inhabitant hereabouts, but he’s the wisest, too. An’ he wouldn’t tell a lie. Wal, I used all his sayin’s in my argument to show Beasley thet if he didn’t haul up short he’d end almost as short. Beasley’s thick-headed, an’ powerful conceited. Vain as a peacock! He couldn’t see, an’ he got mad. I told him he was rich enough without robbin’ you of your ranch, an’ — wal, I shore put up a big talk for your side. By this time he an’ his gang had me crowded in a corner, an’ from their looks I begun to get cold feet. But I was in it an’ had to make the best of it. The argument worked down to his pinnin’ me to my word that I’d fight for you when thet fight come off. An’ I shore told him for my own sake I wished it ‘d come off quick.... Then — wal — then somethin’ did come off quick!”

“Roy, then he shot you!” exclaimed Helen, passionately.

“Now, Miss Helen, I didn’t say who done it,” replied Roy, with his engaging smile.

“Tell me, then — who did?”

“Wal, I reckon I sha’n’t tell you unless you promise not to tell Las Vegas. Thet cowboy is plumb off his head. He thinks he knows who shot me an’ I’ve been lyin’ somethin’ scandalous. You see, if he learns — then he’ll go gunnin’. An’, Miss Helen, thet Texan is bad. He might get plugged as I did — an’ there would be another man put off your side when the big trouble comes.”

“Roy, I promise you I will not tell Las Vegas,” replied Helen, earnestly.

“Wal, then — it was Riggs!” Roy grew still paler as he confessed this and his voice, almost a whisper, expressed shame and hate. “Thet four-flush did it. Shot me from behind Beasley! I had no chance. I couldn’t even see him draw. But when I fell an’ lay there an’ the others dropped back, then I seen the smokin’ gun in his hand. He looked powerful important. An’ Beasley began to cuss him an’ was cussin’ him as they all run out.”

“Oh, coward! the despicable coward!” cried Helen.

“No wonder Tom wants to find out!” exclaimed Bo, low and deep. “I’ll bet he suspects Riggs.”

“Shore he does, but I wouldn’t give him no satisfaction.”

“Roy, you know that Riggs can’t last out here.”

“Wal, I hope he lasts till I get on my feet again.”

“There you go! Hopeless, all you boys! You must spill blood!” murmured Helen, shudderingly.

“Dear Miss Helen, don’t take on so. I’m like Dale — no man to hunt up trouble. But out here there’s a sort of unwritten law — an eye for an eye — a tooth for a tooth. I believe in God Almighty, an’ killin’ is against my religion, but Riggs shot me — the same as shootin’ me in the back.”

“Roy, I’m only a woman — I fear, faint-hearted and unequal to this West.”

“Wait till somethin’ happens to you. ‘Supposin’ Beasley comes an’ grabs you with his own dirty big paws an’, after maulin’ you some, throws you out of your home! Or supposin’ Riggs chases you into a corner!”

Helen felt the start of all her physical being — a violent leap of blood. But she could only judge of her looks from the grim smile of the wounded man as he watched her with his keen, intent eyes.

“My friend, anythin’ can happen,” he said. “But let’s hope it won’t be the worst.”

He had begun to show signs of weakness, and Helen, rising at once, said that she and Bo had better leave him then, but would come to see him the next day. At her call Carmichael entered again with Mrs. Cass, and after a few remarks the visit was terminated. Carmichael lingered in the doorway.

“Wal, Cheer up, you old Mormon!” he called.

“Cheer up yourself, you cross old bachelor!” retorted Roy, quite unnecessarily loud. “Can’t you raise enough nerve to make up with Bo?”

Carmichael evacuated the doorway as if he had been spurred. He was quite red in the face while he unhitched the team, and silent during the ride up to the ranch-house. There he got down and followed the girls into the sitting room. He appeared still somber, though not sullen, and had fully regained his composure.

“Did you find out who shot Roy?” he asked, abruptly, of Helen.

“Yes. But I promised Roy I would not tell,” replied Helen, nervously. She averted her eyes from his searching gaze, intuitively fearing his next query.

“Was it thet — Riggs?”

“Las Vegas, don’t ask me. I will not break my promise.”

He strode to the window and looked out a moment, and presently, when he turned toward Bo, he seemed a stronger, loftier, more impelling man, with all his emotions under control.

“Bo, will you listen to me — if I swear to speak the truth — as I know it?”

“Why, certainly,” replied Bo, with the color coming swiftly to her face.

“Roy doesn’t want me to know because he wants to meet thet fellar himself. An’ I want to know because I want to stop him before he can do more dirt to us or our friends. Thet’s Roy’s reason an’ mine. An’ I’m askin’ YOU to tell me.”

“But, Tom — I oughtn’t,” replied Bo, haltingly.

“Did you promise Roy not to tell?”

“No.”

“Or your sister?”

“No. I didn’t promise either.”

“Wal, then you tell me. I want you to trust me in this here matter. But not because I love you an’ once had a wild dream you might care a little for me—”

“Oh — Tom!” faltered Bo.

“Listen. I want you to trust me because I’m the one who knows what’s best. I wouldn’t lie an’ I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t know shore. I swear Dale will back me up. But he can’t be here for some days. An’ thet gang has got to be bluffed. You ought to see this. I reckon you’ve been quick in savvyin’ Western ways. I couldn’t pay you no higher compliment, Bo Rayner.... Now will you tell me?”

“Yes, I will,” replied Bo, with the blaze leaping to her eyes.

“Oh, Bo — please don’t — please don’t. Wait!” implored Helen.

“Bo — it’s between you an’ me,” said Carmichael.

“Tom, I’ll tell you,” whispered Bo. “It was a lowdown, cowardly trick.... Roy was surrounded — and shot from behind Beasley — by that four-flush Riggs!”

CHAPTER XIX

THE MEMORY OF a woman had ruined Milt Dale’s peace, had confounded his philosophy of self-sufficient, lonely happiness in the solitude of the wilds, had forced him to come face to face with his soul and the fatal significance of life.

When he realized his defeat, that things were not as they seemed, that there was no joy for him in the coming of spring, that he had been blind in his free, sensorial, Indian relation to existence, he fell into an inexplicably strange state, a despondency, a gloom as deep as the silence of his home. Dale reflected that the stronger an animal, the keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought of himself as a high order of animal whose great physical need was action, and now the incentive to action seemed dead. He grew lax. He did not want to move. He performed his diminishing duties under compulsion.

He watched for spring as a liberation, but not that he could leave the valley. He hated the cold, he grew weary of wind and snow; he imagined the warm sun, the park once more green with grass and bright with daisies, the return of birds and squirrels and deer to heir old haunts, would be the means whereby he could break this spell upon him. Then he might gradually return to past contentment, though it would never be the same.

But spring, coming early to Paradise Park, brought a fever to Dale’s blood — a fire of unutterable longing. It was good, perhaps, that this was so, because he seemed driven to work, climb, tramp, and keep ceaselessly on the move from dawn till dark. Action strengthened his lax muscles and kept him from those motionless, senseless hours of brooding. He at least need not be ashamed of longing for that which could never be his — the sweetness of a woman — a home full of light, joy, hope, the meaning and beauty of children. But those dark moods were sinkings into a pit of hell.

Dale had not kept track of days and weeks. He did not know when the snow melted off three slopes of Paradise Park. All he knew was that an age had dragged over his head and that spring had come. During his restless waking hours, and even when he was asleep, there seemed always in the back of his mind a growing consciousness that soon he would emerge from this trial, a changed man, ready to sacrifice his chosen lot, to give up his lonely life of selfish indulgence in lazy affinity with nature, and to go wherever his strong hands might perform some real service to people. Nevertheless, he wanted to linger in this mountain fastness until his ordeal was over — until he could meet her, and the world, knowing himself more of a man than ever before.

One bright morning, while he was at his camp-fire, the tame cougar gave a low, growling warning. Dale was startled. Tom did not act like that because of a prowling grizzly or a straying stag. Presently Dale espied a horseman riding slowly out of the straggling spruces. And with that sight Dale’s heart gave a leap, recalling to him a divination of his future relation to his kind. Never had he been so glad to see a man!

This visitor resembled one of the Beemans, judging from the way he sat his horse, and presently Dale recognized him to be John.

At this juncture the jaded horse was spurred into a trot, soon reaching the pines and the camp.

“Howdy, there, you ole b’ar-hunter!” called John, waving his hand.

For all his hearty greeting his appearance checked a like response from Dale. The horse was mud to his flanks and John was mud to his knees, wet, bedraggled, worn, and white. This hue of his face meant more than fatigue.

“Howdy, John?” replied Dale.

They shook hands. John wearily swung his leg over the pommel, but did not at once dismount. His clear gray eyes were wonderingly riveted upon the hunter.

“Milt — what ‘n hell’s wrong?” he queried.

“Why?”

“Bust me if you ain’t changed so I hardly knowed you. You’ve been sick — all alone here!”

“Do I look sick?”

“Wal, I should smile. Thin an’ pale an’ down in the mouth! Milt, what ails you?”

“I’ve gone to seed.”

“You’ve gone off your head, jest as Roy said, livin’ alone here. You overdid it, Milt. An’ you look sick.”

“John, my sickness is here,” replied Dale, soberly, as he laid a hand on his heart.

“Lung trouble!” ejaculated John. “With thet chest, an’ up in this air?... Get out!”

“No — not lung trouble,” said Dale.

“I savvy. Had a hunch from Roy, anyhow.”

“What kind of a hunch?”

“Easy now, Dale, ole man.... Don’t you reckon I’m ridin’ in on you pretty early? Look at thet hoss!” John slid off and waved a hand at the drooping beast, then began to unsaddle him. “Wal, he done great. We bogged some comin’ over. An’ I climbed the pass at night on the frozen snow.”

“You’re welcome as the flowers in May. John, what month is it?”

“By spades! are you as bad as thet?... Let’s see. It’s the twenty-third of March.”

“March! Well, I’m beat. I’ve lost my reckonin’ — an’ a lot more, maybe.”

“Thar!” declared John, slapping the mustang. “You can jest hang up here till my next trip. Milt, how ‘re your hosses?”

“Wintered fine.”

“Wal, thet’s good. We’ll need two big, strong hosses right off.”

“What for?” queried Dale, sharply. He dropped a stick of wood and straightened up from the camp-fire.

“You’re goin’ to ride down to Pine with me — thet’s what for.”

Familiarly then came back to Dale the quiet, intent suggestiveness of the Beemans in moments foreboding trial.

At this certain assurance of John’s, too significant to be doubted, Dale’s thought of Pine gave slow birth to a strange sensation, as if he had been dead and was vibrating back to life.

“Tell what you got to tell!” he broke out.

Quick as a flash the Mormon replied: “Roy’s been shot. But he won’t die. He sent for you. Bad deal’s afoot. Beasley means to force Helen Rayner out an’ steal her ranch.”

A tremor ran all through Dale. It seemed another painful yet thrilling connection between his past and this vaguely calling future. His emotions had been broodings dreams, longings. This thing his friend said had the sting of real life.

“Then old Al’s dead?” he asked.

“Long ago — I reckon around the middle of February. The property went to Helen. She’s been doin’ fine. An’ many folks say it’s a pity she’ll lose it.”

“She won’t lose it,” declared Dale. How strange his voice sounded to his own ears! It was hoarse and unreal, as if from disuse.

“Wal, we-all have our idees. I say she will. My father says so. Carmichael says so.”

“Who’s he?”

“Reckon you remember thet cow-puncher who came up with Roy an’ Auchincloss after the girls — last fall?”

“Yes. They called him Las — Las Vegas. I liked his looks.”

“Humph! You’ll like him a heap when you know him. He’s kept the ranch goin’ for Miss Helen all along. But the deal’s comin’ to a head. Beasley’s got thick with thet Riggs. You remember him?”

“Yes.”

“Wal, he’s been hangin’ out at Pine all winter, watchin’ for some chance to get at Miss Helen or Bo. Everybody’s seen thet. An’ jest lately he chased Bo on hossback — gave the kid a nasty fall. Roy says Riggs was after Miss Helen. But I think one or t’other of the girls would do thet varmint. Wal, thet sorta started goin’s-on. Carmichael beat Riggs an’ drove him out of town. But he come back. Beasley called on Miss Helen an’ offered to marry her so’s not to take the ranch from her, he said.”

Dale awoke with a thundering curse.

“Shore!” exclaimed John. “I’d say the same — only I’m religious. Don’t thet beady-eyed greaser’s gall make you want to spit all over yourself? My Gawd! but Roy was mad! Roy’s powerful fond of Miss Helen an’ Bo.... Wal, then, Roy, first chance he got, braced Beasley an’ give him some straight talk. Beasley was foamin’ at the mouth, Roy said. It was then Riggs shot Roy. Shot him from behind Beasley when Roy wasn’t lookin’! An’ Riggs brags of bein’ a gun-fighter. Mebbe thet wasn’t a bad shot for him!”

“I reckon,” replied Dale, as he swallowed hard. “Now, just what was Roy’s message to me?”

“Wal, I can’t remember all Roy said,” answered John, dubiously. “But Roy shore was excited an’ dead in earnest. He says: ‘Tell Milt what’s happened. Tell him Helen Rayner’s in more danger than she was last fall. Tell him I’ve seen her look away acrost the mountains toward Paradise Park with her heart in her eyes. Tell him she needs him most of all!’”

Dale shook all over as with an attack of ague. He was seized by a whirlwind of passionate, terrible sweetness of sensation, when what he wildly wanted was to curse Roy and John for their simple-minded conclusions.

“Roy’s — crazy!” panted Dale.

“Wal, now, Milt — thet’s downright surprisin’ of you. Roy’s the level-headest of any fellars I know.”

“Man! if he MADE me believe him — an’ it turned out untrue — I’d — I’d kill him,” replied Dale.

“Untrue! Do you think Roy Beeman would lie?”

“But, John — you fellows can’t see my case. Nell Rayner wants me — needs me!... It can’t be true!”

“Wal, my love-sick pard — it jest IS true!” exclaimed John, feelingly. “Thet’s the hell of life — never knowin’. But here it’s joy for you. You can believe Roy Beeman about women as quick as you’d trust him to track your lost hoss. Roy’s married three girls. I reckon he’ll marry some more. Roy’s only twenty-eight an’ he has two big farms. He said he’d seen Nell Rayner’s heart in her eyes, lookin’ for you — an’ you can jest bet your life thet’s true. An’ he said it because he means you to rustle down there an’ fight for thet girl.”

“I’ll — go,” said Dale, in a shaky whisper, as he sat down on a pine log near the fire. He stared unseeingly at the bluebells in the grass by his feet while storm after storm possessed his breast. They were fierce and brief because driven by his will. In those few moments of contending strife Dale was immeasurably removed from that dark gulf of self which had made his winter a nightmare. And when he stood erect again it seemed that the old earth had a stirring, electrifying impetus for his feet. Something black, bitter, melancholy, and morbid, always unreal to him, had passed away forever. The great moment had been forced upon him. He did not believe Roy Beeman’s preposterous hint regarding Helen; but he had gone back or soared onward, as if by magic, to his old true self.

Mounted on Dale’s strongest horses, with only a light pack, an ax, and their weapons, the two men had reached the snow-line on the pass by noon that day. Tom, the tame cougar, trotted along in the rear.

The crust of the snow, now half thawed by the sun, would not hold the weight of a horse, though it upheld the men on foot. They walked, leading the horses. Travel was not difficult until the snow began to deepen; then progress slackened materially. John had not been able to pick out the line of the trail, so Dale did not follow his tracks. An old blaze on the trees enabled Dale to keep fairly well to the trail; and at length the height of the pass was reached, where the snow was deep. Here the horses labored, plowing through foot by foot. When, finally, they sank to their flanks, they had to be dragged and goaded on, and helped by thick flat bunches of spruce boughs placed under their hoofs. It took three hours of breaking toil to do the few hundred yards of deep snow on the height of the pass. The cougar did not have great difficulty in following, though it was evident he did not like such traveling.

That behind them, the horses gathered heart and worked on to the edge of the steep descent, where they had all they could do to hold back from sliding and rolling. Fast time was made on this slope, at the bottom of which began a dense forest with snow still deep in places and windfalls hard to locate. The men here performed Herculean labors, but they got through to a park where the snow was gone. The ground, however, soft and boggy, in places was more treacherous than the snow; and the travelers had to skirt the edge of the park to a point opposite, and then go on through the forest. When they reached bare and solid ground, just before dark that night, it was high time, for the horses were ready to drop, and the men likewise.

Camp was made in an open wood. Darkness fell and the men were resting on bough beds, feet to the fire, with Tom curled up close by, and the horses still drooping where they had been unsaddled. Morning, however, discovered them grazing on the long, bleached grass. John shook his head when he looked at them.

“You reckoned to make Pine by nightfall. How far is it — the way you’ll go?”

“Fifty mile or thereabouts,” replied Dale.

“Wal, we can’t ride it on them critters.”

“John, we’d do more than that if we had to.”

They were saddled and on the move before sunrise, leaving snow and bog behind. Level parks and level forests led one after another to long slopes and steep descents, all growing sunnier and greener as the altitude diminished. Squirrels and grouse, turkeys and deer, and less tame denizens of the forest grew more abundant as the travel advanced. In this game zone, however, Dale had trouble with Tom. The cougar had to be watched and called often to keep him off of trails.

“Tom doesn’t like a long trip,” said Dale. “But I’m goin’ to take him. Some way or other he may come in handy.”

“Sic him onto Beasley’s gang,” replied John. “Some men are powerful scared of cougars. But I never was.”

“Nor me. Though I’ve had cougars give me a darn uncanny feelin’.”

The men talked but little. Dale led the way, with Tom trotting noiselessly beside his horse. John followed close behind. They loped the horses across parks, trotted through the forests, walked slow up what few inclines they met, and slid down the soft, wet, pine-matted descents. So they averaged from six to eight miles an hour. The horses held up well under that steady travel, and this without any rest at noon.

Dale seemed to feel himself in an emotional trance. Yet, despite this, the same old sensorial perceptions crowded thick and fast upon him, strangely sweet and vivid after the past dead months when neither sun nor wind nor cloud nor scent of pine nor anything in nature could stir him. His mind, his heart, his soul seemed steeped in an intoxicating wine of expectation, while his eyes and ears and nose had never been keener to register the facts of the forest-land. He saw the black thing far ahead that resembled a burned stump, but he knew was a bear before it vanished; he saw gray flash of deer and wolf and coyote, and the red of fox, and the small, wary heads of old gobblers just sticking above the grass; and he saw deep tracks of game as well as the slow-rising blades of bluebells where some soft-footed beast had just trod. And he heard the melancholy notes of birds, the twitter of grouse, the sough of the wind, the light dropping of pine-cones, the near and distant bark of squirrels, the deep gobble of a turkey close at hand and the challenge from a rival far away, the cracking of twigs in the thickets, the murmur of running water, the scream of an eagle and the shrill cry of a hawk, and always the soft, dull, steady pads of the hoofs of the horses.

The smells, too, were the sweet, stinging ones of spring, warm and pleasant — the odor of the clean, fresh earth cutting its way through that thick, strong fragrance of pine, the smell of logs rotting in the sun, and of fresh new grass and flowers along a brook of snow-water.

“I smell smoke,” said Dale, suddenly, as he reined in, and turned for corroboration from his companion.

John sniffed the warm air.

“Wal, you’re more of an Injun than me,” he replied, shaking his head.

They traveled on, and presently came out upon the rim of the last slope. A long league of green slanted below them, breaking up into straggling lines of trees and groves that joined the cedars, and these in turn stretched on and down in gray-black patches to the desert, that glittering and bare, with streaks of somber hue, faded in the obscurity of distance.

The village of Pine appeared to nestle in a curve of the edge of the great forest, and the cabins looked like tiny white dots set in green.

“Look there,” said Dale, pointing.

Some miles to the right a gray escarpment of rock cropped out of the slope, forming a promontory; and from it a thin, pale column of smoke curled upward to be lost from sight as soon as it had no background of green.

“Thet’s your smoke, shore enough,” replied John, thoughtfully. “Now, I jest wonder who’s campin’ there. No water near or grass for hosses.”

“John, that point’s been used for smoke signals many a time.”

“Was jest thinkin’ of thet same. Shall we ride around there an’ take a peek?”

“No. But we’ll remember that. If Beasley’s got his deep scheme goin’, he’ll have Snake Anson’s gang somewhere close.”

“Roy said thet same. Wal, it’s some three hours till sundown. The hosses keep up. I reckon I’m fooled, for we’ll make Pine all right. But old Tom there, he’s tired or lazy.”

The big cougar was lying down, panting, and his half-shut eyes were on Dale.

“Tom’s only lazy an’ fat. He could travel at this gait for a week. But let’s rest a half-hour an’ watch that smoke before movin’ on. We can make Pine before sundown.”

When travel had been resumed, half-way down the slope Dale’s sharp eyes caught a broad track where shod horses had passed, climbing in a long slant toward the promontory. He dismounted to examine it, and John, coming up, proceeded with alacrity to get off and do likewise. Dale made his deductions, after which he stood in a brown study beside his horse, waiting for John.

“Wal, what ‘d you make of these here tracks?” asked that worthy.

“Some horses an’ a pony went along here yesterday, an’ to-day a single horse made, that fresh track.”

“Wal, Milt, for a hunter you ain’t so bad at hoss tracks,” observed John, “But how many hosses went yesterday?”

“I couldn’t make out — several — maybe four or five.”

“Six hosses an’ a colt or little mustang, unshod, to be strict-correct. Wal, supposin’ they did. What ‘s it mean to us?”

“I don’t know as I’d thought anythin’ unusual, if it hadn’t been for that smoke we saw off the rim, an’ then this here fresh track made along to-day. Looks queer to me.”

“Wish Roy was here,” replied John, scratching his head. “Milt, I’ve a hunch, if he was, he’d foller them tracks.”

“Maybe. But we haven’t time for that. We can backtrail them, though, if they keep clear as they are here. An’ we’ll not lose any time, either.”

That broad track led straight toward Pine, down to the edge of the cedars, where, amid some jagged rocks, evidences showed that men had camped there for days. Here it ended as a broad trail. But from the north came the single fresh track made that very day, and from the east, more in a line with Pine, came two tracks made the day before. And these were imprints of big and little hoofs. Manifestly these interested John more than they did Dale, who had to wait for his companion.

“Milt, it ain’t a colt’s — thet little track,” avowed John.

“Why not — an’ what if it isn’t?” queried Dale.

“Wal, it ain’t, because a colt always straggles back, an’ from one side to t’other. This little track keeps close to the big one. An’, by George! it was made by a led mustang.”

John resembled Roy Beeman then with that leaping, intent fire in his gray eyes. Dale’s reply was to spur his horse into a trot and call sharply to the lagging cougar.

When they turned into the broad, blossom-bordered road that was the only thoroughfare of Pine the sun was setting red and gold behind the mountains. The horses were too tired for any more than a walk. Natives of the village, catching sight of Dale and Beeman, and the huge gray cat following like a dog, called excitedly to one another. A group of men in front of Turner’s gazed intently down the road, and soon manifested signs of excitement. Dale and his comrade dismounted in front of Widow Cass’s cottage. And Dale called as he strode up the little path. Mrs. Cass came out. She was white and shaking, but appeared calm. At sight of her John Beeman drew a sharp breath.

“Wal, now—” he began, hoarsely, and left off.

“How’s Roy?” queried Dale.

“Lord knows I’m glad to see you, boys! Milt, you’re thin an’ strange-lookin’. Roy’s had a little setback. He got a shock to-day an’ it throwed him off. Fever — an’ now he’s out of his head. It won’t do no good for you to waste time seein’ him. Take my word for it he’s all right. But there’s others as — For the land’s sakes, Milt Dale, you fetched thet cougar back! Don’t let him near me!”

“Tom won’t hurt you, mother,” said Dale, as the cougar came padding up the path. “You were sayin’ somethin’ — about others. Is Miss Helen safe? Hurry!”

“Ride up to see her — an’ waste no more time here.”

Dale was quick in the saddle, followed by John, but the horses had to be severely punished to force them even to a trot. And that was a lagging trot, which now did not leave Torn behind.

The ride up to Auchincloss’s ranch-house seemed endless to Dale. Natives came out in the road to watch after he had passed. Stern as Dale was in dominating his feelings, he could not wholly subordinate his mounting joy to a waiting terrible anticipation of catastrophe. But no matter what awaited — nor what fateful events might hinge upon this nameless circumstance about to be disclosed, the wonderful and glorious fact of the present was that in a moment he would see Helen Rayner.

There were saddled horses in the courtyard, but no riders. A Mexican boy sat on the porch bench, in the seat where Dale remembered he had encountered Al Auchincloss. The door of the big sitting-room was open. The scent of flowers, the murmur of bees, the pounding of hoofs came vaguely to Dale. His eyes dimmed, so that the ground, when he slid out of his saddle, seemed far below him. He stepped upon the porch. His sight suddenly cleared. A tight fullness at his throat made incoherent the words he said to the Mexican boy. But they were understood, as the boy ran back around the house. Dale knocked sharply and stepped over the threshold.

Outside, John, true to his habits, was thinking, even in that moment of suspense, about the faithful, exhausted horses. As he unsaddled them he talked: “Fer soft an’ fat hosses, winterin’ high up, wal, you’ve done somethin’!”

Then Dale heard a voice in another room, a step, a creak of the door. It opened. A woman in white appeared. He recognized Helen. But instead of the rich brown bloom and dark-eyed beauty so hauntingly limned on his memory, he saw a white, beautiful face, strained and quivering in anguish, and eyes that pierced his heart. He could not speak.

“Oh! my friend — you’ve come!” she whispered.

Dale put out a shaking hand. But she did not see it. She clutched his shoulders, as if to feel whether or not he was real, and then her arms went up round his neck.

“Oh, thank God! I knew you would come!” she said, and her head sank to his shoulder.

Dale divined what he had suspected. Helen’s sister had been carried off. Yet, while his quick mind grasped Helen’s broken spirit — the unbalance that was reason for this marvelous and glorious act — he did not take other meaning of the embrace to himself. He just stood there, transported, charged like a tree struck by lightning, making sure with all his keen senses, so that he could feel forever, how she was clinging round his neck, her face over his bursting heart, her quivering form close pressed to his.

“It’s — Bo,” he said, unsteadily.

“She went riding yesterday — and — never — came — back!” replied Helen, brokenly.

“I’ve seen her trail. She’s been taken into the woods. I’ll find her. I’ll fetch her back,” he replied, rapidly.

With a shock she seemed to absorb his meaning. With another shock she raised her face — leaned back a little to look at him.

“You’ll find her — fetch her back?”

“Yes,” he answered, instantly.

With that ringing word it seemed to Dale she realized how she was standing. He felt her shake as she dropped her arms and stepped back, while the white anguish of her face was flooded out by a wave of scarlet. But she was brave in her confusion. Her eyes never fell, though they changed swiftly, darkening with shame, amaze, and with feelings he could not read.

“I’m almost — out of my head,” she faltered.

“No wonder. I saw that.... But now you must get clear-headed. I’ve no time to lose.”

He led her to the door.

“John, it’s Bo that’s gone,” he called. “Since yesterday.... Send the boy to get me a bag of meat an’ bread. You run to the corral an’ get me a fresh horse. My old horse Ranger if you can find him quick. An’ rustle.”

Without a word John leaped bareback on one of the horses he had just unsaddled and spurred him across the courtyard.

Then the big cougar, seeing Helen, got up from where he lay on the porch and came to her.

“Oh, it’s Tom!” cried Helen, and as he rubbed against her knees she patted his head with trembling hand. “You big, beautiful pet! Oh, how I remember! Oh, how Bo would love to—”

“Where’s Carmichael?” interrupted Dale. “Out huntin’ Bo?”

“Yes. It was he who missed her first. He rode everywhere yesterday. Last night when he came back he was wild. I’ve not seen him to-day. He made all the other men but Hal and Joe stay home on the ranch.”

“Right. An’ John must stay, too,” declared Dale. “But it’s strange. Carmichael ought to have found the girl’s tracks. She was ridin’ a pony?”

“Bo rode Sam. He’s a little bronc, very strong and fast.”

“I come across his tracks. How’d Carmichael miss them?”

“He didn’t. He found them — trailed them all along the north range. That’s where he forbade Bo to go. You see, they’re in love with each other. They’ve been at odds. Neither will give in. Bo disobeyed him. There’s hard ground off the north range, so he said. He was able to follow her tracks only so far.”

“Were there any other tracks along with hers?”

“No.”

“Miss Helen, I found them ‘way southeast of Pine up on the slope of the mountain. There were seven other horses makin’ that trail — when we run across it. On the way down we found a camp where men had waited. An’ Bo’s pony, led by a rider on a big horse, come into that camp from the east — maybe north a little. An’ that tells the story.”

“Riggs ran her down — made off with her!” cried Helen, passionately. “Oh, the villain! He had men in waiting. That’s Beasley’s work. They were after me.”

“It may not be just what you said, but that’s close enough. An’ Bo’s in a bad fix. You must face that an’ try to bear up under — fears of the worst.”

“My friend! You will save her!”

“I’ll fetch her back, alive or dead.”

“Dead! Oh, my God!” Helen cried, and closed her eyes an instant, to open them burning black. “But Bo isn’t dead. I know that — I feel it. She’ll not die very easy. She’s a little savage. She has no fear. She’d fight like a tigress for her life. She’s strong. You remember how strong. She can stand anything. Unless they murder her outright she’ll live — a long time — through any ordeal.... So I beg you, my friend, don’t lose an hour — don’t ever give up!”

Dale trembled under the clasp of her hands. Loosing his own from her clinging hold, he stepped out on the porch. At that moment John appeared on Ranger, coming at a gallop.

“Nell, I’ll never come back without her,” said Dale. “I reckon you can hope — only be prepared. That’s all. It’s hard. But these damned deals are common out here in the West.”

“Suppose Beasley comes — here!” exclaimed Helen, and again her hand went out toward him.

“If he does, you refuse to get off,” replied Dale. “But don’t let him or his greasers put a dirty hand on you. Should he threaten force — why, pack some clothes — an’ your valuables — an’ go down to Mrs. Cass’s. An’ wait till I come back!”

“Wait — till you — come back!” she faltered, slowly turning white again. Her dark eyes dilated. “Milt — you’re like Las Vegas. You’ll kill Beasley!”

Dale heard his own laugh, very cold and strange, foreign to his ears. A grim, deadly hate of Beasley vied with the tenderness and pity he felt for this distressed girl. It was a sore trial to see her leaning there against the door — to be compelled to leave her alone. Abruptly be stalked off the porch. Tom followed him. The black horse whinnied his recognition of Dale and snorted at sight of the cougar. Just then the Mexican boy returned with a bag. Dale tied this, with the small pack, behind the saddle.

“John, you stay here with Miss Helen,” said Dale. “An’ if Carmichael comes back, keep him, too! An’ to-night, if any one rides into Pine from the way we come, you be sure to spot him.”

“I’ll do thet, Milt,” responded John.

Dale mounted, and, turning for a last word to Helen, he felt the words of cheer halted on his lips as he saw her standing white and broken-hearted, with her hands to her bosom. He could not look twice.

“Come on there, you Tom,” he called to the cougar. “Reckon on this track you’ll pay me for all my trainin’ of you.”

“Oh, my friend!” came Helen’s sad voice, almost a whisper to his throbbing ears. “Heaven help you — to save her! I—”

Then Ranger started and Dale heard no more. He could not look back. His eyes were full of tears and his breast ached. By a tremendous effort he shifted that emotion — called on all the spiritual energy of his being to the duty of this grim task before him.

He did not ride down through the village, but skirted the northern border, and worked round to the south, where, coming to the trail he had made an hour past, he headed on it, straight for the slope now darkening in the twilight. The big cougar showed more willingness to return on this trail than he had shown in the coming. Ranger was fresh and wanted to go, but Dale held him in.

A cool wind blew down from the mountain with the coming of night. Against the brightening stars Dale saw the promontory lift its bold outline. It was miles away. It haunted him, strangely calling. A night, and perhaps a day, separated him from the gang that held Bo Rayner prisoner. Dale had no plan as yet. He had only a motive as great as the love he bore Helen Rayner.

Beasley’s evil genius had planned this abduction. Riggs was a tool, a cowardly knave dominated by a stronger will. Snake Anson and his gang had lain in wait at that cedar camp; had made that broad hoof track leading up the mountain. Beasley had been there with them that very day. All this was as assured to Dale as if he had seen the men.

But the matter of Dale’s recovering the girl and doing it speedily strung his mental strength to its highest pitch. Many outlines of action flashed through his mind as he rode on, peering keenly through the night, listening with practised ears. All were rejected. And at the outset of every new branching of thought he would gaze down at the gray form of the cougar, long, graceful, heavy, as he padded beside the horse. From the first thought of returning to help Helen Rayner he had conceived an undefined idea of possible value in the qualities of his pet. Tom had performed wonderful feats of trailing, but he had never been tried on men. Dale believed he could make him trail anything, yet he had no proof of this. One fact stood out of all Dale’s conjectures, and it was that he had known men, and brave men, to fear cougars.

Far up on the slope, in a little hollow where water ran and there was a little grass for Ranger to pick, Dale haltered him and made ready to spend the night. He was sparing with his food, giving Tom more than he took himself. Curled close up to Dale, the big cat went to sleep.

But Dale lay awake for long.

The night was still, with only a faint moan of wind on this sheltered slope. Dale saw hope in the stars. He did not seem to have promised himself or Helen that he could save her sister, and then her property. He seemed to have stated something unconsciously settled, outside of his thinking. Strange how this certainty was not vague, yet irreconcilable with any plans he created! Behind it, somehow nameless with inconceivable power, surged all his wonderful knowledge of forest, of trails, of scents, of night, of the nature of men lying down to sleep in the dark, lonely woods, of the nature of this great cat that lived its every action in accordance with his will.

He grew sleepy, and gradually his mind stilled, with his last conscious thought a portent that he would awaken to accomplish his desperate task.

CHAPTER XX

YOUNG BURT POSSESSED the keenest eyes of any man in Snake Anson’s gang, for which reason he was given the post as lookout from the lofty promontory. His instructions were to keep sharp watch over the open slopes below and to report any sight of a horse.

A cedar fire with green boughs on top of dead wood sent up a long, pale column of smoke. This signal-fire had been kept burning since sunrise.

The preceding night camp had been made on a level spot in the cedars back of the promontory. But manifestly Anson did not expect to remain there long. For, after breakfast, the packs had been made up and the horses stood saddled and bridled. They were restless and uneasy, tossing bits and fighting flies. The sun, now half-way to meridian, was hot and no breeze blew in that sheltered spot.

Shady Jones had ridden off early to fill the water-bags, and had not yet returned. Anson, thinner and scalier and more snakelike than ever, was dealing a greasy, dirty deck of cards, his opponent being the square-shaped, black-visaged Moze. In lieu of money the gamblers wagered with cedar-berries, each of which berries represented a pipeful of tobacco. Jim Wilson brooded under a cedar-tree, his unshaven face a dirty dust-hue, a smoldering fire in his light eyes, a sullen set to his jaw. Every little while he would raise his eyes to glance at Riggs, and it seemed that a quick glance was enough. Riggs paced to and fro in the open, coatless and hatless, his black-broadcloth trousers and embroidered vest dusty and torn. An enormous gun bumped awkwardly in its sheath swinging below his hip. Riggs looked perturbed. His face was sweating freely, yet it was far from red in color. He did not appear to mind the sun or the flies. His eyes were staring, dark, wild, shifting in gaze from everything they encountered. But often that gaze shot back to the captive girl sitting under a cedar some yards from the man.

Bo Rayner’s little, booted feet were tied together with one end of a lasso and the other end trailed off over the ground. Her hands were free. Her riding-habit was dusty and disordered. Her eyes blazed defiantly out of a small, pale face.

“Harve Riggs, I wouldn’t be standing in those cheap boots of yours for a million dollars,” she said, sarcastically. Riggs took no notice of her words.

“You pack that gun-sheath wrong end out. What have you got the gun for, anyhow?” she added, tauntingly.

Snake Anson let out a hoarse laugh and Moze’s black visage opened in a huge grin. Jim Wilson seemed to drink in the girl’s words. Sullen and somber, he bent his lean head, very still, as if listening.

“You’d better shut up,” said Riggs, darkly.

“I will not shut up,” declared Bo.

“Then I’ll gag you,” he threatened.

“Gag me! Why, you dirty, low-down, two-bit of a bluff!” she exclaimed, hotly, “I’d like to see you try it. I’ll tear that long hair of yours right off your head.”

Riggs advanced toward her with his hands clutching, as if eager to throttle her. The girl leaned forward, her face reddening, her eyes fierce.

“You damned little cat!” muttered Riggs, thickly. “I’ll gag you — if you don’t stop squallin’.”

“Come on. I dare you to lay a hand on me.... Harve Riggs, I’m not the least afraid of you. Can’t you savvy that? You’re a liar, a four-flush, a sneak! Why, you’re not fit to wipe the feet of any of these outlaws.”

Riggs took two long strides and bent over her, his teeth protruding in a snarl, and he cuffed her hard on the side of the head.

Bo’s head jerked back with the force of the blow, but she uttered no cry.

“Are you goin’ to keep your jaw shut?” he demanded, stridently, and a dark tide of blood surged up into his neck.

“I should smile I’m not,” retorted Bo, in cool, deliberate anger of opposition. “You’ve roped me — and you’ve struck me! Now get a club — stand off there — out of my reach — and beat me! Oh, if I only knew cuss words fit for you — I’d call you them!”

Snake Anson had stopped playing cards, and was watching, listening, with half-disgusted, half-amused expression on his serpent-like face. Jim Wilson slowly rose to his feet. If any one had observed him it would have been to note that he now seemed singularly fascinated by this scene, yet all the while absorbed in himself. Once he loosened the neck-band of his blouse.

Riggs swung his arm more violently at the girl. But she dodged.

“You dog!” she hissed. “Oh, if I only had a gun!”

Her face then, with its dead whiteness and the eyes of flame, held a tragic, impelling beauty that stung Anson into remonstrance.

“Aw, Riggs, don’t beat up the kid,” he protested. “Thet won’t do any good. Let her alone.”

“But she’s got to shut up,” replied Riggs.

“How ‘n hell air you goin’ to shet her up? Mebbe if you get out of her sight she’ll be quiet.... How about thet, girl?”

Anson gnawed his drooping mustache as he eyed Bo.

“Have I made any kick to you or your men yet?” she queried.

“It strikes me you ‘ain’t,” replied Anson.

“You won’t hear me make any so long as I’m treated decent,” said Bo. “I don’t know what you’ve got to do with Riggs. He ran me down — roped me — dragged me to your camp. Now I’ve a hunch you’re waiting for Beasley.”

“Girl, your hunch ‘s correct,” said Anson.

“Well, do you know I’m the wrong girl?”

“What’s thet? I reckon you’re Nell Rayner, who got left all old Auchincloss’s property.”

“No. I’m Bo Rayner. Nell is my sister. She owns the ranch. Beasley wanted her.”

Anson cursed deep and low. Under his sharp, bristling eyebrows he bent cunning green eyes upon Riggs.

“Say, you! Is what this kid says so?”

“Yes. She’s Nell Rayner’s sister,” replied Riggs, doggedly.

“A-huh! Wal, why in the hell did you drag her into my camp an’ off up here to signal Beasley? He ain’t wantin’ her. He wants the girl who owns the ranch. Did you take one fer the other — same as thet day we was with you?”

“Guess I must have,” replied Riggs, sullenly.

“But you knowed her from her sister afore you come to my camp?”

Riggs shook his head. He was paler now and sweating more freely. The dank hair hung wet over his forehead. His manner was that of a man suddenly realizing he had gotten into a tight place.

“Oh, he’s a liar!” exclaimed Bo, with contemptuous ring in her voice. “He comes from my country. He has known Nell and me for years.”

Snake Anson turned to look at Wilson.

“Jim, now hyar’s a queer deal this feller has rung in on us. I thought thet kid was pretty young. Don’t you remember Beasley told us Nell Rayner was a handsome woman?”

“Wal, pard Anson, if this heah gurl ain’t handsome my eyes have gone pore,” drawled Wilson.

“A-huh! So your Texas chilvaree over the ladies is some operatin’,” retorted Anson, with fine sarcasm. “But thet ain’t tellin’ me what you think?”

“Wal, I ain’t tellin’ you what I think yet. But I know thet kid ain’t Nell Rayner. For I’ve seen her.”

Anson studied his right-hand man for a moment, then, taking out his tobacco-pouch, he sat himself down upon a stone and proceeded leisurely to roll a cigarette. He put it between his thin lips and apparently forgot to light it. For a few moments he gazed at the yellow ground and some scant sage-brush. Riggs took to pacing up and down. Wilson leaned as before against the cedar. The girl slowly recovered from her excess of anger.

“Kid, see hyar,” said Anson, addressing the girl; “if Riggs knowed you wasn’t Nell an’ fetched you along anyhow — what ‘d he do thet fur?”

“He chased me — caught me. Then he saw some one after us and he hurried to your camp. He was afraid — the cur!”

Riggs heard her reply, for he turned a malignant glance upon her.

“Anson, I fetched her because I know Nell Rayner will give up anythin’ on earth for her,” he said, in loud voice.

Anson pondered this statement with an air of considering its apparent sincerity.

“Don’t you believe him,” declared Bo Rayner, bluntly. “He’s a liar. He’s double-crossing Beasley and all of you.”

Riggs raised a shaking hand to clench it at her. “Keep still or it ‘ll be the worse for you.”

“Riggs, shut up yourself,” put in Anson, as he leisurely rose. “Mebbe it ‘ain’t occurred to you thet she might have some talk interestin’ to me. An’ I’m runnin’ this hyar camp. ... Now, kid, talk up an’ say what you like.”

“I said he was double-crossing you all,” replied the girl, instantly. “Why, I’m surprised you’d be caught in his company! My uncle Al and my sweetheart Carmichael and my friend Dale — they’ve all told me what Western men are, even down to outlaws, robbers, cutthroat rascals like you. And I know the West well enough now to be sure that four-flush doesn’t belong here and can’t last here. He went to Dodge City once and when he came back he made a bluff at being a bad man. He was a swaggering, bragging, drinking gun-fighter. He talked of the men he’d shot, of the fights he’d had. He dressed like some of those gun-throwing gamblers.... He was in love with my sister Nell. She hated him. He followed us out West and he has hung on our actions like a sneaking Indian. Why, Nell and I couldn’t even walk to the store in the village. He rode after me out on the range — chased me.... For that Carmichael called Riggs’s bluff down in Turner’s saloon. Dared him to draw! Cussed him every name on the range! Slapped and beat and kicked him! Drove him out of Pine!... And now, whatever he has said to Beasley or you, it’s a dead sure bet he’s playing his own game. That’s to get hold of Nell, and if not her — then me!... Oh, I’m out of breath — and I’m out of names to call him. If I talked forever — I’d never be — able to — do him justice. But lend me — a gun — a minute!”

Jim Wilson’s quiet form vibrated with a start. Anson with his admiring smile pulled his gun and, taking a couple of steps forward, held it out butt first. She stretched eagerly for it and he jerked it away.

“Hold on there!” yelled Riggs, in alarm.

“Damme, Jim, if she didn’t mean bizness!” exclaimed the outlaw.

“Wal, now — see heah, Miss. Would you bore him — if you hed a gun?” inquired Wilson, with curious interest. There was more of respect in his demeanor than admiration.

“No. I don’t want his cowardly blood on my hands,” replied the girl. “But I’d make him dance — I’d make him run.”

“Shore you can handle a gun?”

She nodded her answer while her eyes flashed hate and her resolute lips twitched.

Then Wilson made a singularly swift motion and his gun was pitched butt first to within a foot of her hand. She snatched it up, cocked it, aimed it, all before Anson could move. But he yelled:

“Drop thet gun, you little devil!”

Riggs turned ghastly as the big blue gun lined on him. He also yelled, but that yell was different from Anson’s.

“Run or dance!” cried the girl.

The big gun boomed and leaped almost out of her hand. She took both hands, and called derisively as she fired again. The second bullet hit at Riggs’s feet, scattering the dust and fragments of stone all over him. He bounded here — there — then darted for the rocks. A third time the heavy gun spoke and this bullet must have ticked Riggs, for he let out a hoarse bawl and leaped sheer for the protection of a rock.

“Plug him! Shoot off a leg!” yelled Snake Anson, whooping and stamping, as Riggs got out of sight.

Jim Wilson watched the whole performance with the same quietness that had characterized his manner toward the girl. Then, as Riggs disappeared, Wilson stepped forward and took the gun from the girl’s trembling hands. She was whiter than ever, but still resolute and defiant. Wilson took a glance over in the direction Riggs had hidden and then proceeded to reload the gun. Snake Anson’s roar of laughter ceased rather suddenly.

“Hyar, Jim, she might have held up the whole gang with thet gun,” he protested.

“I reckon she ‘ain’t nothin’ ag’in’ us,” replied Wilson.

“A-huh! You know a lot about wimmen now, don’t you? But thet did my heart good. Jim, what ‘n earth would you have did if thet ‘d been you instead of Riggs?”

The query seemed important and amazing. Wilson pondered.

“Shore I’d stood there — stock-still — an’ never moved an eye-winker.”

“An’ let her shoot!” ejaculated Anson, nodding his long head. “Me, too!”

So these rough outlaws, inured to all the violence and baseness of their dishonest calling, rose to the challenging courage of a slip of a girl. She had the one thing they respected — nerve.

Just then a halloo, from the promontory brought Anson up with a start. Muttering to himself, he strode out toward the jagged rocks that hid the outlook. Moze shuffled his burly form after Anson.

“Miss, it shore was grand — thet performance of Mister Gunman Riggs,” remarked Jim Wilson, attentively studying the girl.

“Much obliged to you for lending me your gun,” she replied. “I — I hope I hit him — a little.”

“Wal, if you didn’t sting him, then Jim Wilson knows nothin’ about lead.”

“Jim Wilson? Are you the man — the outlaw my uncle Al knew?”

“Reckon I am, miss. Fer I knowed Al shore enough. What ‘d he say aboot me?”

“I remember once he was telling me about Snake Anson’s gang. He mentioned you. Said you were a real gun-fighter. And what a shame it was you had to be an outlaw.”

“Wal! An’ so old Al spoke thet nice of me.... It’s tolerable likely I’ll remember. An’ now, miss, can I do anythin’ for you?”

Swift as a flash she looked at him.

“What do you mean?”

“Wal, shore I don’t mean much, I’m sorry to say. Nothin’ to make you look like thet.... I hev to be an outlaw, shore as you’re born. But — mebbe there’s a difference in outlaws.”

She understood him and paid him the compliment not to voice her sudden upflashing hope that he might be one to betray his leader.

“Please take this rope off my feet. Let me walk a little. Let me have a — a little privacy. That fool watched every move I made. I promise not to run away. And, oh! I’m thirsty.”

“Shore you’ve got sense.” He freed her feet and helped her get up. “There’ll be some fresh water any minit now, if you’ll wait.”

Then he turned his back and walked over to where Riggs sat nursing a bullet-burn on his leg.

“Say, Riggs, I’m takin’ the responsibility of loosin’ the girl for a little spell. She can’t get away. An’ there ain’t any sense in bein’ mean.”

Riggs made no reply, and went on rolling down his trousers leg, lapped a fold over at the bottom and pulled on his boot. Then he strode out toward the promontory. Half-way there he encountered Anson tramping back.

“Beasley’s comin’ one way an’ Shady’s comin’ another. We’ll be off this hot point of rock by noon,” said the outlaw leader.

Riggs went on to the promontory to look for himself.

“Where’s the girl?” demanded Anson, in surprise, when he got back to the camp.

“Wal, she’s walkin’ ‘round between heah an’ Pine,” drawled Wilson.

“Jim, you let her loose?”

“Shore I did. She’s been hawg-tied all the time. An’ she said she’d not run off. I’d take thet girl’s word even to a sheep-thief.”

“A-huh. So would I, for all of thet. But, Jim, somethin’s workin’ in you. Ain’t you sort of rememberin’ a time when you was young — an’ mebbe knowed pretty kids like this one?”

“Wal, if I am it ‘ll shore turn out bad fer somebody.”

Anson gave him a surprised stare and suddenly lost the bantering tone.

“A-huh! So thet’s how it’s workin’,” he replied, and flung himself down in the shade.

Young Burt made his appearance then, wiping his sallow face. His deep-set, hungry eyes, upon which his comrades set such store, roved around the camp.

“Whar’s the gurl?” he queried.

“Jim let her go out fer a stroll,” replied Anson.

“I seen Jim was gittin’ softy over her. Haw! Haw! Haw!”

But Snake Anson did not crack a smile. The atmosphere appeared not to be congenial for jokes, a fact Burt rather suddenly divined. Riggs and Moze returned from the promontory, the latter reporting that Shady Jones was riding up close. Then the girl walked slowly into sight and approached to find a seat within ten yards of the group. They waited in silence until the expected horseman rode up with water-bottles slung on both sides of his saddle. His advent was welcome. All the men were thirsty. Wilson took water to the girl before drinking himself.

“Thet’s an all-fired hot ride fer water,” declared the outlaw Shady, who somehow fitted his name in color and impression. “An’, boss, if it’s the same to you I won’t take it ag’in.”

“Cheer up, Shady. We’ll be rustlin’ back in the mountains before sundown,” said Anson.

“Hang me if that ain’t the cheerfulest news I’ve hed in some days. Hey, Moze?”

The black-faced Moze nodded his shaggy head.

“I’m sick an’ sore of this deal,” broke out Burt, evidently encouraged by his elders. “Ever since last fall we’ve been hangin’ ‘round — till jest lately freezin’ in camps — no money — no drink — no grub wuth havin’. All on promises!”

Not improbably this young and reckless member of the gang had struck the note of discord. Wilson seemed most detached from any sentiment prevailing there. Some strong thoughts were revolving in his brain.

“Burt, you ain’t insinuatin’ thet I made promises?” inquired Anson, ominously.

“No, boss, I ain’t. You allus said we might hit it rich. But them promises was made to you. An’ it ‘d be jest like thet greaser to go back on his word now we got the gurl.”

“Son, it happens we got the wrong one. Our long-haired pard hyar — Mister Riggs — him with the big gun — he waltzes up with this sassy kid instead of the woman Beasley wanted.”

Burt snorted his disgust while Shady Jones, roundly swearing, pelted the smoldering camp-fire with stones. Then they all lapsed into surly silence. The object of their growing scorn, Riggs, sat a little way apart, facing none of them, but maintaining as bold a front as apparently he could muster.

Presently a horse shot up his ears, the first indication of scent or sound imperceptible to the men. But with this cue they all, except Wilson, sat up attentively. Soon the crack of iron-shod hoofs on stone broke the silence. Riggs nervously rose to his feet. And the others, still excepting Wilson, one by one followed suit. In another moment a rangy bay horse trotted out of the cedars, up to the camp, and his rider jumped off nimbly for so heavy a man.

“Howdy, Beasley?” was Anson’s greeting.

“Hello, Snake, old man!” replied Beasley, as his bold, snapping black eyes swept the group. He was dusty and hot, and wet with sweat, yet evidently too excited to feel discomfort. “I seen your smoke signal first off an’ jumped my hoss quick. But I rode north of Pine before I headed ‘round this way. Did you corral the girl or did Riggs? Say! — you look queer!... What’s wrong here? You haven’t signaled me for nothin’?”

Snake Anson beckoned to Bo.

“Come out of the shade. Let him look you over.”

The girl walked out from under the spreading cedar that had hidden her from sight.

Beasley stared aghast — his jaw dropped.

“Thet’s the kid sister of the woman I wanted!” he ejaculated.

“So we’ve jest been told.”

Astonishment still held Beasley.

“Told?” he echoed. Suddenly his big body leaped with a start. “Who got her? Who fetched her?”

“Why, Mister Gunman Riggs hyar,” replied Anson, with a subtle scorn.

“Riggs, you got the wrong girl,” shouted Beasley. “You made thet mistake once before. What’re you up to?”

“I chased her an’ when I got her, seein’ it wasn’t Nell Rayner — why — I kept her, anyhow,” replied Riggs. “An’ I’ve got a word for your ear alone.”

“Man, you’re crazy — queerin’ my deal thet way!” roared Beasley. “You heard my plans.... Riggs, this girl-stealin’ can’t be done twice. Was you drinkin’ or locoed or what?”

“Beasley, he was giving you the double-cross,” cut in Bo Rayner’s cool voice.

The rancher stared speechlessly at her, then at Anson, then at Wilson, and last at Riggs, when his brown visage shaded dark with rush of purple blood. With one lunge he knocked Riggs flat, then stood over him with a convulsive hand at his gun.

“You white-livered card-sharp! I’ve a notion to bore you.... They told me you had a deal of your own, an’ now I believe it.”

“Yes — I had,” replied Riggs, cautiously getting up. He was ghastly. “But I wasn’t double-crossin’ you. Your deal was to get the girl away from home so you could take possession of her property. An’ I wanted her.”

“What for did you fetch the sister, then?” demanded Beasley, his big jaw bulging.

“Because I’ve a plan to—”

“Plan hell! You’ve spoiled my plan an’ I’ve seen about enough of you.” Beasley breathed hard; his lowering gaze boded an uncertain will toward the man who had crossed him; his hand still hung low and clutching.

“Beasley, tell them to get my horse. I want to go home,” said Bo Rayner.

Slowly Beasley turned. Her words enjoined a silence. What to do with her now appeared a problem.

“I had nothin’ to do with fetchin’ you here an’ I’ll have nothin’ to do with sendin’ you back or whatever’s done with you,” declared Beasley.

Then the girl’s face flashed white again and her eyes changed to fire.

“You’re as big a liar as Riggs,” she cried, passionately. “And you’re a thief, a bully who picks on defenseless girls. Oh, we know your game! Milt Dale heard your plot with this outlaw Anson to steal my sister. You ought to be hanged — you half-breed greaser!”

“I’ll cut out your tongue!” hissed Beasley.

“Yes, I’ll bet you would if you had me alone. But these outlaws — these sheep-thieves — these tools you hire are better than you and Riggs.... What do you suppose Carmichael will do to you? Carmichael! He’s my sweetheart — that cowboy. You know what he did to Riggs. Have you brains enough to know what he’ll do to you?”

“He’ll not do much,” growled Beasley. But the thick purplish blood was receding from his face. “Your cowpuncher—”

“Bah!” she interrupted, and she snapped her fingers in his face. “He’s from Texas! He’s from TEXAS!”

“Supposin’ he is from Texas?” demanded Beasley, in angry irritation. “What’s thet? Texans are all over. There’s Jim Wilson, Snake Anson’s right-hand man. He’s from Texas. But thet ain’t scarin’ any one.”

He pointed toward Wilson, who shifted uneasily from foot to foot. The girl’s flaming glance followed his hand.

“Are you from Texas?” she asked.

“Yes, Miss, I am — an’ I reckon I don’t deserve it,” replied Wilson. It was certain that a vague shame attended his confession.

“Oh! I believed even a bandit from Texas would fight for a helpless girl!” she replied, in withering scorn of disappointment.

Jim Wilson dropped his head. If any one there suspected a serious turn to Wilson’s attitude toward that situation it was the keen outlaw leader.

“Beasley, you’re courtin’ death,” he broke in.

“You bet you are!” added Bo, with a passion that made her listeners quiver. “You’ve put me at the mercy of a gang of outlaws! You may force my sister out of her home! But your day will come.’ Tom Carmichael will KILL you.”

Beasley mounted his horse. Sullen, livid, furious, he sat shaking in the saddle, to glare down at the outlaw leader.

“Snake, thet’s no fault of mine the deal’s miscarried. I was square. I made my offer for the workin’ out of my plan. It ‘ain’t been done. Now there’s hell to pay an’ I’m through.”

“Beasley, I reckon I couldn’t hold you to anythin’,” replied Anson, slowly. “But if you was square you ain’t square now. We’ve hung around an’ tried hard. My men are all sore. An’ we’re broke, with no outfit to speak of. Me an’ you never fell out before. But I reckon we might.”

“Do I owe you any money — accordin’ to the deal?” demanded Beasley.

“No, you don’t,” responded Anson, sharply.

“Then thet’s square. I wash my hands of the whole deal. Make Riggs pay up. He’s got money an’ he’s got plans. Go in with him.”

With that Beasley spurred his horse, wheeled and rode away. The outlaws gazed after him until he disappeared in the cedars.

“What’d you expect from a greaser?” queried Shady Jones.

“Anson, didn’t I say so?” added Burt.

The black-visaged Moze rolled his eyes like a mad bull and Jim Wilson studiously examined a stick he held in his hands. Riggs showed immense relief.

“Anson, stake me to some of your outfit an’ I’ll ride off with the girl,” he said, eagerly.

“Where’d you go now?” queried Anson, curiously.

Riggs appeared at a loss for a quick answer; his wits were no more equal to this predicament than his nerve.

“You’re no woodsman. An’ onless you’re plumb locoed you’d never risk goin’ near Pine or Show Down. There’ll be real trackers huntin’ your trail.”

The listening girl suddenly appealed to Wilson.

“Don’t let him take me off — alone — in the woods!” she faltered. That was the first indication of her weakening.

Jim Wilson broke into gruff reply. “I’m not bossin’ this gang.”

“But you’re a man!” she importuned.

“Riggs, you fetch along your precious firebrand an’ come with us,” said Anson, craftily. “I’m particular curious to see her brand you.”

“Snake, lemme take the girl back to Pine,” said Jim Wilson.

Anson swore his amaze.

“It’s sense,” continued Wilson. “We’ve shore got our own troubles, an’ keepin’ her ‘ll only add to them. I’ve a hunch. Now you know I ain’t often givin’ to buckin’ your say-so. But this deal ain’t tastin’ good to me. Thet girl ought to be sent home.”

“But mebbe there’s somethin’ in it for us. Her sister ‘d pay to git her back.”

“Wal, I shore hope you’ll recollect I offered — thet’s all,” concluded Wilson.

“Jim, if we wanted to git rid of her we’d let Riggs take her off,” remonstrated the outlaw leader. He was perturbed and undecided. Wilson worried him.

The long Texan veered around full faced. What subtle transformation in him!

“Like hell we would!” he said.

It could not have been the tone that caused Anson to quail. He might have been leader here, but he was not the greater man. His face clouded.

“Break camp,” he ordered.

Riggs had probably not heard that last exchange between Anson and Wilson, for he had walked a few rods aside to get his horse.

In a few moments when they started off, Burt, Jones, and Moze were in the lead driving the pack-horses, Anson rode next, the girl came between him and Riggs, and significantly, it seemed, Jim Wilson brought up the rear.

This start was made a little after the noon hour. They zigzagged up the slope, took to a deep ravine, and followed it up to where it headed in the level forest. From there travel was rapid, the pack-horses being driven at a jogtrot. Once when a troop of deer burst out of a thicket into a glade, to stand with ears high, young Burt halted the cavalcade. His well-aimed shot brought down a deer. Then the men rode on, leaving him behind to dress and pack the meat. The only other halt made was at the crossing of the first water, a clear, swift brook, where both horses and men drank thirstily. Here Burt caught up with his comrades.

They traversed glade and park, and wended a crooked trail through the deepening forest, and climbed, bench after bench, to higher ground, while the sun sloped to the westward, lower and redder. Sunset had gone, and twilight was momentarily brightening to the afterglow when Anson, breaking his silence of the afternoon, ordered a halt.

The place was wild, dismal, a shallow vale between dark slopes of spruce. Grass, fire-wood, and water were there in abundance. All the men were off, throwing saddles and packs, before the tired girl made an effort to get down. Riggs, observing her, made a not ungentle move to pull her off. She gave him a sounding slap with her gloved hand.

“Keep your paws to yourself,” she said. No evidence of exhaustion was there in her spirit.

Wilson had observed this by-play, but Anson had not.

“What come off?” he asked.

“Wal, the Honorable Gunman Riggs jest got caressed by the lady — as he was doin’ the elegant,” replied Moze, who stood nearest.

“Jim, was you watchin’?” queried Anson. His curiosity had held through the afternoon.

“He tried to yank her off an’ she biffed him,” replied Wilson.

“That Riggs is jest daffy or plain locoed,” said Snake, in an aside to Moze.

“Boss, you mean plain cussed. Mark my words, he’ll hoodoo this outfit. Jim was figgerin’ correct.”

“Hoodoo—” cursed Anson, under his breath.

Many hands made quick work. In a few moments a fire was burning brightly, water was boiling, pots were steaming, the odor of venison permeated the cool air. The girl had at last slipped off her saddle to the ground, where she sat while Riggs led the horse away. She sat there apparently forgotten, a pathetic droop to her head.

Wilson had taken an ax and was vigorously wielding it among the spruces. One by one they fell with swish and soft crash. Then the sliding ring of the ax told how he was slicing off the branches with long sweeps. Presently he appeared in the semi-darkness, dragging half-trimmed spruces behind him. He made several trips, the last of which was to stagger under a huge burden of spruce boughs. These he spread under a low, projecting branch of an aspen. Then he leaned the bushy spruces slantingly against this branch on both sides, quickly improvising a V-shaped shelter with narrow aperture in front. Next from one of the packs he took a blanket and threw that inside the shelter. Then, touching the girl on the shoulder, he whispered:

“When you’re ready, slip in there. An’ don’t lose no sleep by worryin’, fer I’ll be layin’ right here.”

He made a motion to indicate his length across the front of the narrow aperture.

“Oh, thank you! Maybe you really are a Texan,” she whispered back.

“Mebbe,” was his gloomy reply.

CHAPTER XXI

THE GIRL REFUSED to take food proffered her by Riggs, but she ate and drank a little that Wilson brought her, then she disappeared in the spruce lean-to.

Whatever loquacity and companionship had previously existed in Snake Anson’s gang were not manifest in this camp. Each man seemed preoccupied, as if pondering the dawn in his mind of an ill omen not clear to him yet and not yet dreamed of by his fellows. They all smoked. Then Moze and Shady played cards awhile by the light of the fire, but it was a dull game, in which either seldom spoke. Riggs sought his blanket first, and the fact was significant that he lay down some distance from the spruce shelter which contained Bo Rayner. Presently young Burt went off grumbling to his bed. And not long afterward the card-players did likewise.

Snake Anson and Jim Wilson were left brooding in silence beside the dying camp-fire.

The night was dark, with only a few stars showing. A fitful wind moaned unearthly through the spruce. An occasional thump of hoof sounded from the dark woods. No cry of wolf or coyote or cat gave reality to the wildness of forest-land.

By and by those men who had rolled in their blankets were breathing deep and slow in heavy slumber.

“Jim, I take it this hyar Riggs has queered our deal,” said Snake Anson, in low voice.

“I reckon,” replied Wilson.

“An’ I’m feared he’s queered this hyar White Mountain country fer us.”

“Shore I ‘ain’t got so far as thet. What d’ ye mean, Snake?”

“Damme if I savvy,” was the gloomy reply. “I only know what was bad looks growin’ wuss. Last fall — an’ winter — an’ now it’s near April. We’ve got no outfit to make a long stand in the woods.... Jim, jest how strong is thet Beasley down in the settlements?”

“I’ve a hunch he ain’t half as strong as he bluffs.”

“Me, too. I got thet idee yesterday. He was scared of the kid — when she fired up an’ sent thet hot-shot about her cowboy sweetheart killin’ him. He’ll do it, Jim. I seen that Carmichael at Magdalena some years ago. Then he was only a youngster. But, whew! Mebbe he wasn’t bad after toyin’ with a little red liquor.”

“Shore. He was from Texas, she said.”

“Jim, I savvied your feelin’s was hurt — by thet talk about Texas — an’ when she up an’ asked you.”

Wilson had no rejoinder for this remark.

“Wal, Lord knows, I ain’t wonderin’. You wasn’t a hunted outlaw all your life. An’ neither was I.... Wilson, I never was keen on this girl deal — now, was I?”

“I reckon it’s honest to say no to thet,” replied Wilson. “But it’s done. Beasley ‘ll get plugged sooner or later. Thet won’t help us any. Chasin’ sheep-herders out of the country an’ stealin’ sheep — thet ain’t stealin’ gurls by a long sight. Beasley ‘ll blame that on us, an’ be greaser enough to send some of his men out to hunt us. For Pine an’ Show Down won’t stand thet long. There’s them Mormons. They’ll be hell when they wake up. Suppose Carmichael got thet hunter Dale an’ them hawk-eyed Beemans on our trail?”

“Wal, we’d cash in — quick,” replied Anson, gruffly.

“Then why didn’t you let me take the gurl back home?”

“Wal, come to think of thet, Jim, I’m sore, an’ I need money — an’ I knowed you’d never take a dollar from her sister. An’ I’ve made up my mind to git somethin’ out of her.”

“Snake, you’re no fool. How ‘ll you do thet same an’ do it quick?”

“‘Ain’t reckoned it out yet.”

“Wal, you got aboot to-morrer an’ thet’s all,” returned Wilson, gloomily.

“Jim, what’s ailin’ you?”

“I’ll let you figger thet out.”

“Wal, somethin’ ails the whole gang,” declared Anson, savagely. “With them it’s nothin’ to eat — no whisky — no money to bet with — no tobacco!... But thet’s not what’s ailin’ you, Jim Wilson, nor me!”

“Wal, what is, then?” queried Wilson.

“With me it’s a strange feelin’ thet my day’s over on these ranges. I can’t explain, but it jest feels so. Somethin’ in the air. I don’t like them dark shadows out there under the spruces. Savvy?... An’ as fer you, Jim — wal, you allus was half decent, an’ my gang’s got too lowdown fer you.”

“Snake, did I ever fail you?”

“No, you never did. You’re the best pard I ever knowed. In the years we’ve rustled together we never had a contrary word till I let Beasley fill my ears with his promises. Thet’s my fault. But, Jim, it’s too late.”

“It mightn’t have been too late yesterday.”

“Mebbe not. But it is now, an’ I’ll hang on to the girl or git her worth in gold,” declared the outlaw, grimly.

“Snake, I’ve seen stronger gangs than yours come an’ go. Them Big Bend gangs in my country — them rustlers — they were all bad men. You have no likes of them gangs out heah. If they didn’t get wiped out by Rangers or cowboys, why they jest naturally wiped out themselves. Thet’s a law I recognize in relation to gangs like them. An’ as for yours — why, Anson, it wouldn’t hold water against one real gun-slinger.”

“A-huh’ Then if we ran up ag’in’ Carmichael or some such fellar — would you be suckin’ your finger like a baby?”

“Wal, I wasn’t takin’ count of myself. I was takin’ generalities.”

“Aw, what ‘n hell are them?” asked Anson, disgustedly. “Jim, I know as well as you thet this hyar gang is hard put. We’re goin’ to be trailed an’ chased. We’ve got to hide — be on the go all the time — here an’ there — all over, in the roughest woods. An’ wait our chance to work south.”

“Shore. But, Snake, you ain’t takin’ no count of the feelin’s of the men — an’ of mine an’ yours.... I’ll bet you my hoss thet in a day or so this gang will go to pieces.”

“I’m feared you spoke what’s been crowdin’ to git in my mind,” replied Anson. Then he threw up his hands in a strange gesture of resignation. The outlaw was brave, but all men of the wilds recognized a force stronger than themselves. He sat there resembling a brooding snake with basilisk eyes upon the fire. At length he arose, and without another word to his comrade he walked wearily to where lay the dark, quiet forms of the sleepers.

Jim Wilson remained beside the flickering fire. He was reading something in the red embers, perhaps the past. Shadows were on his face, not all from the fading flames or the towering spruces. Ever and anon he raised his head to listen, not apparently that he expected any unusual sound, but as if involuntarily. Indeed, as Anson had said, there was something nameless in the air. The black forest breathed heavily, in fitful moans of wind. It had its secrets. The glances Wilson threw on all sides betrayed that any hunted man did not love the dark night, though it hid him. Wilson seemed fascinated by the life inclosed there by the black circle of spruce. He might have been reflecting on the strange reaction happening to every man in that group, since a girl had been brought among them. Nothing was clear, however; the forest kept its secret, as did the melancholy wind; the outlaws were sleeping like tired beasts, with their dark secrets locked in their hearts.

After a while Wilson put some sticks on the red embers, then pulled the end of a log over them. A blaze sputtered up, changing the dark circle and showing the sleepers with their set, shadowed faces upturned. Wilson gazed on all of them, a sardonic smile on his lips, and then his look fixed upon the sleeper apart from the others — Riggs. It might have been the false light of flame and shadow that created Wilson’s expression of dark and terrible hate. Or it might have been the truth, expressed in that lonely, unguarded hour, from the depths of a man born in the South — a man who by his inheritance of race had reverence for all womanhood — by whose strange, wild, outlawed bloody life of a gun-fighter he must hate with the deadliest hate this type that aped and mocked his fame.

It was a long gaze Wilson rested upon Riggs — as strange and secretive as the forest wind moaning down the great aisles — and when that dark gaze was withdrawn Wilson stalked away to make his bed with the stride of one ill whom spirit had liberated force.

He laid his saddle in front of the spruce shelter where the girl had entered, and his tarpaulin and blankets likewise and then wearily stretched his long length to rest.

The camp-fire blazed up, showing the exquisite green and brown-flecked festooning of the spruce branches, symmetrical and perfect, yet so irregular, and then it burned out and died down, leaving all in the dim gray starlight. The horses were not moving around; the moan of night wind had grown fainter; the low hum of insects was dying away; even the tinkle of the brook had diminished. And that growth toward absolute silence continued, yet absolute silence was never attained. Life abided in the forest; only it had changed its form for the dark hours.

Anson’s gang did not bestir themselves at the usual early sunrise hour common to all woodsmen, hunters, or outlaws, to whom the break of day was welcome. These companions — Anson and Riggs included — might have hated to see the dawn come. It meant only another meager meal, then the weary packing and the long, long ride to nowhere in particular, and another meager meal — all toiled for without even the necessities of satisfactory living, and assuredly without the thrilling hopes that made their life significant, and certainly with a growing sense of approaching calamity.

The outlaw leader rose surly and cross-grained. He had to boot Burt to drive him out for the horses. Riggs followed him. Shady Jones did nothing except grumble. Wilson, by common consent, always made the sour-dough bread, and he was slow about it this morning. Anson and Moze did the rest of the work, without alacrity. The girl did not appear.

“Is she dead?” growled Anson.

“No, she ain’t,” replied Wilson, looking up. “She’s sleepin’. Let her sleep. She’d shore be a sight better off if she was daid.”

“A-huh! So would all of this hyar outfit,” was Anson’s response.

“Wal, Sna-ake, I shore reckon we’ll all be thet there soon,” drawled Wilson, in his familiar cool and irritating tone that said so much more than the content of the words.

Anson did not address the Texas member of his party again.

Burt rode bareback into camp, driving half the number of the horses; Riggs followed shortly with several more. But three were missed, one of them being Anson’s favorite. He would not have budged without that horse. During breakfast he growled about his lazy men, and after the meal tried to urge them off. Riggs went unwillingly. Burt refused to go at all.

“Nix. I footed them hills all I’m a-goin’ to,” he said. “An’ from now on I rustle my own hoss.”

The leader glared his reception of this opposition. Perhaps his sense of fairness actuated him once more, for he ordered Shady and Moze out to do their share.

“Jim, you’re the best tracker in this outfit. Suppose you go,” suggested Anson. “You allus used to be the first one off.”

“Times has changed, Snake,” was the imperturbable reply.

“Wal, won’t you go?” demanded the leader, impatiently.

“I shore won’t.”

Wilson did not look or intimate in any way that he would not leave the girl in camp with one or any or all of Anson’s gang, but the truth was as significant as if he had shouted it. The slow-thinking Moze gave Wilson a sinister look.

“Boss, ain’t it funny how a pretty wench — ?” began Shady Jones, sarcastically.

“Shut up, you fool!” broke in Anson. “Come on, I’ll help rustle them hosses.”

After they had gone Burt took his rifle and strolled off into the forest. Then the girl appeared. Her hair was down, her face pale, with dark shadows. She asked for water to wash her face. Wilson pointed to the brook, and as she walked slowly toward it he took a comb and a clean scarf from his pack and carried them to her.

Upon her return to the camp-fire she looked very different with her hair arranged and the red stains in her cheeks.

“Miss, air you hungry?” asked Wilson.

“Yes, I am,” she replied.

He helped her to portions of bread, venison and gravy, and a cup of coffee. Evidently she relished the meat, but she had to force down the rest.

“Where are they all?” she asked.

“Rustlin’ the hosses.”

Probably she divined that he did not want to talk, for the fleeting glance she gave him attested to a thought that his voice or demeanor had changed. Presently she sought a seat under the aspen-tree, out of the sun, and the smoke continually blowing in her face; and there she stayed, a forlorn little figure, for all the resolute lips and defiant eyes.

The Texan paced to and fro beside the camp-fire with bent head, and hands locked behind him. But for the swinging gun he would have resembled a lanky farmer, coatless and hatless, with his brown vest open, his trousers stuck in the top of the high boots.

And neither he nor the girl changed their positions relatively for a long time. At length, however, after peering into the woods, and listening, he remarked to the girl that he would be back in a moment, and then walked off around the spruces.

No sooner had he disappeared — in fact, so quickly after-ward that it presupposed design instead of accident — than Riggs came running from the opposite side of the glade. He ran straight to the girl, who sprang to her feet.

“I hid — two of the — horses,” he panted, husky with excitement. “I’ll take — two saddles. You grab some grub. We’ll run for it.”

“No,” she cried, stepping back.

“But it’s not safe — for us — here,” he said, hurriedly, glancing all around. “I’ll take you — home. I swear.... Not safe — I tell you — this gang’s after me. Hurry!”

He laid hold of two saddles, one with each hand. The moment had reddened his face, brightened his eyes, made his action strong.

“I’m safer — here with this outlaw gang,” she replied.

“You won’t come!” His color began to lighten then, and his face to distort. He dropped his hold on the saddles.

“Harve Riggs, I’d rather become a toy and a rag for these ruffians than spend an hour alone with you,” she flashed at him, in unquenchable hate.

“I’ll drag you!”

He seized her, but could not hold her. Breaking away, she screamed.

“Help!”

That whitened his face, drove him to frenzy. Leaping forward, he struck her a hard blow across the mouth. It staggered her, and, tripping on a saddle, she fell. His hands flew to her throat, ready to choke her. But she lay still and held her tongue. Then he dragged her to her feet.

“Hurry now — grab that pack — an’ follow me.” Again Riggs laid hold of the two saddles. A desperate gleam, baleful and vainglorious, flashed over his face. He was living his one great adventure.

The girl’s eyes dilated. They looked beyond him. Her lips opened.

“Scream again an’ I’ll kill you!” he cried, hoarsely and swiftly. The very opening of her lips had terrified Riggs.

“Reckon one scream was enough,” spoke a voice, slow, but without the drawl, easy and cool, yet incalculable in some terrible sense.

Riggs wheeled with inarticulate cry. Wilson stood a few paces off, with his gun half leveled, low down. His face seemed as usual, only his eyes held a quivering, light intensity, like boiling molten silver.

“Girl, what made thet blood on your mouth?”

“Riggs hit me!” she whispered. Then at something she feared or saw or divined she shrank back, dropped on her knees, and crawled into the spruce shelter.

“Wal, Riggs, I’d invite you to draw if thet ‘d be any use,” said Wilson. This speech was reflective, yet it hurried a little.

Riggs could not draw nor move nor speak. He seemed turned to stone, except his jaw, which slowly fell.

“Harve Riggs, gunman from down Missouri way,” continued the voice of incalculable intent, “reckon you’ve looked into a heap of gun-barrels in your day. Shore! Wal, look in this heah one!”

Wilson deliberately leveled the gun on a line with Riggs’s starting eyes.

“Wasn’t you heard to brag in Turner’s saloon — thet you could see lead comin’ — an’ dodge it? Shore you must be swift!... DODGE THIS HEAH BULLET!”

The gun spouted flame and boomed. One of Riggs’s starting, popping eyes — the right one — went out, like a lamp. The other rolled horribly, then set in blank dead fixedness. Riggs swayed in slow motion until a lost balance felled him heavily, an inert mass.

Wilson bent over the prostrate form. Strange, violent contrast to the cool scorn of the preceding moment! Hissing, spitting, as if poisoned by passion, he burst with the hate that his character had forbidden him to express on a living counterfeit. Wilson was shaken, as if by a palsy. He choked over passionate, incoherent invective. It was class hate first, then the hate of real manhood for a craven, then the hate of disgrace for a murder. No man so fair as a gun-fighter in the Western creed of an “even break”!

Wilson’s terrible cataclysm of passion passed. Straightening up, he sheathed his weapon and began a slow pace before the fire. Not many moments afterward he jerked his head high and listened. Horses were softly thudding through the forest. Soon Anson rode into sight with his men and one of the strayed horses. It chanced, too, that young Burt appeared on the other side of the glade. He walked quickly, as one who anticipated news.

Snake Anson as he dismounted espied the dead man.

“Jim — I thought I heard a shot.”

The others exclaimed and leaped off their horses to view the prostrate form with that curiosity and strange fear common to all men confronted by sight of sudden death.

That emotion was only momentary.

“Shot his lamp out!” ejaculated Moze.

“Wonder how Gunman Riggs liked thet plumb center peg!” exclaimed Shady Jones, with a hard laugh.

“Back of his head all gone!” gasped young Burt. Not improbably he had not seen a great many bullet-marked men.

“Jim! — the long-haired fool didn’t try to draw on you!” exclaimed Snake Anson, astounded.

Wilson neither spoke nor ceased his pacing.

“What was it over?” added Anson, curiously.

“He hit the gurl,” replied Wilson.

Then there were long-drawn exclamations all around, and glance met glance.

“Jim, you saved me the job,” continued the outlaw leader. “An’ I’m much obliged.... Fellars, search Riggs an’ we’ll divvy.... Thet all right, Jim?”

“Shore, an’ you can have my share.”

They found bank-notes in the man’s pocket and considerable gold worn in a money-belt around his waist. Shady Jones appropriated his boots, and Moze his gun. Then they left him as he had fallen.

“Jim, you’ll have to track them lost hosses. Two still missin’ an’ one of them’s mine,” called Anson as Wilson paced to the end of his beat.

The girl heard Anson, for she put her head out of the spruce shelter and called: “Riggs said he’d hid two of the horses. They must be close. He came that way.”

“Howdy, kid! Thet’s good news,” replied Anson. His spirits were rising. “He must hev wanted you to slope with him?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t go.”

“An’ then he hit you?”

“Yes.”

“Wal, recallin’ your talk of yestiddy, I can’t see as Mister Riggs lasted much longer hyar than he’d hev lasted in Texas. We’ve some of thet great country right in our outfit.”

The girl withdrew her white face.

“It’s break camp, boys,” was the leader’s order. “A couple of you look up them hosses. They’ll be hid in some thick spruces. The rest of us ‘ll pack.”

Soon the gang was on the move, heading toward the height of land, and swerving from it only to find soft and grassy ground that would not leave any tracks.

They did not travel more than a dozen miles during the afternoon, but they climbed bench after bench until they reached the timbered plateau that stretched in sheer black slope up to the peaks. Here rose the great and gloomy forest of firs and pines, with the spruce overshadowed and thinned out. The last hour of travel was tedious and toilsome, a zigzag, winding, breaking, climbing hunt for the kind of camp-site suited to Anson’s fancy. He seemed to be growing strangely irrational about selecting places to camp. At last, for no reason that could have been manifest to a good woodsman, he chose a gloomy bowl in the center of the densest forest that had been traversed. The opening, if such it could have been called, was not a park or even a glade. A dark cliff, with strange holes, rose to one side, but not so high as the lofty pines that brushed it. Along its base babbled a brook, running over such formation of rock that from different points near at hand it gave forth different sounds, some singing, others melodious, and one at least of a hollow, weird, deep sound, not loud, but strangely penetrating.

“Sure spooky I say,” observed Shady, sentiently.

The little uplift of mood, coincident with the rifling of Riggs’s person, had not worn over to this evening camp. What talk the outlaws indulged in was necessary and conducted in low tones. The place enjoined silence.

Wilson performed for the girl very much the same service as he had the night before. Only he advised her not to starve herself; she must eat to keep up her strength. She complied at the expense of considerable effort.

As it had been a back-breaking day, in which all of them, except the girl, had climbed miles on foot, they did not linger awake long enough after supper to learn what a wild, weird, and pitch-black spot the outlaw leader had chosen. The little spaces of open ground between the huge-trunked pine-trees had no counterpart up in the lofty spreading foliage. Not a star could blink a wan ray of light into that Stygian pit. The wind, cutting down over abrupt heights farther up, sang in the pine-needles as if they were strings vibrant with chords. Dismal creaks were audible. They were the forest sounds of branch or tree rubbing one another, but which needed the corrective medium of daylight to convince any human that they were other than ghostly. Then, despite the wind and despite the changing murmur of the brook, there seemed to be a silence insulating them, as deep and impenetrable as the darkness.

But the outlaws, who were fugitives now, slept the sleep of the weary, and heard nothing. They awoke with the sun, when the forest seemed smoky in a golden gloom, when light and bird and squirrel proclaimed the day.

The horses had not strayed out of this basin during the night, a circumstance that Anson was not slow to appreciate.

“It ain’t no cheerful camp, but I never seen a safer place to hole up in,” he remarked to Wilson.

“Wal, yes — if any place is safe,” replied that ally, dubiously.

“We can watch our back tracks. There ain’t any other way to git in hyar thet I see.”

“Snake, we was tolerable fair sheep-rustlers, but we’re no good woodsmen.”

Anson grumbled his disdain of this comrade who had once been his mainstay. Then he sent Burt out to hunt fresh meat and engaged his other men at cards. As they now had the means to gamble, they at once became absorbed. Wilson smoked and divided his thoughtful gaze between the gamblers and the drooping figure of the girl. The morning air was keen, and she, evidently not caring to be near her captors beside the camp-fire, had sought the only sunny spot in this gloomy dell. A couple of hours passed; the sun climbed high; the air grew warmer. Once the outlaw leader raised his head to scan the heavy-timbered slopes that inclosed the camp.

“Jim, them hosses are strayin’ off,” he observed.

Wilson leisurely rose and stalked off across the small, open patches, in the direction of the horses. They had grazed around from the right toward the outlet of the brook. Here headed a ravine, dense and green. Two of the horses had gone down. Wilson evidently heard them, though they were not in sight, and he circled somewhat so as to get ahead of them and drive them back. The invisible brook ran down over the rocks with murmur and babble. He halted with instinctive action. He listened. Forest sounds, soft, lulling, came on the warm, pine-scented breeze. It would have taken no keen ear to hear soft and rapid padded footfalls. He moved on cautiously and turned into a little open, mossy spot, brown-matted and odorous, full of ferns and bluebells. In the middle of this, deep in the moss, he espied a huge round track of a cougar. He bent over it. Suddenly he stiffened, then straightened guardedly. At that instant he received a hard prod in the back. Throwing up his hands, he stood still, then slowly turned. A tall hunter in gray buckskin, gray-eyed and square-jawed, had him covered with a cocked rifle. And beside this hunter stood a monster cougar, snarling and blinking.

CHAPTER XXII

“Howdy, Dale,” drawled Wilson. “Reckon you’re a little previous on me.”

“SSSSSH! NOT SO loud,” said the hunter, in low voice. “You’re Jim Wilson?”

“Shore am. Say, Dale, you showed up soon. Or did you jest happen to run acrost us?”

“I’ve trailed you. Wilson, I’m after the girl.”

“I knowed thet when I seen you!”

The cougar seemed actuated by the threatening position of his master, and he opened his mouth, showing great yellow fangs, and spat at Wilson. The outlaw apparently had no fear of Dale or the cocked rifle, but that huge, snarling cat occasioned him uneasiness.

“Wilson, I’ve heard you spoken of as a white outlaw,” said Dale.

“Mebbe I am. But shore I’ll be a scared one in a minit. Dale, he’s goin’ to jump me!”

“The cougar won’t jump you unless I make him. Wilson, if I let you go will you get the girl for me?”

“Wal, lemme see. Supposin’ I refuse?” queried Wilson, shrewdly.

“Then, one way or another, it’s all up with you.”

“Reckon I ‘ain’t got much choice. Yes, I’ll do it. But, Dale, are you goin’ to take my word for thet an’ let me go back to Anson?”

“Yes, I am. You’re no fool. An’ I believe you’re square. I’ve got Anson and his gang corralled. You can’t slip me — not in these woods. I could run off your horses — pick you off one by one — or turn the cougar loose on you at night.”

“Shore. It’s your game. Anson dealt himself this hand.... Between you an’ me, Dale, I never liked the deal.”

“Who shot Riggs?... I found his body.”

“Wal, yours truly was around when thet come off,” replied Wilson, with an involuntary little shudder. Some thought made him sick.

“The girl? Is she safe — unharmed?” queried Dale, hurriedly.

“She’s shore jest as safe an’ sound as when she was home. Dale, she’s the gamest kid thet ever breathed! Why, no one could hev ever made me believe a girl, a kid like her, could hev the nerve she’s got. Nothin’s happened to her ‘cept Riggs hit her in the mouth.... I killed him for thet.... An’, so help me, God, I believe it’s been workin’ in me to save her somehow! Now it’ll not be so hard.”

“But how?” demanded Dale.

“Lemme see.... Wal, I’ve got to sneak her out of camp an’ meet you. Thet’s all.”

“It must be done quick.”

“But, Dale, listen,” remonstrated Wilson, earnestly. “Too quick ‘ll be as bad as too slow. Snake is sore these days, gittin’ sorer all the time. He might savvy somethin’, if I ain’t careful, an’ kill the girl or do her harm. I know these fellars. They’re all ready to go to pieces. An’ shore I must play safe. Shore it’d be safer to have a plan.”

Wilson’s shrewd, light eyes gleamed with an idea. He was about to lower one of his upraised hands, evidently to point to the cougar, when he thought better of that.

“Anson’s scared of cougars. Mebbe we can scare him an’ the gang so it ‘d be easy to sneak the girl off. Can you make thet big brute do tricks? Rush the camp at night an’ squall an’ chase off the horses?”

“I’ll guarantee to scare Anson out of ten years’ growth,” replied Dale.

“Shore it’s a go, then,” resumed Wilson, as if glad. “I’ll post the girl — give her a hunch to do her part. You sneak up to-night jest before dark. I’ll hev the gang worked up. An’ then you put the cougar to his tricks, whatever you want. When the gang gits wild I’ll grab the girl an’ pack her off down heah or somewheres aboot an’ whistle fer you.... But mebbe thet ain’t so good. If thet cougar comes pilin’ into camp he might jump me instead of one of the gang. An’ another hunch. He might slope up on me in the dark when I was tryin’ to find you. Shore thet ain’t appealin’ to me.”

“Wilson, this cougar is a pet,” replied Dale. “You think he’s dangerous, but he’s not. No more than a kitten. He only looks fierce. He has never been hurt by a person an’ he’s never fought anythin’ himself but deer an’ bear. I can make him trail any scent. But the truth is I couldn’t make him hurt you or anybody. All the same, he can be made to scare the hair off any one who doesn’t know him.”

“Shore thet settles me. I’ll be havin’ a grand joke while them fellars is scared to death.... Dale, you can depend on me. An’ I’m beholdin’ to you fer what ‘ll square me some with myself.... To-night, an’ if it won’t work then, to-morrer night shore!”

Dale lowered the rifle. The big cougar spat again. Wilson dropped his hands and, stepping forward, split the green wall of intersecting spruce branches. Then he turned up the ravine toward the glen. Once there, in sight of his comrades, his action and expression changed.

“Hosses all thar, Jim?” asked Anson, as he picked up, his cards.

“Shore. They act awful queer, them hosses,” replied. Wilson. “They’re afraid of somethin’.”

“A-huh! Silvertip mebbe,” muttered Anson. “Jim, You jest keep watch of them hosses. We’d be done if some tarnal varmint stampeded them.”

“Reckon I’m elected to do all the work now,” complained Wilson, “while you card-sharps cheat each other. Rustle the hosses — an’ water an’ fire-wood. Cook an’ wash. Hey?”

“No one I ever seen can do them camp tricks any better ‘n Jim Wilson,” replied Anson.

“Jim, you’re a lady’s man an’ thar’s our pretty hoodoo over thar to feed an’ amoose,” remarked Shady Jones, with a smile that disarmed his speech.

The outlaws guffawed.

“Git out, Jim, you’re breakin’ up the game,” said Moze, who appeared loser.

“Wal, thet gurl would starve if it wasn’t fer me,” replied Wilson, genially, and he walked over toward her, beginning to address her, quite loudly, as he approached. “Wal, miss, I’m elected cook an’ I’d shore like to heah what you fancy fer dinner.”

The outlaws heard, for they guffawed again. “Haw! Haw! if Jim ain’t funny!” exclaimed Anson.

The girl looked up amazed. Wilson was winking at her, and when he got near he began to speak rapidly and low.

“I jest met Dale down in the woods with his pet cougar. He’s after you. I’m goin’ to help him git you safe away. Now you do your part. I want you to pretend you’ve gone crazy. Savvy? Act out of your head! Shore I don’t care what you do or say, only act crazy. An’ don’t be scared. We’re goin’ to scare the gang so I’ll hev a chance to sneak you away. To-night or to-morrow — shore.”

Before he began to speak she was pale, sad, dull of eye. Swiftly, with his words, she was transformed, and when he had ended she did not appear the same girl. She gave him one blazing flash of comprehension and nodded her head rapidly.

“Yes, I understand. I’ll do it!” she whispered.

The outlaw turned slowly away with the most abstract air, confounded amid his shrewd acting, and he did not collect himself until half-way back to his comrades. Then, beginning to hum an old darky tune, he stirred up and replenished the fire, and set about preparation for the midday meal. But he did not miss anything going on around him. He saw the girl go into her shelter and come out with her hair all down over her face. Wilson, back to his comrades, grinned his glee, and he wagged his head as if he thought the situation was developing.

The gambling outlaws, however, did not at once see the girl preening herself and smoothing her long hair in a way calculated to startle.

“Busted!” ejaculated Anson, with a curse, as he slammed down his cards. “If I ain’t hoodooed I’m a two-bit of a gambler!”

“Sartin you’re hoodooed,” said Shady Jones, in scorn. “Is thet jest dawnin’ on you?”

“Boss, you play like a cow stuck in the mud,” remarked Moze, laconically.

“Fellars, it ain’t funny,” declared Anson, with pathetic gravity. “I’m jest gittin’ on to myself. Somethin’s wrong. Since ‘way last fall no luck — nothin’ but the wust end of everythin’. I ain’t blamin’ anybody. I’m the boss. It’s me thet’s off.”

“Snake, shore it was the gurl deal you made,” rejoined Wilson, who had listened. “I told you. Our troubles hev only begun. An’ I can see the wind-up. Look!”

Wilson pointed to where the girl stood, her hair flying wildly all over her face and shoulders. She was making most elaborate bows to an old stump, sweeping the ground with her tresses in her obeisance.

Anson started. He grew utterly astounded. His amaze was ludicrous. And the other two men looked to stare, to equal their leader’s bewilderment.

“What ‘n hell’s come over her?” asked Anson, dubiously. “Must hev perked up.... But she ain’t feelin’ thet gay!”

Wilson tapped his forehead with a significant finger.

“Shore I was scared of her this mawnin’,” he whispered.

“Naw!” exclaimed Anson, incredulously.

“If she hain’t queer I never seen no queer wimmin,” vouchsafed Shady Jones, and it would have been judged, by the way he wagged his head, that he had been all his days familiar with women.

Moze looked beyond words, and quite alarmed.

“I seen it comin’,” declared Wilson, very much excited. “But I was scared to say so. You-all made fun of me aboot her. Now I shore wish I had spoken up.”

Anson nodded solemnly. He did not believe the evidence of his sight, but the facts seemed stunning. As if the girl were a dangerous and incomprehensible thing, he approached her step by step. Wilson followed, and the others appeared drawn irresistibly.

“Hey thar — kid!” called Anson, hoarsely.

The girl drew her slight form up haughtily. Through her spreading tresses her eyes gleamed unnaturally upon the outlaw leader. But she deigned not to reply.

“Hey thar — you Rayner girl!” added Anson, lamely. “What’s ailin’ you?”

“My lord! did you address me?” she asked, loftily.

Shady Jones got over his consternation and evidently extracted some humor from the situation, as his dark face began to break its strain.

“Aww!” breathed Anson, heavily.

“Ophelia awaits your command, my lord. I’ve been gathering flowers,” she said, sweetly, holding up her empty hands as if they contained a bouquet.

Shady Jones exploded in convulsed laughter. But his merriment was not shared. And suddenly it brought disaster upon him. The girl flew at him.

“Why do you croak, you toad? I will have you whipped and put in irons, you scullion!” she cried, passionately.

Shady underwent a remarkable change, and stumbled in his backward retreat. Then she snapped her fingers in Moze’s face.

“You black devil! Get hence! Avaunt!”

Anson plucked up courage enough to touch her.

“Aww! Now, Ophelyar—”

Probably he meant to try to humor her, but she screamed, and he jumped back as if she might burn him. She screamed shrilly, in wild, staccato notes.

“You! You!” she pointed her finger at the outlaw leader. “You brute to women! You ran off from your wife!”

Anson turned plum-color and then slowly white. The girl must have sent a random shot home.

“And now the devil’s turned you into a snake. A long, scaly snake with green eyes! Uugh! You’ll crawl on your belly soon — when my cowboy finds you. And he’ll tramp you in the dust.”

She floated away from them and began to whirl gracefully, arms spread and hair flying; and then, apparently oblivious of the staring men, she broke into a low, sweet song. Next she danced around a pine, then danced into her little green inclosure. From which presently she sent out the most doleful moans.

“Aww! What a shame!” burst out Anson. “Thet fine, healthy, nervy kid! Clean gone! Daffy! Crazy ‘n a bedbug!”

“Shore it’s a shame,” protested Wilson. “But it’s wuss for us. Lord! if we was hoodooed before, what will we be now? Didn’t I tell you, Snake Anson? You was warned. Ask Shady an’ Moze — they see what’s up.”

“No luck ‘ll ever come our way ag’in,” predicted Shady, mournfully.

“It beats me, boss, it beats me,” muttered Moze.

“A crazy woman on my hands! If thet ain’t the last straw!” broke out Anson, tragically, as he turned away. Ignorant, superstitious, worked upon by things as they seemed, the outlaw imagined himself at last beset by malign forces. When he flung himself down upon one of the packs his big red-haired hands shook. Shady and Moze resembled two other men at the end of their ropes.

Wilson’s tense face twitched, and he averted it, as apparently he fought off a paroxysm of some nature. Just then Anson swore a thundering oath.

“Crazy or not, I’ll git gold out of thet kid!” he roared.

“But, man, talk sense. Are you gittin’ daffy, too? I declare this outfit’s been eatin’ loco. You can’t git gold fer her!” said Wilson, deliberately.

“Why can’t I?”

“‘Cause we’re tracked. We can’t make no dickers. Why, in another day or so we’ll be dodgin’ lead.”

“Tracked! Whar ‘d you git thet idee? As soon as this?” queried Anson, lifting his head like a striking snake. His men, likewise, betrayed sudden interest.

“Shore it’s no idee. I ‘ain’t seen any one. But I feel it in my senses. I hear somebody comin’ — a step on our trail — all the time — night in particular. Reckon there’s a big posse after us.”

“Wal, if I see or hear anythin’ I’ll knock the girl on the head an’ we’ll dig out of hyar,” replied Anson, sullenly.

Wilson executed a swift forward motion, violent and passionate, so utterly unlike what might have been looked for from him, that the three outlaws gaped.

“Then you’ll shore hev to knock Jim Wilson on the haid first,” he said, in voice as strange as his action.

“Jim! You wouldn’t go back on me!” implored Anson, with uplifted hands, in a dignity of pathos.

“I’m losin’ my haid, too, an’ you shore might as well knock it in, an’ you’ll hev to before I’ll stand you murderin’ thet pore little gurl you’ve drove crazy.”

“Jim, I was only mad,” replied Anson. “Fer thet matter, I’m growin’ daffy myself. Aw! we all need a good stiff drink of whisky.”

So he tried to throw off gloom and apprehension, but he failed. His comrades did not rally to his help. Wilson walked away, nodding his head.

“Boss, let Jim alone,” whispered Shady. “It’s orful the way you buck ag’in’ him — when you seen he’s stirred up. Jim’s true blue. But you gotta be careful.”

Moze corroborated this statement by gloomy nods.

When the card-playing was resumed, Anson did not join the game, and both Moze and Shady evinced little of that whole-hearted obsession which usually attended their gambling. Anson lay at length, his head in a saddle, scowling at the little shelter where the captive girl kept herself out of sight. At times a faint song or laugh, very unnatural, was wafted across the space. Wilson plodded at the cooking and apparently heard no sounds. Presently he called the men to eat, which office they surlily and silently performed, as if it was a favor bestowed upon the cook.

“Snake, hadn’t I ought to take a bite of grub over to the gurl?” asked Wilson.

“Do you hev to ask me thet?” snapped Anson. “She’s gotta be fed, if we hev to stuff it down her throat.”

“Wal, I ain’t stuck on the job,” replied Wilson. “But I’ll tackle it, seein’ you-all got cold feet.”

With plate and cup be reluctantly approached the little lean-to, and, kneeling, he put his head inside. The girl, quick-eyed and alert, had evidently seen him coming. At any rate, she greeted him with a cautious smile.

“Jim, was I pretty good?” she whispered.

“Miss, you was shore the finest aktress I ever seen,” he responded, in a low voice. “But you dam near overdid it. I’m goin’ to tell Anson you’re sick now — poisoned or somethin’ awful. Then we’ll wait till night. Dale shore will help us out.”

“Oh, I’m on fire to get away,” she exclaimed. “Jim Wilson, I’ll never forget you as long as I live!”

He seemed greatly embarrassed.

“Wal — miss — I — I’ll do my best licks. But I ain’t gamblin’ none on results. Be patient. Keep your nerve. Don’t get scared. I reckon between me an’ Dale you’ll git away from heah.”

Withdrawing his head, he got up and returned to the camp-fire, where Anson was waiting curiously.

“I left the grub. But she didn’t touch it. Seems sort of sick to me, like she was poisoned.”

“Jim, didn’t I hear you talkin’?” asked Anson.

“Shore. I was coaxin’ her. Reckon she ain’t so ranty as she was. But she shore is doubled-up, an’ sickish.”

“Wuss an’ wuss all the time,” said Anson, between his teeth. “An’ where’s Burt? Hyar it’s noon an’ he left early. He never was no woodsman. He’s got lost.”

“Either thet or he’s run into somethin’,” replied Wilson, thoughtfully.

Anson doubled a huge fist and cursed deep under his breath — the reaction of a man whose accomplices and partners and tools, whose luck, whose faith in himself had failed him. He flung himself down under a tree, and after a while, when his rigidity relaxed, he probably fell asleep. Moze and Shady kept at their game. Wilson paced to and fro, sat down, and then got up to bunch the horses again, walked around the dell and back to camp. The afternoon hours were long. And they were waiting hours. The act of waiting appeared on the surface of all these outlaws did.

At sunset the golden gloom of the glen changed to a vague, thick twilight. Anson rolled over, yawned, and sat up. As he glanced around, evidently seeking Burt, his face clouded.

“No sign of Burt?” he asked.

Wilson expressed a mild surprise. “Wal, Snake, you ain’t expectin’ Burt now?”

“I am, course I am. Why not?” demanded Anson. “Any other time we’d look fer him, wouldn’t we?”

“Any other time ain’t now.... Burt won’t ever come back!” Wilson spoke it with a positive finality.

“A-huh! Some more of them queer feelin’s of yourn — operatin’ again, hey? Them onnatural kind thet you can’t explain, hey?”

Anson’s queries were bitter and rancorous.

“Yes. An’, Snake, I tax you with this heah. Ain’t any of them queer feelin’s operatin’ in you?”

“No!” rolled out the leader, savagely. But his passionate denial was a proof that he lied. From the moment of this outburst, which was a fierce clinging to the old, brave instincts of his character, unless a sudden change marked the nature of his fortunes, he would rapidly deteriorate to the breaking-point. And in such brutal, unrestrained natures as his this breaking-point meant a desperate stand, a desperate forcing of events, a desperate accumulation of passions that stalked out to deal and to meet disaster and blood and death.

Wilson put a little wood on the fire and he munched a biscuit. No one asked him to cook. No one made any effort to do so. One by one each man went to the pack to get some bread and meat.

Then they waited as men who knew not what they waited for, yet hated and dreaded it.

Twilight in that glen was naturally a strange, veiled condition of the atmosphere. It was a merging of shade and light, which two seemed to make gray, creeping shadows.

Suddenly a snorting and stamping of the horses startled the men.

“Somethin’ scared the hosses,” said Anson, rising. “Come on.”

Moze accompanied him, and they disappeared in the gloom. More trampling of hoofs was heard, then a cracking of brush, and the deep voices of men. At length the two outlaws returned, leading three of the horses, which they haltered in the open glen.

The camp-fire light showed Anson’s face dark and serious.

“Jim, them hosses are wilder ‘n deer,” he said. “I ketched mine, an’ Moze got two. But the rest worked away whenever we come close. Some varmint has scared them bad. We all gotta rustle out thar quick.”

Wilson rose, shaking his head doubtfully. And at that moment the quiet air split to a piercing, horrid neigh of a terrified horse. Prolonged to a screech, it broke and ended. Then followed snorts of fright, pound and crack and thud of hoofs, and crash of brush; then a gathering thumping, crashing roar, split by piercing sounds.

“Stampede!” yelled Anson, and he ran to hold his own horse, which he had haltered right in camp. It was big and wild-looking, and now reared and plunged to break away. Anson just got there in time, and then it took all his weight to pull the horse down. Not until the crashing, snorting, pounding melee had subsided and died away over the rim of the glen did Anson dare leave his frightened favorite.

“Gone! Our horses are gone! Did you hear ‘em?” he exclaimed, blankly.

“Shore. They’re a cut-up an’ crippled bunch by now,” replied Wilson.

“Boss, we’ll never git ‘ern back, not ‘n a hundred years,” declared Moze.

“Thet settles us, Snake Anson,” stridently added Shady Jones. “Them hosses are gone! You can kiss your hand to them.... They wasn’t hobbled. They hed an orful scare. They split on thet stampede an’ they’ll never git together. ... See what you’ve fetched us to!”

Under the force of this triple arraignment the outlaw leader dropped to his seat, staggered and silenced. In fact, silence fell upon all the men and likewise enfolded the glen.

Night set in jet-black, dismal, lonely, without a star. Faintly the wind moaned. Weirdly the brook babbled through its strange chords to end in the sound that was hollow. It was never the same — a rumble, as if faint, distant thunder — a deep gurgle, as of water drawn into a vortex — a rolling, as of a stone in swift current. The black cliff was invisible, yet seemed to have many weird faces; the giant pines loomed spectral; the shadows were thick, moving, changing. Flickering lights from the camp-fire circled the huge trunks and played fantastically over the brooding men. This camp-fire did not burn or blaze cheerily; it had no glow, no sputter, no white heart, no red, living embers. One by one the outlaws, as if with common consent, tried their hands at making the fire burn aright. What little wood had been collected was old; it would burn up with false flare, only to die quickly.

After a while not one of the outlaws spoke or stirred. Not one smoked. Their gloomy eyes were fixed on the fire. Each one was concerned with his own thoughts, his own lonely soul unconsciously full of a doubt of the future. That brooding hour severed him from comrade.

At night nothing seemed the same as it was by day. With success and plenty, with full-blooded action past and more in store, these outlaws were as different from their present state as this black night was different from the bright day they waited for. Wilson, though he played a deep game of deceit for the sake of the helpless girl — and thus did not have haunting and superstitious fears on her account — was probably more conscious of impending catastrophe than any of them.

The evil they had done spoke in the voice of nature, out of the darkness, and was interpreted by each according to his hopes and fears. Fear was their predominating sense. For years they had lived with some species of fear — of honest men or vengeance, of pursuit, of starvation, of lack of drink or gold, of blood and death, of stronger men, of luck, of chance, of fate, of mysterious nameless force. Wilson was the type of fearless spirit, but he endured the most gnawing and implacable fear of all — that of himself — that he must inevitably fall to deeds beneath his manhood.

So they hunched around the camp-fire, brooding because hope was at lowest ebb; listening because the weird, black silence, with its moan of wind and hollow laugh of brook, compelled them to hear; waiting for sleep, for the hours to pass, for whatever was to come.

And it was Anson who caught the first intimation of an impending doom.

CHAPTER XXIII

“Listen!”

ANSON WHISPERED TENSELY. His poise was motionless, his eyes roved everywhere. He held up a shaking, bludgy finger, to command silence.

A third and stranger sound accompanied the low, weird moan of the wind, and the hollow mockery of the brook — and it seemed a barely perceptible, exquisitely delicate wail or whine. It filled in the lulls between the other sounds.

“If thet’s some varmint he’s close,” whispered Anson.

“But shore, it’s far off,” said Wilson.

Shady Jones and Moze divided their opinions in the same way.

All breathed freer when the wail ceased, relaxing to their former lounging positions around the fire. An impenetrable wall of blackness circled the pale space lighted by the camp-fire; and this circle contained the dark, somber group of men in the center, the dying camp-fire, and a few spectral trunks of pines and the tethered horses on the outer edge. The horses scarcely moved from their tracks, and their erect, alert heads attested to their sensitiveness to the peculiarities of the night.

Then, at an unusually quiet lull the strange sound gradually arose to a wailing whine.

“It’s thet crazy wench cryin’,” declared the outlaw leader.

Apparently his allies accepted that statement with as much relief as they had expressed for the termination of the sound.

“Shore, thet must be it,” agreed Jim Wilson, gravely.

“We’ll git a lot of sleep with thet gurl whinin’ all night,” growled Shady Jones.

“She gives me the creeps,” said Moze.

Wilson got up to resume his pondering walk, head bent, hands behind his back, a grim, realistic figure of perturbation.

“Jim — set down. You make me nervous,” said Anson, irritably.

Wilson actually laughed, but low, as if to keep his strange mirth well confined.

“Snake, I’ll bet you my hoss an’ my gun ag’in’ a biscuit thet in aboot six seconds more or less I’ll be stampedin like them hosses.”

Anson’s lean jaw dropped. The other two outlaws stared with round eyes. Wilson was not drunk, they evidently knew; but what he really was appeared a mystery.

“Jim Wilson, are you showin’ yellow?” queried Anson, hoarsely.

“Mebbe. The Lord only knows. But listen heah.... Snake, you’ve seen an’ heard people croak?”

“You mean cash in — die?”

“Shore.”

“Wal, yes — a couple or so,” replied Anson, grimly.

“But you never seen no one die of shock — of an orful scare?”

“No, I reckon I never did.”

“I have. An’ thet’s what’s ailin’ Jim Wilson,” and he resumed his dogged steps.

Anson and his two comrades exchanged bewildered glances with one another.

“A-huh! Say, what’s thet got to do with us hyar? asked Anson, presently.

“Thet gurl is dyin’!” retorted Wilson, in a voice cracking like a whip.

The three outlaws stiffened in their seats, incredulous, yet irresistibly swayed by emotions that stirred to this dark, lonely, ill-omened hour.

Wilson trudged to the edge of the lighted circle, muttering to himself, and came back again; then he trudged farther, this time almost out of sight, but only to return; the third time he vanished in the impenetrable wall of light. The three men scarcely moved a muscle as they watched the place where he had disappeared. In a few moments he came stumbling back.

“Shore she’s almost gone,” he said, dismally. “It took my nerve, but I felt of her face.... Thet orful wail is her breath chokin’ in her throat.... Like a death-rattle, only long instead of short.”

“Wal, if she’s gotta croak it’s good she gits it over quick,” replied Anson. “I ‘ain’t hed sleep fer three nights. ... An’ what I need is whisky.”

“Snake, thet’s gospel you’re spoutin’,” remarked Shady Jones, morosely.

The direction of sound in the glen was difficult to be assured of, but any man not stirred to a high pitch of excitement could have told that the difference in volume of this strange wail must have been caused by different distances and positions. Also, when it was loudest, it was most like a whine. But these outlaws heard with their consciences.

At last it ceased abruptly.

Wilson again left the group to be swallowed up by the night. His absence was longer than usual, but he returned hurriedly.

“She’s daid!” he exclaimed, solemnly. “Thet innocent kid — who never harmed no one — an’ who’d make any man better fer seein’ her — she’s daid!... Anson, you’ve shore a heap to answer fer when your time comes.”

“What’s eatin’ you?” demanded the leader, angrily. “Her blood ain’t on my hands.”

“It shore is,” shouted Wilson, shaking his hand at Anson. “An’ you’ll hev to take your medicine. I felt thet comin’ all along. An’ I feel some more.”

“Aw! She’s jest gone to sleep,” declared Anson, shaking his long frame as he rose. “Gimme a light.”

“Boss, you’re plumb off to go near a dead gurl thet’s jest died crazy,” protested Shady Jones.

“Off! Haw! Haw! Who ain’t off in this outfit, I’d like to know?” Anson possessed himself of a stick blazing at one and, and with this he stalked off toward the lean-to where the girl was supposed to be dead. His gaunt figure, lighted by the torch, certainly fitted the weird, black surroundings. And it was seen that once near the girl’s shelter he proceeded more slowly, until he halted. He bent to peer inside.

“SHE’S GONE!” he yelled, in harsh, shaken accents.

Than the torch burned out, leaving only a red glow. He whirled it about, but the blaze did not rekindle. His comrades, peering intently, lost sight of his tall form and the end of the red-ended stick. Darkness like pitch swallowed him. For a moment no sound intervened. Again the moan of wind, the strange little mocking hollow roar, dominated the place. Then there came a rush of something, perhaps of air, like the soft swishing of spruce branches swinging aside. Dull, thudding footsteps followed it. Anson came running back to the fire. His aspect was wild, his face pale, his eyes were fierce and starting from their sockets. He had drawn his gun.

“Did — ye — see er hear — anythin’?” he panted, peering back, then all around, and at last at his man.

“No. An’ I shore was lookin’ an’ listenin’,” replied Wilson.

“Boss, there wasn’t nothin’,” declared Moze.

“I ain’t so sartin,” said Shady Jones, with doubtful, staring eyes. “I believe I heerd a rustlin’.”

“She wasn’t there!” ejaculated Anson, in wondering awe. “She’s gone!... My torch went out. I couldn’t see. An’ jest then I felt somethin’ was passin’. Fast! I jerked ‘round. All was black, an’ yet if I didn’t see a big gray streak I’m crazier ‘n thet gurl. But I couldn’t swear to anythin’ but a rushin’ of wind. I felt thet.”

“Gone!” exclaimed Wilson, in great alarm. “Fellars, if thet’s so, then mebbe she wasn’t daid an’ she wandered off. ... But she was daid! Her heart hed quit beatin’. I’ll swear to thet.”

“I move to break camp,” said Shady Jones, gruffly, and he stood up. Moze seconded that move by an expressive flash of his black visage.

“Jim, if she’s dead — an’ gone — what ‘n hell’s come off?” huskily asked Anson. “It, only seems thet way. We’re all worked up.... Let’s talk sense.”

“Anson, shore there’s a heap you an’ me don’t know,” replied Wilson. “The world come to an end once. Wal, it can come to another end.... I tell you I ain’t surprised—”

“THAR!” cried Anson, whirling, with his gun leaping out.

Something huge, shadowy, gray against the black rushed behind the men and trees; and following it came a perceptible acceleration of the air.

“Shore, Snake, there wasn’t nothin’,” said Wilson, “presently.”

“I heerd,” whispered Shady Jones.

“It was only a breeze blowin’ thet smoke,” rejoined Moze.

“I’d bet my soul somethin’ went back of me,” declared Anson, glaring into the void.

“Listen an’ let’s make shore,” suggested Wilson.

The guilty, agitated faces of the outlaws showed plain enough in the flickering light for each to see a convicting dread in his fellow. Like statues they stood, watching and listening.

Few sounds stirred in the strange silence. Now and then the horses heaved heavily, but stood still; a dismal, dreary note of the wind in the pines vied with a hollow laugh of the brook. And these low sounds only fastened attention upon the quality of the silence. A breathing, lonely spirit of solitude permeated the black dell. Like a pit of unplumbed depths the dark night yawned. An evil conscience, listening there, could have heard the most peaceful, beautiful, and mournful sounds of nature only as strains of a calling hell.

Suddenly the silent, oppressive, surcharged air split to a short, piercing scream.

Anson’s big horse stood up straight, pawing the air, and came down with a crash. The other horses shook with terror.

“Wasn’t — thet — a cougar?” whispered Anson, thickly.

“Thet was a woman’s scream,” replied Wilson, and he appeared to be shaking like a leaf in the wind.

“Then — I figgered right — the kid’s alive — wonderin’ around — an’ she let out thet orful scream,” said Anson.

“Wonderin’ ‘round, yes — but she’s daid!”

“My Gawd! it ain’t possible!”

“Wal, if she ain’t wonderin’ round daid she’s almost daid,” replied Wilson. And he began to whisper to himself.

“If I’d only knowed what thet deal meant I’d hev plugged Beasley instead of listenin’.... An’ I ought to hev knocked thet kid on the head an’ made sartin she’d croaked. If she goes screamin’ ‘round thet way—”

His voice failed as there rose a thin, splitting, high-pointed shriek, somewhat resembling the first scream, only less wild. It came apparently from the cliff.

From another point in the pitch-black glen rose the wailing, terrible cry of a woman in agony. Wild, haunting, mournful wail!

Anson’s horse, loosing the halter, plunged back, almost falling over a slight depression in the rocky ground. The outlaw caught him and dragged him nearer the fire. The other horses stood shaking and straining. Moze ran between them and held them. Shady Jones threw green brush on the fire. With sputter and crackle a blaze started, showing Wilson standing tragically, his arms out, facing the black shadows.

The strange, live shriek was not repeated. But the cry, like that of a woman in her death-throes, pierced the silence again. It left a quivering ring that softly died away. Then the stillness clamped down once more and the darkness seemed to thicken. The men waited, and when they had begun to relax the cry burst out appallingly close, right behind the trees. It was human — the personification of pain and terror — the tremendous struggle of precious life against horrible death. So pure, so exquisite, so wonderful was the cry that the listeners writhed as if they saw an innocent, tender, beautiful girl torn frightfully before their eyes. It was full of suspense; it thrilled for death; its marvelous potency was the wild note — that beautiful and ghastly note of self-preservation.

In sheer desperation the outlaw leader fired his gun at the black wall whence the cry came. Then he had to fight his horse to keep him from plunging away. Following the shot was an interval of silence; the horses became tractable; the men gathered closer to the fire, with the halters still held firmly.

“If it was a cougar — thet ‘d scare him off,” said Anson.

“Shore, but it ain’t a cougar,” replied Wilson. “Wait an’ see!”

They all waited, listening with ears turned to different points, eyes roving everywhere, afraid of their very shadows. Once more the moan of wind, the mockery of brook, deep gurgle, laugh and babble, dominated the silence of the glen.

“Boss, let’s shake this spooky hole,” whispered Moze.

The suggestion attracted Anson, and he pondered it while slowly shaking his head.

“We’ve only three hosses. An’ mine ‘ll take ridin’ — after them squalls,” replied the leader. “We’ve got packs, too. An’ hell ‘ain’t nothin’ on this place fer bein’ dark.”

“No matter. Let’s go. I’ll walk an’ lead the way,” said Moze, eagerly. “I got sharp eyes. You fellars can ride an’ carry a pack. We’ll git out of here an’ come back in daylight fer the rest of the outfit.”

“Anson, I’m keen fer thet myself,” declared Shady Jones.

“Jim, what d’ye say to thet?” queried Anson. “Rustlin’ out of this black hole?”

“Shore it’s a grand idee,” agreed Wilson.

“Thet was a cougar,” avowed Anson, gathering courage as the silence remained unbroken. “But jest the same it was as tough on me as if it hed been a woman screamin’ over a blade twistin’ in her gizzards.”

“Snake, shore you seen a woman heah lately?” deliberately asked Wilson.

“Reckon I did. Thet kid,” replied Anson, dubiously.

“Wal, you seen her go crazy, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“‘An’ she wasn’t heah when you went huntin’ fer her?”

“Correct.”

“Wal, if thet’s so, what do you want to blab about cougars for?”

Wilson’s argument seemed incontestable. Shady and Moze nodded gloomily and shifted restlessly from foot to foot. Anson dropped his head.

“No matter — if we only don’t hear—” he began, suddenly to grow mute.

Right upon them, from some place, just out the circle of light, rose a scream, by reason of its proximity the most piercing and agonizing yet heard, simply petrifying the group until the peal passed. Anson’s huge horse reared, and with a snort of terror lunged in tremendous leap, straight out. He struck Anson with thudding impact, knocking him over the rocks into the depression back of the camp-fire, and plunging after him. Wilson had made a flying leap just in time to avoid being struck, and he turned to see Anson go down. There came a crash, a groan, and then the strike and pound of hoofs as the horse struggled up. Apparently he had rolled over his master.

“Help, fellars!” yelled Wilson, quick to leap down over the little bank, and in the dim light to grasp the halter. The three men dragged the horse out and securely tied him close to a tree. That done, they peered down into the depression. Anson’s form could just barely be distinguished in the gloom. He lay stretched out. Another groan escaped him.

“Shore I’m scared he’s hurt,” said Wilson.

“Hoss rolled right on top of him. An’ thet hoss’s heavy,” declared Moze.

They got down and knelt beside their leader. In the darkness his face looked dull gray. His breathing was not right.

“Snake, old man, you ain’t — hurt?” asked Wilson, with a tremor in his voice. Receiving no reply, he said to his comrades, “Lay hold an’ we’ll heft him up where we can see.”

The three men carefully lifted Anson up on the bank and laid him near the fire in the light. Anson was conscious. His face was ghastly. Blood showed on his lips.

Wilson knelt beside him. The other outlaws stood up, and with one dark gaze at one another damned Anson’s chance of life. And on the instant rose that terrible distressing scream of acute agony — like that of a woman being dismembered. Shady Jones whispered something to Moze. Then they stood up, gazing down at their fallen leader.

“Tell me where you’re hurt?” asked Wilson.

“He — smashed — my chest,” said Anson, in a broken, strangled whisper.

Wilson’s deft hands opened the outlaw’s shirt and felt of his chest.

“No. Shore your breast-bone ain’t smashed,” replied Wilson, hopefully. And he began to run his hand around one side of Anson’s body and then the other. Abruptly he stopped, averted his gaze, then slowly ran the hand all along that side. Anson’s ribs had been broken and crushed in by the weight of the horse. He was bleeding at the mouth, and his slow, painful expulsions of breath brought a bloody froth, which showed that the broken bones had penetrated the lungs. An injury sooner or later fatal!

“Pard, you busted a rib or two,” said Wilson.

“Aw, Jim — it must be — wuss ‘n thet!” he whispered. “I’m — in orful — pain. An’ I can’t — git any — breath.”

“Mebbe you’ll be better,” said Wilson, with a cheerfulness his face belied.

Moze bent close over Anson, took a short scrutiny of that ghastly face, at the blood-stained lips, and the lean hands plucking at nothing. Then he jerked erect.

“Shady, he’s goin’ to cash. Let’s clear out of this.”

“I’m yours pertickler previous,” replied Jones.

Both turned away. They untied the two horses and led them up to where the saddles lay. Swiftly the blankets went on, swiftly the saddles swung up, swiftly the cinches snapped. Anson lay gazing up at Wilson, comprehending this move. And Wilson stood strangely grim and silent, somehow detached coldly from that self of the past few hours.

“Shady, you grab some bread an’ I’ll pack a bunk of meat,” said Moze. Both men came near the fire, into the light, within ten feet of where the leader lay.

“Fellars — you ain’t — slopin’?” he whispered, in husky amaze.

“Boss, we air thet same. We can’t do you no good an’ this hole ain’t healthy,” replied Moze.

Shady Jones swung himself astride his horse, all about him sharp, eager, strung.

“Moze, I’ll tote the grub an’ you lead out of hyar, till we git past the wust timber,” he said.

“Aw, Moze — you wouldn’t leave — Jim hyar — alone,” implored Anson.

“Jim can stay till he rots,” retorted Moze. “I’ve hed enough of this hole.”

“But, Moze — it ain’t square—” panted Anson. “Jim wouldn’t — leave me. I’d stick — by you.... I’ll make it — all up to you.”

“Snake, you’re goin’ to cash,” sardonically returned Moze.

A current leaped all through Anson’s stretched frame. His ghastly face blazed. That was the great and the terrible moment which for long had been in abeyance. Wilson had known grimly that it would come, by one means or another. Anson had doggedly and faithfully struggled against the tide of fatal issues. Moze and Shady Jones, deep locked in their self-centered motives, had not realized the inevitable trend of their dark lives.

Anson, prostrate as he was, swiftly drew his gun and shot Moze. Without sound or movement of hand Moze fell. Then the plunge of Shady’s horse caused Anson’s second shot to miss. A quick third shot brought no apparent result but Shady’s cursing resort to his own weapon. He tried to aim from his plunging horse. His bullets spattered dust and gravel over Anson. Then Wilson’s long arm stretched and his heavy gun banged. Shady collapsed in the saddle, and the frightened horse, throwing him, plunged out of the circle of light. Thudding hoofs, crashings of brush, quickly ceased.

“Jim — did you — git him?” whispered Anson.

“Shore did, Snake,” was the slow, halting response. Jim Wilson must have sustained a sick shudder as he replied. Sheathing his gun, he folded a blanket and put it under Anson’s head.

“Jim — my feet — air orful cold,” whispered Anson.

“Wal, it’s gittin’ chilly,” replied Wilson, and, taking a second blanket, he laid that over Anson’s limbs. “Snake, I’m feared Shady hit you once.”

“A-huh! But not so I’d care — much — if I hed — no wuss hurt.”

“You lay still now. Reckon Shady’s hoss stopped out heah a ways. An’ I’ll see.”

“Jim — I ‘ain’t heerd — thet scream fer — a little.”

“Shore it’s gone.... Reckon now thet was a cougar.”

“I knowed it!”

Wilson stalked away into the darkness. That inky wall did not seem so impenetrable and black after he had gotten out of the circle of light. He proceeded carefully and did not make any missteps. He groped from tree to tree toward the cliff and presently brought up against a huge flat rock as high as his head. Here the darkness was blackest, yet he was able to see a light form on the rock.

“Miss, are you there — all right?” he called, softly.

“Yes, but I’m scared to death,” she whispered in reply.

“Shore it wound up sudden. Come now. I reckon your trouble’s over.”

He helped her off the rock, and, finding her unsteady on her feet, he supported her with one arm and held the other out in front of him to feel for objects. Foot by foot they worked out from under the dense shadow of the cliff, following the course of the little brook. It babbled and gurgled, and almost drowned the low whistle Wilson sent out. The girl dragged heavily upon him now, evidently weakening. At length he reached the little open patch at the head of the ravine. Halting here, he whistled. An answer came from somewhere behind him and to the right. Wilson waited, with the girl hanging on his arm.

“Dale’s heah,” he said. “An’ don’t you keel over now — after all the nerve you hed.”

A swishing of brush, a step, a soft, padded footfall; a looming, dark figure, and a long, low gray shape, stealthily moving — it was the last of these that made Wilson jump.

“Wilson!” came Dale’s subdued voice.

“Heah. I’ve got her, Dale. Safe an sound,” replied Wilson, stepping toward the tall form. And he put the drooping girl into Dale’s arms.

“Bo! Bo! You’re all right?” Dale’s deep voice was tremulous.

She roused up to seize him and to utter little cries of joy

“Oh, Dale!... Oh, thank Heaven! I’m ready to drop now.... Hasn’t it been a night — an adventure?... I’m well — safe — sound.... Dale, we owe it to this Jim Wilson.”

“Bo, I — we’ll all thank him — all our lives,” replied Dale. “Wilson, you’re a man!... If you’ll shake that gang—”

“Dale, shore there ain’t much of a gang left, onless you let Burt git away,” replied Wilson.

“I didn’t kill him — or hurt him. But I scared him so I’ll bet he’s runnin’ yet.... Wilson, did all the shootin’ mean a fight?”

“Tolerable.”

“Oh, Dale, it was terrible! I saw it all. I—”

“Wal, Miss, you can tell him after I go.... I’m wishin’ you good luck.”

His voice was a cool, easy drawl, slightly tremulous.

The girl’s face flashed white in the gloom. She pressed against the outlaw — wrung his hands.

“Heaven help you, Jim Wilson! You ARE from Texas!... I’ll remember you — pray for you all my life!”

Wilson moved away, out toward the pale glow of light under the black pines.

CHAPTER XXIV

AS HELEN RAYNER watched Dale ride away on a quest perilous to him, and which meant almost life or death for her, it was surpassing strange that she could think of nothing except the thrilling, tumultuous moment when she had put her arms round his neck.

It did not matter that Dale — splendid fellow that he was — had made the ensuing moment free of shame by taking her action as he had taken it — the fact that she had actually done it was enough. How utterly impossible for her to anticipate her impulses or to understand them, once they were acted upon! Confounding realization then was that when Dale returned with her sister, Helen knew she would do the same thing over again!

“If I do — I won’t be two-faced about it,” she soliloquized, and a hot blush flamed her cheeks.

She watched Dale until he rode out of sight.

When he had gone, worry and dread replaced this other confusing emotion. She turned to the business of meeting events. Before supper she packed her valuables and books, papers, and clothes, together with Bo’s, and had them in readiness so if she was forced to vacate the premises she would have her personal possessions.

The Mormon boys and several other of her trusted men slept in their tarpaulin beds on the porch of the ranch-house that night, so that Helen at least would not be surprised. But the day came, with its manifold duties undisturbed by any event. And it passed slowly with the leaden feet of listening, watching vigilance.

Carmichael did not come back, nor was there news of him to be had. The last known of him had been late the afternoon of the preceding day, when a sheep-herder had seen him far out on the north range, headed for the hills. The Beemans reported that Roy’s condition had improved, and also that there was a subdued excitement of suspense down in the village.

This second lonely night was almost unendurable for Helen. When she slept it was to dream horrible dreams; when she lay awake it was to have her heart leap to her throat at a rustle of leaves near the window, and to be in torture of imagination as to poor Bo’s plight. A thousand times Helen said to herself that Beasley could have had the ranch and welcome, if only Bo had been spared. Helen absolutely connected her enemy with her sister’s disappearance. Riggs might have been a means to it.

Daylight was not attended by so many fears; there were things to do that demanded attention. And thus it was that the next morning, shortly before noon, she was recalled to her perplexities by a shouting out at the corrals and a galloping of horses somewhere near. From the window she saw a big smoke.

“Fire! That must be one of the barns — the old one, farthest out,” she said, gazing out of the window. “Some careless Mexican with his everlasting cigarette!”

Helen resisted an impulse to go out and see what had happened. She had decided to stay in the house. But when footsteps sounded on the porch and a rap on the door, she unhesitatingly opened it. Four Mexicans stood close. One of them, quick as thought, flashed a hand in to grasp her, and in a single motion pulled her across the threshold.

“No hurt, Senora,” he said, and pointed — making motions she must go.

Helen did not need to be told what this visit meant. Many as her conjectures had been, however, she had not thought of Beasley subjecting her to this outrage. And her blood boiled.

“How dare you!” she said, trembling in her effort to control her temper. But class, authority, voice availed nothing with these swarthy Mexicans. They grinned. Another laid hold of Helen with dirty, brown hand. She shrank from the contact.

“Let go!” she burst out, furiously. And instinctively she began to struggle to free herself. Then they all took hold of her. Helen’s dignity might never have been! A burning, choking rush of blood was her first acquaintance with the terrible passion of anger that was her inheritance from the Auchinclosses. She who had resolved never to lay herself open to indignity now fought like a tigress. The Mexicans, jabbering in their excitement, had all they could do, until they lifted her bodily from the porch. They handled her as if she had been a half-empty sack of corn. One holding each hand and foot they packed her, with dress disarranged and half torn off, down the path to the lane and down the lane to the road. There they stood upright and pushed her off her property.

Through half-blind eyes Helen saw them guarding the gateway, ready to prevent her entrance. She staggered down the road to the village. It seemed she made her way through a red dimness — that there was a congestion in her brain — that the distance to Mrs. Cass’s cottage was insurmountable. But she got there, to stagger up the path, to hear the old woman’s cry. Dizzy, faint, sick, with a blackness enveloping all she looked at, Helen felt herself led into the sitting-room and placed in the big chair.

Presently sight and clearness of mind returned to her. She saw Roy, white as a sheet, questioning her with terrible eyes. The old woman hung murmuring over her, trying to comfort her as well as fasten the disordered dress.

“Four greasers — packed me down — the hill — threw me off my ranch — into the road!” panted Helen.

She seemed to tell this also to her own consciousness and to realize the mighty wave of danger that shook her whole body.

“If I’d known — I would have killed them!”

She exclaimed that, full-voiced and hard, with dry, hot eyes on her friends. Roy reached out to take her hand, speaking huskily. Helen did not distinguish what he said. The frightened old woman knelt, with unsteady fingers fumbling over the rents in Helen’s dress. The moment came when Helen’s quivering began to subside, when her blood quieted to let her reason sway, when she began to do battle with her rage, and slowly to take fearful stock of this consuming peril that had been a sleeping tigress in her veins.

“Oh, Miss Helen, you looked so turrible, I made sure you was hurted,” the old woman was saying.

Helen gazed strangely at her bruised wrists, at the one stocking that hung down over her shoe-top, at the rent which had bared her shoulder to the profane gaze of those grinning, beady-eyed Mexicans.

“My body’s — not hurt,” she whispered.

Roy had lost some of his whiteness, and where his eyes had been fierce they were now kind.

“Wal, Miss Nell, it’s lucky no harm’s done.... Now if you’ll only see this whole deal clear!... Not let it spoil your sweet way of lookin’ an’ hopin’! If you can only see what’s raw in this West — an’ love it jest the same!”

Helen only half divined his meaning, but that was enough for a future reflection. The West was beautiful, but hard. In the faces of these friends she began to see the meaning of the keen, sloping lines, and shadows of pain, of a lean, naked truth, cut as from marble.

“For the land’s sakes, tell us all about it,” importuned Mrs. Cass.

Whereupon Helen shut her eyes and told the brief narrative of her expulsion from her home.

“Shore we-all expected thet,” said Roy. “An’ it’s jest as well you’re here with a whole skin. Beasley’s in possession now an’ I reckon we’d all sooner hev you away from thet ranch.”

“But, Roy, I won’t let Beasley stay there,” cried Helen.

“Miss Nell, shore by the time this here Pine has growed big enough fer law you’ll hev gray in thet pretty hair. You can’t put Beasley off with your honest an’ rightful claim. Al Auchincloss was a hard driver. He made enemies an’ he made some he didn’t kill. The evil men do lives after them. An’ you’ve got to suffer fer Al’s sins, though Al was as good as any man who ever prospered in these parts.”

“Oh, what can I do? I won’t give up. I’ve been robbed. Can’t the people help me? Must I meekly sit with my hands crossed while that half-breed thief — Oh, it’s unbelievable!”

“I reckon you’ll jest hev to be patient fer a few days,” said Roy, calmly. “It’ll all come right in the end.”

“Roy! You’ve had this deal, as you call it, all worked out in mind for a long time!” exclaimed Helen.

“Shore, an’ I ‘ain’t missed a reckonin’ yet.”

“Then what will happen — in a few days?”

“Nell Rayner, are you goin’ to hev some spunk an’ not lose your nerve again or go wild out of your head?”

“I’ll try to be brave, but — but I must be prepared,” she replied, tremulously.

“Wal, there’s Dale an’ Las Vegas an’ me fer Beasley to reckon with. An’, Miss Nell, his chances fer long life are as pore as his chances fer heaven!”

“But, Roy, I don’t believe in deliberate taking of life,” replied Helen, shuddering. “That’s against my religion. I won’t allow it.... And — then — think, Dale, all of you — in danger!”

“Girl, how ‘re you ever goin’ to help yourself? Shore you might hold Dale back, if you love him, an’ swear you won’t give yourself to him.... An’ I reckon I’d respect your religion, if you was goin’ to suffer through me.... But not Dale nor you — nor Bo — nor love or heaven or hell can ever stop thet cowboy Las Vegas!”

“Oh, if Dale brings Bo back to me — what will I care for my ranch?” murmured Helen.

“Reckon you’ll only begin to care when thet happens. Your big hunter has got to be put to work,” replied Roy, with his keen smile.

Before noon that day the baggage Helen had packed at home was left on the porch of Widow Cass’s cottage, and Helen’s anxious need of the hour was satisfied. She was made comfortable in the old woman’s one spare room, and she set herself the task of fortitude and endurance.

To her surprise, many of Mrs. Cass’s neighbors came unobtrusively to the back door of the little cottage and made sympathetic inquiries. They appeared a subdued and apprehensive group, and whispered to one another as they left. Helen gathered from their visits a conviction that the wives of the men dominated by Beasley believed no good could come of this high-handed taking over of the ranch. Indeed, Helen found at the end of the day that a strength had been borne of her misfortune.

The next day Roy informed her that his brother John had come down the preceding night with the news of Beasley’s descent upon the ranch. Not a shot had been fired, and the only damage done was that of the burning of a hay-filled barn. This had been set on fire to attract Helen’s men to one spot, where Beasley had ridden down upon them with three times their number. He had boldly ordered them off the land, unless they wanted to acknowledge him boss and remain there in his service. The three Beemans had stayed, having planned that just in this event they might be valuable to Helen’s interests. Beasley had ridden down into Pine the same as upon any other day. Roy reported also news which had come in that morning, how Beasley’s crowd had celebrated late the night before.

The second and third and fourth days endlessly wore away, and Helen believed they had made her old. At night she lay awake most of the time, thinking and praying, but during the afternoon she got some sleep. She could think of nothing and talk of nothing except her sister, and Dale’s chances of saving her.

“Well, shore you pay Dale a pore compliment,” finally protested the patient Roy. “I tell you — Milt Dale can do anythin’ he wants to do in the woods. You can believe thet. ... But I reckon he’ll run chances after he comes back.”

This significant speech thrilled Helen with its assurance of hope, and made her blood curdle at the implied peril awaiting the hunter.

On the afternoon of the fifth day Helen was abruptly awakened from her nap. The sun had almost set. She heard voices — the shrill, cackling notes of old Mrs. Cass, high in excitement, a deep voice that made Helen tingle all over, a girl’s laugh, broken but happy. There were footsteps and stamping of hoofs. Dale had brought Bo back! Helen knew it. She grew very weak, and had to force herself to stand erect. Her heart began to pound in her very ears. A sweet and perfect joy suddenly flooded her soul. She thanked God her prayers had been answered. Then suddenly alive with sheer mad physical gladness, she rushed out.

She was just in time to see Roy Beeman stalk out as if he had never been shot, and with a yell greet a big, gray-clad, gray-faced man — Dale.

“Howdy, Roy! Glad to see you up,” said Dale. How the quiet voice steadied Helen! She beheld Bo. Bo, looking the same, except a little pale and disheveled! Then Bo saw her and leaped at her, into her arms.

“Nell! I’m here! Safe — all right! Never was so happy in my life.... Oh-h! talk about your adventures! Nell, you dear old mother to me — I’ve had e-enough forever!”

Bo was wild with joy, and by turns she laughed and cried. But Helen could not voice her feelings. Her eyes were so dim that she could scarcely see Dale when he loomed over her as she held Bo. But he found the hand she put shakily out.

“Nell!... Reckon it’s been harder — on you.” His voice was earnest and halting. She felt his searching gaze upon her face. “Mrs. Cass said you were here. An’ I know why.”

Roy led them all indoors.

“Milt, one of the neighbor boys will take care of thet hoss,” he said, as Dale turned toward the dusty and weary Ranger. “Where’d you leave the cougar?”

“I sent him home,” replied Date.

“Laws now, Milt, if this ain’t grand!” cackled Mrs. Cass. “We’ve worried some here. An’ Miss Helen near starved a-hopin’ fer you.”

“Mother, I reckon the girl an’ I are nearer starved than anybody you know,” replied Dale, with a grim laugh.

“Fer the land’s sake! I’ll be fixin’ supper this minit.”

“Nell, why are you here?” asked Bo, suspiciously.

For answer Helen led her sister into the spare room and closed the door. Bo saw the baggage. Her expression changed. The old blaze leaped to the telltale eyes.

“He’s done it!” she cried, hotly.

“Dearest — thank God. I’ve got you — back again!” murmured Helen, finding her voice. “Nothing else matters!... I’ve prayed only for that!”

“Good old Nell!” whispered Bo, and she kissed and embraced Helen. “You really mean that, I know. But nix for yours truly! I’m back alive and kicking, you bet.... Where’s my — where’s Tom?”

“Bo, not a word has been heard of him for five days. He’s searching for you, of course.”

“And you’ve been — been put off the ranch?”

“Well, rather,” replied Helen, and in a few trembling words she told the story of her eviction.

Bo uttered a wild word that had more force than elegance, but it became her passionate resentment of this outrage done her sister.

“Oh!... Does Tom Carmichael know this?” she added, breathlessly.

“How could he?”

“When he finds out, then — Oh, won’t there be hell? I’m glad I got here first.... Nell, my boots haven’t been off the whole blessed time. Help me. And oh, for some soap and hot water and some clean clothes! Nell, old girl, I wasn’t raised right for these Western deals. Too luxurious!”

And then Helen had her ears filled with a rapid-fire account of running horses and Riggs and outlaws and Beasley called boldly to his teeth, and a long ride and an outlaw who was a hero — a fight with Riggs — blood and death — another long ride — a wild camp in black woods — night — lonely, ghostly sounds — and day again — plot — a great actress lost to the world — Ophelia — Snakes and Ansons — hoodooed outlaws — mournful moans and terrible cries — cougar — stampede — fight and shots, more blood and death — Wilson hero — another Tom Carmichael — fallen in love with outlaw gun-fighter if — black night and Dale and horse and rides and starved and, “Oh, Nell, he WAS from Texas!”

Helen gathered that wonderful and dreadful events had hung over the bright head of this beloved little sister, but the bewilderment occasioned by Bo’s fluent and remarkable utterance left only that last sentence clear.

Presently Helen got a word in to inform Bo that Mrs. Cass had knocked twice for supper, and that welcome news checked Bo’s flow of speech when nothing else seemed adequate.

It was obvious to Helen that Roy and Dale had exchanged stories. Roy celebrated this reunion by sitting at table the first time since he had been shot; and despite Helen’s misfortune and the suspended waiting balance in the air the occasion was joyous. Old Mrs. Cass was in the height of her glory. She sensed a romance here, and, true to her sex, she radiated to it.

Daylight was still lingering when Roy got up and went out on the porch. His keen ears had heard something. Helen fancied she herself had heard rapid hoof-beats.

“Dale, come out!” called Roy, sharply.

The hunter moved with his swift, noiseless agility. Helen and Bo followed, halting in the door.

“Thet’s Las Vegas,” whispered Dale.

To Helen it seemed that the cowboy’s name changed the very atmosphere.

Voices were heard at the gate; one that, harsh and quick, sounded like Carmichael’s. And a spirited horse was pounding and scattering gravel. Then a lithe figure appeared, striding up the path. It was Carmichael — yet not the Carmichael Helen knew. She heard Bo’s strange little cry, a corroboration of her own impression.

Roy might never have been shot, judging from the way he stepped out, and Dale was almost as quick. Carmichael reached them — grasped them with swift, hard hands.

“Boys — I jest rode in. An’ they said you’d found her!”

“Shore, Las Vegas. Dale fetched her home safe an’ sound.... There she is.”

The cowboy thrust aside the two men, and with a long stride he faced the porch, his piercing eyes on the door. All that Helen could think of his look was that it seemed terrible. Bo stepped outside in front of Helen. Probably she would have run straight into Carmichael’s arms if some strange instinct had not withheld her. Helen judged it to be fear; she found her heart lifting painfully.

“Bo!” he yelled, like a savage, yet he did not in the least resemble one.

“Oh — Tom!” cried Bo, falteringly. She half held out her arms.

“You, girl?” That seemed to be his piercing query, like the quivering blade in his eyes. Two more long strides carried him close up to her, and his look chased the red out of Bo’s cheek. Then it was beautiful to see his face marvelously change until it was that of the well remembered Las Vegas magnified in all his old spirit.

“Aw!” The exclamation was a tremendous sigh. “I shore am glad!”

That beautiful flash left his face as he wheeled to the men. He wrung Dale’s hand long and hard, and his gaze confused the older man.

“RIGGS!” he said, and in the jerk of his frame as he whipped out the word disappeared the strange, fleeting signs of his kindlier emotion.

“Wilson killed him,” replied Dale.

“Jim Wilson — that old Texas Ranger!... Reckon he lent you a hand?”

“My friend, he saved Bo,” replied Dale, with emotion. “My old cougar an’ me — we just hung ‘round.”

“You made Wilson help you?” cut in the hard voice.

“Yes. But he killed Riggs before I come up an’ I reckon he’d done well by Bo if I’d never got there.”

“How about the gang?”

“All snuffed out, I reckon, except Wilson.”

“Somebody told me Beasley hed ran Miss Helen off the ranch. Thet so?”

“Yes. Four of his greasers packed her down the hill — most tore her clothes off, so Roy tells me.”

“Four greasers!... Shore it was Beasley’s deal clean through?”

“Yes. Riggs was led. He had an itch for a bad name, you know. But Beasley made the plan. It was Nell they wanted instead of Bo.”

Abruptly Carmichael stalked off down the darkening path, his silver heel-plates ringing, his spurs jingling.

“Hold on, Carmichael,” called Dale, taking a step.

“Oh, Tom!” cried Bo.

“Shore folks callin’ won’t be no use, if anythin would be,” said Roy. “Las Vegas has hed a look at red liquor.”

“He’s been drinking! Oh, that accounts!... he never — never even touched me!”

For once Helen was not ready to comfort Bo. A mighty tug at her heart had sent her with flying, uneven steps toward Dale. He took another stride down the path, and another.

“Dale — oh — please stop!” she called, very low.

He halted as if he had run sharply into a bar across the path. When he turned Helen had come close. Twilight was deep there in the shade of the peach-trees, but she could see his face, the hungry, flaring eyes.

“I — I haven’t thanked you — yet — for bringing Bo home,” she whispered.

“Nell, never mind that,” he said, in surprise. “If you must — why, wait. I’ve got to catch up with that cowboy.”

“No. Let me thank you now,” she whispered, and, stepping closer, she put her arms up, meaning to put them round his neck. That action must be her self-punishment for the other time she had done it. Yet it might also serve to thank him. But, strangely, her hands got no farther than his breast, and fluttered there to catch hold of the fringe of his buckskin jacket. She felt a heave of his deep chest.

“I — I do thank you — with all my heart,” she said, softly. “I owe you now — for myself and her — more than I can ever repay.”

“Nell, I’m your friend,” he replied, hurriedly. “Don’t talk of repayin’ me. Let me go now — after Las Vegas.”

“What for?” she queried, suddenly.

“I mean to line up beside him — at the bar — or wherever he goes,” returned Dale.

“Don’t tell me that. I know. You’re going straight to meet Beasley.”

“Nell, if you hold me up any longer I reckon I’ll have to run — or never get to Beasley before that cowboy.”

Helen locked her fingers in the fringe of his jacket — leaned closer to him, all her being responsive to a bursting gust of blood over her.

“I’ll not let you go,” she said.

He laughed, and put his great hands over hers. “What ‘re you sayin’, girl? You can’t stop me.”

“Yes, I can. Dale, I don’t want you to risk your life.”

He stared at her, and made as if to tear her hands from their hold.

“Listen — please — oh — please!” she implored. “If you go deliberately to kill Beasley — and do it — that will be murder.... It’s against my religion.... I would be unhappy all my life.”

“But, child, you’ll be ruined all your life if Beasley is not dealt with — as men of his breed are always dealt with in the West,” he remonstrated, and in one quick move he had freed himself from her clutching fingers.

Helen, with a move as swift, put her arms round his neck and clasped her hands tight.

“Milt, I’m finding myself,” she said. “The other day, when I did — this — you made an excuse for me.... I’m not two-faced now.”

She meant to keep him from killing Beasley if she sacrificed every last shred of her pride. And she stamped the look of his face on her heart of hearts to treasure always. The thrill, the beat of her pulses, almost obstructed her thought of purpose.

“Nell, just now — when you’re overcome — rash with feelin’s — don’t say to me — a word — a—”

He broke down huskily.

“My first friend — my — Oh Dale, I KNOW you love me! she whispered. And she hid her face on his breast, there to feel a tremendous tumult.

“Oh, don’t you?” she cried, in low, smothered voice, as his silence drove her farther on this mad, yet glorious purpose.

“If you need to be told — yes — I reckon I do love you, Nell Rayner,” he replied.

It seemed to Helen that he spoke from far off. She lifted her face, her heart on her lips.

“If you kill Beasley I’ll never marry you,” she said.

“Who’s expectin’ you to?” he asked, with low, hoarse laugh. “Do you think you have to marry me to square accounts? This’s the only time you ever hurt me, Nell Rayner.... I’m ‘shamed you could think I’d expect you — out of gratitude—”

“Oh — you — you are as dense as the forest where you live,” she cried. And then she shut her eyes again, the better to remember that transfiguration of his face, the better to betray herself.

“Man — I love you!” Full and deep, yet tremulous, the words burst from her heart that had been burdened with them for many a day.

Then it seemed, in the throbbing riot of her senses, that she was lifted and swung into his arms, and handled with a great and terrible tenderness, and hugged and kissed with the hunger and awkwardness of a bear, and held with her feet off the ground, and rendered blind, dizzy, rapturous, and frightened, and utterly torn asunder from her old calm, thinking self.

He put her down — released her.

“Nothin’ could have made me so happy as what you said.” He finished with a strong sigh of unutterable, wondering joy.

“Then you will not go to — to meet—”

Helen’s happy query froze on her lips.

“I’ve got to go!” he rejoined, with his old, quiet voice. “Hurry in to Bo.... An’ don’t worry. Try to think of things as I taught you up in the woods.”

Helen heard his soft, padded footfalls swiftly pass away. She was left there, alone in the darkening twilight, suddenly cold and stricken, as if turned to stone.

Thus she stood an age-long moment until the upflashing truth galvanized her into action. Then she flew in pursuit of Dale. The truth was that, in spite of Dale’s’ early training in the East and the long years of solitude which had made him wonderful in thought and feeling, he had also become a part of this raw, bold, and violent West.

It was quite dark now and she had run quite some distance before she saw Dale’s tall, dark form against the yellow light of Turner’s saloon.

Somehow, in that poignant moment, when her flying feet kept pace with her heart, Helen felt in herself a force opposing itself against this raw, primitive justice of the West. She was one of the first influences emanating from civilized life, from law and order. In that flash of truth she saw the West as it would be some future time, when through women and children these wild frontier days would be gone forever. Also, just as clearly she saw the present need of men like Roy Beeman and Dale and the fire-blooded Carmichael. Beasley and his kind must be killed. But Helen did not want her lover, her future husband, and the probable father of her children to commit what she held to be murder.

At the door of the saloon she caught up with Dale.

“Milt — oh — wait!’ — wait!” she panted.

She heard him curse under his breath as he turned. They were alone in the yellow flare of light. Horses were champing bits and drooping before the rails.

“You go back!” ordered Dale, sternly. His face was pale, his eyes were gleaming.

“No! Not till — you take me — or carry me!” she replied, resolutely, with all a woman’s positive and inevitable assurance.

Then he laid hold of her with ungentle hands. His violence, especially the look on his face, terrified Helen, rendered her weak. But nothing could have shaken her resolve. She felt victory. Her sex, her love, and her presence would be too much for Dale.

As he swung Helen around, the low hum of voices inside the saloon suddenly rose to sharp, hoarse roars, accompanied by a scuffling of feet and crashing of violently sliding chairs or tables. Dale let go of Helen and leaped toward the door. But a silence inside, quicker and stranger than the roar, halted him. Helen’s heart contracted, then seemed to cease beating. There was absolutely not a perceptible sound. Even the horses appeared, like Dale, to have turned to statues.

Two thundering shots annihilated this silence. Then quickly came a lighter shot — the smash of glass. Dale ran into the saloon. The horses began to snort, to rear, to pound. A low, muffled murmur terrified Helen even as it drew her. Dashing at the door, she swung it in and entered.

The place was dim, blue-hazed, smelling of smoke. Dale stood just inside the door. On the floor lay two men. Chairs and tables were overturned. A motley, dark, shirt-sleeved, booted, and belted crowd of men appeared hunched against the opposite wall, with pale, set faces, turned to the bar. Turner, the proprietor, stood at one end, his face livid, his hands aloft and shaking. Carmichael leaned against the middle of the bar. He held a gun low down. It was smoking.

With a gasp Helen flashed her eyes back to Dale. He had seen her — was reaching an arm toward her. Then she saw the man lying almost at her feet. Jeff Mulvey — her uncle’s old foreman! His face was awful to behold. A smoking gun lay near his inert hand. The other man had fallen on his face. His garb proclaimed him a Mexican. He was not yet dead. Then Helen, as she felt Dale’s arm encircle her, looked farther, because she could not prevent it — looked on at that strange figure against the bar — this boy who had been such a friend in her hour of need — this naive and frank sweetheart of her sister’s.

She saw a man now — wild, white, intense as fire, with some terrible cool kind of deadliness in his mien. His left elbow rested upon the bar, and his hand held a glass of red liquor. The big gun, low down in his other hand, seemed as steady as if it were a fixture.

“Heah’s to thet — half-breed Beasley an’ his outfit!”

Carmichael drank, while his flaming eyes held the crowd; then with savage action of terrible passion he flung the glass at the quivering form of the still living Mexican on the floor.

Helen felt herself slipping. All seemed to darken around her. She could not see Dale, though she knew he held her. Then she fainted.

CHAPTER XXV

Las Vegas Carmichael was a product of his day.

THE PAN HANDLE of Texas, the old Chisholm Trail along which were driven the great cattle herds northward, Fort Dodge, where the cowboys conflicted with the card-sharps — these hard places had left their marks on Carmichael. To come from Texas was to come from fighting stock. And a cowboy’s life was strenuous, wild, violent, and generally brief. The exceptions were the fortunate and the swiftest men with guns; and they drifted from south to north and west, taking with them the reckless, chivalrous, vitriolic spirit peculiar to their breed.

The pioneers and ranchers of the frontier would never have made the West habitable had it not been for these wild cowboys, these hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-living rangers of the barrens, these easy, cool, laconic, simple young men whose blood was tinged with fire and who possessed a magnificent and terrible effrontery toward danger and death.

Las Vegas ran his horse from Widow Cass’s cottage to Turner’s saloon, and the hoofs of the goaded steed crashed in the door. Las Vegas’s entrance was a leap. Then he stood still with the door ajar and the horse pounding and snorting back. All the men in that saloon who saw the entrance of Las Vegas knew what it portended. No thunderbolt could have more quickly checked the drinking, gambling, talking crowd. They recognized with kindred senses the nature of the man and his arrival. For a second the blue-hazed room was perfectly quiet, then men breathed, moved, rose, and suddenly caused a quick, sliding crash of chairs and tables.

The cowboy’s glittering eyes flashed to and fro, and then fixed on Mulvey and his Mexican companion. That glance singled out these two, and the sudden rush of nervous men proved it. Mulvey and the sheep-herder were left alone in the center of the floor.

“Howdy, Jeff! Where’s your boss?” asked Las Vegas. His voice was cool, friendly; his manner was easy, natural; but the look of him was what made Mulvey pale and the Mexican livid.

“Reckon he’s home,” replied Mulvey.

“Home? What’s he call home now?”

“He’s hangin’ out hyar at Auchincloss’s,” replied Mulvey. His voice was not strong, but his eyes were steady, watchful.

Las Vegas quivered all over as if stung. A flame that seemed white and red gave his face a singular hue.

“Jeff, you worked for old Al a long time, an’ I’ve heard of your differences,” said Las Vegas. “Thet ain’t no mix of mine.... But you double-crossed Miss Helen!”

Mulvey made no attempt to deny this. He gulped slowly. His hands appeared less steady, and he grew paler. Again Las Vegas’s words signified less than his look. And that look now included the Mexican.

“Pedro, you’re one of Beasley’s old hands,” said Las Vegas, accusingly. “An’ — you was one of them four greasers thet—”

Here the cowboy choked and bit over his words as if they were a material poison. The Mexican showed his guilt and cowardice. He began to jabber.

“Shet up!” hissed Las Vegas, with a savage and significant jerk of his arm, as if about to strike. But that action was read for its true meaning. Pell-mell the crowd split to rush each way and leave an open space behind the three.

Las Vegas waited. But Mulvey seemed obstructed. The Mexican looked dangerous through his fear. His fingers twitched as if the tendons running up into his arms were being pulled.

An instant of suspense — more than long enough for Mulvey to be tried and found wanting — and Las Vegas, with laugh and sneer, turned his back upon the pair and stepped to the bar. His call for a bottle made Turner jump and hold it out with shaking hands. Las Vegas poured out a drink, while his gaze was intent on the scarred old mirror hanging behind the bar.

This turning his back upon men he had just dared to draw showed what kind of a school Las Vegas had been trained in. If those men had been worthy antagonists of his class he would never have scorned them. As it was, when Mulvey and the Mexican jerked at their guns, Las Vegas swiftly wheeled and shot twice. Mulvey’s gun went off as he fell, and the Mexican doubled up in a heap on the floor. Then Las Vegas reached around with his left hand for the drink he had poured out.

At this juncture Dale burst into the saloon, suddenly to check his impetus, to swerve aside toward the bar and halt. The door had not ceased swinging when again it was propelled inward, this time to admit Helen Rayner, white and wide-eyed.

In another moment then Las Vegas had spoken his deadly toast to Beasley’s gang and had fiercely flung the glass at the writhing Mexican on the floor. Also Dale had gravitated toward the reeling Helen to catch her when she fainted.

Las Vegas began to curse, and, striding to Dale, he pushed him out of the saloon.

“ — ! What ‘re you doin’ heah?” he yelled, stridently. “Hevn’t you got thet girl to think of? Then do it, you big Indian! Lettin’ her run after you heah — riskin’ herself thet way! You take care of her an’ Bo an’ leave this deal to me!”

The cowboy, furious as he was at Dale, yet had keen, swift eyes for the horses near at hand, and the men out in the dim light. Dale lifted the girl into his arms, and, turning without a word, stalked away to disappear in the darkness. Las Vegas, holding his gun low, returned to the bar-room. If there had been any change in the crowd it was slight. The tension had relaxed. Turner no longer stood with hands up.

“You-all go on with your fun,” called the cowboy, with a sweep of his gun. “But it’d be risky fer any one to start leavin’.”

With that he backed against the bar, near where the black bottle stood. Turner walked out to begin righting tables and chairs, and presently the crowd, with some caution and suspense, resumed their games and drinking. It was significant that a wide berth lay between them and the door. From time to time Turner served liquor to men who called for it.

Las Vegas leaned with back against the bar. After a while he sheathed his gun and reached around for the bottle. He drank with his piercing eyes upon the door. No one entered and no one went out. The games of chance there and the drinking were not enjoyed. It was a hard scene — that smoky, long, ill-smelling room, with its dim, yellow lights, and dark, evil faces, with the stealthy-stepping Turner passing to and fro, and the dead Mulvey staring in horrible fixidity at the ceiling, and the Mexican quivering more and more until he shook violently, then lay still, and with the drinking, somber, waiting cowboy, more fiery and more flaming with every drink, listening for a step that did not come.

Time passed, and what little change it wrought was in the cowboy. Drink affected him, but he did not become drunk. It seemed that the liquor he drank was consumed by a mounting fire. It was fuel to a driving passion. He grew more sullen, somber, brooding, redder of eye and face, more crouching and restless. At last, when the hour was so late that there was no probability of Beasley appearing, Las Vegas flung himself out of the saloon.

All lights of the village had now been extinguished. The tired horses drooped in the darkness. Las Vegas found his horse and led him away down the road and out a lane to a field where a barn stood dim and dark in the starlight. Morning was not far off. He unsaddled the horse and, turning him loose, went into the barn. Here he seemed familiar with his surroundings, for he found a ladder and climbed to a loft, where he threw himself on the hay.

He rested, but did not sleep. At daylight he went down and brought his horse into the barn. Sunrise found Las Vegas pacing to and fro the short length of the interior, and peering out through wide cracks between the boards. Then during the succeeding couple of hours he watched the occasional horseman and wagon and herder that passed on into the village.

About the breakfast hour Las Vegas saddled his horse and rode back the way he had come the night before. At Turner’s he called for something to eat as well as for whisky. After that he became a listening, watching machine. He drank freely for an hour; then he stopped. He seemed to be drunk, but with a different kind of drunkenness from that usual in drinking men. Savage, fierce, sullen, he was one to avoid. Turner waited on him in evident fear.

At length Las Vegas’s condition became such that action was involuntary. He could not stand still nor sit down. Stalking out, he passed the store, where men slouched back to avoid him, and he went down the road, wary and alert, as if he expected a rifle-shot from some hidden enemy. Upon his return down that main thoroughfare of the village not a person was to be seen. He went in to Turner’s. The proprietor was there at his post, nervous and pale. Las Vegas did not order any more liquor.

“Turner, I reckon I’ll bore you next time I run in heah,” he said, and stalked out.

He had the stores, the road, the village, to himself; and he patrolled a beat like a sentry watching for an Indian attack.

Toward noon a single man ventured out into the road to accost the cowboy.

“Las Vegas, I’m tellin’ you — all the greasers air leavin’ the range,” he said.

“Howdy, Abe!” replied Las Vegas. “What ‘n hell you talkin’ about?”

The man repeated his information. And Las Vegas spat out frightful curses.

“Abe — you heah what Beasley’s doin’?”

“Yes. He’s with his men — up at the ranch. Reckon he can’t put off ridin’ down much longer.”

That was where the West spoke. Beasley would be forced to meet the enemy who had come out single-handed against him. Long before this hour a braver man would have come to face Las Vegas. Beasley could not hire any gang to bear the brunt of this situation. This was the test by which even his own men must judge him. All of which was to say that as the wildness of the West had made possible his crimes, so it now held him responsible for them.

“Abe, if thet — greaser don’t rustle down heah I’m goin’ after him.”

“Sure. But don’t be in no hurry,” replied Abe.

“I’m waltzin’ to slow music.... Gimme a smoke.”

With fingers that slightly trembled Abe rolled a cigarette, lit it from his own, and handed it to the cowboy.

“Las Vegas, I reckon I hear hosses,” he said, suddenly.

“Me, too,” replied Las Vegas, with his head high like that of a listening deer. Apparently he forgot the cigarette and also his friend. Abe hurried back to the store, where he disappeared.

Las Vegas began his stalking up and down, and his action now was an exaggeration of all his former movements. A rational, ordinary mortal from some Eastern community, happening to meet this red-faced cowboy, would have considered him drunk or crazy. Probably Las Vegas looked both. But all the same he was a marvelously keen and strung and efficient instrument to meet the portending issue. How many thousands of times, on the trails, and in the wide-streeted little towns all over the West, had this stalk of the cowboy’s been perpetrated! Violent, bloody, tragic as it was, it had an importance in that pioneer day equal to the use of a horse or the need of a plow.

At length Pine was apparently a deserted village, except for Las Vegas, who patrolled his long beat in many ways — he lounged while he watched; he stalked like a mountaineer; he stole along Indian fashion, stealthily, from tree to tree, from corner to corner; he disappeared in the saloon to reappear at the back; he slipped round behind the barns to come out again in the main road; and time after time he approached his horse as if deciding to mount.

The last visit he made into Turner’s saloon he found no one there. Savagely he pounded on the bar with his gun. He got no response. Then the long-pent-up rage burst. With wild whoops he pulled another gun and shot at the mirror, the lamps. He shot the neck off a bottle and drank till he choked, his neck corded, bulging, and purple. His only slow and deliberate action was the reloading of his gun. Then he crashed through the doors, and with a wild yell leaped sheer into the saddle, hauling his horse up high and goading him to plunge away.

Men running to the door and windows of the store saw a streak of dust flying down the road. And then they trooped out to see it disappear. The hour of suspense ended for them. Las Vegas had lived up to the code of the West, had dared his man out, had waited far longer than needful to prove that man a coward. Whatever the issue now, Beasley was branded forever. That moment saw the decline of whatever power he had wielded. He and his men might kill the cowboy who had ridden out alone to face him, but that would not change the brand.

The preceding night Beasley bad been finishing a late supper at his newly acquired ranch, when Buck Weaver, one of his men, burst in upon him with news of the death of Mulvey and Pedro.

“Who’s in the outfit? How many?” he had questioned, quickly.

“It’s a one-man outfit, boss,” replied Weaver.

Beasley appeared astounded. He and his men had prepared to meet the friends of the girl whose property he had taken over, and because of the superiority of his own force he had anticipated no bloody or extended feud. This amazing circumstance put the case in very much more difficult form.

“One man!” he ejaculated.

“Yep. Thet cowboy Las Vegas. An’, boss, he turns out to be a gun-slinger from Texas. I was in Turner’s. Hed jest happened to step in the other room when Las Vegas come bustin’ in on his hoss an’ jumped off.... Fust thing he called Jeff an’ Pedro. They both showed yaller. An’ then, damn if thet cowboy didn’t turn his back on them an’ went to the bar fer a drink. But he was lookin’ in the mirror an’ when Jeff an’ Pedro went fer their guns why he whirled quick as lightnin’ an’ bored them both.... I sneaked out an—”

“Why didn’t you bore him?” roared Beasley.

Buck Weaver steadily eyed his boss before he replied. “I ain’t takin’ shots at any fellar from behind doors. An’ as fer meetin’ Las Vegas — excoose me, boss! I’ve still a hankerin’ fer sunshine an’ red liquor. Besides, I ‘ain’t got nothin’ ag’in’ Las Vegas. If he’s rustled over here at the head of a crowd to put us off I’d fight, jest as we’d all fight. But you see we figgered wrong. It’s between you an’ Las Vegas!... You oughter seen him throw thet hunter Dale out of Turner’s.”

“Dale! Did he come?” queried Beasley.

“He got there just after the cowboy plugged Jeff. An’ thet big-eyed girl, she came runnin’ in, too. An’ she keeled over in Dale’s arms. Las Vegas shoved him out — cussed him so hard we all heerd.... So, Beasley, there ain’t no fight comin’ off as we figgered on.”

Beasley thus heard the West speak out of the mouth of his own man. And grim, sardonic, almost scornful, indeed, were the words of Buck Weaver. This rider had once worked for Al Auchincloss and had deserted to Beasley under Mulvey’s leadership. Mulvey was dead and the situation was vastly changed.

Beasley gave Weaver a dark, lowering glance, and waved him away. From the door Weaver sent back a doubtful, scrutinizing gaze, then slouched out. That gaze Beasley had not encountered before.

It meant, as Weaver’s cronies meant, as Beasley’s long-faithful riders, and the people of the range, and as the spirit of the West meant, that Beasley was expected to march down into the village to face his single foe.

But Beasley did not go. Instead he paced to and fro the length of Helen Rayner’s long sitting-room with the nervous energy of a man who could not rest. Many times he hesitated, and at others he made sudden movements toward the door, only to halt. Long after midnight he went to bed, but not to sleep. He tossed and rolled all night, and at dawn arose, gloomy and irritable.

He cursed the Mexican serving-women who showed their displeasure at his authority. And to his amaze and rage not one of his men came to the house. He waited and waited. Then he stalked off to the corrals and stables carrying a rifle with him. The men were there, in a group that dispersed somewhat at his advent. Not a Mexican was in sight.

Beasley ordered the horses to be saddled and all hands to go down into the village with him. That order was disobeyed. Beasley stormed and raged. His riders sat or lounged, with lowered faces. An unspoken hostility seemed present. Those who had been longest with him were least distant and strange, but still they did not obey. At length Beasley roared for his Mexicans.

“Boss, we gotta tell you thet every greaser on the ranch hes sloped — gone these two hours — on the way to Magdalena,” said Buck Weaver.

Of all these sudden-uprising perplexities this latest was the most astounding. Beasley cursed with his questioning wonder.

“Boss, they was sure scared of thet gun-slingin’ cowboy from Texas,” replied Weaver, imperturbably.

Beasley’s dark, swarthy face changed its hue. What of the subtle reflection in Weaver’s slow speech! One of the men came out of a corral leading Beasley’s saddled and bridled horse. This fellow dropped the bridle and sat down among his comrades without a word. No one spoke. The presence of the horse was significant. With a snarling, muttered curse, Beasley took up his rifle and strode back to the ranch-house.

In his rage and passion he did not realize what his men had known for hours — that if he had stood any chance at all for their respect as well as for his life the hour was long past.

Beasley avoided the open paths to the house, and when he got there he nervously poured out a drink. Evidently something in the fiery liquor frightened him, for he threw the bottle aside. It was as if that bottle contained a courage which was false.

Again he paced the long sitting-room, growing more and more wrought-up as evidently he grew familiar with the singular state of affairs. Twice the pale serving-woman called him to dinner.

The dining-room was light and pleasant, and the meal, fragrant and steaming, was ready for him. But the women had disappeared. Beasley seated himself — spread out his big hands on the table.

Then a slight rustle — a clink of spur — startled him. He twisted his head.

“Howdy, Beasley!” said Las Vegas, who had appeared as if by magic.

Beasley’s frame seemed to swell as if a flood had been loosed in his veins. Sweat-drops stood out on his pallid face.

“What — you — want?” he asked, huskily.

“Wal now, my boss, Miss Helen, says, seein’ I am foreman heah, thet it’d be nice an’ proper fer me to drop in an’ eat with you — THE LAST TIME!” replied the cowboy. His drawl was slow and cool, his tone was friendly and pleasant. But his look was that of a falcon ready to drive deep its beak.

Beasley’s reply was loud, incoherent, hoarse.

Las Vegas seated himself across from Beasley.

“Eat or not, it’s shore all the same to me,” said Las Vegas, and he began to load his plate with his left hand. His right hand rested very lightly, with just the tips of his vibrating fingers on the edge of the table; and he never for the slightest fraction of a second took his piercing eyes off Beasley.

“Wal, my half-breed greaser guest, it shore roils up my blood to see you sittin’ there — thinkin’ you’ve put my boss, Miss Helen, off this ranch,” began Las Vegas, softly. And then he helped himself leisurely to food and drink. “In my day I’ve shore stacked up against a lot of outlaws, thieves, rustlers, an’ sich like, but fer an out an’ out dirty low-down skunk, you shore take the dough!... I’m goin, to kill you in a minit or so, jest as soon as you move one of them dirty paws of yourn. But I hope you’ll be polite an’ let me say a few words. I’ll never be happy again if you don’t.... Of all the — yaller greaser dogs I ever seen, you’re the worst!... I was thinkin’ last night mebbe you’d come down an’ meet me like a man, so ‘s I could wash my hands ever afterward without gettin’ sick to my stummick. But you didn’t come.... Beasley, I’m so ashamed of myself thet I gotta call you — when I ought to bore you, thet — I ain’t even second cousin to my old self when I rode fer Chisholm. It don’t mean nuthin’ to you to call you liar! robber! blackleg! a sneakin’ coyote! an’ a cheat thet hires others to do his dirty work!... By Gawd!—”

“Carmichael, gimme a word in,” hoarsely broke out Beasley. “You’re right, it won’t do no good to call me.... But let’s talk.... I’ll buy you off. Ten thousand dollars—”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Las Vegas. He was as tense as a strung cord and his face possessed a singular pale radiance. His right hand began to quiver more and more.

“I’ll — double — it!” panted Beasley. “I’ll — make over — half the ranch — all the stock—”

“Swaller thet!” yelled Las Vegas, with terrible strident ferocity.

“Listen — man!... I take — it back!... I’ll give up — Auchincloss’s ranch!” Beasley was now a shaking, whispering, frenzied man, ghastly white, with rolling eyes.

Las Vegas’s left fist pounded hard on the table.

“GREASER, COME ON!” he thundered.

Then Beasley, with desperate, frantic action, jerked for his gun.

CHAPTER XXVI

FOR HELEN RAYNER that brief, dark period of expulsion from her home had become a thing of the past, almost forgotten.

Two months had flown by on the wings of love and work and the joy of finding her place there in the West. All her old men had been only too glad of the opportunity to come back to her, and under Dale and Roy Beeman a different and prosperous order marked the life of the ranch.

Helen had made changes in the house by altering the arrangement of rooms and adding a new section. Only once had she ventured into the old dining-room where Las Vegas Carmichael had sat down to that fatal dinner for Beasley. She made a store-room of it, and a place she would never again enter.

Helen was happy, almost too happy, she thought, and therefore made more than needful of the several bitter drops in her sweet cup of life. Carmichael had ridden out of Pine, ostensibly on the trail of the Mexicans who had executed Beasley’s commands. The last seen of him had been reported from Show Down, where he had appeared red-eyed and dangerous, like a hound on a scent. Then two months had flown by without a word.

Dale had shaken his head doubtfully when interrogated about the cowboy’s absence. It would be just like Las Vegas never to be heard of again. Also it would be more like him to remain away until all trace of his drunken, savage spell had departed from him and had been forgotten by his friends. Bo took his disappearance apparently less to heart than Helen. But Bo grew more restless, wilder, and more wilful than ever. Helen thought she guessed Bo’s secret; and once she ventured a hint concerning Carmichael’s return.

“If Tom doesn’t come back pretty soon I’ll marry Milt Dale,” retorted Bo, tauntingly.

This fired Helen’s cheeks with red.

“But, child,” she protested, half angry, half grave. “Milt and I are engaged.”

“Sure. Only you’re so slow. There’s many a slip — you know.”

“Bo, I tell you Tom will come back,” replied Helen, earnestly. “I feel it. There was something fine in that cowboy. He understood me better than you or Milt, either.... And he was perfectly wild in love with you.”

“Oh! WAS he?”

“Very much more than you deserved, Bo Rayner.”

Then occurred one of Bo’s sweet, bewildering, unexpected transformations. Her defiance, resentment, rebelliousness, vanished from a softly agitated face.

“Oh, Nell, I know that.... You just watch me if I ever get another chance at him!... Then — maybe he’d never drink again!”

“Bo, be happy — and be good. Don’t ride off any more — don’t tease the boys. It’ll all come right in the end.”

Bo recovered her equanimity quickly enough.

“Humph! You can afford to be cheerful. You’ve got a man who can’t live when you’re out of his sight. He’s like a fish on dry land.... And you — why, once you were an old pessimist!”

Bo was not to be consoled or changed. Helen could only sigh and pray that her convictions would be verified.

The first day of July brought an early thunder-storm, just at sunrise. It roared and flared and rolled away, leaving a gorgeous golden cloud pageant in the sky and a fresh, sweetly smelling, glistening green range that delighted Helen’s eye.

Birds were twittering in the arbors and bees were humming in the flowers. From the fields down along the brook came a blended song of swamp-blackbird and meadow-lark. A clarion-voiced burro split the air with his coarse and homely bray. The sheep were bleating, and a soft baa of little lambs came sweetly to Helen’s ears. She went her usual rounds with more than usual zest and thrill. Everywhere was color, activity, life. The wind swept warm and pine-scented down from the mountain heights, now black and bold, and the great green slopes seemed to call to her.

At that very moment she came suddenly upon Dale, in his shirt-sleeves, dusty and hot, standing motionless, gazing at the distant mountains. Helen’s greeting startled him.

“I — I was just looking away yonder,” he said, smiling. She thrilled at the clear, wonderful light of his eyes.

“So was I — a moment ago,” she replied, wistfully. “Do you miss the forest — very much?”

“Nell, I miss nothing. But I’d like to ride with you under the pines once more.”

“We’ll go,” she cried.

“When?” he asked, eagerly.

“Oh — soon!” And then with flushed face and downcast eyes she passed on. For long Helen had cherished a fond hope that she might be married in Paradise Park, where she had fallen in love with Dale and had realized herself. But she had kept that hope secret. Dale’s eager tone, his flashing eyes, had made her feel that her secret was there in her telltale face.

As she entered the lane leading to the house she encountered one of the new stable-boys driving a pack-mule.

“Jim, whose pack is that?” she asked.

“Ma’am, I dunno, but I heard him tell Roy he reckoned his name was mud,” replied the boy, smiling.

Helen’s heart gave a quick throb. That sounded like Las Vegas. She hurried on, and upon entering the courtyard she espied Roy Beeman holding the halter of a beautiful, wild-looking mustang. There was another horse with another man, who was in the act of dismounting on the far side. When he stepped into better view Helen recognized Las Vegas. And he saw her at the same instant.

Helen did not look up again until she was near the porch. She had dreaded this meeting, yet she was so glad that she could have cried aloud.

“Miss Helen, I shore am glad to see you,” he said, standing bareheaded before her, the same young, frank-faced cowboy she had seen first from the train.

“Tom!” she exclaimed, and offered her hands.

He wrung them hard while he looked at her. The swift woman’s glance Helen gave in return seemed to drive something dark and doubtful out of her heart. This was the same boy she had known — whom she had liked so well — who had won her sister’s love. Helen imagined facing him thus was like awakening from a vague nightmare of doubt. Carmichael’s face was clean, fresh, young, with its healthy tan; it wore the old glad smile, cool, easy, and natural; his eyes were like Dale’s — penetrating, clear as crystal, without a shadow. What had evil, drink, blood, to do with the real inherent nobility of this splendid specimen of Western hardihood? Wherever he had been, whatever he had done during that long absence, he had returned long separated from that wild and savage character she could now forget. Perhaps there would never again be call for it.

“How’s my girl?” he asked, just as naturally as if he had been gone a few days on some errand of his employer’s.

“Bo? Oh, she’s well — fine. I — I rather think she’ll be glad to see you,” replied Helen, warmly.

“An’ how’s thet big Indian, Dale?” he drawled.

“Well, too — I’m sure.”

“Reckon I got back heah in time to see you-all married?”

“I — I assure you I — no one around here has been married yet,” replied Helen, with a blush.

“Thet shore is fine. Was some worried,” he said, lazily. “I’ve been chasin’ wild hosses over in New Mexico, an’ I got after this heah blue roan. He kept me chasin’ him fer a spell. I’ve fetched him back for Bo.”

Helen looked at the mustang Roy was holding, to be instantly delighted. He was a roan almost blue in color, neither large nor heavy, but powerfully built, clean-limbed, and racy, with a long mane and tail, black as coal, and a beautiful head that made Helen love him at once.

“Well, I’m jealous,” declared Helen, archly. “I never did see such a pony.”

“I reckoned you’d never ride any hoss but Ranger,” said Las Vegas.

“No, I never will. But I can be jealous, anyhow, can’t I?”

“Shore. An I reckon if you say you’re goin’ to have him — wal, Bo ‘d be funny,” he drawled.

“I reckon she would be funny,” retorted Helen. She was so happy that she imitated his speech. She wanted to hug him. It was too good to be true — the return of this cowboy. He understood her. He had come back with nothing that could alienate her. He had apparently forgotten the terrible role he had accepted and the doom he had meted out to her enemies. That moment was wonderful for Helen in its revelation of the strange significance of the West as embodied in this cowboy. He was great. But he did not know that.

Then the door of the living-room opened, and a sweet, high voice pealed out:

“Roy! Oh, what a mustang! Whose is he?”

“Wal, Bo, if all I hear is so he belongs to you,” replied Roy with a huge grin.

Bo appeared in the door. She stepped out upon the porch. She saw the cowboy. The excited flash of her pretty face vanished as she paled.

“Bo, I shore am glad to see you,” drawled Las Vegas, as he stepped forward, sombrero in hand. Helen could not see any sign of confusion in him. But, indeed, she saw gladness. Then she expected to behold Bo run right into the cowboys’s arms. It appeared, however, that she was doomed to disappointment.

“Tom, I’m glad to see you,” she replied.

They shook hands as old friends.

“You’re lookin’ right fine,” he said.

“Oh, I’m well.... And how have you been these six months?” she queried.

“Reckon I though it was longer,” he drawled. “Wal, I’m pretty tip-top now, but I was laid up with heart trouble for a spell.”

“Heart trouble?” she echoed, dubiously.

“Shore.... I ate too much over heah in New Mexico.”

“It’s no news to me — where your heart’s located,” laughed Bo. Then she ran off the porch to see the blue mustang. She walked round and round him, clasping her hands in sheer delight.

“Bo, he’s a plumb dandy,” said Roy. “Never seen a prettier hoss. He’ll run like a streak. An’ he’s got good eyes. He’ll be a pet some day. But I reckon he’ll always be spunky.”

“Bo ventured to step closer, and at last got a hand on the mustang, and then another. She smoothed his quivering neck and called softly to him, until he submitted to her hold.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Blue somethin’ or other,” replied Roy.

“Tom, has my new mustang a name?” asked Bo, turning to the cowboy.

“Shore.”

“What then?”

“Wal, I named him Blue-Bo,” answered Las Vegas, with a smile.

“Blue-Boy?”

“Nope. He’s named after you. An’ I chased him, roped him, broke him all myself.”

“Very well. Blue-Bo he is, then.... And he’s a wonderful darling horse. Oh, Nell, just look at him.... Tom, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Reckon I don’t want any thanks,” drawled the cowboy. “But see heah, Bo, you shore got to live up to conditions before you ride him.”

“What!” exclaimed Bo, who was startled by his slow, cool, meaning tone, of voice.

Helen delighted in looking at Las Vegas then. He had never appeared to better advantage. So cool, careless, and assured! He seemed master of a situation in which his terms must be accepted. Yet he might have been actuated by a cowboy motive beyond the power of Helen to divine.

“Bo Rayner,” drawled Las Vegas, “thet blue mustang will be yours, an’ you can ride him — when you’re MRS. TOM CARMICHAEL!”

Never had he spoken a softer, more drawling speech, nor gazed at Bo more mildly. Roy seemed thunderstruck. Helen endeavored heroically to restrain her delicious, bursting glee. Bo’s wide eyes stared at her lover — darkened — dilated. Suddenly she left the mustang to confront the cowboy where he lounged on the porch steps.

“Do you mean that?” she cried.

“Shore do.”

“Bah! It’s only a magnificent bluff,” she retorted. “You’re only in fun. It’s your — your darned nerve!”

“Why, Bo,” began Las Vegas, reproachfully. “You shore know I’m not the four-flusher kind. Never got away with a bluff in my life! An’ I’m jest in daid earnest aboot this heah.”

All the same, signs were not wanting in his mobile face that he was almost unable to restrain his mirth.

Helen realized then that Bo saw through the cowboy — that the ultimatum was only one of his tricks.

“It IS a bluff and I CALL you!” declared Bo, ringingly.

Las Vegas suddenly awoke to consequences. He essayed to speak, but she was so wonderful then, so white and blazing-eyed, that he was stricken mute.

“I’ll ride Blue-Bo this afternoon,” deliberately stated the girl.

Las Vegas had wit enough to grasp her meaning, and he seemed about to collapse.

“Very well, you can make me Mrs. Tom Carmichael to-day — this morning — just before dinner.... Go get a preacher to marry us — and make yourself look a more presentable bridegroom — UNLESS IT WAS ONLY A BLUFF!”

Her imperiousness changed as the tremendous portent of her words seemed to make Las Vegas a blank, stone image of a man. With a wild-rose color suffusing her face, she swiftly bent over him, kissed him, and flashed away into the house. Her laugh pealed back, and it thrilled Helen, so deep and strange was it for the wilful sister, so wild and merry and full of joy.

It was then that Roy Beeman recovered from his paralysis, to let out such a roar of mirth as to frighten the horses. Helen was laughing, and crying, too, but laughing mostly. Las Vegas Carmichael was a sight for the gods to behold. Bo’s kiss had unclamped what had bound him. The sudden truth, undeniable, insupportable, glorious, made him a madman.

“Bluff — she called me — ride Blue-Bo saf’ternoon!” he raved, reaching wildly for Helen. “Mrs. — Tom — Carmichael — before dinner — preacher — presentable bridegroom!... Aw! I’m drunk again! I — who swore off forever!”

“No, Tom, you’re just happy,” said Helen.

Between her and Roy the cowboy was at length persuaded to accept the situation and to see his wonderful opportunity.

“Now — now, Miss Helen — what’d Bo mean by pre — presentable bridegroom?... Presents? Lord, I’m clean busted flat!”

“She meant you must dress up in your best, of course,” replied Helen.

“Where ‘n earth will I get a preacher?... Show Down’s forty miles.... Can’t ride there in time.... Roy, I’ve gotta have a preacher.... Life or death deal fer me.”

“Wal, old man, if you’ll brace up I’ll marry you to Bo,” said Roy, with his glad grin.

“Aw!” gasped Las Vegas, as if at the coming of a sudden beautiful hope.

“Tom, I’m a preacher,” replied Roy, now earnestly. “You didn’t know thet, but I am. An’ I can marry you an’ Bo as good as any one, an’ tighter ‘n most.”

Las Vegas reached for his friend as a drowning man might have reached for solid rock.

“Roy, can you really marry them — with my Bible — and the service of my church?” asked Helen, a happy hope flushing her face.

“Wal, indeed I can. I’ve married more ‘n one couple whose religion wasn’t mine.”

“B-b-before — d-d-din-ner!” burst out Las Vegas, like a stuttering idiot.

“I reckon. Come on, now, an’ make yourself pre-senttible,” said Roy. “Miss Helen, you tell Bo thet it’s all settled.”

He picked up the halter on the blue mustang and turned away toward the corrals. Las Vegas put the bridle of his horse over his arm, and seemed to be following in a trance, with his dazed, rapt face held high.

“Bring Dale,” called Helen, softly after them.

So it came about as naturally as it was wonderful that Bo rode the blue mustang before the afternoon ended.

Las Vegas disobeyed his first orders from Mrs. Tom Carmichael and rode out after her toward the green-rising range. Helen seemed impelled to follow. She did not need to ask Dale the second time. They rode swiftly, but never caught up with Bo and Las Vegas, whose riding resembled their happiness.

Dale read Helen’s mind, or else his own thoughts were in harmony with hers, for he always seemed to speak what she was thinking. And as they rode homeward he asked her in his quiet way if they could not spare a few days to visit his old camp.

“And take Bo — and Tom? Oh, of all things I’d like to’” she replied.

“Yes — an’ Roy, too,” added Dale, significantly.

“Of course,” said Helen, lightly, as if she had not caught his meaning. But she turned her eyes away, while her heart thumped disgracefully and all her body was aglow. “Will Tom and Bo go?”

“It was Tom who got me to ask you,” replied Dale. “John an’ Hal can look after the men while we’re gone.”

“Oh — so Tom put it in your head? I guess — maybe — I won’t go.”

“It is always in my mind, Nell,” he said, with his slow seriousness. “I’m goin’ to work all my life for you. But I’ll want to an’ need to go back to the woods often.... An’ if you ever stoop to marry me — an’ make me the richest of men — you’ll have to marry me up there where I fell in love with you.”

“Ah! Did Las Vegas Tom Carmichael say that, too?” inquired Helen, softly.

“Nell, do you want to know what Las Vegas said?”

“By all means.”

“He said this — an’ not an hour ago. ‘Milt, old hoss, let me give you a hunch. I’m a man of family now — an’ I’ve been a devil with the wimmen in my day. I can see through ‘em. Don’t marry Nell Rayner in or near the house where I killed Beasley. She’d remember. An’ don’t let her remember thet day. Go off into the woods. Paradise Park! Bo an’ me will go with you.”

Helen gave him her hand, while they walked the horses homeward in the long sunset shadows. In the fullness of that happy hour she had time for a grateful wonder at the keen penetration of the cowboy Carmichael. Dale had saved her life, but it was Las Vegas who had saved her happiness.

Not many days later, when again the afternoon shadows were slanting low, Helen rode out upon the promontory where the dim trail zigzagged far above Paradise Park.

Roy was singing as he drove the pack-burros down the slope; Bo and Las Vegas were trying to ride the trail two abreast, so they could hold hands; Dale had dismounted to stand beside Helen’s horse, as she gazed down the shaggy black slopes to the beautiful wild park with its gray meadows and shining ribbons of brooks.

It was July, and there were no golden-red glorious flames and blazes of color such as lingered in Helen’s memory. Black spruce slopes and green pines and white streaks of aspens and lacy waterfall of foam and dark outcroppings of rock — these colors and forms greeted her gaze with all the old enchantment. Wildness, beauty, and loneliness were there, the same as ever, immutable, like the spirit of those heights.

Helen would fain have lingered longer, but the others called, and Ranger impatiently snorted his sense of the grass and water far below. And she knew that when she climbed there again to the wide outlook she would be another woman.

“Nell, come on,” said Dale, as he led on. “It’s better to look up.”

The sun had just sunk behind the ragged fringe of mountain-rim when those three strong and efficient men of the open had pitched camp and had prepared a bountiful supper. Then Roy Beeman took out the little worn Bible which Helen had given him to use when he married Bo, and as he opened it a light changed his dark face.

“Come, Helen an’ Dale,” he said.

They arose to stand before him. And he married them there under the great, stately pines, with the fragrant blue smoke curling upward, and the wind singing through the branches, while the waterfall murmured its low, soft, dreamy music, and from the dark slope came the wild, lonely cry of a wolf, full of the hunger for life and a mate.

“Let us pray,” said Roy, as he closed the Bible, and knelt with them.

“There is only one God, an’ Him I beseech in my humble office for the woman an’ man I have just wedded in holy bonds. Bless them an’ watch them an’ keep them through all the comin’ years. Bless the sons of this strong man of the woods an’ make them like him, with love an’ understandin’ of the source from which life comes. Bless the daughters of this woman an’ send with them more of her love an’ soul, which must be the softenin’ an’ the salvation of the hard West. O Lord, blaze the dim, dark trail for them through the unknown forest of life! O Lord, lead the way across the naked range of the future no mortal knows! We ask in Thy name! Amen.”

When the preacher stood up again and raised the couple from their kneeling posture, it seemed that a grave and solemn personage had left him. This young man was again the dark-faced, clear-eyed Roy, droll and dry, with the enigmatic smile on his lips.

“Mrs. Dale,” he said, taking her hands, “I wish you joy.... An’ now, after this here, my crownin’ service in your behalf — I reckon I’ll claim a reward.”

Then he kissed her. Bo came next with her warm and loving felicitations, and the cowboy, with characteristic action, also made at Helen.

“Nell, shore it’s the only chance I’ll ever have to kiss you,” he drawled. “Because when this heah big Indian once finds out what kissin’ is — !”

Las Vegas then proved how swift and hearty he could be upon occasions. All this left Helen red and confused and unutterably happy. She appreciated Dale’s state. His eyes reflected the precious treasure which manifestly he saw, but realization of ownership had not yet become demonstrable.

Then with gay speech and happy laugh and silent look these five partook of the supper. When it was finished Roy made known his intention to leave. They all protested and coaxed, but to no avail. He only laughed and went on saddling his horse.

“Roy, please stay,” implored Helen. “The day’s almost ended. You’re tired.”

“Nope. I’ll never be no third party when there’s only two.”

“But there are four of us.”

“Didn’t I just make you an’ Dale one?... An’, Mrs. Dale, you forget I’ve been married more ‘n once.”

Helen found herself confronted by an unanswerable side of the argument. Las Vegas rolled on the grass in his mirth. Dale looked strange.

“Roy, then that’s why you’re so nice,” said Bo, with a little devil in her eyes. “Do you know I had my mind made up if Tom hadn’t come around I was going to make up to you, Roy.... I sure was. What number wife would I have been?”

It always took Bo to turn the tables on anybody. Roy looked mightily embarrassed. And the laugh was on him. He did not face them again until he had mounted.

“Las Vegas, I’ve done my best for you — hitched you to thet blue-eyed girl the best I know how,” he declared. “But I shore ain’t guaranteein’ nothin’. You’d better build a corral for her.”

“Why, Roy, you shore don’t savvy the way to break these wild ones,” drawled Las Vegas. “Bo will be eatin’ out of my hand in about a week.”

Bo’s blue eyes expressed an eloquent doubt as to this extraordinary claim.

“Good-by, friends,” said Roy, and rode away to disappear in the spruces.

Thereupon Bo and Las Vegas forgot Roy, and Dale and Helen, the camp chores to be done, and everything else except themselves. Helen’s first wifely duty was to insist that she should and could and would help her husband with the work of cleaning up after the sumptuous supper. Before they had finished a sound startled them. It came from Roy, evidently high on the darkening slope, and was a long, mellow pealing halloo, that rang on the cool air, burst the dreamy silence, and rapped across from slope to slope and cliff to cliff, to lose its power and die away hauntingly in the distant recesses.

Dale shook his head as if he did not care to attempt a reply to that beautiful call. Silence once again enfolded the park, and twilight seemed to be born of the air, drifting downward.

“Nell, do you miss anythin’?” asked Dale.

“No. Nothing in all the world,” she murmured. “I am happier than I ever dared pray to be.”

“I don’t mean people or things. I mean my pets.”

“Ah! I had forgotten.... Milt, where are they?”

“Gone back to the wild,” he said. “They had to live in my absence. An’ I’ve been away long.”

Just then the brooding silence, with its soft murmur of falling water and faint sigh of wind in the pines, was broken by a piercing scream, high, quivering, like that of a woman in exquisite agony.

“That’s Tom!” exclaimed Dale.

“Oh — I was so — so frightened!” whispered Helen.

Bo came running, with Las Vegas at her heels.

“Milt, that was your tame cougar,” cried Bo, excitedly. “Oh, I’ll never forget him! I’ll hear those cries in my dreams!”

“Yes, it was Tom,” said Dale, thoughtfully. “But I never heard him cry just like that.”

“Oh, call him in!”

Dale whistled and called, but Tom did not come. Then the hunter stalked off in the gloom to call from different points under the slope. After a while he returned without the cougar. And at that moment, from far up the dark ravine, drifted down the same wild cry, only changed by distance, strange and tragic in its meaning.

“He scented us. He remembers. But he’ll never come back,” said Dale.

Helen felt stirred anew with the convictions of Dale’s deep knowledge of life and nature. And her imagination seemed to have wings. How full and perfect her trust, her happiness in the realization that her love and her future, her children, and perhaps grandchildren, would come under the guidance of such a man! Only a little had she begun to comprehend the secrets of good and ill in their relation to the laws of nature. Ages before men had lived on the earth there had been the creatures of the wilderness, and the holes of the rocks, and the nests of the trees, and rain, frost, heat, dew, sunlight and night, storm and calm, the honey of the wildflower and the instinct of the bee — all the beautiful and multiple forms of life with their inscrutable design. To know something of them and to love them was to be close to the kingdom of earth — perhaps to the greater kingdom of heaven. For whatever breathed and moved was a part of that creation. The coo of the dove, the lichen on the mossy rock, the mourn of a hunting wolf, and the murmur of the waterfall, the ever-green and growing tips of the spruces, and the thunderbolts along the battlements of the heights — these one and all must be actuated by the great spirit — that incalculable thing in the universe which had produced man and soul.

And there in the starlight, under the wide-gnarled pines, sighing low with the wind, Helen sat with Dale on the old stone that an avalanche of a million years past had flung from the rampart above to serve as camp-table and bench for lovers in the wilderness; the sweet scent of spruce mingled with the fragrance of wood-smoke blown in their faces. How white the stars, and calm and true! How they blazed their single task! A coyote yelped off on the south slope, dark now as midnight. A bit of weathered rock rolled and tapped from shelf to shelf. And the wind moaned. Helen felt all the sadness and mystery and nobility of this lonely fastness, and full on her heart rested the supreme consciousness that all would some day be well with the troubled world beyond.

“Nell, I’ll homestead this park,” said Dale. “Then it’ll always be ours.”

“Homestead! What’s that?” murmured Helen, dreamily. The word sounded sweet.

“The government will give land to men who locate an’ build,” replied Dale. “We’ll run up a log cabin.”

“And come here often.... Paradise Park!” whispered Helen.

Dale’s first kisses were on her lips then, hard and cool and clean, like the life of the man, singularly exalting to her, completing her woman’s strange and unutterable joy of the hour, and rendering her mute.

Bo’s melodious laugh, and her voice with its old mockery of torment, drifted softly on the night breeze. And the cowboy’s “Aw, Bo,” drawling his reproach and longing, was all that the tranquil, waiting silence needed.

Paradise Park was living again one of its romances. Love was no stranger to that lonely fastness. Helen heard in the whisper of the wind through the pine the old-earth story, beautiful, ever new, and yet eternal. She thrilled to her depths. The spar-pointed spruces stood up black and clear against the noble stars. All that vast solitude breathed and waited, charged full with its secret, ready to reveal itself to her tremulous soul.

The Trail Driver

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER I

THAT HOT SUMMER day in June the Texas town of San Antonio was humming like a drowsy beehive. The year 1871 appeared destined to be the greatest for cattle-drives north since the first one inaugurated by Jesse Chisholm in 1868. During the Civil War cattle had multiplied on the vast Texas ranges by the hundreds of thousands. There was no market. Ranches were few and far between, and the inhabitants very poor. Chisholm conceived the daring idea of driving a herd north to find a market. Despite the interminable distance, the hardships and perils, his venture turned out a success. It changed the history of Texas.

By the spring of 1871 the Chisholm Trail had become a deciding factor in the recovery of Texas. The hoofs of Texas long-horns and Spanish mustangs had worn a mile wide trail across the undulating steppes of the Lone Star State.

Adam Brite had already made one trip this year. Starting in March with twenty-five hundred head of cattle and seven drivers, he had beat the Indians and floods in his most profitable venture. He had started too early for both. The misfortunes of trail drivers following him that year could not dampen his ardor for a second drive. Perhaps he might make three drives this auspicious year. Buying cattle right and left for cash, he had in sight a herd of four thousand five hundred. This would be by far the largest number of long-horns ever collected, let alone driven north. And Brite’s immediate and vital problem was trail drivers.

Five boys were on the way to San Antonio from Uvalde Ranch with a herd, and their services had been secured in the sale. Brite did not care to undertake so big a job without at least ten of the hardest-riding and hardest-shooting drivers on the ranges. To this end he had been a busy man for the single day that he had been back in San Antonio. At Dodge his seven drivers had seemed to vanish as if by magic in the smoke and dust of that wildest of frontier posts. But Brite felt himself particularly fortunate in having secured one of Chisholm’s right-hand drivers for his foreman.

Brite waited for this man, eager and hopeful. His life-long friend, the cattleman Colonel Eb Blanchard, had recommended Texas Joe Shipman, and promised to find him and fetch him around. The afternoon was waning now. Lines of dusty riders were off to the range; the lobby of the Alamo Hotel was thinning out of its booted, spurred, and belted cattlemen; the saloon inside had lost something of its roar. Sloe-eyed Mexicans in colorful garb passed down the street. Brite was about to give up waiting when Colonel Blanchard entered with a young man who would have stood out paramount even among a host of rangy, still-faced, clear-eyed Texans.

“Heah yu air, Adam,” called out Blanchard, cheerily, as he dragged up the tall rider. “Tex, meet my old partner, Adam Brite, the whitest stockman in this State.... Adam, this is Joe Shipman. He rode on my ootfit longer than I can recollect, an’ has made two trips up the Trail. Little the wuss for likker at this time. But never yu mind thet. I vouch for Tex.”

“Hod do, Shipman,” replied Brite, shortly, extending his hand. This rider was tall, wide-shouldered, small-hipped, lithe, and erect. His boldly cut features were handsome. He had tawny hair, eyes of clear amber, singularly direct, and a lazy, cool, little smile. He looked about twenty-four years old.

“Howdy, Mistah Brite,” he replied. “I’m shore sorry I’m drunk. Yu shee, I met old pard — Less Holden — an’ dog-gone him — he hawg-tied me an’ poured aboot a barrel of applejack down me.”

Brite knew Texans. He required no second look at this stalwart rider to like him, to accept him even without Colonel Blanchard’s recommendation.

“I’ll leave yu to talk it over,” went on Blanchard. “Reckon yu’d do wal to take Tex on right heah.”

“All right, Colonel. Much obliged,” replied Brite. “Come, Shipman, let’s set down.... Have a cigar.... What wages do yu want to be foreman for me on my next drive?”

“Wal, what’ll yu pay?” inquired Shipman, and it was easy to see that he did not care what he got.

“Forty a month, considerin’ we’ll drive forty-five hundred haid.”

“Whew!... An’ how many drivers, boss?”

“Ten, at least, an’ fifteen if we can get them.”

“Wal, we cain’t never make it with only ten. There’ll be hell shore up the Trail this summer.”

“Will yu take the job?”

“I reckon so,” drawled the rider. “Shore swore I’d never go again. I’ve been up three times. Had a Comanche arrer in my shoulder. An’ I’m packin’ lead in my hip.”

“I seen yu walked with a limp. Hurt yore ridin’ any?”

“Wal, nobody ever said nothin’ aboot it if it did.”

“Ahuh. Do yu know any riders yu can hire?”

“I might get my old pard, Less Holden,” replied Shipman, brightening. “No better ever forked a hawse. But Less is the wildest hombre.”

“Thet’s no matter. Get him, an’ half a dozen more. Also a cook. I’ll go oot an’ buy a new chuck-wagon. The last one went to pieces on us. We lost time. I’ll buy supplies, too.”

“When yu aim to hit the Trail, boss?”

“Soon as thet Uvalde ootfit comes in. Expect them today. We ought to get away day after tomorrow.”

“Dog-gone! I had a gurl somewhere heah in this town. I cain’t find her.... Wal, it’s a dog’s life.... Reckon with such a big herd yu’ll want a real ootfit.”

“Hardest riders on the range.”

“Wal, thet ain’t a-goin’ to be easy. Drivers shore as scarce as hen teeth. Boss, there’s fifty thousand haid due to leave this month.”

“All the more reason for us to get the jump on them.”

“Wal, I’d just as lief there was half a dozen herds ahaid of us.”

“Shipman, grass an’ water good only in spots this spring.”

“All right, boss. I’ll do my best,” replied the rider, rising.

“Report to me heah after supper,” concluded Brite, and watched the Texan move leisurely away. His limp was not pronounced and it did not detract from his striking appearance. Brite thought that he would have liked to call him son. After all, he was a lonely old cattleman. And more than once he had felt a strange melancholy, almost a presentiment in regard to this trail driving. It had developed into a dangerous business. Storm, flood, drought and cold, lightning and the extremely strenuous nature of the work, were bad enough. But of late the Comanches and Kiowas had gone on the warpath. There had always been Indian depredations in Texas; however, nothing so serious as threatened now. Brite concluded the buffalo meat and hide hunters were responsible. The time would come when the Indians would no longer stand for the slaughter of the buffalo. And when that time arrived all the hunters and trail drivers as well as settlers would be forced to unite for war against the redskin. The wild young Texans scouted this idea, but all the old timers like Brite knew its truth.

Brite had to shoulder his way into Hitwell’s merchandise store. Three months before he had bought supplies here and had the place to himself. A motley horde of vaqueros, soldiers, cattlemen, drivers, Indians, and loungers now filled the big place. Brite finally got Hitwell’s ear. They had been in the cattle business together before the war. “Sam, what’s all this aboot?”

“Wal, it’s shore a rush,” replied Hitwell, rubbing his hands. “If old Jesse Chisholm had foreseen this he’d have gone in the supply business.”

“Reckon yu better duplicate thet order I gave yu in March an’ add a third more to it.”

“When yu leavin’, Adam?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Be all packed for yu. Fresh supplies just in from New Orleans.”

“How aboot a chuck-wagon?”

“Sold oot, Adam. Haven’t got any kind of a wagon left.”

“Cain’t yu get me one?”

“Wal, I’ll try, Adam, but chances air slim.”

“Hell! I’d better go rustlin’ aboot.”

He visited other stores without avail. It was long after sunset when he got back to the hotel. Brite had supper and then went out to look for Shipman. The heat of day had passed and it was pleasant sitting out in front. Across the street stood a saloon which evidently rivaled the merchandise store for visitors. A tall gambler leaned against the door. He wore a long black coat and a flowered vest and a wide-brimmed black sombrero. Booted, spurred, gun-packing trail drivers passed in and out, noisy and gay. Riders passed to and fro against the lighted windows.

Soft steps and clinking spurs behind Brite drew his attention.

“Wal, boss, I shore been lucky,” drawled the voice of Shipman.

Brite turned to see the trail driver, accompanied by a flaming-faced youth under twenty. He had eyes of blue fire and an air of reckless insouciance.

“Hullo, Shipman. Shore glad yu had some luck. It’s more than I had. Couldn’t buy any kind of a wagon.”

“Boss, this heah’s my pard, Less Holden.... Less, shake with Mr. Brite.”

“Where yu hail from?” queried Brite, after the introduction, bending keen eyes on the stripling.

“Dallas. I was born there.”

“Wal, yu didn’t need to tell me yu was a Texan. Who yu been ridin’ for?”

“Dave Slaughter. Goin’ on three years. But I’ve never been up the Trail.”

“Holden, if yu’ve rode for Dave Slaughter yu’re good enough for me.... Shipman, what’s the other good luck?”

“Boss, I corralled a boy named Whittaker. Couldn’t be no better. An’ I talked with a chap from Pennsylvania. Tenderfoot, all right, but husky. Says he can ride. Reckon yu better let me hire him, boss. Santone is shore full of riders, but they’ve got jobs.”

“Yes, by all means,” replied Brite. “Looks like we’ll be delayed findin’ an ootfit. I’m stumped aboot a chuck-wagon, too.”

“Wal, Less an’ me will look around for a second-hand wagon.”

“Don’t overlook a cook.... Hullo! did I heah my name called?”

“Shore did. Thet boy who just limped off his hawse there,” returned Shipman, pointing.

Turning, Brite espied a mustang and rider that had arrived in front of the hotel. He was in the act of dropping his bridle and evidently had just addressed one of the men present.

“Brite? Shore, he’s around somewheres.”

“Heah I am,” called Brite, stepping along the curb, followed by the two drivers. The rider was young, dark as a Mexican, ragged and soiled, and he smelled of dust.

“Air yu Mr. Adam Brite?” he asked, when Brite strode up.

“Yes, I’m Brite. Yu must be one of my boys with the Uvalde herd?”

“Shore am, boss, an’ glad to report we got in without losin’ a steer.”

“What’s yore name?”

“Ackerman, sir.”

“Meet my foreman, Shipman, an’ his pard, Holden.”

“Howdy, Deuce,” drawled Shipman, extending a hand.

“Dog-gone if it ain’t Texas Joe,” burst out the rider, with a delighted grin. They gripped hands warmly.

“Whar yu beddin’ the herd, Deuce?” asked Shipman, when the greetings were over.

“Aboot five miles oot in the creek bottom. Not much grass, but plenty of water. Stock all fine an’ fat as pigeons. We mozeyed along slow.”

“Have yu got a wagon?”

“Shore, an’ a good cook. He’s a niggah, but he shore is a white one. An’ how he can cook!”

“Wal, Mr. Brite, this sounds like music to me,” said Shipman, turning to his employer. “Whar’s the stock yu had heah already?”

“I’ve two thousand haid in three pastures just oot of town. We can bunch them on the Trail in no time an’ work along slow while Ackerman catches up.”

“Shore, boss, but we gotta have drivers,” protested the foreman.

“There’s eight of us now, includin’ myself. I’d risk it with two more good men.”

“Wal, we’ll find them, somewhares.... An’, boss, how aboot grub?”

“Ordered at Hitwell’s.... Let’s see, Ackerman. Send yore wagon in early mawnin’ tomorrow. An’ after loadin’ supplies have it catch up oot on the trail.”

“Deuce, cain’t yu stay in town an’ see the sights?” queried Shipman, his eyes kindly on the weary, dusty rider.

“Wisht I could. But two of the boys air all in, an’ I gotta rustle back.” With that he stepped astride, and bidding them good by he trotted away.

“Wal, boss, we’ll comb Santone for a couple of drivers. An’ in the mawnin’ I’ll be heah to help load thet chuck-wagon.”

“All right. I’ll meet yu oot at the pastures. Good night.”

Brite headed back toward the lobby of the hotel to be confronted by a man he well knew, yet on the moment could not place. The blond, cold-faced, tight-lipped, gimlet-eyed Texan certainly recognized him. “Howdy, Brite. Don’t yu-all know me?” he drawled.

“Shore I know yu. But I don’t recollect yore handle,” replied Brite, slowly drawing back his half-extended hand.

“Wal, stick a pan on thet handle an’ yu’ll have me pat.”

“Hell yes! Pan Handle Smith!” exclaimed Brite, and this time shot out his hand. The other met it with his, and the steely grip of that soft ungloved member thrilled Brite to his marrow. “How’d yu turn up heah?”

“Just rode in. From the river. An’ I’m rustlin’ north pronto.”

“Wal, Pan Handle, yu always was on the move. I hope it’s not the same old — —”

“Shore is, Brite. By —— ! I cain’t have any peace. I dropped into a little game of draw below an’ got fleeced. Thet riled me. I hung on an’ caught a caird-sharp at his tricks. Wal, I called him an’ his pard. They’d been workin’ the buffalo camps. Didn’t know me. Drawed on me — settin’ at table at thet — the damn fools! I had to shoot my way oot, which is why I left my money. Been ridin’ hard an’ just got in. I’m hungry, Brite, an’ haven’t a dollar.”

“Easy. Glad yu bumped into me,” replied Brite, handing him a greenback. An idea flashed into his mind simultaneously with the action. And it chased away the cold little chill Smith’s story had given him. “On the dodge, eh?”

“Wal, it might be hot for me heah till thet fracas is forgotten.”

“Pan Handle, if I recollect right, yu used to drive cattle?”

“Wal, I reckon,” replied Smith, with a far-away look in his eyes and a wistful smile.

“How’d yu like to help me drive a big herd north to Dodge?”

“Brite, I’d like it a heap. I don’t want no wages. I can get a stake at Dodge,” returned the other, keenly.

“Yu’re on. For wages, of course. What ootfit have yu?”

“Not much. A fine hawse. But he needs a rest. A saddle, blanket, an’ Winchester. An’ all the rest of my worldly goods is on my back.”

“An’ on yore hips, too, I notice,” drawled Brite, his glance taking in the gray travel-worn figure and the gun butts, protruding from sheaths, significantly low. “Go get a good feed, Smith. Yu shore look peaked. An’ meet me heah in an hour or so. Yu’ll need to stock up heavy on ammunition. An’ yu’ll need a change of duds.”

“Wal, I appreciate this more than I can say, Brite,” replied Smith, and strode away.

Brite watched him out of sight. And not until then did he realize what he had done. Hired one of the most notorious of Texas gun-fighters to be a trail driver! The fact was that he was actually harboring an outlaw on the dodge. It shocked Brite a little — the bare fact. But on second thought he laughed. This was frontier Texas. And every community had a gunman of whom it was inordinately proud. Wess Hardin, Buck Duane, King Fisher, and a host of lesser lights were as representative of Texas as Crockett and Travis and Bowie. On the other hand, there were men noted for fast and deadly trigger work who put themselves outside the pale. They were robbers, bandits, desperadoes, sheriffs with an itch to kill instead of arrest, cowboys on the rampage, gamblers who shot to hide their cheating. Pan Handle Smith had been outlawed, but he had really been more sinned against than sinning. Brite concluded that he was fortunate to engage the outlaw for his second drive north. Something presaged a tremendous ordeal. Forty-five hundred long-horns! Too late now to undo this rash deal! He would go through with it. Still, old Texan that he was, he experienced a cold tight contraction of skin at the thought of possibilities. Many a driver had failed to reach the end of the long Trail.

CHAPTER II

BRITE’S FIRST CAMP was Pecan Swale, some twelve or more miles out of San Antonio. Grass had been scarce until the drivers reached this creek bottom. The gigantic herd had drifted faster than usual, arriving at the Swale before sunset.

Shipman with the chuck-wagon, and Ackerman with the second herd, rolled in together.

“Any drive close behind?” called Brite, from his resting-spot in the shade. He was tired. Tough as he was, it took several days to break him in to saddle and trail.

“Nope, boss. Henderson is startin’ next with two herds. But he won’t be ready for days. Then the herds will come a-whoopin’,” returned the rider.

“Wal, thet’s good. Shipman, I reckon yu better take charge now.”

“Then we’ll all lay off till after supper. Looks like a mighty good place for cattle to hang.”

The location was a most satisfactory one, and would be hard to leave, at least for those drivers who had been up the Trail. A grove of pecan and walnut trees and blackberry bushes choked the upper end of the valley with green and yellow verdure. Below it a lazy shallow stream meandered between its borders of willow. Grass grew luxuriantly all through the bottom-lands, and up the gentle slopes. Dust clouds were lifting here and there where the mustangs were rolling. The drivers threw saddles, blankets, and bridles to the ground, and flopped down after them. Gloves, sombreros, chaps, and boots likewise went flying. The boys were disposed to be merry and to look each other over and take stock of the whistling cook. Alabama Moze, they called him, and he was a prepossessing negro, baffling as to age. His chuck-wagon was a huge affair, with hoops for canvas, and a boarded contraption at the rear. Moze was in the act of letting down a wide door which served as a table. He reached for an ax and sallied forth for firewood. That article appeared scarce, except for the green standing trees.

From his lounging-spot Brite studied his outfit of men, including the cook. Shipman had not been able to secure any more drivers. Brite thought it well indeed that he had taken on Pan Handle Smith. That worthy followed Moze out into the grove. Divested of coat and chaps, he made a fine figure of a man. Even on the Texas border, where striking men were common, Smith would have drawn more than one glance. In fact, he earned more than that from Joe Shipman. But no remarks were made about Smith.

Bender, the tenderfoot from Pennsylvania, appeared to be a hulking youth, good natured and friendly, though rather shy before these still-faced, intent-eyed Texans. He had heavy, stolid features that fitted his bulky shoulders. His hair was the color of tow and resembled a mop. He had frank, eager blue eyes. Whittaker was a red-faced, sleepy-eyed, young rider of twenty-two, notable for his superb physique.

The Uvalde quintet mostly interested Brite. In a land where young, fierce, rollicking devils were the rule rather than the exception this aggregation would not have attracted any particular attention in a crowd of drivers. But Adam Brite loved Texas and Texans, and as he studied these boys he conceived the impression that they had a shade on the average trail driver. Not one of them had yet reached twenty years of age. The dark, slim, bow-legged Deuce Ackerman appeared to be the most forceful personality. The youth who answered to the name San Sabe had Indian or Mexican blood, and his lean shape wore the stamp of vaquero. Rolly Little’s name suited him. He was small and round. He had yellow hair, a freckled face, and flashing brown eyes, as sharp as daggers. Ben Chandler was a typical Texas youth, long, rangy, loose-jointed, of sandy complexion and hair, and eyes of clear, light blue. The last of the five, Roy Hallett, seemed just to be a member of the group — a quiet, somber, negative youth.

Preparations for supper proceeded leisurely. Brite marked that Pan Handle helped the negro in more ways than packing in firewood. The drivers noted it, too, with significant stares. On the trail it was not usual for any rider to share the tasks of a negro. Manifestly Pan Handle Smith was a law unto himself. The interest in him increased, but it did not seem likely that anyone would question his pleasure.

Texas Joe left camp to climb the ridge from which he surveyed the valley. Evidently he was satisfied with what he saw. Brite’s opinion was that the cattle would not stray. It was unusual, however, to leave them unguarded for even a moment. Presently Smith appeared to be studying the land to the north. Upon his return to camp he announced,

“Trail riders haided for Santone. An’ there’s a lone hawseman ridin’ in from ‘cross country.”

“Wal, Shipman, we’ll shore see more riders than we want on this trip,” said Brite.

“Ahuh, I reckon.”

“Boss, yu mean painted riders?” spoke up Ackerman.

“Not particular, if we’re lucky. I had to feed a lot of Comanches last trip. But they made no trouble. I reckon the riders thet bother me most are the drifters an’ trail dodgers.”

“Boss, mebbe we’ll be an ootfit thet breed had better pass up,” drawled Shipman.

“Wal, I hope so. Yu cain’t never tell what yore ootfit is until it’s tried.”

“Tried by what, Mr. Brite?” asked the tenderfoot Bender, with great curiosity.

The boss laughed at this query. Before he could reply Shipman spoke up: “Boy, it’s jest what happens along.”

“Nothing happened today in all that nice long ride. I’ve an idea these trail dangers are exaggerated.”

Suddenly one of Ackerman’s boys let out a stentorian: “Haw! Haw!” This would probably have started something but for the cook’s yell following and almost as loud. “Yo-all come an’ git it!”

There ensued a merry scramble, and then a sudden silence. Hungry boys seldom wasted time to talk. Brite called for Moze to fetch his dinner over under the tree. It took no second glance for the boss to be assured that this cook was a treasure.

The sun set in a cloudless, golden sky. An occasional bawl of a cow from the stream bottom broke the silence. A cooling zephyr of wind came through the grove, rustling the leaves, wafting the camp-fire smoke away. Brite had a sense of satisfaction at being on the Trail again and out in the open. Much of his life had been spent that way.

“Moze, where yu from?” asked Shipman, as he arose.

“Ise a Alabama niggah, sah,” replied Moze, with a grin. “Thet’s what they calls me. Alabama.”

“Wal, so long’s yu feed me like this I’ll shore keep the redskins from scalpin’ yu.”

“Den I’ll be awful sho to feed yu dat way.”

“Wal, boys, I hate to say it, but we gotta get on guard,” went on Shipman, addressing the outfit. “There’s ten of us. Four on till midnight, three till three o’clock, an’ three till mawnin’. Who goes on duty with me now?”

They all united in a choice of this early-night duty.

“Shipman, I’ll take my turn,” added Brite.

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned,” drawled the foreman. “What kind of an ootfit is this heah? Yu all want to work. An’ the boss, too!”

“Fust night oot,” said some one.

“I reckon I gotta make myself disliked,” returned Shipman, resignedly. “Bender, yu saddle yore hawse. Lester, same for yu. An’, Smith, I reckon I’d feel kinda safe with yu oot there.”

“Suits me fine. I never sleep, anyhow,” replied the outlaw, rising with alacrity.

“Deuce, I’ll wake yu at midnight or thereaboots. Yu pick yore two guards.... An’ say, boss, I ‘most forgot. Who’s gonna wrangle the hawses. Thet’s a big drove we got.”

“Shore, but they’re not wild. Herd them on good grass with the cattle.”

“All right, we’ll round them up. But we ought to have some one regular on thet job.... Wal, so long. It’s a lucky start.”

Brite agreed with this last statement of his foreman, despite the strange presentiment that came vaguely at odd moments. The Brite herd of forty-five hundred head, trail-branded with three brands before they had been bought, had a good start on the herds behind, and full three weeks after the last one that had gone north. Grass and water should be abundant, except in spots. Cattle could go days without grass, if they had plenty of water. It had been rather a backward spring, retarding the buffalo on their annual migration north. Brite concluded they would run into buffalo somewhere north of the Red River.

“Moze, couldya use some fresh meat?” called Deuce Ackerman.

“Ise got a whole quarter of beef,” replied Moze. “An’ yo knows, Mars Ackerman, Ise a economical cook.”

“I saw a bunch of deer. Some venison shore would go good. Come on, Ben. We’ve a half-hour more of daylight yet.”

The two drivers secured rifles and disappeared in the grove. Hallett impressively acquainted Little with the fact that he was going to take a bath. That worthy expressed amaze and consternation. “My Gawd! Roy, what ails yu? We’ll be fordin’ rivers an’ creeks every day pronto. Ain’t thet so, boss?”

“It shore is, an’ if they’re high an’ cold yu’ll get all the water yu want for ten years,” returned Brite.

“I’m gonna, anyway,” said Hallett.

“Roy, I’ll go if yu’ll pull off my boots. They ain’t been off for a week.”

“Shore. Come on.”

Soon the camp was deserted save for the whistling Moze and Brite, who took pains about unrolling his canvas and spreading his blanket. A good bed was what a trail driver yearned for and seldom got. At least, mostly he did not get to lie in it long at a stretch. That done, Brite filled his pipe for a smoke. The afterglow burned in the west and against that gold a solitary rider on a black horse stood silhouetted dark and wild. A second glance assured Brite that it was not an Indian. Presently he headed the horse down into the Swale and disappeared among the trees. Brite expected this stranger to ride into camp. Strangers, unfortunately many of them undesirable, were common along the Chisholm Trail. This one emerged from the brush, having evidently crossed the stream farther above, and rode up, heading for the chuck-wagon. Before the rider stopped Brite answered to a presagement not at all rare in him — that there were meetings and meetings along the trail. This one was an event.

“Howdy, cook. Will yu give me a bite of grub before yu throw it oot?” the rider asked, in a youthful, resonant voice.

“Sho I will, boy. But Ise tellin’ yo nuthin’ ever gits throwed away wid dis chile cookin’. Jus’ yo git down an’ come in.”

Brite observed that the horse was not a mustang, but a larger and finer breed than the tough little Spanish species. Moreover, he was a magnificent animal, black as coal, clean-limbed and heavy-chested, with the head of a racer. His rider appeared to be a mere boy, who, when he wearily slid off, showed to be slight of stature, though evidently round and strong of limb. He sat down cross-legged with the pan of food Moze gave him. Brite strolled over with the hope that he might secure another trail driver.

“Howdy, cowboy. All alone?” he said, genially.

“Yes, sir,” replied the boy, looking up and as quickly looking down again. The act, however, gave Brite time to see a handsome face, tanned darkly gold, and big, dark, deep eyes that had a furtive, if not a hunted, look.

“Whar yu from?”

“Nowhere, I reckon.”

“Lone cowboy, eh? Wal, thet’s interestin’ to me. I’m short on riders. Do yu want a job? My name’s Brite an’ I’m drivin’ forty-five hundred haid north to Dodge. Ever do any trail drivin’?”

“No, sir. But I’ve rode cattle all my life.”

“Ahuh. Wal, thet cain’t be a very long while, son. Aboot how old air yu?”

“Sixteen. But I feel a hundred.”

“Whar’s yore home?”

“I haven’t any.”

“No? Wal, yu don’t say? Whar’s yore folks, then?”

“I haven’t any, Mr. Brite.... My dad an’ mom were killed by Indians when I was a kid.”

“Aw, too bad, son. Thet’s happened to so many Texas lads....What yu been doin’ since?”

“Ridin’ from one ranch to another. I cain’t hold a job long.”

“Why not? Yu’re a likely-lookin’ youngster.”

“Reckon I don’t stand up good under the hardest ridin’. ... An’ there’s other reasons.”

“How aboot hawse-wranglin’?”

“Thet’d suit me fine.... Would yu give me a job?”

“Wal, I don’t see why not. Finish yore supper, lad. Then come have a talk with me.”

All this while Brite stood gazing down at the youth, changing from curiosity to sympathy and interest. Not once after the first time did the boy look up. There were holes in his battered old black sombrero, through one of which peeped a short curl of red-gold hair. He had shapely brown hands, rather small, but supple and strong. The end of a heavy gun-sheath protruded from his jacket on the left side. He wore overalls, high-top Mexican boots, and huge spurs, all the worse for long service.

Brite went back to his comfortable seat under the pecan tree. From there his second glance at the horse discovered a canvas pack behind the saddle. The old cattleman mused that it was only necessary to get out over this wild, broad Texas range to meet with sad and strange and tragic experiences. How many, many Texas sons were like this youth! The vast range exacted a hard and bloody toll from the pioneers.

Dusk had fallen when the boy came over to present himself before the cattleman.

“My name is Bayne — Reddie Bayne,” he announced, almost shyly.

“Red-haided, eh?”

“Not exactly. But I wasn’t named for my hair. Reddie is my real given name.”

“Wal, no matter. Any handle is good enough in Texas. Did yu ever heah of Liver-eatin’ Kennedy or Dirty-face Jones or Pan Handle Smith?”

“I’ve heahed of the last, shore.”

“Wal, yu’ll see him pronto. He’s ridin’ for me this trip.... Air yu goin’ to accept my offer?”

“I’ll take the job. Yes, sir. Thanks.”

“What wages?”

“Mr. Brite, I’ll ride for my keep.”

“No, I cain’t take yu up on thet. It’s a tough job up the Trail. Say thirty dollars a month?”

“Thet’s more than I ever earned.... When do I begin?”

“Mawnin’ will be time enough, son. Shipman an’ the boys have bunched the hawses for the night.”

“How many haid in yore remuda?”

“Nigh on to two hundred. More’n we need, shore. But they’re all broke an’ won’t give much trouble. Yu see, when we get to Dodge I sell cattle, hawses, wagon, everythin’.”

“I’ve heahed so much aboot this Chisholm Trail. I rode ‘cross country clear from Bendera, hopin’ to catch on with a trail-drive.”

“Wal, yu’ve ketched on, Reddie, an’ I shore hope yu don’t regret it.”

“Gosh! I’m glad.... An’ if I have, I’d better unsaddle Sam.”

Bayne led the black under an adjoining pecan, and slipping saddle, bridle, and pack, turned him loose. Presently the lad returned to sit down in the shadow.

“How many in yore ootfit, Mr. Brite?”

“An even dozen now, countin’ yu.”

“Regular Texas ootfit?”

“Shore. It’s Texas, all right. But new to me. I’ve got a hunch it’ll turn oot regular Texas an’ then some. Texas Joe Shipman is my Trail boss. He’s been up three times, an’ thet shore makes him an old-stager. Lucky for me. The rest is a mixed bunch except five Uvalde boys. Fire-eatin’ kids, I’ll bet! There’s a tenderfoot from Pennsylvania, Bender by name. Shipman’s pard, Less Holden. A Carolinian named Whittaker. If he’s as good as he looks he couldn’t be no better. An’ last Pan Handle Smith. He’s a gunman an’ outlaw, Bayne. But like some of his class he’s shore salt of the earth.”

“Ten. Countin’ yu an’ me an’ the cook makes thirteen. Thet’s unlucky, Mr. Brite.”

“Thirteen. So ’tis.”

“Perhaps I’d better rode on. I don’t want to bring yu bad luck.”

“Boy, yu’ll be good luck.”

“Oh, I hope so. I’ve been bad luck to so many ootfits,” replied the youth, with a sigh.

Brite was struck at the oddity of that reply, but thought better of added curiosity. Then Deuce Ackerman and Chandler came rustling out of the shadow, coincident with the return of Little and Hallett.

“Boss, I seen a dog-gone fine black hawse oot heah. No pony. Big thoroughbred. I didn’t see him in our remuda,” declared Ackerman.

“Belongs to Reddie Bayne heah. He just rode up an’ threw in with us.... Bayne, heah’s four of the Uvalde boys.”

“Howdy, all,” rejoined the rider.

“Howdy yoreself, cowboy,” said Ackerman, stepping forward to peer down. “I cain’t see yu, but I’m dog-gone glad to meet yu.... Boys, Reddie Bayne sounds like a Texas handle.”

The other Uvalde boys called welcome greetings. Some one threw brush on the fire, which blazed up cheerily. It was noticeable, however, that Bayne did not approach the camp fire.

“Boss, did yu heah me shoot?” queried Ackerman.

“No. Did yu?”

“I shore did. Had an easy shot at a buck. But the light was bad an’ I missed. I’ll plug one in the mawnin’.”

“Deuce, if yu’d let me have the rifle we’d got the deer meat all right,” declared Ben.

“Is thet so? I’ll bet yu I can beat yu any old day!”

“What’ll yu bet?”

“Wal, I hate to take yore money, but — —”

“Ssssh! Riders comin’,” interrupted Ackerman, in a sharp whisper.

Brite heard the thud of hoofs off under the trees. Horses were descending the road from above.

“Cain’t be any of our ootfit,” went on Ackerman, peering into the darkness. “Fellars, we may as wal be ready for anythin’.”

Dark forms of horses and riders loomed in the outer circle of camp-fire light. They halted.

“Who comes?” called out Ackerman, and his young voice had a steely ring.

“Friends,” came a gruff reply.

“Wal, advance friends an’ let’s see yu.”

Just then a hard little hand clutched Brite’s arm. He turned to see Reddie Bayne kneeling beside him. The lad’s sombrero was off, exposing his face. It was pale, and the big dark eyes burned.

“Wallen! He’s after me,” whispered Bayne, hoarsely. “Don’t let him — —”

Brite gripped the lad and gave him a little shake. “Keep still.”

The riders approached the camp fire, but did not come close enough to be distinctly seen. The leader appeared to be of stalwart frame, dark of face, somehow forceful and forbidding. Brite had seen a hundred men like him ride into Texas camps.

“Trail drivers, huh?” he queried, with gleaming eyes taking in the boys round the camp fire.

“Wal, we ain’t Comanche Injuns,” retorted Deuce, curtly.

“Who’s ootfit?”

“Brite, of Santone. We got four thousand haid an’ twenty drivers. Any more yu want to know?”

“Reckon yu took on a new rider lately, huh?”

“Wal, if we did — —”

Brite rose to stride out into the firelight.

“Who’re yu an’ what’s yore business heah?”

“My name’s Wallen. From Braseda. We tracked a — a young — wal, a fellar whose handle was Reddie Bayne.”

“Reddie Bayne. So thet was thet rider’s name? What yu trackin’ him for?”

“Thet’s my business. Is he heah?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Wal then, he was heah, Brite.”

“Shore. Had supper with us. An’ then he cut oot for Santone. Reckon he’s there by now. What yu say, Deuce?”

“Reddie was forkin’ a fast hawse,” replied Ackerman, casually.

“Any camps between heah an’ Santone?” went on the rider.

“Not when we passed along. May be by this time.”

“Brite, if yu don’t mind we’ll spend the night heah,” said Wallen, speculatively.

“Wal, stranger, I’m sorry. One of my rules is not to be too hospitable on the old Trail,” drawled Brite. “Yu see thet sort of thing has cost me too much.”

“Air yu handin’ me a slap?” queried Wallen, roughly.

“No offense. Just my rule, thet’s all.”

“Ahuh. Wal, it’s a damn pore rule for a Texan.”

“Shore,” agreed Brite, coolly.

The rider wheeled, cursing under his breath, and, accompanied by his silent companion, thudded off into the darkness. Brite waited until he could make sure they took the road, then he returned to the spot where he had left the lad. Bayne sat against the tree. By the dim light Brite saw the gleam of a gun in his hand.

“Wal, I steered them off, Bayne,” said Brite. “Hope I did yu a good turn.”

“Yu bet yu did.... Thank yu — Mr. Brite,” replied the lad in a low voice.

Deuce Ackerman had followed Brite under the tree. “Boss, thet Wallen shore didn’t get nowheres with me. Strikes me I’d seen him some place.”

“Who is Wallen, son?”

“Rancher I rode for over Braseda way.”

“What’s he got against yu?”

There was no reply. Ackerman bent over to peer down. “Throwed yore hardware, hey, Reddie? Wal, I don’t blame yu. Now, cowboy, come clean if yu want to, or keep mum. It’s all the same to us.”

“Thank yu.... I’m no rustler — or thief — or anythin’ bad.... It was just... Oh, I cain’t tell yu,” replied the lad, with emotion.

“Ahuh. Wal, then it must be somethin’ to do aboot a gurl?”

“Yes.... Somethin’ aboot a gurl,” hurriedly replied Bayne.

“I’ve been there, cowboy.... But I hope thet hombre wasn’t her dad. ‘Cause she’s liable to be an orphan.”

Ackerman returned to the camp fire, calling out: “Roll in, fellers. Yu’re a-gonna need sleep this heah trip.”

“Bayne, I’m shore glad it wasn’t anythin’ bad,” said Brite, in a kindly tone.

One of the boys rekindled the fire, which burned up brightly. By its light the old cattleman had a better view of young Bayne’s face. The hard and bitter expression appeared softening. He made a forlorn little figure that touched Brite.

“I — I’ll tell yu — sometime — if yu won’t give me away,” whispered the lad, and then hurried off into the darkness.

Brite sought his own blankets and lay thinking of the lad’s confession — something about a girl! That had been true of him once, long ago, and to it could be traced the fact of his lonely years. He warmed to this orphaned lad. The old Trail was a tough and bloody proposition; but anything might be met with upon it.

CHAPTER III

BRITE OPENED HIS eyes to gray dawn. A rifle-shot had awakened him. Moze was singing about darkies and cotton, which argued that the camp had not been attacked by Indians. Brite crawled out of his blankets, stiff and sore, to pull on his boots and don his vest, which simple actions left him dressed for the day. He rolled his bed. Then securing a towel, he made through camp for the creek. Texas Joe was in the act of getting up. Three other boys lay prone, quiet, youthful, hard faces clear in the gray light.

“Boss, it’s sho turrible gittin’ oot in de mawnin’,” was Moze’s laconic greeting.

“Moze, I reckon I’m not so young as I was.”

Down by the stream Brite encountered Reddie Bayne busy with his ablutions. “Howdy, son. I see yu’re up an’ doin’.”

“Mawnin’, Mr. Brite,” replied the youth as he turned on his knees to show a wet and shining face as comely as a girl’s. Brite thought the lad rather hurriedly got into his jacket and covered his red-gold curly hair with the battered old sombrero. Then he wiped face and hands with his scarf.

“I’ll rustle my hawse before breakfast.”

The water was cold and clear. Brite drank and washed with the pleasure of a trail driver who valued this privilege. At most places the water was muddy, or stinking and warm, or there was none at all. Upon his return up to the level bank he heard the lowing of cattle. Daylight had come. The eastern sky was ruddy. Mocking birds were making melody in the grove. Rabbits scurried away into the willows. Across the wide shallow stream deer stood on the opposite bank, with long ears erect. A fragrance of wood smoke assailed Brite’s keen nostrils. There seemed to be something singularly full and rich in the moment.

Brite got back to camp in time to hear an interesting colloquy.

“Say, boy, who’n hell air yu?” Texas Joe was asking, in genuine surprise. “I cain’t recollect seein’ yu before.”

“My name’s Reddie Bayne,” replied the lad. “I rode in last night. The boss gave me a job.”

“He did? Packin’ water, or what?” went on Shipman.

“Hawse-wranglin’,” said Reddie, shortly.

“Humph! Yu’re pretty much of a kid, ain’t yu?”

“I cain’t help it if I’m not an old geezer like — —”

“Like who? — Me! — Say, youngster, I’m cantankerous early in the mawnin’.”

“So it would seem,” dryly responded Bayne.

“What yu packin’ thet big gun on yore left hip for?”

“Kind of a protection against mean cusses.”

“Heah, I didn’t mean was yu wearin’ it ornamental. But what for on the left side?”

“I’m left-handed.”

“Aw, I see. Gun-slinger from the left hip, huh? Wal, I reckon yu got a lot of notches on the handle.”

Bayne did not deign to make a reply to this, but it was evident that he was a little upset by the cool and sarcastic foreman. As Brite came on he saw the lad’s fine eyes flash.

“Mawnin’, boss. I see yu have gone an’ hired another gunman,” drawled Texas Joe.

“Who? Reddie Bayne, heah?”

“Shore. No one else. What’s Texas comin’ to thet boys who ought to be home a milkin’ cows rustle oot on bloody trails packin’ big guns?”

“I haven’t any home,” retorted Bayne, with spirit.

“Reddie, shake hands with my foreman, Texas Joe Shipman,” said Brite.

“Howdy, Mr. Shipman,” rejoined Bayne, resentfully, with emphasis on the prefix, and he did not offer his hand.

“Howdy, Girlie Boy,” drawled Joe. “Suppose yu rustle yore hawse an’ let me see him an’ yore ootfit.”

Bayne’s face flamed red and he trotted off into the grove, whereupon Brite took occasion to acquaint Shipman with the incident that had made Bayne one of the outfit.

“Hell yu say! Wal! — Pore kid!... Wallen, now I just wonder where I’ve heahed thet name. Odd sort of handle. I’ll bet my spurs he’s no good. It’s the no-good fellars’ names thet stick in yore craw.”

“Yu cow-tail twisters, come an’ git it,” sang out Moze.

San Sabe romped into camp with a string of mustangs which the men had to dodge or catch.

“Boots an’ saddles heah, my tenderfoot Hal from Pennsylvania,” yelled Texas Joe to the slow-moving Bender. “Thet’s for all of yu. Rustle. An’ get ootside some chuck. This’s our busy day, mixin’ a wild herd of long-horns with a tame one.”

Strong brown hands flashed and tugged. As if by magic the restless ponies were bridled and saddled. The trail drivers ate standing. Texas Joe was the first to mount.

“Fork yore hawses, boys,” he called, vibrantly. “Boss, I’ll point the herd, then send Ackerman in with his guard to eat. Follow along, an’ don’t forget yore new hawse-wrangler, young Bayne.”

In a few moments Brite was left alone with Moze. The red sun peeped over the eastern rim and the world of rolling ranges changed. The grove appeared full of bird melody. Far out the bawl of new-born calves attested to the night’s addition to the herd. A black steed came flashing under the pecans. Bayne rode into camp and leaped off.

“All bunched an’ ready, boss,” he said, in keen pleasure. “Gee! thet’s a remuda. Finest I ever seen. I can wrangle thet ootfit all by myself.”

“Wal, son, if yu do yu’ll earn Texas Joe’s praise,” returned Brite.

“Pooh for thet cowboy! I’d like to earn yores, though, Mr. Brite.”

“Fall to, son, an’ eat.”

Brite bestrode his horse on the top of the slope and watched the riders point the herd and start the drive up out of the creek bottom.

Used as he was to all things pertaining to cattle, he could not but admit to himself that this was a magnificent spectacle. The sun had just come up red and glorious, spreading a wonderful light over the leagues of range; the air was cool, fresh, sweet, with a promise of warmth for midday; flocks of blackbirds rose like clouds over the cattle, and from the grove of pecans a chorus of mocking-bird melody floated to his ears; the shining creek was blocked by a mile-wide bar of massed cattle, splashing and plowing across; shots pealed above the bawl and trample, attesting to the fact that the drivers were shooting new-born calves that could not keep up with their mothers.

Like a colossal triangle the wedge-shaped herd, with the apex to the fore, laboriously worked up out of the valley. Ackerman’s Uvalde herd had the lead, and that appeared well, for they had become used to the Trail, and Brite’s second and third herds, massing in behind were as wild a bunch of long-horns as he had ever seen. Their wide-spread horns, gray and white and black, resembled an endless mass of uprooted stumps of trees, milling, eddying, streaming across the flat and up the green slope. The movement was processional, rhythmic, steady as a whole, though irregular in spots, and gave an impression of irresistible power. To Brite it represented the great cattle movement now in full momentum, the swing of Texas toward an Empire, the epic of the herds and the trail drivers that was to make history of the West. Never before had the old cattleman realized the tremendous significance of the colorful scene he was watching. Behind it seemed to ride and yell and sing all the stalwart sons of Texas. It was their chance after the Civil War that had left so many of them orphaned and all of them penniless. Brite’s heart thrilled and swelled to those lithe riders. He alone had a thought of the true nature of this undertaking, and the uplift of his heart was followed by a pang. They had no thought of the morrow. The moment sufficed for them. To drive the herd, to stick to the task, to reach their objective — that was an unalterable obligation assumed when they started. Right then Brite conceived his ultimate appreciation of the trail driver.

At last the wide base of the herd cleared the stream bed, leaving it like a wet plowed field. Then the remuda in orderly bunch crossed behind. Brite recognized Reddie Bayne on his spirited black mount. The lad was at home with horses. Moze, driving the chuck-wagon, passed up the road behind Brite and out on the level range.

Then the sharp point of the herd, with Texas Joe on the left and Less Holden on the right, passed out of sight over the hill. Farther down the widening wedge, two other riders performed a like guard. The rest held no stable position. They flanked the sides and flashed along the rear wherever an outcropping of unruly long-horns raised a trampling roar and a cloud of dust. Each rider appeared to have his own yell, which Brite felt assured he would learn to recognize in time. And these yells rang out like bells or shrilled aloft or pealed across the valley.

Brite watched the dashing drivers, the puffs of dust rising pink in the sunrise flush, the surging body of long-horns crowding up the slope. A forest of spear-pointed horns pierced the sky line. And when the last third of the herd got up out of the valley, on the wide slope, the effect was something to daunt even old Adam Brite. Half that number of cattle, without the wilder element, would have been more than enough to drive to Dodge. Brite realized this now. But there could not be any turning back. He wondered how many head of stock, and how many drivers, would never get to Dodge.

Brite turned away to ride to the highest ridge above the valley, from which he scanned the Trail to the south. For a trail drive what was coming behind was as important almost as what lay to the fore. To mix a herd with that of a following trail driver’s was bad business. It made extra toil and lost cattle. To his relief, the road and the range southward were barren of moving objects. A haze of dust marked where San Antonio lay. To the north the purple, rolling prairie-land spread for leagues, marked in the distance by black dots and patches and dark lines of trees. It resembled an undulating sea of rosy grass. Only the unknown dim horizon held any menace.

The great herd had topped the slope below and now showed in its entirety, an arrow-headed mass assuming proper perspective. It had looked too big for the valley; here up on the range it seemed to lengthen and spread and find room. The herd began its slow, easy, grazing march northward, at the most eight or ten miles a day. In fine weather and if nothing molested the cattle, this leisurely travel was joy for the drivers. The infernal paradox of the trail driver’s life was that a herd might be driven north wholly under such comfortable circumstances, and again the journey might be fraught with terrific hardship and peril. Brite had never experienced one of the extreme adventures, such as he had heard of, but the ordinary trip had been strenuous and hazardous enough for him.

Brite caught up with the chuck-wagon and walked his horse alongside it for a while, conversing with the genial negro. From queries about the Rio Grande country and the Uvalde cattlemen, Brite progressed to interest in the quintet of riders who had brought the southern herd up. Moze was loquacious and soon divulged all his knowledge of Deuce Ackerman and his comrades. “Yas, suh, dey’s de finest an’ fightenest boys I ever seen, dat’s shore,” concluded Moze. “I ben cookin’ fer two-t’ree years fer de U-V ootfit. Kurnel Miller run dat ootfit fust, an’ den sold oot to Jones. An’ yo bet Jones was sho glad to git rid of dem five boys. What wid shootin’ up de towns every pay day an’ sparkin’ Miss Molly, de Kurnel’s dotter, why, dat gennelman led a turrible life.”

“Wal, I reckon they weren’t no different from other boys where a pretty girl was concerned.”

“Yas, suh, dere wuz a difference, ‘cause dese boys wuz like twin brothers, an’ Miss Molly jes’ couldn’t choose among ’em. She sho wanted ’em all, so Mars Jones had to sell ’em to yo along wid de cattle.”

“Wal, Moze, we shore might run into anythin’ along the old Trail,” replied Brite, with a laugh. “But it’s reasonable to hope there won’t be any girls till we reach Dodge.”

“Dat’s a hot ole town dese days, I heah, boss.”

“Haw! Haw! Just yu wait, Moze.... Wal, we’re catchin’ up with the herd, an’ from now it’ll be lazy driftin’ along.”

Soon Brite came up with the uneven, mile-wide rear of the herd. Four riders were in sight, and the first he reached was Hallett, who sat cross-legged in his saddle and let his pony graze along.

“How’re yu boys makin’ oot, Roy?”

“Jes’ like pie, boss, since we got up on the range,” was the reply. “There’s some mean old mossy-horns an’ some twisters in thet second herd of yores. Texas Joe shot two bulls before we got ’em leavin thet valley.”

“Bad luck to shoot cattle,” replied Brite, seriously.

“Wal, we’re short-handed an’ we gotta get there, which I think we never will.”

“Shore we will.... Where’s Reddie Bayne with the remuda?”

“Aboot a half over, I reckon. Thet’s Rolly next in line. He’s been helpin’ the kid with the remuda.”

“Ahuh. How’s Reddie drivin’?”

“Fine, boss. But thet’s a sight of hawses for one boy. Reckon he could wrangle them alone but fer them damn old mossy-horns.”

Brite passed along. Rolly Little was the next rider in line, and he appeared to be raising the dust after some refractory steers. Cows were bellowing and charging back, evidently wanting to return to calves left behind.

“Hey, boss, we got some onery old drags in this herd,” he sang out.

“Wal, have patience, Little, but don’t wear it oot,” called Brite.

The horses were grazing along in a wide straggling drove, some hundred yards or more behind the herd. Reddie Bayne on the moment was bending over the neck of his black, letting him graze. Brite trotted over to join him.

“Howdy, Reddie.”

“Howdy, Mr. Brite.”

“Wal, I’ll ride along with yu an’ do my share. Everythin’ goin’ good?”

“Oh yes, sir. I’m havin’ the time of my life,” rejoined the youth. He looked the truth of that enthusiastic assertion. What a singularly handsome lad! He looked younger than the sixteen years he had confessed to. His cheeks were not full, by any means, but they glowed rosily through the tan. In the broad sunlight his face shone clear cut, fresh and winning. Perhaps his lips were too red and curved for a boy. But his eyes were his most marked feature — a keen, flashing purple, indicative of an intense and vital personality.

“Thet’s good. I was some worried aboot yu last night,” returned the cattleman, conscious of gladness at having befriended this lonely lad. “Have my boys been friendly?”

“Shore they have, sir. I feel more at home. They’re the — the nicest boys I ever rode with.... All except Texas Joe.”

“Wal, now, thet’s better. But what’s Joe done?”

“Oh, he — he just took a — a dislike to me,” replied the lad, hurriedly, with a marked contrast to his former tone. “It always happens, Mr. Brite, wherever I go. Somebody — usually the rancher or trail boss or foreman — has to dislike me — an’ run me off.”

“But why, Reddie? Air yu shore yu’re reasonable? Texas Joe is aboot as wonderful a fellar as they come.”

“Is he? — I hadn’t noticed it.... He — he cussed me oot this mawnin’.”

“He did? Wal, thet’s nothin’, boy. He’s my Trail boss, an’ shore it’s a responsibility. What’d he cuss yu aboot?”

“Not a thing. I can wrangle these hawses as good as he can. He’s just taken a dislike to me.”

“Reddie, he may be teasin’ yu. Don’t forget yu’re the kid of the ootfit. Yu’ll shore catch hell.”

“Oh, Mr. Brite, I don’t mind atall — so long’s they’re decent. An’ I do so want to keep this job. I’ll love it. I’m shore I can fill the bill.”

“Wal, yu’ll keep the job, Reddie, if thet’s what’s worryin’ yu. I’ll guarantee it.”

“Thank yu.... An’, Mr. Brite, since yu are so good I — I think I ought to confess — —”

“Now see heah, lad,” interrupted Brite. “Yu needn’t make no more confessions. I reckon yu’re all right an’ thet’s enough.”

“But I — I’m not all right,” returned the lad, bravely, turning away his face. They were now walking their mounts some rods behind the remuda.

“Not all right?... Nonsense!” replied Brite, sharply. He had caught a glimpse of quivering lips, and that jarred him.

“Somethin’ tells me I ought to trust yu — before — —”

“Before what?” queried Brite, curiously.

“Before they find me oot.”

“Lad, yu got me buffaloed. I’ll say, though, thet yu can trust me. I dare say yu’re makin’ a mountain oot of a mole hill. So come on, lad, an’ get it over.”

“Mr. Brite, I — I’m not what I — I look — atall.”

“No? — Wal, as yu’re a likely-lookin’ youngster, I’m sorry to heah it. — Why ain’t yu?”

“Because I’m a girl.”

Brite wheeled so suddenly that his horse jumped. He thought he had not heard the lad correctly. But Bayne’s face was turned and his head drooped.

“Wha-at?” he exclaimed, startled out of his usual composure.

Bayne faced him then, snatching the old sombrero off. Brite found himself gazing into dark, violet, troubled eyes.

“I’m a girl,” confessed Reddie, hurriedly. “Everywhere I’ve worked I’ve tried to keep my secret. But always it was found oot. Then I suffered worse. So I’m tellin’ yu, trustin’ yu — an’ if — or when I am found oot — maybe yu’ll be my friend.”

“Wal, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” burst out Brite. “Yu’re a girl!... Shore I see thet now.... Why, Reddie, yu pore kid — yu can just bet yore life I’ll keep yore secret, an’ be yore friend, too, if it’s found oot.”

“Oh, I felt yu would,” replied Reddie, and replaced the wide sombrero. With the sunlight off those big eyes and the flushed face, and especially the rebellious red-gold curls she reverted again to her disguise. “Somehow yu remind me of my dad.”

“Wal now, lass, thet’s sweet for me to heah. I never had a girl, or a boy, either, an’ God knows I’ve missed a lot.... Won’t yu tell me yore story?”

“Yes, some time. It’s a pretty long an’ sad one.”

“Reddie, how long have yu been masqueradin’ as a boy rider?”

“Three years an’ more. Yu see, I had to earn my livin’. An’ bein’ a girl made it hard. I tried everythin’ an’ I shore hated bein’ a servant. But when I grew up — then it was worse. ‘Most always boys an’ men treated me fine — as yu know Texans do. There was always some, though, who — who wanted me. An’ they wouldn’t leave me free an’ alone. So I’d ride on. An’ I got the idee pretendin’ to be a boy would make it easier. Thet helped a lot. But I’d always get found oot. An’ I’m scared to death thet hawk-eyed Texas Joe suspects me already.”

“Aw no — no! Reddie, I’m shore an’ certain not.”

“But he calls me Girlie Boy!” ejaculated Reddie, tragically.

“Thet’s only ‘cause yu’re so — so nice-lookin’. Land sakes! If Texas really suspected he’d act different. All these boys would. They’d be as shy as sheep.... Come to think of thet, Reddie, wouldn’t it be better to tell Texas Joe an’ all of them?”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake! — please — please don’t, Mr. Brite.... Honest, we’d never get to Dodge!”

Brite greeted this appeal with a hearty laugh. Then he recalled Moze’s talk about the Uvalde boys. “Wal, maybe yu’re right. ... Reddie, I’ve a hunch now thet hombre Wallen knows yu air a girl.”

“Yu bet he does. Thet’s the trouble.”

“In love with yu?”

“Him!... Why, Wallen’s too low to love anyone, even his own kin, if he ever had any.... He hails from the Big Bend country, an’ I’ve heahed it said he wasn’t liked around Braseda. He claims he bought me with a bunch of cattle. Same as a nigger slave! I was ridin’ for John Clay, an’ he did let me go with the deal. Wallen made thet deal ‘cause he’d found oot I was a girl. So I ran off an’ he trailed me.”

“Reddie, he’d better not follow yore trail up this way.”

“Would yu save me?” asked the girl, softly.

“Wal, I reckon, but Texas Joe or Pan Handle would have thet hombre shot before I could wink,” declared the cattleman, in grim humor.

The girl turned an agitated face to him. “Mr. Brite, yu make me hope my dream’ll come true — some day.”

“An’ how, Reddie?”

“I’ve dreamed some good rancher — some real Texan — would adopt me — so I could wear girl’s clothes once more an’ have a home an’ — an’ — —”

Her voice trailed away and broke.

“Wal, wal! Stranger things than thet have happened, Reddie,” replied Brite, strangely stirred. On the moment he might have committed himself to much but for an interruption in the way of distant gun shots.

“Rumpus over there, Mr. Brite,” suddenly called Reddie, pointing to a huge cloud of dust over the west end of the herd. “Yu better ride over. I’ll take care of the hawses.”

Putting spurs to his mount, Brite galloped in the direction indicated. Hallett and Little were not in sight, and probably had been obscured by the dust. A low roar of trampling hoofs filled his ears. The great body of the herd appeared intact, although there were twisting mêlées of cattle over toward the left on the edge of the dust line. Brite got around the left wing to see a stream of long-horns pouring out of the main herd at right angles. The spur was nearly a mile long, and bore the ear marks of a stampede. With too few drivers the danger lay in the possibility of the main herd bolting in the opposite direction. Except in spots, however, they were acting rationally. Then Brite observed that already the forward drivers had the stream curving back to the north. He became conscious of relief, and slowed up to take his place behind the most exposed section of the herd. All across the line the cattle were moving too fast. A restlessness had passed through the mass. It was like a wave. Gradually they returned to the former leisurely gait and all appeared well again. Little rode past at a gallop and yelled something which Brite did not distinguish.

The drive proceeded then in its slow, orderly procession, a time-swallower, if no more. Hours passed. The warm sun began its westering slant, which grew apace, as did all the details of driving, the rest and walk and jog, the incessant stir of cattle, the murmur of hoofs, the bawl of cows, the never-failing smell of dust, manure, and heated bodies, and ever the solemn sky above and the beckoning hills, the dim purple in the north.

In another hour the great herd had surrounded a little lake in the center of an immense shallow bowl of range land. Trees were conspicuous for their absence. Moze had wisely hauled firewood, otherwise he would have had to burn buffalo chips for fuel. Brite walked his horse a mile along the left flank before he reached the chuck-wagon and camp. These were at the head of the lake, from which slight eminence the whole center of the depression could be seen. Gramma grass was fair, though not abundant. The cattle would need to be herded this night.

Reddie Bayne came swinging along on the beautiful black, always a delight to a rider’s eye. Reddie reined in to accommodate Brite’s pace.

“Heah we air, the long day gone an’ camp once more. Oh, Mr. Brite, I am almost happy,” declared Reddie.

“There shore is somethin’ sweet aboot it. Make the best of it, Reddie, for God only knows what’ll come.”

“Ah! There’s thet Texas Joe!” exclaimed Reddie as they neared camp. “Looks mighty pert now. I reckon he’s pleased with himself for turnin’ thet break back.... Boss, what’ll I do when he — he gets after me again?”

“Reddie, don’t be mealy-mouthed,” advised Brite, low-voiced and earnest. “Talk back. Be spunky. An’ if yu could manage a cuss word or two it’d help a lot.”

“Lord knows I’ve heahed enough,” replied Reddie.

They rode into camp. Texas Joe had thrown off sombrero, vest, and chaps, and gun-belt as well. It occurred to Brite that the tall amber-eyed, tawny-haired young giant might well play havoc with the heart of any fancy-free girl.

“Wal, heah yu air, boss,” he drawled, with his winning smile. “Fust I’ve seen yu since mawnin’. Reckoned yu’d rode back to Santone.... It shore was a good drive. Fifteen miles, an’ the herd will bed down heah fine.”

“Texas, I got sort of nervous back there,” replied Brite as he dismounted.

“Nothin’ atall, boss, nothin’ atall. I’d like to inform yu, though, thet this heah Pan Handle Smith might have rode up this Trail with Jesse Chisholm an been doin’ it ever since.”

“Thanks, Joe. I hardly deserve thet,” rejoined the outlaw, who appeared to be getting rid of the dust and dirt of the ride.

Lester Holden was the only other driver present, and he squatted on a stone, loading his gun.

“I had fo’ shots at thet slate-colored old mossy-horn. Bullets jest bounced off his haid.”

“Boys, don’t shoot the devils, no matter how mean they air. Save yore lead for Comanches.”

“Wal, if there ain’t our Reddie,” drawled Texas Joe, with a dancing devil in his eye. “How many hawses did yu lose, kid?”

“I didn’t count ’em,” replied Reddie, sarcastically.

“Wal, I’ll count ’em, an’ if there’s not jest one hundred an’ eighty-nine yu’re gonna ride some more.”

“Ahuh. Then I’ll ride, ‘cause yu couldn’t count more’n up to ten.”

“Say, yu’re powerful pert this evenin’. I reckon I’ll have to give yu night guard.”

“Shore. I’d like thet. But no more’n my turn, Mister Texas Jack.”

“Right. I’m mister to yu. But it’s Joe, not Jack.”

“Same thing to me,” returned Reddie, who on the moment was brushing the dust off his horse.

“Fellars, look how the kid babies that hawse,” declared Shipman. “No wonder the animal is pretty.... Dog-gone me, I’ll shore have to ride him tomorrow.”

“Like bob yu will,” retorted Reddie.

“Say, I was only foolin’, yu darned little pepper-pot. Nobody but a hawse thief ever takes another fellar’s hawse.”

“I don’t know yu very well, Mister Shipman.”

“Wal, yu’re durned liable to before this drive is much older.”

Somehow, Brite reflected, these two young people rubbed each other the wrong way. Reddie was quite a match for Texas Joe in quick retort, but she was careful to keep her face half averted or her head lowered.

“Reckon we’ll all know each other before we get to Dodge.”

“Ahuh. An’ thet’s a dig at me,” replied Texas Joe, peevishly. “Dog-gone yu, anyhow.”

“Wal, haven’t yu been diggin’ me?” demanded Reddie, spiritedly.

“Sonny, I’m Brite’s Trail boss an’ yu’re the water-boy.”

“I am nothin’ of the sort. I’m the hawse-wrangler of this ootfit.”

“Aw, yu couldn’t wrangle a bunch of hawg-tied suckin’ pigs. Yu shore got powerful testy aboot yoreself, all of a sudden. Yu was meek enough this mawnin’.”

“Go to hell, Texas Jack!” sang out Reddie, with most exasperating flippancy.

“What’d yu say?” blustered Texas, passing from jest to earnest.

“I said yu was a great big, sore-haided, conceited giraffe of a trail-drivin’ bully,” declared Reddie, in a very clear voice.

“Aw! Is thet all?” queried Texas, suddenly cool and devilish. Quick as a cat he leaped to snatch Reddie’s gun and pitch it away. Reddie, who was kneeling with his back turned, felt the action and let out a strange little cry. Then Texas fastened a powerful hand in the back of Reddie’s blouse, at the neck, and lifted him off his feet. Whereupon Texas plumped down to draw Reddie over his knees.

“Boss, yu heahed this disrespectful kid,” drawled Texas. “Somethin’ shore has got to be done aboot it.”

CHAPTER IV

THE ASTOUNDING THING to the startled Brite was the way Reddie lay motionless over the knees of the cowboy, stiff as a bent poker. No doubt poor Reddie was petrified with expectation and horror. Brite tried to blurt out with a command for Texas to stop. But sight of that worthy’s face of fiendish glee completely robbed the cattleman of vocal powers.

“Pan Handle, do you approve of chastisement for unruly youngsters?” queried Texas.

“Shore, on general principles,” drawled Smith. “But I reckon I cain’t see thet Reddie has been more than sassy.”

“Wal, thet’s it. If we don’t nip him in the bud we jest won’t be able to drive cattle with him babblin’ aboot.”

“Lam him a couple, Tex,” spoke up Lester. Reddie’s all right, I reckon, only turrible spoiled.

Texas raised high a broad, brown, powerful hand.

“Shipman — don’t yu — dare — smack me!” cried Reddie, in a strangled voice.

But the blow fell with a resounding whack. Dust puffed up from Reddie’s trousers. Both her head and feet jerked up with the force of the blow. She let out a piercing yell of rage and pain, then began to wrestle like a lassoed wildcat. But Texas Joe got in three more sounding smacks before his victim tore free to roll over and bound erect. If Brite had been petrified before, he was now electrified. Reddie personified a fury that was beautiful and thrilling to see. It seemed to Brite that anyone but these thick-headed, haw-hawing drivers would have seen that Reddie Bayne was an outraged girl.

“Oh-h-h! Yu devil!” she screamed, and jerked for the gun that had been on her hip. But it was gone, and Lester had discreetly picked it up.

“Ump-umm, kid. No gun-play. This heah is fun,” said Lester.

“Fun — hell!” Then quick as a flash Reddie leaped to deal the mirth-convulsed Texas a tremendous kick on the shin. That was a horse of another color.

“Aggh-gh-gh!” roared Texas, clasping his leg and writhing in agony. “Aw, my Gawd!... My sore laig!”

Reddie poised a wicked boot for another onslaught. But she desisted and slowly settled back on both feet.

“Huh! So yu got feelin’s?”

“Feelin’s? — Say, I’ll — be — daid in a minnit,” groaned Texas. “Kid, thet laig’s full of lead bullets.”

“If yu ever touch me again I’ll — I’ll fill the rest of yore carcass with lead.”

“Cain’t yu take a little joke?... Shore I was only in fun. The youngest driver always gets joked.”

“Wal, Texas Jack, if thet’s a sample of yore trail-drivin’ jokes, I pass for the rest of the trip.”

“But, say, yu ain’t no better than anybody else,” protested Texas, in a grieved tone. “Ask the boss. Yu wasn’t a good fellar — to get so mad.”

Reddie appealed voicelessly to the old cattleman.

“Wal, yu’re both right,” declared Brite, anxious to conciliate. “Tex, yu hit too darned hard for it to be fun. Yu see Reddie’s no big, husky, raw-boned man.”

“So I noticed. He certainly felt soft for a rider.... Kid, do yu want to shake an’ call it square? I reckon I got the wust of it at thet. Right this minnit I’ve sixteen jumpin’ toothaches in my laig.”

“I’d die before I’d shake hands with yu,” rejoined Reddie, and snatching up her sombrero, and taking her gun from the reluctant Lester, she flounced away.

“Dog-gone!” ejaculated Texas, ruefully. “Who’d took thet kid for such a spitfire? Now I’ve gone an’ made another enemy.”

“Tex, yu shore was rough,” admonished Brite.

“Rough? Why, I got mine from a pair of cowhide hobbles,” growled Texas, and getting up he limped about his tasks.

Presently Moze called them to supper, after which they rode out on fresh horses to relieve the guard. Deuce Ackerman reported an uneasy herd, owing to the presence of a pack of wolves. Brite went on guard, taking a rifle with him. He passed Bayne’s black horse. The remuda had bunched some distance from the herd. It was still warm, though the fiery-red sun had gone down behind the range. Brite took up his post between the horses and cattle, and settled to a task he had never liked.

The long-horns had not quieted down for the night. Distant rumblings attested to restlessness at the other end of the herd. Brite patrolled a long beat, rifle across his pommel, keeping a sharp lookout for wolves. He saw coyotes, jack-rabbits, and far away over the grass, a few scattered deer. Before dusk settled thick Reddie Bayne appeared with the remuda, working them off to the eastward, toward a sheltered cove half a mile beyond Brite. Twilight stole on them down in the bowl, and over the western horizon gold rays flushed and faded.

Before dark Reddie rode up to Brite.

“Hawses all right, boss. I reckon I’ll hang around yore end. We all got orders to stand guard till called off.”

“Maybe somethin’ brewin’. Maybe not. Quien sabe?”

“I reckon what’s brewin’ is in thet hombre’s mind.”

“Which hombre, Reddie?”

“Yu know.... Wasn’t it perfectly awful — what he did to me, Mr. Brite?”

“Wal, it was kinda tough,” agreed Brite. “Tex got in action so quick I just was too flabbergasted.”

“Yu shore wasn’t very chivalrous,” rejoined Reddie, dubiously. “I’ve my doubts aboot yu now.”

“It sort of paralyzed me ‘cause I knowed yu was a girl.”

“I’ll bet thet would paralyze him, too,” retorted Reddie, darkly. “Boss, I could get even with Texas by tellin’ him thet he had insulted a lady.”

“By thunder! yu could. But don’t do it, Reddie. He might shake the ootfit.”

“I’d hate to have him know I — I’m a girl,” replied Reddie, musingly.

“Let’s hope none of them will find oot.”

“Mr. Brite, I’d never forgive myself if I brought yu bad luck.”

“Yu won’t, Reddie.”

“Listen,” she whispered, suddenly.

A weird chanting music came on the warm air, from the darkness. Brite recognized the Spanish song of a vaquero.

“San Sabe singin’ to the herd, Reddie.”

“Oh — how pretty! He shore can sing.”

Then from another quarter came a quaint cowboy song, and when that ceased a faint mellow voice pealed from far over the herd. The rumblings of hoofs ceased, and only an occasional bawl of a cow broke the silence. San Sabe began again his haunting love song, and then all around the herd pealed out the melancholy refrains. That was the magic by which the trail drivers soothed the restless long-horns.

The moon came up and silvered the vast bowl, lending enchantment to the hour. Reddie passed to and fro, lilting a Dixie tune, lost in the beauty an serenity of the night. From a ridge pealed forth the long, desolate, blood-curdling moan of a prairie wolf. That brought the ghastly reminder that this moment was real — that there was death waiting just beyond.

The cowboys smoked and sang, the cattle slept or rested, the balmy night wind rustled the grass, the ducks whirred to and fro over the lake. The stars paled before the full moon.

Texas Joe came trotting up. “Boss, yu an’ Reddie go to bed. Two hours off an’ then two on, for five of us. I ain’t shore yet thet all is wal.”

Reddie never stopped singing the sweet ditty.

“Gosh, Tex, it cain’t be midnight yet!” exclaimed Brite.

“It cain’t be, but it shore is. Go along with yu.... Reddie, yu got a sweet voice for a boy. I shore am a-wonderin’ aboot yu.”

“Boss, yu see?” whispered Reddie, fiercely, clutching Brite’s arm. “Thet hombre suspects me.”

“Let him — the son-of-a-gun! Then if he finds yu oot it’ll be all the wuss.”

“For him or me?”

“For him, shore.”

“How yu mean, boss, wuss?”

“Wal, it’d serve him right to fall so dinged in love with yu thet — —”

“O my Gawd!” cried Reddie, in faint, wild tones, and spurred ahead to vanish in the shadows.

“Wal!” quoth Brite, amazed. It was evident that he had said something amiss. “Thet was an idee. Didn’t she fly up an’ vamoose?”

Brite made his way slowly into camp. Hallett and Ackerman were already in by the fire, drinking coffee. San Sabe came riding up, still with the remnants of song on his lips. Reddie’s horse was haltered out in the moonlight and something prone and dark showed beside a low bush. Brite sought his own blankets.

Next morning, when Brite presented himself for breakfast, Whittaker and Pan Handle were the only drivers in camp. They were eating in a hurry.

“Herd movin’, boss,” announced Smith. “We been called.”

Brite answered their greetings, while his ears attuned themselves to the distant sound of hoofs. The hour was early, as the sun had not yet risen. A cloudless sky and balmy air attested to promising weather.

“Where’s Reddie?”

“Off with the hawses. When he heahed Joe yell he quit eatin’ like a scared jack rabbit. I called for fresh hawses.”

“Must be somethin’ up,” muttered Brite. “Wal, it’s aboot time.”

“I don’t care much aboot this heah trail drivin’,” drawled Whittaker. “Too slow. I hired oot for action.”

“Humph! Son, yu’ll get yore belly full of action,” declared Brite, grimly.

“Heah comes Red with hawses,” announced Pan Handle. “Boss, I shore like thet kid. Nice quiet lad. Rides like a vaquero an’ shore knows hawses.”

“Hey, men, ketch yore ponies,” shrilled Reddie, and flashed away out of sight.

It was everybody for himself. Fortunately, a rope corral aided the drivers in catching the fresh, unwilling horses. Brite haltered his, a ragged little bay, and returned to finish his meal. Soon the others were off.

“Moze, what started the herd so pronto?” queried Brite.

“I dunno, boss. Jes’ started themselves, I reckon. Cattle is sho pustiferous annimiles. De Lawd Hisself nebber knows what dey’ll do.”

“Right.... Pack without washin’ up, Moze. An’ move right along.”

“Ise a-movin’, sah.”

Brite climbed aboard the little bay. He, like all the drivers, had to ride what horses Reddie could fetch in promptly, and in this case he realized at once that he was in for tricks. The bay showed every indication of bucking, but by spurring him off over the prairie Brite wore off his mean edge. A red disc of sun peeped up over the eastern rim. The day had begun. Flocks of black birds wheeled from the water in the direction of the cattle. A distant low cloud of dust moved to the northward. Brite caught up with it to find the cattle slowing down and spreading out. Bayne had the remuda in order on the right, and half a mile behind.

Ackerman sat his mustang, waiting for Brite, whom evidently he had seen following.

“Boss, did yu run acrost thet daid steer back a ways?” he queried.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Wal, I did. An’ I had to shoot it.”

“What for?”

“Somebody had crippled it. Laig broke by a needle-gun slug.”

“Yu don’t say! We haven’t any buffalo guns in this ootfit.”

“Looks queer to me. Must have been done jest before daylight.”

“Does Texas know aboot it?”

“Cain’t say. Reckon not. He was off guard. Went on at dawn. Same for me. But one of the boys must have heahed thet big gun.”

“Ahuh. Plenty of thick brush around thet lake. There might have been a camp somewhere. Somebody wantin’ beef, mebbe.”

Brite rode on to fill in a wide breach behind the herd, and there he walked his horse, and rested, and watched the horizon to the rear, and found the long hours pleasant. By mid-afternoon the endless, long slope, almost imperceptible until it had been surmounted, lay behind the herd and in front the land dropped to a creek bottom. Wide white bars of sand hemmed in a winding sheet of water. Across on the far bank dark green groves of timber and light green levels of grass invited camp and rest for that night. Four drivers, one after the other, pealed back the foreman’s order: “Cross above. Keep movin’. Push the drags.”

Brite saw the head of the great herd swerve to the west along the bank. Seven riders congregated on that side. The cattle wanted to drink, and after drinking they would cross. The danger evidently lay in stragglers working off the bars into bad places. Gunshots attested to hard practice in turning stock. Brite could not recall just where the trail did cross, but he calculated anywhere along there. Smith waved a red scarf from a high bank. He alone rode on the west of the herd. Then he disappeared, and the cattle appeared to roll in a bobbing stream down the incline. The after mass of long-horns crowded those in front, and the knocking of horns and bellowing of cows grew incessant. Brite saw that he was needed more around on the right flank, to help keep the stragglers in line, and the slow ones from dropping back. When the red and white front of the herd appeared wading and wallowing across, then the difficulty of holding back the rear grew greater, and passed from hard riding to hazardous toil. Seven riders on that side had their work cut out for them. Reddie Bayne got the remuda in line to the left, then joined the drivers on the right. Brite yelled for the youngster to keep out from in front of those ugly old mossy-horns. Some of these charged, kicked their heels like mules, and wickedly shook their heads. When at length the wide ragged rear end of the herd passed on into the shallow water they left a number mired in the quicksand. These were mostly the unruly cattle that had run too soon off the bank. Some of them were floundering; some were sinking; all were bellowing lustily.

Texas Joe came galloping back from upstream.

“Reddie, what’n hell yu mean layin’ off yore remuda?” he shouted, his amber eyes flashing. “Git oot of heah!”

Reddie took to the shallow water with his horse on the run. Then Joe sent Whittaker, Bender, and Smith across.

“Boss, yu ain’t needed heah. Go along,” he concluded.

“Let ’em alone, Tex. There’s only twenty-one haid,” replied Brite.

“Hell no!” rang out the foreman, untying his lasso. “We ain’t lettin’ nuthin’ go.... Pile in, boys, an’ stretch hemp. Keep away from thet ooze an’ drag ’em upstream.”

Whereupon Shipman rode off the bar, swinging the loop of his rope around his head. His horse sank up to his fetlocks, but kept moving. Texas cast a long loop and snared a bull that had only horns and head above the mire. Then spurring and yelling, the driver set to the task of dragging the long-horn out. The other boys followed suit, and there ensued a scene of strenuous noisy activity. They all got fast to a cow or steer, and put spurs to their mounts. Some of the cattle were dragged out easily. Others came but slowly and by dint of tremendous effort on the part of horse and rider. Texas could not budge the big bull, and Brite yelled to let that one go. Then the foreman’s horse bogged down to his flanks. Like a flash Texas was off to loosen his cinch and tear his saddle free. Thus encumbered, with the rope still fast to the pommel and the bull at the other end, he bogged down himself. His horse floundered out to safety, but Texas had to yell for help. Ackerman and San Sabe rode to his assistance.

“Cut free,” yelled Ackerman as he pitched an open loop to Texas.

“Sans, go below an’ sling yore rope over thet damn bull,” ordered Texas, and catching Ackerman’s rope he fastened it over the pommel of his saddle. He was half way up to his thighs in the quicksand and perceptibly sinking.

“I’m fast, Deuce,” called out San Sabe, wheeling his horse. “Now drag ’em oot!”

The horses plunged, the ropes twanged. Texas was pulled over on his side, but clinging to the rope he held on. The two riders broke the bull loose from the anchoring mire and began to drag him upstream. Presently he let go and found his footing, to crawl out like a giant mud-turtle. A third rider swung in to catch the bull, and then with three ropes on him he was literally dragged out of the quicksand. Texas cursed the old mossy-horn as if he were human.

Brite revelled in this scene, and only once thought it necessary to lend a hand, and then he was not wanted. Like Comanche Indians these young riders yelled and rode, with fierce flashing eyes and many a ringing shout. Their profanity and grim humor seemed to fit their actions — all so hard, primitive, and inevitable.

The last unfortunate cow appeared to be too far out and too deeply sunk to be extricated. But these boys labored on. They did all save get off and wade. The lassoes were too short. Only one caught over a horn and it slipped off.

“Boys, she’s gone. Stranglin’ now,” called Brite. “Come off an’ let well enough alone.”

“Aw, put her oot of her misery,” called one of them.

Guns boomed. One bullet whizzed off the skull of the cow.

“Hey, I thought yu fellars from down Uvalde way could shoot,” drawled Texas, pulling his gun. He took deliberate aim. There was a significance in his posture. At the discharge the rolling eye of the animal went out. She laid her head over, and it sank until only the tip of a long horn stuck up.

“Aw, hell!” laughed Deuce Ackerman, sheathing his gun.

“Tex, I shore hope yu hit plumb center like thet when some redskin is aboot to peel my hair,” said Less Holden.

Texas made no further comment. Dragging his saddle out of the mud, he shook the blanket and flopped it over his horse. The saddle went on, dripping water an sand. Soon Texas mounted to ride after the boys, now splashing across the shallow stream. Brite followed, careful to go briskly and let his horse pick the way. He had been in quicksand before.

They drove the twenty rescued cattle across the broadly marked sand bar and up into the timber. Beyond the strip of trees the great herd had stopped to graze on the green level, now contented with their lot.

“Right heah is good enough,” said Texas, wearily. “Deuce, keep an eye open for Moze. He’ll need some direction an’ mebbe help comin’ across.... Gosh! I’m as tired as if I’d done a day’s work. An’ wet. Sand in my boots! —— the luck! Nice new boots!... Heah, Red, pull ’em off for me. Thet’s a good kid.”

“Who was yore nigger this time last year?” asked Reddie, coolly.

“Never mind who, darn yu....” Then Texas subtly changed. “Say, I asked yu a favor. My hands air all skinned.”

“Shore,” agreed Reddie, hastily, and with good grace he pulled off Shipman’s boots.

Deuce Ackerman sat his horse, peering back through the thin strip of trees to the river.

“Tex, did yu see thet crippled steer this mawnin’?” he asked.

“No. How crippled?”

“By a big buffalo gun. Laig broke. I shot it.”

“Buffalo gun! Who’s got one in this ootfit?”

“Nobody.”

“Deuce, air yu shore?” queried Texas, suddenly interested.

“Shore. I know needle guns. An’ the holes they make.”

“What’s on yore mind?... Hey, boss, yu heah him?”

“Yes. He told me this mawnin’,” replied Brite.

Pan Handle Smith knelt on one knee, after the manner of riders, and he looked keenly at Ackerman.

“Somebody not in our ootfit shot thet steer this mawnin’ aboot daylight,” returned the rider.

“Texas, I heahed thet gun,” put in Smith. “It woke me up.”

“Ahuh. There was a camp near us, then. I reckoned I smelled smoke when we rode down to the lake.”

“Shore. I seen smoke way down to the west. Made a little stringy cloud ag’in thet gold sunset.”

“Campers wantin’ meat, I reckon,” spoke up Brite. He suggested what he wanted to believe.

“Ump-umm,” responded Deuce, pondering. “Thet was a tough old steer. An’ he’d been shot from far off. Somebody took a pot shot at thet herd. But not for meat.”

“What for, then?” demanded Texas, sharply.

Nobody replied to that. Brite knew that the three men were thinking the same as he was, and did not readily voice their suspicions.

“Wal, heah comes Moze,” went on Ackerman. “Come on, Reddie. Yu got a big hawse. We’ll lend Moze a drag.”

The two rode off under the trees out upon the bar. Moze had halted the chuck-wagon on the opposite bank, where evidently he was looking for a safe place to drive across.

Texas looked from Pan Handle to Brite, and the curious, cold, little gleam in his amber eyes was something to see.

“Do you reckon we’re bein’ follered?” he queried.

“Like as not,” returned Brite.

“What’d the idee be, if we was?” asked Smith. “We’re a dozen strong. Thet’d be a fool trick.”

“Smith, it looks bad. Tex has been up the Trail before. He knows an’ I know thet the chances air stampeders air on our track. My herd is too big. An’ my ootfit too small.”

“Stampeders, eh? I sabe.”

“Never had any trouble before,” went on Brite. “Fact is I’ve been amazin’ lucky. But I’ve heahed of the hell other herd-owners have had. There’s a regular drain on herds. Most of it comes from two-bit stampeders who collect a few haid heah an’ there an’ finally get enough to drive to Dodge on their own hook. An’ again jealous drivers hire some of the trail-dodgers to stampede the herd ahaid of them. It’s a dirty bizness.”

“Say, it’s a shootin’ bizness,” declared Texas, with fire in his eyes. “Boss, will we do a little scoutin’ back tonight, or wait an’ see if — —”

“Let’s wait,” interrupted Brite. “If we air trailed we’ll shore find it oot soon enough. An’ if we’re not it’s no matter.... Ask Moze if he seen any riders back along the Trail.”

* * * * *

During the night Brite was awakened by he knew not what. The three belted stars he knew were sloping to the west, so the hour was late. It was also very still. No sound from the herd! No sing-song of lonely cowboys on duty! The insects had thinned down their melancholy dirge to a faint ghost of its earlier strength. The fire had burned down low. Coyotes wailed piercingly off to the north, no doubt on the edge of the herd.

Then a ringing shot cracked the silence. Brite sat up, fully awake.

“Forty-five,” he soliloquized, and peered around in the darkness to see who lay near him. Three sleeping drivers never stirred. Then heavier shots boomed out, reports that Brite recognized as belonging to buffalo guns. One of the cowboys stalked erect like a specter. Texas Joe! He turned his ear to the south. The biting ring of a .45 brought a sharp command from Shipman.

“Out of heah, men! Grab yore rifles an’ rustle!”

Two of the drivers moved in concert. They sat up, looked, dove for rifles, to leap up and follow the stalking Texas, now already in shadow. The third rider awoke slowly, bewildered. It was Hal Bender.

“Get up, Bender,” called Brite, rising himself.

“What’s up, boss?” queried the tenderfoot, aghast, as he pulled on his boots.

“Somethin’, I don’t know what. Heahed shootin’ oot there. Fetch yore guns.”

“Ah! — What’s that?”

A low rolling rumble off to the south smote Brite’s keen ears.

“Hawses. Rustlers after our remuda, I’ll bet,” declared Brite, quickening his stride to a trot. His gun barrel clinked on a sapling. He had to go slower or risk knocking himself on trees in the darkness. Bender panted closely behind him. Twice Brite halted to listen, each time getting the direction by sound. Then they emerged from the timber into the open — a gray level under the wan stars. Sharp voices drew Brite farther to the left. He ran, careful not to trip in the grass, holding his rifle forward and peering keenly ahead.

“Who comes?” rasped from the opaque gloom. That was Texas’ voice.

“Brite. Where air yu?”

“This way. Look oot for a hole.”

Brite and Bender soon joined a group of four, one of whom was mounted. This rider was talking: “...don’t know nothin’ ‘cept what I heahed. Hawses runnin’ wild. Then shots. Two big buffalo guns an’ a forty-five.”

“Ahuh. Which way, Sans?”

The vaquero stretched his arm to the south.

“Everybody listen,” ordered Texas, and he for one got down to lay his ear to the ground.

The silence was vibrant, intense. Nothing disturbed it. Texas stood up.

“Hawses movin’ somewhere. Just restless. No more runnin’.... Now, listen some more.”

Texas cupped his hands around his mouth. A whistling intake of air attested to his purpose. Suddenly he exploded: “HEY REDDIE!”

The stentorian yell split the silence and rolled away across the level, strange and wild. At once came an answer, faint but unmistakable, from the south.

“There! Sounds like...”

“Ssshh! Listen hard,” interrupted Texas. Another reply came from the opposite direction, and then a very distant cry from the west. Lastly a nearer voice concluded the location of the herd.

“Spread oot, fellars, an’ run this way,” ordered Texas. “Stop every hundred yards or so, an’ look sharp for the hawses. Hell to pay, I reckon.”

San Sabe took the lead on his horse and was soon out of sight. Brite worked to the right and obeyed orders. He must have halted a dozen times before he was rewarded by any sound, and then he heard horses that he could not see. After this he walked, out of breath, and strung with eagerness. Texas Joe had not reacted quietly to this midnight disturbance. Shrill neigh of horses swerved Brite back to the left. Soon a compact black patch stood out against the gray.

“Where’n hell air yu, Reddie?” called Shipman.

“Heah I’m comin’,” came in the high-pitched voice Brite had learned to know. Presently he ran into the waiting group just as Reddie Bayne’s big black loomed out of the gray.

“What yu doin’ oot heah at this hour?” demanded Texas, peremptorily.

“I didn’t go to camp,” replied Bayne.

“Ahuh. An’ why didn’t yu obey orders?”

“I got suspicious, Shipman. An’ I stayed with the hawses. I heahed voices an’ I seen lights. Then I bunched the remuda an’ worked them toward camp away from the herd. Pretty soon I heahed poundin’ hoofs. Then a string of riders showed comin’ fast. I shot at the leader an’ hit him or his hawse. But he kept right on. He an’ the riders with him piled right into my remuda. When they began to shoot I savvied what they were up to. They cut oot some of my hawses an’ drove them away. I shot at them an’ they shot back.... Reckon thet’s aboot all.”

“Stampeders!... Wal, Deuce had it figgered,” declared Texas.

“Let’s fork our hawses an’ hunt ’em up,” suggested Holden.

Brite did not think this advisable, but he held his tongue.

“How many’d they run off, Reddie?” queried Texas.

“I cain’t tell. Not many, though.”

“Wal, we’ll wait till mawnin’, anyhow.... Reddie, go to camp an’ get some sleep. It’s most daybreak.”

“If yu don’t mind, I’d as lief hang oot heah,” returned Bayne.

“Mebbe thet’s just as wal.... Spread oot, boys, an’ surround the remuda loose like. Yell if yu heah any hawses comin’.”

Silence once more settled down over the prairie. The riders vanished one by one. Brite patrolled a beat that eventually fetched him close to Texas Joe.

“What yu make of this, Joe?”

“Wal, we oughta expected it. I reckon we’re in for rough sleddin’. Too many haid of stock an’ too few drivers.”

“Thet’s how I figger it,” rejoined the boss, thoughtfully. “But I’ll tell yu, Shipman. If we get to Dodge with half our stock I’ll still make a big stake. An’ shore I won’t forget yu boys.”

“Boss, I ain’t carin’ a damn how many haid we lose. But I won’t give up one single damn old long-horn without a fight. But hawse-stealin’! Thet riles me.... Say, Brite, did it strike yu — how game thet kid Bayne was, stayin’ oot heah all alone? Dog-gone him! He rubs me the wrong way, but somehow I gotta like him.”

“So do I. — Tex, I wish yu’d treat Reddie a — a bit better.”

“Ahuh. I seen thet. Wal, I ain’t a-goin’ to have any favorites this drive. Why, the whole ootfit will hate my guts before we reach Dodge!... At thet, the whole ootfit never will make it, Brite.”

“Got a hunch, hey?” queried the boss, gloomily.

“So bad it hurts.... Wal, the east is grayin’. Wonder what this heah day will bring forth.”

Brite plodded back to his beat, and watched the stars pale and die, the east kindle, the gray steal away as if by magic, and the horses and cattle and land take shape.

Presently Texas Joe waved him campward. The herd appeared to be up and on the slow move north. And again the day promised fine. As Brite trudged into camp he espied San Sabe, Bender, Ackerman, standing, cups in hand, around Alabama Moze.

Then Texas came striding in on foot, his hawk eyes narrowed and his handsome lips tight.

“Deuce, yu point the herd an’ get goin’,” he said, tersely. “Send Pan Handle back shore with the others.”

“Air yu goin’ to rustle?”

“Yu bet. Reddie’s drivin’ in some hawses. I reckon I’ll take a look at them tracks south... Boss, we lost upward of twenty-five haid of hawses.”

“Small loss, if it ends there.”

“Ahuh. Say, for an old Texan yu’re nice disposed toward these stampeders.”

“Tex, I’ll bet he’ll rave one of these days,” laughed Deuce.

Reddie came loping in behind half a dozen ragged mustangs. The drivers spread and waved arms and ropes to corral them in a corner. Soon, then, only Brite, Texas Joe, Reddie, and the negro were left in camp. Texas appeared taciturn, as well as hungry. He was in a hurry, too. Reddie received his pan of food and cup from Moze, and repaired to an improvised seat, where he devoted himself assiduously to his meal.

The sun peeped up red over the purple horizon, and all the range land took on a rosy sheen. Even the birds heralded that transformation. Brite paused to take in the fresh radiance of the dawn. The long gramma grass shone bright as silver, and the flowers stood up with pale beautiful faces toward the east.

All of a sudden Texas Joe got up, cursing inaudibly. His lean head stuck out like that of a hawk as he peered to the south.

“What yu heah, Tex?” queried Brite, sharply.

“Hawses.”

Brite soon had to confess that Texas was correct.

“What of thet?” went on the boss.

“Wal, nothin’. Only couplin’ it with what come off this mawnin’ it ain’t so good.”

Presently a group of riders appeared at the far corner of timber. Brite counted seven or eight, all dark figures, coming at a brisk trot. Texas gave one long look, then turned to Brite.

“Boss, thet bunch has been watchin’ us,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “Timed us nice. Our boys just left an’ the guard not in sight.”

Suddenly Reddie Bayne leaped up, letting his pan clang to the ground.

“Wallen an’ his ootfit!” cried Reddie, startled.

“Shore aboot thet, boy?” asked Texas, darkly.

“Yes, shore. I know him.... I’ll bet they stampeded my remuda.... An’ now they’re after me.”

“Wal, keep back an’ be careful what yu say.... Brite, have yore Winchester handy. Let me do the talkin’.... This heah’s a time we may need yore Pan Handle Smith.”

The dark compact bunch of riders closed the gap quickly and drew up in a semicircle just opposite the fire and chuck-wagon. Brite did not need to question their character and intent — not this time! He recognized the swarthy Wallen, whose big bold eyes swept the camp, and the range beyond. Foremost of the other riders was a more striking individual even than Wallen — a man of about fifty years, with a visage like a bleak stone bluff and eyes like fiery cracks. Brite had seen this same man somewhere. The five others were a likely crew for these leaders — all young, lean, unkempt cowboys.

“Wal, heah’s our Reddie Bayne,” spoke up Wallen, gruffly, pointing a heavy hand at Reddie.

“Shore an’ proper, Wal,” replied his lieutenant, in a dry, crisp voice.

Whereupon Wallen turned his rolling eyes upon Brite. “Lied to me back on the trail a ways — hey, Brite?”

“If I did I’ll stick to it,” retorted Brite, his blood leaping.

Texas Joe strode forward and to one side, getting out of line of the chuck-wagon with a significance that no Texan could have mistaken.

“Wallen, I see some of yore outfit packin’ needle guns on their saddles,” he said, with biting sarcasm.

“What if they air? We’re huntin’ buffalo.”

“Ahuh. Thet what yu say.”

“I’ll talk to Brite, an’ not to yu, cowboy,” declared Wallen, aggressively.

“Yu talk to Texas Joe,” interposed Brite, caustically.

“Brite, we want thet youngster yu kidnapped. Reddie Bayne,” declared the leader of the visitors.

“Wallen, I ain’t used to palaverin’ with men like yu,” rejoined Texas, bitingly. It struck Brite that his foreman was playing for time to let Pan Handle Smith and the others reach camp. Brite flashed a furtive glance across the rosy grassland. No sign of a rider! This was serious, for there surely would be violence here promptly.

“Who the hell air yu?” shouted Wallen, hoarsely.

“Wal, I know this hombre,” said Wallen’s partner. “It’s Texas Shipman.”

“That means nothin’ to me.”

“Then yu do the talkin’, pard,” returned his companion, in cool hard voice that told Brite much. This lieutenant was the more dangerous man.

“I shore don’t need yu, Ross Hite, to do my talkin’,” snorted Wallen.

Ross Hite! Brite responded to that name well known to trail drivers. Hite had run the gamut of all Texas occupations known to the range.

“Wal, talk then, damn yu, an’ make it short,” shot out Texas. “What yu want?”

“We’re drivin’ our stock on ahaid,” replied Wallen, bluntly. “Yu travel too slow, an’ they’re crowdin’ us.... I want this rider, Reddie Bayne. He come to me in a deal I made with Jones at Braseda.”

“Ahuh. Does Bayne owe yu his services?”

“He shore does.”

“What yu say, Reddie?”

Reddie leaped forward. “He’s a damn liar, Texas,” shrilled Reddie, passionately. “I’ve run off from three ranches to get away from him.”

“Shet up or it’ll be the wuss for yu,” replied Wallen, stridently.

“Slow there, Wallen,” rang out Texas. “This heah is a free country. The day of slaves, white or black, is over.”

“Reddie, tell why Wallen wants yu,” spoke up Brite, cunningly. His Texan blood was not proof against this evasion. Besides, out on a far ridge top he descried a dark rider coming fast. Pan Handle!

“Oh — Tex,” burst out Reddie, poignantly, “he’s after me because— ‘cause I’m — a — I’m not what yu — think.”

Texas stiffened slightly, but never turned the breadth of a hair from the rider he was facing. Wallen’s face turned a dirty gray.

“What air yu — Reddie?” queried Texas, low and cool.

“I — I’m a — girl, Texas.... An’ thet’s why,” replied Reddie, huskily.

“Look oot!” shouted Ross Hite, piercingly.

Wallen clapped his hand to his hip. Texas appeared to blur in Brite’s strained sight. A gun belched red, and with the loud crack Wallen jerked up with terrible sudden rigidity. His dark face changed from hideous rage to an awful ghastliness, and he pitched from the saddle to fall with sodden crash. His horse lunged away. The other horse reared and snorted.

“Haid aboot or I’ll bore yu!” yelled Texas, his gun outstretched. “Brite, back me up with yore rifle. Reddie, line oot heah!”

Brite had scarcely needed the ringing order, for his rifle was levelled before Texas had finished. Likewise Reddie leaped forward, fearless and menacing.

All the riders except Ross Hite had wheeled abruptly. Several were walking their horses away. Hite showed no fear in his lean sallow face as he peered from Texas to the prostrate Wallen, and then back across the camp. Brite heard the thud of flying hoofs, and farther back the violent cries of riding cowboys.

“Brite, do yu want us to pack Wallen away?” queried Hite.

“No, thanks, we’ll ‘tend to him,” retorted Brite, sarcastically.

Just then a horse plunged by the chuck-wagon and, being pulled up short, slid to a halt, scattering dust and gravel everywhere. Pan Handle Smith leaped off in their midst, a gun magically appearing in each hand. It was then Brite’s tension relaxed.

“What’s the deal?” asked Smith, quietly.

Ross Hite stared hard at Smith and then laughed harshly.

“Wal, Brite, yu air a trail driver thet goes heeled. Texas Shipman an’ now Pan Handle Smith!”

“Rustle oot of heah!” ordered Texas.

“Men, this was Wallen’s deal, not mine,” returned Hite, and turning his horse he drove his companions ahead of him, quickly breaking into a gallop. Soon they passed round the corner of timber whence they had come.

Only then did Texas Joe move. He gave a quick glance at the dead Wallen and then wheeled with pale face and glittering eyes.

“Heah yu, Reddie Bayne,” he called, and in two long strides he confronted Reddie. “Did yu say yu was a girl?”

“Yes, Texas Joe — I — I am,” replied Reddie, and took off her sombrero to prove it. Her face was ashen and her eyes darkly dilated with receding terror. Texas fastened his left hand in her blouse and drew her up on her toes, close under his piercing gaze. His tawny hair stood up like the mane of a lion. But his cold fury was waning. Bewilderment hung close upon his passion.

“Yu — yu... all the time — yu’ve been a — a girl?” he broke out, hoarsely.

“Yes, Texas, all the time,” she whispered, sagging in his iron grasp. “I — I didn’t mean to fool yu. I told the boss.... I — I wanted to tell you, but he wouldn’t let me.... I — I’m sorry.”

CHAPTER V

TEXAS JOE APPEARED to shrink. He released Reddie so suddenly that she sagged and almost sank down, her hand at the neck of her blouse.

“Ootrag-eous of yu!” panted Texas as his pallid face grew red. “Makin’ oot yu was a boy — before us all!... An’ lettin’ me spank yu — an’ — —”

“Let yu!” flashed Reddie, her face flaming worse than his. “Why, yu dam big brute, I couldn’t help myself!”

“An’ all thet camp cussin’ of ours — an’ dirty talk before a girl!... My Gawd! Yu done a turrible thing, Miss Reddie Bayne!”

“I reckon, but it was these damn hombres like him — thet drove me to it,” declared Reddie, passionately, pointing a shaking finger at the ghastly, quiet Wallen.

With that Texas Joe seemed to realize the tragic side of what had happened. Wheeling abruptly away from the girl, he sheathed his gun and bent a grim, strange look upon the dead man.

“Search him, some of yu,” he said, sharp and cold. “Drag him oot an’ throw him in thet wash.... Come a-rustlin’ now, all of yu. Let’s get oot of this.”

“Where yu goin’, Tex?” called Brite, as the driver strode away.

“Take my hawse,” cried Reddie, after him.

But Texas Joe paid no heed to either. Soon he passed out of sight in the low brush. Then the strain among those around the camp fire relaxed. Reddie sat down as if her legs had grown weak.

“I’ve seen men shot before — but never for me,” she whispered. “I feel like a — a murderer.”

“Nonsense, Reddie,” spoke up Brite, brusquely. “I’d have bored Wallen myself if Texas hadn’t.... Pan Handle, did yu see thet one of Wallen’s ootfit forked a hawse of mine?”

“No, boss, I didn’t. Fact is I had eyes only for Ross Hite.”

“Wal, it’s true. When I bought thet bunch of stock I happened to take notice of a little bay mustang with a white face. I don’t mistake hawses I’ve once looked over. Wallen’s ootfit stampeded some of our remuda this mawnin’.”

“Boss, I don’t know Wallen, but he shore was ridin’ in bad company,” said Pan Handle.

“Ahuh. Yu know this Ross Hite?” rejoined Brite.

“Wal, rather. He was a cattle-buyer at Abilene. But he got into shady deals an’ found Abilene too hot for him. Surprises me, though, to find him stampedin’ a few hawses. I reckon thet was just by the way. Or else he’s goin’ to work somethin’ big on this Chisholm Trail.”

“Humph! Mebbe Hite is at the haid of this new game,” declared the boss, seriously. “Cattle-drivers sometimes lose half their stock from stampeders. I’ve heahed of one whole herd bein’ stole.”

“Texas Joe ought to have done for Hite same as Wallen. Hite will give us trouble on the way up,” said Smith, darkly.

Meanwhile Ackerman, with Whittaker and San Sabe, had dragged the dead Wallen out of camp. They returned presently packing gun and belt, spurs, a huge silver watch, and a heavy, fat wallet.

“Boss, I opened this,” said Ackerman, handing over the wallet. “He shore was heeled.”

Brite found the greasy wallet stuffed full of greenbacks.

“Say, he must have robbed a bank,” declared the boss, in amaze. “Boys, hundreds of dollars heah. What’ll we do with it?”

“What yu think?” queried Deuce Ackerman, sarcastically. “Yu want me to ride after Wallen’s ootfit an’ give thet money to his pards?”

“No. I was only figgerin’.... I’ll keep this an’ divide it among yu boys at the end of the drive. It’ll be a big bonus.”

The drivers gave vent to great appreciation of this decision. Brite stowed the money away in his saddle-bag, and put the other articles of Wallen’s in the chuck-wagon.

“Boys, did yu look where Texas Joe hit thet Wallen?” asked Pan Handle Smith, curiously.

“Shore. Right in the middle of Wallen’s left vest pocket. Bullet went through his tobacco-pouch.”

“Pretty daid-center shot for such a quick throw,” went on Smith, ponderingly. “Thet Texas Joe must be there on the draw.”

Brite was familiar with this peculiar interest of the gunman in regard to the proficiency of others. He replied that the cattleman who had recommended Shipman had made significant mention of the fact.

“Hurry an’ eat, boys,” went on Brite. “We want to be on the prod.”

All but Reddie Bayne answered to that suggestion with alacrity. Reddie sat with her face in her hands, her red-gold curls exposed. She made a pretty and a pathetic little figure, which Brite observed was not lost upon the shy cowboys. Deuce Ackerman looked at her several times, and finally conquered his evident embarrassment.

“Come on, Reddie. Don’t take it so hard,” he said, gallantly. “Shore if we can stand it, yu can. We know yu’re a girl now an’ if yu can only overlook our — our — —”

Deuce broke off there, manifestly unable to find words to express his shame for their talk and behavior before a girl. Reddie answered to that instantly, arising to come to the wagon, a blush dyeing her pale cheek.

“Thank yu, Deuce,” she replied, bravely conquering her confusion. “But none of yu boys need feel bad aboot it.... Texas was the only one who hurt my feelin’s.... I’m shore glad not to be ridin’ under false colors no more.”

Whittaker gave her a smile. “I doan mind tellin’ yu thet I knowed aboot yu all the time,” he drawled.

“Wha-at?” faltered Reddie, in alarm.

“Reddie, he’s a durned liar,” spoke up Deuce, forcibly. “Whit, yu cain’t come none of thet on her. Can he, Sabe?”

But San Sabe was not vouchsafing for anyone, or else he was tongue-tied. Moze rolled his great ox eyes at Reddie.

“Yo done fool us all, Miss Reddie, an’ dat’s no mistake,” he said, wagging his head. “An’ so youse a gal! Wal, Ise doag-goned glad to have a lady in de ootfit.”

“Air we all supposed to go on callin’ yu Reddie?” queried Pan Handle, dryly, as he fixed his keen eyes upon her.

“Why — of course.”

Soon they had finished their hasty breakfast, and saddling up were off for the day’s drive. As Brite rode down to head the wash, he saw where the boys had tumbled Wallen. They had not taken the trouble even to crumble some of the soft bank of earth over upon him. Perhaps they thought that Wallen’s gang would return, and Brite himself concluded that was likely. This was the first tragic happening on any drive Brite had made. It augured ill for this one. But he could not expect always to have phenomenal luck. Many a story of trail drivers had been harrowing. Brite fortified himself anew. And this morning there was a subtle change to the thrill and zest of trail driving. He looked out over the vast rose-and-purple expanse with hard eyes, quickening to more than the beauty of nature.

The herd was well pointed and moving perceptibly some miles ahead. Reddie and Pan Handle were off to the eastward with the remuda, catching up. Brite rode to the highest knoll available and then took his morning survey. The air was clear. Far to the south, perhaps twenty miles, a low black line pencilled the gray expanse. Buffalo or cattle, Brite could not decide which. He hoped they were buffalo. Forward the purple range billowed, and to the west skeleton shadows of hills pierced the haze. Deer and rabbits and coyotes appeared to be numerous this morning.

Finally Brite set off at a trot after the riders, who had caught up with the herd. One of them had been leading a saddled but riderless horse, undoubtedly meant for Texas Joe, who was on foot. Not for hours did Brite get a glimpse of his foreman, and by that time he was astride again.

The slow miles passed to the rear, and the westering sun had sunk low and dusky red before Shipman halted for the night. This day’s drive would total fifteen miles, a long journey for grazing cattle. Water had been crossed about mid-afternoon, which was well for the stock, because this was a dry camp. Grass was luxuriant, and buffalo chips abundant. Moze halted his chuck-wagon in the lee of an outcrop of rock, which was the only obstruction on the level land. Brite finished his own chores and then packed in chips for the camp fire. Not until a dusky haze had mantled the range did he stop gazing back to the southward.

Texas Joe did not ride in until after the night shift had gone on guard. He was silent and taciturn, aloof as Brite had seen other men who had lately snuffed out human life. Texas ate alone, kneeling beside the fire. More than once Brite caught him kneeling there, cup in hand, motionless, his thoughts far from the moment. Presently he slipped away in the darkness and Brite saw him no more. Rolly Little, Ben Chandler, and Roy Hallett, betrayed their knowledge of the marvelous fact that the Brite outfit had a young girl in it now, and not only a very pretty one, but also romantic and appealing. They were a changed trio. Excited, gay, decidedly on their good behavior they amused Brite. Not once did Brite hear them mention the killing of Wallen. That seemed far past. Rolly was the only one of the trio who had the courage to speak directly to Reddie. Ben took his attention out in covert glances, while Roy talked loudly, almost boastfully, a singular transformation in this boy.

The most noticeable change, however, and a pleasing one, appeared to be in Reddie Bayne. She seemed natural for the first time, and no longer slunk in and out of camp hurriedly, with her old sombrero pulled down over her eyes. In fact, she did not have it on at all, and only one glance at her pretty head was needed to ascertain that she had brushed her golden curls. Where had she done that, Brite wondered? After supper she helped Moze at his tasks, apparently not heeding the noisy trio around the fire, although a sharp observer might have detected that she heard every word. More than once she flashed a furtive glance off in the direction in which Texas Joe had disappeared. Next she tipped her bedroll off the wagon, and was about to shoulder it when the three cowboys piled over each other to get it. Rolly was the quickest.

“Whar yu want it unrolled Re... Miss Reddie?” he asked.

“Thanks. But give it to me,” returned Reddie, bluntly. “Say, I’ve been totin’ this roll every night, haven’t I? Why not tonight?”

“Wal, yu see, Miss Reddie, yu — we — it ain’t jest the same now.”

“Oh, ain’t it? What ain’t?”

“Yu know. The situation heah.... We boys have talked it over. Ridin’ remuda is enough for yu. No more packin’ saddles, bedrolls, firewood, water, an’ sich chores. We’ll do all thet for yu.”

“Yu’re awfully good, Rolly. But please wait till I drop, will yu?”

Whereupon she lifted the roll of canvas and carried it over significantly close to where Brite had unrolled his. When she had finished a like task for herself she came over to sit beside Brite.

“I’m still sick to my stomach,” she confided. “An’ I have thet queer heavy feelin’ up heah.” She put her hands to her breast, high up, and pressed them there.

“I savvy, Reddie. All thet this mawnin’.... Wal, it sort of faded for me. So much to think aboot!”

“Gee! I’ve thought ‘til my pore haid aches,” declared Reddie. “Mr. Brite, these cowboys air funny now. Have yu noticed it — since I been found oot?”

“Reckon I have. Shore it’s funny,” replied Brite. “It’s unusual to have a girl on a trail drive. Shore it’s goin’ to be somethin’ beside funny, Reddie.”

“I’m afraid so. What do yu think?”

“Wal, yu’re an awful pretty girl, an’ thet’s goin’ to make complications.”

“Oh dear!... I reckoned so. But, Mr. Brite, they’re nice boys. I — I like them. I’m not afraid. I’ll be able to sleep. This is the nicest ootfit of men I ever rode with.”

“Wal, thet’s a compliment to all of us, Reddie. Thank yu for it. I’ll bet the boys would like to heah thet. I’ll tell them.”

“Oh, I cain’t get this mawnin’ off my chest,” she whispered. “Wasn’t he terrible?”

“Who? Wallen?”

“Wallen! — No, he was just low down.... I mean Texas Joe....Wasn’t he fierce? I could have dropped in my tracks when he shot Wallen.... Just as quick as thet! Just the moment I confessed I was a girl — an’ — Wallen was after me.... Oh! He killed him! I prayed for some rider to do thet very thing. But when it was done I was sick. My blood curdled.... Yet even thet wasn’t as bad as when Texas grabbed me by the throat an’ nearly jerked me oot of my boots.... ‘All the time yu was a girl — all the time,’ he barked at me. I’ll never forget thet.”

“Aw, yes, yu will, Reddie,” replied Brite, soothingly. “Tex took the sap oot of me, too. Gawd! how quick he bored thet skunk! Why even Pan Handle remarked aboot it.... Just forget it, Reddie. We’ve lots more comin’, I reckon, this trip.”

“But, Mr. Brite,” she faltered. “I — I got the idee Texas Joe thought Wallen had — thet I was a — a hussy.”

“Reddie! I’m shore he’s thought nothin’ of the kind,” replied Brite, hastily.

“Oh, yes he did. He looked at me so! I could have sunk in my boots. ... Mr. Brite, I — I just couldn’t go on with yore ootfit if he thought I was a bad girl.”

“Tex was only shocked. Same as me — an’ all of us. It doesn’t happen every day, Reddie — a pretty kid of a girl droppin’ in on us oot of the sky. Yu see, Tex had swore at yu, an’ spanked yu thet time, an’ otherwise put familiar hands on yu withoot the least idee yu was anythin’ but a boy. He’s so ashamed he cain’t come aboot.”

“It’s very kind of yu to say thet, Mr. Brite,” rejoined Reddie. “I wish I could believe yu. But I cain’t. An’ I cain’t ask him — dammit!”

“Ask him what?”

“If he thinks I’m bad.”

“Wal, I reckon Tex would be hurt to find oot yu believed he could so insult yu in his mind. But ask him. Thet’ll settle it.”

“But I cain’t, Mr. Brite. I cain’t be mad at him — no matter what he believed me. ‘Cause he killed a man for my sake! ‘Cause he saved me from wuss’n hell — an’ from spillin’ my own blood.’

“Reddie, yu’re all upset,” replied Brite, moved at the convulsed pale face and the dark eyes. “Yu go to bed. In the mawnin’ yu’ll feel better.”

“Sleep! What’s to keep thet man Hite from sneakin’ in heah with his ootfit, knifin’ yu all, an’ makin’ off with me?”

The startling query acquainted Brite with the fact that there was not very much to oppose such a catastrophe. Too many drivers were required on guard. That left the camp force weak.

“Reddie, thet’s sort of far fetched,” said Brite.

“It’s been done over Braseda way. I heahed aboot it.”

“I’m a light sleeper, Reddie. No Comanches, even, could surprise me.”

Reddie shook her curly head as if she were unconvinced. “It’s tough enough to be a girl in town,” she said. “Oot heah on the trail it’s hell.”

“No one but Wallen’s ootfit knows. An’ shore they won’t come bracin’ us again. Go to bed, Reddie, an’ sleep.”

* * * * *

Brite lay awake, thinking. This waif of the ranges had disrupted a certain tenor of the trail drivers’ life. Having her with them was a drawback, a risk. But Brite could not entertain any idea of not keeping her. The fact that Reddie was a strong, skillful, enduring rider, as good a horse wrangler as any boy, did not alter the case. She was a girl, and growing more every minute a decidedly attractive girl. Impossible was it to keep the cowboys from realizing that alluring fact in a way characteristic of Texan youths in particular, and all youths in general. They would fall in love with her. They would quarrel over her. Nevertheless, suppose they did! Brite would not surrender to dismay. He refused to admit that youth, beauty, romance might detract from the efficiency of a group of trail drivers. On the other hand, they would rise to the occasion. That free, wild, spirit to do and dare would burn more fiercely and make them all the more invincible. No, Reddie Bayne was not a liability to this enterprise, but an asset. Brite satisfied himself on that score, and when that conclusion had been reached he realized that the orphan girl had found a place in his heart which had ever been empty.

The events of the day had not been conducive to undisturbed sleep. Brite was awake on and off until the guard changed at midnight. Reddie Bayne was also awakened.

“Boss,” she said, “I’m goin’ to have a look at my remuda.”

“Come along. I’ll go up with yu.”

Ackerman brought in the relief horses and reported that all was quiet, with the herd bedded down. The moon in its last quarter was low on the horizon. Sheet lightning flaring behind dark, stringy clouds in the West told of heat and storm.

As they rode out together Texas Joe swept by on a lope and hailed them gruffly. “Hang close together, yu!”

Brite heard Reddie mutter something under her breath. How she watched that dark rider across the moonlit plain! They found the horses resting, with only a few grazing. The grass was knee high. Out beyond, a great, black square defaced the silvery prairie, and this was the herd of long-horns. San Sabe’s voice doled out a cowboy refrain. The other guards were silent. Brite and Reddie rode around the herd twice, and finally edging the horses into a closer unit they turned campward. Reddie appeared prone to silence. Several times Brite tried conversation, which elicited only monosyllables from the youngster. They went to bed, and Brite slept until sunrise.

* * * * *

That day turned out uneventful. Shipman drove at least twelve miles. Brite observed that his foreman often faced the south to gaze long and steadily. But nothing happened and the night also proved quiet. Another day saw a lessening of anxiety. Ross Hite had not passed them in daylight, that was a certainty. A mild thunderstorm overtook the drivers on the following day, and the wet, shiny horns of the cattle and the fresh, dank odor of thirsty earth were pleasant.

Coon Creek and Buffalo Wallow, Hackberry Flat, The Meadows, and night after night at unnamed camps took the drivers well on into June. Buffalo began to show in straggly lines on the rise of prairie to the west. A few unfriendly riders passed at a distance. Brite began to think that good luck attended his trail again, and forgot the days and camps.

Meanwhile, except for the aloof Texas Joe and Pan Handle, the outfit had grown into a happy family. Reddie Bayne had been a good influence so far. Rivalry for her favor, for who should wait upon her in any conceivable way that she would permit, lacked not friendly spirit, for all its keenness. Smiles grew frequent upon her pretty face. She improved visibly under such pleasant contact. And Brite came to the day when he decided he would adopt her as a daughter, if one of these cowboys did not win her for a wife. Still, Brite, sharp watch and guardianship as he kept over her, found no serious courting. No one of them ever had a chance to get her alone. It just happened that way, or else Reddie was clever enough to bring it about.

Nevertheless, where Texas Joe was concerned there appeared to be smoldering fire. He watched Reddie from afar with telltale eyes. And Reddie, when she imagined she was unobserved, let her dreamy gaze stray in Joe’s direction. As foreman he had the responsibility of the herd, and day and night that was his passion. All the same he followed imperceptibly in the footsteps of his riders. Seldom did Joe address Reddie; never did he give her another order. Sometimes he would tell Brite to have her do this or that with the remuda. In camp he avoided her when that was possible. He seemed a weary, melancholy rider, pondering to himself.

Brite saw how this aloofness worked upon Reddie. She had come in to her own, and his indifference piqued her. Reddie never lost a chance to fret and fume to Brite about his foreman. Pride and vanity had come with the championship of the cowboys. Despite her ragged male attire, she no longer could have been taken for other than a girl. Some kind of a climax was imminent. Brite had his choice of a suitor for Reddie, but he liked all his boys. They had warmed to her influence. Perhaps if she had shown any preference then there might have been jealousy. But so far they were all her brothers and she was happy, except at such times when Texas Joe projected his forceful personality and disturbing presence upon the scene.

One early evening camp at Blanco River all the drivers but three were in, and Texas Joe was among the former. It had been an easy day until the crossing of the wide stream, where some blunders, particularly with the remuda, had ruffled the foreman. He gave Ackerman one of his round-about orders for Reddie. They were through supper and Joe about ready to take the night guard out. Suddenly Reddie flashed a resentful face in Joe’s direction.

“Deuce, I cain’t heah yu,” she said, quite piercingly. “If Mister Shipman has any orders for me, let him tell them to me.”

Ackerman was not slow in translating this into his own words, for the benefit of Joe and all. But it really had not been necessary.

“I’ll give orders any way I like, Miss Bayne,” said Texas.

“Shore. But if yu got anythin’ for me to do yu’ll say so, an’ not through somebody else.”

“Wal, I’ll fire yu when we get to Fort Worth,” rejoined Joe, coolly.

“Fire me!” cried Reddie, astounded and furious.

“Yu heahed me, Miss.”

“Then yu’ll fire the whole damn ootfit,” declared Reddie, hotly. “The idee! When I’ve not done a single thing wrong.... Tell him, boys. Deuce, Roy, Whit, Rolly — tell him.”

There were nonchalant and amiable remarks tending to the veracity of Reddie’s declaration.

“My Gawd! what a lousy ootfit!” ejaculated Joe, in disgust. “Less Holden — my pard — air yu in cahoots with her?”

“Shore, Tex,” replied Lester, with a laugh. “We jest couldn’t drive cattle withoot Reddie.”

“Yu too!” burst out Texas, deeply chagrined and amazed.

“Say, what kind of a foreman air yu — givin’ orders to yore hawse-wrangler through a third person?” flashed Reddie, scornfully. “I’m on this ootfit. I’m gettin’ wages. Yu cain’t ignore me.”

“Cain’t I?” queried Texas, in helpless rage. It was evident that he could not. More than evident was it that something inexplicable and infuriating was at work upon him.

“No, yu cain’t — not no more,” continued Reddie, carried beyond reserve. “Not withoot insultin’ me, Texas Jack Shipman.”

“Stop callin’ me Texas Jack,” shouted the driver.

“I’ll call yu wuss’n thet pronto. An’ I’ll say right now of all the conceited, stuck-up cowboys I ever seen yu’re the damnedest. Yu’re too proud to speak to poor white trash like me. So yu order me aboot through the boss or one of the boys, or even Moze. An’ I’m callin’ for a show down, Tex Shipman.”

“Boss, do I have to stand heah an take all this?” appealed Joe, turning shamefacedly to Brite.

“Wal, Tex, I don’t reckon yu have to, but I’d take it if I was yu’ an’ get it over,” advised Brite, conciliatingly.

Thus championed by her employer, Reddie gave way utterly to whatever complicated emotions were driving her. Like a cat she sprang close to Texas and glared up at him, her eyes blazing, her breast heaving.

“Yu can tell me right heah an’ now, in front of the ootfit, why yu treat me like dirt under yore feet,” demanded she, huskily.

“Wrong again, Miss Bayne,” drawled Texas. “Yu flatter yoreself. I jest didn’t think aboot yu atall.”

This seemed to be a monstrous lie to all except the pale-faced girl to whom it was directed.

“Tex Shipman, yu killed a man to save me, but it wasn’t for me particularly? Yu’d done thet for any girl, good or — or bad?”

“Why, shore I would.”

“An’ yu had yore doubts aboot me then, didn’t yu, cowboy?”

“Wal, I reckon so. An’ I — still got — them,” rejoined Texas, haltingly. He had doubts about himself, too, and altogether the situation must have been galling to him.

“Yu bet yu have!” flashed Reddie, scarlet of face. “Come oot with them then — if yu’re not yellow!... First — yu think I — I’m bad, don’t yu?”

“Wal, if yu’re keen aboot thet, I don’t think yu’re so — so damn good!”

“Oh-h!” cried the girl, poignantly. Then she gave him a stinging slap with her right hand and another with her left.

“Heah! Yu got me wrong!” yelled Texas, suddenly horrified at the way she took his scathing reply; and he backed away from her flaming assault. But it was too late. Reddie was too violently outraged to comprehend what seemed clear to Brite, and no doubt all the gaping listeners.

“I ought to kill yu for thet,” whispered Reddie. “An’ I would, by Gawd! but for Mr. Brite!... Oh, I’ve knowed all along yu thought I was a hussy.... Thet Wallen had... Damn yu, Tex Shipman. Yu don’t know a decent girl when yu meet one! Yu gotta be told. An’ I’m tellin’ yu.... Wallen was a dirty skunk. An’ he wasn’t the only one who hounded me oot of a job. All because I wanted to be decent.... An’ I am decent — an’ as good as yore own sister, Tex Shipman — or any other boy’s sister!... To think I — I have to tell yu! — I ought to do thet — with a gun — or a hawsewhip.”

Suddenly she broke down and began to sob. “Now — yu can go to hell — Tex Shipman — with yore orders — an’ with what — yu think aboot me! Yu’re dirt — under — my feet!”

CHAPTER VI

REDDIE PLUNGED AWAY into the gathering dusk as if she meant to leave that camp forever. Brite decided he would not let her go far, but before following her he took note of the group at the camp fire. Texas Joe stared after Reddie. The boys began to upbraid him in no friendly terms, when Pan Handle silenced them with a gesture.

“Tex, this is liable to split our ootfit,” he said, putting a hand on the cowboy’s shoulder. “It won’t do. We all know yu didn’t think Reddie’s no good. But she doesn’t know. Square thet pronto.”

Brite hastened after Reddie, and coming up with her just out of the camp-fire light he detained her with a gentle hand.

“Lass, yu mustn’t go runnin’ off.”

“Oh, I — I could run right — into the river,” she cried, miserable. “I — I was so — so happy.”

“Wal, it’ll all come right,” returned the cattleman, and put a kindly arm around her and led her to a seat on a near-by rock. Reddie was not proof against sympathy and she sank on his shoulder.

“Tell me yu don’t — believe it,” she begged.

“Believe what, lass?”

“What Texas thinks — aboot me.”

“Wal, I should smile not. None of the boys do. An’ I reckon Tex himself... Heah he comes, Reddie.”

She stiffened in his arms and appeared to hold her breath. Texas strode up to them, bareheaded in the dusk. Only his eyes could be seen and they gleamed darkly.

“Reddie Bayne, yu listen to me,” he began, sternly. “If yu wasn’t such a darned little spitfire yu’d never disgraced me before the ootfit. I — —”

“Disgraced yu?” she interrupted.

“Yes, me.... I swear to Gawd I had no idee atall thet yu wasn’t as honest an’ — an’ good as any girl. I meant yu was a queer, contrary, temperish, spiteful little devil. But only thet. Sabe? ... An’ I’m sorry I upset yu an’ I want to apologize.”

“Yu’re aboot six days too late, Texas Jack,” she burst out, defiantly. “An’ — an’ yu can go to hell, anyhow.”

He gave her a slow, strange glance as she lay with her head on Brite’s shoulder.

“Wal, I’ll have company, for thet’s where this ootfit is haided,” he replied, coldly, and stalked away.

Reddie raised to peer over Brite’s shoulder after the cowboy. She was not aware how she clung to Brite. But he felt the strong, little hands on his vest. Slowly then she dropped back, head and breast against him, where she all but collapsed.

“There!... I’ve — done — it — now,” she whispered, as if to herself. “I should have acted the — the lady....But I — I hate him so.”

Brite formed his own conclusion about how she hated Texas Joe. It also came to him, and stronger than formerly, how he had come to feel toward Reddie. This was the time to tell it.

“Lass, I reckon folks oot on the Chisholm Trail can have feelin’s the same as when they’re home safe an’ sound. Mebbe stronger an’ deeper an’ better feelin’s. Anyway, I’m goin’ to ask yu somethin’ particular. I’m alone in the world. No near kin. An’ I’d like to have yu for a daughter. How aboot it?”

“Oh, it’d be my dream come true,” she cried, ecstatically. “Oh, if only I’m worthy!”

“Let me be the judge of thet,” he replied, happily. “I have a ranch ootside Santone. An’ yu can make it yore home. All I ask is thet yu care a little for me.”

“I love yu now, Mr. Brite,” she whispered, generously, and hugged him. “Oh, it’s too good to be true.”

“Wal, then, do yu accept me as yore adopted dad?”

“I cain’t thank God enough,” she murmured.

“It’s settled an’ I reckon I’m doin’ some thankin’ on my own hook.”

“Yu air so good an’ kind.... Oh, this ootfit is different. ... I wonder what he will say when he finds oot.”

“Who?”

“Thet cowboy.”

“Aw, he’ll have me to reckon with now. But, Reddie, we’ll keep it secret till we get to Dodge.”

Brite was unrolling his bed when he felt something fine and cold touch his cheek. Rain! He had been so preoccupied that he had not observed any change in weather conditions. The stars had grayed over. All the north appeared gloomy and black. Storms were the bane of the trail drivers. Texas was noted for storms, from the del norte of the Mexicans to the Pan Handle cyclone.

“Reddie, it’s goin’ to rain,” he called. “Fetch yore bed over under the wagon.”

But Reddie was in the land of dreams. Brite took his long slicker and, stepping across to where Reddie lay, spread it over her bed. Brite experienced a new sensation — a warm wave of joy at realization of his new responsibility. Hearing voices, he went over to the wagon. The boys were moving their beds under it. The wind had quickened, blowing a fine, chilly mist in Brite’s face.

“Wal, boss, our luck has changed,” spoke up Texas, grimly. “We’ve shore been too damn lucky. Now it’s comin’.”

“What’s comin’, yu gloomy geezer?”

“A norther, first off. I don’t know what after thet.”

“It’s a late spring. We could have a norther even this late,” replied Brite, ponderingly.

“Moze, where’n hell air yu?” called Joe.

“I wuz under de wagon, Mars Joe, till I got rolled oot,” answered Moze.

“Wal, yu roll oot farther an’ pack all the dry wood yu got in the caboose.”

“Yes, suh. Ise done on de way.”

“Where’s yore ax? I’ll split some more wood. Boss, we might as wal use thet extra tarp for a wind an’ rain break. Moze has one over the wagon. Lawd! I do hate the wet an’ cold.... Hadn’t yu better wake Reddie an’ call her oot heah?”

“I spread my slicker over her,” replied Brite, pleased with the solicitude in Shipman’s voice. “She’ll be all right unless it pours.”

Texas went off, muttering to himself. Soon the ring of the ax attested to his occupation. Moze was having his troubles putting wood in the canvas that had been stretched under the wagon for such purpose. The cowboys were in his way.

“Moze, let ’em sleep,” suggested Brite. “We’ll put up the extra tarp. Yu can lay the wood under thet till mawnin’.... Heah. Tie one end of the tarp to the hoops of the wagon an’ peg down the other.”

“Reckon dat’ll save dis black chile’s life.”

Texas came up staggering under a load of wood which he deposited very considerately without making a noise.

“Boss,” he said, “if thet wind comes stronger with rain we’ll have a driftin’ herd. An’ I’d shore hate to have them drift south. Bad for us.”

“It’s kind of northwest, Tex,” replied Brite, holding his hand up.

“Jest as bad, ‘cept a norther lasts three days. Mebbe it’s nothin’ much. We’ll know in a couple of hours. Which I’m gonna use sleepin’.”

They rolled in their blankets in the shelter of the stretched tarpaulin. Texas dropped off into slumber by the magic of youth. Soon Moze snored like a sawmill. Brite did not feel sleepy. The warmth of his blankets told him just how cold the air had grown. He lay there resting and listening. The wind moaned steadily, weirdly, and whipped in chilly gusts under the wagon, flopped the canvas, and swept away mournfully. Coyotes barked about the camp. Somewhere out there in the black, windy void the great herd would be stirring uneasily in their beds. The old mossy-horns would be bawling. And the guards would be singing to them. What a singular and tremendous movement this was — the driving of cattle herds north! Lying there, Brite seemed to have a vision of what magnitude this business would attain, how it would save Texas and pave the way for an empire. No doubt old Jesse Chisholm had seen that vision first of all the pioneers. These cowboys who were driving up the Trail by hundreds — or those of them who survived the hardships and perils — would see the day their prosperous ranches owed all to this heroic beginning.

These pondering thoughts might have merged into dreams, for all Brite knew, but they were disrupted sooner or later by the thud of plunging hoofs and a ringing voice.

“All oot. Herd driftin’.”

When Brite sat up, Texas Joe was on his knees, rolling his bed.

“What time, Deuce?” he called.

“After midnight. Cain’t see my watch. Colder’n hell!”

“Rainin’ much?”

“Not yet. Mixed with sleet.”

“Sleet in June! Wal, I forgot aboot it bein’ Texas.”

“Tex, we’ll need lanterns. Cain’t see yore hand before yore face.”

“Moze, air yu awake?”

“Yas, suh, I reckon I is.”

“Air the lanterns filled? An’ where’ll I find them?”

“All ready, boss. Settin’ inside the front wheels where I keeps them every night.”

Brite got his heavy coat which had served as a pillow, and while putting it on he advised the drivers to don their warmest.

“Reddie Bayne!” yelled Texas.

No answer! Joe yelled again, with unnecessary peevishness, Brite thought. Still no sound came from Reddie.

“Must be daid. Never knowed Reddie to be hard to wake.”

“I heah hawses,” spoke up Deuce.

Soon Brite followed the others out from under the shelter into the yellow light of the lanterns. Brite was about to go over to awaken Reddie when a pounding of hoofs preceded a dark, ragged bunch of horses coming into camp.

“Heah she is! Dog-gone!” Deuce Ackerman called.

In the windy gloom Brite espied Reddie on foot, leading half a dozen horses by halters. The long slicker glistened wet in the lantern-light.

“Where’d yu get them hawses?” queried Texas.

“I had them tied oot heah.”

“Ahuh. So yu can see in the dark, same as a cat?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Reddie, meekly.

“Wal, I shore hate to admit it, but yu beat holler any hawse-wrangler I ever seen,” concluded Texas, gruffly.

“Thanks, Jack,” returned Reddie, sweetly.

They bridled and saddled the horses. Texas mounted, and calling for one of the lanterns he headed away from the wind.

“Deuce, yu fetch the other lantern,” he called. “Moze, hang right heah till we come back. Have a fire an’ hot drinks, for we’ll shore need ’em.”

Brite and the others followed, soon to catch up with Texas. The horses were unwilling to go and rubbed close together. Texas lifted his lantern.

“Thet’s Reddie’s black, ain’t it?” he queried, sharply.

“Yes, I’m heah,” replied Reddie.

“Wal, yu go back to camp. This won’t be no job for little girls.”

“Jack, yu go where it’s hot. I can stand the cold.”

“Stop callin’ me Jack,” he retorted, testily. “Or I — I’ll box yore ears. An’ I tell yu to stay in camp.”

“But, Texas, I’d be afraid in camp withoot yu-all,” she returned, seriously.

“Wal, come to think of thet, I reckon yu’re right.... Deuce, where’n hell air we haidin’?”

“Darned if I know. I shore had a time findin’ camp. Took me half an hour.”

“How far oot was the herd?”

“Coupla miles, I reckon.”

“Spread oot to the right, Deuce. An’ go till yu can just see my light. Rest of yu hang in between.... Hell, but it’s nasty!”

A stiff wind was blowing at their backs. It carried fine rain and sleet, that could be distinctly heard by the impact and the rustling in the grass. The darkness appeared inky black. And Texas’ lantern shone fitfully upon weird spectral figures of horses and riders. When they had covered a distance of two or three miles Texas and Deuce began to yell to locate the guards with the herd. No answering yells rewarded them. They went a couple of miles farther, and then the line, with Texas at one end and Deuce at the other, began to sweep in a circle. The situation grew serious. If the herd took to drifting badly, the few guards could not hold them, and they might stampede, or at least travel many miles. Mossy-horns were as limber and enduring as horses when they wanted to go.

“Hold on, fellars,” ordered Texas, at last. “I heahed somethin’. Mebbe it was only a coyote. But I’ll pile off an’ get away so I can heah shore.”

Leaping off, he stalked apart from the horses, his light swinging to and fro in his hand. Then he pealed out a stentorian yell. Brite listened, but could hear nothing. After a short silence Texas called: “Yep, I was right. I got an answer.”

He hurried back to his horse, and mounting, led somewhat to the left. “Reckon I cain’t keep thet direction long. But we’ll stop an’ yell till we locate them.”

By this method Texas Joe found the other guards and the herd at last. But the guards were on the far side of the herd, which was drifting with the wind. Texas called for Brite and Reddie to follow him, and for the others to follow Deuce, who would circle the herd from his end. Time and time again Texas’ light fell upon stragglers of the herd, evidently far behind the main body.

“Wal, the drags air good for somethin’,” said Texas. “An’ thet in a storm.”

Answering yells became frequent and louder. Soon Texas led his followers round in front of the herd, where they encountered Pan Handle and Rolly Little.

“How aboot yu, Pan?” shouted Texas.

“They’re driftin’, Tex, but not bad,” came the reply.

“Where are the other boys?”

“Sometimes near, sometimes far. Now I can heah them an’ again I cain’t.”

“Oh, ho, ho! Oh, ho, hell!” sang out Texas. “Line up all. Take yore medicine, boss. Yu will buy cattle at twelve bits a haid. Reddie, heah is where we make a man oot of yu.”

The drivers faced the wind and the oncoming herd. A bawling mass of cattle showed a square front to Texas’ lantern. They were not ugly and probably could have been wholly halted but for the crowding from behind. Back a hundred yards, the light and the yells and singing of the drivers had little effect. So there was no hope of stopping them. The best that could be done was to retard their advance, to prevent a possible stampede, and give way before them.

Fortunately they had bunched closely, which fact became manifest when Deuce’s welcome light showed up half a mile distant. Between these two lights ranged all the other drivers, shouting and singing. They had to rely absolutely on the sight of their horses, for only near the lights could they see anything. They could hear, however, and often located the front line that way. At intervals Deuce would ride across the front with his light and Texas would pass him going the other way. Thus they kept some semblance to a straight line.

It was slow, tedious, discouraging work, not without considerable risk, and wearing to weariness and pain. The wind blew harder and colder; the sleet cut like tiny blades. Brite had always been susceptible to cold. The hour came when his heavy gloves and coat appeared to afford no protection to the storm. He could scarcely endure to face the sleet, yet he had to do it or be run over by cattle. Necessarily the action of his horse had to be slow, seldom more than a walk, and this was not conducive to active blood circulation. Reddie Bayne stayed with him, so near that they could locate each other without yelling. When Texas or Deuce passed with the lanterns they established their positions again.

“Hang on, drivers,” Texas shouted, cheerily. “It ain’t gettin’ no wuss an’ we shore air lucky.”

Brite knew that if the storm increased he and no doubt others of the drivers, certainly Bender and Reddie, would find themselves in desperate straits. The cold, tooth-edged wind grew harder to bear, but evidently it did not increase in volume. Monotonously Brite beat his gloved hands, and his one ear and then the other under the collar of his coat.

“Cheer up, Reddie; the mawnin’s aboot to bust,” yelled Ackerman, the last time he rode by.

“It shore better come soon or I’ll bust,” replied Reddie.

Brite peered with tear-dimmed eyes away from the herd. The blackness had grown faintly gray in that direction. He watched it, turning often. How slowly it lightened! The hour dragged with hateful slowness. But almost imperceptibly the dawn came, until all the black void changed to gray, and the gray to pale, obscured stretches of prairie and the dark wall of twisted horns and heads and legs. Soon Brite could distinguish Reddie on her horse, and then the other riders, one by one. The lanterns were extinguished, and the drivers, aided by light enough to see, made far better success of their job. They could ride at a trot, and an occasional lope, from one pressing point to another. Horses as well as riders benefited by this brisker exercise.

Slowly the front line yielded. The mossy-horns would stop and try to graze a bit, only to be pushed on again by the surging from behind.

Brite made sure that but for the sleet turning to rain and the wind lessening a bit the herd would have had to be abandoned until the riders could thaw out and get fresh horses.

Daylight came broadly at last, revealing a dreary range land, and a dragging herd under a low-sailing bank of clouds, and bowed and sodden riders, stuck in their wet saddles. To turn the herd back became imperative. A day lost might mean loss of hundreds, even thousands, of cattle. Texas drove the weary riders to incredible exertions, concentrated at one end; and by hard riding, shooting to take the place of voices gone, he turned that end and the rest followed, like sheep follow a leader. Cattle and drivers then faced the north. The reluctant herd could not be driven faster than a plodding walk. Heads down, weary and hungry, the mossy-horns covered ground like snails. The horses, except Reddie Bayne’s black, were spent, and would be useless the remainder of that drive.

* * * * *

Some time during the afternoon Brite recognized landmarks near camp. He saw the remuda apparently intact and none the worse for the storm. Texas Joe and Ackerman left the herd bunched on a square of rich grass, and cutting out some horses they drove them into camp.

Brite was not the last by two to ride in. Pan Handle, haggard and drawn, came after him, and finally Bender, who sagged in his saddle. He had to be lifted off his horse. Brite was not so badly frozen, but he did not recall when he had been in such a plight.

“Wal, boss, yu rode in,” said Texas, his voice low and hoarse. He stood steaming before a hot fire. Moze was dealing out hot drinks. Brite wondered what would have been the outcome if no fire or reviving whisky had been available.

Reddie Bayne was the only one not wet to the skin. The long slicker had saved her, and though she looked peaked and wan, she had evidently finished better than some of them.

“Coffee — not whisky,” she whispered, huskily, as she smelled the cup Moze forced upon her.

“Reddie, yu’re shore there,” remarked Deuce, admiringly.

“Where?”

“I should have said heah. Shore was plumb worried aboot yu.”

“Wal, I gotta hunch she’s a man, after all,” growled Texas, at which sally Reddie joined in the laugh on her.

“Boys, the herd’s shiftin’ a little south,” remarked Texas, anxiously. “But I reckon we can hang them heah. Sabe, yu come with me. Deuce, send oot two men in an hour, an’ we’ll come back for grub. After thet regular guard, an’ we’ll bed down heah tonight.”

“Wonder if any herd’s gained on us today?” asked Brite, speaking with difficulty.

“Reckon all the drivers back lost as much as us, boss.... On second thought, dose Bender up good an’ put him to bed.” As another afterthought Texas halted as he passed Reddie beside the fire and queried, “Say, kid, yu want any orders from me?”

“Kid! — Who air yu addressin’, Mister Jack?” retorted Reddie.

He fixed piercing hawk eyes upon her ruddy face. “Don’t call me Jack no more.”

“All right — Jack.”

“I hate thet name. It reminds me of a girl who used to call me by it. She was ‘most as uppish as yu, Reddie Bayne.”

“I just cain’t remember to say Joe — thet is, if I would get so familiar.”

“Aw, indeed. So familiar? Yu call the rest of this ootfit by their given names. I even heahed yu call the boss Daddy.”

“So I did... but I’d no idee I was heahed,” replied Reddie, blushing.

“Wal, if yu cain’t be so awful familiar as to call me Joe or Tex, yu can call me Mister Shipman,” returned Texas, sarcastically.

“Ump-umm! I like Jack best,” said Reddie, with a roguish look in her eye. Still she did not look at Texas.

“Listen. Thet settles yu,” he flashed, with something of the ringing note in which he had addressed Wallen. “I cain’t spank yu anymore, much as yu deserve it. I ain’t hankerin’ for any more lead. But yu’ll shore call me Jack somethin’ or other before this drive ends.”

“Somethin’ or other! What?” exclaimed Reddie, very curiously.

“Wal, it might be Jack darlin’,” replied Texas, and wheeled away.

The boys howled merrily. Reddie for once looked squelched. It was not the heat of the fire that added the crimson to her face. Brite caught a glimpse of her eyes before she lowered them, and they had a look of startled surprise. But her dishevelled head did not long stay drooping; it bobbed up with a toss of curls, the action of a spirited girl strange to see in one wearing rough and muddy male attire.

“Never on this heah green earth!”

* * * * *

The night was long and uncomfortable, both in camp and out on guard. But the morning brought slowly clearing weather, and by the time the herd was pointed there was promise of sunshine. Wet grass and frequent pools of water made an easy day for the stock, a fact Shipman took advantage of with a long drive until dark. No droll repartee around the camp fire that night!

Two more uneventful drives brought the outfit to Austin, the first settlement on the Trail. Brite halted to see a rancher who lived three miles or less out of town, and got disturbing news about conditions to the north. The usual run of disasters multiplied! But particularly the Colorado River, which ran by Austin, was flooded to its banks, and there would be a necessity of waiting to use the customary ford or go up the river and swim the herd. When Brite passed this information on to Texas Joe he received a reply to his liking:

“Wal, we shore won’t hang aboot thet burg.”

Austin, like other settlements along the Chisholm Trail, was subject to fluctuations of populace, and sometimes it was just as well for a driver not to be sociable. In the second place, cowboys usually looked upon red liquor at such places, always a deterring and uncertain factor.

Texas gave the place a wide berth, and aimed to strike the river five miles west, where Brite’s rancher informant claimed there was a good gradual slope to point the herd across. Brite rode into Austin alone. He ate supper at a lodging-house where he had stopped before, and then went down street to call at Miller’s store. In the darkness, where so few lights flickered here and there, it was difficult to tell whether Austin was full of men or not. It appeared quiet and lonely enough. Miller, a gaunt Missourian, greeted Brite cordially, as became him toward a customer.

“Been lookin’ for you,” he said. “How close are the herds behind?”

“Wal, there’s one a day or so,” replied Brite. “In a week they’ll be comin’ like buffalo.”

“So Ross Hite reckoned.”

“Hite. Is he heah?” asked Brite, casually.

“Yes. He rode in a few days back,” returned Miller. “Had a bunch of mustangs he’s been sellin’ around.”

“How many in Hite’s ootfit?”

“Can’t say. Only couple of men, strangers to me, with him when he came in here. Didn’t he pass you on the way up?”

“There was some ootfit went by. Aboot seven or eight, I reckon. Somebody said it was Wallen’s.”

“Wallen? Don’t know him. Well, the more outfits comin’ the better I like it. And I ain’t curious or particular. Ha! Ha!”

Brite left orders for a pack of supplies, tobacco for the riders and sundries for Moze, and while these were being filled he strolled out to enter Snell’s saloon. It was a big barnlike place full of yellow light, blue smoke, odor of rum, and noise. He had been in Snell’s on each drive north, and all the other times together had not totalled the number of inmates present on this occasion. Gambling games were in progress, and at one of the rude tables sat Ross Hite with other gamesters, all obsessed in their play. Brite gazed sharply to see if he recognized any of the other faces. But the light was poor and many faces were in shadow. He had not a doubt, however, that all of Wallen’s outfit were there. Cowboys, as Brite knew them, were conspicuous for their absence. The majority consisted of ragged, matured men; the minority, Mexicans and a few negroes. Brite gravitated to a corner where he was in shadow and could watch all of the gamblers and one corner of the bar. He was just curious and thought he might happen on some chance talk. Ranchers, as a rule, did not spend their evenings in gambling-halls. Nevertheless, Brite thought he knew the inveterate cattlemen well enough to identify a few present. He had been there scarcely longer than a half-hour when he was chagrined to see Roy Hallett and Ben Chandler jostling to get room at the bar. Possibly Shipman had let them off, but the probabilities were that they had ridden in without permission and expected to ride back without discovery. That was the cowboy of it.

Chandler was red-faced and manifestly jocose, but Hallett looked more than usually somber. Drink, instead of changing him, augmented his peculiar characteristics. But he was not drunk. He had to drag Chandler away from the bar. That worthy was out to make the most of this opportunity. Hallet, however, evidently had other designs. At least he did not show the usual disposition of a cowboy free to indulge. Brite concluded that Hallett had something on his mind. They sat down at an empty table, where Hallett began a low and earnest talk with his partner. It was not pleasing for Ben to listen. More than once he essayed good-humoredly to get up, but could not escape. Then he showed indications of sullenness. Hallett was plainly trying to persuade him into something. It might have been more drinking, or gambling, or staying in town all night, but somehow Brite leaned to neither of these. Presently Ben spoke out quite clearly: “I’m —— if I’m gonna go through with it!”

There was that in his hard look, his angry tone, which warned Brite to interrupt this colloquy. Only on the very moment he saw Ross Hite give Hallett a meaning glance, dominant and bold, though unobtrusive. Brite jerked up, transfixed and thrilling. What was this?

Two of the gamblers left their chairs, at a significant word from Hite, and approached the bar. Whereupon the leader called to Hallett: “Want to sit in for a spell? Two-bit limit.”

“Don’t care if I do,” replied Hallett. “Come on, Ben, le’s skin ’em.”

“I’m rustlin’ back to camp,” declared Ben, rising.

Hallett seized him, and pushing a fierce red face close to Ben’s he hissed something inaudible but that was none the less forceful to Brite for that. Chandler reacted with like fierceness, which led, after a short tussle, to free himself, to a lunge and a swing. He knocked Hallett flat, and then crouched, his hand on his gun. But his caution appeared needless. Hallett was not senseless, though he recovered slowly. Chandler glared from him to the gaping Hite, then wheeling, he hurried out of the saloon. Hite spoke in a low tone to one of his associates, a thick-necked, heavy-visaged man, who arose and hurried out after Chandler.

Hallett got up and joined Hite at the gaming-table, with his hand to his face. He glowered malignantly at the door, as if he expected Chandler to come back. Hite sat shuffling the cards and talked low to Hallett. They had conversed before. Hite dealt cards all around, as if a game were in progress. But the watchful Brite saw that this was only a blind. It ended presently with Hite and Hallett going to the bar, where they drank and left the saloon.

Brite was in a quandary. Some deviltry was stirring. He wanted to hurry out and warn Chandler that he was being followed. On the other hand, he did not care to risk encountering Hite and Hallett. Uncertainty chained him for a few moments, then, realizing that he must get out of the place he pulled his sombrero down and made a break for it. The street appeared dark and empty. The few lights accentuated the blackness. Upon walking down toward the store to call for his purchases, he caught a glimpse of Hite and Hallett crossing the flare from the open doorway. Brite slunk into the shadow off the road. The two men went by, talking low. The listener could not distinguish their words; nevertheless, their tone was subtle, calculating.

When they had reëntered the saloon Brite went on to the hitching-rail to find his horse. He did not feel safe until he was astride in the middle of the road, headed for the upriver trail. He kept keen lookout for Chandler, to no avail. Once he thought he heard the beat of hoofs. Soon he had gained the open range out under the starlight. He had much to ponder over on the way to camp.

CHAPTER VII

THE ROAD OUT of Austin ended at the river, from which point a trail ran along the bank to the west. The old Colorado was in flood and that hour a magnificent sight, broadly gleaming under the stars, and rolling on in low, sullen roar. Brite had not yet in his several drives encountered such a flood as this. The herd would have to be put across, if that was humanly possible. The trail drivers’ habit was to take any risk rather than have several herds bunch together. More cattle were lost in that kind of a mix-up than in even the big stampedes. There had been instances, however, where stampedes had spelled loss of the whole herds.

Brite had no hope of coming up with Ben Chandler. If that cowboy had gotten to his horse he would be far on the way to camp by this time. Brite had an uneasy conviction that Chandler would be late if he got there at all. And as for Hallett, the chances were that if he showed up in camp it would be at dawn. Brite was keen to impart his information to Shipman and get his angle on it. At the very least Hallett was capable of extreme disloyalty. On the face of it his action looked suspicious.

Brite rode on, slowly over uneven places, at a trot on the long stretches. At the end of an hour or so he began to attend to the lay of the land. Camp ought to be somewhere within a mile. He had no idea where it would be, but the herd could scarcely be missed. And so it proved. He located the cattle by the bawling of cows. They were out of sight back in the gray gloom some distance from the river. A little further on Brite’s roving gaze caught the flicker of a camp fire. He rode toward that and soon reached it, to recognize the chuck-wagon.

No one was astir. He sighted several sleepers lying dark and quiet near the wagon. On second thought he decided not to wake any of them. If he was asleep when the guard changed, it would be time enough in the morning. Brite unsaddled and let his horse go. Then finding his bed, he crawled into it and went to sleep.

* * * * *

Brite awoke with a start. It seemed he had not lain there more than a moment. Daylight had come. He heard the ring of an ax. But that hardly had awakened him. Rolling over to face camp, he sat up.

Hallett sat astride his horse, his sullen countenance betraying recent signs of dissipation. Pan Handle and Deuce Ackerman stood by the fire, facing the others. Then Brite espied Texas Joe glaring at the rider. Evidently words had already been exchanged.

“An’ where the hell have yu been?” queried Joe.

“Rode to town last night. Didn’t mean to stay all night, but I did,” replied Hallett, coolly.

“Yu didn’t ask me if yu could get off.”

“Nope. I just went.”

“Ahuh. So I see. Wal, it’ll aboot cost yu yore job,” drawled Texas.

“Shipman, I don’t take much store in this job nohow.”

Ackerman made a passionate gesture and stepped forward. “Roy, what’s got into yu lately?” he demanded.

“Nothin’ ‘cept a little rye. I’m fed up on this job, Deuce. Too many steers an’ too few drivers.”

“Why’n hell didn’t yu say so? I’m responsible for yu. I picked yu oot for this drive.”

“Wal, yu ain’t responsible for me no more,” replied Hallett, rudely.

“By thunder! I had a hunch yu’d — —”

“Shet up, Deuce,” interposed Texas, curtly. “I don’t hold yu responsible for Hallett. An’ I’ll do the talkin’.”

“Aw, talk an’ be damned. Yu’re pretty windy, Shipman,” returned Hallett, sarcastically, as he lighted a cigarette.

“Shore. An’ I may blow on yu if yu keep slingin’ yore gab so free. Looks like yu want to quit this job.”

“I’d just as leave.”

“Wal, yu’re off. An’ now I’ll tell yu somethin’. It’s a dirty mean deal yu’re givin’ Mr. Brite. We’re short of hands. An’ yore deal has a queer look.”

“Has it? Yu ought to know Texas is the place for queer deals.”

“Yes, an’ for yellow cowhands, I’m ashamed to say,” rejoined Shipman, his gaze fixed in piercing intensity upon the rider.

Hallett responded to that significantly. Brite’s sharp eyes followed the rider’s sweeping survey of Texas Joe. The latter had just rolled out of his blankets. He had one boot on and the other in his hand; he had not buckled on his gun-belt. Hallett slid off his horse to step clear. His face was lowering and his eyes shone like dull coals.

“There’s more’n one yellow cowhand in this ootfit,” declared Hallett. “An’ I’m gonna tell yu what’ll make yu take water. It was Ben Chandler who got me to go in town last night. He had some queer deal on. But I didn’t know thet then. I went just for fun. An’ I stayed to keep Ben from double-crossin’ this ootfit. An’ I couldn’t do it.”

“Ahuh,” ejaculated Texas, unconvinced, but certainly checked.

Brite meanwhile had pulled on his boots, and now he arose, meaning to interject a few pertinent words into this argument. But he did not get very far. Ben Chandler stalked into their midst, wearing a bloody scarf round his head.

“Tex, he’s a —— liar!” he announced.

“Where yu come from?” queried Texas, astounded.

“My bed’s over there in the bushes, Tex. I just crawled oot an’ happened to heah this confab.”

“Wal, by gum! yu aboot got heah in time.”

Hallett’s appearance and demeanor underwent a drastic change. He first showed complete astonishment and incredulity. These gave way to deeper emotions, sudden anger and fear and hate.

“So yu turned up, hey?” he queried, scornfully. “I’ll bet yu don’t remember yu was drunk last night?”

“Not me, Hallett.”

“Huh. I reckon yu’ll say yu wasn’t in a fight, either.”

“I wasn’t. Somebody bounced lead off my haid, all right. I rode oot to camp, as yu see, an’ now, by Gawd! I’m gonna come clean with what I done an’ what I know.”

“Shipman, this cowhand was so drunk last night thet he cain’t remember shootin’ up Snell’s place.”

“So yu say, Hallett. But Ben has called yu a —— liar. If I know Texans thet calls for a show down.”

Brite stepped out from behind the group.

“Tex, I was in Snell’s last night. I saw Hallett an’ Chandler there. Ben was not drunk.”

During the moment of silence that ensued Hallett’s face turned a pale, livid hue. He crouched a little, as if about to spring, and with a hand at each hip he slowly edged toward his horse. His mask was off. His motive was to escape. But he looked venomous.

“Shipman, yu squawk again an’ I’ll bore yu,” he rasped, his eyes deadly.

Texas swallowed hard, but he kept a cool silence.

“Bah, yu wouldn’t bore nobody,” shouted Ben Chandler, passionately. “Yu’re a bluff an’ a liar. Yu cain’t lay this on to me, Hallett.”

“Shet up, yu —— fool!” rejoined the rider, backing toward his horse.

“Ben, don’t say any more,” advised Brite, recognizing what seemed so plain to Shipman.

“But, Mr. Brite, I’m ashamed of what I’ve done,” protested Ben, his face flaming. “An’ I want to confess an’ call this lyin’ four-flush cowhand to his face before yu all.”

“Wait!” came in cold, sharp exclamation from Pan Handle Smith.

“Lend me a gun, somebody,” hurriedly broke out Chandler.

“Don’t nobody move,” ordered Hallett, darkly. Evidently he thought he had the situation in hand.

“Hallett, I’m gonna give yu away right heah,” shouted Chandler, stridently. “I don’t stand for yore dirty deal bein’ laid on me.”

“Hold yore chin, Chandler,” hissed Hallett.

“Hold nothin’. I’m givin’ away yore deal with Ross Hite. I’m — —”

“Take it then!” As Hallett rang out those words he jerked at his guns. Out they leaped and were flashing up when a heavy shot cracked from behind Brite. Smoke and fire burned his cheek. Hallett’s intense action ceased as if he had been struck by lightning. His left eye and temple appeared blotted out in blood. He sank down as if his legs had telescoped under him, his face rooting in the dust, his hands sliding forward, lax and nerveless, to release the guns.

“Boss, I cain’t stand around an’ see yore good boys bored,” Smith’s cool, vibrant drawl broke the strained silence.

“So help me — Gawd!” burst out Ackerman, excitedly. “He got it. I was leary aboot him.”

“Pan Handle, I’d forgotten yu were aboot,” declared Brite, in excited relief. “Thet was wal done.... I saw Hallett with Ross Hite last night.”

“Ben, come clean with yore story,” ordered Texas Joe. “Yu damn near got yore everlastin’ then.”

“Texas, yu were in line, too. I saw thet in his eye,” said Smith, dryly.

“Hah! Mebbe I didn’t see it,” replied Texas, huskily. “Pan, thet’s one I owe yu.... An’ if I ever get caught ag’in withoot my gun!”

“Come on, Ben, get it off yore chest,” interposed Brite.

Chandler sagged on a pack and dropped his head into his hands.

“Boss, there ain’t much to tell,” he replied, in a low voice. “Hallett got around me. Persuaded me to go in with him on a deal with Hite. One night back on the Trail Hite got hold of Hallett when he was standin’ guard. Offered him five hundred to leave a breach in the line so Hite an’ his ootfit could cut oot a big bunch of stock.... First, I — I agreed. I shore was yellow. But it rode me day an’ night — thet low-down deal.... An’ when it come to the scratch I — I weakened. I couldn’t go through with it.... Thet’s all, sir.”

“My Gawd, Ben!... To think yu’d double-cross us like thet!” exclaimed Deuce Ackerman, wringing his hands. “I never knowed Hallett very good. But yu, Ben — why, we’ve rode together — slept together for years.”

“It’s done. I’ve told yu. I’m makin’ no excuses — only Roy always had likker to feed me,” replied Ben, miserably.

“Ben, in thet case I forgive yu,” spoke up Brite, feelingly. “An’ I hope to heaven yu never fall down thet way again.”

“Thanks, Mr. Brite. I promise yu — I won’t,” returned Chandler, brokenly.

“Ben, what yu suppose Reddie Bayne will say to this?” queried Texas Joe, in ringing scorn. “She sort of cottoned to yu most of all.”

“I’ve no idee, Tex. But I’ll tell her myself.”

“Heah she comes with the remuda,” added Deuce.

“Wonder why Reddie’s rustlin’ in so pert with all them hawses?” inquired Texas.

“Somebody cover up thet daid man,” said Ackerman.

“Not so yu’d notice it, cowboy. Let the little lady take her medicine. Wasn’t she kinda sweet on Hallett?” rejoined Texas.

“Not so yu’d notice it, Tex.”

No more was said directly. Reddie circled the remuda about a hundred yards outside of camp, and came tearing on, her big black horse swinging with his beautiful action. She made the drivers jump before she pulled him to a halt.

“Mr. Brite — Texas — Pan Handle,” she panted, her eyes wide with excitement. “I’ve shore got news. Nichols with his herd of two thousand odd haid is right on our heels. An’ followin’ him close is Horton in charge of a big herd for Dave Slaughter.”

“Thunderation!” ejaculated Brite, throwing up his hands.

Texas Joe used language equally expressive, but hardly for a young girl’s ears. Then he pulled on his boot, a task that made him struggle.

“Both drivers sent a man over to tell us to hop the river pronto or they’d be on our heels,” went on Reddie, her cheeks aglow. “Oh! Look at the river! It was dark when I went oot.... Mr. Brite, it cain’t be possible to swim our ootfit across thet flood.”

“Reddie, it may not be possible, but we must make the attempt,” replied Brite.

“Ah-h!” screamed Reddie, suddenly espying the bloody-faced Hallett on the ground. “What’s — happened? Isn’t thet Roy?”

“I reckon ’tis, lass.”

“Oh! — He’s daid!”

“So it would seem.”

“Who?” flashed Reddie, plainly stirred to righteous wrath.

“Reddie, I’m the bad hombre,” drawled Pan Handle.

“Yu — yu bloody gunman! Why on earth did yu shoot thet poor boy?”

Pan Handle turned away; Texas dropped his head; Brite watched, but spoke no word. Then Ben looked up.

“Why, Ben! Yu shot too?”

“Only a scratch, Reddie. Yu see it was this way,” he began, and bravely outlined his part in the tragedy; scoring Hallett mercilessly, but not sparing himself.

“Ben Chandler!” she cried, in shocked voice. Then as the realization dawned on her and she gazed from Texas to Brite, to the ghastly Hallett, and back with blazing eyes to Ben, the enormity of such an offense seemed to mount prodigiously.

“Yu agreed to double-cross our boss!” she burst out, in withering scorn. “To steal from the hand thet paid yu! Lawd! but thet’s a low-down trick!”

“But, Reddie, give the devil his due,” interrupted Texas, sharply. “Ben was easy-goin’. He cottoned to Hallett. An’ his weakness was the bottle. An’ after all he didn’t — he couldn’t go through with it.”

“I don’t care a damn,” cried Reddie, the very embodiment of ruthlessness. “I’d never forgive him in a million years.... Why, the dirty sneakin’ cowhand was coaxin’ me for a kiss — only two nights ago!”

“Wal, in thet case, it’s plumb important to know if Ben got it,” drawled Texas.

“Yu bet yore life he didn’t,” retorted Reddie, her face on fire. “If he had I’d jump in the river this minute.”

“Reddie, I’ve overlooked Ben’s break,” interrupted Brite.

“Ahuh. Wal, all I say is yu’re a lot of soft melon haids,” replied Reddie, with passion. “I’ll never overlook it. An’ I’ll never speak to him again or stand guard near him or — —”

“Come an’ git it while it’s hot,” sang Moze.

Texas Joe was studying the river. It was two hundred yards wide at that point, a swirling, muddy, swift flood, carrying logs and trees and driftwood of all descriptions. The current had to be reckoned with. If it carried the stock below a certain point there would almost certainly be a disaster. For two miles below on the opposite side the bank was steep and straight up as far as the eye could see.

“Boss, I swear I don’t know aboot it,” said Texas. “But we cain’t turn back now. The boys have their orders an’ heah comes the herd in sight.”

“We’ll try it, win or lose,” replied Brite, grimly, stirred with the gamble.

“Hey, Reddie,” yelled Texas, waving his hand. “Come on.”

Reddie sent back a pealing cry and wheeled to ride behind the remuda. They came on in a bunch, restless and scared, though not wild. Pan Handle rode below the taking-off slope while Texas rode on the upstream side. Reddie drove her mustangs down the slope on a run. Some sheered aside below and above, only to be driven back by Pan Handle and Texas. In a moment more the leaders were pointed and with shrill snorts they plunged into the shallow river. The others followed in good order. Texas rode out with them until the water deepened perceptibly. He was yelling at the top of his voice. Pan Handle shot in front of mustangs leading out of line. Reddie, with her wild cries, drove them off the land, and when her black splashed the water high the leaders had gone off the bar and were swimming.

“WHOOPEE KID!” yelled Texas, brandishing his sombrero. “Keep upstream yoreself an’ let ’em go.”

When Texas got back to the shore the rear and broad end of the remuda was well out, and the leaders about to hit the swift current.

“Tex, we ought to have gone with her,” expostulated Pan Handle, seriously.

“Thet’s a grand hawse she’s forkin’,” said Brite, hopefully.

Texas Joe did not voice his fears or hopes, but he fixed his hawk eyes intently on that marvelous scene of action. Brite’s last count had totalled one hundred and seventy-nine mustangs in the remuda. The doughty little Spanish stock had no dislike for water. Whistling and rearing, the thickly-bunched body of ponies went off into deep water with the intrepid girl close behind, waving her sombrero and pealing her shrill cry to the skies. How her red-gold head shone in the sunlight! Once the black horse struck out into deeper water, Brite got rid of his fright. He could swim like a duck. Reddie kept him upstream to the left end of the bobbing line. Trees and logs floated into their midst, hampering the mustangs. Here and there one would fetch up to paw over the obstruction, slide off, go under, and come up to go on. Downriver swept those in the current, swiftly leaving those in the still water. But they kept on swimming, and they had plenty of leeway to clear the steep bank far below. Soon the whole remuda was in the current, and then the spectacle seemed moving and splendid to Brite. If his heart had not gone out to this orphaned girl long before she braved that flood as a part of her job and scorning help, it would have yielded to her then. The long black patch of lean heads disintegrated and lengthened and curved away downriver, a wild and beautiful sight.

A mile below where Brite and his men watched breathlessly the leaders waded out into shallow water, and the long string curved faithfully toward that point. One by one, in twos and threes, and then in bunches, the mustangs struck the bar, to bob up and heave wet shoulders out, to flounder and splash ashore. Soon the wedge-shaped line thickened as the ponies passed the swift current; and it was only a matter of a few minutes before the last horse was wading out. And Reddie Bayne bestrode him!

“Dog-gone! Thet was great,” breathed Texas.

“Shore was a pretty sight,” agreed Pan Handle.

“Wal, I reckon we had our fears for nothin’,” added Brite.

“Boss, we ought to stop her. It’s different comin’ this way. Not enough room to allow for thet current,” replied Pan Handle, anxiously.

“By Gawd, can yu beat thet!” exclaimed Texas, and whipping out his gun he shot twice. Then he waved his sombrero and yelled in stentorian tones: “GO BACK! GO BACK!”

Reddie heard, for she waved her hand in reply, and she kept coming on. In another moment her horse would be in over his depth, and the swift current, with big, muddy waves, right ahead of her. Texas shot all the remaining charges left in his gun, and he aimed so the bullets would hit the water not a great way below Reddie. Then he roared like a giant:

“TURN ABOOT! — Reddie, it ain’t the same.... DAMN YU — I’M GIVIN’ ORDERS!”

Reddie’s high-pitched, pealing cry came sweet and wild on the wind.

“Too late, Tex. She’s in now.”

“Thet’s a hawse, Brite. I say let her come,” put in Pan Handle.

Texas Joe became as an equestrian statue in bronze. The big muddy waves curled over the neck and head of the black, and up to the shoulders of the girl. They were swept downstream with a rush. But in a hundred yards the powerful horse had left the high waves and was entering the swirling, lesser current. Brite saw the girl check him to let a log pass, and again turn him downstream to avoid a huge mass of green foliage. That horse and rider knew what they were doing. Again he breasted the current with power and worked across. But he would never make the point of bar where the remuda had taken off. This worried Brite. Only so few rods below where the high bank began! Already Pan Handle was riding down to head her off. The black, however, was coming faster than the watchers had figured. His lean head jerked high, his wet shoulders followed and with a lunge he was out of the depths into the shallows. He had made it with room to spare. Reddie came trotting ashore.

Here Texas got off his horse, and in the very extreme of rage or exasperation or something, he slammed his sombrero down, he stamped to and fro, he cursed like a drunken cowhand. Plain it was to Brite that his foreman had surrendered to the release of pent-up agony.

“Come back, Pan,” Reddie was calling, gayly. “Shore had fun. What yu think of my hawse?”

“He’s grand, but yu took a big chance, all for nothin’.”

“Yu’ll need me an’ don’t overlook thet,” declared Reddie. Then as she joined Pan Handle she espied Texas going through remarkable actions. “Gee! Our Trail boss is riled aboot somethin’.”

Soon Reddie rode up to rein in before Texas and Brite. She was something to gaze at. Pale with suppressed excitement, her eyes large and dark and daring, she sat awaiting sentence to fall. She was wringing wet to her neck. Her blouse no longer hid the swelling contour of her breast.

“Sorry I scared yu, gentlemen,” she said, a little fearfully. “But yu need me over heah an’ I had to come.”

“Reddie Bayne, I yelled to yu,” began Texas, sternly.

“Shore. I heahed yu.”

“I ordered yu back. Did yu heah thet?”

“Course I did. Laws! yu’d woke the daid.”

“Wal, then, yu have no respect for me as Trail boss of this drive?”

“I wouldn’t of turned back for Mr. Brite himself,” retorted Reddie, spiritedly. But her face had paled and her eyes were dilating.

“Yu disobeyed me again?” thundered Texas.

“Yes, I did — dammit.”

“Not only thet — yu scared us oot of our wits, just to be smart. Yu’re a spoiled girl. But yu cain’t disorganize this ootfit no more.”

“Cain’t I?” echoed Reddie, weakly.

“Reddie Bayne, yu listen. Just ‘cause yu’ve got the boss eatin’ oot of yore hand — an’ ‘cause yu’re the distractinest pretty girl — an’ ‘cause I happen to be turrible in love with yu, don’t make no damn bit of difference. Yu’re wearin’ driver’s pants, yu’re takin’ driver’s wages, yu’re pullin’ driver’s tricks.”

Texas stepped over to her horse, and flashing a lean, brown hand up, like a striking smoke, he clutched the front of her blouse high up and jerked her sliding out of her saddle.

“Oh-h!” cried Reddie, in a strangled voice. “How dare...Let me go! — Texas, wha — what air yu goin’ to — —”

“I cain’t slug yu one as I would a man — an’ I cain’t spank yu no more as I once did,” said Texas, deliberately. “But I’m shore gonna shake the daylights oot of yu.”

Then he grasped her shoulders and began to make good his threat. Reddie offered no resistance whatever. She was as one struck dumb and helpless. Brite grasped that Texas’ betrayal of his love had had more to do with this collapse than any threat of corporal punishment. She gazed up with eyes that Texas must have found hard to look into. But soon she could not see, for he shook her until she resembled an image of jelly under some tremendous, vibrating force. When from sheer exhaustion he let her go she sank down upon the sand, still shaking.

“There — Miss Bayne,” he panted.

“Where — Texas Jack?” she gasped, flippantly.

“Gawd only knows,” he burst out, helplessly, and began to tear his hair.

“Heah comes the herd!” rang out the thrilling word from Pan Handle.

CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD BULL Mossy-horns, huge and fierce, with his massive horns held high, led the spear-shaped mass of cattle over the brow of the long slope. Densely packed, resistless in slow advance, they rolled like a flood of uprooted stumps into sight.

“By all thet’s lucky!” yelled Texas, in elation. “Pointed already! If they hit the river in a wedge like thet they’ll make Moses crossin’ the Red Sea only a two-bit procession.”

“Orders, Texas, orders,” replied Brite, uneasily. “It won’t be long till they roll down on us.”

“Got no orders, ‘cept keep on the upriver side. For Gawd’s sake don’t ride in below ’em. The boys have been warned.... Ben, yu ride on the wagon. We’ll come back an’ float it across.”

“I will like hell,” shouted Ben, derisively, and he ran for a horse to saddle. Brite did likewise, and while he was at the task he heard Texas cursing Chandler for not obeying orders. When he was in the saddle the magnificent herd, a moving, colorful triangle of living beasts, had cleared the ridge, and the leaders were close. Drivers on each side of the wedge rode frantically forward and back, yelling, shooting, waving. But the noise they made came faintly through the din of bawls.

“Reddie,” called Texas, earnestly, turning a stern, tight-lipped face and falcon eyes upon the girl, “this heah’s new to yu. Yore hawse is a duck, I know, but thet won’t save yu if yu get in bad. Will yu stick close to me, so I can tell yu if yu start wrong?”

“I shore will,” replied Reddie, with surprising complaisance.

“Boss, yu hang to their heels,” concluded Texas, curtly. “Pan, yu drop back aboot halfway. Above all, don’t drift into the herd.... Come on, Reddie!”

Bad rivers had no terrors for old Mossy-horns. A rod ahead of his herd he ran, nimble as a calf, down the sandy slope, roaring like a buffalo. All sound was deadened in the trampling thunder of the cattle as they yielded to the grade and came on pell-mell. The ground shook under Brite. Nearly five thousand head of stock in a triangular mass sweeping like stampeding buffalo down a long hill! Certain it was that Brite’s sombrero stood up on his stiff hair. No daring, no management, no good luck could ever prevent some kind of a catastrophe here.

Texas plunged his horse into the river ahead of Mossy-horns, swinging his lasso round his head and purple in the face from yelling. But Brite could not hear him. Reddie’s big black lashed the muddy water into sheets as she headed him after Texas. Then the great wedge, like an avalanche, hit the shallow water with a tremendous sound. Hundreds of cows and steers had reared to ride on the haunches on those ahead, and the mass behind pushed all in a cracking, inextricable mass. But those to the front, once in the water, spread to find room. Herein lay the peril of the drivers, and the dire necessity of keeping the herd pointed as long as possible. Such a feat seemed utterly futile to Brite.

Across the backs and horns Brite espied Ben Chandler on the downstream side of the herd, close to the leaders, and oblivious or careless of danger. Bent on retrieving his fatal error, he had no fear. Soon Brite lost sight of Ben’s bloody, bandaged head in the flying yellow spray. Try as he might, he could not see the reckless driver again. San Sabe and Ackerman, both on the downriver side, slowly gave ground toward the rear of the herd, intending to fall in behind as soon as the end passed. Rolly Little, Holden, and Whittaker passed Brite in order, fire-eyed and gaunt with excitement.

When next Brite cast his racing glance out ahead he was in time to see old Mossy-horns heave into deep water. He went clear under, to bob up like a duck and sail into the current. Like sheep the sharply pointed head of the herd piled in after him. Texas went off the bar far upstream, and Reddie still farther. As Brite gazed spellbound the wide rear of the herd, in crashing momentum, rolled past his position. It was time for him to join the drivers. He spurred ahead, and the mustang, excited and fiery, his blood up, would have gone anywhere. Brite had one last look out into the current, where a thousand wide-horned heads swept in a curve down the middle of the river. Then he leaped off the bank and into the water, just even with the upriver end of the herd. Thunder would not have done justice to the volume of sound. It was a strange, seething, hissing, bone-cracking roar. But that seemed to be diminishing as the cattle, hundreds after hundreds, took to the deeper water. Texas and then Reddie passed out of sight. The great herd curved abruptly. Next Ackerman disappeared round the corner, and then Holden. That left only Whittaker in sight and he was sweeping down. Behind the herd Brite espied Bender, who was nearest to him, and certainly a scared young man if Brite had ever seen one.

In a maelstrom of swishing water and twisting bodies the broad rear of the herd smashed off the bar. Magically then all sound ceased. There was left only a low, menacing swish and gurgle of current against Brite’s horse. Easily he took to deep water, and Brite felt at once that he had drawn a river horse. What wonderful little animals those Spanish mustangs of Arabian blood!

The scene had immeasurably changed. No white splashes now! A mile of black horned heads, like a swarm of shining bees, sweeping down the river! The terror, the fury of the onslaught upon the flood were no longer evident. There was left only the brilliance, the action, the beauty of this crossing. Brite had never seen anything in his life to compare with it; and once he had seen a million buffalo cross the Brazos River. But they just blotted out the river. Here the wide flood held the mastery. The sun shone down on an endless curve of wet, shiny horns and heads; the sky bent its azure blue down over the yellow river; the green trees of the opposite bank beckoned and seemed to grow imperceptibly closer.

Then Brite’s mustang met the swift center current of the river. Here there were smooth waves that rolled over the horse and wet Brite to his shoulders. And he saw that he was going downstream, scarcely quartering at all. The long head of the curve appeared far toward the opposite shore.

To Brite’s right the three drivers were working their horses away from the herd, or so it appeared to him. Then Brite saw San Sabe point up the river. A mass of driftwood was coming down on the crest of a rise. What execrable luck to be met by a heavy swell of flood and current in the middle of the river at the most critical time! Brite reined his mustang to avoid the big onrush of driftwood. With hands and feet he pushed aside logs and branches. A whole tree, green and full-foliaged, surrounded by a thick barrage of logs, drifted right into the middle of the swimming herd. This the drivers were unable to prevent. They could only save themselves, which in the case of two of them, at least, was far from easy.

The swift-floating island of débris split the herd, turned the rear half downstream, and heralded certain disaster. Brite saw the broad lane between the two halves, one quartering away toward the north shore, the other swimming with the current. If it kept on downriver it was doomed.

Brite came near to becoming entangled in heavy brush, which he had not seen because his attention was fixed on the separated half of his herd. He owed it to the clever mustang that he was not engulfed. Thereafter he looked out for himself and his horse. All the while they were sweeping down, at the same time gaining toward the shore. Looking back, Brite was surprised to see the chuck-wagon, a dot on the horizon line, a mile back up the river. Ahead and below somewhat less of a distance, began the cutting edge of the steep bank Texas had warned all they must not pass. Standing in his stirrups, Brite made out the head of the herd now beyond the current, well toward the shore. There! A horse and rider had struck shallow water again. That must be Texas.

An eddy caught the mustang and whirled him around and around. Brite was about to slide off and ease the burden, but the horse tore out of the treacherous whirlpool and, thoroughly frightened, he redoubled his efforts. Brite’s next discovery was sight of the vanguard of cattle wading out on the wide bar below. Already two of the riders were out. Grateful indeed for so much, Brite turned to see what had become of the endangered half of the herd. They were milling back toward the center of the river. This amazed Brite until he heard the boom-boom-boom of a heavy gun. Chandler, the daredevil, must be on the other side there, driving the cattle again into the current.

The milling circle of horned heads struck into the swift current, to be swept on down the river, past the wading vanguard, surely to slide by that steep corner of bank, beyond which could lie only death. Brite could stand the loss of stock. But a rider sacrificed hurt him deeply. He had never lost one until this drive. Still he clung to hope. Somewhere down around the bend, on one bank or the other, there might be a place for Chandler to climb out.

At this juncture Brite saw another rider, one of the three ahead of him, wade his horse out and go across the bar at a gallop, to mount the bank and ride swiftly along its edge, the mane and tail of the mustang flying wildly in the wind. He did not recognize either Texas’ or Pan Handle’s horse, so that rider must have been Ackerman, speeding to give aid to Chandler.

When Brite at last waded out on the bar there were only a few hundred head of stock behind and below him. They were wearied, but safe, as all had found footing. Three riders were waiting. Texas and Reddie had vanished. Bender, Pan Handle, and San Sabe were working out behind the cattle, and all three were facing downriver, no doubt watching the cattle that had been swept away.

Presently Brite joined the six drivers on the bar and surely encountered a disheartened group of cowboys. Pan Handle was the only one to present anything but a sad countenance.

“Mr. Brite, we had bad luck,” he said. “The herd split in the middle an’ the back half went downriver taking Chandler with it. Our good luck is thet more of us might have been with him.”

“Hell with — the cattle!” panted Brite. “Any hope for Chandler?”

“Shore. He’s a gamblin’ chance to get oot somewhere. But I wouldn’t give two-bits for the cattle. Ackerman is ahaid, keepin’ up with them. Texas followed with Reddie.”

“What’ll we do?”

“Make camp heah on the bank in the grove. Plenty of grass. The stock shore won’t move tonight.”

“Thet chuck-wagon’s to be got over. An’ I wouldn’t give much for it.”

“Boss, thet wagon was made to float,” said San Sabe. “It’s got a double bottom of heavy planks. Don’t worry none aboot our grub.”

They rode up the sandy slope to a level bank of timber and grass, an ideal place to camp. The horses were heaving after their prolonged exertions. “Get off an’ throw yore saddles, boys,” said Brite, suiting action to his words. “Somebody light a fire so we can dry oot.”

A little later, while Brite was standing in his shirt sleeves before a fire, Texas Joe and Reddie rode into camp.

“We cain’t send good money after what’s lost,” he said, philosophically. “I reckon Ben is gone, an’ there’s only one chance in a thousand for thet bunch of cattle. We gotta look after what’s left an’ fetch Moze across.... Reddie, yore hawse ain’t even tired. Wal, I never seen his beat. But yu don’t weigh more’n a grasshopper. Let San Sabe have him to help me with the wagon.”

“Shore. But I’d like to go,” replied Reddie, eagerly.

“My Gawd! air yu still wantin’ more of thet river?” queried Texas, incredulously.

“Oh, I was havin’ a grand time until the herd split.... Poor Ben! If he’s lost I’ll never forgive myself. I — I was mad an’ I said too much.”

“Wal, yu shore said a heap,” drawled Texas. “If yu’d said as much to me I’d drowned myself pronto.”

“Don’t — don’t say it — it might be my fault,” wailed Reddie, almost weeping.

“No kid. I was only foolin’. Ben was just makin’ up for the wrong he did us. An’ he’s shore square with me.”

“Oh, I hope an’ pray he got oot,” rejoined Reddie as she dismounted.

San Sabe removed her saddle and put his own on the black. Then he followed Texas, who was already far up the bar, making for the bend of the river, from which point they would head across. It was a somber group that stood drying out around the blazing fire. Reddie looked sick and wretched. Her gaze ever strayed down the stream, where the muddy current swept out of sight.

Texas and San Sabe gave their comrades some bad moments when even their heads disappeared in the waves, but it turned out they crossed safely. Meanwhile Moze had driven the chuck-wagon down to meet them. It was too far for Brite to see distinctly, but he knew that the riders would tie on to the wagon with their ropes and encourage and help the team. With little ado they were off and soon in the water. Great furrows splashed up as the wagon ploughed in. Brite had his doubts about that venture, and when horses and wagon struck off the bar into deep water, to be swept down by the current, he expected it was but a forerunner of more misfortune. The wagon floated so high that part of the bed and all the canvas showed above the water. It sailed down like a boat and gradually neared the shore, at last to cross out of the current, into the slack water, and eventually to the bar. He had suffered qualms for nothing. Moze, however, although he was a black man, looked a little pale about the gills. The usual banter did not appear to be forthcoming from the dejected drivers, an omission Moze was quick to catch.

“Men, I reckon yo-all will hev to dry yo beds,” he said, his big eyes rolling. “I packed them under de grub.”

“Aw, my tobacco!” wailed Deuce.

“Niggah, I ooght to petasterize yu,” added Whittaker, severely. “I had my only extra shirt in my bed.”

“What is dis petasterizin’?” asked Moze, beginning to throw off the packs. “Yo-all is a glum ootfit.”

“Moze, we lost half my stock an’ Ben Chandler, too,” replied Brite.

“Lawd Amighty! I done reckoned trubble when I seen dis ribber.”

That was the end of jocularities, as well as other conversation. The hour was approaching noonday, an astounding fact to Brite. If it had been at all possible for the stock to move on for several hours more, he would have ordered it. But cattle and horses alike were spent.

The herd following Brite’s would bed down that night on the south shore, and cross in the morning. It was too close for comfort. But the cattleman could not see how that might be avoided. Presently the silent drivers stirred to the advent of Deuce Ackerman riding into sight up the river bank. His posture and the gait of his horse were significant of what had happened. Deuce rode into camp, haggard of face, his garb mud from head to foot, and he all but fell out of the saddle.

“Come to the fire, Deuce. I’ll throw yore leather,” said Little, solicitously.

“Mr. Brite, I have to report thet Chandler was drowned,” he said.

“So we all reckoned,” returned Brite, resignedly.

“Stake me to a drink, if yu want to heah aboot it.”

But Ackerman did not soon begin his narrative. Finally he began: “Wal, I rode along the bank an’ ketched up with the cattle. An’ there was thet idjit Chandler hangin’ along the leads, slappin’ his rope ahaid of him. He hadn’t given up pointin’ thet bunch of long-horns to this shore. I yelled an’ yelled my lungs oot, but he never heahed me. After a while, though, he seen me. I waved him oot of the river an’ he paid no attention. He kept on, the herd kept on, an’ so did I. I’d run a coupla miles, I reckon, before I ketched up. An’ we wasn’t long travelin’ another mile or so. Then I seen far ahaid on my side a wide break in the bank. Dam’ if Chandler hadn’t seen it, too. An’ he lashed them lead cattle like a fiend from hell. He beat them farther an’ farther to this side. An’ I’m a son-of-a-gun if he didn’t work ’em over to shore just when the current had carried ’em to this break. The water close in was shallow too. Once the leads hit bottom they come to life, an’ my! how they swarmed off thet bar!”

“Yu mean to tell us Ben drove them cattle oot on dry land?” demanded Texas, incredulously.

“Dam’ if he didn’t! But his hawse was all in, an’ on account of the cattle blockin’ his way he couldn’t get oot of deep water. So he was carried on downriver, past the break. I rode on for all I was worth, yellin’ to Ben to hang on. By this time he was on his hawse’s neck. But for the current thet little dogie would have sunk. He could hardly swim a lick. I seen where the swift water run close under the bank, an’ I made for thet place. Shore enough Ben swept in close, an’ I leaped off with my rope. Fust throw I hit Ben clean with my loop. But it was too small. It didn’t ketch, an’ he missed it. I kept runnin’ an’ throwin’, but no good. The bank was awful steep an’ crumbly. Then I broke off a section an’ damn near fell in myself. Seein’ thet wasn’t gettin’ us nowhere, I run ahaid a good ways an’ waited for Ben to float by a likely place.... But jest as they was aboot to come within reach of my rope the game little pony sunk. Ben made a feeble effort to stay up. He seen me. He opened his mouth to call.... Only a gurgle! His mouth filled — an’ the water come up over his bloody face. My Gawd! There he floated, a hand up, then his back, his haid onct more — an’ thet was the last.”

Reddie burst into tears and ran from the camp fire. Texas knelt to throw bits of wood upon the coals.

“Ross Hite or no — Ben shore paid for his fling,” he muttered to himself.

“Ackerman, thet was a terrible thing,” declared Brite, badly upset.

“‘Most as tough on me as Ben,” said the cowboy, huskily. “I’ll never forget his eyes. At the last he wanted to be saved. I seen thet. When I first come up to him he didn’t care a dam’. All he wanted was to get the haid of thet string of cattle pointed to land. An’ he done it. Never did I see the like of thet.”

Texas rose dark and stern. “I’ll get me a hawse an’ ride down to locate thet bunch. How far, Deuce, aboot?”

“I don’t know. Four miles, mebbe.”

Shipman trudged wearily away, despite Brite’s call for him to rest awhile longer. Perhaps Texas wanted to be alone, a disposition more than one of the drivers soon manifested. Reddie had evidently hidden in the green brush. Being a woman, she would take this tragedy hardest to heart, believing she had been partly to blame.

“Then, judgin’ from what I’ve heahed at Dodge an’ Abilene, we’re just gettin’ a taste of real trail drivin’,” said Pan Handle. “It’s a gamble an’ the cairds air against us.”

“I take the blame,” spoke up Brite, feelingly. “It was my hawgishness. Half my herd would have been plenty to start with.”

“We doan’ know how things ever will come oot,” declared Whittaker, in his quaint drawl.

Moze called them to eat, to which they answered eagerly, if not quickly. Reddie Bayne did not come in. And Brite decided he would let her alone awhile longer, until the drivers had gone. But even after eating they remained in camp, still damped by the misfortune, no doubt waiting for Texas to return with orders.

“He ooght to be back,” complained Deuce. “Hadn’t I better have a look?”

“Wal, yu’d likely miss him, Deuce.”

They conjectured as to the probable movements of the separated halves of the herd, gradually gathering conviction among themselves that all was well. The hot fire dried Brite’s clothes and made him drowsy. Lying down in the sand under a tree he fell from rest to slumber. Upon awakening Brite was chagrined to note that the sun was westering. Pan Handle, Reddie Bayne, Rolly Little, and Texas were in camp, a stone-faced quartet. The other drivers were gone.

“Ha, Tex, yu back?” queried Brite, sitting up with stiffened joints.

“Yeh, boss, I’m back,” replied the cowboy, wearily.

“How far’s the split half of the herd?”

“Wal, countin’ the half hour I been heah, I’d say aboot ten miles to the northard.”

“Wha — at?”

“Shore, an’ travelin’ to beat hell!”

Brite sensed more tragedy, and braced himself to continue coolly: “How come?”

“Boss, I plumb hate to tell yu,” rejoined Texas, miserably. “Reddie, clap yore hands over yore ears. I gotta let go!... Of all the ——  ——  —— luck any —— ootfit ever had we’ve had the wust. I’m seein’ red. I’m madder’n any rattler-bitten coyote yu ever seen. I gotta get pizen drunk or kill — —”

“Hell! yu’re not tellin’ me anythin’,” interrupted Brite, testily.

“Tell him, Pan.”

“Mr. Brite, it’s an unheahed-of deal an’ I’m not agreed with Texas aboot its bein’ so bad as he reckons,” complied Pan Handle. “Texas rode oot to get a line on thet split herd an’ couldn’t see it nowhere. So he rode up a high ridge an’ soon spotted yore cattle. They was travelin’ north at a good lick in front of aboot ten drivers.”

“Ross Hite!” thundered Brite, in a sudden rage, leaping up.

“So Tex reckoned. An’ as was right an’ proper he rode back to tell us. We been havin’ a pow-wow aboot it. Tex was riled somethin’ fierce. He wanted to take fresh hawses an’ ride oot to shoot up thet stampedin’ gang of Hite’s. So did all the boys except me. I was against thet an’ the more I reckon the stronger I am set.”

“I agree with yu, Pan Handle,” rejoined Brite, at once. “We air let down. If we chase Hite an’ pick a fight, win or lose, some of us air goin’ to get killed. An’ we leave what’s left of my herd heah to mix in with the herds comin’ behind. No! Let’s stick with the bird in the hand.”

“By all means,” agreed Pan Handle, with satisfaction. “Now if yu follow me on thet maybe yu’ll see what I see. Ross Hite cain’t get so far ahaid thet we can’t ride him down in a day. Let him go. Keep close on his trail aboot a day behind. He’s drivin’ our cattle for us. But he’s the damdest fool in this range. There’s no sale for cattle short of Dodge. He’ll take thet branch of the Chisholm Trail, because it’s much farther to Abilene. An’ the night before we expect him to ride into Dodge I’ll take a fast hawse, cut off the trail, an’ be there to meet him.”

“Boss, it’s a good idee, except Pan wants to go it alone, an’ I won’t stand for thet,” interposed Texas.

“Meet Hite?” echoed Brite.

“Thet’s what I said,” concluded Pan Handle, tersely.

“Wal, Pan, on the face of it, thet’s hardly fair to yu,” replied Brite, ponderingly. He understood perfectly. Pan Handle Smith chose to attempt this single-handed. It was the way of the real gunman to seek the dramatic, to take advantage of the element of surprise, to subject no other to risk than himself.

“Boss, on second thought I stand by Pan,” spoke up Texas. “But thet’s the last way to get our cattle back. Shorer’n Gawd made little apples somethin’ else will turn up. We got a dozen more rivers to cross, an’ redskins to meet, an’ buffalo. Buffalo by the million! This hombre Hite is no trail driver. His ootfit air a lot of hawse thieves, some of them gray-haided. They cain’t drive cattle. Hite is plumb loco. He reckons he’ll clean up aboot thirty thousand dollars. An’ thet’ll hold him to the trail an’ the herd. He’s got no more chanct to get thet money than a snowball has in hell!”

CHAPTER IX

THE NIGHT FELL warm, with a hint of summer in its balmy sweetness; the stars shone white through the foliage of the trees; the river gurgled and murmured along the shore, without any of the menace that it had seemed to have by day; the frogs trilled lonesome music. And all the vast range was locked in silence and slumber. Yet even then thieves and death were at work.

Brite felt all this while trying to woo sleep. But it would not come. Reddie had made her bed near him in the shadow of the heavy bushes. Presently a tall, dark form stalked between Brite and the pale starlight. Texas Joe was roaming around camp, as usual, in the dead of night, perhaps about to call change of guards. But he stealthily went around Brite to halt beside Reddie, where after a moment he knelt.

There followed a moment of silence, then Reddie murmured, drowsily: “Huh?... Who is it?”

“Ssssch! Not so loud. Yu’ll wake the boss up.... It’s only Tex.”

“Yu again! My Gawd! man, cain’t yu even let me sleep?” returned Reddie, in a disgusted whisper.

“I heahed yu cryin’ an’ I wanted to come then. But I waited till everybody was sunk.”

“What yu want?”

“I’d like to talk to yu a bit. Never have no chance in daytime. An’ since I run into Ben sittin’ beside yore bed thet night I haven’t had no nerve.”

“I hadn’t noticed thet,” whispered Reddie, with faint sarcasm. “Wal, if yu must talk, move over a little. Yu’re settin’ aboot on top of me.”

“Ben was turrible in love with yu, too, wasn’t he?”

“Texas, I don’t know aboot him bein’ too, as yu call it, but I reckon he was. Anyway he swore it. I don’t trust no cowboys.”

“So I seen. Reddie, they ain’t all bad.... Was yu sweet on Ben?”

“No, of course not.”

“But yu let him kiss yu!”

“I did nothin’ of the sort. Thet night yu caught him it wasn’t no fault of mine. He grabbed me. At thet he never kissed my mouth.”

“Aw! I reckoned different. I’m sorry.”

A long silence followed. Brite had a desire to cough or roll over, or do something to acquaint the young couple that he was awake. He had also a stronger desire, however, not to do it. The river murmured on, the frogs trilled, the leaves rustled. There seemed to be something big and alive and wonderful abroad in the night.

“Wal, thet all yu wanted to say?” resumed Reddie.

“No. I always have a lot to say. An’ I cain’t say it,” whispered Texas, sadly. “I feel awful sorry aboot Ben. He was no good, Reddie. I’ve knowed thet for some time. But he shore died grand.”

“Don’t make me cry again.”

“Wal, did Ben ask yu to marry him?”

“Lands sake, no!” exclaimed Reddie, with an embarrassed little laugh.

“It’s not so funny. Haven’t any of this ootfit asked yu?”

“Not thet I heahed, Texas,” replied Reddie, almost with a titter.

“Funny!”

“Thet’s not so funny. They shore ought to have.”

“Wal, I’m gonna ask yu some day.”

“Texas, yu’re oot of yore head!”

“Shore I reckon I am. But it’s the first time — aboot a girl.”

“Taffy! What do yu think I am?”

“Honest Injun, kid. Since I growed up I’ve been too busy ridin’ range an’ dodgin’ gun-slingers to get moony over girls.”

“Wal, I’ll bet yu’ve mixed up with bad women, like Mr. Brite tells me Dodge is full of.”

“Ump-umm, Reddie. If I ever did I was so drunk I never knowed it. But I don’t believe I ever did, ‘cause somebody would have told me.”

“I’d like to believe yu, Texas.”

“Wal, yu can. I wouldn’t lie to any girl, much less yu.”

“But yu lied to me when yu swore yu knowed I was a girl. All the time yu swore yu knowed.”

“Reddie, I wasn’t lyin’.”

“Shore yu was. All yu wanted was to pretend to have the edge on the other boys. I was on to yu, Texas.”

“Wal, I’ll tell yu, if yu swear yu’ll forgive me.”

“Forgive yu! — Say, cowboy, yu’re talkin’ strange.”

“Wal, I feel strange. But I reckon I better confess.”

“Texas Jack, don’t confess anythin’ thet’ll make me hate yu.”

“Yu’re forgettin’ aboot thet Texas Jack handle. I’ve warned yu.... Reddie, since way back on the trail I’ve knowed yu was a girl. Before I killed Wallen. Do yu reckon I could have shot him so quick — if I hadn’t known?”

“Damn yu! I’m scared.... How’d yu know?”

“Reddie, yu remember thet creek bottom where we camped. Prettiest camp so far. Willows an’ pecans an’ blackberries an flowers hangin’ over thet clear creek. It was aboot sunset. I’d been below an’ took a short cut to camp. The brush was awful thick. I heahed a floppin’ aboot in the water an’ I sneaked up to peep through the green.”

“Yu — yu.... Tex Shipman!” she cried, in a low, strangled voice.

“Yes. I seen yu bathin’.... Only seen the — the upper part of yu.... Don’t be so awful ashamed, Reddie.... Just one peep — then I fell down an’ lay there as if I was shot. Then I crawled away.... After thet I was never the same.”

“I — I should think not.... But why did yu ever tell me?...Yu’re no gentleman.... An’ I do hate yu now!”

“Wal, I cain’t help thet. But I don’t believe yu, Reddie. There’s no sense or justice in hatin’ me. For Gawd’s sake, why?”

“Yu’ve been so mean to me.”

“Mean! Say, I had to fool everybody. I had to keep yu an’ all our ootfit from findin’ oot I’d gone plumb, starin’, stark mad aboot yu. So I picked on yu.”

“Tex Shipman — thet time yu spanked me — did yu know I was a girl then?”

“So help me Gawd — I did.”

“Now! I’ll never look at yu again.”

“But, Reddie, don’t yu want a man to be honest?”

“Not — not when he knows too much.”

“I had to tell yu thet before I could ask yu to marry me. An’ I’m doin’ thet now.”

“Doin’ what?” she flashed, in a full, thrilling whisper.

“Askin’ yu to marry me.”

“Oh, indeed! Yu think I’m a poor waif of the range? No kin, no home, no friends. Just an outcast.”

“Yu come to us a pretty lonely kid, if I recollect. Reckon yu’ve had a tough time. I shore wonder how yu got through so good an’ fine a girl.”

“Yes, it is a wonder, Texas. But I did, thank Gawd. An’ now I’m the happiest girl alive.”

“Reddie! — Has my askin’ yu to — to be my wife — has thet anythin’ to do with how yu feel?”

“Wal, it’s a satisfaction, Tex,” she replied, demurely. “Cowboy, yu don’t know how high yu’re aspirin’. I was a waif but now I’m an heiress!”

“What?... Yu’re a locoed kid.”

“Texas, I’m Mr. Brite’s adopted daughter!” she announced, proudly.

“Aw!... Honest, Reddie?”

“Cross my heart. I don’t know how it all come aboot. I don’t care. I only know I’m happy — the first time in my whole life!”

“Dog-gone! — I’m shore glad. It’s aboot the best thet could happen to yu. The boss is a fine old Southern gentleman. A real Texan. He owns a big ranch ootside Santone.... Yu’ll have a home. Yu’ll be rich some day. Yu’ll have all the hawses any girl could set her heart on.... An’ beaus, too, Reddie!”

“Beaus? — Oh, dear! How — how funny! Me, Reddie Bayne, heah sleepin’ in my overalls!”

“Yep, an’ them beaus mean Tex Shipman an’ all his gun-totin’ breed can go hang. But no one of them will ever love yu so turrible as Tex Shipman.”

“Faint heart never won fair lady, Texas Jack,” she taunted.

Then followed a sudden low thump, a convulsive wrestling, and the soft sound of a kiss.

“Oh! — Don’t — yu — yu — —”

“I told yu,” he whispered, passionately. “I warned yu. ... An’ now I’ll get even. I swore once thet if yu didn’t quit callin’ me Texas Jack I’d make yu call me Jack darlin’. An’ I’m shore goin’ to.”

“Yu air not,” flashed Reddie, with heat. But she was frightened.

“I shore am.”

“If yu try thet again I — I’ll scream.”

“I’ll bet yu won’t. I’ll risk it, anyway.”

“Texas, yu’re hurtin’ me, yu big brute.... Don’t press me down so hard.... Yore hands.... Ah-h!”

“There! — Now say Jack darlin’ — or I’ll kiss you again.”

“I — won’t — I won’t — I — —”

A tense interval elapsed, significant with faint straining sounds.

“Wal, I had to take two — then.... My Gawd! I’m ruined! ... I never knowed what a kiss was.... Now yu can hold off sayin’ Jack darlin’ as long as yu want.”

Evidently she fought fiercely for a moment, to judge by the commotion, then she gasped and gave up.

“Please, Tex.... This is no way to treat a girl.... Oh-h!...”

“I can do thet all night,” replied Texas, his full whisper poignant and rich. “Air yu goin’ to say Jack darlin’?”

“But, man, thet won’t mean nothin’!” she exclaimed, wildly.

“Very wal.” And he kissed her again and again. Brite heard the slight, sibilant, thrilling contacts of lips, and he was living this romance with them both.

“Oh! — yes — yes — I give — in,” she found voice to say. “Let me — breathe!”

“Not till yu say it. Pronto now, unless — —”

“Devil!... Jack — dar-lin’!”

“Thanks, Reddie. An’ heah’s for givin’ in!... Next time yu’ll ask me.”

Evidently he released her and sat up, breathing hard.

“I’m sorry to offend yu. Yet I’m glad, too,” he said, no longer in a whisper. “‘Cause yu’re oot of a pore trail driver’s reach now, Miss Reddie Bayne Brite. Yu been kissed an’ yu called me darlin’. Thet’ll have to do me all my life.”

He stood up. His tall, dark form crossed the pale starlight glow under the trees.

“But I didn’t mean it — Texas Jack!” she ended, in a whisper that was not comprehensible to Brite. Manifestly it was no more comprehensible to Texas, and vastly provocative, for he rushed away like the wind into the darkness.

After he had gone Reddie sighed and sighed, and rolled restlessly in her bed, and murmured to herself. Then she quieted down. Brite knew when she dropped to sleep again. The moan of the river and lament of the coyotes and the song of insects once again became unbroken. He lay there amused and stirred at the eternal feminine that had so easily cropped out in Reddie Bayne. She might be a waif, used to male attire for years, and accustomed to the uncouth and rough life of the range, but she had a woman’s heart, a woman’s subtlety and secretiveness. Brite could not tell now whether she was in love with Shipman or not. He was sure of one thing, however, and that was that she would make Texas the most wretched cowboy on all the plains before she capitulated.

At last Brite slept. Call to breakfast awakened him. San Sabe, Whit, and Less Holden were sitting cross-legged on the ground, eating. Reddie was gone and her bed had been rolled, and was now leaning on the hub of the front wagon-wheel. The morning was fine, but the cowboys appeared oblivious to that. While Brite ate Reddie rode in bareback, driving some fresh mounts.

“Boys, where’s the trail from heah?” queried Brite, remembering the drive had crossed the river above the town.

“Deuce said aboot four below,” replied Holden. “Fact is, it come across where Ben haided the cattle. An’, Mr. Brite, it’s shore interestin’ to know Deuce forgot to tell us aboot the boat.”

“Boat?” echoed the boss.

“Yes. He seen a boat across the river, on the town side. An’ he an’ Tex reckon whoever stole our cattle came over in thet boat an’ swum their hawses.”

Brite felt an eagerness to be on the move again. He had resigned himself to a loss of half his herd; nevertheless the deal rankled in him, and no doubt would grow into a bitter defeat. It was one thing to decide upon a wise and reasonable course after being robbed, and an entirely different one to follow it. These cowboys would obey orders, but they would never accept such a loss. Texas Joe and Pan Handle were the wrong men to rob.

By sunup the drivers were on the trail again, with the cattle stepping along around two miles an hour. Moze had caught up and had stopped to let his horses graze.

That day passed without any of the drivers catching a glimpse of the half of the herd which had been driven on ahead.

“Wal, if I know cow tracks, thet ootfit lost instead of gained on us last night,” said Texas. “They cain’t drive a herd. Funny thing, boys. Yu know we have aboot all the mean old mossy-horns in thet back half. An’ Ross Hite had the bad luck to get them. Pan’s got the deal straight. The d —— stampeder will do our work for us an’ get shot full of holes for his pains.”

Camp had lost its jollity. A different spirit prevailed. These drivers reacted visibly to betrayal by two of their number, to the death of the traitor, to the ordeal of the flood, and Chandler’s fate. Loss of half their herd had made them grim and stern. Excepting Texas Joe, who had changed most overnight, they all lent a hand to Reddie wherever possible, but the fun, the sentiment, the approach to love-making, had vanished. Texas had scarcely ever a word for Reddie, or anybody else. Instinctively they all began to save themselves, as if what had happened was little compared with what was to come.

But Round Top and Brushy Creek camps, and Cornhill, Noland Creek, Loon River, Bosque River, were reached and passed with only minor mishaps. Once from a swell of the vast prairie, which had taken them all day to surmount, San Sabe pointed out the stolen half of Brite’s herd, only a long day ahead. They knew for a certainty now that Ross Hite was driving those cattle. At Belton, a little ranch settlement on Noland Creek, Hite had left behind enough to identify him.

Rains had been few and far between, but enough to keep the creeks fresh and the waterholes from drying up. Much anticipation attended their arrival at the great Brazos River. Here Brite expected another flood and strenuous crossing, but was agreeably disappointed. The Brazos had been up recently, but now offered no obstacle. They camped on the north shore, where a fine creek came in, and struck again, for the first time in days, an abundance of game. Turkeys and deer were so tame they scarcely moved out of the way of horse or man. The young turkeys were now the size of a hen chicken, and made a most toothsome dish.

Brite calculated that at this rate of travel they would drive the distance in ninety days. A third of that time had passed, and more. But he had lost track of the date. Four more days brought them halfway to Fort Worth from the Brazos; and it was noticeable that the drivers began to respond to the absence of the evil that had dogged their trail.

Fort Worth at last! It might have been a metropolis for the importance it held for the drivers. But there were only a few buildings, a store and saloon, and not many inhabitants. Texas Joe bedded down the herd outside of town, wholly unaware that the other half of Brite’s cattle were not far away this night. That news was brought to camp by San Sabe, who was the only one of the four boys sober enough to tell anything straight. That was some time before midnight. In the morning Texas Joe hauled these recalcitrants out for what Brite anticipated would be dire punishment.

“Fellars, yu laid down on me last night,” said Texas, soberly, with not a trace of rancor. “Yu got drunk. If yu hadn’t an’ had rustled back heah pronto with this news aboot our cattle — why, we’d all sneaked over while Hite’s ootfit was in town, an’ drove ’em back. I found oot this mawnin’ thet Hite drove away early in the evenin’. He got wind of us.”

All the cowboys, one of whom was Less Holden, showed shame and consternation at their delinquency.

“Wal, it’s too late now for this chance,” went on Texas. “But I’m askin’ yu to let this be the last till we get to Dodge. There we can get awful drunk. I shore wanted some drinks. I’d like to forget, same as yu. When we cross Red River, then we’ll have hell. Them infernal lightnin’ storms thet play bob with cattle. An’ the buffalo. We’ll shore meet up with them. So, even if we miss the Comanches, we’ll shore have hell enough.”

“Tex, we won’t take another drink till the drive’s over,” announced Ackerman. “I promise yu. I’ll cowhide any fellar who tries to break thet.”

“Fine, Deuce. I couldn’t ask no more,” replied Texas, satisfied.

Before the drivers broke camp that morning a company of soldiers passed, and a sergeant halted for a chat with Brite. Disturbing information was elicited from this soldier. The detachment was under Lieutenant Coleman of the Fourth Cavalry, and was on the way to Fort Richardson, where a massacre of settlers had been perpetrated by Comanches not long before. Comanches and Kiowas were on the warpath again and raiding all the wide territory between the Brazos and Red Rivers. Buffalo herds were to be encountered frequently south of the Red, and north of it, according to Coleman, were packed almost solid clear to the Canadian River. Beef and hide hunters, rustlers and horse thieves, were also following the buffalo.

“Lieutenant Coleman advises you stay at the fort for a while,” concluded the sergeant. “There’s only one herd ahead of yours. An’ that outfit wouldn’t listen to reason.”

“Ross Hite’s ootfit?”

“Didn’t get the name. Tall sandy-complexioned Texan with deep slopin’ lines in his face an’ narrow eyes.”

“Thet’s Hite,” confirmed Pan Handle.

“He’ll run plump into everything this range can dig up. You’d better hold up for a spell.”

“Impossible, Sergeant,” replied Brite. “There air two big herds right behind us. One an’ two days. An’ then six days or so more there’s no end of them. Two hundred thousand haid of stock will pass heah this summer.”

“My word! Is it possible? Well, a good many of them will never get to Kansas.... Good-by and good luck.”

“Same to yu,” called Texas, and then turned to his outfit with fire in his eyes. “Yu all heahed, so there’s nothin’ to say. We’ll go through shootin’. Boss, I reckon we better load up with all the grub an’ ammunition we can pack. No store till we get to Doan’s, an’ they’re always oot of everythin’.”

* * * * *

Brite’s outfit of drivers went on, prepared for the worst. And again they had days of uneventful driving. At Bolivar, a buffalo camp, the Chisholm Trail split, the right fork heading straight north to Abiline, and the left cutting sharply to the northwest. The Abiline branch was the longer and safer; the Dodge branch the shorter, harder and more hazardous, but ended in the most profitable market for cattle and horses.

“Brite, do yu reckon yu can find oot which fork Hite took? A coupla drinks will do it. Shore this ootfit heah might be just as bad as Hite’s. All the rustlers an’ hawse thieves call themselves hide-hunters.”

“Yu go, Tex. I’ll lend yu my flask,” replied the boss.

“All right. Come with me, Pan Handle,” replied Texas.

“Let me go, too,” spoke up Reddie.

“What! — Why yu want to go?”

“I’d like to see somebody. I’m tired of all yu cross men.”

“Ahuh. Yu want to meet some new men? Wal, it’s nix on thet. The Brite ootfit wants to hang on to yu, seein’ we done it so far.”

The afternoon was not far spent and camp had been selected on a stream that ran on into Bolivar, some little distance east. There was a beautiful big swale for the stock to graze on without strict guarding. It was the second best site so far on the drive. The stream was lined with trees that hid the camp from the little settlement. Brite proposed to Reddie that they go fishing. This brought smiles to the girl’s discontented face. Whereupon Brite procured fishing lines and hooks from his bag, and cutting poles, proceeded to rig them while Moze was instructed to get grubs, worms, or grasshoppers for bait.

Then followed a happy and a successful hour for Brite. Reddie was a novice, but wildly enthusiastic and excruciatingly funny. The climax of this little adventure came when Reddie hooked a heavy catfish which not only could she not hold, but that was surely pulling her down the bank on the stout line and pole. She was thoroughbred enough not to let go, but she yelled lustily for help. It was one of Brite’s rules never to aid a fisherman; in this instance, however, he broke it and helped Reddie hold the big fish until it became exhausted. They landed it, and adding it to their already respectable string, hurried back to camp in triumph. Moze was delighted. “I sho’s glad of dis. Yu-all beat the niggahs fishin’. Mebbe a change from dat meat will be good.”

Before supper was ready Texas Joe and Pan Handle returned, to Brite’s great relief.

“Wal, boss, Hite took the Dodge trail yestiddy aboot noonday,” said Texas, cheerfully. “He’s ahaid of us right smart, but accordin’ to them buff hunters he’ll be stuck in no time.”

“Wal, thet’s good news, I guess,” replied Brite, dubiously. “What yu mean — stuck?”

“Wal, if nothin’ else stops Hite the buffalo shore will.”

“Then they’ll stop us, too.”

“We don’t give a damn so long’s we get our cattle back. Thet Hite deal shore went against the grain for me.”

“A rest wouldn’t hurt us none,” rejoined Brite.

“Reckon this’ll be the last peaceful rest in camp we’ll get,” drawled Texas. Then he espied Moze cleaning the fish. “Dog-gone! Where’d yu get them?”

“Miss Reddie an’ the boss snaked dem oot of de crick dere.”

“Did yu ketch any?” Texas asked Reddie.

“Shore. I got three — an’ thet big one.”

“No! Yu never pulled thet oot.”

“I had to have help. Took us both. Gee! it was fun. Thet darn catfish nearly pulled me in. I yelled an’ yelled for Mr. Brite. But he only laughed an’ never came till I was shore slidin’ in.”

“Ahuh. Yu like to fish?”

“Like it? I love it. Nobody ever took me before. Oh, I’ve missed so much. But I’ll learn or die.”

Texas Joe nodded his head gloomily over what seemed a fatalistic, inevitable fact.

“Who ever heahed of a girl lovin’ to fish? Dog-gone yu. Reddie Bayne, yu’re just the natural undoin’ of Tex Shipman. Of all things I love in this turrible Texas it’s to set in the shade along the bank of a creek an’ fish, an’ listen to the birds an’ all, an’ watch the minnows, an’ — an’ — —”

“Gosh! Mr. Brite, our Texas Jack is a poet,” burst out Reddie, gleefully.

There were indications, for a moment, of a cessation of hostilities between Reddie and Texas. They looked at each other with absorbing eyes.

“Tex, I thought yu’d stopped her Texas Jackin’ yu,” drawled Brite, with a sly glance at Reddie. She blushed for the first time in many days.

“Reckoned I had. Wal, I’ll have to see aboot it,” replied Texas, leaving no doubt in Reddie’s mind what he meant. Wherefore the truce was ended.

Toward the close of their supper two strangers approached in the dusk. Texas greeted them, thereby relieving Brite’s concern. The visitors proved to be hide-hunters stationed at Bolivar.

“We been lookin’ over yore herd,” announced the taller of the two, undoubtedly a Texan. “An’ we want to inform yu thet Hite’s cattle wore two of yore brands.”

“No news to us. But yore tellin’ us makes a difference. Much obliged. It happened this way,” rejoined Texas, and related the circumstances of the fording of the Colorado and loss of half the herd.

“Then yu needn’t be told no more aboot Ross Hite?” queried the hide-hunter, in a dry tone.

“Nope. Nary no more.”

“Wal, thet’s good. Now heah’s what Pete an’ me come over to propose. We want to move our ootfit up somewheres between the Little Wichita an’ the Red, whar we heah thar’s a million buffs. An’ we’d like to go with yu thet fer.”

Texas turned to interrogate his boss with a keen look.

“Men, thet depends upon Shipman,” returned Brite. “We shore could use more hands, if it comes to a mess of any kind.”

“Wal, I’d like to have yu, first rate,” said Texas, frankly. “But we don’t know yu. How can we tell yu ain’t in with Hite or have some deal of yore own?”

“Hellno, yu cain’t tell,” laughed the hunter. “But yu’ve got guns.”

“Shore, an’ yu might spike ’em.... Tell yu what I’ll do, fellars.” Texas proceeded leisurely to replenish the fire, so that it blazed up brightly in the gathering dusk. Standing in its glare the two visitors showed to advantage.

“Reddie, come heah,” called Texas. The girl was not slow in complying. She had moved away into the shadow.

“What yu want?” she replied, slowly coming forth.

“Reddie, these two men want to throw in with us, far as the Little Wichita. If yu was Trail boss of this ootfit what would yu say?”

“Gee! give me somethin’ easy,” retorted Reddie, but she came readily closer, sensing an importance in the event. And certainly no two strangers ever received any sharper, shrewder survey than they got then.

“Howdy, Lady. Do yu know Texans when yu see them?” queried one, quizzically.

The shorter of the two removed his sombrero to bow with all Southern politeness. The act exposed a ruddy, genial face.

“Evenin’, miss. If it’s left to yu I’m shore we’ll pass,” he said, frankly.

“Texas, I’ve seen a heap of bad hombres, but never none thet I couldn’t size up pronto. Guess it got on my mind. If I was foreman I’d be glad to have these men.”

“Wal, thet was my idee,” drawled Texas. “I only wanted to see what yu’d say.”

“What yu got in yore ootfit?” asked Brite.

“Two wagons an’ eight hawses, some hides an’ grub. An’ a box of needle-gun ammunition.”

“Thet last may come in handy.... But I understood from my foreman thet there was six in yore ootfit.”

“Thet’s correct. But Pete an’ me want to pull leather away from them, an’ not answer any questions, either.”

“All right. Yu’re welcome. Be heah at daybreak.... An’ say, what’s yore handles?”

“Wal, my pard goes by the name of Smilin’ Pete. An’ mine’s Hash Williams. Much obliged for lettin’ us throw in with yu. Good night. See yu in the mawnin’.”

When they left, considerable speculation was indulged in by some of the drivers. Pan Handle settled the argument by claiming he would not be afraid to sleep without his guns that night. The guard changed early, leaving Brite, Reddie, and Texas in camp, the very first time that combination had been effected.

For once Texas stayed in camp beside the fire, and appeared more than amenable. He and Brite discussed the proximity of Hite’s outfit and the certainty that a clash would intervene before they reached the Canadian. However, when the conversation drifted to the late Indian depredations Reddie vigorously rebelled.

“Cain’t yu talk aboot somethin’ else?” she demanded. “I always had a horror of bein’ scalped.”

“Wal, kid, yore red curls would shore take the eye of a Comanche buck,” drawled Texas. “But yu’d never be scalped. Yu’d be taken captive to be made a squaw.”

“I’d be a daid squaw, then,” said Reddie, shuddering.

“Wal, to change the subject, Brite, we’ll shore have a party when we get to Dodge.”

“I’m in for it. What kind of a party, Tex?”

“Darn if I know. But it wants to come off quick before yu pay us hands. ‘Cause then we’ll soon be mighty drunk.”

“Why do yu have to drink?” queried Reddie, in unconcealed disgust.

“Dog-gone. I often wondered aboot thet. I don’t hanker much for likker. But after a long spell oot on the prairie, specially one of these turrible trail drives, I reckon it’s a relief to bust oot.”

“If yu had a woman, would yu go get stinkin’ drunk?” queried Reddie.

“A — a woman!” blustered Texas, taken aback. “Reddie Bayne, I told yu I never mixed up with thet sort of woman, drunk or sober.”

“I didn’t mean a painted dance-hall woman, like Mr. Brite told me aboot.... I mean a — a nice woman.”

“Ahuh. For instance?” went on Texas, curiously, as he poked the red coals with a stick.

“Wal, for instance — one like me.”

“Lawd’s sake!... I shore couldn’t imagine such a wonderful girl as yu carin’ aboot me.”

“Cain’t yu answer a civil question just for sake of argument?”

“Wal, yes. If I had a nice wife yu can bet yore sweet life I’d not disgust her by gettin’ stinkin’ drunk.”

A silence ensued. Brite smoked contentedly. He felt that these two were scarcely aware of his presence. Some fatal leaven was at work on them. Sooner or later they would rush into each other’s arms, which probability had Brite’s heartfelt approval. Still, he had an idea that since Reddie had refused once to accept Texas, if she ever wanted him, she would have to take the bit in her teeth.

“Thanks, Tex,” replied Reddie, finally. “I sort of had a hunch yu’d be thet sort.”

Texas betrayed that he realized he had been paid a high tribute from this waif of the ranges. But all he said was: “Dog-gone! Did Reddie Bayne say somethin’ good aboot me?”

“Tex, it’s only three hours till we go on guard,” spoke up Brite.

“Yu’re talkin’. I’m gonna turn in right now an’ heah.” Whereupon Texas unrolled his bed close to the fire, threw the blankets over him so that his spurred boots stuck out, and was asleep almost as soon as he stretched out.

Reddie gazed at him a long time, then she shook her curly head and said: “No hope.... Dad, yu can make my bed an’ roll me in it, if yu want to.”

“Wal, I’ll do the first, shore an’ certain,” replied Brite, with alacrity. And he proceeded to pack their bedrolls in under the trees close to camp.

“Not so far away, Dad,” objected Reddie. “I may be wearin’ men’s pants an’ packin’ a gun, but I’m growin’ all queer an’ loose inside. I’m gettin’ scared.”

“So am I, dear,” admitted Brite. “I’ve got some funny feelin’s myself.”

“We’re darn lucky to have Texas an’ Pan Handle with us,” replied Reddie, and rolling her bed so close to Brite that she could reach out to touch him, she bade him good-night.

* * * * *

Next morning, two hours after the start, a dust-devil, whirling down into the herd, stampeded them. Fortunately, it was toward the north. The drivers had nothing much to do save ride alongside and keep the herd bunched. They ran ten miles or more, in a rolling cloud of dust and thunder before they slowed up. It was the first stampede for Brite that trip, and was unfavorable in that it gave the herd a predisposition to stampede again.

Texas Joe drove on until the chuck-wagon and the two hide-hunters caught up, which was late in the day.

That night at the camp fire the trail drivers compared notes. San Sabe had seen smoke columns rising above the western hills; Ackerman and Little reported buffalo in the distance; Brite thought he noted an uneasy disposition on the part of all game encountered; Reddie had sighted a bunch of wild horses; Pan Handle averred he had spotted a camp far down a wooded creek bottom.

Texas apparently had nothing to impart, until Reddie tartly said: “Wal, Hawkeye, what’re yu haid of this ootfit for, if yu cain’t see?”

“I wasn’t goin’ to tell. I shore hate to do it.... I seen two bunches of redskins today.”

“No!” they chorused, starting up.

“Shore did. Both times when I was way up front, an’ had first crack at the hill tops. Country gettin’ rough off to the west. We’re nearin’ the Wichita Mountains. I shore had to peel my eyes, but I seen two bunches of Injuns, aboot two miles apart. They come oot on the hill tops. Might have been only one bunch. They was watchin’ us, yu bet, an’ got back oot of sight pronto.”

“Comanches!” cried Reddie, aghast.

“I don’t know, kid. But what’s the difference? Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, it’s all the same.”

“No, Tex. I’ll take all the last on to pass up the Comanches.”

“Men, it’s nothin’ to be seen by Indians,” spoke up Pan Handle, coolly. “From now on we’ll probably see redskins every day. We’ll get visits from them, an’ like as not we’ll get a brush with some bunch before we’re through.”

Smiling Pete and Hash Williams had listened quietly, as became late additions to the outfit. Whatever apprehensions Brite may have entertained toward them were rapidly disseminating. When they were asked, however, they readily added further reason for speculation. Both had seen Indian riders so near at hand that they recognized them as Comanches.

“Reckon yu’ve seen some Indian-fightin’?” queried Brite.

“Wal, I reckon. But not so much this spring an’ summer as last. Our camp was only raided onct this trip out.”

Later council developed the fact that these hunters were a valuable addition to Brite’s outfit. They advised that the remuda be kept close to camp and strongly guarded. Comanches were fond of making raids on the horses of the trail drivers. Seldom did they bother with cattle, except to kill a steer for meat when it suited them.

A couple of hours’ sleep for each driver was all he got that night. The herd was pointed at dawn. This day the range land grew wilder and rougher, making travel slow. Buffalo showed in every swale and hollow; wolves and coyotes trotted the ridge tops too numerous to count. Their presence in any force attested to the proximity of the buffalo herd. That night these prairie beasts made the welkin ring with their mourns and yelps. The coyotes boldly ventured right into camp, and sometimes sat on their haunches, circling the camp fire, and yelped until driven away. But the night passed without any other untoward event.

CHAPTER X

EVERY DAY’S TRAVEL was fraught with increasing suspense. Tracks of Indian ponies, old camp fires in the creek bottoms, smoke signals from the hill tops, and lean wild mustangs with half-naked riders vanishing like spectres in the distance — these kept the Brite contingent vigilant and worried all the way to the Little Wichita.

Ordinarily it was a small river, easily forded by stock. But now it was a raging torrent, impassable until the freshet had gone by. That might take a day or longer. A short consultation resulted in a decision to find a protected swale or valley where grass would hold the cattle and timber would afford cover for the trail drivers in case of attack.

The drivers of the herd ahead of them, presumably the one stolen by Ross Hite, could not have crossed, and no doubt had gone up the river with the same idea Texas Joe had decided upon. Buffalo were everywhere, though only in scattered bunches in the river bottom and along the grassy slopes. Up on the range it was probably black with them.

Texas sent San Sabe down the river to reconnoiter and he proceeded up the stream for a like purpose, leaving the rest of the drivers to tend to the stock.

The hour was about midday, hot and humid down in the protected valley. The stock rested after days of hard travel. All the drivers had to do was sit their horses and keep sharp lookout. Most of the attention was directed to the low brushy rims of the slopes. Texas had driven off the trail half a mile to halt in the likeliest place, which was good for the cattle, but not so good for the drivers, as they could be reached by rifle-shot from the hills. The three wagons were hauled into the thickest clump of trees. It looked like a deadlock until the river went down. Smiling Pete and Hash Williams, the hide-hunters, climbed under cover of the brush to scout from the hill tops. The trail drivers held their rifles across their saddles. Brite had two, the lighter of which he lent to Reddie. Armed to the teeth, alert and determined, the drivers awaited events.

Reddie called to Brite that she heard a horse running. Brite made signs to the closest rider and then listened intently. Indeed, Reddie’s youthful ears had been right. Soon Brite caught a rhythmic beat of swift hoofs on a hard trail. It came from down river and therefore must be San Sabe. Also Brite heard shouts from the slope. These proved to come from the hide-hunters. Pan Handle and Ackerman evidently heard, for they rode around to join more of the drivers. Then in a bunch they galloped to a point outside the grove where Brite and Reddie were stationed.

“It’s San Sabe,” shrilled Reddie, pointing. “Look at him ride!”

“Injuns after him, I’ll bet,” added Brite. “We want to be huntin’ cover.”

Soon they were surrounded by Pan Handle and the others. San Sabe reached them only a moment later.

“Injuns!” he shouted, hoarsely, and he reined in. “But they ain’t after me. They didn’t see me. Haven’t yu heahed the shootin’?”

No one in Brite’s company had heard shots. “Wal, it’s down around thet bend, farther than I reckoned.... I was goin’ along when I heahed yellin’ an’ then guns. So I hid my hawse in the brush an’ sneaked on foot. Come to a place where hawses had just rid up the bank oot of the river. Sand all wet. They was Injun ponies. I follered the tracks till I seen them in an open spot. Heahed more shots an’ wild yells. The timber got pretty thick. Takin’ to the hillside, I sneaked along under cover till I seen what the deal was. Some settlers had made camp in a shady place, no doubt waitin’ to cross the river. I seen three wagons, anyhow, an’ some men behind them shootin’ from under. An’ I seen Injun arrows flashin’ like swallows, an’ I heahed them hit the wagons. Then I sneaked back to my hawse an’ come ararin’.”

“Brite, we’ll have to go to their assistance,” replied Pan Handle, grimly.

“Shore we will. Heah comes the hunters. Let’s get their angle on what’s best to do while we’re waitin’ for Tex.”

The hunters came running under the trees, and reaching the drivers they confirmed San Sabe’s story in a few blunt words. Whereupon Brite repeated briefly what San Sabe had told them.

“How many redskin ponies?” queried Hash Williams, in business-like tones.

“No more’n twenty — probably less.”

“How far?”

“Half mile aboot below the bend.”

“Pile off, cowboy, an’ draw us a map heah in the sand.”

San Sabe hopped off with alacrity, and kneeling he picked up a stick and began to trace lines. In a twinkling all the drivers were off, bending over to peer down with intense interest. Brite heard a horse coming down the trail.

“Must be Tex comin’ back.”

“Heah’s the bend in the river,” San Sabe was saying. “Injun hawses trail aboot heah, aboot half a mile below. Anyway to make shore there’s a big daid tree all bleached white. We can risk ridin’ thet far.... Heah’s the open spot where the redskins took to the woods. Thet’s aboot even with a big crag like an eagle’s haid on the rim. The wagons air not more’n a quarter below thet. On the level ground in a nice grove of trees with heavy timbered slope on three sides. The reddys air in thet cover, low down.”

“Boys, halter a couple of hawses for Pete an’ me. Don’t take time to saddle.”

“What’s all the confab aboot?” queried a cool voice. Texas Joe had come up behind them to dismount, holding his bridle in one hand, rifle in the other. San Sabe gave him the facts in few words. Then Hash Williams spoke up: “Shipman, I’m takin’ it yu’ll go pronto to the rescue?”

“Hellyes! — Have yu any plan? Yu’re used to redskins.”

“We’ll split, soon as we leave the hawses. Come on. We might get there too late.”

San Sabe led off down the trail at a canter, followed by the drivers, except Texas, who waited a moment for the hunters to mount bareback. One mustang threatened to buck, but a sharp blow from Texas changed his mind. Soon the trio overtook the others, and then San Sabe spurred his horse into a run. Brite did not forget Reddie in the excitement. She was pale, but given over to the thrill of the adventure rather than to the peril. Brite would not have considered leaving her behind with Moze. The cavalcade rounded the river bend, stringing out, with Brite and Bender in the rear. San Sabe soon halted, and leaping off led into the timber on the right of the trail. Brite and Bender came up just as Reddie was following Texas on foot into the woods. They tied their horses in the thick brush at the foot of the slope. Heavy booms of buffalo guns, and the strange, wild, staccato yells of Indians, soon sounded close.

“Comanches,” said Williams, grimly.

Presently San Sabe parted the bushes. “Heah’s their ponies.”

“Less’n twenty. Wal, they’re our meat, boys,” replied Hash Williams as his dark eyes surveyed the restless, ragged mustangs, the river bottom beyond, the densely wooded slope, and lastly the rugged rim, with its prominent crag standing up like a sentinel. The place was small and restricted. To Brite the slope appeared to curve below into a bluff sheer over the river.

“Shipman, keep Pete heah with yu, an’ choose five men to go with me,” said Williams, swiftly.

“What’s yore idee?” flashed Texas, his hawk eyes roving all around, then back to the hunter.

“If I can git above these red devils they’re our meat,” replied Williams. “Most of them will have only bows an’ arrers. They’ll crawl under the brush an be low along the slope.... Strikes me there ain’t enough shootin’. Hope we’re not too late....When we locate them an’ let go, it’s a shore bet they’ll run for their hawses. Yu’ll be hid heah.”

“Ahuh. Thet suits me. I see where we can crawl within fifty feet of them Injun mustangs an’ be wal hid.... All right. Yu take San Sabe, Ackerman, Whittaker, an’ Little.”

“Boys, throw off spurs an’ chaps, an’ follow me quiet.”

In another moment the five men had disappeared and only soft steps and rustling could be heard. Texas peered keenly all around the glade where the mustangs had been left.

“Come on, an’ don’t make no noise,” he whispered, and slipped away under the brush. Holden followed, then Smiling Pete, then Bender and Pan Handle, after which went Brite with Reddie at his heels. Shrill yells occasionally and an answered boom of a needle gun augmented the excitement. Texas led to a little higher ground, at the foot of the slope, and on the edge of the glade, where broken rock and thick brush afforded ideal cover.

“Heah we air,” whispered Texas, to his panting followers. “Couldn’t be better. We’ll shore raise hell with them redskins. Spread along this ledge an’ get where yu can see all in front. When yu see them wait till we give the word. Thet’s all. Keep mighty still.”

In the rustling silence that ensued Brite took care to choose a place where it was hardly possible for Reddie to be hit. He stationed her between him and Texas, behind a long, low rock over which the hackberry bushes bent. Pan Handle knelt beyond Texas with a gun in each hand. He was the only one of the party without a rifle. Bender, showing evidence of great perturbation, was being held back by Smiling Pete. Holden crawled to an even more advantageous position.

“All set. Now let ’em come,” whispered Texas. “I shore hope to Gawd the other fellars get there in time. Not enough shootin’ to suit me.”

“It ain’t begun yet or it’s aboot over,” replied Pan Handle. “But we couldn’t do no more. Tex, heah’s Reddie to think of.”

“Dog-gone if I didn’t forget our Reddie.... Hey, kid, air yu all right?”

“Me? Shore I am,” replied Reddie.

“Scared?”

“I reckon. Feel queer. But yu can bet I’ll be heah when it comes off.”

“Think yu can do as yu’re told once in yore life?”

“Yes. I’ll obey.”

“Good.... Now everybody lay low an’ listen.”

Brite had been in several Indian skirmishes, but never when the life of a woman had to be taken into consideration. He had to persuade himself of the fact that little peril threatened Reddie Bayne. Perhaps there were women folk with these settlers, and surely terrible danger faced them.

The Indian mustangs were haltered to the saplings at the edge of the glade. What a ragged, wild-eyed bunch! They had nothing but halters. These they strained against at every rifle-shot. And more than a few of them faced the covert where the drivers lay in ambush. They had caught a scent of the whites. Heads were pointed, ears high, nostrils quivering.

“Fellars, I smell smoke, an’ not burned powder, either,” said Texas Joe, presently, in a low voice. “Pete, what yu make of thet?”

“Camp fire, mebbe.”

Suddenly the noonday silence broke to the boom of guns. Fast shooting, growing long drawn out, then desultory. Brite saw Texas shake his head. Next came a series of blood-curdling yells, the hideous war-cry of the Comanches. Brite had been told about this — one of the famed facts of the frontier — but he had never heard a Comanche yell till now.

“By Gawd! They’ve charged thet wagon train,” ejaculated Pete, hoarsely. “Williams mustn’t hev located them.”

“He can do it now,” replied Texas.

Reddie lay flat, except that she held head and shoulders up, resting on her elbows. The stock of her rifle lay between them. She was quite white now and her eyes were big, dark, staring.

“Looks bad for them, Reddie,” whispered Brite.

“Yu mean our men?”

“No. For whoever’s corralled there.”

“Oh-h! What awful yells!”

“No more shots from them needle guns!” said Pete. “Reckon we’ve come only at the fog end of thet massacre. Another tally for these Comanches! But our turn’ll come. Williams an’ his men will be on thet bunch pronto.”

All at once the whoops and piercing yells were drowned in a crash of firearms.

“Ho! Ho! Listen to thet!... Gawd! I hope they were in time!... Now, men, lay low an’ watch. It’ll be short now. The Comanches will be comin’ in a jiffy, draggin’ their wounded. They won’t stop to pick up their daid — not in the face of thet blast.”

The shooting ceased as suddenly as it had commenced. Hoarse yells of white men took the place of the Comanche war-cry. Cracklings of dead snags came faintly to Brite’s ears.

“Oh — Dad! — I heah ’em — runnin’,” whispered Reddie.

“Men, they’re comin’,” said the hunter, low and hard. “Wait now — mind yu — wait till they get out in the open!”

Swift oncoming footfalls, rustlings of the brush, snapping of twigs, all affirmed Reddie and the hunter. Brite cocked his rifle and whispered to Reddie: “Aim deliberate, Reddie. Yu want to count heah.”

“I’m — gonna — kill one!” panted the girl, her eyes wild, as she cocked her rifle and raised to one knee while she thrust the barrel over the rock.

“Reddie, after yu paste one be shore to duck,” advised Texas, who must have had eyes in the back of his head. “Pan, look! I see ’em comin’ hell-bent.”

“Shore. An’ some way far back in the woods. They’re draggin’ cripples. Don’t shoot, men, till they’re all oot.”

Brite gripped his rifle and attended to the far side of the glade and the shadowy forms under the trees. The foremost ones flitted from tree to tree, hiding, peering back. Lean, bronze devils — how wild they seemed! Four or five flashed into plain sight, then disappeared again. Swift footfalls, soft as those of a panther, sounded quite a little closer to the ambushers. Brite espied a naked savage stepping forward, his dark face turned over his shoulder, his long, black hair flying with his swift movements. Reddie’s gasp proved that she saw him, too. Then farther down the edge of the woods other Indians emerged into the sunlight. Two carried rifles, most of them had bows, but Brite saw no arrows. They made for the mustangs, peering back, making signs to others coming, uttering low, guttural calls. In a moment more, when several bucks had mounted their ponies, four or five couples emerged from the woods, dragging and supporting wounded comrades.

A warrior let out a screeching cry. No doubt he had seen or heard something of the ambushers. Next instant Reddie had fired at the nearest Comanche, halfway across the glade, facing back from the direction he had come. He let out a mortal yell of agony and stumbled backward, step after step, his dark face like a ghastly mask of death, until he fell. Simultaneously then with fierce shouts the ambushers began to fire. The shots blended in a roar. Brite downed the Comanche he aimed at, then strove to pick out among the falling, leaping, plunging Indians another to shoot at. Out of the tail of his eye he saw Pan Handle flip one gun out, aim and shoot, and then the other, alternately. He was swift yet deliberate. No doubt every bullet he sent found its mark. The wounded and terrorized mustangs tore away their halters, and scattered in every direction. The firing thinned out, then ceased, after which there followed a dreadful silence.

“Reckon thet’s aboot all,” drawled Texas Joe, with a little cold laugh. “Load up quick. All down an’ ‘most daid.”

“Thet first buck who yelled got away,” replied Pete. “I missed him. But I didn’t see no more. We shore dropped them pronto. I know I only bored one. Yu must have some daid shots in this outfit.”

“One I know of, anyway.”

“Let’s charge ’em, men, an’ baste the cripples,” said the hunter, and he plunged up to burst out of the brush. Texas and Pan Handle followed, as evidently had Holden and Bender. Brite lay a restraining hand upon the agitated girl, who appeared about to rush after the others.

“Yu stay heah, lass,” he said. “It’s all over so far as we’re concerned. An’ there’ll be a mess oot there.”

“Oh-h! cried Reddie, breathing hard. She pushed the rifle before her and sank face down on the stone, beginning to shake like a leaf in the wind.

“Reddie, yu shore conducted yoreself in a way to make me proud,” said Brite, patting her shoulder. “Don’t give way now.”

“Listen! — Oh, that’s terrible.”

The drivers were cracking the skulls of the crippled Comanches, accompanying every whack from a rifle butt with a demon-like yell. Brite did not look in that direction. He heard halloes from the vicinity of the wagons and also answers from Texas’ men.

“Come, Reddie, let’s get oot in the open,” suggested Brite, dragging at her. “But we won’t go near thet shambles.”

She picked up her rifle and followed him out into the glade. A curtain of smoke was drifting away. It disclosed the first victim of the ambush — the Comanche who had backed away from the grove, to fall at Reddie’s shot.

Texas Joe stalked back toward them, bareheaded, his hair dishevelled, and halted beside the prostrate Comanche.

“Boss, yu didn’t plug this buck,” he asserted.

“Shore I did.”

“Yu’re a liar. Thet gun yu had is a needle gun. It was Reddie who done it... Dog-gone! Right plumb through his middle.’” He came up to them, hard-faced and tremendously forceful, his slits of amber eyes upon Reddie.

“Wal, yu opened the bawl pronto,” he said.

“Texas, I — I couldn’t wait. I had to shoot thet Indian,” she faltered.

“Wal, Miss Bayne, allow me to congratulate yu on bein’ a real shore-enough Texas pioneer’s daughter.”

“I — I feel like a murderer. But I’m not sorry. How cruel they looked — like lean, bloody wolves.”

“Boss, if I go to ranchin’ soon, I’d like a wife after Reddie’s breed,” concluded Texas, with a little satire in his flattery.

“Tex, heah comes Williams an’ our boys,” shouted some one.

The hunter could be seen approaching hurriedly, yet warily, with several men at his heels.

“Hash, only one got away,” called Smiling Pete. “We done ’em up quick an’ brown.”

“Good! But we was too late. —— our souls!” boomed the hunter, stridently. “Come along heah back with us.”

Texas Joe and the others rushed after Williams, who had turned to follow the drivers with him. Brite and Reddie fell behind. The strip of woodland grew more open until it let sunshine into a little park where a camp had been established. Three wagons had been lined up to inclose a triangular space. The wheels had been barricaded in places with packs and beds. Indian arrows stuck out with ominous significance. In the foreground lay a white man on his face. An arrow head protruded from his back. His scalp had been half torn off.

“Pete, we slipped up as fast as we could,” Williams was explaining. “But too late. I reckon we was in only at the finish.”

Brite bade Reddie remain back while he followed the hunters. He had seen gruesome sights before, yet it was a shock to renew such experiences. Williams dragged two dead men from under the wagons, and then a third who was still alive. Evidently he had been shot, for no arrow showed in him. They tore open his shirt and found a bad wound high up, just about missing the lung. The bullet had gone clear through.

“Reckon this fellar will live,” said Williams, practically. “One of yu tie a scarf tight over this hole an’ under his arm....Search everywhar, fellars. This has been a pretty long scrap. Yu see the blood has dried on thet man.”

“I know I seen a girl just as we bust loose on ’em,” said Ackerman, sweaty and grimy, his face working. “There was two redskins chasin’ her. I crippled one. Seen him go down an’ crawl. Then the other grabbed him into the brush.”

“Heah’s a daid woman,” called Texas Joe, from the back of the third wagon. His comrades hurried to confirm this statement. Brite shuddered to see a woman, half stripped, hanging scalpless and gory half out of the wagon.

“Thet’s not the girl I seen,” shouted Ackerman. “I swear it, men. She was runnin’. She had light hair. She wore a plaid skirt.”

“Wal, spread oot, some of yu, an’ search,” ordered Texas Joe.

“Three daid men, one daid woman, this heah man thet’s still alive,” Hash Williams was counting. “Thet five. An’ the girl yore cowboy swears he seen — thet makes six. There may be more. ‘Cause when we cut loose on the red devils it’d be natural for any one alive to run, if he was able.”

Deuce Ackerman went rushing around in a frenzy, calling aloud: “Come oot, girl, wherever yu air. Yu’re saved.”

But neither the wagons, nor the brush, nor the clumps of trees rewarded their hasty search. Deuce strode to the river bank, which was not far away, and thickly covered by willows. Here he called again. Suddenly he gave a wild shout and leaped off the bank out of sight. Texas Joe and other drivers ran in that direction. Before they could reach the bank Deuce appeared, half supporting a light-haired girl. They all ran then to meet Deuce, and Reddie flew after them.

“There, little lady, don’t be scared,” Ackerman was saying as he halted with the girl. “We’re friends. We’ve killed the Indians. Yu’re all right.”

He helped her to a log, where she sank down, and her head fell against his shoulder. She appeared to be about sixteen years old. Wide horror-stricken blue eyes gazed at the men. Freckles shone on her deathly white face.

“Lass, air yu hurted?” queried Williams, anxiously.

“I don’t — know.... I guess — not,” she answered, faintly.

“How many in yore party?”

“Six,” she whispered.

“There’s one man alive. He has a black beard. Reckon he’ll live.”

“My father! — Oh, thank God!”

“What’s yore name?”

“Ann Hardy. My father is — John Hardy. We were on our way to Fort Sill — to join a wagon-train there.... The Indians had attacked us — for days — then left us.... We had to stop — on account of the high water.... They came back today.”

“Is the woman yore mother?”

“No, sir.”

“Wal, that’s all now,” concluded Williams. “Men, we better not lose any time gettin’ this girl an’ her father up to our camp. Some of yu rustle now. Take the girl. I’ll stay with Pete, an’, say, three more of yu. We’ll do what we can for Hardy an’ fetch him along. Then if all’s well we can come back heah, bury the daid, an’ look over this ootfit.”

“I’ll put her on my hawse,” said Ackerman. “Come, Miss Hardy.... Lean on me.”

“You saved my life,” she replied, and fixed strained eyes upon him. “I was just — about to jump into the river.”

“All’s wal thet ends wal,” rejoined Deuce, with a nervous little laugh. “Yu an’ yore dad air lucky, I’ll tell yu.... Come. We have a girl in our ootfit. Heah she is...Reddie Bayne.”

“Oh, yu pore dear!” cried Reddie, putting her arm around the girl. “But yu’re safe now with us. This is Brite’s ootfit. An’ there’s some hard fighters an’ gunmen in it. Texas Jack an’ Pan Handle Smith an’ Deuce Ackerman heah. All bad hombres, lady, but shore good to have around when stampeders an’ redskins come.”

Deuce and Reddie led the girl up the trail, followed by Brite, Texas Joe, and the other drivers who were not going to stay with Williams. The trail ran between the river and the spot where the Comanches had met their doom. Texas and Holden forged ahead to get the horses. Deuce put the girl up on his saddle and mounted behind her. In a few minutes after that they reached a familiar grove of trees. But Brite did not recognize it.

“Wal, I’ll be —— !” vociferated Texas Joe, suddenly halting. To curse so formidably under the circumstances could mean only disaster.

“What ails yu, Tex?”

“Look aboot yu, boss. Heah’s camp an’ our chuck-wagon. But where’s Moze — an’ where’s our hawses an’ cattle?”

“Gone!” screamed Reddie.

CHAPTER XI

BRITE SCRATCHED HIS stubby chin. His two thousand odd cattle, less than half the original number he started with, had disappeared as if by magic.

“Wal, I’m not surprised,” snorted Texas. “Boss, when I rode back from upriver awhile ago, San Sabe had just come in hollerin’ Injuns. So I had no time to tell yu thet Ross Hite’s ootfit was up there with the other half of yore herd.”

“Damnation!” swore Brite. “Did they have the nerve to steal the rest of them? Right under our eyes!”

“Mebbe not. Long-horns air queer brutes. They might have just sloped off an’ then again they might have stampeded. Shore they didn’t come downriver.”

“Where’s Moze?”

“Heah, yu Alabama coon!” yelled Texas.

“I’se heah, boss,” came from the thick clump of trees, high up among the branches. “Heah I is.”

Presently they heard his feet thud on the soft turf and soon he appeared, shuffling toward them at a great rate.

“Moze, what’s become of our cattle?” demanded Brite.

“I dunno, suh. Jest after yu-all left I seen some riders comin’ down the ribber. An’ dis chile perambulated up de tree. Pretty soon I heahed them close, an’ I seen dat long lean Hite man. I sho did. They dess rode behind de cattle an’ chased dem at a run up de ribber. An’ dey missed our hawses.”

“Ahuh. Now, boss, we have no more trouble atall,” drawled Texas. “Pile off an’ soon as the rest of our ootfit gets heah we’ll put our haids together.”

“Moze, we’ve got a visitor, Miss Hardy,” announced Ackerman, as he leaped off to help the girl down. “All her ootfit except her dad got killed by the Comanches.”

“Yu may as wal start a fire, Moze,” added Texas. “We’re stuck heah for I don’t know how long. Heat water, get oot some clean bandages. We’ll have a cripple heah pronto.”

“Lawd, but dis Chissum Trail is waxin’ hot,” exploded Moze, showing the whites of his eyes.

Deuce unrolled a bed for the Hardy girl, and he and Reddie made her comfortable in the shade. Brite had the same thought he divined was passing in Reddie’s mind — that the Uvalde cowboy had been shot through the heart by something vastly different from a bullet.

The girl was more than pretty, now that the ghastliness was fading from her face and the horror from her eyes. She was about medium height, slender, but strong and well-rounded of form. Reddie sat beside her and held her hand while Deuce made a show of serious attention.

“Shut yore eyes an’ don’t think,” advised Reddie. “Let our men folks do thet.”

Brite’s survey of Texas, Pan Handle, and the others convinced him that never had they cudgeled their brains so fiercely. Moreover, they were silent. Brite paced to and fro, under the trees, doing his own thinking. It was inconceivable that Ross Hite should ultimately succeed in this second outrage. The fight that had been deferred must now be hastened. A grave risk for the two girls! Brite was in a quandary whether to permit it or not. But he reasoned that men of the stamp of Texas Joe and Pan Handle could not be held back any longer. The two hide-hunters had materially added to the strength of the outfit. Hite, now encumbered by all the cattle, was in a tight hole.

“Wal, they must have been drunk,” declared Texas, suddenly.

“Who?” queried one of the drivers.

“Hite’s ootfit. Onless they got a lot more hands then they had when Wallen braced us, they’re just committin’ suicide.”

“Tex, would it do for me to scout up the river? On foot, of course, an’ keepin’ to cover?” asked San Sabe.

“Wal no. Thet idee come to me. But it’s no good. We’re shore Hite drove the cattle an’ they cain’t be far. He cain’t cross the river anyway neah heah.”

“So far so good. What’re we gonna do?”

“Dam’ if I know, San,” replied Texas, gloomily. “We’re saddled with two girls now, an’ a crippled man, besides. Mebbe thet Hash Williams will have an idee. He ‘pears to be an old-timer.”

Texas walked out a few rods to look down the river. “They’re comin’,” he announced, with satisfaction. “Now we’ll soon see where we air.”

While still some distance from camp, Williams, evidently missing the cattle, came on at a gallop.

“Whar’s our long-horns?” he roared.

“Hite drove them off while we was fightin’ the Comanches,” replied Texas.

“Whole hawg or none, huh? I’d a-reckoned he’d be smarter than to do thet.”

“Williams, is it better or wuss for us?”

“Two times better, easy,” declared the hunter. “I jest wonder what led to thet trick. Sort of stumps me.”

“What’ll we do?”

“Wal, we’ll talk it over,” returned Williams, dismounting. “But sight unseen I’d say let Hite go with the cattle. Foller him across the Red, anyway. He cain’t dodge us. He cain’t sell the stock. He cain’t make a deal with the Injuns, for he couldn’t get nothin’ from them. An’ they won’t drive cattle.”

Presently the approaching horsemen reached camp, two of them supporting the wounded settler, Hardy. He was conscious, but unable to sit up. They lifted him off the horse and carried him to a place beside his daughter.

“Oh, Daddy, say yu’re not bad hurt,” she cried.

“I’m all — right — Ann, so they tell me,” he replied, weakly.

“Dig up some whisky an’ fix him a bed,” ordered Texas.

“Brite, what’ll we do aboot them wagons? I reckon we ought to take one of them an’ a load of supplies. We seen two hawses, anyway. We could haul Hardy an’ his girl as far as Doan’s store. What yu say?”

“I say yes, of course. Send two men back to fetch one wagon an’ a load. We can cross this river with wagons as soon as the cattle can.”

“Thet’ll be tomorrer. River’s goin’ down fast. An’ we’ll camp right heah tonight. Thet’ll give us time to bury them poor folks.”

“Williams, don’t yu reckon Hite will ambush the trail, thinkin’ we’ll be fools enough to chase him?” asked Texas.

“He’ll do thet, shore. We ain’t goin’ to chase him. Mister Hite stole our herd too quick. We’ll let him look oot for them an’ we’ll look oot for ourselves.”

“Would yu advise me to scout up the river?”

“No, I wouldn’t. But yu might send thet little chap, Sabe,” replied Williams. “Heah, cowboy, yu climb the hill, keepin’ oot of sight all the time. Work along the rim an’ see if yu can locate thet ootfit.... An’ come to think of it, Shipman, let’s hold off on sendin’ anyone down after thet wagon ontil Sabe gets back with his report.”

Pan Handle sat apart, cleaning his guns. They glinted in the sunlight like polished steel. The gunman appeared absorbed in his task. His brow was corded and dark, the line of his cheek tight and gray. Brite calculated for a certainty that Smith had done away with half the bunch of Comanches. He gathered solace from that and pondered on the doubtful future of one Ross Hite.

Reddie and Ackerman were trying to induce Ann to drink something. Texas sat idle, his narrow eyes upon Reddie. Moze was busy about the fire. Williams and Smiling Pete were dressing Hardy’s wound. The other drivers were resting and whispering together. San Sabe had vanished in the brush on the slope, where he made no more noise than a bird.

Brite sought a seat himself. The exertion and excitement had tired him out. He pondered upon the day and gave thanks to God for having been spared the catastrophe which had befallen Hardy’s outfit. What a common thing such massacres had come to be! Wagon-trains without scouts or Indian hunters or a large force for defense fell easy prey to these marauding bands of savages. He thought of rumors he had heard at Fort Dodge last trip. Santana, a chief of Kiowas, and a merciless fiend, had been reported to be in league with a band of white desperadoes whose specialty was to seek and waylay small caravans, and massacre every man, woman, and child, steal horses and supplies, and make way with the wagons so that not a single vestige of the caravan was ever discovered or heard of again.

Such terrible things seemed no longer incredible. Hundreds of wagon-trains crossed the plains; thousands of trail drivers rode up the vast stretches of Texas. And if a few were lost the tragedy scarcely came home to the many. But Brite saw it now. If he got out of this drive with his life, and this dear child he had adopted, he would let well enough alone. Yet how peaceful, even pastoral, that valley scene! The river glided on yellow as corn; the summer breeze waved the grass and willows; flowers bloomed along the banks and birds sang; the sky spread a blue canopy overhead, accentuated by white cloud-sails. Across the river, on the high bluff, a huge buffalo bull came out to stand gazing, silhouetted black against the sky, magnificently wild in aspect, and symbolic of that nature dominant for the hour.

* * * * *

Hours passed. Still San Sabe did not return. Toward sunset Williams deemed it advisable to get Hardy’s wagon, horses, personal effects, and supplies up to Brite’s camp before night. To this end he went himself, taking two men.

San Sabe hailed them from the bluff just as Moze called the outfit to supper. His call evidently was only to assure them of his safety, a fact Brite gave audible thanks for. He could not afford to lose any more drivers. In due time San Sabe burst out of the brush to approach the expectant group. His garb attested to rough work in this brush and his dark face was caked with sweat and dust.

“Had to haid a lot of canyons,” he explained. “Thet accounts for me takin’ so long.... Hite is drivin’ the cattle, all one big herd again, up the river. He — —”

“How far’s he got?” interrupted Texas.

“Aboot five miles from heah.”

“Did yu get near enough to count his outfit?”

“Shore. Seven drivers with the herd. An’ one with their hawses. They’re shy of saddle hawses. I counted six pack animals.”

“Travelin’ light. No chuck-wagon. San, don’t yu reckon they’ll bed down thet herd pronto?”

“Lawd only knows. What does Hite care aboot cattle. He’ll lose ten per cent withoot accidents.”

“He’ll lose more’n thet,” replied Texas, thoughtfully. “Boss, what yu say to havin’ the ootfit somewhere close when Hite drives that herd into the river?”

“I say I’d like it,” returned Brite, emphatically.

“Wal, we all would. We’ll plan to move pronto. But not go against Williams’ advice, if he says not.”

“Tex, I’ve got confidence in thet buffalo-hunter, too.”

“We all have. He’s a real Texan. I’m ashamed I didn’t see thet right off. But Texas Joe ain’t himself these days.... Finish yore supper, boys, an’ girls, too. Gee! We got another beauty in the ootfit.”

Ann heard this from her seat under the tree, where Reddie was persuading her to eat, and she blushed prettily.

“Don’t pay no attention to these trail drivers, Ann,” said Reddie, quite seriously and loud enough for all to hear. “Thet is, when they’re talkin’ sweet. They’re shore a fine fightin’ bunch thet yu feel safe with. But don’t let any of them get around yu.”

“Aw, Reddie, thet’s not kind of yu,” expostulated Deuce, quite offended.

“Wal, Ann, to be honest, Deuce Ackerman — he’s the boy who saved yore life — he’s the best of a bad ootfit. But thet soft-voiced Whittaker with his sheep’s eyes — look oot for him. An’ the handsome one — he’s never to be trusted.”

“But there appears to be several handsome ones,” replied Ann, with a hint of roguishness that showed she would be dangerous under happy circumstances.

This reply fetched the first hearty laugh for many long hours. They were young and easily stirred to pleasure. Brite laughed with them. Watching Reddie, he discerned that she had more up her sleeve.

“Shore, Ann. Our boys air all nice-lookin’, an’ some of them air what yu could call handsome. But I meant particular thet tall one, with the wide shoulders an’ small hips — thet tawny-haided, amber-eyed devil who limps when he walks.”

A shout greeted this elaborate description of Texas Joe. He did not participate in it. Blushing like a girl, he rose to doff his sombrero and make a low bow.

“Thanks, Miss Bayne. Thet’s shore the first time this whole trip yu done me justice.” Then with another bow, this time to Ann, he added: “Miss Hardy, there’s folks who could tell yu thet the lead bullet in my laig was received in the interest of a young lady ‘most as pretty as yu. An’ the hombre who shot it there got mine in his haid.”

Ann looked mightily impressed and embarrassed; Reddie dropped her eyes, defeated; while the riders grew silent. Texas had taken offense. Brite eased the situation by ordering Moze to hurry at his tasks and pack up ready to start at a moment’s notice.

“Fetch in the team, somebody. An’ round up the remuda. Tex, I reckon Williams will think of packin’ the new wagon so Hardy can ride comfortable. An’ the girl can ride on the front seat. Who’ll volunteer to drive thet wagon?”

“I will,” flashed Deuce Ackerman, before the other boys could get in their vociferations.

Here Texas Joe interposed, cool and authoritative, his sombrero pulled well down. Perhaps only Brite saw the mischievousness in his eyes.

“Deuce, if yu don’t mind, I’ll drive thet wagon. Yu see we haven’t any herd to point.”

“But, Tex, yu cain’t drive a team,” burst out Deuce, almost in a wail.

“I cain’t?”

“Yu told me so; Wal, I’ve drove teams all my life, since I was thet high. Besides, I’m not so — so darn well, an’ I’m saddle sore, an’ off my feed — an’ — —”

“My Gawd! Deuce, yu need a doctor!” ejaculated Texas, solicitously. “I hadn’t seen how seedy yu look till now. Shore yu can drive the Hardy wagon.”

This effected a remarkable transformation in Deuce. He grew radiant. The boys gazed at him in slow-dawning realization at his perfidy.

“Miss Ann, air yu able to ride hawseback?” asked Texas.

“Oh yes — I can ride anything,” she replied earnestly. “Really, Mister Texas, I’m not hurt or sick. I’m getting over my scare.”

“Wal, thet’s fine. Then yu can ride hawseback with me. I have just the pony for yu. A pinto thet come from Uvalde. He’s Arabian if I ever seen one.”

Deuce’s face fell. He was wholly unconscious of the sincerity and depth of his emotions. Brite detected another reaction to this innocent fun Texas was having. Reddie betrayed signs of the green-eyed monster.

“An Arabian? Oh, I shall love to ride him,” Ann replied, with enthusiasm. “But I’d rather go on the wagon to be close to Daddy.”

“Yu win, lady,” retorted Texas, with dry humor. Manifestly the fair sex was beyond him. Brite made certain that the girl had spoken the simple, natural truth. But that Texas cowboy had a suspicion that Ann wanted to ride beside her rescuer.

After that all hands became busy, except the new members of the outfit. Ann rested with closed eyes. Her father lay still, as he had been advised, suffering patiently. Brite thought that the settler had a good chance to recover. The bullet had missed his lung. Blood poisoning was the only complication to fear. That very often set in from a dirty slug of lead, tearing through the flesh. Evidently Williams was no poor hand at dressing gun-shot wounds, and the medicine Brite had packed for just such a contingency was a sure preventive if applied in time.

Just about sundown the cowboys rode in from downriver, leading two saddle horses, and following them came a wagon with Williams and Smiling Pete on the seat.

Texas Joe lost no time acquainting the hunters with his eagerness to start at once up the river, so that they could be on hand when Hite drove the herd across the river.

“Texas, great minds run the same,” boomed Williams. “I had thet idee myself. What did San Sabe report?”

When this information had been briefly imparted he said: “Good! Send Sabe an’ another rider up the trail pronto. An’ we’ll foller as soon as we can start.”

* * * * *

Pan Handle, Texas Joe, and Smiling Pete rode at the head of that caravan. Reddie Bayne and Brite drove the remuda next. Ackerman, at the reins of the Hardy wagon, with Ann on the seat beside him, came next. Whittaker was prevailed upon by vast argument and some anger to handle the third wagon. Moze followed with his chuck-wagon, and Hash Williams, accompanied by Less Holden and Bender, brought up the rear.

The wagon-drivers had orders to keep close together on the tail of the remuda. If there had ever been a road up this river-bottom, the herd had plowed it out. The ground was sandy and therefore made hard pulling for the horses. It was so dark that the drivers had difficulty in keeping to the most level ground.

After an hour’s travel Brite noted a brightening of the sky and paling of the stars. The moon had risen. But it was behind the high bluff to their left and for the time being did not materially help the progress. Presently the rim of the opposite bluff turned silver, and this shiny line slowly worked downward. The time came when the far shore grew bright and then the river shone like silver. Eventually the blackness under the cliff yielded to the rising moon, until all was clear and blanched.

Better progress was made then. The valley narrowed until there appeared to be scarcely a quarter mile of land between the river and the bluff. It was brushy, too, and often dotted by clumps of trees. These did not offer any obstacle to Brite’s caravan, but it would certainly slow down the herd of cattle.

The hours passed. It was comfortable travel for the trail men, except for the menace that gradually grew with their progress toward an inevitable climax. Suspense always wore upon Brite. Texas Joe, no doubt, chafed under it. Probably Pan Handle and the hunters were the only ones in the outfit who were not affected one way or another.

Some time long after midnight Texas rode back to halt the remuda; and then the wagons as they came up.

“We heahed cows bawlin’ ahaid,” he said. “An’ I reckon we’re just aboot too close for comfort now. What yu say, Williams?”

“Wal, let’s haul up heah while some of yu sneak ahaid on foot. I’ll go along. Texas, it ain’t so long till mawnin’. An’ we shore want to be around when Hite’s ootfit drives the herd across.”

“Hash, we want the cattle to get over,” replied Texas, forcibly. “Thet’ll save us work. An’ we oughtn’t begin hostilities until the rear end is halfway across.”

“Ahuh. Ha! Ha! Kinda hot for the drivers at the tail, huh?”

“Miss Ann, how yu ridin’?” queried Texas as he passed the Hardy wagon.

“All right, but I’ll be glad to lie down,” she replied.

“Deuce, have yu made a bed for her in the wagon?”

“Not yet. But I have a roll of blankets handy. I’ll take care of her,” returned Deuce, too casually. He was obsessed with his importance.

“Wal, so long. Some of yu boys stand guard, so the girl an’ the boss can sleep.”

Reddie bunched the remuda on the best available space, fortunately large and grassy enough to hold it, and then unrolled her bed as usual next to Brite’s.

“Yu awake, Dad?”

“Yes, lass. Anythin’ troublin’ yu?”

“Lawd, yes. But I only wanted to ask if yu don’t think there’ll be hell to pay before long?”

“Reddie, I don’t see how we can avoid it,” replied Brite, gloomily. “Some of our ponies gone, all our cattle gone. Two riders daid! An’ not even to the Red River yet. It’s between the Red an’ the Canadian thet the trail drivers ketch hell.”

“Oh, it’d just be my luck!” she exclaimed, disheartened, as she kicked off her boots.

“What’d be?”

“To get stole by stampeders or scalped by redskins or drowned, or lose yu, just when I’ve begun to be happy.”

“Wal, Reddie, don’t give up. Hang on like a Texan. Remember the Alamo!”

“Dog-gone it, Mr. Brite, them Texans shore never gave up. They hung on till they was all daid.”

“I meant their spirit, honey. Now yu go to sleep.”

* * * * *

Brite was pulled out by Texas Joe in the gray of dawn. “Boss, I just rode back with the news. Hite is crossin’ the herd,” he whispered. “If yu don’t want to miss the fun, come on. Don’t wake Reddie. We’re leavin’ five men heah. An’ we’ll be back before sunup.”

“Don’t wake Reddie!” spoke up that young person, derisively. “Fine chance yu have of keepin’ me from seein’ the fun, Texas Jack.”

“Say, yu must want to be kissed some more,” drawled Texas, coolly.

“Shore do. But not by the same gentleman — I mean hombre — who kissed me last.”

“Gosh! Who was thet lucky hombre?” laughed Texas, and went his way.

Brite had been swift to comply with his foreman’s suggestion, and had only to snatch up his rifle. Texas waited in the gray gloom with Pan Handle, San Sabe, and Williams. Reddie joined them there, rifle in hand.

“Listen,” whispered Texas. “Foller me an’ keep still. Do what I do. The idee is to break up Hite’s ootfit before it gets across the river. Most of his drivers, yu know, will be behind the herd. When they get all in the river then we gotta do some tall shootin’. Thet’s all.”

He set off up the trail at a swift stride. The others followed in single file. San Sabe brought up the rear. Texas did not stop until he got around a bend in the river. He listened. The bawl of cattle arose on the still, warm air. Brite calculated that they could scarcely be more than a mile — two at the most — from the crossing Hite had chosen.

The valley had widened. On the opposite side of the river the rim of the bluff sloped down to a distant break. Soon Texas led off the trail into the woods. Here going was impeded by brush until they emerged upon the sandy bank of the river. It was wide here and shallow, flowing on with a gurgle and murmur. Judging by the wet sand and weeds, the water had dropped several feet during the night. By this time broad daylight had come, but not under a clear sky as usual. Hazy clouds presaged rain.

Texas hurried along, keeping in the lee of willows, halting to listen every hundred paces or so. At length he turned a corner to stop with a low: “Hist!... Look!”

Half a mile beyond, the wide river space presented a wonderful spectacle. It appeared to be blotted out by a great mass of moving cattle that extended across, and out on the opposite bank, and up under the trees. The herd had not been pointed by expert trail drivers. Brite did not see a rider. They would be, of course, on the upstream side, if the water was swift and deep. All the cattle were wading, which insured a safe, though slow crossing.

“Wal, pards, this heah is shore low-down, Comanche work we’re goin’ to do, but Hite’s ootfit ain’t worth us riskin’ a scratch. Careful now. Watch me an’ not the river. It’ll come off soon enough!”

He took to the willows, and glided through them, scarcely moving a leaf. Brite could see the water and hear its soft flow, but had no clear view. Meanwhile the intermittent bawling of cattle grew closer. Texas led on slower and slower. In places the willows became almost impenetrable, whereupon he had to worm a way through, but he always worked toward the river and not inshore.

Yells of the drivers halted Texas. He sank down on one knee and beckoned his followers to come close. They stooped and crawled to surround him.

“Reckon a — hundred yards — more will fetch us,” he panted low. “Get yore breath. A winded man cain’t shoot. Wait heah.”

He crawled out to the sandbar, where he could just be made out through the willows. Soon he came back.

“In aboot five minutes — the brawl will open,” he whispered. The beads of sweat dropped off his dark stern face. “They’re quarterin’ across current. Thet’ll fetch the men in range, if we can — work up a little — farther.”

He arose to a stooping posture and glided on, this time without any apparent caution, probably because he had ascertained that they could not be detected. Brite kept close to Reddie’s heels, marveling the more at her all the time. Every few steps she would turn her head, like an alert bird, to see if he was close to her. At such moments she smiled. Her eyes were dark and daring, and only the pearly hue of her cheek indicated that her blood had receded. Faint whistling pants issued from her lips.

The cattle were now close. They made a stamping, splashing roar, above which neither the bawls of cows nor yells of drivers could be heard. Brite could smell the herd, and through interstices in the foliage he could see moving red and white.

Texas’ steps grew shorter and slower, until they ceased. He knelt, and all followed suit. His eyes acquainted his comrades with the issue close at hand, and if that was not sufficient, the way he tapped his rifle and pointed surely spoke volumes. Then he listened intently to the clattering, splashing roar. It appeared to pass by their covert, working out.

“We gotta rustle,” he whispered, fiercely. “We didn’t get far enough up an’ they’re quarterin’ away from us. Spread oot an’ crawl to the edge.”

Before Brite, who encountered a tangle of willows, could reach the open the thundering boom of needle guns dinned in his ears. He rushed ahead, split the willows with his rifle, and peered out. Reddie slipped in a few feet to his right.

The wide rear of the herd was a full hundred yards out. Half a dozen riders were beating and spurring their horses in a mad haste to escape. Brite saw horses down and one man pitching in and out of the water.

“Aim low an’ shoot, Reddie,” he called, harshly, yielding to the fight lust of the moment. Then he tried to cover the rider of a plunging horse, and fired. In vain! Guns were banging on each side of him, until his ears appeared about to crack. The last rider, whose horse was crippled, threw up his arms and lunged out of his saddle into the water. He did not come up.

Puffs of white smoke from the retreating drivers told of a return fire. Bullets began to splatter on the water and sand, and to whistle by into the willows. But the danger for Brite’s men appeared negligible, owing to the fact that the thieves were shooting with small arms from plunging horses. Only a chance bullet could find its mark. The swift water came up to the flanks of the horses, hindering progress on foot. It was not deep enough for them to swim. Nevertheless, the riders drew nearer the shore in a hail of bullets. This pursuing fusilade ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun, because Brite’s men had exhausted all the loads in both rifles and revolvers.

The yelling, frantic robbers reached the land, five of them, where they joined one who had crossed ahead of them, and they surrounded him like a pack of wolves, no doubt cursing him for this attack. They pointed to three horses down, and one man floating, face up.

Texas, having reloaded his buffalo gun, took a long shot at them by way of farewell. The big bullet splashed water and sand in their faces, making them beat a hasty retreat into the willows.

“Wal, dog-gone!” ejaculated Texas, pleased as a child. “It turned oot better’n I hoped when we got heah. What yu say, Hash?”

“Not so good as I was hankerin’ for. But not bad, either,” replied Williams. “Thar’s three hawses down, an’ yu bet I didn’t see no fellar wade ashore.”

“There’s a crippled man in thet bunch,” averred Texas. “I hit him myself.”

“Mr. Brite, we’ll be drivin’ yore herd again before we cross the Red,” said the hunter. “We’ll have these robbers buffaloed from now on. They’ll have to leave the herd or croak, thet’s all. Reckon thet tall fellar on the bay hawse was Hite, reckonin’ from the way they ranted at him.”

“Load up, everybody. We mustn’t forget we’re now in Comanche country,” advised Texas. “Boss, who’s the young fellar with burnt powder on his nose?”

“This heah? — Oh, this is Red Bayne,” replied Brite, eager for some fun now the tension was removed. “Did yore rifle kick?”

“Did it? Wuss than a mule. I forgot to hold the darn thing tight,” rejoined Reddie, in rueful disgust.

“Let’s rustle back to camp, eat, an’ get goin’ ‘cross this river,” said Texas. “It’ll shore be little sleep or rest Ross Hite will get from now on.”

CHAPTER XII

IF IT WERE needed, Texas’ coup inspirited the drivers who had not shared it. Deuce Ackerman let out one long wild whoop.

“Hip hip, thet’s great! Look what we missed, Rolly. But some of us had to stay behind.... Tex, we’ll get goin’ yet an’ then Gawd help ’em!”

In an hour they were on the move, and soon after that halted at the crossing where Hite’s men had been routed. The three dead horses had floated downstream some distance to lodge in shallower water. Williams had sent a scout back in the trail, another up on the bluff, and a third ahead. They met the outfit at the ford, to report nothing in sight but buffalo.

“How aboot us bein’ ambushed?” queried Texas.

“Wal, strikes me Hite would pick oot a better place than thet over there,” replied Williams. “Mr. Brite, suppose yu hand up yore glass to young Ackerman, so he can have a look.... Stand up on the seat, son.”

After a long survey Ackerman shook his head decisively. “Nope. I can see all under the trees an’ right through thet thin skift of brush.”

“Wal, just to make shore, some of us’ll ride over ahaid,” said Texas. “Come, San, an’ yu Bender, an’ Less.... Look sharp, an’ if yu see puffs of smoke wheel an’ ride for dear life.”

These riders crossed in good order, proving the validity of Ackerman’s judgment. Reddie crossed next with the remuda, and then Moze made it without going over his wagon wheels. The Hardy vehicle had to have help, stalling a little beyond the middle.

“Rustle before she mires down,” yelled Texas, who had ridden out. “Come, Miss Ann. I’ll pack yu ashore. Yu’ll get all wet there.”

Ackerman’s face was a study while Ann Hardy readily leaned out to be taken in Texas Joe’s arms and carried ashore. Then the riders, hitching on with their ropes, aided the team to pull the wagon out. Williams drove the third wagon across without mishap. But the fourth and last stuck in the mud, about halfway over.

This accident held up the caravan. It was the largest wagon, half full of buffalo hides, and it sank deeper in the mire after every effort to dislodge it. The drivers broke their ropes. Then they got off in water up to their waists and performed all manner of strenuous labor, to no avail.

Finally, Williams waded in and, unhitching the team, drove them ashore.

“Wagon’s no good, anyhow, an’ never mind the hides. Thar’s ten million of ’em loose oot heah.”

They went on with two teams hitched to the Hardy wagon, which held the heaviest load. And soon they were up out of the bottom land upon the vast heave of the range. The cattle herd had been driven almost due east. Williams said that had been done to strike the Chisholm Trail. Before long this proved to be a correct surmise.

The day was sultry and brooded storm. Bands of buffalo grazed on all sides, attended by droves of wolves and coyotes and flocks of birds. By noon Ackerman, who still retained Brite’s glass, reported the herd in sight ahead less than ten miles. All afternoon the caravan gained, which fact probably was known to the Hite outfit. At sunset Hite halted the herd on the open range, where not a tree or a bush could be picked up with the glass. A little swale well watered and wooded appealed to Texas Joe, who turned off here and selected a camp site. Scarcely half a dozen miles separated the two outfits.

The sun set in a red flare and dusk trooped up from the west, sultry and ominous. Dull rumbles of thunder heralded an approaching storm, and flashes of sheet lightning flared along the dark horizon. The silence, the absence of even a slightest movement of air, the brooding wait of nature, were not propitious to the caravan caught out upon the open range. Brite told the girls how the electric storms prevalent in that latitude of Texas were the bane of the trail drivers, actually more dreaded than redskins or buffalo.

“But why?” asked Ann Hardy, wonderingly.

“Wal, they’re just naturally fearful in the first place, an’ they drive hawses an’ cattle crazy. Fred Bell, a trail driver I know, said he got caught once in a storm near the Canadian an’ had thirty-seven haid of cattle an’ one driver struck daid by lightnin’.”

Reddie was no less shocked than Ann and vowed she would surely pray that they miss such a storm as that.

“I been in a coupla electric storms,” spoke up Texas, who had paused in his walk to listen. “Been in hundreds of plain lightnin’-an’-thunder storms. Only two of these darn floods of electricity thet cover the earth an’ everythin’ on it. I’ve seen balls of fire on the tops of all the cows’ horns. I’ve seen fire run along a hawse’s mane, an’ heahed it too. Yes, sir, bad storms air hell for cowhands.”

Later, when the girls had walked away, Texas spoke low and seriously to Brite.

“Boss, any kind of a storm tonight, if it’ll only flash lightnin’ enough, will shore suit me an’ Pan Handle.”

“Tex! — What’s in yore mind?” queried Brite, hastily.

“We’re gonna get back our herd tonight.”

“Yu an’ Pan? Alone?”

“Shore alone. Thet’s the way to do it. Pan wanted to tackle it by hisself, an’ so did I. But we compromised by joinin’ forces. We’re goin’ together.”

“Shipman, I — I don’t know thet I’ll permit it,” rejoined Brite, gravely.

“Shore yu will. I’d hate to disobey yu, Mr. Brite. But I’m Trail boss. An’ as for Pan Handle, hell! Thet fellar cain’t be bossed.”

“What’s yore idee, Tex? I hope to heaven it ain’t crazy. Yu an’ Pan air grown men. An’ yu shore know yore responsibility heah. Two young girls to protect now, an’ a crippled man.”

“Wal, the idee strikes yu wuss than it really is,” went on Texas. “Pan an’ me plan to strike the herd in the thickest of the thunder an’ lightnin’. When we do I’ll circle it one way an’ he’ll circle the other. If the cattle stampede, as is likely, we’ll ride along an’ wait till they begin to mill or stop. Now Hite’s ootfit will be havin’ their hands full. They’ll be separatin’, naturally, tryin’ to keep the herd bunched an’ stopped. An’ in a flash of lightnin’, when any one of them seen us, he wouldn’t know us from Adam. Savvy, boss?”

“I cain’t say thet I do,” replied Brite, puzzled.

“Wal, yu’re gettin’ thick-haided in yore old age. Kinda gettin’ dotty adoptin’ this pretty kid, huh?”

“Tex, don’t rile me. Shore I’m dotty, aboot her, anyway. But I don’t get yore hunch. Now, for instance, when yu an’ Pan circle thet herd, goin’ in opposite directions, when yu meet how’n hell will yu know each other? Shootin’ by lightnin’ flash had ought to be as quick as lightnin’, I’d say. How’n hell would yu keep from shootin’ each other?”

“Wal, thet’s got me stumped, I’ll admit. Let’s put our haids together after supper. Mebbe one of us will hit on just the idee. If we think up somethin’ shore — wal, it’s all day with Hite an’ his ootfit.”

Moze rolled out his familiar clarion blast.

“Gosh! this’s fine, all heah together, first time,” exclaimed Ackerman, whose spirits ran high. He had just seated Ann on a pack beside him.

“Wal, it may be the last, so make the most of it,” drawled Texas, his dark, piercing eyes upon Reddie. Brite saw her catch her breath. Then silence fell.

Dusk deepened into night, still close, humid, threatening, with the rumbles sounding closer and more frequent. In the western sky all the stars disappeared. The moon was not yet up.

“Chuck on some firewood an’ gather aboot me heah,” said Texas, after the meal ended. “It’s shore gonna storm pronto. An’ me an’ Pan have a job on.”

“What?” bluntly jerked out Holden.

“Thought yu was kinda glum,” added San Sabe.

“Reddie, yu’re in on this,” called Texas. “An’ Ann, too, if she likes. Shore no one ever seen an idee come oot of a pretty girl’s haid. But I’m sorta desperate tonight.”

In the bright light of the replenished fire they all surrounded their foreman, curious and expectant.

“Wal, heah’s at yu. Me an’ Pan air ridin’ oot to round up Hite. Soon as the storm’s aboot to break we’ll ride up on the herd an’ the guards. I’ve got them located. We plan to circle the herd in different directions, an’ we want to know ab-so-loot-lee when we meet each other. How we goin’ to do thet?”

“Yu mean recognize each other by lightnin’ flashes?” queried Less.

“Shore.”

“It cain’t be did.”

“Aw, yes it can. A lightnin’ flash lasts a second — sometimes a good deal longer. How much time do I need to see to throw a gun — or not?”

“Oh-ho! Thet’s the idee!”

“Lemme go along.”

“No, it’s a two man job.... Use yore gray matter now, pards.”

“It’ll be rainin’, most likely, an’ the herd will be driftin’, mebbe movin’ fast. An’ of course Hite’s ootfit will be surroundin’ it, all separated. It’s a grand idee, Tex, if yu don’t plug each other.”

“Wal, let’s see,” put in another driver. “When yu separate yu’ll know for shore yu cain’t meet very soon. It’ll take most a quarter or mebbe half an hour to trot around a big herd, guidin’ by lightnin’ flashes.”

“Boys,” drawled Pan Handle, in amusement, “yore minds work slow. What we want to know is what to wear thet can be seen quick. Somethin’ shore to identify each other. Remember we’ll both be holdin’ cocked guns.”

One by one the male contingent came forward with suggestions, each of which was summarily dismissed.

“If it storms, the wind will blow, shore?” interposed Reddie.

“Breeze blowin’ already. There’ll be a stiff wind with the rain,” replied Texas.

“Tie somethin’ white aboot yore sombreros an’ leave the ends long so they’ll flap in the wind.”

“White?” responded Pan Handle, sharply.

“Dog-gone!” added Texas.

“Men, thet is a splendid idee,” interposed Brite, earnestly. “Somethin’ white streakin’ oot! It couldn’t be beat.”

“Where’ll we get this heah somethin’ white?” asked Texas. “In this dirty ootfit it’d be huntin’ a needle in a haystack.”

“Ann has a clean white towel,” replied Reddie.

“Yes, I have,” said the girl, eagerly. “I’ll get it.”

When the article was produced and placed in Texas’ hands he began to tear it into strips. “Wal, Reddie, yu’ve saved my life. I shore want this Pan Handle galoot to make quick an’ shore thet I’m Tex Shipman.... Heah, we’ll knot two strips together, an’ then tie the double piece round our hats.... Come, Reddie, take it.”

She complied, and when he bent his head she clumsily wound the long streamer around the crown of his sombrero. The firelight showed her face white as the towel.

“What yu shakin’ for?” demanded Texas. “Anyone would get the halloocinnation yu reckoned I was gonna be killed an’ yu felt bad.”

“I would feel — very bad — Tex,” she faltered.

“Wal, thet makes up for a lot.... Tie it tighter, so the wind cain’t blow it off.... There. I reckon that’ll do. How aboot yu, Pan?”

“I’m decorated, too.”

“Wal, I could ‘most see thet in the dark.... Now, fellars, listen. Like as not we won’t come back tonight, onless our plan fails. If it works we’ll be with the herd, yu bet. So yu rout Moze oot early, grab some grub, an’ ride oot soon as it’s light. The wagons can foller on the road. Yu’ll find us somewhere.”

In utter silence, then, the two men mounted their horses, that had been kept haltered close by, and rode away into the sulphurous, melancholy night.

“Thet’s a new wrinkle on Hash Williams,” ejaculated that worthy. “What them gun-throwers cain’t think of would beat hell!”

His caustic remark broke the tensity of the moment. Reddie had stood like a statue, her face in shadow, gazing into the blackness where Texas Joe had vanished. Brite did not need this time to see her eyes; her form, instinct with speechless protest, betrayed her.

The wind swept in from the range with a moan, blowing a stream of red sparks aloft. Thunder boomed. And a flare of lightning showed inky black clouds swooping down from the west.

“We better think aboot keepin’ ourselves an’ beds dry,” advised Brite. “Deuce, see thet Ann an’ her father will be protected. Moze, get oot our tarp. Come, Reddie, we’ll bunk under the chuck-wagon an’ say we like it.”

“Dad, I wonder if my remuda will hang in a storm?” inquired Reddie, undecided what to do.

“Wal, thet bunch of dogies can go hang if they want.”

“Reddie, I’ll have a look at ’em before the storm busts,” said San Sabe.

“Yu’ll have to rustle, then.”

“Thet’s only wind. It ain’t rainin’ yet.”

By the time Moze, Brite, and Reddie had tied and stoned the ends of the tarpaulin so that it could not blow away the rain was coming in big scattered drops. Brite felt them cool and fresh upon his face. He and Reddie rushed for their shelter, and had made it fast when the pitch blackness blazed into an intense blue-white brilliance which lighted camp, wagons, horses, and all the vicinity into a supernatural silvery clearness. A thunderbolt followed that seemed to rend the earth.

The succeeding blackness appeared an intensified medium impenetrable and pitchy. Then the thunder reverberated away in terrific concussions.

“Where air yu, Dad?” shouted Reddie.

“I’m right heah,” Brite replied. “Listen to the roar of thet rain comin’.”

“Gosh! I better say my prayers pronto, or the good Lawd’ll never heah me,” cried Reddie.

“Lass, it might be a good idee,” replied Brite. “Let’s don’t unroll our beds till this storm is over.”

Reddie answered something to that, but in the pressing fury of the deluge he could not distinguish what it was. With a rippling onslaught upon their canvas shield, rain and wind enveloped the wagon. Then the pitch black split to a weird white light that quivered all around them, showing the torrent of rain, the flooded land, the horses bunched, heads down, together. Thunder burst like disrupted mountains. Again the black mantle fell. But before that reverberation rolled away another zigzag rope of lightning divided the dense cloud, letting loose an all-embracing supernatural glow, silver-green, that lent unreality to everything. White flash after white flash followed until for moments there appeared scarcely a dark interval between, and the tremendous boom and peal of thunder was continuous.

Reddie sat huddled under the wagon, covered with the long slicker. Brite could see her pale face and dark eyes in the lightning flare. Fear shone there, but it did not seem to be for herself. Reddie was gazing out over the blaze-swept range with the terrible consciousness of what was taking place out there.

That, too, obsessed Brite’s mind. He reclined on his elbow close beside Reddie and not far from Moze, who had also sought shelter under the wagon. Reddie appeared to be fairly shielded from the deluge that beat in everywhere. But Brite needed the old canvas with which he covered himself. The other drivers had huddled under the other wagons, and could be seen, a dark mass, inside the wheels.

Brite was not at all fond of Texas storms, even of the ordinary kind. He had a wholesome fear of the real electric storm, which this one did not appear to be. At this time, however, he scarcely thought of the fact that lightning struck camp frequently.

His thoughts dwelt on the unparalleled action of Texas Joe and Pan Handle, riding forth in that storm to mete dire justice to the stampeders. It must have been an original idea — stalking Hite’s outfit in face of the furious rain and deafening thunder and scintillating flashes. For sheer iron nerve it had no equal in Brite’s memory of cold, hard deeds. These men would be drenched to the skin by now, blinded by piercing rain and lightning, almost blown from their saddles, in imminent peril of being run down by a stampeding herd, and lastly of being shot by the men they had set out to kill.

By the strange green light Brite calculated whether or not he could shoot accurately under such conditions. The flashes lasted long enough for a swift eye and hand. All the same he would not have cared to match wits and faculties with hunted desperadoes on a night like this.

It took an hour or longer for the heavy center of the storm to pass, after which rain and wind, and an occasional flare, diminished in volume. Perceptibly the storm boomed and roared and flashed away. Whatever had been fated to happen out there was over. Brite had no doubt of its deadly outcome. Still, that might be over-confidence in his gunmen. He had nothing sure to go by. Ross Hite was a crafty desperado, and for all Brite knew he might be the equal of Texas Joe. But not of Pan Handle Smith! Pan Handle could only be compared to the great Texas killer of that decade.

Reddie had rolled in her blankets and was asleep, as Brite dimly made out by the receding flares. He sought his own bed, weary, strangely calm, somehow fixed in his sense of victory.

It was still dark when noise aroused him from slumber. A grayness, however, betrayed the east and was the harbinger of day. He reached over to give Reddie a shake, but the dark object he had taken for her was her bed. Moze was out, too, splitting wood. Brite hurried out to lend a hand.

Gruff voices sounded toward the other wagons. Dark forms of men strode to and fro against that gray light. “Pete, we got to grease the wagon,” Williams called gruffly. Reddie’s clean, high-pitched call came floating in. She had the remuda moving. One by one the cowboys appeared at the brightening camp fire, cold, cramped, wet, silent, and morose. Ackerman was not present, wherefore Brite concluded that he had gone with Reddie to round up the remuda. This surmise proved correct. When the mustangs got in there followed the sharp whistle of wet ropes, the stamp of little hoofs, the grind of hard heels, and an occasional low growl or curse from a cowhand. That task done, the riders flocked around Moze to snatch at something to eat.

The dawn lightened. Ackerman called at the Hardy wagon: “Miss Ann, air yu awake?”

“I should smile I am,” came the reply.

“How air yu?”

“All right, I reckon, Mr. Deuce, but pretty wet.”

“How’s yore father?”

“Son, I’m still alive an’ kickin’,” replied Hardy, for himself.

“Good!... Miss Ann, better come oot an’ dry yoreself, an’ have a hot drink. We’ll be on the move pronto.”

Hash Williams stamped up to the fire, spreading his huge hands.

“Cleared off fine. Gonna be best kind of a day for travel.”

“Do yu reckon we’ll travel?” inquired Brite.

“I’ll bet we do,” replied the hunter, gruffly.

“Williams, what’s yore idee aboot startin’?” queried Ackerman, sharply.

“Pronto. Yu drive Hardy same as yestiddy. Pete will drive our wagon. I’ll go with the boys. Let’s see, thet’d be six of us. Suppose yu keep one rider back with yu.”

“All right. Rolly, yu’re stuck heah with us.”

In a moment more the five were mounted on restive mustangs, a formidable quintet in the pale morning light.

“Take the trail an’ keep comin’ till yu ketch us. We’ll shore bear yu all in mind.”

They were off swiftly, and close together, a sight that betrayed to Brite the uncertainty of their errand and the mood in which it was undertaken.

“Mawnin’, Ann,” greeted Reddie to the settler girl as she appeared, dishevelled and wet, but bright-eyed and cheerful. “Did yu heah the storm?”

“Good morning. Oh, wasn’t it terrible?... An’ to think of those two who rode out. I could not sleep.”

“It wasn’t a very comfortable night, Miss Ann,” said Brite. “Come to the fire.... Moze, rustle our breakfast. We must not lose any time.”

They were on the trail at daylight, when the range had just awakened, and all the distant landmarks were shrouded in mist. But the sky was clear, the east reddening, the air fresh and cool.

Rolly Little took the lead to scout the way; the wagons followed close together, and the remuda brought up the rear, with Brite and Reddie driving them. All horses were fresh. They trotted over the hard ground and splashed through the little pools. Meanwhile the red in the east deepened to rose, and then the rose burst into glorious sunrise, before which the shadows and mists, the mysteries of distance and obscurity of draw and swale dissolved and vanished.

Five miles out Rolly Little rode off the trail and appeared to search. When the remuda came even with this point Brite swerved off to have a look. He found where Ross Hite had camped. Packs and saddles, utensils left beside a sodden bed of ashes, attested to the hasty departure of the stampeders. A long yell pierced Brite’s ear, startling him. Little, some distance ahead, was waving. But his action seemed the result of excitement rather than alarm. Brite, curious and thrilled, galloped to join him; before he got there, however, Little pointed to an object on the ground and rode on.

Brite soon gazed down upon a dead man, flat on his back, arms spread, gun on the ground, a telling spectacle, emphatic of the law of that range. Brite rode an imaginary circle then, soon to come upon another of Hite’s outfit, still and horrible, half his face shot away and his open shirt bloody. Farther on in the lengthy curve Brite espied a dead horse and two dead men, lying in a group. Brite did not go close, and he sheered off that circle and made for the remuda.

Reddie gave him a flashing, fearful glance.

“Boy, would yu believe it? — Four of Hite’s ootfit lyin’ along the trail, in a circle. I only rode the half.”

Reddie swallowed hard and had no answer. They rode on, eyes now glued ahead to the wavering, deceiving prairie. Buffalo showed in spots, dark patches on the green, off the trail. The purple hills beckoned, and beyond them the Wichita Mountains loomed dimly in the clear air. To the right the range sloped away to merge into sky. And what seemed hours of watchful suspense passed while the wheels rolled, the horses trotted, the drivers urged the lagging remuda on.

“Look ahaid!” called Reddie, shrilly.

Smiling Pete stood on top of his wagon, waving his hat. His energetic actions could be assigned to either joy or alarm.

“Reddie!... Pete sees our boys with the herd — or else a bunch of Comanches. Which?”

“I cain’t say, Dad, but I’m prayin’ hard,” she cried.

CHAPTER XIII

FROM THE SUMMIT of an endless slope Brite and Reddie espied far ahead that which elicited shouts of joy. Miles down in the green valley an immense wedge-shaped patch of color crawled over the prairie. It was the great herd together once more, sharp end pointed north, and the wide rear spread far to the east and west.

“Thet cowboy!” cried Reddie, in awesome wonder. She did not need to say any more.

Brite found silence his best tribute. The wagons and remuda quickened to a downhill grade. Soon the freshness of morning gave way to the heat of noonday, and when they reached the rolling floor of the valley, to encounter reflection from the dragging sand, horses and riders alike suffered severely.

Beyond that arid spot a gradual slope waved on toward the horizon where dim hills showed. Grass became abundant again, and toward late afternoon the herd appeared to be halted at the head of a swale where a fringe of willow signified the presence of water.

Brite’s end of the cavalcade caught up eventually. The cattle had bunched in a meadow that surely would hold them all night, but at this hour they were weary and only a few were grazing.

Reddie swung the remuda off to a bend in the creek. Brite rode on up to the head of the swale, where Moze had halted. Only two drivers remained with the herd, each solitary on opposite sides of it. They drooped in their saddles. A scattering of low trees afforded a fairly good site for camp. All the other drivers were dismounted. Brite got off, and stumbled around on cramped legs until he located Pan Handle and Texas Joe off to one side under a tree.

Brite’s heart contracted when he espied Joe lying with a bloody bandage round his head. He heard Pan Handle say: “Tex, it’s kinda low down of yu.”

“All’s fair in love an’ war. I’m crazy aboot her an’ I reckon she doesn’t care a damn — —”

“Heah comes the boss,” interrupted Pan Handle, warningly. Brite had heard enough, however, to get an inkling of what the wily cowboy was up to. He decided he would hide his suspicion.

“Tex, old man, I shore hope yu ain’t bad hurt,” he burst out, in alarm, as he hurried up.

“Aboot goin’ to cash, boss.”

“My Gawd! — Man, this is terrible. Let me see.”

“Rustle Reddie over heah,” replied Texas, in an awful voice.

Reddie was unsaddling her black on the other side of camp. She heard Brite’s call, but showed no inclination to hurry. Her face flashed in their direction.

“Reckon I’d better go prepare her, Tex,” said Brite, conceiving a loyal idea in the girl’s behalf.

“Fetch her pronto,” called Texas, after him.

Brite lost no time reaching Reddie, and when she turned he was amazed to find her white and shaking.

“Dad — I saw! Tex has — been shot!” she whispered, with a gasp. “For pity’s sake — don’t tell me — —”

“Reddie, the damn cowboy ain’t hurt atall,” retorted Brite. “He ‘pears bloodied up some. But I’ve a hunch he wants to scare yu.”

Reddie’s face warmed, and slow comprehension drove the horror from her telltale eyes.

“Honest Injun, Dad?” she asked, hoarsely.

“I’ll swear it.”

She pondered a moment, then jerked up, all spirit. “Thanks, Dad. But for yore hunch I’d shore have given myself away.”

“Lass, yu turn the tables on thet tricky hombre,” suggested Brite.

“Watch me! — Come a-runnin’,” she replied, and fled toward where Texas lay. Brite thumped after her as best he could, arriving just in time to see Reddie fall on her knees with a poignant cry.

“Oh Pan — he’s been shot,” she cried, in horrified tones.

Pan Handle confirmed that with a gloomy nod. Texas lay with the bloody yellow scarf across his forehead, just shading his eyes. Devil as he was, perhaps he could not risk exposing them to her perception.

“Wal, I should smile I have, Reddie,” he drawled, in a husky whisper. “But no matter. Pan an’ me got the herd back.”

“But, Jack! — Jack! — Yu’re not — not—” she wailed in accents that must have tricked the lover into ecstasy.

“Reckon — I’m gonna — cash.”

“Not die! — Jack? — Oh, my heaven!”

“Yes, girl. I’m gonna die — oot heah on the lone prairie.”

“Jack, darlin’!” she sobbed, covering her face with her hands and rocking to and fro over him.

“Aw!... Then yu’ll be sorry?” asked Texas, in a tender voice.

“My heart will break.... It will kill me!”

Texas Joe manifested a peculiar reaction for a man about to depart from life at such a harrowing moment. Reddie, too, appeared about to go into convulsions.

“Kiss me — good-by,” whispered the villain, determined to carry the subterfuge as far as possible.

Suddenly Reddie uncovered her face, which was rosy, and convulsed, too, but in smiles. She snatched the scarf off Texas’ forehead, exposing the superficial scalp wound over his temple.

“Yu deceitful, lyin’ cowboy!” she burst out. “Yu may have fooled a lot of pore girls in yore day. But yu cain’t fool this one.”

“Dog-gone!” ejaculated Texas, his eyes popping. “Yu air smart!”

“The minute I seen yu I was on to yu,” she replied, mockingly, as she arose.

“Yeah?... All right, Miss Reddie,” he replied, in grim discomfiture. “Pan said it was a low-down trick. An’ it was, I reckon, but next time there won’t be no foolin’.”

Always, at the last, Texas Joe was not only a match for Reddie, but a master at finesse. Her dark eyes changed startlingly. It was indeed easy to see when this complex range-rider was in earnest. Reddie sobered instantly, and drooping her head she hastened away.

“Boss, did yu double-cross me?” demanded Texas, with those piercing eyes shifting to Brite.

“Lands sake! How could I?” ejaculated the boss.

“Wal, yu’re a pretty smart old hombre,” growled Texas. Then he brightened. “Dog-gone! She had me most oot of my haid. Pan, ain’t Reddie just the wonderfulest girl thet ever was?”

“I haven’t seen ’em all,” drawled Pan Handle. “But she shore would be hard to beat.... Tex, I don’t believe she gives a dam’ aboot yu.”

“Aw!”

“No girl could have come thet with yu lyin’ there all bloody. An’ yu’re a natural liar an’ actor. My idee is thet yu found oot what you wanted to know so powerful bad.”

“Wal, thet’s some good, anyhow,” rejoined Texas, sitting up with a change of manner. “Boss, did yu take a look oot there?”

He pointed with long arm and his gesture had impressiveness.

“Boy, I been lookin’ my eyes oot,” responded Brite. “Shore don’t know how to thank you an’ Pan. Or what to say. I’ll wait till yu tell me aboot it.”

“There, Pan, what yu make of thet. He’s an old Texas cattleman, too.”

“Mr. Brite, if yu had looked the herd over carefully yu’d have seen thet we have fifteen hundred haid of long-horns more’n when we started.”

“What!” ejaculated Brite, astounded.

“It’s a fact, boss,” added Texas. “Our good luck is matchin’ our bad. Thet Hite ootfit had a herd of their own, stole, I reckon, from other drivers. Must have had them just this side of the Little Wichita.”

“Wal, I’m stumped. What’s the brand?”

“We saw a lot of X Two Bar an’ some Circle H. Do yu know them brands?”

“Reckon I don’t.”

“New branded over an old mark, we figger. Wilder’n hell, too. As if we hadn’t had enough hard work.... Get Pan to tell yu aboot last night.”

Texas strode off, muttering to himself, and went down toward the creek, evidently to wash his blood-stained scarf, which he carried in his hand. Brite waited for the somber-faced gunman to speak, but was disappointed. Whereupon Brite, pretending tasks to do, moved about the camp fire, where the trail drivers were congregated, talking low. The advent of Reddie and Ann entirely silenced them. If Brite had expected his boys to be elated, he made a mistake. Perhaps they were keeping something from him and the girls. Mr. Hardy was holding his own, considering the serious nature of his wound, but he had developed a fever and was a pretty sick man. Williams said if they could get him to Doan’s post on the Red River that he had a fighting chance for his life. Presently Moze called them to supper, which turned out to be a more than usually silent meal.

San Sabe and Little rode in, after being relieved, and reported Indians with the buffalo several miles to the west.

“Thet bunch been keepin’ along with us all day,” said Williams. But it ain’t a very big one, so I reckon we needn’t set up huggin’ ourselves all night. Howsomever, we won’t keep no fire burnin’.”

“I gotta get some sleep,” complained Texas Joe. “Pan Handle is an owl. But if I don’t get sleep I’m a daid one.”

Just before dark Texas called Brite aside, out of earshot of camp.

“Gimme a smoke, boss. Funny, me bein’ nervous.... Did Pan tell yu what come off last night?”

“Not a word.”

“Humph! Dam’ these gunmen, anyhow,” growled Texas. “Yu just cain’t make one of ’em talk. I’ll say Pan talked last night, though, with his gun.... Boss, thet was the strangest deal I was ever up against. If we’d known there was ten or eleven men instead of six we might have been a little leary.”

“Tell me as much as yu like, Texas,” replied Brite, quietly. “It’s enough for me to know yu’re safe an’ we got our cattle back.”

“Ahuh.... Wal, Hite wasn’t standin’ guard, so we reckoned after it was over.... Luck was with us, boss. We rode oot an’ located before the storm busted. So when the lightnin’ began to flash we didn’t have far to go. As we worked up on the herd we seen one guard ride off hell bent for election. He’d seen us shore. Just after thet the rain hit us somethin’ fierce. We split as planned an’ started round the herd. They was millin’ around in a bunch, lowin’ an’ crackin’ their horns, an’ gettin’ restless. Wind an’ rain, an’ lightnin’ too, were all at my back. An’ thet shore was lucky. I hadn’t gone far when I heahed a shot. The wind was comin’ off an’ on, so when it lulled a bit I could heah. Thet was how I come to heah one of Hite’s guards yell: ‘Thet yu, Bill? — Yu heah a shot?’... I yelled yes an’ kept on ridin’. It was black as coal ‘cept when the flashes came. I got close to this guard when all the sky ‘peared to blaze. He yelled: ‘Hell! — Who — !’... An’ thet was all he had time for. I rode on, sort of feelin’ my way, bumpin’ into cattle off an’ on. If they’d stampeded then they’d run me down. It didn’t rain. It just came down in bucketsful. I couldn’t see more’n twenty steps, an’ could heah nothin’ but wind an’ rain an’ thunder. Then I seen another guard. Seen him clear. But the next flash was short an’ when I shot it was in the dark. When it lighten’d again I seen a hawse down an’ the guard gettin’ to his feet. It went dark again quick just as I shot. An’ he shot back, for I saw the flash an’ heahed his gun. He missed, though. An’ so did I. Couldn’t see him next time, so I rode on ahaid.... Wal, after thet I had it most as light as day, for seconds at a time. But I didn’t meet no more guards. A long time after I expected to I seen the white flag wavin’ from Pan’s hat, an’ I was shore glad. We met an’ yelled at each other, then the long-horns took it in their haids to run. Right at us! We had to ride to get oot of the way. But the lightnin’ kept flashin’, an the rain slowin’ up, so we kept tab on them easy. They must have run ten miles. The storm passed an’ they quit to settle down.”

“How’d yu get thet bullet crease in yore haid?” queried Brite.

“Thet was this mawnin’ a little after daybreak,” concluded Texas. “We hung around the herd, watchin’ an’ listenin. But nobody come. In the mawnin’, however, four hawsemen charged us. They had only one rifle. An’ we had our buffalo guns. So we stopped them an’ held them off. I got this cut first thing. So far as we could tell we didn’t hit one of them. Finally they rode off over the ridge. Pan an’ me both recognized Ross Hite. He had the rifle, an’ he was the one who bloodied me up. Hope I run into him again.”

“I hope yu don’t,” returned Brite, bluntly.

“Wal, so does Pan Handle,” drawled Texas. “Do yu know, boss, I reckon Pan an’ Hite have crossed trails before. Because Pan said I didn’t want to be meetin’ Hite before he did. An’ after thet I needn’t never look for him again. What yu make of thet?”

“Humph,” was all Brite replied. His brevity was partly actuated by the approach of Reddie and Ann.

“Better go to bed, girls,” advised Texas. “Thet’s shore what I’m aboot to do.”

“Won’t you let us bandage your head?” asked Ann, solicitously. “Reddie says you had a terrible wound.”

“Shore. But thet’s not in my haid, Ann,” drawled Texas. “I got a scratch heah. It’s stopped bleedin’.”

“Texas, air yu goin’ to tell us aboot last night?” queried Reddie, curiously. “Pan Handle seems all strange an’ froze. We shore left him pronto.”

“Nothin’ much happened, Reddie,” replied Texas. “We scared thet Hite ootfit an’ stampeded the herd. An’ heah we air.”

“Scared my eye!” quoth Reddie. “Do yu reckon me an’ Ann air kids to give guff to?”

“Wal, if guff is taffy, I say shore.”

“Yu shot some of Hite’s men,” declared Reddie, with force. “I saw some daid — —”

“Aw, yu mean them guards thet was struck by lightnin’ last night,” went on Texas, coolly. “Talk aboot retribushun! Why, girls, the Lawd was on our side last night. It’s common enough for lightnin’ to kill a trail driver or cowhand now an’ then. But to strike three or four men in one storm an’ all close together — thet’s somethin’ supernatural.”

In the gathering dusk the girls regarded the nonchalant cowboy with different glances — Ann’s wide-eyed and awed — Reddie’s with dark disdain.

“Wal, there’s shore a lot supernatural aboot yu, Texas Jack,” she drawled.

* * * * *

Brite slept with one eye open that night. It passed at length without any disruption of the quiet camp. The trail drivers got off slowly and not until the sun burst red over the ridge top.

Orders were for the wagons and remuda to keep close to the herd. Watchful eyes circled the horizon that day. Far over on each side of the trail black lines of buffalo showed against the gray. Their movement was imperceptible. Brite often turned his glass upon them, but more often on the distant knolls and high points, seeking for Indian signs.

Eight or ten miles a day was all the trail drivers risked for their herds. Even this could not always be adhered to, especially with the obstacles of flooded rivers ahead, buffalo all around, and the menace of the savages, if not sight of them, ever present. Brite had begun to feel the strain of suspense, but had not noted it in any of his men.

At length, about mid-afternoon, it was almost a relief actually to sight a band of mounted Indians on a high top back from the trail. Uncertainty ceased for Brite, at least. By trying he ascertained that he could not make out this band with his naked eye. Perhaps the blurred figures might be clearer to his keen-sighted scouts. With the glass, however, Brite could see well enough to recognize the Indians as Comanches, and in sufficient force to cause more than apprehension.

Whereupon he rode forward to acquaint Hash Williams with his discovery. The hunter halted his team, and taking up the glasses without a word, he searched the horizon line.

“Ahuh, I see ’em. About forty, or so,” he said, and cursed under his breath. “Looks like Comanches to me. If thet’s Nigger Hawse we’re shore flirtin’ with the undertaker. Ride on ahaid an’ tell Shipman to keep on goin’ till he finds a place where we’d have some chance if attacked.”

Brite was to learn that Texas had already espied the Indians.

“Up to deviltry, I reckon,” he said. “I was thinkin’ thet very thing Williams advises. Don’t tell the girls, boss.”

When Brite dropped back behind the remuda again he was accosted by Reddie, who suspected that something was amiss. Brite told her, but advised not letting Ann know.

“Gosh! I don’t know what good bein’ an heiress would be if I lost my hair!” she exclaimed.

“Lass, yu wouldn’t be anythin’ but a good daid girl,” replied Brite.

At last, at almost dusk, the herd was halted out on a flat near which a thread of water ran down a shallow gully. Camp was selected on the north bank in the shelter of rocks. Moze was ordered to make his fire in a niche where it would be unseen. The riders came and went, silent, watchful, somber. Night fell. The wolves mourned. The warm summer air seemed to settle down over the camp as if it bore no tidings of ill. But the shadows in the rock cracks and caverns harbored menace.

Three guards kept continual watch around camp all night and six guards stayed with the herd. Two of the drivers were allowed to sleep at one time. So the night passed and the gray dawn — always the perilous hour for Indian attack — and the morning broke without incident.

But that day was beset with trials — barren ground for the cattle, hard going on the horses, ceaseless dread on the part of the trail drivers for the two girls and the injured man in their party. Several times during the day the Comanches were sighted watching them, riding along even with their position, keeping to the slow pace of the herd. How sinister that seemed to Brite! The red devils knew the trail; they were waiting for a certain place, or for something to happen, when they would attack.

Buffalo increased in numbers on all sides, still distant, but gradually closing up gray gaps in their line. That black line extended north as far as eye could see. The fact became evident that Brite’s outfit was driving into the vast herd, leisurely grazing along. The situation grew hourly more nerve-racking. To swerve to either side was impossible, to stop or go back meant signal failure, defeat, and loss. The drivers absolutely had to stick to the trail and keep going.

The Chisholm Trail had again taken a decided slant to the northwest. And probably somewhere ahead, perhaps across the Red River, it would bisect the vast herd of buffalo. The alarming discovery was made that the following herd of long-horns had come up in plain sight, and ten miles behind it another wavered a long, dark line on the gray. Brite asked his men why these pursuing trail drivers were pressing him so hard. And the answer was Indians, buffalo, and the two hundred thousand head of cattle that had started and must keep on. To turn or slow down meant to fall by the wayside.

Texas Joe drove late that day and made dry camp. All night the guards sang and rode to keep the herd bedded down. Morning disclosed the endless stream of buffalo closer. But Indians were not in sight. Smoke signals, however, arose from two distant hills, one on each side of the trail.

Loss of sleep and ceaseless vigilance by night, and the slow march by day, wore upon the drivers. Brite had ceased to count the camps. Every hour was fraught with dread expectation. Yet at last they reached the Red River. The buffalo were crossing some miles above the trail, but a spur of the prodigious herd kept swinging in behind. Texas Joe pointed the cattle across and took the lead himself, magnificent in his dauntlessness.

The Red was midway between high and low water stages — its most treacherous condition. Four hours were consumed in the drive across and more than a hundred long-horns were lost. All the drivers were needed to get the wagons over, a desperate task which only such heedless young men would have undertaken.

Night found them in camp, some of them spent, all of them wearied, yet cheered by the fact that Doan’s Post was within striking distance on the morrow.

Texas Joe drove the remaining ten miles to Doan’s before noon of the next day. All the drivers wanted to get a few hours’ release from the herd, to drink, to talk, to get rid of one danger by hearing of another. But when Brite called for volunteers to stand guard with the herd for a few hours they all voiced their willingness to stay.

“Wal, I’ll have to settle it,” said Brite. “Ackerman, yu drive the Hardys in. Tex, yu an’ Pan Handle come with me.... Boys, we’ll be back pronto to give yu a chance to ride in.”

* * * * *

Doan’s Post gave evidence of having more than its usual number of inhabitants and visitors. Horses were numerous on the grass plain around the post. Half a dozen wagons were drawn up before the gray, squat, weather-beaten houses. A sign, Doan’s Store, in large black letters, showed on the south side of the largest house. This place, run by Tom Doan, was a trading-post for Indians and cattlemen, and was in the heyday of its useful and hazardous existence.

Mounted men, riders with unsaddled horses, Indians lounging and squatting before the doors, watched the newcomers with interest. Arriving travelers were the life of Doan’s Post. But the way Pan Handle and Texas Joe dismounted a goodly distance from these bearded watchers, and proceeded forward on foot, surely had as much significance for them as it had for Brite. The crowd of a dozen or more spread to let the two slow visitors approach the door. Then Brite came on beside the Hardy wagon. Reddie, disobedient as usual, had joined them.

“Howdy, Tom,” called Brite, to the stalwart man in the door.

“Howdy yoreself,” came the hearty response. “Wal, damme if it ain’t Adam Brite. Git right down an’ come in.”

“Tom, yu ought to remember my foreman, Texas Joe. An’ this is Pan Handle Smith. We’ve got a sick man in the wagon heah. Hardy, by name. Thet’s his daughter on the seat. They’re all thet’s left of a wagon-train bound for California. Can yu take care of them for a while, till Hardy is able to join another train?”

“Yu bet I can,” replied the genial Doan. Willing hands lifted Hardy out of the wagon and carried him into the Post. Ann sat on the wagon seat, her pretty face worn and thin, her eyes full of tears, perhaps of deliverance, perhaps of something else, as she gazed down upon the bareheaded cowboy.

“We’ve come to the partin’ of the trail, Miss Ann,” Deuce was saying, in strong and vibrant voice. “Yu’re safe heah, thank God. An’ yore dad will come around. I’m shore hopin’ we’ll make it through to Dodge. An’ — I’m askin’ yu — will it be all right for me to wait there till yu come?”

“Oh yes — I — I’d be so glad,” she murmured, shyly.

“An’ go on to California with yu?” he concluded, boldly.

“If yu will,” she replied; and for a moment time and place were naught to these two.

“Aw, thet’s good of yu,” he burst out at last. “It’s just been wonderful — knowin’ yu.... Good-by. ... I must go back to the boys.”

“Good-by,” she faltered, and gave him her hand. Deuce kissed it right gallantly, and then fled out across the prairie toward the herd.

CHAPTER XIV

REDDIE JUMPED OFF her horse beside the Hardy wagon, on the seat of which Ann sat still as a stone, watching the cowboy. Ackerman turned once to hold his sombrero high. Then she waved her handkerchief. He wheeled and did not look back again.

“Ann, it’s pretty tough — this sayin’ good-by,” spoke up Reddie. “Let’s go in the Post, away from these men. I’m shore gonna bawl.”

“Oh, Reddie, I — I’m bawling now,” cried Ann, as she clambered down, not sure of her sight. “He was so — so good — so fine.... Oh, will we ever meet — again?”

Arm in arm the girls went toward the door of the Post, where Brite observed Ann shrink visibly from two sloe-eyed, gaunt, and somber Indians.

“Let’s get this over pronto, Tex,” said Brite. “I’ll buy what supplies Doan can furnish.”

“All right, boss. Pan an’ I will come in presently,” replied Texas. “We want to ask some questions thet mebbe Doan wouldn’t answer.”

Brite hurried into the Post. It was a picturesque, crowded, odorous place with its colorful Indian trappings, its formidable arsenal, its full shelves and burdened counters. When Doan returned from the after quarters, where evidently he had seen to Hardy’s comfort, Brite wrote with a stub of a lead pencil the supplies he needed.

“What you think? This ain’t Santone or Abiline,” he said gruffly. “But I can let you have flour, beans, coffee, tobacco, an’ mebbe — —”

“Do yore best, Tom,” interrupted Brite, hastily. “I’m no robber. Can yu haul the stuff oot to camp?”

“Shore, inside an hour.”

“Thet’s all, then, an’ much obliged.... Any trail drivers ahaid of me?”

“Not lately. You’ve got the trail all to yourself. An’ thet’s damn bad.”

Brite was perfectly well aware of this.

“Comanches an’ Kiowas particular bad lately,” went on Doan. “Both Nigger Horse an’ Santana are on the rampage. Let me give you a hunch. If thet old Comanche devil rides into camp, you parley with him, argue with him, but in the end you give him what he wants. An’ for thet reason take grub to spare an’ particular coffee an’ tobacco. But if thet Kiowa chief stops you don’t give him a thing ‘cept a piece of your mind. Santana is dangerous to weak outfits. But he’s a coward an’ he can be bluffed. Don’t stand any monkey business from the Kiowas. Show them you are heavily armed an’ will shoot at the drop of a hat.”

“Much obliged, Doan. I’ll remember your advice.”

“You’re goin’ to be blocked by buffalo, unless you can break through. I’ll bet ten million buffalo have passed heah this month.”

“What month an’ day is it, anyhow?”

“Wal, you have been trail-drivin’.... Let’s see. It’s the sixteenth of July.”

“Yu don’t say? Time shore flies on the trail.... I’d like to know if Ross Hite an’ three of his ootfit have passed this way lately?”

“Been several little outfits by this week,” replied the trader, evasively. “Travelin’ light an’ fast.... I don’t know Hite personally. Heerd of him, shore. I don’t ask questions of my customers, Brite.”

“Yu know yore business, Doan,” returned Brite, shortly. “For yore benefit, though, I’ll tell yu Hite’s ootfit raided us twice. He had all of my herd at one time.”

“Hell you say!” ejaculated Doan, sharply, pulling his beard. “What come of it?”

“Wal, we got the stock back an’ left some of Hite’s ootfit along the trail.”

Reddie Bayne came stumbling along, wiping her eyes.

“Wait, Reddie. I’ll go with yu,” called Brite. “Where can I say good-by to the Hardys?”

She pointed to the open door through which she had emerged. Brite went in quickly and got that painful interview over.

“Just a minute, Brite,” called Doan, as the cattleman hurried out. “I’m not so particular aboot Indians as I am aboot men of my own color. But I have to preserve friendly relations with all the tribes. They trade with me. I am goin’ to tell you, though, that the two bucks standin’ outside are scouts for some Comanche outfit, an’ they’ve been waitin’ for the first trail herd to come along. You know all you trail drivers do. Pack the bucks back to the next herd, if you can. It’s a mistaken policy. But the hunch I want to give you is to stop those two Comanches.”

“Stop them?”

“Shore. Don’t let them come out an’ look over your outfit — then ride to report to their chief. Like as not it’s Nigger Horse, himself.”

“That is a hunch. I’ll tell Texas,” replied Brite, pondering, and went out with Reddie.

“Gee!” she whispered, with round eyes. “He’s givin’ us a hunch to shoot some more Comanches.”

“‘Pears thet way. Yet he shore didn’t give us any hunch aboot Ross Hite.”

Texas Joe and Pan Handle appeared to be in a colloquy with two men, and Williams and Smiling Pete were engaged with the remainder of the white men present.

“Williams, yu’ll ride over to say good-by?” queried Brite.

“Shore we will. For two bits I’d go on all the way with yu,” he replied.

“Wal, I’ll give yu a lot more than thet.... Yu’ve been mighty helpful. I couldn’t begin to thank yu.”

“Pete wants to hunt buffalo,” rejoined Williams. “An’ thet sticks us heah.”

Brite got on his horse. “Tex, we’re goin’. Come heah.”

Texas strode over, and giving Reddie a gentle shove as she mounted, he came close to Brite.

“Texas,” whispered Brite, bending over. “Those two Comanches there are scouts for a raidin’ bunch, so says Doan. Dam’ if he didn’t hint we ought to do somethin’ aboot it. He cain’t, ‘cause he has to keep on friendly terms with all the reddies.”

“Wal, boss, we got thet hunch, too, an’ heahed somethin’ aboot Hite. I’ll tell yu when we come back to camp.”

Reddie had put her black to a canter, and had covered half the distance back to camp before Brite caught up with her.

“Save yore hawse, girl. What’s yore hurry?”

“Dad, I just get sick inside when I see thet look come to Texas Jack’s eyes,” she replied.

“What look?”

“I don’t know what to call it. I saw it first thet day just before he drawed on Wallen. Like thet queer lightnin’ flash we saw durin’ the storm the other night.”

“Reddie, yu ought to be used to hard looks of trail drivers by now. It’s a hard life.”

“But I want Texas Jack to quit throwin’ guns!” she cried, with surprisingly poignant passion.

“Wal! Wal!” exclaimed Brite. “An’ why, lass?”

“Pretty soon he’ll be another gunman like Pan Handle. An’ then, sooner or later, he’ll get killed!”

“I reckon thet’s true enough,” replied Brite. “Come to think aboot thet, I feel the same way. What air we goin’ to do to stop him?”

“Stop Tex? It cain’t be done, Dad.”

“Wal, mebbe not oot heah on the trail. But if we ever end this drive — then it could be done. Yu could stop Tex, lass.”

She spurred the black and drew away swift as the wind. Brite gathered that she had realized how she could put an end to the wildness of Joe Shipman.

* * * * *

The cattle were grazing and in good order. Westward along the river, clouds of dust rolled aloft, and at intervals a low roar of hoofs came on the still hot air. The buffalo were crossing the Red River. Brite and Reddie took the places of San Sabe and Rolly Little at guard, and the two cowboys were like youngsters just released from school. They raced for town. Several slow dragging hours passed by. The herd did not move half a mile; the remuda covered less ground. Brite did not relish sight of a mounted Indian who rode out from the Post and from a distance watched the camp.

A little later Brite was startled out of his rest by gunshots. He leaped up in time to see the Indian spy riding like a streak across the plain. Texas and Pan Handle, two hundred yards to the left, were shooting at the Comanche as fast as they could pull triggers. Probably their idea was to frighten him, thought Brite, in which case they succeeded amply. No Indian could ride so well as a Comanche and this one broke all records for a short race. It chanced that he took down the plain in a direction which evidently brought him close to the far end of the herd, where one of the cowboys was on guard. This fellow, either Holden or Bender, saw the Indian and opened up on him with a buffalo gun. From that instant until the Comanche was out of sight he rode hidden on the far side of his mustang.

Texas Joe was using forceful range language when he rode in, and manifestly had been irritated by something.

“What ails yu, Tex?” asked Brite. “I’m feelin’ cheerful, myself.”

“Yu’re loco. Do yu know what we did? — We hired them cowhands to hawg-tie the two Comanches an’ to keep ’em in Doan’s storehouse for a couple of days. Great idee! But all for nothin’. This buck we was shootin’ at had counted our wagons, hawses, cattle, an’ drivers. We was shore shootin’ at thet redskin to kill. But he was oot of range. What’n hell was eatin’ yu men thet yu didn’t see him long ago?”

Brite maintained a discreet silence.

“Boss, the supplies will be oot pronto,” went on Texas as he dismounted. “Reddie, if yu have another hawse handy I’ll relieve one of the boys.”

“Same heah,” spoke up Pan Handle.

“Throw some grub pronto, Moze.... Boss, our man Hite rode through heah day before yestiddy mawnin’. He had three fellars with him, one crippled up serious an’ had to be tied in the saddle. Hite was spittin’ fire, an’ they all was ugly.”

“Did they stop at Doan’s?”

“Shore, accordin’ to Bud. They was oot of grub an’ ammunition. Had only two pack hawses. We shore won’t see no more of Hite till we get to Dodge. He hangs oot at Hays City, so Bud said, an’ comes often to Dodge.”

“Let Hite go, boys. No sense huntin’ up trouble,” advised Brite, tersely.

“Boss, yu’re a forgivin’ cuss,” drawled Texas, admiringly. “Now I just cain’t be that way. An’ Pan, heah, why, he’ll ride a thousand miles to meet thet Ross Hite again. An’ I’m goin’ with him.”

“Yu air not,” spoke up Reddie, tartly, a red spot in each cheek.

“Wal, dog-gone! There’s the kid, bossy as ever. Brite, if I get plugged on the way up yu let Reddie boss the ootfit.”

Texas Joe had found a way to make Reddie wince, and he was working it on every possible occasion. The chances were surely even that the daring cowboy would lose his life one way or another before the end of the trail, and Reddie simply could not stand a hint of it without betraying her fear. Probably, to judge from her flashing eyes, she would have made a strong retort had it not been for the arrival of Williams and Smiling Pete.

“Wal, heah we air to set in our last supper on Moze,” said Williams, genially. “I shore hate to say good-by to this ootfit. Folks get awful close on such drives as we had comin’ up.”

“Reddie Bayne, don’t yu want to stay behind with us?” asked Smiling Pete, teasingly. “We shore won’t boss yu aboot like thet Texas fellar.”

“Ump-umm. I like yu, Smilin’ Pete,” replied Reddie, in the same spirit. “But I’m strong for Santone an’ Dad’s ranch.”

“Dad?” echoed the hunters, in unison.

“Shore. I’ve adopted Mr. Brite as my dad.”

“Haw! Haw! The lucky son-of-a-gun. He ain’t so old, neither. Mebbe Hash an’ me will have to send our cairds to yore — —”

But Reddie ran away behind the chuck-wagon.

“Come heah, yu men, an’ be serious,” said Brite. “We want all the hunches yu can give us for the rest of this drive north.”

* * * * *

Brite’s outfit left Doan’s Post before sunrise next morning with just short of six thousand long-horn cattle. The buffalo herd had apparently kept along the Red River.

In the afternoon of that day a band of Comanches rode out from a pass between two hills and held up the cavalcade. Brite galloped ahead in some trepidation, yelling for Reddie to leave the remuda and follow him. When he arrived at the head of the herd he found Texas Joe and Pan Handle, with the other drivers, lined up before about thirty squat, pointed-faced, long-haired Indians.

“Boss, meet Nigger Hawse an’ his ootfit,” was Texas’s laconic greeting.

“Howdy, Chief,” returned Brite, facing Nigger Horse. This Comanche did not look his fame, but appeared to be an ordinary redskin, stolid and unofficious. He did not altogether lack dignity. To Brite he was a surprise and a relief. But his basilisk eyes might have hid much. Brite wished the buffalo-hunters had come on with them.

“How,” replied Nigger Horse, raising a slow hand.

“What yu want, Chief?”

“Beef.”

Brite waved a magnanimous hand toward the herd.

“Help yoreself.”

The Comanche spoke in low grunts to his redmen.

“Tobac,” he went on, his dark, inscrutable eyes again fixing on Brite.

“Plenty. Wagon come,” replied Brite, pointing to Moze, who had the team approaching at a trot. Nigger Horse gazed in the direction of the chuck-wagon, then back at the vast herd, and lastly at the formidably armed drivers solidly arrayed in a line.

“Flour,” resumed the chief. His English required a practiced ear to distinguish, but Brite understood him and nodded his willingness.

“Coffee.”

Brite held up five fingers to designate the number of sacks he was willing to donate.

“Beans.”

“Heap big bag,” replied Brite.

Manifestly this generosity from a trail driver had not been the accustomed thing.

“Boss, the old devil wants us to refuse somethin’,” put in Texas.

“An’ he’ll keep on askin’ till yu have to refuse,” added Pan Handle.

Moze arrived with the chuck-wagon, behind which the Comanches rode in a half circle, greedy-eyed and jabbering. Moze’s black face could not turn pale, but it looked mighty strange.

“Pile oot, Moze,” ordered Brite. “Open up yore box, an get oot the goods we selected for this missionary business.”

“Yas s-suh — y-yas, suh,” replied the negro, scared out of his wits.

“Sack of flour first, Moze,” said Brite. “An’ throw it up on his hawse. Make oot it’s heavy.”

Obviously this last was not necessary. Either the sack was heavy or Moze had grown weak, for he labored with it and almost knocked Nigger Horse off his mustang. The Indian let out what sounded like: “Yah! Yah!” But he surely held on to the flour. Then Brite ordered Moze to burden the Comanche further with the generous donation of tobacco, coffee and beans.

“There yu air, Chief,” called out Brite, making a show of friendliness.

“Flour,” said Nigger Horse.

“Yu got it,” replied Brite, pointing to the large sack.

The Indian emphatically shook his head.

“Greasy old robber!” ejaculated Texas. “He wants more. Boss, heah’s where yu stand fast. If yu give in he’ll take all our grub.”

“Brite, don’t give him any more. We’d better fight than starve,” said Pan Handle.

Whereupon Brite, just as emphatically, shook his head and said: “No more, Chief.”

The Comanche yelled something in his own tongue. Its content was not reassuring.

“Heap powder — bullet,” added Nigger Horse.

“No,” declared Brite.

The Indian thundered his demand. This had the effect of rousing Brite’s ire, not a particularly difficult task. Brite shook his head in slow and positive refusal.

“Give Injun all!” yelled the chief.

“GIVE INJUN HELL!” roared Brite, suddenly furious.

“Thet’s the talk, boss,” shouted Texas. “Yu can bluff the old geezer.”

“Brite, stick to thet,” broke in Pan Handle, in ringing voice. “Listen, all of yu. If it comes to a fight, Tex an’ I air good for Nigger Hawse an’ four or five on each side of him. Yu boys look after the ends.”

“Reddie, yu duck back behind the wagon an’ do yore shootin’ from there,” ordered Texas.

Then ensued the deadlock. It was a critical moment, with life or death quivering on a hair balance. How hideously that savage’s lineaments changed! The wily old Comanche had made his bluff and it had been called. Probably he understood more of the white man’s language than he pretended. Certainly he comprehended the cold front of those frowning trail drivers.

“Boys, yu got time to get on the ground,” called the practical Texas, slipping out of his saddle and stepping out in front of his horse. In another moment all the men, except Brite, had followed suit. Texas and Pan Handle held a gun in each hand. At such close range they would do deadly work before the Comanches could level a rifle or draw a bow. Nigger Horse undoubtedly saw this — that he had bluffed the wrong outfit. Still, he did not waver in his savage dominance.

Brite had an inspiration.

“Chief,” he burst out, “we do good by yu. We give heaps. But no more. If yu want fight, we fight.... Two trail herds tomorrow.” Here Brite held up two fingers, and indicating his cattle, made signs that more were coming up the trail. “Heap more. So many like buffalo. White men with herds come all time. Two moons.” And with both hands up he opened each to spread his fingers, and repeated this time and again.

“Ugh!” ejaculated Nigger Horse. He understood, and that tactful persuasion of Brite’s was the deciding factor. He let out sharp guttural sentences. Two of his followers wheeled their ponies toward the herd, fitting arrows to their bows. Then Nigger Horse, burdened with his possessions, not one parcel of which would he relinquish to eager hands, rode back without another word, followed by his band.

“Close shave!” breathed Brite, in intense relief.

“Shore. But closer for thet bull-haided Comanche an’ his ootfit,” declared Texas. “He made a mistake an’ got in too close. We’d cleaned them oot in ten seconds. Hey, Pan?”

“I’d like to have broke loose,” replied Pan Handle, in a queer voice.

“Let wal enough alone, yu fire-eaters,” yelled Brite.

“Boss, we’ll hang together till the remuda passes,” returned Texas.

“Whoopee! We’re a hot ootfit!” shouted Deuce Ackerman, lustily, his head thrown back, his jaw corded. The relaxation of other drivers showed in yell or similar wild statement.

“I doan’ know aboot this heah ootrageous luck,” observed Whittaker, softly, as if to himself. He was the quietest of the drivers.

“Somebody’d had to shoot quick to beat me borin’ thet dirty old redskin,” spoke up Reddie, coolly.

“My Gawd! The girl’s ruined!” ejaculated Texas.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared the tenderfoot Bender. But a second look at the hulking, fierce-eyed, black-faced, young Pennsylvanian convinced the cattleman that Bender’s tenderfoot days were passed. He himself felt the cold, hard, wild spirit rise.

“On, boys,” he ordered. “Once across the Canadian we’ll be halfway an’ more to Dodge.”

“We’ll drive ’em, boss,” replied Texas Joe, grimly. “No more lazy, loafin’, fattenin’ mossy-horns this trip!”

They made ten miles before night, ending the longest drive since they had left San Antonio. The night fell dark, with rumble of thunder and sheet lightning in the distance. The tired cattle bedded down early and held well all night. Morning came lowering and threatening, with a chill wind that swept over the herd from the north. Soon the light failed until day was almost as dark as night. A terrific hailstorm burst upon the luckless herd and drivers. The hailstones grew larger as the storm swept on, until the pellets of gray ice were as large as walnuts. The drivers from suffering a severe pounding passed to extreme risk of their lives. They had been forced to protect heads and faces with whatever was available. Reddie Bayne was knocked off her horse and carried senseless to the wagon; San Sabe swayed in his saddle like a drunken man; Texas Joe tied his coat round his sombrero and yelled when the big hailstones bounced off his head; bloody and bruised, the other drivers resembled men who had engaged in fierce fistic encounters.

When this queer freak of nature passed, the ground was covered half a foot deep with hailstones. Dead rabbits and antelope littered the plain, and all the way, as far as Brite could see to the rear, stunned and beaten cattle lay on the ground or staggered along.

“I told yu-all things were gonna happen,” yelled Texas to his followers as they made camp that night, sore and beaten of body. “But I’m not carin’, if only the buffalo will pass us by.”

Next day they were visited by members of a tribe of Kiowas supposed to be friendly with the whites. They had held “heap big peace talk” with Uncle Sam. Brite did not give so much as he had in the case of the Comanches, yet he did well by them.

During the night these savages stampeded the south end of the herd. How it was done did not appear until next day, when among the scattered cattle was found a long-horn here and there with an arrow imbedded in his hide. Some of these had to be shot. The herd was held over until all the stampeded steers and cows could be rounded up. It took three days of strenuous riding by day and guarding by night. Texas Joe and his trail drivers passed into what San Sabe described as being “poison-fightin’ mad!”

Bitter as gall to them was it to see two trail herds pass them by and forge to the front. After seven weeks or more of leadership! But Brite did not take it so hard. Other herds now, and both together not so large as his, would bear the brunt of what lay ahead.

That fourth day, when they were off again, buffalo once more made their appearance. Soldiers from Fort Cobb, a post forty miles off the trail to the east, informed Brite that they had been turned back by the enormous, impenetrable mass of buffalo some miles westward. They had been trailing a marauding bunch of Apaches from the Staked Plain.

Brite’s men drove on, and their difficulties multiplied. Stampedes became frequent; storms and swollen creeks further impeded their progress; the chuck-wagon, springing leaks in its boat-like bottom, had almost to be carried across the North Fork of the Red. Sometimes it became necessary to build pontoons and riders had to swim their horses alongside, holding the pontoons in place. But they kept on doggedly, their foreman cool and resourceful, all bound to this seemingly impossible drive.

* * * * *

Pond Creek, which headed sixty miles northwest of Fort Cobb, was an objective Texas Joe spoke of for twenty-four hours and drove hard one long day to reach.

Brite had his misgivings when at sunset of that day he rode to the top of a slope and saw the herd gaining momentum on the down grade, drawn by sight and scent of water after a hot, dry drive.

This creek, usually only a shallow run, appeared bank-full, a swift, narrow river extremely dangerous at that stage for beast and man. There had been no rain that day anywhere near the region the herd had traversed. Texas Joe had been justified in thinking Pond Creek was at normal height, and he had let the herd go over the ridge without first scouting ahead, as was his custom. It was too late now unless the herd could be stopped.

Brite spurred his horse down the slope, yelling over his shoulder for Reddie to hurry. Drivers on each side of the herd were forging to the front, inspired, no doubt, by the fiercely riding Texas Joe. It was bad going, as Brite found out to his sorrow, when he was thrown over the head of his falling horse, thus sustaining a mean fall. Reddie was quick to leap off and go to his side.

“Oh, Dad! Thet was a tumble!” she cried. “I thought yu’d break yore neck.... Set up. Air yu all heah? Let me feel.”

“I reckon — nothin’ busted,” groaned the cattleman, getting up laboriously. “If thet ground hadn’t been soft — wal, yu’d — —”

“My Gawd, Dad! Look!” cried Reddie, frantically, leaping on her horse. “They’re stampedin’ down this hill.”

Brite got up to stand a moment surveying the scene. A tremendous trampling, tussling, cracking roar, permeated by a shrill bawling sound, dinned in his ears.

“Red, it’s only the back end thet’s stampedin’,” he shouted.

“Yes. But they’re rushin’ the front down.”

“Rustle. We can help some, but don’t take chances.”

They galloped down along the flank of the jostling cattle to the short quarter of a mile of slope between the point of the herd and the river. The drivers were here in a bunch, yelling, riding, shooting, plunging their mounts at the foremost old mossy-horns. Brite and Reddie rode in to help, keeping close to the outside.

Then followed a hot-pressed, swift, and desperate charge on the part of the trail drivers to hold the front of the herd. It was hazardous work. Texas Joe yelled orders through pale lips, but no driver at any distance heard them. The bulls and steers had been halted, but as pressure was exerted in the rear they began to toss their great, horned heads, and to bawl and tear up the ground. The mass of the herd, up on the steeper slope, maddened now to get to the water, could not be bolstered back by the front line.

“BACK!” yelled Texas, in stentorian voice, waving wide his arms to the drivers. All save San Sabe heard or saw, and ran their horses to either side. Deuce, Texas, Reddie, Whittaker, and Bender reached the open behind Brite just as a terrible groan ran through the herd.

Texas Joe’s frantic yells and actions actuated all to join in the effort to make San Sabe hear. His position was extremely perilous, being exactly in the center of the straining herd. His horse was rearing. San Sabe, gun in each hand, shot fire and smoke into the very faces of the leaders. Pan Handle, Holden, and Little, flashing by on terrorized horses, failed to attract him. How passionate and fierce his actions! Hatless and coatless, his hair flying, this half-breed vaquero fronted the maddened herd with an instinct of a thousand years of cattle mastery.

The line of horned heads curved at each end, as if a dam had burst where it joined the banks. Suddenly then the center gave way with that peculiar grinding roar of hoofs, horns, and bodies. Like a flood it spilled down upon San Sabe. His horse gave a magnificent leap back and to the side, just escaping the rolling juggernaut. The horse saw, if San Sabe did not, that escape to either side was impossible. On the very horns of the running bulls he plunged for the river.

But he did not gain a yard on those fleet long-horns, propelled forward by thousands of rushing bodies behind. To Brite’s horror it appeared that the limber cattle actually gained on San Sabe. His horse tripped at the brink of the bank and plunged down. The rider was pitched headlong. Next instant a live wall of beasts poured over the brink with resounding hollow splash, and as if by magic the river bank became obliterated.

CHAPTER XV

SPELLBOUND, BRITE GAZED at the thrilling and frightful spectacle. A gigantic wave rose and swelled across the creek to crash over the opposite bank. In another moment the narrow strip of muddy water vanished, and in its place was a river of bristling horns, packed solid, twisting, bobbing under and up again, and sweeping down with the current. But for that current of deep water the stream bed would have been filled with cattle from bank to bank, and the mass of the herd would have plunged across over hundreds of dead bodies.

In an incredibly short space the whole herd had rolled into the river, line after line taking the place of the beasts that were swept away in the current. From plunging pell-mell the cattle changed abruptly to swimming pell-mell. And when the last line had gone overboard the front line, far down the stream, was wading out on the other side.

The change from sodden, wrestling crash to strange silence seemed as miraculous as the escape of the herd. Momentum and current forced the crazy animals across the river. Two hundred yards down all the opposite shelving shore was blotted out by cattle, and as hundreds waded out other hundreds took their places, so that there was no blocking of the on-sweeping tide of heads and horns. It was the most remarkable sight Brite had ever seen in connection with cattle.

Texas Joe was the first to break out of his trance.

“ —— thet fool!” he thundered, with a mighty curse and with convulsed face, eyes shut tight, and tears streaming from under the lids, with lips drawn and cheeks set in rigid holes, he seemed to gaze up blindly at the sky, invoking help where there was no help, surrendering in that tragic moment to the inevitable and ruthless calling of the trail driver.

Pan Handle rode down to the scored bank where San Sabe had disappeared. His comrade Holden followed slowly. Rolly Little bestrode his horse as if stunned.

Brite remembered Reddie, and hastened to her side. With bowed head and shaking shoulders she bent over, hanging to the pommel of her saddle.

“Brace up, Red,” said Brite, hoarsely, though deeply shaken himself. “We got to go through.”

“Oh — we’d grown — like one family,” cried the girl, raising her face.

“Reddie, drive yore remuda in,” shouted Texas, in strident voice. “Deuce, take Holden an’ foller the herd. Rest of yu help me with the wagon.”

* * * * *

Night settled down again, silent except for the rush of the sliding river and the strange back-lashes of sand-laden water. Moze bustled silently around the camp fire. Several of the drivers were eating as if that task, like the others, had to be done. Texas, Pan Handle, Deuce, and Rolly were out on guard, hungry and wet and miserable. Reddie had gone supperless to bed. Brite sat drying his legs, fighting his conscience. Three young faces appeared spectrally in the white embers of the fire!

Next day it was as if the trail drivers had never weakened and almost cracked. Obstacles heightened their spirits and deadened their memories. Deer Creek was bone dry. The stock got through the following day without water. A third drive over miles of wasteland and dragging sand put horses as well as cattle in a precarious condition. All night long the herd milled like the ceaseless eddy of a river, bawling and lowing. No sleep or rest that night for any of Brite’s outfit! If next morning they found a branch of the South Canadian dusty and dry, that would be the end.

Indians stopped with Moze that night. “No water!” they said. Buffalo had ranged to the West.

At dawn the drivers pointed the herd and goaded them on ruthlessly. The sun rose red in a copper sky. The heat veils floated up from the sand. Miles from the branch of the Canadian the old mossy-horns scented water. The riders could not hold them. Nothing could stop the thirst-maddened brutes. When the leaders launched out, the whole herd stampeded as one. The trail drivers had a wild run, but without hope of checking the stampede. They rolled on, a sweeping, thundering clatter, shaking the earth and sending aloft a great yellow cloud of dust.

The river checked that stampede and saved Brite incalculable loss. Once across the South Branch into grassy level range again, the trail drivers forgot the past and looked only ahead. Day after day passed. At Wolf Creek they encountered the long-looked-for buffalo herd, the ragged strings of which reached out to the east. Texas Joe rested his outfit and stock a day at this good camp site.

A sultry night presaged storm. But the interminable hours wore to dawn, and the torrid day passed without rain. Texas Joe, sensing another storm, drove the herd into the head of a narrow valley, steep-walled and easy to guard.

“I doan’ like this heah weather,” said Whittaker, breaking a somber silence around the camp fire.

“Wal, who does?” rejoined Texas, wearily. “But a good soakin’ rain would help us oot.”

“Shore, if it rained rain.”

“My hair cracks too much to suit me,” said another.

“Reddie, how’s the remuda?”

“Actin’ queer,” she replied. “Sniffin’ the air, poundin’ the ground, quiverin’ all over.”

Brite feared that the peculiar condition of earth, atmosphere, and sky presaged one of the rare, awe-inspiring, and devastating electric storms that this region was noted for. He recalled what trail drivers had told which seemed too incredible to believe. But here was the strange red sunset, the absolutely still and sultry dusk, the overcast sky that yet did not wholly hide the pale stars, the ghastliness of the unreal earth.

“World comin’ to an end!” ejaculated Texas Joe. Like all men of the open, used to the phenomena of the elements, he was superstitious and acknowledged a mysterious omniscience in nature.

“Fine night to be home sparkin’ my girl,” joked Rolly Little.

“Rolly, boy, yu’ll never see home no more, nor thet flirtin’ little redhaid,” taunted Deuce Ackerman, fatalistically.

“Come to think of thet, all redhaids are flirty an’ fickle,” philosophized Texas.

Reddie heard, but for once had no audacious retort. She was obsessed with gravity.

“Tex — Dad — it ain’t natural,” she said, nervously.

“Wal, lass, whatever it is, it’ll come an’ pass, an’ spare us mebbe, please God,” rejoined the cattleman.

“Boss, is it gonna be one of them storms when electricity runs like water?” queried Texas.

“I don’t know, Tex, I swear to goodness I don’t. But I’ve heahed when the sky looks like a great white globe of glass with a light burnin’ inside thet it’ll burst presently an’ let down a million jumpin’ stars an’ balls an’ ropes an’ sparks.”

Texas got to his feet, dark and stern. “Fork yore hawses, everybody. If we’re goin’ to hell we’ll go together.”

They rode out to join the four guards already on duty.

“What’s comin’ off?” yelled Less Holden, as the others came within earshot.

“We’re gamblin’ with death, cowboy,” returned Texas Joe.

So indeed it seemed to Brite. The weird conditions imperceptibly increased. It became so light that the faces of the drivers shone like marble in moonlight. There were no shadows. Darkness of night had been eliminated, yet no moon showed, and the stars had vanished in the globe overhead.

“We can hold ’em in heah onless they stampede,” said Texas. “What’s the stock doin’, Less?”

“Not grazin’, thet’s shore. An’ the remuda is plumb loco.”

Brite followed Reddie over to the dark patch of mustangs, huddled in a compact drove under the west wall. This embankment was just steep and high enough to keep the mustangs from climbing. A restless nickering ran through the mass. They trooped with low roar of hoofs away from the approaching riders.

“Just a little fussy, Dad,” said Reddie, hopefully.

“Cain’t yu sing them quiet, Reddie?” asked Brite.

“I’ll try, but I shore don’t feel like no nightingale tonight,” replied Reddie. “I haven’t heahed any of the boys.”

In low and quavering tones Reddie began “La Paloma,” and as she progressed with the song, her sweet and plaintive voice grew stronger. The strange atmosphere appeared to intensify it, until toward the close she was singing with a power and beauty that entranced the listening cattlemen. When she finished, Texas Joe, who seldom sang, burst out with his wild and piercing tenor, and then the others chimed in to ring a wonderful medley down that lonely valley. The remuda quieted down, and at length the great herd appeared chained to music.

The trail drivers sang in chorus and in quartets, duets and singly, until they had repeated their limited stock of songs, and had exhausted their vocal powers.

When they had no more to give, the hour was late, and as if in answer, from far down the range rumbled and mumbled low thunder, while pale flashes of lightning shone all over the sky.

The drivers sat their horses and waited. That they were uneasy, that they did not smoke or sit still, proved the abnormality of the hour. They kept close together and spoke often. Brite observed that Reddie seldom let her restless black move a rod away.

The rumble of thunder and the queer flashes might have presaged a storm, but apparently it did not come closer. Brite observed that the singular sheen became enhanced, if anything. The sultry, drowsy air grew thicker. It had weight. It appeared to settle down over stock and men like a transparent blanket.

Suddenly the sky ripped across with terrific bars of lightning that gave forth a tearing, cracking sound. Rain began to fall, but not in any quantity. Brite waited for the expected clap of thunder. It did not materialize. Then he recognized for a certainty the symptoms of an electrical storm such as had been described to him.

“Boys, we’re in for a galvanizin’,” he called. “We’re as safe heah as anywheres. We cain’t do nothin’ but take our chance an’ try to hold the cattle. But if what’s been told me is true they’ll be scared still.”

“We’re heah, boss,” boomed Texas, and a reassuring shout came from Pan Handle.

“Oh, Dad!” cried Reddie. “Run yore hand through yore hawse’s mane!”

Brite did as bidden, to be startled at a cracking, sizzling sweep of sparks clear to the ears of his horse. He jumped as if he had been shot. Brite did not attempt that again. But he watched Reddie. Electric fluid appeared to play and burn with greenish fire through the black’s mane, and run out on the tips of his ears and burst. The obedient horse did not like this, but he held firm, just prancing a little.

“Lass, the air is charged,” said Brite, fearfully.

“Yes, Dad, an’ it’s gonna bust!” screamed Reddie as the whole range land blazed under the white dome.

Hoarse shouts from the drivers sounded as if wrenched from them. But after that one outburst they kept mute. Brite had involuntarily closed his eyes at the intense flare. Even with his lids tightly shut he saw the lightning flashes. He opened them upon an appalling display across the heavens. Flash after flash illumined the sky, and if thunder followed it was faint and far off. The flashes rose on all sides to and across the zenith, where, fusing in one terrible blaze, they appeared to set fire to the roof of the heavens.

The remuda shrank in shuddering, densely-packed mass, too paralyzed to bolt. The cattle froze in their tracks, heads down, lowing piteously.

No longer was there any darkness anywhere. No shadow under the wall! No shadow of horse and rider on the ground! Suddenly the flash lightning shifted to forked lightning — magnificent branched streaks of white fire that ribbed the sky. These were as suddenly succeeded by long, single ropes or chains of lightning.

Gradually the horses drew closer together, if not at the instigation of their riders, then at their own. They rubbed flanks; they hid their heads against each other.

“My Gawd! it’s turrible!” cried Texas, hoarsely. “We gotta get oot of the way. When this hell’s over, thet herd will run mad.”

“Tex, they’re struck by lightnin’,” yelled Holden. “I see cattle down.”

“Oot of the narrow place heah, men,” shouted Brite.

They moved out into the open valley beyond the constricted neck, and strange to see, the remuda followed, the whole drove moving as one horse. They had their heads turned in, so that they really backed away from the wall.

The chain lightnings increased in number, in brilliance, in length and breadth until all in a marvelous instant they coalesced into a sky-wide canopy of intensest blue too burning for the gaze of man. How long that terrifying phenomenon lasted Brite could not tell, but when, at husky yells of his men, he opened his eyes, the terrific blue blaze of heaven had changed to balls of lightning.

Here was the moment Brite believed he was demented. And these fearless cowhands shared the emotion which beset him. They gaped with protruding eyes at the yellow balls appearing from nowhere, to roll down the walls, to bounce off and burst into crackling sparks. It appeared that balls of fire were shooting in every direction to the prolonged screams of horses in terror.

Brite took the almost fainting Reddie into his arms, and held her tight. He expected death at any instant. Zigzag balls of lightning grew in size and number and rapidity until the ground was criss-crossed with them. They ran together to burst into bits or swell into a larger ball. Then to Brite’s horror, to what seemed his distorted vision these fiendish balls ran over the horses, to hang on their ears, to drop off their noses, to roll back and forth along the reins, to leap and poise upon the rim of his sombrero. Yet he was not struck dead, as seemed inevitable.

All at once Brite became aware of heat, intense sulphurous heat, encompassing him like a hot blanket. Coincident with that the rolling, flying balls, like the chains of lightning before them, coalesced with strange sputtering sound into a transparent white fog.

The air reeked with burnt sulphur and contained scarcely enough oxygen to keep men and beasts alive. By dint of extreme will power Brite kept from falling off his horse with Reddie unconscious in his arms. The men coughed as if half strangled. They were bewildered. The herd had been swallowed up in this pale mysterious medium. The hissing, crackling sound of sparks had ceased.

Slowly that fog lifted like a curtain to disclose to Brite’s eyes the dark forms of horses and riders. Cooler air took the place of the heat. A vast trampling stir ran through the herd. It seemed likewise to revivify the trail drivers.

“Pards, air we in hell?” shouted Texas, huskily. “Or air we oot?... Boys, it’s passed away. We’re alive to tell the tale.... Ho! Ho! Brite’s ootfit on the Canadian!... The herd’s millin’, boys! — Bear in! — Ride ’em, cowboys!... By Gawd! our luck is great! — Not bad, but great!... An’ shore we’re drivin’ on to Dodge.... Ride ’em, men! — Charge an’ shoot to kill!... The night’s gone an’ the day’s busted.”

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” screamed the drivers as they drove the leaders back.

* * * * *

In the gray of dawn Brite supported the swaying Reddie in her saddle back to camp.

“Oh, Dad — my remuda! — where air they?” she sobbed.

“Inside, lass, inside thet line of fire-eaters,” replied the old cattleman. “An’ they’ll hold!”

* * * * *

Only the reality of the sunrise, the calm morning with its sweet clarified air, the solid earth under their feet and the grazing stock, could ever have dispelled the nightmare of those hours of brimstone.

Texas Joe rode in to fall off his horse and limp to the camp fire. He stretched wide his long arms, as if to embrace the fresh sweetness of the dawn.

“On our way, men! The herd’s pointed,” he called, his voice thick and shaky. “Gimme aboot a gallon of coffee if there ain’t any likker.” He fell on a pack, favoring his lame leg. “Wal, my sins air shore wiped oot. All the hell I ever deserved I got last night.”

* * * * *

Five watchful, strenuous, endless days later Brite’s outfit drove across the North Fork of the Canadian River to camp on Rabbit Ear Creek.

The day before they had passed Camp Supply in the middle of the morning. Texas Joe was too wise to make a halt. Brite rode in with the chuck-wagon.

This camp was teeming with soldiers, Indians, cowhands, and bearded men of no apparent occupation. It was also teeming with rumor of massacre of the wagon-train Hardy had hoped to join at Fort Sill, of trail herds north and south, of bands of rustlers operating in Kansas and rendezvousing in the Indian Territory, of twenty million buffalo between the Canadian and Arkansas rivers, of hell itself let loose in Dodge and Abiline. Brite had kept all this to himself. The boys were somber enough, and somehow they might make the drive through.

“Aboot what time is it?” asked Whittaker, dreamily, as some of them sat in camp.

“Sundown, yu locoed galoot,” retorted Ackerman.

“Shore. But I mean the month an’ day.”

“Gawd only knows.... An’ I don’t care.”

“I’ll bet my spurs Holden can figger it oot. He’s a queer duck. But I like him heaps. Don’t yu?”

“Cain’t say thet I do,” returned Deuce, gruffly. Brite had noted more than once how devoted the Uvalde cowboys had been to each other, and how Ackerman appeared jealous of his partner Little, now that the others were gone. Loss of San Sabe had been hard on Deuce.

“Wal, I’ll ask him, anyhow,” went on Whittaker. “Less,” he shouted, “can yu figger oot what day this is?”

“Shore. I’m a walkin’ calendar,” rejoined Holden, with self-satisfied air, as he pulled a tobacco-pouch from his pocket. “But don’t tell Tex. He says to hell with when an’ where it is.” He emptied a handful of pebbles out of the bag and began carefully to count them. When he had concluded he said: “Gosh, but they add up! Fifty-six.... Fifty-six days oot an’ today makes fifty-seven. Boys, we’re just three days shy of bein’ two months on the trail.”

“Is thet all!” ejaculated Whittaker.

“Then it’s near August?” queried Ackerman, ponderingly. “We ought to make Dodge by the end of August.... I wonder aboot thet Fort Sill wagon-train.... Boss, I forgot to ask yu. Did yu heah any word of thet wagon-train Doan expected from Fort Sill?”

Brite could not look into the lad’s dark, eager eyes and tell the truth.

* * * * *

Next day, halfway to Sand Creek, Texas Joe stood up in his stirrups and signaled the news of buffalo. Day after day this had been expected. Somewhere north of the Canadian the great herd would swing across the Chisholm Trail.

Soon Brite saw the dark, ragged, broken lines of buffalo. They appeared scarcely to move, yet after an interval, when he looked again, the straggling ends were closer. Texas Joe halted for dry camp early in the day. What little conversation prevailed around the fire centered on the buffalo.

“Nothin’ to fear drivin’ along with the buffs,” vouchsafed Bender.

“Thet’s all yu know.”

“Wal, mebbe they’ll work back west by mawnin’.”

“But s’pose they keep on workin’ east — acrost our trail?”

“Trail drivers never turn back.”

“An’ we could be swallered up by miles of buffalo — cattle, hawses, chuck-wagon, riders an’ all?”

“I reckon we could.... Boss, did yu ever heah of thet?”

“Of what?” asked Brite, though he had heard plainly enough.

“Ootfit gettin’ surrounded by buffalo.”

“Shore I have. Thet happens often. Stock grazin’ right along with the buffalo.”

“Ahuh. Wal, what’d happen if the buffalo stampeded?... Thirty million buffalo all movin’ at once?”

“Hell, cowboy! It ain’t conceivable.”

“I’ll bet my last cigarette it happens.”

So they talked, some of them optimistically, others the opposite, all of them reckless, unafraid, and unchangeable. Morning disclosed long black strings of buffalo crossing the trail ahead.

All day Brite’s herd had shaggy monsters for company, short lines, long thin strings, bunches and groups, hundreds and twos and fours of buffalo, leisurely grazing along, contented and indifferent. Sand Creek offered a fine camp site and range for cattle. The mossy-horns appeared as satisfied as their shaggy brothers. They bedded down early and offered no trouble. The guards slept in their saddles.

All next day the trail followed Sand Creek. The drivers were concerned about the booming of needle guns to the east and south. Hunters on the outskirts of the herd or trail drivers coming! That day a long, black, thick line of buffalo crossed behind Brite’s herd, and turning north crept along parallel with it. This line had no break. Behind and to the west the black wave, like a tide of broken lava, rolling imperceptibly, slowly augmented and encroached upon the cattle herd. How insignificant and puny that herd of six thousand long-horns now! It was but a drop in the bucket of the Great Plains.

But the west and north remained open, at least as far as eye could see. Brite thought he had crossed directly in front of the mass of buffalo. They might travel that tranquil way for days; and again the whirl of a dust-devil, the whip of a swallow on the wing, might stampede them into a stupendous, rolling avalanche.

Sand Creek merged into Buffalo Creek, a deep, cool, willow-bordered stream where all the luxuriant foliage of the prairie bloomed. Texas made camp at the point where the creeks met.

“We’ll rest up heah a day or two,” he said. “Somebody knock over a buffalo. Rump steak would shore go great.... Reddie, do yu want to kill a buff?”

“No. I’m too tender-hearted,” she replied, musingly. “I see so many cute little buffalo calves. I might shoot one’s mother.”

“Tender-hearted? — Wal, I’m dog-goned!” drawled Texas, mildly. He had greatly sobered these late days of the drive and seldom returned to his old raillery. “We-all had it figgered yu was a killer.”

“Aw, I don’t count redskins, greasers, stampeders — an’ now an’ then an occasional cowhand.”

“I savvy. But I meant a killer with yore gun — not yore red curls, yore snappin’ eyes, yore shape thet no boys’ pants could hide.”

Reddie promptly vanished physically and vocally into the empty air. That was all the pleasantry in camp on this night.

“I wish thet Hash Williams had stuck with us,” Texas mused.

“But, Tex, what the hell difference does it make now?”

“Wal, a lot, if we knowed what the pesky buffs would do.”

“Ump-umm! I say, since we gotta drive on, to keep goin’.”

“But mebbe the buffalo might drift by.”

“What? Thet herd? Never this summer. They are as many as the tufts of gramma grass.”

“What yu think, boss?” queried the foreman, showing that he needed partisanship to bolster up any of his judgments.

“Wait till mawnin’,” advised the cattle-owner.

* * * * *

Certainly the morning brought to light fewer buffalo and wider space, yet to east and south and west the black lines encroached upon the green. Only the north was clear.

“Point the herd!” ordered Brite, driven by fears and hopes.

“I was gonna do thet, anyhow,” drawled Texas Joe. “We can only die once, an’ if we have to die let’s get it over. This dyin’ by days an’ hours is like tryin’ to win a woman’s love.”

If Joe had but known it — if he could have seen the light in Reddie’s eyes as Brite saw it — he would have learned that that could be attained by the very things he thought so little of.

* * * * *

So they drove on and the buffalo closed in black all around them. Herd, remuda and riders occupied the center of a green island surrounded by rugged, unbroken waves. This island was a couple of miles long by about the same in width, almost a circle. It kept that way for hours of suspense to the drivers.

Long-horns had no fear of buffalo. Brite remembered how the mossy-horned old bulls bawled and tossed their mighty horns at sight of buffalo coming close. But to the vast herd these cattle and horses were grains of dust under their feet.

About noon there came a change. Something quickened the buffalo. Brite felt it, saw it, but could give no solution. Buffalo were beyond understanding.

“Oh, Dad, I heah somethin’ behind!” called Reddie, fearfully.

“What?”

“I don’t know. It’s like the wind in the pines.”

Brite strained his ears to hear. In vain! The noonday hour was silent, oppressive, warm with the breath of midsummer. But he saw Texas halt his horse, to turn and stand in his stirrups, gazing back. He, too, had heard something. Brite looked behind him. The buffalo were a mile in the rear, ambling along, no longer nipping the grass. The shaggy line bobbed almost imperceptibly.

“Dad, I heah it again,” cried Reddie.

Pan Handle rode around the rear of the cattle, to gallop ahead and join Texas. They watched. Other cowboys turned their faces back. Something was amiss. The cattle grazed along as if buffalo were not encompassing them. But the little Spanish mustangs evinced uneasiness. They trotted to and fro, stood with pointed ears, heads to the south. They had the heritage of two-hundred years of prairie life. At sight of them Brite’s heart sank. He tried to stem the stream of his consciousness and not think.

“There it comes, stronger,” declared Reddie, who had ridden to Brite’s side.

“What yu make of it, lass?”

“Like low thunder now.... Mebbe a storm brewin’.”

The sky, however, was cloudless, a serene azure vault, solemn and austere, keeping its secrets. Miles back, low down over the black horizon of shaggy, uneven line, a peculiar yellow, billowy smoke was rising. Dust clouds! Brite would rather have been blind than have been compelled to see that.

“Look! Dust risin’!” cried Reddie, startled. She pointed with shaking hand.

“Mebbe it’s nothin’ to worry aboot,” said Brite, averting his eyes.

“An’ heah comes Tex. Look at thet hawse!”

The foreman swerved in round the rear of the herd to meet the three riders who rode toward him. After a short consultation one of these galloped off to the east, to round the herd on that side. Texas then came on at a run.

He reined in before Brite and Reddie, who had stopped involuntarily. Texas Joe’s face was a bronze mask. His amber eyes were narrow slits of fire.

“Heah anythin’, boss?” he queried, sharply.

“Nope. But Reddie does. I see some dust rollin’ up behind.”

“Stampede!” flashed the cowboy, confirming Brite’s suspicion.

“Oh, my Gawd!” burst out Reddie, suddenly realizing. “We’re trapped in a circle.... Jack, what will we do?”

“It’s been comin’ to us all this drive,” replied Texas. “An’ I reckon now it’s heah. If thet stampede back there spreads through the whole herd we’ve got about one chance in a thousand. An’ thet chance is for our cattle to run bunched as they air now, square an’ broad across the rear. Ride behind thet, Mr. Brite, an’ good luck to yu.... Reddie, if the buffs close in on yu, take to the wagon. A big white heavy wagon like ours might split a herd thet’d trample over hawses.”

“Oh, Jack — don’t go — till I—” she flung after him. But Texas only turned to wave good-by, then he rode on to meet Moze. That worthy was coming at a stiff trot. They met, and Texas must have imparted alarming orders, for the negro put the team to a lope that promised shortly to overtake the remuda. Texas wheeled back to the left.

Brite and Reddie drove the remuda to the rear of the herd, just back of the riders. Soon Moze came lumbering up. Then all accommodated their paces to the movement of the cattle and maintained their position. All of the seven guards now rode at the rear of the herd.

As soon as this change was established Brite took stock of the buffalo. Apparently the immense green oval inside the herd was just as big as ever. But had it narrowed or shortened? He could not be sure. Yet there was a difference. On all sides the buffalo line bobbed at a slow walk. All still seemed well. Brite tried to get his nerve back. But it had been shaken. A terrible peril hung over them. At the last word he did not care particularly about himself, though the idea of being ridden down and pounded by millions of hoofs into a bloody pulp was horrible, but he suffered poignantly for Reddie, and her lover, and these tried and true men who had stood by him so loyally. But God disposed of all. Brite framed a prayer for them, and then like a true Texan prepared to fight to the last bitter gasp.

This enabled him to look back to make out what to expect and how soon. No change in the buffalo. But that yellow, rolling cloud had arisen high, to blot out the sky halfway to the zenith.

All of a sudden Brite realized that for a moment or perhaps longer he had been aware of a filling of his ears with distant sound.

“Reddie!” he yelled. “I heah it!”

To his amazement, the girl had gravitated toward Texas Joe, who had ridden around the remuda to approach her. They met, and his forceful gesture sent Reddie back alongside the wagon.

There was no more need for words. Still Brite’s stubbornness refused to yield to the worst. Had not some vital, unforeseen chance saved them more than once on this fatal drive? “Quien sabe?” he muttered through his teeth.

On each flank the buffalo had markedly changed in aspect. Where before they had wagged along, now they bobbed. Far ahead the forward mass had not yet caught this acceleration. From behind, the low roar gradually increased. Brite’s mustang snorted and balked. He had to be spurred. All the horses betrayed a will to bolt. The remuda pranced at the heels of the herd, held in on each flank by the riders.

That state of action and sound stayed the same for moments. It was Texas’s strange throwing up of his hands that acquainted Brite with a transformation. The buffalo had broken into a lope. An instant later that low roar perished in an engulfing sound that would have struck terror to the stoutest heart. The gap between the rear of the herd and the oncoming buffalo began rapidly to close. Louder grew the roar. On each side of the cattle, far ahead, the buffalo closed in, so that the shape of a great triangle was maintained. It would be impossible for the cattle to mix with the buffalo. An impenetrable, shaggy wall moved on all sides.

Before the advancing mass behind had caught up to Brite the nimble-footed long-horns broke into a swinging lope. That seemed well. It evened matters. The remuda appeared less likely to bolt. Moze kept the chuck-wagon rolling at their heels.

Above the steady roar of hoofs all around swelled a sound that swallowed it — the deafening thunder of the stampede in the rear. It had started the herd into action. But now its momentum forced the buffalo ahead again to break their pace. Like a wave rolling onward in the sea it caught up with the cattle, passed through the buffalo on each flank and raced forward to the leaders.

Brite realized the terrible instant when the stampede spirit claimed the whole mass. He felt the ground shake with his horse and his ears cracked to an awful rumble. It ceased as suddenly. He could no longer hear. And as if of one accord, the long-horns and the horses broke into a run.

Brite looked back. A thousand hideously horned and haired heads close-pressed together formed the advance line fifty yards or less behind him. Only gradually did they gain now. Before this moment the pursuing buffalo had split to go on each side of the cattle herd.

For miles the fleet long-horns evened pace with the shaggy monsters of the plains. And in that short while the circle closed. Buffalo raced cows and did not win. The wicked long-horned bulls charged the black wall of woolly hides, to be bowled over and trampled underfoot.

The conformation of the land must have changed from level to grade. Brite’s distended eyes saw a vast sea of black ahead, a sweeping tide, like a flood of fur covering the whole prairie. No doubt it was the same on each side of him and for miles behind. Even in that harrowing moment he was staggered by the magnificence of the spectacle. Nature had staged a fitting end for his heroic riders. Texas Joe, on one side of the chuck-wagon, Pan Handle on the other, rode with guns belching fire and smoke into the faces of bulls that charged perilously close. Moze’s team was running away, the remuda was running away, the six thousand cattle were running away. But where? They were lost in that horde of bison. They were as a few grains of sand on the sea shore.

When the buffalo filled all the gaps, dust obscured Brite’s vision. He could see only indistinctly and not far. Yet he never lost sight of Reddie or the wagon. Any moment he expected the wagon to lurch over or to lose a wheel in one of its bounces, and to see Moze go down to his death. But that would be the fate of them all.

Only the remuda hung together. Except Pan Handle, Texas, and Reddie all the riders were surrounded by buffalo. Brite’s stirrups rubbed the hump-backed monsters; they bumped his mustang on one side, then on the other.

Bender on his white horse was a conspicuous mark. Brite saw him forced to one side — saw the white horse go down and black bodies cover the place. Brite could feel no more. He closed his eyes. He could not see Reddie sacrificed to such a ghastly fate and care to endure himself.

The hellish stampede went on — a catastrophe which perhaps a gopher had started. A violent jolt all but unseated Brite. He opened his eyes to see a giant bull passing. Yielding to furious fright, Brite shot the brute. It rolled on the ground and the huge beasts leaped over or aside. Sometimes Brite could see patches of ground. But all was yellow, infernal haze, obscuring shadows, and ceaseless appalling motion. It must have an end. The cattle could run all day, but the terrorized horses would fall as had Bender’s.

Yet there were Reddie and Texas, sweeping along beside the wagon, with buffalo only on the outside. Farther on through the yellow pale, Brite made out white and gray against the black. A magenta sun burned through the dust. Sick and dizzy and reeling, Brite clung to his saddle-horn, sure that his end was near. He had lived long. Cattle had been his Nemesis. If it had not been for Reddie ——

Suddenly his clogged ears appeared to open — to fill again with sound. He could hear once more. His dazed brain answered to the revivifying suggestion. If he was no longer deaf, the roar of stampede had diminished. The mustang broke his gait to allow for down grade. Rifts of sky shone through the yellow curtain. A gleam of river! Heart and sense leaped. They had reached the Cimarron. All went dark before Brite’s eyes. But consciousness rallied. The terrible trampling roar was still about him. His horse dragged in sand. A rude arm clasped him and a man bawled in his ear.

* * * * *

Brite gazed stupidly out upon the broad river where strings of cattle were wading out upon an island. To right and left black moving bands crossed the water. The stampede had ended at the Cimarron where the buffalo had split around an island.

“How — aboot — Reddie?” whispered the cattleman as they lifted him out of the saddle.

“Heah, Dad, safe an’ sound. Don’t yu feel me?” came as if from a distance.

“An’ — everybody?”

“All heah but Bender an’ Whittaker. They were lost.”

“Aw!... I seen Bender — go down.”

“Boss, it could have been wuss,” said Texas, gratefully.

“Oh, Dad! — Did yu see me go down?” cried Reddie. “I got pitched ahaid — over my hawse.... Thet cowboy snatched me up — as if I’d been his scarf.”

“Which cowboy?” queried Brite.

“Texas — Jack.... Thet’s the second time — shore.”

“Boss, we’re stuck,” reported the practical Texas, brushing Reddie aside. “Some of our cattle went with the buffalo. The rest is scattered. Our remuda half gone.... But, by Gawd! we’re heah on the Cimarron. When these cussed buffs get by we’ll round up our stock an’ drive on.”

Before dark the last straggling ends of the buffalo herd loped by. Meanwhile camp had been made on high ground. Two of the riders were repairing the wagon. Moze was cooking rump steak. Pan Handle labored zealously at cleaning his guns. Texas Joe strode here and there, his restless eyes ever seeking Reddie, who lay on the green grass beside Brite. The outfit had weathered another vicissitude of the Trail.

* * * * *

It took Brite’s remaining riders four days to round up five thousand head of cattle. The rest were lost, and a hundred head of the remuda. And the unbeatable cowboys kept telling Brite that he had still five hundred more long-horns than the number with which he had started.

Trail herds crossed the Cimarron every day, never less than two, and often more, and once five herds. The rush was on. Good luck had attended most of the drivers. A brush with Nigger Horse, a few stampedes, a bad electrical storm that caused delay, hailstones that killed yearling calves — these were reports given by the passing drivers.

A huge cowhand, red of face and ragged of garb, hailed the members of Brite’s outfit in camp.

“On the last laig to Dodge! I’ll be drunker’n hell soon,” he yelled, and waved his hand.

Brite got going again on the fifth day, with cattle and remuda rested, but with his cowboys ragged as scarecrows, gaunt and haggard, wearing out in all except their unquenchable spirit.

They had company at every camp. Snake Creek, Salt Creek, Bear Creek, Bluff Creek, and at last Mulberry Creek only a few miles out of Dodge.

That night the sun went down gloriously golden and red over the vast, level prairie. Ranchers called on the trail drivers.

“Dodge is shore a-hummin’ these days,” said one. “Shootin’, drinkin’, gamblin’! — They’re waitin’ for yu boys — them painted women an’ black-coated caird sharps.”

“WHOOPEE!” yelled the cowboys, in lusty passion. But Deuce Ackerman was silent. Texas Joe took a sly look at the downcast Reddie, and with a wink at Brite he drawled:

“Gosh! I’m glad I’m free. Just a no-good cowhand in off the Trail with all the hell behind! Boss, I want my pay pronto. I’ll buck the tiger. I’ll stay sober till I bore thet rustler Hite. Then me for one of them hawk-eyed gurls with a pale face an’ painted lips an’ bare arms an’ — —”

“Yes, yu air a no-good cowhand,” blazed Reddie, furiously. “Oh, I — I’m ashamed of yu. I — I hate yu!... To give in to the bottle — to some vile hussy — when — when all the time our boys — our comrades lay daid oot there on the prairie. How can yu — do — it?”

“Thet’s why, Reddie,” replied Texas Joe, suddenly flayed. “It shore takes a hell of a lot to make a man forget the pards who died for him.... An’ I have nothin’ else but likker an’ a painted — —”

“Oh, but yu have!” she cried, in ringing passion. “Yu fool! Yu fool!”

CHAPTER XVI

DODGE CITY WAS indeed roaring. Brite likened the traffic in the wide street, the dust, the noise, the tramp of the throng to a stampede of cattle on the trail.

After the drive in to the pastures, and the count, Brite had left the cowboys and the wagon, and had ridden to town with Reddie. He had left her asleep in her room at the hotel, where she had succumbed at sight of a bed. He hurried to the office of Hall and Stevens, with whom he had had dealings before. He was welcomed with the eagerness of men who smelled a huge deal with like profit.

“Brite, you’re a ragamuffin,” declared the senior member of the firm. “Why didn’t you rid yourself of that beard? And those trail togs?”

“Tomorrow is time enough for thet. I want to sell an’ go to bed. What’re yu payin’ this month?”

“We’re offerin’ twelve dollars,” replied the cattle-buyer, warily.

“Not enough. My count is five thousand an’ eighty-eight. Call it eighty even. Fine stock an’ fairly fat.”

“What do you want?”

“Fifteen dollars.”

“Won’t pay it. Brite, there are eighty thousand head of cattle in.”

“Nothin’ to me, Mr. Hall. I have the best stock.”

“Thirteen dollars.”

“Nope. I’ll run over to see Blackwell,” replied Brite, moving toward the door.

“Fourteen. That’s my highest. Will you sell?”

“Done. I’ll call tomorrow sometime for a certified check. Meanwhile send yore cowhands down to take charge.”

“Thanks, Brite. I’m satisfied if you are. Cattle movin’ brisk. How many head will come up the Trail before the snow flies?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

Hall rubbed his hands. “Dodge will be wide open about the end of August.”

“What is it now? I’m goin’ to get oot quick.”

“Won’t you need some cash to pay off?”

“Shore. I forgot. Make it aboot two thousand five hundred. Good day.”

Brite wrestled his way back to the hotel, landing there out of breath and ready to drop. He paid a negro porter five dollars to pack up a tub of water. Then he took a bath, shaved, and went to bed, asleep before he hit the pillow.

What seemed but a moment later a knocking at his door awakened him.

“Dad, air yu daid?” called a voice that thrilled him.

“Come in.”

Reddie entered, pale, with hollow eyes and strained cheeks, but sweet to gaze upon. She sat down upon the bed beside him.

“Yu handsome man! All clean shaved an’ nice. Did yu buy new clothes?”

“Not yet. I left thet till this mawnin’.”

“It’s ten o’clock. When did yu go to bed?”

“At four. Sixteen hours! Oh, I was daid to the world.”

“Where is — air the boys?”

“Also daid asleep. Don’t worry. They’ll straggle in late today, lookin’ for money.”

“Dad, do me a favor?”

“Shore. Anythin’ yu want.”

“Don’t give the cowboys — at least Texas Jack — a-any money right away.”

“But, honey, I cain’t get oot of it,” protested Brite, puzzled. “Soon as he comes heah.”

“Will he want to — to get drunk — as he bragged an’ — an’ — —”

She dropped her head to the pillow beside Brite’s.

“Shore. They’ll all get drunk.”

“Could I keep Jack from thet?” she whispered.

“I reckon yu could. But it’ll cost a lot. Do yu care enough aboot him, lass?”

“Oh!... I — I love him!”

“Wal, then, it’ll be easy, for thet fire-eatin’ hombre loves the ground yu ride on.”

“Have I yore consent?”

“Why child!”

“But yu’re my Dad. I cain’t remember my real one.”

“Yu have my blessin’, dear. An’ I think the world of Texas Joe. He’s the salt of the earth.”

“Could yu let him quit trail drivin’? Because if he drove I’d have to go, too.”

“Reddie, I got a fortune for thet herd. Which reminds me I still have ninety-two hawses to sell.”

“But yu cain’t sell mine.”

“We’ll leave him with Selton, to be sent south with the first ootfit.”

She leaped up, flushed and happy, with tears like pearls on her tanned cheeks and eyes of sweet, thoughtful shadows.

“Hurry. Get up an’ dress. Take me oot to buy things. A girl’s! Oh, I will not know what to buy. It’s like a dream.... Hurry, Dad. I wouldn’t dare go alone.”

“I should smile yu wouldn’t.”

When she ran out Brite made short work of getting into his torn and trail-stained rags. Soon they were on their way down the main street of Dodge. It presented a busy scene, but the roar was missing. Too early in the day! Reddie was all eyes. She missed nothing. Cowboys, gamblers, teamsters, negroes, Mexicans, Indians, lined the street, waiting for something to begin.

Brite took Reddie into Denman’s big merchandise store, where he turned her over to a woman clerk to give her the best of everything and not consider expense. Then he hastened to purchase an outfit for himself. That did not require long, but he encountered a trail driver, Lewis by name, and in exchanging experiences time flew by. Hurrying back, he found Reddie dazed and happy, sitting amid a circle of parcels. They had a merry and a toilsome job packing their purchases back to the hotel. Reddie barred herself in with her precious possessions.

Some time later a tap on Brite’s door interrupted the finishing-touches of his dressing.

“Come in,” he answered.

Texas Joe entered, his lean, handsome face shining despite its havoc.

“Mawnin’ boss,” he drawled. “My, but yu’re spruced up fine.”

“Yes, an’ yu’ll be feelin’ like me pronto. How’s the boys?”

“I don’t know. Asleep I reckon. They come in town to go to bed. I’ll find them some place.”

“Where’s Pan Handle?”

“Sleepin’ to quiet his nerves. Boss, he’ll be lookin’ for Hite before the day’s oot.”

“Tex, if I asked yu as a particular favor, would yu give up goin’ on a debauch an’ take first stage with me an’ Reddie?”

“Boss, yu’re askin’ too much. Somethin’ turrible, or mebbe wonderful, has gotta come between me an’ thet hell-rattlin’ drive.”

“I understand. But do this for me. Go with me to Hall’s office, then to the bank. An’ I’ll take yu to the store where I bought this ootfit.”

“Thet’s easy. I’ll stick to yu shore till I get my money. Clean broke, boss. Not a two-bit piece. An’ I had some money when we left Santone. My Gawd! will I ever see thet town again?”

“Shore yu will. Come on.”

They went out into the street. “Boss, would yu mind walkin’ on my left side. I might have to clear for action, yu know. If we meet Hite — wal! our pard Pan is gonna be left.”

But nothing happened on their several errands. Upon returning to the hotel, Texas engaged a room and proceeded to get rid of the stains and rags of the Chisholm Trail. Brite went to Blackwell, where he sold the remuda for twenty dollars a head. He was treading the clouds when he got back to the hotel. Cattlemen he knew engaged him in spirited inquiry about the resourcefulness of Texas. Men and women, some of them flashily dressed, passed through the lobby to the dining-room. Brite noted a very pretty young lady, in gayly colorful array, pass to and fro as if on parade. He observed that she had attracted the attention of a frock-coated gambler. And when he accosted her, Brite decided he had better make sure the girl wanted this kind of attention. When he strode over, what was his amaze and consternation to hear the girl say in a sharp familiar voice: “Heah, Mr. Flowery Vest, if I was packin’ my gun I’d shoot yore laig off!”

“Reddie!” burst out Brite, beside himself.

“Hello, Dad. An’ yu didn’t know me! Lend me yore gun.”

The gambler fled. Brite gazed speechless at his adopted daughter, unable to believe his own sight.

“Reddie, darlin’, is it yu?”

“Shore it’s me. Thet is, I think an’ feel it is ‘cept when I look in thet mirror.... Oh, Dad! I feel so strange — so tormented — so happy. Thet woman was smart. She picked oot all these things for me.... Do I look — nice?”

“Nice! — Reddie, yu air the sweetest thing I ever seen. I am knocked flat. I am so glad I could bust. An’ to think yu’re my lass.”

“I’d hug yu — if we was anywhere else.... Dad, will he like me — this way?”

“He! — Who?”

“Texas Jack, of course.”

“Like yu? He’ll fall on his knees if yu give him a chance.”

“Oh!” She started, with dark bright eyes widening. “There’s Texas now. Oh, I hardly knew him.... Dad, stand by me now. I wouldn’t say my happiness is at stake — or all of it — but my love is.... If I’ve only got — the nerve — —”

“Remember Wallen, honey, an’ thet day of the stampede,” was all Brite had time to say, when Texas Joe transfixed him and Reddie in one lightning flash of falcon eyes.

“Boss! — Who — who — —”

“Jack, don’t yu know me?” Reddie asked, roguishly. Brite marveled at the woman of her — so swift to gain mastery over her weakness.

“For Gawd’s sake!” gasped Texas.

“Come Jack,” she cried, clasping his arm and then Brite’s, and dragging them away. “We’ll go up to Dad’s room. I’ve somethin’ to say — to yu.”

All the way up the stairs and down the hall Texas Joe seemed in a trance. But Reddie talked about the town, the people, the joy of their deliverance from the bondage of the Trail. Then they were in Brite’s room with the door shut.

Reddie subtly changed. She tossed her dainty bonnet on the bed as if she had been used to such finery all her life.

“Jack, do yu like me?” she asked, sweetly, facing him with great dark eyes aglow, and she turned round for his benefit.

“Yu’re staggerin’ lovely, Reddie,” he replied. “I’d never have knowed yu.”

“This ootfit is better then them tight pants I used to wear?”

“Better! Child, yu’re a boy no more,” he said, wistfully. “Yu’re a girl — a lady. An’ no one who knowed yu would want to see yu go back now.”

“Yu’d never dare spank me in this dress, would yu?”

Texas flushed red to the roots of his tawny hair. “Gawd, no! An’ I never did spank yu as a girl.”

“Yes, yu did. Yu knew me. Yu saw me bathin’ in the creek thet day.... Naked! Don’t yu dare deny thet.”

It was a torturing moment for Texas and he seemed on the rack. “Never mind. I forgive yu. Who knows? Mebbe but for thet.... Jack, heah is what I want to say? — Will yu give up goin’ on a drunk?”

“Sorry, Miss Bayne, but I cain’t. Thet’s a trail driver’s privilege. An’ any human bein’ wouldn’t ask him not to drown it all.”

“Not even for me?”

“I reckon — not even for yu.”

She slowly drew close to him, as white as if sun and wind had never tanned her face, and her dark purple eyes shone wondrously.

“If I kiss yu — will yu give it up?... Once yu begged for a kiss.”

Texas laughed mirthlessly. “Funny, thet idee. Yu kissin’ me!”

“Not so funny, Jack,” she flashed, and seizing his coat in strong hands she almost leaped at his lips. Then she fell back, released him, sank momentarily against him, and stepped back. Texas Joe, with corded jaw in restraint, bent eyes of amber fire upon her. They had forgotten Brite or were indifferent to his presence.

“Wal, yu did it. Yu kissed me. An’ I’m ashamed of yu for it.... Reddie Bayne, yu cain’t buy my freedom with a kiss.”

“Oh, Jack, it’s not yore freedom I want to buy. It’s yore salvation.”

“Bah! What’s life to me?” he retorted, stern-lipped and somber-eyed. “I want to carouse, to fight, to kill, to sleep drunk — drunk — drunk.”

“I know, Jack. Oh, I think I understand. Wasn’t I a trail driver, too? An’ do I want these awful things? No! No! An’ I want to save yu from them.... Yu madden me with yore cold.... Jack, spare me an’ end it — quick.”

“I’m sparin’ yu more’n yu know, little lady,” he replied, darkly passionate.

“Shore somethin’ will coax yu oot of this hell-givin’ idee.... What? I’ll do anythin’ — anythin’ — —”

He seized her in strong arms and lifted her off her feet against his breast.

“Yu’d marry me?”

“Oh yes — yes — yes!”

“But why, girl? Why?” he demanded in a frenzy of doubt.

Reddie flung her arms around his neck and strained to reach and kiss his quivering cheek. “‘Cause I love yu, Jack — so turrible!”

“Yu love me, Reddie Bayne?”

“I do. I do.”

“Since — when?” he whispered, playing with his joy.

“Thet day — when Wallen came — an’ yu — saved me.”

He kissed her hair, her brow, her scarlet cheek, and at last the uplifted mouth.

“Aw, Reddie! — Aw! It was worth goin’ through — all thet hell — for this.... Girl, yu’ve got to kill the devil in me.... When will yu marry me?”

“Today — if yu — must have me,” she whispered, faintly. “But I — I’d rather wait — till we get back to dad’s — to Santone, my home.”

“Then we’ll wait,” he rang out, passionately. “But we must leave today, darlin’.... This Dodge town is brewin’ blood for me.”

“Oh, let’s hurry,” she cried, and slipping out of his arms she turned appealingly to Brite. “Dad, it’s all settled. We’ve made up. When can yu take us away?”

“Today, an’ pronto, by thunder,” replied Brite, heartily. “Pack yore old duds an’ go to the stage office at the east end of the street. We’ve got plenty of time. But go there pronto. It’s a safer place to wait. I will pay off an’ rustle to meet yu there.”

Brite spent a fruitless hour trying to locate the cowboys. Upon returning to the hotel, with the intention of leaving their wages, as well as their share of the money found on the stampeder Wallen, he encountered Pan Handle, vastly changed in garb and face, though not in demeanor.

“Hullo, Pan. Lookin’ for yu. Heah’s yore wages as a trail driver an’ yore share — —”

“Brite, yu don’t owe me anythin’,” returned the gunman, smiling.

“Heah! None of thet or we’re not friends,” retorted Brite, forcing the money upon him. “I’m leavin’ in an hour by stage with Tex an’ Reddie. They made it up, an’ we’re all happy.”

“Fine! — I’m shore glad. I’ll go to the stage to see yu off.”

“Pan, hadn’t yu better go with us, far as Abiline, anyway?”

“Wal, no, much as I’d like to. I’ve somebody to see heah yet.”

“Wal, I’m sorry. Will yu take this wad of bills an’ pay off those fire-eaters of mine.”

“Shore will. But they’re heah, just round on the side porch.”

“Let’s get thet over, pronto,” said Brite, fervently. Strange how he wanted to see the last of these faithful boys!

Holden sat on the porch steps, while Ackerman and Little leaned arm in arm on the rail. They still wore their ragged trail garb, minus the chaps, but their faces were clean and bright from recent contact with razor and soap.

“Howdy, boss. Got any money?” asked Rolly, lazily, with a grin.

“Shore. I have it heah waitin’ for yu — wages, an’ bonus, too. Thet share of Wallen’s money amounts to more’n all yore wages.”

“Boss, I’m gonna take ten to blow in, an’ want yu to put the rest in somebody’s hands to keep for me,” said Ackerman, keenly. “Yu know I’m not trailin’ back to Texas.”

“We’ll miss yu, Deuce.”

Less Holden stood up, lithe and clean cut, with warm glance on the money about to be handed to him.

“Dog-gone yu! Rolly, gimme thet quirt,” drawled Deuce, mildly.

“Darn if I will,” rejoined Little, holding the quirt behind his back.

“It’s mine, yu son-of-a-gun!” They wrestled like boys in play, but before Deuce could obtain the quirt from his friend, Holden snatched it.

“I reckon findin’s keepin’s,” he laughed.

With a shout the two cowboys flung themselves upon him. Brite sat down to watch the fun. Pan Handle looked on dubiously. The boys were sober. They had not had a drink. They were just full of lazy glee. As the three of them tugged at the quirt their warm young faces flashed into sight, one after the other. And they grunted and laughed and tugged.

“Aw, Less, thet hurt. Don’t be so gol-durned rough,” complained Rolly as Holden wrenched the quirt away from the other two. Little looked askance at the blood on his hand. But he was too good-natured to take offense. Deuce, however, suddenly changing from jest to earnest, wrenched the quirt in turn from Holden.

“Heah, Rolly. It’s yores. Let’s quit foolin’,” said Deuce.

But Holden leaped for the quirt, and securing a grip he tore at it. He flung Rolly off his balance. Like a cat, however, the agile cowboy came down on his feet. The playful violence succeeded to something else. Holden, failing to secure the quirt, let go with his right and struck Rolly in the face.

“Aw!” cried Rolly, aghast. Then as fierce wild spirit mounted he slashed at Holden’s darkening face with the quirt. Blood squirted.

“HEAH BOYS! STOP!” yelled Pan Handle.

But too late. Holden threw his gun and shot. Rolly doubled up, his face convulsed in dark dismay, and fell. Like tigers then Holden and Ackerman leaped to face one another, guns spouting. Holden plunged on his face, his gun beating a tatoo on the hard ground. Brite sat paralyzed with horror as Deuce sank down, his back to the porch.

The demoniac expression faded from his dark face. His gun slipped from his hand to clatter on the steps, blue smoke rising from the barrel. His other hand sought his breast and clutched there, with blood gushing out between his fingers. He never wasted a glance upon the prostrate Holden, but upon his beloved comrade Rolly he bent a pitying, all-possessing look. Then his handsome head fell back.

Pan Handle rushed to kneel beside him. And Brite, dragging up out of his stupor, bent over the dying boy. He smiled a little wearily. “Wal, old — trail driver, we pay,” he whispered, feebly. “I reckon — I cain’t — wait for — little gray-eyed — Ann!”

His whisper failed, his eyes faded. And with a gasp he died.

* * * * *

An hour later Brite met Pan Handle and with him left the hotel.

“Pan, I’ll never drive the trail again,” he said.

“Small wonder. But yu’re a Texan, Brite, an’ these air border times.”

“Poor, wild, fire-hearted boys!” exclaimed Brite, still shaken to his depths. “All in less than a minute! My God!... We must keep this from Reddie.... I’ll never forget Deuce’s eyes — his words. ‘Old trail driver, we pay!’... I know an’ God knows he paid. They all paid. Oh, the pity of it, Pan! To think thet the grand game spirit of these cowboys — the soul thet made them deathless on the trail — was the cause of such a tragedy!”

Dodge was not concerned with auditing a few more deaths. It was four in the afternoon and the hum of the cattle metropolis resembled that of a hive of angry bees.

Saddle horses lined the hitching-rails as far as Brite could see. Canvas-covered wagons, chuck-wagons, buckboards, vehicles of all Western types, stood outside the saddle horses. And up one side and down the other a procession ambled in the dust. On the wide sidewalk a throng of booted, belted, spurred men wended their way up or down. The saloons roared. Black-sombreroed, pale-faced, tight-lipped men stood beside the wide portals of the gaming-dens. Beautiful wrecks of womanhood, girls with havoc in their faces and the look of birds of prey in their eyes, waited in bare-armed splendor to be accosted. Laughter without mirth ran down the walk. The stores were full. Cowboys in twos and threes and sixes trooped by, young, lithe, keen of eye, bold of aspect, gay and reckless. Hundreds of cowboys passed Brite in that long block from the hotel to the intersecting street. And every boy gave him a pang. These were the toll of the trail and of Dodge. It might have been the march of empire, the tragedy of progress, but it was heinous to Brite. He would never send another boy to his death.

They crossed the intersecting street and went on. Brite finally noticed that Pan Handle walked on the inside and quite apart. He spoke briefly when addressed. Brite let him be, cold and sick with these gunmen — with their eternal watchfulness — their gravitating toward the violence they loved.

Dodge roared on, though with lesser volume, toward the end of the main thoroughfare. Brite gazed with strange earnestness into the eyes of passers-by. So many intent, quiet, light eyes of gray or blue! Indians padded along in that stream, straight, dusky-eyed, aloof, yet prostituted by the whites. No more of the gaudy butterfly girls! Young men and old who had to do with cattle! The parasites were back in that block of saloons and dance-halls and gambling-dens.

They passed Beatty and Kelly’s store, out from under an awning into the light. A dark-garbed man strode out of the barber shop.

“Jump!” hissed Pan Handle.

Even as Brite acted upon that trenchant word his swift eye swept to the man in front of the door. Sallow face, baleful eyes, crouching form — Ross Hite reaching for his gun!

Then Brite’s dive took him out of vision. As he plunged off the sidewalk two shots boomed out, almost together. A heavy bullet spanged off the gravel in the street.

Lunging up, Brite leaped forward. Then he saw Pan Handle standing erect, his smoking gun high, while Hite stretched across the threshold of the barbershop door.

A rush of feet, excited cries, a loud laugh, then Pan Handle bent a little, wrenching his gaze from his fallen adversary. He sheathed his gun and strode on to join Brite. They split the gathering crowd and hurried down the street. Dodge roared on, but in lessening volume.

Breathless with haste and agitation, Brite reached the stage office.

“Waitin’ for yu, boss,” drawled Texas Joe from inside the big stage-coach. “Wal, yu’re all winded. Yu needn’t have rustled. I’d kept this stage-driver heah.”

“Oh, Dad, I was afraid,” cried Reddie, leaning out with fair face flushed.

“Dog-gone! Heah’s Pan Handle, too,” exclaimed Texas. “Shore was fine of yu to come down to say good-by.”

Pan Handle coolly lighted a cigarette with fingers as steady as a rock. He smiled up at Reddie.

“Lass, I shore had to wish yu all the joy an’ happiness there is in this hard old West.”

“Thank yu, Pan,” she replied, shyly. “I wish — —”

“All aboard thet’s goin’,” yelled the stage-driver from his seat.

Brite threw his bag in and followed, tripping as he entered. The strong hand that had assisted him belonged to Pan Handle, who stepped in after him. Then the stage-coach lurched and rolled away.

“Wal now, Pan, where’s yore baggage?” drawled Texas Joe, his falcon eyes narrowing.

“Tex, I reckon all I’ve got is on my hip,” replied Pan Handle, his glance meeting that of Texas Joe.

“Ahuh.... Wal, I’m darn glad yu’re travelin’ with us.”

“Oh, Dad, yu didn’t forget to say good-by to the boys for me, especially to Deuce, who’ll never come back to Texas?”

“No, Reddie, I didn’t forget,” replied Brite.

“I hope Ann can coax Deuce never again to be a trail driver,” concluded Reddie, happily, as she smiled up at Texas Joe. “I’d shore like to tell her how.”

THE END

To the Last Man

This western novel is a shorter version of Tonto Basin. Grey submitted the manuscript of Tonto Basin to the magazine The Country Gentleman, which published the novel in serialised form as To the Last Man from May 28, 1921 to July 30, 1921. This was a much shorter version of the original, leaving out much of the background parts of the story.

Based on a factual event involving the notorious Hashknife gang of Northern Arizona, the narrative follows an ancient feud between two frontier families, which is inflamed when one of the families takes up cattle rustling. The ranchers are led by Jean Isbel and, on the other side, Lee Jorth and his band of cattle rustlers. In the grip of a relentless code of loyalty to their own people, they fight the war of the Tonto Basin doggedly ‘to the last man’, neither side seeing the futility of the conflict until it is too late. In this volatile environment, young Jean finds himself hopelessly in love with a girl from whom he is separated by an impassable barrier.

The first edition

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

FOREWORD

IT WAS INEVITABLE that in my efforts to write romantic history of the great West I should at length come to the story of a feud. For long I have steered clear of this rock. But at last I have reached it and must go over it, driven by my desire to chronicle the stirring events of pioneer days.

Even to-day it is not possible to travel into the remote corners of the West without seeing the lives of people still affected by a fighting past. How can the truth be told about the pioneering of the West if the struggle, the fight, the blood be left out? It cannot be done. How can a novel be stirring and thrilling, as were those times, unless it be full of sensation? My long labors have been devoted to making stories resemble the times they depict. I have loved the West for its vastness, its contrast, its beauty and color and life, for its wildness and violence, and for the fact that I have seen how it developed great men and women who died unknown and unsung.

In this materialistic age, this hard, practical, swift, greedy age of realism, it seems there is no place for writers of romance, no place for romance itself. For many years all the events leading up to the great war were realistic, and the war itself was horribly realistic, and the aftermath is likewise. Romance is only another name for idealism; and I contend that life without ideals is not worth living. Never in the history of the world were ideals needed so terribly as now. Walter Scott wrote romance; so did Victor Hugo; and likewise Kipling, Hawthorne, Stevenson. It was Stevenson, particularly, who wielded a bludgeon against the realists. People live for the dream in their hearts. And I have yet to know anyone who has not some secret dream, some hope, however dim, some storied wall to look at in the dusk, some painted window leading to the soul. How strange indeed to find that the realists have ideals and dreams! To read them one would think their lives held nothing significant. But they love, they hope, they dream, they sacrifice, they struggle on with that dream in their hearts just the same as others. We all are dreamers, if not in the heavy-lidded wasting of time, then in the meaning of life that makes us work on.

It was Wordsworth who wrote, “The world is too much with us”; and if I could give the secret of my ambition as a novelist in a few words it would be contained in that quotation. My inspiration to write has always come from nature. Character and action are subordinated to setting. In all that I have done I have tried to make people see how the world is too much with them. Getting and spending they lay waste their powers, with never a breath of the free and wonderful life of the open!

So I come back to the main point of this foreword, in which I am trying to tell why and how I came to write the story of a feud notorious in Arizona as the Pleasant Valley War.

Some years ago Mr. Harry Adams, a cattleman of Vermajo Park, New Mexico, told me he had been in the Tonto Basin of Arizona and thought I might find interesting material there concerning this Pleasant Valley War. His version of the war between cattlemen and sheepmen certainly determined me to look over the ground. My old guide, Al Doyle of Flagstaff, had led me over half of Arizona, but never down into that wonderful wild and rugged basin between the Mogollon Mesa and the Mazatzal Mountains. Doyle had long lived on the frontier and his version of the Pleasant Valley War differed markedly from that of Mr. Adams. I asked other old timers about it, and their remarks further excited my curiosity.

Once down there, Doyle and I found the wildest, most rugged, roughest, and most remarkable country either of us had visited; and the few inhabitants were like the country. I went in ostensibly to hunt bear and lion and turkey, but what I really was hunting for was the story of that Pleasant Valley War. I engaged the services of a bear hunter who had three strapping sons as reserved and strange and aloof as he was. No wheel tracks of any kind had ever come within miles of their cabin. I spent two wonderful months hunting game and reveling in the beauty and grandeur of that Rim Rock country, but I came out knowing no more about the Pleasant Valley War. These Texans and their few neighbors, likewise from Texas, did not talk. But all I saw and felt only inspired me the more. This trip was in the fall of 1918.

The next year I went again with the best horses, outfit, and men the Doyles could provide. And this time I did not ask any questions. But I rode horses — some of them too wild for me — and packed a rifle many a hundred miles, riding sometimes thirty and forty miles a day, and I climbed in and out of the deep canyons, desperately staying at the heels of one of those long-legged Texans. I learned the life of those backwoodsmen, but I did not get the story of the Pleasant Valley War. I had, however, won the friendship of that hardy people.

In 1920 I went back with a still larger outfit, equipped to stay as long as I liked. And this time, without my asking it, different natives of the Tonto came to tell me about the Pleasant Valley War. No two of them agreed on anything concerning it, except that only one of the active participants survived the fighting. Whence comes my title, TO THE LAST MAN. Thus I was swamped in a mass of material out of which I could only flounder to my own conclusion. Some of the stories told me are singularly tempting to a novelist. But, though I believe them myself, I cannot risk their improbability to those who have no idea of the wildness of wild men at a wild time. There really was a terrible and bloody feud, perhaps the most deadly and least known in all the annals of the West. I saw the ground, the cabins, the graves, all so darkly suggestive of what must have happened.

I never learned the truth of the cause of the Pleasant Valley War, or if I did hear it I had no means of recognizing it. All the given causes were plausible and convincing. Strange to state, there is still secrecy and reticence all over the Tonto Basin as to the facts of this feud. Many descendents of those killed are living there now. But no one likes to talk about it. Assuredly many of the incidents told me really occurred, as, for example, the terrible one of the two women, in the face of relentless enemies, saving the bodies of their dead husbands from being devoured by wild hogs. Suffice it to say that this romance is true to my conception of the war, and I base it upon the setting I learned to know and love so well, upon the strange passions of primitive people, and upon my instinctive reaction to the facts and rumors that I gathered.

ZANE GREY.     AVALON, CALIFORNIA,

April, 1921

CHAPTER I

AT THE END of a dry, uphill ride over barren country Jean Isbel unpacked to camp at the edge of the cedars where a little rocky canyon green with willow and cottonwood, promised water and grass.

His animals were tired, especially the pack mule that had carried a heavy load; and with slow heave of relief they knelt and rolled in the dust. Jean experienced something of relief himself as he threw off his chaps. He had not been used to hot, dusty, glaring days on the barren lands. Stretching his long length beside a tiny rill of clear water that tinkled over the red stones, he drank thirstily. The water was cool, but it had an acrid taste — an alkali bite that he did not like. Not since he had left Oregon had he tasted clear, sweet, cold water; and he missed it just as he longed for the stately shady forests he had loved. This wild, endless Arizona land bade fair to earn his hatred.

By the time he had leisurely completed his tasks twilight had fallen and coyotes had begun their barking. Jean listened to the yelps and to the moan of the cool wind in the cedars with a sense of satisfaction that these lonely sounds were familiar. This cedar wood burned into a pretty fire and the smell of its smoke was newly pleasant.

“Reckon maybe I’ll learn to like Arizona,” he mused, half aloud. “But I’ve a hankerin’ for waterfalls an’ dark-green forests. Must be the Indian in me.... Anyway, dad needs me bad, an’ I reckon I’m here for keeps.”

Jean threw some cedar branches on the fire, in the light of which he opened his father’s letter, hoping by repeated reading to grasp more of its strange portent. It had been two months in reaching him, coming by traveler, by stage and train, and then by boat, and finally by stage again. Written in lead pencil on a leaf torn from an old ledger, it would have been hard to read even if the writing had been more legible.

“Dad’s writin’ was always bad, but I never saw it so shaky,” said Jean, thinking aloud.

GRASS VALLY, ARIZONA.

Son Jean, — Come home. Here is your home and here your needed. When we left Oregon we all reckoned you would not be long behind. But its years now. I am growing old, son, and you was always my steadiest boy. Not that you ever was so dam steady. Only your wildness seemed more for the woods. You take after mother, and your brothers Bill and Guy take after me. That is the red and white of it. Your part Indian, Jean, and that Indian I reckon I am going to need bad. I am rich in cattle and horses. And my range here is the best I ever seen. Lately we have been losing stock. But that is not all nor so bad. Sheepmen have moved into the Tonto and are grazing down on Grass Vally. Cattlemen and sheepmen can never bide in this country. We have bad times ahead. Reckon I have more reasons to worry and need you, but you must wait to hear that by word of mouth. Whatever your doing, chuck it and rustle for Grass Vally so to make here by spring. I am asking you to take pains to pack in some guns and a lot of shells. And hide them in your outfit. If you meet anyone when your coming down into the Tonto, listen more than you talk. And last, son, dont let anything keep you in Oregon. Reckon you have a sweetheart, and if so fetch her along. With love from your dad,

GASTON ISBEL.

Jean pondered over this letter. Judged by memory of his father, who had always been self-sufficient, it had been a surprise and somewhat of a shock. Weeks of travel and reflection had not helped him to grasp the meaning between the lines.

“Yes, dad’s growin’ old,” mused Jean, feeling a warmth and a sadness stir in him. “He must be ‘way over sixty. But he never looked old.... So he’s rich now an’ losin’ stock, an’ goin’ to be sheeped off his range. Dad could stand a lot of rustlin’, but not much from sheepmen.”

The softness that stirred in Jean merged into a cold, thoughtful earnestness which had followed every perusal of his father’s letter. A dark, full current seemed flowing in his veins, and at times he felt it swell and heat. It troubled him, making him conscious of a deeper, stronger self, opposed to his careless, free, and dreamy nature. No ties had bound him in Oregon, except love for the great, still forests and the thundering rivers; and this love came from his softer side. It had cost him a wrench to leave. And all the way by ship down the coast to San Diego and across the Sierra Madres by stage, and so on to this last overland travel by horseback, he had felt a retreating of the self that was tranquil and happy and a dominating of this unknown somber self, with its menacing possibilities. Yet despite a nameless regret and a loyalty to Oregon, when he lay in his blankets he had to confess a keen interest in his adventurous future, a keen enjoyment of this stark, wild Arizona. It appeared to be a different sky stretching in dark, star-spangled dome over him — closer, vaster, bluer. The strong fragrance of sage and cedar floated over him with the camp-fire smoke, and all seemed drowsily to subdue his thoughts.

At dawn he rolled out of his blankets and, pulling on his boots, began the day with a zest for the work that must bring closer his calling future. White, crackling frost and cold, nipping air were the same keen spurs to action that he had known in the uplands of Oregon, yet they were not wholly the same. He sensed an exhilaration similar to the effect of a strong, sweet wine. His horse and mule had fared well during the night, having been much refreshed by the grass and water of the little canyon. Jean mounted and rode into the cedars with gladness that at last he had put the endless leagues of barren land behind him.

The trail he followed appeared to be seldom traveled. It led, according to the meager information obtainable at the last settlement, directly to what was called the Rim, and from there Grass Valley could be seen down in the Basin. The ascent of the ground was so gradual that only in long, open stretches could it be seen. But the nature of the vegetation showed Jean how he was climbing. Scant, low, scraggy cedars gave place to more numerous, darker, greener, bushier ones, and these to high, full-foliaged, green-berried trees. Sage and grass in the open flats grew more luxuriously. Then came the pinyons, and presently among them the checker-barked junipers. Jean hailed the first pine tree with a hearty slap on the brown, rugged bark. It was a small dwarf pine struggling to live. The next one was larger, and after that came several, and beyond them pines stood up everywhere above the lower trees. Odor of pine needles mingled with the other dry smells that made the wind pleasant to Jean. In an hour from the first line of pines he had ridden beyond the cedars and pinyons into a slowly thickening and deepening forest. Underbrush appeared scarce except in ravines, and the ground in open patches held a bleached grass. Jean’s eye roved for sight of squirrels, birds, deer, or any moving creature. It appeared to be a dry, uninhabited forest. About midday Jean halted at a pond of surface water, evidently melted snow, and gave his animals a drink. He saw a few old deer tracks in the mud and several huge bird tracks new to him which he concluded must have been made by wild turkeys.

The trail divided at this pond. Jean had no idea which branch he ought to take. “Reckon it doesn’t matter,” he muttered, as he was about to remount. His horse was standing with ears up, looking back along the trail. Then Jean heard a clip-clop of trotting hoofs, and presently espied a horseman.

Jean made a pretense of tightening his saddle girths while he peered over his horse at the approaching rider. All men in this country were going to be of exceeding interest to Jean Isbel. This man at a distance rode and looked like all the Arizonians Jean had seen, he had a superb seat in the saddle, and he was long and lean. He wore a huge black sombrero and a soiled red scarf. His vest was open and he was without a coat.

The rider came trotting up and halted several paces from Jean

“Hullo, stranger!” he said, gruffly.

“Howdy yourself!” replied Jean. He felt an instinctive importance in the meeting with the man. Never had sharper eyes flashed over Jean and his outfit. He had a dust-colored, sun-burned face, long, lean, and hard, a huge sandy mustache that hid his mouth, and eyes of piercing light intensity. Not very much hard Western experience had passed by this man, yet he was not old, measured by years. When he dismounted Jean saw he was tall, even for an Arizonian.

“Seen your tracks back a ways,” he said, as he slipped the bit to let his horse drink. “Where bound?”

“Reckon I’m lost, all right,” replied Jean. “New country for me.”

“Shore. I seen thet from your tracks an’ your last camp. Wal, where was you headin’ for before you got lost?”

The query was deliberately cool, with a dry, crisp ring. Jean felt the lack of friendliness or kindliness in it.

“Grass Valley. My name’s Isbel,” he replied, shortly.

The rider attended to his drinking horse and presently rebridled him; then with long swing of leg he appeared to step into the saddle.

“Shore I knowed you was Jean Isbel,” he said. “Everybody in the Tonto has heerd old Gass Isbel sent fer his boy.”

“Well then, why did you ask?” inquired Jean, bluntly.

“Reckon I wanted to see what you’d say.”

“So? All right. But I’m not carin’ very much for what YOU say.”

Their glances locked steadily then and each measured the other by the intangible conflict of spirit.

“Shore thet’s natural,” replied the rider. His speech was slow, and the motions of his long, brown hands, as he took a cigarette from his vest, kept time with his words. “But seein’ you’re one of the Isbels, I’ll hev my say whether you want it or not. My name’s Colter an’ I’m one of the sheepmen Gass Isbel’s riled with.”

“Colter. Glad to meet you,” replied Jean. “An’ I reckon who riled my father is goin’ to rile me.”

“Shore. If thet wasn’t so you’d not be an Isbel,” returned Colter, with a grim little laugh. “It’s easy to see you ain’t run into any Tonto Basin fellers yet. Wal, I’m goin’ to tell you thet your old man gabbed like a woman down at Greaves’s store. Bragged aboot you an’ how you could fight an’ how you could shoot an’ how you could track a hoss or a man! Bragged how you’d chase every sheep herder back up on the Rim.... I’m tellin’ you because we want you to git our stand right. We’re goin’ to run sheep down in Grass Valley.”

“Ahuh! Well, who’s we?” queried Jean, curtly.

“What-at? ... We — I mean the sheepmen rangin’ this Rim from Black Butte to the Apache country.”

“Colter, I’m a stranger in Arizona,” said Jean, slowly. “I know little about ranchers or sheepmen. It’s true my father sent for me. It’s true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an’ blow. An’ he’s old now. I can’t help it if he bragged about me. But if he has, an’ if he’s justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I’m goin’ to do my best to live up to his brag.”

“I get your hunch. Shore we understand each other, an’ thet’s a powerful help. You take my hunch to your old man,” replied Colter, as he turned his horse away toward the left. “Thet trail leadin’ south is yours. When you come to the Rim you’ll see a bare spot down in the Basin. Thet ‘ll be Grass Valley.”

He rode away out of sight into the woods. Jean leaned against his horse and pondered. It seemed difficult to be just to this Colter, not because of his claims, but because of a subtle hostility that emanated from him. Colter had the hard face, the masked intent, the turn of speech that Jean had come to associate with dishonest men. Even if Jean had not been prejudiced, if he had known nothing of his father’s trouble with these sheepmen, and if Colter had met him only to exchange glances and greetings, still Jean would never have had a favorable impression. Colter grated upon him, roused an antagonism seldom felt.

“Heigho!” sighed the young man, “Good-by to huntin’ an’ fishing’! Dad’s given me a man’s job.”

With that he mounted his horse and started the pack mule into the right-hand trail. Walking and trotting, he traveled all afternoon, toward sunset getting into heavy forest of pine. More than one snow bank showed white through the green, sheltered on the north slopes of shady ravines. And it was upon entering this zone of richer, deeper forestland that Jean sloughed off his gloomy forebodings. These stately pines were not the giant firs of Oregon, but any lover of the woods could be happy under them. Higher still he climbed until the forest spread before and around him like a level park, with thicketed ravines here and there on each side. And presently that deceitful level led to a higher bench upon which the pines towered, and were matched by beautiful trees he took for spruce. Heavily barked, with regular spreading branches, these conifers rose in symmetrical shape to spear the sky with silver plumes. A graceful gray-green moss, waved like veils from the branches. The air was not so dry and it was colder, with a scent and touch of snow. Jean made camp at the first likely site, taking the precaution to unroll his bed some little distance from his fire. Under the softly moaning pines he felt comfortable, having lost the sense of an immeasurable open space falling away from all around him.

The gobbling of wild turkeys awakened Jean, “Chuga-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug-chug.” There was not a great difference between the gobble of a wild turkey and that of a tame one. Jean got up, and taking his rifle went out into the gray obscurity of dawn to try to locate the turkeys. But it was too dark, and finally when daylight came they appeared to be gone. The mule had strayed, and, what with finding it and cooking breakfast and packing, Jean did not make a very early start. On this last lap of his long journey he had slowed down. He was weary of hurrying; the change from weeks in the glaring sun and dust-laden wind to this sweet coot darkly green and brown forest was very welcome; he wanted to linger along the shaded trail. This day he made sure would see him reach the Rim. By and by he lost the trail. It had just worn out from lack of use. Every now and then Jean would cross an old trail, and as he penetrated deeper into the forest every damp or dusty spot showed tracks of turkey, deer, and bear. The amount of bear sign surprised him. Presently his keen nostrils were assailed by a smell of sheep, and soon he rode into a broad sheep, trail. From the tracks Jean calculated that the sheep had passed there the day before.

An unreasonable antipathy seemed born in him. To be sure he had been prepared to dislike sheep, and that was why he was unreasonable. But on the other hand this band of sheep had left a broad bare swath, weedless, grassless, flowerless, in their wake. Where sheep grazed they destroyed. That was what Jean had against them.

An hour later he rode to the crest of a long parklike slope, where new green grass was sprouting and flowers peeped everywhere. The pines appeared far apart; gnarled oak trees showed rugged and gray against the green wall of woods. A white strip of snow gleamed like a moving stream away down in the woods.

Jean heard the musical tinkle of bells and the baa-baa of sheep and the faint, sweet bleating of lambs. As he road toward these sounds a dog ran out from an oak thicket and barked at him. Next Jean smelled a camp fire and soon he caught sight of a curling blue column of smoke, and then a small peaked tent. Beyond the clump of oaks Jean encountered a Mexican lad carrying a carbine. The boy had a swarthy, pleasant face, and to Jean’s greeting he replied, “BUENAS DIAS.” Jean understood little Spanish, and about all he gathered by his simple queries was that the lad was not alone — and that it was “lambing time.”

This latter circumstance grew noisily manifest. The forest seemed shrilly full of incessant baas and plaintive bleats. All about the camp, on the slope, in the glades, and everywhere, were sheep. A few were grazing; many were lying down; most of them were ewes suckling white fleecy little lambs that staggered on their feet. Everywhere Jean saw tiny lambs just born. Their pin-pointed bleats pierced the heavier baa-baa of their mothers.

Jean dismounted and led his horse down toward the camp, where he rather expected to see another and older Mexican, from whom he might get information. The lad walked with him. Down this way the plaintive uproar made by the sheep was not so loud.

“Hello there!” called Jean, cheerfully, as he approached the tent. No answer was forthcoming. Dropping his bridle, he went on, rather slowly, looking for some one to appear. Then a voice from one side startled him.

“Mawnin’, stranger.”

A girl stepped out from beside a pine. She carried a rifle. Her face flashed richly brown, but she was not Mexican. This fact, and the sudden conviction that she had been watching him, somewhat disconcerted Jean.

“Beg pardon — miss,” he floundered. “Didn’t expect, to see a — girl.... I’m sort of lost — lookin’ for the Rim — an’ thought I’d find a sheep herder who’d show me. I can’t savvy this boy’s lingo.”

While he spoke it seemed to him an intentness of expression, a strain relaxed from her face. A faint suggestion of hostility likewise disappeared. Jean was not even sure that he had caught it, but there had been something that now was gone.

“Shore I’ll be glad to show y’u,” she said.

“Thanks, miss. Reckon I can breathe easy now,” he replied,

“It’s a long ride from San Diego. Hot an’ dusty! I’m pretty tired. An’ maybe this woods isn’t good medicine to achin’ eyes!”

“San Diego! Y’u’re from the coast?”

“Yes.”

Jean had doffed his sombrero at sight of her and he still held it, rather deferentially, perhaps. It seemed to attract her attention.

“Put on y’ur hat, stranger.... Shore I can’t recollect when any man bared his haid to me.” She uttered a little laugh in which surprise and frankness mingled with a tint of bitterness.

Jean sat down with his back to a pine, and, laying the sombrero by his side, he looked full at her, conscious of a singular eagerness, as if he wanted to verify by close scrutiny a first hasty impression. If there had been an instinct in his meeting with Colter, there was more in this. The girl half sat, half leaned against a log, with the shiny little carbine across her knees. She had a level, curious gaze upon him, and Jean had never met one just like it. Her eyes were rather a wide oval in shape, clear and steady, with shadows of thought in their amber-brown depths. They seemed to look through Jean, and his gaze dropped first. Then it was he saw her ragged homespun skirt and a few inches of brown, bare ankles, strong and round, and crude worn-out moccasins that failed to hide the shapeliness, of her feet. Suddenly she drew back her stockingless ankles and ill-shod little feet. When Jean lifted his gaze again he found her face half averted and a stain of red in the gold tan of her cheek. That touch of embarrassment somehow removed her from this strong, raw, wild woodland setting. It changed her poise. It detracted from the curious, unabashed, almost bold, look that he had encountered in her eyes.

“Reckon you’re from Texas,” said Jean, presently.

“Shore am,” she drawled. She had a lazy Southern voice, pleasant to hear. “How’d y’u-all guess that?”

“Anybody can tell a Texan. Where I came from there were a good many pioneers an’ ranchers from the old Lone Star state. I’ve worked for several. An’, come to think of it, I’d rather hear a Texas girl talk than anybody.”

“Did y’u know many Texas girls?” she inquired, turning again to face him.

“Reckon I did — quite a good many.”

“Did y’u go with them?”

“Go with them? Reckon you mean keep company. Why, yes, I guess I did — a little,” laughed Jean. “Sometimes on a Sunday or a dance once in a blue moon, an’ occasionally a ride.”

“Shore that accounts,” said the girl, wistfully.

“For what?” asked Jean.

“Y’ur bein’ a gentleman,” she replied, with force. “Oh, I’ve not forgotten. I had friends when we lived in Texas.... Three years ago. Shore it seems longer. Three miserable years in this damned country!”

Then she bit her lip, evidently to keep back further unwitting utterance to a total stranger. And it was that biting of her lip that drew Jean’s attention to her mouth. It held beauty of curve and fullness and color that could not hide a certain sadness and bitterness. Then the whole flashing brown face changed for Jean. He saw that it was young, full of passion and restraint, possessing a power which grew on him. This, with her shame and pathos and the fact that she craved respect, gave a leap to Jean’s interest.

“Well, I reckon you flatter me,” he said, hoping to put her at her ease again. “I’m only a rough hunter an’ fisherman-woodchopper an’ horse tracker. Never had all the school I needed — nor near enough company of nice girls like you.”

“Am I nice?” she asked, quickly.

“You sure are,” he replied, smiling.

“In these rags,” she demanded, with a sudden flash of passion that thrilled him. “Look at the holes.” She showed rips and worn-out places in the sleeves of her buckskin blouse, through which gleamed a round, brown arm. “I sew when I have anythin’ to sew with.... Look at my skirt — a dirty rag. An’ I have only one other to my name.... Look!” Again a color tinged her cheeks, most becoming, and giving the lie to her action. But shame could not check her violence now. A dammed-up resentment seemed to have broken out in flood. She lifted the ragged skirt almost to her knees. “No stockings! No Shoes! ... How can a girl be nice when she has no clean, decent woman’s clothes to wear?”

“How — how can a girl...” began Jean. “See here, miss, I’m beggin’ your pardon for — sort of stirrin’ you to forget yourself a little. Reckon I understand. You don’t meet many strangers an’ I sort of hit you wrong — makin’ you feel too much — an’ talk too much. Who an’ what you are is none of my business. But we met.... An’ I reckon somethin’ has happened — perhaps more to me than to you.... Now let me put you straight about clothes an’ women. Reckon I know most women love nice things to wear an’ think because clothes make them look pretty that they’re nicer or better. But they’re wrong. You’re wrong. Maybe it ‘d be too much for a girl like you to be happy without clothes. But you can be — you axe just as nice, an’ — an’ fine — an’, for all you know, a good deal more appealin’ to some men.”

“Stranger, y’u shore must excuse my temper an’ the show I made of myself,” replied the girl, with composure. “That, to say the least, was not nice. An’ I don’t want anyone thinkin’ better of me than I deserve. My mother died in Texas, an’ I’ve lived out heah in this wild country — a girl alone among rough men. Meetin’ y’u to-day makes me see what a hard lot they are — an’ what it’s done to me.”

Jean smothered his curiosity and tried to put out of his mind a growing sense that he pitied her, liked her.

“Are you a sheep herder?” he asked.

“Shore I am now an’ then. My father lives back heah in a canyon. He’s a sheepman. Lately there’s been herders shot at. Just now we’re short an’ I have to fill in. But I like shepherdin’ an’ I love the woods, and the Rim Rock an’ all the Tonto. If they were all, I’d shore be happy.”

“Herders shot at!” exclaimed Jean, thoughtfully. “By whom? An’ what for?”

“Trouble brewin’ between the cattlemen down in the Basin an’ the sheepmen up on the Rim. Dad says there’ll shore be hell to pay. I tell him I hope the cattlemen chase him back to Texas.”

“Then — Are you on the ranchers’ side?” queried Jean, trying to pretend casual interest.

“No. I’ll always be on my father’s side,” she replied, with spirit. “But I’m bound to admit I think the cattlemen have the fair side of the argument.”

“How so?”

“Because there’s grass everywhere. I see no sense in a sheepman goin’ out of his way to surround a cattleman an’ sheep off his range. That started the row. Lord knows how it’ll end. For most all of them heah are from Texas.”

“So I was told,” replied Jean. “An’ I heard’ most all these Texans got run out of Texas. Any truth in that?”

“Shore I reckon there is,” she replied, seriously. “But, stranger, it might not be healthy for y’u to, say that anywhere. My dad, for one, was not run out of Texas. Shore I never can see why he came heah. He’s accumulated stock, but he’s not rich nor so well off as he was back home.”

“Are you goin’ to stay here always?” queried Jean, suddenly.

“If I do so it ‘ll be in my grave,” she answered, darkly. “But what’s the use of thinkin’? People stay places until they drift away. Y’u can never tell.... Well, stranger, this talk is keepin’ y’u.”

She seemed moody now, and a note of detachment crept into her voice. Jean rose at once and went for his horse. If this girl did not desire to talk further he certainly had no wish to annoy her. His mule had strayed off among the bleating sheep. Jean drove it back and then led his horse up to where the girl stood. She appeared taller and, though not of robust build, she was vigorous and lithe, with something about her that fitted the place. Jean was loath to bid her good-by.

“Which way is the Rim?” he asked, turning to his saddle girths.

“South,” she replied, pointing. “It’s only a mile or so. I’ll walk down with y’u.... Suppose y’u’re on the way to Grass Valley?”

“Yes; I’ve relatives there,” he returned. He dreaded her next question, which he suspected would concern his name. But she did not ask. Taking up her rifle she turned away. Jean strode ahead to her side. “Reckon if you walk I won’t ride.”

So he found himself beside a girl with the free step of a Mountaineer. Her bare, brown head came up nearly to his shoulder. It was a small, pretty head, graceful, well held, and the thick hair on it was a shiny, soft brown. She wore it in a braid, rather untidily and tangled, he thought, and it was tied with a string of buckskin. Altogether her apparel proclaimed poverty.

Jean let the conversation languish for a little. He wanted to think what to say presently, and then he felt a rather vague pleasure in stalking beside her. Her profile was straight cut and exquisite in line. From this side view the soft curve of lips could not be seen.

She made several attempts to start conversation, all of which Jean ignored, manifestly to her growing constraint. Presently Jean, having decided what he wanted to say, suddenly began: “I like this adventure. Do you?”

“Adventure! Meetin’ me in the woods?” And she laughed the laugh of youth. “Shore you must be hard up for adventure, stranger.”

“Do you like it?” he persisted, and his eyes searched the half-averted face.

“I might like it,” she answered, frankly, “if — if my temper had not made a fool of me. I never meet anyone I care to talk to. Why should it not be pleasant to run across some one new — some one strange in this heah wild country?”

“We are as we are,” said Jean, simply. “I didn’t think you made a fool of yourself. If I thought so, would I want to see you again?”

“Do y’u?” The brown face flashed on him with surprise, with a light he took for gladness. And because he wanted to appear calm and friendly, not too eager, he had to deny himself the thrill of meeting those changing eyes.

“Sure I do. Reckon I’m overbold on such short acquaintance. But I might not have another chance to tell you, so please don’t hold it against me.”

This declaration over, Jean felt relief and something of exultation. He had been afraid he might not have the courage to make it. She walked on as before, only with her head bowed a little and her eyes downcast. No color but the gold-brown tan and the blue tracery of veins showed in her cheeks. He noticed then a slight swelling quiver of her throat; and he became alive to its graceful contour, and to how full and pulsating it was, how nobly it set into the curve of her shoulder. Here in her quivering throat was the weakness of her, the evidence of her sex, the womanliness that belied the mountaineer stride and the grasp of strong brown hands on a rifle. It had an effect on Jean totally inexplicable to him, both in the strange warmth that stole over him and in the utterance he could not hold back.

“Girl, we’re strangers, but what of that? We’ve met, an’ I tell you it means somethin’ to me. I’ve known girls for months an’ never felt this way. I don’t know who you are an’ I don’t care. You betrayed a good deal to me. You’re not happy. You’re lonely. An’ if I didn’t want to see you again for my own sake I would for yours. Some things you said I’ll not forget soon. I’ve got a sister, an’ I know you have no brother. An’ I reckon ...”

At this juncture Jean in his earnestness and quite without thought grasped her hand. The contact checked the flow of his speech and suddenly made him aghast at his temerity. But the girl did not make any effort to withdraw it. So Jean, inhaling a deep breath and trying to see through his bewilderment, held on bravely. He imagined he felt a faint, warm, returning pressure. She was young, she was friendless, she was human. By this hand in his Jean felt more than ever the loneliness of her. Then, just as he was about to speak again, she pulled her hand free.

“Heah’s the Rim,” she said, in her quaint Southern drawl. “An’ there’s Y’ur Tonto Basin.”

Jean had been intent only upon the girl. He had kept step beside her without taking note of what was ahead of him. At her words he looked up expectantly, to be struck mute.

He felt a sheer force, a downward drawing of an immense abyss beneath him. As he looked afar he saw a black basin of timbered country, the darkest and wildest he had ever gazed upon, a hundred miles of blue distance across to an unflung mountain range, hazy purple against the sky. It seemed to be a stupendous gulf surrounded on three sides by bold, undulating lines of peaks, and on his side by a wall so high that he felt lifted aloft on the run of the sky.

“Southeast y’u see the Sierra Anchas,” said the girl pointing. “That notch in the range is the pass where sheep are driven to Phoenix an’ Maricopa. Those big rough mountains to the south are the Mazatzals. Round to the west is the Four Peaks Range. An’ y’u’re standin’ on the Rim.”

Jean could not see at first just what the Rim was, but by shifting his gaze westward he grasped this remarkable phenomenon of nature. For leagues and leagues a colossal red and yellow wall, a rampart, a mountain-faced cliff, seemed to zigzag westward. Grand and bold were the promontories reaching out over the void. They ran toward the westering sun. Sweeping and impressive were the long lines slanting away from them, sloping darkly spotted down to merge into the black timber. Jean had never seen such a wild and rugged manifestation of nature’s depths and upheavals. He was held mute.

“Stranger, look down,” said the girl.

Jean’s sight was educated to judge heights and depths and distances. This wall upon which he stood sheered precipitously down, so far that it made him dizzy to look, and then the craggy broken cliffs merged into red-slided, cedar-greened slopes running down and down into gorges choked with forests, and from which soared up a roar of rushing waters. Slope after slope, ridge beyond ridge, canyon merging into canyon — so the tremendous bowl sunk away to its black, deceiving depths, a wilderness across which travel seemed impossible.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Jean.

“Indeed it is!” murmured the girl. “Shore that is Arizona. I reckon I love THIS. The heights an’ depths — the awfulness of its wilderness!”

“An’ you want to leave it?”

“Yes an’ no. I don’t deny the peace that comes to me heah. But not often do I see the Basin, an’ for that matter, one doesn’t live on grand scenery.”

“Child, even once in a while — this sight would cure any misery, if you only see. I’m glad I came. I’m glad you showed it to me first.”

She too seemed under the spell of a vastness and loneliness and beauty and grandeur that could not but strike the heart.

Jean took her hand again. “Girl, say you will meet me here,” he said, his voice ringing deep in his ears.

“Shore I will,” she replied, softly, and turned to him. It seemed then that Jean saw her face for the first time. She was beautiful as he had never known beauty. Limned against that scene, she gave it life — wild, sweet, young life — the poignant meaning of which haunted yet eluded him. But she belonged there. Her eyes were again searching his, as if for some lost part of herself, unrealized, never known before. Wondering, wistful, hopeful, glad — they were eyes that seemed surprised, to reveal part of her soul.

Then her red lips parted. Their tremulous movement was a magnet to Jean. An invisible and mighty force pulled him down to kiss them. Whatever the spell had been, that rude, unconscious action broke it.

He jerked away, as if he expected to be struck. “Girl — I — I” — he gasped in amaze and sudden-dawning contrition— “I kissed you — but I swear it wasn’t intentional — I never thought....”

The anger that Jean anticipated failed to materialize. He stood, breathing hard, with a hand held out in unconscious appeal. By the same magic, perhaps, that had transfigured her a moment past, she was now invested again by the older character.

“Shore I reckon my callin’ y’u a gentleman was a little previous,” she said, with a rather dry bitterness. “But, stranger, yu’re sudden.”

“You’re not insulted?” asked Jean, hurriedly.

“Oh, I’ve been kissed before. Shore men are all alike.”

“They’re not,” he replied, hotly, with a subtle rush of disillusion, a dulling of enchantment. “Don’t you class me with other men who’ve kissed you. I wasn’t myself when I did it an’ I’d have gone on my knees to ask your forgiveness.... But now I wouldn’t — an’ I wouldn’t kiss you again, either — even if you — you wanted it.”

Jean read in her strange gaze what seemed to him a vague doubt, as if she was questioning him.

“Miss, I take that back,” added Jean, shortly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. It was a mean trick for me to kiss you. A girl alone in the woods who’s gone out of her way to be kind to me! I don’t know why I forgot my manners. An’ I ask your pardon.”

She looked away then, and presently pointed far out and down into the Basin.

“There’s Grass Valley. That long gray spot in the black. It’s about fifteen miles. Ride along the Rim that way till y’u cross a trail. Shore y’u can’t miss it. Then go down.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” replied Jean, reluctantly accepting what he regarded as his dismissal. Turning his horse, he put his foot in the stirrup, then, hesitating, he looked across the saddle at the girl. Her abstraction, as she gazed away over the purple depths suggested loneliness and wistfulness. She was not thinking of that scene spread so wondrously before her. It struck Jean she might be pondering a subtle change in his feeling and attitude, something he was conscious of, yet could not define.

“Reckon this is good-by,” he said, with hesitation.

“ADIOS, SENOR,” she replied, facing him again. She lifted the little carbine to the hollow of her elbow and, half turning, appeared ready to depart.

“Adios means good-by?” he queried.

“Yes, good-by till to-morrow or good-by forever. Take it as y’u like.”

“Then you’ll meet me here day after to-morrow?” How eagerly he spoke, on impulse, without a consideration of the intangible thing that had changed him!

“Did I say I wouldn’t?”

“No. But I reckoned you’d not care to after—” he replied, breaking off in some confusion.

“Shore I’ll be glad to meet y’u. Day after to-morrow about mid-afternoon. Right heah. Fetch all the news from Grass Valley.”

“All right. Thanks. That’ll be — fine,” replied Jean, and as he spoke he experienced a buoyant thrill, a pleasant lightness of enthusiasm, such as always stirred boyishly in him at a prospect of adventure. Before it passed he wondered at it and felt unsure of himself. He needed to think.

“Stranger shore I’m not recollectin’ that y’u told me who y’u are,” she said.

“No, reckon I didn’t tell,” he returned. “What difference does that make? I said I didn’t care who or what you are. Can’t you feel the same about me?”

“Shore — I felt that way,” she replied, somewhat non-plussed, with the level brown gaze steadily on his face. “But now y’u make me think.”

“Let’s meet without knowin’ any more about each other than we do now.”

“Shore. I’d like that. In this big wild Arizona a girl — an’ I reckon a man — feels so insignificant. What’s a name, anyhow? Still, people an’ things have to be distinguished. I’ll call y’u ‘Stranger’ an’ be satisfied — if y’u say it’s fair for y’u not to tell who y’u are.”

“Fair! No, it’s not,” declared Jean, forced to confession. “My name’s Jean — Jean Isbel.”

“ISBEL!” she exclaimed, with a violent start. “Shore y’u can’t be son of old Gass Isbel.... I’ve seen both his sons.”

“He has three,” replied Jean, with relief, now the secret was out. “I’m the youngest. I’m twenty-four. Never been out of Oregon till now. On my way—”

The brown color slowly faded out of her face, leaving her quite pale, with eyes that began to blaze. The suppleness of her seemed to stiffen.

“My name’s Ellen Jorth,” she burst out, passionately. “Does it mean anythin’ to y’u?”

“Never heard it in my life,” protested Jean. “Sure I reckoned you belonged to the sheep raisers who ‘re on the outs with my father. That’s why I had to tell you I’m Jean Isbel.... Ellen Jorth. It’s strange an’ pretty.... Reckon I can be just as good a — a friend to you—”

“No Isbel, can ever be a friend to me,” she said, with bitter coldness. Stripped of her ease and her soft wistfulness, she stood before him one instant, entirely another girl, a hostile enemy. Then she wheeled and strode off into the woods.

Jean, in amaze, in consternation, watched her swiftly draw away with her lithe, free step, wanting to follow her, wanting to call to her; but the resentment roused by her suddenly avowed hostility held him mute in his tracks. He watched her disappear, and when the brown-and-green wall of forest swallowed the slender gray form he fought against the insistent desire to follow her, and fought in vain.

CHAPTER II

BUT ELLEN JORTH’S moccasined feet did not leave a distinguishable trail on the springy pine needle covering of the ground, and Jean could not find any trace of her.

A little futile searching to and fro cooled his impulse and called pride to his rescue. Returning to his horse, he mounted, rode out behind the pack mule to start it along, and soon felt the relief of decision and action. Clumps of small pines grew thickly in spots on the Rim, making it necessary for him to skirt them; at which times he lost sight of the purple basin. Every time he came back to an opening through which he could see the wild ruggedness and colors and distances, his appreciation of their nature grew on him. Arizona from Yuma to the Little Colorado had been to him an endless waste of wind-scoured, sun-blasted barrenness. This black-forested rock-rimmed land of untrodden ways was a world that in itself would satisfy him. Some instinct in Jean called for a lonely, wild land, into the fastnesses of which he could roam at will and be the other strange self that he had always yearned to be but had never been.

Every few moments there intruded into his flowing consciousness the flashing face of Ellen Jorth, the way she had looked at him, the things she had said. “Reckon I was a fool,” he soliloquized, with an acute sense of humiliation. “She never saw how much in earnest I was.” And Jean began to remember the circumstances with a vividness that disturbed and perplexed him.

The accident of running across such a girl in that lonely place might be out of the ordinary — but it had happened. Surprise had made him dull. The charm of her appearance, the appeal of her manner, must have drawn him at the very first, but he had not recognized that. Only at her words, “Oh, I’ve been kissed before,” had his feelings been checked in their heedless progress. And the utterance of them had made a difference he now sought to analyze. Some personality in him, some voice, some idea had begun to defend her even before he was conscious that he had arraigned her before the bar of his judgment. Such defense seemed clamoring in him now and he forced himself to listen. He wanted, in his hurt pride, to justify his amazing surrender to a sweet and sentimental impulse.

He realized now that at first glance he should have recognized in her look, her poise, her voice the quality he called thoroughbred. Ragged and stained apparel did not prove her of a common sort. Jean had known a number of fine and wholesome girls of good family; and he remembered his sister. This Ellen Jorth was that kind of a girl irrespective of her present environment. Jean championed her loyally, even after he had gratified his selfish pride.

It was then — contending with an intangible and stealing glamour, unreal and fanciful, like the dream of a forbidden enchantment — that Jean arrived at the part in the little woodland drama where he had kissed Ellen Jorth and had been unrebuked. Why had she not resented his action? Dispelled was the illusion he had been dreamily and nobly constructing. “Oh, I’ve been kissed before!” The shock to him now exceeded his first dismay. Half bitterly she had spoken, and wholly scornful of herself, or of him, or of all men. For she had said all men were alike. Jean chafed under the smart of that, a taunt every decent man hated. Naturally every happy and healthy young man would want to kiss such red, sweet lips. But if those lips had been for others — never for him! Jean reflected that not since childish games had he kissed a girl — until this brown-faced Ellen Jorth came his way. He wondered at it. Moreover, he wondered at the significance he placed upon it. After all, was it not merely an accident? Why should he remember? Why should he ponder? What was the faint, deep, growing thrill that accompanied some of his thoughts?

Riding along with busy mind, Jean almost crossed a well-beaten trail, leading through a pine thicket and down over the Rim. Jean’s pack mule led the way without being driven. And when Jean reached the edge of the bluff one look down was enough to fetch him off his horse. That trail was steep, narrow, clogged with stones, and as full of sharp corners as a crosscut saw. Once on the descent with a packed mule and a spirited horse, Jean had no time for mind wanderings and very little for occasional glimpses out over the cedar tops to the vast blue hollow asleep under a westering sun.

The stones rattled, the dust rose, the cedar twigs snapped, the little avalanches of red earth slid down, the iron-shod hoofs rang on the rocks. This slope had been narrow at the apex in the Rim where the trail led down a crack, and it widened in fan shape as Jean descended. He zigzagged down a thousand feet before the slope benched into dividing ridges. Here the cedars and junipers failed and pines once more hid the sun. Deep ravines were black with brush. From somewhere rose a roar of running water, most pleasant to Jean’s ears. Fresh deer and bear tracks covered old ones made in the trail.

Those timbered ridges were but billows of that tremendous slope that now sheered above Jean, ending in a magnificent yellow wall of rock, greened in niches, stained by weather rust, carved and cracked and caverned. As Jean descended farther the hum of bees made melody, the roar of rapid water and the murmur of a rising breeze filled him with the content of the wild. Sheepmen like Colter and wild girls like Ellen Jorth and all that seemed promising or menacing in his father’s letter could never change the Indian in Jean. So he thought. Hard upon that conclusion rushed another — one which troubled with its stinging revelation. Surely these influences he had defied were just the ones to bring out in him the Indian he had sensed but had never known. The eventful day had brought new and bitter food for Jean to reflect upon.

The trail landed him in the bowlder-strewn bed of a wide canyon, where the huge trees stretched a canopy of foliage which denied the sunlight, and where a beautiful brook rushed and foamed. Here at last Jean tasted water that rivaled his Oregon springs. “Ah,” he cried, “that sure is good!” Dark and shaded and ferny and mossy was this streamway; and everywhere were tracks of game, from the giant spread of a grizzly bear to the tiny, birdlike imprints of a squirrel. Jean heard familiar sounds of deer crackling the dead twigs; and the chatter of squirrels was incessant. This fragrant, cool retreat under the Rim brought back to him the dim recesses of Oregon forests. After all, Jean felt that he would not miss anything that he had loved in the Cascades. But what was the vague sense of all not being well with him — the essence of a faint regret — the insistence of a hovering shadow? And then flashed again, etched more vividly by the repetition in memory, a picture of eyes, of lips — of something he had to forget.

Wild and broken as this rolling Basin floor had appeared from the Rim, the reality of traveling over it made that first impression a deceit of distance. Down here all was on a big, rough, broken scale. Jean did not find even a few rods of level ground. Bowlders as huge as houses obstructed the stream bed; spruce trees eight feet thick tried to lord it over the brawny pines; the ravine was a veritable canyon from which occasional glimpses through the foliage showed the Rim as a lofty red-tipped mountain peak.

Jean’s pack mule became frightened at scent of a bear or lion and ran off down the rough trail, imperiling Jean’s outfit. It was not an easy task to head him off nor, when that was accomplished, to keep him to a trot. But his fright and succeeding skittishness at least made for fast traveling. Jean calculated that he covered ten miles under the Rim before the character of ground and forest began to change.

The trail had turned southeast. Instead of gorge after gorge, red-walled and choked with forest, there began to be rolling ridges, some high; others were knolls; and a thick cedar growth made up for a falling off of pine. The spruce had long disappeared. Juniper thickets gave way more and more to the beautiful manzanita; and soon on the south slopes appeared cactus and a scrubby live oak. But for the well-broken trail, Jean would have fared ill through this tough brush.

Jean espied several deer, and again a coyote, and what he took to be a small herd of wild horses. No more turkey tracks showed in the dusty patches. He crossed a number of tiny brooklets, and at length came to a place where the trail ended or merged in a rough road that showed evidence of considerable travel. Horses, sheep, and cattle had passed along there that day. This road turned southward, and Jean began to have pleasurable expectations.

The road, like the trail, led down grade, but no longer at such steep angles, and was bordered by cedar and pinyon, jack-pine and juniper, mescal and manzanita. Quite sharply, going around a ridge, the road led Jean’s eye down to a small open flat of marshy, or at least grassy, ground. This green oasis in the wilderness of red and timbered ridges marked another change in the character of the Basin. Beyond that the country began to spread out and roll gracefully, its dark-green forest interspersed with grassy parks, until Jean headed into a long, wide gray-green valley surrounded by black-fringed hills. His pulses quickened here. He saw cattle dotting the expanse, and here and there along the edge log cabins and corrals.

As a village, Grass Valley could not boast of much, apparently, in the way of population. Cabins and houses were widely scattered, as if the inhabitants did not care to encroach upon one another. But the one store, built of stone, and stamped also with the characteristic isolation, seemed to Jean to be a rather remarkable edifice. Not exactly like a fort did it strike him, but if it had not been designed for defense it certainly gave that impression, especially from the long, low side with its dark eye-like windows about the height of a man’s shoulder. Some rather fine horses were tied to a hitching rail. Otherwise dust and dirt and age and long use stamped this Grass Valley store and its immediate environment.

Jean threw his bridle, and, getting down, mounted the low porch and stepped into the wide open door. A face, gray against the background of gloom inside, passed out of sight just as Jean entered. He knew he had been seen. In front of the long, rather low-ceiled store were four men, all absorbed, apparently, in a game of checkers. Two were playing and two were looking on. One of these, a gaunt-faced man past middle age, casually looked up as Jean entered. But the moment of that casual glance afforded Jean time enough to meet eyes he instinctively distrusted. They masked their penetration. They seemed neither curious nor friendly. They saw him as if he had been merely thin air.

“Good evenin’,” said Jean.

After what appeared to Jean a lapse of time sufficient to impress him with a possible deafness of these men, the gaunt-faced one said, “Howdy, Isbel!”

The tone was impersonal, dry, easy, cool, laconic, and yet it could not have been more pregnant with meaning. Jean’s sharp sensibilities absorbed much. None of the slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached Texans — for so Jean at once classed them — had ever seen Jean, but they knew him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley. All but the one who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the wide-brimmed black hats. Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted, they gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he had encountered in Colter.

“Will somebody please tell me where to find my father, Gaston Isbel?” inquired Jean, with as civil a tongue as he could command.

Nobody paid the slightest attention. It was the same as if Jean had not spoken. Waiting, half amused, half irritated, Jean shot a rapid glance around the store. The place had felt bare; and Jean, peering back through gloomy space, saw that it did not contain much. Dry goods and sacks littered a long rude counter; long rough shelves divided their length into stacks of canned foods and empty sections; a low shelf back of the counter held a generous burden of cartridge boxes, and next to it stood a rack of rifles. On the counter lay open cases of plug tobacco, the odor of which was second in strength only to that of rum.

Jean’s swift-roving eye reverted to the men, three of whom were absorbed in the greasy checkerboard. The fourth man was the one who had spoken and he now deigned to look at Jean. Not much flesh was there stretched over his bony, powerful physiognomy. He stroked a lean chin with a big mobile hand that suggested more of bridle holding than familiarity with a bucksaw and plow handle. It was a lazy hand. The man looked lazy. If he spoke at all it would be with lazy speech, yet Jean had not encountered many men to whom he would have accorded more potency to stir in him the instinct of self-preservation.

“Shore,” drawled this gaunt-faced Texan, “old Gass lives aboot a mile down heah.” With slow sweep of the big hand he indicated a general direction to the south; then, appearing to forget his questioner, he turned his attention to the game.

Jean muttered his thanks and, striding out, he mounted again, and drove the pack mule down the road. “Reckon I’ve ran into the wrong folds to-day,” he said. “If I remember dad right he was a man to make an’ keep friends. Somehow I’ll bet there’s goin’ to be hell.” Beyond the store were some rather pretty and comfortable homes, little ranch houses back in the coves of the hills. The road turned west and Jean saw his first sunset in the Tonto Basin. It was a pageant of purple clouds with silver edges, and background of deep rich gold. Presently Jean met a lad driving a cow. “Hello, Johnny!” he said, genially, and with a double purpose. “My name’s Jean Isbel. By Golly! I’m lost in Grass Valley. Will you tell me where my dad lives?”

“Yep. Keep right on, an’ y’u cain’t miss him,” replied the lad, with a bright smile. “He’s lookin’ fer y’u.”

“How do you know, boy?” queried Jean, warmed by that smile.

“Aw, I know. It’s all over the valley thet y’u’d ride in ter-day. Shore I wus the one thet tole yer dad an’ he give me a dollar.”

“Was he glad to hear it?” asked Jean, with a queer sensation in his throat.

“Wal, he plumb was.”

“An’ who told you I was goin’ to ride in to-day?”

“I heerd it at the store,” replied the lad, with an air of confidence. “Some sheepmen was talkin’ to Greaves. He’s the storekeeper. I was settin’ outside, but I heerd. A Mexican come down off the Rim ter-day an’ he fetched the news.” Here the lad looked furtively around, then whispered. “An’ thet greaser was sent by somebody. I never heerd no more, but them sheepmen looked pretty plumb sour. An’ one of them, comin’ out, give me a kick, darn him. It shore is the luckedest day fer us cowmen.”

“How’s that, Johnny?”

“Wal, that’s shore a big fight comin’ to Grass Valley. My dad says so an’ he rides fer yer dad. An’ if it comes now y’u’ll be heah.”

“Ahuh!” laughed Jean. “An’ what then, boy?”

The lad turned bright eyes upward. “Aw, now, yu’all cain’t come thet on me. Ain’t y’u an Injun, Jean Isbel? Ain’t y’u a hoss tracker thet rustlers cain’t fool? Ain’t y’u a plumb dead shot? Ain’t y’u wuss’ern a grizzly bear in a rough-an’-tumble? ... Now ain’t y’u, shore?”

Jean bade the flattering lad a rather sober good day and rode on his way. Manifestly a reputation somewhat difficult to live up to had preceded his entry into Grass Valley.

Jean’s first sight of his future home thrilled him through. It was a big, low, rambling log structure standing well out from a wooded knoll at the edge of the valley. Corrals and barns and sheds lay off at the back. To the fore stretched broad pastures where numberless cattle and horses grazed. At sunset the scene was one of rich color. Prosperity and abundance and peace seemed attendant upon that ranch; lusty voices of burros braying and cows bawling seemed welcoming Jean. A hound bayed. The first cool touch of wind fanned Jean’s cheek and brought a fragrance of wood smoke and frying ham.

Horses in the Pasture romped to the fence and whistled at these newcomers. Jean espied a white-faced black horse that gladdened his sight. “Hello, Whiteface! I’ll sure straddle you,” called Jean. Then up the gentle slope he saw the tall figure of his father — the same as he had seen him thousands of times, bareheaded, shirt sleeved, striding with long step. Jean waved and called to him.

“Hi, You Prodigal!” came the answer. Yes, the voice of his father — and Jean’s boyhood memories flashed. He hurried his horse those last few rods. No — dad was not the same. His hair shone gray.

“Here I am, dad,” called Jean, and then he was dismounting. A deep, quiet emotion settled over him, stilling the hurry, the eagerness, the pang in his breast.

“Son, I shore am glad to see you,” said his father, and wrung his hand. “Wal, wal, the size of you! Shore you’ve grown, any how you favor your mother.”

Jean felt in the iron clasp of hand, in the uplifting of the handsome head, in the strong, fine light of piercing eyes that there was no difference in the spirit of his father. But the old smile could not hide lines and shades strange to Jean.

“Dad, I’m as glad as you,” replied Jean, heartily. “It seems long we’ve been parted, now I see you. Are You well, dad, an’ all right?”

“Not complainin’, son. I can ride all day same as ever,” he said. “Come. Never mind your hosses. They’ll be looked after. Come meet the folks.... Wal, wal, you got heah at last.”

On the porch of the house a group awaited Jean’s coming, rather silently, he thought. Wide-eyed children were there, very shy and watchful. The dark face of his sister corresponded with the image of her in his memory. She appeared taller, more womanly, as she embraced him. “Oh, Jean, Jean, I’m glad you’ve come!” she cried, and pressed him close. Jean felt in her a woman’s anxiety for the present as well as affection for the past. He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill’s wife, Kate, was a stout, comely little woman, mother of three of the children. The other wife was young, a strapping girl, red headed and freckled, with wonderful lines of pain and strength in her face. Jean remembered, as he looked at her, that some one had written him about the tragedy in her life. When she was only a child the Apaches had murdered all her family. Then next to greet Jean were the little children, all shy, yet all manifestly impressed by the occasion. A warmth and intimacy of forgotten home emotions flooded over Jean. Sweet it was to get home to these relatives who loved him and welcomed him with quiet gladness. But there seemed more. Jean was quick to see the shadow in the eyes of the women in that household and to sense a strange reliance which his presence brought.

“Son, this heah Tonto is a land of milk an’ honey,” said his father, as Jean gazed spellbound at the bounteous supper.

Jean certainly performed gastronomic feats on this occasion, to the delight of Aunt Mary and the wonder of the children. “Oh, he’s starv-ved to death,” whispered one of the little boys to his sister. They had begun to warm to this stranger uncle. Jean had no chance to talk, even had he been able to, for the meal-time showed a relaxation of restraint and they all tried to tell him things at once. In the bright lamplight his father looked easier and happier as he beamed upon Jean.

After supper the men went into an adjoining room that appeared most comfortable and attractive. It was long, and the width of the house, with a huge stone fireplace, low ceiling of hewn timbers and walls of the same, small windows with inside shutters of wood, and home-made table and chairs and rugs.

“Wal, Jean, do you recollect them shootin’-irons?” inquired the rancher, pointing above the fireplace. Two guns hung on the spreading deer antlers there. One was a musket Jean’s father had used in the war of the rebellion and the other was a long, heavy, muzzle-loading flintlock Kentucky, rifle with which Jean had learned to shoot.

“Reckon I do, dad,” replied Jean, and with reverent hands and a rush of memory he took the old gun down.

“Jean, you shore handle thet old arm some clumsy,” said Guy Isbel, dryly. And Bill added a remark to the effect that perhaps Jean had been leading a luxurious and tame life back there in Oregon, and then added, “But I reckon he’s packin’ that six-shooter like a Texan.”

“Say, I fetched a gun or two along with me,” replied Jean, jocularly. “Reckon I near broke my poor mule’s back with the load of shells an’ guns. Dad, what was the idea askin’ me to pack out an arsenal?”

“Son, shore all shootin’ arms an’ such are at a premium in the Tonto,” replied his father. “An’ I was givin’ you a hunch to come loaded.”

His cool, drawling voice seemed to put a damper upon the pleasantries. Right there Jean sensed the charged atmosphere. His brothers were bursting with utterance about to break forth, and his father suddenly wore a look that recalled to Jean critical times of days long past. But the entrance of the children and the women folk put an end to confidences. Evidently the youngsters were laboring under subdued excitement. They preceded their mother, the smallest boy in the lead. For him this must have been both a dreadful and a wonderful experience, for he seemed to be pushed forward by his sister and brother and mother, and driven by yearnings of his own. “There now, Lee. Say, ‘Uncle Jean, what did you fetch us?’ The lad hesitated for a shy, frightened look at Jean, and then, gaining something from his scrutiny of his uncle, he toddled forward and bravely delivered the question of tremendous importance.

“What did I fetch you, hey?” cried Jean, in delight, as he took the lad up on his knee. “Wouldn’t you like to know? I didn’t forget, Lee. I remembered you all. Oh! the job I had packin’ your bundle of presents.... Now, Lee, make a guess.”

“I dess you fetched a dun,” replied Lee.

“A dun! — I’ll bet you mean a gun,” laughed Jean. “Well, you four-year-old Texas gunman! Make another guess.”

That appeared too momentous and entrancing for the other two youngsters, and, adding their shrill and joyous voices to Lee’s, they besieged Jean.

“Dad, where’s my pack?” cried Jean. “These young Apaches are after my scalp.”

“Reckon the boys fetched it onto the porch,” replied the rancher.

Guy Isbel opened the door and went out. “By golly! heah’s three packs,” he called. “Which one do you want, Jean?”

“It’s a long, heavy bundle, all tied up,” replied Jean.

Guy came staggering in under a burden that brought a whoop from the youngsters and bright gleams to the eyes of the women. Jean lost nothing of this. How glad he was that he had tarried in San Francisco because of a mental picture of this very reception in far-off wild Arizona.

When Guy deposited the bundle on the floor it jarred the room. It gave forth metallic and rattling and crackling sounds.

“Everybody stand back an’ give me elbow room,” ordered Jean, majestically. “My good folks, I want you all to know this is somethin’ that doesn’t happen often. The bundle you see here weighed about a hundred pounds when I packed it on my shoulder down Market Street in Frisco. It was stolen from me on shipboard. I got it back in San Diego an’ licked the thief. It rode on a burro from San Diego to Yuma an’ once I thought the burro was lost for keeps. It came up the Colorado River from Yuma to Ehrenberg an’ there went on top of a stage. We got chased by bandits an’ once when the horses were gallopin’ hard it near rolled off. Then it went on the back of a pack horse an’ helped wear him out. An’ I reckon it would be somewhere else now if I hadn’t fallen in with a freighter goin’ north from Phoenix to the Santa Fe Trail. The last lap when it sagged the back of a mule was the riskiest an’ full of the narrowest escapes. Twice my mule bucked off his pack an’ left my outfit scattered. Worst of all, my precious bundle made the mule top heavy comin’ down that place back here where the trail seems to drop off the earth. There I was hard put to keep sight of my pack. Sometimes it was on top an’ other times the mule. But it got here at last.... An’ now I’ll open it.”

After this long and impressive harangue, which at least augmented the suspense of the women and worked the children into a frenzy, Jean leisurely untied the many knots round the bundle and unrolled it. He had packed that bundle for just such travel as it had sustained. Three cloth-bound rifles he laid aside, and with them a long, very heavy package tied between two thin wide boards. From this came the metallic clink. “Oo, I know what dem is!” cried Lee, breaking the silence of suspense. Then Jean, tearing open a long flat parcel, spread before the mute, rapt-eyed youngsters such magnificent things, as they had never dreamed of — picture books, mouth-harps, dolls, a toy gun and a toy pistol, a wonderful whistle and a fox horn, and last of all a box of candy. Before these treasures on the floor, too magical to be touched at first, the two little boys and their sister simply knelt. That was a sweet, full moment for Jean; yet even that was clouded by the something which shadowed these innocent children fatefully born in a wild place at a wild time. Next Jean gave to his sister the presents he had brought her — beautiful cloth for a dress, ribbons and a bit of lace, handkerchiefs and buttons and yards of linen, a sewing case and a whole box of spools of thread, a comb and brush and mirror, and lastly a Spanish brooch inlaid with garnets. “There, Ann,” said Jean, “I confess I asked a girl friend in Oregon to tell me some things my sister might like.” Manifestly there was not much difference in girls. Ann seemed stunned by this munificence, and then awakening, she hugged Jean in a way that took his breath. She was not a child any more, that was certain. Aunt Mary turned knowing eyes upon Jean. “Reckon you couldn’t have pleased Ann more. She’s engaged, Jean, an’ where girls are in that state these things mean a heap.... Ann, you’ll be married in that!” And she pointed to the beautiful folds of material that Ann had spread out.

“What’s this?” demanded Jean. His sister’s blushes were enough to convict her, and they were mightily becoming, too.

“Here, Aunt Mary,” went on Jean, “here’s yours, an’ here’s somethin’ for each of my new sisters.” This distribution left the women as happy and occupied, almost, as the children. It left also another package, the last one in the bundle. Jean laid hold of it and, lifting it, he was about to speak when he sustained a little shock of memory. Quite distinctly he saw two little feet, with bare toes peeping out of worn-out moccasins, and then round, bare, symmetrical ankles that had been scratched by brush. Next he saw Ellen Jorth’s passionate face as she looked when she had made the violent action so disconcerting to him. In this happy moment the memory seemed farther off than a few hours. It had crystallized. It annoyed while it drew him. As a result he slowly laid this package aside and did not speak as he had intended to.

“Dad, I reckon I didn’t fetch a lot for you an’ the boys,” continued Jean. “Some knives, some pipes an’ tobacco. An’ sure the guns.”

“Shore, you’re a regular Santa Claus, Jean,” replied his father. “Wal, wal, look at the kids. An’ look at Mary. An’ for the land’s sake look at Ann! Wal, wal, I’m gettin’ old. I’d forgotten the pretty stuff an’ gimcracks that mean so much to women. We’re out of the world heah. It’s just as well you’ve lived apart from us, Jean, for comin’ back this way, with all that stuff, does us a lot of good. I cain’t say, son, how obliged I am. My mind has been set on the hard side of life. An’ it’s shore good to forget — to see the smiles of the women an’ the joy of the kids.”

At this juncture a tall young man entered the open door. He looked a rider. All about him, even his face, except his eyes, seemed old, but his eyes were young, fine, soft, and dark.

“How do, y’u-all!” he said, evenly.

Ann rose from her knees. Then Jean did not need to be told who this newcomer was.

“Jean, this is my friend, Andrew Colmor.”

Jean knew when he met Colmor’s grip and the keen flash of his eyes that he was glad Ann had set her heart upon one of their kind. And his second impression was something akin to the one given him in the road by the admiring lad. Colmor’s estimate of him must have been a monument built of Ann’s eulogies. Jean’s heart suffered misgivings. Could he live up to the character that somehow had forestalled his advent in Grass Valley? Surely life was measured differently here in the Tonto Basin.

The children, bundling their treasures to their bosoms, were dragged off to bed in some remote part of the house, from which their laughter and voices came back with happy significance. Jean forthwith had an interested audience. How eagerly these lonely pioneer people listened to news of the outside world! Jean talked until he was hoarse. In their turn his hearers told him much that had never found place in the few and short letters he had received since he had been left in Oregon. Not a word about sheepmen or any hint of rustlers! Jean marked the omission and thought all the more seriously of probabilities because nothing was said. Altogether the evening was a happy reunion of a family of which all living members were there present. Jean grasped that this fact was one of significant satisfaction to his father.

“Shore we’re all goin’ to live together heah,” he declared. “I started this range. I call most of this valley mine. We’ll run up a cabin for Ann soon as she says the word. An’ you, Jean, where’s your girl? I shore told you to fetch her.”

“Dad, I didn’t have one,” replied Jean.

“Wal, I wish you had,” returned the rancher. “You’ll go courtin’ one of these Tonto hussies that I might object to.”

“Why, father, there’s not a girl in the valley Jean would look twice at,” interposed Ann Isbel, with spirit.

Jean laughed the matter aside, but he had an uneasy memory. Aunt Mary averred, after the manner of relatives, that Jean would play havoc among the women of the settlement. And Jean retorted that at least one member of the Isbels; should hold out against folly and fight and love and marriage, the agents which had reduced the family to these few present. “I’ll be the last Isbel to go under,” he concluded.

“Son, you’re talkin’ wisdom,” said his father. “An’ shore that reminds me of the uncle you’re named after. Jean Isbel! ... Wal, he was my youngest brother an’ shore a fire-eater. Our mother was a French creole from Louisiana, an’ Jean must have inherited some of his fightin’ nature from her. When the war of the rebellion started Jean an’ I enlisted. I was crippled before we ever got to the front. But Jean went through three Years before he was killed. His company had orders to fight to the last man. An’ Jean fought an’ lived long enough just to be that last man.”

At length Jean was left alone with his father.

“Reckon you’re used to bunkin’ outdoors?” queried the rancher, rather abruptly.

“Most of the time,” replied Jean.

“Wal, there’s room in the house, but I want you to sleep out. Come get your beddin’ an’ gun. I’ll show you.”

They went outside on the porch, where Jean shouldered his roll of tarpaulin and blankets. His rifle, in its saddle sheath, leaned against the door. His father took it up and, half pulling it out, looked at it by the starlight. “Forty-four, eh? Wal, wal, there’s shore no better, if a man can hold straight.” At the moment a big gray dog trotted up to sniff at Jean. “An’ heah’s your bunkmate, Shepp. He’s part lofer, Jean. His mother was a favorite shepherd dog of mine. His father was a big timber wolf that took us two years to kill. Some bad wolf packs runnin’ this Basin.”

The night was cold and still, darkly bright under moon and stars; the smell of hay seemed to mingle with that of cedar. Jean followed his father round the house and up a gentle slope of grass to the edge of the cedar line. Here several trees with low-sweeping thick branches formed a dense, impenetrable shade.

“Son, your uncle Jean was scout for Liggett, one of the greatest rebels the South had,” said the rancher. “An’ you’re goin’ to be scout for the Isbels of Tonto. Reckon you’ll find it ‘most as hot as your uncle did.... Spread your bed inside. You can see out, but no one can see you. Reckon there’s been some queer happenin’s ‘round heah lately. If Shepp could talk he’d shore have lots to tell us. Bill an’ Guy have been sleepin’ out, trailin’ strange hoss tracks, an’ all that. But shore whoever’s been prowlin’ around heah was too sharp for them. Some bad, crafty, light-steppin’ woodsmen ‘round heah, Jean.... Three mawnin’s ago, just after daylight, I stepped out the back door an’ some one of these sneaks I’m talkin’ aboot took a shot at me. Missed my head a quarter of an inch! To-morrow I’ll show you the bullet hole in the doorpost. An’ some of my gray hairs that ‘re stickin’ in it!”

“Dad!” ejaculated Jean, with a hand outstretched. “That’s awful! You frighten me.”

“No time to be scared,” replied his father, calmly. “They’re shore goin’ to kill me. That’s why I wanted you home.... In there with you, now! Go to sleep. You shore can trust Shepp to wake you if he gets scent or sound.... An’ good night, my son. I’m sayin’ that I’ll rest easy to-night.”

Jean mumbled a good night and stood watching his father’s shining white head move away under the starlight. Then the tall, dark form vanished, a door closed, and all was still. The dog Shepp licked Jean’s hand. Jean felt grateful for that warm touch. For a moment he sat on his roll of bedding, his thought still locked on the shuddering revelation of his father’s words, “They’re shore goin’ to kill me.” The shock of inaction passed. Jean pushed his pack in the dark opening and, crawling inside, he unrolled it and made his bed.

When at length he was comfortably settled for the night he breathed a long sigh of relief. What bliss to relax! A throbbing and burning of his muscles seemed to begin with his rest. The cool starlit night, the smell of cedar, the moan of wind, the silence — an were real to his senses. After long weeks of long, arduous travel he was home. The warmth of the welcome still lingered, but it seemed to have been pierced by an icy thrust. What lay before him? The shadow in the eyes of his aunt, in the younger, fresher eyes of his sister — Jean connected that with the meaning of his father’s tragic words. Far past was the morning that had been so keen, the breaking of camp in the sunlit forest, the riding down the brown aisles under the pines, the music of bleating lambs that had called him not to pass by. Thought of Ellen Jorth recurred. Had he met her only that morning? She was up there in the forest, asleep under the starlit pines. Who was she? What was her story? That savage fling of her skirt, her bitter speech and passionate flaming face — they haunted Jean. They were crystallizing into simpler memories, growing away from his bewilderment, and therefore at once sweeter and more doubtful. “Maybe she meant differently from what I thought,” Jean soliloquized. “Anyway, she was honest.” Both shame and thrill possessed him at the recall of an insidious idea — dare he go back and find her and give her the last package of gifts he had brought from the city? What might they mean to poor, ragged, untidy, beautiful Ellen Jorth? The idea grew on Jean. It could not be dispelled. He resisted stubbornly. It was bound to go to its fruition. Deep into his mind had sunk an impression of her need — a material need that brought spirit and pride to abasement. From one picture to another his memory wandered, from one speech and act of hers to another, choosing, selecting, casting aside, until clear and sharp as the stars shone the words, “Oh, I’ve been kissed before!” That stung him now. By whom? Not by one man, but by several, by many, she had meant. Pshaw! he had only been sympathetic and drawn by a strange girl in the woods. To-morrow he would forget. Work there was for him in Grass Valley. And he reverted uneasily to the remarks of his father until at last sleep claimed him.

A cold nose against his cheek, a low whine, awakened Jean. The big dog Shepp was beside him, keen, wary, intense. The night appeared far advanced toward dawn. Far away a cock crowed; the near-at-hand one answered in clarion voice. “What is it, Shepp?” whispered Jean, and he sat up. The dog smelled or heard something suspicious to his nature, but whether man or animal Jean could not tell.

CHAPTER III

THE MORNING STAR, large, intensely blue-white, magnificent in its dominance of the clear night sky, hung over the dim, dark valley ramparts. The moon had gone down and all the other stars were wan, pale ghosts.

Presently the strained vacuum of Jean’s ears vibrated to a low roar of many hoofs. It came from the open valley, along the slope to the south. Shepp acted as if he wanted the word to run. Jean laid a hand on the dog. “Hold on, Shepp,” he whispered. Then hauling on his boots and slipping into his coat Jean took his rifle and stole out into the open. Shepp appeared to be well trained, for it was evident that he had a strong natural tendency to run off and hunt for whatever had roused him. Jean thought it more than likely that the dog scented an animal of some kind. If there were men prowling around the ranch Shepp, might have been just as vigilant, but it seemed to Jean that the dog would have shown less eagerness to leave him, or none at all.

In the stillness of the morning it took Jean a moment to locate the direction of the wind, which was very light and coming from the south. In fact that little breeze had borne the low roar of trampling hoofs. Jean circled the ranch house to the right and kept along the slope at the edge of the cedars. It struck him suddenly how well fitted he was for work of this sort. All the work he had ever done, except for his few years in school, had been in the open. All the leisure he had ever been able to obtain had been given to his ruling passion for hunting and fishing. Love of the wild had been born in Jean. At this moment he experienced a grim assurance of what his instinct and his training might accomplish if directed to a stern and daring end. Perhaps his father understood this; perhaps the old Texan had some little reason for his confidence.

Every few paces Jean halted to listen. All objects, of course, were indistinguishable in the dark-gray obscurity, except when he came close upon them. Shepp showed an increasing eagerness to bolt out into the void. When Jean had traveled half a mile from the house he heard a scattered trampling of cattle on the run, and farther out a low strangled bawl of a calf. “Ahuh!” muttered Jean. “Cougar or some varmint pulled down that calf.” Then he discharged his rifle in the air and yelled with all his might. It was necessary then to yell again to hold Shepp back.

Thereupon Jean set forth down the valley, and tramped out and across and around, as much to scare away whatever had been after the stock as to look for the wounded calf. More than once he heard cattle moving away ahead of him, but he could not see them. Jean let Shepp go, hoping the dog would strike a trail. But Shepp neither gave tongue nor came back. Dawn began to break, and in the growing light Jean searched around until at last he stumbled over a dead calf, lying in a little bare wash where water ran in wet seasons. Big wolf tracks showed in the soft earth. “Lofers,” said Jean, as he knelt and just covered one track with his spread hand. “We had wolves in Oregon, but not as big as these.... Wonder where that half-wolf dog, Shepp, went. Wonder if he can be trusted where wolves are concerned. I’ll bet not, if there’s a she-wolf runnin’ around.”

Jean found tracks of two wolves, and he trailed them out of the wash, then lost them in the grass. But, guided by their direction, he went on and climbed a slope to the cedar line, where in the dusty patches he found the tracks again. “Not scared much,” he muttered, as he noted the slow trotting tracks. “Well, you old gray lofers, we’re goin’ to clash.” Jean knew from many a futile hunt that wolves were the wariest and most intelligent of wild animals in the quest. From the top of a low foothill he watched the sun rise; and then no longer wondered why his father waxed eloquent over the beauty and location and luxuriance of this grassy valley. But it was large enough to make rich a good many ranchers. Jean tried to restrain any curiosity as to his father’s dealings in Grass Valley until the situation had been made clear.

Moreover, Jean wanted to love this wonderful country. He wanted to be free to ride and hunt and roam to his heart’s content; and therefore he dreaded hearing his father’s claims. But Jean threw off forebodings. Nothing ever turned out so badly as it presaged. He would think the best until certain of the worst. The morning was gloriously bright, and already the frost was glistening wet on the stones. Grass Valley shone like burnished silver dotted with innumerable black spots. Burros were braying their discordant messages to one another; the colts were romping in the fields; stallions were whistling; cows were bawling. A cloud of blue smoke hung low over the ranch house, slowly wafting away on the wind. Far out in the valley a dark group of horsemen were riding toward the village. Jean glanced thoughtfully at them and reflected that he seemed destined to harbor suspicion of all men new and strange to him. Above the distant village stood the darkly green foothills leading up to the craggy slopes, and these ending in the Rim, a red, black-fringed mountain front, beautiful in the morning sunlight, lonely, serene, and mysterious against the level skyline. Mountains, ranges, distances unknown to Jean, always called to him — to come, to seek, to explore, to find, but no wild horizon ever before beckoned to him as this one. And the subtle vague emotion that had gone to sleep with him last night awoke now hauntingly. It took effort to dispel the desire to think, to wonder.

Upon his return to the house, he went around on the valley side, so as to see the place by light of day. His father had built for permanence; and evidently there had been three constructive periods in the history of that long, substantial, picturesque log house. But few nails and little sawed lumber and no glass had been used. Strong and skillful hands, axes and a crosscut saw, had been the prime factors in erecting this habitation of the Isbels.

“Good mawnin’, son,” called a cheery voice from the porch. “Shore we-all heard you shoot; an’ the crack of that forty-four was as welcome as May flowers.”

Bill Isbel looked up from a task over a saddle girth and inquired pleasantly if Jean ever slept of nights. Guy Isbel laughed and there was warm regard in the gaze he bent on Jean.

“You old Indian!” he drawled, slowly. “Did you get a bead on anythin’?”

“No. I shot to scare away what I found to be some of your lofers,” replied Jean. “I heard them pullin’ down a calf. An’ I found tracks of two whoppin’ big wolves. I found the dead calf, too. Reckon the meat can be saved. Dad, you must lose a lot of stock here.”

“Wal, son, you shore hit the nail on the haid,” replied the rancher. “What with lions an’ bears an’ lofers — an’ two-footed lofers of another breed — I’ve lost five thousand dollars in stock this last year.”

“Dad! You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Jean, in astonishment. To him that sum represented a small fortune.

“I shore do,” answered his father.

Jean shook his head as if he could not understand such an enormous loss where there were keen able-bodied men about. “But that’s awful, dad. How could it happen? Where were your herders an’ cowboys? An’ Bill an’ Guy?”

Bill Isbel shook a vehement fist at Jean and retorted in earnest, having manifestly been hit in a sore spot. “Where was me an’ Guy, huh? Wal, my Oregon brother, we was heah, all year, sleepin’ more or less aboot three hours out of every twenty-four — ridin’ our boots off — an’ we couldn’t keep down that loss.”

“Jean, you-all have a mighty tumble comin’ to you out heah,” said Guy, complacently.

“Listen, son,” spoke up the rancher. “You want to have some hunches before you figure on our troubles. There’s two or three packs of lofers, an’ in winter time they are hell to deal with. Lions thick as bees, an’ shore bad when the snow’s on. Bears will kill a cow now an’ then. An’ whenever an’ old silvertip comes mozyin’ across from the Mazatzals he kills stock. I’m in with half a dozen cattlemen. We all work together, an’ the whole outfit cain’t keep these vermints down. Then two years ago the Hash Knife Gang come into the Tonto.”

“Hash Knife Gang? What a pretty name!” replied Jean. “Who’re they?”

“Rustlers, son. An’ shore the real old Texas brand. The old Lone Star State got too hot for them, an’ they followed the trail of a lot of other Texans who needed a healthier climate. Some two hundred Texans around heah, Jean, an’ maybe a matter of three hundred inhabitants in the Tonto all told, good an’ bad. Reckon it’s aboot half an’ half.”

A cheery call from the kitchen interrupted the conversation of the men.

“You come to breakfast.”

During the meal the old rancher talked to Bill and Guy about the day’s order of work; and from this Jean gathered an idea of what a big cattle business his father conducted. After breakfast Jean’s brothers manifested keen interest in the new rifles. These were unwrapped and cleaned and taken out for testing. The three rifles were forty-four calibre Winchesters, the kind of gun Jean had found most effective. He tried them out first, and the shots he made were satisfactory to him and amazing to the others. Bill had used an old Henry rifle. Guy did not favor any particular rifle. The rancher pinned his faith to the famous old single-shot buffalo gun, mostly called needle gun. “Wal, reckon I’d better stick to mine. Shore you cain’t teach an old dog new tricks. But you boys may do well with the forty-fours. Pack ’em on your saddles an’ practice when you see a coyote.”

Jean found it difficult to convince himself that this interest in guns and marksmanship had any sinister propulsion back of it. His father and brothers had always been this way. Rifles were as important to pioneers as plows, and their skillful use was an achievement every frontiersman tried to attain. Friendly rivalry had always existed among the members of the Isbel family: even Ann Isbel was a good shot. But such proficiency in the use of firearms — and life in the open that was correlative with it — had not dominated them as it had Jean. Bill and Guy Isbel were born cattlemen — chips of the old block. Jean began to hope that his father’s letter was an exaggeration, and particularly that the fatalistic speech of last night, “they are goin’ to kill me,” was just a moody inclination to see the worst side. Still, even as Jean tried to persuade himself of this more hopeful view, he recalled many references to the peculiar reputation of Texans for gun-throwing, for feuds, for never-ending hatreds. In Oregon the Isbels had lived among industrious and peaceful pioneers from all over the States; to be sure, the life had been rough and primitive, and there had been fights on occasions, though no Isbel had ever killed a man. But now they had become fixed in a wilder and sparsely settled country among men of their own breed. Jean was afraid his hopes had only sentiment to foster them. Nevertheless, be forced back a strange, brooding, mental state and resolutely held up the brighter side. Whatever the evil conditions existing in Grass Valley, they could be met with intelligence and courage, with an absolute certainty that it was inevitable they must pass away. Jean refused to consider the old, fatal law that at certain wild times and wild places in the West certain men had to pass away to change evil conditions.

“Wal, Jean, ride around the range with the boys,” said the rancher. “Meet some of my neighbors, Jim Blaisdell, in particular. Take a look at the cattle. An’ pick out some hosses for yourself.”

“I’ve seen one already,” declared Jean, quickly. “A black with white face. I’ll take him.”

“Shore you know a hoss. To my eye he’s my pick. But the boys don’t agree. Bill ‘specially has degenerated into a fancier of pitchin’ hosses. Ann can ride that black. You try him this mawnin’.... An’, son, enjoy yourself.”

True to his first impression, Jean named the black horse Whiteface and fell in love with him before ever he swung a leg over him. Whiteface appeared spirited, yet gentle. He had been trained instead of being broken. Of hard hits and quirts and spurs he had no experience. He liked to do what his rider wanted him to do.

A hundred or more horses grazed in the grassy meadow, and as Jean rode on among them it was a pleasure to see stallions throw heads and ears up and whistle or snort. Whole troops of colts and two-year-olds raced with flying tails and manes.

Beyond these pastures stretched the range, and Jean saw the gray-green expanse speckled by thousands of cattle. The scene was inspiring. Jean’s brothers led him all around, meeting some of the herders and riders employed on the ranch, one of whom was a burly, grizzled man with eyes reddened and narrowed by much riding in wind and sun and dust. His name was Evans and he was father of the lad whom Jean had met near the village. Everts was busily skinning the calf that had been killed by the wolves. “See heah, y’u Jean Isbel,” said Everts, “it shore was aboot time y’u come home. We-all heahs y’u hev an eye fer tracks. Wal, mebbe y’u can kill Old Gray, the lofer thet did this job. He’s pulled down nine calves as’ yearlin’s this last two months thet I know of. An’ we’ve not hed the spring round-up.”

Grass Valley widened to the southeast. Jean would have been backward about estimating the square miles in it. Yet it was not vast acreage so much as rich pasture that made it such a wonderful range. Several ranches lay along the western slope of this section. Jean was informed that open parks and swales, and little valleys nestling among the foothills, wherever there was water and grass, had been settled by ranchers. Every summer a few new families ventured in.

Blaisdell struck Jean as being a lionlike type of Texan, both in his broad, bold face, his huge head with its upstanding tawny hair like a mane, and in the speech and force that betokened the nature of his heart. He was not as old as Jean’s father. He had a rolling voice, with the same drawling intonation characteristic of all Texans, and blue eyes that still held the fire of youth. Quite a marked contrast he presented to the lean, rangy, hard-jawed, intent-eyed men Jean had begun to accept as Texans.

Blaisdell took time for a curious scrutiny and study of Jean, that, frank and kindly as it was, and evidently the adjustment of impressions gotten from hearsay, yet bespoke the attention of one used to judging men for himself, and in this particular case having reasons of his own for so doing.

“Wal, you’re like your sister Ann,” said Blaisdell. “Which you may take as a compliment, young man. Both of you favor your mother. But you’re an Isbel. Back in Texas there are men who never wear a glove on their right hands, an’ shore I reckon if one of them met up with you sudden he’d think some graves had opened an’ he’d go for his gun.”

Blaisdell’s laugh pealed out with deep, pleasant roll. Thus he planted in Jean’s sensitive mind a significant thought-provoking idea about the past-and-gone Isbels.

His further remarks, likewise, were exceedingly interesting to Jean. The settling of the Tonto Basin by Texans was a subject often in dispute. His own father had been in the first party of adventurous pioneers who had traveled up from the south to cross over the Reno Pass of the Mazatzals into the Basin. “Newcomers from outside get impressions of the Tonto accordin’ to the first settlers they meet,” declared Blaisdell. “An’ shore it’s my belief these first impressions never change, just so strong they are! Wal, I’ve heard my father say there were men in his wagon train that got run out of Texas, but he swore he wasn’t one of them. So I reckon that sort of talk held good for twenty years, an’ for all the Texans who emigrated, except, of course, such notorious rustlers as Daggs an’ men of his ilk. Shore we’ve got some bad men heah. There’s no law. Possession used to mean more than it does now. Daggs an’ his Hash Knife Gang have begun to hold forth with a high hand. No small rancher can keep enough stock to pay for his labor.”

At the time of which Blaisdell spoke there were not many sheepmen and cattlemen in the Tonto, considering its vast area. But these, on account of the extreme wildness of the broken country, were limited to the comparatively open Grass Valley and its adjacent environs. Naturally, as the inhabitants increased and stock raising grew in proportion the grazing and water rights became matters of extreme importance. Sheepmen ran their flocks up on the Rim in summer time and down into the Basin in winter time. A sheepman could throw a few thousand sheep round a cattleman’s ranch and ruin him. The range was free. It was as fair for sheepmen to graze their herds anywhere as it was for cattlemen. This of course did not apply to the few acres of cultivated ground that a rancher could call his own; but very few cattle could have been raised on such limited area. Blaisdell said that the sheepmen were unfair because they could have done just as well, though perhaps at more labor, by keeping to the ridges and leaving the open valley and little flats to the ranchers. Formerly there had been room enough for all; now the grazing ranges were being encroached upon by sheepmen newly come to the Tonto. To Blaisdell’s way of thinking the rustler menace was more serious than the sheeping-off of the range, for the simple reason that no cattleman knew exactly who the rustlers were and for the more complex and significant reason that the rustlers did not steal sheep.

“Texas was overstocked with bad men an’ fine steers,” concluded Blaisdell. “Most of the first an’ some of the last have struck the Tonto. The sheepmen have now got distributin’ points for wool an’ sheep at Maricopa an’ Phoenix. They’re shore waxin’ strong an’ bold.”

“Ahuh! ... An’ what’s likely to come of this mess?” queried Jean.

“Ask your dad,” replied Blaisdell.

“I will. But I reckon I’d be obliged for your opinion.”

“Wal, short an’ sweet it’s this: Texas cattlemen will never allow the range they stocked to be overrun by sheepmen.”

“Who’s this man Greaves?” went on Jean. “Never run into anyone like him.”

“Greaves is hard to figure. He’s a snaky customer in deals. But he seems to be good to the poor people ‘round heah. Says he’s from Missouri. Ha-ha! He’s as much Texan as I am. He rode into the Tonto without even a pack to his name. An’ presently he builds his stone house an’ freights supplies in from Phoenix. Appears to buy an’ sell a good deal of stock. For a while it looked like he was steerin’ a middle course between cattlemen an’ sheepmen. Both sides made a rendezvous of his store, where he heard the grievances of each. Laterly he’s leanin’ to the sheepmen. Nobody has accused him of that yet. But it’s time some cattleman called his bluff.”

“Of course there are honest an’ square sheepmen in the Basin?” queried Jean.

“Yes, an’ some of them are not unreasonable. But the new fellows that dropped in on us the last few year — they’re the ones we’re goin’ to clash with.”

“This — sheepman, Jorth?” went on Jean, in slow hesitation, as if compelled to ask what he would rather not learn.

“Jorth must be the leader of this sheep faction that’s harryin’ us ranchers. He doesn’t make threats or roar around like some of them. But he goes on raisin’ an’ buyin’ more an’ more sheep. An’ his herders have been grazin’ down all around us this winter. Jorth’s got to be reckoned with.”

“Who is he?”

“Wal, I don’t know enough to talk aboot. Your dad never said so, but I think he an’ Jorth knew each other in Texas years ago. I never saw Jorth but once. That was in Greaves’s barroom. Your dad an’ Jorth met that day for the first time in this country. Wal, I’ve not known men for nothin’. They just stood stiff an’ looked at each other. Your dad was aboot to draw. But Jorth made no sign to throw a gun.”

Jean saw the growing and weaving and thickening threads of a tangle that had already involved him. And the sudden pang of regret he sustained was not wholly because of sympathies with his own people.

“The other day back up in the woods on the Rim I ran into a sheepman who said his name was Colter. Who is he?

“Colter? Shore he’s a new one. What’d he look like?”

Jean described Colter with a readiness that spoke volumes for the vividness of his impressions.

“I don’t know him,” replied Blaisdell. “But that only goes to prove my contention — any fellow runnin’ wild in the woods can say he’s a sheepman.”

“Colter surprised me by callin’ me by my name,” continued Jean. “Our little talk wasn’t exactly friendly. He said a lot about my bein’ sent for to run sheep herders out of the country.”

“Shore that’s all over,” replied Blaisdell, seriously. “You’re a marked man already.”

“What started such rumor?”

“Shore you cain’t prove it by me. But it’s not taken as rumor. It’s got to the sheepmen as hard as bullets.”

“Ahuh! That accunts for Colter’s seemin’ a little sore under the collar. Well, he said they were goin’ to run sheep over Grass Valley, an’ for me to take that hunch to my dad.”

Blaisdell had his chair tilted back and his heavy boots against a post of the porch. Down he thumped. His neck corded with a sudden rush of blood and his eyes changed to blue fire.

“The hell he did!” he ejaculated, in furious amaze.

Jean gauged the brooding, rankling hurt of this old cattleman by his sudden break from the cool, easy Texan manner. Blaisdell cursed under his breath, swung his arms violently, as if to throw a last doubt or hope aside, and then relapsed to his former state. He laid a brown hand on Jean’s knee.

“Two years ago I called the cards,” he said, quietly. “It means a Grass Valley war.”

Not until late that afternoon did Jean’s father broach the subject uppermost in his mind. Then at an opportune moment he drew Jean away into the cedars out of sight.

“Son, I shore hate to make your home-comin’ unhappy,” he said, with evidence of agitation, “but so help me God I have to do it!”

“Dad, you called me Prodigal, an’ I reckon you were right. I’ve shirked my duty to you. I’m ready now to make up for it,” replied Jean, feelingly.

“Wal, wal, shore thats fine-spoken, my boy.... Let’s set down heah an’ have a long talk. First off, what did Jim Blaisdell tell you?”

Briefly Jean outlined the neighbor rancher’s conversation. Then Jean recounted his experience with Colter and concluded with Blaisdell’s reception of the sheepman’s threat. If Jean expected to see his father rise up like a lion in his wrath he made a huge mistake. This news of Colter and his talk never struck even a spark from Gaston Isbel.

“Wal,” he began, thoughtfully, “reckon there are only two points in Jim’s talk I need touch on. There’s shore goin’ to be a Grass Valley war. An’ Jim’s idea of the cause of it seems to be pretty much the same as that of all the other cattlemen. It ‘ll go down a black blot on the history page of the Tonto Basin as a war between rival sheepmen an’ cattlemen. Same old fight over water an’ grass! ... Jean, my son, that is wrong. It ‘ll not be a war between sheepmen an’ cattlemen. But a war of honest ranchers against rustlers maskin’ as sheep-raisers! ... Mind you, I don’t belittle the trouble between sheepmen an’ cattlemen in Arizona. It’s real an’ it’s vital an’ it’s serious. It ‘ll take law an’ order to straighten out the grazin’ question. Some day the government will keep sheep off of cattle ranges.... So get things right in your mind, my son. You can trust your dad to tell the absolute truth. In this fight that ‘ll wipe out some of the Isbels — maybe all of them — you’re on the side of justice an’ right. Knowin’ that, a man can fight a hundred times harder than he who knows he is a liar an’ a thief.”

The old rancher wiped his perspiring face and breathed slowly and deeply. Jean sensed in him the rise of a tremendous emotional strain. Wonderingly he watched the keen lined face. More than material worries were at the root of brooding, mounting thoughts in his father’s eyes.

“Now next take what Jim said aboot your comin’ to chase these sheep-herders out of the valley.... Jean, I started that talk. I had my tricky reasons. I know these greaser sheep-herders an’ I know the respect Texans have for a gunman. Some say I bragged. Some say I’m an old fool in his dotage, ravin’ aboot a favorite son. But they are people who hate me an’ are afraid. True, son, I talked with a purpose, but shore I was mighty cold an’ steady when I did it. My feelin’ was that you’d do what I’d do if I were thirty years younger. No, I reckoned you’d do more. For I figured on your blood. Jean, you’re Indian, an’ Texas an’ French, an’ you’ve trained yourself in the Oregon woods. When you were only a boy, few marksmen I ever knew could beat you, an’ I never saw your equal for eye an’ ear, for trackin’ a hoss, for all the gifts that make a woodsman.... Wal, rememberin’ this an’ seein’ the trouble ahaid for the Isbels, I just broke out whenever I had a chance. I bragged before men I’d reason to believe would take my words deep. For instance, not long ago I missed some stock, an’, happenin’ into Greaves’s place one Saturday night, I shore talked loud. His barroom was full of men an’ some of them were in my black book. Greaves took my talk a little testy. He said. ‘Wal, Gass, mebbe you’re right aboot some of these cattle thieves livin’ among us, but ain’t they jest as liable to be some of your friends or relatives as Ted Meeker’s or mine or any one around heah?’ That was where Greaves an’ me fell out. I yelled at him: ‘No, by God, they’re not! My record heah an’ that of my people is open. The least I can say for you, Greaves, an’ your crowd, is that your records fade away on dim trails.’ Then he said, nasty-like, ‘Wal, if you could work out all the dim trails in the Tonto you’d shore be surprised.’ An’ then I roared. Shore that was the chance I was lookin’ for. I swore the trails he hinted of would be tracked to the holes of the rustlers who made them. I told him I had sent for you an’ when you got heah these slippery, mysterious thieves, whoever they were, would shore have hell to pay. Greaves said he hoped so, but he was afraid I was partial to my Indian son. Then we had hot words. Blaisdell got between us. When I was leavin’ I took a partin’ fling at him. ‘Greaves, you ought to know the Isbels, considerin’ you’re from Texas. Maybe you’ve got reasons for throwin’ taunts at my claims for my son Jean. Yes, he’s got Indian in him an’ that ‘ll be the worse for the men who will have to meet him. I’m tellin’ you, Greaves, Jean Isbel is the black sheep of the family. If you ride down his record you’ll find he’s shore in line to be another Poggin, or Reddy Kingfisher, or Hardin’, or any of the Texas gunmen you ought to remember.... Greaves, there are men rubbin’ elbows with you right heah that my Indian son is goin’ to track down!’”

Jean bent his head in stunned cognizance of the notoriety with which his father had chosen to affront any and all Tonto Basin men who were under the ban of his suspicion. What a terrible reputation and trust to have saddled upon him! Thrills and strange, heated sensations seemed to rush together inside Jean, forming a hot ball of fire that threatened to explode. A retreating self made feeble protests. He saw his own pale face going away from this older, grimmer man.

“Son, if I could have looked forward to anythin’ but blood spillin’ I’d never have given you such a name to uphold,” continued the rancher. “What I’m goin’ to tell you now is my secret. My other sons an’ Ann have never heard it. Jim Blaisdell suspects there’s somethin’ strange, but he doesn’t know. I’ll shore never tell anyone else but you. An’ you must promise to keep my secret now an’ after I am gone.”

“I promise,” said Jean.

“Wal, an’ now to get it out,” began his father, breathing hard. His face twitched and his hands clenched. “The sheepman heah I have to reckon with is Lee Jorth, a lifelong enemy of mine. We were born in the same town, played together as children, an’ fought with each other as boys. We never got along together. An’ we both fell in love with the same girl. It was nip an’ tuck for a while. Ellen Sutton belonged to one of the old families of the South. She was a beauty, an’ much courted, an’ I reckon it was hard for her to choose. But I won her an’ we became engaged. Then the war broke out. I enlisted with my brother Jean. He advised me to marry Ellen before I left. But I would not. That was the blunder of my life. Soon after our partin’ her letters ceased to come. But I didn’t distrust her. That was a terrible time an’ all was confusion. Then I got crippled an’ put in a hospital. An’ in aboot a year I was sent back home.”

At this juncture Jean refrained from further gaze at his father’s face.

“Lee Jorth had gotten out of goin’ to war,” went on the rancher, in lower, thicker voice. “He’d married my sweetheart, Ellen.... I knew the story long before I got well. He had run after her like a hound after a hare.... An’ Ellen married him. Wal, when I was able to get aboot I went to see Jorth an’ Ellen. I confronted them. I had to know why she had gone back on me. Lee Jorth hadn’t changed any with all his good fortune. He’d made Ellen believe in my dishonor. But, I reckon, lies or no lies, Ellen Sutton was faithless. In my absence he had won her away from me. An’ I saw that she loved him as she never had me. I reckon that killed all my generosity. If she’d been imposed upon an’ weaned away by his lies an’ had regretted me a little I’d have forgiven, perhaps. But she worshiped him. She was his slave. An’ I, wal, I learned what hate was.

“The war ruined the Suttons, same as so many Southerners. Lee Jorth went in for raisin’ cattle. He’d gotten the Sutton range an’ after a few years he began to accumulate stock. In those days every cattleman was a little bit of a thief. Every cattleman drove in an’ branded calves he couldn’t swear was his. Wal, the Isbels were the strongest cattle raisers in that country. An’ I laid a trap for Lee Jorth, caught him in the act of brandin’ calves of mine I’d marked, an’ I proved him a thief. I made him a rustler. I ruined him. We met once. But Jorth was one Texan not strong on the draw, at least against an Isbel. He left the country. He had friends an’ relatives an’ they started him at stock raisin’ again. But he began to gamble an’ he got in with a shady crowd. He went from bad to worse an’ then he came back home. When I saw the change in proud, beautiful Ellen Sutton, an’ how she still worshiped Jorth, it shore drove me near mad between pity an’ hate.... Wal, I reckon in a Texan hate outlives any other feelin’. There came a strange turn of the wheel an’ my fortunes changed. Like most young bloods of the day, I drank an’ gambled. An’ one night I run across Jorth an’ a card-sharp friend. He fleeced me. We quarreled. Guns were thrown. I killed my man.... Aboot that period the Texas Rangers had come into existence.... An’, son, when I said I never was run out of Texas I wasn’t holdin’ to strict truth. I rode out on a hoss.

“I went to Oregon. There I married soon, an’ there Bill an’ Guy were born. Their mother did not live long. An’ next I married your mother, Jean. She had some Indian blood, which, for all I could see, made her only the finer. She was a wonderful woman an’ gave me the only happiness I ever knew. You remember her, of course, an’ those home days in Oregon. I reckon I made another great blunder when I moved to Arizona. But the cattle country had always called me. I had heard of this wild Tonto Basin an’ how Texans were settlin’ there. An’ Jim Blaisdell sent me word to come — that this shore was a garden spot of the West. Wal, it is. An’ your mother was gone —

“Three years ago Lee Jorth drifted into the Tonto. An’, strange to me, along aboot a year or so after his comin’ the Hash Knife Gang rode up from Texas. Jorth went in for raisin’ sheep. Along with some other sheepmen he lives up in the Rim canyons. Somewhere back in the wild brakes is the hidin’ place of the Hash Knife Gang. Nobody but me, I reckon, associates Colonel Jorth, as he’s called, with Daggs an’ his gang. Maybe Blaisdell an’ a few others have a hunch. But that’s no matter. As a sheepman Jorth has a legitimate grievance with the cattlemen. But what could be settled by a square consideration for the good of all an’ the future Jorth will never settle. He’ll never settle because he is now no longer an honest man. He’s in with Daggs. I cain’t prove this, son, but I know it. I saw it in Jorth’s face when I met him that day with Greaves. I saw more. I shore saw what he is up to. He’d never meet me at an even break. He’s dead set on usin’ this sheep an’ cattle feud to ruin my family an’ me, even as I ruined him. But he means more, Jean. This will be a war between Texans, an’ a bloody war. There are bad men in this Tonto — some of the worst that didn’t get shot in Texas. Jorth will have some of these fellows.... Now, are we goin’ to wait to be sheeped off our range an’ to be murdered from ambush?”

“No, we are not,” replied Jean, quietly.

“Wal, come down to the house,” said the rancher, and led the way without speaking until he halted by the door. There he placed his finger on a small hole in the wood at about the height of a man’s head. Jean saw it was a bullet hole and that a few gray hairs stuck to its edges. The rancher stepped closer to the door-post, so that his head was within an inch of the wood. Then he looked at Jean with eyes in which there glinted dancing specks of fire, like wild sparks.

“Son, this sneakin’ shot at me was made three mawnin’s ago. I recollect movin’ my haid just when I heard the crack of a rifle. Shore was surprised. But I got inside quick.”

Jean scarcely heard the latter part of this speech. He seemed doubled up inwardly, in hot and cold convulsions of changing emotion. A terrible hold upon his consciousness was about to break and let go. The first shot had been fired and he was an Isbel. Indeed, his father had made him ten times an Isbel. Blood was thick. His father did not speak to dull ears. This strife of rising tumult in him seemed the effect of years of calm, of peace in the woods, of dreamy waiting for he knew not what. It was the passionate primitive life in him that had awakened to the call of blood ties.

“That’s aboot all, son,” concluded the rancher. “You understand now why I feel they’re goin’ to kill me. I feel it heah.” With solemn gesture he placed his broad hand over his heart. “An’, Jean, strange whispers come to me at night. It seems like your mother was callin’ or tryin’ to warn me. I cain’t explain these queer whispers. But I know what I know.”

“Jorth has his followers. You must have yours,” replied Jean, tensely.

“Shore, son, an’ I can take my choice of the best men heah,” replied the rancher, with pride. “But I’ll not do that. I’ll lay the deal before them an’ let them choose. I reckon it ‘ll not be a long-winded fight. It ‘ll be short an bloody, after the way of Texans. I’m lookin’ to you, Jean, to see that an Isbel is the last man!”

“My God — dad! is there no other way? Think of my sister Ann — of my brothers’ wives — of — of other women! Dad, these damned Texas feuds are cruel, horrible!” burst out Jean, in passionate protest.

“Jean, would it be any easier for our women if we let these men shoot us down in cold blood?”

“Oh no — no, I see, there’s no hope of — of.... But, dad, I wasn’t thinkin’ about myself. I don’t care. Once started I’ll — I’ll be what you bragged I was. Only it’s so hard to-to give in.”

Jean leaned an arm against the side of the cabin and, bowing his face over it, he surrendered to the irresistible contention within his breast. And as if with a wrench that strange inward hold broke. He let down. He went back. Something that was boyish and hopeful — and in its place slowly rose the dark tide of his inheritance, the savage instinct of self-preservation bequeathed by his Indian mother, and the fierce, feudal blood lust of his Texan father.

Then as he raised himself, gripped by a sickening coldness in his breast, he remembered Ellen Jorth’s face as she had gazed dreamily down off the Rim — so soft, so different, with tremulous lips, sad, musing, with far-seeing stare of dark eyes, peering into the unknown, the instinct of life still unlived. With confused vision and nameless pain Jean thought of her.

“Dad, it’s hard on — the — the young folks,” he said, bitterly. “The sins of the father, you know. An’ the other side. How about Jorth? Has he any children?”

What a curious gleam of surprise and conjecture Jean encountered in his father’s gaze!

“He has a daughter. Ellen Jorth. Named after her mother. The first time I saw Ellen Jorth I thought she was a ghost of the girl I had loved an’ lost. Sight of her was like a blade in my side. But the looks of her an’ what she is — they don’t gibe. Old as I am, my heart — Bah! Ellen Jorth is a damned hussy!”

Jean Isbel went off alone into the cedars. Surrender and resignation to his father’s creed should have ended his perplexity and worry. His instant and burning resolve to be as his father had represented him should have opened his mind to slow cunning, to the craft of the Indian, to the development of hate. But there seemed to be an obstacle. A cloud in the way of vision. A face limned on his memory.

Those damning words of his father’s had been a shock — how little or great he could not tell. Was it only a day since he had met Ellen Jorth? What had made all the difference? Suddenly like a breath the fragrance of her hair came back to him. Then the sweet coolness of her lips! Jean trembled. He looked around him as if he were pursued or surrounded by eyes, by instincts, by fears, by incomprehensible things.

“Ahuh! That must be what ails me,” he muttered. “The look of her — an’ that kiss — they’ve gone hard me. I should never have stopped to talk. An’ I’m to kill her father an’ leave her to God knows what.”

Something was wrong somewhere. Jean absolutely forgot that within the hour he had pledged his manhood, his life to a feud which could be blotted out only in blood. If he had understood himself he would have realized that the pledge was no more thrilling and unintelligible in its possibilities than this instinct which drew him irresistibly.

“Ellen Jorth! So — my dad calls her a damned hussy! So — that explains the — the way she acted — why she never hit me when I kissed her. An’ her words, so easy an’ cool-like. Hussy? That means she’s bad — bad! Scornful of me — maybe disappointed because my kiss was innocent! It was, I swear. An’ all she said: ‘Oh, I’ve been kissed before.’”

Jean grew furious with himself for the spreading of a new sensation in his breast that seemed now to ache. Had he become infatuated, all in a day, with this Ellen Jorth? Was he jealous of the men who had the privilege of her kisses? No! But his reply was hot with shame, with uncertainty. The thing that seemed wrong was outside of himself. A blunder was no crime. To be attracted by a pretty girl in the woods — to yield to an impulse was no disgrace, nor wrong. He had been foolish over a girl before, though not to such a rash extent. Ellen Jorth had stuck in his consciousness, and with her a sense of regret.

Then swiftly rang his father’s bitter words, the revealing: “But the looks of her an’ what she is — they don’t gibe!” In the import of these words hid the meaning of the wrong that troubled him. Broodingly he pondered over them.

“The looks of her. Yes, she was pretty. But it didn’t dawn on me at first. I — I was sort of excited. I liked to look at her, but didn’t think.” And now consciously her face was called up, infinitely sweet and more impelling for the deliberate memory. Flash of brown skin, smooth and clear; level gaze of dark, wide eyes, steady, bold, unseeing; red curved lips, sad and sweet; her strong, clean, fine face rose before Jean, eager and wistful one moment, softened by dreamy musing thought, and the next stormily passionate, full of hate, full of longing, but the more mysterious and beautiful.

“She looks like that, but she’s bad,” concluded Jean, with bitter finality. “I might have fallen in love with Ellen Jorth if — if she’d been different.”

But the conviction forced upon Jean did not dispel the haunting memory of her face nor did it wholly silence the deep and stubborn voice of his consciousness. Later that afternoon he sought a moment with his sister.

“Ann, did you ever meet Ellen Jorth?” he asked.

“Yes, but not lately,” replied Ann.

“Well, I met her as I was ridin’ along yesterday. She was herdin’ sheep,” went on Jean, rapidly. “I asked her to show me the way to the Rim. An’ she walked with me a mile or so. I can’t say the meetin’ was not interestin’, at least to me.... Will you tell me what you know about her?”

“Sure, Jean,” replied his sister, with her dark eyes fixed wonderingly and kindly on his troubled face. “I’ve heard a great deal, but in this Tonto Basin I don’t believe all I hear. What I know I’ll tell you. I first met Ellen Jorth two years ago. We didn’t know each other’s names then. She was the prettiest girl I ever saw. I liked her. She liked me. She seemed unhappy. The next time we met was at a round-up. There were other girls with me and they snubbed her. But I left them and went around with her. That snub cut her to the heart. She was lonely. She had no friends. She talked about herself — how she hated the people, but loved Arizona. She had nothin’ fit to wear. I didn’t need to be told that she’d been used to better things. Just when it looked as if we were goin’ to be friends she told me who she was and asked me my name. I told her. Jean, I couldn’t have hurt her more if I’d slapped her face. She turned white. She gasped. And then she ran off. The last time I saw her was about a year ago. I was ridin’ a short-cut trail to the ranch where a friend lived. And I met Ellen Jorth ridin’ with a man I’d never seen. The trail was overgrown and shady. They were ridin’ close and didn’t see me right off. The man had his arm round her. She pushed him away. I saw her laugh. Then he got hold of her again and was kissin’ her when his horse shied at sight of mine. They rode by me then. Ellen Jorth held her head high and never looked at me.”

“Ann, do you think she’s a bad girl?” demanded Jean, bluntly.

“Bad? Oh, Jean!” exclaimed Ann, in surprise and embarrassment.

“Dad said she was a damned hussy.”

“Jean, dad hates the Jorths.”

“Sister, I’m askin’ you what you think of Ellen Jorth. Would you be friends with her if you could?”

“Yes.”

“Then you don’t believe she’s bad.”

“No. Ellen Jorth is lonely, unhappy. She has no mother. She lives alone among rough men. Such a girl can’t keep men from handlin’ her and kissin’ her. Maybe she’s too free. Maybe she’s wild. But she’s honest, Jean. You can trust a woman to tell. When she rode past me that day her face was white and proud. She was a Jorth and I was an Isbel. She hated herself — she hated me. But no bad girl could look like that. She knows what’s said of her all around the valley. But she doesn’t care. She’d encourage gossip.”

“Thank you, Ann,” replied Jean, huskily. “Please keep this — this meetin’ of mine with her all to yourself, won’t you?”

“Why, Jean, of course I will.”

Jean wandered away again, peculiarly grateful to Ann for reviving and upholding something in him that seemed a wavering part of the best of him — a chivalry that had demanded to be killed by judgment of a righteous woman. He was conscious of an uplift, a gladdening of his spirit. Yet the ache remained. More than that, he found himself plunged deeper into conjecture, doubt. Had not the Ellen Jorth incident ended? He denied his father’s indictment of her and accepted the faith of his sister. “Reckon that’s aboot all, as dad says,” he soliloquized. Yet was that all? He paced under the cedars. He watched the sun set. He listened to the coyotes. He lingered there after the call for supper; until out of the tumult of his conflicting emotions and ponderings there evolved the staggering consciousness that he must see Ellen Jorth again.

CHAPTER IV

ELLEN JORTH HURRIED back into the forest, hotly resentful of the accident that had thrown her in contact with an Isbel.

Disgust filled her — disgust that she had been amiable to a member of the hated family that had ruined her father. The surprise of this meeting did not come to her while she was under the spell of stronger feeling. She walked under the trees, swiftly, with head erect, looking straight before her, and every step seemed a relief.

Upon reaching camp, her attention was distracted from herself. Pepe, the Mexican boy, with the two shepherd dogs, was trying to drive sheep into a closer bunch to save the lambs from coyotes. Ellen loved the fleecy, tottering little lambs, and at this season she hated all the prowling beast of the forest. From this time on for weeks the flock would be besieged by wolves, lions, bears, the last of which were often bold and dangerous. The old grizzlies that killed the ewes to eat only the milk-bags were particularly dreaded by Ellen. She was a good shot with a rifle, but had orders from her father to let the bears alone. Fortunately, such sheep-killing bears were but few, and were left to be hunted by men from the ranch. Mexican sheep herders could not be depended upon to protect their flocks from bears. Ellen helped Pepe drive in the stragglers, and she took several shots at coyotes skulking along the edge of the brush. The open glade in the forest was favorable for herding the sheep at night, and the dogs could be depended upon to guard the flock, and in most cases to drive predatory beasts away.

After this task, which brought the time to sunset, Ellen had supper to cook and eat. Darkness came, and a cool night wind set in. Here and there a lamb bleated plaintively. With her work done for the day, Ellen sat before a ruddy camp fire, and found her thoughts again centering around the singular adventure that had befallen her. Disdainfully she strove to think of something else. But there was nothing that could dispel the interest of her meeting with Jean Isbel. Thereupon she impatiently surrendered to it, and recalled every word and action which she could remember. And in the process of this meditation she came to an action of hers, recollection of which brought the blood tingling to her neck and cheeks, so unusually and burningly that she covered them with her hands. “What did he think of me?” she mused, doubtfully. It did not matter what he thought, but she could not help wondering. And when she came to the memory of his kiss she suffered more than the sensation of throbbing scarlet cheeks. Scornfully and bitterly she burst out, “Shore he couldn’t have thought much good of me.”

The half hour following this reminiscence was far from being pleasant. Proud, passionate, strong-willed Ellen Jorth found herself a victim of conflicting emotions. The event of the day was too close. She could not understand it. Disgust and disdain and scorn could not make this meeting with Jean Isbel as if it had never been. Pride could not efface it from her mind. The more she reflected, the harder she tried to forget, the stronger grew a significance of interest. And when a hint of this dawned upon her consciousness she resented it so forcibly that she lost her temper, scattered the camp fire, and went into the little teepee tent to roll in her blankets.

Thus settled snug and warm for the night, with a shepherd dog curled at the opening of her tent, she shut her eyes and confidently bade sleep end her perplexities. But sleep did not come at her invitation. She found herself wide awake, keenly sensitive to the sputtering of the camp fire, the tinkling of bells on the rams, the bleating of lambs, the sough of wind in the pines, and the hungry sharp bark of coyotes off in the distance. Darkness was no respecter of her pride. The lonesome night with its emphasis of solitude seemed to induce clamoring and strange thoughts, a confusing ensemble of all those that had annoyed her during the daytime. Not for long hours did sheer weariness bring her to slumber.

Ellen awakened late and failed of her usual alacrity. Both Pepe and the shepherd dog appeared to regard her with surprise and solicitude. Ellen’s spirit was low this morning; her blood ran sluggishly; she had to fight a mournful tendency to feel sorry for herself. And at first she was not very successful. There seemed to be some kind of pleasure in reveling in melancholy which her common sense told her had no reason for existence. But states of mind persisted in spite of common sense.

“Pepe, when is Antonio comin’ back?” she asked.

The boy could not give her a satisfactory answer. Ellen had willingly taken the sheep herder’s place for a few days, but now she was impatient to go home. She looked down the green-and-brown aisles of the forest until she was tired. Antonio did not return. Ellen spent the day with the sheep; and in the manifold task of caring for a thousand new-born lambs she forgot herself. This day saw the end of lambing-time for that season. The forest resounded to a babel of baas and bleats. When night came she was glad to go to bed, for what with loss of sleep, and weariness she could scarcely keep her eyes open.

The following morning she awakened early, bright, eager, expectant, full of bounding life, strangely aware of the beauty and sweetness of the scented forest, strangely conscious of some nameless stimulus to her feelings.

Not long was Ellen in associating this new and delightful variety of sensations with the fact that Jean Isbel had set to-day for his ride up to the Rim to see her. Ellen’s joyousness fled; her smiles faded. The spring morning lost its magic radiance.

“Shore there’s no sense in my lyin’ to myself,” she soliloquized, thoughtfully. “It’s queer of me — feelin’ glad aboot him — without knowin’. Lord! I must be lonesome! To be glad of seein’ an Isbel, even if he is different!”

Soberly she accepted the astounding reality. Her confidence died with her gayety; her vanity began to suffer. And she caught at her admission that Jean Isbel was different; she resented it in amaze; she ridiculed it; she laughed at her naive confession. She could arrive at no conclusion other than that she was a weak-minded, fluctuating, inexplicable little fool.

But for all that she found her mind had been made up for her, without consent or desire, before her will had been consulted; and that inevitably and unalterably she meant to see Jean Isbel again. Long she battled with this strange decree. One moment she won a victory over, this new curious self, only to lose it the next. And at last out of her conflict there emerged a few convictions that left her with some shreds of pride. She hated all Isbels, she hated any Isbel, and particularly she hated Jean Isbel. She was only curious — intensely curious to see if he would come back, and if he did come what he would do. She wanted only to watch him from some covert. She would not go near him, not let him see her or guess of her presence.

Thus she assuaged her hurt vanity — thus she stifled her miserable doubts.

Long before the sun had begun to slant westward toward the mid-afternoon Jean Isbel had set as a meeting time Ellen directed her steps through the forest to the Rim. She felt ashamed of her eagerness. She had a guilty conscience that no strange thrills could silence. It would be fun to see him, to watch him, to let him wait for her, to fool him.

Like an Indian, she chose the soft pine-needle mats to tread upon, and her light-moccasined feet left no trace. Like an Indian also she made a wide detour, and reached the Rim a quarter of a mile west of the spot where she had talked with Jean Isbel; and here, turning east, she took care to step on the bare stones. This was an adventure, seemingly the first she had ever had in her life. Assuredly she had never before come directly to the Rim without halting to look, to wonder, to worship. This time she scarcely glanced into the blue abyss. All absorbed was she in hiding her tracks. Not one chance in a thousand would she risk. The Jorth pride burned even while the feminine side of her dominated her actions. She had some difficult rocky points to cross, then windfalls to round, and at length reached the covert she desired. A rugged yellow point of the Rim stood somewhat higher than the spot Ellen wanted to watch. A dense thicket of jack pines grew to the very edge. It afforded an ambush that even the Indian eyes Jean Isbel was credited with could never penetrate. Moreover, if by accident she made a noise and excited suspicion, she could retreat unobserved and hide in the huge rocks below the Rim, where a ferret could not locate her.

With her plan decided upon, Ellen had nothing to do but wait, so she repaired to the other side of the pine thicket and to the edge of the Rim where she could watch and listen. She knew that long before she saw Isbel she would hear his horse. It was altogether unlikely that he would come on foot.

“Shore, Ellen Jorth, y’u’re a queer girl,” she mused. “I reckon I wasn’t well acquainted with y’u.”

Beneath her yawned a wonderful deep canyon, rugged and rocky with but few pines on the north slope, thick with dark green timber on the south slope. Yellow and gray crags, like turreted castles, stood up out of the sloping forest on the side opposite her. The trees were all sharp, spear pointed. Patches of light green aspens showed strikingly against the dense black. The great slope beneath Ellen was serrated with narrow, deep gorges, almost canyons in themselves. Shadows alternated with clear bright spaces. The mile-wide mouth of the canyon opened upon the Basin, down into a world of wild timbered ranges and ravines, valleys and hills, that rolled and tumbled in dark-green waves to the Sierra Anchas.

But for once Ellen seemed singularly unresponsive to this panorama of wildness and grandeur. Her ears were like those of a listening deer, and her eyes continually reverted to the open places along the Rim. At first, in her excitement, time flew by. Gradually, however, as the sun moved westward, she began to be restless. The soft thud of dropping pine cones, the rustling of squirrels up and down the shaggy-barked spruces, the cracking of weathered bits of rock, these caught her keen ears many times and brought her up erect and thrilling. Finally she heard a sound which resembled that of an unshod hoof on stone. Stealthily then she took her rifle and slipped back through the pine thicket to the spot she had chosen. The little pines were so close together that she had to crawl between their trunks. The ground was covered with a soft bed of pine needles, brown and fragrant. In her hurry she pricked her ungloved hand on a sharp pine cone and drew the blood. She sucked the tiny wound. “Shore I’m wonderin’ if that’s a bad omen,” she muttered, darkly thoughtful. Then she resumed her sinuous approach to the edge of the thicket, and presently reached it.

Ellen lay flat a moment to recover her breath, then raised herself on her elbows. Through an opening in the fringe of buck brush she could plainly see the promontory where she had stood with Jean Isbel, and also the approaches by which he might come. Rather nervously she realized that her covert was hardly more than a hundred feet from the promontory. It was imperative that she be absolutely silent. Her eyes searched the openings along the Rim. The gray form of a deer crossed one of these, and she concluded it had made the sound she had heard. Then she lay down more comfortably and waited. Resolutely she held, as much as possible, to her sensorial perceptions. The meaning of Ellen Jorth lying in ambush just to see an Isbel was a conundrum she refused to ponder in the present. She was doing it, and the physical act had its fascination. Her ears, attuned to all the sounds of the lonely forest, caught them and arranged them according to her knowledge of woodcraft.

A long hour passed by. The sun had slanted to a point halfway between the zenith and the horizon. Suddenly a thought confronted Ellen Jorth: “He’s not comin’,” she whispered. The instant that idea presented itself she felt a blank sense of loss, a vague regret — something that must have been disappointment. Unprepared for this, she was held by surprise for a moment, and then she was stunned. Her spirit, swift and rebellious, had no time to rise in her defense. She was a lonely, guilty, miserable girl, too weak for pride to uphold, too fluctuating to know her real self. She stretched there, burying her face in the pine needles, digging her fingers into them, wanting nothing so much as that they might hide her. The moment was incomprehensible to Ellen, and utterly intolerable. The sharp pine needles, piercing her wrists and cheeks, and her hot heaving breast, seemed to give her exquisite relief.

The shrill snort of a horse sounded near at hand. With a shock Ellen’s body stiffened. Then she quivered a little and her feelings underwent swift change. Cautiously and noiselessly she raised herself upon her elbows and peeped through the opening in the brush. She saw a man tying a horse to a bush somewhat back from the Rim. Drawing a rifle from its saddle sheath he threw it in the hollow of his arm and walked to the edge of the precipice. He gazed away across the Basin and appeared lost in contemplation or thought. Then he turned to look back into the forest, as if he expected some one.

Ellen recognized the lithe figure, the dark face so like an Indian’s. It was Isbel. He had come. Somehow his coming seemed wonderful and terrible. Ellen shook as she leaned on her elbows. Jean Isbel, true to his word, in spite of her scorn, had come back to see her. The fact seemed monstrous. He was an enemy of her father. Long had range rumor been bandied from lip to lip — old Gass Isbel had sent for his Indian son to fight the Jorths. Jean Isbel — son of a Texan — unerring shot — peerless tracker — a bad and dangerous man! Then there flashed over Ellen a burning thought — if it were true, if he was an enemy of her father’s, if a fight between Jorth and Isbel was inevitable, she ought to kill this Jean Isbel right there in his tracks as he boldly and confidently waited for her. Fool he was to think she would come. Ellen sank down and dropped her head until the strange tremor of her arms ceased. That dark and grim flash of thought retreated. She had not come to murder a man from ambush, but only to watch him, to try to see what he meant, what he thought, to allay a strange curiosity.

After a while she looked again. Isbel was sitting on an upheaved section of the Rim, in a comfortable position from which he could watch the openings in the forest and gaze as well across the west curve of the Basin to the Mazatzals. He had composed himself to wait. He was clad in a buckskin suit, rather new, and it certainly showed off to advantage, compared with the ragged and soiled apparel Ellen remembered. He did not look so large. Ellen was used to the long, lean, rangy Arizonians and Texans. This man was built differently. He had the widest shoulders of any man she had ever seen, and they made him appear rather short. But his lithe, powerful limbs proved he was not short. Whenever he moved the muscles rippled. His hands were clasped round a knee — brown, sinewy hands, very broad, and fitting the thick muscular wrists. His collar was open, and he did not wear a scarf, as did the men Ellen knew. Then her intense curiosity at last brought her steady gaze to Jean Isbel’s head and face. He wore a cap, evidently of some thin fur. His hair was straight and short, and in color a dead raven black. His complexion was dark, clear tan, with no trace of red. He did not have the prominent cheek bones nor the high-bridged nose usual with white men who were part Indian. Still he had the Indian look. Ellen caught that in the dark, intent, piercing eyes, in the wide, level, thoughtful brows, in the stern impassiveness of his smooth face. He had a straight, sharp-cut profile.

Ellen whispered to herself: “I saw him right the other day. Only, I’d not admit it.... The finest-lookin’ man I ever saw in my life is a damned Isbel! Was that what I come out heah for?”

She lowered herself once more and, folding her arms under her breast, she reclined comfortably on them, and searched out a smaller peephole from which she could spy upon Isbel. And as she watched him the new and perplexing side of her mind waxed busier. Why had he come back? What did he want of her? Acquaintance, friendship, was impossible for them. He had been respectful, deferential toward her, in a way that had strangely pleased, until the surprising moment when he had kissed her. That had only disrupted her rather dreamy pleasure in a situation she had not experienced before. All the men she had met in this wild country were rough and bold; most of them had wanted to marry her, and, failing that, they had persisted in amorous attentions not particularly flattering or honorable. They were a bad lot. And contact with them had dulled some of her sensibilities. But this Jean Isbel had seemed a gentleman. She struggled to be fair, trying to forget her antipathy, as much to understand herself as to give him due credit. True, he had kissed her, crudely and forcibly. But that kiss had not been an insult. Ellen’s finer feeling forced her to believe this. She remembered the honest amaze and shame and contrition with which he had faced her, trying awkwardly to explain his bold act. Likewise she recalled the subtle swift change in him at her words, “Oh, I’ve been kissed before!” She was glad she had said that. Still — was she glad, after all?

She watched him. Every little while he shifted his gaze from the blue gulf beneath him to the forest. When he turned thus the sun shone on his face and she caught the piercing gleam of his dark eyes. She saw, too, that he was listening. Watching and listening for her! Ellen had to still a tumult within her. It made her feel very young, very shy, very strange. All the while she hated him because he manifestly expected her to come. Several times he rose and walked a little way into the woods. The last time he looked at the westering sun and shook his head. His confidence had gone. Then he sat and gazed down into the void. But Ellen knew he did not see anything there. He seemed an image carved in the stone of the Rim, and he gave Ellen a singular impression of loneliness and sadness. Was he thinking of the miserable battle his father had summoned him to lead — of what it would cost — of its useless pain and hatred? Ellen seemed to divine his thoughts. In that moment she softened toward him, and in her soul quivered and stirred an intangible something that was like pain, that was too deep for her understanding. But she felt sorry for an Isbel until the old pride resurged. What if he admired her? She remembered his interest, the wonder and admiration, the growing light in his eyes. And it had not been repugnant to her until he disclosed his name. “What’s in a name?” she mused, recalling poetry learned in her girlhood. “‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’.... He’s an Isbel — yet he might be splendid — noble.... Bah! he’s not — and I’d hate him anyhow.”

All at once Ellen felt cold shivers steal over her. Isbel’s piercing gaze was directed straight at her hiding place. Her heart stopped beating. If he discovered her there she felt that she would die of shame. Then she became aware that a blue jay was screeching in a pine above her, and a red squirrel somewhere near was chattering his shrill annoyance. These two denizens of the woods could be depended upon to espy the wariest hunter and make known his presence to their kind. Ellen had a moment of more than dread. This keen-eyed, keen-eared Indian might see right through her brushy covert, might hear the throbbing of her heart. It relieved her immeasurably to see him turn away and take to pacing the promontory, with his head bowed and his hands behind his back. He had stopped looking off into the forest. Presently he wheeled to the west, and by the light upon his face Ellen saw that the time was near sunset. Turkeys were beginning to gobble back on the ridge.

Isbel walked to his horse and appeared to be untying something from the back of his saddle. When he came back Ellen saw that he carried a small package apparently wrapped in paper. With this under his arm he strode off in the direction of Ellen’s camp and soon disappeared in the forest.

For a little while Ellen lay there in bewilderment. If she had made conjectures before, they were now multiplied. Where was Jean Isbel going? Ellen sat up suddenly. “Well, shore this heah beats me,” she said. “What did he have in that package? What was he goin’ to do with it?”

It took no little will power to hold her there when she wanted to steal after him through the woods and find out what he meant. But his reputation influenced even her and she refused to pit her cunning in the forest against his. It would be better to wait until he returned to his horse. Thus decided, she lay back again in her covert and gave her mind over to pondering curiosity. Sooner than she expected she espied Isbel approaching through the forest, empty handed. He had not taken his rifle. Ellen averted her glance a moment and thrilled to see the rifle leaning against a rock. Verily Jean Isbel had been far removed from hostile intent that day. She watched him stride swiftly up to his horse, untie the halter, and mount. Ellen had an impression of his arrowlike straight figure, and sinuous grace and ease. Then he looked back at the promontory, as if to fix a picture of it in his mind, and rode away along the Rim. She watched him out of sight. What ailed her? Something was wrong with her, but she recognized only relief.

When Isbel had been gone long enough to assure Ellen that she might safely venture forth she crawled through the pine thicket to the Rim on the other side of the point. The sun was setting behind the Black Range, shedding a golden glory over the Basin. Westward the zigzag Rim reached like a streamer of fire into the sun. The vast promontories jutted out with blazing beacon lights upon their stone-walled faces. Deep down, the Basin was turning shadowy dark blue, going to sleep for the night.

Ellen bent swift steps toward her camp. Long shafts of gold preceded her through the forest. Then they paled and vanished. The tips of pines and spruces turned gold. A hoarse-voiced old turkey gobbler was booming his chug-a-lug from the highest ground, and the softer chick of hen turkeys answered him. Ellen was almost breathless when she arrived. Two packs and a couple of lop-eared burros attested to the fact of Antonio’s return. This was good news for Ellen. She heard the bleat of lambs and tinkle of bells coming nearer and nearer. And she was glad to feel that if Isbel had visited her camp, most probably it was during the absence of the herders.

The instant she glanced into her tent she saw the package Isbel had carried. It lay on her bed. Ellen stared blankly. “The — the impudence of him!” she ejaculated. Then she kicked the package out of the tent. Words and action seemed to liberate a dammed-up hot fury. She kicked the package again, and thought she would kick it into the smoldering camp-fire. But somehow she stopped short of that. She left the thing there on the ground.

Pepe and Antonio hove in sight, driving in the tumbling woolly flock. Ellen did not want them to see the package, so with contempt for herself, and somewhat lessening anger, she kicked it back into the tent. What was in it? She peeped inside the tent, devoured by curiosity. Neat, well wrapped and tied packages like that were not often seen in the Tonto Basin. Ellen decided she would wait until after supper, and at a favorable moment lay it unopened on the fire. What did she care what it contained? Manifestly it was a gift. She argued that she was highly incensed with this insolent Isbel who had the effrontery to approach her with some sort of present.

It developed that the usually cheerful Antonio had returned taciturn and gloomy. All Ellen could get out of him was that the job of sheep herder had taken on hazards inimical to peace-loving Mexicans. He had heard something he would not tell. Ellen helped prepare the supper and she ate in silence. She had her own brooding troubles. Antonio presently told her that her father had said she was not to start back home after dark. After supper the herders repaired to their own tents, leaving Ellen the freedom of her camp-fire. Wherewith she secured the package and brought it forth to burn. Feminine curiosity rankled strong in her breast. Yielding so far as to shake the parcel and press it, and finally tear a corner off the paper, she saw some words written in lead pencil. Bending nearer the blaze, she read, “For my sister Ann.” Ellen gazed at the big, bold hand-writing, quite legible and fairly well done. Suddenly she tore the outside wrapper completely off. From printed words on the inside she gathered that the package had come from a store in San Francisco. “Reckon he fetched home a lot of presents for his folks — the kids — and his sister,” muttered Ellen. “That was nice of him. Whatever this is he shore meant it for sister Ann.... Ann Isbel. Why, she must be that black-eyed girl I met and liked so well before I knew she was an Isbel.... His sister!”

Whereupon for the second time Ellen deposited the fascinating package in her tent. She could not burn it up just then. She had other emotions besides scorn and hate. And memory of that soft-voiced, kind-hearted, beautiful Isbel girl checked her resentment. “I wonder if he is like his sister,” she said, thoughtfully. It appeared to be an unfortunate thought. Jean Isbel certainly resembled his sister. “Too bad they belong to the family that ruined dad.”

Ellen went to bed without opening the package or without burning it. And to her annoyance, whatever way she lay she appeared to touch this strange package. There was not much room in the little tent. First she put it at her head beside her rifle, but when she turned over her cheek came in contact with it. Then she felt as if she had been stung. She moved it again, only to touch it presently with her hand. Next she flung it to the bottom of her bed, where it fell upon her feet, and whatever way she moved them she could not escape the pressure of this undesirable and mysterious gift.

By and by she fell asleep, only to dream that the package was a caressing hand stealing about her, feeling for hers, and holding it with soft, strong clasp. When she awoke she had the strangest sensation in her right palm. It was moist, throbbing, hot, and the feel of it on her cheek was strangely thrilling and comforting. She lay awake then. The night was dark and still. Only a low moan of wind in the pines and the faint tinkle of a sheep bell broke the serenity. She felt very small and lonely lying there in the deep forest, and, try how she would, it was impossible to think the same then as she did in the clear light of day. Resentment, pride, anger — these seemed abated now. If the events of the day had not changed her, they had at least brought up softer and kinder memories and emotions than she had known for long. Nothing hurt and saddened her so much as to remember the gay, happy days of her childhood, her sweet mother, her, old home. Then her thought returned to Isbel and his gift. It had been years since anyone had made her a gift. What could this one be? It did not matter. The wonder was that Jean Isbel should bring it to her and that she could be perturbed by its presence. “He meant it for his sister and so he thought well of me,” she said, in finality.

Morning brought Ellen further vacillation. At length she rolled the obnoxious package inside her blankets, saying that she would wait until she got home and then consign it cheerfully to the flames. Antonio tied her pack on a burro. She did not have a horse, and therefore had to walk the several miles, to her father’s ranch.

She set off at a brisk pace, leading the burro and carrying her rifle. And soon she was deep in the fragrant forest. The morning was clear and cool, with just enough frost to make the sunlit grass sparkle as if with diamonds. Ellen felt fresh, buoyant, singularly full of, life. Her youth would not be denied. It was pulsing, yearning. She hummed an old Southern tune and every step seemed one of pleasure in action, of advance toward some intangible future happiness. All the unknown of life before her called. Her heart beat high in her breast and she walked as one in a dream. Her thoughts were swift-changing, intimate, deep, and vague, not of yesterday or to-day, nor of reality.

The big, gray, white-tailed squirrels crossed ahead of her on the trail, scampered over the piny ground to hop on tree trunks, and there they paused to watch her pass. The vociferous little red squirrels barked and chattered at her. From every thicket sounded the gobble of turkeys. The blue jays squalled in the tree tops. A deer lifted its head from browsing and stood motionless, with long ears erect, watching her go by.

Thus happily and dreamily absorbed, Ellen covered the forest miles and soon reached the trail that led down into the wild brakes of Chevelon Canyon. It was rough going and less conducive to sweet wanderings of mind. Ellen slowly lost them. And then a familiar feeling assailed her, one she never failed to have upon returning to her father’s ranch — a reluctance, a bitter dissatisfaction with her home, a loyal struggle against the vague sense that all was not as it should be.

At the head of this canyon in a little, level, grassy meadow stood a rude one-room log shack, with a leaning red-stone chimney on the outside. This was the abode of a strange old man who had long lived there. His name was John Sprague and his occupation was raising burros. No sheep or cattle or horses did he own, not even a dog. Rumor had said Sprague was a prospector, one of the many who had searched that country for the Lost Dutchman gold mine. Sprague knew more about the Basin and Rim than any of the sheepmen or ranchers. From Black Butte to the Cibique and from Chevelon Butte to Reno Pass he knew every trail, canyon, ridge, and spring, and could find his way to them on the darkest night. His fame, however, depended mostly upon the fact that he did nothing but raise burros, and would raise none but black burros with white faces. These burros were the finest bred in all the Basin and were in great demand. Sprague sold a few every year. He had made a present of one to Ellen, although he hated to part with them. This old man was Ellen’s one and only friend.

Upon her trip out to the Rim with the sheep, Uncle John, as Ellen called him, had been away on one of his infrequent visits to Grass Valley. It pleased her now to see a blue column of smoke lazily lifting from the old chimney and to hear the discordant bray of burros. As she entered the clearing Sprague saw her from the door of his shack.

“Hello, Uncle John!” she called.

“Wal, if it ain’t Ellen!” he replied, heartily. “When I seen thet white-faced jinny I knowed who was leadin’ her. Where you been, girl?”

Sprague was a little, stoop-shouldered old man, with grizzled head and face, and shrewd gray eyes that beamed kindly on her over his ruddy cheeks. Ellen did not like the tobacco stain on his grizzled beard nor the dirty, motley, ragged, ill-smelling garb he wore, but she had ceased her useless attempts to make him more cleanly.

“I’ve been herdin’ sheep,” replied Ellen. “And where have y’u been, uncle? I missed y’u on the way over.”

“Been packin’ in some grub. An’ I reckon I stayed longer in Grass Valley than I recollect. But thet was only natural, considerin’—”

“What?” asked Ellen, bluntly, as the old man paused.

Sprague took a black pipe out of his vest pocket and began rimming the bowl with his fingers. The glance he bent on Ellen was thoughtful and earnest, and so kind that she feared it was pity. Ellen suddenly burned for news from the village.

“Wal, come in an’ set down, won’t you?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” replied Ellen, and she took a seat on the chopping block. “Tell me, uncle, what’s goin’ on down in the Valley?”

“Nothin’ much yet — except talk. An’ there’s a heap of thet.”

“Humph! There always was talk,” declared Ellen, contemptuously. “A nasty, gossipy, catty hole, that Grass Valley!”

“Ellen, thar’s goin’ to be war — a bloody war in the ole Tonto Basin,” went on Sprague, seriously.

“War! ... Between whom?”

“The Isbels an’ their enemies. I reckon most people down thar, an’ sure all the cattlemen, air on old Gass’s side. Blaisdell, Gordon, Fredericks, Blue — they’ll all be in it.”

“Who are they goin’ to fight?” queried Ellen, sharply.

“Wal, the open talk is thet the sheepmen are forcin’ this war. But thar’s talk not so open, an’ I reckon not very healthy for any man to whisper hyarbouts.”

“Uncle John, y’u needn’t be afraid to tell me anythin’,” said Ellen. “I’d never give y’u away. Y’u’ve been a good friend to me.”

“Reckon I want to be, Ellen,” he returned, nodding his shaggy head. “It ain’t easy to be fond of you as I am an’ keep my mouth shet.... I’d like to know somethin’. Hev you any relatives away from hyar thet you could go to till this fight’s over?”

“No. All I have, so far as I know, are right heah.”

“How aboot friends?”

“Uncle John, I have none,” she said, sadly, with bowed head.

“Wal, wal, I’m sorry. I was hopin’ you might git away.”

She lifted her face. “Shore y’u don’t think I’d run off if my dad got in a fight?” she flashed.

“I hope you will.”

“I’m a Jorth,” she said, darkly, and dropped her head again.

Sprague nodded gloomily. Evidently he was perplexed and worried, and strongly swayed by affection for her.

“Would you go away with me?” he asked. “We could pack over to the Mazatzals an’ live thar till this blows over.”

“Thank y’u, Uncle John. Y’u’re kind and good. But I’ll stay with my father. His troubles are mine.”

“Ahuh! ... Wal, I might hev reckoned so.... Ellen, how do you stand on this hyar sheep an’ cattle question?”

“I think what’s fair for one is fair for another. I don’t like sheep as much as I like cattle. But that’s not the point. The range is free. Suppose y’u had cattle and I had sheep. I’d feel as free to run my sheep anywhere as y’u were to ran your cattle.”

“Right. But what if you throwed your sheep round my range an’ sheeped off the grass so my cattle would hev to move or starve?”

“Shore I wouldn’t throw my sheep round y’ur range,” she declared, stoutly.

“Wal, you’ve answered half of the question. An’ now supposin’ a lot of my cattle was stolen by rustlers, but not a single one of your sheep. What ‘d you think then?”

“I’d shore think rustlers chose to steal cattle because there was no profit in stealin’ sheep.”

“Egzactly. But wouldn’t you hev a queer idee aboot it?”

“I don’t know. Why queer? What ‘re y’u drivin’ at, Uncle John?”

“Wal, wouldn’t you git kind of a hunch thet the rustlers was — say a leetle friendly toward the sheepmen?”

Ellen felt a sudden vibrating shock. The blood rushed to her temples. Trembling all over, she rose.

“Uncle John!” she cried.

“Now, girl, you needn’t fire up thet way. Set down an’ don’t—”

“Dare y’u insinuate my father has—”

“Ellen, I ain’t insinuatin’ nothin’,” interrupted the old man. “I’m jest askin’ you to think. Thet’s all. You’re ‘most grown into a young woman now. An’ you’ve got sense. Thar’s bad times ahead, Ellen. An’ I hate to see you mix in them.”

“Oh, y’u do make me think,” replied Ellen, with smarting tears in her eyes. “Y’u make me unhappy. Oh, I know my dad is not liked in this cattle country. But it’s unjust. He happened to go in for sheep raising. I wish he hadn’t. It was a mistake. Dad always was a cattleman till we came heah. He made enemies — who — who ruined him. And everywhere misfortune crossed his trail.... But, oh, Uncle John, my dad is an honest man.”

“Wal, child, I — I didn’t mean to — to make you cry,” said the old man, feelingly, and he averted his troubled gaze. “Never mind what I said. I’m an old meddler. I reckon nothin’ I could do or say would ever change what’s goin’ to happen. If only you wasn’t a girl! ... Thar I go ag’in. Ellen, face your future an’ fight your way. All youngsters hev to do thet. An’ it’s the right kind of fight thet makes the right kind of man or woman. Only you must be sure to find yourself. An’ by thet I mean to find the real, true, honest-to-God best in you an’ stick to it an’ die fightin’ for it. You’re a young woman, almost, an’ a blamed handsome one. Which means you’ll hev more trouble an’ a harder fight. This country ain’t easy on a woman when once slander has marked her.

“What do I care for the talk down in that Basin?” returned Ellen. “I know they think I’m a hussy. I’ve let them think it. I’ve helped them to.”

“You’re wrong, child,” said Sprague, earnestly. “Pride an’ temper! You must never let anyone think bad of you, much less help them to.”

“I hate everybody down there,” cried Ellen, passionately. “I hate them so I’d glory in their thinkin’ me bad.... My mother belonged to the best blood in Texas. I am her daughter. I know WHO AND WHAT I AM. That uplifts me whenever I meet the sneaky, sly suspicions of these Basin people. It shows me the difference between them and me. That’s what I glory in.”

“Ellen, you’re a wild, headstrong child,” rejoined the old man, in severe tones. “Word has been passed ag’in’ your good name — your honor.... An’ hevn’t you given cause fer thet?”

Ellen felt her face blanch and all her blood rush back to her heart in sickening force. The shock of his words was like a stab from a cold blade. If their meaning and the stem, just light of the old man’s glance did not kill her pride and vanity they surely killed her girlishness. She stood mute, staring at him, with her brown, trembling hands stealing up toward her bosom, as if to ward off another and a mortal blow.

“Ellen!” burst out Sprague, hoarsely. “You mistook me. Aw, I didn’t mean — what you think, I swear.... Ellen, I’m old an’ blunt. I ain’t used to wimmen. But I’ve love for you, child, an’ respect, jest the same as if you was my own.... An’ I KNOW you’re good.... Forgive me.... I meant only hevn’t you been, say, sort of — careless?”

“Care-less?” queried Ellen, bitterly and low.

“An’ powerful thoughtless an’ — an’ blind — lettin’ men kiss you an’ fondle you — when you’re really a growed-up woman now?”

“Yes — I have,” whispered Ellen.

“Wal, then, why did you let them?

“I — I don’t know.... I didn’t think. The men never let me alone — never — never! I got tired everlastingly pushin’ them away. And sometimes — when they were kind — and I was lonely for something I — I didn’t mind if one or another fooled round me. I never thought. It never looked as y’u have made it look.... Then — those few times ridin’ the trail to Grass Valley — when people saw me — then I guess I encouraged such attentions.... Oh, I must be — I am a shameless little hussy!”

“Hush thet kind of talk,” said the old man, as he took her hand. “Ellen, you’re only young an’ lonely an’ bitter. No mother — no friends — no one but a lot of rough men! It’s a wonder you hev kept yourself good. But now your eyes are open, Ellen. They’re brave an’ beautiful eyes, girl, an’ if you stand by the light in them you will come through any trouble. An’ you’ll be happy. Don’t ever forgit that. Life is hard enough, God knows, but it’s unfailin’ true in the end to the man or woman who finds the best in them an’ stands by it.”

“Uncle John, y’u talk so — so kindly. Yu make me have hope. There seemed really so little for me to live for — hope for.... But I’ll never be a coward again — nor a thoughtless fool. I’ll find some good in me — or make some — and never fail it, come what will. I’ll remember your words. I’ll believe the future holds wonderful things for me.... I’m only eighteen. Shore all my life won’t be lived heah. Perhaps this threatened fight over sheep and cattle will blow over.... Somewhere there must be some nice girl to be a friend — a sister to me.... And maybe some man who’d believe, in spite of all they say — that I’m not a hussy.”

“Wal, Ellen, you remind me of what I was wantin’ to tell you when you just got here.... Yestiddy I heerd you called thet name in a barroom. An’ thar was a fellar thar who raised hell. He near killed one man an’ made another plumb eat his words. An’ he scared thet crowd stiff.”

Old John Sprague shook his grizzled head and laughed, beaming upon Ellen as if the memory of what he had seen had warmed his heart.

“Was it — y’u?” asked Ellen, tremulously.

“Me? Aw, I wasn’t nowhere. Ellen, this fellar was quick as a cat in his actions an’ his words was like lightnin’.’

“Who? she whispered.

“Wal, no one else but a stranger jest come to these parts — an Isbel, too. Jean Isbel.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Ellen, faintly.

“In a barroom full of men — almost all of them in sympathy with the sheep crowd — most of them on the Jorth side — this Jean Isbel resented an insult to Ellen Jorth.”

“No!” cried Ellen. Something terrible was happening to her mind or her heart.

“Wal, he sure did,” replied the old man, “an’ it’s goin’ to be good fer you to hear all about it.”

CHAPTER V

OLD JOHN SPRAGUE launched into his narrative with evident zest.

“I hung round Greaves’ store most of two days. An’ I heerd a heap. Some of it was jest plain ole men’s gab, but I reckon I got the drift of things concernin’ Grass Valley. Yestiddy mornin’ I was packin’ my burros in Greaves’ back yard, takin’ my time carryin’ out supplies from the store. An’ as last when I went in I seen a strange fellar was thar. Strappin’ young man — not so young, either — an’ he had on buckskin. Hair black as my burros, dark face, sharp eyes — you’d took him fer an Injun. He carried a rifle — one of them new forty-fours — an’ also somethin’ wrapped in paper thet he seemed partickler careful about. He wore a belt round his middle an’ thar was a bowie-knife in it, carried like I’ve seen scouts an’ Injun fighters hev on the frontier in the ‘seventies. That looked queer to me, an’ I reckon to the rest of the crowd thar. No one overlooked the big six-shooter he packed Texas fashion. Wal, I didn’t hev no idee this fellar was an Isbel until I heard Greaves call him thet.

“‘Isbel,’ said Greaves, ‘reckon your money’s counterfeit hyar. I cain’t sell you anythin’.’

“‘Counterfeit? Not much,’ spoke up the young fellar, an’ he flipped some gold twenties on the bar, where they rung like bells. ‘Why not? Ain’t this a store? I want a cinch strap.’

“Greaves looked particular sour thet mornin’. I’d been watchin’ him fer two days. He hedn’t hed much sleep, fer I hed my bed back of the store, an’ I heerd men come in the night an’ hev long confabs with him. Whatever was in the wind hedn’t pleased him none. An’ I calkilated thet young Isbel wasn’t a sight good fer Greaves’ sore eyes, anyway. But he paid no more attention to Isbel. Acted jest as if he hedn’t heerd Isbel say he wanted a cinch strap.

“I stayed inside the store then. Thar was a lot of fellars I’d seen, an’ some I knowed. Couple of card games goin’, an’ drinkin’, of course. I soon gathered thet the general atmosphere wasn’t friendly to Jean Isbel. He seen thet quick enough, but he didn’t leave. Between you an’ me I sort of took a likin’ to him. An’ I sure watched him as close as I could, not seemin’ to, you know. Reckon they all did the same, only you couldn’t see it. It got jest about the same as if Isbel hedn’t been in thar, only you knowed it wasn’t really the same. Thet was how I got the hunch the crowd was all sheepmen or their friends. The day before I’d heerd a lot of talk about this young Isbel, an’ what he’d come to Grass Valley fer, an’ what a bad hombre he was. An’ when I seen him I was bound to admit he looked his reputation.

“Wal, pretty soon in come two more fellars, an’ I knowed both of them. You know them, too, I’m sorry to say. Fer I’m comin’ to facts now thet will shake you. The first fellar was your father’s Mexican foreman, Lorenzo, and the other was Simm Bruce. I reckon Bruce wasn’t drunk, but he’d sure been lookin’ on red licker. When he seen Isbel darn me if he didn’t swell an’ bustle all up like a mad ole turkey gobbler.

“‘Greaves,’ he said, ‘if thet fellar’s Jean Isbel I ain’t hankerin’ fer the company y’u keep.’ An’ he made no bones of pointin’ right at Isbel. Greaves looked up dry an’ sour an’ he bit out spiteful-like: ‘Wal, Simm, we ain’t hed a hell of a lot of choice in this heah matter. Thet’s Jean Isbel shore enough. Mebbe you can persuade him thet his company an’ his custom ain’t wanted round heah!’

“Jean Isbel set on the counter an took it all in, but he didn’t say nothin’. The way he looked at Bruce was sure enough fer me to see thet thar might be a surprise any minnit. I’ve looked at a lot of men in my day, an’ can sure feel events comin’. Bruce got himself a stiff drink an’ then he straddles over the floor in front of Isbel.

“‘Air you Jean Isbel, son of ole Gass Isbel?’ asked Bruce, sort of lolling back an’ givin’ a hitch to his belt.

“‘Yes sir, you’ve identified me,’ said Isbel, nice an’ polite.

“‘My name’s Bruce. I’m rangin’ sheep heahaboots, an’ I hev interest in Kurnel Lee Jorth’s bizness.’

“‘Hod do, Mister Bruce,’ replied Isbel, very civil ant cool as you please. Bruce hed an eye fer the crowd thet was now listenin’ an’ watchin’. He swaggered closer to Isbel.

“‘We heerd y’u come into the Tonto Basin to run us sheepmen off the range. How aboot thet?’

“‘Wal, you heerd wrong,’ said Isbel, quietly. ‘I came to work fer my father. Thet work depends on what happens.’

“Bruce began to git redder of face, an’ he shook a husky hand in front of Isbel. ‘I’ll tell y’u this heah, my Nez Perce Isbel—’ an’ when he sort of choked fer more wind Greaves spoke up, ‘Simm, I shore reckon thet Nez Perce handle will stick.’ An’ the crowd haw-hawed. Then Bruce got goin’ ag’in. ‘I’ll tell y’u this heah, Nez Perce. Thar’s been enough happen already to run y’u out of Arizona.’

“‘Wal, you don’t say! What, fer instance?, asked Isbel, quick an’ sarcastic.

“Thet made Bruce bust out puffin’ an’ spittin’: ‘Wha-tt, fer instance? Huh! Why, y’u darn half-breed, y’u’ll git run out fer makin’ up to Ellen Jorth. Thet won’t go in this heah country. Not fer any Isbel.’

“‘You’re a liar,’ called Isbel, an’ like a big cat he dropped off the counter. I heerd his moccasins pat soft on the floor. An’ I bet to myself thet he was as dangerous as he was quick. But his voice an’ his looks didn’t change even a leetle.

“‘I’m not a liar,’ yelled Bruce. ‘I’ll make y’u eat thet. I can prove what I say.... Y’u was seen with Ellen Jorth — up on the Rim — day before yestiddy. Y’u was watched. Y’u was with her. Y’u made up to her. Y’u grabbed her an’ kissed her! ... An’ I’m heah to say, Nez Perce, thet y’u’re a marked man on this range.’

“‘Who saw me?’ asked Isbel, quiet an’ cold. I seen then thet he’d turned white in the face.

“‘Yu cain’t lie out of it,’ hollered Bruce, wavin’ his hands. ‘We got y’u daid to rights. Lorenzo saw y’u — follered y’u — watched y’u.’ Bruce pointed at the grinnin’ greaser. ‘Lorenzo is Kurnel Jorth’s foreman. He seen y’u maulin’ of Ellen Jorth. An’ when he tells the Kurnel an’ Tad Jorth an’ Jackson Jorth! ... Haw! Haw! Haw! Why, hell ‘d be a cooler place fer yu then this heah Tonto.’

“Greaves an’ his gang hed come round, sure tickled clean to thar gizzards at this mess. I noticed, howsomever, thet they was Texans enough to keep back to one side in case this Isbel started any action.... Wal, Isbel took a look at Lorenzo. Then with one swift grab he jerked the little greaser off his feet an’ pulled him close. Lorenzo stopped grinnin’. He began to look a leetle sick. But it was plain he hed right on his side.

“‘You say you saw me?’ demanded Isbel.

“‘Si, senor,’ replied Lorenzo.

“What did you see?’

“‘I see senor an’ senorita. I hide by manzanita. I see senorita like grande senor ver mooch. She like senor keese. She—’

“Then Isbel hit the little greaser a back-handed crack in the mouth. Sure it was a crack! Lorenzo went over the counter backward an’ landed like a pack load of wood. An’ he didn’t git up.

“‘Mister Bruce,’ said Isbel, ‘an’ you fellars who heerd thet lyin’ greaser, I did meet Ellen Jorth. An’ I lost my head. I ‘I kissed her.... But it was an accident. I meant no insult. I apologized — I tried to explain my crazy action.... Thet was all. The greaser lied. Ellen Jorth was kind enough to show me the trail. We talked a little. Then — I suppose — because she was young an’ pretty an’ sweet — I lost my head. She was absolutely innocent. Thet damned greaser told a bare-faced lie when he said she liked me. The fact was she despised me. She said so. An’ when she learned I was Jean Isbel she turned her back on me an’ walked away.”’

At this point of his narrative the old man halted as if to impress Ellen not only with what just had been told, but particularly with what was to follow. The reciting of this tale had evidently given Sprague an unconscious pleasure. He glowed. He seemed to carry the burden of a secret that he yearned to divulge. As for Ellen, she was deadlocked in breathless suspense. All her emotions waited for the end. She begged Sprague to hurry.

“Wal, I wish I could skip the next chapter an’ hev only the last to tell,” rejoined the old man, and he put a heavy, but solicitous, hand upon hers.... Simm Bruce haw-hawed loud an’ loud.... ‘Say, Nez Perce,’ he calls out, most insolent-like, ‘we air too good sheepmen heah to hev the wool pulled over our eyes. We shore know what y’u meant by Ellen Jorth. But y’u wasn’t smart when y’u told her y’u was Jean Isbel! ... Haw-haw!’

“Isbel flashed a strange, surprised look from the red-faced Bruce to Greaves and to the other men. I take it he was wonderin’ if he’d heerd right or if they’d got the same hunch thet ‘d come to him. An’ I reckon he determined to make sure.

“‘Why wasn’t I smart?’ he asked.

“‘Shore y’u wasn’t smart if y’u was aimin’ to be one of Ellen Jorth’s lovers,’ said Bruce, with a leer. ‘Fer if y’u hedn’t give y’urself away y’u could hev been easy enough.’

“Thar was no mistakin’ Bruce’s meanin’ an’ when he got it out some of the men thar laughed. Isbel kept lookin’ from one to another of them. Then facin’ Greaves, he said, deliberately: ‘Greaves, this drunken Bruce is excuse enough fer a show-down. I take it that you are sheepmen, an’ you’re goin’ on Jorth’s side of the fence in the matter of this sheep rangin’.’

“‘Wal, Nez Perce, I reckon you hit plumb center,’ said Greaves, dryly. He spread wide his big hands to the other men, as if to say they’d might as well own the jig was up.

“‘All right. You’re Jorth’s backers. Have any of you a word to say in Ellen Jorth’s defense? I tell you the Mexican lied. Believin’ me or not doesn’t matter. But this vile-mouthed Bruce hinted against thet girl’s honor.’

“Ag’in some of the men laughed, but not so noisy, an’ there was a nervous shufflin’ of feet. Isbel looked sort of queer. His neck had a bulge round his collar. An’ his eyes was like black coals of fire. Greaves spread his big hands again, as if to wash them of this part of the dirty argument.

“‘When it comes to any wimmen I pass — much less play a hand fer a wildcat like Jorth’s gurl,’ said Greaves, sort of cold an’ thick. ‘Bruce shore ought to know her. Accordin’ to talk heahaboots an’ what HE says, Ellen Jorth has been his gurl fer two years.’

“Then Isbel turned his attention to Bruce an’ I fer one begun to shake in my boots.

“‘Say thet to me!’ he called.

“‘Shore she’s my gurl, an’ thet’s why Im a-goin’ to hev y’u run off this range.’

“Isbel jumped at Bruce. ‘You damned drunken cur! You vile-mouthed liar! ... I may be an Isbel, but by God you cain’t slander thet girl to my face! ... Then he moved so quick I couldn’t see what he did. But I heerd his fist hit Bruce. It sounded like an ax ag’in’ a beef. Bruce fell clear across the room. An’ by Jinny when he landed Isbel was thar. As Bruce staggered up, all bloody-faced, bellowin’ an’ spittin’ out teeth Isbel eyed Greaves’s crowd an’ said: ‘If any of y’u make a move it ‘ll mean gun-play.’ Nobody moved, thet’s sure. In fact, none of Greaves’s outfit was packin’ guns, at least in sight. When Bruce got all the way up — he’s a tall fellar — why Isbel took a full swing at him an’ knocked him back across the room ag’in’ the counter. Y’u know when a fellar’s hurt by the way he yells. Bruce got thet second smash right on his big red nose.... I never seen any one so quick as Isbel. He vaulted over thet counter jest the second Bruce fell back on it, an’ then, with Greaves’s gang in front so he could catch any moves of theirs, he jest slugged Bruce right an’ left, an’ banged his head on the counter. Then as Bruce sunk limp an’ slipped down, lookin’ like a bloody sack, Isbel let him fall to the floor. Then he vaulted back over the counter. Wipin’ the blood off his hands, he throwed his kerchief down in Bruce’s face. Bruce wasn’t dead or bad hurt. He’d jest been beaten bad. He was moanin’ an’ slobberin’. Isbel kicked him, not hard, but jest sort of disgustful. Then he faced thet crowd. ‘Greaves, thet’s what I think of your Simm Bruce. Tell him next time he sees me to run or pull a gun.’ An’ then Isbel grabbed his rifle an’ package off the counter an’ went out. He didn’t even look back. I seen him nount his horse an’ ride away.... Now, girl, what hev you to say?”

Ellen could only say good-by and the word was so low as to be almost inaudible. She ran to her burro. She could not see very clearly through tear-blurred eyes, and her shaking fingers were all thumbs. It seemed she had to rush away — somewhere, anywhere — not to get away from old John Sprague, but from herself — this palpitating, bursting self whose feet stumbled down the trail. All — all seemed ended for her. That interminable story! It had taken so long. And every minute of it she had been helplessly torn asunder by feelings she had never known she possessed. This Ellen Jorth was an unknown creature. She sobbed now as she dragged the burro down the canyon trail. She sat down only to rise. She hurried only to stop. Driven, pursued, barred, she had no way to escape the flaying thoughts, no time or will to repudiate them. The death of her girlhood, the rending aside of a veil of maiden mystery only vaguely instinctively guessed, the barren, sordid truth of her life as seen by her enlightened eyes, the bitter realization of the vileness of men of her clan in contrast to the manliness and chivalry of an enemy, the hard facts of unalterable repute as created by slander and fostered by low minds, all these were forces in a cataclysm that had suddenly caught her heart and whirled her through changes immense and agonizing, to bring her face to face with reality, to force upon her suspicion and doubt of all she had trusted, to warn her of the dark, impending horror of a tragic bloody feud, and lastly to teach her the supreme truth at once so glorious and so terrible — that she could not escape the doom of womanhood.

About noon that day Ellen Jorth arrived at the Knoll, which was the location of her father’s ranch. Three canyons met there to form a larger one. The knoll was a symmetrical hill situated at the mouth of the three canyons. It was covered with brush and cedars, with here and there lichened rocks showing above the bleached grass. Below the Knoll was a wide, grassy flat or meadow through which a willow-bordered stream cut its rugged boulder-strewn bed. Water flowed abundantly at this season, and the deep washes leading down from the slopes attested to the fact of cloudbursts and heavy storms. This meadow valley was dotted with horses and cattle, and meandered away between the timbered slopes to lose itself in a green curve. A singular feature of this canyon was that a heavy growth of spruce trees covered the slope facing northwest; and the opposite slope, exposed to the sun and therefore less snowbound in winter, held a sparse growth of yellow pines. The ranch house of Colonel Jorth stood round the rough corner of the largest of the three canyons, and rather well hidden, it did not obtrude its rude and broken-down log cabins, its squalid surroundings, its black mud-holes of corrals upon the beautiful and serene meadow valley.

Ellen Jorth approached her home slowly, with dragging, reluctant steps; and never before in the three unhappy years of her existence there had the ranch seemed so bare, so uncared for, so repugnant to her. As she had seen herself with clarified eyes, so now she saw her home. The cabin that Ellen lived in with her father was a single-room structure with one door and no windows. It was about twenty feet square. The huge, ragged, stone chimney had been built on the outside, with the wide open fireplace set inside the logs. Smoke was rising from the chimney. As Ellen halted at the door and began unpacking her burro she heard the loud, lazy laughter of men. An adjoining log cabin had been built in two sections, with a wide roofed hall or space between them. The door in each cabin faced the other, and there was a tall man standing in one. Ellen recognized Daggs, a neighbor sheepman, who evidently spent more time with her father than at his own home, wherever that was. Ellen had never seen it. She heard this man drawl, “Jorth, heah’s your kid come home.”

Ellen carried her bed inside the cabin, and unrolled it upon a couch built of boughs in the far corner. She had forgotten Jean Isbel’s package, and now it fell out under her sight. Quickly she covered it. A Mexican woman, relative of Antonio, and the only servant about the place, was squatting Indian fashion before the fireplace, stirring a pot of beans. She and Ellen did not get along well together, and few words ever passed between them. Ellen had a canvas curtain stretched upon a wire across a small triangular corner, and this afforded her a little privacy. Her possessions were limited in number. The crude square table she had constructed herself. Upon it was a little old-fashioned walnut-framed mirror, a brush and comb, and a dilapidated ebony cabinet which contained odds and ends the sight of which always brought a smile of derisive self-pity to her lips. Under the table stood an old leather trunk. It had come with her from Texas, and contained clothing and belongings of her mother’s. Above the couch on pegs hung her scant wardrobe. A tiny shelf held several worn-out books.

When her father slept indoors, which was seldom except in winter, he occupied a couch in the opposite corner. A rude cupboard had been built against the logs next to the fireplace. It contained supplies and utensils. Toward the center, somewhat closer to the door, stood a crude table and two benches. The cabin was dark and smelled of smoke, of the stale odors of past cooked meals, of the mustiness of dry, rotting timber. Streaks of light showed through the roof where the rough-hewn shingles had split or weathered. A strip of bacon hung upon one side of the cupboard, and upon the other a haunch of venison. Ellen detested the Mexican woman because she was dirty. The inside of the cabin presented the same unkempt appearance usual to it after Ellen had been away for a few days. Whatever Ellen had lost during the retrogression of the Jorths, she had kept her habits of cleanliness, and straightway upon her return she set to work.

The Mexican woman sullenly slouched away to her own quarters outside and Ellen was left to the satisfaction of labor. Her mind was as busy as her hands. As she cleaned and swept and dusted she heard from time to time the voices of men, the clip-clop of shod horses, the bellow of cattle. And a considerable time elapsed before she was disturbed.

A tall shadow darkened the doorway.

“Howdy, little one!” said a lazy, drawling voice. “So y’u-all got home?”

Ellen looked up. A superbly built man leaned against the doorpost. Like most Texans, he was light haired and light eyed. His face was lined and hard. His long, sandy mustache hid his mouth and drooped with a curl. Spurred, booted, belted, packing a heavy gun low down on his hip, he gave Ellen an entirely new impression. Indeed, she was seeing everything strangely.

“Hello, Daggs!” replied Ellen. “Where’s my dad?”

“He’s playin’ cairds with Jackson an’ Colter. Shore’s playin’ bad, too, an’ it’s gone to his haid.”

“Gamblin’?” queried Ellen.

“Mah child, when’d Kurnel Jorth ever play for fun?” said Daggs, with a lazy laugh. “There’s a stack of gold on the table. Reckon yo’ uncle Jackson will win it. Colter’s shore out of luck.”

Daggs stepped inside. He was graceful and slow. His long’ spurs clinked. He laid a rather compelling hand on Ellen’s shoulder.

“Heah, mah gal, give us a kiss,” he said.

“Daggs, I’m not your girl,” replied Ellen as she slipped out from under his hand.

Then Daggs put his arm round her, not with violence or rudeness, but with an indolent, affectionate assurance, at once bold and self-contained. Ellen, however, had to exert herself to get free of him, and when she had placed the table between them she looked him square in the eyes.

“Daggs, y’u keep your paws off me,” she said.

“Aw, now, Ellen, I ain’t no bear,” he remonstrated. “What’s the matter, kid?”

“I’m not a kid. And there’s nothin’ the matter. Y’u’re to keep your hands to yourself, that’s all.”

He tried to reach her across the table, and his movements were lazy and slow, like his smile. His tone was coaxing.

“Mah dear, shore you set on my knee just the other day, now, didn’t you?”

Ellen felt the blood sting her cheeks.

“I was a child,” she returned.

“Wal, listen to this heah grown-up young woman. All in a few days! ... Doon’t be in a temper, Ellen.... Come, give us a kiss.”

She deliberately gazed into his eyes. Like the eyes of an eagle, they were clear and hard, just now warmed by the dalliance of the moment, but there was no light, no intelligence in them to prove he understood her. The instant separated Ellen immeasurably from him and from all of his ilk.

“Daggs, I was a child,” she said. “I was lonely — hungry for affection — I was innocent. Then I was careless, too, and thoughtless when I should have known better. But I hardly understood y’u men. I put such thoughts out of my mind. I know now — know what y’u mean — what y’u have made people believe I am.”

“Ahuh! Shore I get your hunch,” he returned, with a change of tone. “But I asked you to marry me?”

“Yes y’u did. The first day y’u got heah to my dad’s house. And y’u asked me to marry y’u after y’u found y’u couldn’t have your way with me. To y’u the one didn’t mean any more than the other.”

“Shore I did more than Simm Bruce an’ Colter,” he retorted. “They never asked you to marry.”

“No, they didn’t. And if I could respect them at all I’d do it because they didn’t ask me.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Daggs, thoughtfully, as he stroked his long mustache.

“I’ll say to them what I’ve said to y’u,” went on Ellen. “I’ll tell dad to make y’u let me alone. I wouldn’t marry one of y’u — y’u loafers to save my life. I’ve my suspicions about y’u. Y’u’re a bad lot.”

Daggs changed subtly. The whole indolent nonchalance of the man vanished in an instant.

“Wal, Miss Jorth, I reckon you mean we’re a bad lot of sheepmen?” he queried, in the cool, easy speech of a Texan.

“No,” flashed Ellen. “Shore I don’t say sheepmen. I say y’u’re a BAD LOT.”

“Oh, the hell you say!” Daggs spoke as he might have spoken to a man; then turning swiftly on his heel he left her. Outside he encountered Ellen’s father. She heard Daggs speak: “Lee, your little wildcat is shore heah. An’ take mah hunch. Somebody has been talkin’ to her.”

“Who has?” asked her father, in his husky voice. Ellen knew at once that he had been drinking.

“Lord only knows,” replied Daggs. “But shore it wasn’t any friends of ours.”

“We cain’t stop people’s tongues,” said Jorth, resignedly

“Wal, I ain’t so shore,” continued Daggs, with his slow, cool laugh. “Reckon I never yet heard any daid men’s tongues wag.”

Then the musical tinkle of his spurs sounded fainter. A moment later Ellen’s father entered the cabin. His dark, moody face brightened at sight of her. Ellen knew she was the only person in the world left for him to love. And she was sure of his love. Her very presence always made him different. And through the years, the darker their misfortunes, the farther he slipped away from better days, the more she loved him.

“Hello, my Ellen!” he said, and he embraced her. When he had been drinking he never kissed her. “Shore I’m glad you’re home. This heah hole is bad enough any time, but when you’re gone it’s black.... I’m hungry.”

Ellen laid food and drink on the table; and for a little while she did not look directly at him. She was concerned about this new searching power of her eyes. In relation to him she vaguely dreaded it.

Lee Jorth had once been a singularly handsome man. He was tall, but did not have the figure of a horseman. His dark hair was streaked with gray, and was white over his ears. His face was sallow and thin, with deep lines. Under his round, prominent, brown eyes, like deadened furnaces, were blue swollen welts. He had a bitter mouth and weak chin, not wholly concealed by gray mustache and pointed beard. He wore a long frock coat and a wide-brimmed sombrero, both black in color, and so old and stained and frayed that along with the fashion of them they betrayed that they had come from Texas with him. Jorth always persisted in wearing a white linen shirt, likewise a relic of his Southern prosperity, and to-day it was ragged and soiled as usual.

Ellen watched her father eat and waited for him to speak. It occured to her strangely that he never asked about the sheep or the new-born lambs. She divined with a subtle new woman’s intuition that he cared nothing for his sheep.

“Ellen, what riled Daggs?” inquired her father, presently. “He shore had fire in his eye.”

Long ago Ellen had betrayed an indignity she had suffered at the hands of a man. Her father had nearly killed him. Since then she had taken care to keep her troubles to herself. If her father had not been blind and absorbed in his own brooding he would have seen a thousand things sufficient to inflame his Southern pride and temper.

“Daggs asked me to marry him again and I said he belonged to a bad lot,” she replied.

Jorth laughed in scorn. “Fool! My God! Ellen, I must have dragged you low — that every damned ru — er — sheepman — who comes along thinks he can marry you.”

At the break in his words, the incompleted meaning, Ellen dropped her eyes. Little things once never noted by her were now come to have a fascinating significance.

“Never mind, dad,” she replied. “They cain’t marry me.”

“Daggs said somebody had been talkin’ to you. How aboot that?”

“Old John Sprague has just gotten back from Grass Valley,” said Ellen. “I stopped in to see him. Shore he told me all the village gossip.”

“Anythin’ to interest me?” he queried, darkly.

“Yes, dad, I’m afraid a good deal,” she said, hesitatingly. Then in accordance with a decision Ellen had made she told him of the rumored war between sheepmen and cattlemen; that old Isbel had Blaisdell, Gordon, Fredericks, Blue and other well-known ranchers on his side; that his son Jean Isbel had come from Oregon with a wonderful reputation as fighter and scout and tracker; that it was no secret how Colonel Lee Jorth was at the head of the sheepmen; that a bloody war was sure to come.

“Hah!” exclaimed Jorth, with a stain of red in his sallow cheek. “Reckon none of that is news to me. I knew all that.”

Ellen wondered if he had heard of her meeting with Jean Isbel. If not he would hear as soon as Simm Bruce and Lorenzo came back. She decided to forestall them.

“Dad, I met Jean Isbel. He came into my camp. Asked the way to the Rim. I showed him. We — we talked a little. And shore were gettin’ acquainted when — when he told me who he was. Then I left him — hurried back to camp.”

“Colter met Isbel down in the woods,” replied Jorth, ponderingly. “Said he looked like an Indian — a hard an’ slippery customer to reckon with.”

“Shore I guess I can indorse what Colter said,” returned Ellen, dryly. She could have laughed aloud at her deceit. Still she had not lied.

“How’d this heah young Isbel strike you?” queried her father, suddenly glancing up at her.

Ellen felt the slow, sickening, guilty rise of blood in her face. She was helpless to stop it. But her father evidently never saw it. He was looking at her without seeing her.

“He — he struck me as different from men heah,” she stammered.

“Did Sprague tell you aboot this half-Indian Isbel — aboot his reputation?”

“Yes.”

“Did he look to you like a real woodsman?”

“Indeed he did. He wore buckskin. He stepped quick and soft. He acted at home in the woods. He had eyes black as night and sharp as lightnin’. They shore saw about all there was to see.”

Jorth chewed at his mustache and lost himself in brooding thought.

“Dad, tell me, is there goin’ to be a war?” asked Ellen, presently.

What a red, strange, rolling flash blazed in his eyes! His body jerked.

“Shore. You might as well know.”

“Between sheepmen and cattlemen?”

“Yes.”

“With y’u, dad, at the haid of one faction and Gaston Isbel the other?”

“Daughter, you have it correct, so far as you go.”

“Oh! ... Dad, can’t this fight be avoided?”

“You forget you’re from Texas,” he replied.

“Cain’t it be helped?” she repeated, stubbornly.

“No!” he declared, with deep, hoarse passion.

“Why not?”

“Wal, we sheepmen are goin’ to run sheep anywhere we like on the range. An’ cattlemen won’t stand for that.”

“But, dad, it’s so foolish,” declared Ellen, earnestly. “Y’u sheepmen do not have to run sheep over the cattle range.”

“I reckon we do.”

“Dad, that argument doesn’t go with me. I know the country. For years to come there will be room for both sheep and cattle without overrunnin’. If some of the range is better in water and grass, then whoever got there first should have it. That shore is only fair. It’s common sense, too.”

“Ellen, I reckon some cattle people have been prejudicin’ you,” said Jorth, bitterly.

“Dad!” she cried, hotly.

This had grown to be an ordeal for Jorth. He seemed a victim of contending tides of feeling. Some will or struggle broke within him and the change was manifest. Haggard, shifty-eyed, with wabbling chin, he burst into speech.

“See heah, girl. You listen. There’s a clique of ranchers down in the Basin, all those you named, with Isbel at their haid. They have resented sheepmen comin’ down into the valley. They want it all to themselves. That’s the reason. Shore there’s another. All the Isbels are crooked. They’re cattle an’ horse thieves — have been for years. Gaston Isbel always was a maverick rustler. He’s gettin’ old now an’ rich, so he wants to cover his tracks. He aims to blame this cattle rustlin’ an’ horse stealin’ on to us sheepmen, an’ run us out of the country.”

Gravely Ellen Jorth studied her father’s face, and the newly found truth-seeing power of her eyes did not fail her. In part, perhaps in all, he was telling lies. She shuddered a little, loyally battling against the insidious convictions being brought to fruition. Perhaps in his brooding over his failures and troubles he leaned toward false judgments. Ellen could not attach dishonor to her father’s motives or speeches. For long, however, something about him had troubled her, perplexed her. Fearfully she believed she was coming to some revelation, and, despite her keen determination to know, she found herself shrinking.

“Dad, mother told me before she died that the Isbels had ruined you,” said Ellen, very low. It hurt her so to see her father cover his face that she could hardly go on. “If they ruined you they ruined all of us. I know what we had once — what we lost again and again — and I see what we are come to now. Mother hated the Isbels. She taught me to hate the very name. But I never knew how they ruined you — or why — or when. And I want to know now.”

Then it was not the face of a liar that Jorth disclosed. The present was forgotten. He lived in the past. He even seemed younger ‘in the revivifying flash of hate that made his face radiant. The lines burned out. Hate gave him back the spirit of his youth.

“Gaston Isbel an’ I were boys together in Weston, Texas,” began Jorth, in swift, passionate voice. “We went to school together. We loved the same girl — your mother. When the war broke out she was engaged to Isbel. His family was rich. They influenced her people. But she loved me. When Isbel went to war she married me. He came back an’ faced us. God! I’ll never forget that. Your mother confessed her unfaithfulness — by Heaven! She taunted him with it. Isbel accused me of winnin’ her by lies. But she took the sting out of that.

“Isbel never forgave her an’ he hounded me to ruin. He made me out a card-sharp, cheatin’ my best friends. I was disgraced. Later he tangled me in the courts — he beat me out of property — an’ last by convictin’ me of rustlin’ cattle he run me out of Texas.”

Black and distorted now, Jorth’s face was a spectacle to make Ellen sick with a terrible passion of despair and hate. The truth of her father’s ruin and her own were enough. What mattered all else? Jorth beat the table with fluttering, nerveless hands that seemed all the more significant for their lack of physical force.

“An’ so help me God, it’s got to be wiped out in blood!” he hissed.

That was his answer to the wavering and nobility of Ellen. And she in her turn had no answer to make. She crept away into the corner behind the curtain, and there on her couch in the semidarkness she lay with strained heart, and a resurging, unconquerable tumult in her mind. And she lay there from the middle of that afternoon until the next morning.

When she awakened she expected to be unable to rise — she hoped she could not — but life seemed multiplied in her, and inaction was impossible. Something young and sweet and hopeful that had been in her did not greet the sun this morning. In their place was a woman’s passion to learn for herself, to watch events, to meet what must come, to survive.

After breakfast, at which she sat alone, she decided to put Isbel’s package out of the way, so that it would not be subjecting her to continual annoyance. The moment she picked it up the old curiosity assailed her.

“Shore I’ll see what it is, anyway,” she muttered, and with swift hands she opened the package. The action disclosed two pairs of fine, soft shoes, of a style she had never seen, and four pairs of stockings, two of strong, serviceable wool, and the others of a finer texture. Ellen looked at them in amaze. Of all things in the world, these would have been the last she expected to see. And, strangely, they were what she wanted and needed most. Naturally, then, Ellen made the mistake of taking them in her hands to feel their softness and warmth.

“Shore! He saw my bare legs! And he brought me these presents he’d intended for his sister.... He was ashamed for me — sorry for me.... And I thought he looked at me bold-like, as I’m used to be looked at heah! Isbel or not, he’s shore...”

But Ellen Jorth could not utter aloud the conviction her intelligence tried to force upon her.

“It’d be a pity to burn them,” she mused. “I cain’t do it. Sometime I might send them to Ann Isbel.”

Whereupon she wrapped them up again and hid them in the bottom of the old trunk, and slowly, as she lowered the lid, looking darkly, blankly at the wall, she whispered: “Jean Isbel! ... I hate him!”

Later when Ellen went outdoors she carried her rifle, which was unusual for her, unless she intended to go into the woods.

The morning was sunny and warm. A group of shirt-sleeved men lounged in the hall and before the porch of the double cabin. Her father was pacing up and down, talking forcibly. Ellen heard his hoarse voice. As she approached he ceased talking and his listeners relaxed their attention. Ellen’s glance ran over them swiftly — Daggs, with his superb head, like that of a hawk, uncovered to the sun; Colter with his lowered, secretive looks, his sand-gray lean face; Jackson Jorth, her uncle, huge, gaunt, hulking, with white in his black beard and hair, and the fire of a ghoul in his hollow eyes; Tad Jorth, another brother of her father’s, younger, red of eye and nose, a weak-chinned drinker of rum. Three other limber-legged Texans lounged there, partners of Daggs, and they were sun-browned, light-haired, blue-eyed men singularly alike in appearance, from their dusty high-heeled boots to their broad black sombreros. They claimed to be sheepmen. All Ellen could be sure of was that Rock Wells spent most of his time there, doing nothing but look for a chance to waylay her; Springer was a gambler; and the third, who answered to the strange name of Queen, was a silent, lazy, watchful-eyed man who never wore a glove on his right hand and who never was seen without a gun within easy reach of that hand.

“Howdy, Ellen. Shore you ain’t goin’ to say good mawnin’ to this heah bad lot?” drawled Daggs, with good-natured sarcasm.

“Why, shore! Good morning, y’u hard-working industrious MANANA sheep raisers,” replied Ellen, coolly.

Daggs stared. The others appeared taken back by a greeting so foreign from any to which they were accustomed from her. Jackson Jorth let out a gruff haw-haw. Some of them doffed their sombreros, and Rock Wells managed a lazy, polite good morning. Ellen’s father seemed most significantly struck by her greeting, and the least amused.

“Ellen, I’m not likin’ your talk,” he said, with a frown.

“Dad, when y’u play cards don’t y’u call a spade a spade?”

“Why, shore I do.”

“Well, I’m calling spades spades.”

“Ahuh!” grunted Jorth, furtively dropping his eyes. “Where you goin’ with your gun? I’d rather you hung round heah now.”

“Reckon I might as well get used to packing my gun all the time,” replied Ellen. “Reckon I’ll be treated more like a man.”

Then the event Ellen had been expecting all morning took place. Simm Bruce and Lorenzo rode around the slope of the Knoll and trotted toward the cabin. Interest in Ellen was relegated to the background.

“Shore they’re bustin’ with news,” declared Daggs.

“They been ridin’ some, you bet,” remarked another.

“Huh!” exclaimed Jorth. “Bruce shore looks queer to me.”

“Red liquor,” said Tad Jorth, sententiously. “You-all know the brand Greaves hands out.”

“Naw, Simm ain’t drunk,” said Jackson Jorth. “Look at his bloody shirt.”

The cool, indolent interest of the crowd vanished at the red color pointed out by Jackson Jorth. Daggs rose in a single springy motion to his lofty height. The face Bruce turned to Jorth was swollen and bruised, with unhealed cuts. Where his right eye should have been showed a puffed dark purple bulge. His other eye, however, gleamed with hard and sullen light. He stretched a big shaking hand toward Jorth.

“Thet Nez Perce Isbel beat me half to death,” he bellowed.

Jorth stared hard at the tragic, almost grotesque figure, at the battered face. But speech failed him. It was Daggs who answered Bruce.

“Wal, Simm, I’ll be damned if you don’t look it.”

“Beat you! What with?” burst out Jorth, explosively.

“I thought he was swingin’ an ax, but Greaves swore it was his fists,” bawled Bruce, in misery and fury.

“Where was your gun?” queried Jorth, sharply.

“Gun? Hell!” exclaimed Bruce, flinging wide his arms. “Ask Lorenzo. He had a gun. An’ he got a biff in the jaw before my turn come. Ask him?”

Attention thus directed to the Mexican showed a heavy discolored swelling upon the side of his olive-skinned face. Lorenzo looked only serious.

“Hah! Speak up,” shouted Jorth, impatiently.

“Senor Isbel heet me ver quick,” replied Lorenzo, with expressive gesture. “I see thousand stars — then moocho black — all like night.”

At that some of Daggs’s men lolled back with dry crisp laughter. Daggs’s hard face rippled with a smile. But there was no humor in anything for Colonel Jorth.

“Tell us what come off. Quick!” he ordered. “Where did it happen? Why? Who saw it? What did you do?”

Bruce lapsed into a sullen impressiveness. “Wal, I happened in Greaves’s store an’ run into Jean Isbel. Shore was lookin’ fer him. I had my mind made up what to do, but I got to shootin’ off my gab instead of my gun. I called him Nez Perce — an’ I throwed all thet talk in his face about old Gass Isbel sendin’ fer him — an’ I told him he’d git run out of the Tonto. Reckon I was jest warmin’ up.... But then it all happened. He slugged Lorenzo jest one. An’ Lorenzo slid peaceful-like to bed behind the counter. I hadn’t time to think of throwin’ a gun before he whaled into me. He knocked out two of my teeth. An’ I swallered one of them.”

Ellen stood in the background behind three of the men and in the shadow. She did not join in the laugh that followed Bruce’s remarks. She had known that he would lie. Uncertain yet of her reaction to this, but more bitter and furious as he revealed his utter baseness, she waited for more to be said.

“Wal, I’ll be doggoned,” drawled Daggs.

“What do you make of this kind of fightin’?” queried Jorth,

“Darn if I know,” replied Daggs in perplexity. “Shore an’ sartin it’s not the way of a Texan. Mebbe this young Isbel really is what old Gass swears he is. Shore Bruce ain’t nothin’ to give an edge to a real gun fighter. Looks to me like Isbel bluffed Greaves an’ his gang an’ licked your men without throwin’ a gun.”

“Maybe Isbel doesn’t want the name of drawin’ first blood,” suggested Jorth.

“That ‘d be like Gass,” spoke up Rock Wells, quietly. “I onct rode fer Gass in Texas.”

“Say, Bruce,” said Daggs, “was this heah palaverin’ of yours an’ Jean Isbel’s aboot the old stock dispute? Aboot his father’s range an’ water? An’ partickler aboot, sheep?”

“Wal — I — I yelled a heap,” declared Bruce, haltingly, “but I don’t recollect all I said — I was riled.... Shore, though it was the same old argyment thet’s been fetchin’ us closer an’ closer to trouble.”

Daggs removed his keen hawklike gaze from Bruce. “Wal, Jorth, all I’ll say is this. If Bruce is tellin’ the truth we ain’t got a hell of a lot to fear from this young Isbel. I’ve known a heap of gun fighters in my day. An’ Jean Isbel don’t ran true to class. Shore there never was a gunman who’d risk cripplin’ his right hand by sluggin’ anybody.”

“Wal,” broke in Bruce, sullenly. “You-all can take it daid straight or not. I don’t give a damn. But you’ve shore got my hunch thet Nez Perce Isbel is liable to handle any of you fellars jest as he did me, an’ jest as easy. What’s more, he’s got Greaves figgered. An’ you-all know thet Greaves is as deep in—”

“Shut up that kind of gab,” demanded Jorth, stridently. “An’ answer me. Was the row in Greaves’s barroom aboot sheep?”

“Aw, hell! I said so, didn’t I?” shouted Bruce, with a fierce uplift of his distorted face.

Ellen strode out from the shadow of the tall men who had obscured her.

“Bruce, y’u’re a liar,” she said, bitingly.

The surprise of her sudden appearance seemed to root Bruce to the spot. All but the discolored places on his face turned white. He held his breath a moment, then expelled it hard. His effort to recover from the shock was painfully obvious. He stammered incoherently.

“Shore y’u’re more than a liar, too,” cried Ellen, facing him with blazing eyes. And the rifle, gripped in both hands, seemed to declare her intent of menace. “That row was not about sheep.... Jean Isbel didn’t beat y’u for anythin’ about sheep.... Old John Sprague was in Greaves’s store. He heard y’u. He saw Jean Isbel beat y’u as y’u deserved.... An’ he told ME!”

Ellen saw Bruce shrink in fear of his life; and despite her fury she was filled with disgust that he could imagine she would have his blood on her hands. Then she divined that Bruce saw more in the gathering storm in her father’s eyes than he had to fear from her.

“Girl, what the hell are y’u sayin’?” hoarsely called Jorth, in dark amaze.

“Dad, y’u leave this to me,” she retorted.

Daggs stepped beside Jorth, significantly on his right side. “Let her alone Lee,” he advised, coolly. “She’s shore got a hunch on Bruce.”

“Simm Bruce, y’u cast a dirty slur on my name,” cried Ellen, passionately.

It was then that Daggs grasped Jorth’s right arm and held it tight, “Jest what I thought,” he said. “Stand still, Lee. Let’s see the kid make him showdown.”

“That’s what jean Isbel beat y’u for,” went on Ellen. “For slandering a girl who wasn’t there.... Me! Y’u rotten liar!”

“But, Ellen, it wasn’t all lies,” said Bruce, huskily. “I was half drunk — an’ horrible jealous.... You know Lorenzo seen Isbel kissin’ you. I can prove thet.”

Ellen threw up her head and a scarlet wave of shame and wrath flooded her face.

“Yes,” she cried, ringingly. “He saw Jean Isbel kiss me. Once! ... An’ it was the only decent kiss I’ve had in years. He meant no insult. I didn’t know who he was. An’ through his kiss I learned a difference between men.... Y’u made Lorenzo lie. An’ if I had a shred of good name left in Grass Valley you dishonored it.... Y’u made him think I was your girl! Damn y’u! I ought to kill y’u.... Eat your words now — take them back — or I’ll cripple y’u for life!”

Ellen lowered the cocked rifle toward his feet.

“Shore, Ellen, I take back — all I said,” gulped Bruce. He gazed at the quivering rifle barrel and then into the face of Ellen’s father. Instinct told him where his real peril lay.

Here the cool and tactful Daggs showed himself master of the situation.

“Heah, listen!” he called. “Ellen, I reckon Bruce was drunk an’ out of his haid. He’s shore ate his words. Now, we don’t want any cripples in this camp. Let him alone. Your dad got me heah to lead the Jorths, an’ that’s my say to you.... Simm, you’re shore a low-down lyin’ rascal. Keep away from Ellen after this or I’ll bore you myself.... Jorth, it won’t be a bad idee for you to forget you’re a Texan till you cool off. Let Bruce stop some Isbel lead. Shore the Jorth-Isbel war is aboot on, an’ I reckon we’d be smart to believe old Gass’s talk aboot his Nez Perce son.”

CHAPTER VI

FROM THIS HOUR Ellen Jorth bent all of her lately awakened intelligence and will to the only end that seemed to hold possible salvation for her. In the crisis sure to come she did not want to be blind or weak. Dreaming and indolence, habits born in her which were often a comfort to one as lonely as she, would ill fit her for the hard test she divined and dreaded. In the matter of her father’s fight she must stand by him whatever the issue or the outcome; in what pertained to her own principles, her womanhood, and her soul she stood absolutely alone.

Therefore, Ellen put dreams aside, and indolence of mind and body behind her. Many tasks she found, and when these were done for a day she kept active in other ways, thus earning the poise and peace of labor.

Jorth rode off every day, sometimes with one or two of the men, often with a larger number. If he spoke of such trips to Ellen it was to give an impression of visiting the ranches of his neighbors or the various sheep camps. Often he did not return the day he left. When he did get back he smelled of rum and appeared heavy from need of sleep. His horses were always dust and sweat covered. During his absences Ellen fell victim to anxious dread until he returned. Daily he grew darker and more haggard of face, more obsessed by some impending fate. Often he stayed up late, haranguing with the men in the dim-lit cabin, where they drank and smoked, but seldom gambled any more. When the men did not gamble something immediate and perturbing was on their minds. Ellen had not yet lowered herself to the deceit and suspicion of eavesdropping, but she realized that there was a climax approaching in which she would deliberately do so.

In those closing May days Ellen learned the significance of many things that previously she had taken as a matter of course. Her father did not run a ranch. There was absolutely no ranching done, and little work. Often Ellen had to chop wood herself. Jorth did not possess a plow. Ellen was bound to confess that the evidence of this lack dumfounded her. Even old John Sprague raised some hay, beets, turnips. Jorth’s cattle and horses fared ill during the winter. Ellen remembered how they used to clean up four-inch oak saplings and aspens. Many of them died in the snow. The flocks of sheep, however, were driven down into the Basin in the fall, and across the Reno Pass to Phoenix and Maricopa.

Ellen could not discover a fence post on the ranch, nor a piece of salt for the horses and cattle, nor a wagon, nor any sign of a sheep-shearing outfit. She had never seen any sheep sheared. Ellen could never keep track of the many and different horses running loose and hobbled round the ranch. There were droves of horses in the woods, and some of them wild as deer. According to her long-established understanding, her father and her uncles were keen on horse trading and buying.

Then the many trails leading away from the Jorth ranch — these grew to have a fascination for Ellen; and the time came when she rode out on them to see for herself where they led. The sheep ranch of Daggs, supposed to be only a few miles across the ridges, down in Bear Canyon, never materialized at all for Ellen. This circumstance so interested her that she went up to see her friend Sprague and got him to direct her to Bear Canyon, so that she would be sure not to miss it. And she rode from the narrow, maple-thicketed head of it near the Rim down all its length. She found no ranch, no cabin, not even a corral in Bear Canyon. Sprague said there was only one canyon by that name. Daggs had assured her of the exact location on his place, and so had her father. Had they lied? Were they mistaken in the canyon? There were many canyons, all heading up near the Rim, all running and widening down for miles through the wooded mountain, and vastly different from the deep, short, yellow-walled gorges that cut into the Rim from the Basin side. Ellen investigated the canyons within six or eight miles of her home, both to east and to west. All she discovered was a couple of old log cabins, long deserted. Still, she did not follow out all the trails to their ends. Several of them led far into the deepest, roughest, wildest brakes of gorge and thicket that she had seen. No cattle or sheep had ever been driven over these trails.

This riding around of Ellen’s at length got to her father’s ears. Ellen expected that a bitter quarrel would ensue, for she certainly would refuse to be confined to the camp; but her father only asked her to limit her riding to the meadow valley, and straightway forgot all about it. In fact, his abstraction one moment, his intense nervousness the next, his harder drinking and fiercer harangues with the men, grew to be distressing for Ellen. They presaged his further deterioration and the ever-present evil of the growing feud.

One day Jorth rode home in the early morning, after an absence of two nights. Ellen heard the clip-clop of, horses long before she saw them.

“Hey, Ellen! Come out heah,” called her father.

Ellen left her work and went outside. A stranger had ridden in with her father, a young giant whose sharp-featured face appeared marked by ferret-like eyes and a fine, light, fuzzy beard. He was long, loose jointed, not heavy of build, and he had the largest hands and feet Ellen bad ever seen. Next Ellen espied a black horse they had evidently brought with them. Her father was holding a rope halter. At once the black horse struck Ellen as being a beauty and a thoroughbred.

“Ellen, heah’s a horse for you,” said Jorth, with something of pride. “I made a trade. Reckon I wanted him myself, but he’s too gentle for me an’ maybe a little small for my weight.”

Delight visited Ellen for the first time in many days. Seldom had she owned a good horse, and never one like this.

“Oh, dad!” she exclaimed, in her gratitude.

“Shore he’s yours on one condition,” said her father.

“What’s that?” asked Ellen, as she laid caressing hands on the restless horse.

“You’re not to ride him out of the canyon.”

“Agreed.... All daid black, isn’t he, except that white face? What’s his name, dad?

“I forgot to ask,” replied Jorth, as he began unsaddling his own horse. “Slater, what’s this heah black’s name?”

The lanky giant grinned. “I reckon it was Spades.”

“Spades?” ejaculated Ellen, blankly. “What a name! ... Well, I guess it’s as good as any. He’s shore black.”

“Ellen, keep him hobbled when you’re not ridin’ him,” was her father’s parting advice as he walked off with the stranger.

Spades was wet and dusty and his satiny skin quivered. He had fine, dark, intelligent eyes that watched Ellen’s every move. She knew how her father and his friends dragged and jammed horses through the woods and over the rough trails. It did not take her long to discover that this horse had been a pet. Ellen cleaned his coat and brushed him and fed him. Then she fitted her bridle to suit his head and saddled him. His evident response to her kindness assured her that he was gentle, so she mounted and rode him, to discover he had the easiest gait she had ever experienced. He walked and trotted to suit her will, but when left to choose his own gait he fell into a graceful little pace that was very easy for her. He appeared quite ready to break into a run at her slightest bidding, but Ellen satisfied herself on this first ride with his slower gaits.

“Spades, y’u’ve shore cut out my burro Jinny,” said Ellen, regretfully. “Well, I reckon women are fickle.”

Next day she rode up the canyon to show Spades to her friend John Sprague. The old burro breeder was not at home. As his door was open, however, and a fire smoldering, Ellen concluded he would soon return. So she waited. Dismounting, she left Spades free to graze on the new green grass that carpeted the ground. The cabin and little level clearing accentuated the loneliness and wildness of the forest. Ellen always liked it here and had once been in the habit of visiting the old man often. But of late she had stayed away, for the reason that Sprague’s talk and his news and his poorly hidden pity depressed her.

Presently she heard hoof beats on the hard, packed trail leading down the canyon in the direction from which she had come. Scarcely likely was it that Sprague should return from this direction. Ellen thought her father had sent one of the herders for her. But when she caught a glimpse of the approaching horseman, down in the aspens, she failed to recognize him. After he had passed one of the openings she heard his horse stop. Probably the man had seen her; at least she could not otherwise account for his stopping. The glimpse she had of him had given her the impression that he was bending over, peering ahead in the trail, looking for tracks. Then she heard the rider come on again, more slowly this time. At length the horse trotted out into the opening, to be hauled up short. Ellen recognized the buckskin-clad figure, the broad shoulders, the dark face of Jean Isbel.

Ellen felt prey to the strangest quaking sensation she had ever suffered. It took violence of her new-born spirit to subdue that feeling.

Isbel rode slowly across the clearing toward her. For Ellen his approach seemed singularly swift — so swift that her surprise, dismay, conjecture, and anger obstructed her will. The outwardly calm and cold Ellen Jorth was a travesty that mocked her — that she felt he would discern.

The moment Isbel drew close enough for Ellen to see his face she experienced a strong, shuddering repetition of her first shock of recognition. He was not the same. The light, the youth was gone. This, however, did not cause her emotion. Was it not a sudden transition of her nature to the dominance of hate? Ellen seemed to feel the shadow of her unknown self standing with her.

Isbel halted his horse. Ellen had been standing near the trunk of a fallen pine and she instinctively backed against it. How her legs trembled! Isbel took off his cap and crushed it nervously in his bare, brown hand.

“Good mornin’, Miss Ellen!” he said.

Ellen did not return his greeting, but queried, almost breathlessly, “Did y’u come by our ranch?”

“No. I circled,” he replied.

“Jean Isbel! What do y’u want heah?” she demanded.

“Don’t you know?” he returned. His eyes were intensely black and piercing. They seemed to search Ellen’s very soul. To meet their gaze was an ordeal that only her rousing fury sustained.

Ellen felt on her lips a scornful allusion to his half-breed Indian traits and the reputation that had preceded him. But she could not utter it.

“No,” she replied.

“It’s hard to call a woman a liar,” he returned, bitterly. But you must be — seein’ you’re a Jorth.

“Liar! Not to y’u, Jean Isbel,” she retorted. “I’d not lie to y’u to save my life.”

He studied her with keen, sober, moody intent. The dark fire of his eyes thrilled her.

“If that’s true, I’m glad,” he said.

“Shore it’s true. I’ve no idea why y’u came heah.”

Ellen did have a dawning idea that she could not force into oblivion. But if she ever admitted it to her consciousness, she must fail in the contempt and scorn and fearlessness she chose to throw in this man’s face.

“Does old Sprague live here?” asked Isbel.

“Yes. I expect him back soon.... Did y’u come to see him?”

“No.... Did Sprague tell you anythin’ about the row he saw me in?”

“He — did not,” replied Ellen, lying with stiff lips. She who had sworn she could not lie! She felt the hot blood leaving her heart, mounting in a wave. All her conscious will seemed impelled to deceive. What had she to hide from Jean Isbel? And a still, small voice replied that she had to hide the Ellen Jorth who had waited for him that day, who had spied upon him, who had treasured a gift she could not destroy, who had hugged to her miserable heart the fact that he had fought for her name.

“I’m glad of that,” Isbel was saying, thoughtfully.

“Did you come heah to see me?” interrupted Ellen. She felt that she could not endure this reiterated suggestion of fineness, of consideration in him. She would betray herself — betray what she did not even realize herself. She must force other footing — and that should be the one of strife between the Jorths and Isbels.

“No — honest, I didn’t, Miss Ellen,” he rejoined, humbly. “I’ll tell you, presently, why I came. But it wasn’t to see you.... I don’t deny I wanted ... but that’s no matter. You didn’t meet me that day on the Rim.”

“Meet y’u!” she echoed, coldly. “Shore y’u never expected me?”

“Somehow I did,” he replied, with those penetrating eyes on her. “I put somethin’ in your tent that day. Did you find it?”

“Yes,” she replied, with the same casual coldness.

“What did you do with it?”

“I kicked it out, of course,” she replied.

She saw him flinch.

“And you never opened it?”

“Certainly not,” she retorted, as if forced. “Doon’t y’u know anythin’ about — about people? ... Shore even if y’u are an Isbel y’u never were born in Texas.”

“Thank God I wasn’t!” he replied. “I was born in a beautiful country of green meadows and deep forests and white rivers, not in a barren desert where men live dry and hard as the cactus. Where I come from men don’t live on hate. They can forgive.”

“Forgive! ... Could y’u forgive a Jorth?”

“Yes, I could.”

“Shore that’s easy to say — with the wrongs all on your side,” she declared, bitterly.

“Ellen Jorth, the first wrong was on your side,” retorted Jean, his voice fall. “Your father stole my father’s sweetheart — by lies, by slander, by dishonor, by makin’ terrible love to her in his absence.”

“It’s a lie,” cried Ellen, passionately.

“It is not,” he declared, solemnly.

“Jean Isbel, I say y’u lie!”

“No! I say you’ve been lied to,” he thundered.

The tremendous force of his spirit seemed to fling truth at Ellen. It weakened her.

“But — mother loved dad — best.”

“Yes, afterward. No wonder, poor woman! ... But it was the action of your father and your mother that ruined all these lives. You’ve got to know the truth, Ellen Jorth.... All the years of hate have borne their fruit. God Almighty can never save us now. Blood must be spilled. The Jorths and the Isbels can’t live on the same earth.... And you’ve got to know the truth because the worst of this hell falls on you and me.”

The hate that he spoke of alone upheld her.

“Never, Jean Isbel!” she cried. “I’ll never know truth from y’u.... I’ll never share anythin’ with y’u — not even hell.”

Isbel dismounted and stood before her, still holding his bridle reins. The bay horse champed his bit and tossed his head.

“Why do you hate me so?” he asked. “I just happen to be my father’s son. I never harmed you or any of your people. I met you ... fell in love with you in a flash — though I never knew it till after.... Why do you hate me so terribly?”

Ellen felt a heavy, stifling pressure within her breast. “Y’u’re an Isbel.... Doon’t speak of love to me.”

“I didn’t intend to. But your — your hate seems unnatural. And we’ll probably never meet again.... I can’t help it. I love you. Love at first sight! Jean Isbel and Ellen Jorth! Strange, isn’t it? ... It was all so strange. My meetin’ you so lonely and unhappy, my seein’ you so sweet and beautiful, my thinkin’ you so good in spite of—”

“Shore it was strange,” interrupted Ellen, with scornful laugh. She had found her defense. In hurting him she could hide her own hurt. “Thinking me so good in spite of — Ha-ha! And I said I’d been kissed before!”

“Yes, in spite of everything,” he said.

Ellen could not look at him as he loomed over her. She felt a wild tumult in her heart. All that crowded to her lips for utterance was false.

“Yes — kissed before I met you — and since,” she said, mockingly. “And I laugh at what y’u call love, Jean Isbel.”

“Laugh if you want — but believe it was sweet, honorable — the best in me,” he replied, in deep earnestness.

“Bah!” cried Ellen, with all the force of her pain and shame and hate.

“By Heaven, you must be different from what I thought!” exclaimed Isbel, huskily.

“Shore if I wasn’t, I’d make myself.... Now, Mister Jean Isbel, get on your horse an’ go!”

Something of composure came to Ellen with these words of dismissal, and she glanced up at him with half-veiled eyes. His changed aspect prepared her for some blow.

“That’s a pretty black horse.”

“Yes,” replied Ellen, blankly.

“Do you like him?”

“I — I love him.”

“All right, I’ll give him to you then. He’ll have less work and kinder treatment than if I used him. I’ve got some pretty hard rides ahead of me.”

“Y’u — y’u give—” whispered Ellen, slowly stiffening. “Yes. He’s mine,” replied Isbel. With that he turned to whistle. Spades threw up his head, snorted, and started forward at a trot. He came faster the closer he got, and if ever Ellen saw the joy of a horse at sight of a beloved master she saw it then. Isbel laid a hand on the animal’s neck and caressed him, then, turning back to Ellen, he went on speaking: “I picked him from a lot of fine horses of my father’s. We got along well. My sister Ann rode him a good deal.... He was stolen from our pasture day before yesterday. I took his trail and tracked him up here. Never lost his trail till I got to your ranch, where I had to circle till I picked it up again.”

“Stolen — pasture — tracked him up heah?” echoed Ellen, without any evidence of emotion whatever. Indeed, she seemed to have been turned to stone.

“Trackin’ him was easy. I wish for your sake it ‘d been impossible,” he said, bluntly.

“For my sake?” she echoed, in precisely the same tone,

Manifestly that tone irritated Isbel beyond control. He misunderstood it. With a hand far from gentle he pushed her bent head back so he could look into her face.

“Yes, for your sake!” he declared, harshly. “Haven’t you sense enough to see that? ... What kind of a game do you think you can play with me?”

“Game I ... Game of what?” she asked.

“Why, a — a game of ignorance — innocence — any old game to fool a man who’s tryin’ to be decent.”

This time Ellen mutely looked her dull, blank questioning. And it inflamed Isbel.

“You know your father’s a horse thief!” he thundered.

Outwardly Ellen remained the same. She had been prepared for an unknown and a terrible blow. It had fallen. And her face, her body, her hands, locked with the supreme fortitude of pride and sustained by hate, gave no betrayal of the crashing, thundering ruin within her mind and soul. Motionless she leaned there, meeting the piercing fire of Isbel’s eyes, seeing in them a righteous and terrible scorn. In one flash the naked truth seemed blazed at her. The faith she had fostered died a sudden death. A thousand perplexing problems were solved in a second of whirling, revealing thought.

“Ellen Jorth, you know your father’s in with this Hash Knife Gang of rustlers,” thundered Isbel.

“Shore,” she replied, with the cool, easy, careless defiance of a Texan.

“You know he’s got this Daggs to lead his faction against the Isbels?”

“Shore.”

“You know this talk of sheepmen buckin’ the cattlemen is all a blind?”

“Shore,” reiterated Ellen.

Isbel gazed darkly down upon her. With his anger spent for the moment, he appeared ready to end the interview. But he seemed fascinated by the strange look of her, by the incomprehensible something she emanated. Havoc gleamed in his pale, set face. He shook his dark head and his broad hand went to his breast.

“To think I fell in love with such as you!” he exclaimed, and his other hand swept out in a tragic gesture of helpless pathos and impotence.

The hell Isbel had hinted at now possessed Ellen — body, mind, and soul. Disgraced, scorned by an Isbel! Yet loved by him! In that divination there flamed up a wild, fierce passion to hurt, to rend, to flay, to fling back upon him a stinging agony. Her thought flew upon her like whips. Pride of the Jorths! Pride of the old Texan blue blood! It lay dead at her feet, killed by the scornful words of the last of that family to whom she owed her degradation. Daughter of a horse thief and rustler! Dark and evil and grim set the forces within her, accepting her fate, damning her enemies, true to the blood of the Jorths. The sins of the father must be visited upon the daughter.

“Shore y’u might have had me — that day on the Rim — if y’u hadn’t told your name,” she said, mockingly, and she gazed into his eyes with all the mystery of a woman’s nature.

Isbel’s powerful frame shook as with an ague. “Girl, what do you mean?”

“Shore, I’d have been plumb fond of havin’ y’u make up to me,” she drawled. It possessed her now with irresistible power, this fact of the love he could not help. Some fiendish woman’s satisfaction dwelt in her consciousness of her power to kill the noble, the faithful, the good in him.

“Ellen Jorth, you lie!” he burst out, hoarsely.

“Jean, shore I’d been a toy and a rag for these rustlers long enough. I was tired of them.... I wanted a new lover.... And if y’u hadn’t give yourself away—”

Isbel moved so swiftly that she did not realize his intention until his hard hand smote her mouth. Instantly she tasted the hot, salty blood from a cut lip.

“Shut up, you hussy!” he ordered, roughly. “Have you no shame? ... My sister Ann spoke well of you. She made excuses — she pitied you.”

That for Ellen seemed the culminating blow under which she almost sank. But one moment longer could she maintain this unnatural and terrible poise.

“Jean Isbel — go along with y’u,” she said, impatiently. “I’m waiting heah for Simm Bruce!”

At last it was as if she struck his heart. Because of doubt of himself and a stubborn faith in her, his passion and jealousy were not proof against this last stab. Instinctive subtlety inherent in Ellen had prompted the speech that tortured Isbel. How the shock to him rebounded on her! She gasped as he lunged for her, too swift for her to move a hand. One arm crushed round her like a steel band; the other, hard across her breast and neck, forced her head back. Then she tried to wrestle away. But she was utterly powerless. His dark face bent down closer and closer. Suddenly Ellen ceased trying to struggle. She was like a stricken creature paralyzed by the piercing, hypnotic eyes of a snake. Yet in spite of her terror, if he meant death by her, she welcomed it.

“Ellen Jorth, I’m thinkin’ yet — you lie!” he said, low and tense between his teeth.

“No! No!” she screamed, wildly. Her nerve broke there. She could no longer meet those terrible black eyes. Her passionate denial was not only the last of her shameful deceit; it was the woman of her, repudiating herself and him, and all this sickening, miserable situation.

Isbel took her literally. She had convinced him. And the instant held blank horror for Ellen.

“By God — then I’ll have somethin’ — of you anyway!” muttered Isbel, thickly.

Ellen saw the blood bulge in his powerful neck. She saw his dark, hard face, strange now, fearful to behold, come lower and lower, till it blurred and obstructed her gaze. She felt the swell and ripple and stretch — then the bind of his muscles, like huge coils of elastic rope. Then with savage rude force his mouth closed on hers. All Ellen’s senses reeled, as if she were swooning. She was suffocating. The spasm passed, and a bursting spurt of blood revived her to acute and terrible consciousness. For the endless period of one moment he held her so that her breast seemed crushed. His kisses burned and braised her lips. And then, shifting violently to her neck, they pressed so hard that she choked under them. It was as if a huge bat had fastened upon her throat.

Suddenly the remorseless binding embraces — the hot and savage kisses — fell away from her. Isbel had let go. She saw him throw up his hands, and stagger back a little, all the while with his piercing gaze on her. His face had been dark purple: now it was white.

“No — Ellen Jorth,” he panted, “I don’t — want any of you — that way.” And suddenly he sank on the log and covered his face with his hands. “What I loved in you — was what I thought — you were.”

Like a wildcat Ellen sprang upon him, beating him with her fists, tearing at his hair, scratching his face, in a blind fury. Isbel made no move to stop her, and her violence spent itself with her strength. She swayed back from him, shaking so that she could scarcely stand.

“Y’u — damned — Isbel!” she gasped, with hoarse passion. “Y’u insulted me!”

“Insulted you?...” laughed Isbel, in bitter scorn. “It couldn’t be done.”

“Oh! ... I’ll KILL y’u!” she hissed.

Isbel stood up and wiped the red scratches on his face. “Go ahead. There’s my gun,” he said, pointing to his saddle sheath. “Somebody’s got to begin this Jorth-Isbel feud. It’ll be a dirty business. I’m sick of it already.... Kill me! ... First blood for Ellen Jorth!”

Suddenly the dark grim tide that had seemed to engulf Ellen’s very soul cooled and receded, leaving her without its false strength. She began to sag. She stared at Isbel’s gun. “Kill him,” whispered the retreating voices of her hate. But she was as powerless as if she were still held in Jean Isbel’s giant embrace.

“I — I want to — kill y’u,” she whispered, “but I cain’t.... Leave me.”

“You’re no Jorth — the same as I’m no Isbel. We oughtn’t be mixed in this deal,” he said, somberly. “I’m sorrier for you than I am for myself.... You’re a girl.... You once had a good mother — a decent home. And this life you’ve led here — mean as it’s been — is nothin’ to what you’ll face now. Damn the men that brought you to this! I’m goin’ to kill some of them.”

With that he mounted and turned away. Ellen called out for him to take his horse. He did not stop nor look back. She called again, but her voice was fainter, and Isbel was now leaving at a trot. Slowly she sagged against the tree, lower and lower. He headed into the trail leading up the canyon. How strange a relief Ellen felt! She watched him ride into the aspens and start up the slope, at last to disappear in the pines. It seemed at the moment that he took with him something which had been hers. A pain in her head dulled the thoughts that wavered to and fro. After he had gone she could not see so well. Her eyes were tired. What had happened to her? There was blood on her hands. Isbel’s blood! She shuddered. Was it an omen? Lower she sank against the tree and closed her eyes.

Old John Sprague did not return. Hours dragged by — dark hours for Ellen Jorth lying prostrate beside the tree, hiding the blue sky and golden sunlight from her eyes. At length the lethargy of despair, the black dull misery wore away; and she gradually returned to a condition of coherent thought.

What had she learned? Sight of the black horse grazing near seemed to prompt the trenchant replies. Spades belonged to Jean Isbel. He had been stolen by her father or by one of her father’s accomplices. Isbel’s vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast. Her father was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, a consort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang. Ellen well remembered the ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago. Her father had gotten in with this famous band of rustlers to serve his own ends — the extermination of the Isbels. It was all very plain now to Ellen.

“Daughter of a horse thief an’ rustler!” she muttered.

And her thoughts sped back to the days of her girlhood. Only the very early stage of that time had been happy. In the light of Isbel’s revelation the many changes of residence, the sudden moves to unsettled parts of Texas, the periods of poverty and sudden prosperity, all leading to the final journey to this God-forsaken Arizona — these were now seen in their true significance. As far back as she could remember her father had been a crooked man. And her mother had known it. He had dragged her to her ruin. That degradation had killed her. Ellen realized that with poignant sorrow, with a sudden revolt against her father. Had Gaston Isbel truly and dishonestly started her father on his downhill road? Ellen wondered. She hated the Isbels with unutterable and growing hate, yet she had it in her to think, to ponder, to weigh judgments in their behalf. She owed it to something in herself to be fair. But what did it matter who was to blame for the Jorth-Isbel feud? Somehow Ellen was forced to confess that deep in her soul it mattered terribly. To be true to herself — the self that she alone knew — she must have right on her side. If the Jorths were guilty, and she clung to them and their creed, then she would be one of them.

“But I’m not,” she mused, aloud. “My name’s Jorth, an’ I reckon I have bad blood.... But it never came out in me till to-day. I’ve been honest. I’ve been good — yes, GOOD, as my mother taught me to be — in spite of all.... Shore my pride made me a fool.... An’ now have I any choice to make? I’m a Jorth. I must stick to my father.”

All this summing up, however, did not wholly account for the pang in her breast.

What had she done that day? And the answer beat in her ears like a great throbbing hammer-stroke. In an agony of shame, in the throes of hate, she had perjured herself. She had sworn away her honor. She had basely made herself vile. She had struck ruthlessly at the great heart of a man who loved her. Ah! That thrust had rebounded to leave this dreadful pang in her breast. Loved her? Yes, the strange truth, the insupportable truth! She had to contend now, not with her father and her disgrace, not with the baffling presence of Jean Isbel, but with the mysteries of her own soul. Wonder of all wonders was it that such love had been born for her. Shame worse than all other shame was it that she should kill it by a poisoned lie. By what monstrous motive had she done that? To sting Isbel as he had stung her! But that had been base. Never could she have stopped so low except in a moment of tremendous tumult. If she had done sore injury to Isbel what bad she done to herself? How strange, how tenacious had been his faith in her honor! Could she ever forget? She must forget it. But she could never forget the way he had scorned those vile men in Greaves’s store — the way he had beaten Bruce for defiling her name — the way he had stubbornly denied her own insinuations. She was a woman now. She had learned something of the complexity of a woman’s heart. She could not change nature. And all her passionate being thrilled to the manhood of her defender. But even while she thrilled she acknowledged her hate. It was the contention between the two that caused the pang in her breast. “An’ now what’s left for me?” murmured Ellen. She did not analyze the significance of what had prompted that query. The most incalculable of the day’s disclosures was the wrong she had done herself. “Shore I’m done for, one way or another.... I must stick to Dad.... or kill myself?”

Ellen rode Spades back to the ranch. She rode like the wind. When she swung out of the trail into the open meadow in plain sight of the ranch her appearance created a commotion among the loungers before the cabin. She rode Spades at a full run.

“Who’s after you?” yelled her father, as she pulled the black to a halt. Jorth held a rifle. Daggs, Colter, the other Jorths were there, likewise armed, and all watchful, strung with expectancy.

“Shore nobody’s after me,” replied Ellen. “Cain’t I run a horse round heah without being chased?”

Jorth appeared both incensed and relieved.

“Hah! ... What you mean, girl, runnin’ like a streak right down on us? You’re actin’ queer these days, an’ you look queer. I’m not likin’ it.”

“Reckon these are queer times — for the Jorths,” replied Ellen, sarcastically.

“Daggs found strange horse tracks crossin’ the meadow,” said her father. “An’ that worried us. Some one’s been snoopin’ round the ranch. An’ when we seen you runnin’ so wild we shore thought you was bein’ chased.”

“No. I was only trying out Spades to see how fast he could run,” returned Ellen. “Reckon when we do get chased it’ll take some running to catch me.”

“Haw! Haw!” roared Daggs. “It shore will, Ellen.”

“Girl, it’s not only your runnin’ an’ your looks that’s queer,” declared Jorth, in dark perplexity. “You talk queer.”

“Shore, dad, y’u’re not used to hearing spades called spades,” said Ellen, as she dismounted.

“Humph!” ejaculated her father, as if convinced of the uselessness of trying to understand a woman. “Say, did you see any strange horse tracks?”

“I reckon I did. And I know who made them.”

Jorth stiffened. All the men behind him showed a sudden intensity of suspense.

“Who?” demanded Jorth.

“Shore it was Jean Isbel,” replied Ellen, coolly. “He came up heah tracking his black horse.”

“Jean — Isbel — trackin’ — his — black horse,” repeated her father.

“Yes. He’s not overrated as a tracker, that’s shore.”

Blank silence ensued. Ellen cast a slow glance over her father and the others, then she began to loosen the cinches of her saddle. Presently Jorth burst the silence with a curse, and Daggs followed with one of his sardonic laughs.

“Wal, boss, what did I tell you?” he drawled.

Jorth strode to Ellen, and, whirling her around with a strong hand, he held her facing him.

“Did y’u see Isbel?”

“Yes,” replied Ellen, just as sharply as her father had asked.

“Did y’u talk to him?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want up heah?”

“I told y’u. He was tracking the black horse y’u stole.”

Jorth’s hand and arm dropped limply. His sallow face turned a livid hue. Amaze merged into discomfiture and that gave place to rage. He raised a hand as if to strike Ellen. And suddenly Daggs’s long arm shot out to clutch Jorth’s wrist. Wrestling to free himself, Jorth cursed under his breath. “Let go, Daggs,” he shouted, stridently. “Am I drunk that you grab me?”

“Wal, y’u ain’t drunk, I reckon,” replied the rustler, with sarcasm. “But y’u’re shore some things I’ll reserve for your private ear.”

Jorth gained a semblance of composure. But it was evident that he labored under a shock.

“Ellen, did Jean Isbel see this black horse?”

“Yes. He asked me how I got Spades an’ I told him.”

“Did he say Spades belonged to him?”

“Shore I reckon he, proved it. Y’u can always tell a horse that loves its master.”

“Did y’u offer to give Spades back?”

“Yes. But Isbel wouldn’t take him.”

“Hah! ... An’ why not?”

“He said he’d rather I kept him. He was about to engage in a dirty, blood-spilling deal, an’ he reckoned he’d not be able to care for a fine horse.... I didn’t want Spades. I tried to make Isbel take him. But he rode off.... And that’s all there is to that.”

“Maybe it’s not,” replied Jorth, chewing his mustache and eying Ellen with dark, intent gaze. “Y’u’ve met this Isbel twice.”

“It wasn’t any fault of mine,” retorted Ellen.

“I heah he’s sweet on y’u. How aboot that?”

Ellen smarted under the blaze of blood that swept to neck and cheek and temple. But it was only memory which fired this shame. What her father and his crowd might think were matters of supreme indifference. Yet she met his suspicious gaze with truthful blazing eyes.

“I heah talk from Bruce an’ Lorenzo,” went on her father. “An’ Daggs heah—”

“Daggs nothin’!” interrupted that worthy. “Don’t fetch me in. I said nothin’ an’ I think nothin’.”

“Yes, Jean Isbel was sweet on me, dad ... but he will never be again,” returned Ellen, in low tones. With that she pulled her saddle off Spades and, throwing it over her shoulder, she walked off to her cabin.

Hardly had she gotten indoors when her father entered.

“Ellen, I didn’t know that horse belonged to Isbel,” he began, in the swift, hoarse, persuasive voice so familiar to Ellen. “I swear I didn’t. I bought him — traded with Slater for him.... Honest to God, I never had any idea he was stolen! ... Why, when y’u said ‘that horse y’u stole,’ I felt as if y’u’d knifed me....”

Ellen sat at the table and listened while her father paced to and fro and, by his restless action and passionate speech, worked himself into a frenzy. He talked incessantly, as if her silence was condemnatory and as if eloquence alone could convince her of his honesty. It seemed that Ellen saw and heard with keener faculties than ever before. He had a terrible thirst for her respect. Not so much for her love, she divined, but that she would not see how he had fallen!

She pitied him with all her heart. She was all he had, as he was all the world to her. And so, as she gave ear to his long, illogical rigmarole of argument and defense, she slowly found that her pity and her love were making vital decisions for her. As of old, in poignant moments, her father lapsed at last into a denunciation of the Isbels and what they had brought him to. His sufferings were real, at least, in Ellen’s presence. She was the only link that bound him to long-past happier times. She was her mother over again — the woman who had betrayed another man for him and gone with him to her ruin and death.

“Dad, don’t go on so,” said Ellen, breaking in upon her father’s rant. “I will be true to y’u — as my mother was.... I am a Jorth. Your place is my place — your fight is my fight.... Never speak of the past to me again. If God spares us through this feud we will go away and begin all over again, far off where no one ever heard of a Jorth.... If we’re not spared we’ll at least have had our whack at these damned Isbels.”

CHAPTER VII

DURING JUNE JEAN Isbel did not ride far away from Grass Valley.

Another attempt had been made upon Gaston Isbel’s life. Another cowardly shot had been fired from ambush, this time from a pine thicket bordering the trail that led to Blaisdell’s ranch. Blaisdell heard this shot, so near his home was it fired. No trace of the hidden foe could be found. The ‘ground all around that vicinity bore a carpet of pine needles which showed no trace of footprints. The supposition was that this cowardly attempt had been perpetrated, or certainly instigated, by the Jorths. But there was no proof. And Gaston Isbel had other enemies in the Tonto Basin besides the sheep clan. The old man raged like a lion about this sneaking attack on him. And his friend Blaisdell urged an immediate gathering of their kin and friends. “Let’s quit ranchin’ till this trouble’s settled,” he declared. “Let’s arm an’ ride the trails an’ meet these men half-way.... It won’t help our side any to wait till you’re shot in the back.” More than one of Isbel’s supporters offered the same advice.

“No; we’ll wait till we know for shore,” was the stubborn cattleman’s reply to all these promptings.

“Know! Wal, hell! Didn’t Jean find the black hoss up at Jorth’s ranch?” demanded Blaisdell. “What more do we want?”

“Jean couldn’t swear Jorth stole the black.”

“Wal, by thunder, I can swear to it!” growled Blaisdell. “An’ we’re losin’ cattle all the time. Who’s stealin’ ‘em?”

“We’ve always lost cattle ever since we started ranchin’ heah.”

“Gas, I reckon yu want Jorth to start this fight in the open.”

“It’ll start soon enough,” was Isbel’s gloomy reply.

Jean had not failed altogether in his tracking of lost or stolen cattle. Circumstances had been against him, and there was something baffling about this rustling. The summer storms set in early, and it had been his luck to have heavy rains wash out fresh tracks that he might have followed. The range was large and cattle were everywhere. Sometimes a loss was not discovered for weeks. Gaston Isbel’s sons were now the only men left to ride the range. Two of his riders had quit because of the threatened war, and Isbel had let another go. So that Jean did not often learn that cattle had been stolen until their tracks were old. Added to that was the fact that this Grass Valley country was covered with horse tracks and cattle tracks. The rustlers, whoever they were, had long been at the game, and now that there was reason for them to show their cunning they did it.

Early in July the hot weather came. Down on the red ridges of the Tonto it was hot desert. The nights were cool, the early mornings were pleasant, but the day was something to endure. When the white cumulus clouds rolled up out of the southwest, growing larger and thicker and darker, here and there coalescing into a black thundercloud, Jean welcomed them. He liked to see the gray streamers of rain hanging down from a canopy of black, and the roar of rain on the trees as it approached like a trampling army was always welcome. The grassy flats, the red ridges, the rocky slopes, the thickets of manzanita and scrub oak and cactus were dusty, glaring, throat-parching places under the hot summer sun. Jean longed for the cool heights of the Rim, the shady pines, the dark sweet verdure under the silver spruces, the tinkle and murmur of the clear rills. He often had another longing, too, which he bitterly stifled.

Jean’s ally, the keen-nosed shepherd clog, had disappeared one day, and had never returned. Among men at the ranch there was a difference of opinion as to what had happened to Shepp. The old rancher thought he had been poisoned or shot; Bill and Guy Isbel believed he had been stolen by sheep herders, who were always stealing dogs; and Jean inclined to the conviction that Shepp had gone off with the timber wolves. The fact was that Shepp did not return, and Jean missed him.

One morning at dawn Jean heard the cattle bellowing and trampling out in the valley; and upon hurrying to a vantage point he was amazed to see upward of five hundred steers chasing a lone wolf. Jean’s father had seen such a spectacle as this, but it was a new one for Jean. The wolf was a big gray and black fellow, rangy and powerful, and until he got the steers all behind him he was rather hard put to it to keep out of their way. Probably he had dogged the herd, trying to sneak in and pull down a yearling, and finally the steers had charged him. Jean kept along the edge of the valley in the hope they would chase him within range of a rifle. But the wary wolf saw Jean and sheered off, gradually drawing away from his pursuers.

Jean returned to the house for his breakfast, and then set off across the valley. His father owned one small flock of sheep that had not yet been driven up on the Rim, where all the sheep in the country were run during the hot, dry summer down on the Tonto. Young Evarts and a Mexican boy named Bernardino had charge of this flock. The regular Mexican herder, a man of experience, had given up his job; and these boys were not equal to the task of risking the sheep up in the enemies’ stronghold.

This flock was known to be grazing in a side draw, well up from Grass Valley, where the brush afforded some protection from the sun, and there was good water and a little feed. Before Jean reached his destination he heard a shot. It was not a rifle shot, which fact caused Jean a little concern. Evarts and Bernardino had rifles, but, to his knowledge, no small arms. Jean rode up on one of the black-brushed conical hills that rose on the south side of Grass Valley, and from there he took a sharp survey of the country. At first he made out only cattle, and bare meadowland, and the low encircling ridges and hills. But presently up toward the head of the valley he descried a bunch of horsemen riding toward the village. He could not tell their number. That dark moving mass seemed to Jean to be instinct with life, mystery, menace. Who were they? It was too far for him to recognize horses, let alone riders. They were moving fast, too.

Jean watched them out of sight, then turned his horse downhill again, and rode on his quest. A number of horsemen like that was a very unusual sight around Grass Valley at any time. What then did it portend now? Jean experienced a little shock of uneasy dread that was a new sensation for him. Brooding over this he proceeded on his way, at length to turn into the draw where the camp of the sheep-herders was located. Upon coming in sight of it he heard a hoarse shout. Young Evarts appeared running frantically out of the brush. Jean urged his horse into a run and soon covered the distance between them. Evarts appeared beside himself with terror.

“Boy! what’s the matter?” queried Jean, as he dismounted, rifle in hand, peering quickly from Evarts’s white face to the camp, and all around.

“Ber-nardino! Ber-nardino!” gasped the boy, wringing his hands and pointing.

Jean ran the few remaining rods to the sheep camp. He saw the little teepee, a burned-out fire, a half-finished meal — and then the Mexican lad lying prone on the ground, dead, with a bullet hole in his ghastly face. Near him lay an old six-shooter.

“Whose gun is that?” demanded Jean, as he picked it up.

“Ber-nardino’s,” replied Evarts, huskily. “He — he jest got it — the other day.”

“Did he shoot himself accidentally?”

“Oh no! No! He didn’t do it — atall.”

“Who did, then?”

“The men — they rode up — a gang-they did it,” panted Evarts.

“Did you know who they were?”

“No. I couldn’t tell. I saw them comin’ an’ I was skeered. Bernardino had gone fer water. I run an’ hid in the brush. I wanted to yell, but they come too close.... Then I heerd them talkin’. Bernardino come back. They ‘peared friendly-like. Thet made me raise up, to look. An’ I couldn’t see good. I heerd one of them ask Bernardino to let him see his gun. An’ Bernardino handed it over. He looked at the gun an’ haw-hawed, an’ flipped it up in the air, an’ when it fell back in his hand it — it went off bang! ... An’ Bernardino dropped.... I hid down close. I was skeered stiff. I heerd them talk more, but not what they said. Then they rode away.... An’ I hid there till I seen y’u comin’.”

“Have you got a horse?” queried Jean, sharply.

“No. But I can ride one of Bernardino’s burros.”

“Get one. Hurry over to Blaisdell. Tell him to send word to Blue and Gordon and Fredericks to ride like the devil to my father’s ranch. Hurry now!”

Young Evarts ran off without reply. Jean stood looking down at the limp and pathetic figure of the Mexican boy. “By Heaven!” he exclaimed, grimly “the Jorth-Isbel war is on! ... Deliberate, cold-blooded murder! I’ll gamble Daggs did this job. He’s been given the leadership. He’s started it.... Bernardino, greaser or not, you were a faithful lad, and you won’t go long unavenged.”

Jean had no time to spare. Tearing a tarpaulin out of the teepee he covered the lad with it and then ran for, his horse. Mounting, he galloped down the draw, over the little red ridges, out into the valley, where he put his horse to a run.

Action changed the sickening horror that sight of Bernardino had engendered. Jean even felt a strange, grim relief. The long, dragging days of waiting were over. Jorth’s gang had taken the initiative. Blood had begun to flow. And it would continue to flow now till the last man of one faction stood over the dead body of the last man of the other. Would it be a Jorth or an Isbel? “My instinct was right,” he muttered, aloud. “That bunch of horses gave me a queer feelin’.” Jean gazed all around the grassy, cattle-dotted valley he was crossing so swiftly, and toward the village, but he did not see any sign of the dark group of riders. They had gone on to Greaves’s store, there, no doubt, to drink and to add more enemies of the Isbels to their gang. Suddenly across Jean’s mind flashed a thought of Ellen Jorth. “What ‘ll become of her? ... What ‘ll become of all the women? My sister? ... The little ones?”

No one was in sight around the ranch. Never had it appeared more peaceful and pastoral to Jean. The grazing cattle and horses in the foreground, the haystack half eaten away, the cows in the fenced pasture, the column of blue smoke lazily ascending, the cackle of hens, the solid, well-built cabins — all these seemed to repudiate Jean’s haste and his darkness of mind. This place was, his father’s farm. There was not a cloud in the blue, summer sky.

As Jean galloped up the lane some one saw him from the door, and then Bill and Guy and their gray-headed father came out upon the porch. Jean saw how he’ waved the womenfolk back, and then strode out into the lane. Bill and Guy reached his side as Jean pulled his heaving horse to a halt. They all looked at Jean, swiftly and intently, with a little, hard, fiery gleam strangely identical in the eyes of each. Probably before a word was spoken they knew what to expect.

“Wal, you shore was in a hurry,” remarked the father.

“What the hell’s up?” queried Bill, grimly.

Guy Isbel remained silent and it was he who turned slightly pale. Jean leaped off his horse.

“Bernardino has just been killed — murdered with his own gun.”

Gaston Isbel seemed to exhale a long-dammed, bursting breath that let his chest sag. A terrible deadly glint, pale and cold as sunlight on ice, grew slowly to dominate his clear eyes.

“A-huh!” ejaculated Bill Isbel, hoarsely.

Not one of the three men asked who had done the killing. They were silent a moment, motionless, locked in the secret seclusion of their own minds. Then they listened with absorption to Jean’s brief story.

“Wal, that lets us in,” said his father. “I wish we had more time. Reckon I’d done better to listen to you boys an’ have my men close at hand. Jacobs happened to ride over. That makes five of us besides the women.”

“Aw, dad, you don’t reckon they’ll round us up heah?” asked Guy Isbel.

“Boys, I always feared they might,” replied the old man. “But I never really believed they’d have the nerve. Shore I ought to have figgered Daggs better. This heah secret bizness an’ shootin’ at us from ambush looked aboot Jorth’s size to me. But I reckon now we’ll have to fight without our friends.”

“Let them come,” said Jean. “I sent for Blaisdell, Blue, Gordon, and Fredericks. Maybe they’ll get here in time. But if they don’t it needn’t worry us much. We can hold out here longer than Jorth’s gang can hang around. We’ll want plenty of water, wood, and meat in the house.”

“Wal, I’ll see to that,” rejoined his father. “Jean, you go out close by, where you can see all around, an’ keep watch.”

“Who’s goin’ to tell the women?” asked Guy Isbel.

The silence that momentarily ensued was an eloquent testimony to the hardest and saddest aspect of this strife between men. The inevitableness of it in no wise detracted from its sheer uselessness. Men from time immemorial had hated, and killed one another, always to the misery and degradation of their women. Old Gaston Isbel showed this tragic realization in his lined face.

“Wal, boys, I’ll tell the women,” he said. “Shore you needn’t worry none aboot them. They’ll be game.”

Jean rode away to an open knoll a short distance from the house, and here he stationed himself to watch all points. The cedared ridge back of the ranch was the one approach by which Jorth’s gang might come close without being detected, but even so, Jean could see them and ride to the house in time to prevent a surprise. The moments dragged by, and at the end of an hour Jean was in hopes that Blaisdell would soon come. These hopes were well founded. Presently he heard a clatter of hoofs on hard ground to the south, and upon wheeling to look he saw the friendly neighbor coming fast along the road, riding a big white horse. Blaisdell carried a rifle in his hand, and the sight of him gave Jean a glow of warmth. He was one of the Texans who would stand by the Isbels to the last man. Jean watched him ride to the house — watched the meeting between him and his lifelong friend. There floated out to Jean old Blaisdell’s roar of rage.

Then out on the green of Grass Valley, where a long, swelling plain swept away toward the village, there appeared a moving dark patch. A bunch of horses! Jean’s body gave a slight start — the shock of sudden propulsion of blood through all his veins. Those horses bore riders. They were coming straight down the open valley, on the wagon road to Isbel’s ranch. No subterfuge nor secrecy nor sneaking in that advance! A hot thrill ran over Jean.

“By Heaven! They mean business!” he muttered. Up to the last moment he had unconsciously hoped Jorth’s gang would not come boldly like that. The verifications of all a Texan’s inherited instincts left no doubts, no hopes, no illusions — only a grim certainty that this was not conjecture nor probability, but fact. For a moment longer Jean watched the slowly moving dark patch of horsemen against the green background, then he hurried back to the ranch. His father saw him coming — strode out as before.

“Dad — Jorth is comin’,” said Jean, huskily. How he hated to be forced to tell his father that! The boyish love of old had flashed up.

“Whar?” demanded the old man, his eagle gaze sweeping the horizon.

“Down the road from Grass Valley. You can’t see from here.”

“Wal, come in an’ let’s get ready.”

Isbel’s house had not been constructed with the idea of repelling an attack from a band of Apaches. The long living room of the main cabin was the one selected for defense and protection. This room had two windows and a door facing the lane, and a door at each end, one of which opened into the kitchen and the other into an adjoining and later-built cabin. The logs of this main cabin were of large size, and the doors and window coverings were heavy, affording safer protection from bullets than the other cabins.

When Jean went in he seemed to see a host of white faces lifted to him. His sister Ann, his two sisters-in-law, the children, all mutely watched him with eyes that would haunt him.

“Wal, Blaisdell, Jean says Jorth an’ his precious gang of rustlers are on the way heah,” announced the rancher.

“Damn me if it’s not a bad day fer Lee Jorth!” declared Blaisdell.

“Clear off that table,” ordered Isbel, “an’ fetch out all the guns an’ shells we got.”

Once laid upon the table these presented a formidable arsenal, which consisted of the three new .44 Winchesters that Jean had brought with him from the coast; the enormous buffalo, or so-called “needle” gun, that Gaston Isbel had used for years; a Henry rifle which Blaisdell had brought, and half a dozen six-shooters. Piles and packages of ammunition littered the table.

“Sort out these heah shells,” said Isbel. “Everybody wants to get hold of his own.”

Jacobs, the neighbor who was present, was a thick-set, bearded man, rather jovial among those lean-jawed Texans. He carried a .44 rifle of an old pattern. “Wal, boys, if I’d knowed we was in fer some fun I’d hev fetched more shells. Only got one magazine full. Mebbe them new .44’s will fit my gun.”

It was discovered that the ammunition Jean had brought in quantity fitted Jacob’s rifle, a fact which afforded peculiar satisfaction to all the men present.

“Wal, shore we’re lucky,” declared Gaston Isbel.

The women sat apart, in the corner toward the kitchen, and there seemed to be a strange fascination for them in the talk and action of the men. The wife of Jacobs was a little woman, with homely face and very bright eyes. Jean thought she would be a help in that household during the next doubtful hours.

Every moment Jean would go to the window and peer out down the road. His companions evidently relied upon him, for no one else looked out. Now that the suspense of days and weeks was over, these Texans faced the issue with talk and act not noticeably different from those of ordinary moments.

At last Jean espied the dark mass of horsemen out in the valley road. They were close together, walking their mounts, and evidently in earnest conversation. After several ineffectual attempts Jean counted eleven horses, every one of which he was sure bore a rider.

“Dad, look out!” called Jean.

Gaston Isbel strode to the door and stood looking, without a word.

The other men crowded to the windows. Blaisdell cursed under his breath. Jacobs said: “By Golly! Come to pay us a call!” The women sat motionless, with dark, strained eyes. The children ceased their play and looked fearfully to their mother.

When just out of rifle shot of the cabins the band of horsemen halted and lined up in a half circle, all facing the ranch. They were close enough for Jean to see their gestures, but he could not recognize any of their faces. It struck him singularly that not one of them wore a mask.

“Jean, do you know any of them?” asked his father

“No, not yet. They’re too far off.”

“Dad, I’ll get your old telescope,” said Guy Isbel, and he ran out toward the adjoining cabin.

Blaisdell shook his big, hoary head and rumbled out of his bull-like neck, “Wal, now you’re heah, you sheep fellars, what are you goin’ to do aboot it?”

Guy Isbel returned with a yard-long telescope, which he passed to his father. The old man took it with shaking hands and leveled it. Suddenly it was as if he had been transfixed; then he lowered the glass, shaking violently, and his face grew gray with an exceeding bitter wrath.

“Jorth!” he swore, harshly.

Jean had only to look at his father to know that recognition had been like a mortal shock. It passed. Again the rancher leveled the glass.

“Wal, Blaisdell, there’s our old Texas friend, Daggs,” he drawled, dryly. “An’ Greaves, our honest storekeeper of Grass Valley. An’ there’s Stonewall Jackson Jorth. An’ Tad Jorth, with the same old red nose! ... An’, say, damn if one of that gang isn’t Queen, as bad a gun fighter as Texas ever bred. Shore I thought he’d been killed in the Big Bend country. So I heard.... An’ there’s Craig, another respectable sheepman of Grass Valley. Haw-haw! An’, wal, I don’t recognize any more of them.”

Jean forthwith took the glass and moved it slowly across the faces of that group of horsemen. “Simm Bruce,” he said, instantly. “I see Colter. And, yes, Greaves is there. I’ve seen the man next to him — face like a ham....”

“Shore that is Craig,” interrupted his father.

Jean knew the dark face of Lee Jorth by the resemblance it bore to Ellen’s, and the recognition brought a twinge. He thought, too, that he could tell the other Jorths. He asked his father to describe Daggs and then Queen. It was not likely that Jean would fail to know these several men in the future. Then Blaisdell asked for the telescope and, when he got through looking and cursing, he passed it on to others, who, one by one, took a long look, until finally it came back to the old rancher.

“Wal, Daggs is wavin’ his hand heah an’ there, like a general aboot to send out scouts. Haw-haw! ... An’ ‘pears to me he’s not overlookin’ our hosses. Wal, that’s natural for a rustler. He’d have to steal a hoss or a steer before goin’ into a fight or to dinner or to a funeral.”

“It ‘ll be his funeral if he goes to foolin’ ‘round them hosses,” declared Guy Isbel, peering anxiously out of the door.

“Wal, son, shore it ‘ll be somebody’s funeral,” replied his father.

Jean paid but little heed to the conversation. With sharp eyes fixed upon the horsemen, he tried to grasp at their intention. Daggs pointed to the horses in the pasture lot that lay between him and the house. These animals were the best on the range and belonged mostly to Guy Isbel, who was the horse fancier and trader of the family. His horses were his passion.

“Looks like they’d do some horse stealin’,” said Jean.

“Lend me that glass,” demanded Guy, forcefully. He surveyed the band of men for a long moment, then he handed the glass back to Jean.

“I’m goin’ out there after my bosses,” he declared.

“No!” exclaimed his father.

“That gang come to steal an’ not to fight. Can’t you see that? If they meant to fight they’d do it. They’re out there arguin’ about my hosses.”

Guy picked up his rifle. He looked sullenly determined and the gleam in his eye was one of fearlessness.

“Son, I know Daggs,” said his father. “An’ I know Jorth. They’ve come to kill us. It ‘ll be shore death for y’u to go out there.”

“I’m goin’, anyhow. They can’t steal my hosses out from under my eyes. An’ they ain’t in range.”

“Wal, Guy, you ain’t goin’ alone,” spoke up Jacobs, cheerily, as he came forward.

The red-haired young wife of Guy Isbel showed no change of her grave face. She had been reared in a stern school. She knew men in times like these. But Jacobs’s wife appealed to him, “Bill, don’t risk your life for a horse or two.”

Jacobs laughed and answered, “Not much risk,” and went out with Guy. To Jean their action seemed foolhardy. He kept a keen eye on them and saw instantly when the band became aware of Guy’s and Jacobs’s entrance into the pasture. It took only another second then to realize that Daggs and Jorth had deadly intent. Jean saw Daggs slip out of his saddle, rifle in hand. Others of the gang did likewise, until half of them were dismounted.

“Dad, they’re goin’ to shoot,” called out Jean, sharply. “Yell for Guy and Jacobs. Make them come back.”

The old man shouted; Bill Isbel yelled; Blaisdell lifted his stentorian voice.

Jean screamed piercingly: “Guy! Run! Run!”

But Guy Isbel and his companion strode on into the pasture, as if they had not heard, as if no menacing horse thieves were within miles. They had covered about a quarter of the distance across the pasture, and were nearing the horses, when Jean saw red flashes and white puffs of smoke burst out from the front of that dark band of rustlers. Then followed the sharp, rattling crack of rifles.

Guy Isbel stopped short, and, dropping his gun, he threw up his arms and fell headlong. Jacobs acted as if he had suddenly encountered an invisible blow. He had been hit. Turning, he began to run and ran fast for a few paces. There were more quick, sharp shots. He let go of his rifle. His running broke. Walking, reeling, staggering, he kept on. A hoarse cry came from him. Then a single rifle shot pealed out. Jean heard the bullet strike. Jacobs fell to his knees, then forward on his face.

Jean Isbel felt himself turned to marble. The suddenness of this tragedy paralyzed him. His gaze remained riveted on those prostrate forms.

A hand clutched his arm — a shaking woman’s hand, slim and hard and tense.

“Bill’s — killed!” whispered a broken voice. “I was watchin’.... They’re both dead!”

The wives of Jacobs and Guy Isbel had slipped up behind Jean and from behind him they had seen the tragedy.

“I asked Bill — not to — go,” faltered the Jacobs woman, and, covering her face with her hands, she groped back to the corner of the cabin, where the other women, shaking and white, received her in their arms. Guy Isbel’s wife stood at the window, peering over Jean’s shoulder. She had the nerve of a man. She had looked out upon death before.

“Yes, they’re dead,” she said, bitterly. “An’ how are we goin’ to get their bodies?”

At this Gaston Isbel seemed to rouse from the cold spell that had transfixed him.

“God, this is hell for our women,” he cried out, hoarsely. “My son — my son! ... Murdered by the Jorths!” Then he swore a terrible oath.

Jean saw the remainder of the mounted rustlers get off, and then, all of them leading their horses, they began to move around to the left.

“Dad, they’re movin’ round,” said Jean.

“Up to some trick,” declared Bill Isbel.

“Bill, you make a hole through the back wall, say aboot the fifth log up,” ordered the father. “Shore we’ve got to look out.”

The elder son grasped a tool and, scattering the children, who had been playing near the back corner, he began to work at the point designated. The little children backed away with fixed, wondering, grave eyes. The women moved their chairs, and huddled together as if waiting and listening.

Jean watched the rustlers until they passed out of his sight. They had moved toward the sloping, brushy ground to the north and west of the cabins.

“Let me know when you get a hole in the back wall,” said Jean, and he went through the kitchen and cautiously out another door to slip into a low-roofed, shed-like end of the rambling cabin. This small space was used to store winter firewood. The chinks between the walls had not been filled with adobe clay, and he could see out on three sides. The rustlers were going into the juniper brush. They moved out of sight, and presently reappeared without their horses. It looked to Jean as if they intended to attack the cabins. Then they halted at the edge of the brush and held a long consultation. Jean could see them distinctly, though they were too far distant for him to recognize any particular man. One of them, however, stood and moved apart from the closely massed group. Evidently, from his strides and gestures, he was exhorting his listeners. Jean concluded this was either Daggs or Jorth. Whoever it was had a loud, coarse voice, and this and his actions impressed Jean with a suspicion that the man was under the influence of the bottle.

Presently Bill Isbel called Jean in a low voice. “Jean, I got the hole made, but we can’t see anyone.”

“I see them,” Jean replied. “They’re havin’ a powwow. Looks to me like either Jorth or Daggs is drunk. He’s arguin’ to charge us, an’ the rest of the gang are holdin’ back.... Tell dad, an’ all of you keep watchin’. I’ll let you know when they make a move.”

Jorth’s gang appeared to be in no hurry to expose their plan of battle. Gradually the group disintegrated a little; some of them sat down; others walked to and fro. Presently two of them went into the brush, probably back to the horses. In a few moments they reappeared, carrying a pack. And when this was deposited on the ground all the rustlers sat down around it. They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins in the daytime. Night would be more favorable.

Twice Bill Isbel came through the kitchen to whisper to Jean. The strain in the large room, from which the rustlers could not be seen, must have been great. Jean told him all he had seen and what he thought about it. “Eatin’ an’ drinkin’!” ejaculated Bill. “Well, I’ll be — ! That ‘ll jar the old man. He wants to get the fight over.

“Tell him I said it’ll be over too quick — for us — unless are mighty careful,” replied Jean, sharply.

Bill went back muttering to himself. Then followed a long wait, fraught with suspense, during which Jean watched the rustlers regale themselves. The day was hot and still. And the unnatural silence of the cabin was broken now and then by the gay laughter of the children. The sound shocked and haunted Jean. Playing children! Then another sound, so faint he had to strain to hear it, disturbed and saddened him — his father’s slow tread up and down the cabin floor, to and fro, to and fro. What must be in his father’s heart this day!

At length the rustlers rose and, with rifles in hand, they moved as one man down the slope. They came several hundred yards closer, until Jean, grimly cocking his rifle, muttered to himself that a few more rods closer would mean the end of several of that gang. They knew the range of a rifle well enough, and once more sheered off at right angles with the cabin. When they got even with the line of corrals they stooped down and were lost to Jean’s sight. This fact caused him alarm. They were, of course, crawling up on the cabins. At the end of that line of corrals ran a ditch, the bank of which was high enough to afford cover. Moreover, it ran along in front of the cabins, scarcely a hundred yards, and it was covered with grass and little clumps of brush, from behind which the rustlers could fire into the windows and through the clay chinks without any considerable risk to themselves. As they did not come into sight again, Jean concluded he had discovered their plan. Still, he waited awhile longer, until he saw faint, little clouds of dust rising from behind the far end of the embankment. That discovery made him rush out, and through the kitchen to the large cabin, where his sudden appearance startled the men.

“Get back out of sight!” he ordered, sharply, and with swift steps he reached the door and closed it. “They’re behind the bank out there by the corrals. An’ they’re goin’ to crawl down the ditch closer to us.... It looks bad. They’ll have grass an’ brush to shoot from. We’ve got to be mighty careful how we peep out.”

“Ahuh! All right,” replied his father. “You women keep the kids with you in that corner. An’ you all better lay down flat.”

Blaisdell, Bill Isbel, and the old man crouched at the large window, peeping through cracks in the rough edges of the logs. Jean took his post beside the small window, with his keen eyes vibrating like a compass needle. The movement of a blade of grass, the flight of a grasshopper could not escape his trained sight.

“Look sharp now!” he called to the other men. “I see dust.... They’re workin’ along almost to that bare spot on the bank.... I saw the tip of a rifle ... a black hat ... more dust. They’re spreadin’ along behind the bank.”

Loud voices, and then thick clouds of yellow dust, coming from behind the highest and brushiest line of the embankment, attested to the truth of Jean’s observation, and also to a reckless disregard of danger.

Suddenly Jean caught a glint of moving color through the fringe of brush. Instantly he was strung like a whipcord.

Then a tall, hatless and coatless man stepped up in plain sight. The sun shone on his fair, ruffled hair. Daggs!

“Hey, you —— Isbels!” he bawled, in magnificent derisive boldness. “Come out an’ fight!”

Quick as lightning Jean threw up his rifle and fired. He saw tufts of fair hair fly from Daggs’s head. He saw the squirt of red blood. Then quick shots from his comrades rang out. They all hit the swaying body of the rustler. But Jean knew with a terrible thrill that his bullet had killed Daggs before the other three struck. Daggs fell forward, his arms and half his body resting over, the embankment. Then the rustlers dragged him back out of sight. Hoarse shouts rose. A cloud of yellow dust drifted away from the spot.

“Daggs!” burst out Gaston Isbel. “Jean, you knocked off the top of his haid. I seen that when I was pullin’ trigger. Shore we over heah wasted our shots.”

“God! he must have been crazy or drunk — to pop up there — an’ brace us that way,” said Blaisdell, breathing hard.

“Arizona is bad for Texans,” replied Isbel, sardonically. “Shore it’s been too peaceful heah. Rustlers have no practice at fightin’. An’ I reckon Daggs forgot.”

“Daggs made as crazy a move as that of Guy an’ Jacobs,” spoke up Jean. “They were overbold, an’ he was drunk. Let them be a lesson to us.”

Jean had smelled whisky upon his entrance to this cabin. Bill was a hard drinker, and his father was not immune. Blaisdell, too, drank heavily upon occasions. Jean made a mental note that he would not permit their chances to become impaired by liquor.

Rifles began to crack, and puffs of smoke rose all along the embankment for the space of a hundred feet. Bullets whistled through the rude window casing and spattered on the heavy door, and one split the clay between the logs before Jean, narrowly missing him. Another volley followed, then another. The rustlers had repeating rifles and they were emptying their magazines. Jean changed his position. The other men profited by his wise move. The volleys had merged into one continuous rattling roar of rifle shots. Then came a sudden cessation of reports, with silence of relief. The cabin was full of dust, mingled with the smoke from the shots of Jean and his companions. Jean heard the stifled breaths of the children. Evidently they were terror-stricken, but they did not cry out. The women uttered no sound.

A loud voice pealed from behind the embankment.

“Come out an’ fight! Do you Isbels want to be killed like sheep?”

This sally gained no reply. Jean returned to his post by the window and his comrades followed his example. And they exercised extreme caution when they peeped out.

“Boys, don’t shoot till you see one,” said Gaston Isbel. “Maybe after a while they’ll get careless. But Jorth will never show himself.”

The rustlers did not again resort to volleys. One by one, from different angles, they began to shoot, and they were not firing at random. A few bullets came straight in at the windows to pat into the walls; a few others ticked and splintered the edges of the windows; and most of them broke through the clay chinks between the logs. It dawned upon Jean that these dangerous shots were not accident. They were well aimed, and most of them hit low down. The cunning rustlers had some unerring riflemen and they were picking out the vulnerable places all along the front of the cabin. If Jean had not been lying flat he would have been hit twice. Presently he conceived the idea of driving pegs between the logs, high up, and, kneeling on these, he managed to peep out from the upper edge of the window. But this position was awkward and difficult to hold for long.

He heard a bullet hit one of his comrades. Whoever had been struck never uttered a sound. Jean turned to look. Bill Isbel was holding his shoulder, where red splotches appeared on his shirt. He shook his head at Jean, evidently to make light of the wound. The women and children were lying face down and could not see what was happening. Plain is was that Bill did not want them to know. Blaisdell bound up the bloody shoulder with a scarf.

Steady firing from the rustlers went on, at the rate of one shot every few minutes. The Isbels did not return these. Jean did not fire again that afternoon. Toward sunset, when the besiegers appeared to grow restless or careless, Blaisdell fired at something moving behind the brush; and Gaston Isbel’s huge buffalo gun boomed out.

“Wal, what ‘re they goin’ to do after dark, an’ what ‘re WE goin’ to do?” grumbled Blaisdell.

“Reckon they’ll never charge us,” said Gaston.

“They might set fire to the cabins,” added Bill Isbel. He appeared to be the gloomiest of the Isbel faction. There was something on his mind.

“Wal, the Jorths are bad, but I reckon they’d not burn us alive,” replied Blaisdell.

“Hah!” ejaculated Gaston Isbel. “Much you know aboot Lee Jorth. He would skin me alive an’ throw red-hot coals on my raw flesh.”

So they talked during the hour from sunset to dark. Jean Isbel had little to say. He was revolving possibilities in his mind. Darkness brought a change in the attack of the rustlers. They stationed men at four points around the cabins; and every few minutes one of these outposts would fire. These bullets embedded themselves in the logs, causing but little anxiety to the Isbels.

“Jean, what you make of it?” asked the old rancher.

“Looks to me this way,” replied Jean. “They’re set for a long fight. They’re shootin’ just to let us know they’re on the watch.”

“Ahuh! Wal, what ‘re you goin’ to do aboot it?”

“I’m goin’ out there presently.”

Gaston Isbel grunted his satisfaction at this intention of Jean’s.

All was pitch dark inside the cabin. The women had water and food at hand. Jean kept a sharp lookout from his window while he ate his supper of meat, bread, and milk. At last the children, worn out by the long day, fell asleep. The women whispered a little in their corner.

About nine o’clock Jean signified his intention of going out to reconnoitre.

“Dad, they’ve got the best of us in the daytime,” he said, “but not after dark.”

Jean buckled on a belt that carried shells, a bowie knife, and revolver, and with rifle in hand he went out through the kitchen to the yard. The night was darker than usual, as some of the stars were hidden by clouds. He leaned against the log cabin, waiting for his eyes to become perfectly adjusted to the darkness. Like an Indian, Jean could see well at night. He knew every point around cabins and sheds and corrals, every post, log, tree, rock, adjacent to the ranch. After perhaps a quarter of an hour watching, during which time several shots were fired from behind the embankment and one each from the rustlers at the other locations, Jean slipped out on his quest.

He kept in the shadow of the cabin walls, then the line of orchard trees, then a row of currant bushes. Here, crouching low, he halted to look and listen. He was now at the edge of the open ground, with the gently rising slope before him. He could see the dark patches of cedar and juniper trees. On the north side of the cabin a streak of fire flashed in the blackness, and a shot rang out. Jean heard the bullet bit the cabin. Then silence enfolded the lonely ranch and the darkness lay like a black blanket. A low hum of insects pervaded the air. Dull sheets of lightning illumined the dark horizon to the south. Once Jean heard voices, but could not tell from which direction they came. To the west of him then flared out another rifle shot. The bullet whistled down over Jean to thud into the cabin.

Jean made a careful study of the obscure, gray-black open before him and then the background to his rear. So long as he kept the dense shadows behind him he could not be seen. He slipped from behind his covert and, gliding with absolutely noiseless footsteps, he gained the first clump of junipers. Here he waited patiently and motionlessly for another round of shots from the rustlers. After the second shot from the west side Jean sheered off to the right. Patches of brush, clumps of juniper, and isolated cedars covered this slope, affording Jean a perfect means for his purpose, which was to make a detour and come up behind the rustler who was firing from that side. Jean climbed to the top of the ridge, descended the opposite slope, made his turn to the left, and slowly worked up behind the point near where he expected to locate the rustler. Long habit in the open, by day and night, rendered his sense of direction almost as perfect as sight itself. The first flash of fire he saw from this side proved that he had come straight up toward his man. Jean’s intention was to crawl up on this one of the Jorth gang and silently kill him with a knife. If the plan worked successfully, Jean meant to work round to the next rustler. Laying aside his rifle, he crawled forward on hands and knees, making no more sound than a cat. His approach was slow. He had to pick his way, be careful not to break twigs nor rattle stones. His buckskin garments made no sound against the brush. Jean located the rustler sitting on the top of the ridge in the center of an open space. He was alone. Jean saw the dull-red end of the cigarette he was smoking. The ground on the ridge top was rocky and not well adapted for Jean’s purpose. He had to abandon the idea of crawling up on the rustler. Whereupon, Jean turned back, patiently and slowly, to get his rifle.

Upon securing it he began to retrace his course, this time more slowly than before, as he was hampered by the rifle. But he did not make the slightest sound, and at length he reached the edge of the open ridge top, once more to espy the dark form of the rustler silhouetted against the sky. The distance was not more than fifty yards.

As Jean rose to his knee and carefully lifted his rifle round to avoid the twigs of a juniper he suddenly experienced another emotion besides the one of grim, hard wrath at the Jorths. It was an emotion that sickened him, made him weak internally, a cold, shaking, ungovernable sensation. Suppose this man was Ellen Jorth’s father! Jean lowered the rifle. He felt it shake over his knee. He was trembling all over. The astounding discovery that he did not want to kill Ellen’s father — that he could not do it — awakened Jean to the despairing nature of his love for her. In this grim moment of indecision, when he knew his Indian subtlety and ability gave him a great advantage over the Jorths, he fully realized his strange, hopeless, and irresistible love for the girl. He made no attempt to deny it any longer. Like the night and the lonely wilderness around him, like the inevitableness of this Jorth-Isbel feud, this love of his was a thing, a fact, a reality. He breathed to his own inward ear, to his soul — he could not kill Ellen Jorth’s father. Feud or no feud, Isbel or not, he could not deliberately do it. And why not? There was no answer. Was he not faithless to his father? He had no hope of ever winning Ellen Jorth. He did not want the love of a girl of her character. But he loved her. And his struggle must be against the insidious and mysterious growth of that passion. It swayed him already. It made him a coward. Through his mind and heart swept the memory of Ellen Jorth, her beauty and charm, her boldness and pathos, her shame and her degradation. And the sweetness of her outweighed the boldness. And the mystery of her arrayed itself in unquenchable protest against her acknowledged shame. Jean lifted his face to the heavens, to the pitiless white stars, to the infinite depths of the dark-blue sky. He could sense the fact of his being an atom in the universe of nature. What was he, what was his revengeful father, what were hate and passion and strife in comparison to the nameless something, immense and everlasting, that he sensed in this dark moment?

But the rustlers — Daggs — the Jorths — they had killed his brother Guy — murdered him brutally and ruthlessly. Guy had been a playmate of Jean’s — a favorite brother. Bill had been secretive and selfish. Jean had never loved him as he did Guy. Guy lay dead down there on the meadow. This feud had begun to run its bloody course. Jean steeled his nerve. The hot blood crept back along his veins. The dark and masterful tide of revenge waved over him. The keen edge of his mind then cut out sharp and trenchant thoughts. He must kill when and where he could. This man could hardly be Ellen Jorth’s father. Jorth would be with the main crowd, directing hostilities. Jean could shoot this rustler guard and his shot would be taken by the gang as the regular one from their comrade. Then swiftly Jean leveled his rifle, covered the dark form, grew cold and set, and pressed the trigger. After the report he rose and wheeled away. He did not look nor listen for the result of his shot. A clammy sweat wet his face, the hollow of his hands, his breast. A horrible, leaden, thick sensation oppressed his heart. Nature had endowed him with Indian gifts, but the exercise of them to this end caused a revolt in his soul.

Nevertheless, it was the Isbel blood that dominated him. The wind blew cool on his face. The burden upon his shoulders seemed to lift. The clamoring whispers grew fainter in his ears. And by the time he had retraced his cautious steps back to the orchard all his physical being was strung to the task at hand. Something had come between his reflective self and this man of action.

Crossing the lane, he took to the west line of sheds, and passed beyond them into the meadow. In the grass he crawled silently away to the right, using the same precaution that had actuated him on the slope, only here he did not pause so often, nor move so slowly. Jean aimed to go far enough to the right to pass the end of the embankment behind which the rustlers had found such efficient cover. This ditch had been made to keep water, during spring thaws and summer storms, from pouring off the slope to flood the corrals.

Jean miscalculated and found he had come upon the embankment somewhat to the left of the end, which fact, however, caused him no uneasiness. He lay there awhile to listen. Again he heard voices. After a time a shot pealed out. He did not see the flash, but he calculated that it had come from the north side of the cabins.

The next quarter of an hour discovered to Jean that the nearest guard was firing from the top of the embankment, perhaps a hundred yards distant, and a second one was performing the same office from a point apparently only a few yards farther on. Two rustlers close together! Jean had not calculated upon that. For a little while he pondered on what was best to do, and at length decided to crawl round behind them, and as close as the situation made advisable.

He found the ditch behind the embankment a favorable path by which to stalk these enemies. It was dry and sandy, with borders of high weeds. The only drawback was that it was almost impossible for him to keep from brushing against the dry, invisible branches of the weeds. To offset this he wormed his way like a snail, inch by inch, taking a long time before he caught sight of the sitting figure of a man, black against the dark-blue sky. This rustler had fired his rifle three times during Jean’s slow approach. Jean watched and listened a few moments, then wormed himself closer and closer, until the man was within twenty steps of him.

Jean smelled tobacco smoke, but could see no light of pipe or cigarette, because the fellow’s back was turned.

“Say, Ben,” said this man to his companion sitting hunched up a few yards distant, “shore it strikes me queer thet Somers ain’t shootin’ any over thar.”

Jean recognized the dry, drawling voice of Greaves, and the shock of it seemed to contract the muscles of his whole thrilling body, like that of a panther about to spring.

CHAPTER VIII

“WAS SHORE THINKIN’ thet same,” said the other man. “An’, say, didn’t thet last shot sound too sharp fer Somers’s forty-five?”

“Come to think of it, I reckon it did,” replied Greaves.

“Wal, I’ll go around over thar an’ see.”

The dark form of the rustler slipped out of sight over the embankment.

“Better go slow an’ careful,” warned Greaves. “An’ only go close enough to call Somers.... Mebbe thet damn half-breed Isbel is comin’ some Injun on us.”

Jean heard the soft swish of footsteps through wet grass. Then all was still. He lay flat, with his cheek on the sand, and he had to look ahead and upward to make out the dark figure of Greaves on the bank. One way or another he meant to kill Greaves, and he had the will power to resist the strongest gust of passion that had ever stormed his breast. If he arose and shot the rustler, that act would defeat his plan of slipping on around upon the other outposts who were firing at the cabins. Jean wanted to call softly to Greaves, “You’re right about the half-breed!” and then, as he wheeled aghast, to kill him as he moved. But it suited Jean to risk leaping upon the man. Jean did not waste time in trying to understand the strange, deadly instinct that gripped him at the moment. But he realized then he had chosen the most perilous plan to get rid of Greaves.

Jean drew a long, deep breath and held it. He let go of his rifle. He rose, silently as a lifting shadow. He drew the bowie knife. Then with light, swift bounds he glided up the bank. Greaves must have heard a rustling — a soft, quick pad of moccasin, for he turned with a start. And that instant Jean’s left arm darted like a striking snake round Greaves’s neck and closed tight and hard. With his right hand free, holding the knife, Jean might have ended the deadly business in just one move. But when his bared arm felt the hot, bulging neck something terrible burst out of the depths of him. To kill this enemy of his father’s was not enough! Physical contact had unleashed the savage soul of the Indian. Yet there was more, and as Jean gave the straining body a tremendous jerk backward, he felt the same strange thrill, the dark joy that he had known when his fist had smashed the face of Simm Bruce. Greaves had leered — he had corroborated Bruce’s vile insinuation about Ellen Jorth. So it was more than hate that actuated Jean Isbel.

Greaves was heavy and powerful. He whirled himself, feet first, over backward, in a lunge like that of a lassoed steer. But Jean’s hold held. They rolled down the bank into the sandy ditch, and Jean landed uppermost, with his body at right angles with that of his adversary.

“Greaves, your hunch was right,” hissed Jean. “It’s the half-breed.... An’ I’m goin’ to cut you — first for Ellen Jorth — an’ then for Gaston Isbel!”

Jean gazed down into the gleaming eyes. Then his right arm whipped the big blade. It flashed. It fell. Low down, as far as Jean could reach, it entered Greaves’s body.

All the heavy, muscular frame of Greaves seemed to contract and burst. His spring was that of an animal in terror and agony. It was so tremendous that it broke Jean’s hold. Greaves let out a strangled yell that cleared, swelling wildly, with a hideous mortal note. He wrestled free. The big knife came out. Supple and swift, he got to his, knees. He had his gun out when Jean reached him again. Like a bear Jean enveloped him. Greaves shot, but he could not raise the gun, nor twist it far enough. Then Jean, letting go with his right arm, swung the bowie. Greaves’s strength went out in an awful, hoarse cry. His gun boomed again, then dropped from his hand. He swayed. Jean let go. And that enemy of the Isbels sank limply in the ditch. Jean’s eyes roved for his rifle and caught the starlit gleam of it. Snatching it up, he leaped over the embankment and ran straight for the cabins. From all around yells of the Jorth faction attested to their excitement and fury.

A fence loomed up gray in the obscurity. Jean vaulted it, darted across the lane into the shadow of the corral, and soon gained the first cabin. Here he leaned to regain his breath. His heart pounded high and seemed too large for his breast. The hot blood beat and surged all over his body. Sweat poured off him. His teeth were clenched tight as a vise, and it took effort on his part to open his mouth so he could breathe more freely and deeply. But these physical sensations were as nothing compared to the tumult of his mind. Then the instinct, the spell, let go its grip and he could think. He had avenged Guy, he had depleted the ranks of the Jorths, he had made good the brag of his father, all of which afforded him satisfaction. But these thoughts were not accountable for all that he felt, especially for the bittersweet sting of the fact that death to the defiler of Ellen Jorth could not efface the doubt, the regret which seemed to grow with the hours.

Groping his way into the woodshed, he entered the kitchen and, calling low, he went on into the main cabin.

“Jean! Jean!” came his father’s shaking voice.

“Yes, I’m back,” replied Jean.

“Are — you — all right?”

“Yes. I think I’ve got a bullet crease on my leg. I didn’t know I had it till now.... It’s bleedin’ a little. But it’s nothin’.”

Jean heard soft steps and some one reached shaking hands for him. They belonged to his sister Ann. She embraced him. Jean felt the heave and throb of her breast.

“Why, Ann, I’m not hurt,” he said, and held her close. “Now you lie down an’ try to sleep.”

In the black darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner and his heart was full. Speech was difficult, because the very touch of Ann’s hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in no wise changed the plight of the women.

“Wal, what happened out there?” demanded Blaisdell.

“I got two of them,” replied Jean. “That fellow who was shootin’ from the ridge west. An’ the other was Greaves.”

“Hah!” exclaimed his father.

“Shore then it was Greaves yellin’,” declared Blaisdell. “By God, I never heard such yells! Whad ‘d you do, Jean?”

“I knifed him. You see, I’d planned to slip up on one after another. An’ I didn’t want to make noise. But I didn’t get any farther than Greaves.”

“Wal, I reckon that ‘ll end their shootin’ in the dark,” muttered Gaston Isbel. “We’ve got to be on the lookout for somethin’ else — fire, most likely.”

The old rancher’s surmise proved to be partially correct. Jorth’s faction ceased the shooting. Nothing further was seen or heard from them. But this silence and apparent break in the siege were harder to bear than deliberate hostility. The long, dark hours dragged by. The men took turns watching and resting, but none of them slept. At last the blackness paled and gray dawn stole out of the east. The sky turned rose over the distant range and daylight came.

The children awoke hungry and noisy, having slept away their fears. The women took advantage of the quiet morning hour to get a hot breakfast.

“Maybe they’ve gone away,” suggested Guy Isbel’s wife, peering out of the window. She had done that several times since daybreak. Jean saw her somber gaze search the pasture until it rested upon the dark, prone shape of her dead husband, lying face down in the grass. Her look worried Jean.

“No, Esther, they’ve not gone yet,” replied Jean. “I’ve seen some of them out there at the edge of the brush.”

Blaisdell was optimistic. He said Jean’s night work would have its effect and that the Jorth contingent would not renew the siege very determinedly. It turned out, however, that Blaisdell was wrong. Directly after sunrise they began to pour volleys from four sides and from closer range. During the night Jorth’s gang had thrown earth banks and constructed log breastworks, from behind which they were now firing. Jean and his comrades could see the flashes of fire and streaks of smoke to such good advantage that they began to return the volleys.

In half an hour the cabin was so full of smoke that Jean could not see the womenfolk in their corner. The fierce attack then abated somewhat, and the firing became more intermittent, and therefore more carefully aimed. A glancing bullet cut a furrow in Blaisdell’s hoary head, making a painful, though not serious wound. It was Esther Isbel who stopped the flow of blood and bound Blaisdell’s head, a task which she performed skillfully and without a tremor. The old Texan could not sit still during this operation. Sight of the blood on his hands, which he tried to rub off, appeared to inflame him to a great degree.

“Isbel, we got to go out thar,” he kept repeating, “an’ kill them all.”

“No, we’re goin’ to stay heah,” replied Gaston Isbel. “Shore I’m lookin’ for Blue an’ Fredericks an’ Gordon to open up out there. They ought to be heah, an’ if they are y’u shore can bet they’ve got the fight sized up.”

Isbel’s hopes did not materialize. The shooting continued without any lull until about midday. Then the Jorth faction stopped.

“Wal, now what’s up?” queried Isbel. “Boys, hold your fire an’ let’s wait.”

Gradually the smoke wafted out of the windows and doors, until the room was once more clear. And at this juncture Esther Isbel came over to take another gaze out upon the meadows. Jean saw her suddenly start violently, then stiffen, with a trembling hand outstretched.

“Look!” she cried.

“Esther, get back,” ordered the old rancher. “Keep away from that window.”

“What the hell!” muttered Blaisdell. “She sees somethin’, or she’s gone dotty.”

Esther seemed turned to stone. “Look! The hogs have broken into the pasture! ... They’ll eat Guy’s body!”

Everyone was frozen with horror at Esther’s statement. Jean took a swift survey of the pasture. A bunch of big black hogs had indeed appeared on the scene and were rooting around in the grass not far from where lay the bodies of Guy Isbel and Jacobs. This herd of hogs belonged to the rancher and was allowed to run wild.

“Jane, those hogs—” stammered Esther Isbel, to the wife of Jacobs. “Come! Look! ... Do y’u know anythin’ about hogs?”

The woman ran to the window and looked out. She stiffened as had Esther.

“Dad, will those hogs — eat human flesh?” queried Jean, breathlessly.

The old man stared out of the window. Surprise seemed to hold him. A completely unexpected situation had staggered him.

“Jean — can you — can you shoot that far?” he asked, huskily.

“To those hogs? No, it’s out of range.”

“Then, by God, we’ve got to stay trapped in heah an’ watch an awful sight,” ejaculated the old man, completely unnerved. “See that break in the fence! ... Jorth’s done that.... To let in the hogs!”

“Aw, Isbel, it’s not so bad as all that,” remonstrated Blaisdell, wagging his bloody head. “Jorth wouldn’t do such a hell-bent trick.”

“It’s shore done.”

“Wal, mebbe the hogs won’t find Guy an’ Jacobs,” returned Blaisdell, weakly. Plain it was that he only hoped for such a contingency and certainly doubted it.

“Look!” cried Esther Isbel, piercingly. “They’re workin’ straight up the pasture!”

Indeed, to Jean it appeared to be the fatal truth. He looked blankly, feeling a little sick. Ann Isbel came to peer out of the window and she uttered a cry. Jacobs’s wife stood mute, as if dazed.

Blaisdell swore a mighty oath. “ ——  — ! Isbel, we cain’t stand heah an’ watch them hogs eat our people!”

“Wal, we’ll have to. What else on earth can we do?”

Esther turned to the men. She was white and cold, except her eyes, which resembled gray flames.

“Somebody can run out there an’ bury our dead men,” she said.

“Why, child, it’d be shore death. Y’u saw what happened to Guy an’ Jacobs.... We’ve jest got to bear it. Shore nobody needn’t look out — an’ see.”

Jean wondered if it would be possible to keep from watching. The thing had a horrible fascination. The big hogs were rooting and tearing in the grass, some of them lazy, others nimble, and all were gradually working closer and closer to the bodies. The leader, a huge, gaunt boar, that had fared ill all his life in this barren country, was scarcely fifty feet away from where Guy Isbel lay.

“Ann, get me some of your clothes, an’ a sunbonnet — quick,” said Jean, forced out of his lethargy. “I’ll run out there disguised. Maybe I can go through with it.”

“No!” ordered his father, positively, and with dark face flaming. “Guy an’ Jacobs are dead. We cain’t help them now.”

“But, dad—” pleaded Jean. He had been wrought to a pitch by Esther’s blaze of passion, by the agony in the face of the other woman.

“I tell y’u no!” thundered Gaston Isbel, flinging his arms wide.

“I WILL GO!” cried Esther, her voice ringing.

“You won’t go alone!” instantly answered the wife of Jacobs, repeating unconsciously the words her husband had spoken.

“You stay right heah,” shouted Gaston Isbel, hoarsely.

“I’m goin’,” replied Esther. “You’ve no hold over me. My husband is dead. No one can stop me. I’m goin’ out there to drive those hogs away an’ bury him.”

“Esther, for Heaven’s sake, listen,” replied Isbel. “If y’u show yourself outside, Jorth an’ his gang will kin y’u.”

“They may be mean, but no white men could be so low as that.”

Then they pleaded with her to give up her purpose. But in vain! She pushed them back and ran out through the kitchen with Jacobs’s wife following her. Jean turned to the window in time to see both women run out into the lane. Jean looked fearfully, and listened for shots. But only a loud, “Haw! Haw!” came from the watchers outside. That coarse laugh relieved the tension in Jean’s breast. Possibly the Jorths were not as black as his father painted them. The two women entered an open shed and came forth with a shovel and spade.

“Shore they’ve got to hurry,” burst out Gaston Isbel.

Shifting his gaze, Jean understood the import of his father’s speech. The leader of the hogs had no doubt scented the bodies. Suddenly he espied them and broke into a trot.

“Run, Esther, run!” yelled Jean, with all his might.

That urged the women to flight. Jean began to shoot. The hog reached the body of Guy. Jean’s shots did not reach nor frighten the beast. All the hogs now had caught a scent and went ambling toward their leader. Esther and her companion passed swiftly out of sight behind a corral. Loud and piercingly, with some awful note, rang out their screams. The hogs appeared frightened. The leader lifted his long snout, looked, and turned away. The others had halted. Then they, too, wheeled and ran off.

All was silent then in the cabin and also outside wherever the Jorth faction lay concealed. All eyes manifestly were fixed upon the brave wives. They spaded up the sod and dug a grave for Guy Isbel. For a shroud Esther wrapped him in her shawl. Then they buried him. Next they hurried to the side of Jacobs, who lay some yards away. They dug a grave for him. Mrs. Jacobs took off her outer skirt to wrap round him. Then the two women labored hard to lift him and lower him. Jacobs was a heavy man. When he had been covered his widow knelt beside his grave. Esther went back to the other. But she remained standing and did not look as if she prayed. Her aspect was tragic — that of a woman who had lost father, mother, sisters, brother, and now her husband, in this bloody Arizona land.

The deed and the demeanor of these wives of the murdered men surely must have shamed Jorth and his followers. They did not fire a shot during the ordeal nor give any sign of their presence.

Inside the cabin all were silent, too. Jean’s eyes blurred so that he continually had to wipe them. Old Isbel made no effort to hide his tears. Blaisdell nodded his shaggy head and swallowed hard. The women sat staring into space. The children, in round-eyed dismay, gazed from one to the other of their elders.

“Wal, they’re comin’ back,” declared Isbel, in immense relief. “An’ so help me — Jorth let them bury their daid!”

The fact seemed to have been monstrously strange to Gaston Isbel. When the women entered the old man said, brokenly: “I’m shore glad.... An’ I reckon I was wrong to oppose you ... an’ wrong to say what I did aboot Jorth.”

No one had any chance to reply to Isbel, for the Jorth gang, as if to make up for lost time and surcharged feelings of shame, renewed the attack with such a persistent and furious volleying that the defenders did not risk a return shot. They all had to lie flat next to the lowest log in order to keep from being hit. Bullets rained in through the window. And all the clay between the logs low down was shot away. This fusillade lasted for more than an hour, then gradually the fire diminished on one side and then on the other until it became desultory and finally ceased.

“Ahuh! Shore they’ve shot their bolt,” declared Gaston Isbel.

“Wal, I doon’t know aboot that,” returned Blaisdell, “but they’ve shot a hell of a lot of shells.”

“Listen,” suddenly called Jean. “Somebody’s yellin’.”

“Hey, Isbel!” came in loud, hoarse voice. “Let your women fight for you.”

Gaston Isbel sat up with a start and his face turned livid. Jean needed no more to prove that the derisive voice from outside had belonged to Jorth. The old rancher lunged up to his full height and with reckless disregard of life he rushed to the window. “Jorth,” he roared, “I dare you to meet me — man to man!”

This elicited no answer. Jean dragged his father away from the window. After that a waiting silence ensued, gradually less fraught with suspense. Blaisdell started conversation by saying he believed the fight was over for that particular time. No one disputed him. Evidently Gaston Isbel was loath to believe it. Jean, however, watching at the back of the kitchen, eventually discovered that the Jorth gang had lifted the siege. Jean saw them congregate at the edge of the brush, somewhat lower down than they had been the day before. A team of mules, drawing a wagon, appeared on the road, and turned toward the slope. Saddled horses were led down out of the junipers. Jean saw bodies, evidently of dead men, lifted into the wagon, to be hauled away toward the village. Seven mounted men, leading four riderless horses, rode out into the valley and followed the wagon.

“Dad, they’ve gone,” declared Jean. “We had the best of this fight.... If only Guy an’ Jacobs had listened!”

The old man nodded moodily. He had aged considerably during these two trying days. His hair was grayer. Now that the blaze and glow of the fight had passed he showed a subtle change, a fixed and morbid sadness, a resignation to a fate he had accepted.

The ordinary routine of ranch life did not return for the Isbels. Blaisdell returned home to settle matters there, so that he could devote all his time to this feud. Gaston Isbel sat down to wait for the members of his clan.

The male members of the family kept guard in turn over the ranch that night. And another day dawned. It brought word from Blaisdell that Blue, Fredericks, Gordon, and Colmor were all at his house, on the way to join the Isbels. This news appeared greatly to rejuvenate Gaston Isbel. But his enthusiasm did not last long. Impatient and moody by turns, he paced or moped around the cabin, always looking out, sometimes toward Blaisdell’s ranch, but mostly toward Grass Valley.

It struck Jean as singular that neither Esther Isbel nor Mrs. Jacobs suggested a reburial of their husbands. The two bereaved women did not ask for assistance, but repaired to the pasture, and there spent several hours working over the graves. They raised mounds, which they sodded, and then placed stones at the heads and feet. Lastly, they fenced in the graves.

“I reckon I’ll hitch up an’ drive back home,” said Mrs. Jacobs, when she returned to the cabin. “I’ve much to do an’ plan. Probably I’ll go to my mother’s home. She’s old an’ will be glad to have me.”

“If I had any place to go to I’d sure go,” declared Esther Isbel, bitterly.

Gaston Isbel heard this remark. He raised his face from his hands, evidently both nettled and hurt.

“Esther, shore that’s not kind,” he said.

The red-haired woman — for she did not appear to be a girl any more — halted before his chair and gazed down at him, with a terrible flare of scorn in her gray eyes.

“Gaston Isbel, all I’ve got to say to you is this,” she retorted, with the voice of a man. “Seein’ that you an’ Lee Jorth hate each other, why couldn’t you act like men? ... You damned Texans, with your bloody feuds, draggin’ in every relation, every friend to murder each other! That’s not the way of Arizona men.... We’ve all got to suffer — an’ we women be ruined for life — because YOU had differences with Jorth. If you were half a man you’d go out an’ kill him yourself, an’ not leave a lot of widows an’ orphaned children!”

Jean himself writhed under the lash of her scorn. Gaston Isbel turned a dead white. He could not answer her. He seemed stricken with merciless truth. Slowly dropping his head, he remained motionless, a pathetic and tragic figure; and he did not stir until the rapid beat of hoofs denoted the approach of horsemen. Blaisdell appeared on his white charger, leading a pack animal. And behind rode a group of men, all heavily armed, and likewise with packs.

“Get down an’ come in,” was Isbel’s greeting. “Bill — you look after their packs. Better leave the hosses saddled.”

The booted and spurred riders trooped in, and their demeanor fitted their errand. Jean was acquainted with all of them. Fredericks was a lanky Texan, the color of dust, and he had yellow, clear eyes, like those of a hawk. His mother had been an Isbel. Gordon, too, was related to Jean’s family, though distantly. He resembled an industrious miner more than a prosperous cattleman. Blue was the most striking of the visitors, as he was the most noted. A little, shrunken gray-eyed man, with years of cowboy written all over him, he looked the quiet, easy, cool, and deadly Texan he was reputed to be. Blue’s Texas record was shady, and was seldom alluded to, as unfavorable comment had turned out to be hazardous. He was the only one of the group who did not carry a rifle. But he packed two guns, a habit not often noted in Texans, and almost never in Arizonians.

Colmor, Ann Isbel’s fiance, was the youngest member of the clan, and the one closest to Jean. His meeting with Ann affected Jean powerfully, and brought to a climax an idea that had been developing in Jean’s mind. His sister devotedly loved this lean-faced, keen-eyed Arizonian; and it took no great insight to discover that Colmor reciprocated her affection. They were young. They had long life before them. It seemed to Jean a pity that Colmor should be drawn into this war. Jean watched them, as they conversed apart; and he saw Ann’s hands creep up to Colmor’s breast, and he saw her dark eyes, eloquent, hungry, fearful, lifted with queries her lips did not speak. Jean stepped beside them, and laid an arm over both their shoulders.

“Colmor, for Ann’s sake you’d better back out of this Jorth-Isbel fight,” he whispered.

Colmor looked insulted. “But, Jean, it’s Ann’s father,” he said. “I’m almost one of the family.”

“You’re Ann’s sweetheart, an’, by Heaven, I say you oughtn’t to go with us!” whispered Jean.

“Go — with — you,” faltered Ann.

“Yes. Dad is goin’ straight after Jorth. Can’t you tell that? An’ there ‘ll be one hell of a fight.”

Ann looked up into Colmor’s face with all her soul in her eyes, but she did not speak. Her look was noble. She yearned to guide him right, yet her lips were sealed. And Colmor betrayed the trouble of his soul. The code of men held him bound, and he could not break from it, though he divined in that moment how truly it was wrong.

“Jean, your dad started me in the cattle business,” said Colmor, earnestly. “An’ I’m doin’ well now. An’ when I asked him for Ann he said he’d be glad to have me in the family.... Well, when this talk of fight come up, I asked your dad to let me go in on his side. He wouldn’t hear of it. But after a while, as the time passed an’ he made more enemies, he finally consented. I reckon he needs me now. An’ I can’t back out, not even for Ann.”

“I would if I were you,” replied jean, and knew that he lied.

“Jean, I’m gamblin’ to come out of the fight,” said Colmor, with a smile. He had no morbid fears nor presentiments, such as troubled jean.

“Why, sure — you stand as good a chance as anyone,” rejoined Jean. “It wasn’t that I was worryin’ about so much.”

“What was it, then?” asked Ann, steadily.

“If Andrew DOES come through alive he’ll have blood on his hands,” returned Jean, with passion. “He can’t come through without it.... I’ve begun to feel what it means to have killed my fellow men.... An’ I’d rather your husband an’ the father of your children never felt that.”

Colmor did not take Jean as subtly as Ann did. She shrunk a little. Her dark eyes dilated. But Colmor showed nothing of her spiritual reaction. He was young. He had wild blood. He was loyal to the Isbels.

“Jean, never worry about my conscience,” he said, with a keen look. “Nothin’ would tickle me any more than to get a shot at every damn one of the Jorths.”

That established Colmor’s status in regard to the Jorth-Isbel feud. Jean had no more to say. He respected Ann’s friend and felt poignant sorrow for Ann.

Gaston Isbel called for meat and drink to be set on the table for his guests. When his wishes had been complied with the women took the children into the adjoining cabin and shut the door.

“Hah! Wal, we can eat an’ talk now.”

First the newcomers wanted to hear particulars of what had happened. Blaisdell had told all he knew and had seen, but that was not sufficient. They plied Gaston Isbel with questions. Laboriously and ponderously he rehearsed the experiences of the fight at the ranch, according to his impressions. Bill Isbel was exhorted to talk, but he had of late manifested a sullen and taciturn disposition. In spite of Jean’s vigilance Bill had continued to imbibe red liquor. Then Jean was called upon to relate all he had seen and done. It had been Jean’s intention to keep his mouth shut, first for his own sake and, secondly, because he did not like to talk of his deeds. But when thus appealed to by these somber-faced, intent-eyed men he divined that the more carefully he described the cruelty and baseness of their enemies, and the more vividly he presented his participation in the first fight of the feud the more strongly he would bind these friends to the Isbel cause. So he talked for an hour, beginning with his meeting with Colter up on the Rim and ending with an account of his killing Greaves. His listeners sat through this long narrative with unabated interest and at the close they were leaning forward, breathless and tense.

“Ah! So Greaves got his desserts at last,” exclaimed Gordon.

All the men around the table made comments, and the last, from Blue, was the one that struck Jean forcibly.

“Shore thet was a strange an’ a hell of a way to kill Greaves. Why’d you do thet, Jean?”

“I told you. I wanted to avoid noise an’ I hoped to get more of them.”

Blue nodded his lean, eagle-like head and sat thoughtfully, as if not convinced of anything save Jean’s prowess. After a moment Blue spoke again.

“Then, goin’ back to Jean’s tellin’ aboot trackin’ rustled Cattle, I’ve got this to say. I’ve long suspected thet somebody livin’ right heah in the valley has been drivin’ off cattle an’ dealin’ with rustlers. An’ now I’m shore of it.”

This speech did not elicit the amaze from Gaston Isbel that Jean expected it would.

“You mean Greaves or some of his friends?”

“No. They wasn’t none of them in the cattle business, like we are. Shore we all knowed Greaves was crooked. But what I’m figgerin’ is thet some so-called honest man in our settlement has been makin’ crooked deals.”

Blue was a man of deeds rather than words, and so much strong speech from him, whom everybody knew to be remarkably reliable and keen, made a profound impression upon most of the Isbel faction. But, to Jean’s surprise, his father did not rave. It was Blaisdell who supplied the rage and invective. Bill Isbel, also, was strangely indifferent to this new element in the condition of cattle dealing. Suddenly Jean caught a vague flash of thought, as if he had intercepted the thought of another’s mind, and he wondered — could his brother Bill know anything about this crooked work alluded to by Blue? Dismissing the conjecture, Jean listened earnestly.

“An’ if it’s true it shore makes this difference — we cain’t blame all the rustlin’ on to Jorth,” concluded Blue.

“Wal, it’s not true,” declared Gaston Isbel, roughly. “Jorth an’ his Hash Knife Gang are at the bottom of all the rustlin’ in the valley for years back. An’ they’ve got to be wiped out!”

“Isbel, I reckon we’d all feel better if we talk straight,” replied Blue, coolly. “I’m heah to stand by the Isbels. An’ y’u know what thet means. But I’m not heah to fight Jorth because he may be a rustler. The others may have their own reasons, but mine is this — you once stood by me in Texas when I was needin’ friends. Wal, I’m standin’ by y’u now. Jorth is your enemy, an’ so he is mine.”

Gaston Isbel bowed to this ultimatum, scarcely less agitated than when Esther Isbel had denounced him. His rabid and morbid hate of Jorth had eaten into his heart to take possession there, like the parasite that battened upon the life of its victim. Blue’s steely voice, his cold, gray eyes, showed the unbiased truth of the man, as well as his fidelity to his creed. Here again, but in a different manner, Gaston Isbel had the fact flung at him that other men must suffer, perhaps die, for his hate. And the very soul of the old rancher apparently rose in Passionate revolt against the blind, headlong, elemental strength of his nature. So it seemed to Jean, who, in love and pity that hourly grew, saw through his father. Was it too late? Alas! Gaston Isbel could never be turned back! Yet something was altering his brooding, fixed mind.

“Wal,” said Blaisdell, gruffly, “let’s get down to business.... I’m for havin’ Blue be foreman of this heah outfit, an’ all of us to do as he says.”

Gaston Isbel opposed this selection and indeed resented it. He intended to lead the Isbel faction.

“All right, then. Give us a hunch what we’re goin’ to do,” replied Blaisdell.

“We’re goin’ to ride off on Jorth’s trail — an’ one way or another — kill him — KILL HIM! ... I reckon that’ll end the fight.”

What did old Isbel have in his mind? His listeners shook their heads.

“No,” asserted Blaisdell. “Killin’ Jorth might be the end of your desires, Isbel, but it ‘d never end our fight. We’ll have gone too far.... If we take Jorth’s trail from heah it means we’ve got to wipe out that rustier gang, or stay to the last man.”

“Yes, by God!” exclaimed Fredericks.

“Let’s drink to thet!” said Blue. Strangely they turned to this Texas gunman, instinctively recognizing in him the brain and heart, and the past deeds, that fitted him for the leadership of such a clan. Blue had all in life to lose, and nothing to gain. Yet his spirit was such that he could not lean to all the possible gain of the future, and leave a debt unpaid. Then his voice, his look, his influence were those of a fighter. They all drank with him, even Jean, who hated liquor. And this act of drinking seemed the climax of the council. Preparations were at once begun for their departure on Jorth’s trail.

Jean took but little time for his own needs. A horse, a blanket, a knapsack of meat and bread, a canteen, and his weapons, with all the ammunition he could pack, made up his outfit. He wore his buckskin suit, leggings, and moccasins. Very soon the cavalcade was ready to depart. Jean tried not to watch Bill Isbel say good-by to his children, but it was impossible not to. Whatever Bill was, as a man, he was father of those children, and he loved them. How strange that the little ones seemed to realize the meaning of this good-by? They were grave, somber-eyed, pale up to the last moment, then they broke down and wept. Did they sense that their father would never come back? Jean caught that dark, fatalistic presentiment. Bill Isbel’s convulsed face showed that he also caught it. Jean did not see Bill say good-by to his wife. But he heard her. Old Gaston Isbel forgot to speak to the children, or else could not. He never looked at them. And his good-by to Ann was as if he were only riding to the village for a day. Jean saw woman’s love, woman’s intuition, woman’s grief in her eyes. He could not escape her. “Oh, Jean! oh, brother!” she whispered as she enfolded him. “It’s awful! It’s wrong! Wrong! Wrong! ... Good-by! ... If killing MUST be — see that y’u kill the Jorths! ... Good-by!”

Even in Ann, gentle and mild, the Isbel blood spoke at the last. Jean gave Ann over to the pale-faced Colmor, who took her in his arms. Then Jean fled out to his horse. This cold-blooded devastation of a home was almost more than he could bear. There was love here. What would be left?

Colmor was the last one to come out to the horses. He did not walk erect, nor as one whose sight was clear. Then, as the silent, tense, grim men mounted their horses, Bill Isbel’s eldest child, the boy, appeared in the door. His little form seemed instinct with a force vastly different from grief. His face was the face of an Isbel.

“Daddy — kill ’em all!” he shouted, with a passion all the fiercer for its incongruity to the treble voice.

So the poison had spread from father to son.

CHAPTER IX

HALF A MILE from the Isbel ranch the cavalcade passed the log cabin of Evarts, father of the boy who had tended sheep with Bernardino.

It suited Gaston Isbel to halt here. No need to call! Evarts and his son appeared so quickly as to convince observers that they had been watching.

“Howdy, Jake!” said Isbel. “I’m wantin’ a word with y’u alone.”

“Shore, boss, git down an’ come in,” replied Evarts.

Isbel led him aside, and said something forcible that Jean divined from the very gesture which accompanied it. His father was telling Evarts that he was not to join in the Isbel-Jorth war. Evarts had worked for the Isbels a long time, and his faithfulness, along with something stronger and darker, showed in his rugged face as he stubbornly opposed Isbel. The old man raised his voice: “No, I tell you. An’ that settles it.”

They returned to the horses, and, before mounting, Isbel, as if he remembered something, directed his somber gaze on young Evarts.

“Son, did you bury Bernardino?”

“Dad an’ me went over yestiddy,” replied the lad. “I shore was glad the coyotes hadn’t been round.”

“How aboot the sheep?”

“I left them there. I was goin’ to stay, but bein’ all alone — I got skeered.... The sheep was doin’ fine. Good water an’ some grass. An’ this ain’t time fer varmints to hang round.”

“Jake, keep your eye on that flock,” returned Isbel. “An’ if I shouldn’t happen to come back y’u can call them sheep yours.... I’d like your boy to ride up to the village. Not with us, so anybody would see him. But afterward. We’ll be at Abel Meeker’s.”

Again Jean was confronted with an uneasy premonition as to some idea or plan his father had not shared with his followers. When the cavalcade started on again Jean rode to his father’s side and asked him why he had wanted the Evarts boy to come to Grass Valley. And the old man replied that, as the boy could run to and fro in the village without danger, he might be useful in reporting what was going on at Greaves’s store, where undoubtedly the Jorth gang would hold forth. This appeared reasonable enough, therefore Jean smothered the objection he had meant to make.

The valley road was deserted. When, a mile farther on, the riders passed a group of cabins, just on the outskirts of the village, Jean’s quick eye caught sight of curious and evidently frightened people trying to see while they avoided being seen. No doubt the whole settlement was in a state of suspense and terror. Not unlikely this dark, closely grouped band of horsemen appeared to them as Jorth’s gang had looked to Jean. It was an orderly, trotting march that manifested neither hurry nor excitement. But any Western eye could have caught the singular aspect of such a group, as if the intent of the riders was a visible thing.

Soon they reached the outskirts of the village. Here their approach bad been watched for or had been already reported. Jean saw men, women, children peeping from behind cabins and from half-opened doors. Farther on Jean espied the dark figures of men, slipping out the back way through orchards and gardens and running north, toward the center of the village. Could these be friends of the Jorth crowd, on the way with warnings of the approach of the Isbels? Jean felt convinced of it. He was learning that his father had not been absolutely correct in his estimation of the way Jorth and his followers were regarded by their neighbors. Not improbably there were really many villagers who, being more interested in sheep raising than in cattle, had an honest leaning toward the Jorths. Some, too, no doubt, had leanings that were dishonest in deed if not in sincerity.

Gaston Isbel led his clan straight down the middle of the wide road of Grass Valley until he reached a point opposite Abel Meeker’s cabin. Jean espied the same curiosity from behind Meeker’s door and windows as had been shown all along the road. But presently, at Isbel’s call, the door opened and a short, swarthy man appeared. He carried a rifle.

“Howdy, Gass!” he said. “What’s the good word?”

“Wal, Abel, it’s not good, but bad. An’ it’s shore started,” replied Isbel. “I’m askin’ y’u to let me have your cabin.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll send the folks ‘round to Jim’s,” returned Meeker. “An’ if y’u want me, I’m with y’u, Isbel.”

“Thanks, Abel, but I’m not leadin’ any more kin an’ friends into this heah deal.”

“Wal, jest as y’u say. But I’d like damn bad to jine with y’u.... My brother Ted was shot last night.”

“Ted! Is he daid?” ejaculated Isbel, blankly.

“We can’t find out,” replied Meeker. “Jim says thet Jeff Campbell said thet Ted went into Greaves’s place last night. Greaves allus was friendly to Ted, but Greaves wasn’t thar—”

“No, he shore wasn’t,” interrupted Isbel, with a dark smile, “an’ he never will be there again.”

Meeker nodded with slow comprehension and a shade crossed his face.

“Wal, Campbell claimed he’d heerd from some one who was thar. Anyway, the Jorths were drinkin’ hard, an’ they raised a row with Ted — same old sheep talk an’ somebody shot him. Campbell said Ted was thrown out back, an’ he was shore he wasn’t killed.”

“Ahuh! Wal, I’m sorry, Abel, your family had to lose in this. Maybe Ted’s not bad hurt. I shore hope so.... An’ y’u an’ Jim keep out of the fight, anyway.”

“All right, Isbel. But I reckon I’ll give y’u a hunch. If this heah fight lasts long the whole damn Basin will be in it, on one side or t’other.”

“Abe, you’re talkin’ sense,” broke in Blaisdell. “An’ that’s why we’re up heah for quick action.”

“I heerd y’u got Daggs,” whispered Meeker, as he peered all around.

“Wal, y’u heerd correct,” drawled Blaisdell.

Meeker muttered strong words into his beard. “Say, was Daggs in thet Jorth outfit?”

“He WAS. But he walked right into Jean’s forty-four.... An’ I reckon his carcass would show some more.”

“An’ whar’s Guy Isbel?” demanded Meeker.

“Daid an’ buried, Abel,” replied Gaston Isbel. “An’ now I’d be obliged if y’u ‘ll hurry your folks away, an’ let us have your cabin an’ corral. Have yu got any hay for the hosses?”

“Shore. The barn’s half full,” replied Meeker, as he turned away. “Come on in.”

“No. We’ll wait till you’ve gone.”

When Meeker had gone, Isbel and his men sat their horses and looked about them and spoke low. Their advent had been expected, and the little town awoke to the imminence of the impending battle. Inside Meeker’s house there was the sound of indistinct voices of women and the bustle incident to a hurried vacating.

Across the wide road people were peering out on all sides, some hiding, others walking to and fro, from fence to fence, whispering in little groups. Down the wide road, at the point where it turned, stood Greaves’s fort-like stone house. Low, flat, isolated, with its dark, eye-like windows, it presented a forbidding and sinister aspect. Jean distinctly saw the forms of men, some dark, others in shirt sleeves, come to the wide door and look down the road.

“Wal, I reckon only aboot five hundred good hoss steps are separatin’ us from that outfit,” drawled Blaisdell.

No one replied to his jocularity. Gaston Isbel’s eyes narrowed to a slit in his furrowed face and he kept them fastened upon Greaves’s store. Blue, likewise, had a somber cast of countenance, not, perhaps, any darker nor grimmer than those of his comrades, but more representative of intense preoccupation of mind. The look of him thrilled Jean, who could sense its deadliness, yet could not grasp any more. Altogether, the manner of the villagers and the watchful pacing to and fro of the Jorth followers and the silent, boding front of Isbel and his men summed up for Jean the menace of the moment that must very soon change to a terrible reality.

At a call from Meeker, who stood at the back of the cabin, Gaston Isbel rode into the yard, followed by the others of his party. “Somebody look after the hosses,” ordered Isbel, as he dismounted and took his rifle and pack. “Better leave the saddles on, leastways till we see what’s comin’ off.”

Jean and Bill Isbel led the horses back to the corral. While watering and feeding them, Jean somehow received the impression that Bill was trying to speak, to confide in him, to unburden himself of some load. This peculiarity of Bill’s had become marked when he was perfectly sober. Yet he had never spoken or even begun anything unusual. Upon the present occasion, however, Jean believed that his brother might have gotten rid of his emotion, or whatever it was, had they not been interrupted by Colmor.

“Boys, the old man’s orders are for us to sneak round on three sides of Greaves’s store, keepin’ out of gunshot till we find good cover, an’ then crawl closer an’ to pick off any of Jorth’s gang who shows himself.”

Bill Isbel strode off without a reply to Colmor.

“Well, I don’t think so much of that,” said Jean, ponderingly. “Jorth has lots of friends here. Somebody might pick us off.”

“I kicked, but the old man shut me up. He’s not to be bucked ag’in’ now. Struck me as powerful queer. But no wonder.”

“Maybe he knows best. Did he say anythin’ about what he an’ the rest of them are goin’ to do?”

“Nope. Blue taxed him with that an’ got the same as me. I reckon we’d better try it out, for a while, anyway.”

“Looks like he wants us to keep out of the fight,” replied Jean, thoughtfully. “Maybe, though ... Dad’s no fool. Colmor, you wait here till I get out of sight. I’ll go round an’ come up as close as advisable behind Greaves’s store. You take the right side. An’ keep hid.”

With that Jean strode off, going around the barn, straight out the orchard lane to the open flat, and then climbing a fence to the north of the village. Presently he reached a line of sheds and corrals, to which he held until he arrived at the road. This point was about a quarter of a mile from Greaves’s store, and around the bend. Jean sighted no one. The road, the fields, the yards, the backs of the cabins all looked deserted. A blight had settled down upon the peaceful activities of Grass Valley. Crossing the road, Jean began to circle until he came close to several cabins, around which he made a wide detour. This took him to the edge of the slope, where brush and thickets afforded him a safe passage to a line directly back of Greaves’s store. Then he turned toward it. Soon he was again approaching a cabin of that side, and some of its inmates descried him, Their actions attested to their alarm. Jean half expected a shot from this quarter, such were his growing doubts, but he was mistaken. A man, unknown to Jean, closely watched his guarded movements and then waved a hand, as if to signify to Jean that he had nothing to fear. After this act he disappeared. Jean believed that he had been recognized by some one not antagonistic to the Isbels. Therefore he passed the cabin and, coming to a thick scrub-oak tree that offered shelter, he hid there to watch. From this spot he could see the back of Greaves’s store, at a distance probably too far for a rifle bullet to reach. Before him, as far as the store, and on each side, extended the village common. In front of the store ran the road. Jean’s position was such that he could not command sight of this road down toward Meeker’s house, a fact that disturbed him. Not satisfied with this stand, he studied his surroundings in the hope of espying a better. And he discovered what he thought would be a more favorable position, although he could not see much farther down the road. Jean went back around the cabin and, coming out into the open to the right, he got the corner of Greaves’s barn between him and the window of the store. Then he boldly hurried into the open, and soon reached an old wagon, from behind which he proposed to watch. He could not see either window or door of the store, but if any of the Jorth contingent came out the back way they would be within reach of his rifle. Jean took the risk of being shot at from either side.

So sharp and roving was his sight that he soon espied Colmor slipping along behind the trees some hundred yards to the left. All his efforts to catch a glimpse of Bill, however, were fruitless. And this appeared strange to Jean, for there were several good places on the right from which Bill could have commanded the front of Greaves’s store and the whole west side.

Colmor disappeared among some shrubbery, and Jean seemed left alone to watch a deserted, silent village. Watching and listening, he felt that the time dragged. Yet the shadows cast by the sun showed him that, no matter how tense he felt and how the moments seemed hours, they were really flying.

Suddenly Jean’s ears rang with the vibrant shock of a rifle report. He jerked up, strung and thrilling. It came from in front of the store. It was followed by revolver shots, heavy, booming. Three he counted, and the rest were too close together to enumerate. A single hoarse yell pealed out, somehow trenchant and triumphant. Other yells, not so wild and strange, muffled the first one. Then silence clapped down on the store and the open square.

Jean was deadly certain that some of the Jorth clan would show themselves. He strained to still the trembling those sudden shots and that significant yell had caused him. No man appeared. No more sounds caught Jean’s ears. The suspense, then, grew unbearable. It was not that he could not wait for an enemy to appear, but that he could not wait to learn what had happened. Every moment that he stayed there, with hands like steel on his rifle, with eyes of a falcon, but added to a dreadful, dark certainty of disaster. A rifle shot swiftly followed by revolver shots! What could, they mean? Revolver shots of different caliber, surely fired by different men! What could they mean? It was not these shots that accounted for Jean’s dread, but the yell which had followed. All his intelligence and all his nerve were not sufficient to fight down the feeling of calamity. And at last, yielding to it, he left his post, and ran like a deer across the open, through the cabin yard, and around the edge of the slope to the road. Here his caution brought him to a halt. Not a living thing crossed his vision. Breaking into a run, he soon reached the back of Meeker’s place and entered, to hurry forward to the cabin.

Colmor was there in the yard, breathing hard, his face working, and in front of him crouched several of the men with rifles ready. The road, to Jean’s flashing glance, was apparently deserted. Blue sat on the doorstep, lighting a cigarette. Then on the moment Blaisdell strode to the door of the cabin. Jean had never seen him look like that.

“Jean — look — down the road,” he said, brokenly, and with big hand shaking he pointed down toward Greaves’s store.

Like lightning Jean’s glance shot down — down — down — until it stopped to fix upon the prostrate form of a man, lying in the middle of the road. A man of lengthy build, shirt-sleeved arms flung wide, white head in the dust — dead! Jean’s recognition was as swift as his sight. His father! They had killed him! The Jorths! It was done. His father’s premonition of death had not been false. And then, after these flashing thoughts, came a sense of blankness, momentarily almost oblivion, that gave place to a rending of the heart. That pain Jean had known only at the death of his mother. It passed, this agonizing pang, and its icy pressure yielded to a rushing gust of blood, fiery as hell.

“Who — did it?” whispered Jean.

“Jorth!” replied Blaisdell, huskily. “Son, we couldn’t hold your dad back.... We couldn’t. He was like a lion.... An’ he throwed his life away! Oh, if it hadn’t been for that it ‘d not be so awful. Shore, we come heah to shoot an’ be shot. But not like that.... By God, it was murder — murder!”

Jean’s mute lips framed a query easily read.

“Tell him, Blue. I cain’t,” continued Blaisdell, and he tramped back into the cabin.

“Set down, Jean, an’ take things easy,” said Blue, calmly. “You know we all reckoned we’d git plugged one way or another in this deal. An’ shore it doesn’t matter much how a fellar gits it. All thet ought to bother us is to make shore the other outfit bites the dust — same as your dad had to.”

Under this man’s tranquil presence, all the more quieting because it seemed to be so deadly sure and cool, Jean felt the uplift of his dark spirit, the acceptance of fatality, the mounting control of faculties that must wait. The little gunman seemed to have about his inert presence something that suggested a rattlesnake’s inherent knowledge of its destructiveness. Jean sat down and wiped his clammy face.

“Jean, your dad reckoned to square accounts with Jorth, an’ save us all,” began Blue, puffing out a cloud of smoke. “But he reckoned too late. Mebbe years; ago — or even not long ago — if he’d called Jorth out man to man there’d never been any Jorth-Isbel war. Gaston Isbel’s conscience woke too late. That’s how I figger it.”

“Hurry! Tell me — how it — happen,” panted Jean.

“Wal, a little while after y’u left I seen your dad writin’ on a leaf he tore out of a book — Meeker’s Bible, as yu can see. I thought thet was funny. An’ Blaisdell gave me a hunch. Pretty soon along comes young Evarts. The old man calls him out of our hearin’ an’ talks to him. Then I seen him give the boy somethin’, which I afterward figgered was what he wrote on the leaf out of the Bible. Me an’ Blaisdell both tried to git out of him what thet meant. But not a word. I kept watchin’ an’ after a while I seen young Evarts slip out the back way. Mebbe half an hour I seen a bare-legged kid cross, the road an’ go into Greaves’s store.... Then shore I tumbled to your dad. He’d sent a note to Jorth to come out an’ meet him face to face, man to man! ... Shore it was like readin’ what your dad had wrote. But I didn’t say nothin’ to Blaisdell. I jest watched.”

Blue drawled these last words, as if he enjoyed remembrance of his keen reasoning. A smile wreathed his thin lips. He drew twice on the cigarette and emitted another cloud of smoke. Quite suddenly then he changed. He made a rapid gesture — the whip of a hand, significant and passionate. And swift words followed:

“Colonel Lee Jorth stalked out of the store — out into the road — mebbe a hundred steps. Then he halted. He wore his long black coat an’ his wide black hat, an’ he stood like a stone.

“‘What the hell!’ burst out Blaisdell, comin’ out of his trance.

“The rest of us jest looked. I’d forgot your dad, for the minnit. So had all of us. But we remembered soon enough when we seen him stalk out. Everybody had a hunch then. I called him. Blaisdell begged him to come back. All the fellars; had a say. No use! Then I shore cussed him an’ told him it was plain as day thet Jorth didn’t hit me like an honest man. I can sense such things. I knew Jorth had trick up his sleeve. I’ve not been a gun fighter fer nothin’.

“Your dad had no rifle. He packed his gun at his hip. He jest stalked down thet road like a giant, goin’ faster an’ faster, holdin’ his head high. It shore was fine to see him. But I was sick. I heerd Blaisdell groan, an’ Fredericks thar cussed somethin’ fierce.... When your dad halted — I reckon aboot fifty steps from Jorth — then we all went numb. I heerd your dad’s voice — then Jorth’s. They cut like knives. Y’u could shore heah the hate they hed fer each other.”

Blue had become a little husky. His speech had grown gradually to denote his feeling. Underneath his serenity there was a different order of man.

“I reckon both your dad an’ Jorth went fer their guns at the same time — an even break. But jest as they drew, some one shot a rifle from the store. Must hev been a forty-five seventy. A big gun! The bullet must have hit your dad low down, aboot the middle. He acted thet way, sinkin’ to his knees. An’ he was wild in shootin’ — so wild thet he must hev missed. Then he wabbled — an’ Jorth run in a dozen steps, shootin’ fast, till your dad fell over.... Jorth run closer, bent over him, an’ then straightened up with an Apache yell, if I ever heerd one.... An’ then Jorth backed slow — lookin’ all the time — backed to the store, an’ went in.”

Blue’s voice ceased. Jean seemed suddenly released from an impelling magnet that now dropped him to some numb, dizzy depth. Blue’s lean face grew hazy. Then Jean bowed his head in his hands, and sat there, while a slight tremor shook all his muscles at once. He grew deathly cold and deathly sick. This paroxysm slowly wore away, and Jean grew conscious of a dull amaze at the apparent deadness of his spirit. Blaisdell placed a huge, kindly hand on his shoulder.

“Brace up, son!” he said, with voice now clear and resonant. “Shore it’s what your dad expected — an’ what we all must look for.... If yu was goin’ to kill Jorth before — think how —— shore y’u’re goin’ to kill him now.”

“Blaisdell’s talkin’,” put in Blue, and his voice had a cold ring. “Lee Jorth will never see the sun rise ag’in!”

These calls to the primitive in Jean, to the Indian, were not in vain. But even so, when the dark tide rose in him, there was still a haunting consciousness of the cruelty of this singular doom imposed upon him. Strangely Ellen Jorth’s face floated back in the depths of his vision, pale, fading, like the face of a spirit floating by.

“Blue,” said Blaisdell, “let’s get Isbel’s body soon as we dare, an’ bury it. Reckon we can, right after dark.”

“Shore,” replied Blue. “But y’u fellars figger thet out. I’m thinkin’ hard. I’ve got somethin’ on my mind.”

Jean grew fascinated by the looks and speech and action of the little gunman. Blue, indeed, had something on his mind. And it boded ill to the men in that dark square stone house down the road. He paced to and fro in the yard, back and forth on the path to the gate, and then he entered the cabin to stalk up and down, faster and faster, until all at once he halted as if struck, to upfling his right arm in a singular fierce gesture.

“Jean, call the men in,” he said, tersely.

They all filed in, sinister and silent, with eager faces turned to the little Texan. His dominance showed markedly.

“Gordon, y’u stand in the door an’ keep your eye peeled,” went on Blue. “... Now, boys, listen! I’ve thought it all out. This game of man huntin’ is the same to me as cattle raisin’ is to y’u. An’ my life in Texas all comes back to me, I reckon, in good stead fer us now. I’m goin’ to kill Lee Jorth! Him first, an’ mebbe his brothers. I had to think of a good many ways before I hit on one I reckon will be shore. It’s got to be SHORE. Jorth has got to die! Wal, heah’s my plan.... Thet Jorth outfit is drinkin’ some, we can gamble on it. They’re not goin’ to leave thet store. An’ of course they’ll be expectin’ us to start a fight. I reckon they’ll look fer some such siege as they held round Isbel’s ranch. But we shore ain’t goin’ to do thet. I’m goin’ to surprise thet outfit. There’s only one man among them who is dangerous, an’ thet’s Queen. I know Queen. But he doesn’t know me. An’ I’m goin’ to finish my job before he gets acquainted with me. After thet, all right!”

Blue paused a moment, his eyes narrowing down, his whole face setting in hard cast of intense preoccupation, as if he visualized a scene of extraordinary nature.

“Wal, what’s your trick?” demanded Blaisdell.

“Y’u all know Greaves’s store,” continued Blue. “How them winders have wooden shutters thet keep a light from showin’ outside? Wal, I’m gamblin’ thet as soon as it’s dark Jorth’s gang will be celebratin’. They’ll be drinkin’ an’ they’ll have a light, an’ the winders will be shut. They’re not goin’ to worry none aboot us. Thet store is like a fort. It won’t burn. An’ shore they’d never think of us chargin’ them in there. Wal, as soon as it’s dark, we’ll go round behind the lots an’ come up jest acrost the road from Greaves’s. I reckon we’d better leave Isbel where he lays till this fight’s over. Mebbe y’u ‘ll have more ‘n him to bury. We’ll crawl behind them bushes in front of Coleman’s yard. An’ heah’s where Jean comes in. He’ll take an ax, an’ his guns, of course, an’ do some of his Injun sneakin’ round to the back of Greaves’s store.... An’, Jean, y’u must do a slick job of this. But I reckon it ‘ll be easy fer you. Back there it ‘ll be dark as pitch, fer anyone lookin’ out of the store. An’ I’m figgerin’ y’u can take your time an’ crawl right up. Now if y’u don’t remember how Greaves’s back yard looks I’ll tell y’u.”

Here Blue dropped on one knee to the floor and with a finger he traced a map of Greaves’s barn and fence, the back door and window, and especially a break in the stone foundation which led into a kind of cellar where Greaves stored wood and other things that could be left outdoors.

“Jean, I take particular pains to show y’u where this hole is,” said Blue, “because if the gang runs out y’u could duck in there an’ hide. An’ if they run out into the yard — wal, y’u’d make it a sorry run fer them.... Wal, when y’u’ve crawled up close to Greaves’s back door, an’ waited long enough to see an’ listen — then you’re to run fast an’ swing your ax smash ag’in’ the winder. Take a quick peep in if y’u want to. It might help. Then jump quick an’ take a swing at the door. Y’u ‘ll be standin’ to one side, so if the gang shoots through the door they won’t hit y’u. Bang thet door good an’ hard.... Wal, now’s where I come in. When y’u swing thet ax I’ll shore run fer the front of the store. Jorth an’ his outfit will be some attentive to thet poundin’ of yours on the back door. So I reckon. An’ they’ll be lookin’ thet way. I’ll run in — yell — an’ throw my guns on Jorth.”

“Humph! Is that all?” ejaculated Blaisdell.

“I reckon thet’s all an’ I’m figgerin’ it’s a hell of a lot,” responded Blue, dryly. “Thet’s what Jorth will think.”

“Where do we come in?”

“Wal, y’u all can back me up,” replied Blue, dubiously. “Y’u see, my plan goes as far as killin’ Jorth — an’ mebbe his brothers. Mebbe I’ll get a crack at Queen. But I’ll be shore of Jorth. After thet all depends. Mebbe it ‘ll be easy fer me to get out. An’ if I do y’u fellars will know it an’ can fill thet storeroom full of bullets.”

“Wal, Blue, with all due respect to y’u, I shore don’t like your plan,” declared Blaisdell. “Success depends upon too many little things any one of which might go wrong.”

“Blaisdell, I reckon I know this heah game better than y’u,” replied Blue. “A gun fighter goes by instinct. This trick will work.”

“But suppose that front door of Greaves’s store is barred,” protested Blaisdell.

“It hasn’t got any bar,” said Blue.

“Y’u’re shore?”

“Yes, I reckon,” replied Blue.

“Hell, man! Aren’t y’u takin’ a terrible chance?” queried Blaisdell.

Blue’s answer to that was a look that brought the blood to Blaisdell’s face. Only then did the rancher really comprehend how the little gunman had taken such desperate chances before, and meant to take them now, not with any hope or assurance of escaping with his life, but to live up to his peculiar code of honor.

“Blaisdell, did y’u ever heah of me in Texas?” he queried, dryly.

“Wal, no, Blue, I cain’t swear I did,” replied the rancher, apologetically. “An’ Isbel was always sort of’ mysterious aboot his acquaintance with you.”

“My name’s not Blue.”

“Ahuh! Wal, what is it, then — if I’m safe to ask?” returned Blaisdell, gruffly.

“It’s King Fisher,” replied Blue.

The shock that stiffened Blaisdell must have been communicated to the others. Jean certainly felt amaze, and some other emotion not fully realized, when he found himself face to face with one of the most notorious characters ever known in Texas — an outlaw long supposed to be dead.

“Men, I reckon I’d kept my secret if I’d any idee of comin’ out of this Isbel-Jorth war alive,” said Blue. “But I’m goin’ to cash. I feel it heah.... Isbel was my friend. He saved me from bein’ lynched in Texas. An’ so I’m goin’ to kill Jorth. Now I’ll take it kind of y’u — if any of y’u come out of this alive — to tell who I was an’ why I was on the Isbel side. Because this sheep an’ cattle war — this talk of Jorth an’ the Hash Knife Gang — it makes me, sick. I KNOW there’s been crooked work on Isbel’s side, too. An’ I never want it on record thet I killed Jorth because he was a rustler.”

“By God, Blue! it’s late in the day for such talk,” burst out Blaisdell, in rage and amaze. “But I reckon y’u know what y’u’re talkin’ aboot.... Wal, I shore don’t want to heah it.”

At this juncture Bill Isbel quietly entered the cabin, too late to hear any of Blue’s statement. Jean was positive of that, for as Blue was speaking those last revealing words Bill’s heavy boots had resounded on the gravel path outside. Yet something in Bill’s look or in the way Blue averted his lean face or in the entrance of Bill at that particular moment, or all these together, seemed to Jean to add further mystery to the long secret causes leading up to the Jorth-Isbel war. Did Bill know what Blue knew? Jean had an inkling that he did. And on the moment, so perplexing and bitter, Jean gazed out the door, down the deserted road to where his dead father lay, white-haired and ghastly in the sunlight.

“Blue, you could have kept that to yourself, as well as your real name,” interposed Jean, with bitterness. “It’s too late now for either to do any good.... But I appreciate your friendship for dad, an’ I’m ready to help carry out your plan.”

That decision of Jean’s appeared to put an end to protest or argument from Blaisdell or any of the others. Blue’s fleeting dark smile was one of satisfaction. Then upon most of this group of men seemed to settle a grim restraint. They went out and walked and watched; they came in again, restless and somber. Jean thought that he must have bent his gaze a thousand times down the road to the tragic figure of his father. That sight roused all emotions in his breast, and the one that stirred there most was pity. The pity of it! Gaston Isbel lying face down in the dust of the village street! Patches of blood showed on the back of his vest and one white-sleeved shoulder. He had been shot through. Every time Jean saw this blood he had to stifle a gathering of wild, savage impulses.

Meanwhile the afternoon hours dragged by and the village remained as if its inhabitants had abandoned it. Not even a dog showed on the side road. Jorth and some of his men came out in front of the store and sat on the steps, in close convening groups. Every move they, made seemed significant of their confidence and importance. About sunset they went back into the store, closing door and window shutters. Then Blaisdell called the Isbel faction to have food and drink. Jean felt no hunger. And Blue, who had kept apart from the others, showed no desire to eat. Neither did he smoke, though early in the day he had never been without a cigarette between his lips.

Twilight fell and darkness came. Not a light showed anywhere in the blackness.

“Wal, I reckon it’s aboot time,” said Blue, and he led the way out of the cabin to the back of the lot. Jean strode behind him, carrying his rifle and an ax. Silently the other men followed. Blue turned to the left and led through the field until he came within sight of a dark line of trees.

“Thet’s where the road turns off,” he said to Jean. “An’ heah’s the back of Coleman’s place.... Wal, Jean, good luck!”

Jean felt the grip of a steel-like hand, and in the darkness he caught the gleam of Blue’s eyes. Jean had no response in words for the laconic Blue, but he wrung the hard, thin hand and hurried away in the darkness.

Once alone, his part of the business at hand rushed him into eager thrilling action. This was the sort of work he was fitted to do. In this instance it was important, but it seemed to him that Blue had coolly taken the perilous part. And this cowboy with gray in his thin hair was in reality the great King Fisher! Jean marveled at the fact. And he shivered all over for Jorth. In ten minutes — fifteen, more or less, Jorth would lie gasping bloody froth and sinking down. Something in the dark, lonely, silent, oppressive summer night told Jean this. He strode on swiftly. Crossing the road at a run, he kept on over the ground he had traversed during the afternoon, and in a few moments he stood breathing hard at the edge of the common behind Greaves’s store.

A pin point of light penetrated the blackness. It made Jean’s heart leap. The Jorth contingent were burning the big lamp that hung in the center of Greaves’s store. Jean listened. Loud voices and coarse laughter sounded discord on the melancholy silence of the night. What Blue had called his instinct had surely guided him aright. Death of Gaston Isbel was being celebrated by revel.

In a few moments Jean had regained his breath. Then all his faculties set intensely to the action at hand. He seemed to magnify his hearing and his sight. His movements made no sound. He gained the wagon, where he crouched a moment.

The ground seemed a pale, obscure medium, hardly more real than the gloom above it. Through this gloom of night, which looked thick like a cloud, but was really clear, shone the thin, bright point of light, accentuating the black square that was Greaves’s store. Above this stood a gray line of tree foliage, and then the intensely dark-blue sky studded with white, cold stars.

A hound bayed lonesomely somewhere in the distance. Voices of men sounded more distinctly, some deep and low, others loud, unguarded, with the vacant note of thoughtlessness.

Jean gathered all his forces, until sense of sight and hearing were in exquisite accord with the suppleness and lightness of his movements. He glided on about ten short, swift steps before he halted. That was as far as his piercing eyes could penetrate. If there had been a guard stationed outside the store Jean would have seen him before being seen. He saw the fence, reached it, entered the yard, glided in the dense shadow of the barn until the black square began to loom gray — the color of stone at night. Jean peered through the obscurity. No dark figure of a man showed against that gray wall — only a black patch, which must be the hole in the foundation mentioned. A ray of light now streaked out from the little black window. To the right showed the wide, black door.

Farther on Jean glided silently. Then he halted. There was no guard outside. Jean heard the clink of a cap, the lazy drawl of a Texan, and then a strong, harsh voice — Jorth’s. It strung Jean’s whole being tight and vibrating. Inside he was on fire while cold thrills rippled over his skin. It took tremendous effort of will to hold himself back another instant to listen, to look, to feel, to make sure. And that instant charged him with a mighty current of hot blood, straining, throbbing, damming.

When Jean leaped this current burst. In a few swift bounds he gained his point halfway between door and window. He leaned his rifle against the stone wall. Then he swung the ax. Crash! The window shutter split and rattled to the floor inside. The silence then broke with a hoarse, “What’s thet?”

With all his might Jean swung the heavy ax on the door. Smash! The lower half caved in and banged to the floor. Bright light flared out the hole.

“Look out!” yelled a man, in loud alarm. “They’re batterin’ the back door!”

Jean swung again, high on the splintered door. Crash! Pieces flew inside.

“They’ve got axes,” hoarsely shouted another voice. “Shove the counter ag’in’ the door.”

“No!” thundered a voice of authority that denoted terror as well. “Let them come in. Pull your guns an’ take to cover!”

“They ain’t comin’ in,” was the hoarse reply. “They’ll shoot in on us from the dark.”

“Put out the lamp!” yelled another.

Jean’s third heavy swing caved in part of the upper half of the door. Shouts and curses intermingled with the sliding of benches across the floor and the hard shuffle of boots. This confusion seemed to be split and silenced by a piercing yell, of different caliber, of terrible meaning. It stayed Jean’s swing — caused him to drop the ax and snatch up his rifle.

“DON’T ANYBODY MOVE!”

Like a steel whip this voice cut the silence. It belonged to Blue. Jean swiftly bent to put his eye to a crack in the door. Most of those visible seemed to have been frozen into unnatural positions. Jorth stood rather in front of his men, hatless and coatless, one arm outstretched, and his dark profile set toward a little man just inside the door. This man was Blue. Jean needed only one flashing look at Blue’s face, at his leveled, quivering guns, to understand why he had chosen this trick.

“Who’re — you?” demanded Jorth, in husky pants.

“Reckon I’m Isbel’s right-hand man,” came the biting reply. “Once tolerable well known in Texas.... KING FISHER!”

The name must have been a guarantee of death. Jorth recognized this outlaw and realized his own fate. In the lamplight his face turned a pale greenish white. His outstretched hand began to quiver down.

Blue’s left gun seemed to leap up and flash red and explode. Several heavy reports merged almost as one. Jorth’s arm jerked limply, flinging his gun. And his body sagged in the middle. His hands fluttered like crippled wings and found their way to his abdomen. His death-pale face never changed its set look nor position toward Blue. But his gasping utterance was one of horrible mortal fury and terror. Then he began to sway, still with that strange, rigid set of his face toward his slayer, until he fell.

His fall broke the spell. Even Blue, like the gunman he was, had paused to watch Jorth in his last mortal action. Jorth’s followers began to draw and shoot. Jean saw Blue’s return fire bring down a huge man, who fell across Jorth’s body. Then Jean, quick as the thought that actuated him, raised his rifle and shot at the big lamp. It burst in a flare. It crashed to the floor. Darkness followed — a blank, thick, enveloping mantle. Then red flashes of guns emphasized the blackness. Inside the store there broke loose a pandemonium of shots, yells, curses, and thudding boots. Jean shoved his rifle barrel inside the door and, holding it low down, he moved it to and fro while he worked lever and trigger until the magazine was empty. Then, drawing his six-shooter, he emptied that. A roar of rifles from the front of the store told Jean that his comrades had entered the fray. Bullets zipped through the door he had broken. Jean ran swiftly round the corner, taking care to sheer off a little to the left, and when he got clear of the building he saw a line of flashes in the middle of the road. Blaisdell and the others were firing into the door of the store. With nimble fingers Jean reloaded his rifle. Then swiftly he ran across the road and down to get behind his comrades. Their shooting had slackened. Jean saw dark forms coming his way.

“Hello, Blaisdell!” he called, warningly.

“That y’u, Jean?” returned the rancher, looming up. “Wal, we wasn’t worried aboot y’u.”

“Blue?” queried Jean, sharply.

A little, dark figure shuffled past Jean. “Howdy, Jean!” said Blue, dryly. “Y’u shore did your part. Reckon I’ll need to be tied up, but I ain’t hurt much.”

“Colmor’s hit,” called the voice of Gordon, a few yards distant. “Help me, somebody!”

Jean ran to help Gordon uphold the swaying Colmor. “Are you hurt — bad?” asked Jean, anxiously. The young man’s head rolled and hung. He was breathing hard and did not reply. They had almost to carry him.

“Come on, men!” called Blaisdell, turning back toward the others who were still firing. “We’ll let well enough alone.... Fredericks, y’u an’ Bill help me find the body of the old man. It’s heah somewhere.”

Farther on down the road the searchers stumbled over Gaston Isbel. They picked him up and followed Jean and Gordon, who were supporting the wounded Colmor. Jean looked back to see Blue dragging himself along in the rear. It was too dark to see distinctly; nevertheless, Jean got the impression that Blue was more severely wounded than he had claimed to be. The distance to Meeker’s cabin was not far, but it took what Jean felt to be a long and anxious time to get there. Colmor apparently rallied somewhat. When this procession entered Meeker’s yard, Blue was lagging behind.

“Blue, how air y’u?” called Blaisdell, with concern.

“Wal, I got — my boots — on — anyhow,” replied Blue, huskily.

He lurched into the yard and slid down on the grass and stretched out.

“Man! Y’u’re hurt bad!” exclaimed Blaisdell. The others halted in their slow march and, as if by tacit, unspoken word, lowered the body of Isbel to the ground. Then Blaisdell knelt beside Blue. Jean left Colmor to Gordon and hurried to peer down into Blue’s dim face.

“No, I ain’t — hurt,” said Blue, in a much weaker voice. “I’m — jest killed! ... It was Queen! ... Y’u all heerd me — Queen was — only bad man in that lot. I knowed it.... I could — hev killed him.... But I was — after Lee Jorth an’ his brothers....”

Blue’s voice failed there.

“Wal!” ejaculated Blaisdell.

“Shore was funny — Jorth’s face — when I said — King Fisher,” whispered Blue. “Funnier — when I bored — him through.... But it — was — Queen—”

His whisper died away.

“Blue!” called Blaisdell, sharply. Receiving no answer, he bent lower in the starlight and placed a hand upon the man’s breast.

“Wal, he’s gone.... I wonder if he really was the old Texas King Fisher. No one would ever believe it.... But if he killed the Jorths, I’ll shore believe him.”

CHAPTER X

TWO WEEKS OF lonely solitude in the forest had worked incalculable change in Ellen Jorth.

Late in June her father and her two uncles had packed and ridden off with Daggs, Colter, and six other men, all heavily armed, some somber with drink, others hard and grim with a foretaste of fight. Ellen had not been given any orders. Her father had forgotten to bid her good-by or had avoided it. Their dark mission was stamped on their faces.

They had gone and, keen as had been Ellen’s pang, nevertheless, their departure was a relief. She had heard them bluster and brag so often that she had her doubts of any great Jorth-Isbel war. Barking dogs did not bite. Somebody, perhaps on each side, would be badly wounded, possibly killed, and then the feud would go on as before, mostly talk. Many of her former impressions had faded. Development had been so rapid and continuous in her that she could look back to a day-by-day transformation. At night she had hated the sight of herself and when the dawn came she would rise, singing.

Jorth had left Ellen at home with the Mexican woman and Antonio. Ellen saw them only at meal times, and often not then, for she frequently visited old John Sprague or came home late to do her own cooking.

It was but a short distance up to Sprague’s cabin, and since she had stopped riding the black horse, Spades, she walked. Spades was accustomed to having grain, and in the mornings he would come down to the ranch and whistle. Ellen had vowed she would never feed the horse and bade Antonio do it. But one morning Antonio was absent. She fed Spades herself. When she laid a hand on him and when he rubbed his nose against her shoulder she was not quite so sure she hated him. “Why should I?” she queried. “A horse cain’t help it if he belongs to — to—” Ellen was not sure of anything except that more and more it grew good to be alone.

A whole day in the lonely forest passed swiftly, yet it left a feeling of long time. She lived by her thoughts. Always the morning was bright, sunny, sweet and fragrant and colorful, and her mood was pensive, wistful, dreamy. And always, just as surely as the hours passed, thought intruded upon her happiness, and thought brought memory, and memory brought shame, and shame brought fight. Sunset after sunset she had dragged herself back to the ranch, sullen and sick and beaten. Yet she never ceased to struggle.

The July storms came, and the forest floor that had been so sear and brown and dry and dusty changed as if by magic. The green grass shot up, the flowers bloomed, and along the canyon beds of lacy ferns swayed in the wind and bent their graceful tips over the amber-colored water. Ellen haunted these cool dells, these pine-shaded, mossy-rocked ravines where the brooks tinkled and the deer came down to drink. She wandered alone. But there grew to be company in the aspens and the music of the little waterfalls. If she could have lived in that solitude always, never returning to the ranch home that reminded her of her name, she could have forgotten and have been happy.

She loved the storms. It was a dry country and she had learned through years to welcome the creamy clouds that rolled from the southwest. They came sailing and clustering and darkening at last to form a great, purple, angry mass that appeared to lodge against the mountain rim and burst into dazzling streaks of lightning and gray palls of rain. Lightning seldom struck near the ranch, but up on the Rim there was never a storm that did not splinter and crash some of the noble pines. During the storm season sheep herders and woodsmen generally did not camp under the pines. Fear of lightning was inborn in the natives, but for Ellen the dazzling white streaks or the tremendous splitting, crackling shock, or the thunderous boom and rumble along the battlements of the Rim had no terrors. A storm eased her breast. Deep in her heart was a hidden gathering storm. And somehow, to be out when the elements were warring, when the earth trembled and the heavens seemed to burst asunder, afforded her strange relief.

The summer days became weeks, and farther and farther they carried Ellen on the wings of solitude and loneliness until she seemed to look back years at the self she had hated. And always, when the dark memory impinged upon peace, she fought and fought until she seemed to be fighting hatred itself. Scorn of scorn and hate of hate! Yet even her battles grew to be dreams. For when the inevitable retrospect brought back Jean Isbel and his love and her cowardly falsehood she would shudder a little and put an unconscious hand to her breast and utterly fail in her fight and drift off down to vague and wistful dreams. The clean and healing forest, with its whispering wind and imperious solitude, had come between Ellen and the meaning of the squalid sheep ranch, with its travesty of home, its tragic owner. And it was coming between her two selves, the one that she had been forced to be and the other that she did not know — the thinker, the dreamer, the romancer, the one who lived in fancy the life she loved.

The summer morning dawned that brought Ellen strange tidings. They must have been created in her sleep, and now were realized in the glorious burst of golden sun, in the sweep of creamy clouds across the blue, in the solemn music of the wind in the pines, in the wild screech of the blue jays and the noble bugle of a stag. These heralded the day as no ordinary day. Something was going to happen to her. She divined it. She felt it. And she trembled. Nothing beautiful, hopeful, wonderful could ever happen to Ellen Jorth. She had been born to disaster, to suffer, to be forgotten, and die alone. Yet all nature about her seemed a magnificent rebuke to her morbidness. The same spirit that came out there with the thick, amber light was in her. She lived, and something in her was stronger than mind.

Ellen went to the door of her cabin, where she flung out her arms, driven to embrace this nameless purport of the morning. And a well-known voice broke in upon her rapture.

“Wal, lass, I like to see you happy an’ I hate myself fer comin’. Because I’ve been to Grass Valley fer two days an’ I’ve got news.”

Old John Sprague stood there, with a smile that did not hide a troubled look.

“Oh! Uncle John! You startled me,” exclaimed Ellen, shocked back to reality. And slowly she added: “Grass Valley! News?”

She put out an appealing hand, which Sprague quickly took in his own, as if to reassure her.

“Yes, an’ not bad so far as you Jorths are concerned,” he replied. “The first Jorth-Isbel fight has come off.... Reckon you remember makin’ me promise to tell you if I heerd anythin’. Wal, I didn’t wait fer you to come up.”

“So Ellen heard her voice calmly saying. What was this lying calm when there seemed to be a stone hammer at her heart? The first fight — not so bad for the Jorths! Then it had been bad for the Isbels. A sudden, cold stillness fell upon her senses.

“Let’s sit down — outdoors,” Sprague was saying. “Nice an’ sunny this — mornin’. I declare — I’m out of breath. Not used to walkin’. An’ besides, I left Grass Valley, in the night — an’ I’m tired. But excoose me from hangin’ round thet village last night! There was shore—”

“Who — who was killed?” interrupted Ellen, her voice breaking low and deep.

“Guy Isbel an’ Bill Jacobs on the Isbel side, an’ Daggs, Craig, an’ Greaves on your father’s side,” stated Sprague, with something of awed haste.

“Ah!” breathed Ellen, and she relaxed to sink back against the cabin wall.

Sprague seated himself on the log beside her, turning to face her, and he seemed burdened with grave and important matters.

“I heerd a good many conflictin’ stories,” he said, earnestly. “The village folks is all skeered an’ there’s no believin’ their gossip. But I got what happened straight from Jake Evarts. The fight come off day before yestiddy. Your father’s gang rode down to Isbel’s ranch. Daggs was seen to be wantin’ some of the Isbel hosses, so Evarts says. An’ Guy Isbel an’ Jacobs ran out in the pasture. Daggs an’ some others shot them down.”

“Killed them — that way?” put in Ellen, sharply.

“So Evarts says. He was on the ridge an’ swears he seen it all. They killed Guy an’ Jacobs in cold blood. No chance fer their lives — not even to fight! ... Wall, hen they surrounded the Isbel cabin. The fight last all thet day an’ all night an’ the next day. Evarts says Guy an’ Jacobs laid out thar all this time. An’ a herd of hogs broke in the pasture an’ was eatin’ the dead bodies ...”

“My God!” burst out Ellen. “Uncle John, y’u shore cain’t mean my father wouldn’t stop fightin’ long enough to drive the hogs off an’ bury those daid men?”

“Evarts says they stopped fightin’, all right, but it was to watch the hogs,” declared Sprague. “An’ then, what d’ ye think? The wimminfolks come out — the red-headed one, Guy’s wife, an’ Jacobs’s wife — they drove the hogs away an’ buried their husbands right there in the pasture. Evarts says he seen the graves.”

“It is the women who can teach these bloody Texans a lesson,” declared Ellen, forcibly.

“Wal, Daggs was drunk, an’ he got up from behind where the gang was hidin’, an’ dared the Isbels to come out. They shot him to pieces. An’ thet night some one of the Isbels shot Craig, who was alone on guard.... An’ last — this here’s what I come to tell you — Jean Isbel slipped up in the dark on Greaves an’ knifed him.”

“Why did y’u want to tell me that particularly?” asked Ellen, slowly.

“Because I reckon the facts in the case are queer — an’ because, Ellen, your name was mentioned,” announced Sprague, positively.

“My name — mentioned?” echoed Ellen. Her horror and disgust gave way to a quickening process of thought, a mounting astonishment. “By whom?”

“Jean Isbel,” replied Sprague, as if the name and the fact were momentous.

Ellen sat still as a stone, her hands between her knees. Slowly she felt the blood recede from her face, prickling her kin down below her neck. That name locked her thought.

“Ellen, it’s a mighty queer story — too queer to be a lie,” went on Sprague. “Now you listen! Evarts got this from Ted Meeker. An’ Ted Meeker heerd it from Greaves, who didn’t die till the next day after Jean Isbel knifed him. An’ your dad shot Ted fer tellin’ what he heerd.... No, Greaves wasn’t killed outright. He was cut somethin’ turrible — in two places. They wrapped him all up an’ next day packed him in a wagon back to Grass Valley. Evarts says Ted Meeker was friendly with Greaves an’ went to see him as he was layin’ in his room next to the store. Wal, accordin’ to Meeker’s story, Greaves came to an’ talked. He said he was sittin’ there in the dark, shootin’ occasionally at Isbel’s cabin, when he heerd a rustle behind him in the grass. He knowed some one was crawlin’ on him. But before he could get his gun around he was jumped by what he thought was a grizzly bear. But it was a man. He shut off Greaves’s wind an’ dragged him back in the ditch. An’ he said: ‘Greaves, it’s the half-breed. An’ he’s goin’ to cut you — FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH! an’ then for Gaston Isbel!’ ... Greaves said Jean ripped him with a bowie knife.... An’ thet was all Greaves remembered. He died soon after tellin’ this story. He must hev fought awful hard. Thet second cut Isbel gave him went clear through him.... Some of the gang was thar when Greaves talked, an’ naturally they wondered why Jean Isbel had said ‘first for Ellen Jorth.’ ... Somebody remembered thet Greaves had cast a slur on your good name, Ellen. An’ then they had Jean Isbel’s reason fer sayin’ thet to Greaves. It caused a lot of talk. An’ when Simm Bruce busted in some of the gang haw-hawed him an’ said as how he’d get the third cut from Jean Isbel’s bowie. Bruce was half drunk an’ he began to cuss an’ rave about Jean Isbel bein’ in love with his girl.... As bad luck would have it, a couple of more fellars come in an’ asked Meeker questions. He jest got to thet part, ‘Greaves, it’s the half-breed, an’ he’s goin’ to cut you — FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH,’ when in walked your father! ... Then it all had to come out — what Jean Isbel had said an’ done — an’ why. How Greaves had backed Simm Bruce in slurrin’ you!”

Sprague paused to look hard at Ellen.

“Oh! Then — what did dad do?” whispered Ellen.

“He said, ‘By God! half-breed or not, there’s one Isbel who’s a man!’ An’ he killed Bruce on the spot an’ gave Meeker a nasty wound. Somebody grabbed him before he could shoot Meeker again. They threw Meeker out an’ he crawled to a neighbor’s house, where he was when Evarts seen him.”

Ellen felt Sprague’s rough but kindly hand shaking her. “An’ now what do you think of Jean Isbel?” he queried.

A great, unsurmountable wall seemed to obstruct Ellen’s thought. It seemed gray in color. It moved toward her. It was inside her brain.

“I tell you, Ellen Jorth,” declared the old man, “thet Jean Isbel loves you — loves you turribly — an’ he believes you’re good.”

“Oh no — he doesn’t!” faltered Ellen.

“Wal, he jest does.”

“Oh, Uncle John, he cain’t believe that!” she cried.

“Of course he can. He does. You are good — good as gold, Ellen, an’ he knows it.... What a queer deal it all is! Poor devil! To love you thet turribly an’ hev to fight your people! Ellen, your dad had it correct. Isbel or not, he’s a man.... An’ I say what a shame you two are divided by hate. Hate thet you hed nothin’ to do with.” Sprague patted her head and rose to go. “Mebbe thet fight will end the trouble. I reckon it will. Don’t cross bridges till you come to them, Ellen.... I must hurry back now. I didn’t take time to unpack my burros. Come up soon.... An’, say, Ellen, don’t think hard any more of thet Jean Isbel.”

Sprague strode away, and Ellen neither heard nor saw him go. She sat perfectly motionless, yet had a strange sensation of being lifted by invisible and mighty power. It was like movement felt in a dream. She was being impelled upward when her body seemed immovable as stone. When her blood beat down this deadlock of an her physical being and rushed on and on through her veins it gave her an irresistible impulse to fly, to sail through space, to ran and run and ran.

And on the moment the black horse, Spades, coming from the meadow, whinnied at sight of her. Ellen leaped up and ran swiftly, but her feet seemed to be stumbling. She hugged the horse and buried her hot face in his mane and clung to him. Then just as violently she rushed for her saddle and bridle and carried the heavy weight as easily as if it had been an empty sack. Throwing them upon him, she buckled and strapped with strong, eager hands. It never occurred to her that she was not dressed to ride. Up she flung herself. And the horse, sensing her spirit, plunged into strong, free gait down the canyon trail.

The ride, the action, the thrill, the sensations of violence were not all she needed. Solitude, the empty aisles of the forest, the far miles of lonely wilderness — were these the added all? Spades took a swinging, rhythmic lope up the winding trail. The wind fanned her hot face. The sting of whipping aspen branches was pleasant. A deep rumble of thunder shook the sultry air. Up beyond the green slope of the canyon massed the creamy clouds, shading darker and darker. Spades loped on the levels, leaped the washes, trotted over the rocky ground, and took to a walk up the long slope. Ellen dropped the reins over the pommel. Her hands could not stay set on anything. They pressed her breast and flew out to caress the white aspens and to tear at the maple leaves, and gather the lavender juniper berries, and came back again to her heart. Her heart that was going to burst or break! As it had swelled, so now it labored. It could not keep pace with her needs. All that was physical, all that was living in her had to be unleashed.

Spades gained the level forest. How the great, brown-green pines seemed to bend their lofty branches over her, protectively, understandingly. Patches of azure-blue sky flashed between the trees. The great white clouds sailed along with her, and shafts of golden sunlight, flecked with gleams of falling pine needles, shone down through the canopy overhead. Away in front of her, up the slow heave of forest land, boomed the heavy thunderbolts along the battlements of the Rim.

Was she riding to escape from herself? For no gait suited her until Spades was running hard and fast through the glades. Then the pressure of dry wind, the thick odor of pine, the flashes of brown and green and gold and blue, the soft, rhythmic thuds of hoofs, the feel of the powerful horse under her, the whip of spruce branches on her muscles contracting and expanding in hard action — all these sensations seemed to quell for the time the mounting cataclysm in her heart.

The oak swales, the maple thickets, the aspen groves, the pine-shaded aisles, and the miles of silver spruce all sped by her, as if she had ridden the wind; and through the forest ahead shone the vast open of the Basin, gloomed by purple and silver cloud, shadowed by gray storm, and in the west brightened by golden sky.

Straight to the Rim she had ridden, and to the point where she had watched Jean Isbel that unforgetable day. She rode to the promontory behind the pine thicket and beheld a scene which stayed her restless hands upon her heaving breast.

The world of sky and cloud and earthly abyss seemed one of storm-sundered grandeur. The air was sultry and still, and smelled of the peculiar burnt-wood odor caused by lightning striking trees. A few heavy drops of rain were pattering down from the thin, gray edge of clouds overhead. To the east hung the storm — a black cloud lodged against the Rim, from which long, misty veils of rain streamed down into the gulf. The roar of rain sounded like the steady roar of the rapids of a river. Then a blue-white, piercingly bright, ragged streak of lightning shot down out of the black cloud. It struck with a splitting report that shocked the very wall of rock under Ellen. Then the heavens seemed to burst open with thundering crash and close with mighty thundering boom. Long roar and longer rumble rolled away to the eastward. The rain poured down in roaring cataracts.

The south held a panorama of purple-shrouded range and canyon, canyon and range, on across the rolling leagues to the dim, lofty peaks, all canopied over with angry, dusky, low-drifting clouds, horizon-wide, smoky, and sulphurous. And as Ellen watched, hands pressed to her breast, feeling incalculable relief in sight of this tempest and gulf that resembled her soul, the sun burst out from behind the long bank of purple cloud in the west and flooded the world there with golden lightning.

“It is for me!” cried Ellen. “My mind — my heart — my very soul.... Oh, I know! I know now! ... I love him — love him — love him!”

She cried it out to the elements. “Oh, I love Jean Isbel — an’ my heart will burst or break!”

The might of her passion was like the blaze of the sun. Before it all else retreated, diminished. The suddenness of the truth dimmed her sight. But she saw clearly enough to crawl into the pine thicket, through the clutching, dry twigs, over the mats of fragrant needles to the covert where she had once spied upon Jean Isbel. And here she lay face down for a while, hands clutching the needles, breast pressed hard upon the ground, stricken and spent. But vitality was exceeding strong in her. It passed, that weakness of realization, and she awakened to the consciousness of love.

But in the beginning it was not consciousness of the man. It was new, sensorial life, elemental, primitive, a liberation of a million inherited instincts, quivering and physical, over which Ellen had no more control than she had over the glory of the sun. If she thought at all it was of her need to be hidden, like an animal, low down near the earth, covered by green thicket, lost in the wildness of nature. She went to nature, unconsciously seeking a mother. And love was a birth from the depths of her, like a rushing spring of pure water, long underground, and at last propelled to the surface by a convulsion.

Ellen gradually lost her tense rigidity and relaxed. Her body softened. She rolled over until her face caught the lacy, golden shadows cast by sun and bough. Scattered drops of rain pattered around her. The air was hot, and its odor was that of dry pine and spruce fragrance penetrated by brimstone from the lightning. The nest where she lay was warm and sweet. No eye save that of nature saw her in her abandonment. An ineffable and exquisite smile wreathed her lips, dreamy, sad, sensuous, the supremity of unconscious happiness. Over her dark and eloquent eyes, as Ellen gazed upward, spread a luminous film, a veil. She was looking intensely, yet she did not see. The wilderness enveloped her with its secretive, elemental sheaths of rock, of tree, of cloud, of sunlight. Through her thrilling skin poured the multiple and nameless sensations of the living organism stirred to supreme sensitiveness. She could not lie still, but all her movements were gentle, involuntary. The slow reaching out of her hand, to grasp at nothing visible, was similar to the lazy stretching of her limbs, to the heave of her breast, to the ripple of muscle.

Ellen knew not what she felt. To live that sublime hour was beyond thought. Such happiness was like the first dawn of the world to the sight of man. It had to do with bygone ages. Her heart, her blood, her flesh, her very bones were filled with instincts and emotions common to the race before intellect developed, when the savage lived only with his sensorial perceptions. Of all happiness, joy, bliss, rapture to which man was heir, that of intense and exquisite preoccupation of the senses, unhindered and unburdened by thought, was the greatest. Ellen felt that which life meant with its inscrutable design. Love was only the realization of her mission on the earth.

The dark storm cloud with its white, ragged ropes of lightning and down-streaming gray veils of rain, the purple gulf rolling like a colored sea to the dim mountains, the glorious golden light of the sun — these had enchanted her eyes with her beauty of the universe. They had burst the windows of her blindness. When she crawled into the green-brown covert it was to escape too great perception. She needed to be encompassed by close, tangible things. And there her body paid the tribute to the realization of life. Shock, convulsion, pain, relaxation, and then unutterable and insupportable sensing of her environment and the heart! In one way she was a wild animal alone in the woods, forced into the mating that meant reproduction of its kind. In another she was an infinitely higher being shot through and through with the most resistless and mysterious transport that life could give to flesh.

And when that spell slackened its hold there wedged into her mind a consciousness of the man she loved — Jean Isbel. Then emotion and thought strove for mastery over her. It was not herself or love that she loved, but a living man. Suddenly he existed so clearly for her that she could see him, hear him, almost feel him. Her whole soul, her very life cried out to him for protection, for salvation, for love, for fulfillment. No denial, no doubt marred the white blaze of her realization. From the instant that she had looked up into Jean Isbel’s dark face she had loved him. Only she had not known. She bowed now, and bent, and humbly quivered under the mastery of something beyond her ken. Thought clung to the beginnings of her romance — to the three times she had seen him. Every look, every word, every act of his returned to her now in the light of the truth. Love at first sight! He had sworn it, bitterly, eloquently, scornful of her doubts. And now a blind, sweet, shuddering ecstasy swayed her. How weak and frail seemed her body — too small, too slight for this monstrous and terrible engine of fire and lightning and fury and glory — her heart! It must burst or break. Relentlessly memory pursued Ellen, and her thoughts whirled and emotion conquered her. At last she quivered up to her knees as if lashed to action. It seemed that first kiss of Isbel’s, cool and gentle and timid, was on her lips. And her eyes closed and hot tears welled from under her lids. Her groping hands found only the dead twigs and the pine boughs of the trees. Had she reached out to clasp him? Then hard and violent on her mouth and cheek and neck burned those other kisses of Isbel’s, and with the flashing, stinging memory came the truth that now she would have bartered her soul for them. Utterly she surrendered to the resistlessness of this love. Her loss of mother and friends, her wandering from one wild place to another, her lonely life among bold and rough men, had developed her for violent love. It overthrew all pride, it engendered humility, it killed hate. Ellen wiped the tears from her eyes, and as she knelt there she swept to her breast a fragrant spreading bough of pine needles. “I’ll go to him,” she whispered. “I’ll tell him of — of my — my love. I’ll tell him to take me away — away to the end of the world — away from heah — before it’s too late!”

It was a solemn, beautiful moment. But the last spoken words lingered hauntingly. “Too late?” she whispered.

And suddenly it seemed that death itself shuddered in her soul. Too late! It was too late. She had killed his love. That Jorth blood in her — that poisonous hate — had chosen the only way to strike this noble Isbel to the heart. Basely, with an abandonment of womanhood, she had mockingly perjured her soul with a vile lie. She writhed, she shook under the whip of this inconceivable fact. Lost! Lost! She wailed her misery. She might as well be what she had made Jean Isbel think she was. If she had been shamed before, she was now abased, degraded, lost in her own sight. And if she would have given her soul for his kisses, she now would have killed herself to earn back his respect. Jean Isbel had given her at sight the deference that she had unconsciously craved, and the love that would have been her salvation. What a horrible mistake she had made of her life! Not her mother’s blood, but her father’s — the Jorth blood — had been her ruin.

Again Ellen fell upon the soft pine-needle mat, face down, and she groveled and burrowed there, in an agony that could not bear the sense of light. All she had suffered was as nothing to this. To have awakened to a splendid and uplifting love for a man whom she had imagined she hated, who had fought for her name and had killed in revenge for the dishonor she had avowed — to have lost his love and what was infinitely more precious to her now in her ignominy — his faith in her purity — this broke her heart.

CHAPTER XI

WHEN ELLEN, UTTERLY spent in body and mind, reached home that day a melancholy, sultry twilight was falling. Fitful flares of sheet lightning swept across the dark horizon to the east. The cabins were deserted. Antonio and the Mexican woman were gone. The circumstances made Ellen wonder, but she was too tired and too sunken in spirit to think long about it or to care. She fed and watered her horse and left him in the corral. Then, supperless and without removing her clothes, she threw herself upon the bed, and at once sank into heavy slumber.

Sometime during the night she awoke. Coyotes were yelping, and from that sound she concluded it was near dawn. Her body ached; her mind seemed dull. Drowsily she was sinking into slumber again when she heard the rapid clip-clop of trotting horses. Startled, she raised her head to listen. The men were coming back. Relief and dread seemed to clear her stupor.

The trotting horses stopped across the lane from her cabin, evidently at the corral where she had left Spades. She heard him whistle.

From the sound of hoofs she judged the number of horses to be six or eight. Low voices of men mingled with thuds and cracking of straps and flopping of saddles on the ground. After that the heavy tread of boots sounded on the porch of the cabin opposite. A door creaked on its hinges. Next a slow footstep, accompanied by clinking of spurs, approached Ellen’s door, and a heavy hand banged upon it. She knew this person could not be her father.

“Hullo, Ellen!”

She recognized the voice as belonging to Colter. Somehow its tone, or something about it, sent a little shiver clown her spine. It acted like a revivifying current. Ellen lost her dragging lethargy.

“Hey, Ellen, are y’u there?” added Colter, louder voice.

“Yes. Of course I’m heah,” she replied. “What do y’u want?”

“Wal — I’m shore glad y’u’re home,” he replied. “Antonio’s gone with his squaw. An’ I was some worried aboot y’u.”

“Who’s with y’u, Colter?” queried Ellen, sitting up.

“Rock Wells an’ Springer. Tad Jorth was with us, but we had to leave him over heah in a cabin.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Wal, he’s hurt tolerable bad,” was the slow reply.

Ellen heard Colter’s spurs jangle, as if he had uneasily shifted his feet.

“Where’s dad an’ Uncle Jackson?” asked Ellen.

A silence pregnant enough to augment Ellen’s dread finally broke to Colter’s voice, somehow different. “Shore they’re back on the trail. An’ we’re to meet them where we left Tad.”

“Are yu goin’ away again?”

“I reckon.... An’, Ellen, y’u’re goin’ with us.”

“I am not,” she retorted.

“Wal, y’u are, if I have to pack y’u,” he replied, forcibly. “It’s not safe heah any more. That damned half-breed Isbel with his gang are on our trail.”

That name seemed like a red-hot blade at Ellen’s leaden heart. She wanted to fling a hundred queries on Colter, but she could not utter one.

“Ellen, we’ve got to hit the trail an’ hide,” continued Colter, anxiously. “Y’u mustn’t stay heah alone. Suppose them Isbels would trap y’u! ... They’d tear your clothes off an’ rope y’u to a tree. Ellen, shore y’u’re goin’.... Y’u heah me!”

“Yes — I’ll go,” she replied, as if forced.

“Wal — that’s good,” he said, quickly. “An’ rustle tolerable lively. We’ve got to pack.”

The slow jangle of Colter’s spurs and his slow steps moved away out of Ellen’s hearing. Throwing off the blankets, she put her feet to the floor and sat there a moment staring at the blank nothingness of the cabin interior in the obscure gray of dawn. Cold, gray, dreary, obscure — like her life, her future! And she was compelled to do what was hateful to her. As a Jorth she must take to the unfrequented trails and hide like a rabbit in the thickets. But the interest of the moment, a premonition of events to be, quickened her into action.

Ellen unbarred the door to let in the light. Day was breaking with an intense, clear, steely light in the east through which the morning star still shone white. A ruddy flare betokened the advent of the sun. Ellen unbraided her tangled hair and brushed and combed it. A queer, still pang came to her at sight of pine needles tangled in her brown locks. Then she washed her hands and face. Breakfast was a matter of considerable work and she was hungry.

The sun rose and changed the gray world of forest. For the first time in her life Ellen hated the golden brightness, the wonderful blue of sky, the scream of the eagle and the screech of the jay; and the squirrels she had always loved to feed were neglected that morning.

Colter came in. Either Ellen had never before looked attentively at him or else he had changed. Her scrutiny of his lean, hard features accorded him more Texan attributes than formerly. His gray eyes were as light, as clear, as fierce as those of an eagle. And the sand gray of his face, the long, drooping, fair mustache hid the secrets of his mind, but not its strength. The instant Ellen met his gaze she sensed a power in him that she instinctively opposed. Colter had not been so bold nor so rude as Daggs, but he was the same kind of man, perhaps the more dangerous for his secretiveness, his cool, waiting inscrutableness.

“‘Mawnin’, Ellen!” he drawled. “Y’u shore look good for sore eyes.”

“Don’t pay me compliments, Colter,” replied Ellen. “An’ your eyes are not sore.”

“Wal, I’m shore sore from fightin’ an’ ridin’ an’ layin’ out,” he said, bluntly.

“Tell me — what’s happened,” returned Ellen.

“Girl, it’s a tolerable long story,” replied Colter. “An’ we’ve no time now. Wait till we get to camp.”

“Am I to pack my belongin’s or leave them heah?” asked Ellen.

“Reckon y’u’d better leave — them heah.”

“But if we did not come back—”

“Wal, I reckon it’s not likely we’ll come — soon,” he said, rather evasively.

“Colter, I’ll not go off into the woods with just the clothes I have on my back.”

“Ellen, we shore got to pack all the grab we can. This shore ain’t goin’ to be a visit to neighbors. We’re shy pack hosses. But y’u make up a bundle of belongin’s y’u care for, an’ the things y’u’ll need bad. We’ll throw it on somewhere.”

Colter stalked away across the lane, and Ellen found herself dubiously staring at his tall figure. Was it the situation that struck her with a foreboding perplexity or was her intuition steeling her against this man? Ellen could not decide. But she had to go with him. Her prejudice was unreasonable at this portentous moment. And she could not yet feel that she was solely responsible to herself.

When it came to making a small bundle of her belongings she was in a quandary. She discarded this and put in that, and then reversed the order. Next in preciousness to her mother’s things were the long-hidden gifts of Jean Isbel. She could part with neither.

While she was selecting and packing this bundle Colter again entered and, without speaking, began to rummage in the corner where her father kept his possessions. This irritated Ellen.

“What do y’u want there?” she demanded.

“Wal, I reckon your dad wants his papers — an’ the gold he left heah — an’ a change of clothes. Now doesn’t he?” returned Colter, coolly.

“Of course. But I supposed y’u would have me pack them.”

Colter vouchsafed no reply to this, but deliberately went on rummaging, with little regard for how he scattered things. Ellen turned her back on him. At length, when he left, she went to her father’s corner and found that, as far as she was able to see, Colter had taken neither papers nor clothes, but only the gold. Perhaps, however, she had been mistaken, for she had not observed Colter’s departure closely enough to know whether or not he carried a package. She missed only the gold. Her father’s papers, old and musty, were scattered about, and these she gathered up to slip in her own bundle.

Colter, or one of the men, had saddled Spades, and he was now tied to the corral fence, champing his bit and pounding the sand. Ellen wrapped bread and meat inside her coat, and after tying this behind her saddle she was ready to go. But evidently she would have to wait, and, preferring to remain outdoors, she stayed by her horse. Presently, while watching the men pack, she noticed that Springer wore a bandage round his head under the brim of his sombrero. His motions were slow and lacked energy. Shuddering at the sight, Ellen refused to conjecture. All too soon she would learn what had happened, and all too soon, perhaps, she herself would be in the midst of another fight. She watched the men. They were making a hurried slipshod job of packing food supplies from both cabins. More than once she caught Colter’s gray gleam of gaze on her, and she did not like it.

“I’ll ride up an’ say good-by to Sprague,” she called to Colter.

“Shore y’u won’t do nothin’ of the kind,” he called back.

There was authority in his tone that angered Ellen, and something else which inhibited her anger. What was there about Colter with which she must reckon? The other two Texans laughed aloud, to be suddenly silenced by Colter’s harsh and lowered curses. Ellen walked out of hearing and sat upon a log, where she remained until Colter hailed her.

“Get up an’ ride,” he called.

Ellen complied with this order and, riding up behind the three mounted men, she soon found herself leaving what for years had been her home. Not once did she look back. She hoped she would never see the squalid, bare pretension of a ranch again.

Colter and the other riders drove the pack horses across the meadow, off of the trails, and up the slope into the forest. Not very long did it take Ellen to see that Colter’s object was to hide their tracks. He zigzagged through the forest, avoiding the bare spots of dust, the dry, sun-baked flats of clay where water lay in spring, and he chose the grassy, open glades, the long, pine-needle matted aisles. Ellen rode at their heels and it pleased her to watch for their tracks. Colter manifestly had been long practiced in this game of hiding his trail, and he showed the skill of a rustler. But Ellen was not convinced that he could ever elude a real woodsman. Not improbably, however, Colter was only aiming to leave a trail difficult to follow and which would allow him and his confederates ample time to forge ahead of pursuers. Ellen could not accept a certainty of pursuit. Yet Colter must have expected it, and Springer and Wells also, for they had a dark, sinister, furtive demeanor that strangely contrasted with the cool, easy manner habitual to them.

They were not seeking the level routes of the forest land, that was sure. They rode straight across the thick-timbered ridge down into another canyon, up out of that, and across rough, rocky bluffs, and down again. These riders headed a little to the northwest and every mile brought them into wilder, more rugged country, until Ellen, losing count of canyons and ridges, had no idea where she was. No stop was made at noon to rest the laboring, sweating pack animals.

Under circumstances where pleasure might have been possible Ellen would have reveled in this hard ride into a wonderful forest ever thickening and darkening. But the wild beauty of glade and the spruce slopes and the deep, bronze-walled canyons left her cold. She saw and felt, but had no thrill, except now and then a thrill of alarm when Spades slid to his haunches down some steep, damp, piny declivity.

All the woodland, up and down, appeared to be richer greener as they traveled farther west. Grass grew thick and heavy. Water ran in all ravines. The rocks were bronze and copper and russet, and some had green patches of lichen.

Ellen felt the sun now on her left cheek and knew that the day was waning and that Colter was swinging farther to the northwest. She had never before ridden through such heavy forest and down and up such wild canyons. Toward sunset the deepest and ruggedest canyon halted their advance. Colter rode to the right, searching for a place to get down through a spruce thicket that stood on end. Presently he dismounted and the others followed suit. Ellen found she could not lead Spades because he slid down upon her heels, so she looped the end of her reins over the pommel and left him free. She herself managed to descend by holding to branches and sliding all the way down that slope. She heard the horses cracking the brush, snorting and heaving. One pack slipped and had to be removed from the horse, and rolled down. At the bottom of this deep, green-walled notch roared a stream of water. Shadowed, cool, mossy, damp, this narrow gulch seemed the wildest place Ellen had ever seen. She could just see the sunset-flushed, gold-tipped spruces far above her. The men repacked the horse that had slipped his burden, and once more resumed their progress ahead, now turning up this canyon. There was no horse trail, but deer and bear trails were numerous. The sun sank and the sky darkened, but still the men rode on; and the farther they traveled the wilder grew the aspect of the canyon.

At length Colter broke a way through a heavy thicket of willows and entered a side canyon, the mouth of which Ellen had not even descried. It turned and widened, and at length opened out into a round pocket, apparently inclosed, and as lonely and isolated a place as even pursued rustlers could desire. Hidden by jutting wall and thicket of spruce were two old log cabins joined together by roof and attic floor, the same as the double cabin at the Jorth ranch.

Ellen smelled wood smoke, and presently, on going round the cabins, saw a bright fire. One man stood beside it gazing at Colter’s party, which evidently he had heard approaching.

“Hullo, Queen!” said Colter. “How’s Tad?”

“He’s holdin’ on fine,” replied Queen, bending over the fire, where he turned pieces of meat.

“Where’s father?” suddenly asked Ellen, addressing Colter.

As if he had not heard her, he went on wearily loosening a pack.

Queen looked at her. The light of the fire only partially shone on his face. Ellen could not see its expression. But from the fact that Queen did not answer her question she got further intimation of an impending catastrophe. The long, wild ride had helped prepare her for the secrecy and taciturnity of men who had resorted to flight. Perhaps her father had been delayed or was still off on the deadly mission that had obsessed him; or there might, and probably was, darker reason for his absence. Ellen shut her teeth and turned to the needs of her horse. And presently, returning to the fire, she thought of her uncle.

“Queen, is my uncle Tad heah?” she asked.

“Shore. He’s in there,” replied Queen, pointing at the nearer cabin.

Ellen hurried toward the dark doorway. She could see how the logs of the cabin had moved awry and what a big, dilapidated hovel it was. As she looked in, Colter loomed over her — placed a familiar and somehow masterful hand upon her. Ellen let it rest on her shoulder a moment. Must she forever be repulsing these rude men among whom her lot was cast? Did Colter mean what Daggs had always meant? Ellen felt herself weary, weak in body, and her spent spirit had not rallied. Yet, whatever Colter meant by his familiarity, she could not bear it. So she slipped out from under his hand.

“Uncle Tad, are y’u heah?” she called into the blackness. She heard the mice scamper and rustle and she smelled the musty, old, woody odor of a long-unused cabin.

“Hello, Ellen!” came a voice she recognized as her uncle’s, yet it was strange. “Yes. I’m heah — bad luck to me! ... How ‘re y’u buckin’ up, girl?”

“I’m all right, Uncle Tad — only tired an’ worried. I—”

“Tad, how’s your hurt?” interrupted Colter.

“Reckon I’m easier,” replied Jorth, wearily, “but shore I’m in bad shape. I’m still spittin’ blood. I keep tellin’ Queen that bullet lodged in my lungs — but he says it went through.”

“Wal, hang on, Tad!” replied Colter, with a cheerfulness Ellen sensed was really indifferent.

“Oh, what the hell’s the use!” exclaimed Jorth. “It’s all — up with us — Colter!”

“Wal, shut up, then,” tersely returned Colter. “It ain’t doin’ y’u or us any good to holler.”

Tad Jorth did not reply to this. Ellen heard his breathing and it did not seem natural. It rasped a little — came hurriedly — then caught in his throat. Then he spat. Ellen shrunk back against the door. He was breathing through blood.

“Uncle, are y’u in pain?” she asked.

“Yes, Ellen — it burns like hell,” he said.

“Oh! I’m sorry.... Isn’t there something I can do?”

“I reckon not. Queen did all anybody could do for me — now — unless it’s pray.”

Colter laughed at this — the slow, easy, drawling laugh of a Texan. But Ellen felt pity for this wounded uncle. She had always hated him. He had been a drunkard, a gambler, a waster of her father’s property; and now he was a rustler and a fugitive, lying in pain, perhaps mortally hurt.

“Yes, uncle — I will pray for y’u,” she said, softly.

The change in his voice held a note of sadness that she had been quick to catch.

“Ellen, y’u’re the only good Jorth — in the whole damned lot,” he said. “God! I see it all now.... We’ve dragged y’u to hell!”

“Yes, Uncle Tad, I’ve shore been dragged some — but not yet — to hell,” she responded, with a break in her voice.

“Y’u will be — Ellen — unless—”

“Aw, shut up that kind of gab, will y’u?” broke in Colter, harshly.

It amazed Ellen that Colter should dominate her uncle, even though he was wounded. Tad Jorth had been the last man to take orders from anyone, much less a rustler of the Hash Knife Gang. This Colter began to loom up in Ellen’s estimate as he loomed physically over her, a lofty figure, dark motionless, somehow menacing.

“Ellen, has Colter told y’u yet — aboot — aboot Lee an’ Jackson?” inquired the wounded man.

The pitch-black darkness of the cabin seemed to help fortify Ellen to bear further trouble.

“Colter told me dad an’ Uncle Jackson would meet us heah,” she rejoined, hurriedly.

Jorth could be heard breathing in difficulty, and he coughed and spat again, and seemed to hiss.

“Ellen, he lied to y’u. They’ll never meet us — heah!”

“Why not?” whispered Ellen.

“Because — Ellen—” he replied, in husky pants, “your dad an’ — uncle Jackson — are daid — an’ buried!”

If Ellen suffered a terrible shock it was a blankness, a deadness, and a slow, creeping failure of sense in her knees. They gave way under her and she sank on the grass against the cabin wall. She did not faint nor grow dizzy nor lose her sight, but for a while there was no process of thought in her mind. Suddenly then it was there — the quick, spiritual rending of her heart — followed by a profound emotion of intimate and irretrievable loss — and after that grief and bitter realization.

An hour later Ellen found strength to go to the fire and partake of the food and drink her body sorely needed.

Colter and the men waited on her solicitously, and in silence, now and then stealing furtive glances at her from under the shadow of their black sombreros. The dark night settled down like a blanket. There were no stars. The wind moaned fitfully among the pines, and all about that lonely, hidden recess was in harmony with Ellen’s thoughts.

“Girl, y’u’re shore game,” said Colter, admiringly. “An’ I reckon y’u never got it from the Jorths.”

“Tad in there — he’s game,” said Queen, in mild protest.

“Not to my notion,” replied Colter. “Any man can be game when he’s croakin’, with somebody around.... But Lee Jorth an’ Jackson — they always was yellow clear to their gizzards. They was born in Louisiana — not Texas.... Shore they’re no more Texans than I am. Ellen heah, she must have got another strain in her blood.”

To Ellen their words had no meaning. She rose and asked, “Where can I sleep?”

“I’ll fetch a light presently an’ y’u can make your bed in there by Tad,” replied Colter.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

“Wal, if y’u reckon y’u can coax him to talk you’re shore wrong,” declared Colter, with that cold timbre of voice that struck like steel on Ellen’s nerves. “I cussed him good an’ told him he’d keep his mouth shut. Talkin’ makes him cough an’ that fetches up the blood.... Besides, I reckon I’m the one to tell y’u how your dad an’ uncle got killed. Tad didn’t see it done, an’ he was bad hurt when it happened. Shore all the fellars left have their idee aboot it. But I’ve got it straight.”

“Colter — tell me now,” cried Ellen.

“Wal, all right. Come over heah,” he replied, and drew her away from the camp fire, out in the shadow of gloom. “Poor kid! I shore feel bad aboot it.” He put a long arm around her waist and drew her against him. Ellen felt it, yet did not offer any resistance. All her faculties seemed absorbed in a morbid and sad anticipation.

“Ellen, y’u shore know I always loved y’u — now don’t y ‘u?” he asked, with suppressed breath.

“No, Colter. It’s news to me — an’ not what I want to heah.”

“Wal, y’u may as well heah it right now,” he said. “It’s true. An’ what’s more — your dad gave y’u to me before he died.”

“What! Colter, y’u must be a liar.”

“Ellen, I swear I’m not lyin’,” he returned, in eager passion. “I was with your dad last an’ heard him last. He shore knew I’d loved y’u for years. An’ he said he’d rather y’u be left in my care than anybody’s.”

“My father gave me to y’u in marriage!” ejaculated Ellen, in bewilderment.

Colter’s ready assurance did not carry him over this point. It was evident that her words somewhat surprised and disconcerted him for the moment.

“To let me marry a rustler — one of the Hash Knife Gang!” exclaimed Ellen, with weary incredulity.

“Wal, your dad belonged to Daggs’s gang, same as I do,” replied Colter, recovering his cool ardor.

“No!” cried Ellen.

“Yes, he shore did, for years,” declared Colter, positively. “Back in Texas. An’ it was your dad that got Daggs to come to Arizona.”

Ellen tried to fling herself away. But her strength and her spirit were ebbing, and Colter increased the pressure of his arm. All at once she sank limp. Could she escape her fate? Nothing seemed left to fight with or for.

“All right — don’t hold me — so tight,” she panted. “Now tell me how dad was killed ... an’ who — who—”

Colter bent over so he could peer into her face. In the darkness Ellen just caught the gleam of his eyes. She felt the virile force of the man in the strain of his body as he pressed her close. It all seemed unreal — a hideous dream — the gloom, the moan of the wind, the weird solitude, and this rustler with hand and will like cold steel.

“We’d come back to Greaves’s store,” Colter began. “An’ as Greaves was daid we all got free with his liquor. Shore some of us got drunk. Bruce was drunk, an’ Tad in there — he was drunk. Your dad put away more ‘n I ever seen him. But shore he wasn’t exactly drunk. He got one of them weak an’ shaky spells. He cried an’ he wanted some of us to get the Isbels to call off the fightin’.... He shore was ready to call it quits. I reckon the killin’ of Daggs — an’ then the awful way Greaves was cut up by Jean Isbel — took all the fight out of your dad. He said to me, ‘Colter, we’ll take Ellen an’ leave this heah country — an’ begin life all over again — where no one knows us.’”

“Oh, did he really say that? ... Did he — really mean it?” murmured Ellen, with a sob.

“I’ll swear it by the memory of my daid mother,” protested Colter. “Wal, when night come the Isbels rode down on us in the dark an’ began to shoot. They smashed in the door — tried to burn us out — an’ hollered around for a while. Then they left an’ we reckoned there’d be no more trouble that night. All the same we kept watch. I was the soberest one an’ I bossed the gang. We had some quarrels aboot the drinkin’. Your dad said if we kept it up it ‘d be the end of the Jorths. An’ he planned to send word to the Isbels next mawnin’ that he was ready for a truce. An’ I was to go fix it up with Gaston Isbel. Wal, your dad went to bed in Greaves’s room, an’ a little while later your uncle Jackson went in there, too. Some of the men laid down in the store an’ went to sleep. I kept guard till aboot three in the mawnin’. An’ I got so sleepy I couldn’t hold my eyes open. So I waked up Wells an’ Slater an’ set them on guard, one at each end of the store. Then I laid down on the counter to take a nap.”

Colter’s low voice, the strain and breathlessness of him, the agitation with which he appeared to be laboring, and especially the simple, matter-of-fact detail of his story, carried absolute conviction to Ellen Jorth. Her vague doubt of him had been created by his attitude toward her. Emotion dominated her intelligence. The images, the scenes called up by Colter’s words, were as true as the gloom of the wild gulch and the loneliness of the night solitude — as true as the strange fact that she lay passive in the arm of a rustler.

“Wall, after a while I woke up,” went on Colter, clearing his throat. “It was gray dawn. All was as still as death.... An’ somethin’ shore was wrong. Wells an’ Slater had got to drinkin’ again an’ now laid daid drunk or asleep. Anyways, when I kicked them they never moved. Then I heard a moan. It came from the room where your dad an’ uncle was. I went in. It was just light enough to see. Your uncle Jackson was layin’ on the floor — cut half in two — daid as a door nail.... Your dad lay on the bed. He was alive, breathin’ his last.... He says, ‘That half-breed Isbel — knifed us — while we slept!’ ... The winder shutter was open. I seen where Jean Isbel had come in an’ gone out. I seen his moccasin tracks in the dirt outside an’ I seen where he’d stepped in Jackson’s blood an’ tracked it to the winder. Y’u shore can see them bloody tracks yourself, if y’u go back to Greaves’s store.... Your dad was goin’ fast.... He said, ‘Colter — take care of Ellen,’ an’ I reckon he meant a lot by that. He kept sayin’, ‘My God! if I’d only seen Gaston Isbel before it was too late!’ an’ then he raved a little, whisperin’ out of his haid.... An’ after that he died.... I woke up the men, an’ aboot sunup we carried your dad an’ uncle out of town an’ buried them.... An’ them Isbels shot at us while we were buryin’ our daid! That’s where Tad got his hurt.... Then we hit the trail for Jorth’s ranch.... An now, Ellen, that’s all my story. Your dad was ready to bury the hatchet with his old enemy. An’ that Nez Perce Jean Isbel, like the sneakin’ savage he is, murdered your uncle an’ your dad.... Cut him horrible — made him suffer tortures of hell — all for Isbel revenge!”

When Colter’s husky voice ceased Ellen whispered through lips as cold and still as ice, “Let me go ... leave me — heah — alone!”

“Why, shore! I reckon I understand,” replied Colter. “I hated to tell y’u. But y’u had to heah the truth aboot that half-breed.... I’ll carry your pack in the cabin an’ unroll your blankets.”

Releasing her, Colter strode off in the gloom. Like a dead weight, Ellen began to slide until she slipped down full length beside the log. And then she lay in the cool, damp shadow, inert and lifeless so far as outward physical movement was concerned. She saw nothing and felt nothing of the night, the wind, the cold, the falling dew. For the moment or hour she was crushed by despair, and seemed to see herself sinking down and down into a black, bottomless pit, into an abyss where murky tides of blood and furious gusts of passion contended between her body and her soul. Into the stormy blast of hell! In her despair she longed, she ached for death. Born of infidelity, cursed by a taint of evil blood, further cursed by higher instinct for good and happy life, dragged from one lonely and wild and sordid spot to another, never knowing love or peace or joy or home, left to the companionship of violent and vile men, driven by a strange fate to love with unquenchable and insupportable love a’ half-breed, a savage, an Isbel, the hereditary enemy of her people, and at last the ruthless murderer of her father — what in the name of God had she left to live for? Revenge! An eye for an eye! A life for a life! But she could not kill Jean Isbel. Woman’s love could turn to hate, but not the love of Ellen Jorth. He could drag her by the hair in the dust, beat her, and make her a thing to loathe, and cut her mortally in his savage and implacable thirst for revenge — but with her last gasp she would whisper she loved him and that she had lied to him to kill his faith. It was that — his strange faith in her purity — which had won her love. Of all men, that he should be the one to recognize the truth of her, the womanhood yet unsullied — how strange, how terrible, how overpowering! False, indeed, was she to the Jorths! False as her mother had been to an Isbel! This agony and destruction of her soul was the bitter Dead Sea fruit — the sins of her parents visited upon her.

“I’ll end it all,” she whispered to the night shadows that hovered over her. No coward was she — no fear of pain or mangled flesh or death or the mysterious hereafter could ever stay her. It would be easy, it would be a last thrill, a transport of self-abasement and supreme self-proof of her love for Jean Isbel to kiss the Rim rock where his feet had trod and then fling herself down into the depths. She was the last Jorth. So the wronged Isbels would be avenged.

“But he would never know — never know — I lied to him!” she wailed to the night wind.

She was lost — lost on earth and to hope of heaven. She had right neither to live nor to die. She was nothing but a little weed along the trail of life, trampled upon, buried in the mud. She was nothing but a single rotten thread in a tangled web of love and hate and revenge. And she had broken.

Lower and lower she seemed to sink. Was there no end to this gulf of despair? If Colter had returned he would have found her a rag and a toy — a creature degraded, fit for his vile embrace. To be thrust deeper into the mire — to be punished fittingly for her betrayal of a man’s noble love and her own womanhood — to be made an end of, body, mind, and soul.

But Colter did not return.

The wind mourned, the owls hooted, the leaves rustled, the insects whispered their melancholy night song, the camp-fire flickered and faded. Then the wild forestland seemed to close imponderably over Ellen. All that she wailed in her despair, all that she confessed in her abasement, was true, and hard as life could be — but she belonged to nature. If nature had not failed her, had God failed her? It was there — the lonely land of tree and fern and flower and brook, full of wild birds and beasts, where the mossy rocks could speak and the solitude had ears, where she had always felt herself unutterably a part of creation. Thus a wavering spark of hope quivered through the blackness of her soul and gathered light.

The gloom of the sky, the shifting clouds of dull shade, split asunder to show a glimpse of a radiant star, piercingly white, cold, pure, a steadfast eye of the universe, beyond all understanding and illimitable with its meaning of the past and the present and the future. Ellen watched it until the drifting clouds once more hid it from her strained sight.

What had that star to do with hell? She might be crushed and destroyed by life, but was there not something beyond? Just to be born, just to suffer, just to die — could that be all? Despair did not loose its hold on Ellen, the strife and pang of her breast did not subside. But with the long hours and the strange closing in of the forest around her and the fleeting glimpse of that wonderful star, with a subtle divination of the meaning of her beating heart and throbbing mind, and, lastly, with a voice thundering at her conscience that a man’s faith in a woman must not be greater, nobler, than her faith in God and eternity — with these she checked the dark flight of her soul toward destruction.

CHAPTER XII

A CHILL, GRAY, somber dawn was breaking when Ellen dragged herself into the cabin and crept under her blankets, there to sleep the sleep of exhaustion.

When she awoke the hour appeared to be late afternoon. Sun and sky shone through the sunken and decayed roof of the old cabin. Her uncle, Tad Jorth, lay upon a blanket bed upheld by a crude couch of boughs. The light fell upon his face, pale, lined, cast in a still mold of suffering. He was not dead, for she heard his respiration.

The floor underneath Ellen’s blankets was bare clay. She and Jorth were alone in this cabin. It contained nothing besides their beds and a rank growth of weeds along the decayed lower logs. Half of the cabin had a rude ceiling of rough-hewn boards which formed a kind of loft. This attic extended through to the adjoining cabin, forming the ceiling of the porch-like space between the two structures. There was no partition. A ladder of two aspen saplings, pegged to the logs, and with braces between for steps, led up to the attic.

Ellen smelled wood smoke and the odor of frying meat, and she heard the voices of men. She looked out to see that Slater and Somers had joined their party — an addition that might have strengthened it for defense, but did not lend her own situation anything favorable. Somers had always appeared the one best to avoid.

Colter espied her and called her to “Come an’ feed your pale face.” His comrades laughed, not loudly, but guardedly, as if noise was something to avoid. Nevertheless, they awoke Tad Jorth, who began to toss and moan on the bed.

Ellen hurried to his side and at once ascertained that he had a high fever and was in a critical condition. Every time he tossed he opened a wound in his right breast, rather high up. For all she could see, nothing had been done for him except the binding of a scarf round his neck and under his arm. This scant bandage had worked loose. Going to the door, she called out:

“Fetch me some water.” When Colter brought it, Ellen was rummaging in her pack for some clothing or towel that she could use for bandages.

“Weren’t any of y’u decent enough to look after my uncle?” she queried.

“Huh! Wal, what the hell!” rejoined Colter. “We shore did all we could. I reckon y’u think it wasn’t a tough job to pack him up the Rim. He was done for then an’ I said so.”

“I’ll do all I can for him,” said Ellen.

“Shore. Go ahaid. When I get plugged or knifed by that half-breed I shore hope y’u’ll be round to nurse me.”

“Y’u seem to be pretty shore of your fate, Colter.”

“Shore as hell!” he bit out, darkly. “Somers saw Isbel an’ his gang trailin’ us to the Jorth ranch.”

“Are y’u goin’ to stay heah — an’ wait for them?”

“Shore I’ve been quarrelin’ with the fellars out there over that very question. I’m for leavin’ the country. But Queen, the damn gun fighter, is daid set to kill that cowman, Blue, who swore he was King Fisher, the old Texas outlaw. None but Queen are spoilin’ for another fight. All the same they won’t leave Tad Jorth heah alone.”

Then Colter leaned in at the door and whispered: “Ellen, I cain’t boss this outfit. So let’s y’u an’ me shake ‘em. I’ve got your dad’s gold. Let’s ride off to-night an’ shake this country.”

Colter, muttering under his breath, left the door and returned to his comrades. Ellen had received her first intimation of his cowardice; and his mention of her father’s gold started a train of thought that persisted in spite of her efforts to put all her mind to attending her uncle. He grew conscious enough to recognize her working over him, and thanked her with a look that touched Ellen deeply. It changed the direction of her mind. His suffering and imminent death, which she was able to alleviate and retard somewhat, worked upon her pity and compassion so that she forgot her own plight. Half the night she was tending him, cooling his fever, holding him quiet. Well she realized that but for her ministrations he would have died. At length he went to sleep.

And Ellen, sitting beside him in the lonely, silent darkness of that late hour, received again the intimation of nature, those vague and nameless stirrings of her innermost being, those whisperings out of the night and the forest and the sky. Something great would not let go of her soul. She pondered.

Attention to the wounded man occupied Ellen; and soon she redoubled her activities in this regard, finding in them something of protection against Colter.

He had waylaid her as she went to a spring for water, and with a lunge like that of a bear he had tried to embrace her. But Ellen had been too quick.

“Wal, are y’u goin’ away with me?” he demanded.

“No. I’ll stick by my uncle,” she replied.

That motive of hers seemed to obstruct his will. Ellen was keen to see that Colter and his comrades were at a last stand and disintegrating under a severe strain. Nerve and courage of the open and the wild they possessed, but only in a limited degree. Colter seemed obsessed by his passion for her, and though Ellen in her stubborn pride did not yet fear him, she realized she ought to. After that incident she watched closely, never leaving her uncle’s bedside except when Colter was absent. One or more of the men kept constant lookout somewhere down the canyon.

Day after day passed on the wings of suspense, of watching, of ministering to her uncle, of waiting for some hour that seemed fixed.

Colter was like a hound upon her trail. At every turn he was there to importune her to run off with him, to frighten her with the menace of the Isbels, to beg her to give herself to him. It came to pass that the only relief she had was when she ate with the men or barred the cabin door at night. Not much relief, however, was there in the shut and barred door. With one thrust of his powerful arm Colter could have caved it in. He knew this as well as Ellen. Still she did not have the fear she should have had. There was her rifle beside her, and though she did not allow her mind to run darkly on its possible use, still the fact of its being there at hand somehow strengthened her. Colter was a cat playing with a mouse, but not yet sure of his quarry.

Ellen came to know hours when she was weak — weak physically, mentally, spiritually, morally — when under the sheer weight of this frightful and growing burden of suspense she was not capable of fighting her misery, her abasement, her low ebb of vitality, and at the same time wholly withstanding Colter’s advances.

He would come into the cabin and, utterly indifferent to Tad Jorth, he would try to make bold and unrestrained love to Ellen. When he caught her in one of her unresisting moments and was able to hold her in his arms and kiss her he seemed to be beside himself with the wonder of her. At such moments, if he had any softness or gentleness in him, they expressed themselves in his sooner or later letting her go, when apparently she was about to faint. So it must have become fascinatingly fixed in Colter’s mind that at times Ellen repulsed him with scorn and at others could not resist him.

Ellen had escaped two crises in her relation with this man, and as a morbid doubt, like a poisonous fungus, began to strangle her mind, she instinctively divined that there was an approaching and final crisis. No uplift of her spirit came this time — no intimations — no whisperings. How horrible it all was! To long to be good and noble — to realize that she was neither — to sink lower day by day! Must she decay there like one of these rotting logs? Worst of all, then, was the insinuating and ever-growing hopelessness. What was the use? What did it matter? Who would ever think of Ellen Jorth? “O God!” she whispered in her distraction, “is there nothing left — nothing at all?”

A period of several days of less torment to Ellen followed. Her uncle apparently took a turn for the better and Colter let her alone. This last circumstance nonplused Ellen. She was at a loss to understand it unless the Isbel menace now encroached upon Colter so formidably that he had forgotten her for the present.

Then one bright August morning, when she had just begun to relax her eternal vigilance and breathe without oppression, Colter encountered her and, darkly silent and fierce, he grasped her and drew her off her feet. Ellen struggled violently, but the total surprise had deprived her of strength. And that paralyzing weakness assailed her as never before. Without apparent effort Colter carried her, striding rapidly away from the cabins into the border of spruce trees at the foot of the canyon wall.

“Colter — where — oh, where are Y’u takin’ me?” she found voice to cry out.

“By God! I don’t know,” he replied, with strong, vibrant passion. “I was a fool not to carry y’u off long ago. But I waited. I was hopin’ y’u’d love me! ... An’ now that Isbel gang has corralled us. Somers seen the half-breed up on the rocks. An’ Springer seen the rest of them sneakin’ around. I run back after my horse an’ y’u.”

“But Uncle Tad! ... We mustn’t leave him alone,” cried Ellen.

“We’ve got to,” replied Colter, grimly. “Tad shore won’t worry y’u no more — soon as Jean Isbel gets to him.”

“Oh, let me stay,” implored Ellen. “I will save him.”

Colter laughed at the utter absurdity of her appeal and claim. Suddenly he set her down upon her feet. “Stand still,” he ordered. Ellen saw his big bay horse, saddled, with pack and blanket, tied there in the shade of a spruce. With swift hands Colter untied him and mounted him, scarcely moving his piercing gaze from Ellen. He reached to grasp her. “Up with y’u! ... Put your foot in the stirrup!” His will, like his powerful arm, was irresistible for Ellen at that moment. She found herself swung up behind him. Then the horse plunged away. What with the hard motion and Colter’s iron grasp on her Ellen was in a painful position. Her knees and feet came into violent contact with branches and snags. He galloped the horse, tearing through the dense thicket of willows that served to hide the entrance to the side canyon, and when out in the larger and more open canyon he urged him to a run. Presently when Colter put the horse to a slow rise of ground, thereby bringing him to a walk, it was just in time to save Ellen a serious bruising. Again the sunlight appeared to shade over. They were in the pines. Suddenly with backward lunge Colter halted the horse. Ellen heard a yell. She recognized Queen’s voice.

“Turn back, Colter! Turn back!”

With an oath Colter wheeled his mount. “If I didn’t run plump into them,” he ejaculated, harshly. And scarcely had the goaded horse gotten a start when a shot rang out. Ellen felt a violent shock, as if her momentum had suddenly met with a check, and then she felt herself wrenched from Colter, from the saddle, and propelled into the air. She alighted on soft ground and thick grass, and was unhurt save for the violent wrench and shaking that had rendered her breathless. Before she could rise Colter was pulling at her, lifting her to her feet. She saw the horse lying with bloody head. Tall pines loomed all around. Another rifle cracked. “Run!” hissed Colter, and he bounded off, dragging her by the hand. Another yell pealed out. “Here we are, Colter!”. Again it was Queen’s shrill voice. Ellen ran with all her might, her heart in her throat, her sight failing to record more than a blur of passing pines and a blank green wall of spruce. Then she lost her balance, was falling, yet could not fall because of that steel grip on her hand, and was dragged, and finally carried, into a dense shade. She was blinded. The trees whirled and faded. Voices and shots sounded far away. Then something black seemed to be wiped across her feeling.

It turned to gray, to moving blankness, to dim, hazy objects, spectral and tall, like blanketed trees, and when Ellen fully recovered consciousness she was being carried through the forest.

“Wal, little one, that was a close shave for y’u,” said Colter’s hard voice, growing clearer. “Reckon your keelin’ over was natural enough.”

He held her lightly in both arms, her head resting above his left elbow. Ellen saw his face as a gray blur, then taking sharper outline, until it stood out distinctly, pale and clammy, with eyes cold and wonderful in their intense flare. As she gazed upward Colter turned his head to look back through the woods, and his motion betrayed a keen, wild vigilance. The veins of his lean, brown neck stood out like whipcords. Two comrades were stalking beside him. Ellen heard their stealthy steps, and she felt Colter sheer from one side or the other. They were proceeding cautiously, fearful of the rear, but not wholly trusting to the fore.

“Reckon we’d better go slow an’ look before we leap,” said one whose voice Ellen recognized as Springer’s.

“Shore. That open slope ain’t to my likin’, with our Nez Perce friend prowlin’ round,” drawled Colter, as he set Ellen down on her feet.

Another of the rustlers laughed. “Say, can’t he twinkle through the forest? I had four shots at him. Harder to hit than a turkey runnin’ crossways.”

This facetious speaker was the evil-visaged, sardonic Somers. He carried two rifles and wore two belts of cartridges.

“Ellen, shore y’u ain’t so daid white as y’u was,” observed Colter, and he chucked her under the chin with familiar hand. “Set down heah. I don’t want y’u stoppin’ any bullets. An’ there’s no tellin’.”

Ellen was glad to comply with his wish. She had begun to recover wits and strength, yet she still felt shaky. She observed that their position then was on the edge of a well-wooded slope from which she could see the grassy canyon floor below. They were on a level bench, projecting out from the main canyon wall that loomed gray and rugged and pine fringed. Somers and Cotter and Springer gave careful attention to all points of the compass, especially in the direction from which they had come. They evidently anticipated being trailed or circled or headed off, but did not manifest much concern. Somers lit a cigarette; Springer wiped his face with a grimy hand and counted the shells in his belt, which appeared to be half empty. Colter stretched his long neck like a vulture and peered down the slope and through the aisles of the forest up toward the canyon rim.

“Listen!” he said, tersely, and bent his head a little to one side, ear to the slight breeze.

They all listened. Ellen heard the beating of her heart, the rustle of leaves, the tapping of a woodpecker, and faint, remote sounds that she could not name.

“Deer, I reckon,” spoke up Somers.

“Ahuh! Wal, I reckon they ain’t trailin’ us yet,” replied Colter. “We gave them a shade better ‘n they sent us.”

“Short an’ sweet!” ejaculated Springer, and he removed his black sombrero to poke a dirty forefinger through a buffet hole in the crown. “Thet’s how close I come to cashin’. I was lyin’ behind a log, listenin’ an’ watchin’, an’ when I stuck my head up a little — zam! Somebody made my bonnet leak.”

“Where’s Queen?” asked Colter.

“He was with me fust off,” replied Somers. “An’ then when the shootin’ slacked — after I’d plugged thet big, red-faced, white-haired pal of Isbel’s—”

“Reckon thet was Blaisdell,” interrupted Springer.

“Queen — he got tired layin’ low,” went on Somers. “He wanted action. I heerd him chewin’ to himself, an’ when I asked him what was eatin’ him he up an’ growled he was goin’ to quit this Injun fightin’. An’ he slipped off in the woods.”

“Wal, that’s the gun fighter of it,” declared Colter, wagging his head, “Ever since that cowman, Blue, braced us an’ said he was King Fisher, why Queen has been sulkier an’ sulkier. He cain’t help it. He’ll do the same trick as Blue tried. An’ shore he’ll get his everlastin’. But he’s the Texas breed all right.”

“Say, do you reckon Blue really is King Fisher?” queried Somers.

“Naw!” ejaculated Colter, with downward sweep of his hand. “Many a would-be gun slinger has borrowed Fisher’s name. But Fisher is daid these many years.”

“Ahuh! Wal, mebbe, but don’t you fergit it — thet Blue was no would-be,” declared Somers. “He was the genuine article.”

“I should smile!” affirmed Springer.

The subject irritated Colter, and he dismissed it with another forcible gesture and a counter question.

“How many left in that Isbel outfit?”

“No tellin’. There shore was enough of them,” replied Somers. “Anyhow, the woods was full of flyin’ bullets.... Springer, did you account for any of them?”

“Nope — not thet I noticed,” responded Springer, dryly. “I had my chance at the half-breed.... Reckon I was nervous.”

“Was Slater near you when he yelled out?”

“No. He was lyin’ beside Somers.”

“Wasn’t thet a queer way fer a man to act?” broke in Somers. “A bullet hit Slater, cut him down the back as he was lyin’ flat. Reckon it wasn’t bad. But it hurt him so thet he jumped right up an’ staggered around. He made a target big as a tree. An’ mebbe them Isbels didn’t riddle him!”

“That was when I got my crack at Bill Isbel,” declared Colter, with grim satisfaction. “When they shot my horse out from under me I had Ellen to think of an’ couldn’t get my rifle. Shore had to run, as yu seen. Wal, as I only had my six-shooter, there was nothin’ for me to do but lay low an’ listen to the sping of lead. Wells was standin’ up behind a tree about thirty yards off. He got plugged, an’ fallin’ over he began to crawl my way, still holdin’ to his rifle. I crawled along the log to meet him. But he dropped aboot half-way. I went on an’ took his rifle an’ belt. When I peeped out from behind a spruce bush then I seen Bill Isbel. He was shootin’ fast, an’ all of them was shootin’ fast. That war, when they had the open shot at Slater.... Wal, I bored Bill Isbel right through his middle. He dropped his rifle an’, all bent double, he fooled around in a circle till he flopped over the Rim. I reckon he’s layin’ right up there somewhere below that daid spruce. I’d shore like to see him.”

“I Wal, you’d be as crazy as Queen if you tried thet,” declared Somers. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“I reckon not,” replied Colter. “An’ I’ve lost my horse. Where’d y’u leave yours?”

“They’re down the canyon, below thet willow brake. An’ saddled an’ none of them tied. Reckon we’ll have to look them up before dark.”

“Colter, what ‘re we goin’ to do?” demanded Springer.

“Wait heah a while — then cross the canyon an’ work round up under the bluff, back to the cabin.”

“An’ then what?” queried Somers, doubtfully eying Colter.

“We’ve got to eat — we’ve got to have blankets,” rejoined Colter, testily. “An’ I reckon we can hide there an’ stand a better show in a fight than runnin’ for it in the woods.”

“Wal, I’m givin’ you a hunch thet it looked like you was runnin’ fer it,” retorted Somers.

“Yes, an’ packin’ the girl,” added Springer. “Looks funny to me.”

Both rustlers eyed Colter with dark and distrustful glances. What he might have replied never transpired, for the reason that his gaze, always shifting around, had suddenly fixed on something.

“Is that a wolf?” he asked, pointing to the Rim.

Both his comrades moved to get in line with his finger. Ellen could not see from her position.

“Shore thet’s a big lofer,” declared Somers. “Reckon he scented us.”

“There he goes along the Rim,” observed Colter. “He doesn’t act leary. Looks like a good sign to me. Mebbe the Isbels have gone the other way.”

“Looks bad to me,” rejoined Springer, gloomily.

“An’ why?” demanded Colter.

“I seen thet animal. Fust time I reckoned it was a lofer. Second time it was right near them Isbels. An’ I’m damned now if I don’t believe it’s thet half-lofer sheep dog of Gass Isbel’s.”

“Wal, what if it is?”

“Ha! ... Shore we needn’t worry about hidin’ out,” replied Springer, sententiously. “With thet dog Jean Isbel could trail a grasshopper.”

“The hell y’u say!” muttered Colter. Manifestly such a possibility put a different light upon the present situation. The men grew silent and watchful, occupied by brooding thoughts and vigilant surveillance of all points. Somers slipped off into the brush, soon to return, with intent look of importance.

“I heerd somethin’,” he whispered, jerking his thumb backward. “Rollin’ gravel — crackin’ of twigs. No deer! ... Reckon it’d be a good idee for us to slip round acrost this bench.”

“Wal, y’u fellars go, an’ I’ll watch heah,” returned Colter.

“Not much,” said Somers, while Springer leered knowingly.

Colter became incensed, but he did not give way to it. Pondering a moment, he finally turned to Ellen. “Y’u wait heah till I come back. An’ if I don’t come in reasonable time y’u slip across the canyon an’ through the willows to the cabins. Wait till aboot dark.” With that he possessed himself of one of the extra rifles and belts and silently joined his comrades. Together they noiselessly stole into the brush.

Ellen had no other thought than to comply with Colter’s wishes. There was her wounded uncle who had been left unattended, and she was anxious to get back to him. Besides, if she had wanted to run off from Colter, where could she go? Alone in the woods, she would get lost and die of starvation. Her lot must be cast with the Jorth faction until the end. That did not seem far away.

Her strained attention and suspense made the moments fly. By and by several shots pealed out far across the side canyon on her right, and they were answered by reports sounding closer to her. The fight was on again. But these shots were not repeated. The flies buzzed, the hot sun beat down and sloped to the west, the soft, warm breeze stirred the aspens, the ravens croaked, the red squirrels and blue jays chattered.

Suddenly a quick, short, yelp electrified Ellen, brought her upright with sharp, listening rigidity. Surely it was not a wolf and hardly could it be a coyote. Again she heard it. The yelp of a sheep dog! She had heard that’ often enough to know. And she rose to change her position so she could command a view of the rocky bluff above. Presently she espied what really appeared to be a big timber wolf. But another yelp satisfied her that it really was a dog. She watched him. Soon it became evident that he wanted to get down over the bluff. He ran to and fro, and then out of sight. In a few moments his yelp sounded from lower down, at the base of the bluff, and it was now the cry of an intelligent dog that was trying to call some one to his aid. Ellen grew convinced that the dog was near where Colter had said Bill Isbel had plunged over the declivity. Would the dog yelp that way if the man was dead? Ellen thought not.

No one came, and the continuous yelping of the dog got on Ellen’s nerves. It was a call for help. And finally she surrendered to it. Since her natural terror when Colter’s horse was shot from under her and she had been dragged away, she had not recovered from fear of the Isbels. But calm consideration now convinced her that she could hardly be in a worse plight in their hands than if she remained in Colter’s. So she started out to find the dog.

The wooded bench was level for a few hundred yards, and then it began to heave in rugged, rocky bulges up toward the Rim. It did not appear far to where the dog was barking, but the latter part of the distance proved to be a hard climb over jumbled rocks and through thick brush. Panting and hot, she at length reached the base of the bluff, to find that it was not very high.

The dog espied her before she saw him, for he was coming toward her when she discovered him. Big, shaggy, grayish white and black, with wild, keen face and eyes he assuredly looked the reputation Springer had accorded him. But sagacious, guarded as was his approach, he appeared friendly.

“Hello — doggie!” panted Ellen. “What’s — wrong — up heah?”

He yelped, his ears lost their stiffness, his body sank a little, and his bushy tail wagged to and fro. What a gray, clear, intelligent look he gave her! Then he trotted back.

Ellen followed him around a corner of bluff to see the body of a man lying on his back. Fresh earth and gravel lay about him, attesting to his fall from above. He had on neither coat nor hat, and the position of his body and limbs suggested broken bones. As Ellen hurried to his side she saw that the front of his shirt, low down, was a bloody blotch. But he could lift his head; his eyes were open; he was perfectly conscious. Ellen did not recognize the dusty, skinned face, yet the mold of features, the look of the eyes, seemed strangely familiar.

“You’re — Jorth’s — girl,” he said, in faint voice of surprise.

“Yes, I’m Ellen Jorth,” she replied. “An’ are y’u Bill Isbel?”

“All thet’s left of me. But I’m thankin’ God somebody come — even a Jorth.”

Ellen knelt beside him and examined the wound in his abdomen. A heavy bullet had indeed, as Colter had avowed, torn clear through his middle. Even if he had not sustained other serious injury from the fall over the cliff, that terrible bullet wound meant death very shortly. Ellen shuddered. How inexplicable were men! How cruel, bloody, mindless!

“Isbel, I’m sorry — there’s no hope,” she said, low voiced. “Y’u’ve not long to live. I cain’t help y’u. God knows I’d do so if I could.”

“All over!” he sighed, with his eyes looking beyond her. “I reckon — I’m glad.... But y’u can — do somethin’ for or me. Will y’u?”

“Indeed, Yes. Tell me,” she replied, lifting his dusty head on her knee. Her hands trembled as she brushed his wet hair back from his clammy brow.

“I’ve somethin’ — on my conscience,” he whispered.

The woman, the sensitive in Ellen, understood and pitied him then.

“Yes,” she encouraged him.

“I stole cattle — my dad’s an’ Blaisdell’s — an’ made deals — with Daggs.... All the crookedness — wasn’t on — Jorth’s side.... I want — my brother Jean — to know.”

“I’ll try — to tell him,” whispered Ellen, out of her great amaze.

“We were all — a bad lot — except Jean,” went on Isbel. “Dad wasn’t fair.... God! how he hated Jorth! Jorth, yes, who was — your father.... Wal, they’re even now.”

“How — so?” faltered Ellen.

“Your father killed dad.... At the last — dad wanted to — save us. He sent word — he’d meet him — face to face — an’ let thet end the feud. They met out in the road.... But some one shot dad down — with a rifle — an’ then your father finished him.”

“An’ then, Isbel,” added Ellen, with unconscious mocking bitterness, “Your brother murdered my dad!”

“What!” whispered Bill Isbel. “Shore y’u’ve got — it wrong. I reckon Jean — could have killed — your father.... But he didn’t. Queer, we all thought.”

“Ah! ... Who did kill my father?” burst out Ellen, and her voice rang like great hammers at her ears.

“It was Blue. He went in the store — alone — faced the whole gang alone. Bluffed them — taunted them — told them he was King Fisher.... Then he killed — your dad — an’ Jackson Jorth.... Jean was out — back of the store. We were out — front. There was shootin’. Colmor was hit. Then Blue ran out — bad hurt.... Both of them — died in Meeker’s yard.”

“An’ so Jean Isbel has not killed a Jorth!” said Ellen, in strange, deep voice.

“No,” replied Isbel, earnestly. “I reckon this feud — was hardest on Jean. He never lived heah.... An’ my sister Ann said — he got sweet on y’u.... Now did he?”

Slow, stinging tears filled Ellen’s eyes, and her head sank low and lower.

“Yes — he did,” she murmured, tremulously.

“Ahuh! Wal, thet accounts,” replied Isbel, wonderingly. “Too bad! ... It might have been.... A man always sees — different when — he’s dyin’.... If I had — my life — to live over again! ... My poor kids — deserted in their babyhood — ruined for life! All for nothin’.... May God forgive—”

Then he choked and whispered for water.

Ellen laid his head back and, rising, she took his sombrero and started hurriedly down the slope, making dust fly and rocks roll. Her mind was a seething ferment. Leaping, bounding, sliding down the weathered slope, she gained the bench, to run across that, and so on down into the open canyon to the willow-bordered brook. Here she filled the sombrero with water and started back, forced now to walk slowly and carefully. It was then, with the violence and fury of intense muscular activity denied her, that the tremendous import of Bill Isbel’s revelation burst upon her very flesh and blood and transfiguring the very world of golden light and azure sky and speaking forestland that encompassed her.

Not a drop of the precious water did she spill. Not a misstep did she make. Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome. Then with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to allay the parching thirst of this dying enemy whose words had changed frailty to strength, hate to love, and, the gloomy hell of despair to something unutterable. But she had returned too late. Bill Isbel was dead.

CHAPTER XIII

JEAN ISBEL, HOLDING the wolf-dog Shepp in leash, was on the trail of the most dangerous of Jorth’s gang, the gunman Queen. Dark drops of blood on the stones and plain tracks of a rider’s sharp-heeled boots behind coverts indicated the trail of a wounded, slow-traveling fugitive. Therefore, Jean Isbel held in the dog and proceeded with the wary eye and watchful caution of an Indian.

Queen, true to his class, and emulating Blue with the same magnificent effrontery and with the same paralyzing suddenness of surprise, had appeared as if by magic at the last night camp of the Isbel faction. Jean had seen him first, in time to leap like a panther into the shadow. But he carried in his shoulder Queen’s first bullet of that terrible encounter. Upon Gordon and Fredericks fell the brunt of Queen’s fusillade. And they, shot to pieces, staggering and falling, held passionate grip on life long enough to draw and still Queen’s guns and send him reeling off into the darkness of the forest.

Unarmed, and hindered by a painful wound, Jean had kept a vigil near camp all that silent and menacing night. Morning disclosed Gordon and Fredericks stark and ghastly beside the burned-out camp-fire, their guns clutched immovably in stiffened hands. Jean buried them as best he could, and when they were under ground with flat stones on their graves he knew himself to be indeed the last of the Isbel clan. And all that was wild and savage in his blood and desperate in his spirit rose to make him more than man and less than human. Then for the third time during these tragic last days the wolf-dog Shepp came to him.

Jean washed the wound Queen had given him and bound it tightly. The keen pang and burn of the lead was a constant and all-powerful reminder of the grim work left for him to do. The whole world was no longer large enough for him and whoever was left of the Jorths. The heritage of blood his father had bequeathed him, the unshakable love for a worthless girl who had so dwarfed and obstructed his will and so bitterly defeated and reviled his poor, romantic, boyish faith, the killing of hostile men, so strange in its after effects, the pursuits and fights, and loss of one by one of his confederates — these had finally engendered in Jean Isbel a wild, unslakable thirst, these had been the cause of his retrogression, these had unalterably and ruthlessly fixed in his darkened mind one fierce passion — to live and die the last man of that Jorth-Isbel feud.

At sunrise Jean left this camp, taking with him only a small knapsack of meat and bread, and with the eager, wild Shepp in leash he set out on Queen’s bloody trail.

Black drops of blood on the stones and an irregular trail of footprints proved to Jean that the gunman was hard hit. Here he had fallen, or knelt, or sat down, evidently to bind his wounds. Jean found strips of scarf, red and discarded. And the blood drops failed to show on more rocks. In a deep forest of spruce, under silver-tipped spreading branches, Queen had rested, perhaps slept. Then laboring with dragging steps, not improbably with a lame leg, he had gone on, up out of the dark-green ravine to the open, dry, pine-tipped ridge. Here he had rested, perhaps waited to see if he were pursued. From that point his trail spoke an easy language for Jean’s keen eye. The gunman knew he was pursued. He had seen his enemy. Therefore Jean proceeded with a slow caution, never getting within revolver range of ambush, using all his woodcraft to trail this man and yet save himself. Queen traveled slowly, either because he was wounded or else because he tried to ambush his pursuer, and Jean accommodated his pace to that of Queen. From noon of that day they were never far apart, never out of hearing of a rifle shot.

The contrast of the beauty and peace and loneliness of the surroundings to the nature of Queen’s flight often obtruded its strange truth into the somber turbulence of Jean’s mind, into that fixed columnar idea around which fleeting thoughts hovered and gathered like shadows.

Early frost had touched the heights with its magic wand. And the forest seemed a temple in which man might worship nature and life rather than steal through the dells and under the arched aisles like a beast of prey. The green-and-gold leaves of aspens quivered in the glades; maples in the ravines fluttered their red-and-purple leaves. The needle-matted carpet under the pines vied with the long lanes of silvery grass, alike enticing to the eye of man and beast. Sunny rays of light, flecked with dust and flying insects, slanted down from the overhanging brown-limbed, green-massed foliage. Roar of wind in the distant forest alternated with soft breeze close at hand. Small dove-gray squirrels ran all over the woodland, very curious about Jean and his dog, rustling the twigs, scratching the bark of trees, chattering and barking, frisky, saucy, and bright-eyed. A plaintive twitter of wild canaries came from the region above the treetops — first voices of birds in their pilgrimage toward the south. Pine cones dropped with soft thuds. The blue jays followed these intruders in the forest, screeching their displeasure. Like rain pattered the dropping seeds from the spruces. A woody, earthy, leafy fragrance, damp with the current of life, mingled with a cool, dry, sweet smell of withered grass and rotting pines.

Solitude and lonesomeness, peace and rest, wild life and nature, reigned there. It was a golden-green region, enchanting to the gaze of man. An Indian would have walked there with his spirits.

And even as Jean felt all this elevating beauty and inscrutable spirit his keen eye once more fastened upon the blood-red drops Queen had again left on the gray moss and rock. His wound had reopened. Jean felt the thrill of the scenting panther.

The sun set, twilight gathered, night fell. Jean crawled under a dense, low-spreading spruce, ate some bread and meat, fed the dog, and lay down to rest and sleep. His thoughts burdened him, heavy and black as the mantle of night. A wolf mourned a hungry cry for a mate. Shepp quivered under Jean’s hand. That was the call which had lured him from the ranch. The wolf blood in him yearned for the wild. Jean tied the cowhide leash to his wrist. When this dark business was at an end Shepp could be free to join the lonely mate mourning out there in the forest. Then Jean slept.

Dawn broke cold, clear, frosty, with silvered grass sparkling, with a soft, faint rustling of falling aspen leaves. When the sun rose red Jean was again on the trail of Queen. By a frosty-ferned brook, where water tinkled and ran clear as air and cold as ice, Jean quenched his thirst, leaning on a stone that showed drops of blood. Queen, too, had to quench his thirst. What good, what help, Jean wondered, could the cold, sweet, granite water, so dear to woodsmen and wild creatures, do this wounded, hunted rustler? Why did he not wait in the open to fight and face the death he had meted? Where was that splendid and terrible daring of the gunman? Queen’s love of life dragged him on and on, hour by hour, through the pine groves and spruce woods, through the oak swales and aspen glades, up and down the rocky gorges, around the windfalls and over the rotting logs.

The time came when Queen tried no more ambush. He gave up trying to trap his pursuer by lying in wait. He gave up trying to conceal his tracks. He grew stronger or, in desperation, increased his energy, so that he redoubled his progress through the wilderness. That, at best, would count only a few miles a day. And he began to circle to the northwest, back toward the deep canyon where Blaisdell and Bill Isbel had reached the end of their trails. Queen had evidently left his comrades, had lone-handed it in his last fight, but was now trying to get back to them. Somewhere in these wild, deep forest brakes the rest of the Jorth faction had found a hiding place. Jean let Queen lead him there.

Ellen Jorth would be with them. Jean had seen her. It had been his shot that killed Colter’s horse. And he had withheld further fire because Colter had dragged the girl behind him, protecting his body with hers. Sooner or later Jean would come upon their camp. She would be there. The thought of her dark beauty, wasted in wantonness upon these rustlers, added a deadly rage to the blood lust and righteous wrath of his vengeance. Let her again flaunt her degradation in his face and, by the God she had forsaken, he would kill her, and so end the race of Jorths!

Another night fell, dark and cold, without starlight. The wind moaned in the forest. Shepp was restless. He sniffed the air. There was a step on his trail. Again a mournful, eager, wild, and hungry wolf cry broke the silence. It was deep and low, like that of a baying hound, but infinitely wilder. Shepp strained to get away. During the night, while Jean slept, he managed to chew the cowhide leash apart and run off.

Next day no dog was needed to trail Queen. Fog and low-drifting clouds in the forest and a misty rain had put the rustler off his bearings. He was lost, and showed that he realized it. Strange how a matured man, fighter of a hundred battles, steeped in bloodshed, and on his last stand, should grow panic-stricken upon being lost! So Jean Isbel read the signs of the trail.

Queen circled and wandered through the foggy, dripping forest until he headed down into a canyon. It was one that notched the Rim and led down and down, mile after mile into the Basin. Not soon had Queen discovered his mistake. When he did do so, night overtook him.

The weather cleared before morning. Red and bright the sun burst out of the east to flood that low basin land with light. Jean found that Queen had traveled on and on, hoping, no doubt, to regain what he had lost. But in the darkness he had climbed to the manzanita slopes instead of back up the canyon. And here he had fought the hold of that strange brush of Spanish name until he fell exhausted.

Surely Queen would make his stand and wait somewhere in this devilish thicket for Jean to catch up with him. Many and many a place Jean would have chosen had he been in Queen’s place. Many a rock and dense thicket Jean circled or approached with extreme care. Manzanita grew in patches that were impenetrable except for a small animal. The brush was a few feet high, seldom so high that Jean could not look over it, and of a beautiful appearance, having glossy, small leaves, a golden berry, and branches of dark-red color. These branches were tough and unbendable. Every bush, almost, had low branches that were dead, hard as steel, sharp as thorns, as clutching as cactus. Progress was possible only by endless detours to find the half-closed aisles between patches, or else by crashing through with main strength or walking right over the tops. Jean preferred this last method, not because it was the easiest, but for the reason that he could see ahead so much farther. So he literally walked across the tips of the manzanita brush. Often he fell through and had to step up again; many a branch broke with him, letting him down; but for the most part he stepped from fork to fork, on branch after branch, with balance of an Indian and the patience of a man whose purpose was sustaining and immutable.

On that south slope under the Rim the sun beat down hot. There was no breeze to temper the dry air. And before midday Jean was laboring, wet with sweat, parching with thirst, dusty and hot and tiring. It amazed him, the doggedness and tenacity of life shown by this wounded rustler. The time came when under the burning rays of the sun he was compelled to abandon the walk across the tips of the manzanita bushes and take to the winding, open threads that ran between. It would have been poor sight indeed that could not have followed Queen’s labyrinthine and broken passage through the brush. Then the time came when Jean espied Queen, far ahead and above, crawling like a black bug along the bright-green slope. Sight then acted upon Jean as upon a hound in the chase. But he governed his actions if he could not govern his instincts. Slowly but surely he followed the dusty, hot trail, and never a patch of blood failed to send a thrill along his veins.

Queen, headed up toward the Rim, finally vanished from sight. Had he fallen? Was he hiding? But the hour disclosed that he was crawling. Jean’s keen eye caught the slow moving of the brush and enabled him to keep just so close to the rustler, out of range of the six-shooters he carried. And so all the interminable hours of the hot afternoon that snail-pace flight and pursuit kept on.

Halfway up the Rim the growth of manzanita gave place to open, yellow, rocky slope dotted with cedars. Queen took to a slow-ascending ridge and left his bloody tracks all the way to the top, where in the gathering darkness the weary pursuer lost them.

Another night passed. Daylight was relentless to the rustler. He could not hide his trail. But somehow in a desperate last rally of strength he reached a point on the heavily timbered ridge that Jean recognized as being near the scene of the fight in the canyon. Queen was nearing the rendezvous of the rustlers. Jean crossed tracks of horses, and then more tracks that he was certain had been made days past by his own party. To the left of this ridge must be the deep canyon that had frustrated his efforts to catch up with the rustlers on the day Blaisdell lost his life, and probably Bill Isbel, too. Something warned Jean that he was nearing the end of the trail, and an unaccountable sense of imminent catastrophe seemed foreshadowed by vague dreads and doubts in his gloomy mind. Jean felt the need of rest, of food, of ease from the strain of the last weeks. But his spirit drove him implacably.

Queen’s rally of strength ended at the edge of an open, bald ridge that was bare of brush or grass and was surrounded by a line of forest on three sides, and on the fourth by a low bluff which raised its gray head above the pines. Across this dusty open Queen had crawled, leaving unmistakable signs of his condition. Jean took long survey of the circle of trees and of the low, rocky eminence, neither of which he liked. It might be wiser to keep to cover, Jean thought, and work around to where Queen’s trail entered the forest again. But he was tired, gloomy, and his eternal vigilance was failing. Nevertheless, he stilled for the thousandth time that bold prompting of his vengeance and, taking to the edge of the forest, he went to considerable pains to circle the open ground. And suddenly sight of a man sitting back against a tree halted Jean.

He stared to make sure his eyes did not deceive him. Many times stumps and snags and rocks had taken on strange resemblance to a standing or crouching man. This was only another suggestive blunder of the mind behind his eyes — what he wanted to see he imagined he saw. Jean glided on from tree to tree until he made sure that this sitting image indeed was that of a man. He sat bolt upright, facing back across the open, hands resting on his knees — and closer scrutiny showed Jean that he held a gun in each hand.

Queen! At the last his nerve had revived. He could not crawl any farther, he could never escape, so with the courage of fatality he chose the open, to face his foe and die. Jean had a thrill of admiration for the rustler. Then he stalked out from under the pines and strode forward with his rifle ready.

A watching man could not have failed to espy Jean. But Queen never made the slightest move. Moreover, his stiff, unnatural position struck Jean so singularly that he halted with a muttered exclamation. He was now about fifty paces from Queen, within range of those small guns. Jean called, sharply, “QUEEN!” Still the figure never relaxed in the slightest.

Jean advanced a few more paces, rifle up, ready to fire the instant Queen lifted a gun. The man’s immobility brought the cold sweat to Jean’s brow. He stopped to bend the full intense power of his gaze upon this inert figure. Suddenly over Jean flashed its meaning. Queen was dead. He had backed up against the pine, ready to face his foe, and he had died there. Not a shadow of a doubt entered Jean’s mind as he started forward again. He knew. After all, Queen’s blood would not be on his hands. Gordon and Fredericks in their death throes had given the rustler mortal wounds. Jean kept on, marveling the while. How ghastly thin and hard! Those four days of flight had been hell for Queen.

Jean reached him — looked down with staring eyes. The guns were tied to his hands. Jean started violently as the whole direction of his mind shifted. A lightning glance showed that Queen had been propped against the tree — another showed boot tracks in the dust.

“By Heaven, they’ve fooled me!” hissed Jean, and quickly as he leaped behind the pine he was not quick enough to escape the cunning rustlers who had waylaid him thus. He felt the shock, the bite and burn of lead before he heard a rifle crack. A bullet had ripped through his left forearm. From behind the tree he saw a puff of white smoke along the face of the bluff — the very spot his keen and gloomy vigilance had descried as one of menace. Then several puffs of white smoke and ringing reports betrayed the ambush of the tricksters. Bullets barked the pine and whistled by. Jean saw a man dart from behind a rock and, leaning over, run for another. Jean’s swift shot stopped him midway. He fell, got up, and floundered behind a bush scarcely large enough to conceal him. Into that bush Jean shot again and again. He had no pain in his wounded arm, but the sense of the shock clung in his consciousness, and this, with the tremendous surprise of the deceit, and sudden release of long-dammed overmastering passion, caused him to empty the magazine of his Winchester in a terrible haste to kill the man he had hit.

These were all the loads he had for his rifle. Blood passion had made him blunder. Jean cursed himself, and his hand moved to his belt. His six-shooter was gone. The sheath had been loose. He had tied the gun fast. But the strings had been torn apart. The rustlers were shooting again. Bullets thudded into the pine and whistled by. Bending carefully, Jean reached one of Queen’s guns and jerked it from his hand. The weapon was empty. Both of his guns were empty. Jean peeped out again to get the line in which the bullets were coming and, marking a course from his position to the cover of the forest, he ran with all his might. He gained the shelter. Shrill yells behind warned him that he had been seen, that his reason for flight had been guessed. Looking back, he saw two or three men scrambling down the bluff. Then the loud neigh of a frightened horse pealed out.

Jean discarded his useless rifle, and headed down the ridge slope, keeping to the thickest line of pines and sheering around the clumps of spruce. As he ran, his mind whirled with grim thoughts of escape, of his necessity to find the camp where Gordon and Fredericks were buried, there to procure another rifle and ammunition. He felt the wet blood dripping down his arm, yet no pain. The forest was too open for good cover. He dared not run uphill. His only course was ahead, and that soon ended in an abrupt declivity too precipitous to descend. As he halted, panting for breath, he heard the ring of hoofs on stone, then the thudding beat of running horses on soft ground. The rustlers had sighted the direction he had taken. Jean did not waste time to look. Indeed, there was no need, for as he bounded along the cliff to the right a rifle cracked and a bullet whizzed over his head. It lent wings to his feet. Like a deer he sped along, leaping cracks and logs and rocks, his ears filled by the rush of wind, until his quick eye caught sight of thick-growing spruce foliage close to the precipice. He sprang down into the green mass. His weight precipitated him through the upper branches. But lower down his spread arms broke his fall, then retarded it until he caught. A long, swaying limb let him down and down, where he grasped another and a stiffer one that held his weight. Hand over hand he worked toward the trunk of this spruce and, gaining it, he found other branches close together down which he hastened, hold by hold and step by step, until all above him was black, dense foliage, and beneath him the brown, shady slope. Sure of being unseen from above, he glided noiselessly down under the trees, slowly regaining freedom from that constriction of his breast.

Passing on to a gray-lichened cliff, overhanging and gloomy, he paused there to rest and to listen. A faint crack of hoof on stone came to him from above, apparently farther on to the right. Eventually his pursuers would discover that he had taken to the canyon. But for the moment he felt safe. The wound in his forearm drew his attention. The bullet had gone clear through without breaking either bone. His shirt sleeve was soaked with blood. Jean rolled it back and tightly wrapped his scarf around the wound, yet still the dark-red blood oozed out and dripped down into his hand. He became aware of a dull, throbbing pain.

Not much time did Jean waste in arriving at what was best to do. For the time being he had escaped, and whatever had been his peril, it was past. In dense, rugged country like this he could not be caught by rustlers. But he had only a knife left for a weapon, and there was very little meat in the pocket of his coat. Salt and matches he possessed. Therefore the imperative need was for him to find the last camp, where he could get rifle and ammunition, bake bread, and rest up before taking again the trail of the rustlers. He had reason to believe that this canyon was the one where the fight on the Rim, and later, on a bench of woodland below, had taken place.

Thereupon he arose and glided down under the spruces toward the level, grassy open he could see between the trees. And as he proceeded, with the slow step and wary eye of an Indian, his mind was busy.

Queen had in his flight unerringly worked in the direction of this canyon until he became lost in the fog; and upon regaining his bearings he had made a wonderful and heroic effort to surmount the manzanita slope and the Rim and find the rendezvous of his comrades. But he had failed up there on the ridge. In thinking it over Jean arrived at a conclusion that Queen, finding he could go no farther, had waited, guns in hands, for his pursuer. And he had died in this position. Then by strange coincidence his comrades had happened to come across him and, recognizing the situation, they had taken the shells from his guns and propped him up with the idea of luring Jean on. They had arranged a cunning trick and ambush, which had all but snuffed out the last of the Isbels. Colter probably had been at the bottom of this crafty plan. Since the fight at the Isbel ranch, now seemingly far back in the past, this man Colter had loomed up more and more as a stronger and more dangerous antagonist then either Jorth or Daggs. Before that he had been little known to any of the Isbel faction. And it was Colter now who controlled the remnant of the gang and who had Ellen Jorth in his possession.

The canyon wall above Jean, on the right, grew more rugged and loftier, and the one on the left began to show wooded slopes and brakes, and at last a wide expanse with a winding, willow border on the west and a long, low, pine-dotted bench on the east. It took several moments of study for Jean to recognize the rugged bluff above this bench. On up that canyon several miles was the site where Queen had surprised Jean and his comrades at their campfire. Somewhere in this vicinity was the hiding place of the rustlers.

Thereupon Jean proceeded with the utmost stealth, absolutely certain that he would miss no sound, movement, sign, or anything unnatural to the wild peace of the canyon. And his first sense to register something was his keen smell. Sheep! He was amazed to smell sheep. There must be a flock not far away. Then from where he glided along under the trees he saw down to open places in the willow brake and noticed sheep tracks in the dark, muddy bank of the brook. Next he heard faint tinkle of bells, and at length, when he could see farther into the open enlargement of the canyon, his surprised gaze fell upon an immense gray, woolly patch that blotted out acres and acres of grass. Thousands of sheep were grazing there. Jean knew there were several flocks of Jorth’s sheep on the mountain in the care of herders, but he had never thought of them being so far west, more than twenty miles from Chevelon Canyon. His roving eyes could not descry any herders or dogs. But he knew there must be dogs close to that immense flock. And, whatever his cunning, he could not hope to elude the scent and sight of shepherd dogs. It would be best to go back the way he had come, wait for darkness, then cross the canyon and climb out, and work around to his objective point. Turning at once, he started to glide back. But almost immediately he was brought stock-still and thrilling by the sound of hoofs.

Horses were coming in the direction he wished to take. They were close. His swift conclusion was that the men who had pursued him up on the Rim had worked down into the canyon. One circling glance showed him that he had no sure covert near at hand. It would not do to risk their passing him there. The border of woodland was narrow and not dense enough for close inspection. He was forced to turn back up the canyon, in the hope of soon finding a hiding place or a break in the wall where he could climb up.

Hugging the base of the wall, he slipped on, passing the point where he had espied the sheep, and gliding on until he was stopped by a bend in the dense line of willows. It sheered to the west there and ran close to the high wall. Jean kept on until he was stooping under a curling border of willow thicket, with branches slim and yellow and masses of green foliage that brushed against the wall. Suddenly he encountered an abrupt corner of rock. He rounded it, to discover that it ran at right angles with the one he had just passed. Peering up through the willows, he ascertained that there was a narrow crack in the main wall of the canyon. It had been concealed by willows low down and leaning spruces above. A wild, hidden retreat! Along the base of the wall there were tracks of small animals. The place was odorous, like all dense thickets, but it was not dry. Water ran through there somewhere. Jean drew easier breath. All sounds except the rustling of birds or mice in the willows had ceased. The brake was pervaded by a dreamy emptiness. Jean decided to steal on a little farther, then wait till he felt he might safely dare go back.

The golden-green gloom suddenly brightened. Light showed ahead, and parting the willows, he looked out into a narrow, winding canyon, with an open, grassy, willow-streaked lane in the center and on each side a thin strip of woodland.

His surprise was short lived. A crashing of horses back of him in the willows gave him a shock. He ran out along the base of the wall, back of the trees. Like the strip of woodland in the main canyon, this one was scant and had but little underbrush. There were young spruces growing with thick branches clear to the grass, and under these he could have concealed himself. But, with a certainty of sheep dogs in the vicinity, he would not think of hiding except as a last resource. These horsemen, whoever they were, were as likely to be sheep herders as not. Jean slackened his pace to look back. He could not see any moving objects, but he still heard horses, though not so close now. Ahead of him this narrow gorge opened out like the neck of a bottle. He would run on to the head of it and find a place to climb to the top.

Hurried and anxious as Jean was, he yet received an impression of singular, wild nature of this side gorge. It was a hidden, pine-fringed crack in the rock-ribbed and canyon-cut tableland. Above him the sky seemed a winding stream of blue. The walls were red and bulged out in spruce-greened shelves. From wall to wall was scarcely a distance of a hundred feet. Jumbles of rock obstructed his close holding to the wall. He had to walk at the edge of the timber. As he progressed, the gorge widened into wilder, ruggeder aspect. Through the trees ahead he saw where the wall circled to meet the cliff on the left, forming an oval depression, the nature of which he could not ascertain. But it appeared to be a small opening surrounded by dense thickets and the overhanging walls. Anxiety augmented to alarm. He might not be able to find a place to scale those rough cliffs. Breathing hard, Jean halted again. The situation was growing critical again. His physical condition was worse. Loss of sleep and rest, lack of food, the long pursuit of Queen, the wound in his arm, and the desperate run for his life — these had weakened him to the extent that if he undertook any strenuous effort he would fail. His cunning weighed all chances.

The shade of wall and foliage above, and another jumble of ruined cliff, hindered his survey of the ground ahead, and he almost stumbled upon a cabin, hidden on three sides, with a small, bare clearing in front. It was an old, ramshackle structure like others he had run across in the canons. Cautiously he approached and peeped around the corner. At first swift glance it had all the appearance of long disuse. But Jean had no time for another look. A clip-clop of trotting horses on hard ground brought the same pell-mell rush of sensations that had driven him to wild flight scarcely an hour past. His body jerked with its instinctive impulse, then quivered with his restraint. To turn back would be risky, to run ahead would be fatal, to hide was his one hope. No covert behind! And the clip-clop of hoofs sounded closer. One moment longer Jean held mastery over his instincts of self-preservation. To keep from running was almost impossible. It was the sheer primitive animal sense to escape. He drove it back and glided along the front of the cabin.

Here he saw that the cabin adjoined another. Reaching the door, he was about to peep in when the thud of hoofs and voices close at hand transfixed him with a grim certainty that he had not an instant to lose. Through the thin, black-streaked line of trees he saw moving red objects. Horses! He must run. Passing the door, his keen nose caught a musty, woody odor and the tail of his eye saw bare dirt floor. This cabin was unused. He halted — gave a quick look back. And the first thing his eye fell upon was a ladder, right inside the door, against the wall. He looked up. It led to a loft that, dark and gloomy, stretched halfway across the cabin. An irresistible impulse drove Jean. Slipping inside, he climbed up the ladder to the loft. It was like night up there. But he crawled on the rough-hewn rafters and, turning with his head toward the opening, he stretched out and lay still.

What seemed an interminable moment ended with a trample of hoofs outside the cabin. It ceased. Jean’s vibrating ears caught the jingle of spurs and a thud of boots striking the ground.

“Wal, sweetheart, heah we are home again,” drawled a slow, cool, mocking Texas voice.

“Home! I wonder, Colter — did y’u ever have a home — a mother — a sister — much less a sweetheart?” was the reply, bitter and caustic.

Jean’s palpitating, hot body suddenly stretched still and cold with intensity of shock. His very bones seemed to quiver and stiffen into ice. During the instant of realization his heart stopped. And a slow, contracting pressure enveloped his breast and moved up to constrict his throat. That woman’s voice belonged to Ellen Jorth. The sound of it had lingered in his dreams. He had stumbled upon the rendezvous of the Jorth faction. Hard indeed had been the fates meted out to those of the Isbels and Jorths who had passed to their deaths. But, no ordeal, not even Queen’s, could compare with this desperate one Jean must endure. He had loved Ellen Jorth, strangely, wonderfully, and he had scorned repute to believe her good. He had spared her father and her uncle. He had weakened or lost the cause of the Isbels. He loved her now, desperately, deathlessly, knowing from her own lips that she was worthless — loved her the more because he had felt her terrible shame. And to him — the last of the Isbels — had come the cruelest of dooms — to be caught like a crippled rat in a trap; to be compelled to lie helpless, wounded, without a gun; to listen, and perhaps to see Ellen Jorth enact the very truth of her mocking insinuation. His will, his promise, his creed, his blood must hold him to the stem decree that he should be the last man of the Jorth-Isbel war. But could he lie there to hear — to see — when he had a knife and an arm?

CHAPTER XIV

THEN FOLLOWED THE leathery flop of saddles to the soft turf and the stamp, of loosened horses.

Jean heard a noise at the cabin door, a rustle, and then a knock of something hard against wood. Silently he moved his head to look down through a crack between the rafters. He saw the glint of a rifle leaning against the sill. Then the doorstep was darkened. Ellen Jorth sat down with a long, tired sigh. She took off her sombrero and the light shone on the rippling, dark-brown hair, hanging in a tangled braid. The curved nape of her neck showed a warm tint of golden tan. She wore a gray blouse, soiled and torn, that clung to her lissome shoulders.

“Colter, what are y’u goin’ to do?” she asked, suddenly. Her voice carried something Jean did not remember. It thrilled into the icy fixity of his senses.

“We’ll stay heah,” was the response, and it was followed by a clinking step of spurred boot.

“Shore I won’t stay heah,” declared Ellen. “It makes me sick when I think of how Uncle Tad died in there alone — helpless — sufferin’. The place seems haunted.”

“Wal, I’ll agree that it’s tough on y’u. But what the hell CAN we do?”

A long silence ensued which Ellen did not break.

“Somethin’ has come off round heah since early mawnin’,” declared Colter. “Somers an’ Springer haven’t got back. An’ Antonio’s gone.... Now, honest, Ellen, didn’t y’u heah rifle shots off somewhere?”

“I reckon I did,” she responded, gloomily.

“An’ which way?”

“Sounded to me up on the bluff, back pretty far.”

“Wal, shore that’s my idee. An’ it makes me think hard. Y’u know Somers come across the last camp of the Isbels. An’ he dug into a grave to find the bodies of Jim Gordon an’ another man he didn’t know. Queen kept good his brag. He braced that Isbel gang an’ killed those fellars. But either him or Jean Isbel went off leavin’ bloody tracks. If it was Queen’s y’u can bet Isbel was after him. An’ if it was Isbel’s tracks, why shore Queen would stick to them. Somers an’ Springer couldn’t follow the trail. They’re shore not much good at trackin’. But for days they’ve been ridin’ the woods, hopin’ to run across Queen.... Wal now, mebbe they run across Isbel instead. An’ if they did an’ got away from him they’ll be heah sooner or later. If Isbel was too many for them he’d hunt for my trail. I’m gamblin’ that either Queen or Jean Isbel is daid. I’m hopin’ it’s Isbel. Because if he ain’t daid he’s the last of the Isbels, an’ mebbe I’m the last of Jorth’s gang.... Shore I’m not hankerin’ to meet the half-breed. That’s why I say we’ll stay heah. This is as good a hidin’ place as there is in the country. We’ve grub. There’s water an’ grass.”

“Me — stay heah with y’u — alone!”

The tone seemed a contradiction to the apparently accepted sense of her words. Jean held his breath. But he could not still the slowly mounting and accelerating faculties within that were involuntarily rising to meet some strange, nameless import. He felt it. He imagined it would be the catastrophe of Ellen Jorth’s calm acceptance of Colter’s proposition. But down in Jean’s miserable heart lived something that would not die. No mere words could kill it. How poignant that moment of her silence! How terribly he realized that if his intelligence and his emotion had believed her betraying words, his soul had not!

But Ellen Jorth did not speak. Her brown head hung thoughtfully. Her supple shoulders sagged a little.

“Ellen, what’s happened to y’u?” went on Colter.

“All the misery possible to a woman,” she replied, dejectedly.

“Shore I don’t mean that way,” he continued, persuasively. “I ain’t gainsayin’ the hard facts of your life. It’s been bad. Your dad was no good.... But I mean I can’t figger the change in y’u.”

“No, I reckon y’u cain’t,” she said. “Whoever was responsible for your make-up left out a mind — not to say feeling.”

Colter drawled a low laugh.

“Wal, have that your own way. But how much longer are yu goin’ to be like this heah?”

“Like what?” she rejoined, sharply.

“Wal, this stand-offishness of yours?”

“Colter, I told y’u to let me alone,” she said, sullenly.

“Shore. An’ y’u did that before. But this time y’u’re different.... An’ wal, I’m gettin’ tired of it.”

Here the cool, slow voice of the Texan sounded an inflexibility before absent, a timber that hinted of illimitable power.

Ellen Jorth shrugged her lithe shoulders and, slowly rising, she picked up the little rifle and turned to step into the cabin.

“Colter,” she said, “fetch my pack an’ my blankets in heah.”

“Shore,” he returned, with good nature.

Jean saw Ellen Jorth lay the rifle lengthwise in a chink between two logs and then slowly turn, back to the wall. Jean knew her then, yet did not know her. The brown flash of her face seemed that of an older, graver woman. His strained gaze, like his waiting mind, had expected something, he knew not what — a hardened face, a ghost of beauty, a recklessness, a distorted, bitter, lost expression in keeping with her fortunes. But he had reckoned falsely. She did not look like that. There was incalculable change, but the beauty remained, somehow different. Her red lips were parted. Her brooding eyes, looking out straight from under the level, dark brows, seemed sloe black and wonderful with their steady, passionate light.

Jean, in his eager, hungry devouring of the beloved face, did not on the first instant grasp the significance of its expression. He was seeing the features that had haunted him. But quickly he interpreted her expression as the somber, hunted look of a woman who would bear no more. Under the torn blouse her full breast heaved. She held her hands clenched at her sides. She was’ listening, waiting for that jangling, slow step. It came, and with the sound she subtly changed. She was a woman hiding her true feelings. She relaxed, and that strong, dark look of fury seemed to fade back into her eyes.

Colter appeared at the door, carrying a roll of blankets and a pack.

“Throw them heah,” she said. “I reckon y’u needn’t bother coming in.”

That angered the man. With one long stride he stepped over the doorsill, down into the cabin, and flung the blankets at her feet and then the pack after it. Whereupon he deliberately sat down in the door, facing her. With one hand he slid off his sombrero, which fell outside, and with the other he reached in his upper vest pocket for the little bag of tobacco that showed there. All the time he looked at her. By the light now unobstructed Jean descried Colter’s face; and sight of it then sounded the roll and drum of his passions.

“Wal, Ellen, I reckon we’ll have it out right now an’ heah,” he said, and with tobacco in one hand, paper in the other he began the operations of making a cigarette. However, he scarcely removed his glance from her.

“Yes?” queried Ellen Jorth.

“I’m goin’ to have things the way they were before — an’ more,” he declared. The cigarette paper shook in his fingers.

“What do y’u mean?” she demanded.

“Y’u know what I mean,” he retorted. Voice and action were subtly unhinging this man’s control over himself.

“Maybe I don’t. I reckon y’u’d better talk plain.”

The rustler had clear gray-yellow eyes, flawless, like, crystal, and suddenly they danced with little fiery flecks.

“The last time I laid my hand on y’u I got hit for my pains. An’ shore that’s been ranklin’.”

“Colter, y’u’ll get hit again if y’u put your hands on me,” she said, dark, straight glance on him. A frown wrinkled the level brows.

“Y’u mean that?” he asked, thickly.

“I shore, do.”

Manifestly he accepted her assertion. Something of incredulity and bewilderment, that had vied with his resentment, utterly disappeared from his face.

“Heah I’ve been waitin’ for y’u to love me,” he declared, with a gesture not without dignified emotion. “Your givin’ in without that wasn’t so much to me.”

And at these words of the rustler’s Jean Isbel felt an icy, sickening shudder creep into his soul. He shut his eyes. The end of his dream had been long in coming, but at last it had arrived. A mocking voice, like a hollow wind, echoed through that region — that lonely and ghost-like hall of his heart which had harbored faith.

She burst into speech, louder and sharper, the first words of which Jean’s strangely throbbing ears did not distinguish.

“ —— you! ... I never gave in to y’u an’ I never will.”

“But, girl — I kissed y’u — hugged y’u — handled y’u—” he expostulated, and the making of the cigarette ceased.

“Yes, y’u did — y’u brute — when I was so downhearted and weak I couldn’t lift my hand,” she flashed.

“Ahuh! Y’u mean I couldn’t do that now?”

“I should smile I do, Jim Colter!” she replied.

“Wal, mebbe — I’ll see — presently,” he went on, straining with words. “But I’m shore curious.... Daggs, then — he was nothin’ to y’u?”

“No more than y’u,” she said, morbidly. “He used to run after me — long ago, it seems..... I was only a girl then — innocent — an’ I’d not known any but rough men. I couldn’t all the time — every day, every hour — keep him at arm’s length. Sometimes before I knew — I didn’t care. I was a child. A kiss meant nothing to me. But after I knew—”

Ellen dropped her head in brooding silence.

“Say, do y’u expect me to believe that?” he queried, with a derisive leer.

“Bah! What do I care what y’u believe?” she cried, with lifting head.

“How aboot Simm Brace?”

“That coyote! ... He lied aboot me, Jim Colter. And any man half a man would have known he lied.”

“Wal, Simm always bragged aboot y’u bein’ his girl,” asserted Colter. “An’ he wasn’t over — particular aboot details of your love-makin’.”

Ellen gazed out of the door, over Colter’s head, as if the forest out there was a refuge. She evidently sensed more about the man than appeared in his slow talk, in his slouching position. Her lips shut in a firm line, as if to hide their trembling and to still her passionate tongue. Jean, in his absorption, magnified his perceptions. Not yet was Ellen Jorth afraid of this man, but she feared the situation. Jean’s heart was at bursting pitch. All within him seemed chaos — a wreck of beliefs and convictions. Nothing was true. He would wake presently out of a nightmare. Yet, as surely as he quivered there, he felt the imminence of a great moment — a lightning flash — a thunderbolt — a balance struck.

Colter attended to the forgotten cigarette. He rolled it, lighted it, all the time with lowered, pondering head, and when he had puffed a cloud of smoke he suddenly looked up with face as hard as flint, eyes as fiery as molten steel.

“Wal, Ellen — how aboot Jean Isbel — our half-breed Nez Perce friend — who was shore seen handlin’ y’u familiar?” he drawled.

Ellen Jorth quivered as under a lash, and her brown face turned a dusty scarlet, that slowly receding left her pale.

“Damn y’u, Jim Colter!” she burst out, furiously. “I wish Jean Isbel would jump in that door — or down out of that loft! ... He killed Greaves for defiling my name! ... He’d kill Y’U for your dirty insult.... And I’d like to watch him do it.... Y’u cold-blooded Texan! Y’u thieving rustler! Y’u liar! ... Y’u lied aboot my father’s death. And I know why. Y’u stole my father’s gold.... An’ now y’u want me — y’u expect me to fall into your arms.... My Heaven! cain’t y’u tell a decent woman? Was your mother decent? Was your sister decent? ... Bah! I’m appealing to deafness. But y’u’ll HEAH this, Jim Colter! ... I’m not what yu think I am! I’m not the — the damned hussy y’u liars have made me out.... I’m a Jorth, alas! I’ve no home, no relatives, no friends! I’ve been forced to live my life with rustlers — vile men like y’u an’ Daggs an’ the rest of your like.... But I’ve been good! Do y’u heah that? ... I AM good — so help me God, y’u an’ all your rottenness cain’t make me bad!”

Colter lounged to his tall height and the laxity of the man vanished.

Vanished also was Jean Isbel’s suspended icy dread, the cold clogging of his fevered mind — vanished in a white, living, leaping flame.

Silently he drew his knife and lay there watching with the eyes of a wildcat. The instant Colter stepped far enough over toward the edge of the loft Jean meant to bound erect and plunge down upon him. But Jean could wait now. Colter had a gun at his hip. He must never have a chance to draw it.

“Ahuh! So y’u wish Jean Isbel would hop in heah, do y’u?” queried Colter. “Wal, if I had any pity on y’u, that’s done for it.”

A sweep of his long arm, so swift Ellen had no time to move, brought his hand in clutching contact with her. And the force of it flung her half across the cabin room, leaving the sleeve of her blouse in his grasp. Pantingly she put out that bared arm and her other to ward him off as he took long, slow strides toward her.

Jean rose half to his feet, dragged by almost ungovernable passion to risk all on one leap. But the distance was too great. Colter, blind as he was to all outward things, would hear, would see in time to make Jean’s effort futile. Shaking like a leaf, Jean sank back, eye again to the crack between the rafters.

Ellen did not retreat, nor scream, nor move. Every line of her body was instinct with fight, and the magnificent blaze of her eyes would have checked a less callous brute.

Colter’s big hand darted between Ellen’s arms and fastened in the front of her blouse. He did not try to hold her or draw her close. The unleashed passion of the man required violence. In one savage pull he tore off her blouse, exposing her white, rounded shoulders and heaving bosom, where instantly a wave of red burned upward.

Overcome by the tremendous violence and spirit of the rustler, Ellen sank to her knees, with blanched face and dilating eyes, trying with folded arms and trembling hand to hide her nudity.

At that moment the rapid beat of hoofs on the hard trail outside halted Colter in his tracks.

“Hell!” he exclaimed. “An’ who’s that?” With a fierce action he flung the remnants of Ellen’s blouse in her face and turned to leap out the door.

Jean saw Ellen catch the blouse and try to wrap it around her, while she sagged against the wall and stared at the door. The hoof beats pounded to a solid thumping halt just outside.

“Jim — thar’s hell to pay!” rasped out a panting voice.

“Wal, Springer, I reckon I wished y’u’d paid it without spoilin’ my deals,” retorted Colter, cool and sharp.

“Deals? Ha! Y’u’ll be forgettin’ — your lady love in a minnit,” replied Springer. “When I catch — my breath.”

“Where’s Somers?” demanded Colter.

“I reckon he’s all shot up — if my eyes didn’t fool me.”

“Where is he?” yelled Colter.

“Jim — he’s layin’ up in the bushes round thet bluff. I didn’t wait to see how he was hurt. But he shore stopped some lead. An’ he flopped like a chicken with its — haid cut off.”

“Where’s Antonio?”

“He run like the greaser he is,” declared Springer, disgustedly.

“Ahuh! An’ where’s Queen?” queried Colter, after a significant pause.

“Dead!”

The silence ensuing was fraught with a suspense that held Jean in cold bonds. He saw the girl below rise from her knees, one hand holding the blouse to her breast, the other extended, and with strange, repressed, almost frantic look she swayed toward the door.

“Wal, talk,” ordered Colter, harshly.

“Jim, there ain’t a hell of a lot,” replied Springer; drawing a deep breath, “but what there is is shore interestin’.... Me an’ Somers took Antonio with us. He left his woman with the sheep. An’ we rode up the canyon, clumb out on top, an’ made a circle back on the ridge. That’s the way we’ve been huntin’ fer tracks. Up thar in a bare spot we run plump into Queen sittin’ against a tree, right out in the open. Queerest sight y’u ever seen! The damn gunfighter had set down to wait for Isbel, who was trailin’ him, as we suspected — an’ he died thar. He wasn’t cold when we found him.... Somers was quick to see a trick. So he propped Queen up an’ tied the guns to his hands — an’, Jim, the queerest thing aboot that deal was this — Queen’s guns was empty! Not a shell left! It beat us holler.... We left him thar, an’ hid up high on the bluff, mebbe a hundred yards off. The hosses we left back of a thicket. An’ we waited thar a long time. But, sure enough, the half-breed come. He was too smart. Too much Injun! He would not cross the open, but went around. An’ then he seen Queen. It was great to watch him. After a little he shoved his rifle out an’ went right fer Queen. This is when I wanted to shoot. I could have plugged him. But Somers says wait an’ make it sure. When Isbel got up to Queen he was sort of half hid by the tree. An’ I couldn’t wait no longer, so I shot. I hit him, too. We all begun to shoot. Somers showed himself, an’ that’s when Isbel opened up. He used up a whole magazine on Somers an’ then, suddenlike, he quit. It didn’t take me long to figger mebbe he was out of shells. When I seen him run I was certain of it. Then we made for the hosses an’ rode after Isbel. Pretty soon I seen him runnin’ like a deer down the ridge. I yelled an’ spurred after him. There is where Antonio quit me. But I kept on. An’ I got a shot at Isbel. He ran out of sight. I follered him by spots of blood on the stones an’ grass until I couldn’t trail him no more. He must have gone down over the cliffs. He couldn’t have done nothin’ else without me seein’ him. I found his rifle, an’ here it is to prove what I say. I had to go back to climb down off the Rim, an’ I rode fast down the canyon. He’s somewhere along that west wall, hidin’ in the brush, hard hit if I know anythin’ aboot the color of blood.”

“Wal! ... that beats me holler, too,” ejaculated Colter.

“Jim, what’s to be done?” inquired Springer, eagerly. “If we’re sharp we can corral that half-breed. He’s the last of the Isbels.”

“More, pard. He’s the last of the Isbel outfit,” declared Colter. “If y’u can show me blood in his tracks I’ll trail him.”

“Y’u can bet I’ll show y’u,” rejoined the other rustler. “But listen! Wouldn’t it be better for us first to see if he crossed the canyon? I reckon he didn’t. But let’s make sure. An’ if he didn’t we’ll have him somewhar along that west canyon wall. He’s not got no gun. He’d never run thet way if he had.... Jim, he’s our meat!”

“Shore, he’ll have that knife,” pondered Colter.

“We needn’t worry about thet,” said the other, positively. “He’s hard hit, I tell y’u. All we got to do is find thet bloody trail again an’ stick to it — goin’ careful. He’s layin’ low like a crippled wolf.”

“Springer, I want the job of finishin’ that half-breed,” hissed Colter. “I’d give ten years of my life to stick a gun down his throat an’ shoot it off.”

“All right. Let’s rustle. Mebbe y’u’ll not have to give much more ‘n ten minnits. Because I tell y’u I can find him. It’d been easy — but, Jim, I reckon I was afraid.”

“Leave your hoss for me an’ go ahaid,” the rustler then said, brusquely. “I’ve a job in the cabin heah.”

“Haw-haw! ... Wal, Jim, I’ll rustle a bit down the trail an’ wait. No huntin’ Jean Isbel alone — not fer me. I’ve had a queer feelin’ about thet knife he used on Greaves. An’ I reckon y’u’d oughter let thet Jorth hussy alone long enough to—”

“Springer, I reckon I’ve got to hawg-tie her—” His voice became indistinguishable, and footfalls attested to a slow moving away of the men.

Jean had listened with ears acutely strung to catch every syllable while his gaze rested upon Ellen who stood beside the door. Every line of her body denoted a listening intensity. Her back was toward Jean, so that he could not see her face. And he did not want to see, but could not help seeing her naked shoulders. She put her head out of the door. Suddenly she drew it in quickly and half turned her face, slowly raising her white arm. This was the left one and bore the marks of Colter’s hard fingers.

She gave a little gasp. Her eyes became large and staring. They were bent on the hand that she had removed from a step on the ladder. On hand and wrist showed a bright-red smear of blood.

Jean, with a convulsive leap of his heart, realized that he had left his bloody tracks on the ladder as he had climbed. That moment seemed the supremely terrible one of his life.

Ellen Jorth’s face blanched and her eyes darkened and dilated with exceeding amaze and flashing thought to become fixed with horror. That instant was the one in which her reason connected the blood on the ladder with the escape of Jean Isbel.

One moment she leaned there, still as a stone except for her heaving breast, and then her fixed gaze changed to a swift, dark blaze, comprehending, yet inscrutable, as she flashed it up the ladder to the loft. She could see nothing, yet she knew and Jean knew that she knew he was there. A marvelous transformation passed over her features and even over her form. Jean choked with the ache in his throat. Slowly she put the bloody hand behind her while with the other she still held the torn blouse to her breast.

Colter’s slouching, musical step sounded outside. And it might have been a strange breath of infinitely vitalizing and passionate life blown into the well-springs of Ellen Jorth’s being. Isbel had no name for her then. The spirit of a woman had been to him a thing unknown.

She swayed back from the door against the wall in singular, softened poise, as if all the steel had melted out of her body. And as Colter’s tall shadow fell across the threshold Jean Isbel felt himself staring with eyeballs that ached — straining incredulous sight at this woman who in a few seconds had bewildered his senses with her transfiguration. He saw but could not comprehend.

“Jim — I heard — all Springer told y’u,” she said. The look of her dumfounded Colter and her voice seemed to shake him visibly.

“Suppose y’u did. What then?” he demanded, harshly, as he halted with one booted foot over the threshold. Malignant and forceful, he eyed her darkly, doubtfully.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“What of? Me?”

“No. Of — of Jean Isbel. He might kill y’u and — then where would I be?”

“Wal, I’m damned!” ejaculated the rustler. “What’s got into y’u?” He moved to enter, but a sort of fascination bound him.

“Jim, I hated y’u a moment ago,” she burst out. “But now — with that Jean Isbel somewhere near — hidin’ — watchin’ to kill y’u — an’ maybe me, too — I — I don’t hate y’u any more.... Take me away.”

“Girl, have y’u lost your nerve?” he demanded.

“My God! Colter — cain’t y’u see?” she implored. “Won’t y’u take me away?”

“I shore will — presently,” he replied, grimly. “But y’u’ll wait till I’ve shot the lights out of this Isbel.”

“No!” she cried. “Take me away now.... An’ I’ll give in — I’ll be what y’u — want.... Y’u can do with me — as y’u like.”

Colter’s lofty frame leaped as if at the release of bursting blood. With a lunge he cleared the threshold to loom over her.

“Am I out of my haid, or are y’u?” he asked, in low, hoarse voice. His darkly corded face expressed extremest amaze.

“Jim, I mean it,” she whispered, edging an inch nearer him, her white face uplifted, her dark eyes unreadable in their eloquence and mystery. “I’ve no friend but y’u. I’ll be — yours.... I’m lost.... What does it matter? If y’u want me — take me NOW — before I kill myself.”

“Ellen Jorth, there’s somethin’ wrong aboot y’u,” he responded. “Did y’u tell the truth — when y’u denied ever bein’ a sweetheart of Simm Bruce?”

“Yes, I told y’u the truth.”

“Ahuh! An’ how do y’u account for layin’ me out with every dirty name y’u could give tongue to?”

“Oh, it was temper. I wanted to be let alone.”

“Temper! Wal, I reckon y’u’ve got one,” he retorted, grimly. “An’ I’m not shore y’u’re not crazy or lyin’. An hour ago I couldn’t touch y’u.”

“Y’u may now — if y’u promise to take me away — at once. This place has got on my nerves. I couldn’t sleep heah with that Isbel hidin’ around. Could y’u?”

“Wal, I reckon I’d not sleep very deep.”

“Then let us go.”

He shook his lean, eagle-like head in slow, doubtful vehemence, and his piercing gaze studied her distrustfully. Yet all the while there was manifest in his strung frame an almost irrepressible violence, held in abeyance to his will.

“That aboot your bein’ so good?” he inquired, with a return of the mocking drawl.

“Never mind what’s past,” she flashed, with passion dark as his. “I’ve made my offer.”

“Shore there’s a lie aboot y’u somewhere,” he muttered, thickly.

“Man, could I do more?” she demanded, in scorn.

“No. But it’s a lie,” he returned. “Y’u’ll get me to take y’u away an’ then fool me — run off — God knows what. Women are all liars.”

Manifestly he could not believe in her strange transformation. Memory of her wild and passionate denunciation of him and his kind must have seared even his calloused soul. But the ruthless nature of him had not weakened nor softened in the least as to his intentions. This weather-vane veering of hers bewildered him, obsessed him with its possibilities. He had the look of a man who was divided between love of her and hate, whose love demanded a return, but whose hate required a proof of her abasement. Not proof of surrender, but proof of her shame! The ignominy of him thirsted for its like. He could grind her beauty under his heel, but he could not soften to this feminine inscrutableness.

And whatever was the truth of Ellen Jorth in this moment, beyond Colter’s gloomy and stunted intelligence, beyond even the love of Jean Isbel, it was something that held the balance of mastery. She read Colter’s mind. She dropped the torn blouse from her hand and stood there, unashamed, with the wave of her white breast pulsing, eyes black as night and full of hell, her face white, tragic, terrible, yet strangely lovely.

“Take me away,” she whispered, stretching one white arm toward him, then the other.

Colter, even as she moved, had leaped with inarticulate cry and radiant face to meet her embrace. But it seemed, just as her left arm flashed up toward his neck, that he saw her bloody hand and wrist. Strange how that checked his ardor — threw up his lean head like that striking bird of prey.

“Blood! What the hell!” he ejaculated, and in one sweep he grasped her. “How’d yu do that? Are y’u cut? ... Hold still.”

Ellen could not release her hand.

“I scratched myself,” she said.

“Where?... All that blood!” And suddenly he flung her hand back with fierce gesture, and the gleams of his yellow eyes were like the points of leaping flames. They pierced her — read the secret falsity of her. Slowly he stepped backward, guardedly his hand moved to his gun, and his glance circled and swept the interior of the cabin. As if he had the nose of a hound and sight to follow scent, his eyes bent to the dust of the ground before the door. He quivered, grew rigid as stone, and then moved his head with exceeding slowness as if searching through a microscope in the dust — farther to the left — to the foot of the ladder — and up one step — another — a third — all the way up to the loft. Then he whipped out his gun and wheeled to face the girl.

“Ellen, y’u’ve got your half-breed heah!” he said, with a terrible smile.

She neither moved nor spoke. There was a suggestion of collapse, but it was only a change where the alluring softness of her hardened into a strange, rapt glow. And in it seemed the same mastery that had characterized her former aspect. Herein the treachery of her was revealed. She had known what she meant to do in any case.

Colter, standing at the door, reached a long arm toward the ladder, where he laid his hand on a rung. Taking it away he held it palm outward for her to see the dark splotch of blood.

“See?”

“Yes, I see,” she said, ringingly.

Passion wrenched him, transformed him. “All that — aboot leavin’ heah — with me — aboot givin’ in — was a lie!”

“No, Colter. It was the truth. I’ll go — yet — now — if y’u’ll spare — HIM!” She whispered the last word and made a slight movement of her hand toward the loft. “Girl!” he exploded, incredulously. “Y’u love this half-breed — this ISBEL! ... Y’u LOVE him!”

“With all my heart! ... Thank God! It has been my glory.... It might have been my salvation.... But now I’ll go to hell with y’u — if y’u’ll spare him.”

“Damn my soul!” rasped out the rustler, as if something of respect was wrung from that sordid deep of him. “Y’u — y’u woman! ... Jorth will turn over in his grave. He’d rise out of his grave if this Isbel got y’u.”

“Hurry! Hurry!” implored Ellen. “Springer may come back. I think I heard a call.”

“Wal, Ellen Jorth, I’ll not spare Isbel — nor y’u,” he returned, with dark and meaning leer, as he turned to ascend the ladder.

Jean Isbel, too, had reached the climax of his suspense. Gathering all his muscles in a knot he prepared to leap upon Colter as he mounted the ladder. But, Ellen Jorth screamed piercingly and snatched her rifle from its resting place and, cocking it, she held it forward and low.

“COLTER!”

Her scream and his uttered name stiffened him.

“Y’u will spare Jean Isbel!” she rang out. “Drop that gun-drop it!”

“Shore, Ellen.... Easy now. Remember your temper.... I’ll let Isbel off,” he panted, huskily, and all his body sank quiveringly to a crouch.

“Drop your gun! Don’t turn round.... Colter! — I’LL KILL Y’U!”

But even then he failed to divine the meaning and the spirit of her.

“Aw, now, Ellen,” he entreated, in louder, huskier tones, and as if dragged by fatal doubt of her still, he began to turn.

Crash! The rifle emptied its contents in Colter’s breast. All his body sprang up. He dropped the gun. Both hands fluttered toward her. And an awful surprise flashed over his face.

“So — help — me — God!” he whispered, with blood thick in his voice. Then darkly, as one groping, he reached for her with shaking hands. “Y’u — y’u white-throated hussy!... I’ll ...”

He grasped the quivering rifle barrel. Crash! She shot him again. As he swayed over her and fell she had to leap aside, and his clutching hand tore the rifle from her grasp. Then in convulsion he writhed, to heave on his back, and stretch out — a ghastly spectacle. Ellen backed away from it, her white arms wide, a slow horror blotting out the passion of her face.

Then from without came a shrill call and the sound of rapid footsteps. Ellen leaned against the wall, staring still at Colter. “Hey, Jim — what’s the shootin’?” called Springer, breathlessly.

As his form darkened the doorway Jean once again gathered all his muscular force for a tremendous spring.

Springer saw the girl first and he appeared thunderstruck. His jaw dropped. He needed not the white gleam of her person to transfix him. Her eyes did that and they were riveted in unutterable horror upon something on the ground. Thus instinctively directed, Springer espied Colter.

“Y’u — y’u shot him!” he shrieked. “What for — y’u hussy? ... Ellen Jorth, if y’u’ve killed him, I’ll...”

He strode toward where Colter lay.

Then Jean, rising silently, took a step and like a tiger he launched himself into the air, down upon the rustler. Even as he leaped Springer gave a quick, upward look. And he cried out. Jean’s moccasined feet struck him squarely and sent him staggering into the wall, where his head hit hard. Jean fell, but bounded up as the half-stunned Springer drew his gun. Then Jean lunged forward with a single sweep of his arm — and looked no more.

Ellen ran swaying out of the door, and, once clear of the threshold, she tottered out on the grass, to sink to her knees. The bright, golden sunlight gleamed upon her white shoulders and arms. Jean had one foot out of the door when he saw her and he whirled back to get her blouse. But Springer had fallen upon it. Snatching up a blanket, Jean ran out.

“Ellen! Ellen! Ellen!” he cried. “It’s over!” And reaching her, he tried to wrap her in the blanket.

She wildly clutched his knees. Jean was conscious only of her white, agonized face and the dark eyes with their look of terrible strain.

“Did y’u — did y’u...” she whispered.

“Yes — it’s over,” he said, gravely. “Ellen, the Isbel-Jorth feud is ended.”

“Oh, thank — God!” she cried, in breaking voice. “Jean — y’u are wounded... the blood on the step!”

“My arm. See. It’s not bad.... Ellen, let me wrap this round you.” Folding the blanket around her shoulders, he held it there and entreated her to get up. But she only clung the closer. She hid her face on his knees. Long shudders rippled over her, shaking the blanket, shaking Jean’s hands. Distraught, he did not know what to do. And his own heart was bursting.

“Ellen, you must not kneel — there — that way,” he implored.

“Jean! Jean!” she moaned, and clung the tighter.

He tried to lift her up, but she was a dead weight, and with that hold on him seemed anchored at his feet.

“I killed Colter,” she gasped. “I HAD to — kill him! ... I offered — to fling myself away....”

“For me!” he cried, poignantly. “Oh, Ellen! Ellen! the world has come to an end! ... Hush! don’t keep sayin’ that. Of course you killed him. You saved my life. For I’d never have let you go off with him .... Yes, you killed him.... You’re a Jorth an’ I’m an Isbel ... We’ve blood on our hands — both of us — I for you an’ you for me!”

His voice of entreaty and sadness strengthened her and she raised her white face, loosening her clasp to lean back and look up. Tragic, sweet, despairing, the loveliness of her — the significance of her there on her knees — thrilled him to his soul.

“Blood on my hands!” she whispered. “Yes. It was awful — killing him.... But — all I care for in this world is for your forgiveness — and your faith that saved my soul!”

“Child, there’s nothin’ to forgive,” he responded. “Nothin’... Please, Ellen...”

“I lied to y’u!” she cried. “I lied to y’u!”

“Ellen, listen — darlin’.” And the tender epithet brought her head and arms back close-pressed to him. “I know — now,” he faltered on. “I found out to-day what I believed. An’ I swear to God — by the memory of my dead mother — down in my heart I never, never, never believed what they — what y’u tried to make me believe. NEVER!”

“Jean — I love y’u — love y’u — love y’u!” she breathed with exquisite, passionate sweetness. Her dark eyes burned up into his.

“Ellen, I can’t lift you up,” he said, in trembling eagerness, signifying his crippled arm. “But I can kneel with you! ...”

The Mysterious Rider

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER I

A SEPTEMBER SUN, losing some of its heat if not its brilliance, was dropping low in the west over the black Colorado range. Purple haze began to thicken in the timbered notches. Gray foothills, round and billowy, rolled down from the higher country. They were smooth, sweeping, with long velvety slopes and isolated patches of aspens that blazed in autumn gold. Splotches of red vine colored the soft gray of sage. Old White Slides, a mountain scarred by avalanche, towered with bleak rocky peak above the valley, sheltering it from the north.

A girl rode along the slope, with gaze on the sweep and range and color of the mountain fastness that was her home. She followed an old trail which led to a bluff overlooking an arm of the valley. Once it had been a familiar lookout for her, but she had not visited the place of late. It was associated with serious hours of her life. Here seven years before, when she was twelve, she had made a hard choice to please her guardian — the old rancher whom she loved and called father, who had indeed been a father to her. That choice had been to go to school in Denver. Four years she had lived away from her beloved gray hills and black mountains. Only once since her return had she climbed to this height, and that occasion, too, was memorable as an unhappy hour. It had been three years ago. To-day girlish ordeals and griefs seemed back in the past: she was a woman at nineteen and face to face with the first great problem in her life.

The trail came up back of the bluff, through a clump of aspens with white trunks and yellow fluttering leaves, and led across a level bench of luxuriant grass and wild flowers to the rocky edge.

She dismounted and threw the bridle. Her mustang, used to being petted, rubbed his sleek, dark head against her and evidently expected like demonstration in return, but as none was forthcoming he bent his nose to the grass and began grazing. The girl’s eyes were intent upon some waving, slender, white-and-blue flowers. They smiled up wanly, like pale stars, out of the long grass that had a tinge of gold.

“Columbines,” she mused, wistfully, as she plucked several of the flowers and held them up to gaze wonderingly at them, as if to see in them some revelation of the mystery that shrouded her birth and her name. Then she stood with dreamy gaze upon the distant ranges.

“Columbine!... So they named me — those miners who found me — a baby — lost in the woods — asleep among the columbines.” She spoke aloud, as if the sound of her voice might convince her.

So much of the mystery of her had been revealed that day by the man she had always called father. Vaguely she had always been conscious of some mystery, something strange about her childhood, some relation never explained.

“No name but Columbine,” she whispered, sadly, and now she understood a strange longing of her heart.

Scarcely an hour back, as she ran down the Wide porch of White Slides ranch-house, she had encountered the man who had taken care of her all her life. He had looked upon her as kindly and fatherly as of old, yet with a difference. She seemed to see him as old Bill Belllounds, pioneer and rancher, of huge frame and broad face, hard and scarred and grizzled, with big eyes of blue fire.

“Collie,” the old man had said, “I reckon hyar’s news. A letter from Jack.... He’s comin’ home.”

Belllounds had waved the letter. His huge hand trembled as he reached to put it on her shoulder. The hardness of him seemed strangely softened. Jack was his son. Buster Jack, the range had always called him, with other terms, less kind, that never got to the ears of his father. Jack had been sent away three years ago, just before Columbine’s return from school. Therefore she had not seen him for over seven years. But she remembered him well — a big, rangy boy, handsome and wild, who had made her childhood almost unendurable.

“Yes — my son — Jack — he’s comin’ home,” said Belllounds, with a break in his voice. “An’, Collie — now I must tell you somethin’.”

“Yes, dad,” she had replied, with strong clasp of the heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Thet’s just it, lass. I ain’t your dad. I’ve tried to be a dad to you an’ I’ve loved you as my own. But you’re not flesh an’ blood of mine. An’ now I must tell you.”

The brief story followed. Seventeen years ago miners working a claim of Belllounds’s in the mountains above Middle Park had found a child asleep in the columbines along the trail. Near that point Indians, probably Arapahoes coming across the mountains to attack the Utes, had captured or killed the occupants of a prairie-schooner. There was no other clue. The miners took the child to their camp, fed and cared for it, and, after the manner of their kind, named it Columbine. Then they brought it to Belllounds.

“Collie,” said the old rancher, “it needn’t never have been told, an’ wouldn’t but fer one reason. I’m gettin’ old. I reckon I’d never split my property between you an’ Jack. So I mean you an’ him to marry. You always steadied Jack. With a wife like you’ll be — wal, mebbe Jack’ll—”

“Dad!” burst out Columbine. “Marry Jack!... Why I — I don’t even remember him!”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed Belllounds. “Wal, you dog-gone soon will. Jack’s in Kremmlin’, an’ he’ll be hyar to-night or to-morrow.”

“But — I — I don’t l-love him,” faltered Columbine.

The old man lost his mirth; the strong-lined face resumed its hard cast; the big eyes smoldered. Her appealing objection had wounded him. She was reminded of how sensitive the old man had always been to any reflection cast upon his son.

“Wal, thet’s onlucky;” he replied, gruffly. “Mebbe you’ll change. I reckon no girl could help a boy much, onless she cared for him. Anyway, you an’ Jack will marry.”

He had stalked away and Columbine had ridden her mustang far up the valley slope where she could be alone. Standing on the verge of the bluff, she suddenly became aware that the quiet and solitude of her lonely resting-place had been disrupted. Cattle were bawling below her and along the slope of old White Slides and on the grassy uplands above. She had forgotten that the cattle were being driven down into the lowlands for the fall round-up. A great red-and-white-spotted herd was milling in the park just beneath her. Calves and yearlings were making the dust fly along the mountain slope; wild old steers were crashing in the sage, holding level, unwilling to be driven down; cows were running and lowing for their lost ones. Melodious and clear rose the clarion calls of the cowboys. The cattle knew those calls and only the wild steers kept up-grade.

Columbine also knew each call and to which cowboy it belonged. They sang and yelled and swore, but it was all music to her. Here and there along the slope, where the aspen groves clustered, a horse would flash across an open space; the dust would fly, and a cowboy would peal out a lusty yell that rang along the slope and echoed under the bluff and lingered long after the daring rider had vanished in the steep thickets.

“I wonder which is Wils,” murmured Columbine, as she watched and listened, vaguely conscious of a little difference, a strange check in her remembrance of this particular cowboy. She felt the change, yet did not understand. One after one she recognized the riders on the slopes below, but Wilson Moore was not among them. He must be above her, then, and she turned to gaze across the grassy bluff, up the long, yellow slope, to where the gleaming aspens half hid a red bluff of mountain, towering aloft. Then from far to her left, high up a scrubby ridge of the slope, rang down a voice that thrilled her: “Go — aloong — you-ooooo.” Red cattle dashed pell-mell down the slope, raising the dust, tearing the brush, rolling rocks, and letting out hoarse bawls.

“Whoop-ee!” High-pitched and pealing came a clearer yell.

Columbine saw a white mustang flash out on top of the ridge, silhouetted against the blue, with mane and tail flying. His gait on that edge of steep slope proved his rider to be a reckless cowboy for whom no heights or depths had terrors. She would have recognized him from the way he rode, if she had not known the slim, erect figure. The cowboy saw her instantly. He pulled the mustang, about to plunge down the slope, and lifted him, rearing and wheeling. Then Columbine waved her hand. The cowboy spurred his horse along the crest of the ridge, disappeared behind the grove of aspens, and came in sight again around to the right, where on the grassy bench he slowed to a walk in descent to the bluff.

The girl watched him come, conscious of an unfamiliar sense of uncertainty in this meeting, and of the fact that she was seeing him differently from any other time in the years he had been a playmate, a friend, almost like a brother. He had ridden for Belllounds for years, and was a cowboy because he loved cattle well and horses better, and above all a life in the open. Unlike most cowboys, he had been to school; he had a family in Denver that objected to his wild range life, and often importuned him to come home; he seemed aloof sometimes and not readily understood.

While many thoughts whirled through Columbine’s mind she watched the cowboy ride slowly down to her, and she became more concerned with a sudden restraint. How was Wilson going to take the news of this forced change about to come in her life? That thought leaped up. It gave her a strange pang. But she and he were only good friends. As to that, she reflected, of late they had not been the friends and comrades they formerly were. In the thrilling uncertainty of this meeting she had forgotten his distant manner and the absence of little attentions she had missed.

By this time the cowboy had reached the level, and with the lazy grace of his kind slipped out of the saddle. He was tall, slim, round-limbed, with the small hips of a rider, and square, though not broad shoulders. He stood straight like an Indian. His eyes were hazel, his features regular, his face bronzed. All men of the open had still, lean, strong faces, but added to this in him was a steadiness of expression, a restraint that seemed to hide sadness.

“Howdy, Columbine!” he said. “What are you doing up here? You might get run over.”

“Hello, Wils!” she replied, slowly. “Oh, I guess I can keep out of the way.”

“Some bad steers in that bunch. If any of them run over here Pronto will leave you to walk home. That mustang hates cattle. And he’s only half broke, you know.”

“I forgot you were driving to-day,” she replied, and looked away from him. There was a moment’s pause — long, it seemed to her.

“What’d you come for?” he asked, curiously.

“I wanted to gather columbines. See.” She held out the nodding flowers toward him. “Take one.... Do you like them?”

“Yes. I like columbine,” he replied, taking one of them. His keen hazel eyes, softened, darkened. “Colorado’s flower.”

“Columbine!... It is my name.”

“Well, could you have a better? It sure suits you.”

“Why?” she asked, and she looked at him again.

“You’re slender — graceful. You sort of hold your head high and proud. Your skin is white. Your eyes are blue. Not bluebell blue, but columbine blue — and they turn purple when you’re angry.”

“Compliments! Wilson, this is new kind of talk for you,” she said.

“You’re different to-day.”

“Yes, I am.” She looked across the valley toward the westering sun, and the slight flush faded from her cheeks. “I have no right to hold my head proud. No one knows who I am — where I came from.”

“As if that made any difference!” he exclaimed.

“Belllounds is not my dad. I have no dad. I was a waif. They found me in the woods — a baby — lost among the flowers. Columbine Belllounds I’ve always been. But that is not my name. No one can tell what my name really is.”

“I knew your story years ago, Columbine,” he replied, earnestly. “Everybody knows. Old Bill ought to have told you long before this. But he loves you. So does — everybody. You must not let this knowledge sadden you.... I’m sorry you’ve never known a mother or a sister. Why, I could tell you of many orphans who — whose stories were different.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve been happy. I’ve not longed for any — any one except a mother. It’s only—”

“What don’t I understand?”

“I’ve not told you all.”

“No? Well, go on,” he said, slowly.

Meaning of the hesitation and the restraint that had obstructed her thought now flashed over Columbine. It lay in what Wilson Moore might think of her prospective marriage to Jack Belllounds. Still she could not guess why that should make her feel strangely uncertain of the ground she stood on or how it could cause a constraint she had to fight herself to hide. Moreover, to her annoyance, she found that she was evading his direct request for the news she had withheld.

“Jack Belllounds is coming home to-night or to-morrow,” she said. Then, waiting for her companion to reply, she kept an unseeing gaze upon the scanty pines fringing Old White Slides. But no reply appeared to be forthcoming from Moore. His silence compelled her to turn to him. The cowboy’s face had subtly altered; it was darker with a tinge of red under the bronze; and his lower lip was released from his teeth, even as she looked. He had his eyes intent upon the lasso he was coiling. Suddenly he faced her and the dark fire of his eyes gave her a shock.

I’ve been expecting that shorthorn back for months.” he said, bluntly.

“You — never — liked Jack?” queried Columbine, slowly. That was not what she wanted to say, but the thought spoke itself.

“I should smile I never did.”

“Ever since you and he fought — long ago — all over—”

His sharp gesture made the coiled lasso loosen.

“Ever since I licked him good — don’t forget that,” interrupted Wilson. The red had faded from the bronze.

“Yes, you licked him,” mused Columbine. “I remember that. And Jack’s hated you ever since.”

“There’s been no love lost.”

“But, Wils, you never before talked this way — spoke out so — against Jack,” she protested.

“Well, I’m not the kind to talk behind a fellow’s back. But I’m not mealy-mouthed, either, and — and—”

He did not complete the sentence and his meaning was enigmatic. Altogether Moore seemed not like himself. The fact disturbed Columbine. Always she had confided in him. Here was a most complex situation — she burned to tell him, yet somehow feared to — she felt an incomprehensible satisfaction in his bitter reference to Jack — she seemed to realize that she valued Wilson’s friendship more than she had known, and now for some strange reason it was slipping from her.

“We — we were such good friends — pards,” said Columbine, hurriedly and irrelevantly.

“Who?” He stared at her.

“Why, you — and me.”

“Oh!” His tone softened, but there was still disapproval in his glance. “What of that?”

“Something has happened to make me think I’ve missed you — lately — that’s all.”

“Ahuh!” His tone held finality and bitterness, but he would not commit himself. Columbine sensed a pride in him that seemed the cause of his aloofness.

“Wilson, why have you been different lately?” she asked, plaintively.

“What’s the good to tell you now?” he queried, in reply.

That gave her a blank sense of actual loss. She had lived in dreams and he in realities. Right now she could not dispel her dream — see and understand all that he seemed to. She felt like a child, then, growing old swiftly. The strange past longing for a mother surged up in her like a strong tide. Some one to lean on, some one who loved her, some one to help her in this hour when fatality knocked at the door of her youth — how she needed that!

“It might be bad for me — to tell me, but tell me, anyhow,” she said, finally, answering as some one older than she had been an hour ago — to something feminine that leaped up. She did not understand this impulse, but it was in her.

“No!” declared Moore, with dark red staining his face. He slapped the lasso against his saddle, and tied it with clumsy hands. He did not look at her. His tone expressed anger and amaze.

“Dad says I must marry Jack,” she said, with a sudden return to her natural simplicity.

“I heard him tell that months ago,” snapped Moore.

“You did! Was that — why?” she whispered.

“It was,” he answered, ringingly.

“But that was no reason for you to be — be — to stay away from me,” she declared, with rising spirit.

He laughed shortly.

“Wils, didn’t you like me any more after dad said that?” she queried.

“Columbine, a girl nineteen years and about to — to get married — ought not be a fool,” he replied, with sarcasm.

“I’m not a fool,” she rejoined, hotly.

“You ask fool questions.”

“Well, you didn’t like me afterward or you’d never have mistreated me.”

“If you say I mistreated you — you say what’s untrue,” he replied, just as hotly.

They had never been so near a quarrel before. Columbine experienced a sensation new to her — a commingling of fear, heat, and pang, it seemed, all in one throb. Wilson was hurting her. A quiver ran all over her, along her veins, swelling and tingling.

“You mean I lie?” she flashed.

“Yes, I do — if—”

But before he could conclude she slapped his face. It grew pale then, while she began to tremble.

“Oh — I didn’t intend that. Forgive me,” she faltered.

He rubbed his cheek. The hurt had not been great, so far as the blow was concerned. But his eyes were dark with pain and anger.

“Oh, don’t distress yourself,” he burst out. “You slapped me before — once, years ago — for kissing you. I — I apologize for saying you lied. You’re only out of your head. So am I.”

That poured oil upon the troubled waters. The cowboy appeared to be hesitating between sudden flight and the risk of staying longer.

“Maybe that’s it,” replied Columbine, with a half-laugh. She was not far from tears and fury with herself. “Let us make up — be friends again.”

Moore squared around aggressively. He seemed to fortify himself against something in her. She felt that. But his face grew harder and older than she had ever seen it.

“Columbine, do you know where Jack Belllounds has been for these three years?” he asked, deliberately, entirely ignoring her overtures of friendship.

“No. Somebody said Denver. Some one else said Kansas City. I never asked dad, because I knew Jack had been sent away. I’ve supposed he was working — making a man of himself.”

“Well, I hope to Heaven — for your sake — what you suppose comes true,” returned Moore, with exceeding bitterness.

“Do you know where he has been?” asked Columbine. Some strange feeling prompted that. There was a mystery here. Wilson’s agitation seemed strange and deep.

“Yes, I do.” The cowboy bit that out through closing teeth, as if locking them against an almost overmastering temptation.

Columbine lost her curiosity. She was woman enough to realize that there might well be facts which would only make her situation harder.

“Wilson,” she began, hurriedly, “I owe all I am to dad. He has cared for me — sent me to school. He has been so good to me. I’ve loved him always. It would be a shabby return for all his protection and love if — if I refused—”

“Old Bill is the best man ever,” interrupted Moore, as if to repudiate any hint of disloyalty to his employer. “Everybody in Middle Park and all over owes Bill something. He’s sure good. There never was anything wrong with him except his crazy blindness about his son. Buster Jack — the — the—”

Columbine put a hand over Moore’s lips.

“The man I must marry,” she said, solemnly.

“You must — you will?” he demanded.

“Of course. What else could I do? I never thought of refusing.”

“Columbine!” Wilson’s cry was so poignant, his gesture so violent, his dark eyes so piercing that Columbine sustained a shock that held her trembling and mute. “How can you love Jack Belllounds? You were twelve years old when you saw him last. How can you love him?”

“I don’t” replied Columbine.

“Then how could you marry him?”

“I owe dad obedience. It’s his hope that I can steady Jack.”

“Steady Jack!” exclaimed Moore, passionately. “Why, you girl — you white-faced flower! You with your innocence and sweetness steady that damned pup! My Heavens! He was a gambler and a drunkard. He—”

“Hush!” implored Columbine.

“He cheated at cards,” declared the cowboy, with a scorn that placed that vice as utterly base.

“But Jack was only a wild boy,” replied Columbine, trying with brave words to champion the son of the man she loved as her father. “He has been sent away to work. He’ll have outgrown that wildness. He’ll come home a man.”

“Bah!” cried Moore, harshly.

Columbine felt a sinking within her. Where was her strength? She, who could walk and ride so many miles, to become sick with an inward quaking! It was childish. She struggled to hide her weakness from him.

“It’s not like you to be this way,” she said. “You used to be generous. Am I to blame? Did I choose my life?”

Moore looked quickly away from her, and, standing with a hand on his horse, he was silent for a moment. The squaring of his shoulders bore testimony to his thought. Presently he swung up into the saddle. The mustang snorted and champed the bit and tossed his head, ready to bolt.

“Forget my temper,” begged the cowboy, looking down upon Columbine. “I take it all back. I’m sorry. Don’t let a word of mine worry you. I was only jealous.”

“Jealous!” exclaimed Columbine, wonderingly.

“Yes. That makes a fellow see red and green. Bad medicine! You never felt it.”

“What were you jealous of?” asked Columbine.

The cowboy had himself in hand now and he regarded her with a grim amusement.

“Well, Columbine, it’s like a story,” he replied. “I’m the fellow disowned by his family — a wanderer of the wilds — no good — and no prospects.... Now our friend Jack, he’s handsome and rich. He has a doting old dad. Cattle, horses — ranches! He wins the girl. See!”

Spurring his mustang, the cowboy rode away. At the edge of the slope he turned in the saddle. “I’ve got to drive in this bunch of cattle. It’s late. You hurry home.” Then he was gone. The stones cracked and rolled down under the side of the bluff.

Columbine stood where he had left her: dubious, yet with the blood still hot in her cheeks.

“Jealous?... He wins the girl?” she murmured in repetition to herself. “What ever could he have meant? He didn’t mean — he didn’t—”

The simple, logical interpretation of Wilson’s words opened Columbine’s mind to a disturbing possibility of which she had never dreamed. That he might love her! If he did, why had he not said so? Jealous, maybe, but he did not love her! The next throb of thought was like a knock at a door of her heart — a door never yet opened, inside which seemed a mystery of feeling, of hope, despair, unknown longing, and clamorous voices. The woman just born in her, instinctive and self-preservative, shut that door before she had more than a glimpse inside. But then she felt her heart swell with its nameless burdens.

Pronto was grazing near at hand. She caught him and mounted. It struck her then that her hands were numb with cold. The wind had ceased fluttering the aspens, but the yellow leaves were falling, rustling. Out on the brow of the slope she faced home and the west.

A glorious Colorado sunset had just reached the wonderful height of its color and transformation. The sage slopes below her seemed rosy velvet; the golden aspens on the farther reaches were on fire at the tips; the foothills rolled clear and mellow and rich in the light; the gulf of distance on to the great black range was veiled in mountain purple; and the dim peaks beyond the range stood up, sunset-flushed and grand. The narrow belt of blue sky between crags and clouds was like a river full of fleecy sails and wisps of silver. Above towered a pall of dark cloud, full of the shades of approaching night.

“Oh, beautiful!” breathed the girl, with all her worship of nature. That wild world of sunset grandeur and loneliness and beauty was hers. Over there, under a peak of the black range, was the place where she had been found, a baby, lost in the forest. She belonged to that, and so it belonged to her. Strength came to her from the glory of light on the hills.

Pronto shot up his ears and checked his trot.

“What is it, boy?” called Columbine. The trail was getting dark. Shadows were creeping up the slope as she rode down to meet them. The mustang had keen sight and scent. She reined him to a halt.

All was silent. The valley had begun to shade on the far side and the rose and gold seemed fading from the nearer. Below, on the level floor of the valley, lay the rambling old ranch-house, with the cabins nestling around, and the corrals leading out to the soft hay-fields, misty and gray in the twilight. A single light gleamed. It was like a beacon.

The air was cold with a nip of frost. From far on the other side of the ridge she had descended came the bawls of the last straggling cattle of the round-up. But surely Pronto had not shot up his ears for them. As if in answer a wild sound pealed down the slope, making the mustang jump. Columbine had heard it before.

“Pronto, it’s only a wolf,” she soothed him.

The peal was loud, rather harsh at first, then softened to a mourn, wild, lonely, haunting. A pack of coyotes barked in angry answer, a sharp, staccato, yelping chorus, the more piercing notes biting on the cold night air. These mountain mourns and yelps were music to Columbine. She rode on down the trail in the gathering darkness, less afraid of the night and its wild denizens than of what awaited her at White Slides Ranch.

CHAPTER II

DARKNESS SETTLED DOWN like a black mantle over the valley. Columbine rather hoped to find Wilson waiting to take care of her horse, as used to be his habit, but she was disappointed. No light showed from the cabin in which the cowboys lived; he had not yet come in from the round-up. She unsaddled, and turned Pronto loose in the pasture.

The windows of the long, low ranch-house were bright squares in the blackness, sending cheerful rays afar. Columbine wondered in trepidation if Jack Belllounds had come home. It required effort of will to approach the house. Yet since she must meet him, the sooner the ordeal was over the better. Nevertheless she tiptoed past the bright windows, and went all the length of the long porch, and turned around and went back, and then hesitated, fighting a slow drag of her spirit, an oppression upon her heart. The door was crude and heavy. It opened hard.

Columbine entered a big room lighted by a lamp on the upper table and by blazing logs in a huge stone fireplace. This was the living-room, rather gloomy in the corners, and bare, but comfortable, for all simple needs. The logs were new and the chinks between them filled with clay, still white, showing that the house was of recent build.

The rancher, Belllounds, sat in his easy-chair before the fire, his big, horny hands extended to the warmth. He was in his shirt-sleeves, a gray, bold-faced man, of over sixty years, still muscular and rugged.

At Columbine’s entrance he raised his drooping head, and so removed the suggestion of sadness in his posture.

“Wal, lass, hyar you are,” was his greeting. “Jake has been hollerin’ thet chuck was ready. Now we can eat.”

“Dad — did — did your son come?” asked Columbine.

“No. I got word jest at sundown. One of Baker’s cowpunchers from up the valley. He rode up from Kremmlin’ an’ stopped to say Jack was celebratin’ his arrival by too much red liquor. Reckon he won’t be home to-night. Mebbe to-morrow.”

Belllounds spoke in an even, heavy tone, without any apparent feeling. Always he was mercilessly frank and never spared the truth. But Columbine, who knew him well, felt how this news flayed him. Resentment stirred in her toward the wayward son, but she knew better than to voice it.

“Natural like, I reckon, fer Jack to feel gay on gettin’ home. I ain’t holdin’ thet ag’in’ him. These last three years must have been gallin’ to thet boy.”

Columbine stretched her hands to the blaze.

“It’s cold, dad,” she averred. “I didn’t dress warmly, so I nearly froze. Autumn is here and there’s frost in the air. Oh, the hills were all gold and red — the aspen leaves were falling. I love autumn, but it means winter is so near.”

“Wal, wal, time flies,” sighed the old man. “Where’d you ride?”

“Up the west slope to the bluff. It’s far. I don’t go there often.”

“Meet any of the boys? I sent the outfit to drive stock down from the mountain. I’ve lost a good many head lately. They’re eatin’ some weed thet poisons them. They swell up an’ die. Wuss this year than ever before.”

“Why, that is serious, dad! Poor things! That’s worse than eating loco.... Yes, I met Wilson Moore driving down the slope.”

“Ahuh! Wal, let’s eat.”

They took seats at the table which the cook, Jake, was loading with steaming victuals. Supper appeared to be a rather sumptuous one this evening, in honor of the expected guest, who had not come. Columbine helped the old man to his favorite dishes, stealing furtive glances at his lined and shadowed face. She sensed a subtle change in him since the afternoon, but could not see any sign of it in his look or demeanor. His appetite was as hearty as ever.

“So you met Wils. Is he still makin’ up to you?” asked Belllounds, presently.

“No, he isn’t. I don’t see that he ever did — that — dad,” she replied.

“You’re a kid in mind an’ a woman in body. Thet cowpuncher has been lovesick over you since you were a little girl. It’s what kept him hyar ridin’ fer me.”

“Dad, I don’t believe it,” said Columbine, feeling the blood at her temples. “You always imagined such things about Wilson, and the other boys as well.”

“Ahuh! I’m an old fool about wimmen, hey? Mebbe I was years ago. But I can see now.... Didn’t Wils always get ory-eyed when any of the other boys shined up to you?”

“I can’t remember that he did,” replied Columbine. She felt a desire to laugh, yet the subject was anything but amusing to her.

“Wal, you’ve always been innocent-like. Thank the Lord you never leaned to tricks of most pretty lasses, makin’ eyes at all the men. Anyway, a matter of three months ago I told Wils to keep away from you — thet you were not fer any poor cowpuncher.”

“You never liked him. Why? Was it fair, taking him as boys come?”

“Wal, I reckon it wasn’t,” replied Belllounds, and as he looked up his broad face changed to ruddy color. “Thet boy’s the best rider an’ roper I’ve had in years. He ain’t the bronco-bustin’ kind. He never drank. He was honest an’ willin’. He saves his money. He’s good at handlin’ stock. Thet boy will be a rich rancher some day.”

“Strange, then, you never liked him,” murmured Columbine. She felt ashamed of the good it did her to hear Wilson praised.

“No, it ain’t strange. I have my own reasons,” replied Belllounds, gruffly, as he resumed eating.

Columbine believed she could guess the cause of the old rancher’s unreasonable antipathy for this cowboy. Not improbably it was because Wilson had always been superior in every way to Jack Belllounds. The boys had been natural rivals in everything pertaining to life on the range. What Bill Belllounds admired most in men was paramount in Wilson and lacking in his own son.

“Will you put Jack in charge of your ranches, now?” asked Columbine.

“Not much. I reckon I’ll try him hyar at White Slides as foreman. An’ if he runs the outfit, then I’ll see.”

“Dad, he’ll never run the White Slides outfit,” asserted Columbine.

“Wal, it is a hard bunch, I’ll agree. But I reckon the boys will stay, exceptin’, mebbe, Wils. An’ it’ll be jest as well fer him to leave.”

“It’s not good business to send away your best cowboy. I’ve heard you complain lately of lack of men.”

“I sure do need men,” replied Belllounds, seriously. “Stock gettin’ more ‘n we can handle. I sent word over the range to Meeker, hopin’ to get some men there. What I need most jest now is a fellar who knows dogs an’ who’ll hunt down the wolves an’ lions an’ bears thet’re livin’ off my cattle.”

“Dad, you need a whole outfit to handle the packs of hounds you’ve got. Such an assortment of them! There must be a hundred. Only yesterday some man brought a lot of mangy, long-eared canines. It’s funny. Why, dad, you’re the laughing-stock of the range!’

“Yes, an’ the range’ll be thankin’ me when I rid it of all these varmints,” declared Belllounds. “Lass, I swore I’d buy every dog fetched to me, until I had enough to kill off the coyotes an’ lofers an’ lions. I’ll do it, too. But I need a hunter.”

“Why not put Wilson Moore in charge of the hounds? He’s a hunter.”

“Wal, lass, thet might be a good idee,” replied the rancher, nodding his grizzled head. “Say, you’re sort of wantin’ me to keep Wils on.”

“Yes, dad.”

“Why? Do you like him so much?”

“I like him — of course. He has been almost a brother to me.”

“Ahuh! Wal, are you sure you don’t like him more ‘n you ought — considerin’ what’s in the wind?”

“Yes, I’m sure I don’t,” replied Columbine, with tingling cheeks.

“Wal, I’m glad of thet. Reckon it’ll be no great matter whether Wils stays or leaves. If he wants to I’ll give him a job with the hounds.”

That evening Columbine went to her room early. It was a cozy little blanketed nest which she had arranged and furnished herself. There was a little square window cut through the logs and through which many a night the snow had blown in upon her bed. She loved her little isolated refuge. This night it was cold, the first time this autumn, and the lighted lamp, though brightening the room, did not make it appreciably warmer. There was a stone fireplace, but as she had neglected to bring in wood she could not start a fire. So she undressed, blew out the lamp, and went to bed. Columbine was soon warm, and the darkness of her little room seemed good to her. Sleep she felt never would come that night. She wanted to think; she could not help but think; and she tried to halt the whirl of her mind. Wilson Moore occupied the foremost place in her varying thoughts — a fact quite remarkable and unaccountable. She tried to change it. In vain! Wilson persisted — on his white mustang flying across the ridge-top — coming to her as never before — with his anger and disapproval — his strange, poignant cry, “Columbine!” that haunted her — with his bitter smile and his resignation and his mocking talk of jealousy. He persisted and grew with the old rancher’s frank praise.

“I must not think of him,” she whispered. “Why, I’ll be — be married soon.... Married!”

That word transformed her thought, and where she had thrilled she now felt cold. She revolved the fact in mind.

“It’s true, I’ll be married, because I ought — I must,” she said, half aloud. “Because I can’t help myself. I ought to want to — for dad’s sake.... But I don’t — I don’t.”

She longed above all things to be good, loyal, loving, helpful, to show her gratitude for the home and the affection that had been bestowed upon a nameless waif. Bill Belllounds had not been under any obligation to succor a strange, lost child. He had done it because he was big, noble. Many splendid deeds had been laid at the old rancher’s door. She was not of an ungrateful nature. She meant to pay. But the significance of the price began to dawn upon her.

“It will change my whole life,” she whispered, aghast.

But how? Columbine pondered. She must go over the details of that change. No mother had ever taught her. The few women that had been in the Belllounds home from time to time had not been sympathetic or had not stayed long enough to help her much. Even her school life in Denver had left her still a child as regarded the serious problems of women.

“If I’m his wife,” she went on, “I’ll have to be with him — I’ll have to give up this little room — I’ll never be free — alone — happy, any more.”

That was the first detail she enumerated. It was also the last. Realization came with a sickening little shudder. And that moment gave birth to the nucleus of an unconscious revolt.

The coyotes were howling. Wild, sharp, sweet notes! They soothed her troubled, aching head, lulled her toward sleep, reminded her of the gold-and-purple sunset, and the slopes of sage, the lonely heights, and the beauty that would never change. On the morrow, she drowsily thought, she would persuade Wilson not to kill all the coyotes; to leave a few, because she loved them.

Bill Belllounds had settled in Middle Park in 1860. It was wild country, a home of the Ute Indians, and a natural paradise for elk, deer, antelope, buffalo. The mountain ranges harbored bear. These ranges sheltered the rolling valley land which some explorer had named Middle Park in earlier days.

Much of this inclosed table-land was prairie, where long grass and wild flowers grew luxuriantly. Belllounds was a cattleman, and he saw the possibilities there. To which end he sought the friendship of Piah, chief of the Utes. This noble red man was well disposed toward the white settlers, and his tribe, during those troublous times, kept peace with these invaders of their mountain home.

In 1868 Belllounds was instrumental in persuading the Utes to relinquish Middle Park. The slopes of the hills were heavily timbered; gold and silver had been found in the mountains. It was a country that attracted prospectors, cattlemen, lumbermen. The summer season was not long enough to grow grain, and the nights too frosty for corn; otherwise Middle Park would have increased rapidly in population.

In the years that succeeded the departure of the Utes Bill Belllounds developed several cattle-ranches and acquired others. White Slides Ranch lay some twenty-odd miles from Middle Park, being a winding arm of the main valley land. Its development was a matter of later years, and Belllounds lived there because the country was wilder. The rancher, as he advanced in years, seemed to want to keep the loneliness that had been his in earlier days. At the time of the return of his son to White Slides Belllounds was rich in cattle and land, but he avowed frankly that he had not saved any money, and probably never would. His hand was always open to every man and he never remembered an obligation. He trusted every one. A proud boast of his was that neither white man nor red man had ever betrayed his trust. His cowboys took advantage of him, his neighbors imposed upon him, but none were there who did not make good their debts of service or stock. Belllounds was one of the great pioneers of the frontier days to whom the West owed its settlement; and he was finer than most, because he proved that the Indians, if not robbed or driven, would respond to friendliness.

Belllounds was not seen at his customary tasks on the day he expected his son. He walked in the fields and around the corrals; he often paced up and down the porch, scanning the horizon below, where the road from Kremmling showed white down the valley; and part of the time he stayed indoors.

It so happened that early in the afternoon he came out in time to see a buckboard, drawn by dust-and-lather-stained horses, pull into the yard. And then he saw his son. Some of the cowboys came running. There were greetings to the driver, who appeared well known to them.

Jack Belllounds did not look at them. He threw a bag out of the buckboard and then clambered down slowly, to go toward the porch.

“Wal, Jack — my son — I’m sure glad you’re back home,” said the old rancher, striding forward. His voice was deep and full, singularly rich. But that was the only sign of feeling he showed.

“Howdy — dad!” replied the son, not heartily, as he put out his hand to his father’s.

Jack Belllounds’s form was tail, with a promise of his father’s bulk. But he did not walk erect; he slouched a little. His face was pale, showing he had not of late been used to sun and wind. Any stranger would have seen the resemblance of boy to man would have granted the handsome boldness, but denied the strength. The lower part of Jack Belllounds’s face was weak.

The constraint of this meeting was manifest mostly in the manner of the son. He looked ashamed, almost sullen. But if he had been under the influence of liquor at Kremmling, as reported the day before, he had entirely recovered.

“Come on in,” said the rancher.

When they got into the big living-room, and Belllounds had closed the doors, the son threw down his baggage and faced his father aggressively.

“Do they all know where I’ve been?” he asked, bitterly. Broken pride and shame flamed in his face.

“Nobody knows. The secret’s been kept.” replied Belllounds.

Amaze and relief transformed the young man. “Aw, now, I’m — glad—” he exclaimed, and he sat down, half covering his face with shaking hands.

“Jack, we’ll start over,” said Belllounds, earnestly, and his big eyes shone with a warm and beautiful light. “Right hyar. We’ll never speak of where you’ve been these three years. Never again!”

Jack gazed up, then, with all the sullenness and shadow gone.

“Father, you were wrong about — doing me good. It’s done me harm. But now, if nobody knows — why, I’ll try to forget it.”

“Mebbe I blundered,” replied Belllounds, pathetically. “Yet, God knows I meant well. You sure were — But thet’s enough palaver.... You’ll go to work as foreman of White Slides. An’ if you make a success of it I’ll be only too glad to have you boss the ranch. I’m gettin’ along in years, son. An’ the last year has made me poorer. Hyar’s a fine range, but I’ve less stock this year than last. There’s been some rustlin’ of cattle, an a big loss from wolves an’ lions an’ poison-weed.... What d’you say, son?”

“I’ll run White Slides,” replied Jack, with a wave of his hand. “I hadn’t hoped for such a chance. But it’s due me. Who’s in the outfit I know?”

“Reckon no one, except Wils Moore.”

“Is that cowboy here yet? I don’t want him.”

“Wal, I’ll put him to chasin’ varmints with the hounds. An’ say, son, this outfit is bad. You savvy — it’s bad. You can’t run that bunch. The only way you can handle them is to get up early an’ come back late. Sayin’ little, but sawin’ wood. Hard work.”

Jack Belllounds did not evince any sign of assimilating the seriousness of his father’s words.

“I’ll show them,” he said. “They’ll find out who’s boss. Oh, I’m aching to get into boots and ride and tear around.”

Belllounds stroked his grizzled beard and regarded his son with mingled pride and doubt. Not at this moment, most assuredly, could he get away from the wonderful fact that his only son was home.

“Thet’s all right, son. But you’ve been off the range fer three years. You’ll need advice. Now listen. Be gentle with hosses. You used to be mean with a hoss. Some cowboys jam their hosses around an’ make ’em pitch an’ bite. But it ain’t the best way. A hoss has got sense. I’ve some fine stock, an’ don’t want it spoiled. An’ be easy an’ quiet with the boys. It’s hard to get help these days. I’m short on hands now.... You’d do best, son, to stick to your dad’s ways with hosses an’ men.”

“Dad, I’ve seen you kick horses an’ shoot at men” replied Jack.

“Right, you have. But them was particular bad cases. I’m not advisin’ thet way.... Son, it’s close to my heart — this hope I have thet you’ll—”

The full voice quavered and broke. It would indeed have been a hardened youth who could not have felt something of the deep and unutterable affection in the old man. Jack Belllounds put an arm around his father’s shoulder.

“Dad, I’ll make you proud of me yet. Give me a chance. And don’t be sore if I can’t do wonders right at first.”

“Son, you shall have every chance. An’ thet reminds me. Do you remember Columbine?”

“I should say so,” replied Jack, eagerly. “They spoke of her in Kremmling. Where is she?”

“I reckon somewheres about. Jack, you an’ Columbine are to marry.”

“Marry! Columbine and me?” he ejaculated.

“Yes. You’re my son an’ she’s my adopted daughter. I won’t split my property. An’ it’s right she had a share. A fine, strong, quiet, pretty lass, Jack, an’ she’ll make a good wife. I’ve set my heart on the idee.”

“But Columbine always hated me.”

“Wal, she was a kid then an’ you teased her. Now she’s a woman, an’ willin’ to please me. Jack, you’ll not buck ag’in’ this deal?”

“That depends,” replied Jack. “I’d marry `most any girl you wanted me to. But if Columbine were to flout me as she used to — why, I’d buck sure enough.... Dad, are you sure she knows nothing, suspects nothing of where you — you sent me?”

“Son, I swear she doesn’t.”

“Do you mean you’d want us to marry soon?”

“Wal, yes, as soon as Collie would think reasonable. Jack, she’s shy an’ strange, an’ deep, too. If you ever win her heart you’ll be richer than if you owned all the gold in the Rockies. I’d say go slow. But contrariwise, it’d mebbe be surer to steady you, keep you home, if you married right off.”

“Married right off!” echoed Jack, with a laugh. “It’s like a story. But wait till I see her.”

At that very moment Columbine was sitting on the topmost log of a high corral, deeply interested in the scene before her.

Two cowboys were in the corral with a saddled mustang. One of them carried a canvas sack containing tools and horseshoes. As he dropped it with a metallic clink the mustang snorted and jumped and rolled the whites of his eyes. He knew what that clink meant.

“Miss Collie, air you-all goin’ to sit up thar?” inquired the taller cowboy, a lean, supple, and powerful fellow, with a rough, red-blue face, hard as a rock, and steady, bright eyes.

“I sure am, Jim,” she replied, imperturbably.

“But we’ve gotta hawg-tie him,” protested the cowboy.

“Yes, I know. And you’re going to be gentle about it.”

Jim scratched his sandy head and looked at his comrade, a little gnarled fellow, like the bleached root of a tree. He seemed all legs.

“You hear, you Wyomin’ galoot,” he said to Jim. “Them shoes goes on Whang right gentle.”

Jim grinned, and turned to speak to his mustang. “Whang, the law’s laid down an’ we wanta see how much hoss sense you hev.”

The shaggy mustang did not appear to be favorably impressed by this speech. It was a mighty distrustful look he bent upon the speaker.

“Jim, seein’ as how this here job’s aboot the last Miss Collie will ever boss us on, we gotta do it without Whang turnin’ a hair,” drawled the other cowboy.

“Lem, why is this the last job I’ll ever boss you boys?” demanded Columbine, quickly.

Jim gazed quizzically at her, and Lem assumed that blank, innocent face Columbine always associated with cowboy deviltry.

“Wal, Miss Collie, we reckon the new boss of White Slides rode in to-day.”

“You mean Jack Belllounds came home,” said Columbine. “Well, I’ll boss you boys the same as always.”

“Thet’d be mighty fine for us, but I’m feared it ain’t writ in the fatal history of White Slides,” replied Jim.

“Buster Jack will run over the ole man an’ marry you,” added Lem.

“Oh, so that’s your idea,” rejoined Columbine, lightly. “Well, if such a thing did come to pass I’d be your boss more than ever.”

“I reckon no, Miss Collie, for we’ll not be ridin’ fer White Sides,” said Jim, simply.

Columbine had sensed this very significance long before when the possibility of Buster Jack’s return had been rumored. She knew cowboys. As well try to change the rocks of the hills!

“Boys, the day you leave White Slides will be a sad one for me,” sighed Columbine.

“Miss Collie, we ‘ain’t gone yet,” put in Lem, with awkward softness. “Jim has long hankered fer Wyomin’ an’ he jest talks thet way.”

Then the cowboys turned to the business in hand. Jim removed the saddle, but left the bridle on. This move, of course, deceived Whang. He had been broken to stand while his bridle hung, and, like a horse that would have been good if given a chance, he obeyed as best he could, shaking in every limb. Jim, apparently to hobble Whang, roped his forelegs together, low down, but suddenly slipped the rope over the knees. Then Whang knew he had been deceived. He snorted fire, let out a scream, and, rearing on his hind legs, he pawed the air savagely. Jim hauled on the rope while Whang screamed and fought with his forefeet high in the air. Then Jim, with a powerful jerk, pulled Whang down and threw him, while Lem, seizing the bridle, hauled him over on his side and sat upon his head. Whereupon Jim slipped the loop off one front hoof and pulled the other leg back across one of the hind ones, where both were secured by a quick hitch. Then the lasso was wound and looped around front and back hoofs together. When this had been done the mustang was rolled over on his other side, his free front hoof lassoed and pulled back to the hind one, where both were secured, as had been the others. This rendered the mustang powerless, and the shoeing proceeded.

Columbine hated to sit by and watch it, but she always stuck to her post, when opportunity afforded, because she knew the cowboys would not be brutal while she was there.

“Wal, he’ll step high to-morrer,” said Lem, as he got up from his seat on the head of Whang.

“Ahuh! An’, like a mule, he’ll be my friend fer twenty years jest to get a chance to kick me.” replied Jim.

For Columbine, the most interesting moment of this incident was when the mustang raised his head to look at his legs, in order to see what had been done to them. There was something almost human in that look. It expressed intelligence and fear and fury.

The cowboys released his legs and let him get up. Whang stamped his iron-shod hoofs.

“It was a mean trick, Whang,” said Columbine. “If I owned you that’d never be done to you.”

“I reckon you can have him fer the askin’,” said Jim, as he threw on the saddle. “Nobody but me can ride him. Do you want to try?”

“Not in these clothes,” replied Columbine, laughing.

“Wal, Miss Collie, you’re shore dressed up fine to-day, fer some reason or other,” said Lem, shaking his head, while he gathered up the tools from the ground.

“Ahuh! An’ here comes the reason,” exclaimed Jim, in low, hoarse whisper.

Columbine heard the whisper and at the same instant a sharp footfall on the gravel road. She quickly turned, almost losing her balance. And she recognized Jack Belllounds. The boy Buster Jack she remembered so well was approaching, now a young man, taller, heavier, older, with paler face and bolder look. Columbine had feared this meeting, had prepared herself for it. But all she felt when it came was annoyance at the fact that he had caught her sitting on top of the corral fence, with little regard for dignity. It did not occur to her to jump down. She merely sat straight, smoothed down her skirt, and waited.

Jim led the mustang out of the corral and Lem followed. It looked as if they wanted to avoid the young man, but he prevented that.

“Howdy, boys! I’m Jack Belllounds,” he said, rather loftily. But his manner was nonchalant. He did not offer to shake hands.

Jim mumbled something, and Lem said, “Hod do.”

“That’s an ornery — looking bronc,” went on Belllounds, and he reached with careless hand for the mustang. Whang jerked so hard that he pulled Jim half over.

“Wal, he ain’t a bronc, but I reckon he’s all the rest.” drawled Jim.

Both cowboys seemed slow, careless. They were neither indifferent nor responsive. Columbine saw their keen, steady glances go over Belllounds. Then she took a second and less hasty look at him. He wore high-heeled, fancy-topped boots, tight-fitting trousers of dark material, a heavy belt with silver buckle, and a white, soft shirt, with wide collar, open at the neck. He was bareheaded.

“I’m going to run White Slides,” he said to the cowboys. “What’re your names?”

Columbine wanted to giggle, which impulse she smothered. The idea of any one asking Jim his name! She had never been able to find out.

“My handle is Lemuel Archibawld Billings,” replied Lem, blandly. The middle name was an addition no one had ever heard.

Belllounds then directed his glance and steps toward the girl. The cowboys dropped their heads and shuffled on their way.

“There’s only one girl on the ranch,” said Belllounds, “so you must be Columbine.”

“Yes. And you’re Jack,” she replied, and slipped off the fence. “I’m glad to welcome you home.”

She offered her hand, and he held it until she extricated it. There was genuine surprise and pleasure in his expression.

“Well, I’d never have known you,” he said, surveying her from head to foot. “It’s funny. I had the clearest picture of you in mind. But you’re not at all like I imagined. The Columbine I remember was thin, white-faced, and all eyes.”

“It’s been a long time. Seven years,” she replied. “But I knew you. You’re older, taller, bigger, but the same Buster Jack.”

“I hope not,” he said, frankly condemning that former self. “Dad needs me. He wants me to take charge here — to be a man. I’m back now. It’s good to be home. I never was worth much. Lord! I hope I don’t disappoint him again.”

“I hope so, too,” she murmured. To hear him talk frankly, seriously, like this counteracted the unfavorable impression she had received. He seemed earnest. He looked down at the ground, where he was pushing little pebbles with the toe of his boot. She had a good opportunity to study his face, and availed herself of it. He did look like his father, with his big, handsome head, and his blue eyes, bolder perhaps from their prominence than from any direct gaze or fire. His face was pale, and shadowed by worry or discontent. It seemed as though a repressed character showed there. His mouth and chin were undisciplined. Columbine could not imagine that she despised anything she saw in the features of this young man. Yet there was something about him that held her aloof. She had made up her mind to do her part unselfishly. She would find the best in him, like him for it, be strong to endure and to help. Yet she had no power to control her vague and strange perceptions. Why was it that she could not feel in him what she liked in Jim Montana or Lem or Wilson Moore?

“This was my second long stay away from home,” said Belllounds. “The first was when I went to school in Kansas City. I liked that. I was sorry when they turned me out — sent me home.... But the last three years were hell.”

His face worked, and a shade of dark blood rippled over it.

“Did you work?” queried Columbine.

“Work! It was worse than work.... Sure I worked,” he replied.

Columbine’s sharp glance sought his hands. They looked as soft and unscarred as her own. What kind of work had he done, if he told the truth?

“Well, if you work hard for dad, learn to handle the cowboys, and never take up those old bad habits—”

“You mean drink and cards? I swear I’d forgotten them for three years — until yesterday. I reckon I’ve the better of them.”

“Then you’ll make dad and me happy. You’ll be happy, too.”

Columbine thrilled at the touch of fineness coming out in him. There was good in him, whatever the mad, wild pranks of his boyhood.

“Dad wants us to marry,” he said, suddenly, with shyness and a strange, amused smile. “Isn’t that funny? You and me — who used to fight like cat and dog! Do you remember the time I pushed you into the old mud-hole? And you lay in wait for me, behind the house, to hit me with a rotten cabbage?”

“Yes, I remember,” replied Columbine, dreamily. “It seems so long ago.”

“And the time you ate my pie, and how I got even by tearing off your little dress, so you had to run home almost without a stitch on?”

“Guess I’ve forgotten that,” replied Columbine, with a blush. “I must have been very little then.”

“You were a little devil.... Do you remember the fight I had with Moore — about you?”

She did not answer, for she disliked the fleeting expression that crossed his face. He remembered too well.

“I’ll settle that score with Moore,” he went on. “Besides, I won’t have him on the ranch.”

“Dad needs good hands,” she said, with her eyes on the gray sage slopes. Mention of Wilson Moore augmented the aloofness in her. An annoyance pricked along her veins.

“Before we get any farther I’d like to know something. Has Moore ever made love to you?”

Columbine felt that prickling augment to a hot, sharp wave of blood. Why was she at the mercy of strange, quick, unfamiliar sensations? Why did she hesitate over that natural query from Jack Belllounds?

“No. He never has,” she replied, presently.

“That’s damn queer. You used to like him better than anybody else. You sure hated me.... Columbine, have you outgrown that?”

“Yes, of course,” she answered. “But I hardly hated you.”

“Dad said you were willing to marry me. Is that so?”

Columbine dropped her head. His question, kindly put, did not affront her, for it had been expected. But his actual presence, the meaning of his words, stirred in her an unutterable spirit of protest. She had already in her will consented to the demand of the old man; she was learning now, however, that she could not force her flesh to consent to a surrender it did not desire.

“Yes, I’m willing,” she replied, bravely.

“Soon?” he flashed, with an eager difference in his voice.

“If I had my way it’d not be — too soon,” she faltered. Her downcast eyes had seen the stride he had made closer to her, and she wanted to run.

“Why? Dad thinks it’d be good for me,” went on Belllounds, now, with strong, self-centered thought. “It’d give me responsibility. I reckon I need it. Why not soon?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to wait awhile?” she asked. “We do not know each other — let alone care—”

“Columbine, I’ve fallen in love with you.” he declared, hotly.

“Oh, how could you!” cried Columbine, incredulously.

“Why, I always was moony over you — when we were kids,” he said. “And now to meet you grown up like this — so pretty and sweet — such a — a healthy, blooming girl.... And dad’s word that you’d be my wife soon — mine — why, I just went off my head at sight of you.”

Columbine looked up at him and was reminded of how, as a boy, he had always taken a quick, passionate longing for things he must and would have. And his father had not denied him. It might really be that Jack had suddenly fallen in love with her.

“Would you want to take me without my — my love?” she asked, very low. “I don’t love you now. I might some time, if you were good — if you made dad happy — if you conquered—”

“Take you! I’d take you if you — if you hated me,” he replied, now in the grip of passion.

“I’ll tell dad how I feel,” she said, faintly, “and — and marry you when he says.”

He kissed her, would have embraced her had she not put him back.

“Don’t! Some — some one will see.”

“Columbine, we’re engaged,” he asserted, with a laugh of possession. “Say, you needn’t look so white and scared. I won’t eat you. But I’d like to.... Oh, you’re a sweet girl! Here I was hating to come home. And look at my luck!”

Then with a sudden change, that seemed significant of his character, he lost his ardor, dropped the half-bold, half-masterful air, and showed the softer side.

“Collie, I never was any good,” he said. “But I want to be better. I’ll prove it. I’ll make a clean breast of everything. I won’t marry you with any secret between us. You might find out afterward and hate me.... Do you have any idea where I’ve been these last three years?”

“No,” answered Columbine.

“I’ll tell you right now. But you must promise never to mention it to any one — or throw it up to me — ever.”

He spoke hoarsely, and had grown quite white. Suddenly Columbine thought of Wilson Moore! He had known where Jack had spent those years. He had resisted a strong temptation to tell her. That was as noble in him as the implication of Jack’s whereabouts had been base.

“Jack, that is big of you,” she replied, hurriedly. “I respect you — like you for it. But you needn’t tell me. I’d rather you didn’t. I’ll take the will for the deed.”

Belllounds evidently experienced a poignant shock of amaze, of relief, of wonder, of gratitude. In an instant he seemed transformed.

“Collie, if I hadn’t loved you before I’d love you now. That was going to be the hardest job I ever had — to tell you my — my story. I meant it. And now I’ll not have to feel your shame for me and I’ll not feel I’m a cheat or a liar.... But I will tell you this — if you love me you’ll make a man of me!”

CHAPTER III

THE RANCHER THOUGHT it best to wait till after the round-up before he turned over the foremanship to his son. This was wise, but Jack did not see it that way. He showed that his old, intolerant spirit had, if anything, grown during his absence. Belllounds patiently argued with him, explaining what certainly should have been clear to a young man brought up in Colorado. The fall round-up was the most important time of the year, and during the strenuous drive the appointed foreman should have absolute control. Jack gave in finally with a bad grace.

It was unfortunate that he went directly from his father’s presence out to the corrals. Some of the cowboys who had ridden all the day before and stood guard all night had just come in. They were begrimed with dust, weary, and sleepy-eyed.

“This hyar outfit won’t see my tracks no more,” said one, disgustedly. “I never kicked on doin’ two men’s work. But when it comes to rustlin’ day and night, all the time, I’m a-goin’ to pass.”

“Turn in, boys, and sleep till we get back with the chuck-wagon,” said Wilson Moore. “We’ll clean up that bunch to-day.”

“Ain’t you tired, Wils?” queried Bludsoe, a squat, bow-legged cowpuncher who appeared to be crippled or very lame.

“Me? Naw!” grunted Moore, derisively. “Blud, you sure ask fool questions.... Why, you — mahogany-colored, stump-legged, biped of a cowpuncher, I’ve had three hours’ sleep in four nights!”

“What’s a biped?” asked Bludsoe, dubiously.

Nobody enlightened him.

“Wils, you-all air the only eddicated cowman I ever loved, but I’m a son-of-a-gun if we ain’t agoin’ to come to blows some day,” declared Bludsoe.

“He shore can sling English,” drawled Lem Billings. “I reckon he swallowed a dictionary onct.”

“Wal, he can sling a rope, too, an’ thet evens up,” added Jim Montana.

Just at this moment Jack Belllounds appeared upon the scene. The cowboys took no notice of him. Jim was bandaging a leg of his horse; Bludsoe was wearily gathering up his saddle and trappings; Lem was giving his tired mustang a parting slap that meant much. Moore evidently awaited a fresh mount. A Mexican lad had come in out of the pasture leading several horses, one of which was the mottled white mustang that Moore rode most of the time.

Belllounds lounged forward with interest as Moore whistled, and the mustang showed his pleasure. Manifestly he did not like the Mexican boy and he did like Moore.

“Spottie, it’s drag yearlings around for you to-day,” said the cowboy, as he caught the mustang. Spottie tossed his head and stepped high until the bridle was on. When the saddle was thrown and strapped in place the mustang showed to advantage. He was beautiful, but not too graceful or sleek or fine-pointed or prancing to prejudice any cowboy against his qualities for work.

Jack Belllounds admiringly walked all around the mustang a little too close to please Spottie.

“Moore, he’s a fair-to-middling horse,” said Belllounds, with the air of judge of horseflesh. “What’s his name?”

“Spottie,” replied Moore, shortly, as he made ready to mount.

“Hold on, will you!” ordered Jack, peremptorily. “I like this horse. I want to look him over.”

When he grasped the bridle-reins out of the cowboy’s hand Spottie jumped as if he had been shot at. Belllounds jerked at him and went closer. The mustang reared, snorting, plunging to get loose. Then Jack Belllounds showed the sudden temper for which he was noted. Red stained his pale cheeks.

“Damn you — come down!” he shouted, infuriated at the mustang, and with both hands he gave a powerful lunge. Spottie came down, and stood there, trembling all over, his ears laid back, his eyes showing fright and pain. Blood dripped from his mouth where the bit had cut him.

“I’ll teach you to stand,” said Belllounds, darkly. “Moore, lend me your spurs. I want to try him out.”

“I don’t lend my spurs — or my horse, either,” replied the cowboy, quietly, with a stride that put him within reach of Spottie.

The other cowboys had dropped their trappings and stood at attention, with intent gaze and mute lips.

“Is he your horse?” demanded Jack, with a quick flush.

“I reckon so,” replied Moore, slowly. “No one but me ever rode him.”

“Does my father own him or do you own him?”

“Well, if that’s the way you figure — he belongs to White Slides,” returned the cowboy. “I never bought him. I only raised him from a colt, broke him, and rode him.”

“I thought so. Moore, he’s mine, and I’m going to ride him now. Lend me spurs, one of you cowpunchers.”

Nobody made any motion to comply. There seemed to be a suspense at hand that escaped Belllounds.

“I’ll ride him without spurs,” he declared, presently, and again he turned to mount the mustang.

“Belllounds, it’d be better for you not to ride him now,” said Moore, coolly.

“Why, I’d like to know?” demanded Belllounds, with the temper of one who did not tolerate opposition.

“He’s the only horse left for me to ride,” answered the cowboy. “We’re branding to-day. Hudson was hurt yesterday. He was foreman, and he appointed me to fill his place. I’ve got to rope yearlings. Now, if you get up on Spottie you’ll excite him. He’s high-strung, nervous. That’ll be bad for him, as he hates cutting-out and roping.”

The reasonableness of this argument was lost upon Belllounds.

“Moore, maybe it’d interest you to know that I’m foreman of White Slides,” he asserted, not without loftiness.

His speech manifestly decided something vital for the cowboy.

“Ahuh!... I’m sure interested this minute,” replied Moore, and then, stepping to the side of the mustang, with swift hands he unbuckled the cinch, and with one sweep he drew saddle and blanket to the ground.

The action surprised Belllounds. He stared. There seemed something boyish in his lack of comprehension. Then his temper flamed.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded, with a strident note in his voice. “Put that saddle back.”

“Not much. It’s my saddle. Cost sixty dollars at Kremmling last year. Good old hard-earned saddle!... And you can’t ride it. Savvy?”

“Yes, I savvy,” replied Belllounds, violently. “Now you’ll savvy what I say. I’ll have you discharged.”

“Nope. Too late,” said Moore, with cool, easy scorn. “I figured that. And I quit a minute ago — when you showed what little regard you had for a horse.”

“You quit!... Well, it’s damned good riddance. I wouldn’t have you in the outfit.”

“You couldn’t have kept me, Buster Jack.”

The epithet must have been an insult to Belllounds. “Don’t you dare call me that,” he burst out, furiously.

Moore pretended surprise. “Why not? It’s your range name. We all get a handle, whether we like it or not. There’s Montana and Blud and Lemme Two Bits. They call me Professor. Why should you kick on yours?”

“I won’t stand it now. Not from any one — especially not you.”

“Ahuh! Well, I’m afraid it’ll stick,” replied Moore, with sarcasm. “It sure suits you. Don’t you bust everything you monkey with? Your old dad will sure be glad to see you bust the round-up to-day — and I reckon the outfit to-morrow.”

“You insolent cowpuncher!” shouted Belllounds, growing beside himself with rage. “If you don’t shut up I’ll bust your face.”

“Shut up!... Me? Nope. It can’t be did. This is a free country, Buster Jack.” There was no denying Moore’s cool, stinging repetition of the epithet that had so affronted Belllounds.

“I always hated you!” he rasped out, hoarsely. Striking hard at Moore, he missed, but a second effort landed a glancing blow on the cowboy’s face.

Moore staggered back, recovered his balance, and, hitting out shortly, he returned the blow. Belllounds fell against the corral fence, which upheld him.

“Buster Jack — you’re crazy!” cried the cowboy, his eyes flashing. “Do you think you can lick me — after where you’ve been these three years?”

Like a maddened boy Belllounds leaped forward, this time his increased violence and wildness of face expressive of malignant rage. He swung his arms at random. Moore avoided his blows and planted a fist squarely on his adversary’s snarling mouth. Belllounds fell with a thump. He got up with clumsy haste, but did not rush forward again. His big, prominent eyes held a dark and ugly look. His lower jaw wabbled as he panted for breath and speech at once.

“Moore — I’ll kill — you!” he hissed, with glance flying everywhere for a weapon. From ground to cowboys he looked. Bludsoe was the only one packing a gun. Belllounds saw it, and he was so swift in bounding forward that he got a hand on it before Bludsoe could prevent.

“Let go! Give me — that gun! By God! I’ll fix him!” yelled Belllounds, as Bludsoe grappled with him.

There was a sharp struggle. Bludsoe wrenched the other’s hands free, and, pulling the gun, he essayed to throw it. But Belllounds blocked his action and the gun fell at their feet.

“Grab it!” sang out Bludsoe, ringingly. “Quick, somebody! The damned fool’ll kill Wils.”

Lem, running in, kicked the gun just as Belllounds reached for it. When it rolled against the fence Jim was there to secure it. Lem likewise grappled with the struggling Belllounds.

“Hyar, you Jack Belllounds,” said Lem, “couldn’t you see Wils wasn’t packin’ no gun? A-r’arin’ like thet!... Stop your rantin’ or we’ll sure handle you rough.”

“The old man’s comin’,” called Jim, warningly.

The rancher appeared. He strode swiftly, ponderously. His gray hair waved. His look was as stern as that of an eagle.

“What the hell’s goin’ on?” he roared.

The cowboys released Jack. That worthy, sullen and downcast, muttering to himself, stalked for the house.

“Jack, stand your ground,” called old Belllounds.

But the son gave no heed. Once he looked back over his shoulder, and his dark glance saw no one save Moore.

“Boss, thar’s been a little argyment,” explained Jim, as with swift hand he hid Bludsoe’s gun. “Nuthin’ much.”

“Jim, you’re a liar,” replied the old rancher.

“Aw!” exclaimed Jim, crestfallen.

“What’re you hidin’?... You’ve got somethin’ there. Gimme thet gun.”

Without more ado Jim handed the gun over.

“It’s mine, boss,” put in Bludsoe.

“Ahuh? Wal, what was Jim hidin’ it fer?” demanded Belllounds.

“Why, I jest tossed it to him — when I — sort of j’ined in with the argyment. We was tusslin’ some an’ I didn’t want no gun.”

How characteristic of cowboys that they lied to shield Jack Belllounds! But it was futile to attempt to deceive the old rancher. Here was a man who had been forty years dealing with all kinds of men and events.

“Bludsoe, you can’t fool me,” said old Bill, calmly. He had roared at them, and his eyes still flashed like blue fire, but he was calm and cool. Returning the gun to its owner, he continued: “I reckon you’d spare my feelin’s an’ lie about some trick of Jack’s. Did he bust out?”

“Wal, tolerable like,” replied Bludsoe, dryly.

“Ahuh! Tell me, then — an’ no lies.”

Belllounds’s shrewd eyes had rested upon Wilson Moore. The cowboy’s face showed the red marks of battle and the white of passion.

“I’m not going to lie, you can bet on that,” he declared, forcefully.

“Ahuh! I might hev knowed you an’ Jack’d clash,” said Belllounds, gruffly. “What happened?”

“He hurt my horse. If it hadn’t been for that there’d been no trouble.”

A light leaped up in the old man’s bold eyes. He was a lover of horses. Many hard words, and blows, too, he had dealt cowboys for being brutal.

“What’d he do?”

“Look at Spottie’s mouth.”

The rancher’s way of approaching a horse was singularly different from his son’s, notwithstanding the fact that Spottie knew him and showed no uneasiness. The examination took only a moment.

“Tongue cut bad. Thet’s a damn shame. Take thet bridle off.... There. If it’d been an ornery hoss, now.... Moore, how’d this happen?”

“We just rode in,” replied Wilson, hurriedly. “I was saddling Spottie when Jack came up. He took a shine to the mustang and wanted to ride him. When Spottie reared — he’s shy with strangers — why, Jack gave a hell of a jerk on the bridle. The bit cut Spottie.... Well, that made me mad, but I held in. I objected to Jack riding Spottie. You see, Hudson was hurt yesterday and he appointed me foreman for to-day. I needed Spottie. But your son couldn’t see it, and that made me sore. Jack said the mustang was his—”

“His?” interrupted Belllounds.

“Yes. He claimed Spottie. Well, he wasn’t really mine, so I gave in. When I threw off the saddle, which was mine, Jack began to roar. He said he was foreman and he’d have me discharged. But I said I’d quit already. We both kept getting sorer and I called him Buster Jack.... He hit me first. Then we fought. I reckon I was getting the best of him when he made a dive for Bludsoe’s gun. And that’s all.”

“Boss, as sure as I’m a born cowman,” put in Bludsoe, “he’d hev plugged Wils if he’d got my gun. At thet he damn near got it!”

The old man stroked his scant gray beard with his huge, steady hand, apparently not greatly concerned by the disclosure.

“Montana, what do you say?” he queried, as if he held strong store by that quiet cowboy’s opinion.

“Wal, boss,” replied Jim, reluctantly, “Buster Jack’s temper was bad onct, but now it’s plumb wuss.”

Whereupon Belllounds turned to Moore with a gesture and a look of a man who, in justice to something in himself, had to speak.

“Wils, it’s onlucky you clashed with Jack right off,” he said. “But thet was to be expected. I reckon Jack was in the wrong. Thet hoss was yours by all a cowboy holds right an’ square. Mebbe by law Spottie belonged to White Slides Ranch — to me. But he’s yours now, fer I give him to you.”

“Much obliged, Belllounds. I sure do appreciate that,” replied Moore, warmly. “It’s what anybody’d gamble Bill Belllounds would do.”

“Ahuh! An’ I’d take it as a favor if you’d stay on to-day an’ get thet brandin’ done:”

“All right, I’ll do that for you,” replied Moore. “Lem, I guess you won’t get your sleep till to-night. Come on.”

“Awl” sighed Lem, as he picked up his bridle.

Late that afternoon Columbine sat upon the porch, watching the sunset. It had been a quiet day for her, mostly indoors. Once only had she seen Jack, and then he was riding by toward the pasture, whirling a lasso round his head. Jack could ride like one born to the range, but he was not an adept in the use of a rope. Nor had Columbine seen the old rancher since breakfast. She had heard his footsteps, however, pacing slowly up and down his room.

She was watching the last rays of the setting sun rimming with gold the ramparts of the mountain eastward, and burning a crown for Old White Slides peak. A distant bawl and bellow of cattle had died away. The branding was over for that fall. How glad she felt! The wind, beginning to grow cold as the sun declined, cooled her hot face. In the solitude of her room Columbine had cried enough that day to scald her cheeks.

Presently, down the lane between the pastures, she saw a cowboy ride into view. Very slowly he came, leading another horse. Columbine recognized Lem a second before she saw that he was leading Pronto. That struck her as strange. Another glance showed Pronto to be limping. Apparently he could just get along, and that was all. Columbine ran out in dismay, reaching the corral gate before Lem did. At first she had eyes only for her beloved mustang.

“Oh, Lem — Pronto’s hurt!” she cried.

“Wal, I should smile he is,” replied Lem.

But Lem was not smiling. And when he wore a serious face for Columbine something had indeed happened. The cowboy was the color of dust and so tired that he reeled.

“Lem, he’s all bloody!” exclaimed Columbine, as she ran toward Pronto.

“Hyar, you jest wait,” ordered Lem, testily. “Pronto’s all cut up, an’ you gotta hustle some linen an’ salve.”

Columbine flew away to do his bidding, and so quick and violent was she that when she got back to the corral she was out of breath. Pronto whinnied as she fell, panting, on her knees beside Lem, who was examining bloody gashes on the legs of the mustang.

“Wal, I reckon no great harm did,” said Lem, with relief. “But he shore hed a close shave. Now you help me doctor him up.”

“Yes — I’ll help,” panted Columbine. “I’ve done this kind — of thing often — but never — to Pronto.... Oh, I was afraid — he’d been gored by a steer.”

“Wal, he come damn near bein’,” replied Lem, grimly. “An’ if it hedn’t been fer ridin’ you don’t see every day, why thet ornery Texas steer’d hev got him.”

“Who was riding? Lem, was it you? Oh, I’ll never be able to do enough for you!”

“Wuss luck, it weren’t me,” said Lem.

“No? Who, then?”

“Wal, it was Wils, an’ he made me swear to tell you nuthin’ — leastways about him.”

“Wils! Did he save Pronto?... And didn’t want you to tell me? Lem, something has happened. You’re not like yourself.”

“Miss Collie, I reckon I’m nigh all in,” replied Lem, wearily. “When I git this bandagin’ done I’ll fall right off my hoss.”

“But you’re on the ground now, Lem,” said Columbine, with a nervous laugh. “What happened?”

“Did you hear about the argyment this mawnin’?”

“No. What — who—”

“You can ask Ole Bill aboot thet. The way Pronto was hurt come off like this. Buster Jack rode out to where we was brandin’ an’ jumped his hoss over a fence into the pasture. He hed a rope an’ he got to chasin’ some hosses over thar. One was Pronto, an’ the son-of-a-gun somehow did git the noose over Pronto’s head. But he couldn’t hold it, or didn’t want to, fer Pronto broke loose an’ jumped the fence. This wasn’t so bad as far as it went. But one of them bad steers got after Pronto. He run an’ sure stepped on the rope, an’ fell. The big steer nearly piled on him. Pronto broke some records then. He shore was scared. Howsoever he picked out rough ground an’ run plumb into some dead brush. Reckon thar he got cut up. We was all a good ways off. The steer went bawlin’ an’ plungin’ after Pronto. Wils yelled fer a rifle, but nobody hed one. Nor a six-shooter, either.... I’m goin’ back to packin’ a gun. Wal, Wils did some ridin’ to git over thar in time to save Pronto.”

“Lem, that is not all,” said Columbine, earnestly, as the cowboy concluded. Her knowledge of the range told her that Lem had narrated nothing so far which could have been cause for his cold, grim, evasive manner; and her woman’s intuition divined a catastrophe.

“Nope.... Wils’s hoss fell on him.”

Lem broke that final news with all a cowboy’s bluntness.

“Was he hurt — Lem!” cried Columbine.

“Say, Miss Collie,” remonstrated Lem, “we’re doctorin’ up your hoss. You needn’t drop everythin’ an’ grab me like thet. An’ you’re white as a sheet, too. It ain’t nuthin’ much fer a cowboy to hev a hoss fall on him.”

“Lem Billings, I’ll hate you if you don’t tell me quick,” flashed Columbine, fiercely.

“Ahuh! So thet’s how the land lays,” replied Lem, shrewdly. “Wal, I’m sorry to tell you thet Wils was bad hurt. Now, not real bad!... The hoss fell on his leg an’ broke it. I cut off his boot. His foot was all smashed. But thar wasn’t any other hurt — honest! They’re takin’ him to Kremmlin’.”

“Ah!” Columbine’s low cry sounded strangely in her ears, as if some one else had uttered it.

“Buster Jack made two bursts this hyar day,” concluded Lem, reflectively. “Miss Collie, I ain’t shore how you’re regardin’ thet individool, but I’m tellin’ you this, fer your own good. He’s bad medicine. He has his old man’s temper thet riles up at nuthin’ an’ never felt a halter. Wusser’n thet, he’s spoiled an’ he acts like a colt thet’d tasted loco. The idee of his ropin’ Pronto right thar near the round-up! Any one would think he jest come West. Old Bill is no fool. But he wears blinders when he looks at his son. I’m predictin’ bad days fer White Slides Ranch.”

CHAPTER IV

ONLY ONE MAN at Meeker appeared to be attracted by the news that Rancher Bill Belllounds was offering employment. This was a little cadaverous-looking fellow, apparently neither young nor old, who said his name was Bent Wade. He had drifted into Meeker with two poor horses and a pack.

“Whar you from?” asked the innkeeper, observing how Wade cared for his horses before he thought of himself. The query had to be repeated.

“Cripple Creek. I was cook for some miners an’ I panned gold between times,” was the reply.

“Humph! Thet oughter been a better-payin’ job than any to be hed hereabouts.”

“Yes, got big pay there,” said Wade, with a sigh.

“What’d you leave fer?”

“We hed a fight over the diggin’s an’ I was the only one left. I’ll tell you....” Whereupon Wade sat down on a box, removed his old sombrero, and began to talk. An idler sauntered over, attracted by something. Then a miner happened by to halt and join the group.

Next, old Kemp, the patriarch of the village, came and listened attentively. Wade seemed to have a strange magnetism, a magic tongue.

He was small of stature, but wiry and muscular. His garments were old, soiled, worn. When he removed the wide-brimmed sombrero he exposed a remarkable face. It was smooth except for a drooping mustache, and pallid, with drops of sweat standing out on the high, broad forehead; gaunt and hollow-cheeked, with an enormous nose, and cavernous eyes set deep under shaggy brows. These features, however, were not so striking in themselves. Long, sloping, almost invisible lines of pain, the shadow of mystery and gloom in the deep-set, dark eyes, a sad harmony between features and expression, these marked the man’s face with a record no keen eye could miss.

Wade told a terrible tale of gold and blood and death. It seemed to relieve him. His face changed, and lost what might have been called its tragic light, its driven intensity.

His listeners shook their heads in awe. Hard tales were common in Colorado, but this one was exceptional. Two of the group left without comment. Old Kemp stared with narrow, half-recognizing eyes at the new-comer.

“Wal! Wal!” ejaculated the innkeeper. “It do beat hell what can happen!... Stranger, will you put up your hosses an’ stay?”

“I’m lookin’ for work,” replied Wade.

It was then that mention was made of Belllounds sending to Meeker for hands.

“Old Bill Belllounds thet settled Middle Park an’ made friends with the Utes,” said Wade, as if certain of his facts.

“Yep, you have Bill to rights. Do you know him?”

“I seen him once twenty years ago.”

“Ever been to Middle Park? Belllounds owns ranches there,” said the innkeeper.

“He ain’t livin’ in the Park now,” interposed Kemp. “He’s at White Slides, I reckon, these last eight or ten years. Thet’s over the Gore Range.”

“Prospected all through that country,” said Wade.

“Wal, it’s a fine part of Colorado. Hay an’ stock country — too high fer grain. Did you mean you’d been through the Park?”

“Once — long ago,” replied Wade, staring with his great, cavernous eyes into space. Some memory of Middle Park haunted him.

“Wal, then, I won’t be steerin’ you wrong,” said the innkeeper. “I like thet country. Some people don’t. An’ I say if you can cook or pack or punch cows or ‘most anythin’ you’ll find a bunk with Old Bill. I understand he was needin’ a hunter most of all. Lions an’ wolves bad! Can you hunt?”

“Hey?” queried Wade, absently, as he inclined his ear. “I’m deaf on one side.”

“Are you a good man with dogs an’ guns?” shouted his questioner.

“Tolerable,” replied Wade.

“Then you’re sure of a job.”

“I’ll go. Much obliged to you.”

“Not a-tall. I’m doin’ Belllounds a favor. Reckon you’ll put up here to-night?”

“I always sleep out. But I’ll buy feed an’ supplies,” replied Wade, as he turned to his horses.

Old Kemp trudged down the road, wagging his gray head as if he was contending with a memory sadly failing him. An hour later when Bent Wade rode out of town he passed Kemp, and hailed him. The old-timer suddenly slapped his leg: “By Golly! I knowed I’d met him before!”

Later, he said with a show of gossipy excitement to his friend the innkeeper, “Thet fellar was Bent Wade!”

“So he told me,” returned the other.

“But didn’t you never hear of him? Bent Wade?”

“Now you tax me, thet name do ‘pear familiar. But dash take it, I can’t remember. I knowed he was somebody, though. Hope I didn’t wish a gun-fighter or outlaw on Old Bill. Who was he, anyhow?”

“They call him Hell-Bent Wade. I seen him in Wyomin’, whar he were a stage-driver. But I never heerd who he was an’ what he was till years after. Thet was onct I dropped down into Boulder. Wade was thar, all shot up, bein’ nussed by Sam Coles. Sam’s dead now. He was a friend of Wade’s an’ knowed him fer long. Wal, I heerd all thet anybody ever heerd about him, I reckon. Accordin’ to Coles this hyar Hell-Bent Wade was a strange, wonderful sort of fellar. He had the most amazin’ ways. He could do anythin’ under the sun better’n any one else. Bad with guns! He never stayed in one place fer long. He never hunted trouble, but trouble follered him. As I remember Coles, thet was Wade’s queer idee — he couldn’t shake trouble. No matter whar he went, always thar was hell. Thet’s what gave him the name Hell-Bent.... An’ Coles swore thet Wade was the whitest man he ever knew. Heart of gold, he said. Always savin’ somebody, helpin’ somebody, givin’ his money or time — never thinkin’ of himself a-tall.... When he began to tell thet story about Cripple Creek then my ole head begun to ache with rememberin’. Fer I’d heerd Bent Wade talk before. Jest the same kind of story he told hyar, only wuss. Lordy! but thet fellar has seen times. An’ queerest of all is thet idee he has how hell’s on his trail an’ everywhere he roams it ketches up with him, an’ thar he meets the man who’s got to hear his tale!”

Sunset found Bent Wade far up the valley of White River under the shadow of the Flat Top Mountains. It was beautiful country. Grassy hills, with colored aspen groves, swelled up on his left, and across the brawling stream rose a league-long slope of black spruce, above which the bare red-and-gray walls of the range towered, glorious with the blaze of sinking sun. White patches of snow showed in the sheltered nooks. Wade’s gaze rested longest on the colored heights.

By and by the narrow valley opened into a park, at the upper end of which stood a log cabin. A few cattle and horses grazed in an inclosed pasture. The trail led by the cabin. As Wade rode up a bushy-haired man came out of the door, rifle in hand. He might have been going out to hunt, but his scrutiny of Wade was that of a lone settler in a wild land.

“Howdy, stranger!” he said.

“Good evenin’,” replied Wade. “Reckon you’re Blair an’ I’m nigh the headwaters of this river?”

“Yep, a matter of three miles to Trapper’s Lake.”

“My name’s Wade. I’m packin’ over to take a job with Bill Belllounds.”

“Git down an’ come in,” returned Blair. “Bill’s man stopped with me some time ago.”

“Obliged, I’m sure, but I’ll be goin’ on,” responded Wade. “Do you happen to have a hunk of deer meat? Game powerful scarce comin’ up this valley.”

“Lots of deer an’ elk higher up. I chased a bunch of more ‘n thirty, I reckon, right out of my pasture this mornin’.”

Blair crossed to an open shed near by and returned with half a deer haunch, which he tied upon Wade’s pack-horse.

“My ole woman’s ailin’. Do you happen to hev some terbaccer?

“I sure do — both smokin’ an’ chewin’, an’ I can spare more chewin’. A little goes a long ways with me.”

“Wal, gimme some of both, most chewin’,” replied Blair, with evident satisfaction.

“You acquainted with Belllounds?” asked Wade, as he handed over the tobacco.

“Wal, yes, everybody knows Bill. You’d never find a whiter boss in these hills.”

“Has he any family?”

“Now, I can’t say as to thet,” replied Blair. “I heerd he lost a wife years ago. Mebbe he married ag’in. But Bill’s gittin’ along.”

“Good day to you, Blair,” said Wade, and took up his bridle.

“Good day an’ good luck. Take the right-hand trail. Better trot up a bit, if you want to make camp before dark.”

Wade soon entered the spruce forest. Then he came to a shallow, roaring river. The horses drank the water, foaming white and amber around their knees, and then with splash and thump they forded it over the slippery rocks. As they cracked out upon the trail a covey of grouse whirred up into the low branches of spruce-trees. They were tame.

“That’s somethin’ like,” said Wade. “First birds I’ve seen this fall. Reckon I can have stew any day.”

He halted his horse and made a move to dismount, but with his eyes on the grouse he hesitated. “Tame as chickens, an’ they sure are pretty.”

Then he rode on, leading his pack-horse. The trail was not steep, although in places it had washed out, thus hindering a steady trot. As he progressed the forest grew thick and darker, and the fragrance of pine and spruce filled the air. A dreamy roar of water rushing over rocks rang in the traveler’s ears. It receded at times, then grew louder. Presently the forest shade ahead lightened and he rode out into a wide space where green moss and flags and flowers surrounded a wonderful spring-hole. Sunset gleams shone through the trees to color the wide, round pool. It was shallow all along the margin, with a deep, large green hole in the middle, where the water boiled up. Trout were feeding on gnats and playing on the surface, and some big ones left wakes behind them as they sped to deeper water. Wade had an appreciative eye for all this beauty, his gaze lingering longest upon the flowers.

“Wild woods is the place for me,” he soliloquized, as the cool wind fanned his cheeks and the sweet tang of evergreen tingled his nostrils. “But sure I’m most haunted in these lonely, silent places.”

Bent Wade had the look of a haunted man. Perhaps the consciousness he confessed was part of his secret.

Twilight had come when again he rode out into the open. Trapper’s Lake lay before him, a beautiful sheet of water, mirroring the black slopes and the fringed spruces and the flat peaks. Over all its gray, twilight-softened surface showed little swirls and boils and splashes where the myriads of trout were rising. The trail led out over open grassy shores, with a few pines straggling down to the lake, and clumps of spruces raising dark blurs against the background of gleaming lake. Wade heard a sharp crack of hoofs on rock, and he knew he had disturbed deer at their drinking; also he heard a ring of horns on the branch of a tree, and was sure an elk was slipping off through the woods. Across the lake he saw a camp-fire and a pale, sharp-pointed object that was a trapper’s tent or an Indian’s tepee.

Selecting a camp-site for himself, he unsaddled his horse, threw the pack off the other, and, hobbling both animals, he turned them loose. His roll of bedding, roped in canvas tarpaulin, he threw under a spruce-tree. Then he opened his oxhide-covered packs and laid out utensils and bags, little and big. All his movements were methodical, yet swift, accurate, habitual. He was not thinking about what he was doing. It took him some little time to find a suitable log to split for fire-wood, and when he had started a blaze night had fallen, and the light as it grew and brightened played fantastically upon the isolating shadows.

Lid and pot of the little Dutch oven he threw separately upon the sputtering fire, and while they heated he washed his hands, mixed the biscuits, cut slices of meat off the deer haunch, and put water on to boil. He broiled his meat on the hot, red coals, and laid it near on clean pine chips, while he waited for bread to bake and coffee to boil. The smell of wood-smoke and odorous steam from pots and the fragrance of spruce mingled together, keen, sweet, appetizing. Then he ate his simple meal hungrily, with the content of the man who had fared worse.

After he had satisfied himself he washed his utensils and stowed them away, with the bags. Whereupon his movements acquired less dexterity and speed. The rest hour had come. Still, like the long-experienced man in the open, he looked around for more to do, and his gaze fell upon his weapons, lying on his saddle. His rifle was a Henry — shiny and smooth from long service and care. His small gun was a Colt’s 45. It had been carried in a saddle holster. Wade rubbed the rifle with his hands, and then with a greasy rag which he took from the sheath. After that he held the rifle to the heat of the fire. A squall of rain had overtaken him that day, wetting his weapons. A subtle and singular difference seemed to show in the way he took up the Colt’s. His action was slow, his look reluctant. The small gun was not merely a thing of steel and powder and ball. He dried it and rubbed it with care, but not with love, and then he stowed it away.

Next Wade unrolled his bed under the spruce, with one end of the tarpaulin resting on the soft mat of needles. On top of that came the two woolly sheepskins, which he used to lie upon, then his blankets, and over all the other end of the tarpaulin.

This ended his tasks for the day. He lighted his pipe and composed himself beside the camp-fire to smoke and rest awhile before going to bed. The silence of the wilderness enfolded lake and shore; yet presently it came to be a silence accentuated by near and distant sounds, faint, wild, lonely — the low hum of falling water, the splash of tiny waves on the shore, the song of insects, and the dismal hoot of owls.

“Bill Belllounds — an’ he needs a hunter,” soliloquized Bent Wade, with gloomy, penetrating eyes, seeing far through the red embers. “That will suit me an’ change my luck, likely. Livin’ in the woods, away from people — I could stick to a job like that.... But if this White Slides is close to the old trail I’ll never stay.”

He sighed, and a darker shadow, not from flickering fire, overspread his cadaverous face. Eighteen years ago he had driven the woman he loved away from him, out into the world with her baby girl. Never had he rested beside a camp-fire that that old agony did not recur! Jealous fool! Too late he had discovered his fatal blunder; and then had begun a search over Colorado, ending not a hundred miles across the wild mountains from where he brooded that lonely hour — a search ended by news of the massacre of a wagon-train by Indians.

That was Bent Wade’s secret.

And no earthly sufferings could have been crueler than his agony and remorse, as through the long years he wandered on and on. The very good that he tried to do seemed to foment evil. The wisdom that grew out of his suffering opened pitfalls for his wandering feet. The wildness of men and the passion of women somehow waited with incredible fatality for that hour when chance led him into their lives. He had toiled, he had given, he had fought, he had sacrificed, he had killed, he had endured for the human nature which in his savage youth he had betrayed. Yet out of his supreme and endless striving to undo, to make reparation, to give his life, to find God, had come, it seemed to Wade in his abasement, only a driving torment.

But though his thought and emotion fluctuated, varying, wandering, his memory held a fixed and changeless picture of a woman, fair and sweet, with eyes of nameless blue, and face as white as a flower.

“Baby would have been — let’s see— ‘most nineteen years old now — if she’d lived,” he said. “A big girl, I reckon, like her mother.... Strange how, as I grow older, I remember better!”

The night wind moaned through the spruces; dark clouds scudded across the sky, blotting out the bright stars; a steady, low roar of water came from the outlet of the lake. The camp-fire flickered and burned out, so that no sparks blew into the blackness, and the red embers glowed and paled and crackled. Wade at length got up and made ready for bed. He threw back tarpaulin and blankets, and laid his rifle alongside where he could cover it. His coat served for a pillow and he put the Colt’s gun under that; then pulling off his boots, he slipped into bed, dressed as he was, and, like all men in the open, at once fell asleep.

For Wade, and for countless men like him, who for many years had roamed the West, this sleeping alone in wild places held both charm and peril. But the fascination of it was only a vague realization, and the danger was laughed at.

Over Bent Wade’s quiet form the shadows played, the spruce boughs waved, the piny needles rustled down, the wind moaned louder as the night advanced. By and by the horses rested from their grazing; the insects ceased to hum; and the continuous roar of water dominated the solitude. If wild animals passed Wade’s camp they gave it a wide berth.

Sunrise found Wade on the trail, climbing high up above the lake, making for the pass over the range. He walked, leading his horses up a zigzag trail that bore the tracks of recent travelers. Although this country was sparsely settled, yet there were men always riding from camp to camp or from one valley town to another. Wade never tarried on a well-trodden trail.

As he climbed higher the spruce-trees grew smaller, no longer forming a green aisle before him, and at length they became dwarfed and stunted, and at last failed altogether. Soon he was above timber-line and out upon a flat-topped mountain range, where in both directions the land rolled and dipped, free of tree or shrub, colorful with grass and flowers. The elevation exceeded eleven thousand feet. A whipping wind swept across the plain-land. The sun was pale-bright in the east, slowly being obscured by gray clouds. Snow began to fall, first in scudding, scanty flakes, but increasing until the air was full of a great, fleecy swirl. Wade rode along the rim of a mountain wall, watching a beautiful snow-storm falling into the brown gulf beneath him. Once as he headed round a break he caught sight of mountain-sheep cuddled under a protecting shelf. The snow-squall blew away, like a receding wall, leaving grass and flowers wet. As the dark clouds parted, the sun shone warmer out of the blue. Gray peaks, with patches of white, stood up above their black-timbered slopes.

Wade soon crossed the flat-topped pass over the range and faced a descent, rocky and bare at first, but yielding gradually to the encroachment of green. He left the cold winds and bleak trails above him. In an hour, when he was half down the slope, the forest had become warm and dry, fragrant and still. At length he rode out upon the brow of a last wooded bench above a grassy valley, where a bright, winding stream gleamed in the sun. While the horses rested Wade looked about him. Nature never tired him. If he had any peace it emanated from the silent places, the solemn hills, the flowers and animals of the wild and lonely land.

A few straggling pines shaded this last low hill above the valley. Grass grew luxuriantly there in the open, but not under the trees, where the brown needle-mats jealously obstructed the green. Clusters of columbines waved their graceful, sweet, pale-blue flowers that Wade felt a joy in seeing. He loved flowers — columbines, the glory of Colorado, came first, and next the many-hued purple asters, and then the flaunting spikes of paint-brush, and after them the nameless and numberless wild flowers that decked the mountain meadows and colored the grass of the aspen groves and peeped out of the edge of snow fields.

“Strange how it seems good to live — when I look at a columbine — or watch a beaver at his work — or listen to the bugle of an elk!” mused Bent Wade. He wondered why, with all his life behind him, he could still find comfort in these things.

Then he rode on his way. The grassy valley, with its winding stream, slowly descended and widened, and left foothill and mountain far behind. Far across a wide plain rose another range, black and bold against the blue. In the afternoon Wade reached Elgeria, a small hamlet, but important by reason of its being on the main stage line, and because here miners and cattlemen bought supplies. It had one street, so wide it appeared to be a square, on which faced a line of bold board houses with high, flat fronts. Wade rode to the inn where the stagecoaches made headquarters. It suited him to feed and rest his horses there, and partake of a meal himself, before resuming his journey.

The proprietor was a stout, pleasant-faced little woman, loquacious and amiable, glad to see a stranger for his own sake rather than from considerations of possible profit. Though Wade had never before visited Elgeria, he soon knew all about the town, and the miners up in the hills, and the only happenings of moment — the arrival and departure of stages.

“Prosperous place,” remarked Wade. “I saw that. An’ it ought to be growin’.”

“Not so prosperous fer me as it uster be,” replied the lady. “We did well when my husband was alive, before our competitor come to town. He runs a hotel where miners can drink an’ gamble. I don’t.... But I reckon I’ve no cause to complain. I live.”

“Who runs the other hotel?”

“Man named Smith. Reckon thet’s not his real name. I’ve had people here who — but it ain’t no matter.”

“Men change their names,” replied Wade.

“Stranger, air you packin’ through or goin’ to stay?”

“On my way to White Slides Ranch, where I’m goin’ to work for Belllounds. Do you know him?”

“Know Belllounds? Me? Wal, he’s the best friend I ever had when I was at Kremmlin’. I lived there several years. My husband had stock there. In fact, Bill started us in the cattle business. But we got out of there an’ come here, where Bob died, an’ I’ve been stuck ever since.”

“Everybody has a good word for Belllounds,” observed Wade.

“You’ll never hear a bad one,” replied the woman, with cheerful warmth. “Bill never had but one fault, an’ people loved him fer thet.”

“What was it?”

“He’s got a wild boy thet he thinks the sun rises an’ sets in. Buster Jack, they call him. He used to come here often. But Bill sent him away somewhere. The boy was spoiled. I saw his mother years ago — she’s dead this long time — an’ she was no wife fer Bill Belllounds. Jack took after her. An’ Bill was thet woman’s slave. When she died all his big heart went to the son, an’ thet accounts. Jack will never be any good.”

Wade thoughtfully nodded his head, as if he understood, and was pondering other possibilities.

“Is he the only child?”

“There’s a girl, but she’s not Bill’s kin. He adopted her when she was a baby. An’ Jack’s mother hated this child — jealous, we used to think, because it might grow up an’ get some of Bill’s money.’

“What’s the girl’s name?” asked Wade.

“Columbine. She was over here last summer with Old Bill. They stayed with me. It was then Bill had hard words with Smith across the street. Bill was resentin’ somethin’ Smith put in my way. Wal, the lass’s the prettiest I ever seen in Colorado, an’ as good as she’s pretty. Old Bill hinted to me he’d likely make a match between her an’ his son Jack. An’ I ups an’ told him, if Jack hadn’t turned over a new leaf when he comes home, thet such a marriage would be tough on Columbine. Whew, but Old Bill was mad. He jest can’t stand a word ag’in’ thet Buster Jack.”

“Columbine Belllounds,” mused Wade. “Queer name.”

“Oh, I’ve knowed three girls named Columbine. Don’t you know the flower? It’s common in these parts. Very delicate, like a sago lily, only paler.”

“Were you livin’ in Kremmlin’ when Belllounds adopted the girl?” asked Wade.

“Laws no!” was the reply. “Thet was long before I come to Middle Park. But I heerd all about it. The baby was found by gold-diggers up in the mountains. Must have got lost from a wagon-train thet Indians set on soon after — so the miners said. Anyway, Old Bill took the baby an’ raised her as his own.”

“How old is she now?” queried Wade, with a singular change in his tone.

“Columbine’s around nineteen.”

Bent Wade lowered his head a little, hiding his features under the old, battered, wide-brimmed hat. The amiable innkeeper did not see the tremor that passed over him, nor the slight stiffening that followed, nor the gray pallor of his face. She went on talking until some one called her.

Wade went outdoors, and with bent head walked down the street, across a little river, out into green pasture-land. He struggled with an amazing possibility. Columbine Belllounds might be his own daughter. His heart leaped with joy. But the joy was short-lived. No such hope in this world for Bent Wade! This coincidence, however, left him with a strange, prophetic sense in his soul of a tragedy coming to White Slides Ranch. Wade possessed some power of divination, some strange gift to pierce the veil of the future. But he could not exercise this power at will; it came involuntarily, like a messenger of trouble in the dark night. Moreover, he had never yet been able to draw away from the fascination of this knowledge. It lured him on. Always his decision had been to go on, to meet this boding circumstance, or to remain and meet it, in the hope that he might take some one’s burden upon his shoulders. He sensed it now, in the keen, poignant clairvoyance of the moment — the tangle of life that he was about to enter. Old Bill Belllounds, big and fine, victim of love for a wayward son; Buster Jack, the waster, the tearer-down, the destroyer, the wild youth at a wild time; Columbine, the girl of unknown birth, good and loyal, subject to a condition sure to ruin her. Wade’s strange mind revolved a hundred outcomes to this conflict of characters, but not one of them was the one that was written. That remained dark. Never had he received so strong a call out of the unknown, nor had he ever felt such intense curiosity. Hope had long been dead in him, except the one that he might atone in some way for the wrong he had done his wife. So the pangs of emotion that recurred, in spite of reason and bitterness, were not recognized by him as lingering hopes. Wade denied the human in him, but he thrilled at the thought of meeting Columbine Belllounds. There was something here beyond all his comprehension.

“It might — be true!” he whispered. “I’ll know when I see her.”

Then he walked back toward the inn. On the way he looked into the barroom of the hotel run by Smith. It was a hard-looking place, half full of idle men, whose faces were as open pages to Bent Wade. Curiosity did not wholly control the impulse that made him wait at the door till he could have a look at the man Smith. Somewhere, at some time, Wade had met most of the veterans of western Colorado. So much he had traveled! But the impulse that held him was answered and explained when Smith came in — a burly man, with an ugly scar marring one eye. Bent Wade recognized Smith. He recognized the scar. For that scar was his own mark, dealt to this man, whose name was not Smith, and who had been as evil as he looked, and whose nomadic life was not due to remorse or love of travel.

Wade passed on without being seen. This recognition meant less to him than it would have ten years ago, as he was not now the kind of man who hunted old enemies for revenge or who went to great lengths to keep out of their way. Men there were in Colorado who would shoot at him on sight. There had been more than one that had shot to his cost.

That night Wade camped in the foothills east of Elgeria, and upon the following day, at sunrise, his horses were breaking the frosty grass and ferns of the timbered range. This he crossed, rode down into a valley where a lonely cabin nestled, and followed an old, blazed trail that wound up the course of a brook. The water was of a color that made rock and sand and moss seem like gold. He saw no signs or tracks of game. A gray jay now and then screeched his approach to unseen denizens of the woods. The stream babbled past him over mossy ledges, under the dark shade of clumps of spruces, and it grew smaller as he progressed toward its source. At length it was lost in a swale of high, rank grass, and the blazed trail led on through heavy pine woods. At noon he reached the crest of the divide, and, halting upon an open, rocky eminence, he gazed down over a green and black forest, slow-descending to a great irregular park that was his destination for the night.

Wade needed meat, and to that end, as he went on, he kept a sharp lookout for deer, especially after he espied fresh tracks crossing the trail. Slipping along ahead of his horses, that followed, him almost too closely to permit of his noiseless approach to game, he hunted all the way down to the great open park without getting a shot.

This park was miles across and miles long, covered with tall, waving grass, and it had straggling arms that led off into the surrounding belt of timber. It sloped gently toward the center, where a round, green acreage of grass gave promise of water. Wade rode toward this, keeping somewhat to the right, as he wanted to camp at the edge of the woods. Soon he rode out beyond one of the projecting peninsulas of forest to find the park spreading wider in that direction. He saw horses grazing with elk, and far down at the notch, where evidently the park had outlet in a narrow valley, he espied the black, hump-shaped, shaggy forms of buffalo. They bobbed off out of sight. Then the elk saw or scented him, and they trotted away, the antlered bulls ahead of the cows. Wade wondered if the horses were wild. They showed great interest, but no fear. Beyond them was a rising piece of ground, covered with pine, and it appeared to stand aloft from the forest on the far side as well as upon that by which he was approaching. Riding a mile or so farther he ascertained that this bit of wooded ground resembled an island in a lake. Presently he saw smoke arising above the treetops.

A tiny brook welled out of the green center of the park and meandered around to pass near the island of pines. Wade saw unmistakable signs of prospecting along this brook, and farther down, where he crossed it, he found tracks made that day.

The elevated plot of ground appeared to be several acres in extent, covered with small-sized pines, and at the far edge there was a little log cabin. Wade expected to surprise a lone prospector at his evening meal. As he rode up a dog ran out of the cabin, barking furiously. A man, dressed in fringed buckskin, followed. He was tall, and had long, iron-gray hair over his shoulders. His bronzed and weather-beaten face was a mass of fine wrinkles where the grizzled hair did not hide them, and his shining, red countenance proclaimed an honest, fearless spirit.

“Howdy, stranger!” he called, as Wade halted several rods distant. His greeting was not welcome, but it was civil. His keen scrutiny, however, attested to more than his speech.

“Evenin’, friend,” replied Wade. “Might I throw my pack here?”

“Sure. Get down,” answered the other. “I calkilate I never seen you in these diggin’s.”

“No. I’m Bent Wade, an’ on my way to White Slides to work for Belllounds.”

“Glad to meet you. I’m new hereabouts, myself, but I know Belllounds. My name’s Lewis. I was jest cookin’ grub. An’ it’ll burn, too, if I don’t rustle. Turn your hosses loose an’ come in.”

Wade presented himself with something more than his usual methodical action. He smelled buffalo steak, and he was hungry. The cabin had been built years ago, and was a ramshackle shelter at best. The stone fireplace, however, appeared well preserved. A bed of red coals glowed and cracked upon the hearth.

“Reckon I sure smelled buffalo meat,” observed Wade, with much satisfaction. “It’s long since I chewed a hunk of that.”

“All ready. Now pitch in.... Yes, thar’s some buffalo left in here. Not hunted much. Thar’s lots of elk an’ herds of deer. After a little snow you’d think a drove of sheep had been trackin’ around. An’ some bear.”

Wade did not waste many words until he had enjoyed that meal. Later, while he helped his host, he recurred to the subject of game.

“If there’s so many deer then there’s lions an’ wolves.”

“You bet. I see tracks every day. Had a shot at a lofer not long ago. Missed him. But I reckon thar’s more varmints over in the Troublesome country back of White Slides.”

“Troublesome! Do they call it that?” asked Wade, with a queer smile.

“Sure. An’ it is troublesome. Belllounds has been tryin’ to hire a hunter. Offered me big wages to kill off the wolves an’ lions.”

“That’s the job I’m goin’ to take.”

“Good!” exclaimed Lewis. “I’m sure glad. Belllounds is a nice fellar. I felt sort of cheap till I told him I wasn’t really a hunter. You see, I’m prospectin’ up here, an’ pretendin’ to be a hunter.”

“What do you make that bluff for?” queried Wade.

“You couldn’t fool any one who’d ever prospected for gold. I saw your signs out here.”

“Wal, you’ve sharp eyes, thet’s all. Wade, I’ve some ondesirable neighbors over here. I’d just as lief they didn’t see me diggin’ gold. Lately I’ve had a hunch they’re rustlin’ cattle. Anyways, they’ve sold cattle in Kremmlin’ thet came from over around Elgeria.”

“Wherever there’s cattle there’s sure to be some stealin’,” observed Wade.

“Wal, you needn’t say anythin’ to Belllounds, because mebbe I’m wrong. An’ if I found out I was right I’d go down to White Slides an’ tell it myself. Belllounds done some favors.”

“How far to White Slides?” asked Wade, with a puff on his pipe.

“Roundabout trail, an’ rough, but you’ll make it in one day, easy. Beautiful country. Open, big peaks an’ ranges, with valleys an’ lakes. Never seen such grass!”

“Did you ever see Belllounds’s son?”

“No. Didn’t know he hed one. But I seen his gal the fust day I was thar. She was nice to me. I went thar to be fixed up a bit. Nearly chopped my hand off. The gal — Columbine, she’s called — doctored me up. Fact is, I owe considerable to thet White Slides Ranch. There’s a cowboy, Wils somethin’, who rode up here with some medicine fer me — some they didn’t have when I was thar. You’ll like thet boy. I seen he was sweet on the gal an’ I sure couldn’t blame him.”

Bent Wade removed his pipe and let out a strange laugh, significant with its little note of grim confirmation.

“What’s funny about thet?” demanded Lewis, rather surprised.

“I was only laughin’,” replied Wade. “What you said about the cowboy bein’ sweet on the girl popped into my head before you told it. Well, boys will be boys. I was young once an’ had my day.”

Lewis grunted as he bent over to lift a red coal to light his pipe, and as he raised his head he gave Wade a glance of sympathetic curiosity.

“Wal, I hope I’ll see more of you,” he said, as his guest rose, evidently to go.

“Reckon you will, as I’ll be chasin’ hounds all over. An’ I want a look at them neighbors you spoke of that might be rustlers.... I’ll turn in now. Good night.”

CHAPTER V

BENT WADE RODE out of the forest to look down upon the White Slides country at the hour when it was most beautiful.

“Never seen the beat of that!” he exclaimed, as he halted.

The hour was sunset, with the golden rays and shadows streaking ahead of him down the rolling sage hills, all rosy and gray with rich, strange softness. Groves of aspens stood isolated from one another — here crowning a hill with blazing yellow, and there fringing the brow of another with gleaming gold, and lower down reflecting the sunlight with brilliant red and purple. The valley seemed filled with a delicate haze, almost like smoke. White Slides Ranch was hidden from sight, as it lay in the bottomland. The gray old peak towered proud and aloof, clear-cut and sunset-flushed against the blue. The eastern slope of the valley was a vast sweep of sage and hill and grassy bench and aspen bench, on fire with the colors of autumn made molten by the last flashing of the sun. Great black slopes of forest gave sharp contrast, and led up to the red-walled ramparts of the mountain range.

Wade watched the scene until the fire faded, the golden shafts paled and died, the rosy glow on sage changed to cold steel gray. Then he rode out upon the foothills. The trail led up and down slopes of sage. Grass grew thicker as he descended. Once he startled a great flock of prairie-chickens, or sage-hens, large gray birds, lumbering, swift fliers, that whirred up, and soon plumped down again into the sage. Twilight found him on a last long slope of the foothills, facing the pasture-land of the valley, with the ranch still five miles distant, now showing misty and dim in the gathering shadows.

Wade made camp where a brook ran near an aspen thicket. He had no desire to hurry to meet events at White Slides Ranch, although he longed to see this girl that belonged to Belllounds. Night settled down over the quiet foothills. A pack of roving coyotes visited Wade, and sat in a half-circle in the shadows back of the camp-fire. They howled and barked. Nevertheless sleep visited Wade’s tired eyelids the moment he lay down and closed them.

Next morning, rather late, Wade rode down to White Slides Ranch. It looked to him like the property of a rich rancher who held to the old and proven customs of his generation. The corrals were new, but their style was old. Wade reflected that it would be hard for rustlers or horse-thieves to steal out of those corrals. A long lane led from the pasture-land, following the brook that ran through the corrals and by the back door of the rambling, comfortable-looking cabin. A cowboy was leading horses across a wide square between the main ranch-house and a cluster of cabins and sheds. He saw the visitor and waited.

“Mornin’,” said Wade, as he rode up.

“Hod do,” replied the cowboy.

Then these two eyed each other, not curiously nor suspiciously, but with that steady, measuring gaze common to Western men.

“My name’s Wade,” said the traveler. “Come from Meeker way. I’m lookin’ for a job with Belllounds.”

“I’m Lem Billings,” replied the other. “Ridin’ fer White Slides fer years. Reckon the boss’ll be glad to take you on.”

“Is he around?”

“Sure. I jest seen him,” replied Billings, as he haltered his horses to a post. “I reckon I ought to give you a hunch.”

“I’d take that as a favor.”

“Wal, we’re short of hands,” said the cowboy. “Jest got the round-up over. Hudson was hurt an’ Wils Moore got crippled. Then the boss’s son has been put on as foreman. Three of the boys quit. Couldn’t stand him. This hyar son of Belllounds is a son-of-a-gun! Me an’ pards of mine, Montana an’ Bludsoe, are stickin’ on — wal, fer reasons thet ain’t egzactly love fer the boss. But Old Bill’s the best of bosses.... Now the hunch is — thet if you git on hyar you’ll hev to do two or three men’s work.”

“Much obliged,” replied Wade. “I don’t shy at that.”

“Wal, git down an’ come in,” added Billings, heartily.

He led the way across the square, around the corner of the ranch-house, and up on a long porch, where the arrangement of chairs and blankets attested to the hand of a woman. The first door was open, and from it issued voices; first a shrill, petulant boy’s complaint, and then a man’s deep, slow, patient reply.

Lem Billings knocked on the door-jamb.

“Wal, what’s wanted?” called Belllounds.

“Boss, thar’s a man wantin’ to see you,” replied Lem.

Heavy steps approached the doorway and it was filled with the large figure of the rancher. Wade remembered Belllounds and saw only a gray difference in years.

“Good mornin’, Lem, an’ good moinin’ to you, stranger,” was the rancher’s greeting, his bold, blue glance, honest and frank and keen, with all his long experience of men, taking Wade in with one flash.

Lem discreetly walked to the end of the porch as another figure, that of the son who resembled the father, filled the doorway, with eyes less kind, bent upon the visitor.

“My name’s Wade. I’m over from Meeker way, hopin’ to find a job with you,” said Wade.

“Glad to meet you,” replied Belllounds, extending his huge hand to shake Wade’s. “I need you, sure bad. What’s your special brand of work?”

“I reckon any kind.”

“Set down, stranger,” replied Belllounds, pulling up a chair. He seated himself on a bench and leaned against the log wall. “Now, when a boy comes an’ says he can do anythin’, why I jest haw! haw! at him. But you’re a man, Wade, an’ one as has been there. Now I’m hard put fer hands. Jest speak out now fer yourself. No one else can speak fer you, thet’s sure. An’ this is bizness.”

“Any work with stock, from punchin’ steers to doctorin’ horses,” replied Wade, quietly. “Am fair carpenter an’ mason. Good packer. Know farmin’. Can milk cows an’ make butter. I’ve been cook in many outfits. Read an’ write an’ not bad at figures. Can do work on saddles an’ harness, an-”

“Hold on!” yelled Belllounds, with a hearty laugh. “I ain’t imposin’ on no man, no matter how I need help. You’re sure a jack of all range trades. An’ I wish you was a hunter.”

“I was comin’ to that. You didn’t give me time.”

“Say, do you know hounds?” queried Belllounds, eagerly.

“Yes. Was raised where everybody had packs. I’m from Kentucky. An’ I’ve run hounds off an’ on for years. I’ll tell you—”

Belllounds interrupted Wade.

“By all that’s lucky! An’ last, can you handle guns? We ‘ain’t had a good shot on this range fer Lord knows how long. I used to hit plumb center with a rifle. My eyes are pore now. An’ my son can’t hit a flock of haystacks. An’ the cowpunchers are ‘most as bad. Sometimes right hyar where you could hit elk with a club we’re out of fresh meat.”

“Yes, I can handle guns,” replied Wade, with a quiet smile and a lowering of his head. “Reckon you didn’t catch my name.”

“Wal — no, I didn’t,” slowly replied Belllounds, and his pause, with the keener look he bestowed upon Wade, told how the latter’s query had struck home.

“Wade — Bent Wade,” said Wade, with quiet distinctness.

“Not Hell-Bent Wade!” ejaculated Belllounds.

“The same.... I ain’t proud of the handle, but I never sail under false colors.”

“Wal, I’ll be damned!” went on the rancher. “Wade, I’ve heerd of you fer years. Some bad, but most good, an’ I reckon I’m jest as glad to meet you as if you’d been somebody else.”

“You’ll give me the job?”

“I should smile.”

“I’m thankin’ you. Reckon I was some worried. Jobs are hard for me to get an’ harder to keep.”

“Thet’s not onnatural, considerin’ the hell which’s said to camp on your trail,” replied Belllounds, dryly. “Wade, I can’t say I take a hell of a lot of stock in such talk. Fifty years I’ve been west of the Missouri. I know the West an’ I know men. Talk flies from camp to ranch, from diggin’s to town, an’ always some one adds a little more. Now I trust my judgment an’ I trust men. No one ever betrayed me yet.”

“I’m that way, too,” replied Wade. “But it doesn’t pay, an’ yet I still kept on bein’ that way.... Belllounds, my name’s as bad as good all over western Colorado. But as man to man I tell you — I never did a low-down trick in my life.... Never but once.”

“An’ what was thet?” queried the rancher, gruffly.

“I killed a man who was innocent,” replied Wade, with quivering lips, “an’ — an’ drove the woman I loved to her death.”

“Aw! we all make mistakes some time in our lives,” said Belllounds, hurriedly. “I made ‘most as big a one as yours — so help me God!...”

“I’ll tell you—” interrupted Wade.

“You needn’t tell me anythin’,” said Belllounds, interrupting in his turn. “But at thet some time I’d like to hear about the Lascelles outfit over on the Gunnison. I knowed Lascelles. An’ a pardner of mine down in Middle Park came back from the Gunnison with the dog-gondest story I ever heerd. Thet was five years ago this summer. Of course I knowed your name long before, but this time I heerd it powerful strong. You got in thet mix-up to your neck.... Wal, what consarns me now is this. Is there any sense in the talk thet wherever you land there’s hell to pay?”

“Belllounds, there’s no sense in it, but a lot of truth,” confessed Wade, gloomily.

“Ahuh!... Wal, Hell-Bent Wade, I’ll take a chance on you,” boomed the rancher’s deep voice, rich with the intent of his big heart. “I’ve gambled all my life. An’ the best friends I ever made were men I’d helped.... What wages do you ask?”

“I’ll take what you offer.”

“I’m payin’ the boys forty a month, but thet’s not enough fer you.”

“Yes, that’ll do.”

“Good, it’s settled,” concluded Belllounds, rising. Then he saw his son standing inside the door. “Say, Jack, shake hands with Bent Wade, hunter an’ all-around man. Wade, this’s my boy. I’ve jest put him on as foreman of the outfit, an’ while I’m at it I’ll say thet you’ll take orders from me an’ not from him.”

Wade looked up into the face of Jack Belllounds, returned his brief greeting, and shook his limp hand. The contact sent a strange chill over Wade. Young Belllounds’s face was marred by a bruise and shaded by a sullen light.

“Get Billin’s to take you out to thet new cabin an’ sheds I jest had put up,” said the rancher. “You’ll bunk in the cabin.... Aw, I know. Men like you sleep in the open. But you can’t do thet under Old White Slides in winter. Not much! Make yourself to home, an’ I’ll walk out after a bit an’ we’ll look over the dog outfit. When you see thet outfit you’ll holler fer help.”

Wade bowed his thanks, and, putting on his sombrero, he turned away. As he did so he caught a sound of light, quick footsteps on the far end of the porch.

“Hello, you-all!” cried a girl’s voice, with melody in it that vibrated piercingly upon Wade’s sensitive ears.

“Mornin’, Columbine,” replied the rancher.

Bent Wade’s heart leaped up. This girlish voice rang upon the chord of memory. Wade had not the strength to look at her then. It was not that he could not bear to look, but that he could not bear the disillusion sure to follow his first glimpse of this adopted daughter of Belllounds. Sweet to delude himself! Ah! the years were bearing sterner upon his head! The old dreams persisted, sadder now for the fact that from long use they had become half-realities! Wade shuffled slowly across the green square to where the cowboy waited for him. His eyes were dim, and a sickness attended the sinking of his heart.

“Wade, I ain’t a bettin’ fellar, but I’ll bet Old Bill took you up,” vouchsafed Billings, with interest.

“Glad to say he did,” replied Wade. “You’re to show me the new cabin where I’m to bunk.”

“Come along,” said Lem, leading off. “Air you agoin’ to handle stock or chase coyotes?”

“My job’s huntin’.”

“Wal, it may be thet from sunup to sundown, but between times you’ll be sure busy otherwise, I opine,” went on Lem. “Did you meet the boss’s son?”

“Yes, he was there. An’ Belllounds made it plain I was to take orders from him an’ not from his son.”

“Thet’ll make your job a million times easier,” declared Lem, as if to make up for former hasty pessimism. He led the way past some log cabins, and sheds with dirt roofs, and low, flat-topped barns, out across another brook where willow-trees were turning yellow. Then the new cabin came into view. It was small, with one door and one window, and a porch across the front. It stood on a small elevation, near the swift brook, and overlooking the ranch-house perhaps a quarter of a mile below. Above it, and across the brook, had been built a high fence constructed of aspen poles laced closely together. The sounds therefrom proclaimed this stockade to be the dog-pen.

Lem helped Wade unpack and carry his outfit into the cabin. It contained one room, the corner of which was filled with blocks and slabs of pine, evidently left there after the construction of the cabin, and meant for fire-wood. The ample size of the stone fireplace attested to the severity of the winters.

“Real sawed boards on the floor!” exclaimed Lem, meaning to impress the new-comer. “I call this a plumb good bunk.”

“Much too good for me,” replied Wade.

“Wal, I’ll look after your hosses,” said Lem. “I reckon you’ll fix up your bunk. Take my hunch an’ ask Miss Collie to find you some furniture an’ sich like. She’s Ole Bill’s daughter, an’ she makes up fer — fer — wal, fer a lot we hev to stand. I’ll fetch the boys over later.”

“Do you smoke?” asked Wade. “I’ve somethin’ fine I fetched up from Leadville.”

“Smoke! Me? I’ll give you a hoss right now for a cigar. I git one onct a year, mebbe.”

“Here’s a box I’ve been packin’ for long,” replied Wade, as he handed it up to Billings. “They’re Spanish, all right. Too rich for my blood!”

A box of gold could not have made that cowboy’s eyes shine any brighter.

“Whoop-ee!” he yelled. “Why, man, you’re like the fairy in the kid’s story! Won’t I make the outfit wild? Aw, I forgot. Thar’s only Jim an’ Blud left. Wal, I’ll divvy with them. Sure, Wade, you hit me right. I was dyin’ fer a real smoke. An’ I reckon what’s mine is yours.”

Then he strode out of the cabin, whistling a merry cowboy tune.

Wade was left sitting in the middle of the room on his roll of bedding, and for a long time he remained there motionless, with his head bent, his worn hands idly clasped. A heavy footfall outside aroused him from his meditation.

“Hey, Wade!” called the cheery voice of Belllounds. Then the rancher appeared at the door. “How’s this bunk suit you?”

“Much too fine for an old-timer like me,” replied Wade.

“Old-timer! Say, you’re young yet. Look at me. Sixty-eight last birthday! Wal, every dog has his day.... What’re you needin’ to fix this bunk comfortable like?”

“Reckon I don’t need much.”

“Wal, you’ve beddin’ an’ cook outfit. Go get a table, an’ a chair an’ a bench from thet first cabin. The boys thet had it are gone. Somethin’ with a back to it, a rockin’-chair, if there’s one. You’ll find tools, an’ boxes, an’ stuff in the workshop, if you want to make a cupboard or anythin’.”

“How about a lookin’-glass?” asked Wade. “I had a piece, but I broke it.”

“Haw! Haw! Mebbe we can rustle thet, too. My girl’s good on helpin’ the boys fix up. Woman-like, you know. An’ she’ll fetch you some decorations on her own hook. Now let’s take a look at the hounds.”

Belllounds led the way out toward the crude dog-corral, and the way he leaped the brook bore witness to the fact that he was still vigorous and spry. The door of the pen was made of boards hung on wire. As Belllounds opened it there came a pattering rush of many padded feet, and a chorus of barks and whines. Wade’s surprised gaze took in forty or fifty dogs, mostly hounds, browns and blacks and yellows, all sizes — a motley, mangy, hungry pack, if he had ever seen one.

“I swore I’d buy every hound fetched to me, till I’d cleaned up the varmints around White Slides. An’ sure I was imposed on,” explained the rancher.

“Some good-lookin’ hounds in the bunch,” replied Wade. “An’ there’s hardly too many. I’ll train two packs, so I can rest one when the other’s huntin’.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Belllounds, with relief. “I sure thought you’d roar. All this rabble to take care of!”

“No trouble after I’ve got acquainted,” said Wade. “Have they been hunted any?”

“Some of the boys took out a bunch. But they split on deer tracks an’ elk tracks an’ Lord knows what all. Never put up a lion! Then again Billings took some out after a pack of coyotes, an’ gol darn me if the coyotes didn’t lick the hounds. An’ wuss! Jack, my son, got it into his head thet he was a hunter. The other mornin’ he found a fresh lion track back of the corral. An’ he ups an’ puts the whole pack of hounds on the trail. I had a good many more hounds in the pack than you see now. Wal, anyway, it was great to hear the noise thet pack made. Jack lost every blamed hound of them. Thet night an’ next day an’ the followin’ they straggled in. But twenty some never did come back.”

Wade laughed. “They may come yet. I reckon, though, they’ve gone home where they came from. Are any of these hounds recommended?”

“Every consarned one of them,” declared Belllounds.

“That’s funny. But I guess it’s natural. Do you know for sure whether you bought any good dogs?”

“Yes, I gave fifty dollars for two hounds. Got them of a friend in Middle Park whose pack killed off the lions there. They’re good dogs, trained on lion, wolf, an’ bear.”

“Pick ’em out,” said Wade.

With a throng of canines crowding and fawning round him, and snapping at one another, it was difficult for the rancher to draw the two particular ones apart so they could be looked over. At length he succeeded, and Wade drove back the rest of the pack.

“The big fellar’s Sampson an’ the other’s Jim,” said Belllounds.

Sampson was a huge hound, gray and yellow, with mottled black marks, very long ears, and big, solemn eyes. Jim, a good-sized dog, but small in comparison with the other, was black all over, except around the nose and eyes. Jim had many scars. He was old, yet not past a vigorous age, and he seemed a quiet, dignified, wise hound, quite out of his element in that mongrel pack.

“If they’re as good as they look we’re lucky,” said Wade, as he tied the ends of his rope round their necks. “Now are there any more you know are good?”

“Denver, come hyar!” yelled Belllounds. A white, yellow-spotted hound came wagging his tail. “I’ll swear by Denver. An’ there’s one more — Kane. He’s half bloodhound, a queer, wicked kind of dog. He keeps to himself.... Kane! Come hyar!”

Belllounds tramped around the corral, and finally found the hound in question, asleep in a dusty hole. Kane was the only beautiful dog in the lot. If half of him was bloodhound the other half was shepherd, for his black and brown hair was inclined to curl, and his head had the fine thoroughbred contour of the shepherd. His ears, long and drooping and thin, betrayed the hound in him. Kane showed no disposition to be friendly. His dark eyes, sad and mournful, burned with the fires of doubt.

Wade haltered Kane, Jim, and Sampson, which act almost precipitated a fight, and led them out of the corral. Denver, friendly and glad, followed at the rancher’s heels.

“I’ll keep them with me an’ make lead dogs out of them,” said Wade. “Belllounds, that bunch hasn’t had enough to eat. They’re half starved.”

“Wal, thet’s worried me more’n you’ll guess,” declared Belllounds, with irritation. “What do a lot of cow-punchin’ fellars know about dogs? Why, they nearly ate Bludsoe up. He wouldn’t feed ‘em. An’ Wils, who seemed good with dogs, was taken off bad hurt the other day. Lem’s been tryin’ to rustle feed fer them. Now we’ll give back the dogs you don’t want to keep, an’ thet way thin out the pack.”

“Yes, we won’t need `em all. An’ I reckon I’ll take the worry of this dog-pack off your mind.”

“Thet’s your job, Wade. My orders are fer you to kill off the varmints. Lions, wolves, coyotes. An’ every fall some ole silvertip gits bad, an’ now an’ then other bears. Whatever you need in the way of supplies jest ask fer. We send regular to Kremmlin’. You can hunt fer two months yet, barrin’ an onusual early winter.... I’m askin’ you — if my son tramps on your toes — I’d take it as a favor fer you to be patient. He’s only a boy yet, an’ coltish.”

Wade divined that was a favor difficult for Belllounds to ask. The old rancher, dominant and forceful and self-sufficient all his days, had begun to feel an encroachment of opposition beyond his control. If he but realized it, the favor he asked of Wade was an appeal.

“Belllounds, I get along with everybody,” Wade assured him. “An’ maybe I can help your son. Before I’d reached here I’d heard he was wild, an’ so I’m prepared.”

“If you’d do thet — wal, I’d never forgit it,” replied the rancher, slowly. “Jack’s been away fer three years. Only got back a week or so ago. I calkilated he’d be sobered, steadied, by — thet — thet work I put him to. But I’m not sure. He’s changed. When he gits his own way he’s all I could ask. But thet way he wants ain’t always what it ought to be. An’ so thar’s been clashes. But Jack’s a fine young man. An’ he’ll outgrow his temper an’ crazy notions. Work’ll do it.”

“Boys will be boys,” replied Wade, philosophically. “I’ve not forgotten when I was a boy.”

“Neither hev I. Wal, I’ll be goin’, Wade. I reckon Columbine will be up to call on you. Bein’ the only woman-folk in my house, she sort of runs it. An’ she’s sure interested in thet pack of hounds.”

Belllounds trudged away, his fine old head erect, his gray hair shining in the sun.

Wade sat down upon the step of his cabin, pondering over the rancher’s remarks about his son. Recalling the young man’s physiognomy, Wade began to feel that it was familiar to him. He had seen Jack Belllounds before. Wade never made mistakes in faces, though he often had a task to recall names. And he began to go over the recent past, recalling all that he could remember of Meeker, and Cripple Creek, where he had worked for several months, and so on, until he had gone back as far as his last trip to Denver.

“Must have been there,” mused Wade, thoughtfully, and he tried to recall all the faces he had seen. This was impossible, of course, yet he remembered many. Then he visualized the places in Denver that for one reason or another had struck him particularly. Suddenly into one of these flashed the pale, sullen, bold face of Jack Belllounds.

“It was there!” he exclaimed, incredulously. “Well!... If thet’s not the strangest yet! Could I be mistaken? No. I saw him.... Belllounds must have known it — must have let him stay there.... Maybe put him there! He’s just the kind of a man to go to extremes to reform his son.”

Singular as was this circumstance, Wade dwelt only momentarily on it. He dismissed it with the conviction that it was another strange happening in the string of events that had turned his steps toward White Slides Ranch. Wade’s mind stirred to the probability of an early sight of Columbine Belllounds. He would welcome it, both as interesting and pleasurable, and surely as a relief. The sooner a meeting with her was over the better. His life had been one long succession of shocks, so that it seemed nothing the future held could thrill him, amaze him, torment him. And yet how well he knew that his heart was only the more responsive for all it had withstood! Perhaps here at White Slides he might meet with an experience dwarfing all others. It was possible; it was in the nature of events. And though he repudiated such a possibility, he fortified himself against a subtle divination that he might at last have reached the end of his long trail, where anything might happen.

Three of the hounds lay down at Wade’s feet. Kane, the bloodhound, stood watching this new master, after the manner of a dog who was a judge of men. He sniffed at Wade. He grew a little less surly.

Wade’s gaze, however, was on the path that led down along the border of the brook to disappear in the willows. Above this clump of yellowing trees could be seen the ranch-house. A girl with fair hair stepped off the porch. She appeared to be carrying something in her arms, and shortly disappeared behind the willows. Wade saw her and surmised that she was coming to his cabin. He did not expect any more or think any more. His faculties condensed to the objective one of sight.

The girl, when she reappeared, was perhaps a hundred yards distant. Wade bent on her one keen, clear glance. Then his brain and his blood beat wildly. He saw a slender girl in riding-costume, lithe and strong, with the free step of one used to the open. It was this form, this step that struck Wade. “My — God! how like Lucy!” he whispered, and he tried to pierce the distance to see her face. It gleamed in the sunshine. Her fair hair waved in the wind. She was coming, but so slowly! All of Wade that was physical and emotional seemed to wait — clamped. The moment was age-long, with nothing beyond it. While she was still at a distance her face became distinct. And Wade sustained a terrible shock.... Then, as one in a dream, as in a blur of strained peering into a maze, he saw the face of his sweetheart, his wife, the Lucy of his early manhood. It moved him out of the past. Closer! Pang on pang quivered in his heart. Was this only a nightmare? Or had he at last gone mad! This girl raised her head. She was looking — she saw him. Terror mounted upon Wade’s consciousness.

“That’s Lucy’s face!” he gasped. “So help — me, God!... It’s for this — I wandered here! She’s my flesh an’ blood — my Lucy’s child — my own!”

Fear and presentiment and blank amaze and stricken consciousness left him in the lightning-flash of divination that was recognition as well. A shuddering cataclysm enveloped him, a passion so stupendous that it almost brought oblivion.

The three hounds leaped up with barks and wagging tails. They welcomed this visitor. Kane lost still more of his canine aloofness.

Wade’s breast heaved. The blue sky, the gray hills, the green willows, all blurred in his sight, that seemed to hold clear only the face floating closer.

“I’m Columbine Belllounds,” said a voice.

It stilled the storm in Wade. It was real. It was a voice of twenty years ago. The burden on his breast lifted. Then flashed the spirit, the old self-control of a man whose life had held many terrible moments.

“Mornin’, miss. I’m glad to meet you,” he replied, and there was no break, no tone unnatural in his greeting.

So they gazed at each other, she with that instinctive look peculiar to women in its intuitive powers, but common to all persons who had lived far from crowds and to whom a new-comer was an event. Wade’s gaze, intense and all-embracing, found that face now closer in resemblance to the imagined Lucy’s — a pretty face, rather than beautiful, but strong and sweet — its striking qualities being a colorless fairness of skin that yet held a rose and golden tint, and the eyes of a rare and exquisite shade of blue.

“Oh! Are you feeling ill?” she asked. “You look so — so pale.”

“No. I’m only tuckered out,” replied Wade, easily, as he wiped the clammy drops from his brow. “It was a long ride to get here.”

“I’m the lady of the house,” she said, with a smile. “I’m glad to welcome you to White Slides, and hope you’ll like it.”

“Well, Miss Columbine, I reckon I will,” he replied, returning the smile. “Now if I was younger I’d like it powerful much.”

She laughed at that. “Men are all alike, young or old.”

“Don’t ever think so,” said Wade, earnestly.

“No? I guess you’re right about that. I’ve fetched you up some things for your cabin. May I peep in?”

“Come in,” replied Wade, rising. “You must excuse my manners. It’s long indeed since I had a lady caller.”

She went in, and Wade, standing on the threshold, saw her survey the room with a woman’s sweeping glance.

“I told dad to put some—”

“Miss, your dad told me to go get them, an’ I’ve not done it yet. But I will presently.”

“Very well. I’ll leave these things and come back later,” she replied, depositing a bundle upon the floor. “You won’t mind if I try to — to make you a little comfortable. It’s dreadful the way outdoor men live when they do get indoors.”

“I reckon I’ll be slow in lettin’ you see what a good housekeeper I am,” he replied. “Because then, maybe, I’ll see more of you.”

“Weren’t you a sad flatterer in your day?” she queried, archly.

Her intonation, the tilt of her head, gave Wade such a pang that he could not answer. And to hide his momentary restraint he turned back to the hounds. Then she came out upon the porch.

“I love hounds,” she said, patting Denver, which caress immediately made Jim and Sampson jealous. “I’ve gotten on pretty well with these, but that Kane won’t make up. Isn’t he splendid? But he’s afraid — no, not afraid of me, but he doesn’t like me.”

“It’s mistrust. He’s been hurt. I reckon he’ll get over that after a while.”

“You don’t beat dogs?” she asked, eagerly.

“No, miss. That’s not the way to get on with hounds or horses.”

Her glance was a blue flash of pleasure.

“How glad that makes me! Why, I quit coming here to see and feed the dogs because somebody was always kicking them around.”

Wade handed the rope to her. “You hold them, so when I come out with some meat they won’t pile over me.” He went inside, took all that was left of the deer haunch out of his pack, and, picking up his knife, returned to the porch. The hounds saw the meat and yelped. They pulled on the rope.

“You hounds behave,” ordered Wade, as he sat down on the step and began to cut the meat. “Jim, you’re the oldest an’ hungriest. Here.... Now you, Sampson. Here!”... The big hound snapped at the meat. Whereupon Wade slapped him. “Are you a pup or a wolf that you grab for it? Here.” Sampson was slower to act, but he snapped again. Whereupon Wade hit him again, with open hand, not with violence or rancor, but a blow that meant Sampson must obey.

Next time the hound did not snap. Denver had to be cuffed several times before he showed deference to this new master. But the bloodhound Kane refused to take any meat out of Wade’s hand. He growled and showed his teeth, and sniffed hungrily.

“Kane will have to be handled carefully,” observed Wade. “He’d bite pretty quick.”

“But, he’s so splendid,” said the girl. “I don’t like to think he’s mean. You’ll be good to him — try to win him?”

“I’ll do my best with him.”

“Dad’s full of glee that he has a real hunter at White Slides at last. Now I’m glad, and sorry, too. I hate to think of little calves being torn and killed by lions and wolves. And it’s dreadful to know bears eat grown-up cattle. But I love the mourn of a wolf and the yelp of a coyote. I can’t help hoping you don’t kill them all — quite.”

“It’s not likely, miss,” he replied. “I’ll be pretty sure to clean out the lions an’ drive off the bears. But the wolf family can’t be exterminated. No animal so cunnin’ as a wolf!... I’ll tell you.... Some years ago I went to cook on a ranch north of Denver, on the edge of the plains. An’ right off I began to hear stories about a big lobo — a wolf that was an old residenter. He’d been known for long, an’ he got meaner an’ wiser as he was hunted. His specialty got to be yearlings, an’ the ranchers all over rose up in arms against him. They hired all the old hunters an’ trappers in the country to kill him. No good! Old Lobo went right on pullin’ down yearlings. Every night he’d get one or more. An’ he was so cute an’ so swift that he’d work on different ranches on different nights. Finally he killed eleven yearlings for my boss on one night. Eleven! Think of that. An’ then I said to my boss, ‘I reckon you’d better let me go kill that gray butcher.’ An’ my boss laughed at me. But he let me go. He’d have tried anythin’. I took a hunk of meat, a blanket, my gun, an’ a pair of snow-shoes, an’ I set out on old Lobo’s tracks.... An’, Miss Columbine, I walked old Lobo to death in the snow!”

“Why, how wonderful!” exclaimed the girl, breathless and glowing with interest. “Oh, it seems a pity such a splendid brute should be killed. Wild animals are cruel. I wish it were different.”

“Life is cruel, miss, an’ I echo your wish,” replied Wade, sadly.

“You have had great experiences. Dad said to me, ‘Collie, here at last is a man who can tell you enough stories!’... But I don’t believe you ever could.”

“You like stories?” asked Wade, curiously.

“Love them. All kinds, but I like adventure best. I should have been a boy. Isn’t it strange, I can’t hurt anything myself or bear to see even a steer slaughtered? But you can’t tell too bloody and terrible stories for me. Except I hate Indian stories. The very thought of Indians makes me shudder.... Some day I’ll tell you a story.”

Wade could not find his tongue readily.

“I must go now,” she continued, and moved off the porch. Then she hesitated, and turned with a smile that was wistful and impulsive. “I — I believe we’ll be good friends.”

“Miss Columbine, we sure will, if I can live up to my part,” replied Wade.

Her smile deepened, even while her gaze grew unconsciously penetrating. Wade felt how subtly they were drawn to each other. But she had no inkling of that.

“It takes two to make a bargain,” she replied, seriously. “I’ve my part. Good-by.”

Wade watched her lithe stride, and as she drew away the restraint he had put upon himself loosened. When she disappeared his feeling burst all bounds. Dragging the dogs inside, he closed the door. Then, like one broken and spent, he fell face against the wall, with the hoarsely whispered words, “I’m thankin’ God!”

CHAPTER VI

SEPTEMBER’S GLORY OF gold and red and purple began to fade with the autumnal equinox. It rained enough to soak the frost-bitten leaves, and then the mountain winds sent them flying and fluttering and scurrying to carpet the dells and spot the pools in the brooks and color the trails. When the weather cleared and the sun rose bright again many of the aspen thickets were leafless and bare, and the willows showed stark against the gray sage hills, and the vines had lost their fire. Hills and valleys had sobered with subtle change that left them none the less beautiful.

A mile or more down the road from White Slides, in a protected nook, nestled two cabins belonging to a cattleman named Andrews, who had formerly worked for Belllounds and had recently gone into the stock business for himself. He had a rather young wife, and several children, and a brother who rode for him. These people were the only neighbors of Belllounds for some ten miles on the road toward Kremmling.

Columbine liked Mrs. Andrews and often rode or walked down there for a little visit and a chat with her friend and a romp with the children.

Toward the end of September Columbine found herself combating a strong desire to go down to the Andrews ranch and try to learn some news about Wilson Moore. If anything had been heard at White Slides it certainly had not been told her. Jack Belllounds had ridden to Kremmling and back in one day, but Columbine would have endured much before asking him for information.

She did, however, inquire of the freighter who hauled Belllounds’s supplies, and the answer she got was awkwardly evasive. That nettled Columbine. Also it raised a suspicion which she strove to subdue. Finally it seemed apparent that Wilson Moore’s name was not to be mentioned to her.

First, in her growing resentment, she had an impulse to go to her new friend, the hunter Wade, and confide in him not only her longing to learn about Wilson, but also other matters that were growing daily more burdensome. How strange for her to feel that in some way Jack Belllounds had come between her and the old man she loved and called father! Columbine had not divined that until lately. She felt it now in the fact that she no longer sought the rancher as she used to, and he had apparently avoided her. But then, Columbine reflected, she might be entirely wrong, for when Belllounds did meet her at meal-times, or anywhere, he seemed just as affectionate as of old. Still he was not the same man. A chill, an atmosphere of shadow, had pervaded the once wholesome ranch. And so, feeling not yet well enough acquainted with Wade to confide so intimately in him, she stifled her impulses and resolved to make some effort herself to find out what she wanted to know.

As luck would have it, when she started out to walk down to the Andrews ranch she encountered Jack Belllounds.

“Where are you going?” he inquired, inquisitively.

“I’m going to see Mrs. Andrews,” she replied.

“No, you’re not!” he declared, quickly, with a flash.

Columbine felt a queer sensation deep within her, a hot little gathering that seemed foreign to her physical being, and ready to burst out. Of late it had stirred in her at words or acts of Jack Belllounds. She gazed steadily at him, and he returned her look with interest. What he was thinking she had no idea of, but for herself it was a recurrence and an emphasis of the fact that she seemed growing farther away from this young man she had to marry. The weeks since his arrival had been the most worrisome she could remember.

“I am going,” she replied, slowly.

“No!” he replied, violently. “I won’t have you running off down there to — to gossip with that Andrews woman.”

“Oh, you won’t?” inquired Columbine, very quietly. How little he understood her!

“That’s what I said.”

“You’re not my boss yet, Mister Jack Belllounds,” she flashed, her spirit rising. He could irritate her as no one else.

“I soon will be. And what’s a matter of a week or a month?” he went on, calming down a little.

“I’ve promised, yes,” she said, feeling her face blanch, “and I keep my promises.... But I didn’t say when. If you talk like that to me it might be a good many weeks — or — or months before I name the day.”

“Columbine!” he cried, as she turned away. There was genuine distress in his voice. Columbine felt again an assurance that had troubled her. No matter how she was reacting to this new relation, it seemed a fearful truth that Jack was really falling in love with her. This time she did not soften.

“I’ll call dad to make you stay home,” he burst out again, his temper rising.

Columbine wheeled as on a pivot.

“If you do you’ve got less sense than I thought.”

“I know why you’re going. It’s to see that club-footed cowboy Moore!...

Don’t let me catch you with him.”

Passion claimed him then.

“I know why you’re going. It’s to see that club-footed cowboy Moore!... Don’t let me catch you with him!”

Columbine turned her back upon Belllounds and swung away, every pulse in her throbbing and smarting. She hurried on into the road. She wanted to run, not to get out of sight or hearing, but to fly from something, she knew not what.

“Oh! it’s more than his temper!” she cried, hot tears in her eyes. “He’s mean — mean — MEAN! What’s the use of me denying that — any more — just because I love dad?... My life will be wretched.... It is wretched!”

Her anger did not last long, nor did her resentment. She reproached herself for the tart replies that had inflamed Jack. Never again would she forget herself!

“But he — he makes me furious,” she cried, in sudden excuse for herself. “What did he say? ‘That club-footed cowboy Moore’!... Oh, that was vile. He’s heard, then, that poor Wilson has a bad foot, perhaps permanently crippled.... If it’s true.... But why should he yell that he knew I wanted to see Wilson?... I did not! I do not.... Oh, but I do, I do!”

And then Columbine was to learn straightway that she would forget herself again, that she had forgotten, and that a sadder, stranger truth was dawning upon her — she was discovering another Columbine within herself, a wilful, passionate, different creature who would no longer be denied.

Almost before Columbine realized that she had started upon the visit she was within sight of the Andrews ranch. So swiftly had she walked! It behooved her to hide such excitement as had dominated her. And to that end she slowed her pace, trying to put her mind on other matters.

The children saw her first and rushed upon her, so that when she reached the cabin door she could not well have been otherwise than rosy and smiling. Mrs. Andrews, ruddy and strong, looked the pioneer rancher’s hard-working wife. Her face brightened at the advent of Columbine, and showed a little surprise and curiosity as well.

“Laws, but it’s good to see you, Columbine,” was her greeting. “You ‘ain’t been here for a long spell.”

“I’ve been coming, but just put it off,” replied Columbine.

And so, after the manner of women neighbors, they began to talk of the fall round-up, and the near approach of winter with its loneliness, and the children, all of which naturally led to more personal and interesting topics.

“An’ is it so, Columbine, that you’re to marry Jack Belllounds?” asked Mrs. Andrews, presently.

“Yes, I guess it is,” replied Columbine, smiling.

“Humph! I’m no relative of yours or even a particular, close friend, but I’d like to say—”

“Please don’t,” interposed Columbine.

“All right, my girl. I guess it’s better I don’t say anythin’. It’s a pity, though, onless you love this Buster Jack. An’ you never used to do that, I’ll swan.”

“No, I don’t love Jack — yet — as I ought to love a husband. But I’ll try, and if — if I — I never do — still, it’s my duty to marry him.”

“Some woman ought to talk to Bill Belllounds,” declared Mrs. Andrews with a grimness that boded ill for the old rancher.

“Did you know we had a new man up at the ranch?” asked Columbine, changing the subject.

“You mean the hunter, Hell-Bent Wade?”

“Yes. But I hate that ridiculous name,” said Columbine.

“It’s queer, like lots of names men get in these parts. An’ it’ll stick. Wade’s been here twice; once as he was passin’ with the hounds, an’ the other night. I like him, Columbine. He’s true-blue, for all his strange name. My men-folks took to him like ducks to water.”

“I’m glad. I took to him almost like that,” rejoined Columbine. “He has the saddest face I ever saw.”

“Sad? Wal, yes. That man has seen a good deal of what they tacked on to his name. I laughed when I seen him first. Little lame fellar, crooked-legged an’ ragged, with thet awful homely face! But I forgot how he looked next time he came.”

“That’s just it. He’s not much to look at, but you forget his homeliness right off,” replied Columbine, warmly. “You feel something behind all his — his looks.”

“Wal, you an’ me are women, an’ we feel different,” replied Mrs. Andrews. “Now my men-folks take much store on what Wade can do. He fixed up Tom’s gun, that’s been out of whack for a year. He made our clock run ag’in, an’ run better than ever. Then he saved our cow from that poison-weed. An’ Tom gave her up to die.”

“The boys up home were telling me Mr. Wade had saved some of our cattle. Dad was delighted. You know he’s lost a good many head of stock from this poison-weed. I saw so many dead steers on my last ride up the mountain. It’s too bad our new man didn’t get here sooner to save them. I asked him how he did it, and he said he was a doctor.”

“A cow-doctor,” laughed Mrs. Andrews. “Wal, that’s a new one on me. Accordin’ to Tom, this here Wade, when he seen our sick cow, said she’d eat poison-weed — larkspur, I think he called it — an’ then when she drank water it formed a gas in her stomach an’ she swelled up turrible. Wade jest stuck his knife in her side a little an’ let the gas out, and she got well.”

“Ughh!... What cruel doctoring! But if it saves the cattle, then it’s good.”

“It’ll save them if they can be got to right off,” replied Mrs. Andrews.

“Speaking of doctors,” went on Columbine, striving to make her query casual, “do you know whether or not Wilson Moore had his foot treated by a doctor at Kremmling?”

“He did not,” answered Mrs. Andrews. “Wasn’t no doctor there. They’d had to send to Denver, an’, as Wils couldn’t take that trip or wait so long, why, Mrs. Plummer fixed up his foot. She made a good job of it, too, as I can testify.”

“Oh, I’m — very thankful!” murmured Columbine. “He’ll not be crippled or — or club-footed, then?”

“I reckon not. You can see for yourself. For Wils’s here. He was drove up night before last an’ is stayin’ with my brother-in-law — in the other cabin there.”

Mrs. Andrews launched all this swiftly, with evident pleasure, but with more of woman’s subtle motive. Her eyes were bent with shrewd kindness upon the younger woman.

“Here!” exclaimed Columbine, with a start, and for an instant she was at the mercy of conflicting surprise and joy and alarm. Alternately she flushed and paled.

“Sure he’s here,” replied Mrs. Andrews, now looking out of the door. “He ought to be in sight somewheres. He’s walkin’ with a crutch.”

“Crutch!” cried Columbine, in dismay.

“Yes, crutch, an’ he made it himself.... I don’t see him nowheres. Mebbe he went in when he see you comin’. For he’s powerful sensitive about that crutch.”

“Then — if he’s so — so sensitive, perhaps I’d better go,” said Columbine, struggling with embarrassment and discomfiture. What if she happened to meet him! Would he imagine her purpose in coming there? Her heart began to beat unwontedly.

“Suit yourself, lass,” replied Mrs. Andrews, kindly. “I know you and Wils quarreled, for he told me. An’ it’s a pity.... Wal, if you must go, I hope you’ll come again before the snow flies. Good-by.”

Columbine bade her a hurried good-by and ventured forth with misgivings. And almost around the corner of the second cabin, which she had to pass, and before she had time to recover her composure, she saw Wilson Moore, hobbling along on a crutch, holding a bandaged foot off the ground. He had seen her; he was hurrying to avoid a meeting, or to get behind the corrals there before she observed him.

“Wilson!” she called, involuntarily. The instant the name left her lips she regretted it. But too late! The cowboy halted, slowly turned.

Then Columbine walked swiftly up to him, suddenly as brave as she had been fearful. Sight of him had changed her.

“Wilson Moore, you meant to avoid me,” she said, with reproach.

“Howdy, Columbine!” he drawled, ignoring her words.

“Oh, I was so sorry you were hurt!” she burst out. “And now I’m so glad — you’re — you’re ... Wilson, you’re thin and pale — you’ve suffered!”

“It pulled me down a bit,” he replied.

Columbine had never before seen his face anything except bronzed and lean and healthy, but now it bore testimony to pain and strain and patient endurance. He looked older. Something in the fine, dark, hazel eyes hurt her deeply.

“You never sent me word,” she went on, reproachfully. “No one would tell me anything. The boys said they didn’t know. Dad was angry when I asked him. I’d never have asked Jack. And the freighter who drove up — he lied to me. So I came down here to-day purposely to ask news of you, but I never dreamed you were here.... Now I’m glad I came.”

What a singular, darkly kind, yet strange glance he gave her!

“That was like you, Columbine,” he said. “I knew you’d feel badly about my accident. But how could I send word to you?”

“You saved — Pronto,” she returned, with a strong tremor in her voice. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“That was a funny thing. Pronto went out of his head. I hope he’s all right.”

“He’s almost well. It took some time to pick all the splinters out of him. He’ll be all right soon — none the worse for that — that cowboy trick of Mister Jack Belllounds.”

Columbine finished bitterly. Moore turned his thoughtful gaze away from her.

“I hope Old Bill is well,” he remarked, lamely.

“Have you told your folks of your accident?” asked Columbine, ignoring his remark.

“No.”

“Oh, Wilson, you ought to have sent for them, or have written at least.”

“Me? To go crying for them when I got in trouble? I couldn’t see it that way.”

“Wilson, you’ll be going — home — soon — to Denver — won’t you?” she faltered.

“No,” he replied, shortly.

“But what will you do? Surely you can’t work — not so soon?”

“Columbine, I’ll never — be able to ride again — like I used to,” he said, tragically. “I’ll ride, yes, but never the old way.”

“Oh!” Columbine’s tone, and the exquisite softness and tenderness with which she placed a hand on the rude crutch would have been enlightening to any one but these two absorbed in themselves. “I can’t bear to believe that.”

“I’m afraid it’s true. Bad smash, Columbine! I just missed being club-footed.”

“You should have care. You should have.... Wilson, do you intend to stay here with the Andrews?”

“Not much. They have troubles of their own. Columbine, I’m going to homestead one hundred and sixty acres.”

“Homestead!” she exclaimed, in amaze. “Where?”

“Up there under Old White Slides. I’ve long intended to. You know that pretty little valley under the red bluff. There’s a fine spring. You’ve been there with me. There by the old cabin built by prospectors?”

“Yes, I know. It’s a pretty place — fine valley, but Wils, you can’t live there,” she expostulated.

“Why not, I’d like to know?”

“That little cubby-hole! It’s only a tiny one-room cabin, roof all gone, chinks open, chimney crumbling.... Wilson, you don’t mean to tell me you want to live there alone?”

“Sure. What ‘d you think?” he replied, with sarcasm.

“Expect me to marry some girl? Well, I wouldn’t, even if any one would have a cripple.”

“Who — who will take care of you?” she asked, blushing furiously.

“I’ll take care of myself,” he declared. “Good Lord! Columbine, I’m not an invalid yet. I’ve got a few friends who’ll help me fix up the cabin. And that reminds me. There’s a lot of my stuff up in the bunk-house at White Slides. I’m going to drive up soon to haul it away.”

“Wilson Moore, do you mean it?” she asked, with grave wonder. “Are you going to homestead near White Slides Ranch — and live there — when—”

She could not finish. An overwhelming disaster, for which she had no name, seemed to be impending.

“Yes, I am,” he replied. “Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”

“It’s very — very funny,” she said, dazedly, and she turned slowly away without another word.

“Good-by, Columbine,” he called out after her, with farewell, indeed, in his voice.

All the way home Columbine was occupied with feelings that swayed her to the exclusion of rational consideration of the increasing perplexity of her situation. And to make matters worse, when she arrived at the ranch it was to meet Jack Belllounds with a face as black as a thunder-cloud.

“The old man wants to see you,” he announced, with an accent that recalled his threat of a few hours back.

“Does he?” queried Columbine, loftily. “From the courteous way you speak I imagine it’s important.”

Belllounds did not deign to reply to this. He sat on the porch, where evidently he had awaited her return, and he looked anything but happy.

“Where is dad?” continued Columbine.

Jack motioned toward the second door, beyond which he sat, the one that opened into the room the rancher used as a kind of office and storeroom. As Columbine walked by Jack he grasped her skirt.

“Columbine! you’re angry?” he said, appealingly.

“I reckon I am,” replied Columbine.

“Don’t go in to dad when you’re that way,” implored Jack. “He’s angry, too — and — and — it’ll only make matters worse.”

From long experience Columbine could divine when Jack had done something in the interest of self and then had awakened to possible consequences. She pulled away from him without replying, and knocked on the office door.

“Come in,” called the rancher.

Columbine went in. “Hello, dad! Do you want me?”

Belllounds sat at an old table, bending over a soiled ledger, with a stubby pencil in his huge hand. When he looked up Columbine gave a little start.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, gruffly.

“I’ve been calling on Mrs. Andrews,” replied Columbine.

“Did you go thar to see her?”

“Why — certainly!” answered Columbine, with a slow break in her speech.

“You didn’t go to meet Wilson Moore?”

“No.”

“An’ I reckon you’ll say you hadn’t heerd he was there?”

“I had not,” flashed Columbine.

“Wal, did you see him?”

“Yes, sir, I did, but quite by accident.”

“Ahuh! Columbine, are you lyin’ to me?”

The hot blood flooded to Columbine’s cheeks, as if she had been struck a blow.

“Dad!” she cried, in hurt amaze.

Belllounds seemed thick, imponderable, as if something had forced a crisis in him and his brain was deeply involved. The habitual, cool, easy, bold, and frank attitude in the meeting of all situations seemed to have been encroached upon by a break, a bewilderment, a lessening of confidence.

“Wal, are you lyin’?” he repeated, either blind to or unaware of her distress.

“I could not — lie to you,” she faltered, “even — if — I wanted to.”

The heavy, shadowed gaze of his big eyes was bent upon her as if she had become a new and perplexing problem.

“But you seen Moore?”

“Yes — sir.” Columbine’s spirit rose.

“An’ talked with him?”

“Of course.”

“Lass, I ain’t likin’ thet, an’ I ain’t likin’ the way you look an’ speak.”

“I am sorry. I can’t help either.”

“What’d this cowboy say to you?”

“We talked mostly about his injured foot.”

“An’ what else?” went on Belllounds, his voice rising.

“About — what he meant to do now.”

“Ahuh! An’ thet’s homesteadin’ the Sage Creek Valley?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you want him to do thet?”

“I! Indeed I didn’t.”

“Columbine, not so long ago you told me this fellar wasn’t sweet on you. An’ do you still say that to me — are you still insistin’ he ain’t in love with you?”

“He never said so — I never believed it ... and now I’m sure — he isn’t!”

“Ahuh! Wal, thet same day you was jest as sure you didn’t care anythin’ particular fer him. Are you thet sure now?”

“No!” whispered Columbine, very low. She trembled with a suggestion of unknown forces. Not to save a new and growing pride would she evade any question from this man upon whom she had no claim, to whom she owed her life and her bringing up. But something cold formed in her.

Belllounds, self-centered and serious as he strangely was, seemed to check his probing, either from fear of hearing more from her or from an awakening of former kindness. But her reply was a shock to him, and, throwing down his pencil with the gesture of a man upon whom decision was forced, he rose to tower over her.

“You’ve been like a daughter to me. I’ve done all I knowed how fer you. I’ve lived up to the best of my lights. An’ I’ve loved you,” he said, sonorously and pathetically. “You know what my hopes are — fer the boy — an’ fer you.... We needn’t waste any more talk. From this minnit you’re free to do as you like. Whatever you do won’t make any change in my carin’ fer you.... But you gotta decide. Will you marry Jack or not?”

“I promised you — I would. I’ll keep my word,” replied Columbine, steadily.

“So far so good,” went on the rancher. “I’m respectin’ you fer what you say.... An’ now, when will you marry him?”

The little room drifted around in Columbine’s vague, blank sight. All seemed to be drifting. She had no solid anchor.

“Any — day you say — the sooner the — better,” she whispered.

“Wal, lass, I’m thankin’ you,” he replied, with voice that sounded afar to her. “An’ I swear, if I didn’t believe it’s best fer Jack an’ you, why I’d never let you marry.... So we’ll set the day. October first! Thet’s the day you was fetched to me a baby — more’n seventeen years ago.”

“October — first — then, dad,” she said, brokenly, and she kissed him as if in token of what she knew she owed him. Then she went out, closing the door behind her.

Jack, upon seeing her, hastily got up, with more than concern in his pale face.

“Columbine!” he cried, hoarsely. “How you look!... Tell me. What happened? Girl, don’t tell me you’ve — you’ve—”

“Jack Belllounds,” interrupted Columbine, in tragic amaze at this truth about to issue from her lips, “I’ve promised to marry you — on October first.”

He let out a shout of boyish exultation and suddenly clasped her in his arms. But there was nothing boyish in the way he handled her, in the almost savage evidence of possession. “Collie, I’m mad about you,” he began, ardently. “You never let me tell you. And I’ve grown worse and worse. To-day I — when I saw you going down there — where that Wilson Moore is — I got terribly jealous. I was sick. I’d been glad to kill him!... It made me see how I loved you. Oh, I didn’t know. But now ... Oh, I’m mad for you!” He crushed her to him, unmindful of her struggles; his face and neck were red; his eyes on fire. And he began trying to kiss her mouth, but failed, as she struggled desperately. His kisses fell upon cheek and ear and hair.

“Let me — go!” panted Columbine. “You’ve no — no — Oh, you might have waited.” Breaking from him, she fled, and got inside her room with the door almost closed, when his foot intercepted it.

Belllounds was half laughing his exultation, half furious at her escape, and altogether beside himself.

“No,” she replied, so violently that it appeared to awake him to the fact that there was some one besides himself to consider.

“Aw!” He heaved a deep sigh. “All right. I won’t try to get in. Only listen.... Collie, don’t mind my — my way of showing you how I felt. Fact is, I went plumb off my head. Is that any wonder, you — you darling — when I’ve been so scared you’d never have me? Collie, I’ve felt that you were the one thing in the world I wanted most and would never get. But now.... October first! Listen. I promise you I’ll not drink any more — nor gamble — nor nag dad for money. I don’t like his way of running the ranch, but I’ll do it, as long as he lives. I’ll even try to tolerate that club-footed cowboy’s brass in homesteading a ranch right under my nose. I’ll — I’ll do anything you ask of me.”

“Then — please — go away!” cried Columbine, with a sob.

When he was gone Columbine barred the door and threw herself upon her bed to shut out the light and to give vent to her surcharged emotions. She wept like a girl whose youth was ending; and after the paroxysm had passed, leaving her weak and strangely changed, she tried to reason out what had happened to her. Over and over again she named the appeal of the rancher, the sense of her duty, the decision she had reached, and the disgust and terror inspired in her by Jack Belllounds’s reception of her promise. These were facts of the day and they had made of her a palpitating, unhappy creature, who nevertheless had been brave to face the rancher and confess that which she had scarce confessed to herself. But now she trembled and cringed on the verge of a catastrophe that withheld its whole truth.

“I begin to see now,” she whispered, after the thought had come and gone and returned to change again. “If Wilson had — cared for me I — I might have — cared, too.... But I do — care — something. I couldn’t lie to dad. Only I’m not sure — how much. I never dreamed of — of loving him, or any one. It’s so strange. All at once I feel old. And I can’t understand these — these feelings that shake me.”

So Columbine brooded over the trouble that had come to her, never regretting her promise to the old rancher, but growing keener in the realization of a complexity in her nature that sooner or later would separate the life of her duty from the life of her desire. She seemed all alone, and when this feeling possessed her a strange reminder of the hunter Wade flashed up. She stifled another impulse to confide in him. Wade had the softness of a woman, and his face was a record of the trials and travails through which he had come unhardened, unembittered. Yet how could she tell her troubles to him? A stranger, a rough man of the wilds, whose name had preceded him, notorious and deadly, with that vital tang of the West in its meaning! Nevertheless, Wade drew her, and she thought of him until the recurring memory of Jack Belllounds’s rude clasp again crept over her with an augmenting disgust and fear. Must she submit to that? Had she promised that? And then Columbine felt the dawning of realities.

CHAPTER VII

COLUMBINE WAS AWAKENED in the gray dawn by the barking of coyotes. She dreaded the daylight thus heralded. Never before in her life had she hated the rising of the sun. Resolutely she put the past behind her and faced the future, believing now that with the great decision made she needed only to keep her mind off what might have been, and to attend to her duty.

At breakfast she found the rancher in better spirits than he had been for weeks. He informed her that Jack had ridden off early for Kremmling, there to make arrangements for the wedding on October first.

“Jack’s out of his head,” said Belllounds. “Wal, thet comes only onct in a man’s life. I remember ... Jack’s goin’ to drive you to Kremmlin’ an’ ther take stage fer Denver. I allow you’d better put in your best licks on fixin’ up an’ packin’ the clothes you’ll need. Women-folk naturally want to look smart on weddin’-trips.”

“Dad!” exclaimed Columbine, in dismay. “I never thought of clothes. And I don’t want to leave White Slides.”

“But, lass, you’re goin’ to be married!” expostulated Belllounds.

“Didn’t it occur to Jack to take me to Kremmling? I can’t make new dresses out of old ones.”

“Wal, I reckon neither of us thought of thet. But you can buy what you like in Denver.”

Columbine resigned herself. After all, what did it matter to her? The vague, haunting dreams of girlhood would never come true. So she went to her wardrobe and laid out all her wearing apparel. Taking stock of it this way caused her further dismay, for she had nothing fit to wear in which either to be married or to take a trip to Denver. There appeared to be nothing to do but take the rancher’s advice, and Columbine set about refurbishing her meager wardrobe. She sewed all day.

What with self-control and work and the passing of hours, Columbine began to make some approach to tranquillity. In her simplicity she even began to hope that being good and steadfast and dutiful would earn her a little meed of happiness. Some haunting doubt of this flashed over her mind like a swift shadow of a black wing, but she dispelled that as she had dispelled the fear and disgust which often rose up in her mind.

To Columbine’s surprise and to the rancher’s concern the prospective bridegroom did not return from Kremmling on the second day. When night came Belllounds reluctantly gave up looking for him.

Jack’s non-appearance suited Columbine, and she would have been glad to be let alone until October first, which date now seemed appallingly close. On the afternoon of Jack’s third day of absence from the ranch Columbine rode out for some needed exercise. Pronto not being available, she rode another mustang and one that kept her busy. On the way back to the ranch she avoided the customary trail which led by the cabins of Wade and the cowboys. Columbine had not seen one of her friends since the unfortunate visit to the Andrews ranch. She particularly shrank from meeting Wade, which feeling was in strange contrast to her former impulses.

As she rode around the house she encountered Wilson Moore seated in a light wagon. Her mustang reared, almost unseating her. But she handled him roughly, being suddenly surprised and angry at this unexpected meeting with the cowboy.

“Howdy, Columbine!” greeted Wilson, as she brought the mustang to his feet. “You’re sure learning to handle a horse — since I left this here ranch. Wonder who’s teaching you! I never could get you to rake even a bronc!”

The cowboy had drawled out his admiring speech, half amused and half satiric.

“I’m — mad!” declared Columbine. “That’s why.”

“What’re you mad at?” queried Wilson.

She did not reply, but kept on gazing steadily at him. Moore still looked pale and drawn, but he had improved since last she saw him.

“Aren’t you going to speak to a fellow?” he went on.

“How are you, Wils?” she asked.

“Pretty good for a club-footed has-been cow puncher.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call yourself such names,” rejoined Columbine, peevishly. “You’re not a club-foot. I hate that word!”

“Me, too. Well, joking aside, I’m better. My foot is fine. Now, if I don’t hurt it again I’ll sure never be a club-foot.”

“You must be careful,” she said, earnestly.

“Sure. But it’s hard for me to be idle. Think of me lying still all day with nothing to do but read! That’s what knocked me out. I wouldn’t have minded the pain if I could have gotten about.... Columbine, I’ve moved in!”

“What! Moved in?” she queried, blankly.

“Sure. I’m in my cabin on the hill. It’s plumb great. Tom Andrews and Bert and your hunter Wade fixed up the cabin for me. That Wade is sure a good fellow. And say! what he can do with his hands! He’s been kind to me. Took an interest in me, and between you and me he sort of cheered me up.”

“Cheered you up! Wils, were you unhappy?” she asked, directly.

“Well, rather. What’d you expect of a cowboy who’d crippled himself — and lost his girl?”

Columbine felt the smart of tingling blood in her face, and she looked from Wilson to the wagon. It contained saddles, blankets, and other cowboy accoutrements for which he had evidently come.

“That’s a double misfortune,” she replied, evenly. “It’s too bad both came at once. It seems to me if I were a cowboy and — and felt so toward a girl, I’d have let her know.”

“This girl I mean knew, all right,” he said, nodding his head.

“She didn’t — she didn’t!” cried Columbine.

“How do you know?” he queried, with feigned surprise. He was bent upon torturing her.

“You meant me. I’m the girl you lost!”

“Yes, you are — God help me!” replied Moore, with genuine emotion.

“But you — you never told me — you never told me,” faltered Columbine, in distress.

“Never told you what? That you were my girl?”

“No — no. But that you — you cared—”

“Columbine Belllounds, I told you — let you see — in every way under the sun,” he flashed at her.

“Let me see — what?” faltered Columbine, feeling as if the world were about to end.

“That I loved you.”

“Oh!... Wilson!” whispered Columbine, wildly.

“Yes — loved you. Could you have been so innocent — so blind you never knew? I can’t believe it.”

“But I never dreamed you — you—” She broke off dazedly, overwhelmed by a tragic, glorious truth.

“Collie!... Would it have made any difference?”

“Oh, all the difference in the world!” she wailed.

“What difference?” he asked, passionately.

Columbine gazed wide-eyed and helpless at the young man. She did not know how to tell him what all the difference in the world really was.

Suddenly Wilson turned away from her to listen. Then she heard rapid beating of hoofs on the road.

“That’s Buster Jack,” said the cowboy. “Just my luck! There wasn’t any one here when I arrived. Reckon I oughtn’t have stayed. Columbine, you look pretty much upset.”

“What do I care how I look!” she exclaimed, with a sharp resentment attending this abrupt and painful break in her agitation.

Next moment Jack Belllounds galloped a foam-lashed horse into the courtyard and hauled up short with a recklessness he was noted for. He swung down hard and violently cast the reins from him.

“Ahuh! I gambled on just this,” he declared, harshly.

Columbine’s heart sank. His gaze was fixed on her face, with its telltale evidences of agitation.

“What’ve you been crying about?” he demanded.

“I haven’t been,” she retorted.

His bold and glaring eyes, hot with sudden temper, passed slowly from her to the cowboy. Columbine became aware then that Jack was under the influence of liquor. His heated red face grew darker with a sneering contempt.

“Where’s dad?” he asked, wheeling toward her.

“I don’t know. He’s not here,” replied Columbine, dismounting. The leap of thought and blood to Jack’s face gave her a further sinking of the heart. The situation unnerved her.

Wilson Moore had grown a shade paler. He gathered up his reins, ready to drive off.

“Belllounds, I came up after my things I’d left in the bunk,” he said, coolly. “Happened to meet Columbine and stopped to chat a minute.”

“That’s what you say,” sneered Belllounds. “You were making love to Columbine. I saw that in her face. You know it — and she knows it — and I know it.... You’re a liar!”

“Belllounds, I reckon I am,” replied Moore, turning white. “I did tell Columbine what I thought she knew — what I ought to have told long ago.”

“Ahuh! Well, I don’t want to hear it. But I’m going to search that wagon.”

“What!” ejaculated the cowboy, dropping his reins as if they stung him.

“You just hold on till I see what you’ve got in there,” went on Belllounds, and he reached over into the wagon and pulled at a saddle.

“Say, do you mean anything?... This stuff’s mine, every strap of it. Take your hands off.”

Belllounds leaned on the wagon and looked up with insolent, dark intent.

“Moore, I wouldn’t trust you. I think you’d steal anything you got your hands on.”

Columbine uttered a passionate little cry of shame and protest.

“Jack, how dare you!”

“You shut up! Go in the house!” he ordered.

“You insult me,” she replied, in bitter humiliation.

“Will you go in?” he shouted.

“No, I won’t.”

“All right, look on, then. I’d just as lief have you.” Then he turned to the cowboy. “Moore, show up that wagon-load of stuff unless you want me to throw it out in the road.”

“Belllounds, you know I can’t do that,” replied Moore, coldly. “And I’ll give you a hunch. You’d better shut up yourself and let me drive on.... If not for her sake, then for your own.”

Belllounds grasped the reins, and with a sudden jerk pulled them out of the cowboy’s hands.

“You damn club-foot! Your gift of gab doesn’t go with me,” yelled Belllounds, as he swung up on the hub of the wheel. But it was manifest that his desire to search the wagon was only a pretense, for while he pulled at this and that his evil gaze was on the cowboy, keen to meet any move that might give excuse for violence. Moore evidently read this, for, gazing at Columbine, he shook his head, as if to acquaint her with a situation impossible to help.

“Columbine, please hand me up the reins,” he said. “I’m lame, you know. Then I’ll be going.”

Columbine stepped forward to comply, when Belllounds, leaping down from the wheel, pushed her hack with masterful hand. Opposition to him was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull. Columbine recoiled from his look as well as touch.

“You keep out of this or I’ll teach you who’s boss here,” he said, stridently.

“You’re going too far!” burst out Columbine.

Meanwhile Wilson had laboriously climbed down out of the wagon, and, utilizing his crutch, he hobbled to where Belllounds had thrown the reins, and stooped to pick them up. Belllounds shoved Columbine farther back, and then he leaped to confront the cowboy.

“I’ve got you now, Moore,” he said, hoarse and low. Stripped of all pretense, he showed the ungovernable nature of his temper. His face grew corded and black. The hand he thrust out shook like a leaf. “You smooth-tongued liar! I’m on to your game. I know you’d put her against me. I know you’d try to win her — less than a week before her wedding-day.... But it’s not for that I’m going to beat hell out of you! It’s because I hate you! Ever since I can remember my father held you up to me! And he sent me to — to — he sent me away because of you. By God! that’s why I hate you!”

All that was primitive and violent and base came out with strange frankness in Belllounds’s tirade. Only when calm could his mind be capable of hidden calculation. The devil that was in him now seemed rampant.

“Belllounds, you’re mighty brave to stack up this way against a one-legged man,” declared the cowboy, with biting sarcasm.

“If you had two club-feet I’d only be the gladder,” yelled Belllounds, and swinging his arm, he slapped Moore so that it nearly toppled him over. Only the injured foot, coming down hard, saved him.

When Columbine saw that, and then how Wilson winced and grew deathly pale, she uttered a low cry, and she seemed suddenly rooted to the spot, weak, terrified at what was now inevitable, and growing sick and cold and faint.

“It’s a damn lucky thing for you I’m not packing a gun,” said Moore, grimly. “But you knew — or you’d never hit me — you coward.”

“I’ll make you swallow that,” snarled Belllounds, and this time he swung his fist, aiming a heavy blow at Moore.

Then the cowboy whirled aloft the heavy crutch. “If you hit at me again I’ll let out what little brains you’ve got. God knows that’s little enough!... Belllounds, I’m going to call you to your face — before this girl your bat-eyed old man means to give you. You’re not drunk. You’re only ugly — mean. You’ve got a chance now to lick me because I’m crippled. And you’re going to make the most of it. Why, you cur, I could come near licking you with only one leg. But if you touch me again I’ll brain you!... You never were any good. You’re no good now. You never will be anything but Buster Jack — half dotty, selfish as hell, bull-headed and mean!... And that’s the last word I’ll ever waste on you.”

“I’ll kill you!” bawled Belllounds, black with fury.

Moore wielded the crutch menacingly, but as he was not steady on his feet he was at the disadvantage his adversary had calculated upon. Belllounds ran around the cowboy, and suddenly plunged in to grapple with him. The crutch descended, but to little purpose. Belllounds’s heavy onslaught threw Moore to the ground. Before he could rise Belllounds pounced upon him.

Columbine saw all this dazedly. As Wilson fell she closed her eyes, fighting a faintness that almost overcame her. She heard wrestling, threshing sounds, and sodden thumps, and a scattering of gravel. These noises seemed at first distant, then grew closer. As she gazed again with keener perception, Moore’s horse plunged away from the fiercely struggling forms that had rolled almost under his feet. During the ensuing moments it was an equal battle so far as Columbine could tell. Repelled, yet fascinated, she watched. They beat each other, grappled and rolled over, first one on top, then the other. But the advantage of being uppermost presently was Belllounds’s. Moore was weakening. That became noticeable more and more after each time he had wrestled and rolled about. Then Belllounds, getting this position, lay with his weight upon Moore, holding him down, and at the same time kicking with all his might. He was aiming to disable the cowboy by kicking the injured foot. And he was succeeding. Moore let out a strangled cry, and struggled desperately. But he was held and weighted down. Belllounds raised up now and, looking backward, he deliberately and furiously kicked Moore’s bandaged foot; once, twice, again and again, until the straining form under him grew limp. Columbine, slowly freezing with horror, saw all this. She could not move. She could not scream. She wanted to rush in and drag Jack off of Wilson, to hurt him, to kill him, but her muscles were paralyzed. In her agony she could not even look away. Belllounds got up astride his prostrate adversary and began to beat him brutally, swinging heavy, sodden blows. His face then was terrible to see. He meant murder.

Columbine heard approaching voices and the thumping of hasty feet. That unclamped her cloven tongue. Wildly she screamed. Old Bill Belllounds appeared, striding off the porch. And the hunter Wade came running down the path.

“Dad! he’s killing Wilson!” cried Columbine.

“Hyar, you devil!” roared the rancher.

Jack Belllounds got up. Panting, disheveled, with hair ruffled and face distorted, he was not a pleasant sight for even the father. Moore lay unconscious, with ghastly, bloody features, and his bandaged foot showed great splotches of red.

“My Gawd, son!” gasped Old Bill. “You didn’t pick on this hyar crippled boy?”

The evidence was plain, in Moore’s quiet, pathetic form, in the panting, purple-faced son. Jack Belllounds did not answer. He was in the grip of a passion that had at last been wholly unleashed and was still unsatisfied. Yet a malignant and exultant gratification showed in his face.

“That — evens us — up, Moore,” he panted, and stalked away.

By this time Wade reached the cowboy and knelt beside him. Columbine came running to fall on her knees. The old rancher seemed stricken.

“Oh — Oh! it was terrible—” cried Columbine. “Oh — he’s so white — and the blood—”

“Now, lass, that’s no way for a woman,” said Wade, and there was something in his kind tone, in his look, in his presence, that calmed Columbine. “I’ll look after Moore. You go get some water an’ a towel.”

Columbine rose to totter into the house. She saw a red stain on the hand she had laid upon the cowboy’s face, and with a strange, hot, bursting sensation, strong and thrilling, she put that red place to her lips. Running out with the things required by Wade, she was in time to hear the rancher say, “Looks hurt bad, to me.”

“Yes, I reckon,” replied Wade.

While Columbine held Moore’s head upon her lap the hunter bathed the bloody face. It was battered and bruised and cut, and in some places, as fast as Wade washed away the red, it welled out again.

Columbine watched that quiet face, while her heart throbbed and swelled with emotions wholly beyond her control and understanding. When at last Wilson opened his eyes, fluttering at first, and then wide, she felt a surge that shook her whole body. He smiled wanly at her, and at Wade, and then his gaze lifted to Belllounds.

“I guess — he licked me,” he said, in weak voice. “He kept kicking my sore foot — till I fainted. But he licked me — all right.”

“Wils, mebbe he did lick you,” replied the old rancher, brokenly, “but I reckon he’s damn little to be proud of — lickin’ a crippled man — thet way.”

“Boss, Jack’d been drinking,” said Moore, weakly. “And he sure had — some excuse for going off his head. He caught me — talking sweet to Columbine ... and then — I called him all the names — I could lay my tongue to.”

“Ahuh!” The old man seemed at a loss for words, and presently he turned away, sagging in the shoulders, and plodded into the house.

The cowboy, supported by Wade on one side, with Columbine on the other, was helped to an upright position, and with considerable difficulty was gotten into the wagon. He tried to sit up, but made a sorry showing of it.

“I’ll drive him home an’ look after him,” said Wade. “Now, Miss Collie, you’re upset, which ain’t no wonder. But now you brace. It might have been worse. Just you go to your room till you’re sure of yourself again.”

Moore smiled another wan smile at her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“What for? Me?” she asked.

“I mean I’m sorry I was so infernal unlucky — running into you — and bringing all this distress — to you. It was my fault. If I’d only kept — my mouth shut!”

“You need not be sorry you met me,” she said, with her eyes straight upon his. “I’m glad.... But oh! if your foot is badly hurt I’ll never — never—’

“Don’t say it,” interrupted Wilson.

“Lass, you’re bent on doin’ somethin’,” said Wade, in his gentle voice.

“Bent?” she echoed, with something deep and rich in her voice. “Yes, I’m bent — bent like your name — to speak my mind!”

Then she ran toward the house and up on the porch, to enter the living-room with heaving breast and flashing eyes. Manifestly the rancher was berating his son. The former gaped at sight of her and the latter shrank.

“Jack Belllounds,” she cried, “you’re not half a man.... You’re a coward and a brute!”

One tense moment she stood there, lightning scorn and passion in her gaze, and then she rushed out, impetuously, as she had come.

CHAPTER VIII

COLUMBINE DID NOT leave her room any more that day. What she suffered there she did not want any one to know. What it cost her to conquer herself again she had only a faint conception of. She did conquer, however, and that night made up the sleep she had lost the night before.

Strangely enough, she did not feel afraid to face the rancher and his son. Recent happenings had not only changed her, but had seemed to give her strength. When she presented herself at the breakfast-table Jack was absent. The old rancher greeted her with more thar usual solicitude.

“Jack’s sick,” he remarked, presently.

“Indeed,” replied Columbine.

“Yes. He said it was the drinkin’ he’s not accustomed to. Wal, I reckon it was what you called him. He didn’t take much store on what I called him, which was wuss.... I tell you, lass, Jack’s set his heart so hard on you thet it’s turrible.”

“Queer way he has of showing the — the affections of his heart,” replied Columbine, shortly.

“Thet was the drink,” remonstrated the old man, pathetic and earnest in his motive to smooth over the quarrel.

“But he promised me he would not drink any more.”

Belllounds shook his gray old head sadly.

“Ahuh! Jack fires up an’ promises anythin’. He means it at the time. But the next hankerin’ thet comes over him wipes out the promise. I know.... But he’s had good excuse fer this break. The boys in town began celebratin’ fer October first. Great wonder Jack didn’t come home clean drunk.”

“Dad, you’re as good as gold,” said Columbine, softening. How could she feel hard toward him?

“Collie, then you’re not agoin’ back on the ole man?”

“No.”

“I was afeared you’d change your mind about marryin’ Jack.”

“When I promised I meant it. I didn’t make it on conditions.”

“But, lass, promises can be broke,” he said, with the sonorous roll in his voice.

“I never yet broke one of mine.”

“Wal, I hev. Not often, mebbe, but I hev.... An’, lass, it’s reasonable. Thar’s times when a man jest can’t live up to what he swore by. An’ fer a girl — why, I can see how easy she’d change an’ grow overnight. It’s only fair fer me to say that no matter what you think you owe me you couldn’t be blamed now fer dislikin’ Jack.”

“Dad, if by marrying Jack I can help him to be a better son to you, and more of a man, I’ll be glad,” she replied.

“Lass, I’m beginnin’ to see how big an’ fine you are,” replied Belllounds, with strong feeling. “An’ it’s worryin’ me.... My neighbors hev always accused me of seein’ only my son. Only Buster Jack! I was blind an’ deaf as to him!... Wal, I’m not so damn blind as I used to be. The scales are droppin’ off my ole eyes.... But I’ve got one hope left as far as Jack’s concerned. Thet’s marryin’ him to you. An’ I’m stickin’ to it.”

“So will I stick to it, dad,” she replied. “I’ll go through with October first!”

Columbine broke off, vouchsafing no more, and soon left the breakfast-table, to take up the work she had laid out to do. And she accomplished it, though many times her hands dropped idle and her eyes peered out of her window at the drab slides of the old mountain.

Later, when she went out to ride, she saw the cowboy Lem working in the blacksmith shop.

“Wal, Miss Collie, air you-all still hangin’ round this hyar ranch?” he asked, with welcoming smile.

“Lem, I’m almost ashamed now to face my good friends, I’ve neglected them so long,” she replied.

“Aw, now, what’re friends fer but to go to?... You’re lookin’ pale, I reckon. More like thet thar flower I see so much on the hills.”

“Lem, I want to ride Pronto. Do you think he’s all right, now?”

“I reckon some movin’ round will do Pronto good. He’s eatin’ his haid off.”

The cowboy went with her to the pasture gate and whistled Pronto up. The mustang came trotting, evidently none the worse for his injuries, and eager to resume the old climbs with his mistress. Lem saddled him, paying particular attention to the cinch.

“Reckon we’d better not cinch him tight,” said Lem. “You jest be careful an’ remember your saddle’s loose.”

“All right, Lem,” replied Columbine, as she mounted. “Where are the boys this morning?”

“Blud an’ Jim air repairin’ fence up the crick.”

“And where’s Ben?”

“Ben? Oh, you mean Wade. Wal, I ‘ain’t seen him since yestidday. He was skinnin’ a lion then, over hyar on the ridge. Thet was in the mawnin’. I reckon he’s around, fer I seen some of the hounds.”

“Then, Lem — you haven’t heard about the fight yesterday between Jack and Wilson Moore?”

Lem straightened up quickly. “Nope, I ‘ain’t heerd a word.”

“Well, they fought, all right,” said Columbine, hurriedly. “I saw it. I was the only one there. Wilson was badly used up before dad and Ben got there. Ben drove off with him.”

“But, Miss Collie, how’d it come off? I seen Wils the other day. Was up to his homestead. An’ the boy jest manages to rustle round on a crutch. He couldn’t fight.”

“That was just it. Jack saw his opportunity, and he forced Wilson to fight — accused him of stealing. Wils tried to avoid trouble. Then Jack jumped him. Wilson fought and held his own until Jack began to kick his injured foot. Then Wilson fainted and — and Jack beat him.”

Lem dropped his head, evidently to hide his expression. “Wal, dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “Thet’s too bad.”

Columbine left the cowboy and rode up the lane toward Wade’s cabin. She did not analyze her deliberate desire to tell the truth about that fight, but she would have liked to proclaim it to the whole range and to the world. Once clear of the house she felt free, unburdened, and to talk seemed to relieve some congestion of her thoughts.

The hounds heralded Columbine’s approach with a deep and booming chorus. Sampson and Jim lay upon the porch, unleashed. The other hounds were chained separately in the aspen grove a few rods distant. Sampson thumped the boards with his big tail, but he did not get up, which laziness attested to the fact that there had been a lion chase the day before and he was weary and stiff. If Wade had been at home he would have come out to see what had occasioned the clamor. As Columbine rode by she saw another fresh lion-pelt pegged upon the wall of the cabin.

She followed the brook. It had cleared since the rains and was shining and sparkling in the rough, swift places, and limpid and green in the eddies. She passed the dam made by the solitary beaver that inhabited the valley. Freshly cut willows showed how the beaver was preparing for the long winter ahead. Columbine remembered then how greatly pleased Wade had been to learn about this old beaver; and more than once Wade had talked about trapping some younger beavers and bringing them there to make company for the old fellow.

The trail led across the brook at a wide, shallow place, where the splashing made by Pronto sent the trout scurrying for deeper water. Columbine kept to that trail, knowing that it led up into Sage Valley, where Wilson Moore had taken up the homestead property. Fresh horse tracks told her that Wade had ridden along there some time earlier. Pronto shied at the whirring of sage-hens. Presently Columbine ascertained they were flushed by the hound Kane, that had broken loose and followed her. He had done so before, and the fact had not displeased her.

“Kane! Kane! come here!” she called. He came readily, but halted a rod or so away, and made an attempt at wagging his tail, a function evidently somewhat difficult for him. When she resumed trotting he followed her.

Old White Slides had lost all but the drabs and dull yellows and greens, and of course those pale, light slopes that had given the mountain its name. Sage Valley was only one of the valleys at its base. It opened out half a mile wide, dominated by the looming peak, and bordered on the far side by an aspen-thicketed slope. The brook babbled along under the edge of this thicket. Cattle and horses grazed here and there on the rich, grassy levels, Columbine was surprised to see so many cattle and wondered to whom they belonged. All of Belllounds’s stock had been driven lower down for the winter. There among the several horses that whistled at her approach she espied the white mustang Belllounds had given to Moore. It thrilled her to see him. And next, she suffered a pang to think that perhaps his owner might never ride him again. But Columbine held her emotions in abeyance.

The cabin stood high upon a level terrace, with clusters of aspens behind it, and was sheltered from winter blasts by a gray cliff, picturesque and crumbling, with its face overgrown by creeping vines and colorful shrubs, Wilson Moore could not have chosen a more secluded and beautiful valley for his homesteading adventure. The little gray cabin, with smoke curling from the stone chimney, had lost its look of dilapidation and disuse, yet there was nothing new that Columbine could see. The last quarter of the ascent of the slope, and the few rods across the level terrace, seemed extraordinarily long to Columbine. As she dismounted and tied Pronto her heart was beating and her breath was coming fast.

The door of the cabin was open. Kane trotted past the hesitating Columbine and went in.

“You son-of-a-hound-dog!” came to Columbine’s listening ears in Wade’s well-known voice. “I’ll have to beat you — sure as you’re born.”

“I heard a horse,” came in a lower voice, that was Wilson’s.

“Darn me if I’m not gettin’ deafer every day,” was the reply.

Then Wade appeared in the doorway.

“It’s nobody but Miss Collie,” he announced, as he made way for her to enter.

“Good morning!” said Columbine, in a voice that had more than cheerfulness in it.

“Collie!... Did you come to see me?”

She heard this incredulous query just an instant before she saw Wilson at the far end of the room, lying under the light of a window. The inside of the cabin seemed vague and unfamiliar.

“I surely did,” she replied, advancing. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m all right. Tickled to death, right now. Only, I hate to have you see this battered mug of mine.”

“You needn’t — care,” said Columbine, unsteadily. And indeed, in that first glance she did not see him clearly. A mist blurred her sight and there was a lump in her throat. Then, to recover herself, she looked around the cabin.

“Well — Wils Moore — if this isn’t fine!” she ejaculated, in amaze and delight. Columbine sustained an absolute surprise. A magic hand had transformed the interior of that rude old prospector’s abode. A carpenter and a mason and a decorator had been wonderfully at work. From one end to the other Columbine gazed; from the big window under which Wilson lay on a blanketed couch to the open fireplace where Wade grinned she looked and looked, and then up to the clean, aspen-poled roof and down to the floor, carpeted with deer hides. The chinks between the logs of the walls were plastered with red clay; the dust and dirt were gone; the place smelled like sage and wood-smoke and fragrant, frying meat. Indeed, there were a glowing bed of embers and a steaming kettle and a smoking pot; and the way the smoke and steam curled up into the gray old chimney attested to its splendid draught. In each corner hung a deer-head, from the antlers of which depended accoutrements of a cowboy — spurs, ropes, belts, scarfs, guns. One corner contained cupboard, ceiling high, with new, clean doors of wood, neatly made; and next to it stood a table, just as new. On the blank wall beyond that were pegs holding saddles, bridles, blankets, clothes.

“He did it — all this inside,” burst out Moore, delighted with her delight. “Quicker than a flash! Collie, isn’t this great? I don’t mind being down on my back. And he says they call him Hell-Bent Wade. I call him Heaven-Sent Wade!”

When Columbine turned to the hunter, bursting with her pleasure and gratitude, he suddenly dropped the forked stick he used as a lift, and she saw his hand shake when he stooped to recover it. How strangely that struck her!

“Ben, it’s perfectly possible that you’ve been sent by Heaven,” she remarked, with a humor which still held gravity in it.

“Me! A good angel? That’d be a new job for Bent Wade,” he replied, with a queer laugh. “But I reckon I’d try to live up to it.”

There were small sprigs of golden aspen leaves and crimson oak leaves on the wall above the foot of Wilson’s bed. Beneath them, on pegs, hung a rifle. And on the window-sill stood a glass jar containing columbines. They were fresh. They had just been picked. They waved gently in the breeze, sweetly white and blue, strangely significant to the girl.

Moore laughed defiantly.

“Wade thought to fetch these flowers in,” he explained. “They’re his favorites as well as mine. It won’t be long now till the frost kills them ... and I want to be happy while I may!”

Again Columbine felt that deep surge within her, beyond her control, beyond her understanding, but now gathering and swelling, soon to be reckoned with. She did not look at Wilson’s face then. Her downcast gaze saw that his right hand was bandaged, and she touched it with an unconscious tenderness.

“Your hand! Why is it all wrapped up?”

The cowboy laughed with grim humor.

“Have you seen Jack this morning?”

“No,” she replied, shortly.

“Well, if you had, you’d know what happened to my fist.”

“Did you hurt it on him?” she asked, with a queer little shudder that was not unpleasant.

“Collie, I busted that fist on his handsome face.”

“Oh, it was dreadful!” she murmured. “Wilson, he meant to kill you.”

“Sure. And I’d cheerfully have killed him.”

“You two must never meet again,” she went on.

“I hope to Heaven we never do,” replied Moore, with a dark earnestness that meant more than his actual words.

“Wilson, will you avoid him — for my sake?” implored Columbine, unconsciously clasping the bandaged hand.

“I will. I’ll take the back trails. I’ll sneak like a coyote. I’ll hide and I’ll watch.... But, Columbine Belllounds, if he ever corners me again—”

“Why, you’ll leave him to Hell-Bent Wade,” interrupted the hunter, and he looked up from where he knelt, fixing those great, inscrutable eyes upon the cowboy. Columbine saw something beyond his face, deeper than the gloom, a passion and a spirit that drew her like a magnet. “An’ now, Miss Collie,” he went on, “I reckon you’ll want to wait on our invalid. He’s got to be fed.”

“I surely will,” replied Columbine, gladly, and she sat down on the edge of the bed. “Ben, you fetch that box and put his dinner on it.”

While Wade complied, Columbine, shyly aware of her nearness to the cowboy, sought to keep up conversation. “Couldn’t you help yourself with your left hand?” she inquired.

“That’s one worse,” he answered, taking it from under the blanket, where it had been concealed.

“Oh!” cried Columbine, in dismay.

“Broke two bones in this one,” said Wilson, with animation. “Say, Collie, our friend Wade is a doctor, too. Never saw his beat!”

“And a cook, too, for here’s your dinner. You must sit up,” ordered Columbine.

“Fold that blanket and help me up on it,” replied Moore.

How strange and disturbing for Columbine to bend over him, to slip her arms under him and lift him! It recalled a long-forgotten motherliness of her doll-playing days. And her face flushed hot.

“Can’t you move?” she asked, suddenly becoming aware of how dead a weight the cowboy appeared.

“Not — very much,” he replied. Drops of sweat appeared on his bruised brow. It must have hurt him to move.

“You said your foot was all right.”

“It is,” he returned. “It’s still on my leg, as I know darned well.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Columbine, dubiously. Without further comment she began to feed him.

“It’s worth getting licked to have this treat,” he said.

“Nonsense!” she rejoined.

“I’d stand it again — to have you come here and feed me.... But not from him.”

“Wilson, I never knew you to be facetious before. Here, take this.”

Apparently he did not see her outstretched hand.

“Collie, you’ve changed. You’re older. You’re a woman, now — and the prettiest—”

“Are you going to eat?” demanded Columbine.

“Huh!” exclaimed the cowboy, blankly. “Eat? Oh yes, sure. I’m powerful hungry. And maybe Heaven-Sent Wade can’t cook!”

But Columbine had trouble in feeding him. What with his helplessness, and his propensity to watch her face instead of her hands, and her own mounting sensations of a sweet, natural joy and fitness in her proximity to him, she was hard put to it to show some dexterity as a nurse. And all the time she was aware of Wade, with his quiet, forceful presence, hovering near. Could he not see her hands trembling? And would he not think that weakness strange? Then driftingly came the thought that she would not shrink from Wade’s reading her mind. Perhaps even now he understood her better than she understood herself.

“I can’t — eat any more,” declared Moore, at last.

“You’ve done very well for an invalid,” observed Columbine. Then, changing the subject, she asked, “Wilson, you’re going to stay here — winter here, dad would call it?”

“Yes.”

“Are those your cattle down in the valley?”

“Sure. I’ve got near a hundred head. I saved my money and bought cattle.”

“That’s a good start for you. I’m glad. But who’s going to take care of you and your stock until you can work again?”

“Why, my friend there, Heaven-Sent Wade,” replied Moore, indicating the little man busy with the utensils on the table, and apparently hearing nothing.

“Can I fetch you anything to eat — or read?” she inquired.

“Fetch yourself,” he replied, softly.

“But, boy, how could I fetch you anything without fetching myself?”

“Sure, that’s right. Then fetch me some jam and a book — to-morrow. Will you?”

“I surely will.”

“That’s a promise. I know your promises of old.”

“Then good-by till to-morrow. I must go. I hope you’ll be better.”

“I’ll stay sick in bed till you stop coming.”

Columbine left rather precipitously, and when she got outdoors it seemed that the hills had never been so softly, dreamily gray, nor their loneliness so sweet, nor the sky so richly and deeply blue. As she untied Pronto the hunter came out with Kane at his heels.

“Miss Collie, if you’ll go easy I’ll ketch my horse an’ ride down with you,” he said.

She mounted, and walked Pronto out to the trail, and slowly faced the gradual descent. It was really higher up there than she had surmised. And the view was beautiful. The gray, rolling foothills, so exquisitely colored at that hour, and the black-fringed ranges, one above the other, and the distant peaks, sunset-flushed across the purple, all rose open and clear to her sight, so wildly and splendidly expressive of the Colorado she loved.

At the foot of the slope Wade joined her.

“Lass, I’m askin’ you not to tell Belllounds that I’m carin’ for Wils,” he said, in his gentle, persuasive way.

“I won’t. But why not tell dad? He wouldn’t mind. He’d do that sort of thing himself.”

“Reckon he would. But this deal’s out of the ordinary. An’ Wils’s not in as good shape as he thinks. I’m not takin’ any chances. I don’t want to lose my job, an’ I don’t want to be hindered from attendin’ to this boy.”

They had ridden as far as the first aspen grove when Wade concluded this remark. Columbine halted her horse, causing her companion to do likewise. Her former misgivings were augmented by the intelligence of Wade’s sad, lined face.

“Ben, tell me,” she whispered, with a hand going to his arm.

“Miss Collie, I’m a sort of doctor in my way. I studied some medicine an’ surgery. An’ I know. I wouldn’t tell you this if it wasn’t that I’ve got to rely on you to help me.”

“I will — but go on — tell me,” interposed Columbine trying to fortify herself.

“Wils’s foot is all messed up. Buster Jack kicked it all out of shape. An’ it’s a hundred times worse than ever. I’m afraid of blood-poisonin’ an’ gangrene. You know gangrene is a dyin’ an’ rottin’ of the flesh.... I told the boy straight out that he’d better let me cut his foot off. An’ he swore he’d keep his foot or die! Well, if gangrene does set in we can’t save his leg, an’ maybe not his life.”

“Oh, it can’t be as bad as all that!” cried Columbine. “Oh, I knew — I knew there was something.... Ben, you mean even at best now — he’ll be a—” She broke off, unable to finish.

“Miss Collie, in any case Wils’ll never ride again — not like a cowboy.”

That for Columbine seemed the worst and the last straw. Hot tears blinded her, hot blood gushed over her, hot heart-beats throbbed in her throat.

“Poor boy! That’ll — ruin him,” she cried. “He loved — a horse. He loved to ride. He was the — best rider of them all. And now he’s ruined! He’ll be lame — a cripple — club-footed!... All because of that Jack Belllounds! The brute — the coward! I hate him! Oh, I hate him!... And I’ve got to marry him — on October first! Oh, God pity me!”

Blindly Columbine reeled out of her saddle and slowly dropped to the grass, where she burst into a violent storm of sobs and tears. It shook her every fiber. It was hopeless, terrible grief. The dry grass received her flood of tears and her incoherent words.

Wade dismounted and, kneeling beside her, placed a gentle hand upon her heaving shoulder, but he spoke no word. By and by, when the storm had begun to subside, he raised her head.

“Lass, nothin’ is ever so bad as it seems,” he said, softly. “Come, sit up. Let me talk to you.”

“Oh, Ben, something terrible has happened,” she cried. “It’s in me! I don’t know what it is. But it’ll kill me.”

“I know,” he replied, as her head fell upon his shoulder. “Miss Collie, I’m an old fellow that’s had everythin’ happen to him, an’ I’m livin’ yet, tryin’ to help people along. No one dies so easy. Why, you’re a fine, strong girl — an’ somethin’ tells me you was made for happiness. I know how things turn out. Listen—”

“But, Ben — you don’t know — about me,” she sobbed. “I’ve told you — I — hate Jack Belllounds. But I’ve — got to marry him!... His father raised me — from a baby. He brought me up. I owe him — my life.... I’ve no relation — no mother — no father! No one loves me — for myself!”

“Nobody loves you!” echoed Wade, with an exquisite tone of repudiation. “Strange how people fool themselves! Lass, you’re huggin’ your troubles too hard. An’ you’re wrong. Why, everybody loves you! Lem an’ Jim — why you just brighten the hard world they live in. An’ that poor, hot-headed Jack — he loves you as well as he can love anythin’. An’ the old man — no daughter could be loved more.... An’ I — I love you, lass, just like — as if you — might have been my own. I’m goin’ to be the friend — the brother you need. An’ I reckon I can come somewheres near bein’ a mother, if you’ll let me.”

Something, some subtle power or charm, stole over Columbine, assuaging her terrible sense of loss, of grief. There was tenderness in this man’s hands, in his voice, and through them throbbed strong and passionate life and spirit.

“Do you really love me — love me?” she whispered, somehow comforted, somehow feeling that what he offered was what she had missed as a child. “And you want to be all that for me?”

“Yes, lass, an’ I reckon you’d better try me.”

“Oh, how good you are! I felt that — the very first time I was with you. I’ve wanted to come to you — to tell you my troubles. I love dad and he loves me, but he doesn’t understand. Dad is wrapped up in his son. I’ve had no one. I never had any one.”

“You have some one now,” returned Wade, with a rich, deep mellowness in his voice that soothed Columbine and made her wonder. “An’ because I’ve been through so much I can tell you what’ll help you.... Lass, if a woman isn’t big an’ brave, how will a man ever be? There’s more in women than in men. Life has given you a hard knock, placin’ you here — no real parents — an’ makin’ you responsible to a man whose only fault is blinded love for his son. Well, you’ve got to meet it, face it, with what a woman has more of than any man. Courage! Suppose you do hate this Buster Jack. Suppose you do love this poor, crippled Wilson Moore.... Lass, don’t look like that! Don’t deny. You do love that boy.... Well, it’s hell. But you can never tell what’ll happen when you’re honest and square. If you feel it your duty to pay your debt to the old man you call dad — to pay it by marryin’ his son, why do it, an’ be a woman. There’s nothin’ as great as a woman can be. There’s happiness that comes in strange, unheard-of ways. There’s more in this life than what you want most. You didn’t place yourself in this fix. So if you meet it with courage an’ faithfulness to yourself, why, it’ll not turn out as you dread.... Some day, if you ever think you’re broken-hearted, I’ll tell you my story. An’ then you’ll not think your lot so hard. For I’ve had a broken heart an’ ruined life, an’ yet I’ve lived on an’ on, findin’ happiness I never dreamed would come, fightin’ or workin’. An’ how I found the world beautiful, an’ how I love the flowers an’ hills an’ wild things so well — that, just that would be enough to live for!... An’ think, lass, of what a wonderful happiness will come to me in showin’ all this to you. That’ll be the crownin’ glory. An’ if it’s that much to me, then you be sure there’s nothin’ on earth I won’t do for you.”

Columbine lifted her tear-stained face with a light of inspiration.

“Oh, Wilson was right!” she murmured. “You are Heaven-sent! And I’m going to love you!”

CHAPTER IX

A NEW SPIRIT, or a liberation of her own, had fired Columbine, and was now burning within her, unquenchable and unutterable. Some divine spark had penetrated into that mysterious depth of her, to inflame and to illumine, so that when she arose from this hour of calamity she felt that to the tenderness and sorrow and fidelity in her soul had been added the lightning flash of passion.

“Oh, Ben — shall I be able to hold onto this?” she cried, flinging wide her arms, as if to embrace the winds of heaven.

“This what, lass?” he asked.

“This — this woman!” she answered, passionately, with her hands sweeping back to press her breast.

“No woman who wakes ever goes back to a girl again,” he said, sadly.

“I wanted to die — and now I want to live — to fight.... Ben, you’ve uplifted me. I was little, weak, miserable.... But in my dreams, or in some state I can’t remember or understand, I’ve waited for your very words. I was ready. It’s as if I knew you in some other world, before I was born on this earth; and when you spoke to me here, so wonderfully — as my mother might have spoken — my heart leaped up in recognition of you and your call to my womanhood!... Oh, how strange and beautiful!”

“Miss Collie,” he replied, slowly, as he bent to his saddle-straps, “you’re young, an’ you’ve no understandin’ of what’s strange an’ terrible in life. An’ beautiful, too, as you say.... Who knows? Maybe in some former state I was somethin’ to you. I believe in that. Reckon I can’t say how or what. Maybe we were flowers or birds. I’ve a weakness for that idea.”

“Birds! I like the thought, too,” replied Columbine. “I love most birds. But there are hawks, crows, buzzards!”

“I reckon. Lass, there’s got to be balance in nature. If it weren’t for the ugly an’ the evil, we wouldn’t know the beautiful an’ good.... An’ now let’s ride home. It’s gettin’ late.”

“Ben, ought I not go back to Wilson right now?” she asked, slowly.

“What for?”

“To tell him — something — and why I can’t come to-morrow, or ever afterward,” she replied, low and tremulously.

Wade pondered over her words. It seemed to Columbine that her sharpened faculties sensed something of hostility, of opposition in him.

“Reckon to-morrow would be better,” he said, presently. “Wilson’s had enough excitement for one day.”

“Then I’ll go to-morrow,” she returned.

In the gathering, cold twilight they rode down the trail in silence.

“Good night, lass,” said Wade, as he reached his cabin. “An’ remember you’re not alone any more.”

“Good night, my friend,” she replied, and rode on.

Columbine encountered Jim Montana at the corrals, and it was not too dark for her to see his foam-lashed horse. Jim appeared non-committal, almost surly. But Columbine guessed that he had ridden to Kremmling and back in one day, on some order of Jack’s.

“Miss Collie, I’ll tend to Pronto,” he offered. “An’ yore supper’ll be waitin’.”

A bright fire blazed on the living-room hearth. The rancher was reading by its light.

“Hello, rosy-cheeks!” greeted the rancher, with unusual amiability. “Been ridin’ ag’in’ the wind, hey? Wal, if you ain’t pretty, then my eyes are pore!”

“It’s cold, dad,” she replied, “and the wind stings. But I didn’t ride fast nor far.... I’ve been up to see Wilson Moore.”

“Ahuh! Wal, how’s the boy?” asked Belllounds, gruffly.

“He said he was all right, but — but I guess that’s not so,” responded Columbine.

“Any friends lookin’ after him?”

“Oh yes — he must have friends — the Andrewses and others. I’m glad to say his cabin is comfortable. He’ll be looked after.”

“Wal, I’m glad to hear thet. I’ll send Lem or Wade up thar an’ see if we can do anythin’ fer the boy.”

“Dad — that’s just like you,” replied Columbine, with her hand seeking his broad shoulder.

“Ahuh! Say, Collie, hyar’s letters from ‘most everybody in Kremmlin’ wantin’ to be invited up fer October first. How about askin’ ‘em?”

“The more the merrier,” replied Columbine.

“Wal, I reckon I’ll not ask anybody.”

“Why not, dad?”

“No one can gamble on thet son of mine, even on his weddin’-day,” replied Belllounds, gloomily.

“Dad, what’d Jack do to-day?”

“I’m not sayin’ he did anythin’,” answered the rancher.

“Dad, you can gamble on me.”

“Wal, I should smile,” he said, putting his big arm around her. “I wish you was Jack an’ Jack was you.”

At that moment the young man spoken of slouched into the room, with his head bandaged, and took a seat at the supper-table.

“Wal, Collie, let’s go an’ get it,” said the rancher, cheerily. “I can always eat, anyhow.”

“I’m hungry as a bear,” rejoined Columbine, as she took her seat, which was opposite Jack.

“Where ‘ye you been?” he asked, curiously.

“Why, good evening, Jack! Did you finally notice me?... I’ve been riding Pronto, the first time since he was hurt. Had a lovely ride — up through Sage Valley.”

Jack glowered at her with the one unbandaged eye, and growled something under his breath, and then began to stab meat and potatoes with his fork.

“What’s the matter, Jack? Aren’t you well?” asked Columbine, with a solicitude just a little too sweet to be genuine.

“Yes, I’m well,” snapped Jack.

“But you look sick. That is, what I can see of your face looks sick. Your mouth droops at the corners. You’re very pale — and red in spots. And your one eye glows with unearthly woe, as if you were not long for this world!”

The amazing nature of this speech, coming from the girl who had always been so sweet and quiet and backward, was attested to by the consternation of Jack and the mirth of his father.

“Are you making fun of me?” demanded Jack.

“Why, Jack! Do you think I would make fun of you? I only wanted to say how queer you look.... Are you going to be married with one eye?”

Jack collapsed at that, and the old man, after a long stare of open-mouthed wonder, broke out: “Haw! Haw! Haw!... By Golly! lass — I’d never believed thet was in you.... Jack, be game an’ take your medicine.... An’ both of you forgive an’ forget. Thar’ll be quarrels enough, mebbe, without rakin’ over the past.”

When alone again Columbine reverted to a mood vastly removed from her apparent levity with the rancher and his son. A grave and inward-searching thought possessed her, and it had to do with the uplift, the spiritual advance, the rise above mere personal welfare, that had strangely come to her through Bent Wade. From their first meeting he had possessed a singular attraction for her that now, in the light of the meaning of his life, seemed to Columbine to be the man’s nobility and wisdom, arising out of his travail, out of the terrible years that had left their record upon his face.

And so Columbine strove to bind forever in her soul the spirit which had arisen in her, interpreting from Wade’s rude words of philosophy that which she needed for her own light and strength.

She appreciated her duty toward the man who had been a father to her. Whatever he asked that would she do. And as for the son she must live with the rest of her life, her duty there was to be a good wife, to bear with his faults, to strive always to help him by kindness, patience, loyalty, and such affection as was possible to her. Hate had to be reckoned with, and hate, she knew, had no place in a good woman’s heart. It must be expelled, if that were humanly possible. All this was hard, would grow harder, but she accepted it, and knew her mind.

Her soul was her own, unchangeable through any adversity. She could be with that alone always, aloof from the petty cares and troubles common to people. Wade’s words had thrilled her with their secret, with their limitless hope of an unknown world of thought and feeling. Happiness, in the ordinary sense, might never be hers. Alas for her dreams! But there had been given her a glimpse of something higher than pleasure and contentment. Dreams were but dreams. But she could still dream of what had been, of what might have been, of the beauty and mystery of life, of something in nature that called sweetly and irresistibly to her. Who could rob her of the rolling, gray, velvety hills, and the purple peaks and the black ranges, among which she had been found a waif, a little lost creature, born like a columbine under the spruces?

Love, sudden-dawning, inexplicable love, was her secret, still tremulously new, and perilous in its sweetness. That only did she fear to realize and to face, because it was an unknown factor, a threatening flame. Her sudden knowledge of it seemed inextricably merged with the mounting, strong, and steadfast stream of her spirit.

“I’ll go to him. I’ll tell him,” she murmured. “He shall have that!... Then I must bid him — good-by — forever!”

To tell Wilson would be sweet; to leave him would be bitter. Vague possibilities haunted her. What might come of the telling? How dark loomed the bitterness! She could not know what hid in either of these acts until they were fulfilled. And the hours became long, and sleep far off, and the quietness of the house a torment, and the melancholy wail of coyotes a reminder of happy girlhood, never to return.

When next day the long-deferred hour came Columbine selected a horse that she could run, and she rode up the winding valley swift as the wind. But at the aspen grove, where Wade’s keen, gentle voice had given her secret life, she suffered a reaction that made her halt and ascend the slope very slowly and with many stops.

Sight of Wade’s horse haltered near the cabin relieved Columbine somewhat of a gathering might of emotion. The hunter would be inside and so she would not be compelled at once to confess her secret. This expectancy gave impetus to her lagging steps. Before she reached the open door she called out.

“Collie, you’re late,” answered Wilson, with both joy and reproach, as she entered. The cowboy lay upon his bed, and he was alone in the room.

“Oh!... Where is Ben?” exclaimed Columbine.

“He was here. He cooked my dinner. We waited, but you never came. The dinner got cold. I made sure you’d backed out — weren’t coming at all — and I couldn’t eat.... Wade said he knew you’d come. He went off with the hounds, somewhere ... and oh, Collie, it’s all right now!”

Columbine walked to his bedside and looked down upon him with a feeling as if some giant hand was tugging at her heart. He looked better. The swelling and redness of his face were less marked. And at that moment no pain shadowed his eyes. They were soft, dark, eloquent. If Columbine had not come with her avowed resolution and desire to unburden her heart she would have found that look in his eyes a desperately hard one to resist. Had it ever shone there before? Blind she had been.

“You’re better,” she said, happily.

“Sure — now. But I had a bad night. Didn’t sleep till near daylight. Wade found me asleep.... Collie, it’s good of you to come. You look so — so wonderful! I never saw your face glow like that. And your eyes — oh!”

“You think I’m pretty, then?” she asked, dreamily, not occupied at all with that thought.

He uttered a contemptuous laugh.

“Come closer,” he said, reaching for her with a clumsy bandaged hand.

Down upon her knees Columbine fell. Both hands flew to cover her face. And as she swayed forward she shook violently, and there escaped her lips a little, muffled sound.

“Why — Collie!” cried Moore, astounded. “Good Heavens! Don’t cry! I — I didn’t mean anything. I only wanted to feel you — touch your hand.”

“Here,” she answered, blindly holding out her hand, groping for his till she found it. Her other was still pressed to her eyes. One moment longer would Columbine keep her secret — hide her eyes — revel in the unutterable joy and sadness of this crisis that could come to a woman only once.

“What in the world?” ejaculated the cowboy, now bewildered. But he possessed himself of the trembling hand offered. “Collie, you act so strange.... You’re not crying!... Am I only locoed, or flighty, or what? Dear, look at me.”

Columbine swept her hand from her eyes with a gesture of utter surrender.

“Wilson, I’m ashamed — and sad — and gloriously happy,” she said, with swift breathlessness.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because of — of something I have to tell you,” she whispered.

“What is that?”

She bent over him.

“Can’t you guess?”

He turned pale, and his eyes burned with intense fire.

“I won’t guess ... I daren’t guess.”

“It’s something that’s been true for years — forever, it seems — something I never dreamed of till last night,” she went on, softly.

“Collie!” he cried. “Don’t torture me!”

“Do you remember long ago — when we quarreled so dreadfully — because you kissed me?” she asked.

“Do you think I could kiss you — and live to forget?”

“I love you!” she whispered, shyly, feeling the hot blood burn her.

That whisper transformed Wilson Moore. His arm flashed round her neck and pulled her face down to his, and, holding her in a close embrace, he kissed her lips and cheeks and wet eyes, and then again her lips, passionately and tenderly.

Then he pressed her head down upon his breast.

“My God! I can’t believe! Say it again!” he cried, hoarsely.

Columbine buried her flaming face in the blanket covering him, and her hands clutched it tightly. The wildness of his joy, the strange strength and power of his kisses, utterly changed her. Upon his breast she lay, without desire to lift her face. All seemed different, wilder, as she responded to his appeal: “Yes, I love you! Oh, I love — love — love you!”

“Dearest!... Lift your face.... It’s true now. I know. It’s proved. But let me look at you.”

Columbine lifted herself as best she could. But she was blinded by tears and choked with utterance that would not come, and in the grip of a shuddering emotion that was realization of loss in a moment when she learned the supreme and imperious sweetness of love.

“Kiss me, Columbine,” he demanded.

Through blurred eyes she saw his face, white and rapt, and she bent to it, meeting his lips with her first kiss which was her last.

“Again, Collie — again!” he begged.

“No — no more,” she whispered, very low, and encircling his neck with her arms she hid her face and held him convulsively, and stifled the sobs that shook her.

Then Moore was silent, holding her with his free hand, breathing hard, and slowly quieting down. Columbine felt then that he knew that there was something terribly wrong, and that perhaps he dared not voice his fear. At any rate, he silently held her, waiting. That silent wait grew unendurable for Columbine. She wanted to prolong this moment that was to be all she could ever surrender. But she dared not do so, for she knew if he ever kissed her again her duty to Belllounds would vanish like mist in the sun.

To release her hold upon him seemed like a tearing of her heartstrings. She sat up, she wiped the tears from her eyes, she rose to her feet, all the time striving for strength to face him again.

A loud voice ringing from the cliffs outside, startled Columbine. It came from Wade calling the hounds. He had returned, and the fact stirred her.

“I’m to marry Jack Belllounds on October first.”

The cowboy raised himself up as far as he was able. It was agonizing for Columbine to watch the changing and whitening of his face!

“No — no!” he gasped.

“Yes, it’s true,” she replied, hopelessly.

“No!” he exclaimed, hoarsely.

“But, Wilson, I tell you yes. I came to tell you. It’s true — oh, it’s true!”

“But, girl, you said you love me,” he declared, transfixing her with dark, accusing eyes.

“That’s just as terribly true.”

He softened a little, and something of terror and horror took the place of anger.

Just then Wade entered the cabin with his soft tread, hesitated, and then came to Columbine’s side. She could not unrivet her gaze from Moore to look at her friend, but she reached out with trembling hand to him. Wade clasped it in a horny palm.

Wilson fought for self-control in vain.

“Collie, if you love me, how can you marry Jack Belllounds?” he demanded.

“I must.”

“Why must you?”

“I owe my life and my bringing up to his father. He wants me to do it. His heart is set upon my helping Jack to become a man.... Dad loves me, and I love him. I must stand by him. I must repay him. It is my duty.”

“You’ve a duty to yourself — as a woman!” he rejoined, passionately. “Belllounds is wrapped up in his son. He’s blind to the shame of such a marriage. But you’re not.”

“Shame?” faltered Columbine.

“Yes. The shame of marrying one man when you love another. You can’t love two men.... You’ll give yourself. You’ll be his wife! Do you understand what that means?”

“I — I think — I do,” replied Columbine, faintly. Where had vanished all her wonderful spirit? This fire-eyed boy was breaking her heart with his reproach.

“But you’ll bear his children,” cried Wilson. “Mother of — them — when you love me!... Didn’t you think of that?”

“Oh no — I never did — I never did!” wailed Columbine.

“Then you’ll think before it’s too late?” he implored, wildly. “Dearest Collie, think! You won’t ruin yourself! You won’t? Say you won’t!”

“But — Oh, Wilson, what can I say? I’ve got to marry him.”

“Collie, I’ll kill him before he gets you.”

“You mustn’t talk so. If you fought again — if anything terrible happened, it’d kill me.”

“You’d be better off!” he flashed, white as a sheet.

Columbine leaned against Wade for support. She was fast weakening in strength, although her spirit held. She knew what was inevitable. But Wilson’s agony was rending her.

“Listen,” began the cowboy again. “It’s your life — your happiness — your soul.... Belllounds is crazy over that spoiled boy. He thinks the sun rises and sets in him.... But Jack Belllounds is no good on this earth! Collie dearest, don’t think that’s my jealousy. I am horribly jealous. But I know him. He’s not worth you! No man is — and he the least. He’ll break your heart, drag you down, ruin your health — kill you, as sure as you stand there. I want you to know I could prove to you what he is. But don’t make me. Trust me, Collie. Believe me.”

“Wilson, I do believe you,” cried Columbine. “But it doesn’t make any difference. It only makes my duty harder.”

“He’ll treat you like he treats a horse or a dog. He’ll beat you—”

“He never will! If he ever lays a hand on me—”

“If not that, he’ll tire of you. Jack Belllounds never stuck to anything in his life, and never will. It’s not in him. He wants what he can’t have. If he gets it, then right off he doesn’t want it. Oh, I’ve known him since he was a kid.... Columbine, you’ve a mistaken sense of duty. No girl need sacrifice her all because some man found her a lost baby and gave her a home. A woman owes more to herself than to any one.”

“Oh, that’s true, Wilson. I’ve thought it all.... But you’re unjust — hard. You make no allowance for — for some possible good in every one. Dad swears I can reform Jack. Maybe I can. I’ll pray for it.”

“Reform Jack Belllounds! How can you save a bad egg? That damned coward! Didn’t he prove to you what he was when he jumped on me and kicked my broken foot till I fainted?... What do you want?”

“Don’t say any more — please,” cried Columbine. “Oh, I’m so sorry.... I oughtn’t have come.... Ben, take me home.”

“But, Collie, I love you,” frantically urged Wilson. “And he — he may love you — but he’s — Collie — he’s been—”

Here Moore seemed to bite his tongue, to hold back speech, to fight something terrible and desperate and cowardly in himself.

Columbine heard only his impassioned declaration of love, and to that she vibrated.

“You speak as if this was one — sided,” she burst out, as once more the gush of hot blood surged over her. “You don’t love me any more than I love you. Not as much, for I’m a woman!... I love with all my heart and soul!”

Moore fell back upon the bed, spent and overcome.

“Wade, my friend, for God’s sake do something,” he whispered, appealing to the hunter as if in a last hope. “Tell Collie what it’ll mean for her to marry Belllounds. If that doesn’t change her, then tell her what it’ll mean to me. I’ll never go home. I’ll never leave here. If she hadn’t told me she loved me then, I might have stood anything. But now I can’t. It’ll kill me, Wade.”

“Boy, you’re talkin’ flighty again,” replied Wade. “This mornin’ when I come you were dreamin’ an’ talkin’ — clean out of your head.... Well, now, you an’ Collie listen. You’re right an’ she’s right. I reckon I never run across a deal with two people fixed just like you. But that doesn’t hinder me from feelin’ the same about it as I’d feel about somethin’ I was used to.”

He paused, and, gently releasing Columbine, he went to Moore, and retied his loosened bandage, and spread out the disarranged blankets. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and bent over a little, running a roughened hand through the scant hair that had begun to silver upon his head. Presently he looked up, and from that sallow face, with its lines and furrows, and from the deep, inscrutable eyes, there fell a light which, however sad and wise in its infinite understanding of pain and strife, was still ruthless and unquenchable in its hope.

“Wade, for God’s sake save Columbine!” importuned Wilson.

“Oh, if you only could!” cried Columbine, impelled beyond her power to resist by that prayer.

“Lass, you stand by your convictions,” he said, impressively. “An’ Moore, you be a man an’ don’t make it so hard for her. Neither of you can do anythin’.... Now there’s old Belllounds — he’ll never change. He might r’ar up for this or that, but he’ll never change his cherished hopes for his son.... But Jack might change! Lookin’ back over all the years I remember many boys like this Buster Jack, an’ I remember how in the nature of their doin’s they just hanged themselves. I’ve a queer foresight about people whose trouble I’ve made my own. It’s somethin’ that never fails. When their trouble’s goin’ to turn out bad then I feel a terrible yearnin’ to tell the story of Hell-Bent Wade. That foresight of trouble gave me my name.... But it’s not operatin’ here.... An’ so, my young friends, you can believe me when I say somethin’ will happen. As far as October first is concerned, or any time near, Collie isn’t goin’ to marry Jack Belllounds.”

CHAPTER X

ONE DAY WADE remarked to Belllounds: “You can never tell what a dog is until you know him. Dogs are like men. Some of ’em look good, but they’re really bad. An’ that works the other way round. If a dog’s born to run wild an’ be a sheep-killer, that’s what he’ll be. I’ve known dogs that loved men as no humans could have loved them. It doesn’t make any difference to a dog if his master is a worthless scamp.”

“Wal, I reckon most of them hounds I bought had no good masters, judgin’ from the way they act,” replied the rancher.

“I’m developin’ a first-rate pack,” said Wade. “Jim hasn’t any faults exceptin’ he doesn’t bay enough. Sampson’s not as true-nosed as Jim, but he’ll follow Jim, an’ he has a deep, heavy bay you can hear for miles. So that makes up for Jim’s one fault. These two hounds hang together, an’ with them I’m developin’ others. Denver will split off of bear or lion tracks when he jumps a deer. I reckon he’s not young enough to be cured of that. Some of the younger hounds are comin’ on fine. But there’s two dogs in the bunch that beat me all hollow.”

“Which ones?” asked Belllounds.

“There’s that bloodhound, Kane,” replied the hunter. “He’s sure a queer dog. I can’t win him. He minds me now because I licked him, an’ once good an’ hard when he bit me.... But he doesn’t cotton to me worth a damn. He’s gettin’ fond of Miss Columbine, an’ I believe might make a good watch-dog for her. Where’d he come from, Belllounds?”

“Wal, if I don’t disremember he was born in a prairie-schooner, comin’ across the plains. His mother was a full-blood, an’ come from Louisiana.”

“That accounts for an instinct I see croppin’ out in Kane,” rejoined Wade. “He likes to trail a man. I’ve caught him doin’ it. An’ he doesn’t take to huntin’ lions or bear. Why, the other day, when the hounds treed a lion an’ went howlin’ wild, Kane came up, an’ he looked disgusted an’ went off by himself. He hunts by himself, anyhow. First off I thought he might be a sheep-killer. But I reckon not. He can trail men, an’ that’s about all the good he is. His mother must have been a slave-hunter, an’ Kane inherits that trailin’ instinct.”

“Ahuh! Wal, train him on trailin’ men, then. I’ve seen times when a dog like thet’d come handy. An’ if he takes to Collie an’ you approve of him, let her have him. She’s been coaxin’ me fer a dog.”

“That isn’t a bad idea. Miss Collie walks an’ rides alone a good deal, an’ she never packs a gun.”

“Funny about thet,” said Belllounds. “Collie is game in most ways, but she’d never kill anythin’.... Wade, you ain’t thinkin’ she ought to stop them lonesome walks an’ rides?”

“No, sure not, so long as she doesn’t go too far away.”

“Ahuh! Wal, supposin’ she rode up out of the valley, west on the Black Range?”

“That won’t do, Belllounds,” replied Wade, seriously. “But Miss Collie’s not goin’ to, for I’ve cautioned her. Fact is I’ve run across some hard-lookin’ men between here an’ Buffalo Park. They’re not hunters or prospectors or cattlemen or travelers.”

“Wal, you don’t say!” rejoined Belllounds. “Now, Wade, are you connectin’ up them strangers with the stock I missed on this last round-up?”

“Reckon I can’t go as far as that,” returned Wade. “But I didn’t like their looks.”

“Thet comin’ from you, Wade, is like the findin’s of a jury.... It’s gettin’ along toward October. Snow’ll be flyin’ soon. You don’t reckon them strangers will winter in the woods?”

“No, I don’t. Neither does Lewis. You recollect him?”

“Yes, thet prospector who hangs out around Buffalo Park, lookin’ fer gold. He’s been hyar. Good fellar, but crazy on gold.”

“I’ve met Lewis several times, one place and another. I lost the hounds day before yesterday. They treed a lion an’ Lewis heard the racket, an’ he stayed with them till I come up. Then he told me some interestin’ news. You see he’s been worryin’ about this gang thet’s rangin’ around Buffalo Park, an’ he’s tried to get a line on them. Somebody took a shot at him in the woods. He couldn’t swear it was one of that outfit, but he could swear he wasn’t near shot by accident. Now Lewis says these men pack to an’ fro from Elgeria, an’ he has a hunch they’re in cahoots with Smith, who runs a place there. You know Smith?”

“No, I don’t, an’ haven’t any wish to,” declared Belllounds, shortly. “He always looked shady to me. An’ he’s not been square with friends of mine in Elgeria. But no one ever proved him crooked, whatever was thought. Fer my part, I never missed a guess in my life. Men don’t have scars on their face like his fer nothin’.”

“Boss, I’m confidin’ what I want kept under your hat,” said Wade, quietly. “I knew Smith. He’s as bad as the West makes them. I gave him that scar.... An’ when he sees me he’s goin’ for his gun.”

“Wal, I’ll be darned! Doesn’t surprise me. It’s a small world.... Wade, I’ll keep my mouth shut, sure. But what’s your game?”

“Lewis an’ I will find out if there is any connection between Smith an’ this gang of strangers — an’ the occasional loss of a few head of stock.”

“Ahuh! Wal, you have my good will, you bet.... Sure thar’s been some rustlin’ of cattle. Not enough to make any rancher holler, an’ I reckon there never will be any more of thet in Colorado. Still, if we get the drop on some outfit we sure ought to corral them.”

“Boss, I’m tellin’ you—”

“Wade, you ain’t agoin’ to start thet tellin’ hell-bent happenin’s to come hyar at White Slides?” interrupted Belllounds, plaintively.

“No, I reckon I’ve no hunch like that now,” responded Wade, seriously. “But I was about to say that if Smith is in on any rustlin’ of cattle he’ll be hard to catch, an’ if he’s caught there’ll be shootin’ to pay. He’s cunnin’ an’ has had long experience. It’s not likely he’d work openly, as he did years ago. If he’s stealin’ stock or buyin’ an’ sellin’ stock that some one steals for him, it’s only on a small scale, an’ it’ll be hard to trace.”

“Wal, he might be deep,” said Belllounds, reflectively. “But men like thet, no matter how deep or cunnin’ they are, always come to a bad end. Jest works out natural.... Had you any grudge ag’in’ Smith?”

“What I give him was for somebody else, an’ was sure little enough. He’s got the grudge against me.”

“Ahuh! Wal, then, don’t you go huntin’ fer trouble. Try an’ make White Slides one place thet’ll disprove your name. All the same, don’t shy at sight of anythin’ suspicious round the ranch.”

The old man plodded thoughtfully away, leaving the hunter likewise in a brown study.

“He’s gettin’ a hunch that I’ll tell him of some shadow hoverin’ black over White Slides,” soliloquized Wade. “Maybe — maybe so. But I don’t see any yet.... Strange how a man will say what he didn’t start out to say. Now, I started to tell him about that amazin’ dog Fox.”

Fox was the great dog of the whole pack, and he had been absolutely overlooked, which fact Wade regarded with contempt for himself. Discovery of this particular dog came about by accident. Somewhere in the big corral there was a hole where the smaller dogs could escape, but Wade had been unable to find it. For that matter the corral was full of holes, not any of which, however, it appeared to Wade, would permit anything except a squirrel to pass in and out.

One day when the hunter, very much exasperated, was prowling around and around inside the corral, searching for this mysterious vent, a rather small dog, with short gray and brown woolly hair, and shaggy brows half hiding big, bright eyes, came up wagging his stump of a tail.

“Well, what do you know about it?” demanded Wade. Of course he had noticed this particular dog, but to no purpose. On this occasion the dog repeated so unmistakably former overtures of friendship that Wade gave him close scrutiny. He was neither young nor comely nor thoroughbred, but there was something in his intelligent eyes that struck the hunter significantly. “Say, maybe I overlooked somethin’? But there’s been a heap of dogs round here an’ you’re no great shucks for looks. Now, if you’re talkin’ to me come an’ find that hole.”

Whereupon Wade began another search around the corral. It covered nearly an acre of ground, and in some places the fence-poles had been sunk near rocks. More than once Wade got down upon his hands and knees to see if he could find the hole. The dog went with him, watching with knowing eyes that the hunter imagined actually laughed at him. But they were glad eyes, which began to make an appeal. Presently, when Wade came to a rough place, the dog slipped under a shelving rock, and thence through a half-concealed hole in the fence; and immediately came back through to wag his stump of a tail and look as if the finding of that hole was easy enough.

“You old fox,” declared Wade, very much pleased, as he patted the dog. “You found it for me, didn’t you? Good dog! Now I’ll fix that hole, an’ then you can come to the cabin with me. An’ your name’s Fox.”

That was how Fox introduced himself to Wade, and found his opportunity. The fact that he was not a hound had operated against his being taken out hunting, and therefore little or no attention had been paid him. Very shortly Fox showed himself to be a dog of superior intelligence. The hunter had lived much with dogs and had come to learn that the longer he lived with them the more there was to marvel at and love.

Fox insisted so strongly on being taken out to hunt with the hounds that Wade, vowing not to be surprised at anything, let him go. It happened to be a particularly hard day on hounds because of old tracks and cross-tracks and difficult ground. Fox worked out a labyrinthine trail that Sampson gave up and Jim failed on. This delighted Wade, and that night he tried to find out from Andrews, who sold the dog to Belllounds, something about Fox. All the information obtainable was that Andrews suspected the fellow from whom he had gotten Fox had stolen him. Belllounds had never noticed him at all. Wade kept the possibilities of Fox to himself and reserved his judgment, and every day gave the dog another chance to show what he knew.

“I’m beginnin’ to feel that I couldn’t let her marry that Buster Jack,”

soliloquized Wade, as he rode along the grassy trail.

Long before the end of that week Wade loved Fox and decided that he was a wonderful animal. Fox liked to hunt, but it did not matter what he hunted. That depended upon the pleasure of his master. He would find hobbled horses that were hiding out and standing still to escape detection. He would trail cattle. He would tree squirrels and point grouse. Invariably he suited his mood to the kind of game he hunted. If put on an elk track, or that of deer, he would follow it, keeping well within sight of the hunter, and never uttering a single bark or yelp; and without any particular eagerness he would stick until he had found the game or until he was called off. Bear and cat tracks, however, roused the savage instinct in him, and transformed him. He yelped at every jump on a trail, and whenever his yelp became piercing and continuous Wade well knew the quarry was in sight. He fought bear like a wise old dog that knew when to rush in with a snap and when to keep away. When lions or wildcats were treed Fox lost much of his ferocity and interest. Then the matter of that particular quarry was ended. His most valuable characteristic, however, was his ability to stick on the track upon which he was put. Wade believed if he put Fox on the trail of a rabbit, and if a bear or lion were to cross that trail ahead of him, Fox would stick to the rabbit. Even more remarkable was it that Fox would not steal a piece of meat and that he would fight the other dogs for being thieves.

Fox and Kane, it seemed to the hunter in his reflective foreshadowing of events at White Slides, were destined to play most important parts.

Upon a certain morning, several days before October first — which date rankled in the mind of Wade — he left Moore’s cabin, leading a pack-horse. The hounds he had left behind at the ranch, but Fox accompanied him.

“Wade, I want some elk steak,” old Belllounds had said the day before. “Nothin’ like a good rump steak! I was raised on elk meat. Now hyar, more’n a week ago I told you I wanted some. There’s elk all around. I heerd a bull whistle at sunup to-day. Made me wish I was young ag’in!... You go pack in an elk.”

“I haven’t run across any bulls lately,” Wade had replied, but he did not mention that he had avoided such a circumstance. The fact was Wade admired and loved the elk above all horned wild animals. So strange was his attitude toward elk that he had gone meat-hungry many a time with these great stags bugling near his camp.

As he climbed the yellow, grassy mountain-side, working round above the valley, his mind was not centered on the task at hand, but on Wilson Moore, who had come to rely on him with the unconscious tenacity of a son whose faith in his father was unshakable. The crippled cowboy kept his hope, kept his cheerful, grateful spirit, obeyed and suffered with a patience that was fine. There had been no improvement in his injured foot. Wade worried about that much more than Moore. The thing that mostly occupied the cowboy was the near approach of October first, with its terrible possibility for him. He did not talk about it, except when fever made him irrational, but it was plain to Wade how he prayed and hoped and waited in silence. Strange how he trusted Wade to avert catastrophe of Columbine’s marriage! Yet such trust seemed familiar to Wade, as he reflected over past years. Had he not wanted such trust — had he not invited it?

For twenty years no happiness had come to Wade in any sense comparable to that now secretly his, as he lived near Columbine Belllounds, divining more and more each day how truly she was his own flesh and the image of the girl he had loved and married and wronged. Columbine was his daughter. He saw himself in her. And Columbine, from being strongly attracted to him and trusting in him and relying upon him, had come to love him. That was the most beautiful and terrible fact of his life — beautiful because it brought back the past, her babyhood, and his barren years, and gave him this sudden change, where he lived transported with the sense and the joy of his possession. It was terrible because she was unhappy, because she was chained to duty and honor, because ruin faced her, and lastly because Wade began to have the vague, gloomy intimations of distant tragedy. Far off, like a cloud on the horizon, but there! Long ago he had learned the uselessness of fighting his morbid visitations. But he clung to hope, to faith in life, to the victory of the virtuous, to the defeat of evil. A thousand proofs had strengthened him in that clinging.

There were personal dread and poignant pain for Wade in Columbine Belllounds’s situation. After all, he had only his subtle and intuitive assurance that matters would turn out well for her in the end. To trust that now, when the shadow began to creep over his own daughter, seemed unwise — a juggling with chance.

“I’m beginnin’ to feel that I couldn’t let her marry that Buster Jack,” soliloquized Wade, as he rode along the grassy trail. “Fust off, seein’ how strong was her sense of duty an’ loyalty, I wasn’t so set against it. But somethin’s growin’ in me. Her love for that crippled boy, now, an’ his for her! Lord! they’re so young an’ life must be so hot an’ love so sweet! I reckon that’s why I couldn’t let her marry Jack.... But, on the other hand, there’s the old man’s faith in his son, an’ there’s Collie’s faith in herself an’ in life. Now I believe in that. An’ the years have proved to me there’s hope for the worst of men.... I haven’t even had a talk with this Buster Jack. I don’t know him, except by hearsay. An’ I’m sure prejudiced, which’s no wonder, considerin’ where I saw him in Denver.... I reckon, before I go any farther, I’d better meet this Belllounds boy an’ see what’s in him.”

It was characteristic of Wade that this soliloquy abruptly ended his thoughtful considerations for the time being. This was owing to the fact that he rested upon a decision, and also because it was time he began to attend to the object of his climb.

Bench after bench he had ascended, and the higher he got the denser and more numerous became the aspen thickets and the more luxuriant the grass. Presently the long black slope of spruce confronted him, with its edge like a dark wall. He entered the fragrant forest, where not a twig stirred nor a sound pervaded the silence. Upon the soft, matted earth the hoofs of the horses made no impression and scarcely a perceptible thud.

Wade headed to the left, avoiding rough, rocky defiles of weathered cliff and wind-fallen trees, and aimed to find easy going up to the summit of the mountain bluff far above. This was new forest to him, consisting of moderate-sized spruce-trees growing so closely together that he had to go carefully to keep from snapping dead twigs. Fox trotted on in the lead, now and then pausing to look up at his master, as if for instructions.

A brightening of the dark-green gloom ahead showed the hunter that he was approaching a large glade or open patch, where the sunlight fell strongly. It turned out to be a swale, or swampy place, some few acres in extent, and directly at the foot of a last steep, wooded slope. Here Fox put his nose into the air and halted.

“What’re you scentin’, Fox, old boy?” asked Wade, with low voice, as he peered ahead. The wind was in the wrong direction for him to approach close to game without being detected. Fox wagged his stumpy tail and looked up with knowing eyes. Wade proceeded cautiously. The swamp was a rank growth of long, weedy grasses and ferns, with here and there a green-mossed bog half hidden and a number of dwarf oak-trees. Wade’s horse sank up to his knees in the mire. On the other side showed fresh tracks along the wet margin of the swale.

“It’s elk, all right,” said Wade, as he dismounted. “Heard us comin’. Now, Fox, stick your nose in that track. An’ go slow.”

With rifle ready Wade began the ascent of the slope on foot, leading his horse. An old elk trail showed a fresh track. Fox accommodated his pace to that of the toiling hunter. The ascent was steep and led up through dense forest. At intervals, when Wade halted to catch his breath and listen, he heard faint snapping of dead branches far above. At length he reached the top of the mountain, to find a wide, open space, with heavy forest in front, and a bare, ghastly, burned-over district to his right. Fox growled, and appeared about to dash forward. Then, in an opening through the forest, Wade espied a large bull elk, standing at gaze, evidently watching him. He was a gray old bull, with broken antlers. Wade made no move to shoot, and presently the elk walked out of sight.

“Too old an’ tough, Fox,” explained the hunter to the anxious dog. But perhaps that was not all Wade’s motive in sparing him.

Once more mounted, Wade turned his attention to the burned district. It was a dreary, hideous splotch, a blackened slash in the green cover of the mountain. It sloped down into a wide hollow and up another bare slope. The ground was littered with bleached logs, trees that had been killed first by fire and then felled by wind. Here and there a lofty, spectral trunk still withstood the blasts. Across the hollow sloped a considerable area where all trees were dead and still standing — a melancholy sight. Beyond, and far round and down to the left, opened up a slope of spruce and bare ridge, where a few cedars showed dark, and then came black, spear-tipped forest again, leading the eye to the magnificent panorama of endless range on range, purple in the distance.

Wade found patches of grass where beds had been recently occupied.

“Mountain-sheep, by cracky!” exclaimed the hunter. “An’ fresh tracks, too!... Now I wonder if it wouldn’t do to kill a sheep an’ tell Belllounds I couldn’t find any elk.”

The hunter had no qualms about killing mountain-sheep, but he loved the lordly stags and would have lied to spare them. He rode on, with keen gaze shifting everywhere to catch a movement of something in this wilderness before him. If there was any living animal in sight it did not move. Wade crossed the hollow, wended a circuitous route through the upstanding forest of dead timber, and entered a thick woods that skirted the rim of the mountain. Presently he came out upon the open rim, from which the depths of green and gray yawned mightily. Far across, Old White Slides loomed up, higher now, with a dignity and majesty unheralded from below.

Wade found fresh sheep tracks in the yellow clay of the rim, small as little deer tracks, showing that they had just been made by ewes and lambs. Not a ram track in the group!

“Well, that lets me out,” said Wade, as he peered under the bluff for sight of the sheep. They had gone over the steep rim as if they had wings. “Beats hell how sheep can go down without fallin’! An’ how they can hide!”

He knew they were near at hand and he wasted time peering to spy them out. Nevertheless, he could not locate them. Fox waited impatiently for the word to let him prove how easily he could rout them out, but this permission was not forthcoming.

“We’re huntin’ elk, you Jack-of-all-dogs,” reprovingly spoke the hunter to Fox.

So they went on around the rim, and after a couple of miles of travel came to the forest, and then open heads of hollows that widened and deepened down. Here was excellent pasture and cover for elk. Wade left the rim to ride down these slow-descending half-open ridges, where cedars grew and jack-pines stood in clumps, and little grassy-bordered brooks babbled between. He saw tracks where a big buck deer had crossed ahead of him, and then he flushed a covey of grouse that scared the horses, and then he saw where a bear had pulled a rotten log to pieces. Fox did not show any interest in these things.

By and by Wade descended to the junction of these hollows, where three tiny brooklets united to form a stream of pure, swift, clear water, perhaps a foot deep and several yards wide.

“I reckon this’s the head of the Troublesome,” said Wade. “Whoever named this brook had no sense.... Yet here, at its source, it’s gatherin’ trouble for itself. That’s the way of youth.”

The grass grew thickly and luxuriantly and showed signs of recent grazing. Elk had been along the brook that morning. There were many tracks, like cow tracks, only smaller, deeper, and more oval; and there were beds where elk had lain, and torn-up places where bulls had plowed and stamped with heavy hoofs.

Fox trailed the herd to higher ground, where evidently they had entered the woods. Here Wade tied his horses, and, whispering to Fox, he proceeded stealthily through this strip of spruce. He came out to an open point, taking care, however, to keep well screened, from which he had a glimpse of a parklike hollow, grassy and watered. Working round to better vantage, he soon espied what had made Fox stand so stiff and bristling. A herd of elk were trooping up the opposite slope, scarcely a hundred yards distant. They had heard or scented him, but did not appear alarmed. They halted to look back. The hunter’s quick estimate credited nearly two dozen to the herd, mostly cows. A magnificent bull, with wide-spreading antlers, and black head and shoulders and gray hind quarters, stalked out from the herd, and stood an instant, head aloft, splendidly significant of the wild. Then he trotted into the woods, his antlers noiselessly spreading the green. Others trotted off likewise. Wade raised his rifle and looked through the sight at the bull, and let him pass. Then he saw another over his rifle, and another. Reluctant and forced, he at last aimed and pulled trigger. The heavy Henry boomed out in the stillness. Fox dashed down with eager barks. When the smoke cleared away Wade saw the opposite slope bare except for one fallen elk.

Then he returned to his horses, and brought them back to where Fox perched beside the dead quarry.

“Well, Fox, that stag’ll never bugle any more of a sunrise,” said Wade. “Strange how we’re made so we have to eat meat! I’d ‘a’ liked it otherwise.”

He cut up the elk, and packed all the meat the horse could carry, and hung the best of what was left out of the reach of coyotes. Mounting once more, he ascended to the rim and found a slope leading down to the west. Over the basin country below he had hunted several days. This way back to the ranch was longer, he calculated, but less arduous for man and beast. His pack-horse would have hard enough going in any event. From time to time Wade halted to rest the burdened pack-animal. At length he came to a trail he had himself made, which he now proceeded to follow. It led out of the basin, through burned and boggy ground and down upon the forest slope, thence to the grassy and aspened uplands. One aspen grove, where he had rested before, faced the west, and, for reasons hard to guess, had suffered little from frost. All the leaves were intact, some still green, but most of them a glorious gold against the blue. It was a large grove, sloping gently, carpeted with yellow grass and such a profusion of purple asters as Wade had never seen in his flower-loving life. Here he dismounted and sat against an aspen-tree. His horses ruthlessly cropped the purple blossoms.

Nature in her strong prodigality had outdone herself here. Pale white the aspen-trees shone, and above was the fluttering, quivering canopy of gold tinged with green, and below clustered the asters, thick as stars in the sky, waving, nodding, swaying gracefully to each little autumn breeze, lilac-hued and lavender and pale violet, and all the shades of exquisite purple.

Wade lingered, his senses predominating. This was one of those moments that colored his lonely wanderings. Only to see was enough. He would have shut out the encroaching thoughts of self, of others, of life, had that been wholly possible. But here, after the first few moments of exquisite riot of his senses, where fragrance of grass and blossom filled the air, and blaze of gold canopied the purple, he began to think how beautiful the earth was, how Nature hid her rarest gifts for those who loved her most, how good it was to live, if only for these blessings. And sadness crept into his meditations because all this beauty was ephemeral, all the gold would soon be gone, and the asters, so pale and pure and purple, would soon be like the glory of a dream that had passed.

Yet still followed the saving thought that frost and winter must again yield to sun, and spring, summer, autumn would return with the flowers of their season, in that perennial birth so gracious and promising. The aspen leaves would quiver and slowly gild, the grass would wave in the wind, the asters would bloom, lifting star-pale faces to the sky. Next autumn, and every year, and forever, as long as the sun warmed the earth!

It was only man who would not always return to the haunts he loved.

CHAPTER XI

WHEN BENT WADE desired opportunities they seemed to gravitate to him.

Upon riding into the yard of White Slides Ranch he espied Jack Belllounds sitting in idle, moping posture on the porch. Something in his dejected appearance roused Wade’s pity. No one else was in sight, so the hunter took advantage of the moment.

“Hey, Belllounds, will you give me a lift with this meat?” called Wade.

“Sure,” replied Jack, readily enough, and he got up. Wade led the pack-horse to the door of the store-cabin, which stood back of the kitchen and was joined to it by a roof. There, with Jack’s assistance, he unloaded the meat and hung it up on pegs. This done, Wade set to work with knife in hand.

“I reckon a little trimmin’ will improve the looks of this carcass,” observed Wade.

“Wade, we never had any one round except dad who could cut up a steer or elk,” said Jack. “But you’ve got him beat.”

“I’m pretty handy at most things.”

“Handy!... I wish I could do just one thing as well as you. I can ride, but that’s all. No one ever taught me anything.”

“You’re a young fellow yet, an’ you’ve time, if you only take kindly to learnin’. I was past your age when I learned most I know.”

The hunter’s voice and his look, and that fascination which subtly hid in his presence, for the first time seemed to find the response of interest in young Belllounds.

“I can’t stick, dad says, and he swears at me,” replied Belllounds. “But I’ll bet I could learn from you.”

“Reckon you could. Why can’t you stick to anythin’?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been as enthusiastic over work as over riding mustangs. To ride came natural, but in work, when I do it wrong, then I hate it.”

“Ahuh! That’s too bad. You oughtn’t to hate work. Hard work makes for what I reckon you like in a man, but don’t understand. As I look back over my life — an’ let me say, young fellar, it’s been a tough one — what I remember most an’ feel best over are the hardest jobs I ever did, an’ those that cost the most sweat an’ blood.”

As Wade warmed to his subject, hoping to sow a good seed in Belllounds’s mind, he saw that he was wasting his earnestness. Belllounds did not keep to the train of thought. His mind wandered, and now he was examining Wade’s rifle.

“Old Henry forty-four,” he said. “Dad has one. Also an old needle-gun. Say, can I go hunting with you?”

“Glad to have you. How do you handle a rifle?”

“I used to shoot pretty well before I went to Denver,” he replied. “Haven’t tried since I’ve been home.... Suppose you let me take a shot at that post?” And from where he stood in the door he pointed to a big hitching-post near the corral gate.

The corral contained horses, and in the pasture beyond were cattle, any of which might be endangered by such a shot. Wade saw that the young man was in earnest, that he wanted to respond to the suggestion in his mind. Consequences of any kind did not awaken after the suggestion.

“Sure. Go ahead. Shoot low, now, a little below where you want to hit,” said Wade.

Belllounds took aim and fired. A thundering report shook the cabin. Dust and splinters flew from the post.

“I hit it!” he exclaimed, in delight. “I was sure I wouldn’t, because I aimed ‘way under.”

“Reckon you did. It was a good shot.”

Then a door slammed and Old Bill Belllounds appeared, his hair upstanding, his look and gait proclaiming him on the rampage.

“Jack! What’n hell are you doin’?” he roared, and he stamped up to the door to see his son standing there with the rifle in his hands. “By Heaven! If it ain’t one thing it’s another!”

“Boss, don’t jump over the traces,” said Wade. “I’ll allow if I’d known the gun would let out a bellar like that I’d not have told Jack to shoot. Reckon it’s because we’re under the open roof that it made the racket. I’m wantin’ to clean the gun while it’s hot.”

“Ahuh! Wal, I was scared fust, harkin’ back to Indian days, an’ then I was mad because I figgered Jack was up to mischief.... Did you fetch in the meat?”

“You bet. An’ I’d like a piece for myself,” replied Wade.

“Help yourself, man. An’ say, come down an’ eat with us fer supper.”

“Much obliged, boss. I sure will.”

Then the old rancher trudged back to the house.

“Wade, it was bully of you!” exclaimed Jack, gratefully. “You see how quick dad’s ready to jump me? I’ll bet he thought I’d picked a shooting-scrape with one of the cowboys.”

“Well, he’s gettin’ old an’ testy,” replied Wade. “You ought to humor him. He’ll not be here always.”

Belllounds answered to that suggestion with a shadowing of eyes and look of realization, affection, remorse. Feelings seemed to have a quick rise and play in him, but were not lasting. Wade casually studied him, weighing his impressions, holding them in abeyance for a sum of judgment.

“Belllounds, has anybody told you about Wils Moore bein’ bad hurt?” abruptly asked the hunter.

“He is, is he?” replied Jack, and to his voice and face came sudden change. “How bad?”

“I reckon he’ll be a cripple for life,” answered Wade, seriously, and now he stopped in his work to peer at Belllounds. The next moment might be critical for that young man.

“Club-footed!... He won’t lord it over the cowboys any more — or ride that white mustang!” The softer, weaker expression of his face, that which gave him some title to good looks, changed to an ugliness hard for Wade to define, since it was neither glee, nor joy, nor gratification over his rival’s misfortune. It was rush of blood to eyes and skin, a heated change that somehow to Wade suggested an anxious, selfish hunger. Belllounds lacked something, that seemed certain. But it remained to be proved how deserving he was of Wade’s pity.

“Belllounds, it was a dirty trick — your jumpin’ Moore,” declared Wade, with deliberation.

“The hell you say!” Belllounds flared up, with scarlet in his face, with sneer of amaze, with promise of bursting rage. He slammed down the gun.

“Yes, the hell I say,” returned the hunter. “They call me Hell-Bent Wade!”

“Are you friends with Moore?” asked Belllounds, beginning to shake.

“Yes, I’m that with every one. I’d like to be friends with you.”

“I don’t want you. And I’m giving you notice — you won’t last long at White Slides.”

“Neither will you!”

Belllounds turned dead white, not apparently from fury or fear, but from a shock that had its birth within the deep, mysterious, emotional reachings of his mind. He was utterly astounded, as if confronting a vague, terrible premonition of the future. Wade’s swift words, like the ring of bells, had not been menacing, but prophetic.

“Young fellar, you need to be talked to, so if you’ve got any sense at all it’ll get a wedge in your brain,” went on Wade. “I’m a stranger here. But I happen to be a man who sees through things, an’ I see how your dad handles you wrong. You don’t know who I am an’ you don’t care. But if you’ll listen you’ll learn what might help you.... No boy can answer to all his wild impulses without ruinin’ himself. It’s not natural. There are other people — people who have wills an’ desires, same as you have. You’ve got to live with people. Here’s your dad an’ Miss Columbine, an’ the cowboys, an’ me, an’ all the ranchers, so down to Kremmlin’ an’ other places. These are the people you’ve got to live with. You can’t go on as you’ve begun, without ruinin’ yourself an’ your dad an’ the — the girl.... It’s never too late to begin to be better. I know that. But it gets too late, sometimes, to save the happiness of others. Now I see where you’re headin’ as clear as if I had pictures of the future. I’ve got a gift that way.... An’, Belllounds, you’ll not last. Unless you begin to control your temper, to forget yourself, to kill your wild impulses, to be kind, to learn what love is — you’ll never last!... In the very nature of things, one comin’ after another like your fights with Moore, an’ your scarin’ of Pronto, an’ your drinkin’ at Kremmlin’, an’ just now your r’arin’ at me — it’s in the very nature of life that goin’ on so you’ll sooner or later meet with hell! You’ve got to change, Belllounds. No half-way, spoiled-boy changin’, but the straight right-about-face of a man!... It means you must see you’re no good an’ have a change of heart. Men have revolutions like that. I was no good. I did worse than you’ll ever do, because you’re not big enough to be really bad, an’ yet I’ve turned out worth livin’.... There, I’m through, an’ I’m offerin’ to be your friend an’ to help you.”

Belllounds stood with arms spread outside the door, still astounded, still pale; but as the long admonition and appeal ended he exploded stridently. “Who the hell are you?... If I hadn’t been so surprised — if I’d had a chance to get a word in — I’d shut your trap! Are you a preacher masquerading here as hunter? Let me tell you, I won’t be talked to like that — not by any man. Keep your advice an’ friendship to yourself.”

“You don’t want me, then?”

“No,” Belllounds snapped.

“Reckon you don’t need either advice or friend, hey?”

“No, you owl-eyed, soft-voiced fool!” yelled Belllounds.

It was then Wade felt a singular and familiar sensation, a cold, creeping thing, physical and elemental, that had not visited him since he had been at White Slides.

“I reckoned so,” he said, with low and gloomy voice, and he knew, if Belllounds did not know, that he was not acquiescing with the other’s harsh epithet, but only greeting the advent of something in himself.

Belllounds shrugged his burly shoulders and slouched away.

Wade finished his dressing of the meat. Then he rode up to spend an hour with Moore. When he returned to his cabin he proceeded to change his hunter garb for the best he owned. It was a proof of his unusual preoccupation that he did this before he fed the hounds. It was sunset when he left his cabin. Montana Jim and Lem hailed as he went by. Wade paused to listen to their good-natured raillery.

“See hyar, Bent, this ain’t Sunday,” said Lem.

“You’re spruced up powerful fine. What’s it fer?” added Montana.

“Boss asked me down to supper.’

“Wal, you lucky son-of-a-gun! An’ hyar we’ve no invite,” returned Lem. “Say, Wade, I heerd Buster Jack roarin’ at you. I was ridin’ in by the storehouse.... ‘Who the hell are you?’ was what collared my attention, an’ I had to laugh. An’ I listened to all he said. So you was offerin’ him advice an’ friendship?”

“I reckon.”

“Wal, all I say is thet you was wastin’ yore breath,” declared Lem. “You’re a queer fellar, Wade.”

“Queer? Aw, Lem, he ain’t queer,” said Montana. “He’s jest white. Wade, I feel the same as you. I’d like to do somethin’ fer thet locoed Buster Jack.”

“Montana, you’re the locoed one,” rejoined Lem. “Buster Jack knows what he’s doin’. He can play a slicker hand of poker than you.”

“Wal, mebbe. Wade, do you play poker?”

“I’d hate to take your money,” replied Wade.

“You needn’t be so all-fired kind about thet. Come over to-night an’ take some of it. Buster Jack invited himself up to our bunk. He’s itchin’ fer cards. So we says shore. Blud’s goin’ to sit in. Now you come an’ make it five-handed.”

“Wouldn’t young Belllounds object to me?”

“What? Buster Jack shy at gamblin’ with you? Not much. He’s a born gambler. He’d bet with his grandmother an’ he’d cheat the coppers off a dead nigger’s eyes.”

“Slick with cards, eh?” inquired Wade.

“Naw, Jack’s not slick. But he tries to be. An’ we jest go him one slicker.”

“Wouldn’t Old Bill object to this card-playin’?”

“He’d be ory-eyed. But, by Golly! we’re not leadin’ Jack astray. An’ we ain’t hankerin’ to play with him. All the same a little game is welcome enough.”

“I’ll come over,” replied Wade, and thoughtfully turned away.

When he presented himself at the ranch-house it was Columbine who let him in. She was prettily dressed, in a way he had never seen her before, and his heart throbbed. Her smile, her voice added to her nameless charm, that seemed to come from the past. Her look was eager and longing, as if his presence might bring something welcome to her.

Then the rancher stalked in. “Hullo, Wade! Supper’s ‘most ready. What’s this trouble you had with Jack? He says he won’t eat with you.”

“I was offerin’ him advice,” replied Wade.

“What on?”

“Reckon on general principles.”

“Humph! Wal, he told me you harangued him till you was black in the face, an’—”

“Jack had it wrong. He got black in the face,” interrupted Wade.

“Did you say he was a spoiled boy an’ thet he was no good an’ was headin’ plumb fer hell?”

“That was a little of what I said,” returned Wade, gently.

“Ahuh! How’d thet come about?” queried Belllounds, gruffly. A slight stiffening and darkening overcast his face.

Wade then recalled and recounted the remarks that had passed between him and Jack; and he did not think he missed them very far. He had a great curiosity to see how Belllounds would take them, and especially the young man’s scornful rejection of a sincerely offered friendship. All the time Wade was talking he was aware of Columbine watching him, and when he finished it was sweet to look at her.

“Wade, wasn’t you takin’ a lot on yourself?” queried the rancher, plainly displeased.

“Reckon I was. But my conscience is beholden to no man. If Jack had met me half-way that would have been better for him. An’ for me, because I get good out of helpin’ any one.”

His reply silenced Belllounds. No more was said before supper was announced, and then the rancher seemed taciturn. Columbine did the serving, and most all of the talking. Wade felt strangely at ease. Some subtle difference was at work in him, transforming him, but the moment had not yet come for him to question himself. He enjoyed the supper. And when he ventured to look up at Columbine, to see her strong, capable hands and her warm, blue glance, glad for his presence, sweetly expressive of their common secret and darker with a shadow of meaning beyond her power to guess, then Wade felt havoc within him, the strife and pain and joy of the truth he never could reveal. For he could never reveal his identity to her without betraying his baseness to her mother. Otherwise, to hear her call him father would have been earning that happiness with a lie. Besides, she loved Belllounds as her father, and were this trouble of the present removed she would grow still closer to the old man in his declining days. Wade accepted the inevitable, She must never know. If she might love him it must be as the stranger who came to her gates, it must be through the mysterious affinity between them and through the service he meant to render.

Wade did not linger after the meal was ended despite the fact that Belllounds recovered his cordiality. It was dark when he went out. Columbine followed him, talking cheerfully. Once outside she squeezed his hand and whispered, “How’s Wilson?”

The hunter nodded his reply, and, pausing at the porch step, he pressed her hand to make his assurance stronger. His reward was instant. In the bright starlight she stood white and eloquent, staring down at him with dark, wide eyes.

Presently she whispered: “Oh, my friend! It wants only three days till October first!”

“Lass, it might be a thousand years for all you need worry,” he replied, his voice low and full. Then it seemed, as she flung up her arms, that she was about to embrace him. But her gesture was an appeal to the stars, to Heaven above, for something she did not speak.

Wade bade her good night and went his way.

The cowboys and the rancher’s son were about to engage in a game of poker when Wade entered the dimly lighted, smoke-hazed room. Montana Jim was sticking tallow candles in the middle of a rude table; Lem was searching his clothes, manifestly for money; Bludsoe shuffled a greasy deck of cards, and Jack Belllounds was filling his pipe before a fire of blazing logs on the hearth.

“Dog-gone it! I hed more money ‘n thet,” complained Lem. “Jim, you rode to Kremmlin’ last. Did you take my money?”

“Wal, come to think of it, I reckon I did,” replied Jim, in surprise at the recollection.

“An’ whar’s it now?”

“Pard, I ‘ain’t no idee. I reckon it’s still in Kremmlin’. But I’ll pay you back.”

“I should smile you will. Pony up now.”

“Bent Wade, did you come over calkilated to git skinned?” queried Bludsoe.

“Boys, I was playin’ poker tolerable well in Missouri when you all was nursin’,” replied Wade, imperturbably.

“I heerd he was a card-sharp,” said Jim. “Wal, grab a box or a chair to set on an’ let’s start. Come along, Jack; you don’t look as keen to play as usual.”

Belllounds stood with his back to the fire and his manner did not compare favorably with that of the genial cowboys.

“I prefer to play four-handed,” he said.

This declaration caused a little check in the conversation and put an end to the amiability. The cowboys looked at one another, not embarrassed, but just a little taken aback, as if they had forgotten something that they should have remembered.

“You object to my playin’?” asked Wade, quietly.

“I certainly do,” replied Belllounds.

“Why, may I ask?”

“For all I know, what Montana said about you may be true,” returned Belllounds, insolently.

Such a remark flung in the face of a Westerner was an insult. The cowboys suddenly grew stiff, with steady eyes on Wade. He, however, did not change in the slightest.

“I might be a card-sharp at that,” he replied, coolly. “You fellows play without me. I’m not carin’ about poker any more. I’ll look on.”

Thus he carried over the moment that might have been dangerous. Lem gaped at him; Montana kicked a box forward to sit upon, and his action was expressive; Bludsoe slammed the cards down on the table and favored Wade with a comprehending look. Belllounds pulled a chair up to the table.

“What’ll we make the limit?” asked Jim.

“Two bits,” replied Lem, quickly.

Then began an argument. Belllounds was for a dollar limit. The cowboys objected.

“Why, Jack, if the ole man got on to us playin’ a dollar limit he’d fire the outfit,” protested Bludsoe.

This reasonable objection in no wise influenced the old man’s son. He overruled the good arguments, and then hinted at the cowboys’ lack of nerve. The fun faded out of their faces. Lem, in fact, grew red.

“Wal, if we’re agoin’ to gamble, thet’s different,” he said, with a cold ring in his voice, as he straddled a box and sat down. “Wade, lemme some money.”

Wade slipped his hand into his pocket and drew forth a goodly handful of gold, which he handed to the cowboy. Not improbably, if this large amount had been shown earlier, before the change in the sentiment, Lem would have looked aghast and begged for mercy. As it was, he accepted it as if he were accustomed to borrowing that much every day. Belllounds had rendered futile the easy-going, friendly advances of the cowboys, as he had made it impossible to play a jolly little game for fun.

The game began, with Wade standing up, looking on. These boys did not know what a vast store of poker knowledge lay back of Wade’s inscrutable eyes. As a boy he had learned the intricacies of poker in the country where it originated; and as a man he had played it with piles of yellow coins and guns on the table. His eagerness to look on here, as far as the cowboys were concerned, was mere pretense. In Belllounds’s case, however, he had a profound interest. Rumors had drifted to him from time to time, since his advent at White Slides, regarding Belllounds’s weakness for gambling. It might have been cowboy gossip. Wade held that there was nothing in the West as well calculated to test a boy, to prove his real character, as a game of poker.

Belllounds was a feverish better, an exultant winner, a poor loser. His understanding of the game was rudimentary. With him, the strong feeling beginning to be manifested to Wade was not the fun of matching wits and luck with his antagonists, nor a desire to accumulate money — for his recklessness disproved that — but the liberation of the gambling passion. Wade recognized that when he met it. And Jack Belllounds was not in any sense big. He was selfish and grasping in the numberless little ways common to the game, and positive about his own rights, while doubtful of the claims of others. His cheating was clumsy and crude. He held out cards, hiding them in his palm; he shuffled the deck so he left aces at the bottom, and these he would slip off to himself, and he was so blind that he could not detect his fellow-player in tricks as transparent as his own. Wade was amazed and disgusted. The pity he had felt for Belllounds shifted to the old father, who believed in his son with stubborn and unquenchable faith.

“Haven’t you got something to drink?” Jack asked of his companions.

“Nope. Whar’d we git it?” replied Jim.

Belllounds evidently forgot, for presently he repeated the query. The cowboys shook their heads. Wade knew they were lying, for they did have liquor in the cabin. It occurred to him, then, to offer to go to his own cabin for some, just to see what this young man would say. But he refrained.

The luck went against Belllounds and so did the gambling. He was not a lamb among wolves, by any means, but the fleecing he got suggested that. According to Wade he was getting what he deserved. No cowboys, even such good-natured and fine fellows as these, could be expected to be subjects for Belllounds’s cupidity. And they won all he had.

“I’ll borrow,” he said, with feverish impatience. His face was pale, clammy, yet heated, especially round the swollen bruises; his eyes stood out, bold, dark, rolling and glaring, full of sullen fire. But more than anything else his mouth betrayed the weakling, the born gambler, the self-centered, spoiled, intolerant youth. It was here his bad blood showed.

“Wal, I ain’t lendin’ money,” replied Lem, as he assorted his winnings. “Wade, here’s what you staked me, an’ much obliged.”

“I’m out, an’ I can’t lend you any,” said Jim.

Bludsoe had a good share of the profits of that quick game, but he made no move to lend any of it. Belllounds glared impatiently at them.

“Hell! you took my money. I’ll have satisfaction,” he broke out, almost shouting.

“We won it, didn’t we?” rejoined Lem, cool and easy. “An’ you can have all the satisfaction you want, right now or any time.”

Wade held out a handful of money to Belllounds.

“Here,” he said, with his deep eyes gleaming in the dim room. Wade had made a gamble with himself, and it was that Belllounds would not even hesitate to take money.

“Come on, you stingy cowpunchers,” he called out, snatching the money from Wade. His action then, violent and vivid as it was, did not reveal any more than his face.

But the cowboys showed amaze, and something more. They fell straightway to gambling, sharper and fiercer than before, actuated now by the flaming spirit of this son of Belllounds. Luck, misleading and alluring, favored Jack for a while, transforming him until he was radiant, boastful, exultant. Then it changed, as did his expression. His face grew dark.

“I tell you I want drink,” he suddenly demanded. “I know damn well you cowpunchers have some here, for I smelled it when I came in.”

“Jack, we drank the last drop,” replied Jim, who seemed less stiff than his two bunk-mates.

“I’ve some very old rye,” interposed Wade, looking at Jim, but apparently addressing all. “Fine stuff, but awful strong an’ hot!... Makes a fellow’s blood dance.”

“Go get it!” Belllounds’s utterance was thick and full, as if he had something in his mouth.

Wade looked down into the heated face, into the burning eyes; and through the darkness of passion that brooked no interference with its fruition he saw this youth’s stark and naked soul. Wade had seen into the depths of many such abysses.

“See hyar, Wade,” broke in Jim, with his quiet force, “never mind fetchin’ thet red-hot rye to-night. Some other time, mebbe, when Jack wants more satisfaction. Reckon we’ve got a drop or so left.”

“All right, boys,” replied Wade, “I’ll be sayin’ good night.”

He left them playing and strode out to return to his cabin. The night was still, cold, starlit, and black in the shadows. A lonesome coyote barked, to be answered by a wakeful hound. Wade halted at his porch, and lingered there a moment, peering up at the gray old peak, bare and star-crowned.

“I’m sorry for the old man,” muttered the hunter, “but I’d see Jack Belllounds in hell before I’d let Columbine marry him.”

October first was a holiday at White Slides Ranch. It happened to be a glorious autumn day, with the sunlight streaming gold and amber over the grassy slopes. Far off the purple ranges loomed hauntingly.

Wade had come down from Wilson Moore’s cabin, his ears ringing with the crippled boy’s words of poignant fear.

Fox favored his master with unusually knowing gaze. There was not going to be any lion-chasing or elk-hunting this day. Something was in the wind. And Fox, as a privileged dog, manifested his interest and wonder.

Before noon a buckboard with team of sweating horses halted in the yard of the ranch-house. Besides the driver it contained two women whom Belllounds greeted as relatives, and a stranger, a pale man whose dark garb proclaimed him a minister.

“Come right in, folks,” welcomed Belllounds, with hearty excitement.

It was Wade who showed the driver where to put the horses. Strangely, not a cowboy was in sight, an omission of duty the rancher had noted. Wade might have informed him where they were.

The door of the big living-room stood open, and from it came the sound of laughter and voices. Wade, who had returned to his seat on the end of the porch, listened to them, while his keen gaze seemed fixed down the lane toward the cabins. How intent must he have been not to hear Columbine’s step behind him!

“Good morning, Ben,” she said.

Wade wheeled as if internal violence had ordered his movement.

“Lass, good mornin’,” he replied. “You sure look sweet this October first — like the flower for which you’re named.”

“My friend, it is October first — my marriage day!” murmured Columbine.

Wade felt her intensity, and he thrilled to the brave, sweet resignation of her face. Hope and faith were unquenchable in her, yet she had fortified herself to the wreck of dreams and love.

“I’d seen you before now, but I had some job with Wils, persuadin’ him that we’d not have to offer you congratulations yet awhile,” replied Wade, in his slow, gentle voice.

“Oh!” breathed Columbine.

Wade saw her full breast swell and the leaping blood wave over her pale face. She bent to him to see his eyes. And for Wade, when she peered with straining heart and soul, all at once to become transfigured, that instant was a sweet and all-fulfilling reward for his years of pain.

“You drive me mad!” she whispered.

The heavy tread of the rancher, like the last of successive steps of fate in Wade’s tragic expectancy, sounded on the porch.

“Wal, lass, hyar you are,” he said, with a gladness deep in his voice. “Now, whar’s the boy?”

“Dad — I’ve not — seen Jack since breakfast,” replied Columbine, tremulously.

“Sort of a laggard in love on his weddin’-day,” rejoined the rancher. His gladness and forgetfulness were as big as his heart. “Wade, have you seen Jack?”

“No — I haven’t,” replied the hunter, with slow, long-drawn utterance. “But — I see — him now.”

Wade pointed to the figure of Jack Belllounds approaching from the direction of the cabins. He was not walking straight.

Old man Belllounds shot out his gray head like a striking eagle.

“What the hell?” he muttered, as if bewildered at this strange, uneven gait of his son. “Wade, what’s the matter with Jack?”

Wade did not reply. That moment had its sorrow for him as well as understanding of the wonder expressed by Columbine’s cold little hand trembling in his.

The rancher suddenly recoiled.

“So help me Gawd — he’s drunk!” he gasped, in a distress that unmanned him.

Then the parson and the invited relatives came out upon the porch, with gay voices and laughter that suddenly stilled when old Belllounds cried, brokenly: “Lass — go — in — the house.”

But Columbine did not move, and Wade felt her shaking as she leaned against him.

The bridegroom approached. Drunk indeed he was; not hilariously, as one who celebrated his good fortune, but sullenly, tragically, hideously drunk.

Old Belllounds leaped off the porch. His gray hair stood up like the mane of a lion. Like a giant’s were his strides. With a lunge he met his reeling son, swinging a huge fist into the sodden red face. Limply Jack fell to the ground.

“Lay there, you damned prodigal!” he roared, terrible in his rage. “You disgrace me — an’ you disgrace the girl who’s been a daughter to me!... if you ever have another weddin’-day it’ll not be me who sets it!”

CHAPTER XII

NOVEMBER WAS WELL advanced before there came indications that winter was near at hand.

One morning, when Wade rode up to Moore’s cabin, the whole world seemed obscured in a dense gray fog, through which he could not see a rod ahead of him. Later, as he left, the fog had lifted shoulder-high to the mountains, and was breaking to let the blue sky show. Another morning it was worse, and apparently thicker and grayer. As Wade climbed the trail up toward the mountain-basin, where he hunted most these days, he expected the fog to lift. But it did not. The trail under the hoofs of the horse was scarcely perceptible to him, and he seemed lost in a dense, gray, soundless obscurity.

Suddenly Wade emerged from out the fog into brilliant sunshine. In amaze he halted. This phenomenon was new to him. He was high up on the mountain-side, the summit of which rose clear-cut and bold into the sky. Below him spread what resembled a white sea. It was an immense cloud-bank, filling all the valleys as if with creamy foam or snow, soft, thick, motionless, contrasting vividly with the blue sky above. Old White Slides stood out, gray and bleak and brilliant, as if it were an island rock in a rolling sea of fleece. Far across this strange, level cloud-floor rose the black line of the range. Wade watched the scene with a kind of rapture. He was alone on the heights. There was not a sound. The winds were stilled. But there seemed a mighty being awake all around him, in the presence of which Wade felt how little were his sorrows and hopes.

Another day brought dull-gray scudding clouds, and gusts of wind and squalls of rain, and a wailing through the bare aspens. It grew colder and bleaker and darker. Rain changed to sleet and sleet to snow. That night brought winter.

Next morning, when Wade plodded up to Moore’s cabin, it was through two feet of snow. A beautiful glistening white mantle covered valley and slope and mountain, transforming all into a world too dazzlingly brilliant for the unprotected gaze of man.

When Wade pushed open the door of the cabin and entered he awakened the cowboy.

“Mornin’, Wils,” drawled Wade, as he slapped the snow from boots and legs. “Summer has gone, winter has come, an’ the flowers lay in their graves! How are you, boy?”

Moore had grown paler and thinner during his long confinement in bed. A weary shade shone in his face and a shadow of pain in his eyes. But the spirit of his smile was the same as always.

“Hello, Bent, old pard!” replied Moore. “I guess I’m fine. Nearly froze last night. Didn’t sleep much.”

“Well, I was worried about that,” said the hunter. “We’ve got to arrange things somehow.”

“I heard it snowing. Gee! how the wind howled! And I’m snowed in?”

“Sure are. Two feet on a level. It’s good I snaked down a lot of fire-wood. Now I’ll set to work an’ cut it up an’ stack it round the cabin. Reckon I’d better sleep up here with you, Wils.”

“Won’t Old Bill make a kick?”

“Let him kick. But I reckon he doesn’t need to know anythin’ about it. It is cold in here. Well, I’ll soon warm it up.... Here’s some letters Lem got at Kremmlin’ the other day. You read while I rustle some grub for you.”

Moore scanned the addresses on the several envelopes and sighed.

“From home! I hate to read them.”

“Why?” queried Wade.

“Oh, because when I wrote I didn’t tell them I was hurt. I feel like a liar.”

“It’s just as well, Wils, because you swear you’ll not go home.”

“Me? I should smile not.... Bent — I — I — hoped Collie might answer the note you took her from me.”

“Not yet. Wils, give the lass time.”

“Time? Heavens! it’s three weeks and more.”

“Go ahead an’ read your letters or I’ll knock you on the head with one of these chunks,” ordered Wade, mildly.

The hunter soon had the room warm and cheerful, with steaming breakfast on the red-hot coals. Presently, when he made ready to serve Moore, he was surprised to find the boy crying over one of the letters.

“Wils, what’s the trouble?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing. I — I — just feel bad, that’s all,” replied Moore.

“Ahuh! So it seems. Well, tell me about it?”

“Pard, my father — has forgiven me.”

“The old son-of-a-gun! Good! What for? You never told me you’d done anythin’.”

“I know — but I did — do a lot. I was sixteen then. We quarreled. And I ran off up here to punch cows. But after a while I wrote home to mother and my sister. Since then they’ve tried to coax me to come home. This letter’s from the old man himself. Gee!... Well, he says he’s had to knuckle. That he’s ready to forgive me. But I must come home and take charge of his ranch. Isn’t that great?... Only I can’t go. And I couldn’t — I couldn’t ever ride a horse again — if I did go.”

“Who says you couldn’t?” queried Wade. “I never said so. I only said you’d never be a bronco-bustin’ cowboy again. Well, suppose you’re not? You’ll be able to ride a little, if I can save that leg.... Boy, your letter is damn good news. I’m sure glad. That will make Collie happy.”

The cowboy had a better appetite that morning, which fact mitigated somewhat the burden of Wade’s worry. There was burden enough, however, and Wade had set this day to make important decisions about Moore’s injured foot. He had dreaded to remove the last dressing because conditions at that time had been unimproved. He had done all he could to ward off the threatened gangrene.

“Wils, I’m goin’ to look at your foot an’ tell you things,” declared Wade, when the dreaded time could be put off no longer.

“Go ahead.... And, pard, if you say my leg has to be cut off — why just pass me my gun!”

The cowboy’s voice was gay and bantering, but his eyes were alight with a spirit that frightened the hunter.

“Ahuh!... I know how you feel. But, boy, I’d rather live with one leg an’ be loved by Collie Belllounds than have nine legs for some other lass.”

Wilson Moore groaned his helplessness.

“Damn you, Bent Wade! You always say what kills me!... Of course I would!”

“Well, lie quiet now, an’ let me look at this poor, messed-up foot.”

Wade’s deft fingers did not work with the usual precision and speed natural to them. But at last Moore’s injured member lay bare, discolored and misshapen. The first glance made the hunter quicker in his movements, closer in his scrutiny. Then he yelled his joy.

“Boy, it’s better! No sign of gangrene! We’ll save your leg!”

“Pard, I never feared I’d lose that. All I’ve feared was that I’d be club-footed.... Let me look,” replied the cowboy, and he raised himself on his elbow. Wade lifted the unsightly foot.

“My God, it’s crooked!” cried Moore, passionately. “Wade, it’s healed. It’ll stay that way always! I can’t move it!... Oh, but Buster Jack’s ruined me!”

The hunter pushed him back with gentle hands. “Wils, it might have been worse.”

“But I never gave up hope,” replied Moore, in poignant grief. “I couldn’t. But now!... How can you look at that — that club-foot, and not swear?”

“Well, well, boy, cussin’ won’t do any good. Now lay still an’ let me work. You’ve had lots of good news this mornin’. So I think you can stand to hear a little bad news.”

“What! Bad news?” queried Moore, with a start.

“I reckon. Now listen.... The reason Collie hasn’t answered your note is because she’s been sick in bed for three weeks.”

“Oh no!” exclaimed the cowboy, in amaze and distress.

“Yes, an’ I’m her doctor,” replied Wade, with pride. “First off they had Mrs. Andrews. An’ Collie kept askin’ for me. She was out of her head, you know. An’ soon as I took charge she got better.”

“Heavens! Collie ill and you never told me!” cried Moore. “I can’t believe it. She’s so healthy and strong. What ailed her, Bent?”

“Well, Mrs. Andrews said it was nervous breakdown. An’ Old Bill was afraid of consumption. An’ Jack Belllounds swore she was only shammin’.”

The cowboy cursed violently.

“Here — I won’t tell you any more if you’re goin’ to cuss that way an’ jerk around,” protested Wade.

“I — I’ll shut up,” appealed Moore.

“Well, that puddin’-head Jack is more’n you called him, if you care to hear my opinion.... Now, Wils, the fact is that none of them know what ails Collie. But I know. She’d been under a high strain leadin’ up to October first. An’ the way that weddin’-day turned out — with Old Bill layin’ Jack cold, an’ with no marriage at all — why, Collie had a shock. An’ after that she seemed pale an’ tired all the time an’ she didn’t eat right. Well, when Buster Jack got over that awful punch he’d got from the old man he made up to Collie harder than ever. She didn’t tell me then, but I saw it. An’ she couldn’t avoid him, except by stayin’ in her room, which she did a good deal. Then Jack showed a streak of bein’ decent. He surprised everybody, even Collie. He delighted Old Bill. But he didn’t pull the wool over my eyes. He was like a boy spoilin’ for a new toy, an’ he got crazy over Collie. He’s sure terribly in love with her, an’ for days he behaved himself in a way calculated to make up for his drinkin’ too much. It shows he can behave himself when he wants to. I mean he can control his temper an’ impulse. Anyway, he made himself so good that Old Bill changed his mind, after what he swore that day, an’ set another day for the weddin’. Right off, then, Collie goes down on her back.... They didn’t send for me very soon. But when I did get to see her, an’ felt the way she grabbed me — as if she was drownin’ — then I knew what ailed her. It was love.”

“Love!” gasped Moore, breathlessly.

“Sure. Jest love for a dog-gone lucky cowboy named Wils Moore!... Her heart was breakin’, an’ she’d have died but for me! Don’t imagine, Wils, that people can’t die of broken hearts. They do. I know. Well, all Collie needed was me, an’ I cured her ravin’ and made her eat, an’ now she’s comin’ along fine.”

“Wade, I’ve believed in Heaven since you came down to White Slides,” burst out Moore, with shining eyes. “But tell me — what did you tell her?”

“Well, my particular medicine first off was to whisper in her ear that she’d never have to marry Jack Belllounds. An’ after that I gave her daily doses of talk about you.”

“Pard! She loves me — still?” he whispered.

“Wils, hers is the kind that grows stronger with time. I know.”

Moore strained in his intensity of emotion, and he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

“Oh God! this’s hard on me!” he cried. “I’m a man. I love that girl more than life. And to know she’s suffering for love of me — for fear of that marriage being forced upon her — to know that while I lie here a helpless cripple — it’s almost unbearable.”

“Boy, you’ve got to mend now. We’ve the best of hope now — for you — for her — for everythin’.”

“Wade, I think I love you, too,” said the cowboy. “You’re saving me from madness. Somehow I have faith in you — to do whatever you want. But how could you tell Collie she’d never have to marry Buster Jack?”

“Because I know she never will,” replied Wade, with his slow, gentle smile.

“You know that?”

“Sure.”

“How on earth can you prevent it? Belllounds will never give up planning that marriage for his son. Jack will nag Collie till she can’t call her soul her own. Between them they will wear her down. My friend, how can you prevent it?”

“Wils, fact is, I haven’t reckoned out how I’m goin’ to save Collie. But that’s no matter. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. I will do it. You can gamble on me, Wils. You must use that hope an’ faith to help you get well. For we mustn’t forget that you’re in more danger than Collie.”

“I will gamble on you — my life — my very soul,” replied Moore, fervently. “By Heaven! I’ll be the man I might have been. I’ll rise out of despair. I’ll even reconcile myself to being a cripple.”

“An’, Wils, will you rise above hate?” asked Wade, softly.

“Hate! Hate of whom?”

“Jack Belllounds.”

The cowboy stared, and his lean, pale face contracted.

“Pard, you wouldn’t — you couldn’t expect me to — to forgive him?”

“No. I reckon not. But you needn’t hate him. I don’t. An’ I reckon I’ve some reason, more than you could guess.... Wils, hate is a poison in the blood. It’s worse for him who feels it than for him against whom it rages. I know.... Well, if you put thought of Jack out of your mind — quit broodin’ over what he did to you — an’ realize that he’s not to blame, you’ll overcome your hate. For the son of Old Bill is to be pitied. Yes, Jack Belllounds needs pity. He was ruined before he was born. He never should have been born. An’ I want you to understand that, an’ stop hatin’ him. Will you try?”

“Wade, you’re afraid I’ll kill him?” whispered Moore.

“Sure. That’s it. I’m afraid you might. An’ consider how hard that would be for Columbine. She an’ Jack were raised sister an’ brother, almost. It would be hard on her. You see, Collie has a strange an’ powerful sense of duty to Old Bill. If you killed Jack it would likely kill the old man, an’ Collie would suffer all her life. You couldn’t cure her of that. You want her to be happy.”

“I do — I do. Wade, I swear I’ll never kill Buster Jack. And for Collie’s sake I’ll try not to hate him.”

“Well, that’s fine. I’m sure glad to hear you promise that. Now I’ll go out an’ chop some wood. We mustn’t let the fire go out any more.”

“Pard, I’ll write another note — a letter to Collie. Hand me the blank-book there. And my pencil.... And don’t hurry with the wood.”

Wade went outdoors with his two-bladed ax and shovel. The wood-pile was a great mound of snow. He cleaned a wide space and a path to the side of the cabin. Working in snow was not unpleasant for him. He liked the cleanness, the whiteness, the absolute purity of new-fallen snow. The air was crisp and nipping, the frost crackled under his feet, the smoke from his pipe seemed no thicker than the steam from his breath, the ax rang on the hard aspens. Wade swung this implement like a born woodsman. The chips flew and the dead wood smelled sweet. Some logs he chopped into three-foot pieces; others he chopped and split. When he tired a little of swinging the ax he carried the cut pieces to the cabin and stacked them near the door. Now and then he would halt a moment to gaze away across the whitened slopes and rolling hills. The sense of his physical power matched something within, and his heart warmed with more than the vigorous exercise.

When he had worked thus for about two hours and had stacked a pile of wood almost as large as the cabin he considered it sufficient for the day. So he went indoors. Moore was so busily and earnestly writing that he did not hear Wade come in. His face wore an eloquent glow.

“Say, Wils, are you writin’ a book?” he inquired.

“Hello! Sure I am. But I’m ‘most done now.... If Columbine doesn’t answer this ...”

“By the way, I’ll have two letters to give her, then — for I never gave her the first one,” replied Wade.

“You son-of-a-gun!”

“Well, hurry along, boy. I’ll be goin’ now. Here’s a pole I’ve fetched in. You keep it there, where you can reach it, an’ when the fire needs more wood you roll one of these logs on. I’ll be up to-night before dark, an’ if I don’t fetch you a letter it’ll be because I can’t persuade Collie to write.”

“Pard, if you bring me a letter I’ll obey you — I’ll lie still — I’ll sleep — I’ll stand anything.”

“Ahuh! Then I’ll fetch one,” replied Wade, as he took the little book and deposited it in his pocket. “Good-by, now, an’ think of your good news that come with the snow.”

“Good-by, Heaven-Sent Hell-Bent Wade!” called Moore. “It’s no joke of a name any more. It’s a fact.”

Wade plodded down through the deep snow, stepping in his old tracks, and as he toiled on his thoughts were deep and comforting. He was thinking that if he had his life to live over again he would begin at once to find happiness in other people’s happiness. Upon arriving at his cabin he set to work cleaning a path to the dog corral. The snow had drifted there and he had no easy task. It was well that he had built an inclosed house for the hounds to winter in. Such a heavy snow as this one would put an end to hunting for the time being. The ranch had ample supply of deer, bear, and elk meat, all solidly frozen this morning, that would surely keep well until used. Wade reflected that his tasks round the ranch would be feeding hounds and stock, chopping wood, and doing such chores as came along in winter-time. The pack of hounds, which he had thinned out to a smaller number, would be a care on his hands. Kane had become a much-prized possession of Columbine’s and lived at the house, where he had things his own way, and always greeted Wade with a look of disdain and distrust. Kane would never forgive the hand that had hurt him. Sampson and Jim and Fox, of course, shared Wade’s cabin, and vociferously announced his return.

Early in the afternoon Wade went down to the ranch-house. The snow was not so deep there, having blown considerably in the open places. Some one was pounding iron in the blacksmith shop; horses were cavorting in the corrals; cattle were bawling round the hay-ricks in the barn-yard.

The hunter knocked on Columbine’s door.

“Come in,” she called.

Wade entered, to find her alone. She was sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows, and she wore a warm, woolly jacket or dressing-gown. Her paleness was now marked, and the shadows under her eyes made them appear large and mournful.

“Ben Wade, you don’t care for me any more!” she exclaimed, reproachfully.

“Why not, lass?” he asked.

“You were so long in coming,” she replied, now with petulance. “I guess now I don’t want you at all.”

“Ahuh! That’s the reward of people who worry an’ work for others. Well, then, I reckon I’ll go back an’ not give you what I brought.”

He made a pretense of leaving, and he put a hand to his pocket as if to insure the safety of some article. Columbine blushed. She held out her hands. She was repentant of her words and curious as to his.

“Why, Ben Wade, I count the minutes before you come,” she said. “What’d you bring me?”

“Who’s been in here?” he asked, going forward. “That’s a poor fire. I’ll have to fix it.”

“Mrs. Andrews just left. It was good of her to drive up. She came in the sled, she said. Oh, Ben, it’s winter. There was snow on my bed when I woke up. I think I am better to-day. Jack hasn’t been in here yet!”

At this Wade laughed, and Columbine followed suit.

“Well, you look a little sassy to-day, which I take is a good sign,” said Wade. “I’ve got some news that will come near to makin’ you well.”

“Oh, tell it quick!” she cried.

“Wils won’t lose his leg. It’s gettin’ well. An’ there was a letter from his father, forgivin’ him for somethin’ he never told me.”

“My prayers were answered!” whispered Columbine, and she closed her eyes tight.

“An’ his father wants him to come home to run the ranch,” went on Wade.

“Oh!” Her eyes popped open with sudden fright. “But he can’t — he won’t go?”

“I reckon not. He wouldn’t if he could. But some day he will, an’ take you home with him.”

Columbine covered her face with her hands, and was silent a moment.

“Such prophecies! They — they—” She could not conclude.

“Ahuh! I know. The strange fact is, lass, that they all come true. I wish I had all happy ones, instead of them black, croakin’ ones that come like ravens.... Well, you’re better to-day?”

“Yes. Oh yes. Ben, what have you got for me?”

“You’re in an awful hurry. I want to talk to you, an’ if I show what I’ve got then there will be no talkin’. You say Jack hasn’t been in to-day?”

“Not yet, thank goodness.”

“How about Old Bill?”

“Ben, you never call him my dad. I wish you would. When you don’t it always reminds me that he’s really not my dad.”

“Ahuh! Well, well!” replied Wade, with his head bowed. “It is just queer I can never remember.... An’ how was he to-day?”

“For a wonder he didn’t mention poor me. He was full of talk about going to Kremmling. Means to take Jack along. Do you know, Ben, dad can’t fool me. He’s afraid to leave Jack here alone with me. So dad talked a lot about selling stock an’ buying supplies, and how he needed Jack to go, and so forth. I’m mighty glad he means to take him. But my! won’t Jack be sore.”

“I reckon. It’s time he broke out.”

“And now, dear Ben — what have you got for me? I know it’s from Wilson,” she coaxed.

“Lass, would you give much for a little note from Wils?” asked Wade, teasingly.

“Would I? When I’ve been hoping and praying for just that!”

“Well, if you’d give so much for a note, how much would you give me for a whole bookful that took Wils two hours to write?”

“Ben! Oh, I’d — I’d give—” she cried, wild with delight. “I’d kiss you!”

“You mean it?” he queried, waving the book aloft.

“Mean it? Come here!”

There was fun in this for Wade, but also a deep and beautiful emotion that quivered through him. Bending over her, he placed the little book in her hand. He did not see clearly, then, as she pulled him lower and kissed him on the cheek, generously, with sweet, frank gratitude and affection.

Moments strong and all-satisfying had been multiplying for Bent Wade of late. But this one magnified all. As he sat back upon the chair he seemed a little husky of voice.

“Well, well, an’ so you kissed ugly old Bent Wade?”

“Yes, and I’ve wanted to do it before,” she retorted. The dark excitation in her eyes, the flush of her pale cheeks, made her beautiful then.

“Lass, now you read your letter an’ answer it. You can tear out the pages. I’ll sit here an’ be makin’ out to be readin’ aloud out of this book here, if any one happens in sudden-like!”

“Oh, how you think of everything!”

The hunter sat beside her pretending to be occupied with the book he had taken from the table when really he was stealing glances at her face. Indeed, she was more than pretty then. Illness and pain had enhanced the sweetness of her expression. As she read on it was manifest that she had forgotten the hunter’s presence. She grew pink, rosy, scarlet, radiant. And Wade thrilled with her as she thrilled, loved her more and more as she loved. Moore must have written words of enchantment. Wade’s hungry heart suffered a pang of jealousy, but would not harbor it. He read in her perusal of that letter what no other dreamed of, not even the girl herself; and it was certitude of tragic and brief life for her if she could not live for Wilson Moore. Those moments of watching her were unutterably precious to Wade. He saw how some divine guidance had directed his footsteps to this home. How many years had it taken him to get there! Columbine read and read and reread — a girl with her first love-letter. And for Wade, with his keen eyes that seemed to see the senses and the soul, there shone something infinite through her rapture. Never until that unguarded moment had he divined her innocence, nor had any conception been given him of the exquisite torture of her maiden fears or the havoc of love fighting for itself. He learned then much of the mystery and meaning of a woman’s heart.

CHAPTER XIII

DEAR WILSON, — The note and letter from you have taken my breath away. I couldn’t tell — I wouldn’t dare tell, how they made me feel.

“Your good news fills me with joy. And when Ben told me you wouldn’t lose your leg — that you would get well — then my eyes filled and my heart choked me, and I thanked God, who’d answered my prayers. After all the heartache and dread, it’s so wonderful to find things not so terrible as they seemed. Oh, I am thankful! You have only to take care of yourself now, to lie patiently and wait, and obey Ben, and soon the time will have flown by and you will be well again. Maybe, after all, your foot will not be so bad. Maybe you can ride again, if not so wonderfully as before, then well enough to ride on your father’s range and look after his stock. For, Wilson dear, you’ll have to go home. It’s your duty. Your father must be getting old now. He needs you. He has forgiven you — you bad boy! And you are very lucky. It almost kills me to think of your leaving White Slides. But that is selfish. I’m going to learn to be like Ben Wade. He never thinks of himself.

“Rest assured, Wilson, that I will never marry Jack Belllounds. It seems years since that awful October first. I gave my word then, and I would have lived up to it. But I’ve changed. I’m older. I see things differently. I love dad as well. I feel as sorry for Jack Belllounds. I still think I might help him. I still believe in my duty to his father. But I can’t marry him. It would be a sin. I have no right to marry a man whom I do not love. When it comes to thought of his touching me, then I hate him. Duty toward dad is one thing, and I hold it high, but that is not reason enough for a woman to give herself. Some duty to myself is higher than that. It’s hard for me to tell you — for me to understand. Love of you has opened my eyes. Still I don’t think it’s love of you that makes me selfish. I’m true to something in me that I never knew before. I could marry Jack, loving you, and utterly sacrifice myself, if it were right. But it would be wrong. I never realized this until you kissed me. Since then the thought of anything that approaches personal relations — any hint of intimacy with Jack fills me with disgust.

“So I’m not engaged to Jack Belllounds, and I’m never going to be. There will be trouble here. I feel it. I see it coming. Dad keeps at me persistently. He grows older. I don’t think he’s failing, but then there’s a loss of memory, and an almost childish obsession in regard to the marriage he has set his heart on. Then his passion for Jack seems greater as he learns little by little that Jack is not all he might be. Wilson, I give you my word; I believe if dad ever really sees Jack as I see him or you see him, then something dreadful will happen. In spite of everything dad still believes in Jack. It’s beautiful and terrible. That’s one reason why I’ve wanted to help Jack. Well, it’s not to be. Every day, every hour, Jack Belllounds grows farther from me. He and his father will try to persuade me to consent to this marriage. They may even try to force me. But in that way I’ll be as hard and as cold as Old White Slides. No! Never! For the rest, I’ll do my duty to dad. I’ll stick to him. I could not engage myself to you, no matter how much I love you. And that’s more every minute!... So don’t mention taking me to your home — don’t ask me again. Please, Wilson; your asking shook my very soul! Oh, how sweet that would be — your wife!... But if dad turns me away — I don’t think he would. Yet he’s so strange and like iron for all concerning Jack. If ever he turned me out I’d have no home. I’m a waif, you know. Then — then, Wilson ... Oh, it’s horrible to be in the position I’m in. I won’t say any more. You’ll understand, dear.

“It’s your love that awoke me, and it’s Ben Wade who has saved me. Wilson, I love him almost as I do dad, only strangely. Do you know I believe he had something to do with Jack getting drunk that awful October first. I don’t mean Ben would stoop to get Jack drunk. But he might have cunningly put that opportunity in Jack’s way. Drink is Jack’s weakness, as gambling is his passion. Well, I know that the liquor was some fine old stuff which Ben gave to the cowboys. And it’s significant now how Jack avoids Ben. He hates him. He’s afraid of him. He’s jealous because Ben is so much with me. I’ve heard Jack rave to dad about this. But dad is just to others, if he can’t be to his son.

“And so I want you to know that it’s Ben Wade who has saved me. Since I’ve been sick I’ve learned more of Ben. He’s like a woman. He understands. I never have to tell him anything. You, Wilson, were sometimes stupid or stubborn (forgive me) about little things that girls feel but can’t explain. Ben knows. I tell you this because I want you to understand how and why I love him. I think I love him most for his goodness to you. Dear boy, if I hadn’t loved you before Ben Wade came I’d have fallen in love with you since, just listening to his talk of you. But this will make you conceited. So I’ll go on about Ben. He’s our friend. Why, Wilson, that sweetness, softness, gentleness about him, the heart that makes him love us, that must be only the woman in him. I don’t know what a mother would feel like, but I do know that I seem strangely happier since I’ve confessed my troubles to this man. It was Lem who told me how Ben offered to be a friend to Jack. And Jack flouted him. I’ve a queer notion that the moment Jack did this he turned his back on a better life.

“To repeat, then, Ben Wade is our friend, and to me something more that I’ve tried to explain. Maybe telling you this will make you think more of him and listen to his advice. I hope so. Did any boy and girl ever before so need a friend? I need that something he instils in me. If I lost it I’d be miserable. And, Wilson, I’m such a coward. I’m so weak. I have such sinkings and burnings and tossings. Oh, I’m only a woman! But I’ll die fighting. That is what Ben Wade instils into me. While there was life this strange little man would never give up hope. He makes me feel that he knows more than he tells. Through him I shall get the strength to live up to my convictions, to be true to myself, to be faithful to you.

“With love,

“COLUMBINE.”

“December 3d.

“DEAREST COLLIE, — Your last was only a note, and I told Wade if he didn’t fetch more than a note next time there would be trouble round this bunk-house. And then he brought your letter!

“I’m feeling exuberant (I think it’s that) to-day. First time I’ve been up. Collie, I’m able to get up! WHOOPEE! I walk with a crutch, and don’t dare put my foot down. Not that it hurts, but that my boss would have a fit! I’m glad you’ve stopped heaping praise upon our friend Ben. Because now I can get over my jealousy and be half decent. He’s the whitest man I ever knew.

“Now listen, Collie. I’ve had ideas lately. I’ve begun to eat and get stronger and to feel good. The pain is gone. And to think I swore to Wade I’d forgive Jack Belllounds and never hate him — or kill him!... There, that’s letting the cat out of the bag, and it’s done now. But no matter. The truth is, though, that I never could stop hating Jack while the pain lasted. Now I could shake hands with him and smile at him.

“Well, as I said, I’ve ideas. They’re great. Grab hold of the pommel now so you won’t get thrown! I’m going to pitch!... When I get well — able to ride and go about, which Ben says will be in the spring — I’ll send for my father to come to White Slides. He’ll come. Then I’ll tell him everything, and if Ben and I can’t win him to our side then you can. Father never could resist you. When he has fallen in love with you, which won’t take long, then we’ll go to old Bill Belllounds and lay the case before him. Are you still in the saddle, Collie?

“Well, if you are, be sure to get a better hold, for I’m going to run some next. Ben Wade approved of my plan. He says Belllounds can be brought to reason. He says he can make him see the ruin for everybody were you forced to marry Jack. Strange, Collie, how Wade included himself with, you, me, Jack, and the old man, in the foreshadowed ruin! Wade is as deep as the cañon there. Sometimes when he’s thoughtful he gives me a creepy feeling. At others, when he comes out with one of his easy, cool assurances that we are all right — that we will get each other — why, then something grim takes possession of me. I believe him, I’m happy, but there crosses my mind a fleeting realization — not of what our friend is now, but what he has been. And it disturbs me, chills me. I don’t understand it. For, Collie, though I understand your feeling of what he is, I don’t understand mine. You see, I’m a man. I’ve been a cowboy for ten years and more. I’ve seen some hard experiences and worked with a good many rough boys and men. Cowboys, Indians, Mexicans, miners, prospectors, ranchers, hunters — some of whom were bad medicine. So I’ve come to see men as you couldn’t see them. And Bent Wade has been everything a man could be. He seems all men in one. And despite all his kindness and goodness and hopefulness, there is the sense I have of something deadly and terrible and inevitable in him.

“It makes my heart almost stop beating to know I have this man on my side. Because I sense in him the man element, the physical — oh, I can’t put it in words, but I mean something great in him that can’t be beaten. What he says must come true!... And so I’ve already begun to dream and to think of you as my wife. If you ever are — no! when you are, then I will owe it to Bent Wade. No man ever owed another for so precious a gift. But, Collie, I can’t help a little vague dread — of what, I don’t know, unless it’s a sense of the possibilities of Hell — Bent Wade.... Dearest, I don’t want to worry you or frighten you, and I can’t follow out my own gloomy fancies. Don’t you mind too much what I think. Only you must realize that Wade is the greatest factor in our hopes of the future. My faith in him is so unshakable that it’s foolish. Next to you I love him best. He seems even dearer to me than my own people. He has made me look at life differently. Likewise he has inspired you. But you, dearest Columbine, are only a sensitive, delicate girl, a frail and tender thing like the columbine flowers of the hills. And for your own sake you must not be blind to what Wade is capable of. If you keep on loving him and idealizing him, blind to what has made him great, that is, blind to the tragic side of him, then if he did something terrible here for you and for me the shock would be bad for you. Lord knows I have no suspicions of Wade. I have no clear ideas at all. But I do know that for you he would not stop at anything. He loves you as much as I do, only differently. Such power a pale, sweet-faced girl has over the lives of men!

“Good-by for this time.

“Faithfully,

“WILSON.”

“January 10th.

“DEAR WILSON, — In every letter I tell you I’m better! Why, pretty soon there’ll be nothing left to say about my health. I’ve been up and around now for days, but only lately have I begun to gain. Since Jack has been away I’m getting fat. I eat, and that’s one reason I suppose. Then I move around more.

“You ask me to tell you all I do. Goodness! I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. You are getting mighty bossy since you’re able to hobble around, as you call it. But you can’t boss me! However, I’ll be nice and tell you a little. I don’t work very much. I’ve helped dad with his accounts, all so hopelessly muddled since he let Jack keep the books. I read a good deal. Your letters are worn out! Then, when it snows, I sit by the window and watch. I love to see the snowflakes fall, so fleecy and white and soft! But I don’t like the snowy world after the storm has passed. I shiver and hug the fire. I must have Indian in me. On moonlit nights to look out at Old White Slides, so cold and icy and grand, and over the white hills and ranges, makes me shudder. I don’t know why. It’s all beautiful. But it seems to me like death.... Well, I sit idly a lot and think of you and how terribly big my love has grown, and ... but that’s all about that!

“As you know, Jack has been gone since before New Year’s Day. He said he was going to Kremmling. But dad heard he went to Elgeria. Well, I didn’t tell you that dad and Jack quarreled over money. Jack kept up his good behavior for so long that I actually believed he’d changed for the better. He kept at me, not so much on the marriage question, but to love him. Wilson, he nearly drove me frantic with his lovemaking. Finally I got mad and I pitched into him. Oh, I convinced him! Then he came back to his own self again. Like a flash he was Buster Jack once more. “You can go to hell!” he yelled at me. And such a look!... Well, he went out, and that’s when he quarreled with dad. It was about money. I couldn’t help but hear some of it. I don’t know whether or not dad gave Jack money, but I think he didn’t. Anyway, Jack went.

“Dad was all right for a few days. Really, he seemed nicer and kinder for Jack’s absence. Then all at once he sank into the glooms. I couldn’t cheer him up. When Ben Wade came in after supper dad always got him to tell some of those terrible stories. You know what perfectly terrible stories Ben can tell. Well, dad had to hear the worst ones. And poor me, I didn’t want to listen, but I couldn’t resist. Ben can tell stories. And oh, what he’s lived through!

“I got the idea it wasn’t Jack’s absence so much that made dad sit by the hour before the fire, staring at the coals, sighing, and looking so God-forsaken. My heart just aches for dad. He broods and broods. He’ll break out some day, and then I don’t want to be here. There doesn’t seem to be any idea when Jack will come home. He might never come. But Ben says he will. He says Jack hates work and that he couldn’t be gambler enough or wicked enough to support himself without working. Can’t you hear Ben Wade say that? ‘I’ll tell you,’ he begins, and then comes a prophecy of trouble or evil. And, on the other hand, think how he used to say: ‘Wait! Don’t give up! Nothin’ is ever so bad as it seems at first! Be true to what your heart says is right! It’s never too late! Love is the only good in life! Love each other and wait and trust! It’ll all come right in the end!’... And, Wilson, I’m bound to confess that both his sense of calamity and his hope of good seem infallible. Ben Wade is supernatural. Sometimes, just for a moment, I dare to let myself believe in what he says — that our dream will come true and I’ll be yours. Then oh! oh! oh! joy and stars and bells and heaven! I — I ... But what am I writing? Wilson Moore, this is quite enough for to-day. Take care you don’t believe I’m so — so very much in love.

“Ever,

“COLUMBINE.”

“February —— .

“DEAREST COLLIE, — I don’t know the date, but spring’s coming. To-day I kicked Bent Wade with my once sore foot. It didn’t hurt me, but hurt Wade’s feelings. He says there’ll be no holding me soon. I should say not. I’ll eat you up. I’m as hungry as the mountain-lion that’s been prowling round my cabin of nights. He’s sure starved. Wade tracked him to a hole in the cliff.

“Collie, I can get around first rate. Don’t need my crutch any more. I can make a fire and cook a meal. Wade doesn’t think so, but I do. He says if I want to hold your affection, not to let you eat anything I cook. I can rustle around, too. Haven’t been far yet. My stock has wintered fairly well. This valley is sheltered, you know. Snow hasn’t been too deep. Then I bought hay from Andrews. I’m hoping for spring now, and the good old sunshine on the gray sage hills. And summer, with its columbines! Wade has gone back to his own cabin to sleep. I miss him. But I’m glad to have the nights alone once more. I’ve got a future to plan! Read that over, Collie.

“To-day, when Wade came with your letter, he asked me, sort of queer, ‘Say, Wils, do you know how many letters I’ve fetched you from Collie?’ I said, ‘Lord, no, I don’t, but they’re a lot.’ Then he said there were just forty-seven letters. Forty-seven! I couldn’t believe it, and told him he was crazy. I never had such good fortune. Well, he made me count them, and, dog-gone it, he was right. Forty-seven wonderful love-letters from the sweetest girl on earth! But think of Wade remembering every one! It beats me. He’s beyond understanding.

“So Jack Belllounds still stays away from White Slides. Collie, I’m sure sorry for his father. What it would be to have a son like Buster Jack! My God! But for your sake I go around yelling and singing like a locoed Indian. Pretty soon spring will come. Then, you wild-flower of the hills, you girl with the sweet mouth and the sad eyes — then I’m coming after you! And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never take you away from me again!

“Your faithful

“WILSON.”

“March 19th.

“DEAREST WILSON, — Your last letters have been read and reread, and kept under my pillow, and have been both my help and my weakness during these trying days since Jack’s return.

“It has not been that I was afraid to write — though, Heaven knows, if this letter should fall into the hands of dad it would mean trouble for me, and if Jack read it — I am afraid to think of that! I just have not had the heart to write you. But all the time I knew I must write and that I would. Only, now, what to say tortures me. I am certain that confiding in you relieves me. That’s why I’ve told you so much. But of late I find it harder to tell what I know about Jack Belllounds. I’m in a queer state of mind, Wilson dear. And you’ll wonder, and you’ll be sorry to know I haven’t seen much of Ben lately — that is, not to talk to. It seems I can’t bear his faith in me, his hope, his love — when lately matters have driven me into torturing doubt.

“But lest you might misunderstand, I’m going to try to tell you something of what is on my mind, and I want you to read it to Ben. He has been hurt by my strange reluctance to be with him.

“Jack came home on the night of March second. You’ll remember that day, so gloomy and dark and dreary. It snowed and sleeted and rained. I remember how the rain roared on the roof. It roared so loud we didn’t hear the horse. But we heard heavy boots on the porch outside the living-room, and the swish of a slicker thrown to the floor. There was a bright fire. Dad looked up with a wild joy. All of a sudden he changed. He blazed. He recognized the heavy tread of his son. If I ever pitied and loved him it was then. I thought of the return of the Prodigal Son!... There came a knock on the door. Then dad recovered. He threw it open wide. The streaming light fell upon Jack Belllounds, indeed, but not as I knew him. He entered. It was the first time I ever saw Jack look in the least like a man. He was pale, haggard, much older, sullen, and bold. He strode in with a ‘Howdy, folks,’ and threw his wet hat on the floor, and walked to the fire. His boots were soaked with water and mud. His clothes began to steam.

“When I looked at dad I was surprised. He seemed cool and bright, with the self-contained force usual for him when something critical is about to happen.

“‘Ahuh! So you come back,’ he said.

“‘Yes, I’m home,’ replied Jack.

“‘Wal, it took you quite a spell to get hyar.’

“‘Do you want me to stay?’

“This question from Jack seemed to stump dad. He stared. Jack had appeared suddenly, and his manner was different from that with which he used to face dad. He had something up his sleeve, as the cowboys say. He wore an air of defiance and indifference.

“‘I reckon I do,’ replied dad, deliberately. ‘What do you mean by askin’ me thet?’

“‘I’m of age, long ago. You can’t make me stay home. I can do as I like.’

“‘Ahuh! I reckon you think you can. But not hyar at White Slides. If you ever expect to get this property you’ll not do as you like.’

“‘To hell with that. I don’t care whether I ever get it or not.’

“Dad’s face went as white as a sheet. He seemed shocked. After a moment he told me I’d better go to my room. I was about to go when Jack said: ‘No, let her stay. She’d best hear now what I’ve got to say. It concerns her.’

“‘So ho! Then you’ve got a heap to say?’ exclaimed dad, queerly. ‘All right, you have your say first.’

“Jack then began to talk in a level and monotonous voice, so unlike him that I sat there amazed. He told how early in the winter, before he left the ranch, he had found out that he was honestly in love with me. That it had changed him — made him see he had never been any good — and inflamed him with the resolve to be better. He had tried. He had succeeded. For six weeks he had been all that could have been asked of any young man. I am bound to confess that he was!... Well, he went on to say how he had fought it out with himself until he absolutely knew he could control himself. The courage and inspiration had come from his love for me. That was the only good thing he’d ever felt. He wanted dad and he wanted me to understand absolutely, without any doubt, that he had found a way to hold on to his good intentions and good feelings. And that was for me!... I was struck all a-tremble at the truth. It was true! Well, then he forced me to a decision. Forced me, without ever hinting of this change, this possibility in him. I had told him I couldn’t love him. Never! Then he said I could go to hell and he gave up. Failing to get money from dad he stole it, without compunction and without regret! He had gone to Kremmling, then to Elgeria.

“‘I let myself go,’ he said, without shame, ‘and I drank and gambled. When I was drunk I didn’t remember Collie. But when I was sober I did. And she haunted me. That grew worse all the time. So I drank to forget her.... The money lasted a great deal longer than I expected. But that was because I won as much as I lost, until lately. Then I borrowed a good deal from those men I gambled with, but mostly from ranchers who knew my father would be responsible.... I had a shooting-scrape with a man named Elbert, in Smith’s place at Elgeria. We quarreled over cards. He cheated. And when I hit him he drew on me. But he missed. Then I shot him.... He lived three days — and died. That sobered me. And once more there came to me truth of what I might have been. I went back to Kremmling. And I tried myself out again. I worked awhile for Judson, who was the rancher I had borrowed most from. At night I went into town and to the saloons, where I met my gambling cronies. I put myself in the atmosphere of drink and cards. And I resisted both. I could make myself indifferent to both. As soon as I was sure of myself I decided to come home. And here I am.’

“This long speech of Jack’s had a terrible effect upon me. I was stunned and sick. But if it did that to me what did it do to dad? Heaven knows, I can’t tell you. Dad gave a lurch, and a great heave, as if at the removal of a rope that had all but strangled him.

“Ahuh-huh!’ he groaned. ‘An’ now you’re hyar — what’s thet mean?’

“It means that it’s not yet too late,’ replied Jack. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not repenting with that side of me which is bad. But I’ve sobered up. I’ve had a shock. I see my ruin. I still love you, dad, despite — the cruel thing you did to me. I’m your son and I’d like to make up to you for all my shortcomings. And so help me Heaven! I can do that, and will do it, if Collie will marry me. Not only marry me — that’d not be enough — but love me — I’m crazy for her love. It’s terrible.’

“You spoiled weaklin’!’ thundered dad. ‘How ‘n hell can I believe you?’

“Because I know it,’ declared Jack, standing right up to his father, white and unflinching.

“Then dad broke out in such a rage that I sat there scared so stiff I could not move. My heart beat thick and heavy. Dad got livid of face, his hair stood up, his eyes rolled. He called Jack every name I ever heard any one call him, and then a thousand more. Then he cursed him. Such dreadful curses! Oh, how sad and terrible to hear dad!

“Right you are!’ cried Jack, bitter and hard and ringing of voice. ‘Right, by God! But am I all to blame? Did I bring myself here on this earth!... There’s something wrong in me that’s not all my fault.... You can’t shame me or scare me or hurt me. I could fling in your face those damned three years of hell you sent me to! But what’s the use for you to roar at me or for me to reproach you? I’m ruined unless you give me Collie — make her love me. That will save me. And I want it for your sake and hers — not for my own. Even if I do love her madly I’m not wanting her for that. I’m no good. I’m not fit to touch her.... I’ve just come to tell you the truth. I feel for Collie — I’d do for Collie — as you did for my mother! Can’t you understand? I’m your son. I’ve some of you in me. And I’ve found out what it is. Do you and Collie want to take me at my word?’

“I think it took dad longer to read something strange and convincing in Jack than it took me. Anyway, dad got the stunning consciousness that Jack knew by some divine or intuitive power that his reformation was inevitable, if I loved him. Never have I had such a distressing and terrible moment as that revelation brought to me! I felt the truth. I could save Jack Belllounds. No woman is ever fooled at such critical moments of life. Ben Wade once said that I could have reformed Jack were it possible to love him. Now the truth of that came home to me, and somehow it was overwhelming.

“Dad received this truth — and it was beyond me to realize what it meant to him. He must have seen all his earlier hopes fulfilled, his pride vindicated, his shame forgotten, his love rewarded. Yet he must have seen all that, as would a man leaning with one foot over a bottomless abyss. He looked transfigured, yet conscious of terrible peril. His great heart seemed to leap to meet this last opportunity, with all forgiveness, with all gratitude; but his will yielded with a final and irrevocable resolve. A resolve dark and sinister!

“He raised his huge fists higher and higher, and all his body lifted and strained, towering and trembling, while his face was that of a righteous and angry god.

“‘My son, I take your word!’ he rolled out, his voice filling the room and reverberating through the house. ‘I give you Collie!... She will be yours!... But, by the love I bore your mother — I swear — if you ever steal again — I’ll kill you!’

“I can’t say any more —

“COLUMBINE.”

CHAPTER XIV

SPRING CAME EARLY that year at White Slides Ranch. The snow melted off the valleys, and the wild flowers peeped from the greening grass while yet the mountain domes were white. The long stone slides were glistening wet, and the brooks ran full-banked, noisy and turbulent and roily.

Soft and fresh of color the gray old sage slopes came out from under their winter mantle; the bleached tufts of grass waved in the wind and showed tiny blades of green at the roots; the aspens and oaks, and the vines on fences and cliffs, and the round-clumped, brook-bordering willows took on a hue of spring.

The mustangs and colts in the pastures snorted and ran and kicked and cavorted; and on the hillsides the cows began to climb higher, searching for the tender greens, bawling for the new-born calves. Eagles shrieked the release of the snow-bound peaks, and the elks bugled their piercing calls. The grouse-cocks spread their gorgeous brown plumage in parade before their twittering mates, and the jays screeched in the woods, and the sage-hens sailed along the bosom of the gray slopes.

Black bears, and browns, and grizzlies came out of their winter’s sleep, and left huge, muddy tracks on the trails; the timber wolves at dusk mourned their hungry calls for life, for meat, for the wildness that was passing; the coyotes yelped at sunset, joyous and sharp and impudent.

But winter yielded reluctantly its hold on the mountains. The black, scudding clouds, and the squalls of rain and sleet and snow, whitening and melting and vanishing, and the cold, clear nights, with crackling frost, all retarded the work of the warming sun. The day came, however, when the greens held their own with the grays; and this was the assurance of nature that spring could not be denied, and that summer would follow.

Bent Wade was hiding in the willows along the trail that followed one of the brooks. Of late, on several mornings, he had skulked like an Indian under cover, watching for some one. On this morning, when Columbine Belllounds came riding along, he stepped out into the trail in front of her.

“Oh, Ben! you startled me!” she exclaimed, as she held hard on the frightened horse.

“Good mornin’, Collie,” replied Wade. “I’m sorry to scare you, but I’m particular anxious to see you. An’ considerin’ how you avoid me these days, I had to waylay you in regular road-agent style.”

Wade gazed up searchingly at her. It had been some time since he had been given the privilege and pleasure of seeing her close at hand. He needed only one look at her to confirm his fears. The pale, sweet, resolute face told him much.

“Well, now you’ve waylaid me, what do you want?” she queried, deliberately.

“I’m goin’ to take you to see Wils Moore,” replied Wade, watching her closely.

“No!” she cried, with the red staining her temples.

“Collie, see here. Did I ever oppose anythin’ you wanted to do?”

“Not — yet,” she said.

“I reckon you expect me to?”

She did not answer that. Her eyes drooped, and she nervously twisted the bridle reins.

“Do you doubt my — my good intentions toward you — my love for you?” he asked, in gentle and husky voice.

“Oh, Ben! No! No! It’s that I’m afraid of your love for me! I can’t bear — what I have to bear — if I see you, if I listen to you.”

“Then you’ve weakened? You’re no proud, high-strung, thoroughbred girl any more? You’re showin’ yellow?”

“Ben Wade, I deny that,” she answered, spiritedly, with an uplift of her head. “It’s not weakness, but strength I’ve found.”

“Ahuh! Well, I reckon I understand. Collie, listen. Wils let me read your last letter to him.”

“I expected that. I think I told him to. Anyway, I wanted you to know — what — what ailed me.”

“Lass, it was a fine, brave letter — written by a girl facin’ an upheaval of conscience an’ soul. But in your own trouble you forget the effect that letter might have on Wils Moore.”

“Ben!... I — I’ve lain awake at night — Oh, was he hurt?”

“Collie, I reckon if you don’t see Wils he’ll kill himself or kill Buster Jack,” replied Wade, gravely.

“I’ll see — him!” she faltered. “But oh, Ben — you don’t mean that Wilson would be so base — so cowardly?”

“Collie, you’re a child. You don’t realize the depths to which a man can sink. Wils has had a long, hard pull this winter. My nursin’ an’ your letters have saved his life. He’s well, now, but that long, dark spell of mind left its shadow on him. He’s morbid.”

“What does he — want to see me — for?” asked Columbine, tremulously. There were tears in her eyes. “It’ll only cause more pain — make matters worse.”

“Reckon I don’t agree with you. Wils just wants an’ needs to see you. Why, he appreciated your position. I’ve heard him cry like a woman over it an’ our helplessness. What ails him is lovesickness, the awful feelin’ which comes to a man who believes he has lost his sweetheart’s love.”

“Poor boy! So he imagines I don’t love him any more? Good Heavens! How stupid men are!... I’ll see him, Ben. Take me to him.”

For answer, Wade grasped the bridle of her horse and, turning him, took a course leading away behind the hill that lay between them and the ranch-house. The trail was narrow and brushy, making it necessary for him to walk ahead of the horse. So the hunter did not speak to her or look at her for some time. He plodded on with his eyes downcast. Something tugged at Wade’s mind, an old, familiar, beckoning thing, vague and mysterious and black, a presage of catastrophe. But it was only an opening wedge into his mind. It had not entered. Gravity and unhappiness occupied him. His senses, nevertheless, were alert. He heard the low roar of the flooded brook, the whir of rising grouse ahead, the hoofs of deer on stones, the song of spring birds. He had an eye also for the wan wild flowers in the shaded corners. Presently he led the horse out of the willows into the open and up a low-swelling, long slope of fragrant sage. Here he dropped back to Columbine’s side and put his hand upon the pommel of her saddle. It was not long until her own hand softly fell upon his and clasped it. Wade thrilled under the warm touch. How well he knew her heart! When she ceased to love any one to whom she had given her love then she would have ceased to breathe.

“Lass, this isn’t the first mornin’ I’ve waited for you,” he said, presently. “An’ when I had to go back to Wils without you — well, it was hard.”

“Then he wants to see me — so badly?” she asked.

“Reckon you’ve not thought much about him or me lately,” said Wade.

“No. I’ve tried to put you out of my mind. I’ve had so much to think of — why, even the sleepless nights have flown!”

“Are you goin’ to confide in me — as you used to?”

“Ben, there’s nothing to confide. I’m just where I left off in that letter to Wilson. And the more I think the more muddled I get.”

Wade greeted this reply with a long silence. It was enough to feel her hand upon his and to have the glad comfort and charm of her presence once more. He seemed to have grown older lately. The fragrant breath of the sage slopes came to him as something precious he must feel and love more. A haunting transience mocked him from these rolling gray hills. Old White Slides loomed gray and dark up into the blue, grim and stern reminder of age and of fleeting time. There was a cloud on Wade’s horizon.

“Wils is waitin’ down there,” said Wade, pointing to a grove of aspens below. “Reckon it’s pretty close to the house, an’ a trail runs along there. But Wils can’t ride very well yet, an’ this appeared to be the best place.”

“Ben, I don’t care if dad or Jack know I’ve met Wilson. I’ll tell them,” said Columbine.

“Ahuh! Well, if I were you I wouldn’t,” he replied.

They went down the slope and entered the grove. It was an open, pretty spot, with grass and wild flowers, and old, bleached logs, half sunny and half shady under the new-born, fluttering aspen leaves. Wade saw Moore sitting on his horse. And it struck the hunter significantly that the cowboy should be mounted when an hour back he had left him sitting disconsolately on a log. Moore wanted Columbine to see him first, after all these months of fear and dread, mounted upon his horse. Wade heard Columbine’s glad little cry, but he did not turn to look at her then. But when they reached the spot where Moore stood Wade could not resist the desire to see the meeting between the lovers.

Columbine, being a woman, and therefore capable of hiding agitation, except in moments of stress, met that trying situation with more apparent composure than the cowboy. Moore’s long, piercing gaze took the rose out of Columbine’s cheeks.

“Oh, Wilson! I’m so happy to see you on your horse again!” she exclaimed. “It’s too good to be true. I’ve prayed for that more than anything else. Can you get up into your saddle like you used to? Can you ride well again?... Let me see your foot.”

Moore held out a bulky foot. He wore a shoe, and it was slashed.

“I can’t wear a boot,” he explained.

“Oh, I see!” exclaimed Columbine, slowly, with her glad smile fading. “You can’t put that — that foot in a stirrup, can you?”

“No.”

“But — it — it will — you’ll be able to wear a boot soon,” she implored.

“Never again, Collie,” he said, sadly.

And then Wade perceived that, like a flash, the old spirit leaped up in Columbine. It was all he wanted to see.

“Now, folks,” he said, “I reckon two’s company an’ three’s a crowd. I’ll go off a little ways an’ keep watch.”

“Ben, you stay here,” replied Columbine, hurriedly.

“Why, Collie? Are you afraid — or ashamed to be with me alone?” asked Moore, bitterly.

Columbine’s eyes flashed. It was seldom they lost their sweet tranquillity. But now they had depth and fire.

“No, Wilson, I’m neither afraid nor ashamed to be with you alone,” she declared. “But I can be as natural — as much myself with Ben here as I could be alone. Why can’t you be? If dad and Jack heard of our meeting the fact of Ben’s presence might make it look different to them. And why should I heap trouble upon my shoulders?”

“I beg pardon, Collie,” said the cowboy. “I’ve just been afraid of — of things.”

“My horse is restless,” returned Columbine. “Let’s get off and talk.”

So they dismounted. It warmed Wade’s gloomy heart to see the woman-look in Columbine’s eyes as she watched the cowboy get off and walk. For a crippled man he did very well. But that moment was fraught with meaning for Wade. These unfortunate lovers, brave and fine in their suffering, did not realize the peril they invited by proximity. But Wade knew. He pitied them, he thrilled for them, he lived their torture with them.

“Tell me — everything,” said Columbine, impulsively.

Moore, with dragging step, approached an aspen log that lay off the ground, propped by the stump, and here he leaned for support. Columbine laid her gloves on the log.

“There’s nothing to tell that you don’t know,” replied Moore. “I wrote you all there was to write, except” — here he dropped his head— “except that the last three weeks have been hell.”

“They’ve not been exactly heaven for me,” replied Columbine, with a little laugh that gave Wade a twinge.

Then the lovers began to talk about spring coming, about horses and cattle, and feed, about commonplace ranch matters not interesting to them, but which seemed to make conversation and hide their true thoughts. Wade listened, and it seemed to him that he could read their hearts.

“Lass, an’ you, Wils — you’re wastin’ time an’ gettin’ nowhere,” interposed Wade. “Now let me go, so’s you’ll be alone.”

“You stay right there,” ordered Moore.

“Why, Ben, I’m ashamed to say that I actually forgot you were here,” said Columbine.

“Then I’ll remind you,” rejoined the hunter. “Collie, tell us about Old Bill an’ Jack.”

“Tell you? What?”

“Well, I’ve seen changes in both. So has Wils, though Wils hasn’t seen as much as he’s heard from Lem an’ Montana an’ the Andrews boys.”

“Oh!...” Columbine choked a little over her exclamation of understanding. “Dad has gotten a new lease on life, I guess. He’s happy, like a boy sometimes, an’ good as gold.... It’s all because of the change in Jack. That is remarkable. I’ve not been able to believe my own eyes. Since that night Jack came home and had the — the understanding with dad he has been another person. He has left me alone. He treats me with deference, but not a familiar word or look. He’s kind. He offers the little civilities that occur, you know. But he never intrudes upon me. Not one word of the past! It is as if he would earn my respect, and have that or nothing.... Then he works as he never worked before — on dad’s books, in the shop, out on the range. He seems obsessed with some thought all the time. He talks little. All the old petulance, obstinacy, selfishness, and especially his sudden, queer impulses, and bull-headed tenacity — all gone! He has suffered physical distress, because he never was used to hard work. And more, he’s suffered terribly for the want of liquor. I’ve heard him say to dad: ‘It’s hell — this burning thirst. I never knew I had it. I’ll stand it, if it kills me.... But wouldn’t it be easier on me to take a drink now and then, at these bad times?’... And dad said: ‘No, son. Break off for keeps! This taperin’ off is no good way to stop drinkin’. Stand the burnin’. An’ when it’s gone you’ll be all the gladder an’ I’ll be all the prouder.’... I have not forgotten all Jack’s former failings, but I am forgetting them, little by little. For dad’s sake I’m overjoyed. For Jack’s I am glad. I’m convinced now that he’s had his lesson — that he’s sowed his wild oats — that he has become a man.”

Moore listened eagerly, and when she had concluded he thoughtfully bent his head and began to cut little chips out of the log with his knife.

“Collie, I’ve heard a good deal of the change in Jack,” he said, earnestly. “Honest Injun, I’m glad — glad for his father’s sake, for his own, and for yours. The boys think Jack’s locoed. But his reformation is not strange to me. If I were no good — just like he was — well, I could change as greatly for — for you.”

Columbine hastily averted her face. Wade’s keen eyes, apparently hidden under his old hat, saw how wet her lashes were, how her lips trembled.

“Wilson, you think then — you believe Jack will last — will stick to his new ways?” she queried, hurriedly.

“Yes, I do,” he replied, nodding.

“How good of you! Oh! Wilson, it’s like you to be noble — splendid. When you might have — when it’d have been so natural for you to doubt — to scorn him!”

“Collie, I’m honest about that. And now you be just as honest. Do you think Jack will stand to his colors? Never drink — never gamble — never fly off the handle again?”

“Yes, I honestly believe that — providing he gets — providing I—”

Her voice trailed off faintly.

Moore wheeled to address the hunter.

“Pard, what do you think? Tell me now. Tell us. It will help me, and Collie, too. I’ve asked you before, but you wouldn’t — Tell us now, do you believe Buster Jack will live up to his new ideals?”

Wade had long parried that question, because the time to answer it had not come till this moment.

“No,” he replied, gently.

Columbine uttered a little cry.

“Why not?” demanded Moore, his face darkening.

“Reckon there are reasons that you young folks wouldn’t think of, an’ couldn’t know.”

“Wade, it’s not like you to be hopeless for any man,” said Moore.

“Yes, I reckon it is, sometimes,” replied Wade, wagging his head solemnly. “Young folks, I’m grantin’ all you say as to Jack’s reformation, except that it’s permanent. I’m grantin’ he’s sincere — that he’s not playin’ a part — that his vicious instincts are smothered under a noble impulse to be what he ought to be. It’s no trick. Buster Jack has all but done the impossible.”

“Then why isn’t his sincerity and good work to be permanent?” asked Moore, impatiently, and his gesture was violent.

“Wils, his change is not moral force. It’s passion.”

The cowboy paled. Columbine stood silent, with intent eyes upon the hunter. Neither of them seemed to understand him well enough to make reply.

“Love can work marvels in any man,” went on Wade. “But love can’t change the fiber of a man’s heart. A man is born so an’ so. He loves an’ hates an’ feels accordin’ to the nature. It’d be accordin’ to nature for Jack Belllounds to stay reformed if his love for Collie lasted. An’ that’s the point. It can’t last. Not in a man of his stripe.”

“Why not?” demanded Moore.

“Because Jack’s love will never be returned — satisfied. It takes a man of different caliber to love a woman who’ll never love him. Jack’s obsessed by passion now. He’d perform miracles. But that’s not possible. The miracle necessary here would be for him to change his moral force, his blood, the habits of his mind. That’s beyond his power.”

Columbine flung out an appealing hand.

“Ben, I could pretend to love him — I might make myself love him, if that would give him the power.”

“Lass, don’t delude yourself. You can’t do that,” replied Wade.

“How do you know what I can do?” she queried, struggling with her helplessness.

“Why, child, I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Wilson, he’s right, he’s right!” she cried. “That’s why it’s so terrible for me now. He knows my very heart. He reads my soul.... I can never love Jack Belllounds. Nor ever pretend love!”

“Collie, if Ben knows you so well, you ought to listen to him, as you used to,” said Moore, touching her hand with infinite sympathy.

Wade watched them. His pity and affection did not obstruct the ruthless expression of his opinions or the direction of his intentions.

“Lass, an’ you, Wils, listen,” he said, with all his gentleness. “It’s bad enough without you makin’ it worse. Don’t blind yourselves. That’s the hell with so many people in trouble. It’s hard to see clear when you’re sufferin’ and fightin’. But I see clear.... Now with just a word I could fetch this new Jack Belllounds back to his Buster Jack tricks!”

“Oh, Ben! No! No! No!” cried Columbine, in a distress that showed how his force dominated her.

Moore’s face turned as white as ashes.

Wade divined then that Moore was aware of what he himself knew about Jack Belllounds. And to his love for Moore was added an infinite respect.

“I won’t unless Collie forces me to,” he said, significantly.

This was the critical moment, and suddenly Wade answered to it without restraint. He leaped up, startling Columbine.

“Wils, you call me pard, don’t you? I reckon you never knew me. Why, the game’s `most played out, an’ I haven’t showed my hand!... I’d see Jack Belllounds in hell before I’d let him have Collie. An’ if she carried out her strange an’ lofty idea of duty — an’ married him right this afternoon — I could an’ I would part them before night!”

He ended that speech in a voice neither had ever heard him use before. And the look of him must have been in harmony with it. Columbine, wide-eyed and gasping, seemed struck to the heart. Moore’s white face showed awe and fear and irresponsible primitive joy. Wade turned away from them, the better to control the passion that had mastered him. And it did not subside in an instant. He paced to and fro, his head bowed. Presently, when he faced around, it was to see what he had expected to see.

Columbine was clasped in Moore’s arms.

“Collie, you didn’t — you haven’t — promised to marry him — again!”

“No, oh — no! I haven’t! I was only — only trying to — to make up my mind. Wilson, don’t look at me so terribly!”

“You’ll not agree again? You’ll not set another day?” demanded Moore, passionately. He strained her to him, yet held her so he could see her face, thus dominating her with both strength and will. His face was corded now, and darkly flushed. His jaw quivered. “You’ll never marry Jack Belllounds! You’ll not let sudden impulse — sudden persuasion or force change you? Promise! Swear you’ll never marry him. Swear!”

“Oh, Wilson, I promise — I swear!” she cried. “Never! I’m yours. It would be a sin. I’ve been mad to — to blind myself.”

“You love me! You love me!” he cried, in a sudden transport.

“Oh, yes, yes! I do.”

“Say it then! Say it — so I’ll never doubt — never suffer again!”

“I love you, Wilson! I — I love you — unutterably,” the whispered. “I love you — so — I’m broken-hearted now. I’ll never live without you. I’ll die — I love you so!”

“You — you flower — you angel!” he whispered in return. “You woman! You precious creature! I’ve been crazed at loss of you!”

Wade paced out of earshot, and this time he remained away for a considerable time. He lived again moments of his own past, unforgetable and sad. When at length he returned toward the young couple they were sitting apart, composed once more, talking earnestly. As he neared them Columbine rose to greet him with wonderful eyes, in which reproach blended with affection.

“Ben, so this is what you’ve done!” she exclaimed.

“Lass, I’m only a humble instrument, an’ I believe God guides me right,” replied the hunter.

“I love you more, it seems, for what you make me suffer,” she said, and she kissed him with a serious sweetness. “I’m only a leaf in the storm. But — let what will come.... Take me home.”

They said good-by to Wilson, who sat with head bowed upon his hands. His voice trembled as he answered them. Wade found the trail while Columbine mounted. As they went slowly down the gentle slope, stepping over the numerous logs fallen across the way, Wade caught out of the tail of his eye a moving object along the outer edge of the aspen grove above them. It was the figure of a man, skulking behind the trees. He disappeared. Wade casually remarked to Columbine that now she could spur the pony and hurry on home. But Columbine refused. When they got a little farther on, out of sight of Moore and somewhat around to the left, Wade espied the man again. He carried a rifle. Wade grew somewhat perturbed.

“Collie, you run on home,” he said, sharply.

“Why? You’ve complained of not seeing me. Now that I want to be with you ... Ben, you see some one!”

Columbine’s keen faculties evidently sensed the change in Wade, and the direction of his uneasy glance convinced her.

“Oh, there’s a man!... Ben, it is — yes, it’s Jack,” she exclaimed, excitedly.

“Reckon you’d have it better if you say Buster Jack,” replied Wade, with his tragic smile.

“Ah!” whispered Columbine, as she gazed up at the aspen slope, with eyes lighting to battle.

“Run home, Collie, an’ leave him to me,” said Wade.

“Ben, you mean he — he saw us up there in the grove? Saw me in Wilson’s arms — saw me kissing him?”

“Sure as you’re born, Collie. He watched us. He saw all your love-makin’. I can tell that by the way he walks. It’s Buster Jack again! Alas for the new an’ noble Jack! I told you, Collie. Now you run on an’ leave him to me.”

Wade became aware that she turned at his last words and regarded him attentively. But his gaze was riveted on the striding form of Belllounds.

“Leave him to you? For what reason, my friend?” she asked.

“Buster Jack’s on the rampage. Can’t you see that? He’ll insult you. He’ll—”

“I will not go,” interrupted Columbine, and, halting her pony, she deliberately dismounted.

Wade grew concerned with the appearance of young Belllounds, and it was with a melancholy reminder of the infallibility of his presentiments. As he and Columbine halted in the trail, Belllounds’s hurried stride lengthened until he almost ran. He carried the rifle forward in a most significant manner. Black as a thunder-cloud was his face. Alas for the dignity and pain and resolve that had only recently showed there!

Belllounds reached them. He was frothing at the mouth. He cocked the rifle and thrust it toward Wade, holding low down.

“You — meddling sneak! If you open your trap I’ll bore you!” he shouted, almost incoherently.

Wade knew when danger of life loomed imminent. He fixed his glance upon the glaring eyes of Belllounds.

“Jack, seein’ I’m not packin’ a gun, it’d look sorta natural, along with your other tricks, if you bored me.”

His gentle voice, his cool mien, his satire, were as giant’s arms to drag Belllounds back from murder. The rifle was raised, the hammer reset, the butt lowered to the ground, while Belllounds, snarling and choking, fought for speech.

“I’ll get even — with you,” he said, huskily. “I’m on to your game now. I’ll fix you later. But — I’ll do you harm now if you mix in with this!”

Then he wheeled to Columbine, and as if he had just recognized her, a change that was pitiful and shocking convulsed his face. He leaned toward her, pointing with shaking, accusing hand.

“I saw you — up there. I watched — you,” he panted.

Columbine faced him, white and mute.

“It was you — wasn’t it?” he yelled.

“Yes, of course it was.”

She might have struck him, for the way he flinched.

“What was that — a trick — a game — a play all fixed up for my benefit?”

“I don’t understand you,” she replied.

“Bah! You — you white-faced cat!... I saw you! Saw you in Moore’s arms! Saw him hug you — kiss you!... Then — I saw — you put up your arms — round his neck — kiss him — kiss him — kiss him!... I saw all that — didn’t I?”

“You must have, since you say so,” she returned, with perfect composure.

“But did you?” he almost shrieked, the blood cording and bulging red, as if about to burst the veins of temples and neck.

“Yes, I did,” she flashed. There was primitive woman uppermost in her now, and a spirit no man might provoke with impunity.

“You love him?” he asked, very low, incredulously, with almost insane eagerness for denial in his query.

Then Wade saw the glory of her — saw her mother again in that proud, fierce uplift of face, that flamed red and then blazed white — saw hate and passion and love in all their primal nakedness.

“Love him! Love Wilson Moore? Yes, you fool! I love him! Yes! Yes! YES!”

That voice would have pierced the heart of a wooden image, so Wade thought, as all his strung nerves quivered and thrilled.

Belllounds uttered a low cry of realization, and all his instinctive energy seemed on the verge of collapse. He grew limp, he sagged, he tottered. His sensorial perceptions seemed momentarily blunted.

Wade divined the tragedy, and a pang of great compassion overcame him. Whatever Jack Belllounds was in character, he had inherited his father’s power to love, and he was human. Wade felt the death in that stricken soul, and it was the last flash of pity he ever had for Jack Belllounds.

“You — you—” muttered Belllounds, raising a hand that gathered speed and strength in the action. The moment of a great blow had passed, like a storm-blast through a leafless tree. Now the thousand devils of his nature leaped into ascendancy. “You!—” He could not articulate. Dark and terrible became his energy. It was like a resistless current forced through leaping thought and leaping muscle.

He struck her on the mouth, a cruel blow that would have felled her but for Wade: and then he lunged away, bowed and trembling, yet with fierce, instinctive motion, as if driven to run with the spirit of his rage.

CHAPTER XV

WADE NOTICED THAT after her trying experience with him and Wilson and Belllounds Columbine did not ride frequently.

He managed to get a word or two with her whenever he went to the ranch-house, and he needed only look at her to read her sensitive mind. All was well with Columbine, despite her trouble. She remained upheld in spirit, while yet she seemed to brood over an unsolvable problem. She had said, “But — let what will come!” — and she was waiting.

Wade hunted for more than lions and wolves these days. Like an Indian scout who scented peril or heard an unknown step upon his trail, Wade rode the hills, and spent long hours hidden on the lonely slopes, watching with somber, keen eyes. They were eyes that knew what they were looking for. They had marked the strange sight of the son of Bill Belllounds, gliding along that trail where Moore had met Columbine, sneaking and stooping, at last with many a covert glance about, to kneel in the trail and compare the horse tracks there with horseshoes he took from his pocket. That alone made Bent Wade eternally vigilant. He kept his counsel. He worked more swiftly, so that he might have leisure for his peculiar seeking. He spent an hour each night with the cowboys, listening to their recounting of the day and to their homely and shrewd opinions. He haunted the vicinity of the ranch-house at night, watching and listening for that moment which was to aid him in the crisis that was impending. Many a time he had been near when Columbine passed from the living-room to her corner of the house. He had heard her sigh and could almost have touched her.

Buster Jack had suffered a regurgitation of the old driving and insatiate temper, and there was gloom in the house of Belllounds. Trouble clouded the old man’s eyes.

May came with the spring round-up. Wade was called to use a rope and brand calves under the order of Jack Belllounds, foreman of White Slides. That round-up showed a loss of one hundred head of stock, some branded steers, and yearlings, and many calves, in all a mixed herd. Belllounds received the amazing news with a roar. He had been ready for something to roar at. The cowboys gave as reasons winter-kill, and lions, and perhaps some head stolen since the thaw. Wade emphatically denied this. Very few cattle had fallen prey to the big cats, and none, so far as he could find, had been frozen or caught in drifts. It was the young foreman who stunned them all. “Rustled,” he said, darkly. “There’s too many loafers and homesteaders in these hills!” And he stalked out to leave his hearers food for reflection.

Jack Belllounds drank, but no one saw him drunk, and no one could tell where he got the liquor. He rode hard and fast; he drove the cowboys one way while he went another; he had grown shifty, cunning, more intolerant than ever. Some nights he rode to Kremmling, or said he had been there, when next day the cowboys found another spent and broken horse to turn out. On other nights he coaxed and bullied them into playing poker. They won more of his money than they cared to count.

Columbine confided to Wade, with mournful whisper, that Jack paid no attention to her whatever, and that the old rancher attributed this coldness, and Jack’s backsliding, to her irresponsiveness and her tardiness in setting the wedding-day that must be set. To this Wade had whispered in reply, “Don’t ever forget what I said to you an’ Wils that day!”

So Wade upheld Columbine with his subtle dominance, and watched over her, as it were, from afar. No longer was he welcome in the big living-room. Belllounds reacted to his son’s influence.

Twice in the early mornings Wade had surprised Jack Belllounds in the blacksmith shop. The meetings were accidental, yet Wade ever remembered how coincidence beckoned him thither and how circumstance magnified strange reflections. There was no reason why Jack should not be tinkering in the blacksmith shop early of a morning. But Wade followed an uncanny guidance. Like his hound Fox, he never split on trails. When opportunity afforded he went into the shop and looked it over with eyes as keen as the nose of his dog. And in the dust of the floor he had discovered little circles with dots in the middle, all uniform in size. Sight of them did not shock him until they recalled vividly the little circles with dots in the earthen floor of Wilson Moore’s cabin. Little marks made by the end of Moore’s crutch! Wade grinned then like a wolf showing his fangs. And the vitals of a wolf could no more strongly have felt the instinct to rend.

For Wade, the cloud on his horizon spread and darkened, gathered sinister shape of storm, harboring lightning and havoc. It was the cloud in his mind, the foreshadowing of his soul, the prophetic sense of like to like. Where he wandered there the blight fell!

Significant was the fact that Belllounds hired new men. Bludsoe had quit. Montana Jim grew surly these days and packed a gun. Lem Billings had threatened to leave. New and strange hands for Jack Belllounds to direct had a tendency to release a strain and tide things over.

Every time the old rancher saw Wade he rolled his eyes and wagged his head, as if combating superstition with an intelligent sense of justice. Wade knew what troubled Belllounds, and it strengthened the gloomy mood that, like a poison lichen, seemed finding root.

Every day Wade visited his friend Wilson Moore, and most of their conversation centered round that which had become a ruling passion for both. But the time came when Wade deviated from his gentleness of speech and leisure of action.

“Bent, you’re not like you were,” said Moore, once, in surprise at the discovery. “You’re losing hope and confidence.”

“No. I’ve only somethin’ on my mind.”

“What?”

“I reckon I’m not goin’ to tell you now.”

“You’ve got hell on your mind!” flashed the cowboy, in grim inspiration.

Wade ignored the insinuation and turned the conversation to another subject.

“Wils, you’re buyin’ stock right along?”

“Sure am. I saved some money, you know. And what’s the use to hoard it? I’ll buy cheap. In five years I’ll have five hundred, maybe a thousand head. Wade, my old dad will be pleased to find out I’ve made the start I have.”

“Well, it’s a fine start, I’ll allow. Have you picked up any unbranded stock?”

“Sure I have. Say, pard, are you worrying about this two-bit rustler work that’s been going on?”

“Wils, it ain’t two bits any more. I reckon it’s gettin’ into the four-bit class.”

“I’ve been careful to have my business transactions all in writing,” said Moore. “It makes these fellows sore, because some of them can’t write. And they’re not used to it. But I’m starting this game in my own way.”

“Have you sold any stock?”

“Not yet. But the Andrews boys are driving some thirty-odd head to Kremmling for me to be sold.”

“Ahuh! Well, I’ll be goin’,” Wade replied, and it was significant of his state of mind that he left his young friend sorely puzzled. Not that Wade did not see Moore’s anxiety! But the drift of events at White Slides had passed beyond the stage where sympathetic and inspiring hope might serve Wade’s purpose. Besides, his mood was gradually changing as these events, like many fibers of a web, gradually closed in toward a culminating knot.

That night Wade lounged with the cowboys and new hands in front of the little storehouse where Belllounds kept supplies for all. He had lounged there before in the expectation of seeing the rancher’s son. And this time anticipation was verified. Jack Belllounds swaggered over from the ranch-house. He met civility and obedience now where formerly he had earned but ridicule and opposition. So long as he worked hard himself the cowboys endured. The subtle change in him seemed of sterner stuff. The talk, as usual, centered round the stock subjects and the banter and gossip of ranch-hands. Wade selected an interval when there was a lull in the conversation, and with eyes that burned under the shadow of his broad-brimmed sombrero he watched the son of Belllounds.

“Say, boys, Wils Moore has begun sellin’ cattle,” remarked Wade, casually. “The Andrews brothers are drivin’ for him.”

“Wal, so Wils’s spread-eaglin’ into a real rancher!” ejaculated Lem Billings. “Mighty glad to hear it. Thet boy shore will git rich.”

Wade’s remark incited no further expressions of interest. But it was Jack Belllounds’s secret mind that Wade wished to pierce. He saw the leaping of a thought that was neither interest nor indifference nor contempt, but a creative thing which lent a fleeting flash to the face, a slight shock to the body. Then Jack Belllounds bent his head, lounged there for a little while longer, lost in absorption, and presently he strolled away.

Whatever that mounting thought of Jack Belllounds’s was it brought instant decision to Wade. He went to the ranch-house and knocked upon the living-room door. There was a light within, sending rays out through the windows into the semi-darkness. Columbine opened the door and admitted Wade. A bright fire crackled in the hearth. Wade flashed a reassuring look at Columbine.

“Evenin’, Miss Collie. Is your dad in?”

“Oh, it’s you, Ben!” she replied, after her start. “Yes, dad’s here.”

The old rancher looked up from his reading. “Howdy, Wade! What can I do fer you?”

“Belllounds, I’ve cleaned out the cats an’ most of the varmints on your range. An’ my work, lately, has been all sorts, not leavin’ me any time for little jobs of my own. An’ I want to quit.”

“Wade, you’ve clashed with Jack!” exclaimed the rancher, jerking erect.

“Nothin’ of the kind. Jack an’ me haven’t had words a good while. I’m not denyin’ we might, an’ probably would clash sooner or later. But that’s not my reason for quittin’.”

Manifestly this put an entirely different complexion upon the matter. Belllounds appeared immensely relieved.

“Wal, all right. I’ll pay you at the end of the month. Let’s see, thet’s not long now. You can lay off to-morrow.”

Wade thanked him and waited for further remarks. Columbine had fixed big, questioning eyes upon Wade, which he found hard to endure. Again he tried to flash her a message of reassurance. But Columbine did not lose her look of blank wonder and gravity.

“Ben! Oh, you’re not going to leave White Slides?” she asked.

“Reckon I’ll hang around yet awhile,” he replied.

Belllounds was wagging his head regretfully and ponderingly.

“Wal, I remember the day when no man quit me. Wal, wal! — times change. I’m an old man now. Mebbe, mebbe I’m testy. An’ then thar’s thet boy!”

With a shrug of his broad shoulders he dismissed what seemed an encroachment of pessimistic thought.

“Wade, you’re packin’ off, then, on the trail? Always on the go, eh?”

“No, I’m not hurryin’ off,” replied Wade.

“Wal, might I ask what you’re figgerin’ on?”

“Sure. I’m considerin’ a cattle deal with Moore. He’s a pretty keen boy an’ his father has big ranchin’ interests. I’ve saved a little money an’ I’m no spring chicken any more. Wils has begun to buy an’ sell stock, so I reckon I’ll go in with him.”

“Ahuh!” Belllounds gave a grunt of comprehension. He frowned, and his big eyes set seriously upon the blazing fire. He grasped complications in this information.

“Wal, it’s a free country,” he said at length, and evidently his personal anxieties were subjected to his sense of justice. “Owin’ to the peculiar circumstances hyar at my range, I’d prefer thet Moore an’ you began somewhar else. Thet’s natural. But you’ve my good will to start on an’ I hope I’ve yours.”

“Belllounds, you’ve every man’s good will,” replied Wade. “I hope you won’t take offense at my leavin’. You see I’m on Wils Moore’s side in — in what you called these peculiar circumstances. He’s got nobody else. An’ I reckon you can look back an’ remember how you’ve taken sides with some poor devil an’ stuck to him. Can’t you?”

“Wal, I reckon I can. An’ I’m not thinkin’ less of you fer speakin’ out like thet.”

“All right. Now about the dogs. I turn the pack over to you, an’ it’s a good one. I’d like to buy Fox.”

“Buy nothin’, man. You can have Fox, an’ welcome.”

“Much obliged,” returned the hunter, as he turned to go. “Fox will sure be help for me. Belllounds, I’m goin’ to round up this outfit that’s rustlin’ your cattle. They’re gettin’ sort of bold.”

“Wade, you’ll do thet on your own hook?” asked the rancher, in surprise.

“Sure. I like huntin’ men more than other varmints. Then I’ve a personal interest. You know the hint about homesteaders hereabouts reflects some on Wils Moore.”

“Stuff!” exploded the rancher, heartily. “Do you think any cattleman in these hills would believe Wils Moore a rustler?”

“The hunch has been whispered,” said Wade. “An’ you know how all ranchers say they rustled a little on the start.”

“Aw, hell! Thet’s different. Every new rancher drives in a few unbranded calves an’ keeps them. But stealin’ stock — thet’s different. An’ I’d as soon suspect my own son of rustlin’ as Wils Moore.”

Belllounds spoke with a sincere and frank ardor of defense for a young man once employed by him and known to be honest. The significance of the comparison he used had not struck him. His was the epitome of a successful rancher, sure in his opinions, speaking proudly and unreflectingly of his own son, and being just to another man.

Wade bowed and backed out of the door. “Sure that’s what I’d reckon you’d say, Belllounds.... I’ll drop in on you if I find any sign in the woods. Good night.”

Columbine went with him to the end of the porch, as she had used to go before the shadow had settled over the lives of the Belllounds.

“Ben, you’re up to something,” she whispered, seizing him with hands that shook.

“Sure. But don’t you worry,” he whispered back.

“Do they hint that Wilson is a rustler?” she asked, intensely.

“Somebody did, Collie.”

“How vile! Who? Who?” she demanded, and her face gleamed white.

“Hush, lass! You’re all a-tremble,” he returned, warily, and he held her hands.

“Ben, they’re pressing me hard to set another wedding-day. Dad is angry with me now. Jack has begun again to demand. Oh, I’m afraid of him! He has no respect for me. He catches at me with hands like claws. I have to jerk away.... Oh, Ben, Ben! dear friend, what on earth shall I do?”

“Don’t give in. Fight Jack! Tell the old man you must have time. Watch your chance when Jack is away an’ ride up the Buffalo Park trail an’ look for me.”

Wade had to release his hands from her clasp and urge her gently back. How pale and tragic her face gleamed!

Wade took his horses, his outfit, and the dog Fox, and made his abode with Wilson Moore. The cowboy hailed Wade’s coming with joy and pestered him with endless questions.

From that day Wade haunted the hills above White Slides, early and late, alone with his thoughts, his plans, more and more feeling the suspense of happenings to come. It was on a June day when Jack Belllounds rode to Kremmling that Wade met Columbine on the Buffalo Park trail. She needed to see him, to find comfort and strength. Wade far exceeded his own confidence in his effort to uphold her. Columbine was in a strange state, not of vacillation between two courses, but of a standstill, as if her will had become obstructed and waited for some force to upset the hindrance. She did not inquire as to the welfare of Wilson Moore, and Wade vouchsafed no word of him. But she importuned the hunter to see her every day or no more at all. And Wade answered her appeal and her need by assuring her that he would see her, come what might. So she was to risk more frequent rides.

During the second week of June Wade rode up to visit the prospector, Lewis, and learned that which complicated the matter of the rustlers. Lewis had been suspicious, and active on his own account. According to the best of his evidence and judgment there had been a gang of rough men come of late to Gore Peak, where they presumably were prospecting. This gang was composed of strangers to Lewis. They had ridden to his cabin, bought and borrowed of him, and, during his absence, had stolen from him. He believed they were in hiding, probably being guilty of some depredation in another locality. They gave both Kremmling and Elgeria a wide berth. On the other hand, the Smith gang from Elgeria rode to and fro, like ranchers searching for lost horses. There were only three in this gang, including Smith. Lewis had seen these men driving unbranded stock. And lastly, Lewis casually imparted the information, highly interesting to Wade, that he had seen Jack Belllounds riding through the forest. The prospector did not in the least, however, connect the appearance of the son of Belllounds with the other facts so peculiarly interesting to Wade. Cowboys and hunters rode trails across the range, and though they did so rather infrequently, there was nothing unusual about encountering them.

Wade remained all night with Lewis, and next morning rode six miles along the divide, and then down into a valley, where at length he found a cabin described by the prospector. It was well hidden in the edge of the forest, where a spring gushed from under a low cliff. But for water and horse tracks Wade would not have found it easily. Rifle in hand, and on foot, he slipped around in the woods, as a hunter might have, to stalk drinking deer. There were no smoke, no noise, no horses anywhere round the cabin, and after watching awhile Wade went forward to look at it. It was an old ramshackle hunter’s or prospector’s cabin, with dirt floor, a crumbling fireplace and chimney, and a bed platform made of boughs. Including the door, it had three apertures, and the two smaller ones, serving as windows, looked as if they had been intended for port-holes as well. The inside of the cabin was large and unusually well lighted, owing to the windows and to the open chinks between the logs. Wade saw a deck of cards lying bent and scattered in one corner, as if a violent hand had flung them against the wall. Strange that Wade’s memory returned a vivid picture of Jack Belllounds in just that act of violence! The only other thing around the place which earned scrutiny from Wade was a number of horseshoe tracks outside, with the left front shoe track familiar to him. He examined the clearest imprints very carefully. If they had not been put there by Wilson Moore’s white mustang, Spottie, then they had been made by a horse with a strangely similar hoof and shoe. Spottie had a hoof malformed, somewhat in the shape of a triangle, and the iron shoe to fit it always had to be bent, so that the curve was sharp and the ends closer together than those of his other shoes.

Wade rode down to White Slides that day, and at the evening meal he casually asked Moore if he had been riding Spottie of late.

“Sure. What other horse could I ride? Do you think I’m up to trying one of those broncs?” asked Moore, in derision.

“Reckon you haven’t been leavin’ any tracks up Buffalo Park way?”

The cowboy slammed down his knife. “Say, Wade, are you growing dotty? Good Lord! if I’d ridden that far — if I was able to do it — wouldn’t you hear me yell?”

“Reckon so, come to think of it. I just saw a track like Spottie’s, made two days ago.”

“Well, it wasn’t his, you can gamble on that,” returned the cowboy.

Wade spent four days hiding in an aspen grove, on top of one of the highest foothills above White Slides Ranch. There he lay at ease, like an Indian, calm and somber, watching the trails below, waiting for what he knew was to come.

On the fifth morning he was at his post at sunrise. A casual remark of one of the new cowboys the night before accounted for the early hour of Wade’s reconnoiter. The dawn was fresh and cool, with sweet odor of sage on the air; the jays were squalling their annoyance at this early disturber of their grove; the east was rosy above the black range and soon glowed with gold and then changed to fire. The sun had risen. All the mountain world of black range and gray hill and green valley, with its shining stream, was transformed as if by magic color. Wade sat down with his back to an aspen-tree, his gaze down upon the ranch-house and the corrals. A lazy column of blue smoke curled up toward the sky, to be lost there. The burros were braying, the calves were bawling, the colts were whistling. One of the hounds bayed full and clear.

The scene was pastoral and beautiful. Wade saw it clearly and whole. Peace and plenty, a happy rancher’s home, the joy of the dawn and the birth of summer, the rewards of toil — all seemed significant there. But Wade pondered on how pregnant with life that scene was — nature in its simplicity and freedom and hidden cruelty, and the existence of people, blindly hating, loving, sacrificing, mostly serving some noble aim, and yet with baseness among them, the lees with the wine, evil intermixed with good.

By and by the cowboys appeared on their spring mustangs, and in twos and threes they rode off in different directions. But none rode Wade’s way. The sun rose higher, and there was warmth in the air. Bees began to hum by Wade, and fluttering moths winged uncertain flight over him.

At the end of another hour Jack Belllounds came out of the house, gazed around him, and then stalked to the barn where he kept his horses. For a little while he was not in sight; then he reappeared, mounted on a white horse, and he rode into the pasture, and across that to the hay-field, and along the edge of this to the slope of the hill. Here he climbed to a small clump of aspens. This grove was not so far from Wilson Moore’s cabin; in fact, it marked the boundary-line between the rancher’s range and the acres that Moore had acquired. Jack vanished from sight here, but not before Wade had made sure he was dismounting.

“Reckon he kept to that grassy ground for a reason of his own — and plainer to me than any tracks,” soliloquized Wade, as he strained his eyes. At length Belllounds came out of the grove, and led his horse round to where Wade knew there was a trail leading to and from Moore’s cabin. At this point Jack mounted and rode west. Contrary to his usual custom, which was to ride hard and fast, he trotted the white horse as a cowboy might have done when going out on a day’s work. Wade had to change his position to watch Belllounds, and his somber gaze followed him across the hill, down the slope, along the willow-bordered brook, and so on to the opposite side of the great valley, where Jack began to climb in the direction of Buffalo Park.

After Belllounds had disappeared and had been gone for an hour, Wade went down on the other side of the hill, found his horse where he had left him, in a thicket, and, mounting, he rode around to strike the trail upon which Belllounds had ridden. The imprint of fresh horse tracks showed clear in the soft dust. And the left front track had been made by a shoe crudely triangular in shape, identical with that peculiar to Wilson Moore’s horse.

“Ahuh!” muttered Wade, in greeting to what he had expected to see. “Well, Buster Jack, it’s a plain trail now — damn your crooked soul!”

The hunter took up that trail, and he followed it into the woods. There he hesitated. Men who left crooked trails frequently ambushed them, and Belllounds had made no effort to conceal his tracks. Indeed, he had chosen the soft, open ground, even after he had left the trail to take to the grassy, wooded benches. There were cattle here, but not as many as on the more open aspen slopes across the valley. After deliberating a moment, Wade decided that he must risk being caught trailing Belllounds. But he would go slowly, trusting to eye and ear, to outwit this strangely acting foreman of White Slides Ranch.

To that end he dismounted and took the trail. Wade had not followed it far before he became convinced that Belllounds had been looking in the thickets for cattle; and he had not climbed another mile through the aspens and spruce before he discovered that Belllounds was driving cattle. Thereafter Wade proceeded more cautiously. If the long grass had not been wet he would have encountered great difficulty in trailing Belllounds. Evidence was clear now that he was hiding the tracks of the cattle by keeping to the grassy levels and slopes which, after the sun had dried them, would not leave a trace. There were stretches where even the keen-eyed hunter had to work to find the direction taken by Belllounds. But here and there, in other localities, there showed faint signs of cattle and horse tracks.

The morning passed, with Wade slowly climbing to the edge of the black timber. Then, in a hollow where a spring gushed forth, he saw the tracks of a few cattle that had halted to drink, and on top of these the tracks of a horse with a crooked left front shoe. The rider of this horse had dismounted. There was an imprint of a cowboy’s boot, and near it little sharp circles with dots in the center.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” ejaculated Wade. “I call that mighty cunnin’. Here they are — proofs as plain as writin’ — that Wils Moore rustled Old Bill’s cattle!... Buster Jack, you’re not such a fool as I thought.... He’s made somethin’ like the end of Wils’s crutch. An’ knowin’ how Wils uses that every time he gets off his horse, why, the dirty pup carried his instrument with him an’ made these tracks!”

Wade left the trail then, and, leading his horse to a covert of spruce, he sat down to rest and think. Was there any reason for following Belllounds farther? It did not seem needful to take the risk of being discovered. The forest above was open. No doubt Belllounds would drive the cattle somewhere and turn them over to his accomplices.

“Buster Jack’s outbusted himself this time, sure,” soliloquized Wade. “He’s double-crossin’ his rustler friends, same as he is Moore. For he’s goin’ to blame this cattle-stealin’ onto Wils. An’ to do that he’s layin’ his tracks so he can follow them, or so any good trailer can. It doesn’t concern me so much now who’re his pards in this deal. Reckon it’s Smith an’ some of his gang.”

Suddenly it dawned upon Wade that Jack Belllounds was stealing cattle from his father. “Whew!” he whistled softly. “Awful hard on the old man! Who’s to tell him when all this comes out? Aw, I’d hate to do it. I wouldn’t. There’s some things even I’d not tell.”

Straightway this strange aspect of the case confronted Wade and gripped his soul. He seemed to feel himself changing inwardly, as if a gray, gloomy, sodden hand, as intangible as a ghostly dream, had taken him bodily from himself and was now leading him into shadows, into drear, lonely, dark solitude, where all was cold and bleak; and on and on over naked shingles that marked the world of tragedy. Here he must tell his tale, and as he plodded on his relentless leader forced him to tell his tale anew.

Wade recognized this as his black mood. It was a morbid dominance of the mind. He fought it as he would have fought a devil. And mastery still was his. But his brow was clammy and his heart was leaden when he had wrested that somber, mystic control from his will.

“Reckon I’d do well to take up this trail to-morrow an’ see where it leads,” he said, and as a gloomy man, burdened with thought, he retraced his way down the long slope, and over the benches, to the grassy slopes and aspen groves, and thus to the sage hills.

It was dark when he reached the cabin, and Moore had supper almost ready.

“Well, old-timer, you look fagged out,” called out the cowboy, cheerily. “Throw off your boots, wash up, and come and get it!”

“Pard Wils, I’m not reboundin’ as natural as I’d like. I reckon I’ve lived some years before I got here, an’ a lifetime since.”

“Wade, you have a queer look, lately,” observed Moore, shaking his head solemnly. “Why, I’ve seen a dying man look just like you — now — round the mouth — but most in the eyes!”

“Maybe the end of the long trail is White Slides Ranch,” replied Wade, sadly and dreamily, as if to himself.

“If Collie heard you say that!” exclaimed Moore, in anxious concern.

“Collie an’ you will hear me say a lot before long,” returned Wade. “But, as it’s calculated to make you happy — why, all’s well. I’m tired an’ hungry.”

Wade did not choose to sit round the fire that night, fearing to invite interrogation from his anxious friend, and for that matter from his other inquisitively morbid self.

Next morning, though Wade felt rested, and the sky was blue and full of fleecy clouds, and the melody of birds charmed his ear, and over all the June air seemed thick and beating with the invisible spirit he loved, he sensed the oppression, the nameless something that presaged catastrophe.

Therefore, when he looked out of the door to see Columbine swiftly riding up the trail, her fair hair flying and shining in the sunlight, he merely ejaculated, “Ahuh!”

“What’s that?” queried Moore, sharp to catch the inflection.

“Look out,” replied Wade, as he began to fill his pipe.

“Heavens! It’s Collie! Look at her riding! Uphill, too!”

Wade followed him outdoors. Columbine was not long in arriving at the cabin, and she threw the bridle and swung off in the same motion, landing with a light thud. Then she faced them, pale, resolute, stern, all the sweetness gone to bitter strength — another and a strange Columbine.

“I’ve not slept a wink!” she said. “And I came as soon as I could get away.”

Moore had no word for her, not even a greeting. The look of her had stricken him. It could have only one meaning.

“Mornin’, lass,” said the hunter, and he took her hand. “I couldn’t tell you looked sleepy, for all you said. Let’s go into the cabin.”

So he led Columbine in, and Moore followed. The girl manifestly was in a high state of agitation, but she was neither trembling nor frightened nor sorrowful. Nor did she betray any lack of an unflinching and indomitable spirit. Wade read the truth of what she imagined was her doom in the white glow of her, in the matured lines of womanhood that had come since yesternight, in the sustained passion of her look.

“Ben! Wilson! The worst has come!” she announced.

Moore could not speak. Wade held Columbine’s hand in both of his.

“Worst! Now, Collie, that’s a terrible word. I’ve heard it many times. An’ all my life the worst’s been comin’. An’ it hasn’t come yet. You — only twenty years old — talkin’ wild — the worst has come!... Tell me your trouble now an’ I’ll tell you where you’re wrong.”

“Jack’s a thief — a cattle-thief!” rang Columbine’s voice, high and clear.

“Ahuh! Well, go on,” said Wade.

“Jack has taken money from rustlers — for cattle stolen from his father!”

Wade felt the lift of her passion, and he vibrated to it.

“Reckon that’s no news to me,” he replied.

Then she quivered up to a strong and passionate delivery of the thing that had transformed her.

“I’M GOING TO MARRY JACK BELLLOUNDS!”

Wilson Moore leaped toward her with a cry, to be held back by Wade’s hand.

“Now, Collie,” he soothed, “tell us all about it.”

Columbine, still upheld by the strength of her spirit, related how she had ridden out the day before, early in the afternoon, in the hope of meeting Wade. She rode over the sage hills, along the edges of the aspen benches, everywhere that she might expect to meet or see the hunter, but as he did not appear, and as she was greatly desirous of talking with him, she went on up into the woods, following the line of the Buffalo Park trail, though keeping aside from it. She rode very slowly and cautiously, remembering Wade’s instructions. In this way she ascended the aspen benches, and the spruce-bordered ridges, and then the first rise of the black forest. Finally she had gone farther than ever before and farther than was wise.

When she was about to turn back she heard the thud of hoofs ahead of her. Pronto shot up his ears. Alarmed and anxious, Columbine swiftly gazed about her. It would not do for her to be seen. Yet, on the other hand, the chances were that the approaching horse carried Wade. It was lucky that she was on Pronto, for he could be trusted to stand still and not neigh. Columbine rode into a thick clump of spruces that had long, shelving branches, reaching down. Here she hid, holding Pronto motionless.

Presently the sound of hoofs denoted the approach of several horses. That augmented Columbine’s anxiety. Peering out of her covert, she espied three horsemen trotting along the trail, and one of them was Jack Belllounds. They appeared to be in strong argument, judging from gestures and emphatic movements of their heads. As chance would have it they halted their horses not half a dozen rods from Columbine’s place of concealment. The two men with Belllounds were rough-looking, one of them, evidently a leader, having a dark face disfigured by a horrible scar.

Naturally they did not talk loud, and Columbine had to strain her ears to catch anything. But a word distinguished here and there, and accompanying actions, made transparent the meaning of their presence and argument. The big man refused to ride any farther. Evidently he had come so far without realizing it. His importunities were for “more head of stock.” His scorn was for a “measly little bunch not worth the risk.” His anger was for Belllounds’s foolhardiness in “leavin’ a trail.” Belllounds had little to say, and most of that was spoken in a tone too low to be heard. His manner seemed indifferent, even reckless. But he wanted “money.” The scar-faced man’s name was “Smith.” Then Columbine gathered from Smith’s dogged and forceful gestures, and his words, “no money” and “bigger bunch,” that he was unwilling to pay what had been agreed upon unless Belllounds promised to bring a larger number of cattle. Here Belllounds roundly cursed the rustler, and apparently argued that course “next to impossible.” Smith made a sweeping movement with his arm, pointing south, indicating some place afar, and part of his speech was “Gore Peak.” The little man, companion of Smith, got into the argument, and, dismounting from his horse, he made marks upon the smooth earth of the trail. He was drawing a rude map showing direction and locality. At length, when Belllounds nodded as if convinced or now informed, this third member of the party remounted, and seemed to have no more to say. Belllounds pondered sullenly. He snatched a switch from off a bough overhead and flicked his boot and stirrup with it, an action that made his horse restive. Smith leered and spoke derisively, of which speech Columbine heard, “Aw hell!” and “yellow streak,” and “no one’d ever,” and “son of Bill Belllounds,” and “rustlin’ stock.” Then this scar-faced man drew out a buckskin bag. Either the contempt or the gold, or both, overbalanced vacillation in the weak mind of Jack Belllounds, for he lifted his head, showing his face pale and malignant, and without trace of shame or compunction he snatched the bag of gold, shouted a hoarse, “All right, damn you!” and, wheeling the white mustang, he spurred away, quickly disappearing.

The rustlers sat their horses, gazing down the trail, and Smith wagged his dark head doubtfully. Then he spoke quite distinctly, “I ain’t a-trustin’ thet Belllounds pup!” and his comrade replied, “Boss, we ain’t stealin’ the stock, so what th’ hell!” Then they turned their horses and trotted out of sight and hearing up the timbered slope.

Columbine was so stunned, and so frightened and horrified, that she remained hidden there for a long time before she ventured forth. Then, heading homeward, she skirted the trail and kept to the edge of the forest, making a wide detour over the hills, finally reaching the ranch at sunset. Jack did not appear at the evening meal. His father had one of his spells of depression and seemed not to have noticed her absence. She lay awake all night thinking and praying.

Columbine concluded her narrative there, and, panting from her agitation and hurry, she gazed at the bowed figure of Moore, and then at Wade.

“I had to tell you this shameful secret,” she began again. “I’m forced. If you do not help me, if something is not done, there’ll be a horrible — end to all!”

“We’ll help you, but how?” asked Moore, raising a white face.

“I don’t know yet. I only feel — I only feel what may happen, if I don’t prevent it.... Wilson, you must go home — at least for a while.”

“It’ll not look right for Wils to leave White Slides now,” interposed Wade, positively.

“But why? Oh, I fear—”

“Never mind now, lass. It’s a good reason. An’ you mustn’t fear anythin’. I agree with you — we’ve got to prevent this — this that’s goin’ to happen.”

“Oh, Ben, my dear friend, we must prevent it — you must!”

“Ahuh!... So I was figurin’.”

“Ben, you must go to Jack an’ tell him — show him the peril — frighten him terribly — so that he will not do — do this shameful thing again.”

“Lass, I reckon I could scare Jack out of his skin. But what good would that do?”

“It’ll stop this — this madness.... Then I’ll marry him — and keep him safe — after that!”

“Collie, do you think marryin’ Buster Jack will stop his bustin’ out?”

“Oh, I know it will. He had conquered over the evil in him. I saw that. I felt it. He conquered over his baser nature for love of me. Then — when he heard — from my own lips — that I loved Wilson — why, then he fell. He didn’t care. He drank again. He let go. He sank. And now he’ll ruin us all. Oh, it looks as if he meant it that way!... But I can change him. I will marry him. I will love him — or I will live a lie! I will make him think I love him!”

Wilson Moore, deadly pale, faced her with flaming eyes.

“Collie, why? For God’s sake, explain why you will shame your womanhood and ruin me — all for that coward — that thief?”

Columbine broke from Wade and ran to Wilson, as if to clasp him, but something halted her and she stood before him.

“Because dad will kill him!” she cried.

“My God! what are you saying?” exclaimed Moore, incredulously. “Old Bill would roar and rage, but hurt that boy of his — never!”

“Wils, I reckon Collie is right. You haven’t got Old Bill figured. I know,” interposed Wade, with one of his forceful gestures.

“Wilson, listen, and don’t set your heart against me. For I must do this thing,” pleaded Columbine. “I heard dad swear he’d kill Jack. Oh, I’ll never forget! He was terrible! If he ever finds out that Jack stole from his own father — stole cattle like a common rustler, and sold them for gold to gamble and drink with — he will kill him!... That’s as true as fate.... Think how horrible that would be for me! Because I’m to blame here, mostly. I fell in love with you, Wilson Moore, otherwise I could have saved Jack already.

“But it’s not that I think of myself. Dad has loved me. He has been as a father to me. You know he’s not my real father. Oh, if I only had a real one!... And I owe him so much. But then it’s not because I owe him or because I love him. It’s because of his own soul!... That splendid, noble old man, who has been so good to every one — who had only one fault, and that love of his son — must he be let go in blinded and insane rage at the failure of his life, the ruin of his son — must he be allowed to kill his own flesh and blood?... It would be murder! It would damn dad’s soul to everlasting torment. No! No! I’ll not let that be!”

“Collie — how about — your own soul?” whispered Moore, lifting himself as if about to expend a tremendous breath.

“That doesn’t matter,” she replied.

“Collie — Collie—” he stammered, but could not go on.

Then it seemed to Wade that they both turned to him unconscious of the inevitableness of his relation to this catastrophe, yet looking to him for the spirit, the guidance that became habitual to them. It brought the warm blood back to Wade’s cold heart. It was his great reward. How intensely and implacably did his soul mount to that crisis!

“Collie, I’ll never fail you,” he said, and his gentle voice was deep and full. “If Jack can be scared into haltin’ in his mad ride to hell — then I’ll do it. I’m not promisin’ so much for him. But I’ll swear to you that Old Belllounds’s hands will never be stained with his son’s blood!”

“Oh, Ben! Ben!” she cried, in passionate gratitude. “I’ll love you — bless you all my life!”

“Hush, lass! I’m not one to bless.... An’ now you must do as I say. Go home an’ tell them you’ll marry Jack in August. Say August thirteenth.”

“So long! Oh, why put it off? Wouldn’t it be better — safer, to settle it all — once and forever?”

“No man can tell everythin’. But that’s my judgment.”

“Why August thirteenth?” she queried, with strange curiosity. “An unlucky date!”

“Well, it just happened to come to my mind — that date,” replied Wade, in his slow, soft voice of reminiscence. “I was married on August thirteenth — twenty-one years ago.... An’, Collie, my wife looked somethin’ like you. Isn’t that strange, now? It’s a little world.... An’ she’s been gone eighteen years!”

“Ben, I never dreamed you ever had a wife,” said Columbine, softly, with her hands going to his shoulder. “You must tell me of her some day.... But now — if you want time — if you think it best — I’ll not marry Jack till August thirteenth.”

“That’ll give me time,” replied Wade. “I’m thinkin’ Jack ought to be — reformed, let’s call it — before you marry him. If all you say is true — why we can turn him round. Your promise will do most.... So, then, it’s settled?”

“Yes — dear — friends,” faltered the girl, tremulously, on the verge of a breakdown, now that the ordeal was past.

Wilson Moore stood gazing out of the door, his eyes far away on the gray slopes.

“Queer how things turn out,” he said, dreamily. “August thirteenth!... That’s about the time the columbines blow on the hills.... And I always meant columbine-time—”

Here he sharply interrupted himself, and the dreamy musing gave way to passion. “But I mean it yet! I’ll — I’ll die before I give up hope of you!”

CHAPTER XVI

WADE, WATCHING COLUMBINE ride down the slope on her homeward way, did some of the hardest thinking he had yet been called upon to do. It was not necessary to acquaint Wilson Moore with the deeper and more subtle motives that had begun to actuate him. It would not utterly break the cowboy’s spirit to live in suspense. Columbine was safe for the present. He had insured her against fatality. Time was all he needed. Possibility of an actual consummation of her marriage to Jack Belllounds did not lodge for an instant in Wade’s consciousness. In Moore’s case, however, the present moment seemed critical. What should he tell Moore — what should he conceal from him?

“Son, come in here,” he called to the cowboy.

“Pard, it looks — bad!” said Moore, brokenly.

Wade looked at the tragic face and cursed under his breath.

“Buck up! It’s never as bad as it looks. Anyway, we know now what to expect, an’ that’s well.”

Moore shook his head. “Couldn’t you see how like steel Collie was?... But I’m on to you, Wade. You think by persuading Collie to put that marriage off that we’ll gain time. You’re gambling with time. You swear Buster Jack will hang himself. You won’t quit fighting this deal.”

“Buster Jack has slung the noose over a tree, an’ he’s about ready to slip his head into it,” replied Wade.

“Bah!... You drive me wild,” cried Moore, passionately. “How can you? Where’s all that feeling you seemed to have for me? You nursed me — you saved my leg — and my life. You must have cared about me. But now — you talk about that dolt — that spoiled old man’s pet — that damned cur, as if you believed he’d ruin himself. No such luck! no such hope!... Every day things grow worse. Yet the worse they grow the stronger you seem! It’s all out of proportion. It’s dreams. Wade, I hate to say it, but I’m sure you’re not always — just right in your mind.”

“Wils, now ain’t that queer?” replied Wade, sadly. “I’m agreein’ with you.”

“Aw!” Moore shook himself savagely and laid an affectionate and appealing arm on his friend’s shoulder. “Forgive me, pard!... It’s me who’s out of his head.... But my heart’s broken.”

“That’s what you think,” rejoined Wade, stoutly. “But a man’s heart can’t break in a day. I know.... An’ the God’s truth is Buster Jack will hang himself!”

Moore raised his head sharply, flinging himself back from his friend so as to scrutinize his face. Wade felt the piercing power of that gaze.

“Wade, what do you mean?”

“Collie told us some interestin’ news about Jack, didn’t she? Well, she didn’t know what I know. Jack Belllounds had laid a cunnin’ an’ devilish trap to prove you guilty of rustlin’ his father’s cattle.”

“Absurd!” ejaculated Moore, with white lips.

“I’d never given him credit for brains to hatch such a plot,” went on Wade. “Now listen. Not long ago Buster Jack made a remark in front of the whole outfit, includin’ his father, that the homesteaders on the range were rustlin’ cattle. It fell sort of flat, that remark. But no one could calculate on his infernal cunnin’. I quit workin’ for Belllounds that night, an’ I’ve put my time in spyin’ on the boy. In my day I’ve done a good deal of spyin’, but I’ve never run across any one slicker than Buster Jack. To cut it short — he got himself a white-speckled mustang that’s a dead ringer for Spottie. He measured the tracks of your horse’s left front foot — the bad hoof, you know, an’ he made a shoe exactly the same as Spottie wears. Also, he made some kind of a contraption that’s like the end of your crutch. These he packs with him. I saw him ride across the pasture to hide his tracks, climb up the sage for the same reason, an’ then hide in that grove of aspens over there near the trail you use. Here, you can bet, he changed shoes on the left front foot of his horse. Then he took to the trail, an’ he left tracks for a while, an’ then he was careful to hide them again. He stole his father’s stock an’ drove it up over the grassy benches where even you or I couldn’t track him next day. But up on top, when it suited him, he left some horse tracks, an’ in the mud near a spring-hole he gets off his horse, steppin’ with one foot — an’ makin’ little circles with dots like those made by the end of your crutch. Then ‘way over in the woods there’s a cabin where he meets his accomplices. Here he leaves the same horse tracks an’ crutch tracks.... Simple as a b c, Wils, when you see how he did it. But I’ll tell you straight — if I hadn’t been suspicious of Buster Jack — that trick of his would have made you a rustler!”

“Damn him!” hissed the cowboy, in utter consternation and fury.

“Ahuh! That’s my sentiment exactly.”

“I swore to Collie I’d never kill him!”

“Sure you did, son. An’ you’ve got to keep that oath. I pin you down to it. You can’t break faith with Collie.... An’ you don’t want his bad blood on your hands.”

“No! No!” he replied, violently. “Of course I don’t. I won’t. But God! how sweet it would be to tear out his lying tongue — to—”

“I reckon it would. Only don’t talk about that,” interrupted Wade, bluntly. “You see, now, don’t you, how he’s about hanged himself.”

“No, pard, I don’t. We can’t squeal that on him, any more than we can squeal what Collie told us.”

“Son, you’re young in dealin’ with crooked men. You don’t get the drift of motives. Buster Jack is not only robbin’ his father an’ hatchin’ a dirty trap for you, but he’s double-crossin’ the rustlers he’s sellin’ the cattle to. He’s riskin’ their necks. He’s goin’ to find your tracks, showin’ you dealt with them. Sure, he won’t give them away, an’ he’s figurin’ on their gettin’ out of it, maybe by leavin’ the range, or a shootin’-fray, or some way. The big thing with Jack is that he’s goin’ to accuse you of rustlin’ an’ show your tracks to his father. Well, that’s a risk he’s given the rustlers. It happens that I know this scar-face Smith. We’ve met before. Now it’s easy to see from what Collie heard that Smith is not trustin’ Buster Jack. So, all underneath this Jack Belllounds’s game, there’s forces workin’ unbeknown to him, beyond his control, an’ sure to ruin him.”

“I see. I see. By Heaven! Wade, nothing else but ruin seems possible!... But suppose it works out his way!... What then? What of Collie?”

“Son, I’ve not got that far along in my reckonin’,” replied Wade.

“But for my sake — think. If Buster Jack gets away with his trick — if he doesn’t hang himself by some blunder or fit of temper or spree — what then of Collie?”

Wade could not answer this natural and inevitable query for the reason that he had found it impossible of consideration.

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” he replied.

“Wade, you’ve said that before. It helped me. But now I need more than a few words from the Bible. My faith is low. I ... oh, I tried to pray because Collie told me she had prayed! But what are prayers? We’re dealing with a stubborn, iron-willed old man who idolizes his son; we’re dealing with a crazy boy, absolutely self-centered, crafty, and vicious, who’ll stop at nothing. And, lastly, we’re dealing with a girl who’s so noble and high-souled that she’ll sacrifice her all — her life to pay her debt. If she were really Bill Belllounds’s daughter she’d never marry Jack, saying, of course, that he was not her brother.... Do you know that it will kill her, if she marries him?”

“Ahuh! I reckon it would,” replied Wade, with his head bowed. Moore roused his gloomy forebodings. He did not care to show this feeling or the effect the cowboy’s pleading had upon him.

“Ah! so you admit it? Well, then, what of Collie?”

“If she marries him — she’ll have to die, I suppose,” replied Wade.

Then Wilson Moore leaped at his friend and with ungentle hands lifted him, pushed him erect.

“Damn you, Wade! You’re not square with me! You don’t tell me all!” he cried, hoarsely.

“Now, Wils, you’re set up. I’ve told you all I know. I swear that.”

“But you couldn’t stand the thought of Collie dying for that brute! You couldn’t! Oh, I know. I can feel some things that are hard to tell. So, you’re either out of your head or you’ve something up your sleeve. It’s hard to explain how you affect me. One minute I’m ready to choke you for that damned strangeness — whatever it is. The next minute I feel it — I trust it, myself.... Wade, you’re not — you can’t be infallible!”

“I’m only a man, Wils, an’ your friend. I reckon you do find me queer. But that’s no matter. Now let’s look at this deal — each from his own side of the fence. An’ each actin’ up to his own lights! You do what your conscience dictates, always thinkin’ of Collie — not of yourself! An’ I’ll live up to my principles. Can we do more?”

“No, indeed, Wade, we can’t,” replied Moore, eloquently.

“Well, then, here’s my hand. I’ve talked too much, I reckon. An’ the time for talkin’ is past.”

In silence Moore gripped the hand held out to him, trying to read Wade’s mind, apparently once more uplifted and strengthened by that which he could not divine.

Wade’s observations during the following week brought forth the fact that Jack Belllounds was not letting any grass grow under his feet. He endeavored to fulfil his agreement with Smith, and drove a number of cattle by moonlight. These were part of the stock that the rancher had sold to buyers at Kremmling, and which had been collected and held in the big, fenced pasture down the valley next to the Andrews ranch. The loss was not discovered until the cattle had been counted at Kremmling. Then they were credited to loss by straying. In driving a considerable herd of half-wild steers, with an inadequate force of cowboys, it was no unusual thing to lose a number.

Wade, however, was in possession of the facts not later than the day after this midnight steal in the moonlight. He was forced to acknowledge that no one would have believed it possible for Jack Belllounds to perform a feat which might well have been difficult for the best of cowboys. But Jack accomplished it and got back home before daylight. And Wade was bound to admit that circumstantial evidence against Wilson Moore, which, of course, Jack Belllounds would soon present, would be damning and apparently irrefutable.

Waiting for further developments, Wade closely watched the ranch-house, which duty interfered with his attention to the outlying trails. What he did not want to miss was being present when Jack Belllounds accused Wilson Moore of rustling cattle.

So it chanced that Wade was chatting with the cowboys one Sunday afternoon when Jack, accompanied by three strangers, all mounted on dusty, tired horses, rode up to the porch and dismounted.

Lem Billings manifested unusual excitement.

“Montana, ain’t thet Sheriff Burley from Kremmlin’?” he queried.

“Shore looks like him.... Yep, thet’s him. Now, what’s doin’?”

The cowboys exchanged curious glances, and then turned to Wade.

“Bent, what do you make of thet?” asked Lem, as he waved his hand toward the house. “Buster Jack ridin’ up with Sheriff Burley.”

The rancher, Belllounds, who was on the porch, greeted the visitors, and then they all went into the house.

“Boys, it’s what I’ve been lookin’ for,” replied Wade.

“Shore. Reckon we all have idees. An’ if my idee is correct I’m agoin’ to git pretty damn sore pronto,” declared Lem.

They were all silent for a few moments, meditating over this singular occurrence, and watching the house. Presently Old Bill Belllounds strode out upon the porch, and, walking out into the court, he peered around as if looking for some one. Then he espied the little group of cowboys.

“Hey!” he yelled. “One of you boys ride up an’ fetch Wils Moore down hyar!”

“All right, boss,” called Lem, in reply, as he got up and gave a hitch to his belt.

The rancher hurried back, head down, as if burdened.

“Wade, I reckon you want to go fetch Wils?” queried Lem.

“If it’s all the same to you. I’d rather not,” replied Wade.

“By Golly! I don’t blame you. Boys, shore’n hell, Burley’s after Wils.”

“Wal, suppos’n’ he is,” said Montana. “You can gamble Wils ain’t agoin’ to run. I’d jest like to see him face thet outfit. Burley’s a pretty square fellar. An’ he’s no fool.”

“It’s as plain as your nose, Montana, an’ thet’s shore big enough,” returned Lem, with a hard light in his eyes. “Buster Jack’s busted out, an’ he’s figgered Wils in some deal thet’s rung in the sheriff. Wal, I’ll fetch Wils.” And, growling to himself, the cowboy slouched off after his horse.

Wade got up, deliberate and thoughtful, and started away.

“Say, Bent, you’re shore goin’ to see what’s up?” asked Montana, in surprise.

“I’ll be around, Jim,” replied Wade, and he strolled off to be alone. He wanted to think over this startling procedure of Jack Belllounds’s. Wade was astonished. He had expected that an accusation would be made against Moore by Jack, and an exploitation of such proofs as had been craftily prepared, but he had never imagined Jack would be bold enough to carry matters so far. Sheriff Burley was a man of wide experience, keen, practical, shrewd. He was also one of the countless men Wade had rubbed elbows with in the eventful past. It had been Wade’s idea that Jack would be satisfied to face his father with the accusation of Moore, and thus cover his tracks. Whatever Old Belllounds might have felt over the loss of a few cattle, he would never have hounded and arrested a cowboy who had done well by him. Burley, however, was a sheriff, and a conscientious one, and he happened to be particularly set against rustlers.

Here was a complication of circumstances. What would Jack Belllounds insist upon? How would Columbine take this plot against the honor and liberty of Wilson Moore? How would Moore himself react to it? Wade confessed that he was helpless to solve these queries, and there seemed to be a further one, insistent and gathering — what was to be his own attitude here? That could not be answered, either, because only a future moment, over which he had no control, and which must decide events, held that secret. Worry beset Wade, but he still found himself proof against the insidious gloom ever hovering near, like his shadow.

He waited near the trail to intercept Billings and Moore on their way to the ranch-house; and to his surprise they appeared sooner than it would have been reasonable to expect them. Wade stepped out of the willows and held up his hand. He did not see anything unusual in Moore’s appearance.

“Wils, I reckon we’d do well to talk this over,” said Wade.

“Talk what over?” queried the cowboy, sharply.

“Jack Belllounds!” she cried. “You put the sheriff on that trail!”

“Why, Old Bill’s sendin’ for you, an’ the fact of Sheriff Burley bein’ here.”

“Talk nothing. Let’s see what they want, and then talk. Pard, you remember the agreement we made not long ago?”

“Sure. But I’m sort of worried, an’ maybe—”

“You needn’t worry about me. Come on,” interrupted Moore. “I’d like you to be there. And, Lem, fetch the boys.”

“I shore will, an’ if you need any backin’ you’ll git it.”

When they reached the open Lem turned off toward the corrals, and Wade walked beside Moore’s horse up to the house.

Belllounds appeared at the door, evidently having heard the sound of hoofs.

“Hello, Moore! Get down an’ come in,” he said, gruffly.

“Belllounds, if it’s all the same to you I’ll take mine in the open,” replied the cowboy, coolly.

The rancher looked troubled. He did not have the ease and force habitual to him in big moments.

“Come out hyar, you men,” he called in the door.

Voices, heavy footsteps, the clinking of spurs, preceded the appearance of the three strangers, followed by Jack Belllounds. The foremost was a tall man in black, sandy-haired and freckled, with clear gray eyes, and a drooping mustache that did not hide stern lips and rugged chin. He wore a silver star on his vest, packed a gun in a greasy holster worn low down on his right side, and under his left arm he carried a package.

It suited Wade, then, to step forward; and if he expected surprise and pleasure to break across the sheriff’s stern face he certainly had not reckoned in vain.

“Wal, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Burley, bending low, with quick movement, to peer at Wade.

“Howdy, Jim. How’s tricks?” said Wade, extending his hand, and the smile that came so seldom illumined his sallow face.

“Hell-Bent Wade, as I’m a born sinner!” shouted the sheriff, and his hand leaped out to grasp Wade’s and grip it and wring it. His face worked. “My Gawd! I’m glad to see you, old-timer! Wal, you haven’t changed at all!... Ten years! How time flies! An’ it’s shore you?”

“Same, Jim, an’ powerful glad to meet you,” replied Wade.

“Shake hands with Bridges an’ Lindsay,” said Burley, indicating his two comrades. “Stockmen from Grand Lake.... Boys, you’ve heerd me talk about him. Wade an’ I was both in the old fight at Blair’s ranch on the Gunnison. An’ I’ve shore reason to recollect him!... Wade, what’re you doin’ up in these diggin’s?”

“Drifted over last fall, Jim, an’ have been huntin’ varmints for Belllounds,” replied Wade. “Cleaned the range up fair to middlin’. An’ since I quit Belllounds I’ve been hangin’ round with my young pard here, Wils Moore, an’ interestin’ myself in lookin’ up cattle tracks.”

Burley’s back was toward Belllounds and his son, so it was impossible for them to see the sudden little curious light that gleamed in his eyes as he looked hard at Wade, and then at Moore.

“Wils Moore. How d’ye do? I reckon I remember you, though I don’t ride up this way much of late years.”

The cowboy returned the greeting civilly enough, but with brevity.

Belllounds cleared his throat and stepped forward. His manner showed he had a distasteful business at hand.

“Moore, I sent for you on a serious matter, I’m sorry to say.”

“Well, here I am. What is it?” returned the cowboy, with clear, hazel eyes, full of fire, steady on the old rancher’s.

“Jack, you know, is foreman of White Slides now. An’ he’s made a charge against you.”

“Then let him face me with it,” snapped Moore.

Jack Belllounds came forward, hands in his pockets, self-possessed, even a little swaggering, and his pale face and bold eyes showed the gravity of the situation and his mastery over it.

Wade watched this meeting of the rivals and enemies with an attention powerfully stimulated by the penetrating scrutiny Burley laid upon them. Jack did not speak quickly. He looked hard into the tense face of Moore. Wade detected a vibration of Jack’s frame and a gleam of eye that showed him not wholly in control of exultation and revenge. Fear had not struck him yet.

“Well, Buster Jack, what’s the charge?” demanded Moore, impatiently.

The old name, sharply flung at Jack by this cowboy, seemed to sting and reveal and inflame. But he restrained himself as with roving glance he searched Moore’s person for sight of a weapon. The cowboy was unarmed.

“I accuse you of stealing my father’s cattle,” declared Jack, in low, husky accents. After he got the speech out he swallowed hard.

Moore’s face turned a dead white. For a fleeting instant a red and savage gleam flamed in his steady glance. Then it vanished.

The cowboys, who had come up, moved restlessly. Lem Billings dropped his head, muttering. Montana Jim froze in his tracks.

Moore’s dark eyes, scornful and piercing, never moved from Jack’s face. It seemed as if the cowboy would never speak again.

“You call me thief! You?” at length he exclaimed.

“Yes, I do,” replied Belllounds, loudly.

“Before this sheriff and your father you accuse me of stealing cattle?”

“Yes.”

“And you accuse me before this man who saved my life, who knows me — before Hell-Bent Wade?” demanded Moore, as he pointed to the hunter.

Mention of Wade in that significant tone of passion and wonder was not without effect upon Jack Belllounds.

“What in hell do I care for Wade?” he burst out, with the old intolerance. “Yes, I accuse you. Thief, rustler!... And for all I know your precious Hell-Bent Wade may be—”

He was interrupted by Burley’s quick and authoritative interference.

“Hyar, young man, I’m allowin’ for your natural feelin’s,” he said, dryly, “but I advise you to bite your tongue. I ain’t acquainted with Mister Moore, but I happen to know Wade. Do you savvy?... Wal, then, if you’ve any more to say to Moore get it over.”

“I’ve had my say,” replied Belllounds, sullenly.

“On what grounds do you accuse me?” demanded Moore.

“I trailed you. I’ve got my proofs.”

Burley stepped off the porch and carefully laid down his package.

“Moore, will you get off your hoss?” he asked. And when the cowboy had dismounted and limped aside the sheriff continued, “Is this the hoss you ride most?”

“He’s the only one I have.”

Burley sat down upon the edge of the porch and, carefully unwrapping the package, he disclosed some pieces of hard-baked yellow mud. The smaller ones bore the imprint of a circle with a dot in the center, very clearly defined. The larger piece bore the imperfect but reasonably clear track of a curiously shaped horseshoe, somewhat triangular. The sheriff placed these pieces upon the ground. Then he laid hold of Moore’s crutch, which was carried like a rifle in a sheath hanging from the saddle, and, drawing it forth, he carefully studied the round cap on the end. Next he inserted this end into both the little circles on the pieces of mud. They fitted perfectly. The cowboys bent over to get a closer view, and Billings was wagging his head. Old Belllounds had an earnest eye for them, also. Burley’s next move was to lift the left front foot of Moore’s horse and expose the bottom to view. Evidently the white mustang did not like these proceedings, but he behaved himself. The iron shoe on this hoof was somewhat triangular in shape. When Burley held the larger piece of mud, with its imprint, close to the hoof, it was not possible to believe that this iron shoe had not made the triangular-shaped track.

Burley let go of the hoof and laid the pieces of mud down. Slowly the other men straightened up. Some one breathed hard.

“Moore, what do them tracks look like to you?” asked the sheriff.

“They look like mine,” replied the cowboy.

“They are yours.”

“I’m not denying that.”

“I cut them pieces of mud from beside a water-hole over hyar under Gore Peak. We’d trailed the cattle Belllounds lost, an’ then we kept on trailin’ them, clear to the road that goes over the ridge to Elgeria.... Now Bridges an’ Lindsay hyar bought stock lately from strange cattlemen who didn’t give no clear idee of their range. Jest buyin’ an’ sellin’, they claimed.... I reckon the extra hoss tracks we run across at Gore Peak connects up them buyers an’ sellers with whoever drove Belllounds’s cattle up thar.... Have you anythin’ more to say?”

“No. Not here,” replied Moore, quietly.

“Then I’ll have to arrest you an’ take you to Kremmlin’ fer trial.”

“All right. I’ll go.”

The old rancher seemed genuinely shocked. Red tinged his cheek and a flame flared in his eyes.

“Wils, you done me dirt,” he said, wrathfully. “An’ I always swore by you.... Make a clean breast of the whole damn bizness, if you want me to treat you white. You must have been locoed or drunk, to double-cross me thet way. Come on, out with it.”

“I’ve nothing to say,” replied Moore.

“You act amazin’ strange fer a cowboy I’ve knowed to lean toward fightin’ at the drop of a hat. I tell you, speak out an’ I’ll do right by you.... I ain’t forgettin’ thet White Slides gave you a hard knock. An’ I was young once an’ had hot blood.”

The old rancher’s wrathful pathos stirred the cowboy to a straining-point of his unnatural, almost haughty composure. He seemed about to break into violent utterance. Grief and horror and anger seemed at the back of his trembling lips. The look he gave Belllounds was assuredly a strange one, to come from a cowboy who was supposed to have stolen his former employer’s cattle. Whatever he might have replied was cut off by the sudden appearance of Columbine.

“Dad, I heard you!” she cried, as she swept upon them, fearful and wide-eyed. “What has Wilson Moore done — that you’ll do right by him?”

“Collie, go back in the house,” he ordered.

“No. There’s something wrong here,” she said, with mounting dread in the swift glance she shot from man to man. “Oh! You’re — Sheriff Burley!” she gasped.

“I reckon I am, miss, an’ if young Moore’s a friend of yours I’m sorry I came,” replied Burley.

Wade himself reacted subtly and thrillingly to the presence of the girl. She was alive, keen, strung, growing white, with darkening eyes of blue fire, beginning to grasp intuitively the meaning here.

“My friend! He was more than that — not long ago.... What has he done? Why are you here?”

“Miss, I’m arrestin’ him.”

“Oh!... For what?”

“Rustlin’ your father’s cattle.”

For a moment Columbine was speechless. Then she burst out, “Oh, there’s a terrible mistake!”

“Miss Columbine, I shore hope so,” replied Burley, much embarrassed and distressed. Like most men of his kind, he could not bear to hurt a woman. “But it looks bad fer Moore.... See hyar! There! Look at the tracks of his hoss — left front foot-shoe all crooked. Thet’s his hoss’s. He acknowledges thet. An’, see hyar. Look at the little circles an’ dots.... I found these ‘way over at Gore Peak, with the tracks of the stolen cattle. An’ no other tracks, Miss Columbine!”

“Who put you on that trail?” she asked, piercingly.

“Jack, hyar. He found it fust, an’ rode to Kremmlin’ fer me.”

“Jack! Jack Belllounds!” she cried, bursting into wild and furious laughter. Like a tigress she leaped at Jack as if to tear him to pieces. “You put the sheriff on that trail! You accuse Wilson Moore of stealing dad’s cattle!”

“Yes, and I proved it,” replied Jack, hoarsely.

“You! You proved it? So that’s your revenge?... But you’re to reckon with me, Jack Belllounds! You villain! You devil! You—” Suddenly she shrank back with a strong shudder. She gasped. Her face grew ghastly white. “Oh, my God! ... horrible — unspeakable!”... She covered her face with her hands, and every muscle of her seemed to contract until she was stiff. Then her hands shot out to Moore.

“Wilson Moore, what have you to say — to this sheriff — to Jack Belllounds — to me?”

Moore bent upon her a gaze that must have pierced her soul, so like it was to a lightning flash of love and meaning and eloquence.

“Collie, they’ve got the proof. I’ll take my medicine.... Your dad is good. He’ll be easy on me!’

“You lie!” she whispered. “And I will tell why you lie!”

Moore did not show the shame and guilt that should have been natural with his confession. But he showed an agony of distress. His hand sought Wade and dragged at him.

It did not need this mute appeal to tell Wade that in another moment Columbine would have flung the shameful truth into the face of Jack Belllounds. She was rising to that. She was terrible and beautiful to see.

“Collie,” said Wade, with that voice he knew had strange power over her, with a clasp of her outflung hand, “no more! This is a man’s game. It’s not for a woman to judge. Not here! It’s Wils’s game — an’ it’s mine. I’m his friend. Whatever his trouble or guilt, I take it on my shoulders. An’ it will be as if it were not!”

Moaning and wringing her hands, Columbine staggered with the burden of the struggle in her.

“I’m quite — quite mad — or dreaming. Oh, Ben!” she cried.

“Brace up, Collie. It’s sure hard. Wils, your friend and playmate so many years — it’s hard to believe! We all understand, Collie. Now you go in, an’ don’t listen to any more or look any more.”

He led her down the porch to the door of her room, and as he pushed it open he whispered, “I will save you, Collie, an’ Wils, an’ the old man you call dad!”

Then he returned to the silent group in the yard.

“Jim, if I answer fer Wils Moore bein’ in Kremmlin’ the day you say, will you leave him with me?”

“Wal, I shore will, Wade,” replied Burley, heartily.

“I object to that,” interposed Jack Belllounds, stridently. “He confessed. He’s got to go to jail.”

“Wal, my hot-tempered young fellar, thar ain’t any jail nearer ‘n Denver. Did you know that?” returned Burley, with his dry, grim humor. “Moore’s under arrest. An’ he’ll be as well off hyar with Wade as with me in Kremmlin’, an’ a damn sight happier.”

The cowboy had mounted, and Wade walked beside him as he started homeward. They had not progressed far when Wade’s keen ears caught the words, “Say, Belllounds, I got it figgered thet you an’ your son don’t savvy this fellar Wade.”

“Wal, I reckon not,” replied the old rancher.

And his son let out a peal of laughter, bitter and scornful and unsatisfied.

CHAPTER XVII

GORE PEAK WAS the highest point of the black range that extended for miles westward from Buffalo Park. It was a rounded dome, covered with timber and visible as a landmark from the surrounding country. All along the eastern slope of that range an unbroken forest of spruce and pine spread down to the edge of the valley. This valley narrowed toward its source, which was Buffalo Park. A few well-beaten trails crossed that country, one following Red Brook down to Kremmling; another crossing from the Park to White Slides; and another going over the divide down to Elgeria. The only well-known trail leading to Gore Peak was a branch-off from the valley, and it went round to the south and more accessible side of the mountain.

All that immense slope of timbered ridges, benches, ravines, and swales west of Buffalo Park was exceedingly wild and rough country. Here the buffalo took to cover from hunters, and were safe until they ventured forth into the parks again. Elk and deer and bear made this forest their home.

Bent Wade, hunter now for bigger game than wild beasts of the range, left his horse at Lewis’s cabin and penetrated the dense forest alone, like a deer-stalker or an Indian in his movements. Lewis had acted as scout for Wade, and had ridden furiously down to Sage Valley with news of the rustlers. Wade had accompanied him back to Buffalo Park that night, riding in the dark. There were urgent reasons for speed. Jack Belllounds had ridden to Kremmling, and the hunter did not believe he would return by the road he had taken.

Fox, Wade’s favorite dog, much to his disgust, was left behind with Lewis. The bloodhound, Kane, accompanied Wade. Kane had been ill-treated and then beaten by Jack Belllounds, and he had left White Slides to take up his home at Moore’s cabin. And at last he had seemed to reconcile himself to the hunter, not with love, but without distrust. Kane never forgave; but he recognized his friend and master. Wade carried his rifle and a buckskin pouch containing meat and bread. His belt, heavily studded with shells, contained two guns, both now worn in plain sight, with the one on the right side hanging low. Wade’s character seemed to have undergone some remarkable change, yet what he represented then was not unfamiliar.

He headed for the concealed cabin on the edge of the high valley, under the black brow of Gore Peak. It was early morning of a July day, with summer fresh and new to the forest. Along the park edges the birds and squirrels were holding carnival. The grass was crisp and bediamonded with sparkling frost. Tracks of game showed sharp in the white patches. Wade paused once, listening. Ah! That most beautiful of forest melodies for him — the bugle of an elk. Clear, resonant, penetrating, with these qualities held and blended by a note of wildness, it rang thrillingly through all Wade’s being. The hound listened, but was not interested. He kept close beside the hunter or at his heels, a stealthily stepping, warily glancing hound, not scenting the four-footed denizens of the forest. He expected his master to put him on the trail of men.

The distance from the Park to Gore Peak, as a crow would have flown, was not great. But Wade progressed slowly; he kept to the dense parts of the forest; he avoided the open aisles, the swales, the glades, the high ridges, the rocky ground. When he came to the Elgeria trail he was not disappointed to find it smooth, untrodden by any recent travel. Half a mile farther on through the forest, however, he encountered tracks of three horses, made early the day before. Still farther on he found cattle and horse tracks, now growing old and dim. These tracks, pointed toward Elgeria, were like words of a printed page to Wade.

About noon he climbed a rocky eminence that jutted out from a slow-descending ridge, and from this vantage-point he saw down the wavering black and green bosom of the mountain slope. A narrow valley, almost hidden, gleamed yellow in the sunlight. At the edge of this valley a faint column of blue smoke curled upward.

“Ahuh!” muttered the hunter, as he looked. The hound whined and pushed a cool nose into Wade’s hand.

Then Wade resumed his noiseless and stealthy course through the woods. He began a descent, leading off somewhat to the right of the point where the smoke had arisen. The presence of the rustlers in the cabin was of importance, yet not so paramount as another possibility. He expected Jack Belllounds to be with them or meet them there, and that was the thing he wanted to ascertain. When he got down below the little valley he swung around to the left to cross the trail that came up from the main valley, some miles still farther down. He found it, and was not surprised to see fresh horse tracks, made that morning. He recognized those tracks. Jack Belllounds was with the rustlers, come, no doubt, to receive his pay.

Then the change in Wade, and the actions of a trailer of men, became more singularly manifest. He reverted to some former habit of mind and body. He was as slow as a shadow, absolutely silent, and the gaze that roved ahead and all around must have taken note of every living thing, of every moving leaf or fern or bough. The hound, with hair curling up stiff on his back, stayed close to Wade, watching, listening, and stepping with him. Certainly Wade expected the rustlers to have some one of their number doing duty as an outlook. So he kept uphill, above the cabin, and made his careful way through the thicket coverts, which at that place were dense and matted clumps of jack-pine and spruce. At last he could see the cabin and the narrow, grassy valley just beyond. To his relief the horses were unsaddled and grazing. No man was in sight. But there might be a dog. The hunter, in his slow advance, used keen and unrelaxing vigilance, and at length he decided that if there had been a dog he would have been tied outside to give an alarm.

Wade had now reached his objective point. He was some eighty paces from the cabin, in line with an open aisle down which he could see into the cleared space before the door. On his left were thick, small spruces, with low-spreading branches, and they extended all the way to the cabin on that side, and in fact screened two walls of it. Wade knew exactly what he was going to do. No longer did he hesitate. Laying down his rifle, he tied the hound to a little spruce, patting him and whispering for him to stay there and be still.

Then Wade’s action in looking to his belt-guns was that of a man who expected to have recourse to them speedily and by whom the necessity was neither regretted nor feared. Stooping low, he entered the thicket of spruces. The soft, spruce-matted ground, devoid of brush or twig, did not give forth the slightest sound of step, nor did the brushing of the branches against his body. In some cases he had to bend the boughs. Thus, swiftly and silently, with the gliding steps of an Indian, he approached the cabin till the brown-barked logs loomed before him, shutting off the clearer light.

He smelled a mingling of wood and tobacco smoke; he heard low, deep voices of men; the shuffling and patting of cards; the musical click of gold. Resting on his knees a moment the hunter deliberated. All was exactly as he had expected. Luck favored him. These gamblers would be absorbed in their game. The door of the cabin was just around the corner, and he could glide noiselessly to it or gain it in a few leaps. Either method would serve. But which he must try depended upon the position of the men inside and that of their weapons.

Rising silently, Wade stepped up to the wall and peeped through a chink between the logs. The sunshine streamed through windows and door. Jack Belllounds sat on the ground, full in its light, back to the wall. He was in his shirt-sleeves. The gambling fever and the grievous soreness of a loser shone upon his pale face. Smith sat with back to Wade, opposite Belllounds. The other men completed the square. All were close enough together to reach comfortably for the cards and gold before them. Wade’s keen eyes took this in at a single glance, and then steadied searchingly for smaller features of the scene. Belllounds had no weapon. Smith’s belt and gun lay in the sunlight on the hard, clay floor, out of reach except by violent effort. The other two rustlers both wore their weapons. Wade gave a long scrutiny to the faces of these comrades of Smith, and evidently satisfied himself as to what he had to expect from them.

Wade hesitated; then stooping low, he softly swept aside the intervening boughs of spruce, glided out of the thicket into the open. Two noiseless bounds! Another, and he was inside the door!

“Howdy, rustlers! Don’t move!” he called.

The surprise of his appearance, or his voice, or both, stunned the four men. Belllounds dropped his cards, and his jaw dropped at the same instant. These were absolutely the only visible movements.

“I’m in talkin’ humor, an’ the longer you listen the longer you’ll have to live,” said Wade. “But don’t move!”

“We ain’t movin’,” burst out Smith. “Who’re you, an’ what d’ye want?”

It was singular that the rustler leader had not had a look at Wade, whose movements had been swift and who now stood directly behind him. Also it was obvious that Smith was sitting very stiff-necked and straight. Not improbably he had encountered such situations before.

“Who’re you?” he shouted, hoarsely.

“You ought to know me.” The voice was Wade’s, gentle, cold, with depth and ring in it.

“I’ve heerd your voice somewhars — I’ll gamble on thet.”

“Sure. You ought to recognize my voice, Cap,” returned Wade.

The rustler gave a violent start — a start that he controlled instantly.

“Cap! You callin’ me thet?”

“Sure. We’re old friends — Cap Folsom!”

In the silence, then, the rustler’s hard breathing could be heard; his neck bulged red; only the eyes of his two comrades moved; Belllounds began to recover somewhat from his consternation. Fear had clamped him also, but not fear of personal harm or peril. His mind had not yet awakened to that.

“You’ve got me pat! But who’re you?” said Folsom, huskily.

Wade kept silent.

“Who’n hell is thet man?” yelled the rustler It was not a query to his comrades any more than to the four winds. It was a furious questioning of a memory that stirred and haunted, and as well a passionate and fearful denial.

“His name’s Wade,” put in Belllounds, harshly. “He’s the friend of Wils Moore. He’s the hunter I told you about — worked for my father last winter.”

“Wade?... What? Wade! You never told me his name. It ain’t — it ain’t—”

“Yes, it is, Cap,” interrupted Wade. “It’s the old boy that spoiled your handsome mug — long ago.”

“Hell-Bent Wade!” gasped Folsom, in terrible accents. He shook all over. An ashen paleness crept into his face. Instinctively his right hand jerked toward his gun; then, as in his former motion, froze in the very act.

“Careful, Cap!” warned Wade. “It’d be a shame not to hear me talk a little.... Turn around now an’ greet an old pard of the Gunnison days.”

Folsom turned as if a resistless, heavy force was revolving his head.

“By Gawd!... Wade!” he ejaculated. The tone of his voice, the light in his eyes, must have been a spiritual acceptance of a dreadful and irrefutable fact — perhaps the proximity of death. But he was no coward. Despite the hunter’s order, given as he stood there, gun drawn and ready, Folsom wheeled back again, savagely to throw the deck of cards in Belllounds’s face. He cursed horribly.... “You spoiled brat of a rich rancher! Why’n hell didn’t you tell me thet varmint-hunter was Wade.”

“I did tell you,” shouted Belllounds, flaming of face.

“You’re a liar! You never said Wade — W-a-d-e, right out, so I’d hear it. An’ I’d never passed by Hell-Bent Wade.”

“Aw, that name made me tired,” replied Belllounds, contemptuously.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” bawled the rustler. “Made you tired, hey? Think you’re funny? Wal, if you knowed how many men thet name’s made tired — an’ tired fer keeps — you’d not think it so damn funny.”

“Say, what’re you giving me? That Sheriff Burley tried to tell me and dad a lot of rot about this Wade. Why, he’s only a little, bow-legged, big-nosed meddler — a man with a woman’s voice — a sneaking cook and camp-doctor and cow-milker, and God only knows what else.”

“Boy, you’re correct. God only knows what else!... It’s the else you’ve got to learn. An’ I’ll gamble you’ll learn it.... Wade, have you changed or grown old thet you let a pup like this yap such talk?”

“Well, Cap, he’s very amusin’ just now, an’ I want you-all to enjoy him. Because, if you don’t force my hand I’m goin’ to tell you some interestin’ stuff about this Buster Jack.... Now, will you be quiet an’ listen — an’ answer for your pards?”

“Wade, I answer fer no man. But, so far as I’ve noticed, my pards ain’t hankerin’ to make any loud noise,” Folsom replied, indicating his comrades, with sarcasm.

The red-bearded one, a man of large frame and gaunt face, wicked and wild-looking, spoke out, “Say, Smith, or whatever the hell’s yore right handle — is this hyar a game we’re playin’?”

“I reckon. An’ if you turn a trick you’ll be damn lucky,” growled Folsom.

The other rustler did not speak. He was small, swarthy-faced, with sloe-black eyes and matted hair, evidently a white man with Mexican blood. Keen, strung, furtive, he kept motionless, awaiting events.

“Buster Jack, these new pards of yours are low-down rustlers, an’ one of them’s worse, as I could prove,” said Wade, “but compared with you they’re all gentlemen.”

Belllounds leered. But he was losing his bravado. Something began to dawn upon his obtuse consciousness.

“What do I care for you or your gabby talk?” he flashed, sullenly.

“You’ll care when I tell these rustlers how you double-crossed them.”

Belllounds made a spring, like that of a wolf in a trap; but when half-way up he slipped. The rustler on his right kicked him, and he sprawled down again, back to the wall.

“Buster, look into this!” called Wade, and he leveled the gun that quivered momentarily, like a compass needle, and then crashed fire and smoke. The bullet spat into a log. But it had cut the lobe of Belllounds’s ear, bringing blood. His face turned a ghastly, livid hue. All in a second terror possessed him — shuddering, primitive terror of death.

Folsom haw-hawed derisively and in crude delight. “Say, Buster Jack, don’t get any idee thet my ole pard Wade was shootin’ at your head. Aw, no!”

The other rustlers understood then, if Belllounds had not, that the situation was in control of a man not in any sense ordinary.

“Cap, did you know Buster Jack accused my friend, Wils Moore, of stealin’ these cattle you’re sellin’?” asked Wade, deliberately.

“What cattle did you say?” asked the rustler, as if he had not heard aright.

“The cattle Buster Jack stole from his father an’ sold to you.”

“Wal, now! Bent Wade at his old tricks! I might have knowed it, once I seen you.... Naw, I’d no idee Belllounds blamed thet stealin’ on to any one.”

“He did.”

“Ahuh! Wal, who’s this Wils Moore?”

“He’s a cowboy, as fine a youngster as ever straddled a horse. Buster Jack hates him. He licked Jack a couple of times an’ won the love of a girl that Jack wants.”

“Ho! Ho! Quite romantic, I declare.... Say, thar’s some damn queer notions I’m gettin’ about you, Buster Jack.”

Belllounds lay propped against the wall, sagging there, laboring of chest, sweating of face. The boldness of brow held, because it was fixed, but that of his eyes had gone; and his mouth and chin showed craven weakness. He stared in dread suspense at Wade.

“Listen. An’ all of you sit tight,” went on Wade, swiftly. “Jack stole the cattle from his father. He’s a thief at heart. But he had a double motive. He left a trail — he left tracks behind. He made a crooked horseshoe, like that Wils Moore’s horse wears, an’ he put that on his own horse. An’ he made a contraption — a little iron ring with a dot in it, an’ he left the crooked shoe tracks, an’ he left the little ring tracks—”

“By Gawd! I seen them funny tracks!” ejaculated Folsom. “At the water-hole an’ right hyar in front of the cabin. I seen them. I knowed Jack made them, somehow, but I didn’t think. His white hoss has a crooked left front shoe.”

“Yes, he has, when Jack takes off the regular shoe an’ nails on the crooked one.... Men, I followed those tracks They lead up here to your cabin. Belllounds made them with a purpose.... An’ he went to Kremmlin’ to get Sheriff Burley. An’ he put him wise to the rustlin’ of cattle to Elgeria. An’ he fetched him up to White Slides to accuse Wils Moore. An’ he trailed his own tracks up here, showin’ Burley the crooked horse track an’ the little circle — that was supposed to be made by the end of Moore’s crutch — an’ he led Burley with his men right to this cabin an’ to the trail where you drove the cattle over the divide.... An’ then he had Burley dig out some cakes of mud holdin’ these tracks, an’ they fetched them down to White Slides. Buster Jack blamed the stealin’ on to Moore. An’ Burley arrested Moore. The trial comes off next week at Kremmlin’.”

“Damn me!” exclaimed Folsom, wonderingly. “A man’s never too old to learn! I knowed this pup was stealin’ from his own father, but I reckoned he was jest a natural-born, honest rustler, with a hunch fer drink an’ cards.”

“Well, he’s double-crossed you, Cap. An’ if I hadn’t rounded you up your chances would have been good for swingin’.”

“Ahuh! Wade, I’d sure preferred them chances of swingin’ to your over-kind interferin’ in my bizness. Allus interferin’, Wade, thet’s your weakness!... But gimmie a gun!”

“I reckon not, Cap.”

“Gimme a gun!” roared the rustler. “Lemme sit hyar an’ shoot the eyes outen this — lyin’ pup of a Belllounds!... Wade, put a gun in my hand — a gun with two shells — or only one. You can stand with your gun at my head.... Let me kill this skunk!”

For all Belllounds could tell, death was indeed close. No trace of a Belllounds was apparent about him then, and his face was a horrid spectacle for a man to be forced to see. A froth foamed over his hanging lower lip.

“Cap, I ain’t trustin’ you with a gun just this particular minute,” said Wade.

Folsom then bawled his curses to his comrades.

“ —— ! Kill him! Throw your guns an’ bore him — right in them bulgin’ eyes!... I’m tellin’ you — we’ve gotta fight, anyhow. We’re agoin’ to cash right hyar. But kill him first!”

Neither of Folsom’s lieutenants yielded to the fierce exhortation of their leader or to their own evilly expressed passions. It was Wade who dominated them. Then ensued a silence fraught with suspense, growing more charged every long instant. The balance here seemed about to be struck.

“Wade, I’ve been a gambler all my life, an’ a damn smart one, if I do say it myself,” declared the rustler leader, his voice inharmonious with the facetiousness of his words. “An’ I’ll make a last bet.”

“Go ahead, Cap. What’ll you bet?” answered the cold voice, still gentle, but different now in its inflection.

“By Gawd! I’ll bet all the gold hyar that Hell-Bent Wade wouldn’t shoot any man in the back!”

“You win!”

Slowly and stiffly the rustler rose to his feet. When he reached his height he deliberately swung his leg to kick Belllounds in the face.

“Thar! I’d like to have a reckonin’ with you, Buster Jack,” he said. “I ain’t dealin’ the cards hyar. But somethin’ tells me thet, shaky as I am in my boots, I’d liefer be in mine than yours.”

With that, and expelling a heavy breath, he wrestled around to confront the hunter.

“Wade. I’ve no hunch to your game, but it’s slower’n I recollect you.”

“Why, Cap, I was in a talkin’ humor,” replied Wade.

“Hell! You’re up to some dodge. What’d you care fer my learnin’ thet pup had double-crossed me? You won’t let me kill him.”

“I reckon I wanted him to learn what real men thought of him.”

“Ahuh! Wal, an’ now I’ve onlightened him, what’s the next deal?”

“You’ll all go to Kremmlin’ with me an’ I’ll turn you over to Sheriff Burley.”

That was the gauntlet thrown down by Wade. It was not unexpected, and acceptance seemed a relief. Folsom’s eyeballs became living fire with the desperate gleam of the reckless chances of life. Cutthroat he might have been, but he was brave, and he proved the significance of Wade’s attitude.

“Pards, hyar’s to luck!” he rang out, hoarsely, and with pantherish quickness he leaped for his gun.

A tense, surcharged instant — then all four men, as if released by some galvanized current of rapidity, flashed into action. Guns boomed in unison. Spurts of red, clouds of smoke, ringing reports, and hoarse cries filled the cabin. Wade had fired as he leaped. There was a thudding patter of lead upon the walls. The hunter flung himself prostrate behind the bough framework that had served as bedstead. It was made of spruce boughs, thick and substantial. Wade had not calculated falsely in estimating it as a bulwark of defense. Pulling his second gun, he peeped from behind the covert.

Smoke was lifting, and drifting out of door and windows. The atmosphere cleared. Belllounds sagged against the wall, pallid, with protruding eyes of horror on the scene before him. The dark-skinned little man lay writhing. All at once a tremor stilled his convulsions. His body relaxed limply. As if by magic his hand loosened on the smoking gun. Folsom was on his knees, reeling and swaying, waving his gun, peering like a drunken man for some lost object. His temple appeared half shot away, a bloody and horrible sight.

“Pards, I got him!” he said, in strange, half-strangled whisper. “I got him!... Hell-Bent Wade! My respects! I’ll meet you — thar!”

His reeling motion brought his gaze in line with Belllounds. The violence of his start sent drops of blood flying from his gory temple.

“Ahuh! The cards run — my way. Belllounds, hyar’s to your — lyin’ eyes!”

The gun wavered and trembled and circled. Folsom strained in last terrible effort of will to aim it straight. He fired. The bullet tore hair from Belllounds’s head, but missed him. Again the rustler aimed, and the gun wavered and shook. He pulled trigger. The hammer clicked upon an empty chamber. With low and gurgling cry of baffled rage Folsom dropped the gun and sank face forward, slowly stretching out.

The red-bearded rustler had leaped behind the stone chimney that all but hid his body. The position made it difficult for him to shoot because his gun-hand was on the inside, and he had to press his body tight to squeeze it behind the corner of ragged stone. Wade had the advantage. He was lying prone with his right hand round the corner of the framework. An overhang of the bough-ends above protected his head when he peeped out. While he watched for a chance to shoot he loaded his empty gun with his left hand. The rustler strained and writhed his body, twisting his neck, and suddenly darting out his head and arm, he shot. His bullet tore the overhang of boughs above Wade’s face. And Wade’s answering shot, just a second too late, chipped the stone corner where the rustler’s face had flashed out. The bullet, glancing, hummed out of the window. It was a close shave. The rustler let out a hissing, inarticulate cry. He was trapped. In his effort to press in closer he projected his left elbow beyond the corner of the chimney. Wade’s quick shot shattered his arm.

There was no asking or offering of quarter here. This was the old feud of the West — of the vicious and the righteous in strife — both reared in the same stern school. The rustler gave his body such contortion that he was twisted almost clear around, with his right hand over his left shoulder. He punched the muzzle of his gun into a crack between two stones, and he pried to open them. The dry clay cement crumbled, the crack widened. Sighting along the barrel he aimed it with the narrow strip of Wades shoulder that was visible above the framework. Then he shot and hit. Wade shrank flatter and closer, hiding himself to better advantage. The rustler made his great blunder then, for in that moment he might have rushed out and killed his adversary. But, instead, he shot again — another time — a third. And his heavy bullets tore and splintered the boughs dangerously close to the hunter’s head. Then came an awkward, almost hopeless task for the rustler, in maintaining his position while reloading his gun. He did it, and his panting attested to the labor and pain it cost him.

So much, in fact, that he let his knee protrude. Wade fired, breaking that knee. The rustler sagged in his tracks, his hip stuck out to afford a target for the remorseless Wade. Still the doomed man did not cry out, though it was evident that he could not now keep his body from sagging into sight of the hunter. Then with a desperate courage worthy of a better cause, and with a spirit great in its defeat, the rustler plunged out from his hiding-place, gun extended. His red beard, his gaunt face, fierce and baleful, his wabbling plunge that was really a fall, made a sight which was terrible. He hopped out of that fall. His gun began to blaze. But it only matched the blazes of Wade’s. And the rustler pitched headlong over the framework, falling heavily against the wall beyond.

Then there was silence for a long moment. Wade stirred, as if to look around. Belllounds also stirred, and gulped, as if to breathe. The three prostrate rustlers lay inert, their positions singularly tragic and settled. The smoke again began to lift, to float out of the door and windows. In another moment the big room seemed less hazy.

Wade rose, not without effort, and he had a gun in each hand. Those hands were bloody; there was blood on his face, and his left shoulder was red. He approached Belllounds.

Wade was terrible then — terrible with a ruthlessness that was no pretense. To Belllounds it must have represented death — a bloody death which he was not prepared to meet.

“Come out of your trance, you pup rustler!” yelled Wade.

“For God’s sake, don’t kill me!” implored Belllounds, stricken with terror.

“Why not? Look around! My busy day, Buster!... An’ for that Cap Folsom it’s been ten years comin’.... I’m goin’ to shoot you in the belly an’ watch you get sick to your stomach!”

Belllounds, with whisper, and hands, and face, begged for his life in an abjectness of sheer panic.

“What!” roared the hunter. “Didn’t you know I come to kill you?”

“Yes — yes! I’ve seen — that. It’s awful!... I never harmed you.... Don’t kill me! Let me live, Wade. I swear to God I’ll — I’ll never do it again.... For dad’s sake — for Collie’s sake — don’t kill me!”

“I’m Hell-Bent Wade!... You wouldn’t listen to them — when they wanted to tell you who I am!”

Every word of Wade’s drove home to this boy the primal meaning of sudden death. It inspired him with an unutterable fear. That was what clamped his brow in a sweaty band and upreared his hair and rolled his eyeballs. His magnified intelligence, almost ghastly, grasped a hope in Wade’s apparent vacillation and in the utterance of the name of Columbine. Intuition, a subtle sense, inspired him to beg in that name.

“Swear you’ll give up Collie!” demanded Wade, brandishing his guns with bloody hands.

“Yes — yes! My God, I’ll do anything!” moaned Belllounds.

“Swear you’ll tell your father you’d had a change of heart. You’ll give Collie up!... Let Moore have her!”

“I swear!... But if you tell dad — I stole his cattle — he’ll do for me!”

“We won’t squeal that. I’ll save you if you give up the girl. Once more, Buster Jack — try an’ make me believe you’ll square the deal.”

Belllounds had lost his voice. But his mute, fluttering lips were infinite proof of the vow he could not speak. The boyishness, the stunted moral force, replaced the manhood in him then. He was only a factor in the lives of others, protected even from this Nemesis by the greatness of his father’s love.

“Get up, an’ take my scarf,” said Wade, “an’ bandage these bullet-holes I got.”

CHAPTER XVIII

WADE’S WOUNDS WERE not in any way serious, and with Belllounds’s assistance he got to the cabin of Lewis, where weakness from loss of blood made it necessary that he remain. Belllounds went home.

The next day Wade sent Lewis with pack-horse down to the rustler’s cabin, to bury the dead men and fetch back their effects. Lewis returned that night, accompanied by Sheriff Burley and two deputies, who had been busy on their own account. They had followed horse tracks from the water-hole under Gore Peak to the scene of the fight, and had arrived to find Lewis there. Burley had appropriated the considerable amount of gold, which he said could be identified by cattlemen who had bought the stolen cattle.

When opportunity afforded Burley took advantage of it to speak to Wade when the others were out of earshot.

“Thar was another man in thet cabin when the fight come off,” announced the sheriff. “An’ he come up hyar with you.”

“Jim, you’re locoed,” replied Wade.

The sheriff laughed, and his shrewd eyes had a kindly, curious gleam.

“Next you’ll be givin’ me a hunch thet you’re in a fever an’ out of your head.”

“Jim, I’m not as clear-headed as I might be.”

“Wal, tell me or not, jest as you like. I seen his tracks — follered them. An’ Wade, old pard, I’ve reckoned long ago thar’s a nigger in the wood-pile.”

“Sure. An’ you know me. I’d take it friendly of you to put Moore’s trial off fer a while — till I’m able to ride to Krernmlin’. Maybe then I can tell you a story.”

Burley threw up his hands in genuine apprehension. “Not much! You ain’t agoin’ to tell me no story!... But I’ll wait on you, an’ welcome. Reckon I owe you a good deal on this rustler round-up. Wade, thet must have been a man-sized fight, even fer you. I picked up twenty-six empty shells. An’ the little half-breed had one empty shell an’ five loaded ones in his gun. You must have got him quick. Hey?”

“Jim, I’m observin’ you’re a heap more curious than ever, an’ you always was an inquisitive cuss,” complained Wade. “I don’t recollect what happened.”

“Wal, wal, have it your own way,” replied Burley, with good nature. “Now, Wade, I’ll pitch camp hyar in the park to-night, an’ to-morrer I’ll ride down to White Slides on my way to Kremmlin’. What’re you wantin’ me to tell Belllounds?”

The hunter pondered a moment.

“Reckon it’s just as well that you tell him somethin’.... You can say the rustlers are done for an’ that he’ll get his stock back. I’d like you to tell him that the rustlers were more to blame than Wils Moore. Just say that an’ nothin’ else about Wils. Don’t mention about your suspectin’ there was another man around when the fight come off.... Tell the cowboys that I’ll be down in a few days. An’ if you happen to get a chance for a word alone with Miss Collie, just say I’m not bad hurt an’ that all will be well.”

“Ahuh!” Burley grunted out the familiar exclamation. He did not say any more then, but he gazed thoughtfully down upon the pale hunter, as if that strange individual was one infinitely to respect, but never to comprehend.

Wade’s wounds healed quickly; nevertheless, it was more than several days before he felt spirit enough to undertake the ride. He had to return to White Slides, but he was reluctant to do so. Memory of Jack Belllounds dragged at him, and when he drove it away it continually returned. This feeling was almost equivalent to an augmentation of his gloomy foreboding, which ever hovered on the fringe of his consciousness. But one morning he started early, and, riding very slowly, with many rests, he reached the Sage Valley cabin before sunset. Moore saw him coming, yelled his delight and concern, and almost lifted him off the horse. Wade was too tired to talk much, but he allowed himself to be fed and put to bed and worked over.

“Boot’s on the other foot now, pard,” said Moore, with delight at the prospect of returning service. “Say, you’re all shot up! And it’s I who’ll be nurse!”

“Wils, I’ll be around to-morrow,” replied the hunter. “Have you heard any news from down below?”

“Sure. I’ve met Lem every night.”

Then he related Burley’s version of Wade’s fight with the rustlers in the cabin. From the sheriff’s lips the story gained much. Old Bill Belllounds had received the news in a singular mood; he offered no encomiums to the victor; contrary to his usual custom of lauding every achievement of labor or endurance, he now seemed almost to regret the affray. Jack Belllounds had returned from Kremmling and he was present when Burley brought news of the rustlers. What he thought none of the cowboys vouchsafed to say, but he was drunk the next day, and he lost a handful of gold to them. Never had he gambled so recklessly. Indeed, it was as if he hated the gold he lost. Little had been seen of Columbine, but little was sufficient to make the cowboys feel concern.

Wade made scarcely any comment upon this news from the ranch; next day, however, he was up, and caring for himself, and he told Moore about the fight and how he had terrorized Belllounds and exhorted the promises from him.

“Never in God’s world will Buster Jack live up to those promises!” cried Moore, with absolute conviction. “I know him, Ben. He meant them when he made them. He’d swear his soul away — then next day he’d lie or forget or betray.”

“I’m not believin’ that till I know,” replied the hunter, gloomily. “But I’m afraid of him.... I’ve known bad men to change. There’s a grain of good in all men — somethin’ divine. An’ it comes out now an’ then. Men rise on steppin’-stones of their dead selves to higher things!... This is Belllounds’s chance for the good in him. If it’s not there he will do as you say. If it is — that scare he had will be the turnin’-point in his life. I’m hopin’, but I’m afraid.”

“Ben, you wait and see,” said Moore, earnestly. “Heaven knows I’m not one to lose hope for my fellowmen — hope for the higher things you’ve taught me.... But human nature is human nature. Jack can’t give Collie up, just the same as I can’t. That’s self-preservation as well as love.”

The day came when Wade walked down to White Slides. There seemed to be a fever in his blood, which he tried to convince himself was a result of his wounds instead of the condition of his mind. It was Sunday, a day of sunshine and squall, of azure-blue sky, and great, sailing, purple clouds. The sage of the hills glistened and there was a sweetness in the air.

The cowboys made much of Wade. But the old rancher, seeing him from the porch, abruptly went into the house. No one but Wade noticed this omission of courtesy. Directly, Columbine appeared, waving her hand, and running to meet him.

“Dad saw you. He told me to come out and excuse him.... Oh, Ben, I’m so happy to see you! You don’t look hurt at all. What a fight you had!... Oh, I was sick! But let me forget that.... How are you? And how’s Wils?”

Thus she babbled until out of breath.

“Collie, it’s sure good to see you,” said Wade, feeling the old, rich thrill at her presence. “I’m comin’ on tolerable well. I wasn’t bad hurt, but I bled a lot. An’ I reckon I’m older ‘n I was when packin’ gun-shot holes was nothin’. Every year tells. Only a man doesn’t know till after.... An’ how are you, Collie?”

Her blue eyes clouded, and a tremor changed the expression of her sweet lips.

“I am unhappy, Ben,” she said. “But what could we expect? It might be worse. For instance, you might have been killed. I’ve much to be thankful for.”

“I reckon so. We all have.... I fetched a message from Wils, but I oughtn’t tell it.”

“Please do,” she begged, wistfully.

“Well, Wils says, tell Collie I love her every day more an’ more, an’ that my love keeps up my courage an’ my belief in God, an’ if she ever marries Jack Belllounds she can come up to visit my grave among the columbines on the hill.”

Strange how Wade experienced comfort in thus torturing her! She was rosy at the beginning of his speech and white at its close. “Oh, it’s true! it’s true!” she whispered. “It’ll kill him, as it will me!”

“Cheer up, Columbine,” said Wade. “It’s a long time till August thirteenth.... An’ now tell me, why did Old Bill run when he saw me comin’?”

“Ben, I suspect dad has the queerest notion you want to tell him some awful bloody story about the rustlers.”

“Ahuh! Well, not yet.... An’ how’s Jack Belllounds actin’ these days?”

Wade felt the momentousness of that query, but it seemed her face had been telltale enough, without confirmation of words.

“My friend, somehow I hate to tell you. You’re always so hopeful, so ready to think good instead of evil.... But Jack has been rough with me, almost brutal. He was drunk once. Every day he drinks, sometimes a little, sometimes more. But drink changes him. And it’s dragging dad down. Dad doesn’t say so, yet I feel he’s afraid of what will come next.... Jack has nagged me to marry him right off. He wanted to the day he came back from Kremmling. He’s eager to leave White Slides. Dad knows that, also, and it worries him. But of course I refused.”

The presence of Columbine, so vivid and sweet and stirring, and all about her the sunlight, the golden gleams on the sage hills, and Wade’s heart and brain and spirit sustained a subtle transformation. It was as if what had been beautiful with light had suddenly, strangely darkened. Then Wade imagined he stood alone in a gloomy house, which was his own heart, and he was listening to the arrival of a tragic messenger whose foot sounded heavy on the stairs, whose hand turned slowly upon the knob, whose gray presence opened the door and crossed the threshold.

“Buster Jack didn’t break off with you, Collie?” asked the hunter.

“Break off with me!... No, indeed! Whatever possessed you to say that?”

“An’ he didn’t offer to give you up to Wils Moore?”

“Ben, are you crazy?” cried Columbine.

“Collie; listen. I’ll tell you.” The old urge knocked at Wade’s mind. “Buster Jack was in the cabin, gamblin’ with the rustlers, when I cornered them. You remember I meant to scare Buster Jack within an inch of his life? Well, I made use of my opportunity. I worked up the rustlers. Then I told Jack I’d give away his secret. He made to jump an’ run, I reckon. But he hadn’t the nerve. I shot a piece out of his ear, just to begin the fun. An’ then I told the rustlers how Jack had double-crossed them. Folsom, the boss rustler, roared like a mad steer. He was wild to kill Jack. He begged for a gun to shoot out Jack’s eyes. An’ so were the other rustlers burnin’ to kill him. Bad outfit. There was a fight, which, I’m bound to confess, was not short an’ sweet. There was a lot of shootin’. An’ in a cabin gun-shots almost lift the roof. Folsom was on his knees, dyin’, wavin’ his gun, whisperin’ in fiendish glee that he had done for me. When he saw Jack an’ remembered he shook so with fury that he scattered blood all over. An’ he took long aim at Jack, tryin’ to steady his gun. He couldn’t, an’ he missed, an’ then fell over dead with his head on Jack’s knees. That left the red-bearded rustler, who had hid behind the chimney. Jack watched the rest of that fight, an’ for a youngster it must have been nerve-rackin’. I broke the rustler’s arm, an’ then his knee, an’ then I got him in the hip two more times before he hobbled out to his finish. He’d shot me up considerable, so that when I braced Jack I must have been a hair-raisin’ sight. I made Jack believe I meant to murder him. He begged an’ cried, an’ he got to prayin’ for his life for your sake. It was sickenin’, but it was what I wanted. So then I made him swear he’d free you an’ give you up to Moore.”

“Oh! Oh, Ben, how awful!” whispered Columbine, shuddering. “How could you tell me such a horrible story?”

“Reckon I wanted you to know how Jack come to make the promises an’ what they were.”

“Promises! What are promises or oaths to Jack Belllounds?” she cried, in passionate contempt. “You wasted your breath. Coward — liar that he is!”

“Ahuh!” Wade looked straight ahead of him as if he saw some expected and unpleasant thing far in the distance. Then with irresistible steps, neither swift nor slow, but ponderous, he strode to the porch and mounted the steps.

“Why, Ben, where are you going?” called Columbine, in surprise, as she followed him.

He did not answer. He approached the closed door of the living-room.

“Ben!” cried Columbine, in alarm.

But he had no reply for her — indeed, no thought of her. Without knocking, he opened the door with rude and powerful hand, and, striding in, closed it after him.

Bill Belllounds was standing, back against the great stone chimney, arms folded, a stolid and grim figure, apparently fortified against an intrusion he had expected.

“Wal, what do you want?” he asked, gruffly. He had sensed catastrophe in the first sight of the hunter.

“Belllounds, I reckon I want a hell of a lot,” replied Wade. “An’ I’m askin’ you to see we’re not disturbed.”

“Bar the door.”

Wade dropped the bar in place, and then, removing his sombrero, he wiped his moist brow.

“Do you see an enemy in me?” he asked, curiously.

“Speakin’ out fair, Wade, there ain’t any reason I can see that you’re an enemy to me,” replied Belllounds. “But I feel somethin’. It ain’t because I’m takin’ my son’s side. It’s more than that. A queer feelin’, an’ one I never had before. I got it first when you told the story of the Gunnison feud.”

“Belllounds, we can’t escape our fates. An’ it was written long ago I was to tell you a worse an’ harder story than that.”

“Wal, mebbe I’ll listen an’ mebbe I won’t. I ain’t promisin’, these days.”

“Are you goin’ to make Collie marry Jack?” demanded the hunter.

“She’s willin’.”

“You know that’s not true. Collie’s willin’ to sacrifice love, honor, an’ life itself, to square her debt to you.”

The old rancher flushed a burning red, and in his eyes flared a spirit of earlier years.

“Wade, you can go too far,” he warned. “I’m appreciatin’ your good-heartedness. It sort of warms me toward you.... But this is my business. You’ve no call to interfere. You’ve done that too much already. An’ I’m reckonin’ Collie would be married to Jack now if it hadn’t been for you.”

“Ahuh!... That’s why I’m thankin’ God I happened along to White Slides. Belllounds, your big mistake is thinkin’ your son is good enough for this girl. An’ you’re makin’ mistakes about me. I’ve interfered here, an’ you may take my word for it I had the right.”

“Strange talk, Wade, but I’ll make allowances.”

“You needn’t. I’ll back my talk.... But, first, I’m askin’ you — an’ if this talk hurts, I’m sorry — why don’t you give some of your love for your no-good Buster Jack to Collie?”

Belllounds clenched his huge fists and glared. Anger leaped within him. He recognized in Wade an outspoken, bitter adversary to his cherished hopes for his son and his stubborn, precious pride.

“By Heaven! Wade, I’ll—”

“Belllounds, I can make you swallow that kind of talk,” interrupted Wade. “It’s man to man now. An’ I’m a match for you any day. Savvy?... Do you think I’m damn fool enough to come here an’ brace you unless I knew that. Talk to me as you’d talk about some other man’s son.”

“It ain’t possible,” rejoined the rancher, stridently.

“Then listen to me first.... Your son Jack, to say the least, will ruin Collie. Do you see that?”

“By Gawd! I’m afraid so,” groaned Belllounds, big in his humiliation. “But it’s my one last bet, an’ I’m goin’ to play it.”

“Do you know marryin’ him will kill her?”

“What!... You’re overdoin’ your fears, Wade. Women don’t die so easy.”

“Some of them die, an’ Collie’s one that will, if she ever marries Jack.”

“If!... Wal, she’s goin’ to.”

“We don’t agree,” said Wade, curtly.

“Are you runnin’ my family?”

“No. But I’m runnin’ a large-sized if in this game. You’ll admit that presently.... Belllounds, you make me mad. You don’t meet me man to man. You’re not the Bill Belllounds of old. Why, all over this state of Colorado you’re known as the whitest of the white. Your name’s a byword for all that’s square an’ big an’ splendid. But you’re so blinded by your worship of that wild boy that you’re another man in all pertainin’ to him. I don’t want to harp on his short-comm’s. I’m for the girl. She doesn’t love him. She can’t. She will only drag herself down an’ die of a broken heart.... Now, I’m askin’ you, before it’s too late — give up this marriage.”

“Wade! I’ve shot men for less than you’ve said!” thundered the rancher, beside himself with rage and shame.

“Ahuh! I reckon you have. But not men like me.... I tell you, straight to your face, it’s a fool deal you’re workin’ — a damn selfish one — a dirty job, to put on an innocent, sweet girl — an’ as sure as you stand there, if you do it, you’ll ruin four lives!”

“Four!” exclaimed Belllounds. But any word would have expressed his humiliation.

“I should have said three, leavin’ Jack out. I meant Collie’s an’ yours an’ Wils Moore’s.”

“Moore’s is about ruined already, I’ve a hunch.”

“You can get hunches you never dreamed of, Belllounds, old as you are. An’ I’ll give you one presently.... But we drift off. Can’t you keep cool?”

“Cool! With you rantin’ hell-bent for election? Haw! Raw!... Wade, you’re locoed. You always struck me queer.... An’ if you’ll excuse me, I’m gettin’ tired of this talk. We’re as far apart as the poles. An’ to save what good feelin’s we both have, let’s quit.”

“You don’t love Collie, then?” queried Wade, imperturbably.

“Yes, I do. That’s a fool idee of yours. It puts me out of patience.”

“Belllounds, you’re not her real father.”

The rancher gave a start, and he stared as he had stared before, fixedly and perplexedly at Wade.

“No, I’m not.”

“If she were your real daughter — your own flesh an’ blood — an’ Jack Belllounds was my son, would you let her marry him?”

“Wal, Wade, I reckon I wouldn’t.”

“Then how can you expect my consent to her marriage with your son?”

“WHAT!” Belllounds lunged over to Wade, leaned down, shaken by overwhelming amaze.

“Collie is my daughter!”

A loud expulsion of breath escaped Belllounds. Lower he leaned, and looked with piercing gaze into the face and eyes that in this moment bore strange resemblance to Columbine.

“So help me Gawd!... That’s the secret?... Hell-Bent Wade! An’ you’ve been on my trail!”

He staggered to his big chair and fell into it. No trace of doubt showed in his face. The revelation had struck home because of its very greatness.

Wade took the chair opposite. His likeness to Columbine had faded now. It had been love, a spirit, a radiance, a glory. It was gone. And Wade’s face became the emblem of tragedy.

“Listen, Belllounds. I’ll tell you!... The ways of God are inscrutable. I’ve been twenty years tryin’ to atone for the wrong I did Collie’s mother. I’ve been a prospector for the trouble of others. I’ve been a bearer of their burdens. An’ if I can save Collie’s happiness an’ her soul, I reckon I won’t be denied the peace of meetin’ her mother in the other world.... I recognized Collie the moment I laid eyes on her. She favors her mother in looks, an’ she has her mother’s sensitiveness, her fire an’ pride, an’ she even has her voice. It’s low an’ sweet — alto, they used to call it.... But I’d recognized Collie as my own if I’d been blind an’ deaf.... It’s over eighteen years ago that we had the trouble. I was no boy, but I was terribly in love with Lucy. An’ she loved me with a passion I never learned till too late. We came West from Missouri. She was born in Texas. I had a rovin’ disposition an’ didn’t stick long at any kind of work. But I was lookin’ for a ranch. My wife had some money an’ I had high hopes. We spent our first year of married life travelin’ through Kansas. At Dodge I got tied up for a while. You know, in them days Dodge was about the wildest camp on the plains. My wife’s brother run a place there. He wasn’t much good. But she thought he was perfect. Strange how blood-relations can’t see the truth about their own people! Anyway, her brother Spencer had no use for me, because I could tell how slick he was with the cards an’ beat him at his own game. Spencer had a gamblin’ pard, a cowboy run out of Texas, one Cap Fol — But no matter about his name. One night they were fleecin’ a stranger an’ I broke into the game, winnin’ all they had. The game ended in a fight, with bloodshed, but nobody killed. That set Spencer an’ his pard Cap against me. The stranger was a planter from Louisiana. He’d been an officer in the rebel army. A high-strung, handsome Southerner, fond of wine an’ cards an’ women. Well, he got to payin’ my wife a good deal of attention when I was away, which happened to be often. She never told me. I was jealous those days.

“My little girl you call Columbine was born there durin’ a long absence of mine. When I got home Lucy an’ the baby were gone. Also the Southerner!... Spencer an’ his pard Cap, an’ others they had in the deal, proved to me, so it seemed, that the little girl was not really mine!... An’ so I set out on a hunt for my wife an’ her lover. I found them. An’ I killed him before her eyes. But she was innocent, an’ so was he, as came out too late. He’d been, indeed, her friend. She scorned me. She told me how her brother Spencer an’ his friends had established guilt of mine that had driven her from me.

“I went back to Dodge to have a little quiet smoke with these men who had ruined me. They were gone. The trail led to Colorado. Nearly a year later I rounded them all up in a big wagon-train post north of Denver. Another brother of my wife’s, an’ her father, had come West, an’ by accident or fate we all met there. We had a family quarrel. My wife would not forgive me — would not speak to me, an’ her people backed her up. I made the great mistake to take her father an’ other brothers to belong to the same brand as Spencer. In this I wronged them an’ her.

“What I did to them, Belllounds, is one story I’ll never tell to any man who might live to repeat it. But it drove my wife near crazy. An’ it made me Hell-Bent Wade!... She ran off from me there, an’ I trailed her all over Colorado. An’ the end of that trail was not a hundred miles from where we stand now. The last trace I had was of the burnin’ of a prairie-schooner by Arapahoes as they were goin’ home from a foray on the Utes.... The little girl might have toddled off the trail. But I reckon she was hidden or dropped by her mother, or some one fleein’ for life. Your men found her in the columbines.”

Belllounds drew a long, deep breath.

“What a man never expects always comes true.... Wade, the lass is yours. I can see it in the way you look at me. I can feel it.... She’s been like my own. I’ve done my best, accordin’ to my conscience. An’ I’ve loved her, for all they say I couldn’t see aught but Jack.... You’ll take her away from me?”

“No. Never,” was the melancholy reply.

“What! Why not?”

“Because she loves you.... I could never reveal myself to Collie. I couldn’t win her love with a lie. An’ I’d have to lie, to be false as hell.... False to her mother an’ to Collie an’ to all I hold high! I’d have to tell Collie the truth — the wrong I did her mother — the hell I visited upon her mother’s people.... She’d fear me.”

“Ahuh!... An’ you’ll never change — I reckon that!” exclaimed Belllounds.

“No. I changed once, eighteen years ago. I can’t go back.... I can’t undo all I hoped was good.”

“You think Collie’d fear you?”

“She’d never love me as she does you, or as she loves me even now. That is my rock of refuge.”

“She’d hate you, Wade.”

“I reckon. An’ so she must never know.”

“Ahuh!... Wal, wal, life is a hell of a deal! Wade, if you could live yours over again, knowin’ what you know now, an’ that you’d love an’ suffer the same — would you want to do it?”

“Yes. I love life, with all it brings. I wouldn’t have the joy without the pain. But I reckon only men who’ve come to our years would want it over again.”

“Wal, I’m with you thar. I’d take what came. Rain an’ sun!... But all this you tell, an’ the hell you hint at, ain’t changin’ this hyar deal of Jack’s an’ Collie’s. Not one jot!... If she remains my adopted daughter she marries my son.... Wade, I’m haltered like the north star in that.”

“Belllounds, will you take a day to think it over?” appealed Wade.

“Ahuh! But that won’t change me.”

“Won’t it change you to know that if you force this marriage you’ll lose all?”

“All! Ain’t that more queer talk?”

“I mean lose all — your son, your adopted daughter — his chance of reformin’, her hope of happiness. These ought to be all in life left to you.”

“Wal, they are. But I can’t see your argument. You’re beyond me, Wade. You’re holdin’ back, like you did with your hell-bent story.”

Ponderously, as if the burden and the doom of the world weighed him down, the hunter got up and fronted Belllounds.

“When I’m driven to tell I’ll come.... But, once more, old man, choose between generosity an’ selfishness. Between blood tie an’ noble loyalty to your good deed in its beginnin’.... Will you give up this marriage for your son — so that Collie can have the man she loves?”

“You mean your young pard an’ two-bit of a rustler — Wils Moore?”

“Wils Moore, yes. My friend, an’ a man, Belllounds, such as you or I never was.”

“No!” thundered the rancher, purple in the face.

With bowed head and dragging step Wade left the room.

By slow degrees of plodding steps, and periods of abstracted lagging, the hunter made his way back to Moore’s cabin. At his entrance the cowboy leaped up with a startled cry.

“Oh, Wade!... Is Collie dead?” he cried.

Such was the extent of calamity he imagined from the somber face of Wade.

“No. Collie’s well.”

“Then, man, what on earth’s happened?”

“Nothin’ yet.... But somethin’ is goin’ on in my mind.... Moore, I’d like you to let me alone.”

At sunset Wade was pacing the aspen grove on the hill. There was sunlight and shade under the trees, a rosy gold on the sage slopes, a purple-and-violet veil between the black ranges and the sinking sun.

Twilight fell. The stars came out white and clear. Night cloaked the valley with dark shadows and the hills with its obscurity. The blue vault overhead deepened and darkened. The hunter patrolled his beat, and hours were moments to him. He heard the low hum of the insects, the murmur of running water, the rustle of the wind. A coyote cut the keen air with high-keyed, staccato cry. The owls hooted, with dismal and weird plaint, one to the other. Then a wolf mourned. But these sounds only accentuated the loneliness and wildness of the silent night.

Wade listened to them, to the silence. He felt the wildness and loneliness of the place, the breathing of nature; he peered aloft at the velvet blue of the mysterious sky with its deceiving stars. All that had been of help to him through days of trial was now as if it had never been. When he lifted his eyes to the great, dark peak, so bold and clear-cut against the sky, it was not to receive strength again. Nature in its cruelty mocked him. His struggle had to do with the most perfect of nature’s works — man.

Wade was now in passionate strife with the encroaching mood that was a mocker of his idealism. Many times during the strange, long martyrdom of his penance had he faced this crisis, only to go down to defeat before elemental instincts. His soul was steeped in gloom, but his intelligence had not yet succumbed to passion. The beauty of Columbine’s character and the nobility of Moore’s were not illusions to Wade. They were true. These two were of the finest fiber of human nature. They loved. They represented youth and hope — a progress through the ages toward a better race. Wade believed in the good to be, in the future of men. Nevertheless, all that was fine and worthy in Columbine and Moore was to go unrewarded, unfulfilled, because of the selfish pride of an old man and the evil passion of the son. It was a conflict as old as life. Of what avail were Columbine’s high sense of duty, Moore’s fine manhood, the many victories they had won over the headlong and imperious desires of love? What avail were Wade’s good offices, his spiritual teaching, his eternal hope in the order of circumstances working out to good? These beautiful characteristics of virtue were not so strong as the unchangeable passion of old Belllounds and the vicious depravity of his son. Wade could not imagine himself a god, proving that the wages of sin was death. Yet in his life he had often been an impassive destiny, meting out terrible consequences. Here he was incalculably involved. This was the cumulative end of years of mounting plots, tangled and woven into the web of his pain and his remorse and his ideal. But hope was dying. That was his strife-realization against the morbid clairvoyance of his mind. He could not help Jack Belllounds to be a better man. He could not inspire the old rancher to a forgetfulness of selfish and blinded aims. He could not prove to Moore the truth of the reward that came from unflagging hope and unassailable virtue. He could not save Columbine with his ideals.

The night wore on, and Wade plodded under the rustling aspens. The insects ceased to hum, the owls to hoot, the wolves to mourn. The shadows of the long spruces gradually merged into the darkness of night. Above, infinitely high, burned the pale stars, wise and cold, aloof and indifferent, eyes of other worlds of mystery.

In those night hours something in Wade died, but his idealism, unquenchable and inexplicable, the very soul of the man, saw its justification and fulfilment in the distant future.

The gray of the dawn stole over the eastern range, and before its opaque gloom the blackness of night retreated, until valley and slope and grove were shrouded in spectral light, where all seemed unreal.

And with it the gray-gloomed giant of Wade’s mind, the morbid and brooding spell, had gained its long-encroaching ascendancy. He had again found the man to whom he must tell his story. Tragic and irrevocable decree! It was his life that forced him, his crime, his remorse, his agony, his endless striving. How true had been his steps! They had led, by devious and tortuous paths, to the home of his daughter.

Wade crouched under the aspens, accepting this burden as a man being physically loaded with tremendous weights. His shoulders bent to them. His breast was sunken and labored. All his muscles were cramped. His blood flowed sluggishly. His heart beat with slow, muffled throbs in his ears. There was a creeping cold in his veins, ice in his marrow, and death in his soul. The giant that had been shrouded in gray threw off his cloak, to stand revealed, black and terrible. And it was he who spoke to Wade, in dreadful tones, like knells. Bent Wade — man of misery — who could find no peace on earth — whose presence unknit the tranquil lives of people and poisoned their blood and marked them for doom! Wherever he wandered there followed the curse! Always this had been so. He was the harbinger of catastrophe. He who preached wisdom and claimed to be taught by the flowers, who loved life and hated injustice, who mingled with his kind, ever searching for that one who needed him, he must become the woe and the bane and curse of those he would only serve! Insupportable and pitiful fate! The fiends of the past mocked him, like wicked ghouls, voiceless and dim. The faces of the men he had killed were around him in the gray gloom, pale, drifting visages of distortion, accusing him, claiming him. Likewise, these gleams of faces were specters of his mind, a procession eternal, mournful, and silent, wending their way on and on through the regions of his thought. All were united, all drove him, all put him on the trail of catastrophe. They foreshadowed the future, they inclosed events, they lured him with his endless illusions. He was in the vortex of a vast whirlpool, not of water or of wind, but of life. Alas! he seemed indeed the very current of that whirlpool, a monstrous force, around which evil circled and lurked and conquered. Wade — who had the ill-omened croak of the raven — Wade — who bent his driven steps toward hell!

In the brilliant sunlight of the summer morning Wade bent his resistless steps down toward White Slides Ranch. The pendulum had swung. The hours were propitious. Seemingly, events that already cast their shadows waited for him. He saw Jack Belllounds going out on the fast and furious ride which had become his morning habit.

Columbine intercepted Wade. The shade of woe and tragedy in her face were the same as he had pictured there in his gloomy vigil of the night.

“My friend, I was coming to you.... Oh, I can bear no more!”

Her hair was disheveled, her dress disordered, the hands she tremblingly held out bore discolored marks. Wade led her into the seclusion of the willow trail.

“Oh, Ben!... He fought me — like — a beast!” she panted.

“Collie, you needn’t tell me more,” said Wade, gently. “Go up to Wils. Tell him.”

“But I must tell you. I can bear — no more.... He fought me — hurt me — and when dad heard us — and came — Jack lied.... Oh, the dog!... Ben, his father believed — when Jack swore he was only mad — only trying to shake me — for my indifference and scorn.... But, my God! — Jack meant....”

“Collie, go up to Wils,” interposed the hunter.

“I want to see Wils. I need to — I must. But I’m afraid.... Oh, it will make things worse!”

“Go!”

She turned away, actuated by more than her will.

“Collie!” came the call, piercingly and strangely after her. Bewildered, startled by the wildness of that cry, she wheeled. But Wade was gone. The shaking of the willows attested to his hurry.

Old Belllounds braced his huge shoulders against the wall in the attitude of a man driven to his last stand.

“Ahuh!” he rolled, sonorously. “So hyar you are again?... Wal, tell your worst, Hell-Bent Wade, an’ let’s have an end to your croakin’.”

Belllounds had fortified himself, not with convictions or with illusions, but with the last desperate courage of a man true to himself.

“I’ll tell you....” began the hunter.

And the rancher threw up his hands in a mockery that was furious, yet with outward shrinking.

“Just now, when Buster Jack fought with Collie, he meant bad by her!”

“Aw, no!... He was jest rude — tryin’ to be masterful.... An’ the lass’s like a wild filly. She needs a tamin’ down.”

Wade stretched forth a lean and quivering hand that seemed the symbol of presaged and tragic truth.

“Listen, Belllounds, an’ I’ll tell you.... No use tryin’ to hatch a rotten egg! There’s no good in your son. His good intentions he paraded for virtues, believin’ himself that he’d changed. But a flip of the wind made him Buster Jack again.... Collie would sacrifice her life for duty to you — whom she loves as her father. Wils Moore sacrificed his honor for Collie — rather than let you learn the truth.... But they call me Hell-Bent Wade, an’ I will tell you!”

The straining hulk of Belllounds crouched lower, as if to gather impetus for a leap. Both huge hands were outspread as if to ward off attack from an unseen but long-dreaded foe. The great eyes rolled. And underneath the terror and certainty and tragedy of his appearance seemed to surge the resistless and rising swell of a dammed-up, terrible rage.

“I’ll tell you ...” went on the remorseless voice. “I watched your Buster Jack. I watched him gamble an’ drink. I trailed him. I found the little circles an’ the crooked horse tracks — made to trap Wils Moore.... A damned cunnin’ trick!... Burley suspects a nigger in the wood-pile. Wils Moore knows the truth. He lied for Collie’s sake an’ yours. He’d have stood the trial — an’ gone to jail to save Collie from what she dreaded.... Belllounds, your son was in the cabin gamblin’ with the rustlers when I cornered them.... I offered to keep Jack’s secret if he’d swear to give Collie up. He swore on his knees, beggin’ in her name!... An’ he comes back to bully her, an’ worse.... Buster Jack!... He’s the thorn in your heart, Belllounds. He’s the rustler who stole your cattle!... Your pet son — a sneakin’ thief!”

CHAPTER XIX

JACK BELLLOUNDS CAME riding down the valley trail. His horse was in a lather of sweat. Both hair and blood showed on the long spurs this son of a great pioneer used in his pleasure rides. He had never loved a horse.

At a point where the trail met the brook there were thick willow patches, with open, grassy spots between. As Belllounds reached this place a man stepped out of the willows and laid hold of the bridle. The horse shied and tried to plunge, but an iron arm held him.

“Get down, Buster,” ordered the man.

It was Wade.

Belllounds had given as sharp a start as his horse. He was sober, though the heated red tinge of his face gave indication of a recent use of the bottle. That color quickly receded. Events of the last month had left traces of the hardening and lowering of Jack Belllounds’s nature.

“Wha-at?... Let go of that bridle!” he ejaculated.

Wade held it fast, while he gazed up into the prominent eyes, where fear shone and struggled with intolerance and arrogance and quickening gleams of thought.

“You an’ I have somethin’ to talk over,” said the hunter.

Belllounds shrank from the low, cold, even voice, that evidently reminded him of the last time he had heard it.

“No, we haven’t,” he declared, quickly. He seemed to gather assurance with his spoken thought, and conscious fear left him. “Wade, you took advantage of me that day — when you made me swear things. I’ve changed my mind.... And as for that deal with the rustlers, I’ve got my story. It’s as good as yours. I’ve been waiting for you to tell my father. You’ve got some reason for not telling him. I’ve a hunch it’s Collie. I’m on to you, and I’ve got my nerve back. You can gamble I—”

He had grown excited when Wade interrupted him.

“Will you get off that horse?”

“No, I won’t,” replied Belllounds, bluntly.

With swift and powerful lunge Wade pulled Belllounds down, sliding him shoulders first into the grass. The released horse shied again and moved away. Buster Jack raised himself upon his elbow, pale with rage and alarm. Wade kicked him, not with any particular violence.

“Get up!” he ordered.

The kick had brought out the rage in Belllounds at the expense of the amaze and alarm.

“Did you kick me?” he shouted.

“Buster, I was only handin’ you a bunch of flowers — some columbines, as your taste runs,” replied Wade, contemptuously.

“I’ll — I’ll—” returned Buster Jack, wildly, bursting for expression. His hand went to his gun.

“Go ahead, Buster. Throw your gun on me. That’ll save maybe a hell of a lot of talk.”

It was then Jack Belllounds’s face turned livid. Comprehension had dawned upon him.

“You — you want me to fight you?” he queried, in hoarse accents.

“I reckon that’s what I meant.”

No affront, no insult, no blow could have affected Buster Jack as that sudden knowledge.

“Why — why — you’re crazy! Me fight you — a gunman,” he stammered. “No — no. It wouldn’t be fair. Not an even break!... No, I’d have no chance on earth!”

“I’ll give you first shot,” went on Wade, in his strange, monotonous voice.

“Bah! You’re lying to me,” replied Belllounds, with pale grimace. “You just want me to get a gun in my hand — then you’ll drop me, and claim an even break.”

“No. I’m square. You saw me play square with your rustler pard. He was a lifelong enemy of mine. An’ a gun-fighter to boot!... Pull your gun an’ let drive. I’ll take my chances.”

Buster Jack’s eyes dilated. He gasped huskily. He pulled his gun, but actually did not have strength or courage enough to raise it. His arm shook so that the gun rattled against his chaps.

“No nerve, hey? Not half a man!... Buster Jack, why don’t you finish game? Make up for your low-down tricks. At the last try to be worthy of your dad. In his day he was a real man.... Let him have the consolation that you faced Hell-Bent Wade an’ died in your boots!”

“I — can’t — fight you!” panted Belllounds. “I know now!... I saw you throw a gun! It wouldn’t be fair!”

“But I’ll make you fight me,” returned Wade, in steely tones. “I’m givin’ you a chance to dig up a little manhood. Askin’ you to meet me man to man! Handin’ you a little the best of it to make the odds even!... Once more, will you be game?”

“Wade, I’ll not fight — I’m going—” replied Belllounds, and he moved as if to turn.

“Halt!...” Wade leaped at the white Belllounds. “If you run I’ll break a leg for you — an’ then I’ll beat your miserable brains out!... Have you no sense? Can’t you recognize what’s comin’?... I’m goin’ to kill you, Buster Jack!”

“My God!” whispered the other, understanding fully at last.

“Here’s where you pay for your dirty work. The time comes to every man. You’ve a choice, not to live — for you’ll never get away from Hell-Bent Wade — but to rise above yourself at last.”

“But what for? Why do you want to kill me? I never harmed you.”

“Columbine is my daughter!” replied the hunter.

“Ah!” breathed Belllounds.

“She loves Wils Moore, who’s as white a man as you are black.”

Across the pallid, convulsed face of Belllounds spread a slow, dull crimson.

“Aha, Buster Jack! I struck home there,” flashed Wade, his voice rising. “That gives your eyes the ugly look.... I hate them lyin’, bulgin’ eyes of yours. An’ when my time comes to shoot I’m goin’ to put them both out.”

“By Heaven! Wade, you’ll have to kill me if you ever expect that club-foot Moore to get Collie!”

“He’ll get her,” replied Wade, triumphantly. “Collie’s with him now. I sent her. I told her to tell Wils how you tried to force her—”

Belllounds began to shake all over. A torture of jealous hate and deadly terror convulsed him.

“Buster, did you ever think you’d get her kisses — as Wils’s gettin’ right now?” queried the hunter. “Good Lord! the conceit of some men!... Why, you poor, weak-minded, cowardly pet of a blinded old man — you conceited ass — you selfish an’ spoiled boy!... Collie never had any use for you. An’ now she hates you.”

“It was you who made her!” yelled Belllounds, foaming at the mouth.

“Sure,” went on the deliberate voice, ringing with scorn. “An’ only a little while ago she called you a dog.... I reckon she meant a different kind of a dog than the hounds over there. For to say they were like you would be an insult to them.... Sure she hates you, an’ I’ll gamble right now she’s got her arms around Wils’s neck!”

“ —— !” hissed Belllounds.

“Well, you’ve got a gun in your hand,” went on the taunting voice. “Ahuh!... Have it your way. I’m warmin’ up now, an’ I’d like to tell you ...”

“Shut up!” interrupted the other, frantically. The blood in him was rising to a fever heat. But fear still clamped him. He could not raise the gun and he seemed in agony.

“Your father knows you’re a thief,” declared Wade, with remorseless, deliberate intent. “I told him how I watched you — trailed you — an’ learned the plot you hatched against Wils Moore.... Buster Jack busted himself at last, stealin’ his own father’s cattle.... I’ve seen some ragin’ men in my day, but Old Bill had them beaten. You’ve disgraced him — broken his heart — embittered the end of his life.... An’ he’d mean for you what I mean now!”

“He’d never — harm me!” gasped Buster Jack, shuddering.

“He’d kill you — you white-livered pup!” cried Wade, with terrible force. “Kill you before he’d let you go to worse dishonor!... An’ I’m goin’ to save him stainin’ his hands.”

“I’ll kill you!” burst out Belllounds, ending in a shriek. But this was not the temper that always produced heedless action in him. It was hate. He could not raise the gun. His intelligence still dominated his will. Yet fury had mitigated his terror.

“You’ll be doin’ me a service, Buster.... But you’re mighty slow at startin’. I reckon I’ll have to play my last trump to make you fight. Oh, by God! I can tell you!... Belllounds, there’re dead men callin’ me now. Callin’ me not to murder you in cold blood! I killed one man once — a man who wouldn’t fight — an innocent man! I killed him with my bare hands, an’ if I tell you my story — an’ how I killed him — an’ that I’ll do the same for you.... You’ll save me that, Buster. No man with a gun in his hands could face what he knew.... But save me more. Save me the tellin’!”

“No! No! I won’t listen!”

“Maybe I won’t have to,” replied Wade, mournfully. He paused, breathing heavily. The sober calm was gone.

Belllounds lowered the half-raised gun, instantly answering to the strange break in Wade’s strained dominance.

“Don’t tell me — any more! I’ll not listen!... I won’t fight! Wade, you’re crazy! Let me off an’ I swear—”

“Buster, I told Collie you were three years in jail!” suddenly interrupted Wade.

A mortal blow dealt Belllounds would not have caused such a shock of amaze, of torture. The secret of the punishment meted out to him by his father! The hideous thing which, instead of reforming, had ruined him! All of hell was expressed in his burning eyes.

“Ahuh!... I’ve known it long!” cried Wade, tragically. “Buster Jack, you’re the man who must hear my story.... I’ll tell you....”

In the aspen grove up the slope of Sage Valley Columbine and Wilson were sitting on a log. Whatever had been their discourse, it had left Moore with head bowed in his hands, and with Columbine staring with sad eyes that did not see what they looked at. Columbine’s mind then seemed a dull blank. Suddenly she started.

“Wils!” she cried. “Did you hear — anything?”

“No,” he replied, wearily raising his head.

“I thought I heard a shot,” said Columbine. “It — it sort of made me jump. I’m nervous.”

Scarcely had she finished speaking when two clear, deep detonations rang out. Gun-shots!

“There!... Oh, Wils! Did you hear?”

“Hear!” whispered Moore. He grew singularly white. “Yes — yes!... Collie—”

“Wils,” she interrupted, wildly, as she began to shake. “Just a little bit ago — I saw Jack riding down the trail!”

“Collie!... Those two shots came from Wade’s guns I’d know it among a thousand!... Are you sure you heard a shot before?”

“Oh, something dreadful has happened! Yes, I’m sure. Perfectly sure. A shot not so loud or heavy.”

“My God!” exclaimed Moore, staring aghast at Columbine.

“Maybe that’s what Wade meant. I never saw through him.”

“Tell me. Oh, I don’t understand!” wailed Columbine, wringing her hands.

Moore did not explain what he meant. For a crippled man, he made quick time in getting to his horse and mounting.

“Collie, I’ll ride down there. I’m afraid something has happened.... I never understood him!... I forgot he was Hell-Bent Wade! If there’s been a — a fight or any trouble — I’ll ride back and meet you.”

Then he rode down the trail.

Columbine had come without her horse, and she started homeward on foot. Her steps dragged. She knew something dreadful had happened. Her heart beat slowly and painfully; there was an oppression upon her breast; her brain whirled with contending tides of thought. She remembered Wade’s face. How blind she had been! It exhausted her to walk, though she went so slowly. There seemed to be a chill and a darkening in the atmosphere, an unreality in the familiar slopes and groves, a strangeness and shadow upon White Slides Valley.

Moore did not return to meet her. His white horse grazed in the pasture opposite the first clump of willows, where Sage Valley merged into the larger valley. Then she saw other horses, among them Lem Billings’s bay mustang. Columbine faltered on, when suddenly she recognized the horse Jack had ridden — a sorrel, spent and foam-covered, standing saddled, with bridle down and riderless — then certainty of something awful clamped her with horror. Men’s husky voices reached her throbbing ears. Some one was running. Footsteps thudded and died away. Then she saw Lem Billings come out of the willows, look her way, and hurry toward her. His awkward, cowboy gait seemed too slow for his earnestness. Columbine felt the piercing gaze of his eyes as her own became dim.

“Miss Collie, thar’s been — turrible fight!” he panted.

“Oh, Lem!... I know. It was Ben — and Jack,” she cried.

“Shore. Your hunch’s correct. An’ it couldn’t be no wuss!”

Columbine tried to see his face, the meaning that must have accompanied his hoarse voice; but she seemed going blind.

“Then — then—” she whispered, reaching out for Lem.

“Hyar, Miss Collie,” he said, in great concern, as he took kind and gentle hold of her. “Reckon you’d better wait. Let me take you home.”

“Yes. But tell — tell me first,” she cried, frantically. She could not bear suspense, and she felt her senses slipping away from her.

“My Gawd! who’d ever have thought such hell would come to White Slides!” exclaimed Lem, with strong emotion. “Miss Collie, I’m powerful sorry fer you. But mebbe it’s best so.... They’re both dead!... Wade just died with his head on Wils’s lap. But Jack never knowed what hit him. He was shot plumb center — both his eyes shot out!... Wade was shot low down.... Montana an’ me agreed thet Jack throwed his gun first an’ Wade killed him after bein’ mortal shot himself.”

Late that afternoon, as Columbine lay upon her bed, the strange stillness of the house was disturbed by a heavy tread. It passed out of the living-room and came down the porch toward her door. Then followed a knock.

“Dad!” she called, swiftly rising.

Belllounds entered, leaving the door ajar. The sunlight streamed in.

“Wal, Collie, I see you’re bracin’ up,” he said.

“Oh yes, dad, I’m — I’m all right,” she replied, eager to help or comfort him.

The old rancher seemed different from the man of the past months. The pallor of a great shock, the havoc of spent passion, the agony of terrible hours, showed in his face. But Old Bill Belllounds had come into his own again — back to the calm, iron pioneer who had lived all events, over whom storm of years had broken, whose great spirit had accepted this crowning catastrophe as it had all the others, who saw his own life clearly, now that its bitterest lesson was told.

“Are you strong enough to bear another shock, my lass, an’ bear it now — so to make an end — so to-morrer we can begin anew?” he asked, with the voice she had not heard for many a day. It was the voice that told of consideration for her.

“Yes, dad,” she replied, going to him.

“Wal, come with me. I want you to see Wade.”

He led her out upon the porch, and thence into the living-room, and from there into the room where lay the two dead men, one on each side. Blankets covered the prone, quiet forms.

Columbine had meant to beg to see Wade once before he was laid away forever. She dreaded the ordeal, yet strangely longed for it. And here she was self-contained, ready for some nameless shock and uplift, which she divined was coming as she had divined the change in Belllounds.

Then he stripped back the blanket, disclosing Wade’s face. Columbine thrilled to the core of her heart. Death was there, white and cold and merciless, but as it had released the tragic soul, the instant of deliverance had been stamped on the rugged, cadaverous visage, by a beautiful light; not of peace, nor of joy, nor of grief, but of hope! Hope had been the last emotion of Hell-Bent Wade.

“Collie, listen,” said the old rancher, in deep and trembling tones. “When a man’s dead, what he’s been comes to us with startlin’ truth. Wade was the whitest man I ever knew. He had a queer idee — a twist in his mind — an’ it was thet his steps were bent toward hell. He imagined thet everywhere he traveled there he fetched hell. But he was wrong. His own trouble led him to the trouble of others. He saw through life. An’ he was as big in his hope fer the good as he was terrible in his dealin’ with the bad. I never saw his like.... He loved you, Collie, better than you ever knew. Better than Jack, or Wils, or me! You know what the Bible says about him who gives his life fer his friend. Wal, Wade was my friend, an’ Jack’s, only we never could see!... An’ he was Wils’s friend. An’ to you he must have been more than words can tell.... We all know what child’s play it would have been fer Wade to kill Jack without bein’ hurt himself. But he wouldn’t do it. So he spared me an’ Jack, an’ I reckon himself. Somehow he made Jack fight an’ die like a man. God only knows how he did that. But it saved me from — from hell — an’ you an’ Wils from misery.... Wade could have taken you from me an’ Jack. He had only to tell you his secret, an’ he wouldn’t. He saw how you loved me, as if you were my real child.... But. Collie, lass, it was he who was your father!”

With bursting heart Columbine fell upon her knees beside that cold, still form.

Belllounds softly left the room and closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER XX

NATURE WAS PRODIGAL with her colors that autumn. The frosts came late, so that the leaves did not gradually change their green. One day, as if by magic, there was gold among the green, and in another there was purple and red. Then the hilltops blazed with their crowns of aspen groves; and the slopes of sage shone mellow gray in the sunlight; and the vines on the stone fences straggled away in lines of bronze; and the patches of ferns under the cliffs faded fast; and the great rock slides and black-timbered reaches stood out in their somber shades.

Columbines bloomed in all the dells among the spruces, beautiful stalks with heavy blossoms, the sweetest and palest of blue-white flowers. Motionless they lifted their faces to the light. Out in the aspen groves, where the grass was turning gold, the columbines blew gracefully in the wind, nodding and swaying. The most exquisite and finest of these columbines hid in the shaded nooks, star-sweet in the silent gloom of the woods.

Wade’s last few whispered words to Moore had been interpreted that the hunter desired to be buried among the columbines in the aspen grove on the slope above Sage Valley. Here, then, had been made his grave.

One day Belllounds sent Columbine to fetch Moore down to White Slides. It was a warm, Indian-summer afternoon, and the old rancher sat out on the porch in his shirt-sleeves. His hair was white now, but no other change was visible in him. No restraint attended his greeting to the cowboy.

“Wils, I reckon I’d be glad if you’d take your old job as foreman of White Slides,” he said.

“Are you asking me?” queried Moore, eagerly.

“Wal, I reckon so.”

“Yes, I’ll come,” replied the cowboy.

“What’ll your dad say?”

“I don’t know. That worries me. He’s coming to visit me. I heard from him again lately, and he means to take stage for Kremmling soon.”

“Wal, that’s fine. I’ll be glad to see him.... Wils, you’re goin’ to be a big cattleman before you know it. Hey, Collie?”

“If you say so, dad, it’ll come true,” replied Columbine, with her hand on his shoulder.

“Wils, you’ll be runnin’ White Slides Ranch before long, unless Collie runs you. Haw! Haw!”

Collie could not reply to this startling announcement from the old rancher, and Moore appeared distressed with embarrassment.

“Wal, I reckon you young folks had better ride down to Kremmlin’ an’ get married.”

This kindly, matter-of-fact suggestion completely stunned the cowboy, and all Columbine could do was to gaze at the rancher.

“Say, I hope I ain’t intrudin’ my wishes on a young couple that’s got over dyin’ fer each other,” dryly continued Belllounds, with his huge smile.

“Dad!” cried Columbine, and then she threw her arms around him and buried her head on his shoulder.

“Wal, wal, I reckon that answers that,” he said, holding her close. “Moore, she’s yours, with my blessin’ an’ all I have.... An’ you must understand I’m glad things have worked out to your good an’ to Collie’s happiness.... Life’s not over fer me yet. But I reckon the storms are past, thank God!... We learn as we live. I’d hold it onworthy not to look forward an’ to hope. I’m wantin’ peace an’ quiet now, with grandchildren around me in my old age.... So ride along to Kremmlin’ an’ hurry home.”

The evening of the day Columbine came home to White Slides the bride of Wilson Moore she slipped away from the simple festivities in her honor and climbed to the aspen grove on the hill to spend a little while beside the grave of her father.

The afterglow of sunset burned dull gold and rose in the western sky, rendering glorious the veil of purple over the ranges. Down in the lowlands twilight had come, softly gray. The owls were hooting; a coyote barked; from far away floated the mourn of a wolf.

Under the aspens it was silent and lonely and sad. The leaves quivered without any sound of rustling. Columbine’s heart was full of a happiness that she longed to express somehow, there beside this lonely grave. It was what she owed the strange man who slept here in the shadows. Grief abided with her, and always there would be an eternal remorse and regret. Yet she had loved him. She had been his, all unconsciously. His life had been terrible, but it had been great. As the hours of quiet thinking had multiplied, Columbine had grown in her divination of Wade’s meaning. His had been the spirit of man lighting the dark places; his had been the ruthless hand against all evil, terrible to destroy.

Her father! After all, how closely was she linked to the past! How closely protected, even in the hours of most helpless despair! Thus she understood him. Love was the food of life, and hope was its spirituality, and beauty was its reward to the seeing eye. Wade had lived these great virtues, even while he had earned a tragic name.

“I will live them. I will have faith and hope and love, for I am his daughter,” she said. A faint, cool breeze strayed through the aspens, rustling the leaves whisperingly, and the slender columbines, gleaming pale in the twilight, lifted their sweet faces.

THE END

Wanderer of the Wasteland

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER I

ADAM LAREY GAZED with hard and wondering eyes down the silent current of the red river upon which he meant to drift away into the desert.

The Rio Colorado was no river to trust. It chafed at its banks as if to engulf them; muddy and thick it swirled and glided along in flood, sweeping in curves back and forth from Arizona to California shore. Majestic and gleaming under the hot sky, it swung southward between wide green borders of willow and cottonwood toward a stark and naked upflung wilderness of mountain peaks, the red ramparts of the unknown and trackless desert.

Adam rushed down the bank and threw his pack into a boat. There his rapid action seemed checked by the same violence that had inspired his haste. He looked back, up at the dusty adobe town of Ehrenberg, asleep now under the glaring noonday heat. It would not wake out of that siesta till the return of the weary gold diggers, or the arrival of the stagecoach or the steamer. A tall Indian, swarthy and unkempt, stood motionless in the shade of a wall, watching stolidly.

Adam broke down then. Sobs made his utterance incoherent. “Guerd is no brother — of mine — any more!” he burst out. His accent was one of humiliation and cheated love. “And as for — for her — I’ll never — never think of her — again.”

When once more he turned to the river, a spirit wrestled with the emotion that had unnerved him. Adam Larey appeared to be a boy of eighteen, with darkly tanned, clear-cut and comely face, and a lofty stature, straight and spare and wide. Untying the boat from its mooring, he became conscious of a singular thrill. Sight of the silent river fascinated him. If it had been drink that had fortified his reckless resolve, it was some strange call to the wildness in him that had stirred exaltation in the prospect of adventure. But there was more. Never again to be dominated by that selfish Guerd, his brother who had taken all and given nothing. Guerd would be stung by this desertion. Perhaps he would be sorry. That thought gave Adam a pang. Long habit of being influenced, and strength of love fostered in playmate days, these made him waver. But the tide of resentment surged up once more; and there flowed the red Colorado, rolling away to the southwest, a gateway to the illimitable wastes of desert land, with its mystery, its adventure, its gold and alluring freedom.

“I’ll go,” he declared, passionately, and with a shove he sent the boat adrift and leaped over the prow to the rowing seat. The boat floated lazily, half circling, till it edged into the current; then, as if grasped by unseen power, it glided downstream. Adam seemed to feel the resistless current of this mysterious river take hold of his heart. There would be no coming back — no breasting that mighty flood with puny oars. The moment was sudden and poignant in its revelation. How swiftly receded the cluster of brown adobe huts, the sombre, motionless Indian! He had left Ehrenberg behind, and a brother who was his only near relative, and a little sum of love that had failed him.

“I’m done with Guerd forever,” he muttered, looking back with hard dry eyes. “It’s his fault. Mother always warned me....Ah! if she had lived I would still be home. Home! and not here — in this awful desert of heat and wastelands — among men like wolves and women like...”

He did not finish the thought, but from his pack he took a bottle that glittered in the sunlight, and, waving it defiantly at the backward scene of glare and dust and lonely habitation, he drank deeply. Then he flung the bottle from him with a violent gesture of repulsion. He had no love for strong drink. The bottle fell with hollow splash, rode the muddy swirls, and sank. Whereupon Adam applied himself to the oars with long and powerful sweep.

In that moment of bitter soliloquy there had flashed through Adam Larey’s mind memories and pictures of the past — the old homestead back East, vivid and unforgettable — the sad face of his mother, who had loved him as she had never loved his brother Guerd. There had been a mystery about the father who had died in Adam’s childhood. Adam thought of these facts now, seeing a vague connection between them and his presence there alone upon that desert river. When his mother died she had left all her money to him. But Adam had shared his small fortune with Guerd. That money had been the beginning of evil days. If it had not changed Guerd it had awakened slumbering jealousy and passion. Guerd squandered his share and disgraced himself in the home town. Then had begun his ceaseless importunity for Adam to leave college, to see life, to seek adventures, to sail round the Horn to the California gold fields. Adam had been true to the brother spirit within him and the voice of the tempter had fallen upon too thrilling ears. Yearning to be with his brother, and to see wild life upon his own account, Adam yielded to the importunity. He chose, however, to travel westward by land. At various points en route Guerd had fallen in with evil companions, among whom he seemed to feel freer. At Tucson he launched himself upon the easy and doubtful career of a gambler, which practice did not spare even his brother. At Ehrenberg, Guerd had found life to his liking — a mining and outfitting post remote from civilization, where he made friends compatible with his lately developed tastes, where he finally filched the favour of dark eyes that had smiled first upon Adam.

It was a June sun that burned down upon the Colorado desert and its red river. Adam Larey had taken to rowing the boat with a powerful energy. But the fiery liquor he had absorbed and the intense heat beating down upon him soon prostrated him, half-drunk and wholly helpless, upon the bottom of the leaky boat, now at the mercy of the current.

Strangest of all rivers was the Rio Colorado. Many names it had borne, though none so fitting and lasting as that which designated its colour. Neither crimson nor scarlet was it, nor any nameable shade of red, yet somehow red was its hue. Like blood with life gone from it! With its source at high altitude, fed by snow fields and a thousand lakes and streams, the Colorado stormed its great canyoned confines with a mighty torrent; and then, spent and levelled, but still tremendous and insatiate, it bore down across the desert with its burden of silt and sand. It was silent, it seemed to glide along, yet it was appalling.

The boat that carried Adam Larey might as well have been a rudderless craft in an ocean current. Slowly round and round it turned, as if every rod of the river was an eddy, sweeping near one shore and then the other. The hot hours of the afternoon waned. Sunset was a glaring blaze without clouds. Cranes and bitterns swept in lumbering flight over the wide green crests of the bottom lands, and desert buzzards sailed down from the ruddy sky. The boat drifted on. Before darkness fell the boat had drifted out of the current into a back eddy, where slowly it rode round and round, at last to catch hold of the arrow-weeds and lodge in a thicket.

At dawn Adam Larey awoke, sober enough, but sick and aching, parched with thirst. The eastern horizon, rose-flushed and golden, told him of the advent of another day. He thrilled even in his misery. Scooping up the muddy and sand-laden water, which was cold and held a taste of snow, he quenched his thirst and bathed his hot face. Then opening his pack, he took out food he had been careful to bring.

Then he endeavoured to get his bearings. Adam could see by the stain on the arrow-weeds that the flood had subsided a foot during the night. A reasonable calculation was that he had drifted a good many miles. “I’ll row till it gets hot, then rest up in a shady place,” he decided. Pushing away from the reeds, he set the oars and rowed out to meet the current. As soon as that caught him the motion became exhilarating. By and bye, what with the exercise and the cool breeze of morning on his face and the sweet, dank smell of river lowlands, he began to wear off the effects of the liquor and with it the disgust and sense of unfitness with which it had left him. Then at length gloom faded from his mind, though a pang abided in his breast. It was not an unfamiliar sensation. Resolutely he faced that wide travelling river, grateful for something nameless that seemed borne on its bosom, conscious of a strange expansion of his soul, ready to see, to hear, to smell, to feel, to taste the wildness and wonder of freedom as he had dreamed it.

The sun rose, and Adam’s face and hands felt as if some hot material thing had touched them. He began to sweat, which was all that was needed to restore his usual healthy feeling of body. From time to time he saw herons, and other long-legged waterfowl, and snipe flitting over the sand bars, and sombre, grey-hued birds that he could not name. The spell of river or desert hovered over these birds. The fact brought to Adam the strange nature of this silence. Like an invisible blanket it covered all, water and brush and land.

“It’s desert silence,” he said, wonderingly.

When he raised the oars and rested them there seemed absolutely no sound. And this fact struck him overpoweringly with its meaning and with a sudden unfamiliar joy. On the gentle wind came a fragrant hot breath that mingled with the rank odour of flooded bottom lands. The sun, hot as it was, felt good upon his face and back. He loved the sun, as he hated the cold.

“Maybe Guerd’s coaxing me West will turn out well for me,” soliloquised Adam, with resurging boyish hope. “As the Mexicans say, Quien sabe?”

At length he espied a sloping bank where it appeared safe to risk landing. This was a cove comparatively free of brush, and the bank sloped gradually to the water. The summit of the bank was about forty or fifty feet high, and before Adam had wholly ascended it he began to see the bronze tips of mountains on all sides.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Adam. “No sign of man! No sign of life!”

Some distance from the river bank stood a high knoll. Adam climbed to the top of it, and what he saw here made him yearn for the mountain peaks. He had never stood at any great elevation. Southward the Colorado appeared to enter a mountain gateway and to turn and disappear.

When he had refreshed himself with food and drink he settled himself into a comfortable position to rest and sleep a little while. He had plucked at the roots of love, but not yet had he torn it from his heart. Guerd, his brother! The old boyhood days flashed up. Adam found the pang deep in his heart and ineradicable. The old beautiful bond, the something warm and intimate between him and Guerd, was gone for ever. For its loss there could be no recompense. He knew every hour would sever him the farther from this brother who had proved false. Adam hid his face in the dry grass, and there in the loneliness of that desert he began to see into the gulf of his soul.

“I can fight — I can forget!” he muttered. Then he set his mind to the problem of his immediate future. Where would he go? There were two points below on the river Picacho, a mining camp, and Yuma, a frontier town — about both of which he had heard strange, exciting tales. And at that moment Adam felt a reckless eagerness for adventure, and a sadness for the retreating of his old dream of successful and useful life. At length he fell asleep.

When he awoke he felt hot and wet with sweat. A luminous gold light shone through the willows and there was vivid colour in the west. He had slept hours. When he moved to sit up he heard rustlings in the willows. These unseen creatures roused interest and caution in Adam. In his travels across Arizona he had passed through wild places and incidents. And remembering tales of bad Indians, bad Mexicans, bad white men, and the fierce beasts and reptiles of the desert, Adam fortified himself to encounters that must come.

When he stepped out of the shady covert it was to see river and valley as if encompassed by an immense loneliness, different, somehow, for the few hours of his thought and slumber. The river seemed redder and the mountains veiled in ruby haze. Earth and sky were bathed in the hue of sunset light.

He descended to the river. Shoving the boat off, he applied himself to the oars. His strong strokes, aided by the current, sent the boat along swiftly, perhaps ten miles an hour. The rose faded out of the sky, the clouds turned drab, the blue deepened, and a pale star shone. Twilight failed. With the cooling of the air Adam lay back more powerfully upon the oars. Night fell, and one by one, and then many by many, the stars came out. This night ride began to be thrilling. There must have been danger ahead. By night the river seemed vast, hurrying, shadowy, and silent as the grave. Its silence wore upon Adam until it seemed unnatural.

As the stars multiplied and brightened, the deep cut where the river wound changed its character, becoming dark and clear where it had been gloomily impenetrable. The dim, high outlines of the banks showed, and above them loomed the black domes of mountains. From time to time he turned the boat, and resting upon his oars, he drifted with the current, straining his eyes and ears. These moments of inaction brought the cold, tingling prickle of skin up and down his back. It was impossible not to be afraid, yet he thrilled even in his fear. In the clear obscurity of the night he could see several rods ahead of him over the gleaming river. But the peril that haunted Adam seemed more in the distant shadows, round the bends. What a soundless, nameless, unintelligible river! To be alone on a river like that, so vast, so strange, with the grand and solemn arch of heaven blazed and clouded white by stars, taught a lesson incalculable in its effects.

The hour came when an invisible something, like a blight, passed across the heavens, paling the blue, dimming the starlight. The intense purity of the sky sustained a dull change, then darkened. Adam welcomed the first faint gleam of light over the eastern horizon. It brightened. The wan stars faded. The mountains heightened their clearness of silhouette, and along the bold, dark outlines appeared a faint rose colour, herald of the sun. It deepened, it spread as the grey light turned pink and yellow. The shadows lifted from the river valley and it was day again.

“Always I have slept away the great hour,” said Adam. An exhilaration uplifted him.

He drifted round a bend in the river while once more eating sparingly of his food; and suddenly he espied a high column of smoke rising to the southwest. Whereupon he took the oars again and, having become rested and encouraged, he rowed with a stroke that would make short work of the few miles to the camp.

“Picacho!” soliloquised Adam, remembering tales he had heard. “Now what shall I do?...I’ll work at anything.” He carried a considerable sum of money in a belt round his waist — the last of the money left him by his mother, and he wanted to keep it as long as possible.

Adam was not long in reaching the landing, which appeared to be only a muddy bank. A small, dilapidated stern-wheel steamer, such as Adam had seen on the Ohio River, lay resting upon the mud. On the bow sat a gaunt weather-beaten man with a grizzled beard. He held a long crooked fishing pole out over the water, and evidently was fishing. The bank sloped up to fine white sand and a dense growth of green, in the middle of which there appeared to be a narrow lane. Here in a flowing serape stood a Mexican girl, slender and small, with a single touch of red in all her darkness of dress.

Adam ran the boat ashore. Lifting his pack, he climbed a narrow bench of the bank and walked down to a point opposite the fisherman. Adam greeted him and inquired if this place was Picacho.

“Mornin’ stranger,” came the reply. “Yes, this here’s the gold diggin’s, an’ she’s hummin’ these days.”

“Catching any fish?” Adam inquired, with interest.

“Yep; I ketched one day before yestiddy,” replied the man, complacently.

“What kind?” went on Adam.

“I’ll be doggoned if I know, but he was good to eat,” answered the angler, with a grin. “Where you hail from, stranger?”

“Back East.”

“So I reckoned. No Westerner would tackle the Colorado when she was in flood. I opine you hit the river at Ehrenberg. Wal, you’re lucky. Goin’ to prospect for gold?”

“No, I’d rather work. Can I get a job here?”

“Son, if you’re as straight as you look you can get a good job. But a husky lad like you, if he stayed sober, could strike it rich in the diggin’s.”

“How about a place to eat and sleep?”

“Thet ain’t so easy to find up at the camp. It’s a few miles up the canyon. But say, I’m forgettin’ about the feller who stayed here with the Mexicans. They jest buried him. You could get his place. It’s the ‘dobe house — first one. Ask Margarita, there. She’ll show you.”

Thus directed, Adam saw the Mexican girl standing above him. Climbing the path to the top of the bank, he threw down his pack.

“Buenas dias, senor.” The girl’s soft, liquid accents fitted a dark, piquant little face, framed by hair as black as the wing of a raven, and lighted by big eyes, like night.

Adam’s Spanish was not that of the Mexicans, but it enabled him to talk fairly well. He replied to the girl’s greeting, yet hesitated with the query he had on his lips. He felt a slight shrinking as these dark eyes reminded him of others of like allurement which he had willed to forget. Yet he experienced a warmth and thrill of pleasure in a pretty face. Women invariably smiled upon Adam. This one, a girl in her teens, smiled with half-lowered eyes, the more provocative for that; and she turned partly away with a lithe, quick grace. Adam’s hesitation had been a sudden chill at the proximity of something feminine and attractive — of something that had hurt him. But it passed. He had done more than boldly step across the threshold of a new and freer life.

CHAPTER II

FOR ADAM’S QUESTIONS Margarita had a shy, “Si, senor,” and the same subtle smile that had attracted him. Whereupon he took up his pack and followed her.

Back from the river the sand was thick and heavy, clean and white. The girl led down a path bordered by willows and mesquites which opened into a clearing where stood several squat adobe houses.

Margarita stopped at the first house. The girl’s mother appeared to be an indolent person, rather careless of her attire. She greeted Adam in English, but when he exercised some of his laborsome Spanish her dark face beamed with smiles that made it pleasant to behold. The little room indoors, to which she led Adam, was dark, poorly ventilated, and altogether unsatisfactory. Adam said so. The senora waxed eloquent. Margarita managed to convey her great disappointment by one swift look. Then they led him outdoors and round under the low-branching mesquites, where he had to stoop, to a small structure. The walls were made of two rows of long slender poles, nailed upon heavier uprights at the corners, and between these rows had been poured wet adobe mud. The hut contained two rooms, the closed one full of wood and rubbish, and the other, which had an open front, like a porch, faced the river. It was empty, with a floor of white sand. This appeared very much to Adam’s liking, and he agreed upon a price for it, to the senora’s satisfaction and Margarita’s shy rapture. Adam saw the latter with some misgiving, yet he was pleased, and in spite of himself he warmed toward this pretty senorita who had apparently taken a sudden fancy to him. He was a stranger in a strange land, with a sore and yearning heart. While Adam untied his pack and spread out its contents the women fetched a low bench, a bucket of water, and a basin. These simple articles constituted the furniture of his new lodgings. He was to get his meals at the house, where, it was assured, he would be well cared for. In moving away, Margarita, who was looking back, caught her hair in a thorny branch of the mesquite. Adam was quick to spring to her assistance. Then she ran off after her mother.

“What eyes! Well, well!” exclaimed Adam, sensible of a warmth along his veins. Suddenly at that moment he thought of his brother Guerd. “I’m glad he’s not here.” Margarita had prompted that thought. Guerd was a handsome devil, irresistible to women. Adam went back to his unpacking, conscious of a sobered enthusiasm.

He hung his few clothes and belongings upon the walls, made his bed of blankets on the sand, and then surveyed the homely habitation with pleasure.

He found the old fisherman in precisely the same posture. Adam climbed on board the boat.

“Get any bites?” he queried.

“I believe I jest had one,” replied the fisherman.

Adam saw that he was about fifty years old, lean and dried, with a wrinkled tanned face and scant beard.

“Have a smoke,” said Adam, proffering one of the last of his cigars. “Lordy!” ejaculated the fisherman, his eyes lighting. “When have I seen one of them?...Young man, you’re an obligin’ feller. What’s your name?”

Adam told him, and that he hailed from the East and had been a tenderfoot for several memorable weeks.

“My handle’s Merryvale,” replied the other. “I came West twenty-eight years ago when I was about your age. Reckon you’re about twenty.”

“No. Only eighteen. Say, you must have almost seen the old days of ‘forty-nine.”

“It was in ‘fifty. Yes, I was in the gold rush.”

“Did you strike any gold?” asked Adam, eagerly.

“Son, I was a prospector for twenty years. I’ve made an’ lost more than one fortune. Drink an’ faro an’ bad women!...And now I’m a broken-down night watchman at Picacho.”

“I’m sorry,” said Adam, sincerely. “I’ll bet you’ve seen some great old times. Won’t you tell me about them? You see, I’m footloose now and sort of wild.”

Merryvale nodded sympathetically. He studied Adam with eyes that were shrewd and penetrating, for all their kindliness. Wherefore Adam talked frankly about himself and his travels West. Merryvale listened with a nod now and then.

“Son, I hate to see the likes of you hittin’ this gold diggin’s,” he said.

“Why? Oh, I can learn to take care of myself. It must be a man’s game. I’ll love the desert.”

“Wal, son, I oughtn’t to discourage you,” replied Merryvale. “An’ it ain’t fair for me to think because I went wrong, an’ because I seen so many boys go wrong, thet you’ll do the same...But this gold diggin’s is a hell of a place for a tough old timer, let alone a boy runnin’ wild.”

And then he began to talk like a man whose memory was a vast treasure store of history and adventure and life. Gold had been discovered at Picacho in 1864. In 1872 the mill was erected near the river, and the ore was mined five miles up the canyon and hauled down on a narrow-gauge railroad. The machinery and construction for this great enterprise, together with all supplies, were brought by San Francisco steamers round into the Gulf of California, loaded on smaller steamers, and carried up the Colorado River to Picacho. These steamers also hauled supplies to Yuma and Ehrenberg, where they were freighted by wagon trains into the interior. At the present time, 1878, the mine was paying well and there were between five and six hundred men employed. The camp was always full of adventurers and gamblers, together with a few bad women whose capacity for making trouble magnified their number.

“Down here at the boat landin’ an’ the mill it’s always sorta quiet,” said Merryvale. “You see, there ain’t many men here. An’ the gamblin’ hells are all up at the camp, where, in fact, everybody goes of an evenin’. Lord knows I’ve bucked the tiger in every gold camp in California. There’s a fever grips a man. I never seen the good of gold to the man thet dug it....So, son, if you’re askin’ me for a hunch, let me tell you, drink little an’ gamble light an’ fight shy of the females!”

“Merryvale, I’m more of a tenderfoot than I look, I guess,” replied Adam. “You’d hardly believe I never drank till I started West a few months ago. I can’t stand liquor.”

Adam’s face lost its brightness and his eyes shadowed, though they held frankly to Merryvale’s curious gaze.

“Son, you’re a strappin’ youngster an’ you’ve got looks no woman will pass by,” said Merryvale. “An’ in this country the preference of women brings trouble. Wal, for thet matter, all the trouble anywheres is made by them. But in the desert, where it’s wild an’ hot an’ there’s few females of any species, the fightin’ gets bloody.”

“Women have been the least of my fights or troubles,” rejoined Adam. “But lately I had a — a little more serious affair — that ended suddenly before I fell in deep.”

“Lordy! son, you’ll be a lamb among wolves!” broke in Merryvale. “See here, I’m goin’ to start you right. This country is no place for a nice clean boy, more’s the shame and pity. Every man who gets on in the West, let alone in the desert where the West is magnified, has got to live up to the standard. He must work, he must endure, he must fight men, he must measure up to women. I ain’t sayin’ it’s a fine standard, but it’s the one by which men have survived in a hard country at a hard time.”

“Survival of the fittest,” muttered Adam, soberly.

“You’ve said it, son. Thet law makes the livin’ things of this desert, whether man or otherwise. Quien sabe? You can never tell what’s in a man till he’s tried. Son, I’ve known desert men whose lives were beyond all understandin’. But not one man in a thousand can live on the desert. Thet has to do with his mind first; then his endurance. But to come back to this here Picacho. I’d not be afraid to back you against it if you meet it right.”

“How is that?”

“Lordy! son, I wish I could say the right word,” returned Merryvale, in pathetic earnestness. “You ain’t to be turned back?”

“No. I’m here for better or worse. Back home I had my hopes, my dreams. They’re gone — vanished...I’ve no near relatives except a brother who — who is not my kind. I didn’t want to come West. But I seem to have been freed from a cage. This grand wild desert! It will do something wonderful — or terrible with me.”

“Wal, wal, you talk like you look,” replied Merryvale, with a sigh. “Time was, son, when a hunch of mine might be doubtful. But now I’m old, an’ as I go down the years I remember more my youth an’ I love it more. You can trust me.” Then he paused, taking a deep breath, as if his concluding speech involved somehow his faith in himself and his good will to a stranger. “Be a man with your body! Don’t shirk work or play or fight. Eat an’ drink an’ be merry, but don’t live jest for thet. Lend a helpin’ hand — be generous with your gold. Put aside a third of your earnin’s for gamblin’ an’ look to lose it. Don’t ever get drunk. You can’t steer clear of women, good or bad. An’ the only way is to be game an’ kind an’ square.”

“Game — kind — square,” mused Adam, thoughtfully.

“Wal, I need a new fishin’ line,” said Merryvale, as he pulled in his rod. “We’ll go up to the store an’ then I’ll take you to the mill.”

While passing the adobe house where Adam had engaged board and lodging he asked his companion the name of the people.

“Arallanes — Juan Arallanes lives there,” replied Merryvale. “An’ he’s the whitest greaser I ever seen. He’s a foreman of the Mexicans employed at the mill. His wife is nice, too. But thet black-eyed hussy Margarita — —”

Merryvale shook his grizzled head, but did not complete his dubious beginning. The suggestion piqued Adam’s curiosity. Presently Merryvale pointed out a cluster of huts and cabins and one rather pretentious stone house, low and square, with windows. Both white- and dark-skinned children were playing on the sand in the shady places. Idle men lounged in front of the stone house, which Merryvale said was the store. Upon entering, Adam saw a complete general store of groceries, merchandise, hardware, and supplies; and he felt amazed until he remembered how the river steamers made transportation easy as far as the border of the desert. Then Merryvale led on to the huge structure of stone and iron and wood that Adam had espied from far up the river. As Adam drew near he heard the escape of steam, the roar of heavy machinery, and a sound that must have been a movement and crushing of ore, with a rush of flowing water.

Merryvale evidently found the manager, who was a man of medium height, powerfully built, with an unshaven broad face, strong and ruddy. He wore a red-flannel shirt, wet with sweat, a gun at his belt, overalls thrust into cowhide boots; and altogether he looked a rough and practical miner.

“Mac, shake hands with my young friend here,” said Merryvale. “He wants a job.”

“Howdy!” replied the other, proffering a big hand that Adam certainly felt belonged to a man. Also he was aware of one quick all-embracing glance. “Are you good at figures?”

“Why, yes,” answered Adam, “but I want to work.”

“All right. You can help me in the office where I’m stuck. An’ I’ll give you outside work, besides. To-morrow.” And with this brusque promise the manager strode away in a hurry.

“Mac don’t get time to eat,” explained Merryvale. Adam had to laugh at the incident. Here he had been recommended by a stranger, engaged to work for a man whose name he had not heard and who had not asked his, and no mention made of wages. Adam liked this simplicity.

A man must pass in this country for what he was.

Merryvale went on his way then, leaving Adam alone. It seemed to Adam, as he pondered there, that his impressions of that gold mill did not auger well for a satisfaction with his job. He had no distaste for hard labour, though to bend over a desk did not appeal to him. Then he turned his gaze to the river and valley. What a splendid scene! The green borderland offered soft and relieving contrast to the bare and grisly ridges upon which stood. At that distance the river shone red gold, sweeping through its rugged iron gateway and winding majestically down the valley to lose itself round a bold bluff.

Adam drew a long breath. A scene like this world of mountain wilderness, of untrodden ways, was going to take hold of him. And then, singularly, there flashed into memory an image of the girl, Margarita. Just then Adam resented thought of her. It was not because she had made eyes at him — for he had to confess this was pleasing but because he did not like the idea of a deep and vague emotion running parallel in his mind with thought of a roguish and coquettish little girl, of doubtful yet engaging possibilities.

“I think too much,” declared Adam. It was action he needed. Work, play, hunting, exploring, even gold digging — anything with change of scene and movement of muscle — these things that he had instinctively felt to be the need of his body, now seemed equally the need of his soul.

CHAPTER III

ARALLANES, THE FOREMAN, did not strike Adam as being typical of the Mexicans among whom he lived. He was not a little runt of a swarthy-skinned man, but well built, of a clean olive complexion and regular features.

After supper Arallanes invited Adam to ride up to the camp. Whereupon Margarita asked to be taken. Arallanes laughed, and then talked so fast that Adam could not understand. He gathered, however, that the empty ore train travelled up the canyon to the camp, there to remain until morning. Also Adam perceived that Margarita did not get along well with this man, who was her stepfather. They appeared on the verge of a quarrel. But the senora spoke a few soft words that worked magic upon Arallanes, though they did not change the passion of the girl. How swiftly she had paled! Her black eyes burned with a dusky fire. When she turned them upon Adam it was certain that he had a new sensation.

“Will not the gracious senor take Margarita to the dance?”

That was how Adam translated her swift, eloquent words. Embarrassed and hesitating, he felt that he cut a rather sorry figure before her. Then he realised the singular beauty of her big eyes, sloe black and brilliant, neither half veiled nor shy now, but bold and wide and burning, as if the issue at stake was not trivial.

Arallanes put a hand on Adam. “No, Senor,” he said. “Some other time you may take Margarita.”

“I — I shall be pleased,” stammered Adam.

The girl’s red lips curled in pouting scorn, and with a wonderful dusky flash of eyes she whirled away.

Outside, Arallanes led Adam across the sands, still with that familiar hand upon him.

“Boy,” he said, in English, “that girl — she no blood of mine. She damn leetle wild cat — mucha Indian — on fire all time.”

If ever Adam had felt the certainty of his youthful years, it had been during those last few moments. His collar was hot and tight. A sense of shock remained with him. He had not fortified himself at all, nor had he surrendered himself to recklessness. But to think of going to a dance this very night, in a mining camp, with a dusky-eyed little Spanish girl who appeared exactly what Arallanes had called her — the very idea took Adam’s breath with the surprise of it, the wildness of it, the strange appeal to him.

“Senor veree beeg, but young — like colt,” said Arallanes, with good nature. “Tenderfeet, the gamblers say...He mos dam’ sure have tough feet soon on Picacho!”

“Well, Arallanes, that can’t come too soon for me,” declared Adam, and the statement seemed to give relief.

They climbed to the track where the ore train stood, already with labourers in almost every car. After a little wait that seemed long to the impatient Adam the train started. The track was built a few feet above the sand, but showed signs of having been submerged, and in fact washed out in places. The canyon was tortuous, and grew more so as it narrowed. Adam descried tunnels dug in the red walls and holes dug in gravel benches, which places Arallanes explained had been made by prospectors hunting for gold. It developed, however, that there was a considerable upgrade. That seemed a long five miles to Adam. The train halted and the labourers yelled merrily.

Arallanes led Adam up a long winding path, quite steep, and the other men followed in single file. When Adam reached a level once more, Arallanes called out, “Picacho!”

But he certainly could not have meant the wide gravelly plateau with its squalid huts, its adobe shacks, its rambling square of low flat buildings, like a stockade fort roofed with poles and dirt. Arallanes meant the mountain that dominated the place — Picacho, the Peak.

Adam faced the west as the sun was setting. The mountain, standing magnificently above the bold knobs and ridges around it, was a dark purple mass framed in sunset gold; and from its frowning summit, notched and edged, streamed a long ruddy golden ray of sunlight that shone down through a wind-worn hole. With the sun blocked and hidden except for that small aperture there was yet a wonderful effect of sunset. A ruddy haze, shading the blue, filled the canyons and the spaces. Picacho seemed grand there, towering to the sky, crowned in gold, aloof, unscalable, a massive rock sculptured by the ages.

Arallanes laughed at Adam, then sauntered on. Mexicans jabbered as they passed, and some of the white men made jocular comment at the boy standing there so wide-eyed and still. A little Irishman gaped at Adam and said to a comrade:

“Begorra, he’s after seein’ a peanut atop ole Picacho....What-th’-hell now, me young fri’nd? Come hev a drink.”

The crowd passed on, and Arallanes lingered, making himself a cigarette the while.

Adam had not been prepared for such a spectacle of grandeur and desolation. He seemed to feel himself a mite flung there, encompassed by colossal and immeasurable fragments of upheaved rock, jagged and jutted, with never a softening curve, and all steeped in vivid and intense light. The plateau was a ridged and scarred waste, lying under the half circle of range behind, and sloping down toward where the river lay hidden. The range to the left bore a crimson crest, and it lost itself in a region of a thousand peaks. The range to the right was cold pure purple and it ended in a dim infinity. Between these ranges, far flung across the Colorado, loomed now with exquisite clearness in Adam’s sight the mountain world he had gotten a glimpse of from below. But now he perceived its marvellous all-embracing immensity, magnified by the transparent light, its limitless horizon line an illusion, its thin purple distances unbelievable. The lilac-veiled canyons lay clear in his sight; the naked bones of the mountains showed hungrily the nature of the desert earth; and over all the vast area revealed by the setting sun lay the awful barrenness of a dead world, beautiful and terrible, with its changing rose and topaz hues only mockeries to the lover of life.

A hand fell upon Adam’s shoulder.

“Come, let us look at games of gold and women,” said Arallanes.

Then he led Adam into a big, poorly lighted, low-ceiled place, as crudely constructed as a shed, and full of noise and smoke. The attraction seemed to be a rude bar, various gambling games, and some hawk-faced, ghastly spectacles of women drinking with men at the tables. From an adjoining apartment came discordant music. This scene was intensely interesting to Adam, yet disappointing. His first sight of a wild frontier gambling hell did not thrill him.

It developed that Arallanes liked to drink and talk loud and laugh, and to take a bold chance at a gambling game. But Adam refused, and meant to avoid drinking as long as he could. He wandered around by himself, to find that everybody was merry and friendly. Adam tried not to look at any of the women while they looked at him. The apartment from which came the music was merely a bare canvas-covered room with a board floor. Dancing was going on.

Adam’s aimless steps finally led him back to the sand-floored hall, where he became absorbed in watching a game of poker that a bystander said had no limit. Then Adam sauntered on, and presently was attracted by a quarrel among some Mexicans. To his surprise, it apparently concerned Arallanes. All of them showed the effects of liquor, and, after the manner of their kind, they were gesticulating and talking excitedly. Suddenly one of them drew a knife and lunged toward Arallanes. Adam saw the movement, and then the long shining blade, before he saw what the man looked like. That action silenced the little group.

The outstretched hand, quivering with the skewer-like dagger, paused in its sweep as it reached a point opposite Adam. Instinctively he leaped, and quick as a flash he caught the wrist in a grip so hard that the fellow yelled. Adam, now that he possessed the menacing hand, did not know what to do with it. With a powerful jerk he pulled the Mexican off his feet, and then, exerting his strength to his utmost, he swung him round, knocking over men and tables, until his hold loosened. The knife flew one way and the Mexican the other. He lay where he fell. Arallanes and his comrades made much of Adam.

“We are friends. You will drink with me,” said Arallanes, grandly.

Though no one would have suspected it, Adam was really in need of something bracing.

“Senor is only a boy, but he has an arm,” said Arallanes, as he clutched Adam’s shoulder and biceps with a nervous hand. “When senor becomes a man he will be a giant.”

Adam’s next change of emotion was from fright to a sense of foolishness at his standing there. Then he had another drink, and after his feelings changed again, and for that matter the whole complexion of everything changed.

He never could have found the narrow path leading down into the canyon. Arallanes was his guide. Walking on the sandy floor was hard work and made him sweat. The loose sand and gravel dragged at his feet. Not long was it before he had walked off the effects of the strong liquor. He became curious as to why the Mexican had threatened Arallanes, and was told that during the day the foreman had discharged this fellow.

“He ran after Margarita,” added Arallanes, “and I kicked him out of the house. The women, senor — ah! they do not mind what a man is!...Have a care of Margarita. She has as many loves and lives as a spotted cat.”

For the most part, however, the two men were silent on this laborious walk. By and bye the canyon widened out so that Adam could view the great expanse of sky, fretted with fire, and the mountain spurs, rising on all sides, cold and dark against the blue. At last Arallanes announced that they were home. Adam had not seen a single house in the grey shadows. A few more steps, however, brought tangible substance of walls to Adam’s touch. Then he drew a long deep breath and realised how tired he was. The darkness gradually changed from pitch black to a pale obscurity. He could see dim, spectral outlines of mesquites, and a star shining through. At first the night appeared to be absolutely silent, but after a while, by straining his ears, he heard a rustling of mice or ground squirrels in the adobe walls. The sound comforted him, however, and when one of them, or at least some little animal, ran softly, over his bed the feeling of utter loneliness was broken.

“I’ve begun it,” he whispered, and meant the lonely life that was to be his. The silence, the darkness, the loneliness seemed to give him deeper thought. The thing that puzzled him and alarmed him was what seemed to be swift changes going on in him. If he changed his mind every hour, now cast down because of memories he could not wholly shake, or lifted to strange exaltation by the beauty of a desert sunset, or again swayed by the appeal of a girl’s dusky eyes, and then instinctively leaping into a fight with a Mexican — if he were going to be as vacillating and wild as these impulses led him to suppose he might be, it was certain that he faced a hopeless future.

But could he help himself? Then it seemed his fine instincts, his fine principles, and the hopes and dreams that would not die, began to contend with a new up-rising force in him, a wilder something he had never known, a strange stirring and live emotion.

“But I’m glad,” he burst out, as if telling his secret to the darkness. “Glad to be rid of Guerd — damn him and his meanness!...Glad to be alone!...Glad to come into this wild desert!...Glad that girl made eyes at me! I’ll not lie to myself. I wanted to hug her — to kiss her — and I’ll do it if she’ll let me...That gambling hell disgusted me, and sight of the greaser’s knife scared me cold. Yet when I got hold of him — felt my strength — how helpless he was — that I could have cracked his bones — why, scared as I was, I felt a strange wild something that is not gone yet...I’m changing. It’s a different life. And I’ve got to meet things as they come, and be game.”

Next morning Adam went to work and it developed that this was to copy MacKay’s lead-pencil scrawls, and after that was done to keep accurate account of ore mined and operated.

Several days passed before Adam caught up with his work to the hour. Then MacKay, true to his word, said he would set him on a man’s job part of the time. The job upon which MacKay put Adam was no less than keeping up the fire under the huge boilers. As wood had to be used for fuel and as it was consumed rapidly, the task of stoking was not easy. Besides, hot as the furnace was, it seemed the sun was hotter. Adam sweat till he could wring water out of his shirt.

That night he made certain MacKay was playing a joke on him. Arallanes confided this intelligence, and even Margarita had been let into the secret. MacKay had many labourers for the hard work, and he wanted to cure the tenderfoot of his desire for a man’s job, such as he had asked for. It was all good-natured, and amused Adam. He imagined he knew what he needed, and while he was trying to find it he could have just as much fun as MacKay.

Much to MacKay’s surprise, Adam presented himself next afternoon, in boots, overalls, and undershirt, to go on with his job of firing the engine.

“Wasn’t yesterday enough?” queried the boss.

“I can stand it.”

Then it pleased Adam to see a considerable evidence of respect, in the rough mill operator’s expression. For a week Adam kept up with his office work and laboured each afternoon at the stoking job. No one suspected that he suffered, though it was plain enough that he lost flesh and was exceedingly fatigued. Then Margarita’s reception of him, when he trudged home in the waning sunset hour, was sweet despite the fact that he tried to repudiate its sweetness. Once she put a little brown hand on his blistered arm, and her touch held the tenderness of woman. All women must be akin. They liked a man who could do things, and the greater his feats of labour or fight the better they liked him.

The following week MacKay took a Herculean labourer off a strenuous job with the ore and put Adam in his place. MacKay maintained his good humour, but he had acquired a little grimness. This long-limbed tenderfoot was a hard nut to crack. Adam’s father had been a man of huge stature and tremendous strength; and many a time had Adam heard it said that he might grow to be like his father. Far indeed was he from that now; but he took the brawny and seasoned labourer’s place and kept it. If the other job had been toil for Adam, this new one was pain. He learned there what labour meant. Also he learned how there was only one thing that common men understood and respected in a labourer, and it was the grit and muscle to stand the grind. Adam was eighteen years old and far from having reached his growth. This fact might have been manifest to his fellow workers, but it was not that which counted. He realised that those long hours of toil at which he stubbornly stuck had set his spirit in some immeasurable and unquenchable relation to the strange life that he divined was to be his.

Two weeks and more went by. MacKay, in proportion to the growth of his admiration and friendship for Adam, gradually weakened on his joke. And one day, when banteringly he dared Adam to tip a car of ore that two Mexicans were labouring at, and Adam in a single heave sent the tons of ore roaring into the shaft, then MacKay gave up and in true Western fashion swore his defeat and shook hands with the boy.

So in those few days Adam made friends who changed the colour and direction of his life. From Merryvale he learned the legend and history of the frontier. MacKay opened his eyes to the great health for mind and body in sheer toil. Arallanes represented a warmth of friendship that came unsought, showing what might be hidden in any man. Margarita was still an unknown quantity in Adam’s development. Their acquaintance had gone on mostly under the eyes of the senora or Arallanes. Sometimes at sunset Adam had sat with her on the sand of the river bank. Her charm grew. Then the unexpected happened. A break occurred in the machinery and a small but invaluable part could not be repaired. It had to come from San Francisco.

Adam seemed to be thrown back upon his own resources. He did not know what to do with himself. Arallanes advised him not to go panning for gold, and to be cautious if he went up to Picacho, for the Mexican, Adam had so roughly handled was the ringleader in a bad gang that it would be well to avoid. All things conspired, it seemed, to throw Adam into the company of Margarita, who always waited around the corner of every hour watching with her dusky eyes.

CHAPTER IV

SO AS THE slow, solemn days drifted onward, like the wonderful river which dominated the desert valley, it came to pass that the dreaming, pondering Adam suddenly awakened to the danger in this dusky-eyed maiden.

The realisation came to Adam at the still sunset hour when he and Margarita were watching the river slide like a gleam of gold out of the west. They were walking among the scattered mesquites along the sandy bank, a place lonesome and hidden from the village behind, yet open to the wide space of river and valley beyond. The air seemed full of marvelous tints of gold and rose and purple. The majestic scene, beautiful and sad, needed life to make it perfect. Adam, more than usually drawn by Margarita’s sympathy, was trying to tell her something of the burden on his mind, that he was alone in the world, with only a hard grey future before him, with no one to care whether he lived or died.

Then had come his awakening. It did not speak well for Margarita’s conceptions of behavior, but it proved her a creature of heart and blood. To be suddenly enveloped by a wind of flame, in the slender twining form of this girl of Spanish nature, was for Adam at once a revelation and a catastrophe. But if he was staggered, he was also responsive, as in a former moment of poignancy he had vowed he would be. A strong and shuddering power took hold of his heart and he felt the leap, the beat, the burn of his blood. When he lifted Margarita and gathered her in a close embrace it was more than a hot upflashing of boyish passion that flushed his face and started tears from under his tight-shut eyelids. It was a sore hunger for he knew not what, a gratefulness that he could express only by violence, a yielding to something deeper and more far-reaching than was true of the moment.

Adam loosened Margarita’s hold upon his neck and held her back from him so he could see her face. It was sweet, rosy. Her eyes were shining, black and fathomless as night, soft with a light that had never shone upon Adam from any other woman’s.

“Girl, do you — love me?” he demanded, and if his voice broke with the strange eagerness of a boy, his look had all the sternness of a man.

“Ah...!” whispered Margarita.

“You — you big-hearted girl!” he exclaimed, with a laugh that was glad, yet had a tremor in it. “Margarita, I — I must love you, too — since I feel so queer.”

Then he bent to her lips, and from these first real kisses that had ever been spent upon him by a woman he realised in one flash his danger. He released Margarita in a consideration she did not comprehend; and in her pouting reproach, her soft-eyed appeal, her little brown hands that would not let go of him, there was further menace to his principles.

Adam, gay and teasing, yet kindly and tactfully, tried to find a way to resist her.

“Senorita, some one will see us,” he said.

“Who cares?”

“But, child, we — we must think.”

“Senor, no woman ever thinks when love is in her heart and on her lips.”

Her reply seemed to rebuke Adam, for he sensed in it what might be true of life, rather than just of this one little girl, swayed by unknown and uncontrollable forces. She appeared to him then subtly and strongly, as if there was infinitely more than willful love in her. But it did not seem to be the peril of her proffered love that restrained Adam so much as the strange consciousness of the willingness of his spirit to meet hers halfway.

Suddenly Margarita’s mood changed. She became like a cat that had been purring under a soft, agreeable hand and then had been stroked the wrong way.

“Senor think he love me?” she flashed, growing white.

“Yes — I said so — Margarita. Of course I do,” he hastened to assure her.

“Maybe you — a gringo liar!”

Adam might have resented this insulting hint but for his uncertainty of himself, his consequent embarrassment, and his thrilling sense of the nearness of her blazing eyes. What a little devil she looked! This did not antagonize Adam, but it gave him proof of his impudence, of his dreaming carelessness. Margarita might not be a girl to whom he should have made love, but it was too late. Besides, he did not regret that. Only he was upset; he wanted to think.

“If the grande senor trifle — Margarita will cut out his heart!”

This swift speech, inflexible and wonderful with a passion that revealed to Adam the half-savage nature of a woman whose race was alien to his, astounded and horrified him, and yet made his blood tingle wildly.

“Margarita, I do not trifle,” replied Adam, earnestly. “God knows I’m glad you — you care for me. How have I offended you? What is it you want?”

“Let senor swear he love me,” she demanded, imperiously.

Adam answered to that with the wildness that truly seemed flashing more and more from him; and the laughter and boldness on his lips hid the gravity that had settled there. He was no clod. Under the softness of him hid a flint that struck fire.

As Margarita had been alluring and provocative, then as furious as a barbarian queen, so she now changed again to another personality in which it pleased her to be proud, cold, aloof, an outraged woman to be wooed back to tenderness. If, at the last moment of the walk home, Margarita evinced signs of another sudden transformation, Adam appeared not to note them. Leaving her in the dusk at the door where the senora sat, he strode away to the bank of the river. When he felt himself free and safe once more, he let out a great breath of relief.

“Whew! Now I’ve done it!...So, she’d cut my heart out? And I had to swear I loved her! The little savage!...But she’s amazing — and she’s adorable, with all her cat claws. Wouldn’t Guerd rave over a girl like Margarita?...And here I am, standing on my two feet, in possession of all my faculties, Adam Larey, a boy who thought he had principles — yet now I’m a ranting lover of a dark-skinned, black-eyed slip of a greaser girl! It can’t be true!”

With that outburst came sobering thought. Adam’s resolve not to ponder and brood about himself was as if it had never been. He knew he would never make such a resolve again. For hours he strolled up and down the sandy bank, deep in thought, yet aware of the night and the stars, the encompassing mountains, and the silent, gleaming river winding away in the gloom. As he had become used to being alone out in the solitude and darkness, there had come to him a vague awakening sense of their affinity with his nature. Success and people might fail and betray him, but the silent, lonely starlit nights were going to be teachers, even as they had been to the Wise Men of the Arabian waste.

Adam at length gave up in despair and went to bed, hoping in slumber to forget a complexity of circumstance and emotion that seemed to him an epitome of his callow helplessness. The desert began to loom to Adam as a region inimical to comfort and culture. He had almost decided that the physical nature of the desert was going to be good for him. But what of its spirit, mood, passion as typified by Margarita Arallanes?

Adam could ask himself that far-reaching query, and yet, all the answer he got was a rush of hot blood at memory of the sweet fire of her kisses. He saw her to be a simple child of the desert, like an Indian, answering to savage impulses, wholly unconscious of what had been a breach of womanly reserve and restraint. Was she good or bad? How could she be bad if she did not know any better? Thus Adam pondered and conjectured, and cursed his ignorance, and lamented his failings, all the time honest to acknowledge that he was fond of Margarita and drawn to her. About the only conclusion he formed from his perplexity was the one that he owed it to Margarita to live up to his principles.

At this juncture he recollected Merryvale’s significant remarks about the qualities needed by men who were to survive in the desert, and his nobler sentiments suffered a rout. The suddenness, harshness, fierceness of the desert grafted different and combating qualities upon a man or else it snuffed him out, like a candle blown by a gusty wind.

Next morning, as every morning, the awakening was sweet, fresh, new, hopeful. Another day! And the wonderful dry keenness of the air, the colours that made the earth seem a land of enchantment, were enough in themselves to make life worth living. In the morning he always felt like a boy.

Margarita’s repentance for her moods of yesterday took a material turn in the preparation of an unusually good breakfast for Adam. He was always hungry and good meals were rare. Adam liked her attentions, and he encouraged them; though not before the senora or Arallanes, for the former approved too obviously and the latter disapproved too mysteriously.

When, some time later, a boat arrived, Adam was among the first to meet it at the dock.

He encountered MacKay coming ashore in the company of a man and two women, one of whom was young. The manager showed a beaming face for the first time in many days. Repairs for the mill engine had come. MacKay at once introduced Adam to the party; and it so turned out that presently the manager, who was extremely busy, left his friends for Adam to entertain. They were people whom Adam liked immediately, and as the girl was pretty, of a blonde type seldom seen in the south-west, it seemed to Adam that his task was more than agreeable, He showed them around the little village and then explained how interesting it would be for them to see the gold mill. How long a time it seemed since he had been in the company of a girl like those he had known at home! She was merry, intelligent, a little shy.

He was invited aboard the boat to have lunch with the mother and daughter. Everything tended to make this a red-letter day for Adam. The hours passed all too swiftly and time came for the boat to depart. When the boat swung free from the shore Adam read in the girl’s eyes the thought keen in his own mind — that they would never meet again. The round of circumstances might never again bring a girl like that into Adam’s life, if it were to be lived in these untrodden ways. He waved his hand with all the eloquence which it would express. Then the obtruding foliage on the bank hid the boat and the girl was gone. His last thought was a selfish one — that his brother Guerd would not see her at Ehrenberg.

Some of MacKay’s labourers were working with unloaded freight on the dock. One of these was Regan, the little Irishman who had been keen to mark Adam on several occasions. He winked at MacKay and pointed at Adam.

“Mac, shure thot boy’s a divil with the wimmen!”

MacKay roared with laughter and looked significantly past Adam as if this mirth was not wholly due to his presence alone. Someone else seemed implicated. Suddenly Adam turned. Margarita stood there, with face and mien of a tragedy queen, and it seemed to Adam that her burning black eyes did not see anything in the world but him. Then, with one of her swift actions, graceful and lithe, yet violent, she wheeled and fled.

“O, Lord!” murmured Adam, aghast at the sudden-dawning significance of the case. He had absolutely forgotten Margarita’s existence. Most assuredly she had seen every move of his with her big eyes, and read his mind, too. He could not see the humour of his situation at the moment, but as he took a short cut through the shady mesquites toward his hut, he presently espied Margarita in ambush. What fiendish glee this predicament of his would have aroused in his brother Guerd! Adam, the lofty, the supercilious, had come a cropper at last — such would have been Guerd’s scorn and rapture!

Margarita came rushing from the side, right upon him even as he turned. So swiftly she came that he could not get a good look at her, but she appeared a writhing, supple little thing, instinct with fury. Hissing Spanish maledictions, she flung herself upward, and before he could ward her off she had slapped and scratched his face and beat wildly at him with flying brown fists. He thrust her away, but she sprang back. Then, suddenly hot with anger, he grasped her and, jerking her off her feet, he shook her with far from gentle force, and did not desist till he saw that he was hurting her. Letting her down and holding her at arm’s length, he gazed hard at the white face framed by dishevelled black hair and lighted by eyes so magnificently expressive of supreme passion that his anger was shocked into wonder and admiration. Desert eyes! Right there a conception dawned in his mind — he was seeing a spirit through eyes developed by the desert.

“Margarita!” he exclaimed, “are you a cat — that you — —”

“I hate you,” she hissed, interrupting him. The expulsion of her breath, the bursting swell of her breast, the quiver of her whole lissom body, all were exceedingly potent of an intensity that utterly amazed Adam. Such a little girl, such a frail strength, such a deficient brain to hold all that passion! What would she do if she had real cause for wrath?

“Ah, Margarita, you don’t mean that. I didn’t do anything. Let me tell you.”

She repeated her passionate utterance, and Adam saw that he could no more change her then than he could hope to move the mountain. Resentment stirred in him.

“Well,” he burst out, boyishly, “if you’re so darned fickle as that I’m glad you do hate me.”

Then he released his hold on her arms and, turning away without another glance in her direction, he strode from the glade. He took the gun he had repaired and set off down the river trail. When he got into the bottom lands of willow and cottonwood he glided noiselessly along, watching and listening for game of some kind.

In the wide mouth of a wash not more than a mile from the village, Adam halted to admire some exceedingly beautiful trees. The first was one of a species he had often noted there, and it was a particularly fine specimen, perhaps five times as high as his head and full and round in proportion. The trunk was large at the ground, soon separating into innumerable branches that in turn spread and drooped and separated into a million twigs and stems and points. Trunk and branch and twig, every inch of this wonderful tree was a bright, soft green colour, as smooth as if polished, and it did not have a single leaf. As Adam gazed at this strange, unknown tree, grasping the nature of it and its exquisite colour and grace and life, he wondered anew at the marvel of the desert.

As he walked around to the side toward the river he heard a cry. Wheeling quickly, he espied Margarita running toward him. Margarita’s hair was flying. Blood showed on her white face. She had torn her dress.

“Margarita!” cried Adam, as he reached her. “What’s the matter?”

She was so out of breath she could scarcely speak.

“Felix — he hide back there — in trail,” she panted. “Margarita watch — she know — she go round.”

The girl laboured under extreme agitation, which, however, did not seem to be fright.

“Felix? You mean the Mexican who drew a knife on your father? The fellow I threw around — up at Picacho?”

“Si — senor,” replied Margarita.

“Well, what of it? Why does Felix hide up in the trail?”

“Felix swore revenge. He kill you.”

“Oh — ho!...So that’s it,” ejaculated Adam, and he whistled his surprise. A hot, tight sensation struck deeply inside him. “Then you came to find me — warn me?”

She nodded vehemently and clung to him, evidently wearied and weakening.

“Margarita, that was good of you,” said Adam, earnestly, and he led her out of the sun into the shade of the tree. With his handkerchief he wiped the blood from thorn scratches on her cheek. The dusky eyes shone with a vastly different light from the lurid hate of a few hours back. “I thank you, girl, and I’ll not forget it...But why did you run out in the sun and through the thorns to warn me?”

“Senor know now — he kill Felix before Felix kill him,” replied Margarita, in speech that might have been naive had its simplicity not been so deadly.

Adam laughed again, a little grimly. This was not the first time there had been forced upon him a hint of the inevitableness of life in the desert. But it was not his duty to ambush the Mexican who would ambush him. The little coldness thrilled out of Adam to the close, throbbing presence of Margarita. The fragrance, the very breath of her, went to his head like wine.

“But girl — only a little while ago — you slapped me — scratched me — hated me,” he said, in wonder and reproach.

“No — no — no! Margarita love senor!” she cried, and seemed to twine around him and climb into his arms at once. The same fire, the same intensity as of that unforgetable moment of hate and passion, dominated her now, only it was love.

And this time it was Adam who sought her red lips and returned her kisses. Again that shuddering wild gust in his blood! It was as strange and imperious to him then as in a sober reflection it had been bold, gripping, physical, a drawing of him not sanctioned by his will. In this instance he was weaker in its grip, but still he conquered. Releasing Margarita, he led her to a shady place in the sand under the green tree, and found a seat where he could lean against a low branch. Margarita fell against his shoulder, and there clung to him and wept. Her dusky hair rippled over him, soft and silky to the touch of his fingers. The poor, faded dress, of a fabric unknown to Adam, ragged and dusty and torn, and the little shoes, worn and cracked, showing the soles of her stockingless feet, spoke eloquently of poverty. Adam noted the slender grace of her slight form, the arch of the bare instep, and the shapeliness of her ankles, brown almost as an Indian’s. And all at once there charged over him an overwhelming sense of the pitifulness and the wonderfulness of her — a ragged, half-dressed little Mexican girl, whose care of her hair and face, and the few knots of ribbon, betrayed the worshipful vanity that was the jewel of her soul, and whose physical perfection was in such strange contrast to the cramped, undeveloped mind.

“My God!” whispered Adam, under his breath. Something big and undefined was born in him then. He saw her, he pitied her, he loved her, he wanted her; but these feelings were not so much what constituted the bigness and vagueness that waved through his soul. He could not grasp it. But it had to do with the life, the beauty, the passion, the soul of this Mexican girl; and it was akin to a reverence he felt for the things in her that she could not understand.

Margarita soon recovered, and assumed a demeanour so shy and modest and wistful that Adam could not believe she was the same girl. Nevertheless, he took good care not to awaken her other characteristics.

“Margarita, what is the name of this beautiful tree?” he asked.

“Palo verde. It means green tree.”

It interested him then to instruct himself further in regard to the desert growths that had been strange to him; and to this end he led Margarita from one point to another, pleased to learn how familiar she was with every growing thing.

Presently Margarita brought to Adam’s gaze a tree that resembled smoke, so blue-grey was it, so soft and hazy against the sky, so columnar and mushrooming. What a strange, graceful tree and what deep-blue blossoms it bore! Upon examination Adam was amazed to discover that every branch and twig of this tree was a thorn. A hard, cruel, beautiful tree of thorns that at a little distance resembled smoke!

“Palo Christi,” murmured Margarita, making the sign of the cross. And she told Adam that this was the Crucifixion tree, which was the species that furnished the crown of thorns for the head of Christ.

Sunset ended several happy and profitable hours for Adam. He had not forgotten about the Mexican, Felix, and had thought it just as well to let time pass and to keep out of trouble as long as he could. He and Margarita reached home without seeing any sign of Felix. Arallanes, however, had espied the Mexican sneaking around, and he warned Adam in no uncertain terms. Merryvale, too, had a word for Adam’s ear; and it was significant that he did not advise a waiting course. In spite of all Adam’s reflections he did not need a great deal of urging. After supper he started off for Picacho with Arallanes and a teamster who was freighting supplies up to the camp.

Picacho was in full blast when they arrived. The dim lights, the discordant yells, the raw smell of spirits, the violence of the crude gambling hall worked upon Adam’s already excited mind; and by the time he had imbibed a few drinks he was ready for anything. But they did not find Felix.

Then Adam, if not half drunk, at least somewhat under the influence of rum, started to walk back to his lodgings. The walk was long and, by reason of the heavy, dragging sand, one of considerable labour. Adam was in full possession of his faculties when he reached the village. But his blood was hot from the exercise, and the excitement of the prospective battle of the early evening had given way to an excitement of the senses, in the youthful romance felt in the dark, the starlight, the wildness of the place. So when in the pale gloom of the mesquites Margarita glided to him like a lissom spectre, to enfold him and cling and whisper, Adam had neither the will, nor the heart, nor the desire to resist her.

CHAPTER V

ADAM’S DULL EYELIDS opened on a dim, grey desert dawn. The coming of the dawn was in his mind, and it showed pale through his shut lids. He could not hold back the hours. Something had happened in the night and he would never be the same again. With a sharp pang, a sense of incomprehensible loss, Adam felt die in him the old unreasoning, instinctive boy. And there was more, too deep and too subtle for him to divine. It had to do with a feminine strain in him, a sweetness and purity inherited from his mother and developed by her teachings. It had separated him from his. brother Guerd and kept him aloof from a baseness common to their comrades. Nevertheless, the wildness of this raw, uncouth, primitive West had been his undoing.

It was with bitterness that Adam again faced the growing light. All he could do was to resign himself to fate. The joy of life, the enchantments — all that had made him feel different from other boys and hide his dreams — failed now in this cool dark morning of reality. He could not understand the severity of the judgment he meted out to himself. His spirit suffered an ineffaceable blunting. And the tight-drawing knot in his breast, the gnawing of remorse, the strange, dark oppression — these grew and reached a climax, until something gave way within him and there was a sinking of the heart, a weary and inscrutable feeling.

Then he remembered Margarita, and the very life and current of his blood seemed to change. Like a hot wave the memory of Margarita surged over Adam, her strange new sweetness, the cunning of her when she waylaid him in the dead of the night, the clinging lissomness of her and the whispered incoherence that needed no translation, the inevitableness of the silent, imperious demand of her presence, unashamed and insistent.

Adam leaped out of his blankets, breaking up this mood and thought by violent action. For Adam then the sunrise was glorious, the valley was beautiful, the desert was wild and free, the earth was an immense region to explore, and nature, however insatiable and inexorable, was prodigal of compensations. He drank a sweet cup that held one drop of poison bitterness. Life swelled in his breast. He wished he were an Indian. As he walked along there flashed into mind words spoken long ago by his mother: “My son, you take things too seriously, you feel too intensely the ordinary moments of life.” He understood her now, but he could not distinguish ordinary things from great things. How could anything be little?

Margarita’s greeting was at once a delight and a surprise. Her smile, the light of her dusky eyes, would have made any man happier. But there was a subtle air about her this morning that gave Adam a slight shock, an undefined impression that he represented less to Margarita than he had on yesterday.

Then came the shrill whistle of the downriver boat. Idle men flocked toward the dock. When Adam reached the open space on the bank before the dock he found it crowded with an unusual number of men, all manifestly more than ordinarily interested in something concerning the boat. By slipping through the mesquites Adam got around to the edge of the crowd.

A tall, gaunt man, clad in black, strode off the gangplank. His height, his form, his gait were familiar to Adam. He had seen that embroidered flowery vest with its silver star conspicuously in sight, and the brown beardless face with its square jaw and seamy lines.

“Collishaw!” ejaculated Adam, in dismay. He recognised in this man one whom he had known at Ehrenberg, a gambling, gun-fighting sheriff to whom Guerd had became attached. As his glance swept back of Collishaw his pulse beat quicker. The next passenger to stride off the gangplank was a very tall, superbly built young man. Adam would have known that form in a crowd of a thousand men. His heart leaped with a great throb. Guerd, his brother!

Guerd looked up. His handsome, heated face, bold and keen and reckless, flashed in the sunlight. His piercing gaze swept over the crowd upon the bank.

“Hello, Adam!” he yelled, with gay, hard laugh. Then he prodded Collishaw and pointed up at Adam. “There he is! We’ve found him.”

Adam plunged away into the thickets of mesquites, and, indifferent to the clawing thorns, he did not halt until he was far down the bank.

It died hard, that regurgitation of brother love. It represented most of his life, and all of his home associations, and the memories of youth. The strength of it proved his loyalty to himself. How warm and fine that suddenly revived emotion! How deep seated, beyond his control! He could have sobbed out over the pity of it, the loss of it, the fallacy of it. Plucked out by the roots, it yet lived hidden in the depths of him. Adam in his flight to be alone had yielded to the amaze and shame and fury stirred in him by a realisation of joy in the mere sight of this brother who hated him. For years his love had fought against the gradual truth of Guerd’s hate. He had not been able to prove it, but he felt it. Adam had no fear of Guerd, nor any reason why he could not face him, except this tenderness of which he was ashamed. When he had fought down the mawkish sentiment he would show Guerd and Collishaw what he was made of. Money! That was Guerd’s motive, with an added possibility of further desire to dominate and hound.

“I’ll fool him,” said Adam, resolutely, as he got up to return.

Adam did not know exactly what he would do, but he was certain that he had reached the end of his tether. He went back to the village by a roundabout way. Turning a sharp curve in the canyon he came suddenly upon a number of workmen, mostly Mexicans. They were standing under a wooden trestle that had been built across the canyon at this narrow point. All of them appeared to be gazing upward, and naturally Adam directed his gaze likewise.

Thus without warning he saw the distorted and ghastly face of a man hanging by the neck on a rope tied to the trestle. The spectacle gave Adam a terrible shock.

“That’s Collishaw’s work,” muttered Adam, darkly, and he remembered stories told of the sheriff’s grim hand in more than one act of border justice. What a hard country!

In front of the village store Adam encountered Merryvale, and he asked him for particulars about the execution.

“Wal, I don’t know much,” replied the old watchman, scratching his head. “There’s been some placer miners shot an’ robbed up the river. This Collishaw is a regular sure-enough sheriff, takin’ the law to himself. Reckon there ain’t any law. Wal, he an’ his deputies say they tracked thet murderin’ gang to Picacho, an’ swore they identified one of them. Arallanes stuck up for thet greaser. There was a hot argument, an’, by Gosh! I jest swore Collishaw was goin’ to draw on Arallanes. But Arallanes backed down, as any man not crazy would have done. The greaser swore by all his Virgins thet he wasn’t the man, an’ was swearin’ he could prove it when the rope choked him off....I don’t know, Adam. I don’t know. I was fer waitin’ a little to give the feller a chance. But Collishaw came down here to hang someone an’ you bet he was goin’ to do it.”

“I know him, Merryvale, and you’re betting right,” replied Adam, forcefully.

“Adam, one of his men is a fine-lookin’ young chap thet sure must be your brother. Now, ain’t he?”

“Yes, you’re right about that, too.”

“Wal, wal! You don’t seem powerful glad....Son, jest be careful what you say to Collishaw. He’s hard an’ I reckon he’s square as he sees justice, but he doesn’t ring right to an old timer like me. He courts the crowd. An’ he’s been askin’ fer you. There he comes now.”

The sheriff appeared, approaching with several companions, and halted before the store. His was a striking figure, picturesque, commanding, but his face was repellent. His massive head was set on a bull neck of swarthy and weathered skin like wrinkled leather; his broad face, of similar hue, appeared a mass of crisscrossed lines, deep at the eyes, and long on each side of the cruel, thin-lipped, tight-shut mouth; his chin stuck out like a square rock; and his eyes, dark and glittering, roved incessantly in all directions, had been trained to see men before they saw him.

Adam knew that Collishaw had seen him first, and, acting upon the resolution that he had made down in the thicket, he strode over to the sheriff.

“Collishaw, I’ve been told you wanted me,” said Adam. “Hello, Larey! Yes, I was inquirin’ aboot you,” replied Collishaw, with the accent of a Texan.

“What do you want of me?” asked Adam.

Collishaw drew Adam aside out of earshot of the other men.

“It’s a matter of thet little gamblin’ debt you owe Guerd,” he replied, in a low voice.

“Collishaw, are you threatening me with some such job as you put up on that poor greaser?” inquired Adam, sarcastically, as he waved his hand up the canyon.

Probably nothing could have surprised this hardened sheriff, but he straightened up with a jerk and shed his confidential and admonishing air.

“No, I can’t arrest you on a gamblin’ debt,” he replied, bluntly, “but I’m shore goin’ to make you pay.”

“You are, like hell!” retorted Adam. “What had you to do with it? If Guerd owed you money in that game, I’m not responsible. And I didn’t pay because I caught Guerd cheating. I’m not much of a gambler, Collishaw, but I’ll bet you a stack of gold twenties against your fancy vest that Guerd never collects a dollar of his crooked deal.”

With that Adam turned on his heel and strode off toward the river. His hard-earned independence added something to the wrong done him by these men. He saw himself in different light. The rankling of the injustice he had suffered at Ehrenberg had softened only in regard to the girl in the case. Remembering her again, it seemed her part in his alienation from Guerd did not loom so darkly and closely. Margarita had come between that affair and the present hour This other girl had really been nothing to him, but Margarita had become everything. A gratefulness, a big, generous warmth, stirred in Adam’s heart for the dark-eyed Mexican girl. What did it matter who she was? In this desert he must learn to adjust differences of class and race and habit in relation to the wildness of time and place.

In the open sandy space leading to the houses near the river Adam met Arallanes. The usually genial foreman appeared pale, sombre, sick. To Adam’s surprise, Arallanes would not talk about the hanging. Adam had another significant estimate of the character of Collishaw. Arallanes, however, was not so close lipped concerning Guerd Larey.

“Quien sabe, senor?” he concluded. “Maybe it’s best for you. Margarita is a she-cat. You are my friend. I should tell you...But, well, senor, if you would keep Margarita, look out for your brother.”

Adam gaped his astonishment and had not a word for Arallanes as he turned away. It took him some time to realise the content of Arallanes’ warning and advice. But what fixed itself in Adam’s mind was the fact that Guerd had run across Margarita and had been attracted by her. How perfectly natural! How absolutely inevitable! Adam could not remember any girl he had ever admired or liked in all his life that Guerd had not taken away from him. Among the boys at home it used to be a huge joke, in which Adam had good-naturedly shared. All for Guerd! Adam could recall the time when he had been happy to give up anything or anyone to his brother. But out here in the desert, where he was beginning to assimilate the meaning of a man’s fight for his life and his possessions, he felt vastly different. Moreover, he had gone too far with Margarita, regrettable as the fact was. She belonged to him, and his principles were such that he believed he owed her a like return of affection, and besides that, loyalty and guardianship. Margarita was only seventeen years old. No doubt Guerd would fascinate her if she was not kept out of his way.

“But — suppose she likes Guerd — and wants him — as she wanted me?” muttered Adam, answering a divining flash of the inevitable order of things to be. Still, he repudiated that. His intellect told him what to expect, but his feeling was too strong to harbour doubt of Margarita. Only last night she had changed the world for him — opened his eyes to life not as it was dreamed, but lived! Adam found the wife of Arallanes home alone.

“Senora, where is Margarita?”

“Margarita is there,” she replied, with dark, eloquent glance upon Adam and a slow gesture toward the river bank.

Adam soon espied Guerd and Margarita on the river bank some few rods below the landing place. Here was a pretty sandy nook, shaded by a large mesquite, and somewhat out of sight of passers-by going to and fro from village to dock. Two enormous wheels connected by an iron bar, a piece of discarded mill machinery, stood in the shade of the tree. Margarita sat on the cross-bar and Guerd stood beside her. They were close together, facing a broad sweep of the river and the wonderland of coloured peaks beyond. They did not hear Adam’s approach on the soft sand.

“Senorita, one look from your midnight eyes and I fell in love with you,” Guerd was declaring, with gay passion, and his hand upon her was as bold as his speech. “You little Spanish princess!...Beautiful as the moon and stars!...Hidden in this mining camp, a desert flower born to blush unseen! I shall—”

It was here that Adam walked around the high wheels to confront them. For him the moment was exceedingly poignant. But despite the tumult within him he preserved a cool and quiet exterior. Margarita’s radiance vanished in surprise.

“Well, if it ain’t Adam!” ejaculated her companion. “You son-of-a-gun!...Why, you’ve changed!”

“Guerd,” began Adam, and then his voice halted. To meet his brother this way was a tremendous ordeal. And Guerd’s presence seemed to charge the very air. Worship of this magnificent brother had been the strongest thing in Adam’s life, next to love of mother. To see him again! Guerd Larey’s face was beautiful, yet virile and strong. The beauty was mere perfection of feature. The big curved mouth, the square chin, the straight nose, the large hazel-green eyes full of laughter and love of life, the broad forehead and clustering fair hair — all these were features that made him singularly handsome. His skin was clear brown-tan with a tinge of red. Adam saw no change in Guerd, except perhaps an intensifying of an expression of wildness which made him all the more fascinating to look at. For Adam the mocking thing about Guerd’s godlike beauty was the fact that it deceived. At heart, at soul, Guerd was as false as hell!

“Adam, are you goin’ to shake hands?” queried Guerd, lazily extending his arm. “You sure strike me queer, boy!”

“No,” replied Adam, and his quick-revolving thoughts grasped at Guerd’s slipshod speech. Guerd had absorbed even the provincial words and idioms of the uncouth West.

“All right. Suit yourself,” said Guerd. “I reckon you see I’m rather pleasantly engaged.”

“Yes, I see,” returned Adam, bitterly, with a fleeting glance at Margarita. She had recovered from her surprise and now showed cunning feminine curiosity. “Guerd, I met Collishaw, and he had the gall to brace me for that gambling debt. And I’ve hunted you up to tell you that you cheated me. I’ll not pay it.”

“Oh yes, you will,” replied Guerd, smilingly.

“I will not,” said Adam, forcefully.

“Boy, you’ll pay it or I’ll take it out of your hide,” declared Guerd, slowly frowning, as if a curious hint of some change in Adam had dawned upon him.

“You can’t take it that way — or any other way,” retorted Adam.

“But, say — I didn’t cheat,” remonstrated Guerd, evidently making a last stand of argument to gain his end.

“You lie!” flashed Adam. “You know it. I know it...Guerd, let’s waste no words. I told you at Ehrenberg — after you played that shabby trick on me — over the girl there — I told you I was through with you for good.”

Guerd seemed to realise with wonder and chagrin that he had now to deal with a man. How the change in his expression thrilled Adam! What relief came to him in the consciousness that he was now stronger than Guerd! He had never been certain of that.

“Through and be damned!” exclaimed Guerd, and he took his arm from around Margarita and rose from his leaning posture to his lofty height. “I’m sick of your milksop ideas. All I want of you is that money. If you don’t pony up with it I’ll tear your clothes off gettin’ it. Savvy that?

“Ha-ha!” laughed Adam, tauntingly. “I say to you what I said to Collishaw — you will — like hell!”

Guerd Larey’s lips framed curses that were inaudible. He was astounded. The red flamed his neck and face.

“I’ll meet you after I get through talking to this girl,” he said.

“Any time you want,” rejoined Adam, bitingly, “but I’ll have my say now, once and for all...The worm has turned, Guerd Larey. Your goose has stopped laying golden eggs. I will take no more burdens of yours on my shoulders. You’ve bullied me all my life. You’ve hated me. I know now. Oh, I remember so well! You robbed me of toys, clothes, playmates. Then girl friends! Then money!...Then — a worthless woman!...You’re a fraud — a cheat — a liar...You’ve fallen in with your kind out here and you’re going straight to hell.”

The whiteness of Guerd’s face attested to his roused passion. But he had more restraint than Adam. He was older, and the difference of age between them showed markedly.

“So you followed me out here to say all that?” he queried.

“No, not altogether,” replied Adam. “I came after Margarita.”

“Came after Margarita?” echoed Guerd, blankly. “Is that her name? Say, Adam, is this one of your goody-goody tricks? Rescuing a damsel in distress sort of thing!...You and I have fallen out more than once over that. I kick — I — —”

“Guerd, we’ve fallen out for ever,” interrupted Adam, and then he turned to the girl. “Margarita, I want you—”

“But it’s none of your damned business,” burst out Guerd, hotly, interrupting in turn. “What do you care about a Mexican girl? I won’t stand your interference. You clear out and let me alone.”

“But Guerd — it is my business,” returned Adam, haltingly. Some inward force dragged at his tongue. “She’s — my girl.”

“What!” ejaculated Guerd, incredulously. Then he bent down to peer into Margarita’s face, and from that he swept a flashing, keen glance at Adam. His eyes were wonderful then, intensely bright, quickened and sharpened with swift turns of thought. “Boy, you don’t mean you’re on friendly terms with this greaser girl?”

“Yes,” replied Adam.

“You’ve made love to her!” cried Guerd, and the radiance of his face then was beyond Adam’s understanding.

“Yes.”

Guerd violently controlled what must have been a spasm of fiendish glee. His amaze, deep as it was, seemed not to be his predominant feeling, but that very amaze was something to force exquisitely upon Adam how far he had fallen. The moment was dark, hateful, far-reaching in effect, impossible to realise. Guerd’s glance flashed back and forth from Adam to Margarita. But he had not yet grasped what was the tragic thing for Adam — the truth of how fatefully far this love affair had fallen. Adam’s heart sank like lead in his breast. What humiliation he must suffer if he betrayed himself! Hard he fought for composure and dignity to hide his secret.

“Adam, in matters of the heart, where two gentlemen admire the lady in question, the choice is always left to her,” began Guerd, with something of mockery in his rich voice. A devil gleamed from him then, and the look of him, the stature, the gallant action of him as he bowed before Margarita, fascinated Adam even in his miserable struggle to appear a man.

“But, Guerd, you — you’ve known Margarita only a few moments,” he expostulated, and the sound of his voice made him weak. “How can you put such a choice to — to her? It’s — it’s an insult.”

“Adam, that is for Margarita to decide,” responded Guerd. “Women change. It is something you have not learned.” Then as he turned to Margarita he seemed to blaze with magnetism. The grace of him and the beauty of him in that moment made of him a perfect physical embodiment of the emotions of which he was master. He knew his power over women. “Margarita, Adam and I are brothers. We are always falling in love with the same girl. You must choose between us. Adam would tie you down — keep you from the eyes of other men. I would leave you free as a bird.”

And he bent over to whisper in her ear, with his strong brown hand on her arm, at once gallant yet masterful.

The scene was a nightmare to Adam. How could this be something that was happening? But he had sight! Margarita seemed a transformed creature, shy, coy, alluring; with the half-veiled dusky eyes, heavy-lidded, lighted with the same fire that had shone in them for Adam.

“Margarita, will you come?” cried Adam, goaded to end this situation.

“No,” she replied, softly.

“I beg of you — come!” implored Adam.

The girl shook her black head. A haunting mockery hung around her, in her slight smile, in the light of her face. She radiated a strange glow like the warm shade of an opal. Older she seemed to Adam and surer of herself and somewhat deeper in that mystic obsession of passion he had often sensed in her. No spiritual conception of what Adam regarded as his obligation to her could ever dawn in that little brain. She loved her pretty face and beautiful body. She gloried in her power over men. And the new man she felt to be still unwon — who was stronger of instinct and harder to hold, under whose brutal hand she would cringe and thrill and pant and fight — him she would choose. So Adam read Margarita in that moment. If he had felt love for her, which he doubted, it was dead. A great pity flooded over him. It seemed that of the three there, he was the only one who was true and who understood.

“Margarita, have you forgotten last night?” asked Adam huskily.

“Ah, senor — so long ago and far away!” she said.

Adam whirled abruptly and, plunging into the thicket of mesquites, he tore a way through, unmindful of the thorns. When he reached his quarters there was blood on his hands and face, but the sting of the thorns was as nothing to the hurt in his heart. He lay down.

“Again!” he whispered. “Guerd has come — and it’s the same old story. Only worse!...But, it’s better so! I — I didn’t know — her!...Arallanes knew — he told me...And I — I dreamed so many — many fool things. Yes — it’s better — better. I didn’t love her right. It — it was something she roused. I never loved her — but if I did love her — it’s gone. It’s not loss that — that stabs me now. It’s Guerd — Guerd! Again — and I ran off from him...’So long ago and far away,’ she said! Are all women like that? I can’t believe it. I never will. I remember my mother.”

CHAPTER VI

THAT NIGHT IN the dead late hours Adam suddenly awoke. The night seemed the same as all the desert nights — dark and cool under the mesquites — the same dead, unbroken silence. Adam’s keen intentness could not detect a slightest sound of wind or brush or beast. Something had pierced his slumbers, and as he pondered deeply there seemed to come out of the vagueness beyond that impenetrable wall of sleep a voice, a cry, a whisper. Had Margarita, sleeping or waking, called to him? Such queer visitations of mind, often repeated, had convinced Adam that he possessed a mystic power or sense.

When Adam awoke late, in the light of the sunny morning, unrealities of the night dispersed like the grey shadows and vanished. He arose eager, vigorous, breathing hard, instinctively seeking for action. The day was Sunday. Another idle wait, fruitful of brooding moods! But he vowed he would not go to the willow brakes, there to hide from Guerd and Collishaw. Let them have their say — do their worst! He would go up to Picacho and gamble and drink with the rest of the drifters. Merryvale’s words of desert-learned wisdom rang through Adam’s head. As for Margarita, all Adam wanted was one more look at her face, into her dusky eyes, and that would for ever end his relation to her.

At breakfast Arallanes presented a thoughtful and forbidding appearance, although this demeanour was somewhat softened by the few times he broke silence. The senora’s impassive serenity lacked its usual kindliness, and her lowered eyes kept their secrets. Margarita had not yet arisen. Adam could not be sure there was really a shadow hovering over the home, or in his own mind, colouring, darkening his every prospect.

After breakfast he went out to stroll along the river bank and then around the village. He ascertained from Merryvale that Collishaw, Guerd, and their associates had found lodgings at different houses for the night, and after breakfast had left for the mining camp. As usual, Merryvale spoke pointedly: “You’re brother said they were goin’ to clear out the camp. An’ I reckon he didn’t mean greasers, but whiskey an’ gold. Son, you stay away from Picacho to-day.” For once, however, the kind old man’s advice fell upon deaf ears. Adam had to fight his impatience to be off up the canyon; and only a driving need to see Margarita held him there. He walked to and fro, from village to river and back again. By and by he espied Arallanes and his wife, with their friends, dressed in their best, parading toward the little adobe church. Margarita was not with them.

Adam waited a little while, hoping to see her appear. He did not analyse his strong hope that she would go to church this Sunday as usual. But as no sign of her was forthcoming he strode down to the little brown house and entered at the open door.

“Margarita!” he called. No answer broke the quiet. His second call, however, brought her from her room, a dragging figure with a pale face that Adam had never before seen pale.

“Senor Ad — dam,” she faltered.

The look of her, and that voice, stung Adam out of the gentleness habitual with him. Leaping at her, he dragged her into the light of the door. She cried out in a fear that shocked him. When he let go of her, abrupt and sharp in his emotions, she threw up her arms as if to ward off attack.

“Do you think I would hurt you?” he cried, harshly. “No Margarita! I only wanted to see you — just once more.”

She dropped her arms and raised her face. Then Adam, keen in that poignant moment, saw in her the passing of an actual fear of death. It struck him mute. It betrayed her. What had been the dalliance of yesterday, playful and passionate in its wild youth, through the night had become dishonour. Yesterday she had been a cat that loved to be stroked; to-day she was a maimed creature, a broken woman.

“Lift your face — higher,” said Adam, hoarsely, as he put out a shaking hand to touch her. But he could not touch her. She did lift it and looked at him, denying nothing, still unashamed. But now there was soul in that face. Adam felt it limned on his memory for ever — the stark truth of her frailty, the courage of a primitive nature fearing only death, yearning for brutal blows as proof of the survival of jealous love, a dawning consciousness of his honesty and truth. Terrible was it for Adam to realise that if she had been given that choice again she would have decided differently. But it was too late.

“Adios, senorita,” he said, bowing, and backed out of the door. He stopped, and the small pale face with its tragic eyes, straining, unutterably eloquent of wrong to him and to herself, passed slowly out of his sight.

Swiftly Adam strode up the canyon, his fierce energy in keeping with his thoughts. He overtook the Irishman, Regan, who accosted him.

“Hullo, Wansfell, ould fri’nd!” he called. “Don’t yez walk so dom’ fast.”

“Wansfell! Why do you call me that?” asked Adam. How curiously the name struck his ear!

“Ain’t thot your noime?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Wal, all right. Will yez hey a dhrink?” Regan produced a brown bottle and handed it to Adam.

They walked on up the canyon. Regan with his short, stunted legs being hard put to it to keep up with Adam’s long strides. The Irishman would attach himself to Adam, that was evident; and he was a most talkative and friendly fellow. Whenever he got out of breath he halted to draw out the bottle. The liquor in an ordinary hour would have befuddled Adam’s wits, but now it only heated his blood.

“Wansfell, if yez ain’t the dorndest foinest young feller in these diggin’s!” ejaculated Regan.

“Thank you, friend. But don’t call me that queer name. Mine’s Adam.”

“A-dom?” echoed Regan. “Phwat a hell of a noime! Adom an’ Eve, huh? I seen yez with that black-eyed wench. She’s purty.”

They finished the contents of the bottle and proceeded on their way. Regan waxed warmer in his regard for Adam and launched forth a strong argument in favour of their going on a prospecting trip.

“Yez would make a foine prospector an’ pard,” he said. “Out on the desert yez are free an’ happy, b’gorra! No place loike the desert, pard, whin yez come to know it! Thar’s air to breathe an’ long days wid the sun on yer back an’ noights whin a mon knows shlape. Mebbe we’ll hey the luck to foind Pegleg Smith’s lost gold mine.”

“Who was Pegleg Smith and what gold mine did he lose?” queried Adam.

Then as they plodded on up the canyon, trying to keep to the shady strips and out of the hot sun, Adam heard for a second time the story of the famous lost gold mine. Regan told it differently, perhaps exaggerating after the manner of prospectors. But the story was impelling to any man with a drop of adventurous blood in his veins. The lure of gold had not yet obsessed Adam, but he had begun to feel the lure of the desert.

Adam concluded that under happier circumstances this Regan would be a man well worth cultivating in spite of his love for the bottle. They reached the camp about noon, had a lunch at the stand of a Chinaman, and then, entering the saloon, they mingled with the crowd, where Adam soon became. separated from Regan. Liquor flowed like water, and gold thudded in sacks and clinked musically in coins upon the tables. Adam had one drink, and that incited him to take another. Again the throb and burn of his blood warmed out the coldness and bitterness of his mood. Deliberately he drank and deliberately he stifled the voice of conscience until he was in a reckless and dangerous frame of mind. There seemed to be a fire consuming him now, to which liquor was only fuel.

He swaggered through the crowded hall, and for once the drunken miners, the painted hags, the cold-faced gamblers, did not disgust him. The smell of rum and smoke, the feel of the thick sand under his feet, the sight of the motley crowd of shirt-sleeved and booted men, the discordant din of music, glasses, gold, and voices — all these sensations struck him full and intimately with their proof that he was a part of this wild assembly of free adventurers. He remembered again Merryvale’s idea of a man equipped to cope with this lawless gang and hold his own. Suddenly when he espied his brother Guerd he shook with the driving passion that had led him there.

Guerd sat at table, gambling with Collishaw and MacKay and other men of Picacho well known to Adam. Guerd looked the worse for liquor and bad luck. When he glanced up to see Adam, a light gleamed across his hot face. He dropped his cards, and as Adam stepped near he rose from the table and in two strides confronted him, arrogant, menacing, with the manner of a man dangerous to cross.

“I want money,” demanded Guerd.

Adam laughed in his face.

“Go to work. You’re not slick enough with the cards to hide your tricks,” replied Adam, in deliberate scorn. Temper, and not forethought, actuated Guerd then. He slapped Adam, with the moderate force of an older brother punishing an impertinence. Swift and hard, Adam returned that blow, staggering Guerd, who fell against the table, but was upheld by Collishaw. He uttered a loud and piercing cry.

Sharply the din ceased. The crowd slid back over the sand, leaving Adam in the centre of a wide space, confronting Guerd, who still leaned against Collishaw. Guerd panted for breath. His hot face turned white except for the red place where Adam’s fist had struck. MacKay righted the table, then hurriedly drew back. Guerd’s fury of astonishment passed to stronger controlled passion. He rose from Collishaw’s hold and seemed to tower magnificently. He had the terrible look of a man who had waited years for a moment of revenge, at last to recognise it.

“You hit me! I’ll beat you for that — I’ll smash your face,” he said, stridently.

“Come on,” cried Adam.

At this instant the Irishman, Regan, staggered out of the crowd into the open circle. He was drunk.

“Sic ‘em, Wansfell, sic ‘em,” he bawled. “I’m wid yez. We’ll lick thot — loidy face — an’ ivery dom’ — —”

Some miner reached out a long arm and dragged Regan back.

Guerd Larey leaned over to pound with his fist on the table. A leaping glow radiated from his face, as if a mask of hate had inspired some word or speech that Adam must find insupportable. His look let loose a bursting gush of blood through Adam’s throbbing veins. This was no situation built on a quarrel or a jealous rivalry. It was backed by years, and by some secret not easily to be divined, though its source was the very soul of Cain.

“So that’s your game,” declared Guerd, with ringing passion. “You want to fight and you make this debt of yours a pretence. But I’m on to you. It’s because of the girl I took from you.”

“Shut up! Have you no sense of decency? Can’t you be half a man?” burst out Adam, beginning to shake.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Listen to Goody-Goody!...Mother’s nice boy—”

“By Heaven, Guerd Larey, if you speak of my — my mother — here — I’ll tear out your tongue!”

They were close together now, with only the table between them — Cain and Abel — the old bitter story plain in the hate of one flashing face and the agony of the other. Guerd Larey had divined the means to torture and to crucify this brother whose heart and soul were raw.

“Talk about the fall of Saint Anthony!” cried Guerd, with a voice magical in its steely joy. “Never was there a fall like Adam Larey’s — the Sunday-school boy — too sweet — too innocent — too pure to touch the hand of a girl!...Ha-ha! Oh, we can fight, Adam. I’ll fight you. But let me talk — let me tell my friends what a damned hypocrite you are...Gentlemen, behold the immaculate Saint Adam whose Eve was a little greaser girl!”

There was no shout of mirth. The hall held a low-breathing silence. It was a new scene, a diversion for the gamblers and miners and their painted consorts, a clash of a different kind and spirit. Guerd paused to catch his breath and evidently to gather supreme passion for the delivery of what seemed more to him than life itself. His face was marble white, quivering and straining, and his eyes blazed with a piercing flame.

Adam saw the living, visible proof of a hate he had long divined. The magnificence of Guerd’s passion, the terrible reality of his hate, the imminence of a mortal blow, locked Adam’s lips and jaws as in a vice, while a gathering fury, as terrible as Guerd’s hate, flooded and damned at the gates of his energy, ready to break out in destroying violence.

“She told me!” Guerd flung the words like bullets. “You needn’t bluff it out with your damned lying white face. She told me...You — you Adam Larey, with your pure thoughts and lofty ideals...the rot of them! You — damn your milksop soul! — you were the slave of a dirty little greaser girl who fooled you, laughed in your face, left you for me — for me at the snap of my fingers...And, by God! my cup would be full — if your mother could only know — —”

It was Collishaw’s swift hand that knocked up Adam’s flinging arm and the gun which spouted red and boomed heavily. Collishaw grappled with him — was flung off — and then Guerd lunged in close to save himself. A writhing, wrestling struggle — quick, terrible; then the gun boomed with muffled report — and Guerd Larey uttering a cry of agony, fell away from Adam, backward over the table. His gaze, conscious, appalling, was fixed on Adam. A dark crimson spot stained his white shirt. Then he lay there with fading eyes — the beauty and radiance and hate of his face slowly shading.

Collishaw leaned over him. Then with hard, grim gesture he shouted, hoarsely: “Dead, by God!...You’ll hang for this!”

A creeping horror was slowly paralysing Adam. But at that harsh speech he leaped wildly, flinging his gun with terrific force into the sheriff’s face. Like an upright stone dislodged Collishaw fell. Then Adam, bounding forward, flung aside the men obstructing his passage and fled out of the door.

Terror lent wings to his feet. In a few moments he was beyond the outskirts of the camp. Even here, fierce in his energy, he bounded upward, from rock to rock, until he reached the steep jumble of talus where swift progress was impossible. Then with hands and feet working in unison, as if he had been an ape, he climbed steadily.

From the top of the first rocky slope he gazed back fearfully. Yes, men were pursuing him, strung out along the road of the mining camp; and among the last was a tall, black-coated, bareheaded man that Adam took to be Collishaw. This pursuer was staggering along, flinging his arms.

Adam headed straight up the ascent. Picacho loomed to the right, a colossal buttress of red rock, wild and ragged and rugged. But the ascent that had looked so short and easy — how long and steep! Every shadow was a lie, every space of slope in the sunlight hid the truth of its width. Sweat poured from his hot body. He burned. His breath came in laboured bursts. A painful stab in his side spread and swelled to the whole region of his breast. He could hear the mighty throb of his heart, and he could hear it in another way — a deep muffled throb through his ears.

At last he reached the height of the slope where it ended under a wall of rock, the backbone of that ridge, bare and jagged, with no loose shale on its almost perpendicular side. Here it took hard labour of hand and foot to climb and zigzag and pull himself up. Here he fell exhausted.

But the convulsion was short lived. His will power was supreme and his endurance had not been permanently disabled. He crawled before he could walk, and when he recovered enough to stagger erect he plodded on, invincible in his spirit to escape.

From this height, which was a foothill to the great peak, he got his bearings and started down.

“They can’t — trail me — here,” he whispered, hoarsely, as he looked back with the eyes of a fugitive. “And — down there — I’ll keep off the road.”

After that brief moment of reasoning he became once more victim to fear and desperate passion to hurry. He had escaped, his pursuers could not see him now, he could hide, the descent was tortuous; yet these apparent facts, favourable as they were, could not save him. Adam pushed on, gaining strength as he recovered breath. As his direction led him downhill, he went swiftly, sometimes at a rapid walk, again sliding down here and rushing there, and at other places he stepped from rock to rock, like a balancing rope walker.

The descent here appeared to be a long, even slant of broken rocks, close together like cobblestones in a street, and of a dark-bronze hue. They shone as if they had been varnished. And a closer glance showed Adam the many reddish tints of bisnagi cactus growing in the cracks between the stones.

His misgivings were soon verified. He had to descend here, for the afternoon was far gone, and whatever the labour and pain, he must reach the road before dark. The rocks were sharp, uneven, and as slippery as if they had been wet. At the very outset Adam slipped, and, falling with both hands forward, he thrust them into a cactus. The pain stung, and when he had to pull hard to free himself from the thorns, it was as if his hands had been nailed. He could not repress moans as he tried to pull out the thorns with his teeth. They stuck tight. The blood ran in little streams. But he limped on, down the black slope.

The white road below grew closer and closer. It was a goal. This slope of treacherous rocks and torturing cacti was a physical ordeal that precluded memory, of the past or consideration of the present. When Adam at last reached the road, there to fall exhausted and wet and burning upon a flat rock, it seemed that he had been delivered from an inferno.

Presently he sat up to look around him. A wonderful light showed upon the world — the afterglow of sunset. Picacho bore a crown of gold. All the lower tips of ranges were purpling in shadow. To the southward a wide grey barren road led to an endless bleak plateau, flat and dark, with dim spurs of mountains in the distance. Desolate, lifeless, silent — the gateway to the desert! Adam felt steal over him a sense of awe. The vastness of seen and suggested desert seemed flung at him, as if nature meant to reveal to him the mystery and might of space. The marvellous light magnified the cacti and the rocks and the winding ranges and the bold peaks, and the distances, until all were unreal. Adam felt that he had overcome a great hardship, accomplished a remarkable feat, had climbed and descended a range as sharp toothed as jagged lava. But to what end! Something in the bewildering light of the west, in the purple shadows growing cold in the east, in the tremendous oppression of illimitable space and silence and solitude and desolation — something inexplicable repudiated and mocked his physical sense of great achievement.

All at once, in a flash, he remembered his passion, his crime, his terror, his flight. Not until that instant had intelligence operated in harmony with his feelings. He lifted his face in the cool, darkening twilight. The frowning mountains held aloof, and all about him seemed detached, rendering his loneliness absolute and immutable.

“Oh! Oh!” he moaned. “What will become of me?...No family — no friends — no hope!...Oh, Guerd, my brother! His blood on my hands!...He ruined my life! He’s killed my soul!...Oh, damn him, damn him! he’s made me a murderer!”

Adam fell face down on the rock with breaking heart. His exceeding bitter cries seemed faint and lost in the midst of the vastness of desert and sky. The deepening of twilight to darkness, the cold black grandeur of the great peak, the mournful wail of a desert wolf, the pure pale evening star that pierced the purple sky, the stupendous loneliness and silence of that solitude — all these facts seemed Nature’s pitiless proof of her indifference to man and his despair. His hope, his prayer, his frailty, his fall, his burden and agony and life — these were nothing to the desert that worked inscrutably through its millions of years, nor to the illimitable expanse of heaven, deepening its blue and opening its cold, starry eyes. But a spirit as illimitable and as inscrutable breathed out of the universe and over the immensity of desert space — a spirit that breathed to the soul of the ruined man and bade him rise and take up his burden and go on down the naked shingles of the world.

Despair and pride and fear of death, and this strange breath of life, dragged Adam up and drove him down the desert road. For a mile he staggered and plodded along, bent and bowed like an old man, half blinded by tears and choked by sobs, abject in his misery; yet even so, the something in him that was strongest of all — the instinct to survive — made him keep to the hard, gravelly side of the road, that his tracks might not show in the dust.

And that action of blood and muscle, because it came first in the order of energy, gradually assumed dominance of him, until again he was an escaping fugitive, mostly concerned with direction and objective things. The direction took care of itself, being merely a matter of keeping along the edge of the road that gleamed pale in front of him. Objects near at hand, however, had to be carefully avoided. Rocks were indistinct in the gloom; ocatilla cacti thrust out long spectral arms, like the tentacles of an octopus; and shadows along the road took the alarming shape of men and horses and wagons. All around him, except to the west, was profound obscurity, and in that direction an endless horizon, wild and black and sharp, with sweeping bold lines between the spurs, stood silhouetted against a pale-blue, star-fired sky. Miles and miles he walked, and with a strength that had renewed. He never looked up at the heavens above. Often he halted to turn and listen. These moments were dreaded ones. But he heard only a faint breeze.

Morning broke swiftly and relentlessly, a grey, desert dawning. Dim columns of smoke scarce a mile away showed him that Yuma was close. Fields and cattle along the road, and then an Indian hut, warned him that he was approaching the habitations of men and sooner or later he would be seen. He must hide by day and travel by night. Bordering the road to his left was a dense thicket of arrow-weed, indicating that he had reached the bottom lands of the river. Into this Adam crawled like a wounded and stealthy deer. Hunger and thirst were slight, but his whole body seemed a throbbing ache. Both mind and body longed for the oblivion that came at once in sleep.

CHAPTER VII

ADAM’S HEAVY SLUMBERS were punctuated by periods when he half awakened, drowsily aware of extreme heat, of discomfort and sluggish pain, and of vague sounds.

Twilight had fallen when he fully awakened, stiff and sore, with a gnawing at his stomach and a parching of mouth and throat from thirst. He crawled out of the copse of arrow-weed, to the opening by which he had entered it, and, stealthily proceeding on to the road, he peered out and listened. No man in sight — no sound to alarm! Consciousness of immense relief brought bitterly home to him the fact that he was a fugitive. Taking to the road, he walked rapidly in the direction of the lights. He passed low, dark huts somewhat back from the road, and he heard strange voices, probably of Indians.

In about a quarter of an hour he came to the river basin, where the road dropped down somewhat into the outskirts of Yuma. Most of the lights were across the river on the Arizona side. He met both Mexicans and Indians who took no apparent notice of him, and this encouraged Adam to go on with them down to a ferryboat.

The boat was shoved off. Adam saw that it was fastened to the cable overhead by ropes and pulleys. The current worked it across the river. Adam got out with the rest of the passengers, and, leaving them, he walked down the bank a few rods. He found a little dock with a skiff moored to it, and here he lay flat and drank his fill. The water was full of sand, but cool and palatable. Then he washed his face and hands. The latter were swollen and stiff from the cactus thorns, rendering them clumsy.

Next in order for him was to find a place to eat, and he came at once upon an eating house where several rough-looking white men and some Mexicans were being served by a Chinaman.

When he ended this meal he had determined upon a course to take. He needed a gun, ammunition, canteen, burro, and outfit; and he hardly expected to be able to purchase them after dark, without exciting suspicion. All the same, he set out to look.

A short walk brought Adam to a wide street, dimly lighted by the flare of lamps from open doors of saloons and stores. He halted in a shadow on the corner. A stream of men was passing — rugged, unshaven, dusty-booted white men, and Mexicans with their peaked sombreros and embroidered jackets and tight braided trousers.

Presently Adam ventured forth and walked up the street. The town resembled Picacho in its noisiest hours, magnified many times. He felt a wildness he could not see or hear. It dragged at him. It somehow made him a part of the frontier life. He longed to escape from himself.

A glimpse of a tall man in black frock coat startled Adam. That coat reminded him of Collishaw. He sheered down a side street into the gloom. He saw wagons and heard the munch of horses in stalls. Evidently this place was a barnyard and might afford him a safe retreat for the night. The first wagon he examined contained straw. Climbing into it he lay down. For a long time he lay there, worrying over the risk he must run next day, until at length he fell asleep.

When day dawned, however, Adam had not such overpowering dread. The sun was rising in red splendour and the day promised to be hot. As it was early, but few people were to be encountered, and this fact lent Adam more courage. He had no difficulty in finding the place where he had eaten the night before. Adam ate as heartily as he could, not because he was hungry, but for the reason that he had an idea, he might have to travel far on this meal.

That done, he sallied forth to find a store where he could purchase the outfit he needed; and he approached the business section by a street that climbed to what was apparently the highest point in Yuma.

Adam entered a store, and almost forgot himself in the interest of the purchases he wanted to make. He needed a small mule, or burro, to pack his outfit, and while the storekeeper went out to get it for Adam several Mexicans entered. One of them recognised Adam. He cried out, “Santa Maria!” and ran out, followed by his amazed but less hurried comrades. It took Adam a moment to place the man in mind. Felix the Mexican that had drawn a knife on Arallanes.

Therefore Adam pondered. He must take risks to get away with this necessary outfit. The storekeeper, who had gone out through the back of the store, returned to say he could furnish a good burro ready to be packed at once. Adam made a deal with him for the whole outfit and began to count out the money. The storekeeper did not wait, and, gathering up an armful of Adam’s purchases, he carried them out through the back door. This gave Adam opportunity to have a look from the front door into the street. There strode Felix, gesticulating wildly to the white man Adam had seen before, the black-coated tall Collishaw, significant and grim, with a white bandage over his face.

A shock pierced Adam’s heart, and it was followed by a terrible icy compression, and then a bursting gush of blood, a flood of fire over all his body. Leaping like a deer, he bounded back through the store, out of the door, and across an open space full of implements, wagons, and obstacles he had to run around or jump over. He did not see the storekeeper. One vault took him over a high board fence into an alley, and through this he ran into a street. He headed for the river, running fleetly, blind to all around him but the ground flying under his feet and the end of the street. He gained that. The river, broad and swirling, lay beneath him. Plunging down the bank, he flew toward the dock. Upon reaching the dock, Adam espied a skiff, with oars in place, with bow pulled up on the sand. One powerful shove sent it, with him aboard, out into the stream. He bent the oars in his long, strong sweeps, and it took him only a few moments to cross. Not yet had any men appeared in pursuit or even to take notice of him. As he jumped out on the California shore of the river and began to run north, he found that he faced the lone black mountain peak which dominated the rise of the desert. The dust was ankle deep. It stifled him, choked him, and caked on his sweaty face and hands. He strode swiftly, oppressed by the dust and intolerant of the confining borders of yellow brush. The frequent bends in the road were at once a relief and a dread. They hid him, yet obstructed his own view. He seemed obsessed by a great, passionate energy to escape. When he looked back he thought of Collishaw, of sure pursuit; when he looked ahead he thought of the road, the dust, the brush into which he wanted to hide, the physical things to be overcome.

By and bye he climbed and passed out of the zone of brush. He was on the open gravel ridges, like the ridges of a washboard, up and down, and just as bare. Yet, as a whole, there was a distinct slope upward. He could not see the level of the desert, but the lone mountain peak, close at hand now, red and black and shining, towered bleakly over him.

Adam derived satisfaction from the fact that the hard gravel ridges did not take imprint of his boots. Assured now that escape was in his grasp, he began to put his mind upon other considerations of his flight. He was not such a fool as to underrate the danger of his venturing out upon the desert without food, and especially without water. Already he was thirsty. These thoughts, and counter ones, pressed hard upon him until he surmounted the long slope to the top of the desert mesa. Here he looked back.

First he saw clouds of dust puffing up from the brush-covered lowlands, and then, in an open space where the road crossed, he espied horsemen coming at a gallop. Again, and just as fiercely, did his veins seem to freeze, his blood to halt, and then to burst into flame.

“Collishaw — and his men!” gasped Adam, his jaw dropping. “They’ve trailed me!...They’re after me — on horses!”

The apparent fact was terrific in its stunning force. Adam reeled; his sight blurred. It was a full moment before he could rally his forces. Then, gazing keenly, he saw that his pursuers were still miles away.

At first he ran fleetly, with endurance apparently unimpaired; but he meant to slow down and husband his strength as soon as he dared. Before him stretched a desert floor of fine, shining gravel, like marbles, absolutely bare of any vegetation for what seemed hundreds of yards; and then began to appear short bunches of low meagre brush called greasewood, and here and there isolated patches of ocatilla. These multiplied and enlarged in the distance until they looked as if they would afford cover enough to hide Adam from his pursuers. Hot, wet with sweat, strong, and panting, he ran another mile, to find the character of the desert changing.

Reaching the zone of plant life, he soon placed a thin but effective barrier of greasewood and ocatilla behind him. Then he slowed down to catch his breath. Before him extended a vast hazy expanse, growing darker with accumulated growths in the distance. To the right rose the chocolate mountain range, and it ran on to fade in the dim horizon. Behind him now stood the lone black peak, and to the left rose a low, faint wavering line of white, like billows of a sea. This puzzled him until at length he realised it was sand. Sand — and it, like the range, faded in the distant horizon.

Adam also made the discovery that as he looked back over his shoulder he was really looking down a long, gradual slope. Plainly he could see the edge of the desert where he had come up, and often, as he travelled along at a jog trot, he gazed around with fearful expectancy. He had imagined that his running had given rise to the breeze blowing in his face. But this was not so. A rather stiff wind was blowing straight at him. It retarded his progress, and little puffs of fine, invisible sand or dust irritated his eyes. Then the tears would flow and wash them clear again. With all his senses and feelings there mingled a growing preponderance of thought or realisation of the tremendous openness of the desert. He felt as though a door of the universe had opened to him, and all before him was boundless. He had no fear of it; indeed, there seemed a comfort in the sense of being lost in such a vastness; but there was something intangible working on his mind. The wind weighed upon him, the coppery sky weighed upon him, the white sun weighed upon him, and his feet began to take hold of the ground. How hot the top of his head and his face! All at once the sweat appeared less copious and his skin drier. With this came a strong thirst. The saliva of his mouth was pasty and scant. He swallowed hard and his throat tightened. A couple of pebbles that he put into his mouth mitigated these last sensations.

Intelligence gave him pause then, and he halted in his tracks. If death was relentlessly pursuing him, it was no less confronting him there to the fore, if he passed on out of reach of the river. Death from thirst was preferable to capture, but Adam was not ready to die. He who had loved life clung to it all the more fiercely now that the sin of Cain branded his soul. He still felt unlimited strength and believed that he could go far. But the sun was hotter than he had ever experienced it; the heat appeared to strike up from the earth as well as burn down from above; and it was having a strange effect upon him. He had sensed a difficulty in keeping to a straight line of travel, and at first had put it down to his instinct for zigzagging to his greasewood bush and that ocatilla plant to place them behind him. Moving on again, he turned towards the chocolate mountain and the river.

It seemed close. He saw the bare grey desert with its green growths slope gradually to the rugged base of the range. Somewhere between him and there ran the river. He strained his eyesight. How strangely and clearly the lines of one ridge merged into the lines of another. There must be distance between them. But it could not be seen. The range looked larger and farther away the more he studied it — the air more full of transparent haze, the red and russet and chocolate hues more quiveringly suggestive of illusion.

“Look here,” panted Adam, as he halted once more. “I’ve been told about the desert. But I didn’t pay particular attention and now I can’t remember. I only know it’s hot — and this won’t do.”

It was just then that Adam, gazing back down the grey desert, saw puffs of dust and horses.

Panic seized him. He ran directly away from his pursuers, bending low, looking neither to right nor to left, violent, furious, heedless, like an animal in flight. And with no sense of direction, with no use of reason, he ran on till he dropped.

Then his breast seemed to split and his heart to lift with terrific pressure, agonising and suffocating. He lay on the ground and gasped, with his mouth in the dust. Gradually the paroxysm subsided.

He arose to go on, hot, dry, aching, dizzy, but still strong in his stride.

“I’ve — got — away,” he said, “and now — the river — the river.”

Fear of Collishaw had been dulled. Adam could think of little besides the heat and his growing thirst, and this thing — the desert — that was so strange, so big, so menacing. It did not alarm him that his skin was no longer wet with sweat, but the fact struck him singularly.

The wind was blowing sand in his face, obstructing his sight. Suddenly his feet dragged in sand. Dimly then he made out low sand dunes with hollows between, and farther on larger dunes waving and billowing on to rise to what seemed mountains of sand. He saw them as through a veil of dust. Turning away, he plodded on, half blinded, fighting the blast of wind that was growing stronger. The air cleared somewhat. Sand dunes were all around him, and to his right, in the direction he thought was wrong, loomed the chocolate range. He went that way, and again the flying sand hid a clear view. A low, seeping, silken rustle filled the air, sometimes rising to a soft roar. He thought of what he had heard about sand-storms, but he knew this was not one. Unwittingly he had wandered into the region of the dunes, and the strong gusty wind swept up the fine sand in sheets and clouds. He must get out. It could not be far to the level desert again. He plodded on, and the way he chose, with its intermittent views of the mountains, at last appeared to be the wrong one. So he turned again. And as he turned, a stronger wind, now at his back, whipped up the sand till all was pale yellow around him, thick and opaque and moaning, through which the sun shone with strange magenta hue. He did not dare rest or wait. He had to plod on. And the way led through soft, uneven sand, always dragging at his feet.

After a while Adam discovered that when he trudged down into the hollows between dunes he became enveloped in flying sand that forced him to cover mouth and eyes with his scarf and go choking on, but when he climbed up over a dune the air became clearer and he could breathe easier. Thus instinctively he favoured the ascents, and thus he lost himself in a world of curved and sculptured sand dunes, grey and yellow through the flying mists, or steely silver under the gleaming sunlight. The wind lulled, letting the sand settle, and then he saw he was lost as upon a trackless ocean, with no landmarks in sight. On all sides heaved beautiful white mounds of sand, ribbed and waved and laced with exquisitely delicate knife-edged curves. And these crests changed like the crests of waves, only, instead of flying spray, these were curled and shadowed veils of sand blowing from the scalloped crowns. Then again the wind, swooping down, whipped and swept the sand in low thick sheets on and on over the dunes, until thin rising clouds obscured the sky.

Adam climbed on, growing weaker. As the heat had wrought strangely upon his blood, so the sand had dragged strength from his legs. His situation was grave, but, though he felt the dread and pity of it, a certain violence of opposition had left him. That was in his will. He feared more the instinctive reaction — the physical resistance that was growing in him. Merryvale had told him how men lost on the desert could die of thirst in one day. But Adam had scarcely credited that; certainly he did not believe it applicable to himself. He realised, however, that unless he somehow changed the present condition sun and sand would overwhelm him. So when from a high knoll of sand he saw down into a large depression, miles across, where clumps of mesquites showed black against the silver, he descended toward them and eventually reached them, ready indeed to drop into the shade.

Here under a thick-foliaged mesquite he covered his face with a handkerchief, his head with his coat, and settled himself to rest and wait. It was a wise move. At once he felt by contrast what the fierce sun had been. Gradually the splitting headache subsided to a sensation that seemed to Adam like a gentle boiling of blood in his brain. He could hear it. His dry skin became a little moist; the intolerable burn left it: his heart and pulse ceased such laboured throbbing; and after a time his condition was limited to less pain, a difficulty in breathing, and thirst. These were bearable.

From time to time Adam removed the coverings to look about him. The sun was westering. When it sank the wind would cease to blow and then he could find a way out of this wilderness of sand dunes. Leaning back against a low branch of the tree, he stretched out, and such was his exhaustion and the restfulness of the posture that he fell asleep.

When he awoke he felt better, though half smothered. He had rested. His body was full of dull aches, but no more pain. His mouth did not appear so dry or his tongue so swollen; nevertheless, the thirst remained, giving his throat a sensation of puckering, such as he remembered he used to have after eating green persimmons.

Then Adam, suddenly realising what covered his head, threw off the coat and handkerchief. And his eyes were startled by such a sight as they had never beheld — a marvellous unreality of silver sheen and black shadow, a starry tracery of labyrinthine streams on a medium as weird and beautiful and intangible as a dream.

“O God! am I alive or dead?” he whispered in awe. And his voice proved to him that he and his burden had not slipped into the oblivion of the beyond.

Night had fallen. The moon had arisen. The stars shone lustrously. The sky burned a deep rich blue. And all this unreal beauty that had mocked him was only the sculptured world of sand translating the magnificence and splendour of the heavens.

More than all else, Adam grew sensitive to the oppressiveness of the silence. His first steps were painful, a staggering, halting gait, that exercise at length worked into some semblance of his old stride. The cold desert air invigorated him, and had it not been for the discomfort of thirst he would have been doing well under the circumstances.

A sense of direction that had nothing to do with his intelligence prompted him to face east. He obeyed it. And he walked for what seemed hours over a moon-blanched sea of sand, to climb at last a high dune from which he saw the dark, level floor of the desert, and far across the shadowy space a black range of mountains. He thought he recognised the rugged contour, and when, sweeping his gaze southward, he saw the lone mountain looming like a dark sentinel over the desert gateway, then he was sure of his direction. Over there to the east lay the river. And he had long hours of the cool night to travel.

From this vantage point Adam looked back over the silver sea of sand dunes; and such was the sight of it that even in his precarious condition he was stirred to his depths. The huge oblong silver moon hung low over that vast heaving stretch of desert. It was a wasteland, shimmering with its belts and plains of moonlit sand, blank and mysterious in its shadows, an abode of loneliness. An inexplicable sadness pervaded Adam’s soul. This wasteland and he seemed identical. How strange to feel that he did not want to leave it! Life could not be sustained in this sepulchre of the desert. But it was not life that his soul yearned for then — only peace. And peace dwelt there in that solitude of the sands.

Grey dawn found Adam many miles closer to the mountain range. Yet it was still far and his former dread returned. On every side what interminable distances!

A deepening rose colour over the eastern horizon appeared to be reflected upon the mountain peaks, and this glow crept down the dark slopes. Grey dawn changed to radiant morning with an ethereal softness of colour. When the blazing disc of the sun shone over the ramparts of the east all that desert world underwent a wondrous transfiguration. The lord of day had arisen and this was his empire. Red was the hue of his authority, emblazoned in long vivid rays over the ranges and the wastelands. Then the great orb of fire cleared the horizon and the desert seemed aflame.

One moment Adam gave to the marvel and glory of the sunrise, and then he looked no more. That brief moment ended in a consciousness of the gravity of his flight. For the first touch of sun on face and hands burned hot, as if it suddenly aggravated a former burn that the night had soothed.

“Got to reach — river soon,” he muttered, thickly, “or never will.”

He walked on while the sun climbed.

Desert vegetation increased. Adam toiled on, breathing hard, careless now of the reaching thorns and heedless of the rougher ground.

He was perfectly conscious of a subtle changing of his spirit, but because it seemed a drifting farther and farther from thought he could not comprehend it. Courage diminished as fear augmented. More and more his will and intelligence gave way to sensorial perceptions. More and more he felt the urge to hurry, and, though reason warned against the folly of this, it was not strong enough to compel him to resist. He did hurry more and stumbled along. Like breath of a furnace the heat rose from the rocky, sandy soil; and from above there seemed to bear down the weight of the leaden fire.

His skin became as dry as dust and began to shrivel. It did not blister. The pain now came from burn of the flesh underneath. He felt that his blood was drying up. A stinging sensation as of puncture by a thousand thorns throbbed in his face and neck. The heat burned through his clothes, and the soles of his boots were coals of fire. Doggedly he strove forward. A whistle accompanied his panting breaths. Most intolerable of all was thirst — the bitter, astringent taste in the scant saliva that became pasty and dry, the pain in his swelling tongue, the parched constriction in his throat.

At last he reached the base of a low rocky ridge which for long had beckoned to him and mocked him. It obstructed sight of the slope to the mountain range. Surely between that ridge and the slope ran the river. The hope spurred him upward.

As he climbed he gazed up into the coppery sky, but his hot and tired eyes could not endure the great white blaze that was the sun. Halfway up he halted to rest, and from here he had measureless view of the desert. Then his dull brain revived to a final shock. For he seemed to see a thousand miles of green-grey barrenness, of lifting heat veils like transparent smoke, of wastes of waved sand, and of ranges of upheaved rock. How terribly it confronted him! Pitiless mockery of false distances on all sides A sun-blasted world not meant for man!

Then Adam ascended to the summit of the ridge. A glaring void seemed flung at him. His chocolate-hued mountain range was not far away. From this height he could see all the grey-green level of desert between him and the range. He stared. Again there seemed flung in his face a hot glare of space. There was no river.

“Where, where’s — the river?” gasped Adam, mistrusting his eyesight.

But the wonderful Rio Colorado, the strange, red river beloved by desert wanderers, did not flow before him — or to either side — or behind. It must have turned to flow on the other slope of this insurmountable range.

“God has — forsaken me!” cried Adam, in despair, and he fell upon the rocks.

But these rocks, hot as red-hot plates of iron, permitted of no contact, even in a moment of horror. Adam was burned to stagger up, to plunge and run and fall down the slope, out upon the level, to the madness that awaited him.

He must rush on to the river — to drink and drink — to bathe in the cool water that flowed down from the snow-fed lakes of the north. Thoughts about water possessed his mind — pleasant, comforting, hurrying him onward. Memory of the great river made pictures in his mind, and there flowed the broad red waters, sullen and eddying and silent. All the streams and rivers and lakes Adam had known crowded their images across his inward eye, and this recall of the past was sweet. He remembered the brook near his old home — the clear green water full of bright minnows and gold-sided sunfish; how it used to flow swiftly under the willow banks where, violets hid by mossy stones, and how it tarried in deep dark pools under shelving banks, green and verdant and sweet smelling; how the ferns used to bend over in graceful tribute and the lilies float white and gold, with great green-backed frogs asleep upon the broad leaves. The watering trough on the way to school, many and many a time, in the happy days gone by, had he drunk there and splashed his brother Guerd. Guerd, who hated water and had to be made to wash, when they were little boys! The old well on Madden’s farm with its round cobblestoned walls where the moss and lichen grew, and where the oaken bucket, wet and dark and green, use to come up bumping and spilling, brimful of clear cold water — how vividly he remembered that his father had called it granite water, and the best, because it flowed through the cold subterranean caverns of granite rock. Then there was the spring in the orchard, sweet, soft water that his mother used to send him after, and as he trudged home, burdened by the huge bucket, he would spill some upon his bare feet.

Yes, as Adam staggered on, aimlessly now, he was haunted more and more by memories of water. That dear, unforgetable time of boyhood when he used to love the water, to swim like a duck and bask like a turtle — it seemed far back in the past, across some terrible interval of pain, vague now, yet hateful. Where was he — and where was Guerd? Something like a blade pierced his heart.

Suddenly Adam was startled out of this pleasant reminiscence by something blue and bright that danced low down along the desert floor. A lake! He halted with an inarticulate cry. There was a lake of blue water, glistening, exquisitely clear, with borders of green. He could not help but rush forward. The lake shimmered, thinned, shadowed, and vanished. Adam halted and, rubbing his eyes, peered hard ahead and all around. Behind him shone a strip of blue, streaked up and down by desert plants, and it seemed to be another lake, larger, bluer, clearer, with a delicate vibrating quiver, as if exquisitely rippled by a gentle breeze. Green shores were marvellously reflected in the blue. Adam gaped at this. Had he waded through a lake? He had crossed the barren flat of greasewood to reach the spot upon which he now stood. Almost he was forced to run back. But this must be a deceit of the desert or a madness of his sight. He bent low, and the lake of blue seemed to lift and quiver upon a thin darkling line of vapour or transparent shadow. Adam took two strides back — and the thing vanished! Desert magic! A deception of nature! A horrible illusion to a lost man growing crazed by thirst!

“Mirage!” whispered Adam, hoarsely. “Blue water! Ha-ha!...Damned lie — it shan’t fool me!”

But as clear perception failed these mirages of the desert did deceive him. All objects took on a hazy hue, tinged by the red of blood in his eyes, and they danced in the heat-veiled air. Shadows, glares, cactus, and brush stood as immovable as the rocks of ages. Only the illusive and ethereal mirages gleamed as if by magic and shimmered and moved in that midday trance of the sun-blasted desert.

The time came when Adam plunged toward every mirage that floated so blue and serene and mystical in the deceiving atmosphere, until hope and despair and magnified sight finally brought on a mental state bordering on the madness sure to come.

Then, as he staggered toward this green-bordered pond and that crystal-blue lake, already drinking and laving in his mind, he began to hear the beautiful sounds of falling rain, of gurgling brooks, of lapping waves, of roaring rapids, of gentle river currents, of water — water — water sweetly tinkling and babbling, of wind-laden murmur of a mountain stream. And he began to wander in a circle.

CHAPTER VIII

CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED TO Adam. He was lying under an ironwood tree, over branches of which a canvas had been stretched, evidently to shade him from the sun. The day appeared to be far spent.

His head seemed to have been relieved of a hot metal band; his tongue was no longer bursting in his mouth; the boil of his blood had subsided. His skin felt moist.

Then he heard the rough voice of a man talking to animals, apparently burros. Movement of body was difficult and somewhat painful; however, he managed to sit up and look around. Hide-covered boxes and packsaddles, with duffle and utensils of a prospector, were littered about, and conspicuous among the articles near him were three large canvas-covered canteens, still wet. Upon the smouldering embers of a camp fire steamed a black iron pot. A little beyond the first stood a very short, broad man, back turned; and he was evidently feeding choice morsels of some kind to five eager and jealous burros.

“Spoiled — every darn one of you!” he was saying, and the kindness of his voice belied its roughness. “Why, I used to have burros that could lick labels off tin cans an’ call it a square meal!”

Then he turned and espied Adam watching him.

“Hullo! You’ve come to,” he said, with interest.

Adam’s gaze encountered an extraordinary-looking man. He could not have been taller than five and a half feet, and the enormous breadth of him made him appear as wide as he was long. He was not fat. His immense bulk was sheer brawn, betokening remarkable strength. His dusty, ragged clothes were patched like a crazy-quilt. He had an immense head, a shock of shaggy hair beginning to show streaks of grey, and a broad face tanned dark as an Indian’s, the lower half of which was covered with a scant grizzled beard. His eyes, big, dark, rolling, resembled those of an ox. His expression seemed to be one of set tranquillity — the impressiveness of bronze.

Adam’s voice was a husky whisper: “Where am — I? Who are you?”

“Young man, my name’s Dismukes,” came the reply, “an’ you’re ninety miles from anywhere — an’ alive, which’s more than I’d bet on yesterday.”

The words brought Adam a shock of memory. Out there the desert smoked, sweltering in the spent heat of the setting sun. Slowly Adam lay back upon the blanket and bundle that had been placed under him for a bed. The man sat down on one of the hide-covered boxes, fastening his great eyes upon Adam.

“Am I — all right?” whispered Adam.

“Yes, but it was a close shave,” replied the other.

“You said — something about yesterday. Tell me.”

Dismukes fumbled in his patched vest and, fetching forth a stumpy pipe, he proceeded to fill it. It was noticeable that he had to use his little finger to press down the tobacco into the bowl, as the other fingers of his enormous hands were too large. Adam had never before seen such scarred calloused hands.

“It was day before yesterday I run across you,” began Dismukes, after a comfortable pull at his pipe. “My burro Jinny has the best eyes of the pack outfit. When I seen her ears go up I got to lookin’ hard, an’ presently spied you staggerin’ in a circle. I’d seen men do that before. Sometimes you’d run, an’ again you’d wag along, an’ then you’d fall an’ crawl. I caught you an’ had to tie you with my rope. You were out of your head. An’ you looked hard — all dried up — tongue black an’ hangin’ out. I thought you were done for. I poured a canteen of water over your head an’ then packed you over here where there’s wood an’ water. You couldn’t make a sound, but all the same I knew you were ravin’ fur water. I fed you water a spoonful at a time, an’ every little while I emptied a canteen over you. Was up all night with you that night. You recovered awful slow. Yesterday I’d not have gambled much on your chances. But to-day you came round. I got you to swallow some soft grub, an’ I guess you’ll soon be pretty good. You’ll be weak, though. You’re awful thin. I’m curious about how much you weighed. You look as if you might have been a husky lad.”

“I was,” whispered Adam. “Hundred and eighty-five — or ninety.”

“So I thought. You’ll not go over one hundred an’ twenty now. You’ve lost about seventy pounds...Oh, it’s a fact! You see, the body is ‘most all water, an’ on this desert in summer a man just dries up an’ blows away.”

“Seventy — pounds!” exclaimed Adam, incredulously. But when he glanced at his shrunken hands he believed the incomprehensible fact. “I must be skin — and bones.”

“Mostly bones. But they’re long, heavy bones, an’ if you ever get any flesh on them you’ll be a darned big man. I’m glad they’re not goin’ to bleach white on the desert, where I’ve seen so many these last ten years.”

“You saved my life?” suddenly queried Adam.

“Boy, there’s no doubt of that,” returned the other. “Another hour would have finished you.”

“I — I thank you...But — so help me God — I wish you hadn’t,” whispered Adam, poignantly.

Dismukes spent a strange gaze upon Adam.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Adam halted over the conviction that he could never reveal his identity; and there leaped to his lips the name the loquacious Regan had given him.

“Wansfell,” he replied.

Dismukes averted his gaze. Manifestly he divined that Adam had lied. “Well, it’s no matter what a man calls himself in this country,” he said. “Only everybody an’ everything has to have a name.”

“You’re a prospector?”

“Yes. But I’m more a miner. I hunt for gold. I don’t waste time tryin’ to sell claims. Years ago I set out to find a fortune in gold. My limit was five hundred thousand dollars. I’ve already got a third of it — in banks an’ hid away safe.”

“When you get it — your fortune — what then?” inquired Adam, with thrilling curiosity.

“I’ll enjoy life. I have no ties — no people. Then I’ll see the world,” replied the prospector, in deep and sonorous voice.

A wonderful passion radiated from him. Adam saw a quiver, run over the huge frame. This Dismukes evidently was as extraordinary in character as in appearance. Adam felt the man’s strangeness, his intelligence, and the inflexible will and fiery Yet all at once Adam felt steal over him an emotion of pity that he could not understand. How strange men were!

At this juncture the prospector was compelled to drive the burros out of camp. Then he attended to his cooking over the fire, and presently brought a bowl of steaming food to Adam.

“Eat this slow — with a spoon,” he said gruffly. “Never forget that a man starved for grub or water can kill himself quick.”

During Adam’s long drawn-out meal the sun set and the mantle of heat seemed to move away for the coming of shadows. Adam found that his weakness was greater than he had supposed, rendering the effort of sitting up one he was glad to end. He lay back on the blankets, wanting to think over his situation rather than fall asleep, but he found himself very drowsy, and his mind vaguely wandered until it was a blank. Upon awakening he saw the first grey dawn arch the sky. He felt better, almost like his old self, except for that queer sensation of thinness and lightness, most noticeable when he lifted his hand. Dismukes was already astir, and there, a few rods from camp, stood the ludicrous burros, as if they had not moved all night. Adam got up and stretched his limbs, pleased to find that he appeared to be all right again, except for a little dizziness.

Dismukes evinced gladness at the fact of Adam’s improvement. “Good!” he exclaimed. “You’d be strong enough to ride a burro to-day. But it’s goin’ to be hot, like yesterday. We’d better not risk travellin’.”

“How do you know it’s going to be as hot as yesterday?” inquired Adam.

“I can tell by the feel an’ smell of the air, an’ mostly that dull lead coloured haze you see over the mountains.”

Adam thought the air seemed cool and fresh, but he did see a dull pall over the mountains. Farther toward the east, where the sunrise lifted an immense and wondrous glow, this haze was not visible.

The remark of Dismukes anent the riding of a burro disturbed Adam. This kindly prospector meant to take him on to his destination. Impossible! Adam had fled to the desert to hide, and the desert must hide him, alive or dead. The old, thick, clamouring emotions knocked at his heart. Adam felt gratitude toward Dismukes for not questioning him, and that forbearance made him want to tell something of his story. Yet how reluctant he was to open his lips on that score! He helped Dismukes with the simple morning meal, and afterward with odds and ends of tasks, all the time cheerful and questioning, putting off what he knew was inevitable. The day did come on hot — so hot that life was just bearable for men and beasts in the shade of the big ironwood tree. Adam slept some of the hours away. He awoke stronger, with more active mind. Of the next meal Dismukes permitted Adam to eat heartily. And later, while Dismukes smoked and Adam sat before the camp fire, the moment of revelation came, quite unexpectedly.

“Wansfell, you’ll not be goin’ to Yuma with me to-morrow,” asserted Dismukes quietly.

The words startled Adam. He dropped his head. “No — no! Thank you — I won’t — I can’t go,” he replied, trembling. The sound of his voice agitated him further.

“Buy, tell me or not, just as you please. But I’m a man you can trust.”

The kindliness and a nameless power invested in this speech broke down what little restraint remained with Adam.

“I — I can’t go...I’m an outcast...I must hide — hide in the — desert,” burst out Adam, covering his face with his hands.

“Was that why you came to the desert?”

“Yes — yes.”

“But, boy, you came without a canteen or grub or burro or gun — or anythin’. In all my years on the desert I never saw the like of that before. An’ only a miracle saved your life. That miracle was Jinny’s eyes. You owe your life to a long-eared, white-faced burro. Jinny has eyes like a mountain sheep. She saw you — miles off. An’ such luck won’t be yours twice. You can’t last on this desert without the things to sustain life...How did it happen that I found you here alone — without anythin’?”

“No time. I — I had to run!” panted Adam.

“What’d you do? Don’t be afraid to tell me. The desert is a place for secrets, and it’s a lonely place where a man learns to read the souls of men — when he meets them. You’re not vicious. You’re no —— But never mind — tell me without wastin’ more words. Maybe I can help you.”

“No one can — help me,” cried Adam.

“That’s not so,” quickly spoke up Dismukes, his voice deep and rolling. “Some one can help you — an’ maybe it’s me.”

Here Adam completely broke down. “I — I did — something — awful!”

“No crime, boy — say it was no crime,” earnestly returned the prospector.

“O my God! Yes — yes! It was — a crime!” sobbed Adam, shuddering. “But, man — I swear, horrible as it was — I’m innocent! I swear that. Believe me. I was driven — driven by wrongs, by hate, by taunts. If I’d stood them longer I’d have been a white-livered coward. But I was driven and half drunk.”

“Well — well!” ejaculated Dismukes, shaking his shaggy head. “It’s bad. But I believe you an’ you needn’t tell me any more. Life is hell! I was young once...An’ now you’ve got to hide away from men — to live on the desert — to be one of us wanderers of the wastelands?”

“Yes. I must hide. And I want — I need to live — to suffer — to atone!”

“Boy, do you believe in God?” asked the prospector.

“I don’t know. I think so,” replied Adam, lifting his head and striving for composure. “My mother was religious. But my father was not.”

“Well — well, if you believed in God your case would not be hopeless. But some men — a few out of the many wanderers — find God out here in these wilds. Maybe you will...Can you tell me what you think you want to do?”

“Oh — to go alone — into the loneliest place — to live there for years — for ever,” replied Adam, with passion.

“Alone. That is my way. An’ I understand how you feel — what you need. Are you going to hunt gold?”

“No — no.”

“Have you any money?”

“Yes. More than I’ll ever need. I’d like to throw it all away — or give it to you. But it — it was my mother’s...And I promised her I’d not squander it — that I’d try to save.”

“Boy, never mind — an’ I don’t want your money,” interrupted Dismukes. “An’ don’t do any fool trick with it. You’ll need it to buy outfits. You can always trust Indians to go to the freightin’ posts for you. But never let any white men in this desert know you got money. That’s a hard comparison, an’ it’s justified.”

“I’m already sick with the love men have for money,” said Adam bitterly.

“An’ now to figure out an’ make good all that brag of mine,” went on Dismukes, reflectively. “I’ll need only two days’ grub to get to Yuma. There’s one sure water hole. I can give you one of my canteens an’ Jinny, the burro that saved your life. She’s tricky, but a blamed good burro. An’ by making up enough bread I can spare my oven. So, all told, I guess I can outfit you good enough for you to reach a canyon up here to the west where Indians live. I know them. They’re good. You can stay with them until the hot weather passes. No danger of any white men runnin’ across you there.”

“But you mustn’t let me have all your outfit,” protested Adam.

“I’m not. It’s only the grub an’ one burro.”

“Won’t you run a risk — with only two days’ rations?”

“Wansfell, every move you can make on this desert is a risk,” replied Dismukes, seriously. “Learn that right off. But I’m sure. Only accidents or unforeseen circumstances ever make risks for me now. I’m what they call a desert rat.”

“You’re most kind,” said Adam, choking up again, “to help a stranger — this way.”

“Boy, I don’t call that help,” declared Dismukes. “That’s just doin’ for a man as I’d want to be done by. When I talked about help I meant somethin’ else.”

“What? God knows I need it. I’ll be grateful. I’ll do as you tell me,” replied Adam, with a strange thrill stirring in him.

“You are a boy — no matter if you’re bigger than most men. You’ve got the mind of a boy. What a damn pity you’ve got to do this hidin’ game!” Under strong feeling the prospector got up, and, emptying his pipe, he began to take short strides to and fro in the limited shade cast by the ironwood tree. The indomitable forces of the man showed in his step, in the way he carried himself. Presently he turned to Adam and the great ox eyes burned intensely. “Wansfell, if you were a man, I’d never feel the way I do. But you’re only a youngster — you’re not bad — you’ve had bad luck — an’ for you I can break my rule — an’ I’ll do it if you’re in earnest. I’ve never talked about the desert — about its secrets — what it’s taught me. But I’ll tell you what the desert is — how it’ll be your salvation — how to be a wanderer of the wasteland is to be strong, free, happy — if you are honest, if you’re big enough for it.”

“Dismukes, I swear I’m honest — and I’ll be big, by God or I’ll die trying,” declared Adam, passionately.

The prospector gave Adam a long, steady stare, a strange gaze such as must have read his soul.

“Wansfell, if you can live on the desert you’ll grow like it,” he said, solemnly, as if he were pronouncing a benediction.

Adam gathered from this speech that Dismukes meant to unbosom himself of many secrets of this wonderful wasteland. Evidently, however, the prospector was not then ready to talk further. With thoughtful mien and plodding gait he resumed his short walk to and fro. It struck Adam then that his appearance was almost as ludicrous as that of his burros, yet at the same time his presence somehow conveyed a singular sadness. Years of loneliness burdened the wide bowed shoulders of this desert man. Adam divined then, in a gust of gratitude, that this plodding image of Dismukes would always remain in his mind as a picture, a symbol of the actual good in human nature.

The hot day closed without Adam ever venturing out of the shade of the tree. Once or twice he had put his hand in a sunny spot to feel the heat, and it had burned. The night mantled down with its tense silence, all-embracing, and the stars began to glow white. As Dismukes sat down near Adam in the glow of the camp fire it was manifest from the absence of his pipe, and the penetrating, possession-taking power in his eyes, that he was under the dominance of a singular passion.

“Wansfell,” he began, in low, deep voice, “it took me many years to learn how to live on the desert. I had the strength an’ the vitality of ten ordinary men. Many time in those desperate years was I close to death from thirst — from starvation — from poison water — from sickness — from bad men — and last, though not least — from loneliness. If I had met a man like myself, as I am now, I might have been spared a hell of sufferin’. I did meet desert men who could have helped me. But they passed me by. The desert locks men’s lips. Let every man save his own life — find his own soul. That’s the unwritten law of the wastelands of the world. I’ve broken it for you because I want to do by you as I’d have liked to be done by. An’ because I see somethin’ in you.”

Dismukes paused here to draw a long breath. In the flickering firelight he seemed a squatting giant immovable by physical force, and of a will unquenchable while life lasted.

“Men crawl over the desert like ants whose nests have been destroyed an’ who have become separated from one another,” went on Dismukes. “They all know the lure of the desert. Each man has his own idea of why the desert claims him. Mine was gold — is gold — so that some day I can travel over the world, rich an’ free, an’ see life. Another man’s will be the need to hide — or the longin’ to forget — or the call of adventure — or hate of the world — or love of a woman. Another class is that of bad men. Robbers, murderers. They are many. There are also many men, an’ a few women, who just drift or wander or get lost in the desert. An’ out of all these, if they stay in the desert, but few survive. They die or they are killed. The Great American Desert is a vast place an’ it is covered by unmarked graves an’ bleached bones. I’ve seen so many — so many.”

Dismukes paused again while his broad breast heaved with a sigh.

“I was talkin’ about what men think the desert means to them. In my case I say gold, an’ I say that as the other man will claim he loves the silence or the colour or the loneliness. But I’m wrong, an’ so is he. The great reason why the desert holds men lies deeper. I feel that. But I’ve never had the brains to solve it. I do know, however, that life on this wasteland is fierce an’ terrible. Plants, reptiles, beasts, birds, an’ men all have to fight for life far out of proportion to what’s necessary in fertile parts of the earth. You will learn that early, an’ if you are a watcher an’ a thinker you will understand it.

“The desert is no place for white men. An oasis is fit for Indians. They survive there. But they don’t thrive. I respect the Indians. It will be well for you to live a while with Indians...Now what I most want you to know is this.”

The speaker’s pause this time was impressive, and he raised one of his huge hands, like a monstrous claw, making a gesture at once eloquent and strong.

“When the desert claims men it makes most of them beasts. They sink to that fierce level in order to live. They are trained by the eternal strife that surrounds them. A man of evil nature survivin’ in the desert becomes more terrible than a beast. He is a vulture. On the other hand. there are men whom the desert makes like it. Yes — fierce an’ elemental an’ terrible, like the heat an’ the storm an’ the avalanche, but greater in another sense — greater through that eternal strife to live — beyond any words of mine to tell. What such men have lived — the patience, the endurance, the toil — the fights with men an’ all that makes the desert — the wanderin’s an’ perils an’ tortures — the horrible loneliness that must be fought hardest, by mind as well as action — all these struggles are beyond ordinary comprehension an’ belief. But I know. I’ve met a few such men, an’ if it’s possible for the divinity of God to walk abroad on earth in the shape of mankind, it was invested in them. The reason must be that in the development by the desert, in case of these few men who did not retrograde, the spiritual kept pace with the physical. It means these men never forgot, never reverted to mere unthinking instinct, never let the hard, fierce, brutal action of survival of the desert kill their souls. Spirit was stronger than body. I’ve learned this of these men, though I never had the power to attain it. It takes brains. I was only fairly educated. An’ though I’ve studied all my years on the desert, an’ never gave up, I wasn’t big enough to climb as high as I can see. I tell you all this, Wansfell, because it may be your salvation. Never give up to the desert or to any of its minions! Never cease to fight! You must fight to live — an’ so make that fight equally for your mind an’ your soul! Thus you will repent for your crime, whatever that was. Remember — the secret is never to forget your hold on the past — your memories — an’ through thinkin’ of them to save your mind an’ apply it to all that faces you out there.”

Rising from his seat, Dismukes made a wide, sweeping gesture, symbolical of a limitless expanse. “An’ the gist of all this talk of mine — this hope of mine to do for you as I’d have been done by — is that if you fight an’ think together like a man meanin’ to repent of his sin — somewhere out there in the loneliness an’ silence you will find God!”

With that he abruptly left the camp fire to stride off into the darkness: and the sonorous roll of his last words seemed to linger on the quiet air.

Every one of his intense words had been burned into Adam’s sensitive mind in characters and meanings never to be forgotten. Dismukes had found eager and fertile soil for the planting of the seeds of his toil-earned philosophy. The effect upon Adam was profound, and so wrought upon his emotions that the black and hateful consciousness which had returned to haunt him was as but a shadow of his thought. Adam stared out into the night where Dismukes had vanished. Something great had happened. Was the man Dismukes a fanatic, a religious wanderer of the wasteland who imagined he had found in Adam an apt pupil, or who had preached a sermon because the opportunity presented? No! The prospector had the faith to give out of his lesson of life on the desert. His motive was the same as when he had risked much to follow Adam, staggering blindly across the hot sands to his death. And as Adam felt the mounting passion of conviction, of gratitude, his stirred mind seemed suddenly to burst into a radiant and scintillating inspiration of resolve to be the man Dismukes had described, to fight and to think and to remember as had no one ever before done on the desert. It was all that seemed left for him. Repentance! Expiation! True to himself at the last in spite of a horrible and fatal blunder!

“Oh, Guerd! Guerd, my brother!” he cried, shuddering at the whisper of that name. “Wherever you are in spirit — hear me!...I’ll rise above wrongs and hate and revenge I’ll remember our boyhood — how I loved you! I’ll atone for my crime! I’ll never forget...I’ll fight and think to save my soul — and pray for yours! Hear me and forgive — you who drove me out into the wastelands!”

CHAPTER IX

ADAM LAY AWAKE for some length of time, waiting for Dismukes to return, but he did not come. Adam at length succumbed to drowsiness. It was Dismukes’s call that awakened him. The sun already tipped the eastern range, rosy red, and all the open land lay fresh and colourful in, the morning light. Adam felt no severe effects from his hard experience, except an inordinate hunger, which Dismukes was more disposed to appease. Still he cautioned Adam not to eat too much.

“Now, Wansfell, you must learn all about burros,” began Dismukes. “The burro is the most important part of your outfit. This desert would still be a blank waste, unknown to white man, if it had not been for those shaggy, lazy, lop-eared little donkeys. Whenever you get sore at one an’ feel inclined to kill him for some trick or other, just remember that you could not get along without him.

“Most burros are alike. They hang near camp, as you see mine, hopin’ they can steal a bite of somethin’ if you don’t give it to them. They’ll eat paper, or ‘most anythin’ except greasewood. They love paper off bacon. I had one once that ate my overalls. They never get homesick an’ seem contented in the most desolate places. I had a burro that was happy in Death Valley, which’s the hell hole of this wasteland. Burros are seldom responsive to affection. They’ll stand great abuse. Never expect any thanks. Always patient. They are usually easy to catch. But they must know you. Only way to catch them is to head them off. Then they stop. Young burros are easily broke, an’ will follow others. They must be driven. Never knew but one that I could lead. Don’t forget this. They have the most wonderful endurance — never stumble or fall — an’ can exist on practically nothin’. When you turn them loose they’ll nibble around a while, then stop an’ stand like rocks, never movin’ for hours and hours, as if they were wrapped in prehistoric thought. In the mornin’ when you start off on your day’s travel the burros are fresh an’ they drive fine. But in the afternoon, when they get tired, they think of tricks. They’ll lie down — roll over on a pack — knock against a rock or tree. They’ll get together in a bunch and tangle the packs. When a burro intends to lie down he humps his back an’ wriggles his tail. It’s hard to get burros across streams. Scared of water! Strange, isn’t that? I’ve had to carry my burros many a time. But they’ll climb or go down the steepest, roughest mountain trail without fear. They can slide down a steep slope that a man will not stick on. Burros have more patience and good qualities, an’ also cussedness, than any other beasts. They pick out pardners an’ stick together all the time. A big bunch of burros will pair off regardless of sex. Never give each other up! They bray at night — an awful sound till you get used to it. Remember this quick some night when you’re lifted out of a sleep by a terrible unearthly roar...Well, I guess that’s an introduction to desert burros. It’s all serious fact, Wansfell, as you’ll learn, an’ to your cost, unless you remember.”

How singular for Adam to have the closing words of Dismukes reveal the absorbing interest of this simple and practical talk about burros! It amazed Adam to find that he had even been amused, ready to laugh.

“I’ll remember,” he asserted, with conviction.

“Dare say you will,” replied Dismukes, “but the idea is you must remember before you get into trouble, not after. I can’t tell you when to know a burro is goin’ to trick you. I’m just givin’ you facts as to the nature of burros in general. You must study and learn them yourself. A man could spend his life studyin’ burros an’ then have lots to learn. Most prospectors lose half their time trackin’ their burros. It’s tryin’ to find burros that has cost many a desert man his life. An’ this is why, if you’ve chosen the desert to live in, you must learn the habits of the burro. He’s the camel of this Sahara.”

With that the prospector appeared to have talked himself out for the present, and he devoted his efforts to a selection of parts of his outfit that manifestly he meant to turn over to Adam. At length having made the selection to his satisfaction, he went out to wake up the burro Jinny. As he led Jinny into camp all the other burros trooped along.

“Watch me pack an’ then you try your hand on Jinny,” he said.

Adam was all eyes while the prospector placed in position the old ragged pads of skins and blankets, and the pack-saddles over them, to be buckled carefully. It was all comparatively easy until it came to tying the pack on with a rope in what Dismukes called a hitch. However after Dismukes had accomplished it on three of the other burros, Adam believed he could make a respectable showing. To this end he began to pack Jinny, and did very well indeed till he got to the hitch, which was harder to tie than it looked. After several attempts he succeeded. During this procedure Jinny stood with one long ear up and the other down, as if nothing on earth mattered to her.

“Carry the canteen of water yourself,” said Dismukes, as he led Adam out from under the tree and pointed west. “See where that long, low, sharp ridge comes down to the desert?...Well, that’s fifty miles. Around that point lies a wide canyon. Indians live up that canyon. They are good people. Stay with them — work for them till you learn the desert...Now as to gettin’ there. Go slow. Rest often in the shade of ironwoods like this one. Take a good rest durin’ the middle of the day. As long as you sweat you’re in no danger. But if your skin gets dry you need to get out of the sun an’ to drink. There are several springs along the base of this range. Chocolate Mountains, they’re called. By keepin’ a sharp eye for patches of bright-green brush you’ll see where the water is. An’ don’t ever forget that water is the same as life blood.”

Adam nodded solemnly as he realised how the mere thought of thirst constricted his throat and revived there a semblance of the pain he had endured.

“Go slow. Maybe you’ll take two or three days to reach the Indians. By keepin’ that ridge in sight you can’t miss them.”

The next move of the prospector was to take Adam around on the other side of the tree and wave his hand at the expanse of desert.

“Now follow me an’ get these landmarks in your mind. Behind us lies the Chocolate Range. You see it runs down almost south-east. That shiny black mountain standin’ by itself is Pilot Knob. It’s near Yuma, as of course you remember. Now straight across from us a few miles lies a line of sand dunes. They run same way as the Chocolates. But they’re low —— can’t be seen far. Do you make out a dim, grey, strange-lookin’ range just over the top of them?”

“Yes, I see that clearly. Looks like clouds,” replied Adam.

“That’s the Superstition Mountains. You will hear queer stories about them. Most prospectors are afraid to go there, though it’s said Pegleg Smith’s lost gold mine is somewhere in there. The Indians think the range is haunted. An’ every one who knows this desert will tell you how the Superstition range changes somehow from time to time. It does change. Those mountains are giant sand dunes an’ they change their shape with the shiftin’ of the winds. That’s the fact, but I’m not gainsayin’ how strange an’ weird they are. An’ I, for one, believe Pegleg Smith did find gold there. But there’s no water. An how can a man live without water?...Well, to go on, that dim, purple, high range beyond the Superstition lies across the line of Mexico...Now, lookin’ round to the right of the Superstitions, to the north-west, an’ you see how the desert slopes down an’ down on all sides to a pale, hazy valley that looks like a lake. It’s the Salton Sink — below sea level — an’ it’s death for a man to try to cross there at this season. It looks obscured an’ small, but it’s really a whole desert in itself. In times gone by the Colorado River has broken its banks while in flood an’ run back in there to fill that sink. Miles an’ miles of fresh water which soon evaporated! Well, it’s a queer old earth an’ this desert teaches much...Now look straight up the valley. The ragged high peak is San Jacinto an’ the other high one farther north is San Gorgonio — two hundred miles from here. Prospectors call this one Greyback because it has the shape of a louse. These mountains are white with snow in the winter. Beyond them lies the Mohave Desert, an immense waste, which hides Death Valley in its iron-walled mountains...Now comin’ back down the valley on this side you see the Cottonwood range an’ it runs down to meet the Chocolates. There’s a break in the range. An’ still farther down there’s a break in the Chocolate range an’ there’s where your canyon comes out. You’ll climb the pass some day, to get on top of the Chuckwalla Mountains, an’ from there you will see north to the Mohave an’ east to the Colorado — all stark naked desert that seems to hit a man in the face. An’, well, I guess I’ve done my best for you.”

Adam could not for the moment safely trust himself to speak. The expanse of desert shown him, thus magnified into its true perspective, now stretched out with the nature of its distance and nudity strikingly clear. It did seem to glare menace into Adam’s face. It made him tremble. Yet there was fascination in the luring, deceitful Superstition range, and a sublimity in the measureless sweep of haze and purple slope leading north to the great peaks, and a compelling beckoning urge in the mystery and unknown that seemed to abide beyond the bronze ridge which marked Adam’s objective point.

“I’ll never forget your — your kindness,” said Adam, finally turning to Dismukes.

The prospector shook hands with him, and his grip was something to endure.

“Kindness is nothin’. I owed you what a man owes to himself. But don’t forget anythin’ I told you.”

“I never will,” replied Adam. “Will you let me pay you for the — the burro and outfit?” Adam made this request hesitatingly, because he did not know the law of the desert, and he did not want to offer what might be an offence.

“Sure you got plenty of money?” queried Dismukes, gruffly.

“Indeed I have,” rejoined Adam, eagerly.

“Then I’ll take what the burro an’ grub cost.”

He named a sum that appeared very small to Adam, and, receiving the money in his horny hands, he carefully deposited it in a greasy buckskin sack.

“Wansfell, may we meet again,” he said in farewell. “Good luck an’ good bye...Don’t forget.”

“Good-bye,” returned Adam, unable to say more.

With a whoop at the four burros and a slap on the haunch of one of them, Dismukes started them southward. They trotted ahead with packs bobbing and wagging. What giant strides Dismukes took! He seemed the incarnation of dogged strength of manhood, yet something ludicrous clung about him in his powerful action as well as in his immense squat form. He did not look back.

Adam slapped Jinny on the haunch and started her westward.

The hour was still early morning. A rosy freshness of the sunrise still slanted along the bronze slopes of the range and here and there blossoms of ocatilla shone red. The desert appeared to be a gently rising floor of gravel, sparsely decked with ironwood and mesquite, and an occasional cactus, that, so far as Adam could see, did not harbour a living creature. The day did not seem to feel hot, but Adam knew from the rising heat veils that it was hot. Excitement governed his feelings. Actually he was on the move, with an outfit and every hope to escape possible pursuers, with the absolute surety of a hard yet wonderful existence staring him in the face.

Not until he felt a drag in his steps did he think of his weakened condition. Resting awhile in the shade of a tree, he let the burro graze on the scant brush, and then went on again. Thus he travelled on, with frequent rests, until the heat made it imperative for him to halt till afternoon. About the middle of the afternoon he packed and set forth again.

A direct line westward appeared to be bringing him closer to the slope of the mountains; and it was not long before he saw a thick patch of green brush that surely indicated a water hole. The very sight seemed to invigorate him. Nevertheless, the promised oasis was far away, and not before he had walked till he was weary and rested many times did he reach it. To find water and grass was like making a thrilling discovery. Adam unpacked Jinny and turned her loose, not, however, without some misgivings as to her staying there.

Though he suffered from an extreme fatigue and a weakness that seemed to be in both muscle and bone, a kind of cheer came to him with the camp-fire duties. Never had he been so famished! The sun set while he ate, and, despite his hunger, more than once he had to stop to gaze down across the measureless slope, smoky and red, that ended in purple obscurity. It struck him suddenly, as he was putting some sticks of dead ironwood on the fire, how he had ceased to look back over his shoulder toward the south. The fire sputtered, the twilight deepened, the silence grew vast and vague. His eyelids were as heavy as lead, and all the nerves and veins of his body seemed to run together and to sink into an abyss the restfulness of which was unutterably sweet.

Some time during Adam’s slumbers a nightmare possessed him. At the moment he was about to be captured he awakened, cold with clammy sweat and shaking in every limb. With violent start of consciousness, with fearful uncertainty, he raised himself to peer around. The desert night encompassed him. It was late, somewhere near the morning hour. Low down over the dark horizon line hung a wan distorted moon that shone with weird lustre. Adam saw the black mountain wall above him apparently lifting to the stars, and the thick shadow of gloom filling the mouth of the canyon where he lay. He listened. And then he breathed a long sigh of relief and lay back in his blankets. The silence was that of a grave. There were no pursuers. He had only dreamed. And he closed his eyes again, feeling some blessed safeguard in the fact of his loneliness.

Dawn roused him to his tasks, stronger physically, eager and keen, but more watchful than he had been the preceding day and with less thrill than he had felt. He packed in half an hour and was travelling west when the sun rose. Gradually with the return of his habit of watchfulness came his former instinctive tendency to look back over his shoulder. He continually drove this away and it continually returned. The only sure banishment of it came through action, with its attendant exercise of his faculties. Therefore he rested less and walked more, taxing his strength to its utmost that morning, until the hot noon hour forced him to halt. Then while Jinny nibbled at the bitter desert plants Adam dozed in the thin shade of a mesquite. Close by grew a large ocatilla cactus covered with red flowers among which bees hummed. Adam never completely lost sense of this melodious hum, and it seemed to be trying to revive memories that he shunned.

The sun was still high and hot when Adam resumed travel, but it was westering and the slanting rays were bearable. After he got thoroughly warmed up and sweating freely he did not mind the heat, and was able to drive Jinny and keep up a strong stride for an hour at a time. His course now led along the base of the mountain wall, and that long low edge which marked his destination began to seem less unattainable. The afternoon waned, the sun sank, the heat declined, and Jinny began to show signs of weariness. It bothered Adam to keep her headed straight. He searched the line where the desert slope met the mountain wall for another green thicket of brush marking a water hole, but he could not see one. Darkness overtook him and he was compelled to make dry camp. This occasioned him some uneasiness, not that he did not have plenty of water for himself, but because he worried about the burro and the possibility of not finding water the next day. Nevertheless, he slept soundly.

On the following morning, when he had been tramping along for an hour or more, he espied far ahead the unmistakable green patch of thicket that heralded the presence of water. The sight stirred him. He walked well that morning, resting only a couple of hours at noon; but the green patch, after the manner of distant objects on the desert seemed just as far away as when he saw it first. The time came, however, when there was no more illusion and he knew he was getting close to the place. At last he reached it, a large green thicket that choked the mouth of a narrow canyon. He found a spring welling from under the mountain base and sending a slender stream out to be swallowed by the sand.

Adam gave Jinny a drink before he unpacked her. There was a desirable camp site, except that it lacked dead firewood close at hand. Adam removed the pack, being careful to put boxes and bags together and to cover them with the canvas. Then he started out to look for some dead ironwood or mesquite to burn. All the desert growths, mostly greasewood and mesquite, were young and green. Adam searched in one direction and then in another, without so much as finding a stick. Next he walked west along the rocky wall, and had no better success until he came to a deep recession in the wall, full of brush; and here with considerable labour he collected a bundle of dry sticks. With this he trudged back toward camp.

Before long he imagined he saw smoke. “Queer how those smoke trees fool a fellow,” he said. And even after he thought he smelled smoke, he was sure of deception. But upon nearing the green thicket that hid his camp he actually did see thin blue smoke low down against the background of rocky wall. The sight alarmed him. The only explanation which offered itself to his perplexity was the possibility that a prospector had arrived at the spring during his absence and had started a fire. Adam began to hurry. His alarm increased to dread.

When he ran around the corner of thicket to his campsite he did see a fire. It was about burned out. There was no prospector, no signs of packs or burros. And Jinny was gone!

“What-what?” stammered Adam, dropping his bundle of sticks. He was bewildered. A sense of calamity beset him. He ran forward.

“Where — where’s my pack?” he cried.

The dying fire was but the smouldering remains of his pack. It had been burned. Blankets, boxes, bags had been consumed. Some blackened utensils lay on the ground near the charred remains of his canvas. Only then did the truth of this catastrophe burst upon him. All his food had been burned.

CHAPTER X

SOME MOMENTS ELAPSED before the stunning effects of this loss had worn off enough to permit Adam’s mind to connect the cause of it with the disappearance of Jinny.

After careful scrutiny of tracks near where the pack had lain, Adam became convinced that Jinny was to blame for his destitution. His proofs cumulated in a handful of unburnt matches that manifestly had been flung and scattered away from the pack. The tricky burro, taking advantage of Adam’s absence, had pulled the canvas off the pack, and in tearing around in the boxes for morsels to eat she had bitten into the box of matches and set them on fire.

“I didn’t think — I didn’t think!” cried Adam, remembering the advice of Dismukes.

Overcome by the shock, he sank upon the ground and fell prey to gloomy and hopeless forebodings.

“I’ll lie down and die,” he muttered. But he could not so much as lie down. He seemed possessed by a devil who would not permit the idea of surrender or death. And this spirit likewise seemed to take him by the hair of his head and lift him up to scatter the tears from his eyes. “Why can’t I cuss the luck like a man — then look around to see what’s got to be done?”

Jinny had made good her escape. When Adam gave up all hope of finding the burro the hour was near sunset and it was high time that he should decide what to do.

“Go on — to the Indian camp,” he declared, tersely.

He decided to start at once and walk in the cool of night, keeping close to the mountain wall so as not to lose his way. His spirits rallied. Going back to the camp scene, he carefully gathered up all the unburnt matches and placed them with others he carried in his pocket. He found his bag of salt only partly consumed, and he made haste to secure it. His canteen lay beside the spring.

The ruddy sunset and the stealing down of twilight and the encroaching blackness of night had no charms for Adam now. His weariness increased as the hours prolonged themselves. Short, frequent rests were more advisable than long ones. The canopy of stars seemed in procession westward; and many a bright one he watched sink behind the black slope of mountain toward which he was bound. There were times when his eyes closed involuntarily and all his body succumbed to sleep as he toiled on. These drowsy spells always came to a painful end, for he would walk into a thorny mesquite. Adam saw a weird, misshapen moon rise late over a dark range to blanch the desert with wan light. He walked all night, and when dawn showed him landmarks now grown familiar he had a moment of exhilaration. The long, low-reaching ridge of mountain loomed right before him. When he rounded the sharp, blunt corner his eyes were greeted by sight of a deep-mouthed canyon yawning out of the range, and full of palms and other green trees. He saw a white stream bed and the shine of water, and what he took to be the roofs of palm-thatched huts.

“I’ve got there. This is the Indian canyon — where Dismukes told me to stay,” said Adam, with pride in his achievement. A first sight of what he took to be habitations cheered him. Again that gloomy companion of his mind was put to rout. It looked worth striving and suffering for — this haven. The barrenness of the desert all around made this green canyon mouth an oasis. It appeared well hidden, too. Few travellers passing along the valley would have suspected its presence. The long, low ridge had to be rounded before the canyon could be detected.

With steps that no longer dragged Adam began his descent of the canyon slope. It was a long, gradual incline, rough toward the bottom, and the bottom was a good deal farther down than it had seemed. At length he reached the wide bed of white boulders, strewn about in profusion, where some flood had rolled them. In the centre of this bed trickled a tiny stream of water, slightly alkaline, Adam decided, judging from the white stain on the margin of sand. Following the stream bed, he made his way up into the zone of green growths, a most welcome change from the open glare of the desert. He plodded on perhaps a mile, without reaching the yellow thatch of palms.

“Will I — never — get there?” panted Adam, almost spent.

Finally Adam reached a well-defined trail leading up out of the stream bed. He followed it to a level flat covered with willows and cottonwoods, all full foliaged and luxuriantly green, and among which stately palms swaddled in huge straw sheaths of their own making, towered with loftily tufted crowns. The dust in the trail showed no imprints of feet. Adam regarded that as strange. Still, he might be far from the camp or village that had looked so close from the slope above. Suddenly he emerged from the green covert into an open glade that contained palm-thatched huts, and he uttered a little cry of joy. But it took only a second glance to convince him that the huts were deserted, and his joy was short lived. Hastily he roamed from one hut to another. He found ollas, great, clay water jars, and pieces of broken pottery, and beds of palm leaves through which the lizards rustled, but no Indians, nor any signs of recent habitation.

“Gone! Gone!” he whispered, hoarsely. “Now — I’ll starve — to death!”

His accents of despair contained a note of hardness, of indifference born of his extreme fatigue. His eyes refused to stay open, and sleep glued them shut. When he opened them again it was to the light of another day. Stiff and lame, with a gnawing at the pit of his stomach and an oppressed mind, Adam found himself in sad plight. Limping down to the stream, he bathed his face and quenched his thirst, and then, removing his boots, he saw that his feet were badly blistered. He decided to go barefoot, to save his boots as well as to give the raw places a chance to heal.

Then without any more reflection he wrought himself into a supreme effort of will, and it was so passionate and strong that he believed it would hold as long as intelligence governed his actions.

“My one chance is to live here until the Indians come back,” he decided. “There’s water here and green growths. It’s an oasis where animals, birds, living creatures come to drink...I must eat.”

His first move was to make slow and careful examination of the trails. One which led toward the mountain bore faint traces of footprints that a recent rain had mostly obliterated. He lost this trail on the smooth rock slope. The others petered out in the stones and sage. Then he searched along the sand bars of the stream for tracks of living creatures; and he found many, from cat tracks to the delicate ones of tiny birds. After all, then, the desert was an abode for livings thing. The fact stimulated Adam, and he returned to the glade to exercise every faculty he possessed in the invention of instruments or traps or snares.

He had a knife and a pair of long leather boot strings. With these, and a bundle of arrow-weed sticks, and a tough elastic bow of ironwood, and strips of bark, and sharp bits of flinty rock Adam set to work under the strong, inventive guiding spirit of necessity. As a boy he had been an adept at constructing figure-four traps. How marvellous the accuracy of memory! He had been the one to build traps for his brother Guerd, who had not patience or skill, but who loved to set traps in the brier patches for redbirds. Adam’s nimble fingers slacked a little as his mind surveyed that best part of his life. To what extremity a man could be reduced! The dexterity of his idle youth to serve him thus in his terrible hour of need! He remembered then his skill at making slings and following this came the inspired thought of the possibility of constructing one. He had a strong rubber band doubled round his pocketbook. Sight of it thrilled him. He immediately left off experimenting with the bow and went to making a sling. His difficulty was to find cords to make connections between the rubbers and a forked prong, and also between the rubbers and a carrier of some sort. For the latter he cut a triangular piece out of the top of his boot. Always in the old days he had utilised leather from cast-off shoes, and had even made a collection of old footgear for this purpose. But where to get the cords? Bark would not be pliable and strong enough. Somewhere from the clothes he wore he must extract cords. The problem proved easy. His suspenders were almost new and they were made of linen threads woven together. When he began to ravel them he made the discovery that there was enough rubber in them to serve for a second sling.

When the instrument was finished he surveyed it with satisfaction. He had no doubt that the deadly accuracy he had once been master of with this boyish engine of destruction would readily return to him. Then he went back to work on the other contrivances he had planned.

A failing of the daylight amazed him. For an instant he imagined a cloud had crossed the sun. But the sun had set and darkness was at hand.

“If days fly like this one, life will soon be over,” he soliloquised, with a sigh.

In one of the thatched huts he made a comfortable bed of palm leaves. They seemed to retain the heat of the day. When Adam lay down to go to sleep he experienced a vague, inexplicable sense that the very strangeness of the present circumstance was familiar to him. But he could not hold the sensation, so did not understand it. He was very tired and very sleepy, and there was an uncomfortable empty feeling within him. He looked out and listened, slowly aware of a great, soft, silent black enveloping of his environment by the desert night. There seemed to be an aloofness in the immensity of this approach and insulation — a nature that, once comprehended, would be appalling. This thought just flashed by. His mind seemed concerned with something between worry and fear which persisted till he fell asleep.

In the dim, grey dawn he awoke and realised that it was hunger which had awakened him. And he stole out on his imperative quest. He did not see the sunrise nor the broadening day. His instinct was to hunt. Doves and blackbirds visited the stream, and a covey of desert quail seemed tame; but, owing to overeagerness and clumsiness, he did not succeed in killing a single one. He followed them from place to place, all over the oasis, until he lost sight of them. He baited his two traps with cactus fruit and set them, and he prowled into every nook and cranny of the canyon oasis. Lizards, rattlesnakes, rats, ground squirrels rustled from his stealthy steps. It amazed him how wary they were. He might have caught the rattlesnakes, but the idea of eating them was repugnant and impossible to him. The day passed more swiftly than had yesterday. Its close found him so tired he could scarcely stand, and with gnawing hunger growing worse. The moment he lay down sleep claimed him.

Next day he had more and better opportunities to secure meat, but he failed through haste and poor judgment and inaccuracy. His lessons were severe and they taught him the stern need of perfection. That day he saw a hawk poise high over a spot, dart down swiftly, to rise with a squealing rat in its claws. Again he saw a shrike, marked dull grey and black, sail down from a tree, fly very low along an open space of ground to avoid detection, and pounce upon a lizard. Likewise he saw a horned toad shoot out an extraordinary long and almost invisible tongue, to snatch a bee from a flower. In these actions, Adam divined his first proof of the perfection of desert hunters. They did not fail. But he was not thus equipped.

All during the hot period of the day, when birds and animals rested, Adam practised with his crude weapons. His grave, serious eagerness began to give way to instinctive force, a something of fierceness that began to come out in him. It seemed every moment had its consciousness of self, of plight, of presaged agony, but only in flashes of thought, only fleeting ideas instantly repudiated by the physical. He had given a tremendous direction to his mind and it spent its force that way.

The following morning, just at sunrise, he located the covey of desert quail. They had sailed down from the sage slopes to alight among the willows bordering the stream. Adam crawled on the sand, noiseless as a snake, his sling held in readiness. He was breathless and hot. His blood gushed and beat in his veins. The very pursuit of meat made the saliva drip from his mouth and made his stomach roll with pangs of emptiness. Then the strain, the passion of the moment, were beyond his will to control, even if there had not been a strange, savage joy in them. He glided through the willows, never rustling a branch. The plaintive notes of the quail guided him. Then through an opening he saw them — grey, sleek, plump birds, some of them with tiny plumes. They were picking in the damp sand near the water. Adam, lying flat, stretched his sling and waited for a number of the quail to bunch. Then he shot. The heavy pebble sped true, making grey feathers fly. One quail lay dead. Another fluttered wildly The others ran off through the willows Adam rushed upon the crippled quail, plunging down swift and hard; and catching it, he wrung its neck. Then he picked up the other.

“I got ‘em. I got ‘em!” he cried, elated, as he felt the warm plump bodies. It was a moment of strange sensation. Breathless, hot, wet with sweat, shaking all over, he seemed to have reverted to the triumph of the boy hunter. But there was more, and it had to do with the physical reactions inside his body. It had to do with hunger.

Picking the feathers off these birds required too much time. Adam skinned them, and cleaned them, and then washed them in the stream. That done, he hurried back to his camp to make a fire and cook them. A quick method would be to broil them. He had learned how to do this with strips of meat. His hunger prevented him from waiting until the fire was right, and it also made him hurry the broiling. The salt that he had rescued from his pack now found its use, and it was not long before he had picked clean the bones of these two quail.

Adam found that this pound or so of meat augmented his hunger. It changed the gnawing sensations, in fact modified them, but it induced a greedy, hot hunger for more. An hour after he had eaten, as far as appetite was concerned, he seemed worse off. Then he set out again in quest of meat.

The hours flew, the day ended, night intervened, and another dawn broke. Success again crowned his hunt. He feasted on doves. Thereafter, day by day, he decimated the covey of tame quail and the flock of tame doves until the few that were left grew wary and finally departed. Then he hunted other birds. Quickly they learned the peril of the white man; and the day came when few birds visited the oasis.

Next to invite Adam’s cunning, were the ground squirrels, the trade rats, and the kangaroo rats. He lived off them for days. But they grew so wary that he had to dig them out of the ground, and they finally disappeared. At this juncture, a pair of burros wandered into the oasis. They were exceedingly wild. Adam failed to trap one of them. He watched for hours from a steep place where he might have killed one by throwing down a large rock. But it was in vain. At last, in desperation, holding his naked knife in hand, he chased them over stones and through the willows and under the thorny mesquites, all to no avail. He dropped from exhaustion and weakness, and lay where he had fallen till the next morning.

The pangs of hunger now were maddening. He had suffered them, more or less, and then alleviated them with meat, and then felt them grow keener and stronger until the edge wore off. After a few more meatless days the pains gradually subsided. It was a relief. He began to force himself to go out and hunt. Then an exceedingly good stroke of fortune befell him in that he killed a rabbit. His strength revived, but also his pains.

Then he lost track of days, but many passed, and each one of them took something from him in effort, in wakefulness, in spirit. His aggressiveness diminished daily and lasted only a short while. The time came when he fell to eating rattlesnakes and any living creatures in the oasis that he could kill with a club.

But at length pain left him, and hunger, and then his peril revealed itself. He realised it. The desire to kill diminished. With the cessation of activity there returned a mental state in which he could think back and remember all that he had done there, and also look forward to the inevitable prospect. Every morning he dragged his weary body, now merely skin and bones, out to the stream to drink, and then around and around in a futile hunt. He chewed leaves and bark; he ate mesquite beans and cactus fruit. After a certain number of hours the longer he went without meat the less he cared for it, or for living. But when, now and then, he did kill something to eat, then his instinct to survive flashed up with revived hunger. The process of detachment from passion to live was one of agony, infinitely worse than starvation. He had come to learn that starvation would be the easiest and most painless of deaths. It would have been infinitely welcome but for the thought that always followed resignation — that he had sworn to fight. That kept him alive.

His skin turned brown and shrivelled up like dried parchment wrinkling around bones. He did not recognise his hands, and when he lay flat on the stones to drink from the stream, he saw reflected there a mummified mask with awful eyes.

Longer and longer grew the hours wherein he slept by night and lay idle by day, watching, listening, feeling. Something came back to him or was born in him during these hours. But the truth of his state eluded him. It had to do with peace, with dream, with effacement. He seemed no longer real. The hot sun, the pleasant wind, the murmur of bees, the tinkle of water, the everlasting processional march of the heat veils across the oasis — with all these things his mind seemed happily concerned. At dawn when he awoke his old instinct predominated, and he searched for meat. But unless he had some success this questing mood did not last. It departed as weakness and lassitude overbalanced the night’s rest. For the other hours of that day he lay in the sun, or the shade — it did not matter — and felt or dreamed as he starved.

As he watched thus one drowsy noon hour, seeing the honeybees darting to and fro, leaving the flowers to fly in straight line across the oasis, there occurred to him the significance of their toil. He watched these flying bees come and go; and suddenly it flashed over him that at the end of the bee line there must be a hive. Bees made nests in trees. If he could find the nest of the bees that were working here he would find honey. The idea stimulated him.

Adam had never heard how bee hunters lined bees to their hives, but in his dire necessity he instinctively adopted the correct method. He watched the bees fly away, keeping them in sight as long as possible, then he walked to the point he had marked as the last place he had seen them, and here he watched for others. In half an hour the straight bee flights led to a large dead cottonwood, hollow at top and bottom, a tree he had passed hundreds of times. The bees had a hive in the upper chamber of the trunk. Adam set fire to the tree and smoked the bees out. Then the problem consisted of felling the tree, for he had not the strength to climb it. The trunk was rotten inside and out. It burned easily, and he helped along the work by tearing out pieces of the soft wood. Nearly all the day was consumed in this toil, but at length the tree fell, splitting and breaking to pieces. The hollow chamber contained many pounds of honey.

Adam’s struggle then was to listen to an intelligence that warned him that if he made a glutton of himself it would cause him great distress, and perhaps kill him. How desperately hard it was to eat sparingly of the delicious honey! He tried, but did not succeed. That restraint was beyond human nature. Nevertheless, he stopped far short of what he wanted. He stored the honey away in ollas left there by the Indians.

All night and next day he paid it severe illness for the honey of which he had partaken. The renewed exercise of internal organs that had ceased to function produced convulsions and retching that made him roll on the ground as a man poisoned. Life was tenacious in him and he recovered; and thereafter, while the honey lasted, he slowly gained strength enough to hunt once more for meat. But the fertile oasis was now as barren of living creatures as was the naked desert outside. Adam’s hope revived with his barely recovered strength. He pitied himself in his moments of deluded cheeerfulness, of spirit that refused to die. Long ago his physical being had resigned itself, but his soul seemed beyond defeat. How strange the variations of his moods! His intelligence told him that sight of an animal would instantly revert him to the level of a beast of prey or a stalking, bloodthirsty savage.

During these days his eyes scanned the bronze slope of mountain where the tracks of the Indians had faded. They might return in time to save his life. He hoped in spite of himself. In the early time of his imprisonment there he had prayed for succour, but he had long since ceased that. The desert had locked him in. Every moment, every hour that had passed, the ceaseless hunts and then the dreaming spells, held their clear-cut niches in his memory. Looked back at, they seemed far away in the past, even those as close as yesterday; and every sensation was invested by a pang. At night he slept the slumber of weakness, and so the mockery of the dark hours did not make their terrible mark upon his mind. But the solemn days! They sped swiftly by, yet, remembered, they seemed eternities. Desert-bound days — immeasurably silent — periods of the dominance of the blasting sun; days of infinite space, beyond time, beyond life, as they might have been upon the burned-out moon! The stones that blistered unprotected flesh, the sand and the dust, the rock-ribbed ranges of bronze and rust — these tangible evidences of the earth seemed part of those endless days. There were sky and wind, the domain of the open and its master; but these existed for the eagles, and perhaps for the spirits that wailed down the naked shingles of the desert. A man was nothing. Nature filled this universe and had its inscrutable and ruthless laws.

How little the human body required to subsist on! Adam lived long on that honey; and he gained so much from it that after it was gone the hunger pangs revived a hundred times more fiercely than ever. They had been deadened, which fact left him peace; revived by a windfall of food, they brought him agony. It drove him out to hunt for meat. He became a stalking spectre whose keen eye an insect could not have escaped. Hunger now beset him with all its terrors magnified. To starve was nothing, but to eat while starving was hell! The pangs were as if made by a serpent with teeth of fire tearing at his vitals. Tighter and tighter he buckled his belt until he could squeeze his waist in his long, skinny hands so that his fingers met. Whenever his pains began to subside, like worms growing quiet, then a rat or a stray bird or a lizard or a scaly little side-winder rattlesnake would fall to his cunning, as if in mockery of the death that ever eluded him; and next day the old starving pains would convulse his bowels again.

So that he was driven, a gaunt and ever gaunter shadow of a man, up and down the beaten trails of the oasis. Soon he would fall and die, be sun-dried and blow away like powdered leather on the desert wind. By his agonies he measured the inhospitableness and inevitableness of the wasteland. Every thought had some connection with his torture or some relation to his physical being in its fight for existence. In this desert oasis were living things, creatures grown too wary for him now, and willows, cacti, sages, that had conquered over the barrenness of the desert. On his brain had been etched by words of steel the fact that no power to fight was so great and unquenchable as that of man’s. He lived on, he staggered on through the solemn, glaring days.

One morning huge columnar clouds, white as fleece, with dark-grey shades along their lower borders, blotted out the sun. How strangely they shaded the high lights! Usually when clouds formed on the desert they lodged round the peaks and hung there. But these were looming across the wasteland, promising rain. A fresh breeze blew the leaves.

Adam was making his weary round of the oasis, dragging one foot like a dead weight after the other. Once he thought he heard an unusual sound, and with lips wide and with bated breath he listened. Only the mocking, solemn silence! Often he was haunted by the memory of sounds. Seldom indeed did he hear his own voice any more. Then he plodded on again with the eyes of a ferret roving everywhere.

He had proceeded a few rods when a distant but shrill whistle brought him to a startled and thrilling halt. It sounded like the neigh of a horse. Often he had heard the brays of wild burros. In the intense silence, as he strained his ears, he heard only the laboured, muffled throbs of his heart. Gradually his hopes, so new and strange, subsided. Only another mockery of his memory! Or perhaps it was a whistle of the wind in a crevice, or of an eagle in flight.

Parting the willows before him as he walked, he went through the thicket out into the open where the stream flowed. It was very low, just a tiny rill of crystal-clear water. He was about to step forward toward the flat rock where he always knelt to drink when another sound checked him. A loud, high buzz, somehow startling! It had life.

Suddenly he espied a huge rattlesnake coiled in the sand, with head erect and its rattles quivering like the wings of a poised humming bird. The snake had just shed an ugly, brown, scaly skin, and now shone forth resplendent, a beautiful clean grey with markings of black. It did not show any fear. The flat triangular head, sleek and cunning, with its deadly jewel-like eyes, was raised half a foot above the plump coils.

Adam’s weary, hopeless hunting instinct sustained a vivifying, galvanising shock. Like a flash he changed, beginning to tremble. He dropped his sling as an ineffective weapon against so large a snake. His staring eyes quivered like the vibrating point of a compass needle as he tried to keep them on the snake and at the same time sight a stone or club with which to attack his quarry. A bursting gush of blood, hot in its tearing pangs, flooded out all over his skin, starting the sweat. His heart lifted high in his breast, almost choking him. A terrible excitement animated him and it was paralleled by a cold and sickening dread that the snake would escape and pounds of meat be lost to him.

Never taking eyes off the snake, Adam stooped down to raise a large rock in his hand. He poised it aloft and, aiming with intense keenness, he flung the missile. It struck the rattlesnake a glancing blow, tearing its flesh and bringing blood. With the buzz of a huge bee caught in a trap the snake lunged at Adam, stretching its mutilated length on the sand.

It was long, thick, fat. Adam smelled the exuding blood and it inflamed him. Almost he became a beast. The savage urge in him then was to fall upon his prey and clutch it with his bare hands and choke and tear and kill. But reason still restrained such limit as that. Stone after stone he flung, missing every time. Then the rattlesnake began to drag itself over the sand. Its injury did not retard a swift progress. Adam tried to bound after it, but he was so weak that swift action seemed beyond him. Still, he headed off the snake and turned it back. Stones were of no avail. He could not hit with them, and every time he bent over to pick one up he got so dizzy that he could scarcely rise.

“Club! Club! Got — have club!” he panted, hoarsely. And espying one along the edge of the stream, he plunged to secure it. This moment gave the rattlesnake time to get ahead. Wildly Adam rushed back, brandishing the club. His tall gaunt form, bent forward, grew overbalanced as he moved, and he made a long fall, halfway across the stream. He got up and reached the snake in time to prevent it from escaping under some brush.

Then he swung the club. It was not easy to hit the snake crawling between the stones. And the club was of rotten wood. It broke. With the blunt end Adam managed to give his victim a blow that retarded its progress.

Adam let out a hoarse yell. Something burst in him — a consummation of the instinct to kill and the instinct to survive. There was no difference between them. Hot, and mad and weak, he staggered after the crippled snake. The chase had transformed the whole internal order of him. He was starving to death, and he smelled the blood of fresh meat. The action infuriated him and the odour maddened him. Not far indeed was he then from the actual seizing of that deadly serpent in his bare hands.

But he tripped and fell again in a long forward plunge. It brought him to the sand almost on top of the snake. And here the rattlesnake stopped to coil, scarcely two feet from Adam’s face.

Adam tried to rise on his hands. But his strength had left him. And simultaneously there left him the blood madness of that chase to kill and eat. He realised his peril. The rattlesnake would strike him. Adam had one flashing thought of the justice of it — one sight of the strange, cold, deadly jewel eyes, one swift sense of the beauty and magnificent spirit of this reptile of the desert, and then horror possessed him. He froze to his marrow. The icy mace of terror had stunned him. And with it had passed the flashing of his intelligence. He was only a fearful animal, fascinated by another, dreading death by instinct. And as he collapsed, sagging forward, the rattlesnake struck him in the face with the stinging blow of a red-hot iron. Then Adam fainted.

CHAPTER XI

WHEN ADAM RECOVERED consciousness he imagined he was in a dream.

But a dragging, throbbing pain in his face seemed actuality enough to discredit any illusions of slumber. It was shady where he lay or else his eyes were dimmed. Presently he made out that he reclined under one of the palm-thatched roofs.

“I’ve been moved!” he cried, with a start. And that start, so full of pain and queer dragging sensations as of a weighted body, brought back memory to him. His mind whirled and darkened. The sickening horror of close proximity to the rattlesnake, its smell and colour and deadly intent, all possessed Adam again. Then it cleared away. What had happened to him? His hand seemed to have no feeling; just barely could he move it to his face, where the touch of wet cloth bandages told a story of his rescue by someone. Probably the Indians had returned. It had been the whistle of a horse that had thrilled him.

“I’ve — been — saved!” whispered Adam, and he grew dizzy. His eyes closed. Dim shapes seemed to float over the surface of his mind; and there were other strange answerings of his being to this singular deliverance.

Then he heard voices — some low, and others deep and guttural. Voices of Indians! How strong the spirit of life in him! “I — I wasn’t ready — to die,” he whispered. Gleams of sunlight low down, slanting on the palm leaves, turning them to gold, gave him the idea that the time was near sunset. In the corner of the hut stood ollas and bags which had not been there before, and on the ground lay an Indian blanket.

A shadow crossed the sunlit gleams. An Indian girl entered. She had very dark skin and straight hair as black as night. Upon seeing Adam staring at her with wide-open eyes she uttered a cry and ran out. A hubbub of low voices sounded outside the shack. Then a tall figure entered; it was that of an Indian, dressed in the ragged clothes of a white man. He was old, his dark bronze face like a hard wrinkled mask.

“How?” he asked, gruffly, as he bent over Adam. He had piercing black eyes.

“All right — good,” replied Adam, trying to smile. He sensed kindliness in this old Indian.

“White boy want dig gold — get lost — no grub — heap sick belly?” queried the Indian, putting a hand on Adam’s flat abdomen.

“Yes — you bet,” replied Adam.

“Hahh! Me Charley Jim — heap big medicine man. Me fix um. Snake bite no hurt...White boy sick bad — no heap grub — long time.”

“All right — Charley Jim,” replied Adam.

“Hahh!” Evidently this exclamation was Charley Jim’s expression for good. He arose and backed away to the opening that appeared blocked by dark-skinned, black-haired Indians. Then he pointed at one of them. Adam saw that he indicated the girl who had first come to him. She appeared very shy. Adam gathered the impression that she had been the one who had saved him.

“Charley Jim, who found me — who saved me from that rattlesnake?”

The old Indian understood Adam well enough. He grinned and pointed at the young girl, and pronounced a name that sounded to Adam like “Oella.”

“When? How long ago? How many days?” asked Adam.

Charley Jim held up three fingers, and with that he waved the other Indians from the opening and went out himself.

Adam was left to the bewildered thoughts of a tired and hazy mind. He had no strength at all, and the brief interview, with its excitement, and exercise of voice, brought him near the verge of unconsciousness. He wavered amid dim shadows of ideas and thoughts. When that condition passed, he awoke to dull, leaden pain in his head. And his body felt like an empty sack the two sides of which were pasted together flat.

The sunlit gleams vanished and the shades of evening made gloom around him. He smelled fragrant wood smoke, and some other odour, long unfamiliar, that brought a watery flow to his mouth and a prickling as of many needles. Then in the semi-darkness one of the Indians entered and knelt beside him. Adam distinguished the face of the girl, Oella. She covered him with a blanket. Very gently she lifted his head, and moved her body so that it would support him. The lifting hurt Adam; he seemed to reel and sway, and a blackness covered his sight. The girl held him and put something warm and wet between his lips. She was trying to feed him with a stick or a wooden spoon. The act of swallowing made his throat feel as if it was sore. What a slow process! Adam rather repelled than assisted his nurse, but his antagonism was purely physical and involuntary. Whatever the food was, it had no taste to him. The heat of it, however, and the soft, wet sensation, grew pleasant. He realised when hunger awakened again in him, for it ran like a shot through his vitals.

Then the girl laid him back, spread the blanket high, and left him. The strange sensation of fullness, of movement inside Adam’s breast, occupied his mind until drowsiness overcame him.

Another day awakened Adam to the torture of reviving hunger and its gnawing pains, so severe that life seemed unwelcome. The hours were weary and endless. But next day was not so severe, and thereafter gradually he grew better and was on the road to a slow recovery.

The Indians that had befriended Adam were of a family belonging to the Coahuila tribe. Charley Jim appeared to be a chief of some degree, friendly toward the whites, and nomadic in spirit, as he wandered from oasis to oasis. He knew Dismukes, and told Adam that the prospector and he had found gold up this canyon. Charley Jim’s family consisted of several squaws, some young men, two girls, of whom Oella was the younger, and a troop of children, wild as desert rats.

Adam learned from Charley Jim that the head of this canyon contained a thicket of mesquite trees, the beans of which the Indians prized as food. Also there were abundant willows and arrow-weeds, with which wood the Indians constructed their huge, round, basket granaries. The women of the family pounded the mesquite beans into meal or flour, which was dampened and put away for use. Good grass and water in this remote canyon were further reasons why Charley Jim frequented it. But he did not appear to be a poor Indian, for he had good horses, a drove of burros, pack outfits that were a mixture of Indian and prospector styles, and numerous tools, utensils, and accoutrements that had been purchased at some freighting post.

Adam was so long weak, and dependent upon Oella, that when he did grow strong enough to help himself the Indian girl’s habit of waiting upon him and caring for him was hard to break. She seemed to take it for granted that she was to go on looking after him; and the fineness and sensitiveness of her, with the strong sense of her delight in serving him, made it impossible for Adam to offend her. She was shy and reserved, seldom spoke, and always maintained before him a simplicity, almost a humility, as of servant to master. With acquaintance, too, the still, dark, impassive face of her had become attractive to look at, especially her large, black, inscrutable eyes, soft as desert midnight. They watched Adam at times when she imagined he was unaware of her scrutiny, and the light of them then pleased Adam, and perturbed him also, reminding him of what an old aunt had told him once, “Adam, my boy, women will always love you!” The prophecy had not been fulfilled, Adam reflected with sadness, and in Oella’s case he concluded his fancies were groundless.

Still, he had to talk to somebody or grow into the desert habit of silence, and so he began to teach Oella his language and to learn hers. The girl was quick to learn and could twist her tongue round his words better than he could round hers. Moreover, she learned quickly anything he cared to teach her; and naturally even in the desert there were customs into which Adam preferred to introduce something of the white man’s way. Indians were slovenly and dirty, and Adam changed this in Oella’s case. The dusky desert maiden had little instinctive vanities that contact with him developed.

One day, when the summer was waning and Adam was getting about on his feet, still a gaunt and stalking shadow of his former self, but gaining faster, the old Indian chief said:

“White man heap strong — ride — go away soon?”

“No, Charley Jim, I want stay here,” replied Adam.

“Hahh!” replied the Indian, nodding.

“Me live here — work with Indian. White man no home — no people. He like Indian. He work — hunt meat for Indian:”

“Heap sheep,” replied Charley Jim, with a slow, expressive wave of his hand toward the mountain peaks.

“Charley Jim take white man’s money, send to freight post for gun, shells, clothes, flour, bacon — many things white man need?”

“Hahh!” The chief held up four fingers and pointed west, indicating what Adam gathered was four days’ ride to a freighting post.

“Charley Jim no tell white men about me.”

The Indian took the money with grave comprehension, and also shook the hand Adam offered.

The Indian boys who rode away to the freighting post on the river were two weeks in returning. To celebrate the return of the boys Adam suggested a feast and that he would bake the bread and cook the bacon. Oella took as by right the seat of honour next to Adam, and her habitual shyness did not inhibit a rather hearty appetite. On this occasion Adam finally got the wild little half-naked, dusky children to come to him. They could not resist sweets.

A shining new rifle, a Winchester .44, was the cynosure of all eyes in that Indian encampment. When Adam took it out to practice, the whole family crowded around to watch, with the intense interest of primitive people who marvelled at the white man’s weapon. Only the little children ran from the sharp report of the rifle, and they soon lost their fear. Whenever Adam made a good shot it was Oella who showed pride where the others indicated only their wonder.

Thus the days of simplicity slipped by, every one of which now added to Adam’s fast-returning strength. Flour and bacon quickly built up his reduced weight; and as for rice and dried fruits, they were so delicious to Adam that he feared it would not be a great while before he must needs send for more. He remembered the advice of Dismukes anent the value of his money.

The hot summer became a season of the past. The withering winds ceased to blow. In the early autumn days Adam began his hunting. Charley Jim led the way keeping behind a fringe of mesquite, out to a grey expanse of desert, billowy and beautiful in the ruddy sunlight. They crawled through sage to the height of a low ridge, and from here the chief espied game. He pointed down a long grey slope, but Adam could see only a monotonous beauty, spotted by large tufts of sage, and here and there a cactus. Then the Indian took Adam’s sombrero, and the two scarfs he had, one red and one blue, and tied them round the hat, which he elevated upon a stick. After that he bent his falcon gaze on the slope. Adam likewise gazed, with infinite curiosity, thrill, and expectation.

“Hahh!” grunted Charley Jim presently, and his sinewy dark hand clutched Adam. Far down vague grey spots seemed to move. Adam strained his eyes. It seemed a long time till they approached close enough to distinguish their species.

“Antelope, by jiminy!” ejaculated Adam, in excitement.

“Heap jiminy — you bet!” responded Charley Jim.

Adam was experiencing that thrill to its utmost, and also other sensations of wonder and amaze. Was it possible these wild-looking desert creatures were actually so curious about the brightly decked sombrero that they could not resist approaching it to see what it was? There they came, sleek, tawny-grey, alert, deerlike animals, with fine pointed heads, long ears, and white rumps. The bold leader never stopped at all. But some of his followers hesitated, trotted to and fro, then came on. How graceful they were! How suggestive of speed and wildness! Adam’s finger itched to shoot off the gun and scare them to safety. “Fine hunter, I am,” he muttered. “This is murder...Why on earth does a man have to eat meat?” The Indian beside him was all keen and strung with his instincts and perhaps they were truer to the needs of human life.

Soon, however, all of Adam’s sensations were blended in a thrilling warmth of excitement. The antelope were already within range, and had it not been for Charley Jim’s warning hand Adam would not have been able to resist the temptation to fire. Perhaps he would have missed then, for he certainly shook in every muscle, as a man with the ague. Adam forced himself to get the better of this spell of nerves.

“Heap soon!” whispered Charley Jim, relaxing the pressure of his hand on Adam. The leader approached to within fifty feet, with several other antelope close behind, when the Indian whistled. Like statues they became. Then Adam fired. The leader fell, and also one of those behind him. The others flashed into grey speeding shapes with rumps darting white; and Adam could only stare in admiring wonder at their incomparable swiftness.

“Hahh!” ejaculated the chief, in admiration. “White man heap hunter — one shoot — two bucks. Him eye like eagle!”

Thus did a lucky shot by Adam, killing two antelope when he aimed at only one, initiate him into his hunting on the desert and win for him the Indian soubriquet of Eagle.

And so began Adam’s desert education. He had keen appreciation of his good fortune in his teacher. The Coahuila chief had been born on that desert and he must have been nearly sixty years old. As a hunter he had the eye of a mountain sheep, the ear of a deer, the nose of a wolf. He had been raised upon meat. He loved the stalking of game. Thus Adam, through this old Indian’s senses and long experience and savage skill, began to see the life of the desert. It unfolded before his eyes, manifold in its abundance, infinitely strange and marvellous in its ferocity and ability to survive. Adam learned to see as the Indian, and had his own keen mind to analyse and weigh and ponder. But his knowledge came slowly, painfully, hard earned, in spite of its thrilling time-effacing quality.

In those wonderful autumn days Adam learned that the antelope could go long without water, that nature had endowed it with great speed to escape the wolves and cats of the desert, that from its prominent eyes it could see in any direction, that its colouring was the protective grey of the sage plains.

He learned that the lizard could change its colour like the chameleon, adapting itself to the colour of the rock upon which it basked in the sun, that it could dart across the sands almost too swiftly for the eye to follow.

He learned that the grey desert wolf was a king of wolves, living high in the mountains and coming down to the flats; and there, by reason of his wonderfully developed strength and speed, chasing and killing his prey in the open.

He learned that the coyote was an eater of carrion, of rabbits and rats, of birds’ eggs, of mesquite beans, of anything that happened to come its way — a grey, skulking, cunning beast, cowardly as the wolf was brave, able like the antelope and the jack rabbit, to live without water, and best adapted of all beasts to the desert.

He learned that the jack rabbit survived through the abnormal development of his ears and legs — the first extraordinarily large organs built to catch sounds, and the latter long, strong members that enabled him to run with ease away from his foes. And he learned that the cottontail rabbit lived in thickets near holes into which he could pop, and that his fecundity in reproducing his kind saved his species from extinction.

Adam learned about the desert ants, the kangaroo rats, the trade rats, the horned toads, the lizards, the snakes, the spiders, the bees, the wasps — the way they lived and what they lived upon. How marvellously nature adapted them to their desert environment, each perfect, each in its place, each fierce and self-sufficient, each fulfilling its mysterious destiny of sacrificing its individual life to the survival of its species! How cruel nature was to the individual — how devoted to the species!

Adam learned that the same fierce life of all desert creatures was likewise manifested in the life of the plants. By thorns and poison sap and leafless branches, and by roots penetrating far and deep, and by organs developed to catch and store water, so the plants of the desert outwitted the beasts and endured the blasting sun and drought. How beyond human comprehension was the fact that a cactus developed a fluted structure less exposed to heat — that a tree developed a leaf that never presented its broad surface to the sun!

The days passed, with ruddy sunrises, white, glaring, solemn noons, and golden sunsets. The simplicity and violence of life on the desert passed into Adam’s being. The greatness of stalking game came to him when the Indian chief took him to the heights after bighorn sheep but it was not the hunting and killing of this wariest and finest of wild beasts, wonderful as it was, that constituted for Adam something great. It was the glory of the mountain heights. All his life he had dreamed of high places, those to which he could climb physically and those that he aspired to spiritually. Lost indeed were hopes of the latter, but of the former he had all-satisfying fulfilment. Adam dated his changed soul from the day he first conquered the heights. There, on top of the Chocolate range, his keen sight, guided by the desert eyes of the old Indian, ranged afar over the grey valleys and red ranges to the Rio Colorado, down the dim wandering line of which he gazed, to see at last Picacho, a dark, purple mass above the horizon. From the moment Adam espied this mountain he suffered a return of memory and a sleepless and eternal remorse. The terrible past came back to him: never again, he divined, to fade while life lasted. His repentance, his promise to Dismukes, his vow to himself, began there on the heights with the winds sweet and strong in his face and the dark blue of the sky over his head, and beneath the vast desert, illimitable on all sides, lonely and grand, the abode of silence.

The days passed into months. Far to the north the dominating peaks of San Jacinto and San Gorgonio took on the pure-white caps of snow, that slowly spread as the days passed, down the rugged slopes. Winter abided up there. But on the tops of the Chocolate and Chuckwalla ranges no snow fell, although the winter wind sometimes blew cold and bleak. Adam loved the wind of the heights. How cold and pure, untainted by dust or life or use! He grew to have the stride of the mountaineer. And the days passed until that one came in which the old Indian chief let Adam hunt alone. “Go, Eagle!” he said, with sorrow for his years and pride in the youth of his white friend. “Go!” And the slow gestures of his long arms were as the sailing movement of the wings of an eagle.

The days passed, and few were they that did not see Adam go out in the sweet, cool dawn, when the east glowed like an opal, to climb the bronze slope, sure footed as a goat, up and up over the bare ridges and through the high ravines where the lichens grew and a strange, pale flower blossomed, on and on over the jumble of weathered rock to the heights. And there he would face the east with its glorious burst of golden fire, and spend the last of that poignant gaze on the sunrise-crowned glory of old Picacho. The look had the meaning of a prayer to Adam, yet it was like a blade in his heart. In that look he remembered his home, his mother, his brother, and the vivid days of play and love and hope, his fateful journey west, his fall and his crime and his ruin. Alone on the heights, he forced that memory to be ever more vivid and torturing. Hours he consecrated to remorse, to regret, to suffering, to punishment. He lashed his soul with bitter thoughts, lest he forget and find peace. Life and health and strength had returned to him in splendid growing measure which he must use to pay his debt.

But there were other hours. He was young. Red blood throbbed in his veins, and action sent that blood in a flame over his eager body. To stride along the rocky heights was something splendid. How free — alone! It connected Adam’s present hour with a remote past he could not comprehend. He loved it. He was proud that the Indians called him Eagle. For to watch the eagles in their magnificent flights became a passion with him. The great blue condors and the grisly vultures and the bow-winged eagles — all were one and the same to him, indistinguishable from one another as they sailed against the sky, sailing, sailing so wondrously, with never a movement of wings, or shooting across the heavens like thunderbolts, or circling around and upward to vanish in the deep blue. There were moments when he longed to change his life to that of an eagle, to find a mate and a nest on a lofty crag, and there, ringed by the azure world above and with the lonely barren below, live with the elements.

Here on the heights Adam was again visited by that strange sensation, inexplicable and illusive and fast fleeting, which had been born in him one lonely hour in the desert below. Dismukes had told him how men were lured by the desert and how they all had their convictions as to its cause, and how they missed the infinite truth.

“It will come to me!” cried Adam as he faced the cool winds.

Stalking mountain sheep upon the mighty slopes was work to make a man. It was a wild and perilous region of jagged ridges and hare slants and loose slopes of weathered rocks. The eyes of the sheep that lived at this height were like telescopes; they had the keenest sight of all wild beasts. The marvellous organ of vision stood out on the head as if it were the half of a pear, so that there was hardly an angle of the compass toward which a sheep could not see. Like the antelope, mountain sheep were curious and could be lured by a bright colour and thereby killed. But Adam learned to abhor this method. He pitted his sight and his strength and endurance against those of the sheep. In this way he magnified the game of hunting. His exhaustion and pain and peril he welcomed as lessons to the end that his knowledge and achievement must be in a measure what Dismukes might have respected. Failure to Adam was nothing but a spur to renewed endeavour. The long climb, the crumbling ledge, the slipping rock, the deceitful distance, the crawl over sharp rocks, the hours of waiting — these too he welcomed as one who had set himself limitless tasks. Then when he killed a ram and threw it over his shoulder to carry it down the mountain, he found labour which was harder even than the toil of the gold mill at Picacho. To stride erect with a rifle in one hand, and a hold upon a heavy sheep with the other, down the slippery ledges, across the sliding banks, over the cracked and rotten lava, from the sunset-lighted heights to the gloomy slopes below — this was how in his own estimation he must earn and keep the respect of the Indians. They had come to look up to the white man they ‘called’ Eagle. He taught them things to do with their hands, work of white men which bettered their existence, and he impressed them the more by his mastery of some of their achievements.

The days passed into months. Summer came again and the vast oval bowl of desert glowed in the rosy sunrise, glared in the white noon hours, and burned at sunset. The moving heat veils smoked in rippling clouds over the Salton Sink; the pale wavering line of the Superstition Mountains changed mysteriously with each day; the fog clouds from the Pacific rolled over to lodge against the fringed peaks. Time did not mean anything to the desert, though it worked so patiently and ceaselessly in its infinite details. The desert might have worked for eternity. Its moments were but the months that were growing into years of Adam’s life. Again he saw San Jacinto and San Gorgonio crowned with snow that gleamed so white against the blue.

Once Charley Jim showed Adam a hole in the gravel and sand of a gulley, where Dismukes had dug out a pocket of gold. Adam gathered that the Indian had brought Dismukes here, “White man gold mad,” said the chief. “No happy, little gold. Want dig all — heap hog — dam’ fool!”

So Charley Jim characterised Dismukes. Evidently there had been some just cause, which he did not explain, for his bringing Dismukes into this hidden canyon. And also there was some significance in his bringing Adam there. Many had been the rewards of Charley Jim and his family for saving and succouring Adam.

“Indian show Eagle heap gold,” said Charley Jim, and led him to another gully opening down into the canyon. In the dry sand and gravel of this wash Adam found gold. The discovery gave him a wonderful thrill. But it did not drive him mad. Adam divined in the dark, impassive face of his guide, something of the Indian’s contempt for a white man’s frenzy over gold.

Then the chief said in his own tongue that the Indian paid his debt to friend and foe, good for good and evil for evil — that there were white men to whom he could trust the secret treasures of the desert.

The day came when something appeared to stimulate the wandering spirit of the Coahuila chief. Taking his family and Adam, he began a nomadic quest for change of scene and work and idleness. The life suited Adam, for he knew Charley Jim did not frequent the trails of white men.

No time so swiftly fleeting as days and nights out in new and strange places of the desert! Adam kept track of time by the coming and going of the white crowns of snow on the peaks, and by the green and gold and then barren grey of the cottonwoods.

Like coming home was it to get back to the oasis in the canyon of the Chocolate range. Adam loved the scene of his torture. Every stone, every tree, was a familiar friend, and seemed to whisper welcome to him. Here also had passed the long, long months of mental anguish. On this flat rock he had sat a whole day in hopeless pain. In this sandy-floored aisle of palms he had walked hour by hour, through many weary days, possessed by the demon of remorse.

Best of all, out there reached the grey, endless expanse of desert, so lonely and melancholy and familiar, extending away to the infinitude of purple distance; and there loomed the lofty, bare heights of rock which, when he scaled them as an Indian climbing to meet his spirits, seemed to welcome him with sweet, cold winds in his face. How he thrilled at sight of the winding gleam of the Rio Colorado! What a shudder, as keen and new a pang as ever, wrenched him at sight of Picacho! It did not change. Had he expected that? It towered there in the dim lilac colours of the desert horizon, colossal and commanding, immutable and everlasting, like the sin he had committed in its shadow.

Somewhere in the shadow of that domed and turreted peak lay the grave of his brother Guerd.

“I’ll go back some day!” whispered Adam, and the spoken words seemed the birth of a long-germinating idea. Picacho haunted him. It called him. It was the place that had given the grey colour and life to his destiny. And suddenly into his memory flashed an image of Margarita. Poor, frail, dusky-eyed girl! She had been but the instrument of his doom. He held her guiltless — long ago he had forgiven her. But memory of her hurt. Had she not spoken so lightly of what he meant to hold sacred? “Ah, senor — so long ago and far away!” Faithless, mindless, soulless! Adam would never forget. Never a sight of a green palo verde but a pang struck through his breast!

At sunset the old chief came to Adam, sombre and grave, but with dignity and kindness tempering the seriousness of his aspect. He spoke the language of his people.

“White man, you are of the brood of the eagle. Your heart is the heart of an Indian. Take my daughter Oella as your wife.”

Long had Adam feared this blow, and now it had fallen. He had tried to pay his debt, but it could not be paid.

“No, chief, the white man cannot marry Oella. He has blood upon his hands — a price on his head. Some day — he might have to hang for his crime. He cannot be dishonest with the Indian girl who saved him.”

Perhaps the chief had expected that reply, but his inscrutable face showed no feeling. He made one of his slow, impressive gestures — a wave of his hand, indicating great distance and time; and it meant that Adam was to go.

Adam dropped his head. That decree was irrevocable and he knew it was just. While he packed for a long journey twilight stole down upon the Indian encampment. Adam knew, when he faced Oella in the shadow of the palms, that she had been told. Was this the Indian maiden who had been so shy, so strange? No, this seemed a woman of full, heaving breast, whose strong, dark face grew strained, whose magnificent eyes, level and piercing, searched his soul. How blind he had been! All about her seemed eloquent of woman’s love. His heart beat with quick, heavy throbs.

“Oella, your father has ordered me away,” said Adam. “I am an outcast. I am hunted. If I made you my wife it might be to your shame and sorrow.”

“Stay. Oella is not afraid. We will hide in the canyons,” she said.

“No. I have sinned. I have blood on my hands. But, Oella, I am not dishonourable...I will not cheat you.”

“Take me,” she cried, and the soft, deep-toned, passionate voice shook Adam’s heart. She would share his wanderings.

“Good-bye, Oella,” he said, huskily. And he strode forth to drive his burro out into the lonely, melancholy desert night.

CHAPTER XII

THE SECOND MEETING between Adam and the prospector Dismukes occurred at Tecopah, a mining camp in the Mohave Desert.

The mining camp lay in a picturesque valley where green and grey growths marked the course of the gravel-lined creek, and sandy benches spread out to dark, rocky slopes, like lava, that heaved away in the bleak ranges.

It was in March, the most colourful season in the Mohave, that Adam arrived at Tecopah to halt on a grassy bench at the outskirts of the camp. A little spring welled up here and trickled down to the creek. It was drinking water celebrated among desert men, who had been known to go out of their way to drink there. The tell-tale ears of Adam’s burros advised him of the approach of some one, and he looked up from his camp tasks to find a familiar figure approaching him. He rubbed his eyes. Was that strange figure the same as the one so vividly limned on his memory? Squat, huge, grotesque, the man coming toward him was Dismukes! His motley, patched garb, his old slouch hat, his boots yellow with clay and alkali, appeared the same he had worn on the memorable day Adam’s eyes had unclosed to see them.

Dismukes drove his burros up to the edge of the bench, evidently having in mind the camp site Adam occupied. When he espied Adam he hesitated and, gruffly calling to the burros, he turned away.

“Hello, Dismukes!” called Adam. “Come on. Plenty room to camp here.”

The prospector halted stolidly and slowly turned back. “You know me?” he asked, gruffly, as he came up.

“Yes, I know you, Dismukes,” replied Adam, offering his hand.

“You’ve got the best of me,” said Dismukes, shaking hands. He did not seem a day older, but perhaps there might have been a little more grey in the scant beard. His great ox eyes, rolling and dark, bent a strange, curious glance over Adam’s lofty figure.

“Look close. See if you can recognise a man you befriended once,” returned Adam. The moment was fraught with keen pain and a melancholy assurance of the changes time had made. Strong emotion of gladness, too, was stirring deep in him. This was the man who had saved him and who had put into his mind the inspiration and passion to conquer the desert.

Dismukes was perplexed, and a little ashamed. His piercing gaze was that of one who had befriended many men and could not remember.

“Stranger, I give it up. I don’t know you.”

“Wansfell,” said Adam, his voice full.

Dismukes stared. His expression changed, but it was not with recognition.

“Wansfell! Wansfell!” he ejaculated. “I know that name... Hell, yes! I’ve heard of you all over the Mohave! I’m sure glad to meet you. But, I never met you before.”

The poignancy of that meeting for Adam reached a climax in the absolute failure of Dismukes to recognise him. Last and certain proof of change! The desert years had transformed Adam Larey, the youth, into the man Wansfell. For the first moment in all that time did Adam feel an absolute sense of safety. He would never be recognised, never be apprehended for his crime. He seemed born again.

“Dismukes, how near are you to getting all your five hundred thousand?” queried Adam, with a smile. There seemed to be a sad pleasure in thus baffling the old prospector.

“By Gad! how’d you know about that?” exclaimed Dismukes.

“You told me.”

“Say, Wansfell! Am I drunk, or are you a mind reader?” demanded the prospector, bewildered. “Comin’ along here I was thinkin’ about that five hundred thousand. But I never told any one — except a boy once — an’ he’s dead.”

“How about your white-faced burro Jinny — the one that used to steal things out of your pack?” asked Adam, slowly.

“Jinny Jinny!” ejaculated Dismukes, with a start. His great ox eyes dilated and something of shock ran through his huge frame. “That burro I never forgot. I gave her away to a boy who starved on the desert. She came back to me. Tracked me to Yuma. An’ you — you — how’d you know Jinny Man, who are you?”

“Dismukes, I was the boy you saved — down under the Chocolates — ninety miles from Yuma. Remember it was Jinny saw me wandering in a circle, mad with thirst. You saved me — gave me Jinny and a pack — told me how to learn the desert — sent me to the Indians...Dismukes, I was that boy. I am now — Wansfell.”

The prospector seemed to expand with the increased strain of his gaze into Adam’s eyes, until the instant of recognition.

“By God! I know you now!” he boomed, and locked his horny hands on Adam in a gladness that was beyond the moment and had to do, perhaps, with a far-past faith in things. “I thought you died on the desert. Jinny’s comin’ back seemed proof of that...But you lived! You — that boy, tall as a mescal plant — with eyes of agony. I never forgot. An’ now you’re Wansfell!”

“Yes, my friend. Life is strange on the desert,” replied Adam. “And now unpack your burros. Make camp with me here. We’ll eat and talk together.”

A sunset, rare on the Mohave, glowed over the simple camp tasks of these men who in their wanderings had met again. Clouds hung along the mountain tops, coloured into deeper glory as the sun sank. The dark purples had an edge of silver, and the fleecy whites turned to pink and rose, while golden rays shot up from behind the red-hazed peaks. Over the valley fell a beautiful and transparent light, blending and deepening until a shadow as blue as the sea lay on Tecopah.

While the men ate their frugal repast they talked, each gradually growing used to a situation that broke the desert habit of silence. There was an unconscious deference of each man toward the other — Wansfell seeing in Dismukes the saviour of his life and a teacher who had inspired him to scale the heights of human toil and strife; Dismukes finding in Wansfell a development of his idea, the divine spirit of man rising above the great primal beasts of the desert, self-preservation and ferocity.

“Wansfell, have you kept track of time?” asked Dismukes, reflectively, as he got out a black, stumpy pipe that Adam remembered.

“No. Days and weeks glide into years — that’s all I can keep track of,” replied Adam.

“I never could, either. What is time on the desert? Nothin’. Well, it flies, that’s sure. An’ it must be years since I met you first down there in the Colorado. Let’s see. Three times I went to Yuma — once to Riverside — an’ twice to San Diego. Six trips inside. That’s all I’ve made to bank my money since I met you. Six years. But, say, I missed a year or so.”

“Dismukes, I’ve seen the snows white on the peaks eight times. Eight years, my friend, since Jinny cocked her ears that day and saved me. How little a thing life is in the desert!”

“Eight years!” echoed Dismukes, and wagged his huge shaggy head. “It can’t be...Well, well, time slips away. Wansfell, you’re a young man, though I see grey over your temples. And you can’t have any more fear because of that — that crime you confessed to me. Lord! man, no one would ever know you as that boy!”

“No fear that way any more. But fear of myself, Dismukes. If I went back to the haunts of men I would forget.”

“Ah yes, yes!” sighed Dismukes. “I understand. I wonder how it’ll be with me when my hour comes to leave the desert. I wonder.”

“Will that be long?”

“You can never tell. I might strike it rich to-morrow. Always I dream I’m goin’ to. It’s the dream that keeps a prospector nailed to the lonely wastes.”

Indeed, this strange man was a dreamer of dreams. Adam understood him now, all except that obsession for just so much gold. It seemed the only flaw in a great character. But the fidelity to that purpose was great, as it was inexplicable.

“Dismukes, you had a third of your stake when we met years ago. How much now?”

“More than half, Wansfell, safe in banks an’ some hid away,” came the answer, rolling and strong. What understanding of endless effort abided in that voice!

“A quarter of a million! My friend, it is enough. Take it and go — fulfil your cherished dream. Go before it’s too late.”

“I’ve thought of that. Many times when I was sick an’ worn out with the damned heat an’ loneliness I’ve tempted myself with what you said. But no. I’ll never do that. It’s the same to me now as if I had no money at all.”

“Take care, Dismukes,” warned Adam. “It’s the gaining of gold — not what it might bring — that drives you.”

“Ah! Quien sabe, as the Mexicans say?...Wansfell, have you learned the curse — or it may be the blessing — of the desert — what makes us wanderers of the wastelands?”

“No. I have not. Sometimes I feel it’s close to me, like the feeling of a spirit out there on the lonely desert at night. But it’s a great thing, Dismukes. And it is linked to the very beginnings of us. Some day I’ll know.”

Dismukes smoked in silence, thoughtful and sad. The man’s forceful assurance and doggedness seemed the same, yet Adam sensed a subtle difference in him, beyond power to define. The last gold faded from the bold domes of the mountains, the clouds turned grey, the twilight came on as a stealthy host. And from across the creek came discordant sounds of Tecopah awakening to the revelry of a gold diggings by night.

“How’d you happen along here?” queried Dismukes, presently.

“Tecopah was just a water hole for me,” replied Adam.

“Me, too. An’ I’m sure sayin’ that I like to fill my canteens here. Last year I camped here, an’ when I went on I kept one of my canteens so long the water spoiled. Found some gold trace up in Kingston range, but my supplies ran low an’ I had to give up. My plan now is to go in there an’ then on to the Funeral Mountains. They’re full of mineral. But a dry, hard, poison country for a prospector. Do you know that country?”

“I’ve been on this side of the range.”

“Bad enough, but the other side of the Funerals is Death Valley. That gash in summer is a blastin’, roarin’ hell. I’ve crossed it every month in the year. None but madmen ever tackle Death Valley in July, in the middle of the day. I’ve seen the mercury go to one hundred and forty degrees. I’ve seen it one hundred and twenty five at midnight, an’, friend, when them furnace winds blow down the valley at night sleep or rest is impossible You just gasp for life. But strange to say, Wansfell, the fascination of the desert is stronger in Death Valley than at any other place.”

“Yes, I can appreciate that,” replied Adam, thoughtfully. “It must be the sublimity of death and desolation — the terrible loneliness and awfulness of the naked earth. I am going there.”

“So I reckoned. An’ see here, Wansfell, I’ll get out my pencil an’ draw you a little map of the valley, showin’ my trails an’ water holes. I know that country better than any other white man. It’s a mineral country. The lower slope of the Funerals is all clay, borax, soda, alkali, salt, nitre, an’ when the weather’s hot an’ that stuff blows on the hot winds, my God! it’s a horror! But you’ll want to go through it all an’ you’ll go back again.”

“Where do you advise me to go in?”

“Well, I’d follow the Amargosa. It’s bad water, but better than none. Go across an’ up into the Panamints, an’ come back across again by Furnace Creek. I’ll make you a little map. There’s more bad water than good, an’ some of it’s arsenic. I found the skeletons of six men near an arsenic water hole. Reckon they’d come on this water when bad off for thirst an’ didn’t know enough to test it. An’ they drank their fill an’ died in their tracks. They had gold, too. But I never could find out anythin’ about these men. No one ever heard of them an’ I was the only man who knew of the tragedy. Well, well, it’s common enough for me, though I never before run across so many dead men. Wansfell, I reckon you’ve found that common, too, in your wanderings — dried-up mummies, yellow as leather or bleached bones an’ grinnin’ skull, white in the sun?”

“Yes, I’ve buried the remains of more than one poor devil,” replied Adam.

“Is it best to bury them? I let them lay as warnin’ to other poor devils. No one but a crazy man would drink at a water hole where there was a skeleton. Well, to come hack to your goin’ to Death Valley. I’d go in by the Amargosa. It’s a windin’ stream an’ long, but safe. An’ there’s firewood an’ a little grass. Now when you get across the valley you’ll run into prospectors an’ miners an’ wanderers at the water holes. An’ like as not you’ll meet some of the claim jumpers an’ robbers that live in the Panamints. From what I hear about you, Wansfell, I reckon a meetin’ with them would be a bad hour for them, an’ somethin’ of good fortune to honest miners. Hey?”

“Dismukes, I don’t run from men of that stripe,” replied Adam, grimly.

“Ahuh! I reckon not,” said Dismukes, just as grimly. “Well, last time I was over there — let’s see, it was in September, hotter ‘n hell, an’ I run across two queer people up in a canyon I’d never prospected before. Didn’t see any sign of any other prospectors ever bein’ in there. Two queer people — a man an’ a woman livin’ in a shack they’d built right under the damnedest roughest slope of weathered rock you ever saw in your life. Why, it was a plain case of suicide, an’ so I tried to show them! Every hour you could hear the crack of a rollin’ boulder or the graty slip of an avalanche, gettin’ uneasy an’ wantin’ to slide. But the woman was deathly afraid of her husband an’ he was a skunk an’ a wolf rolled into a man, if I ever saw one. I couldn’t do anythin’ for the poor woman, an’ I couldn’t learn any more than I’m tellin’ you. That’s not much. But, Wansfell, she wasn’t a common sort. She’d been beautiful once. She had the saddest face I ever saw. I got two feelin’s, one that she wasn’t long for this earth, an’ the other that the man hated her with a terrible hate. I meet with queer people an’ queer situations as I wander over this desert, but here’s the beat of all my experience. An’, Wansfell, I’d like to have you go see that couple. I reckon they’ll be there, if alive yet. He chose a hidden spot, an’ he has Shoshone Indians pack his supplies in from the ranches way on the other side of the Panamints. A queer deal, horrible for that poor woman, an’ I’ve been haunted by her face ever since. I’d like you to go there.”

“I’ll go. But why do you say that, Dismukes?” asked Adam, curiously.

“Well — you ought to know what your name means to desert men,” replied Dismukes, constrainedly, and he looked down at the camp fire, to push forward a piece of half-burnt wood.

“No, I never heard,” said Adam. “I’ve lived ‘most always alone. Of course I’ve had to go to freighting posts and camps. I’ve worked in gold diggin’s. I’ve guided wagon trains across the Mohave. Naturally, I’ve been among men. But I never heard that my name meant anything.”

“Wansfell! I remember now that you called yourself Wansfell. I’ve heard that name. Some of your doings, Wansfell, have made camp-fire stories. See here, Wansfell, you won’t take offence at me.”

“No offence, friend Dismukes,” replied Adam, strangely affected. Here was news that forced him to think of himself as a man somehow related to and responsible to his kind. He had gone to and fro over the trails of the desert, and many adventures had befallen him. He had lived them, with the force the desert seemed to have taught him, and then had gone his way down the lonely trails, absorbed in his secret. The years seemed less than the blowing sand. He had been an unfortunate boy burdened with a crime; he was now a matured man, still young in years, but old with the silence and loneliness and strife of the desert, grey at the temples, with that old burden still haunting him. How good to learn that strange men spoke his name with wonder and respect! He had helped wanderers as Dismukes had helped him; he had meted out desert violence to evil men who crossed his trail; he had, doubtless, done many little unremembered deeds of kindness in a barren world where little deeds might be truly over-appreciated; but the name Wansfell meant nothing to him, the reputation hinted by Dismukes amazed him, strangely thrilled him; the implication of nobility filled him with sadness and remorse. What had he done with the talents given him?

“Wansfell, you see — you’re somethin’ of the man I might have been,” said Dismukes, hesitatingly.

“Oh no, Dismukes,” protested Adam. “You are a prospector, honest and industrious, and wealthy now, almost ready to enjoy the fruits of your long labours. Your life has a great object...But I — I am only a wanderer of the wasteland.”

“Aye, an’ therein lies your greatness!” boomed the prospector, his ox eyes dilating and flaring. “I am a selfish pig — a digger in the dirt for gold. My passion has made me pass by men, an’ women, too, who needed help. Riches — dreams! But you — you Wansfell — out there in the loneliness an’ silence of the wastelands — you have found God!...I said you would. I’ve met other men who had.”

“No, no,” replied Adam. “You’re wrong. I don’t think I’ve found God. Not yet!...I have no religion, no belief. I can’t find any hope out there in the desert. Nature is pitiless, indifferent. The desert is but one of her playgrounds. Man has no right there. No. Dismukes, I have not found God.”

“You have, but you don’t know it,” responded Dismukes, with more composure, and he began to refill a neglected pipe. “Well, I didn’t mean to fetch up such talk as that. You see, when I do fall in with a prospector once in a month of Sundays I never talk much. An’ then it ‘d be to ask him if he’d seen any float lately or panned any colour. But you’re different. You make my mind work. An’, Wansfell, sometimes I think my mind has been crowded with a million thoughts all cryin’ to get free. That’s the desert. A man’s got to fight the desert with his intelligence or else become less than a man. An’ I always did think a lot, if I didn’t talk.”

“I’m that way, too,” replied Adam. “But a man should talk when he gets the chance. I talk to my burros, and to myself, just to hear the sound of my voice.”

“Ah! Ah!” exclaimed Dismukes, with deep breath. He nodded his shaggy head. Adam’s words had struck an answering chord in his heart.

“You’ve tried for gold here?” queried Adam.

“No. I was here first just after the strike, an’ often since. Water’s all that ever drew me. I’d starve before I’d dig for gold among a pack of beasts. I may be a desert wolf, but I’m a lone one.”

“They’re coyotes and you’re the grey wolf. I liken most every man I meet to some beast or creature of the desert.”

“Aye, you’re right. The desert stamps a man. An’, Wansfell, it’s stamped you with the look of a desert eagle. Ha-ha! I ain’t flatterin’ to either of us, am I? Me a starved grey wolf, huntin’ alone, mean an’ hard an’ fierce! An’ you a long, lean-headed eagle, with that look of you like you were about to strike — gong!...Well, well, there’s no understandin’ the work of the desert. The way it develops the livin’ creatures! They all have to live, an’ livin’ on the desert is a thousand times harder than anywhere else. They all have to be perfect machines for destruction. Each seems so swift that he gets away, yet each is also so fierce an’ sure that he catches his prey. They live on one another, but the species doesn’t die out. That’s what stumps me about the desert. Take the human creatures. They grow fiercer than animals. Maybe that’s because nature did not intend man to live on the desert. An’ it is no place for man. Nature intended these classes of plants an’ these species of birds an’ beasts to live, fight, thrive, an’ reproduce their kind on the desert. But men can’t thrive nor reproduce their kind here.”

“How about the Indians who lived in the desert for hundreds of years?” asked Adam.

“What’s a handful of Indians? An’ what’s a few years out of the millions of years that the desert’s been here, just as it is now? Nothin’ — nothin’ at all! Wansfell, there will be men come into the desert, down there below the Salton Sink, an’ in other places where the soil is productive, an’ they’ll build dams an’ storage places for water. Maybe a lot of fools will even turn the Colorado River over the desert. They’ll make it green an’ rich an’, like the Bible says, blossom as a rose. An’ these men will build ditches for water, an’ reservoirs an’ towns an’ cities, an’ cross the desert with railroads. An’ they’ll grow rich an’ proud. They’ll think they’ve conquered it. But, poor fools! they don’t know the desert! Only a man who has lived with the desert much of his life can ever know. Time will pass an’ men will grow old, an’ their sons an’ grandsons after them. A hundred an’ a thousand years might pass with fruitfulness still in the control of man. But all that is only a few grains of time in all the endless sands of eternity. The desert’s work will have been retarded for a little while. But the desert works ceaselessly an’ with infinite patience. The sun burns, the frost cracks, the avalanche rolls, the rain weathers. Slowly the earth crust heaves up into mountains an’ slowly the mountains wear down, atom by atom, to be the sands of the desert. An’ the winds — how they blow for ever an’ ever! What can avail against the desert winds? They blow the sand an’ sift an’ seep an’ bury. Men will die an’ the places that knew them will know them no more an’ the desert will come back to its own. That is well, for it is what God intended.”

“God and nature, then, with you are one and the same?” queried Adam.

“Yes. Twenty years sleepin’ on the sand with the stars in my face has taught me that. Is it the same with you?”

“No. I grant all that you contend for the desert and for nature. But I can’t reconcile nature and God. Nature is cruel, inevitable, hopeless. But God must be immortality.”

“Wansfell, there’s somethin’ divine in some men, but not in all, nor in many. So how can that divinity be God? The immortality you speak of — that is only your life projected into another life.”

“You mean if I do not have a child I will not have immortality?”

“Exactly.”

“But what of my soul?” demanded Adam, solemnly.

Dismukes dropped his shaggy head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve gone so deep, but I can’t go any deeper. That always stumps me. I’ve never found my soul! Maybe findin’ my soul would be findin’ God. I don’t know. An’ you, Wansfell — once I said you had the spirit an’ mind to find God on the desert. Did you?”

Adam shook his head. “I’m no farther than you, Dismukes, though I think differently about life and death...I’ve fought to live on this wasteland, but I’ve fought hardest to think. It seems that always nature strikes me with its terrible mace! I have endless hours to look at the desert and I see what you see — the strange ferocity of it all — the fierce purpose. No wonder you say the desert stamps a man!”

“Aye! An’ woman, too! Take this she-devil who runs a place here in Tecopah — Mohave Jo is the name she bears. Have you seen her?”

“No, but I’ve heard of her. At Needles I met the wife of a miner, Clark, who’d been killed here at Tecopah.”

“Never heard of Clark. But I don’t doubt the story. It’s common enough — miners bein’ killed an’ robbed. There’s a gang over in the Panamints who live on miners.”

“I’m curious to see Mohave Jo,” said Adam.

“Well, speakin’ of this one-eyed harridan reminds me of a man I met last trip across the Salton flats, down on the Colorado. Met him at Walters — a post on the stage line. He had only one eye too. There was a terrible scar where his eye, the right one, had been. He was one of these Texans lookin’ for a man. There seems to be possibilities of a railroad openin’ up that part of the desert. An’ this fellow quizzed me about water holes. Of course, if anyone gets hold of water in that country he’ll strike it rich as gold, if the country ever opens up. It’s likely to happen, too. Well, this man had an awful face. He’d been a sheriff in Texas, some one said, an’ later at Ehrenberg. Hell on hanging men! Of course I never asked him how he lost his eye. But he told me — spoke of it more than once. The deformity had affected his mind. You meet men like that — sort of crazy on somethin’. He was always lookin’ for the fellow who’d knocked out his eye. To kill him!”

“Do you — recall his — name?” asked Adam, his voice halting with a thick sensation in his throat. The past seemed as yesterday.

“Never was much on rememberin’ names,” responded Dismukes, scratching his shaggy head. “Let’s see — why, yes, he called himself Collis — Collis — haw. That’s it — Collishaw. Hard name to remember. But as a man he struck me easy to remember...Well, friend Wansfell, I’ve had enough talkin’ to do me for a spell. I’m goin’ to bed.”

While Adam sat beside the fire, motionless, pondering with slow, painful amaze over what he had just heard, Dismukes prepared for his night’s rest. He unrolled a pack, spread a ragged old canvas, folded a blanket upon it, and arranged another blanket to pull up over him, together with the end of the canvas. For a pillow he utilised an old coat that lay on his pack. His sole concession to man’s custom of undressing for bed was the removal of his old slouch hat. Then with slow, laboured movement he lay down to stretch his huge body and pull the coverlets over him. From his cavernous breast heaved a long, deep sigh. His big eyes, dark and staring, gazed up at the brightening stars, and then they closed.

Adam felt tempted to pack and move on to a quiet and lonely place off in the desert, where he could think without annoyance. Keen and bitterly faithful as had been his memory, it had long ceased to revive thoughts of Collishaw, the relentless sheriff and ally of Guerd. How strange and poignant had been the shock of recollection! It had been the blow Adam had dealt — the savage fling of his gun in Collishaw’s face — that had destroyed an eye and caused a hideous disfigurement. And the Texan, with that fatality characteristic of his kind, was ever on the look-out for the man who had ruined his eyesight. Perhaps that was only one reason for this thirst for revenge. Guerd! Had Collishaw not sworn to hang Adam? “You’ll swing for this!” he had yelled in his cold, ringing voice of passion. And so Adam lived over again the old agony, new and strange in its bitter mockery, its vain hope of forgetfulness. Vast as the desert was, it seemed small now to Adam, for there wandered over it a relentless and bloodthirsty Texan, hunting to kill him. The past was not dead. The present and the future could not be wholly consecrated to atonement. A spectre, weird and grotesque as a yucca tree, loomed out there in the shadows of the desert night. Death stalked on Adam’s trail. The hatred of men was beyond power to understand. Work, fame, use, health, love, home, life itself, could be sacrificed by some men just to kill a rival or an enemy. Adam remembered that Collishaw had hated him and loved Guerd. Moreover, Collishaw had that strange instinct to kill men — a passion which grew by what it fed on — a morbid mental twist that drove him to rid himself of the terrible haunting ghost of his last victim by killing a new one. Added to that was a certain leaning toward the notorious.

“We’ll meet some day,” soliloquised Adam. “But he would never recognise me.”

The comfort of that fact did not long abide in Adam’s troubled mind. He would recognise Collishaw. And that seemed to hold something fatalistic and inevitable. “When I meet Collishaw I’ll tell him who I am — and I’ll kill him!” That fierce whisper was the desert voice in Adam — the desert spirit. He could no more help that sudden bursting flash of fire than he could help breathing. Nature in the desert did not teach men to meet a threat with forgiveness, nor to wait until they were struck. Instinct had precedence over intelligence and humanity. In the eternal strife to keep alive on the desert a man who conquered must have assimilated something of the terrible nature of the stinging cholla cactus, and the hard, grasping tenacity of the mesquite roots, and the ferocity of the wild cat, and the cruelty of the hawk — something of the nature of all that survived. It was a law. It forced a man to mete out violence in advance of that meant for him.

“To fight and to think were to be my blessings,” soliloquised Adam, and he shook his head with a long-familiar doubt. Then he had to remember that no blessings of any kind whatsoever could be his. Stern and terrible duty to himself!

So he rolled in his blankets and stretched his long body to the composure of rest. Sleep did not drop with soft swiftness upon his eyes, as it had upon those of Dismukes. He had walked far, but he was not tired. He never tired any more. There seemed to be no task of a single day that could weary his strength. And for long he lay awake, listening to the deep breathing of his companion, and the howl of the coyotes, and the sounds of Tecopah, so unnatural in the quiet of the desert. A sadness weighed heavily upon Adam. At first he was glad to have met Dismukes, but now he was sorry. A tranquillity, a veil seemed to have been rent. The years had not really changed the relation of his crime, nor materially the nature of his sin. But they had gradually, almost imperceptibly, softened his ceaseless and eternal remorse. By this meeting with Dismukes he found that time effaced shocks, blows, stains, just as it wore away the face of the desert rock. That, too, was a law; and in this Adam dived a blessing that he could not deny. Dismukes had unleashed a spectre out of the dim glow of the past. Eight years! So many, and yet they were as eight days! There were the bright stars, pitiless and cold, and the dark bold mountains that had seemed part of his strength. In the deep blue sky above and in the black shadow below Adam saw a white face, floating, fading, reappearing, mournful and accusing and appalling — a face partaking of the old boyish light and joy and of the godlike beauty of perfect manhood — the haunting face of his brother Guerd. It haunted Adam, and the brand of Cain burned into his brain. The old resurging pangs in his breast, the long sighs, the oppressed heart, the salt tears, the sleepless hours — these were Adam’s again, as keen as in the first days of his awakening down on the Colorado Desert where from the peaks of the Chocolate Mountains he had gazed with piercing eyes far south to the purple peak — Picacho, the monument, towering above his brother’s grave. “Some day I’ll go back!” whispered Adam, as if answering to an imperative and mysterious call.

The long night wore on with the heavens s ar-fired by its golden train, and the sounds at last yieldin’ to the desert silence. Adam could see Dismukes, a wide, prone figure, with dark face upturned to the sky, a man seemingly as strange and strong as the wastelands he talked so much about, yet now helpless in sleep, unguarded, unconscious, wrapped in his deep dreams of the joy and life his gold was to bring him. Adam felt a yearning pity for this dreamer. Did he really love gold or was his passion only a dream? Whatever that was and whatever the man was, there rested upon his rugged, dark face a shadow of tragedy. Adam wondered what his own visage would reflect when he lay asleep, no more master of a mind that never rested? The look of an eagle? So Dismukes had said, and that was not the first time Adam had heard such comparison. He had seen desert eagles, dead and alive. He tried to recall how they looked, but the images were not convincing. The piercing eye, clear as the desert air, with the power of distance in the grey depths; the lean, long lines; the wild poise of head, bitter and ruthless and fierce; the look of loneliness — these characters surely could not be likened to his face. What a strange coincidence that Dismukes should hit upon the likeness of an eagle — the winged thunderbolt of the heights — the lonely bird Adam loved above all desert creatures! And so Adam wandered in mind until at last he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIII

WHEN ADAM AWOKE he saw that Dismukes had breakfast steaming on the fire.

“I’m on my way to-day,” announced the prospector. “What’ll you do?”

“Well, I’ll hang around Tecopah as long as I can stand it,” replied Adam.

“Humph! That won’t be long, unless you got in mind somethin’ like you did at the Donner Placers, down in the Providence Mountains.”

“Friend, what do you know about that?” queried Adam.

“Nothin’. I only heard about it. Wansfell, do you pan any gold?”

“Sometimes, when I happen to run across it,” replied Adam, “but that isn’t often.”

“Do you work?”

“Yes, I’ve worked a good deal, taking it all together. In the mines, on the river at Needles, driving mule teams and guiding wagon trains. Never got paid much, though.”

“How do you live?” asked Dismukes, evidently curious.

“Oh, I fare well enough to keep flesh on my bones.”

“You’ve got flesh — or I reckon it’s muscle. Wansfell, you’re the best-built man I ever saw on the desert. Most men dry up an’ blow away. Will you let me give you — lend you some money?”

“Money! So that’s why you’re so curious?” responded Adam. “Thanks, my friend. I don’t need money. I had some, you know, when you ran across me down in the Chocolates. I used about a thousand dollars while I lived with the Coahuila Indians. And I’ve got nine thousand left.”

“Say, you don’t pack all that money along with you?”

“Yes. Where else would I keep it.”

“Wansfell, some of these robbers will murder you.”

“Not if I see them first. My friend, don’t be concerned. Surely, I don’t look sick.”

“Humph! Well, just the same, now that you’re headin’ up into this country, I advise you to be careful. Don’t let anybody see you with money. I’ve been held up an’ robbed three times.”

“Didn’t you make a fight for your gold?”

“No chance. I was waylaid — had to throw up my hands...They tell me you are ready with a gun, Wansfell?”

“Dismukes, you seem to have heard much about me.”

“But you didn’t throw a gun on Baldy McKue,” said Dismukes, with a dark flare from his rolling eyes.

“No — I did not.” replied Adam.

“You killed McKue with your bare hands,” flashed Dismukes. A red stain appeared to come up under his leathery skin. “Wansfell, will you tell me about that?”

“I’d rather not, Dismukes. There are some things I forget.”

“Well, it meant a good deal to me,” replied Dismukes. “McKue did me dirt. He jumped claims of mine down here near Soda Sink. An’ he threatened to kill me — swore the claims were his — drove me off. I met him in Riverside, an’ there he threatened me with arrest. He was a robber an’ a murderer. I believe he ambushed prospectors. McKue was like most men who stick to the desert — he went down to the level of the beast. I hated him. This stranger who told me — he swore there wasn’t an uncracked bone left in McKue’s body. Wansfell, if you did that to McKue you’ve squared accounts. Is it true?”

“Yes.”

Dismukes rubbed his huge hands together and his ox eyes rolled and dilated. A fierce and savage grimness distorted his hard face for an instant and passed away.

“What ‘d you kill him for?”

“Because he’d have killed me.”

“Didn’t you look him up on purpose to kill him?”

“No. A year before that time I went to Goffs. Some one took me into an old tent where a woman lay dying. I could do little for her. She denounced McKue; she blamed him that she lay there, about to die. She did die and I buried her. Then I kept an eye open for McKue.”

“I wondered — I wondered,” said Dismukes. “It struck me deep. Lord knows fights are common out here. An’ death — why, on the desert every way you turn you see death. It’s the life of the desert. But the way this was told me struck me deep. It was what I’d like to have done myself. Wansfell, think of the wonderful meetin’s of men on the desert — an’, aye, meetin’ of men with women, too! They happen different out here. Think of the first time we met! An’ this time! Wansfell, we’ll meet again. It’s written in those trails of sand out there, wanderin’ to an’ fro across the desert.”

“Dismukes, the desert is vast. Sometimes you will not meet a man in months of travel — and not in years will you meet a woman. But when you do meet them life seems intensified. The desert magnifies.”

“Wansfell, I want you to go across into Death Valley,” declared Dismukes, with the deep boom in his voice. “That woman in the shack! Her eyes haunt me. Somethin’ terrible wrong! That man who keeps her there — if he’s not crazy, he’s worse than a gorilla. For a gorilla kills a woman quick. Wansfell, I’d give a lot to see you handle this man like you handled McKue!”

“Quien sabe, as you say?” replied Adam. “Draw that map of your trails in Death Valley. I’ve got a little book here, and a pencil.”

It was singular to see the gold digger labour with his great, stumpy, calloused fingers. He took long to draw a few lines, and make a few marks, and write a few names in the little book. But when he came to talk of distance and direction, of trails and springs, of flat valley and mountain range — then how swift and fluent he was! All that country lay clearly in his mind, as if he were a great desert condor gazing down from the heights upon the wasteland which was his home.

“Now, I’ll be goin’ down into the Funerals soon,” concluded Dismukes. “You see here’s Furnace Creek where it runs into Death Valley. You’ll cross here an’ come up Furnace Creek till you strike the yellow clay hills on the right. It’s a hell of a jumble of hills — absolutely bare. I think there’s gold. You’ll find me somewhere.”

It seemed settled then that Adam and Dismukes were to meet in some vague place at some vague time. The desert had no limitations. Time, distance, and place were thought of in relation to their adaptation to desert men.

“Well, it’s gettin’ late,” said Dismukes, looking up at the white flare of sun. “I’ll pack an’ go on my way.”

While Dismukes strode out to drive in his burros Adam did the camp chores. In a short time his companion appeared with the burros trotting ahead of him. And the sight reminded Adam of the difference between prospectors. Dismukes was not slow, easy, careless, thoughtless. He had not suffered the strange deterioration so common to his class. He did not belong to the type who tracked his burros all day so that he might get started manana. Adam helped him pack.

“Wansfell, may we meet again,” said Dismukes, as they shook hands.

“All trails cross on the desert. I hope you strike it rich.”

“Some day — some day. Goodbye,” returned Dismukes, and with vigorous slaps he started the burros.

Adam was left to his own devices. After Dismukes passed out of sight in the universal grey of the benches Adam spent a long while watching a lizard on a stone. It was a chuckwalla, a long, slim, greenish-bronze reptile, covered with wonderful spots of vivid colour, and with eyes like jewels. Adam spent much time watching the living things of the desert, or listening to the silence. He had discovered that watching anything brought its reward — sometimes in a strange action or a phenomenon of nature or a new thought.

Later he walked down to the creek bottom, where the smelter was in operation. Labourers were at a premium there, and he was offered work. He said he would consider it. But unless there turned out to be some definite object to keep him in Tecopah, Adam would not have bartered his freedom to the dust-clouded mill for all the gold it mined. These clanging mills and hot shafts and dark holes oppressed him.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LONG-DEFERRED HOUR at last arrived in which Adam, on a ruddy-gold dawn in early April, drove his burros out into the lonesome desert toward the Amargosa. He did not look back. Tecopah would not soon forget Wansfell! That was his grim thought.

The long, drab reaches of desert, the undulating bronze slopes waving up to the dark mountains, called to him in a language that he felt. If Adam Larey — or Wansfell, wanderer of the wasteland, as he had come to believe himself — had any home, it was out in the vast open, under the great white flare of sunlight and the star-studded canopy of night.

This was a still morning in April, and the lurid sun, bursting above the black escarpment to the east, promised a rising temperature. Day by day the heat had been increasing, and now, at sunrise, the smoky heat veils were waving up from the desert floor. For Adam the most torrid weather had no terrors, and the warmth of a morning like this felt pleasant on his cheek. He had been confined to one place, without action, for so long that now, as he began to feel the slow sweat burn pleasantly on his body, there came a loosening of his muscles, a relaxing of tension, a marshalling, as it were, of his great forces of strength and endurance. The grey slopes beyond did not daunt him. His stride was that of a mountaineer, and his burros had to trot to keep ahead of him.

And as Adam’s body gradually responded to this readjustment to the desert and its hard demands, so his mind seemed to slough off, layer by layer, the morbid, fierce, and ruthless moods that like lichens had fastened upon it. The dry, sweet desert air seemed to permeate his brain and clear it of miasmas and shadows. He was free. He was alone. He was self-sufficient. The desert called. From far beyond that upheaved black and forbidding range, the Funeral Mountains, something strange, new, thrilling awaited his coming. The strife of the desert had awakened in him a craving to find the unattainable. He had surmounted all physical obstacles. He would conquer Death Valley; he would see it in all its ghastliness; he would absorb all its mysteries; he would defy to the limit of endurance its most fatal menaces to life.

In the afternoon Adam rounded a corner of a league-long sloping mesa and gazed down into the valley of the Amargosa. It looked the bitterness, the poison, and the acid suggested by its Spanish name. The narrow meandering stream gleamed like silver in the sunlight. Mesquite and other brush spotted its gravelly slopes and sandy banks. Adam headed down into the valley. The sun was already westering, and soon, as he descended, it hung over the ragged peaks. He reached the creek. The burros drank, but not with relish. Adam gazed at the water of the Amargosa with interest. It was not palatable, yet it would save life.

Adam set about the camp tasks long grown second nature with him, and which were always congenial and pleasant. He built a fire of dead mesquite. Then he scoured his oven with sand and greased it. He had a heavy pan which did duty as a gold-pan, a dish-pan, and a wash-pan. This he half-filled with flour, and, adding water, began to mix the two. He had gotten the dough to about the proper consistency when a rustling in the brush attracted his attention. He thought he caught a glimpse of a rabbit. Such opportunity for fresh meat was rare on the desert. Hastily wiping his hands, he caught up his gun and stole out into the aisle between the mesquites. As luck would have it, he did espy a young cottontail, and was fortunate enough to make a good shot. Returning to camp, he made sudden discovery of a catastrophe.

Jinny had come out of her nap, if, indeed, she had not been shamming sleep, and she had her nose in the dish-pan. She was eating the dough.

“Hyar, you camp robber!” yelled Adam, making for her. Jinny jerked up her head. The dough stuck to her nose and the pan stuck to the dough. She eluded Adam, for she was a quick and nimble burro. The pan fell off, but the ball of dough adhered to her mouth and nose, and as she ran around camp in a circle it was certain that she worked her jaws, eating dough as fast as she could. Manifestly for Jinny, here was opportunity of a lifetime. When finally Adam did catch her the dough was mostly eaten. He gave her a cuff and a kick which she accepted meekly, and, drooping her ears, she apparently fell asleep again.

While Adam was at his simple meal the sun set, filling the valley with red haze and tipping with gold the peaks in the distance. The heat had gone with the sun. He walked to and fro in the lonely twilight. Jinny had given up hope of any more opportunity to pilfer, and had gone to grazing somewhere down the stream. There was absolutely no sound. An infinite silence enfolded the solitude. It was such solitude as only men of Adam’s life could bear. To him it was both a blessing and a curse. But to-night he had an all-pervading and all-satisfying power. He seemed to be growing at one with the desert and its elements. After a while the twilight shadows shaded into the blackness of night, and the stars blazed. Adam had been conscious all day of the gradual relaxing of strain, and now in the lonely solitude there fell away from him the feelings and thoughts engendered at Tecopah.

“Loneliness and silence and time!” he soliloquised, as he paced his sandy beat. “These will cure any trouble — any disease of mind — any agony of soul. Ah! I know. I never forget. But how different now to remember! That must be the secret of the power of the desert over men. It is the abode of solitude and silence. It is like the beginning of creation. It is like an eternity of time.”

By the slow healing of the long-raw wound in his heart Adam had come to think of time’s relation to change. Memory was still as poignant as ever. But a change had begun in him — a change he divined only after long months of strife. Dismukes brought a regurgitation of the old pain; yet it was not quite the same. Eight years! How impossible to realise that, until confronted by physical proofs of the passing of time! Adam saw no clear and serene haven for his wandering spirit, but there seemed to be a nameless and divine promise in the future. His steps had not taken hold of hell. He had been driven down the naked shingles of the desert, through the storms of sand, under the infernal heat and bitter cold, like a man scourged naked, with screaming furies to whip the air at his ears. And, lo! time had begun to ease his burden, soften the pain, dim the past, change his soul.

The moment was one of uplift. “I have my task,” he cried, looking high to the stars. “Oh, stars — so serene and pitiless and inspiring — teach me to perform that task as you perform yours!”

He would go on as he had begun, fighting the desert and its barrenness, its blasting heat, its evil influences, wandering over these wastelands that must be his home; and he would take the physical prowess of him to yet harder, fiercer tasks of toil, driving his spirit to an intenser, whiter flame. If the desert could develop invincible energy of strength in a man, he would earn it. If there were a divinity in man, infinitely beyond the beasts of the desert and the apes of the past, a something in mysterious affinity with that mighty being he sensed out there in the darkness, then he would learn it with a magnified and all-embracing consciousness.

Adam went to his bed on the warm sands complete in two characters — a sensing, watching, listening man like the savage in harmony with the nature of the elements around him, and a feeling, absorbed, and meditating priest who had begun to divine the secrets beyond the dark-shadowed, starlit desert waste.

Adam’s first sight of Death Valley came at an early morning hour, as he turned a last curve in the yawning canyon he had descended.

He stood in awe.

“Oh, desolation!” he cried. And it seemed that, as the shock of the ghastliness beneath him passed, he remembered with flashing vividness all that had come to him in his long desert wanderings, which seemed now to cumulate its terrible silence, desolation, death, and decay in this forbidding valley.

He remembered the origin of that name — Death Valley. In 1849, when the California gold frenzy had the world in its grip, seventy Mormon gold seekers had wandered into this red-walled, white-floored valley, where sixty-eight of them perished. The two that escaped gave this narrow sink so many hundred feet below sea level the name Death Valley! Many and many another emigrant and prospector and wanderer, by his death from horrible thirst and blasting heat and poison-dusted wind and destroying avalanche and blood-freezing cold, had added to the significance of that name and its dreadful fame. On one side the valley was shadowed by the ragged Funeral range; on the other by the red and gloomy Panamints. Furnace Creek, the hot stream that came down from the burning slopes; and Ash Meadow, the valley floor, grey and dead, like the bed of a Dead Sea; and the Devil’s Chair, a huge seat worn by the elements in the red mountain wall, where the death king of the valley watched over his fiends — these names were vivid in Adam’s mind along with others given by prospectors in uncouth or eloquent speech. “She’s a hummer in July,” said one; and another, “Salty lid of hell,” and still another, “Valley of the white shadow of death.”

Death Valley was more than sixty miles long and from seven to twelve wide. No two prospectors had ever agreed on these dimensions, although all had been in perfect harmony as to its hellish qualities. Death was the guardian of the valley and the spectre that patrolled its beat. Mineral wealth was the irresistible allurement which dared men to defy its terrors. Gold! Dismukes himself had claimed there were ledges of gold quartz, and Dismukes was practical and accurate. Many fabulous stories of gold hung on the lips of wandering prospectors. The forbidding red rocks held jewels in their hard confines — garnets, opals, turquoises; there were cliffs of marble and walls of onyx. The valley floor was a white crust where for miles and miles there was nothing but salt and borax. Beds of soda, of gypsum, of nitre, of sulphur, abounded in the vaster fields of other minerals. It was a valley where nature had been prodigal of her treasures and terrible in her hold upon them. But few springs and streams flowed down into this scoriac sink, and of these all were heavily impregnated with minerals, all unpalatable, many sour and sulphuric, some hot, a few of them deadly poison. In the summer months the heat sometimes went to one hundred and forty-five degrees. The furnace winds of midnight were withering to flesh and blood. And sometimes the air carried invisible death in shape of poison gas or dust. In winter, sudden changes of temperature, whirling icy winds down upon a prospector who had gone to sleep, in warmth, would freeze him to death. Avalanches rolled down the ragged slopes and cloud-bursts carried destruction.

Adam got his bearings, according to the map made by Dismukes, and set out from the mouth of the canyon to cross the valley. A long sandy slope dotted by dwarfed mesquites extended down to the hard, crinkly floor of the valley, from which the descent to a lower level was scarcely perceptible. When Adam’s burros early in the day manifested uneasiness and weariness there was indeed rough going. The sand had given way to a hard crust of salt or borax, and little dimples and cones made it difficult to place a foot on a level. Some places the crust was fairly hard; in others it cracked and crunched under foot. The colour was a mixture of a dirty white and yellow. Far ahead Adam could see a dazzling white plain that resembled frost on a frozen river.

Adam proceeded cautiously behind the burros. They did not like the travel, and, wary little beasts that they were, they stepped gingerly in places, as if trying their weight before trusting it upon the treacherous-looking crust. Adam felt the beat of the sun upon him, and the reflection of heat from the valley floor. He had been less oppressed upon hotter days than this. The sensations he began to have here were similar to those he had experienced in the Salton Sink where he had gone below sea level. The oppression seemed to be a blood pressure, as if the density of the air closed tighter and heavier around his body.

At last the burros halted. Adam looked up from the careful task of placing his feet to see that he had reached a perfectly smooth bed of salt, glistening as if it were powdered ice. This was the margin of the place that from afar had looked like a frozen stream. Stepping down upon it, Adam found that it trembled and heaved with his weight, but upheld him. There was absolutely no sign to tell whether the next yard of surface would hold him or not. Still, from what he had gone over he believed he could trust the rest. As he turned to retrace his steps he saw his tracks just as plainly in the salt as if they had been imprinted in snow. He led Jinny out, and found that, though her hoofs sank a little, she could make it by stepping quickly. She understood as well as he, and when released went on of her own accord, anxious to get the serious job over. Adam had to drive the other burro. The substance grew softer as Adam progressed, and in the middle of that glistening stream it became wet and sticky. The burros laboured through this lowest level of the valley, which fortunately was narrow.

On the other side of it extended a wide flat of salt and mud, very rough, upheaved as if it had boiled and baked to a crust, then cracked and sunk in places. Full of holes and pitfalls, and rising in hummocks gnarled and whorled like huge sea shells, it was an exceedingly toilsome and dangerous place to travel. The crust continually crumpled under the hoofs of the burros, and gave forth hollow sounds, as if a bottomless cavern ran under the valley floor. As Adam neared the other side he encountered thin streams of water that resembled acid. It was necessary to find narrow places in these and leap across. Beyond these ruts in the crust began an almost imperceptible rise of the valley floor, which in the course of a couple of miles led out of the broken, choppy sea of salt to a sand-and-gravel level. How relieved Adam was to reach that! He had been more concerned for the safety of the burros than for his own.

It was now hot enough for Adam to imagine something of what a formidable place this valley would be in July or August. On all sides the mountains stood up dim and obscure and distant in a strange haze. Low down, the heat veils lifted in ripples, and any object at a distance seemed elusive. The last hour taxed Adam’s endurance, though he could have gone perhaps as far again across the lavalike crust. When he reached the slope that led up to the base of the red mountains he halted the burros for a rest. The drink he took then was significant, for it was the fullest he had taken in years. He was hot and wet; his eyes smarted and his feet burned.

When Adam had rested he consulted the map, and found that he must travel up the slope and to the west to gain the black buttress of rock that was his objective point. And considering how dim it looked through the haze, he concluded he had better be starting. One moment, however, he gave to a look at the Funeral range which he had come through, and which now loomed above the valley, a magnificent and awe-inspiring upheaval of the earth. The lower and nearer heights were marked on Dismukes’ map as the Calico Mountains, and indeed their many colours justified the name. Beyond and above them towered the Funerals, spiked and peaked, ragged as the edge of a saw, piercing the blue sky, a gloomy and black-zigzagged and drab-belted range of desolation and grandeur. Adam’s gaze slowly shifted westward to the gulf, a hazy void, a vast valley with streaked and ridged and canyoned slopes inclosing the abyss into which veils of rain seemed dropping. Broken clouds had appeared in the west, pierced by gold and red rays, somewhat dulled by the haze. Adam was amazed to realise the day was far spent. That scene up the valley of death was confounding. He gazed spellbound, and every second saw more and different aspects. How immense, unreal, weird!

He got up from the stone seat that had almost burned through his clothes, and bent his steps westward, driving the wearying burros ahead of him. Three miles toward the black buttressed corner he wanted to gain before dark — his experienced desert eyes calculated the distance. But this was Death Valley. No traveller of the desert had ever correctly measured distance in this valley of shadows and hazes and illusions. He was making three miles an hour. Yet at the end of an hour he seemed just as far away as ever. Another hour was full of deceits and misjudgments. But at the end of the third he reached the black wall, and the line that had seemed a corner was the mouth of a canyon.

Adam halted, as if at the gateway of the unknown. The sun was setting behind the mountains that now overhung him, massive, and mighty, a sheer, insurmountable world of rock which seemed to reach to the ruddy sky. Wonderful shadows were falling, purple and blue low down, rosy and gold above; and the canyon smoked with sunset haze.

The map of Dismukes marked the canyon, and a spring of water just beyond its threshold, and also the shack where the strange man and woman lived under the long slant of weathered rock. Adam decided not to try to find the location that night, so he made dry camp.

Darkness found him weary and oppressed. The day had seemed short, but the distance long. Tired and sleepy as he was, when he lay down in his bed he felt a striking dissimilarity of this place to any other he had known on the desert. How profound the silence! Had any sound ever pervaded it? All was gloom and shadow below, with black walls rising to star-fretted sky as blue as indigo. The valley seemed to be alive. It breathed, yet invisibly and silently. Indeed, there was a mighty being awake out there in the black void. Adam could not believe any man and woman lived up this canyon. Dismukes had dreamed. Had not Adam heard from many prospectors how no white woman could live in Death Valley? He had been there only a day, yet he felt that he could understand why it must be fatal to women. But it was not so because of heat and poison wind and cataclysms of nature, for women could endure those as well as men. But no woman could stand the alternations of terror and sublimity, of beauty and horror. That which was feminine in Adam shuddered at a solitude that seemed fitting to a burned-out world. He was the last of his race, at the end of its existence, the strongest finally brought to his doom, and to-morrow the earth would be sterile — thus Adam’s weary thoughts passed into dreams.

He awakened somewhat later than usual. Over the Funeral range the sun was rising, a coalescing globule of molten fire, enormous and red, surrounded by a sky-broad yellow flare. This sunrise seemed strangely closer to the earth and to him than any sunrise he had ever watched. The valley was clear, still, empty, a void that made all objects therein look small and far away. After breakfast Adam set out to find his burros.

This high-walled opening did not appear to be a canyon, but a space made by two mountain slopes running down to a wash where water flowed at some seasons. Beyond the corners there opened what seemed to be a gradually widening and sloping field, grey with rocks and sand and stunted brush, through the centre of which straggled a line of gnarled mesquites, following the course of the wash. Adam found his burros here, Jinny asleep as usual, and Jack contentedly grazing.

The cracking of a rock rolling down a rough slope thrilled Adam. He remembered what Dismukes had said about the perilous location of the shack where the man and woman lived under the shadow of a weathering mountain. Adam turned to look across the space in the direction whence the sound had come.

There loomed a mighty mountain slope, absolutely destitute of plants, a grey, drab million-faceted ascent of rocks. Adam strode toward it, gradually getting higher and nearer through the rock-strewn field. It looked so close as to seem magnified. But it was a goodly distance. Presently he espied a rude shack. He halted. That could not be what he was searching for. Still, it must be. Adam had not expected the place to be so close to Death Valley. It was not a quarter of a mile distant from the valley and not a hundred feet higher than the lowest sink hole, which was to say that this crude, small structure lay in Death Valley and below sea level.

Adam walked on, growing more curious and doubtful. Surely this hut had been built and abandoned by some prospector. Yet any prospector could have built a better abode than this. None but a fool or a knave would have selected that perilous location. The ground began to slope a little and become bare of brush, and was dotted here and there with huge boulders that looked as if they had rolled down there recently. No sign of smoke, no sign of life, no sign of labour — absence of these strengthened Adam’s doubt of people living there. Suddenly he espied the deep track of a man’s foot in the sand. Adam knelt to study it. “Made yesterday,” he said.

He rose with certainty. Dismukes had been accurate as to direction, though his distances had been faulty. Adam gazed beyond the shack, to right, and then left. He espied a patch of green mesquites and hummocks of grass. There was the water Dismukes had marked. Then Adam looked up.

A broad belt of huge boulders lay beyond the shack, the edge of the talus, the beginning of the base of a mountainside, wearing down, weathering away, cracking into millions of pieces, every one of which had both smooth and sharp surfaces. This belt was steep and fan shaped, spreading at the bottom. As it sloped up it grew steeper, and the rocks grew smaller. It had the flow of a glacier. It was an avalanche, perhaps sliding inch by inch and foot by foot, all the time. The curved base of the fan extended for a couple of miles, in the distance growing rounded and symmetrical in its lines. It led up to a stupendous mountain abutment, dull red in colour, and so seamed and cracked and fissured that it had the crisscross appearance of a rock of net, or numberless stones of myriad shapes pieced together by some colossal hand, and now split and broken, ready to fall. Yet this rugged, bold, uneven surface of mountain wall shone in the sunlight. It looked as if it had been a solid mass of granite shattered by some cataclysm of nature. Above this perpendicular splintered ruin heaved up another slope of broken rocks, hanging there as if by magic, every one of the endless heaps of stones leaning ready to roll. Frost and heat had disintegrated this red mountain. What history of age was written there! How sinister that dull hue of red! No beauty shone here, though the sun gleamed on the millions of facets. The mountain of unstable rock towered dark and terrible and forbidding even in the broad light of day. What held that seamed and lined and sundered mass of rock together! For what was it waiting? Only time, and the law of the desert! Even as Adam gazed a weathered fragment loosened from the heights, rolled off the upper wall, pitched clear into the air, and cracked ringingly below, to bound and hurtle down the lower slope, clapping less and less until it ceased with a little hollow report. That was the story of the mountain. By atom and by mass it was in motion, working down to a level. Boulders twice as large as the shack, weighing thousands of tons, had rolled down and far out on the field. Any moment another might topple off the rampart and come hurtling down to find the shack in its path. Some day the whole slope of loose rock, standing almost on end, would slide down in avalanche.

“Well,” muttered Adam, darkly, “any man who made a woman live there was either crazy or meant her to have an awful death.”

Adam strode on to the shack. It might afford shelter from sun, but not from rain or dust. Packsaddles and boxes were stacked on one side; empty cans lay scattered everywhere; a pile of mesquite, recently cut, stood in front of the aperture that evidently was a door; and on the sand lay blackened stones and blackened utensils, near the remains of a still smouldering fire.

“Hello, inside,” called Adam, as he halted at the door. No sound answered. He stooped to look in, and saw bare sand floor, a rude, low table made of box boards, flat stones for seats, utensils and dishes, shelves littered with cans and bags. A flimsy partition of poles and canvas, with a door, separated this room from another and larger one. Adam saw a narrow bed of blankets raised on poles, an old valise on the sandy floor, woman’s garments hanging on the brush walls. He called again, louder this time. He saw a flash of something grey through the torn canvas, then heard a low cry — a woman’s voice. Adam raised his head and stepped back.

“Elliot! You’ve come back!” came the voice, quick, low, and tremulous, betokening relief from dread.

“No. It’s a stranger,” replied Adam.

“Oh!” The hurried exclamation was followed by soft footfalls. A woman in grey appeared in the doorway — a woman whose proportions were noble, but frail. She had a white face and large, deep eyes, strained and sad. “Oh — who are you?”

“Ma’am, my name’s Wansfell. I’m a friend of Dismukes, the prospector who was here. I’m crossing Death Valley and I thought I’d call on you.”

“Dismukes? The little miner, huge, like a frog?” she queried, quickly, with dilating eyes. “I remember. He was kind, but — And you’re his friend?”

“Yes, at your service, ma’am.”

“Thank — God!” she cried, brokenly, and she leaned back against the door. “I’m in trouble. I’ve been alone — all — all night. My husband left yesterday. He took only a canteen. He said he’d be back for supper...But — he didn’t come. Oh, something has happened to him.”

“Many things happen in the desert,” said Adam. “I’ll find your husband. I saw his tracks out here in the sand.”

“Oh, can you find him?”

“Ma’am, I can track a rabbit to its burrow. Don’t worry any more. I will track your husband and find him.”

The woman suddenly seemed to be struck with Adam’s tone, or the appearance of him. It was as if she had not particularly noticed him at first. “Once he got lost — was gone two days. Another time he was overcome by heat — or something in the air.”

“You’ve been alone before?” queried Adam, quick to read the pain of the past in her voice.

“Alone? Many — many lonely nights,” she said. “He’s left me — alone often — purposely — for me to torture my soul here in the blackness...And those rolling rocks — cracking in the dead of night — and—” Then the flash of her died out, as if she had realised she was revealing a shameful secret to a stranger.

“Ma’am, is your husband just right in his mind?” asked Adam.

She hesitated, giving Adam the impression that she wished to have him think her husband irrational, but could not truthfully say so.

“Men do strange things in the desert,” said Adam. “May I ask, ma’am, have you food and water?”

“Yes. We’ve plenty. But Elliot makes me cook — and I never learned how. So we’ve fared poorly. But he eats little and I less!”

“Will you tell me how he came to build your hut here where, sooner or later, it’ll be crushed by rolling stones?”

A tragic shadow darkened in the large, dark-blue eyes that Adam now realised were singularly beautiful.

“I — He — This place was near the water. He cut the brush here — he didn’t see — wouldn’t believe the danger,” she faltered. She was telling a lie, and did not do it well. The fine, sensitive, delicate lips, curved and soft, sad with pain, had not been fashioned for falsehood.

“Perhaps I can make him see,” replied Adam. “I’ll go find him. Probably he’s lost. The heat is not strong enough to be dangerous. And he’s not been gone long. Don’t worry. My camp is just below. I’ll fetch him back to-day — or to-morrow at farthest.”

She murmured some incoherent thanks. Adam was again aware of her penetrating glance, staring, wondering even in her trouble. He strode away with bowed head, searching the sand for the man’s tracks. Presently he struck them and saw that they led down toward the valley.

To follow such a plain trail was child’s play for Adam’s desert sight, that had received its early training in the preservation of his life. He who had trailed lizards to their holes, and snakes to their rocks, to find them and eat or die — he was as keen as a wolf on the scent. This man’s trail led straight down to the open valley, out along the western bulge of slope, to a dry water hole.

From there the footprints led down to the parapet of a wide bench, under which the white crust began its level monotony toward the other side of the valley. Different here was it from the place miles below where Adam had crossed. It was lower — the bottom of the bowl. Adam found difficulty in breathing, and had sensations like intermittent rushes of blood to his head. The leaden air weighed down, and, though his keen scent could not detect any odour, he knew there was impurity of some kind on the slow wind. It reminded him that this was Death Valley. He considered a moment. If the man’s tracks went on across the valley, Adam would return to camp for a canteen, then take up the trail again. But the tracks led off westward once more, straggling and aimless. Adam’s stride made three of one of these steps. He did not care about the heat. That faint hint of gas, however, caused him concern. For miles he followed the straggling tracks, westward to a heave of valley slope that, according to the map of Dismukes, separated Death Valley from its mate adjoining — Lost Valley. On the left of this ridge the tracks wandered up the slope to the base of the mountain and followed it in wide scallops. The footmarks now showed the dragging of boots, and little by little they appeared fresher in the sand. This wanderer had not rested during the night.

The tracks grew deeper, more dragging, wavering from side to side. Here the man had fallen. Adam saw the imprints of his hands and a smooth furrow where evidently he had dragged a canteen across the sand. Then came the tell-tale signs of where he had again fallen and had begun to crawl.

“Looks like the old story,” muttered Adam. “I’ll just about find him dying or dead...Better so — for that woman who called him husband!...I wonder — I wonder.”

Adam’s years of wandering had led him far from the haunts of men, along the lonely desert trails and roads where only a few solitary humans like himself dared the elements, or herded in sordid and hard camps; but, nevertheless, by some virtue growing out of his strife and adversity, he had come to sense something nameless, to feel the mighty beat of the heart of the desert, to hear a mourning music over the silent wastes — a still, sad music of humanity. It was there, even in the grey wastelands.

He strode on with contracted eyes, peering through the hot sunlight. At last he espied a moving object. A huge land turtle toiling along! No, it was a man crawling on hands and knees.

CHAPTER XV

ADAM RAN WITH the strides of a giant. And he came up to a man, ragged and dirty, crawling wearily along, dragging a canteen through the sand.

“Say, hold on!” called Adam, loudly.

The man halted, but did not lift his head, Adam bent down to peer at him.

“What ails you?” queried Adam, sharply.

“Huh!” ejaculated the man, stupidly. Adam’s repeated question, accompanied by a shake, brought only a grunt. Adam lifted the man to his feet and, supporting him, began to lead him over the sand. His equilibrium had been upset, and, like all men overcome on the desert, he wanted to plunge off a straight line. Adam persevered, but the labour of holding him was greater than that of supporting him.

At length Adam released the straining fellow, as much out of curiosity to see what he would do as from a realisation that time would not be wasted in this manner. He did not fall, but swayed and staggered around in a circle, like an animal that had been struck on the head. The texture of his ragged garments, the cut of them, the look of the man, despite his soiled and unkempt appearance, marked him as one not commonly met with in the desert.

The coppery sun stood straight overhead and poured down a strong and leaden heat. Adam calculated that they were miles from the camp and would never reach it at this rate. He pondered. He must carry the man. Suiting action to thought, he picked him up and, throwing him over his shoulder, started to plod on. The weight was little to one of Adam’s strength, but the squirming and wrestling of the fellow to get down made Adam flounder in the sand.

“You poor devil!” muttered Adam, at last brought to a standstill. “Maybe I can’t save your life, anyway.”

With that he set the man down and, swinging a powerful blow, laid him stunned upon the sand. Whereupon it was easy to lift him and throw him over a shoulder like an empty sack. Not for a long distance over the sand did that task become prodigious. But at length the burden of a heavy weight and the dragging sand and the hot sun brought Adam to a pass where rest was imperative. He laid the unconscious man down while he recovered breath and strength. Then he picked him up and went on.

After that he plodded slower, rested oftener, weakened more perceptibly. Meanwhile the hours passed, and when he reached the huge gateway in the red iron mountain wall the sun was gone and purple shadows were mustering in the valley. When he reached the more level field where the thick-strewn boulders lay, all before his eyes seemed red. A million needles were stinging his nerves, running like spears of light into his darkened sight.

The limit that he had put upon his endurance was to reach the shack. He did so, and he was nearly blind when the woman’s poignant call thrilled his throbbing ears. He saw her — a white shape through ruddy haze. Then he deposited his burden on the sand.

“Oh!” the woman moaned. “He’s dead!”

Adam shook his head. Pity, fear, and even terror rang in her poignant cry, but not love.

“Ah!...You’ve saved him, then...He’s injured — there’s a great bruise — he breathes so heavily.”

While Adam sat panting, unable to speak, the woman wiped her husband’s face and worked over him.

“He came back once — and fell into a stupor like this, but not so deep. What can it be?”

“Poison — air,” choked Adam.

“Oh, this terrible Death Valley!” she cried.

Adam’s sight cleared and he saw the woman, clad in a white robe over her grey dress, a garment clean and rich, falling in thick folds — strange to Adam’s sight, recalling the past. The afterglow of sunset shone down into the valley, lighting her face. Once she must have been beautiful. The perfect lines, the noble brow, the curved lips, were there, but her face was thin, strained, tragic. Only the eyes held beauty still.

“You saved him?” she queried, with quick-drawn breath.

“Found him — miles and miles — up the — valley — crawling on — his hands and knees,” panted Adam. “I had — to carry him.”

“You carried him!” she exclaimed, incredulously. Then the large eyes blazed. “So that’s why you were so livid — why you fell? Oh, you splendid man! You giant!...He’d have died out there — alone. I thank you with all my heart.”

She reached a white worn hand to touch Adam’s with an exquisite eloquence of gratitude.

“Get water — bathe him,” said Adam. “Have you ammonia or whisky?” And while he laboriously got to his knees the woman ran into the shack. He rose, feeling giddy and weak. All his muscles seemed beaten and bruised, and his heart pained. Soon the woman came hurrying out, with basin and towel and a little black satchel that evidently contained medicines. Adam helped her work over her husband, but, though they revived him, they could not bring him back to intelligent consciousness.

“Help me carry him in,” said Adam.

Inside the little shack it was almost too dark to see plainly. “Have you a light?” he added.

“No,” she replied.

“I’ll fetch a candle. You watch over him while I move my camp up here. You might change his shirt, if he’s got another. I’ll be back right away, and I’ll start a fire — get some supper for us.”

By the time Adam had packed and moved his effects darkness had settled down between the slopes of the mountains. After he had unpacked near the shack, his first move was to light a candle and take it to the door.

“Here’s a light, ma’am,” he called.

She glided silently out of the gloom, her garments gleaming ghostlike and her white face with its luminous eyes, dark and strange as midnight, looking like a woman’s face in tragic dreams. As she took the candle her hand touched Adam’s.

“Thank you,” she said. “Please don’t call me ma’am. My name is Magdalene Virey.”

“I’ll try to remember...Has your husband come to yet?”

“No. He seems to have fallen into a stupor. Won’t you look at him?”

Adam followed her inside and saw that she marked his lofty height. The shack had not been built for anyone of his stature.

“How tall you are!” she murmured.

The candle did not throw a bright light, yet by its aid Adam made out the features of the man whose life he had saved. It seemed to Adam to be the face of a Lucifer whose fiendish passions were now restrained by sleep. Whoever this man was, he had suffered a broken heart and ruined life.

“He’s asleep,” said Adam. “That’s not a trance or stupor. He’s worn out. I believe it ‘d be better not to wake him.”

“You think so?” she replied with quick relief.

“I’m not sure. Perhaps if you watch him awhile you can tell...I’ll get some supper and call you.”

Adam’s habitual dexterity over camp tasks failed him this evening. Presently, however, the supper was ready, and he threw brush on the fire to make a light.

“Mrs. Virey,” he called at the door, “come and eat now.”

When had the camp fire of his greeted such a vision, except in his vague dreams? Tall, white-gowned, slender, and graceful, with the poise of a woman aloof and proud and the sad face of a Madonna — what a woman to sit at Adam’s camp fire in Death Valley! The shadowed and thick light hid the ravages that had by day impaired her beauty. Adam placed a canvas pack for her to sit upon, and then he served her, with something that was not wholly unconscious satisfaction. Of all men, he of the desert could tell the signs of hunger; and the impression had come to him that she was half starved. The way she ate brought home to Adam with a pang the memorable days when he was starving. This woman sitting in the warm, enhancing glow of the camp fire had an exquisitely spiritual face. She had seemed all spirit. But self-preservation was the first instinct and the first law of human nature, or any nature.

“When have I eaten so heartily!” she exclaimed at last. “But, oh! it all tasted so good...Sir, you are a capital cook.”

“Thank you,” replied Adam, much gratified.

“Do you always fare so well?”

“No. I’m bound to confess I somewhat outdid myself to-night. You see, I seldom have such opportunity to serve a woman.”

She rested her elbows on her knees, with her hands under her chin, and looked at him with intense interest. In the night her eyes seemed very full and large, supernaturally bright and tragic. They were the eyes of a woman who still preserved in her something of inherent faith in mankind. Adam divined that she had scarcely looked at him before as an individual with a personality, and that some accent or word of his had struck her singularly.

“It was that miner, Dis — Dis—”

“Dismukes,” added Adam.

“Yes. It was he who sent you here. Are you a miner, too?”

“No. I, care little for gold.”

“Ah!...What are you, then?”

“Just a wanderer. Wansfell, the Wanderer, they call me.”

“They? Who are they?”

“Why, I suppose they are the other wanderers. Men who tramp over the desert — men who seek gold or forgetfulness or peace or solitude — men who are driven — or who hide. These are few, but, taken by the years, they seem many.”

“Men of the desert have passed by here, but none like you.” she replied, with gravity, and her eyes pierced him. “Why did you come?”

“Years ago my life was ruined,” said Adam, slowly. “I chose to fight the desert. And in all the years the thing that helped me most was not to pass by anyone in trouble. The desert sees strange visitors. Life is naked here, like those stark mountain-sides...Dismukes is my friend — he saved me from death once. He is a man who knows this wasteland. He told me about your being here. He said no white woman could live in Death Valley...I wondered — if I might — at least advise you, turn you back — and so I came.”

His earnestness deeply affected her.

“Sir, your kind words warm a cold and forlorn heart,” she said. “But I cannot be turned back. It’s too late.”

“No hour is ever too late...Mrs. Virey, I’ll not distress you with advice or importunities. I know too well the need and the meaning of peace. But the fact of your being here — a woman of your evident quality — a woman of your sensitiveness and delicate health — why, it is a terrible thing! This is Death Valley. The month is April. Soon it will be May — then June. When midsummer comes you cannot survive here. I know nothing of why you are here — I don’t seek to know. But you cannot stay. It would be a miracle for your husband to find gold here, if that is what he seeks. Surely he has discovered that.”

“Virey does not seek gold,” the woman said.

“Does he know that a white woman absolutely cannot live here in Death Valley? Even the Indians abandon it in summer.”

“He knows. There are Shoshone Indians up on the mountains now. They pack supplies to us. They have warned him.”

Adam could ask no more, yet how impossible not to feel an absorbing interest in this woman’s fate. As he sat with bowed head, watching the glowing and paling of the red embers, he felt her gaze upon him.

“Wansfell, you must have a great heart — like your body,” she said, presently. “It is blessed to meet such a man. Your kindness, your interest, soften my harsh and bitter doubt of men. We are utter strangers. But there’s something in this desert that bridges time — that bids me open my lips to you...a man who travelled this ghastly valley to serve me!...My husband, Virey, knows that Death Valley is a hell on earth. So do I. That is why he brought me...that is why I came!”

“My God!” breathed Adam, staring incredulously at her. Dismukes had prepared him for tragedy; the desert had shown him many dark and terrible calamities, misfortunes, mysteries; he had imagined he could no longer be thrown off his balance by amaze. But that a sad-eyed, sweet-voiced woman, whose every tone and gesture and look spoke of refinement and education, of a life infinitely removed from the wild ruggedness of the desert West — that she could intimate what seemed in one breath both murder and suicide — this staggered Adam’s credulity.

Yet, as he stared at her, realising the tremendous passion of will, of spirit, of something more that emanated from her, divining how in her case intellect and culture had been added to the eternal feminine of her nature, he knew she spoke the truth. Adam had met women on the desert, and all of them were riddles. Yet what a vast range between Margarita Arallanes and Magdalene Virey!

“Won’t your husband leave — take you away from here?” asked Adam, slowly.

“No.”

“Well — I have a way of forcing men to see things. I suppose I—”

“Useless! We have travelled three thousand miles to get to Death Valley. Years ago Elliot Virey read about this awful place. He was always interested. He learned that it was the most arid, ghastly, desolate, and terrible place of death in all the world...Then, when he got me to Sacramento — and to Placerville — he would talk with miners, prospectors, Indians — anyone who could tell him about Death Valley...Virey had a reason for finding a hell on earth. We crossed the mountains, range after range — and here we are...Sir, the hell of which we read — even in its bottommost pit — cannot be worse than Death Valley.”

“You will let me take you home — at least out of the desert?” queried Adam, with passionate sharpness.

“Sir, I thank you again,” she replied, her voice thrilling richly. “But no — no! You do not understand — you cannot — and it’s impossible to explain.”

“Ah! Yes, some things are...Suppose you let me move your camp higher up, out of this thick, dead air and heat — where there are trees and good water?”

“But it is not a beautiful and a comfortable camp that Virey — that we want,” she said, bitterly.

“Then let me move your shack across the wash out of danger. This spot is the most forbidding I ever saw. That mountain above us is on the move. The whole cracked slope is sliding like a glacier. It is an avalanche waiting for a jar — a slip — something to start it. The rocks are rolling down all the time.”

“Have I not heard the rocks — cracking, ringing — in the dead of night!” she cried, shuddering. Her slender form seemed to draw within itself and the white, slim hands clenched her gown. “Rocks! How I’ve learned to hate them! These rolling rocks are livings things. I’ve heard them slide and crack, roll and ring — hit the sand with a thump, and then with whistle and thud go by where I lay in the dark...People who live as I have lived know nothing of the elements. I had no fear of the desert — nor of Death Valley. I dared it. I laughed to scorn the idea that any barren wild valley, any maelstrom of the sea, any Sodom of a city could be worse than the chaos of my soul...But I didn’t know. I am human. I’m a woman. A woman is meant to bear children. Nothing else!...I learned that I was afraid of the dark — that such fear had been born in me. These rolling rocks got on my nerves. I wait — I listen for them. And I pray...Then the silence — that became so dreadful. It is insupportable. Worse than all is the loneliness...Oh, this God-forsaken, lonely Death Valley! It will drive me mad.”

As Adam had anticipated, no matter what strength of will, what sense of secrecy bound this woman’s lips, she had been victim to the sound of her own voice, which, liberated by his sympathy, had spoken, and a word, as it were, had led to a full, deep, passionate utterance.

“True. All too terribly true,” replied Adam. “And for a woman — for you — these feelings will grow more intense...I beg of you, at least let me move your camp back out of danger.”

“No! Not a single foot!” she blazed, as if confronted with something beyond his words. After that she hid her face in her hands. A long silence ensued. Adam, watching her, saw when the tremble and heave of her breast subsided. At length she looked up again, apparently composed. “Perhaps I talked more than I should have. But no matter. It was necessary to tell you something. For you came here to help an unknown woman. Not to anyone else have I breathed a word of the true state of my feelings. My husband watches me like a hawk, but not yet does he know my fears. I’ll thank you, when you speak to him, if you stay here so long, not to tell him anything I’ve said.”

“Mrs. Virey, I’ll stay as long as you are here,” said Adam, simply.

The simplicity of his speech, coupled with the tremendous suggestion in the fact of his physical presence, his strength and knowledge to serve her despite her bitter repudiation, seemed again to knock at the heart of her femininity. In the beginning of human life on the earth, and through its primal development, there was always a man to protect a woman. But subtly and inevitably there had been in Adam’s words an intimation that Magdalene Virey stood absolutely alone. More, for with spirit, if not with body, she was fighting Death Valley, and also some terrible relation her husband bore to her.

“Sir — you would stay here — on a possible chance of serving me?” she whispered.

“Yes,” replied Adam.

“Virey will not like that.”

“I’m not sure, but I suspect it’ll not make any difference to me what he likes.”

“If you are kind to me he will drive you away,” she went on, with agitation.

“Well, as he’s your husband he may prevent me from being kind, but he can’t drive me away.”

“But suppose I ask you to go?”

“If that’s the greatest kindness I can do you — well, I’ll go...But do you ask me?”

“I — I don’t know. I may be forced to — not by him, but by my pride,” she said, desperately. “Oh, I’m unstrung! I don’t know what to say...After all, just the sound of a kind voice makes me a coward. O God! if people in the world only knew the value of kindness I never did know. This desert of horrors teaches the truth of life. Once I had the world at my feet!...Now I break and bow at the sympathy of a stranger!”

“Never mind your pride,” said Adam, in his slow, cool way. “I understand. I’ve a good deal of a woman in me. Whatever brought you to Death Valley, whatever nails you here, is nothing to me. Even if I learn it, what need that be to you? If you do not want me to stay to work for you, watch over your husband — why, let me stay for my own sake.”

She rose and faced him, with soul-searching eyes. She could not escape her nature. Emotion governed her.

“Sir, you speak nobly,” she replied, with lips that trembled. “But I don’t understand you. Stay here — where I am — for your sake! Explain please.”

“I have my burden. Once it was even more terrible than yours. Through that I can feel as you feel now. I have lived the loneliness — the insupportable loneliness — of the desert — the silence, the heat, the hell. But my burden still weighs on my soul. If I might somehow help your husband, who is going wrong, blindly following some road of passion — change him or stop him, why that would ease my burden. If I might save you weariness, or physical pain, or hunger, or thirst, or terror — it would be doing more for myself than for you. We are in Death Valley. You refuse to leave. We are, right here, two hundred feet below sea level. When the furnace heat comes — when the blasting midnight wind comes — it means either madness or death.”

“Stay — Sir Knight,” she said, with a hollow, ringing gaiety. “Who shall say that chivalry is dead?...Stay and know this. I fear no man. I scorn death...But, ah, the woman of me! I hate dirt and vermin. I’m afraid of pain. I suffer agonies even before I’m hurt. I miss so unforgetably the luxuries of life. And lastly, I have a mortal terror of going mad. Spare me that and you will have my prayers in this world — and beyond...Good-night.”

“Good-night,” replied Adam.

She left him to the deepening gloom and the dying camp fire. Adam soon grew conscious of extreme fatigue in mind and body. Spreading his blankets on the sands, he stretched his weary, aching body without even an upward glance at the stars, and fell asleep.

Daylight again, as if by the opening of eyelids! The rose colour was vying with the blue of the sky and a noble gold crowned the line of eastern range which Adam could see through the V-shaped split that opened into the valley.

He pulled on his boots, and gave his face an unusual and detrimental luxury in the desert. Water was bad for exposed flesh in arid country. The usual spring and buoyancy of his physical being was lacking this day. Such overstrain as yesterday’s would require time to be remedied. So Adam moved slowly and with caution.

First Adam went to the spring. He found a bubbling gush of velvet-looking water pouring out of a hole and running a few rods to sink into the sand. The colour of it seemed inviting — so clear and soft and somehow rich. The music of its murmur, too, was melodious. Adam was a connoisseur of waters. What desert wanderer of years was not? Before he tasted this water, despite its promise, he knew it was not good. Yet it did not have exactly an unpleasant taste. Dismukes had said this water was all right, yet he seldom stayed long enough in one locality to learn the ill-effects of the water. Adam knew he too could live on this water. But he was thinking of the delicate woman lost here in Death Valley with an idiot or a knave of a husband.

The spring was located some two hundred yards or more from the shack and just out of line of the rock-strewn slope. Spreading like a fan, this weathered slant of stones extended its long, curved length in the opposite direction. Adam decided to pitch his permanent camp, or at least sleeping place, here on the grass. Here he erected a brush and canvas shelter to make shade, and deposited his effects under it. That done, he returned to the shack to cook breakfast.

There appeared to be no life in the rude little misshapen hut. Had the man who built it ever been a boy? There were men so utterly helpless and useless out in the wilds, where existence depended upon labour of hands, that they seemed foreign to the descendants of Americans. Adam could not but wonder about the man lying in there, though he tried hard to confine his reflections to the woman. He did not like the situation. Of what avail the strong arm, the desert-taught fierceness to survive? If this man and woman had ever possessed instincts to live, to fight, to reproduce their kind, to be of use in the world, they had subverted them to the debasements of sophisticated and selfish existence. The woman loomed big to Adam, and he believed she had been dragged down by a weak and vicious man.

Leisurely, Adam attended to the preparation of breakfast, prolonging tasks that always passed swiftly through his hands.

“Good morning, Sir Wansfell,” called a voice with something of mockery in it, yet rich and wistful — a low-pitched contralto voice full of music and pathos and a pervading bitterness.

It stirred Adam’s blood, so sluggish this morning. It seemed to carry an echo from his distant past. Turning, he saw the woman, clad in grey, with girdle of cord twisted around her slender waist. Soft and clean and fleecy, that grey garment, so out of place there, so utterly incongruous against the background of crude shack and wild slope, somehow fitted her voice as it did her fragile shape, somehow set her infinitely apart from the women Adam had met in his desert wanderings. She came from the great world outside, a delicate spark from the solid flint of class, a thoroughbred whom years before the desert might have saved.

“Good morning, Mrs. Virey,” returned Adam. “How are you — and did your husband awake?”

“I slept better than for long,” she replied, “and I think I know why...Yes, Virey came to. He’s conscious, and asked for water. But he’s weak — strange. I’d like you to look at him presently.”

“Yes, I will.”

“And how are you after your tremendous exertions of yesterday?” she inquired.

“Not so spry,” said Adam, with a smile. “But I’ll be myself in a day or so. I believe the air down in the valley affected me a little. My lungs are sore...I think it would be more comfortable for you if we had breakfast in your kitchen. The sun is hot.”

“Indeed yes. So you mean to — to do this — this camp work for me — in spite of—”

“Yes. I always oppose women,” he said. “And that is about once every two or three years. You see, women are scarce on the desert.”

“Last night I was upset. I am sorry that I was ungracious. I thank you, and I am only too glad to accept your kind service,” she said, earnestly.

“That is well. Now, will you help me carry in the breakfast?”

Unreality was not unusual to Adam. The desert had as many unrealities, illusions, and spectres as it had natural and tangible things. But while he sat opposite to this fascinating woman, whose garments exuded some subtle fragrance of perfume, whose shadowed, beautiful face shone like a cameo against the drab wall of the brush shack, he was hard put to it to convince himself of actuality. She ate daintily, but she was hungry. The grey gown fell in graceful folds around the low stone seat. The rude table between them was a box, narrow and uneven.

“Shall I try to get Virey to eat?” she asked, presently. “That depends. On the desert, after a collapse, we are careful with food and water.”

“Will you look at him?”

Adam followed her as she swept aside a flap of the canvas partition. This room was larger and lighter. It had an aperture for a window. Adam’s quick glance took this in, and then the two narrow beds of blankets raised on brush cots. Virey lay on the one farther from the door. His pallid brow and unshaven face appeared drawn into terrible lines, which, of course, Adam could not be sure were permanent or the result of the collapse in the valley. He inclined, however, to the conviction that Virey’s face was the distorted reflection of a tortured soul. Surely he had been handsome once. He had deep-set black eyes, a straight nose, and a mouth that betrayed him, despite its being half hidden under a moustache. Adam, keen and strung in that moment as he received his impressions of Virey, felt the woman’s intensity as if he had been studying her instead of her husband. How singular women were! How could it matter to her what opinion he formed of her husband? Adam knew he had been powerfully prejudiced against this man, but he had held in stern abeyance all judgment until he could look at him. For long years Adam had gazed into the face of the desert. Outward appearance could not deceive him. As the cactus revealed its ruthless nature, as the tiny inch-high flower bloomed in its perishable but imperative proof of beauty as well as life, as the long flowing sands of the desert betrayed the destructive design of the universe — so the face of any man was the image of his soul. And Adam recoiled instinctively, if not outwardly, at what he read in Virey’s face.

“You’re in pain?” queried Adam.

“Yes,” came the husky whisper, and Virey put a hand on his breast.

“It’s sore here,” said Adam, feeling Virey. “You’ve breathed poisoned air down in the valley. It acts like ether...You just lie quiet for a while. I’ll do the work around camp.”

“Thank you,” whispered Virey.

The woman followed Adam outside and gazed earnestly up at him, unconscious of herself, with her face closer than it had ever been to him and full in the sunlight. It struck Adam that the difference between desert flowers and the faces of beautiful women was one of emotion. How much better to have the brief hour of an unconscious flower, wasting its fragrance on the desert air!

“He’s ill, don’t you think?” queried the woman.

“No. But he recovers slowly. A man must have a perfect heart and powerful lungs to battle against the many perils in this country. But Virey will get over this all right.

“You never give up, do you?” she inquired.

“Come to think of that, I guess I never do,” replied Adam.

“Such a spirit is worthy of a better cause. You are doomed here to failure.”

“Well, I’m not infallible, that’s certain. But you can never tell. The fact of my standing here is proof of the overcoming of almost impossible things. I can’t make Death Valley habitable for you, but I can lessen the hardships. How long have you been here?”

“Several months. But it’s years to me.”

“Who brought you down? How did you get here?”

“We’ve had different guides. The last were Shoshone Indians, who accompanied us across a range of mountains, then a valley, and last over the Panamints. They left us here. I rode a horse. Virey walked the last stages of this journey to Death Valley — from which there will be no return. We turned horse and burros loose. I have not seen them since.”

“Are these Shoshones supposed to visit you occasionally?”

“Yes. Virey made a deal with them to come every full moon. We’ve had more supplies than we need. The trouble is that Virey has the inclination to eat, but I have not the skill to prepare food wholesomely under these rough conditions. So we almost starved.”

“Well, let me take charge of camp duties. You nurse your husband and don’t neglect yourself. It’s the least you can do. You’ll have hardship and suffering enough, even at best. You’ve suffered, I can see, but not physically. And you never knew what hardship meant until you got into the desert. If you live, these things will cure you of any trouble. They’ll hardly cure Virey, for he has retrograded. Most men in the desert follow the line of least resistance. They sink. But you will not...And let me tell you. There are elemental pangs of hunger, of thirst, of pain that are blessings in disguise. You’ll learn what rest is and sleep and loneliness. People who live as you have lived are lopsided. What do they know of life close to the earth? Any other life is false. Cities, swarms of men and women, riches, luxury, poverty — these were not in nature’s scheme of life...Mrs. Virey, if anything can change your soul it will be the desert.”

“Ah, Sir Wansfell, so you have philosophy as well as chivalry,” she replied, with the faint accent that seemed to be mockery of herself. “Change my soul if you can, wanderer of the desert! I am a woman, and a woman is symbolical of change. Teach me to cook, to work, to grow strong, to endure, to fight, to look up at those dark hills whence cometh your strength...I am here in Death Valley. I will never leave it in body. My bones will mingle with the sands and moulder to dust...But my soul — ah! that black gulf of doubt, of agony, of terror, of hate — change that if you can!”

These tragic, eloquent words chained Adam to Death Valley as if they had been links of steel; and thus began his long sojourn there.

Work or action was always necessary to Adam. They had become second nature. He planned a brush shelter from the sun, a sort of outside room adjoining the shack, a stone fireplace and table and seats, a low stone wall to keep out blowing sand, and a thick, heavy stone fence between shack and the slope of sliding rocks. When these tasks were finished there would be others, and always there would be the slopes to climb, the valley to explore. Idleness in Death Valley was a forerunner of madness. There must be a reserve fund of long work and exercise, so that when the blazing, leaden-hazed middays of August came, with idleness imperative, there would be both physical force and unclouded mind to endure them. The men who succumbed to madness in this valley were those who had not understood how to combat it.

That day passed swiftly, and the twilight hour seemed to have less of gloom and forbidding intimations. That might well have been due to his eternal hope. Mrs. Virey showed less gravity and melancholy, and not once did she speak with bitterness or passion. She informed Adam that Virey had improved.

Two more days slipped by, and on the third Virey got up and came forth into the sunlight. Adam happened to be at work near by. He saw Virey gaze around at the improvements that had been made and say something about them to his wife. He looked a man who should have been in the prime of life. Approaching with slow gait and haggard face, he addressed Adam.

“You expect pay for this puttering around?”

“No,” replied Adam, shortly.

“How’s that?”

“Well, when men are used to the desert, as I am, they lend a hand where it is needed. That’s not often.”

“But I didn’t want any such work done round my camp.”

“I know, and I excuse you because you’re ignorant of desert ways and needs.”

“The question of excuse for me is offensive.”

Adam, rising abreast of the stone wall he was building, fixed his piercing eyes upon this man. Mrs. Virey stood a little to one side, but not out of range of Adam’s gaze. Did a mocking light show in her shadowy eyes? The doubt, the curiosity in her expression must have related to Adam. That slight, subtle something about her revealed to Adam the inevitableness of disappointment in store for him if he still entertained any hopes of amenable relations with Virey.

“We all have to be excused sometimes,” said Adam, deliberately. “Now I had to excuse you on the score of ignorance of the desert. You chose this place as a camp. It happens to be the most dangerous spot I ever saw. Any moment a stone may roll down that slope to kill you. Any moment the whole avalanche may start. That slope is an avalanche.”

“It’s my business where I camp,” rejoined Virey.

“Were you aware of the danger here?”

“I am indifferent to danger.”

“But you are not alone. You have a woman with you.”

Manifestly, Virey had been speaking without weighing words and looking at Adam without really seeing him. The brooding shade passed out of his eyes, and in its place grew a light of interest that leaped to the crystal-cold clearness of a lens.

“You’re a prospector,” he asserted.

“No. I pan a little gold dust once in a while for fun because I happen across it.”

“You’re no miner then — nor hunter, nor teamster.”

“I’ve been a little of all you name, but I can’t be called any one of them.”

“You might be one of the robbers that infest these hills.”

“I might be, only I’m not,” declared Adam, dryly. The fire in his depths stirred restlessly, but he kept a cool, smothering control over it. He felt disposed to be lenient and kind toward this unfortunate man. If only the woman had not stood there with that half-veiled mocking shadow of doubt in her eyes!

“You’re an educated man!” ejaculated Virey, incredulously.

“I might claim to be specially educated in the ways of the desert.”

“And the ways of women, are they mysteries to you?” queried Virey, with scorn. His interrogation seemed like a bitter doubt flung out of an immeasurable depth of passion.

“I confess that they are,” replied Adam. “I’ve lived a lonely life. Few women have crossed my trail.”

“You don’t realise your good fortune — if you tell the truth.”

“I would not lie to any man,” returned Adam, bluntly. “Bah! Men are all liars, and women make them so. You’re hanging around my camp, making a bluff of work.”

“I deny that. Heaving these stones is work. You lift a few of them in this hot sun...And my packing you on my back for ten miles over the floor of Death Valley — was that a bluff?”

“You saved my life!” exclaimed the man, stung to passion. There seemed to be contending tides within him — a fight of old habits of thought, fineness of feeling, against an all-absorbing and dominating malignancy. “Man, I can’t thank you for that...You’ve done me no service.”

“I don’t want or expect thanks. I was thinking of the effort it cost me.”

“As a man who was once a gentleman, I do thank you — which is a courtesy due my past. But now that you have put me in debt for a service I didn’t want, why do you linger here?”

“I wish to help your wife.”

“Ah! that’s frank of you. That frankness is something for which I really thank you. But you’ll pardon me if I’m inclined to doubt the idealistic nature of your motive to help her.”

Adam pondered over this speech without reply. Words always came fluently when he was ready to speak. And he seemed more concerned over Virey’s caustic bitterness than over his meaning. Then, as he met the magnificent flash in Magdalene Virey’s eyes, he was inspired into revelation of Virey’s veiled hint and into a serenity he divined would be kindest to her pride.

“Go ahead and help her,” Virey went on. “You have my sincere felicitations. My charming wife is helpless enough. I never knew how helpless till we were thrown upon our own resources. She cannot even cook a potato. And as for baking bread in one of those miserable black ovens, stranger, if you eat some of it I will not be long annoyed by your attentions to her.”

“Well, I’ll teach her,” said Adam.

His practical response irritated Virey excessively. It was as if he wished to insult and inflame, and had not considered a literal application to his words.

“Who are you? What’s your name?” he queried, yielding to a roused curiosity.

“Wansfell,” replied Adam.

“Wansfell?” echoed Virey. The name struck a chord of memory — a discordant one. He bent forward a little, at a point between curiosity and excitement. “Wansfell? I know that name. Are you the man who in this desert country is called Wansfell the Wanderer?”

“Yes, I’m that Wansfell.”

“I heard a prospector tell about you,” went on Virey, his haggard face now quickened by thought. “It was at a camp near a gold mine over here somewhere — I forget where. But the prospector said he had seen you kill a man named Mc something — McKin — no, McKue. That’s the name...Did he tell the truth?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to say. I killed Baldy McKue — or rather, to speak as I feel, I was the means by which the desert dealt McKue the death justly due him.”

Virey now glowed with excitement, changing the man.

“Somehow that story haunted me,” he said. “I never heard one like it...This prospector told how you confronted McKue in the street of a mining camp. In front of a gambling hell, or maybe it was a hotel. You yelled like a demon at McKue. He turned white as a sheet. He jerked his gun, began to shoot. But you bore a charmed life. His bullets did not hit you, or, if they did, to no purpose. You leaped upon him. His gun flew one way, his hat another...Then — then you killed him with your hands!...Is that true?”

Adam nodded gloomily. The tale, told vividly by this seemingly galvanised Virey, was not pleasant. And the woman stood there, transfixed, with white face and tragic eyes.

“My God! You killed McKue by sheer strength — with your bare hands!...I had not looked at your hands. I see them now...So McKue was your enemy?”

“No. I never saw him before that day,” replied Adam.

Virey slowly drew back wonderingly, yet with instinctive shrinking. Certain it was that his lips stiffened.

“Then why did you kill him?”

“He ill-treated a woman.”

Adam turned away as he replied. He did not choose then to show in his eyes the leaping thought that had been born of the memory and of Virey’s strange reaction. But he heard him draw a quick, sharp breath and step back. Then a silence ensued. Adam gazed up at the endless slope, at the millions of rocks, all apparently resting lightly in their pockets, ready to plunge down.

“So — so that was it,” spoke up Virey, evidently with effort. “I always wondered. Wild West sort of story, you know. Strange I should meet you...Thanks for telling me. I gather it wasn’t pleasant for you.”

“It’s sickening to recall, but I have no regrets,” replied Adam.

“Quite so. I understand. Man of the desert — ruthless — inhuman sort of thing.”

“Inhuman?” queried Adam, and he looked at Virey, at last stung. Behind Virey’s pale, working face and averted eyes Adam read a conscience in tumult, a spirit for the moment terrorised. “Virey, you and I’d never agree on meaning of words...I broke McKue’s arms and ribs and legs, and while I cracked them I told him what an inhuman dastard he had been — to ruin a girl, to beat her, to abandon her and her baby — to leave them to die. I told him how I had watched them die...then I broke his neck!...McKue was the inhuman man — not I.”

Virey turned away, swaying a little, and his white hand, like a woman’s, sought the stone wall for support, until he reached the shack, which he entered.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Virey, that story had to come up,” said Adam, confronting her with reluctance. But she surprised him again. He expected to find her sickened, shrinking from him as a bloody monster, perhaps half fainting; he found, however, that she seemed serene, controlling deep emotions which manifested themselves only in the marble whiteness of her cheek, the strained darkness of her eye.

“The story was beautiful. I had not heard it,” she said, and the rich tremor of her voice thrilled Adam. “What woman would not revel in such a story?...Wansfell the Wanderer. It should be Sir Wansfell, Knight of the Desert!...Don’t look at me so. Have you not learned that the grandest act on earth is when a man fights for the honour or love or happiness or life of a woman?...I am a woman. Many men have loved me. Virey’s love is so strong that it is hate. But no man ever yet thought of me — no man ever yet heard the little songs that echoed through my soul — no man ever fought to save me!...My friend, I dare speak as you speak, with the nakedness of the desert. And so I tell you that just now I watched my husband — I listened to the words which told his nature, as if that was new to me. I watched you stand there — I listened to you. And so I dare to tell you — if you come to fight my battles I shall have added to my life of shocks and woes a trouble that will dwarf all the others...the awakening of a woman who has been blind!...The facing of my soul — perhaps its salvation! A crowning agony — a glory come too late!”

CHAPTER XVI

AT SUNSET ADAM cooked supper for the Vireys, satisfying his own needs after they had finished. Virey talked lightly, even joked about the first good meal he had sat down to on the desert. His wife, too, talked serenely, sometimes with the faintly subtle mockery, as if she had never intimated that a dividing spear threatened her heart. That was their way to hide the truth and emotion when they willed. But Adam was silent.

Alone, out under the shadow of the towering gate to the valley, he strode to and fro, absorbed in a maze of thoughts that gradually cleared, as if by the light of the solemn stars and virtue of the speaking silence. He had chanced upon the strangest and most fatal situation in all his desert years. Yes, but was it by chance? Straight as an arrow he had come across the barrens to meet a wonderful woman who was going to love him, and a despicable man whom he was going to kill. That seemed the fatality which rang in his ears, shone in the accusing stars, hid in the heavy shadows. It was a matter of feeling. His intelligence could not grasp it. Had he been in Death Valley four days or four months? Was he walking in his sleep, victim of a nightmare? The desert, faithful always, answered him. This was nothing but the flux and reflux of human passion, contending tides between man and woman, the littleness, the curse, the terror, and yet the joy of life. Death Valley yawned at his feet, changeless and shadowy, awful in its locked solemnity of solitude, its voicelessness, its desolation that had been desolation in past ages. He could doubt nothing there. His thought seemed almost above human error. A spirit spoke for him.

Virey had dragged his wife to this lonely and dismal hellhole on earth to share his misery, to isolate her from men, to hide her glory of charm, to gloat over her loneliness, to revenge himself for a wrong, to feed his need of possession, his terrible love that had become hate, to watch the slow torture of her fading, wilting, drooping in this ghastly valley, to curse her living, to burn endlessly in torment because her soul would elude him for ever, to drive her to death and die with her.

Death Valley seemed a harmonious setting for this tragedy and a fitting grave for its actors. The worst in nature calling to the darkest in mankind! What a pity Virey could not divine his littleness — that he had been a crawling maggot in the peopled ulcer of the world — that in the great spaces where the sun beat down was a fiery cleansing.

But Magdalene Virey was a riddle beyond solving. Nevertheless, Adam pondered every thought that would stay before his consciousness. Any woman was a riddle. Did not the image of Margarita Arrallanes flash up before him — that dusky-eyed, mindless, soulless little animal, victim of nature born in her? Adam’s thought halted with the seeming sacrilege of associating Magdalene Virey with memory of the Mexican girl. This Virey woman had complexity — she had mind, passion nobility, soul. What had she done to earn her husband’s hate? She had never loved him — that was as fixed in Adam’s sight as the North Star. Nor had she loved another man, at least not with the passion and spirit of her wonderful womanhood. Adam divined that with the intensity of feeling which the desert loneliness and solitude had taught him. He could have felt the current of any woman’s great passion, whether it was in torrent, full charged and devastating, or at its lowering ebb. But, as inevitable as was life itself, there was the mysterious certainty that Magdalene Virey had terribly wronged her husband. How? Adam had repudiated any interest in what had driven them here; not until this moment had he permitted his doubt to insult the woman. Yet how helpless he was! His heart was full of unutterable pity. He could never have loved Magdalene Virey as a man, but as a brother he was yearning to change her, save her. What else in life was worth living for, except only the dreams on the heights, the walks along the lonely trails? By his own agony he had a strange affinity for anyone in trouble, especially a woman, and how terribly he saw the tragedy of Magdalene Virey! And it was not only her death that he saw. Death in a land where death reigned was nothing. For her he hated the certainty of physical pain, the turgid pulse, the red-hot iron band at the temples, the bearing down of weighted air, the drying up of flesh and blood. More than all he hated the thought of death of her spirit while her body lived. There would be a bloodless murder long before her blood stained Virey’s hands.

But this thought gave Adam pause. Was he not dealing with a personality beyond his power to divine? What did he know of this strange woman? He knew naught, but felt all. She was beautiful, compelling, secretive, aloof, and proud, magnificent as a living flame. She was mocking because knowledge of the world, of the frailty of women and falsity of men, had been as an open page. She had lived in sight of the crowded mart, the show places where men and women passed, knowing no more of earth than that it was a place for graves. She was bitter because she had drunk bitterness to the dregs. But the sudden up-flashing warmth of her, forced out of her reserve, came from a heart of golden fire. Adam constituted himself an omniscient judge, answerable only to his conscience. By all the gods he would be true to the truth of this woman!

Never had she been forced into this desert of desolation. That thought of Adam’s seemed far back in the past. She had dared to come. Had Death Valley and the death it was famed for any terrors for her? By the side of her husband she had willingly come, unutterably despising him, infinitely brave where he was cowardly, scornfully and magnificently prepared to meet any punishment that might satisfy him. Adam saw how, in this, Magdalene Virey was answering to some strange need in itself. Let the blind, weak, egoist Virey demand the tortures of the damned! She would pay. But she was paying also a debt to herself. Adam’s final conception of Magdalene Virey was that she had been hideously wronged by life, by men; that in younger days of passionate revolt she had transgressed the selfish law of husbands; that in maturer years, with the storm and defeat and disillusion of womanhood, she had risen to the heights, she had been true to herself; and with mockery of the man who could so underestimate her, who dared believe he could make her a craven, whimpering, guilty wretch, she had faced the desert with him. She had seen the great love that was not love change to terrible hate. She had divined the hidden motive. She let him revel in his hellish secret joy. She welcomed Death Valley.

Adam marvelled at this unquenchable spirit, this sublime effrontery of a woman. And he hesitated to dare to turn that spirit from its superb indifference. But this vacillation in him was weak. What a wonderful experience it would be to embody in Magdalene Virey the instinct, the strife, the nature of the desert! With her mind, if he had the power to teach, she would grasp the lesson in a single day.

And lastly, her unforgettable implication, “the crowning agony,” of what he might bring upon her. There could be only one interpretation of that — love. The idea thrilled him, but only with wonder and pity. It took possession of Adam’s imagination. Well, such love might come to pass! The desert storms bridged canyons with sand in one day. It was a place of violence. The elements waited not upon time or circumstance. The few women Adam had come in contact with on the desert had loved him. Even the one-eyed Mohave Jo, that hideous, unsexed, monstrous deformity of a woman, whom he had left grovelling in the sand at his feet, shamed at last before a crowd of idle, gaping, vile men — even she had awakened to this strange madness of love. But Adam had not wanted that of any woman, since the poignant moment of his youth on the desert, when the dusky-eyed Margarita had murmured of love so fresh and sweet to him, “Ah, so long ago and far away!”

Least of all did Adam want the love of Magdalene Virey.

“If she were young and I were young! Or if she had never...!” Ah! even possibilities, like might-have-beens, were useless dreams. But the die was cast. Serve Magdalene Virey he would, and teach her the secret of the strength of the sand wastes and the lonely hills, and that the victory of life was not to yield. Fight for her, too, he would. In all the multiplicity of ways he had learned, he would fight the solitude and loneliness of Death Valley, the ghastliness so inimical to the creative life of a woman, the heat, the thirst, the starvation, the poison air, the furnace wind, storm and flood and avalanche. Just as naturally, if need be, if it fatefully fell out so, he would lay his slaying hands in all their ruthless might upon the man who had made her dare her doom.

When, next morning at sunrise hour, Adam presented himself at the Virey camp, he was greeted by Mrs. Virey, seemingly a transformed woman. She wore a riding suit, the worn condition of which attested to the rough ride across the mountain. What remarkable difference it made in her appearance! It detracted from her height. And the slenderness of her, revealed rather than suggested by her gowns, showed much of grace and symmetry. She had braided her hair and let it hang. When the sun had tanned her white face and hands Magdalene Virey would really be transformed.

Adam tried not to stare, but his effort was futile.

“Good morning,” she said, with a bright smile.

“Why, Mrs. Virey, I — I hardly knew you!” he stammered.

“Thanks. I feel complimented. It is the first time you’ve looked at me. Shorn of my dignity — no, my worldliness, do I begin well, desert man?...No more stuffy dresses clogging my feet! No more veils to protect my face! Let the sun burn! I want to work. I want to help. I want to learn. If madness must be mine, let it be a madness to learn what in this God-forsaken land ever made you the man you are. There, Sir Wansfell, I have flung down the gage.”

“Very well,” replied Adam, soberly.

“And now,” she continued, “I am eager to work. If I blunder, be patient. If I am stupid, make me see. And if I faint in the sun or fall beside the trail, remember, it is my poor body that fails, and not my will.”

So, in the light of her keen interest, Adam found the humdrum mixing of dough and the baking of bread a pleasure and a lesson to him, rather than a task.

“Ah! how important are the homely things of life!” she said. “A poet said ‘we live too much in the world.’...I wonder did he mean just this. We grow away from or never learn the simple things. I remember my grandfather’s farm — the ploughed fields, the green corn, the yellow wheat, the chickens in the garden, the mice in the barn, the smell of hay, the smell of burning leaves, the smell of the rich brown earth...Wansfell, not for years have I remembered them. Something about you, the way you worked over that bread, like a nice old country lady, made me remember...Oh, I wonder what I have missed!”

“We all miss something. It can’t be helped. But there are compensations, and it’s never too late.”

“You are a child, with all your bigness. You have the mind of a child.”

“That’s one of my few blessings...Now you try your hand at mixing the second batch of dough.”

She made a picture on her knees, with her sleeves rolled up, her beautiful hands white with flour, her face beginning to flush. Adam wanted to laugh at her absolute failure to mix dough, and at the same moment he had it in him to weep over the earnestness, the sadness, the pathetic meaning of her.

Eventually they prepared the meal, and she carried Virey’s breakfast in to him. Then she returned to eat with Adam.

“I shall wash the dishes,” she announced.

“No,” he protested.

Then came a clash. It ended with a compromise. And from that clash Adam realised he might dominate her in little things, but in a great conflict of wills she would be the stronger. It was a step in his own slow education. There was a constitutional difference between men and women.

Upon Adam’s resumption of the work around the shack Mrs. Virey helped him as much as he would permit, which by midday was somewhat beyond her strength. Her face sunburned rosily and her hands showed the contact with dirt and her boots were dusty.

“You mustn’t overdo it,” he advised. “Rest and sleep during the noon hours.”

She retired within the shack and did not reappear till the middle of the afternoon. Meanwhile, Adam had worked at his tasks, trying at the same time to keep an eye on Virey who wandered around aimlessly over the rock-strewn field, idling here and plodding there. Adam saw how Virey watched the shack; and when Magdalene came out again he saw her and grew as motionless as the stone where he leaned. Every thought of Virey’s must have been dominated by this woman’s presence, the meaning of her, the possibilities of her, the tragedy of her.

“Oh, how I slept!” she exclaimed. “Is it work that makes you sleep?”

“Indeed yes.”

“Ah! I see my noble husband standing like Mephistopheles, smiling at grief...What’s he doing over there?”

“I don’t know, unless it’s watching for you. He’s been around like that for hours.”

“Poor man!” she said, with both compassion and mockery. “Watching me? What loss of precious time — and so futile! It is a habit he contracted some years ago...Wansfell, take me down to the opening in the mountain there, so that I can look into Death Valley.”

“Shall I ask Virey?” queried Adam, in slight uncertainty.

“No. Let him watch or follow or do as he likes. I am here in Death Valley. It was his cherished plan to bury me here. I shall not leave until he takes me — which will be never. For the rest, he is nothing to me. We are as far apart as the poles.”

On the way down the gentle slope Adam halted amid sun-blasted shrubs, scarcely recognisable as greasewood. Here he knelt in the gravel to pluck some flowers so tiny that only a trained eye could ever have espied them. One was a little pink flower with sage colour and sage odour; another a white daisy, very frail, and without any visible leaves; and a third was a purple-red flower, half the size of the tiniest buttercup, and this had small dark-green leaves.

“Flowers in Death Valley!” exclaimed Mrs. Virey, in utter amaze.

“Yes. Flowers of a day! They sprang up yesterday; to-day they bloom, to-morrow they will die. I don’t know their names. To me their blossoming is one of the wonders of the desert. I think sometimes that it is a promise. A whole year the tiny seeds lie in the hot sands. Then comes a mysterious call and the green plant shoots its inch-long stalk to the sun. Another day beauty unfolds and there is fragrance on the desert air. Another day sees them wither and die.”

“Beauty and fragrance indeed they have,” mused the woman. “Such tiny flowers to look and smell so sweet! I never saw their like. Flowers of a day!...They indeed give rise to thoughts too deep for tears!”

Adam led his companion to the base of the mountain wall, and around the corner of the opening, so that they came suddenly and unexpectedly into full view of Death Valley. He did not look at her. He wanted to wait a little before doing that. The soft gasp which escaped her lips and the quick grasping of his hand were significant of the shock she sustained.

Their position faced mostly down the valley. It seemed a vast level, gently sloping up to the borders where specks of mesquites dotted the sand. Dull grey and flat, these league-wide wastes of speckled sand bordered a dazzling-white sunlit belt, the winding bottom of the long bowl, the salty dead stream of Death Valley. Miles and miles below, two mountain ranges blended in a purple blaze, and endless slanting lines of slopes ran down to merge in the valley floor. The ranges sent down offshoots of mountains that slanted and lengthened into the valley. One bright-green oasis, that, lost in the vastness, was comparable to one of the tiny flowers Adam had plucked out of the sand, shone wonderfully and illusively out of the glare of grey and white. A dim, mystic scene!

“O God!...It is my grave!” cried Magdalene Virey.

“We are all destined for graves,” replied Adam, solemnly. “Could any grave elsewhere be so grand — so lonely — so peaceful?...Now let us walk out a little way, to the edge of that ridge, and sit there while the sun sets.”

On this vantage point they were out some distance in the valley, so that they could see even the western end of the Panamint range, where a glaring sun had begun to change its colour over the bold black peaks. A broad shadow lengthened across the valley and crept up the yellow foothills to the red Funeral Mountains. This shadow marvellously changed to purple, and as the radiance of light continued to shade, the purple deepened. Over all the valley at the western end appeared a haze the colour of which was nameless. Adam felt the lessening heat of the sinking sun. Half that blaze was gone. It had been gold and was now silver. He swept his gaze around jealously, not to miss the transformations; and his companion, silent and absorbed, instinctively turned with him. Across the valley the Funerals towered, ragged and sharp, with rosy crowns; and one, the only dome-shaped peak, showed its strata of grey and drab through the rose. Another peak, farther back, lifted a pink shaft into the blue sky. What a contrast to the lower hills and slopes, so beautifully pearl grey in tint! And now, almost the instant Adam had marked the exquisite colours, they began to fade. On that illimitable horizon line there were soon no bright tones left. Far to the south, peaks that had been dim now stood out clear and sharp against the sky. One, gold capped and radiant, shadowed as if a cloud had come between it and the sun. Adam turned again to the west, in time to see the last vestige of silver fire vanish. Sunset!

A sombre smoky sunset it was now, as if this Death Valley was the gateway of hell and its sinister shades were upflung from fire. Adam saw a vulture sail across the clear space of sky, breasting the wind. It lent life to the desolation.

The desert day was done and the desert shades began to descend. The moment was tranquil and sad. It had little to do with the destiny of man — nothing except that by some inscrutable design of God or an accident of evolution man happened to be imprisoned where nature never intended man to be. Death Valley was only a ragged rent of the old earth, where men wandered wild, brooding, lost, or where others sought with folly and passion to dig forth golden treasure. The mysterious lights changed. A long pale radiance appeared over the western range and lengthened along its bold horizon. The only red colour left was way to the south, and that shone dim. The air held a solemn stillness.

“Magdalene Virey,” said Adam, “what you see there resembles death — it may be death — but it is peace. Does it not rest your troubled soul? A woman must be herself here.”

She, whose words could pour out in such torrent of eloquence, was silent now. Adam looked at her then, into the shadowed eyes. What he saw there awed him. The abyss seen through those beautiful, unguarded windows of her soul was like the grey scored valley beneath, but lighting, quickening with thought, with hope, with life. Death Valley was a part of the earth dying, and it would become like a canyon on the burned-out moon; but this woman’s spirit seemed everlasting. If her soul had been a whited sepulchre, it was in the way of transfiguration. Adam experienced a singular exaltation in the moment, a gladness beyond his comprehension, a sense that the present strange communion there between this woman’s awakening and the terrible lessons of his life was creating for him a far-distant interest, baffling, but great in its inspiration.

In the gathering twilight he led her back to camp, content that it seemed still impossible for her to speak. But the touch of her hand at parting was more eloquent than any words.

Then alone, in his blankets, with gaze up at the inscrutable, promising stars, Adam gave himself over to insistent and crowding thoughts, back of which throbbed a dominating, divine hope in his power to save this woman’s life and soul, and perhaps even her happiness.

Next day Adam’s natural aggressiveness asserted itself, controlled now by an imperturbable spirit that nothing could daunt. He approached Virey relentlessly, though with kindness, even good nature, and he began to talk about Death Valley, the perilous nature of the camping spot, the blasting heat of midsummer and the horror of the midnight furnace winds, the possibility of the water drying up. Virey was cold, then impatient, then intolerant, and finally furious. First he was deaf to Adam’s persuasion, then he tried to get out of listening, then he repudiated all Adam had said, and finally he raved and cursed. Adam persisted in his arguments until Virey strode off.

Mrs. Virey heard some of this clash. Apparently Adam’s idea of changing her husband amused her. But when Virey returned for supper he was glad enough to eat, and when Adam again launched his argument it appeared that Mrs. Virey lost the last little trace of mockery. She listened intently while Adam told her husband why he would have to take his wife away from Death Valley before midsummer. Virey might as well have been stone deaf. It was not Virey, however, who interested the woman, but something about Adam that made her look and listen thoughtfully.

Thus began a singular time for Adam, unmatched in all his desert experience. He gave his whole heart to the task of teaching Magdalene Virey and to the wearing down of Virey’s will. All the lighter tasks that his hands had learned he taught her. Then to climb to the heights, to pick the ledges for signs of gold or pan the sandy washes, to know the rocks and the few species of vegetation, to recognise the illusion of distance and colour, to watch the sunsets and the stars became daily experiences. Hard as work was for her delicate hands and muscles, he urged her to their limit. During the first days she suffered sunburn, scalds, skinned fingers, bruised knees, and extreme fatigue. When she grew tanned and stronger he led her out on walks and climbs so hard that he had to help her back to camp. She learned the meaning of physical pain, and to endure it. She learned the blessing it was to eat when she was famished, to rest when she was utterly weary, to sleep when sleep was peace.

Through these brief, full days Adam attacked Virey at every opportunity, which time came to be, at length, only during meals. Virey would leave camp, often to go up the slope of weathered rocks, a dangerous climb that manifestly fascinated him. Reaching a large rock that became his favourite place, he would perch there for long hours, watching, gazing down like a vulture waiting for time to strike its prey. All about him seemed to suggest a brooding wait. He slept during the midday hours and through the long nights. At dusk, which was usually bedtime for all, Adam often heard him, talking to Mrs. Virey in a low, hard, passionate voice. Sometimes her melodious tones, with the mockery always present when she spoke to her husband, thrilled Adam, while at the same moment it filled him with despair. But Adam never despaired of driving Virey to leave the valley. The man was weak in all ways except that side which pertained to revenge. Notwithstanding the real and growing obstacle of this passion, Adam clung to his conviction that in the end Virey would collapse. When, however, one day the Indians came, and Virey sent them away with a large order for supplies, Adam gave vent to a grim thought, “Well, I can always kill him.”

All the disgust and loathing Adam felt for this waster of life vanished in the presence of Magdalene Virey. If that long-passed sunset hour over Death Valley had awakened the woman, what had been the transformation of the weeks? Adam had no thoughts that adequately expressed his feeling for the change in her. It gave him further reverence for desert sun and heat and thirst and violence and solitude. It gave him strange new insight into the mystery of life. Was any healing of disease or agony impossible — any change of spirit — any renewal of life? Nothing in relation to human life was impossible. Magnificently the desert magnified and multiplied time, thought, effort, pain, health, hope — all that could be felt.

It seemed to Adam that through the physical relation to the desert he was changing Magdalene Virey’s body and heart and soul. Brown her face and hands had grown; and slowly the graceful, thin lines of her slender body had begun to round out. She was gaining. If it had not been for her shadowed eyes, and the permanent sadness and mockery in the beautiful lips, she would have been like a girl of eighteen. Her voice, too, with its contralto richness, its mellow depth, its subtle shades of tone, proclaimed the woman. Adam at first had imagined her to be about thirty years old, but as time passed by, and she grew younger with renewed strength, he changed his mind. Looking at her to guess her age was like looking at the desert illusions. Absolute certainty he had, however, of the reward and result of her inflexible will, of splendid spirit, of sincere gladness. She had endured physical toil and pain to the limit of her frail strength, until she was no longer frail. This spirit revived what had probably been early childish love of natural things; and action and knowledge developed it until her heart was wholly absorbed in all that it was possible to do there in that lonesome fastness. With the genius and intuition of a woman she had grasped at the one solace left her — the possibility of learning Adam’s lesson of the desert. What had taken him years to acquire she learned from him or divined in days. She had a wonderful mind.

Once, while they were resting upon a promontory that overhung the valley, Adam spoke to her. She did not hear him. Her eyes reflected the wonder and immensity of the waste beneath her. Indeed, she did not appear to be brooding or thinking. And when he spoke again, breaking in upon her abstraction, she was startled. He forgot what he had intended to say, substituting a query as to her thoughts.

“How strange!” she murmured. “I didn’t have a thought. I forgot where I was. Your voice seemed to come from far off.”

“I spoke to you before, but you didn’t hear,” said Adam. “You looked sort of, well — watchful, I’d call it.”

“Watchful? Yes, I was. I feel I was, but I don’t remember. This is indeed a strange state for Magdalene Virey. It behoves her to cultivate it. But what kind of a state was it?...Wansfell, could it have been happiness?”

She asked that in a whisper, serious, and with pathos, yet with a smile.

“It’s always happiness for me to watch from the heights. Surely you are finding happy moments?”

“Yes, many thanks to you, my friend. But they are conscious happy moments, just sheer joy of movement, or sight of beauty, or a thrill of hope, or perhaps a vague dream of old, far-off, unhappy things. And it is happiness to remember them...But this was different. It was unconscious. I tell you, Wansfell, I did not have a thought in my mind! I saw — I watched. Oh, how illusive it is!”

“Try to recall it,” he suggested, much interested.

“I try — I try,” she said, presently, “but the spell is broken.”

“Well, then, let me put a thought into your mind,” went on Adam. “Dismukes and I once had a long talk about the desert. Why does it fascinate all men? What is the secret? Dismukes didn’t rate himself high as a thinker. But he is a thinker. He knows the desert. To me he’s great. And he and I agreed that the commonly accepted idea of the desert’s lure is wrong. Men seek gold, solitude, forgetfulness. Some wander for the love of wandering. Others seek to hide from the world. Criminals are driven to the desert. Besides these, all travellers crossing the desert talk of its enchantments. They all have different reasons. Loneliness, peace, silence, beauty, wonder, sublimity — a thousand reasons! Indeed, they are all proofs of the strange call of the desert. But these men do not go deep enough.”

“Have you solved the secret?” she asked, wonderingly.

“No, not yet,” he replied, a little sadly. “It eludes me. It’s like finding the water of the mirage.”

“It’s like the secret of a woman’s heart, Wansfell.”

“Then if that is so — tell me.”

“Ah! no woman ever tells that secret.”

“Have you come to love the desert?”

“You ask me that often,” she replied, in perplexity. “I don’t know. I — I reverence — I fear — I thrill. But love — I can’t say that I love the desert. Not yet. Love comes slowly and seldom to me. I loved my mother...Once I loved a horse.”

“Have you loved men?” he queried.

“No!” she flashed, in sudden passion, and her eyes burned dark on his. “Do you imagine that of me?...I was eighteen when I — when they married me to Virey. I despised him. I learned to loathe him...Wansfell, I never really loved any man. Once I was mad — driven!”

How easily could Adam strike the chords of her emotion and rouse her to impassioned speech! His power to do this haunted him, and sometimes he could not resist it until wistfulness or trouble in her eyes made him ashamed.

“Some day I’ll tell you how I was driven once — ruined,” he said.

“Ruined! You? Why, Wansfell, you are a man! Sometimes I think you’re a god of the desert!...But tell me — what ruined you, as you mean it?”

“No, not now. I’m interested in your — what is it? — your lack of power to love.”

“Lack! How little you know me! I am all power to love. I am a quivering mass of exquisitely delicate, sensitive nerves. I am a seething torrent of hot blood. I am an empty heart, deep and terrible as this valley, hungry for love as it is hungry for precious rain or dew. I am an illimitable emotion, heaving like the tides of the sea. I am all love.”

“And I — only a stupid blunderer,” said Adam.

“You use a knife, relentlessly, sometimes. Wansfell, listen... I have a child — a lovely girl. She is fourteen years old — the sweetest...Ah! Before she was born I did not love her — I did not want her. But afterward! Wansfell, a mother’s love is divine. But I had more than that. All — all my heart went out to Ruth...Love! Oh, my God! does any man know the torture of love?...Oh, I know! I had to leave her — I had to give her up and I’ll never — never see — her — again!”

The woman bowed with hands to her face and all her slender body shook.

“Forgive me!” whispered Adam, huskily, in distress. It was all he could say for a moment. She had stunned him. Never had he imagined her as a mother. “Yet — yet I’m glad I know now. You should have told me. I am your friend. I’ve tried to be a — a brother. Tell me, Magdalene. You’ll be the — the less troubled. I will help you. I think I understand — just a little. You seemed to me only a very young woman — and you’re a mother! Always I say I’ll never be surprised again. Why, the future is all surprise! And your little girl’s name is Ruth? Ruth Virey. What a pretty name!”

Adam had rambled on, full of contrition, hating himself, trying somehow to convey sympathy. Perhaps his words, his touch on her bowed shoulder, helped her somewhat, for presently she sat up, flung back her hair, and turned a tear-stained face to him. How changed, how softened, how beautiful! Slowly her eyes were veiling an emotion, a glimpse of which uplifted him.

“Wansfell, I’m thirty-eight years old,” she said. “No! I can’t believe that!” he ejaculated.

“It’s true.”

“Well, well! I guess I’ll go back to figuring the desert. But speaking of age — you guess mine. I’ll bet you can’t come any nearer to mine.”

Gravely she studied him, and in the look and action once more grew composed.

“You’re a masculine Sphinx. Those terrible lines from cheek to jaw — they speak of agony, but not of age. But you’re grey at the temples. Wansfell, you are thirty-seven — perhaps forty.”

“Magdalene Virey!” cried Adam, aghast. “Do I look so old? Alas for vanished youth!...I am only twenty-six.”

It was her turn to be amazed. “We had better confine ourselves to other riddles than love and age. They are treacherous...Come, let us be going.”

CHAPTER XVII

THE HOUR CAME when Magdalene Virey stirred Adam to his depths.

“Wansfell,” she said, with a rare and wonderful tremor in her voice, “I love the silence, the loneliness, the serenity — even the tragedy of this valley of shadows. Ah! It is one place that will never be popular with men — where few women will ever come. Nature has set it apart for wanderers of the wastelands, men like you, unquenchable souls who endure, as you said, to fight, to strive, to seek, to find...And surely for lost souls like me! Most men and all women must find death here, if they stay. But there is death in life. I’ve faced my soul here, in the black, lonely watches of the desert nights. And I would endure any agony to change that soul, to make it as high and clear and noble as the white cone of the mountain yonder.”

Mysterious and inscrutable, the desert influence had worked upon Magdalene Virey. On the other hand, forces destructive to her physical being had attacked her. It was as if an invisible withering wind had blown upon a flower in the night. Adam saw this with distress. But she laughed at the truth of it — laughed without mockery. Something triumphant rang like a bell in her laugh. Always, in the subtlety of character she had brought with her and the mystery she had absorbed from the desert, she stayed beyond Adam’s understanding. It seemed that she liked to listen to his ceaseless importunities; but merciless to herself and aloof from Virey, she refused to leave Death Valley.

“Suppose I pack the burros and tuck you under my arm and take you, anyway?” he queried, stubbornly.

“I fancy I’d like you to tuck me under your arm,” she replied, with the low laugh that came readily now, “but if you did — it would be as far as you’d get.”

“How so?” he demanded, curiously.

“Why, I’d exercise the prerogative of the eternal feminine and command that time should stand still right there.”

A sweetness and charm, perhaps of other days, a memory of power, haunted face and voice then.

“Time — stand still?” echoed Adam, ponderingly. “Magdalene, you are beyond me.”

“So it seems. I’m a little beyond myself sometimes. You will never see in me the woman who has been courted, loved, spoiled by men.”

“Well, I grasp that, I guess. But I don’t care to see you as such a woman. I might not — —”

“Ah! you might not respect me,” she interrupted. “Alas!...But, Wansfell, if I had met you when I was eighteen I would never have been courted and loved and ruined by men...You don’t grasp that, either.”

Adam had long ceased to curse his density. The simplicity of him antagonised her complexity. His had been the blessed victory over her bitterness, her mockery, her consciousness of despair. His had been the gladness of seeing her grow brown and strong and well, until these early June days had begun to weaken her. That fact had augmented his earnestness to get her to leave the valley. But she was adamant. And all his importunities and arguments and threats she parried with some subtle femininity of action or look or speech that left him bewildered.

The time came when only early in the mornings or late in the afternoons could they walk to their accustomed seat near the gateway of the valley and climb to the promontories. Nature moved on remorselessly with her seasons, and the sun had begun to assume its fiery authority during most of the daylight hours.

One morning before sunrise they climbed, much against Adam’s advice, to a high point where Mrs. Virey loved to face east at that hour. It was a hard climb, too hard for her to attempt in the heat and oppression that had come of late. Nevertheless, she prevailed upon Adam to take her, and she had just about strength enough to get there.

They saw the east luminous and rosy, ethereal and beautiful, momentarily brightening with a rayed effulgence that spread from a golden centre behind the dark bold domes of the Funeral Mountains. They saw the sun rise and change the luminous dawn to lurid day. One moment, and the beauty the glory, the promise were as if they had never been. The light over Death Valley at that height was too fierce for the gaze of man.

On the way down, at a narrow ledge, where loose stones made precarious footing, Adam cautioned his companion and offered to help her. Waving him on, she followed him with her lithe free step. Then she slipped off the more solid trail to a little declivity of loose rocks that began to slide with her toward a slope, where, if she went over it, she must meet serious injury. She did not scream. Adam plunged after her and, reaching her with a long arm just as she was about to fall, he swung her up as if she had only the weight of a child. Then, holding her in his arms, he essayed to wade out of the little stream of sliding rocks. It was difficult only because he feared he might slip and fall with her. Presently he reached the solid ledge and was about to set her upon her feet.

“Time — stand still here!” she exclaimed, her voice full of the old mockery of herself, with an added regret for what might have been, but could never be, with pathos, with the eternal charm of woman who could never separate her personality, her consciousness of her sex, from their old relation to man.

Adam halted his action as if suddenly chained, and he gazed down upon her, where she rested with her head on the bend of his left elbow. There was a smile on the brown face that had once been so pale. Her large eyes, wide open, exposed to the sky, seemed to reflect its dark blue colour and something of its mystery of light. Adam saw wonder there, and reverence that must have been for him, but seemed incredible, and the shading of unutterable thoughts.

“Put me down,” she said.

“Why did you say, ‘Time — stand still here’?” he asked as he placed her upon her feet.

“Do you remember the time when I told you how words and lines and verses of the poets I used to love come to mind so vividly out here? Sometimes I speak them, that is all.”

“I understand. All I ever read has come back to me here on the desert, as clear as the print on the page seen so many years ago. I used to hate Sunday School when I was a boy. But now, often, words of the Bible come before my mind...But are you telling me the whole truth? Why did you say, ‘Time — stand still here, when I held you in my arms?”

“What a boy you are!” she murmured, and her eyes held a gladness for the sight of him. “Confess, now, wouldn’t that moment have been a beautiful one for time to stop — for life to stand still — for the world to be naught — for thought and memory to cease?”

“Yes, it would,” he replied, “but no more beautiful than this moment while you stand there so. When you look like that you make me hope.”

“For what?” she queried, softly.

“For you.”

“Wansfell, you are the only man I’ve ever known who could have held me in his arms and have been blind and dead to the nature of a woman...Listen. You’ve done me the honour to say I have splendid thoughts and noble emotions. I hope I have. I know you have inspired many. I know this valley of death has changed my soul. But, Wansfell, I am a woman, and a woman is more than her high and lofty thoughts — her wandering inspirations. A woman is a creature of feeling, somehow doomed...When I said, ‘Time — stand still here,’ I was false to the woman in me that you idealise. A thousand thoughts, emotions, memories, desires, sorrows, vanities prompted the words of which you have made me ashamed. But to spare myself a little, let me say that it would indeed be beautiful for me to have you take me up into your arms — and then for time to stand still forever.”

“Do you mean that — so — you’d feel safe, protected, at rest?” he asked, with emotion.

“Yes, and infinitely more. Wansfell, it is a woman’s fate that the only safe and happy and desired place for her this side of the grave is in the arms of the man she loves. A real man — with strength and gentleness — for her and her alone!...It is a terrible thing in women, the need to be loved. As a baby I had that need — as a girl — and as a woman it became a passion. Looking back now, through the revelation that has come to me here in this valley of silence — when thought is clairvoyant and all-pervading — I can see how the need of love, the passion to be loved, is the strongest instinct in any woman. It is an instinct. She can no more change it than she can change the shape of her hand. Poor fated women! Education, freedom, career may blind them to their real nature. But it is a man, the right man, that means life to a woman. Otherwise the best in her dies...That instinct in me — for which I confess shame — has been unsatisfied despite all the men who have loved me. When you have saved me — perhaps from injury — and took me into your arms, the instinct over which I have no control flashed up. While it lasted, until you looked at me, I wanted that moment to last forever. I wanted to be held that way — in your great, strong arms — until the last trumpet sounded. I wanted you to see only me, feel only me, hold only me, live for only me, love me beyond all else on earth and in heaven!”

As she paused, her slender brown hands at her heaving breast, her eyes strained as if peering through obscurity at a distant light. Adam could only stare at her in helpless fascination. In such moods as this she taught him as much of the mystery of life as he had taught her of the nature of the desert.

“Now the instinct is gone,” she continued. “Chilled by your aloofness! I am looking at it with intelligence. And, Wansfell, I’m filled with pity for women. I pity myself, despite the fact that my mind is free. I can control my acts, if not my instincts and emotions. I am bound. I am a woman. I am a she-creature. I am little different from the fierce she-cats, the she-lions — any of the she-animals that you’ve told me fight to survive down on your wild Colorado Desert...That seems to me the sex, the fate, the doom of women. Ah! no wonder they fight for men — spit and hiss and squall and scratch and rend! It’s a sad thing, seen from a woman’s mind. That great mass of women who cannot reason about their instincts, or understand the springs of their emotions — they are the happier. Too much knowledge is bad for my sex. Perhaps we are wrongly educated. I am the happier for what you have taught me. I can see myself now with pity instead of loathing. I am not to blame for what life has made me. There are no wicked women. They must be loved or they are lost... My friend, the divinity in human life is seen best in some lost woman like me.”

“Magdalene Virey,” protested Adam, “I can’t follow you...But to say you are a lost woman — that I won’t listen to.”

“I was a lost woman,” interrupted Mrs. Virey, her voice rising out of the strong, sweet melody. “I had my pride and I defied the husband whose heart I broke and whose life I ruined. I scorned the punishment, the exile he meted out to me. That was because I was thoroughbred. But all the same I was lost. Lost to happiness, to hope, to effort, to repentance, to spiritual uplift. Death Valley will be my tomb, but there will be resurrection for me...It is you, Wansfell, you have been my salvation...You have the power. It has come from your strife and agony on the desert. It is beyond riches, beyond honour. It is the divine in you that seeks and finds the divine in unfortunates who cross your wandering trail.”

Adam, rendered mute, could only offer his hand; and in silence he led her down the slope.

That afternoon, near the close of the hot hours, Adam lay in the shade of the brush shelter he had erected near the Virey shack. He was absorbed in watching a tribe of red ants, and his posture was so unusual that it gave pause to Virey, who had come down from the slope. The man approached and curiously gazed at Adam, to see what he was doing.

“Looking for grains of gold?” inquired Virey, with sarcasm. “I’ll lend you my magnifying glass.”

“I’m watching these red ants,” replied Adam, without looking up.

Virey bent over and, having seen, he slowly straightened up.

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard!” he ejaculated, and this time without sarcasm.

“Virey, I’m no sluggard,” returned Adam. “It’s you who are that. I’m a worker.”

“Wansfell, I was not meaning you,” said Virey. “There are things I hate you for, but laziness is certainly not included in them...I never worked in my life. I had money left me. It was a curse. I thought I could buy everything. I bought a wife — the big-eyed woman to whom you devote your services — and your attentions...And I bought for myself the sweetness of the deadly nightshade flower — a statue of marble, chiselled in the beautiful curves of mocking love — a woman of chain lightning and hate...If I had lived by industry, as live those red ants you’re watching, I might not now have one foot in my grave in Death Valley.”

Thus there were rare instances when Virey appeared a man with the human virtues of regret, of comprehension, of intolerance, but never a word issued from his lips that was not tinged with bitterness. Had the divinity in him been blasted forever? Or was it a submerged spark that could quicken only to a touch of the woman lost to him? Adam wondered. Sometimes a feeling of pity for Virey stole over him, but it never lasted long. Adam had more respect for these red ants than for some men, despite the alleged divinity. He abhorred the drones of life. The desert taught how useless were the idlers — how nature ruthlessly cut them off.

The red ants had a hill some few paces from the shelter where Adam lay. One train of ants, empty handed, as it were, travelled rapidly from the ant hill toward the camp litter; and another train staggered under tremendous burdens in the other direction. At first Adam thought these last were carrying bits of bread, then he thought they were carrying grains of gravel, and then he discovered, by moving closer to watch, that they were carrying round black-and-white globules, several times as large as their own bodies. Presently he concluded that these round objects were ant eggs which the tribe was moving from one hill to another. It was exceedingly interesting to watch them. He recognised them as the species of desert ant that could bite almost as fiercely as a scorpion. Their labour was prodigious. The great difficulty appeared to be in keeping the eggs in their jaws, These burdens were continually falling out and rolling away. Some ants tried many times and in many ways to grasp the hard little globules. Then, when this was accomplished, came the work compared with which the labour of man seemed insignificant. After getting a start the loaded ants, made fair progress over smooth, hard ground, but when they ran into a crust of earth or a pebble or a chip they began the toil of a giant. The ant never essayed to go round the obstacle. He surmounted it.. He pushed and lifted and heaved, and sometimes backed over, dragging his precious burden behind him. Others would meet a little pitfall and, instead of circling it to get to the ant hill, they would roll down, over and over, with their eggs, until they reached the bottom. Then it was uphill work on the other side, indefatigable, ceaseless, patient, wonderful.

Adam presently had to forego his little sentiment about the toil of the ants over their eggs. The black-and-white globules were seeds of maize. On the night before, Adam’s burro Jinny had persisted around camp until he gave her the last of some maize left in one of his packs. Jinny had spilled generous quantities of the maize in the sand, and the ants were carrying home the seeds.

How powerful they were! How endowed with tireless endurance and a persistence beyond human understanding! The thing that struck Adam so singularly was that these ants did not recognise defeat. They could not give up. Failure was a state unknown to their instincts. And so they performed marvellous feats. What was the spirit that actuated them? The mighty life of nature was infinitely strong in them. It was the same as the tenacity of the lichen that lived on the desert rocks, or the eyesight of the condor that could see its prey from the invisible heights of the sky, or the age-long destructive movements of the mountain tops wearing down to the valleys.

When Adam got up from his pleasant task and meditation he was surprised to find Mrs. Virey standing near with eyes intent on him. Then it became incumbent upon him to show her the toils of the red ants. She watched them attentively for a while.

“Wonderful little creatures!” she exclaimed. “So this watching is one of the secrets of your desert knowledge, Wansfell, I can’t compare these ants to men. They are far superior. They have order, purpose. They are passionless, perfect organisations to carry on their lives. They will work and live — the descendants of this very tribe of ants — long after the race of men has disappeared off the face of the earth...But wonderful as they are, and interesting as are their labours, I’d prefer to watch you chop wood, or, better, to climb the slope with your giant stride.”

That night, sometime late, Adam was awakened by a gale that swooped up through the gateway from the valley. It blew away the cool mountain air which had settled down from the heights. It was a warmer wind than any Adam had ever before experienced at night. It worried him. Forerunner, it must be, of the midnight furnace winds that had added to the fame of Death Valley! It brought a strange, low, hollow roar, unlike any other sound in nature. It was a voice. Adam harkened to the warning. On the morrow he would again talk to Virey. Soon it might be too late to save Magdalene Virey. She had obstructed his will. She would not leave without her husband. She had bidden Adam stay there in Death Valley to serve her, but she seemed to have placed her husband beyond Adam’s reach. The ferocity in Adam had never found itself in relation to Virey. Adam had persuaded and argued with the persistence of the toiling ant, but to work his way with Virey seemed to demand the swoop of the desert hawk.

This strange warm wind, on its first occurrence during Adam’s stay in the valley, rose to a gale and then gradually subsided until it moaned away mournfully. Its advent had robbed Adam of sleep; its going seemed to leave a deader silence, fraught with the meaning of its visit.

Adam could sleep no more. This silence belied the blinking of the stars. It disproved the solidarity of the universe. Nothing lived, except his soul, that seemingly had departed from his body in a dream, and now with his vague thoughts and vaguer feelings wandered over the wastelands, a phantom in the night. Silence of utter solitude — most intense, dead, dreaming, waiting, sepulchre-like, awful! Where was the rustle of the wings of the bats? The air moved soundlessly, and it seemed to have the substance of shadows. A dead solitude — a terrible silence! A man and the earth! The wide spaces, the wild places of the earth as it was in the beginning! Here could be the last lesson to a thinking man — the last development of a man into savage or god.

There! Was that a throb of his heart or a ring in his ear? Crack of a stone, faint, far away, high on the heights, a lonely sound making real the lonely night. It relieved Adam. The tension of him relaxed. And he listened, hopefully, longing to hear another break in the silence that would be so insupportable.

As he listened, the desert moon, oval in shape, orange hued and weird, sailed over the black brow of the mountain and illumined the valley in a radiance that did not seem of land or sea. The darkness of midnight gave way to orange shadows, mustering and shading, stranger than the fantastic shapes of dreams.

Another ring of rock on rock, and sharp rattle, and roll on roll, assured Adam that the weathering gods of the mountain were not daunted by the silence and the loneliness of Death Valley. They were working as ever. Their task was to level the mountain down to the level of the sea. The stern, immutable purpose seemed to vibrate in the ringing cracks and in the hollow reports. These sounds in their evenness and perfect rhythm and lonely tone established once more in Adam’s disturbed consciousness the nature of the place. Death Valley! The rolling of rocks dispelled phantasms.

Then came a low, grating roar. The avalanche of endless broken rocks had slipped an inch. It left an ominous silence. Adam stirred restlessly in his blankets. There was a woman in the lee of that tremendous sliding slope a woman of delicate frame, of magnificent spirit, of a heart of living flame. Every hour she slept or lay wide-eyed in the path of that impending cataclysm was one of exceeding peril. Adam chafed under the invisible bonds of her will. Because she chose to lie there, fearless, beyond the mind of man to comprehend, was that any reason why he should let her perish? Adam vowed that he would end this dread situation before another nightfall. Yet when he thought of Magdalene Virey his heart contracted. Only through the fierce spirit of the desert could he defy her and beat down the jailer who chained her there. But that fierce spirit of his seemed obstructed by hers, an aloof thing, greater than ferocity, beyond physical life.

And so Adam lay sleepless, listening to the lonely fall of sliding rocks, the rattle and clash, and then the hollow settling. Then he listened to the silence.

It was broken by a different note, louder, harsher — the rattle and bang of a stone displaced and falling from a momentum other than its own. It did not settle. Heavy and large, it cracked down to thud into the sand and bump out through the brush. Scarcely had it quieted when another was set in motion, and it brought a low, sliding crash of many small rocks. Adam sat up, turning his ear toward the slope. Another large stone banged down to the sands. Adam heard the whiz of it, evidently hurtling through the air between his camp and the Vireys’. If that stone had struck their shack!

Adam got up and, pulling on his boots, walked out a little way from the camp. What an opaque orange gloom! Nevertheless, it had radiance. He could see almost as well as when the full moon soared in silver effulgence. More cracking and rolling of little rocks, and then the dislodgment of a heavy one, convinced Adam that a burro was climbing the slope or a panther had come down to prowl around camp. At any rate the displacement of stones jarred unnaturally on Adam’s sensitive ear.

Hurrying across to the Virey shack, he approached the side farther from the slope and called through the brush wall, “Mrs. Virey!”

“Yes. What do you want, Wansfell?” she replied, instantly. She had been wide awake.

“Have you heard the sliding rocks?”

“Indeed I have! All through that strange roar of wind — and later.”

“You and Virey better get up and take your blankets out a ways, where you will not be in danger. I think there’s a burro or a panther up on the slope. You know how loose the stones are — how at the slightest touch they come sliding and rolling. I’ll go up and scare the beast away.”

“Wansfell, you’re wrong,” came the reply, with that old mockery which always hurt Adam. “You should not insult a burro — not to speak of a panther.”

“What?” queried Adam, blankly.

“It is another kind of an animal.”

But for that subtle mockery of voice Adam would have been persuaded the woman was out of her head, or at least answering him in her sleep.

“Mrs. Virey, please — —”

“Wansfell, it’s a sneaking coyote,” she called, piercingly, and then she actually uttered a low laugh.

Adam was absolutely dumbfounded. “Coyote!” he ejaculated.

“Yes. It’s my husband. It’s Virey. He found out the rolling rocks frightened me at night. So he climbs up there and rolls them...Sees how close he can come to hitting the shack!...Oh, he’s done that often!”

An instant Adam leaned there with his head bent to the brush wall, as if turned to stone. Then like a man stung he leaped up and bounded round the shack toward the slope.

In the orange radiance on that strange, moon-blanched slope he dimly saw a moving object. It stood upright. Indeed, no burro or panther! Adam drew a deep and mighty breath for the yell that must jar the very stones from their sockets.

“HYAR!” he yelled in stentorian roar. Like thunder the great sound pealed up the slope. “COME DOWN OR I’LL WRING YOUR NECK!”

Only the clapping, rolling, immeasurable echoes answered him. The last hollow clap and roll died away leaving the silence deader than before.

Adam spent the remainder of that night pacing to and fro in the orange-hued shadows, fighting the fierce, grim violence that at last had burst its barrier. Adam could have wrung the life out of this Virey with less compunction than he would have in stamping on the head of a venomous reptile. Yet it was as if a spirit kept in the shadow of his form, as he strode the bare shingle gazing up at the solemn black mountains and at the wan stars.

Adam went down to the gateway between the huge walls. A light was kindling over the far-away Funeral range, and soon a glorious star swept up, as if by magic, above the dark rim of the world. The morning star shining down into Death Valley! No dream — no illusion — no desert mirage! Like the Star of Bethlehem beckoning the Wise Men to the East, it seemed to blaze a radiant path for Adam down across the valley of dim, mystic shadows. What could be the meaning of such a wonderful light? Was that blue-white lilac-haloed star only another earth upon which the sun was shining? Adam lifted his drawn face to its light and wrestled with the baser side of his nature. He seemed to be dominated by the spirit that kept close to his side. Magdalene Virey kept vigil with him on that lonely beat. It was her agony which swayed and wore down his elemental passion. Would not he fail her if he killed this man? Virey’s brutality seemed not the great question at issue for him.

“I’ll not kill him — yet!”

Thus Adam eased the terrible contention within him.

When he returned to camp the sun had risen red and hot, with a thin, leaden haze dulling its brightness. No wind stirred. Not a sound broke the stillness. Magdalene Virey sat on the stone bench under the brush shelter, waiting for him. She rose as he drew near. Never had he seen her like this, smiling a welcome that was as true as her presence, yet facing him with darkened eyes and tremulous lips and fear. Adam read her. Not fear of him, but of what he might do!

“Is Virey back yet?” he asked.

“Yes. He just returned. He’s inside — going to sleep.”

“I want to see him — to get something off my mind,” said Adam.

“Wait — Adam!” she cried, and reached for him as he wheeled to go toward the shack.

One glance at her brought Adam to a standstill, and then to a slow settling down upon the stone seat, where he bowed his head. Life had held few more poignant moments than this, in his pity for others. Yet he thrilled with admiration for this woman. She came close to him, leaned against him, and the quiver of her body showed she needed the support. She put a shaking hand on his shoulder.

“My friend — brother,” she whispered, “if you kill him — it will undo — all the good you’ve done — for me.”

“You told me once that the grandest act of a man was to fight for the happiness — the life of a woman,” he replied.

“True! And haven’t you fought for my happiness, and my life, too? I would have died long ago. As for happiness — it has come out of my fight, my work, my effort to meet you on your heights — more happiness than I deserve — than I ever hoped to attain...But if you kill Virey — all will have been in vain.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because it is I who ruined him,” she replied, in low, deep voice, significant of the force behind it. “As men go in the world he was a gentleman, a man of affairs, happy and carefree. When he met me his life changed. He worshipped me. It was not his fault that I could not love him. I hated him because they forced me to marry him. For years he idolised me...Then — then came the shock — his despair, his agony. It made him mad. There is a very thin line between great love and great hate.”

“What — what ruined him?” demanded Adam.

“Adam, it will be harder to confess than any other ordeal of my whole life. Because — because you are the one man I should have met years ago...Do you understand? And I — who yearn for your respect — for your — Oh, spare me!...I who need your faith — your strange incomprehensible faith in me — I, who hug to my hungry bosom the beautiful hopes you have in me — I must confess my shame to save my husband’s worthless life.”

“No. I’ll not have you — you humiliating yourself to save him anything. I give my word. I’ll never kill Virey unless he harms you.”

“Ah! But he has harmed me. He has struck me...Wansfell! don’t leap like that. Listen. Virey will harm me, sooner or later. He is obsessed with his one idea — to see me suffer. That is why he has let you and me wander around together so much. He hoped in his narrow soul to see you come to love me, and me to love you — so through that I should fall again — to suffer more anguish — to offer more meat for his hellish revenge...But, lo! I am uplifted — forever beyond his reach — never to be rent by his fiendish glee...unless you kill him — which would stain my hands with his blood — bring back the doom of soul from which you rescued me!”

“Magdalene, I swear I’ll never kill Virey unless he kills you,” declared Adam, as if forced beyond endurance.

“Ah, I ask no more!” she whispered, in passionate gratitude. “My God! how I feared you — yet somehow gloried in your look!...And now listen, friend, brother — man who should have been my lover — I hurry to my abasement. I kill the she-thing in me and go on to my atonement. I fight the instincts of a woman. I sacrifice a possible paradise, for I am young and life is sweet.”

She circled his head with her arm and drew it against her heaving breast. The throbs of that tortured heart beat, beat, beat all through Adam’s blood, to the core of his body.

“My daughter Ruth was not Virey’s child,” she went on, her voice low, yet clear as a bell. “I was only nineteen — a fool — mad — driven. I thought I was in love, but it was only one of those insane spells that so often ruin women. For years I kept the secret. Then I could not keep it any longer. At the height of Virey’s goodness to me, and his adoration, and his wonderful love for Ruth, I told him the truth. I had to tell it...That killed his soul. He lived only to make me suffer. The sword he held over my head was the threat to tell my secret to Ruth. I could not bear that. A thousand deaths would have been preferable to that...So in the frenzy of our trouble we started west for the desert. My father and Ruth followed us — caught up with us at Sacramento. Virey hated Ruth as passionately as he had loved her. I dared not risk him near her in one of his terrible moods. So I sent Ruth away with my father, somewhere to southern California. She did not know it was parting forever. But, O God in heaven — how I knew it!...Then, in my desperation, I dared Virey to his worst. I had ruined him and I would pay to the last drop of blood in my bitter heart. We came to Death Valley, as I told you, because the terror and desolation seemed to Virey to be as close to a hell on earth as he could find to hide me. Here he began indeed to make me suffer — dirt and vermin and thirst and hunger and pain! Oh! the horror of it all comes back to me!...But even Death Valley cheated him. You came, Wansfell, and now — at last — I believe in God!”

Adam wrapped a long arm around her trembling body and held her close. At last she had confessed her secret. It called to the unplumbed depths of him. And the cry in his heart was for the endless agony of woman. And it was a bitter cry of doubt. If Magdalene Virey had at last found faith in God, it was more than Adam had found, though she called him the instrument of her salvation. A fierce and terrible rage flamed in him for the ruin of her. Like a lion he longed to rise up to slay. Blood and death were the elements that equalised wrong. Yet through his helpless fury whispered a still voice into his consciousness — she had been miserable and now she was at peace; she had been lost and now she was saved. He could not get around that. His desert passion halted there. He must go on alone into the waste places and ponder over the wonder of this woman and what had transformed her. He must remember her soul-moving words and, away somewhere in the solitude and silence, learn if the love she intimated was a terrible truth. It could not be true now, yet the shaking of her slender form communicated itself to his, and there was inward tumult, strange, new, a convulsive birth of a sensation dead these many years — dead since that dusky-eyed Margarita Arallanes had tilted her black head to say, “Ah so long ago and far away!”

Memory surged up in Adam, moving him to speak aloud his own deeply hidden secret, by the revelation of which he might share the shame and remorse and agony of Magdalene Virey.

“I will tell you my story,” he said, and the words were as cruel blades at the closed portals of his heart. Huskily he began, halting often, breathing hard, while the clammy sweat beaded upon his brow. What was this life — these years that deceived with forgetfulness? His trouble was there as keen as on the day it culminated. He told Magdalene of his boyhood, of his love for his brother Guerd, and of their life in the old home where all, even friendships of the girls, was for Guerd and nothing for him. As he progressed Magdalene Virey’s own agony was forgotten. The quiver of her body changed to strung intensity, the heaving of her bosom was no longer the long-drawn breath to relieve oppression. Remorselessly as she had bared her great secret, Adam confessed his little, tawdry, miserable romance — his wild response to the lure of a vain Mexican girl, and his fall, and the words that had disillusioned him.

“Ah, so long ago and far away!” echoed Magdalene Virey, all the richness of her wonderful voice gathering in a might of woman’s fury. “Oh, such a thing for a girl to say!...And Adam — she, this Margarita, was the only woman you ever loved — ever knew that way?”

“Yes.”

“And she was the cause of your ruin?”

“Indeed she was, poor child!”

“The damned hussy!” cried Magdalene, passionately. “And you — only eighteen years old? How I hate her! And what of the man who won her fickle heart?”

Adam bowed as a tree in a storm. “He — he was my brother.”

“Oh no!” she burst out. “The boy you loved — the brother! Oh, it can’t be true!”

“It was true...And, Magdalene — I killed him.”

Then with a gasp she enveloped him, in a fierce, protective frenzy of tenderness, arms around him, pressing his face to her breast, hanging over him as a mother over her child.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! How terrible!...Your brother!...And I thought my secret, my sin, my burden so terrible! Oh, my heart bleeds for you... Wansfell, poor unhappy wanderer!”

CHAPTER XVIII

JULY! AT LAST the endlessly long, increasingly hot June days brought the leaden-hazed month of July, when no sane man ever attempted to cross Death Valley while the sun was high.

In all hours, even in the darkness, the bold, rugged slopes of the Panamints reflected sinister shades of red. And the valley was one of grey swirling shadows and waving veils of heat like transparent smoke. Beyond that vast, strange, dim valley rose the drab and ochre slopes of the Funeral Mountains, sweeping up to the bronze battlements and on to the lilac and purple peaks blurred in the leaden-hued haze that obscured the sky. The sun was sky-broad, an illimitable flare, with a lurid white heart into which no man could look.

Adam was compelled to curtail his activities. He did not suffer greatly from the heat, but he felt its weakening power. Ever his blood seemed at fever heat. Early in the mornings and late in the evenings he prepared simple meals, which, as the days dragged on, were less and ever less partaken of by his companions and himself. During the midday hours, through the terrible heat, he lay in the shade, sweltering and oppressed, in a stupor of sleep. The nights were the only relief from the immense and merciless glare, the bearing down of invisible bars of red-hot iron. Most of these long hours of darkness Adam lay awake or walked in the gloom or sat in the awful stillness, waiting for he knew not what. But that he waited for something he knew with augmenting dread.

When the full blast of this summer heat came, Virey changed physically and mentally. He grew thin. He walked with bowed shoulders. His tongue protruded slightly and he always panted. Every day he ate less and slept less than on the day before. He obeyed no demands from Adam and took no precautions. His sufferings would have been less and his strength would have been greater had he refrained from exposing himself to the sun. But he revelled in proofs of the nature of Death Valley.

And if Virey had ever worn a mask in front of Adam he now dropped it. Indeed he ignored Adam, no longer with scorn or indifference, but as if unaware of his presence. Whenever Adam wanted to be heard by Virey, which desire diminished daily, he had to block his path, confront him forcefully. Virey was given over wholly to his obsession. His hate possessed him body and soul. And if it had ever been a primitive hate to destroy, it had been restrained, and therefore rendered infinitely cruel, by the slow, measured process of thought, of premeditation.

Often when Adam absented himself from camp, Virey had a trick of climbing the weathered slope to roll down rocks. He seemed mad to do this. Yet when Adam returned he would come clambering down, wet and spent, a haggard sweating wretch not yet quite beyond fear. In vain had Adam argued, pleaded, talked with him; in vain had been the strident scorn of a man and the curses of rage. Virey, however, had a dread of Adam’s huge hands. Something about them fascinated him. When one of these, clenched in an enormous fist, was shoved under his nose with a last threat, then Virey would retire sullenly to the shack. In every way that was possible he kept before Magdalene Virey the spectacle of his ruin and the consciousness that it was her doing. These midsummer days soon made him a gaunt, unshaven, hollow-eyed wretch. Miserable and unkempt he presented himself at meals, and sat there, a haggard ghost, to mouth a little food and to stare at his wife with accusing eyes. He reminded her of cool, shaded rooms, of exquisite linen and china, of dainty morsels, of carved-glass pitchers full of refreshing drink and clinking ice. Always he kept before her the heat, the squalour, the dirt, the horror of Death Valley. When he could present himself before her with his thin, torn garments clinging wet to his emaciated body, his nerves gone from useless exertions, his hands bloody and shaking as if with palsy, his tongue hanging out — when he could surprise her thus and see her shrink, then he experienced rapture. He seemed to cry out: Woman! behold the wreck of Virey!

But if that was rapture for him, to gloat over the doom of her seemed his glory. Day by day Death Valley wrought by invisible lines and shades a havoc in Magdalene Virey’s beauty. To look at her was to have striking proof that Death Valley had never been intended for a woman, no matter how magnificent her spirit. The only spirit that could prevail here was the one which had lost its earthly habiliments. Like a cat playing with a mouse, Virey watched his wife. Like Mephistopheles gloating over the soul of a lost woman, Virey attended to the slow manifestations of his wife’s failing strength. He meant to squeeze every drop of blood out of her heart and still keep, if possible, life lingering in her. His most terrible bitterness seemed to consist of his failure to hide her utterly and forever from the gaze of any man save himself. Here he had hidden her in the most desolate place in the world, yet another man had come, and, like all the others, had been ready to lay down his life for her. Virey writhed under this circumstance over which he had no control. It was really the only truth about the whole situation that he was able to grasp. The terrible tragedy of his hate was that it was not hate, but love. Like a cannibal, he would have eaten his wife raw, not from hunger, but from his passion to consume her, incorporate her heart and blood and flesh into his, make her body his forever. Thought of her soul, her mind, her spirit, never occurred to Virey. So he never realised how she escaped him, never understood her mocking scorn.

But through his thick and heat-hazed brain there must have pierced some divination of his failing power to torture her. The time came when he ceased to confront her like a scarecrow, he ceased accusing her, he ceased to hold before her the past and its contrast to the present, he gave up his refinement of cruelty. This marked in Virey a further change, a greater abasement. He reverted to instinct. He retrograded to a savage in his hate, and that hate found its outlet altogether in primitive ways.

Adam’s keen eye saw all this, and the slow boil in his blood was not all owing to the torrid heat of Death Valley. His great hands, so efficient and ruthless, seemed fettered. A thousand times he had muttered to the silence of the night, to the solemn, hazed daylight, to the rocks that had souls, and to the invisible presence ever beside him: “How long must I stand this? How long — how long?”

One afternoon as he awoke late from the sweltering siesta he heard Mrs. Virey scream. The cry startled him, because she had never done that before. He ran.

Adam found her lying at the foot of the stone bench in a dead faint. The brown had left her skin. How white the wasted face! What dark shadows under the hollow eyes! His heart smote him remorselessly.

As he knelt and was about to lift her head he espied a huge, hairy spider crawling out of the folds of her grey gown. It was a tarantula, one of the ugliest of the species. Adam flipped it off with his hand and killed it under his boot.

Then with basin of water and wetted scarf he essayed to bring Mrs. Virey back to consciousness. She did not come to quickly, but at last she stirred, and opened her eyes with a flutter. She seemed to be awakening from a nightmare of fear, loathing, and horror. For that instant her sight did not take in Adam, but was a dark, humid, dilated vision of memory.

“Magdalene, I killed the tarantula,” said he. “It can’t harm you now...Wake up! Why, you’re stiff and you look like — like I don’t know what!...You fainted and I’ve had a time bringing you to.”

“Oh!” she cried. “It’s you.” And then she clung to him while he lifted her, steadying her upon her feet, and placed her on the stone bench. “So I fainted?...Ugh! That loathsome spider! Where is it?”

“I covered it with sand,” he replied.

“Would it have — bitten me?”

“No. Not unless you grasped it.”

Slowly she recovered and, letting go of him, leaned back in the seat. Crystal beads of sweat stood out upon her white brow. Her hair was wet. Her sensitive lips quivered.

“I’ve a perfect horror of mice, bugs, snakes, spiders — anything that crawls,” she said. “I can’t restrain it. I inherited it from my mother...And what has mind got to do with most of a woman’s feelings? Virey has finally found that out.”

“Virey!...What do you mean?” rejoined Adam.

“I was leaning back here on the bench when suddenly I heard Virey slipping up behind me. I knew he was up to something. But I wouldn’t turn to see what. Then with two sticks he held the tarantula out over me — almost in my face. I screamed. I seemed to freeze inside. He dropped the tarantula in my lap...Then all went black.”

“Where — is he now?” asked Adam, finding it difficult to speak.

“He’s in the shack.”

Adam made a giant stride in that direction, only to be caught and detained by her clinging hands. Earnestly she gazed up at him, with melancholy, searching eyes.

He uttered a loud laugh, mirthless, a mere explosion of surcharged breath. “No!...I can’t get angry. I can’t be a man any more. This Death Valley and the sun — and you — have worked on my mind...But I’ll tell you what — nothing can stop me from beating Virey — so he’ll never do that again.”

“Ah I...So I’ve worked on your mind? Then it’s the only great deed I ever did...Wansfell, I told you Virey has threatened to shoot you. He’s meant to more than once, but when you have come he has been afraid. But he might.”

“I wish to heaven he’d try it,” responded Adam, and, loosing the woman’s hold upon his hands, he strode toward the shack.

“Virey, come out!” he called, loudly, though without any particular feeling. There was no reply, and he repeated the call, this time louder. Still Virey remained silent. Waiting a moment longer, Adam finally spoke again, with deliberate, cold voice. “Virey, I don’t want to mess up that room with all your wife’s belongings in there. So come outside.”

At that Adam heard a quick, panting breath. Then Virey appeared — came to the door of the shack. Adam could not have told what the man’s distorted face resembled. He carried a gun, and his heart was ferocious if his will was weak.

“Don’t you — lay one of your — bloody hands on me,” he panted.

Adam took two long strides and halted before Virey, not six feet distant.

“So you’ve got your little gun, eh?” he queried, without any particular force. Adam had been compelled to smother all that mighty passion within him, or he could not have answered for his actions. “What are you going to do with it?”

“If you make a — move at me — I’ll kill you,” came the husky, panting response.

“Virey, I’m going to beat you within an inch of your worthless life,” declared Adam, monotonously, as if he had learned this speech by rote. “But I’ve got to talk first. I’m full of a million things to call you.”

“Damn you, I’ll not listen,” replied Virey, beginning to shake with excitement. The idea of using the gun had become an intent and was acting powerfully upon him. “You leave my — camp — you get out — of this valley!”

“Virey, are you crazy?” queried Adam. The use of his voice had changed that deadlock of his feelings. He must not trust himself to bandy speech with Virey. The beating must be administered quickly or there would be something worse. Yet how desperately hard not to try to awaken conscience or sense in this man!

“No, I’m not crazy,” yelled Virey.

“If you’re not crazy, then that trick of throwing a tarantula on your wife was damnable — mean — hellish — monstrous...My God! man, can’t you see what a coward you are? To torture her — as if you were a heathen! That delicate woman — all quivering nerves! To pick on a weakness, like that of a child! Virey, if you’re not crazy you’re the worst brute I’ve ever met on the desert. You’ve sunk lower than men whom the desert has made beasts. You—”

“Beast I am — thanks to my delicate wife,” cried Virey, with exceeding bitter passion. “Delicate? Ha-ha! The last lover of Magdalene Virey can’t see she’s strong as steel — alive as red fire! How she clings to memory! How she has nine lives of a cat — and hangs on to them — just to remember!...And you — meddler! You desert rat of a preacher. Get out — or I’ll kill you!”

“Shoot and be damned!” flashed Adam, as with leap as swift as his voice he reached a sweeping arm.

Virey’s face turned ashen. He raised the gun. Adam knocked it up just as it exploded. The powder burned his forehead, but the bullet sped high. Another blow sent the gun flying to the sand. Then Adam, fastening a powerful grip on Virey, clutching shirt and collar and throat at once, dragged him before the stone bench where Mrs. Virey sat, wide-eyed and pale. Here Adam tripped the man and threw him heavily upon the sand. Before he could rise Adam straddled him, bearing him down. Then Adam’s big right hand swept and dug in the sand to uncover the dead tarantula.

“Ah! here’s your spider!” he shouted. And he rubbed the hairy, half-crushed tarantula in Virey’s face. The man screamed and wrestled. “Good! you open your mouth. Now we’ll see...Eat it — eat it, damn your cowardly soul!” Then Adam essayed to thrust the spider between Virey’s open lips. He succeeded only partly. Virey let out a strangling, spitting yell, then closed his teeth as a vice. Adam smeared what was left of the crushed tarantula all over Virey’s face.

“Now get up,” he ordered, and, rising himself, he kicked Virey. Adam, in the liberation of his emotions by action, was now safe from himself. He would not kill Virey. He could even hold in his enormous strength. He could even think of the joy of violence that was rioting inside him, of the ruthless fierceness with which he could have rent this man limb from limb.

Virey, hissing and panting in a frenzy, scrambled to his feet. Fight was in him now. He leaped at Adam, only to meet a blow that laid him on the sand. It had not stunned him. Up he sprang, bloody, livid, and was at Adam again. His frenzy lent him strength and in that moment he had no fear of man or devil. The desert rage was on him. He swung his fists, beat wildly at Adam, tore and clawed. Adam slapped him with great broad hands that clapped like boards, and then, when Virey lunged close, he closed his fist and smashed it into Virey’s face. The man of the cities went ploughing in the sand. Then on his hands and knees he crawled like a dog, and, finding a stone, he jumped up to fling it. Adam dodged the missile. Wildly Virey clutched for more, throwing one after another. Adam caught one and threw it back, to crack hard on his opponent’s shin. Virey yelled no more. His rage took complete possession of him. Grasping up a large rock, he held it as a mace and rushed upon Adam to brain him. That action and intent to kill was the only big response he had made to this wild environment. He beat at Adam. He lunged up to meet his foe’s lofty head. He had no fear. But he was mad. No dawning came to him that he was being toyed with. Strong and furious at the moment, he might have succeeded in killing a lesser man. But before Adam he was powerless to do murder. Then the time came when Adam knocked the rock out of his hand and began to beat him, blow on blow to face and body, with violence, but with checked strength, so that Virey staggered here and there, upheld by fists. At last, whipped out of rage and power to retaliate, Virey fell to the sands. Adam dragged him into the shack and left him prostrate and moaning, an abject beaten wretch who realised his condition.

Most difficult of all for Adam then was to face Mrs. Virey. Yet the instant he did he realised that his ignorance of women was infinite.

“Did the bullet — when he fired — did it hit you?” she queried, her large eyes, intense and glowing, wonderfully dark with emotion, flashing over him.

“No — it missed — me,” panted Adam, as with heavy breath he sank upon the stone bench.

“I picked up the gun. I was afraid he’d find it. You’d better keep it now,” she said, and slipped it into his pocket.

“What a — dis — gusting — sight for you — to have — to watch!” exclaimed Adam, trying to speak and breathe at once.

“It was frightful — terrible at first,” she returned. “But after the gun went flying — and you had stopped trying to make him eat the — the spider — ugh! how sickening I...After that it got to be — well, Wansfell, it was the first time in the years I’ve known my husband that I respected him. He meant to kill you. It amazed me. I admired him...And as for you — to see you tower over him — and parry his blows — and hit him when you liked — and knock him and drag him — oh, that roused a terrible something in me! I never felt so before in my whole life. I was some other woman. I watched the blood flow, I heard the thuds and heavy breaths, I actually smelled the heat of you, I was so close — and it all inflamed me, made me strung with savage excitement — I had almost said joy...God knows, Wansfell, we have hidden natures within our breasts.”

“If only it’s a lesson to him!” sighed Adam.

“Then it were well done,” she replied, “but I doubt — I doubt. Virey is hopeless. Let us forget...And now will you please help me search in the sand here for something I dropped. It fell from my lap when I fainted, I suppose. It’s a small ivory case with a miniature I think all the world of. Last and best of my treasures!”

Adam raked in the sand along the base of the bench, and presently found the lost treasure. How passionately, with what eloquent cry of rapture, did she clutch it!

“Look!” she exclaimed, with wonderful thrill in her voice, and held the little case open before Adam’s eyes.

He saw a miniature painting of a girl’s face, oval, pure as a flower, with beautiful curls of dark bronze, and magnificent eyes. In these last Adam recognised the mother of this girl. The look of them, the pride and fire, if not the colour, were the same as Magdalene Virey’s.

“A sweet and lovely face,” said Adam.

“Ruth!” she whispered. “My daughter — my only child — my baby that I abandoned to save her happiness!...Oh, mockery of life that I was given such a heart to love — that I was given such a perfect child!”

The midsummer midnight furnace winds began to blow.

They did not blow every night or many nights consecutively; otherwise all life in the valley would soon have become extinct. Adam found the hot winds heretofore, that he had imagined were those for which the valley was famed, were really comfortable compared with these terrible furnace blasts. In trying to understand their nature, Adam concluded they were caused by a displacement of higher currents of cool air. Sometime during the middle of the night there began a downward current of cool air from the mountain heights; and this caused a disturbance of the vast area of hot air in the burning valley below sea level. The tremendous pressure drove the hot air to find an outlet so it could rise to let the cool air down, and thus there came gusts and gales of furnace winds, rushing down the valley, roaring up the canyons.

The camp of the Vireys, almost in the centre of one of these outlets and scarcely a quarter of a mile from the main valley, lay open to the full fury of these winds.

The first of August was a hazy, blistering day in which the valley smoked. Veils of transparent black heat — shrouds of moving white transparent heat! The mountains’ tops were invisible, as if obscured in thin, leaden-hued fog; their bases showed dull, sinister red through the haze. Nothing moved except the strange veils and the terrible heaven-wide sun that seemed to have burst. It was a day when, if a man touched an unshaded stone with his naked hand, he would be burned as by a hot iron. A solemn, silent, sulphurous, smoky, deadly day, inimical to life!

But at last the sunset of red hell ended that day and merciful darkness intervened. The fore part of the night was hot, yet endurable, and a relief compared to the sunlit hours. Adam marked, however, or imagined, a singular, ominous, reddish hue of the dim stars, a vast still veil between him and the sky, a waiting hush. He walked out into the open, peering through the dimness, trying to comprehend. The colour of the stars and heavens, and of the dull black slopes, and of the night itself, seemed that of a world burned out. Immense, dim, mysterious, empty, desolate! Had this Death Valley finally unhinged his mind? But he convinced himself that it was normal. The unreality, the terror, the forbidding hush of all the elements, the imminence of catastrophe — these were all actually present. Anything could happen here. Exaggeration of sense was impossible. This Death Valley was only a niche of the universe and the universe only a part of the infinite. He felt his intelligence and emotion, and at the same time the conviction that only a step away was death. The old wonder arose — was death the end? Not possible! Yet the cruelty, the impassivity of nature, letting the iron consequences fall — this seemed to crush him. For the sake of a woman who suffered agony of body and mind, Adam was at war with nature and the spirit of creation. Why? The eternal query had no answer. It never would be answered.

As the hours wore away the air grew hotter, denser. Like a blanket it seemed to lie heavily on Adam. It was the hottest, stillest, most oppressive, strangest night of all his desert experience. Sleep was impossible. Rest was impossible. Inaction was impossible. Every breath seemed impossible of fulfilment. A pressure constricted Adam’s lungs. The slow, gentle walk that he drove himself to take, which it was impossible to keep from taking, brought out a hot flood of sweat on his body, and the drops burned as they trickled down his flesh.

“If the winds blow to-night!” he muttered, in irresistible dread.

Something told him they would blow. To-night they would blow harder and hotter than ever before. The day of leaden fire had promised that. Nature had her midnight change to make in the elements. Time would not stand still. The universe prevailed on its inscrutable course; the planets burned; the suns blazed upon their earths; and this ball of rock on which Adam clung, groaning with the other pygmies of his kind, whirled and hurtled through space, now dark and then light, now hot and then cold slave to a blazing master ninety million miles away. It was all so inconceivable, inscrutable, unbelievable.

There came a movement of air fanning his cheek, emphasising the warmth. He smelled anew the dry alkali dust, the smoky odour, almost like brimstone. The hour was near midnight and the death-like silence brooded no more. A low moan, as of a lost soul, moved somewhere on the still air. Weird, dismal, uncanny, it fitted the spectral shadows and shapes around him, and the night with its mystery. No human sound, though it resembled the mourn of humanity! A puff of hot wind struck Adam in the face, rushed by, rustling the dead and withered brush, passed on to lull and die away. It seemed to leave a slow movement in the still air, a soft, restless, uneasy shifting, as of an immense volume becoming unsettled, Adam knew. Behind that sudden birth of life the dead air pressed the furious blasts of hell — the midnight furnace wind of Death Valley.

Adam listened. How strange, low, sad the moan! His keen ears, attuned to all varieties of desert sound, seemed to fill and expand. The moan swelled to a low roar, lulling now, then rising. Like no sound he had ever heard before, it had strange affinity with the abyss of shadows. Suddenly the air around Adam began a steady movement northward. Its density increased, or else the movement, or pressure behind, made it appear so. And it grew swift, until it rustled the brush. Down in the valley the roar swelled like the movement of a mighty storm through a forest. When the gale reached the gateway below Adam it gave a hollow bellow.

The last of the warm, still air was pressed beyond Adam, apparently leaving a vacuum, for there did not appear to be air enough to breathe. The roar of wind sounded still quite distant, though now loud. Then the hot blast struck Adam — a burning, withering wind. It was as if he had suddenly faced an open furnace from which flames and sparks leaped out upon him. That he could breathe, that he lived a moment, seemed a marvel. Wind and roar filled the wide space between the slopes and rushed on, carrying sand and dust and even shadows with it. That blast softened in volume and had almost died away when another whooped up through the gateway, louder and stronger and hotter than its predecessor. It blew down Adam’s sun shelter of brush and carried the branches rustling away. Then stormed contending tides of winds until, what with burning blasts and whirling dust devils and air thick with powdered salt and alkali, life became indeed a torment for Adam, man of the desert as he was.

In the face of these furnace winds, tenacity of life had new meaning for Adam. The struggle to breathe was the struggle of a dying man to live. But Adam found that he could survive. It took labour, greater even than toiling through a sandstorm, or across a sun-scorched waste to a distant water hole. And it was involuntary labour. His great lungs were not a bellows for him to open when he chose. They were compelled to work. But the process, in addition to the burn and sting, the incessant thirst, the dust-laden air, the hot skull-bone like an iron lid that must fly off, and the strange, dim, red starlight, the sombre red varying shadow, the weird rush and roar and lull — all these created heroic fortitude if a man was to endure. Adam understood why no human being could long exist in Death Valley.

“She will not live through the night,” muttered Adam, “But if she does, I think I’ll take her away.”

While in the unearthly starlit gloom, so dimly red, Adam slowly plodded across to the Virey camp, that idea grew in his mind. It had augmented before this hour, only to faint at the strength of her spirit, but to-night was different. It marked a climax. If Magdalene Virey showed any weakening, any change of spirit, Adam knew he would have reached the end of his endurance.

She would be lying or sitting on the stone bench. It was not possible to breathe inside the shack. Terrible as were the furnace winds, they had to be breasted — they had to be fought for the very air of life. She had not the strength to walk up and down, to and fro, through those endless hours.

Adam’s keen eyes, peering through the red-tinged obscurity, made out the dark shape of Virey staggering along back and forth like an old man driven and bewildered, hounded by the death he feared. The sight gave Adam a moment of fierce satisfaction. Strong as was the influence of Magdalene Virey, it could not keep down hate for this selfish and fallen man. Selfish beyond all other frailty of human nature! The narrow mind obsessed with self — the I and me and mine — the miserable littleness that could not forgive, that could not understand! Adam had pity even in his hate.

He found the woman on the bench, lying prone, a white, limp, fragile shape, motionless as stone. Sitting down, he bent over to look into her face. Her unfathomable eyes, wide and dark and strained, stirred his heart as never before. They were eyes to which sleep was a stranger — haunted eyes, like the strange midnight at which they gazed out, supernaturally bright, mirroring the dim stars, beautiful as the waking dreams never to come true — eyes of melancholy, of unutterable passion, of deathless spirit. They were the eyes of woman and of love.

Adam took her wasted hand and held it while waiting for the wind to lull so that she could hear him speak. At length the hot blast moved on, like the receding of a fire.

“Magdalene, I can’t stand this any longer,” he said.

“You mean — these winds — of hell?” she panted, in a whisper.

“No. I mean your suffering. I might have stood your spiritual ordeal. Your remorse — your agony of loss of the daughter Ruth — your brave spirit defying Virey’s hate...But I can’t stand your physical torment. You’re wasting away. You’re withering — burning up. This hand is hot as fire — and dry as a leaf. You must drink more water...Magdalene, lift your head.”

“I — cannot,” she whispered, with wan smile. “No — strength left.”

Adam lifted her head and gave her water to drink. Then as he laid her back another blast of wind came roaring through the strange opaque night. How it moaned and wailed around the huge boulders and through the brush! It was a dance of wind fiends, hounding the lost spirits of this valley of horrors. Adam felt the slow, tight tide of his blood called stingingly to his skin and his extremities, and there it burned. It was not only his heart and his lungs that were oppressed, but the very life of his body seemed to be pressing to escape through the pores of his skin — pressed from inward by the terrible struggle to survive and pressed back from outside by the tremendous blast of wind! The wind roared by and lulled to a moan. The wave of invisible fire passed on. Out there in the dim starlight Virey staggered back and forth under the too great burden of his fate. He made no sound. He was a spectre. Beyond the grey level of gloom with its strange shadows rose the immense slope of loose stones, all shining with dim, pale-red glow, all seemingly alive, waiting for the slide of the avalanche. And on the instant a rock cracked with faint ring, rolled with little hollow reports, mockingly, full of terrible and latent power. It had ominous answer in a slight jar of the earth under Adam’s feet, perhaps an earthquake settling of the crust, and then the whole vast slope moved with a low, grating sound, neither roar nor crash, nor rattle. The avalanche had slipped a foot. Adam could have pealed out a cry of dread for this woman. What a ghastly fantasy the struggle for life in Death Valley! What mockery of wind and desert and avalanche!

“Wansfell — listen,” whispered the woman. “Do you hear — it passing on?”

“Yes,” replied Adam, bending lower to see her eyes. Did she mean that the roar of wind was dying away?

“The stormy blast of hell — with restless fury — drives the spirits onward!” she said, her voice rising.

“I know — I understand. But you mustn’t speak such thoughts. You must not give up to the wandering of your mind. You must fight,” implored Adam.

“My friend — the fight is over — the victory is mine...I shall escape Virey. He possessed my body — poor weak thing of flesh!...but he wanted my love — my soul...My soul to kill! He’ll never have either...Wansfell, I’ll not live — through the night...I am dying now.”

“No — no!” cried Adam, huskily. “You only imagine that. It’s only the oppression of these winds — and the terror of the night — this awful, unearthly valley of death. You’ll live. The winds will wear out soon. If only you fight you’ll live...And to-morrow — Magdalene, so help me God — I’ll take you away!”

He expected the inflexible and magnetic opposition of her will, the resistless power of her spirit to uplift and transform. And this time he was adamant. At last the desert force within him had arisen above all spiritual obstacles. The thing that called was life — life as it had been in the beginning of time. But no mockery or eloquence of refusal was forthcoming from Magdalene Virey. Instead, she placed the little ivory case, containing the miniature painting of her daughter Ruth, in Adam’s hand and softly pressed it there.

“But — if I should die — I want you to have this picture of Ruth,” she said. “I’ve had to hide it from Virey — to gaze upon it in his absence. Take it, my friend, and keep it, and look at it until it draws you to her...Wansfell, I’ll not bewilder you by mystic prophecies. But I tell you solemnly — with the clairvoyant truth given to a woman who feels the presence of death — that my daughter Ruth will cross your wanderer’s trail — come into your life — and love you...Remember what I tell you. I see!...You are a young man still. She is a budding girl. You two will meet, perhaps in your own wastelands. Ruth is all of me — magnified a thousand times. More — she is as lovely as an unfolding rose at dawn. She will be a white, living flame...It will be as if I had met you long ago — when I was a girl — and gave you what by the nature of life was yours...Wansfell, you wakened my heart — saved my soul — taught me peace...I wonder how you did it. You were just a man...There’s a falseness of life — the scales fell from my eyes one by one. It is the heart, the flesh, the bursting stream of red blood that count with nature. All this strife, this travail, makes toward a perfection never to be attained. But effort and pain, agony of flesh, and victory over mind make strength, virility...Nature loves barbarian women who nurse their children. I — with all my love — could not nurse my baby Ruth. It’s a mystery no longer. Death Valley and a primitive man have opened my eyes. Nature did not intend people to live in cities, but in forests, as lived the Aryans of India, or like the savages of Brazilian jungles. Like the desert beasts, self-sufficient, bringing forth few of their kind, but better, stronger species. The weak perish. So should the weak among men...Ah! hear the roar! Another wind of death!...But I’ve said all...Wansfell, go find Ruth — find me in her — and — remember!”

The rich voice, growing faint at the last, failed as another furnace blast came swooping up with its dust and heat. Adam bowed his head and endured. It passed and another came. The woman lay with closed eyes and limp body and nerveless hands. Hours passed and the terrible winds subsided. The shadow of a man that was Virey swaying to and fro, like a drunken spectre, vanished in the shack. The woman slept. Adam watched by her side till dawn, and when the grey light came he could no more have been changed than could the night have been recalled. He would find the burros and pack them and saddle one for Magdalene Virey to ride; he would start to climb out of Death Valley and when another night fell he would have her safe on the cool mountain heights. If Virey tried to prevent this, it would mean the terrible end he merited. Adam gazed down upon the sleeping woman. How transparent, how frail a creature! She mystified Adam. She represented the creative force in life. She possessed that unintelligible and fatal thing in nature — the greatest, the most irresistible, the purest expression of truth, of what nature strove so desperately for — and it was beauty. Her youth, her error, her mocking acceptance of life, her magnificent spirit, her mother longing, her agony and her physical pangs, her awakening and repentance and victory — all were written on the pale face and with the indestructible charm of line and curve and classic feature constituted its infinite loveliness. She was a sleeping woman, yet she was close to the angels.

Adam looked from her to the ivory case in his hand.

“Her daughter Ruth — for me!” he said, wonderingly. “How strange if we met! If — if — But that’s impossible. She was wandering in mind.”

He carried the little case to his camp, searched in his pack for an old silk scarf, and, tearing this, he carefully wrapped the gift and deposited it inside the leather money belt he wore hidden round his waist.

“Now to get ready to leave Death Valley!” he exclaimed, in grim exultance.

Adam’s burros seldom strayed far from camp. This morning, however, he did not find them near the spring nor down in the notches of the mountain wall. So he bent his steps in the other direction. At last, round a corner of slope, out of sight of camp, he espied them, and soon had them trotting ahead of him.

He had traversed probably half the distance he had come when the burro Jinny halted to shoot up her long ears. Something moving had attracted her attention, but Adam could not see it. He drove her on. Again she stopped. Adam could now see the shack, and as he peered sharply there seemed to cross his vision a bounding grey object. He rubbed his eyes and muttered. Perhaps the heat had affected his sight. Then between him and the shack flashed a rough object, grey-white in colour, and it had the bounding motion of a jack-rabbit. But it could not have been a rabbit because it was too large, and, besides, there were none in the valley. A wild cat, perhaps? Adam urged Jinny on, and it struck him that she was acting queerly. This burro never grew contrary without cause. When she squealed and sheered off to one side Adam knew something was amiss. That vague shock returned to his consciousness, stronger, more certain and bewildering. Halting so as to hear better, he held his breath and listened. Crack and roll of rock — slow sliding rattle — crack! The mystery of the bounding grey objects was solved. Virey had again taken to rolling rocks down the slope.

Adam broke into a run. He was quite a distance from the shack, though now he could see it plainly. No person was in sight. More than once, as he looked, he saw rocks bound high above the brush and fall to puff up dust. Virey was industrious this morning, making up for lost time, taking sure advantage of Adam’s absence. Adam ran faster. He reached a point opposite the fanlike edge of the great slant of loose stones, and here he seemed to get into a zone of concatenated sounds. The wind, created by his run, filled his ears. And his sight, too, seemed not to be trusted. Did it not magnify a bounding rock and puff of dust into many rocks and puffs? Streaks were running low down in the brush raising little dusty streams. He saw clumps of brush shake and bend. If something queer, such as had affected Jinny, did not possess his sight and mind, then it surely possessed Death Valley. For something was wrong.

Suddenly Adam’s ears were deafened by a splitting shock. He plunged in his giant stride, slowed and halted. He heard the last of a sliding roar. The avalanche had slipped. But it had stopped. Bounding rocks hurtled in front of Adam, behind him, the puffs and streaks of dust were everywhere. He heard the whiz and thud of a rolling rock passing close behind him. As he gazed a large stone bounded from the ground and seemed to pass right through the shack. The shack collapsed. Adam’s heart leaped to his throat. He was riveted to the spot. Then, mercifully it seemed, a white form glided out from the sun shelter. It was the woman, still unharmed. The sight unclamped Adam’s voice and muscle.

“Go across! Hurry!” yelled Adam, with all the power of his lungs. He measured the distance between him and her. Two hundred yards! Rocks were hurtling and pounding across that space.

The woman heard him. She waved her white hand and it seemed she was waving him back out of peril. Then she pointed up the slope. Adam wheeled. What a thrilling sight! Rocks were streaking down, hurtling into the air, falling to crack powder from other rocks, that likewise were set in motion. Far up the long grey slope, with its million facets of stones shining in the sunlight, appeared Virey, working frantically. No longer did he seek to frighten his wife. He meant to kill her. His insane genius had read the secret of the slope, and in an instant he would have the avalanche in motion. The cracking clamour increased. Adam opened his lips to yell a terrible threat up at Virey, but a whizzing boulder, large as a bucket, flashing within a foot of his head, awakened him to his own peril. He saw other rocks bounding down in line with him, and, changing his position, stepping, leaping, dodging, he managed to evade them. He had no fear for himself, but terror for the woman, and for Virey deadly rage possessed his heart.

Then a piercing split, as of rocks rent asunder, a rattling crash, and the lower half of the great grey slope was in motion. The avalanche! Adam leaped at the startling sound, and, bounding a few yards to a huge boulder, high as his head and higher, he mounted it. There, unmindful of himself, he wheeled to look for Magdalene Virey. Too late to reach her! She faced that avalanche, arms spread aloft, every line of her body instinct with the magnificent spirit which had been her doom.

“Run! Run! Run!” shrieked Adam, wildly.

Lost was his piercing shriek in the swallowing, gathering might of the crashing roar of the avalanche. A pall of dust, a grey tumbling mass, moved down ponderously, majestically, to hide from Adam’s sight the white form of Magdalene Virey. It spread to where Adam stood, enveloped him, and then, in boom and thunder and crash as of falling worlds, the boulder was lifted and carried along with the avalanche.

CHAPTER XIX

ADAM WAS THROWN prostrate. In the thick, smothering dust he all but lost his senses. Adam felt what seemed a stream of stones rolling over his feet. The thundering, deafening roar rolled on, spread and thinned to a rattling crash, deadened and ceased. Then from the hollows of the hills boomed a mighty echo, a lifting and throwing of measureless sound, that thumped from battlement to battlement and rumbled away like muttering thunder.

The silence then was terrible by contrast. As horror relaxed its grim clutch Adam began to realise that miraculously he had been spared. In the hot, dusty pall he fought for breath like a drowning man. The heavy dust settled and the lighter drifted away.

Adam clambered to his feet. The huge boulder that had been his ship of safety appeared to be surrounded by a sea of small rocks, level with where he stood. The avalanche had spread a deep layer of rocks all over and beyond the space adjacent to the camp. Not a vestige of the shack remained. Magdalene Virey had been buried forever beneath a mass of stone. Adam’s great frame shuddered with the convulsions of his emotion. He bent and bowed under the inevitable. “Oh, too late! too late!...Yet I knew all the time!” was the mournful cry he sent out into the silence. Dazed, sick, horror-stricken, he bowed there above Magdalene Virey’s sepulchre and salt tears burned his eyes and splashed down upon the dusty stones. He suffered, dully at first, and then acutely, as his stunned consciousness began to recover. Tragic this situation had been from the beginning, and it could have had but one end.

Suddenly he remembered Virey. The thought transformed him.

“He must have slid with the avalanche,” muttered Adam. “Buried under here somewhere. One sepulchre for him and wife!...So he wanted it — alive or dead!”

The lower part of the great slope was now solid rock, dusty and earthy in places, in others the grey colour of live granite. It led his eye upward, half a mile, to the wide, riblike ridge that marked the lower margin of another slope of weathered rocks. It shone in the hot sunlight. Dark veils of heat rose, resembling smoke against the sky. The very air seemed trembling, and over that mountain-side hovered the shadow of catastrophe.

A moving white object caught Adam’s roving sight. His desert eyes magnified that white object. A man! He was toiling over the loose stones.

“Virey!” burst out Adam, and with the explosion of the word all of the desert stormed in him, and his nature was no different from the cataclysm that had shorn and scarred the slope.

Like a wide-lunged primordial giant, Adam lifted his roar of rage toward the heights — a yell that clapped fierce echoes from the cliffs. Virey heard. He began to clamber faster over the rocks and sheered off toward the right, where, under the beetling, steep slopes, every rod was more fraught with peril.

Adam bounded like a huge soft-footed cat over and up the hummocky spread of the avalanche. Virey’s only avenue of escape lay upward and to the left. Once Adam cut him off there, he was in a trap.

To the right over the ridge small stones began to show rolling and bouncing, then shooting like bullets off the bare slant below. Virey was out of Adam’s sight now, but evidently still headed in the fatal direction. Like a mountain sheep, surest-footed of beasts, Adam bounded from loose rock to sharp corner across the wide holes, on and upward.

Another low, vast slope spread out and sheered gradually up before him, breaking its uniformity far to the right, and waving gracefully to steep slants of loose rock perilous to behold. Adam heard the faint cracking of stones. He hurried on, working away from the left, until he was climbing straight toward the splintered, toppling mass of mountain peak, a mile above him. All now, in every direction, was broken rock, round, sharp, flat, octagonal, every shape, but mostly round, showing how in the process of ages the rolling and grinding had worn off the edges. Here the heat smoked up. When Adam laid a hurried hand on a stone he did not leave it there long.

At length he again espied Virey, far to the right and half a mile farther up, climbing like a weary beast on hands and feet. By choice or by mistake he had gone upward to the most hazardous zone of all that treacherous, unstable mountain-side. Even now the little dusty slides rolled from under him. Adam strode on. He made short cuts. He avoided the looser slides. He zigzagged the steeper places. He would attend to safe stepping stones for a few rods, then halt to lift his gaze toward that white-shirted man toiling up like a crippled ape. The mountain slope, though huge and wide under the glaring sun, seemed to lose something of its openness. The red battlements and ramparts of the heights were frowning down upon it, casting a shadow of menace, if not of shade. The terrible forces of nature became manifest. Here the thunderbolts boomed and the storms battled, and in past ages the earthquake and volcanic fire had fretted the once noble peak. It was ruined. It had disintegrated. Ready to spread its million cracks and crumble, it lowered gloomily.

Red, sinister, bare, ghastly, this smoky slope under the pitiless sun was a fitting place for Wansfell to get his hands on Virey — murderer of a woman. Adam thought of it that way because he remembered how Virey had been fascinated at the story of Baldy McKue. But mostly Adam’s mind worked like the cunning instinct of a wolf to circumvent its prey. Thoughts were but flashes. The red tinge in Adam’s sight did not all come from the colour of the rock. And it was when he halted to look or rest that he thought at all.

But the time came when he halted for more than that. Placing his hands around his mouth, he expanded his deep lungs and burst into trumpet-like yell:

“VIREY!” The fugitive heard, turned from his toiling, slid to a seat on the precarious slope, and waited. “I’LL BREAK YOUR BONES!”

A wild cry pealed down to ring in Adam’s ears. He had struck terror to the heart of the murderer. And Adam beat down his savage eagerness, so as to lengthen the time till Virey’s doom. Not thus did the desert in Adam speak, but what the desert had made him. Agony, blood, death! They were almost as old as the rocks. Other animate shapes in another age, had met in strife there, under the silent, beetling peak. Life was the only uttermost precious thing. All else, all suffering, all possession, was nothing. To kill a man was elemental, as to save him was divine.

Virey’s progress became a haunting and all-satisfying spectacle to behold, and Adam’s pursuit became studied, calculated, retarded — a thing as cruel as the poised beak of a vulture.

Virey got halfway up a grey, desolate, weathered slant, immense in its spread, another fan-shaped, waiting avalanche. The red ragged heights loomed above; below hung a mountainside as unstable as water, restrained perhaps, by a mere pebble. Here Virey halted. Farther he could not climb. Like a spent and cornered rat he meant to show fight.

Adam soon reached a point directly below Virey, some hundreds of yards — a long, hard climb. He paused to catch his breath.

“Bad slope for me if he begins to roll stones!” muttered Adam, grimly.

But neither rolling stones nor avalanches could stop Adam. The end of this tragedy was fixed. It had been set for all the years of Virey’s life and back into the past. The very stones cried out. Glaring sun, smoking heat, shining slope, and the nameless shadow — all were tinged with a hue inimical to Virey’s life. The lonely, solemn, silent desert day, at full noontide heat, bespoke the culmination of something Virey had long ago ordained. Far below, over the lower hills of the Panamints, yawned Death Valley, ghastly grey through the leaden haze, an abyss of ashes, iron walled and sun blasted, hateful and horrible as the portal of hell. High up and beyond, faintly red against an obscure space of sky, towered the Funerals, grand and desolate.

Adam began to climb the weathered slope, taking a zigzag course. Sliding stones only slightly retarded his ascent. He stepped too quickly. Usually when a stone slipped his weight had left it.

Virey set loose a boulder. It slid, rolled, leaped, fell with a crack, and then took to hurtling bounds, starting a multitude of smaller stones. Adam kept keen eye on the boulder and paid no attention to the others. Then he stepped aside out of its course. As it whizzed past him Virey slid another loose upon the slope. Adam climbed even as the rock bounded down, and a few strides took him to one side. Virey ran over, directly in line with Adam, and started another huge rock. Thus by keeping on a zigzag ascent Adam kept climbing most of the time, and managed to avoid the larger missiles. The smaller ones, however, could not all be avoided. And their contact was no slight matter. Virey tugged upon a large rock, deeply embedded, and rolled it down. Huge, bounding, crashing, it started a rattling slide that would have swept Adam to destruction had it caught him. But he leaped out of line just in the nick of time. Virey began to work harder, to set loose smaller stones and more of them, so that soon he had the slope a perilous ascent for Adam. They cracked and banged down, and the debris rattled after them. Adam swerved and leaped and ran. He smelled the brimstone powder and the granite dust. Fortunately, no cloud of dust collected to obscure his watchful sight. He climbed on, swiftly when advantage offered, cautiously when he must take time to leap and dodge. Then a big rock started a multitude of small ones, and all clattered and spread. Adam dashed forward and backward. The heavier stones bounced high, and as many came at one time, he could not watch all. As he dodged one, another waved the hair of his head, and then another, striking his shoulder, knocked him down. The instant he lay there, other stones rolled over him. Adam scrambled up. Even pain could not change his fierce cold implacability, but it accelerated his action. He played no longer with Virey. He yelled again what he meant to do with his hands, and he spread them aloft, great, claw-like members, the sight of which inflamed Virey to desperation. Frantically he ploughed up the stones and rolled them, until he had a deluge plunging down the slope. But it was not written that Adam should be disabled. Narrow shaves he had, and exceeding risks he took, yet closer and closer he climbed. Only a hundred yards now separated the men. Adam could plainly see Virey’s ragged shirt, flying in shreds, his ashen face, his wet hair matted over his eyes.

Suddenly above the cracks and rattling clash rose a heavy, penetrating sound. Mighty rasp of a loose body against one of solidity! Startled to a halt, Adam gazed down at his feet. The rocks seemed to be heaving. Then a dreadful yell broke sharply. Virey! Adam flashed his gaze upward in time to see the whole slope move. And that move was accompanied by a rattling crash, growing louder and more prolonged. Virey stood stricken by mortal terror in the midst of an avalanche.

Wheeling swiftly, Adam bounded away and down, his giant strides reaching farther and faster, his quivering body light and supple, his eye guiding his flying feet to surfaces that were safe. Behind, beyond, above him the mountain slope roared until sound no longer meant anything. His ears were useless. The slope under him heaved and waved. Running for his life, he was at the same time riding an avalanche. The accelerating motion under him was strange and terrifying. It endowed him with wings. His feet scarcely touched the stones and in a few seconds he had bounded off the moving section of slope.

Then he halted to turn and see, irresistibly called to watch Virey go to what must soon be a just punishment. The avalanche, waving like swells of the sea, seemed slowing its motion. Thin dust clouds of powdered rock hung over it. Adam again became aware of sound — a long-drawn, rattling roar, decreasing, deadening, dying. Suddenly as the avalanche had started it halted. But it gave forth grating, ominous warnings. Only an upper layer of the loose rock had slid down, and the under layer appeared precisely like what the surface had been — rocks and rocks of all sizes, just as loose, just as ready to roll.

Adam dared to stride back upon that exposed under layer, the better to see straight down the steep slope. Grim and grisly it shone beneath the gloomy sun. Perhaps the powdered dust created an obscurity high in the air, but low down all was clear.

Virey could be plainly seen, embedded to his hips in the loose stones. Writhing, squirming, wrestling, he sought to free himself from that grip of granite. In vain! He was caught in a vice of his own making. Prisoner of the mountain side that he had used to betray his wife! He had turned toward Adam, face upward. There seemed a change in him, but in the racking excitement of that moment Adam could not tell what.

Then that desert instinct, like the bursting of a flood, moved Adam to the violence of strife, the ruthlessness of nature, the blood-spilling of men. Madness of hate seized him. The torrid heat of that desert sun boiled in his blood, the granite of the slope hardened in his heart, the red veils of smoky shadows coloured his sight. Loneliness and solitude were terrible forces of nature — primitive as the beginnings of life. For years the contending strife of the desert had been his. For months desolation, death, decay of Death Valley!

“MY TURN!” he yelled, in voice of thunder, and, bristling haired, supple, and long armed, with strength and laugh and face of a savage, he heaved a huge rock.

It rolled, it cracked, it banged, it hurtled high, to crash and smash, and then, leaping aloft, instinct as if with mockery, it went over Virey’s head to go on down over the precipice, whence it sent up a sliding roar. Adam heaved another stone and watched it. Virey grew motionless as a statue. He could not dance and dodge away from rolling rocks as Adam had done. How strangely that second rock rolled! Starting in line with Virey, it swerved to the right, then hit the slope and swerved back in line, then, hitting again, swerved once more, missing the miserable victim by a small margin.

“AHA THERE, VIREY!” yelled Adam, waving his hands. “ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT I’LL ROLL STONES!”

Virey was mute. He was chained. He was helpless. He could not move or faint or die. Retribution had overtaken him. The nature of it was to be the nature of the slow torture and merciless death he had inflicted upon his wife. As he had chosen the most deadly and lonely and awful spot on earth to hide her and kill her, so the nature that he had embraced now chose to turn upon him. There was law here — law of the unknown forces in life and in the elements. At that very moment a vulture streaked down from the hazed heights and sailed, a black shadow of widespread wings, across the slope. What had given this grisly-omened bird sight and scent illimitable?

Adam braced his brawny shoulder under the bulge of a rock weighing tons. Purple grew his face. His muscles split his shirt. His bones cracked. But there was a nameless joy in this exercise of his enormous strength. They were two men — one was weak, the other was strong, And nature could not abide both. The huge rock grated, groaned, stirred, moved — and turned over, slowly to roll, to crunch, to pound, and then, to gather speed, growing a thing of power, ponderous, active, changing, at last to hurtle into the air, to plunge down with thunderous crash, then to roll straight as a bee line at Virey. But a few yards in front of him it rose aloft, with something of grace, airily, and, sailing over Virey’s head, it banged and boomed out of sight below. Long the echoes clapped, and at last the silence, the speaking silence of that place closed on the slope. It awoke again to Adam’s rolling of a stone and another and another and then two together. All these rocks rolled differently. They were playthings of the god of the mountain. The mover of thunderbolts might have been aiming his colossal missiles at an invisible target. All these rolling stones seemed to head straight for Virey, but they were at the last instant deflected by chance. They hit the slope and passed wide or high. They were in league with the evil spirit that had dominated Virey. They were instruments of torture. They were of the nature of the desert. They belonged to Death Valley.

Adam did not soon tire at his gigantic task. The rolling stones fascinated him. From dead things they leaped to life. How they hurtled through space! Some shot aloft a hundred feet. Others split, and rolled, like wheels, down and down, the halves passing on either side of the doomed Virey. A multitude of rocks Adam turned loose, and then another multitude. Into the heaving of every one went his intent to kill. But Virey bore a charmed life.

A time came when Adam rolled his last stone. Like the very first one, it sped straight for Virey, and just as it appeared about to crush him it veered to one side. Adam stared grim and aghast. Could he never kill Virey as Virey had murdered his wife and tried to kill him?

“She — said I’d — never kill — you!” panted Adam, and the doubt in him was a strange, struggling thing, soon beaten down by his insatiable rage. Then he took a stride downward, meaning to descend and finish Virey with his hands.

As he stepped down the avalanche below grated with strange, harsh sound. It seemed to warn him. Halting, he gazed with clearer eyes. What was this change in Virey? Adam bent and peered. Had the man’s hair turned snow white?

Adam made another and a longer stride downward. And that instant the slope trembled. Virey flung up his arm as if to ward off another rolling stone. A rending, as of the rock-bound fastness of the slope, yielding its hold — then the avalanche, with Virey in the centre, moved downward, slowly heaving like a swell of weighted waves, and started to roll with angry roar. It gathered a ponderous momentum. It would never stop again on that slope. A shining, red-tinged dust cloud shrouded Virey. And then the avalanche, spilling over the declivity below, shocked the whole mountain slope, and lifted to the heavens a thick-crashing, rolling roar of thunder. Death Valley engulfed the hollow echo and boomed thunder across to the battlements of the Funeral Mountains. And when the last rumble wore away, silence and solitude reigned there, pervasive and peaceful, as they had in the ages before man, with his passions, had evolved to vex nature.

CHAPTER XX

ADAM’S RETURN TO camp was as vague as one of his desert nightmares. But as thought gained something of ascendency over agitation he became aware of blood and dust and sweat caked with his clothes upon his person, proving the effect of his supreme exertions. He had heaved an endless number of rocks, he had heaved the mountainside down upon Virey, all to no avail. A higher power had claimed him. And the spirit of Magdalene Virey, like her living presence, had inscrutably come between Adam and revenge.

When Adam had packed his burros, twilight in the clefts of the hills had deepened to purple. He filled his canteens, and started the burros down toward the gateway. The place behind him was as silent as a grave. Adam did not look back. He felt the grey obscurity close over the scene.

Down at the gateway he saw that the valley was still light with the afterglow of sunset. Diagonally and far across the ashen waste he descried the little dark patch which he knew to be an oasis, where the waters of Furnace Creek sank into the sands.

The intense heat, the vast stillness, the strange radiation from the sand, the peculiar grey light of the valley, told Adam that the midnight furnace winds would blow long before he reached his destination. But he welcomed any physical ordeal. He saw how a great strife with the elements, a strain to the uttermost of his strength and his passion to fight, would save his faith, his hope, perhaps his mind.

So gradual was the change from twilight to darkness that he would scarcely have noted it but for the dimming of the notched peak. Out there in the open valley it was not dark. It was really the colour of moonlight on marble. Wan, opaque, mystic, it made distance false. The mountains seemed far away and the stars close. Like the bottom of the Dead Sea, drained of its bitter waters, was this Death Valley. Action, strong and steady use of muscle, always had served to drive subjective broodings and wonderings and imaginings from Adam’s mind. But not here, in this sink, at night! He seemed continually and immensely confronted with the unreality of a fact — a live man alone on the salt dead waste of Death Valley. Measureless and unbreakable solitude! The waste hole into which drained the bitter dregs of the desert!

He plodded on, driving the burros ahead of him. Jinny was contrary. Every few steps she edged off a straight line, and the angle of her ears and head showed that she was watching her master. She did not want to cross the valley. Instinct taught her the wisdom of opposition. Many a burro had saved its master’s life by stubborn refusal to travel the wrong way. Adam was patient, even kind, but he relentlessly drove her on in the direction he had chosen.

At length the ashen level plain changed its hue and its surface. The salt crust became hummocky and a dirty grey. The colour caused false steps on his part, and the burros groped at fault, weary and discouraged. Adam would mount a slow heave, only to find it a hollow crust that broke with his weight. Some months before — or was it years? — when he had crossed the valley, far below this line, the layer of salt crust had been softer and under it ran murky waters, heavy as vitriol. Dry now as sunbaked clay! It made travel more difficult, although less dangerous. Adam broke through once. It reminded him that Dismukes had said the floor of Death Valley was “Forty feet from hell!” Not for a long while had he thought of Dismukes, yet this hazardous direction he was taking now appeared to be the outcome of long-made plans to meet the old prospector.

Long hours and slow miles passed behind him. When the burros broke through Adam had a task for all his strength. Once he could not pull Jinny out of a pitfall without unpacking her. And the time came when he had the added task of leading the way and dragging the burros with ropes. Burros did not lead well on good ground, let alone over this scored and burst salt crust.

The heat and oppressiveness and dense silence increased toward midnight; and then began a soft and steady movement of air down the valley. Adam felt a prickling of his skin and a drying of the sweat upon him. An immense and mournful moan breathed over the wasteland, like that of a mighty soul in travail. Adam got out of the hummocky zone upon the dry, crisp, white level of salt, soda, borax, alkali, where thin, pale sheets of powder moved with the silken rustle of seeping and shifting sands. Most fortunate was the fact that the rising wind was at his back. He strode on, again driving the burros ahead, holding straight for the dim notched peak. The rising wind changed the silence, the night, the stars, the valley — changed all in some unearthly manner. It seemed to muster all together, to move all, to insulate even the loneliness, and clothe them in transforming, drifting shrouds of white, formless bodies impelled by nameless domination. Phantasmagoria of white winds, weird and wild! Midnight furnace blasts of Death Valley! Nature’s equilibrium — nature’s eternal and perfect balance of the elements!

Out here in the open, the hollow roar that had swelled and lulled through the canyons was absent. An incessant moaning, now rising, now falling, attended the winds on their march down the valley. Other difference there was here, and it was in the more intense heat. And the blowing of white shrouds into the opaque gloom, the sweeping of sheets of powdery dust along the level floor, the thick air that bore taste of bitter salt and odour of poison gas — these indeed seemed not phenomena of normal earth. The wind increased to a gale. Then suddenly it lulled and died, leaving the valley to a pale, silent deadness; and again preceded by a mournful wail, it rose harder and fiercer till it was blowing seventy miles an hour. These winds were the blasts of fury. They held heated substance. The power behind them was the illimitable upper air, high as the sky and wide as the desert, relentlessly bearing down to drive away the day’s torrid heat.

The gales accelerated Adam’s progress, so that sometimes he was almost running. Often he was thrown to his knees. And when the midnight storm reached its height the light of the stars failed, the outline of mountains faded in a white, whirling chaos, dim and moaning and terrible. Adam felt as if blood and flesh were burning up, drying out, shrivelling and cracking. He lost his direction and clung to the burros, knowing their instinct to be surer guide than his. There came a time when pain left him, when sense of physical contacts and motions began to fade, when his brain seemed to reel. The burros dragged him on, and lower he swayed; oftener he plunged to his knees, ploughing his big hands in the salt and lowering his face into the flying sheets of powder. He gasped and coughed and choked, and fought to breathe through his smothering scarf. And at last, as he fell exhausted, blind and almost asphyxiated, the hot gales died away. The change of air saved Adam from unconsciousness. He lay there, gradually recovering, until he gained feeling enough to know the burros were pulling on the rope which tied them and him together. They were squealing. They were trying to drag him, to warn him, to frighten him into the action that would save his life. Thus goaded, Adam essayed to get upon his feet, and the effort seemed a vague, interminable lifting of colossal weights, and a climbing up dragging stairs of sand. But for the burros he would have plunged in a circle.

Then followed a black and horrible interval in which he seemed hauled across a pale shingle of naked earth, peopled with spectres, a wandering, lost man, still alive but half dead, leashed to the spirits of burros he had driven to their death. Uphill, always uphill they pulled him, with his feet clogged by the clutching sands. A grey dawn broke, and his entrance into the light resembled climbing out of sombre depths to the open world. Another drab wall of iron rock seemed to loom over him. The valley of the white shadows of death had been crossed. A green patch of mesquites and cottonwoods gleamed cool and dark out of the grey sands. The burros ran, with bobbing packs, straight to the water they had scented. Staggering on after them, Adam managed to remove their burdens; and that took the remnant of his strength. Yielding to a dead darkness of sense, he fell under the trees.

When he came to the day had far advanced and the sun, sloping to the west, was sinking behind the Panamints. Adam stumbled up, his muscles numb, as if contracted and robbed of their elasticity. His thirst told the story of that day’s heat, which had parched him, even while he lay asleep in the shade. Hunger did not trouble him. Either he was weak from exertion or had suffered from breathing poisoned air or had lost something of his equilibrium. Whatever was wrong, it surely behoved him to get out of the lower part of the valley, up above sea level to a place where he could regain his strength. To that end he hunted for his burros. They were close by, and he soon packed them, though with much less than his usual dexterity. Then he started, following the course of the running water.

This Furnace Creek ran down out of a deep-mouthed canyon, with yellow walls of gravel. The water looked like vinegar, and it was hot and had a bad taste. Yet it would sustain life of man and beasts. Adam followed the lines of mesquites that marked its course up the gradually ascending floor of the canyon. He soon felt a loosening of the weight upon his lungs, and lessening of air pressure. Twilight caught him a couple of miles up the canyon where a wide, long thicket of weeds and grass and mesquites marked the turning of Furnace Creek into the drab hills, and where springs and little streams trickled down from the arroyos.

Up one of these arroyos, in the midst of some gnarled mesquites, Adam made camp. Darkness soon set in, and he ate by the light of a camp fire. After he had partaken of food he discovered that he was hungry. Also, his eyelids drooped heavily. Despite these healthy reactions and a deeper interest in his surroundings, Adam knew he was not entirely well. He endeavoured to sit up awhile, and tried to think. There were intervals when a deadlock occurred between thoughts. The old pleasure, the old watchful listening, the old intimate sense of loneliness, had gone from him. His mind did not seem to be on physical things at hand, or on the present moment. And when he actually discovered that all the time he looked down toward Death Valley he exclaimed, aghast: “I’m not here; I’m down there!”

Gloomy and depressed, he rolled in his blankets. And he slept twelve hours. Next day he felt better in body, but no different in mind. He set to work making a comfortable camp in spite of the fact that he did not seem to want to stay there. Hard work and plenty of food improved his condition. His strength of limb soon rallied to rest and nourishment. But the strange state of mind persisted, and began to encroach upon every moment. It took effort of will to attend to any action. Dismukes must be in this locality somewhere, according to the little map, but, though Adam remembered this, and reflected how it accounted for his own presence there, he could not dwell seriously upon the fact. Dismukes seemed relegated to the vague future. There was an impondering present imperative something that haunted Adam, yet eluded his grasp. At night he walked under the stars and could not shake off the spell; and next day, when in an idle hour he found himself walking again and again down the gravel-bedded canyon toward Death Valley, then he divined that what he had attributed to absentmindedness was a far more serious aberration.

The discovery brought about a shock that quickened his mental processes. What ailed him? He was well and strong again. What was wrong with his mind? Where had gone the old dreaming content, the self-sufficient communion with all visible forms of nature, and the half-conscious affinity with all the invisible spirit of the wilderness? How strangely he had been warped out of his orbit! Something nameless and dreadful and calling had come between him and his consciousness. Why did he face the west, at dawn, in the solemn white-hot noon, at the red sunset hour, and in the silent lonely watches of the night? Why did not the stars of the east lure his dreamy gaze as those in the west? He made the astounding discovery that there were moments, and moments increasing in number, when he did not feel alone. Some one walked in his shadow at noontide. At twilight a spirit seemed in keeping with his wandering westward steps. The world and natural objects and old habits seemed far off. He found himself whispering vagrant fancies, the substance of which, once realised, was baffling and disheartening. And at last he divined that a longing to return to Death Valley consumed him.

“Ah! So that’s it!” he muttered, in consternation.

“But why?”

It came to Adam then — the secret of the mystery. Death Valley called him. All that it was, all that it contained, all he had lived there, sent out insidious and enchanting voices of terrible silent power. The long shadow of that valley of purple shadows still enveloped him. Death, desolation, and decay; the appalling nudity of the racked bowels of the earth; the abode of solitude and silence, where shrieked the furies of the midnight winds; the grave of Magdalene Virey — these haunted Adam and lured him back with resistless and insupportable claim.

“Death Valley again — for me. I shall go mad,” soliloquised Adam.

At last his mind was slowly being unhinged by the forces of the desert. Some places of the earth were too strong, too inhuman, too old, and too wasted for any man. Adam realised his peril, and that the worst of his case consisted in an indifference which he did not want to combat. Unless something happened — a great, intervening, destructive agent to counteract the all enfolding, trancelike spell of Death Valley — Adam would return to the valley of avalanches and there he would go mad.

And the very instant he resigned himself, a cry pierced his dull ear. Sharply he sat up. The hour was near the middle of the forenoon. The day was hot and still. Adam’s pulses slowly quieted down. He had been mistaken. The water babbled by his camp, bees flew over with droning hum. Then as he relaxed he was again startled by a cry, faint and far off. It appeared to come from up the canyon, round the low yellow corner of wall. He listened intently, but the sound was not repeated. Was not the desert full of silent voices? About this cry there was a tangible reality that stirred Adam out of his dreams, his glooms.

Adam went on, and climbed up the gravel bank on the left side, to a bare slope, and from that to the top of a ridge. His sluggish blood quickened. The old exploring instinct awoke. He had heard a distant cry. What next? There was something in the air.

Then Adam gazed around him to a distance. Adam shuddered and thrilled at the beetling, rugged, broken walls that marked the gateway where so often he had stood with Magdalene Virey to watch the transformations of shadowed dawn and sunset in Death Valley.

He descended to a level, and strode on, looking everywhere, halting now and then to listen, every moment gaining some hold on his old self. He went on and on, slow and sure, missing not a rod of ground, as if the very stones might speak to him. He welcomed his growing intensity of sensation, because it meant that he had either received a premonition or had reverted to his old self, or perhaps both.

Adam plodded along this wide gravel wash, with the high bronze saw-toothed peaks of the Funerals on the left, and some yellow-clay dunes showing their tips over the bank on the right. At length he came to a place that suggested a possible sloping of these coloured clay dunes down into a basin or canyon. Climbing up the bank, he took a few steps across the narrow top, there to be halted as if he had been struck.

He had been confronted by a tremendous amphitheatre, a yellow gulf, a labyrinthine maze so astounding that he discredited his sight.

Before him and on each side the earth was as bare as the bareness of rock — a mystic region of steps and slopes and slants, of channels and dunes and mounds, of cone-shaped and fan-shaped ridges, all of denuded crinkly clay with tiny tracery of erosion as graceful as the veins of a leaf, all merging their marvellous hues in a mosaic of golden amber, of cream yellow, of mauve, of bronze cinnamon. How bleak and ghastly, yet how beautiful in their stark purity of denudation! Endless was the number of smooth, scalloped, and ribbed surfaces, all curving with exquisite line and grace down into the dry channels under the dunes. At the base of the lower circle of the amphitheatre the golds and yellows and russets were strongest, but along the wide wing, moving away toward the abyss below were more vividly wonderful hues — a dark, beautiful mouse colour on the left contrasting with a strange pearly cream on the other. These were striking bands of colour sweeping the eye away as far as they extended, and jealously drawing it back again. Between these great corners of the curve, climbed ridges of grey and heliotrope to meet streaks of green — the mineral green of copper, like the colour of the sea in sunlight — and snowy traceries of white that were narrow veins of outcropping borax. High up above the rim of the amphitheatre along the battlements of the mountain, stood out a zigzag belt of rusty red, from which the iron stain had run downward to tinge the lower hues. Above all this wondrous colouration upheaved the bare breast of the mountain, growing darker with earthy browns until the bold ramparts of the peak, grey like rock, gleamed pale against the leaden-blue sky. Low down through the opening of the amphitheatre gleamed a void, a distant bottom of the bowl, dim and purple and ghastly, with shining white streaks like silver streams — and this was Death Valley.

And then Adam, with breast oppressed by feelings too deep for utterance, retracted his far-seeing gaze, once more to look over the whole amazing spectacle, from the crinkly buff clay under his feet to the dim white bottom of the valley. And at this keen instant he again heard a cry. Human it was, or else he had lost his mind, and all which he saw here was disordered imagination.

Turning back, he ran in the direction whence he believed the sound had come, passing by some rods the point where he had climbed out of the wash. And at the apex of the great curve, toward which tended all the multitude of wrinkles of the denuded slopes, he found a trail coming up out of the amphitheatre and leading down into the wash. The dust bore unmistakable signs of fresh moccasin tracks, of hobnailed boots, and of traces where water had been spilled. The boot impressions led down and the moccasin tracks up; and, as these latter were the fresher, Adam, after a pause of astonishment and a keen glance all around, began to follow them.

The trail led across the wash and turned west toward where the walls commenced to take on the dignity of a canyon. Bunches of sage and greasewood began to dot the sand, and beyond showed the thickets of mesquite. Some prospector was packing water from the creek up the canyon and down into that amphitheatre. Suddenly Adam thought of Dismukes. He examined the next hobnailed boot track he descried in the dust with minute care. The foot that had made it did not belong to Dismukes. Adam hurried on.

He came upon a spot where the man he was trailing — surely an Indian — had fallen in the sand. A dark splotch, sticky and wet, had never been made by spilled water. Adam recognised blood when he touched it, but if he had not known it by the feel, he surely would have by the smell. Probably at that instant Adam became fully himself again. He was on the track of events, he sensed some human being in trouble and the encroaching spell of Death Valley lost its power.

The trail led into the mesquites, to a wet glade rank with sedge and dank with the damp odour of soapy water.

A few more hurried strides brought Adam upon the body of an Indian, lying face down at the edge of the trickling little stream. His lank matted hair was bloody. A ragged, torn, and stained shirt bore further evidence of violence. Adam turned him over, seeing at a glance that he had been terribly beaten about the head with a blunt instrument. He was gasping. Swiftly Adam scooped up water in his hat. He had heard that kind of a gasp before. Lifting the Indian’s head, Adam poured water into the open mouth. Then he bathed the bloodstained face.

The Indian was of the tribe that had packed supplies for the Vireys. He was apparently fatally hurt. It was evident that he wanted to speak. And from the incoherent mixture of language which these Indians used in conversation with white men Adam gathered significant details of gold, of robbers, of something being driven round and round, grinding stone like maize.

“Arrastra!” queried Adam.

The Indian nodded, and made a weak motion of his hand toward the trail that led to the yellow wilderness of clay, and then further gestures, which, with a few more gutturally whispered words, gave Adam the impression that a man of huge bulk, wide of shoulder, was working the old Spanish treadmill — arrastra — grinding for gold. Then the Indian uttered, with a last flash of spirit, the warning he could not speak, and, falling back, he gasped and faded into unconsciousness.

Adam stood up, thinking hard, muttering aloud some of his thoughts.

“Arrastra!...That was the way of Dismukes — to grind for gold...He’s here — somewhere — down in that yellow hole...Robbers have jumped his claim — probably are holding him — torturing him to tell of hidden gold...and they beat this poor Indian to death.”

There was necessity for quick thought and quick action. The Indian was not dead, but he soon would be. Adam could do nothing for him. It was imperative to decide whether to wait here for the return of the water carrier or at once follow the trail to the yellow clay slopes. Adam wore a gun, but it held only two unused shells, and there was no more ammunition in his pack. The Indian had no weapon. Perhaps the water carrier would be armed. If Dismukes were dead, there need be no rash hurry to avenge him; if he lived as prisoner a little time more or less would not greatly matter. Adam speedily decided to wait a reasonable time for the man who packed water, and, if he came, to kill him and then hurry up the trail. There was, in this way, less danger of being discovered, and, besides, one of the robbers dispatched would render the band just so much weaker. Adam especially favoured this course because of the possibility of getting a weapon.

“And more,” muttered Adam, “if he happens to be a tall man I can pretend to be him — packing water back.”

Therefore Adam screened himself behind a thick clump of mesquite near the trail and waited in ambush like a panther ready to spring.

As he crouched there, keen eyes up the canyon, ears like those of a listening deer, there flashed into Adam’s mind one of Magdalene Virey’s unforgettable remarks. “The power of the desert over me lies somewhere in my strange faculty of forgetting self. I watch, I hear, I feel, I smell, but I don’t think. Just a gleam — a fleeting moment — then the state of consciousness or lack of consciousness is gone! But in that moment lies the secret lure of the desert. Its power over men!”

Swiftly as it had come the memory passed, and Adam became for fleeting moments at a time the embodiment of Magdalene Virey’s philosophy, all unconscious when thought was absent from feeling. The hour was approaching midday and the wind began to rustle the mesquites and seep the sand. Adam smelled a dry dust somewhat tangy, and tasted the bitterness of it as he licked his lips. Flies had began to buzz around the dead Indian. Instinctively Adam gazed aloft, and, yes, there far above him circled a vulture, and above that another, sweeping down from the invisible depths of blue, magically ringing a flight around the heavens, with never a movement of wings. They sailed round and round, always down. Where did they come from? What power poised them so surely in the air?

Adam waited. All at once his whole body vibrated with the leap of his heart. A tall, hulking man hove in sight, balancing a bar across his shoulder, from each end of which hung a large bucket. These buckets swung to and fro with the fellow’s steps. Like a lazy man, he advanced leisurely. Adam saw a little puff of smoke lift from the red, indistinct patch that was this water carrier’s face. He had cigarette or pipe. As he approached nearer and nearer, Adam received steadily growing and changing impressions of the man he was about to kill, until they fixed in the image of a long, loosely jointed body, a soiled shirt open at the neck, bare brown arms, and cruel red face. Just outside the mesquites the robber halted to peer at the spot where the Indian had fallen, and then ahead as if he expected to see a body lying in the trail.

“Ho! Ho! if thet durned Injin I beat didn’t crawl way down hyar! An’ his brains oozin’ out!” he ejaculated, hoarsely, as he strode between the scratching mesquites, swinging the crossbar and buckets sidewise. “Takes a hell of a lot to kill some critters!”

Like a released spring Adam shot up. His big hands flashed to cut off a startled yell.

“Not so much!” he called, grimly, and next instant his giant frame strung to the expenditure of mighty effort.

At noon the wind was blowing a gusty gale and the sun shone a deep, weird, magenta colour through the pall of yellow dust. The sky was not visible. Down on the ridges and in the washes dust sheets were whipped up at intervals. Clouds of flying sand rustled through the air, and sometimes the wind had force enough to carry grains of gravel. These intermittent blasts resembled the midnight furnace winds, except for the strange fact that they were not so hot, so withering. Every few minutes the canyon would be obscured in sweeping, curling streaks and sheets of dust. Then, as the gale roared away, the dust settled and the air again cleared. But high up, the dull, yellow pall hung, apparently motionless, with that weird sun, like a red-orange moon seen through haze, growing darker.

The fury of the elements seemed to favour Adam. Heat and gale and obscurity could tend only to relax the vigilance of men. Adam counted upon surprising the gang. To his regret, he had found no weapon on the robber he had overcome. Wearing the man’s slouch sombrero pulled down, and carrying the water buckets suspended from the bar across his shoulders, Adam believed that in the thick of the duststorm he might approach near the gang, perhaps get right among them.

When he got to the top of the amphitheatre, and found it a weird and terrible abyss of flying yellow shadows and full of shriek of wind and moan and roar, he decided he would go down as far as might seem advisable, then try to slip up on the robbers, wherever they were, and get a look at them and their surroundings before rushing to the attack.

Down, and yet farther, Adam plodded, amazed at the depth of the pit, the bottom of which he had not seen. The plainly defined trail led him on, and in one place huge boot tracks, familiar to him, acted as a spur. The tracks were not many days old and had been made by Dismukes. Adam now expected to find his old friend dead or in some terrible situation. The place, the day, the heat, the wind — all presaged terror, violence, gold, and blood. No human beings would endure this nude and ghastly and burning hell hole of flying dust for anything except gold.

At last Adam got so far down, so deep into the yellow depths, that pall and roar of duststorm appeared above him. He walked in a strange yellow twilight. And here the sun showed a darker magenta. Fine siftings of dust floated and fell all around him, dry, choking, and, when they touched his face, like invisible sparks of fire.

Interminably the yellow-walled wash wound this way and that, widening out to the dimensions of a canyon. At length Adam smelled smoke. He was close to a camp of some kind. Depositing the buckets in the trail, he sheered off and went up an intersecting wash.

When out of sight of the trail, he climbed up a soft clay slope, and, lying flat at the top, he peeped over. More yellow ridges like the ribs of a washboard! They seemed to run out on all sides, in a circling maze, soft and curved and colourful, and shaded by what seemed unnatural shadows. But they were almost level. Here indeed was the pit of the amphitheatre. With slow, desert-trained gaze Adam swept the graceful dunes. All bare! The twilight of changing yellow shadow hindered sure sight at considerable distance, and the sweeping rush of wind above, and then a low hollow roar, made listening useless.

At length Adam noticed how all the clay ridges or ends of slopes to his right ran about a hundred yards and then sheered down abruptly. Here, then, was the main canyon through which the trail ran. The line of it, a vague break in the yellow colour, turned toward Adam’s left. Adam deliberated a moment. Would he go on or return to the trail? Then he arose, crossed the top of the clay ridge, plunged down its soft bank, leaped the sandy and gravelly wash at the bottom, and started up the next ridge. This was exactly like the one he had surmounted. Adam kept on, down and up, down and up, until the yellow twilight in front of him appeared separated by a lazy column of blue. Adam’s nostrils made sure of that. It was smoke. Cautiously crawling now, down and up, Adam gained the ridge from behind which rose the smoke. Here he crouched against the soft clay, breathing hard from his exertions, listening and peering.

The ridges about him began to show streaks of brown earth and ledges of rock. As he looked about he was startled by a rumbling, grating sound. It was continuous, but it had louder rumbles, almost bumps. The sound was rock grating on rock. Adam thought he knew what made it. With all his might he listened, pressing his ear down on the clay. The rumble kept on, but Adam could not hear any other sound until there came a lull in the wind above. Then he heard a squeaking creak — a sound of wood moved tight against wood; then sharp cracks, but of soft substances; then the ring of a shovel on stone; and at last harsh voices.

So far, so good, thought Adam. Only a few yards of clay separated him from mining operations, and he must see how many men were there and what was the lay of the land, and how best he could proceed. The old animal instinct to rush animated him, requiring severe control. While waiting for the wind to begin again, Adam wondered if he was to see Dismukes. He did not expect to.

The elements seemed to await Adam’s wishes. At that very moment the yellow light shaded a little dimmer and the sinister-hued sun cloaked its ruddy face. The gale above howled, and the circling winds, lower down, gathered up sheets of dust and swept them across the shrouded amphitheatre. And a wave of intenser heat moved down into the pit.

Adam sank his fingers into the soft clay and crawled up this last slope. The rattle of loosened clay and gravel rolling down was swallowed up in the roar of wind. Reaching the last foot of ascent, Adam cautiously peeped over. He saw a wider space, a sort of round pocket between two yellow ridges, that ran out and widened from a ledge of crumbling rock. He crawled a few inches farther, raised himself a little higher. Then he saw brush roofs of structures, evidently erected for shade. The rumble began again. Higher Adam raised himself. Then he espied a coat hanging on a corner post of one of the structures. Dismukes’s coat. Adam could have picked it out of a thousand coats. Excitement now began to encroach upon his cool patience and determination. The gale seemed howling with rage at the truth here, still hidden from Adam’s eyes. Higher he raised himself.

The brush-covered structure farther from him was a sun shelter, and under it lay piles of camp duffle. A camp fire smoked. Adam’s swift eyes caught the gleam of guns. The day was too torrid for these campers to pack guns. The nearer structure was large, octagonal shape, built of mesquite posts and brush. From under it came the rumble of rocks and the metallic clink of shovels, and then the creak and crack and the heavy voice.

Still higher Adam pulled himself so that he might see under the brush shelter. A wide rent in the roof — a huge brown flash across this space — then lower down a movement of men to and fro — rumble of rocks, clink of shovel, thud of earth, creak and crack — a red undershirt — blue jeans — boots, and then passing, bending men nude to the waist — circle and sweep of long dark streak — then again the huge brown flash; it all bewildered Adam, so that one of his usually distinguishing glances failed to convey clear meaning of this scene. Then he looked and looked, and when he had looked a long, breathless moment he fell flat on the soft clay, digging his big hands deep, trembling and straining with the might of his passion to rush like a mad bull down upon the ruffians. It took another moment, that battling restraint. Then he raised to look with clearer, more calculating gaze.

The brush roof was a shelter for an arrastra. The octagonal shape of this sun shade filled the pocket that nestled between the slopes. Its back stood close to the ledge of crumbling rock from which the gold-bearing ore was being extracted.

Its front faced the open gully. Under it an arrastra was in operation. As many of these Spanish devices as Adam had seen, no one of them had ever resembled this.

In the centre of the octagon a round pit had been dug into the ground, and lined and floored with flat stories. An upright beam was set in the middle of this, and was fastened above to the roof. Crossbeams were attached to the upright, and from these crossbeams dragged huge rocks held by chains. A long pole, like the tongue of a wagon, extended from the upright and reached far out, at a height of about four feet from the ground. The principle of operation was to revolve the crossbeams and upright post, dragging the heavy rocks around and around the pit, thus crushing the ore. Adam knew that mercury was then used to absorb the gold from the crevices.

The motive power sometimes was a horse, and usually it was a mule. But in this instance the motive power was furnished by a man. A huge, broad, squat man naked to the waist I He was bound to the end of the long bar or tongue, and as he pushed it round and round his body was bent almost double. What wonderful brawny arms on which the muscles rippled and strung like ropes. The breast of this giant was covered with grizzled hair. Like a tired ox he bowed his huge head, wagging it from side to side. As he heaved around he exposed his broad back — the huge brown flash that had mystified Adam — and this mighty muscled back showed streaks and spots of blood.

A gaunt man, rawboned and dark, with a face like a ghoul, stood just outside the circle described by the long bar. He held a mesquite branch, with forked and thorny end, which he used as a goad. Whenever the hairy, half-naked giant passed around this gaunt man would swing the whip. It cracked on the brown back — spattered the drops of blood.

There were three other men shovelling, carrying, and dumping ore into the pit. One was slight of build and hard of face. A red-undershirted fellow looked tough and wiry, of middle age, a seasoned desert rat, villainous as a reptile. The third man had a small, closely cropped head like a bullet, and a jaw that stood out beyond his brow, a hard visage, smeared with sweat and dust. His big, naked shoulders proclaimed him young.

And the grizzled giant, whom the others were goading and working to death there in the terrible heat, was Adam’s old saviour and friend, Dismukes.

Cautiously Adam backed and slid down the clay slope, and hurried up and down another. When he had crossed several he turned to the left and ran down to the trail, and followed along that until he reached the spot where he had left the buckets of water.

There he drank deeply, and tried to restrain his hurry. But he was not tired, or out of breath. And his mind seemed at a deadlock. A weapon, a shovel, a sledge to crush their skulls. To keep between them and their guns! Thus Adam’s thoughts had riveted themselves on a few actions. There was, on the surface of his body, a cold, hard, tingling stretch of skin over rippling muscles; and deep internally, the mysterious and manifold life of blood and nerve and bone awoke and flamed under the instinct of the ages. Adam’s body then belonged to the past and to what the desert had made it.

Swinging the crossbar over his shoulders and lifting the buckets, he took the trail down toward the camp! He bowed his head and his shoulders more than the weight of the buckets made necessary. The perverse gale blew more fiercely than ever, and the hollow roar resounded louder, and the yellow gloom of dust descended closer, and a weird, dim light streamed through the pall, down upon the moving shadows. All was sombre, naked, earthy in this thickening, lowering pall. Odour of smoke and dust! A fiercely burning heat that had the weight of hotly pressing lead! Bellow and shriek and moan of gale that died away! It was the portal to an inferno, and Adam was a man descended in age-long successions from simian beasts, and he strode in the image of God, with love his motive, rage his passion, and the wild years of the desert at his back, driving him on.

He rounded the last corner. There was the camp, fifty yards away. He now could almost straddle the only avenue of escape.

The wind lulled. A yellow shadow drifted away from the sun, and again it shone with sinister magenta hue. All the air seemed to wait, as if the appalling forces of nature, aghast at the strange lives of men, had halted to watch.

“Thar’s Bill with the water!” yelled the red-shirted man.

Work and action ceased. The giant Dismukes looked, then heaved erect with head poised like that of a hawk.

“Aw, Bill, you son-of-a-gun!” called another robber, in welcome. “We damn near died, waitin’ fer thet water.”

“Ho! Ho!...Bill, ye musta run ag’in’ another Injun.”

Adam walked on, shortening himself a little more, quickening his stride. When he reached and passed the shelter under which lay packs and coats and guns he suddenly quivered, as if released from dragging restraint.

The robber of slight frame and hard face had walked out from under the shelter. He alone had been silent. He had peered keenly, bending a little.

“Hey, is thet you, Bill?” he queried, with hard voice which suited his face.

The gaunt robber cracked his whip. “Fellars, air we locoed by this hyar dust? Damn the deceivin’ light!...Too big fer Bill — er I’m blind with heat!”

“It ain’t Bill!” screeched the little man, and he bounded toward where lay the guns.

Adam dropped the buckets. Down they thudded with a splash. Two of his great leaps intercepted the little man, who veered aside, dodged, and then tried to run by. Adam, with a lunge and a swing, hit him squarely on the side of the head. The blow rang soddenly. Its tremendous power propelled the man off his feet, turning him sidewise as he went through the air, and carried him with terrific force against one of the shelter posts, around which his limp body seemed to wrap itself. Crash! the post gave way, letting the roof sag. Then the smitten man rolled to lodge against a pack, and lay inert.

Whirling swiftly, Adam drew his gun, and paused a second, ready to rush.

The robbers stood stock-still.

“My Gawd!” hoarsely yelled the red-shirted one. “Who’s thet?...Did you see him soak Robbins?”

Dismukes let out a stentorian roar of joy, of hate, of triumph. Like a chained elephant he plunged to escape. Failing that, he surged down to yell: “Aha, you bloody claim jumpers! Now you’re done! It’s Wansfell!”

“Wansfell!” flashed the gaunt-faced villain, and that gaunt face turned ashen. “Grab a shovel! Run fer a gun!”

Then the red-shirted robber swung aloft his shovel and rushed at Adam, bawling fierce curses. Adam shot him through. The man seemed blocked, as if by heavy impact, then, more fiercely, he rushed again. Adam’s second and last shot, fired at point-blank, staggered him. But the shovel descended on Adam’s head, a hard blow, fortunately from the flat side. Clubbing his gun, Adam beat down the man, who went falling with his shovel under the shelter. Both of the other men charged Adam and the three met at the opening. They leaped so swiftly upon him and were so heavy bodied, that they bore him to the ground. Adam’s grim intention was to hang on to both of them, so neither could run to get a weapon. To that end he locked a hold on each. Then began a whirling, wrestling, thudding battle. To make sure of them Adam had handicapped himself. He could not swing his mallet-like fists and he had not been fortunate enough to grip their throats. So, rolling over and over with them, he took the rain of blows, swinging them back, heaving his weight upon them. Foot by foot he won his way farther and farther from where the guns lay. If one yelling robber surged half erect, Adam swung the other to trip him. And once inside the wide doorway of that octagon structure, Adam rose with the struggling men, an iron hand clutching each, and, swinging them wide apart, by giant effort he brought them back into solid and staggering impact. He had hoped to bring their heads together. But only their bodies collided and the force of the collision broke Adam’s hold on one. The young man of hulking frame went down, right on the shovel, and, quick to grasp it, he bounded up, fierce and strong. But as he swung aloft the weapon, Adam let go of the gaunt-faced man and hit him, knocking him against the other. They staggered back, almost falling.

Swift on that advantage, Adam swung a fist to the bulging jaw of the man with the shovel. As if struck by a catapult, he went down over the wooden beam and the shovel flew far. Then Adam blocked the doorway. The other fellow charged him, only to be knocked back. As he reeled, his comrade, panting loud, straddled the long beam. Just then Dismukes with quick wits heaved forward on the beam to which he was bound, and the claim jumper went sprawling in the dirt. Dismukes celebrated his entrance into the fray with another stentorian yell.

Adam awoke now to a different and more intense sense of the fight. He had his antagonists cornered. They could never get by him to secure a gun. And the fierce zest of violent strife, the ruthless law of the desert, the survival of the strongest, the blood lust, would have made him refuse any weapon save his hands. He stood on his feet and his hands were enough. Like a wolf he snapped his teeth, then locked his jaw. As he swung and battled and threw these foes backward a strange, wild joy accelerated his actions. When he struck, the sodden blow felt good. He avoided no return blows. He breasted them. The smell of sweat and blood, the heat of panting breaths in his face, the feel of hot, rippling muscle, all tended to make him the fiercer. His sight stayed keen, though tinged with red. He saw the beady, evil eyes of the big robber, like hot green fire, and the bruised and bleeding face with its snarling mouth; and as he saw it, he struck out hard with savage thrill. He saw the gaunt and sallow visage of the other, bloody mouthed, with malignant gaze of frenzied hate, of glinting intent to kill, and as he saw he beat him down.

Then into his pulsing senses burst a terrible yell from Dismukes. The gaunt-faced man had fallen into the pit of the arrastra, and Dismukes had suddenly started ahead, shoving the beam over him. The big rocks dragging by chains from the crossbeam began to pound around on the ore. Jar and rumble! Then a piercing scream issued from the man who had been caught under the rocks, who was being dragged around the arrastra.

Adam saw, even as he knocked back another rush of the other man.

“GRINDIN’ GOLD, WANSFELL!” roared Dismukes. “MORE ORE, PARD!...WE’RE GRINDIN’ GOLD!”

The huge prospector bent to his task. Supreme was his tremendous effort. Strength of ten men! Blood gushed from the cuts on his brawny back. Faster he shoved until he was running. And as he came around, the ferocity of his bristling face and the swelling of the great chest with its mats of hair seemed to prove him half man, half beast, a gorilla in a death grapple.

Again the big robber lunged up, to lower his head and charge at Adam. He was past yelling. He did not seek to escape. He would have given his life to kill.

“MORE ORE, PARD WANSFELL!” yelled Dismukes, as with whistling breath he shoved round the terrible mill of rumbling rocks. A horrible, long-drawn cry issued from under them.

Then the sweep of the long beam caught the man who was charging Adam. Down to his knees it forced him, and, catching under his chin, was dragging him, when the upright post gave way with a crash. The released beam, under the tremendous momentum of Dismukes’ massive weight and strength, seemed to flash across the half circle, lifting and carrying the man. A low wall of rock caught his body, and the beam, swinging free from its fastenings, cracked his head as if it had been a ripe melon.

CHAPTER XXI

SUNSET OF THAT momentous and tragic day found Adam and Dismukes camped beyond the mouth of a wide pass that bisected the Funeral range.

It was a dry camp, but water from a pure spring some miles down had been packed out. Greasewood grew abundantly on the wide flat, and there were bunches of dry grey sage.

Adam felt well-nigh exhausted, and he would have been gloomy and silent but for his comrade. Dismukes might never have been harnessed to the beam of an arrastra and driven like a mule, and his awful tread-mill toil in the terrible heat under the lacerating lash was as if it had never been. Dismukes was elated, he was exultant, he was strangely young again.

Always, to Adam, this giant prospector, Dismukes, had been beyond understanding. But now he was enigmatic. He transcended his old self. In the excitement following his rescue he had not mentioned the fact that Adam had saved his life. Adam thought greatly of this squaring of his old debt. But Dismukes seemed not to consider it. He never mentioned that but for Adam’s intervention he would have been goaded like a mule, kicked and flayed and driven in the stifling heat, until he fell down to die. All Dismukes thought of was the gold he had mined, the gold the claim jumpers had mined — the bags of heavy gold that were his, and the possession of which ended forever his life-long toil for a fortune. A hundred times that afternoon, as the men had packed and climbed out of the valley, Dismukes had tried to force upon Adam a half of the gold, a quarter of it, a share. But Adam refused.

“Why, for Lord’s sake?” Dismukes at last exploded, his great ox eyes rolling. “It’s gold. Most of it I mined before those devils came. It’s clean an’ honest. You deserve a share. An’ the half of it will more than make up the sum I’ve slaved an’ saved to get. Why, man — why won’t you take it?”

“Well, friend, I guess the only reason I’ve got is that it’s too heavy to pack,” replied Adam. He smiled as he spoke, but the fact was he had no other reason for refusal.

Dismukes stared with wide eyes and open mouth. Adam, apparently, was beyond his comprehension just the same as Dismukes was beyond Adam’s. Finally he swore his astonishment, grunted his disapproval, and then, resigning himself to Adam’s strange apathy, he straightway glowed again.

Adam, despite his amusement and something of sadness, could not help but respond in a measure to the intense rapture of his friend. Dismukes’s great work had ended. His long quest for the Golden Fleece had been rewarded. His thirty-five years of wandering and enduring and toiling were over, and life had suddenly loomed beautiful and enchanting. The dream of boyhood had come true. The fortune had been made. And now to look forward to ease, rest, travel, joy — all that he had slaved for. Marvellous past — magnificent prospect of future!

Adam listened kindly, and went slowly, with tired limbs, about the camp tasks; and now he gazed at Dismukes, and again had an eye for his surroundings. Often he gazed up at the exceedingly high, blunt break in the Funeral range. What cataclysm of nature had made that rent? It was a zigzagged saw-toothed wall, with strata slanted at an angle of forty-five degrees. Zigzag veins of black and red bronze ran through the vast drab mass.

The long purple shadows that Adam loved had begun to fall. Several huge bats with white heads darted in irregular flight over the camp. Adam’s hands, and his jaw, too, were swollen and painful as a result of the fight, and he served himself and ate with difficulty. And as for speech, he had little chance for that. Dismukes’s words flowed like a desert flood. The man was bewitched. He would consume moments in eloquent description of what he was going to do, then suddenly switch to an irrelevant subject.

“Once, years ago, I was lost on the desert,” he said, reminiscently. “First an’ only time I ever got lost for sure. Got out of grub. Began to starve. Was goin’ to kill an’ eat my burro, when he up an’ run off. Finally got out of water. That’s the last straw, you know...I walked all day an’ all night an’ all day, only to find myself more lost than ever. I thought I had been travellin’ toward the west where some place I’d heard of water an’ a ranch. Then I made sure I’d gone the wrong way. Staggerin’ an’ fallin’ an’ crawlin’ till near daylight, at last I gave up an’ stretched out to die. Me! I gave up — was glad to die...I can remember the look of the pale stars — the grey morning light — the awful silence an’ loneliness. Yes, I wanted to die quick...An’ all at once I heard a rooster crow!”

“Well! You’d lain down to die near a ranch. That was funny,” declared Adam. Life did play queer pranks on men.

“Funny! Say, pard Wansfell, there’s nothin’ funny about death. An’ as for life, I never dreamed how glorious it is, until I heard that rooster crow. I’ll buy a farm of green an’ grassy an’ shady land somewhere in the East — land with running water everywhere — an’ I’ll raise a thousand roosters just to hear them crow.”

“Thought you meant to travel,” said Adam.

“Sure. But I’ll settle down sometime, I suppose,” replied Dismukes, reflectively.

“Friend, will you marry?” inquired Adam gravely. How intensely interesting was this man about to go out into the world!

“Marry! What?” ejaculated the prospector.

“A woman, of course.”

“My God!” rolled out Dismukes. The thought had startled him. His great ox eyes reflected changes of amazing thought, shadows of old emotions long submerged. “That’s somethin’ I never did think of. Me marry a woman!...No woman would ever have me.”

“Dismukes, you’re not so old. And you’ll be rich. When you wear off the desert roughness you can find a wife. The world is full of good women who need husbands.”

“Wansfell, you ain’t serious?” queried Dismukes, puzzled and stirred. He ran a broad hand through his shock of grizzled hair. His eyes were beautiful then. “I never had wife or sweetheart...No girl ever looked at me — when I was a boy. An’ these years on the desert, women have been scarce, an’ not one was ever anythin’ to me.”

“Well, when you get among a lot of pretty girls, just squeeze one for me,” said Adam, with the smile that was sad.

Plain it was how Adam’s attempt at pleasantry, despite its undercurrent, had opened up a vista of bewildering and entrancing prospects for Dismukes. This prospector had grown grizzled on the desert; his long years had been years of loneliness; and now the forgotten dreams and desires of youth thronged thick and sweet in his imagination. Adam left him to that engrossing fancy, hoping it would keep him content and silent for a while.

A golden flare brightened over the Panamint range, silhouetting the long, tapering lines of the peaks. Far to the west, when the sun had set, floated grey and silver-edged clouds, and under them a whorl of rosy, dusky, ruddy haze. All the slopes below were beginning to be enshrouded in purple, and even while Adam watched they grew cold and dark. The heat veils were still rising, but they were from the ridges of dark-brown and pale-grey earth far this side of the mountains. Death Valley was hidden, and for that Adam was glad. The winds had ceased, the clouds of dust had long settled. It was a bold and desolate scene, of wide scope and tremendous dimensions, a big country. The afterglow of sunset transformed the clouds. Then the golden flare faded fast, the clouds paled, the purple gloom deepened. Vast black ridges of mountains stood out like ragged islands in a desolate sea.

“Wansfell,” spoke up Dismukes, “you need your hair cut.”

“Maybe. But I’m glad it was long to-day when I got hit with the shovel.”

“You sure did come near gettin’ it cut then,” replied Dismukes, with a hard laugh. “I’ll tell you what your long hair reminds me of. Years ago I met a big fellow on the desert. Six feet three he was and most as big as you. An’ a darn good pard on the trail. Well, he wore his hair very long. It hid his ears. An’ in the hottest weather he never let me cut it. Well, the funny part all came out one day. Not so funny for him, to think of it!...We met men on the trail. They shot him an’ were nigh on to doin’ for me...My big pardner was a horse thief. He’d had his ears cut off for stealin’ horses. An’ so he wore his hair long like yours to hide the fact he had no ears.”

“Friend Dismukes, I have ears, if my long hair is worrying you,” replied Adam. “And if I had not had mighty keen ears you’d still be grinding gold for your claim jumpers.”

At dusk, while the big bats darted overhead with soft swishing of wings, and the camp fire burned down to red and glowing embers, Dismukes talked and talked. And always he returned to the subject of gold and of his future.

“Pard, I wish you were goin’ with me,” he said, and the slow, sweeping gesture of the great horny hand had something of sublimity. He waved it away toward the east, and it signified the far places across the desert. “I’m rich. The years of lonely hell an’ never-endin’ toil are over. No more sour dough! No more thirst an’ heat an’ dust! No more hoardin’ of gold! The time has come for me to spend. I’ll bank my gold an’ draw my checks. At Frisco I’ll boil the alkali out of my carcass. An’, shaved an’ clipped an’ dressed, I’ll take akin the name of my youth an’ fare forth for adventure. I’ll pay for the years of hard grub. I’ll eat the best an’ drink wine — wine, the sweetest an’ oldest of wine! Wine in thin glasses...I’ll wear silk next my skin an’ sleep on feathers. I’ll travel like a prince. I can see the big niggers roll their eyes. Yas, sah, yas sah, the best for you, sah! An’ I’ll tip them in gold...I’ll go to my old home. Some of my people will be livin’. An’ when they see me they’ll see their ship come in. They’ll be rich. I’ll not forget the friends of my youth. That little village will have a church or a park as my gift. I’ll travel. I’ll see the sights an’ the cities. New York! Ha! if I like that place, I’ll buy it! I’ll see all there is to see, buy all there is to buy. I’ll be merry, I’ll be joyful. I’ll live. I’ll make up for all the lost years. But I’ll never forget the poor an’ the miserable. I can spend an’ give a hundred dollars a day for the rest of my life. I’ll cross the ocean. London! I’ve met Englishmen in the Southwest. Queer, cold sort of men! I’ll see how they live. I’ll go all over England. Then Paris! Never was I drunk, but I’ll get drunk in Paris. I want to see the wonderful hotels an’ shops an’ theatres. I’ll look at the beautiful French actresses. I’ll go to hear the prima donnas sing. I’ll throw gold double-eagles on the stage. An’ I’ll take a fly at Monte Carlo. An’ travel on an’ on. To Rome, that great city where the thrones of the emperors still stand. I’ll go spend a long hour high up in the ruins of the Coliseum. An’ dreamin’ of the days of the Caesars — seein’ the gladiators in the arena — I’ll think of you, Wansfell. For there never lived on the old earth a greater fighter than you!...Egypt, the land of sun an’ sand! I’ll see the grand Sahara. An’ I’ll travel on an’ on, all over the world. When I’ve seen it I’ll come back to my native land. An’ then, that green farm, with wooded hills an’ runnin’ streams! It must be near a city. Horses I’ll have an’ a man to drive, an’ a house of comfort...Mebbe there’ll come a woman into my life. Mebbe children! The thought you planted in me, pard, somehow makes me yearn. After all, every man should have a son. I see that now. What blunders we make! But I’m rich, I’m not so old, I’ll drink life to the very lees...I see the lights, I hear the voices of laughter an’ music, I feel the comfortin’ walls of a home. A roof over my head! An’ a bed as soft as downy feathers!...Mebbe, O my pard, mebbe the sweet smile of a woman — the touch of a lovin’ hand — the good-night kiss of a child!...My God! how the thoughts of life can burn an’ thrill!”

Twenty miles a day, resting several hours through the fierce noon heat, the travellers made down across the Mohave Desert. To them, who had conquered the terrible elements and desolation of Death Valley, this waste of the Mohave presented comparatively little to contend with. Still, hardened and daring as they were, they did not incur unnecessary risks.

The time was September, at the end of a fierce, dry summer. Cloudless sky, fervid and quivering air, burning downward rays of sun and rising veils of reflected heat from sand and rock — these were not to be trifled with. Dismukes’s little thermometer registered one hundred and thirty degrees in the shade; that is, whenever there was any shade to rest in. They did not burden themselves with the worry of knowing the degrees of heat while they were on the march.

Water holes well known to Dismukes, though out of the beaten track, were found to be dry; and so the travellers had to go out of a direct line to replenish their supply. Under that burning sun even Dismukes and Adam suffered terribly after several hours without water. A very fine penetrating alkali dust irritated the throat and nostrils and augmented the pain of thirst. Once they went a whole day without water, and at sundown reached a well kept by a man who made a living by selling water to prospectors and freighters and drivers of borax wagons. His prices were exorbitant. On this occasion, surlily surveying the parched travellers and the thirsty burros, he said his well was almost dry and he would not sell any water. Dismukes had told Adam that the well-owner bore him a grudge. They expostulated and pleaded with him to no avail. Adam went to the well and, lifting a trap-door he peered down, to see quite a goodly supply of water. Then he returned to the little shack where the bushy-whiskered hoarder of precious water sat on a box with a rifle across his knees. Adam always appeared mild and serene, except when he was angry, at which time a man would have had to be blind not to see his mood. The well-owner probably expected Adam to plead again. But he reckoned falsely. Adam jerked the rifle from him and with a single movement of his hands he broke off the stock. Then he laid those big, hard hands on the man, who seemed to shrink under them.

“Friend, you’ve plenty of water. It’s a live well. You can spare enough to save us. We’ll double your pay. Come.”

Adam loosened his right hand and doubled up the enormous mallet-like fist and swung it back. The well-owner suddenly changed his front and became animated, and the travellers got all the water they needed. But they did not annoy him further by pitching camp near his place.

This country was crisscrossed by trails, and, arid desert though it was, every few miles showed an abandoned mine, or a prospector working a claim, or a shack containing a desert dweller. Adam and Dismukes were approaching the highway that bisected the Mohave Desert. It grew to be more of a sandy country, and anywhere in sand, water was always scarce. Another of Dismukes’s water holes was dry. It had not been visited for months. The one wanderer who had stopped there lay there half buried in the sand, a shrunken mummy of a man with a dark and horrible mockery in the eyeless sockets of his skull. His skin was drawn like light-brown parchment over his face. Adam looked, and then again, and gave a sudden start. He turned the sun-dried visage more to the light. He recognised that face, set in its iron mask of death, with its grin that would grin forever until the brown skull went to dust.

“Regan!” he exclaimed.

“You know him?” queried Dismukes.

“Yes. He was an Irishman I knew years ago. A talky, cheerful fellow. Hard drinker. He loved the desert, but drink kept him in the mining camps. The last time I saw him was at Tecopah, after you left.”

“Poor devil! He died of thirst. I know that cast of face...Let’s give him a decent burial.”

“Yes. Poor Regan! He was the man who named me Wansfell. Why he called me that I never knew — never will know.”

Deep in the sand they buried the remains of Regan and erected a rude cross to mark his lonely grave.

Dismukes led Adam off the well-beaten trail one day, up a narrow sandy wash to a closed pocket that smelled old and musty. Here a green spring bubbled from under a bank of sand. Water clear as crystal, slightly green in tinge, sparkled and murmured. A whitish sediment bordered the tiny stream of running water.

“Arsenic!” exclaimed Adam.

“Yes. An’ here’s where I found a whole caravan of people dead. It was six years ago. Place hasn’t changed much. Guess it’s filled up a little with blowin’ sand...Aha! Look here!”

Dismukes put the toe of his boot against a round white object protruding from the sand. It was a bleached skull.

“Men mad with desert thirst never stop to read,” replied Adam, sadly.

In silence Adam and Dismukes gazed down at the glistening white skull. Ghastly as it was, it yet had beauty. Once it had been full of thought, of emotion; and now it was tenanted by desert sand.

Adam and Dismukes spent half a day at that arsenic spring, under the burning sun, suffering the thirst they dared not slake there, and they erected a rude cross that would stand for many and many a day. Deep in the crosspiece Adam cut the words: “DEATH! ARSENIC SPRING! DON’T DRINK! GOOD WATER FIVE MILES. FOLLOW DRY STREAM BED.”

Dismukes appeared to get deep satisfaction and even happiness out of this accomplished task. It was a monument to the end of his desert experience. Good will toward his fellow men!

At last the day came when Adam watched Dismukes drive his burros out on the lonely trail, striding along with his rolling gait, a huge short, broad backed man, like a misshapen giant. What a stride he had! The thousands of desert miles it had mastered had not yet taken its force and spring. It was the stride of one who imagined he left nothing of life behind and saw its most calling adventures to the fore. He had tired of the desert. He had used it. He had glutted it of the riches he craved. And now he was heading down the trail toward the glittering haunts of men and the green pastures. Adam watched him with grief and yet with gladness, and still with something of awe. Dismukes’s going forever was incomprehensible. Adam felt what he could not analyse. The rolling voice of Dismukes, sonorous and splendid, still rang in Adam’s ears; “Pard, we’re square!...Good-bye!” Adam understood now why a noble Indian, unspoiled by white men, reverenced a debt which involved life. The paying of that debt was all of unity and brotherhood there existed in the world. If it was great to feel gratitude for the saving of his life, it was far greater to remember he had saved the life of his saviour. Adam, deeply agitated, watched Dismukes stride down the barren trail, behind his bobbing burros, watched him stride on into the lonely, glaring desert, so solemn and limitless and mysterious, until he vanished in the grey monotony.

CHAPTER XXII

WHEN THE FOLLOWING March came, Adam had been a week plodding southward over the yucca plateaus of the Mohave. The desert had changed its face. Left behind were the rare calico-veined ranges of mountains, the royal-purple porphyries, the wonderful white granites, the green-blue coppers, the yellow sulphurs, and the ruddy red irons. This desert had colour, but not so vivid, not so striking. And it had become more hospitable to the survival of plant life. The sandy floor was no longer monotonously grey.

Adam loved the grotesque yucca trees. They were really trees that afforded shade and firewood, and they brought back no bitter-sweet memories like the palo verdes. The yuccas were fresh and green, renewed in the spring from the dusty grey sunburnt trees they had been in the autumn. Many of them bore great cone-shaped buds about to open, and on others had blossomed large white flowers with streaks of pink. A yucca forest presented a strange sight. These desert trees were deformed, weird, bristling, shaggy trunked, with grotesque shapes like spectres in torture.

Adam travelled leisurely, although a nameless and invisible hand seemed to beckon him from the beyond. His wandering steps were again guided, and something awaited him far down toward the Rio Colorado. He was completing a vast circle of the desert, and he could not resist that call, that wandering quest down toward the place which had given the colour and direction to his life. But the way must be long, and as there were the thorns and rocks for his feet, so must there be bruises to his spirit.

At night on the moon-blanched desert, under the weird, spectral-armed yuccas, Adam had revelation of the clearness of teaching that was to become his. The years had been preparing him. When would come his supreme trial? What would it be? And there came a whisper out of the lonely darkness, on the cool night wind, that some day he would go back to find the grave of his brother and to meet the punishment that was his due. Then all that was physical, all that was fierce, enduring, natural, thrust the thought from him. But though the savage desert life in him burned strong and resistless, yet he began to hear a new, a different, a higher voice of conscience. He imagined he stifled it with fiercely repudiating gestures, but all the wonderful strength of his brawny hands, magnified a thousand times, could not thrust a thought from him.

Toward sunset one day Adam was down on the level desert floor, plodding along a sandy trail around the western wall of San Jacinto. The first bisnagi cacti he saw seemed to greet him as old friends. They were small, only a foot or so high, and sparsely scattered over the long rocky slope that led to the base of the mountain wall. The tops of these cacti were as pink as wild roses. Adam was sweeping his gaze along to see how far they grew out on the desert when he discovered that his burro Jinny had espied moving objects.

Coming toward Adam, still a goodly distance off, were two men and two burros, one of which appeared to have a rider. Presently they appeared to see Adam, for they halted, burros and all, for a moment. It struck Adam that when they started on again they sheered a little off a straight following of the trail. Whereupon Adam, too, sheered a little off, so as to pass near them. When they got fairly close he saw two rough-looking men, one driving a packed burro, and the other leading a burro upon which was a ragged slip of a girl. The sunlight caught a brown flash of her face. When nearly abreast, Adam hailed them.

“Howdy, stranger!” they replied, halting. “Come from inside?”

“No. I’m down from the Mohave,” replied Adam. “How’s the water? Reckon you came by the cottonwoods?”

“Nope. There ain’t none there,” replied one of the men, shortly. “Plenty an’ fine water down the trail.”

“Thanks. Where you headed for?”

“Riverside. My gal hyar is sick an’ pinin’ fer home.”

Adam had been aware of the rather sharp scrutiny of these travellers and that they had exchanged whispers. Such procedures were natural on the desert, only in this case they struck Adam as peculiar. Then he shifted his gaze to the girl on the burro. He could not see her face, as it was bowed. Apparently she was weeping. She made a coarse, drab little figure. But her hair shone in the light of the setting sun — rather short and curly, a rich dark brown with glints of gold.

Adam replied to the curt good-bye of the men, and after another glance at them, as they went on, he faced ahead to his own course. Then he heard low sharp words, “Shet up!” Wheeling, he was in time to see one of these men roughly shake the girl, and speak further words too low for Adam to distinguish. Adam’s natural conclusion was that the father had impatiently admonished the child for crying. Something made Adam hesitate and wonder; and presently, as he proceeded on his way, the same subtle something turned him round to watch the receding figures. Again he caught a gleam of sunlight from that girl’s glossy head.

“Humph! Somehow I don’t like the looks of those fellows,” muttered Adam. He was annoyed with himself, first for being so inquisitive, and secondly for not having gone over to take a closer look at them. Shaking his head, dissatisfied with himself, Adam trudged on.

“They said no water at the cottonwood,” went on Adam. “No water when the peak is still white with snow. Either they lied or didn’t know.”

Adam turned again to gaze after the little party. He had nothing tangible upon which to hang suspicions. He went on, then wheeled about once more, realising that the farther on he travelled the stronger grew his desire to look back. Suddenly the feeling cleared of its vagueness — no longer curiosity. It had been his thoughts that had inhibited him.

“I’ll go back,” said Adam. Tying his burros to greasewood bushes near the trail, he started to stride back over the ground he had covered. After a while he caught a glimmer of firelight through the darkness. They had made dry camp hardly five miles beyond the place where Adam had passed them.

It developed that these travellers had gone off the trail to camp in a wide, deep wash. Adam lost sight of the campfire glimmer, and had to hunt round until he came to the edge of the wash. A good-sized fire of greasewood and sage had been started, so that it would burn down to hot embers for cooking purposes. As Adam stalked out of the gloom into the camp he saw both men busy with preparations for the meal. The girl sat in a disconsolate attitude. She espied Adam before either of the men heard him. Adam saw her quiver and start erect. Not fright, indeed, was it that animated her. Suddenly one of the men rose, with his hand going to his hip.

“Who goes thar?” he demanded, warningly.

Adam halted inside the circle of light. “Say, I lost my coat. Must have fallen off my pack. Did you fellows find it?”

“No, we didn’t find no coat,” replied the man, slowly. He straightened up, with his hand dropping to his side. The other fellow was on his knees mixing dough in a pan.

Adam advanced with natural manner, but his eyes, hidden under the shadow of his wide hat brim, took swift stock of that camp.

“Pshaw! I was sure hoping you’d found it,” he said, as he reached the fire. “I had a time locating your camp. Funny you’d come way off the trail, down in here.”

“Funny or not, stranger, it’s our bizness,” gruffly replied the man standing. He peered keenly at Adam.

“Sure,” replied Adam, with slow and apparent good nature. He was close to the man now, as close as he ever needed to get to any man who might make a threatening move. And he looked past him at the girl. She had a pale little face, too small for a pair of wonderful dark eyes that seemed full of woe and terror. She held out thin brown hands to Adam.

“Reckon you’d better go an’ hunt fer yer coat,” returned the man, significantly.

In one stride Adam loomed over him, his leisurely, casual manner suddenly transformed to an attitude of menace. He stood fully a foot and a half over this stockily built man, who also suddenly underwent a change. He stiffened. Warily he peered up, just a second behind Adam in decision. His mind worked too slowly to get the advantage in this situation.

“Say, I’m curious about this girl you’ve got with you,” said Adam, deliberately.

The man gave a start. “Aw, you are, hey?” he rasped out. “Wal, see hyar, stranger, curious fellars sometimes die sudden, with their boots on.”

Adam’s force gathered for swift action. Keeping a sharp gaze riveted on this man, he addressed the girl: “Little girl, what’s wrong? Are you — —”

“Shet up! If you blab out I’ll slit your tongue,” yelled the fellow, whirling fiercely. No father ever spoke that way to his child. And no child ever showed such terror of her father.

“Girl, don’t be afraid. Speak!” called Adam, in a voice that rang.

“Oh, save me — save me!” she cried, wildly.

Then the man, hissing like a snake, was reaching for his gun when Adam struck him. He fell clear across the fire, and, rolling over some packs, lay still. The other one, cursing, started to crawl, to reach with flour-whitened hand for a gun lying in a belt upon the sand. Adam kicked the gun away and pounced upon the man. Fiercely he yelled and struggled. Adam bore him down, burrowing his face in the sand. Then placing a ponderous knee on the back of the man’s neck, he knelt there, holding him down.

“Girl, throw me that piece of rope,” said Adam, pointing.

She shakily got up, her bare feet sinking in the sand, and, picking up the rope, she threw it to Adam. In short order he bound the man’s arms behind his back.

“Now, little girl, you can tell me what’s wrong,” said Adam, rising.

“Oh, they took me away — from mother!” she whispered.

“Your mother? Where?”

“She’s at the cottonwoods. We live there.”

Adam could not see her plainly. The fire had burned down. He threw on more greasewood and some sage, that flared up with sparkling smoke. Then he drew the girl to the light. What a thin arm she had! And in the small face and staring eyes he read more than the fear that seemed now losing its intensity. Starvation! No man so quick as Adam to see that!

“You live there? Then he lied about the water?” asked Adam.

“Oh yes — he lied.”

“Who are these men?”

“I don’t know. They camped at the water. I — I was out — gathering firewood. One of them — the one you hit — grabbed me — carried me off. He put his hand — on my mouth. Then the other man came — with the burros...My mother’s sick. She didn’t know what happened. She’ll be terribly frightened...Oh, please take me — home!”

“Indeed I will,” replied Adam, heartily. “Don’t worry any more. Come now. Walk right behind me.”

Adam led the way out of camp without another glance at the two men, one of whom was groaning. The girl kept close at Adam’s heels. Away from the circle of camp-fire glow, he could see the grey aisles of clean sand between the clumps of greasewood, and he wound in and out between these until he found the trail. Suddenly he remembered the girl had no shoes.

“You’ll stick your feet full of cactus,” he said. “You should have on your shoes.”

“I have no shoes,” she replied. “But cactus doesn’t hurt me — except the cholla. Do you know cholla? Even the Indians think cholla bad.”

“Guess I do, little girl. Let me carry you.”

“I can walk.”

So they set off on the starlit trail, and here she walked beside him. Adam noted that she was taller than he would have taken her to be, her small head coming up to his elbow. She had the free stride of an Indian. He gazed out across the level grey and drab desert. Whatever way he directed his wandering steps over this land of waste, he was always gravitating toward new adventure. For him the lonely reaches and rock-ribbed canyons were sure to harbour, sooner or later, some humanity that drew him like a magnet. Everywhere the desert had its evil, its suffering, its youth and age. The heat of Adam’s anger subsided with the thought that somehow he had let the ruffians off easily; and the presence of this girl, a mere child, apparently, for all her height, brought home to him the mystery, the sorrow, the marvel of life on the desert. A sick woman with a child living in the lonely shadow of San Jacinto! Adam felt in this girl’s presence, as he had seen starvation in her face, a cruelty of life, of fate. But how infinitely grateful he felt for the random wandering steps which had led him down that trail!

All at once a slim, rough little hand slipped into his. Instinctively Adam closed his own great hand over it. That touch gave him such a thrill as he had never before felt in all his life. It seemed to link his strength and this child’s trust. The rough little fingers and calloused little palm might have belonged to a hard-labouring boy, but the touch was feminine. Adam, desert trained by years that had dominated even the habits ingrained in his youth, and answering mostly to instinct, received here an unintelligible shock that stirred to the touch of a trusting hand but was nothing physical. His body, his mind, his soul seemed but an exhaustive instrument of creation over which the desert played masterfully.

“It was lucky you happened along,” said the girl.

“Yes,” replied Adam, as if startled.

“They were bad men. And, oh, I was so glad to see them — at first. It’s so lonely. No one ever comes except the Indians — and they come to beg things to eat — never to give. I thought those white men were prospectors and would give me a little flour or coffee — or something mother would like. We’ve had so little to eat.”

“That so? Well, I have a full pack,” replied Adam. “Plenty of flour, coffee, sugar, bacon, canned milk, dried fruit.”

“And you’ll give us some?” she asked, eagerly, in a whisper.

“All you need.”

“Oh, you’re good — good as those men were bad!” she exclaimed, with a throb of joy. “Mother has just starved herself for me. You see, the Indian who packed supplies to us hasn’t come for long. Nobody has come — except those bad men. And our food gave out little by little. Mother starved herself for me...Oh, I couldn’t make her eat. She’d say she didn’t want what I’d cook. Then I’d have to eat it.”

“Isn’t your mother able to get about?” asked Adam, turning to peer down into the dark little face.

“Oh no! She’s dying of consumption,” was the low, sad reply.

“And your father?” asked Adam, a little huskily.

“He died two years ago. I guess it’s two, for the peak has been white twice.”

“Died? — here in the desert?”

“Yes. We buried him by the running water where he loved to sit.”

“Tell me — how did your parents and you come to be here.”

“They both had consumption long before I was born,” replied the girl. “Father had it — but mother didn’t — when they were married. That was back in Iowa. Mother caught it from him. And they both were going to die. They had tried every way to get well, but the doctors said they couldn’t...So father and mother started West in a prairie schooner. I was born in it, somewhere in Kansas. They tried place after place, trying to find a climate that would cure them. I remember as far back as Arizona. But father never improved till we got to this valley. Here he was getting strong again. Then my uncle came and he found gold over the mountains. That made father mad to get rich — to have gold for me. He worked too hard — and then he died. Mother has been slowly failing ever since.”

“It’s a sad story, little girl,” replied Adam. “The desert is full of sad stories...But your uncle — what became of him.”

“He went off prospecting for gold. But he came back several times. And the last was just before father died. Then he said he would come back again for me some day and take me out of the desert. Mother lives on that hope. But I don’t want him to come. All I pray for is that she gets well. I would never leave her.”

“So you’ve lived all your life on the desert?”

“Yes. Mother says I never slept under a real roof.”

“And how old are you?”

“Nearly fourteen.”

“So old as that? Well! I thought you were younger. And, little girl — may I ask how you learned to talk so — as if you had been to school?”

“My mother was a school-teacher. She taught me.”

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Eugenie Linwood. But I don’t like Eugenie. Father and mother always called me Genie...What’s your name?”

“Mine is Wansfell.”

“You’re the biggest man I ever saw. I thought the Yuma Indians were giants, but you’re bigger. My poor father was not big or strong.”

Presently Adam saw the dark-grey forms of his burros along the trail. Jinny appeared to be more contrary than usual, and kicked spitefully at Adam as he untied her. And as Adam drove her ahead with the other burro she often lagged to take a nip at the sage. During the several miles farther down the trail Adam was hard put to it to keep her going steadily. The girl began to tire, a circumstance which Adam had expected. She refused to be assisted, or to be put on one of the burros. The trail began to circle round the black bulge of the mountain, finally running into the shadow, where objects were hard to see. The murmur of flowing water soon reached Adam’s ears — most welcome and beautiful sound to desert man. And then big cottonwoods loomed up, and beyond them the gleam of starlight on stately palm trees. Adam peering low down through the shadows, distinguished a thatch-roofed hut.

“We’ll not tell mother about the bad men,” whispered the girl. “It’ll only scare her.”

“All right, Genie,” said Adam, and he permitted himself to be led to a door of the hut. Dark as pitch was it inside.

“Mother, are you awake?” called Genie.

“Oh, child, where have you been?” rejoined a voice, faint and weak, with a note of relief. “I woke up in the dark...I called. You didn’t come.”

Then followed a cough that had a shuddering significance for Adam.

“Mother, I’m sorry. I — I met a man on the trail. A Mr. Wansfell. We talked. And he came with me. He has a new pack of good things to eat. And, oh, mother! he’s — he’s different from those men who were here; he’ll help us.”

“Madam, I’ll be happy to do anything I can for you and your little girl,” said Adam, in his deep, kindly tones.

“Sir, your voice startled me,” replied the woman, with a gasp. “But it’s a voice I trust. The looks of men in this hard country deceive me sometimes — but never their voices...Sir, if you will help us in our extremity, you will have the gratitude of a dying woman — of a mother.”

The darkness was intense inside the hut, and Adam leaning at the door, could see nothing. The girl touched his arm, timidly, almost appealingly, as Adam hesitated over his reply.

“You can — trust me,” he said, presently. “My name is Wansfell. I’m just a desert wanderer. If I may — I’ll stay here — look after your little girl till her uncle comes.”

“At last — God has answered my — prayer!” exclaimed the woman, pantingly.

Adam unpacked his burros a half dozen rods from the hut, under a spreading cottonwood and near the juncture of two little streams of water that flowed down out of the gloom, one on each side of the great corner of mountain. And Adam’s big hands made short shift of camp tasks that night. The hut appeared to be substantial and well made, with upright poles and thatch, covered by a thatched roof of palm leaves. The girl came out and watched him, and Adam had never seen hungrier eyes even in an Indian.

“It’d be fun to watch you — you’re so quick — if I wasn’t starved,” said Genie.

What a slender, almost flat slip of a girl! Her dress was in tatters, showing bare brown flesh in places. The pinched little face further stirred Adam’s pity. And there waved over him a strange pride in his immense strength, his wonderful hands, his desert knowledge that now could be put to the greatest good ever offered him in his wanderings.

“Genie, when you’re starved you must eat very slowly — and only a little.”

“I know. I’ve known all about people starving and thirsting. But I’m not that badly off. I’ve had a little to eat.”

“Honest Injun?” he queried.

She had never heard that expression, so he changed it to another of like meaning.

“I wouldn’t lie,” she replied, with direct simplicity that indeed reminded Adam of an Indian.

Never had Adam prepared so good a camp dinner in such short time. And then, hungry as Genie was, she insisted that her mother should be served first. She took a lighted candle Adam gave her and led the way into the hut, while he followed, carrying food and drink that he believed best for a woman so weak and starved. The hut had two rooms, the first being a kitchen with stone floor and well furnished with camp utensils. The second room contained two rude cots made of poles and palm leaves, upon one of which Adam saw a pale shadow of a woman whose eyes verified the tragic words she had spoken.

Despite the way Adam stooped as he entered, his lofty head brushed the palm-leafed roof. Genie laughed when he bumped against a cross-beam.

“Mother, he’s the tallest man!” exclaimed the girl. “He could never live in our hut...Now sit up, mother dear...Doesn’t it all smell good. Oooooo! The Indian fairy has come.”

“Genie, will you hold the candle so I can see the face of this kind man?” asked the woman, when she had been propped up in bed.

The girl complied, with another little laugh. Adam had not before been subjected to a scrutiny like the one he bore then. It seemed to come from beyond this place and time. “Sir, you are a man such as I have never seen,” she said, at length.

Plain it was to Adam that the sincerity, or whatever she saw in him, meant more to her than the precious food of which she stood in such dire need. Her hair was straggly and grey, her brow lined by pain and care, her burning eyes were sunk deep in dark hollows, and the rest of her features seemed mere pale shadows.

“I’m glad for your confidence,” he said. “But never mind me. Try to eat some now.”

“Mother, there’s plenty,” added Genie, with soft eagerness. “You can’t fib to me about this. Oh, smell that soup! And there’s rice — clean white rice with sugar and milk!”

“Child, if there’s plenty, go and eat...Thank you, sir, I can help myself.”

Adam followed Genie out, and presently the look of her, as she sat on the sand, in ravenous bewilderment of what to eat first, brought back poignantly to him the starvation days of his earlier experience. How blessed to appreciate food! Indeed, Genie would have made a little glutton of herself had not Adam wisely obviated that danger for her.

Later, when she and her mother were asleep, he strolled under the cottonwoods along the murmuring stream where the bright stars shone reflected in the dark water. The place had the fragrance of spring, of fresh snow water, of green growths and blossoming flowers. Frogs were trilling from the gloom, a sweet, melodious music seldom heard by Adam. A faint, soft night breeze rustled in the palm leaves. The ragged mountain-side rose precipitously, a slanted mass of huge rocks, their shining surfaces alternating with the dark blank spaces. Above spread the sky, a wonderful deep blue, velvety, intense, from which blazed magnificent white stars, and countless trains and groups of smaller stars.

Rest and thought came to him then. Destiny had dealt him many parts to play on the desert. So many violent, harsh, and bitter tasks! But this was to be different. Not upon evil days had he fallen! Nor had his wandering steps here taken hold of hell! The fragrance under the shadow of this looming mountain was the fragrance of an oasis. And in that silent shadow slept a child who would soon be an orphan. Adam had his chance to live awhile in one of the desert’s fruitful and blossoming spots. Only a desert man could appreciate the rest, the ease, the joy, the contrast of that opportunity. He could befriend an unfortunate child. But as refreshing and splendid as were these things, they were as naught compared to the blessing that would be breathed upon his head by a dying mother. Adam, lifting up his face to the starlight, felt that all his intense and passionate soul could only faintly divine what the agony of that mother had been, what now would be her relief. She knew. Her prayer had been answered. And Adam pondered and pondered over the meaning of her prayer and the significance of his wandering steps. He seemed to feel the low beat of a mighty heart, the encompassing embrace of a mighty and invisible spirit.

CHAPTER XXIII

DAYLIGHT SHOWED TO Adam the cottonwood oasis as he had it pictured in memory, except for the palm-thatched hut.

He was hard at camp duties when Genie came out: The sun was rising, silver and ruddy and gold, and it shone upon her, played around her glossy head as she knelt on the grass beside the running water. While she bathed there, splashing diamond drops of water in the sunshine, she seemed all brightness and youth. But in the merciless light of day her face was too small, too thin, too pinched to have any comeliness. Her shining hair caught all the beauty of the morning. In one light it was auburn and in another a dark brown, and in any light it had glints and gleams of gold. It waved and curled rebelliously, a rich, thick, rippling mass falling to her shoulders. When, presently, she came over to Adam, to greet him and offer to help, then he had his first look at her eyes by day. Gazing into them, Adam hardly saw the small unattractive, starved face. Like her hair, her eyes shone dark brown, and the lighter gleams were amber. The expression was of a straight-forward soul, unconscious of unutterable sadness, gazing out at incomprehensible life, that should have been beautiful for her, but was not.

“Good morning, Genie,” said Adam, cheerily. “Of course you can help me. There’s heaps of work. And when you help me with that I’ll play with you.”

“Play!” she murmured, dreamily. She had never had a playmate.

Thus began the business of the day for Adam. When breakfast was over and done with he set to work to improve that camp, and especially with an eye to the comfort of the invalid. Adam knew the wonderful curative qualities of desert air, if it was wholly trusted and lived in. On the shady side of the hut he erected a wide porch with palm-thatched roof that cut off the glare of the sky. With his own canvases, and others he found at the camp, he put up curtains that could be rolled up or let down as occasion required. Then he constructed two beds, one at each end of the porch, and instead of palm leaves he use thick layers of fragrant sage and greasewood. Mrs. Linwood, with the aid of Genie, managed to get out to her new quarters. Her pleasure at the change showed in her wan face. The porch was shady, cool, fragrant. She could look right out upon the clean, brown, beautiful streams where they met, and at the camp fire where Adam and Genie would be engaged, and at night she could see it blaze and glow, and burn down red. The low-branching cottonwoods were full of humming birds and singing birds, and always the innumerable bees. The clean white sand, the mesquites bursting into green, the nodding flowers in the grassy nooks under the great iron-rusted stones, the rugged, upheaved slope of mountain, and to the east an open vista between the trees where the desert stretched away grey and speckled and monotonous, down to the dim mountains over which the sun would rise; these could not but be pleasant and helpful. Love of life could not be separated from such things.

“Mrs. Linwood, sleeping outdoors is the most wonderful experience,” said Adam, earnestly. “You feel the night wind. The darkness folds around you. You look up through the leaves to the dark-blue sky and shining stars. You smell the dry sand and the fresh water and the flowers and the spicy desert plants. Every breath you draw is new, untainted. Living outdoors, by day and night, is the secret of my strength.”

“Alas! We always feared the chill night air,” sighed Mrs. Linwood. “Life teaches so many lessons — too late.”

“It is never too late,” returned Adam.

Then he set himself to further tasks, and soon that day was ended. Other days like it passed swiftly, and each one brought more hope of prolonging Mrs. Linwood’s life. Adam feared she could not live, yet he worked and hoped for a miracle. Mrs. Linwood improved in some mysterious way that seemed of spirit rather than of flesh. As day after day went by and Adam talked with her, an hour here, an hour there, she manifestly grew stronger. But was it not only in mind? The sadness of her changed. The unhappiness of her vanished. The tragic cast and pallor of her face remained the same, but the spirit that shone from her eyes and trembled in her voice was one of love, gratitude, hope. Adam came at length to understand that the improvement was only a result of the inception of faith she had in him. With terrible tenacity she had clung to life, even while starving herself to give food to her child; and now that succour had come, her spirit in its exaltation triumphed over her body. Happiness was more powerful than the ravages of disease. But if that condition, if that mastery of mind over body, had continued, it would have been superhuman. The day came at last in which Mrs. Linwood sank back into the natural and inevitable state where the fatality of life ordered the imminence of death.

When she was convulsed with the spasms of coughing, which grew worse every day, Adam felt that if he could pray to the God she believed in, he would pray for her sufferings to be ended. He hated this mystery of disease, this cruelty of nature. It was one of the things that operated against his acceptance of her God. Why was life so cruel? Was life only nature? Nature was indeed cruel. But if life was conflict, if life was an endless progress toward unattainable perfection, toward greater heights of mind and soul, then was life God, and in eternal conflict with nature? How hopelessly and impotently he pondered these distressing questions! Pain he could endure himself, and he had divined that in enduring it he had enlarged his character. But to suffer as this poor woman was suffering — to be devoured by millions of infinitesimal and rapacious animals feasting on blood and tissue — how insupportably horrible! What man could endure that — what man of huge frame and physical might — of intense and pulsing life? Only a man in whom intellect was supreme, who could look upon life resignedly as not the ultimate end, who knew not the delights of sensation, who had no absorbing passion for the grey old desert or the heaving sea, or the windy heights and the long purple shadows, who never burned and beat with red blood running free — only a martyr living for the future, or a man steeped in religion, could endure this blight of consumption. When Adam considered life in nature, he could understand this disease. It was merely a matter of animals fighting to survive. Let the fittest win! That was how nature worked toward higher and stronger life. But when he tried to consider the God this stricken woman worshipped, Adam could not reconcile himself to her agony. Why? The eternal Why was flung at him. She was a good woman. She had lived a life of sacrifice. She had always been a Christian. Yet she was not spared this horrible torture. Why?

What hurt Adam more than anything else was the terror in Genie’s mute lips and the anguish in her speaking eyes.

One day, during an hour when Mrs. Linwood rested somewhat easily, she called Adam to her. It happened to be while Genie was absent, listening to the bees or watching the flow of water.

“Will you stay here — take care of Genie — until her uncle comes back?” queried the woman, with her low, panting breaths.

“I promised you. But I think you should not want me to keep her here too long,” replied Adam, earnestly. “Suppose he does not come back in a year or two?”

“Ah! I hadn’t thought of that. What, then, is your idea?”

“Well, I’d wait here a good long time,” said Adam, soberly. “Then if Genie’s uncle didn’t come, I’d find a home for her.”

“A home — for Genie!...Wansfell, have you considered? That would take money — to travel — to buy Genie — what she ought to — have.”

“Yes, I suppose so. That part need not worry you. I have money. I’ll look out for Genie. I’ll find a home for her.”

“You’d do — all that?” whispered the woman.

“I promise you. Now, Mrs. Linwood, please don’t distress yourself. It’ll be all right.”

“It is all right. I’m not — in distress,” she replied, with something tremulous and new in her voice. “Oh, thank God — my faith — never failed!”

Adam was not sure what she meant by this, but as revolved it in his mind, hearing again the strange ring of joy which had been in her voice, he began to feel that somehow he represented a fulfilment and a reward to her.

“Wansfell — listen,” she whispered, with more force. “I — I should have told you...Genie is not poor. No!...She’s rich!...Her father found gold — over in the mountains...He slaved at digging...That killed him. But he found gold. It’s hidden inside the hut — under the floor — where I used to lie...Bags of gold! Wansfell, my child will be rich!”

“Well!...Oh, but I’m glad!” exclaimed Adam.

“Yes. It sustains me...But I’ve worried so...My husband expected me — to take Genie out of the desert...I’ve worried about that money. Genie’s uncle — John Shaver is his name — he’s a good man. He loved her. He used to drink — but I hope the desert cured him of that. I think — he’ll be a father to Genie.”

“Does he know about the gold that will be Genie’s?”

“No. We never told him. My husband didn’t trust John — in money matters...Wansfell, if you’ll say you’ll go with Genie — when her uncle comes — and invest the money — until she’s of age — I will have no other prayer except for her happiness...I will die in peace.”

“I promise. I’ll do my best,” he declared.

The next time she spoke to him was that evening at dusk. Frogs were trilling, and a belated mocking bird was singing low, full-throated melodies. Yet these beautiful sounds only accentuated the solemn desert stillness.

“Wansfell — you remember — once we talked of God,” she said, very low.

“Yes, I remember,” replied Adam.

“Are you just where you were — then?”

“About the same, I guess.”

“Are you sure you understand yourself?”

“Sure? Oh no. I change every day.”

“Wansfell, what do you call the thing in you — the will to tarry here? The manhood that I trusted?...The forgetfulness of self?...What do you call this strength of yours that fulfilled my faith — that gave me to God utterly — that enables me to die happy — that will be the salvation of my child?”

“Manhood? Strength?” echoed Adam, in troubled perplexity. “I’m just sorry for you — for the little girl.”

“Ah yes, sorry! Indeed you are! But you don’t know yourself...Wansfell, there was a presence beside my bed — just a moment before I called you. Something neither light nor shadow in substance — something neither life nor death...It is gone now. But when I am dead it will come to you. I will come to you — like that...Somewhere out in the solitude and loneliness of your desert — at night when it is dark and still — and the heavens look down — there you will face your soul...You’ll see the divine in man...you’ll realise that the individual dies, but the race lives...You’ll have thundered at you from the silence, the vast, lonely land you love, from the stars and the infinite beyond — that your soul is immortal...That this Thing in you is God!”

When the voice ceased, so vibrant and full at the close, so more than physical, Adam bowed his head, and plodded over the soft sand out to the open desert where mustering shadows inclosed him, and he toiled to and fro in the silence — a man bent under the Atlantean doubt and agony and mystery of the world.

The next day Genie’s mother died.

Long before sunrise of a later day Adam climbed to the first bulge of the mountain wall. On lofty heights his mind worked more slowly — sometimes not at all. The eye of an eagle sufficed him. Down below on the level, during these last few days, while Genie sat mute, rigid, stricken, Adam had been distracted. The greatest problem of his desert experience confronted him. Always a greater problem — always a greater ordeal — that was his history of the years. Perhaps on the heights might come inspiration. The eastern sky was rosy. The desert glowed soft and grey and beautiful. Grey lanes wound immeasurably among bronze and green spots, like islands in a monotonous sea. The long range of the Bernardinos was veiled in the rare lilac haze of the dawn, and the opposite range speared the deep blue of sky with clear black-fringed and snowy peaks. Far down the vast valley, over the dim ridge of the Chocolates, there concentrated a bright rose and yellow and silver. This marvellous light intensified, while below the wondrous shadows deepened. Then the sun rose like liquid silver, bursting to flood the desert world.

The sunrise solved Adam’s problem. His kindness, his pity, his patience and unswerving interest, his argument and reason and entreaty, had all failed to stir Genie out of her mute misery. Nothing spiritual could save her. But Genie had another mother — nature — to whom Adam meant to appeal as a last hope.

He descended the slope to the oasis. There, near a new-made grave that ran parallel with an old one, mossy and grey, sat Genie, clamped in her wretchedness.

“Genie,” he called, sharply, intending to startle her. He did startle her. “I’m getting sick. I don’t have exercise enough. I used to walk miles every day. I must begin again.”

“Then go,” she replied.

“But I can’t leave you alone here,” he protested. “Some other bad men might come. I’m sorry. You must come with me.”

At least she was obedient. Heavily she rose, ready to accompany him, a thin shadow of a girl, hollow-eyed and wan, failing every hour. Adam offered his hand at the stream to help her across. But for that she would have fallen. She left her hand in his. And they set out upon the strangest walk Adam had ever undertaken. It was not long, and before it ended he had to drag her, and finally carry her. That evening she was so exhausted she could not repel the food he gave her, and afterward she soon fell asleep.

Next day he took her out again, and thereafter every morning and every afternoon, relentless in his determination, though his cruelty wrung his heart. Gentle and kind as he was, he yet saw that she fell into the stream, that she pricked her bare feet on cactus, that she grew frightened on the steep slopes, that she walked farther and harder every day. Nature was as relentless as Adam. Soon Genie’s insensibility to pain and hunger was as if it had never been. Whenever she pricked or bruised the poor little feet Adam always claimed it an accident; and whenever her starved little body cried out in hunger he fed her. Thus by action, and the forcing of her senses, which were involuntary, he turned her mind from her black despair. This took days and weeks. Many and many a time Adam’s heart misgave him, but just as often something else in him remained implacable. He had seen the training of Indian children. He knew how the mother fox always threw from her litter the black cub that was repugnant to her. The poor little black offspring was an outcast. He was soon weaned, and kicked out of the nest to die or survive. But if he did survive the cruel, harsh bitterness of strife and heat and thirst and starvation — his contact with his environment — he would grow superior to all the carefully mothered and nourished cubs. Adam expected this singular law of nature, as regarded action and contact and suffering, to be Genie’s salvation, provided it did not kill her; and if she had to die he considered it better for her to die of travail, of effort beyond her strength, than of a miserable pining away.

One morning, as he finished his camp tasks, he missed her. Upon searching, he found her flat on the grassy bank of the stream, face downward, with her thin brown feet in the air. He wondered what she could be doing, and his heart sank, for she had often said it would be so easy and sweet to lie down and sleep in the water.

“Genie, child, what are you doing?” he asked.

“Look! the bees — the honey bees! They’re washing themselves in the water. First I thought they were drinking. But no!...They’re washing. It’s so funny.”

When she looked up, Adam thrilled at sight of her eyes. If they had always been beautiful in shape and colour, what were they now, with youth returned, and a light of the birth of wonder and joy in life? Youth had won over tragedy. Nature hid deep at the heart of all creation. The moment also had a birth for Adam — an exquisite birth of the first really happy moment of his long desert years.

“Let me see,” he said, and he lowered his ponderous length and stretched it beside her on the grassy bank. “Genie, you’re right about the bees being funny, but wrong about what they’re doing. They are diluting their honey. Well, I’m not sure, but I think bees on the desert dilute their honey with water. Watch!...Maybe they drink at the same time. But you see — some of them have their heads turned away from the water, as if they meant to back down...Bees are hard to understand.”

“By the great horn spoon!” ejaculated Genie, and then she laughed.

Adam echoed her laugh. He could have shouted or sung to the skies. Never before, indeed, had he heard Genie use such an expression, but the content of it was precious to him. It revealed hitherto unsuspected depths in her, as the interest in bees hinted of an undeveloped love of nature.

“Genie, do you care about bees, birds, flowers — what they do — how they live and grow?”

“Love them,” she answered, simply.

“You do! Ah, that’s fine! So do I. Why, Genie, I’ve lived so long on the desert, so many years! What would I have done without love of everything that flies and crawls and grows?”

“You’re not old,” she said.

“It’s good you think that. We’ll be great pards now...Look, Genie! Look at that humming bird! There, he darts over the water. Well! What’s he doing?”

Adam’s quick ear had caught the metallic hum of tiny, swift wings. Then he had seen a humming bird poised over the water. As he called Genie’s attention it hummed away. Then, swift as a glancing ray, it returned. Adam could see the blur of its almost invisible wings. As it quivered there, golden throat shining like live fire, with bronze and green and amber tints so vivid in the sunlight, it surely was worthy reason for a worship of nature. Not only had it beauty, but it had singular action. It poised, then darted down, swift as light, to disturb the smooth water, either with piercing bill or flying wings. Time and again the tiny bird performed this antic. Was the diminutive-winged creature playing, or drinking, or performing gyrations for the edification of a female of his species, hidden somewhere in the overhanging foliage? Adam knew that some courting male birds cooed, paraded, strutted, fought before the females they hoped to make consorts. Why not a humming bird?

“By your great horn spoon, Genie!” exclaimed Adam. “I wonder if that’s the way he drinks.”

But all that Adam could be sure of was the beautiful opal body of the tiny bird, the marvellous poise as it hung suspended in air, the incredibly swift darts up and down, and the little widening, circling ripples on the water. No, there was more Adam could be sure of, and Genie’s delight proved the truth of it — and that was how sure the harvest of thought, how sure the joy of life which was the reward for watching.

One morning when Adam arose to greet the sunrise he looked through the gap between the trees, and low down along the desert floor he saw a burst of yellow. At first he imagined it to be a freak of sunlight or reflection, but he soon decided that it was a palo verde in blossom. Beautiful, vivid, yellow gold, a fresh hue of the desert spring. May had come. Adam had forgotten the flight of time. What bitter-sweet stinging memory had that flushing palo verde brought back to him! He had returned to the desert land he loved best, and which haunted him.

Genie responded slowly to the Spartan training. She had been frail, at best, and when grief clamped her soul and body she had sunk to the verge. The effort she was driven to, and the exertion needful, wore her down until she appeared merely skin and bones. Then came the dividing line between waste and repair. She began to mend. Little by little her appetite improved until at last hunger seized upon her. From that time she grew like a weed. Thus the forced use of bone and muscle drove her blood as Adam had driven her, and the result was a natural functioning of physical life. Hard upon that change, and equally as natural, came the quickening of her mind. Healthy pulsing blood did not harbour morbid grief. Action was constructive; grief was destructive.

Adam, giving himself wholly to this task of rehabilitation, added to his relentless developing of Genie’s body a thoughtful and interesting appeal to her mind. At once he made two discoveries — first, that Genie would give herself absorbingly to any story whatsoever, and secondly, that his mind seemed to be a full treasure house from which to draw. He who had spoken with so few men and women on the desert now was inspired by a child.

He told Genie the beautiful Indian legend of Taquitch as it had been told to him by Oella, the Coahuila maiden who had taught him her language.

When he finished Genie cried out: “O, I know. Taquitch is up on the mountain yet! In summer he hurls the lightning and thunder. In winter he lets loose the storm winds. And always, by day and night, he rolls the rocks.”

“Yes, Genie, he’s there,” replied Adam.

“Why did he steal the Indian maidens?” she asked, wonderingly.

Genie evolved a question now and then that Adam found difficult to answer. She had the simplicity of an Indian, and the inevitableness, and a like ignorance of the so-called civilisation of the white people.

“Well, I suppose Taquitch fell in love with the Indian maidens,” replied Adam, slowly.

“Fell in love. What’s that?”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you why she married your father?”

“No.”

“Why do you think she married him?”

“I suppose they wanted to be together — to work — and go to places, like they came West when they were sick. To help each other.”

“Exactly. Well, Genie, they wanted to be together because they loved each other. They married because they fell in love with each other. Didn’t you ever have Indians camp here, and learn from them?”

“Oh, yes, different tribes have been here. But I didn’t see any Indians falling in love. If a chief wanted a wife he took any maiden or squaw he wanted. Some chiefs had lots of wives. And if a brave wanted a wife he bought her.”

“Not much falling in love there,” confessed Adam, with a laugh. “But, Genie, you mustn’t think Indians can’t love each other. For they can.”

“I believe I’ve seen birds falling in love,” went on Genie, seriously. “I’ve watched them when they come to drink and wash. Quail and road runners, now — they often come in pairs, and they act funny. At least one of each pair acted funny. But it was the pretty one — the one with a topknot that did all the falling in love. Why?”

“Well, Genie, the male, or the man-bird, so to speak, always has brighter colours and crests and the like, and he — he sorts of shines up to the other, the female, and shows off before her.”

“Why doesn’t she do the same thing?” queried Genie. “That’s not fair. It’s all one-sided.”

“Child, how you talk! Of course love isn’t one-sided,” declared Adam, getting bewildered.

“Yes, it is. She ought to show off before him. But I’ll tell you what — after they began to build a nest I never saw any more falling in love. It’s a shame. It ought to last always. I’ve heard mother say things to father I couldn’t understand. But now I believe she meant that after he got her — married her — he wasn’t like he was before.”

Adam had to laugh. The old discontent of life, the old mystery of the sexes, the old still, sad music of humanity spoken by the innocent and unknowing lips of this child. How feminine! The walls of the inclosing desert, like those of an immense cloister, might hide a woman all her days from the illuminating world, but they could, never change her nature.

“Genie, I must be honest with you,” replied Adam. “I’ve got to be parents, brother, sister, friend, everybody to you. And I’ll fall short sometimes in spite of my intentions. But I’ll be honest...And the fact is, it seems to be a sad truth that men and man-birds, and man-creatures generally, are all very much alike. If they want anything, they want it badly. And when they fall in love they do act funny. They will do anything. They show off, beg, bully, quarrel, are as nice and sweet as — as sugar; and they’ll fight, too, until they get their particular wives. Then they become natural — like they were before. It’s my idea, Genie, that all the wives of creation should demand always the same deportment which won their love. Don’t you agree with me?”

“I do, you bet. That’s what I’ll have...But will I ever be falling in love?”

The eyes that looked into Adam’s then were to him as the wonder of the world.

“Of course you will. Some day, when you grow up.”

“With you?” she asked, in dreamy speculation.

“Oh, Genie! not me. Why — I — I’m too old!” he ejaculated. “I’m old enough to be your daddy.”

“You’re not old,” she replied, with a finality that admitted of no question. “But if you were — and still like you are, what difference would it make?”

“Like I am! Well, Genie, how’s that?” he queried, curiously.

“Oh, so big and strong! You can do so much with those hands. And your voice sort of — of quiets something inside me. When I lie down to sleep, knowing you’re there under the cottonwood, I’m not afraid of the dark...And your eyes are just like an eagle’s. Oh, you needn’t laugh! I’ve seen eagles. An Indian here once had two. I used to love to watch them look. But then their eyes were never kind like yours...I think when I get big I’ll go falling in love with you.”

“Well, little girl, that’s a long way off,” said Adam, divided between humour and pathos. “But, let’s get back to natural history. A while ago you mentioned a bird called a road runner. That’s not as well known a name among desert men as chaparral cock. You know out in the desert there are no roads. This name road runner comes from a habit — and it’s a friendly habit — of the bird running along the road ahead of a man or wagon. Now the road runner is the most wonderful bird of the desert. That is saying a great deal. Genie, tell me all you know about him.”

“Oh, I know all about him,” declared Genie, brightly. “There’s one lives in the mesquite there. I see him every day, lots of times. Before you came he was very tame. I guess now he’s afraid. But not so afraid as he was...Well, he’s a long bird, with several very long feathers for a tail. It’s a funny tail, for when he walks he bobs it up and down. His colour is speckled — grey and brown and white. I’ve seen dots of purple on him, too. He has a topknot that he can put up and lay down, as he has a mind to. When it’s up it shows some gold colour, almost red underneath. And when it’s up he’s mad. He snaps his big bill like — like — oh, I don’t know what like, but it makes you shiver. I’ve never seen him in the water, but I know he goes in, because he shakes out his feathers, picks himself, and sits in the sun. He can fly, only he doesn’t fly much. But, oh, how he can run! Like a streak! I see him chase lizards across the sand. You know how a lizard can run! Well, no lizard ever gets away from a road runner. There’s a race — a fierce little tussle in the sand — a snap! snap! — and then old killer road runner walks proudly back, carrying the lizard in his bill. If it wasn’t for the way he kills and struts I could love him. For he was very tame. He used to come right up to me. But I never cared for him as I do for other birds.”

“Genie, you’ve watched a road runner, all right. I didn’t imagine you knew so much. Yes, he’s a killer, a murderer. But no worse than other desert birds. They all kill. They’re all fierce. And if they weren’t they’d die...Now I want to tell you the most wonderful thing a road runner does. He’ll fight and kill and eat a rattlesnake!”

“No! Honest Injun?” cried Genie.

“Yes. I’ve watched many a battle between a road runner and a rattlesnake, and nearly all of those battles were won by the birds. But that is not the most wonderful thing a road runner does. I’ll tell you. I’ve never seen this thing myself, but a friend of mine, an old prospector named Dismukes, swears it’s true. He knows more about the desert than any man I ever met and he wouldn’t tell a lie. Well, here’s what it is. He says he saw a road runner come upon a sleeping rattlesnake. But he didn’t pounce upon the snake. It happened to be that the snake slept on the sand near some bushes of cholla cactus. You know how the dead cones fall off and lie around. This wonderful bird dragged these loose pieces of cactus and laid them close together in a circle, all around the rattlesnake. Built a fence around him. Penned him in! Now I can vouch for how a rattlesnake hates cactus...Then the fierce bird flew up and pounced down upon the snake. Woke him up! The rattlesnake tried to slip away, but everywhere he turned was a cactus which stuck into him, and over him the darting, picking bird. So round and round he went, striking as best he could. But he was unable to hit the bird, and every pounce upon him drew the blood. You’ve heard the snap of that big long beak. Well, the rattlesnake grew desperate and began to bite himself. And what with his own bites and those of his enemy he was soon dead...And then the beautiful, graceful, speckled bird proceeded to tear and devour him.”

“I’ll bet it’s true!” ejaculated Genie. “A road runner could and would do just that.”

“Very likely. It’s strange, and perhaps true. Indeed, the desert is the place for things impossible anywhere else.”

“Why do birds and beasts kill and eat each other?” asked Genie.

“It is nature, Genie.”

“Nature could have done better. Why don’t people eat each other? They do kill each other. And they eat animals. But isn’t that all?”

“Genie, some kinds of people — cannibals in the South Seas — and savages — do kill and eat men. It is horrible to believe. Dismukes told me that he came upon a tribe of Indians on the west coast of Sonora in Mexico. That’s not more than four hundred miles from here. He went down there prospecting for gold. He thought these savages — the Seri Indians they’re called — were descended from cannibals and sometimes ate man flesh themselves. No one knows but that they do it often. I’ve met prospectors and travellers who scouted the idea of the Seris being cannibals. But I’ve heard some bad stories about them. Dismukes absolutely believed that in a poor season for meat, if chance offered, they would kill and eat a white man. Prospectors have gone into that country never to return.”

“Ugh! I’ve near starved, but I’d never get that hungry. I’d die. Wouldn’t you?”

“Indeed I would, child.”

And so, during the leisure hours, that grew more and longer as the hot summer season advanced, Adam led Genie nearer to nature, always striving with his observations to teach the truth, however stern, and to instruct and stimulate her growing mind. All was not music of birds and perfume of flowers and serene summer content at the rosy dawns and the golden sunsets. The desert life was at work. How hard to reconcile the killing with the living! But when Adam espied an eagle swooping down from the mountain heights, its wings bowed, and its dark body shooting so wondrously, then he spoke of the freedom of the lonely king of birds, and the grace of his flight, and the noble spirit of his life.

Likewise when Adam heard the honk of wild geese he made haste to have Genie see them winging wide and triangular flight across the blue sky, to the north. He told her how they lived all the winter in the warm south, and when spring came a wonderful instinct bade them rise and fly far northward, to the reedy banks of some lonely lake, and there gobble and honk and feed and raise their young.

On another day, and this was in drowsy June when all the air seemed still, he was roused from his siesta by cries of delight from Genie. She knelt before him on the sand, and in one hand she held a beautiful horned toad, and the other hand she stretched out to Adam.

“Look! Oh, look!” she cried, ecstatically, and her eyes then rivalled the jewelled eyes of the desert reptile. Some dark-red drops of bright liquid showed against the brown of Genie’s hand. “There! It’s blood. I picked him up as I had all the others, so many hundreds of times. Only this time I felt something warm and wet. I looked at my hand. There! He had squirted the drops of blood! And, oh, I was quick to look at his eyes! One was still wet, bloody. I know he squirted the drops of blood from his eyes!”

Thus Adam had confirmed for him one of the mysteries of the desert. Dismukes had been the first to tell Adam about the strange habit of horned toads ejecting blood from their eyes. One other desert man, at least, had corroborated Dismukes. But Adam, who had seldom passed a horned toad without picking it up to gaze at the wondrous colouration, and to see it swell and puff, had never come upon the peculiar phenomenon. And horned toads on his trails had been many. To interest Genie, he built her a corral of flat stones in the sand, and he scoured the surrounding desert for horned toads. What a miscellaneous collection he gathered! They all had the same general scalloped outlines and tiny horns, but the colour and design seemed to partake of the physical characteristics of the spot where each was found. If they squatted in the sand and lay still, it was almost impossible to see them, so remarkable was their protective colouration. Adam turned the assortment over to Genie with instruction to feed them, and play with them, and tease them in the hope that one might sometime eject drops of blood from his eyes. When it actually happened, Genie’s patience was rewarded.

Adam’s theory that the reward of the faithful desert watcher would always come was exemplified in more than one way. Genie had never seen or heard of a tarantula wasp. She had noticed big and little tarantulas, but of the fierce, winged, dragon-fly hawk of the desert — the tarantula wasp — she had no knowledge. Adam, therefore, had always kept a keen lookout for one.

They were up in the canyon on a hot June day, resting in the shade of the rustling palms. A stream babbled and splashed over the stones, and that was the only sound to break the dreaming silence of the canyon. All at once Adam heard a low whirr like the hum of tiny wings. As he turned his head the sound became a buzz. Then he espied a huge tarantula wasp. Quickly he called to Genie, and they watched. It flew around and around about a foot from the ground, a fierce-looking, yet beautiful creature, with yellow body and blue gauzy wings. It was fully two inches and more long.

“He sees a tarantula. Now watch!” whispered Adam.

Suddenly the wasp darted down to the edge of a low bush, into some coarse grass that grew there. Instantly came a fierce whiz of wings, like the buzz of a captured bumblebee, only much louder and more vibrant. Adam saw the blades of grass tumble. A struggle to the death was going on there. Adam crawled over a few yards, drawing Genie with him; and they saw the finish of a terrific battle between the wasp and a big hairy tarantula.

“There! It’s over, and the tarantula is dead,” said Adam. “Genie, I used to watch this kind of a desert fight, and not think much more about it. But one day I made a discovery. I had a camp over here, and I watched a tarantula wasp kill a tarantula. I didn’t know it then, but this wasp was a female, ready to lay her eggs. Well, she rolled, the big spider around until she found a place that suited her. Then she dug a hole, rolled him into it, covered him over, and flew away. I wondered then why she did that. I went away from that camp, and after a while I came back. Then one day I remembered about the wasp burying the tarantula. And so, just for fun and curiosity, I found the grave — it was near the end of a stone — and I opened it up. What do you think I discovered?”

“Tell me!” exclaimed Genie, breathlessly.

“I found the tarantula almost eaten up by a lot of tiny wasps, as much like worms as wasps! Then I understood. That tarantula wasp had killed the tarantula, laid her eggs inside his body, tumbled him into his grave and covered him over. By and by those eggs hatched, and the little wasps ate the tarantula — lived and grew, and after a while came out full-fledged tarantula wasps like their mother.”

CHAPTER XXIV

TIME PASSED. THE days slipped by to make weeks, and weeks merged into months. Summer with its hot midday hours, when man and beast rested or slept, seemed to shorten its season by half. No human creature ever entered a desert oasis without joy, nor left it without regret. As time went fleeting by Adam now and then remembered Dismukes, and these memories were full of both gladness and pathos. He tried to visualise the old prospector in the new role of traveller, absorber of life, spendthrift, and idler. Nevertheless, Adam could never be sure in his heart that Dismukes would find what he sought.

But for the most part of the still, hot, waking hours, Adam, when he was not working or sleeping, devoted himself to Genie. The girl changed every day — how, he was unable to tell. Most wondrous of all in nature was human life, and beyond all sublimity was the human soul!

Every morning at sunrise Genie knelt by her mother’s grave with bowed head and clasped hands, and every evening at sunset or in the golden dusk of twilight she again knelt in prayer.

“Genie, why do you kneel there — now?” asked Adam once, unable to contain his curiosity. “You did not use to do it. Only the last few weeks or month.”

“I forgot I’d promised mother,” she replied. “Besides, could I pray when I wanted to die?”

“No, I suppose not. It would be hard,” replied Adam, gravely. “Please don’t think me curious. Tell me, Genie, what do you pray for?”

“I used to pray ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ as mother taught me when I was little. But now I make up my own prayers. I ask God to keep the souls of mother and father in heaven. I pray I may be good and happy, so when they look down and see me they will be glad. I pray for you, and then for every one in the world.”

Slow, strong unrest, the endless moving of contending tides, heaved in Adam’s breast.

“So you pray for me, Genie?...Well, it is good of you. I hope I’m worthy...But, why do you pray?”

She pondered the question. Thought was developing in Genie. “Before mother died I prayed because she taught me. Since then — lately — it — it lifts me up — it takes away the sorrow here.” And she put a hand over her heart.

“Genie, then you believe in God — the God who is supposed to answer your prayers?”

“Yes. And He is not a god like Taquitch — or the beasts and rocks that the Indians worship. My God is all around me, in the sunshine, in the air, in the humming bees and whispering leaves and murmuring water. I feel him everywhere, and in me, too!”

“Genie, tell me one prayer, just one of yours or your mother’s that was truly answered,” appealed Adam, with earnest feeling.

“We prayed for some one to come. I know mother prayed for some one to save me from being alone — from starving. And I prayed for some one to come and help her — to relieve her terrible dread about me...And you came!”

Adam was silenced. What had he to contend with here? Faith and fact were beyond question, as Genie represented them. What little he knew! He could not even believe that a divine guidance had been the spirit of his wandering steps. But he was changing. Always the future — always the unknown calling — always the presentiment of sterner struggle, of larger growth, of ultimate fulfilment! His illusion, his fetish, his phantasmagoria rivalled the eternal and inexplicable faith of his friend Dismukes.

Andreas Canyon was far from the camp under the cottonwoods, but Adam and Genie, having once feasted their eyes upon its wildness and beauty and grandeur, went back again and again, so that presently the distance in the hot sun was no hindrance, and the wide area of white, glistening, terrible cholla cactus was no obstacle.

For that matter the cactus patch was endurable because of its singular beauty. Adam could not have told why cholla fascinated him, and, though Genie admitted she liked to look at the frosty silver-lighted cones and always had an impulse to prick her fingers on the cruel thorns, she could not explain why.

“Genie, the Yaqui Indians in Sonora love this cholla,” said Adam. “Love it as they hate Mexicans. They will strip a Mexican naked, tear the skin off the soles of his feet, and drive him through the cholla until he’s dead. It wouldn’t take long!...All prospectors hate cholla. I hate it, yet I — I guess I’m a little like the Yaquis. I often prick my finger on cholla just to feel the sting, the burn, the throb. The only pain I could ever compare to that made by cholla is the sting of the sharp horn of a little catfish back in Ohio Oh! I’ll never forget that! A poison, burning sting!...But cholla is terrible because the thorns stick in your flesh. When you jerk to free yourself the thorns leave the cones. Each thorn has an invisible barb and it works deeper and deeper into flesh.”

“Don’t I know!” exclaimed Genie, emphatically. “I’ve spent whole hours digging them out of my feet and legs. But how pretty the cholla shines! Only it doesn’t tell the truth, does it, Wanny?”

“Child, please don’t call me Wanny. It’s so — so silly,” protested Adam.

“It’s not. No sillier than your calling me child! I’m nearly fifteen. I’m growing right out of my clothes.”

“Call me Adam.”

“No, I don’t like that name. And I can’t call you mister or father or brother.”

“But what’s wrong with Adam?”

“I read in mother’s Bible about Adam and Eve. I hated her when the devil got into her. And I didn’t like Adam. And I don’t like the name Adam. You’d never have been driven from heaven.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Adam, ruefully. “Genie, I was wicked when I was a — a young man.”

“You were! Well, I don’t care. You’d never be tempted to disobey the Lord — not by Eve with all her stolen apples!”

“All right, call me Wanny,” returned Adam, and he made haste to change the subject. There were times when Genie with her simplicity, her directness, her curiosity, and her innocence, caused Adam extreme perplexity, not to say embarrassment. He remembered his own bringing up. It seemed every year his childhood days came back closer. And thrown as he was in constant companionship with this child of nature, he began to wonder if the sophisticated education of children, especially girls, as it had been in his youth, was as fine and simple and true to life as it might have been.

Andreas Canyon yawned with wide mouth and huge yellow cliffs. Just beyond the mouth of the canyon and across the wide space from cliff to slope bloomed the most verdant and beautiful oasis of that desert region. Huge grey boulders, clean and old, and russet with lichen, made barricade for a clear stream of green water, as if to protect it from blowing desert sand. Yet there were little beaches of white sand, lined by coloured pebbles. Green rushes and flags grew in the water. Beyond the stream, on the side of the flat-rocked slope, lay a many-acred thicket of mesquite, impenetrable except for birds and beasts. The green of the leaves seem dominated by bronze colours of the mistletoe.

The oasis proper, however, was the grove of cottonwoods, sycamores, and palms. How bright green the foliage of cottonwoods — and smooth white the bark of sycamores! But verdant and cool as it was under their shade, Adam and Genie always sought the aloof and stately palms, wonderful trees not native there, planted years and years before by the Spanish padres.

“Oh, I love it here!” exclaimed Genie. “Listen to the palms whisper!”

They stood loftily, with spreading green fanlike leaves at the tops, and all the trunks swathed and bundled apparently in huge cases of straw. These yellow sheaths were no less than the leaves that had died. As the palms grew the new leaves kept bursting from the tufted tops, and those leaves lowest down died and turned yellow.

“Genie, your uncle seems a long time coming back for you,” remarked Adam.

“I hope he never comes,” she replied.

Adam was surprised and somewhat disconcerted at her reply, and yet strangely pleased.

“Why?” he asked.

“Oh, I never liked him and I don’t want to go away with him.”

“Your mother said he was a good man — that he loved you.”

“Uncle Ed was good, and very kind to me. I — I ought be ashamed,” replied Genie. “But he drank, and when he drank he kissed me — he put his hands on me. I hated that.”

“Did you ever tell your mother?” inquired Adam.

“Yes. I told her. I asked her why he did that. And she said not to mind — only to keep away from him when he drank.”

“Genie, your uncle did wrong, and your mother did wrong not to tell you so,” declared Adam, earnestly.

“Wrong? What do you mean — wrong? I only thought I didn’t like him.”

“Well, I’ll tell you some day...But now, to go back to what you said about leaving — you know I’m going with you when your uncle comes.”

“Wanny, do you want that time to come soon?” she asked, wistfully.

“Yes, of course, for your sake. You’re getting to be a big girl. You must go to school. You must get out to civilisation.”

“Oh! I’m crazy to go!” she burst out, covering her face. “Yet I’ve a feeling I’ll hate to leave here...I’ve been so happy lately.”

“Genie, it relieves me to hear you’re anxious to go. And it pleases me to know you’ve been happy lately. You see I’m only a — a man, you know. How little I could do for you! I’ve tried. I’ve done my best. But at that best I’m only a poor old homeless outcast — a desert wanderer! I’m—”

“Hush up!” she cried, with quick, sweet warmth. Swiftly she enveloped him, hugged him close, and kissed his cheek. “Wanny, you’re grand!...You’re like Taquitch — you’re my Taquitch with face like the sun! And I love you — love you as I never loved anyone except my mother! And I hope Uncle Ed never comes, so you’ll have to take care of me always.”

Adam gently disengaged himself from Genie’s impulsive arms, yet, despite his embarrassment and confused sense of helplessness, he felt the better for her action. Natural, spontaneous, sincere, it warmed his heart. It proved more than all else what a child she was.

“Genie, let me make sure you understand,” he said, gravely. “I love you, too, as if you were my little sister. And if your uncle doesn’t come I’ll take you somewhere — find you a home. But I never — much as I would like to — never can take care of you always.”

“Why?” she flashed, with her terrible directness.

Adam had begun his development of Genie by telling the truth; he had always abided by it; and now, in these awakening days for her, he must never veer from the truth.

“If I tell you why — will you promise never to speak of it — so long as you live?” he asked, solemnly.

“Never! I promise. Never, Wanny!”

“Genie, I am an outcast. I am a hunted man. I can never go back to civilisation and stay.”

Then he told her the story of the ruin of his life. When he finished she fell weeping upon his shoulder and clung to him. For Adam the moment was sad and sweet — sad because a few words had opened up the dark, tragic gulf of his soul; and sweet because the passionate grief of a child assured him that even he, wanderer as he was, knew something of sympathy and love.

“But, Wanny, you — could — go and — be — punished — and then — come back!” she cried, between sobs. “You’d — never — have to — hide — any more.”

Out of her innocence and simplicity she had spoken confounding truth. What a terrible truth! Those words of child wisdom sowed in Adam the seed of a terrible revolt. Revolt — yea, revolt against this horrible need to hide — this fear and dread of punishment that always and forever so bitterly mocked his manhood. If he could find the strength to rise to the heights of Genie’s wisdom — divine philosophy of a child! — he would no longer hate his shadowed wandering steps down the naked shingles and hidden trails of the lonely desert. But, alas! whence would come that strength? Not from the hills! Not from the nature that had made him so strong, so fierce, so sure to preserve his life! It could only come from the spirit that had stood in the dusky twilight beside a dying woman’s side. It could come only from the spirit to whom a child prayed while kneeling at her mother’s grave. And for Adam that spirit held aloof, illusive as the spectres of the dead, beyond his grasp, an invisible medium, if indeed it was not a phantom, that seemed impossible of reality in the face of the fierce, ruthless, inevitable life and death and decay of the desert. Could God be nature — that thing, that terrible force, light, fire, water, pulse — that quickening of plant, flesh, stone, that dying of all only to renew — that endless purpose and progress, from the first whirling gas globe of the universe, throughout the ages down to the infinitesimal earth so fixed in its circling orbit, so pitiful in its present brief fertility? The answer was as unattainable as to pluck down the stars, as hopeless as to think of the fleeting of the years, as mysterious as the truth of where man came from and whence he was to go.

Snow on the grey old peak! It reminded Adam how, long ago, from far down the valley, he had watched the mountain crown itself in dazzling white. Snow on the heights meant winter that tempered the heat, let loose the storm winds; and therefore, down in the desert, comfort and swiftly flying days. Indeed, so swift were they that Adam, calling out sad and well-remembered words, “Oh, time, stand still here!” seemed to look at a few more golden sunsets and, lo! again it was spring. Time would not stand still! Nor would the budding, blossoming youth of Genie! Nor would the slow-mounting might of the tumult in Adam’s soul!

Then swifter than the past, another year flew by. Genie’s uncle did not come. And Adam began to doubt that he would ever come. And the hope of Genie’s, that he never would come, began insidiously to enter into Adam’s thought. Again the loneliness, the solitude and silence, and something more he could not name, began to drag Adam from duty, from effort of mind. The desert never stopped its work, on plant, or rock, or man. Adam knew that he required another shock to quicken his brain, to stir again the spiritual need, to make him fight the subtle, all-pervading, ever-present influence of the desert.

In all that time Adam saw but two white men, prospectors passing by down the sandy trails. Indians came that way but seldom. Across the valley there was an encampment, which he visited occasionally to buy baskets, skins, meat, and to send Indians out after supplies. The great problem was clothes for Genie. It was difficult to get materials, difficult for Genie to make dresses, and impossible to keep her from tearing or wearing or growing out of them. Adam found that Indian moccasins, and tough overalls such as prospectors wore, cut down to suit Genie, and woollen blouses she made herself, were the only things for her. Like a road runner she ran over the rocks and sand! For Genie, cactus was as if it were not! As for a hat, she would not wear one. Adam’s responsibility weighed upon him. When he asked Genie what in the world she would wear when he took her out of the desert, to pass through villages and ranches and towns, where people lived, she naively replied, “What I’ve got on!” And what she wore at the moment was of course, the boyish garb that was all Adam could keep on her, and which happened just then to be minus the moccasins. Genie loved to scoop up the warm white sand with her bare brown feet, and then to dabble them in the running water.

“Well, I give up!” exclaimed Adam, resignedly. “But when we do get to Riverside or San Diego, where there’s a store, you’ve got to go with me to buy girl’s dresses and things — and you’ve got to wear them.”

“Oh, Wanny, that will be grand!” she cried, dazzled at the prospect. “But — let’s don’t go — just yet!”

In the early fall — what month it was Adam could not be sure — he crossed the arm of the valley to the encampment of the Coahuilas. The cool nights and tempering days had made him hungry for meat. He found the Indian hunters at home, and, in fact, they had just packed fresh sheep meat down from the mountain. They were of the same tribe as the old chief, Charley Jim, who had taught Adam so much of the desert during those early hard years over in the Chocolates. Adam always asked for news of Charley Jim, usually to be disappointed. He was a nomad, this old chieftain, and his family had his wandering spirit. Adam shouldered his load of fresh meat and took his way down out of the canyon where the encampment lay, to the well-beaten trail that zigzagged along the irregular base of the mountain.

Adam rested at the dividing points of the trails. It was early in the day, clear and still. How grey and barren and monotonous the desert! All seemed dead. A strange, soft, creeping apathy came over Adam, not a dreaminess, for in his dreams he lived the past and invented the future, but a state wherein he watched, listened, smelled, and felt, all unconscious that he was doing anything. Whenever he fell into this trance, and was roused out of it, or came out of it naturally, then he experienced a wonderful sense of vague content. That feeling was evanescent. Always he longed to get it back, but could not.

In this instant his quick eye caught sight of something that was moving. A prospector with a brace of burros — common sight indeed it was to Adam, though not for the last few years.

The man was coming from the south, but outside of the main trail, for which, no doubt, he was heading. Adam decided to wait and exchange greetings with him. After watching awhile Adam was constrained to mutter “Well, if that fellow isn’t a great walker, my eyes are failing!” That interested him all the more. He watched burros and driver grow larger and clearer. Then they disappeared behind a long, low swell of sand fringed by sage and dotted by mesquite. They would reappear presently, coming out behind the ridge at a point near Adam.

Some minutes later he saw that the burros and driver had not only cleared the end of the ridge, but were now within a hundred yards of where he sat. The burros were trotting, with packs bobbing up and down. Only the old slouch hat of the prospector showed above the packs. Manifestly he was a short man.

“Say, but he’s a walker!” ejaculated Adam.

Suddenly sight of that old slouch hat gave Adam a thrill. Then the man’s shoulders appeared. How enormously broad! Then, as the burros veered to one side, the driver’s whole stature was disclosed. What a stride he had, for a man so short! Almost he seemed as wide as he was long. His gait was rolling, ponderous. He wore old, grey, patched clothes that Adam wildly imagined he had seen somewhere.

Suddenly he yelled at the burros: “Hehaw! Gedap!”

That deep voice, those words, brought Adam leaping to his feet, transfixed and thrilling. Had he lost his mind? What trick of desert mirage or illusion! No — the burros were real — they kicked up the dust — rattled the pebbles in the sage; no — the man was real, however he seemed a ghost of Adam’s past.

“Dismukes!” shouted Adam, hoarsely.

The prospector halted his long, rolling stride and looked. Then Adam plunged over sand and through sage. He could not believe his eyes. He must get his hands on this man, to prove reality. In a trice the intervening space was covered. Then Adam, breathless and aghast, gazed into a face that he knew, yet which held what he did not know.

“Howdy, Wansfell! Thought I’d meet you sooner or later,” said the man.

His voice was unmistakable. He recognised Adam. Beyond any possibility of doubt — Dismukes! In the amaze and gladness of the moment Adam embraced this old saviour and comrade and friend — embraced him as a long-lost brother or as a prodigal son. Then Adam released him, with sudden dawning consciousness that Dismukes seemed to have no feeling whatever about this meeting.

“Dismukes! I had to grab you — just to feel if it was you. I’m knocked clean off my pins,” declared Adam, breathing hard.

“Yes, it’s me, Wansfell,” replied Dismukes. His large, steady eyes, dark brown like those of an ox, held an exceeding and unutterable sadness.

“Back on the desert? You!” exclaimed Adam. “Dismukes, then you lost your gold — bad luck — something happened — you never went to the great cities — to spend your fortune — to live and live?”

“Yes, friend, I went,” replied Dismukes.

A great awe fell upon Adam. His keen gaze, cleared of the mist of amaze, saw Dismukes truly. The ox eyes had the shadow of supreme tragedy. Their interest was far off, as if their sight had fixed on a dim, distant mountain range of the horizon. Yet they held peace. The broad face had thinned. Gone was the dark, healthy bronze! And the beard that had once been thick and grizzled was now scant and white. The whole face expressed resignation and peace. Those wonderful wide shoulders of Dismukes appeared just as wide, but they sagged, and the old, tremendous brawn was not there. Strangest of all, Dismukes wore the ragged grey prospector’s garb which had been on his person when Adam saw him last. There! the yellow stain of Death Valley clay — and darker stains — sight of which made Adam’s flesh creep!

“Ah! So you went, after all,” replied Adam, haltingly. “Well! Well!...Let’s sit down, old comrade. Here on this stone. I confess my legs feel weak...Never expected to see you again in this world!”

“Wansfell, no man can ever tell. It’s folly to think an’ toil an’ hope for the future.”

What strong, sad history of life revealed itself in that reply!

“Ah!...I — But never mind what I think. Dismukes, you’ve not been on the desert long.”

“About a week. Outfitted at San Diego an’ came over the mountain trail through El Campo. Landed in Frisco two weeks an’ more ago. By ship from Japan.”

“Did you have these old clothes hid away somewhere?” inquired Adam. “I remember them.”

“No, I packed them wherever I went for the whole three years.”

“Three years! Has it been that long?”

“Aye, friend Wansfell, three years.”

Adam gazed out across the desert with slowly dimming eyes. The wasteland stretched there, vast and illimitable, the same as all the innumerable times he had gazed. Solemn and grey and old, indifferent to man, yet strengthening through its passionless fidelity to its own task!

“Dismukes, I want you to tell me where you went, what you did, why you came back,” said Adam, with earnestness that was entreaty.

Dismukes heaved a long sigh. He wagged the huge, shaggy head that was now grey. But he showed no more indication of emotion. How stolid he seemed — how locked in his aloofness!

“Yes, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Maybe it’ll save you somethin’ of what I went through.”

Then he became lost in thought, perhaps calling upon memory, raking up the dead leaves of the past. Adam recalled that his own memory of Dismukes and the past brought note of the fact how the old prospector had loved to break his habit of silence, to talk about the desert, and to smoke his black pipe while he discoursed. But now speech did not easily flow and he did not smoke.

“Lookin’ back, I seem to see myself as crazy,” began Dismukes. “You’ll remember how crazy. You’ll remember before we parted up there on the Mohave at that borax camp where the young man was — who couldn’t drive the mules...Wansfell, from the minute I turned my back on you till now I’ve never thought of that. Did you drive the ornery mules?”

“Did I?” Adam’s query was a grim assertion. “Every day for three months! You remember Old Butch, that grey devil of a mule. Well, Dismukes, the time came when he knew me. If I even picked up the long bull whip Old Butch would scream and run to lay his head on me.”

“An’ you saw the young driver through his trouble?”

“That I did. And it was more trouble than he told us then. The boss Carricks had was low-down and cunning. He’s got smitten with the lad’s wife — a pretty girl, but frail in health. He kept Carricks on jobs away from home. We didn’t meet the lad any too soon.”

“Humph! That’s got a familiar sound to me,” declared Dismukes. “Wansfell, what’d you do to thet low-down boss?”

“Go on with your story,” replied Adam.

“Aha! That’s so. I want to make Two Palms Well before dark...Wansfell, like a horned-toad on the desert, I changed my outside at Frisco. Alas! I imagined all within — blood — mind — soul had changed!...Went to Denver, St. Louis, an’ looked at the sights, not much disappointed, because my time seemed far ahead. Then I went to my old home. There I had my first jar. Folks all dead! Not a relation livin’. Could not even find my mother’s grave. No one remembered me an’ I couldn’t find anyone I ever knew. The village had grown to a town. My old home was gone. The picture of it — the little grey cottage — the vines an’ orchard — lived in my mind. I found the place. All gone! Three new houses there. Forty years is a long time! I didn’t build the church or set out a park for the village of my boyhood...Then I went on to Chicago, Philadelphia, New York. Stayed long in New York. At first it fascinated me. I felt I wanted to see it out of curiosity. I was lookin’ for some place, somethin’ I expected. But I never saw it. The hotels, theatres, saloons, gamblin’ hells, an’ worse — the operas an’ parks an’ churches — an’ the wonderful stores — I saw them all. Men an’ women like ants rushin’ to an’ fro. No rest, no sleep, no quiet, no peace! I met people, a few good, but most bad. An’ in some hotels an’ places I got to be well known. I got to have a name for throwin’ gold around. Men of business sought my acquaintance, took me to dinners, made much of me — all to get me to invest in their schemes. Women! Aw! the women were my second disappointment! Wansfell, women are like desert mirages. Beautiful women, in silks an’ satins, diamonds blazin’ on bare necks an’ arms, made eyes at me, talked soft an’ sweet, an’ flattered me an’ praised me an’ threw themselves at me — all because they thought I had stacks an’ rolls an’ bags of gold. Never a woman did I meet who liked me, who had any thought to hear my story, to learn my hope! Never a kind whisper! Never any keen eye that saw through my outside!

“Well, I wasn’t seein’ an’ findin’ the life I’d hoped for. That New York is as near hell as I ever, got. I saw men with quiet faces an’ women who seemed happy. But only in the passin’ crowds. I never got to meet any of them. They had their homes an’ troubles an’ happiness, I figured, an’ they were not lookin’ for anyone to fleece. It was my habit to get into a crowd an’ watch, for I come to believe the mass of busy, workin’ ordinary people were good. Maybe if I’d somehow made acquaintance with a few of them it ‘d have been better. But that wasn’t seein’ life. I thought I knew what I wanted.

“All my yearnin’s an’ dreams seemed to pall on me. Where was the joy? Wansfell, the only joy I had was in findin’ some poor beggar or bootblack or poor family, an’ givin’ them gold. The great city was full of them. An’ I gave away thousands of dollars. God knows that was some good. An’ now I see if I could have stuck it out, livin’ among such people, I might have been of some use in the world. But, man! livin’ was not possible in New York. All night the hotels roared. All night the streets hummed an’ clanged. There was as many people rushin’ around by night as by day, an’ different from each other, like bats an hawks. I got restless an’ half sick. I couldn’t sleep. I seemed suffocatin’ for fresh air. I wanted room to breathe. When I looked up at night I couldn’t see the stars. Think of that for a desert man!

“At last I knew I couldn’t find what I wanted in New York, an’ I couldn’t hunt any longer there. I had to leave. My plans called for goin’ abroad. Then came a strange feelin’ that I must have had all the time, but didn’t realise. The West called me back. I seemed to want the Middle West, where I’d planned to buy the green farm. But you know I’m a man who sticks to his mind, when it’s made up. There were London, Paris, Rome I’d dreamed about an’ had planned to see. Well, I had a hell of a fight with somethin’ in myself before I could get on that ship. Right off then I got seasick. Wansfell, the bite of a rattlesnake never made me half as sick as that dirty-grey, windy sea. The trip across was a nightmare...London was a dreary place as big as the Mohave an’ full of queer fishy-eyed people whom I couldn’t understand. But I liked their slow, easygoin’ ways. Then Paris...Wansfell, that Paris was a wonderful, glitterin’ beautiful city, an’ if a city had been a place for me, Paris would have been it. But, I was lost. I couldn’t speak French — couldn’t learn a word. My tongue refused to twist round their queer words. All the same, I saw what I’d set out to see...Wansfell, if a man fights despair for the women of the world, he’ll get licked in Paris. An’ the reason is, there you see the same thing in the homely, good, an’ virtuous little wives as you see in those terrible, fascinatin’, dazzlin’ actresses. What that somethin’ is I couldn’t guess. But you like all French-women. They’re gay an’ happy an’ square. If I applied the truth of this desert to these Frenchwomen, I’d say the somethin’ so fascinatin’ in them is that the race is peterin’ out an’ the women are dyin’ game.

“From Paris I went to Rome, an’ there a queer state of mind came to me. I could look at temples an’ old ruins without even seein’ them — with my mind on my own country. All this travel idea, seein’ and learnin’ an’ doin’ changed so that it was hateful. I cut out Egypt, an’ I can’t remember much of India an’ Japan. But when I got on ship bound for Frisco I couldn’t see anythin’ for a different reason, an’ that was tears. I’d come far to find joy of life, an’ now I wept tears of joy because I was homeward bound. It was a great an’ splendid feeling!

“The Pacific isn’t like the Atlantic. It’s vast an’ smooth an’ peaceful, with swells like the mile-long ridges of the desert. I didn’t get seasick. An’ on that voyage I got some rest. Maybe the sea is like the desert. Anyway, it calmed me, an’ I could think clear once more. As I walked the deck by day, or hung over the rail by night, my yearnin’s an’ dreams came back. When I reached Frisco I’d take train for the Middle West, an’ somewhere I’d buy the green ranch an’ settle down to peace an’ quiet for the rest of my life. The hope was beautiful. I believed in it. That wild desire to search for the joy of life had to be buried. I had been wrong about that. It was only a dream — a boy’s dream, on the hope of which I had spent the manhood of my best years. Ah! it was bitter to realise that. I — who had never given in to defeat...But I conquered my regret because I knew I had just mistaken what I wanted. An’ it was not wholly too late!...Wansfell, you’ve no idea of the size of the old earth. I’ve been round it. An’ that Pacific! Oh, what an endless ocean of waters! It seemed eternal, like the sky. But — at last — I got to — Frisco.”

Here Dismukes choked and broke down. The deep, rolling voice lost its strength for a moment. He drew a long, long breath that it hurt Adam to hear.

“Wansfell, when my feet once more touched land it was as though I’d really found happiness,” presently went on Dismukes, clearing his throat of huskiness. “I was in the clouds. I could have kissed the very dirt. My own, my native land!...Now for the last leg of the journey — an’ the little farm — the home to be — friends to make — perhaps a sweet-faced woman an’ a child! Oh, it was as glorious as my lost dreams!

“But suddenly somethin’ strange an’ terrible seized hold of me. A hand as strong as the wind gripped my heart...The desert called me!...Day an’ night I walked the streets. Fierce as the desert itself I fought. Oh, I fought my last an’ hardest fight!...On one hand was the dream of my life — the hope of a home an’ happiness — what I had slaved for. Forty years of toil! On the other hand the call of the desert! Loneliness, solitude, silence, the white, hot days, the starlit nights, the vast open desert, free and peaceful, the grey wastes, the coloured mountains, sunrise and sunset. Ah! The desert was my only home. I belonged to the silence an’ desolation. Forty years a wanderer on the desert, blindly seekin’ for gold! But, oh, it was not gold I wanted! Not gold! Nor fortune! That was my dream, my boyish dream. Gold did not nail me to the desert sands. That was only my idea. That was what brought me into the wastelands. I misunderstood the lure of the desert. I thought it was gold, but, no! For me the desert existed as the burrow for the fox. For me the desert linked my strange content to the past ages. For me the soul of the desert was my soul...I had to go back!...I could live nowhere else...Forty years! My youth — my manhood!...I’m old now — old! My dreams are done...Oh, my God!...I HAD TO COME BACK!”

Adam sat confounded in grief, in shock. His lips were mute. Like a statue he gazed across the wasteland, so terribly magnified, so terribly illumined by the old prospector’s revelation. How awful the gigantic red rock barriers! How awful the lonely, limitless expanse of sand! The eternal grey, the eternal monotony!

“Comrade, take the story of my life to heart,” added Dismukes. “You’re a young man still. Think of my forty years of hell, that now has made me a part of the desert. Think of how I set out upon my journey so full of wild, sweet hope! Think of my wonderful journey, through the glitterin’ cities, round the world, only to find my hope a delusion...A desert mirage!”

“Man, I cannot think!” burst out Adam. “I am stunned...Oh, the pity of it — the sickening, pitiless fatality! Oh, my heart breaks for you!...Dismukes, of what use is hope? Oh, why do we fight? Where — where does joy abide for such as you and me?”

The great, rolling ox eyes gleamed upon Adam, strong with the soul of peace, of victory in their depths.

“Wansfell, joy an’ happiness, whatever makes life worth livin’, is in you. No man can go forth to find what he hasn’t got within him.”

Then he gazed away across the desert, across sand and cactus and mesquite, across the blue-hazed, canyon-streaked ranges toward the north.

“I go to Death Valley,” he continued, slowly, in his deep voice. “I had left enough gold to grub-stake me. An’ I go to Death Valley, but not to seek my fortune. It will be quiet and lonely there. An’ I can think an’ rest an’ sleep. Perhaps I’ll dig a little of the precious yellow dust, just to throw it away. Gold!...The man who loves gold is ruined. Passion makes men mad...An’ now I must go.”

“Death Valley? No! No!” whispered Adam.

“Straight for Death Valley! It has called me across half the earth. I remember no desert place so lonely an’ silent an’ free. So different from the noisy world of men that crowds my mind still. There I shall find peace, perhaps my grave. See! life is all a hopin’ to find! I go on my way. Wansfell, we never know what drives us. But I am happy now...Our trails have crossed for the last time. Good-bye.”

He wrung Adam’s hand and quickly whirled to his burros.

“Hehaw! Gedap!” he shouted, with a smack on their haunches. Adam whispered a farewell he could not speak. Then, motionless, he watched the old prospector face the grey wastes toward the north and the beckoning mountains. Adam had an almost irresistible desire to run after Dismukes, to go with him. But the man wanted to be alone. What a stride he had! The fruitless quest had left him that at least. The same old rolling gait, the same doggedness! Dismukes was a man who could not be halted. Adam watched him — saw him at last merge and disappear in the grey, lonely sage. And then into Adam’s strained sight seemed to play a quivering mirage — a vision of Death Valley, ghastly and white and naked, the abode of silence and decay set down under its dark-red walls — the end of the desert and the grave of Dismukes.

CHAPTER XXV

THE NOVEMBER MORNING was keen and cold and Adam and Genie were on their way to spend the day at Andreas Canyon. Adam carried a lunch, a gun, and a book. Genie seemed so exuberant with wonderful spirits that she could scarcely keep her little moccasined feet on the sand. Adam had an unconscious joy in the sight of her.

A dim old Indian trail led up one of the slopes of Andreas Canyon, to which Adam called Genie’s attention.

“We’ll climb this some day — when it comes time to take you away,” said Adam. “It’s a hard climb, but the shortest way out. And you’ll get to see the desert from the top of old Jacinto. That will be worth all the climb.”

His words made Genie pensive. Of late the girl had become more and more beyond Adam’s comprehension — wistful and sad and dreamy by turns, now like a bird and again like a thundercloud, but mostly a dancing, singing creature full of unutterable sweetness of life.

Beyond the oasis, some distance up the canyon, was a dense growth of mesquite and other brush. It surrounded a sandy glade in which bubbled forth a crystal spring of hot water. The bottom was clean white sand that boiled up in the centre like shining bubbles. Indians in times past had laid stones around the pool. A small cottonwood tree on the west side of the glade had begun to change the green colour of the leaves to amber and gold. All around the glade, like a wild, untrimmed hedge, the green and brown mesquites stood up, hiding the grey desert, insulating this cool, sandy, beautiful spot, hiding it away from the stern hardness outside.

Genie had never been here. Quickly she lost her pensiveness and began to sing like a lark. She kicked one moccasin one way and the other in another direction. Straightway she was on the stones, with her bare, slender, brown feet in the water.

“Ooooo! It’s hot!” she cried, ecstatically. “But, oh, it’s fine!” And she dipped them back.

“Genie, you stay here and amuse yourself,” said Adam. “I’m going to climb. Maybe I’ll be back soon — maybe not. You play and read, and eat the lunch when you’re hungry.”

“All right, Wanny,” she replied, gaily. “But I should think you’d rather stay with me.”

Adam had to be alone. He needed to be high above the desert, where he could look down. Another crisis in his transformation was painfully pending. The meeting with Dismukes had been of profound significance, and its effect was going to be far reaching.

He climbed up the zigzag, dim trail, rising till the canyon yawned beneath him, and the green thicket where he had left Genie was but a dot. Then the way led round the slope of the great foothill, where he left the trail and climbed to the craggy summit. It was a round, bare peak of jagged bronze rock, and from this height half a mile above the desert the outlook was magnificent. Beyond and above him the grey walls and fringed peaks of San Jacinto towered sculptured and grand against the azure blue.

Finding a comfortable seat with rest for his back, Adam faced the illimitable gulf of colour and distance below. Always a height such as this, where, like a lonely eagle, he could command an unobstructed view, had been a charm, a strange delight of his desert years. Not wholly had love of climbing, or to see afar, or to feel alone, or to travel in beauty, been accountable for this habit.

Adam’s first reward for this climb, before he had settled himself to watch the desert, was sight of a condor. Only rarely did Adam see this great and loneliest of lonely birds — king of the eagles and of the blue heights. Never had Adam seen one close. A wild, slate-coloured bird, huge of build, with grisly neck and wonderful, clean-cut head, cruelly beaked! Even as Adam looked the condor pitched off the crag and spread his enormous wings.

A few flaps of those wide wings — then he sailed, out over the gulf, and around, rising as he circled. When he started he was below Adam; on the first lap of that circle he rose even with Adam’s position; and when he came round again he sailed over Adam, perhaps fifty feet. Adam thrilled at the sight. The condor was peering down with gleaming, dark, uncanny eyes. He saw Adam. His keen head and great, crooked beak moved to and fro; the sun shone on his grey-flecked breast; every feather of his immense wings seemed to show, to quiver in the air, and the tip feathers were ragged and separate. He cut the air with a soft swish.

Around he sailed, widening his circle, rising higher, with never a movement of his wings. That fact, assured by Adam’s sharp sight, was so marvellous that it fascinated him. What power enabled the condor to rise without propelling himself? No wind stirred down there under the peaks, so he could not lift himself by its aid. He sailed aloft. He came down on one slope of his circle, to rise up on the other, and always he went higher. How easily! How gracefully! He was peering down for sight of prey in which to sink cruel beak and talons. Once he crossed the sun and Adam saw his shadow on the gleaming rocks below. Then his circles widened across the deep canyon high above the higher foothills, until he approached the lofty peak. Higher still, and here the winds of the heights caught him. How he breasted them, sailing on and up, soaring toward the blue!

Adam watched the bird with strained eyes that hurt but never tired. To watch him was one of the things Adam needed. On and ever upward soared the condor. His range had changed with the height. His speed had increased with the wind. His spirit had mounted as he climbed. The craggy grey peak might have harboured his nest and his mate, but he gave no sign. High over the lonely cold heights he soared. There, far above his domain, he circled level for a while, then swooped down like a falling star, miles across the sky, to sail, to soar, to rise again. Away across the heavens he flew, wide winged and free, king of the eagles and of the winds, lonely and grand in the blue. Never a movement of his wings! Higher he sailed. Higher he soared till he was a fading speck, till he was gone out of sight to his realm above.

“Gone!” sighed Adam. “He is gone. And for all I know he may be a spirit of the wind. From his invisible abode in the heavens he can see the sheep on the crags — he can see me here — he can see Genie below — he can see the rabbit at his burrow...Nature! Life! Oh, what use to think? What use to torture myself over mystery I can never solve? — I learn one great truth only to find it involved in greater mystery.”

Adam had realised the need of shocks, else the desert influence would insulate him forever in his physical life. The meeting with Dismukes had been one.

Why had Dismukes been compelled to come back to the desert? What was the lure of the silent places? How could men sacrifice friends, people, home, love, civilisation for the solitude and loneliness of the wastelands? Where lay the infinite fascination in death and decay and desolation? Who could solve the desert secret?

Like white, living flames, Adam’s thoughts leaped in his mind.

These wanderers of the wastelands, like Dismukes and himself, were not labouring under fancy or blindness or ignorance or imagination or delusion. They were certainly not actuated by a feeling for some nameless thing. The desert was a fact. The spell it cast was a fact. Also it began to dawn upon Adam that nothing in civilisation, among glittering cities and moving people, in palaces or hovels, in wealth or poverty, in fame or ignominy, in any walk of worldly life, could cast a spell of enchantment, could swell women’s hearts and claim men’s souls like the desert. The secret then had to do with a powerful effect of the desert — that was to say, of lonely and desolate and wild places — upon the mind of human beings.

Adam remembered how Dismukes had loved to travel alone. If he had any selfishness in his great heart, it had been to gloat over the lonely places by himself. Even with Adam he seldom shared those moments of watching and listening. Always, some part of every day, he would spend alone on a ridge, on a height, or out on the sage, communing with this strange affinity of the desert. Adam had known Dismukes, at the end of a hard day’s travel, to walk a mile and climb to a ledge, there to do nothing at all but watch and listen. It was habit. He did it without thinking. When Adam confronted him with the fact he was surprised. On Adam’s side, this strange faculty or obsession, whatever it was, seemed very much more greatly marked. Dismukes had, or imagined he had, the need to seek gold. Adam had little to do but wander over the waste ways of the desert.

And now Adam, stirred to his depths by the culminating, fatal tragedy of Dismukes’s life, and a passionate determination to understand it, delved into his mind and memory as never before, to discover forgotten lessons and larger growths. But not yet in his pondering did they prove to him why every day of his desert life, and particularly in the last few years, had he gone to this or that lonely spot for no reason at all except that it gave him strange, vague happiness. Here was an astounding fact. He could have seen the same beauty, colour, grandeur, right from his camp. The hours he had passed thus were innumerable.

What had he done, what had gone on in his mind, during all these seemingly useless and wasted hours? Nothing! Merely nothing it seemed to sit for hours, gazing out over the desolate, grey-green, barren desert, to sit listening to the solitude, or the soft wind, or the seep of sand, or perhaps the notes of a lonely bird. Nothing, because most of all that time he did not have in his mind the significance of his presence there. He really did not know he was there. This state of apparent unconsciousness had never been known to Adam at all until Magdalene Virey had given him intimation of it. He had felt the thing, but had never thought about it. But during these three years that he had lived near San Jacinto, it had grown until he gained a strange and fleeting power to exercise it voluntarily. Even this voluntary act seemed unthinking.

Adam, now, however, forced it to be a thinking act. And after many futile efforts he at last, for a lightning flash of an instant, seemed to capture the state of mind again. He recognised it because of an equally swift, vague joy that followed. Joy, he called it, for want of a better name. It was not joy. But it was wildly sweet — no — not so — but perhaps sweetly wild. That emotion, then, was the secret of the idle hours — the secret of the doing nothing. If he could only grasp the secret of the nothing! Looked at with profound thought, this nothing resolved itself into exactly what it had seemed to his first vague, wandering thought — merely listening, watching, smelling, feeling the desert. That was all. But now the sense of it began to assume tremendous importance. Adam believed himself to be not only on the track of the secret of the desert’s influence, but also of life itself.

Adam realised that during those lonely hours he was one instant a primitive man and the next a thinking, or civilised, man. The thinking man he understood; all difficulty of the problem lay hid in this other side of him. He could watch, he could feel without thinking. That seemed to be the state of the mind of an animal. Only it was a higher state — a state of intense feeling, waiting, watching suspension! Adam divined that it was the mental state of the undeveloped savage, and that it brought fleeting moments of strange emotion.

Beyond all comprehension was the marvel of inscrutable nature. Somehow it had developed man. But the instincts of the ages were born with him when he was born. In blood, bone, tissue, heart, and brain! Wonder beyond that was the wonder that man had ever become civilised at all! Some infinite spirit was behind this.

In the illumination of his mind Adam saw much that had been mystery to him. When he had hunted meat, why had the chase been thrilling, exciting, pressing his heart hot against his side, sending his blood in gusts over his body? What a joy to run and leap after the quarry! Strange indeed had been his lust to kill beasts when, after killing, he was sorry. Stranger than this was a fact keen in his memory — the most vivid and intense feeling — come back from his starvation days when he had a wild rapture in pursuit of birds, rats, snakes that he had to kill with stones. Never, in all the years, had this rapture faded. Relic of his cruel boyhood days, when, like all boys, he had killed for the sake of killing, until some aspect of his bloody, quivering victim awakened conscience! Conscience then must be the great factor in human progress — the difference between savage and civilised man. Terribly strange for Adam to look at his brawny hands and remember what they had done to men! Over him, then, gushed the hot blood, over him quivered the muscular intensity, over him waved the fierce passion which, compared with that of his boyhood, was as the blaze of sun to a candle. He had killed men in ruthless justice, in strife of self-defence, but always afterward he had regretted. He had fought men in a terrible, furious joy, with eyes stinging red, with nerves impervious to pain, with the salt taste of a fellow-creature’s blood sweet on his snarling lips but always afterward he was full of wonder and shame.

Just under the skin of every man and every woman, perhaps stronger in one than another, flowed red blood in which primitive instincts still lived and would always live. That was the secret of the desert. The lonely, desolate land, the naked sand and rock-ribbed hills, the wilderness of silence and solitude stirred the instinctive memory of a primitive day. Men watched and listened unthinkingly in the wastelands, for what they knew not, but it was for the fleeting trancelike transformation back to savage nature. There were many reasons for which men became wanderers in the wastelands — love of gold; the need to forget or to remember; passion and crime and wanderlust; the appeal of beauty and sublimity — but what nailed them to the forbidding and inhospitable desert was the instinct of the savage. That was the secret of the spell of the desert. Men who had been confined to cities, chained to dull and humdrum toils, stagnating in the noisy haunts, sore and sick and deflated, standing for some impossible end, when let loose in the grey, iron-walled barrens of the desert were caught by a subtle and insidious enchantment that transfigured some, made beasts of most, and mysteriously bound all. Travellers passing across could not escape it and they must always afterward remember the desert with a thrill of strange pleasure and of vague regret. Women who had been caught by circumstance and nailed to homes along the roads or edges of the desert must feel that nameless charm, though they hated the glaring, desolate void. Magdalene Virey, resigned to her doom in Death Valley, had responded to the nature that was in her.

Through this thing Adam saw the almost inconceivable progress of men upward. If progress had not been slow, nature would never have evolved him. And it seemed well that something of the wild and the primitive must forever remain instinctive in the human race. If the primitive were eliminated from men there would be no more progress. All the gladness of the senses lived in this law. The sweetness of the ages came back in thoughtless watching. The glory of the sunrise, the sadness of the sunset, the whisper of the wind and the murmur of the stream, the music of birds and their beauty — the magic of these came back from the dim, mystic dreamland of the primal day, from the childhood of the race. Nature was every man’s mother. Nevertheless, the wonder and the splendour of life was the age-long progress of man toward unattainable perfection, the magnificent victory of humanity over mastery by primal instincts. And the fact that this seemed true to Adam made him wonder if the spirit of this marvellous life was not God.

The sun was westering when he descended the long, zigzag trail. He walked slowly, tired from his mental strain. And when he got down, the sun was just tipping the ramparts above, flooding the canyon with golden haze and ruddy rays. Adam thought that Genie, weary from long waiting, would be asleep on the sand, or at least reading, and that he could slip into the glade to surprise her. They played a game of this sort, and to her had gone most of the victories.

Like a panther he slid through the grasping mesquite boughs, and presently, coming to the denser brush, he stooped low to avoid making a rustle. As he moved along, bending so that he touched the sand with his hands, he came upon two fat beetles wagging and contesting over possession of some little particle. Scooping up a handful of sand, he buried them, and then, as they so ludicrously scrambled out, he gathered them up, intending, if he could get behind Genie unobserved, to drop them on her book or bare feet.

Thus it happened that he did not look ahead until after he had straightened up inside the glade. All before him seemed golden gleams and streaks of sunset rose. The air was thick with amber haze. Genie stood naked, ankle-deep in the bubbling spring. Like an opal her slender white body caught glimmer and sheen. Wondrously transparent she looked, for the sunlight seemed to shine through her! The red-gold tints of her hair burned like a woven cord of fire in bronze. Glistening crystal drops of water fell from her outstretched hands and her round arms gleamed where the white met the line of tan. The light of the sun shone upon her pensive, beautiful face, as she stood wholly unaware of intrusion. Then she caught the sound of Adam’s stifled gasp. She saw him. She burst into a scream of startled, wild laughter that rang with a trill through the dell.

Adam, breaking the spell of that transfixed instant, rushed headlong away.

CHAPTER XXVI

GAINING THE OPEN, Adam strode swiftly down the trail to where the canyon spread wide and ended in the boulder-strewn desert.

The world in which he moved seemed transfigured, radiant with the last glow of dying day, with a glory of golden gleam. His heart pounded and his blood flooded to and fro, swelling his veins. Life on the earth for him had been shot through and through with celestial fire. His feet were planted on the warm sands and his hands reached to touch the grey old boulders. He needed these to assure himself that he had not been turned into the soft, cool wind or the slanting amber rays so thickly glistening with particles of dust, or the great, soaring king of the eagles. Adam crushed a bunch of odorous sage to his face, smelled it, breathed it, tasted it; and the bitter sweetness thrilled his senses. It was real. It was a part of the vast and glowing desert, of the wonderful earth, of the infinite universe that he yearned to incorporate into his being. The last glorious rays of the setting sun shone upon him and magnified his stature in a long, purple shadow. How the last warmth seemed to kiss his cheek as it sank behind the rim of the range! The huge boulders were warm and alive under his hands. He pricked his fingers upon the cholla thorns just to see the ruddy drops of his life’s current; and there was strange joy in the sting which proved him flesh and blood and nerve. He stood alone, as he had many thousands of times on the grey old desert, his feet on the sand, his knees in the sage; but the being alone then was inexpressibly different It was as if he had, like the tarantula wasp, been born from a cocoon stage in a dark, dead cell, into a beautiful world of light, of freedom, of colour, of beauty, of all that was life. He felt the glory of his beating heart, his throbbing pulse, his sight and all his sense. He turned his face to the cool, sweet sage-scented breeze, and then he lifted it to the afterglow of sunset. Ah! the new, strange joy of life — the incalculable force of the natural man!

The luminous desert stretched before him, valley and mountain, and beyond them was other range and other valley, leading to the sea, and across its heaving bosom were other lands; and above him was the vast, deep-blue sky with its pale evening star, and beyond them began the infinite.

Adam felt himself a part of it all. His ecstasy was that he lived. Nature could not deny him. He stood there, young and strong and vital.

Then he heard Genie calling him. With a start he turned to answer. She was running down the trail. How swift, how lithe, how light! The desert had given her the freedom, the grace, the suppleness of its wild denizens. Like a fawn she bounded over the stones, and her hair caught the last gleams of glowing sunlight. When she neared Adam she checked her flying steps, pattering to a halt, one brown hand over her breast.

“Wheooo!” she burst out, panting. “I — couldn’t — find — you. Why’d — you come — so far?”

The something that had come between Adam’s sight and the desert now surrounded Genie. Immeasurably she was transformed, and the change seemed a mystery.

“We must hurry back. It’ll soon be dark. Come,” he replied.

With step as free and swift as his she kept pace with him. “Wanny, you stole up on me — tried to scare me — while I was bathing,” she said, with arch reproach.

“Genie, it was an accident,” he returned, hurriedly, and how strangely the blood tingled in his face! “I meant to scare you — yes. But I — I never thought — I never dreamed...Genie, I give you my word...Please say you believe me!”

“Why, Wanny,” she said, in surprise, “of course I believe you! It’s nothing to mind about. I didn’t mind.”

“Thank you. I — I’m glad you take it that way,” replied Adam. “I’m sorry I was so — so stupid.”

“How funny you are!” she exclaimed, and her gay laugh pealed out. “What’s there to be sorry about?...You see, I forgot it was getting late...Ooooo how good the water felt! I just couldn’t get enough...You did scare me just a little. I heard you — and was scared before I looked...Wanny, I guess I was imagining things — dreaming, you call it. I was all wet, and looking at myself in the sunlight. I’d never seen myself like that. I’d read of mermaids with shining scales of gold, and nymphs of the woods catching falling blossoms. And I guess I thought I was them — and everything.”

Then Adam scorned the old husk of worldliness that had incased his mind in his boyhood, and clung round it still. This child of nature had taught him many a thought-provoking lesson, and here was another, somehow elevating and on a level with his mental progress of the day. Genie had never lived in the world, nor had she been taught many of its customs. She was like a shy, wild young fawn; she was a dreaming, exuberant girl. Genie had been taught to write and study and read, and was far from being ignorant; but she had not understood the meaning of Adam’s apology. What struck Adam so deeply and confounded him again was the fact that her innocent and sweet smile now, as she gazed up at him, was little different from the one upon her face when she saw him staring at her nude. She had been surprised at his concern and had laughed at his contrition. And that low, rippling laugh, so full of vital and natural life, seemed to blow, as the desert wind blew worn and withered leaves, all of Adam’s recalled sophistications back into the past whence they had come.

Adam and Genie walked hand in hand down the long boulder-strewn slope to the valley floor, where the cholla shone paling silver in gathering twilight, and the delicate crucifixion tree deceived the eye. The lonely November twilight deepened into night. The stars shone bright. The cool wind blew. The sage rustled.

Sleep did not soon woo Adam’s eyelids this night, with the consequence that he awoke a little later than his usual hour. The rose of the dawn had bloomed.

Then Adam, on his knees, by the brown running stream, in the midst of his ablutions, halted to stare at the sunrise. Had it ever before been so strangely beautiful? During his sleep the earth had revolved, and, lo! here was the sun again. Wonderful and perennial truth! Not only had it revolved, but it had gone on its mysterious journey, hurtling through space at inconceivable rapidity. While he slept! Again he had awakened. A thousand years ago he had awakened just like this, so it seemed, to the sunrise, to the loneliness of lonely places, to the beauty of nature, to the joy of life. He sensed some past state, which, when he thought about it, faded back illusively and was gone. But he knew he had lived somewhere before this. All of life was in him. The marvellous spirit he felt now would never die.

There dawned upon Adam a sudden consciousness of Genie’s beauty. She was the last realised and the most beautiful creation of the desert around him.

It came to him as a great surprise. She, too, knelt at the stream, splashing the cool water, bathing her face, wetting the dark, gold-tinted locks and brushing them back. Curiously and absorbingly Adam gazed at her, with eyes from which some blinding shutter had fallen. Yes, she was beautiful. It seemed a simple fact that he had overlooked, yet it was amazing. It distracted him.

“Wanny, you’re all eyes,” cried Genie, gaily. “What’s the matter with me? Why do you look so?”

“Genie, you’re growing up,” he replied, soberly.

“Well, you’d have known that before if you’d seen me sewing,” she said.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Guess I’m nearly seventeen,” she said, and the words brought back the dreams.

“Why, you’re a young lady!” ejaculated Adam. “And — and — —” He had been about to add that she was beautiful, but he held his tongue.

“I guess that, too...Hold out your arm.”

Adam complied, and was further amazed to see, as she walked under his outstretched arm, that the glossy, wavy crown of her head almost touched it. She was as tall and slim and graceful as an arrow-weed.

“There! I’ll have you know you’re a mighty big man,” she said. “And if you weren’t so big I’d come clear up to your shoulder.”

“Genie, don’t you want to leave this desert?” he queried, bluntly.

“Oh no,” she replied, instantly. “I love it. And — and — please don’t make me think of towns, of lots of people. I want to run wild like a road runner. I’d be perfectly happy if I didn’t have to spend half the day mending these old clothes...Wanny, if they get any worse they’ll fall off me — and then I’ll have to run around like you saw me yesterday!...Oh, but for the thorns, that ‘d be grand!” Her light, rippling laugh rang out, sweet and gay.

Adam waited for her later, in the shade of Taquitch Canyon, where from the topmost of a jumble of boulders he watched a distant waterfall, white and green as it flashed over a dark cliff.

He watched her coming. Her ragged boy’s garb with its patches and rents no longer hid her femininity and her charm from his eyes. He saw anew. The litheness of her, the round and graceful figure from flying feet to glinting hair, cried aloud to the loneliness of Adam’s heart the truth of her. An enchantment hung upon her very movements. She travelled from rock to rock, poising, balancing, leaping, and her curly hair danced on her head. Quick as those of a wildcat were her leaps. And her gay, sweet call or cry, birdlike and wild, echoed from the cliffs.

She was coming to Adam across the great jumble of rocks — a girl wonderful as a sprite. And her coming was suddenly realised as fulfilment of dreams. Adam faced the truth of some facts about his dreaming. Lonely hours on lonely slopes, of waiting and watching, had created the shadow of a woman or a girl gliding in the golden glow of the afternoon sunlight, coming to charm away forever the silence and solitude. So innumerable times he had dreamed, but never realised till now those dreams. She was coming, and the sleepy shade awoke to a gleam and a voice. The lacey waterfall shone white and its murmur seemed music of many streams. A canyon swallow twittered.

Adam thought how passing strange had been the tortures, the awakenings, and changings of his desert experience. And here was a vague dream fulfilled! This realisation was unutterably sweet — so sweet because these years had been barren of youth, steeped in unconscious growing worship of beauty, spent alone with pains and toils. He watched her coming. Fresh as the foam of the waterfall, clean as the winds of the heights, wild as the wild young fawn — so she seemed! Youth and gaiety — beauty and life!

But suddenly Adam seemed struck by an emotion, if not of terror, then of dread at some inconceivable and appalling nature of her presence. That emotion was of the distant past as was the vague peril of her approach. A girl — a woman creature — mystery of the ages — the giver of life as the sun gave heat — had come to him, out of the clouds or the desert sands, and the fatality of her coming was somewhat terrible.

Genie reached the huge boulder upon which Adam sat, and like a squirrel she ran up its steep side, to plump herself breathless and panting down against his knees.

“Ah! Old Taquitch — here’s another — Indian maiden — for you to steal,” she said, roguishly. “But before you — carry me up to the clouds — duck me under the waterfall!”

All the accumulated thought and emotion of recent hours concentrated in the gaze he fixed upon her face.

Her trilling laugh pealed out. She thought he was playing Taquitch, god of the heights. He was teasing her with his piercing eyes.

“Look! Look at me, O Taquitch!” she cried, with deep pretended solemnity. “I am Ula, princess of the Coahuilas. I have left my father’s house. I have seen the sun shining in your face, oh, god of the lightnings! And I love — I love — I love with all the Indian’s heart. I will go with you to the peaks. But never — nevermore shall you steal another maiden!”

Adam scarcely heard Genie. He was piercing through eyes and face to the mind and soul and life and meaning of her beauty. Her skin was creamy, golden brown, transparent, with tiny tracery of veins underneath and faint tints of rose. The low forehead and level brows showed moist and soft and thoughtful under the dark, damp curls with their amber glints. A hint of desert leanness hid in the contour of her oval face. Her mouth was strong, with bowed upper lip, the under sensitive and sad — a red, sweet mouth, like a flower. And her eyes, now meeting his so frankly, losing the mock solemnity and the fun, became deep-brown, crystal gulfs of light and shade, of thought and feeling, beautiful with the beauty of exquisite colour, but lovelier for the youth, the joy and wonder of life, the innocence of soul.

“Wanny — are you — playing?” she asked, tremulously, and her warm little hand clasped his.

That changed the spell of her. To look at her beauty was nothing comparable with the warm throb of her young pulsing life. Out of Adam’s slow and painful and intense thought at last evolved a nucleus of revelation. But those clear eyes strangely checked this growing sense of a truth about to overwhelm him. They made him think, and thought had begun to waver and pale beside some subtler faculty of his being. Thus he realised the slow preponderance of feeling over thought, of body over soul, of physical over spiritual. And in this realisation of unequal conflict he divined the meaning of his strange sense of peril in Genie’s presence. The peril lay in the sophistication of his mind, not in Genie’s beauty. Naturally as the mating of the birds he wanted her. That was all. It was like her simplicity, inevitable as life itself, and true to nature! But in his thoughts, flashing after comprehension, the simple fact loomed with staggering, overwhelming significance.

Bidding Genie rest or amuse herself, Adam climbed to a ledge above the waterfall, and there, with the mighty mass of mountain crowding out the light, he threw himself upon the bare stone.

Not long did he torment himself with wonder and fury and bewilderment over an indubitable fact. Almost at once he sank into a self-accusing state which grew from bad to worse, until he was sick, sore, base, and malignant in his arraignment of self. Again the old order of mind, the habit of youthful training, the learned precepts and maxims and laws, flooded back to augment his trouble. And when they got their sway he cursed himself, he hated himself, he beat his breast in the shame of an abasement terribly and inevitably and irretrievably true at that hour.

But this was a short-lived passion. It did not ring true to Adam. It was his youth had suffered shame — the youth trained by his mother — the youth that had fallen upon wild and evil days at old Picacho. His youth flaming up with all its chivalry, its ideals, its sense of honour and modesty, its white-hot shame at even an unconscious wrong to a girl! Not the desert philosophy of manhood that saw nature clearly and saw it whole!

“Peace!” he cried, huskily, as if driving back a ghost of his youth. “I am no beast — no animal!”

Nay, he was a lonely wanderer of the wastelands, who many and many a time had dreamed himself sweetheart, lover, husband of all the beautiful women in the world. Ah! it was his love of beauty, of life!

And so in his dreams, nature, like a panther in ambush, had come upon him unawares to grip him before he knew. Aye — he wanted Genie now — yearned for her with all that intense and longing desire which had falsely seemed love and joy of the whole living world. But it was not what it seemed. All the tenderness of a brother, all the affection of a father Adam had for Genie — emotions that now faded before the master spirit and the imperious flame of life. How little and pitiful arose the memory of Margarita Arallanes — how pale beside this blood fire of his senses! Life had failed him in his youth; life had cheated him. Yet he had arisen on stepping stones of agony to intenser love of that life. He had been faithful, while life had mocked him.

Passionate love of life, to see, to hear, to feel, to touch, had come to him with its saving grace, after the ruthless and violent strife of the desert had taught him to survive. But these were not the soul of nature. This was not nature’s secret. He was a man, a creature of inherited instincts that the desert had intensified. In nature’s eyes he was no different from the lonely desert bird or beast seeking its mate. The law was not wrong, but all the progress of mankind as represented in Adam’s revolt made that law wrong.

When at last he had driven shame from his mind and justified his manhood over the instincts of which he could have no control, then he faced the ordeal.

Contending tides of passion and strife! That had been his desert life. And as the years had passed each new mounting tumult in heart or soul, each fight against men or elements, had exceeded the last. Would there never be an end? Was this his great ordeal — the last — before which he must go down in defeat? No — by all the gods false or true — no, it should never be! Thus he shot arrowy lightnings of soul at the fiery army of instincts trooping on to overwhelm his consciousness.

For a long time the ordeal never got so far as argument. It was revel of the senses, unleashed at last, untamed by the past, fiercer and stronger and more irresistible for all disuse. Melancholy and terrible was the truth that his desert years, so hard, so clean, so cold, so pure, the restraint of his enforced exile, had developed in him instincts masterless in their importunity. Life shrieking out of his flesh and blood for the future that nature demanded! There was revolt here, conscienceless revolt against the futility of manhood, voices from the old bones of his ancestors, from the dim and mystic past. Here at last was revealed the deepest secret of the desert, the eternal law men read in its lonely, naked face — self-preservation and reproduction. The individual lived and fought and perished, but the species survived.

Adam’s instinctive reaction seemed that of a savage into whose surging blood had been ejected some inhibitory current of humanism which chafed at the quivering shores of his veins and tried to dam the flood. He was like a strong man convulsed by fever. Like the strung thread of a bent bow he vibrated.

There came a knocking at the gate of his mind. The tempter! The voice of the serpent! Nature or devil, it was all one — a mighty and eloquent and persuasive force. It whispered to Adam that he was alone on the desert. Fate had been cruel. Love had betrayed him. Life had denied him. A criminal, surely not forgotten by justice, he could never leave the lonely wastelands to live. A motherless, fatherless girl, with no kith or kin, had been left in his care, and he had saved her, succoured her. Care and health and love had made her beautiful. By all the laws of nature she was his, to hold, to cherish, to cheer the lonely, grey years. He had but to open his arms and call to her, reveal to her the mystery and glory of life, and she would be his forever. Unconsciously she herself leaned toward this fate, tempting him in all her innocence. She would grow into a glorious woman — the keen, sweet, fierce youth of her answering to the work of the desert. Were not all desert flowers more rare and vivid — were not all desert creatures more beautiful and strong than their like elsewhere? Genie would be his, as the eagle had its mate, and she would never know any other life. She would be compensation for his suffering, a companion for his wandering. Think! the joy of her, the thrill of her! The wonderful fire of her dark eyes and the dance of her curls and the red lips ripe for kisses! No man had any right to deny himself immortality. What was the world and its customs to him? Where was the all-wise and beneficent God who looked after the miserable and forlorn? Like was life, and that was everything. Beauty in life — that was eternal, the meaning of nature, and every man must love it, share it, and mark the image of himself upon the future. Lastly and most potent, the present fleeting hour that must soon pass! Let him grasp his precious jewel before it was too late — live in the moment. Life might be eternal, but not for him. Soon the seeping sand would nestle round his bleached bones and fill the sockets where once his eyes had burned. Genie was a gift of chance. He had wandered down into this valley, and now his life should never be lonely again. Lover of beauty and worshipper of nature, he had but to extend his arms to receive a treasure far greater than the gold of the desert, more beautiful than its flaming flowers, more mysterious than its fierce and inevitable life. A girl whose white body, like a transparent opal, let the sunshine through! A woman, gift of the ages to man, flame of love and life, most beautiful of all things quick or dead, a mystery for man to cherish, to love, to keep, to bind!

Then, at the instant when Adam’s fall was imminent, and catastrophe leaned like the huge overhanging mountain mass, he wrestled up to fling the supremity of his soul into the teeth of nature.

“No!...No!” he gasped, hoarsely. “Not for me!”

At the last he saw clearly. The love he had for Genie now proclaimed itself. The other had not been love, whatever its greatness, its importunity, its almost blasting power. He was an outcast, and any day a man or men might seek him out to kill him or be killed. What madness was this of his to chain a joyous girl to his wandering steps? What but woe to her and remorse to him could ever come of such relation? Genie was so full of life and love that she hated to leave even the loneliness of the desert. To her, in the simplicity and adaptation of her nature, he was all. But she was a child, and the day he placed her in an environment where youth called to youth, and there were work, play, study, cheer, and love, he would become a memory. The kisses of her red ripe lips were not for him. The dance of her glinting curls, the flash of her speaking eyes, the gold-brown flesh of her, had been created by nature; and nature must go on with its inscrutable design, its eternal progress, leaving him outside the pale. The joy he was to feel in Genie must come of memory, when soon he had gone on down into the lonely wastelands. She would owe life and happiness to him, and, though she might not know it, he always would. A child, a girl, a woman — and some day perhaps a wife and mother — some happy man’s blessing and joy — and these by the same inevitable nature that had tortured him would reward him in the solemn white days and the lonely starlit nights. For he had been and would be the creator of their smiles. How fierce and false had been his struggle, in the light of thought, when the truth was that he would give his life to spare Genie a moment’s pain!

CHAPTER XXVII

THAT AFTERNOON WHEN Adam returned to camp sore in body and spent in force, yet with strangely tranquil soul, there was an old Indian waiting for him. Genie had gone back long before Adam, and she sat on the sand evidently having difficult but enjoyable conversation with the visitor.

At the sight of his hard, craggy, bronze face, serried and seamed with the lines of years, it seemed that a bolt shot back in Adam’s heart, opening a long-closed door.

“Charley Jim!” he ejaculated, in startled gladness.

“How, Eagle!” His deep voice, the familiar yet forgotten name, the lean brown hand, confirmed Adam’s sight.

“Chief, the white man has not forgotten his Indian friend,” replied Adam.

“Eagle no same boy like mescal stalk. Heap big! Many moon! Snows on the mountain!” said Charley Jim, with a gleam of a smile breaking the bronze face. His fingers touched the white hair over Adam’s temples. Pathos and dignity marked the action.

“Boy no more, Charley Jim,” returned Adam. “Eagle has his white feathers now!”

Genie burst into a trill of laughter.

“You funny old people! You make me feel old too,” she protested, and she ran away.

Charley Jim’s sombre eyes followed her, then returned to question Adam.

“She same girl here — long time — sick man’s girl?” And he made signs to show the height of a child and the weakness of a man’s lungs.

“Yes, chief. He her father. Dead. Mother dead, too,” replied Adam, and he pointed to the two green graves across the stream.

“Ugh! No live good. No get well...Eagle, sick man have brother — him dead. Jim find ‘um. Him dig gold — no water — dead...Jim find ‘um heap bones.”

It was thus Adam heard the story of the tragedy of Genie’s uncle. Charley Jim told it more clearly, though just as briefly in his own tongue. Moons before he had found a prospector’s pack and then a pile of rags and bones half buried in the sand over in a valley beyond the Cottonwood Mountains. He recognised the man’s pack as belonging to the brother of the sick man Linwood, both of whom he knew. Adam could trust an Indian’s memory. Genie’s uncle had come to the not rare end of a wandering prospector’s life. The old desert tragedy — thirst! All at once Adam’s eyes seemed to burn blind with a red dim veil, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and through his body passed a cold shudder, and he had strange vision of himself staggering blindly in a circle, plunging madly for the false mirage. The haunting plague passed away. Adam turned to examine the few pack articles Charley Jim had brought for possible identification of the dead. One of these, a silver belt buckle of odd design, oxidised and tarnished, might possibly be remembered by Genie. Adam called her, placed it in her hands.

“Genie, did you ever see that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied, with a start of recognition. “It was my father’s. He gave it to my uncle.”

Adam nodded to the Indian. “Chief, you were right.”

“Oh, Wanny — it means he’s found my uncle — dead!” exclaimed Genie, in awe.

“Yes, Genie,” replied Adam, with a hand of sympathy upon her shoulder. “We know now. He’ll never come back.”

With the buckle in her hands the girl slowly walked toward the graves of her parents.

Charley Jim mounted his pony to ride away.

“Chief — tell me of Oella,” said Adam.

The Indian gazed down upon Adam with sombre eyes. Then his lean, sinewy hand swept up with stately and eloquent gesture to be pressed over his heart.

“Oella dead,” he replied, sonorously, and then he looked beyond Adam, out across the lonesome land, beyond the ranges, perhaps to the realm of his red gods. Adam read the Indian gesture. Oella had died of a broken heart.

He stood there at the edge of the oasis, stricken mute, as his old Indian friend turned to go back across the valley to the Coahuila encampment. A broken heart! That superb Indian maiden, so lithe and tall and strong, so tranquil, so sure — serene of soul as the steady light of her midnight eyes — dead of a broken heart! She had loved him — a man alien to her race — a wanderer and a stranger within her gates, and when he had gone away life became unendurable. Another mystery of the lonely, grey, melancholy wastelands! Adam quivered there in the grip of it all.

Later when he returned to Genie it was to say, simply, “My dear, as soon as I can find my burros we pack for the long trail.”

“No!” she exclaimed, with lighting eyes.

“Yes. I shall take you out to find you a home.”

“Honest Injun?” she blazed at him, springing erect.

“Genie, I would not tease about that. We know your uncle is dead. The time to go has come. We’ll start at sunrise.”

Forgotten were Genie’s dreams of yesterday! A day at her time of life meant change, growth, oblivion for what had been. With a cry of wondering delight she flung herself upon Adam, leaped and climbed to the great height of his face, and there, like a bird, she pecked at him with cool, sweet lips, and clung to him in an ecstasy.

“Don’t!...Still a child, Genie,” he said, huskily, as he disengaged himself from her wild embrace. He meant that she was not still a child. It amazed him and hurt him to see her radiance at the thought of leaving the desert oasis which had been home for so long. Fickleness of youth! Yesterday she had wanted to live there forever; to-day the enchantments of new life, people, places, called alluringly. It was what Adam had expected. It was what he wanted for her. How clear had been his vision of the future! How truly, the moment he had fought down his selfish desires, had he read her innocent heart! His own swelled with gladness, numbing out the pang. For him, some little meed of praise! Not little was it to have conquered self — not little was it to have builded the happiness of an orphan!

Adam’s burros had grown grey in their years of idle, contented life at the oasis. Like the road runners, they enjoyed the proximity of camp; and he found them shaggy and fat, half asleep while they grazed. He drove them back to the shade of the cottonwoods, where Genie, seeing this last and immutable proof of forthcoming departure, began to dance over the sand in wild glee.

“Genie, you’ll do well to save some of your nimbleness,” admonished Adam. “We’ll have a load. You’ve got to climb the mountain and walk till I can buy another burro.”

“Oh, Wanny, I’ll fly!” she cried.

“Humph! I rather think you will fly the very first time a young fellow sees you — a big girl in those ragged boy’s clothes.”

Then Adam thrilled anew with the sweetness, the wonder of her. His cold heart warmed to the core. How he would live in the hope and happiness and love that surely must be awaiting this girl! His mention of a young fellow suddenly rendered Genie amazed, shy, bewildered.

“But — but — Wanny — you — you won’t let any yo — young fellow see me this way!” she pleaded.

“How can I help it? You just wouldn’t sew and make dresses. Now you’re in for it. We’ll meet a lot of lads...And, Genie, just the other day you didn’t care how I saw you.”

“Oh, but you’re different! You’re my dad, my brother, old Taquitch, and everything.”

“Thank you. That makes me feel a little better.” Suddenly she turned her dark eyes upon him, piercing now and dilating with thought.

“Wanny! Are you sorry to leave?”

“Yes,” he replied, sadly.

“Then I’ll stay, if you want me — ever — always,” she said, very low. The golden flush paled on her cheek. She was a child, yet on the verge of womanhood.

“Genie, I’m sorry, but I’m glad, too. What I want most is to see you settled in a happy home, with a guardian, young friends about you — all you want.”

She appeared sober now, and Adam gathered that she had thought more seriously than he had given her credit for.

“Wanny, you’re good, and your goodness makes you see all that for me. But a guardian — a happy home — all I want!...I’ll be poor. I’ll have to work for a living. I won’t have you!”

Then suddenly she seemed about to weep. Her beautiful eyes dimmed. But Adam startled her out of her weakness.

“Poor! Well, Genie Linwood, you’ve got a surprise in store for you.”

Wherewith he led her to the door of the hut and tearing up the old wagon boards that had served as a floor, he dug in the sand underneath and dragged forth bag after bag, which he dropped at her feet with sodden, heavy thumps.

“Gold, Genie! Gold! Yours!...You’ll be rich...All this was dug by your father. I don’t know how much, but it’s a fortune...Now what do you say?”

The rapture Adam had anticipated did not manifest itself. Genie seemed glad, certainly, but the significance of the gold did not really strike her.

“And you never told me!...Well, by the great horn spoon, I’m rich!...Wanny, will you be my guardian?”

“I will, till I can find you one,” he replied, stoutly.

“Oh, never look for one — then I will have all I want!”

The last sunlight, the last starlight night, the last sunrise for Adam and Genie at the oasis, were beautiful memories of the past.

Adam, driving the burros along the dim old Indian trail, meditated on the inevitableness of the end of all things. For nearly three years he had seen that trail every few days and always he had speculated on the distant time when he would climb it with Genie. That hour had struck. Genie, with the light feet of an Indian, was behind him, now chattering like a magpie and then significantly silent. She had her bright face turned to the enchanting adventures of the calling future; she was turning her back upon the only home she could remember.

“Look Genie, how grey and dry the canyon is,” said Adam hoping to divert her. “Just a little water in that white wash, and you know it never reaches the valley. It sinks in the sand...Now look way above you — high over the foothills. See those gleams of white — those streaks of black...Snow, Genie, and the pines and spruces!”

They camped at the edge of the spruces and pines. How sweet and cool and damp the air to desert dwellers! The wind sang through the trees with different tone. Adam, unpacking the burros, turned them loose, sure of their delight in the rich green grass. Genie, tired out with the long climb, fell upon one of the open packs to rest.

With his rifle Adam strode away among the scattered pines and clumps of spruce. The smell of this forest almost choked him, yet it seemed he could not smell and breathe enough. The dark-green, spear-pointed spruces and the brown-barked pines, so lofty and spreading, intoxicated his desert eyes. He looked and revelled, forgetting the gun in his hands, until his aimless steps frightened deer from right before him. Then, to shoot was habit, the result of which was regret. These deer were tame, not like the wary, telescope-eyed mountain sheep; and Adam, after his first exultant thrill — the old recurrent thrill from out the past — gazed down with sorrow at the sleek, beautiful deer he had slain. What dual character he had — what contrast of thrill and pang, of blood and brain, of desert and civilisation, of physical and spiritual, of nature and — But he did not know what!

He laughed later, and Genie laughed too, at how ravenous he was at supper, how delicious the venison tasted, how good it was to eat.

“Guess I’ll give myself up as a bad job,” he told her.

“Wanny, for me you’ll always be Taquitch, giant of the desert and god of the clouds.”

“Ah! You’ll forget me in ten days after you meet him!” replied Adam, somewhat bitterly.

Genie could only stare her amaze.

“Forgive me, child. I don’t mean that. I know you’ll never forget me...But you’ve been my — my little girl so long that it hurts to think of your being some other man’s.” Then he was to see the marvel of Genie’s first blush.

It was well that Adam had thought to pack extra blankets for Genie. She had never felt the nip of frost. And when night settled down black, with the wind rising, she needed to be warmly wrapped. Adam liked the keen air, and also the feel of the camp-fire heat upon his outstretched palms. Next morning the sky was overcast with broken, scudding clouds, and a shrill wind tossed the tips of the pines. Genie crawled out of her blankets to her first experience of winter. When she dipped her hands into the water she squealed and jerked them out. Then at Adam’s bantering laughter she bravely dashed into the ordeal of bathing face and hands with that icy water.

Adam did not have any particular objective point in mind. He felt strangely content to let circumstances of travel or chance or his old wandering instinct guide him.

They travelled leisurely through the foothills on the western side of the Sierra Madres, finding easy trails and good camp sites, and meeting Indians by the way. Six days out from the desert they reached a wagon road, and that led down to a beautiful country of soft velvety-green hills and narrow, pleasant valleys where clumps of live oaks grew, and here and there nestled a ranch.

So they travelled on. The country grew less rugged and some of it appeared to belong to great ranches, once the homes of the Spanish grandees. Late one afternoon travel brought them within sight of Santa Ysabel. Adam turned off the main road, in search of a place to camp, and, passing between two beautiful hills, came upon a little valley, all green with live oaks and brown with tilled ground. He saw horses, cattle, and finally a farmhouse, low and picturesque, of the vine-covered adobe style peculiar to a country first inhabited by the Spanish.

Adam went toward the house, which was mostly concealed by vines and oaks, and presently happened upon a scene that seldom gladdened the eyes of a desert wanderer. On a green plot under the trees several children stopped their play to stare at Adam, and one ran to the open door. There were white pigeons flying about the roof, and grey rabbits in the grass, and ducks wading in the brook. Adam heard the cackle of hens and the bray of a burro. A column of blue smoke lazily rose upward from a grey, adobe fire-blackened oven.

Before Adam got to the door a woman appeared there, with the child at her skirts. She was middle-aged and stout, evidently a hard-working rancher’s wife. She had a brown face, rather serious, but kind, Adam thought. And he looked keenly, because he was now getting into the civilised country that he expected would become Genie’s home.

“Good evening, ma’am!” he said. “Will you let me camp out there by the oaks?”

“How d’ye do, stranger,” she replied. “Yes, you’re welcome. But you’re only a mile or so from Santa Ysabel. There’s a good inn.”

“Time enough to go there to-morrow or next day,” replied Adam. “You see, ma’am, I’m not alone. I’ve a young girl with me. We’re from the desert. And I want her to have some — some decent clothes before I take her where there are people.”

The woman laughed pleasantly.

“Your daughter?” she asked, with interest.

“No relation,” replied Adam. “I — I was a friend of her mother, who died out on the desert.”

“Stranger, you’re welcome to my house overnight.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather not trouble you. We’ll be very comfortable. It’s a nice place to camp.”

“Come far?” asked the woman, whose honest blue eyes were taking stock of Adam.

“Yes, far for Genie. We’ve been about ten days coming over the mountains.”

“Reckon you’d like some milk and eggs for supper?”

“Well, now, ma’am, if you only knew how I would like some,” returned Adam, heartily. “And poor Genie, who has fared so long on desert grub, she’d surely appreciate your kindness.”

“I’ll fetch some over, or send it by my boy,” she said.

Adam returned thoughtfully to the little grove where he had elected to camp. This woman’s kindness, the glint of sympathy in her eyes, brought him up short with the certitude that they were the very virtues he was looking for in the person to whom he intended to trust Genie. It behoved him from now on to go keenly at the task of finding that person. It would not be easy. For the present he meant to hide any hint of Genie’s small fortune, and had cautioned her to that end.

Genie appeared tired and glad to sit on the green grassy bank. “I’ll help — in a little while,” she said. “Isn’t this a pretty place? Oh, the grass feels so cool and smells so sweet!...Wanny, who’d you see at the house?”

“Some youngsters and a nice woman,” replied Adam. It was on his tongue to tell Genie about the milk and eggs for supper, but in the interest of a surprise he kept silent.

Sunset had passed when Adam got the packs spread, the fire built, and supper under way.

At length the supper appeared to be about ready, except for the milk and eggs that had been promised. Adam set the pot and pan aside at the edge of the fire, and went off in search of some wood that would be needed later. He packed a big log of dead oak back to camp, bending under its weight.

When he looked up he saw a handsome, stalwart lad, bareheaded and in shirt sleeves, standing just beyond the fire, holding out with brown muscular arms a big pan of milk. The milk was spilling over the edges. And on one of his fingers hung a small bucket full of eggs. He had to balance himself carefully while he stooped to deposit the bucket of eggs on the ground.

“Hey, Johnnie, where’ll I put the milk?” he called cheerily.

Adam was astounded, and suddenly tickled to see Genie trying to hide behind one of the packs. She succeeded in hiding all but her head, which at the moment, wore an old cap that made her look more than ever like a boy.

“My name’s not Johnnie,” she flashed, with spirit.

The lad appeared nonplussed, probably more at the tone of voice than the speech. Then he laughed. Adam liked the sound of that laugh, its ring, its heartiness.

“Sammy, then...Come get this milk,” called the boy. Genie maintained silence, but she glared over the top of the pack.

“Look here, bub,” the lad went on, plaintively, “I can’t stand this way all night. Mother wants the pan...Boy, are you deaf?...Say, bub, I won’t eat you.”

“How dare you call me bub!” cried Genie, hotly.

“Well, I’ll be doggoned!” exclaimed the young fellow. “Listen to the kid!...I’ll call you worse than bub in a minute. Hurry, bubbie!”

Genie made a quick movement that whirled her around with her cap flying off, and then she got to her knees. Thus with face disclosed, and blazing eyes and curls no boy ever had, she presented a vastly different aspect.

“I’m no boy! I — I’m a — a lady!” she declared, with angry, trembling voice of outraged dignity.

“What!” gasped the lad. Then, in his amaze and horror he dropped the pan of milk, that splashed all over, nearly drowning the fire.

“Hello! What’s the trouble?” asked Adam, genially, appearing from the oaks.

“I — I — spilled the milk — mother sent,” he replied, in confusion.

“That’s too bad! No wonder, such a lot of milk!...What’s your name?”

“It’s Eugene — sir — Eugene Blair.”

“Well, that’s queer — Eugene Blair...My name’s Wansfell, and I’m glad to meet you,” said Adam, offering his hand. “Now let me make you acquainted with Miss Eugenie Linwood.”

The only acknowledgment Genie gave to her first introduction was a slow sinking down behind the pack. Her expression delighted Adam. As for the young man — he appeared to be about twenty years old — he was overcome with embarrassment.

“Glad to — to know you Miss — Miss Linwood,” he gulped. “Please ex-excuse me. Mother never said — there was a — a girl...And you looked so — I took you for a boy.”

“That’s all right, son,” put in Adam, kindly, “Genie did look like a boy. So I’ve been telling her.”

“Now — if you’ll excuse me I’ll run back after more milk,” said the lad, hurriedly, and, grasping up the pan, he ran away.

“Well, Miss Know-it-all,” said Adam, banteringly, “what did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you we’d meet some nice young fellow?”

“He — he didn’t see me — all of me,” replied Genie, tragically.

“What? Why a fellow with eyes like his could see right through that pack,” declared Adam.

“He called me bub!” suddenly exclaimed Genie, her tone changing from one of tragic woe to one of tragic resentment. “Bub!...The — the first boy I ever met in my whole life!”

“Why shouldn’t he call you bub?” queried Adam. “There’s no harm in that. And when he discovered his mistake he apologised like a little man.”

“I hate him!” flashed Genie. “I’d starve to death before I’d eat his eggs and milk.” With that she flounced off into the clump of oaks.

Adam was seeing Genie in a new light. It amused him greatly, yet he could not help but look ruefully after her, somewhat uncertain. Feminine reactions were unknown quantities. Genie reminded him wonderfully of girls he had known when he was seventeen.

Presently young Blair returned with more milk, and also considerably more self-possession. Not seeing Genie, he evidently took the hint and quickly left.

“Come over after supper,” called Adam, after him. “All right,” he replied, and then was gone.

Very shortly then Adam had supper prepared, to which he cheerfully invited Genie. She came reluctantly, with furtive eyes on the green beyond camp, and sat down to fold her feet under her, after the manner of an Indian. Adam, without any comment, served her supper, not omitting a generous quantity of fragrant fried eggs and a brimming cupful of creamy milk. Wherewith Genie utterly forgot, or magnificently disdained, any recollection of what she had said. She even asked for more. But she was vastly removed from the gay and lightsome Genie.

“What ‘d you ask him back here for?” she demanded.

“I want to talk to him. Don’t you?” replied Adam, innocently.

“Me!...When he called me bub?”

“Genie, be sensible. They’re nice people. I think I’ll camp here a day or so. We’ll rest up, and that’ll give me time to look around.”

“Look around!...What’ll become of me?” wailed Genie, miserably.

“You can watch camp. I dare say young Blair will forget your rudeness and be nice to you.”

Then Genie glared with terrible eyes upon Adam, and she seemed between tears and rage.

“I — I never — never knew — you could be like this.”

“Like what? Genie, I declare, I’m half ashamed of you! Nothing has happened. Only this lad mistook you for a boy. Anyone would think the world had come to an end. All because you woke up and found out you had on boy’s clothes. Well, you’ve got to take your medicine now. You would wear them. You never minded me. You didn’t care how I saw you!”

“I don’t care how he saw me or sees me, either, so there,” declared Genie, enigmatically.

“Oh! Well, what’s wrong, then?” queried Adam, more curious than ever.

“I — he — it — it was what he called me,” replied Genie, confusedly.

Adam gazed at her downcast face with speculative eyes, intuitively feeling that she had not told the whole truth. He had anticipated trouble with this spirited young wild creature from the desert, once they got into civilisation.

“Genie, I’ve been mostly in fun. Now I’m serious...I want you to be perfectly natural and nice with these Blairs, or anyone else we meet.”

Manifestly she took that seriously enough. Without another word she dragged her blankets and canvas away from the firelight, and at the edge of the gathering gloom under the oaks she made her bed and crawled into it.

A little while after dark, young Blair presented himself at Adam’s fire, and took a seat to which he was invited.

“I suppose you folks are ranching it?” asked Adam, by way of opening conversation.

“It’s hardly a ranch, though we have hopes,” replied Blair. “Mother and I run the farm. My father’s not — he’s away.”

“Looks like good soil. Plenty of water and fine grass,” observed Adam.

“Best farming country all around — these valleys,” declared the lad, warming to enthusiasm. “Ranchers taking it all up. Only a few valleys left. There’s one just below this — about a hundred acres — if I could only get that!...But no such luck for me.”

“You can never tell,” replied Adam, in his quiet way. “You say ranchers are coming in?”

“Yes. San Diego is growing fast. People are buying out the Mexicans and Indians up in these hills. In a few years any rancher with one of these valleys will be rich.”

“How much land do you own?”

“My mother bought this little farm here — ten acres — and the valley, which was about ninety. But my father — we lost the valley. And we manage to live here.” Adam’s quick sympathy divined that something pertaining to the lad’s father was bitter and unhappy. He questioned further about the farm, what they raised, where they marketed it, how many cattle, horses, chickens, ducks they had. In half ‘an hour Adam knew the boy and liked him.

“You’re pretty well educated for a farmer boy,” remarked Adam.

“I went to school till I was sixteen. We’re from Indiana — Vincennes. Father got the gold fever. We came West. Mother and I took to a surer way of living.”

“You like ranching then?”

“Gee! but I’d love to be a real rancher! There’s not only money in cattle and horses, on a big scale, but it’s such a fine life. Outdoors all the time!...Oh, well, I do have the outdoors as much as anybody. But for mother and the kids — I’d like to do better by them.”

“I saw the youngsters and I’d like to get acquainted. Tell me about them.”

“Nothing much to tell. They’re like little Indians. Tommy’s three, Betty’s four, Hal’s five. He was a baby when we came West. The trip was too hard on him. He’s been delicate. But he’s slowly getting stronger.”

“Well! You’ve a fine family. How are you going to educate them?”

“That’s our problem. Mother and I must do our best until — maybe we can send them to school at San Diego.”

“When your ship comes in?”

“Yes, I’m always hoping for that. But first I’d like my ship to start out, so it can come back loaded.”

The lad laughed. He was imaginative, full of fire and pathos, yet clear headed and courageous, neither blind to the handicap under which he laboured nor morose at his fetters.

“Yes, if a man waits for his ship to come in — sometimes it never comes,” said Adam.

“I suppose you’ll be on your way to town early?” asked Blair, as he rose.

“Guess I’ll not break camp to-morrow. Genie is tired. And I won’t mind a little rest. Hope we’ll see you again.”

“Thank you. Good night.”

When he was gone, Adam took to pacing along the edge of the oaks. In the light of the camp fire he saw the gleam of Genie’s wide-open eyes. She had heard every word of Adam’s conversation with young Blair. He felt a great sympathy for Genie. Like a child, she was face to face with new life, new sensations, poignant and bewildering. How might he best help her?

Next morning, when Adam returned from a look around, he discovered Genie up, puttering at the camp fire. She greeted him with undue cheerfulness. She was making a heroic effort to show that this situation was perfectly natural. She did pretty well, but Adam’s keen eyes and sense gathered that Genie felt herself on the verge of great and tremendous events.

After breakfast Adam asked Genie to accompany him to the farmhouse. She went, but the free, lithe step wanted something of its old grace. Adam espied the children in the yard, and now he took cognizance of them. Tommy was a ragged, tousle-headed, chubby little rascal, ruddy cheeked and blue eyed. Betty resembled the lad Eugene, having his fine dark eyes and open countenance. Hal was the largest, a red-headed, freckle-faced imp if Adam ever saw one. They regarded the newcomers with considerable interest. Genie approached them and offered to swing Betty, who was sitting in a clumsy little hammock-like affair made of barrel staves. And Adam, seeing the children’s mother at the door, went that way.

“Good morning, Mrs. Blair!” he said. “We’ve come over to chat a bit and see your youngsters.”

She greeted them smilingly, and came out wiping her hands on her apron. “Goodness knows we’re glad to have you. Gene has gone to work. Won’t you sit on the bench here?”

Then she espied Genie. “For land’s sake! That your girl in the boy’s clothes? Gene told me what a dunce he’d been...Oh, she’s pretty! What shiny hair!”

“That’s Genie. I want you to meet her — and then, Mrs. Blair, perhaps you can give an old desert codger a little advice,” said Adam.

He called Genie, and she came readily, though not without shyness. Despite her garb and its rents, Adam could not but feel proud of her. Mrs. Blair’s kindliness quickly put the girl at ease. After a little talk, in which Genie’s part augured well for the impression she was to make upon people, Adam bade her play with the children.

“No wonder Gene spilled the milk!” ejaculated Mrs. Blair.

“Why?” queried Adam.

“The girl’s more than pretty. Never saw such hair. And her eyes! They’re not the colour of hair and eyes I know.”

“That’s the desert’s work, Mrs. Blair. On the desert nature makes colour, as well as life, more vivid, more intense.”

“And this Genie — isn’t it odd — her name is like my boy Gene’s — she’s no relation of yours?”

Briefly then Adam related Genie’s story and the circumstances of his association with her.

“Laws-a-me! Poor child!...and now she has no people — no home — not a friend in the world but you?”

“Not one. It’s pretty sad, Mrs. Blair.’

“Sad? It’s worse than that...Strikes me, though, Mr. Wansfell, you must be family and friends and all to that girl...And let a mother tell you what a noble thing you’ve done — to give three years of your life to an orphan!”

“What I did was good for me. Better than anything I ever did before,” replied Adam, earnestly. “I’d go on if it were possible. But Genie needs a home, young people, work, to learn and live her life. And I — I must go back to the desert.”

“Ah! So that’s it!” exclaimed the woman, nodding. “My husband spoke just like you do. He took to the desert — sold my farm to get money to work his gold claims. Always he had to go back to the desert...And now he’ll never come home again.”

“Yes, the desert claims many men. But I could and would sacrifice whatever the desert means to me, for Genie’s sake, if it — if there was not a reason which makes that impossible.”

“And now you’re hunting a home for her?”

“Yes.”

“She’s well educated, you said?”

“Her mother was a school-teacher.”

“Then she could teach children...Things work out strangely in life, don’t they? My Betty might be left alone. Any girl may become an orphan.”

“Now, Mrs. Blair, will you be so kind as to take Genie, or go with us into town, and help us get some clothes for her? A few simple dresses, and things she needs. I’d be helpless. And Genie knows so little. She ought to have a woman go with her.”

“Indeed she shall have,” declared Mrs. Blair. “I’ll be only too glad to go. I need some things — —” Then she struck her forehead with a plump hand. “I’ve a better idea. There’s not much to be bought in the store at Santa Ysabel. But my neighbour up the valley — his name is Hunt — he has a granddaughter. They’re city folks. They’ve been somebody once. This granddaughter is older than Genie — she’s more of a woman’s figure — and I heard her say only the other day that she brought a lot of outgrown dresses with her and didn’t know what to do with them. All her clothes are fine — not like you buy out here...I’ll take Genie over there right this minute!”

Mrs. Blair got up and began to untie her apron. Kindliness beamed upon her countenance and she seemed to have acquired a more thoughtful eye.

“You’re good indeed,” said Adam, gratefully. “I thank you. It will be so much nicer for Genie. She dreaded this matter of clothes. You can tell Miss Hunt I’d be glad to pay.”

“Shucks! She wouldn’t take your money. She’s quality, I told you. And her name’s not Hunt. That’s her grandfather’s name. I don’t know what hers is — except he calls her Ruth.”

Ruth! The sudden mention of that name seemed to Adam like a stab. What a queer, inexplicable sensation followed it!

“I’ll be right out,” declared Mrs. Blair, bustling into the house.

Adam called Genie to him and explained what was to happen. She grew radiant.

“Oh, Wanny, then I won’t have to go into a town — to be laughed at — and I can get — get dressed like — like a lady — before he sees me again!” she exclaimed, breathlessly.

“He? Who’s that, Genie?” inquired Adam, dryly, though he knew he could guess very well.

Genie might have lived on the desert, like a shy, lonely, wild creature, but she was eternally feminine enough to bite her tongue at the slip she had made, and to blush charmingly.

Then Mrs. Blair bustled out again, in sunbonnet and shawl, and with the alacrity of excitement, she led Genie away through the grove of oaks toward the other end of the valley.

Adam returned to camp, much relieved and pleased, yet finding suddenly that a grave, pondering mood had come upon him. In the still noon hour, when the sun was hot and the flies buzzed lazily, Adam would surely have succumbed to drowsiness had he not been vociferously hailed by some one. He sat up to hear one of the little Blairs call “Say, my maw wants you to eat with us.”

Adam lumbered up and, trying to accommodate his giant steps to those of the urchin, finally reached the house. He heard Mrs. Blair in the kitchen. Then something swift and white rushed upon Adam from somewhere.

“Look!” it cried, in ecstatic tones, and pirouetted before his dazzled eyes.

Genie! In a white dress, white slippers — all white, even to the rapt, beautiful, strangely transformed face! It was a Genie he could not recognise. Yet, however her dark gold-glinting tresses were brushed and arranged, he would have known their rare, rich colour. And the eyes were Genie’s — vivid like the heart of a magenta cactus flower unutterably and terribly expressive of happiness. But all else — the girl’s height and form and movement — had acquired something subtly feminine. The essence of woman breathed from her.

“Oh, Wanny, I’ve a whole bundle of dresses!” she cried, rapturously. “And I put this on to please you.”

“Pleased!...Dear girl, I’m — I’m full of joy for you — overcome for myself,” exclaimed Adam. How, in that moment, he blessed the nameless spirit which had come to him the day Genie’s fate and future hung in the balance! What a victory for him to remember — seen now in the light of Genie’s lovely face!

Then Mrs. Blair bustled in. Easy, indeed, was it to see how the happiness of others affected her. “It’s good we have dinner at noon,” she said, as she put dish after dish upon the table, “else we’d had to do with little. Sit at table folks...Children, you must wait. We’ve company...Gene, come to dinner.”

Adam found himself opposite Genie, who had suddenly seemed to lose her intensity, though not her glow. She had softened. The fierce joy had gone. Adam, watching her, received from her presence a thrill of expectancy, and realised that at least one of her sensations of the moment was being conveyed to him. Then Eugene entered. His face shone. He had wet his hair and brushed it and put on a coat. If something new and strange was happening to Genie, it had already happened to Eugene Blair.

“Folks, help yourselves and help each other,” said Mrs. Blair.

Adam was ready for that. What a happy dinner! He ate with the relish of a desert man long used to sour dough and bacon, but he had keen ears for Mrs. Blair’s chatter and eyes for Genie and Eugene. The mother, too, had a steady and thoughtful gaze for the young couple, and her mind was apparently upon weightier matters than her speech indicated.

“Well, folks,” said Mrs. Blair, presently, “if you’ve all had enough, I’ll call the children.”

Eugene arose with alacrity. “Let’s go outdoors,” he said, stealing a shy look at Genie. She seemed to move in a trance. Adam went out, too, and found himself under the oaks. The very air was potent with the expectancy that Adam had sensed in the house. Something was about to happen. It puzzled him. Yet he liked the suspense. But he was nonplussed. The young couple did not present a riddle. All the same, the instant Adam felt convinced of this he looked at them and lost his conviction. They did present a riddle. He had not seen any other lad and girl together for many years, but somehow he wagered to himself that if he had seen a thousand couples, this one would stand out strikingly.

Then Mrs. Blair appeared. She had the look of a woman to whom decision had come. The hospitality, the kindly interest in Genie, the happiness in seeing others made happy, were in abeyance to a strong, serious emotion.

“Mr. Wansfell, if you’ll consent I’ll give Genie a home here with me,” she said.

“Consent!...I — I gladly do that,” he replied, with strong agitation. “You are a — a good woman, Mrs. Blair. I am overwhelmed with gladness for Genie — for her luck...It’s so sudden — so unexpected.”

“Some things happen that way,” she replied. “They just come about. I took to Genie right off. So did my boy. I asked him — when we got back from our neighbour’s — if it would not be a good idea to keep Genie. We are poor. It’s one more to feed and clothe. But she can help. And she’ll teach the children. That means a great deal to me and Gene...He would be glad, he said. So I thought it over — and I’ve decided. We’ve your consent...Now, Genie, will you stay and have a home with us?”

“Oh, I’ll — I’ll be so happy! I’ll try so — so hard!” faltered Genie.

“Then — it’s settled. My dear girl, we’ll try to make you happy,” declared Mrs. Blair, and, sitting beside Genie, she embraced her.

Adam’s happiness was so acute it seemed pain. But was his feeling all happiness? What had Genie’s quick look meant — the intense soul-searching flash she gave him when Mrs. Blair had said it was all settled? Genie’s desert eyes saw separation from the man who had been saviour, father, brother. One flash of eyes — then she was again lost in this immense and heart-numbing idea of a home. Adam saw Eugene look at her as his mother enfolded her. And Adam’s heart suddenly lifted to exaltation. Youth to youth! The wonderful, the calling, the divine! The lad’s look was soulful, absorbing, full of strange, deep melancholy, full of dreamy, distant, unconscious enchantment. What had seemed mysterious was now as clear as the sunlight. By some happy chance of life the homeless Genie had been guided to a good woman and a noble lad. Goodness was the commonest quality in the hearts of women; and nobility, in youth at least, flowered in the breast of every man.

And while Eugene thus gazed at Genie she lifted her eyelids, so heavy with their dreams, and met his gaze. Suddenly she sweetly, strangely blushed and looked away, at Adam, through him to the beyond. She seemed full of a vague, dreaming sweetness of life; a faint smile played round her lips; her face lost its scarlet wave for pearly whiteness; and tears splashed down upon her listless hands.

The moment, with all it revealed to Adam, swiftly passed.

“Gene, take her and show her the horses,” said Mrs. Blair. “She said she loved horses. Show her all around. We’ll let the work go by to-day.”

Mrs. Blair talked awhile with Adam, asking to know more about Genie, and confiding her own practical plans. Then she bustled off to look after the children, who had been forgotten.

Adam was left to the happiest and most grateful reflections of his life. Much good must come for him, for his lonely hours, when once more the wastelands claimed him; but that was the only thought he gave himself. Lounging back on the old rustic bench, he gave himself up to a growing delight of anticipation. These good Blairs did not dream that in offering Genie a home out of the kindliness of their hearts they had touched prosperity. They were poor. But Genie was rich. They meant to share with the orphan their little; they had no thought of anything Genie might share with them. Adam decided that he would buy the ninety acres, and the hundred in the valley beyond it; and horses, cattle, all the stock and implements for a fine ranch. Genie, innocent and bewildered child that she was, had utterly forgotten her bags of gold. On the next day, or soon, Adam meant to borrow Gene’s horse and buggy and drive to Santa Ysabel and then to San Diego. He must find some good investment for the rest of Genie’s gold, and a good bank, and some capable and reliable person to look after her affairs. How like a fairy story it would seem to Genie! What amazement and delight it would occasion Mrs. Blair! And as for the lad, no gold could enhance Genie’s charm for him. Gene would love Genie! Adam had seen it written in their unconscious eyes. And Gene would have the working of the beautiful ranch his eager heart had longed for. For the first time Adam realised the worth of gold. Here it would be a golden harvest.

Dreaming, thus, Adam was only faintly aware of voices and footsteps that drew nearer; and suddenly he seemed transfixed and thrilling, his gaze on a face he knew, the face on the miniature he carried — the lovely face of Ruth Virey.

CHAPTER XXVIII

“THE FOXES HAVE holes — the birds of the air have nests!” cried Adam.

Was it he who lay there with aching heart and burning eyes? Ah! Again the lonely wasteland claimed him. That illimitable desert was home. Whose face was that limned on the clouds, and set into the beaten bossy mosaic of the sands, and sculptured in the contour of the dim, coloured ranges?

His burros nipped the sage behind him as he lay, back against a stone, on the lofty height of the Sierra Madre divide, gazing down into that boundless void. What was it that had happened? Ah! He had fled! And he lived over again for the thousandth time, that week — that fleeting week of transport with its endless regrets — in which he had found Genie a home, in which the daughter of Magdalene Virey had stormed his soul.

Vague and happy those first days when he bought the valley lands and flooded them with cattle — vague because of the slow gathering of insupportable and unconscious love — happy because he lived with Genie’s rapture and her romance. Vivid were some of the memories — when he placed in Genie’s little brown hands papers and deeds and bankbooks, and by a gesture as if by magic, proclaimed to her wondering sense the truth of a tale of Aladdin; when, to the serious-faced mother, pondering the costs, he announced her once more owner of the long-regretted land; when, to a fire-eyed lad, he had drawn aside the veil of the future.

But vague, mystic as a troubled dream, the inception of a love that rose like the blaze of the sun — vague as the opaque dawn of the desert! Whenever he looked up, by night or day, at task or idleness, there shone the lovely face, pale as a dawn-hazed star, a face like Magdalene Virey’s, with all of its beauty, but naught of its passion, with all of its charm, yet none of its havoc. With youth, and bloom, and wide-open purple eyes, dark as midnight, staring at fate. And a voice like the voice of her mother, sweet, but not mocking, haunted the dreams of the man and lived in the winds.

“And you are a desert man,” she had said.

“Yes — a desert man,” he had replied.

“There’s a place I want to go some day — when I am twenty-one...Death Valley! Do you know it? My grandfather says I’m mad.”

“Death Valley! For such as you? Stay — never go near that awful hell!”

The ghastly white pit and its naked red walls, the midnight furnace winds with their wailing roar, the long, long slopes to the avalanche graves! Ah! the torment of his heart, the tragedy he would hide, and the secret he must keep, and the miniature that burned in its place — they drew her with the invisible cords of life and fate. What he would spare her surged in the air that she breathed.

She had come to him under the oaks, and yet again, quitting her friends, drawn to the lonely desert man.

“They told me Genie’s story,” she said, and her eyes spoke eloquent praise her lips denied. “And so — her mother, and father died on the desert...Tell me, desert man, what does Death Valley look like?”

“It is night; it is hell — death and desolation — the grave of the desert, yellow and red and grey — lonely, lonely, lonely silent land!”

“But you love it!...Genie says the Indians call you Eagle — because you have the eye of the eagle...Tell me...Tell me...”

And she made him talk, and she came again. Vague, sweet, first hours they were, with their drawing pain. Was it well to wake in the night, with eyes darker than the darkness, peering into his soul? Her mother’s eyes — with all the glory and none of the shame She had come another day and then the next, while time stood still with its mocking wait.

Not vaguely came a scene: “I will tell you of the desert,” and a part of his story followed, brief and hard.

“Ah! I would be a man,” she said. “I would never run. I would never hide.”

Mocking words from a tongue too sweet to mock! She had her mother’s spirit. And Adam groped in the gloom, to the glee of his devils of scorn. The grass by day and the grass by night felt the impress of his face. Then love — first real love of youth, and noble passion of man — blazed as the sun in his face. From that revelation all was clear in the bursting light of calamity.

Ruth was coming under the oaks. She liked the cool shade and hated the glare. She was nineteen, with a woman’s form and her mother’s eyes — proud, sweet, aloof.

“Desert man, I am lonesome,” she said. “My grandfather has gone again. He is chasing some new will-o’-the-wisp. Gold and mines, cattle and land — and now it’s water. He has an ear for every man.”

“Lonesome? You! What do you know of loneliness?” asked Adam.

“There’s a loneliness of soul.”

“Ah! but you are young. Go help Genie plan her home.”

“Genie and Gene! Two people with but one voice! They cannot hear or see anyone but themselves. It’s a pity to invade their paradise. I will not...And, oh, how beautiful the world must be to them!”

“Ruth, is it not so to you?”

“Beautiful lands and greens and waters!” she exclaimed, in restless discontent. “But I cannot live on scenery. There is joy here, but none for me...I lost my mother and I can’t forget. She had to leave me and go with him — my father. My father who loved me as a child and hated me as a girl. Oh, it’s all a mystery! She went with him to the desert. Gold mad — she said he was. She had her debt to pay. And I could not be taken to Death Valley.”

“You have never heard from her since the parting?”

“Never...And I am a woman now. Some day I will go to Death Valley.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because they went there.”

“But no one lives long in that valley of death.”

“Then I will find their graves,” she said.

“Ruth, you must not. What good can come of your travelling there? I’ve told you of its desolate and forbidding nature. You are all wrong. Wait! Perhaps your mother will — perhaps you will hear of her some day.”

“Oh, desert man, I was a child when we parted. I’m a woman now. I want to know. The mystery haunts me. She loved me — ah, so well!...Sometimes I cannot bear to live. My grandfather hides me in lonely places. We meet but few people, and those he repels. It is because of me...Desert man, I am lonelier than was Genie. She is like a bird. She must have lived on the sun and the winds. But I am no child, and I am forlorn.”

Brooding purple eyes of trouble, of longing, of discontent, of fire for life! The heart and soul from Ruth Virey — the heritage of need and unrest — shone from her eyes. All unconsciously she longed to be loved. She stood on the threshold of womanhood like a leaf in a storm.

“Talk with me, walk with me, desert man,” she said wistfully. “You were Taquitch for Genie. Be Eagle for me. Your eyes know the desert where my mother sleeps — where perhaps her spirit wanders. You soothe my troubled heart. Oh, I can feel myself with you, for you understand.”

Thus Adam’s soul was stormed. Magdalene Virey had presaged the future. In the dark stillness of the night, sleepless, haunted, tossed by torment, it was revealed to him that Magdalene Virey had risen out of the depths on noble love for him, and through that love she had seen with mystic eyes into the future. She had projected that love into the spirit of the desert, and it had guided Adam’s wandering steps to her daughter Ruth. Was this only a wanderer’s dream as he lay on the hills? Was it only a knot in the tangled skein of his desert life? Was it inscrutable design of a power he disdained?

Be what this might, the one great love of his years possessed him, fierce and resistless on its march to his defeat. It mocked his ordeal. It flaunted a banner in his face — noble love, noble passion, love of the soul, all that revered woman, wife, mother, and babe. He had found his mate. Strange how he remembered Margarita Arallanes, and the wild boy’s love of a day. Poor, pale, wasteful, sinful, lustful little gleam! And he recalled the spell of Genie — that strong call of nature in the wilderness. Above both he had arisen. But Ruth Virey was the woman. He could win her. The truth beat at his temples, constricted his throat. Ruth was the flower of her mother’s tragic longing to be loved. Ruth burned with that longing. And life was not to be denied. Magdalene Virey had given him this child of her agony. She trusted the fate of Ruth in his hands. She saw with superhuman eyes.

A deep tenderness for Ruth pervaded Adam’s soul. Who, of all men, could love her, save her, content her as he? It was not thought of her kisses, of her embraces, that plucked at the roots of his will. Like a passing wave the thrill of such bliss went out to the might of a nobler tide. To save Ruth from the fate of her mother, from the peril of her own heart! And in the saving, a home — happiness — the tender smile of a mother — and the kiss of a child!

“But I am a criminal! I am a murderer! Any day I might be hanged before her very eyes!” he whispered, with his face in the grass, his fingers digging the turf. “Still — no one would ever recognise me now...Ah! but he — that human wolf Collishaw — would not he know me?...Oh, if there be God — help me in my extremity!”

Once again he met her. As he rode up the valley at sunset she came out of the oak grove.

“I’ve been with Genie. Desert man, her happiness frightens me. Oh, I love her! You tell me of your hard, lonely, terrible desert life. Why, your ears should ring with bells of joy forever. It is you who have built her castle. What other deeds, like that, have you done — in those bitter years you tell of?”

“Not many, Ruth — perhaps not one.”

“I don’t believe you. I am learning you, desert man. And, oh, I wish you knew how it swells my heart to hear Genie tell of what you did for her. Every day she tells me something new...Ah! and more — for to-day she said you would be leaving soon.”

“Yes, Ruth — soon,” he said.

“Back to the lonely land?”

“Yes, back to the sage and sand and the big dark hills. Yes, it will be a lonely land,” he replied, sadly.

“And you will wander down the trails until you meet some one — some woman or child or man — sick or miserable or lost — and then you will stop.”

Adam had no answer.

“The Indians called you Eagle,” she went on, and her tone startled him with its hint of remembered mockery. “You have the desert eye — you see so far...But you don’t see here!...Why should you waste your splendid strength, your magnificent manhood, wandering over the desert if it’s only for unhappy people? Desert man, you are great. But you could do more good here — you could find more misery here...I know one whose heart is breaking. And you’ve never seen, for all your eagle eye!”

“Listen, you morbid girl,” he returned, stung as with fire. “I am not great. I am lost. I go to the desert because it is home...Don’t think of me! But look to yourself. Look into your heart. Fear it, Ruth Virey. You are a spoiled, dreamful, passionate child. But you have a mind and you have a will. You can conquer your unrest, your discontent. Revere the memory of your mother, but grieve no more. The past is dead. Learn to fight. You are no fighter. You are weak. You give in to loneliness, sadness, longing. Resolve to be a woman! You must live your life. Make it worth while. Every man, every woman, has a burden. Lift yours cheerfully and begin to climb...Work for your grandfather. He needs your help. Love those with whom fate has placed you. And fight — fight the dark moods, the selfish thoughts, the hateful memories! Fight like a desert beast for your life. Work — work till you bruise those beautiful hands. Work with a hoe, if you can find nothing else. Love to see things grow green and flower and give fruit. Love the animals, the birds, and learn from them; love all nature, so that when you meet a man some day, the man, you can love him. That is what it means to be a woman. You are a beautiful, sweet, useless, and petulant girl. But be so no more. Be a woman!”

Pale and shocked, with brimming eyes and tremulous lips, she replied.

“Stay — stay desert man, and make me a woman!”

And those sad dark eyes and those sweet murmured words had made him flee — flee like a craven in the night. Yes, for Ruth’s sake he had fled. Not a farewell to Genie — not a wave of his hand, but gone in the night — gone forever out of their lives!

“The foxes have holes — the birds of the air have nests!” cried Adam, to the listening silence.

Was it he who lay there with broken heart and magnified sight? Yes, wanderer of the wasteland again! Back to the lonely land! That limitless expanse of rock and sand was home. Was not that Ruth’s face limned on the clouds? Did not her sad, reproachful eyes haunt him in the dim, purple distances?

From the lofty divide of the Sierra Madres Adam gazed down into the void he called home. Beyond the grey sands and far beyond the red reaches he saw across the California Desert into Arizona, and down into Mexico, and to the dim, blue Gulf.

Home! All the years of Adam’s desert experience were needed to grasp the meaning of the stupendous scene. The eye of the eagle, the sight of the condor, supreme over the desert, most marvellous and delicate work of nature, could only behold, could only range that sun-blasted burned-out empire of the wastelands. Only the mind of man, the thought of man, could understand it. And for Adam it was home, and to his piercing eyes a thing, a place, a world, terribly true and beautiful and comforting, upon which he seemed driven to gaze and gaze, so that forever it must be limned on his vision and his memory.

The day was one of sunlight and storm, of blue sky and purple clouds and fleecy white, of palls of swirling grey snow and dark veils of downward-streaming rain. The Sierra Madres rolled away on either side, range on range, rising to the north in the might of slow league-long mountain swell, until far against the stormy sky stood the old white-capped heave of San Gorgonio looming over the grey Mohave; and to the south, like the wave undulations of a calm sea, sank the long low lines of the arid arm of desert land.

Beneath Adam piled the foothills, round and old and grey, sage grey, lavender grey, lilac grey, all so straggly grey — upheaved hills of aged earth and dust and stone. Hill by hill they lowered, with glaring gorges between, solitary hills and winding ranges and clustered domes, split by canyons and cleft by brushy ravines — miles and miles of foothills, reluctantly surrendering allegiance to the peaks above, moving downward as surely as the grains of their slopes, weathering and spreading at last in the sands.

Away and away flowed that grey Sahara with its specks of sage, ribbed by its ridges of dunes. Immense and unbounded it swept to its centre, the Salton Sink — bowl of the desert — a great lake of coloured silt, a ghastly, glaring stain on the earth, over which the storm clouds trailed their veils of rain, and shadows like colossal ships sailed the sandy main. Away to the southward it flowed, level and shining, at last to rise and meet the blue sky in lucent spurs of gold and white. This landmark contrasted singularly with the Salton Sink. It was the illusive and shifting line of the Superstition Mountains, where the wind sheeted the sands, and by night or day, like the changing of tides, went on with its mysterious transformation. These giant sand hills caught the sunlight through a rift in the broken clouds. And dim under the dunes showed the scalloped, dark shadows.

But these foothills and sand plains were only the edge of the desert. Beyond marched the mountain ranges. Vast, upheaved, crinkled crust of the naked earth, scored by fire, scarred by age, cracked by earthquake, and stained in the rusty reds and coloured chocolates of the iron rocks! Down to the rim of the Salton Sink sheered a ragged range. Over it centred the lowering storm clouds, grey and drab and purple, with rays of the sun filtering through, lighting the grim, dark hardness, showing the smoky gloom. And where the ridge ran down to the desert, to make the lines of the sandy lake, it resembled a shore of the river Styx.

Beyond gleamed the Chocolate Mountains, sharp in the sunshine, canyoned and blue. And still beyond them, over the valley and far, rose the myriad mountains of Arizona, dim, hazed land, mystic land, like a land of desert dreams. In the distant south, around the blunt end of the Chocolates, came a valley winding palely green, with a line following its centre, where the Rio Colorado meandered in its course to the blue waters of the Gulf. Over the shadowy shapes of mountains in haze, over the horizon of Arizona, there seemed a blank, pale wall of sky, strange to the eye. Was it the oblivion of sight, the infinitude of heaven? Piercing constant gaze at last brought to Adam the ghostly mountains of Mexico, the faintest of faint tracery of peaks, doubtful, then lost, the lonely Sonorian land.

“And that is my home!” he cried to the winds. Slow tears bathed his eyes, and, closing them, he rested his strained sight. A strange peace seemed to have stolen over him with his vision and grasp of the desert. A low, soft moan of wind in the crevices of rocks lulled his senses for the revel that was to come. He heard his burros nipping at the brush behind his back. From the heights an eagle shrilled its wild whistle of freedom and of solitude. One of the burros brayed, loud and bawling, a jarring note in a silence. Discordant sound it was, that yet brought a smile and a pang to Adam. For only yesterday — or was it long ago — what was it that had happened?

When he opened his eyes the desert under him and the infinity over him had been transfigured.

Only the full blaze of the sun! But a glory dwelt in the clouds and in the wide blue expanse of heaven. Silver-edged rents, purple ships in a golden sky, the long, fan-shaped rays of the sun, white rainbows of haze — these extended from the north across the arch to the open — a great peacefulness of light, deep and tender and blue.

Beneath lay the mirror of earth, the sun-fired ranges like chased and beaten gold, laid with shining jewels all around the resplendent desert. Mountains of porphyry marched down to the sands, rocks of bronze red burned down to the sands. The white columnar pillars of the clouds seemed reflected in the desert, slow-gliding across the lucent wastes; and the mosaic of mountain and plain had its mirage in the sky. Above and below worked the alchemy of nature, mutable and evanescent, the dying of day, the passing of life.

CHAPTER XXIX

GOING DOWN INTO the desert, Adam found that his steps were no longer wandering and aimless. And the nearer he got to the canyon pass in the Chocolates, the stronger grew his strange eagerness.

For years memory of that camp where he had fought starvation had drawn him like a magnet. He was weary with delving into the gulf of himself, trying to know his nature and heart and soul. Always he was beyond himself. No sooner was one mystery solved than another and deeper one presented itself; one victory gained, then a more desperate trial faced him. He only knew the old camp called him resistlessly. Something would come to him there.

Travel and tasks of morn and eve were so habitual with him that they made little break in his thought. And that thought, like his desert steps, had travelled in a circle. He was nearing the places where he had begun his fight with physical forces. His every step brought him so much closer to the terrible deed that had so bitterly coloured and directed his desert life.

He crossed the sandy basin from the Sierra Madres to the Chocolates in four days, two of his camps being dry. And on the fifth, in the afternoon, when the long shadows had begun to creep out from the mountains across sand and sage, he climbed the swelling, well-remembered slope where Charley Jim had lured the antelope, and gazed down into the oasis where he had all but starved to death, and where Oella had saved his life.

What struck him with gladness was to find the grey-green lonely scene identical with the picture in his memory. How well he remembered! And it was twelve years — thirteen — fourteen years! Yet time had made little or no change in the oasis. Nature worked slowly in the desert.

His burros scented the water and trotted down the sage bank, bobbing their packs, kicking up little puffs of odorous dust. Adam stood still and gazed long. He seemed to be almost ready to draw a deep, full breath of melancholy joy. Then he descended to the sandy, rock-studded floor of the canyon, and on the wide, white stream bed, where, as always, a slender stream tinkled over the pearly pebbles. How strange that he should fall into the exact course where once he had worn a trail! The flat stones upon which he stepped were as familiar as if he had trod them yesterday. But inside the palm grove time had made changes. The thatched huts were gone and the open places were overgrown with brush. No one had inhabited the oasis for many years.

Leisurely he pitched camp, working with a sense of comfort and pleasure at the anticipation of a permanent, or at least an indefinite stay there. Of all his lonely camps on the desert, this had been the loneliest. He called it Lost Oasis. Here he could spend days and weeks, basking like a lizard in the sunshine, feeling his loneliness, listening to the silence; and he could climb to the heights and dream, and watch, and live again those wonderful, revealing, unthinking moments when he went back to savage nature.

After his work and meal were finished, and sunset was colouring the sky, Adam wandered around through the willows and along the stream. He stood for some time looking down upon the sandy bar where he had stumbled in pursuit of the rattlesnake and it had bitten him in the face. And then he went from one familiar place to another, sitting at last in the twilight, under the palms where Oella had nursed and fed him back to life and strength. Where was she now — that tranquil, sombre-eyed Indian maiden who had refused to wed one of her race and who had died of a broken heart? The twilight seemed prophetic, the rustling palms seemed whispering. Both sadness and pleasure mingled in Adam’s return.

But the nameless something, the vague assurance of content, the end of that restless, strange, sense of hurrying onward still to seek, to find — these feelings seemed about to come to him, yet held tantalisingly aloof. To-morrow surely! He was tired with his long travel, and it would take a little time once more to adjust himself to loneliness. The perfect peace of loneliness had not yet come back to him. His mind was too full to attend to the seeing, listening, feeling that constituted harmony with the desert. Yet something was beginning to come between remembrances of the immediate past and the insistent premonitions of the present. When he lay down in his blankets to hear the low rustle of the wind in the palms and to see the haunting stars, it was to realise that they were the same as always, but that he himself had changed.

Next day he climbed to the heights where he had learned to hunt mountain sheep, where he had learned the watching, listening, primitive joy of the Indian. He thrilled in the climb, he breathed deep of the keen, cold wind, he gazed after with piercing eyes. Hours, like those of a lonely eagle on a crag, Adam spent there, and he wooed back to him the watching, listening power with its reward of sweet, wild elation. But as the westering sun sent him down the mountain, he felt a vague regret. The indefinable something eluded him.

In the dusk Adam walked along the rim of the slope above the oasis. He had watched the sunset fade over the desert, and the shading of twilight, and the gathering of dusk.

He wondered what it would mean to him now to be lost without water or food down there in the wasteland. Would panic seize him? He imagined it would be only as long as he was not sure of death. When he realised that, he would find strength and peace to meet his doom. But what agony to look up at the starlit heaven and breathe farewell to beautiful life, to the strong, sweet wine of nature, to the memory of love!

To die alone down there? Ah! Why did his thoughts turn to death? To lie down on the sand and the sage of the desert, in the dead darkness of night, would be terrible. Yet, would it really be? Would not something come to his soul? A strong man’s farewell to life, out there on the lonesome desert, would be elemental and natural. But the hour of facing death — how sad, lonely, tragic! Yet it had been bravely met by countless men over all the desolate deserts of the dreary world. All men did not feel alike. Perhaps the strongest, bravest, calmest, would suffer the least. Still, it was Adam’s conviction that to look up at the indifferent heavens, and to send a hopeless cry out across the desert, realising the end, remembering with anguish the faces of loved ones, would indeed be a bursting of the heart.

Life was so short. Hope and love so futile! Home and family — ah! a brother — should be treasured, and lived for with all the power of blood and mind. Friends should be precious. It was realisation that a man needed.

A crescent beautiful moon soared up over the dark bulk of the mountain. Adam paced to and fro in a sandy glade of the oasis. All the immensity of desert and infinity of sky seemed to be at work to overwhelm him. The stars — so white, wonderful, watching, eyes of heaven, remorseless and wise Not a sigh of wind stirred under the palms, not a quiver of a leaf. Nature seemed so strange, beautiful, waiting. All waited! Was it for him? The shadows on the white sand wrote Adam’s story of wild youth and crime and flight and agony and passion and love. How sad the low chirp of insects! Adam paced there a long time, thinking thoughts he never had before, feeling things he never felt before — realising the brevity of life, the soul of sorrow, the truth of nature, the sweetness of women, the glory of children, the happiness of work and home.

Something was charging the air around Adam; something was surging deep in his soul.

What was the meaning of that which confounded his emotions? Adam’s soul seemed trembling on the verge of a great lesson, that had been hidden all the years and now began to dawn upon him in the glory of the firmament — in the immensity of the earth — in the sense of endless space — in the meaning of time — in the nothingness of man.

Suddenly a faint coldness, not of wind nor of chill air, but of something intangible, stole over Adam. He shivered. He had felt it before, though never so strong. And his sense of loneliness vanished. He was not alone! All around he peered, not frightened or aghast, but uncertain, vaguely conscious of a sense that seemed unnatural. The shadow of his lofty form showed dark on the sand. It walked with him as he walked. Was there a spirit in keeping with his steps?

Disturbed in mind, Adam went to bed. When he awoke there had come to him in the night, in his sleep or in his dreams, whispered words from Genie’s mother, ringing words from Ruth Virey, “I will come to you out on the desert.” Mrs. Linwood had meant that to be proof of immortal life of the soul — of God. And Ruth had rung at him: “I would be a man. I would never run. I would never hide!”

Then the still, small voice of conscience became a clarion. Torment seized Adam. The lonely lure of the desert had betrayed him. There was no rest — no peace. He was driven. He had dreamed of himself as a wanderer driven down the naked shingles of the desert. No dream, but reality!

He spent the day upon the heights, feeling that there, if anywhere, he might shake this burden of his consciousness. In vain! He was a civilised man, and only in rare moments could he go back to the forgetfulness of the savage. He had a soul. It was a living flame. The heights failed him. A haunting whisper breathed in the wind and an invisible spirit kept pace with his steps. And at last, in slow-mounting swell of heart, with terror in his soul, he faced the south. Ah! How sharp the pang in his breast! Picacho! There, purple against the sky, seemingly close, stood up the turreted and castled peak under the shadow of which lay the grave of his brother. And Adam sent out a lonely and terrible cry down the winds toward the place that resistlessly called him. He was called and he must go. He had wandered in a circle. All his steps had bent toward the scene of his crime. From the first to the last he had been wandering back to his punishment. He saw it now. That was the call — that the guide — that the nameless something charging the air.

Realisation gave him a moment’s savageness — the power of body over mind. Heart and blood and pulse and nerve burst red hot to the fight, and to passionate love of liberty, of life. He was in the grasp of a giant of the ages. He fought as he had fought thirst, starvation, loneliness — as he had fought the desert and the wild beasts and wilder men of that desert. The deep and powerful instinct which he had conquered for Genie’s sake — the noble emotion of love and bliss that he had overcome for Ruth’s sake — what were these compared to the hell in his heart now? It was love of life that made him a fierce wild cat of the desert. Had not the desert taught him its secret to survive, to breathe, to see, to listen, to live?

Thus the I of Adam’s soul was arraigned in pitiless strife with the Me of his body. Like a wild and hunted creature he roamed the mountain top, halting at the old resting places, there to sit like a stone, to lie on his face, to writhe and fight and cry in his torment. At sunset he staggered down the trail, spent and haggard, to take up useless tasks, to find food tasteless and sleep impossible. Thus passed the next day and yet another, before there came a break in his passion and his strength.

The violence of physical effort wore itself out. He remained in camp, still locked in deadly grip with himself, but wearing to that end in which his conscience would rise supreme, or he would sink forever debased.

A perfect white night came in which Adam felt that the oasis and its environment presented a soul-quieting scene. What incredible paradox that he must go to nature for the strength to save himself from himself! To the nature that made him a savage — that urged in him the strife of the wolf! The moon, half full, shone overhead in a cloudless blue sky where great white stars twinkled. No wind stirred. The palms drooped, sad and graceful, strangely quiet. They were meant for wind. The shadows they cast were of nameless shapes. A wavering dark line of horizon wandered away to be lost in the wilderness. So still, so tranquil, so sweet the night! There were only two sounds — the melancholy notes of a night hawk, and the low, faint moan from the desert. The desert to Adam seemed a vast river, flowing slowly down the levels of the earth to distant gates. Its moan was one of immutable power and motive. By this soft, low, strange moan the world seemed to be dominated. A spirit was out there in the gloom — a spirit from the illimitable, star-studded infinite above. And it was this spirit that came at rare intervals, and whispered to Adam’s consciousness. Madman or knave, he was being conquered.

“I would never hide!” Ruth Virey had said in passionate scorn.

She was like her mother, wonderful as steel in her will. Yet these women seemed all heart. They transcended men in love, in sacrifice, in that living flame of soul, turbulent and unquenchable as the fire of the sun.

“I’ll hide no more!” burst from Adam, and the whisper startled him, like those soundless whispers in the shadows.

He could live no longer a life in hiding. He must stand, in his own consciousness, if only for a moment, free to look any man in the face, free to be worthy to love Ruth Virey, free as the eagle of his spirit. He would no longer hide from man, from punishment. Love of that purple-eyed girl had been a stinging, quickening spur. But it was only instrumental in the overthrow of fear. Some other power, not physical, not love, but cold, pure, passionless, spiritual, had been drawing him like a wavering compass needle to its pole.

Was it the faith Genie’s dying mother had placed in God? Was it a godlike something in him which conflicted with nature? Was it the strange progress of life, inscrutable and inflexible, that dragged men down or lifted them up, made them base or made them great?

The darkness of his mind, the blackness of the abyss of his soul, seemed about to be illumined. But the truth held aloof. Yet could he not see what constituted greatness in any man? What was it to be great? The beasts of the desert and the birds recognised it — strength — speed — ferocity — tenacity of life. The Indians worshipped greatness so that they looked up and prayed to their gods. They worshipped stature, and power and skill of hand, and fleetness of foot, and above all — endurance. More, they endowed their great chieftains with wisdom. But above all — to endure pain, heat, shock, all of the desert hardships, all of the agonies of life — to endure — that was their symbol of greatness.

Adam asked no other for himself or for any man. To endure and to surmount the ills of life! Any man could be great. He had his choice. To realise at last — to face the inevitable fight in any walk of life — to work and to endure — to slave and to suffer in silence — to stand like a savage the bloody bruises and broken bones — to bite the tongue and hold back the gasp — to plod on down the trails or the roads or the streets and to be true to an ideal — to endure the stings and blows of misfortune — to bear up under loss — to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief — to be victor over anger — to smile when tears were close — to resist disease and evil men and base instincts — to hate hate and to love love — to go on when it would seem good to die — to seek ever the glory and the dream — to look up with unquenchable faith in something evermore about to be — that was what any man could do and so be great!

At midnight Adam paced under the palms. All seemed dim, grey, cool, spectral, rustling, whispering. The old familiar sounds were there, only rendered different by his mood. Midnight was haunting. Somehow the desert with its mustering shadows, dark and vast and strange, resembled his soul and his destiny and the mystery of himself. How sweet the loneliness and solitude of the oasis! There under the palms he could walk and be himself, with only the eye of nature and of spirit on him in this final hour of his extremity.

Happiness was not imperative; self-indulgence was not essential to life. Adam realised he had done wonderful things — perhaps noble things. But nothing great. Perhaps all his agony had been preparation for this supreme ordeal.

How saving and splendid would it be, if out of his stultified youth, with its blinded love of brother and its weakness of will — if out of the bitter sting of infidelity and his fatal, tragic deed — if out of the long torture of hardship of the desert and its strife and its contact with souls as wild as his — how glorious it would be if out of this terrible tide of dark, contending years, so full of remorse and fear and endless atonement, there should rise a man who, trained now in the desert’s ferocity to survive, should use that force to a noble aim, and, climbing beyond his nature, sacrifice himself to the old Biblical law — a life for a life — and with faith in unknown future lend his spirit to the progress of the ages!

Adam divined that he did not belong to himself. What he wanted for himself, selfishly, was not commensurable with the need of others in this life. He was concerned here with many ideals, the highest of which was sacrifice, that the evil of him should not go on. Since he had loved Ruth Virey the whole value of life had shifted. Life was sweet, but no longer if he had to hide, no longer under the ban of crime. The stain must be washed away. By slow and gradual change, by torments innumerable, had he come to this realisation. He had deceived himself by love of life. But the truth in him was the truth of the immortality of his soul, just as it was truth that he inherited instincts of the savage. Life was renewal. Every base, selfish man held back its spirituality.

“No more! No more!” cried Adam, looking up.

And in that cry he accepted the spirit of life, the mighty being that pulsated there in the darkness, the whispering voice of Genie’s mother, the love of Ruth that never was to be his, the strange, desperate fights with his instincts, the stranger fight of his renunciation — he accepted these on faith as his idea of God.

“I will give my life for my brother’s,” he said. “I will offer myself in punishment for my crime. I will pay with my body that I may save my soul!”

CHAPTER XXX

ADAM LINGERED IN his travel through the beautiful Palo Verde Valley, and at last reached the long swell of desert slope that led down to the Rio Colorado.

Tranquil and sad was his gaze on the majestic river as it swirled red and sullen between its wide green borders toward the upflung wilderness of coloured peaks he remembered so well.

All day he strode behind his faithful burros, here high on the river bank where he could see the sombre flood rolling to the south, and there low in, the willow-shaded trail. And though he had an eye for the green, dry coverts and the wide, winding valley, he seemed to see most vividly the scenes of boyhood and of home. And the memory revived the love he had borne his brother Guerd. High on the grassy hill at the old village school — he was there once again, wild and gay, playing the games, tagging at the heels of his idol.

The miles slipped by under his tireless stride. Hour by hour he had quickened his pace. And when sunset caught him with its call to camp, he could see the grand purple bulk of old Picacho looming in the sky. Twilight and dusk and night, and the lonely camp fire! He heard the sullen gurgle of the river in the weeds and he saw the trains of stars reflected along its swirling surface. A killdeer, most mournful of birds, pealed his plaintive, lonely cry. Across the blue-black sky gleamed a shooting star. The wind stirred in the leaves, gently and low, and fanned the glowing embers, and bore the white ashes away into the darkness. Shadows played from the flickering blaze, fantastic and weird, like dancing spectres in the gloom. Adam watched the gleaming river rolling on to its grave in the Gulf. Like all things, it died, was dispersed, and had rebirth in other climes. Then he watched the stars at their grand and blazing task.

On the afternoon of the third day he turned under the red bluff into the basin of Picacho. Long the trail had been overgrown and dim, and cattle tracks were scarce. The wide willow and mesquite flat, with its groves of cottonwoods, had grown denser, wilder, no more crisscrossed by trails. Adam had slowed down now, and he skirted the edge of the thicket till he reached the bank of bronze rock that had flowed down from the peaks in ages past. The ocatillas, so pearly grey, softly green and vividly scarlet, grew there just the same as long ago when he had plucked a flower for the dusky hair of Margarita. He welcomed sight of them, for they were of the past.

And here, side by side, stood the crucifixion tree and the palo verde under which Margarita had told him their legends. The years had made no change that Adam could discern. The smoke tree and the green tree raised their delicate, exquisite, leafless foliage against the blue of sky, beautiful and soft, hiding from the eye the harsh law of their desert nature.

Adam tarried here. His wandering steps were nearing their end. And he gazed across the river at the wilderness of Arizona peaks. It seemed he knew every one. Had he seen them yesterday or long ago?

The sculptured turrets of Picacho were taking on a crown of gold, and from the sheer, ragged bluffs of the purple mass shadows and hazes and rays were streaming down into the valley. One golden streak slanted from the wind-worn hole in the rim. Solemn and noble the castled mountain towered in the sky. In its lonely grandeur there was strength.

One moment longer Adam watched and listened, absorbing the colour and glory and wildness, stung to the depths of his heart by his farewell to loneliness. He retrograded one last instant to the savage who sensed but did not think. He thrilled to the old, mysterious, fading instinct. Then, as in answer to a sonorous call in his ear, he measured slow and labouring strides through the aisles to the river.

His burros scratched their packs on the thorny mesquites to get down to the arrow-weed and willow. Where once had been open bank, now all was green, except for a narrow sandy aisle. The dock was gone. A sunken barge lay on a bar, and moored to its end were two leaky skiffs. Traffic and trade had departed from the river landing. Adam remembered a prospector had told him that the mill had been moved from the river up to the mine under the peak. So now, he thought, supplies and traffic must come and go by way of Yuma.

He drove his burros down the sandy aisle. A glimpse of an old adobe wall, grey through the mesquites, stopped his heart. He went on. The house of Arallanes was a roofless ruin, the vacant windows and doors staring darkly, the walls crumbling to the sands. The shed where Adam had slept was now half hidden by mesquites. The ocatilla poles were bleached and rotten and the brush was gone from the roof; but the sandy floor looked as clean and white as the day Adam had spread his blankets there. Fourteen years! Silent he stood, and the low, mournful wind was a knell. The past could never be undone.

He went back to the lane and to the open. Old stone walls were all that appeared left of houses he expected to see. Over the trees, far up the slope, he espied the ruins of the dismantled mill. Unreal it looked there, out of place, marring the majestic sweep of the slope.

His keen desert nostrils detected smoke before he saw blue columns rising through the green. He passed a plot of sand-mounded graves. Had they been there? How fierce a pang pierced his heart! Rude stones marked the graves, and on one a single wooden cross, crude and weathered, slanted away. Adam peered low at the lettering — M.A. And swiftly he swung erect.

There was a cluster of houses farther on, low and squat, a few of them new, but most of them Adam remembered. A post-office sign marked this village of Picacho. The stone-fronted store looked just the same, and the loungers there might never have moved from their tracks in fourteen years. But the faces were strange.

A lean old man, grey and peaked, detached himself from the group and tottered toward Adam with his cane in the sand.

“Wal, stranger, howdy! You down from upriver?”

His voice twanged a chord of memory. Merryvale. Slowly the tide of emotion rose in Adam’s breast. He peered down into the grey old face, with its narrow, half-shut eyes and its sunken cheeks. Yes, it was Merryvale.

“Howdy, friend!” replied Adam. “Yes, I come from up the river.”

“Strange in these parts, I reckon?”

“Yes. But I — I was here years ago.”

“Wal, I knowed you was strange because you come in by the river. Travellers nowadays go around the mountain. Prospectors never come any more. The glory of Picacho had faded.”

“Aren’t they working the mill?” queried Adam, quickly.

“Haw! Haw! The mill will never grind with ore that is gone! No work these last five years. The mill has rusted out — fallen to ruin. And the gold of old Picacho is gone. But, stranger, she hummed while she lasted. Millions in gold — millions in gold!”

He wagged his lean old head and chuckled.

“I knew a man here once by the name of Arallanes. What has become of him?

“Arallanes? Wall, I do recollect him. I was watchman at the mill an’ he was boss of the gang. His daughter was knifed by a greaser named Felix...Arallanes left here these ten years ago an’ he’s never been back.”

“His — daughter!...Is that her grave back there — the sunken mound of sand — with the wooden cross?”

“I reckon that’s Margarita’s grave. She was a pretty wench — mad about men — an’ there’s some who said she got her just deserts.”

The broad river gleamed yellow through the breaks in the Mesquites. Ponderous and swirling, it glided on round the bend. Adam’s gaze then sought the peak. The vast, stormy, purple mass, like a mountain of cloud, shone with sunset crown of silver.

Somewhere near, hidden by the trees, a Mexican broke the stillness with song — wild, sensuous, Spanish love, in its haunting melody.

“I knew another man here,” began Adam, with the words a sonorous knell in his ear. “His name was Collishaw...What’s become of him?”

“Collishaw? Never will forgit him!” declared the old man, grimly. “Last I heard he was cheatin’ Injuns out of water rights over here at Walters — an’ still lookin’ fer somebody to hang...Haw! Haw! That Collishaw was a Texas sheriff.”

Suddenly Adam bent lower, so that his face was on a level with Merryvale’s.

“Don’t you recognise me?”

“Wal, I shore don’t, stranger,” declared the other. “I’ve been nigh fifty years in the West an’ never seen your like yet. If I had I’d never forget.”

“Merryvale, do you remember a lad who shot off your fishing line one day? Do you remember how you took interest in him — told him of Western ways — that he must be a man?”

“Shore I remember that lad!” exclaimed Merryvale, bluntly. He was old, but he was still keen. “How’d you know about him?”

“I am Adam Larey!”

The old man’s eyes grew piercing. Intensely he gazed, bending closer, strong and thrilling now, with the zest of earlier experience sharp in his expression.

“I know you now. It’s Adam.. I’d’ knowed them eyes among a thousand, if I’d only looked. Eagle’s eyes, Adam, once seen never forgot!...An’ look at the giant of him! Wal, you make me feel young again...Adam, lad, I ain’t never forgot ye — never! Shake hands with old Merryvale.”

Agitated, with tremulous voice and shaking hands, he grasped Adam, almost embracing him, his grey old face alight with gladness.

“It’s good to see you, Merryvale — to learn you’ve not forgotten me — all these years.”

“Lad, you was like my own!...But who’d ever know you now? You’ve white hair, Adam, an’ — ah! I see the desert in your face.”

“Old friend, did you ever hear of Wansfell?”

“Wansfell? You mean thet wanderer the prospectors tell about?...Shore, I’ve been hearin’ tales of him these many years.”

“I am Wansfell,” replied Adam.

“So help me God!...Wansfell?...You, Adam, the kindly lad!...Didn’t I tell you what a hell of a man you’d be when you grew up?”

Adam drew Merryvale aside from the curiously gathering loungers.

“Old friend, you are responsible for Wansfell...And now, before we tell — before I go — I want you to take me to — to — my — my brother’s grave?”

Merryvale stared.

“What?” he ejaculated, and again his keen old eyes searched Adam’s.

“Yes. The grave — of my brother — Guerd,” whispered Adam.

“Say, man!...You think Guerd Larey’s buried here?...That’s why you come back?”

Astonishment seemed to dominate Merryvale, to hold in check other emotions.

“My friend,” replied Adam, “I came to see his grave — to make my peace with him and God — and to give myself up to the law.”

“Give yourself — up — to the law!” gasped Merryvale. “Have you gone desert mad?”

“No. I’m right in my mind,” returned Adam, patiently. “I owe it to my conscience, Merryvale...Fourteen years of torture! Any punishment I may suffer here, compared with those long years, will be as nothing...It will be happiness to give myself up.”

Merryvale’s lean jaw quivered as the astonishment and concern left his face. A light of divination began to dawn there.

“But what do you Want to give yourself up for?” he demanded.

“I told you. My conscience. My need to stand right with myself. To pay!”

“I mean — what ‘d you do?...What for?”

“Old friend, you’ve grown thick of wits,” rejoined Adam. “Because of my crime.”

“An’ what was thet, Adam Larey?” queried Merryvale, sharply.

“The crime of Cain,” replied Adam sadly. “Come, friend — take me to my brother’s grave.”

Merryvale seemed galvanised from age to youth.

“Your brother’s grave!...Guerd Larey’s grave? By heaven! I wish I could take you to it!...Adam, you’re out of your head. You are desert mad...Bless you lad, you’ve made a terrible mistake! You’re not what you think you are. You’ve hid in the desert fourteen years — you’ve gone through hell — you’ve become Wansfell — all for nothin’!...My God! to think of thet!...Adam, you’re no murderer. Your brother is not dead. He wasn’t even bad hurt. No — no — Guerd Larey’s alive — alive — alive!”

THE END

Code of the West

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER I

OF THE MANY problems that had beset Mary Stockwell during her two years of teaching school in the sparsely settled Tonto Basin of Arizona, this last one was the knottiest, the one that touched her most keenly. For it involved her little sister, Georgiana May, who was on her way to Arizona to be cured, the letter from their mother disclosed, of a slight tendency toward tuberculosis, and a very great leaning toward indiscriminate flirtation.

This day Mary was unusually tired. She had walked all the way up to the little log school-house on Tonto Creek — six miles — and back again to the Thurman ranch at Green Valley, where she boarded. Her eighteen pupils, ranging from six-year-old Mytie Thurman to sixteen-year-old Richard, had broken all records that day for insubordination. Then the hot sun of the September afternoon and the thick dust of the long dry road through brush and forest had taxed her to extreme weariness. Consequently she was not at her best to receive such a shock as her mother’s letter had given her.

“Well, there’s no help for it,” she thought wearily, taking up the letter again. “Georgiana is on her way — will arrive in Globe on the ninth. Let me see. Goodness, that’s tomorrow — Tuesday. The mail stage leaves Globe on Wednesday. She’ll get to Ryson about five o’clock. And I can’t get away. I’ll have to send someone to meet her.... Dear little golden-haired Georgie!”

Miss Stockwell seemed divided between distress at this sudden vexatious responsibility, and a reviving tender memory of her sister. What would she do with her? How would the Thurmans take this visit? Georgiana had looked very much like an angel, but she most assuredly had belied her appearance. Taking up the letter again, the perplexed schoolmistress hurried to that part which had so shocked her and scattered her wits:

...Dr. Smith says Georgie’s right lung is affected, but Dr. Jones, whom father swears by, says Georgie had just danced and gadded herself into a run-down condition. But I think Dr. Smith is right. I never could bear that man Jones. You remember Mrs. Jones — what airs she put on. Anyway, Georgie is in a bad way, besides being possessed of a variety of devils.

Daughter, you’ve been away from home going on six years, and part of the time you’ve been living in the backwoods. You’ve been better off, thank Heavens, but you’re buried alive as far as knowing what’s come over the world. Since you left we’ve had the Great War, and then after-the-war, which was worse. I’m sure I don’t know how to explain what has happened. At least I can give you some idea of Georgiana. She is now seventeen, and pretty. She knows more than you, who are twice her age. She knows more than I do. Whatever the modern girl has developed, Georgie has it. It seems to me that no one can help loving her. This is not a mother’s foolish vanity. It’s based on what I see and hear. All our friends love Georgie. And as for the boys — the young men — they are wild about her, and she does her best to keep them that way. I hate to admit it, but Georgie is an outrageous flirt.

But to come to the point — Georgiana absolutely will have her own way. All these modern girls are alike in this respect. They say we parents are “out of date,” “we do not understand.” — Perhaps they are right. Father thinks Georgie has not been held back by any restraint or anything we have tried to teach her. But worried and sick and frightened as I am about Georgie, I can’t believe she is really bad. I realize, though, that this may be merely a mother’s faith or blindness or vanity.

Georgiana has graduated from high school. We want her to work. But she will never work in Erie, and perhaps any hard application now — if Georgie could perform such a miracle — might be worse for her health.

Friends of ours, the Wayburns, are motoring to California, and offered to take Georgie West with them. You may be sure we grasped desperately and hopefully at the idea of sending her. That thrilled her. We are not so well off as formerly. But we made sacrifices and got Georgie all she wanted, and we will arrange to pay her board indefinitely out there. Maybe the West you tell so wonderfully about will cure her and be her salvation. Most assuredly her coming will be a trial for you. But, daughter, we beg of you — accept it, and do your best — for Georgie’s sake.

The second perusal of that amazing letter left Miss Stockwell saddened and thoughtful, but free of her former perplexity and worry. Her mother had done her best. If Georgiana could stand the rugged, virile, wild Tonto Basin, she would not only regain her health, but she would grow away from the falseness and over-sophistication that followed the war. Buried in the wilderness as Miss Stockwell had been, nevertheless she had kept up an active interest in the outside world. And all that periodicals could supply of information concerning news and progress of the times she had assimilated. Not improbably, she understood better that precocious new American type — the modern girl — than did her mother. She welcomed the coming of her sister. It might be difficult for her, but that did not matter. It could not help but be good for Georgiana.

Then suddenly she was confronted with another aspect of the case — the effect Georgiana would have on this environment, on the Thurmans, and all these good simple primitive people who must come in contact with her sister. She had grown fond of the Tonto and its rugged simplicity. She had long been conscious of how she was helping the children, and through them their parents. Was there not a deeper and more personal reason why she had become content with life there? A warmth tingled in her cheeks as she shirked the query. But in regard to Georgiana — there was bound to be an upheaval at Green Valley. Georgiana might pursue the audacious tenor of her frivolous life back there in Erie, but she could not do it in Arizona. Miss Stockwell vaguely realized how impossible it would be, though she could not then tell just why.

But the thought brought home to her a true appreciation of the boys and young men with whom she had become acquainted. The sons of the three Thurman families she knew especially well, for she had lived a year in their homes. Young men all, mostly in their early twenties, they were; though Enoch Thurman was over thirty, and Serge, his cousin, was a few years younger. All of them were hard riders of the high bare ranges of the Tonto. Only one of them had a wife. And sweethearts were so scarce that the boys were always fighting over one. They drove cattle in all seasons, helping one another, hewed timber, tilled and harvested fields of corn and sorghum, hunted the bears and lions that preyed on their stock. And the money they earned, which was not much, they gave to their mother. Seldom did any of them ride farther from their homesteads than Ryson. The lure of city life had not penetrated here. Several of the Thurmans had been in the training-camps during the war, and one of them, Boyd Thurman, the best rider, roper, axman, and hunter of the lot, had seen service in France. He had returned uninjured, and seemingly unchanged by all he had gone through. That fact, more than any Miss Stockwell could name, marked the individuality of the Thurmans and the character of the Tonto. Old Henry Thurman was wont to brag: “Nary a black mark ag’in’ Boyd — in camp or war!”

During her years of teaching in the Tonto, Miss Stockwell had never seen a Thurman, or any of their relatives, under the influence of liquor. They did not lie. If they made a promise it would be kept. Clean, fine, virile, manly young giants they all seemed to her. They smoked cigarettes, of their own making, and they would fight at the drop of a sombrero. They were cool, easy, tranquil, contented young backwoodsmen, strong and resourceful in the open, full of a latent fire and reserve force seldom called upon. They loved jokes, tricks, and dances. Among these hardy and daring young mountaineers a girl of Georgiana’s kind would be like a firebrand in the grass of the prairie.

The sharp clip-clop of trotting horses outside on the road interrupted Miss Stockwell’s meditations. The riders were returning from the range. She thought it would be well for her to go out at once and make arrangements with one of the boys to go to Ryson next day to meet the stage.

“I wonder what Georgie will think of this ranch,” mused Miss Stockwell, as she went out.

The old ranch house, part logs and part frame, moss-covered and weather-beaten, with its rambling additions shaded by trees, had grown to be a picturesque and satisfying sight to her. But at first it had struck her, as had almost everything, as crude and primitive, and suggestive of raw pioneer life.

She walked back of the house, through the yard, where chickens and calves and dogs had free access, to the corrals. They were huge round pens, made of bare poles, growing old and dilapidated now. The gates were made of roughly sawed yellow-pine boards from Henry’s sawmill. Enoch’s white mule, old Wise, came toward her. He was a famous mule in Arizona, past his prime now, but still vigorous. His color was a speckled white, and he was far from beautiful. But he had a keen well-formed head and most intelligent eyes. Old Wise was renowned for many things, but especially for his kick. But he would not kick anyone he liked, and he certainly adored Miss Stockwell. This day, however, she had no sugar or candy for him, and passed the old beast by with a pat and a pull of his long ears.

The adjoining corral was large, and always, in spite of its space, had been a bewildering place to Miss Stockwell. One corner was heaped full of old wagons, buggies, farm implements, and worn-out autos, so that it was merely a junkheap. A long rambling barn ran the whole length of the corral, and in fact constituted the barrier on that side. Like the house, additions had been built to it from time to time, so that it seemed a jumble of peaks, roofs, lofts, and wide-open doors showing broken stalls. The corral was crowded with dusty rolling horses. These features, perhaps, were what usually bewildered Miss Stockwell, though she liked to see the sweaty horses roll. They manifestly enjoyed it so hugely. They would bend their legs, lie down on one side, and groan and heave and strain until they rolled clear over. Then they would lunge, snorting, to their feet, and with a violent wrestling shake of their bodies send off the dust in a cloud. Their next move was to make a bee line for the open gate to the wide green pasture that gave the valley its name.

Miss Stockwell found the riders, nine of them, grouped before one of the wide doors of the barn. She had a singular feeling that these young Westerners had suddenly become more important and significant to her.

In a group these boys all looked strangely alike. It was necessary to pick one out and study him individually to see where he differed from his comrades. They were all tall, lean, rangy, with the round powerful limbs, the small hips, the slightly bowed legs of the born horseman. If they were of different complexions it could not be discerned then, for each of them was black from dust and brush. They wore huge sombreros, mostly black, some of them gray, and all were old, slouched, and grimy. Blue jeans, jumpers, and overalls seemed the favorite garb. Several had discarded their chaps, to reveal trousers stuffed into high-topped, high-heeled boots, shiny and worn, bearing long spurs with huge rowels.

They responded to Miss Stockwell’s greeting with the slow, drawling Texas speech that never failed to please her.

“Boys, I want one of you to do me an especial favor,” she said.

Enoch Thurman came from behind the group. He was the chief of this clan, a lofty-statured rider, the very sight of whom had always fascinated her.

“Wal, Miss Mary, if it’s takin’ you to the dance, I’m shore puttin’ up my bid,” he drawled. He had wonderfully clear light-gray eyes, and the piercing quality of their gaze was now softened by a twinkle. A smile, too, changed the rigidity of the dark lean face.

It occurred to Miss Stockwell that from the date of Georgiana’s arrival she would have to attend the dances. The prospect was alarming. The few functions of this kind in which she had participated had rendered her somewhat incapable for teaching the next day. For these boys had kept her dancing unremittingly from dark till dawn.

“I accept your kind invitation, Enoch, but that’s not the favor I mean,” she said, with a smile.

Then Boyd Thurman lunged up, smiling. He was stalwart, big-shouldered, of strong rugged face, hard as bronze, and his blue eyes were as frank as a child’s. He tipped back his sombrero, showing a shock of tow-colored hair.

“Teacher, what is this heah favor?” he inquired.

“Reckon we’re all a-rarin’ to do you any favor,” said Wess Thurman. He was a cousin of Boyd’s and Enoch’s, twenty-two, with the Thurman stature and wide-open eyes.

“It’s to go to Ryson tomorrow to meet my sister,” responded Miss Stockwell.

The announcement was not a trivial one in its content. Indeed, it seemed of tremendous importance. The boys reacted slowly to its significance.

“Tomorrow,” spoke up Enoch, regretfully. “Wal, I’m shore sorry. But I can’t go, Miss Mary. We rode Mescal Ridge today, an’ I drove some yearlin’s inside our drift fence. They belong to that Bar XX outfit, an’ shore there’s no love lost between us. I’m drivin’ them off our range tomorrow.”

Judging from the eagerness of the rest of the boys, with the exception of Cal Thurman, they all preferred meeting Miss Stockwell’s sister to driving cattle. And for several moments it appeared that Enoch would not have much help on the morrow.

“Goodness! I don’t want you all!” she protested. “One of you will do. If it’s such an occasion, you might draw lots.”

But this suggestion did not meet with the approval of the majority. They argued about it. Miss Stockwell had long been used to their simplicity, their earnestness and loquacity, and when opposed, their singular perversity to one another’s ideas and persistence in their own. They argued so determinedly that the teacher feared one of the quarrels which were of daily, almost hourly, occurrence. If one of these boys wanted to do something especially, that was a cue for the others to oppose him.

“Say, can she dance?” suddenly inquired Serge Thurman, brother of Wess. He was a yellow-haired young giant, sunburnt, with eyes reddened by heat and dust and wind. Serge was the most gallant, as well as the best dancer, of all the Thurmans. His query opened up a new train of thought, manifestly of intense interest to the boys.

Miss Stockwell had to laugh. Assuredly the advent of Georgiana would be worth seeing. “Why, I’m pretty sure she dances,” she replied, thoughtfully. It began to dawn upon her that she might repay these Thurmans for some of the innocent little tricks they had played on her.

More arguments followed this tentative admission by Miss Stockwell, and it was in no wise concluded when several of the boys asserted they were going to Ryson, and alone.

“Now, Miss Stockwell, what’s this heah sister of yourn like?” queried Pan Handle Ames. He was one of the several men employed by Enoch, like most of them of Texas stock, and a rider of the desert Pan Handle of Texas before he came to Arizona. He had a homely face and serious air. And his question precipitated such renewed interest that it seemed absolutely vital to the issue.

The teacher studied these friendly, queer young men, laughing to herself, thrilling for them, and slowly yielding to machinations of her own. How likable they were! They would spend hours over this simple matter, unless she settled it.

“I’ll tell you, boys,” she asserted. “I have a picture of her. I’ll fetch it — and then you can decide who really wants to meet her.”

That, at last, was one thing they approved of with instant unity. Miss Stockwell hurried to her room, and with growing consciousness of her opportunity, searched in her effects for the picture of a maiden aunt who was noted for her plain, severe face. She felt a twinge at thought of the use she meant to make of this likeness of the good aunt whom she loved, but did not let such trepidations dissuade her from her purpose. Armed with the photograph, she hurried back to the group of boys in the corral.

“There!” she exclaimed, holding it out.

All of them but Cal Thurman crowded round her, eager to see the likeness of her sister. Cal seemed amused at their actions.... He was Enoch’s youngest brother, a boy of nineteen, and apparently the only one of the clan not particularly interested in girls.

There was a moment of strained, silent attention, then one of them burst out:

“Aw, Miss Mary, she ain’t a bit like you.”

“Not much,” said Serge, decisively, with a finality the teacher did not fail to note.

“Wal, is this — is she really your sister?” queried Enoch, slowly, as if trying to remember. “Shore I thought you once showed me a picture.”

“Ahuh!” added Pan Handle Ames. “Nice sweet-appearin’ lady.” He said it with aloof nonchalance, with obvious insincerity.

Then, as a group they became silent, rather awkwardly and slowly realizing that the situation had subtly changed. They backed away from the teacher’s side and assumed former lounging positions, most of them calmly resorting to the inevitable cigarette. Enoch regarded his clan with undisguised mirth. They had placed themselves in an embarrassing position.

“Wal, I reckon you-all are rarin’ to chase them Bar XX steers in the mawnin’,” he drawled, with dry sarcasm. Enoch knew his clan.

The riders had drifted imperceptibly, as if by magic, back into that cool, easy serenity that usually characterized them. No hint of embarrassment or concern or consciousness of Enoch’s half-veiled scorn showed in look or action.

“Enoch, you cain’t drive that bunch of yearlin’s without me an’ Boyd,” asserted Serge, calmly.

Boyd nodded his assurance of this, and his big eyes shone with a glare as he spoke: “Reckon thet new Bar XX foreman won’t like you any better, Enoch. An’ considerin’ how much thet was, he’s goin’ to be riled when he finds out. He’s always achin’ to start a fight. An’ if you don’t drive thet bunch off our range he’ll swear we’re rustlin’.”

Enoch took this seriously, as if there was a good deal in it.

“Boyd, I was only doin’ Bloom a favor,” he replied. “It was near dark when we rounded up that bunch. An’ his outfit is ridin’ Mescal Ridge tomorrow.”

“Shore. But my advice is to get them cattle on his range before the day’s busted,” went on Boyd. “An’ it mightn’t be easy to find them all.”

Enoch then turned to Miss Stockwell with more of a serious consideration of the matter. “Miss Mary, I’m needin’ Serge an’ Boyd tomorrow, an’ so none of us can meet your sister. But shore any of the rest of my obligin’ an’ lady-killin’ outfit can get off for the day.”

“Thank you, Enoch,” replied the teacher, and thus fortified by his permission, she turned again to the boys to inquire sweetly: “Now which one of you will do me this favor?”

As her gaze surveyed them all collectively they remained mute, thoughtful, very far away; but when she singled out Pan Handle Ames to look directly at him, he drawled:

“Miss Mary, air you forgettin’ how I drove you home from the school-house one day?”

“Indeed I’m not!” returned Miss Stockwell, with a shudder. “Driving automobiles is not your forte.”

“Wal, it shore ain’t. But all the same, I’d ‘a’ got you home if the car had held together,” replied Pan Handle, and then settled back coolly to enjoy his cigarette. He knew he was out of the reckoning.

Then it seemed incumbent upon the others to face Miss Stockwell, ready to answer her appealing and reproachful gaze, when it alighted upon each of them.

Dick Thurman was the youngest of the boys, and he was still in school. “You know, teacher, I’d go, if it wasn’t for lessons. I’m behind now, you say, an’ father keeps me busy before an’ after school.”

Lock Thurman was the dark-skinned, dark-eyed, and dark-haired member of the family, a young man of superb stature, and the quietest, shyest of all the clan.

“Lock, please, won’t you go?” asked the teacher.

He shook his head and dropped it, to hide his face. “I reckon I’m afeared of women,” he said.

“Huh! Why don’t you say you’re afeared of thet there girl of yourn — Angie Bowers?” retorted his brother Wess.

“I ain’t no more afeared of her than you are of her twin sister Aggie,” responded Lock.

“Wal, when you cain’t tell which is Angie an’ which is Aggie — all the time mixin’ up your gurls — you oughta be scared. What’ll you do if you ever git married?” spoke up Serge.

This might have led to another argument had not Miss Stockwell broken in upon them by appealing to Wess.

“Teacher, I just hate to tell you I cain’t go for your sister,” replied Wess, in apparent deep sincerity. “I got a lot to do tomorrow, an’ shore need that day off Enoch said we could have. My saddle’s got to be mended, an’ my boots need half-solin’, an’ father’s at me to begin doctorin’ the dog’s feet — for we’ll be chasin’ bear soon — an’ mother wants a lot done — an’ I just cain’t go to Ryson. Ask Arizona there. He can leave off cuttin’ sorghum for tomorrow.”

Thus directed, Miss Stockwell turned to the young man designated as Arizona. If he had another name she had never heard it. He was the only one of small stature in the group, a ruddy-faced, blinking-eyed rider, with a reputation for humor that his appearance belied.

“Aw, Miss Stockwell, I’m ‘most sick because I cain’t oblige you,” asserted this worthy, in the most regretful of voices. “But old Hennery gave me plumb orders to cut thet sorghum before it rains.”

“Wal,” spoke up Wess, “it hasn’t rained for a month an’ it’ll go dry now till October.”

“Nope. It’s a-goin’ to rain shore aboot day after tomorrer. See them hazy clouds flyin’ up from the southwest. Shore sign of storm. You get Con to go.”

Con Casey, the comrade now referred to by Arizona, was a newcomer to the Thurman range, an Irishman only a few years in America and not long in the West. He was the most earnest and simple-minded of young men, and a source of vast amusement to his comrades. They liked him, though they made him the butt of their jokes and tricks.

When the teacher appealed to Con he sat up, startled. His solemn freckled face lost its ruddy color, his big pale-blue eyes dilated and stared. There was no mistaking his sincerity or his fright.

“My Gawd!” he ejaculated, in deep solemn tones, “Miss Stockwell, shure I niver was alone wit’ a woman in me loife.”

The boys guffawed at this, and cast sly banter at him, but there was no doubt that they believed him.

Miss Stockwell wore a manner of great anxiety which was really not in strict harmony with her true feelings. She was enjoying the situation hugely, and saw that it would probably work out exactly as she had hoped. Then what a climax on the morrow, when Georgiana appeared on the scene!

Tim Matthews, another rider, added his ridiculous excuse to avoid meeting the teacher’s sister; and the last one, excepting Cal Thurman, nonchalantly made a statement that he was not very well and might soon be having the doctor from the village.

At that Cal slouched up with all his five-foot-eleven of superb young manhood and surveyed his brothers and comrades in amused derision.

“You’re a lot of boobs, I’ll tell the world,” he said.

Miss Stockwell thrilled at this, and felt the imminence of something she had hoped for. This nineteen-year-old son of Henry Thurman’s was, in her opinion, the finest of the whole clan. He had all the hardiness, simplicity, and ruggedness of the Tonto natives, and somewhat more of intelligence and schooling. He seemed more modern and was fairly well read. Cal had spent his last year of school under Miss Stockwell and he had been a good student. His grandfather had been a Texan and a Rebel noted for his wild fiery temperament, which, according to family talk, Cal had inherited.

“Teacher, I’ll be glad to go meet your sister,” he declared, turning to her. “I was only waitin’ to see how they’d wiggle out of it.”

“Thank you, Cal. I’m certain you won’t be sorry,” replied the teacher, gratefully. She was indeed pleased, and now began to revolve in mind just how to prepare Cal for the advent of Georgiana. Certainly up to that moment it had not occurred to her to go on with the deception.

“She’s to come on the stage from Globe?” inquired Cal, as he walked with Miss Stockwell toward the corral gate.

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

“What’ll I take — the buckboard or car?”

The teacher thought that over a moment.

“It’s an awful old clap-trap — that bundle of rusty iron,” observed the teacher, remembering her few experiences in the family automobile. “I don’t believe it’s as safe as the buckboard.”

“Sure I’ll get her here safe,” replied Cal, with a laugh.

By this time they had reached the corral gate, which he opened for her. Suddenly loud cries of mirth resounded from the boys back by the barn. The teacher turned with Cal to see what had occasioned them such amusement. Some of them were standing with their heads close together and were apparently conversing earnestly. Their very air intimated deviltry and secrecy.

Cal gazed at them suspiciously, and a darker fire gleamed in his eyes. He had a smooth, almost beardless face, clear brown tan, and less of the leanness and craggy hardness that characterized his brothers’ features. He looked something better than handsome, the teacher thought.

“Say, that outfit is up to tricks,” he muttered. And he pushed back his huge sombrero to run a sinewy hand through his brown hair.

“Tricks?” echoed Miss Stockwell, vague. Had she better not divulge her own duplicity?

“Sure. Just look at Tim. He’s plannin’ something now. He always wags his head that way when he’s . . . Aw, I can read their minds.”

“What are they going to do?” inquired Miss Stockwell, curiously.

“They’ll be in Ryson tomorrow when I meet your sister,” he answered, grimly.

“What! They will?” cried the teacher, almost too eagerly. Cal looked at her dubiously, and again he brushed back his hair. He wanted, and meant, to be obliging, but evidently he did not have any delightful anticipations at the prospect before him. Almost like a flash came the inspiration to Miss Stockwell to go on with the deception and not enlighten Cal as to the truth regarding Georgiana. He would be all the more amazed and dazed when the realization burst suddenly upon him. How supremely happy he would be to lord it over his tricky comrades! And as for Tim Matthews, and those few evidently elected to have great fun at Cal’s expense — what poignant consternation and regret they would suffer! Miss Stockwell reveled in her idea. Georgiana, too, would make the best of it.

“Let me see that picture you showed the boys — so I’ll know her,” said Cal.

Miss Stockwell handed it to him without a word. Cal gazed at it for a moment.

“Can’t see any resemblance to you,” he remarked, presently. “She’s homely an’ you’re good-lookin’.”

“Thank you, Cal,” replied Miss Stockwell, demurely. “I appreciate your compliment. But you didn’t have to say so just because you found my — my sister plain.”

“Say! — I mean it, teacher. Why, Enoch thinks you’re the best-lookin’ woman he ever saw. An’ sure he’s a good judge.”

Miss Stockwell felt a little warmth on her cheek that was not all the westering sun. She liked the boy’s faith in Enoch. There was a singularly fine relation between these brothers, and one that augured well for the boy’s future.

“Cal, I think I’d take the buckboard instead of that old car,” suggested Miss Stockwell. She was thinking of the spirited black horses usually driven with the buckboard, and how much more they might appeal to a girl.

“Aw, she won’t mind the looks of that old gas-wagon. An’ sure I don’t care,” said Cal, with a laugh. “You see, the stage gets in late sometimes, an’ if I take the car I can drive your sister out here quick, before dark. It’s fifteen miles to Ryson, you know, an’ would take me several hours with the team. I’d like to get home before dark.”

“Why — so particularly? I’ve heard how you can ride the trails after night.”

“Aw, that outfit will be up to some trick, an’ between you an’ me I’d rather not be caught along a dark road with that old — I mean — your sister,” replied Cal, finishing lamely.

“Oh, I see,” mused Miss Stockwell, slowly, studying the perplexed face of the young man. “Very well, Cal. You do as you think best. But take a hunch from me, as you boys say. You won’t be sorry I inflicted this job on you.”

“Aw, now, teacher, I didn’t mean you’d done that,” he protested. “It’s only Tim an’ those darn fools. They’ve got a chance to get even. You don’t know what I did to them last dance.”

“Well, I don’t care what you did to them or what they do to you — tomorrow. You’re not going to be sorry you went. You might be very glad.”

“Why?” he asked, with a dawning of curiosity. He eyed her in confidence, yet withal as a boy who realized an unknown quantity in women. He had not the slightest idea what she meant, yet he had acquired an interest apart from his kindliness or desire to oblige her. “Maybe she’s rich an’ will give me a new saddle or somethin’,” he remarked, jokingly.

“Maybe. She’ll give you something, that’s certain,” replied Miss Stockwell, mysteriously.

She left him at the corral gate, holding it open for her, a pleased and rather vaguely expectant smile on his face as he turned to look back at his scheming comrades.

CHAPTER II

NEXT MORNING WHEN Cal presented himself at the breakfast table, fully two hours later than the usual time for the riders, he was filled with dismay to discover that several of his comrades had not gone off about their range tasks.

“Howdy,” was Pan Handle’s greeting.

“Mawnin’, Cal,” drawled Arizona.

“Wal, Cal, you shore bit the hay last night,” said Wess, dryly.

“Reckon it’s bad fer you to have meetin’ ladies on yore mind,” added Tim Matthews, solicitously.

“Ahuh!” growled Cal as he eyed his friends distrustfully.

During warm weather the Thurmans served meals on the porch that connected the adjoining sections of the large, rambling ranch house. A roof of rough boards stretched rather low above the porch, and a stairway led from the floor up to a hole in the attic. Here some of the riders slept. Cal, who preferred the outdoors, had slept in a little log bunkhouse of one room, which he had erected himself. With a knowing smile Cal passed the boys at the long table and proceeded to a bench against the log wall, where he filled a basin with water and vigorously washed face and hands. In fact, he splashed so violently and shook his tousled wet head so vehemently that he dashed water clear to the table.

“Hey, air you a whale blowin’?” complained Pan Handle.

“Naw, he’s only coolin’ off his haid,” observed Tim.

Cal went about his morning ablutions without paying any attention to his tormentors; and he broke his rule of shaving only once a week. This appeared to be of exceeding interest to the boys.

“Say, he’s shavin’,” ejaculated Arizona, as if that simple action was astounding.

“Got on his Sunday jeans, too,” observed Wess. “Reckon he wants to look handsome.”

“Wal, he never could — no matter what a dude he makes of himself,” added Pan Handle.

“Rarin’ to go!” exclaimed Tim, mockingly.

When Cal finally turned to the breakfast table the others had almost finished eating. Cal called into the kitchen: “Mother, won’t you or Molly bring me somethin’ to eat? These hawgs out here have grazed like sheep across a pasture.”

“Cal,” replied his mother, “you oughta get up in the mawnin’.”

Then his sister Molly appeared, carrying several smoking dishes which she set down before him. She was a wholesome-looking girl of about seventeen, unmistakably a Thurman in features.

“Cal, can I go to town with you?” she asked, appealingly.

“I should say not,” he replied.

“But I want to buy some things,” she protested.

“I’ll buy them for you,” replied Cal.

“Miss Stockwell left a list of things she wants.”

“All right. Has she gone to school?”

“Yes. She went with father in the buckboard. She wanted to see you, but you weren’t up. Said good-bye and you weren’t to forget what she told you about meeting Georgiana.”

“Now, Molly, cain’t you see there ain’t any danger of Cal’s forgettin’ his date with George-anner?” put in Wess, facetiously.

Then Cal began his breakfast in silence, aware of the bland observance of his comrades, and he did not waste any time eating. Pushing back his empty plate, he looked square at them.

“Not ridin’ today, huh?” he queried.

“Nope,” replied Wess, laconically.

“Nor tacklin’ any of the lot of work that ought to be done?”

“Nope.”

“Goin’ huntin’ with the dogs, maybe?”

“Reckon it’s too dry an’ hot to hunt. But I’m shore goin’ soon as it rains an’ gets cooler. Lots of bear this fall. An’ a world of acorns up on the high ridges.”

“Well, what are you goin’ to do today?” deliberately questioned Cal.

“Reckon I’m takin’ a day off,” said Wess, serenely.

“Goin’ to Ryson?” went on Cal, grimly.

“Shore. There ain’t any excitement round heah. An’ I’ve got a world of stuff to buy. Tobacco an’ horseshoes an’ cartridges, an’ — —”

“I’ll buy your stuff,” cut in Cal.

“Couldn’t think of trustin’ you,” returned Wess, blandly. “Besides, I want to see Angie.”

“She’s not home, an’ you know it,” rejoined Cal. Then he directed his gaze at Pan Handle Ames. “Reckon you’ve important reasons to show up in Ryson — huh?”

“Cal, I jest naturally got to go. There’s a lot — —”

“Bah!” interrupted Cal as he rose to his feet, shoving the bench seat backwards. He did not need to hear more subterfuge or question Arizona or Tim. They were too casual, too unnaturally uninterested. He judged the enormity of their machinations by the singular blankness of their faces.

“Goin’ to ride in on horseback?” concluded Cal, with a last glimpse of hopelessness.

“Nope. We’re takin’ the big car,” said Wess. “You see, Uncle Henry wants flour, grain, an’ a lot of supplies he ordered an’ needs bad. Oh, we’ll have a load comin’ back.”

“I wanted the big car,” retorted Cal, hotly. “Didn’t father know I was goin’ to meet a lady?”

“I reckon he did, for when we told him how bad we needed it to fetch back all the stuff, he said you could drive the Ford,” replied Wess, with a composure that indicated supreme self-control.

“An’ father’s gone with the buckboard!” ejaculated Cal, almost showing distress.

“Yes, he’s drivin’ teacher to school, an’ then he’s goin’ to Hiram Bowes’.”

“Cal, seein’ what a meekanik you air an’ how you can drive, it seems to us heah thet you’ll go along in the Ford like a turkey sailin’ downhill,” said Pan Handle Ames, with astounding kindliness and admiration.

Just then Tim doubled up and began to cough violently. Plain indeed were his heroic efforts to control mirth. Cal gazed at these four cronies in slow-gathering wrath. Finally he let go.

“Wess, I’ll bet you a horse to a pouch of tobacco that you’ll get licked for this job.”

“Say! What job are you ravin’ aboot? An’ who’s gonna lick me? You cain’t, Cousin Cal.”

“I’m not afraid to tackle it again, an’ if I can’t, by golly! I’ll find some one who can,” retorted Cal, darkly.

With that he abruptly turned away from his tormentors and strode for the corrals. The profound silence left behind him was further and final proof of a remarkable self-control exercised by these tricksters. It worried Cal, yet at the same time it began to arouse his antagonism. The task imposed upon him by the good school-teacher had assumed more than irksome possibilities. Manifestly it had furnished his cousin and comrade riders an unusual opportunity. But would they do anything really rude or unkind to Miss Stockwell’s sister? Cal could not, even in temper, believe that they would. But they were equal to any stretch of the imagination as far as he was concerned, and they would do anything under the sun to make him miserable.

He went directly to look over the Ford car. It had seen three or four years more than its best days. But it miraculously held together and really did not look like the junkheap it actually was. That was because Cal’s father had covered it recently with a paint he wanted to get rid of.

Cal Thurman loved horses, and as a rider he was second only to his famous brother Boyd. But he hated automobiles and simply could not understand what made them run or stop or get out of order. As mathematics had been the only study Miss Stockwell could not make clear to Cal, so the operation of a threshing-machine or automobile or of the age-old steam-engine at the sawmill, was the only thing about the ranch that Cal’s father could not teach him. To be sure, he had tried to learn to drive an automobile, and had succeeded to some extent. But it took a mechanical genius to make this Ford go. This morning, however, the deceitful engine started with a crack and a bang, and, to Cal’s amaze, in a moment was humming like a monster bee. Cal felt elated. He might fool that outfit, after all. Still, he reflected, it might have been within the bounds of possibility for them to fix this Ford to fit in with their scheme. All the same, he decided to take instant advantage of the humor of the car before it changed its mind. Forthwith he left the engine running, saw that there was plenty of gasoline and oil, and then hurried back to the house. Donning his jacket and his big black sombrero, he presented himself in the kitchen for orders from the feminine members of the family. His elder sister, Mary, was not there, but Molly, in her requests, made up for two. Cal’s mother was a slight, tall, gray-haired woman, with a wonderful record of pioneer service and sacrifice written on her worn face. The days of her ruggedness were past. She gave Cal money and instructions, and as he was about to go she called him back.

“Son, listen,” she said, in lower tone. “Shore them tow-haids air up to some mischief. Now don’t forget your manners, whatever they do. It speaks well for you that you offered to meet teacher’s sister. Carry it through, Cal. In my youth the Thurmans of Texas knew how to be courteous to a guest. We’ve most forgot it heah in this hard Tonto country. Shore I look up to you an’ Molly.”

“All right, mother, I’ll be good,” replied Cal, with a laugh, and bounded out on the porch and off toward the corral. He wanted to avoid meeting his tormentors again, and was fortunate in this. Upon reaching the Ford, he was relieved and amazed to find the engine still running — not only running, but actually softly humming, with an occasional purr.

“Say, what’s gotten into this old bugg — wagon?” muttered Cal, as he climbed in. He experienced both an inward quake and a thrill. He was young, and his spirit was such that he rose to an occasion that seemed to him harder than any range task ever given him. Indeed, though he felt this, he had quite forgotten Miss Stockwell’s sister. The issue now was to perform a kindness, a duty to one who had been good to him, a task to please his mother, and to do this in spite of Wess Thurman and Tim Matthews and their allies in deviltry.

Cal got out of the corral and down on the valley road without being hailed from behind — a fact that he took as a good start to his adventure. Then he forgot the boys and lost himself in attention to the car and the sensation of driving along the shady, beautiful road. For some unknown reason the Ford ran better than it ever had run for Cal. As he hummed along between the green walls of juniper and live-oak trees he gradually forgot his uneasiness.

The morning was clear, and still cool in the shady road. Blue jays and gray squirrels gave noisy awareness of his approach. White-faced red cattle bearing the noted Four T brand browsed along the way. He came to where the road descended a hill, and entered a rocky gully shaded by sycamore trees. They had just begun to add a gold tinge to the green, and cast a wonderful amber light upon the pools of the brook. A flock of wild turkeys, surprised at their drinking, ran with low startled put-put-put into the brush. By and by Cal passed out of the forest of juniper and oak into the rolling hill-lands of manzanita, through which the road meandered and gradually descended.

Four or five miles took Cal down out of the foothills into the level brush-covered valley lands that led to Ryson. Here and there, at long intervals, lay the ranch of a cattleman. All the old settlers in this country let their stock range over unfenced government lands. Most of them had homesteaded the one hundred and sixty acres allotted by the government, and whenever Cal rode through this district he was possessed of a stronger desire to settle on a place of his own.

“I’ll homestead that Bear Flat, if father will let me, this very fall,” he soliloquized. “Wess has his eye on Mesa Hill, an’ I’ll bet he’s just waitin’ to save enough money to marry one of them darn twins — or maybe till he can find out which is Angie an’ which is Aggie! — But girls are the least of my trouble. No marryin’ for me. Give me my horses an’ a dog an’ a gun.”

So young Thurman drove on along the road, with the dry, warm, fragrant breeze in his face, and his thoughts leisurely following idle, dreamy channels. At length he came out into country flat enough for him to see the blue peaks of the Mazatzal range to the south, and to the north the wonderful Mogollon Rim, a black-and-yellow wandering wall of mountain, horizon-long, and ending in the purple distance of the west. This valley was poor in grass, but rich in desert vegetation, such as low scrub oak, and thorny brush, and manzanita, and mescal cactus. On the flats a gray beached grass had been nipped short. The farther Cal progressed along this road the rougher became the country, and the less he liked it. Green Valley nestled high up in the foothills, and was not many miles from the great slopes, ridges, and canyons of the Tonto, and within half a day’s ride of the lofty Rim. How different his wonderful Bear Flat from this country!

Several miles east of Ryson he turned a curve in the road to see a tall lanky young man plodding wearily along, bowed under the burden of a bundle wrapped in canvas. As Cal neared the fellow it became evident that he could hardly lift one foot after the other. His soiled worn garb attested to the possibility of contact with brush and a bed on the ground. Cal slowed up, naturally expecting the man to turn and ask for a ride. But he did neither. Then Cal stopped and hailed him.

“Hey, want a lift?”

The young man raised a cadaverous pale face that quickly aroused Cal’s sympathy.

“Thanks. I’ll say I would,” replied the traveler, and he lifted the bundle down from his stooped shoulders.

“Throw it in back an’ ride in front with me,” suggested Cal, eying him with growing interest. Upon closer view this individual appeared to Cal to be the most singularly built human being he had ever seen. He was very tall, and extremely thin, and so loose jointed that he seemed about to fall apart. His arms were so long as to be grotesque — like the arms of an ape — and his hands were of prodigious size. He had what Cal called a chicken neck, a small head, and the homeliest face Cal had ever looked into. Altogether he presented a ridiculous and pathetic figure.

“I was all in — and lost in the bargain,” said he. The freckles stood out prominently on his wax-colored skin. He was so long and awkward, and his feet were so huge, that Cal thought he was not going to be able to get into the front seat. But he folded himself in, and slouched down with a heave of relief.

“Lost? What place were you trying to find?” queried Cal as he started the car again.

“I’ve hiked from Phoenix. And a couple of days this side of Roosevelt Dam I butted into a gas station along the road — Chadwick. The man there told me I could get a job at the Bar XX ranch, and where to find the trail. I found a trail all right, but it led nowhere. I got lost and couldn’t find my way back to Chadwick. Been ten days and nights.”

“Huh! You must be hungry?”

“I’ll say so.”

“Well, you’re way off the track. Bar XX ranch is east. You’ve traveled north. An’ I happen to know Bloom, the foreman of that outfit. He doesn’t want any men.”

“It’s kinda hard to get a job,” replied the fellow, with a sigh. “Made sure I could catch on in the Salt River Valley. But everybody’s broke there, same as me, and I guess they’d just as lief not see any service men.”

“You were in the army?” asked Cal, with a heightening of sympathy.

“No. I was a marine,” replied the other, briefly.

His tone of aloofness rather reminded Cal of Boyd upon his return from France. These service men who had seen service were reticent, strange.

“Marine? That’s a sailor, huh? Did you get over?”

“I’ll say so. I went through Château Thierry, and now by God! I can’t get work in my own country,” he replied bitterly.

“Say, Buddy, if you’re on the level you can get a job in the Tonto,” returned Cal, rather curtly. His companion vouchsafed no reply to this, and the conversation, so interestingly begun, languished. Cal thought the fellow seemed cast down by this remark. Meanwhile the car swung into the long stretch of gray road at the farther end of which lay the village of Ryson.

Ranches gave place to cottages, widely separated, and these in turn to the row of square-fronted, old, and weather-beaten frame and stone structures that constituted Ryson. The one street appeared as wide as a public square. Along its quarter of a mile of business section could be seen several cattle, two horses, a burro, and some dogs, but no people. A couple of dilapidated automobiles marked the site of the garage, which had evidently once been a blacksmith’s shop. The town seemed enveloped in the warm, drowsy, sleepy air of midsummer.

Cal stopped his Ford at the garage, not without a slight feeling of gratification at the amaze his advent would create. Upon the last occasion of his leaving the garage with this particular Ford one of the mechanics had remarked: “It’s a cinch we’ll never see this flivver ag’in!”

“Say, will you have dinner with me?” queried Cal, of his silent companion.

“Will I? Boy, lead me on,” replied the ex-marine. “I’ll say you’re a sport.”

“Glad to have you,” responded Cal. “But we’re early. There’s the hotel — that gray house with the wide porch. You can wait for me there.”

“You’ll find me anchored, and I’m hoping the dinner bell will ring quick,” he replied, taking his bundle and shuffling away in the direction indicated.

The young man of the garage stood gaping. “Cal, what is thet you had with you?” inquired one.

“Where’d it come from?” asked another.

“It’s a scarecrow hitched on to a coupla bean-poles,” said a third.

Cal laughed and explained: “Oh, that’s a chap I picked up on the road.”

“Did he manipulate on this hyar Lizzie of yourn?” inquired the first garage man, indicating the Thurman Ford.

“No, he didn’t,” retorted Cal. “I’ll have you understand I drove this car.”

“Car? This ain’t no car. It’s a sheet-iron wagon with a milk-can fer an engine.”

“Ahuh! Well, you lay off her with your monkey-wrenches,” returned Cal.

Leaving the car there, Cal proceeded into the big barn-like general store and post-office, and set about the responsible and difficult task of selecting and purchasing the things enumerated by the women-folk of the Thurman household. In his anxiety during the performance of this duty he quite forgot the dinner engagement he had made with the hungry traveler until he had completed the selection to the best of his ability. Then he carried the packages out to the car and deposited them on the back seat. “Reckon she’ll have a lot of stuff to pack,” he muttered, suddenly reminded of his expected passenger.

After this he repaired to the hotel porch, there to find the cadaverous individual waiting with hungry eyes.

“Say, I’m sorry I was so long, but I had a lot to do,” said Cal. “Let’s go in an’ get it.”

In the ensuing half-hour Cal was to learn that a kind action, however thoughtlessly entered into, could have singular effect, not only upon the recipient, but upon him who offered it. Naturally, being a range-rider, he had been many a time as hungry as a bear, but he had never seen a man apparently half starved. How good this meal must have been to the fellow! Cal’s curiosity followed his sympathy.

“My name’s Cal Thurman,” he said, at the end of the dinner. “What’s yours?”

“Tuck Merry,” was the reply.

“Say, that’s a funny name. Merry! It sure doesn’t suit you, friend. An’ Tuck — never heard it before.”

“It’s a nickname. Almost forgot I had another. But it was Thaddeus.”

“Huh? How’d you ever get called Tuck?” asked Cal, curiously.

“I was in the marines. They’re a scrappy bunch. An’ every time I punched a buddy I’d tuck him away to sleep. So they nicknamed me Tuck.”

“Well, I’ll be darned!” exclaimed Cal, in wondering admiration. Nothing could have been more calculated to arouse his friendliness. “You must have a punch?”

“Yes. It just comes natural,” replied Merry, simply. “I’ve got a couple of mitts, too. See there.”

He doubled his enormous hands and showed Cal two fists of almost incredible size.

“Say!” ejaculated Cal, with shining eyes. Then an idea flashed like lightning through his mind, and he liked it. The instant it clarified and caught his fancy it grew and grew until it was positively thrilling. “See here, Tuck, you said you wanted a job?”

“I’ll say I said so,” returned Merry, rousing to interest.

“Are you well? I mean are you strong?” queried Cal, hesitatingly. “You look like you’d fall in two pieces.”

“I’m a deceiving cuss. Pretty much tuckered out now. But I was husky when I started West. A little rest and a mess-table like this would soon put me in as good shape as when I was one of Dempsey’s sparring pardners.”

“What?” cried Cal, breathlessly.

“See here, matey. I was raised on the waterfront in New York. Do you get that? Was in the navy for years. Finally was boxing instructor. Then after the war I knocked around in sparring bouts. Last job I had was with Dempsey.”

“Whoop-ee!” ejaculated Cal, under his breath. He slammed the table with his fist. The idea had assumed bewildering and exhilarating proportions. “Say, Tuck, I’ve taken a liking to you.”

“I’ll say that’s the first good luck I’ve had for many a day,” returned Merry, feelingly.

“I’ll get you a job — two dollars a day an’ board — all the good grub you can eat,” blurted out Cal, breathlessly and low. “Up on my father’s ranch. It’s Tonto country, an’ once you live there you will never leave it. You can save your money — homestead your hundred an’ sixty acres — an’ some day be a rancher.”

“Cal, I ain’t as strong as I thought,” replied Tuck, weakly. “Don’t promise so much at once. Just find me work an’ a meal ticket.”

“My father runs a sawmill,” went on Cal. “He always needs a man. An’ all us riders hate sawin’ wood. That job would give you time off now an’ then, to ride with us an’ go huntin’. I’ll give you a horse. We’ve got over a hundred horses out home.... Tuck, the job’s yours if you’ll do me a little favor.”

Tuck Merry held out his huge hand and said: “Mate, there ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

“Listen,” whispered Cal, intensely. “First, you’re not to tell a soul that you were in the marines an’ how you got that name Tuck an’ was one of Dempsey’s boxin’ pardners.”

“I get you, Cal. I’m dumb on the has-been stuff. I lose my memory.”

Cal was now tingling with thrilling glee at the enormous possibilities of his idea.

“Tuck, I’m the baby of the Thurman family,” he went on. “I’ve two brothers an’ seven cousins, all of which think I’m spoiled. Father gave me more time for schoolin’ an’ I’ve had a little better advantages, maybe. An’ these fellows all pick on me to beat hell. Now don’t let me give you the idea there’s any hard feelin’. Not at all. I sure think heaps of all the boys, an’ as for Enoch an’ Boyd, my brothers, I sure love them. But they all make life awful tough for me. Girls are scarce, an’ when we have dances — which is often — there are not enough to go round. If I poke my nose into the school-house, where we have our dances, I sure get it punched. For that matter, fightin’ is next to dancin’ in the Tonto. They sort of go together. Lately all my cousins seem to want to beat me up. They say I’m gettin’ big enough an’ that it ought to be done right before I take the bit in my teeth. Wess Thurman licked me bad not long ago. They’ve all had their fun with me, an’, darn it — I’ve never licked a single one of them. They’re older an’ bigger.... Now what I want you to do is to lick all of them.”

“Ain’t you givin’ me a large order, matey?” queried Merry, smiling for the first time.

“Not yet. Aw, Tuck, that’ll be easy. Don’t worry. They’ll all pick the fights. You needn’t do anythin’ but wait, an’ when one of them starts somethin’ you just tuck him away. It will tickle my father ‘most as much as me.”

“I’ll do my best,” promised Merry. “What else? What’s the large order, if this one ain’t much?”

“Now I’m comin’ to hard feelin’s,” responded Cal, with more grimness than humor. “There’s Bloom, foreman of the Bar XX ranch. Bad blood between his outfit an’ the Thurmans. I’d like you to beat the daylights out of Bloom, an’ a couple others.”

“Cal, I heard this was wild country, this Tonto. Isn’t there liable to be gun-play?”

“Why, if you packed a gun it might be risky. But if you don’t there’s no danger. You’ll fool these riders somethin’ awful. I know it. I can just see what’ll come off. They’ll all make fun of you, an’ Bloom an’ his kind will insult you. All you’ll need to do is to say, ‘Mister, would you oblige me by gettin’ off your horse’, an’ he’ll pile off like a fallin’ log. Then you say, ‘You see I don’t pack a gun, an’ if you’re a gentleman an’ not afraid, you’ll lay off your hardware.’ The rest, pard Tuck, will be immense.”

“You’re on. Pard she is,” replied Tuck, offering his huge hand. There were a depth and a gravity in his acceptance of this gauge, and he crushed Cal’s fingers in a tremendous grip. Cal jerked, writhed, and then sank down with a groan.

“Say, man! Let go!” he cried, and then, as his hand came free, limp and crumpled, he rubbed it and tried to move his fingers. “Sufferin’ bobcats! I want to use this hand again.” Then he laughed with grim glee. “Tuck, you’re goin’ to give me a lot of joy. Now let’s see. You can go back to Green Valley with me. I’m to meet a woman, sister of our school-teacher, an’ take her home. I reckon you’ll need to buy some things, unless you’ve got some Sunday clothes in that bundle.”

“These are my swell togs,” replied Tuck, with a grin. “There’s nothing in my pack but blankets, some odds an’ ends, an’ a pair of boxing-gloves.”

“Huh! Then you can teach me to box?” queried Cal, with his glance dark and full of fire.

“Cal, in three months I’ll have you so you can stand your nice relatives in a row an’ lick them all one after another.”

“Glory! Wouldn’t that be great,” ejaculated Cal. “But it’s too good to be true. One a week would be good enough. Here’s some money, Tuck. You go buy what you need. An’ be sure you’re hangin’ round when that outfit rides in from Green Valley. They’re up to some job.”

“Pard Cal, I’ll be there with bells on,” replied the lanky Tuck.

Cal parted from his new-found friend and went out to take a message for his sister, an errand he had forgotten. His keen eye scanned the long, bare, dusty road that led eastward toward Green Valley. No sign of the boys yet! He did not wish them any very bad luck, but he hoped their car would break down. But he well knew that nothing short of a miracle could keep them from being on hand when the stage arrived. That thought prompted him to hurry with his errand, and then go back to the store to telephone. First he called up Roosevelt, to learn that the stage was ahead of time and had left there two hours earlier. Next he telephoned to Packard, a post-office and gasoline station on the Globe road. His call was answered by Abe Hazelitt, a young fellow he had known for years.

“Hello, Abe. This’s Cal — Cal Thurman — talkin’. How are you?”

“Howdy, Cal,” came the reply, in Abe’s high-pitched drawl. “Wal, I was shore fine jest lately, but now I’m dinged if I know whether I’m ridin’ or walkin’.”

“What’s the matter, Abe?” asked Cal.

“Cal, I’m gosh-durned if I know. But the stage jest rolled in — an’ somethin’s happened.”

“Stage? Ahuh!” replied Cal, with quickening of interest. “That’s what I wanted to know about. On time, huh?”

“Way ahead of time. We all near dropped dead. Jake’s drivin’ like hell today, I’ll tell the world.”

“Jake drivin’ fast?” echoed Cal. “Sure that’s funny. What’s got into him?”

“Reckon it’s the same as what’s got into me, Cal.”

“Aw, you’re loco. Abe, is there a lady passenger on the stage?”

Cal heard his friend chuckle at the other end of the wire, and then hesitate before replying. “Cal, listen to me whisper.... Yes, I should smile.”

“That’s good. She is a sister of our school-teacher, Miss Stockwell. I’ve been sent to meet her here an’ take her out home. Abe, please tell her that Cal Thurman is waitin’ at Ryson.”

A long low whistle came over the wire. Then: “My Gawd! the luck of some fellars!”

“Luck? Say, Abe, have any of the boys phoned you — Wess or Tim or Pan Handle?” queried Cal, suspiciously.

“Nary one, Cal. You’ll have her all to yourself. An’ believe me — —”

“Cut it out,” almost yelled Cal. “I know what you mean by luck. Somebody had to meet her, an’ that low-down outfit at Green Valley just quit barefaced when they saw her picture.”

“They did! Wal, I’ll be dinged! Say, Cal, mebbe you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree.”

“Say, yourself!” retorted Cal, testily. “You talk sort of queer, Abe. I’ll ring off now, before you make me sore. You’ll tell the lady, please?”

“I shore will. An’ say — Hold on, Cal. Don’t hang up. — Hello!”

“Hello!” replied Cal. “I’m still on, but in a hurry.”

A much lower-toned and hoarser voice continued breathlessly: “Cal, she was jest in here before you called. I seen her. She’s wearin’ socks! Anyway, I seen her bare knees — they’re pink — an’ so help me Moses they’re painted! Cal, she’s shore some — —”

“Shut up!” roared Cal, in sudden fury at what he thought his friend’s badinage. “You can’t josh me. You’re a liar, Abe Hazelitt. The boys have put you on.”

“Naw, Cal, I hope to die,” replied Abe, apparently bursting with glee. “I ain’t been put on to nothin’. But I shore know what’s a-comin’ to you, Cal Thurman.”

In mingled anger, fear, and consternation Cal slammed up the receiver and rushed away from the telephone.

“Pink knees! . . . Painted! . . .” fumed Cal. “The idea! What that outfit can’t think of is sure beyond me.... Abe, now, they rung him in on it. An’ he knows what’s comin’ to me, huh? . . . All right, boys, I guess none of you savvy what Tuck Merry has up his sleeve. This is sure goin’ to end in a fight.”

CHAPTER III

CAL THURMAN DID not have very much time to ruminate over the mysterious intimations that had been suggested by his talk with Abe Hazelitt on the telephone. For he had scarcely left the post-office, to walk down the road toward the garage, when he espied the boys from Green Valley. They were grouped with the garage mechanics round his Ford car. If Cal had needed any more to rouse his ire, this fact was enough.

He approached them with long strides. Upon nearer view he found, to his amaze, that the boys were clean-shaven, and all had donned spick-and-span new suits of overalls, and wore their Sunday sombreros and shiny boots. Wonderful to see, Arizona, who was noted for his slovenly dress, appeared arrayed as the others, and he positively shone.

“Howdy, Cal! I’m shore congratulatin’ you,” drawled Wess, placidly indicating the Ford car.

“Pard Cal, yore some driver,” added Arizona.

“Good day, Cal. Looks like you was a-rarin’ to go somewhere,” put in Pan Handle.

“How air you, boy?” queried Tim, serenely.

“Say, you seem mighty all-fired glad to see me,” replied Cal, sarcastically, running his keen gaze from one to another. They were cool, lazy, smiling, tranquil. Cal knew them. The deeper their plot the harder they were to reach! Their very serenity was a mask hiding an enormous guilt. Cal shivered in his boots. How he wished this day was over! At the same instant a warmth stirred in him — the thought of Tuck Merry.

Cal pushed the boys away from the Ford car and began to prowl around it to see if they had done anything to it. Here he was almost helpless. He examined engine, tires, wheel, and the various parts necessary to the operation of the car, but he could not be sure whether they had tampered with it or not. Certainly they had not had much time to do anything. Nevertheless, with the garage mechanics in the secret, they might have accomplished a good deal. Had he missed a bolt in this place? It was impossible to remember. Had he ever before noticed a crack in the floor extending across the front of the car? He could not recall it. The old Ford presented an enigma. Cal distrusted the looks of it, yet had no proof of his suspicions.

“Say, if you hombres have been monkeyin’ with this car!” he exclaimed, glaring darkly at them.

“Cal, you shore are a chivulrus fellar where ladies are concerned,” drawled Wess, “but you ain’t got any but low-down idees for your relations an’ friends.”

“Reckon you ain’t insinuatin’ I’d do some underhand trick?” queried Pan Handle, reproachfully.

“Cal, you’ve been punched more’n onct fer insultin’ remarks,” added Tim Matthews, meaningly.

“Aw!” burst out Cal, exploding helplessly. “You fellows can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You’re up to some deviltry, an’ I’m bettin’, from the looks of you an’ your soft-soap talk, it’s pretty skunky.... An’ as for your punch, Tim Matthews, I’d like to know if you think you can go on punchin’ me forever?”

“Wal, mebbe forever would be far-fetched,” replied Tim, dryly. “But jest so long as you live I shore will be able to punch you.”

Cal gazed steadily into the grinning face of his friend.

“Tim, you’re the big gambler of the Thurman outfit, aren’t you?”

“Wal, I reckon thet distinctshun has been forced upon me,” replied Tim, with nonchalance not devoid of pride.

“Ahuh! — You know my black horse Pitch, don’t you, an’ how you’ve tried to buy, borrow, an’ steal him?”

“I’m denyin’ the last allegashun,” retorted Tim, testily.

“Well, I’m bettin’ Pitch against your bronc Baldy that I lick you before I’m a year older.”

All the boys stared, and Tim’s lean jaw dropped.

“Boy, hev you been drinkin’?” he asked, incredulously.

“Bah! You know I never drink,” retorted Cal. “Are you on — or are you afraid to bet?”

“See heah, Cal,” interposed Wess, “thet’s a fool bet! You know you love Pitch an’ he was Enoch’s gift to you — the best hoss ever broke in the Tonto.”

“Sure I know, an’ you can gamble I wouldn’t bet if I didn’t know I could lick Tim,” returned Cal.

Tim came out of his trance to seize his golden opportunity.

“Boys, I call his bluff. The bet’s on — my Baldy ag’in’ his hoss Pitch. An’ all of you paste the date in your hats. Savvy? . . . An’, Cal, I hate to take your hoss, but my pride is ag’in’ such fresh gab as yours.”

“Pride goes before a fall, my friend Timothy,” said Cal, deliberately. “Now, boys, I call on you, too. An’ listen. I know you’re up to some tricks, an’ that Tim is at the bottom of it. I want you all to be around when I lick him.”

This sally brought forth loud laughter from all the listeners except Tim. He looked dubious and astounded.

“We’ll shore be there, Cal,” said Wess.

Without further comment Cal cranked the Ford, finding, to his secret amaze, that the engine again started with unusual alacrity, and then he climbed to the driver’s seat. As he drove off toward the post-office he expected much jest and laughter to be flung after him. In this, however, he was mistaken. Something was wrong with the car, surely. It ran too easily and smoothly, and it gave Cal the impression that it wanted to race. All at once he conceived an absolute conviction that the boys had tampered with it in some uncanny way. He drove to the post-office and turned round, and stopped beyond the door near the porch. A number of natives were sitting on a bench, smoking pipes and whittling sticks, awaiting the one event of Ryson’s day — the arrival of the stage. On the edge of the porch sat Tuck Merry, beside his canvas roll of baggage.

At that moment, as Cal was about to get out he espied three horsemen trotting down the road from the east. He peered at them, and recognized Bloom of the Bar XX outfit, and two of his riders, one of them surely being Hatfield.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” ejaculated Cal. “Talk about your hard luck!”

To be made the victim of tricks by his own relatives and friends was bad enough, but to have to endure them in the face of this Bar XX outfit, especially Hatfield, was infinitely worse. Could Wess and his partners have had anything to do with the strange coincidence of the arrival of Bloom and Hatfield?

“Aw, they couldn’t be that mean,” muttered Cal, loyally. Fun was fun, and the boys evidently had something especially to their liking, but they never would have sent for enemies of the Thurmans. Cal had no further thought of such a thing. The advent of these riders was just an unfortunate coincidence calculated to add to Cal’s discomfiture.

He watched them ride past the garage, past Wess and his comrades, who nodded casually to them, and down the road to the hitching-rail under the cottonwood tree near the post-office. They dismounted. Bloom and Hatfield approached, while the third rider, a stranger to Cal, began to untie a mail-sack from the back of his saddle. Bloom was a heavy man for a rider, being square-shouldered and stocky, with a considerable girth. His huge bat-wing chaps flapped like sails as he slouched forward. He had a hard face, and though it showed him under forty, it was a record of strenuous life. Hatfield was young, a handsome, stalwart figure. He swaggered as he walked. His garb was picturesque, consisting of a huge beaver sombrero, red scarf, blue flannel shirt, just now covered with dust, and fringed chaps ornamented in silver.

“Howdy, Thurman,” greeted Bloom as he came up. “Met yore dad this mornin’, an’ he was tellin’ me you’d come to town.”

“How do, Bloom,” returned Cal, rather shortly.

Hatfield did not speak to Cal, though he gave him a sidelong look out of his sharp, bold eyes. Then, as before, it struck Cal why Hatfield had gained the favor of most of the girls of the Tonto. But he was not equally popular with the men. Hatfield had few superiors as a rider and roper, and he was a bad customer in a fight, as Cal remembered to his grief; but though these qualities had entitled him to a certain respect, he had never been a friend of any of the Thurmans. Moreover, he did not come of Texas stock and he belonged to the Bar XX outfit.

These two riders passed Cal, and had mounted the porch before they espied the ludicrous figure of Tuck Merry lounging with his back against a post. Bloom glanced at him, then halted to stare.

“Haw! Haw!” he guffawed, striding on again. “Hat, did you see thet? Reckon it got away from a circus.”

Whereupon Hatfield turned to look at Merry. It was not a gaze calculated to flatter or please the recipient, but though Merry evidently saw he was the object of ridicule, he gave no sign. The moment brought Cal both resentment and a thrilling anticipation. Then Bloom and Hatfield, after speaking to the natives on the bench, disappeared in the store.

Cal heard the droning hum of the stage. So did the natives hear it. They woke up and stirred to animation.

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned if thar ain’t the stage comin’,” said one.

“Betcha it ain’t Jake drivin’,” added another.

“Reckon if it is Jake he’s been lookin’ at licker,” snickered a third.

Cal found a grim consolation in the fact that whatever was to be his ordeal, it would soon be under way. He saw Wess and the boys leisurely approaching. Then he caught Tuck Merry’s eye and beckoned to him. When the lanky fellow slid off the porch to tower erect, Cal could not repress another start of amaze and mirth. If a man could somehow resemble a giraffe, Merry did.

“Did you notice the two fellows who just went in the store?” queried Cal.

“I’ll say so,” replied Merry.

“Ahuh! Well, the fat one was Bloom, head of the Bar XX outfit, an’ no friend of the Thurmans. The other was Hatfield, one of his riders. There’s bad blood between him an’ me. I’ll tell you why some day. Of all the — But never mind. — Now look down the road. See those four boys comin’? Well, they belong to the Thurman outfit. Wess, the tallest, is my cousin. They’re just the finest fellows. But they’re hell on tricks an’ fights. They’ve put up some job on me today. Now you just hang around an’ watch, until I call you.”

“I get you, Steve,” returned Merry, with a smile, and then lounged away to his seat on the porch.

Cal remained sitting in the Ford. Wess and his comrades came leisurely on, and lined up on the porch, as calm as deacons. Natives of Ryson appeared on the road, approaching the store and post-office. Then the big auto-stage turned into the main road and came on with a roar, leaving a cloud of dust behind. It appeared to be loaded down with bags and boxes, piled on top and tied on the sides. The driver came on with unusual speed, and halted with a bang before the porch steps. When he stepped quickly out, Cal recognized Jake’s face and figure, but not his movements. Remarkable and unnatural energy characterized Jake at the moment.

“Hyar we are,” he called, cheerily, as he opened a side door. Then he proceeded to lift out numerous pieces of hand baggage, grips and bags of a quality and style seldom seen at Ryson. These he deposited upon the steps. Next he helped some one out, speaking too low for Cal to hear what he said.

The first passenger to alight was a very young girl, it seemed to Cal. His view was obstructed by Jake, who appeared to be making a gallant of himself. Everybody on the porch stared. The girl, carrying a hand satchel, tripped up the steps. Cal caught a glimpse of blond curls and the flash of a white face and a rosy cheek. She went into the store. Cal, waiting for the next passenger, made ready to go forward and do his duty. But no one else alighted. Jake lifted out some more baggage, then proceeded to untie sacks from the running-board.

Cal stared. Suddenly he realized that the stage was empty. There were no more passengers. His first sensation was one of unutterable relief. Miss Stockwell’s sister had not come. She had missed the stage or had not come at all. Anyway, she was not there. The joke would be on the boys. He glanced away from the stage to the porch. What had happened to that outfit? Wess looked dazed; Pan Handle was in a trance; Tim stared open-mouthed at the wide door of the store; and Arizona seemed suddenly to be recovering from some shock and to be reminded of his radiant personal adornment. He was fussing with his hair, then his scarf. He changed his gloves from one hand to another, and began to walk toward the door in the most hesitating manner.

But he never reached it. He was halted by a vision of youth and beauty that emerged from the doorway. She crossed the threshold, came out on the porch in the light. It seemed to Cal that everyone was struck as he was struck — incapable of movement. But his mind whirled with sensation and thought.

The girl he had imagined a child, now facing him, was certainly a young lady. She had big violet eyes that peered expectantly all around her. Her face was white except for a rosy color high on her cheeks. Her lips were red as carmine. She wore a tan-colored dress, stylishly cut and strangely short. It reached only to the turn of her knees. Cal’s bewildered glance caught a glimpse of slender, shapely, black-stockinged legs before it flashed back to her face.

“Mr. Driver, you said there was some one to meet me,” she spoke up, in a sweet, high-pitched voice.

“Shore thar is, judgin’ from appearances,” laughed Jake, looking up from his task with the mail-bags. His bronzed face wrinkled with a smile. “An’ if thar wasn’t, miss, you’d hev no call for worry. Wait till I carry in these mail-bags.”

She did not appear in the least embarrassed or concerned in any way, except somewhat curious and interested. Manifestly she expected some one of the group to step forward, and looked from one to another. Arizona began to thaw under the sweet expectation of that look, but the others remained frozen.

Then Hatfield came out of the store, bareheaded, his sombrero in hand, and his handsome bold face pleasantly alight.

“Miss, I reckon you’re the young lady I’m lookin’ for,” he said, easily, as he towered over her.

“I’m Miss Georgiana May Stockwell,” she said, with a flashing look, taking him in from heated face to spurred boots.

Cal Thurman’s strained attention broke. He fell back against the seat of the car. “By Heaven!” he whispered. “I understand teacher now. She put this job up on me. That — that girl’s her sister — the sister I’m to meet.” Shocked out of his equilibrium, compelled to face an exigency vastly different from the one he had dreaded, beginning to thrill and tingle with a strange dawning exultation, Cal could only sit there and stare and listen.

Manifestly Miss Georgiana expected Hatfield to introduce himself, and her manner was one of pleased anticipation. She liked the looks of this Arizonian. Hatfield, however, did not seem disposed to tell his name; and his manner, though bold and assured, showed something of awkwardness. Either he was not quick-witted enough for the situation or he had not judged Miss Stockwell correctly. She seemed swift to grasp something strange in his omission or in what might be the brusque way of Westerners, and she lost a little of her self-possession. Her sophistication was not very old or deep.

“Come over to the garage with me an’ I’ll put you in a car,” said Hatfield, and gathering up several of her bags he started down the porch steps.

“Thank you — I’ll wait here,” replied the young lady, hesitatingly, and she watched him depart. Then Wess Thurman stepped forward to address her.

“Miss Stockwell,” he began, with an earnestness that precluded embarrassment, “shore if you go with Bid Hatfield you’ll never be welcome at the Thurman ranch.”

She stared up at the tall lean-faced rider, and it was plain now that something seemed wrong to her.

“What am I up against?” she queried, tartly. “How do I know who Bid Hatfield is? He appeared to be the only gentleman to notice that I am a stranger and alone. Besides he said he was looking for me. I took him to be Mr. Cal Thurman.”

“Wal, you’re shore mistaken, an’ Cal won’t be flattered,” replied the rider. “I’m Wess Thurman, an’ we — us heah — thet is I — I come to meet you an’ take you to your sister.”

Manifest indeed was the line of demarkation where Wess passed from loyal sincerity to a personal deceit. His big hand tugged at the evident tight band of his flannel shirt at the neck. And the shade of paleness which had come into his face at the effrontery of Hatfield changed to a dusky red.

Miss Georgiana eyed Wess dubiously, and her thoughts must have been varying and bewildering, until she gathered something of the truth of the situation. Not improbably this contretemps was not new to her, except in its Arizona setting and the individuality of these riders.

“I was told down the road that Mr. Cal Thurman telephoned he would meet me,” she said. “Where is he?”

“Wal, miss — you see,” floundered Wess, trying to arise to his opportunity, “Cal’s only a boy — an’ he was takin’ a lot on himself. Now I’m a-goin’ to take you out to Green Valley Ranch.”

“You are very kind,” replied Georgiana, sweetly. “Did my sister Mary send you to meet me?”

“Wal, I reckon — not jest that — but we — the boys — I mean I said I’d shore see you home safe,” replied Wess, swallowing hard.

Miss Georgiana gazed roguishly up at him, and then at Arizona, who was edging closer, and then at Pan Handle and Tim Matthews, now showing signs of animation.

“We fetched the — big car,” said Arizona, breathlessly. That seemed a signal of encouragement to the other boys. Wess and Pan Handle and Tim crowded round the girl. Arizona refused to be edged aside from his favorable position.

“We? Oh, I’m to have several escorts,” responded Georgiana, demurely, as she gazed up at them.

“Shore we-all came to escort you,” put in Tim, rather timidly, but with beaming face.

“Lady, you’re a-goin’ with the right outfit,” said Pan Handle.

“Outfit! Oh, then you belong to the Four T’s — at the Thurman ranch where my sister lives?” cried Georgiana, eagerly.

“Wal, miss, you shore hit it on the haid,” drawled Wess, with his engaging smile. He had recovered his balance. Blandly he introduced his comrades. “This heah is Arizona, who ain’t got any other name. An’ this’s Pan Handle Ames, an’ heah’s Tim Matthews.”

Georgiana gave all in turn her hand, and a look that further marked their utter demoralization.

“And Mr. Cal Thurman — where is he?” she queried.

“Reckon Cal didn’t want to bother aboot meetin’ you, lady,” said Tim, blandly. “Last night he beefed a lot. He was heah when the stage come in, an’ I guess he beat it.”

“Oh, I see,” replied the girl. “I’m sorry if my coming has annoyed anyone.”

“Wal, it didn’t annoy anyone but Cal, I’ll swear to thet,” answered Tim. His comrades laughed at this.

That was all the byplay Cal heard, for his attention was attracted by sight of Hatfield returning from the garage with a hired car. During the amazing and preposterous stand made by Wess and the boys in their endeavor to work this situation to their pleasure Cal had recovered from his consternation. The boys had been quick to grasp at the trick played upon them by the school-teacher, and meant now to turn the tables on Cal and take Miss Georgiana home. Cal vowed they would never succeed. The situation had changed wonderfully to his advantage. How pretty the girl was! Already those deceitful rogues, who had come to Ryson solely to play some outlandish joke on him, had become smitten with this girl. Cal drew a deep breath and leaped out of the car. He felt master of this situation, and something stirred in him, deeper and more fiery than the situation seemed to justify.

When Hatfield halted at the porch Cal deliberately looked into the car, and seeing Miss Stockwell’s bags, he promptly lifted them out. Hatfield swaggered out of his seat.

“Hey, Thurman, what’re you up to?” he demanded.

His loud voice silenced the conversation on the porch, and everybody turned to stare.

“Bid, I’m relievin’ you of Miss Stockwell’s baggage,” said Cal, coolly. “I was sent to meet her an’ I’m goin’ to take her home.”

Hatfield’s muscular body jerked with a start of angry passion, and for an instant he glared darkly at Cal, with the blood slowly leaving his face. There was more here than the mere opposition confronting him. Then he masked his true feelings.

“Well, Cal, you didn’t show up an’ nobody else in your outfit had any manners, so I offered to escort Miss Stockwell,” he said.

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Cal, taken back by the rider’s terse reply.

Whereupon Hatfield mounted the porch, and with a gallant bow he faced the girl.

“Miss Stockwell, will you let me take you to your sister or do you prefer to go with Thurman?” he inquired, courteously.

The girl had quickened and stirred with the excitement of the moment. Manifestly she was alive to Hatfield’s striking appearance and personality. Then she turned her flashing gaze upon Cal.

That was indeed a trying moment for him. Suddenly, it seemed, as he felt her glance take him in, all his assurance and sense of right in the situation oozed away. He wore his old rider’s clothes, and never had they seemed so dirty and ragged as now. What a sorry figure he must cut in contrast to this handsome Hatfield, or the boys who had put on their best for the occasion. Cal felt the blood rise to his temples.

“Mr. Bid Hatfield, if it were a matter of choice, I’d much rather go with you,” replied the girl, sweetly. “But as my sister sent him to get me I can only — —”

“Pardon me,” interrupted Cal, curtly. “I’m glad to get out of takin’ you. But I advise you to go with my cousin Wess. For if you go with Hatfield you will not be welcome at Green Valley. I’m tellin’ you this for your sister’s sake.”

Cal turned away, leaving the girl both affronted and troubled. At this juncture some one shouted from the store, “Cal Thurman, you’re wanted on the phone.”

“Who wants me?” called Cal.

“It’s Miss Stockwell, the teacher. She’s callin’ from the ranger station.”

Cal plodded up the steps and into the store, looking neither right nor left. He was aware of footsteps following him in, but he was too miserable to take any further notice of anyone.

“Hello!” he called into the telephone.

“Hello! Is that you, Cal?” was the eager reply.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“This is Mary Stockwell talking.... Cal, has the stage come with my sister?”

“I reckon so,” replied Cal, grimly.

“Oh — oh — Cal, dear boy, is she all right?”

“I reckon so.”

“Oh — hurry, Cal! Fetch her out. I’m wild to see her. — And, Cal, you’re glad now I made you go, aren’t you? You’ll forgive me for fooling you — about the picture?”

“I’ll never forgive you — never,” blurted out Cal, hoarsely.

There was no instant response. Then the teacher’s voice came again, different in tone. “Why, Cal — you don’t mean that! It was only fun. You’ve played jokes on me. And I thought this would please you. I was so glad you alone of the boys offered to go — to meet what you supposed would be a cross, ugly old maid. It was fine of you, Cal. — Why are you offended — why won’t you forgive me?”

“Aw, because I’ve been made a damn fool before a crowd,” replied Cal. “Wess an’ the boys came in to play some low-down trick on me.... You see, teacher, I was lookin’ for — for the person who’d look like the picture you showed me. An’ when a — a pretty kid of a girl hops out of the stage I — I never thought it might be your sister. I was the last to find that out.... Then — some one I’ve no use for went up to her — an’ when I woke up an’ introduced myself — said you’d sent me to meet her — then — then she insulted me right before him — an’ all the crowd.”

“Insulted you! Oh, Cal, don’t say that,” returned Miss Stockwell, in distress. “I’m sorry, Cal. Why, I wanted you to be the lucky boy.... Tell me, who went up to Georgiana? Was it Bid Hatfield?”

“Yes, it was, an’ she told him she’d prefer to go with him. Right before Wess an’ the boys an’ everybody! That’s what’s so bad. Why, teacher, you don’t know the West. I’ll never live that down. It’s only fair to say Hatfield was first to show your sister courtesy. But I was locoed, I tell you.... Oh, I’ve made a mess of it.... Teacher, I’ve told her she’d better go home with Wess — that if she goes with Hatfield it might make bad feelin’ for you.”

“Cal, my sister is coming home with you,” declared Miss Stockwell, in a voice Cal well remembered. “Call her to the phone.”

Thus admonished, Cal turned away, smarting and tingling from the forced expression of his feelings. He almost bumped into Georgiana, who evidently had been standing there. The pertness had gone from her face. She looked perturbed, and her eyes met his rather questioningly.

“Your sister wants to speak to you,” said Cal, motioning toward the telephone.

The girl ran, and snatching up the receiver she stood on her tiptoes. “Hello — hello! This is Georgie.... Yes! Yes! Oh, Mary — sister — I’m wild with joy! I’m here — out West — will see you soon. I’ve so much to tell you — and presents from mother — everybody.”

Cal felt a singular break in his abject misery, and it came through the sweet, low, broken voice of the girl. It struck strangely on his sensitive ear.

“Yes, Mary, I hear you — I’ll listen,” went on the girl, eagerly. At that Cal halted, half turned, and watched the slim slender form strained up before the telephone. He heard the squeaking of the voice coming over the wire and it seemed to be direct, forceful speech. Miss Georgiana started. “Oh, Mary!” she expostulated, appealingly. Then she became perfectly motionless, intent, and absorbed. Cal divined that Miss Stockwell was saying some strong things to this little sister. That seemed to afford him a melancholy gratification. How trim and neat the slight figure of the girl as she stood there breathlessly! He saw the golden rebellious curls peeping from under her bonnet. Then she spoke again, evidently under different stress. “Mary dear, I’m afraid I’ve been rude, ungracious, to Mr. Thurman. But when I explain you won’t think so badly of me. I ran into some deep stuff here, believe me.... Yes, I will start at once and with him — if he’ll take me now. Good-by.”

She hung up the receiver and stood a moment longer, ponderingly. Then she wheeled swiftly and almost ran up to Cal. It was not the same girl. A blush dyed out the red tints in her cheeks.

“Mr. Cal,” she began, “sister has explained — about my aunt’s picture — how your brothers and cousins refused to meet me — that you alone were kind enough — good enough to come. That those boys had framed up some trick to play on you.... I apologize for what I said. I’m ashamed. Won’t you forgive me — and take me to Mary?”

She had seemed to come closer all the time she was speaking, until her appealing hand touched his arm. She lifted her face that suddenly became beautiful and sweet in Cal’s dawning sight. Her violet eyes held him. They were darkening with thought, troubled, sincere, yet audacious. And it seemed that before them, all in a flash, he fell crashing to the first headlong love of his life. After that nothing was clear. The sweet face floated before him, hazily, the face of a dream. He spoke, trying to tell her he would be glad to take her home. Then — proudest moment he had ever known — she was holding his arm, walking beside him out of the door, across the porch, with her beautiful head erect, looking up at him, seeing none of the gaping bystanders, gliding so coolly and disdainfully past Wess and his comrades, oblivious of the crestfallen Hatfield — down the steps and out to the car.

There Cal became again possessed of some semblance of rationality. But how he thrilled! How bells rang in his ears!

“May I ride in front beside you?” she asked, as if that was what she most wanted to do of all things in the world. She looked it. She spoke sweetly, audibly to the listeners on the porch. But she apparently did not know of their existence. She did not hear the shuffling of their boots as they began to stir forward.

“Sure can,” replied Cal, trying to catch his breath. “I’ll pack your bags in back.”

At this juncture Tuck Merry loomed up, carrying his canvas bag. His cadaverous face did not betray that he and Cal had met, though deep in his eyes gleamed a twinkle of fun and zest over the situation.

“Buddy, would you give a fellow a lift along the road?” he inquired.

“Sure. Pile in with your pack,” replied Cal, heartily. Right then and there he wanted to hug this lanky new-found friend.

Merry and his pack and the girl’s numerous pieces of baggage comfortably filled the after section of the Ford. Then Cal cranked the engine. It started with a strange sound, entirely foreign to him. Was it only the confusion of his brain? Anyway, it started. Cal climbed in beside the girl, tremendously aware of her presence, of her perfect self-possession and poise, of the smile that enveloped him. His hands shook a little. Then when he tried to drive off he was dumbfounded to see that the car would not budge an inch. The engine had stopped.

CHAPTER IV

CAL SAT THERE at the wheel, suddenly realizing that what he had anticipated had begun to happen. He swore under his breath, and for an instant he hated the curious crowd lined up on the porch. This feeling, however, was only a flash. No matter what happened, Georgiana May Stockwell was with him. That would be balm for much more injury he might suffer.

“You stalled the engine,” she said, brightly.

“Stalled? Well, that’s a new one on me,” he replied. Then in lower tone he added: “Your sister told you Wess an’ his gang had put up a job on me, didn’t she?”

“Yes. That’s one reason why I was so ashamed.”

“I’ve got a hunch they’ve fooled with the engine when I left the car at the garage,” whispered Cal. “It’s sure comin’ to me. An’ it’s hardly fair to ask you to stick by me. But I’m askin’ you to. It’s started bad for me, but will you stick to me an’ be game?”

“Game is my middle name,” she whispered back, with a flash of fun and fire in her eyes. “I’ll stick if we have to walk. Don’t worry about me. This’s great. You keep your nerve and we’ll give them the merry ha-ha.”

The look of her as she faced him, young and eager and defiant, the quick whispered words that established her championship of him — these more than compensated Cal for the humiliation he had suffered and completely vanquished the dread that had hung over him. He seemed suddenly to acquire an exalted strength, a something which welled up out of his new-born emotion.

“Reckon I’d better confess I’m no mechanic. I don’t know an engine from a fence-post,” he said.

Her low laugh was cut short by Wess Thurman drawling out, “Wal, Cal, do you want a team of hosses?”

“Cal, air you drivin’?” queried Arizona, with a grin.

Tim Matthews sauntered down the porch steps with nonchalant confidence.

“Mebbe yore out of gas,” he said, and his whole serene countenance masked the lie of his knowledge.

Wess Thurman strode down off the porch and to the car.

“Cousin,” he drawled, “I reckon you want Miss Stockwell to get home for dinner?”

“Sure. An’ I’ll get her there,” returned Cal.

“Wal, not in thet vehicle, you won’t,” averred Wess. “We’ve got room in the big car for her an’ her packs.”

“How about me?” inquired Cal, with sarcasm.

“Wal, there won’t be room, Cal,” replied Wess, spreading wide his hands. “We’ve shore got a load as it is.... Mebbe Tim or Pan Handle or Arizona might stay in town an’ let you go with me.”

“I gotta get back tonight,” said Tim.

“Cal, your dad gave me one day off an’ no more. I cain’t afford to lose my job,” said Pan Handle.

“Pard, you shore know I’d do a heap for you, but I come in jest on purpose to get medicine for my hoss,” said Arizona.

It was the usual response, the apparent innocence. Cal saw how Georgiana was studying them, wonderingly, as if fascinated. She saw through them. She was biting her red lips to hold back her merriment. Then Cal thrilled to see Tuck Merry unlimbering his long length out of the back of the car. Cal had forgotten his other passenger.

“Buddy, let me give this can the once over,” he said. “I used to run a cheese-cutter for the Smith Condensed Milk Company.”

His dry, droll manner of speaking apparently jarred on the ears of Wess and his comrades. They hardly knew what to think, and sight of this remarkably tall, thin personage silenced them. They watched him with undisguised amazement. Tuck leisurely went round to the front of the car and threw back the cover of the engine, and craning his long neck he bent his head clear out of sight. He was whistling. Then he straightened up to look over and handle parts of the engine. The crowd took him seriously. But Cal divined that Tuck had more in mind than a possible knowledge of how to start the engine. He rattled things. He turned this and that, with the air of a master mechanic.

“Haw! Haw!” roared the cattleman Bloom from his post on the porch. “Shore this’s a side-show.”

Merry paid no attention to him, or to the others who laughed at his sally, but went on leisurely examining the engine.

“I don’t know what’s comin’ off, but I’ve a hunch,” Cal whispered to the girl.

“Oh, he’s just too funny,” she whispered back. “Mr. Cal, I believe he’s kidding these boobs.”

Finally Merry straightened up, and with his hand on the machine, stood in the posture of an orator about to speak.

“Buddy, this here engine has been monkeyed with by some one who doesn’t know the combination,” he said, blandly. “The carburrettor has been detached from the ventriculator and the trolley wire is off. The ignition system has been jammed in the midriff. Then the juice no longer coincides with the perambulator, and as a consequence the spark plug is nix. Outside of that the engine is all right.”

“Gee! Isn’t there anythin’ more out of whack?” asked Cal, almost bursting with glee. Moreover, there was something marvelous happening. His hand had dropped to the seat and the girl, in her excitement, was squeezing it.

“That’s all I can see offhand,” replied Tuck, “except some parts are missin’. But I can make her run, all right, all right.”

That remark appeared to release Wess from whatever it was that had inhibited him.

“Say, stranger, are you tryin’ to josh me?” he queried, with a note of resentment in his drawl.

“I was addressing myself to the gentleman who offered me a ride,” replied Tuck, waving a huge hand at Cal.

“Wal, what’d you mean by thet crack aboot some one monkeyin’ with this car?”

“Mister, I meant what I said. Somebody has monkeyed with it.”

“Ahuh! Wal, I’m tellin’ you thet strangers in these parts better be careful what they say,” declared Wess, belligerently.

“Why so? Ain’t this a free country?” asked Merry, meekly.

“Reckon it is, but we’re shore particular,” growled Wess. “An’ we ain’t havin’ our fun mussed up by any long-legged bean-pole of a scarecrow like you.”

“Oh, I see,” replied Merry, still more meekly, almost abjectly. “I didn’t mean any offense — just telling the truth that way.”

“Who’n hell are you, anyhow?” inquired Wess, curious, now that he had apparently intimidated the fellow.

“My name’s Merry and I’m looking for a job.”

“Merry, huh? Wal, thet’s shore a good handle, for you’re the funniest-lookin’ fellar I ever seen. Reckon you’d make some apple-picker, but it ain’t a good year for apples.”

With that Wess dropped back beside Cal and resumed his genial air and slow drawl. “Wal, kid, I’ll relieve you of Miss Stockwell an’ get her home for dinner.”

Cal regarded his cousin for a long moment. Wess was in deadly earnest about his fun.

“Wess, I’d hate to tell you what I know,” said Cal, with mysterious good nature.

“Aw, now would you?” queried the other, banteringly. He did not know just how to take Cal’s change of aspect and tone. Then his keen eyes saw Cal’s hand over Georgiana’s and he actually gave a start.

“Wal, takin’ all in all, you ain’t so slow,” he said. “But considerin’ thet Miss Stockwell must be got home, I’ll have to tag you. Shore it’s a cinch you cain’t take her in this wagon.”

Whereupon he strode off toward the garage. Arizona and Pan Handle hurried after him, but Tim lagged behind long enough to shoot a hard look at Tuck Merry and a languishing glance at Miss Stockwell. Then he, too, strode after them.

“Tuck, hurry an’ hook up the engine,” said Cal, to his comrade. “Let’s rustle out of here.”

Merry bent over the machinery, dexterously using his big hands, while the bystanders stirred and shuffled on the porch. Some of them laughed and exchanged jesting remarks. The incident, however, did not appear to be closed. Cal caught the eyes of Bloom and Hatfield upon him and the girl.

“Holdin’ hands, heh?” queried Bloom, coarsely, in his loud voice, that instantly called attention to Cal and Georgiana.

It was Cal who blushed and withdrew the hand that had unconsciously covered hers. Even in the moment of sudden consternation and anger he saw that she showed surprising indifference to the attention thus rudely turned upon her. Merry jerked up quickly from his task over the engine. Bloom must have seen or felt contempt in the girl’s utter lack of embarrassment or shame.

“Wal, Bid,” he said, just as loudly, turning to Hatfield. “Thet bare-legged chicken is some looker, but you ain’t missin’ so much. Funny aboot these Eastern females — —”

“Shut up!” yelled Tuck Merry, and moved away from the car toward the porch.

Cal jerked as if a startling current had shot through him. In a furious anger he strove to get out of the car. But the girl held him. “Please — don’t — don’t — It was my fault,” she whispered, pleadingly. “Don’t let me start a fight the very first thing.”

“But — he insulted you,” burst out Cal, tensely.

“Wait! Hold on — please — I beg you,” she added, clasping his arm tight. “Oh — think how my sister will be ashamed of me!”

Cal might have been proof against her, but he saw that Merry had taken the matter in hand, and suddenly he relaxed to sink back in the car. Georgiana still clung to him.

“What’n hell’s eatin’ you?” demanded Bloom, striding to the porch steps to confront Merry.

“I’m a stranger out here,” said Merry, mounting the steps. “I’m from the East and I don’t take kindly to the remark you made. Do Arizona men talk that way about Eastern women?”

“They shore do when them wimmen have painted faces an’ bare knees like thet girl,” declared Bloom.

“But, mister, down East a little artificial color and a short skirt don’t call for insults,” averred Merry, gravely. “It’s the style. I’ve a kid sister who wears the same.”

“Wal, you an’ your sister an’ all sech as thet chicken had better stay where you belong,” said Bloom. “The West won’t stand for you. An’, stranger, let me give you a hunch. The Tonto Basin is shore West clear through.”

“Mister, I’ve met a lot of men, and with all respect to your Tonto code I’ll say no real man anywhere talks like you.”

“Say, you starved-lookin’ bag of bones!” roared Bloom, furiously. “You pipe-organ, shootin’ off your mind thet way! Do you hev any idee who yore ravin’ at?”

“I’m tellin’ you, mister,” replied Merry, his casual voice so marked in contrast to the strident one. “You’re no real Westerner. You’re a poor fish. You’re a big fat stiff — a blow-hard, a bully. I’ll bet you’re yellow clear to your gizzard.”

Bloom appeared suddenly bereft of reason. Utter frenzied astonishment claimed him. His face turned livid, and he stuttered like a lunatic. Something incredible had happened to him. He apeared to be looking at a monstrosity. With a slow, ponderous motion he swung back his arm.

Then Merry’s right hand shot up so swiftly that Cal could not follow it. But he saw the result. Merry’s fist stopped at Bloom’s nose — not a hard blow, but evidently peculiarly placed. Bloom’s head jerked back, and blood squirted from his nose. He let out a hoarse cry of pain. The spasmodic working of his face likewise attested to a sudden excruciating sensation. Then as he steadied himself on his feet Merry’s left hand shot out. It hit Bloom in the waist somewhere and sounded like a bass drum. Bloom gave a terrible gasp. His mouth opened wide, and his whole face became a network of strained wrinkles. His hands fluttered to his body and he began to sink down. The breath had been expelled from him. Then as he was sagging Merry knocked him in a heap to the porch floor.

“Where’s that swell motion-picture pard of his?” inquired Merry, of the bystanders.

“Keep clear of me or I’ll throw a gun,” declared Hatfield, threateningly, moving back into the store.

“Say, you handsome Tonto masher, you wouldn’t throw anything but a bluff,” retorted Merry, striding across the porch.

One of the men barred his way. “Stranger, let well enough alone. Bid might throw a gun at thet. An’ seein’ you ain’t packin’ any it’s wiser to hold in. Don’t ever run after any fights in the Tonto. They’ll come to you fast enough.”

Thus admonished, Merry turned away and went back to the car. Meanwhile the bystanders had crowded round the prostrate Bloom, and Wess, with his comrades, had arrived in the big car. Cal sat perfectly still, but inwardly he seemed to be a riot of nerve and pulse. The girl was clinging to him, and still clung even when Wess leaped out of his car and jumped to accost Cal.

“Boy, what’s come off?” he demanded, sharply.

“Wess, it isn’t anythin’ to get riled at, but I’d given a great deal if you’d seen it.... Bloom made an insultin’ remark about Eastern girls, an’ Merry soaked him. That’s all.”

“Wal, I’ll be gosh-durned!” ejaculated Wess, with the tight coldness of his lean face relaxing. “Thet queer-lookin’ Jasper! Could he hit anybody? It ain’t believable. Reckon he throwed a hammer or wrench, huh?”

“Oh, Merry threw somethin’, all right,” laughed Cal, and he sat up to look at the girl. She let go of his arm. Her face was pale now except for the unmistakable signs of paint. Cal saw this red of cheek and carmine of lip with some sensation akin to a pang. But he did not miss the cool, sweet audacity of her smile, nor the darkened purple fire of her eyes. It made him unsteady to look at her. What had come over him?

Just then the circle of bystanders round Bloom opened to show several of them assisting him to his feet. He was unable to stand alone and assuredly presented a ludicrous figure.

“Say — fellars — what’d — I — run ag’in’?” he panted, heavily.

“Wal, Bloom, we calkilate you got hit,” replied one of the men.

“Aw! — I’m damn — near killed.... What’d he — hit — me with?”

Merry heard this pathetic query, for he raised his long lean figure up to its full height.

“You big fat baboon!” he called out, derisively. “I only slapped you.”

Bloom wrestled with those who held him, but not very effectively, as he evidently was weak. His face was a study.

“I’ll get — you!” he cried, hoarsely, as the men dragged him into the store.

Very curiously then Wess Thurman strode up to Merry, and after him came Arizona and Pan Handle, unquestionably friendly. But Wess was particularly concerned with this specimen of the genus homo. He looked Merry up and down, intently, wonderingly. Manifestly he could not convince himself of certain possibilities.

“Say, what’d you sling at him?” asked Wess, at last.

Merry paid no heed to Wess and went on working over the engine until suddenly it started.

“Wal,” continued Wess. “Reckon it’s no matter what you throwed. But that made you a friend of the Four T’s. Savvy? Put her there!”

He shoved out his hand, and Merry grasped it and gave it a single crunch.

“Wow!” yelled Wess, jerking his hand loose. “Man, I was aimin’ to be agreeable. Shore I didn’t give my hand to a corn-huskin’ machine.” Dubiously he regarded Merry, smoothing out his hand the while. Then he wagged his head doubtfully.

“Cal, see heah,” he said, turning; “you’d better let the little lady go home with me.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Thurman; you’re very kind indeed,” interposed Georgiana, demurely, “but I’m going with Mr. Cal.”

“Wal, you might have to walk,” rejoined Wess, rather gruffly.

“That would be lovely. I adore walking.”

Wess vouchsafed no reply to this, manifestly giving in with poor grace, and with a meaning glance at the rattling Ford he strode back to the touring-car. Arizona, however, had still a thunderbolt to loosen. He bent over the door close to Georgiana, and with great seriousness he said:

“Lady, shore this’s the wust season for walkin’.”

“Indeed! Why, how strange! The weather seems delightful to me,” she replied, smiling at him. Cal gathered the impression that she could not help being prodigal with her smiles, and he was not sure she gave them with perfect sincerity.

“Wal, miss, the weather hasn’t nuthin’ to do with walkin’ in the Tonto,” went on Arizona. “Now, my hunch is jest this heah. Shore Cal’s old Ford is palpitatin’ yet. But it’s dyin’ an’ it’ll croak pronto. Thet’ll be aboot dark, I reckon, mebbe before. You’ll hev to hoof it. An’ see heah, lady, do you know aboot hydrophobia skunks?”

“No, indeed, I don’t. What’re they?” queried Georgiana.

“Polecats what hev rabies,” replied Arizona. “They’re loco-crazy. They ain’t afeerd of nothin’. They run right at you, an’ if you move or yell they’ll bite you an’ give you hydrophobia. Then you go crazy an’ run around tryin’ to bite people yoreself. I knowed two fellars what got bit on the nose while they was sleepin’ with me. I hed to choke the dinged skunks to make ’em let go. An’ both them fellars died horrible!”

“Mr. Cal, is he kidding me?” she asked, turning to Cal, somewhat concerned by Arizona’s dreadful recital.

“I reckon he is, but all the same there are lots of hydrophobia skunks, an’ we sure keep clear of them,” replied Cal, with a laugh.

“See thet, miss,” responded Arizona, triumphantly. “Onct in a while Cal shows he’s human. So you’d better hedge on thet walk for hours an’ hours along the lonely road — in the dark woods — an’ come with us. I’ll see you safe in Green Valley.”

“I’ll take a chance on Mr. Cal,” returned Georgiana, archly.

“Aw!” breathed Arizona, in disappointment. “Cal, you ought to be ashamed — draggin’ this nice little gurl, with all her pretty clothes, to go trampin’ through the dust an’ woods.”

“Arizona, it takes a long time for anythin’ new to penetrate your skull,” replied Cal. “Miss Georgiana Stockwell wants to go home with me.”

“Ahuh! Wal, all right. I was only tellin’ her what she’s up against.”

“Trust me to tell her myself, Arizona,” returned Cal, heartily. “Jump in, Tuck. I reckon there’s no occasion to throw any monkey-wrenches just now. Ha! Ha!”

Merry climbed into the back seat and slammed the door. Cal, with deep and secret misgivings, put on the power, half expecting that the car would refuse to move. But to his delight it started off as if running smoothly was its especial forte.

“Say, Cal,” yelled Arizona, “we’ll hang along behind an’ pick up the pieces.”

Cal drove by Wess and Pan Handle and Tim, on past the garage, where the mechanics peeped out in sure betrayal of their part in the plot, and down the dusty road out of the village into the country. The driving, and getting away from Ryson, relieved Cal of the necessity of strain and left him to the mercy of new and strange sensations. Much that he had feared had come to pass, but differently, and it had lost its hatefulness. All the rest seemed mysterious and exalting. Something had happened. He felt keen, light, buoyant, and yet shy. He wanted to look at the girl, but could not yet compel himself to do so. The well-known winding, dusty road, with its borders of brush, had utterly lost its sameness, its long monotony and gray and green dullness. It led now to adventure and romance. It called to youth. It was immeasurably too short. Only eighteen miles to Green Valley! How he wished it were ten times that distance. A glamour floated over the valley, not all the rosy veils and golden glints of the westering sun. The drowsy air, beginning to cool, smelled and tasted sweet to Cal. But despite all this, despite the new senses of beauty and wonder in his world, despite the gratifying end of the day, after its miserable beginning, despite the undeniable joy of the moment, there was a vague strange dread deep in his soul. Like a shadow behind the radiance of mind! He felt it along with all the rest.

The girl sat quietly for the first mile or so of that journey. Cal saw out of the corner of his eye how still and thoughtful she appeared. He noticed when she began to take interest in the ride and in him. Several times she peeped up at him, and each time that sign thrilled him.

Presently she turned to address Merry, whom she evidently had forgotten up to that time.

“Mr. Merry, thanks for — for defending Eastern girls,” she said, hesitatingly. “That boob was horrid and just what you called him. I never saw any one hit as you hit him. I’ll say you handed him one.”

“Don’t mention it,” replied Tuck, gallantly. “I’m a ladies’ man. And I’ve a little sister just like you, only not so pretty.”

“Thank you. So you’re a flatterer as well as a slugger,” she said, merrily. “Mr. Cal, what do you think about it?”

“Please don’t call me Mister,” replied Cal. “What do I think about Tuck? Wonderful fellow! Oh, it was grand when he walked up on Bloom and called him all that — and punched his nose — thumped his big paunch — then slammed him hard. Aw, great! If only Enoch could have seen that!”

“Who’s Enoch?” asked the girl.

“My older brother. He’s the finest fellow. He an’ Bloom are set against each other something bad. An’ we all side with Enoch. A Thurman sticks to a Thurman, right or wrong. But in this case we’re right. Bloom is no good, an’ that showy rider of his, Bid Hatfield — —”

Cal checked his impulsive speech. Recall of Hatfield was singularly bitter at this incomprehensibly sweet moment. And likewise, Miss Georgiana seemed to feel the silencing effect of the thought of Hatfield. Her pensiveness stormed Cal’s heart with an utterly new sensation — the fire of jealousy.

“Did you like Hatfield’s looks?”

“Oh, indeed I did! Looked like a swell movie actor to me,” she replied, naïvely. “I fell for him, I’ll tell the world.”

Cal’s beautiful trance suffered a darkening blight. If he had never before had reason to hate Hatfield he had it now. Moreover, the way Miss Stockwell talked at times began to disturb Cal and trouble him. He had been most concerned with the vague sweetness of her presence, the tones of her voice. She was wonderful. But the actuality of her began to impress him.

“Well, Eastern girls are no different from Western girls, so far as Bid Hatfield is concerned,” said Cal compelled to a caustic sincerity. “Sure the Tonto girls fall for him, as you called it.”

“Sort of a man vamp,” giggled Georgiana.

Cal had no reply for this. His stirred antagonism shaded into disappointment in her, in himself, and the hour that a moment ago seemed so alluring. By way of forcing himself aloof he began to drive faster, with the result that the Ford performed in a miraculous manner.

“Step on it, Bo!” cried the girl, gaily. “You can’t scare me. I eat speed.”

Cal answered to that with reckless abandon until Merry reached forward and, tapping him on the shoulder, said, rather forcefully: “Buddy, cut the speed or you’ll spill us. And that big car with your cousin and his pards is right behind us.”

Thus brought to his senses, Cal slowed down to careful driving. He tried not to be aware of Miss Georgiana’s distracting nearness, but the fact that a lurch of the car had thrown her against him, and she had not shown any special desire to move away, utterly defeated his efforts. He vowed, however, that she should not see how bewildering she was to him. Once he looked back down a long straight stretch of road. The big Thurman car with Wess and the boys was hanging back there. Cal was grimly reminded of the fact that they were driving slowly, waiting behind him for the inevitable disaster, whatever it was to be. He did not welcome it now as he had welcomed it a few miles back. Something had hurt him, and he began to think that it would never do for him really to care for a girl like this one beside him. She was Eastern. He was Western. She would never look at him, even if she could be serious, which he doubted. He did not understand her.

“Cal, this limousine seems to be holding together,” she said, presently. Evidently she could not keep quiet or sit still for long. Cal sensed something restless, intense, vibrating in her.

“Yes. Did you expect it’d fall apart?”

“It’ll spread pretty soon and we’ll go one way while Mr. Merry goes the other.”

“Aren’t you afraid of autos?” he queried, curiously.

“Afraid! I should say not! What for?”

“Why, accidents, of course! I sure am afraid of them. But I love a wild horse.”

“What’s the use to be afraid? If you’re going to get it in the neck you’ll get it, that’s that. Oh, I should worry.”

She was a wholly new species of girl to Cal, and the more he talked to her the greater grew his confusion. But one thing he gathered — along with his confusion grew her charm.

“Oh, what beautiful country!” she exclaimed, when Cal turned the last curve of the valley road and headed into the foothills.

“Beautiful isn’t strong enough, Miss Georgiana. It’s glorious. You just wait.”

“Cut out the formal stuff, for tripe’s sake,” she said, impatiently.

“What?” asked Cal, blankly.

“Can the Miss, will you? I’m not an old lady. I’m only seventeen. Call me Georgiana.”

“Oh — I — I see. All right,” rejoined Cal, confusedly. But the shock he had sustained was not pleasurable. Still, her praise of his beloved Tonto warmed him toward her. There could be no more lovely country in all the world. And with that thought flashed another, disturbing, thought-provoking. Would this girl come to love the Tonto Basin, and find a home there? Cal experienced a queer fluttering of his heart, quite inexplicable.

The sun was about to go down behind the ragged golden-hazed range of mountains in the west, and the most lovely moment of the day was at hand. Cal was driving slowly up a long winding road round a foothill and he had opportunity to snatch a glimpse now and then of the country. The pageant in the sky and the panorama rolling away on all sides were unusually beautiful. It seemed to him that valleys and foothills and mountains, the azure sky, the pink canopy of cloud, the golden flare, all had united to impress this girl with the wonder and glory of the Tonto.

Cal yielded to an uncontrollable impulse. On the summit of the foothills he stopped the car and bade Georgiana look around. She uttered a little cry, not of delight or wonder, but of some new emotion, born of that wild mountain prospect. The green rolling valley waved away to the Mazatzals, blue-massed, gold-tipped, marvelously canopied in a purple haze. Long dark green slopes lifted for leagues and leagues, to the noble brow of the Mogollon Rim, where blazed the last fire of the sun on the zigzag stone front of this mesa mountain, endlessly reaching westward, lost in dim distance.

Close at hand the foothills presented soft rounded contours of green brush and yellow earth alternating in patches. Cal pointed out to the girl the manzanita, with its smooth red-barked branches, its glistening green leaves, like wax, its gold-hued berries. He showed her the mescal cactus plants, gray-green, with spiked leaves, and long dead flower-stems, standing aloft. To the eastward rose the foothills, higher and higher, growing green and dark with cedar, juniper, and at last the pines, all mounting in sloping billows to a great dominating landmark, a flat-topped, black-fringed mountain called Promontory Point, standing out from the Rim to catch the last glittering rose and gold of the sunset. To the southward the country fell away into the numberless dark shadowy lines of ridges and canyons that constituted the Tonto Basin, and at this bewitching moment all was bathed in a strangely beautiful and unreal light, purple and lilac, exquisite and intangible as the shadow cast by a rose.

“You love it all — don’t you?” she said, as Cal ended his enthusiastic designation of the country visible to them.

“Yes,” he replied, drawing a deep breath of the cool air, now bearing fragrance of pine and cedar.

“Oh, it’s nifty, all right,” she replied, settling back in her seat, “but too wild and woolly for me. I went to New York City once, and, say, take it from Georgie, there’s the place for me.”

“Ahuh! I don’t doubt it,” replied Cal, rather bluntly, in his disappointment. Then, as if to find solace for his hurt he turned to Merry, who had evinced a keen interest in all Cal had pointed out. “Tuck, do you like it?”

“Buddy, here’s where I homestead,” was the hearty reply. “I’ve been all over the world. But this Tonto has got ’em all skinned to death. I want to live here a hundred years and bury four wives.”

Cal joined with Georgiana in mirth at Merry’s facetiousness. Then the hoarse honk of an automobile horn hastened Cal to start on again. Wess was creeping up on him. Cal drove on, down the winding slope of that foothill and up another, toward the dense green wooded country rolling eastward.

“I’m nearly — frozen,” said the girl, presently.

“That’s too bad. I forgot to fetch a robe. Haven’t you a coat?”

“Yes, I’ve a heavy coat, and sweater, too, but I can’t unpack them now,” she replied. She was indeed shivering. With the setting of the sun and growing altitude the air had become cold, marked by a penetrating quality of the desert land.

For the first time Cal deliberately ran his glance over her from head to foot. Indeed, the light, flimsy dress she wore, low at the neck and startlingly short, was no garment for the Tonto at night. A girl needed to wear wool. Cal’s quick glance caught a glimpse of her bare knees, shapely, slim, and pink, and her black stockings rolled low. If he had experienced any shocks heretofore, what was this now? Quickly he averted his glance, back to the road ahead, and he tingled under a sensation of amaze, disgust, and something else he could not define.

“If you — you suffer from cold — why don’t you dress differently?” he queried, in a tone he meant to be casual. But it was not.

“Don’t you like this dress?” she asked, quickly.

“I should smile I don’t,” he replied.

“What’s wrong with it?” she added, with an irresistible concern. “It’s new — stylish. All the boys said it was some swell rag.”

“Boys!” retorted Cal. “What kind of boys?”

“Why, all my friends!” she replied, in a dangerous tone that warned him. Then as he did not answer she asked again: “What’s wrong with it? I suppose you’re the arbiter of style in your wonderful Tonto.”

“I don’t know anything about style — or swell rags”, said Cal, stung by her sarcasm. “But I’ve got some sense. This is a mountain country. You’re six thousand feet above sea-level right here, and going higher. You’ll freeze to death in that — that thing. It’s too thin and too low — and a mile too short.”

“But that’s all the rage,” she protested. “Every girl wears them this way. You’re buried alive out here. What do you know of styles for women?”

“Nothing, Miss Stockwell,” he said, stiffly. “I acknowledge that. But I can’t see the sense of being uncomfortable for the sake of what you call style.”

“How’d I know I was going up into the mountains where it’s winter in summer? But if I had known I’d have worn the same, only I’d had my coat out.... Mister Thurman, it may interest you to learn that last winter all the fashionable women wore skirts almost to their knees and open-work lace or silk stockings and slippers. There! Do you get that, Mister Backwoodsman?”

“Ahuh! I reckon that is interestin’,” replied Cal, just as tartly. “Women back East dress that way? . . . In winter-time?”

“Yes, I’ll say so.”

“When it was cold?” he went on, incredulously.

“Yes — cold — slushy — icy — sleety zero weather,” she averred, in triumph.

“Well, they’re loco,” declared Cal, shortly. “Plumb loco — an’ that means crazy, Miss New York.”

“I think you’re horrid,” she retorted, hotly. “It’s strange my sister is so fond of you.... I wish I had come with Mr. Bid Hatfield.”

Cal felt the blood flame and sting his face. What a little cat she was! He thought he hated her then.

“Ahuh! Thank you. That’s two speeches of yours I’m not likely to forget,” he flashed back at her. “You’ve got some Western ways to learn, Miss Stockwell, an’ I’m sorry I was fool enough to open my mouth. We don’t savvy each other.... An’ as for what you said about Bid Hatfield — let me tell you out straight — you’re bein’ driven home now by a gentleman, even if he does live in the backwoods — an’ if you had come with Hatfield you’d have learned what he thought of your rolled-down stockings.”

She turned quite pale and sat perfectly motionless, looking ahead of her. Presently she spoke in a different tone.

“Is that straight talk or just temper?” she asked, quietly. “Is it square to Mr. Hatfield?”

“Yes, it’s straight an’ it’s square. I could tell you a lot, but all I’ll say is, Hatfield once insulted my sister.... Reckon I’ll kill him some day.”

That gave her a slight start and she turned sharply, with lips parted. Nevertheless, she did not reply. Presently she relapsed into pondering thought. At that moment Cal experienced a singular conception of what was going through her mind, and it seemed to him that she was struggling against something he had stirred, either anger or contrition — that she had suddenly been confronted with a naked truth never seen before and was fighting it with all her strange, practical force. The feeling left him as quickly, but he sensed it and could not get away from its influence. Maybe this girl was not all she pretended to be. “I ought to apologize for — for talkin’ familiarly about a lady’s way of dressin’,” added Cal, with finality. “But I’d never have done so if you hadn’t said you were freezin’.”

What her reply might have been Cal never knew, for as she turned to him the engine emitted a grinding bang from its internals, the wheel turned out of his grasp, and the car ran into a bank with a thud.

The girl was thrown violently against Cal. She did not cry out. There was a sound of breaking glass, and of the baggage shifting in the back of the car.

“Buddy, we struck a hard wave,” cheerfully called out Merry.

“That’ll be about all,” added Georgiana.

CHAPTER V

“MISS GEORGIANA, ARE you hurt?” queried Cal, suddenly aware of the little head pressing rather heavily against his shoulders.

“I — I don’t think — so,” she replied, somewhat tremulously. “Sort of a — jerk — my neck — like the game crack-the-whip — you know.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” said Cal, all his resentment as if it had never been. Her hat was touching his face, her cheek rested upon his shoulder and then slid a little lower. Her hands appeared inert. How slight and frail! Again that ebullition ran riot in his breast, deep, beyond his control, shudderingly. He raised his arm round her, more, he thought, to get it out of her way than anything else. Yet when the slim form seemed to sink a little more, now closer to him, he experienced a comforting sense of strength, of his power to sustain her. Was she going to faint? What should he do?

“Miss — Stockwell,” he broke out, “are you — sure you’re not hurt? Please don’t faint.”

“I’ll be all right — in a minute,” she replied, her voice muffled against him.

“Tuck, I’m afraid she’s hurt,” said Cal, fearfully. “What’ll we do?”

“Buddy, she can’t be hurt bad,” replied Tuck as he jumped out of the car and then leaned forward to look at Georgiana. “I guess you’re doing about all that’s necessary,” he continued, with subtle dry meaning. “Just hold her, Buddy, till she comes to.... I hear the other car. It’ll be along soon.”

At that the girl stirred, sat up, and moved away from Cal. That relieved his anxiety.

“You’re a couple of bright guys,” she said, in an entirely different voice.

Merry let out a hearty laugh at this, but Cal could only stare at her. The gathering twilight under the high bank made her face hard to see in the gloom. It looked pale, sweet, haunting to Cal. Her eyes were dark deep wells.

“Bright guys?” he echoed, rather dumbfounded. “Why do you say that?”

“I ought to say more. You drove like a soused chauffeur. And your Tuck Merry lets me freeze to death when he’s got a bundle of blankets or clothes.”

“Right-o,” declared Tuck, with alacrity. “Bonehead is the correct allegation for this member of the party.” Whereupon he reached for his pack, and swiftly unrolling it he took out a blanket. “Let me tuck this round you.”

“Thanks, Tuck. You’re well named,” said this amazing girl as presently she leaned back wrapped from head to feet in the blanket. “Now where do we go from here?”

Cal sat there silently looking at her, and finally forced his gaze away. He chose to let her think she had fooled him, when as a matter of truth he had suddenly divined that she had leaned so close to him and nestled in his arm just out of a pure feminine deviltry or coquetry. Tuck Merry’s look at her, and his dry good-humored and shrewd remark, had caused her to sit up quickly. It had also guided Cal’s wandering thoughts. What a girl! Cal could have laughed loud and long at his tenderness. But he could not laugh. He had been struck deep in in his heart by some unaccountable malady. It worried him. It was serious, baffling.

Just then the big touring-car with Wess and the boys mounted the last bench of the hill behind, and came humming to a stop opposite the Ford.

“Wal, heah you are,” called Wess, peevishly. “It shore took you a long time to ditch thet Ford.”

“Cal, you son-of-a-gun, you run it halfway home,” said Pan Handle, admiringly. “I’m a-goin’ to apolergize fer insinuatin’ you couldn’t drive. Yore some driver.”

“Aw, fellars, I’m gamblin’ thet gent Cal took in is to blame fer spoilin’ all our fun,” growled Arizona.

“Say heah, you long-legged galoot,” called Tim Matthews to Merry, who was now examining the engine. “Is she busted — laid out — hamstrung?”

“Mister, do you mean this Ford or the young lady?” calmly queried Tuck.

“I mean thet car, you durn fool,” shouted Tim.

“So you run into thet bank?” added Wess, more cheerfully, as he lumberingly got his long length out of the touring-car. “Broke down for good, hey?”

They all got out, leisurely, and swaggered toward the Ford. Twilight had deepened, so their faces could not be clearly seen. Meanwhile Cal had been pondering how best to meet the situation. If only he could turn the tables on them! Suddenly into his mind flashed a daring idea. Impulsively he leaned close to the girl so he could whisper in her ear. “They’ve been mean an’ they’ve got it on me. So won’t you please be — be nice an’ forget all I said — an’ stand by me? I can beat them yet.”

“Go to it. I’ll play up to your game,” she whispered back.

Cal resumed his former position, conscious of an inward tremor. How this girl affected him! Her soft whisper, suggestive of forgiveness and loyalty, seemed to linger in his ears.

“Wal, Cal, why don’t you come down off your hoss?” drawled Wess.

“Cousin, get your laugh off your chest quick,” replied Cal, loud and clear. “I knew you’d tampered with the engine.”

“You did? All the time? Wal, I’ll be gol-durned. Boys, you heah Cal? He says he knew all the time. Haw! Haw! Haw!” His comrades joined in his mirth, and for a long moment they made the gloaming resound to their riotous mirth. Tim Matthews recovered first.

“Cal — if you’re — ever a-goin’ — to lick me — now’s yore time — when I’m weaker’n a calf.”

But Cal remained silent, and this strange fact, manifestly not what the boys had expected, soon had a contrary effect on them.

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Cal, at last. “You feel better now, I reckon. You’ve had your joke. You’ve had one more on the baby of the family. All right.... Now listen. It might have been well meant, though I don’t trust any of you, but it turned out bad. You know I’m a poor driver, an’ when somethin’ busted in the engine it scared me — threw me off guard — an’ we ran into this bank. Miss Georgiana got a hard jerk an’ knock. She fainted twice. I’m afraid she’s hurt — maybe bad.”

A blank dead silence ensued. Cal felt elated. He knew these big-hearted boys. If the girl now would only do her part! Then suddenly that silence was pierced by a little low moan of anguish. Georgiana had uttered it, establishing beyond doubt in Cal’s mind the proof that she was a consummate actress. He could have whooped aloud. She was a thoroughbred.

“Aw, hell!” gasped Wess, in abject, sincere misery.

“My Gawd! Cal, don’t say the little lady’s hurt,” ejaculated Arizona.

The other two boys were probably beyond expression of their feelings, especially Tim, who had been ringleader in the plot.

“Don’t stand there like a lot of boobs!” shouted Cal. The newly-learned epithet delighted him. “Clear out the back of your car, so I can carry her in there.”

“It’s done,” added Wess, sharply, “an’ you fellars are to blame. Rustle now.” Then he approached the Ford on the girl’s side and opened the door. She lay back in the dark blanket, a singularly inert figure. Cal moved over close to Georgiana, and with every show of extreme tenderness he put his arms under her and lifted her. Another little moan escaped her.

“Of all the tough luck!” exclaimed Wess, huskily. “Cal, you may beat me half to death. But honest to Gawd I didn’t put up the job. It was Tim an’ Pan Handle.... Let me help you.... Easy now.”

“There, I can manage,” replied Cal as he straightened up free of the car. How light she was! He could have carried her clear to Green Valley. Silently the boys followed him — helped him into the big car, where he sat down to let Georgiana slip off his lap into the corner. But she still leaned against him. Her bonnet fell back. Cal could just see the white glow of her face, and the big eyes, now strangely black.

“Cal, you’d better support her head,” said Wess, assuming the authority here. “You know the road’s bad in places. Boys, hustle in with them bags.... An’, say, you elongated stranger, stick your pack on the fender an’ ride on the runnin’-board.”

In a few moments all appeared to be in readiness for the start. Tim and Pan Handle squeezed into the front seat with Wess, and Arizona got into the back seat beside Cal.

At this critical juncture Georgiana wailed out a most heartrending cry.

“Oh, Mister — Cal — to think any young men — could be so c-r-u-e-ll!” she sobbed out.

“Cal, hadn’t we better rustle to Ryson — fer the doctor?” asked Wess, hurriedly.

Cal deliberated a moment, during which Georgiana decided that momentous question.

“Take me — to sister,” she wailed. “I want to die — in her arms. My neck’s — broken — and no doctor could help me now.... I need — minister to pray — for my soul — for I’m a very — very wicked girl. Oh — oh — ohhhh!”

The little minx was giving Cal’s free hand a sly squeeze at the very moment that she was wailing. She was more than reveling in the way she had helped Cal to turn the tables on these boys. She had created a situation of her own. How completely he had now evened up the score with the boys! He had already more than sipped the sweet cup of revenge, and the end was not yet.

Never had Wess driven so wonderfully. He had a genius for gliding over the rough places in the road, so as not to jar the little lady who had wailed that her neck was broken. Pan Handle seemed set in a gloomy trance, while Tim Matthews, the instigator of the plot to discomfit Cal, might well have been a criminal on his way to be hanged. Wretchedness was no word to express his state. And as for the fun-loving and easy-going Arizona, always in trouble of others’ making, he crouched on the seat beside Cal, and it was evident his heart was broken.

The night grew dark, and when the car hummed into the denser wooded section all was pitch black except the narrow road ahead. Cal could hardly see the gleam of the girl’s face against his shoulder. Whenever Wess slowed up at a bump or crossing or wash, Georgiana would utter a faint cry. That it pierced the consciences of these guilty tricksters there could not be the slightest doubt.

“Oh, Mister Cal,” complained Georgiana, in a most convincing sad little voice, “sister wrote me — about the beautiful West — how fine and noble and kind — all the Tonto boys.... Oh, it was bunk — bunk — bunk! — Not you, Mister Cal — for you’re wonderful — but that horrible cousin of yours — and his boob friends — they’re devils.... To frame up — a dirty job on — a poor little Eastern girl — who came West to get well and happy! — To murder her! Oh, they ought to burn — forever in Hades!”

“Never mind about them, Miss Stockwell,” responded Cal, with the soothing tone of one ministering to an invalid. “They’re really not responsible for what they do. If we had an asylum at Ryson my cousin would be in it. An’ if we had a jail, Tim Matthews would be there. Never mind about them. They’ll get theirs, all right! You just try to be quiet an’ don’t fret.”

At the close of Cal’s long speech Georgiana became a dead weight against him and she was quivering in convulsions of mirth. Cal feared she was about to burst into irresistible laughter, and he gave her a little admonishing shake.

“Oh, Mister Cal — I can’t move,” moaned Georgiana, not to be silenced. “I’m so cold — creeping — icy.... Oh, it’s paralysis!”

This talk seemed all very good, in the interest of their united efforts to annihilate the enemy; but a moment’s thought convinced Cal that he had carried the thing far enough. Wess and the boys had been sufficiently punished. They were in the Valley of Despond. Long would it be before they tried another trick on him. Moreover, Cal’s resentment had faded. He was satisfied. He never bore malice. But at the moment when he was about to burst out into an uproarious laugh that would betray his counter-trick to the boys, the girl’s soft, cold little hand slipped into his and she nestled closer to him.

His generosity toward the boys, his good intention not to carry his deception any farther, were suddenly as if they had never been. This girl, whom he had known but for a few hours, who had stirred old and new emotions in him, had taken incredible hold on his feelings. He tried to think. She was only seventeen; she was only full of fun; she was only helping him get even. But was she unconscious of what she was doing? His natural chivalry fought for an affirmation of his hopes. To help him subjugate these tricky comrades she did not need to make her deception an intimate and personal thing. Perhaps she was really tired and cold, and more of a child than she had appeared at first. The facts, however, were hard to put aside as merely childish, thoughtless actions. Cal had held a girl’s hand before and he knew what responsiveness was. This girl’s little hand had vastly more than that; it nestled, it caressed, it appealed, it thrilled. It had a marvelous power. Moreover, she lay against him with her head on his shoulder. That, to be sure, could not have been avoided, in the first place, considering the exigency of their plot. Yet there was something about her way of doing it that immeasurably changed their innocent deception. But though Cal had held another girl’s hand, it was equally true that he had never before held a girl in his arms. And now the bewildering realization came that, outside of the joke on his comrades, whether she was overplaying her part or not, despite his growing concern as to her sincerity, he wanted her where she was.

Cal’s breast heaved with his conflicting emotions, and that deep heave lifted the fragrant curly head closer to his lips. Desperately he controlled the longing to kiss those curls. But Cal could not have yielded to a temptation like that. Did she divine how he felt? he wondered, and then he trembled as very slowly she slipped her head backward and tilted her face upward, closer, with a singular soft motion. And then with her head on his shoulder she became very quiet. Cal’s eyes pierced the darkness, and made out the pale oval of her face, the black depths of her eyes, the vague sweet mouth, indistinct, and all the more alluring for that. For an endless moment he peered at this face, pale against the shadowy background. She was watching him, and he imagined she smiled. For Cal the moment was strange, complex, infinite in its far-reaching effect. An instinct of exceeding strength urged him to kiss the shadowy mouth, those sweet eyes so deep and dark in the paleness of her face. He knew he could do so — that she would not resent it — that in her there were coquetry, deviltry, something new and raw in femininity to him. And that was why he did not yield. He was too earnest. He felt too greatly. For him and his kind a kiss on a girl’s lips was no slight thing. Wherefore he turned his face away to look down the road, glad to see the twinkling lights of Green Valley Ranch. A few more moments would end this joke of his, this retaliation which had begun in mirthful zest and had subtly changed to something beyond his ken.

The car passed the corral fences, the barns, the sheds, and stopped before the long, rambling ranch house, from which lighted windows gleamed.

Wess turned to say, anxiously: “Cal, how is she?”

“Reckon she’s no worse,” replied Cal, feeling a strong regurgitation of his former glee.

“Lady — I — I do hope you’re recoverin’,” faltered Wess, in deep-voiced solicitation. Manifestly he was hoping against hope. And Cal felt how the other boys hung on her answer.

“Thank you — I guess — I’m a little better,” she said, languidly. “The terrible pain — is gone — and I’m easier. I guess my neck’s not broken, after all. — Please forgive me — for all I said — back there.”

Wess actually writhed and groaned in his self-accusing unhappiness. Her sweetly uttered request to be forgiven was the last straw.

“Wess, go in an’ break the news to teacher, but mind you, don’t scare her,” said Cal.

“My Gawd! Cal — I cain’t face Miss Mary an’ tell her what we’ve done to her little sister. I cain’t,” replied Wess, distractedly.

Cal felt a sly pinch on his arm, and he knew what to expect.

“Mister Cal — you go in, please — and tell sister,” said Georgiana. “Lie to her. Say I’m just tired out — little weak and sick, you know. Then come back after me. I’m afraid I can’t walk.”

“I’ll carry you,” interposed Wess, with mounting hopelessness.

“Oh no, thank you. Mister Cal knows just how to handle me,” she replied, graciously. “You can carry my baggage.”

Cal slipped out, taking with him another lingering, encouraging pressure from that little hand. He ran into the house. The long living-room was bright with two lamps and blazing logs in the huge stone fireplace. Henry Thurman looked up from his paper.

“Wal, heah you be, Cal,” he drawled, with a smile smoothing out the net of fine wrinkles in his massive face. He was a large man, gray-haired, beardless, with the stamp of pioneer on every feature. Cal’s mother and sister both called in unison from the kitchen that supper was burning.

“Come in here,” answered Cal, and when they came in, happily expectant in their hospitality, Enoch, and Boyd also entered from the back porch. “Listen, folks, an’ don’t get scared, now. There’s been a little accident. I must tell teacher. Then I’ll fetch her sister in. Just wait an’ don’t be scared.”

As Cal hurried out his father drawled: “What air thet boy up to?” Miss Stockwell’s room was at the far end of the south porch. Cal knocked on the door and called. “Teacher, are you there?”

“Cal, is that you?” she replied, joyously, from within, and then opened the door. She was dressed in white and her comely face seemed happily eager, yet anxious.

“Teacher,” whispered Cal, almost hilariously, “Georgiana an’ I have put it all over Wess an’ his outfit.”

“You have? Oh, fine! Tell me. Where’s Georgie? Is she all right?”

“Listen. I can’t tell everythin’ now,” went on Cal, breathlessly. “The boys tampered with the Ford. It broke down as they’d planned. Then we pretended Georgiana was hurt in the accident. But she wasn’t, see. Wess, an’ the boys are sick. Now your part is to pretend to be terribly angry when Wess comes in. See.”

“Yes, Cal, I see. I’ll do my part. But hurry,” she replied.

“I’ll send Wess an’ his gang in first. You be there. You’re supposed to think Georgiana is bad hurt an’ that they did it. See! Then I’ll fetch her in. Oh, say, it’ll be great!”

With that Cal wheeled away, and leaping off the porch he ran round the house to the walk, and so out of the gate to the car. All the boys were standing there, dark, gloomy, waiting.

“Wess, go in an’ take your medicine,” ordered Cal, solemnly. “Drag your pardners with you. — Teacher is awful mad.”

“See heah, Cal,” blustered Wess, “I ain’t a-goin’ in there. Tim’s most to blame for this low-down job an’ he’s gotta face the music.”

“Mister Wess,” spoke up Georgiana from the car, and her youthful high-pitched voice was cutting. “You and your friends are a fine brave bunch — I don’t think!”

Cal instantly saw how that remark settled it. Wess and his partners would have faced a regiment of infuriated sisters.

“Grab all the baggage you can carry,” said Cal, briskly. “An’ you, Tuck, go along with them. I’ll fetch the girl right in.”

When the five young men, heavily laden, had filed through the gate, Cal whispered into the car.

“Come on now. We’re sure goin’ to have some fun. I fixed it up with your sister. She’s on an’ she’ll do her part.”

“I was afraid you’d ball up this part of the play,” replied Georgiana. “I didn’t want Mary to be frightened.”

“Oh, she knows. Don’t worry. She’s goin’ to hop them hard before we get there.... We’ll hurry.”

“I’m all wrapped up,” complained the girl, stumbling as she stepped out on the running-board. There she hesitated, looking down on Cal. The gleam from the windows lighted up her face. “I’m supposed to be crippled, am I not? Do I have to walk?”

“Why — why — yes, sure, I — You can walk to the door. Then I’ll carry you.” Nonplused, and uncertain how to take her, Cal just stared upward into her face. She seemed to be a woman then, infinitely sure of herself, beyond Cal’s comprehension.

“Cal, you’re a fairly good actor,” she said, finally, “but when it comes to playing choosies in the dark you are certainly punk.”

“Choosies!” ejaculated Cal. “What on earth are they?”

“Your education has been neglected. If I can get up the pep I’ll have to take you in hand.”

The door of the house opened, sent out a broad flare of light for a moment, and then closed.

“Come on,” said Cal, again shot through with eagerness to see the climax of his joke. Georgiana gathered up the folds of the blanket from round her feet, and followed him into the yard and down to the porch.

“Oh, listen,” whispered Cal. She grasped his arm in her eagerness and it was certain that she giggled.

“. . . done to my little sister?” sounded the ringing voice of Miss Stockwell, in furious scorn and anger.

“Teacher, it was this heah way,” came Wess’s humble answer. “We busted Cal’s car. But the durned fool run it into a bank. An’ your sister was hurt. But so help me Gawd . . .”

“You villains!” burst out Miss Stockwell, in terrible tones. “You miserable ruffians! It’s bad enough of you to torment that noble boy Cal, let alone hurt a poor little sick girl. It’s outrageous. You’ve got to be horse-whipped. And if my sister dies I’ll have you hanged!”

Georgiana squeezed Cal’s arm. “Deep stuff! Here’s where we put it over good. — Now, Cal, cover my face with the blanket and carry me in. Be very solemn and awfully grieved. Then — after you’ve planted the tragedy bluff — set me down on my feet, and leave the rest to me.”

Cal folded the end flap of the blanket over her face and took her in his arms. She made her body as limp as an empty sack. One arm hung down and her head fell back.

“Open the door,” he called in a hollow voice. It was opened wide by Tuck Merry who, as he faced Cal, wore the most wonderful expression Cal had ever seen. In his loyalty to further the plot he was making exceedingly strenuous demands on his will power. Manifestly he tried to look sad when he wanted to burst with laughter.

In one sweeping glance, as Cal entered, he took in the assembly. His mother and sisters, white-aproned for the occasion, gazed at him and his burden in a perturbation wholly real. His old father cocked his head on one side and peered with infinite curiosity. But his slight smile precluded anxiety. Enoch and Boyd appeared dumbfounded. Miss Stockwell had the center of the room — she seemed pale in her white dress — with dark excited eyes, shining wonderfully on Cal. In front of her, lined up as against a wall for execution, stood Wess and Pan Handle and Arizona and Tim, deeply stirred, haggard, and sick, betraying their guilt, honest in their remorse.

Without more ado Cal set Georgiana upon her feet and with one swift motion stripped the blanket from her. She might have been an apparition to most of these onlookers. Bareheaded, with golden curls disheveled, radiant of face, instinct with palpitating life and joy, she screamed her delight and rushed into her sister’s outstretched arms.

“Oh, Mary — Mary — how glad I am!” she cried, tremulously.

“Georgie, darling!” exclaimed the teacher, with deeper emotion, and she folded the girl close and bent to kiss her again and again.

Cal glanced away to take a look at the four culprits. Then he tasted revenge sweet and full. How utterly astounded and stultified! Their wits worked but slowly. They stared with jaws dropping. The significance was only slowly dawning upon them.

Suddenly then Georgiana turned in her sister’s arms, and with the lamplight upon her softened, glowing face, her eyes flashing purple, and a dimpled smile breaking on her cheek, she seemed the loveliest creature Cal had ever seen. His great moment had come, but it was not going to be what he had anticipated. That tremendous gathering in his breast seemed to await a sentence.

“Mr. Cal, we put it over on them, didn’t we?” she cried, joyously.

Cal could only stare at her. That moment the something about her which he hated had vanished, and she appeared only a young girl, sweet and full of the joy of life and fun, with a wonderful light upon her face. As he gazed the truth flashed upon him. He had fallen in love with her.

“Aw!” burst from Wess — a huge expulsion of breath indicating realization and relief. He was a beaten trickster, but there was balm in his defeat.

“Miss — Miss — ain’t you hurted atall?” gasped Arizona, beginning to beam.

Georgiana roguishly eyed these two speakers and then extended her gaze to the guiltier boys. They were stunned.

“I wasn’t hurt,” she said, sweetly. “We were just fooling you.”

Cal ate at the second table that night with the boys and Tuck Merry, and afterward he avoided the living-room where his father and Enoch continued the merriment that had been precipitated. Seldom did they get so good a chance to lord it over Wess and his contingent. But Cal never reaped all the fun he had anticipated. That experiment bade fair to cost him dear.

After supper he took Merry to his little bunkhouse, and made him comfortable there.

“Tuck, you can bunk with me until we fix up a place for you.”

“Fine and dandy,” returned Tuck. “Buddy, I hope you don’t wake me out of this dream. — Did you see me stuff myself? Talk about your luck. I’ve gotten soft. — Cal, I like your folks. Your dad made a hit with me. And how he did lam it into your cousin Wess. Funny! You Tonto folks get a lot of kick out of jokes.”

“I’m afraid we run it into the ground sometimes,” replied Cal, soberly.

“I expect you do. And I suppose you scrap the same way?”

“Scrap! Why, Tuck, fightin’ is about as common as ridin’ horses. But at that most of it is fun — among our own outfit.”

“And I’m to be one of the Thurman 4’s, hey?”

“You bet. Father was plumb glad I’d got you. An’ say, Tuck, when he sees you slug some of these fresh riders — whoop-ee!”

“Buddy, with all respect to your hopes, I’d like to make friends with the boys first.”

“Tuck, you’ll never make friends until after you’ve licked them. Just you leave it to me. You go about your work and be — like you were in front of Bloom — Oh, that tickled me! — An’ when I give you the wink do the same as you did to him.”

“Right-o. And tomorrow let me begin your boxing lessons.”

“I should smile,” responded Cal, but without his former enthusiasm.

“Buddy, you’ve lost your pep,” went on Merry, kindly.

“Reckon I have. It’s been a hard day for me.”

“But, Buddy, you certainly put it over on those boneheads. — That kid Georgiana is a wonder. Don’t you think so?”

“Tuck, I don’t know what I think,” replied Cal, dropping his head.

“Buddy, I saw how you fell for her,” continued Tuck, earnestly. “So did I. So did Wess and his gang. So’ll everything that wears pants, my boy. These modern kids have got the dope. I have a sister like Georgiana. Some kid! I’ll tell you about her. But not tonight. I’m kinda weary myself. Let’s fade into our hammocks.”

Cal, however, did not want to go to bed just yet. He went out to walk around a bit. Many and many a night he had seen like this one, yet it seemed vastly different. He climbed the pasture fence and walked across the level grassy field toward the bold dark ridge that towered almost mountain high. The loneliness and silence seemed to help him to think. The air was cool. A faint wind swept his cheek. He heard the low crunch of horses grazing. All was shadowy and gloomy around him. Above, the blue sky was radiant with white blinking stars. He walked to and fro.

Five, six hours before he had been Cal Thurman, who was now changed. It seemed a long time. A quarter of a day! Somewhere during that period he had fallen in love with this Georgiana May Stockwell. Pondering over the strange, undeniable circumstance, he decided he had done so on first sight. It was not so remarkable, after all. His brothers and cousins and friends were always falling in love. But it was new for Cal. He tried to be practical, positive, sensible. And all was well in his reasoning as long as he stuck to the fact of love as a happening, an experience. When, however, he thought of Georgiana — the newness and strangeness of her — the slim grace and dainty elegance — the pale sweet face, the golden curls, the dark blue eyes that could look as no others he had ever seen — when he remembered the alluring proximity of her and how audaciously she had intruded that fact upon him, then his reasoning went into eclipse. His heart was stormed. What availed the faint cries of his intelligence? She was not the kind of a girl he wanted to love. He could not decide what she really was. Only it did not matter. Every remembrance of her actions submerged him deeper. He was frightened, distressed. But she would never find it out and surely he would soon get over it. Tomorrow, perhaps! Judging from the affairs of Tonto youths, this was not so terrible. Yet how humiliating! Love at first sight! It was a mixture of queer sensations. He grew conscious of inward excitement, a throbbing of heart, a pang in his breast, a vague longing to abandon thought and revel in the sweetness of dream, languor, thrill. Yet it was bitter, too. What had she meant by “choosies”? What had she meant by all she had said and done? Then her face seemed close to him again, a pale oval with its mysterious black holes for eyes, its tempting lips.

Thus Cal paced the pasture, a prey to all that constituted the torment and pain and ecstasy of dawning love in a true heart.

CHAPTER VI

MISS STOCKWELL WAS reflecting that she had come to dread Sundays, where formerly they had been welcome days of rest from her school duties. The cause was Georgiana. Never in her life had a three weeks’ period been so filled with love, bewilderment, distress, and fear. And on this quiet Sabbath morning, while Georgiana was making up the hours of sleep she had lost, Miss Stockwell undertook to unravel the chaos of the situation.

The one outstanding and consolable fact about Georgiana’s coming was that the love she had born her older sister years before as a child had never died, and had now reopened in these few weeks of intimacy to the one and only good, developing influence in her life. That love and that alone had kept Miss Stockwell true to the tremendous responsibility that her parents had thrust upon her.

Judged superficially, Georgiana had appeared to be a very lively and pretty young girl, bringing with her the clothes, habits, and tricks of speech of the East, and she had not been understood. The young men of the Tonto had been drawn to her as bees to honey. To them she was a new species of the female, strange, alluring, irresistible. To the young girls she had been a revelation, a wonderful creature heralding the freedom, independence, and mastery that seemed born in all the women of the modern day. They had already begun to ape her dress, her manner, her slang, even to the bobbing of their hair. The matter bade fair to upset the tranquil Tonto. To the older women Georgiana was a girl beyond their understanding, a menace and an intruder.

To Miss Stockwell this little sister was adorable despite all that could be said against her, and that was an exceeding great deal. As long as Georgiana was loved, petted, and given her own way she was sweet, lovable, absolutely a comfort and a joy. But cross her in the slightest and she was another creature. And it was impossible to keep from crossing her because Georgiana was endlessly thinking of something never before heard of in the Tonto.

Miss Stockwell realized that she now had in her charge, in the person of her seventeen-year-old sister, one of the modern girls forced by the war and the seething renascence of the world into the type which was bewildering teachers, ministers, educators, and horrifying the staid old Americans.

Georgiana was bright, though she hated study. She despised housework, though her mother had seen to it that she could do it. She abhorred any kind of work. There was a hard, sophisticated, material, worldly side of her most difficult to understand. Miss Stockwell had cudgeled her brain, attempting to reach this side of Georgiana. In vain! The girl had come from a world positively new to Miss Stockwell, who had been in the West only six years. But those six years had changed life, unseated the old ideals, throned a new order of things, which, if it were permanent, meant a vastly different America. It distressed Miss Stockwell. She had either to change Georgiana or accept the inevitable, for it looked as if she must make a permanent home for her in the West. Georgiana’s health had already greatly improved, verifying the judgment of the home physician. In spite of her running wild out here, riding the horses, and upon several occasions dancing the whole night long, she had gained in flesh. That part of the question was a happy one.

How deep really was this strange sophistication of Georgiana’s? Was it merely a veneer, a matter of environment, a new-woman, feministic sort of pose, or was it a permanent adaptation to an altered condition of civilization? Georgiana was brazen, and did not seem to care how that distressed her sister. She used the most extraordinary vocabulary of slang, some of which jarred on Miss Stockwell’s ear worse than profanity. She absolutely would not stop painting her face, and in fact she had to paint it more because exposure to sun had begun to burn her skin gold and brown. She would not lengthen her skirts nor roll up her stockings. She would not admit that she gloried in the sensation she roused, but Miss Stockwell knew it well enough.

But these things, seemingly so serious at first, had paled into insignificance before other developments. Georgiana was a flirt, roguish, sweet, playful, and apparently innocent of deliberation, but nevertheless a flirt. Her attractiveness and her newness made this propensity to flirt a vastly more serious matter than if she had not brought the Eastern immodesty of dress, freedom of speech, unrestraint of action, and the fatal fascination of a possible attainableness. For Miss Stockwell had come to realize that this sort of thing would not do in the West. The code of these clean, fine, virile young men of the Tonto would not long abide Georgiana. If no one of them grew serious, then perhaps there might not be a catastrophe. But Miss Stockwell believed one of these young men had already prostrated himself at the altar of her charm — Cal Thurman, the finest of the lot. Cal had grown strangely older in these few weeks. What would that lead to if Georgiana persisted in her flirting?

It seemed that Georgiana had arrived at Green Valley just a product of her day, a shallow, selfish, thoughtless, mindless, soulless girl, whose only apparent object was to make herself attractive and irresistible to the opposite sex, and to trifle with them. To run, ride, dance, flirt — which constituted her idea of a good time! That was how she struck Miss Stockwell for the first ten days. Then began a modifying of that conception. Georgiana was not mindless or soulless, nor really bad. It almost seemed that she desired to give that last impression or at least she made no effort to repudiate it. From this discovery Miss Stockwell had derived hope to go on with the problem. It was everything in the world to her to satisfy herself that Georgiana, wild and willful and brazen as she was, despite the impression of utter materialism that she gave, had never been really bad. And the succeeding days, after this conclusion, had proved to Miss Stockwell, beyond any further question, that her sister was not what she pretended to be. She was very young. Time and change of environment would work wonders with her. The West with its openness and naturalness, the simplicity of its people, the necessity for development of physical strength, would inevitably remake the girl — unless some catastrophe intervened to send her back East or drag her down.

Miss Stockwell made a decision that day, for herself as well as Georgiana, and it was that the West should claim them both for good. Whereupon she wrote a long letter to her mother, telling much about Georgiana, though omitting the things that would worry and distress, and concluded with mention of the important decision and how it was best for all concerned, and that some day she and Georgiana would make a visit back home.

When this was done she sat looking out of her window, across the green pasture, across the orchard red with apples, across the yellowing corn and sorghum, to the rise of rugged hills that lifted fringed domes of rock and brush to the wild purple ranges beyond. This Tonto country had claimed her forever, whether or not her secret romance had a happy ending. The children of these mountain people needed education. It was a wild, lonely, sparsely settled region, where only for a few months in spring and summer could the children go to school. She loved the work and knew it to be noble, and if necessary she could devote her life to it. But she had vague hope of the fulfillment of her dream.

She saw horses in the pasture, the favorites of the riders, off duty that one day of the week. Cattle were lowing somewhere in the brush. And she was slowly realizing a strange content in the prospect of the future when her musings were disturbed.

“Mary, air you aboot heah this mawnin’?” came in Georgiana’s languid voice from the little room beyond. This room had been a sort of shed adjoining that end of the house. Georgiana had coaxed Cal to fix it up with Indian blankets on the walls and deerskins on the floor, and here in very cramped quarters, with the furniture necessary and her belongings, she was happy.

“Yes, I’m here, Georgie, I’ve been up for hours and have written a long letter to mother.”

“For Heaven’s sake bring me a drink of water,” cried Georgiana. “Talk about a dark-brown taste! Good night! The stuff these Tonto jakes call white mule has some kick.”

Mary poured out a glass of water from her pitcher, and carrying it in to Georgiana, sat down upon her little bed. The girl half sat up and propped herself on her pillows, and with her sleepy eyes and soft rosy golden tints of complexion, fresh as the morning, and with her slender arms bare on the coverlet, she was indeed distractingly pretty.

Georgiana drank all of the water and then evidently was not satisfied.

“Georgie, did you really drink any of that liquor they call white mule?” queried Mary, seriously.

“I’ll say I did,” replied Georgiana, with a giggle. “But no more for muh! Little Georgie May thought she’d been kicked by worse than a mule.”

“Where’d you get the drink?”

“Some of us went into that Ryson restaurant to eat a bite, about midnight. We had to stop dancing at twelve on Saturday night. Well, Bid Hatfield was with us at our table and he had a flask. He dared us girls to take a sip of his white mule. I was curious, but I didn’t want it. I hate booze. The girls took a sip, and then I swallowed a mouthful quick, just for a new experience. I got it. Holy Moses! I’ll never touch that stuff again, believe me.”

“You won’t? You promise me?”

“Now see here, sis. I don’t have to make promises about that. I hate promises, anyway. I’ll never drink it again because it made me sick.”

“Georgie, I don’t care much for Bid Hatfield,” said Mary, thoughtfully. “I’m surprised he’d come up to you when you were with the Thurmans.”

“Boyd didn’t like it for a cent.... I’ll tell you, Mary, on the level I haven’t any use for Bid Hatfield except to string him along. He’s so darned stuck on himself. These Tonto dames have spoiled him, believe me.”

“Was Cal there?”

“He rode in on horseback,” replied Georgiana, with subtle change of tone. “He got there late. I was teaching some of the boys and girls how to toddle. Cal saw us — and he beat it pronto. What do you know about that?”

“I know a good deal, Georgie dear,” replied Mary, earnestly. “Suppose we have a long talk, not about Cal particularly, but about everything.”

“O Lord! Now you’re going to hop me again,” cried Georgiana. “Mary, I had enough of that back home. Mother was always after me — raving at me because I couldn’t be like she used to be. She couldn’t understand. Dad couldn’t, either. None of the girls’ parents could see that we are different. Times have changed. We won’t be bossed. We’re going to do what we want to do — and what we want makes all the old folks sick. Good night! That’s one reason I was crazy to come out West. — Mary, you were just wonderful at first. You seemed to sympathize, and even if you wouldn’t stand for something or other you didn’t rave about it. But lately you’ve been getting after me.”

Miss Stockwell pondered a moment, while gazing down upon this rebellious little sister. She understood at last that Georgiana could never be driven. Such opposition invited disaster. Some other way must be found to influence her, if that were possible.

“No, dear, I’m not going to get after you again, as you call it,” said Mary, kindly. “But as we are going to live together and I’m going to take care of you till you are well and strong — isn’t it fair that we have talks — understand each other’s point of view?”

“Sure it is. I’ll try. But I’m only a kid, and — and I’m going to raise — to have a good time or die. I’ll be young only once. Can you understand that?”

“I think so,” replied Mary, weighing her words. “It’s youth. I had a feeling something like it when I was seventeen, enough for me to realize what you mean. But your attitude toward life is an exaggeration of that feeling. But you’re not a fool, Georgie.”

“No, it’s because I’m wise that the old bunk doesn’t go with me,” replied the girl.

“By bunk do you mean religion, education, refinement, love, and marriage, as they used to be?”

“No. I mean it always has been a man’s world until now,” declared Georgiana, with spirit. “Why don’t you get down to brass tacks? Your disapproval of me sifts down to just one thing — how I dress, talk, and act before men! That’s all. There isn’t any more.... Well, we kids have got it figured. We’re wise. We see how our sisters and mothers and grandmothers have been buncoed by the lords of creation. By men! And we’re not going to stand for it, see? We’re going to do as we damn please, and if they don’t like us they can lump us. But good night — the proof is they like us better, if they don’t know it.”

Miss Stockwell strove to hide her consternation and to apply all her wits to the following of this twentieth-century maiden. It was useless to be shocked. Emotion certainly could not help this perplexing situation. If intelligence and logic and persuasive common sense could not reach Georgiana, what could? The child was bitter. Bitter at men! It was astounding. Yet Mary had to confess the justice of some of her convictions. There was a very wide range between her philosophy and Georgiana’s. No doubt, however, was there that her sister had evolved a decided attitude toward life, and it bore the hard mark of materialism.

“Georgie, you were active in Sunday school when I left home,” said Mary, taking another tack. “Have you kept it up?”

“Do you think I’m a dead one?” flashed Georgiana. “I quit church when I was fourteen, and that was a year longer than I wanted to go. The churches are back numbers, Mary. Nobody goes any more.”

“Perhaps that accounts for a great deal,” mused Mary. “Dawn of a godless age! . . . You are not to blame, perhaps, for losing interest in church work.”

Mary bent her grave gaze upon this petulant, passionate little sister, and pondered silently for a moment, for some inspiration. None seemed forthcoming. She was baffled. Yet if she talked naked truth, could she not approach this girl? Always she had beaten around the bush. Perhaps her own blindness was culpable.

“Very well, let’s get down to brass tacks, Georgie dear,” she said, brightly.

“Go to it,” replied Georgie, with doubt in her big eyes.

“Do you love me?”

“Why, Mary — what a question!” burst out Georgiana, in surprise. “Of course I love you.”

“Would you stay out West of your own free will?”

“You bet. At least a long, long time — and maybe always if I could cop out some nice rich rancher like Enoch. But you’ve your eagle eye on him.”

“Georgie!” protested Miss Stockwell, blushing furiously. “How dare you?”

“Oh, come off, sis. Didn’t you say something about brass tacks? You’ve fallen for Enoch, and if you had any sense he’d be eating out of your hand — pronto. Mary, he’s a backward, slow sort of chap. He’s afraid of you — thinks you’re way above him. But he loves you and if you want him there’s nothing to it but wedding bells.”

Mary covered her hot face with her hands and strove for self-control.

“You’re a dreadful, terrible little girl,” she cried.

“Cut out the little, unless you mean size, sister dear,” went on Georgiana. “Take it from me. I’ve seen Enoch watching you when you didn’t see him. That’s that. — Now go on.”

“Where was I? Oh yes — you acknowledged you loved me and you said you would stay out West of your own accord. Well, so far so good,” resumed Mary, gradually recovering from the break in her thought. “That means you stay indefinitely. — Now, Georgie, do you realize you’re a flirt?”

“That’s getting too personal and I won’t admit it!” replied the girl, loftily.

“No matter, you are, whether you realize it or not. — Coming back to your way of dressing, acting, talking — do you think it safe with a man like Bid Hatfield?”

“Safe! — Good night, I should say it wasn’t,” retorted Georgiana, with startling candor. “He’s a cave man.... But that’s why I get such a kick out of it. Then he’s a swelled-up mutt — thinks he’s a lady-killer. It makes him so easy.”

“You just denied you were a flirt,” continued Mary.

“Certainly I denied it. I can know a thing without being that, can’t I?”

“Well, if you’re so wise, as you call it, and see that Hatfield is really a dangerous young man for a girl to trifle with — and if you love your sister well enough to spare her shame and unhappiness, how do you propose to trifle and spare — at once?”

“Simple as ABC, sister darling,” responded Georgiana with a dazzling smile. “I’m far too wise to be alone with Hatfield, away from company. Not on a bet! — At that, I’m not afraid of the brute. I saw Tuck Merry make him crawl, and I’ll bet I could, too. But for your sake, Mary, I’ll not take any chances.”

“Georgie, you’re bewilderingly considerate,” responded Mary, trying to hide her wonder and anger at this incredible young person. At the same time she wanted to laugh. How Georgiana disposed of risks! She certainly was no fool, whatever were her weaknesses.

“There are other men like Hatfield,” went on Mary. “Because the Thurmans hate him he’s in the limelight. But there are others like him. You’ll meet them.”

“Yes. I have met a couple, and sized them up quick, believe me,” replied Georgiana, complacently.

“Very well, now let’s mention some of the young men who have not shady reputations. There’s Arizona. He worships you, but in a sort of awestruck way. You’re a wonderful creature to him. He’s not really in love with you. — Then there are Boyd Thurman and Wess and Serge and Lock, all running after you, crazy after you, but I don’t think any of them want to marry you.”

“Oh, you don’t? How very flattering!” exclaimed Georgiana. The words had cut her.

“These boys do not understand you, Georgie dear. They’re tremendously attracted. You’re a new species. They’re eager for your flirting. They can’t see the line you draw between flirting — and worse. They wouldn’t see it if you flashed it in their faces, which you’ll certainly have to do.”

“I’ll fool you, sister, about none of them being serious. I’ll show you,” retorted Georgiana, with red spots in her cheeks that were natural color.

“Oh, Georgie, you’re impossible — utterly hopeless,” expostulated Mary, almost yielding to rage. “I only want to show you that you simply cannot go on trifling with these Tonto boys.”

“I’m not trifling now. I’m in dead earnest,” replied Georgiana, passionately. “And I’d like to know who’s going to stop me?”

“I don’t mean that. The trifling will stop of its own accord. You don’t understand these boys any better than they do you. To speak bluntly — they believe you are cheap, easy, open to any light advance.”

“Boobs!” burst out Georgiana, with purple fire flashing from her eyes. “The long-legged backwoods louts!”

“Don’t insult them. It is you who are wrong. I know what most of them believe, and I can see trouble ahead. It’s going to come when one of these wild Tonto boys falls genuinely in love with you. That will come, if it hasn’t already.”

“It has come, sister,” replied the girl, sullenly. “Your favorite Cal Thurman has gone off his head. He begged me — only three days ago — to marry him.”

“Oh, Georgie, that is terrible,” returned Mary, greatly troubled. “It is what I feared.”

“Bah! It will do him good,” flashed Georgiana. “He needs to be taken down a peg.... Cal was dandy at first. I liked him fine until he began to get serious, sort of bossy, and jealous. Then good night.”

“Georgiana, I marvel at your vanity and stupidity. There’s one boy you can’t make a fool of. When he asked you to marry him he proved how fine and earnest he is. I’m ashamed of you.”

“Why, for tripe’s sake? I don’t love him.”

“But didn’t you trifle with him, the same as with the others?” continued Mary, scathingly. “Oh, I saw you flirt with him — outrageously.”

Georgiana was unable to meet her sister’s scornful and indignant gaze. She dropped her eyes a moment.

“Mary, we clashed right off the bat,” she admitted. “Honest to God I liked him best — I do yet, to be on the level — but he made me sick.”

“How?” queried Mary, sharply.

“Why, about the other boys — and my clothes — and especially my roll-downs. The last time he hopped me about them I just stuck my foot up on the fence and rolled my stockings down farther, right under his eyes.”

“Oh, mercy, you little devil! . . . Then what did Cal do?”

“He beat it, mad as the devil,” replied Georgiana, evidently thrilling at the remembrance. “And he hasn’t been near me since. But he was going to honey around last night, only that toddle stunt of mine made him sore again. I’ll give him about another day. Then he’ll crawl.”

“Georgiana, this boy is fine, sweet, manly. He’s much too good for you. You can’t see his bigness. You’re too set in your attitude — your silly, sentimental, vain obsession to get the best of men.”

“Well, I got the best of him, all right, all right, and unless he changes his tune I’ll keep on doing it.”

“Why are you so — so resentful? Why do you have it in for Cal?” asked Mary.

“I told you. He thought he had something on me,” rejoined Georgiana, mutteringly. She was thinking back. Something rankled in her. Mary’s keen intuition discovered a subtle thought that thrilled her. Georgiana’s strange attitude toward Cal must have owed its origin to a possibility of caring for him, and she did not intend to let her heart rule her head.

“Georgie, think over what I have said,” concluded Mary, rising. “I shall not nag you. I love you dearly and am thinking only of your happiness. You cannot go on with this — this provocativeness. Not out here in this wild Tonto. It will land you on the rocks. These boys are uncouth, primitive, fun-loving and fight-loving, and as such they seem immensely interesting to you. But you don’t understand their reserve force. I tell you they have a savageness in them, a strength born of this wilderness, a heritage from fierce, ruthless, natural men. And they have a code of honor that no woman can risk breaking.”

Miss Stockwell loyally endeavored to rise above her doubts of the good she might have accomplished by this blunt talk with Georgiana. On her own account, however, she felt easier in mind, for she had done what seemed her duty. The only sure result of it, apparently, was to make this strange materialistic girl not only more than ever set in her modern way, but it also piqued her vanity. Alas for poor Cal Thurman! Miss Stockwell had a foreboding of calamity.

Sunday was company day for the Thurmans; they had all gone away to visit relatives, leaving the teacher and her sister to get their own dinner. On former occasions this duty had devolved solely upon Mary. Today, however, Georgiana answered to one of her caprices and insisted on getting the dinner herself. Forthwith she donned a dainty white apron, trimmed with lace, and sallied out to the kitchen.

“Sis, it’s always wise for a girl to doll up, in a strange place like this,” she exclaimed. “Somebody might run in. That’s the dope and I’m giving you a hunch.”

“Georgie, are you wearing the apron because you’re going to do housework, or doing the housework because you want to exhibit the apron?” inquired Mary, blandly.

“There you are with your hammer again,” replied Georgiana, good-humoredly. “It’s a lead pipe you have me figured, Mary. You ought to be tickled if anything made me work.”

Half an hour later Mary felt compelled to acknowledge that her sister’s course in domestic science had not been wholly in vain.

“Georgie, you might make some man a good wife, after all,” mused Mary.

“Sister, old dear, get this,” retorted Georgiana. “I’ll make a darn sight better wife than the crocheting, old-fashioned, two-faced, mealy-mouthed tabby-cat you’d have me.”

“Oh, so you have really condescended to imagine you might marry some day,” laughed Mary, always amused at a different phase of Georgiana.

“I don’t see how a girl can have a home and babies without a husband,” complained Georgiana.

Just then a sharp clip-clop of trotting hoofs sounded outside on the hard road.

“That’s Cal,” spoke up Georgiana, quickly. “Wonder what brings him home so early.”

“You, probably,” replied Mary, dryly.

“Me? Nix. We’re on the outs. Gee! if he comes in here he’ll see our spiffy spread and I’ll have to invite him to eat. Sis, you ask him.”

“Of course I will. But how do you know it’s Cal?” queried Mary, going to the window.

“I know his horse’s gait.”

Miss Stockwell looked out along the front of the house and then down the road to the corral. She saw a horseman leaning over to open the corral gate. When he straightened up she recognized Cal. His face was bloody. And there was yellow dirt on his blue jumper.

“Oh dear!” she cried, startled.

Georgiana jumped up, and running to the window peered out. She could not, however, see what Mary had seen, because Cal’s back was turned and the high corral fence obstructed the view.

“What’s the matter?” she queried.

“Cal’s face was all bloody,” replied the teacher, in dismay.

“Was that all?” returned Georgiana, apparently without any particular interest. And returning to the table she began to pick at things. But her former appetite and pleasure appeared wanting. A little frown puckered her smooth brow, and her eyes shadowed thoughtfully. Mary divined that Georgiana was more interested than she cared to admit.

“Wonder if he’ll come in,” she mused, presently.

“He certainly will not,” declared Mary. “Don’t you know the boy better than that?”

“Know Cal Thurman? I know him frontward and backward,” answered Georgiana, scornfully.

Miss Stockwell then began her own lunch without comment, yet she kept a covert eye upon her sister. Georgiana seemed to be silent so as to listen the better. What she expected, however, failed to materialize. Presently she rose to go to the back door, which was open, and she looked out.

“Cal,” she called, instantly. No answer! “Cal! . . . Oh, I see you. What’s happened?”

“Aw, nothin’ much,” came the surly answer from the yard.

“You’re all bloody,” cried Georgiana.

“Nope. You can’t see straight. This’s only wet Tonto mud.”

“Say, bo, you can’t kid me,” called the girl, derisively. “What’s happened?”

“I just ran into somethin’.”

“Tell me!” ordered Georgiana, impatiently. Then, as he did not answer, she stepped out upon the porch. “Cal, please come here.”

“What you want?” he growled.

“If you don’t come here I’ll come out there,” she threatened.

Here Mary stepped to the doorway herself, and espied the young man now coming up to the porch. He held a blood-stained scarf to his cheek.

“You’re a pretty-looking sight, I don’t think,” went on Georgiana as he mounted the steps. “Cal Thurman, you’ve been fighting again!”

“Is that all you wanted to say?” he inquired, sarcastically, as he confronted her with troubled face and eyes of fire.

“I’ll say a mouthful presently,” she replied as she reached up to pull his hand and scarf away from his cheek. The action disclosed a rather ugly cut from which blood was oozing. “Oh, that’s dreadful, Cal. So close to your eye! Let me bathe and bandage it for you.”

She flew into the house with more of excited concern than Mary had ever seen in her before.

“Cal, have you been fighting again?” queried Mary, gravely.

“You ought to see the other fellow,” laughed Cal, grimly.

“Who?”

“Never mind, teacher. But I didn’t get licked.”

Before Mary could question Cal further, Georgiana returned with her hands full of things, most noticeably a basin of water and a towel. Carefully they then bathed Cal’s wound, which turned out to be a painful but superficial one, and endeavored to bandage it. But Cal objected to being half blindfolded, so they managed to dress it with cotton and adhesive tape. Whereupon Georgiana drew back and surveyed him with proprietary interest.

“Cal, did you lick him?” she asked, very curiously.

“Reckon it was fifty-fifty this time,” returned Cal, grimly.

“Who?”

“What’s that to you, Georgiana?” asked Cal.

“I know. I can read your mind, Cal Thurman.”

“Well, if you can, you sure look surprisin’ cheerful an’ sweet,” he said, with sarcasm.

That reply, or something Mary was not able to guess, rather took the pertness out of Miss Georgiana. She seemed at a loss for words. Then suddenly she had one of her bewildering changes and this time she became appealing.

“Cal, come in and see the wonderful lunch I got — all by myself. There’s plenty for you, too. — Won’t you — just to please me? See how I really can do some useful work! . . . Oh, wash those bloody, dirty hands — and let me brush you off. Looks as if you rolled in the road.”

Presently she got him indoors and to the table, where Mary joined them. Georgiana did the serving, but she had grown quiet. Mary felt the need of easing this situation and she talked. Cal lost his sullenness and the air of grim satisfaction he had worn and slowly responded to Georgiana’s charm. Mary imagined it a sort of burned-child-dreading-the-fire process Cal was going through. And indeed he kept dignity enough to make Mary certain that he was not a fool, however great his subjugation. It was her opinion that Georgiana did not make the progress of which she had boasted, and presently she divined that Georgiana saw she knew it. This apparently was gall and wormwood to the young lady. The arrival of some of the Thurmans broke up an amusing and rather embarrassing situation for Mary.

Later Cal, manifestly having watched for an opportunity, approached the teacher when she was walking alone in the yard.

“Come out with me a little — away from everybody,” he begged.

“Why, surely, Cal — but won’t Georgie be jealous?”

“Don’t, for God’s sake, tease me now. You’re the only friend I have, except Tuck, an’ I can’t tell him everythin’.”

Mary felt the boy’s agitation and kept silent and avoided looking at him. They walked up the dusty road to where it curved round a knoll and passed a wide, gravelly, shallow canyon that opened into the valley. This was an attractive place, a kind of shady lane, clean and fragrant, leading up into the foothills. The walnut trees were coloring yellow, making a golden shade under the branches. Big white checkered juniper trees with green piny foliage and purple berries spread long rugged limbs, and live-oak trees added their thick clumps of brush to the canopy of shade. Sunset was not far away, and its golden shafts pierced down through the leaves.

“Teacher, are you on my side?” asked Cal, at last.

“You mean in your — your trouble with Georgie?”

“Yes. I never spoke out to you before,” he went on, breathing hard. “I wanted to wait. I thought I would get over it.... But I grew worse. An’ today I fought a fellow who — who said somethin’ about Georgie.”

“Yes?” queried Miss Stockwell, quietly, turning to look at Cal. He was pale, earnest, somber.

“I — I can’t tell you what he said,” hurriedly went on Cal. “That doesn’t matter. Only it — I couldn’t stand it.”

“Cal, aren’t you taking Georgie too seriously?”

“Reckon I am. But I can’t help that. I don’t know what’s happened to me, but it has happened.... Will you be on my side, teacher?”

“Indeed I will, Cal,” she replied, feelingly, with a hand going to his shoulder.

“Thanks. That’ll help a lot,” he said, huskily.

“What do you want of me?”

“Lord! I don’t know. Reckon just to feel you understand — so I can talk to you. I’m afraid to have you tell Georgie that — that the way she does — with the boys — is goin’ to raise hell here in the Tonto. I’m afraid. She’s so darn clever. She’ll know I’ve been talkin’ to you.”

“Cal, I gave her that very talk today,” returned Miss Stockwell, earnestly. “And I told her straight out that she could not go on with her flirting.”

“Flirting.... You said that word once before.... An’ what did she say?”

“She laughed in my face, made light of my accusation, and simply could not see anything dangerous in you Tonto boys.”

“She calls us boobs,” he rejoined. “She said if there were hay in the Tonto we’d be hayseeds.”

“Oh! — Cal, I’m just as helpless as you are,” cried the teacher. “I’m worse off. I have to take care of her. I have to stand it. I have to go on praying and hoping. She’s — she’s a little devil. But she’s my sister, and, Cal, I love her.... You can turn your back on her any day. I’d not blame you if you did.”

“Can I, though? I’ve done it, but no use. That’s the wrong way.... Tell me, teacher, tell me the right way with Georgie.”

“Cal, I don’t know — unless you go back on her. That’s what fetches most girls.”

“Reckon it’d never fetch Georgiana May. Besides, I can’t go back on her. I can bluff it, but she knows. It doesn’t work. Then that makes her worse.... Honest, teacher, these three weeks have been three years to me.”

“Cal, have you made up your mind that you must go on trying to make Georgie like you?”

“Teacher, she does like me,” he replied, quickly. “I know. That’s the hell of it. I feel somethin’ I can’t explain.”

“Well, must you go on trying to make her like you more?”

“Reckon that’s just about where I am now.”

“Well, then, you’ve made a decision,” responded the teacher. “Live up to it. Do your best. I fear Georgie isn’t worth it. I’m afraid you’re in for bitter disappointment. But if you must go on, why, do it with all your heart. You’re in earnest, Cal, which is more than any of these other fellows are. Don’t be ashamed of that. Don’t mind their tormenting — the tricks and jokes. Faint heart never won fair lady.”

He had listened ponderingly, with bent head, and his strong brown fingers breaking a twig he held. When she ceased he looked up, and the trouble left his dark eyes in a smile.

“My mind was workin’ it out a little that way,” he said. “Today I persuaded father to let me homestead the Rock Spring Mesa.”

“Cal — you don’t mean it!”

“Reckon I do. An’ tomorrow, maybe tonight — if these boobs give me a chance — I’ll tell Georgiana. Wonder what she will say.”

“She will laugh, of course, and make all kinds of fun of you. But I shouldn’t let it bother me.”

“Teacher, nothin’ is goin’ to bother me after this but the one thing I’m afraid of.”

“And what’s that?” demanded Miss Stockwell, suddenly tense.

Again he lowered his dark head, and this time crushed the twig in a sudden powerful clasp.

“If Georgie keeps up her — her flirtin’ — as you called it — there’s goin’ to be hell. We don’t savvy that. There are girls here who make eyes an’ hold hands an’ kiss — that sort of fun, you know. It’s natural, I reckon, an’ it often leads to courtin’. But that’s not what Georgie does. She called that ‘kindergarten stuff’.”

Miss Stockwell had no reply for this. She was striving to be ready for anything.

“Teacher, I looked in the dictionary to see what flirtin’ meant,” went on Cal, deadly earnest. “It said ‘triflin’ at love!’ . . . That says a lot an’ it comes somewhere near Georgie’s way. But it doesn’t hit it square. Reckon it’s beyond me yet. But I know this sure — if she keeps it up there’ll be blood spilled.”

“Oh, Cal — dear wild boy — what are you saying?” implored Miss Stockwell. It was sorrow rather than shock that actuated her. In fact she was not shocked.

“I’m sayin’ a lot, I know,” he concluded, “an’ I feel better for it. If I only dared tell Enoch! . . . Let’s go back now, teacher. I’m thankin’ you for your promise to be on my side.”

CHAPTER VII

CAL TOOK THE lecture from Tuck Merry with meekness. He realized he had been too ambitious and had relied too soon upon the dearly earned experience Tuck was daily giving him.

“Buddy, you would have licked that guy all to pieces if you hadn’t lost your temper and forgot,” Merry said. “Soon as he poked you one on the beak and hurt you why, you blew up. At that, you gave him as good as he gave you. But I was not satisfied. You forgot the hooks I’ve been trying to teach you. It doesn’t make any difference how hard anyone hits you or where — you just take it and smile.”

“Aw, Tuck, that’s impossible,” burst out Cal. “How can you smile when you’re hurt awful? Why, whenever you give me what you call the ‘nose jab’ or the ‘tooth rattler’ or the ‘belly zam’ I’m ready to scream an’ commit murder.”

“Buddy, I don’t care how it hurts — you’ve got to hide it,” went on Tuck. “Whenever a guy sees or thinks he can’t hurt you then he’s licked. But you’re doing fair and I’ll back you presently against any of these boys. You’ve got some punch, believe me, and soon as you learn to place it where you want, and get your footwork better, you’ll lick the stuffings out of Tim or Wess.”

“Tuck, it’ll only be fun to lick them,” said Cal, with a grim laugh. “But I might as well tell you I’m layin’ for Bid Hatfield.”

“Buddy, I had you figured,” returned Tuck, seriously. “That guy has twenty pounds of weight on you, which is too much handicap when the other fellow can scrap. He’s older, too. Hatfield strikes me as being a bad customer in a rough and tumble. You see, he’d never stand up and fight. And I’m doubtful about your holding him off. Better let me spoil his handsome mug.”

“Tuck, I’m goin’ to try, just the moment you let me,” returned Cal. “I never see him but he sneers or says somethin’. An’ then if I can’t do it, you’ll have to.”

“I’m a-rarin’ to go, as Wess says,” replied Tuck. “Here I’ve been for over three weeks with a million chances to take a smack at one of these Arizona riders. My natural good disposition is apt to sour presently if you don’t tip me the wink.”

They had been out at their secret coverts in the brush where they kept the boxing-gloves and sand-bag and where they repaired every day or so for Cal’s instructions. From the very first Tuck had been pleased with the way Cal could thump the swinging heavy sack of sand. But his pupil took rather slowly to the feints and dodges and tricks of boxing. Cal wanted to wade right in and swing wildly, and when he did this, Tuck would halt him with some swift and painful blows.

They parted at the gate of the orchard, Tuck wending his way down the lane toward the sawmill, while Cal thoughtfully proceeded on to the pasture to get one of his horses. All the horses except his had been driven to the corrals, and it so happened that the first one he could catch was his pinto Blazes. Of late he had taken more of a liking to this rather wild little bronco, for the reason, no doubt, that Georgiana May Stockwell had preferred Blazes to any other of the Thurman stock. Blazes was really too spirited and dangerous for any girl new to the ranges. This fact, however, had made Georgiana all the more determined to ride him. She had tried twice. The first time she had succeeded so well that she was elated, but the second time Blazes had bucked her off. Cal had vowed he would not let her try again, and, strangely, this was not so much because he feared she would be hurt, as because he got an amazing degree of satisfaction out of the fact that she had taken to coaxing him. More than that, Blazes had suddenly leaped into peculiar favor with the boys. Before Georgiana’s advent he could not have sold Blazes or traded him for the meanest mustang on the ranch. As it was now, Cal was always receiving flattering offers for Blazes.

Upon approaching the high corral fence, he was amazed and somewhat disconcerted to espy Georgiana astride the top-most pole. She wore her riding-suit and an old sombrero and a red scarf around her neck. One glance at her made him aware that she was waylaying him. His heart quickened, and then it sank. For three days, ever since he had come home with the cut on his face and she had bathed it, she had been bewilderingly nice and friendly and sweet. This demeanor had roused him to meet her with apparent indifference and aloofness, but he was not true to his real feelings, and he was afraid she would discover it.

“Howdy, Cal,” she drawled. “I reckon you shore read my mind this mawnin’.”

“That so? Well, I did it without thinkin’,” he replied, and he halted before her. To save his life he could not have passed by her, perched upon the fence, a picture that at once thrilled him and gave him a pang. Not only did she appear in one of her sweetest moods, but she had more than usually a scarcely hidden eagerness. She wanted more than to have fun with him.

“Cal, you’re a peach to fetch Blazes for me to ride,” she said, with a dazzling smile.

“But I haven’t done anythin’ of the kind,” he rejoined, bluntly.

“Aren’t you going to Tonto Canyon?” she asked.

“Who told you?”

“Your dad. He told me he was sending you to see if there were any cattle ranging the ridges on this side. He knew I was crazy to see the Tonto and he said I could go.”

“Oh, he did! Well, I reckon that doesn’t make any difference to me,” replied Cal, eying her coolly. The prospect of taking her on the long hard ride to the Tonto was indeed an alluring one. It startled him with its subtle charm. But he feared it. Yet he could only weakly resist it, and knew he would never do it in the end.

“Cal, please take me,” she begged.

“No, I won’t,” he replied, turning away from those blue eyes. Whenever she pleaded so, he felt that he ought to do anything for her, and that he wanted to more than all else in the world. But he had a bitter distrust of the soft blue warmth of her gaze. No such glance had been only for him!

“Oh, Cal, why not?”

“It’s a long hard ride, an’ not for a tenderfoot.”

“But I’ll always be a tenderfoot if you don’t roughen me up,” she protested.

Cal was not deaf to the subtle content of this speech, and he had a miserable consciousness that, whether it was true or not, it possessed some strange power to hold him.

“Georgiana, can’t you be on the level?” he asked, plaintively.

“Why, Cal, I am on the level.”

“You only want to ride Blazes. If it weren’t for that, you’d have some of the other boys take you to the Tonto — an’ make a rider out of you.”

“Cal, I’d rather ride with you or go anywhere if — if you’d only — —”

“What?” he interrupted, swiftly, turning to look at her again.

“Well, be on the level, as you asked — if you’d just be a good pal and cut the mush.”

“You mean — stop makin’ love to you?” he queried, stiffly.

She nodded, and her manner struck Cal as being wistful. But she had as many moods as the winds.

“I have stopped,” he declared.

“Yes — you’ve stopped that and everything. You don’t see I’m on earth. It’s all or nothing with you, Cal Thurman.”

“Aw! I guess you hit it then,” sighed Cal, with deep breath.

“Cal, give me a chance to learn to like you, can’t you?” she retorted, with swift change. “Why, I’ve never been rushed that way before! You’re too deadly in earnest.... I want to have some fun.”

This was one of the frequent instances when Georgiana bewildered him with what seemed a natural and sweet wholesomeness. She was practical, and, after all, she was only a child. Cal felt locked in the grip of his trouble, and he could not be reasonable. He sensed what the immediate future had in store.

“If you don’t like me now you never will,” returned Cal, with resignation. “An’ I guess you never will.”

“I do. I just said ‘like’ because I didn’t want to use the — the other word.”

Cal realized he was lost, yet he had the impulse to pretend one moment more. Without another word or look he started again to lead Blazes into the corral.

“Do you want me to hate you?” she shot at him, hotly.

“Yes — if you can’t do the other,” he retorted.

When he got inside the corral gate there she was confronting him, and it seemed that the brown of her comely face had slightly paled.

“Cal, you know Tim will be crazy to take me,” she said.

“Sure I know that.”

“Well, I’ll ask him unless you take me. And I’ve never deliberately asked anything of him or the boys — except you. I’d rather go with you.”

“Georgie!” he exclaimed, helplessly. “If I could only believe you!”

“I’ll prove it. Ride Blazes yourself, and give me the scraggiest cayuse in the outfit.”

Cal could hold out no longer. That last speech, coupled with the fact that Tim was sauntering over, leading a saddled mustang, proved his undoing.

“You win, Georgie, an’ I’ll let you ride Blazes,” he said, throwing the halter to her, and he made off toward the shed to fetch a saddle.

“Mawnin’, Cal. Looks like you got first prize at a rodeo,” drawled Tim, maliciously.

“Howdy, Tim,” was Cal’s short reply. Then he heard Tim address the girl:

“Mawnin’, Miss Georgie. Shore am tickled thet you’re ridin’ with me today.”

“Guess again, Tim,” was Georgiana’s arch reply.

Wind was all Cal could hear, but when he got to the saddle-rack and turned to look, he saw Tim leaning close to Georgiana, evidently unable to see when he was refused.

Cal picked out his lighter saddle and, carrying it back to Blazes, he swung it in place and tightened the cinches.

“Wal, I’m shore glad I’m ridin’ down Tonto way this mawnin’,” Tim was saying.

“You’re ridin’ Mescal Ridge,” spoke up Cal. “That’s where father said you were to go. An’ if you come belly-achin’ along with me, I’ll tell him.”

Tim swung round sharply. “See heah, boy, do you want the other side of yore face mussed up? Thet there word you used is offensive to me.”

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Cal, tartly.

Tim looked belligerent then, and there might have been trouble had not Georgiana come laughingly between them. “You fellows make me tired. Some day I’ll call your bluffs and make you fight.”

“Wal, Miss Georgie, when you do there’ll be only two blows struck — one where I slam Cal an’ the other when he hits the ground.... Shore I hope you have a nice ride, but I’m gamblin’ Blazes will spill you today. He looks mean an’ he shore hates the brush.” With that parting shot and an elaborate doffing of his sombrero, Tim turned away.

“Cal, was Tim just kidding me?” queried Georgiana, dubiously.

“Reckon he was. Blazes seems in fine temper today. Now you coax him an’ feed him some sugar, an’ lead him out into the grass before you mount. Then if he bucks you off you’ll light soft. I’ll go get my horse.”

Cal had to go to the farther end of the pasture, and while he was on his way Pan Handle Ames yelled from the corral: “Hey, thar! Air you workin’ today or takin’ out company?”

“You better rustle for Bear Flat,” called Cal, in reply. “An’ I’m advisin’ you to steer round the sawmill so father won’t see how late you are.”

Before Cal caught his other horse, Georgiana came loping down on Blazes and helped corner the bay. She was radiant with joy. The pinto appeared unusually amenable and pranced around with her. Georgiana looked well on a horse and she was learning to ride.

“Georgie, run the edge off him,” said Cal. “Lope up to the end of the pasture, then cut loose an’ make him run back.”

“Oh, Cal! Really? You mean it?” she flashed.

“Sure I mean it. But remember all I told you an’ hang on.”

As she wheeled with a little cry of excitement and delight to urge the willing pinto to a lope, Cal watched her critically. Indeed she was improving. She kept her seat in the saddle very well. Upon reaching the fence, she turned back and let Blazes go. Cal was now unable to watch her critically. He could only gaze with a strange pleasure the sight of her gave him. Blazes could run, and at this gait was easy to ride. Georgiana’s golden curls shone bright in the wind. As she neared Cal he saw her face as never before, and something warm and splendid swept over him. He had found a way to make her happy. Blazes came tearing down on a dead-level run, and Cal saw it was the fence more than the girl that stopped him.

“Oh — that was — grand,” trilled Georgiana, glowing and disheveled. “Why didn’t you — ever let me — race him before?”

“You’re learnin’ to ride, Georgie,” he replied, stirred by her gladness. “You’ve improved a lot since you rode with me last.”

“Am I? Gee! I hope you mean it. I’ve tried hard enough, goodness knows. But none of the boys have horses like Blazes. I feel easier on him.”

“Blazes sure has an easy gait,” replied Cal. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he had decided to make her a present of the pinto, but as he had suffered before from impulsiveness, he thought it best to consider the matter longer. “It’ll be a tough day on you, Georgie, an’ you’ll need to take some lunch.”

“I put some up — myself — enough for both of us,” she said.

“Ahuh! You did? Made sure you were goin’?” he queried.

“Of course I knew you’d take me. You’ve never refused me anything, even when I was meanest.”

“Don’t bank too much on that,” he said, soberly. “Well, you ride down to the lower pasture gate, an’ I’ll catch up with you. Give Blazes a drink — An’ say, where’d you leave that lunch?”

“It’s hanging on the corral gate,” she replied. “Don’t forget it.”

Cal strode away, leading his horse toward the barn, and while he walked he watched the girl trot Blazes down the green pasture. What a difference she made in the familiar old home scene! Her golden hair flying, the red scarf flying, and the trim, graceful girlish figure in action — somehow they swelled his heart. She meant so much. All his life had changed since the coming of this Eastern girl.

Cal located the khaki bag containing the lunch, and as he lifted it off the fence he smiled to feel its weight. What a sly little minx she was! She knew from past experience what a wonderful treat it was for a rider to have a share of such lunch out in the open. Saddling up, he mounted and rode by Wess and Arizona with only a casual nod.

“Hey! Think you’re some punkins, don’t you?” called Arizona, jealously.

“Cal, kiss her for me,” added Wess, in good-natured maliciousness.

It was such remarks as this last that Cal found hard to endure. His cousins and comrade riders did not mean anything vicious, and any one of them would have been quick to resent an insult to Georgiana. But the implication somehow roused Cal’s sensitive jealousy. It somehow cast a slur upon the girl — gave her a shallow and light character that hurt him. But was this not justified? The growing conviction began to be torture. Cal bit his tongue to hold back a reply to Wess, and riding out of the corral into the pasture, he took to the trail along the fence and soon reached the lower gate where Georgiana was waiting for him.

“Let’s go,” she cried, gayly.

“Can you trust the lunch with me?” he inquired as he bent to open the gate.

“Cal, I’d trust you with anything,” she said.

“Even yourself?”

“Well, that’s a hard one,” she replied. “Sometimes you are a cross, jealous, mean boy — and dangerous, too. Not that I’m afraid of you! . . . But I guess if I ever wanted to trust myself to anybody I’d pick you.”

“Ahuh! — I’ve a hunch that’s more of a slam than a compliment.”

“Calvin Thurman, you don’t have any idea what a great compliment that is — coming from me.”

“I’m growin’ wise, Georgiana.... Well, it’s ride some now. This is a bad trail. Follow me, but not too close, an’ do what I do. If Blazes slips on the rocks, jerk your feet out of the stirrups quick. An’ if he falls, throw yourself off away from him.”

“Oh, is that all?” queried Georgiana, with a laugh utterly devoid of concern.

Cal had seen Western girls used to horses ride down this rocky ravine and do it with a full appreciation of the bad places. He hoped Georgiana would have good fortune, but he was somewhat worried. There was no telling what a horse might do in unexpected situations. There was hardly any sense in spoiling the girl’s pleasure by suggesting things that might not happen. Blazes was a sure-footed pony, not easily frightened or given to shying, and considering that he was carrying a light rider and one who would not spur or hurt him, he was to be trusted. Then Cal had another argument in his resignation — a feeling he tried to discountenance, and it was that if Georgiana was destined to have an accident, which seemed inevitable, he wanted it to happen while she was with him.

The trail led down into the foothills, along the steep side of a gully that was brushy and rocky. Live-oak brush and manzanita lined the trail and in many places crowded over it. Swinging head and shoulders to avoid being threshed was second nature to Cal. It pleased him to observe that Georgiana was quick to imitate his movements. This was the first time she had started on a really wild rough ride, and she looked her excitement and daring. Cal wondered if he really could frighten her or shock her, and he wanted to do it. That, however, like other things, had better be left for the future.

Presently the gully opened wide and the trail led down the rocky bed of a brook. The horses drank and then splashed on, cracking slippery stones, and sliding on others. There were banks of sand and gravel, and dark green pools under shelving banks where trout floated motionless. The foothills grew in size until the one farthest in sight assumed the proportions of a mountain, with an immense green slant upward and outcroppings of gray rock and ledges of red, and here and there yellow crags.

Around a turn of the gorge the riders came upon a sycamore grove, green and gold and white, and when they entered it the shade appeared like a thick transparent amber light. Frost had already touched this secluded grove, and the sand was strewn with golden leaves. Once Cal turned to Georgiana, intending to ask her if she did not like this place. But the question would have been superfluous. To the girl’s excitement had been added something of intense and dreamy appreciation. Cal had longed to have her love his country, and now there seemed some hope of it. He did not break the spell until he espied a flock of wild turkeys crossing a ridge ahead.

“What! Wild turkeys? Why, they’re tame,” she cried.

“Sure they’re tame, but they’re wild, all right,” he laughed.

“Like we had for dinner that Sunday?”

“Ahuh. An’ I noticed you ate some.”

“Umm-m! I sure fell for wild turkey, Cal.... Oh, there’s a gobbler! How perfectly enormous!”

“He’s not a big one. Wait till I show you some of the whoppers up on the Rim.”

“Cal, I’m a-waitin’ very patiently for you to do a lot of things you promised. You’re making good today, but when do I go turkey-hunting with you?”

“After the fall round-up. We’ll be ridin’ a lot until then. You see, it’s rough country an’ takes hard work to find the cattle.”

“You promise to take me?” she persisted.

“Yes — if you promise not to go huntin’ with any of the other boys,” he replied, hesitatingly.

“Cal, I don’t need to promise that.”

He pondered over this reply. Like many of her speeches, it was open to question, yet he could not help taking this one personally. Georgiana had a trick of making him feel that he was the exceptional one. This was a sweet balm to his wounded feelings. But it held a bitter drop. Others of the Tonto boys had remarked about this peculiar trait of Georgiana’s in their own interest. Suddenly Cal turned to ask:

“Georgie, have you ever ridden off the road with any of the boys?”

“No. Mary laid down the law and said I could not go with any boy but you. Aren’t you flattered?”

“Would you disobey her?” asked Cal, bluntly.

“Not in that. I hate to be bossed, Cal, but I know where to draw the line.”

Cal did not voice another query that stirred him just then. This girl seemed most contradictory and amazing. Today she seemed to be wholly good to Cal. Presently the trail took a sharp turn between two sycamores so close together that a rider had to be quick and skillful to save his knees. Georgiana slipped her left knee back out of danger, but she was not quick enough with her right and struck it hard. Cal heard the thump.

“Oh — damn!” cried Georgiana. “Oh-h! I hit my knee!”

Cal did not need to be told, nor did he need to see the sudden wrinkling of her smooth happy face, or the starting tears. That sound of her knee in contact with the tree had been enough. Any rider knew that sound. Like any other rider, too, he had to laugh.

“Georgie, I told you to look out when you had to go between trees.”

“You’re laughing!” she exclaimed, in surprise. “Cal Thurman, you’re a brute sometimes. I just feel it.... To laugh! I tell you that hurt like — like — —”

“You bet it hurt,” interrupted Cal. “That’s why I laughed. Besides, it sort of tickled me to find out you are human.”

“It knocked the skin off, I’ll bet,” said Georgiana, ruefully rubbing her knee. At the same time she was regarding Cal with great disfavor, and he gathered that he would have to pay for his mirth.

“Do you want to go back?” he asked, banteringly.

“I’d go on if my knee was broken,” she retorted. “But I’ll say that if you were a good sport you’d’ve gotten a pair of chaps to wear.”

“Georgie, I thought of that very thing,” he returned, eagerly. “There’s a pair at Ryson that’d fit you if you cut them off at the bottom. This brush will tear you to pieces.... Would you wear the chaps — if I gave them to you?”

“Would I? After that knock on the knee? — Lead me to them!”

“I’ll phone down for them tonight.”

No matter what he said or did, or what she said or did, Cal felt that he always wound up at the same disturbing place — a troubled gladness at being near her.

“Thanks, Cal. That’ll help some,” she replied.

Below the sycamore grove the trail split, the right branch continuing down the gully and the left sheering up into the brush-covered foothills above which towered the vast green cliff-dotted slope.

Cal had ridden this cattle trail since he was a mere boy just able to climb astride a horse. He knew every foot of it, and many a time he had descended it in the pitchy darkness of night. Like all the trails and one other distinctive feature of his boyhood home, it was something that now seemed strangely dear to him. It had been a part of his life. Riding the ranges was his chief occupation. And he was sorely puzzled now at the realization of how strangely and deeply he wanted this Eastern girl to share something of his feeling for this wild steep trail. Why? Though he asked himself that question, he could not answer it to his satisfaction. Sentimental nonsense, no doubt, because this girl had upset his wits! But he found that this trail was one of the tests by which he meant to judge her.

Cal led the way up the first low, sandy, brushy foothill, and wound down the other side between the walls of grasping live oak, and up a steeper slope to the next hill that was really a step up the mountain. From its summit the whole vast bulk beyond loomed prodigiously. High up, the red cliffs cropped out of the green brush.

“Good night! Do you expect me to climb that?” queried Georgiana, aghast.

“Sure. Why, this’s nothin’ much, Georgie — compared to the Rim or Diamond Butte.”

“If I make good here, will you take me to climb those places?” she asked, with eyes dark and flashing on his.

“Ahuh,” replied Cal, and his short affirmative in no way attested to his thrills.

“I’ll do it or die.”

So Cal led on with these last words ringing in his ears. This girl had feeling. She would come to love the Tonto. He felt what he could not analyze. From the Bench the trail slanted up into the brush and disappeared. Cal’s horse crashed into the thick scrub oak and broke through, while Cal bent low over the saddle. Looking back, he could not see Georgiana, but he heard her horse. When he reached the turn where the trail took its first zigzag, he saw her emerge from the thicket, sombrero awry, her blouse covered with leaves and bits of brush, and her face rosily radiant. Her eyes met his glance, and he saw she was now unconscious of herself. She was reveling in this new experience. He rode on then, and never before had the dry fragrance of the brush been so sweet or the dust of the trail so endurable, or the stings of the thorns somehow pleasurable. At every zigzag turn he halted his horse to let him catch his breath, and Georgiana would ride up the slant below him to do the same. She was out of breath, too. Her bosom heaved. And when she removed her sombrero he could see her hair damp on her brow. Then Cal reached a steeper ascent where the trail led up over rough granite. Here were many sharp white marks made by the iron-shod hoofs of horses. Cal bade her dismount and walk here, as he did. But once beyond this place, he mounted again, intending to ride the whole of the remaining ascent. There were places where he thrilled even in his fear for Georgiana, and dared not look back. He should not have let her ride up such treacherous steps and turns. But somehow he was stern and dogged about it. She never uttered a single cry, and there were times when she appeared to be in difficulties. Cal noticed that she had sense enough to let Blazes choose the way, and she confined herself to holding on, a matter not at all easy for a tenderfoot.

Long as was that slope, it seemed only too short to Cal. The last ascent was a lengthy one, and Cal’s horse, having warmed to the climb, surmounted it far in advance of Georgiana’s. When he turned to look down from the top, she was just emerging from a wall of green to enter upon that last straight piece of trail. She waved her gauntleted hand to him, and her call pealed upward. He watched her closely while she climbed the remaining distance, conscious that something tremendous was being decided for him. The moment seemed full, and the great slope of gray and green held only the bright moving figure of the girl.

At last she reached his level.

“Somewhat frazzled — but still in the — ring!” she panted out, joyously.

There were black brush-marks on her face and a bloody scratch on her chin. She had jammed the sombrero on backward, and from under its rim straggled locks of tangled golden hair. The top button of her blouse had been torn off, exposing the brown and white of her neck. The sleeves likewise had suffered sundry tears. Altogether, she appeared a considerably disheveled young lady. Then Cal looked again into her face — looked keenly this time. He saw a light there — or was it in her eyes? — And quickly he averted his gaze.

“You — sure did — well,” he said, awkwardly, in the grip of his feeling. “I’ll tell you now — that’s no trail for a tenderfoot girl.”

“Then I’ve graduated?” she queried.

“Well, hardly that, but you’ve advanced a grade — . . . Georgie, did you like that long hard ride?”

“Cal, you’ll never believe me,” she replied, with impulsive earnestness, “but I’ll say that’s my idea of a great time.”

Then, with a strange prophetic knocking at his heart, he bade her look down at the beautiful Green Valley Ranch, shining in the morning sunlight, at the blue smoke curling from the loghouse, at the apple orchards red with fruit, at the white winding road that led on past the old sawmill to disappear in the heavy timber beyond. He showed her the brown speck that was the school-house where her sister was teaching, and the glistening ribbon of water that was Tonto Creek, and lastly the billowy slopes of timber that led up to the noble Rim, standing up gold-barred and black-fringed, to face the sun. Then he waited for her expression of feeling, whatever that might be. But none was forthcoming. For once, Georgiana was not quick to express herself. The omission thrilled Cal far more than any exclamation.

Two hours of riding, much of it down rock-strewn trails, brought Cal and his riding comrade to the divide. Here began the long-sloping bare ridges and the shallow heads of canyons that, inclining endlessly down, grew more rugged and deeper and rockier, to break off suddenly into the black chasm of the Tonto.

“Oh, how barren and wild!” exclaimed Georgiana. “I expected it all green, because you said it was cattle country. There’s no grass — nothing level — all seems so terribly rough. — Surely we can’t ride down there. Can we?”

“You bet we can. Yes, it’s hard goin’, but cattle live in those canyons an’ there’s where we chase them, rope them, brand them.”

“No!”

“Sure is. I’ll tell you, Georgie, it’s really rougher than it looks, but it’s also better for cattle than it looks. There’s water in the canyons an’ those gray bare spots are grass. — Look. See that old white-faced bull standin’ down there lookin’ up at us. — An’ there’s three steers lower down in the brush. — Georgie, that’s what I’m ridin’ this ridge for — to get a line on where the cattle are. They’re stragglin’ all over an’ it takes a lot of lookin’ to locate them. An’ when it comes to roundin’ them up — well, it’s what you call ‘good night’!”

Georgiana gazed everywhere but the right place, and had to have the cattle pointed out to her. It pleased Cal to see she was interested.

“What do you know about that!” she exclaimed. “A few white dots — faces of cattle — in all that awful up-and-down country. It’s so different from what I imagined. I thought a cattle ranch a wonderful level green plain, dotted with cows and calves — and the rest of the cattle folks — and water and shady trees. Gee! it takes some guy to be a rider, doesn’t it?”

“Ahuh! If you mean a fellow not afraid of long hours, hard ridin’, bad cows an’ steers — —”

“Bad cows? Are there really such?”

“Georgie, the wild old cows with calves are sure bad. They will chase a rider off the map. I’ve seen many a spill, an’ some gored horses, sorry to say.”

The girl became thoughtful, and swept her gaze from the first shallow depths of the canyon, where the cattle were grazing, to the far-distant, dark depths of the Tonto, and beyond to the great domed black mass of Diamond Butte, and to the wonderful lines of ridges sloping endlessly away from it down out of sight into the basin. This scene always held Cal for a moment, and he had gazed at it in all kinds of weather and at all hours of the day. The wilderness and loneliness of it were only equaled by its tremendous ruggedness. Yet some of the sloping ridges seemed graceful of line, soft and gray, and really beautiful. But for the most part the stark ribs of the earth showed, with only a little verdure to relieve their nakedness. Rain fell seldom there — only a few rains a year, and sometimes none — and then the water tore down the rough slopes too swiftly to freshen the soil. Mostly it sloughed away the earth. Everywhere were meandering gullies worn in the slopes, showing the yellow earth and red rock, and these deepened and widened as they ran down into the canyons. The sun was bright and glaring, the sky blue without a cloud. The cool air bore a tang of the desert. Indeed, it was a vast area dominated by the sun. In all the bare spots showed the many-spiked gray-green cactus, the mescal plant typical of dry sun-baked waste places.

“If I were a man, I’d love such a life,” mused Georgiana.

That remark was so compelling that Cal again had to fight to hold back the news of his intention to give the pinto Blazes to her. What would she say and do? Cal was about afraid to think. But prospect of the giving had become doubly sweet, and presently he would blurt it out.

“Well, Georgiana, I have work to do,” said Cal, finally. “The three canyons to look over, an’ that’ll take ridin’. But when I leave the trail to ride off a little ways here an’ there you can stop to rest.”

“Let me ride everywhere with you,” she said.

“Nope. You’ll get enough before the day’s over. Besides, there’ll be places where you can’t follow me. Come on now.”

“Say, Cal — don’t forget that swell lunch I put up,” she returned.

“Ahuh! I thought you’d remind me of that. But it’s hours before we can eat.”

“Hours? . . . Look here, boy, I can’t live on scenery.”

“Georgie, the longer we save that lunch, the better we’ll enjoy it.”

“I suppose you think I can live on love,” she pouted.

“No, Georgiana. I’ve had wild dreams about you, but never any as wild as that,” he replied, with a steady look at her.

“Ahuh!” she retorted, imitating him again. “All the same, my wise friend, I could live on it if I wanted to.”

Cal rode on, certain that the day would be lost, and perhaps something of its charm, if he continued to bandy words with Georgiana. So calling for her to follow, he trotted his horse down the trail. At a point below, where the depression of the ridge formed what riders called a saddle, he turned off to the left and surveyed the ocean, dusty patches of ground until he found a well-defined cattle trail leading down over the ridge into the next canyon. Cattle tracks showed pointing in each direction, and the fresher ones were headed away from him. To his keen eyes, this was an indication that cattle from the canyon to his left were watering in the canyon on his right. That was all he needed to learn about this immediate locality. He rode on then with eyes searching the slopes for the white and red of the Thurman cattle. These were few and far between, and after a mile of riding he knew the scarcity of cattle sign meant that grass was scant this season on these mescal ridges. The blades of the soapweed had been nipped, and likewise the low scrubby oak brush. His cattle browsed on leaves when they could not find grass.

Riding to and fro across this slowly descending league-long ridge, he used up all of the rest of the morning hours and some besides, and frequently he had to leave Georgiana alone for longer than he liked. But he did not shirk the task given him.

“Believe me, Cal, you’re the first fellow who ever took me out and left me to entertain myself,” complained the girl.

“Georgie, you came with me,” he protested. “I’ve got to do my work.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter — only I imagined you were crazy about me,” she said, indifferently.

Cal could only stare, not uncertain how to take her, but far from knowing what to do. As often before, his silence worked better than any words.

“I was only kidding you,” she continued, with a gay laugh. “Honest, Cal, I’m having a dandy time. I’m glad to be left alone a bit. It’s new. Maybe I’ll dig up a sensible thought. But I’m most starved.”

“Just a little longer. We’ll ride down to the jump off.”

He led on then, down a steep slope littered with loose rocks where the horses found hard going, down through mescal and oak, and over patches of bleached grass, to the wall of the Tonto. The tremendous gorge yawned a thousand feet, its near slope a succession of benches of broken cliff and splintered crag with niches choked with cedar and piñon, and the opposite one a sheer red wall, like bronze, unscalable and beetling. Far below murmured Tonto Creek, a green-and-white stream of water, winding through its iron confines. North and south ran this precipitous gorge, a V-shaped vent in the earth’s granite crust, dark and gloomy on the shaded side, bright and stark on the other. In both directions it soon turned into the bold bulk of what appeared the mountain mass. There was no sound save the low roar of the running water. Not a sign of life! Wild and desolate, the place seemed haunting.

“If I ever want to jump over the top into no man’s land, lead me here!” ejaculated Georgiana. And that was all the tribute she paid the Tonto.

Cal’s observant eye noted that she did not dismount without a little sign of lameness. He tied the horses and then, possessing himself of the lunch-bag, he led Georgiana to a flat rock where a low piñon made shade, and the drop was sheer.

That half hour, during which they dispatched the lunch to the last morsel, was the pleasantest and happiest he had ever spent with Georgiana. She was just nice — not teasing, not provocative, not lofty, or strange or haughty, not coquettish, not anything but a hungry, wholesome girl, unconsciously glad to be alive, to be there in this wonderful place. He hated by word or action to dispel the charm. Still, maybe when he told her of the gift of the pinto she would only be all the nicer. Instinctively, however, he feared she would precipitate catastrophe. Therefore, he vacillated between his honest desire to give pleasure and his vague premonition of results.

“Cal, you’re growing thoughtful,” observed Georgiana.

“Ahuh! — Would you like to know my thoughts?”

She gave him a comprehensive little glance, and then shook her head dubiously.

“I reckon not — if they are the same as your looks.”

“Georgie, I’m goin’ to homestead the Rock Spring Mesa,” he declared, bluntly, without regard for her wishes.

“You told me that once before,” she said. “But you didn’t explain what it meant.... Homestead. The word’s a new one on me, but it sounds nice.”

“Listen,” he began, earnestly. “In unsettled parts of the West the government encourages homesteaders. Now a homesteader picks out one hundred an’ sixty acres of likely ground that he can clear an’ cultivate. The better soil an’ water, of course, the better his chances to develop a good ranch. He builds a log cabin an’ a corral. The government requires him to do so much work on this place — so much improvement a year for three years. Then if he proves up, as they call it, he is granted a patent for the land an’ owns it. That entitles him to certain range rights. He can run so many cattle on an’ near his ranch.... An’ that’s what I’m goin’ to do.”

“You’ll be a regular pioneer,” replied Georgiana, dreamily. “I read something once — some book about a pioneer girl. Believe me, she sure had it coming to her.”

“What? Work, loneliness, struggle?”

“I’ll say so.... Cal, when you stay on your ‘homestead’ will you be by yourself?”

“I should smile. I’ll have to cook my own meals, do the washin’, chop wood, milk the cow, plow an’ sow an’ cut an’ haul.”

“Good night!” She regarded him with a new curious thoughtfulness, as if she were seeing another phase of him.

“Cal, don’t be offended, but you’re no country jake, no boob, as I call them. You’re a smart fellow and you could do well in the city. Why don’t you do that?”

“Long ago, Georgie, I had my temptations,” he replied, dreamily. “Many boys go to the cities, an’ none I ever knew did well. I love the open country — the lonely places. My people were all pioneers. It’s in me. An’ let me tell you, Georgie, the pioneer, the rancher, the farmer are in my eyes the real Americans. There would never have been any cities, or any business men, if the pioneers had not blazed the trails an’ opened up the wild country.”

“Cal, that’s big, serious talk — and somehow it makes me feel little, thoughtless, self-centered. Mary sometimes talks that way.... Oh, I was born at the wrong time for a girl. I’m no good.”

“Aw, Georgie, don’t talk silly,” he remonstrated.

“Cal, I’m what they call the twentieth-century girl, the modern flapper,” responded Georgiana, with sudden bitterness. “We’re a queer type, so I read. We won’t be bossed. We’re bound to have our own way. We defy all conventions. We’re going to do as men have always done. We’re going to be free.”

Pondering that for a long moment, Cal finally replied. “Georgie, I don’t understand what you mean, an’ I don’t want to argue with you about it. But I’ll say this. I know the things you mentioned are not the big things of life. If the girls of your kind are all thinkin’ that way, it’ll be bad for the future. Women are to make homes.”

“Listen to him!” exclaimed Georgiana. “Make homes? Yes — for the lords of creation — for men. Cal, that’s the same old talk, the same old bunk.”

“Bunk?” echoed Cal, suddenly stirred. “It’s nothin’ of the kind. Everybody has to have a home or — or else . . . Georgie, all the wild animals have dens, burrows, caves — homes. An’ they have mates. That’s all they live for. Now if you women — you new women — don’t intend to make homes for men, what’s to become of us?”

“You can search me, Cal,” she replied, with a gay laugh. “They’ll all have to ‘homestead,’ like you’re going to.”

Cal gazed silently down into the depths of the canyon. Her words jarred on him. They seemed flippant. They were somehow false. She did not know what she was talking about. He could not reason out the explanation for his convictions, but he felt their truth. How long had Tonto Canyon yawned there under the blue sky of day and the dark mantle of night? How many races of men had come and gone since this gorge had been made? Times changed, the peoples changed with them, but the fundamental relation of man and woman would never change.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” resumed Georgiana, presently. “Cal, maybe I’m not so rotten as I seem.”

“I think you’re all right,” replied Cal, soberly. “Well, if we want to get back to the ranch by sundown, we’d better be rustlin’.”

“Oh, it’s so nice here. Will you fetch me again?”

“Sure. Next week we round up the cattle here an’ drive them to the big pasture. That’ll be worth seein’. But you’ve got to be sensible an’ careful now, an’ do as you’re told. Some of these wild cattle are bad.”

“I promise. — And will you let me ride Blazes again?”

“Well — after today, I reckon you’ll not have to ask me that,” he said, with an air of mystery.

“Cal! Do you mean I’m no longer a tenderfoot?” she flashed, eagerly.

“No, I wasn’t thinkin’ of that.”

“What then? You’re so — so queer.”

“Reckon Blazes won’t be mine after today.”

“Oh, Cal — you wouldn’t sell Blazes or trade him to anybody! When I love him so!”

“I sure wouldn’t.”

“Say, boy, you’re talking riddles,” she protested, and she sat up, and got to her knees, and confronted him with earnest, shining doubtful eyes.

The moment was pregnant with both joy and pang for Cal. Something had been decided for him. And never had the Tonto so filled him with its peace and promise, or seemed so sad and lonely, and strong with its sense of ages.

“Georgie, after today Blazes will not belong to me,” he said, with eyes steady on hers.

“Why?” she queried, quick as a flash.

“Because — this mornin’ I gave him to you.”

Georgiana gazed at him blankly. It took a second for that wholly unexpected fact to penetrate. Her eyes opened very wide, her lips parted.

“Gave — him — to — me?” she echoed, breathlessly.

“I sure did. Blazes — with saddle, blanket, bridle — is yours.”

“Oh, Cal! — Mine?” she cried, rapturously.

“Sure is,” replied Cal, beginning to shake. Her face had changed as if by magic. If he had expected to see it joyous, his imagination had failed him. Smile, flash, light — these were ecstatic, and as he gazed spellbound by her loveliness, the golden rosy radiance paled to a singular degree.

“You darling!” she cried, and she bent swiftly to kiss him full on the lips.

Cal sustained a shock. For an instant all around him seemed to reel and his heart labored high in his breast. Presently the green canopy of the friendly piñon became as formerly, and the Tonto yawned beneath him, deep, lonely, wild, with its murmuring waters. And the everlasting rocks seemed to share something of life and eternity with him. Georgiana had flown to where the horses were tied, and Cal could now hear her laughing and crying out her joy of her precious possession. Then he heard her quick light footsteps returning. He got up and turned to face her.

“Cal, I’ll say you’re a regular fellow,” she said, with hand outstretched, and she came right up to him where he now leaned against the big branch of the piñon.

Cal took her in his arms. She did not draw back, rather leaned to him, with glad face uplifted and the little gloved hand going to his shoulder.

“Georgie — you shouldn’t — have kissed me,” he said, huskily.

“Why not? You sure deserved it. And I wanted to.... I’ll do it again if you think it wasn’t enough.”

“I didn’t want thanks,” he replied, unsteadily. “I just wanted to make you happy.”

“You succeeded, boy, and I’ll never forget this day.”

“But, Georgie — I — I love you,” he burst out.

“Well — all the more reason I should kiss you,” she declared.

“No. No . . . unless you love me.”

“Of course I love you, Cal — that is — I think — —”

Cal clasped her tight, lifting her slender form, and bent to her upturned, glowing face. A bewilderment of sudden joy overwhelmed him and his restraint went to the winds. He kissed her hair, her cheeks, and then her mouth. And realization of her response suddenly made him blind — strong — rough in the expression of his love. But he knew when she cried out in laughing protest and forcibly drew back from him. Still, she did not wholly slip out of his arms.

“Cal! — You don’t want a homestead. You want a cave. You’re some little caveman I’ll tell the world.”

“Georgie — forgive me — if I was — —”

“Cal, where did you ever learn to kiss like that?” she interrupted, with mock or arch jealousy. Her face was rosy, her sombrero had fallen off, her hair was disheveled. It took all Cal’s will power to refrain from enveloping her again. Probably he would have yielded to it but for her strange question.

“Why, Georgie . . . I didn’t learn — it’s only because I love you,” he protested.

“Now don’t you try to kid me, Cal Thurman,” she replied, shaking a finger in his face. “I’ve half a mind to think you a regular lady-killer of the Tonto. No fellow could come across with kisses like yours unless — —”

“Georgie, I swear to Heaven I never kissed but two girls — an’ that was long ago — when I was a mere boy.”

“I’m the only girl you ever loved?” she demanded, half in earnest, and yet half mockingly.

“Why, of course,” he said, simply.

“All right, I believe you,” she rejoined, after a long look into his eyes. “But it was a close shave.... Now I think we had better start home before you get gay on my hands again.”

“Wait, Georgie,” he returned, detaining her, “I — I haven’t said all — what I must ask.... Georgie, will you marry me?”

“Now you’re going to spoil it,” protested Georgiana, plaintively. “Couldn’t you be satisfied with all I’ve said and done?”

“Satisfied, yes. Wonderfully happy an’ grateful. But that only made it right an’ necessary for me to ask you again.... Georgie, I’m crazy about you an’ dead in earnest. Won’t you be engaged to me?”

“No, I won’t,” she replied, frankly. “Not now; maybe sometime.... Cal, I’m not sure of myself. Today I love you a little — and I did want to kiss you — I did like your kisses; but tomorrow I might feel differently.”

“You’ll break my heart,” he said, desperately.

“Hearts don’t break so easily.”

“Mine would,” he returned, eying her darkly.

“Cal, why won’t you cut the marriage stuff and just be my good pal? Let me have my way. You’ll have to, anyhow. But I do like you best. We can have such spiffy times.”

“Georgie, you want to hang on to me, an’ still have what you call spiffy times with the other boys, don’t you?”

Again her gay frank laughter trilled out. “Caught with the goods! Cal, you’re a wiz. — That’s just what I want.”

“Georgie, you’ll not have any trouble hangin’ on to me,” he said, bluntly. “But you’ll have a hell of a lot of trouble if your spiffy times with the other boys get as — as far — as what you did to me.”

“Oh, is that so?” she replied, haughtily. “If that isn’t just like a man! . . . Cal, when any one tries to boss me I always do the thing I’m forbidden.”

“Georgie, let’s not say any more,” he said, resignedly. “I didn’t mean I would give you trouble. You don’t savvy these Tonto fellows.... Let’s be rustlin’ back home. It’s nine miles, an’ uphill most of the way.”

Sunset caught Cal on the brow of the high slope that overhung Green Valley. The lights were beautiful, the gold on the bold-faced Rim and the purple of the wooded ridges and the rose on the crests of the foothills. Green Valley lay peaceful and lonely, set down in the wilderness of wild nature.

“Careful now, Georgie,” said he to the weary girl sagging in her saddle. “Hang on a little while longer. You can ride all the way down.”

He put his horse to the steep descent, and held him in so that the girl could keep close to him. And all the way down he had a watchful eye on her in the bad places. When they reached the ranch, twilight had mantled the valley. The bright lights from the windows of the house were cheering. The air was cold with a breath of frost in it. Somewhere a coyote was yelping wildly. There was no one in the corral. In the gloom Georgiana looked down upon Cal as he stepped to the side of her horse.

“The end of a perfect day,” she said, with a deep sigh. “Lift me off.”

Wearily, and with a low moan, she essayed to move out of her saddle, and almost sank a dead weight in his arms.

“Poor kid! I was afraid it’d be too much for you,” said Cal, solicitously, as he placed her on her feet. “I told you, Georgie. That was too much of a ride for a girl. But you made it, an’ I’m handin’ you a compliment even Tonto girls don’t often get.”

“Oh-h-h-h! I’m all broken bones and blisters,” she said, ruefully. “I’ll be a dead one tomorrow. But I wouldn’t have missed that ride for anything.... Cal, I owe you for the very happiest day of my whole life. — If you just hadn’t — —”

Without completing what she had intended to say, she turned away and slowly limped toward the house. Cal watched the slight form merge into the gloom. There was a pang in his breast. Yet the day had been for him what she had confessed it had been for her. Standing there with a hand on the hot flank of the horse he had given to Georgiana, he received a strange strengthening intimation of faith to go on and stand by his love and his hope.

CHAPTER VIII

SEPTEMBER GAVE WAY to October, and all the uplands of the Tonto augmented their autumn colors.

Down in the foothills the bright golds and reds were limited to isolated bits set like gems in the dark green of the brushland. Here and there a grove of walnut trees still held enough leaves to make a contrast; and down in the winding ravines, between the foothills where water ran, there were clumps of sycamores still holding their foliage, growing more colorful and beautiful as the October frosts advanced. On sunny southern slopes there were little patches of sumac, growing red, and some of the ledges of rock showed crimson and bronze vines. But in the low hills the prevailing hue of the season was the dark gray-green of mingled oak, juniper, cedar, and manzanita.

Toward the Rim, however, the long slopes ended in a glory of brilliance. The yellow crags and the zigzag path of the red belt of rock that characterized the long, irregular face of the Great Mesa were subdued and dulled by the more vivid colors of the foliage. The leagues of pine forests that sloped up to the Rim were invariably dark rich green until they reached the foot of this huge mountain wall. Here they ended, except in dark clefts of gorges and canyons that cut into the rock. Most compelling to the gaze were the clumps of maple trees under the ledges at the apex of canyons. Here was riot of color. Magenta and cerise and blood-scarlet vied with an exquisite purple for dominance of beauty. Lone trees of maple, full-foliaged, seemed more like live fire than colored leaves. Farther up the great slopes, where the notches of canyons were black with pine and spruce, began the gleam of gold of the aspens. They were as gold as the pure golden lightening in the west after sunset. Above this stood out the broken battlements of the Rim, crowned by the fringe of pine forest.

One evening at Green Valley when the cattle count was over, and the round-up not far off, Henry Thurman called his riders together.

“Boys, thet ‘air sorghum share ought to be cut,” he said. “It’ll only take a few days. Gard is sendin’ his boys down tomorrow. So you pack an outfit up to Boyd’s homestead an’ rustle thet job.”

“Suits us,” replied Wess. “Reckon it’ll take all of three days. — An’, Uncle Henry, after the round-up who’s drivin’ the cattle to Winslow?”

“Wal, reckon you’d better see Enoch aboot thet. You cain’t nary all go. Cal’s daid set on homesteadin’ Rock Spring, an’ some of us will hev to cut an’ haul logs.”

“Say, boy, what you-all rarin’ aboot?” drawled Wess, turning to Cal.

“I wasn’t in a hurry until I got a hunch Hatfield has an eye on Rock Spring Mesa.”

“Oho! He has. Who told you?”

“Father got it straight from Uncle Gard.”

The old pioneer nodded confirmation of this and told the boys how Hatfield had long known of Cal’s interest in Rock Spring, and that it would never do to let the Bar XX outfit get a wedge into their upland cattle range. Then in the serious discussion which followed, the fact came to light that there was evidence of the Thurmans losing cattle. Rustling on a large scale was a thing of the past, but the loss of unbranded calves had grown to be more than the mere mistakes natural to cattlemen of a wild range. Some one was deliberately driving Thurman calves from the cows, before they should have been separated, and was branding them.

“Serge Thurman marked some calves last month,” said the rancher, “an’ he done it so slick no one but him could tell. Wal, Serge has missed a couple of them calves, an’ he’s shore lookin’ fer them.”

“Humph! What good will it do if he finds the Bar XX put their iron on them? We can’t prove any one knowed our unbranded stock from theirs,” replied Wess.

“Wal, I reckon not,” admitted Henry.

“Shore it’ll only make wuss blood between Enoch an’ Bloom. Reckon thet’s bad enough right now.”

“All I can say, boys, is fer you to keep your mouths shut an’ yore eyes open. — I’ll lay off at the mill an’ fetch Tuck Merry up to Boyd’s to help you fellars cut the sorghum. An’ I’m willin’ to bet you-all thet he’ll cut more an’ carry more than any of you.”

“Thet limber-legged galoot beat me at rustlin’ sorghum!” ejaculated Wess, in high dudgeon at the suggestion. Wess had long enjoyed the preëminence at this Tonto game of sorghum-harvesting, and he was extremely tenacious of his record.

“Wess, nary you or any of the boys figger my sawmill hand correct,” drawled Henry, with his dry chuckle. “Shore I’ve told you how he beat you-all holler in the sawmill. Best hand I ever hed.”

Wess was disgruntled. His supremacy had been questioned, and that by a tenderfoot from outside. Naturally, the other boys made it worse by backing up Henry and offering to make bets on their own opinions. Cal capped the climax by offering to wager a horse against one of Wess’s that Tuck Merry could beat him.

“Aw, ain’t you gamblin’ a little free with yore hosses?” queried Wess, sarcastically. “You bet yore best hoss you’d lick Tim inside of a year. An’ Cal, time’s a-flyin’. Then you give Miss Georgie yore pinto — which it ain’t hard to calkilate how you was gamblin’ there an’ how you’ll lose. — Now you’ve gall enough to bet me yore last good hoss. I hate to take advantage, Cal, considerin’ yore failin’ intelleck, but yore on.”

Cal surveyed his cousin with considerable disfavor.

“Say, Wess,” he said, loftily, “you’re so darn smart. I’ll give you odds I win all three bets.”

“What’ll you bet?” snapped Wess, and he slapped his knee with a broad hand.

Cal began with a deliberate enumeration of the last two of his horses, his Winchester, and his lasso, also his silver-mounted spurs, which Wess had always coveted, and his only saddle, and he was about to add fifty dollars to the list when his father interrupted.

“Cal, shore thar must be some truth in Wess’s hunch aboot yore bein’ plumb loco,” he drawled. “You jest cut out any more bets. If you homestead Rock Spring you’ll shore need airy darn hoss an’ sich you own.”

Next morning, when the first gray light in the east heralded the coming of the dawn, Enoch Thurman stalked out of the house and yelled in stentorian voice that penetrated to the very sleepiest brain there:

“The day’s busted!”

Enoch was the chief of the Thurman clan, and his call was a signal for all to rouse. By daylight breakfast was steaming on the long kitchen table, and by sunrise saddles and packs were being strapped, and soon after the riders were on their way to the sorghum ranch.

It was a flat piece of land about three miles from Green Valley, toward the Rim, and suffered greatly by contrast with the lower fertile ranch. Boyd Thurman had founded his homestead here, and eighty of the one hundred and sixty acres were under cultivation. These eighty acres comprised one great level field of sorghum, a yellowing plain somewhat resembling corn or cane, though not so high. Weeds and wild flowers grew quite as thickly as the stalks. Little cultivation had been given this field since the planting of the sorghum. A rude fence of poles and rails, and in some places wire, surrounded the inclosure to keep out cattle and horses and deer. Dozens of dead trees, some of them quite large pines, stood in the field, sordid and ghastly specters of what had once been forest land.

A stream-bed ran along the western border of the field, as did also the dusty road leading to the school-house up in the woods, and the cabins and ranches of the other Thurmans farther up toward the Rim. This stream was surface water only, and was now dry except for a few pools in rocky places. At the lower end of the clearing stood a couple of cabins and a barn, all weathered and in bad state of repair. Since proving up on his homestead, Boyd Thurman had lived mostly at his father’s. And this immense field of sorghum was the property of all the Thurmans. Jointly they had planted it, and jointly they would harvest and divide it.

While the boys from Green Valley were unsaddling and unpacking their outfit, and pitching camp under the trees near the cabins, the other contingent of Thurmans hove in sight, nine riders strong, with more than that number of pack-horses. They whistled and they sang, between cigarettes, as they worked with the dexterity of long practice, and innumerable were the jests and banterings they flung at one another. At nine o’clock they were sitting or standing round the pine tree which marked Enoch’s camp, and all were sharpening their knives on the little whetstones each carried with him. In all they numbered seventeen workers, not including Henry Thurman. Despite his years, he could work along with most of the boys, when it pleased him to do so.

“Wal, fellars,” spoke up Enoch, as he tested his knife-blade with a broad thumb, “one man to a row an’ pack all he can.”

“Enoch, I got a bet on heah an’ I’m rarin’,” growled Wess.

“Ahuh! An’ what’re you bettin’, an’ who?” replied Enoch with great interest.

Wess told his version of the matter forced upon him, and his tone was at once grieved and flamboyant; and then Cal poured oil upon the fire by his boastful confidence in Tuck Merry; and lastly Cal’s father added the last straw to Wess’s burden.

“Wal, is airy one of you fellars achin’ to bet me? I’m shore a-backin’ my sawmill hand.”

Whereupon an animated discussion, rather heated on Wess’s part, took place, and various and incredible bets were placed. Finally the gamblers had apparently exhausted resources, and the conditions were put up to Enoch.

“Wal, dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “Shore it ain’t a square deal. Wess was cuttin’ sorghum when he was knee-high to a grasshopper, an’ I reckon our long-legged pard Merry never seen a sorghum field till he hit the Tonto.”

“Right-o,” declared Tuck. “I’ll do my darndest to win for you who’re backing me, but don’t fail to notice I’m not betting any myself.”

“Be a sport, Tuck,” spoke up Cal, and he winked at his friend. “I’m goin’ to win another bet today beside this one on you. So let’s plunge.”

“Oh, if that’s the dope, I’ll kick in,” responded Tuck, with a meaning twinkle in his eye as he returned Cal’s look. “Wess, I’ll lay you ten I’ll beat you cuttin’ this junk and another ten that I can carry more of it.”

“Ten what?” demanded Wess, belligerently.

“Ten bucks — ten good old U. S. simoleons — ten cartwheels,” replied Tuck, jingling silver in his pocket.

“Wess, you big dumbhead, he means ten dollars,” explained Cal.

“Aw, I’ll take double thet,” responded Wess, grandly.

“That’s my limit, Wess, and I’m making you a present of it,” said Tuck.

“Shore he is,” interposed Enoch. “Wal, now listen, all you buckaroos. I’ll work along with Tuck this mawnin’. It’s only fair to break him in. Then after the noon-hour rest we’ll have the race. Cuttin’ up the field once, one row, an’ back heah again one row. An’ I’ll be jedge. Is that satisfactory, Wess?”

“Reckon it’s fair,” replied Wess.

“Wal, then, let’s go to work,” said Enoch, getting up. “Tuck, you come alongside me an’ do what I do.”

Thereupon they advanced to the western side of the field, and each taking a row of sorghum to himself, they bent their long bodies to the labors of harvesting.

The method of procedure was simple. The sorghum stalks grew about a foot apart. They were slender but tough. A knife had to be sharp and the hand strong. When the stalk was cut it was shifted into the hollow of the left arm, or laid on the ground, according to the cutter’s particular way of working. The field was nearly a mile long and the rows of sorghum ran the whole length.

At once the line of advance grew irregular. Wess took the lead, without any apparent effort, and he just stalked and stooped along as if he were picking up apples. He forged ahead, and the other boys advanced according to their capacity and inclination. Enoch did not lose much time or get far behind, even though he was instructing Tuck. Some of the boys kept even with each other, and some gradually straggled out behind. Of these Cal Thurman and Tim Matthews were two, for the reason that Cal never had shown any great ability as a sorghum-harvester, and Tim, who was a rider, hated the work. Cal, however, kept quite far in advance of Tim.

Thus this group of harvesters cut down the field. Notwithstanding the fun and play they made of it, assuredly it was a man’s game. Wess reached the starting-point ahead of all his followers, and the time was one hour and a quarter for the round trip. His blue shirt was as wet with sweat as if it had been soaked in water. His hands were grimy. His face was black with dust and streaked with lines where the sweat ran down. He started on a new row before his comrades got back to the starting-point. As soon as they arrived they moved over, as had Wess, and started again.

Toward noon the sun shone down hot. A breeze blew the clouds of dust from the dry field. Hundreds of crows, attracted by the grain, flocked around the field, cawing until the air was full of din. The harvesters grew weary with their exertions and ceased to sing and banter, and slowed up on their return.

Serge Thurman had left off after the first trip, and by the time the others straggled back he had a noonday meal almost ready. One by one they trooped in after Wess, to drink copiously and wash their dirty hands, and then fall down gratefully in the shade. But their spirits soon revived.

Cal beat Tim in by a dozen rods or more, and he made way for his covert design by casting reflections upon Tim’s lax ambitions as a harvester. Even the least word from Cal could stir Tim’s temper, especially since Tim had fallen into the black looks of Miss Georgiana Stockwell, and Cal had apparently gained favor.

“Say, I’m a cowman,” retorted Tim, testily. “I’m used to ridin’ where there wasn’t any fence, let alone cornfields. I ain’t no farmhand.”

“Huh! I don’t see any medals on you as a cowman,” retorted Cal, in return.

“You don’t, hey?” queried Tim, with a frown. “Strikes me yore gettin’ orful fresh lately.”

“An’ come to think of it, I can’t see any medals on you for ridin’ or ropin’ — or makin’ up to the ladies — or even fightin’,” returned Cal, cheerfully.

Everybody except Tim roared with laughter. He appeared divided between a consternation of amaze and an awakened resentment.

“Cal, if you hed any sense, you’d be a good jedge of thet last,” he said, with dark meaning. Still he appeared dubious about this new character of Cal’s and undecided how to take it.

“Tim, I was never even impressed with your way of fightin’,” continued Cal, loquaciously. “You don’t hit hard. Your footwork is rotten. You can’t stand punishment.”

“But I licked you four times — four times, my ridin’ Romeo — an’ done it without half tryin’,” shouted Tim, growing red in the face.

“Tim, you only think you licked me,” observed Cal. “Wait till after grub-time.”

Tim stared his further wonderment, and stalked among his cronies, grumbling: “Say, fellars, what the hell’s got into him? — Footwork rotten!”

“Aw, Cal’s only feelin’ his oats,” replied one.

“Talks like he was rarin’ to go,” observed another.

“Shore Cal’s out of his haid sence he gave thet pinto away. Plumb loco!” asserted a third.

But Cal made no more sallies. He sat to the meal with a sense of exciting anticipation. The event he had longed for was primed for consummation. He saw it in Tuck Merry’s slight superior smile of knowledge of mirth held in abeyance.

“Wal,” drawled Enoch, when he had eaten the last morsel on his tin plate, “which one of these heah two entertainin’ stunts are we goin’ to see first?”

“Two?” asked his father. “What airy one besides the cuttin’ race between Wess an’ my man?”

“Didn’t you heah Cal say to Tim, ‘Wait till after grub-time’?”

“Reckon I did. An’ what was Cal meanin’ by thet?”

“Wal, Cal’s got to lick Tim sometime this year or lose his best hoss,” observed Enoch.

“Son, you shore make fool bets,” replied Henry.

“Dad, this one is not so foolish as you think,” said Cal, with open cheerfulness.

“Cal Thurman,” spoke up Tim, with asperity, “I’m regardin’ thet hoss of yorn as my property.”

“Boys, you cain’t spend all day like a lot of bettin’ Indians,” put in Henry. “Reckon I don’t mind if you do the work.”

“We won’t lose any time on Wess an’ Merry,” said Enoch. “We’ll march right along with them, an’ after we’re through Tim an’ Cal can beat each other up.”

Whereupon they returned to the harvest-work as before, only Enoch started Wess and Merry ahead of them. And it was noticeable that every time a harvester would straighten up he would take a moment of keen interest in the rivals, working so furiously ahead. Wess forged to the front and gradually drew away from Merry. They made the dust fly, and scattered the crows. The lusty calls of the workers in the rear pealed out in the hot still air. The burros brayed in raucous stentorian hee-haws, as if they too were much interested in the race. Wess’s dog ran alongside him, barking encouragement. Almost all of the workers’ cheers were for the benefit of Merry.

“Stay with him, boy,” called one.

“He’s a-rarin’, Tuck, but he won’t last,” yelled another.

“Josh Wess aboot his gurl,” shouted another. “Thet always makes him step on his feet.”

“Yore warmin’ up fer the home stretch. Yore gainin’, Tuck,” called another.

Indeed, this appeared to be true. The lengthy tenderfoot had begun to close the gap between him and the seasoned harvester. Wess had been pushing himself too hard or was slowing up to gain breath for the finish. But he made the end of the field in record time, and was several rods on the return trip when Merry reached the turn. Here Enoch left off working and went back with the rivals. His men, however, were not long in getting their faces toward the home stretch. Wess kept his lead, and finished far enough ahead of Merry to prove his very considerable superiority. The others trooped back in due time to begin an animated discussion over gains and losses.

“Reckon it ain’t decided yet,” declared Enoch. “Wess wins the cuttin’? Now let’s see who can pack the most sorghum.”

Thereupon Wess began to walk along a row of cut sorghum, raking portions of it into a pile. When he had arranged a number to his liking, he took a bundle of stalks in his arms and then went on to the next, until he had collected an enormous quantity. He was completely hidden under a huge shock of sorghum. While he held it Enoch measured its girth with a string. Then Wess set the immense bundle on the ground, with the stalks upright, and it stood there like a shock of corn.

“Wal, Tuck, it’s your turn,” said Enoch. “An’ between you an’ me, I think you can beat him.”

Thus encouraged, Tuck Merry began to rake the cut sorghum into piles, somewhat after the manner of Wess, though not so neatly. Measured by lengths of rows he piled up much more than Wess.

“Yore a gone gizzard, Wess,” remarked Henry.

“If he packs all thet I’m licked,” replied Wess. “But he cain’t do it.”

Cal went along with Tuck and encouraged him. The lanky tenderfoot began to pick up the piles he had collected, and it soon became evident that he could have saved himself much strenuous labor if he had made larger and fewer portions. For when he got a great bundle in his arms he had difficulty picking up another portion. He had to feel for it with his feet, then drop his burden on it, and absorb it with wider stretch of arms. He grew to be a walking stack of sorghum, a most interesting and amusing sight to the watchers. Wess’s dirty face began to express his astonishment.

“Son-of-a-gun has me licked now!” he ejaculated, in admiration.

But Tuck Merry went on picking up portions until he had lifted the enormous amount he had piled. From somewhere under the burden sounded a smothered voice.

“I — can — pack — more,” he called, hoarsely.

“T’ain’t necessary,” replied Henry. “You win by a heap, I reckon.”

“Wal, let’s see,” added Enoch as he threw his cord over the great bundle, and then sprawled on the ground to find the end. Rising then, he circled the pack and got the measurement.

“I’m a son-of-a-gun,” he exclaimed, with a grin. “He’s beat Wess by a whole foot.”

“Aw, I’m beat, but not thet bad,” declared Wess.

“There you are, Wess. Measure it yourself,” replied Enoch.

“Nope. I guess you’re right. Let go Merry — an’ shake hands.”

Tuck dropped the rustling shock of sorghum, or rather emerged from under it, a dust-encumbered, ludicrous figure. Wess met his outstretched hand and shook it as a man who had respect for his better.

“You win thet heat,” he said. “Now let’s measure arms. I’m sorta curious how you done what nobody else ever done.”

The two tall harvesters stood facing each other with right arms extended, and the remarkable fact became plain to all that Merry’s arm was six inches longer than Wess’s.

“Wal, thet tells the story,” concluded Enoch. “All bets off, boys. It shore was a draw.... An’ now let’s go back to work.”

When the harvest was over for that day, one-third of the great sorghum-field had been cut — a showing which Henry Thurman viewed with simple delight.

“By golly! thet ‘air’s a fine day’s work,” he exclaimed. “You all done well, ‘cept Tim, who hates work, an’ Cal, who’ll never be no sorghum-rastler.”

“Wal, I reckon them two was savin’ up,” drawled Enoch. “They shore was slow.”

“Now I forgot all aboot thet,” returned Henry. “I’ll shore enjoy seein’ Tim lick Cal again. — Say, Tim, air you a-goin’ to do it before supper or after?”

“Seein’ you tax me, I’ll say I’d like what little exercise it’d take before I clean up fer supper,” retorted Tim.

Thus the issue came up squarely on the moment when Serge was busy at the camp fire and the others were grouped around in restful postures.

It found Cal more than ready. His keen eye had caught sight of Georgiana and her sister Mary out on the road. They were returning from school, where Georgiana had spent the day, and on the moment were approaching the gate under the walnut trees a little distance from the camp. No one, save Cal, apparently had observed them.

“Ahuh!” exclaimed Cal, with a cheerfulness wholly reflected in Tuck Merry’s cadaverous image. He leaped to his feet. “I forgot all about that.... Come on, Tim — you bow-legged little hop-a-long bronco-buster. I’m hungry an’ I want to get this over before supper.”

The crowd greeted Cal’s speech with both amaze and delight. But Tim shared only the former. Slowly he got to his feet, his red face, from which he had wiped the dust, showing a dubious contempt. He squinted at Cal. He was not so sure that there existed perfect justification for his contempt.

“Come an’ take it,” cried Cal, banteringly. “Come out here. I don’t want to pile you up on Serge’s supper. — Tim, you’ve had the fun of lickin’ me four times, an’ you ought to be sport enough to take your medicine like I took mine.”

“You make me mad, Cal Thurman,” growled Tim. “You’re too fresh. An’ I’m gonna lick you fer the fifth time — which’ll be all you’ll ever want.”

He slouched out onto the grassy plot away from the group under the tree, and certainly in plain sight from the road. This was what Cal wanted. He had not the slightest doubt of the outcome. Tuck Merry had assured him that Tim could not last three minutes.

Suddenly Cal extended his hands, still wearing his old gloves, and he began to dance around Tim with the quickness of footwork that had been a part of the painful education imparted by Tuck Merry. Tim, rough-and-tumble fighter that he was, crouched close in on Cal, but could not find an opening. Cal increased his dancing steps, and began to feint with his fists, and saw instantly how Tim was bewildered by such tactics.

“Boys, don’t miss this,” called Cal, piercingly. “You all know how Tim hates to have any one hit his big ugly nose. Now watch.”

Manifestly the watchers were intensely absorbed and thrillingly expectant. Dancing round, Cal kept shooting out his left at Tim, just to bewilder him and make him dodge and swing until the favorable instant came. Then with his right Cal flashed a hard cutting blow to Tim’s nose. No doubt about the effect!

“Tim, that’s a nose-jab,” called out Cal, gleefully, as he avoided Tim’s heavy rush, and danced round; and then, quicker than before, he shot his left to the same sensitive spot. This time the blood started.

“I’ll nose-jab you!” shouted Tim, hoarse with pain, as wildly he swung. But it was only to encounter a still stiffer blow.

“Aw!” bawled Tim.

“Holler, you boob!” returned Cal, with the fun of the thing giving way to the heat of action and sight of blood and thought of just revenge. Tim had hurt him many a time and had crowed over it. This was retribution and there was Georgiana Stockwell sitting on top of the high gate.

But Tim did not cry out any more. He was too much in earnest now, too furious. All the yelling came from the onlookers.

Then, just as suddenly, Cal changed his footwork so that instead of dancing around Tim he jumped toward him and then away. Tim did not do any backing. He followed, and always appeared at a disadvantage, too slow to reach Cal. All at once, Cal beat down Tim’s waving fists, and pushed his left into Tim’s face, not hard, but once, twice, three times; and then as Tim lost something of his poise, Cal swung a right powerfully into the pit of Tim’s stomach. It made a deep sound. And then Tim gasped out his propelled breath.

“That’s the belly-wham!” called Cal. “Look out now — here comes the tooth-rattler!”

Tim, with terribly distorted face, eyes starting, mouth agape, jaw falling, seemed to be standing motionless, helpless, silent except for a singular gasping sound. Precisely as Tuck Merry had done to Bloom, so Cal had done to Tim. How ridiculously easy! Tim’s breath had been expelled and he could not get any back. Then Cal ended the matter with a hard swing to the jaw. Tim went down in a heap and stayed down.

In the silence of astonishment that ensued, Cal stood over Tim, scarcely panting from his exertions, and looked down at his fallen adversary.

“Get up, Tim — before I cool off,” he called.

But poor Tim had just begun to be able to draw a little air into his lungs. He could not get up. He could not lift his dizzy head. Whereupon the other boys suddenly recovered from their astonishment and began to give vent to wild and whirling mirth. They howled and rolled and roared, and not for several moments could Cal distinguish a word they said.

“Wal, I’m a locoed rustler if Cal didn’t knock Tim out!” ejaculated Enoch, in absolute astonishment.

They were all amazed, and some were skeptical at Cal’s queer dancing around, and several were incredulous, especially old Henry.

Most feeling of all, however, was Tim Matthews, when he recovered far enough to be able to talk.

“Aw! — Wot run — over me?” he panted.

They all had a name for it, from a mule to an elephant, and loud haw-haws accompanied each especial epithet.

“Wot’d — he hev — in them gloves?” huskily demanded Tim as Enoch helped him sit up.

“Just my fists,” replied Cal, taking off the gloves and throwing them at Tim.

The vanquished rider pathetically pawed over the gloves.

“Aw — he had — rocks in them,” wailed Tim.

“No, Tim, he hadn’t nothin’,” said Enoch, kindly, as with his scarf he began to wipe the blood from Tim’s face. “He just licked you damn quick an’ good.”

Cal dropped to one knee beside Tim and held out his hand.

“Do you want to shake on it?” he asked.

Tim sat up and gazed wonderingly at his assailant. He could not believe his eyes, but he had been convinced of what had happened. It was a hard moment for him. Slowly he held out a shaking hand.

“Cal, you shore — licked me,” he replied, with a gulp, “an’ I’m sayin’ I got what was comin’ to me.... But how’d you do it? A hoss-kick is bad enough, but aw! — when you hit me, it was orful.”

CHAPTER IX

SATURDAY, THE LAST day of the October round-up, was the date of the principal dance of the season. Whereupon Mary Stockwell observed that late in the afternoon two processions were noticeable — one of the riders trooping wearily back to the ranch, and the other of a stream of vehicles on the road toward the school-house, where the big dance was to be held.

“We’ll dance you-all down tonight,” merrily called a girl from a car, as Boyd Thurman, dusty and ragged, rode by.

“How do you get that idee?” queried Boyd.

“You riders will all be daid on your feet,” came the reply.

“Wal, shore you’ll never dance us down, Angie,” replied Boyd.

And all the boys riding down the road from their labors encountered some such banterings and challenges. This main social event of the season called families from all over that section of the country. They would start out early in the morning, so as to be at the school-house in time to get dinner before the dancing began.

When Mary went out to watch the October sunset, she saw Pan Handle Ames and Arizona, with clean-shaven shiny faces, and dressed in their best, sitting on the porch. They appeared to be overcome by mirth.

“What’s so funny, boys?” asked Mary.

“Aw — we just seen Lock Thurman comin’ back leadin’ the hoss he thought his gurl was goin’ to ride,” replied Pan Handle.

“She’s gone to the dance with another fellar,” added Arizona, in positive joy.

“An’ Lock’s face was as long as a mescal pole,” continued Pan Handle. “Lock’s orful sweet on Milly. An’ she’d promised to go to this dance with him.”

“Why then did she not?” inquired the teacher, curiously.

“Wal, all Lock knowed was that he was too slow gettin’ there, an’ she went with Bid Hatfield.”

“No!”

“She shore did, an’ if thet doesn’t cause a real fight, I’ll swallow my spurs,” replied Arizona.

“But — what’s so funny?” asked Mary. “I think Milly’s treating Lock that way is too bad. And prospects of a fight are not fun.”

“Aw, now, Miss Mary,” expostulated Arizona, “Lock is orful stuck on himself an’ he said he had Milly eatin’ out of his hand. An’ shore prospects of a fight is fun. It’s more’n fun, considerin’ that Hatfield fellar. ‘Cause somebody has got to lick him powerful good. Besides, it wouldn’t be a regular dance if some gurl didn’t jilt some fellar an’ if there wasn’t a fight.”

“Huh! Strikes me there’s a-goin’ to be two fights,” interposed Pan Handle. “Tuck Merry has asked Ollie Thurman, an’ she’s a-goin’ with him. Lord! but Abe Turner will be a-rarin’ tonight. Looks like Ollie’s on the fence now between Abe an’ Tuck.”

“I ain’t got no gurl to take, but I wouldn’t miss this heah dance fer a million dollars,” observed Arizona, complacently.

“You’re mischievous boys,” said Mary Stockwell.

“Wal, teacher,” drawled Arizona, with a mysterious gleam of fun in his eyes, “there’s some round heah who’s sweet on you.”

“Oh — indeed!” replied Mary, somewhat surprised into confusion. She felt herself blushing, and turned away rather quickly, to walk out into the yard. When she got out to the fence, she was quite conscious of a heightened pulse.

“These boys!” she soliloquized. “How full of deviltry! Yet I like them.”

This magnificent sunset might have been made for Mary’s particular benefit. October had brought more vivid colors to the hills and more beautiful cloud effects in the skies. A dusky purple veil lay low in the notches between the high, rounded knolls, and above them the golden light of sunset spread vast and wide behind the clouds of rose. Sunsets here seemed different from those she remembered in other places. A richness of color and light mantled the whole of this Tonto country. But that was not all the glamour of the sunset. Mary could not catch the illusiveness of it. Many things entered into the sweetness and beauty of her feelings just then. The air was cool, and it bore a dry, odorous tang of the forest. Always the encompassing hills of brush and pine projected their presence into every sensation. It was Arizona land — quite different from any other. She had come to love it. And the Tonto Basin was the wildest of Arizona lands. She tried to put into thought just what that meant. Wide spaces of unsettled country, standing on end, deep-fissured and pointing its mesa ruins into the clouds, bare, gray, grassy ridges and hills of soft bright green and the great slopes of dark pine, the rugged bronze canyons and the rushing streams, the ledges of red rock standing out and the yellow crags against the foliage of spruce, wild birds and wild animals everywhere, seen on the way to school and back, the slashes in the forests these pioneer people called ranches, and lastly the stalwart, sturdy boys, simple and kindly yet rugged and hard as the wilderness that had developed them — all these in Mary Stockwell’s thoughts could not wholly explain the fullness of her appreciation.

That night, Georgiana was in one of her dangerous moods. Judging from the expression of Cal’s face at the supper table, he and Georgiana had quarreled about something. As a result, Georgiana was aggravatingly slow in dressing for the dance, and held up the party that was going in Enoch’s car. Mary was amused at the impatience of the boys to be off, but she was a little concerned over Georgiana. The girl was no longer in fun. She had been hurt, or she had grown tired of dissimulation, or she had begun to change for the worse. Mary feared the last.

Presently, Georgiana emerged from her little room, gorgeously and scantily arrayed, with more powder and paint on her face than Mary had ever seen yet. But for this false acceleration of color she would have looked beautiful. Her eyes, however, did not need counterfeit. They were dark and flashing and full of the devil.

“Well, dear, if you want to create a sensation at this dance, you’ll have your wish,” said Mary, soberly. “But I’m afraid it’ll not be the kind of sensation you like.”

“Bunk!” exclaimed Georgiana. “Men are all alike — at home in New York, or in darkest Africa — or the Tonto Basin.”

“Georgiana, you think men want to see a girl look — as you do?” inquired Mary, incredulously.

“I don’t think. I know.... My sweet sister, there are some things you’ll never learn. Believe me . . .”

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Mary opened it to disclose Cal standing there.

“Hello, Cal! Come in,” she said.

“No, thanks,” he replied as he stood on the threshold. The light shone on his face. It was pale and troubled, almost stern. Mary thought he looked singularly handsome. He wore a dark suit that lent a marked contrast to his usual rough rider’s garb.

His keen gaze swept over Georgiana from head to foot, and to Mary it held a singular expression.

“Then — I’m not goin’ to take — you?” he declared, bluntly.

“Not to this dance, or any dance, or any place,” she replied, cuttingly.

“Who’s goin’ to take you tonight?” he queried, stiffly.

“That’s none of your business, but if you’re aching to know — I’m going with Tim,” she replied.

“Tim!” ejaculated Cal.

“Yes —— Tim!” she retorted, stung by his surprise or something not clear to Mary. Georgiana had never gone anywhere with Tim Matthews.

“You sure are hard up,” rejoined Cal, with sarcasm. “But I’m sayin’ — if Tim kicks on that dress — you might get Bid Hatfield to take you.”

“Tim is a gentleman,” retorted Georgiana. “And Bid Hatfield knows how to act like one, which is more than I can say for some people.”

“Reckon — you’ll dance with Hatfield?” queried Cal, as if compelled to voice a question he hated.

“Will I?” Her counter-query was a tantalizing defiant assurance.

It brought the blood to Cal’s pale face.

“Georgie,” he began, in an earnestness that excluded jealousy, “I know you despise me an’ you have no use for any of us Thurmans, but you love your sister — an’ for her sake don’t dance with Hatfield — an’ don’t try those new dances you’re been teachin’ some of the boys an’ girls.”

“Come and watch me,” said Georgiana, deliberately. There was a red spot in each of her cheeks that was not all paint.

“I’ll not be there,” returned Cal, and turning on his heel he strode off the porch into the darkness.

Mary closed the door. “Georgie, I thought you and Cal had been such good friends lately.”

“We were. That’s what makes me so sore. I thought I had him canned.”

“Poor Cal! What has he done now?”

“Done? He jumped me today because I was teaching some new dance steps. And just after dinner he told me if I wore this white dress he wouldn’t take me to the dance. Of all the nerve! Why, the fool is getting bossy! . . . So I asked Tim.”

“Well, Cal is young and hot-tempered and jealous, I know. But, Georgie, he certainly has been thoughtful of our interests. We’re strangers to this country. You’ve done some silly things. Perhaps Cal has kept you from some real break.”

“Oh, Mary, to give the devil his due — Cal has been nice. I did like him. I’m not a liar. But I can’t stand this ownership stuff, and believe me I’ll show him tonight.”

“He’ll not be there,” replied Mary.

“You know a lot about men, sis, I don’t think. Cal couldn’t be kept away from this dance.”

“There! Enoch is honking his horn again. Let us hurry! You must bundle up warm. These nights are cold. — I — almost wish this dance was over.”

“Mary, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” returned Georgiana.

Outside the yard in the road, the big car was full of merry Thurmans, all of whom, except Enoch, were crowded into the back seats.

“Georgie, you pile in back with that outfit,” directed Enoch, “an’, Mary, you come in front with me.”

Georgiana peered into the dark mass that filled the back of the car and plainly did not like the idea.

“Let me ride in front, too,” she said.

“Not room,” replied Enoch, in his dry, authoritative tone. “See that pile of cakes an’ pies on the seat. Mary will shore have all she can do to keep them from joltin’ off. We’re late, an’ I’m a-goin’ to smoke up this old wagon.”

“You shore air,” drawled his father. “Thar’s them young folks up at the school-house a-waitin’ fer me to make the music. I’m a fiddlin’ fool an’ never was late before.”

“Pile in, Georgie,” called Enoch.

“There’s no place,” replied Georgiana. “I’ll muss my dress.”

“Wal, mussin’ won’t hurt it none,” said Tim. “You can set on my lap.”

“Is that so?” retorted Georgiana in the tone Mary well knew argued ill for whom it was intended. Tim’s remark had struck this young lady just a little unfavorably. And Mary decided it had not been the invitation to sit on his lap that had offended, but the rather satirical allusion to the crumpling of her dress. Georgiana crowded into the car, to find a seat upon the ample lap of Mrs. Thurman.

Mary found she had just room to squeeze in between Enoch and the enormous and overloaded basket of pies and cakes.

“Thet’s where Tim hawg-tied himself,” whispered Enoch to Mary. “He’s been layin’ for a chance, an’ when he got it, he had to step in his own loop. Funny, isn’t it?”

Mary laughed her acquiescence. Sometimes the shrewdness of these Arizonians struck her forcibly.

“Everybody heah?” asked Enoch, as he started the engine.

“Reckon all but Cal,” replied his father. “He ain’t goin’.”

“Shore Cal will be there,” said Enoch, with a chuckle. “Wal, let’s leave some dust behind.”

Enoch manifestly meant to make up for lost time. Along the level bottom-land of the valley he drove so fast that Mary was thrilled and frightened at once. The bright lights sent round rays ahead along the yellow winding road, with its fences of upright poles and borders of brush. Coyotes and skunks and rabbits crossed the bright flare. The foliage of the trees took on a rich green hue, the juniper berries shone like diamonds, and the smooth branches of manzanita burned red in the light. The night air was now penetratingly cold, and the dark-blue sky wonderful with its myriads of stars. The time came when Enoch had to drive slowly and carefully over rocky washes and round steep bends. The ten occupants of the back seats kept up a continual merriment.

“Mary, tell me what ailed Cal,” asked Enoch, in a low voice. “I never saw him like he was tonight.”

She told him briefly, and did not spare Georgiana.

“I’m worried aboot him,” went on Enoch. “Shore this will never do. You understand, don’t you, Mary?”

“I think so,” replied Mary.

“Wal, I always felt you understood us. An’ you’ve been a world of good. Cal’s the best of all the Thurmans. An’ I reckon your teachin’ him two years had a lot to do with that. Father an’ mother feel as I do — we owe you a lot, Mary.”

“Oh no! You owe me nothing,” murmured Mary, surprised and quickened at the singular warmth of his low voice.

“Wal, we won’t argue. But we ain’t blind to your influence on your school. We never had anyone like you. Our poor kids, comin’ from all over this rough country, took school as a hard dose. But they like you an’ they learn fast. It’s a good work you’re doin’, Mary Stockwell.”

“Thank you, Enoch.... I — I can only say I’m glad you think so — and that it’s a work I love.”

“Wal, do you intend goin’ on teachin’ our kids?”

“Surely. Just as long as you will have me.”

“An’ you’re not gettin’ homesick for the East — an’ all you had there?”

“No, indeed.”

“You reckon you want to stay on in Arizona?”

“Yes. I love it.”

“Wal, that’s fine,” he went on, and for once his Texas drawl held a note of eagerness. “If you feel that way, Mary, an’ want to go on teachin’ our children, you must like us Tonto folks.”

“Indeed — I do,” returned Mary.

“We’re just plain pioneer folk an’ pretty rough,” he said.

“Well, if that is so, I guess I must have some pioneer blood in me,” returned Mary, rather nervously. Enoch’s tone stirred her. There was something back of his kindly, earnest statements. She felt him leading up to it. And her heart began to beat quickly. Was this ride to explain the strange glamour that had haunted her during the sunset hour? Something was going to happen. She stole a side look at Enoch. It was impossible to see him distinctly, but he appeared as calm and steady as usual, and he drove the car over bad places very carefully.

“Mary,” he began, after a long silence. “I reckon I’ve been in love with you since you first came heah. But I never had no hope till lately. An’ now I’m bold enough to ask if you’ll marry me.”

He did not ask her if she realized what a rancher’s wife must be in that hard country. Somehow the omission, and the simplicity of his proposal, seemed a compliment to Mary. Was she as big as he believed? However that might be, she knew she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

“Yes, Enoch, I — I will marry you,” she said, softly.

His right hand dropped off the wheel and groped for hers. Mary met it halfway. Through her glove she felt the ruggedness and strength and hardness of it as he clasped hers close.

“Wal, shore I reckoned this heah dance was goin’ to be a happy one for me,” he said.

So Mary found herself trying to realize the sudden change of the direction of her life. Her pulses were throbbing and her nerves tingling. Something warm and full and hopeful swelled her heart. After all, her little romance had not been a dream. Her secret love for this stalwart scion of a pioneer people had no longer to be held as something of which she dare not think. She was grateful for the wonderful opportunity to be a woman and a helper. She had found her place.

Enoch held her hand tightly and managed the wheel with the other. Behind them, the merry crowd grew merrier as time passed. Henry Thurman hummed one of his fiddling tunes. Everybody, except Georgiana, seemed gay. Mary, in that moment of happiness, did not forget the wayward and willful little sister; and somehow she felt that as Enoch’s betrothed she might have a stronger influence.

The car at last reached a level forest-land, where the great dark pines loomed magnificently over the lonely road. On each side was the dense gloom of the woods. In front the white lights cast an enchantment far ahead along the winding road, down the aisles between the big brown trees, and across the heads of ravines. How wild it was! This was the road Mary traveled twice every day, to the school-house and back, and never had it seemed so strange. It meant more to her now. Soon it would lead to her own home.

Deeper into the dark forest the car penetrated, climbed a long hill, and hummed along a winding level, at last to plunge down into what appeared a bottomless canyon. Enoch was not exactly reckless, but he was not exactly careful, either.

“Hang on to the pommel,” he called out, heartily.

Mary heard the rush and roar of water, and looked up from her task of saving the pies and cakes to see that the car was plunging down a steep grade into Tonto Creek. It struck the water with a great splash. Everybody shouted their pleasure. These people were no more afraid of a car than a horse. Considerable water must have splashed into the car, judging from remarks tendered Enoch.

“He ought to be driving a water-wagon,” remarked Georgiana, who evidently was one who had been splashed.

Enoch drove a little faster, if anything, and that last mile through the black forest of huge pines was made in short order. Ahead, the blackness gave way to a yellow flare, and soon a huge camp fire shone brightly. It stood at the edge of the school-house clearing. A crowd of young people and children were grouped around it, and every one of them was eating ice-cream. A stalwart youth, wearing a red scarf, was ladling it out from the first of a row of freezers. Manifestly the directors of this social event meant to furnish enough refreshment.

The advent of the Thurman car created an uproar. The crowd yelled its delight at the arrival of the chief factor in the evening’s entertainment — the old fiddler. Young people poured out of the school-house. A number of horses were hitched along the edge of the clearing, and the noise frightened some of them. One began to buck. Half a dozen boys ran to hold him down. But he broke his halter and bolted down the road.

The merry young people hustled Henry Thurman into the school-house. Mary found she was being led by Enoch, who at the same time was trying to protect the basket of pies. Mary lost sight of Georgiana.

The inside of the school-house was familiar enough to Mary, yet tonight it seemed to have meaning and picturesque significance. The whitewashed walls had in places been covered with colored prints from newspapers and magazines. The light, furnished by a small lamp at each end of the room, was so dim that Mary found it difficult to recognize anyone. All the desks had been removed. A line of benches and chairs and boxes ran along the walls round the room. In one corner was a stove, behind which sat a group of women with babies in their arms. Children ran everywhere, squealing, laughing, crying out their particular pleasure in this annual event.

“Unlimber thet thar fiddle,” called out a lusty-lunged rider to Henry; and his call was seconded by many.

Henry Thurman’s gray old face beamed. He was the keynote of this dance and showed his pride in his importance. What his reply was Mary could not distinguish. He sat down on a box, and bending over his fiddle, he began to saw on it. Lock Thurman sat close to him, bending forward, and with two slender pine sticks he beat time upon the strings of Henry’s fiddle.

This was a signal for the dancers and the children. Forty couples and half as many youngsters began to cavort round the room. The young people danced their modification of the two-step, and the children played tag. Mary found herself swept away on Enoch’s strong arm. Then all Mary could see was the throng of dancers. From time to time she felt the children running by or dragging at her skirts, and she could hear their merry shrieks, but she could not see them. For a rough rider who had worn heavy boots all his life, Enoch certainly acquitted himself creditably. Like others of those long-legged Arizonians, he did not dance badly. The embarrassing thing for Mary was that he did not tire and the fiddler kept on interminably. Nevertheless, Mary enjoyed the dance and felt herself now a part of this simple pioneer life.

When finally Henry and Lock ceased their united efforts, the young people rushed outside to eat ice-cream. Most of the girls forgot to put on coats, and one of these was Georgiana. In the bright glare of the fire she presented a sight calculated to be etched indelibly on the memories of the young people who saw her. The boys stared in undisguised obsession; the girls marveled at the audacity and beauty of that white gown; the older folk looked at Georgiana with distrust and scorn.

It did not take Mary more than a moment to see that Georgiana was enjoying the sensation she created, particularly among the boys who flocked round her. Here in the bright light Mary had a good look at Hatfield. He appeared a tall, powerfully-built fellow, handsome in a bold way, and he certainly wore picturesque garb. Like many of the young men present, he danced without coat or vest. He wore a blue blouse, red scarf, a silver buttoned belt, and tight-fitting dark trousers that showed the round hips and supple legs of a rider. The pearl handle of a gun protruded from his right hip pocket. This surprised Mary, and she called Enoch’s attention to it.

“Wal,” he drawled, “I reckon Bid ain’t the only one packin’ hardware heah.”

His tone and his look made Mary’s pulse leap. Underneath the gayety and simplicity of this dance lay the sterner instincts that had been inherited from a wilder day.

Mary resolutely put away all untoward thoughts. This might mean much to her, and she wished to enjoy it while she could. She had a feeling that trouble would come soon enough. Wherefore, she paid no more attention to Georgiana and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the moment.

She danced four consecutive two-steps with Enoch, all long dances with innumerable encores, and then she was claimed by Wess for a dance called “tag.”

Several of the boys entered this dance without partners, and they had the privilege of tagging dancers who had partners. It was a dance they all particularly enjoyed, where they began to warm up, and Mary and Georgiana had a continual procession of changing partners. Georgiana, in fact, scarcely could get started with one dancer when another dancer tagged him. Bid Hatfield was having his trouble trying to find a moment with her. At last he got hold of Mary and she found him the best dancer there. Then Enoch, for the first time during this long tag dance, forced himself upon her partner. He whispered in her ear: “Reckon I don’t care for Hatfield dancin’ with my girl. — An’ I’m goin’ to tell this outfit you’re engaged to me.”

“Oh — not yet,” she whispered back. But Enoch smilingly shook his head.

The end of this dance found Mary warm, breathless, and exhausted for the moment. She was glad to rest. The children, all of them pupils of hers, gravitated toward her and seemed to have discovered a new interest. Pale-faced and big-eyed, they showed the effects of unusual excitement and were about ready to fall asleep. Mrs. Gard Thurman and another woman were putting the babies to bed in a corner. Ten babies in all soon lay fast asleep side by side, on beds of rugs and blankets evidently brought for that purpose.

When the dancers filed in again, old Henry Thurman rose, fiddle in hand, and twanged a few sharp notes to attract attention.

“Folks,” he drawled, “as a member of the school board it fell on me tonight to extend a vote of thanks to our good teacher, Miss Stockwell. We shore do appreciate her. An’ it was to be my pleasant duty to ask her to stay long heah with us. But thar won’t be airy need of askin’ now. Miss Mary has elected to make her home heah in the Tonto . . . an’ the darn lucky man is my son Enoch.”

It was then, in the few crowded ensuing moments, that Mary found how she was regarded by the children and their folk. Her happiness would have been complete if only she could have been sure of Georgiana. She wondered why Georgiana did not come to her, as had so many. But it turned out that Georgiana had not been present when the announcement was made. In the middle of the next dance, while Mary was resting and talking to Mrs. Thurman, Georgiana came hurriedly to her, followed by Hatfield, who evidently was her partner.

“Mary — he said your engagement to Enoch was announced,” she burst out, with strong feeling.

“Who said so?” asked Mary, smiling.

“My partner — Mr. Hatfield,” replied Georgiana. “I thought he was kidding me, but he swears not.... Mary, you look — —”

“My dear, I’m very happy to say it’s the truth.”

“Oh! — You’re going to marry Enoch — to live here in the Tonto?” queried the girl, with something incredulous in her voice. Her eyes were dark, dilated with quickening thought.

“Yes, Georgie,” replied Mary.

“My God! What will become of me?” muttered the girl, under her breath.

Just then, before Mary could reply, Hatfield stepped forward. He was quite gallant and made a favorable impression.

“Miss Stockwell, I congratulate you,” he said. “Enoch Thurman — —”

He was interrupted by the arrival of Cal, who came rushing up to Mary, eager and pale, and he bent to kiss her.

“Never was so — glad about anythin’ in my life,” he said, breathlessly. “You’ll be Enoch’s wife an’ my sister. I’ll say we’re lucky.”

“Why, Cal — you — you embarrass me,” replied Mary, laughing. “I had no idea I was so popular.”

Then Cal took notice of Georgiana and Hatfield. She gave him a curt little bow and her escort spoke. Cal eyed them steadily, with cool intent, then without word or nod he turned his back on them. Georgiana flushed scarlet under her paint and powder. What semblance of dignity she had was lost in her over-sentimental turning to Hatfield.

“Come on, Bid. You sure dance divinely,” she said, leaning to him and looking up into his eyes.

Hatfield was not slow or timid in his response to that invitation. But, according to Mary, if Georgiana had expected to crush Cal by this means, she had reckoned falsely. Cal apparently neither saw nor heard her.

“Dance with me, please,” he asked of Mary.

“Wait for the next, Cal,” she replied. “They danced me down last time, surely.”

“What! The night of your engagement? Why, teacher!” returned Cal, teasingly.

“Oh, I’m not down and out, as Tuck Merry calls it, but I need a little rest.”

“Where’s Tuck? He was in for it tonight.”

“Come to think — I haven’t seen Tuck dancing. But of course he’s here. He came in the same car with us.... Cal, did you ride up horseback?”

“Yep. An’ after I made up my mind I came a-flyin’,” replied Cal, with a frank laugh.

“You said you were not coming. What brought you?” inquired Mary, in kindly curiosity.

“Well, it wasn’t to have a good time. I got a hunch somethin’ was comin’ off an’ I might be needed.”

“Cal, do you mean a fight?”

“No, I reckon I wouldn’t have come to get into a fight or keep anyone out.”

“Then why?” went on Mary, more interested. Cal was laboring under strong suppressed excitement. He seemed more manly, full of reserve force, and the touch of sadness became him. He was evasive, however, and laughed off Mary’s queries. She watched him keenly as he sat there making himself agreeable, and she noted how his dark eyes roved over and among the dancing couples to single out Georgiana. When, however, during the whirl of the dancing circle, she drew near to where he sat, he gave no indication that he had seen her at all. Mary noted, to her dismay, that Georgiana’s dancing became wilder.

“Cal, you said you didn’t come to have a good time,” spoke up Mary. “You don’t mean that. You must dance and enjoy yourself.”

“Teacher, my heart is broken,” he replied, with sudden somber change of face and tone.

“Oh, Cal!” she exclaimed, in distress.

Abruptly he left her, and did not return until the music started up for the next dance. Then he seemed more like his old self. Still Mary was not reassured. Something rankled deep within Cal. She felt it, and a sense of fear grew upon her. During the whole of that dance she revolved in mind some things she meant to say to him.

“Boy, you didn’t dance so well as usual tonight,” she said.

“Reckon not, teacher. My mind wouldn’t stick to the steps.”

“Cal, what’s on your mind?”

Before he could reply Enoch loomed over them and drew them out of the crowd.

“Shore you couldn’t keep out of trouble, hey?” he queried, curtly, with a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Cal’s dark, steady eyes peered up into Enoch’s searchingly, questioningly, but he did not answer.

“Wal, I reckon if you’ll listen to me I’ll be glad you came.”

“Don’t I always listen to you?” asked Cal, brusquely.

“Not always, when you’re riled. An’, Cal, this heah’s a time when you need to listen, if there ever was one.”

“What’s come off?” queried Cal, sharply.

“Wal, not much yet. But I reckon the ear-marks are bad,” replied Enoch, in serious tone. “Tim is gettin’ drunk. Somebody fetched drink an’ I can’t locate it. Georgie has turned Tim down for Bid Hatfield. Tim is shore courtin’ trouble. An’ Tuck Merry has been a-rarin’. I didn’t see him an’ I cain’t find him, but there’s a report out heah that he’s had three fights.”

“Good! I’d like to see the three fellows.”

“Say, boy, you seem to be tolerable shore that long-necked gander has licked them,” declared Enoch, testily. Evidently he did not fancy the prowess attributed to Cal’s friend. “I’ve been heahin’ things aboot this Tuck Merry, an’ I just cain’t believe them. Reckon I’ll have to get mad an’ find out for shore aboot him.”

“It’s a great idea, Enoch, but don’t try it tonight,” replied Cal, with a bright boyish gleam of fun and deviltry in his eyes.

“I can’t trust you, either, Cal Thurman,” went on Enoch, dubiously.

“Whatever are you boys driving at?” asked Mary, half in alarm and half in amusement.

“Cal, I’m askin’ you to stay in heah till I come back,” said Enoch, earnestly.

“Ahuh,” replied Cal. It was a promise as well as an expression of his conviction. He had guessed why his brother had asked him to stay indoors.

“Come, Mary, I want you out heah,” went on Enoch, and led her out into the dark, cold night. The stars were bright above the black pines. Gay chatter and song and laughter sounded from the yellow flare of bonfire. Couples appeared to be strolling into and out of the gloom.

“Mary, when I was comin’ in some one tagged me an’ told me Georgie was carryin’ on sort — sort of wild with Bid Hatfield,” whispered Enoch, bending close to her. “Now with Tim drinkin’ an’ Cal heah this will never do. Some one is goin’ to tell them an’ then there will be hell.”

“What can we do?” asked Mary.

“I reckon all we can do is to get Georgie inside an’ keep her there.”

“I’m sure I can guarantee that,” responded Mary.

“Wal, mebbe. Reckon you don’t savvy Georgie. Anyway, she’s out there in my car with Hatfield. An’ I’m tellin’ you strong we’ve got to break that up or somebody is goin’ to — —”

“Wait here. I’ll go,” interrupted Mary.

CHAPTER X

WITH MINGLED EMOTIONS of shame and anger Mary hurried out into the darkness to find Georgiana. She did not intend to mince matters. It was not quite clear to her just what catastrophe impended, but she felt that here was one. Cal had seemed too cool, too intense, too pleasant to be safe, and the significance of Enoch’s words had not been lost upon her. Georgiana was an outsider, and it began to look serious for her.

There were lovers strolling to and fro under the pines, and here and there low voices coming from the darkness. Mary had some difficulty in finding Enoch’s car, and it was Georgiana’s well-known voice that guided her.

“Cut it out, will you! I don’t want my dress mussed any worse,” Georgiana was saying.

Hatfield’s reply sounded rather deep and pleasant. “Say, kid, there isn’t much of it to muss.”

Mary hurried up to the car. In the gloom she could see Georgiana’s white form. She appeared to be in Hatfield’s arms. On the moment he bent to kiss her. Georgiana then endeavored to free herself, but her action was not by any means desperate.

“Georgiana, get out of that car and come back into the school-house,” demanded Mary, in a voice she had never used before.

Hatfield released Georgiana and stepped out of the car. Mary could just see the pale gleam of her sister’s face. Georgiana sat there a moment in silence.

“Am I a child to be ordered about?” she asked.

“Your conduct is disgraceful,” replied Mary, coldly.

“If you have no respect for yourself, I insist that you have some for me.”

“Mary!” cried out Georgiana.

Then without another word she flounced out and hurried toward the school-house. Mary started to follow her, but was intercepted by Hatfield.

“Miss Stockwell, I reckon it’s only square for me to take the blame,” he said. “Georgie didn’t want to come out.”

“No apologies are necessary, Mr. Hatfield,” replied Mary. “I do not blame you in the least. But if you are in need of advice, I would say that you are courting trouble.”

“Thanks. Sure I know what I’m up against. But I can’t see where I’m called to show yellow. Your sister must like me or she wouldn’t stand for — for me. An’ if that’s so I’ll fight the whole Thurman outfit.”

“I agree with you,” returned Mary. “But the worst of this is — Georgiana doesn’t care in the least for you. I — I honestly wish she did, so that I would not be ashamed of her.”

“Look here, Miss Stockwell,” he rejoined, bluntly, “I’m thinkin’ you’re on the level. Reckon I’m in love with Georgie, an’ she could make a decent fellow out of me. — No girl could kiss — an’ — an’ talk like Georgie unless she cared. Sure she’s a wild little filly — an’ wants the boys crazy over her. But she couldn’t go so — so far unless she cared.”

“I think Georgie could,” replied Mary. “I don’t know, for certain, but you’re welcome to what I believe. Georgie seems to be devoid of shame, of conscience — not to say more. She’s just playing with you.”

Hatfield started as if he had been struck. He bent to peer closely into Mary’s face.

“You say that — her sister?” he queried, with a catch in his breath.

“Yes. I believe it. I don’t want to be unkind to you or unjust to her. But the situation is bad, you must admit.”

“I reckon it is. Mebbe worse than you think,” he muttered.

“I’ve no more to say, Mr. Hatfield,” added Mary, moving away.

“You’ve said a heap. You’ve showed me a hoss of another color. I’m thankin’ you an’ I’m sorry she’s your sister. If you’ll take a hunch from me, you’ll send her back where she belongs. The Tonto won’t stand for little hussies like her.”

Mary bowed her acknowledgments and hurriedly returned toward the school-house. Hatfield did not appear to be such a bad sort, and probably a really good girl might have done wonders for him. He struck Mary as having the same crude manliness characteristic of all these riders of the Tonto. His last words, and especially his suggestion as to Georgiana, troubled her exceedingly. Indeed, the girl did not fit here among these primitive people.

Then Enoch loomed over Mary and his hard hand, seeking hers, seemed something to cling to.

“Wal, you shore fetched her,” he drawled. “She came a-rarin’, an’ when I tried to stop her — what do you think she said?”

“Goodness knows,” replied Mary, helplessly.

“Wal, it was funny. I seen her comin’, an’ I said, ‘Wal, Georgie, as I’ll soon be a sort of dad to you, reckon you’d better come an’ make up with me.’”

“Enoch, you didn’t?”

“I shore did. An’ the little wildcat glared at me an’ says, sassier than I ever heard her, ‘How’d you like to go where it’s hot?’”

Enoch’s mellow laugh rang out and he slapped his leg with a broad hand. But Mary could not laugh. She was on the verge of tears.

They entered the school-house to find the dance at last in full swing. The children were all asleep in the two corners reserved for them. The old folk were looking on and chatting. Henry Thurman had warmed up to his fiddling job. And the young people were settling down to real dancing, as Enoch put it. Mary found the only difference to be a more crowded floor, a swifter step, and a mounting significance of more than pleasure and excitement. She gathered now that this was a serious matter, this endless swaying to the old fiddler’s rhythm, and was in fact the courting-time of the young people of the Tonto.

After that dance came an intermission during which the ladies served sandwiches, cake, and pie. Henry Thurman made an announcement: “Folks, our friend from Globe only fetched eight freezers of ice-cream an’ it didn’t last.”

“An’ say, Henry, this yere’s why,” bawled Tim Matthews. “W-Wess Thurman eat sixteen plates.”

“Ho! Ho!” replied Wess. “I ain’t the only long-bellied galoot who’s full of ice-cream.”

“Wal, thar’s others full of somethin’ stronger,” called out Enoch.

But for the most part the talk was confined to those within easy speaking range. Now and then some one burst out boisterously, which broke rather coarsely upon the low hum of conversation. Every seat round the room was occupied, and many were standing. It was possible now for Mary to look about and see whom she recognized. She was really surprised at the pleasure of the moment. But for the undercurrent of suppressed feeling that had communicated itself to her, this dance would have been singularly happy. Still, she was happy anyhow, she argued with herself. But there was a bitter drop in her cup.

Everybody seemed to act and talk with perfect naturalness, so that Mary could not help doubting fights were imminent. Cal sat with his Uncle Gard and appeared to be ignoring the feminine contingent. Hatfield had a window seat where he reclined between very attentive young ladies, strangers to Mary. Georgiana sat under the lamplight, which fact Mary believed was no accident, and she was not lacking attendants. Tuck Merry appeared to be most happily engaged, with no rivals near the lady he favored. If he had been in fights, he assuredly did not show it. Tim Matthews had a very red face and a very loose tongue. Apparently, however, he was still good-natured. He was with some boys near the door, all standing, and when he started to leave them, some one dragged him back. Enoch said there was a bottle in that crowd and if Tim touched it a few more times he would be ready to be thrown out. Mary had no difficulty discerning that most of these kindly boys were hanging on to Tim to keep him out of mischief. Not improbably Tim was the only person at the dance who had not remarked Hatfield’s attention to Georgiana.

It was altogether a homely scene of backwoods life, yet it appealed strongly to Mary. Simplicity and virility had faded out of many walks of American life. But they abided here. Almost every one of these boys had seen service during the war, and some of them had been in France. What a record Boyd Thurman had brought back! Still, no one would have guessed it. Even the stress of a great war could not change these Arizonians. Their lives had been too free, too rough, too hard for war training to make any material change in them.

Mary remembered well what Serge Thurman had said in reply to her query as to what he had gotten out of the war: “Wal, I reckon all I got was the flu an’ a knock on the haid.”

Henry Thurman brought the intermission to an end with a twang of his fiddle.

“Rustle yore pardners now,” he called. “I’m a fiddlin’ fool an’ I’m lookin’ to see some of these heah long-legged riders danced down.”

A shout greeted Henry’s speech. Evidently it was a challenge put forward by the girls and accepted by the boys. The music started and the dancers took to the floor with a rush. Mary had that dance with Enoch, and the next she promised to Tuck Merry.

He was so tall and so loosely-jointed, and he danced so atrociously out of time, that Mary found it strenuous work to last until the end of the number. Tuck was having a tremendously good time, and was absolutely oblivious to his demerits as a dancing partner. Mary enjoyed his pleasure, at any rate; and when the music ended and Tuck had found her a chair, she took advantage of the opportunity to question him.

“Enoch said you’d been fighting. I hope it isn’t true. Is it?”

“Now, Miss Mary, I wouldn’t call it that. I only skinned my knuckles,” he replied, with a grin, extending his huge hand for her to examine. Indeed, his knuckles were raw.

“Then it’s true.... Tuck, I guess I’d better not tell Enoch,” said Mary, concernedly.

“Enoch’s a fine old scout. He likes me and I like him. But he’s worried because all this talk makes him feel he’s got to lick me.”

“Tuck, you don’t mean Enoch will deliberately pick a fight with you — just because he’s heard you’ve — you’ve punched fellows?” queried Mary, incredulously.

“That’s about the size of it, Miss Mary,” laughed Tuck. “These Tonto fellows are the queerest ginks. But the finest, squarest, whitest boys I ever met. No wonder they made soldiers. Why, Miss Mary, a million American boys like them would make some army, believe me.”

“I think so, too. But, Tuck, this fighting for — for mere — I don’t know what — why, it’s perfectly outrageous!” protested Mary.

“Now see here, teacher,” replied Tuck, earnestly. “You’ve got it wrong. This fighting is the finest thing in the world.”

“Oh, listen to you! Tuck, won’t you please avoid Enoch? He’s so big and strong. He might hurt you.”

Tuck gave her the queerest, most kindly, and most humorous look imaginable. Mary conceived an idea that he was actually smothering a laugh.

“That’s a good one to tell Cal,” he rejoined, with a broad smile. “Miss Mary, I promise to keep out of Enoch’s way all I can. Because I know you would feel dreadful if he beat me up. But I won’t run from him — and if I should happen somehow to disfigure his handsome face a little, you mustn’t blame me.”

“Tuck, I’ll say the same about you that Enoch said about Cal.”

“And what’s that?” queried Tuck, genially.

“I don’t just exactly trust you — somehow. Maybe I’ll ‘get you,’ as Georgie calls it, if you’ll confess how you skinned your knuckles.”

“Right-o. It was this way. No sooner had I gamboled on to this rural scene when I got tagged by three admirers of my girl. — The first one said, ‘I’m gonna lick you.’ . . . The second one said, ‘Mister Merry, you jest have to lick me, too.’ . . . And the third one said, ‘I reckon I’m not seein’ straight. So come on.’”

“Well!” ejaculated Mary. “That’s not telling what happened.”

“Teacher, I leave that to your imagination. If you go a little strong, you may hit it. And I’m telling you that the three cavaliers who disputed my right to dance are still out there in the woods.... Excuse me now, please. Old Henry had started another one of those twenty-round bouts they call tag.”

Enoch came striding up to Mary. “Wal, I’ve been lookin’ everywhere for you. Reckon it’s my dance.”

“This is that tag affair. I’ll be torn to pieces. Couldn’t you hang on to me, Enoch, instead of parceling me off to every Tom, Dick, and Harry here?”

“Reckon I can stave off some of the boys.”

But Enoch reckoned without due consideration for the accelerating warmth and spirit of the dance. Mary was more than ever a mark of approval. She was taken away from him at once and every time that he succeeded in getting her back, he did not have time to make one step before he got tagged again. Finally he gave up in disgust. Mary had a hectic time of it during this dance. It was a romp to music, and these riders, manifestly put on their mettle by the challenge of the girls to dance them down, were gay, persistent, and absolutely tireless. Mary danced until her head grew dizzy and her feet dead. Yet the fun of it was contagious.

“Oh — it’s good — I don’t have — to walk to school — tomorrow,” she said, breathlessly, to her last partner, when the music finally stopped.

“Sure you’ll be right heah,” he replied. “This dance won’t break up till breakfast. Your scholars are all present right now an’ most of them asleep.”

From that hour Mary became a spectator. The dance went on and grew in every sense from the fiddling of old Henry to the action and endurance of the participants. Gradually, however, the married couples withdrew, leaving the floor to the young folk. All during the evening Mary had heard the occasional monotonous sing-song voice of the old fiddler as he called out something she could not distinguish. But now she had opportunity to listen, and she grew much interested and amused.

“Cinch ’em tight

An’ swing all night —

Tee dell de tee dell de.”

Every few moments Henry would break out with one of his improvisations. Manifestly they were eagerly awaited and happily received.

“Serge’s mad an’ I can see

Trouble ahead ‘twixt him an’ Lee.”

This brought forth shouts of approval and inspired Henry to greater heights.

“Edd’s shore a-walkin’ on air

An’ all the while trompin’ on Clair.”

Edd Thurman was the giant of the assembly and danced like a lumbering rhinoceros. A huge laugh went up at his expense. Henry was quiet for a long time, his grizzled head bent over his fiddle, and he had a manner of profound meditation.

“Them riders air weakenin’, girls, as I can see

Their feet air draggin’, ‘twixt you an’ me.”

Henry must have imagined the content of this last rhyme. There was no justification for it that Mary could see. As the hours wore toward dawn, these lengthy riders appeared to grow fresher. If any lagging showed at all, it was on the part of the girls.

“Mere an’ Merth are pretty little twins.

Go to it boys an’ see who wins.”

That seemed to exhaust the old fiddler for a long spell. When at length he raised his head to call out again, it was in stronger voice:

“I’m the fiddlenest fool

Full of White Mule.”

Then after a full pause, as if for effect, he roared out:

“Listen, boys, an’ heah this verse.

Some of you go out an’ fetch a hearse.

Tuck Merry’s slammed three of our best;

It’ll never do till he meets the rest.”

At this hour, which was about three o’clock in the morning, the enjoyment and excitement of the dance appeared to be at its height. The dancing had become almost continuous. Henry Thurman gathered strength and enthusiasm as the hours wore away. The boys took turns beating with the little sticks upon the strings of his fiddle. Manifestly this beating was an important adjunct to the music. The laughter and gayety, however, diminished in proportion to the increased fervor of the dancers. It grew to be a contest. The riders who had just finished the fall round-up, the hardest week of the year, refused to be danced down by the ambitious girls. So it looked as if there would be a deadlock, with physical exhaustion for both sides as the outcome.

Mary, happening to remember the untoward fears of the early evening, remarked to Enoch that apparently she had exaggerated the possibilities of trouble.

“Wal, it’s only the shank of the evenin’ yet,” he replied, enigmatically.

“What do you mean?”

“Shore I cain’t say. But I’ve a hunch somethin’ is goin’ to come off. The longer it waits the worse it’ll be.... An’ now that you make me thoughtful, I want to tell you that none of us older folks like your sister’s dancin’.”

“Oh!” cried Mary, in dismay. “I was — worried. But Georgiana has been dancing very — very decorously for her.”

“Reckon she has up to this heah dance. Take a look at her.”

Mary was not long in picking out her sister’s lithe, supple, wiggling form. Her partner was Dick Thurman, the youngest of the family, and he was one, Mary remembered, that Georgiana had coached in the new Eastern dances. How sadly out of place was the jazz dancing here in this backwoods school-house! Mary was fascinated as well as repelled. Georgiana was indeed a striking little figure. She bent, she swayed, she gyrated, and seemed to inspire her partner to be oblivious of all save her.

“Wal, that wouldn’t be so damn bad if Georgie was dressed different,” muttered Enoch, as if correcting his own judgment.

Mary endeavored to catch Georgiana’s eye. This appeared to be impossible. Georgiana apparently had no eyes for anybody except her partner. Yet of course she must have been aware of the sensation she was creating.

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” burst out Enoch. “She’s got some of the kids doin’ it. Mary, it’s all plain as print. Georgie has taught that dance to some of our crazy youngsters, an’ now they’re aboot to spring it on us. The nervy little devil!”

When Mary verified the truth of Enoch’s observation her dismay increased. Three young couples had begun to dance in a way calculated to excite mirth and disgust. Their intentions were plain, but their execution was ridiculous. Georgiana’s dancing had grace, rhythm, and beauty despite the quality that was objectionable. Many couples left off dancing the better to watch this new and bewildering style. Gradually Georgiana and her pupils drew the attention of old and young alike. There was no mistaking the undisguised disapproval of the mothers and fathers present, nor any doubt about the young people being fascinated.

That dance ended, to Mary’s infinite relief. Then she asked Enoch if it would not be wise for her to seek Georgiana, though not to compel attention, and advise against any further dancing of that kind.

“Let her jump the corral bars!” ejaculated Enoch, with more force than elegance.

His reply silenced Mary and made her more thoughtful than ever. It might be just as well to let the willful Georgiana have her own sweet way. Mary felt a growing anger toward her sister. More than that, she sensed something in Enoch’s ultimatum which was hard to define. Was it that Enoch knew his people and how they would react to this young firebrand from the East? Mary caught a glimpse of Cal’s face and that added to her pain. The boy showed the havoc that had been wrought in him.

There was the usual short intermission, in the middle of which Bid Hatfield swaggered across the empty floor and went straight to Georgiana, manifestly to claim her for the next dance.

“Wal, I reckon Bid ain’t to be blamed much, but it’s sort of hard luck for him,” spoke up Enoch.

“Why — hard luck?” faltered Mary. When had she ever seen Enoch’s eyes flash like gray lightning or his lean jaw bulge and set hard as flint?

“Mary, you know we Thurmans fight among ourselves — at a toss-up — just for the fun of it. But we’re shore slow to fight with outsiders. Hatfield has gotten away with a lot of stunts — slapped right in our faces. Reckon we all think Cal’s no better than anybody else, but it looks like Georgie has given him a dirty deal. So has Hatfield.... Wal, to come to the point. Georgie an’ Hatfield have got pretty thick an’ it’s offensive to us Thurmans. If they have the nerve to dance that — that nigger stuff together, it’ll break up — —”

The loud discordant twang of old Henry’s fiddle interrupted the conclusion of Enoch’s statement. Mary did not need to hear it. She was distressed, yet somehow she was resentfully and thrillingly awaiting the issue. This time, for some strange reason, the couples were slow to get into the dance. Couple by couple they started out as if impelled to dance because the music had begun. But plain it was that they would rather have watched. This tardiness gave Georgiana and Hatfield an opportunity they were not slow to grasp. They started off in a close embrace and with swaying motion Mary knew had never before been seen on that floor. Critically she watched them. Either Hatfield had been more carefully instructed or had taken to this style of dancing more skillfully than the others who had essayed it. For he presented an admirable partner for Georgiana. They both did very well indeed what never should have been done at all. Hatfield was not cool, but he was defiant. No doubt, he realized infinitely more than Georgiana the sensation they were creating. As for Georgiana, her face was hot and her eyes were wicked. Youth, pride, vanity, and mistaken sense of conquest had brought her to a risk she did not realize.

Mary looked up at Enoch and was relieved to find him smiling as he watched. He was as broad-minded and kindly as he was forceful. Then Mary glanced from Enoch to the older Thurmans near at hand. She could not discern any difference in their demeanor. But presently, the stalwart Gard Thurman, the uncle of Cal, got up and strode along between the dancers and the wall until he reached old Henry.

Suddenly the fiddling stopped so shortly that everybody seemed startled into an expectant pause. Gard Thurman stood up on a box, high above the dancers. His square shoulders appeared aggressively wide. He had a strong dark visage, weather-beaten and rugged, with deep-set fiery eyes and grizzled locks.

“Folks an’ friends,” he began in a sonorous drawl, “before we go any farther with this heah dance, I’ve got a word to say.... We’ve had good times heah in this old school-house, an’ many an’ many a dance. They’re shore been aboot all the fun us Tonto folks can look to.... Wal, I reckon these dances hevn’t been much to brag aboot, but they’ve always been decent an’ they’re always goin’ to be decent. An’ I’m statin’ flat thet no outsider can come in heah an’ make our dances indecent.... Thet’s all. I’m sayin’ this as a gentleman an’ allowin’ fer the foolishness of young folks. But there won’t no more be said.”

A blank silence followed the conclusion of Gard Thurman’s speech. He stood there a moment, a powerful figure, menacing yet with all friendliness, his deep gaze fixed upon the guilty dancers. Then he stepped down and his brother Henry began to fiddle valiantly, as if to make up for lost time and an embarrassing moment. Again the dancers fell into their shuffling, rhythmic movements.

But Georgiana and her partner did not dance again. Mary’s keen eye followed them out of the throng to the comparative seclusion of a far corner, where they evidently talked with their backs to the dancers. Soon Georgiana wheeled about and came hurriedly down the room, to the corner where the coats and wraps had been left. Hatfield followed her. Mary saw him spread wide his hands as if expostulating or appealing. Georgiana apparently paid no attention to him. She was in a hurry.

Mary left her own seat, and in going round the room she lost sight of Georgiana for the time being. Meanwhile Enoch had disappeared. When Mary reached the far end of the long room, near the door, she found Enoch there, talking earnestly to Cal. As soon as he saw Mary he discontinued whatever he was saying. Cal was as white as a sheet. There were others near, some of them women, but Mary had no interest to note who they were.

Georgiana appeared in the act of dismissing Hatfield. He looked angry. She did not deign him so much as a glance, and she turned toward the door. She had put on her heavy coat, and she was tying a white fleecy shawl over her head. She came straight for the group in front of the door. At sight of her face Mary’s anger softened.

“Georgie, where are you going?” she asked, hurriedly.

But Georgiana might not have heard her, for all the sign she gave. She did not see Mary’s outstretched hands. Just then the music ceased. Georgiana walked straight to Cal and looked up at him. Mary, though watching her so closely, still saw the intent, curious faces of others in the group.

“Cal, will you take me home?” she asked, in low but distinct voice. “Tim is drunk. I’m afraid of Hatfield. There isn’t anyone else I’d ask — except you.... Will you take me?”

Then Mary found it in her heart to both pity and admire this little sister. Georgiana had experienced a sudden violent shock. She seemed under an intense strain, about ready to collapse, yet upheld by spirit. She was brave. She made no apology or excuse. But pride, defiance, deviltry had gone out of her face. The fire and force of her had faded.

Then Mary bent a most eager gaze upon Cal Thurman. How would he meet this utterly unexpected situation? Mary felt Enoch’s strong hand squeezing hers. He too was intensely curious, and Mary knew in him Georgiana had a friend, despite her faults.

What an opportunity for the flouted and scorned boy! He could have his bitter-sweet revenge right then. Of all the young men present, who had seen her humiliated, she had chosen to ask the one least calculated to stand by her in the moment of her shame. That would have been the verdict of the crowd. But did her intuition guide her rightly in this trying ordeal? The fact was that when the catastrophe had fallen she had appealed to Cal. Mary realized, from the dark, hard gleam in Georgiana’s eyes, from the strained white resoluteness of her, that if Cal repudiated her, gave her scorn for scorn, she would go home alone, she would walk every step of that long lonely road through the forest. Would Cal be little or would he be big? Would he give in to the natural human weakness to hurt her as she had hurt him? But Mary divined that if Cal was ever to win the love of Georgiana, this was the time to do it. There was no telling all that revolved in that girl’s mind. Did she boldly give him this opportunity to insult her, and did she expect just that?

“Why sure I’ll take you home,” replied Cal, with dark, steady eyes on hers. He was as self-possessed as Enoch. “I came to take you home.”

Then in the quick break of Georgiana’s composure was a proof that she had not in the least been sure of his chivalry. But, woman-like, in the hour of stress she had put him to the test. She drooped her head. Perhaps only his loyalty could have shamed her.

Cal took her arm and led her through the opening crowd before the door, and out into the dark.

“Hey, Cal,” called Enoch, after him, “fetch the car back for us.”

CHAPTER XI

IT WAS THE noon hour up at Rock Spring Mesa, and the December sun shone so pleasantly that the men ate in their shirt sleeves.

There was a white line of snow up on the Rim, and patches of white down the timber-protected slopes. But snow seldom lay long on the south slopes. Wild turkey and deer wintered down on the warm sunny benches.

According to the men, Cal Thurman had chosen the finest site in the Tonto for his homestead. It appeared high above the rolling black-timbered land of the Basin, yet it lay far below the lofty level Rim. In reality it was not a mesa, for it had only three sides. The fourth was a level extension meeting the cedared slope. Promontory would have been a more felicitous name. It was a wide flat-topped bench, covered with cedar, juniper, and some pine, that extended out over the Basin farther and higher than other benches which ran down from the Rim. A yellow rocky bluff stood out blunt and ragged at the end of the level, where mesa met the slope, and here under the cliff bubbled the famed spring that gave the place its name. For years the Thurmans had felt they owned this perennial water, but in reality they never had until the day Cal arrived there to build his homestead.

During November they had cleared fifty acres of it, fine red soil mostly free of rock. This square piece comprised the front end of the mesa, except for a fringe of timber left on the west and south.

“Shore the wind’s going to blow logs right out of yore cabin,” said Gard Thurman.

“I reckon it’s got to be darn strong an’ heavy,” was old Henry’s reply to this.

“Wal,” drawled Wess, in the tone he always adopted when he meant to be funny, “we can snake big logs down heah an’ we can heave them into a cabin no north wind’ll bother, but Cal himself has shore got to find an’ keep what goes along with homesteadin’.”

“Ahuh! You mean Cal’s got to find himself a woman,” replied Henry, thoughtfully. “Wal, I never seen before thet gettin’ a woman was powerful hard for a Thurman.”

“Time enough for that,” broke in Cal, gruffly. “But if you men eat an’ gab all day long we’ll never get the cabin run up.”

“My son, learn to be patient,” replied old Henry, kindly. “Shore there’s no hurry. You’ve got the land, an’ now you’ve all the time there is.”

Cal strode away from the camp, out along the edge of the cleared land, through the odorous green-and-brown belt of timber to the edge of the mesa. Here had been a favorite outlook of his as long as he could remember. When he was ten years old he had played there and pretended to build his cabin.

The outlook was superb. It was so high that he could see Gard Thurman’s ranch, a bare gray patch in the black, and his father’s place, Green Valley, far down over the rolling dark foothills, and Bear Flat Ranch, and Boyd’s sorghum field, all of which appeared cleared specks of ground in all that wildness of tumbled ridges leading down into the purple Basin. Beyond towered the mountain ranges. Behind and far above loomed the beautiful Rim, a zigzagged belt of golden cliff fringed by pine, and stretching to west and east as far as eye could see. The great black notched canyon between Promontory Point and the Rim lay open and clear to Cal’s right, a jungle of timber and jumble of cliff where wild creatures always found safe refuge. It was only two hours’ ride over a trail trodden by the Thurmans for years, and now in the clear winter light it looked close. For a place to ride and hunt and spend long lonely hours, Cal loved this black thicket best of all.

“I’d like to be there now — hid from everybody,” he muttered, darkly.

For Rock Spring Mesa and the homestead had strangely lost their glamour. It was a secret that he had rigidly kept. No one, not even Enoch, guessed that his heart was no longer in this long-planned home.

Cal had not been down to Green Valley for a month. He longed to see Georgiana, but pride kept him from going. Not since the October dance, from which he had taken her home, disgraced in her own sight, had he been with her. That night he had risen above his resentment. But he had waited for Georgiana to make amends for the wrong done him. All the way home on that memorable ride through the forest she had scarcely spoken a word. Upon arriving at Green Valley she had left the car at the gate, saying: “You need not go in.... I thank you, Cal Thurman. I’ll say I’ve misjudged you. But for you I’d never have come back here at all.... I’m not worth your respect — nor anything else. Good night.”

“Aw, Georgie, don’t talk like that. Wait!” he had implored. But she had fled. And he had not set eyes upon her for a week afterward. Then she seemed changed. When he did make opportunity for her to speak, to right the wrong she had done him, she talked only of casual things, and soon found excuse to leave him. Cal’s lips had been locked. She must make the overture or there never could be any return to what might have been happy relation. And in the succeeding weeks they had drifted farther apart.

Cal had not suffered grievously under this estrangement. It hurt him more that Georgiana could never forget the insult dealt her at the dance, could never understand, could never believe that she had really not disgraced her sister. But when the weeks passed and gradually Georgiana had come back to friendly acceptance of attention from the boys, though colder, it seemed to him, then Cal could no longer endure the situation. He won his father to instant execution of the homestead plan, and now he had been away a month. Enoch and his riders had returned from the Winslow cattle-drive, and were now helping hew the logs for his cabin. In another day the logs would be notched and flattened, ready to be raised into the finest cabin ever built under the Rim.

Nevertheless, Cal was bitterly unhappy. He could not stand it much longer. Almost desperate, he sat there on the rocky edge, under the juniper tree that seemed an old friend, and at last he cried out, inarticulately, “Oh, what shall I do?”

What a relief to voice his agony, his longing, his impotence. It was as if he had denied it and had proudly refused to ask for help or light. Pride was about to fall. He was alone, with no eye but that of all-seeing Nature and God upon him in his abasement. Sound of his voice was the final step in his surrender. From that moment began a subtle change and uplift in him. He gazed out over the rugged range-encompassed Basin, so wild and lonely and free, a mountain fastness once the home of the fierce Apache, and now sparsely settled by the Thurmans and pioneer families like them. Here was the place and now was the time. All that he lacked was Georgiana Stockwell. In a kind of dream or trance then, as he closed his eyes, it came to him — what must be done to save himself. He must have her. That was all. It did not matter what she had done or what she was or what she wanted. That was his only chance. She had liked him once, enough for him to feel like a man in pressing his suit. Could she have changed all in a day? No! If anything, she must think more of him than ever. Only, she would die before she would confess it!

Cal found himself, found understanding and decision, there in the favorite place of his boyhood. The cold, fragrant December wind bore something down from the Rim; the checkered juniper tree, sturdy and gnarled, old and gray, bent over him with the lesson of its struggle; the loneliness spoke to him; the black depths of the canyon jungle called him in the name of primitive men; the noble brow of Promontory seemed to shine with a golden light; the dim purple Mazatals gave of their mystery and strength — and all about him breathed the insidious whisper — go claim his mate.

“But how — but how?” burst out Cal, aghast, yet almost happy in his revelation. There was no answer to that. The elements did not conspire with him. They merely spoke passionlessly, bidding him listen to the nature that was in him.

Sixteen men, all of them Thurmans, heaved the notched logs for Cal’s cabin. It was a distinction seldom given a log-raising. Cal heaved with them, with all his might. He wanted his strength, too, in the upbuilding of this homestead. Gard Thurman was the most skillful notcher of logs in that country, and here he exercised unusual care. The logs fit to a nicety, leaving only a narrow crack between. “One — two — three — all together — heave!” called out old Henry, and the straight fine logs of pine went into place as if by magic.

It was to be a cabin like Gard Thurman’s, in fact, two cabins with one roof. The rooms were fifteen feet in width, twenty feet in length, and the space between them was to serve as a covered porch. No wheel of wagon or car had ever gotten within five miles of Gard Thurman’s home, and this of Cal’s was farther up the rugged slopes. Burros had for days been packing lumber from Henry’s sawmill — boards for floors and doors and casements and closets. The four windows had come from Globe, and had been intrusted to old Jinny, the safest packer of the burros. Slender poles of pine had been cut to point the gable roof, that was to extend clear across both rooms and the intervening space. A fine-grained pine tree had yielded the shingles— “shakes,” they were called — and these were piled neatly near by, ready for the shinglers. Cheerily, lustily the men labored. This was pioneer work, and they were blazing the path for civilization.

One Saturday noon, close to Christmas, old Henry wiped the sweat from his wrinkled brow and called to the few Thurmans he had kept to finish the job. “Done, you sons-of-guns, an’ shore she’s a daisy!”

Such a double cabin had no counterpart in all the Tonto. The wide shelving eaves sheltered a porch all along the front. There was a ladder leading to the loft above the space between the cabins — ample room for storage or for sleeping-quarters. An open fireplace of stone on the west side was Henry’s especial pride. It would hold as large a fire-log as a man would care to lift. Home-made furniture, rude but serviceable, such as tables, chairs, bedsteads, had been made.

“Boy, yore homestead is ready,” said Henry to his son. “Come down to Green Valley for Chistmas. Then we’ll pack up yore outfit, an’ a stove for the kitchen, an’ a lot of grub. I’ll give you some hosses an’ cattle — an’, wal, I reckon thet’s aboot all I can do for you.”

“Cal, when you fetch yourself a woman we’ll shore storm this heah cabin,” remarked Edd. Somehow the idea of cabin and homestead was not complete without a woman.

Serge got an elaborate dinner that day, to celebrate the occasion and to use all the food he had left, so there would be none to pack away. Naturally the hour was somewhat hilarious, and Cal was indeed thankful for the advent of Tuck Merry. He rode a rather small horse, and his long legs, dangling down, excited the humor of the boys. They left off teasing Cal. Tuck had about become a fixture. Everybody liked him, even Enoch, who had never yet solved a mystery that still bothered him.

“Some mansion, I’ll say,” declared Tuck, gazing at the new cabin. “Buddy, don’t you forget that I sawed a lot of wood for you.”

“Tuck, pile off an’ come an’ get it,” called Serge. “There’s plenty left.”

“Aw, tell him to put his feet on the ground an’ let that cayuse walk from under,” added Enoch.

They ate and talked, and bantered Tuck, and lay around until there did not seem any possible excuse to do so longer. Besides, all the food had disappeared. Enoch had made innumerable pointed remarks to Tuck, all of which had apparently fallen upon deaf ears. The leader of the Thurman clan could not rouse the ire of Tuck Merry. Finally he put on his chaps and his fleece-lined coat, and yelled for one of the Thurman youngsters to fetch his horse.

“Reckon I’ll ride home an’ call it a day,” he drawled. “Cal, will you be rustlin’ along?”

“Sure, tonight. I — I want to hang around an’ talk to Tuck for a while,” replied Cal.

“Ahuh! Shore I s’pose your long-legged pard has a lot to talk aboot,” returned Enoch, dryly. He had always been a little jealous of anyone Cal liked.

“Right-o,” declared Tuck, heartily. “And say, Enoch, stop kidding me about my long legs. I’m fed up on that. It’s a cinch you’ve no call to kid me. You’re not so short armed or legged or necked. And you’ve the longest nose — the most fascinating nose — I ever saw.”

Everybody sat up to take notice. This was quite a sally, coming from the meek Tuck Merry. Old Henry haw-hawed his amusement. Enoch looked sort of surprised.

“Longest — an’ most fascinatin’,” he echoed, dubiously. “What you mean by fascinatin’?”

At that juncture Cal shot a look at Tuck. They understood each other. The time had come at last. Cal felt himself thrilling all over, and he had to hide his face for a moment. Tuck became apparently meeker, milder, more illusive.

“Why Enoch, your nose is fascinating for two reasons,” replied Tuck, slowly. “First, it’s so darned big and ugly.”

Now it happened that Enoch’s nose was a very sensitive point with him, both as regards vanity and as an organ exceedingly easy to hurt. He had been known to be cross all day because a branch of brush had stung it.

“Ugly! Say, you shore have a lot of beauty to brag aboot,” retorted Enoch.

“Enoch, I’m a handsome man compared to you,” rejoined Tuck, tranquilly. “But I’ll say if it wasn’t for your nose you might stand a chance with me.”

“My Gawd!” ejaculated Enoch, beginning to expand. He had not been quite ready for this. “Listen to him, fellars! . . . I’ll — But say, what’s that other reason why my nose is so fascinatin’?”

“Because it’d be such a peach of a nose to jab,” replied Tuck, with a broad smile.

Cal would have rolled over in glee if he had not been so keen to see everything. The others were gaping in amaze, and old Henry’s face was a study.

“Jab?” echoed Enoch, incredulously. “You mean punch?”

“Exactly, only that is not so fitting a word,” responded Tuck.

Suddenly Enoch shook all over, as if the humor of the thing had just struck him. But that passed. The old doubt assailed him, and he began to bristle a little.

“Ahuh! Wal, I noticed you never busted off any buttons acceptin’ invitations to punch my nose.”

“Right-o,” replied Tuck, coolly. “But, Enoch, old scout, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. Honest, I’ve near died of temptation. I sure wanted to tap that beautiful bugle of yours.”

“What kept you from tryin’?” queried Enoch, laboring between good humor and wrath.

“Can I speak right out before everybody?”

“Shore you can,” blurted Enoch, more mystified than ever.

“Good! It will take a load off my mind,” returned Tuck, seriously. “Your fiancée, Miss Mary, begged me not to cross you or annoy you or even answer you back. She was afraid I might make you angry. Said you were so big and strong that you would hurt me terribly. Said you would lick me very bad and she didn’t want to see me all crippled up. So I had to promise her I’d not offend you. It’s been pretty hard, Enoch.”

Cal’s restraint went into eclipse, and he burst out into long-suppressed mirth. The other boys yelled. Old Henry had not quite grasped the situation, but he had begun to beam. Enoch was the only one who did not see the joke. He was absolutely silenced for a moment, unable to grasp whether Tuck was making fun of him or telling the truth or both. Finally he growled:

“Wal, I reckon Mary had it sized up correct. If you’d ever give me a chance I’d shore have licked you very bad.”

Tuck took a long stride toward Enoch. He had the grave concern of a deacon.

“Enoch, you’re a good old scout, and I hate to do this,” he said.

“You dinged fool!” shouted Enoch, beginning to grow red in the face. The mirth of the spectators, especially Cal’s, began to get on his nerves.

Suddenly Tuck Merry bounded straight up, to come down light as a feather. It was a remarkable action for so singularly and awkwardly built man.

“You big stiff!” he thundered. “You’ve been bully-ragging me ever since I got here.... Climb out of your chaps! Throw off your coat!”

Enoch’s face changed miraculously. His expression became one of joyous certainty.

“Wal, Tuck, shore I reckon I won’t need to take off anythin’,” he drawled, all his old good-nature again in the ascendency. He stepped toward Tuck with his slow, sturdy, belligerent manner.

Cal had eyes dimmed by tears of glee, but he saw something flash, quick as light. It was Tuck’s long arm. That mallet-like fist landed somewhere on Enoch, too swiftly to see. Enoch staggered and had to throw up his arms to try to regain his balance. He never regained it. Sharp thumped Tuck’s left fist where the right had landed. Enoch let out a bellow which resembled that of a steer in pain and fury. Then again Tuck’s left followed hard. Enoch began to lean exactly like a huge tree cut at the roots. His arms flopped down. His expression was awful. At the same time Tuck was swinging with his right — a longer and more powerful action than Cal had ever seen him use. It thrilled Cal, and frightened him, too. That blow sent Enoch down like a heavy sack.

Up to that moment, for all except Enoch the encounter had been one to revel in. But when Enoch failed to move, the mirth gave way to concern.

“He’s out,” said Tuck, breathing hard. “I had to make it a knock-out or he’d pestered me to fight every day.”

“Say, who’n hell air you, anyway?” burst out Serge.

“Do you want any of me?” demanded Tuck. “I’m in the humor now.”

“Wal, I cain’t say I do — now you tax me aboot it,” replied Serge, scratching his head.

They all knelt beside Enoch, and some one threw water on his face. His nose was swelling rapidly, but did not bleed very much. Presently he began to revive. He opened his eyes, blinked, stared, and then slowly stirred, and reaching for support he sat up. Cal backed away from him, and Tuck rose to stand aside. Enoch seemed a little dazed. He looked at each and every one present. He shook his head and felt of his jaw. Then when his hand come in contact with his nose he appeared to grasp realities.

“Ahuh! . . . He licked me!” he said, in the strangest tone.

“Wal, I reckon he did,” drawled Henry.

“Terrible bad!” went on Enoch.

“Say, if you could see yore beak, you’d think so,” declared Serge.

“Awful quick!” added Enoch.

“Biff — biff — biff — wham! — Just as quick as thet,” replied old Henry, with a grin. “Prettiest work I ever seen.”

Enoch slowly got to his feet and stood rather unsteadily. But he was again in possession of all his faculties. Cal picked up his sombrero and gave it to him. Some one else began to brush his coat.

“Tuck Merry, when I invited you to a little mix-up, I reckoned it’d be one-sided,” said Enoch, getting back to his drawl. “It shore was! . . . I’m licked, an’ I can swallow it if you’ll tell me how you did it.”

Cal felt that he was the one to make the revelation. How keenly he wanted to keep the secret longer! But it could not be done.

“Enoch — listen,” he began, choking his words out. “Tuck was a boxing-master among the marines.... An’ he was — one of Jack Dempsey’s sparrin’ partners!”

“My Gawd!” ejaculated Enoch, suddenly radiant, as he reached for Tuck. “I can tell Mary that.”

CHAPTER XII

THE MEN PACKED their tools and effects kept there during the building, and rode away, leaving Cal with his friend.

Tuck had to see everything and his interest was stimulating. They went all over the cabin, up into the lofts, and then out into the cleared field, where the stumps were still burning. Tuck had to have a drink of the spring, and he was loud in his praise of everything.

“Is there any more to see?” he asked, finally.

“Guess you given it the once over, as you say, except my lookout point. It’s as high as the fire ranger’s station on the Diamond,” replied Cal.

“Lead me to it,” said Tuck, with enthusiasm.

Whereupon Cal led him across the field of red soil, into the timber and out to the promontory. The day was unusually fine and clear.

“You can’t often see the Sierra Ancas in winter,” said Cal, pointing to the most distant range, far to the south.

Tuck gazed from far to near and from near to far, and then all around. How comforting was his delight; Cal began to find something of his old joy. After all, he had to live there and work out his destiny there. Perhaps in time ——

“Buddy, for a city man that is beyond words. Just grand! — You won’t be bothered by gasoline smell here or rattle of the elevated or second-story burglars — or bill collectors, or anything! To make it perfect you need only — —”

“What?” queried Cal, as his friend hesitated.

“Georgiana Stockwell,” replied Tuck, deliberately.

At that Cal suddenly sat down on the flat stone under the juniper. Tuck’s reply was like a blow in an unguarded moment. A rush of emotion almost overcame Cal.

“Pard,” he said, with lowered head, “you’re hittin’ below the belt.”

“Not on your life!” exclaimed Tuck, with his long arm going round Cal’s shoulder. “I came up today on purpose to tell you that, and I expected to see you duck. But don’t feel bad, Cal.”

“Tuck, you said — for my homestead to be perfect, it needed Georgiana Stockwell,” returned Cal. “Yes. It would be. But without her it will be nothin’.”

“I can see that, Cal,” rejoined Tuck, thoughtfully. “It is in your face, and you’ve lost weight. Maybe you’re worked hard.”

“Yes, pretty hard. Liftin’ an’ diggin’ soon wears a rider out . . . but I’ve worried, an’ I don’t sleep — an’ well, Tuck, I’m in a bad way.”

“I’m sorry, Buddy. You must buck up.”

“Still, I’m not nearly so far down as I was. — I’ve made a decision, an’ in a way it’s helped.”

“What was it, Cal?”

“I reckon it was somethin’ like what you said.... I’ve got to have Georgie. The Thurmans are like that. Think! With a world full of nice women — only one will do.”

“It’s tough,” replied Tuck, seriously. “Especially, as you’re a Thurman, who won’t try to win the one woman.”

“Try! — Why, Tuck, you’re crazy,” declared Cal. “I’ve crawled on my knees.”

“Sure. But, Buddy, you didn’t crawl at the right time, nor far enough. And you’re too proud. You expected Georgie to crawl, just because she ought to. Boy, you don’t know women. That kid crawl! Never in this wide world! — But she could be scared into ‘most anything.”

“Scare Georgie!” echoed Cal. “That couldn’t be done. She has more nerve than anyone I ever knew. Besides, what use to scare her?”

“We’ll come to that presently. Now what I want to get straight is this. I haven’t seen you for several weeks, and during that time I figured you’d brace, take the count, and get back into the ring again. But you haven’t. You’ve quit. And I’m fearing it’s worse with you than I’d guessed. — Tell me, Buddy. — You’ll never know what a friend you were to me when I was down and out.”

“Worse? I reckon it couldn’t be worse,” rejoined Cal, somberly. “I — I thought my heart was broken. I don’t know.... But I feel I’m ruined unless — —”

“Right-o. I get you, pard. — What seems to be wrong between you and Georgie?”

“I guess she doesn’t care, that’s all,” replied Cal, dejectedly.

“But she did — as much as her kind ever cares for any fellow. They got to be handed a couple, her kind, before they are gentle. She’ll never care any more unless you make her. And I think this absent treatment of yours has made her care less. If you don’t do something quick you’re going to lose her.”

“What on earth can I do?” blurted out Cal, goaded to desperation.

“It’s a case of rough-house,” replied Tuck, with a grin.

“You mean run off with her — kidnap her?” demanded Cal, incredulously.

“Not exactly. That’s too gentle for Georgiana. I’d waylay her — grab her — make a bluff at being a gorilla — scare her into the middle of next week — and marry her before she came to.”

“Aw, Tuck — you’re crazy!” breathed Cal, hopelessly. Yet the preposterous idea had instantaneous allurement. “She’d have to consent to marriage.”

“Right-o. But you can scare her into that. — Cal, my boy, you don’t know women, let alone these modern kids. They’re sore at us men. It’s a heritage come down to them, and this generation thinks it’s going to get even. They’re doing that, I admit. But it’ll be a costly experience. Now if you’ve got to have your little lady, let’s get our heads together and plan the great razoo.”

“I’d do anything that wasn’t dishonorable,” replied Cal.

“Buddy, makin’ this wild kid marry you wouldn’t be crooked, believe me. I want to state that it’d be her salvation and a genuine blessing to Mary Stockwell.”

“Ahuh! If you can prove that, talk quick,” said Cal, sharply.

“Listen, then, and don’t butt in till I get this off my chest,” went on Tuck. “I’ve kept close tab on Georgiana and all that concerned her these last four weeks. You know she came here for her health and improved wonderfully at first. Well, now she’s going back. She doesn’t ride and run around in the open as before. She moped in her room until her sister made such a rumpus that she had to come out. But her pep is gone. — This sort of thing can’t last. She’ll run off, or do some fool stunt. Miss Mary has lost patience with her, which is no wonder. And of course since the dance scandal the Thurmans are a little chilly. The situation is bad for Georgie. Everybody misunderstands your attitude. Think you, too, have thrown her down. Such gossip gets to her ears. I dare say Georgie imagines she hates you now. I know what I mention you she blazes like fire. But maybe that’s a good sign. It wouldn’t do, though, for you to go honeying around her.... Well, lately, the last week, I’ve seen things that bothered me. For one, Bid Hatfield called at your house to see Georgie.”

“You don’t say!” ejaculated Cal, in dark amaze.

“Yes, I do say. He didn’t get to see Georgie, but he left a note, which was given her. That wasn’t so bad. But twice this week I’ve seen Hatfield ride down that hill trail below the sawmill. Twice, in the middle of the afternoon. Well, by inquiring casual like of Miss Mary, I found out that Georgie has been taking walks, when the afternoons are sunny, and — —”

“Tuck! Has she been meeting Bid Hatfield?” queried Cal, tensely.

“I don’t believe she has — yet. I’ve no call to say so, except I think the kid is really on the level. If she’s met Hatfield, it’s been by accident. If she hasn’t, it’s a cinch she soon will meet him.”

“Tuck, if that happens, an’ my folks hear of it, Georgie won’t be welcome at my home any longer.”

“Right-o. I had that figured. The worst of it is, if Georgie knew that, she’d be more inclined to meet Hatfield. Queer, girls are! — She’s in a state of mind and health when she’s liable to ruin her life. We don’t need to waste time talking about that. Here are the facts. Georgie is in bad here in the Tonto. She knows it. She feels she has hurt her sister’s position. It has worried her, and what with that and all the rest, she’s on the downhill road, in health and every way. Now let’s change all that for her.”

“All right. But how?” queried Cal, eagerly.

“I’ve figured it all out, Buddy,” continued Tuck, just as eagerly. “The Sunday after Christmas I’ll ride down to get Parson Meeker. I’ve met him a few times, and think he likes me. Anyway, I can handle him. I’ll make up some story that will get his sympathy. In the Tonto, you know, anybody can get married quick if he fetches the lady. That’ll be your job, and if I’m not mistaken it’ll be some job. Now I’ll fetch Parson Meeker by trail, round the Diamond to Boyd Thurman’s cabin. No one living there, and if it’s cold we can make a fire. We’ll be there about noon Monday, and wait for you. ‘Wal, I reckon that’s about all,’ as Enoch says.”

“All! Good Heavens, man, it’s nothin’ to my part in this — this wonderful plan,” cried Cal, excitedly. “What have I got to do?”

“Grab the little lady and tote her up there — and we’ll do the rest,” declared Tuck, loquaciously.

“Wha-at?” stammered Cal. Indeed the idea had dazzled him.

“Buddy, you’ve been partaking of loco. You’re like Enoch after I gave him the slumber-whanger.... Listen. All you’ve got to do is to catch Georgie out of the house or drag her out of the house. Have a horse handy, hidden in the brush. Carry her if you have to. You want to act mad, quick, and rough. Don’t talk much. If you talk she’ll get the best of it. Scare her into the middle of next week.”

“It’s easy to talk of scarin’ Georgie, but how can it be done?” asked Cal, wildly.

“You’re afraid of her. Well, make her afraid of you. What does that kid know of rough men? Act like some of the Tonto outlaws she’s heard about. Make her think she has driven you to it. She’s only a child. All that nerve of hers is just modern bluff. Scare it out of her. Then make her swear not to tell Parson Meeker you carried her off.”

“Ahuh! An’ then, supposin’ all this — this dream comes off, an’ I do get her married — what then?” asked Cal, as one whose brain was whirling.

“Pack her up here to your new cabin. You can have all shipshape by that time.”

“An’ then — after I pack her up here — what’ll I say?” asked Cal, feebly. His heart was swelling and rising to his throat.

“Let me see,” replied this arbiter of wisdom, reflectively. “I think I’d make a grand finale of it. I’d carry her in and drop her down and say, in a big loud voice, ‘Now, Mrs. Cal Thurman, I want my dinner. I’m not in a mood to sing for it or whistle for it, but I want it!’ . . . Then go out, and let her come to.”

Cal shook his head sadly at what he considered the mental aberration of his friend. Yet the insidious voice of temptation was irresistible. His last and only chance! It was doomed to failure, in any event. If he did succeed in forcing Georgiana to marry him, there was no possibility of keeping her a prisoner.

“Buddy, don’t overlook this fact,” put in Tuck, as if he read Cal’s thoughts. “Once you marry Georgie, she’ll not find it so easy to get out of as you think now, and as she’ll think. Nobody is going to believe you kidnapped her, and if she runs off from you, she’ll disgrace her sister sure this time.”

That idea struck home to Cal’s grasping hope. It would be a serious situation for Georgiana. But however she reacted to it, the most alluring prospect was the fact that if he succeeded in marrying her, there could be no further danger of her flirting, no more risk for her in trifling with men. The code of the Tonto was a rigid thing, and even men like Bid Hatfield respected it. Married, she would be saved from herself, so far as the Tonto was concerned, no matter what she did.

“Next Monday! Five more days! . . . My God!” ejaculated Cal, in defeat that had its exquisite torture of joy.

“Buddy, so help me Heaven, it’ll work out fine,” responded Tuck, with great relief and satisfaction. “By springtime you and I will sit right here under this old juniper, and you’ll be telling Tuck Merry he’s square with you.”

Cal rode back to Green Valley that afternoon late, a very much obsessed young man, pondering the part he had to play. His morbid depression had vanished. It was going to be difficult, when the crisis came, to pretend a dark, somber, brooding, and dangerous trend of mind before Georgiana.

The cold winter twilight had fallen by the time Boyd Thurman’s deserted ranch had been reached. Sight of the old log cabin where he had planned to marry Georgiana brought realities to his mind. He thrilled despite the utter wildness of Tuck Merry’s plan. There was something strangely satisfying in the idea of carrying Georgiana off against her will. But what would she say and do when she awoke to the enormity of the affront to her freedom? Cal felt hot and cold at the thought. But something drove him on. Sufficient unto the day!

It was dark when he and Tuck reached Green Valley. All the riders were in, judging from the saddles on the rack. He heard the horses and cows munching hay in their stalls. The familiar odors of the barns were sweet to his nostrils. Before presenting himself indoors, he went with Tuck to their tent quarters, and there, by the light of a candle, he shaved and changed his clothes.

Supper had been held for his arrival, and the boys greeted him with a yell and a rush to the table. His mother remarked that he “shore looked sort of pasty,” and his sister asked him if he thought it was Sunday, “All cleaned up an’ shiny-faced.”

Mary Stockwell and Georgiana came in to take their seats at the far end of the long table. When they saw Cal they added their greeting. Georgiana called: “Howdy Cal! You shore don’t look like you been a-rollin’ logs.”

Cal bent over his plate. How the sweet high voice shook his heart! For a moment his eyes were dim. Just to hear her worked havoc in him again. And in the moment the thought came that all which sustained him was remembrance of the deep-laid plot. He blessed Tuck Merry for evolving it. He did not glance at Georgiana again during that merry supper-time, and when they are repaired to the living-room she did not stay. Mary came to shake hands with him.

“How are you, Cal?” was her kind query, and her eyes searched his face anxiously.

“Fair to middlin’, teacher,” he replied, gayly. “An’ when’s the great day for you an’ Enoch? I have my mind on a weddin’ present.”

“I’ll tell you when it’s decided,” she replied.

“How’s Georgie?” he went on, trying to be casual.

“Did you look at her?”

“Not particularly. Why?”

“I think you would have seen a change.”

“Ahuh! Is she sick?”

“Georgie seems well enough, but she grows thinner and paler. I am worried, Cal. — She — But I’ll not tell you now. Sometime soon when we have a good chance.”

“All right, teacher. Anythin’ I can do — you know me,” he said, soberly. Her tone, her look, acted upon his heart like a weight of lead.

“Just a word now,” she went on, in a lower voice, as she drew him a little aside. She hesitated, almost faltered, and there was something wistful in her clear eyes. “Cal, you’ve changed. You’re older — more of a man. I like your face better. You’ve suffered.... Now tell me. Are you over it?”

“Over what?” he asked.

“Your — your infatuation for my sister,” she whispered.

“Can I trust you?”

“Oh, Cal — yes indeed you can,” she replied. “I can’t tell you how I hope you still care for her.”

“Listen, then,” he said, bending close to her ear. “I love Georgie — more than ever.”

He had his reward in the flash of gladness that crossed her worn face. It struck him then that she too appeared somewhat paler and thinner. He was indeed not the only one to whom Georgiana had brought trouble.

The next day Cal borrowed Tuck’s services at the sawmill, and the two of them drove to Ryson and filled a car full of supplies and utensils needed at the Rock Spring homestead and also Christmas presents. It was the lack of capacity of the car and not Tuck’s consternation that compelled Cal to leave off buying. They returned to Green Valley, and spent the remaining hour of that day stowing away these purchases.

The following morning Cal and Tuck, with the help of some of the boys, packed nineteen burros and horses. By noon that day they unpacked in front of the porch of Cal’s new home. They had a good deal of excitement in spreading the outfit and finding where every bit of it should be placed. Midafternoon overtook them before this pleasant labor was ended; and then followed the task of finding the strayed pack animals and driving them home. They arrived at Green Valley just before dark, tired out but happy, and ready for their great adventure.

Christmas Eve found twenty-odd Thurmans at the Green Valley Ranch. And what with Mary Stockwell and Georgiana, added to the several riders who likewise were no kin of the Thurmans, there was a large household.

Cal sprang a little surprise at them. That day at Ryson, in the excitement of purchasing and the thrill of possible events he had bought presents for everybody. The best the Ryson stores could show was not too good for Cal. He had saved his wages for years. This Christmas signaled the one great event in his life, for weal or woe, and he was celebrating it. The amaze and delight of his rider brothers was gratifying. His old father scratched his grizzled head, and gazed dubiously from the present on his knee up into Cal’s face. “Son, air this heah yore way of homesteadin’ a ranch?”

“Ahuh! Maybe next Christmas I won’t be able to afford it,” he replied, mysteriously.

Enoch toyed with the gun he had long ago seen in Ryson and had coveted. “Wal, Cal, shore it’s damn good of you.”

Tim Matthews had a wonderful beaver sombrero thrust into his hands, with the words: “Merry Christmas, Tim.” Now Tim had never completely become reconciled to Cal since the fight at Boyd Thurman’s sorghum field.

“Wh-a-a-t?” he stammered. “This heah forty dollar beaver for me? . . . Aw! — Cal Thurman, if you ain’t some sport, I’ll eat this hat. Put her thar! I hope to wear it at your weddin’.”

A great deal of hilarity attended the presentation of these gifts. “Windfalls!” ejaculated Uncle Gard Thurman. “Wal, the boy’s locoed,” said Henry. Then an old aunt of Cal’s spoke up. “You croakers ought to be ashamed.”

At last there was only one present left, and Cal meant this for Georgiana. He had not been unaware of her curiosity, even though she sat in the background and had no share in the hilarity. The moment was fraught with anxiety. Suppose she refused it! But this was Christmas, and she could not do that. Mary Stockwell had opened her lips to reproach Cal for his extravagance, but when she saw what the present was she could only utter her delight. Cal felt that he could safely trust to human nature, on Christmas Eve, even if the subject was the willful and haughty Georgiana.

So he stood with the box behind his back and called out gayly:

“Come, Georgie, get yours.”

She came forward readily, not at all formidable. Indeed she was smiling, a little wistfully, yet expectantly, and there was something of childhood in her expression. She came right up to him and the light of the blazing logs in the open fireplace shone on her face. It was the closest he had been to her in a month. Cal trembled, and found it hard to keep to his role of gay dispenser of gifts. He almost forgot.

“I’ll say you’re some little Santa Claus,” said Georgiana.

“Guess what it is,” suggested Cal.

“Oh, I couldn’t. I haven’t an idea.”

“I’ll bet you’ll be tickled,” he went on, tantalizingly. “I was just lucky. This sure was a windfall.”

“Well, give it to me then — if it’s so wonderful,” retorted Georgiana. She was not to be convinced. There was something of pleasurable anticipation in her face, but no enthusiasm.

“Huyler’s candy — from New York!” announced Cal, triumphantly, and handed over the box.

“Oh! Really? How perfectly lovely!” cried Georgiana, suddenly radiant, as she eagerly received the gift.

“Georgie, I wish you a Merry Christmas — an’ a Happy New Year here — in the Tonto,” added Cal, with a strange earnestness taking the place of his gayety.

Something in his tone and his look must have struck her singularly. A slight flush came to her pale face.

“Thank you. I wish you the same,” she replied, with dark eyes on his for an instant. Then she turned to her sister.

Christmas day, and the Sunday following were nightmares to Cal. He managed to do justice to the sumptuous Tonto dinner, including wild turkey, but the rest of the festivities and social intercourse of the holiday were blank for him. Not until Tuck Merry rode away late Sunday afternoon did Cal regain anything of balance. Then his queer trance-like vacillation gave way to an intense nervous restlessness. Not much sleep did he get that night!

As luck would have it Monday turned out to be a beautiful bright sunny day. Nature had smiled upon his enterprise. About the middle of the forenoon he saddled his horse, and riding out the back way he circled over a brushy ridge and came down above the ranch, at a point where the walnut swale joined the road. Here back a few rods he tied his horse and returned to the house. All the men had resumed their labors after the short holiday. Mary Stockwell had disappeared somewhere. Cal’s mother and sisters were busy in their quarters. He felt sure that Georgiana would walk out into the sunshine, but even if she did not the conditions were favorable to the success of his venture. Donning the roughest clothes he had — in fact, ragged old garments he had cast aside, he made a bundle of the things he had taken off. He packed a big gun at his hip. And with his old slouch sombrero he imagined he made a rather hard-looking individual. If he had not been so deadly serious about this plan, it would have been funny. But though he called himself a fool, he was heart and soul in it. What if Tuck failed to fetch Parson Meeker! A thousand fears beset Cal. He went out and hid in the brush above the house, and with eyes that ached he peered from his covert. He would have an interminable wait. Endless hours before she would come out for her walk! Or she might not come at all, and then he would be forced to go after her. The excitement, the thrill, the zest of the thing had vanished. There was a lump in his throat; his skin felt clammy and cold; and his restlessness increased until it became almost unbearable.

All at once his roving eye caught sight of a horseman riding down a brush-lined trail across the valley.

“Who’s that man?” muttered Cal, grimly. “I’m not goin’ to let him spoil my party. — Maybe he’ll ride on.”

The horseman kept to the brush, disappeared for a few moments, then reappeared farther down, and came off the slope at the end of the Thurman line of cleared ground. Here he kept under cover until he got out to the road, where he was careful to look in all directions. Cal began to breathe hard. The horseman trotted briskly down the road, and turned into the chump of walnut trees in the mouth of the swale where Cal had hidden his horse.

“Bid Hatfield!” gasped Cal, and slowly sank back in his hiding-place. “What does he mean — sneakin’ round like that?”

A suspicion of Georgiana tried to find lodgment in Cal’s mind. “No! No! She wouldn’t meet him!”

But this accident presented a new angle to his enterprise. He was expecting Georgiana to go out for a walk. So was Bid Hatfield. Confronted by this problem Cal pondered over it. At the same time he peered again from his shady nook under the manzanitas. Suddenly he stiffened in his tracks. Georgiana had appeared at the gate, and her quick apprehensive glance up and down the road was not lost upon Cal.

“Ah hell!” he groaned, and it was as if he had been stabbed. Georgiana knew Bid Hatfield was to be there. She was on the way to meet him. One moment Cal endured pangs the like of which had never before torn his breast. Then swift as light his whole mood changed.

“Ahuh!” he muttered, hoarsely. “I’ll meet him too, Georgie — an’ you can take your choice.”

Slipping down like an Indian through the brush, Cal halted just before he came to the road. Georgiana was walking rapidly toward the curve of the road, around which was the opening where Hatfield must be waiting. Cal let her get out of sight. Then he ran along, threading a way through the aisles between the clumps of brush, and turned to climb a low ridge that formed the western bank of the walnut swale. He knew every foot of the ground, and how he could slip right upon these two at their rendezvous. He was in the grip of passion, yet he had self-control left to let the meeting decide his course of action. Bitter and rancorous as he was, he could not give up hope altogether. His faith in Georgiana would not die.

“But if she’s — she’s — ,” he muttered, failing over a word to express his feeling, “by God! it’ll be a bad meetin’ for them.”

Through an opening in the trees below he caught a glimpse of Georgiana, still hurrying. He glided after her, keeping clumps of brush in front of him. Presently, he caught the brown gleam of Hatfield’s bay horse, and next he saw Hatfield sitting on a log, waiting. He saw Georgiana coming. How eager his attitude! Cal ground his teeth in jealous rage. Perhaps the fellow had reason to look happily expectant. They had chosen the thickest part of this swale for their meeting-place. Again Cal saw Georgiana moving along, not so resolutely now. She was lagging. Cal crouched down and covered considerable ground before he looked again. He was now close enough to make up his mind what to do. With tense eyes he peered out.

When Hatfield attempted to take the girl in his arms and she repulsed him in a manner unquestionable, Cal experienced another terrible commotion in his breast. But different from the first! He did not need to see any more to understand that Georgiana was not Hatfield’s sweetheart. She should not have been there, but perhaps there were extenuating circumstances. Cal’s keen eyes searched Hatfield’s person for a gun. None was visible. “If he’s packin’ one somewhere, we’re in for it — an’ I’m ready,” muttered Cal, to himself, “An’ if he isn’t his meetin’ Georgie here is great luck for me.”

Drawing his gun, Cal glided on, keeping to cover, stepping stealthily. But he need not have taken so much precaution. Hatfield was appealing in poignant tones: “Aw, Georgie, you don’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do,” replied Georgiana, almost sharply. “I’ve been out of my head — long enough. It’s wrong to meet you. It’d be wrong if I loved you — which I don’t. I’ll never — —”

Cal called out, stridently: “Stick ’em up, Bid! — Quick!”

Hatfield’s back was turned to Cal. Up went his hands and he stood stiff. Georgiana wheeled to see Cal and let out a startled scream.

“Shut up, you!” ordered Cal, in a voice like a whip.

Then, running round in front of Hatfield he shoved the gun full in that worthy’s face. A sweeping glance assured Cal that his rival was unarmed. This immediately lessened Cal’s tension, and gave him the force to make the best of his opportunity.

“Reckon I’ll kill you!” he hissed out, with all the fury he could summon. He must have done it well, for Hatfield turned a sickly pale hue, and Georgiana screamed in terror.

“For God’s sake, Cal — don’t — don’t kill him!” she begged, frantically.

“Why not? You’re meetin’ him here — sneakin’ away from the house where you’re a guest — insultin’ every Thurman in the Tonto — disgracin’ your sister. You must love him.”

“Oh, Cal — I swear I don’t!” cried the girl, with ashen face. “I’ve been lonely — miserable.... I met him first by accident. He coaxed me, and I was just — just bullheaded enough to come. I was foolish — but I don’t care for him. I never even thought so.”

“You met him — like this — an’ that’s enough for a Thurman,” replied Cal, harshly.

“But Hatfield is not to blame,” cried the girl. “I am to blame.... Put down that awful gun.”

In her earnestness she pressed forward as if to take hold of Cal. With one swing of his left arm he swung her off. She staggered against the log and all but fell. Her hand went to her breast; her lips parted and her eyes grew wild.

“Hatfield — get on your horse an’ beat it,” ordered Cal. “Don’t give me any of your chin. I’m lettin’ you off because she squared you.”

With quick long strides Hatfield got to his horse and, leaping astride, he reached both hands down for the bridle. Finding that, he straightened up, bent a pale, vindictive face upon Cal, and goading the horse he plunged away under the trees. Then came the swift clatter of hoofs on the hard road.

When Cal turned to Georgiana his stern resolve almost melted. But weakness and tender-heartedness were not to be tolerated now. Tuck had amazingly inspired him. He would carry the whole pretense to the top of his bent.

“Reckon if you’re to blame, I’ll take it out on you,” he began, striding up to her.

“Why — Cal!” she faltered. “You never were like this — before.”

“I never knew all about you before,” he returned, bitterly.

The little head shot up and a flame of spirit flashed back to the white face.

“You can’t talk to me that way,” she said. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but I’m not ashamed. Be careful you don’t insult me.”

Cal decided the fewer words exchanged the better. He thrust his gun back into its sheath, and then with a swift action he fastened his left hand in the front of Georgiana’s coat and blouse.

“You come with me,” he said.

“I’ll do nothing of the—” she responded, but owing to the sudden force he exerted she failed to conclude her statement.

Cal began to stride back into the glade, pulling her with him. For a few yards she went unyieldingly, as if in amaze. Then she began to resist. She held back, fought his arm, and beat at him. But she could not dislodge his hold.

“Let go — I say,” she panted. “Are you drunk or crazy? — Cal Thurman, I won’t go with you. Why, you’re worse than Hatfield.”

At that he gave her a violent jerk and shake which upset her equilibrium, and she would have fallen, save for his arm. He dragged her on. At sight of his horse she suddenly grew limp.

“What do — you mean?” she whispered.

He made no reply. Untying the bridle with one hand was not easy, but he accomplished it. Then shifting his hold on her, he essayed to mount the horse. This was even more difficult. Finally he let go of her, mounted in a flash, and reaching down secured her again before she had made a step. The horse was trustworthy, yet spirited, and his nervous steps made Cal drag the girl off her feet. Exerting all his strength, he swung her up so that he could reach her with his free hand. Then he lifted her up in front of him, across his saddle. He had tied a blanket over the pommel so that he could carry her there without injury. As the horse started off up the swale, Georgiana screamed. Cal clapped a rough hand over her mouth. At that she began to fight. She bit his hand like a wildcat and tore and clawed at him.

“Damn you — Cal Thurman!” she burst out, furiously. “Am I an Indian — to be packed — off like this?”

For a moment she made it extremely uncomfortable for him. Wrestling in his arms, beating at his face, she made it almost impossible to hold her and guide the horse under the branches. He was struck several times, once being nearly knocked off. Then a branch hit the struggling girl on the head, hard enough to take the fight out of her. When she sank down into his arms, Cal experienced the most wonderful sensation of his life. He could not understand what it was. But the mingled fear, wrath, and shame with which he had been battling suddenly changed to a singular deep, vague joy, as if he had plumbed to an old emotion, deep set in his bones. He held her closely. Flow slight and frail! What a slip of a girl to contain such spirit!

Then, as her head fell back upon his shoulder he realized that she had fainted. He could only ease her posture and hold her. Over the next ridge there was water, and if she did not come to before he reached it, he would stop there to revive her. Fortunately, the trail had led out of the low-spreading trees, up a brushy slope. Once more out in the sunlight! He noted that she had lost her little felt hat. There was no time to go back for it. Her loosened hair fell over his arm and locks of it yielded to the breeze.

“It’s done!” he breathed, as if to the loveliness of the hills. As he neared the summit of that ridge he saw all about him the soft gray-green of the brush and the red of the rocks. Some strange kinship seemed to lie between them and him. They saw him with eyes of nature. He was in a transport, and yet his heart quaked at the whiteness and stillness of her face. A scratch on her brow showed tiny drops of blood. Cal kissed them away, and suddenly he bent to her lips. Coward and thief he felt himself, yet he had to kiss them. Not the first time, but so differently! She was his now.

CHAPTER XIII

IT WAS A brush-overgrown trail, and try as he might he could not save Georgiana from being torn and dragged. He managed, however, to protect her face.

She lay quiet so long that he began to be concerned. Yet he could not convince himself that she had been hurt. Still, a bruise had appeared on her brow, slowly swelling, and blood welled from it. Perhaps the bough had struck her harder than he had imagined. How strangely calm he seemed about this possibility of hurt to her! He did not understand how he could pass over it lightly.

But when he had ridden down the slope of the hill, into a wide well-wooded valley, with a rocky stream-bed winding through it, he turned off his course to find water. It was a dry, odorous place. Pine thickets grew with the oak and juniper. He had to wind in and out among the trees in order to find clear passage. Finally, he came to sycamores, still holding golden-brown leaves, and here he found a clear rock-bound pool of water.

He had to slide out of the saddle while holding Georgiana on the horse. Then he lifted her off, and laid her in the shade of the trees. She appeared to be stirring, but her eyes were still closed. Running down to the water, he saturated his scarf, and hurried back to bathe her pale face. Presently she regained consciousness. Her eyes opened wide, dark dim blue, full of vague dread. At sight of Cal kneeling there she seemed to connect him with what had happened. He was aware of her instinctive shrinking. Words of love, regret, shame, trembled on his lips. But he bit them to keep silent. She lay there watching him for what seemed a long time. Then she gazed at his horse, at the strange place in the woods, and back at him again. Some kind of comprehension showed in her eyes.

“You knocked me — senseless!” she whispered, in wonder, and almost horror.

Quickly Cal read her tone and look. She believed he had struck her while she was fighting him. It was almost impossible to keep from blurting out that she had been stunned by a blow from a sweeping branch. But he could tell her that some other time. His quick intuition grasped the fact that she was regarding him in utter amazement, awe, and dread. Yet there was no hate in her expression. He expected her to flay him with scorn for being such a brute. Indeed, she was not reacting to this situation as he had imagined.

“Can you sit up?” he queried, gruffly.

“I guess so,” she replied, and with his help she rose to a sitting posture. But she did not recover from faintness as promptly as he had hoped. His heart smote him. Where were Miss Georgiana’s temper and spirit now? She kept gazing at him so steadily that he found it difficult to hide confusion. Wringing out his scarf, he tied it round his neck.

“Cal, tell me — would you have — have killed Bid Hatfield — if I hadn’t taken the blame?” she asked, very low.

“Ahuh! Same as I would a hydrophobia skunk,” replied Cal, in the hard deep voice he had assumed.

“Oh, my heavens! what have I done?” she cried out, as if suddenly stricken in conscience.

“Reckon you’ve done a lot.”

“This is no joke — no Tonto trick — to — to — —”

“I should smile not,” he declared, in dark, grim humor.

Then her gaze strayed away from him, and she seemed to look into the woods without seeing them. Cal had his chance to scrutinize her closely. Then he was to grasp the fact of her decline in health. The brown, and the contour of cheek, and the richness of health, won during the early part of her stay at Green Valley, all had vanished. It seemed to Cal that his pity and fear and love would make a fool out of him. If she began to cry and beseech him, he would be lost. But she did neither.

“Get up now. I don’t want to lose any more time,” said Cal.

She stood up without any assistance from him.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Time enough to tell you — when we get there,” he answered, and stepped to his horse. Mounting, he held out his hand to her. “Put your foot in the stirrup — an’ I’ll pull you up.”

He did not believe in the least that she would comply with this order, and was prepared to chase her into the woods. But thought of escape had evidently not occurred to Georgiana. With his help she climbed up in front of him, and sat as on a side-saddle. Cal held his bridle in his right hand, and with his left he encircled her slender waist. She pushed it away.

“I don’t need your assistance,” she said.

Whereupon Cal urged the horse into a trot, and Georgiana had difficulty in staying on. With left hand twisted in the mane of the horse, and her right clutching the pommel, she clung with all her might. The trail up this ravine was open and free from brush, but it led up and down over the rocky brook.

“Make him walk or I’ll fall off,” said Georgiana, presently.

“All right. Fall off. I’ll stop an’ pick you up,” replied Cal.

And sure enough the time soon came when she began to slide and slip. But she did not cry out for assistance. When, however, Cal put his left arm round her, and hauled her back, and held her there, she made no resistance or remark. She faced ahead, and apparently scorned speech with him. Again Cal felt in a tumult. Every moment of this adventure seemed to be giving him some vague, strange assurance, in spite of all his vacillation. His fear was that she would despise him, and only by dint of goading his spirit did he hold to the order of procedure.

Soon he turned up out of the ravine, and climbing a low hill, entered the pine woods. He was now not far from Boyd’s ranch, and indeed he soon saw it down through the trees. The point he had reached was the upper end of the sorghum-field. Cal must avoid meeting any travelers along road or trail. So he kept to the woods, and descending the hill he cautiously proceeded on to the road. Making sure that no one was in sight, he crossed, and rode in the edge of the woods around that side of the ranch. Toward the lower end he slewed away from the fence, to avoid pine thickets, and eventually came into a wide trail. This led to the clearing where the cabin specified by Tuck was located.

All this while the girl had maintained silence. Cal did not know what to make of this, but he welcomed it. She would burst out presently. At sight of the cabin his heart gave a leap, and then, when he espied two horsemen riding in from the far side of the ranch, he realized the crisis had arrived.

“I see two riders,” spoke up Georgiana, for the first time showing excitement.

“Ahuh!” replied Cal.

“For Heaven’s sake, can’t you talk?” burst out the girl, at last. “You’ll drive me mad. What are you going to do next? . . . Those men! I’ll call for help.”

“Go ahead. It won’t do you any good,” replied Cal, desperately. If she did call he would have to stop her somehow. But as all his part in this unheard-of adventure was pretense, he thought he might as well see how far he could go. She made no outcry. But her languor had vanished. She was now erect, keen, strung with excitement, and unconsciously holding on to his arm. They rode through a grove of beautiful pines to the clearing. The cabin was now close at hand. Two horses were tethered to pine saplings. Their riders had manifestly entered the cabin, for a thin column of blue smoke was rising from the stove chimney.

Cal gathered all the courage and desperation he could muster. If he failed now and this outlandish scheme of his became gossip, he would forever be the laughing-stock of the Tonto. He had gone too far. Wrath toward Tuck Merry filled his breast, and he was shaken by other emotions. There seemed nothing to do but pretend to be fierce and dangerous until he had frightened Georgiana into compliance with his wish.

Dismounting, he lifted the girl off, and then kept hold of her.

“Haven’t you — hurt me enough?” she asked, wincing under his grasp. Her dark-blue eyes flashed. She was only subdued for the moment, not conquered.

“I’m takin’ you into that cabin, an’ you’ve got to do as I tell you,” he said, in suppressed passion.

“Who’s there?” she faltered.

“Friends of mine. Tuck Merry an’ — Parson Meeker.” Cal’s voice helped him carry on. He felt that he wanted the earth to open and swallow him. Yet the gaze he bent so darkly upon Georgiana seemed to see her as a girl to be overcome.

“Parson Meeker!” she whispered.

“Yes.... An’ you’re goin’ to marry me. — Do you get that?”

She only stared.

“I said — you’re goin’ to marry me,” he repeated, hoarsely, giving her a shake. He sensed then that she was physically afraid of him, and this through a false impression. She was white again, and one shaking little hand sought her breast.

“Cal — you can’t make me say — yes,” she said.

“No. But it’ll be worse for you an’ me if you won’t.”

“I can tell Parson Meeker you dragged me up here — when I resisted you knocked me senseless. Then he wouldn’t dare marry me to you.”

“But you’re not goin’ to tell him,” declared Cal, fiercely.

“Why am — I not?”

“Because I’ve gone too far. I don’t care what happens. I’d just as lief throw a gun on Parson Meeker.... If you tell him, I’ll carry you off anyhow.”

“Where?” she gasped. “Not to your homestead. — Why, your own family would rescue me!”

“I’ll take you somewhere deep in the woods — until you do consent to marry me.”

“Cal — have I driven you — mad?” she faltered, in distress.

“It’s too late. — Do I marry you or not?” he rasped out.

“Cal Thurman — I’ll never go with you alive unless you do marry me,” she retorted.

“Ahuh! So — it’s — settled,” panted Cal. “Come on. Let me do the talkin’.”

He led her toward the cabin, and all the will he could summon did not halt his riot of emotions. He was in a dream one instant, and the next he was poignantly alive to the girl whose little hand he held closely in his. She was walking beside him willingly. He must hurry. How the cabin blurred in his sight! The pines seemed grotesque, dark and moving.

Then there was the cabin right before his eyes. He made a supreme effort.

“Come — on — Georgie,” he said, huskily, and pushed open the door, to lead her across the stone threshold.

It was dark and smoky inside. Cal closed the door. For a moment he could not see. Then Tuck towered over him, eagerly and joyfully.

“Here you are,” he boomed out. “Right on time. — Buddy, it’s great.... Georgie, I’m sure glad to see you. Looks like you must have rode some. Well, elopin’ from big sister is some stunt, I’ll say.... Parson Meeker, this is the little lady, Georgiana Stockwell.”

The parson, a tall gray man, bent low in the dim light to shake hands with Georgiana and peer into her face.

“I’m shore glad to meet you, Miss,” he drawled, in the unmistakable Texas accent. He did not seem to consider the event unusual.

“Thank you,” replied Georgiana, in low, nervous voice.

“Howdy, Parson,” broke in Cal, heartily, and wrung Meeker’s hand. “It’s sure good of you to rustle up here quick. You see — Georgie an’ I have been up against a — a little trouble over this marryin’. — We had to ride the brush to avoid meetin’ anyone, an’ I’m askin’ you to hurry.”

“Right-o,” gaily replied Tuck. “Grab her hand there, Buddy, and we’ll soon arrange this little matter.”

It was then that the dark, smoky little room whirled round Cal, and all he seemed to be sure of was the shaking little hand in his. He heard the preacher and his own voice, and Georgiana’s whisper, all strange and far away.

Then Tuck was pounding him on the back, wringing his hand, and talking at a great rate. Parson Meeker, too, shook his hand. His mind seemed to clear with the marvelous fact that he had married Georgiana.

“Ho! Ho! I guess I get to kiss the bride,” quoth Tuck Merry as he bent over the girl. “Georgie, I always had a hankering to kiss you just once. — There! That’s for good luck.... And listen, I’ve a little sister of my own. If she was in your shoes today, I’d be happy. Get that! You’ve married a real man, my dear. — God bless you.”

The preacher had kind words of congratulation and hope for both Cal and Georgiana. Tuck Merry, however, was the dominant figure there. Perhaps he was the only one with a true perspective of the situation.

“Cal, old scout, we’ll be rustling along,” he said. “It’s all over now and you’re the luckiest boy in the Tonto. — I’ll go back to the ranch and break the news. Won’t they be surprised? — Too late! Nobody can change it now or stop you. Georgie and you are married. — Can’t you realize it? Well, Georgie does. You bet no girl could be married without being wise to it. — Tomorrow I’ll have Mary pack all of Georgie’s things and I’ll bring them up to Rock Spring Mesa. — The new homestead, Cal.... Georgie, remember my prophecy. You will love that homestead.”

If Cal had been in a strange state of locked suspension on his way to that cabin, he was in a stranger one leaving it, leading Georgiana back to the edge of the clearing, where he had tied his horse.

Once outside of the fence, in the edge of the woods again, there came a break in his peculiar mental condition. Strangely, it came when Tuck Merry and Parson Meeker had passed out of sight. He was alone now with the girl, and chances that they would encounter anyone were slight. This he had feared, and all at once he realized that now it would make little difference whether they met anyone or not. The impossible had been accomplished. Georgiana Stockwell had married him. For a moment he lived in a fool’s paradise. And the next he began the long descent down to sober reality.

Cal unhaltered his horse, and began to shorten the stirrups. Georgiana stood close by, watching him. How keenly he felt her eyes upon him! He did not look at her. This miserable pretense of his would not last much longer.

“Are you going to walk?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s hard trail uphill, an’ you’ll have to ride,” he said.

“Is what Tuck Merry said true — about you taking me to your homestead?”

“Wait an’ see,” he replied, trying to assume the former gruff voice. It did not seem to take much to intimidate her now. But how preposterous and horrible that she could imagine he had knocked her senseless!

Cal untied the blanket from in front of the saddle, and then motioned for her to mount. She had difficulty in getting up, but he could not trust himself to help her then. He was afraid even to look squarely into her face. Her skirt, which was short and tight, was going to make riding uncomfortable. Cal folded the blanket lengthwise and threw it over the saddle in front of her, so that it would afford some protection from the brush. Then he took up the bridle, and started off at a brisk walk, leading the horse.

What a relief to get his back turned to those steady, searching eyes! Had she guessed his secret? Had she seen through his poorly acted part? The fact of her having married him, and of her being here on his horse, was proof that her wits were still scattered. He might hope to carry out the subterfuge perhaps a while longer, at least until he got her up to his homestead. He realized he could never hold out any longer. And for that matter he did not care. His action began to loom enormously. Still he did not regret it. He had married her. That simple fact would go abroad all over the Tonto, and while he would be ridiculed, he was bound to be respected. And her status had changed. She would leave him, of course, the moment she learned that this desperado character of his was all a sham. Tomorrow, when her sister came! But how would Mary Stockwell take his action? She, of all people, would understand and be lenient. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that she would even be glad.

So Cal pondered as he strode along. The afternoon, with its short winter sun, had begun to wane. A chill had come to the air. The deep shadows of the pines hid what little sunshine filtered down.

“Are you cold?” asked Cal, turning once.

She was huddled down in his saddle, a forlorn little figure.

“Pretty cold,” she replied.

Cal slipped out of his coat. “Here, put this on,” he said, stepping back and handing it up to her.

Their eyes met. He saw there weariness and pain, and a shadow he took for fear.

“No,” she said.

“It won’t soil you,” he retorted, with resentment.

“I refused it because I thought you needed it, not because it’s dirty and ragged,” she replied, haughtily.

“Ahuh! You’re wonderful considerate of me all of a sudden,” he said, sarcastically. “Well, you put it on pronto, or I’ll yank you out of there an’ throw you into it. Savvy?”

Her eyes dilated, even while a blaze rose and died in them, and her lips trembled. She lost no time putting on the coat.

Cal picked up the bridle and resumed his walk. Any exchange of words between them could lead only to scorn, anger, hatred. If she had never hated him before, she surely must hate him now. A melancholy resignation came to Cal. Most certainly, in spite of Tuck Merry’s superlative language, Cal had expected to gain only two things by this venture — one was to make Georgiana his wife, and the other to put an end to her dangerous trifling with the young men of the Tonto. Marvelously to behold, he had succeeded in both. Absolutely he had not a hope beyond that. When it occurred to Cal that Tuck had mentioned packing Georgiana’s belongings up to the homestead, he had to indulge in a bitter silent laugh. Georgiana would be gone before Tuck could reach there.

Cal kept to the dim back trails, and he walked fast. It was two hours’ horseback ride from Boyd’s ranch to Rock Spring Mesa, over the regular trail. This one was longer, rough and brushy, and steep. Cal did not feel any fatigue or cold, or anything but a terrible disfavor with himself. What an end to his poor little romance. To marry a girl through brute force, terrorizing her into consenting, and to lose her next day — how cowardly and vulgar it began to look! Yet always his mind wandered back to the motive which had impelled him.

Sunset caught him on the rim of the last bench under Rock Spring Mesa. Purple clouds massed in the west, and wondrous gold lights shone between them. Promontary blazed its reflection, and the cliff-barred Rim zigzagged away into the dim hazed east. Cal’s mesa stood up above him, a green-brushed ascent, symmetrical on all sides, and shining in the rays of sunset. The trail here was hard on both man and horse. Cal rested often, and at these intervals he gazed out over the darkening Basin. He did not look at Georgiana.

At last the summit of the Mesa no longer seemed an unattainable height. Soon Cal led his horse up on the level, in under the great, gnarled, gray-colored checker-barked junipers, through the brown-matted aisles, to the new clearing.

There, across the open field, where the blackened stumps still smoked, stood the new cabin. Sight of it gave Cal a sudden pang, as if a blade had pierced his side. His homestead! What mockery was this bringing home a bride! In the gloaming the cabin seemed to presage the loneliness that must always belong to it.

A few more steps, a few more false words, and then the farce would be ended.

At that very moment Tuck Merry’s words returned to Cal. Make it a grand finale! Out of sheer mockery at himself Cal gathered force to fling that ridiculous speech at Georgiana. Why not? What would she do or say? There might be a grim humor in it for him. She would call him “a poor fish,” or laugh in his face. Yet somehow to say just what Tuck had invented seemingly was as far as Cal had gone in thought or plan. He would do that just for the deviltry of it. Then, unless the world came to an end, he would tell her the truth. Would there be any use to fall on his knees at her feet, to beg her to listen — that it had all been a trick to frighten her into marrying him — that never, except in self-defense, would he have harmed Bid Hatfield — that the blow which had stunned her had come from riding under a low branch of a tree — that he never could have hurt her — that he loved her with all his heart and soul — that if she left him now he would be lost? That was what he yearned to confess. But let her, when she came to tell the story, have Tuck Merry’s absurd finale with which to amuse her friends.

Cal dropped the bridle in front of the porch. Turning to Georgiana, he found her sitting up, peering curiously at the cabin. She did not look much the worse for this second long ride. Then her dark gaze fell upon him. In the twilight her face appeared small and wan. Pulling the blanket from round her, he threw it upon the porch.

“Get down an’ come in!” he said. The old cordial welcome of Westerners to any visitor! Here it did not ring true.

Georgiana neither moved nor spoke. Her head appeared tilted back a little. Cal expected one of her stinging slang remarks that would make him hate himself worse than he did already. His nerves were all unstrung.

“Come on — my bride!” he called, hoarsely, and laid a heavy hand on her.

Suddenly she slapped him violently across the face. It was such a shock that he almost staggered. The blow burned him. He had not meant to insult her. To himself he could have explained that facetious mocking allusion.

Then a kind of bursting passion made a savage of him. One powerful pull brought her out of the saddle, sliding into his arms. He held her there, hard and tight, so that her feeble resistance was futile. He kissed her, almost as violently as she had struck him. All his wrath and love and agony then found terrible expression in the kisses he pressed upon her eyes and cheeks and lips. She became limp in his arms. Had she fainted again? He drew back. Her dark eyes were open wide in her white face, and in the gulf of them he seemed to see his own soul.

Mounting the porch, he carried her to the door of the kitchen and opened it. Going into the dark room, he felt around until he found a corner with a built-in couch, and there he deposited her.

Everything was in readiness for him to put his hand on. He lighted the lamp. It was a large new one and gave forth a bright light. His hands ceased their trembling and that cataclysm of his heart slowly subsided. Without a glance at the girl he proceeded to start a fire in the stove. The splinters of dry hard juniper began to blaze and sputter. He added larger split pieces, and soon there was a cheerful blaze. Then he closed the stove. In his right hand he still held a billet of wood. This he clutched tightly, as if somehow it might inspire or incite him to the delivery of Tuck Merry’s ultimatum.

Wheeling suddenly, Cal looked for the girl. She was sitting up, with her hands clutched in his coat, which she had removed. Her gaze was fixed strangely on him. All about her seemed strange, not what he had anticipated or feared. Even in that moment her sweetness and beauty filled him with despair. But nothing could hold back the climax of this tragic comedy.

“Now, Mrs. Cal Thurman!” he thundered, and then beat the stove with the billet of wood. It clanged loud. Georgiana gave a fearful start. “I want my supper!... I’m not goin’ to beg for it an’ I’m not goin’ to serenade you to get it.... But I want it!”

Then Cal had the surprise of his life. She dropped his coat and rose to her feet. This was not the Georgiana he knew. Yet it was, too — her face, the wide eyes, now darker and more strained, the disheveled hair. She came right up to him. Something was gone from her.

“Yes — I — I will get your — supper,” she said tremulously.

“Ah — !” Cal’s favorite exclamation broke off in the middle. Yet it served as an acceptance.

“Have you — things here?” she asked.

“Everythin’ ready for you,” he replied, thickly. “I — I’ll go put my horse away an’ do some chores.”

He stamped out, closing the door behind him. The cold night wind fanned his heated face.

“Whew!” he whispered as he leaned against a porch post. “Scared her into the middle of next week! . . . Damn that Tuck Merry! I’ll lick him for this.... Poor kid! It must have been hell for her. She’s only a child an’ maybe I did dig up some old Tonto blood. — I’m a damned brute an’ right here ends this rough-house stuff, as Tuck called it.”

He unsaddled his horse, and hobbling him turned him loose in the clearing. Then he carried the saddle and put it on a pack under the porch. Next he carried some pieces of wood, and thumped them down near the door of the cabin room that stood across the porch space from the kitchen. Opening the door, he went in. This was the living-room. Cal lit a lamp, and then proceeded to kindle a fire in the open fireplace. This leisurely done, he surveyed the room. It was cheerful. He and Tuck had made elaborate efforts to utilize all Cal had bought. A red blanket on the bed lent a touch of color. What would Georgiana think of the bedposts that reached to the ceiling? There were even a mirror and a white pitcher and bowl. Cal feared it was somewhat luxurious for a pioneer. Then, suddenly, as grim, cold realization returned, he felt his castle of dreams fall asunder forever. Georgiana would never share this homestead with him.

“Scared half to death!” he muttered, as he paused. “What must she be thinkin’ now? . . . My God!”

He strode out, leaving the door wide, and the broad flare of light followed him across the intervening space of porch to the kitchen door. Vigorously he opened that. Georgiana was setting the table, and his entering so suddenly startled her.

Cal faced her now, feeling like a man for the first time in a long while. She had been frightened, and she had experienced a rough ride, but she had not been harmed. He was the one who must suffer. He was the one upon whose head ridicule and scorn must fall. She had been saved, at least from the Tonto. All his pretense and his former morbidness fell away from him like dead husks.

“Reckon I’d like some hot water, Georgie,” he said, cheerfully.

She poured it out of a steaming teakettle. Cal was aware of her scrutiny, but he paid no heed, and went to splashing in the basin. He washed his face thoroughly, as if to remove with the brush-dirt all of the villainous expression he had counterfeited.

“How about supper?” he asked, as genially as if this was really natural.

“It’s ready,” she said, “the best I could do.... My fingers are all thumbs tonight.”

“No wonder,” he replied as he pulled up the little bench to sit upon. And he surveyed the table. “If it’s as good as it looks — —”

Cal was hungry, and he wished to spare her and himself any further pain. He did not speak again except to ask her if she could not eat.

“I’m afraid I cannot,” she replied.

Soon he had finished and then he rose. “Jollyin’ aside, Georgie, it was a good supper. Reckon there’s no danger of my forgettin’ it. I’ll wash the dishes.”

“Cal, you’re different — like your old self!” she exclaimed, suddenly.

“Me! Aw, it’s just because I cleaned up,” he replied, with a smile.

“I — I don’t get you,” she said, dubiously, yet hopefully.

“Well, Georgie, you never did get me, an’, worse luck for me, you never will.... Come now, I want you to see the other cabin.”

“Other cabin?” she echoed.

“Sure. This is only the kitchen. Come on.”

As she made no move to accompany him, and stood with eyes dilating, he possessed himself of her hand and led her out of the kitchen. The shaking of her hand, its clammy touch, told him much. He had to urge her, drag her a little to get her into the other cabin.

How bright, rosy, cheerful, and cosy! It was warm, too, and the burning juniper sent out a fragrance.

“Isn’t this nice?” he asked, without looking at her, and he released her hand.

Georgiana did not reply.

“Reckon you’re all in,” he said, hurriedly. “Here — see the bar that locks the door. Uncle Gard said a grizzly bear couldn’t get in here with the door barred.”

Then he drew his gun from his belt and laid it on the table.

“Reckon you won’t need that, but there it is,” he said, and moved back to the door.

Suddenly he flung up his head, with pride and finality, and looked at her with piercingly sad and revealing eyes.

“Good night,” he said, and wheeling he went out and closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER XIV

AS THE DOOR slammed behind Cal, not violently, but decisively, Georgiana’s nerve-wracked body gave a little leap. For a moment she stood there, trembling, passing from uncertain dread to certain relief, gazing at the door where Cal had disappeared. Then, answering to instinct, she ran to lift the heavy bar and place it in position. That seemed to make a vast, strange difference.

Her legs threatened to give way under her, and again she was visited by that lightness of head. She got to the bed, and falling upon it lay there for a long time, with only dull, vague thoughts. This stupor passed, and at length she sat up, conscious of bodily weariness and a headache, but otherwise gradually returning to herself.

What was it that had happened? Gazing around this log cabin room so new, so redolent of freshly hewn pine, at the rough slanting shingled roof, at the red clay hardened in the chinks between the logs, at the few articles of crudely fashioned furniture, strong and serviceable, at the several deerskins on the solid plank floor, at the small windows opening to the inside like doors, at the great open fireplace, made of white stone, with its glowing red fire on the hearth — gazing at these, and then at her ragged dress, Georgiana Stockwell established something of the reality of her situation.

When her roving eyes fell upon the big blue gun Cal had left upon the table, a thrill ran through her. That was the gun he had leveled at Bid Hatfield, and with which he might have killed him. Georgiana shuddered. She closed her eyes. But that did not blot out a picture of Cal Thurman, wild-eyed, villainous of mien, suddenly revealed in his true character.

“What’d he leave that gun there for?” pondered Georgiana, and she opened her eyes to stare at it. She recalled that he had said, significantly, “Reckon you won’t need it, but there it is.” . . . What for? It had a dark, sinister significance. For only one purpose — to protect herself, to kill him, if she wanted to. That clear fact struck Georgiana forcibly and quickened her reasoning powers. Only her emotions kept continually obstructing logical thought. Why should he think she wanted to kill him? Was it not scorn of her — that she could imagine she needed protection from him? Was it not a suggestion of how bitter his life had become and that he did not care how soon it ended? Had he not struck her brutally, cruelly? Georgiana suffered again the sudden terrible shock, the blinding, streaking lights before her eyes, and the blackness.

“He wasn’t drunk — he wasn’t crazy,” she soliloquized. “It was just the devil in him. He’s a descendant of these Tonto backwoodsmen.”

That seemed to fix itself in Georgiana’s mind. She hated him. She would go away from this place tomorrow as soon as she dared. Some one would come to whom she could tell her story. But what if she raised that devil in him again? The thought made her absolutely weak. How cold-bloodedly savage he had been! In such a mood Cal Thurman was capable of anything. Yet, why had he suddenly become transformed, back seemingly to the Cal she had liked so well? Why had he told her to bar the door of this room and had given her his gun, and then stalked out like an outraged prince? It was this which perplexed and troubled Georgiana. There seemed no way to connect it with his earlier conduct. He had two sides to his nature, then, both of which were new to her.

The fire burned down into a beautiful bed of red and white embers. Outside the wind had risen. Georgiana heard the bark of some wild animal. How lonely and wild! She felt chilled. The room was growing cold. She went to the window and closed it all but a couple of inches. The mountain air blew in, like ice, with some strange tang. She saw the dark Rim standing up against the white stars, and the sight impressed her powerfully. This place was different from Green Valley.

“It’s wild and woolly, all right,” said Georgiana, “and there’s an Indian in the next cabin, I’ll tell the world.... What am I going to do?”

After a moment’s deliberation she extinguished the lamp, and without removing even her shoes she lay down on the bed and pulled a couple of blankets up over her. The room now seemed wonderfully changed. The red embers threw ruddy shadows on the floor and sent long streaks to her eyes. Suddenly she became aware of a low moaning sound. It startled her. She listened. Only the wind under the eaves of the cabin. It had the strangest, loneliest, most haunting sound she had ever heard. Lower she crept down under the blankets. She had begun to feel warm and comfortable and a languor was stealing over her.

“I couldn’t sleep. Not on a bet,” she whispered. “But I’m sleepy, all right.... It’s funny. — I wonder what that caveman is doing.”

Every thought, every emotion, seemed to bring Cal Thurman back before her consciousness. She resented that. He had become a monster in her sight. How abominably he had turned out! She found herself correcting a sort of self-pity because he had so bitterly disappointed her. But this thought seemed hardly fair, for she confessed she was not exactly an angel. She wanted to put Cal Thurman out of her mind, as much out of her mind as he would be out of her life after tomorrow.

“Yes — very well — but you are his wife!”

Georgiana spoke these words aloud to her own ears. They brought her upright in bed, transfixed and thrilling. Had she spoken? Had she been dreaming? It was almost as if some one had spoken for her.

The room seemed darkening, more lonely and cold than ever. The fire was dying out in dull ruddy glow on the hearth. Shivering, frightened, aghast, Georgiana sank back into the warm protection of the blankets.

“His wife!” she whispered. “My God! I married him! I said yes, yes, just as if I meant it.... That parson never guessed I was forced. He’d never believe me if I swore it on my bended knees.... And that sly fox, Tuck Merry — I don’t just get him.... But I’m Cal Thurman’s wife — right this minute — of my own free will!”

Somehow it seemed a terrible realization. Not that it changed her future action in the least! But how would she be regarded in the Tonto? She had not been any too well liked, except by a lot of those sentimental mooning riders. Cal Thurman, however, was liked by everybody, even by Bid Hatfield. What had Bid said once? “Cal’s a square shooter.” And from Bid, who had been insanely jealous of Cal, that was equivalent to an eulogy.

“It’ll have to be annulled,” said Georgiana. “I can put him in jail.... Won’t his life be one long round of bliss after I tell what he did to me? . . . He won’t be so darn popular then.”

As the night wore away Georgiana lay there refusing to go to sleep or listen to a still small voice that seemed to be knocking at the gate of her conscience. Yet she grew drowsy, and her reflections lost clarity as weariness gradually overcame her. At last, when she was thinking how dark it was and cold and strange, she fell asleep.

Georgiana awakened with a start. Her eyelids almost refused to come open. Her body felt in a comfortable, immovable state. A bright sunlight was streaming into the room. One glance around brought instant establishment of time, place, situation. After all, she had slept. The sun was high. Now she became aware of a knocking on the door.

“Georgie, are you all right?” called Cal, in a tone of anxiety.

Georgiana felt like telling him that he had an awful nerve. What did he expect? But she lay quiet.

“Georgie, are you dead?” he yelled, and pounded hard on the door.

“It’s no fault of yours that I’m not dead,” she replied. “What do you want?”

“Aw!” She heard him exclaim in relief. “If you’ll let me in I’ll start a fire for you. It’s cold up here under the Rim.”

“I don’t need any fire,” she answered, presently.

“But you want breakfast?”

Georgiana pondered that a moment, then replied. “I’ll get breakfast for you, but I don’t want any.”

“I have your breakfast ready,” he went on.

Georgiana sat up in the bed and slowly pulled down the blankets. Cal’s tone was acquiring a little of the ring that affected her nerves. She was about to say that she did not feel hungry, when he spoke again.

“You get up an’ hurry, before your breakfast’s cold. I’ve work to do. I can’t wait any longer.”

“What time is it?”

“Reckon it’s nearly noon.... Georgie, I must rustle over to my uncle Gord’s ranch. Won’t be back till late.” Here he paused and coughed. “I — you — see here, what I want to say is — you’re free to do as you like.”

Georgiana listened to this with mingled surprise and doubt.

“Do you hear me?” he queried, sharply.

“Yes, I hear you, Cal Thurman, but I don’t get you,” she retorted. “You think I’m a liar, don’t you?”

“Wal, since you tax me,” he drawled, in capital imitation of his relatives’ Texas accent, “reckon I do. An’ I shore think yore a hell of a lot more!”

Blank silence followed. Georgiana could not understand her impulsive, reckless outburst. But she wanted to laugh, and yet she knew she was angry. What a fool Cal was!

“Ahuh!” he ejaculated. She heard his deep breath. “Reckon that’ll be about all.”

His heavy footfalls crossed the porch and crunched the gravel beyond. Georgiana slipped to the window and peeped out. He was mounting his horse. Now — he was riding off. Most likely it was a ruse to deceive her. Presently he disappeared in the edge of the woods. After a moment’s reflection Georgiana decided there was really no reason for her to imagine he had not ridden off. But the fact that he had gone at all was most welcome.

Whereupon she bethought herself of personal matters of the moment. She had slept fully dressed, and thought she looked as if she had. Her hair was in a condition she could not remember as ever equalling it. Her face showed tear streaks through the black stain of brush-dust she had accumulated. And a big black-and-blue bruise showed above her temple. Luckily she could hide it with her hair.

“Good night!” muttered Georgiana, as she surveyed herself, especially this disfiguration of her pretty face. “Fancy me ever coming to this!”

The water in the pitcher was so cold that Georgiana could not use it. Hurrying to the door, she opened it, and with a furtive glance to right and left she ran across the porch and went into the kitchen. It was warm. An odor of ham pleasantly assailed her nostrils. Georgiana suddenly discovered she was ravenously hungry. The kitchen table was set for one. Its neatness and cleanliness surprised her. The biscuits were hot, the coffee-pot was vying with the teakettle in emitting fragrant vapors, the skillet with two crisp slices of ham sat back on the stove.

“What do you know about that?” queried Georgiana.

Then she washed her face in hot water, and, finding a comb and brush under a little mirror, she worked her rebellious hair into some semblance of its former well-groomed condition. Her mind seemed to be both active and trance-like. Her fears were for the moment in abeyance. It pleased her to note that, despite the lump on her brow, when she brushed her hair down over it she looked more interesting than for a long time. Not so pretty without the paint and powder, but pale, intense, interesting! She wanted to look that way when she told her tragic story.

“I wonder if he will stay away long,” she mused. “I can’t leave here alone — on foot. I’d get lost. Somebody will come, surely.”

Then it appeared impossible to be longer oblivious of the breakfast. Her flesh demanded food and drink even if her spirit hated the thought of partaking of Cal Thurman’s table. Breakfast with Georgiana for weeks had been a farce. She never wanted anything. But this morning she was genuinely hungry and she ate just about all that Cal had prepared.

“I’ll say this is some adventure,” soliloquized Georgiana. “I always wanted something to happen.... But hardly this! — If I didn’t hate him so — if he hadn’t turned out so low down! . . . Maybe it was coming to me.”

She did not quite understand herself. Why was she not in the fury of an outraged woman who had been attacked, kidnapped, beaten, and carried off into a forced marriage?

“Oh, I’m sore enough,” she mused, “but I don’t quite get myself. Maybe that knock in the head. I ought to kill Cal Thurman for that.”

There was then nothing to do but wait for somebody to come. Georgiana could not wait very well for anything. She must occupy herself, or a nervous restlessness would soon possess her.

“I suppose it’d be decent to wash his old dishes,” she muttered. “To give the devil his due, I’ve got to hand it to Cal Thurman as a housekeeper. He’s got me skinned to death — Well, men might as well learn that, and to take care of kids. For it’s certainly coming to them.”

Georgiana washed the dishes and utensils, and had just finished making the kitchen tidy when sound of voices and the pound of hoofs made her heart beat quickly. Had Cal returned? She peeped out of the kitchen window, to see a number of packed burros, the very first of which was Jinny, and she had a trunk on her back. Georgiana stared. She recognized that trunk. It belonged to her. Then into her amazed sight came her sister Mary, riding Enoch’s bay pony, and after her Tuck Merry and another rider.

Georgiana fell back from the window. She felt at once delivered and cornered. She wanted to rush out, and realized that she could not.

“But it doesn’t cut any ice with me — because they packed my clothes up here,” she muttered. “I didn’t tell them to. And I’ll darn soon read the riot act to Mary.”

Footsteps on the porch!

“Ho, homesteaders!” called out Mary’s rich, happy voice. It struck deep to Georgiana’s heart. When had Mary spoken like that? Georgiana threw open the door.

Mary was right there, on the porch. She wore a short, heavy riding-coat with furry collar turned up. There was frost on it. Her sweet face was rosy from cold and exercise. Her gray eyes were alight with love and happiness. And the smile that came so radiantly when she saw Georgiana was beautiful. It halted Georgiana’s speech, whatever that had been.

“Oh, Georgie — little sister!” cried Mary, with a half-sob of joy, and she enfolded her, and hugged and kissed her until Georgiana had scarcely any breath left to talk with. More than that, Georgiana found herself with swelling heart and dimming eyes. Something was disarming her. Mary’s joy at sight of her had struck to the depths. Georgiana suddenly realized that she needed her mother, and that Mary stood in the place of mother. She clung to her sister, silently, passionately, and in that contact she bridged any estrangement which might have intervened. Then she wanted to burst out, before Mary misunderstood any more, but she seemed tongue-tied.

“Georgie — dear, child — don’t cry,” Mary was saying, and squeezing her as she spoke. “I’m not angry. Do you understand? Your elopement made me the happiest woman in the world!”

“Made you — happy! . . . Mary?” faltered Georgiana, composed and astounded.

“Of course you don’t understand,” replied Mary, “but you will, dear, shortly. — Let us go inside. I’m nearly frozen.”

She drew Georgiana back from the threshold, and then called to the men outside: “Unpack and carry the things here on the porch.”

Closing the door, she once more enfolded Georgiana. “You darling! You sly little minx! You atrocious little flirt! All the time it was Cal! . . . Oh, Georgie, I’m so happy! I’m nearly out of my head!”

“You talk — sort of nutty,” replied Georgiana, tremulously.

“What a cosy fine kitchen!” exclaimed Mary, sweeping a woman’s keen eye all around. “I must see everything. But let’s talk first.... Where’s Cal?”

“Gone off to work,” replied Georgiana, and she was nerving herself to blurt out Cal’s perfidy and her wretched situation when again she was silenced.

“Georgie, your marriage saved my happiness,” declared Mary, in sweet gravity.

“Oh, what — do you mean?” replied Georgiana.

“Come, let us sit here,” replied Mary, drawing Georgiana to the couch and still keeping her in a close embrace. “I can tell you now. For you’re married and out of danger, thank God! Oh, Georgie, that boy Cal Thurman saved you, and me, too.... Listen, and please do not be hurt now at anything I say. You never realized just what the true situation was here. I tried to make you see long ago how dangerous it was for you to — to trifle with these boys. You never saw how your accepting Cal’s attentions and making him crazy about you was a most serious matter with all the Thurmans. They took to you at first, in spite of your immodest dresses and your slang. But when you began to flirt with other boys and poor Cal showed his misery — then they began to grow cold. There’s no need to tell you all I know about that. But after the October dance, and your cool indifference to Cal when you should have appreciated his loyalty, then even Enoch turned against you. He wanted me to send you home. I couldn’t do that, for then you hadn’t any home except with me.... Well, day before yesterday the climax came. — Dear, I hate to tell you.”

“Go on,” said Georgiana, in smothered voice. She was smarting as under a lash. “Don’t mind me.”

“Enoch came home from town, perfectly furious about something he had heard about you — remarks credited to Bid Hatfield, according to the gossip. Enoch said you would have to get out. You had made Cal the laughing-stock of the Tonto. Worse, if that gossip got to Cal’s ears he would kill Hatfield. I — I was shocked.... Well, I told Enoch I was going to stand by you, come what might. You were not so well and I considered it my duty to keep you with me. Then we quarreled. — Whew! — I didn’t know Enoch could be so — so — I don’t know what. Don’t you ever make Cal really mad. I told Enoch pretty plainly where to get off, as you would say. Then he raved and swore it was all on account of that ‘damned little huzzy of a sister.’ I shut him up pronto and I told him I would give him a couple of days to reconsider, then if he did not I would break our engagement and take you with me — away from the Tonto.”

“Oh — Mary!” cried Georgiana.

“It was hard, Georgie dear,” went on her sister. “But I could not see any other way. I grew more wretched. Enoch kept away from me, and I know he never would have weakened. It’s strange you didn’t see something was wrong. But then your mind was full of your own love-affair. Only, if you had guessed how my heart was breaking, you would have told me.... I didn’t get home until late last night. Enoch met me. He didn’t explain. He just hugged me — like — like a bear. Right before everybody. Then I saw that he seemed tremendously happy. So were all the Thurmans, especially old Henry. He beamed upon me. ‘Thet air boy Cal shore is a smart one. Reckon he knowed what he was about, drivin’ us near crazy runnin’ up his cabin.’

“I asked what it all meant, especially Enoch’s disgraceful conduct, and everybody shouted at me. ‘Cal and Georgie are married!’ You could have knocked me over with a feather. But when I realized it was true I was the happiest one there. Tuck Merry had brought the news. He was a hero. Anyone who can participate in an elopement in this country earns distinction. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tuck then, but I had it out with Enoch. He was simply beside himself with joy. ‘Aw, Mary, it’s for Cal’s sake an’ yours that I’m so glad.’ How he loves Cal! . . . Well, I was not disposed to fall into Enoch’s arms because he was satisfied — that is, I mean I didn’t want him to see it. So I had a few things to say. I just scared him good. Made him think I couldn’t forgive his mulishness. He pleaded with me. It was very, very nice after the way he had talked and acted when we quarreled. He said he was awfully sorry he hadn’t waited a few days, then we need never have had the quarrel.... Well, to make a long story short, we made up, and we are going to celebrate your marriage by getting married ourselves.”

“When, Mary?” whispered Georgiana, huskily.

“Enoch begged to make it a week from your wedding-day, but I held out for a month . . . and so, darling, you’ve made us all happy. You have saved Cal in the very nick of time, not to mention poor me and yourself! I met old Gord Thurman this morning at Green Valley. I was a little afraid of him. But he was fine. ‘Wal, I reckon gals will be gals, an’ them Eastern ones don’t take the bridle easy. But all’s well that ends well. She’s a Thurman now.’ . . . And, Georgie, that means everything to these simple-minded people.”

“Mary, tell me, did Cal know you quarreled with Enoch?” asked Georgiana, feeling the rising tide of an irresistible flood in her breast.

“Indeed he did! Enoch told him. I didn’t know this till last night. Cal was fighting mad, Enoch said. He swore if Enoch drove you and me away he was through with the Thurmans. Oh, they had it hot and heavy. Honestly, I believe Enoch was as happy to have all right between him and Cal again as he was to get me back.”

Suddenly Georgiana collapsed against her sister’s breast, and clinging to her she sobbed out, incoherently “Oh — Mary — Ma — ry! — I’ve been — just what Enoch — called me . . . and oh, I — I want to die.”

“Why, Georgie!” exclaimed Mary, in distress, as she folded her sister in a close embrace and bent over her tenderly. “What are you saying? You poor child! — Oh, I hope I haven’t failed as a mother to you! But, dear, you just wouldn’t be mothered. You had to have your fling . . . and that’s over now, thank goodness! — I’m glad you can cry. Just let go and cry all you want. Oh, Georgie, I was worried sick about you. — But never mind. I won’t say any more. I’ll just hold you and remember how you used to come to me, years ago, with your baby troubles.”

Georgiana did not soon wear out that spasm of weeping. The dammed-up flood burst, and for a good while she was in the physical throes of collapse. When at length she began to recover somewhat she seemed to be the victim of an enormous dread.

“Mary, you still — love me?” she asked, brokenly.

“Georgiana, what a question? You haven’t given me a chance to love you. Oh, maybe all this trouble will be good in the end. It must bring us closer, sister dear.”

Then Georgiana lay silent, her head pillowed on that loving, heaving breast. She had sustained a terrible shock. It seemed that Mary’s revelation had transformed her very life. But how she could not tell. Only two things took concrete shape in her whirling mind — her lips were locked, and there seemed just reason why she should despise herself. For an hour all she could do was to force herself to be woman enough to spare her sister, to hide her shame and misery, to accept her strange destiny for the present, and for the sake of others put aside her own selfish wants until a more favorable time. She stood alone now. There was no one to help her, no one to get her out of this muddle.

“Sister, all I can say is I begin to see — and if I had the last few months to live over I’d do different.”

Mary kissed her with most earnest warmth. “Georgie, that is all I needed today to make my happiness perfect. Oh, I never lost my faith in you.”

Georgiana veiled her eyes. Blurred as they were with tears, she felt they would betray what she was beginning to think of herself. Here she realized she was called upon to find in that self, if it were possible, courage and loyalty and intelligence enough to be true to her sister. How wonderfully true that sister had been! Georgiana fought for her vaunted pride. What a miserable, vain, heartless, soulless creature she had been! But scorn of herself could wait, as also the hour to face her problem. Just now she must force herself to pretend to be what Mary believed her. So she braved it out. She submerged herself. She dried her tears, and wrought the miracle of a smile when her self-abasement and wretchedness were exceedingly poignant.

CHAPTER XV

IT WAS FIVE o’clock in the afternoon and the sun was tipping the distant mountain range. Mary had been gone two hours. Two whole hours Georgiana had sat motionless, racked between emotion and thought!

“What can I do — what must I do?” she whispered, rising out of that cramped inactivity. She paced the room, sweeping her eyes over the vast improvement Mary had wrought. What an ordeal she had endured in helping Mary drag her trunk and bags and boxes, all her possessions, into this living-room, in watching her and listening while she unpacked everything, and hung and arranged and draped until the cabin interior was transformed! Here all of Georgiana’s pictures and pennants and trifles, so dear to her heart, and which had no place down at Green Valley, were united in making a colorful and beautiful room.

Georgiana gazed around in her extremity, as if these belongings of hers could speak in wisdom that would enlighten her. But they spoke of pleasure, happy memories, the comforts of home, all of which seemed mockery here.

The fire she and Mary had kindled shone red and warm on the hearthstone; and it likewise seemed a lie.

“I’m here. I haven’t gone away. He’ll return soon.... And I’m his wife!” She cried out in her distraction.

It came to her then that she had to stay now. Her one hope of escape had failed. She might have courage enough to run off, anywhere away from this hateful homestead. But she was afraid of the forest at night. Of what avail would it be to starve and freeze? Besides, she was compelled to stay for Mary’s sake, at least until Mary was safely married to that iron-jawed Enoch.

“I’ve got to stay,” Georgiana admitted, and in the admission her hand covered her mouth, a gesture almost of despair. “If I run off now they’ll say I deserted my husband a day after the marriage. My heavens! That would ruin Mary. I’m stuck here. I’ve got to pay for my — my cussedness.”

It seemed then that the decision to stay did not make the situation any easier. As a matter of fact, no decision had been needful, simply because there was no alternative. What distracted Georgiana then was the dire necessity of finding some way to save her pride. It was vanity and she knew it.

“What can I say to him — when he finds me still here?” she asked. “I’ve got to dope out some plan.”

Making believe had been Georgiana’s pastime as a child, and as a girl it had become a dominant characteristic. All at once a flash of divination seemed to illumine the dark perplexity of her mind. Why not try honesty? In less than a day she had come to fear Cal Thurman more than she had ever feared anything. Here she was racking her brain to find some means to deceive him — to show she was not afraid — to save her pride. To realize it sickened her.

“No! I’ll be on the level,” she muttered. “I’m scared to death of him and I’ll not try to hide it.... He struck me! I might have forgiven a slap. But he struck me as a man strikes another man. I hate him, and if he ever does it again I’ll kill him.”

Then at that precise moment of Georgiana’s abandonment to fear and passion a voice seemed to say, accusingly, to her — she deserved that blow, brutal as it had been. But instant repudiation silenced this monitor. She was a long way yet from humility. Still, her conscience smarted, and when she thought of Mary’s loyalty her heart swelled with love and gratitude, and her egotism momentarily dwindled to nothing.

But she had been faced with the havoc caused by her unwitting dishonesty. And she could never again be a liar and a cheat.

“I’ll be on the level,” she decided, “and I’ll take my medicine.”

Whereupon she resolutely went into the kitchen and put her mind upon the considerable task of getting supper. The short winter day had ended and twilight had mantled the mesa. She lighted the lamp. Then she bethought herself of her pretty aprons. Running back to the living-room, she found one and donned it, tarrying a moment to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Upon returning to the kitchen, she rekindled the fire in the stove, and then busied herself in preparations for the meal. Busy with hands, preoccupied in mind, she forgot what she dreaded until she heard a step on the porch and a knock on the door.

“Who’s there?” she called.

“It’s Cal,” came the reply, in a weary voice.

“Come in.”

He entered, haggard and dirty, covered with brush-dust, and he limped as he walked. His clothes gave forth the odor of the dry pine woods.

“I met Mary down at the school-house. You didn’t tell her,” he said.

“No,” she replied, simply.

“Why?”

“You know the trouble she and Enoch had on my account?”

“Ahuh! Enoch is an old porcupine. Did they make up?”

“Yes. And I — I just couldn’t tell her.”

“Reckon it would have been tough.... An’ that’s why you’re still here?”

“Mostly. — But I — I’ve no great desire to be handled as I was yesterday.”

He studied her with sad, knowing dark eyes. It seemed the hours of that day had worked a change in him, as they had in her. Without more words he turned away to the bench, and filling the wash-basin with water he stooped over it. Georgiana watched him out of the corner of her eye, while bustling round table and stove. When at length he turned again to the light she glanced concernedly at his face. His ablutions had removed the stains of labor, but had rather augmented the haggard intensity. Cal showed the inroads of mental distress. All in a day he seemed years older. The boy had gone. Yet there was something proven about him.

“Can I help you?” he asked, as if suddenly becoming aware of her work.

“It’s about done,” she replied, and now that she was aware of his scrutiny she no longer looked at him. Presently the supper was ready, and they sat opposite each other, silent except for the fewest of words necessary at the table. Cal ate rather methodically without his former gusto, and his brow was wrinkled with ponderings.

When they had finished this strange meal Cal said he would do the rest of the work. Georgiana was glad enough to get out of it. This hour was a strain. She left Cal sitting at the table, his head bowed on his hand. Once safely barred in her room, Georgiana fell victim to remorse.

“Oh, I’m sorry — sorry for him, no matter what he’s done to me,” she exclaimed. “He knows how hopeless it is. He knows what I’ll do . . . and then he’ll be ruined.... I’ve ruined him. Oh, if I had only known.”

Next day established in Georgiana’s mind a true perspective of the state of affairs as they existed then, and would, not improbably, remain for some time to come.

She could not understand Cal Thurman. He talked very little, and seemed anxious to get out of her sight. A brooding, almost somber preoccupation attended him during the little while she saw him. She decided that he knew full well she would not stay there long, and likewise knew why she remained at all. Strange to see he showed no remorse for his crime. This caused Georgiana surprise and considerable heat. If he had repented she might have thought a little better of him. There did not seem to be any justification in Georgiana’s fear that he might have another fit of fury, like the one in which he had carried her off. But undoubtedly, as he had shown such a terrible temper, it was in him and might crop out at any moment. Nevertheless, the day brought relief in the assurance that he would let her severely alone.

Her own part in meeting the present was simple enough. As long as she remained under Cal Thurman’s roof, and partook of the food he supplied, she must work to earn it. Even if she had not too much pride to accept anything from him, she must work for her own sake. If she sat down to mope over this unfortunate affair she would brood herself sick. And she knew that for weeks she had almost imperceptibly failed. She knew the meaning of the gentle boil of her blood. It had disappeared for a while, but now it had returned. Georgiana dismissed it from mind. She was not going to be ill. A month of idleness and confinement to her room had dragged her back, almost to where she had been upon her arrival at Green Valley. She could no longer be dependent upon her sister. She was thrown upon her own resources, and if she had not strength and courage enough to survive here in the West she would go back East. If she had to die, she wanted to do it at home. But this catastrophe which had just fallen had roused a latent fire in Georgiana. She was not going to surrender without a fight. Then what had been a willful, thoughtless vanity had changed into another kind of pride.

“They thought I was no good for anything but to mush over boys,” she soliloquized, darkly. “Everybody except Mary thought bad of me. Cal thinks so now, I’ll bet. All because I fooled a little with these moonstruck boneheads! . . . Well, little Georgiana will proceed to fool them in another way.”

So she made deliberate plans for the necessary household work and for the manifold improvement that was possible. Then she went to work. Night found her infinitely weary.

Next day, about noon, she had a caller, no other than her father-in-law, Henry Thurman.

“What you all doin’ aboot heah?” he asked, beaming upon her.

“Cal’s building a fence at his uncle’s, and I’m up to my eyes in work,” replied Georgiana.

He tramped around the kitchen, inquiring about everything, and then performed the same office for the living-room.

“Wal, some folks aboot the Tonto hollered too soon,” he said, enigmatically. “Daughter, I shore figger that Cal’s lucky.”

“Thank you,” murmured Georgiana, warming under his approval. It was a hollow victory, yet somehow it seemed strangely sweet.

“Georgie, what you want for a weddin’-present?” he asked, with a broad grin. “Reckon that’s why I’m heah. But I ain’t said airy word aboot it.”

“It’s very good of you. But I don’t want anything,” replied Georgiana.

“Wal, I reckon you do. Young folks jest startin’ a homestead need a lot. Come here, daughter; put on yore thinkin’-cap.”

Suddenly Georgiana remembered her plan for work and improvement of the cabins.

“If I tell you what I’d like, will you keep it secret — for a while?” she asked.

“Mum’s the word, Georgie.”

“I’d like a sewing-machine and a lot of dry-goods.”

“Fer makin’ dresses an’ sich?” he queried, with a knowing smile.

“No indeed. For making curtains, sheets, pillow-cases, table-cloths, towels — oh, a whole lot of things.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Henry Thurman, greatly pleased. “Daughter, I’m shore proud of you. Now you jest write out a list of what you want. I’ll send it to Ryson. They can phone to Globe an’ have it all come on the stage. I’ll have it packed up heah pronto. I’ll shore do my best to keep anybody from findin’ out aboot it.”

What with work and sleep the days passed swiftly for Georgiana and though they all seemed similar, there was an intangible something growing with them. If there was any difference in Cal it was the look of wonder and bewilderment he cast upon her in unguarded moments. Following there would come an expression of acute pain, at which times he would go out abruptly or turn away to hide it.

Georgiana had set herself a task almost beyond her strength. But she had set it and she stuck to it. She even chopped wood and carried water, chores that sometimes became necessary when Cal was away.

Georgiana vowed she would not sink under this pioneer work so new to her. She suffered aches, pains, bruises, cuts, burns, and for days the exhaustion of a frail body. Then when she felt that she had about gone her limit she found her strength increasing. Her appetite increased to an amusing and alarming capacity. The keen cold winter air, clear and sharp, lost its terrors for her. On that sunny south slope the snow melted almost as it fell, and so one of the dreaded features of winter did not keep Georgiana indoors.

During this time Cal had made additions to his homestead. From his uncle Gard’s ranch he had brought chickens, pigs, two cows and a calf, and also loads of sorghum and corn to feed them. Thus the barn and chicken-coop and pig-pen received tenants, heralding the real beginning of ranchers’ activities. Those newcomers did not add to Georgiana’s labors, because Cal did all the work of caring for them. Yet naturally they somehow increased Georgiana’s responsibilities. Just as naturally, too, she and Cal found it impossible, though estranged as they were, to keep wholly aloof from each other. It was Cal’s homestead, and Georgiana, having undertaken a task, could not withhold interest. At night, when Cal came in from his last chores, they talked of the simple facts of the day and the needs and probabilities of the morrow. It seemed that Cal hid every sign of his love and Georgiana gradually forgot her dread. They were never together except at mealtimes.

Georgiana caught herself one day watching a storm hanging over Promontory Point. It struck her suddenly that she had been dreamily absorbed. Something had made her thoughtless, yet filled her with a vague pleasure. Thereafter she found this strange preoccupation at times had become a habit. It amazed her. Laying a trap for herself, she learned some thought-provoking truths about herself. She had acquired a keen nose for the fragrant smoke from juniper wood, and the piny tang from the forest, and the icy breath of the north wind. The long zigzag Rim, with its golden belt of cliff, and its white lines of snow and black fringe of trees, had come to absorb many of her moments.

The sunsets, when broken clouds massed in the west, could lure her out of the cabin to watch. The lilac haze of the canyons, the purple mantle of the ranges, she awaited, disappointed when they failed at a particular sunset, thrilled when they showed for a few fleeting moments.

More remarkable was it to discover that she had grown fond of the calf and the chickens. The pigs no longer disgusted her. And a tiny mouse that had taken possession of the wood-box behind the stove, growing tamer and bolder, finally became a pet.

Confronted by these strange facts, Georgiana marveled at herself.

“I’m growing dotty. Guess it’s loneliness,” she sighed, and straightway dispelled contemplation of herself.

One night Cal came in with a troubled face.

“Enoch sent word we were to come down to Green Valley tomorrow,” he said. “He an’ Mary are goin’ to be married.”

“Oh — has it been a month since — since — —”

“Reckon it has,” replied Cal, dryly. “One month tomorrow! Seems like a million years to me.... Do you want to go to your sister’s weddin’?”

“I’ll have to go,” replied Georgiana, much perturbed. “Mary would be hurt.... And, yes, I want to go. Don’t you?”

“I reckon not. But I can stand it if you can. All the Thurmans will be there an’ lots of other folks. They’ll have a chance at us.”

“I — I forgot. It will be embarrassing — won’t it?”

“Ahuh! I should think it’ll be terrible. That’s up to you. If I didn’t come, Enoch would be sore. But I wouldn’t care.”

“Yes, you would. Enoch thinks a lot of you, Cal. He’d miss you. Then we couldn’t make any good excuses. I’m scared stiff at the thought of facing all that crowd.”

“They think we’re happily married,” said Cal, with a hollow laugh.

That stung her. “Your tone implies an unhappy state you feel you don’t deserve,” she retorted.

“Ahuh! — Are we goin’ or not?” he returned.

“Oh, we’ll have to go,” burst out Georgiana.

“All right. Now it’s not my doin’, please remember that. An’ we better put in some tall figurin’ right here.... We’ll have to ride horses and come back home tomorrow night in the dark. That won’t be any fun.”

“But why?” queried Georgiana.

“You don’t seem as bright as you used to be. If we stay all night, mother will give us one room — for both of us. Naturally, since we’re supposed to be married. An’ we can’t stay, that’s all.”

“I — I didn’t think,” replied Georgiana, hurriedly, and she felt the blood hot in her face. “Of course — we must come back.”

“That means you must dress to ride,” he went on. “It will be cold, but by bundlin’ up an’ wearin’ your boots I reckon you’ll be warm enough.”

“But Cal, I can’t stand up with Mary — in a riding-suit — while she’s married,” protested Georgiana.

“What do you want to wear?” he queried.

She pondered a moment, and then replied, hesitating: “My white dress — the one you hated.... But I’ve lengthened it quite a good deal.”

“Ahuh! I don’t care what you wear any more, but I reckon a longer dress would please my folks.”

Georgiana maintained silence, conscious of an accelerated pulse and a feeling of pique. So he did not care any more how she looked? She thought that a dangerous remark to make to any woman. Manifestly his love, having nothing to feed upon, had died. How exceedingly constant men were! For an instant the old Georgiana roused to conquest. She could make him love her as wildly as he used to — and more — and there was devil enough left in her to incite her to do it, if he dared to scorn her. But Cal’s sad, worn face, his troubled eyes, showing he was trying to forget himself for others, disarmed her rash impulse. Yet a little bitterness rankled in her heart. She had not done anything to make him despise her.

“I’ll pack your grip on my saddle,” he went on. “Now do you want a hunch from me — somethin’ for your own good?”

She eyed him doubtfully. He seemed so earnest, yet impersonal. This marriage day of her sister’s had focused attention upon a situation both Georgiana and Cal had avoided. She saw his sincerity. There might indeed be something he could suggest that would make the ordeal less painful.

“Yes,” she replied.

“I’m rememberin’ the night you pretended to be hurt in the car — you know, when I brought you out to Green Valley. You fooled everybody. An’ I reckon you’re some actress, as Tuck said afterward.... Well, make the same bluff tomorrow. Go to have a good time, an’ pretend to be happy, even if you’re miserable. You might fool even yourself. For all my folks an’ friends will meet you more’n halfway.”

“Thank you. I’ll think it over,” replied Georgiana, averting her eyes.

Next day Georgiana might have spared herself any worry about riding all the way down to Green Valley, alone with Cal. All the Gard Thurmans arrived at Cal’s cabin, merrily en route to the wedding, and as Cal had timed their arrival he was ready to start. The friendly and kindly greetings Georgiana received from this branch of the Thurman family were all given on horseback.

The day was an unusually fine one for winter, not cold, but keen and invigorating, dry under hoof, with white clouds sailing the blue sky, and a sun that comfortably warmed.

Georgiana had an auspicious start for this day in which she meant to pretend to be happy. Mrs. Gard Thurman, a woman who showed the hard years of pioneer life, yet was sweet and mothery, struck the right chord in her greeting to Georgiana.

“Wal, lass, I’m glad to see you’re pickin’ up,” she said, kindly. “You look fine. An’ shore them’s real roses in your cheeks today!”

Georgiana could not dispel the pleasure this gave her, nor its haunting significance. Not for weeks had she thought of her health. Was it true that she had gained? A throbbing warm wave engulfed her heart. Life was sweet, after all. Could it be possible that out of defeat and travail there might come success and peace? It was a new thought. All she had been concerned with was her vanity, her pride. To be sure, she had stood doggedly by her hard and distasteful task, yet, looked back at now, what it had cost her seemed a reward. Georgiana put the thought aside, to be taken up and pondered over at some other time.

The men rode together, talking and smoking, sometimes half turned in their saddles, in the graceful manner of riders. Georgiana rode behind with the women.

In walk and trot this cavalcade went down the mountain trails, out of the pines into the cedar and juniper, and at last into the brush. It took nearly three hours to reach Green Valley. Georgiana enjoyed it, and only tired toward the very end. The dread of meeting people failed to materialize. Georgiana actually laughed when Tuck Merry strode out into the road, taller and thinner than ever, and showed his pleasure at sight of Ollie Thurman, as well as an unmistakable proprietorship.

“Tuck, this air a bad day to go sweet on a lady,” said Henry, with his dry chuckle.

It was he who lifted Georgiana off her horse and he did not neglect to make it an affectionate action. The porch appeared full of people, mostly long, shiny-faced, blue-jeaned riders that Georgiana did not see distinctly. But she saw Mary very clearly, and rushed into her arms.

“Georgie!” exclaimed Mary, after that first embrace, holding her at arm’s-length and gazing upon her with glad eyes. “You look different. Your face is not so thin. I never saw you so — so pretty.... Oh, you’re getting well!”

Georgiana hugged her. “Old dear, it makes me happy to see you and hear you say that. I — I hadn’t thought of my health. I’ve worked.... Take it from me, you look pretty good yourself. This marriage stuff must be the dope for women.”

Mary laughed happily. She did, indeed, appear very well, younger and free of the line and shadow of worry. Georgiana’s keen eyes did not miss that. The evidence went straight to her heart.

“Georgie, when will you ever drop your slang? . . . Come, you must speak to everybody, and, child, curb that terrible tongue.”

“Sis, let me babble. Let me rave,” implored Georgiana. “To you, anyhow. I haven’t spoken thirty words since I saw you. But don’t worry. I’m here to be the simple little bride of Cal Thurman. On exhibition! and believe me, I’ll put it over this day.”

Georgiana had not worn a party gown for over a month. She was so eager to see how much she really had improved during this period that she put on her white dress in the middle of the afternoon. This was in the seclusion of Mary’s room. The effect on Georgiana was magical. Deep in her secret heart had been an unuttered fear that she was losing her health, and with it youth and beauty. But never before in her life had she looked so well.

Mary was all smiles, praises, kisses, between which she wondered and marveled at Georgiana’s improvement. Georgiana was no longer thin and frail. This gown revealed that. Yet it was only half as revealing as it had been before Georgiana had changed it.

“When they see you tonight they’ll forget how you used to look,” declared Mary, with gratification, and she did not explain whom she meant by they.

“Cal hated this dress when it was so short,” observed Georgiana. “I told him I had lengthened it, but I don’t think he took much stock in what I said.”

“Goodness! Haven’t you dressed up since you were married?” asked Mary.

“Not once.”

“Well, you’ll make up for it tonight.”

“I think I look pretty spiffy myself,” replied Georgiana, with complacent assurance. “But I’ve got to hide my hands. Look!”

She spread out the disreputable little members for Mary’s inspection. Georgiana had always been proud of her beautiful hands and had cared for them accordingly. But this last month care had gone with pride.

“Wife of a homesteader! They look it. I’ll tell the world!” exclaimed Georgiana, ruefully.

“You’ve treated them cruelly, but they’ll get well,” said Mary. “And now, Georgie, help me a little with my dress.”

The sisters spent the happiest hour they had ever known together. Georgiana did not have to play a part. She was intensely human, and excitement, praise, admiration acted upon her like wine. All that had happened to her during the month were but records of her development. Still she did not stop to think. Mary’s happiness was infectious.

It took only a few moments for Parson Meeker to make Mary the wife of Enoch Thurman. In the Tonto, neither long courting nor ceremony was in favor.

But the congratulating of the bride and groom was a different matter. Georgiana thought the riders would tear Mary and her husband to pieces. This was their one opportunity and they made the most of it. That hilarious half-hour prepared the way for dinner. This was really a feast. All the Thurman women had a share in it. Georgiana sat next to Mary, and on her left was Cal. Actually she had forgotten him until this hour. Whatever were his true feelings, he wore a genial, manly demeanor that became him in Georgiana’s sight.

After dinner came the personal contact with everybody present — the ordeal which Georgiana had so dreaded. Yet how mistaken she had been! Was the thing to dread within herself? She came second only to Mary in the attention of relatives and friends. Strangely, Georgiana remembered her earlier training. The ultra-modernism had no place here. All was simple, homely, sincere. They rang true. It was not a social gathering. It was the wedding of the chief of the clan. And Georgiana was made to feel something she had never dreamed of — that she counted in the sum of the Thurmans. They all came from fighting Texas stock. If she had been willful, silly, trifling, even vicious, that was as if it had never been. She had given her hand to a Thurman — to the last of the Thurmans. Life was a strong, precious, splendid thing with these Tonto people. Youth was only a preparation. Marriage was a beginning. Before that hour ended Georgiana was a strangely thoughtful, repentant girl.

The big living-room was cleared of tables, and old Henry got out his fiddle.

“I’m a fiddlin’ fool,

An’ the last of my boys has gone to school.”

They began one of the half-square, half-round, changing-partner dances in which all the young folk and many of the older took part. It seemed to Georgiana that every man and boy on the floor had designs upon her and Mary. How they jigged and swung and romped! The old ranch house shook to its foundations. Never in her life had Georgiana been so whirled and lifted and raced and contended for. She began that dance fresh, excited, in the fun of the hour. She ended it spent, on fire with the life, vitality, intensity of these primitive people. As it chanced, Cal had not met her once in the endless changing of that dance.

“Rest now an’ cool off,” he said to her. “We’ve got a long ride an’ we must be goin’ soon.”

Georgiana was glad to leave the gay company and retire to her sister’s room to change the white gown for riding-garb. Glad — but for a strange reason! Cal’s words had broken a spell. She had forgotten him and herself and the hateful reality. It disturbed her suddenly to discover that an abrupt suggestion of departure from that happy circle had brought disappointment. So Georgiana was soberly glad to leave because she found she was having a good time. This extraordinary fact must be delved into.

She and Cal slipped out the back way, just as if they were the bride and groom. A full moon shone white in the pale sky. The hills were black and lonely. An icy wind blew down from the heights.

Georgiana was so bundled up, so booted, chapped, coated, scarfed and hooded and gloved, too, that she had to be lifted on her horse. Once in the saddle, however, she was all right, and she could not repress the sensation of exhilaration.

“We’ll ride some till we get to the grade,” said Cal, as he swung astride. “Stay close to me an’ yell if anythin’ goes wrong.”

Then he was off at a fast trot. Georgiana’s horse needed no urging. Soon Cal took to a lope. Georgiana found herself sailing along the white moon-blanched winding road, with the icy wind in her face. It was sweet, stinging, and so cold that she had to breathe through her nostrils. The dark forest sped by on each side. Now and then Cal looked back to see if all was well with her.

They trotted and loped their horses, and in what seemed a short time rode down into the Boyd Thurman clearing. Across the bare field, in the shadow of the pines, stood the little log cabin Georgiana remembered with a shock. She had been married there. Was it only one month ago? It seemed ages.

Cal lost no time on the stretches of good road. Soon they entered the heavy pine forest, and the moonlight appeared mostly aloft. A roar of north wind in the tree-tops sounded like a rushing river. Georgiana had to ride her best along here. The horses were as eager as Cal to get home. As for Georgiana, she would have liked more time to enjoy this midnight ride. Yet its very hurry and rush filled her with innumerable sensations.

On they sped, and came to the best stretch of road, where the ground was free of stones. Cal’s horse quickened his gait, and Georgiana’s was not going to be left behind. Tufts of swinging pine needles reached out from the shadows. Georgiana had one blow which stung so smartly that she did not care for another. She had to see and dodge. The rhythmic beat of hoofs rang through the forest. Black depths of pine thickets, moonlit glades, open white curves of the road crossed by bars of shadows, passed by until at last Cal drew his horse to a walk at the foot of the trail up the hills.

Georgiana was in a glow. The cold night wind felt pleasant. She was too excited to realize weariness. But now, with it safe to let her horse choose the way, she found it possible to think connectedly. What she must think annoyed her. The night was beautiful, the ride wonderful, the wild lonely Tonto forest strangely productive of thrills. Why must she think, and what about?

It came to her then that her month of martyrdom had ended with her sister’s marriage. She could leave Cal Thurman’s home now and go her way. No longer need she and her vexations and troublesome character, her problems and responsibilities, bring peril to Mary’s future. Enoch could make no terms now; he had married her, and it was Georgiana’s opinion that for a pioneer, sterling and splendid though he was, to win Mary Stockwell for a wife was a piece of supreme good fortune.

Georgiana felt that she must face her problem now. She had no excuse to stay longer with Cal. How easy to name those facts! But a host of considerations, like enemies ambushing her trail, rushed out to confront her. And the very first was a strange, stubborn, utterly incomprehensible vacillation. Wait, it whispered. No hurry! Do not face it now. The others trooped after this traitorous weakness. When would she go? Where? How? From what source could she get money to take her away? To whom could she appeal? Was it possible now to confess her trouble to anyone? What might happen to her? And lastly a sickening, humiliating why — why go at all?

Thus Georgiana encountered an unexpected phase to her problem. Not that it altered her decision in the least! She had to go. But it made for increased perturbation and conflict. The very thought of the future appalled her.

Reality was the thing to expect results from, not romance. She had worked harder in a month than in all the former years of her life. Worked when she longed to faint and fall! By that work and the suffering entailed she saw now a new hold on health, and something nameless, a good not fully understood.

She raised her drooping head to look. Cal rode there ahead, absorbed in his own trouble. She actually felt sorry for him. The horses were climbing sturdily. The white moon sailed aloft, cold, pure, passionless, watching as with an eye of destiny. The wind grew icier as the altitude increased. Then there swept the dark bold Rim, majestic and measureless, under the white radiance of moonlight.

At the cabin Cal hesitated just as he was about to help her dismount. He looked up at her. The wide brim of his beaver sombrero hid his face.

“I’d like to ask — are you sorry you went?”

“No. I’m glad, Cal,” she replied instantly, somehow wanting him to know.

“Why?” he added.

“Two reasons. Now that I know what it is I wouldn’t have missed seeing Mary’s happiness — not for any real or fancied fear in the world.”

“Ahuh!” he said, as if he fully comprehended.

“The other reason is that I was wrong,” she continued, hurriedly. “Whatever it was I — I hated existed only in me. — I forgot it. I had a wonderful time. And so I found everybody nice and kind.”

“Aw, now that’s fine,” he exploded. “But I had a rotten time.” He removed his sombrero, as if to let the wind cool his fevered head. Then in the moonlight his face appeared pale and somber. “It was worse for me than I expected. — My family, all the old women, the boys — even Tim Matthews, comin’ to me, speakin’ high of you — tellin’ how sorry they were — apologizin’ to me for what they’d said of you.... You had been only a motherless child.... Now all was well an’ I deserved such a wonderful little wife — an’ — an’ they were so glad I was happy.... My God!”

“It must have been hell,” she replied, sympathetically. “I’m sorry you had to endure that for me.”

“Reckon I’m glad I went,” he returned, quickly. “If this was the only time I’d ever have to listen to them. But what kills me is thought of the next time — when — when — —”

His voice broke huskily and trailed off. Georgiana understood him to mean when she told the secret of their marriage and left him to scorn and ridicule.

“Cal, I’ll stay if it means so much to you — and for Mary’s sake,” she whispered, impelled beyond resistance. “I’ll stay a while longer for your sake and hers — if you’ll not expect too much of me.”

“Georgie, darlin’,” he cried, wildly, with a throb in his voice, “I beg you — stay — on any conditions. I’ll ask nothin’ of you — nothin’. I swear.”

“Very well,” faltered Georgiana, and slid off her horse. How cramped and dizzy she felt suddenly! She wanted to run, but could scarcely walk. “Good night.”

“Reckon you’d better come in the kitchen an’ get warm,” Cal called after her.

But she stumbled across the porch and entered her room. She did not feel the cold. The darkness of the room was welcome. Anything to get out from under that pitiless, bright, all-seeing moon! She did not light the lamp. Throwing off gloves, hood, scarf, and coats, she bent with trembling hands to unlace her boots. Soon she was in bed, creeping deep under the blankets, throbbing and burning.

What was it that she had done? Coward and liar and cheat again! For Cal’s sake and Mary’s she had consented to remain there a while longer. Maybe, a little — but mostly for her own! Thus she groveled in her shame. Did she want to stay of her own accord? Absurd! Yet she had grasped at the barest excuse. She had not considered. Impulse had governed her. Cal had loomed strangely in her sight. Did his people know him better than she did?

But in this conflicting tide of emotion there entered the quieting influence of a great relief. She did not have to run away just yet. She did not need to face that appalling future tomorrow or next day.

CHAPTER XVI

SPRING! WINTER HAD gone with the fleeting February, and the snow line had vanished from the Rim, and the wild turkeys were gobbling from every ridge. The sun shone warm. Already the red soil of Rock Spring Mesa had begun to dry. One half the Mesa field had been cleared of stumps and rocks, and would soon be ready for spring plowing. The other half was slowly clearing to Cal’s strenuous labors.

Georgiana had stayed on a while longer. She had not been away from the homestead. Mary had visited her once, upon her return with Enoch from Phoenix. A pile of magazines and a shelf of books had been added to Georgiana’s room. She worked much the same as on the first weeks of her stay there, only not quite so hard. She spent more time outdoors now.

All had really changed, her illness, her physical being, her spirit, her attitude towards life, yet nothing seemed different because Cal kept his promise. He had asked nothing of her. He let her alone, except those daily hours when their joint labors and mealtimes necessarily brought them together. Georgiana, in her loneliness, in her growing hunger for she knew not what, thought that she might have forgiven him if he had reverted a little to his former self. But he seemed another person now, a boy no longer, a man, kind, serious, preoccupied, but not bitter any more, grateful for Georgiana’s presence and help. Yet never by word or action overstepping what he deemed his place. Georgiana resented his humility. Had he not carried her off as ruthlessly as the Roman gladiator had the Sabine woman? Had he not stopped her wildcat scratch and bite, and her screams, with a sudden brutal blow? Always that rankled in her. Yet time had softened the shame of it, if not the memory.

One March day a startling and disturbing, and most thrilling bit of news came in the shape of a letter from Mary, brought by a rider. An aunt of the sisters had died, and in her will bequeathed each of them several thousand dollars. Just how much Mary could not determine from their mother’s letter, but they would soon receive the heritage. Strange how Georgiana reacted to this news of good fortune! She was not thrilled or overjoyed. She had a feeling of gladness for Mary. For herself there came only the thought that now she could go. There was something inevitable about it. She did not mention the fact of the inheritance to Cal.

Next morning before she awoke, Cal rode off down to Ryson. Georgiana had the whole day to herself, to think over the unlimited possibilities open to her. A decision to follow several of them seemed made, only to be changed.

Cal returned after dark, and the instant Georgiana saw his telltale face she knew something unusual had happened. He avoided meeting her eyes, and to her timid query he replied, briefly, “Nothin’ much.”

Georgiana lost her dread, but curiosity and concern remained. On the following morning, after breakfast, Cal rode up to the porch and called her.

“Reckon I’d like to tell you somethin’,” he said, as she appeared in the door.

“Yes?” she returned. His cool, easy, dry, rather biting tone roused her curiosity more than the content of his words. Then she became aware of the piercing gaze of his eyes.

“Georgie, do you remember the day I made you marry me?”

“I’ll say I do,” she replied, in surprise.

“You thought I struck you — knocked you senseless?”

“Yes. Didn’t you?”

He gazed down at her in a way that made her feel infinitely small and narrow-minded.

“No!” he declared, ringingly. “I was rough. But I didn’t strike you. My horse ran us under a tree. Your head hit a branch. That’s all.”

“Why have you let me think all this time that you did strike me?”

“Reckon at first it served my purpose to scare you,” he admitted. “But after we were married it made me sore to think you could believe I’d hurt you.”

“Ahuh!” replied Georgiana, imitating him. “Well, why did you tell me now?”

“I’m ridin’ over to the Bar XX,” he replied, coolly, with his intent gaze on her face. He was neither audacious nor reckless, yet something of both pertained in his tone. Georgiana knew enough about Thurmans now to realize that this strange cool baffling presence was dangerous.

“Bar XX?” she stammered.

“Yes, an’ if I don’t happen to get back by sundown you saddle up an’ ride over to Uncle Gard’s.”

“Will you be — there?” she asked, beginning to shake in alarm.

“No. I won’t be there or here,” he replied, darkly. “But I reckon I’ll be back early. I just wanted to tell you what to do in case — —”

“Cal!” she cried, piercingly.

“So long, Georgiana May,” he called, with all his old bitterness and something of mockery. His last glance seemed full of fiery reproach. Then he spurred his horse, and like a brown flash was off across the clearing.

“Cal!” she screamed after him. But he did not heed. And quickly he was out of sight in the timber.

“Bar XX!” exclaimed Georgiana, in distress. “That is Saunders’ ranch. Bloom is foreman of the Bar XX. Bid Hatfield is there.”

The first hours of that day severely punished Georgiana. She fell prey to morbid dread and fear. But gradually her reasoning began to overcome her intuitive sense that catastrophe threatened. Even if Cal had ridden over to the Bar XX to confront Bid Hatfield, it could hardly mean more than a fight. She had not heard of a Thurman fight for weeks, not since Wess had confessed to the boys that he could not sleep or eat or be happy any more until he fought Tuck Merry. The obliging Tuck had consented to give Wess the chance to relieve his overcharged feelings in the matter, with the result that Wess was speedily and soundly thrashed.

“I’d hate to have Bid Hatfield beat Cal,” soliloquized Georgiana, resentfully. “He’s older than Cal, and much bigger.... Oh, I hope I am just borrowing trouble.”

About an hour before sunset, when Georgiana was in the kitchen beginning to prepare for the evening meal, she heard the pound of hoofs outside. It startled her. Cal was returning. A strange new thrill of gladness shot through her.

“Whoa thar! Steady!” called out a rough voice that certainly was not Cal’s.

Georgiana flew to open the door. She saw a tall rider — Wess Thurman — and two horses, and over the hindmost horse hung the long limp shape of a man, head down from the saddle.

“Who’s that?” cried Georgiana, piercingly.

“Wal, I reckon it’s all thet’s left of Cal,” replied Wess. His dark face gleamed and flashed.

“Oh, Heavens! I knew something dreadful was going to happen!” burst out Georgiana, and ran to where Wess was trying to slide Cal off the saddle. “Oh, Wess — say he’s not hurt!... Blood! All over him! Oh, how awful!”

“Hurt?” snorted Wess. “Hell, yes, but he ain’t daid. Get out of my way.”

Wess got both arms around Cal’s middle and pulled him over the saddle. Then changing his hold he lifted Cal clear off the ground and carried him into the kitchen. Georgiana followed, wringing her hands. Wess laid the limp form of the boy on the couch.

“Some water, Georgie, an’ I’ll fetch him round,” said Wess. “He’s only fainted again.”

Georgiana flew to get water and towels. Her nameless terror began to subside. If he had only fainted!

“My Gawd! What a mug for a Thurman to have!” ejaculated Wess, in pity and disgust. “Heah, now, you Georgie — don’t you look at him.”

“I will!” flashed Georgiana, as she ran back to Wess with the basin. And she did look at Cal.... But was that Cal? She saw an unrecognizable face or what had been a face, but now scarcely human, beaten and swollen out of shape, purple in spots, raw like beef in others. Nose and mouth were bleeding. His hair was matted with blood, and his shirt, that appeared torn to shreds, was black with stains.

Georgiana took this all in, and suddenly, horrified and frantic, she fell on her knees beside the couch.

“Oh, he’s terribly injured,” she wailed.

“Dammit! didn’t I tell yuh not to look at him?” growled Wess as he splashed water in Cal’s face. “If yore goin’ to squeal, get out of heah.”

“Oh, he’s badly hurt,” moaned Georgiana.

“Wal, he’ll live to — to—” Here Wess broke off his speech.

“Tell me, for pity’s sake, what happened?” implored Georgiana.

“Cal was jest bulldoggin’ a mean steer,” replied Wess as he began to bathe Cal’s face.

“Don’t lie to me, Wess Thurman,” cried Georgiana.

“An’ he was ridin’ a buckin’ bronc,” went on Wess, imperturbably.

“Oh, how can you jest when he lies there so — so awfully battered?”

“An’ he fell off Promontory an’ rolled aboot a mile,” added Wess.

Georgiana forced composure enough to refrain from further useless questioning. Besides, Cal began to show signs of returning to consciousness. His breast heaved. He stirred. He moved his hands. And then Georgiana saw they were bruised, swollen, skinned raw in places.

“Wal, yore comin’ to, Cal,” drawled Wess.

“You fetched — me home?” whispered Cal, weakly.

“I shore did, an’ it was a hell of a job.”

“Georgie?” asked Cal, huskily.

“She’s heah, an’ actin’ fust rate, considerin’,” replied Wess, and it was certain he grinned and winked at Georgiana.

“Cal — I’m right by — you,” faltered Georgiana. She wanted to take his hands, but feared she might touch the raw flesh and hurt him. “Can’t you see me?”

“Yes, now I can. But not very clear,” he said. One of his eyes was swollen completely shut, and the other nearly so.

Wess handed the bloody towel to Georgiana and said: “Reckon thet’s aboot as clean as I can git him. Now, Georgie, I’ll lift him, an’ you pull off thet dirty shirt. Tear it off — it’s all rags, anyhow.... There!” That done, Wess proceeded to remove Cal’s boots, and then his jeans, which, if not so ragged as the shirt, were certainly as dirty. “Wal, you can sleep in yore underclothes, you ole son-of-a-gun. Now I’ll cover you over with this heah blanket — an’ shore thet’s aboot all I can think of.”

“Wess, my hands hurt worst of all,” said Cal.

Georgiana brought soft linen from her wardrobe, and with Wess’s help she began to bandage the injured members.

“Georgie,” said Cal, “I couldn’t whip him.”

“No?” murmured Georgiana.

“He was too big an’ strong for me.”

“Say,” drawled Wess, complainingly, “you air shore makin’ me out a liar. I had Georgie believin’ you fell off Promontory.”

“Yes, you had not,” retorted Georgiana.

“Wess, if I’d licked him I’d never told her,” said Cal.

For Georgiana there seemed to be a world of significance in this statement. Her first fears allayed, she began to find composure.

“I wish to Gawd you had licked him!” returned Wess, with a sudden dark fierceness that struck terror to Georgiana’s heart. That was the Thurman of it. If Cal had beaten this enemy, all of the Thurmans might have been willing to let it go at that. But now matters were worse.

Cal turned his disfigured face to the wall and lay quiet. Wess insisted on spending the night there. He helped Georgiana with the supper, and afterward, but it was not until he was carrying wood for the living-room fire that she had a moment alone with him.

“Now tell me what’s happened,” she demanded, tensely.

Wess deposited the wood on the hearth, and leisurely raked the red coals into a pile, and laid some sticks across it.

“Reckon you ought to go to bed,” he drawled.

“Wess, you’re a Thurman and I like you,” replied Georgiana, deliberately. “I think you’d be a great friend in the hour of need — like now. But don’t try your lazy, easy Tonto spoofing on me. It won’t go with me.”

“Tonto spoofin’!” ejaculated Wess. “Wal, I’ll be darned!”

“It was Bid Hatfield,” declared Georgiana, with heat.

“I should smile it was,” returned Wess, his manner and tone altering.

“It was on my account,” asserted Georgiana.

Wess nodded gloomy assent to this.

“Tell me,” burst out Georgiana, impatiently.

“Wal, Georgie, I don’t know a heap aboot it,” replied Wess, “I was ridin’ the Cold pasture when I seen two hosses an’ one rider comin’ down the Mescal Ridge trail. We met, an’ I seen the rider was Tom Hall, one of the Bar XX outfit. He was packin’ Cal over the saddle of the other hoss. He says: ‘By golly! Wess, it’s lucky to run into you. Cal busted in on Bid over at the ranch, an’ they had a hell of a fight. I didn’t see it, but the boys told me. They wrecked the bunk-house, where Cal got to Bid, an’ then they tore up the ground all over. The boys said Cal more’n held his own with Bid on a stand-up square fight. But Bid rushed Cal an’ took to rough-an’-tumble. He damn near beat Cal to death. Our boss, Saunders, happened to ride in just then, an’ he stopped Bid. Shore he was sore. Cal was knocked clean out. Couldn’t get up! — Wal, some one had to pack him home, an’ I was the only fellar willin’ to do it. An’ I wasn’t a-rarin’ to run into Enoch or Cal’s dad. Not me! An’ heah I am. Cal’s bad hurt, an’ I’m glad to turn him over to you!’”

Wess had talked deliberately, evidently to make sure to recall everything, and the recital had stirred the slumbering depths of him.

“Wal,” he continued, “I thanked Tom for bein’ so decent, an’ I took charge of Cal. When we got as far as Tonto Creek, I lifted him off his hoss an’ brung him to. He thought he could ride home. But he couldn’t. He fell off his hoss an’ lost his senses again. I put him back on the saddle an’ rustled for home. We didn’t meet no one before we got heah.”

“I think it splendid of you to — to be so good and fetch him here where no one can see him.... Wess, is he badly hurt?”

“Pretty bad used up, I reckon,” replied Wess, wagging his head. “Of course he ain’t in any danger. I don’t like the way he spit blood. But mebbe thet’s from cut lips or he might hev a tooth knocked out.”

“Will he need a doctor?”

“Wal, we can decide thet tomorrow. I cain’t see any reason fer it now. An’ it’s a cinch Cal wouldn’t like no doctor to see him. Mother will come over heah, if she’s needed, an’ she’s as good as any doctor.”

“Wess, now tell me why Cal went after Bid Hatfield?” asked Georgiana.

“Aw, he jest wanted to fight, I reckon,” rejoined Wess, evasively, and he bent to blow the slow coals into a blaze.

“Don’t try to fool me, and don’t lie,” said Georgiana.

Wess went right on blowing the fire, then arranging more billets of wood in a neat pile. Georgiana had a moment to gather force and to make up her mind. These Thurmans could not be driven. But they were not proof against either tenderness or tears. She took hold of Wess, and made him get up, and held to his big rough hands, and looked up at him with an appeal that did not need to be simulated.

“Wess, you must tell me,” she begged. “I’m one of your family now. I’m a Thurman. I’ve disgraced Cal and made trouble for you all. I must rectify it. I will! . . . But I need to know the truth.”

“Georgie, we Thurmans hev always been able to take care of our women an’ their names,” he replied. “Cal bit off too much in tacklin’ Bid Hatfield with his bare fists. But I reckon thar’s other ways to — —”

“That’s what I fear,” interrupted Georgiana. “Cal must not meet Hatfield again.”

“But, Georgie, you don’t know us. Cal has to go after Bid now more’n ever.”

“Cal is not going, for — for I will keep him from it,” declared Georgiana, with emotion.

“Child — you cain’t do thet,” said Wess.

“I can and I will,” added Georgiana, passionately.

“Wal, I hope to Gawd you ain’t oot of yore haid,” rejoined Wess, doubtfully yet hopefully. “Times hev changed since Cal an’ me was kids. But we Thurmans ain’t changed.... Cal will hev to drive Hatfield oot of the Tonto or — kill him.”

“Oh, my God! — Wess, what are you saying?” cried Georgiana, now convinced of the thing she had feared.

“I shore hate to tell you, Georgie, but it’s true.”

“Why? — Why?” whispered Georgiana, clinging to Wess.

“Because Cal has finally heard what we all knew. He was the last one to heah.”

“What?”

“Bid Hatfield’s talk aboot you.”

“Wess, is — is it bad?” she asked, suddenly letting go of Wess, and starting back.

“Reckon it couldn’t be no wuss,” replied Wess, much troubled. “Now, heah, Georgie.... Don’t you look mad like thet. You made me tell you.... An’ for Gawd’s sake don’t believe any of us Thurmans take stock in what Hatfield says. Reckon Cal feels as we all do. He shore acted like he does. — Wal, we’ve all talked this over among ourselves, an’ we figgered this way. You was new to the Tonto, an’ a high-stepper at thet, as the boys say. You liked Bid an’ made no bones aboot it. Same way you liked Tim Matthews, an’ Arizona, an’ of course Cal. You didn’t know which one you wanted an’ you wasn’t in any hurry. — Wal, you married Cal, an’ thet settled thet. It shore squared everythin’. An’ if Bid Hatfield hadn’t been a low-down skunk you’d never heerd again of yore foolin’.”

“Fooling!” echoed Georgiana, poignantly. “I begin to see now. Oh, if I had only known! . . . Wess, I thank you for your faith in me. It is justified. Yet — —”

Suddenly the door swung wide and Cal staggered in. He had put on his jeans and thrown a coat round his shoulders. How he could see to walk was not evident, yet he was able to do it.

“Wess, what’re you an’ Georgie talkin’ about — all this time?” he demanded, hoarsely. “I heard you.”

“Aw, Cal, I was just tellin’ Georgie aboot it. She made me,” replied Wess.

Georgiana recoiled from Cal as he approached close, but it was from pity and grief at sight of his bleeding and deformed face.

“Cal, I had to know,” she said, hurriedly.

“What?”

“Why you fought Hatfield.”

“Wess could have left that for me to tell,” declared Cal, hotly, and his white bandaged hands tried to clench.

“Wal, mebbe. But Georgie has a way of her own, Cal, as I reckon you know. I ain’t bustin’ into yore affairs an’ I’m sorry if I hev offended you.”

Cal clumsily found the back of the big home-made rocking-chair, and leaned on it for support. He was breathing heavily, almost gasping, and a bloody froth showed on his swollen lips. Sight of him sickened Georgiana, and so filled her with horror at the proofs of her vanity and selfishness that she was stricken to the heart. She had to watch him. It must be part of her punishment. Something tremendous had begun vaguely to dawn upon her consciousness. He owed his present frightful condition, and the torture of mind he manifestly labored under, to his defense of her good name. For her — who had given him nothing?

“Cal. Don’t be angry with Wess,” she implored. “I had to know the truth.”

“Ahuh! What’d Wess tell you?” queried Cal.

“All he knew.... How everybody had heard Hatfield’s defamation of my character before you heard it.”

“Aw! . . . Everybody heard before me!” breathed Cal, as if to himself. He writhed under the shame. “That’s news to me.”

“Look heah, Cal,” interposed Wess, “you gotta make the best of this.”

Georgiana seemed drawn to go up to Cal. Her instinct was to take hold of him, in pity, distress, impulse, somehow to express herself, but though she went close, it was not to touch him.

“Hatfield’s a liar!” she said, in passionate scorn.

“Georgie, that’s the whole trouble,” responded Cal, a reply which would have been dignified but for his voice and appearance. “He’s lied about you from the first. He bragged about spoonin’ with you. I knew then what a liar — —”

“But, Cal — that wasn’t a lie,” interrupted Georgiana, impetuously. “I did spoon with him — played choosies, as I told him we called it back East. We held hands and kissed. It happened three times.... But that was all I did, absolutely. And it meant so little to me I forgot it until now.”

Georgiana could not tell from Cal’s battered face what he felt at her disclosure, but the slow droop of his head, until it finally rested on the back of the chair, seemed proof of utter humiliation. She stared at him in consternation and mounting pain. A shock went through her. Never until that moment had she any divination of the staggering consequences which might follow careless flirting with boys. She felt her integrity, even her honor, assailed by Cal’s abasement.

“Cal, don’t you be a fool!” she cried, in sudden piercing voice. This time her hands went to his bowed shoulders, and she shook him gently. “I understand a little better. But you don’t understand.... I’ve let lots of boys kiss me. And you here in the Tonto — you first, then Hatfield, and Tim Matthews — and Arizona, yes, even ugly Arizona — and last, Hatfield again. — But I meant nothing. What’s a kiss? At least where I was brought up it’s no more a crime to kiss than to eat chocolates. Anyway, I did it. I let you all kiss me. I’m sorry. But I’m not ashamed. I may have been a silly vain little flirt — I must have been wrong, but I wasn’t bad.... You must see, Cal — you must not lose your respect for me.”

Cal lifted his bleeding, bruised face, and it touched one of Georgiana’s hands, burning her with its heat.

“Georgie, that hurts like hell, but I’m glad you had the nerve to tell me,” he said, huskily.

“You — you believe me?” she asked, tremulously.

“Yes. An’ I reckon I understand you better. It’s a pity you didn’t tell me — before — —”

“Before what?” she interrupted as his husky voice faltered. “You mean before our marriage? Would that have kept you from marrying me?”

“Nothin’ could have kept me from marryin’ you — not even if all Bid Hatfield’s claims were true.”

“Cal!” she cried, shrinking.

“I regret nothin’. — As I said, what a pity you didn’t tell me before it was too late.”

This time she did not ask him what he meant. She knew. And suddenly she was mute. She had brought worse than disgrace upon Cal Thurman. How bitterly she repented! But it was not less too late for her also.

“Cal,” spoke up Wess, as he turned from the window, where he had discreetly retired, “thet’ll be aboot all from both of you. I was heah an’ I got ears. Now I’m a-goin’ to put you back to bed.”

Whereupon he led the sagging Cal toward the door. Opening it, he half turned his face to the girl. “Good night, Georgie. I’ll look after Cal.... An’ you’re welcome to know thet I think a heap more of you than ever.”

Georgiana was left alone, a victim to the most acute distress of mind and complexity of emotion that she had ever known. For long she sat on the deerskin rug before the fire, peering into the red glow, but seeing nothing.

At length out of the stress of that time she voiced one coherent thought.

“I’ve got to keep Cal from killing Bid Hatfield, at any cost.”

She had been the undoing of a splendid, manly boy. At realization of what Cal Thurman was, a strange commotion stormed Georgiana’s heart. But she did not ponder on that then. She was concerned with a new point of view — how the eyes of the Tonto had seen her.

Stranger from the East, dependent upon her sister’s love, she had come, with her painted cheeks, her lipstick, her flimsy frocks, and her bare knees, her slang and her intolerance of restraint. She saw it all now — her pitiful little vanity of person, her absorption of the modern freedom, with its feminine rant about equality with men, her deliberate flirting habits from what she considered a pursuit of fun and mischief, her selfish and cruel desire to punish boys whose offense had been to like her.

In her own eyes, she now became guilty of things she never would have confessed to Cal or anyone. Her quick, practical intelligence laid the blame for her character at other feet than hers. But that was no consolation, no help here in this extremity. She had been more than vain, selfish, thoughtless, cruel. She had been blind, weak, wicked. Her relation to the Tonto now enlarged to any community. And the stunning truth came with realization that in spite of all the arguments she had brought West with her, and which had so distressed Mary, she would not want a daughter of hers to think and act as she had done. That was the climax which bowed her head. Life was life, East or West. What might be done with impunity back in the sophisticated East could not be done at all here in the Tonto. People did not understand. And through the simplicity and primitiveness of these Thurmans it was easy to see how far the so-called Eastern freedom was wrong. There were things women dared not do, unless they disregarded the progress of the world.

Thus in Georgiana formed the nucleus of a revolt. It was not a pity that Cal Thurman had the character to fight for her. The world was a better place when men fought for women, even if it was a matter of possession. The pity was that she, and all her kind, were not worth it. Georgiana saw how her sister Mary had been a helpful, guiding, splendid influence among these Tonto young people. But Georgiana felt that she had been the opposite. Once realizing that she knew she would never rest, never have any peace, until she had corrected what was wrong. What happened to her did not matter in the least. Had she considered what her vicious personality would do to Cal Thurman or Bid Hatfield? She could no longer be a traitress. She could not leave the Tonto. She was chained there by her conscience, by her longing to make amends, by something that brought a flame to her cheek.

CHAPTER XVII

OUT OF THE pain of the succeeding days; out of the watching by Cal in the dead of night, listening to his muttered dreams; out of the hours when he lay with discolored face to the wall, and the weak moments when he wept in his misery; out of nursing him and tending his injuries, and reading to him, talking to make him forget; and lastly out of long association alone with him during this ordeal — Georgiana underwent the developing and transforming experience of real love.

It brought her deeper pangs, yet a vision of future happiness. It made her a woman. It relieved her burden. It decided the future.

But when in a week Cal had mended to the extent of walking out-of-doors, when the hideous swellings had left his face so he was not ashamed to be seen by his relatives, and later when he began to brood darkly and to avoid her, Georgiana realized that she must act soon to forestall any second meeting of his with Hatfield.

Her plan had long been made, and now only waited execution. She wrote a note to Tuck Merry, asking him to meet her the following morning at the fork of the Tonto and Mescal Ridge trails, and inclosing this note in a letter to her sister, she rode over to Gard Thurman’s and intrusted it to one of the riders going down to Green Valley that night.

The last days of March had brought some of the lamb-like weather that old folk contended was sure to follow the blustery beginning of that month. Georgiana rode back to the homestead strangely relieved in mind, able once more to revel in horseback-riding and to look at the sweeping green hills and the looming Rim, and to feel the beauty and wildness of it all, thankful that the sunny days had come again and that she was not compelled to leave the Tonto.

Next morning Cal began to show some little interest once more in his homestead. Wess had come over several days to feed the stock, and had sent his younger brother at other times when he could not come. This day Cal assumed the tasks again, and evidently found them slow, toilsome ones, owing to the condition of his hands.

Georgiana donned her riding-suit and boots, and even in her concentration on her purpose she did not overlook the value of making herself look as attractive as possible. Then she went out to the barn, and saddling her horse, which she had been careful to keep in that night, she rode off without seeing Cal or knowing whether he saw her or not. It did not matter. She could not be stopped now.

The morning was beautiful. Turkey gobblers made the welkin ring. Squirrels and jays took noisy note of her passing down the trail. She saw a bear track in the dust. The piny odor of the woods, so strong and dry and exhilarating, never had smelled so sweet. A forest fire somewhere added the fragrance of burning wood to the fresh air. The green pine thickets had taken on a new coat. All the forest seemed renewed. At Tonto Creek she saw two deer and a flock of turkeys that, little frightened, walked away into the woods. How amber-hued the pools and how white the rushing rapids!

Absorbed in the pleasant sensations of the ride and the growing excitement of her purpose, Georgiana found that she had reached the meeting-place with Tuck before she had any idea she was near it. This was a mile below the school-house, which she had avoided passing. The trail forked here, marking a clearing and a ranger station.

Tuck Merry was waiting for her, and his homely features expressed considerable perturbation and very much pleasure. It seemed to Georgiana that she had never before really looked at him. What a huge, ungainly, long, and ludicrous individual he was! His cadaverous face, like a lean ham, appeared adorned with many queer things, most prominent of which was his enormous nose. But his smile, the light of his big eyes, belied the counterfeits of physical nature. Tuck Merry loomed up to Georgiana then as the chivalrous and faithful friend she needed.

“Georgie, this is some surprise,” he said, in greeting.

“Howdy, Tuck! Aren’t you flattered to be asked to meet a girl in trouble?” queried Georgiana, as she offered her hand.

“Flattered and proud,” replied Tuck, with something of sharpness. “But don’t waste time kidding me into taking your part. I’m for you. Come out with it. I know it’s trouble between you and Cal. And I’m sick.”

“Have you folks at Green Valley heard about Cal’s fight with Hatfield?”

“Only yesterday,” replied Tuck, anxiously, “news came from Ryson, and we took it for Bar XX brand. But, anyway, I intended to ride up to see Cal today.”

Thereupon Georgiana, in strong and feeling language, told in detail of the terrible beating Hatfield had administered to Cal. How curiously and keenly she watched for Tuck’s reaction to this narrative! To her amaze his first expression was delight.

“We heard some of that,” he blurted out. Tom Hall’s talk.... Cal was getting the best of Hatfield in a stand-up fight. Then the burly buzzer rough-housed him.”

But Tuck’s pleasure was short-lived, as was evident from the swift hardening and darkening of his face.

“What do you want of me?” he demanded.

“I want you to take me to the Bar XX ranch.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Georgie, what for?”

“I am going to call that Bid Hatfield to his face,” replied Georgiana, and then, in swifter, more fluent words, that grew poignant as she progressed, she told Tuck how Hatfield had besmirched her character, what a miserable liar he was, why Cal would soon hunt him up to kill him, and lastly that she must see Hatfield first and shame him before his own crowd, and make him retract his vile slander.

“Right-o! I get you, Steve,” retorted Tuck, with quick, intent, comprehending look, not devoid of admiration. “I’m for you. We’ll brand Mr. Hatfield a lemon.... Now, Georgie, ride across the brook to the trail and go down. I’ll catch up with you before you’re gone half a mile. I want to phone from the ranger cabin and tell Henry I’m going to saw wood today but not at the sawmill.”

Georgiana did as she was bidden, thrilling gratefully for Tuck’s instant championship. She found the narrow winding trail and soon passed the clearing, to enter a defile where Tonto Creek left the pine slopes for the brushy hills. True to his word, Tuck caught up with her, and with cheery call to make better time he took the lead.

The trail led above the babbling brook and kept to its course down the ravine that soon grew to a rugged canyon. Eventually this opened into the Bear Flat clearing, a wild, lonely, deserted little ranch, and from there up and up the steep slopes, over the cedared hills, and up again to the high barren ridge that got its name from the gray spiked patches of mescal cactus. Here on the heights could be seen the many ridges of the Tonto, sloping and sweeping, dark and rugged, down to the void that was the main canyon. Georgiana saw far across to the other side, where the slopes were the same, only running toward her, and she thought she recognized the one she rode down that fateful day with Cal.

Tuck led across this league-long Mescal Ridge, down into a wide canyon that opened out into level country, large enough for a ranch. The home of the Bar XX was as picturesque as Green Valley. The trail led into a road, and that rounded the margin of large fields, with dead stalks of corn and sorghum, and up into a beautiful cove between two brushy-sloped hills. Here stood the corrals of felled logs and low, squat, log cabins. Blue smoke curled from the yellow stove chimney of the larger cabin. One of the corrals was full of dusty, kicking horses. Saddles littered the ground outside. The Bar XX riders were in for their noon meal.

“Somebody in the door, Georgie,” said Tuck. “We’re here. It’s up to you. Don’t lose your nerve.”

Georgiana gave a defiant little laugh that was eloquent of her equilibrium. If Cal could stand to be beaten into insensibility on behalf of her reputation, what could she not do to save him from the madness of killing?

Several faces appeared back in the darkness of the cabin door. Then as Tuck and Georgiana rode within speaking distance a tall man strode out, bareheaded. He had sandy hair, rather thin, and a drooping mustache, a lean, brown, weather-beaten face, open and strong, and piercing light-blue eyes.

“Saunders, the boss,” whispered Tuck to Georgiana.

“Howdy! Reckon I’ve seen you somewheres,” he said to Tuck, and then when he espied that Tuck’s companion was a girl he bowed with the quaint deference these Tontonians always showed the opposite sex. “Mawnin’, Miss. Is there anythin’ we can do for you?”

“Are you Mr. Saunders?” asked Georgiana.

“I am, at your service,” he replied, with a pleasant smile, and his keen eyes studied Georgiana’s face. He expected the unusual, but it was plain he did not recognize her.

“I’m Cal Thurman’s wife,” said Georgiana, with a sudden heave of her heart and a rush of hot blood clear to her temples. “I’ve ridden over here to face one of your riders — Bid Hatfield. Will you let me see him?”

“Certainly,” replied Saunders.

“Then, before you call him out I want to tell you what brought me,” continued Georgiana, swiftly, feeling the interest and sure of the sympathy of this rancher. “Mary Stockwell, the school-teacher at Green Valley, is my sister. She brought me out here for my health. I was a crazy kid. I — I liked the boys and I flirted with them. Bid Hatfield was one of them. I liked him. I let him kiss me — on several occasions. Then he insulted me. I never told a soul. But the next time I saw him I told him I wouldn’t meet him any more.... After that I married Cal Thurman. Just lately I learned that Hatfield has been talking about me — making me out a vile little huzzy. Cal heard it at last, and that led to the fight. Now I’m over here to face Hatfield.”

“Wal, wal!” ejaculated the rancher, at once embarrassed and shocked. “Thet’s a serious charge to lay on a man in this Tonto Basin.”

“Please let me see him,” returned Georgiana.

“Wal, I reckon I will — an’ I’ll see him, too,” said Saunders, forcefully. Turning away, he took several long strides toward the door of the cabin. This man was thinking hard. All at once he yelled, “Hey, Bid Hatfield, you’re wanted out heah.”

“Who wants me?” came in a gruff voice from inside.

“Wal, I do, for one,” shouted Saunders, peremptorily. “You come out heah pronto.”

Then the burly Hatfield appeared in the door, swaggering a little, the same bold-eyed, handsome rider Georgiana had seen so often. But at sight of her his dark face turned livid. He halted short.

“Hatfield,” said Saunders, curtly, “heah’s Cal Thurman’s wife, an’ she’s made a damn serious charge against you.”

The several faces in the doorway behind Hatfield attached themselves to forms that stalked out into the sunlight. This fact was repeated until half a dozen staring riders had lined up outside the cabin.

At sight of Hatfield and the sudden blanching of his face Georgiana sustained a rush of passion that held her a moment in its grip. It was more thought of Cal than wrong to herself that stirred her fury.

Before she could speak, Saunders and all of the riders wheeled quickly to gaze down the road. A cloud of dust had puffed up beyond the curve. Then Georgiana heard the rapid beat of hoofs. Horsemen hove in sight, riding on a run.

“What the hell!” ejaculated Saunders. “Who’s rarin’ in heah this way?”

“Boss, it’s some of the Four T outfit,” called a rider.

“Thurman, huh! Wal, you-all stand pat,” ordered Saunders.

Georgiana really did not get the full gist of this talk until she recognized Enoch, and then Tim Matthews. She was sure another was Arizona, and another Pan Handle Ames. The sudden shift of her sensations from wrath to amaze left her trembling. She became aware of Tuck’s big hand on hers, as if to reassure her. How those riders were pounding down the road! The white foam flew above dust. In a dark compact mass this half-dozen or more horses swept down on the cabin. They were pulled back on their haunches, and scattering the gravel they slid to a halt. But scarcely a second before every rider landed with thudding boots and jingling spurs on the ground. Georgiana saw then she had been right in her recognition, and the others were Boyd, Serge, and Lock Thurman. They made a somber, menacing group, from which Enoch stalked out, slowly, with his gray eyes glinting. A gun swung at his hip.

“Howdy Saunders,” he drawled.

“Howdy Enoch,” replied the rancher.

“Some one phoned us to come hell-bent for election over heah,” went on Enoch. “Reckon we was comin’, anyhow, but as we didn’t care much aboot that phone call we rode some.”

“So I see,” replied Saunders, dryly, indicating the foam-lashed, heaving horses. “An’ damned if I ain’t glad to see you, Enoch.”

“Ahuh! Wal, what’s up?” queried Enoch, sharply, as his eyes flashed from Saunders to his men, then back to Tuck Merry and Georgiana.

“‘Pears to me there’s a heap up,” answered Saunders “Cal’s wife is heah, as you see, an’ she can shore speak for herself. She’s come to make Bid Hatfield prove his brag or eat his words.”

Tuck Merry pressed Georgiana’s hand hard and whispered fiercely in her ear, “Now — hand it to him!”

Georgiana lifted her gloved hand and pointed quiveringly at the livid rider.

“Now, Bid Hatfield — say to my face — that I’m not an honest girl,” she called out in ringing, passionate scorn. “Everybody can tell the truth. Show me up, if I’m what you say. If you have anything on me tell it now.... Tell me to my face in front of all these men!”

Manifestly the situation was a terrible one for Hatfield. The surprise of her confronting him in daring scorn completely unmanned him.

“Aw, Georgie, it was all Tonto gossip. I never said anything bad against you.”

“You’re a liar!” flashed Georgiana. “Everybody knows you’ve talked. And if you’re not a white-livered coward you’ll tell the truth. You’ll confess you lied to defame me.”

“But, Georgie, I didn’t say what — what you’ve heard,” he replied, hoarsely.

“All right. If you’re not man enough to own up you’ll do this. You’ll answer me before these men.... You told that I let you kiss me, didn’t you?”

“Maybe I did — when I was drunk or mad,” he replied, dropping his head.

“Didn’t I stop letting you kiss me — because you tried to go too far — and didn’t I quit meeting you?” Georgiana demanded, in all the intensity of her blazing anger.

“Yes — you did,” returned Hatfield, huskily, with face like a white rag.

Georgiana drew up with abated breath.

“That’s all you need say, Bid Hatfield. But I’m going to say more,” she cried, with all the lashing fury now roused in her. “I told Mr. Saunders the truth. I’m not ashamed to tell anybody. I liked you. I let you kiss me — the same as I let Cal and Tim, and Arizona. It was all fun to me. I see now that it was wrong. I’m sorry I was so silly. I’ve had to suffer for it.... But a girl deserves to suffer if she lets herself be kissed by a man who’s a cad. To kiss and tell! That is the cheapest, meanest thing a man can do. I’ll bet every rider here, your best friends, if you have any, will despise you for that. And for the lies you told — I’m calling you to your face — a dirty low-down bum!”

Georgiana was not by any means through with Hatfield, but as she paused for breath, momentarily overcome, the sudden silence was broken by Tuck Merry.

“Aha! Mr. Bruiser,” he yelled as he bounced with remarkable agility off his horse, “the lady has got your number. She’s called you. Every man here knows you for a dirty low-down bum. And right now is when it’s coming to you.”

Hatfield had half turned to slink away when Merry opened up in his loud voice. Slowly the burly rider faced around, scowling, with rolling eyes fixing in surprise.

Tuck Merry just then commanded the intense attention of everybody there. His voice, his strange magnetism, his ludicrous jumping-jack form, riveted all eyes. Georgiana began to quake and thrill. She had forgotten any part but her own in this affair.

Tuck slammed down his sombrero, and slipping out of his coat he slammed that down. His gloves he kept on, and as he began to prance around Hatfield he fingered these gloves in a significant manner.

“Walk away from the ropes. Get out here in the ring,” called Tuck, with robust heartiness.

“Say, you goose-necked idiot — shut up, or I’ll wring off your big head,” harshly growled Hatfield. With a man to encounter he presented a different front.

“Now you’re talking, Bid. That’s music to my ears. Sing some more. You are the most beautiful hunk of flesh to pound I ever saw. You’re also a hunk of cheese. Bid, you look exactly like a fat stiff of a German I met in the Argonne. And would you believe it? I killed that Hun with one punch in the belly.”

Hatfield was as bewildered as enraged. He had to keep turning round and round to watch Tuck, who was walking with giant strides round and round, working his enormously long arms.

“Say, the fellar’s crazy,” he bawled out.

Enoch laughed a dry, cackling sort of laugh. “Wal, Bid, he drawled, “he may be crazy, but I shore wouldn’t be in your boots for a million.”

Hatfield crouched down like a mad bull, about to charge.

“Bid, have you any messages you want sent?” queried Tuck, as he walked faster and faster. “Tell them to somebody while I get exercise. I used to do this when I was boxing-master in the navy.... Bid, I’m a fighting marine and I’ve licked every Buddy who got inside the ropes with me.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Bloom, from among the excited riders crowding forward. “Do you git that, Bid?”

“And say, before I forget, I want to tell you I was Jack Dempsey’s sparring partner,” shouted Tuck, cheerfully. “And take it from me, my lady-chasing Tonto bulldozer, Jack had a hell of a lot more trouble with me than he had in some of his ring fights.”

“You’re a bloomin’ lunatic,” blurted out Hatfield.

Suddenly, then, Tuck seemed to leap and strike in one incredibly swift action. Hatfield fell with a crash. And Georgiana screamed. Fascinated, gripped in a hot fury of delight that sickened as it thrilled, she listened and watched with senses intensely strung. She recorded Tuck’s cheerful sally as Hatfield went sprawling, and that picture was photographed on her memory. The rider rolled up and rushed, only to meet a cracking blow that staggered him. He reeled. Tuck danced round him, his arms working like pistons, and his blows raining upon Hatfield. And it seemed he had a strange name for everything. The riders bawled, and jumped around like Indians. Hatfield swung here and there, and then he would jolt stiff and start to fall, only to be held up from the other side by another blow. Tuck Merry was too swift to follow.

Suddenly he ceased these tactics, and drawing back, all about him changed.

“Damn your black heart!” he hissed. “You rough-housed Cal Thurman. Now I’ll give you worse than you gave him.”

Like a huge panther Merry leaped straight up to fall hard on Hatfield, carrying him down. A terrible wrestling, thudding, howling mêlée ensued. The men rolled in a cloud of dust. Then it seemed to Georgiana that it cleared to show Tuck Merry in terrific swinging action. Not so swift now, but heavy! His blows rang hard, then sounded sodden. They were terrible. Hatfield appeared like a sack. Every blow moved him limply. Georgiana shut her eyes, but still she heard the awful blows. Then they ceased. She opened her eyes. Tuck Merry rose to his feet and looked down upon the prone form of the rider, singularly motionless. Tuck took off one glove and slammed it down in Hatfield’s face; then likewise with the other.

“That’ll — do — you — for — the — rest — of your yellow life!” he panted, heavily.

Then he turned to the rancher.

“Mr. Saunders — he’s out — good and plenty,” he said, gasping for his breath. “And I’m here to tell you — he won’t be — much use to you — for a long time to come.”

“Hatfield will never be any use to me again,” returned Saunders, curtly.

The riders stirred, and moved forward to group round Hatfield. One of them knelt. Some of them whispered. Georgiana began to feel the weakening reaction of all this excitement.

Enoch strode over to gaze down upon Hatfield.

“My Gawd!” was his exclamation.

Then Saunders clapped a heavy hand down on his shoulder.

“Enoch, I never had much against you,” he said.

“Wal, I can say the same to you aboot that,” drawled Enoch.

“Listen. I’m letting Bloom go the end of this month. An’ Hatfield leaves this ranch tomorrow if he has to go on a pack-mule.... Suppose you an’ me shake hands with this plucky little girl an’ with each other, an’ be friends. The Four T’s an’ the Bar XX used to run the same range, an’ were the richer for it. What do you say?”

“Jim Saunders, I say, you bet,” returned Enoch, heartily.

They stalked over to where Georgiana sat on her horse, thrilling through and through at this amazing issue.

“Little lady,” said Saunders, with something of gallantry, “accept my respects. You’re a brave girl, an’ Cal Thurman is lucky. You can tell him you made friends with the boss of the Bar XX.”

“Georgie, I shore think heaps more of you,” said Enoch, and a handshake was not enough to express his feelings.

Georgiana would not let any of the riders, not even Tuck Merry, accompany her any farther than the forks of the trail. She wanted to ride home alone, to think, to plan, to gloat over her wonderful good fortune. She arrived at the homestead scarcely later than the middle of the afternoon, to find Cal pacing the porch.

“Georgie, where have you been?” he asked.

She dismounted before replying, and threw her bridle.

“Cal, what’d you say if I told you I’ve made friends of Enoch and Jim Saunders?”

Cal flopped down on the porch bench as if the strength had suddenly left his legs.

“You’ve been over to the Bar XX?” he ejaculated, wildly.

“Yep, and, dear boy, it’s a cinch you’ll never have to go there again.”

“What’ve you done?” he demanded, rising in mingled anger and wonder.

“Darling, I called Bid Hatfield to his face,” cried Georgiana, suddenly beside herself with the joy she could impart. “Made him a liar and a miserable low-down bum before his boss and all the Bar XX outfit, and Enoch, too, with Lock and Serge and Boyd, and the boys. Oh, it was sweet. — Damn him, I made him crawl! . . . Then, oh! oh! oh! — Cal, if you’d only been there to see Tuck Merry beat that boob into a jellyfish! — Crack! Take that nose jab, Bid.... And biff! There’s a jaw-breaker.... Wham! That’s the belly whopper.... Bing! How you like the lamp-closer, Bid? . . . Smash! That one gave me the name of Tuck, ‘cause a few of them will tuck you away cold! . . . Oh, Cal, he played with Hatfield, but it was awful play! Then he changed. He grew terrible. He said he’d rough-house Bid as Bid had done you.... Then it was almost too much for me. I screamed. Oh, such blows and thumps! But I was in a frenzy of glee and I wouldn’t have stopped Tuck to save Bid’s life. Nor would anybody else there. Tuck beat him into a pulp.... Then it was all over. Saunders had his say and he and Enoch made up. They shook hands with me — thanked me. Little Georgiana May did it. Now what have you to say?”

Cal could only stammer his wonder, his gratitude, his incredulous joy.

“Forget it!” she exclaimed. “I’ve something better than that to tell you.... Suppose we run out to the point — to your juniper tree on the mesa rim — where you told me you used to dream as a boy — of all the wonderful things that were going to happen to you.... Let me tell you there. — Come.”

She kept ahead of him, almost running, not listening to him, uttering gay wild laughter. She entered the belt of timber, glided under the cedars and piñons, over the brown fragrant aisles to the rim, where the gnarled old juniper stood. And there with her back to the tree she awaited Cal. He came, and never had she seen him like that. The light in his face seemed to have transformed the stains and discolorations that had been there. Georgiana toyed with her happiness — jealously holding back the rapture she could give.

“Did you know you had married an heiress?” she asked, archly.

“Georgie, are you crazy, or am I?” he cried.

“Fact. A good old aunt I always hated died and left Mary and me some money. Lots of money. But that’s not what I want to tell you. I’m a changed girl.... Are you sure you didn’t give me that knock on the head, the day you married me?”

“Oh, Georgie! I didn’t lie. It was an accident.”

“Well, you should have done it. For that’s what made me love you.”

“Girl! Don’t fool with me now,” he said, hoarsely.

Then she threw her arms round his neck. “Cal, I’m in dead earnest. I love you. I think I’ve always loved you. I was only wild.... Kiss me! — All’s well that ends well. Let me make up for my wrong to you. I’m happy. You saved me, Cal.... And I — I want to be worthy of a Thurman.... I want to be your real wife!”

Together they watched the gold and purple clouds mass over the western range and the purple shadows gather in the wild depths of the Tonto.

Tappan’s Burro

CONTENTS

I. — TAPPAN’S BURRO

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

II. — THE GREAT SLAVE

III. — YAQUI

IV. — TIGRE

V. — THE RUBBER HUNTER

I. — TAPPAN’S BURRO

CHAPTER I

TAPPAN GAZED DOWN upon the newly-born little burro with something of pity and consternation. It was not a vigorous offspring of the redoubtable Jennie, champion of all the numberless burros he had driven in his desert prospecting years. He could not leave it there to die. Surely it was not strong enough to follow its mother. And to kill it was beyond him.

“Poor little devil!” soliloquized Tappan. “Reckon neither Jennie nor I wanted it to be born...I’ll have to hold up in this camp a few days. You can never tell what a burro will do. It might fool us an’ grow strong all of a sudden.”

Whereupon Tappan left Jennie and her tiny, gray lopeared baby to themselves, and leisurely set about making permanent camp. The water at this oasis was not much to his liking, but it was drinkable, and he felt he must put up with it. For the rest the oasis was desirable enough as a camping site. Desert wanderers like Tappan favored the lonely water holes. This one was up under the bold brow of the Chocolate Mountains, where rocky wall met the desert sand, and a green patch of palo verdes and mesquites proved the presence of water. It had a magnificent view down a many-leagued slope of desert growths, across the dark belt of green and the shining strip of red that marked the Rio Colorado, and on to the upflung Arizona land, range lifting to range until the saw-toothed peaks notched the blue sky.

Locked in the iron fastnesses of these desert mountains was gold. Tappan, if he had any calling, was a prospector. But the lure of gold did not bind him to this wandering life any more than the freedom of it. He had never made a rich strike. About the best he could ever do was to dig enough gold to grubstake himself for another prospecting trip into some remote corner of the American Desert. Tappan knew the arid Southwest from San Diego to the Pecos River and from Picacho on the Colorado to the Tonto Basin. Few prospectors had the strength and endurance of Tappan. He was a giant in build, and at thirty-five had never yet reached the limit of his physical force.

With hammer and pick and magnifying glass Tappan scaled the bare ridges. He was not an expert in testing minerals. He knew he might easily pass by a rich vein of ore. But he did his best, sure at least that no prospector could get more than he out of the pursuit of gold. Tappan was more of a naturalist than a prospector, and more of a dreamer than either. Many were the idle moments that he sat staring down the vast reaches of the valleys, or watching some creature of the wasteland, or marveling at the vivid hues of desert flowers.

Tappan waited two weeks at this oasis for Jennie’s baby burro to grow strong enough to walk. And the very day that Tappan decided to break camp he found signs of gold at the head of a wash above the oasis. Quite by chance, as he was looking for his burros, he struck his pick into a place no different from a thousand others there, and hit into a pocket of gold. He cleaned out the pocket before sunset, the richer for several thousand dollars.

“You brought me luck,” said Tappan, to the little gray burro staggering round its mother. “Your name is Jenet. You’re Tappan’s burro, an’ I reckon he’ll stick to you.”

Jenet belied the promise of her birth. Like a weed in fertile ground she grew. Winter and summer Tappan patroled the sand beats from one trading post to another, and his burros traveled with him. Jenet had an especially good training. Her mother had happened to be a remarkably good burro before Tappan had bought her. And Tappan had patience; he found leisure to do things, and he had something of pride in Jenet. Whenever he happened to drop into Ehrenberg or Yuma, or any freighting station, some prospector always tried to buy Jenet. She grew as large as a medium-sized mule, and a three-hundred-pound pack was no load to discommode her.

Tappan, in common with most lonely wanderers of the desert, talked to his burro. As the years passed this habit grew, until Tappan would talk to Jenet just to hear the sound of his voice. Perhaps that was all which kept him human.

“Jenet, you’re worthy of a happier life,” Tappan would say, as he unpacked her after a long day’s march over the barren land. “You’re a ship of the desert. Here we are, with grub an’ water, a hundred miles from any camp. An’ what but you could have fetched me here? No horse! No mule! No man! Nothin’ but a camel, an’ so I call you ship of the desert. But for you an’ your kind, Jenet, there’d be no prospectors, and few gold mines. Reckon the desert would be still an unknown waste...You’re a great beast of burden, Jenet, an’ there’s no one to sing your praise.”

And of a golden sunrise, when Jenet was packed and ready to face the cool, sweet fragrance of the desert, Tappan was wont to say:

“Go along with you, Jenet. The mornin’s fine. Look at the mountains yonder callin’ us. It’s only a step down there. All purple an’ violet! It’s the life for us, my burro, an’ Tappan’s as rich as if all these sands were pearls.”

But sometimes, at sunset, when the way had been long and hot and rough, Tappan would bend his shaggy head over Jenet, and talk in different mood.

“Another day gone, Jenet, another journey ended — an’ Tappan is only older, wearier, sicker. There’s no reward for your faithfulness. I’m only a desert rat, livin’ from hole to hole. No home! No face to see...Some sunset, Jenet, we’ll reach the end of the trail. An’ Tappan’s bones will bleach in the sands. An’ no one will know or care!”

When Jenet was two years old she would have taken the blue ribbon in competition with all the burros of the Southwest. She was unusually large and strong, perfectly proportioned, sound in every particular, and practically tireless. But these were not the only characteristics that made prospectors envious of Tappan. Jenet had the common virtues of all good burros magnified to an unbelievable degree. Moreover, she had sense and instinct that to Tappan bordered on the supernatural.

During these years Tappan’s trail crisscrossed the mineral region of the Southwest. But, as always, the rich strike held aloof. It was like the pot of gold buried at the foot of the rainbow. Jenet knew the trails and the water holes better than Tappan. She could follow a trail obliterated by drifting sand or cut out by running water. She could scent at long distance a new spring on the desert or a strange water hole. She never wandered far from camp so that Tappan had to walk far in search of her. Wild burros, the bane of most prospectors, held no charm for Jenet. And she had never yet shown any especial liking for a tame burro. This was the strangest feature of Jenet’s complex character. Burros were noted for their habit of pairing off, and forming friendships for one or more comrades. These relations were permanent. But Jenet still remained fancy free.

Tappan scarcely realized how he relied upon this big, gray, serene beast of burden. Of course, when chance threw him among men of his calling he would brag about her. But he had never really appreciated Jenet. In his way Tappan was a brooding, plodding fellow, not conscious of sentiment. When he bragged about Jenet it was her good qualities upon which he dilated. But what he really liked best about her were the little things of every day.

During the earlier years of her training Jenet had been a thief. She would pretend to be asleep for hours just to get a chance to steal something out of camp. Tappan had broken this habit in its incipiency. But he never quite trusted her. Jenet was a burro.

Jenet ate anything offered her. She could fare for herself or go without. Whatever Tappan had left from his own meals was certain to be rich dessert for Jenet. Every meal time she would stand near the camp fire, with one great long ear drooping, and the other standing erect. Her expression was one of meekness, of unending patience. She would lick a tin can until it shone resplendent. On long, hard, barren trails Jenet’s deportment did not vary from that where the water holes and grassy patches were many. She did not need to have grass or grain. Brittle-bush and sage were good fare for her. She could eat greasewood, a desert plant that protected itself with a sap as sticky as varnish and far more dangerous to animals. She could eat cacti. Tappan had seen her break off leaves of the prickly pear cactus, and stamp upon them with her forefeet, mashing off the thorns, so that she could consume the succulent pulp. She liked mesquite beans, and leaves of willow, and all the trailing vines of the desert. And she could subsist in an arid waste land where a man would have died in short order.

No ascent or descent was too hard or dangerous for Jenet, provided it was possible of accomplishment. She would refuse a trail that was impassable. She seemed to have an uncanny instinct both for what she could do, and what was beyond a burro. Tappan had never known her to fail on something to which she stuck persistently. Swift streams of water, always bugbears to burros, did not stop Jenet. She hated quicksand, but could be trusted to navigate it, if that were possible. When she stepped gingerly, with little inch steps, out upon thin crust of ice or salty crust of desert sink hole, Tappan would know that it was safe, or she would turn back. Thunder and lightning, intense heat or bitter cold, the sirocco sand storm of the desert, the white dust of the alkali wastes — these were all the same to Jenet.

One August, the hottest and driest of his desert experience, Tappan found himself working a most promising claim in the lower reaches of the Panamint Mountains on the northern slope above Death Valley. It was a hard country at the most favorable season; in August it was terrible.

The Panamints were infested by various small gangs of desperadoes — outlaw claim jumpers where opportunity afforded — and out-and-out robbers, even murderers where they could not get the gold any other way.

Tappan had been warned not to go into this region alone. But he never heeded any warnings. And the idea that he would ever strike a claim or dig enough gold to make himself an attractive target for outlaws seemed preposterous and not worth considering. Tappan had become a wanderer now from the unbreakable habit of it. Much to his amaze he struck a rich ledge of free gold in a canyon of the Panamints; and he worked from daylight until dark. He forgot about the claim jumpers, until one day he saw Jenet’s long ears go up in the manner habitual with her when she saw strange men. Tappan watched the rest of that day, but did not catch a glimpse of any living thing. It was a desolate place, shut in, red-walled, hazy with heat, and brooding with an eternal silence.

Not long after that Tappan discovered boot tracks of several men adjacent to his camp and in an out-of-the-way spot, which persuaded him that he was being watched. Claim jumpers who were not going to jump his claim in this torrid heat, but meant to let him dig the gold and then kill him. Tappan was not the kind of man to be afraid. He grew wrathful and stubborn. He had six small canvas bags of gold and did not mean to lose them. Still, he was worried.

“Now, what’s best to do?” he pondered. “I mustn’t give it away that I’m wise. Reckon I’d better act natural. But I can’t stay here longer. My claim’s about worked out. An’ these jumpers are smart enough to know it...I’ve got to make a break at night. What to do?”

Tappan did not want to cache the gold, for in that case, of course, he would have to return for it. Still, he reluctantly admitted to himself that this was the best way to save it. Probably these robbers were watching him day and night. It would be most unwise to attempt escaping by traveling up over the Panamints.

“Reckon my only chance is goin’ down into Death Valley,” soliloquized Tappan, grimly.

The alternative thus presented was not to his liking. Crossing Death Valley at this season was always perilous, and never attempted in the heat of day. And at this particular time of intense torridity, when the day heat was unendurable and the midnight furnace gales were blowing, it was an enterprise from which even Tappan shrank. Added to this were the facts that he was too far west of the narrow part of the valley, and even if he did get across he would find himself in the most forbidding and desolate region of the Funeral Mountains.

Thus thinking and planning, Tappan went about his mining and camp tasks, trying his best to act natural. But he did not succeed. It was impossible, while expecting a shot at any moment, to act as if there was nothing on his mind. His camp lay at the bottom of a rocky slope. A tiny spring of water made verdure of grass and mesquite, welcome green in all that stark iron nakedness. His camp site was out in the open, on the bench near the spring. The gold claim that Tappan was working was not visible from any vantage point either below or above. It lay back at the head of a break in the rocky wall. It had two virtues — one that the sun never got to it, and the other that it was well hidden. Once there, Tappan knew he could not be seen. This, however, did not diminish his growing uneasiness. The solemn stillness was a menace. The heat of the day appeared to be augmenting to a degree beyond his experience. Every few moments Tappan would slip back through a narrow defile in the rocks and peep from his covert down at the camp. On the last of these occasions he saw Jenet out in the open. She stood motionless. Her long ears were erect. In an instant Tappan became strung with thrilling excitement. His keen eyes searched every approach to his camp. And at last in the gully below to the right he discovered two men crawling along from rock to rock. Jenet had seen them enter that gully and was now watching for them to appear.

Tappan’s excitement gave place to a grimmer emotion. These stealthy visitors were going to hide in ambush, and kill him as he returned to camp.

“Jenet, reckon what I owe you is a whole lot,” muttered Tappan. “They’d have got me sure...But now—”

Tappan left his tools, and crawled out of his covert into the jumble of huge rocks toward the left of the slope. He had a six-shooter. His rifle he had left in camp. Tappan had seen only two men, but he knew there were more than that, if not actually near at hand at the moment, then surely not far away. And his chance was to worm his way like an Indian down to camp. With the rifle in his possession he would make short work of the present difficulty.

“Lucky Jenet’s right in camp!” said Tappan, to himself. “It beats hell how she does things!”

Tappan was already deciding to pack and hurry away. On the moment Death Valley did not daunt him. This matter of crawling and gliding along was work unsuited to his great stature. He was too big to hide behind a little shrub or a rock. And he was not used to stepping lightly. His hobnailed boots could not be placed noiselessly upon the stones. Moreover, he could not progress without displacing little bits of weathered rock. He was sure that keen ears not too far distant could have heard him. But he kept on, making good progress around that slope to the far side of the canyon. Fortunately, he headed the gully up which his ambushers were stealing. On the other hand, this far side of the canyon afforded but little cover. The sun had gone down back of the huge red mass of the mountain. It had left the rocks so hot Tappan could not touch them with his bare hands.

He was about to stride out from his last covert and make a run for it down the rest of the slope, when, surveying the whole amphitheater below him, he espied the two men coming up out of the gully, headed toward his camp. They looked in his direction. Surely they had heard or seen him. But Tappan perceived at a glance that he was the closer to the camp. Without another moment of hesitation, he plunged from his hiding place, down the weathered slope. His giant strides set the loose rocks sliding and rattling. The men saw him. The foremost yelled to the one behind him. Then they both broke into a run. Tappan reached the level of the bench, and saw he could beat either of them into the camp. Unless he were disabled! He felt the wind of a heavy bullet before he heard it strike the rocks beyond. Then followed the boom of a Colt. One of his enemies had halted to shoot. This spurred Tappan to tremendous exertion. He flew over the rough ground, scarcely hearing the rapid shots. He could no longer see the man who was firing. But the first one was in plain sight, running hard, not yet seeing he was out of the race.

When he became aware of that he halted, and dropping on one knee, leveled his gun at the running Tappan. The distance was scarcely sixty yards. His first shot did not allow for Tappan’s speed. His second kicked up the gravel in Tappan’s face. Then followed three more shots in rapid succession. The man divined that Tappan had a rifle in camp. Then he steadied himself, waiting for the moment when Tappan had to slow down and halt. As Tappan reached his camp and dove for his rifle, the robber took time for his last aim, evidently hoping to get a stationary target. But Tappan did not get up from behind his camp duffel. It had been a habit of his to pile his boxes of supplies and roll of bedding together, and cover them with a canvas. He poked his rifle over the top of this and shot the robber.

Then, leaping up, he ran forward to get sight of the second one. This man began to run along the edge of the gully. Tappan fired rapidly at him. The third shot knocked the fellow down. But he got up, and yelling, as if for succor, he ran off. Tappan got another shot before he disappeared.

“Ahuh!” grunted Tappan, grimly. His keen gaze came back to survey the fallen robber, and then went out over the bench, across the wide mouth of the canyon. Tappan thought he had better utilize time to pack instead of pursuing the fleeing man.

Reloading the rifle, he hurried out to find Jenet. She was coming in to camp.

“Shore you’re a treasure, old girl!” ejaculated Tappan.

Never in his life had he packed Jenet, or any other burro, so quickly. His last act was to drink all he could hold, fill his two canteens, and make Jenet drink. Then, rifle in hand, he drove the burro out of camp, round the corner of the red wall, to the wide gateway that opened down into Death Valley.

Tappan looked back more than he looked ahead. And he had traveled down a mile or more before he began to breathe more easily. He had escaped the claim jumpers. Even if they did show up in pursuit now, they could never catch him. Tappan believed he could travel faster and farther than any men of that ilk. But they did not appear. Perhaps the crippled one had not been able to reach his comrades in time. More likely, however, the gang had no taste for a chase in that torrid heat.

Tappan slowed his stride. He was almost as wet with sweat as if he had fallen into the spring. The great beads rolled down his face. And there seemed to be little streams of fire trickling down his breast. But despite this, and his labored panting for breath, not until he halted in the shade of a rocky wall did he realize the heat.

It was terrific. Instantly then he knew he was safe from pursuit. But he knew also that he faced a greater peril than that of robbers. He could fight evil men, but he could not fight this heat.

So he rested there, regaining his breath. Already thirst was acute. Jenet stood near by, watching him. Tappan, with his habit of humanizing the burro, imagined that Jenet looked serious. A moment’s thought was enough for Tappan to appreciate the gravity of his situation. He was about to go down into the upper end of Death Valley — a part of that country unfamiliar to him. He must cross it, and also the Funeral Mountains, at a season when a prospector who knew the trails and water holes would have to be forced to undertake it. Tappan had no choice.

His rifle was too hot to hold, so he stuck it in Jenet’s pack; and, burdened only by a canteen of water, he set out, driving the burro ahead. Once he looked back up the wide-mouthed canyon. It appeared to smoke with red heat veils. The silence was oppressive.

Presently he turned the last corner that obstructed sight of Death Valley. Tappan had never been appalled by any aspect of the desert, but it was certain that here he halted. Back in his mountain-walled camp the sun had passed behind the high domes, but here it still held most of the valley in its blazing grip. Death Valley looked a ghastly, glaring level of white, over which a strange dull leaden haze drooped like a blanket. Ghosts of mountain peaks appeared to show dim and vague. There was no movement of anything. No wind! The valley was dead. Desolation reigned supreme. Tappan could not see far toward either end of the valley. A few miles of white glare merged at last into leaden pall. A strong odor, not unlike sulphur, seemed to add weight to the air.

Tappan strode on, mindful that Jenet had decided opinions of her own. She did not want to go straight ahead or to right or left, but back. That was the one direction impossible for Tappan. And he had to resort to a rare measure — that of beating her. But at last Jenet accepted the inevitable and headed down into the stark and naked plain. Soon Tappan reached the margin of the zone of shade cast by the mountain and was now exposed to the sun. The difference seemed tremendous. He had been hot, oppressed, weighted. It was now as if he was burned through his clothes, and walked on red-hot sands.

When Tappan ceased to sweat and his skin became dry, he drank half a canteen of water, and slowed his stride. Inured to desert hardship as he was, he could not long stand this. Jenet did not exhibit any lessening of vigor. In truth what she showed now was an increasing nervousness. It was almost as if she scented an enemy. Tappan never before had such faith in her. Jenet was equal to this task.

With that blazing sun on his back, Tappan felt he was being pursued by a furnace. He was compelled to drink the remaining half of his first canteen of water. Sunset would save him. Two more hours of such insupportable heat would lay him prostrate.

The ghastly glare of the valley took on a reddish tinge. The heat was blinding Tappan. The time came when he walked beside Jenet with a hand on her pack, for his eyes could no longer endure the furnace glare. Even with them closed he knew when the sun sank behind the Panamints. That fire no longer followed him. And the red left his eyelids.

With the sinking of the sun the world of Death Valley changed. It smoked with heat veils. But the intolerable constant burn was gone. The change was so immense that it seemed to have brought coolness.

In the twilight — strange, ghostly, somber, silent as death — Tappan followed Jenet off the sand, down upon the silt and borax level, to the crusty salt. Before dark Jenet halted at a sluggish belt of fluid — acid, it appeared to Tappan. It was not deep. And the bottom felt stable. But Jenet refused to cross. Tappan trusted her judgment more than his own. Jenet headed to the left and followed the course of the strange stream.

Night intervened. A night without stars or sky or sound, hot, breathless, charged with some intangible current! Tappan dreaded the midnight furnace winds of Death Valley. He had never encountered them. He had heard prospectors say that any man caught in Death Valley when these gales blew would never get out to tell the tale. And Jenet seemed to have something on her mind. She was no longer a leisurely, complacent burro. Tappan imagined Jenet seemed stern. Most assuredly she knew now which way she wanted to travel. It was not easy for Tappan to keep up with her, and ten paces beyond him she was out of sight.

At last Jenet headed the acid wash, and turned across the valley into a field of broken salt crust, like the roughened ice of a river that had broken and jammed, then frozen again. Impossible was it to make even a reasonable headway. It was a zone, however, that eventually gave way to Jenet’s instinct for direction. Tappan had long ceased to try to keep his bearings. North, south, east, and west were all the same to him. The night was a blank — the darkness a wall — the silence a terrible menace flung at any living creature. Death Valley had endured them millions of years before living creatures had existed. It was no place for a man.

Tappan was now three hundred and more feet below sea level, in the aftermath of a day that had registered one hundred and forty-five degrees of heat. He knew, when he began to lose thought and balance — when only the primitive instincts directed his bodily machine. And he struggled with all his will power to keep hold of his sense of sight and feeling. He hoped to cross the lower level before the midnight gales began to blow.

Tappan’s hope was vain. According to record, once in a long season of intense heat, there came a night when the furnace winds broke their schedule, and began early. The misfortune of Tappan was that he had struck this night.

Suddenly it seemed that the air, sodden with heat, began to move. It had weight. It moved soundlessly and ponderously. But it gathered momentum. Tappan realized what was happening. The blanket of heat generated by the day was yielding to outside pressure. Something had created a movement of the hotter air that must find its way upward, to give place for the cooler air that must find its way down.

Tappan heard the first, low, distant moan of wind and it struck terror to his heart. It did not have an earthly sound. Was that a knell for him? Nothing was surer than the fact that the desert must sooner or later claim him as a victim. Grim and strong, he rebelled against the conviction.

That moan was a forerunner of others, growing louder and longer until the weird sound became continuous. Then the movement of wind was accelerated and began to carry a fine dust. Dark as the night was, it did not hide the pale sheets of dust that moved along the level plain. Tappan’s feet felt the slow rise in the floor of the valley. His nose recognized the zone of borax and alkali and niter and sulphur. He had reached the pit of the valley at the time of the furnace winds.

The moan augmented to a roar, coming like a mighty storm through a forest. It was hellish — like the woeful tide of Acheron. It enveloped Tappan. And the gale bore down in tremendous volume, like a furnace blast. Tappan seemed to feel his body penetrated by a million needles of fire. He seemed to dry up. The blackness of night had a spectral, whitish cast; the gloom was a whirling medium; the valley floor was lost in a sheeted, fiercely seeping stream of silt. Deadly fumes swept by, not lingering long enough to suffocate Tappan. He would gasp and choke — then the poison gas was gone on the gale. But hardest to endure was the heavy body of moving heat. Tappan grew blind, so that he had to hold to Jenet, and stumble along. Every gasping breath was a tortured effort. He could not bear a scarf over his face. His lungs heaved like great leather bellows. His heart pumped like an engine short of fuel. This was the supreme test for his never proven endurance. And he was all but vanquished.

Tappan’s senses of sight and smell and hearing failed him. There was left only the sense of touch — a feeling of rope and burro and ground — and an awful insulating pressure upon all his body. His feet marked a change from salty plain to sandy ascent and then to rocky slope. The pressure of wind gradually lessened: the difference in air made life possible; the feeling of being dragged endlessly by Jenet had ceased. Tappan went his limit and fell into oblivion.

When he came to, he was suffering bodily tortures. Sight was dim. But he saw walls of rocks, green growths of mesquite, tamarack, and grass. Jenet was lying down, with her pack flopped to one side. Tappan’s dead ears recovered to a strange murmuring, babbling sound. Then he realized his deliverance. Jenet had led him across Death Valley, up into the mountain range, straight to a spring of running water.

Tappan crawled to the edge of the water and drank guardedly, a little at a time. He had to quell terrific craving to drink his fill. Then he crawled to Jenet, and loosening the ropes of her pack, freed her from its burden. Jenet got up, apparently none the worse for her ordeal. She gazed mildly at Tappan, as if to say: “Well, I got you out of that hole.”

Tappan returned her gaze. Were they only man and beast, alone in the desert? She seemed magnified to Tappan, no longer a plodding, stupid burro.

This was the supreme test for his never proven endurance. And he was all but vanquished.

“Jenet, you — saved — my life,” Tappan tried to enunciate. “I’ll never — forget.”

Tappan was struck then to a realization of Jenet’s service. He was unutterably grateful. Yet the time came when he did forget.

CHAPTER II

TAPPAN HAD A weakness common to all prospectors: Any tale of a lost gold mine would excite his interest; and well-known legends of lost mines always obsessed him.

Peg-leg Smith’s lost gold mine had lured Tappan to no less than half a dozen trips into the terrible shifting-sand country of southern California. There was no water near the region said to hide this mine of fabulous wealth. Many prospectors had left their bones to bleach white in the sun, finally to be buried by the ever blowing sands. Upon the occasion of Tappan’s last escape from this desolate and forbidding desert, he had promised Jenet never to undertake it again. It seemed Tappan promised the faithful burro a good many things. It had been a habit.

When Tappan had a particularly hard experience or perilous adventure, he always took a dislike to the immediate country where it had befallen him. Jenet had dragged him across Death Valley, through incredible heat and the midnight furnace winds of that strange place; and he had promised her he would never forget how she had saved his life. Nor would he ever go back to Death Valley! He made his way over the Funeral Mountains, worked down through Nevada, and crossed the Rio Colorado above Needles, and entered Arizona. He traveled leisurely, but he kept going, and headed southeast towards Globe. There he cashed one of his six bags of gold, and indulged in the luxury of a complete new outfit. Even Jenet appreciated this fact, for the old outfit would scarcely hold together.

Tappan had the other five bags of gold in his pack; and after hours of hesitation he decided he would not cash them and entrust the money to a bank. He would take care of them. For him the value of this gold amounted to a small fortune. Many plans suggested themselves to Tappan. But in the end he grew weary of them. What did he want with a ranch, or cattle, or an outfitting store, or any of the businesses he now had the means to buy? Towns soon palled on Tappan. People did not long please him. Selfish interest and greed seemed paramount everywhere. Besides, if he acquired a place to take up his time, what would become of Jenet? That question decided him. He packed the burro and once more took to the trails.

A dim, lofty, purple range called alluringly to Tappan. The Superstition Mountains! Somewhere in that purple mass hid the famous treasure called the Lost Dutchman gold mine. Tappan had heard the story often. A Dutch prospector struck gold in the Superstitions. He kept the location secret. When he ran short of money, he would disappear for a few weeks, and then return with bags of gold. Wherever his strike, it assuredly was a rich one. No one ever could trail him or get a word out of him. Time passed. A few years made him old. During this time he conceived a liking for a young man, and eventually confided to him that some day he would tell him the secret of his gold mine. He had drawn a map of the landmarks adjacent to his mine. But he was careful not to put on paper directions how to get there. It chanced that he suddenly fell ill and saw his end was near. Then he summoned the young man who had been so fortunate as to win his regard. Now this individual was a ne’er-do-well, and upon this occasion he was half drunk. The dying Dutchman produced his map, and gave it with verbal directions to the young man. Then he died. When the recipient of this fortune recovered from the effects of liquor, he could not remember all the Dutchman had told him. He tortured himself to remember names and places. But the mine was up in the Superstition Mountains. He never remembered. He never found the lost mine, though he spent his life and died trying. Thus the story passed into the legend of the Lost Dutchman.

Tappan now had his try at finding it. But for him the shifting sands of the southern California desert or even the barren and desolate Death Valley were preferable to this Superstition Range. It was a harder country than the Pinacate of Sonora. Tappan hated cactus, and the Superstitions were full of it. Everywhere stood up the huge sahuaro, the giant cacti of the Arizona plateaus, tall like branchless trees, fluted and columnar, beautiful and fascinating to gaze upon, but obnoxious to prospector and burro.

One day from a north slope Tappan saw afar a wonderful country of black timber, above which zigzagged for many miles a yellow, winding rampart of rock. This he took to be the rim of the Mogollon Mesa, one of Arizona’s freaks of nature. Something called Tappan. He was forever victim to yearnings for the unattainable. He was tired of heat, glare, dust, bare rock, and thorny cactus. The Lost Dutchman gold mine was a myth. Besides, he did not need any more gold.

Next morning Tappan packed Jenet and worked down off the north slopes of the Superstition Range. That night about sunset he made camp on the bank of a clear brook, with grass and wood in abundance — such a camp site as a prospector dreamed of but seldom found.

Before dark Jenet’s long ears told of the advent of strangers. A man and a woman rode down the trail into Tappan’s camp. They had poor horses, and led a pack animal that appeared too old and weak to bear up under even the meager pack he carried.

“Howdy!” said the man.

Tappan rose from his task to his lofty height and returned the greeting. The man was middle-aged, swarthy, and rugged, a mountaineer, with something about him that Tappan instinctively distrusted. The woman was under thirty, comely in a full-blown way, with rich brown skin and glossy dark hair. She had wide-open black eyes that bent a curious possession-taking gaze upon Tappan.

“Care if we camp with you?” she inquired, and she smiled.

That smile changed Tappan’s habit and conviction of a lifetime.

“No indeed. Reckon I’d like a little company,” he said.

Very probably Jenet did not understand Tappan’s words, but she dropped one ear, and walked out of camp to the green bank.

“Thanks, stranger,” replied the woman. “That grub shore smells good.” She hesitated a moment, evidently waiting to catch her companion’s eye, then she continued. “My name’s Madge Beam. He’s my brother Jake...Who might you happen to be?”

“I’m Tappan, lone prospector, as you see,” replied Tappan.

“Tappan! What’s your front handle?” she queried, curiously.

“Fact is, I don’t remember,” replied Tappan, as he brushed a huge hand through his shaggy hair.

“Ahuh? Any name’s good enough.”

When she dismounted, Tappan saw that she had a tall, lithe figure, garbed in rider’s overalls and boots. She unsaddled her horse with the dexterity of long practice. The saddlebags she carried over to the spot the man Jake had selected to throw the pack.

Tappan heard them talking in low tones. It struck him as strange that he did not have his usual reaction to an invasion of his privacy and solitude. Tappan had thrilled under those black eyes. And now a queer sensation of the unusual rose in him. Bending over his camp-fire tasks he pondered this and that, but mostly the sense of the nearness of a woman. Like most desert men, Tappan knew little of the other sex. A few that he might have been drawn to went out of his wandering life as quickly as they had entered it. This Madge Beam took possession of his thoughts. An evidence of Tappan’s preoccupation was the fact that he burned his first batch of biscuits. And Tappan felt proud of his culinary ability. He was on his knees, mixing more flour and water, when the woman spoke from right behind him.

“Tough luck you burned the first pan,” she said. “But it’s a good turn for your burro. That shore is a burro. Biggest I ever saw.”

She picked up the burned biscuits and tossed them over to Jenet. Then she came back to Tappan’s side, rather embarrassingly close.

“Tappan, I know how I’ll eat, so I ought to ask you to let me help,” she said, with a laugh.

“No, I don’t need any,” replied Tappan. “You sit down on my roll of beddin’ there. Must be tired, aren’t you?”

“Not so very,” she returned. “That is, I’m not tired of ridin’.” She spoke the second part of this reply in lower tone.

Tappan looked up from his task. The woman had washed her face, brushed her hair, and had put on a skirt — a singularly attractive change. Tappan thought her younger. She was the handsomest woman he had ever seen. The look of her made him clumsy. What eyes she had! They looked through him. Tappan returned to his task, wondering if he was right in his surmise that she wanted to be friendly.

“Jake an’ I drove a bunch of cattle to Maricopa,” she volunteered. “We sold ‘em, an’ Jake gambled away most of the money. I couldn’t get what I wanted.”

“Too bad! So you’re ranchers. Once thought I’d like that. Fact is, down here at Globe a few weeks ago I came near buyin’ some rancher out an’ tryin’ the game.”

“You did?” Her query had a low, quick eagerness that somehow thrilled Tappan. But he did not look up.

“I’m a wanderer. I’d never do on a ranch.”

“But if you had a woman?” Her laugh was subtle and gay.

“A woman! For me? Oh, Lord, no!” ejaculated Tappan, in confusion.

“Why not? Are you a woman hater?”

“I can’t say that,” replied Tappan, soberly. “It’s just — I guess — no woman would have me.”

“Faint heart never won fair lady.”

Tappan had no reply for that. He surely was making a mess of the second pan of biscuit dough. Manifestly the woman saw this, for with a laugh she plumped down on her knees in front of Tappan, and rolled her sleeves up over shapely brown arms.

“Poor man! Shore you need a woman. Let me show you,” she said, and put her hands right down upon Tappan’s. The touch gave him a strange thrill. He had to pull his hands away, and as he wiped them with his scarf he looked at her. He seemed compelled to look. She was close to him now, smiling in good nature, a little scornful of man’s encroachment upon the housewifely duties of a woman. A subtle something emanated from her — a more than kindness or gayety. Tappan grasped that it was just the woman of her. And it was going to his head.

“Very well, let’s see you show me,” he replied, as he rose to his feet.

Just then the brother Jake strolled over, and he had a rather amused and derisive eye for his sister.

“Wal, Tappan, she’s not overfond of work, but I reckon she can cook,” he said.

Tappan felt greatly relieved at the approach of this brother. And he fell into conversation with him, telling something of his prospecting since leaving Globe, and listening to the man’s cattle talk. By and by the woman called, “Come an’ get it!” Then they sat down to eat, and, as usual with hungry wayfarers, they did not talk much until appetite was satisfied. Afterward, before the camp fire, they began to talk again, Jake being the most discursive. Tappan conceived the idea that the rancher was rather curious about him, and perhaps wanted to sell his ranch. The woman seemed more thoughtful, with her wide black eyes on the fire.

“Tappan, what way you travelin’?” finally inquired Beam.

“Can’t say. I just worked down out of the Superstitions. Haven’t any place in mind. Where does this road go?”

“To the Tonto Basin. Ever heard of it?”

“Yes, the name isn’t new. What’s in this Basin?”

The man grunted. “Tonto once was home for the Apache. It’s now got a few sheep an’ cattlemen, lots of rustlers. An’ say, if you like to hunt bear an’ deer, come along with us.” >

“Thanks. I don’t know as I can,” returned Tappan, irresolutely. He was not used to such possibilities as this suggested.

Then the woman spoke up. “It’s a pretty country. Wild an’ different. We live up under the rim rock. There’s mineral in the canyons.”

Was it that about mineral which decided Tappan or the look in her eyes?

Tappan’s world of thought and feeling underwent as great a change as this Tonto Basin differed from the stark desert so long his home. The trail to the log cabin of the Beams climbed many a ridge and slope and foothill, all covered with manzanita, mescal, cedar, and juniper, at last to reach the canyons of the Rim, where lofty pines and spruces lorded it over the under forest of maples and oaks. Though the yellow Rim towered high over the site of the cabin, the altitude was still great, close to seven thousand feet above sea level.

Tappan had fallen in love with this wild wooded and canyoned country. So had Jenet. It was rather funny the way she hung around Tappan, mornings and evenings. She ate luxuriant grass and oak leaves until her sides bulged.

There did not appear to be any flat places in this landscape. Every bench was either up hill or down hill. The Beams had no garden or farm or ranch that Tappan could discover. They raised a few acres of sorghum and corn. Their log cabin was of the most primitive kind, and outfitted poorly. Madge Beam explained that this cabin was their winter abode, and that up on the Rim they had a good house and ranch. Tappan did not inquire closely into anything. If he had interrogated himself, he would have found out that the reason he did not inquire was because he feared something might remove him from the vicinity of Madge Beam. He had thought it strange the Beams avoided wayfarers they had met on the trail, and had gone round a little hamlet Tappan had espied from a hill. Madge Beam, with woman’s intuition, had read his mind, and had said: “Jake doesn’t get along so well with some of the villagers. An’ I’ve no hankerin’ for gun play.” That explanation was sufficient for Tappan. He had lived long enough in his wandering years to appreciate that people could have reasons for being solitary.

This trip up into the Rim Rock country bade fair to become Tappan’s one and only adventure of the heart. It was not alone the murmuring, clear brook of cold mountain water that enchanted him, nor the stately pines, nor the beautiful silver spruces, nor the wonder of the deep, yellow-walled canyons, so choked with verdure, and haunted by wild creatures. He dared not face his soul, and ask why this dark-eyed woman sought him more and more. Tappan lived in the moment.

He was aware that the few mountaineer neighbors who rode that way rather avoided contact with him. Tappan was not so dense that he did not perceive that the Beams preferred to keep him from outsiders. This perhaps was owing to their desire to sell Tappan the ranch and cattle. Jake offered to let it go at what he called a low figure. Tappan thought it just as well to go out into the forest and hide his bags of gold. He did not trust Jake Beam, and liked less the looks of the men who visited this wilderness ranch. Madge Beam might be related to a rustler, and the associate of rustlers, but that did not necessarily make her a bad woman. Tappan sensed that her attitude was changing, and she seemed to require his respect. At first, all she wanted was his admiration. Tappan’s long unused deference for women returned to him, and when he saw that it was having some strange softening effect upon Madge Beam, he redoubled his attentions. They rode and climbed and hunted together. Tappan had pitched his camp not far from the cabin, on a shaded bank of the singing brook. Madge did not leave him much to himself. She was always coming up to his camp, on one pretext or another. Often she would bring two horses, and make Tappan ride with her. Some of these occasions, Tappan saw, occurred while visitors came to the cabin. In three weeks Madge Beam changed from the bold and careless woman who had ridden down into his camp that sunset, to a serious and appealing woman, growing more careful of her person and adornment, and manifestly bearing a burden on her mind.

October came. In the morning white frost glistened on the split-wood shingles of the cabin. The sun soon melted it, and grew warm. The afternoons were still and smoky, melancholy with the enchantment of Indian summer. Tappan hunted wild turkey and deer with Madge, and revived his boyish love of such pursuits. Madge appeared to be a woman of the woods, and had no mean skill with the rifle.

One day they were high on the Rim, with the great timbered basin at their feet. They had come up to hunt deer, but got no farther than the wonderful promontory where before they had lingered.

“Somethin’ will happen to me to-day,” Madge Beam said, enigmatically.

Tappan never had been much of a talker. But he could listen. The woman unburdened herself this day. She wanted freedom, happiness, a home away from this lonely country, and all the heritage of woman. She confessed it broodingly, passionately. And Tappan recognized truth when he heard it. He was ready to do all in his power for this woman and believed she knew it. But words and acts of sentiment came hard to him.

“Are you goin’ to buy Jake’s ranch?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Is there any hurry?” returned Tappan.

“I reckon not. But I think I’ll settle that,” she said, decisively.

“How so?”

“Well, Jake hasn’t got any ranch,” she answered. And added hastily, “No clear title, I mean. He’s only homesteaded one hundred an’ sixty acres, an’ hasn’t proved up on it yet. But don’t you say I told you.”

“Was Jake aimin’ to be crooked?”

“I reckon...An’ I was willin’ at first. But not now.”

Tappan did not speak at once. He saw the woman was in one of her brooding moods. Besides, he wanted to weigh her words. How significant they were! To-day more than ever she had let down. Humility and simplicity seemed to abide with her. And her brooding boded a storm. Tappan’s heart swelled in his broad breast. Was life going to dawn rosy and bright for the lonely prospector? He had money to make a home for this woman. What lay in the balance of the hour? Tappan waited, slowly realizing the charged atmosphere.

Madge’s somber eyes gazed out over the great void. But, full of thought and passion as they were, they did not see the beauty of that scene. But Tappan saw it. And in some strange sense the color and wildness and sublimity seemed the expression of a new state of his heart. Under him sheered down the ragged and cracked cliffs of the Rim, yellow and gold and gray, full of caves and crevices, ledges for eagles and niches for lions, a thousand feet down to the upward edge of the long green slopes and canyons, and so on down and down into the abyss of forested ravine and ridge, rolling league on league away to the encompassing barrier of purple mountain ranges.

The thickets in the canyons called Tappan’s eye back to linger there. How different from the scenes that used to be perpetually in his sight! What riot of color! The tips of the green pines, the crests of the silver spruces, waved about masses of vivid gold of aspen trees, and wonderful cerise and flaming red of maples, and crags of yellow rock, covered with the bronze of frostbitten sumach. Here was autumn and with it the colors of Tappan’s favorite season. From below breathed up the low roar of plunging brook; an eagle screeched his wild call; an elk bugled his piercing blast. From the Rim wisps of pine needles blew away on the breeze and fell into the void. A wild country, colorful, beautiful, bountiful. Tappan imagined he could quell his wandering spirit here, with this dark-eyed woman by his side. Never before had Nature so called him. Here was not the cruelty or flinty hardness of the desert. The air was keen and sweet, cold in the shade, warm in the sun. A fragrance of balsam and spruce, spiced with pine, made his breathing a thing of difficulty and delight. How for so many years had he endured vast open spaces without such eye-soothing trees as these? Tappan’s back rested against a huge pine that tipped the Rim, and had stood there, stronger than the storms, for many a hundred years. The rock of the promontory was covered with soft brown mats of pine needles. A juniper tree, with its bright green foliage and lilac-colored berries, grew near the pine, and helped to form a secluded little nook, fragrant and somehow haunting. The woman’s dark head was close to Tappan, as she sat with her elbows on her knees, gazing down into the basin. Tappan saw the strained tensity of her posture, the heaving of her full bosom. He wondered, while his own emotions, so long darkened, roused to the suspense of that hour.

Suddenly she flung herself into Tappan’s arms. The act amazed him. It seemed to have both the passion of a woman and the shame of a girl. Before she hid her face on Tappan’s breast he saw how the rich brown had paled, and then flamed.

“Tappan!...Take me away...Take me away from here — from that life down there,” she cried, in smothered voice.

“Madge, you mean take you away — and marry you?” he replied.

“Oh, yes — yes — marry me, if you love me...I don’t see how you can — but you do, don’t you? — Say you do.”

“I reckon that’s what ails me, Madge,” he replied, simply.

“Say so, then,” she burst out.

“All right, I do,” said Tappan, with heavy breath. “Madge, words don’t come easy for me...But I think you’re wonderful, an’ I want you. I haven’t dared hope for that, till now. I’m only a wanderer. But it’d be heaven to have you — my wife — an’ make a home for you.”

“Oh — Oh!” she returned, wildly, and lifted herself to cling round his neck, and to kiss him. “You give me joy...Oh, Tappan, I love you. I never loved any man before. I know now...An’ I’m not wonderful — or good. But I love you.”

The fire of her lips and the clasp of her arms worked havoc in Tappan. No woman had ever loved him, let alone embraced him. To awake suddenly to such rapture as this made him strong and rough in his response. Then all at once she seemed to collapse in his arms and to begin to weep. He feared he had offended or hurt her, and was clumsy in his contrition. Presently she replied:

“Pretty soon — I’ll make you — beat me. It’s your love — your honesty — that’s shamed me...Tappan, I was party to a trick to — sell you a worthless ranch...I agreed to — try to make you love me — to fool you — cheat you...But I’ve fallen in love with you. — An’ my God, I care more for your love — your respect — than for my life. I can’t go on with it. I’ve double-crossed Jake, an’ all of them...Now, am I worth lovin’? Am I worth havin’?”

“More than ever, dear,” he said.

“You will take me away?”

“Anywhere — any time, the sooner the better.”

She kissed him passionately, and then, disengaging herself from his arms, she knelt and gazed earnestly at him. “I’ve not told all. I will some day. But I swear now on my soul — I’ll be what you think me.”

“Madge, you needn’t say all that. If you love me — it’s enough. More than I ever dreamed of.”

“You’re a man. Oh, why didn’t I meet you when I was eighteen instead of now — twenty-eight, an’ all that between...But enough. A new life begins here for me. We must plan.”

“You make the plans an’ I’ll act on them.”

For a moment she was tense and silent, head bowed, hands shut tight. Then she spoke:

“To-night we’ll slip away. You make a light pack, that’ll go on your saddle. I’ll do the same. We’ll hide the horses out near where the trail crosses the brook. An’ we’ll run off — ride out of the country.”

Tappan in turn tried to think, but the whirl of his mind made any reason difficult. This dark-eyed, full-bosomed woman loved him, had surrendered herself, asked only his protection. The thing seemed marvelous. Yet she knelt there, those dark eyes on him, infinitely more appealing than ever, haunting with some mystery of sadness and fear he could not divine.

Suddenly Tappan remembered Jenet.

“I must take Jenet,” he said.

That startled her.

“Jenet — Who’s she?”

“My burro.”

“Your burro. You can’t travel fast with that pack beast. We’ll be trailed, an’ we’ll have to go fast...You can’t take the burro.”

Then Tappan was startled. “What! Can’t take Jenet? — Why, I — I couldn’t get along without her.”

“Nonsense. What’s a burro? We must ride fast — do you hear?”

“Madge, I’m afraid I — I must take Jenet with me,” he said, soberly.

“It’s impossible. I can’t go if you take her. I tell you I’ve got to get away. If you want me you’ll have to leave your precious Jenet behind.”

Tappan bowed his head to the inevitable. After all, Jenet was only a beast of burden. She would run wild on the ridges and soon forget him and have no need of him. Something strained in Tappan’s breast. He did not see clearly here. This woman was worth more than all else to him.

“I’m stupid, dear,” he said. “You see I never before ran off with a beautiful woman...Of course my burro must be left behind.”

Elopement, if such it could be called, was easy for them. Tappan did not understand why Madge wanted to be so secret about it. Was she not free? But then, he reflected, he did not know the circumstances she feared. Besides, he did not care. Possession of the woman was enough.

Tappan made his small pack, the weight of which was considerable owing to his bags of gold. This he tied on his saddle. It bothered him to leave most of his new outfit scattered around his camp. What would Jenet think of that? He looked for her, but for once she did not come in at meal time. Tappan thought this was singular. He could not remember when Jenet had been far from his camp at sunset. Somehow Tappan was glad.

After he had his supper, he left his utensils and supplies as they happened to be, and strode away under the trees to the trysting-place where he was to meet Madge. To his surprise she came before dark, and, unused as he was to the complexity and emotional nature of a woman, he saw that she was strangely agitated. Her face was pale. Almost a fury burned in her black eyes. When she came up to Tappan, and embraced him, almost fiercely, he felt that he was about to learn more of the nature of womankind. She thrilled him to his depths.

“Lead out the horses an’ don’t make any noise,” she whispered.

Tappan complied, and soon he was mounted, riding behind her on the trail. It surprised him that she headed down country, and traveled fast. Moreover, she kept to a trail that continually grew rougher. They came to a road, which she crossed, and kept on through darkness and brush so thick that Tappan could not see the least sign of a trail. And at length anyone could have seen that Madge had lost her bearings. She appeared to know the direction she wanted, but traveling upon it was impossible, owing to the increasingly cut-up and brushy ground. They had to turn back, and seemed to be hours finding the road. Once Tappan fancied he heard the thud of hoofs other than those made by their own horses. Here Madge acted strangely, and where she had been obsessed by desire to hurry she now seemed to have grown weary. She turned her horse south on the road. Tappan was thus enabled to ride beside her. But they talked very little. He was satisfied with the fact of being with her on the way out of the country. Some time in the night they reached an old log shack by the roadside. Here Tappan suggested they halt, and get some sleep before dawn. The morrow would mean a long hard day.

“Yes, to-morrow will be hard,” replied Madge, as she faced Tappan in the gloom. He could see her big dark eyes on him. Her tone was not one of a hopeful woman. Tappan pondered over this. But he could not understand, because he had no idea how a woman ought to act under such circumstances. Madge Beam was a creature of moods. Only the day before, on the ride down from the Rim, she had told him with a laugh that she was likely to love him madly one moment and scratch his eyes out the next. How could he know what to make of her? Still, an uneasy feeling began to stir in Tappan.

They dismounted, and unsaddled the horses. Tappan took his pack and put it aside. Something frightened the horses. They bolted down the road.

“Head them off,” cried the woman, hoarsely.

Even on the instant her voice sounded strained to Tappan, as if she were choked. But, realizing the absolute necessity of catching the horses, he set off down the road on a run. And he soon succeeded in heading off the animal he had ridden. The other one, however, was contrary and cunning. When Tappan would endeavor to get ahead, it would trot briskly on. Yet it did not go so fast but what Tappan felt sure he would soon catch it. Thus walking and running, he put some distance between him and the cabin before he realized that he could not head off the wary beast. Much perturbed in mind, Tappan hurried back.

Upon reaching the cabin Tappan called to Madge. No answer! He could not see her in the gloom nor the horse he had driven back. Only silence brooded there. Tappan called again. Still no answer! Perhaps Madge had succumbed to weariness and was asleep. A search of the cabin and vicinity failed to yield any sign of her. But it disclosed the fact that Tappan’s pack was gone.

Suddenly he sat down, quite overcome. He had been duped. What a fierce pang tore his heart! But it was for loss of the woman — not the gold. He was stunned, and then sick with bitter misery. Only then did Tappan realize the meaning of love and what it had done to him. The night wore on, and he sat there in the dark and cold and stillness until the gray dawn told him of the coming of day.

The light showed his saddle where he had left it. Near by lay one of Madge’s gloves. Tappan’s keen eye sighted a bit of paper sticking out of the glove. He picked it up. It was a leaf out of a little book he had seen her carry, and upon it was written in lead pencil:

“I am Jake’s wife, not his sister. I double-crossed him an’ ran off with you an’ would have gone to hell for you. But Jake an’ his gang suspected me. They were close on our trail. I couldn’t shake them. So here I chased off the horses an’ sent you after them. It was the only way I could save your life.”

Tappan tracked the thieves to Globe. There he learned they had gone to Phoenix — three men and one woman.

Tappan had money on his person. He bought horse and saddle, and, setting out for Phoenix, he let his passion to kill grow with the miles and hours. At Phoenix he learned Beam had cashed the gold — twelve thousand dollars. So much of a fortune! Tappan’s fury grew. The gang separated here. Beam and his wife took stage for Tucson. Tappan had no trouble in trailing their movements.

Gambling dives and inns and freighting posts and stage drivers told the story of the Beams and their ill-gotten gold. They went on to California, down into Tappan’s country, to Yuma, and El Cajon, and San Diego. Here Tappan lost track of the woman. He could not find that she had left San Diego, nor any trace of her there. But Jake Beam had killed a Mexican in a brawl and had fled across the line.

Tappan gave up for the time being the chase of Beam, and bent his efforts to find the woman. He had no resentment toward Madge. He only loved her. All that winter he searched San Diego. He made of himself a peddler as a ruse to visit houses. But he never found a trace of her. In the spring he wandered back to Yuma, raking over the old clues, and so on back to Tucson and Phoenix.

This year of dream and love and passion and despair and hate made Tappan old. His great strength and endurance were not yet impaired, but something of his spirit had died out of him.

One day he remembered Jenet. “My burro!” he soliloquized. “I had forgotten her...Jenet!”

Then it seemed a thousand impulses merged in one drove him to face the long road toward the Rim Rock country. To remember Jenet was to grow doubtful. Of course she would be gone. Stolen or dead or wandered off! But then who could tell what Jenet might do? Tappan was both called and driven. He was a poor wanderer again. His outfit was a pack he carried on his shoulder. But while he could walk he would keep on until he found that last camp where he had deserted Jenet.

October was coloring the canyon slopes when he reached the shadow of the great wall of yellow rock. The cabin where the Beams had lived — or had claimed they lived — was a fallen ruin, crushed by snow. Tappan saw other signs of a severe winter and heavy snowfall. No horse or cattle tracks showed in the trails.

To his amaze his camp was much as he had left it. The stone fireplace, the iron pots, appeared to be in the same places. The boxes that had held his supplies were lying here and there. And his canvas tarpaulin, little the worse for wear of the elements, lay on the ground under the pine where he had slept. If any man had visited this camp in a year he had left no sign of it.

Suddenly Tappan espied a hoof track in the dust. A small track — almost oval in shape — fresh! Tappan thrilled through all his being.

“Jenet’s track, so help me God!” he murmured.

He found more of them, made that morning. And, keen now as never before on her trail, he set out to find her. The tracks led up the canyon. Tappan came out into a little grassy clearing, and there stood Jenet, as he had seen her thousands of times. She had both long ears up high. She seemed to stare out of that meek, gray face. And then one of the long ears flopped over and drooped. Such perhaps was the expression of her recognition.

Tappan strode up to her.

“Jenet — old girl — you hung round camp — waitin’ for me, didn’t you?” he said, huskily, and his big hands fondled her long ears.

Yes, she had waited. She, too, had grown old. She was gray. The winter of that year had been hard. What had she lived on when the snow lay so deep? There were lion scratches on her back, and scars on her legs. She had fought for her life.

“Jenet, a man can never always tell about a burro,” said Tappan. “I trained you to hang round camp an’ wait till I came back...’Tappan’s burro,’ the desert rats used to say! An’ they’d laugh when I bragged how you’d stick to me where most men would quit. But brag as I did, I never knew you, Jenet. An’ I left you — an’ forgot. Jenet, it takes a human bein’ — a man — a woman — to be faithless. An’ it takes a dog or a horse or a burro to be great...Beasts? I wonder now...Well, old pard, we’re goin’ down the trail together, an’ from this day on Tappan begins to pay his debt.”

CHAPTER III

TAPPAN NEVER AGAIN had the old wanderlust for the stark and naked desert. Something had transformed him. The green and fragrant forests, and brown-aisled, pine-matted woodlands, the craggy promontories and the great colored canyons, the cold granite water springs of the Tonto seemed vastly preferable to the heat and dust and glare and the emptiness of the waste lands. But there was more. The ghost of his strange and only love kept pace with his wandering steps, a spirit that hovered with him as his shadow. Madge Beam, whatever she had been, had showed to him the power of love to refine and ennoble. Somehow he felt closer to her here in the cliff country where his passion had been born. Somehow she seemed nearer to him here than in all those places he had tracked her.

So from a prospector searching for gold Tappan became a hunter, seeking only the means to keep soul and body together. And all he cared for was his faithful burro Jenet, and the loneliness and silence of the forest land.

He was to learn that the Tonto was a hard country in many ways, and bitterly so in winter. Down in the brakes of the basin it was mild in winter, the snow did not lie long, and ice seldom formed. But up on the Rim, where Tappan always lingered as long as possible, the storm king of the north held full sway. Fifteen feet of snow and zero weather were the rule in dead of winter.

An old native once warned Tappan: “See hyar, friend, I reckon you’d better not get caught up in the Rim Rock country in one of our big storms. Fer if you do you’ll never get out.”

It was a way of Tappan’s to follow his inclinations, regardless of advice. He had weathered the terrible midnight storm of hot wind in Death Valley. What were snow and cold to him? Late autumn on the Rim was the most perfect and beautiful of seasons. He had seen the forest land brown and darkly green one day, and the next burdened with white snow. What a transfiguration! Then when the sun loosened the white mantling on the pines, and they had shed their burdens in drifting dust of white, and rainbowed mists of melting snow, and avalanches sliding off the branches, there would be left only the wonderful white floor of the woodland. The great rugged brown tree trunks appeared mightier and statelier in the contrast; and the green of foliage, the russet of oak leaves, the gold of the aspens, turned the forest into a world enchanting to the desert-seared eyes of this wanderer.

With Tappan the years sped by. His mind grew old faster than his body. Every season saw him lonelier. He had a feeling, a vague illusive foreshadowing that his bones, instead of bleaching on the desert sands, would mingle with the pine mats and the soft fragrant moss of the forest. The idea was pleasant to Tappan.

One afternoon he was camped in Pine Canyon, a timber-sloped gorge far back from the Rim. November was well on. The fall had been singularly open and fair, with not a single storm. A few natives happening across Tappan had remarked casually that such autumns sometimes were not to be trusted.

This late afternoon was one of Indian summer beauty and warmth. The blue haze in the canyon was not all the blue smoke from Tappan’s campfire. In a narrow park of grass not far from camp Jenet grazed peacefully with elk and deer. Wild turkeys lingered there, loth to seek their winter quarters down in the basin. Gray squirrels and red squirrels barked and frisked, and dropped the pine and spruce cones, with thud and thump, on all the slopes.

Before dark a stranger strode into Tappan’s camp, a big man of middle age, whose magnificent physique impressed even Tappan. He was a rugged, bearded giant, wide-eyed and of pleasant face. He had no outfit, no horse, not even a gun.

“Lucky for me I smelled your smoke,” he said. “Two days for me without grub.”

“Howdy, stranger,” was Tappan’s greeting. “Are you lost?”

“Yes an’ no. I could find my way out down over the Rim, but it’s not healthy down there for me. So I’m hittin’ north.”

“Where’s your horse an’ pack?”

“I reckon they’re with the gang thet took more of a fancy to them than me.”

“Ahuh! You’re welcome here, stranger,” replied Tappan. “I’m Tappan.”

“Ha! Heard of you. I’m Jess Blade, of anywhere. An’ I’ll say, Tappan, I was an honest man till I hit the Tonto.”

His laugh was frank, for all its note of grimness. Tappan liked the man, and sensed one who would be a good friend and bad foe.

“Come an’ eat. My supplies are peterin’ out, but there’s plenty of meat.”

Blade ate, indeed, as a man starved, and did not seem to care if Tappan’s supplies were low. He did not talk. After the meal he craved a pipe and tobacco. Then he smoked in silence, in a slow realizing content. The morrow had no fears for him. The flickering ruddy light from the camp fire shone on his strong face. Tappan saw in him the drifter, the drinker, the brawler, a man with good in him, but over whom evil passion or temper dominated. Presently he smoked the pipe out, and with reluctant hand knocked out the ashes and returned it to Tappan.

“I reckon I’ve some news thet’d interest you,” he said.

“You have?” queried Tappan.

“Yes, if you’re the Tappan who tried to run off with Jake Beam’s wife.”

“Well, I’m that Tappan. But I’d like to say I didn’t know she was married.”

“Shore, I know thet. So does everybody in the Tonto. You were just meat for thet Beam gang. They had played the trick before. But accordin’ to what I hear thet trick was the last fer Madge Beam. She never came back to this country. An’ Jake Beam, when he was drunk, owned up thet she’d left him in California. Some hint at worse. Fer Jake Beam came back a harder man. Even his gang said thet.”

“Is he in the Tonto now?” queried Tappan, with a thrill of fire along his veins.

“Yep, thar fer keeps,” replied Blade, grimly. “Somebody shot him.”

“Ahuh!” exclaimed Tappan with a deep breath of relief. There came a sudden cooling of the heat of his blood.

After that there was a long silence. Tappan dreamed of the woman who had loved him. Blade brooded over the camp fire. The wind moaned fitfully in the lofty pines on the slope. A wolf mourned as if in hunger. The stars appeared to obscure their radiance in haze.

“Reckon thet wind sounds like storm,” observed Blade, presently.

“I’ve heard it for weeks now,” replied Tappan.

“Are you a woodsman?”

“No, I’m a desert man.”

“Wal, you take my hunch an’ hit the trail fer low country.”

This was well meant, and probably sound advice, but it alienated Tappan. He had really liked this hearty-voiced stranger. Tappan thought moodily of his slowly ingrowing mind, of the narrowness of his soul. He was past interest in his fellow men. He lived with a dream. The only living creature he loved was a lop-eared, lazy burro, growing old in contentment. Nevertheless that night Tappan shared one of his two blankets.

In the morning the gray dawn broke, and the sun rose without its brightness of gold. There was a haze over the blue sky. Thin, swift-moving clouds scudded up out of the southwest. The wind was chill, the forest shaggy and dark, the birds and squirrels were silent.

“Wal, you’ll break camp to-day,” asserted Blade.

“Nope. I’ll stick it out yet a while,” returned Tappan.

“But, man, you might get snowed in, an’ up hyar thet’s serious.”

“Ahuh! Well, it won’t bother me. An’ there’s nothin’ holdin’ you.”

“Tappan, it’s four days’ walk down out of this woods. If a big snow set in, how’d I make it?”

“Then you’d better go out over the Rim,” suggested Tappan.

“No. I’ll take my chance the other way. But are you meanin’ you’d rather not have me with you? Fer you can’t stay hyar.”

Tappan was in a quandary.

Some instinct bade him tell the man to go. Not empty handed, but to go. But this was selfish, and entirely unlike Tappan as he remembered himself of old. Finally he spoke:

“You’re welcome to half my outfit — go or stay.”

“Thet’s mighty square of you, Tappan,” responded the other, feelingly. “Have you a burro you’ll give me?”

“No, I’ve only one.”

“Ha! Then I’ll have to stick with you till you leave.”

No more was said. They had breakfast in a strange silence. The wind brooded its secret in the tree tops. Tappan’s burro strolled into camp, and caught the stranger’s eye.

“Wal, thet’s shore a fine burro,” he observed. “Never saw the like.”

Tappan performed his camp tasks. And then there was nothing to do but sit around the fire. Blade evidently waited for the increasing menace of storm to rouse Tappan to decision. But the graying over of sky and the increase of wind did not affect Tappan. What did he wait for? The truth of his thoughts was that he did not like the way Jenet remained in camp. She was waiting to be packed. She knew they ought to go. Tappan yielded to a perverse devil of stubbornness. The wind brought a cold mist, then a flurry of wet snow. Tappan gathered firewood, a large quantity. Blade saw this and gave voice to earnest fears. But Tappan paid no heed. By nightfall sleet and snow began to fall steadily. The men fashioned a rude shack of spruce boughs, ate their supper, and went to bed early.

It worried Tappan that Jenet stayed right in camp. He lay awake a long time. The wind rose, and moaned through the forest. The sleet failed, and a soft, steady downfall of snow gradually set in. Tappan fell asleep. When he awoke it was to see a forest of white. The trees were mantled with blankets of wet snow, the ground covered two feet on a level. But the clouds appeared to be gone, the sky was blue, the storm over. The sun came up warm and bright.

“It’ll all go in a day,” said Tappan.

“If this was early October I’d agree with you,” replied Blade. “But it’s only makin’ fer another storm. Can’t you hear thet wind?”

Tappan only heard the whispers of his dreams. By now the snow was melting off the pines, and rainbows shone everywhere. Little patches of snow began to drop off the south branches of the pines and spruces, and then larger patches, until by mid-afternoon white streams and avalanches were falling everywhere. All of the snow, except in shaded places on the north sides of trees, went that day, and half of that on the ground. Next day it thinned out more, until Jenet was finding the grass and moss again. That afternoon the telltale thin clouds raced up out of the southwest and the wind moaned its menace.

“Tappan, let’s pack an’ hit it out of hyar,” appealed Blade, anxiously. “I know this country. Mebbe I’m wrong, of course, but it feels like storm. Winter’s comin’ shore.”

“Let her come,” replied Tappan, imperturbably.

“Say, do you want to get snowed in?” demanded Blade, out of patience.

“I might like a little spell of it, seem’ it’d be new to me,” replied Tappan.

“But man, if you ever get snowed in hyar you can’t get out.”

“That burro of mine could get me out.”

“You’re crazy. Thet burro couldn’t go a hundred feet. What’s more, you’d have to kill her an’ eat her.”

Tappan bent a strange gaze upon his companion, but made no reply. Blade began to pace up and down the small bare patch of ground before the camp fire. Manifestly, he was in a serious predicament. That day he seemed subtly to change, as did Tappan. Both answered to their peculiar instincts, Blade to that of self-preservation, and Tappan, to something like indifference. Tappan held fate in defiance. What more could happen to him?

Blade broke out again, in eloquent persuasion, giving proof of their peril, and from that he passed to amaze and then to strident anger. He cursed Tappan for a nature loving idiot.

“An’ I’ll tell you what,” he ended. “When mornin’ comes I’ll take some of your grub an’ hit it out of hyar, storm or no storm.”

But long before dawn broke that resolution of Blade’s had become impracticable. Both men were awakened by a roar of storm through the forest, no longer a moan, but a marching roar, with now a crash and then a shriek of gale! By the light of the smouldering camp fire Tappan saw a whirling pall of snow, great flakes as large as feathers. Morning disclosed the setting in of a fierce mountain storm, with two feet of snow already on the ground, and the forest lost in a blur of white.

“I was wrong,” called Tappan to his companion. “What’s best to do now?”

“You damned fool!” yelled Blade. “We’ve got to keep from freezin’ an’ starvin’ till the storm ends an’ a crust comes on the snow.”

For three days and three nights the blizzard continued, unabated in its fury. It took the men hours to keep a space cleared for their camp site, which Jenet shared with them. On the fourth day the storm ceased, the clouds broke away, the sun came out. And the temperature dropped to zero. Snow on the level just topped Tappan’s lofty stature, and in drifts it was ten and fifteen feet deep. Winter had set in without compromise. The forest became a solemn, still, white world. But now Tappan had no time to dream. Dry firewood was hard to find under the snow. It was possible to cut down one of the dead trees on the slope, but impossible to pack sufficient wood to the camp. They had to burn green wood. Then the fashioning of snowshoes took much time. Tappan had no knowledge of such footgear. He could only help Blade. The men were encouraged by the piercing cold forming a crust on the snow. But just as they were about to pack and venture forth, the weather moderated, the crust refused to hold their weight, and another foot of snow fell.

“Why in hell didn’t you kill an elk?” demanded Blade, sullenly. He had become darkly sinister. He knew the peril and he loved life. “Now we’ll have to kill an’ eat your precious Jenet. An’ mebbe she won’t furnish meat enough to last till this snow weather stops an’ a good freeze’ll make travelin’ possible.”

“Blade, you shut up about killin’ an’ eatin’ my burro Jenet,” returned Tappan, in a voice that silenced the other.

Thus instinctively these men became enemies. Blade thought only of himself. Tappan had forced upon him a menace to the life of his burro. For himself Tappan had not one thought.

Tappan’s supplies ran low. All the bacon and coffee were gone. There was only a small haunch of venison, a bag of beans, a sack of flour, and a small quantity of salt loft.

“If a crust freezes on the snow an’ we can pack that flour, we’ll get out alive,” said Blade. “But we cant take the burro.”

Another day of bright sunshine softened the snow on the southern exposures, and a night of piercing cold froze a crust that would bear a quick step of man.

“It’s our only chance — an’ damn slim at thet,” declared Blade.

Tappan allowed Blade to choose the time and method, and supplies for the start to get out of the forest. They cooked all the beans and divided them in two sacks. Then they baked about five pounds of biscuits for each of them. Blade showed his cunning when he chose the small bag of salt for himself and let Tappan take the tobacco. This quantity of food and a blanket for each Blade declared to be all they could pack. They argued over the guns, and in the end Blade compromised on the rifle, agreeing to let Tappan carry that on a possible chance of killing a deer or elk. When this matter had been decided, Blade significantly began putting on his rude snowshoes, that had been constructed from pieces of Tappan’s boxes and straps and burlap sacks.

“Reckon they won’t last long,” muttered Blade.

Meanwhile Tappan fed Jenet some biscuits and then began to strap a tarpaulin on her back.

“What you doin’?” queried Blade, suddenly.

“Gettin’ Jenet ready,” replied Tappan.

“Ready! For what?”

“Why, to go with us.”

“Hell!” shouted Blade, and he threw up his hands in helpless rage.

Tappan felt a depth stirred within him. He lost his late taciturnity and silent aloofness fell away from him. Blade seemed on the moment no longer an enemy. He loomed as an aid to the saving of Jenet. Tappan burst into speech.

“I can’t go without her. It’d never enter my head. Jenet’s mother was a good faithful burro. I saw Jenet born way down there on the Rio Colorado. She wasn’t strong. An’ I had to wait for her to be able to walk. An’ she grew up. Her mother died, an’ Jenet an’ me packed it alone. She wasn’t no ordinary burro. She learned all I taught her. She was different. But I treated her same as any burro. An’ she grew with the years. Desert men said there never was such a burro as Jenet. Called her Tappan’s burro, an’ tried to borrow an’ buy an’ steal her...How many times in ten years Jenet has done me a good turn I can’t remember. But she saved my life. She dragged me out of Death Valley...An’ then I forgot my debt. I ran off with a woman an’ left Jenet to wait as she had been trained to wait...Well, I got back in time...An’ now I’ll not leave her here. It may be strange to you, Blade, me carin’ this way. Jenet’s only a burro. But I won’t leave her.”

“Man, you talk like thet lazy lop-eared burro was a woman,” declared Blade, in disgusted astonishment.

“I don’t know women, but I reckon Jenet’s more faithful than most of them.”

“Wal, of all the stark, starin’ fools I ever run into you’re the worst.”

“Fool or not, I know what I’ll do,” retorted Tappan. The softer mood left him swiftly.

“Haven’t you sense enough to see thet we can’t travel with your burro?” queried Blade, patiently controlling his temper. “She has little hoofs, sharp as knives. She’ll cut through the crust. She’ll break through in places. An’ we’ll have to stop to haul her out — mebbe break through ourselves. Thet would make us longer gettin’ out.”

“Long or short we’ll take her.”

Then Blade confronted Tappan as if suddenly unmasking his true meaning. His patient explanation meant nothing. Under no circumstances would he ever have consented to an attempt to take Jenet out of that snow-bound wilderness. His eyes gleamed.

“We’ve a hard pull to get out alive. An’ hard-workin’ men in winter must have meat to eat.”

Tappan slowly straightened up to look at the speaker.

“What do you mean?”

For answer Blade jerked his hand backward and downward, and when it swung into sight again it held Tappan’s worn and shining rifle. Then Blade, with deliberate force, that showed the nature of the man, worked the lever and threw a shell into the magazine. All the while his eyes were fastened on Tappan. His face seemed that of another man, evil, relentless, inevitable in his spirit to preserve his own life at any cost.

“I mean to kill your burro,” he said, in voice that suited his look and manner.

“No!” cried Tappan, shocked into an instant of appeal.

“Yes, I am, an’ I’ll bet, by God, before we get out of hyar you’ll be glad to eat some of her meat!”

That roused the slow-gathering might of Tappan’s wrath.

“I’d starve to death before I’d — I’d kill that burro, let alone eat her.”

“Starve an’ be damned!” shouted Blade, yielding to rage.

Jenet stood right behind Tappan, in her posture of contented repose, with one long ear hanging down over her gray meek face.

“You’ll have to kill me first,” answered Tappan, sharply.

“I’m good fer anythin’ — if you push me,” returned Blade, stridently.

As he stepped aside, evidently so he could have unobstructed aim at Jenet, Tappan leaped forward and knocked up the rifle as it was discharged. The bullet sped harmlessly over Jenet. Tappan heard it thud into a tree. Blade uttered a curse. And as he lowered the rifle in sudden deadly intent, Tappan grasped the barrel with his left hand. Then, clenching his right, he struck Blade a sodden blow in the face. Only Blade’s hold on the rifle prevented him from falling. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth. He bellowed in hoarse fury,

“I’ll kill you — fer thet!”

Tappan opened his clenched teeth: “No, Blade — you’re not man enough.”

Then began a terrific struggle for possession of the rifle. Tappan beat at Blade’s face with his sledge-hammer fist. But the strength of the other made it imperative that he use both hands to keep his hold on the rifle. Wrestling and pulling and jerking, the men tore round the snowy camp, scattering the camp fire, knocking down the brush shelter. Blade had surrendered to a wild frenzy. He hissed his maledictions. His was the brute lust to kill an enemy that thwarted him. But Tappan was grim and terrible in his restraint. His battle was to save Jenet. Nevertheless, there mounted in him the hot physical sensations of the savage. The contact of flesh, the smell and sight of Blade’s blood, the violent action, the beastly mien of his foe changed the fight to one for its own sake. To conquer this foe, to rend him and beat him down, blow on blow!

Tappan felt instinctively that he was the stronger. Suddenly he exerted all his muscular force into one tremendous wrench. The rifle broke, leaving the steel barrel in his hands, the wooden stock in Blade’s. And it was the quicker-witted Blade who used his weapon first to advantage. One swift blow knocked Tappan down. As he was about to follow it up with another, Tappan kicked his opponent’s feet from under him. Blade sprawled in the snow, but was up again as quickly as Tappan. They made at each other, Tappan waiting to strike, and Blade raining blows on Tappan. These were heavy blows aimed at his head, but which he contrived to receive on his arms and the rifle barrel he brandished. For a few moments Tappan stood up under a beating that would have felled a lesser man. His own blood blinded him. Then he swung his heavy weapon. The blow broke Blade’s left arm. Like a wild beast, he screamed in pain; and then, without guard, rushed in, too furious for further caution. Tappan met the terrible onslaught as before, and watching his chance, again swung the rifle barrel. This time, so supreme was the force, it battered down Blade’s arm and crushed his skull. He died on his feet — ghastly and horrible change! — and swaying backward, he fell into the upbanked wall of snow, and went out of sight, except for his boots, one of which still held the crude snowshoe.

Tappan stared, slowly realizing.

“Ahuh, stranger Blade!” he ejaculated, gazing at the hole in the snow bank where his foe had disappeared. “You were goin’ to — kill an’ eat — Tappan’s burro!”

Then he sighted the bloody rifle barrel, and cast it from him. He became conscious of injuries which needed attention. But he could do little more than wash off the blood and bind up his head. Both arms and hands were badly bruised, and beginning to swell. But fortunately no bones had been broken.

Tappan finished strapping the tarpaulin upon the burro; and, taking up both his and Blade’s supply of food, he called out, “Come on, Jenet.”

Which way to go! Indeed, there was no more choice for him than there had been for Blade. Towards the Rim the snowdrift would be deeper and impassable. Tappan realized that the only possible chance for him was down hill. So he led Jenet out of camp without looking back once. What was it that had happened? He did not seem to be the same Tappan that had dreamily tramped into this woodland.

A deep furrow in the snow had been made by the men packing firewood into camp. At the end of this furrow the wall of snow stood higher than Tappan’s head. To get out on top without breaking the crust presented a problem. He lifted Jenet up, and was relieved to see that the snow held her. But he found a different task in his own case. Returning to camp, he gathered up several of the long branches of spruce that had been part of the shelter, and carrying them out he laid them against the slant of snow he had to surmount, and by their aid he got on top. The crust held him.

Elated and with revived hope, he took up Jenet’s halter and started off. Walking with his rude snowshoes was awkward. He had to go slowly, and slide them along the crust. But he progressed. Jenet’s little steps kept her even with him. Now and then one of her sharp hoofs cut through, but not to hinder her particularly. Right at the start Tappan observed a singular something about Jenet. Never until now had she been dependent upon him. She knew it. Her intelligence apparently told her that if she got out of this snow-bound wilderness it would be owing to the strength and reason of her master.

Tappan kept to the north side of the canyon, where the snow crust was strongest. What he must do was to work up to the top of the canyon slope, and then keeping to the ridge travel north along it, and so down out of the forest.

Travel was slow. He soon found lie had to pick his way. Jenet appeared to be absolutely unable to sense either danger or safety. Her experience had been of the rock confines and the drifting sands of the desert. She walked where Tappan led her. And it seemed to Tappan that her trust in him, her reliance upon him, were pathetic.

“Well, old girl,” said Tappan to her, “it’s a horse of another color now — hey?”

At length he came to a wide part of the canyon, where a bench of land led to a long gradual slope, thickly studded with small pines. This appeared to be fortunate, and turned out to be so, for when Jenet broke through the crust Tappan had trees and branches to hold to while he hauled her out. The labor of climbing that slope was such that Tappan began to appreciate Blade’s absolute refusal to attempt getting Jenet out. Dusk was shadowing the white aisles of the forest when Tappan ascended to a level. He had not traveled far from camp, and the fact struck a chill upon his heart.

To go on in the dark was foolhardy. So Tappan selected a thick spruce, under which there was a considerable depression in the snow, and here made preparation to spend the night. Unstrapping the tarpaulin, he spread it on the snow. All the lower branches of this giant of the forest were dead and dry. Tappan broke off many and soon had a fire. Jenet nibbled at the moss on the trunk of the spruce tree. Tappan’s meal consisted of beans, biscuits, and a ball of snow, that he held over the fire to soften. He saw to it that Jenet fared as well as he. Night soon fell, strange and weirdly white in the forest, and piercingly cold. Tappan needed the fire. Gradually it melted the snow and made a hole, down to the ground. Tappan rolled up in the tarpaulin and soon fell asleep.

In three days Tappan traveled about fifteen miles, gradually descending, until the snow crust began to fail to hold Jenet. Then whatever had been his difficulties before, they were now magnified a hundredfold. As soon as the sun was up, somewhat softening the snow, Jenet began to break through. And often when Tappan began hauling her out he broke through himself. This exertion was killing even to a man of Tappan’s physical prowess. The endurance to resist heat and flying dust and dragging sand seemed another kind from that needed to toil on in this snow. The endless snow-bound forest began to be hideous to Tappan. Cold, lonely, dreary, white, mournful — the kind of ghastly and ghostly winter land that had been the terror of Tappan’s boyish dreams! He loved the sun — the open. This forest had deceived him. It was a wall of ice. As he toiled on, the state of his mind gradually and subtly changed in all except the fixed and absolute will to save Jenet. In some places he carried her.

The fourth night found him dangerously near the end of his stock of food. He had been generous with Jenet. But now, considering that he had to do more work than she, he diminished her share. On the fifth day Jenet broke through the snow crust so often that Tappan realized how utterly impossible it was for her to get out of the woods by her own efforts. Therefore Tappan hit upon the plan of making her lie on the tarpaulin, so that he could drag her. The tarpaulin doubled once did not make a bad sled. All the rest of that day Tappan hauled her. And so all the rest of the next day he toiled on, hands behind him, clutching the canvas, head and shoulders bent, plodding and methodical, like a man who could not be defeated. That night he was too weary to build a fire, and too worried to eat the last of his food.

Next day Tappan was not unalive to the changing character of the forest. He had worked down out of the zone of the spruce trees; the pines had thinned out and decreased in size; oak trees began to show prominently. All these signs meant that he was getting down out of the mountain heights. But the fact, hopeful as it was, had drawbacks. The snow was still four feet deep on a level and the crust held Tappan only about half the time. Moreover, the lay of the land operated against. Tappan’s progress. The long, slowly descending ridge had failed. There were no more canyons, but ravines and swales were numerous. Tappan dragged on, stern, indomitable, bent to his toil.

When the crust let him down, he hung his snowshoes over Jenet’s back, and wallowed through, making a lane for her to follow. Two days of such heart-breaking toil, without food or fire, broke Tappan’s magnificent endurance. But not his spirit! He hauled Jenet over the snow, and through the snow, down the hills and up the slopes, through the thickets, knowing that over the next ridge, perhaps, was deliverance. Deer and elk tracks began to be numerous. Cedar and juniper trees now predominated. An occasional pine showed here and there. He was getting out of the forest land. Only such mighty and justifiable hope as that could have kept him on his feet.

He fell often, and it grew harder to rise and go on. The hour came when the crust failed altogether to hold Tappan and he had to abandon hauling Jenet. It was necessary to make a road for her. How weary, cold, horrible, the white reaches! Yard by yard Tappan made his way. He no longer sweat. He had no feeling in his feet or legs. Hunger ceased to gnaw at his vitals. His thirst he quenched with snow — soft snow now, that did not have to be crunched like ice. The pangs in his breast were terrible — cramps, constrictions, the piercing pains in his lungs, the dull ache of his overtaxed heart.

Tappan came to an opening in the cedar forest from which he could see afar. A long slope fronted him. It led down and down to open country. His desert eyes, keen as those of an eagle, made out flat country, sparsely covered with snow, and black dots that were cattle. The last slope! The last pull! Three feet of snow, except in drifts; down and down he plunged, making way for Jenet! All that day he toiled and fell and rolled down this league-long slope, wearing towards sunset to the end of his task, and likewise to the end of his will.

Now he seemed up and now down. There was no sense of cold or weariness. Only direction! Tappan still saw! The last of his horror at the monotony of white faded from his mind. Jenet was there, beginning to be able to travel for herself. The solemn close of endless day found Tappan arriving at the edge of the timbered country, where wind-bared patches of ground showed long, bleached grass. Jenet took to grazing.

As for Tappan, he fell with the tarpaulin, under a thick cedar, and with strengthless hands plucked and plucked at the canvas to spread it, so that he could cover himself. He looked again for Jenet. She was there, somehow a fading image, strangely blurred. But she was grazing. Tappan lay down, and stretched out, and slowly drew the tarpaulin over him.

A piercing cold night wind swept down from the snowy heights. It wailed in the edge of the cedars and moaned out towards the open country. Yet the night seemed silent. The stars shone white in a deep blue sky — passionless, cold, watchful eyes, looking down without pity or hope or censure. They were the eyes of Nature. Winter had locked the heights in its snowy grip. All night that winter wind blew down, colder and colder. Then dawn broke, steely, gray, with a flare in the east.

Jenet came back where she had left her master. Camp! As she had returned thousands of dawns in the long years of her service. She had grazed all night. Her sides that had been flat were now full. Jenet had weathered another vicissitude of her life. She stood for a while, in a doze, with one long ear down over her meek face. Jenet was waiting for Tappan.

But he did not stir from under the long roll of canvas. Jenet waited. The winter sun rose, in cold yellow flare. The snow glistened as with a crusting of diamonds. Somewhere in the distance sounded a long-drawn, discordant bray. Jenet’s ears shot up. She listened. She recognized the call of one of her kind. Instinct always prompted Jenet. Sometimes she did bray. Lifting her gray head she sent forth a clarion: “Hee-haw hee-haw-haw — hee-haw how-e-e-e!” That stentorian call started the echoes. They pealed down the slope and rolled out over the open country, clear as a bugle blast, yet hideous in their discordance. But this morning Tappan did not awaken.

II. — THE GREAT SLAVE

A VOICE ON the wind whispered to Siena the prophecy of his birth. “A chief is born to save the vanishing tribe of Crows! A hunter to his starving people!” While he listened, at his feet swept swift waters, the rushing, green-white, thundering Athabasca, spirit-forsaken river; and it rumbled his name and murmured his fate. “Siena! Siena! His bride will rise from a wind kiss on the flowers in the moonlight! A new land calls to the last of the Crows! Northward where the wild goose ends its flight Siena will father a great people!”

So Siena, a hunter of the leafy trails, dreamed his dreams; and at sixteen he was the hope of the remnant of a once powerful tribe, a stripling chief, beautiful as a bronzed autumn god, silent, proud, forever listening to voices on the wind.

To Siena the lore of the woodland came as flight comes to the strong-winged wild fowl. The secrets of the forests were his, and of the rocks and rivers.

He knew how to find the nests of the plover, to call the loon, to net the heron, and spear the fish. He understood the language of the whispering pines. Where the deer came down to drink and the caribou browsed on moss and the white rabbit nibbled in the grass and the bear dug in the logs for grubs — all these he learned; and also when the black flies drove the moose into the water and when the honk of the geese meant the approach of the north wind.

He lived in the woods, with his bow, his net, and his spear. The trees were his brothers. The loon laughed for his happiness, the wolf mourned for his sadness. The bold crag above the river, Old Stoneface, heard his step when he climbed there in the twilight. He communed with the stern god of his ancestors and watched the flashing Northern Lights and listened.

From all four corners came his spirit guides with steps of destiny on his trail. On all the four winds breathed voices whispering of his future; loudest of all called the Athabasca, god-forsaken river, murmuring of the bride born of a wind kiss on the flowers in the moonlight.

On all the four winds breathed voices whispering of his future.

It was autumn, with the flame of leaf fading, the haze rolling out of the hollows, the lull yielding to moan of coming wind. All the signs of a severe winter were in the hulls of the nuts, in the fur of the foxes, in the flight of waterfowl. Siena was spearing fish for winter store. None so keen of sight as Siena, so swift of arm; and as he was the hope, so he alone was the provider for the starving tribe. Siena stood to his knees in a brook where it flowed over its gravelly bed into the Athabasca. Poised high was his wooden spear. It glinted downward swift as a shaft of sunlight through the leaves. Then Siena lifted a quivering whitefish and tossed it upon the bank where his mother Ema, with other women of the tribe, sun-dried the fish upon a rock.

Again and again, many times, flashed the spear. The young chief seldom missed his aim. Early frosts on the uplands had driven the fish down to deeper water, and as they came darting over the bright pebbles Siena called them by name.

The oldest squaw could not remember such a run of fish. Ema sang the praises of her son; the other women ceased the hunger chant of the tribe.

Suddenly a hoarse shout pealed out over the waters.

Ema fell in a fright; her companions ran away; Siena leaped upon the bank, clutching his spear. A boat in which were men with white faces drifted down toward him.

“Hal-loa!” again sounded the hoarse cry.

Ema cowered in the grass. Siena saw a waving of white hands; his knees knocked together and he felt himself about to flee. But Siena of the Crows, the savior of a vanishing tribe, must not fly from visible foes.

“Palefaces,” he whispered, trembling, yet stood his ground ready to fight for his mother. He remembered stories of an old Indian who had journeyed far to the south and had crossed the trails of the dreaded white men. There stirred in him vague memories of strange Indian runners telling camp-fire tales of white hunters with weapons of lightning and thunder.

“Naza! Naza!” Siena cast one fleeting glance to the north and a prayer to his god of gods. He believed his spirit would soon be wandering in the shades of the other Indian world.

As the boat beached on the sand Siena saw men lying with pale faces upward to the sky, and voices in an unknown tongue greeted him. The tone was friendly, and he lowered his threatening spear. Then a man came up the bank, his hungry eyes on the pile of fish, and he began to speak haltingly in mingled Cree and Chippewayan language:

“Boy — we’re white friends — starving — let us buy fish — trade for fish — we’re starving and we have many moons to travel.”

“Siena’s tribe is poor,” replied the lad; “sometimes they starve too. But Siena will divide his fish and wants no trade.”

His mother, seeing the white men intended no evil, came out of her fright and complained bitterly to Siena of his liberality. She spoke of the menacing winter, of the frozen streams, the snow-bound forest, the long night of hunger. Siena silenced her and waved the frightened braves and squaws back to their wigwams.

“Siena is young,” he said simply; “but he is chief here. If we starve — we starve.”

Whereupon he portioned out a half of the fish. The white men built a fire and sat around it feasting like famished wolves around a fallen stag. When they had appeased their hunger they packed the remaining fish in the boat, whistling and singing the while. Then the leader made offer to pay, which Siena refused, though the covetous light in his mother’s eyes hurt him sorely.

“Chief,” said the leader, “the white man understands; now he offers presents as one chief to another.”

Thereupon he proffered bright beads and tinseled trinkets, yards of calico and strips of cloth. Siena accepted with a dignity in marked contrast to the way in which the greedy Ema pounced upon the glittering heap. Next the paleface presented a knife which, drawn from its scabbard, showed a blade that mirrored its brightness in Siena’s eyes.

“Chief, your woman complains of a starving tribe,” went on the white man. “Are there not many moose and reindeer?”

“Yes. But seldom can Siena creep within range of his arrow.”

“A-ha! Siena will starve no more,” replied the man, and from the boat he took a long iron tube with a wooden stock.

“What is that?” asked Siena.

“The wonderful shooting stick. Here, boy, watch! See the bark on the camp fire. Watch!”

He raised the stick to his shoulder. Then followed a streak of flame, a puff of smoke, a booming report; and the bark of the camp fire flew into bits.

The children dodged into the wigwams with loud cries, the women ran screaming, Ema dropped in the grass wailing that the end of the world had come, while Siena, unable to move hand or foot, breathed another prayer to Naza of the northland.

The white man laughed and, patting Siena’s arm, he said: “No fear.” Then he drew Siena away from the bank, and began to explain the meaning and use of the wonderful shooting stick. He reloaded it and fired again and yet again, until Siena understood and was all aflame at the possibilities of such a weapon.

Patiently the white man taught the Indian how to load it, sight, and shoot, and how to clean it with ramrod and buckskin. Next he placed at Siena’s feet a keg of powder, a bag of lead bullets, and boxes full of caps. Then he bade Siena farewell, entered the boat with his men and drifted round a bend of the swift Athabasca.

Siena stood alone upon the bank, the wonderful shooting stick in his hands, and the wail of his frightened mother in his ears. He comforted her, telling her the white men were gone, that he was safe, and that the prophecy of his birth had at last begun its fulfillment. He carried the precious ammunition to a safe hiding place in a hollow log near his wigwam and then he plunged into the forest.

Siena bent his course toward the runways of the moose. He walked in a kind of dream, for he both feared and believed. Soon the glimmer of water, splashes and widening ripples, caused him to crawl stealthily through the ferns and grasses to the border of a pond. The familiar hum of flies told him of the location of his quarry. The moose had taken to the water, driven by the swarms of black flies, and were standing neck deep, lifting their muzzles to feed on the drooping poplar branches. Their wide-spreading antlers, tipped back into the water, made the ripples.

Trembling as never before, Siena sank behind a log. He was within fifty paces of the moose. How often in that very spot had he strung a feathered arrow and shot it vainly! But now he had the white man’s weapon, charged with lightning and thunder. Just then the poplars parted above the shore, disclosing a bull in the act of stepping down. He tossed his antlered head at the cloud of humming flies, then stopped, lifting his nose to scent the wind.

“Naza!” whispered Siena in his swelling throat.

He rested the shooting stick on the log and tried to see over the brown barrel. But his eyes were dim. Again he whispered a prayer to Naza. His sight cleared, his shaking arms stilled, and with his soul waiting, hoping, doubting, he aimed and pulled the trigger.

Boom!

High the moose flung his ponderous head, to crash down upon his knees, to roll in the water and churn a bloody foam, and then lie still.

“Siena! Siena!”

Shrill the young chief’s exultant yell pealed over the listening waters, piercing the still forest, to ring back in echo from Old Stoneface. It was Siena’s triumphant call to his forefathers, watching him from the silence.

The herd of moose plowed out of the pond and crashed into the woods, where, long after they had disappeared, their antlers could be heard cracking the saplings.

When Siena stood over the dead moose his doubts fled; he was indeed god chosen. No longer chief of a starving tribe! Reverently and with immutable promise he raised the shooting stick to the north, toward Naza who had remembered him; and on the south, where dwelt the enemies of his tribe, his dark glance brooded wild and proud and savage.

Eight times the shooting stick boomed out in the stillness and eight moose lay dead in the wet grasses. In the twilight Siena wended his way home and placed eight moose tongues before the whimpering squaws.

“Siena is no longer a boy,” he said. “Siena is a hunter. Let his women go bring in the meat.”

Then to the rejoicing and feasting and dancing of his tribe he turned a deaf ear, and in the night passed alone under the shadow of Old Stoneface, where he walked with the spirits of his ancestors and believed the voices on the wind.

Before the ice locked the ponds Siena killed a hundred moose and reindeer. Meat and fat and oil and robes changed the world for the Crow tribe.

Fires burned brightly all the long winter; the braves awoke from their stupor and chanted no more; the women sang of the Siena who had come, and prayed for summer wind and moonlight to bring his bride.

Spring went by, summer grew into blazing autumn, and Siena’s fame and the wonder of the shooting stick spread through the length and breadth of the land.

Another year passed, then another, and Siena was the great chief of the rejuvenated Crows. He had grown into a warrior’s stature, his face had the beauty of the god chosen, his eye the falcon flash of the Sienas of old. Long communion in the shadow of Old Stoneface had added wisdom to his other gifts; and now to his worshiping tribe all that was needed to complete the prophecy of his birth was the coming of the alien bride.

It was another autumn, with the wind whipping the tamaracks and moaning in the pines, and Siena stole along a brown, fern-lined trail. The dry smell of fallen leaves filled his nostrils; he tasted snow in the keen breezes. The flowers were dead, and still no dark-eyed bride sat in his wigwam. Siena sorrowed and strengthened his heart to wait. He saw her flitting in the shadows around him, a wraith with dusky eyes veiled by dusky wind-blown hair, and ever she hovered near him, whispering from every dark pine, from every waving tuft of grass.

To her whispers he replied: “Siena waits.”

He wondered of what alien tribe she would come. He hoped not of the unfriendly Chippewayans or the far-distant Blackfeet; surely not of the hostile Crees, life enemies of his tribe, destroyers of its once puissant strength, jealous now of its resurging power.

Other shadows flitted through the forest, spirits that rose silently from the graves over which he trod, and warned him of double steps on his trail, of unseen foes watching him from the dark coverts. His braves had repeated gossip, filterings from stray Indian wanderers, hinting of plots against the risen Siena. To all these he gave no heed, for was not he Siena, god-chosen, and had he not the wonderful shooting stick?

It was the season that he loved, when dim forest and hazy fernland spoke most impellingly. The tamaracks talked to him, the poplars bowed as he passed, and the pines sang for him alone. The dying vines twined about his feet and clung to him, and the brown ferns, curling sadly, waved him a welcome that was a farewell. A bird twittered a plaintive note and a loon whistled a lonely call. Across the wide gray hollows and meadows of white moss moaned the north wind, bending all before it, blowing full into Siena’s face with its bitter promise. The lichen-covered rocks and the rugged-barked trees and the creatures that moved among them — the whole world of earth and air heard Siena’s step on the rustling leaves and a thousand voices hummed in the autumn stillness.

So he passed through the shadowy forest and over the gray muskeg flats to his hunting place. With his birchbark horn he blew the call of the moose. He alone of hunting Indians had the perfect moose call. There, hidden within a thicket, he waited, calling and listening till an angry reply bellowed from the depths of a hollow, and a bull moose, snorting fight, came cracking the saplings in his rush. When he sprang fierce and bristling into the glade, Siena killed him. Then, laying his shooting stick over a log, he drew his knife and approached the beast.

A snapping of twigs alarmed Siena and he whirled upon the defensive, but too late to save himself. A band of Indians pounced upon him and bore him to the ground. One wrestling heave Siena made, then he was overpowered and bound. Looking upward, he knew his captors, though he had never seen them before; they were the lifelong foes of his people, the fighting Crees.

A sturdy chief, bronze of face and sinister of eye, looked grimly down upon his captive. “Baroma makes Siena a slave.”

Siena and his tribe were dragged far southward to the land of the Crees. The young chief was bound upon a block in the center of the village where hundreds of Crees spat upon him, beat him, and outraged him in every way their cunning could devise. Siena’s gaze was on the north and his face showed no sign that he felt the torments.

At last Baroma’s old advisers stopped the spectacle, saying: “This is a man!”

Siena and his people became slaves of the Crees. In Baroma’s lodge, hung upon caribou antlers, was the wonderful shooting stick with Siena’s powder horn and bullet pouch, objects of intense curiosity and fear.

None knew the mystery of this lightning-flashing, thunder-dealing thing; none dared touch it.

The heart of Siena was broken; not for his shattered dreams or the end of his freedom, but for his people. His fame had been their undoing. Slaves to the murderers of his forefathers! His spirit darkened, his soul sickened; no more did sweet voices sing to him on the wind, and his mind dwelt apart from his body among shadows and dim shapes.

Because of his strength he was worked like a dog at hauling packs and carrying wood; because of his fame he was set to cleaning fish and washing vessels with the squaws. Seldom did he get to speak a word to his mother or any of his people. Always he was driven.

One day, when he lagged almost fainting, a maiden brought him water to drink. Siena looked up, and all about him suddenly brightened, as when sunlight bursts from cloud.

“Who is kind to Siena?” he asked, drinking.

“Baroma’s daughter,” replied the maiden.

“What is her name?”

Quickly the maiden bent her head, veiling dusky eyes with dusky hair. “Emihiyah.”

“Siena has wandered on lonely trails and listened to voices not meant for other ears. He has heard the music of Emihiyah on the winds. Let the daughter of Siena’s great foe not fear to tell of her name.”

“Emihiyah means a wind kiss on the flowers in the moonlight,” she whispered shyly and fled.

Love came to the last of the Sienas and it was like a glory. Death shuddered no more in Siena’s soul. He saw into the future, and out of his gloom he rose again, god chosen in his own sight, with such added beauty to his stern face and power to his piercing eye and strength to his lofty frame that the Crees quailed before him and marveled. Once more sweet voices came to him, and ever on the soft winds were songs of the dewy moorlands to the northward, songs of the pines and the laugh of the loon and of the rushing, green-white, thundering Athabasca, godforsaken river.

Siena’s people saw him strong and patient, and they toiled on, unbroken, faithful. While he lived, the pride of Baroma was vaunting. “Siena waits” were the simple words he said to his mother, and she repeated them as wisdom. But the flame of his eye was like the leaping Northern Lights, and it kept alive the fire deep down in their breasts.

In the winter when the Crees lolled in their wigwams, when less labor fell to Siena, he set traps in the snow trails for silver fox and marten. No Cree had ever been such a trapper as Siena. In the long months he captured many furs, with which he wrought a robe the like of which had not before been the delight of a maiden’s eye. He kept it by him for seven nights, and always during this time his ear was turned to the wind. The seventh night was the night of the midwinter feast, and when the torches burned bright in front of Baroma’s lodge Siena took the robe and, passing slowly and stately till he stood before Emihiyah, he laid it at her feet.

Emihiyah’s dusky face paled, her eyes that shone like stars drooped behind her flying hair, and all her slender body trembled.

“Slave!” cried Baroma, leaping erect. “Come closer that Baroma may see what kind of a dog approaches Emihiyah.”

Siena met Baroma’s gaze, but spoke no word. His gift spoke for him. The hated slave had dared to ask in marriage the hand of the proud Baroma’s daughter. Siena towered in the firelight with something in his presence that for a moment awed beholders. Then the passionate and untried braves broke the silence with a clamor of the wolf pack.

Tillimanqua, wild son of Baroma, strung an arrow to his bow and shot it into Siena’s hip, where it stuck, with feathered shaft quivering.

The spring of the panther was not swifter than Siena; he tossed Tillimanqua into the air and, flinging him down, trod on his neck and wrenched the bow away. Siena pealed out the long-drawn war whoop of his tribe that had not been heard for a hundred years, and the terrible cry stiffened the Crees in their tracks.

Then he plucked the arrow from his hip and, fitting it to the string, pointed the gory flint head at Tillimanqua’s eyes and began to bend the bow. He bent the tough wood till the ends almost met, a feat of exceeding great strength, and thus he stood with brawny arms knotted and stretched.

A scream rent the suspense. Emihiyah fell upon her knees. “Spare Emihiyah’s brother!”

Siena cast one glance at the kneeling maiden, then, twanging the bow string, he shot the arrow toward the sky.

“Baroma’s slave is Siena,” he said, with scorn like the lash of a whip. “Let the Cree learn wisdom.”

Then Siena strode away, with a stream of dark blood down his thigh, and went to his brush tepee, where he closed his wound.

In the still watches of the night, when the stars blinked through the leaves and the dew fell, when Siena burned and throbbed in pain, a shadow passed between his weary eyes and the pale light. And a voice that was not one of the spirit voices on the wind called softly over him, “Siena! Emihiyah comes.”

The maiden bound the hot thigh with a soothing balm and bathed his fevered brow.

Then her hands found his in tender touch, her dark face bent low to his, her hair lay upon his cheek. “Emihiyah keeps the robe,” she said.

“Siena loves Emihiyah,” he replied.

“Emihiyah loves Siena,” she whispered.

She kissed him and stole away.

On the morrow Siena’s wound was as if it had never been; no eye saw his pain. Siena returned to his work and his trapping. The winter melted into spring, spring flowered into summer, summer withered into autumn.

Once in the melancholy days Siena visited Baroma in his wigwam. “Baroma’s hunters are slow. Siena sees a famine in the land.”

“Let Baroma’s slave keep his place among the squaws,” was the reply.

That autumn the north wind came a moon before the Crees expected it; the reindeer took their annual march farther south; the moose herded warily in open groves; the whitefish did not run, and the seven-year pest depleted the rabbits.

When the first snow fell Baroma called a council and then sent his hunting braves far and wide.

One by one they straggled back to camp, footsore and hungry, and each with the same story. It was too late.

A few moose were in the forest, but they were wild and kept far out of range of the hunter’s arrows, and there was no other game.

A blizzard clapped down upon the camp, and sleet and snow whitened the forest and filled the trails. Then winter froze everything in icy clutch. The old year drew to a close.

The Crees were on the brink of famine. All day and all night they kept up their chanting and incantations and beating of tom-toms to conjure the return of the reindeer. But no reindeer appeared.

It was then that the stubborn Baroma yielded to his advisers and consented to let Siena save them from starvation by means of his wonderful shooting stick. Accordingly Baroma sent word to Siena to appear at his wigwam.

Siena did not go, and said to the medicine men: “Tell Baroma soon it will be for Siena to demand.”

Then the Cree chieftain stormed and stamped in his wigwam and swore away the life of his slave. Yet again the wise medicine men prevailed. Siena and the wonderful shooting stick would be the salvation of the Crees. Baroma, muttering deep in his throat like distant thunder, gave sentence to starve Siena until he volunteered to go forth to hunt, or let him be the first to die.

The last scraps of meat, except a little hoarded in Baroma’s lodge, were devoured, and then began the boiling of bones and skins to make a soup to sustain life. The cold days passed and a silent gloom pervaded the camp. Sometimes a cry of a bereaved mother, mourning for a starved child, wailed through the darkness. Siena’s people, long used to starvation, did not suffer or grow weak so soon as the Crees. They were of hardier frame, and they were upheld by faith in their chief. When he would sicken it would be time for them to despair. But Siena walked erect as in the days of his freedom, nor did he stagger under the loads of firewood, and there was a light on his face. The Crees, knowing of Baroma’s order that Siena should be the first to perish of starvation, gazed at the slave first in awe, then in fear. The last of the Sienas was succored by the spirits.

But god-chosen though Siena deemed himself, he knew it was not by the spirits that he was fed in this time of famine. At night in the dead stillness, when even no mourning of wolf came over the frozen wilderness, Siena lay in his brush tepee close and warm under his blanket. The wind was faint and low, yet still it brought the old familiar voices. And it bore another sound — the soft fall of a moccasin on the snow. A shadow passed between Siena’s eyes and the pale light.

“Emihiyah comes,” whispered the shadow and knelt over him.

She tendered a slice of meat which she had stolen from Barorna’s scant hoard as he muttered and growled in uneasy slumber. Every night since her father’s order to starve Siena, Emihiyah had made this perilous errand.

And now her hand sought his and her dusky hair swept his brow. “Emihiyah is faithful,” she breathed low.

“Siena only waits,” he replied.

She kissed him and stole away.

Cruel days fell upon the Crees before Barorna’s pride was broken. Many children died and some of the mothers were beyond help. Siena’s people kept their strength, and he himself showed no effect of hunger. Long ago the Cree women had deemed him superhuman, that the Great Spirit fed him from the happy hunting grounds.

At last Baroma went to Siena. “Siena may save his people and the Crees.”

Siena regarded him long, then replied: “Siena waits.”

“Let Baroma know. What does Siena wait for? While he waits we die.”

Siena smiled his slow, inscrutable smile and turned away.

Baroma sent for his daughter and ordered her to plead for her life.

Emihiyah came, fragile as a swaying reed, more beautiful than a rose choked in a tangled thicket, and she stood before Siena with doe eyes veiled. “Emihiyah begs Siena to save her and the tribe of Crees.”

“Siena waits,” replied the slave.

Baroma roared in his fury and bade his braves lash the slave. But the blows fell from feeble arms and Siena laughed at his captors.

Then, like a wild lion unleashed from long thrall, he turned upon them: “Starve! Cree dogs! Starve! When the Crees all fall like leaves in autumn, then Siena and his people will go back to the north.”

Baroma’s arrogance left him then, and on another day, when Emihiyah lay weak and pallid in his wigwam and the pangs of hunger gnawed at his own vitals, he again sought Siena. “Let Siena tell for what he waits.”

Siena rose to his lofty height and the leaping flame of the Northern Light gathered in his eyes. “Freedom!” One word he spoke and it rolled away on the wind.

“Baroma yields,” replied the Cree, and hung his head.

“Send the squaws who can walk and the braves who can crawl out upon Siena’s trail.”

Then Siena went to Baroma’s lodge and took up the wonderful shooting stick and, loading it, he set out upon snowshoes into the white forest. He knew where to find the moose yards in the sheltered corners. He heard the bulls pounding the hard-packed snow and cracking their antlers on the trees. The wary beasts would not have allowed him to steal close, as a warrior armed with a bow must have done, but Siena fired into the herd at long range. And when they dashed off, sending the snow up like a spray, a huge black bull lay dead. Siena followed them as they floundered through the drifts, and whenever he came within range he shot again. When five moose were killed he turned upon his trail to find almost the whole Cree tribe had followed him and were tearing the meat and crying out in a kind of crazy joy. That night the fires burned before the wigwams, the earthen pots steamed, and there was great rejoicing. Siena hunted the next day, and the next, and for ten days he went into the white forest with his wonderful shooting stick, and eighty moose fell to his unerring aim.

The famine was broken and the Crees were saved.

When the mad dances ended and the feasts were over, Siena appeared before Baroma’s lodge. “Siena will lead his people northward.”

Baroma, starving, was a different chief from Baroma well fed and in no pain. All his cunning had returned. “Siena goes free. Baroma gave his word. But Siena’s people remain slaves.”

“Siena demanded freedom for himself and people,” said the younger chief.

“Baroma heard no word of Siena’s tribe. He would not have granted freedom for them. Siena’s freedom was enough.”

“The Cree twists the truth. He knows Siena would not go without his people. Siena might have remembered Baroma’s cunning. The Crees were ever liars.”

Baroma stalked before his fire with haughty presence. About him in the circle of light sat his medicine men, his braves and squaws. “The Cree is kind. He gave his word. Siena is free. Let him take his wonderful shooting stick and go back to the north.”

Siena laid the shooting stick at Baroma’s feet and likewise the powder horn and bullet pouch. Then he folded his arms, and his falcon eyes looked far beyond Baroma to the land of the changing lights and the old home on the green-white, rushing Athabasca, god-forsaken river. “Siena stays.”

Baroma started in amaze and anger. “Siena makes Baroma’s word idle. Begone!”

“Siena stays!”

The look of Siena, the pealing reply, for a moment held the chief mute. Slowly Baroma stretched wide his arms and lifted them, while from his face flashed a sullen wonder. “Great Slave!” he thundered.

So was respect forced from the soul of the Cree, and the name thus wrung from his jealous heart was one to live forever in the lives and legends of Siena’s people.

Baroma sought the silence of his lodge, and his medicine men and braves dispersed, leaving Siena standing in the circle, a magnificent statue facing the steely north.

From that day insult was never offered to Siena, nor word spoken to him by the Crees, nor work given. He was free to come and go where he willed, and he spent his time in lessening the tasks of his people.

The trails of the forest were always open to him, as were the streets of the Cree village. If a brave met him, it was to step aside; if a squaw met him, it was to bow her head; if a chief met him, it was to face him as warriors faced warriors.

One twilight Emihiyah crossed his path, and suddenly she stood as once before, like a frail reed about to break in the wind. But Siena passed on. The days went by and each one brought less labor to Siena’s people, until that one came wherein there was no task save what they set themselves. Siena’s tribe were slaves, yet not slaves.

The winter wore by and the spring and the autumn, and again Siena’s fame went abroad on the four winds. The Chippewayans journeyed from afar to see the Great Slave, and likewise the Blackfeet and the Yellow Knives. Honor would have been added to fame; councils called; overtures made to the somber Baroma on behalf of the Great Slave, but Siena passed to and fro among his people, silent and cold to all others, true to the place which his great foe had given him. Captive to a lesser chief, they said; the Great Slave who would yet free his tribe and gather to him a new and powerful nation.

Once in the late autumn Siena sat brooding in the twilight by Ema’s tepee. That night all who came near him were silent. Again Siena was listening to voices on the wind, voices that had been still for long, which he had tried to forget. It was the north wind, and it whipped the spruces and moaned through the pines. In its cold breath it bore a message to Siena, a hint of coming winter and a call from Naza, far north of the green-white, thundering Athabasca, river without a spirit.

In the darkness when the camp slumbered Siena faced the steely north. As he looked a golden shaft, arrow-shaped and arrow-swift, shot to the zenith.

“Naza!” he whispered to the wind. “Siena watches.”

Then the gleaming, changing Northern Lights painted a picture of gold and silver bars, of flushes pink as shell, of opal fire and sunset red; and it was a picture of Siena’s life from the moment the rushing Athabasca rumbled his name, to the far distant time when he would say farewell to his great nation and pass forever to the retreat of the winds. God chosen he was, and had power to read the story in the sky.

Seven nights Siena watched in the darkness; and on the seventh night, when the golden flare and silver shafts faded in the north, he passed from tepee to tepee, awakening his people. “When Siena’s people hear the sound of the shooting stick let them cry greatly: Siena kills Baroma! Siena kills Baroma!”

With noiseless stride Siena went among the wigwams and along the lanes until he reached Baroma’s lodge. Entering in the dark he groped with his hands upward to a moose’s antlers and found the shooting stick. Outside he fired it into the air.

Like a lightning bolt the report ripped asunder the silence, and the echoes clapped and reclapped from the cliffs. Sharp on the dying echoes Siena bellowed his war whoop, and it was the second time in a hundred years for foes to hear that terrible, long-drawn cry.

Then followed the shrill yells of Siena’s people: “Siena kills Baroma...Siena kills Baroma...Siena kills Baroma!”

The slumber of the Crees awoke to a babel of many voices; it rose hoarsely on the night air, swelled hideously into a deafening roar that shook the earth.

In this din of confusion and terror when the Crees were lamenting the supposed death of Baroma and screaming in each other’s ears, “The Great Slave takes his freedom!” Siena ran to his people and, pointing to the north, drove them before him.

Single file, like a long line of flitting specters, they passed out of the fields into the forest. Siena kept close on their trail, ever looking backward, and ready with the shooting stick.

The roar of the stricken Crees softened in his ears and at last died away.

Under the black canopy of whispering leaves, over the gray, mist-shrouded muskeg flats, around the glimmering reed-bordered ponds, Siena drove his people.

All night Siena hurried them northward and with every stride his heart beat higher. Only he was troubled by a sound like the voice that came to him on the wind.

But the wind was now blowing in his face, and the sound appeared to be at his back. It followed on his trail as had the step of destiny. When he strained his ears he could not hear it, yet when he had gone on swiftly, persuaded it was only fancy, then the voice that was not a voice came haunting him.

In the gray dawn Siena halted on the far side of a gray flat and peered through the mists on his back trail. Something moved out among the shadows, a gray shape that crept slowly, uttering a mournful cry.

“Siena is trailed by a wolf,” muttered the chief.

Yet he waited, and saw that the wolf was an Indian. He raised the fatal shooting stick.

As the Indian staggered forward, Siena recognized the robe of silver fox and marten, his gift to Emihiyah. He laughed in mockery. It was a Cree trick. Tillimanqua had led the pursuit disguised in his sister’s robe. Baroma would find his son dead on the Great Slave’s trail.

“Siena!” came the strange, low cry.

It was the cry that had haunted him like the voice on the wind. He leaped as a bounding deer.

Out of the gray fog burned dusky eyes half-veiled by dusky hair, and little hands that he knew wavered as fluttering leaves. “Emihiyah comes,” she said.

“Siena waits,” he replied.

Out of the gray fog burned dusky eyes half veiled by dusky hair— “Emihiyah comes,” she said. “Siena waits,” he replied.

Far to the northward he led his bride and his people, far beyond the old home on the green-white, thundering Athabasca, god-forsaken river; and there, on the lonely shores of an inland sea, he fathered the Great Slave Tribe.

III. — YAQUI

I

SUNSET — IT was the hour of Yaqui’s watch. Chief of a driven remnant of the once mighty tribe, he trusted no sentinel so well as himself at the end of the day’s march. While his braves unpacked the tired horses, and his women prepared the evening meal, and his bronze-skinned children played in the sand, Yaqui watched the bold desert horizon.

Long years of hatred had existed between the Yaquis of upland Sonora and the Mexicans from the east. Like eagles, the Indian tribe had lived for centuries in the mountain fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, free, happy, self-sufficient. But wandering prospectors had found gold in their country and that had been the end of their peace. At first the Yaquis, wanting only the wildness and loneliness of their homes, moved farther and farther back from the ever encroaching advance of the gold diggers. At last, driven from the mountains into the desert, they realized that gold was the doom of their tribe and they began to fight for their land. Bitter and bloody were the battles; and from father to son this wild, free, proud race bequeathed a terrible hatred.

Yaqui was one of the last great chiefs of his once great tribe. All his life he remembered the words of his father and his grandfather — that the Yaquis must find an unknown and impenetrable hiding place or perish from the earth. When Mexican soldiers at the decree of their government made war upon this tribe, killing those who resisted and making slaves of the captured, Yaqui with his family and followers set out upon a last journey across the Sonoran wilderness. Hateful and fearful of the east, whence this blight of gold diggers and land robbers appeared to come, he had fled toward the setting sun into a waste of desert land unknown to his people — a desert of scorching heat and burning sand and tearing cactus and treacherous lava, where water and wood and grass seemed days apart. Some of the youngest children had died on the way and all except the strong braves were wearing out.

Alone, on a ridge of rising ground, Yaqui faced the back trail and watched with falcon eyes. Miles distant though that horizon was, those desert eyes could have made out horses against the clear sky. He did not gaze steadily, for the Indian method was to flash a look across the spaces, from near to far, and to fix the eye momentarily, to strain the vision and magnify all objects, then to avert the gaze from that direction and presently flash it back again.

Alone on a ridge of rising ground Yaqui faced the back trail and watched with falcon eyes.

Lonely, wild, and grand, the scene seemed one of lifelessness. Only the sun lived, still hot, as it burned red-gold far away on the rugged rim of this desert world. Nothing breathed in that vastness. To Yaqui’s ear the silence was music. The red sun slipped down and the desert changed. The golden floor of sand and rock shaded cold to the horizon and above that the sky lost its rose, turning to intense luminous blue. In the far distance the peaks dimmed and vanished in purple. The fire of the western heavens paled and died, and over all the rock-ribbed, sand-encumbered plateau stole a wondrous gray shade. Yaqui watched until that gray changed to black and the horizon line was lost in night. Safe now from pursuers were he and his people until the dawn.

Then, guided by a speck of camp-fire light, he returned to his silent men and moaning women and a scant meal that he divided. Hunger was naught to Yaqui, nor thirst. Four days could he travel the desert without drink, an endurance most of his hardy tribe were trained to. And as for toil, the strength of his giant frame had never reached its limit. But strong chief that he was, when he listened to the moaning women and gazed at the silent, set faces of the children under the starlight he sagged to the sands and, bowing his head, prayed to his gods. He prayed for little — only life, freedom, loneliness, a hidden niche where his people would hear no steps and fear no specters on their trail. Then with unquenchable faith he stretched his great length on the sands; and the night was as a moment.

In the gray of a dawn cold, pure, and silent, with the radiant morning star shining like a silver moon, the long file of Yaquis rode and tramped westward, on down the rugged bare slopes of this unknown desert.

And out of the relentless east, land of enemies, rose the glaring sun. Like magic the frost melted off the rocks and the cool freshness of morning changed to a fiery breath. The sun climbed, and the leagues were as long as the hours. Down into a broad region of lava toiled the fugitives. Travel over the jagged crusts and through the poison-spiked cholla lamed the horses and made walking imperative. Yaqui drove his people before him, and some of the weakest fell by the way.

Out of the hot lava and stinging cactus the Indians toiled and entered a region of bare stone, cut by wind and water into labyrinthine passages where, even if they had left tracks on the hard rocks, few pursuers could have followed them. Yaqui told this to his people, told them he saw sheep on the peaks above and smelled water, and thus urged them on and on league after league toward distant purple heights. Vast and hard as had been the desert behind them, this strange upflung desert before them seemed vaster and grimmer. The trackless way led ever upward by winding passages and gorges — a gloomy and weird region of colored stone. And over all reigned the terrible merciless sun.

Yaqui sacrificed horses to the thirst and hunger of his people and abandoned the horror of toil under the sun to a slower progress by night. Blanched and magnified under the great stars, the iron-bound desert of riven rock, so unreal and weird, brought forth a chant from the lips of Yaqui’s women. His braves, stoic like himself, endured and plodded on, lightening burdens of the weaker and eventually carrying the children. That night passed and a day of stupor in the shade of sun-heated rock; another night led the fugitives onward and upward through a maze of shattered cliffs, black and wild. Day dawned once more, showing Yaqui by the pitiless light that only his men could endure much more of this dragging on.

He made camp there and encouraged his people by a faith that had come to him during the night — a whisper from the spirit of his forefathers — to endure, to live, to go to a beautiful end his vision could not see. Then Yaqui stalked alone off into the fastnesses of the rocks and prayed to his gods for guidance. All about him were silence, desolation, a gray barren world of rock, a black barren world of lava. Far as his falcon eye could see to the north and east and south stretched the illimitable glaring desert, rough, peaked, spiked, riven, ghastly with yellow slopes, bleak with its bare belts, terrible with its fluted and upflung plateaus, stone faced by endless ramparts and fast bound to the fading distance. From the west, up over the dark and forlorn heights, Yaqui heard the whispers of his dead forefathers.

Another dawn found Yaqui on the great heights with the sunrise at his back and with another and more promising world at his feet.

“Land of our forefathers!” he cried out sonorously to his people, gazing mutely down into the promised land. A vast gray-green valley yawned at their feet. Leagues of grassy, rock-ribbed, and tree-dotted slopes led down to a gleaming white stream, winding like a silver ribbon down the valley, to lose itself far in the lower country, where the colored desert merged into an immense and boundless void of hazy blue — the sea.

“Great Water, where the sun sleeps,” said Yaqui with long arm outstretched. “Yaqui’s father’s father saw it.”

Yaqui carried the boy and led the way down from the heights. Mountain sheep and wild horses and deer and quail that had never before seen man showed no fear of this invasion of their wild home. And Yaqui’s people, footsore and starved, gazed round them and, in the seeming safety of this desert-locked valley with its grass and water and wood and abundant game, they took hope again and saw their prayers answered and happiness once more possible. New life flushed their veins. The long slopes, ever greener as they descended, were welcome to aching eyes so tired of the glaring expanses of the desert.

For an encampment Yaqui chose the head of the valley. Wide and gently sloping, with a rock-walled spring that was the source of the stream, and large iron wood trees and pines and paloverdes, this lonely hidden spot satisfied the longing in Yaqui’s heart. Almost his joy was complete. But never could he feel wholly secure again, even had he wings of an eagle. For Yaqui’s keen eyes had seen gold in the sands of the stream; and gold spelled the doom of the Indian. Still Yaqui was grateful and content. Not soon indeed would his people be tracked to this fastness, and perhaps never. He cautioned his braves to save their scant gun ammunition, sending them out with bows and arrows to kill the tame deer and antelope. The weary squaws no longer chanted the melancholy songs of their woe. The long travel had ended. They unpacked their stores under the wide-spreading pines, made fires to roast the meat that would soon be brought, and attended to the ailments of the few children left to them. Soon the naked little ones, starved and cut and worn as they were, took to the clear cool water like goslings learning to swim.

Yaqui, carrying his rifle, stalked abroad to learn more of this wonderful valley. Stretching at length along the stream, he drank deeply, as an Indian who loved mountain water. The glint of gold in the wet sand did not please him as had the sweetness of the cold water. Grasping up a handful of sand and pebbles, he rubbed and washed it in his palm. Tiny grains of gold and little nuggets of gold! Somewhere up at the head of this valley lay the mother lode from which the gold had washed down.

Yaqui knew that here was treasure for which the white men would spill blood and sell their souls. But to the Indians — the Papagos, the Yumas, the man-eating Seris, and especially to the Yaquis — gold was no more than rock or sand, except that they hated it for the curse of white hunters it lured to the desert. Yaqui had found many a rich vein and ledge and placer of gold. He had hated them, and now more than any other he hated this new discovery. It would be a constant peril to his people. In times of flood this mountain stream would carry grains of gold as far as it flowed down on the desert. Yaqui saw in it a menace. But there was hope in the fact that many treasures of the desert heights would never be seen by white men. His father had told him that. This gray valley was high, cradled in the rocky uplands, and it might be inaccessible from below.

Yaqui set out to see. His stride was that of the strongest and tallest of his tribe, and distance meant little to him. Hunger gnawed at his vitals, but the long march across the wastes and heights had not tired him. Yaqui had never known exhaustion. Before the sun stood straight overhead he had ascertained that this valley of promise was shut off from the west and that the stream failed in impassable desert. From north and east he had traveled, and therefore felt a grim security. But to the south he turned apprehensive eyes. Long he tramped and high he climbed, at last to see that the valley, this land of his forefathers, could be gained from the south. Range and ridge sloped gradually to a barren desolate land of sun and cacti, far as his desert eyes could see. That must be the land of the Seris, the man-eaters. But it was a waterless hell in summer. No fear from the south till the winter rains fell! Yaqui returned to his camp, reaching there at sunset. There was joy in the dusky welcoming eyes of his young wife as she placed fresh meat before him.

“Yaqui’s only son will live,” she said, and pointed to the frail boy as he slept. The chief gazed somberly at the little brown face of his son, the last of his race.

Days passed. With rest and food and water the gloomy spirit of the Yaquis underwent a gradual change. The wild valley was an Indian’s happy hunting ground, encompassed by lofty heights known only to sheep and eagles. Like wild animals, all savages, in the peace and loneliness of a secluded region, soon forgot past trials and fears. Still, the chief Yaqui did not forget, but as time passed and nothing disturbed the serenity of this hiding place his vigilance slowly relaxed. The wind and the sun and the solitude and the presence of antelope and wild horses always within sight of camp — these factors of primitive nature had a healing effect upon his sore heart. In the canyons he found graves and bones of his progenitors.

Days passed into weeks. The scarlet blossoms flamed at the long ends of the ocatilla; one morning the pale vordes, which had been bare and shiny green, appeared to have burst into full bloom, a yellow flowering that absorbed the sunlight; cacti opened great buds of magenta; from the canyon walls, on inaccessible ledges, hung the exquisite and rare desert flowers, lluvia d’oro, shower of gold; and many beautiful flowers lifted their faces out of the tall grasses. This magic of spring did not last long. The flowers faded, died, and blew away on the dry wind; the tall grasses slowly yellowed and bleached. Summer came. The glaring sun blazed over the eastern ramparts, burned white down over the still solemn valley, and sank like a huge ball of fire into the distant hazy sea. With the torrid heat of desert Sonora came a sense of absolute security to the chief Yaqui. His new home was locked in the furnace of the sun-blasted waste land. The clear spring of mountain water sank lower and lower, yet it did not fail. The birds and beasts that visited the valley attested to the nature of the surrounding country. So the time came when Yaqui forgot the strange feeling of distant steps upon his trail.

When autumn came all the valley was dry and gray and withered, except the green line along the stream and the perennial freshness of the cactus plants and the everlasting green of the paloverdes. With the winter season came the rains, and a wave of ever-brightening green flushed the vast valley from its eastern height of slope to the far distant mouth, where it opened into the barren breaks of the desert.

Manifestly the god of the Yaquis had not forgotten them. As the months passed child after child was born to the women of the tribe. Yaqui’s dusky-eyed wife bore him a healthy girl baby. As the chief balanced the tiny brown form in his great hand he remembered speech of his own father’s: “Son, let the Yaquis go back to the mountains of the setting sun — to a land free from white men and gold and fire water, to the desert valley where deer graze with horses. There let the Yaquis multiply into a great people or perish from the earth.”

Yaqui watched his girl baby with a gleam of troubled hope lighting in his face. His father had spoken prophecy. There waved the green grass of the broad valley, dotted with wild horses, antelope, and deer grazing among his stock. Here in his hand lay another child — a woman child — and he had believed his son to be the last of his race. It was not too late. The god of the Indian was good. His branch of the Yaquis would mother and father a great people. But even as he fondled his babe the toe of his moccasin stirred grains of gold in the sand.

Love of life lulled Yaqui back into his dreams. To live, to have his people round him, to see his dusky-eyed wife at her work, to watch the little naked children playing in the grass, to look out over that rolling, endless green valley, so wild, so lonely, so fertile — such a proof of god in the desert — to feel the hot sun and the sweet wind and the cool night, to linger on the heights watching, listening, feeling, to stalk the keen-eyed mountain sheep, to eat fresh meat and drink pure water, to rest through the solemn still noons and sleep away the silent melancholy nights, to enjoy the games of his forefathers — wild games of riding and running — to steal off alone into the desert and endure heat, thirst, cold, dust, starvation while he sought the Indian gods hidden in the rocks, to be free of the white man whom he recognized as a superior and a baser being — to live like the eagles — to live — Yaqui asked no more.

Yaqui laid the baby back in the cradle of its mother’s breast and stalked out as a chief to inspire his people.

In that high altitude the morning air was cold, exhilarating, sweet to breathe and wonderful to send the blood racing. Some winter mornings there was just a touch of frost on the leaves. The sunshine was welcome, the day was short, the night was long. Yaqui’s people reverted to their old order of happy primitive life before the white man had come with greed for gold and lust to kill.

The day dawned in which Yaqui took his son out and put him upon a horse. As horsemen the Yaquis excelled all other Indian tribes of the Southwest. Boys were given lessons at an early age and taught to ride bareback. Thus as youths they developed exceeding skill and strength.

Some of the braves had rounded up a band of wild horses and had driven them into a rough rock-walled triangle, a natural trap, the opening of which they had closed with a rude fence. On this morning the Yaquis all assembled to see the wild horses broken. Yaqui, as an inspiration to his little son and to the other boys of the tribe, chose the vicious leader of the band as the horse he would first ride and break. High on the rocky wall perched the black-eyed boys, eager and restless, excited and wondering, some of them naked and all of them stretching out tousled black heads with shining ragged hair flying in the wind. The women and girls of the tribe occupied another position along the outcropping of gray wall, their colorful garments lending contrast to the scene.

The inclosure was wide and long, containing both level and uneven ground, some of which was grass and some sand and rock. A few ironwood trees and one huge paloverde, under which Indians were lolling, afforded shade. At the edge of the highest slope began a line of pine trees that reached up to the bare gray heights.

Yaqui had his braves drive the vicious leader of the wild horses out into the open. It was a stallion, of ungainly shape and rusty color, no longer young. With ugly head high, nostrils distended, mouth open and ears up, showing the white of vicious, fiery eyes, it pranced in the middle of the circle drawn by its captors.

Yaqui advanced with his long leather riata, and, once clear of the ring of horsemen inclosing the stallion, he waved them back. Then as the wild steed plunged to and fro, seeking for an opening in that circle, Yaqui swung the long noose. He missed twice. The third cast caught its mark, the snarling nose of this savage horse. Yaqui hauled the lasso taut. Then with snort of fright the stallion lunged and reared, pawing the air. Yaqui, hauling hand over hand, pulled him down and approached him at the same time. Shuddering all over, breathing with hard snorts, the stallion faced his captor one moment, as if ready to fight. But fear predominated. He leaped away. At the end of that leap, so powerful was the strain on him, he went down in the sand. Up he sprang, wilder than ever, and dashed forward, dragging the Indian, gaining yards of the lasso. But the mounted Yaquis blocked his passage; he had to swerve; and as he ran desperately in a circle once more the giant chief hauled hand over hand on the rope. Suddenly Yaqui bounded in and with a tremendous leap, like the leap of a huge panther, he gained the back of the stallion and seemed to become fixed there. He dropped the lasso, and with the first startled jump of the stallion the noose loosened and slipped off. Except for Yaqui’s great, long brown legs, with their strung bands of muscle set like steel, the stallion was free.

The stallion bolted for the open. Only the rock wall checked his headlong flight. Then he wheeled and ran along the wall, bounding over rocks and ditches, stretching out until, with magnificent stride, he was running at his topmost speed. Along one wall and then the other he dashed, round and round and across, until the moment came when panic succeeded to fury, and then his tremendous energies were directed to the displacement of his rider. Wildly he pitched. With head down, legs stiff, feet together, he plunged over the sand, plowing up the dust, and bounding straight up. But he could not unseat his inexorable rider. Yaqui’s legs banded his belly and were as steel. Then the stallion, now lashed into white lather of sweat and froth, lunged high to paw the air and scream and plunge down to pitch again. His motions soon lost their energy, though not their fury. Then he reached back with eyes of fire and open mouth to bite. Yaqui’s huge fist met him, first on the right, then, as he turned, on the left. Last he plunged to his knees and with rumbling heave of anger he fell on his side, meaning to roll over his rider. But the Yaqui’s leg on that side flashed high while his hands twisted hard in the long mane. When the foiled horse rose again Yaqui rose with him, again fixed tight on his back. Another dash and burst of running, wild and blind this time and plainly losing speed, showed the weakening of the stallion. And the time arrived when, spent and beaten, he fell in the sand.

“Let Yaqui’s son learn to ride like his father,” said the chief to his gleeful, worshiping son.

Then the chief again stalked forth, drawn irresistibly by something in the hour.

“Let Yaqui’s son watch and remember to tell his son’s son,” he said.

He scattered his riders to block the few passages out of the valley and he ordered his son and all the women of the tribe and their children again to climb high on the rocks, there to watch. The Indian gods said this day marked the rejuvenation of their tribe. Let his son, who would be chief some day, and his people, see the great runner of the Yaquis.

Naked except for his moccasins, the giant chief broke into a slow trot that was habitual with him when alone on a trail; and he crossed the stream and the plots of sand, and headed out into the grassy valley where deer grazed with the horses. Yaqui selected the one that appeared largest and strongest of the herd and to it he called in a loud voice, meant as well for the spirit of his forefathers and for his gods, watching and listening from the heights: “Yaqui runs to kill!”

The sleek gray deer left off their grazing and stood at gaze, with long ears erect. Then they bounded off. Yaqui broke from his trot into a long, swinging lope and the length of his stride was such that he seemed to fly over the ground. Up the valley the deer scattered and Yaqui ran in the trail of the one to which he had called. Half a mile off it halted to look back. Then it grazed a little, but soon lifted its head to look again. Yaqui ran on at the same easy, distance-devouring stride. Presently the deer dashed away and kept on until it was a mere speck in Yaqui’s eyes. It climbed a deer trail that led over the heights, to be turned back there by one of Yaqui’s braves. Then it crossed the wide valley to be turned back by insurmountable cliffs. Yaqui kept it in sight and watched it trot and stop, run and walk and stop again, all the way up the long grassy slope toward the head of the valley.

Here among rocks and trees Yaqui lost sight of his quarry, but he trailed it with scarcely a slackening of his pace. At length, coming out upon a level open bench, he saw the deer he had chosen to run to death. It was looking back.

Down the grassy middle of the vast valley, clear to the mouth where the stream tumbled off into space, across the wide level from slope to slope, back under the beetling heights, Yaqui pursued the doomed deer.

Leagues and leagues of fleet running had availed the deer nothing. It could not shake off the man. More and more the distance between them lessened. Terror now added to the gradual exhaustion of the four-footed creature, designed by Nature to escape its foes. Yaqui, perfect in all the primal attributes of man, was its superior. The race was not to the swift but to the enduring.

Within sight of his people and his little son Yaqui overtook the staggering deer and broke its neck with his naked hands. Then for an instant he stood erect over his fallen quarry, a tall and gaunt giant, bathed in the weird afterglow of sunset; and he lifted a long arm to the heights, as if calling upon his spirits there to gaze down upon the victory of the red man.

II

It was toward evening of another day, all the hours of which had haunted Yaqui with a nameless oppression. Like a deer that scented a faint strange taint on the pure air Yaqui pointed his sensitive nose toward the east, whence came the soft wind.

Suddenly his strong vision quivered to the movement of distant objects on the southern slope. Halting, he fixed his gaze. Long line of moving dots! Neither deer nor sheep nor antelope traveled in that formation. The objects were men. Yaqui’s magnified sight caught the glint of sunset red on shining guns. Mexican soldiers! That nameless haunting fear of the south, long lulled, now had its fulfillment.

Yaqui leaped with gigantic bounds down the slope. Like an antelope he sprang over rocks and dips, and once on the grassy downs he ran the swiftest race of his life. His piercing yells warned his people in time to save them from being surprised by the soldiers. The first shots of combat were fired as he hurdled the several courses of the stream. Yaqui saw the running and crawling forms of men in dusty blue — saw them aim short carbines — saw spurts of flame and puffs of smoke.

Yaqui’s last few bounds carried him into the stonewalled encampment, and the whistling bullets that missed him told how the line of soldiers was spreading to surround the place. Yaqui flung himself behind the wall and crawled to where his braves knelt with guns and bows ready. Some of them were shooting. The women and children were huddled somewhere out of sight. Steel-jacketed bullets cracked on the rocks and whined away. Yaqui knew how poor was the marksmanship of the Mexicans; nevertheless it seemed to him they were shooting high. The position of the Indians was open to fire from several angles.

During a lull in the firing a hoarse yell pealed out. Yaqui knew Spanish. “Surrender, Yaquis!” was the command. The Yaquis answered by well-aimed bullets that brought sharp cries from the soldiers. Soon the encampment appeared entirely surrounded. Reports came from all sides and bullets whistled high, spatting into the trees. Then occurred another lull in the firing. Again a voice pealed out: “Surrender, Yaquis, save your lives!”

The Indians recognized their doom. Each man had only a few shells for his gun. Many had only bows and arrows. They would be shot like wolves in a trap. But no Yaqui spoke a word.

Nevertheless, when darkness put an end to their shooting there were only a few who had a shell left. The Mexicans grasped the situation and grew bold. They built fires off under the trees. They crept down to the walls and threw stones into the encampment and yelled derisively: “Yaqui dogs!” They kept up a desultory shooting from all sides as if to make known to the Indians that they were surrounded and vigilantly watched.

At dawn the Mexicans began another heavy volleying, firing into the encampment without aim but with deadly intent. Then, yelling their racial hatred of the Yaquis, they charged the camp. It was an unequal battle. Outnumbered and without ammunition the Yaquis fought a desperate but losing fight. One by one they were set upon by several, sometimes by half a dozen, Mexicans and killed or beaten into insensibility.

Yaqui formed the center of several storms of conflict. With clubbed rifle he was like a giant fighting down a horde of little men.

“Kill the big devil!” cried a soldier.

From the thick of that melee sounded Spanish curses and maledictions and dull thuds and groans as well. The Yaqui was a match for all that could surround him. A Mexican fired a pistol. Then the officer came running to knock aside the weapon. He shouted to his men to capture the Yaqui chief. The Mexicans pressed closer, dodging the sweeping rifle, and one of them plunged at the heels of the Indian. Another did likewise and they tripped up the giant, who was then piled upon by a number of cursing soldiers. Like a mad bull Yaqui heaved and tossed, but to no avail. He was overpowered and bound with a lasso, and tied upright to the paloverde under which he had so often rested.

His capture ended the battle. And the Mexicans began to run about, searching. Daylight had come. From under a ledge of rock the Indian women and children were driven. One lithe, quick boy eluded the soldiers. He slipped out of their hands and ran. As he looked back over his shoulder his dark face shone wildly. It was Yaqui’s son. Like a deer he ran, not heeding the stern calls to halt. “Shoot!” ordered the officer. Then the soldiers leveled rifles and began to fire. Puffs of dust struck up behind, beside and beyond that flying form. But none hit him. They shot at him until he appeared to be out of range. And all eyes watched him flee. Then a last bullet struck its flying mark. The watchers heard a shrill cry of agony and saw the lad fall.

All the Indians were tied hand and foot and herded into a small space and guarded as if they had been wild cattle.

After several hours of resting and feasting and celebrating what manifestly was regarded as a great victory, the officer ordered the capture of horses and the burning of effects not transportable. Soon the beautiful encampment of the Yaquis was a scene of blackened and smoking ruin. Then, driving the Yaquis in a herd before them, the Mexicans, most of them now mounted on Indian horses, faced the ascent of the slope by which they had entered the valley.

Far down that ragged mountain slope the Mexicans halted at the camp they had left when they made their attack on the Yaquis. Mules and burros, packsaddles and camp duffel occupied a dusty bench upon which there grew a scant vegetation. All round were black slopes of ragged lava and patches of glistening white cholla.

The Yaquis received but little water and food, no blankets to sleep on, no rest from tight bonds, no bandaging of their fly-tormented wounds. But they bore their ills as if they had none.

Yaqui sat with his back to a stone and when unobserved by the guards he would whisper to those of his people nearest to him. Impassively but with intent faces they listened. His words had some strange, powerful, sustaining effect. And all the time his inscrutable gaze swept down off the lava heights to the hazy blue gulf of the sea.

Dawn disclosed the fact that two of the Yaquis were badly wounded and could not be driven to make a start. Perhaps they meant to force the death that awaited them farther down the trail; perhaps they were absorbed in the morbid gloom of pain and departing strength. At last the officer, weary of his subordinate’s failure to stir these men, dragged at them himself, kicked and beat them, cursing the while. “Yaqui dogs! You go to the henequen fields!”

The older of these wounded Indians, a man of lofty stature and mien, suddenly arose. Swiftly his brown arm flashed. He grasped a billet of wood from a packsaddle and struck the officer down. The blow lacked force. It was evident that the Yaqui, for all his magnificent spirit, could scarcely stand. Excitedly the soldiers yelled, and some brandished weapons. The officer staggered to his feet, livid and furious, snarling like a dog, and ordering his men to hold back, he drew a pistol to kill the Yaqui. The scorn, the contempt, the serenity of the Indian, instead of rousing his respect, incurred a fury which demanded more than death.

“You shall walk the cholla torture!” he shrieked, waving his pistol in the air.

In northwest Mexico, for longer than the oldest inhabitant could remember, there bad been a notorious rumor of the cholla torture that the Yaquis meted out to their Mexican captives. This cholla torture consisted of ripping the skin off the soles of Mexicans’ feet and driving them to walk upon the cactus beds until they died.

The two wounded Indians, with bleeding raw feet, were dragged to the cholla torture. They walked the white, glistening, needle-spiked beds of cholla blind to the cruel jeers and mute wonderment and vile maledictions of their hereditary foes. The giant Yaqui who had struck down the officer stalked unaided across the beds of dry cholla. The cones cracked like live bits of steel. They collected on the Yaqui’s feet until he was lifting pads of cactus. He walked erect, with a quivering of all the muscles of his naked bronze body, and his dark face was set in a terrible hardness of scorn for his murderers.

Then when the mass of cactus cones adhering to the Yaqui’s feet grew so heavy that he became anchored in his tracks the Mexican officer, with a fury that was not all hate, ordered his soldiers to dispatch these two Indians, who were beyond the reach of a torture hideous and appalling to all Mexicans. Yaqui, the chief, looked on inscrutably, towering above the bowed heads of his women.

This execution sobered the soldiers. Not only extermination did they mean to mete out to the Yaqui, but an extermination of horrible toil, by which the Mexicans were to profit.

Montes, a Brazilian, lolled in the shady spot on the dock. The hot sun of Yucatan was more than enough for him. The still air reeked with a hot pungent odor of henequen. Montes had learned to hate the smell. He was in Yucatan on a mission for the Brazilian government and also as an agent to study the sisal product — an advantageous business for him, to which he had devoted himself with enthusiasm and energy.

But two unforeseen circumstances had disturbed him of late and rendered less happy his devotion to his tasks. His vanity had been piqued, his pride had been hurt, his heart had been stormed by one of Merida’s coquettish beauties. And the plight of the poor Yaqui Indians, slaves in the henequen fields, had so roused his compassion that he had neglected his work.

So, as Montes idled there in the shade, with his legs dangling over the dock, a time came in his reflection when he was confronted with a choice between the longing to go home and a strange desire to stay. He gazed out into the gulf. The gunboat Esyeranza had come to anchor in the roads off Progreso. She had a cargo of human freight — Yaqui Indian prisoners from the wild plateaus of Northern Sonora — more slaves to be broken in the terrible henequen fields. At that moment of Montes’s indecision he espied Lieutenant Perez coming down the dock at the head of a file of rurales.

Gazing at Perez intently, the Brazilian experienced a slight cold shock of decision. He would prolong his stay in Yucatan. Strange was the nameless something that haunted him. Jealous curiosity, he called it, bitterly. Perez had the favor of the proud mother of Señorita Dolores Mendoza, the coquettish beauty who had smiled upon Montes. She cared no more for Perez than she cared for him or any of the young bloods of Merida. But she would marry Perez.

Montes rose and stepped out of the shade. His commission in Yucatan put him on common ground with Perez, but he had always felt looked down upon by this little Yucatecan.

“Buenos dias, señor,” replied Perez to his greeting. “More Yaquis.”

A barge was made fast to the end of the dock and the Yaquis driven off and held there in a closely guarded group.

The time came when Perez halted the loading of henequen long enough to allow the prisoners to march up the dock between files of rurales. They passed under the shadows of the huge warehouses, out into a glaring square where the bare sand radiated veils of heat.

At an order from Perez, soldiers began separating the Yaqui women and children from the men. They were formed in two lines. Then Perez went among them, pointing out one, then another.

Montes suddenly grasped the significance of this scene and it had strange effect upon him. Yaqui father and son — husband and wife — mother and child did not yet realize that here they were to be parted — that this separation was forever. Then one young woman, tall, with striking dark face, beautiful with the grace of some wild creature, instinctively divined the truth and she cried out hoarsely. The silence, the stoicism of these Indians seemed broken. This woman had a baby in her arms. Running across the aisle of sand, she faced a huge Yaqui and cried aloud in poignant broken speech. This giant was her husband and the father of that dusky-eyed baby. He spoke, laid a hand on her and stepped out. Perez, who had been at the other end of the aisle, saw the movement and strode toward them.

“Back, Yaqui dogs!” he yelled stridently, and he flashed his bright sword.

With tremendous stride the Yaqui reached Perez and towered over him.

“Capitan, let my wife and child go where Yaqui goes,” demanded the Indian in deep voice of sonorous dignity. His Spanish was well spoken. His bearing was that of a chief. He asked what seemed his right, even of a ruthless enemy.

But Perez saw nothing but affront to his authority. At his order the rurales clubbed Yaqui back into his squad. They would have done the same for the stricken wife, had she not backed away from their threatening advances. She had time for a long agonized look into the terrible face of her husband. Then she was driven away in one squad and he was left in the other.

Montes thought he would forever carry in memory the tragic face of that Yaqui’s wife. Indians had hearts and souls the same as white people. It was a ridiculous and extraordinary and base thing to be callous to the truth. Montes had spent not a little time in the pampas among the Gauchos and for that bold race he had admiration and respect. Indeed, coming to think about it, the Gauchos resembled these Yaquis. Montes took the trouble to go among English and American acquaintances he had made in Progreso, and learned more about this oppressed tribe.

The vast plateau of northwestern Mexico, a desert and mountainous region rich in minerals, was the home of the Yaquis. For more than one hundred and sixty years there had been war between the Yaquis and the Mexicans. And recently, following a bloody raid credited to the Yaquis, the government that happened to be in power determined to exterminate them. To that end it was hunting the Indians down, killing those who resisted capture, and sending the rest to the torture of the henequen fields.

But more interesting was the new information that Montes gathered. The Yaquis were an extraordinary, able-bodied, and intelligent people. Most of them spoke Spanish. They had many aboriginal customs and beliefs, but some were Roman Catholics. The braves made better miners and laborers than white men. Moreover, they possessed singular mechanical gifts and quickly learned to operate machines more efficiently than most whites. They possessed wonderful physical development and a marvelous endurance. At sixty years Yaquis had perfectly sound white teeth and hair as black as night. These desert men could travel seventy miles on foot in one day with only a bag of pinole. Water they could do without for days. And it was said that some of the Yaqui runners performed feats of speed, strength, and endurance beyond credence. Montes, remembering the seven-foot stature of that Yaqui chief and the spread of shoulders and the wonder of his spare lithe limbs, thought that he could believe much.

The act of Perez in deliberately parting the chief from his loved ones was cruel and despicable; and it seemed to establish in Montes’s mind an excuse for the disgust and hate he had come to feel for the tyrannical little officer. But, being frank with himself, Montes confessed that this act had only fixed a hate he already had acquired.

The Brazilian convinced himself that he had intuitively grasped a portent apparently lost on Perez. One of those silent, intent-faced Yaquis was going to kill this epauleted scion of a rich Yucatecan house. Montes had read it in these faces. He had lived among the blood-spilling Gauchos and he knew the menace of silent fierce savages. And he did not make any bones about the admission to himself that he hoped some Yaqui would kill the peacocked Mexican. Montes had Spanish in him, and something of the raw passion of the Gauchos he admired; and it suited him to absorb this morbid presentiment. The Yaqui chief fascinated him, impelled him. Montes determined to learn where this giant had been sent and to watch him, win his confidence, if such a thing was possible. Quién sabe? Montes felt more reasons than one for his desire to get under the skin of this big Yaqui.

III

In the interior of Yucatan there were vast barren areas of land fit only for the production of henequen. Nothing but jungle and henequen would grow there. It was a limestone country. The soil could not absorb water. It soaked through. Here and there, miles apart, were cenotes, underground caverns full of water, and usually these marked the location of a hacienda of one of the rich planters. The climate was hot, humid, and for any people used to high altitudes it spelled death.

The plantation of Don Sancho Perez, father of the young lieutenant, consisted of fifty thousand acres. It adjoined the hundred-thousand-acre tract of Donna Isabel Mendoza. The old Don was ambitious to merge the plantations into one, so that he could dominate the fiber output of that region. To this end he had long sought to win for his son the hand of Donna Isabel’s beautiful daughter.

The big Yaqui Indian who had been wantonly separated from his wife by young Perez was in the squad of prisoners that had been picked out by the young officer to work on his father’s plantation.

They were manacled at night and herded like wild beasts into a pen and watched by armed guards. They were routed out at dawn and put to work in the fiber fields. For food they had, each of them, a single lump of coarse soggy bread — one lump once every day. When the weaker among them began to lag, to slow down, to sicken, they were whipped to their tasks.[*]

[* Recently the Mexican government changed its policy toward peon labor in Yucatan, and the Yaquis in Sonora. These Indians are now in the regular Mexican army. (AUTHOR’S NOTE.)]

Yaqui knew that never again would he see his wife and baby — never hear from them — never know what became of them. He was worked like a galley slave, all the harder because of his great strength and endurance. He would be driven until he broke down.

Yaqui’s work consisted of cutting henequen fiber leaves. He had a curved machete and he walked down the endless aisles between the lines of great century plants and from each plant he cut the lower circle of leaves. Each plant gave him a heavy load and he carried it to the nearest one of the hand-car tracks that crossed the plantation. The work of other Indians was to push hand cars along these tracks and gather the loads.

It took Yaqui six days to cut along the length of one aisle. And as far as he could see stretched a vast, hot, green wilderness with its never-ending lines and lanes, its labyrinthine maze of intersecting aisles, its hazy, copper-hued horizons speared and spiked by the great bayonet-like leaves. He had been born and raised on the rugged mountain plateaus far to the north, where the clear, sweet, cold morning air stung and the midday sun was only warm to his back, where there were grass and water and flowers and trees, where the purple canyons yawned and the black peaks searched the sky. Here he was chained in the thick, hot, moist night, where the air was foul, and driven out in the long day under a fiery sun, where the henequen reeked and his breath clogged in his throat and his eyes were burning balls and his bare feet were like rotting hoofs.

Yaqui knew that never again would he see his wife and baby — never hear from them — never know what became of them.

The time came when Montes saw that the Yaqui looked no more toward that northland which he would never see again. He dreamed no more hopeless dreams. Somehow he knew when his wife and baby were no more a part of him on the earth. For something within him died and there were strange, silent voices at his elbow. He listened to them. And in the depths of his being there boiled a maelstrom of blood. He worked on and waited.

At night in the close-crowded filthy pen, with the dampness of tropical dews stealing in, and all about him the silent prostrate forms of his stricken people, he lay awake and waited enduringly through the long hours till a fitful sleep came to him. By day in the henequen fields, with the furnace blasts of wind swirling down the aisles, with the moans of his beaten and failing comrades full in his ears, he waited with a Yaqui’s patience.

He saw his people beaten and scourged and starved. He saw them sicken and fail — wilt under the hot sun — die in the henequen aisles — and be thrown like dogs into ditches with quicklime. One by one they went and when they were nearly all gone another squad took their places. The Yaqui recognized Indians of other tribes of his race. But they did not know him. He had greatly changed. Only the shell of him was left. And that seemed unbreakable, deathless. He did not tell these newcomers to the fields what torture lay in store for them. He might have been dumb. He only waited, adding day by day, in the horror of the last throes of his old comrades, something more to that hell in his blood. He watched them die and then the beginning of the end for his new comrades. They were doomed. They were to be driven till they dropped. And others would be brought to fill their places, till at last there were no Yaquis left. The sun was setting for his race.

The Yaqui and his fellow toilers had one day of rest — the Sabbath. There was no freedom. And always there were guards and soldiers. Sunday was the day of bull fights in the great corral at the hacienda. And on these occasions Yaqui was given extra work. Montes knew the Indian looked forward to this day. The old Don’s son, Lieutenant Perez, would come down from the city to attend the fight. Then surely Yaqui fed his dark soul with more cunning, more patience, more promise.

It was the Yaqui’s work to help drag disemboweled and dying horses from the bull ring and to return with sand to cover up the gory spots in the arena. Often Montes saw him look up at the crowded circle of seats and at the box where the gray old Don and his people and friends watched the spectacle. There were handsome women with white lace over their heads and in whose dark and slumberous eyes lurked something the Yaqui knew. It was something that was in the race. Lieutenant Perez was there leaning toward the proud señorita. The Indian watched her with strange intensity. She appeared indifferent to the efforts of the picadores and the banderilleros, those men in the arena whose duty it was to infuriate the bull for the artist with the sword — the matador. When he appeared the beautiful señorita wakened to interest. But not until there was blood on the bright blade did she show the fire and passion of her nature. It was sight of blood that quickened her. It was death, then, that she wanted to see.

And last the Yaqui let his gaze rivet on the dark, arrogant visage of young Perez. Did not the great chief then become superhuman, or was it only Montes’s morbid fancy? When Yaqui turned away, did he not feel a promise of fulfillment in the red haze of the afternoon sun, in the red tinge of the stained sand, in the red and dripping tongue of the tortured bull? Montes knew the Yaqui only needed to live long enough and there would be something. And death seemed aloof from this Indian. The ferocity of the desert was in him and its incalculable force of life. In his eyes had burned a seared memory of the violent thrust with which Perez had driven his wife and baby forever from his sight.

Montes’s changed attitude evidently found favor in the proud señorita’s eyes. She had but trifled with an earnest and humble suitor; to the advances of a man, bold, ardent, strange, with something unfathomable in his wooing, she was not indifferent. The fact did not cool Montes’s passion, but it changed him somehow. The Spanish in him was the part that so ardently loved and hated; his mother had been French, and from her he had inherited qualities that kept him eternally in conflict with his instincts.

Montes had his living quarters in Merida, where all the rich henequen planters had town houses. It was not a long horseback ride out to the haciendas of the two families in which Montes had become most interested. His habit of late, after returning from a visit to the henequen fields, had been to choose the early warm hours of the afternoon to call upon Señorita Mendoza. There had been a time when his calls had been formally received by the Donna Isabel, but of late she had persisted in her siesta, leaving Montes to Dolores. Montes had grasped the significance of this — the future of Dolores had been settled and there no longer was risk in leaving her alone. But Montes had developed a theory that the future of any young woman was an uncertainty.

The Mendoza town house stood in the outskirts of fashionable Merida. The streets were white, the houses were white, the native Mayan women wore white, and always it seemed to Montes as he took the familiar walk that the white sun blazed down on an immaculate city. But there were dark records against the purity of Merida and the Yaqui slave driving was one of them. The Mendoza mansion had been built with money coining from the henequen fields. It stood high on a knoll, a stately white structure looking down upon a formal garden, where white pillars and statues gleamed among green palms and bowers of red roses. At the entrance, on each side of the wide flagstone walk, stood a huge henequen plant.

On this day the family was in town and Montes expected that the señorita would see him coining. He derived pleasure from the assurance that, compared with Perez, he was someone good to look at. Beside him the officer was a swarthy undersized youth. But Montes failed to see the white figure of the girl and suffered chagrin for his vanity.

The day was warm. As he climbed the high, wide stone steps his brow grew moist and an oppression weighed upon him. Only in the very early morning here in Yucatan did he ever have any energy. The climate was enervating. No wonder it was that servants and people slept away the warmer hours. Crossing the broad stone court and the spacious outside hall, Montes entered the dim, dark, musty parlors and passed through to the patio.

Here all was colorful luxuriance of grass and flower and palm, great still ferns and trailing vines. It was not cool, but shady and moist. Only a soft spray of falling water and a humming of bees disturbed the deep silence. The place seemed drowned in sweet fragrance, rich and subtle, thickening the air so that it was difficult to breathe. In a bower roofed by roses lay Señorita Mendoza, asleep in a hammock.

Softly Montes made his way to her side and stood looking down at her. As a picture, as something feminine, beautiful and young and soft and fresh and alluring, asleep and therefore sincere, she seemed all that was desirable. Dolores Mendoza was an unusual type for a Yucatecan of Spanish descent. She was blond. Her hair was not golden, yet nearly so; she had a broad, low, beautiful brow, with level eyebrows, and the effect of her closed lids was fascinating with their promise; her nose was small, straight, piquant, with delicate nostrils that showed they could quiver and dilate; her mouth, the best feature of her beauty, was as red as the roses that drooped over her, and its short curved upper lip seemed full, sweet, sensuous. She had the oval face of her class, but fair, not olive-skinned, and her chin, though it did not detract from her charms, was far from being strong. Perhaps her greatest attraction, seen thus in the slumber of abandon, was her slender form, round-limbed and graceful.

Montes gazed at her until he felt a bitterness of revolt against the deceit of Nature. She gladdened all the senses of man. But somehow she seemed false to the effect she created. If he watched her long in this beautiful guise of sleep he would deaden his intelligence. She was not for him. So he pulled a red rose and pushed it against her lips, playfully tapping them until she awoke. Her eyes unclosed. They were a surprise. They should have been blue, but they were tawny. Sleepy, dreamy, wonderful cat eyes they were, clear and soft, windows of the truth of her nature. Montes suddenly felt safe again, sure of himself,

“Ah, Señor Montes,” she said. “You found me asleep. How long have you been here?”

“A long time, I think,” he replied, as he seated himself on a bench near her hammock. “Watching you asleep, I forgot time. But alas! time flies — and you awoke.”

Dolores laughed. She had perfect white teeth that looked made to bite and enjoy biting. Her smile added to her charm.

“Sir, one would think you liked me best asleep.”

“I do. You are always beautiful, Dolores. But when you are asleep you seem sincere. Now you are — Dolores Mendoza.”

“Who is sincere? You are not,” she retorted. “I don’t know you any more. You seem to try to make me dissatisfied with myself.”

“So you ought to be.”

“Why? Because I cannot run away with you to Brazil?”

“No. Because you look like an angel but are not one. Because your beauty, your charm, your sweetness deceive men. You seem the incarnation of love and joy.”

“Ah!” she cried, stretching out her round arms and drawing a deep breath that swelled her white neck. “You are jealous. But I am happy. I have what I want. I am young and I enjoy. I love to be admired. I love to be loved. I love jewels, gowns, all I have, pleasure, excitement, music, flowers. I love to eat. I love to be idle, lazy, dreamy. I love to sleep. And you, horrid man, awake me to make me think.”

“That is impossible, Dolores,” he replied. “You cannot think.”

“My mind works pretty well. But I’ll admit I’m a little animal — a tawny-eyed cat. So, Montes, you must stroke me the right way or I will scratch.”

“Well, I’d rather you scratched,” said Montes. “A man likes a woman who loves him tenderly and passionately one moment and tears his hair out the next.”

“You know, of course, señor,” she replied mockingly. “The little Alva girl, for instance. You admired her. Perhaps she—”

“She is adorable,” he returned complacently. “I go to her for consolation.”

Dolores made a sharp passionate gesture, a contrast to her usual languorous movements. Into the sleepy, tawny eyes shot a dilating fire.

“Have you made love to her?” she demanded.

“Dolores, do you imagine any man could resist that girl?” he rejoined.

“Have you?” she repeated with heaving breast.

Montes discarded his tantalizing lightness. “No, Dolores, I have not. I have lived in a torment lately. My love for you seems turning to hate.”

“No!” she cried, extending her hands. She softened. Her lips parted. If there were depths in her, Montes had sounded them.

“Dolores, tell me the truth,” he said, taking her hands. “You have never been true.”

“I am true to my family. They chose Perez for me to marry — before I ever knew you. It is settled. I shall marry him. But—”

“But! Dolores, you love me?”

She drooped her head. “Yes, señor — lately it has come to that. Ah! Don’t — don’t! Montes, I beg of you! You forget — I’m engaged to Perez.”

Montes released her. In her confession and resistance there was proof of his injustice. She was no nobler than her class. She was a butterfly in her fancies, a little cat in her greedy joy of physical life. But in her agitation he saw a deeper spirit.

“Dolores, if I had come first — before Perez — would you have given yourself to me?” he asked.

“Ah, señor, with all my heart!” she replied softly.

“Dearest — I think I must ask you to forgive me for — for something I can’t confess. And now tell me — this reception given to-morrow by your mother — is that to announce your engagement to Perez?”

“Yes and I will be free then till fall — when — when—”

“When you will be married?”

She bowed assent and hesitatingly slid a white hand toward him.

“Fall! It’s a long time. Dolores, I must go back to Brazil.”

“Ah, señor, that will kill me! Stay!” she entreated.

“But it would be dangerous. Perez dislikes me. I hate him. Something terrible might come of it.”

“That is his risk. I have consented to marry him. I will do my duty before and after. But I see no reason why I may not have a little happiness — of my own — until that day comes. Life for me will not contain all I could wish. I told you; now I am happy. But you were included. Señor, if you love me you will remain.”

“Dolores, can you think we will not suffer more?” he asked.

“I know we will afterward. But we shall not now.”

“Now is perilous to me. To realize you love me! I did not think you capable of it. Listen! Something — something might prevent your marriage — or happen afterward. All — all is so uncertain.”

“Quién sabe?” she whispered; and to the tawny, sleepy languor of her eyes there came a fancy, a dream, a mystic hope.

“Dolores, if Perez were lost to you — one way or another — would you marry me?” he broke out huskily. Not until then had he asked her hand in marriage.

“If such forlorn hope will make you stay — make you happy — yes, Señor Montes,” was her answer.

There came a time when Yaqui was needed in the factory where the henequen fiber was extracted from the leaves. He had come to be a valuable machine — an instrument of toil that did not run down or go wrong. One guard said to another: “That big black peon takes a lot of killing!” and then ceased to watch him closely. He might have escaped. He might have crossed the miles and miles of henequen fields to the jungle, and under that dense cover had made his way northward to the coast. Yaqui had many a chance. But he never looked toward the north.

At first they put him to feeding henequen leaves into the maw of a crushing machine. The juicy, sticky, odorous substance of the big twenty -pound leaf was squeezed into a pulp, out of which came the white glistening threads of fiber. These fibers made sisal rope — rope second in quality only to the manila.

By and by he was promoted. They put him in the pressing room to work on the ponderous iron press which was used to make the henequen bales. This machine was a high, strange-looking object, oblong in shape, like a box, opening in the middle from the top down. It had several distinct movements, all operated by levers. Long bundles of henequen were carried in from the racks and laid in the press until it was half full. Then a lever was pulled, the machine closed on the fiber and opened again. This operation was repeated again and again. Then it was necessary for the operator to step from his platform upon the fiber in the machine and stamp it down and jump upon it and press it closely all round. When this had been done the last time the machine seemed wide open and stuffed so full that it would never close. But when the lever was pulled the ponderous steel jaws shut closer and closer and locked. Then the sides fell away, to disclose a great smooth bale of henequen ready for shipment.

The Yaqui learned to operate this press so skillfully that the work was left to him. When his carriers went out to the racks for more fiber he was left alone in the room.

Some strange relation sprang up between Yaqui and his fiber press. For him it never failed to operate. He knew to a strand just how much fiber made a perfect bale. And he became so accurate that his bales were never weighed. They came out glistening, white, perfect to the pound. There was a strange affinity between this massive, steel-jawed engine and something that lived in the Yaqui’s heart, implacable and immutable, appalling in its strength to wait, in its power to crush.

IV

There seemed no failing of the endurance of this primitive giant, but his great frame had wasted away until it was a mere hulk. Owing to his value now to the hacienda, Yaqui was given rations in lieu of the ball of soggy bread; they were not, however, what the Indian needed. Montes at last won Yaqui’s gratitude.

“Señor, if Yaqui wanted to eat it would be meat he needed,” said the chief. Then Montes added meat to the wine, bread, and fruit he secretly brought to the Indian.

When Montes began covert kindnesses to the poor Yaqui slaves the chief showed gratitude and pathos: “Señor Montes is good — but the sun of the Yaquis is setting.”

Perez in his triumphant arrogance evidently derived pleasure from being magnanimous to the man he instinctively knew was his rival.

One day at the hacienda when Montes rode up to meet Donna Isabel and Dolores he found them accompanied by Perez and his parents. Almost immediately the young officer suggested gayly:

“Señor, pray carry Dolores off somewhere. My father has something to plan with Donna Isabel. It must be a secret from Dolores. Take her a walk — talk to her, señor — keep her excited — make love to her!”

“I shall be happy to obey. Will you come, señorita?” said Montes.

If they expected Dolores to pout, they were mistaken. Her slow, sleepy glance left the face of her future husband as she turned away silently to accompany Montes. They walked along the palm-shaded road, out toward the huge, open, sunny space that was the henequen domain.

“I hate Perez,” she burst out suddenly. “He meant to taunt you. He thinks I am his slave — a creature without mind or heart. Señor, make love to me!”

“You will be his slave — soon,” whispered Montes bitterly.

“Never!” she exclaimed passionately.

They readied the end of the shady road. The mill was silent. Montes saw the Indian standing motionless close at hand, in the shade of the henequen racks.

“Dolores, did you mean what you just said?” asked Montes eagerly.

“That I will never be Perez’s slave?”

“No; the other thing you said.”

“Yes, I did,” she replied. “Make love to me, señor. It was his wish. I must learn to obey.”

With sullen scorn she spoke, not looking at Montes, scarcely realizing the actual purport of her speech. But when Montes took her in his arms she started back with a cry. He held her. And suddenly clasping her tightly he bent his head to kiss the red lips she opened to protest.

“Let me go!” she begged wildly. “Oh — I did not — mean — Montes, not so! Do not make me—”

“Kiss me!” whispered Montes hoarsely, “or I’ll never let you go. It was his wish. Come, I dare you — I beg you!”

One wild moment she responded to his kiss, and then she thrust him away.

“Ah, by the saints!” she murmured with hands over her face. “Now I will love you more — my heart will break.”

“Dolores, I can’t let Perez have you,” declared Montes miserably.

“Too late, my dear. I am to be his wife.”

“But you love me, Dolores?”

“Alas! too true. I do. Oh, I never knew how well!” she cried.

“Let us run away,” he implored eagerly.

Mournfully she shook her head, and looking up suddenly she espied the Yaqui. His great burning cavernous eyes, like black fire, were fixed upon her.

“Oh, that terrible Yaqui,” she whispered. “It is he who watches us at the bull fights — Let us go, Montes — Oh, he saw us — he saw me — Come!”

Upon their return to the house the old Don greeted them effusively. He seemed radiant with happiness. He had united two of the first families of Yucatan, which unison would make the greatest henequen plantation. The beautiful señorita had other admirers. But this marriage had unusual advantages. The peculiar location and productiveness of the plantations and the obstacles to greater and quicker output that would be done away with, and the fact that Lieutenant Perez through his military influence could work the fields with peon labor — these facts had carried the balance in favor of the marriage. The old Don manifestly regarded the arrangement as a victory for him which he owed to the henequen, and he had decided to make the wedding day one on which the rich product of the plantation should play a most important part.

“But how to bring in the henequen!” he concluded in perplexity. “I’ve racked my brain. Son, I leave it to you.”

Young Perez magnificently waved the question aside. Possessing himself of his fiancee’s reluctant hand, he spoke in a whisper audible to Montes. “We planned the wedding presents. That was the secret. But you shall not see — not know — until we are married!”

Montes dropped his eyes and his brow knit thoughtfully. Later, as a peon brought his horse, he called Perez aside.

“I’ve an idea,” he said confidentially. “Have Yaqui select the most perfect henequen fiber to make the most beautiful and perfect bale of henequen ever pressed. Have Yaqui place the wedding presents inside the bale before the final pressing. Then send it to Donna Isabel’s house after the wedding and open it there.”

Young Perez clapped his hands in delight. What a capital plan! He complimented Montes and thanked him and asked him to keep secret the idea. Indeed, the young lieutenant waxed enthusiastic over the plan. It would be unique; it would be fitting to the occasion. Perez would have Yaqui pick over and select from the racks the most perfect fibers, to be laid aside. Perez would go himself to watch Yaqui at his work. He would have Yaqui practice the operation of pressing, so at the momentous hour there could be no hitch. And on the wedding day Perez would carry the presents himself. No hands but his own would be trusted with those jewels, especially the exquisite pearls that were his own particular gift.

At last the day arrived for the wedding. It was to be a holiday. Yaqui alone was not to lie idle. It was to fall to him to press that bale of henequen and to haul it to the bride’s home.

But Perez did not receive all his gifts when he wanted them. Messengers arrived late and some were yet to come. He went to the mill, however, and put Yaqui to work at packing the henequen in the press and building it up. The Indian was bidden to go so far with the bale, leaving a great hole in the middle for the gifts and to have the rest of the fiber all ready to pack and press. Perez would not trust anyone else with his precious secret; he himself would hurry down with the gifts, and secretly, for the manner of presentation was to be a great surprise.

Blue was the sky, white gold the sun, and the breeze waved the palms. But for Montes an invisible shadow hovered over the stately Mendoza mansion where Dolores was to be made a bride. The shadow existed in his mind and took mystic shape — now a vast, copper-hazed, green-spiked plain of henequen, and then the spectral gigantic shape of a toiling man, gaunt, grim, and fire-eyed.

Montes hid his heavy heart behind smiling lips and the speech of a courtier. He steeled himself against a nameless and portending shock, waiting for it even when his mind scorned the delusion. But the shock did not come at sight of Señorita Dolores, magnificently gowned in white, beautiful, serene, imperious, with her proud, tawny eyes and proud, red lips. Nor when those sleepy strange eyes met his. Nor when the priest ended the ceremony that made her a wife.

He noted when Lieutenant Perez laughingly fought his way out of the crowd and disappeared. Then the unrest of Montes became a haunting suspense.

By and by the guests were directed out to the shaded west terrace, where in the center of the wide stoned space lay a huge white glistening bale of henequen. Beside it stood the giant Yaqui, dark, motionless, aloof. The guests clustered round.

When Montes saw the Yaqui like a statue beside the bale of henequen, he sustained the shock for which he had been waiting. He slipped to the front of the circle of guests.

“Ah!” exclaimed the old Don, eying the bale of henequen with great satisfaction. “This is the surprise our son had in store for us. Here is the jewel case — here are the wedding presents!”

The guests laughed and murmured their compliments.

“Where is Señor Perez?” demanded the Don as he looked round.

“The boy is hiding,” replied Donna Isabel. “He wants to watch his bride when she sees the gifts.”

“No — he would not be there,” declared the old Don in perplexity. Something strange edged into his gladness of the moment. Suddenly he wheeled to the Yaqui. But he never spoke the question on his lips. Slowly he seemed to be blasted by those great black-fired orbs, as piercing as if they had been lightnings from hell.

“Hurry, open the bale,” cried the bride, her sweet voice trilling above the gay talk.

Yaqui appeared not to hear. Was he looking into the soul of the father of Lieutenant Perez? All about him betrayed almost a superhuman intensity.

“Open the bale,” ordered the bride.

Yaqui cut the wire. He did not look at her. The perfectly folded and pressed strands of fiber shook and swelled and moved apart as if in relief. And like a great white jewel case of glistening silken threads the bale of henequen opened.

It commanded a stilling of the gay murmur — a sudden silence that had a subtle effect upon all. The beautiful bride, leaning closer to look, seemed to lose the light of the tawny proud eyes. Her mother froze into a creature of stone. The old Don, in slow strange action, as if his mind had feeble sway over body, bent his gray head away from the gaunt and terrible Yaqui. Something showed blue down under the center strands of the glistening fiber. With a swift flash of his huge black hand, with exceeding violence, Yaqui swept the strands aside. Then from his lips pealed an awful cry. Instead of the jewels, there, crushed and ghastly, lay the bridegroom Perez.

IV. — TIGRE

I

YES, I’VE A power over animals. Look at Tigre there! But the old women in Micas say I’ve found one wild thing I’ll never tame.”

“And that, señor?” asked Muella.

“My young and pretty wife.”

She tossed her small head, so that her black curls rippled in the sunlight, and the silver rings danced in her ears.

“Bernardo, I’m not a parrot to have my tongue slit, or a monkey to be taught tricks, or a jungle cat to be trained. I’m a woman, and—”

“Yes — and I am old,” he interrupted bitterly. “Look, Muella — there on the Micas trail!”

“It’s only Augustine, your vaquero.”

“Watch him!” replied Bernardo.

Muella watched the lithe figure of a man striding swiftly along the trail. He was not going to drive cattle up to the corrals, for in that case he would have been riding a horse. He was not going toward the huts of the other herders. He faced the jungle into which ran the Micas trail.

Surely he could not be on his way to Micas! The afternoon was far advanced and the village many miles away. No vaquero ever trusted himself to the dangers of the jungle at night. Even Augustine, the boldest and strongest of Bernardo’s many herders, would scarcely venture so much. Yet Augustine kept on down the trail, passed the thatched bamboo fence, went through the grove of palms, and disappeared in the green wall of jungle.

“He’s gone!” cried Bernardo. “Muella, I sent Augustine away.”

She saw a dull red in her husband’s cheeks, a dark and sinister gleam in his eyes; and her surprise yielded to misgiving.

“Why?” she asked.

“He loved you.”

No! No! Bernardo, if that’s why you sent him away, you’ve wronged him. Of all your vaqueros, Augustine alone never smiled at me — he cared nothing for me.”

“I say he loved you,” returned Bernardo hoarsely.

“Bernardo, you are unjust!”

“Would you lie to me? I know he loves you. Girl, confess that you love him. Tell it! I won’t bear this doubt another day!”

Muella stood rigid in his grasp, her eyes blazing the truth that her lips scorned to speak.

“I’ll make you tell!” he shouted, and ran to a cage of twisted vines and bamboo poles.

As he fumbled with the fastening of a door, his brown hands shook. A loud purr, almost a cough, came from the cage; then an enormous jaguar stepped out into the sunlight.

“Now, girl, look at Tigre!”

Tigre was of huge build, graceful in every powerful line of his yellow, black-spotted body, and beautiful. Still, he was terrible of aspect. His massive head swung lazily; his broad face had one set expression of brute ferocity.

The eyes of any jaguar are large, yellow, cold, pale, cruel, but Tigre’s were frightful. Every instant they vibrated, coalesced, focused, yet seemed always to hold a luminous, far-seeing stare. It was as if Tigre was gazing beyond the jungle horizon to palm-leaf lairs which he had never seen, but which he knew by instinct. And then it was as if a film descended to hide their tawny depths. Tigre’s eyes changed — they were always changing, only there was not in them the life of vision; for the jaguar was blind.

Bernardo burst into rapid speech.

“The taunting old crones of Micas were right when they said I could not tame the woman; but I’ve tamed every wild creature of the Taumaulipas jungle. Look at Tigre! Who beside Bernardo ever tamed a jaguar? Look! Tigre is my dog. He loves me. He follows me, he guards me, he sleeps under my hammock. Tigre is blind, and he is deaf, yet never have I trained any beast so well. Whatever I put Tigre to trail, he finds. He never loses. He trails slowly, for he is blind and deaf, but he never stops, never sleeps, till he kills!”

Bernardo clutched the fur of the great jaguar and leaned panting against the thatch wall of the cage.

“I’ll soon know if you love Augustine!” he went on passionately. “Look here at the path — the path that leads out to the Micas trail. See! Augustine’s sandal-prints in the dust! Now, girl, watch!”

He led Tigre to the path and forced the nose of the beast down upon Augustine’s footmarks. Suddenly the jaguar lost all his lax grace. His long tail lashed from side to side. Then, with head low, he paced down the path’ He crossed the grassy plot, went through the fence, along the trail into the jungle.

“He’s trailing Augustine!” cried Muella.

She felt Bernardo’s gaze burning into her face.

“Tigre will trail him — catch him — kill him!” her husband said.

Muella screamed.

“He’s innocent! I swear Augustine does not love me! I swear I don’t love him! It’s a horrible mistake. He’ll be trailed — ah, he’ll be torn by that blind brute!” Muella leaped back from her husband. “Never! You jealous monster! For I’ll run after Augustine — I’ll tell him — I’ll save him!”

She eluded Bernardo’s fierce onslaught, and, fleet as a frightened deer, she sped down the path. She did not heed his hoarse cries, nor his heavy footsteps.

Bernardo was lame. Muella had so little fear of his catching her that she did not look back. She passed the fence, sped through the grove, and entered the jungle.

II

The trail was hard-packed earth, and ahead it lost its white line in the green walls. Muella ran swiftly, dodging the leaning branches, bowing her head under the streamers of moss, striking aside the slender palm leaves. Gay-plumaged birds flitted before her, and a gorgeous butterfly crossed her path. A parrot screeched over her head.

She strained her gaze for the trailing jaguar. Then she saw him, a long black and yellow shape moving slowly under the hanging vines and creepers.

When Muella caught up with Tigre, she slackened her pace, and watched for a wide place in the trail where she could pass without touching him.

“I must pass him,” she muttered. “He can’t hear me — I can do it safely — I must!”

But still she did not take advantage of several wide places.

Presently the trail opened into a little glade. Twice she started forward, only to hang back. Then desperately she went on, seeing nothing but the great spotted cat just in front of her.

Twice she started forward, only to hang back.

Sharp spear-point palm leaves stung her face, and their rustling increased her terror. She flashed by Tigre so close that she smelled him.

Muella uttered a broken cry and began to run, as if indeed she were the wild creature Bernardo had called her. She looked over her shoulder to see the sinuous yellow form disappear round a bend of the trail. Then she gathered courage. For a long time her flying feet pattered lightly on the trail. She was young, supple, strong, and it took much to tire her. She ran on and on, until her feet were heavy, her breath was almost gone, and her side pierced by a sharp pain. Then she fell to a walk, caught her breath, and once more ran.

Fears began to beset her. Had Augustine left the trail? How swiftly he had walked! It seemed as if she had run several miles. But that was well, for, the larger the distance the farther she would get ahead of the jaguar.

Shadows began to gather under the overhanging vines and creepers. Only the tips of the giant ceibas showed a glint of sunlight. The day was fast closing. Once more she ran on and on; and then, as she turned a curve, a tall, dark form stood out of the green, and blurred the trail.

“Augustine! Wait! Wait!” she cried.

The man swung round, and ran back. Muella, panting for breath and with her hand pressed over her heart, met him.

“Señora! What has happened?” he exclaimed.

“Wait! My breath’s gone!” she gasped. “Wait! But keep on — we — we mustn’t stop!”

Muella took a fleeting upward glance at him. It was so hurried that she could not be positive, but she thought she had caught a strange, paling flush of his bronzed face and a startled look of his dark eyes. Why should his meeting her unexpectedly cause more than surprise or concern?

As she trotted along, she shot another quick glance up at him. He seemed unmistakably agitated; and this disconcerted her. She heard his amazed questions, but they were mostly unintelligible.

She had thought of nothing save to catch up with him and to blurt out that Tigre was on his trail, and why. The words now halted on her lips. It was not easy to tell him. What would he say — what would he do? A few moments back, he had been only one of Bernardo’s herders — the best, truly, and a man whom it was pleasing to look upon, but he had been nothing to her. He alone of the vaqueros had not smiled at her, and this piquing of her pride had gained him notice which otherwise he might never have got.

As she pattered on, slowly regaining her breath, the presence of the man seemed to grow more real. It was well that she knew Augustine cared nothing for her, else she could not have told him of Bernardo’s unjust suspicions.

The trail opened into a clearing, where there were several old palm-thatched huts, a broken-down corral, and a water hole. The place had once been used by Bernardo’s herders, but was now abandoned and partly overgrown. At this point, Augustine, who for a time had silently stalked beside Muella, abruptly halted her.

“Señora, what is wrong? Where are you going?”

“Going!” She uttered a little laugh. “Why, I don’t know. I followed — to warn you. Bernardo put Tigre on your trail!”

“Tigre? Santa Maria!”

“Yes. I ran, and ran, and passed him. He must be far back now. He’s slow at first, but he’s sure, and he’s trailing you. Hurry on! You mustn’t stop here!”

“Señora! You ran — you risked so much to save me? Oh, may our Blessed Lady reward you!”

“Man, I tell you, don’t stop. Go on! You have only your machete. Why did you start into the jungle without a gun?”

“Bernardo drove me off. I owned nothing at the hacienda except my blanket and machete.”

“He’s selfish — he was beside himself. Why, Augustine, he was jealous. He — he told me he drove you away because you — you cared for me. I’m ashamed to tell you. But, Augustine, he’s growing old. You mustn’t mind — only hurry to get safe from that terrible brute!”

“I forgive him, señora. It’s his way to fall in a rage; but he quickly repents. And you, señora — you must take this old trail back to the hacienda. Go swiftly, for soon it will be night.”

“I’m not going back,” said Muella slowly. “I won’t live any longer with Bernardo. Take me to Micas — to my sister’s home!”

With one long stride Augustine barred the trail and stood over her.

“You must go back. It’s best you should know the truth. Bernardo spoke truth when he told you I loved you!”

“Augustine, you’re telling a lie — just to frighten me back to him!”

“No. Bernardo asked me for the truth; so I told him.”

Muella’s eyes dilated and darkened with shadows of amaze, wonder, and pain.

“Oh, why did you tell him? I didn’t know. Oh, I swore by the Virgin that you had no thought of me. He’ll believe that I lied.”

“Señora, you are innocent, and Bernardo will learn it. You know him — how hotheaded he is, how quickly he is sorry. Go back. Take this old cattle road — here — and hurry. The sun has set. You must run. Have no fear for me!”

“I’m not going back to Bernardo.” She straightened up, pale and composed, but as she stepped forward to pass the vaquero in the trail she averted her eyes. “Take me to Micas!”

With a passionate gesture Augustine stopped her.

“But, señora, consider. Darkness is upon us. Micas is a long way. You’re only a girl. You can’t keep up. You’ve forgotten that Tigre is on my trail.”

“I forget nothing,” she replied coldly. “I’ve begged you to hurry.”

“Muella, go back at once. To-morrow — after a night in the jungle — with me — you can’t go. It’ll be too late!”

“It’s too late now,” breathed the girl. “I can’t go back — now!”

“Go first, then,” he said, whipping out the long machete. “I’ll wait here for Tigre.”

“Señor, there are other tigres. There are panthers, too, and wild boars. I may lose the trail. Will you let me go alone?”

III

Augustine whispered the name of a saint, and turning his dark face toward where the trail led out of the clearing, he strode on without sheathing his machete.

Muella kept close to him, and entered the enclosing walls of jungle verdure. She felt indeed that she was the untamed thing Bernardo had called her, and now she was hunted. Light as dropping leaves, her feet pattered in the trail. Augustine loomed beside her, striding swiftly, and now and then the naked blade he carried, striking against a twig or branch, broke the silence with a faint ring.

The green walls became hovering shadows and turned to gray. Muella had an irresistible desire to look back. The darkening menace of the gloom before and on each side was nothing to that known peril behind. She saw nothing, however, but a dull, gray, wavering line fading into the obscurity of the jungle. She strained her hearing. Except for the soft swishing of her skirt on the brush, and the occasional low ring of Augustine’s machete, there was absolutely no sound.

She noted that her companion never turned his head. Had he no fear? Quick flashes of memory recalled stories of this herder’s daring. How tall and powerful he was — how swiftly he strode — how dark and stern and silent he seemed! He must know full well the nature of Bernardo’s pet, the terrible blind brute that never failed on a trail.

All at once the jungle grew into two ragged walls of black separated by a narrow strip of paler shade. Night had fallen; and with it came a blinking of stars through dense foliage overhead, and the lighting of fireflies. Insects began to hum. Rustlings in the brush augmented Muella’s sensitiveness. A strange call of a night bird startled her, and instinctively she shrank closer to Augustine. She wished to speak to him, to make the silence bearable; but stealthy steps off to the right made her heart leap and her tongue mute.

Augustine heard, for he struck the leaves with his machete. From the enshrouding blackness came the snapping of twigs, pattering little steps, the rush of animals running through grass or ferns, and soft rustlings in the brush. Then the night silence awoke to strange cries — squall of cat and scream of panther, squeaks and grunts and squeals of peccaries, and inexpressibly wild sounds, too remote to distinguish.

“Oh, Augustine!” whispered Muella, fear at last unlocking her lips. “Listen! All before us — do you hear?”

“Señora, we have not greatly to fear ahead,” he replied. “But behind — a trailing tigre warms with the night! We must not lag!”

“I’m not tired. I can walk so, all night; but the steps, the cries, frighten me. It grows darker, and I stumble.”

She fancied she saw him reach out as if to help her, and then draw suddenly back. The darkness became so thick that she could scarcely see him. Like a tall specter he moved on.

She groped for his arm, found it, and slipped her hand down to his. Instantly she felt his strong fingers convulsively close round hers. The warm clasp helped and cheered her.

So, mile after mile, Muella kept tireless pace with the herder; and when the jungle creatures ceased their hue and quest, and the dead silence once more settled thickly down, the strange night flight lost its reality and seemed a dream. The black shadows lifted and paled to opaque gloom. A whiteness stole into the jungle; silver shafts gleamed through the trees. The moon was rising. Muella hailed it with joy, for it meant that the night was far advanced, and that their way would be lightened.

Soon all about her was a radiant, encompassing world of silver shadows and gleams. It was a beautiful night. The cold fear weighting her heart lessened, seemed momentarily to be thrilled and warmed away. She loved that great, silver-orbed, golden-circled moon; and now she looked up at it through a streaked and fringed and laced web.

She wondered if Augustine saw the beauty of the sharp-cut palms, the delicate-leaved bamboos, and the full-foliaged ceibas, all festooned with long silver streamers of moss. Gnarled branches of a dead monarch of the forest, silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky, showed orchids and aloes and long, strangling vines — parasites that had killed it. Every unshadowed leaf along the trail glistened white with dew. The glamor of the white night was upon Muella.

Augustine’s voice broke the spell.

“You are tiring, but we must not lag. Shall I carry you?”

“No, no! I can keep up.”

His words and the glint of his naked machete brought her back to actuality. She slipped her hand from his.

Slowly a haze overspread the moon. The brightness failed, and then the moonlit patches imperceptibly merged into the shadows, until all was gray. The jungle trees rose dim and weird and lost their tips in clouds of mist. A chicolocki burst into song, and the broken notes heralded the coming of day.

“Augustine, it is near dawn,” said Muella. “Oh, how good the light will be! I’m so cold — so wet. We shall be safe in Micas soon, shall we not?”

The herder mumbled a reply that she did not understand.

IV

Swiftly upon the gray dawn came the broad daylight. The clouds of creamy mist rose and broke and rolled away, letting the sunshine down into the jungle. The balmy air rang with the melodies of birds. Flocks of parrots passed overhead, screeching discordant clamor.

Presently it struck Muella that the trail was growing narrow and rough and overgrown. She had journeyed to Micas often enough to be familiar with the trail, and this, so wild and crooked, was not the right one.

“Augustine, have you missed the way?” she queried anxiously.

Briefly he replied that he was making a short cut. Muella did not believe him. She walked on, and began again to look back. When she caught Augustine doing likewise, she gave way to dread.

The morning wore on, the sun grew warm, and with the heat of day came the jungle flies and mosquitoes. Augustine was inured to their attacks, but Muella impatiently fought them, thus adding to her loss of energy.

When, at the crossing of a network of trails, Augustine chose one at random, Muella was certain of the worst. She asked him about it, and he admitted he was off the course, but as he was sure of his direction there was no need of fear. He assured her that he would have her at her sister’s home in Micas by noon.

Noon found them threading a matted jungle where they had to bend low along the deer and peccary trails. The character of the vegetation had changed. It was now dry, thorny, and almost impenetrable.

Suddenly Muella jerked her hand away from a swinging branch, which she had intended to brush aside.

“Look, Augustine, on my hand. Garapatas! Ugh, how I loathe them!”

Her hand and wrist were dotted with great black jungle ticks. Augustine removed them, and as he did so, Muella saw his fingers tremble. The significance of his agitation did not dawn upon her until she was free of the pests, and then she fancied that her touch had so moved him. It was wonderful, it warmed her blood, and she stole a glance at him. But Augustine was ashen pale; his thoughts were far from the softness and beauty of a woman’s hand.

“Augustine! You have lost your way!” she cried.

Gloomily he dropped his head, and let his silence answer.

“Lost in the jungle! We’re lost! And Tigre is on our trail!” she shrieked.

Panic overcame her. She tottered and fell against him. Her whole slender length rippled in a violent trembling. Then she beat her hands frantically on Augustine’s shoulders, and clutched him tight, and besought him with inarticulate speech.

“Listen, señora, listen,” he kept saying. “If you give up now, I can’t save you. We’re lost, but there’s a way out. Listen — don’t tear at me so — there’s a way out. Do you hear? You go on alone — follow these deer tracks till you come to water. Soon they’ll lead to water. That water will be the Santa Rosa. Follow up the stream till you come to Micas. It’ll be hard, but you can do it.”

“Go on alone! And you?” she said brokenly.

“I’ll turn on our back trail. I’ll meet Tigre and stop him.”

“Tigre will kill you!”

“He is blind and deaf. I shall be prepared. I’ve a chance, at least, to cripple him.”

“At the end of a trail Tigre is a demon. He has been trained to kill the thing he’s put to trail. You — with only a machete! Ah, señor, I’ve heard that you are brave and strong, but you must not go back to meet Tigre. Come! We’ll follow the deer tracks together. Then if Tigre catches us — well, he can kill us both!”

“Señora, I can serve you best by going back.”

“You think that if you took me to Micas the old women would talk — that my good name would be gone?” she asked searchingly.

“Señora, we waste time, and time is precious,” he protested.

Muella studied the haggard, set face. This man meant to sacrifice his life for her. Deep through the fire of his eyes she saw unutterable pain and passion. If she had doubted his love, she doubted no more. He must be made to believe that she had followed him, not alone to save him from Tigre, but because she loved him. Afterward he would be grateful for her deceit. And if her avowal did not break his will, then she would use a woman’s charm, a woman’s sweetness.

“Señor, you told Bernardo the truth — and I lied to him!” she said.

Stranger than all other sensations of that flight was the thrill in her as she forced herself to speak.

“What do you mean?” demanded Augustine.

“He asked you if you loved me. You told the truth. He asked me if — if I loved you. And — I lied!”

“Santa Maria!” the man cried, starting up impulsively. Then slowly he fell back. “Señora, may the saints reward you for your brave words. I know! You are trying to keep me from going back. We waste precious time — go now!”

“Augustine, wait, wait!” she cried.

Running blindly, she flung herself into his arms. She hid her face in his breast, and pressed all her slender, palpitating body close to his. As if he had been turned to stone, he stood motionless. She twined her arms about him, and her disheveled hair brushed his lips. She tried to raise her face — failed — tried again, and raised it all scarlet, with eyes close shut and tears wet on her cheeks. Blindly she sought his mouth with her lips — kissed him timidly — tremulously — and then passionately.

With that, uttering a little gasp, she swayed away and turned from him, her head bowed in shame, one beseeching hand held backward to him.

“Don’t go! Don’t leave me!”

“Dios!” whispered Augustine.

Presently he took the proffered hand, and, leading her, once more plunged into the narrow trail.

V

For hours Muella walked with lowered eyes. She plodded on, bending her head under the branches, and constantly using her free hand to fight the pests.

Her consciousness, for the while, was almost wholly absorbed with a feeling of an indefinable difference in herself. She seemed to be in a condition of trembling change, as if the fibers of her soul were being unknit and rewoven. Something illusive and strange and sweet wavered before her — a promise of joy that held vague portent of pain. This inexplicable feeling reminded her of fancies, longings, dreams of her girlhood.

At length sensations from without claimed full share of Muella’s attention. The heat had grown intense. She was becoming exhausted. Her body burned, and about her ankles were bands of red-hot fire. Still she toiled on, because she believed that Micas was close at hand.

The sun went down, and night approached. There was no sign of water. Augustine failed to hide his distress. He was hopelessly lost in the jungle. All the trails appeared to lead into the same place — a changeless yellow and gray jungle.

The flies pursued in humming wheel, and clouds of whining mosquitoes rose from the ground. The under side of every leaf, when brushed upward, showed a red spot which instantly disintegrated, and spilled itself like a bursting splotch of quicksilver upon the travelers. And every infinitesimal red pin point was a crawling jungle pest. The dead wood and dry branches were black with innumerable garapatas.

Muella had been born a hill native, and she was not bred to withstand the savage attack of the jungle vermin. The time came when she fell, and implored Augustine to put her out of her misery with his machete. For answer he lifted her gently and moved on, carrying her in his arms.

Night came. Augustine traveled by the stars, and tried to find trails that led him in a general direction northward. By and by Muella’s head rolled heavily, and she slept.

At length the blackness and impenetrable thicket hindered his progress. He laid Muella down, covered her with his blanket, and stood over her with drawn machete till the moon rose.

The light aiding him, he found a trail, and, taking up his burden, he went on. And that night dragged to dawn.

Muella walked little the next day. She could hardly stand. She had scarcely strength to free her hair from the brush as it caught in passing. The burning pain of her skin had given place to a dull ache. She felt fever stealing into her blood.

Augustine wandered on, over bare rocks and through dense jungles, with Muella in his arms. He was tireless, dauntless, wonderful in his grim determination to save her. Worn as she was, sick and feverish, she yet had moments when she thought of him; and at each succeeding thought he seemed to grow in her impression of strength and courage.

But most of her thoughts centered on the trailing Tigre. The serpents and panthers and peccaries no longer caused Muella concern; she feared only the surely gaining jaguar.

VI

Night closed down on them among tangled mats and labyrinthine webs of heavy underbrush.

“Listen!” whispered Muella suddenly, with great black eyes staring out of her white face.

From far off in the jungle came a sound that was like a cough and growl in one.

“Ah! Augustine, did you hear?”

“Yes.”

“Was it a tigre?”

“Yes.”

“A trailing tigre?”

“Yes, but surely that could not have been Bernardo’s. His tigre would not give cry on a trail.”

“Oh, yes. Tigre is deaf and blind, and he has been trained, but he has all the jungle nature. He has Bernardo’s cruelty, too!”

Again the sound broke on the still night air. Muella slipped to the ground with a little gasp. She heard Augustine cursing against the fate that had driven them for days under trees, trees, trees, and had finally brought them to bay in a corner where there was no tree to climb. She saw him face about to the trail by which they had come; and stand there with his naked blade upraised. He blocked the dim, narrow passageway.

An interminable moment passed. Muella stopped breathing, tried to still the beating of her heart so that she could listen. There was no sound save the low, sad hum of insects and the rustle of wind in leaves. She seemed to feel Tigre’s presence out there in the blackness. Dark as it was, she imagined she saw him stealing closer, his massive head low, his blind eyes flaring, his huge paws reaching out.

A slight rustling checked all motion of her blood. Tigre was there, ready to spring upon Augustine. Muella tried to warn him, but her lips were dry and dumb. Had he lost his own sense of hearing?

Her head reeled and her sight darkened; but she could not swoon. She could only wait, wait, while the slow moments wore on.

Augustine loomed over the trail, a dark, menacing figure. Again there came a rustling and a stealthy step, this time in another direction; and Augustine turned toward it.

Long silence followed; even the humming of insects and the moaning of the wind seemed to grow fainter. Then came more tickings of the brush and a padded footfall. Tigre had found them — was stalking them!

Muella lay there, helplessly waiting. In the poignancy of her fear far Augustine, expecting momentarily to see the huge jaguar leap upon him, she forgot herself. There was more in her agony of dread than the sheer primitive shrinking of the flesh, the woman’s horror of seeing death inflicted. Through that terrible age-long flight through the jungle, Augustine had come to mean more than a protector to her.

She watched him guardedly facing in the direction of every soft rustle in the brush. He was a man at the end of his resources, ready to fight and die for a woman.

The insects hummed on, the wind moaned in the leaves, the rustlings came from one point and another in the brush, but Tigre did not appear. The black night lightened and the moon rose. Muella now distinctly saw Augustine — disheveled and ragged, white and stern and wild, with his curved blade bright in the moonlight.

Then the gray mist crept up to obscure the white stars and the moon, and at last the blue vault. The rustlings ceased to sound in the brush. From far off rasped the cough of a tigre. It appeared to come from the same place as when first heard. Hope had new birth in Muella’s heart.

Moments like hours passed; the insects ceased to hum and the wind to moan. The gray shadows fled before a rosy dawn.

Augustine hewed a lane through the dense thicket that had stopped him, and presently he came upon a trail. He hurried back to Muella with words of cheer. Strength born of hope returned to her, and she essayed to get up.

Helping her to her feet, he half led and half carried her into the trail. They went on for a hundred paces, to find that the path suddenly opened into a wide clearing. To Muella it had a familiar look, and Augustine’s exclamation assured her that he had seen the place before. Then she recognized a ruined corral, some old palm-thatched huts, and a water hole as belonging to the clearing through which they had long before passed.

“We’ve traveled back in a circle!” exclaimed Augustine. “We’re near the hacienda — your home!”

Muella leaned against him and wept. First of all was the joy of deliverance.

“Muella, you are saved,” Augustine went on. “The distance is short — I can carry you. Bernardo will forgive — you know how he flies into a passion, and then how he repents.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll go back to him — tell him the truth — ask his mercy!”

From the center of the clearing came a rustling of dry leaves, then a loud purr, almost a cough. Augustine stiffened, and Muella clutched frantically at him.

For a long moment they stood, dark eyes staring into dark eyes, waiting, listening. Then Augustine, releasing his hold on the trembling girl, cautiously stepped upon a log and peered over the low palms. Almost instantly he plunged down with arms uplifted.

“Santa Maria! Tigre! He’s there!” he whispered. “He’s there, beside the body of something he’s killed. He’s been there all night. He was there when we first heard him. We thought he was trailing. Muella, I must see closer. Stay back — you must not follow!”

But as he crept under the low palms she followed him. They came to the open clearing. Tigre lay across the trail, his beautiful yellow and black body stretched in lax grace, his terrible sightless eyes riveted on a dead man beside him.

“Muella — stay back — I fear — I fear!” said Augustine.

He crept yet a little farther, and returned with pale face and quivering jaw.

“Muella, it’s Bernardo! He’s dead — has been dead for days. When you started off that day to warn me, Bernardo must have run round by the old wagon road to head off Tigre. The blind brute killed him!”

“Bernardo repented!” moaned Muella. “He repented!”

V. — THE RUBBER HUNTER

IQUITOS WAS A magnet for wanderers and a safe hiding-place for men who must turn their faces from civilization. Rubber drew adventurers and criminals to this Peruvian frontier town as gold lured them to the Klondike.

Among the motley crowd of rubber hunters boarding the Amazonas for the up-river trip was a Spaniard, upon whom all eyes were trained. At the end of the gangplank, Captain Valdez stopped him and tried to send him back. The rubber hunter, however, appeared to be a man whom it would be impossible to turn aside.

“There’s my passage,” he shouted. “I’m going aboard.”

No one in Iquitos knew him by any other name than Manuel. He headed the list of outlaw rubber hunters, and was suspected of being a slave hunter as well. Beyond the Andes was a government which, if it knew aught of the slave traffic, had no power on that remote frontier. Valdez and the other boat owners, however, had leagued themselves together and taken the law into their own hands, for the outlaws destroyed the rubber trees instead of tapping them, which was the legitimate work, and thus threatened to ruin the rubber industry. Moreover, the slave dealers alienated the Indians, and so made them hostile.

Captain Valdez now looked doubtfully at Manuel. The Spaniard was of unusual stature; his cavernous eyes glowed from under shaggy brows; his thin beard, never shaven, showed the hard lines of his set jaw. In that crowd of desperate men he stood out conspicuously. He had made and squandered more money than any six rubber hunters on the river; he drank chicha and had a passion for games of chance; he had fought and killed his men.

“I’m going aboard,” he repeated, pushing past Valdez.

“One more trip, then, Manuel,” said the captain slowly. We’re going to shut down on you outlaws.”

“They’re all outlaws. Every man who has nerve enough to go as far as the Pachitier is an outlaw. Valdez, do you think I’m a slaver?”

“You’re suspected — among others,” replied the captain warily.

“I never hunted slaves,” bellowed Manuel, waving his brawny arms. “I never needed to sell slaves. I always found cowcha more than any man on the river.”

“Manuel, I’ll take you on your word. But listen — if you are ever caught with Indians, you’ll get the chain gang or be sent adrift down the Amazon.”

“Valdez, I’ll take my last trip on those terms,” returned Manuel. “I’m going far — I’ll come in rich.”

Soon after that the Amazonas cast off. She was a stern wheeler with two decks — an old craft as rough-looking as her cargo of human freight. On the upper deck were the pilot house, the captain’s quarters, and a small, first-class cabin, which was unoccupied. The twenty-four passengers on board traveled second-class, down on the lower deck. Forward it was open, and here the crew and passengers slept, some in hammocks and the rest sprawled on the floor. Then came the machinery. Wood was the fuel used, and stops were made along the river when a fresh supply was needed.

Aft was the dining saloon, a gloomy hole, narrow and about twelve feet long, with benches running on two sides. At meal times, the table was lowered from the ceiling by a crude device of ropes and pulleys.

The night of the departure this saloon was a spectacle. The little room, with its dim, smelly lamp and blue haze of smoke, seemed weirdly set between the vast reaches of the black river. The passengers crowded there, smoking, drinking, gambling. These hunters, when they got together, spoke in very loud tones, for in the primeval silence and solitude of the Amazonian wilderness they grew unaccustomed to the sound of their own voices. Many languages were spoken, but Spanish was the one that gave them general intercourse.

It was a muggy night, and the stuffy saloon reeked with the odors of tobacco and perspiration and the fumes of chicha. The unkempt passengers sat coatless, many of them shirtless, each one adding to the din around the gambling board.

Presently the door of the saloon was filled by the form of a powerful man. From his white face and blond hair he might have been taken for an Englishman. The several gambling groups boisterously invited him to play. He had a weary, hunted look that did not change when he began to gamble. He played indifferently, spoke seldom, and lost at every turn of the cards. There appeared to be no limit to his ill luck or to his supply of money.

Players were attracted from other groups. The game, the stakes, the din, the flow of chicha — all increased as the night wore on.

Like the turn of the tide, the silent man’s luck changed. After nearly every play he raked in the stakes. Darker grew those dark faces about the board, and meaning glances glittered. A knife gleamed low behind the winner’s back, clutched in a lean hand of one of the gamesters. Murder might have been done then, but a big arm swept the gamester off his feet and flung him out of the door, where he disappeared in the blackness.

“Fair play!” roared Manuel, his eyes glowing like phosphorus in the dark. The sudden silence let in the chug of machinery, the splashing of the paddle wheel, the swishing of water. Every eye watched the giant Spaniard. Then the game recommenced, and, under Manuel’s burning eyes, continued on into the night.

At last he flipped a gold piece on the table and ordered chicha for all.

“Men, drink to Manuel’s last trip up the river,” he said. “I’m coming in rich.”

“Rubber or Indians?” sarcastically queried a weasel-featured Spaniard.

“Bustos, you lie in your question,” replied Manuel hotly. “You can’t make a slave hunter of me. I’m after rubber. I’ll bring in canoes full of rubber.”

Most of the outlaws, when they could not find a profitable rubber forest, turned their energies to capturing Indian children and selling them into slavery in the Amazonian settlements.

“Manuel, where will you strike out?” asked one.

“For the headwaters of the Palcazu. Who’ll go with me?”

Few rubber hunters besides Manuel had ever been beyond the junction of the Pachitea and the Ucayali; and the Palcazu headed up in the foothills of the Andes. Little was known of the river, more than that it marked the territory of the Cashibos, a mysterious tribe of cannibals. None of the men manifested a desire to become Manuel’s partner. He leered scornfully at them, and cursed them for a pack of cowards.

After that night he had little to do with his fellow passengers, used tobacco sparingly, drank not at all, and retreated sullenly within himself. Manuel never went into the jungle out of condition.

The Amazonas turned into the Ucayali, and day and night steamed up that thousand-mile river, stopping often for fuel, and here and there to let off the rubber hunters. All of them bade Manuel good-by with a jocund finality. At La Boca, which was the mouth of the Pachitea and the end of Captain Valdez’s run, there were only three passengers left of the original twenty-four — Bustos, Manuel, and the stranger who seemed to have nothing in common with the rubber hunters.

“Manuel,” said Bustos, “you’ve heard what the Palcazu is — fatal midday sun, the death dews, the man-eating Cashibos. You’ll never come in. Adios!”

Then Captain Valdez interrogated Manuel.

“Is it true you are going out to the Palcazu?”

“Yes, captain.”

“That looks bad, Manuel. We know Indians swarm up there — the Chunchus of the Pachitea, and farther out the Cashibos. We’ve never heard of rubber there.”

“Would I go alone into a cannibal country if I hunted slaves?”

“What you couldn’t do has yet not been proven. Remember, Manuel — if we catch you with Indian children, it’s the chain gang or the Amazon.”

Manuel, cursing low, lifted his pack and went down the gangplank. As he stepped upon the dock a man accosted him.

“Do you still want a partner?”

The question was put by the blond passenger. Manuel looked at him keenly for the first time, discovering a man as powerfully built as himself, whose gray eyes had a shadow, and about whom there was a hint of recklessness.

“You’re not a rubber hunter?” asked Manuel.

“No.”

“Why do you want to go with me? You heard what kind of a country it is along the Palcazu?”

“Yes, I heard. That’s why I want to go.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed Manuel curiously. “Señor, what shall I call you?”

“It’s no matter.”

“Very well, it shall be Señor.”

Manuel carried his pack to a grove of palms bordering the river, where there was a fleet of canoes. Capmas Indians lounged in the shade, waiting for such opportunity to trade as he presented. Evidently Manuel was a close trader, for the willing Indians hauled up several canoes, from which he selected one. For a canoe, its proportions were immense; it had been hollowed from the trunk of a tree, was fifty feet long, three wide, and as many deep.

“Señor, I’m starting,” said Manuel, throwing his pack into the canoe.

“Let’s be off, then,” replied Señor.

“But — you still want to go?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve taken out strangers to these parts — and they never came back.”

“That’s my chance.”

“Señor, up the Pachitea the breeze seldom blows. It’s hot. Sand flies humming all day long — mosquitoes thicker than smoke — creeping insects — spiders, snakes, crocodiles, poison dews, and fevers — and the Cashibos. If we get back at all, it will be with tons of rubber. I ask no questions. I, too, have gone into the jungle and kept my secret. Señor, do you go?”

Señor silently offered his hand; and these two, outlaw and wanderer, so different in blood and the fortunes of life, exchanged the look that binds men in the wilderness. Whereupon Manuel gave one of the eighteen-foot, wide-bladed paddles to his companion, and, pushing the canoe off the sand, began to pole upstream close to the bank. None but the silent Campas Indians saw their departure, and soon they, and the grove of palms, and the thatched huts disappeared behind a green bend of the river.

The Pachitea, with its smooth current, steamed under the sun. The voyagers kept close to the shady side. The method of propelling the canoe permitted only one to work at a time. Beginning at the bow, he sunk his paddle to the bottom, and, holding it firmly imbedded, he walked the length of the canoe. When he completed his walk to the stern, his companion had passed to the bow. Thus the momentum of their canoe did not slacken, and they made fast time.

Gradually the strip of shade under the full-foliaged bank receded until the sun burned down upon them. When the tangled balls of snakes melted off the branches, and the water smoked and the paddles were too hot to handle, Manuel shoved the canoe into the shade of overhanging vines. It was a time when all living things, except the heat-born sand flies, hid from the direct rays of the midday sun. While the Spaniard draped a net over the bow of the canoe these sand flies hummed by like bullets. Then Manuel motioned his comrade to crawl with him under cover, and there they slept away those hours wherein action was forbidden.

About the middle of the afternoon they awoke to resume their journey; leisurely at first, and then, as the sun declined, with more energy. Fish and crocodiles rippled the surface of the river, and innumerable wild fowl skimmed its green width.

Toward sunset Manuel beached on a sandy bank, where there was a grove of siteka trees. He had gone into the jungle at this point and brought out rubber. The camp site was now waist deep in vegetation, which Manuel mowed down with his machete. Then he built two fires of damp leaves and wood, so they would smoke and somewhat lessen the scourge of mosquitoes. After that he carried up the charcoal box from the canoe and cooked the evening meal.

Manuel found it good to unseal the fountain of speech, that always went dry when he was alone in the jungle. It took him a little while to realize that he did all the talking, that Señor was a silent man who replied only to a direct question, and then mostly in monosyllables. Slowly this dawned upon the voluble Spaniard, and slowly he froze into the silence natural to him in the wilderness.

They finished the meal, eating under their head nets, and then sat a while over the smoky fires, with the splash of fish and the incessant whining hum of mosquitoes in their ears. When the stars came out, lightening the ebony darkness, they manned the canoe again, and for long hours poled up the misty gloom of the river.

In the morning they resumed travel, slept through the sweltering noon, and went on in the night. At the end of the fifth day’s advance, Manuel pointed out the mouth of a small tributary.

“So far I’ve been. Beyond here all is strange to me. White men from Lima have come down the river; but of those who have gone up farther than this, none have ever returned.”

What a light flashed from the eyes of his partner! Manuel was slow to see anything singular in men. But this served to focus his mind on the strangest companion with whom he had ever traveled.

Señor was exceedingly strong and implacably tireless; a perfect fiend for action. He minded not the toil, nor the flies, nor the mosquitoes, nor the heat; nothing concerned him except standing still. Señor never lagged, never shirked his part of the labor, never stole the bigger share of food, which was more than remarkable in the partner of a rubber hunter.

So Manuel passed through stages of attention, from a vague stirring of interest to respect and admiration, and from these to wonder and liking, emotions long dormant within him. The result was for him to become absorbed in covert observation of his strange comrade.

Señor ate little, and appeared to force that. He slept only a few hours every day, and his slumbers were restless, broken by turning and mumbling. Sometimes Manuel awakened to find him pacing the canoe or along a sandy strip of shore. All the hot hours of their toil he bent his broad shoulders to the paddle, wet with sweat. Indeed, he invited the torture of the sun and flies. His white face, that Manuel likened to a woman’s, was burned red and bitten black and streaked with blood.

When Manuel told him to take the gun and kill wild fowl, he reached instinctively for it with the action of a man used to sport, and then he drew back and let his companion do the shooting. He never struck at one of the thousands of snakes, or slapped at one of the millions of flies, or crushed one of the millions of flies, or one of the billions of mosquitoes.

When Manuel called to Señor, as was frequently necessary in the management of the canoe, he would start as if recalled from engrossing thought. Then he would work like an ox, so that it began to be vexatious for Manuel to find himself doing the lesser share. Slowly he realized Señor’s intensity, the burning in him, the tremendous driving power that appeared to have no definite end.

For years Manuel had been wandering in wild places, and, as the men with whom he came in contact were brutal and callous, answering only to savage impulses, so the evil in him, the worst of him, had risen to meet its like. But with this man of shadowed eye Manuel felt the flux and reflux of old forces, dim shades drawn from old memories the painful resurrection of dead good, the rising of the phantom of what had once been the best in him.

The days passed, and the Pachitea narrowed and grew swifter, and its green color took on a tinge of blue.

“Aha!” cried Manuel. “The Palcazu is blue. We must be near the mouth. Listen.”

Above the hum of the sand flies rose a rumble, like low thunder, only a long, unending roll. It was the roar of rapids. The men leaned on their paddles and trudged the length of the canoe, steadily gliding upstream, covering the interminable reaches, winding the serpentine bends. The rumble lulled and swelled, and then, as they turned a bend, burst upon their ears with clear thunder. The Palcazu entered the larger river by splitting round a rocky island. On one side tumbled a current that raced across the Pachitea to buffet a stony bluff. On the other side sloped a long incline of beautiful blue-green water, shining like painted glass.

Manuel poled up the left shore as far as possible, then leaped out to wade at the bow. Señor waded at the stern, and thus they strove against the current. It was shallow, but so swift that it made progress laboriously slow, and it climbed in thin sheets up the limbs of the travelers. Foot by foot they ascended the rapid, at last to surmount it and beach the canoe in a rocky shore.

“Water from the Andes!” exclaimed Manuel. “It’s years since I felt such water. Here’s a bad place to float a canoe full of rubber.”

“You’ll have jolly sport shooting this rapid,” replied Señor.

“We’re entering Cashibos country now. We must eat fish — no firing the guns.”

Wild cane grew thick on the bank; groves of the white sitekas led to the dark forest where the giant capirona trees stood out, their tall trunks bare and crimson against the green; and beyond ranged densely wooded hills to far distant purple outline of mountains or clouds.

“There’s cowcha here, but not enough,” said Manuel.

They rested, as usual during the blistering noon hours, then faced up the Palcazu. Before them stretched a tropical scene. The blue water reflected the blue sky and the white clouds, and the hanging vines and leaning orchid-tufted, creeper-covered trees. Green parrots hung back downward from the branches, feeding on pods; macaws of gaudy plumage wheeled overhead; herons of many hues took to lumbering flight before the canoe.

The placid stretch of river gave place to a succession of rapids, up which the men had to wade. A downpour of rain joined forces with the stubborn current in hindering progress. The supplies had to be covered with palm leaves; stops had to be made to bail out the canoe; at times the rain was a blinding sheet. Then the clouds passed over and the sun shone hot. The rocks were coated with a slime so slippery that sure footing was impossible.

Manuel found hard wading; and Señor, unaccustomed to such locomotion, slid over the rocks and fell often. The air was humid and heavy, difficult to breathe; the trees smoked and the river steamed. Another chute, a mill race steep as the ingenuity of the voyagers, put them to tremendous exertions. They mounted it and rested at the head, eyes down the glancing descent.

“What jolly sport you’ll have shooting that one!” exclaimed Señor; and he laughed for the first time; not mirthfully, rather with a note that rang close to envy.

Manuel gazed loweringly from under his shaggy brows. This was the second time Señor had spoken of the return trip. Manuel’s sharpening wits divined a subtle import — Señor’s consciousness that for himself there would be no return. The thing fixed itself on Manuel’s mind and would not be shaken. Blunt and caustic as he was, something withheld his speech; he asked only himself, and knew the answer. Señor was another of those men who plunge into the unbroken fastnesses of a wild country to leave no trace. Wanderers were old comrades to Manuel. He had met them going down to the sea and treading the trails; and he knew there had been reasons why they had left the comforts of home, the haunts of men, the lips of women. Derelicts on the drifting currents had once been stately ships; wanderers in the wilds had once swung with free stride on sunny streets.

“He’s only another ruined man,” muttered Manuel, under his breath. “He’s going to hide. After a while he will slink out of the jungle to become like all the others — like me!”

But Manuel found his mind working differently from its old habit; the bitterness that his speech expressed could not dispel a yearning which was new to him.

While making camp on a shelf of shore he was absorbed in his new thoughts, forgetting to curse the mosquitoes and ants.

When the men finished their meal, twilight had shaded to dusk. Owing to the many rapids, travel by night had become impossible. Manuel drooped over one smoky fire and Señor sat by another. After sunset there never was any real silence in the jungle. This hour was, nevertheless, remarkably quiet. It wore, shaded, blackened, into wild, lonely night. The remoteness of that spot seemed to dwell in the sultry air, in the luminous fog shrouding the river, in the moving gloom under the black trees, in the odor of decaying vegetable life.

Manuel nodded and his shoulders sagged. Presently Señor raised his head, as if startled.

“Listen!” he whispered, touching his comrade’s arm.

Then in the semidarkness they listened. Señor raised his head net above his ears.

“There! Hear it?” he breathed low. “What on earth — or in hell? What is it?”

“I hear nothing,” replied Manuel.

Señor straightened his tall form and stood with clenched hands.

“If that was fancy — then—” He muttered deep in his chest. All at once he swayed to one side. And became strung in the attitude of listening. “Again! Hear it! Listen!”

Out of the weird darkness wailed a soft, sad note, to be followed by another, lower, sweeter, and then another still fainter.

“I hear nothing.” repeated Manuel. This time, out of curiosity and indefinable portent, he lied.

“No! You’re sure?” asked Señor huskily. He placed a shaking hand on Manuel. “You heard no cry — like — like—” He drew up sharply. “Perhaps I only thought I heard something — I’m fanciful at times.”

He stirred the camp fire and renewed it with dry sticks. Evidently he wanted light. A slight blaze flickered up, intensifying the somber dusk. A vampire bat wheeled in the lighted circle. Manuel watched his companion, studying the face, somehow still white through the swollen fly blotches and scorch of sun, marveling at its expression. What had Señor imagined he had heard?

Again the falling note! Clearer than the clearest bell, sweeter than the saddest music, wailed out of a succession of melancholy, descending tones, to linger mournfully, to hold the last note in exquisite suspense, to hush away, and leave its phantom echo in the charged air. A woman, dying in agony and glad to die, not from disease or violence, but from unutterable woe, might have wailed out that last note to the last beat of a broken heart.

Señor gripped Manuel’s arm.

“You heard that — you heard it? Tell me!”

“Oh, is that what you meant? Surely I heard it,” replied Manuel. “That’s only the Perde-alma.”

“Perde-alma?” echoed Señor.

“Bird of the Lost Soul. Sounded like a woman, didn’t it? We rubber hunters like his song. The Indians believe he sings only when death is near. But that signifies nothing. For above the Pachitea life and death are one. Life is here, and a step there is death! Perde-alma sings seldom. I was years on the river before I heard him.”

“Bird of the Lost Soul! A bird! Manuel, I did not think that cry came from any living thing.”

He spoke no more, and paced to and fro in the waning camp-fire glow, oblivious to the web of mosquitoes settling on his unprotected head.

Manuel pondered over the circumstance till his sleepy mind refused to revolve another idea. In the night he awoke and knew from the feeling of his unrested body that he had not slept long. He had been awakened by his comrade talking in troubled slumber.

“Lost soul — wandering — never to return! Yes! Yes! But oh let me forget! Her face! Her voice! Could I have forgotten if I had killed her? Driven, always driven — never to find — never—”

So Señor cried aloud, and murmured low, and mumbled incoherently, till at last, when the black night wore gray, he lay silent.

“A woman!” thought Manuel. “So a woman drove him across the seas to the Palcazu. Driven — driven! How mad men are!”

Señor had turned his face from his world, to drift with the eddying stream of wanderers who follow no path and find no peace, to be forgotten, to end in evil, to die forlorn — all for a woman.

In the darkness of this Peruvian forest, Señor lay amid the crawling vermin unconsciously muttering of a woman. Night spoke aloud thoughts deep hidden by day. Señor had a sailor’s eye, a soldier’s mien; he had not shrunk from the racking toil, the maddening insects, the blood-boiling heat; he was both strong and brave; yet he was so haunted by a woman that he trembled to hear the fancied voice of his ghost of love in the wailing note of a jungle bird. That note was the echo of his haunting pain. Señor’s secret was a woman.

Manuel understood now why he had been inexplicably drawn to this man. A ghost had risen out of his own dead years. It rolled back time for Manuel, lifting from the depths a submerged memory, that, like a long-sunken bell, rang the muffled music of its past.

Out of the gray jungle gloom glided the wraith of one he had loved long ago. She recalled sunny Spain — a grassy hill over the blue bay — love — home — dark in his inner eye. And the faint jungle murmuring resembled a voice. Thus after absence of years, Manuel’s ghost of love and life had come to him again. It had its resurrection in the agony of his comrade. For Manuel there was only that intangible feeling, the sweetness of remembered pain. Life had no more shocks to deal him, he thought; that keen ache in the breastbone, that poignant pang could never again be his. Manuel was life worn. He felt an immunity from further affliction, and consciousness of age crept across the line of years.

How different from other mornings in the past was the breaking of this gray dawn! The mist was as hard to breathe, the humidity as oppressive, the sun as hot, and the singing spiteful, invisible, winged demons stung with the same teeth of poisoned fire — all the hardship of jungle travel was as before, yet it seemed immeasurably lessened.

For many years Manuel had slaved up these smoky rivers, sometimes with men who hated him, and whom he learned to hate. But no man could have hated Señor. In these enterprises of lonely peril, where men were chained together in the wilderness, with life strained to the last notch, there could be no middle course of feeling. A man must either hate his companion and want to kill him, or love him and fight to save him.

So Manuel loved Señor, and laughed at the great white wonder of it, lightening it all; and once again the sealed fountain of his speech broke and flowed. Back in the settlement chicha had always loosed Manuel’s tongue, liberated wild mirth, incited fierce passions; here in the jungle the divining of another’s pain, such as had seared him years before, pierced to the deeps of his soul, and brought forth kind words that came haltingly through lips long grimly set to curse.

In the beginning of that new kinship, Señor looked in amaze upon his changed comrade, and asked if he had fever. Manuel shook his shaggy head. Señor then fell silent; but he listened, he had to listen, and, listening, forgot himself. A new spirit fused the relation of these men.

“Señor, we are hunters,” said Manuel. “I for gold that I do not want and shall easily find, you for—”

“Peace, Manuel, peace, that I ceaselessly want, but will never find.”

Onward the voyagers poled and waded up the blue Palcazu. The broken waters held them to five miles a day. Only giants could have made even so many. The slimy rocks over which floundered the hydra-headed balls of snakes, the stench of hot ponds behind the bars, the rush of current to be fought inch by inch, the torrents of rain, the bailing of the canoe, the merciless heat, and the ever-whirling, steel-colored bands of venomous flies — these made day a hell, rest a time of pain, sleep a nightmare; but the hunters, one grim, the other gay, strengthened with the slow advance.

Often Manuel climbed the banks, to return saying there was cowcha, more than he had seen, yet still not enough. They must go higher, to richer soil. They camped where sunset overtook them. As they sat over the smoky fires or fished in the river or lay side by side under the tent, Manuel talked. He had gone over the vast fund of his wilderness knowledge, experience in that sun-festered world, stories of river and jungle, of fights and fevers. Circling back on his seafaring life, as castaway, mariner, smuggler, he dredged memory of the happenings of those years till he reached the catastrophe that had made him a wanderer.

“What made me a caucho outlaw?” he queried, whipping his big hand through the flying swarm about his face. “A woman! What sends most wandering men down the false trails of the world? What drove you, comrade? Perhaps a woman! Quien sabe? I loved a girl. She had eyes like night — lips of fire — she was as sweet as life. See my hand tremble! Señor, it was years ago — five, maybe ten, I don’t remember — what are years? We were married, and had a cottage on a grassy hill above the bay, where the wind blew, and we could see the white ripples creeping up the sand. Then a sailor came from over the sea; a naval man, Señor, of your country. He had seen the world; lie could fascinate women — and women change their love. She walked with me along the beach in the twilight. The wind tossed her hair. I repeated gossip, accused her of loving this man I had never seen. She acknowledged her love; proudly, I thought bravely; surely without shame. Señor, with these same hands I forced her to her knees, stifled her cry — and slowly, slowly watched the great staring eyes grow fixed and awful — the lips fall wide—”

“You strangled her?” burst from Señor in passionate force.

“I was a fiend,” went on the Spaniard. “I felt nothing except that her love had changed. I fled over the seas. For long my mind was dark, but clearness came, and with it truth. How I knew it I can’t say — these things abide in mystery — but my girl was innocent. Then hell gaped for me. Burning days — endless nights under the hateful stars — no rest — her last cry, like the Perde-alma, Señor — her great, wide eyes — the beat, the beat, the eternal beat of pain, made him you see a thing of iron and stone.

“What was left, Señor? Only a wild life. You see the wanderer with crimes on him thick as his gray hairs. Ah! What I might have done — might have been! I see that in your eyes. What a man might have been! Holy Mercy! A braver part no man ever had chance to play. I could have left her free. I would not have heard the hound of remorse ever baying my trail. I could have hidden like a stricken deer, and died alone. But I was a blind coward. Men see differently after years go by. What is love? What is this thing that makes one woman all of life to a man? Constant or fickle, she is fair to him. Bound or free, she answers to nameless force.

“Where did you — all this happen?” asked Señor hurriedly and low.

“It was at Malaga, on the Mediterranean.”

Señor stalked off into the gloom, whispering.

Manuel did not notice his comrade’s agitation; he was in the rude grip of unfamiliar emotions. His story had been a deliberate lie, yet it contained truth enough to recall the old feeling out of its grave. He thought he had divined Señor’s secret, his sacrifice, the motive behind his wandering in a God-forsaken land. He believed it was to leave a woman free and to forget. He felt the man’s burning regret that he had not spilled blood in vengeance. So he had lied, had made himself a murderer, that by a somber contrast Señor might see in forgiveness and mercy the nobler part.

Deep in Manuel’s bitter soul he knew how he had lied — for that woman of his youth had not been innocent; he had not harmed her, and he had left her free. Señor would believe his fabricated tragedy, and, looking on this hulk of a man, this wandering wretch, haunted by what he might have been, and, thanking God for his clean hands, might yet see the darkness illumined.

More days the hunters poled and pulled up the Palcazu, to enter, at length, the mouth of a deep estuary coming in from the north.

This water was a blue-green reflection of sky and foliage. It was a beautiful lane, winding between laced and fringed, woven and flowered walls. The heavy perfume of overluxuriance was sickening. Life was manifold. The estuary dimpled and swelled and splashed — everywhere were movements and sounds of water creatures. Gorgeous parrots screeched from the trailing vines; monkeys chattered from the swishing branches. Myriads of bright-plumaged birds, flitting from bank to bank, gave the effect of a many-colored net stretched above the water. Dreamy music seemed to soar in the rich, thick atmosphere.

The estuary widened presently into a narrow, oval lake, with a sandy shore on the north. Crocodiles basked in the sun, and, as Manuel turned the canoe shoreward, they raised themselves on stumpy legs, jaws wide, grotesque and hideous, and lunged for the water.

“Cayman! I never saw so many,” exclaimed Manuel, striking right and left with his paddle. “Where I find caymans, there’s always cowcha. Señor, I believe here is the place.”

They ascended the bank, and threaded a maze of wild cane rising to higher ground. The soil was a rich alluvial. Manuel dug into it with his hands, as if, indeed, he expected to find gold there. The ridge they mounted was not thickly forested. Manuel made two discoveries — they were on the borderland of the eastern Andes, and all about them were rubber trees. Whether or not Manuel cared for the fortune represented by one hundredth part of the rubber he could see, certain it was that he ran from one tree to another clasping each in a kind of ecstasy.

“Iquitos will go mad,” he cried. “A thousand tons of cowcha in sight! It’s here. Look at the trees — fifty, sixty feet high! Señor, we shall go in rich, rich, rich!”

They packed the supplies up from the river to escape the sand flies, and built a shack, elevating it slightly on forked sticks to evade the marching ants and creeping insects. Inside the palm-leaf walls they hung the net, fitting it snugly in the cramped space. By clearing away the underbrush and burning the ground bare, they added still more to the utility of their camp site, and, as far as it was possible in that jungle, approached comfort.

A troop of monkeys took refuge in the tops of some palms and set up a resentful chattering; parrots and macaws swelled the unwelcoming chorus; a boa wound away from the spot, shaking a long line of bushes; and an anteater ran off into the sitekas.

Manuel caught up his gun, making as if to pursue the beast, then slowly laid the weapon down.

“I’d forgotten. We’re in Cashibos country now. I’ve seen no signs, but we had best be quiet. At that we may have to shoot the jaguars. They stalk a man.”

The rubber hunters worked from dawn till the noonday heat, rested through the white, intense hours, resumed their tasks in the afternoon, and continued while the light lasted. The method of honest rubber hunters was to tap a tree in the evening and visit it the next morning to get the juice. This was too slow a process for Manuel — as it took several days for a flow of a few ounces.

He was possessed with exceeding skill in the construction of clay vessels to catch the milky juice and in extracting rubber. He carried water from the river and fashioned large clay repositories, one for so many rubber trees; also he made small vessels and troughs. These baked hard in the sun. Then he cut the trees so the sap would flow freely. They would die; but that was of no moment to the outlaw. He had brought a number of kettles, in which he made a thick steam by heating palm nuts. Taking a stick with a clay mold on the end, he dipped it first in the milk, and then dried the milk in the stream. From a vessel full of milk, he got one third its weight in rubber.

“Señor,” he said proudly, “I can make a hundred pounds of rubber in a day.”

It was a toil-filled time, in which the united efforts of Manuel and Señor were given to making an immense cargo of rubber. Swiftly the days passed into weeks, the weeks summed months, and the rainy season was at hand. Soon the rubber hunters must expect a daily deluge, a flooded, sticky forest, intolerable humidity, and sun like an open furnace door.

Manuel awoke from his lust for rubber.

“The canoe won’t hold another layer,” he said. “She’ll be loggy enough now. We can rest and drift clear to Iquitos. How good! We must be starting.”

Like a flitting shadow, a strange, sad smile crossed Señor’s face. Its meaning haunted Manuel, and recalled the early days of the trip, before the craze for rubber had driven all else from his mind. A wonderful change had come over Señor. He gave all his strength to the gathering of rubber, but no longer with a madness for sheer action. He no longer invited the torture of the stinging pests. He ate like a hungry man, and his sleep was untroubled. Even his silence had undergone change. The inward burning, the intensity of mind forever riveted upon the thing that had been the dividing spear of his life, had given place to austere tranquillity.

Other enlightenment flashed into Manuel’s darksome thought. The fancy grew upon him that he had come to be to Señor what Señor was to him. He sensed it, felt it, finally realized it.

Pondering this man’s deep influence, he tried to judge what it meant. Something shook his pulse, some power from without; some warm, living thing drew him to Señor. It was more than the intimate bond of men of like caliber, alone in the wilds, facing peril carelessly, dependent upon one another. Too subtle it was for Manuel, too mysterious for his crude reasoning; always it kept aloof, in the fringe of his mind. He floundered in thought, and seemed to go wandering in the realms of imagery, to become lost in memory, where the unreal present mingled with the actual past, through both of which ran Señor’s baffling, intangible hold on his heartstrings.

“Maybe I’ve got a touch of fever,” he soliloquized.

Another day went by, and still he hesitated to speak the word for departure. More and more the task grew harder, for added watching, thought, realization, strengthened his conviction that Señor intended to remain alone on the Palcazu. Had the man come to hide in the jungle, to face his soul in the solitude, to forget in the extremes of endurance? Yes, but more! He sought the end — annihilation!

Manuel had never feared to use his tongue, yet now he could not speak. It was midday, and he lay beside Señor in the shack, sheltered from the torrid heat. Usually absolute silence prevailed at this hour. On this day, however, gentle gusts of wind beat the fronds of the palms. What a peculiar sound! It had no similarity to the muffled beating of the heart heard in the ear; yet it suggested that to Manuel, and wrought ominously upon his superstition.

He listened. Sudden, soft gust — gentle beat, beat, beat hastening at the end! Was it the wind? How seldom had he heard wind in the jungle! Was it the fronds of the palms or the beating of his heart or of Señor’s? His blood did beat thick in his ears. Then a chill passed over him, a certainty of some calamity about to be, beyond his comprehension; and he wrenched decision out of his wavering will, and swore that he would start down the Palcazu on the morrow, if not with this strange companion, then alone.

Manuel fell into a doze. He awakened presently, and sat up, drowsy and hot. He was alone in the shack. Then a hand protruded under the flap of the netting and plucked at him.

“Hurry! Hurry!” came the hoarse whisper. “Don’t speak — don’t make a noise!”

Wide awake in a second, Manuel swept aside the flap and straightened up outside. Señor stood very close to him. On the instant, low, whirring sounds caught his ear. From the green wall of cane streaked little things that he took for birds. Bright and swift the glints of light shot through the yellow sunshine. All about him they struck with tiny, pattering thuds and spats. Suddenly the shack appeared to be covered with quivering butterflies. They were gaudy, feathered darts from blowguns of the cannibals.

“Cashibos!” yelled Manuel.

“Run! Run!” cried Señor. He thrust his coat over Manuel and turned him with a violent push. “Run for the river!”

The frenzy of his voice and will served almost to make Manuel act automatically. But he looked back, then stood with suspended breath and leaden feet.

Bronze shadows darted through the interstices of the cane. Then the open sunlight burnished small, naked savages, lean, wild, as agile and bounding as if they were made of the rubber of their jungle home.

Señor jerked Manuel’s machete from a log of firewood, and rushed to meet them. His back was covered with gaudy butterfly darts. The sight held Manuel stricken in his tracks. Señor had made his broad body a shield, had stood buffer between his comrade and the poisoned darts of the Cashibos.

Like a swarm of copper bees shining in the sun, the cannibals poured out of the cane, incredibly swift and silent, leveling their blowguns and brandishing their spears.

Señor plunged at them, sweeping the machete. A row of nimble bodies wilted before him, went down as grain before a scythe. Again the blade swept backward, to whistle forward and describe a circle through tumbling, copper-colored bodies.

Rooted in horror, Manuel saw the first spear point come out of Señor’s back. Another and another! They slipped out as easily as if coming through water. Señor dropped the machete, and swaying, upheld by spears, he broke that silent fight with a terrible cry. It pealed out, piercingly shrill with pain, horrible in its human note of death, but strange and significant in its ringing triumph. Then he fell, and the Cashibos hurdled his body.

Animal instinct to survive burst the bonds that held Manuel as paralyzed. One leap carried him behind the shack, another into the cane, where he sprang into headlong flight. The cane offered little resistance to his giant bounds. Soon he reached the bank of the river. The canoe was gone. Rows of caymans lay along the beach. So swiftly he leaped down that he beat them into the water. Then, drawing Señor’s coat tight around his head and shoulders, he plunged out with powerful strokes.

He had gained the middle of the estuary, when he saw arrowy gleams glance before him. Like hissing hail, a shower of darts struck the water. Then it seemed that gaudy butterflies floated about his face. Diving deep, he swam until compelled to rise for breath.

As he came up, a crocodile rolled menacingly near. Manuel hit it a blow with his fist, and dove again. The coat hindered rapid swimming under water. He rose again to hear the crocodile swirling behind him. Darts splashed big drops on his cheeks, tugged at his head covering, streaked beyond him to skitter along the surface of the estuary.

Reaching shallow water, he crawled into the reeds. White-mouthed snakes struck at him. The bank was low and overhung with rank growths. Manuel scrambled through to the solid ground; and then turned to have a look at his pursuers.

Up and down the sandy beach a hundred or more Cashibos were running. How wild they were, how springy and fleet! How similar to the hungry, whirling sand flies! For a moment the disturbed caymans threshed about in the estuary, holding the cannibals back. Presently several of the most daring waded in above the commotion; then others entered below.

Manuel breasted the dense jungle. Before him rose an apparently impenetrable wall of green. He dove into it, tore through it, leaving a trail of broken branches, twisted vines, and turned leaves. In places he ran encumbered by clinging creepers; in others he parted the thick growths with his hands and leaped high to separate them. Again he bent low to crawl along the peccary trails.

Despite the obstacles, he went so swiftly that the jungle pests could not get at him; the few which did could not keep their hold, because of the scraping brush. Soon he ran out of a vine-webbed canebrake into a grove of sitekas, rubber trees, and palms. At every bound he sank into the moist earth, still he kept on running. He heard a scattering of animals before him, and saw a blur of flapping birds.

The day seemed to darken. He looked up to see trees branching at a height of two hundred feet, and intermingling their foliage to obscure sun and sky. Here was the dim shade of the great forest of the Amazon tributaries. Sheering off to the right, he ran until the clinging earth clogged his feet.

The forest was like a huge, dim hall full of humming life. Lines of shrieking monkeys hung on the ropelike vines that reached from the ground to green canopy overhead. Birds of paradise sailed like showers of gold through the thick, hazy air. Before him fled boas, peccaries, ant-eaters, spotted cats, and beasts that he could not name.

Manuel chose the oozy ground, for there the underbrush was not higher than his knees. On and on he wallowed through the moist labyrinth of intricate thickets, of aisles lined by the red capironas, of peccary trails worn in the earth, of glades starry with exquisite orchids. A fragrance of nauseous sweetness, like that of rotting jessamine and tuberose, mingled with fetid odor of wet, hot earth, of ripe life and luxuriance. The forest was steeped in a steam from overheat, overmoisture, overgrowth.

The gloom deepened. Somewhere back of Manuel rasped out the cough of a jaguar. He quickened his weary steps, soon to strike rising ground and pass out of the dark forest into groves of sitekas. The day was waning. He ascended a ridge, following the patches of open ground where the baked clay shone white. This hard ground would hide his trail from the cannibals, but he had no hope of eluding the jaguars. Still, he could climb out of reach of the hunting cats. It was the little, winged devils, the tiny, creeping fiends that most menaced his life.

He strode on till the shadows warned him of approaching night. Selecting a group of palms with tops interlocking, he climbed one, and perched in the midst of the stems of the leaves. Laboriously he broke stem after stem, bent and laid them crosswise in the middle of the tree. Then he straddled another stem, let his feet hang down, and lay back upon the rude floor he had constructed. Finally, wrapping head and face in Señor’s coat and hiding his hands, he composed himself to rest.

He was dripping wet, hot as fire, pulsating, seething, aching, his whole body inflamed. Gradually the riot of his nerves, the race of hot blood subsided and cooled. Night set in, and the jungle awoke to the hue and cry of its bloody denizens. Mosquitoes swarmed around his perch with a continuous hum not unlike the long, low roll of a drum. Huge bats whizzed to and fro, brushing the palm leaves. Light steps on the hard clay, rustling of brush and snapping of twigs attested to the movement of peccaries. These sounds significantly ceased at the stealthy, padded tread of a jaguar. From distant points came the hungry snarl, the fighting squall, the ominous cough of the jungle cats.

Sometime late in the night Manuel fell asleep. When he awoke the fog clouds were mustering, bulging, mushrooming all in a swirl as they lifted. Like a disk of molten silver, the sun glared through the misty curtain. The drip, drip, drip of dew was all the sound to break the silence. Manuel’s cramped muscles made descending to the ground an awkward task.

He estimated that his flight had taken him miles into the interior. Evidently for the time being he had eluded the Cashibos. However, his situation was gravely critical, and he would never be safe until he got clear of Palcazu territory. It was impossible for him to protect himself from the jungle parasites. His instant and inflexible determination was to make his way back to the river, find his canoe, or steal one from the cannibals, and, failing both, lash some logs together and trust to the current.

The rains were due; soon the rivers would be raging floods; he would make fast time. Manuel had no fear of starvation, of the deadly heat, the fatal dews, the rainy season fever, or of the Cashibos. What he feared was the infernal flies, ticks, ants, mosquitoes — the whole blood-sucking horde. Well he knew that they might bite him blind, poison his blood, drive him mad, actually kill him before he got out of the jungle.

As he was about to start, a small leather pocketbook fell from Señor’s coat. Manuel picked it up. He saw again those broad shoulders covered with the gaudy butterfly darts. He drew his breath with a sharp catch. Fingering the little book, unaccountably impelled, he opened it. Inside was a picture.

He looked down into the dark, challenging eyes, the piquant, alluring face of the woman who had been his sweetheart wife!

Manuel smiled dreamily. How clear was the vision! But almost instantly he jerked up his head, hid the picture, and gazed furtively about him, trembling and startled. The glaring jungle was no lying deceit of the fancy.

Slowly he drew forth the picture. Again the proud, dark eyes, the sweet lips, the face arch with girl’s willfulness, importunate with woman’s charm!

Manuel shifted his straining gaze to Señor’s coat.

“Señor! He was the man — that sailor from over the sea — whom she loved at Malaga! What does it all mean? I felt his secret — I lied — I hatched that murderous story to help him. But he knew I did not kill her!”

Manuel pitched high his arms, quivering, riven by the might of the truth.

“He recognized me! He knew me all the time! He saved my life!”

Manuel fell backward and lay motionless, with his hands shutting out the light. An hour passed. At last he arose, half dazed, fighting to understand.

With Señor’s coat and the picture before him, he traced the wonderful association between them and him. There were the plain facts, as clear in his sight as the pictured face of the woman who had ruined him, but they were bewildering: he could feel but not comprehend them. They obscured their meaning in mystery, in the inscrutable mystery of human life. He had freed her, had left her to be happy with the man she loved.

Had she betrayed him, too? It was not impossible that a woman who had ceased to love one man would cease to love his successor. Some subtle meaning pervaded the atmosphere of that faded coat, that leather book, that woman’s face, with its smile, and by the meaning Manuel knew Señor had suffered the same stunning stroke that had blighted him. Señor had cried out in the night: “Oh God, let me forget!”

It was the same story — hell in the mind, because one day on a woman’s face shone that mysterious thing, a light, a smile for him alone, and on the next day it vanished. Fever in the blood, madness to forget, wandering, a hunt for peace, and the wasting years — how he knew them!

Manuel thought of Señor, of his magnificent strength, of the lion in him as he sprang to meet the Cashibos, of the gaudy butterfly darts imbedded in his back, of the glory and pathos of his death. What his life might have been! A strung cord snapped in Manuel’s breast; his heart broke. Bitter salt tears flowed for Señor, for himself, for all miserable wretches for all time. In that revealing moment he caught a glimpse of the infinite. He saw the helplessness of man, the unintelligible fatality of chance, motive, power, charm, love — all that made up the complexity of life.

How little it mattered, from the view of what made life significant to him, that he was a rubber hunter, lost in the jungle, hunted by cannibals, tortured by heat, thirst, hunger, vermin! His real life was deep-seated in the richly colored halls of memory; and when he lived at all, it was when he dreamed therein. His outside existence, habits of toil, and debauchery were horrors that he hated. On the outside he was a brutalized rubber hunter, unkempt and unwashed, a coarse clod, given over to gaming and chicha. In that inner life he lived on a windy hill, watching white sails on a blue sea, listening to a woman’s voice.

But some change had come that would now affect his exterior life; something beautiful crowned the hideous span of years. His companionship with Señor had softened him, and the tragedy, with its divine communication of truth, was a lightning flash into the black gulf of his soul.

By its light he felt pity for her, for Señor, for himself, for all who lived and loved and suffered. By its light he divined the intricate web and tangle and cross and counter-cross of the instincts and feelings of human nature — all that made love transient in one heart, steadfast in another, fleeting as the shadow of a flitting wing — wonderful, terrible, unquenchable as the burning sun.

By its light he saw woman, the mother of life, the source of love, the fountain of joy, the embodiment of change — nature’s tool to further her unfathomable design, forever and ever to lure man by grace and beauty, to win him, to fetter him in unattainable, ever-enthralling desires. By its light he saw himself another man, a long-tried, long-failing man, faithful to his better self at the last.

Manuel set forth toward the river, keeping in the shade of trees, walking cautiously, with suspicious eyes ever on the outlook. He walked all day, covering twice the distance he calculated he had fled inland. When night fell, he went on by the light of the stars until the fog obscured them. The rest of the night he walked round a tree with covered head. In the morning the sun rose on the side he had thought was west. He had become lost in the jungle.

Heretofore panic had always seized him on a like occasion; this time it did not. Taking the direction he thought right, he pressed on till the midday sun boiled his blood. Succulent leaves and the pith of small palms served as food. He moistened his parching mouth with the sap of trees. Lying down, he covered himself with the coat and a pile of brush and slept; then awoke to trudge on, fighting the flies.

He entered the great jungle forest, and sought his back trail, but did not find it. Swampy water allayed his thirst, and a snake served for meat. The jaguars drove him out of the forest. He began to wander in a circle; and that night and the following day and the next were but augmented repetitions of what had gone before.

The rains did not come. The fronds of the palms beat in the still air. Manuel heard in them a knell. Bitten blind, flayed alive by pests, he fell at last with clouded mind. The whizzing wheel of flies circled lower; the armies of marching ants spread over him; the red splotches of ticks on the leaves spilled themselves upon him like quicksilver. He crawled on through the hot bushes. The light of his mind wavered, and he raved of infernal fires. He was rolling in fire; forked tongues of flame licked at his flesh; red sparks ate into his brain. Down, down under the heated earth, through hot vapors blown by fiery gusts! It was a jungle with underbrush of flame, trees in the image of pillars of fire, screeching red monkeys in service as imps, birds of dazzling coals; and over all and under all and through all a vast humming horde of living embers that bit with white-hot teeth.

As Manuel’s reason flickered, ready to go out forever, the rain descended, and it cooled him and washed him clean of insects. It slaked his thirst and soothed his blinded eyes. At length the tropical cloudburst roared away, leaving the jungle drenched. Manuel followed a rushing stream of water that he knew would lead him to the river. In him resurged effort and resistance.

By nightfall he had come to the border of cane. Like an eel through grass, he slipped between the stalks to the river. On the opposite shore faint lights twinkled. At first he took them for fireflies. But dark forms moving across the lights told him he had stumbled upon an encampment of the Cashibos.

The river seemed uneasy, stirring. It was rising fast. By dawn it would be bank full with a swift current. Under the pale stars the water shimmered, steely black in the shade of overhanging shore, dead silver in the center, where the fish swirled and the crocodiles trailed dimpling wakes.

Without hesitation, Manuel stepped into the water, noiselessly sinking himself to his neck. With his ear level with the surface, he subordinated every sense to that of hearing. The river was a sounding board, augmenting the faint jungle sounds. Crossing would be as safe for him then as it would ever be.

Grim as death, Manuel trusted himself to the river. He glided off the shoal without making a ripple, and swam deep with guarded strokes. Fish sported before him; spiders and snakes grazed his cheeks; caymans floated by with knotty snout parting the current, and lines of bubbles bursting with hollow sound betrayed the underwater passage of more of the lazy reptiles.

Once Manuel felt the swirl and heave of water disturbed by a powerful force. A soft river breeze wafted to him the smell of burning wood and the dull roar of distant rapids. He crossed the shimmering space between the shadows of shore. Looking backward, he descried a circle of black snouts lazily closing in upon him. He quickened his strokes. The twinkling lights disappeared. All before him was black. He felt slimy reeds touch his face, and, lowering his feet, found the bottom, and cautiously waded out. Then he crouched down to rest to gather all his wit and strength for the final move.

Toward the bank he could not see his hand before his face; riverward there was a glancing sheen of water that made the gloom opaque. He began to crawl, feeling in the darkness for a canoe. Moving downstream, he worked out of the marshy sedge to ground worn smooth and hard. It was a landing place for canoes.

He strained his eyes. All about him were shadowy, merging shades without shape. The low murmur of strange voices halted him; he was within hearing of the cannibals. Then in him awoke the stealth and savage spirit of a jaguar stalking prey. Gliding up the trail, he peeped over the bank. Fires flickered back in the blackness, lighting wan circles that were streaked and shadowed by moving, dark forms. With fateful eyes Manuel watched.

Below him a slight splash drew his attention. He fancied it too thin, too hard and dead, to be made by water creature. Again it broke the silence, unnatural to his trained ear. It was the splash of a paddle. Soundless as the shadows about him, Manuel glided down to the edge of the river and lay flat, hugging the sand.

A long, low canoe, black against the background of the river gloom, swept in to the landing gloom, swept in to the landing, grated on the sand, and spread gentle, lapping waves against the beach. A slender form, smooth and wild in outline, stepped out within a yard of Manuel.

Like a specter Manuel loomed up, and his hands closed vise-tight around the neck of the cannibal. He lifted him clear of the ground, and there held him, wrestling, wriggling till fierce struggles ceased in spasmodic convulsions and these subsided in a slow, trembling stretch.

When the body hung limp, Manuel laid it down, and looked up the dim trail leading to the camp of the Cashibos. Upon him was the spell to kill. He saw again the gaudy butterfly darts in Señor’s back; he heard again that strange, terrible cry of triumph. Over him surged Señor’s grand disdain of life. Almost he yielded to an irresistible impulse to make that the end.

“If I had my machete—” he thought. Then he threw off the insidious thrall, and, stepping into the canoe, picked up the paddle and pushed out into the river. The twinkling lights vanished in the foliage. There was no sound of pursuit; the dreamy jungle hum remained unbroken. He paddled the light canoe swiftly with the current.

The moon rose, whitening the river lane. A breeze bore the boom of the Palcazu in flood. Once upon that river of rapids, Manuel would scorn pursuit. Slackening current told him that backwater had swelled the estuary. Soon his ears filled with the rumbling of waters, and he turned out of the estuary into the sliding, moon-blanched Palcazu.

As he dipped into the glistening channel of the first rapid, the canoe, quivering and vibrating, seemed to lurch into the air. Shock on shock kept the bow leaping. Manuel crouched low in the stern. It took all the strength of his brawny arms to keep the canoe straight. Whirling suck holes raced with him; frothy waves curled along the gunwales. One rapid led into another, until the Palcazu was a thundering succession of broken waters. It ran wild for freedom. In the plunging inclines, the silver-crested channels, the bulging billows, were the hurry and spirit of the river. The current, splitting on black-headed stones, hissed its hatred of restraint. Manuel guided the canoe from side to side, glancing along the gulfs, fringing the falls, always abreast of the widest passages.

A haze crept over the moon and thickened to gray fog. Shadows shrouded the river, hanging lower and lower, descending to mingle with the spray. Manuel paddled on while the hours passed.

The fog curtain lightened to the coming of dawn. Manuel evinced no surprise to find himself gazing upon the misty flood of the wide Pachitea. He had run the Palcazu in one night. Paddling ashore, he beached the canoe to bail out water he had shipped in that wild ride.

All night he had felt a balancing of some kind of cargo in the bow. Upon investigating, he found the bottom of the bow covered with palm leaves. These he lifted to discover two naked little savages cowering on a mat of woven reeds.

“Cashibos!” ejaculated Manuel. “Boy and girl. They were in the canoe last night when I strangled that fellow, their father, probably. What’s to be done with them?”

The boy was a dark copper color; his hair grew straight down over his low forehead; he was pot-bellied and altogether ugly. The girl was younger, lighter in color, slim and graceful, and pretty in a wild way, like a bronze elf of the jungle.

“What’ll I do with them?” repeated Manuel. “I can’t kill them, or leave them here to starve or be eaten by jaguars. I’ll take them down the Pachitea and turn them over to a Campas tribe.”

Having decided, Manuel folded a palm leaf and used it to bail out the canoe. In the bottom he found a bunch of dwarfish bananas and some dried fish. Here was good fortune in the way of food. He arranged the palm leaves across the gunwales, making a sun, rain, and dew shield. Then, pushing off, he paddled into the swollen current.

The blazing sun rose; the sand flies wheeled with the drifting canoe; the afternoon rain poured; night came, with its cloud of singing mosquitoes, its poison dews and fogs.

That day passed, and another like it. Every hour the canoe drifted speedy as the current. The Cashibos children lost their fear of Manuel. The boy jabbered and played; the girl smiled at Manuel, which persuaded him not to give them to a Campas tribe, but to take them home and care for them himself.

Three more days and nights the canoe drifted. Manuel’s strength had returned, but it troubled him to think. Something had happened up the river. He had for his pillow a ragged coat that fascinated him, and which he treasured.

Early the next morning he turned the green bend at La Boca to come abruptly upon the Amazonas, lying at the dock. Men shouted from her decks; there was a thudding of bare feet.

“Look! Look!”

“Is it the outlaw?’’

“No — no!”

“Yes — yes. Those shoulders and arms — it’s he!”

Manuel’s blotched face, swollen out of all proportions, was unrecognizable.

Captain Valdez leaned hard over the rail. “Manuel, is it you?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Where’s your cowcha?”

“Lost, captain, lost! A great rubber forest, captain — I had tons of cowcha — it’s lost — all lost!”

“I suppose so,” replied Valdez ironically. “That’s a fine cargo to pay you — two half-grown Indian kids. The nerve of you, Manuel, dropping into La Boca with slaves.”

“Slaves!” echoed from Manuel. His gaze traveled from Valdez’s face to the little bronze Cashibos, once more huddling, frightened, in the bow. “Slaves? Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“Manuel, you had your choice,” went on the captain, “and now you must abide by it. I’ve caught some of you slave hunters this trip. There’s Bustos in irons. Your choice Manuel — the chain gang, or the river?”

“The river for me!” said Manuel. “Only up instead of down!”

“Up! But, Manuel, there’s a chance down the Amazon. You—”

The rubber hunter faced up the wide Pachitea. His stentorian cry froze the words upon Captain Valdez’s lips. It rolled out, a strange, trenchant call to something beyond the wild, silent river.

“Fever,” whispered one of the fettered slave dealers.

“Bitten crazy,” said another.

Manuel started the canoe upstream. He did not look back.

Captain and crew and prisoners on the boat thrilled to Bustos’s mocking farewell.

“Adios, Manuel!”

THE END

The Call of the Canyon

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER I

WHAT SUBTLE STRANGE message had come to her out of the West? Carley Burch laid the letter in her lap and gazed dreamily through the window.

It was a day typical of early April in New York, rather cold and gray, with steely sunlight. Spring breathed in the air, but the women passing along Fifty-seventh Street wore furs and wraps. She heard the distant clatter of an L train and then the hum of a motor car. A hurdy-gurdy jarred into the interval of quiet.

“Glenn has been gone over a year,” she mused, “three months over a year — and of all his strange letters this seems the strangest yet.”

She lived again, for the thousandth time, the last moments she had spent with him. It had been on New-Year’s Eve, 1918. They had called upon friends who were staying at the McAlpin, in a suite on the twenty-first floor overlooking Broadway. And when the last quarter hour of that eventful and tragic year began slowly to pass with the low swell of whistles and bells, Carley’s friends had discreetly left her alone with her lover, at the open window, to watch and hear the old year out, the new year in. Glenn Kilbourne had returned from France early that fall, shell-shocked and gassed, and otherwise incapacitated for service in the army — a wreck of his former sterling self and in many unaccountable ways a stranger to her. Cold, silent, haunted by something, he had made her miserable with his aloofness. But as the bells began to ring out the year that had been his ruin Glenn had drawn her close, tenderly, passionately, and yet strangely, too.

“Carley, look and listen!” he had whispered.

Under them stretched the great long white flare of Broadway, with its snow-covered length glittering under a myriad of electric lights. Sixth Avenue swerved away to the right, a less brilliant lane of blanched snow. The L trains crept along like huge fire-eyed serpents. The hum of the ceaseless moving line of motor cars drifted upward faintly, almost drowned in the rising clamor of the street. Broadway’s gay and thoughtless crowds surged to and fro, from that height merely a thick stream of black figures, like contending columns of ants on the march. And everywhere the monstrous electric signs flared up vivid in white and red and green; and dimmed and paled, only to flash up again.

Ring out the Old! Ring in the New! Carley had poignantly felt the sadness of the one, the promise of the other. As one by one the siren factory whistles opened up with deep, hoarse bellow, the clamor of the street and the ringing of the bells were lost in a volume of continuous sound that swelled on high into a magnificent roar. It was the voice of a city — of a nation. It was the voice of a people crying out the strife and the agony of the year — pealing forth a prayer for the future.

Glenn had put his lips to her ear: “It’s like the voice in my soul!” Never would she forget the shock of that. And how she had stood spellbound, enveloped in the mighty volume of sound no longer discordant, but full of great, pregnant melody, until the white ball burst upon the tower of the Times Building, showing the bright figures 1919.

The new year had not been many minutes old when Glenn Kilbourne had told her he was going West to try to recover his health.

Carley roused out of her memories to take up the letter that had so perplexed her. It bore the postmark, Flagstaff, Arizona. She reread it with slow pondering thoughtfulness.

WEST FORK, March 25.

DEAR CARLEY:

It does seem my neglect in writing you is unpardonable. I used to be a pretty fair correspondent, but in that as in other things I have changed.

One reason I have not answered sooner is because your letter was so sweet and loving that it made me feel an ungrateful and unappreciative wretch. Another is that this life I now lead does not induce writing. I am outdoors all day, and when I get back to this cabin at night I am too tired for anything but bed.

Your imperious questions I must answer — and that must, of course, is a third reason why I have delayed my reply. First, you ask, “Don’t you love me any more as you used to?” . . . Frankly, I do not. I am sure my old love for you, before I went to France, was selfish, thoughtless, sentimental, and boyish. I am a man now. And my love for you is different. Let me assure you that it has been about all left to me of what is noble and beautiful. Whatever the changes in me for the worse, my love for you, at least, has grown better, finer, purer.

And now for your second question, “Are you coming home as soon as you are well again?” . . . Carley, I am well. I have delayed telling you this because I knew you would expect me to rush back East with the telling. But- -the fact is, Carley, I am not coming — just yet. I wish it were possible for me to make you understand. For a long time I seem to have been frozen within. You know when I came back from France I couldn’t talk. It’s almost as bad as that now. Yet all that I was then seems to have changed again. It is only fair to you to tell you that, as I feel now, I hate the city, I hate people, and particularly I hate that dancing, drinking, lounging set you chase with. I don’t want to come East until I am over that, you know... Suppose I never get over it? Well, Carley, you can free yourself from me by one word that I could never utter. I could never break our engagement. During the hell I went through in the war my attachment to you saved me from moral ruin, if it did not from perfect honor and fidelity. This is another thing I despair of making you understand. And in the chaos I’ve wandered through since the war my love for you was my only anchor. You never guessed, did you, that I lived on your letters until I got well. And now the fact that I might get along without them is no discredit to their charm or to you.

It is all so hard to put in words, Carley. To lie down with death and get up with death was nothing. To face one’s degradation was nothing. But to come home an incomprehensibly changed man — and to see my old life as strange as if it were the new life of another planet — to try to slip into the old groove — well, no words of mine can tell you how utterly impossible it was.

My old job was not open to me, even if I had been able to work. The government that I fought for left me to starve, or to die of my maladies like a dog, for all it cared.

I could not live on your money, Carley. My people are poor, as you know. So there was nothing for me to do but to borrow a little money from my friends and to come West. I’m glad I had the courage to come. What this West is I’ll never try to tell you, because, loving the luxury and excitement and glitter of the city as you do, you’d think I was crazy.

Getting on here, in my condition, was as hard as trench life. But now, Carley — something has come to me out of the West. That, too, I am unable to put into words. Maybe I can give you an inkling of it. I’m strong enough to chop wood all day. No man or woman passes my cabin in a month. But I am never lonely. I love these vast red canyon walls towering above me. And the silence is so sweet. Think of the hellish din that filled my ears. Even now — sometimes, the brook here changes its babbling murmur to the roar of war. I never understood anything of the meaning of nature until I lived under these looming stone walls and whispering pines.

So, Carley, try to understand me, or at least be kind. You know they came very near writing, “Gone west!” after my name, and considering that, this “Out West” signifies for me a very fortunate difference. A tremendous difference! For the present I’ll let well enough alone.

Adios. Write soon. Love from

GLEN

Carley’s second reaction to the letter was a sudden upflashing desire to see her lover — to go out West and find him. Impulses with her were rather rare and inhibited, but this one made her tremble. If Glenn was well again he must have vastly changed from the moody, stone-faced, and haunted-eyed man who had so worried and distressed her. He had embarrassed her, too, for sometimes, in her home, meeting young men there who had not gone into the service, he had seemed to retreat into himself, singularly aloof, as if his world was not theirs.

Again, with eager eyes and quivering lips, she read the letter. It contained words that lifted her heart. Her starved love greedily absorbed them. In them she had excuse for any resolve that might bring Glenn closer to her. And she pondered over this longing to go to him.

Carley had the means to come and go and live as she liked. She did not remember her father, who had died when she was a child. Her mother had left her in the care of a sister, and before the war they had divided their time between New York and Europe, the Adirondacks and Florida, Carley had gone in for Red Cross and relief work with more of sincerity than most of her set. But she was really not used to making any decision as definite and important as that of going out West alone. She had never been farther west than Jersey City; and her conception of the West was a hazy one of vast plains and rough mountains, squalid towns, cattle herds, and uncouth ill-clad men.

So she carried the letter to her aunt, a rather slight woman with a kindly face and shrewd eyes, and who appeared somewhat given to old-fashioned garments.

“Aunt Mary, here’s a letter from Glenn,” said Carley. “It’s more of a stumper than usual. Please read it.”

“Dear me! You look upset,” replied the aunt, mildly, and, adjusting her spectacles, she took the letter.

Carley waited impatiently for the perusal, conscious of inward forces coming more and more to the aid of her impulse to go West. Her aunt paused once to murmur how glad she was that Glenn had gotten well. Then she read on to the close.

“Carley, that’s a fine letter,” she said, fervently. “Do you see through it?”

“No, I don’t,” replied Carley. “That’s why I asked you to read it.”

“Do you still love Glenn as you used to before—”

“Why, Aunt Mary!” exclaimed Carley, in surprise.

“Excuse me, Carley, if I’m blunt. But the fact is young women of modern times are very different from my kind when I was a girl. You haven’t acted as though you pined for Glenn. You gad around almost the same as ever.”

“What’s a girl to do?” protested Carley.

“You are twenty-six years old, Carley,” retorted Aunt Mary.

“Suppose I am. I’m as young — as I ever was.”

“Well, let’s not argue about modern girls and modern times. We never get anywhere,” returned her aunt, kindly. “But I can tell you something of what Glenn Kilbourne means in that letter — if you want to hear it.”

“I do — indeed.”

“The war did something horrible to Glenn aside from wrecking his health. Shell-shock, they said! I don’t understand that. Out of his mind, they said! But that never was true. Glenn was as sane as I am, and, my dear, that’s pretty sane, I’ll have you remember. But he must have suffered some terrible blight to his spirit — some blunting of his soul. For months after he returned he walked as one in a trance. Then came a change. He grew restless. Perhaps that change was for the better. At least it showed he’d roused. Glenn saw you and your friends and the life you lead, and all the present, with eyes from which the scales had dropped. He saw what was wrong. He never said so to me, but I knew it. It wasn’t only to get well that he went West. It was to get away. . . . And, Carley Burch, if your happiness depends on him you had better be up and doing — or you’ll lose him!”

“Aunt Mary!” gasped Carley.

“I mean it. That letter shows how near he came to the Valley of the Shadow — and how he has become a man. . . . If I were you I’d go out West. Surely there must be a place where it would be all right for you to stay.”

“Oh, yes,” replied Carley, eagerly. “Glenn wrote me there was a lodge where people went in nice weather — right down in the canyon not far from his place. Then, of course, the town — Flagstaff — isn’t far. . . . Aunt Mary, I think I’ll go.”

“I would. You’re certainly wasting your time here.”

“But I could only go for a visit,” rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. “A month, perhaps six weeks, if I could stand it.”

“Seems to me if you can stand New York you could stand that place,” said Aunt Mary, dryly.

“The idea of staying away from New York any length of time — why, I couldn’t do it I . . . But I can stay out there long enough to bring Glenn back with me.”

“That may take you longer than you think,” replied her aunt, with a gleam in her shrewd eyes. “If you want my advice you will surprise Glenn. Don’t write him — don’t give him a chance to — well to suggest courteously that you’d better not come just yet. I don’t like his words ‘just yet.’”

“Auntie, you’re — rather — more than blunt,” said Carley, divided between resentment and amaze. “Glenn would be simply wild to have me come.”

“Maybe he would. Has he ever asked you?”

“No-o — come to think of it, he hasn’t,” replied Carley, reluctantly. “Aunt Mary, you hurt my feelings.”

“Well, child, I’m glad to learn your feelings are hurt,” returned the aunt. “I’m sure, Carley, that underneath all this — this blase ultra something you’ve acquired, there’s a real heart. Only you must hurry and listen to it — or—”

“Or what?” queried Carley.

Aunt Mary shook her gray head sagely. “Never mind what. Carley, I’d like your idea of the most significant thing in Glenn’s letter.”

“Why, his love for me, of course!” replied Carley.

“Naturally you think that. But I don’t. What struck me most were his words, ‘out of the West.’ Carley, you’d do well to ponder over them.”

“I will,” rejoined Carley, positively. “I’ll do more. I’ll go out to his wonderful West and see what he meant by them.”

Carley Burch possessed in full degree the prevailing modern craze for speed. She loved a motor-car ride at sixty miles an hour along a smooth, straight road, or, better, on the level seashore of Ormond, where on moonlight nights the white blanched sand seemed to flash toward her. Therefore quite to her taste was the Twentieth Century Limited which was hurtling her on the way to Chicago. The unceasingly smooth and even rush of the train satisfied something in her. An old lady sitting in an adjoining seat with a companion amused Carley by the remark: “I wish we didn’t go so fast. People nowadays haven’t time to draw a comfortable breath. Suppose we should run off the track!”

Carley had no fear of express trains, or motor cars, or transatlantic liners; in fact, she prided herself in not being afraid of anything. But she wondered if this was not the false courage of association with a crowd. Before this enterprise at hand she could not remember anything she had undertaken alone. Her thrills seemed to be in abeyance to the end of her journey. That night her sleep was permeated with the steady low whirring of the wheels. Once, roused by a jerk, she lay awake in the darkness while the thought came to her that she and all her fellow passengers were really at the mercy of the engineer. Who was he, and did he stand at his throttle keen and vigilant, thinking of the lives intrusted to him? Such thoughts vaguely annoyed Carley, and she dismissed them.

A long half-day wait in Chicago was a tedious preliminary to the second part of her journey. But at last she found herself aboard the California Limited, and went to bed with a relief quite a stranger to her. The glare of the sun under the curtain awakened her. Propped up on her pillows, she looked out at apparently endless green fields or pastures, dotted now and then with little farmhouses and tree-skirted villages. This country, she thought, must be the prairie land she remembered lay west of the Mississippi.

Later, in the dining car, the steward smilingly answered her question: “This is Kansas, and those green fields out there are the wheat that feeds the nation.”

Carley was not impressed. The color of the short wheat appeared soft and rich, and the boundless fields stretched away monotonously. She had not known there was so much flat land in the world, and she imagined it might be a fine country for automobile roads. When she got back to her seat she drew the blinds down and read her magazines. Then tiring of that, she went back to the observation car. Carley was accustomed to attracting attention, and did not resent it, unless she was annoyed. The train evidently had a full complement of passengers, who, as far as Carley could see, were people not of her station in life. The glare from the many windows, and the rather crass interest of several men, drove her back to her own section. There she discovered that some one had drawn up her window shades. Carley promptly pulled them down and settled herself comfortably. Then she heard a woman speak, not particularly low: “I thought people traveled west to see the country.” And a man replied, rather dryly. “Wal, not always.” His companion went on: “If that girl was mine I’d let down her skirt.” The man laughed and replied: “Martha, you’re shore behind the times. Look at the pictures in the magazines.”

Such remarks amused Carley, and later she took advantage of an opportunity to notice her neighbors. They appeared a rather quaint old couple, reminding her of the natives of country towns in the Adirondacks. She was not amused, however, when another of her woman neighbors, speaking low, referred to her as a “lunger.” Carley appreciated the fact that she was pale, but she assured herself that there ended any possible resemblance she might have to a consumptive. And she was somewhat pleased to hear this woman’s male companion forcibly voice her own convictions. In fact, he was nothing if not admiring.

Kansas was interminably long to Carley, and she went to sleep before riding out of it. Next morning she found herself looking out at the rough gray and black land of New Mexico. She searched the horizon for mountains, but there did not appear to be any. She received a vague, slow-dawning impression that was hard to define. She did not like the country, though that was not the impression which eluded her. Bare gray flats, low scrub-fringed hills, bleak cliffs, jumble after jumble of rocks, and occasionally a long vista down a valley, somehow compelling-these passed before her gaze until she tired of them. Where was the West Glenn had written about? One thing seemed sure, and it was that every mile of this crude country brought her nearer to him. This recurring thought gave Carley all the pleasure she had felt so far in this endless ride. It struck her that England or France could be dropped down into New Mexico and scarcely noticed.

By and by the sun grew hot, the train wound slowly and creakingly upgrade, the car became full of dust, all of which was disagreeable to Carley. She dozed on her pillow for hours, until she was stirred by a passenger crying out, delightedly: “Look! Indians!”

Carley looked, not without interest. As a child she had read about Indians, and memory returned images both colorful and romantic. From the car window she espied dusty flat barrens, low squat mud houses, and queer-looking little people, children naked or extremely ragged and dirty, women in loose garments with flares of red, and men in white man’s garb, slovenly and motley. All these strange individuals stared apathetically as the train slowly passed.

“Indians,” muttered Carley, incredulously. “Well, if they are the noble red people, my illusions are dispelled.” She did not look out of the window again, not even when the brakeman called out the remarkable name of Albuquerque.

Next day Carley’s languid attention quickened to the name of Arizona, and to the frowning red walls of rock, and to the vast rolling stretches of cedar-dotted land. Nevertheless, it affronted her. This was no country for people to live in, and so far as she could see it was indeed uninhabited. Her sensations were not, however, limited to sight. She became aware of unfamiliar disturbing little shocks or vibrations in her ear drums, and after that a disagreeable bleeding of the nose. The porter told her this was owing to the altitude. Thus, one thing and another kept Carley most of

the time away from the window, so that she really saw very little of the country. From what she had seen she drew the conviction that she had not missed much. At sunset she deliberately gazed out to discover what an Arizona sunset was like just a pale yellow flare! She had seen better than that above the Palisades. Not until reaching Winslow did she realize how near she was to her journey’s end and that she would arrive at Flagstaff after dark. She grew conscious of nervousness. Suppose Flagstaff were like these other queer little towns!

Not only once, but several times before the train slowed down for her destination did Carley wish she had sent Glenn word to meet her. And when, presently, she found herself standing out in the dark, cold, windy night before a dim-lit railroad station she more than regretted her decision to surprise Glenn. But that was too late and she must make the best of her poor judgment.

Men were passing to and fro on the platform, some of whom appeared to be very dark of skin and eye, and were probably Mexicans. At length an expressman approached Carley, soliciting patronage. He took her bags and, depositing them in a wagon, he pointed up the wide street: “One block up an’ turn. Hotel Wetherford.” Then he drove off. Carley followed, carrying her small satchel. A cold wind, driving the dust, stung her face as she crossed the street to a high sidewalk that extended along the block. There were lights in the stores and on the corners, yet she seemed impressed by a dark, cold, windy bigness. Many people, mostly men, were passing up and down, and there were motor cars everywhere. No one paid any attention to her. Gaining the corner of the block, she turned, and was relieved to see the hotel sign. As she entered the lobby a clicking of pool balls and the discordant rasp of a phonograph assailed her ears. The expressman set down her bags and left Carley standing there. The clerk or proprietor was talking from behind his desk to several men, and there were loungers in the lobby. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. No one paid any attention to Carley until at length she stepped up to the desk and interrupted the conversation there.

“Is this a hotel?” she queried, brusquely.

The shirt-sleeved individual leisurely turned and replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

And Carley said: “No one would recognize it by the courtesy shown. I have been standing here waiting to register.”

With the same leisurely case and a cool, laconic stare the clerk turned the book toward her. “Reckon people round here ask for what they want.”

Carley made no further comment. She assuredly recognized that what she had been accustomed to could not be expected out here. What she most wished to do at the moment was to get close to the big open grate where a cheery red- and-gold fire cracked. It was necessary, however, to follow the clerk. He assigned her to a small drab room which contained a bed, a bureau, and a stationary washstand with one spigot. There was also a chair. While Carley removed her coat and hat the clerk went downstairs for the rest of her luggage. Upon his return Carley learned that a stage left the hotel for Oak Creek Canyon at nine o’clock next morning. And this cheered her so much that she faced the strange sense of loneliness and discomfort with something of fortitude. There was no heat in the room, and no hot water. When Carley squeezed the spigot handle there burst forth a torrent of water that spouted up out of the washbasin to deluge her. It was colder than any ice water she had ever felt. It was piercingly cold. Hard upon the surprise and shock Carley suffered a flash of temper. But then the humor of it struck her and she had to laugh.

“Serves you right — you spoiled doll of luxury!” she mocked. “This is out West. Shiver and wait on yourself!”

Never before had she undressed so swiftly nor felt grateful for thick woollen blankets on a hard bed. Gradually she grew warm. The blackness, too, seemed rather comforting.

“I’m only twenty miles from Glenn,” she whispered. “How strange! I wonder will he be glad.” She felt a sweet, glowing assurance of that. Sleep did not come readily. Excitement had laid hold of her nerves, and for a long time she lay awake. After a while the chug of motor cars, the click of pool balls, the murmur of low voices all ceased. Then she heard a sound of wind outside, an intermittent, low moaning, new to her ears, and somehow pleasant. Another sound greeted her — the musical clanging of a clock that struck the quarters of the hour. Some time late sleep claimed her.

Upon awakening she found she had overslept, necessitating haste upon her part. As to that, the temperature of the room did not admit of leisurely dressing. She had no adequate name for the feeling of the water. And her fingers grew so numb that she made what she considered a disgraceful matter of her attire.

Downstairs in the lobby another cheerful red fire burned in the grate. How perfectly satisfying was an open fireplace! She thrust her numb hands almost into the blaze, and simply shook with the tingling pain that slowly warmed out of them. The lobby was deserted. A sign directed her to a dining room in the basement, where of the ham and eggs and strong coffee she managed to partake a little. Then she went upstairs into the lobby and out into the street.

A cold, piercing air seemed to blow right through her. Walking to the near corner, she paused to look around. Down the main street flowed a leisurely stream of pedestrians, horses, cars, extending between two blocks of low buildings. Across from where she stood lay a vacant lot, beyond which began a line of neat, oddly constructed houses, evidently residences of the town. And then lifting her gaze, instinctively drawn by something obstructing the sky line, she was suddenly struck with surprise and delight.

“Oh! how perfectly splendid!” she burst out.

Two magnificent mountains loomed right over her, sloping up with majestic sweep of green and black timber, to a ragged tree-fringed snow area that swept up cleaner and whiter, at last to lift pure glistening peaks, noble and sharp, and sunrise-flushed against the blue.

Carley had climbed Mont Blanc and she had seen the Matterhorn, but they had never struck such amaze and admiration from her as these twin peaks of her native land.

“What mountains are those?” she asked a passer-by.

“San Francisco Peaks, ma’am,” replied the man.

“Why, they can’t be over a mile away!” she said.

“Eighteen miles, ma’am,” he returned, with a grin. “Shore this Arizonie air is deceivin’.”

“How strange,” murmured Carley. “It’s not that way in the Adirondacks.”

She was still gazing upward when a man approached her and said the stage for Oak Creek Canyon would soon be ready to start, and he wanted to know if her baggage was ready. Carley hurried back to her room to pack.

She had expected the stage would be a motor bus, or at least a large touring car, but it turned out to be a two-seated vehicle drawn by a team of ragged horses. The driver was a little wizen-faced man of doubtful years, and he did not appear obviously susceptible to the importance of his passenger. There was considerable freight to be hauled, besides Carley’s luggage, but evidently she was the only passenger.

“Reckon it’s goin’ to be a bad day,” said the driver. “These April days high up on the desert are windy an’ cold. Mebbe it’ll snow, too. Them clouds hangin’ around the peaks ain’t very promisin’. Now, miss, haven’t you a heavier coat or somethin’?”

“No, I have not,” replied Carley. “I’ll have to stand it. Did you say this was desert?”

“I shore did. Wal, there’s a hoss blanket under the seat, an’ you can have that,” he replied, and, climbing to the seat in front of Carley, he took up the reins and started the horses off at a trot.

At the first turning Carley became specifically acquainted with the driver’s meaning of a bad day. A gust of wind, raw and penetrating, laden with dust and stinging sand, swept full in her face. It came so suddenly that she was scarcely quick enough to close her eyes. It took considerable clumsy effort on her part with a handkerchief, aided by relieving tears, to clear her sight again. Thus uncomfortably Carley found herself launched on the last lap of her journey.

All before her and alongside lay the squalid environs of the town. Looked back at, with the peaks rising behind, it was not unpicturesque. But the hard road with its sheets of flying dust, the bleak railroad yards, the round pens she took for cattle corrals, and the sordid debris littering the approach to a huge sawmill, — these were offensive in Carley’s sight. From a tall dome-like stack rose a yellowish smoke that spread overhead, adding to the lowering aspect of the sky. Beyond the sawmill extended the open country sloping somewhat roughly, and evidently once a forest, but now a hideous bare slash, with ghastly burned stems of trees still standing, and myriads of stumps attesting to denudation.

The bleak road wound away to the southwest, and from this direction came the gusty wind. It did not blow regularly so that Carley could be on her guard. It lulled now and then, permitting her to look about, and then suddenly again whipping dust into her face. The smell of the dust was as unpleasant as the sting. It made her nostrils smart. It was penetrating, and a little more of it would have been suffocating. And as a leaden gray bank of broken clouds rolled up the wind grew stronger and the air colder. Chilled before, Carley now became thoroughly cold.

There appeared to be no end to the devastated forest land, and the farther she rode the more barren and sordid grew the landscape. Carley forgot about the impressive mountains behind her. And as the ride wore into hours, such was her discomfort and disillusion that she forgot about Glenn Kilbourne. She did not reach the point of regretting her adventure, but she grew mightily unhappy. Now and then she espied dilapidated log cabins and surroundings even more squalid than the ruined forest. What wretched abodes! Could it be possible that people had lived in them? She imagined men had but hardly women and children. Somewhere she had forgotten an idea that women and children were extremely scarce in the West.

Straggling bits of forest — yellow pines, the driver called the trees — began to encroach upon the burned-over and arid barren land. To Carley these groves, by reason of contrast and proof of what once was, only rendered the landscape more forlorn and dreary. Why had these miles and miles of forest been cut? By money grubbers, she supposed, the same as were devastating the Adirondacks. Presently, when the driver had to halt to repair or adjust something wrong with the harness, Carley was grateful for a respite from cold inaction. She got out and walked. Sleet began to fall, and when she resumed her seat in the vehicle she asked the driver for the blanket to cover her. The smell of this horse blanket was less endurable than the cold. Carley huddled down into a state of apathetic misery. Already she had enough of the West.

But the sleet storm passed, the clouds broke, the sun shone through, greatly mitigating her discomfort. By and by the road led into a section of real forest, unspoiled in any degree. Carley saw large gray squirrels with tufted ears and white bushy tails. Presently the driver pointed out a flock of huge birds, which Carley, on second glance, recognized as turkeys, only these were sleek and glossy, with flecks of bronze and black and white, quite different from turkeys back East. “There must be a farm near,” said Carley, gazing about.

“No, ma’am. Them’s wild turkeys,” replied the driver, “an’ shore the best eatin’ you ever had in your life.”

A little while afterwards, as they were emerging from the woodland into more denuded country, he pointed out to Carley a herd of gray white-rumped animals that she took to be sheep.

“An’ them’s antelope,” he said. “Once this desert was overrun by antelope. Then they nearly disappeared. An’ now they’re increasin’ again.”

More barren country, more bad weather, and especially an exceedingly rough road reduced Carley to her former state of dejection. The jolting over roots and rocks and ruts was worse than uncomfortable. She had to hold on to the seat to keep from being thrown out. The horses did not appreciably change their gait for rough sections of the road. Then a more severe jolt brought Carley’s knee in violent contact with an iron bolt on the forward seat, and it hurt her so acutely that she had to bite her lips to keep from screaming. A smoother stretch of road did not come any too soon for her.

It led into forest again. And Carley soon became aware that they had at last left the cut and burned-over district of timberland behind. A cold wind moaned through the treetops and set the drops of water pattering down upon her. It lashed her wet face. Carley closed her eyes and sagged in her seat, mostly oblivious to the passing scenery. “The girls will never believe this of me,” she soliloquized. And indeed she was amazed at herself. Then thought of Glenn strengthened her. It did not really matter what she suffered on the way to him. Only she was disgusted at her lack of stamina, and her appalling sensitiveness to discomfort.

“Wal, hyar’s Oak Creek Canyon,” called the driver.

Carley, rousing out of her weary preoccupation, opened her eyes to see that the driver had halted at a turn of the road, where apparently it descended a fearful declivity.

The very forest-fringed earth seemed to have opened into a deep abyss, ribbed by red rock walls and choked by steep mats of green timber. The chasm was a V-shaped split and so deep that looking downward sent at once a chill and a shudder over Carley. At that point it appeared narrow and ended in a box. In the other direction, it widened and deepened, and stretched farther on between tremendous walls of red, and split its winding floor of green with glimpses of a gleaming creek, bowlder-strewn and ridged by white rapids. A low mellow roar of rushing waters floated up to Carley’s ears. What a wild, lonely, terrible place! Could Glenn possibly live down there in that ragged rent in the earth? It frightened her — the sheer sudden plunge of it from the heights. Far down the gorge a purple light shone on the forested floor. And on the moment the sun burst through the clouds and sent a golden blaze down into the depths, transforming them incalculably. The great cliffs turned gold, the creek changed to glancing silver, the green of trees vividly freshened, and in the clefts rays of sunlight burned into the blue shadows. Carley had never gazed upon a scene like this. Hostile and prejudiced, she yet felt wrung from her an acknowledgment of beauty and grandeur. But wild, violent, savage! Not livable! This insulated rift in the crust of the earth was a gigantic burrow for beasts, perhaps for outlawed men — not for a civilized person — not for Glenn Kilbourne.

“Don’t be scart, ma’am,” spoke up the driver. “It’s safe if you’re careful. An’ I’ve druv this manys the time.”

Carley’s heartbeats thumped at her side, rather denying her taunted assurance of fearlessness. Then the rickety vehicle started down at an angle that forced her to cling to her seat.

CHAPTER II

CARLEY, CLUTCHING HER support, with abated breath and prickling skin, gazed in fascinated suspense over the rim of the gorge. Sometimes the wheels on that side of the vehicle passed within a few inches of the edge. The brakes squeaked, the wheels slid; and she could hear the scrape of the iron-shod hoofs of the horses as they held back stiff legged, obedient to the wary call of the driver.

The first hundred yards of that steep road cut out of the cliff appeared to be the worst. It began to widen, with descents less precipitous. Tips of trees rose level with her gaze, obstructing sight of the blue depths. Then brush appeared on each side of the road. Gradually Carley’s strain relaxed, and also the muscular contraction by which she had braced herself in the seat. The horses began to trot again. The wheels rattled. The road wound around abrupt corners, and soon the green and red wall of the opposite side of the canyon loomed close. Low roar of running water rose to Carley’s ears. When at length she looked out instead of down she could see nothing but a mass of green foliage crossed by tree trunks and branches of brown and gray. Then the vehicle bowled under dark cool shade, into a tunnel with mossy wet cliff on one side, and close-standing trees on the other,

“Reckon we’re all right now, onless we meet somebody comin’ up,” declared the driver.

Carley relaxed. She drew a deep breath of relief. She had her first faint intimation that perhaps her extensive experience of motor cars, express trains, transatlantic liners, and even a little of airplanes, did not range over the whole of adventurous life. She was likely to meet something, entirely new and striking out here in the West.

The murmur of falling water sounded closer. Presently Carley saw that the road turned at the notch in the canyon, and crossed a clear swift stream. Here were huge mossy boulders, and red walls covered by lichens, and the air appeared dim and moist, and full of mellow, hollow roar. Beyond this crossing the road descended the west side of the canyon, drawing away and higher from the creek. Huge trees, the like of which Carley had never seen, began to stand majestically up out of the gorge, dwarfing the maples and white-spotted sycamores. The driver called these great trees yellow pines.

At last the road led down from the steep slope to the floor of the canyon. What from far above had appeared only a green timber-choked cleft proved from close relation to be a wide winding valley, tip and down, densely forested for the most part, yet having open glades and bisected from wall to wall by the creek. Every quarter of a mile or so the road crossed the stream; and at these fords Carley again held on desperately and gazed out dubiously, for the creek was deep, swift, and full of bowlders. Neither driver nor horses appeared to mind obstacles. Carley was splashed and jolted not inconsiderably. They passed through groves of oak trees, from which the creek manifestly derived its name; and under gleaming walls, cold, wet, gloomy, and silent; and between lines of solemn wide-spreading pines. Carley saw deep, still green pools eddying under huge massed jumble of cliffs, and stretches of white water, and then, high above the treetops, a wild line of canyon rim, cold against the sky. She felt shut in from the world, lost in an unscalable rut of the earth. Again the sunlight had failed, and the gray gloom of the canyon oppressed her. It struck Carley as singular that she could not help being affected by mere weather, mere heights and depths, mere rock walls and pine trees, and rushing water. For really, what had these to do with her? These were only physical things that she was passing. Nevertheless, although she resisted sensation, she was more and more shot through and through with the wildness and savageness of this canyon.

A sharp turn of the road to the right disclosed a slope down the creek, across which showed orchards and fields, and a cottage nestling at the base of the wall. The ford at this crossing gave Carley more concern than any that had been passed, for there was greater volume and depth of water. One of the horses slipped on the rocks, plunged up and on with great splash. They crossed, however, without more mishap to Carley than further acquaintance with this iciest of waters. From this point the driver turned back along the creek, passed between orchards and fields, and drove along the base of the red wall to come suddenly upon a large rustic house that had been hidden from Carley’s sight. It sat almost against the stone cliff, from which poured a white foamy sheet of water. The house was built of slabs with the bark on, and it had a lower and upper porch running all around, at least as far as the cliff. Green growths from the rock wall overhung the upper porch. A column of blue smoke curled lazily upward from a stone chimney. On one of the porch posts hung a sign with rude lettering: “Lolomi Lodge.”

“Hey, Josh, did you fetch the flour?” called a woman’s voice from inside.

“Hullo I Reckon I didn’t forgit nothin’,” replied the man, as he got down. “An’ say, Mrs. Hutter, hyar’s a young lady from Noo Yorrk.”

That latter speech of the driver’s brought Mrs. Hutter out on the porch. “Flo, come here,” she called to some one evidently near at hand. And then she smilingly greeted Carley.

“Get down an’ come in, miss,” she said. “I’m sure glad to see you.”

Carley, being stiff and cold, did not very gracefully disengage herself from the high muddy wheel and step. When she mounted to the porch she saw that Mrs. Hutter was a woman of middle age, rather stout, with strong face full of fine wavy lines, and kind dark eyes.

“I’m Miss Burch,” said Carley.

“You’re the girl whose picture Glenn Kilbourne has over his fireplace,” declared the woman, heartily. “I’m sure glad to meet you, an’ my daughter Flo will be, too.”

That about her picture pleased and warmed Carley. “Yes, I’m Glenn Kilbourne’s fiancee. I’ve come West to surprise him. Is he here. . . . Is — is he well?”

“Fine. I saw him yesterday. He’s changed a great deal from what he was at first. Most all the last few months. I reckon you won’t know him. . . . But you’re wet an’ cold an’ you look fagged. Come right in to the fire.”

“Thank you; I’m all right,” returned Carley.

At the doorway they encountered a girl of lithe and robust figure, quick in her movements. Carley was swift to see the youth and grace of her; and then a face that struck Carley as neither pretty nor beautiful, but still wonderfully attractive.

“Flo, here’s Miss Burch,” burst out Mrs. Hutter, with cheerful importance. “Glenn Kilbourne’s girl come all the way from New York to surprise him!”

“Oh, Carley, I’m shore happy to meet you!” said the girl, in a voice of slow drawling richness. “I know you. Glenn has told me all about you.”

If this greeting, sweet and warm as it seemed, was a shock to Carley, she gave no sign. But as she murmured something in reply she looked with all a woman’s keenness into the face before her. Flo Hutter had a fair skin generously freckled; a mouth and chin too firmly cut to suggest a softer feminine beauty; and eyes of clear light hazel, penetrating, frank, fearless. Her hair was very abundant, almost silver-gold in color, and it was either rebellious or showed lack of care. Carley liked the girl’s looks and liked the sincerity of her greeting; but instinctively she reacted antagonistically because of the frank suggestion of intimacy with Glenn.

But for that she would have been spontaneous and friendly rather than restrained.

They ushered Carley into a big living room and up to a fire of blazing logs, where they helped divest her of the wet wraps. And all the time they talked in the solicitous way natural to women who were kind and unused to many visitors. Then Mrs. Hutter bustled off to make a cup of hot coffee while Flo talked.

“We’ll shore give you the nicest room — with a sleeping porch right under the cliff where the water falls. It’ll sing you to sleep. Of course you needn’t use the bed outdoors until it’s warmer. Spring is late here, you know, and we’ll have nasty weather yet. You really happened on Oak Creek at its least attractive season. But then it’s always — well, just Oak Creek. You’ll come to know.”

“I dare say I’ll remember my first sight of it and the ride down that cliff road,” said Carley, with a wan smile.

“Oh, that’s nothing to what you’ll see and do,” returned Flo, knowingly. “We’ve had Eastern tenderfeet here before. And never was there a one of them who didn’t come to love Arizona.”

“Tenderfoot! It hadn’t occurred to me. But of course—” murmured Carley.

Then Mrs. Hutter returned, carrying a tray, which she set upon a chair, and drew to Carley’s side. “Eat an’ drink,” she said, as if these actions were the cardinally important ones of life. “Flo, you carry her bags up to that west room we always give to some particular person we want to love Lolomi.” Next she threw sticks of wood upon the fire, making it crackle and blaze, then seated herself near Carley and beamed upon her.

“You’ll not mind if we call you Carley?” she asked, eagerly.

“Oh, indeed no! I — I’d like it,” returned Carley, made to feel friendly and at home in spite of herself.

“You see it’s not as if you were just a stranger,” went on Mrs. flutter. “Tom — that’s Flo’s father — took a likin’ to Glenn Kilbourne when he first came to Oak Creek over a year ago. I wonder if you all know how sick that soldier boy was. . . . Well, he lay on his back for two solid weeks — in the room we’re givin’ you. An’ I for one didn’t think he’d ever get up. But he did. An’ he got better. An’ after a while he went to work for Tom. Then six months an’ more ago he invested in the sheep business with Tom. He lived with us until he built his cabin up West Fork. He an’ Flo have run together a good deal, an’ naturally he told her about you. So you see you’re not a stranger. An’ we want you to feel you’re with friends.”

“I thank you, Mrs. Hutter,” replied Carley, feelingly. “I never could thank you enough for being good to Glenn. I did not know he was so — so sick. At first he wrote but seldom,”

“Reckon he never wrote you or told you what he did in the war,” declared Mrs. Hutter.

“Indeed he never did!”

“Well, I’ll tell you some day. For Tom found out all about him. Got some of it from a soldier who came to Flagstaff for lung trouble. He’d been in the same company with Glenn. We didn’t know this boy’s name while he was in Flagstaff. But later Tom found out. John Henderson. He was only twenty-two, a fine lad. An’ he died in Phoenix. We tried to get him out here. But the boy wouldn’t live on charity. He was always expectin’ money — a war bonus, whatever that was. It didn’t come. He was a clerk at the El Tovar for a while. Then he came to Flagstaff. But it was too cold an’ he stayed there too long.”

“Too bad,” rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. This information as to the suffering of American soldiers had augmented during the last few months, and seemed to possess strange, poignant power to depress Carley. Always she had turned away from the unpleasant. And the misery of unfortunates was as disturbing almost as direct contact with disease and squalor. But it had begun to dawn upon Carley that there might occur circumstances of life, in every way affronting her comfort and happiness, which it would be impossible to turn her back upon.

At this juncture Flo returned to the room, and again Carley was struck with the girl’s singular freedom of movement and the sense of sure poise and joy that seemed to emanate from her presence.

“I’ve made a fire in your little stove,” she said. “There’s water heating. Now won’t you come up and change those traveling clothes. You’ll want to fix up for Glenn, won’t you?”

Carley had to smile at that. This girl indeed was frank and unsophisticated, and somehow refreshing. Carley rose.

“You are both very good to receive me as a friend,” she said. “I hope I shall not disappoint you. . . . Yes, I do want to improve my appearance before Glenn sees me. . . . Is there any way I can send word to him — by someone who has not seen me?”

“There shore is. I’ll send Charley, one of our hired boys.”

“Thank you. Then tell him to say there is a lady here from New York to see him, and it is very important.”

Flo Hutter clapped her hands and laughed with glee. Her gladness gave Carley a little twinge of conscience. Jealously was an unjust and stifling thing.

Carley was conducted up a broad stairway and along a boarded hallway to a room that opened out on the porch. A steady low murmur of falling water assailed her ears. Through the open door she saw across the porch to a white tumbling lacy veil of water falling, leaping, changing, so close that it seemed to touch the heavy pole railing of the porch.

This room resembled a tent. The sides were of canvas. It had no ceiling. But the roughhewn shingles of the roof of the house sloped down closely. The furniture was home made. An Indian rug covered the floor. The bed with its woolly clean blankets and the white pillows looked inviting.

“Is this where Glenn lay — when he was sick?” queried Carley.

“Yes,” replied Flo, gravely, and a shadow darkened her eyes. “I ought to tell you all about it. I will some day. But you must not he made unhappy now. . . . Glenn nearly died here. Mother or I never left his side — for a while there — when life was so bad.”

She showed Carley how to open the little stove and put the short billets of wood inside and work the damper; and cautioning her to keep an eye on it so that it would not get too hot, she left Carley to herself.

Carley found herself in unfamiliar mood. There came a leap of her heart every time she thought of the meeting with Glenn, so soon now to be, but it was not that which was unfamiliar. She seemed to have difficult approach to undefined and unusual thoughts, All this was so different from her regular life. Besides she was tired. But these explanations did not suffice. There was a pang in her breast which must owe its origin to the fact that Glenn Kilbourne had been ill in this little room and some other girl than Carley Burch had nursed him. “Am I jealous?” she whispered. “No!” But she knew in her heart that she lied. A woman could no more help being jealous, under such circumstances, than she could help the beat and throb of her blood. Nevertheless, Carley was glad Flo Hutter had been there, and always she would be grateful to her for that kindness.

Carley disrobed and, donning her dressing gown, she unpacked her bags and hung her things upon pegs under the curtained shelves. Then she lay down to rest, with no intention of slumber. But there was a strange magic in the fragrance of the room, like the piny tang outdoors, and in the feel of the bed, and especially in the low, dreamy hum and murmur of the waterfall. She fell asleep. When she awakened it was five o’clock. The fire in the stove was out, but the water was still warm. She bathed and dressed, not without care, yet as swiftly as was her habit at home; and she wore white because Glenn had always liked her best in white. But it was assuredly not a gown to wear in a country house where draughts of cold air filled the unheated rooms and halls. So she threw round her a warm sweater-shawl, with colorful bars becoming to her dark eyes and hair.

All the time that she dressed and thought, her very being seemed to be permeated by that soft murmuring sound of falling water. No moment of waking life there at Lolomi Lodge, or perhaps of slumber hours, could be wholly free of that sound. It vaguely tormented Carley, yet was not uncomfortable. She went out upon the porch. The small alcove space held a bed and a rustic chair. Above her the peeled poles of the roof descended to within a few feet of her head. She had to lean over the rail of the porch to look up. The green and red rock wall sheered ponderously near: The waterfall showed first at the notch of a fissure, where the cliff split; and down over smooth places the water gleamed, to narrow in a crack with little drops, and suddenly to leap into a thin white sheet.

Out from the porch the view was restricted to glimpses between the pines, and beyond to the opposite wall of the canyon. How shut-in, how walled in this home!

“In summer it might be good to spend a couple of weeks here,” soliloquized Carley. “But to live here? Heavens! A person might as well be buried.”

Heavy footsteps upon the porch below accompanied by a man’s voice quickened Carley’s pulse. Did they belong to Glenn? After a strained second she decided not. Nevertheless, the acceleration of her blood and an unwonted glow of excitement, long a stranger to her, persisted as she left the porch and entered the boarded hall. How gray and barn-like this upper part of the house! From the head of the stairway, however, the big living room presented a cheerful contrast. There were warm colors, some comfortable rockers, a lamp that shed a bright light, and an open fire which alone would have dispelled the raw gloom of the day.

A large man in corduroys and top boots advanced to meet Carley. He had a clean-shaven face that might have been hard and stern but for his smile, and one look into his eyes revealed their resemblance to Flo’s.

“I’m Tom Hutter, an’ I’m shore glad to welcome you to Lolomi, Miss Carley,” he said. His voice was deep and slow. There were ease and force in his presence, and the grip he gave Carley’s hand was that of a man who made no distinction in hand-shaking. Carley, quick in her perceptions, instantly liked him and sensed in him a strong personality. She greeted him in turn and expressed her thanks for his goodness to Glenn. Naturally Carley expected him to say something about her fiance, but he did not.

“Well, Miss Carley, if you don’t mind, I’ll say you’re prettier than your picture,” said Hutter. “An’ that is shore sayin’ a lot. All the sheep herders in the country have taken a peep at your picture. Without permission, you understand.”

“I’m greatly flattered,” laughed Carley.

“We’re glad you’ve come,” replied Hutter, simply. “I just got back from the East myself. Chicago an’ Kansas City. I came to Arizona from Illinois over thirty years ago. An’ this was my first trip since. Reckon I’ve not got back my breath yet. Times have changed, Miss Carley. Times an’ people!”

Mrs. Hutter bustled in from the kitchen, where manifestly she had been importantly engaged. “For the land’s sakes!” she exclaimed, fervently, as she threw up her hands at sight of Carley. Her expression was indeed a compliment, but there was a suggestion of shock in it. Then Flo came in. She wore a simple gray gown that reached the top of her high shoes.

“Carley, don’t mind mother,” said Flo. “She means your dress is lovely. Which is my say, too. . . . But, listen. I just saw Glenn comin’ up the road.”

Carley ran to the open door with more haste than dignity. She saw a tall man striding along. Something about him appeared familiar. It was his walk — an erect swift carriage, with a swing of the march still visible. She recognized Glenn. And all within her seemed to become unstable. She watched him cross the road, face the house. How changed! No — this was not Glenn Kilbourne. This was a bronzed man, wide of shoulder, roughly garbed, heavy limbed, quite different from the Glenn she remembered. He mounted the porch steps. And Carley, still unseen herself, saw his face. Yes — Glenn! Hot blood seemed to be tingling liberated in her veins. Wheeling away, she backed against the wall behind the door and held up a warning finger to Flo, who stood nearest. Strange and disturbing then, to see something in Flo Hutter’s eyes that could be read by a woman in only one way!

A tall form darkened the doorway. It strode in and halted.

“Flo! — who — where?” he began, breathlessly.

His voice, so well remembered, yet deeper, huskier, fell upon Carley’s ears as something unconsciously longed for. His frame had so filled out that she did not recognize it. His face, too, had unbelievably changed — not in the regularity of feature that had been its chief charm, but in contour of cheek and vanishing of pallid hue and tragic line. Carley’s heart swelled with joy. Beyond all else she had hoped to see the sad fixed hopelessness, the havoc, gone from his face. Therefore the restraint and nonchalance upon which Carley prided herself sustained eclipse.

“Glenn! Look — who’s — here!” she called, in voice she could not have steadied to save her life. This meeting was more than she had anticipated.

Glenn whirled with an inarticulate cry. He saw Carley. Then — no matter how unreasonable or exacting had been Carley’s longings, they were satisfied.

“You!” he cried, and leaped at her with radiant face.

Carley not only did not care about the spectators of this meeting, but forgot them utterly. More than the joy of seeing Glenn, more than the all — satisfying assurance to her woman’s heart that she was still beloved, welled up a deep, strange, profound something that shook her to her depths. It was beyond selfishness. It was gratitude to God and to the West that had restored him.

“Carley! I couldn’t believe it was you,” he declared, releasing her from his close embrace, yet still holding her.

“Yes, Glenn — it’s I — all you’ve left of me,” she replied, tremulously, and she sought with unsteady hands to put up her dishevelled hair. “You — you big sheep herder! You Goliath!”

“I never was so knocked off my pins,” he said. “A lady to see me — from New York! . . . Of course it had to be you. But I couldn’t believe. Carley, you were good to come.”

Somehow the soft, warm took of his dark eyes hurt her. New and strange indeed it was to her, as were other things about him. Why had she not come West sooner? She disengaged herself from his hold and moved away, striving for the composure habitual with her. Flo Hutter was standing before the fire, looking down. Mrs. Hutter beamed upon Carley.

“Now let’s have supper,” she said.

“Reckon Miss Carley can’t eat now, after that hug Glenn gave her,” drawled Tom Hutter. “I was some worried. You see Glenn has gained seventy pounds in six months. An’ he doesn’t know his strength.”

“Seventy pounds!” exclaimed Carley, gayly. “I thought it was more.”

“Carley, you must excuse my violence,” said Glenn. “I’ve been hugging sheep. That is, when I shear a sheep I have to hold him.”

They all laughed, and so the moment of readjustment passed. Presently Carley found herself sitting at table, directly across from Flo. A pearly whiteness was slowly warming out of the girl’s face. Her frank clear eyes met Carley’s and they had nothing to hide. Carley’s first requisite for character in a woman was that she be a thoroughbred. She lacked it often enough herself to admire it greatly in another woman. And that moment saw a birth of respect and sincere liking in her for this Western girl. If Flo Hutter ever was a rival she would be an honest one.

Not long after supper Tom Hutter winked at Carley and said he “reckoned on general principles it was his hunch to go to bed.” Mrs. Hutter suddenly discovered tasks to perform elsewhere. And Flo said in her cool sweet drawl, somehow audacious and tantalizing, “Shore you two will want to spoon.”

“Now, Flo, Eastern girls are no longer old-fashioned enough for that,” declared Glenn.

“Too bad! Reckon I can’t see how love could ever be old-fashioned. Good night, Glenn. Good night, Carley.”

Flo stood an instant at the foot of the dark stairway where the light from the lamp fell upon her face. It seemed sweet and earnest to Carley. It expressed unconscious longing, but no envy. Then she ran up the stairs to disappear.

“Glenn, is that girl in love with you?” asked Carley, bluntly.

To her amaze, Glenn laughed. When had she heard him laugh? It thrilled her, yet nettled her a little.

“If that isn’t like you!” he ejaculated. “Your very first words after we are left alone! It brings back the East, Carley.”

“Probably recall to memory will be good for you,” returned Carley. “But tell me. Is she in love with you?”

“Why, no, certainly not!” replied Glenn. “Anyway, how could I answer such a question? It just made me laugh, that’s all.”

“Humph I I can remember when you were not above making love to a pretty girl. You certainly had me worn to a frazzle — before we became engaged,” said Carley.

“Old times! How long ago they seem! . . . Carley, it’s sure wonderful to see you.”

“How do you like my gown?” asked Carley, pirouetting for his benefit.

“Well, what little there is of it is beautiful,” he replied, with a slow smile. “I always liked you best in white. Did you remember?”

“Yes. I got the gown for you. And I’ll never wear it except for you.”

“Same old coquette — same old eternal feminine,” he said, half sadly. “You know when you look stunning. . . . But, Carley, the cut of that — or rather the abbreviation of it — inclines me to think that style for women’s clothes has not changed for the better. In fact, it’s worse than two years ago in Paris and later in New York. Where will you women draw the line?”

“Women are slaves to the prevailing mode,” rejoined Carley. “I don’t imagine women who dress would ever draw a line, if fashion went on dictating.”

“But would they care so much — if they had to work — plenty of work — and children?” inquired Glenn, wistfully.

“Glenn! Work and children for modern women? Why, you are dreaming!” said Carley, with a laugh.

She saw him gaze thoughtfully into the glowing embers of the fire, and as she watched him her quick intuition grasped a subtle change in his mood. It brought a sternness to his face. She could hardly realize she was looking at the Glenn Kilbourne of old.

“Come close to the fire,” he said, and pulled up a chair for her. Then he threw more wood upon the red coals. “You must be careful not to catch cold out here. The altitude makes a cold dangerous. And that gown is no protection.”

“Glenn, one chair used to be enough for us,” she said, archly, standing beside him.

But he did not respond to her hint, and, a little affronted, she accepted the proffered chair. Then he began to ask questions rapidly. He was eager for news from home — from his people — from old friends. However he did not inquire of Carley about her friends. She talked unremittingly for an hour, before she satisfied his hunger. But when her turn came to ask questions she found him reticent.

He had fallen upon rather hard days at first out here in the West; then his health had begun to improve; and as soon as he was able to work his condition rapidly changed for the better; and now he was getting along pretty well. Carley felt hurt at his apparent disinclination to confide in her. The strong cast of his face, as if it had been chiseled in bronze; the stern set of his lips and the jaw that protruded lean and square cut; the quiet masked light of his eyes; the coarse roughness of his brown hands, mute evidence of strenuous labors — these all gave a different impression from his brief remarks about himself. Lastly there was a little gray in the light-brown hair over his temples. Glenn was only twenty-seven, yet he looked ten years older. Studying him so, with the memory of earlier years in her mind, she was forced to admit that she liked him infinitely more as he was now. He seemed proven. Something had made him a man. Had it been his love for her, or the army service, or the war in France, or the struggle for life and health afterwards? Or had it been this rugged, uncouth West? Carley felt insidious jealousy of this last possibility. She feared this West. She was going to hate it. She had womanly intuition enough to see in Flo Hutter a girl somehow to be reckoned with. Still, Carley would not acknowledge to herself that his simple, unsophisticated Western girl could possibly be a rival. Carley did not need to consider the fact that she had been spoiled by the attention of men. It was not her vanity that precluded Flo Hutter as a rival.

Gradually the conversation drew to a lapse, and it suited Carley to let it be so. She watched Glenn as he gazed thoughtfully into the amber depths of the fire. What was going on in his mind? Carley’s old perplexity suddenly had rebirth. And with it came an unfamiliar fear which she could not smother. Every moment that she sat there beside Glenn she was realizing more and more a yearning, passionate love for him. The unmistakable manifestation of his joy at sight of her, the strong, almost rude expression of his love, had called to some responsive, but hitherto unplumbed deeps of her. If it had not been for these undeniable facts Carley would have been panic-stricken. They reassured her, yet only made her state of mind more dissatisfied.

“Carley, do you still go in for dancing?” Glenn asked, presently, with his thoughtful eyes turning to her.

“Of course. I like dancing, and it’s about all the exercise I get,” she replied.

“Have the dances changed — again?”

“It’s the music, perhaps, that changes the dancing. Jazz is becoming popular. And about all the crowd dances now is an infinite variation of fox-trot.”

“No waltzing?”

“I don’t believe I waltzed once this winter.”

“Jazz? That’s a sort of tinpanning, jiggly stuff, isn’t it?”

“Glenn, it’s the fever of the public pulse,” replied Carley. “The graceful waltz, like the stately minuet, flourished back in the days when people rested rather than raced.”

“More’s the pity,” said Glenn. Then after a moment, in which his gaze returned to the fire, he inquired rather too casually, “Does Morrison still chase after you

“Glenn, I’m neither old — nor married,” she replied, laughing.

“No, that’s true. But if you were married it wouldn’t make any difference to Morrison.”

Carley could not detect bitterness or jealousy in his voice. She would not have been averse to hearing either. She gathered from his remark, however, that he was going to be harder than ever to understand. What had she said or done to make him retreat within himself, aloof, impersonal, unfamiliar? He did not impress her as loverlike. What irony of fate was this that held her there yearning for his kisses and caresses as never before, while he watched the fire, and talked as to a mere acquaintance, and seemed sad and far away? Or did she merely imagine that? Only one thing could she be sure of at that moment, and it was that pride would never be her ally.

“Glenn, look here,” she said, sliding her chair close to his and holding out tier left hand, slim and white, with its glittering diamond on the third finger.

He took her hand in his and pressed it, and smiled at her. “Yes, Carley, it’s a beautiful, soft little hand. But I think I’d like it better if it were strong and brown, and coarse on the inside — from useful work.”

“Like Flo Hutter’s?” queried Carley.

“Yes.”

Carley looked proudly into his eyes. “People are born in different stations. I respect your little Western friend, Glenn, but could I wash and sweep, milk cows and chop wood, and all that sort of thing?”

“I suppose you couldn’t,” he admitted, with a blunt little laugh.

“Would you want me to?” she asked.

“Well, that’s hard to say,” he replied, knitting his brows. “I hardly know. I think it depends on you. . . . But if you did do such work wouldn’t you be happier?”

“Happier! Why Glenn, I’d be miserable! ... But listen. It wasn’t my beautiful and useless hand I wanted you to see. It was my engagement ring.”

“Oh! — Well?” he went on, slowly.

“I’ve never had it off since you left New York,” she said, softly. “You gave it to me four years ago. Do you remember? It was on my twenty-second birthday. You said it would take two months’ salary to pay the bill.”

“It sure did,” he retorted, with a hint of humor.

“Glenn, during the war it was not so — so very hard to wear this ring as an engagement ring should be worn,” said Carley, growing more earnest. “But after the war — especially after your departure West it was terribly hard to be true to the significance of this betrothal ring. There was a let-down in all women. Oh, no one need tell me! There was. And men were affected by that and the chaotic condition of the times. New York was wild during the year of your absence. Prohibition was a joke. — Well, I gadded, danced, dressed, drank, smoked, motored, just the same as the other women in our crowd. Something drove me to. I never rested. Excitement seemed to be happiness — Glenn, I am not making any plea to excuse all that. But I want you to know — how under trying circumstances — I was absolutely true to you. Understand me. I mean true as regards love. Through it all I loved you just the same. And now I’m with you, it seems, oh, so much more! . . . Your last letter hurt me. I don’t know just how. But I came West to see you — to tell you this — and to ask you. . . . Do you want this ring back?”

“Certainly not,” he replied, forcibly, with a dark flush spreading over his face.

“Then — you love me?” she whispered.

“Yes — I love you,” he returned, deliberately. “And in spite of all you say — very probably more than you love me. . . . But you, like all women, make love and its expression the sole object of life. Carley, I have been concerned with keeping my body from the grave and my soul from hell.”

“But — clear — you’re well now?” she returned, with trembling lips.

“Yes, I’ve almost pulled out.”

“Then what is wrong?”

“Wrong? — With me or you,” he queried, with keen, enigmatical glance upon her.

“What is wrong between us? There is something.”

“Carley, a man who has been on the verge — as I have been — seldom or never comes back to happiness. But perhaps—”

“You frighten me,” cried Carley, and, rising, she sat upon the arm of his chair and encircled his neck with her arms. “How can I help if I do not understand? Am I so miserably little? . . . Glenn, must I tell you? No woman can live without love. I need to be loved. That’s all that’s wrong with me.”

“Carley, you are still an imperious, mushy girl,” replied Glenn, taking her into his arms. “I need to be loved, too. But that’s not what is wrong with me. You’ll have to find it out yourself.”

“You’re a dear old Sphinx,” she retorted.

“Listen, Carley,” he said, earnestly. “About this love-making stuff. Please don’t misunderstand me. I love you. I’m starved for your kisses. But — is it right to ask them?”

“Right! Aren’t we engaged? And don’t I want to give them?”

“If I were only sure we’d be married!” he said, in low, tense voice, as if speaking more to himself.

“Married!” cried Carley, convulsively clasping him. “Of course we’ll be married. Glenn, you wouldn’t jilt me?”

“Carley, what I mean is that you might never really marry me,” he answered, seriously.

“Oh, if that’s all you need be sure of, Glenn Kilbourne, you may begin to make love to me now.”

It was late when Carley went up to her room. And she was in such a softened mood, so happy and excited and yet disturbed in mind, that the coldness and the darkness did not matter in the least. She undressed in pitchy blackness, stumbling over chair and bed, feeling for what she needed. And in her mood this unusual proceeding was fun. When ready for bed she opened the door to take a peep out. Through the dense blackness the waterfall showed dimly opaque. Carley felt a soft mist wet her face. The low roar of the falling water seemed to envelop her. Under the cliff wall brooded impenetrable gloom. But out above the treetops shone great stars, wonderfully white and radiant and cold, with a piercing contrast to the deep clear blue of sky. The waterfall hummed into an absolutely dead silence. It emphasized the silence. Not only cold was it that made Carley shudder. How lonely, how lost, how hidden this canyon!

Then she hurried to bed, grateful for the warm woolly blankets. Relaxation and thought brought consciousness of the heat of her blood, the beat and throb and swell of her heart, of the tumult within her. In the lonely darkness of her room she might have faced the truth of her strangely renewed and augmented love for Glenn Kilbourne. But she was more concerned with her happiness. She had won him back. Her presence, her love had overcome his restraint. She thrilled in the sweet consciousness of her woman’s conquest. How splendid he was! To hold back physical tenderness, the simple expressions of love, because he had feared they might unduly influence her! He had grown in many ways. She must be careful to reach up to his ideals. That about Flo Hutter’s toil-hardened hands! Was that significance somehow connected with the rift in the lute? For Carley admitted to herself that there was something amiss, something incomprehensible, something intangible that obtruded its menace into her dream of future happiness. Still, what had she to fear, so long as she could be with Glenn?

And yet there were forced upon her, insistent and perplexing, the questions — was her love selfish? was she considering him? was she blind to something he could see? Tomorrow and next day and the days to come held promise of joyous companionship with Glenn, yet likewise they seemed full of a portent of trouble for her, or fight and ordeal, of lessons that would make life significant for her.

CHAPTER III

CARLEY WAS AWAKENED by rattling sounds in her room. The raising of sleepy eyelids disclosed Flo on her knees before the little stove, ill the act of lighting a fire.

“Mawnin’, Carley,” she drawled. “It’s shore cold. Reckon it’ll snow today, worse luck, just because you’re here. Take my hunch and stay in bed till the fire burns up.”

“I shall do no such thing,” declared Carley, heroically.

“We’re afraid you’ll take cold,” said Flo. “This is desert country with high altitude. Spring is here when the sun shines. But it’s only shinin’ in streaks these days. That means winter, really. Please be good.”

“Well, it doesn’t require much self-denial to stay here awhile longer,” replied Carley, lazily.

Flo left with a parting admonition not to let the stove get red-hot. And Carley lay snuggled in the warm blankets, dreading the ordeal of getting out into that cold bare room. Her nose was cold. When her nose grew cold, it being a faithful barometer as to temperature, Carley knew there was frost in the air. She preferred summer. Steam-heated rooms with hothouse flowers lending their perfume had certainly not trained Carley for primitive conditions. She had a spirit, however, that was waxing a little rebellious to all this intimation as to her susceptibility to colds and her probable weakness under privation. Carley got up. Her bare feet landed upon the board floor instead of the Navajo rug, and she thought she had encountered cold stone. Stove and hot water notwithstanding, by the time she was half dressed she was also half frozen. “Some actor fellow once said w-when you w-went West you were c-camping out,” chattered Carley. “Believe me, he said something.”

The fact was Carley had never camped out. Her set played golf, rode horseback, motored and house-boated, but they had never gone in for uncomfortable trips. The camps and hotels in the Adirondacks were as warm and luxurious as Carley’s own home. Carley now missed many things. And assuredly her flesh was weak. It cost her effort of will and real pain to finish lacing her boots. As she had made an engagement with Glenn to visit his cabin, she had donned an outdoor suit. She wondered if the cold had anything to do with the perceptible diminishing of the sound of the waterfall. Perhaps some of the water had frozen, like her fingers.

Carley went downstairs to the living room, and made no effort to resist a rush to the open fire. Flo and her mother were amused at Carley’s impetuosity. “You’ll like that stingin’ of the air after you get used to it,” said Mrs. Hutter. Carley had her doubts. When she was thoroughly thawed out she discovered an appetite quite unusual for her, and she enjoyed her breakfast. Then it was time to sally forth to meet Glenn.

“It’s pretty sharp this mawnin’,” said Flo. “You’ll need gloves and sweater.”

Having fortified herself with these, Carley asked how to find West Fork Canyon.

“It’s down the road a little way,” replied Flo. “A great narrow canyon opening on the right side. You can’t miss it.”

Flo accompanied her as far as the porch steps. A queer-looking individual was slouching along with ax over his shoulder.

“There’s Charley,” said Flo. “He’ll show you.” Then she whispered: “He’s sort of dotty sometimes. A horse kicked him once. But mostly he’s sensible.”

At Flo’s call the fellow halted with a grin. He was long, lean, loose jointed, dressed in blue overalls stuck into the tops of muddy boots, and his face was clear olive without beard or line. His brow bulged a little, and from under it peered out a pair of wistful brown eyes that reminded Carley of those of a dog she had once owned.

“Wal, it ain’t a-goin’ to be a nice day,” remarked Charley, as he tried to accommodate his strides to Carley’s steps.

“How can you tell?” asked Carley. “It looks clear and bright.”

“Naw, this is a dark mawnin’. Thet’s a cloudy sun. We’ll hev snow on an’ off.”

“Do you mind bad weather?”

“Me? All the same to me. Reckon, though, I like it cold so I can loaf round a big fire at night.”

“I like a big fire, too.”

“Ever camped out?” he asked.

“Not what you’d call the real thing,” replied Carley.

“Wal, thet’s too bad. Reckon it’ll be tough fer you,” he went on, kindly. “There was a gurl tenderfoot heah two years ago an’ she had a hell of a time. They all joked her, ‘cept me, an’ played tricks on her. An’ on her side she was always puttin’ her foot in it. I was shore sorry fer her.”

“You were very kind to be an exception,” murmured Carley.

“You look out fer Tom Hutter, an’ I reckon Flo ain’t so darn above layin’ traps fer you. ‘Specially as she’s sweet on your beau. I seen them together a lot.”

“Yes?” interrogated Carley, encouragingly.

“Kilbourne is the best fellar thet ever happened along Oak Creek. I helped him build his cabin. We’ve hunted some together. Did you ever hunt?”

“No.”

“Wal, you’ve shore missed a lot of fun,” he said. “Turkey huntin’. Thet’s what fetches the gurls. I reckon because turkeys are so good to eat. The old gobblers hev begun to gobble now. I’ll take you gobbler huntin’ if you’d like to go.”

“I’m sure I would.”

“There’s good trout fishin’ along heah a little later,” he said, pointing to the stream. “Crick’s too high now. I like West Fork best. I’ve ketched some lammin’ big ones up there.”

Carley was amused and interested. She could not say that Charley had shown any indication of his mental peculiarity to her. It took considerable restraint not to lead him to talk more about Flo and Glenn. Presently they reached the turn in the road, opposite the cottage Carley had noticed yesterday, and here her loquacious escort halted.

“You take the trail heah,” he said, pointing it out, “an’ foller it into West Fork. So long, an’ don’t forget we’re goin’ huntin’ turkeys.”

Carley smiled her thanks, and, taking to the trail, she stepped out briskly, now giving attention to her surroundings. The canyon had widened, and the creek with its deep thicket of green and white had sheered to the left. On her right the canyon wall appeared to be lifting higher — and higher. She could not see it well, owing to intervening treetops. The trail led her through a grove of maples and sycamores, out into an open park-like bench that turned to the right toward the cliff. Suddenly Carley saw a break in the red wall. It was the intersecting canyon, West Fork. What a narrow red-walled gateway! Huge pine trees spread wide gnarled branches over her head. The wind made soft rush in their tops, sending the brown needles lightly on the air. Carley turned the bulging corner, to be halted by a magnificent spectacle. It seemed a mountain wall loomed over her. It was the western side of this canyon, so lofty that Carley had to tip back her head to see the top. She swept her astonished gaze down the face of this tremendous red mountain wall and then slowly swept it upward again. This phenomenon of a cliff seemed beyond the comprehension of her sight. It looked a mile high. The few trees along its bold rampart resembled short spear-pointed bushes outlined against the steel gray of sky. Ledges, caves, seams, cracks, fissures, beetling red brows, yellow crumbling crags, benches of green growths and niches choked with brush, and bold points where single lonely pine trees grew perilously, and blank walls a thousand feet across their shadowed faces — these features gradually took shape in Carley’s confused sight, until the colossal mountain front stood up before her in all its strange, wild, magnificent ruggedness and beauty.

“Arizona! Perhaps this is what he meant,” murmured Carley. “I never dreamed of anything like this. . . . But, oh! it overshadows me — bears me down! I could never have a moment’s peace under it.”

It fascinated her. There were inaccessible ledges that haunted her with their remote fastnesses. How wonderful world it be to get there, rest there, if that were possible! But only eagles could reach them. There were places, then, that the desecrating hands of man could not touch. The dark caves were mystically potent in their vacant staring out at the world beneath them. The crumbling crags, the toppling ledges, the leaning rocks all threatened to come thundering down at the breath of wind. How deep and soft the red color in contrast with the green! How splendid the sheer bold uplift of gigantic steps! Carley found herself marveling at the forces that had so rudely, violently, and grandly left this monument to nature.

“Well, old Fifth Avenue gadder!” called a gay voice. “If the back wall of my yard so halts you — what will you ever do when you see the Painted Desert, or climb Sunset Peak, or look down into the Grand Canyon?”

“Oh, Glenn, where are you?” cried Carley, gazing everywhere near at hand. But he was farther away. The clearness of his voice had deceived her. Presently she espied him a little distance away, across a creek she had not before noticed.

“Come on,” he called. “I want to see you cross the stepping stones.”

Carley ran ahead, down a little slope of clean red rock, to the shore of the green water. It was clear, swift, deep in some places and shallow in others, with white wreathes or ripples around the rocks evidently placed there as a means to cross. Carley drew back aghast.

“Glenn, I could never make it,” she called.

“Come on, my Alpine climber,” he taunted. “Will you let Arizona daunt you?”

“Do you want me to fall in and catch cold?” she cried, desperately.

“Carley, big women might even cross the bad places of modern life on stepping stones of their dead selves!” he went on, with something of mockery. “Surely a few physical steps are not beyond you.”

“Say, are you mangling Tennyson or just kidding me?” she demanded slangily.

“My love, Flo could cross here with her eyes shut.”

That thrust spurred Carley to action. His words were jest, yet they held a hint of earnest. With her heart at her throat Carley stepped on the first rock, and, poising, she calculated on a running leap from stone to stone. Once launched, she felt she was falling downhill. She swayed, she splashed, she slipped; and clearing the longest leap from the last stone to shore she lost her balance and fell into Glenn’s arms. His kisses drove away both her panic and her resentment.

“By Jove! I didn’t think you’d even attempt it!” he declared, manifestly pleased. “I made sure I’d have to pack you over — in fact, rather liked the idea.”

“I wouldn’t advise you to employ any such means again — to dare me,” she retorted.

“That’s a nifty outdoor suit you’ve on,” he said, admiringly. “I was wondering what you’d wear. I like short outing skirts for women, rather than trousers. The service sort of made the fair sex dippy about pants.”

“It made them dippy about more than that,” she replied. “You and I will never live to see the day that women recover their balance.”

“I agree with you,” replied Glenn.

Carley locked her arm in his. “Honey, I want to have a good time today. Cut out all the other women stuff. . . . Take me to see your little gray home in the West. Or is it gray?”

He laughed. “Why, yes, it’s gray, just about. The logs have bleached some.”

Glenn led her away up a trail that climbed between bowlders, and meandered on over piny mats of needles under great, silent, spreading pines; and closer to the impondering mountain wall, where at the base of the red rock the creek murmured strangely with hollow gurgle, where the sun had no chance to affect the cold damp gloom; and on through sweet-smelling woods, out into the sunlight again, and across a wider breadth of stream; and up a slow slope covered with stately pines, to a little cabin that faced the west.

“Here we are, sweetheart,” said Glenn. “Now we shall see what you are made of.”

Carley was non-committal as to that. Her intense interest precluded any humor at this moment. Not until she actually saw the log cabin Glenn had erected with his own hands had she been conscious of any great interest. But sight of it awoke something unaccustomed in Carley. As she stepped into the cabin her heart was not acting normally for a young woman who had no illusions about love in a cottage.

Glenn’s cabin contained one room about fifteen feet wide by twenty long. Between the peeled logs were lines of red mud, hard dried. There was a small window opposite the door. In one corner was a couch of poles, with green tips of pine boughs peeping from under the blankets. The floor consisted of flat rocks laid irregularly, with many spaces of earth showing between. The open fireplace appeared too large for the room, but the very bigness of it, as well as the blazing sticks and glowing embers, appealed strongly to Carley. A rough-hewn log formed the mantel, and on it Carley’s picture held the place of honor. Above this a rifle lay across deer antlers. Carley paused here in her survey long enough to kiss Glenn and point to her photograph.

“You couldn’t have pleased me more.”

To the left of the fireplace was a rude cupboard of shelves, packed with boxes, cans, bags, and utensils. Below the cupboard, hung upon pegs, were blackened pots and pans, a long-handled skillet, and a bucket. Glenn’s table was a masterpiece. There was no danger of knocking it over. It consisted of four poles driven into the ground, upon which had been nailed two wide slabs. This table showed considerable evidence of having been scrubbed scrupulously clean. There were two low stools, made out of boughs, and the seats had been covered with woolly sheep hide. In the right-hand corner stood a neat pile of firewood, cut with an ax, and beyond this hung saddle and saddle blanket, bridle and spurs. An old sombrero was hooked upon the pommel of the saddle. Upon the wall, higher up, hung a lantern, resting in a coil of rope that Carley took to be a lasso. Under a shelf upon which lay a suitcase hung some rough wearing apparel.

Carley noted that her picture and the suit case were absolutely the only physical evidences of Glenn’s connection with his Eastern life. That had an unaccountable effect upon Carley. What had she expected? Then, after another survey of the room, she began to pester Glenn with questions. He had to show her the spring outside and the little bench with basin and soap. Sight of his soiled towel made her throw up her hands. She sat on the stools. She lay on the couch. She rummaged into the contents of the cupboard. She threw wood on the fire. Then, finally, having exhausted her search and inquiry, she flopped down on one of the stools to gaze at Glenn in awe and admiration and incredulity.

“Glenn — you’ve actually lived here!” she ejaculated.

“Since last fall before the snow came,” he said, smiling.

“Snow! Did it snow?” she inquired.

“Well, I guess. I was snowed in for a week.”

“Why did you choose this lonely place — way off from the Lodge?” she asked, slowly.

“I wanted to be by myself,” he replied, briefly.

“You mean this is a sort of camp-out place?”

“Carley, I call it my home,” he replied, and there was a low, strong sweetness in his voice she had never heard before.

That silenced her for a while. She went to the door and gazed up at the towering wall, more wonderful than ever, and more fearful, too, in her sight. Presently tears dimmed her eyes. She did not understand her feeling; she was ashamed of it; she hid it from Glenn. Indeed, there was something terribly wrong between her and Glenn, and it was not in him. This cabin he called home gave her a shock which would take time to analyze. At length she turned to him with gay utterance upon her lips. She tried to put out of her mind a dawning sense that this close-to-the-earth habitation, this primitive dwelling, held strange inscrutable power over a self she had never divined she possessed. The very stones in the hearth seemed to call out from some remote past, and the strong sweet smell of burnt wood thrilled to the marrow of her bones. How little she knew of herself! But she had intelligence enough to understand that there was a woman in her, the female of the species; and through that the sensations from logs and stones and earth and fire had strange power to call up the emotions handed down to her from the ages. The thrill, the queer heartbeat, the vague, haunting memory of something, as of a dim childhood adventure, the strange prickling sense of dread — these abided with her and augmented while she tried to show Glenn her pride in him and also how funny his cabin seemed to her.

Once or twice he hesitatingly, and somewhat appealingly, she imagined, tried to broach the subject of his work there in the West. But Carley wanted a little while with him free of disagreeable argument. It was a foregone conclusion that she would not like his work. Her intention at first had been to begin at once to use all persuasion in her power toward having him go back East with her, or at the latest some time this year. But the rude log cabin had checked her impulse. She felt that haste would be unwise.

“Glenn Kilbourne, I told you why I came West to see you,” she said, spiritedly. “Well, since you still swear allegiance to your girl from the East, you might entertain her a little bit before getting down to business talk.”

“All right, Carley,” he replied, laughing. “What do you want to do? The day is at your disposal. I wish it were June. Then if you didn’t fall in love with West Fork you’d be no good.”

“Glenn, I love people, not places,” she returned.

“So I remember. And that’s one thing I don’t like. But let’s not quarrel. What’ll we do?”

“Suppose you tramp with me all around, until I’m good and hungry. Then we’ll come back here — and you can cook dinner for me.”

“Fine! Oh, I know you’re just bursting with curiosity to see how I’ll do it. Well, you may be surprised, miss.”

“Let’s go,” she urged.

“Shall I take my gun or fishing rod?”

“You shall take nothing but me,” retorted Carley. “What chance has a girl with a man, if he can hunt or fish?”

So they went out hand in hand. Half of the belt of sky above was obscured by swiftly moving gray clouds. The other half was blue and was being slowly encroached upon by the dark storm-like pall. How cold the air! Carley had already learned that when the sun was hidden the atmosphere was cold. Glenn led her down a trail to the brook, where he calmly picked her up in his arms, quite easily, it appeared, and leisurely packed her across, kissing her half a dozen times before he deposited her on her feet.

“Glenn, you do this sort of thing so well that it makes me imagine you have practice now and then,” she said.

“No. But you are pretty and sweet, and like the girl you were four years ago. That takes me back to those days.”

“I thank you. That’s dear of you. I think I am something of a cat. . . . I’ll be glad if this walk leads us often to the creek.”

Spring might have been fresh and keen in the air, but it had not yet brought much green to the brown earth or to the trees. The cotton-woods showed a light feathery verdure. The long grass was a bleached white, and low down close to the sod fresh tiny green blades showed. The great fern leaves were sear and ragged, and they rustled in the breeze. Small gray sheath-barked trees with clumpy foliage and snags of dead branches, Glenn called cedars; and, grotesque as these were, Carley rather liked them. They were approachable, not majestic and lofty like the pines, and they smelled sweetly wild, and best of all they afforded some protection from the bitter wind. Carley rested better than she walked. The huge sections of red rock that had tumbled from above also interested Carley, especially when the sun happened to come out for a few moments and brought out their color. She enjoyed walking on the fallen pines, with Glenn below, keeping pace with her and holding her hand. Carley looked in vain for flowers and birds. The only living things she saw were rainbow trout that Glenn pointed out to her in the beautiful clear pools. The way the great gray bowlders trooped down to the brook as if they were cattle going to drink; the dark caverns under the shelving cliffs, where the water murmured with such hollow mockery; the low spear-pointed gray plants, resembling century plants, and which Glenn called mescal cactus, each with its single straight dead stalk standing on high with fluted head; the narrow gorges, perpendicularly walled in red, where the constricted brook plunged in amber and white cascades over fall after fall, tumbling, rushing, singing its water melody — these all held singular appeal for Carley as aspects of the wild land, fascinating for the moment, symbolic of the lonely red man and his forbears, and by their raw contrast making more necessary and desirable and elevating the comforts and conventions of civilization. The cave man theory interested Carley only as mythology.

Lonelier, wilder, grander grew Glenn’s canyon. Carley was finally forced to shift her attention from the intimate objects of the canyon floor to the aloof and unattainable heights. Singular to feel the difference! That which she could see close at hand, touch if she willed, seemed to, become part of her knowledge, could be observed and so possessed and passed by. But the gold-red ramparts against the sky, the crannied cliffs, the crags of the eagles, the lofty, distant blank walls, where the winds of the gods had written their wars — these haunted because they could never be possessed. Carley had often gazed at the Alps as at celebrated pictures. She admired, she appreciated — then she forgot. But the canyon heights did not affect her that way. They vaguely dissatisfied, and as she could not be sure of what they dissatisfied, she had to conclude that it was in herself. To see, to watch, to dream, to seek, to strive, to endure, to find! Was that what they meant? They might make her thoughtful of the vast earth, and its endless age, and its staggering mystery. But what more!

The storm that had threatened blackened the sky, and gray scudding clouds buried the canyon rims, and long veils of rain and sleet began to descend. The wind roared through the pines, drowning the roar of the brook. Quite suddenly the air grew piercingly cold. Carley had forgotten her gloves, and her pockets had not been constructed to protect hands. Glenn drew her into a sheltered nook where a rock jutted out from overhead and a thicket of young pines helped break the onslaught of the wind. There Carley sat on a cold rock, huddled up close to Glenn, and wearing to a state she knew would be misery. Glenn not only seemed content; he was happy. “This is great,” he said. His coat was open, his hands uncovered, and he watched the storm and listened with manifest delight. Carley hated to betray what a weakling she was, so she resigned herself to her fate, and imagined she felt her fingers numbing into ice, and her sensitive nose slowly and painfully freezing.

The storm passed, however, before Carley sank into abject and open wretchedness. She managed to keep pace with Glenn until exercise warmed her blood. At every little ascent in the trail she found herself laboring to get her breath. There was assuredly evidence of abundance of air in this canyon, but somehow she could not get enough of it. Glenn detected this and said it was owing to the altitude. When they reached the cabin Carley was wet, stiff, cold, exhausted. How welcome the shelter, the open fireplace! Seeing the cabin in new light, Carley had the grace to acknowledge to herself that, after all, it was not so bad.

“Now for a good fire and then dinner,” announced Glenn, with the air of one who knew his ground.

“Can I help?” queried Carley.

“Not today. I do not want you to spring any domestic science on me now.” Carley was not averse to withholding her ignorance. She watched Glenn with surpassing curiosity and interest. First he threw a quantity of wood upon the smoldering fire.

“I have ham and mutton of my own raising,” announced Glenn, with importance. “Which would you prefer?”

“Of your own raising. What do you mean?” queried Carley.

“My dear, you’ve been so steeped in the fog of the crowd that you are blind to the homely and necessary things of living. I mean I have here meat of both sheep and hog that I raised myself. That is to say, mutton and ham. Which do you like?”

“Ham!” cried Carley, incredulously.

Without more ado Glenn settled to brisk action, every move of which Carley watched with keen eyes. The usurping of a woman’s province by a man was always an amusing thing. But for Glenn Kilbourne — what more would it be? He evidently knew what he wanted, for every movement was quick, decisive. One after another he placed bags, cans, sacks, pans, utensils on the table. Then he kicked at the roaring fire, settling some of the sticks. He strode outside to return with a bucket of water, a basin, towel, and soap. Then he took down two queer little iron pots with heavy lids. To each pot was attached a wire handle. He removed the lids, then set both the pots right on the fire or in it. Pouring water into the basin, he proceeded to wash his hands. Next he took a large pail, and from a sack he filled it half full of flour. To this he added baking powder and salt. It was instructive for Carley to see him run his skillful fingers all through that flour, as if searching for lumps. After this he knelt before the fire and, lifting off one of the iron pots with a forked stick, he proceeded to wipe out the inside of the pot and grease it with a piece of fat. His next move was to rake out a pile of the red coals, a feat he performed with the stick, and upon these he placed the pot. Also he removed the other pot from the fire, leaving it, however, quite close.

“Well, all eyes?” he bantered, suddenly staring at her. “Didn’t I say I’d surprise you?”

“Don’t mind me. This is about the happiest and most bewildered moment — of my life,” replied Carley.

Returning to the table, Glenn dug at something in a large red can. He paused a moment to eye Carley.

“Girl, do you know how to make biscuits?” he queried.

“I might have known in my school days, but I’ve forgotten,” she replied.

“Can you make apple pie?” he demanded, imperiously.

“No,” rejoined Carley.

“How do you expect to please your husband?”

“Why — by marrying him, I suppose,” answered Carley, as if weighing a problem.

“That has been the universal feminine point of view for a good many years,” replied Glenn, flourishing a flour-whitened hand. “But it never served the women of the Revolution or the pioneers. And they were the builders of the nation. It will never serve the wives of the future, if we are to survive.”

“Glenn, you rave!” ejaculated Carley, not knowing whether to laugh or be grave. “You were talking of humble housewifely things.”

“Precisely. The humble things that were the foundation of the great nation of Americans. I meant work and children.”

Carley could only stare at him. The look he flashed at her, the sudden intensity and passion of his ringing words, were as if he gave her a glimpse into the very depths of him. He might have begun in fun, but he had finished otherwise. She felt that she really did not know this man. Had he arraigned her in judgment? A flush, seemingly hot and cold, passed over her. Then it relieved her to see that he had returned to his task.

He mixed the shortening with the flour, and, adding water, he began a thorough kneading. When the consistency of the mixture appeared to satisfy him he took a handful of it, rolled it into a ball, patted and flattened it into a biscuit, and dropped it into the oven he had set aside on the hot coals. Swiftly he shaped eight or ten other biscuits and dropped them as the first. Then he put the heavy iron lid on the pot, and with a rude shovel, improvised from a flattened tin can, he shoveled red coals out of the fire, and covered the lid with them. His next move was to pare and slice potatoes, placing these aside in a pan. A small black coffee-pot half full of water, was set on a glowing part of the fire. Then he brought into use a huge, heavy knife, a murderous-looking implement it appeared to Carley, with which he cut slices of ham. These he dropped into the second pot, which he left uncovered. Next he removed the flour sack and other inpedimenta from the table, and proceeded to set places for two — blue-enamel plate and cup, with plain, substantial-looking knives, forks, and spoons. He went outside, to return presently carrying a small crock of butter. Evidently he had kept the butter in or near the spring. It looked dewy and cold and hard. After that he peeped under the lid of the pot which contained the biscuits. The other pot was sizzling and smoking, giving forth a delicious savory odor that affected Carley most agreeably. The coffee-pot had begun to steam. With a long fork Glenn turned the slices of ham and stood a moment watching them. Next he placed cans of three sizes upon the table; and these Carley conjectured contained sugar, salt, and pepper. Carley might not have been present, for all the attention he paid to her. Again he peeped at the biscuits. At the edge of the hot embers he placed a tin plate, upon which he carefully deposited the slices of ham. Carley had not needed sight of them to know she was hungry; they made her simply ravenous. That done, he poured the pan of sliced potatoes into the pot. Carley judged the heat of that pot to be extreme. Next he removed the lid from the other pot, exposing biscuits slightly browned; and evidently satisfied with these, he removed them from the coals. He stirred the slices of potatoes round and round; he emptied two heaping tablespoonfuls of coffee into the coffee-pot.

“Carley,” he said, at last turning to her with a warm smile, “out here in the West the cook usually yells, ‘Come and get it.’ Draw up your stool.”

And presently Carley found herself seated across the crude table from Glenn, with the background of chinked logs in her sight, and the smart of wood smoke in her eyes. In years past she had sat with him in the soft, subdued, gold-green shadows of the Astor, or in the sumptuous atmosphere of the St. Regis. But this event was so different, so striking, that she felt it would have limitless significance. For one thing, the look of Glenn! When had he ever seemed like this, wonderfully happy to have her there, consciously proud of this dinner he had prepared in half an hour, strangely studying her as one on trial? This might have had its effect upon Carley’s reaction to the situation, making it sweet, trenchant with meaning, but she was hungry enough and the dinner was good enough to make this hour memorable on that score alone. She ate until she was actually ashamed of herself. She laughed heartily, she talked, she made love to Glenn. Then suddenly an idea flashed into her quick mind.

“Glenn, did this girl Flo teach you to cook?” she queried, sharply.

“No. I always was handy in camp. Then out here I had the luck to fall in with an old fellow who was a wonderful cook. He lived with me for a while. . . . Why, what difference would it have made — had Flo taught me?”

Carley felt the heat of blood in her face. “I don’t know that it would have made a difference. Only — I’m glad she didn’t teach you. I’d rather no girl could teach you what I couldn’t.”

“You think I’m a pretty good cook, then?” he asked.

“I’ve enjoyed this dinner more than any I’ve ever eaten.”

“Thanks, Carley. That’ll help a lot,” he said, gayly, but his eyes shone with earnest, glad light. “I hoped I’d surprise you. I’ve found out here that I want to do things well. The West stirs something in a man. It must be an unwritten law. You stand or fall by your own hands. Back East you know meals are just occasions — to hurry through — to dress for — to meet somebody — to eat because you have to eat. But out here they are different. I don’t know how. In the city, producers, merchants, waiters serve you for money. The meal is a transaction. It has no significance. It is money that keeps you from starvation. But in the West money doesn’t mean much. You must work to live.”

Carley leaned her elbows on the table and gazed at him curiously and admiringly. “Old fellow, you’re a wonder. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. That you could come West weak and sick, and fight your way to health, and learn to be self-sufficient! It is a splendid achievement. It amazes me. I don’t grasp it. I want to think. Nevertheless I—”

“What?” he queried, as she hesitated.

“Oh, never mind now,” she replied, hastily, averting her eyes.

The day was far spent when Carley returned to the Lodge-and in spite of the discomfort of cold and sleet, and the bitter wind that beat in her face as she struggled up the trail — it was a day never to be forgotten. Nothing had been wanting in Glenn’s attention or affection. He had been comrade, lover, all she craved for. And but for his few singular words about work and children there had been no serious talk. Only a play day in his canyon and his cabin! Yet had she appeared at her best? Something vague and perplexing knocked at the gate of her consciousness.

CHAPTER IV

TWO WARM SUNNY days in early May inclined Mr. Hutter to the opinion that pleasant spring weather was at hand and that it would be a propitious time to climb up on the desert to look after his sheep interests. Glenn, of course, would accompany him.

“Carley and I will go too,” asserted Flo.

“Reckon that’ll be good,” said Hutter, with approving nod.

His wife also agreed that it would be fine for Carley to see the beautiful desert country round Sunset Peak. But Glenn looked dubious.

“Carley, it’ll be rather hard,” he said. “You’re soft, and riding and lying out will stove you up. You ought to break in gradually.”

“I rode ten miles today,” rejoined Carley. “And didn’t mind it — much.” This was a little deviation from stern veracity.

“Shore Carley’s well and strong,” protested Flo. “She’ll get sore, but that won’t kill her.”

Glenn eyed Flo with rather penetrating glance. “I might drive Carley round about in the car,” he said.

“But you can’t drive over those lava flats, or go round, either. We’d have to send horses in some cases miles to meet you. It’s horseback if you go at all.”

“Shore we’ll go horseback,” spoke up Flo. “Carley has got it all over that Spencer girl who was here last summer.”

“I think so, too. I am sure I hope so. Because you remember what the ride to Long Valley did to Miss Spencer,” rejoined Glenn.

“What?” inquired Carley.

“Bad cold, peeled nose, skinned shin, saddle sores. She was in bed two days. She didn’t show much pep the rest of her stay here, and she never got on another horse.”

“Oh, is that all, Glenn?” returned Carley, in feigned surprise. “Why, I imagined from your tone that Miss Spencer’s ride must have occasioned her discomfort. . . . See here, Glenn. I may be a tenderfoot, but I’m no mollycoddle.”

“My dear, I surrender,” replied Glenn, with a laugh. “Really, I’m delighted. But if anything happens — don’t you blame me. I’m quite sure that a long horseback ride, in spring, on the desert, will show you a good many things about yourself.”

That was how Carley came to find herself, the afternoon of the next day, astride a self-willed and unmanageable little mustang, riding in the rear of her friends, on the way through a cedar forest toward a place called Deep Lake.

Carley had not been able yet, during the several hours of their journey, to take any pleasure in the scenery or in her mount. For in the first place there was nothing to see but scrubby little gnarled cedars and drab-looking rocks; and in the second this Indian pony she rode had discovered she was not an adept horsewoman and had proceeded to take advantage of the fact. It did not help Carley’s predicament to remember that Glenn had decidedly advised her against riding this particular mustang. To be sure, Flo had approved of Carley’s choice, and Mr. Hutter, with a hearty laugh, had fallen in line: “Shore. Let her ride one of the broncs, if she wants.” So this animal she bestrode must have been a bronc, for it did not take him long to elicit from Carley a muttered, “I don’t know what bronc means, but it sounds like this pony acts.”

Carley had inquired the animal’s name from the young herder who had saddled him for her.

“Wal, I reckon he ain’t got much of a name,” replied the lad, with a grin, as he scratched his head. “For us boys always called him Spillbeans.”

“Humph! What a beautiful cognomen!” ejaculated Carley, “But according to Shakespeare any name will serve. I’ll ride him or — or—”

So far there had not really been any necessity for the completion of that sentence. But five miles of riding up into the cedar forest had convinced Carley that she might not have much farther to go. Spillbeans had ambled along well enough until he reached level ground where a long bleached grass waved in the wind. Here he manifested hunger, then a contrary nature, next insubordination, and finally direct hostility. Carley had urged, pulled, and commanded in vain. Then when she gave Spillbeans a kick in the flank he jumped stiff legged, propelling her up out of the saddle, and while she was descending he made the queer jump again, coming up to meet her. The jolt she got seemed to dislocate every bone in her body. Likewise it hurt. Moreover, along with her idea of what a spectacle she must have presented, it quickly decided Carley that Spillbeans was a horse that was not to be opposed. Whenever he wanted a mouthful of grass he stopped to get it. Therefore Carley was always in the rear, a fact which in itself did not displease her. Despite his contrariness, however, Spillbeans had apparently no intention of allowing the other horses to get completely out of sight.

Several times Flo waited for Carley to catch up. “He’s loafing on you, Carley. You ought to have on a spur. Break off a switch and beat him some.” Then she whipped the mustang across the flank with her bridle rein, which punishment caused Spillbeans meekly to trot on with alacrity. Carley had a positive belief that he would not do it for her. And after Flo’s repeated efforts, assisted by chastisement from Glenn, had kept Spillbeans in a trot for a couple of miles Carley began to discover that the trotting of a horse was the most uncomfortable motion possible to imagine. It grew worse. It became painful. It gradually got unendurable. But pride made Carley endure it until suddenly she thought she had been stabbed in the side. This strange piercing pain must be what Glenn had called a “stitch” in the side, something common to novices on horseback. Carley could have screamed. She pulled the mustang to a walk and sagged in her saddle until the pain subsided. What a blessed relief! Carley had keen sense of the difference between riding in Central Park and in Arizona. She regretted her choice of horses. Spillbeans was attractive to look at, but the pleasure of riding him was a delusion. Flo had said his gait resembled the motion of a rocking chair. This Western girl, according to Charley, the sheep herder, was not above playing Arizona jokes. Be that as it might, Spillbeans now manifested a desire to remain with the other horses, and he broke out of a walk into a trot. Carley could not keep him from trotting. Hence her state soon wore into acute distress.

Her left ankle seemed broken. The stirrup was heavy, and as soon as she was tired she could no longer keep its weight from drawing her foot in. The inside of her right knee was as sore as a boil. Besides, she had other pains, just as severe, and she stood momentarily in mortal dread of that terrible stitch in her side. If it returned she knew she would fall off. But, fortunately, just when she was growing weak and dizzy, the horses ahead slowed to a walk on a descent. The road wound down into a wide deep canyon. Carley had a respite from her severest pains. Never before had she known what it meant to be so grateful for relief from anything.

The afternoon grew far advanced and the sunset was hazily shrouded in gray. Hutter did not like the looks of those clouds. “Reckon we’re in for weather,” he said. Carley did not care what happened. Weather or anything else that might make it possible to get off her horse! Glenn rode beside her, inquiring solicitously as to her pleasure. “Ride of my life!” she lied heroically. And it helped some to see that she both fooled and pleased him.

Beyond the canyon the cedared desert heaved higher and changed its aspect. The trees grew larger, bushier, greener, and closer together, with patches of bleached grass between, and russet-lichened rocks everywhere. Small cactus plants bristled sparsely in open places; and here and there bright red flowers — Indian paintbrush, Flo called them — added a touch of color to the gray. Glenn pointed to where dark banks of cloud had massed around the mountain peaks. The scene to the west was somber and compelling.

At last the men and the pack-horses ahead came to a halt in a level green forestland with no high trees. Far ahead a chain of soft gray round hills led up to the dark heaved mass of mountains. Carley saw the gleam of water through the trees. Probably her mustang saw or scented it, because he started to trot. Carley had reached a limit of strength, endurance, and patience. She hauled him up short. When Spillbeans evinced a stubborn intention to go on Carley gave him a kick. Then it happened.

She felt the reins jerked out of her hands and the saddle propel her upward. When she descended it was to meet that before-experienced jolt.

“Look!” cried Flo. “That bronc is going to pitch.”

“Hold on, Carley!” yelled Glenn.

Desperately Carley essayed to do just that. But Spillbeans jolted her out of the saddle. She came down on his rump and began to slide back and down. Frightened and furious, Carley tried to hang to the saddle with her hands and to squeeze the mustang with her knees. But another jolt broke her hold, and then, helpless and bewildered, with her heart in her throat and a terrible sensation of weakness, she slid back at each upheave of the muscular rump until she slid off and to the ground in a heap. Whereupon Spillbeans trotted off toward the water.

Carley sat up before Glenn and Flo reached her. Manifestly they were concerned about her, but both were ready to burst with laughter. Carley knew she was not hurt and she was so glad to be off the mustang that, on the moment, she could almost have laughed herself.

“That beast is well named,” she said. “He spilled me, all right. And I presume I resembled a sack of beans.”

“Carley — you’re — not hurt?” asked Glenn, choking, as he helped her up.

“Not physically. But my feelings are.”

Then Glenn let out a hearty howl of mirth, which was seconded by a loud guffaw from Hutter. Flo, however, appeared to be able to restrain whatever she felt. To Carley she looked queer.

“Pitch! You called it that,” said Carley.

“Oh, he didn’t really pitch. He just humped up a few times,” replied Flo, and then when she saw how Carley was going to take it she burst into a merry peal of laughter. Charley, the sheep herder was grinning, and some of the other men turned away with shaking shoulders.

“Laugh, you wild and woolly Westerners!” ejaculated Carley. “It must have been funny. I hope I can be a good sport. . . . But I bet you I ride him tomorrow.”

“Shore you will,” replied Flo.

Evidently the little incident drew the party closer together. Carley felt a warmth of good nature that overcame her first feeling of humiliation. They expected such things from her, and she should expect them, too, and take them, if not fearlessly or painlessly, at least without resentment.

Carley walked about to ease her swollen and sore joints, and while doing so she took stock of the camp ground and what was going on. At second glance the place had a certain attraction difficult for her to define. She could see far, and the view north toward those strange gray-colored symmetrical hills was one that fascinated while it repelled her. Near at hand the ground sloped down to a large rock-bound lake, perhaps a mile in circumference. In the distance, along the shore she saw a white conical tent, and blue smoke, and moving gray objects she took for sheep.

The men unpacked and unsaddled the horses, and, hobbling their forefeet together, turned them loose. Twilight had fallen and each man appeared to be briskly set upon his own task. Glenn was cutting around the foot of a thickly branched cedar where, he told Carley, he would make a bed for her and Flo. All that Carley could see that could be used for such purpose was a canvas-covered roll. Presently Glenn untied a rope from round this, unrolled it, and dragged it under the cedar. Then he spread down the outer layer of canvas, disclosing a considerable thickness of blankets. From under the top of these he pulled out two flat little pillows. These he placed in position, and turned back some of the blankets.

“Carley, you crawl in here, pile the blankets up, and the tarp over them,” directed Glenn. “If it rains pull the tarp up over your head — and let it rain.”

This direction sounded in Glenn’s cheery voice a good deal more pleasurable than the possibilities suggested. Surely that cedar tree could not keep off rain or snow.

“Glenn, how about — about animals — and crawling things, you know?” queried Carley.

“Oh, there are a few tarantulas and centipedes, and sometimes a scorpion. But these don’t crawl around much at night. The only thing to worry about are the hydrophobia skunks.”

“What on earth are they?” asked Carley, quite aghast.

“Skunks are polecats, you know,” replied Glenn, cheerfully. “Sometimes one gets bitten by a coyote that has rabies, and then he’s a dangerous customer. He has no fear and he may run across you and bite you in the face. Queer how they generally bite your nose. Two men have been bitten since I’ve been here. One of them died, and the other had to go to the Pasteur Institute with a well-developed case of hydrophobia.”

“Good heavens!” cried Carley, horrified.

“You needn’t be afraid,” said Glenn. “I’ll tie one of the dogs near your bed.”

Carley wondered whether Glenn’s casual, easy tone had been adopted for her benefit or was merely an assimilation from this Western life. Not improbably Glenn himself might be capable of playing a trick on her. Carley endeavored to fortify herself against disaster, so that when it befell she might not be wholly ludicrous.

With the coming of twilight a cold, keen wind moaned through the cedars. Carley would have hovered close to the fire even if she had not been too tired to exert herself. Despite her aches, she did justice to the supper. It amazed her that appetite consumed her to the extent of overcoming a distaste for this strong, coarse cooking. Before the meal ended darkness had fallen, a windy raw darkness that enveloped heavily like a blanket. Presently Carley edged closer to the fire, and there she stayed, alternately turning back and front to the welcome heat. She seemingly roasted hands, face, and knees while her back froze. The wind blew the smoke in all directions. When she groped around with blurred, smarting eyes to escape the hot smoke, it followed her. The other members of the party sat comfortably on sacks or rocks, without much notice of the smoke that so exasperated Carley. Twice Glenn insisted that she take a seat he had fixed for her, but she preferred to stand and move around a little.

By and by the camp tasks of the men appeared to be ended, and all gathered near the fire to lounge and smoke and talk. Glenn and Hutter engaged in interested conversation with two Mexicans, evidently sheep herders. If the wind and cold had not made Carley so uncomfortable she might have found the scene picturesque. How black the night! She could scarcely distinguish the sky at all. The cedar branches swished in the wind, and from the gloom came a low sound of waves lapping a rocky shore. Presently Glenn held up a hand.

“Listen, Carley!” he said.

Then she heard strange wild yelps, staccato, piercing, somehow infinitely lonely. They made her shudder.

“Coyotes,” said Glenn. “You’ll come to love that chorus. Hear the dogs bark back.”

Carley listened with interest, but she was inclined to doubt that she would ever become enamoured of such wild cries.

“Do coyotes come near camp?” she queried.

“Shore. Sometimes they pull your pillow out from under your head,” replied Flo, laconically.

Carley did not ask any more questions. Natural history was not her favorite study and she was sure she could dispense with any first-hand knowledge of desert beasts. She thought, however, she heard one of the men say, “Big varmint prowlin’ round the sheep.” To which Hutter replied, “Reckon it was a bear.” And Glenn said, “I saw his fresh track by the lake. Some bear!”

The heat from the fire made Carley so drowsy that she could scarcely hold up her head. She longed for bed even if it was out there in the open. Presently Flo called her: “Come. Let’s walk a little before turning in.”

So Carley permitted herself to be led to and fro down an open aisle between some cedars. The far end of that aisle, dark, gloomy, with the bushy secretive cedars all around, caused Carley apprehension she was ashamed to admit. Flo talked eloquently about the joys of camp life, and how the harder any outdoor task was and the more endurance and pain it required, the more pride and pleasure one had in remembering it. Carley was weighing the import of these words when suddenly Flo clutched her arm. “What’s that?” she whispered, tensely.

Carley stood stockstill. They had reached the furthermost end of that aisle, but had turned to go back. The flare of the camp fire threw a wan light into the shadows before them. There came a rustling in the brush, a snapping of twigs. Cold tremors chased up and down Carley’s back.

“Shore it’s a varmint, all right. Let’s hurry,” whispered Flo.

Carley needed no urging. It appeared that Flo was not going to run. She walked fast, peering back over her shoulder, and, hanging to Carley’s arm, she rounded a large cedar that had obstructed some of the firelight. The gloom was not so thick here. And on the instant Carley espied a low, moving object, somehow furry, and gray in color. She gasped. She could not speak. Her heart gave a mighty throb and seemed to stop.

“What — do you see?” cried Flo, sharply, peering ahead. “Oh! . . . Come, Carley. Run!”

Flo’s cry showed she must nearly be strangled with terror. But Carley was frozen in her tracks. Her eyes were riveted upon the gray furry object. It stopped. Then it came faster. It magnified. It was a huge beast. Carley had no control over mind, heart, voice, or muscle. Her legs gave way. She was sinking. A terrible panic, icy, sickening, rending, possessed her whole body.

The huge gray thing came at her. Into the rushing of her ears broke thudding sounds. The thing leaped up. A horrible petrifaction suddenly made stone of Carley. Then she saw a gray mantlelike object cast aside to disclose the dark form of a man. Glenn!

“Carley, dog-gone it! You don’t scare worth a cent,” he laughingly complained.

She collapsed into his arms. The liberating shock was as great as had been her terror. She began to tremble violently. Her hands got back a sense of strength to clutch. Heart and blood seemed released from that ice-banded vise.

“Say, I believe you were scared,” went on Glenn, bending over her.

“Scar-ed!” she gasped. “Oh — there’s no word — to tell — what I was!”

Flo came running back, giggling with joy. “Glenn, she shore took you for a bear. Why, I felt her go stiff as a post! . . . Hal Ha! Hal Carley, now how do you like the wild and woolly?”

“Oh! You put up-a trick on me!” ejaculated Carley. “Glenn, how could you? . . . Such a terrible trick! I wouldn’t have minded something reasonable. But that! Oh, I’ll never forgive you!”

Glenn showed remorse, and kissed her before Flo in a way that made some little amends. “Maybe I overdid it,” he said. “But I thought you’d have a momentary start, you know, enough to make you yell, and then you’d see through it. I only had a sheepskin over my shoulders as I crawled on hands and knees.”

“Glenn, for me you were a prehistoric monster — a dinosaur, or something,” replied Carley.

It developed, upon their return to the campfire circle, that everybody had been in the joke; and they all derived hearty enjoyment from it.

“Reckon that makes you one of us,” said Hutter, genially. “We’ve all had our scares.”

Carley wondered if she were not so constituted that such trickery alienated her. Deep in her heart she resented being made to show her cowardice. But then she realized that no one had really seen any evidence of her state. It was fun to them.

Soon after this incident Hutter sounded what he called the roll-call for bed. Following Flo’s instructions, Carley sat on their bed, pulled off her boots, folded coat and sweater at her head, and slid down under the blankets. How strange and hard a bed! Yet Carley had the most delicious sense of relief and rest she had ever experienced. She straightened out on her back with a feeling that she had never before appreciated the luxury of lying down.

Flo cuddled up to her in quite sisterly fashion, saying: “Now don’t cover your head. If it rains I’ll wake and pull up the tarp. Good night, Carley.” And almost immediately she seemed to fall asleep.

For Carley, however, sleep did not soon come. She had too many aches; the aftermath of her shock of fright abided with her; and the blackness of night, the cold whip of wind over her face, and the unprotected helplessness she felt in this novel bed, were too entirely new and disturbing to be overcome at once. So she lay wide eyed, staring at the dense gray shadow, at the flickering lights upon the cedar. At length her mind formed a conclusion that this sort of thing might be worth the hardship once in a lifetime, anyway. What a concession to Glenn’s West! In the secret seclusion of her mind she had to confess that if her vanity had not been so assaulted and humiliated she might have enjoyed herself more. It seemed impossible, however, to have thrills and pleasures and exaltations in the face of discomfort, privation, and an uneasy half-acknowledged fear. No woman could have either a good or a profitable time when she was at her worst. Carley thought she would not be averse to getting Flo Hutter to New York, into an atmosphere wholly strange and difficult, and see how she met situation after situation unfamiliar to her. And so Carley’s mind drifted on until at last she succumbed to drowsiness.

A voice pierced her dreams of home, of warmth and comfort. Something sharp, cold, and fragrant was scratching her eyes. She opened them. Glenn stood over her, pushing a sprig of cedar into her face.

“Carley, the day is far spent,” he said, gayly. “We want to roll up your bedding. Will you get out of it?”

“Hello, Glenn! What time is it?” she replied.

“It’s nearly six.”

“What! . . . Do you expect me to get up at that ungodly hour?”

“We’re all up. Flo’s eating breakfast. It’s going to be a bad day, I’m afraid. And we want to get packed and moving before it starts to rain.”

“Why do girls leave home?” she asked, tragically.

“To make poor devils happy, of course,” he replied, smiling down upon her.

That smile made up to Carley for all the clamoring sensations of stiff, sore muscles. It made her ashamed that she could not fling herself into this adventure with all her heart. Carley essayed to sit up. “Oh, I’m afraid my anatomy has become disconnected! . . . Glenn, do I look a sight?” She never would have asked him that if she had not known she could bear inspection at such an inopportune moment.

“You look great,” he asserted, heartily. “You’ve got color. And as for your hair — I like to see it mussed that way. You were always one to have it dressed — just so. . . . Come, Carley, rustle now.”

Thus adjured, Carley did her best under adverse circumstances. And she was gritting her teeth and complimenting herself when she arrived at the task of pulling on her boots. They were damp and her feet appeared to have swollen. Moreover, her ankles were sore. But she accomplished getting into them at the expense of much pain and sundry utterances more forcible than elegant. Glenn brought her warm water, a mitigating circumstance. The morning was cold and thought of that biting desert water had been trying.

“Shore you’re doing fine,” was Flo’s greeting. “Come and get it before we throw it out.”

Carley made haste to comply with the Western mandate, and was once again confronted with the singular fact that appetite did not wait upon the troubles of a tenderfoot. Glenn remarked that at least she would not starve to death on the trip.

“Come, climb the ridge with me,” be invited. “I want you to take a look to the north and east.”

He led her off through the cedars, up a slow red-earth slope, away from the lake. A green moundlike eminence topped with flat red rock appeared near at hand and not at all a hard climb. Nevertheless, her eyes deceived her, as she found to the cost of her breath. It was both far away and high.

“I like this location,” said Glenn. “If I had the money I’d buy this section of land — six hundred and forty acres — and make a ranch of it. Just under this bluff is a fine open flat bench for a cabin. You could see away across the desert clear to Sunset Peak. There’s a good spring of granite water. I’d run water from the lake down into the lower flats, and I’d sure raise some stock.”

“What do you call this place?” asked Carley, curiously.

“Deep Lake. It’s only a watering place for sheep and cattle. But there’s fine grazing, and it’s a wonder to me no one has ever settled here.”

Looking down, Carley appreciated his wish to own the place; and immediately there followed in her a desire to get possession of this tract of land before anyone else discovered its advantages, and to hold it for Glenn. But this would surely conflict with her intention of persuading Glenn to go back East. As quickly as her impulse had been born it died.

Suddenly the scene gripped Carley. She looked from near to far, trying to grasp the illusive something. Wild lonely Arizona land! She saw ragged dumpy cedars of gray and green, lines of red earth, and a round space of water, gleaming pale under the lowering clouds; and in the distance isolated hills, strangely curved, wandering away to a black uplift of earth obscured in the sky.

These appeared to be mere steps leading her sight farther and higher to the cloud-navigated sky, where rosy and golden effulgence betokened the sun and the east. Carley held her breath. A transformation was going on before her eyes.

“Carley, it’s a stormy sunrise,” said Glenn.

His words explained, but they did not convince. Was this sudden-bursting glory only the sun rising behind storm clouds? She could see the clouds moving while they were being colored. The universal gray surrendered under some magic paint brush. The rifts widened, and the gloom of the pale-gray world seemed to vanish. Beyond the billowy, rolling, creamy edges of clouds, white and pink, shone the soft exquisite fresh blue sky. And a blaze of fire, a burst of molten gold, sheered up from behind the rim of cloud and suddenly poured a sea of sunlight from east to west. It trans- figured the round foothills. They seemed bathed in ethereal light, and the silver mists that overhung them faded while Carley gazed, and a rosy flush crowned the symmetrical domes. Southward along the horizon line, down-dropping veils of rain, just touched with the sunrise tint, streamed in drifting slow movement from cloud to earth. To the north the range of foothills lifted toward the majestic dome of Sunset Peak, a volcanic upheaval of red and purple cinders, bare as rock, round as the lower hills, and wonderful in its color. Full in the blaze of the rising sun it flaunted an unchangeable front. Carley understood now what had been told her about this peak. Volcanic fires had thrown up a colossal mound of cinders burned forever to the hues of the setting sun. In every light and shade of day it held true to its name. Farther north rose the bold bulk of the San Francisco Peaks, that, half lost in the clouds, still dominated the desert scene. Then as Carley gazed the rifts began to close. Another transformation began, the reverse of what she watched. The golden radiance of sunrise vanished, and under a gray, lowering) coalescing pall of cloud the round hills returned to their bleak somberness, and the green desert took again its cold sheen.

“Wasn’t it fine, Carley?” asked Glenn. “But nothing to what you will experience. I hope you stay till the weather gets warm. I want you to see a summer dawn on the Painted Desert, and a noon with the great white clouds rolling up from the horizon, and a sunset of massed purple and gold. If they do not get you then I’ll give up.”

Carley murmured something of her appreciation of what she had just seen. Part of his remark hung on her ear, thought-provoking and disturbing. He hoped she would stay until summer! That was kind of him. But her visit must be short and she now intended it to end with his return East with her. If she did not persuade him to go he might not want to go for a while, as he had written— “just yet.” Carley grew troubled in mind. Such mental disturbance, however, lasted no longer than her return with Glenn to camp, where the mustang Spillbeans stood ready for her to mount. He appeared to put one ear up, the other down, and to look at her with mild surprise, as if to say: “What — hello — tenderfoot! Are you going to ride me again?”

Carley recalled that she had avowed she would ride him. There was no alternative, and her misgivings only made matters worse. Nevertheless, once in the saddle, she imagined she had the hallucination that to ride off so, with the long open miles ahead, was really thrilling. This remarkable state of mind lasted until Spillbeans began to trot, and then another day of misery beckoned to Carley with gray stretches of distance.

She was to learn that misery, as well as bliss, can swallow up the hours. She saw the monotony of cedar trees, but with blurred eyes; she saw the ground clearly enough, for she was always looking down, hoping for sandy places or rocky places where her mustang could not trot.

At noon the cavalcade ahead halted near a cabin and corral, which turned out to be a sheep ranch belonging to Hutter. Here Glenn was so busy that he had no time to devote to Carley. And Flo, who was more at home on a horse than on the ground, rode around everywhere with the men. Most assuredly Carley could not pass by the chance to get off Spillbeans and to walk a little. She found, however, that what she wanted most was to rest. The cabin was deserted, a dark, damp place with a rank odor. She did not stay long inside.

Rain and snow began to fall, adding to what Carley felt to be a disagreeable prospect. The immediate present, however, was cheered by a cup of hot soup and some bread and butter which the herder Charley brought her. By and by Glenn and Hutter returned with Flo, and all partook of some lunch.

All too soon Carley found herself astride the mustang again. Glenn helped her don the slicker, an abominable sticky rubber coat that bundled her up and tangled her feet round the stirrups. She was glad to find, though, that it served well indeed to protect her from raw wind and rain.

“Where do we go from here?” Carley inquired, ironically.

Glenn laughed in a way which proved to Carley that he knew perfectly well how she felt. Again his smile caused her self-reproach. Plain indeed was it that he had really expected more of her in the way of complaint and less of fortitude. Carley bit her lips.

Thus began the afternoon ride. As it advanced the sky grew more threatening, the wind rawer, the cold keener, and the rain cut like little bits of sharp ice. It blew in Carley’s face. Enough snow fell to whiten the open patches of ground. In an hour Carley realized that she had the hardest task of her life to ride to the end of the day’s journey. No one could have guessed her plight. Glenn complimented her upon her adaptation to such unpleasant conditions. Flo evidently was on the lookout for the tenderfoot’s troubles. But as Spillbeans, had taken to lagging at a walk, Carley was enabled to conceal all outward sign of her woes. It rained, hailed, sleeted, snowed, and grew colder all the time. Carley’s feet became lumps of ice. Every step the mustang took sent acute pains ramifying from bruised and raw places all over her body.

Once, finding herself behind the others and out of sight in the cedars, she got off to walk awhile, leading the mustang. This would not do, however, because she fell too far in the rear. Mounting again, she rode on, beginning to feet that nothing mattered, that this trip would be the end of Carley Burch. How she hated that dreary, cold, flat land the road bisected without end. It felt as if she rode hours to cover a mile. In open stretches she saw the whole party straggling along, separated from one another, and each for himself. They certainly could not be enjoying themselves. Carley shut her eyes, clutched the pommel of the saddle, trying to support her weight. How could she endure another mile? Alas! there might be many miles. Suddenly a terrible shock seemed to rack her. But it was only that Spillbeans had once again taken to a trot. Frantically she pulled on the bridle. He was not to be thwarted. Opening her eyes, she saw a cabin far ahead which probably was the destination for the night. Carley knew she would never reach it, yet she clung on desperately. What she dreaded was the return of that stablike pain in her side. It came, and life seemed something abject and monstrous. She rode stiff legged, with her hands propping her stiffly above the pommel, but the stabbing pain went right on, and in deeper. When the mustang halted his trot beside the other horses Carley was in the last extremity. Yet as Glenn came to her, offering a hand, she still hid her agony. Then Flo called out gayly: “Carley, you’ve done twenty-five miles on as rotten a day as I remember. Shore we all hand it to you. And I’m confessing I didn’t think you’d ever stay the ride out. Spillbeans is the meanest nag we’ve got and he has the hardest gait.”

CHAPTER V

LATER CARLEY LEANED back in a comfortable seat, before a blazing fire that happily sent its acrid smoke up the chimney, pondering ideas in her mind.

There could be a relation to familiar things that was astounding in its revelation. To get off a horse that had tortured her, to discover an almost insatiable appetite, to rest weary, aching body before the genial warmth of a beautiful fire — these were experiences which Carley found to have been hitherto unknown delights. It struck her suddenly and strangely that to know the real truth about anything in life might require infinite experience and understanding. How could one feel immense gratitude and relief, or the delight of satisfying acute hunger, or the sweet comfort of rest, unless there had been circumstances of extreme contrast? She had been compelled to suffer cruelly on horseback in order to make her appreciate how good it was to get down on the ground. Otherwise she never would have known. She wondered, then, how true that principle Plight be in all experience. It gave strong food for thought. There were things in the world never before dreamed of in her philosophy.

Carley was wondering if she were narrow and dense to circumstances of life differing from her own when a remark of Flo’s gave pause to her reflections.

“Shore the worst is yet to come.” Flo had drawled.

Carley wondered if this distressing statement had to do in some way with the rest of the trip. She stifled her curiosity. Painful knowledge of that sort would come quickly enough.

“Flo, are you girls going to sleep here in the cabin?” inquired Glenn.

“Shore. It’s cold and wet outside,” replied Flo.

“Well, Felix, the Mexican herder, told me some Navajos had been bunking here.”

“Navajos? You mean Indians?” interposed Carley, with interest.

“Shore do,” said Flo. “I knew that. But don’t mind Glenn. He’s full of tricks, Carley. He’d give us a hunch to lie out in the wet”

Hutter burst into his hearty laugh. “Wal, I’d rather get some things anyday than a bad cold.”

“Shore I’ve had both,” replied Flo, in her easy drawl, “and I’d prefer the cold. But for Carley’s sake—”

“Pray don’t consider me,” said Carley. The rather crude drift of the conversation affronted her.

“Well, my dear,” put in Glenn, “it’s a bad night outside. We’ll all make our beds here.”

“Glenn, you shore are a nervy fellow,” drawled Flo.

Long after everybody was in bed Carley lay awake in the blackness of the cabin, sensitively fidgeting and quivering over imaginative contact with creeping things. The fire had died out. A cold air passed through the room. On the roof pattered gusts of rain. Carley heard a rustling of mice. It did not seem possible that she could keep awake, yet she strove to do so. But her pangs of body, her extreme fatigue soon yielded to the quiet and rest of her bed, engendering a drowsiness that proved irresistible.

Morning brought fair weather and sunshine, which helped to sustain Carley in her effort to brave out her pains and woes. Another disagreeable day would have forced her to humiliating defeat. Fortunately for her, the business of the men was concerned with the immediate neighborhood, in which they expected to stay all morning.

“Flo, after a while persuade Carley to ride with you to the top of this first foothill,” said Glenn. “It’s not far, and it’s worth a good deal to see the Painted Desert from there. The day is clear and the air free from dust.”

“Shore. Leave it to me. I want to get out of camp, anyhow. That conceited hombre, Lee Stanton, will be riding in here,” answered Flo, laconically.

The slight knowing smile on Glenn’s face and the grinning disbelief on Mr. Hutter’s were facts not lost upon Carley. And when Charley, the herder, deliberately winked at Carley, she conceived the idea that Flo, like many women, only ran off to be pursued. In some manner Carley did not seek to analyze, the purported advent of this Lee Stanton pleased her. But she did admit to her consciousness that women, herself included, were both as deep and mysterious as the sea, yet as transparent as an inch of crystal water.

It happened that the expected newcomer rode into camp before anyone left. Before he dismounted he made a good impression on Carley, and as he stepped down in lazy, graceful action, a tall lithe figure, she thought him singularly handsome. He wore black sombrero, flannel shirt, blue jeans stuffed into high boots, and long, big-roweled spurs.

“How are you-all?” was his greeting.

From the talk that ensued between him and the men, Carley concluded that he must be overseer of the sheep hands. Carley knew that Hutter and Glenn were not interested in cattle raising. And in fact they were, especially Hutter, somewhat inimical to the dominance of the range land by cattle barons of Flagstaff.

“When’s Ryan goin’ to dip?” asked Hutter.

“Today or tomorrow,” replied Stanton.

“Reckon we ought to ride over,” went on Hutter. “Say, Glenn, do you reckon Miss Carley could stand a sheep-dip?”

This was spoken in a low tone, scarcely intended for Carley, but she had keen ears and heard distinctly. Not improbably this sheep-dip was what Flo meant as the worst to come. Carley adopted a listless posture to hide her keen desire to hear what Glenn would reply to Hutter.

“I should say not!” whispered Glenn, fiercely.

“Cut out that talk. She’ll hear you and want to go.”

Whereupon Carley felt mount in her breast an intense and rebellious determination to see a sheep-dip. She would astonish Glenn. What did he want, anyway? Had she not withstood the torturing trot of the hardest-gaited horse on the range? Carley realized she was going to place considerable store upon that feat. It grew on her.

When the consultation of the men ended, Lee Stanton turned to Flo. And Carley did not need to see the young man look twice to divine what ailed him. He was caught in the toils of love. But seeing through Flo Hutter was entirely another matter.

“Howdy, Lee!” she said, coolly, with her clear eyes on him. A tiny frown knitted her brow. She did not, at the moment, entirely approve of him.

“Shore am glad to see you, Flo,” he said, with rather a heavy expulsion of breath. He wore a cheerful grin that in no wise deceived Flo, or Carley either. The young man had a furtive expression of eye.

“Ahuh!” returned Flo.

“I was shore sorry about — about that—” he floundered, in low voice.

“About what?”

“Aw, you know, Flo.”

Carley strolled out of hearing, sure of two things — that she felt rather sorry for Stanton, and that his course of love did not augur well for smooth running. What queer creatures were women! Carley had seen several million coquettes, she believed; and assuredly Flo Hutter belonged to the species.

Upon Carley’s return to the cabin she found Stanton and Flo waiting for her to accompany them on a ride up the foothill. She was so stiff and sore that she could hardly mount into the saddle; and the first mile of riding was something like a nightmare. She lagged behind Flo and Stanton, who apparently forgot her in their quarrel.

The riders soon struck the base of a long incline of rocky ground that led up to the slope of the foothill. Here rocks and gravel gave place to black cinders out of which grew a scant bleached grass. This desert verdure was what lent the soft gray shade to the foothill when seen from a distance. The slope was gentle, so that the ascent did not entail any hardship. Carley was amazed at the length of the slope, and also to see how high over the desert she was getting. She felt lifted out of a monotonous level. A green-gray leaguelong cedar forest extended down toward Oak Creek. Behind her the magnificent bulk of the mountains reached up into the stormy clouds, showing white slopes of snow under the gray pall.

The hoofs of the horses sank in the cinders. A fine choking dust assailed Carley’s nostrils. Presently, when there appeared at least a third of the ascent still to be accomplished and Flo dismounted to walk, leading their horses. Carley had no choice but to do likewise. At first walking was a relief. Soon, however, the soft yielding cinders began to drag at her feet. At every step she slipped back a few inches, a very annoying feature of climbing. When her legs seemed to grow dead Carley paused for a little rest. The last of the ascent, over a few hundred yards of looser cinders, taxed her remaining strength to the limit. She grew hot and wet and out of breath. Her heart labored. An unreasonable antipathy seemed to attend her efforts. Only her ridiculous vanity held her to this task. She wanted to please Glenn, but not so earnestly that she would have kept on plodding up this ghastly bare mound of cinders. Carley did not mind being a tenderfoot, but she hated the thought of these Westerners considering her a weakling. So she bore the pain of raw blisters and the miserable sensation of staggering on under a leaden weight.

Several times she noted that Flo and Stanton halted to face each other in rather heated argument. At least Stanton’s red face and forceful gestures attested to heat on his part. Flo evidently was weary of argument, and in answer to a sharp reproach she retorted, “Shore I was different after he came.” To which Stanton responded by a quick passionate shrinking as if he had been stung.

Carley had her own reaction to this speech she could not help hearing; and inwardly, at least, her feeling must have been similar to Stanton’s. She forgot the object of this climb and looked off to her right at the green level without really seeing it. A vague sadness weighed upon her soul. Was there to be a tangle of fates here, a conflict of wills, a crossing of loves? Flo’s terse confession could not be taken lightly. Did she mean that she loved Glenn? Carley began to fear it. Only another reason why she must persuade Glenn to go back East! But the closer Carley came to what she divined must be an ordeal the more she dreaded it. This raw, crude West might have confronted her with a situation beyond her control. And as she dragged her weighted feet through the cinders, kicking, up little puffs of black dust, she felt what she admitted to be an unreasonable resentment toward these Westerners and their barren, isolated, and boundless world.

“Carley,” called Flo, “come — looksee, as the Indians say. Here is Glenn’s Painted Desert, and I reckon it’s shore worth seeing.”

To Carley’s surprise, she found herself upon the knob of the foothill. And when she looked out across a suddenly distinguish able void she seemed struck by the immensity of something she was unable to grasp. She dropped her bridle; she gazed slowly, as if drawn, hearing Flo’s voice.

“That thin green line of cottonwoods down there is the Little Colorado River,” Flo was saying. “Reckon it’s sixty miles, all down hill. The Painted Desert begins there and also the Navajo Reservation. You see the white strips, the red veins, the yellow bars, the black lines. They are all desert steps leading up and up for miles. That sharp black peak is called Wildcat. It’s about a hundred miles. You see the desert stretching away to the right, growing dim — lost in distance? We don’t know that country. But that north country we know as landmarks, anyway. Look at that saw-tooth range. The Indians call it Echo Cliffs. At the far end it drops off into the Colorado River. Lee’s Ferry is there — about one hundred and sixty miles. That ragged black rent is the Grand Canyon. Looks like a thread, doesn’t it? But Carley, it’s some hole, believe me. Away to the left you see the tremendous wall rising and turning to come this way. That’s the north wall of the Canyon. It ends at the great bluff — Greenland Point. See the black fringe above the bar of gold. That’s a belt of pine trees. It’s about eighty miles across this ragged old stone washboard of a desert. . . . Now turn and look straight and strain your sight over Wildcat. See the rim purple dome. You must look hard. I’m glad it’s clear and the sun is shining. We don’t often get this view. . . . That purple dome is Navajo Mountain, two hundred miles and more away!”

Carley yielded to some strange drawing power and slowly walked forward until she stood at the extreme edge of the summit.

What was it that confounded her sight? Desert slope — down and down — color — distance — space! The wind that blew in her face seemed to have the openness of the whole world back of it. Cold, sweet, dry, exhilarating, it breathed of untainted vastness. Carley’s memory pictures of the Adirondacks faded into pastorals; her vaunted images of European scenery changed to operetta settings. She had nothing with which to compare this illimitable space.

“Oh! — America!” was her unconscious tribute.

Stanton and Flo had come on to places beside her. The young man laughed. “Wal, now Miss Carley, you couldn’t say more. When I was in camp trainin’ for service overseas I used to remember how this looked. An’ it seemed one of the things I was goin’ to fight for. Reckon I didn’t the idea of the Germans havin’ my Painted Desert. I didn’t get across to fight for it, but I shore was willin’.”

“You see, Carley, this is our America,” said Flo, softly.

Carley had never understood the meaning of the word. The immensity of the West seemed flung at her. What her vision beheld, so far-reaching and boundless, was only a dot on the map.

“Does any one live — out there?” she asked, with slow sweep of hand.

“A few white traders and some Indian tribes,” replied Stanton. “But you can ride all day an’ next day an’ never see a livin’ soul.”

What was the meaning of the gratification in his voice? Did Westerners court loneliness? Carley wrenched her gaze from the desert void to look at her companions. Stanton’s eyes were narrowed; his expression had changed; lean and hard and still, his face resembled bronze. The careless humor was gone, as was the heated flush of his quarrel with Flo. The girl, too, had subtly changed, had responded to an influence that had subdued and softened her. She was mute; her eyes held a light, comprehensive and all-embracing; she was beautiful then. For Carley, quick to read emotion, caught a glimpse of a strong, steadfast soul that spiritualized the brown freckled face.

Carley wheeled to gaze out and down into this incomprehensible abyss, and on to the far up-flung heights, white and red and yellow, and so on to the wonderful mystic haze of distance. The significance of Flo’s designation of miles could not be grasped by Carley. She could not estimate distance. But she did not need that to realize her perceptions were swallowed up by magnitude. Hitherto the power of her eyes had been unknown. How splendid to see afar! She could see — yes — but what did she see? Space first, annihilating space, dwarfing her preconceived images, and then wondrous colors! What had she known of color? No wonder artists failed adequately and truly to paint mountains, let alone the desert space. The toiling millions of the crowded cities were ignorant of this terrible beauty and sublimity. Would it have helped them to see? But just to breathe that untainted air, just to see once the boundless open of colored sand and rock — to realize what the freedom of eagles meant would not that have helped anyone?

And with the thought there came to Carley’s quickened and struggling mind a conception of freedom. She had not yet watched eagles, but she now gazed out into their domain. What then must be the effect of such environment on people whom it encompassed? The idea stunned Carley. Would such people grow in proportion to the nature with which they were in conflict? Hereditary influence could not be comparable to such environment in the shaping of character.

“Shore I could stand here all day,” said Flo. “But it’s beginning to cloud over and this high wind is cold. So we’d better go, Carley.”

“I don’t know what I am, but it’s not cold,” replied Carley.

“Wal, Miss Carley, I reckon you’ll have to come again an’ again before you get a comfortable feelin’ here,” said Stanton.

It surprised Carley to see that this young Westerner had hit upon the truth. He understood her. Indeed she was uncomfortable. She was oppressed, vaguely unhappy. But why? The thing there — the infinitude of open sand and rock — was beautiful, wonderful, even glorious. She looked again.

Steep black-cindered slope, with its soft gray patches of grass, sheered down and down, and out in rolling slope to merge upon a cedar-dotted level. Nothing moved below, but a red-tailed hawk sailed across her vision. How still-how gray the desert floor as it reached away, losing its black dots, and gaining bronze spots of stone! By plain and prairie it fell away, each inch of gray in her sight magnifying into its league-long roll, On and on, and down across dark lines that were steppes, and at last blocked and changed by the meandering green thread which was the verdure of a desert river. Beyond stretched the white sand, where whirlwinds of dust sent aloft their funnel-shaped spouts; and it led up to the horizon-wide ribs and ridges of red and walls of yellow and mountains of black, to the dim mound of purple so ethereal and mystic against the deep-blue cloud-curtained band of sky.

And on the moment the sun was obscured and that world of colorful flame went out, as if a blaze had died.

Deprived of its fire, the desert seemed to retreat, to fade coldly and gloomily, to lose its great landmarks in dim obscurity. Closer, around to the north, the canyon country yawned with innumerable gray jaws, ragged and hard, and the riven earth took on a different character. It had no shadows. It grew flat and, like the sea, seemed to mirror the vast gray cloud expanse. The sublime vanished, but the desolate remained. No warmth — no movement — no life! Dead stone it was, cut into a million ruts by ruthless ages. Carley felt that she was gazing down into chaos.

At this moment, as before, a hawk had crossed her vision, so now a raven sailed by, black as coal, uttering a hoarse croak.

“Quoth the raven—” murmured Carley, with a half-bitter laugh, as she turned away shuddering in spite of an effort of self-control. “Maybe he meant this wonderful and terrible West is never for such as I. . . . Come, let us go.”

Carley rode all that afternoon in the rear of the caravan, gradually succumbing to the cold raw wind and the aches and pains to which she had subjected her flesh. Nevertheless, she finished the day’s journey, and, sorely as she needed Glenn’s kindly hand, she got off her horse without aid.

Camp was made at the edge of the devastated timber zone that Carley had found so dispiriting. A few melancholy pines were standing, and everywhere, as far as she could see southward, were blackened fallen trees and stumps. It was a dreary scene. The few cattle grazing on the bleached grass appeared as melancholy as the pines. The sun shone fitfully at sunset, and then sank, leaving the land to twilight and shadows.

Once in a comfortable seat beside the camp fire, Carley had no further desire to move. She was so far exhausted and weary that she could no longer appreciate the blessing of rest. Appetite, too, failed her this meal time. Darkness soon settled down. The wind moaned through the pines. She was indeed glad to crawl into bed, and not even the thought of skunks could keep her awake.

Morning, disclosed the fact that gray clouds had been blown away. The sun shone bright upon a white-frosted land. The air was still. Carley labored at her task of rising, and brushing her hair, and pulling on her boots; and it appeared her former sufferings were as naught compared with the pangs of this morning. How she hated the cold, the bleak, denuded forest land, the emptiness, the roughness, the crudeness! If this sort of feeling grew any worse she thought she would hate Glenn. Yet she was nonetheless set upon going on, and seeing the sheep-dip, and riding that fiendish mustang until the trip was ended.

Getting in the saddle and on the way this morning was an ordeal that made Carley actually sick. Glenn and Flo both saw how it was with her, and they left her to herself. Carley was grateful for this understanding. It seemed to proclaim their respect. She found further matter for satisfaction in the astonishing circumstance that after the first dreadful quarter of an hour in the saddle she began to feel easier. And at the end of several hours of riding she was not suffering any particular pain, though she was weaker.

At length the cut-over land ended in a forest of straggling pines, through which the road wound southward, and eventually down into a wide shallow canyon. Through the trees Carley saw a stream of water, open fields of green, log fences and cabins, and blue smoke. She heard the chug of a gasoline engine and the baa-baa of sheep. Glenn waited for her to catch up with him, and he said: “Carley, this is one of Hutter’s sheep camps. It’s not a — a very pleasant place. You won’t care to see the sheep-dip. So I’m suggesting you wait here—”

“Nothing doing, Glenn,” she interrupted. “I’m going to see what there is to see.”

“But, dear — the men — the way they handle sheep — they’ll — really it’s no sight for you,” he floundered.

“Why not?” she inquired, eying him.

“Because, Carley — you know how you hate the — the seamy side of things. And the stench — why, it’ll make you sick!”

“Glenn, be on the level,” she said. “Suppose it does. Wouldn’t you think more of me if I could stand it?”

“Why, yes,” he replied, reluctantly, smiling at her, “I would. But I wanted to spare you. This trip has been hard. I’m sure proud of you. And, Carley — you can overdo it. Spunk is not everything. You simply couldn’t stand this.”

“Glenn, how little you know a woman!” she exclaimed. “Come along and show me your old sheep-dip.”

They rode out of the woods into an open valley that might have been picturesque if it had not been despoiled by the work of man. A log fence ran along the edge of open ground and a mud dam held back a pool of stagnant water, slimy and green. As Carley rode on the baa-baa of sheep became so loud that she could scarcely hear Glenn talking.

Several log cabins, rough hewn and gray with age, stood down inside the inclosure; and beyond there were large corrals. From the other side of these corrals came sounds of rough voices of men, a trampling of hoofs, heavy splashes, the beat of an engine, and the incessant baaing of the sheep.

At this point the members of Hutter’s party dismounted and tied their horses to the top log of the fence. When Carley essayed to get off Glenn tried to stop her, saying she could see well enough from there. But Carley got down and followed Flo. She heard Hutter call to Glenn: “Say, Ryan is short of men. We’ll lend a hand for a couple of hours.”

Presently Carley reached Flo’s side and the first corral that contained sheep. They formed a compact woolly mass, rather white in color, with a tinge of pink. When Flo climbed up on the fence the flock plunged as one animal and with a trampling roar ran to the far side of the corral. Several old rams with wide curling horns faced around; and some of the ewes climbed up on the densely packed mass. Carley rather enjoyed watching them. She surely could not see anything amiss in this sight.

The next corral held a like number of sheep, and also several Mexicans who were evidently driving them into a narrow lane that led farther down. Carley saw the heads of men above other corral fences, and there was also a thick yellowish smoke rising from somewhere.

“Carley, are you game to see the dip?” asked Flo, with good nature that yet had a touch of taunt in it.

“That’s my middle name,” retorted Carley, flippantly.

Both Glenn and this girl seemed to be bent upon bringing out Carley’s worst side, and they were succeeding. Flo laughed. The ready slang pleased her.

She led Carley along that log fence, through a huge open gate, and across a wide pen to another fence, which she scaled. Carley followed her, not particularly overanxious to look ahead. Some thick odor had begun to reach Carley’s delicate nostrils. Flo led down a short lane and climbed another fence, and sat astride the top log. Carley hurried along to clamber up to her side, but stood erect with her feet on the second log of the fence.

Then a horrible stench struck Carley almost like a blow in the face, and before her confused sight there appeared to be drifting smoke and active men and running sheep, all against a background of mud. But at first it was the odor that caused Carley to close her eyes and press her knees hard against the upper log to keep from reeling. Never in her life had such a sickening nausea assailed her. It appeared to attack her whole body. The forerunning qualm of seasickness was as nothing to this. Carley gave a gasp, pinched her nose between her fingers so she could not smell, and opened her eyes.

Directly beneath her was a small pen open at one end into which sheep were being driven from the larger corral. The drivers were yelling. The sheep in the rear plunged into those ahead of them, forcing them on. Two men worked in this small pen. One was a brawny giant in undershirt and overalls that appeared filthy. He held a cloth in his hand and strode toward the nearest sheep. Folding the cloth round the neck of the sheep, he dragged it forward, with an ease which showed great strength, and threw it into a pit that yawned at the side. Souse went the sheep into a murky, muddy pool and disappeared. But suddenly its head came up and then its shoulders. And it began half to walk and half swim down what appeared to be a narrow boxlike ditch that contained other floundering sheep. Then Carley saw men on each side of this ditch bending over with poles that had crooks at the end, and their work was to press and pull the sheep along to the end of the ditch, and drive them up a boarded incline into another corral where many other sheep huddled, now a dirty muddy color like the liquid into which they had been emersed. Souse! Splash! In went sheep after sheep. Occasionally one did not go under. And then a man would press it under with the crook and quickly lift its head. The work went on with precision and speed, in spite of the yells and trampling and baa-baas, and the incessant action that gave an effect of confusion.

Carley saw a pipe leading from a huge boiler to the ditch. The dark fluid was running out of it. From a rusty old engine with big smokestack poured the strangling smoke. A man broke open a sack of yellow powder and dumped it into the ditch. Then he poured an acid-like liquid after it.

“Sulphur and nicotine,” yelled Flo up at Carley. “The dip’s poison. If a sheep opens his mouth he’s usually a goner. But sometimes they save one.”

Carley wanted to tear herself away from this disgusting spectacle. But it held her by some fascination. She saw Glenn and Hutter fall in line with the other men, and work like beavers. These two pacemakers in the small pen kept the sheep coming so fast that every worker below had a task cut out for him. Suddenly Flo squealed and pointed.

“There! that sheep didn’t come up,” she cried. “Shore he opened his mouth.”

Then Carley saw Glenn energetically plunge his hooked pole in and out and around until he had located the submerged sheep. He lifted its head above the dip. The sheep showed no sign of life. Down on his knees dropped Glenn, to reach the sheep with strong brown hands, and to haul it up on the ground, where it flopped inert. Glenn pummeled it and pressed it, and worked on it much as Carley had seen a life-guard work over a half-drowned man. But the sheep did not respond to Glenn’s active administrations.

“No use, Glenn,” yelled Hutter, hoarsely. “That one’s a goner.”

Carley did not fall to note the state of Glenn’s hands and arms and overalls when he returned to the ditch work. Then back and forth Carley’s gaze went from one end to the other of that scene. And suddenly it was arrested and held by the huge fellow who handled the sheep so brutally. Every time he dragged one and threw it into the pit he yelled: “Ho! Ho!” Carley was impelled to look at his face, and she was amazed to meet the rawest and boldest stare from evil eyes that had ever been her misfortune to incite. She felt herself stiffen with a shock that was unfamiliar. This man was scarcely many years older than Glenn, yet he had grizzled hair, a seamed and scarred visage, coarse, thick lips, and beetling brows, from under which peered gleaming light eyes. At every turn he flashed them upon Carley’s face, her neck, the swell of her bosom. It was instinct that caused her hastily to close her riding coat. She felt as if her flesh had been burned. Like a snake he fascinated her. The intelligence in his bold gaze made the beastliness of it all the harder to endure, all the stronger to arouse.

“Come, Carley, let’s rustle out of this stinkin’ mess,” cried Flo.

Indeed, Carley needed Flo’s assistance in clambering down out of the choking smoke and horrid odor.

“Adios, pretty eyes,” called the big man from the pen.

“Well,” ejaculated Flo, when they got out, “I’ll bet I call Glenn good and hard for letting you go down there.”

“It was — my — fault,” panted Carley. “I said I’d stand it.”

“Oh, you’re game, all right. I didn’t mean the dip. . . . That sheep-slinger is Haze Ruff, the toughest hombre on this range. Shore, now, wouldn’t I like to take a shot at him? . . . I’m going to tell dad and Glenn.”

“Please don’t,” returned Carley, appealingly.

“I shore am. Dad needs hands these days. That’s why he’s lenient. But Glenn will cowhide Ruff and I want to see him do it.”

In Flo Hutter then Carley saw another and a different spirit of the West, a violence unrestrained and fierce that showed in the girl’s even voice and in the piercing light of her eyes.

They went back to the horses, got their lunches from the saddlebags, and, finding comfortable seats in a sunny, protected place, they ate and talked. Carley had to force herself to swallow. It seemed that the horrid odor of dip and sheep had permeated everything. Glenn had known her better than she had known herself, and he had wished to spare her an unnecessary and disgusting experience. Yet so stubborn was Carley that she did not regret going through with it.

“Carley, I don’t mind telling you that you’ve stuck it out better than any tenderfoot we ever had here,” said Flo.

“Thank you. That from a Western girl is a compliment I’ll not soon forget,” replied Carley.

“I shore mean it. We’ve had rotten weather. And to end the little trip at this sheep-dip hole! Why, Glenn certainly wanted you to stack up against the real thing!”

“Flo, he did not want me to come on the trip, and especially here,” protested Carley.

“Shore I know. But he let you.”

“Neither Glenn nor any other man could prevent me from doing what I wanted to do.”

“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” drawled Flo, “I’ll differ with you. I reckon Glenn Kilbourne is not the man you knew before the war.”

“No, he is not. But that does not alter the case.”

“Carley, we’re not well acquainted,” went on Flo, more carefully feeling her way, “and I’m not your kind. I don’t know your Eastern ways. But I know what the West does to a man. The war ruined your friend — both his body and mind. . . . How sorry mother and I were for Glenn, those days when it looked he’d sure ‘go west,’ for good! . . . Did you know he’d been gassed and that he had five hemorrhages?”

“Oh! I knew his lungs had been weakened by gas. But he never told me about having hemorrhages.”

“Well, he shore had them. The last one I’ll never forget. Every time he’d cough it would fetch the blood. I could tell! . . . Oh, it was awful. I begged him not to cough. He smiled — like a ghost smiling — and he whispered, ‘I’ll quit.’ . . . And he did. The doctor came from Flagstaff and packed him in ice. Glenn sat propped up all night and never moved a muscle. Never coughed again! And the bleeding stopped. After that we put him out on the porch where he could breathe fresh air all the time. There’s something wonderfully healing in Arizona air. It’s from the dry desert and here it’s full of cedar and pine. Anyway Glenn got well. And I think the West has cured his mind, too.”

“Of what?” queried Carley, in an intense curiosity she could scarcely hide.

“Oh, God only knows!” exclaimed Flo, throwing up her gloved hands. “I never could understand. But I hated what the war did to him.”

Carley leaned back against the log, quite spent. Flo was unwittingly torturing her. Carley wanted passionately to give in to jealousy of this Western girl, but she could not do it. Flo Hutter deserved better than that. And Carley’s baser nature seemed in conflict with all that was noble in her. The victory did not yet go to either side. This was a bad hour for Carley. Her strength had about played out, and her spirit was at low ebb.

“Carley, you’re all in,” declared Flo. “You needn’t deny it. I’m shore you’ve made good with me as a tenderfoot who stayed the limit. But there’s no sense in your killing yourself, nor in me letting you. So I’m going to tell dad we want to go home.”

She left Carley there. The word home had struck strangely into Carley’s mind and remained there. Suddenly she realized what it was to be homesick. The comfort, the ease, the luxury, the rest, the sweetness, the pleasure, the cleanliness, the gratification to eye and ear — to all the senses — how these thoughts came to haunt her! All of Carley’s will power had been needed to sustain her on this trip to keep her from miserably f ailing. She had not failed. But contact with the West had affronted, disgusted, shocked, and alienated her. In that moment she could not be fair minded; she knew it; she did not care.

Carley gazed around her. Only one of the cabins was in sight from this position. Evidently it was a home for some of these men. On one side the peaked rough roof had been built out beyond the wall, evidently to serve as a kind of porch. On that wall hung the motliest assortment of things Carley had ever seen — utensils, sheep and cow hides, saddles, harness, leather clothes, ropes, old sombreros, shovels, stove pipe, and many other articles for which she could find no name. The most striking characteristic manifest in this collection was that of service. How they had been used! They had enabled people to live under primitive conditions. Somehow this fact inhibited Carley’s sense of repulsion at their rude and uncouth appearance. Had any of her forefathers ever been pioneers? Carley did not know, but the thought was disturbing. It was thought-provoking. Many times at home, when she was dressing for dinner, she had gazed into the mirror at the graceful lines of her throat and arms, at the proud poise of her head, at the alabaster whiteness of her skin, and wonderingly she had asked of her image: “Can it be possible that I am a descendant of cavemen?” She had never been able to realize it, yet she knew it was true. Perhaps somewhere not far back along her line there had been a great-great-grandmother who had lived some kind of a primitive life, using such implements and necessaries as hung on this cabin wall, and thereby helped some man to conquer the wilderness, to live in it, and reproduce his kind. Like flashes Glenn’s words came back to Carley— “Work and children!”

Some interpretation of his meaning and how it related to this hour held aloof from Carley. If she would ever be big enough to understand it and broad enough to accept it the time was far distant. Just now she was sore and sick physically, and therefore certainly not in a receptive state of mind. Yet how could she have keener impressions than these she was receiving? It was all a problem. She grew tired of thinking. But even then her mind pondered on, a stream of consciousness over which she had no control. This dreary woods was deserted. No birds, no squirrels, no creatures such as fancy anticipated! In another direction, across the canyon, she saw cattle, gaunt, ragged, lumbering, and stolid. And on the moment the scent of sheep came on the breeze. Time seemed to stand still here, and what Carley wanted most was for the hours and days to fly, so that she would be home again.

At last Flo returned with the men. One quick glance at Glenn convinced Carley that Flo had not yet told him about the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff.

“Carley, you’re a real sport,” declared Glenn, with the rare smile she loved. “It’s a dreadful mess. And to think you stood it! . . . Why, old Fifth Avenue, if you needed to make another hit with me you’ve done it!”

His warmth amazed and pleased Carley. She could not quite understand why it would have made any difference to him whether she had stood the ordeal or not. But then every day she seemed to drift a little farther from a real understanding of her lover. His praise gladdened her, and fortified her to face the rest of this ride back to Oak Creek.

Four hours later, in a twilight so shadowy that no one saw her distress, Carley half slipped and half fell from her horse and managed somehow to mount the steps and enter the bright living room. A cheerful red fire blazed on the hearth; Glenn’s hound, Moze, trembled eagerly at sight of her and looked up with humble dark eyes; the white-clothed dinner table steamed with savory dishes. Flo stood before the blaze, warming her hands. Lee Stanton leaned against the mantel, with eyes on her, and every line of his lean, hard face expressed his devotion to her. Hutter was taking his seat at the head of the table. “Come an’ get it-you-all,” he called, heartily. Mrs. Hutter’s face beamed with the spirit of that home. And lastly, Carley saw Glenn waiting for her, watching her come, true in this very moment to his stern hope for her and pride in her, as she dragged her weary, spent body toward him and the bright fire.

By these signs, or the effect of them, Carley vaguely realized that she was incalculably changing, that this Carley Burch had become a vastly bigger person in the sight of her friends, and strangely in her own a lesser creature.

CHAPTER VI

IF SPRING CAME at all to Oak Creek Canyon it warmed into summer before Carley had time to languish with the fever characteristic of early June in the East.

As if by magic it seemed the green grass sprang up, the green buds opened into leaves, the bluebells and primroses bloomed, the apple and peach blossoms burst exquisitely white and pink against the blue sky. Oak Creek fell to a transparent, beautiful brook, leisurely eddying in the stone walled nooks, hurrying with murmur and babble over the little falls. The mornings broke clear and fragrantly cool, the noon hours seemed to lag under a hot sun, the nights fell like dark mantles from the melancholy star-sown sky.

Carley had stubbornly kept on riding and climbing until she killed her secret doubt that she was really a thoroughbred, until she satisfied her own insistent vanity that she could train to a point where this outdoor life was not too much for her strength. She lost flesh despite increase of appetite; she lost her pallor for a complexion of gold-brown she knew her Eastern friends would admire; she wore out the blisters and aches and pains; she found herself growing firmer of muscle, lither of line, deeper of chest. And in addition to these physical manifestations there were subtle intimations of a delight in a freedom of body she had never before known, of an exhilaration in action that made her hot and made her breathe, of a sloughing off of numberless petty and fussy and luxurious little superficialities which she had supposed were necessary to her happiness. What she had undertaken in vain conquest of Glenn’s pride and Flo Hutter’s Western tolerance she had found to be a boomerang. She had won Glenn’s admiration; she had won the Western girl’s recognition. But her passionate, stubborn desire had been ignoble, and was proved so by the rebound of her achievement, coming home to her with a sweetness she had not the courage to accept. She forced it from her. This West with its rawness, its ruggedness, she hated.

Nevertheless, the June days passed, growing dreamily swift, growing more incomprehensibly full; and still she had not broached to Glenn the main object of her visit — to take him back East. Yet a little while longer! She hated his work and had not talked of that. Yet an honest consciousness told her that as time flew by she feared more and more to tell him that he was wasting his life there and that she could not bear it. Still was he wasting it? Once in a while a timid and unfamiliar Carley Burch voiced a pregnant query. Perhaps what held Carley back most was the happiness she achieved in her walks and rides with Glenn. She lingered because of them. Every day she loved him more, and yet — there was something. Was it in her or in him? She had a woman’s assurance of his love and sometimes she caught her breath — so sweet and strong was the tumultuous emotion it stirred. She preferred to enjoy while she could, to dream instead of think. But it was not possible to hold a blank, dreamy, lulled consciousness all the time. Thought would return. And not always could she drive away a feeling that Glenn would never be her slave. She divined something in his mind that kept him gentle and kindly, restrained always, sometimes melancholy and aloof, as if he were an impassive destiny waiting for the iron consequences he knew inevitably must fall. What was this that he knew which she did not know? The idea haunted her. Perhaps it was that which compelled her to use all her woman’s wiles and charms on Glenn. Still, though it thrilled her to see she made him love her more as the days passed, she could not blind herself to the truth that no softness or allurement of hers changed this strange restraint in him. How that baffled her! Was it resistance or knowledge or nobility or doubt?

Flo Hutter’s twentieth birthday came along the middle of June, and all the neighbors and range hands for miles around were invited to celebrate it.

For the second time during her visit Carley put on the white gown that had made Flo gasp with delight, and had stunned Mrs. Hutter, and had brought a reluctant compliment from Glenn. Carley liked to create a sensation. What were exquisite and expensive gowns for, if not that?

It was twilight on this particular June night when she was ready to go downstairs, and she tarried a while on the long porch. The evening star, so lonely and radiant, so cold and passionless in the dusky blue, had become an object she waited for and watched, the same as she had come to love the dreaming, murmuring melody of the waterfall. She lingered there. What had the sights and sounds and smells of this wild canyon come to mean to her? She could not say. But they had changed immeasurably.

Her soft slippers made no sound on the porch, and as she turned the corner of the house, where shadows hovered thick, she heard Lee Stanton’s voice:

“But, Flo, you loved me before Kilbourne came.”

The content, the pathos, of his voice chained Carley to the spot. Some situations, like fate, were beyond resisting.

“Shore I did,” replied Flo, dreamily. This was the voice of a girl who was being confronted by happy and sad thoughts on her birthday.

“Don’t you — love me — still?” he asked, huskily.

“Why, of course, Lee! I don’t change,” she said.

“But then, why—” There for the moment his utterance or courage failed.

“Lee, do you want the honest to God’s truth?”

“I reckon — I do.”

“Well, I love you just as I always did,” replied Flo, earnestly. “But, Lee, I love him more than you or anybody.”

“My Heaven! Flo — you’ll ruin us all!” he exclaimed, hoarsely.

“No, I won’t either. You can’t say I’m not level headed. I hated to tell you this, Lee, but you made me.”

“Flo, you love me an’ him — two men?” queried Stanton, incredulously.

“I shore do,” she drawled, with a soft laugh. “And it’s no fun.”

“Reckon I don’t cut much of a figure alongside Kilbourne,” said Stanton, disconsolately.

“Lee, you could stand alongside any man,” replied Flo, eloquently. “You’re Western, and you’re steady and loyal, and you’ll — well, some day you’ll be like dad. Could I say more? . . . But, Lee, this man is different. He is wonderful. I can’t explain it, but I feel it. He has been through hell’s fire. Oh! will I ever forget his ravings when he lay so ill? He means more to me than just one man. He’s American. You’re American, too, Lee, and you trained to be a soldier, and you would have made a grand one — if I know old Arizona. But you were not called to France. . . . Glenn Kilbourne went. God only knows what that means. But he went. And there’s the difference. I saw the wreck of him. I did a little to save his life and his mind. I wouldn’t be an American girl if I didn’t love him. . . . Oh, Lee, can’t you understand?”

“I reckon so. I’m not begrudging Glenn what — what you care. I’m only afraid I’ll lose you.”

“I never promised to marry you, did I?”

“Not in words. But kisses ought to — ?”

“Yes, kisses mean a lot,” she replied. “And so far I stand committed. I suppose I’ll marry you some day and be blamed lucky. I’ll be happy, too — don’t you overlook that hunch. . . . You needn’t worry. Glenn is in love with Carley. She’s beautiful, rich — and of his class. How could he ever see me?”

“Flo, you can never tell,” replied Stanton, thoughtfully. “I didn’t like her at first. But I’m comin’ round. The thing is, Flo, does she love him as you love him?”

“Oh, I think so — I hope so,” answered Flo, as if in distress.

“I’m not so shore. But then I can’t savvy her. Lord knows I hope so, too. If she doesn’t — if she goes back East an’ leaves him here — I reckon my case—”

“Hush! I know she’s out here to take him back. Let’s go downstairs now.”

“Aw, wait — Flo,” he begged. “What’s your hurry? . . . Come-give me—”

“There! That’s all you get, birthday or no birthday,” replied Flo, gayly.

Carley heard the soft kiss and Stanton’s deep breath, and then footsteps as they walked away in the gloom toward the stairway. Carley leaned against the log wall. She felt the rough wood — smelled the rusty pine rosin. Her other hand pressed her bosom where her heart beat with unwonted vigor. Footsteps and voices sounded beneath her. Twilight had deepened into night. The low murmur of the waterfall and the babble of the brook floated to her strained ears.

Listeners never heard good of themselves. But Stanton’s subtle doubt of any depth to her, though it hurt, was not so conflicting as the ringing truth of Flo Hutter’s love for Glenn. This unsought knowledge powerfully affected Carley. She was forewarned and forearmed now. It saddened her, yet did not lessen her confidence in her hold on Glenn. But it stirred to perplexing pitch her curiosity in regard to the mystery that seemed to cling round Glenn’s transformation of character. This Western girl really knew more about Glenn than his fiancee knew. Carley suffered a humiliating shock when she realized that she had been thinking of herself, of her love, her life, her needs, her wants instead of Glenn’s. It took no keen intelligence or insight into human nature to see that Glenn needed her more than she needed him.

Thus unwontedly stirred and upset and flung back upon pride of herself, Carley went downstairs to meet the assembled company. And never had she shown to greater contrast, never had circumstance and state of mind contrived to make her so radiant and gay and unbending. She heard many remarks not intended for her far-reaching ears. An old grizzled Westerner remarked to Hutter: “Wall, she’s shore an unbroke filly.” Another of the company — a woman — remarked: “Sweet an’ pretty as a columbine. But I’d like her better if she was dressed decent.” And a gaunt range rider, who stood with others at the porch door, looking on, asked a comrade: “Do you reckon that’s style back East?” To which the other replied: “Mebbe, but I’d gamble they’re short on silk back East an’ likewise sheriffs.”

Carley received some meed of gratification out of the sensation she created, but she did not carry her craving for it to the point of overshadowing Flo. On the contrary, she contrived to have Flo share the attention she received. She taught Flo to dance the fox-trot and got Glenn to dance with her. Then she taught it to Lee Stanton. And when Lee danced with Flo, to the infinite wonder and delight of the onlookers, Carley experienced her first sincere enjoyment of the evening.

Her moment came when she danced with Glenn. It reminded her of days long past and which she wanted to return again. Despite war tramping and Western labors Glenn retained something of his old grace and lightness. But just to dance with him was enough to swell her heart, and for once she grew oblivious to the spectators.

“Glenn, would you like to go to the Plaza with me again, and dance between dinner courses, as we used to?” she whispered up to him.

“Sure I would — unless Morrison knew you were to be there,” he replied.

“Glenn! . . . I would not even see him.”

“Any old time you wouldn’t see Morrison!” he exclaimed, half mockingly.

His doubt, his tone grated upon her. Pressing closer to him, she said, “Come back and I’ll prove it.”

But he laughed and had no answer for her. At her own daring words Carley’s heart had leaped to her lips. If he had responded, even teasingly, she could have burst out with her longing to take him back. But silence inhibited her, and the moment passed.

At the end of that dance Hutter claimed Glenn in the interest of neighboring sheep men. And Carley, crossing the big living room alone, passed close to one of the porch doors. Some one, indistinct in the shadow, spoke to her in low voice: “Hello, pretty eyes!”

Carley felt a little cold shock go tingling through her. But she gave no sign that she had heard. She recognized the voice and also the epithet. Passing to the other side of the room and joining the company there, Carley presently took a casual glance at the door. Several men were lounging there. One of them was the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff. His bold eyes were on her now, and his coarse face wore a slight, meaning smile, as if he understood something about her that was a secret to others. Carley dropped her eyes. But she could not shake off the feeling that wherever she moved this man’s gaze followed her. The unpleasantness of this incident would have been nothing to Carley had she at once forgotten it. Most unaccountably, however, she could not make herself unaware of this ruffian’s attention. It did no good for her to argue that she was merely the cynosure of all eyes. This Ruff’s tone and look possessed something heretofore unknown to Carley. Once she was tempted to tell Glenn. But that would only cause a fight, so she kept her counsel. She danced again, and helped Flo entertain her guests, and passed that door often; and once stood before it, deliberately, with all the strange and contrary impulse so inscrutable in a woman, and never for a moment wholly lost the sense of the man’s boldness. It dawned upon her, at length, that the singular thing about this boldness was its difference from any, which had ever before affronted her. The fool’s smile meant that he thought she saw his attention, and, understanding it perfectly, had secret delight in it. Many and various had been the masculine egotisms which had come under her observation. But quite beyond Carley was this brawny sheep dipper, Haze Ruff. Once the party broke up and the guests had departed, she instantly forgot both man and incident.

Next day, late in the afternoon, when Carley came out on the porch, she was hailed by Flo, who had just ridden in from down the canyon.

“Hey Carley, come down. I shore have something to tell you,” she called.

Carley did not use any time pattering down that rude porch stairway. Flo was dusty and hot, and her chaps carried the unmistakable scent of sheep-dip.

“Been over to Ryan’s camp an’ shore rode hard to beat Glenn home,” drawled Flo.

“Why?” queried Carley, eagerly.

“Reckon I wanted to tell you something Glenn swore he wouldn’t let me tell. . . . He makes me tired. He thinks you can’t stand things.”

“Oh! Has he been — hurt?”

“He’s skinned an’ bruised up some, but I reckon he’s not hurt.”

“Flo — what happened?” demanded Carley, anxiously.

“Carley, do you know Glenn can fight like the devil?” asked Flo.

“No, I don’t. But I remember he used to be athletic. Flo, you make me nervous. Did Glenn fight?”

“I reckon he did,” drawled Flo.

“With whom?”

“Nobody else but that big hombre, Haze Ruff.”

“Oh!” gasped Carley, with a violent start. “That — that ruffian! Flo, did you see — were you there?”

“I shore was, an’ next to a horse race I like a fight,” replied the Western girl. “Carley, why didn’t you tell me Haze Ruff insulted you last night?”

“Why, Flo — he only said, ‘Hello, pretty eyes,’ and I let it pass!” said Carley, lamely.

“You never want to let anything pass, out West. Because next time you’ll get worse. This turn your other cheek doesn’t go in Arizona. But we shore thought Ruff said worse than that. Though from him that’s aplenty.”

“How did you know?”

“Well, Charley told it. He was standing out here by the door last night an’ he heard Ruff speak to you. Charley thinks a heap of you an’ I reckon he hates Ruff. Besides, Charley stretches things. He shore riled Glenn, an’ I want to say, my dear, you missed the best thing that’s happened since you got here.”

“Hurry — tell me,” begged Carley, feeling the blood come to her face.

“I rode over to Ryan’s place for dad, an’ when I got there I knew nothing about what Ruff said to you,” began Flo, and she took hold of Carley’s hand. “Neither did dad. You see, Glenn hadn’t got there yet. Well, just as the men had finished dipping a bunch of sheep Glenn came riding down, lickety cut.”

“ ‘Now what the hell’s wrong with Glenn?’ said dad, getting up from where we sat.

“Shore I knew Glenn was mad, though I never before saw him that way. He looked sort of grim an’ black. . . . Well, he rode right down on us an’ piled off. Dad yelled at him an’ so did I. But Glenn made for the sheep pen. You know where we watched Haze Ruff an’ Lorenzo slinging the sheep into the dip. Ruff was just about to climb out over the fence when Glenn leaped up on it.”

“ ‘Say, Ruff,’ he said, sort of hard, ‘Charley an’ Ben tell me they heard you speak disrespect fully to Miss Burch last night.’”

“Dad an’ I ran to the fence, but before we could catch hold of Glenn he’d jumped down into the pen.”

“‘I’m not carin’ much for what them herders say,’ replied Ruff.

“‘Do you deny it?’ demanded Glenn.

“‘I ain’t denyin’ nothin’, Kilbourne,’ growled Ruff. ‘I might argue against me bein’ disrespectful. That’s a matter of opinion.’

“‘You’ll apologize for speaking to Miss Burch or I’ll beat you up an’ have Hutter fire you.’

“‘Wal, Kilbourne, I never eat my words,’ replied Ruff.

“Then Glenn knocked him flat. You ought to have heard that crack. Sounded like Charley hitting a steer with a club. Dad yelled: ‘Look out, Glenn. He packs a gun!’ — Ruff got up mad clear through I reckon. Then they mixed it. Ruff got in some swings, but he couldn’t reach Glenn’s face. An’ Glenn batted him right an’ left, every time in his ugly mug. Ruff got all bloody an’ he cussed something awful. Glenn beat him against the fence an’ then we all saw Ruff reach for a gun or knife. All the men yelled. An’ shore I screamed. But Glenn saw as much as we saw. He got fiercer. He beat Ruff down to his knees an’ swung on him hard. Deliberately knocked Ruff into the dip ditch. What a splash! It wet all of us. Ruff went out of sight. Then he rolled up like a huge hog. We were all scared now. That dip’s rank poison, you know. Reckon Ruff knew that. He floundered along an’ crawled up at the end. Anyone could see that he had mouth an’ eyes tight shut. He began to grope an’ feel around, trying to find the way to the pond. One of the men led him out. It was great to see him wade in the water an’ wallow an’ souse his head under. When he came out the men got in front of him any stopped him. He shore looked bad. . . . An’ Glenn called to him, ‘Ruff, that sheep-dip won’t go through your tough hide, but a bullet will!”

Not long after this incident Carley started out on her usual afternoon ride, having arranged with Glenn to meet her on his return from work.

Toward the end of June Carley had advanced in her horsemanship to a point where Flo lent her one of her own mustangs. This change might not have had all to do with a wonderful difference in riding, but it seemed so to Carley. There was as much difference in horses as in people. This mustang she had ridden of late was of Navajo stock, but he had been born and raised and broken at Oak Creek. Carley had not yet discovered any objection on his part to do as she wanted him to. He liked what she liked, and most of all he liked to go. His color resembled a pattern of calico, and in accordance with Western ways his name was therefore Calico. Left to choose his own gait, Calico always dropped into a gentle pace which was so easy and comfortable and swinging that Carley never tired of it. Moreover, he did not shy at things lying in the road or rabbits darting from bushes or at the upwhirring of birds. Carley had grown attached to Calico before she realized she was drifting into it; and for Carley to care for anything or anybody was a serious matter, because it did not happen often and it lasted. She was exceedingly tenacious of affection.

June had almost passed and summer lay upon the lonely land. Such perfect and wonderful weather had never before been Carley’s experience. The dawns broke cool, fresh, fragrant, sweet, and rosy, with a breeze that seemed of heaven rather than earth, and the air seemed tremulously full of the murmur of falling water and the melody of mocking birds. At the solemn noontides the great white sun glared down hot — so hot that t burned the skin, yet strangely was a pleasant burn. The waning afternoons were Carley’s especial torment, when it seemed the sounds and winds of the day were tiring, and all things were seeking repose, and life must soften to an unthinking happiness. These hours troubled Carley because she wanted them to last, and because she knew for her this changing and transforming time could not last. So long as she did not think she was satisfied.

Maples and sycamores and oaks were in full foliage, and their bright greens contrasted softly with the dark shine of the pines. Through the spaces between brown tree trunks and the white-spotted holes of the sycamores gleamed the amber water of the creek. Always there was murmur of little rills and the musical dash of little rapids. On the surface of still, shady pools trout broke to make ever-widening ripples. Indian paintbrush, so brightly carmine in color, lent touch of fire to the green banks, and under the oaks, in cool dark nooks where mossy bowlders lined the stream, there were stately nodding yellow columbines. And high on the rock ledges shot up the wonderful mescal stalks, beginning to blossom, some with tints of gold and others with tones of red.

Riding along down the canyon, under its looming walls, Carley wondered that if unawares to her these physical aspects of Arizona could have become more significant than she realized. The thought had confronted her before. Here, as always, she fought it and denied it by the simple defense of elimination. Yet refusing to think of a thing when it seemed ever present was not going to do forever. Insensibly and subtly it might get a hold on her, never to be broken. Yet it was infinitely easier to dream than to think.

But the thought encroached upon her that it was not a dreamful habit of mind she had fallen into of late. When she dreamed or mused she lived vaguely and sweetly over past happy hours or dwelt in enchanted fancy upon a possible future. Carley had been told by a Columbia professor that she was a type of the present age — a modern young woman of materialistic mind. Be that as it might, she knew many things seemed loosening from the narrowness and tightness of her character, sloughing away like scales, exposing a new and strange and susceptible softness of fiber. And this blank habit of mind, when she did not think, and now realized that she was not dreaming, seemed to be the body of Carley Burch, and her heart and soul stripped of a shell. Nerve and emotion and spirit received something from her surroundings. She absorbed her environment. She felt. It was a delightful state. But when her own consciousness caused it to elude her, then she both resented and regretted. Anything that approached permanent attachment to this crude and untenanted West Carley would not tolerate for a moment. Reluctantly she admitted it had bettered her health, quickened her blood, and quite relegated Florida and the Adirondacks, to little consideration.

“Well, as I told Glenn,” soliloquized Carley, “every time I’m almost won over a little to Arizona she gives me a hard jolt. I’m getting near being mushy today. Now let’s see what I’ll get. I suppose that’s my pessimism or materialism. Funny how Glenn keeps saying its the jolts, the hard knocks, the fights that are best to remember afterward. I don’t get that at all.”

Five miles below West Fork a road branched off and climbed the left side of the canyon. It was a rather steep road, long and zigzaging, and full of rocks and ruts. Carley did not enjoy ascending it, but she preferred the going up to coming down. It took half an hour to climb.

Once up on the flat cedar-dotted desert she was met, full in the face, by a hot dusty wind coming from the south. Carley searched her pockets for her goggles, only to ascertain that she had forgotten them. Nothing, except a freezing sleety wind, annoyed and punished Carley so much as a hard puffy wind, full of sand and dust. Somewhere along the first few miles of this road she was to meet Glenn. If she turned back for any cause he would be worried, and, what concerned her more vitally, he would think she had not the courage to face a little dust. So Carley rode on.

The wind appeared to be gusty. It would blow hard awhile, then lull for a few moments. On the whole, however, it increased in volume and persistence until she was riding against a gale. She had now come to a bare, flat, gravelly region, scant of cedars and brush, and far ahead she could see a dull yellow pall rising high into the sky. It was a duststorm and it was sweeping down on the wings of that gale. Carley remembered that somewhere along this flat there was a log cabin which had before provided shelter for her and Flo when they were caught in a rainstorm. It seemed unlikely that she had passed by this cabin.

Resolutely she faced the gale and knew she had a task to find that refuge. If there had been a big rock or bushy cedar to offer shelter she would have welcomed it. But there was nothing. When the hard dusty gusts hit her, she found it absolutely necessary to shut her eyes. At intervals less windy she opened them, and rode on, peering through the yellow gloom for the cabin. Thus she got her eyes full of dust — an alkali dust that made them sting and smart. The fiercer puffs of wind carried pebbles large enough to hurt severely. Then the dust clogged her nose and sand got between her teeth. Added to these annoyances was a heat like a blast from a furnace. Carley perspired freely and that caked the dust on her face. She rode on, gradually growing more uncomfortable and miserable. Yet even then she did not utterly lose a sort of thrilling zest in being thrown upon her own responsibility. She could hate an obstacle, yet feel something of pride in holding her own against it.

Another mile of buffeting this increasing gale so exhausted Carley and wrought upon her nerves that she became nearly panic-stricken. It grew harder and harder not to turn back. At last she was about to give up when right at hand through the flying dust she espied the cabin. Riding behind it, she dismounted and tied the mustang to a post. Then she ran around to the door and entered.

What a welcome refuge! She was all right now, and when Glenn came along she would have added to her already considerable list another feat for which he would commend her. With aid of her handkerchief, and the tears that flowed so copiously, Carley presently freed her eyes of the blinding dust. But when she essayed to remove it from her face she discovered she would need a towel and soap and hot water.

The cabin appeared to be enveloped in a soft, swishing, hollow sound. It seeped and rustled. Then the sound lulled, only to rise again. Carley went to the door, relieved and glad to see that the duststorm was blowing by. The great sky-high pall of yellow had moved on to the north. Puffs of dust were whipping along the road, but no longer in one continuous cloud. In the west, low down the sun was sinking, a dull magenta in hue, quite weird and remarkable.

“I knew I’d get the jolt all right,” soliloquized Carley, wearily, as she walked to a rude couch of poles and sat down upon it. She had begun to cool off. And there, feeling dirty and tired, and slowly wearing to the old depression, she composed herself to wait.

Suddenly she heard the clip-clop of hoofs. “There! that’s Glenn,” she cried, gladly, and rising, she ran to the door.

She saw a big bay horse bearing a burly rider. He discovered her at the same instant, and pulled his horse.

“Ho! Ho! if it ain’t Pretty Eyes!” he called out, in gay, coarse voice.

Carley recognized the voice, and then the epithet, before her sight established the man as Haze Ruff. A singular stultifying shock passed over her.

“Wal, by all thet’s lucky!” he said, dismounting. “I knowed we’d meet some day. I can’t say I just laid fer you, but I kept my eyes open.”

Manifestly he knew she was alone, for he did not glance into the cabin.

“I’m waiting for — Glenn,” she said, with lips she tried to make stiff.

“Shore I reckoned thet,” he replied, genially. “But he won’t be along yet awhile.”

He spoke with a cheerful inflection of tone, as if the fact designated was one that would please her; and his swarthy, seamy face expanded into a good-humored, meaning smile. Then without any particular rudeness he pushed her back from the door, into the cabin, and stepped across the threshold.

“How dare — you!” cried Carley. A hot anger that stirred in her seemed to be beaten down and smothered by a cold shaking internal commotion, threatening collapse. This man loomed over her, huge, somehow monstrous in his brawny uncouth presence. And his knowing smile, and the hard, glinting twinkle of his light eyes, devilishly intelligent and keen, in no wise lessened the sheer brutal force of him physically. Sight of his bulk was enough to terrorize Carley.

“Me! Aw, I’m a darin’ hombre an’ a devil with the wimmin,” he said, with a guffaw.

Carley could not collect her wits. The instant of his pushing her back into the cabin and following her had shocked her and almost paralyzed her will. If she saw him now any the less fearful she could not so quickly rally her reason to any advantage.

“Let me out of here,” she demanded.

“Nope. I’m a-goin’ to make a little love to you,” he said, and he reached for her with great hairy hands.

Carley saw in them the strength that had so easily swung the sheep. She saw, too, that they were dirty, greasy hands. And they made her flesh creep.

“Glenn will kill — you,” she panted.

“What fer?” he queried, in real or pretended surprise. “Aw, I know wimmin. You’ll never tell him.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Wal, mebbe. I reckon you’re lyin’, Pretty Eyes,” he replied, with a grin. “Anyhow, I’ll take a chance.”

“I tell you — he’ll kill you,” repeated Carley, backing away until her weak knees came against the couch.

“What fer, I ask you?” he demanded.

“For this — this insult.”

“Huh! I’d like to know who’s insulted you. Can’t a man take an invitation to kiss an’ hug a girl — without insultin’ her?”

“Invitation! . . . Are you crazy?” queried Carley, bewildered.

“Nope, I’m not crazy, an’ I shore said invitation . . . . I meant thet white shimmy dress you wore the night of Flo’s party. Thet’s my invitation to get a little fresh with you, Pretty Eyes!”

Carley could only stare at him. His words seemed to have some peculiar, unanswerable power.

“Wal, if it wasn’t an invitation, what was it?” he asked, with another step that brought him within reach of her. He waited for her answer, which was not forthcoming.

“Wal, you’re gettin’ kinda pale around the gills,” he went on, derisively. “I reckoned you was a real sport. . . . Come here.”

He fastened one of his great hands in the front of her coat and gave her a pull. So powerful was it that Carley came hard against him, almost knocking her breathless. There he held her a moment and then put his other arm round her. It seemed to crush both breath and sense out of her. Suddenly limp, she sank strengthless. She seemed reeling in darkness. Then she felt herself thrust away from him with violence. She sank on the couch and her head and shoulders struck the wall.

“Say, if you’re a-goin’ to keel over like thet I pass,” declared Ruff, in disgust. “Can’t you Eastern wimmin stand nothin?”

Carley’s eyes opened and beheld this man in an attitude of supremely derisive protest.

“You look like a sick kitten,” he added. “When I get me a sweetheart or wife I want her to be a wild cat.”

His scorn and repudiation of her gave Carley intense relief. She sat up and endeavored to collect her shattered nerves. Ruff gazed down at her with great disapproval and even disappointment.

“Say, did you have some fool idee I was a-goin’ to kill you?” he queried, gruffly.

“I’m afraid — I did,” faltered Carley. Her relief was a release; it was so strange that it was gratefulness.

“Wal, I reckon I wouldn’t have hurt you. None of these flop-over Janes for me! . . . An’ I’ll give you a hunch, Pretty Eyes. You might have run acrost a fellar thet was no gentleman!”

Of all the amazing statements that had ever been made to Carley, this one seemed the most remarkable.

“What ‘d you wear thet onnatural white dress fer?” he demanded, as if he had a right to be her judge.

“Unnatural?” echoed Carley.

“Shore. Thet’s what I said. Any woman’s dress without top or bottom is onnatural. It’s not right. Why, you looked like — like” — here he floundered for adequate expression— “like one of the devil’s angels. An’ I want to hear why you wore it.”

“For the same reason I’d wear any dress,” she felt forced to reply.

“Pretty Eyes, thet’s a lie. An’ you know it’s a lie. You wore thet white dress to knock the daylights out of men. Only you ain’t honest enough to say so . . . . Even me or my kind! Even us, who ‘re dirt under your little feet. But all the same we’re men, an’ mebbe better men than you think. If you had to put that dress on, why didn’t you stay in your room? Naw, you had to come down an’ strut around an’ show off your beauty. An’ I ask you — if you’re a nice girl like Flo Hutter — what ‘d you wear it fer?”

Carley not only was mute; she felt rise and burn in her a singular shame and surprise.

“I’m only a sheep dipper,” went on Ruff, “but I ain’t no fool. A fellar doesn’t have to live East an’ wear swell clothes to have sense. Mebbe you’ll learn thet the West is bigger’n you think. A man’s a man East or West. But if your Eastern men stand for such dresses as thet white one they’d do well to come out West awhile, like your lover, Glenn Kilbourne. I’ve been rustlin’ round here ten years, an’ I never before seen a dress like yours — an’ I never heerd of a girl bein’ insulted, either. Mebbe you think I insulted you. Wal, I didn’t. Fer I reckon nothin’ could insult you in thet dress. . . . An’ my last hunch is this, Pretty Eyes. You’re not what a hombre like me calls either square or game. Adios.”

His bulky figure darkened the doorway, passed out, and the light of the sky streamed into the cabin again. Carley sat staring. She heard Ruff’s spurs tinkle, then the ring of steel on stirrup, a sodden leathery sound as he mounted, and after that a rapid pound of hoofs, quickly dying away.

He was gone. She had escaped something raw and violent. Dazedly she realized it, with unutterable relief. And she sat there slowly gathering the nervous force that had been shattered. Every word that he had uttered was stamped in startling characters upon her consciousness. But she was still under the deadening influence of shock. This raw experience was the worst the West had yet dealt her. It brought back former states of revulsion and formed them in one whole irrefutable and damning judgment that seemed to blot out the vaguely dawning and growing happy susceptibilities. It was, perhaps, just as well to have her mind reverted to realistic fact. The presence of Haze Ruff, the astounding truth of the contact with his huge sheep-defiled hands, had been profanation and degradation under which she sickened with fear and shame. Yet hovering back of her shame and rising anger seemed to be a pale, monstrous, and indefinable thought, insistent and accusing, with which she must sooner or later reckon. It might have been the voice of the new side of her nature, but at that moment of outraged womanhood, and of revolt against the West, she would not listen. It might, too, have been the still small voice of conscience. But decision of mind and energy coming to her then, she threw off the burden of emotion and perplexity, and forced herself into composure before the arrival of Glenn.

The dust had ceased to blow, although the wind had by no means died away. Sunset marked the west in old rose and gold, a vast flare. Carley espied a horseman far down the road, and presently recognized both rider and steed. He was coming fast. She went out and, mounting her mustang, she rode out to meet Glenn. It did not appeal to her to wait for him at the cabin; besides hoof tracks other than those made by her mustang might have been noticed by Glenn. Presently he came up to her and pulled his loping horse.

“Hello! I sure was worried,” was his greeting, as his gloved hand went out to her. “Did you run into that sandstorm?”

“It ran into me, Glenn, and buried me,” she laughed.

His fine eyes lingered on her face with glad and warm glance, and the keen, apprehensive penetration of a lover.

“Well, under all that dust you look scared,” he said.

“Scared! I was worse than that. When I first ran into the flying dirt I was only afraid I’d lose my way — and my complexion. But when the worst of the storm hit me — then I feared I’d lose my breath.”

“Did you face that sand and ride through it all?” he queried.

“No, not all. But enough. I went through the worst of it before I reached the cabin,” she replied.

“Wasn’t it great?”

“Yes — great bother and annoyance,” she said, laconically.

Whereupon he reached with long, arm and wrapped it round her as they rocked side by side. Demonstrations of this nature were infrequent with Glenn. Despite losing one foot out of a stirrup and her seat in the saddle Carley rather encouraged it. He kissed her dusty face, and then set her back.

“By George! Carley, sometimes I think you’ve changed since you’ve been here,” he said, with warmth. “To go through that sandstorm without one kick — one knock at my West!”

“Glenn, I always think of what Flo says — the worst is yet to come,” replied Carley, trying to hide her unreasonable and tumultuous pleasure at words of praise from him.

“Carley Burch, you don’t know yourself,” he declared, enigmatically.

“What woman knows herself? But do you know me?”

“Not I. Yet sometimes I see depths in you — wonderful possibilities- -submerged under your poise — under your fixed, complacent idle attitude toward life.”

This seemed for Carley to be dangerously skating near thin ice, but she could not resist a retort:

“Depths in me? Why I am a shallow, transparent stream like your West Fork! . . . And as for possibilities-may I ask what of them you imagine you see?”

“As a girl, before you were claimed by the world, you were earnest at heart. You had big hopes and dreams. And you had intellect, too. But you have wasted your talents, Carley. Having money, and spending it, living for pleasure, you have not realized your powers. . . . Now, don’t look hurt. I’m not censuring you, It’s just the way of modern life. And most of your friends have been more careless, thoughtless, useless than you. The aim of their existence is to be comfortable, free from work, worry, pain. They want pleasure, luxury. And what a pity it is! The best of you girls regard marriage as an escape, instead of responsibility. You don’t marry to get your shoulders square against the old wheel of American progress — to help some man make good — to bring a troop of healthy American kids into the world. You bare your shoulders to the gaze of the multitude and like it best if you are strung with pearls.”

“Glenn, you distress me when you talk like this, “ replied Carley, soberly. “You did not use to talk so. It seems to me you are bitter against women.”

“Oh no, Carley! I am only sad,” he said. “I only see where once I was blind. American women are the finest on earth, but as a race, if they don’t change, they’re doomed to extinction.”

“How can you say such things?” demanded Carley, with spirit.

“I say them because they are true. Carley, on the level now, tell me how many of your immediate friends have children.”

Put to a test, Carley rapidly went over in mind her circle of friends, with the result that she was somewhat shocked and amazed to realize how few of them were even married, and how the babies of her acquaintance were limited to three. It was not easy to admit this to Glenn.

“My dear,” replied he, “if that does not show you the handwriting on the wall, nothing ever will.”

“A girl has to find a husband, doesn’t she?” asked Carley, roused to defense of her sex. “And if she’s anybody she has to find one in her set. Well, husbands are not plentiful. Marriage certainly is not the end of existence these days. We have to get along somehow. The high cost of living is no inconsderable factor today. Do you know that most of the better-class apartment houses in New York will not take children? Women are not all to blame. Take the speed mania. Men must have automobiles. I know one girl who wanted a baby, but her husband wanted a car. They couldn’t afford both.”

“Carley, I’m not blaming women more than men,” returned Glenn. “I don’t know that I blame them as a class. But in my own mind I have worked it all out. Every man or woman who is genuinely American should read the signs of the times, realize the crisis, and meet it in an American way. Otherwise we are done as a race. Money is God in the older countries. But it should never become God in America. If it does we will make the fall of Rome pale into insignificance.”

“Glenn, let’s put off the argument,” appealed Carley. “I’m not — just up to fighting you today. Oh — you needn’t smile. I’m not showing a yellow streak, as Flo puts it. I’ll fight you some other time.”

“You’re right, Carley,” he assented. “Here we are loafing six or seven miles from home. Let’s rustle along.”

Riding fast with Glenn was something Carley had only of late added to her achievements. She had greatest pride in it. So she urged her mustang to keep pace with Glenn’s horse and gave herself up to the thrill of the motion and feel of wind and sense of flying along. At a good swinging lope Calico covered ground swiftly and did not tire. Carley rode the two miles to the rim of the canyon, keeping alongside of Glenn all the way. Indeed, for one long level stretch she and Glenn held hands. When they arrived at the descent, which necessitated slow and careful riding, she was hot and tingling and breathless, worked by the action into an exuberance of pleasure. Glenn complimented her riding as well as her rosy cheeks. There was indeed a sweetness in working at a task as she had worked to learn to ride in Western fashion. Every turn of her mind seemed to confront her with sobering antitheses of thought. Why had she come to love to ride down a lonely desert road, through ragged cedars where the wind whipped her face with fragrant wild breath, if at the same time she hated the West? Could she hate a country, however barren and rough, if it had saved the health and happiness of her future husband? Verily there were problems for Carley to solve.

Early twilight purple lay low in the hollows and clefts of the canyon. Over the western rim a pale ghost of the evening star seemed to smile at Carley, to bid her look and look. Like a strain of distant music, the dreamy hum of falling water, the murmur and melody of the stream, came again to Carley’s sensitive ear.

“Do you love this?” asked Glenn, when they reached the green-forested canyon floor, with the yellow road winding away into the purple shadows.

“Yes, both the ride — and you,” flashed Carley, contrarily. She knew he had meant the deep-walled canyon with its brooding solitude.

“But I want you to love Arizona,” he said.

“Glenn, I’m a faithful creature. You should be glad of that. I love New York.”

“Very well, then. Arizona to New York,” he said, lightly brushing her cheek with his lips. And swerving back into his saddle, he spurred his horse and called back over his shoulder: “That mustang and Flo have beaten me many a time. Come on.”

It was not so much his words as his tone and look that roused Carley. Had he resented her loyalty to the city of her nativity? Always there was a little rift in the lute. Had his tone and look meant that Flo might catch him if Carley could not? Absurd as the idea was, it spurred her to recklessness. Her mustang did not need any more than to know she wanted him to run. The road was of soft yellow earth flanked with green foliage and overspread by pines. In a moment she was racing at a speed she had never before half attained on a horse. Down the winding road Glenn’s big steed sped, his head low, his stride tremendous, his action beautiful. But Carley saw the distance between them diminishing. Calico was overtaking the bay. She cried out in the thrilling excitement of the moment. Glenn saw her gaining and pressed his mount to greater speed. Still he could not draw away from Calico. Slowly the little mustang gained. It seemed to Carley that riding him required no effort at all. And at such fast pace, with the wind roaring in her ears, the walls of green vague and continuous in her sight, the sting of pine tips on cheek and neck, the yellow road streaming toward her, under her, there rose out of the depths of her, out of the tumult of her breast, a sense of glorious exultation. She closed in on Glenn. From the flying hoofs of his horse shot up showers of damp sand and gravel that covered Carley’s riding habit and spattered in her face. She had to hold up a hand before her eyes. Perhaps this caused her to lose something of her confidence, or her swing in the saddle, for suddenly she realized she was not riding well. The pace was too fast for her inexperience. But nothing could have stopped her then. No fear or awkwardness of hers should be allowed to hamper that thoroughbred mustang. Carley felt that Calico understood the situation; or at least he knew he could catch and pass this big bay horse, and he intended to do it. Carley was hard put to it to hang on and keep the flying sand from blinding her.

When Calico drew alongside the bay horse and brought Carley breast to breast with Glenn, and then inch by inch forged ahead of him, Carley pealed out an exultant cry. Either it frightened Calico or inspired him, for he shot right ahead of Glenn’s horse. Then he lost the smooth, wonderful action. He seemed hurtling through space at the expense of tremendous muscular action. Carley could feel it. She lost her equilibrium. She seemed rushing through a blurred green and black aisle of the forest with a gale in her face. Then, with a sharp jolt, a break, Calico plunged to the sand. Carley felt herself propelled forward out of the saddle into the air, and down to strike with a sliding, stunning force that ended in sudden dark oblivion.

Upon recovering consciousness she first felt a sensation of oppression in her chest and a dull numbness of her whole body. When she opened her eyes she saw Glenn bending over her, holding her head on his knee. A wet, cold, reviving sensation evidently came from the handkerchief with which he was mopping her face.

“Carley, you can’t be hurt — really!” he was ejaculating, in eager hope. “It was some spill. But you lit on the sand and slid. You can’t be hurt.”

The look of his eyes, the tone of his voice, the feel of his hands were such that Carley chose for a moment to pretend to be very badly hurt indeed. It was worth taking a header to get so much from Glenn Kilbourne. But she believed she had suffered no more than a severe bruising and scraping.

“Glenn — dear, “ she whispered, very low and very eloquently. “I think — my back — is broken. . . . You’ll be free — soon.”

Glenn gave a terrible start and his face turned a deathly white. He burst out with quavering, inarticulate speech.

Carley gazed up at him and then closed her eyes. She could not look at him while carrying on such deceit. Yet the sight of him and the feel of him then were inexpressibly blissful to her. What she needed most was assurance of his love. She had it. Beyond doubt, beyond morbid fancy, the truth had proclaimed itself, filling her heart with joy.

Suddenly she flung her arms up around his neck. “Oh — Glenn! It was too good a chance to miss! . . . I’m not hurt a bit.”

CHAPTER VII

THE DAY CAME when Carley asked Mrs. Hutter: “Will you please put up a nice lunch for Glenn and me? I’m going to walk down to his farm where he’s working, and surprise him.”

“That’s a downright fine idea,” declared Mrs. Hutter, and forthwith bustled away to comply with Carley’s request.

So presently Carley found herself carrying a bountiful basket on her arm, faring forth on an adventure that both thrilled and depressed her. Long before this hour something about Glenn’s work had quickened her pulse and given rise to an inexplicable admiration. That he was big and strong enough to do such labor made her proud; that he might want to go on doing it made her ponder and brood.

The morning resembled one of the rare Eastern days in June, when the air appeared flooded by rich thick amber light. Only the sun here was hotter and the shade cooler.

Carley took to the trail below where West Fork emptied its golden-green waters into Oak Creek. The red walls seemed to dream and wait under the blaze of the sun; the heat lay like a blanket over the still foliage; the birds were quiet; only the murmuring stream broke the silence of the canyon. Never had Carley felt more the isolation and solitude of Oak Creek Canyon. Far indeed from the madding crowd! Only Carley’s stubbornness kept her from acknowledging the sense of peace that enveloped her-that and the consciousness of her own discontent. What would it be like to come to this canyon-to give up to its enchantments? That, like many another disturbing thought, had to go unanswered, to be driven into the closed chambers of Carley’s mind, there to germinate subconsciously, and stalk forth some day to overwhelm her.

The trail led along the creek, threading a maze of bowlders, passing into the shade of cottonwoods, and crossing sun-flecked patches of sand. Carley’s every step seemed to become slower. Regrets were assailing her. Long indeed had she overstayed her visit to the West. She must not linger there indefinitely. And mingled with misgiving was a surprise that she had not tired of Oak Creek. In spite of all, and of the dislike she vaunted to herself, the truth stared at her — she was not tired.

The long-delayed visit to see Glenn working on his own farm must result in her talking to him about his work; and in a way not quite clear she regretted the necessity for it. To disapprove of Glenn! She received faint intimations of wavering, of uncertainty, of vague doubt. But these were cried down by the dominant and habitable voice of her personality.

Presently through the shaded and shadowed breadth of the belt of forest she saw gleams of a sunlit clearing. And crossing this space to the border of trees she peered forth, hoping to espy Glenn at his labors. She saw an old shack, and irregular lines of rude fence built of poles of all sizes and shapes, and several plots of bare yellow ground, leading up toward the west side of the canyon wall. Could this clearing be Glenn’s farm? Surely she had missed it or had not gone far enough. This was not a farm, but a slash in the forested level of the canyon floor, bare and somehow hideous. Dead trees were standing in the lots. They had been ringed deeply at the base by an ax, to kill them, and so prevent their foliage from shading the soil. Carley saw a long pile of rocks that evidently had been carried from the plowed ground. There was no neatness, no regularity, although there was abundant evidence of toil. To clear that rugged space, to fence it, and plow it, appeared at once to Carley an extremely strenuous and useless task. Carley persuaded herself that this must be the plot of ground belonging to the herder Charley, and she was about to turn on down the creek when far up under the bluff she espied a man. He was stalking along and bending down, stalking along and bending down. She recognized Glenn. He was planting something in the yellow soil.

Curiously Carley watched him, and did not allow her mind to become concerned with a somewhat painful swell of her heart. What a stride he had! How vigorous he looked, and earnest! He was as intent upon this job as if he had been a rustic. He might have been failing to do it well, but he most certainly was doing it conscientiously. Once he had said to her that a man should never be judged by the result of his labors, but by the nature of his effort. A man might strive with all his heart and strength, yet fall. Carley watched him striding along and bending down, absorbed in his task, unmindful of the glaring hot sun, and somehow to her singularly detached from the life wherein he had once moved and to which she yearned to take him back. Suddenly an unaccountable flashing query assailed her conscience: How dare she want to take him back? She seemed as shocked as if some stranger had accosted her. What was this dimming of her eye, this inward tremulousness; this dammed tide beating at an unknown and riveted gate of her intelligence? She felt more then than she dared to face. She struggled against something in herself. The old habit of mind instinctively resisted the new, the strange. But she did not come off wholly victorious. The Carley Burch whom she recognized as of old, passionately hated this life and work of Glenn Kilbourne’s, but the rebel self, an unaccountable and defiant Carley, loved him all the better for them.

Carley drew a long deep breath before she called Glenn. This meeting would be momentous and she felt no absolute surety of herself.

Manifestly he was surprised to hear her call, and, dropping his sack and implement, he hurried across the tilled ground, sending up puffs of dust. He vaulted the rude fence of poles, and upon sight of her called out lustily. How big and virile he looked! Yet he was gaunt and strained. It struck Carley that he had not looked so upon her arrival at Oak Creek. Had she worried him? The query gave her a pang.

“Sir Tiller of the Fields,” said Carley, gayly, “see, your dinner! I brought it and I am going to share it.”

“You old darling!” he replied, and gave her an embrace that left her cheek moist with the sweat of his. He smelled of dust and earth and his body was hot. “I wish to God it could be true for always!”

His loving, bearish onslaught and his words quite silenced Carley. How at critical moments he always said the thing that hurt her or inhibited her! She essayed a smile as she drew back from him.

“It’s sure good of you,” he said, taking the basket. “I was thinking I’d be through work sooner today, and was sorry I had not made a date with you. Come, we’ll find a place to sit.”

Whereupon he led her back under the trees to a half-sunny, half-shady bench of rock overhanging the stream. Great pines overshadowed a still, eddying pool. A number of brown butterflies hovered over the water, and small trout floated like spotted feathers just under the surface. Drowsy summer enfolded the sylvan scene.

Glenn knelt at the edge of the brook, and, plunging his hands in, he splashed like a huge dog and bathed his hot face and head, and then turned to Carley with gay words and laughter, while he wiped himself dry with a large red scarf. Carley was not proof against the virility of him then, and at the moment, no matter what it was that had made him the man he looked, she loved it.

“I’ll sit in the sun,” he said, designating a place. “When you’re hot you mustn’t rest in the shade, unless you’ve coat or sweater. But you sit here in the shade.”

“Glenn, that’ll put us too far apart,” complained Carley. “I’ll sit in the sun with you.”

The delightful simplicity and happiness of the ensuing hour was something Carley believed she would never forget.

“There! we’ve licked the platter clean,” she said. “What starved bears we were! . . . . I wonder if I shall enjoy eating — when I get home. I used to be so finnicky and picky.”

“Carley, don’t talk about home,” said Glenn, appealingly.

“You dear old farmer, I’d love to stay here and just dream — forever,” replied Carley, earnestly. “But I came on purpose to talk seriously.”

“Oh, you did! About what?” he returned, with some quick, indefinable change of tone and expression.

“Well, first about your work. I know I hurt your feelings when I wouldn’t listen. But I wasn’t ready. I wanted to — to just be gay with you for a while. Don’t think I wasn’t interested. I was. And now, I’m ready to hear all about it — and everything.”

She smiled at him bravely, and she knew that unless some unforeseen shock upset her composure, she would be able to conceal from him anything which might hurt his feelings.

“You do look serious,” he said, with keen eyes on her.

“Just what are your business relations with Hutter?” she inquired.

“I’m simply working for him,” replied Glenn. “My aim is to get an interest in his sheep, and I expect to, some day. We have some plans. And one of them is the development of that Deep Lake section. You remember — you were with us. The day Spillbeans spilled you?”

“Yes, I remember. It was a pretty place,” she replied.

Carley did not tell him that for a month past she had owned the Deep Lake section of six hundred and forty acres. She had, in fact, instructed Hutter to purchase it, and to keep the transaction a secret for the present. Carley had never been able to understand the impulse that prompted her to do it. But as Hutter had assured her it was a remarkably good investment on very little capital, she had tried to persuade herself of its advantages. Back of it all had been an irresistible desire to be able some day to present to Glenn this ranch site he loved. She had concluded he would never wholly dissociate himself from this West; and as he would visit it now and then, she had already begun forming plans of her own. She could stand a month in Arizona at long intervals.

“Hutter and I will go into cattle raising some day,” went on Glenn. “And that Deep Lake place is what I want for myself.”

“What work are you doing for Hutter?” asked Carley.

“Anything from building fence to cutting timber,” laughed Glenn. “I’ve not yet the experience to be a foreman like Lee Stanton. Besides, I have a little business all my own. I put all my money in that.”

“You mean here — this — this farm?”

“Yes. And the stock I’m raisin’. You see I have to feed corn. And believe me, Carley, those cornfields represent some job.”

“I can well believe that,” replied Carley. “You — you looked it.”

“Oh, the hard work is over. All I have to do now it to plant and keep the weeds out.”

“Glenn, do sheep eat corn?”

“I plant corn to feed my hogs.”

“Hogs?” she echoed, vaguely.

“Yes, hogs,” he said, with quiet gravity. “The first day you visited my cabin I told you I raised hogs, and I fried my own ham for your dinner.”

“Is that what you — put your money in?”

“Yes. And Hutter says I’ve done well.”

“Hogs!” ejaculated Carley, aghast.

“My dear, are you growin’ dull of comprehension?” retorted Glenn. “H-o-g-s.” He spelled the word out. “I’m in the hog-raising business, and pretty blamed well pleased over my success so far.”

Carley caught herself in time to quell outwardly a shock of amaze and revulsion. She laughed, and exclaimed against her stupidity. The look of Glenn was no less astounding than the content of his words. He was actually proud of his work. Moreover, he showed not the least sign that he had any idea such information might be startlingly obnoxious to his fiancee.

“Glenn! It’s so — so queer,” she ejaculated. “That you — Glenn Kilbourne- should ever go in for — for hogs! . . . It’s unbelievable. How’d you ever — ever happen to do it?”

“By Heaven! you’re hard on me!” he burst out, in sudden dark, fierce passion. “How’d I ever happen to do it? . . . What was there left for me? I gave my soul and heart and body to the government — to fight for my country. I came home a wreck. What did my government do for me? What did my employers do for me? What did the people I fought for do for me? . . . Nothing — so help me God — nothing! . . . I got a ribbon and a bouquet — a little applause for an hour — and then the sight of me sickened my countrymen. I was broken and used. I was absolutely forgotten. . . . But my body, my life, my soul meant all to me. My future was ruined, but I wanted to live. I had killed men who never harmed me — I was not fit to die. . . . I tried to live. So I fought out my battle alone. Alone! . . . No one understood. No one cared. I came West to keep from dying of consumption in sight of the indifferent mob for whom I had sacrificed myself. I chose to die on my feet away off alone somewhere. . . . But I got well. And what made me well — and saved my soul — was the first work that offered. Raising and tending hogs!”

The dead whiteness of Glenn’s face, the lightning scorn of his eyes, the grim, stark strangeness of him then had for Carley a terrible harmony with this passionate denunciation of her, of her kind, of the America for whom he had lost all.

“Oh, Glenn! — forgive — me! “ she faltered. “I was only — talking. What do I know? Oh, I am blind — blind and little!”

She could not bear to face him for a moment, and she hung her head. Her intelligence seemed concentrating swift, wild thoughts round the shock to her consciousness. By that terrible expression of his face, by those thundering words of scorn, would she come to realize the mighty truth of his descent into the abyss and his rise to the heights. Vaguely she began to see. An awful sense of her deadness, of her soul-blighting selfishness, began to dawn upon her as something monstrous out of dim, gray obscurity. She trembled under the reality of thoughts that were not new. How she had babbled about Glenn and the crippled soldiers! How she had imagined she sympathized! But she had only been a vain, worldly, complacent, effusive little fool. She had here the shock of her life, and she sensed a greater one, impossible to grasp.

“Carley, that was coming to you,” said Glenn, presently, with deep, heavy expulsion of breath.

“I only know I love you — more — more,” she cried, wildly, looking up and wanting desperately to throw herself in his arms.

“I guess you do — a little,” he replied. “Sometimes I feel you are a kid. Then again you represent the world — your world with its age-old custom — its unalterable. . . . But, Carley, let’s get back to my work.”

“Yes — yes,” exclaimed Carley, gladly. “I’m ready to — to go pet your hogs- -anything.”

“By George! I’ll take you up,” he declared. “I’ll bet you won’t go near one of my hogpens.”

“Lead me to it!” she replied, with a hilarity that was only a nervous reversion of her state.

“Well, maybe I’d better hedge on the bet,” he said, laughing again. “You have more in you than I suspect. You sure fooled me when you stood for the sheep-dip. But, come on, I’ll take you anyway.”

So that was how Carley found herself walking arm in arm with Glenn down the canyon trail. A few moments of action gave her at least an appearance of outward composure. And the state of her emotion was so strained and intense that her slightest show of interest must deceive Glenn into thinking her eager, responsive, enthusiastic. It certainly appeared to loosen his tongue. But Carley knew she was farther from normal than ever before in her life, and that the subtle, inscrutable woman’s intuition of her presaged another shock. Just as she had seemed to change, so had the aspects of the canyon undergone some illusive transformation. The beauty of green foliage and amber stream and brown tree trunks and gray rocks and red walls was there; and the summer drowsiness and languor lay as deep; and the loneliness and solitude brooded with its same eternal significance. But some nameless enchantment, perhaps of hope, seemed no longer to encompass her. A blow had fallen upon her, the nature of which only time could divulge.

Glenn led her around the clearing and up to the base of the west wall, where against a shelving portion of the cliff had been constructed a rude fence of poles. It formed three sides of a pen, and the fourth side was solid rock. A bushy cedar tree stood in the center. Water flowed from under the cliff, which accounted for the boggy condition of the red earth. This pen was occupied by a huge sow and a litter of pigs.

Carley climbed on the fence and sat there while Glenn leaned over the top pole and began to wax eloquent on a subject evidently dear to his heart. Today of all days Carley made an inspiring listener. Even the shiny, muddy, suspicious old sow in no wise daunted her fictitious courage. That filthy pen of mud a foot deep, and of odor rancid, had no terrors for her. With an arm round Glenn’s shoulder she watched the rooting and squealing little pigs, and was amused and interested, as if they were far removed from the vital issue of the hour. But all the time as she looked and laughed, and encouraged Glenn to talk, there seemed to be a strange, solemn, oppressive knocking at her heart. Was it only the beat-beat-beat of blood?

“There were twelve pigs in that litter,” Glenn was saying, “and now you see there are only nine. I’ve lost three. Mountain lions, bears, coyotes, wild cats are all likely to steal a pig. And at first I was sure one of these varmints had been robbing me. But as I could not find any tracks, I knew I had to lay the blame on something else. So I kept watch pretty closely in daytime, and at night I shut the pigs up in the corner there, where you see I’ve built a pen. Yesterday I heard squealing — and, by George! I saw an eagle flying off with one of my pigs. Say, I was mad. A great old bald-headed eagle — the regal bird you see with America’s stars and stripes had degraded himself to the level of a coyote. I ran for my rifle, and I took some quick shots at him as he flew up. Tried to hit him, too, but I failed. And the old rascal hung on to my pig. I watched him carry it to that sharp crag way up there on the rim.”

“Poor little piggy!” exclaimed Carley. “To think of our American emblem — our stately bird of noble warlike mien — our symbol of lonely grandeur and freedom of the heights — think of him being a robber of pigpens! — Glenn, I begin to appreciate the many-sidedness of things. Even my hide-bound narrowness is susceptible to change. It’s never too late to learn. This should apply to the Society for the Preservation of the American Eagle.”

Glenn led her along the base of the wall to three other pens, in each of which was a fat old sow with a litter. And at the last enclosure, that owing to dry soil was not so dirty, Glenn picked up a little pig and held it squealing out to Carley as she leaned over the fence. It was fairly white and clean, a little pink and fuzzy, and certainly cute with its curled tall.

“Carley Burch, take it in your hands,” commanded Glenn.

The feat seemed monstrous and impossible of accomplishment for Carley. Yet such was her temper at the moment that she would have undertaken anything.

“Why, shore I will, as Flo says,” replied Carley, extending her ungloved hands. “Come here, piggy. I christen you Pinky.” And hiding an almost insupportable squeamishness from Glenn, she took the pig in her hands and fondled it.

“By George!” exclaimed Glenn, in huge delight. “I wouldn’t have believed it. Carley, I hope you tell your fastidious and immaculate Morrison that you held one of my pigs in your beautiful hands.”

“Wouldn’t it please you more to tell him yourself?” asked Carley.

“Yes, it would,” declared Glenn, grimly.

This incident inspired Glenn to a Homeric narration of his hog-raising experience. In spite of herself the content of his talk interested her. And as for the effect upon her of his singular enthusiasm, it was deep and compelling. The little-boned Berkshire razorback hogs grew so large and fat and heavy that their bones broke under their weight. The Duroc jerseys were the best breed in that latitude, owing to their larger and stronger bones, that enabled them to stand up under the greatest accumulation of fat.

Glenn told of his droves of pigs running wild in the canyon below. In summertime they fed upon vegetation, and at other seasons on acorns, roots, bugs, and grubs. Acorns, particularly, were good and fattening feed. They ate cedar and juniper berries, and pinyon nuts. And therefore they lived off the land, at little or no expense to the owner. The only loss was from beasts and birds of prey. Glenn showed Carley how a profitable business could soon be established. He meant to fence off side canyons and to segregate droves of his hogs, and to raise abundance of corn for winter feed. At that time there was a splendid market for hogs, a condition Hutter claimed would continue indefinitely in a growing country. In conclusion Glenn eloquently told how in his necessity he had accepted gratefully the humblest of labors, to find in the hard pursuit of it a rejuvenation of body and mind, and a promise of independence and prosperity.

When he had finished, and excused himself to go repair a weak place in the corral fence, Carley sat silent, wrapped in strange meditation.

Whither had faded the vulgarity and ignominy she had attached to Glenn’s raising of hogs? Gone — like other miasmas of her narrow mind! Partly she understood him now. She shirked consideration of his sacrifice to his country. That must wait. But she thought of his work, and the more she thought the less she wondered.

First he had labored with his hands. What infinite meaning lay unfolding to her vision! Somewhere out of it all came the conception that man was intended to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. But there was more to it than that. By that toil and sweat, by the friction of horny palms, by the expansion and contraction of muscle, by the acceleration of blood, something great and enduring, something physical and spiritual, came to a man. She understood then why she would have wanted to surrender herself to a man made manly by toil; she understood how a woman instinctively leaned toward the protection of a man who had used his hands — who had strength and red blood and virility who could fight like the progenitors of the race. Any toil was splendid that served this end for any man. It all went back to the survival of the fittest. And suddenly Carley thought of Morrison. He could dance and dangle attendance upon her, and amuse her — but how would he have acquitted himself in a moment of peril? She had her doubts. Most assuredly he could not have beaten down for her a ruffian like Haze Ruff. What then should be the significance of a man for a woman?

Carley’s querying and answering mind reverted to Glenn. He had found a secret in this seeking for something through the labor of hands. All development of body must come through exercise of muscles. The virility of cell in tissue and bone depended upon that. Thus he had found in toil the pleasure and reward athletes had in their desultory training. But when a man learned this secret the need of work must become permanent. Did this explain the law of the Persians that every man was required to sweat every day?

Carley tried to picture to herself Glenn’s attitude of mind when he had first gone to work here in the West. Resolutely she now denied her shrinking, cowardly sensitiveness. She would go to the root of this matter, if she had intelligence enough. Crippled, ruined in health, wrecked and broken by an inexplicable war, soul-blighted by the heartless, callous neglect of government and public, on the verge of madness at the insupportable facts, he had yet been wonderful enough, true enough to himself and God, to fight for life with the instinct of a man, to fight for his mind with a noble and unquenchable faith. Alone indeed he had been alone! And by some miracle beyond the power of understanding he had found day by day in his painful efforts some hope and strength to go on. He could not have had any illusions. For Glenn Kilbourne the health and happiness and success most men held so dear must have seemed impossible. His slow, daily, tragic, and terrible task must have been something he owed himself. Not for Carley Burch! She like all the others had failed him. How Carley shuddered in confession of that! Not for the country which had used him and cast him off! Carley divined now, as if by a flash of lightning, the meaning of Glenn’s strange, cold, scornful, and aloof manner when he had encountered young men of his station, as capable and as strong as he, who had escaped the service of the army. For him these men did not exist. They were less than nothing. They had waxed fat on lucrative jobs; they had basked in the presence of girls whose brothers and lovers were in the trenches or on the turbulent sea, exposed to the ceaseless dread and almost ceaseless toil of war. If Glenn’s spirit had lifted him to endurance of war for the sake of others, how then could it fail him in a precious duty of fidelity to himself? Carley could see him day by day toiling in his lonely canyon — plodding to his lonely cabin. He had been playing the game — fighting it out alone as surely he knew his brothers of like misfortune were fighting.

So Glenn Kilbourne loomed heroically in Carley’s transfigured sight. He was one of Carley’s battle-scarred warriors. Out of his travail he had climbed on stepping-stones of his dead self. Resurqam! That had been his unquenchable cry. Who had heard it? Only the solitude of his lonely canyon, only the waiting, dreaming, watching walls, only the silent midnight shadows, only the white, blinking, passionless stars, only the wild creatures of his haunts, only the moaning wind in the pines — only these had been with him in his agony. How near were these things to God?

Carley’s heart seemed full to bursting. Not another single moment could her mounting love abide in a heart that held a double purpose. How bitter the assurance that she had not come West to help him! It was self, self, all self that had actuated her. Unworthy indeed was she of the love of this man. Only a lifetime of devotion to him could acquit her in the eyes of her better self. Sweetly and madly raced the thrill and tumult of her blood. There must be only one outcome to her romance. Yet the next instant there came a dull throbbing-an oppression which was pain — an impondering vague thought of catastrophe. Only the fearfulness of love perhaps!

She saw him complete his task and wipe his brown moist face and stride toward her, coming nearer, tall and erect with something added to his soldierly bearing, with a light in his eyes she could no longer bear.

The moment for which she had waited more than two months had come at last.

“Glenn — when will you go back East?” she asked, tensely and low.

The instant the words were spent upon her lips she realized that he had always been waiting and prepared for this question that had been so terrible for her to ask.

“Carley,” he replied gently, though his voice rang, “I am never going back East.”

An inward quivering hindered her articulation.

“Never?” she whispered.

“Never to live, or stay any while,” he went on. “I might go some time for a little visit. . . . But never to live.”

“Oh — Glenn!” she gasped, and her hands fluttered out to him. The shock was driving home. No amaze, no incredulity succeeded her reception of the fact. It was a slow stab. Carley felt the cold blanch of her skin. “Then — this is it — the something I felt strange between us?”

“Yes, I knew — and you never asked me,” he replied.

“That was it? All the time you knew,” she whispered, huskily. “You knew. . . . I’d never — marry you — never live out here?”

“Yes, Carley, I knew you’d never be woman enough — American enough — to help me reconstruct my broken life out here in the West,” he replied, with a sad and bitter smile.

That flayed her. An insupportable shame and wounded vanity and clamoring love contended for dominance of her emotions. Love beat down all else.

“Dearest — I beg of you — don’t break my heart,” she implored.

“I love you, Carley,” he answered, steadily, with piercing eyes on hers.

“Then come back — home — home with me.”

“No. If you love me you will be my wife.”

“Love you! Glenn, I worship you,” she broke out, passionately. “But I could not live here — I could not.”

“Carley, did you ever read of the woman who said, ‘Whither thou goest, there will I go’ . . .”

“Oh, don’t be ruthless! Don’t judge me. . . . I never dreamed of this. I came West to take you back.”

“My dear, it was a mistake,” he said, gently, softening to her distress. “I’m sorry I did not write you more plainly. But, Carley, I could not ask you to share this — this wilderness home with me. I don’t ask it now. I always knew you couldn’t do it. Yet you’ve changed so — that I hoped against hope. Love makes us blind even to what we see.”

“Don’t try to spare me. I’m slight and miserable. I stand abased in my own eyes. I thought I loved you. But I must love best the crowd — people- -luxury — fashion — the damned round of things I was born to.”

“Carley, you will realize their insufficiency too late,” he replied, earnestly. “The things you were born to are love, work, children, happiness.”

“Don’t! don’t! . . . they are hollow mockery for me,” she cried, passionately. “Glenn, it is the end. It must come — quickly. . . . You are free.”

“I do not ask to be free. Wait. Go home and look at it again with different eyes. Think things over. Remember what came to me out of the West. I will always love you — and I will be here — hoping—”

“I — I cannot listen,” she returned, brokenly, and she clenched her hands tightly to keep from wringing them. “I — I cannot face you. . . . Here is — your ring. . . . You — are — free. . . . Don’t stop me — don’t come. . . . Oh, Glenn, good-by!”

With breaking heart she whirled away from him and hurried down the slope toward the trail. The shade of the forest enveloped her. Peering back through the trees, she saw Glenn standing where she had left him, as if already stricken by the loneliness that must be his lot. A sob broke from Carley’s throat. She hated herself. She was in a terrible state of conflict. Decision had been wrenched from her, but she sensed unending strife. She dared not look back again. Stumbling and breathless, she hurried on. How changed the atmosphere and sunlight and shadow of the canyon! The looming walls had pitiless eyes for her flight. When she crossed the mouth of West Fork an almost irresistible force breathed to her from under the stately pines.

An hour later she had bidden farewell to the weeping Mrs. Hutter, and to the white-faced Flo, and Lolomi Lodge, and the murmuring waterfall, and the haunting loneliness of Oak Creek Canyon.

CHAPTER VIII

AT FLAGSTAFF, WHERE Carley arrived a few minutes before train time, she was too busily engaged with tickets and baggage to think of herself or of the significance of leaving Arizona. But as she walked into the Pullman she overheard a passenger remark, “Regular old Arizona sunset,” and that shook her heart. Suddenly she realized she had come to love the colorful sunsets, to watch and wait for them. And bitterly she thought how that was her way to learn the value of something when it was gone.

The jerk and start of the train affected her with singular depressing shock. She had burned her last bridge behind her. Had she unconsciously hoped for some incredible reversion of Glenn’s mind or of her own? A sense of irreparable loss flooded over her — the first check to shame and humiliation.

From her window she looked out to the southwest. Somewhere across the cedar and pine-greened uplands lay Oak Creek Canyon, going to sleep in its purple and gold shadows of sunset. Banks of broken clouds hung to the horizon, like continents and islands and reefs set in a turquoise sea. Shafts of sunlight streaked down through creamy-edged and purple-centered clouds. Vast flare of gold dominated the sunset background.

When the train rounded a curve Carley’s strained vision became filled with the upheaved bulk of the San Francisco Mountains. Ragged gray grass slopes and green forests on end, and black fringed sky lines, all pointed to the sharp clear peaks spearing the sky. And as she watched, the peaks slowly flushed with sunset hues, and the sky flared golden, and the strength of the eternal mountains stood out in sculptured sublimity. Every day for two months and more Carley had watched these peaks, at all hours, in every mood; and they had unconsciously become a part of her thought. The train was relentlessly whirling her eastward. Soon they must become a memory. Tears blurred her sight. Poignant regret seemed added to the anguish she was suffering. Why had she not learned sooner to see the glory of the mountains, to appreciate the beauty and solitude? Why had she not understood herself?

The next day through New Mexico she followed magnificent ranges and valleys — so different from the country she had seen coming West — so supremely beautiful that she wondered if she had only acquired the harvest of a seeing eye.

But it was at sunset of the following clay, when the train was speeding down the continental slope of prairie land beyond the Rockies, that the West took its ruthless revenge.

Masses of strange cloud and singular light upon the green prairie, and a luminosity in the sky, drew Carley to the platform of her car, which was the last of the train. There she stood, gripping the iron gate, feeling the wind whip her hair and the iron-tracked ground speed from under her, spellbound and stricken at the sheer wonder and glory of the firmament, and the mountain range that it canopied so exquisitely.

A rich and mellow light, singularly clear, seemed to flood out of some unknown source. For the sun was hidden. The clouds just above Carley hung low, and they were like thick, heavy smoke, mushrooming, coalescing, forming and massing, of strange yellow cast of mative. It shaded westward into heliotrope and this into a purple so royal, so matchless and rare that Carley understood why the purple of the heavens could never be reproduced in paint. Here the cloud mass thinned and paled, and a tint of rose began to flush the billowy, flowery, creamy white. Then came the surpassing splendor of this cloud pageant-a vast canopy of shell pink, a sun-fired surface like an opal sea, rippled and webbed, with the exquisite texture of an Oriental fabric, pure, delicate, lovely — as no work of human hands could be. It mirrored all the warm, pearly tints of the inside whorl of the tropic nautilus. And it ended abruptly, a rounded depth of bank, on a broad stream of clear sky, intensely blue, transparently blue, as if through the lambent depths shone the infinite firmament. The lower edge of this stream took the golden lightning of the sunset and was notched for all its horizon-long length by the wondrous white glistening-peaked range of the Rockies. Far to the north, standing aloof from the range, loomed up the grand black bulk and noble white dome of Pikes Peak.

Carley watched the sunset transfiguration of cloud and sky and mountain until all were cold and gray. And then she returned to her seat, thoughtful and sad, feeling that the West had mockingly flung at her one of its transient moments of loveliness.

Nor had the West wholly finished with her. Next day the mellow gold of the Kansas wheat fields, endless and boundless as a sunny sea, rich, waving in the wind, stretched away before her aching eyes for hours and hours. Here was the promise fulfilled, the bountiful harvest of the land, the strength of the West. The great middle state had a heart of gold.

East of Chicago Carley began to feel that the long days and nights of riding, the ceaseless turning of the wheels, the constant and wearing stress of emotion, had removed her an immeasurable distance of miles and time and feeling from the scene of her catastrophe. Many days seemed to have passed. Many had been the hours of her bitter regret and anguish.

Indiana and Ohio, with their green pastoral farms, and numberless villages, and thriving cities, denoted a country far removed and different from the West, and an approach to the populous East. Carley felt like a wanderer coming home. She was restlessly and impatiently glad. But her weariness of body and mind, and the close atmosphere of the car, rendered her extreme discomfort. Summer had laid its hot hand on the low country east of the Mississippi.

Carley had wired her aunt and two of her intimate friends to meet her at the Grand Central Station. This reunion soon to come affected Carley in recurrent emotions of relief, gladness, and shame. She did not sleep well, and arose early, and when the train reached Albany she felt that she could hardly endure the tedious hours. The majestic Hudson and the palatial mansions on the wooded bluffs proclaimed to Carley that she was back in the East. How long a time seemed to have passed! Either she was not the same or the aspect of everything had changed. But she believed that as soon as she got over the ordeal of meeting her friends, and was home again, she would soon see things rationally.

At last the train sheered away from the broad Hudson and entered the environs of New York. Carley sat perfectly still, to all outward appearances a calm, superbly-poised New York woman returning home, but inwardly raging with contending tides. In her own sight she was a disgraceful failure, a prodigal sneaking back to the ease and protection of loyal friends who did not know her truly. Every familiar landmark in the approach to the city gave her a thrill, yet a vague unsatisfied something lingered after each sensation.

Then the train with rush and roar crossed the Harlem River to enter New York City. As one waking from a dream Carley saw the blocks and squares of gray apartment houses and red buildings, the miles of roofs and chimneys, the long hot glaring streets full of playing children and cars. Then above the roar of the train sounded the high notes of a hurdy-gurdy. Indeed she was home. Next to startle her was the dark tunnel, and then the slowing of the train to a stop. As she walked behind a porter up the long incline toward the station gate her legs seemed to be dead.

In the circle of expectant faces beyond the gate she saw her aunt’s, eager and agitated, then the handsome pale face of Eleanor Harmon, and beside her the sweet thin one of Beatrice Lovell. As they saw her how quick the change from expectancy to joy! It seemed they all rushed upon her, and embraced her, and exclaimed over her together. Carley never recalled what she said. But her heart was full.

“Oh, how perfectly stunning you look!” cried Eleanor, backing away from Carley and gazing with glad, surprised eyes.

“Carley!” gasped Beatrice. “You wonderful golden-skinned goddess! . . . You’re young again, like you were in our school days.”

It was before Aunt Mary’s shrewd, penetrating, loving gaze that Carley quailed.

“Yes, Carley, you look well-better than I ever saw you, but — but—”

“But I don’t look happy,” interrupted Carley. “I am happy to get home — to see you all . . . But — my — my heart is broken!”

A little shocked silence ensued, then Carley found herself being led across the lower level and up the wide stairway. As she mounted to the vast-domed cathedral-like chamber of the station a strange sensation pierced her with a pang. Not the old thrill of leaving New York or returning! Nor was it welcome sight of the hurrying, well-dressed throng of travelers and commuters, nor the stately beauty of the station. Carley shut her eyes, and then she knew. The dim light of vast space above, the looming gray walls, shadowy with tracery of figures, the lofty dome like the blue sky, brought back to her the walls of Oak Creek Canyon and the great caverns under the ramparts. As suddenly as she had shut her eyes Carley opened them to face her friends.

“Let me get it over-quickly,” she burst out, with hot blood surging to her face. “I — I hated the West. It was so raw — so violent — so big. I think I hate it more — now. . . . But it changed me — made me over physically — and did something to my soul — God knows what. . . . And it has saved Glenn. Oh! he is wonderful! You would never know him. . . . For long I had not the courage to tell him I came to bring him back East. I kept putting it off. And I rode, I climbed, I camped, I lived outdoors. At first it nearly killed me. Then it grew bearable, and easier, until I forgot. I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit now that somehow I had a wonderful time, in spite of all. . . . Glenn’s business is raising hogs. He has a hog ranch. Doesn’t it sound sordid? But things are not always what they sound — or seem. Glenn is absorbed in his work. I hated it — I expected to ridicule it. But I ended by infinitely respecting him. I learned through his hog-raising the real nobility of work. . . . Well, at last I found courage to ask him when he was coming back to New York. He said ‘never!’ . . . I realized then my blindness, my selfishness. I could not be his wife and live there. I could not. I was too small, too miserable, too comfort-loving — too spoiled. And all the time he knew this — knew I’d never be big enough to marry him. . . . That broke my heart. I left him free — and here I am. . . . I beg you — don’t ask me any more — and never to mention it to me — so I can forget.”

The tender unspoken sympathy of women who loved her proved comforting in that trying hour. With the confession ruthlessly made the hard compression in Carley’s breast subsided, and her eyes cleared of a hateful dimness. When they reached the taxi stand outside the station Carley felt a rush of hot devitalized air from the street. She seemed not to be able to get air into her lungs.

“Isn’t it dreadfully hot?” she asked.

“This is a cool spell to what we had last week,” replied Eleanor.

“Cool!” exclaimed Carley, as she wiped her moist face. “I wonder if you Easterners know the real significance of words.”

Then they entered a taxi, to be whisked away apparently through a labyrinthine maze of cars and streets, where pedestrians had to run and jump for their lives. A congestion of traffic at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street halted their taxi for a few moments, and here in the thick of it Carley had full assurance that she was back in the metropolis. Her sore heart eased somewhat at sight of the streams of people passing to and fro. How they rushed! Where were they going? What was their story? And all the while her aunt held her hand, and Beatrice and Eleanor talked as fast as their tongues could wag. Then the taxi clattered on up the Avenue, to turn down a side street and presently stop at Carley’s home. It was a modest three-story brown-stone house. Carley had been so benumbed by sensations that she did not imagine she could experience a new one. But peering out of the taxi, she gazed dubiously at the brownish-red stone steps and front of her home.

“I’m going to have it painted,” she muttered, as if to herself.

Her aunt and her friends laughed, glad and relieved to hear such a practical remark from Carley. How were they to divine that this brownish-red stone was the color of desert rocks and canyon walls?

In a few more moments Carley was inside the house, feeling a sense of protection in the familiar rooms that had been her home for seventeen years. Once in the sanctity of her room, which was exactly as she had left it, her first action was to look n the mirror at her weary, dusty, heated face. Neither the brownness of it nor the shadow appeared to harmonize with the image of her that haunted the mirror.

“Now!” she whispered low. “It’s done. I’m home. The old life — or a new life? How to meet either. Now!”

Thus she challenged her spirit. And her intelligence rang at her the imperative necessity for action, for excitement, for effort that left no time for rest or memory or wakefulness. She accepted the issue. She was glad of the stern fight ahead of her. She set her will and steeled her heart with all the pride and vanity and fury of a woman who had been defeated but Who scorned defeat. She was what birth and breeding and circumstance had made her. She would seek what the old life held.

What with unpacking and chatting and telephoning and lunching, the day soon passed. Carley went to dinner with friends and later to a roof garden. The color and light, the gayety and music, the news of acquaintances, the humor of the actors — all, in fact, except the unaccustomed heat and noise, were most welcome and diverting. That night she slept the sleep of weariness.

Awakening early, she inaugurated a habit of getting up at once, instead of lolling in bed, and breakfasting there, and reading her mail, as had been her wont before going West. Then she went over business matters with her aunt, called on her lawyer and banker, took lunch with Rose Maynard, and spent the afternoon shopping. Strong as she was, the unaccustomed heat and the hard pavements and the jostle of shoppers and the continual rush of sensations wore her out so completely that she did not want any dinner. She talked to her aunt a while, then went to bed.

Next day Carley motored through Central Park, and out of town into Westchester County, finding some relief from the seemed to look at the dusty trees and the worn greens without really seeing them. In the afternoon she called on friends, and had dinner at home with her aunt, and then went to a theatre. The musical comedy was good, but the almost unbearable heat and the vitiated air spoiled her enjoyment. That night upon arriving home at midnight she stepped out of the taxi, and involuntarily, without thought, looked up to see the stars. But there were no stars. A murky yellow-tinged blackness hung low over the city. Carley recollected that stars, and sunrises and sunsets, and untainted air, and silence were not for city dwellers. She checked any continuation of the thought.

A few days sufficed to swing her into the old life. Many of Carley’s friends had neither the leisure nor the means to go away from the city during the summer. Some there were who might have afforded that if they had seen fit to live in less showy apartments, or to dispense with cars. Other of her best friends were on their summer outings in the Adirondacks. Carley decided to go with her aunt to Lake Placid about the first of August. Meanwhile she would keep going and doing.

She had been a week in town before Morrison telephoned her and added his welcome. Despite the gay gladness of his voice, it irritated her. Really, she scarcely wanted to see him. But a meeting was inevitable, and besides, going out with him was in accordance with the plan she had adopted. So she made an engagement to meet him at the Plaza for dinner. When with slow and pondering action she hung up the receiver it occurred to her that she resented the idea of going to the Plaza. She did not dwell on the reason why.

When Carley went into the reception room of the Plaza that night Morrison was waiting for her — the same slim, fastidious, elegant, sallow-faced Morrison whose image she had in mind, yet somehow different. He had what Carley called the New York masculine face, blase and lined, with eyes that gleamed, yet had no fire. But at sight of her his face lighted up.

“By Jove I but you’ve come back a peach!” he exclaimed, clasping her extended hand. “Eleanor told me you looked great. It’s worth missing you to see you like this.”

“Thanks, Larry,” she replied. “I must look pretty well to win that compliment from you. And how are you feeling? You don’t seem robust for a golfer and horseman. But then I’m used to husky Westerners.”

“Oh, I’m fagged with the daily grind,” he said. “I’ll be glad to get up in the mountains next month. Let’s go down to dinner.”

They descended the spiral stairway to the grillroom, where an orchestra was playing jazz, and dancers gyrated on a polished floor, and diners in evening dress looked on over their cigarettes.

“Well, Carley, are you still finicky about the eats?” he queried, consulting the menu.

“No. But I prefer plain food,” she replied.

“Have a cigarette,” he said, holding out his silver monogrammed case.

“Thanks, Larry. I — I guess I’ll not take up smoking again. You see, while I was West I got out of the habit.”

“Yes, they told me you had changed,” he returned. “How about drinking?”

“Why, I thought New York had gone dry!” she said, forcing a laugh.

“Only on the surface. Underneath it’s wetter than ever.”

“Well, I’ll obey the law.”

He ordered a rather elaborate dinner, and then turning his attention to Carley, gave her closer scrutiny. Carley knew then that he had become acquainted with the fact of her broken engagement. It was a relief not to need to tell him.

“How’s that big stiff, Kilbourne?” asked Morrison, suddenly. “Is it true he got well?”

“Oh — yes! He’s fine,” replied Carley with eyes cast down. A hot knot seemed to form deep within her and threatened to break and steal along her veins. “But if you please — I do not care to talk of him.”

“Naturally. But I must tell you that one man’s loss is another’s gain.”

Carley had rather expected renewed courtship from Morrison. She had not, however, been prepared for the beat of her pulse, the quiver of her nerves, the uprising of hot resentment at the mere mention of Kilbourne. It was only natural that Glenn’s former rivals should speak of him, and perhaps disparagingly. But from this man Carley could not bear even a casual reference. Morrison had escaped the army service. He had been given a high-salaried post at the ship-yards — the duties of which, if there had been any, he performed wherever he happened to be. Morrison’s father had made a fortune in leather during the war. And Carley remembered Glenn telling her he had seen two whole blocks in Paris piled twenty feet deep with leather army goods that were never used and probably had never been intended to be used. Morrison represented the not inconsiderable number of young men in New York who had gained at the expense of the valiant legion who had lost. But what had Morrison gained? Carley raised her eyes to gaze steadily at him. He looked well-fed, indolent, rich, effete, and supremely self-satisfied. She could not we that he had gained anything. She would rather have been a crippled ruined soldier.

“Larry, I fear gain and loss are mere words, she said. “The thing that counts with me is what you are.”

He stared in well-bred surprise, and presently talked of a new dance which had lately come into vogue. And from that he passed on to gossip of the theatres. Once between courses of the dinner he asked Carley to dance, and she complied. The music would have stimulated an Egyptian mummy, Carley thought, and the subdued rose lights, the murmur of gay voices, the glide and grace and distortion of the dancers, were exciting and pleasurable. Morrison had the suppleness and skill of a dancing-master. But he held Carley too tightly, and so she told him, and added, “I imbibed some fresh pure air while I was out West — something you haven’t here — and I don’t want it all squeezed out of me.”

The latter days of July Carley made busy — so busy that she lost her tan and appetite, and something of her splendid resistance to the dragging heat and late hours. Seldom was she without some of her friends. She accepted almost any kind of an invitation, and went even to Coney Island, to baseball games, to the motion pictures, which were three forms of amusement not customary with her. At Coney Island, which she visited with two of her younger girl friends, she had the best time since her arrival home. What had put her in accord with ordinary people? The baseball games, likewise pleased her. The running of the players and the screaming of the spectators amused and excited her. But she hated the motion pictures with their salacious and absurd misrepresentations of life, in some cases capably acted by skillful actors, and in others a silly series of scenes featuring some doll-faced girl.

But she refused to go horseback riding in Central Park. She refused to go to the Plaza. And these refusals she made deliberately, without asking herself why.

On August 1st she accompanied her aunt and several friends to Lake Placid, where they established themselves at a hotel. How welcome to Carley’s strained eyes were the green of mountains, the soft gleam of amber water! How sweet and refreshing a breath of cool pure air! The change from New York’s glare and heat and dirt, and iron-red insulating walls, and thronging millions of people, and ceaseless roar and rush, was tremendously relieving to Carley. She had burned the candle at both ends. But the beauty of the hills and vales, the quiet of the forest, the sight of the stars, made it harder to forget. She had to rest. And when she rested she could not always converse, or read, or write.

For the most part her days held variety and pleasure. The place was beautiful, the weather pleasant, the people congenial. She motored over the forest roads, she canoed along the margin of the lake, she played golf and tennis. She wore exquisite gowns to dinner and danced during the evenings. But she seldom walked anywhere on the trails and, never alone, and she never climbed the mountains and never rode a horse.

Morrison arrived and added his attentions to those of other men. Carley neither accepted nor repelled them. She favored the association with married couples and older people, and rather shunned the pairing off peculiar to vacationists at summer hotels. She had always loved to play and romp with children, but here she found herself growing to avoid them, somehow hurt by sound of pattering feet and joyous laughter. She filled the days as best she could, and usually earned quick slumber at night. She staked all on present occupation and the truth of flying time.

CHAPTER IX

THE LATTER PART of September Carley returned to New York.

Soon after her arrival she received by letter a formal proposal of marriage from Elbert Harrington, who had been quietly attentive to her during her sojourn at Lake Placid. He was a lawyer of distinction, somewhat older than most of her friends, and a man of means and fine family. Carley was quite surprised. Harrington was really one of the few of her acquaintances whom she regarded as somewhat behind the times, and liked him the better for that. But she could not marry him, and replied to his letter in as kindly a manner as possible. Then he called personally.

“Carley, I’ve come to ask you to reconsider,” he said, with a smile in his gray eyes. He was not a tall or handsome man, but he had what women called a nice strong face.

“Elbert, you embarrass me,” she replied, trying to laugh it out. “Indeed I feel honored, and I thank you. But I can’t marry you.”

“Why not? he asked, quietly.

“Because I don’t love you,” she replied.

“I did not expect you to,” he said. “I hoped in time you might come to care. I’ve known you a good many years, Carley. Forgive me if I tell you I see you are breaking — wearing yourself down. Maybe it is not a husband you need so much now, but you do need a home and children. You are wasting your life.”

“All you say may be true, my friend,” replied Carley, with a helpless little upflinging of hands. “Yet it does not alter my feelings.”

“But you will marry sooner or later?” he queried, persistently.

This straightforward question struck Carley as singularly as if it was one she might never have encountered. It forced her to think of things she had buried.

“I don’t believe I ever will,” she answered, thoughtfully.

“That is nonsense, Carley,” he went on. “You’ll have to marry. What else can you do? With all due respect to your feelings — that affair with Kilbourne is ended — and you’re not the wishy-washy heartbreak kind of a girl.”

“You can never tell what a woman will do,” she said, somewhat coldly.

“Certainly not. That’s why I refuse to take no. Carley, be reasonable. You like me — respect me, do you not?”

“Why, of course I do!”

“I’m only thirty-five, and I could give you all any sensible woman wants,” he said. “Let’s make a real American home. Have you thought at all about that, Carley? Something is wrong today. Men are not marrying. Wives are not having children. Of all the friends I have, not one has a real American home. Why, it is a terrible fact! But, Carley, you are not a sentimentalist, or a melancholiac. Nor are you a waster. You have fine qualities. You need something to do some one to care for.”

“Pray do not think me ungrateful, Elbert,” she replied, “nor insensible to the truth of what you say. But my answer is no!”

When Harrington had gone Carley went to her room, and precisely as upon her return from Arizona she faced her m rror skeptically and relentlessly. “I am such a liar that I’ll do well to look at myself,” she meditated. “Here I am again. Now! The world expects me to marry. But what do I expect?”

There was a raw unheated wound in Carley’s heart. Seldom had she permitted herself to think about it, let alone to probe it with hard materialistic queries. But custom to her was as inexorable as life. If she chose to live in the world she must conform to its customs. For a woman marriage was the aim and the end and the all of existence. Nevertheless, for Carley it could not be without love. Before she had gone West she might have had many of the conventional modern ideas about women and marriage. But because out there in the wilds her love and perception had broadened, now her arraignment of herself and her sex was bigger, sterner, more exacting. The months she had been home seemed fuller than all the months of her life. She had tried to forget and enjoy; she had not succeeded; but she had looked with far-seeing eyes at her world. Glenn Kilbourne’s tragic fate had opened her eyes.

Either the world was all wrong or the people in it were. But if that were an extravagant and erroneous supposition, there certainly was proof positive that her own small individual world was wrong. The women did not do any real work; they did not bear children; they lived on excitement and luxury. They had no ideals. How greatly were men to blame? Carley doubted her judgment here. But as men could not live without the smiles and comradeship and love of women, it was only natural that they should give the women what they wanted. Indeed, they had no choice. It was give or go without. How much of real love entered into the marriages among her acquaintances? Before marriage Carley wanted a girl to be sweet, proud, aloof, with a heart of golden fire. Not attainable except through love! It would be better that no children be born at all unless born of such beautiful love. Perhaps that was why so few children were born. Nature’s balance and revenge! In Arizona Carley had learned something of the ruthlessness and inevitableness of nature. She was finding out she had learned this with many other staggering facts.

“I love Glenn still,” she whispered, passionately, with trembling lips, as she faced the tragic-eyed image of herself in the mirror. “I love him more- -more. Oh, my God! If I were honest I’d cry out the truth! It is terrible. . . I will always love him. How then could I marry any other man? I would be a lie, a cheat. If I could only forget him — only kill that love. Then I might love another man — and if I did love him — no matter what I had felt or done before, I would be worthy. I could feel worthy. I could give him just as much. But without such love I’d give only a husk — a body without soul.”

Love, then, was the sacred and holy flame of life that sanctioned the begetting of children. Marriage might be a necessity of modern time, but it was not the vital issue. Carley’s anguish revealed strange and hidden truths. In some inexplicable way Nature struck a terrible balance — revenged herself upon a people who had no children, or who brought into the world children not created by the divinity of love, unyearned for, and therefore somehow doomed to carry on the blunders and burdens of life.

Carley realized how right and true it might be for her to throw herself away upon an inferior man, even a fool or a knave, if she loved him with that great and natural love of woman; likewise it dawned upon her how false and wrong and sinful it would be to marry the greatest or the richest or the noblest man unless she had that supreme love to give him, and knew it was reciprocated.

“What am I going to do with my life?” she asked, bitterly and aghast. “I have been — I am a waster. I’ve lived for nothing but pleasurable sensation. I’m utterly useless. I do absolutely no good on earth.”

Thus she saw how Harrington’s words rang true — how they had precipitated a crisis for which her unconscious brooding had long made preparation.

“Why not give up ideals and be like the rest of my kind?” she soliloquized.

That was one of the things which seemed wrong with modern life. She thrust the thought from her with passionate scorn. If poor, broken, ruined Glenn Kilbourne could cling to an ideal and fight for it, could not she, who had all the world esteemed worth while, be woman enough to do the same? The direction of her thought seemed to have changed. She had been ready for rebellion. Three months of the old life had shown her that for her it was empty, vain, farcical, without one redeeming feature. The naked truth was brutal, but it cut clean to wholesome consciousness. Such so-called social life as she had plunged into deliberately to forget her unhappiness had failed her utterly. If she had been shallow and frivolous it might have done otherwise. Stripped of all guise, her actions must have been construed by a penetrating and impartial judge as a mere parading of her decorated person before a number of males with the purpose of ultimate selection.

“I’ve got to find some work,” she muttered, soberly.

At the moment she heard the postman’s whistle outside; and a little later the servant brought up her mail. The first letter, large, soiled, thick, bore the postmark Flagstaff, and her address in Glenn Kilbourne’s writing.

Carley stared at it. Her heart gave a great leap. Her hand shook. She sat down suddenly as if the strength of her legs was inadequate to uphold her.

“Glenn has — written me!” she whispered, in slow, halting realization. “For what? Oh, why?”

The other letters fell off her lap, to lie unnoticed. This big thick envelope fascinated her. It was one of the stamped envelopes she had seen in his cabin. It contained a letter that had been written on his rude table, before the open fire, in the light of the doorway, in that little log-cabin under the spreading pines of West Ford Canyon. Dared she read it? The shock to her heart passed; and with mounting swell, seemingly too full for her breast, it began to beat and throb a wild gladness through all her being. She tore the envelope apart and read:

DEAR CARLEY:

I’m surely glad for a good excuse to write you.

Once in a blue moon I get a letter, and today Hutter brought me one from a soldier pard of mine who was with me in the Argonne. His name is Virgil Rust — queer name, don’t you think? — and he’s from Wisconsin. Just a rough- diamond sort of chap, but fairly well educated. He and I were in some pretty hot places, and it was he who pulled me out of a shell crater. I’d “gone west” sure then if it hadn’t been for Rust.

Well, he did all sorts of big things during the war. Was down several times with wounds. He liked to fight and he was a holy terror. We all thought he’d get medals and promotion. But he didn’t get either. These much-desired things did not always go where they were best deserved.

Rust is now lying in a hospital in Bedford Park. His letter is pretty blue, All he says about why he’s there is that he’s knocked out. But he wrote a heap about his girl. It seems he was in love with a girl in his home town — a pretty, big-eyed lass whose picture I’ve seen — and while he was overseas she married one of the chaps who got out of fighting. Evidently Rust is deeply hurt. He wrote: “I’d not care so . . . if she’d thrown me down to marry an old man or a boy who couldn’t have gone to war.” You see, Carley, service men feel queer about that sort of thing. It’s something we got over there, and none of us will ever outlive it. Now, the point of this is that I am asking you to go see Rust, and cheer him up, and do what you can for the poor devil. It’s a good deal to ask of you, I know, especially as Rust saw your picture many a time and knows you were my girl. But you needn’t tell him that you — we couldn’t make a go of it.

And, as I am writing this to you, I see no reason why I shouldn’t go on in behalf of myself.

The fact is, Carley, I miss writing to you more than I miss anything of my old life. I’ll bet you have a trunkful of letters from me — unless you’ve destroyed them. I’m not going to say how I miss your letters. But I will say you wrote the most charming and fascinating letters of anyone I ever knew, quite aside from any sentiment. You knew, of course, that I had no other girl correspondent. Well, I got along fairly well before you came West, but I’d be an awful liar if I denied I didn’t get lonely for you and your letters. It’s different now that you’ve been to Oak Creek. I’m alone most of the time and I dream a lot, and I’m afraid I see you here in my cabin, and along the brook, and under the pines, and riding Calico — which you came to do well — and on my hogpen fence — and, oh, everywhere! I don’t want you to think I’m down in the mouth, for I’m not. I’ll take my medicine. But, Carley, you spoiled me, and I miss hearing from you, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t be all right for you to send me a friendly letter occasionally.

It is autumn now. I wish you could see Arizona canyons in their gorgeous colors. We have had frost right along and the mornings are great. There’s a broad zigzag belt of gold halfway up the San Francisco peaks, and that is the aspen thickets taking on their fall coat. Here in the canyon you’d think there was blazing fire everywhere. The vines and the maples are red, scarlet, carmine, cerise, magenta, all the hues of flame. The oak leaves are turning russet gold, and the sycamores are yellow green. Up on the desert the other day I rode across a patch of asters, lilac and lavender, almost purple. I had to get off and pluck a handful. And then what do you think? I dug up the whole bunch, roots and all, and planted them on the sunny side of my cabin. I rather guess your love of flowers engendered this remarkable susceptibility in me.

I’m home early most every afternoon now, and I like the couple of hours loafing around. Guess it’s bad for me, though. You know I seldom hunt, and the trout in the pool here are so tame now they’ll almost eat out of my hand. I haven’t the heart to fish for them. The squirrels, too, have grown tame and friendly. There’s a red squirrel that climbs up on my table. And there’s a chipmunk who lives in my cabin and runs over my bed. I’ve a new pet — the little pig you christened Pinky. After he had the wonderful good fortune to be caressed and named by you I couldn’t think of letting him grow up in an ordinary piglike manner. So I fetched him home. My dog, Moze, was jealous at first and did not like this intrusion, but now they are good friends and sleep together. Flo has a kitten she’s going to give me, and then, as Hutter says, I’ll be “Jake.”

My occupation during these leisure hours perhaps would strike my old friends East as idle, silly, mawkish. But I believe you will understand me.

I have the pleasure of doing nothing, and of catching now and then a glimpse of supreme joy in the strange state of thinking nothing. Tennyson came close to this in his “Lotus Eaters.” Only to see — only to feel is enough!

Sprawled on the warm sweet pine needles, I breathe through them the breath of the earth and am somehow no longer lonely. I cannot, of course, see the sunset, but I watch for its coming on the eastern wall of the canyon. I see the shadow slowly creep up, driving the gold before it, until at last the canyon rim and pines are turned to golden fire. I watch the sailing eagles as they streak across the gold, and swoop up into the blue, and pass out of sight. I watch the golden flush fade to gray, and then, the canyon slowly fills with purple shadows. This hour of twilight is the silent and melancholy one. Seldom is there any sound save the soft rush of the water over the stones, and that seems to die away. For a moment, perhaps, I am Hiawatha alone in his forest home, or a more primitive savage, feeling the great, silent pulse of nature, happy in unconsciousness, like a beast of the wild. But only for an instant do I ever catch this fleeting state. Next I am Glenn Kilbourne of West Fork, doomed and haunted by memories of the past. The great looming walls then become no longer blank. They are vast pages of the history of my life, with its past and present, and, alas! its future. Everything time does is written on the stones. And my stream seems to murmur the sad and ceaseless flow of human life, with its music and its misery.

Then, descending from the sublime to the humdrum and necessary, I heave a sigh, and pull myself together, and go in to make biscuits and fry ham. But I should not forget to tell you that before I do go in, very often my looming, wonderful walls and crags weave in strange shadowy characters the beautiful and unforgettable face of Carley Burch!

I append what little news Oak Creek affords.

That blamed old bald eagle stole another of my pigs.

I am doing so well with my hog-raising that Hutter wants to come in with me, giving me an interest in his sheep.

It is rumored some one has bought the Deep Lake section I wanted for a ranch. I don’t know who. Hutter was rather noncommittal.

Charley, the herder, had one of his queer spells the other day, and swore to me he had a letter from you. He told the blamed lie with a sincere and placid eye, and even a smile of pride. Queer guy, that Charley!

Flo and Lee Stanton had another quarrel — the worst yet, Lee tells me. Flo asked a girl friend out from Flag and threw her in Lee’s way, so to speak, and when Lee retaliated by making love to the girl Flo got mad. Funny creatures, you girls! Flo rode with me from High Falls to West Fork, and never showed the slightest sign of trouble. In fact she was delightfully gay. She rode Calico, and beat me bad in a race.

Adios, Carley. Won’t you write me?

GLENN.

No sooner had Carley read the letter through to the end than she began it all over again, and on this second perusal she lingered over passages — only to reread them. That suggestion of her face sculptured by shadows on the canyon walls seemed to thrill her very soul.

She leaped up from the reading to cry out something that was unutterable. All the intervening weeks of shame and anguish and fury and strife and pathos, and the endless striving to forget, were as if by the magic of a letter made nothing but vain oblations.

“He loves me still!” she whispered, and pressed her breast with clenching hands, and laughed in wild exultance, and paced her room like a caged lioness. It was as if she had just awakened to the assurance she was beloved. That was the shibboleth — the cry by which she sounded the closed depths of her love and called to the stricken life of a woman’s insatiate vanity.

Then she snatched up the letter, to scan it again, and, suddenly grasping the import of Glenn’s request, she hurried to the telephone to find the number of the hospital in Bedford Park. A nurse informed her that visitors were received at certain hours and that any attention to disabled soldiers was most welcome.

Carley motored out there to find the hospital merely a long one-story frame structure, a barracks hastily thrown up for the care of invalided men of the service. The chauffeur informed her that it had been used for that purpose during the training period of the army, and later when injured soldiers began to arrive from France.

A nurse admitted Carley into a small bare anteroom. Carley made known her errand.

“I’m glad it’s Rust you want to see,” replied the nurse. “Some of these boys are going to die. And some will be worse off if they live. But Rust may get well if he’ll only behave. You are a relative — or friend?”

“I don’t know him,” answered Carley. “But I have a friend who was with him in France.”

The nurse led Carley into a long narrow room with a line of single beds down each side, a stove at each end, and a few chairs. Each bed appeared to have an occupant and those nearest Carley lay singularly quiet. At the far end of the room were soldiers on crutches, wearing bandages on their beads, carrying their arms in slings. Their merry voices contrasted discordantly with their sad appearance.

Presently Carley stood beside a bed and looked down upon a gaunt, haggard young man who lay propped up on pillows.

“Rust — a lady to see you,” announced the nurse.

Carley had difficulty in introducing herself. Had Glenn ever looked like this? What a face! It’s healed scar only emphasized the pallor and furrows of pain that assuredly came from present wounds. He had unnaturally bright dark eyes, and a flush of fever in his hollow cheeks.

“How do!” he said, with a wan smile. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Glenn Kilbourne’s fiancee,” she replied, holding out her hand.

“Say, I ought to’ve known you,” he said, eagerly, and a warmth of light changed the gray shade of his face. “You’re the girl Carley! You’re almost like my — my own girl. By golly! You’re some looker! It was good of you to come. Tell me about Glenn.”

Carley took the chair brought by the nurse, and pulling it close to the bed, she smiled down upon him and said: “I’ll be glad to tell you all I know — presently. But first you tell me about yourself. Are you in pain? What is your trouble? You must let me do everything I can for you, and these other men.”

Carley spent a poignant and depth-stirring hour at the bedside of Glenn’s comrade. At last she learned from loyal lips the nature of Glenn Kil bourne’s service to his country. How Carley clasped to her sore heart The praise of the man she loved — the simple proofs of his noble disregard Of self! Rust said little about his own service to country or to comrade. But Carley saw enough in his face. He had been like Glenn. By these two Carley grasped the compelling truth of the spirit and sacrifice of the legion of boys who had upheld American traditions. Their children and their children’s children, as the years rolled by into the future, would hold their heads higher and prouder. Some things could never die in the hearts and the blood of a race. These boys, and the girls who had the supreme glory of being loved by them, must be the ones to revive the Americanism of their forefathers. Nature and God would take care of the slackers, the cowards who cloaked their shame with bland excuses of home service, of disability, and of dependence.

Carley saw two forces in life — the destructive and constructive. On the one side greed, selfishness, materialism: on the other generosity, sacrifice, and idealism. Which of them builded for the future? She saw men as wolves, sharks, snakes, vermin, and opposed to them men as lions and eagles. She saw women who did not inspire men to fare forth to seek, to imagine, to dream, to hope, to work, to fight. She began to have a glimmering of what a woman might be.

That night she wrote swiftly and feverishly, page after page, to Glenn, only to destroy what she had written. She could not keep her heart out of her words, nor a hint of what was becoming a sleepless and eternal regret. She wrote until a late hour, and at last composed a letter she knew did not ring true, so stilted and restrained was it in all passages save those concerning news of Glenn’s comrade and of her own friends. “I’ll never-never write him again,” she averred with stiff lips, and next moment could have laughed in mockery at the bitter truth. If she had ever had any courage, Glenn’s letter had destroyed it. But had it not been a kind of selfish, false courage, roused to hide her hurt, to save her own future? Courage should have a thought of others. Yet shamed one moment at the consciousness she would write Glenn again and again, and exultant the next with the clamouring love, she seemed to have climbed beyond the self that had striven to forget. She would remember and think though she died of longing.

Carley, like a drowning woman, caught at straws. What a relief and joy to give up that endless nagging at her mind! For months she had kept ceaselessly active, by associations which were of no help to her and which did not make her happy, in her determination to forget. Suddenly then she gave up to remembrance. She would cease trying to get over her love for Glenn, and think of him and dream about him as much as memory dictated. This must constitute the only happiness she could have.

The change from strife to surrender was so novel and sweet that for days she felt renewed. It was augmented by her visits to the hospital in Bedford Park. Through her bountiful presence Virgil Rust and his comrades had many dull hours of pain and weariness alleviated and brightened. Interesting herself in the condition of the seriously disabled soldiers and possibility of their future took time and work Carley gave willingly and gladly. At first she endeavored to get acquaintances with means and leisure to help the boys, but these overtures met with such little success that she quit wasting valuable time she could herself devote to their interests.

Thus several weeks swiftly passed by. Several soldiers who had been more seriously injured than Rust improved to the extent that they were discharged. But Rust gained little or nothing. The nurse and doctor both informed Carley that Rust brightened for her, but when she was gone he lapsed into somber indifference. He did not care whether he ate or not, or whether he got well or died.

“If I do pull out, where’ll I go and what’ll I do?” he once asked the nurse.

Carley knew that Rust’s hurt was more than loss of a leg, and she decided to talk earnestly to him and try to win him to hope and effort. He had come to have a sort of reverence for her. So, biding her time, she at length found opportunity to approach his bed while his comrades were asleep or out of hearing. He endeavored to laugh her off, and then tried subterfuge, and lastly he cast off his mask and let her see his naked soul.

“Carley, I don’t want your money or that of your kind friends — whoever they are — you say will help me to get into business,” he said. “God knows I thank you and it warms me inside to find some one who appreciates what I’ve given. But I don’t want charity. . . . And I guess I’m pretty sick of the game. I’m sorry the Boches didn’t do the job right.”

“Rust, that is morbid talk,” replied Carley. “You’re ill and you just can’t see any hope. You must cheer up — fight yourself; and look at the brighter side. It’s a horrible pity you must be a cripple, but Rust, indeed life can be worth living if you make it so.”

“How could there be a brighter side when a man’s only half a man—” he queried, bitterly.

“You can be just as much a man as ever,” persisted Carley, trying to smile when she wanted to cry.

“Could you care for a man with only one leg?” he asked, deliberately.

“What a question! Why, of course I could!”

“Well, maybe you are different. Glenn always swore even if he was killed no slacker or no rich guy left at home could ever get you. Maybe you haven’t any idea how much it means to us fellows to know there are true and faithful girls. But I’ll tell you, Carley, we fellows who went across got to see things strange when we came home. The good old U. S. needs a lot of faithful girls just now, believe me.”

“Indeed that’s true,” replied Carley. “It’s a hard time for everybody, and particularly you boys who have lost so — so much.”

“I lost all, except my life — and I wish to God I’d lost that,” he replied, gloomily.

“Oh, don’t talk so!” implored Carley in distress. “Forgive me, Rust, if I hurt you. But I must tell you — that — that Glenn wrote me — you’d lost your girl. Oh, I’m sorry! It is dreadful for you now. But if you got well — and went to work — and took up life where you left it — why soon your pain would grow easier. And you’d find some happiness yet.”

“Never for me in this world.”

“But why, Rust, why? You’re no — no — Oh! I mean you have intelligence and courage. Why isn’t there anything left for you?”

“Because something here’s been killed,” he replied, and put his hand to his heart.

“Your faith? Your love of — of everything? Did the war kill it?”

“I’d gotten over that, maybe,” he said, drearily, with his somber eyes on space that seemed lettered for him. “But she half murdered it — and they did the rest.”

“They? Whom do you mean, Rust?”

“Why, Carley, I mean the people I lost my leg for!” he replied, with terrible softness.

“The British? The French?” she queried, in bewilderment.

“No!” he cried, and turned his face to the wall.

Carley dared not ask him more. She was shocked. How helplessly impotent all her earnest sympathy! No longer could she feel an impersonal, however kindly, interest in this man. His last ringing word had linked her also to his misfortune and his suffering. Suddenly he turned away from the wall. She saw him swallow laboriously. How tragic that thin, shadowed face of agony! Carley saw it differently. But for the beautiful softness of light in his eyes, she would have been unable to endure gazing longer.

“Carley, I’m bitter,” he said, “but I’m not rancorous and callous, like some of the boys. I know if you’d been my girl you’d have stuck to me.”

“Yes,” Carley whispered.

“That makes a difference,” he went on, with a sad smile. “You see, we soldiers all had feelings. And in one thing we all felt alike. That was we were going to fight for our homes and our women. I should say women first. No matter what we read or heard about standing by our allies, fighting for liberty or civilization, the truth was we all felt the same, even if we never breathed it. . . . Glenn fought for you. I fought for Nell. . . . We were not going to let the Huns treat you as they treated French and Belgian girls. . . . And think! Nell was engaged to me — she loved me — and, by God! She married a slacker when I lay half dead on the battlefield!”

“She was not worth loving or fighting for,” said Carley, with agitation.

“Ah! now you’ve said something,” he declared. “If I can only hold to that truth! What does one girl amount to? I do not count. It is the sum that counts. We love America — our homes — our women! . . . Carley, I’ve had comfort and strength come to me through you. Glenn will have his reward in your love. Somehow I seem to share it, a little. Poor Glenn! He got his, too. Why, Carley, that guy wouldn’t let you do what he could do for you. He was cut to pieces—”

“Please — Rust — don’t say any more. I am unstrung,” she pleaded.

“Why not? It’s due you to know how splendid Glenn was. . . . I tell you, Carley, all the boys here love you for the way you’ve stuck to Glenn. Some of them knew him, and I’ve told the rest. We thought he’d never pull through. But he has, and we know how you helped. Going West to see him! He didn’t write it to me, but I know. . . . I’m wise. I’m happy for him — the lucky dog. Next time you go West—”

“Hush!” cried Carley. She could endure no more. She could no longer be a lie.

“You’re white — you’re shaking,” exclaimed Rust, in concern. “Oh, I — what did I say? Forgive me—”

“Rust, I am no more worth loving and fighting for than your Nell.”

“What!” he ejaculated.

“I have not told you the truth,” she said, swiftly. “I have let you believe a lie. . . . I shall never marry Glenn. I broke my engagement to him.”

Slowly Rust sank back upon the pillow, his large luminous eyes piercingly fixed upon her, as if he would read her soul.

“I went West — yes—” continued Carley. “But it was selfishly. I wanted Glenn to come back here. . . . He had suffered as you have. He nearly died. But he fought — he fought — Oh! he went through hell! And after a long, slow, horrible struggle he began to mend. He worked. He went to raising hogs. He lived alone. He worked harder and harder. . . . The West and his work saved him, body and soul . . . . He had learned to love both the West and his work. I did not blame him. But I could not live out there. He needed me. But I was too little — too selfish. I could not marry him. I gave him up. . . . I left — him — alone!”

Carley shrank under the scorn in Rust’s eyes.

“And there’s another man,” he said, “a clean, straight, unscarred fellow who wouldn’t fight!”

“Oh, no-I — I swear there’s not,” whispered Carley.

“You, too,” he replied, thickly. Then slowly he turned that worn dark face to the wall. His frail breast heaved. And his lean hand made her a slight gesture of dismissal, significant and imperious.

Carley fled. She could scarcely see to find the car. All her internal being seemed convulsed, and a deadly faintness made her sick and cold.

CHAPTER X

CARLEY’S EDIFICE OF hopes, dreams, aspirations, and struggles fell in ruins about her. It had been built upon false sands. It had no ideal for foundation. It had to fall.

Something inevitable had forced her confession to Rust. Dissimulation had been a habit of her mind; it was more a habit of her class than sincerity. But she had reached a point in her mental strife where she could not stand before Rust and let him believe she was noble and faithful when she knew she was neither. Would not the next step in this painful metamorphosis of her character be a fierce and passionate repudiation of herself and all she represented?

She went home and locked herself in her room, deaf to telephone and servants. There she gave up to her shame. Scorned — despised — dismissed by that poor crippled flame-spirited Virgil Rust! He had reverenced her, and the truth had earned his hate. Would she ever forget his look — incredulous — shocked — bitter — and blazing with unutterable contempt? Carley Burch was only another Nell — a jilt — a mocker of the manhood of soldiers! Would she ever cease to shudder at memory of Rust’s slight movement of hand? Go! Get out of my sight! Leave me to my agony as you left Glenn Kilbourne alone to fight his! Men such as I am do not want the smile of your face, the touch of your hand! We gave for womanhood! Pass on to lesser men who loved the fleshpots and who would buy your charms! So Carley interpreted that slight gesture, and writhed in her abasement.

Rust threw a white, illuminating light upon her desertion of Glenn. She had betrayed him. She had left him alone. Dwarfed and stunted was her narrow soul! To a man who had given all for her she had returned nothing. Stone for bread! Betrayal for love! Cowardice for courage!

The hours of contending passions gave birth to vague, slow-forming revolt.

She became haunted by memory pictures and sounds and smells of Oak Creek Canyon. As from afar she saw the great sculptured rent in the earth, green and red and brown, with its shining, flashing ribbons of waterfalls and streams. The mighty pines stood up magnificent and stately. The walls loomed high, shadowed under the shelves, gleaming in the sunlight, and they seemed dreaming, waiting, watching. For what? For her return to their serene fastnesses — to the little gray log cabin. The thought stormed Carley’s soul.

Vivid and intense shone the images before her shut eyes. She saw the winding forest floor, green with grass and fern, colorful with flower and rock. A thousand aisles, glades, nooks, and caverns called her to come. Nature was every woman’s mother. The populated city was a delusion. Disease and death and corruption stalked in the shadows of the streets. But her canyon promised hard work, playful hours, dreaming idleness, beauty, health, fragrance, loneliness, peace, wisdom, love, children, and long life. In the hateful shut-in isolation of her room Carley stretched forth her arms as if to embrace the vision. Pale close walls, gleaming placid stretches of brook, churning amber and white rapids, mossy banks and pine-matted ledges, the towers and turrets and ramparts where the eagles wheeled — she saw them all as beloved images lost to her save in anguished memory.

She heard the murmur of flowing water, soft, low, now loud, and again lulling, hollow and eager, tinkling over rocks, bellowing into the deep pools, washing with silky seep of wind-swept waves the hanging willows. Shrill and piercing and far-aloft pealed the scream of the eagle. And she seemed to listen to a mocking bird while he mocked her with his melody of many birds. The bees hummed, the wind moaned, the leaves rustled, the waterfall murmured. Then came the sharp rare note of a canyon swift, most mysterious of birds, significant of the heights.

A breath of fragrance seemed to blow with her shifting senses. The dry, sweet, tangy canyon smells returned to her — of fresh-cut timber, of wood smoke, of the cabin fire with its steaming pots, of flowers and earth, and of the wet stones, of the redolent pines and the pungent cedars.

And suddenly, clearly, amazingly, Carley beheld in her mind’s sight the hard features, the bold eyes, the slight smile, the coarse face of Haze Ruff. She had forgotten him. But he now returned. And with memory of him flashed a revelation as to his meaning in her life. He had appeared merely a clout, a ruffian, an animal with man’s shape and intelligence. But he was the embodiment of the raw, crude violence of the West. He was the eyes of the natural primitive man, believing what he saw. He had seen in Carley Burch the paraded charm, the unashamed and serene front, the woman seeking man. Haze Ruff had been neither vile nor base nor unnatural. It had been her subjection to the decadence of feminine dress that had been unnatural. But Ruff had found her a lie. She invited what she did not want. And his scorn had been commensurate with the falsehood of her. So might any man have been justified in his insult to her, in his rejection of her. Haze Ruff had found her unfit for his idea of dalliance. Virgil Rust had found her false to the ideals of womanhood for which he had sacrificed all but life itself. What then had Glenn Kilbourne found her? He possessed the greatness of noble love. He had loved her before the dark and changeful tide of war had come between them. How had he judged her? That last sight of him standing alone, leaning with head bowed, a solitary figure trenchant with suggestion of tragic resignation and strength, returned to flay Carley. He had loved, trusted, and hoped. She saw now what his hope had been-that she would have instilled into her blood the subtle, red, and revivifying essence of calling life in the open, the strength of the wives of earlier years, an emanation from canyon, desert, mountain, forest, of health, of spirit, of forward-gazing natural love, of the mysterious saving instinct he had gotten out of the West. And she had been too little too steeped in the indulgence of luxurious life too slight-natured and pale-blooded! And suddenly there pierced into the black storm of Carley’s mind a blazing, white-streaked thought — she had left Glenn to the Western girl, Flo Hutter. Humiliated, and abased in her own sight, Carley fell prey to a fury of jealousy.

She went back to the old life. But it was in a bitter, restless, critical spirit, conscious of the fact that she could derive neither forgetfulness nor pleasure from it, nor see any release from the habit of years.

One afternoon, late in the fall, she motored out to a Long Island club where the last of the season’s golf was being enjoyed by some of her most intimate friends. Carley did not play. Aimlessly she walked around the grounds, finding the autumn colors subdued and drab, like her mind. The air held a promise of early winter. She thought that she would go South before the cold came. Always trying to escape anything rigorous, hard, painful, or disagreeable! Later she returned to the clubhouse to find her party assembled on an inclosed porch, chatting and partaking of refreshment. Morrison was there. He had not taken kindly to her late habit of denying herself to him.

During a lull in the idle conversation Morrison addressed Carley pointedly. “Well, Carley, how’s your Arizona hog-raiser?” he queried, with a little gleam in his usually lusterless eyes.

“I have not heard lately,” she replied, coldly.

The assembled company suddenly quieted with a portent inimical to their leisurely content of the moment. Carley felt them all looking at her, and underneath the exterior she preserved with extreme difficulty, there burned so fierce an anger that she seemed to have swelling veins of fire.

“Queer how Kilbourne went into raising hogs,” observed Morrison. “Such a low-down sort of work, you know.”

“He had no choice,” replied Carley. “Glenn didn’t have a father who made tainted millions out of the war. He had to work. And I must differ with you about its being low-down. No honest work is that. It is idleness that is low down.”

“But so foolish of Glenn when he might have married money,” rejoined Morrison, sarcastcally.

“The honor of soldiers is beyond your ken, Mr. Morrison.”

He flushed darkly and bit his lip.

“You women make a man sick with this rot about soldiers,” he said, the gleam in his eye growing ugly. “A uniform goes to a woman’s head no matter what’s inside it. I don’t see where your vaunted honor of soldiers comes in considering how they accepted the let-down of women during and after the war.”

“How could you see when you stayed comfortably at home?” retorted Carley.

“All I could see was women falling into soldiers’ arms,” he said, sullenly.

“Certainly. Could an American girl desire any greater happiness — or opportunity to prove her gratitude?” flashed Carley, with proud uplift of head.

“It didn’t look like gratitude to me,” returned Morrison.

“Well, it was gratitude,” declared Carley, ringingly. “If women of America did throw themselves at soldiers it was not owing to the moral lapse of the day. It was woman’s instinct to save the race! Always, in every war, women have sacrificed themselves to the future. Not vile, but noble! . . . You insult both soldiers and women, Mr. Morrison. I wonder — did any American girls throw themselves at you?”

Morrison turned a dead white, and his mouth twisted to a distorted checking of speech, disagreeable to see.

“No, you were a slacker,” went on Carley, with scathing scorn. “You let the other men go fight for American girls. Do you imagine one of them will ever marry you? . . . All your life, Mr. Morrison, you will be a marked man- -outside the pale of friendship with real American men and the respect of real American girls.”

Morrison leaped up, almost knocking the table over, and he glared at Carley as he gathered up his hat and cane. She turned her back upon him. From that moment he ceased to exist for Carley. She never spoke to him again.

Next day Carley called upon her dearest friend, whom she had not seen for some time.

“Carley dear, you don’t look so very well,” said Eleanor, after greetings had been exchanged.

“Oh, what does it matter how I look?” queried Carley, impatiently.

“You were so wonderful when you got home from Arizona.”

“If I was wonderful and am now commonplace you can thank your old New York for it.”

“Carley, don’t you care for New York any more?” asked Eleanor.

“Oh, New York is all right, I suppose. It’s I who am wrong.”

“My dear, you puzzle me these days. You’ve changed. I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’re unhappy.”

“Me? Oh, impossible! I’m in a seventh heaven,” replied Carley, with a hard little laugh. “What ‘re you doing this afternoon? Let’s go out — riding — or somewhere.”

“I’m expecting the dressmaker.”

“Where are you going to-night?”

“Dinner and theater. It’s a party, or I’d ask you.”

“What did you do yesterday and the day before, and the days before that?”

Eleanor laughed indulgently, and acquainted Carley with a record of her social wanderings during the last few days.

“The same old things-over and over again! Eleanor don’t you get sick of it?” queried Carley.

“Oh yes, to tell the truth,” returned Eleanor, thoughtfully. “But there’s nothing else to do.”

“Eleanor, I’m no better than you,” said Carley, with disdain. “I’m as useless and idle. But I’m beginning to see myself — and you — and all this rotten crowd of ours. We’re no good. But you’re married, Eleanor. You’re settled in life. You ought to do something. I’m single and at loose ends. Oh, I’m in revolt! . . . Think, Eleanor, just think. Your husband works hard to keep you in this expensive apartment. You have a car. He dresses you in silks and satins. You wear diamonds. You eat your breakfast in bed. You loll around in a pink dressing gown all morning. You dress for lunch or tea. You ride or golf or worse than waste your time on some lounge lizard, dancing till time to come home to dress for dinner. You let other men make love to you. Oh, don’t get sore. You do. . . . And so goes the round of your life. What good on earth are you, anyhow? You’re just a — a gratification to the senses of your husband. And at that you don’t see much of hint.”

“Carley, how you rave!” exclaimed her friend. “What has gotten into you lately? Why, everybody tells me you’re — you’re queer! The way you insulted Morrison — how unlike you, Carley!”

“I’m glad I found the nerve to do it. What do you think, Eleanor?”

“Oh, I despise him. But you can’t say the things you feel.”

“You’d be bigger and truer if you did. Some day I’ll break out and flay you and your friends alive.”

“But, Carley, you’re my friend and you’re just exactly like we are. Or you were, quite recently.”

“Of course, I’m your friend. I’ve always loved you, Eleanor,” went on Carley, earnestly. “I’m as deep in this — this damned stagnant muck as you, or anyone. But I’m no longer blind. There’s something terribly wrong with us women, and it’s not what Morrison hinted.”

“Carley, the only thing wrong with you is that you jilted poor Glenn — and are breaking your heart over him still.”

“Don’t — don’t!” cried Carley, shrinking. “God knows that is true. But there’s more wrong with me than a blighted love affair.”

“Yes, you mean the modern feminine unrest?”

“Eleanor, I positively hate that phrase ‘modern feminine unrest!’ It smacks of ultra — ultra — Oh! I don’t know what. That phrase ought to be translated by a Western acquaintance of mine — one Haze Ruff. I’d not like to hurt your sensitive feelings with what he’d say. But this unrest means speed-mad, excitement-mad, fad-mad, dress-mad, or I should say undress-mad, culture — mad, and Heaven only knows what else. The women of our set are idle, luxurious, selfish, pleasure-craving, lazy, useless, work-and-children shirking, absolutely no good.”

“Well, if we are, who’s to blame?” rejoined Eleanor, spiritedly. “Now, Carley Burch, you listen to me. I think the twentieth-century girl in America is the most wonderful female creation of all the ages of the universe. I admit it. That is why we are a prey to the evils attending greatness. Listen. Here is a crying sin — an infernal paradox. Take this twentieth-century girl, this American girl who is the finest creation of the ages. A young and healthy girl, the most perfect type of culture possible to the freest and greatest city on earth-New York! She holds absolutely an unreal, untrue position in the scheme of existence. Surrounded by parents, relatives, friends, suitors, and instructive schools of every kind, colleges, institutions, is she really happy, is she really living?”

“Eleanor,” interrupted Carley, earnestly, “she is not. . . . And I’ve been trying to tell you why.”

“My dear, let me get a word in, will you,” complained Eleanor. “You don’t know it all. There are as many different points of view as there are people. . . . Well, if this girl happened to have a new frock, and a new beau to show it to, she’d say, ‘I’m the happiest girl in the world.’ But she is nothing of the kind. Only she doesn’t know that. She approaches marriage, or, for that matter, a more matured life, having had too much, having been too well taken care of, knowing too much. Her masculine satellites — father, brothers, uncles, friends, lovers — all utterly spoil her. Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle class — which is to say the largest and best class of Americans. We are spoiled. . . . This girl marries. And life goes on smoothly, as if its aim was to exclude friction and effort. Her husband makes it too easy for her. She is an ornament, or a toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage. To soil her pretty hands would be disgraceful! Even f she can’t afford a maid, the modern devices of science make the care of her four-room apartment a farce. Electric dish-washer, clothes-washer, vacuum-cleaner, and the near-by delicatessen and the caterer simply rob a young wife of her housewifely heritage. If she has a baby — which happens occasionally, Carley, in spite of your assertion — it very soon goes to the kindergarten. Then what does she find to do with hours and hours? If she is not married, what on earth can she find to do?”

“She can work,” replied Carley, bluntly.

“Oh yes, she can, but she doesn’t,” went on Eleanor. “You don’t work. I never did. We both hated the idea. You’re calling spades spades, Carley, but you seem to be riding a morbid, impractical thesis. Well, our young American girl or bride goes in for being rushed or she goes in for fads, the ultra stuff you mentioned. New York City gets all the great artists, lecturers, and surely the great fakirs. The New York women support them. The men laugh, but they furnish the money. They take the women to the theaters, but they cut out the reception to a Polish princess, a lecture by an Indian magician and mystic, or a benefit luncheon for a Home for Friendless Cats. The truth is most of our young girls or brides have a wonderful enthusiasm worthy of a better cause. What is to become of their surplus energy, the bottled-lightning spirit so characteristic of modern girls? Where is the outlet for intense feelings? What use can they make of education or of gifts? They just can’t, that’s all. I’m not taking into consideration the new-woman species, the faddist or the reformer. I mean normal girls like you and me. Just think, Carley. A girl’s every wish, every need, is almost instantly satisfied without the slightest effort on her part to obtain it. No struggle, let alone work! If women crave to achieve something outside of the arts, you know, something universal and helpful which will make men acknowledge her worth, if not the equality, where is the opportunity?”

“Opportunities should be made,” replied Carley.

“There are a million sides to this question of the modern young woman — the fin-de-siecle girl. I’m for her!”

“How about the extreme of style in dress for this remarkably-to-be-pitied American girl you champion so eloquently?” queried Carley, sarcastically.

“Immoral!” exclaimed Eleanor with frank disgust.

“You admit it?”

“To my shame, I do.”

“Why do women wear extreme clothes? Why do you and I wear open-work silk stockings, skirts to our knees, gowns without sleeves or bodices?”

“We’re slaves to fashion,” replied Eleanor, “That’s the popular excuse.”

“Bah!” exclaimed Carley.

Eleanor laughed in spite of being half nettled. “Are you going to stop wearing what all the other women wear — and be looked at askance? Are you going to be dowdy and frumpy and old-fashioned?”

“No. But I’ll never wear anything again that can be called immoral. I want to be able to say why I wear a dress. You haven’t answered my question yet. Why do you wear what you frankly admit is disgusting?”

“I don’t know, Carley,” replied Eleanor, helplessly. “How you harp on things! We must dress to make other women jealous and to attract men. To be a sensation! Perhaps the word ‘immoral’ is not what I mean. A woman will be shocking in her obsession to attract, but hardly more than that, if she knows it.”

“Ah! So few women realize how they actually do look. Haze Ruff could tell them.”

“Haze Ruff. Who in the world is he or she?” asked Eleanor.

“Haze Ruff is a he, all right,” replied Carley, grimly.

“Well, who is he?”

“A sheep-dipper in Arizona,” answered Carley, dreamily.

“Humph! And what can Mr. Ruff tell us?”

“He told me I looked like one of the devil’s angels — and that I dressed to knock the daylights out of men.”

“Well, Carley Burch, if that isn’t rich!” exclaimed Eleanor, with a peal of laughter. “I dare say you appreciate that as an original compliment.”

“No. . . . I wonder what Ruff would say about jazz — I just wonder,” murmured Carley.

“Well, I wouldn’t care what he said, and I don’t care what you say,” returned Eleanor. “The preachers and reformers and bishops and rabbis make me sick. They rave about jazz. Jazz — the discordant note of our decadence! Jazz — the harmonious expression of our musicless, mindless, soulless materialism! — The idiots! If they could be women for a while they would realize the error of their ways. But they will never, never abolish jazz — never, for it is the grandest, the most wonderful, the most absolutely necessary thing for women in this terrible age of smotheration.”

“All right, Eleanor, we understand each other, even if we do not agree,” said Carley. “You leave the future of women to chance, to life, to materialism, not to their own conscious efforts. I want to leave it to free will and idealism.”

“Carley, you are getting a little beyond me,” declared Eleanor, dubiously.

“What are you going to do? It all comes home to each individual woman. Her attitude toward life.”

“I’ll drift along with the current, Carley, and be a good sport,” replied Eleanor, smiling.

“You don’t care about the women and children of the future? You’ll not deny yourself now, and think and work, and suffer a little, in the interest of future humanity?”

“How you put things, Carley!” exclaimed Eleanor, wearily. “Of course I care — when you make me think of such things. But what have I to do with the lives of people in the years to come?”

“Everything. America for Americans! While you dawdle, the life blood is being sucked out of our great nation. It is a man’s job to fight; it is a woman’s to save. . . . I think you’ve made your choice, though you don’t realize it. I’m praying to God that I’ll rise to mine.”

Carley had a visitor one morning earlier than the usual or conventional time for calls.

“He wouldn’t give no name,” said the maid. “He wears soldier clothes, ma’am, and he’s pale, and walks with a cane.”

“Tell him I’ll be right down,” replied Carley.

Her hands trembled while she hurriedly dressed. Could this caller be Virgil Rust? She hoped so, but she doubted.

As she entered the parlor a tall young man in worn khaki rose to meet her. At first glance she could not name him, though she recognized the pale face and light-blue eyes, direct and steady.

“Good morning, Miss Burch,” he said. “I hope you’ll excuse so early a call. You remember me, don’t you? I’m George Burton, who had the bunk next to Rust’s.”

“Surely I remember you, Mr. Burton, and I’m glad to see you,” replied Carley, shaking hands with him. “Please sit down. Your being here must mean you’re discharged from the hospital.”

“Yes, I was discharged, all right,” he said.

“Which means you’re well again. That is fine. I’m very glad.”

“I was put out to make room for a fellow in bad shape. I’m still shaky and weak,” he replied. “But I’m glad to go. I’ve pulled through pretty good, and it’ll not be long until I’m strong again. It was the ‘flu’ that kept me down.”

“You must be careful. May I ask where you’re going and what you expect to do?”

“Yes, that’s what I came to tell you,” he replied, frankly. “I want you to help me a little. I’m from Illinois and my people aren’t so badly off. But I don’t want to go back to my home town down and out, you know. Besides, the winters are cold there. The doctor advises me to go to a little milder climate. You see, I was gassed, and got the ‘flu’ afterward. But I know I’ll be all right if I’m careful. . . . Well, I’ve always had a leaning toward agriculture, and I want to go to Kansas. Southern Kansas. I want to travel around till I find a place I like, and there I’ll get a job. Not too hard a job at first — that’s why I’ll need a little money. I know what to do. I want to lose myself in the wheat country and forget the — the war. I’ll not be afraid of work, presently. . . . Now, Miss Burch, you’ve been so kind — I’m going to ask you to lend me a little money. I’ll pay it back. I can’t promise just when. But some day. Will you?”

“Assuredly I will,” she replied, heartily. “I’m happy to have the opportunity to help you. How much will you need for immediate use? Five hundred dollars?”

“Oh no, not so much as that,” he replied. “Just railroad fare home, and then to Kansas, and to pay board while I get well, you know, and look around.”

“We’ll make it five hundred, anyway,” she replied, and, rising, she went toward the library. “Excuse me a moment.” She wrote the check and, returning, gave it to him.

“You’re very good,” he said, rather low.

“Not at all,” replied Carley. “You have no idea how much it means to me to be permitted to help you. Before I forget, I must ask you, can you cash that check here in New York?”

“Not unless you identify me,” he said, ruefully, “I don’t know anyone I could ask.”

“Well, when you leave here go at once to my bank — it’s on Thirty-fourth Street — and I’ll telephone the cashier. So you’ll not have any difficulty. Will you leave New York at once?”

“I surely will. It’s an awful place. Two years ago when I came here with my company I thought it was grand. But I guess I lost something over there. . . . I want to be where it’s quiet. Where I won’t see many people.”

“I think I understand,” returned Carley. “Then I suppose you’re in a hurry to get home? Of course you have a girl you’re just dying to see?”

“No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t,” he replied, simply. “I was glad I didn’t have to leave a sweetheart behind, when I went to France. But it wouldn’t be so bad to have one to go back to now.”

“Don’t you worry!” exclaimed Carley. “You can take your choice presently. You have the open sesame to every real American girl’s heart.”

“And what is that?” he asked, with a blush.

“Your service to your country,” she said, gravely.

“Well,” he said, with a singular bluntness, “considering I didn’t get any medals or bonuses, I’d like to draw a nice girl.”

“You will,” replied Carley, and made haste to change the subject. “By the way, did you meet Glenn Kilbourne in France?”

“Not that I remember,” rejoined Burton, as he got up, rising rather stiffly by aid of his cane. “I must go, Miss Burch. Really I can’t thank you enough. And I’ll never forget it.”

“Will you write me how you are getting along?” asked Carley, offering her hand.

“Yes.”

Carley moved with him out into the hall and to the door. There was a question she wanted to ask, but found it strangely difficult of utterance. At the door Burton fixed a rather penetrating gaze upon her.

“You didn’t ask me about Rust,” he said.

“No, I — I didn’t think of him — until now, in fact,” Carley lied.

“Of course then you couldn’t have heard about him. I was wondering.”

“I have heard nothing.”

“It was Rust who told me to come to you,” said Burton. “We were talking one day, and he — well, he thought you were true blue. He said he knew you’d trust me and lend me money. I couldn’t have asked you but for him.”

“True blue! He believed that. I’m glad. . . . Has he spoken of me to you since I was last at the hospital?”

“Hardly,” replied Burton, with the straight, strange glance on her again.

Carley met this glance and suddenly a coldness seemed to envelop her. It did not seem to come from within though her heart stopped beating. Burton had not changed — the warmth, the gratitude still lingered about him. But the light of his eyes! Carley had seen it in Glenn’s, in Rust’s — a strange, questioning, far-off light, infinitely aloof and unutterably sad. Then there came a lift of her heart that released a pang. She whispered with dread, with a tremor, with an instinct of calamity.

“How about — Rust?”

“He’s dead.”

The winter came, with its bleak sea winds and cold rains and blizzards of snow. Carley did not go South. She read and brooded, and gradually avoided all save those true friends who tolerated her.

She went to the theater a good deal, showing preference for the drama of strife, and she did not go anywhere for amusement. Distraction and amusement seemed to be dead issues for her. But she could become absorbed in any argument on the good or evil of the present day. Socialism reached into her mind, to be rejected. She had never understood it clearly, but it seemed to her a state of mind where dissatisfied men and women wanted to share what harder working or more gifted people possessed. There were a few who had too much of the world’s goods and many who had too little. A readjustment of such inequality and injustice must come, but Carley did not see the remedy in Socialism.

She devoured books on the war with a morbid curiosity and hope that she would find some illuminating truth as to the uselessness of sacrificing young men in the glory and prime of their lives. To her war appeared a matter of human nature rather than politics. Hate really was an effect of war. In her judgment future wars could be avoided only in two ways — by men becoming honest and just or by women refusing to have children to be sacrificed. As there seemed no indication whatever of the former, she wondered how soon all women of all races would meet on a common height, with the mounting spirit that consumed her own heart. Such time must come. She granted every argument for war and flung against it one ringing passionate truth — agony of mangled soldiers and agony of women and children. There was no justification for offensive war. It was monstrous and hideous. If nature and evolution proved the absolute need of strife, war, blood, and death in the progress of animal and man toward perfection, then it would be better to abandon this Christless code and let the race of man die out.

All through these weeks she longed for a letter from Glenn. But it did not come. Had he finally roused to the sweetness and worth and love of the western girl, Flo Hutter? Carley knew absolutely, through both intelligence and intuition, that Glenn Kilbourne would never love Flo. Yet such was her intensity and stress at times, especially in the darkness of waking hours, that jealousy overcame her and insidiously worked its havoc. Peace and a strange kind of joy came to her in dreams of her walks and rides and climbs in Arizona, of the lonely canyon where it always seemed afternoon, of the tremendous colored vastness of that Painted Desert. But she resisted these dreams now because when she awoke from them she suffered such a yearning that it became unbearable. Then she knew the feeling of the loneliness and solitude of the hills. Then she knew the sweetness of the murmur of falling water, the wind in the pines, the song of birds, the white radiance of the stars, the break of day and its gold-flushed close. But she had not yet divined’ their meaning. It was not all love for Glenn Kilbourne. Had city life palled upon her solely because of the absence of her lover? So Carley plodded on, like one groping in the night, fighting shadows.

One day she received a card from an old schoolmate, a girl who had married out of Carley’s set, and had been ostracized. She was living down on Long Island, at a little country place named Wading River. Her husband was an electrician — something of an inventor. He worked hard. A baby boy had just come to them. Would not Carley run down on the train to see the youngster?

That was a strong and trenchant call. Carley went. She found indeed a country village, and on the outskirts of it a little cottage that must have been pretty in summer, when the green was on vines and trees. Her old schoolmate was rosy, plump, bright-eyed, and happy. She saw in Carley no change — a fact that somehow rebounded sweetly on Carley’s consciousness. Elsie prattled of herself and her husband and how they had worked to earn this little home, and then the baby.

When Carley saw the adorable dark-eyed, pink-toed, curly-fisted baby she understood Elsie’s happiness and reveled in it. When she felt the soft, warm, living little body in her arms, against her breast, then she absorbed some incalculable and mysterious strength. What were the trivial, sordid, and selfish feelings that kept her in tumult compared to this welling emotion? Had she the secret in her arms? Babies and Carley had never become closely acquainted in those infrequent meetings that were usually the result of chance. But Elsie’s baby nestled to her breast and cooed to her and clung to her finger. When at length the youngster was laid in his crib it seemed to Carley that the fragrance and the soul of him remained with her.

“A real American boy!” she murmured.

“You can just bet he is,” replied Elsie. “Carley, you ought to see his dad.”

“I’d like to meet him,” said Carley, thoughtfully. “Elsie, was he in the service?”

“Yes. He was on one of the navy transports that took munitions to France. Think of me, carrying this baby, with my husband on a boat full of explosives and with German submarines roaming the ocean! Oh, it was horrible!”

“But he came back, and now all’s well with you,” said Carley, with a smile of earnestness. “I’m very glad, Elsie.”

“Yes — but I shudder when I think of a possible war in the future. I’m going to raise boys, and girls, too, I hope — and the thought of war is torturing.”

Carley found her return train somewhat late, and she took advantage of the delay to walk out to the wooded headlands above the Sound.

It was a raw March day, with a steely sun going down in a pale-gray sky. Patches of snow lingered in sheltered brushy places. This bit of woodland had a floor of soft sand that dragged at Carley’s feet. There were sere and brown leaves still fluttering on the scrub-oaks. At length Carley came out on the edge of the bluff with the gray expanse of seat beneath her, and a long wandering shore line, ragged with wreckage or driftwood. The surge of water rolled in — a long, low, white, creeping line that softly roared on the beach and dragged the pebbles gratingly back. There was neither boat nor living creature in sight.

Carley felt the scene ease a clutching hand within her breast. Here was loneliness and solitude vastly different from that of Oak Creek Canyon, yet it held the same intangible power to soothe. The swish of the surf, the moan of the wind in the evergreens, were voices that called to her. How many more miles of lonely land than peopled cities! Then the sea-how vast! And over that the illimitable and infinite sky, and beyond, the endless realms of space. It helped her somehow to see and hear and feel the eternal presence of nature. In communion with nature the significance of life might be realized. She remembered Glenn quoting: “The world is too much with us. . . . Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” What were our powers? What did God intend men to do with hands and bodies and gifts and souls? She gazed back over the bleak land and then out across the broad sea. Only a millionth part of the surface of the unsubmerged earth knew the populous abodes of man. And the lonely sea, inhospitable to stable homes of men, was thrice the area of the land. Were men intended, then, to congregate in few places, to squabble and to bicker and breed the discontents that led to injustice, hatred, and war? What a mystery it all was! But Nature was neither false nor little, however cruel she might be.

Once again Carley fell under the fury of her ordeal. Wavering now, restless and sleepless, given to violent starts and slow spells of apathy, she was wearing to defeat.

That spring day, one year from the day she had left New York for Arizona, she wished to spend alone. But her thoughts grew unbearable. She summed up the endless year. Could she live another like it? Something must break within her.

She went out. The air was warm and balmy, carrying that subtle current which caused the mild madness of spring fever. In the Park the greening of the grass, the opening of buds, the singing of birds, the gladness of children, the light on the water, the warm sun — all seemed to reproach her. Carley fled from the Park to the home of Beatrice Lovell; and there, unhappily, she encountered those of her acquaintance with whom she had least patience. They forced her to think too keenly of herself. They appeared carefree while she was miserable.

Over teacups there were waging gossip and argument and criticism. When Carley entered with Beatrice there was a sudden hush and then a murmur.

“Hello, Carley! Now say it to our faces,” called out Geralda Conners, a fair, handsome young woman of thirty, exquisitely gowned in the latest mode, and whose brilliantly tinted complexion was not the natural one of health.

“Say what, Geralda?” asked Carley. “I certainly would not say anything behind your backs that I wouldn’t repeat here.”

“Eleanor has been telling us how you simply burned us up.”

“We did have an argument. And I’m not sure I said all I wanted to.”

“Say the rest here,” drawled a lazy, mellow voice. “For Heaven’s sake, stir us up. If I could get a kick out of anything I’d bless it.”

“Carley, go on the stage,” advised another. “You’ve got Elsie Ferguson tied to the mast for looks. And lately you’re surely tragic enough.”

“I wish you’d go somewhere far off!” observed a third. “My husband is dippy about you.”

“Girls, do you know that you actually have not one sensible idea in your heads?” retorted Carley.

“Sensible? I should hope not. Who wants to be sensible?”

Geralda battered her teacup on a saucer. “Listen,” she called. “I wasn’t kidding Carley. I am good and sore. She goes around knocking everybody and saying New York backs Sodom off the boards. I want her to come out with it right here.”

“I dare say I’ve talked too much,” returned Carley. “It’s been a rather hard winter on me. Perhaps, indeed, I’ve tried the patience of my friends.”

“See here, Carley,” said Geralda, deliberately, “just because you’ve had life turn to bitter ashes in your mouth you’ve no right to poison it for us. We all find it pretty sweet. You’re an unsatisfied woman and if you don’t marry somebody you’ll end by being a reformer or fanatic.”

“I’d rather end that way than rot in a shell,” retorted Carley.

“I declare, you make me see red, Carley,” flashed Geralda, angrily. “No wonder Morrison roasts you to everybody. He says Glenn Kilbourne threw you down for some Western girl. If that’s true it’s pretty small of you to vent your spleen on us.”

Carley felt the gathering of a mighty resistless force, But Geralda Conners was nothing to her except the target for a thunderbolt.

“I have no spleen,” she replied, with a dignity of passion. “I have only pity. I was as blind as you. If heartbreak tore the scales from my eyes, perhaps that is well for me. For I see something terribly wrong in myself, in you, in all of us, in the life of today.”

“You keep your pity to yourself. You need it,” answered Geralda, with heat. “There’s nothing wrong with me or my friends or life in good old New York.”

“Nothing wrong!” cried Carley. “Listen. Nothing wrong in you or life today-nothing for you women to make right? You are blind as bats — as dead to living truth as if you were buried. Nothing wrong when thousands of crippled soldiers have no homes — no money — no friends — no work — in many cases no food or bed? . . . Splendid young men who went away in their prime to fight for you and came back ruined, suffering! Nothing wrong when sane women with the vote might rid politics of partisanship, greed, crookedness? Nothing wrong when prohibition is mocked by women — when the greatest boon ever granted this country is derided and beaten down and cheated? Nothing wrong when there are half a million defective children in this city? Nothing wrong when there are not enough schools and teachers to educate our boys and girls, when those teachers are shamefully underpaid? Nothing wrong when the mothers of this great country let their youngsters go to the dark. motion picture halls and night after night in thousands of towns over all this broad land see pictures that the juvenile court and the educators and keepers of reform schools say make burglars, crooks, and murderers of our boys and vampires of our girls? Nothing wrong when these young adolescent girls ape you and wear stockings rolled under their knees below their skirts and use a lip stick and paint their faces and darken their eyes and pluck their eyebrows and absolutely do not know what shame is? Nothing wrong when you may find in any city women standing at street corners distributing booklets on birth control? Nothing wrong when great magazines print no page or picture without its sex appeal? Nothing wrong when the automobile, so convenient for the innocent little run out of town, presents the greatest evil that ever menaced American girls! Nothing wrong when money is god — when luxury, pleasure, excitement, speed are the striven for? Nothing wrong when some of your husbands spend more of their time with other women than with you? Nothing wrong with jazz — where the lights go out in the dance hall and the dancers. jiggle and toddle and wiggle in a frenzy? Nothing wrong in a country where the greatest college cannot report birth of one child to each graduate in ten years? Nothing wrong with race suicide and the incoming horde of foreigners? . . . Nothing wrong with you women who cannot or will not stand childbirth? Nothing wrong with most of you, when if you did have a child, you could not nurse it? . . . Oh, my God, there’s nothing wrong with America except that she staggers under a Titanic burden that only mothers of sons can remove! . . . You doll women, you parasites, you toys of men, you silken-wrapped geisha girls, you painted, idle, purring cats, you parody of the females of your species — find brains enough if you can to see the doom hanging over you and revolt before it is too late!”

CHAPTER XI

CARLEY BURST IN upon her aunt.

“Look at me, Aunt Mary!” she cried, radiant and exultant. “I’m going back out West to marry Glenn and live his life!”

The keen old eyes of her aunt softened and dimmed. “Dear Carley, I’ve known that for a long time. You’ve found yourself at last.”

Then Carley breathlessly babbled her hastily formed plans, every word of which seemed to rush her onward.

“You’re going to surprise Glenn again?” queried Aunt Mary.

“Oh, I must! I want to see his face when I tell him.”

“Well, I hope he won’t surprise you,” declared the old lady. “When did you hear from him last?”

“In January. It seems ages — but — Aunt Mary, you don’t imagine Glenn—”

“I imagine nothing,” interposed her aunt. “It will turn out happily and I’ll have some peace in my old age. But, Carley, what’s to become of me?”

“Oh, I never thought!” replied Carley, blankly. “It will be lonely for you. Auntie, I’ll come back in the fall for a few weeks. Glenn will let me.”

“Let you? Ye gods! So you’ve come to that? Imperious Carley Burch! . . . Thank Heaven, you’ll now be satisfied to be let do things.”

“I’d — I’d crawl for him,” breathed Carley.

“Well, child, as you can’t be practical, I’ll have to be,” replied Aunt Mary, seriously. “Fortunately for you I am a woman of quick decision. Listen. I’ll go West with you. I want to see the Grand Canyon. Then I’ll go on to California, where I have old friends I’ve not seen for years. When you get your new home all fixed up I’ll spend awhile with you. And if I want to come back to New York now and then I’ll go to a hotel. It is settled. I think the change will benefit me.’

“Auntie, you make me very happy. I could ask no more,” said Carley.

Swiftly as endless tasks could make them the days passed. But those on the train dragged interminably.

Carley sent her aunt through to the Canyon while she stopped off at Flagstaff to store innumerable trunks and bags. The first news she heard of Glenn and the Hutters was that they had gone to the Tonto Basin to buy hogs and would be absent at least a month. This gave birth to a new plan in Carley’s mind. She would doubly surprise Glenn. Wherefore she took council with some Flagstaff business men and engaged them to set a force of men at work on the Deep Lake property, making the improvements she desired, and hauling lumber, cement, bricks, machinery, supplies — all the necessaries for building construction. Also she instructed them to throw up a tent house for her to live in during the work, and to engage a reliable Mexican man with his wife for servants. When she left for the Canyon she was happier than ever before in her life.

It was near the coming of sunset when Carley first looked down into the Grand Canyon. She had forgotten Glenn’s tribute to this place. In her rapturous excitement of preparation and travel the Canyon had been merely a name. But now she saw it and she was stunned.

What a stupendous chasm, gorgeous in sunset color on the heights, purpling into mystic shadows in the depths! There was a wonderful brightness of all the millions of red and yellow and gray surfaces still exposed to the sun. Carley did not feel a thrill, because feeling seemed inhibited. She looked and looked, yet was reluctant to keep on looking. She possessed no image in mind with which to compare this grand and mystic spectacle. A transformation of color and shade appeared to be going on swiftly, as if gods were changing the scenes of a Titanic stage. As she gazed the dark fringed line of the north rim turned to burnished gold, and she watched that with fascinated eyes. It turned rose, it lost its fire, it faded to quiet cold gray. The sun had set.

Then the wind blew cool through the pinyons on the rim. There was a sweet tang of cedar and sage on the air and that indefinable fragrance peculiar to the canyon country of Arizona. How it brought back to Carley remembrance of Oak Creek! In the west, across the purple notches of the abyss, a dull gold flare showed where the sun had gone down.

In the morning at eight o’clock there were great irregular black shadows under the domes and peaks and escarpments. Bright Angel Canyon was all dark, showing dimly its ragged lines. At noon there were no shadows and all the colossal gorge lay glaring under the sun. In the evening Carley watched the Canyon as again the sun was setting.

Deep dark-blue shadows, like purple sails of immense ships, in wonderful contrast with the bright sunlit slopes, grew and rose toward the east, down the canyons and up the walls that faced the west. For a long while there was no red color, and the first indication of it was a dull bronze. Carley looked down into the void, at the sailing birds, at the precipitous slopes, and the dwarf spruces and the weathered old yellow cliffs. When she looked up again the shadows out there were no longer dark. They were clear. The slopes and depths and ribs of rock could be seen through them. Then the tips of the highest peaks and domes turned bright red. Far to the east she discerned a strange shadow, slowly turning purple. One instant it grew vivid, then began to fade. Soon after that all the colors darkened and slowly the pale gray stole over all.

At night Carley gazed over and into the black void. But for the awful sense of depth she would not have known the Canyon to be there. A soundless movement of wind passed under her. The chasm seemed a grave of silence. It was as mysterious as the stars and as aloof and as inevitable. It had held her senses of beauty and proportion in abeyance.

At another sunrise the crown of the rim, a broad belt of bare rock, turned pale gold under its fringed dark line of pines. The tips of the peak gleamed opal. There was no sunrise red, no fire. The light in the east was a pale gold under a steely green-blue sky. All the abyss of the Canyon was soft, gray, transparent, and the belt of gold broadened downward, making shadows on the west slopes of the mesas and escarpments. Far down in the shadows she discerned the river, yellow, turgid, palely gleaming. By straining her ears Carley heard a low dull roar as of distant storm. She stood fearfully at the extreme edge of a stupendous cliff, where it sheered dark and forbidding, down and down, into what seemed red and boundless depths of Hades. She saw gold spots of sunlight on the dark shadows, proving that somewhere, impossible to discover, the sun was shining through wind-worn holes in the sharp ridges. Every instant Carley grasped a different effect. Her studied gaze absorbed an endless changing. And at last she realized that sun and light and stars and moon and night and shade, all working incessantly and mutably over shapes and lines and angles and surfaces too numerous and too great for the sight of man to hold, made an ever-changing spectacle of supreme beauty and colorful grandeur.

She talked very little while at the Canyon. It silenced her. She had come to see it at the critical time of her life and in the right mood. The superficialities of the world shrunk to their proper insignificance. Once she asked her aunt: “Why did not Glenn bring me here?” As if this Canyon proved the nature of all things!

But in the end Carley found that the rending strife of the transformation of her attitude toward life had insensibly ceased. It had ceased during the long watching of this cataclysm of nature, this canyon of gold-banded black-fringed ramparts, and red-walled mountains which sloped down to be lost in purple depths. That was final proof of the strength of nature to soothe, to clarify, to stabilize the tried and weary and upward-gazing soul. Stronger than the recorded deeds of saints, stronger than the eloquence of the gifted uplifters of men, stronger than any words ever written, was the grand, brooding, sculptured aspect of nature. And it must have been so because thousands of years before the age of saints or preachers — before the fret and symbol and figure were cut in stone-man must have watched with thought — developing sight the wonders of the earth, the monuments of time, the glooming of the dark-blue sea, the handiwork of God.

In May, Carley returned to Flagstaff to take up with earnest inspiration the labors of homebuilding in a primitive land.

It required two trucks to transport her baggage and purchases out to Deep Lake. The road was good for eighteen miles of the distance, until it branched off to reach her land, and from there it was desert rock and sand. But eventually they made it; and Carley found herself and belongings dumped out into the windy and sunny open. The moment was singularly thrilling and full of transport. She was free. She had shaken off the shackles. She faced lonely, wild, barren desert that must be made habitable by the genius of her direction and the labor of her hands. Always a thought of Glenn hovered tenderly, dreamily in the back of her consciousness, but she welcomed the opportunity to have a few weeks of work and activity and solitude before taking up her life with him. She wanted to adapt herself to the metamorphosis that had been wrought in her.

To her amazement and delight, a very considerable progress had been made with her plans. Under a sheltered red cliff among the cedars had been erected the tents where she expected to live until the house was completed. These tents were large, with broad floors high off the ground, and there were four of them. Her living tent had a porch under a wide canvas awning. The bed was a boxlike affair, raised off the floor two feet, and it contained a great, fragrant mass of cedar boughs upon which the blankets were to be spread. At one end was a dresser with large mirror, and a chiffonier. There were table and lamp, a low rocking chair, a shelf for books, a row of hooks upon which to hang things, a washstand with its necessary accessories, a little stove and a neat stack of cedar chips and sticks. Navajo rugs on the floor lent brightness and comfort.

Carley heard the rustling of cedar branches over her head, and saw where they brushed against the tent roof. It appeared warm and fragrant inside, and protected from the wind, and a subdued white light filtered through the canvas. Almost she felt like reproving herself for the comfort surrounding her. For she had come West to welcome the hard knocks of primitive life.

It took less than an hour to have her trunks stored in one of the spare tents, and to unpack clothes and necessaries for immediate use. Carley donned the comfortable and somewhat shabby outdoor garb she had worn at Oak Creek the year before; and it seemed to be the last thing needed to make her fully realize the glorious truth of the present.

“I’m here,” she said to her pale, yet happy face in the mirror. “The impossible has happened. I have accepted Glenn’s life. I have answered that strange call out of the West.”

She wanted to throw herself on the sunlit woolly blankets of her bed and hug them, to think and think of the bewildering present happiness, to dream of the future, but she could not lie or sit still, nor keep her mind from grasping at actualities and possibilities of this place, nor her hands from itching to do things.

It developed, presently, that she could not have idled away the time even if she had wanted to, for the Mexican woman came for her, with smiling gesticulation and jabber that manifestly meant dinner. Carley could not understand many Mexican words, and herein she saw another task. This swarthy woman and her sloe-eyed husband favorably impressed Carley.

Next to claim her was Hoyle, the superintendent. “Miss Burch,” he said, “in the early days we could run up a log cabin in a jiffy. Axes, horses, strong arms, and a few pegs — that was all we needed. But this house you’ve planned is different. It’s good you’ve come to take the responsibility.”

Carley had chosen the site for her home on top of the knoll where Glenn had taken her to show her the magnificent view of mountains and desert. Carley climbed it now with beating heart and mingled emotions. A thousand times already that day, it seemed, she had turned to gaze up at the noble white-clad peaks. They were closer now, apparently looming over her, and she felt a great sense of peace and protection in the thought that they would always be there. But she had not yet seen the desert that had haunted her for a year. When she reached the summit of the knoll and gazed out across the open space it seemed that she must stand spellbound. How green the cedared foreground-how gray and barren the downward slope — how wonderful the painted steppes! The vision that had lived in her memory shrank to nothingness. The reality was immense, more than beautiful, appalling in its isolation, beyond comprehension with its lure and strength to uplift.

But the superintendent drew her attention to the business at hand.

Carley had planned an L-shaped house of one story. Some of her ideas appeared to be impractical, and these she abandoned. The framework was up and half a dozen carpenters were lustily at work with saw and hammer.

“We’d made better progress if this house was in an ordinary place,” explained Hoyle. “But you see the wind blows here, so the framework had to be made as solid and strong as possible. In fact, it’s bolted to the sills.”

Both living room and sleeping room were arranged so that the Painted Desert could be seen from one window, and on the other side the whole of the San Francisco Mountains. Both rooms were to have open fireplaces. Carley’s idea was for service and durability. She thought of comfort in the severe winters of that high latitude, but elegance and luxury had no more significance in her life.

Hoyle made his suggestions as to changes and adaptations, and, receiving her approval, he went on to show her what had been already accomplished. Back on higher ground a reservoir of concrete was being constructed near an ever-flowing spring of snow water from the peaks. This water was being piped by gravity to the house, and was a matter of greatest satisfaction to Hoyle, for he claimed that it would never freeze in winter, and would be cold and abundant during the hottest and driest of summers. This assurance solved the most difficult and serious problem of ranch life in the desert.

Next Hoyle led Carley down off the knoll to the wide cedar valley adjacent to the lake. He was enthusiastic over its possibilities. Two small corrals and a large one had been erected, the latter having a low flat barn connected with it. Ground was already being cleared along the lake where alfalfa and hay were to be raised. Carley saw the blue and yellow smoke from burning brush, and the fragrant odor thrilled her. Mexicans were chopping the cleared cedars into firewood for winter use.

The day was spent before she realized it. At sunset the carpenters and mechanics left in two old Ford cars for town. The Mexicans had a camp in the cedars, and the Hoyles had theirs at the spring under the knoll where Carley had camped with Glenn and the Hutters. Carley watched the golden rosy sunset, and as the day ended she breathed deeply as if in unutterable relief. Supper found her with appetite she had long since lost. Twilight brought cold wind, the staccato bark of coyotes, the flicker of camp fires through the cedars. She tried to embrace all her sensations, but they were so rapid and many that she failed.

The cold, clear, silent night brought back the charm of the desert. How flaming white the stars!. The great spire-pointed peaks lifted cold pale-gray outlines up into the deep star-studded sky. Carley walked a little to and fro, loath to go to her tent, though tired. She wanted calm. But instead of achieving calmness she grew more and more towards a strange state of exultation.

Westward, only a matter of twenty or thirty miles, lay the deep rent in the level desert — Oak Creek Canyon. If Glenn had been there this night would have been perfect, yet almost unendurable. She was again grateful for his absence. What a surprise she had in store for him! And she imagined his face in its change of expression when she met him. If only he never learned of her presence in Arizona until she made it known in person! That she most longed for. Chances were against it, but then her luck had changed. She looked to the eastward where a pale luminosity of afterglow shone in the heavens. Far distant seemed the home of her childhood, the friends she had scorned and forsaken, the city of complaining and striving millions. If only some miracle might illumine the minds of her friends, as she felt that hers was to be illumined here in the solitude. But she well realized that not all problems could be solved by a call out of the West. Any open and lonely land that might have saved Glenn Kilbourne would have sufficed for her. It was the spirit of the thing and not the letter. It was work of any kind and not only that of ranch life. Not only the raising of hogs!

Carley directed stumbling steps toward the light of her tent. Her eyes had not been used to such black shadow along the ground. She had, too, squeamish feminine fears of hydrophobia skunks, and nameless animals or reptiles that were imagined denizens of the darkness. She gained her tent and entered. The Mexican, Gino, as he called himself, had lighted her lamp and fire. Carley was chilled through, and the tent felt so warm and cozy that she could scarcely believe it. She fastened the screen door, laced the flaps across it, except at the top, and then gave herself up to the lulling and comforting heat.

There were plans to perfect; innumerable things to remember; a car and accessories, horses, saddles, outfits to buy. Carley knew she should sit down at her table and write and figure, but she could not do it then.

For a long time she sat over the little stove, toasting her knees and hands, adding some chips now and then to the red coals. And her mind seemed a kaleidoscope of changing visions, thoughts, feelings. At last she undressed and blew out the lamp and went to bed.

Instantly a thick blackness seemed to enfold her and silence as of a dead world settled down upon her. Drowsy as she was, she could not close her eyes nor refrain from listening. Darkness and silence were tangible things. She felt them. And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm to still the tumult of her, to soothe and rest, to create thoughts she had never thought before. Rest was more than selfish indulgence. Loneliness was necessary to gain consciousness of the soul. Already far back in the past seemed Carley’s other life.

By and by the dead stillness awoke to faint sounds not before perceptible to her — a low, mournful sough of the wind in the cedars, then the faint far-distant note of a coyote, sad as the night and infinitely wild.

Days passed. Carley worked in the mornings with her hands and her brains. In the afternoons she rode and walked and climbed with a double object, to work herself into fit physical condition and to explore every nook and corner of her six hundred and forty acres.

Then what she had expected and deliberately induced by her efforts quickly came to pass. Just as the year before she had suffered excruciating pain from aching muscles, and saddle blisters, and walking blisters, and a very rending of her bones, so now she fell victim to them again. In sunshine and rain she faced the desert. Sunburn and sting of sleet were equally to be endured. And that abomination, the hateful blinding sandstorm, did not daunt her. But the weary hours of abnegation to this physical torture at least held one consoling recompense as compared with her experience of last year, and it was that there was no one interested to watch for her weaknesses and failures and blunders. She could fight it out alone.

Three weeks of this self-imposed strenuous training wore by before Carley was free enough from weariness and pain to experience other sensations. Her general health, evidently, had not been so good as when she had first visited Arizona. She caught cold and suffered other ills attendant upon an abrupt change of climate and condition. But doggedly she kept at her task. She rode when she should have been in bed; she walked when she should have ridden; she climbed when she should have kept to level ground. And finally by degrees so gradual as not to be noticed except in the sum of them she began to mend.

Meanwhile the construction of her house went on with uninterrupted rapidity. When the low, slanting, wide-eaved roof was completed Carley lost further concern about rainstorms. Let them come. When the plumbing was all in and Carley saw verification of Hoyle’s assurance that it would mean a gravity supply of water ample and continual, she lost her last concern as to the practicability of the work. That, and the earning of her endurance, seemed to bring closer a wonderful reward, still nameless and spiritual, that had been unattainable, but now breathed to her on the fragrant desert wind and in the brooding silence.

The time came when each afternoon’s ride or climb called to Carley with increasing delight. But the fact that she must soon reveal to Glenn her presence and transformation did not seem to be all the cause. She could ride without pain, walk without losing her breath, work without blistering her hands; and in this there was compensation. The building of the house that was to become a home, the development of water resources and land that meant the making of a ranch — these did not altogether constitute the anticipation of content. To be active, to accomplish things, to recall to mind her knowledge of manual training, of domestic science, of designing and painting, to learn to cook-these were indeed measures full of reward, but they were not all. In her wondering, pondering meditation she arrived at the point where she tried to assign to her love the growing fullness of her life. This, too, splendid and all-pervading as it was, she had to reject. Some exceedingly illusive and vital significance of life had insidiously come to Carley.

One afternoon, with the sky full of white and black rolling clouds and a cold wind sweeping through the cedars, she halted to rest and escape the chilling gale for a while. In a sunny place, under the lee of a gravel bank, she sought refuge. It was warm here because of the reflected sunlight and the absence of wind. The sand at the bottom of the bank held a heat that felt good to her cold hands. All about her and over her swept the keen wind, rustling the sage, seeping the sand, swishing the cedars, but she was out of it, protected and insulated. The sky above showed blue between the threatening clouds. There were no birds or living creatures in sight. Certainly the place had little of color or beauty or grace, nor could she see beyond a few rods. Lying there, without any particular reason that she was conscious of, she suddenly felt shot through and through with exhilaration.

Another day, the warmest of the spring so far, she rode a Navajo mustang she had recently bought from a passing trader; and at the farthest end of her section, in rough wooded and ridged ground she had not explored, she found a canyon with red walls and pine trees and gleaming streamlet and glades of grass and jumbles of rock. It was a miniature canyon, to be sure, only a quarter of a mile long, and as deep as the height of a lofty pine, and so narrow that it seemed only the width of a lane, but it had all the features of Oak Creek Canyon, and so sufficed for the exultant joy of possession. She explored it. The willow brakes and oak thickets harbored rabbits and birds. She saw the white flags of deer running away down the open. Up at the head where the canyon boxed she flushed a flock of wild turkeys. They ran like ostriches and flew like great brown chickens. In a cavern Carley found the den of a bear, and in another place the bleached bones of a steer.

She lingered here in the shaded depths with a feeling as if she were indeed lost to the world. These big brown and seamy-barked pines with their spreading gnarled arms and webs of green needles belonged to her, as also the tiny brook, the blue bells smiling out of the ferns, the single stalk of mescal on a rocky ledge.

Never had sun and earth, tree and rock, seemed a part of her being until then. She would become a sun-worshiper and a lover of the earth. That canyon had opened there to sky and light for millions of years; and doubtless it had harbored sheep herders, Indians, cliff dwellers, barbarians. She was a woman with white skin and a cultivated mind, but the affinity for them existed in her. She felt it, and that an understanding of it would be good for body and soul.

Another day she found a little grove of jack pines growing on a flat mesa- like bluff, the highest point on her land. The trees were small and close together, mingling their green needles overhead and their discarded brown ones on the ground. From here Carley could see afar to all points of the compass — the slow green descent to the south and the climb to the black-timbered distance; the ridged and canyoned country to the west, red vents choked with green and rimmed with gray; to the north the grand upflung mountain kingdom crowned with snow; and to the east the vastness of illimitable space, the openness and wildness, the chased and beaten mosaic of colored sands and rocks.

Again and again she visited this lookout and came to love its isolation, its command of wondrous prospects, its power of suggestion to her thoughts. She became a creative being, in harmony with the live things around her. The great life-dispensing sun poured its rays down upon her, as if to ripen her; and the earth seemed warm, motherly, immense with its all-embracing arms. She no longer plucked the bluebells to press to her face, but leaned to them. Every blade of gramma grass, with its shining bronze-tufted seed head, had significance for her. The scents of the desert began to have meaning for her. She sensed within her the working of a great leveling process through which supreme happiness would come.

June! The rich, thick, amber light, like a transparent reflection from some intense golden medium, seemed to float in the warm air. The sky became an azure blue. In the still noontides, when the bees hummed drowsily and the flies buzzed, vast creamy-white columnar clouds rolled up from the horizon, like colossal ships with bulging sails. And summer with its rush of growing things was at hand.

Carley rode afar, seeking in strange places the secret that eluded her. Only a few days now until she would ride down to Oak Creek Canyon! There was a low, singing melody of wind in the cedars. The earth became too beautiful in her magnified sight. A great truth was dawning upon her — that the sacrifice of what she had held as necessary to the enjoyment of life — that the strain of conflict, the labor of hands, the forcing of weary body, the enduring of pain, the contact with the earth — had served somehow to rejuvenate her blood, quicken her pulse, intensify her sensorial faculties, thrill her very soul, lead her into the realm of enchantment.

One afternoon a dull, lead-black-colored cinder knoll tempted her to explore its bare heights. She rode up until her mustang sank to his knees and could climb no farther. From there she essayed the ascent on foot. It took labor. But at last she gained the summit, burning, sweating, panting.

The cinder hill was an extinct crater of a volcano. In the center of it lay a deep bowl, wondrously symmetrical, and of a dark lusterless hue. Not a blade of grass was there, nor a plant. Carley conceived a desire to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she had overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an exhilarating emotion consumed her. If there were danger, it mattered not. She strode down with giant steps, she plunged, she started avalanches to ride them until they stopped, she leaped, and lastly she fell, to roll over the soft cinders to the pit.

There she lay. It seemed a comfortable resting place. The pit was scarcely six feet across. She gazed upward and was astounded. How steep was the rounded slope on all sides! There were no sides; it was a circle. She looked up at a round lake of deep translucent sky. Such depth of blue, such exquisite rare color! Carley imagined she could gaze through it to the infinite beyond.

She closed her eyes and rested. Soon the laboring of heart and breath calmed to normal, so that she could not hear them. Then she lay perfectly motionless. With eyes shut she seemed still to look, and what she saw was the sunlight through the blood and flesh of her eyelids. It was red, as rare a hue as the blue of sky. So piercing did it grow that she had to shade her eyes with her arm.

Again the strange, rapt glow suffused her body. Never in all her life had she been so absolutely alone. She might as well have been in her grave. She might have been dead to all earthy things and reveling in spirit in the glory of the physical that had escaped her in life. And she abandoned herself to this influence.

She loved these dry, dusty cinders; she loved the crater here hidden from all save birds; she loved the desert, the earth-above all, the sun. She was a product of the earth — a creation of the sun. She had been an infinitesimal atom of inert something that had quickened to life under the blazing magic of the sun. Soon her spirit would abandon her body and go on, while her flesh and bone returned to dust. This frame of hers, that carried the divine spark, belonged to the earth. She had only been ignorant, mindless, feelingless, absorbed in the seeking of gain, blind to the truth. She had to give. She had been created a woman; she belonged to nature; she was nothing save a mother of the future. She had loved neither Glenn Kilbourne nor life itself. False education, false standards, false environment had developed her into a woman who imagined she must feed her body on the milk and honey of indulgence.

She was abased now — woman as animal, though saved and uplifted by her power of immortality. Transcendental was her female power to link life with the future. The power of the plant seed, the power of the earth, the heat of the sun, the inscrutable creation-spirit of nature, almost the divinity of God — these were all hers because she was a woman. That was the great secret, aloof so long. That was what had been wrong with life — the woman blind to her meaning, her power, her mastery.

So she abandoned herself to the woman within her. She held out her arms to the blue abyss of heaven as if to embrace the universe. She was Nature. She kissed the dusty cinders and pressed her breast against the warm slope. Her heart swelled to bursting with a glorious and unutterable happiness.

That afternoon as the sun was setting under a gold-white scroll of cloud Carley got back to Deep Lake.

A familiar lounging figure crossed her sight. It approached to where she had dismounted. Charley, the sheep herder of Oak Creek!

“Howdy!” he drawled, with his queer smile. “So it was you-all who had this Deep Lake section?”

“Yes. And how are you, Charley?” she replied, shaking hands with him.

“Me? Aw, I’m tip-top. I’m shore glad you got this ranch. Reckon I’ll hit you for a job.”

“I’d give it to you. But aren’t you working for the Hutters?”

“Nope. Not any more. Me an’ Stanton had a row with them.”

How droll and dry he was! His lean, olive-brown face, with its guileless clear eyes and his lanky figure in blue jeans vividly recalled Oak Creek to Carley.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” returned she haltingly, somehow checked in her warm rush of thought. “Stanton? . . . Did he quit too?”

“Yep. He sure did.”

“What was the trouble?”

“Reckon because Flo made up to Kilbourne,” replied Charley, with a grin.

“Ah! I — I see,” murmured Carley. A blankness seemed to wave over her. It extended to the air without, to the sense of the golden sunset. It passed. What should she ask — what out of a thousand sudden flashing queries? “Are — are the Hutters back?”

“Sure. Been back several days. I reckoned Hoyle told you. Mebbe he didn’t know, though. For nobody’s been to town.”

“How is — how are they all?” faltered Carley. There was a strange wall here between her thought and her utterance.

“Everybody satisfied, I reckon,” replied Charley.

“Flo — how is she?” burst out Carley.

“Aw, Flo’s loony over her husband,” drawled Charley, his clear eyes on Carley’s.

“Husband!” she gasped.

“Sure. Flo’s gone an’ went an’ done what I swore on.”

“Who?” whispered Carley, and the query was a terrible blade piercing her heart.

“Now who’d you reckon on?” asked Charley, with his slow grin.

Carley’s lips were mute.

“Wal, it was your old beau thet you wouldn’t have,” returned Charley, as he gathered up his long frame, evidently to leave. “Kilbourne! He an’ Flo came back from the Tonto all hitched up.”

CHAPTER XII

VAGUE SENSE OF movement, of darkness, and of cold attended Carley’s consciousness for what seemed endless time.

A fall over rocks and a severe thrust from a sharp branch brought an acute appreciation of her position, if not of her mental state. Night had fallen. The stars were out. She had stumbled over a low ledge. Evidently she had wandered around, dazedly and aimlessly, until brought to her senses by pain. But for a gleam of campfires through the cedars she would have been lost. It did not matter. She was lost, anyhow. What was it that had happened?

Charley, the sheep herder! Then the thunderbolt of his words burst upon her, and she collapsed to the cold stones. She lay quivering from head to toe. She dug her fingers into the moss and lichen. “Oh, God, to think — after all — it happened!” she moaned. There had been a rending within her breast, as of physical violence, from which she now suffered anguish. There were a thousand stinging nerves. There was a mortal sickness of horror, of insupportable heartbreaking loss. She could not endure it. She could not live under it.

She lay there until energy supplanted shock. Then she rose to rush into the darkest shadows of the cedars, to grope here and there, hanging her head, wringing her hands, beating her breast. “It can’t be true,” she cried. “Not after my struggle — my victory — not now!” But there had been no victory. And now it was too late. She was betrayed, ruined, lost. That wonderful love had wrought transformation in her — and now havoc. Once she fell against the branches of a thick cedar that upheld her. The fragrance which had been sweet was now bitter. Life that had been bliss was now hateful! She could not keep still for a single moment.

Black night, cedars, brush, rocks, washes, seemed not to obstruct her. In a frenzy she rushed on, tearing her dress, her hands, her hair. Violence of some kind was imperative. All at once a pale gleaming open space, shimmering under the stars, lay before her. It was water. Deep Lake! And instantly a hideous terrible longing to destroy herself obsessed her. She had no fear. She could have welcomed the cold, slimy depths that meant oblivion. But could they really bring oblivion? A year ago she would have believed so, and would no longer have endured such agony. She had changed. A cursed strength had come to her, and it was this strength that now augmented her torture. She flung wide her arms to the pitiless white stars and looked up at them. “My hope, my faith, my love have failed me,” she whispered. “They have been a lie. I went through hell for them. And now I’ve nothing to live for.... Oh, let me end it all!”

If she prayed to the stars for mercy, it was denied her. Passionlessly they blazed on. But she could not kill herself. In that hour death would have been the only relief and peace left to her. Stricken by the cruelty of her fate, she fell back against the stones and gave up to grief. Nothing was left but fierce pain. The youth and vitality and intensity of her then locked arms with anguish and torment and a cheated, unsatisfied love. Strength of mind and body involuntarily resisted the ravages of this catastrophe. Will power seemed nothing, but the flesh of her, that medium of exquisite sensation, so full of life, so prone to joy, refused to surrender. The part of her that felt fought terribly for its heritage.

All night long Carley lay there. The crescent moon went down, the stars moved on their course, the coyotes ceased to wail, the wind died away, the lapping of the waves along the lake shore wore to gentle splash, the whispering of the insects stopped as the cold of dawn approached. The darkest hour fell — hour of silence, solitude, and melancholy, when the desert lay tranced, cold, waiting, mournful without light of moon or stars or sun.

In the gray dawn Carley dragged her bruised and aching body back to her tent, and, fastening the door, she threw off wet clothes and boots and fell upon her bed. Slumber of exhaustion came to her.

When she awoke the tent was light and the moving shadows of cedar boughs on the white canvas told that the sun was straight above. Carley ached as never before. A deep pang seemed invested in every bone. Her heart felt swollen out of proportion to its space in her breast. Her breathing came slow and it hurt. Her blood was sluggish. Suddenly she shut her eyes. She loathed the light of day. What was it that had happened?

Then the brutal truth flashed over her again, in aspect new, with all the old bitterness. For an instant she experienced a suffocating sensation as if the canvas had sagged under the burden of heavy air and was crushing her breast and heart. Then wave after wave of emotion swept over her. The storm winds of grief and passion were loosened again. And she writhed in her misery.

Some one knocked on her door. The Mexican woman called anxiously. Carley awoke to the fact that her presence was not solitary on the physical earth, even if her soul seemed stricken to eternal loneliness. Even in the desert there was a world to consider. Vanity that had bled to death, pride that had been crushed, availed her not here. But something else came to her support. The lesson of the West had been to endure, not to shirk — to face an issue, not to hide. Carley got up, bathed, dressed, brushed and arranged her dishevelled hair. The face she saw in the mirror excited her amaze and pity. Then she went out in answer to the call for dinner. But she could not eat. The ordinary functions of life appeared to be deadened..

The day happened to be Sunday, and therefore the workmen were absent. Carley had the place to herself. How the half-completed house mocked her I She could not bear to look at it. What use could she make of it now? Flo Hutter had become the working comrade of Glenn Kilbourne, the mistress of his cabin. She was his wife and she would be the mother of his children.

That thought gave birth to the darkest hour of Carley Burch’s life. She became possessed as by a thousand devils. She became merely a female robbed of her mate. Reason was not in her, nor charity, nor justice. All that was abnormal in human nature seemed coalesced in her, dominant, passionate, savage, terrible. She hated with an incredible and insane ferocity. In the seclusion of her tent, crouched on her bed, silent, locked, motionless, she yet was the embodiment of all terrible strife and storm in nature. Her heart was a maelstrom and would have whirled and sucked down to hell all the beings that were men. Her soul was a bottomless gulf, filled with the gales and the fires of jealousy, superhuman to destroy.

That fury consumed all her remaining strength, and from the relapse she sank to sleep.

Morning brought the inevitable reaction. However long her other struggles, this monumental and final one would be brief. She realized that, yet was unable to understand how it could be possible, unless shock or death or mental aberration ended the fight. An eternity of emotion lay back between this awakening of intelligence and the hour of her fall into the clutches of primitive passion.

That morning she faced herself in the mirror and asked, “Now — what do I owe you?” It was not her voice that answered. It was beyond her. But it said: “Go on! You are cut adrift. You are alone. You owe none but yourself! . . . Go on! Not backward — not to the depths — but up — upward!”

She shuddered at such a decree. How impossible for her! All animal, all woman, all emotion, how could she live on the cold, pure heights? Yet she owed something intangible and inscrutable to herself. Was it the thing that woman lacked physically, yet contained hidden in her soul? An element of eternal spirit to rise! Because of heartbreak and ruin and irreparable loss must she fall? Was loss of love and husband and children only a test? The present hour would be swallowed in the sum of life’s trials. She could not go back. She would not go down. There was wrenched from her tried and sore heart an unalterable and unquenchable decision — to make her own soul prove the evolution of woman. Vessel of blood and flesh she might be, doomed by nature to the reproduction of her kind, but she had in her the supreme spirit and power to carry on the progress of the ages — the climb of woman out of the darkness.

Carley went out to the workmen. The house should be completed and she would live in it. Always there was the stretching and illimitable desert to look at, and the grand heave upward of the mountains. Hoyle was full of zest for the practical details of the building. He saw nothing of the havoc wrought in her. Nor did the other workmen glance more than casually at her. In this Carley lost something of a shirking fear that her loss and grief were patent to all eyes.

That afternoon she mounted the most spirited of the mustangs she had purchased from the Indians. To govern him and stick on him required all her energy. And she rode him hard and far, out across the desert, across mile after mile of cedar forest, clear to the foothills. She rested there, absorbed in gazing desertward, and upon turning back again, she ran him over the level stretches. Wind and branch threshed her seemingly to ribbons. Violence seemed good for her. A fall had no fear for her now. She reached camp at dusk, hot as fire, breathless and strengthless. But she had earned something. Such action required constant use of muscle and mind. If need be she could drive both to the very furthermost limit. She could ride and ride — until the future, like the immensity of the desert there, might swallow her. She changed her clothes and rested a while. The call to supper found her hungry. In this fact she discovered mockery of her grief. Love was not the food of life. Exhausted nature’s need of rest and sleep was no respecter of a woman’s emotion.

Next day Carley rode northward, wildly and fearlessly, as if this conscious activity was the initiative of an endless number of rides that were to save her. As before the foothills called her, and she went on until she came to a very high one.

Carley dismounted from her panting horse, answering the familiar impulse to attain heights by her own effort.

“Am I only a weakling?” she asked herself. “Only a creature mined by the fever of the soul! . . . Thrown from one emotion to another? Never the same. Yearning, suffering, sacrificing, hoping, and changing — forever the same! What is it that drives me? A great city with all its attractions has failed to help me realize my life. So have friends failed. So has the world. What can solitude and grandeur do? . . . All this obsession of mine — all this strange feeling for simple elemental earthly things likewise will fail me. Yet I am driven. They would call me a mad woman.”

It took Carley a full hour of slow body-bending labor to climb to the summit of that hill. High, steep, and rugged, it resisted ascension. But at last she surmounted it and sat alone on the heights, with naked eyes, and an unconscious prayer on her lips.

What was it that had happened? Could there be here a different answer from that which always mocked her?

She had been a girl, not accountable for loss of mother, for choice of home and education. She had belonged to a class. She had grown to womanhood in it. She had loved, and in loving had escaped the evil of her day, if not its taint. She had lived only for herself. Conscience had awakened — but, alas! too late. She had overthrown the sordid, self-seeking habit of life; she had awakened to real womanhood; she had fought the insidious spell of modernity and she had defeated it; she had learned the thrill of taking root in new soil, the pain and joy of labor, the bliss of solitude, the promise of home and love and motherhood. But she had gathered all these marvelous things to her soul too late for happiness.

“Now it is answered,” she declared aloud. “That is what has happened? . . . And all that is past. . . . Is there anything left? If so what?”

She flung her query out to the winds of the desert. But the desert seemed too gray, too vast, too remote, too aloof, too measureless. It was not concerned with her little life. Then she turned to the mountain kingdom.

It seemed overpoweringly near at hand. It loomed above her to pierce the fleecy clouds. It was only a stupendous upheaval of earth-crust, grown over at the base by leagues and leagues of pine forest, belted along the middle by vast slanting zigzag slopes of aspen, rent and riven toward the heights into canyon and gorge, bared above to cliffs and corners of craggy rock, whitened at the sky-piercing peaks by snow. Its beauty and sublimity were lost upon Carley now; she was concerned with its travail, its age, its endurance, its strength. And she studied it with magnified sight.

What incomprehensible subterranean force had swelled those immense slopes and lifted the huge bulk aloft to the clouds? Cataclysm of nature — the expanding or shrinking of the earth-vast volcanic action under the surface! Whatever it had been, it had left its expression of the travail of the universe. This mountain mass had been hot gas when flung from the parent sun, and now it was solid granite. What had it endured in the making? What indeed had been its dimensions before the millions of years of its struggle?

Eruption, earthquake, avalanche, the attrition of glacier, the erosion of water, the cracking of frost, the weathering of rain and wind and snow — these it had eternally fought and resisted in vain, yet still it stood magnificent, frowning, battle-scarred and undefeated. Its sky-piercing peaks were as cries for mercy to the Infinite. This old mountain realized its doom. It had to go, perhaps to make room for a newer and better kingdom. But it endured because of the spirit of nature. The great notched circular line of rock below and between the peaks, in the body of the mountains, showed where in ages past the heart of living granite had blown out, to let loose on all the near surrounding desert the streams of black lava and the hills of black cinders. Despite its fringe of green it was hoary with age. Every looming gray-faced wall, massive and sublime, seemed a monument of its mastery over time. Every deep-cut canyon, showing the skeleton ribs, the caverns and caves, its avalanche-carved slides, its long, fan-shaped, spreading taluses, carried conviction to the spectator that it was but a frail bit of rock, that its life was little and brief, that upon it had been laid the merciless curse of nature. Change! Change must unknit the very knots of the center of the earth. So its strength lay in the sublimity of its defiance. It meant to endure to the last rolling grain of sand. It was a dead mountain of rock, without spirit, yet it taught a grand lesson to the seeing eye.

Life was only a part, perhaps an infinitely small part of nature’s plan. Death and decay were just as important to her inscrutable design. The uni- verse had not been created for life, ease, pleasure, and happiness of a man creature developed from lower organisms. If nature’s secret was the developing of a spirit through all time, Carley divined that she had it within her. So the present meant little.

“I have no right to be unhappy,” concluded Carley. “I had no right to Glenn Kilbourne. I failed him. In that I failed myself. Neither life nor nature failed me — nor love. It is no longer a mystery. Unhappiness is only a change. Happiness itself is only change. So what does it matter? The great thing is to see life — to understand — to feel — to work — to fight — to endure. It is not my fault I am here. But it is my fault if I leave this strange old earth the poorer for my failure. . . . I will no longer be little. I will find strength. I will endure. . . . I still have eyes, ears, nose, taste. I can feel the sun, the wind, the nip of frost. Must I slink like a craven because I’ve lost the love of one man? Must I hate Flo Hutter because she will make Glenn happy? Never! ... All of this seems better so, because through it I am changed. I might have lived on, a selfish clod!”

Carley turned from the mountain kingdom and faced her future with the profound and sad and far-seeing look that had come with her lesson. She knew what to give. Sometime and somewhere there would be recompense. She would hide her wound in the faith that time would heat it. And the ordeal she set herself, to prove her sincerity and strength, was to ride down to Oak Creek Canyon.

Carley did not wait many days. Strange how the old vanity held her back until something of the havoc in her face should be gone!

One morning she set out early, riding her best horse, and she took a sheep trail across country. The distance by road was much farther. The June morning was cool, sparkling, fragrant. Mocking birds sang from the topmost twig of cedars; doves cooed in the pines; sparrow hawks sailed low over the open grassy patches. Desert primroses showed their rounded pink clusters in sunny places, and here and there burned the carmine of Indian paint-brush. Jack rabbits and cotton-tails bounded and scampered away through the sage. The desert had life and color and movement this June day. And as always there was the dry fragrance on the air.

Her mustang had been inured to long and consistent travel over the desert. Her weight was nothing to him and he kept to the swinging lope for miles. As she approached Oak Creek Canyon, however, she drew him to a trot, and then a walk. Sight of the deep red-walled and green-floored canyon was a shock to her.

The trail came out on the road that led to Ryan’s sheep camp, at a point several miles west of the cabin where Carley had encountered Haze Ruff. She remembered the curves and stretches, and especially the steep jump-off where the road led down off the rim into the canyon. Here she dismounted and walked. From the foot of this descent she knew every rod of the way would be familiar to her, and, womanlike, she wanted to turn away and fly from them. But she kept on and mounted again at level ground.

The murmur of the creek suddenly assailed her ears — sweet, sad, memorable, strangely powerful to hurt. Yet the sound seemed of long ago. Down here summer had advanced. Rich thick foliage overspread the winding road of sand. Then out of the shade she passed into the sunnier regions of isolated pines. Along here she had raced Calico with Glenn’s bay; and here she had caught him, and there was the place she had fallen. She halted a moment under the pine tree where Glenn had held her in his arms. Tears dimmed her eyes. If only she had known then the truth, the reality! But regrets were useless.

By and by a craggy red wall loomed above the trees, and its pipe-organ conformation was familiar to Carley. She left the road and turned to go down to the creek. Sycamores and maples and great bowlders, and mossy ledges overhanging the water, and a huge sentinel pine marked the spot where she and Glenn had eaten their lunch that last day. Her mustang splashed into the clear water and halted to drink. Beyond, through the trees, Carley saw the sunny red-earthed clearing that was Glenn’s farm. She looked, and fought herself, and bit her quivering lip until she tasted blood. Then she rode out into the open.

The whole west side of the canyon had been cleared and cultivated and plowed. But she gazed no farther. She did not want to see the spot where she had given Glenn his ring and had parted from him. She rode on. If she could pass West Fork she believed her courage would rise to the completion of this ordeal. Places were what she feared. Places that she had loved while blindly believing she hated! There the narrow gap of green and blue split the looming red wall. She was looking into West Fork. Up there stood the cabin. How fierce a pang rent her breast! She faltered at the crossing of the branch stream, and almost surrendered. The water murmured, the leaves rustled, the bees hummed, the birds sang — all with some sad sweetness that seemed of the past.

Then the trail leading up West Fork was like a barrier. She saw horse tracks in it. Next she descried boot tracks the shape of which was so well-remembered that it shook her heart. There were fresh tracks in the sand, pointing in the direction of the Lodge. Ah! that was where Glenn lived now. Carley strained at her will to keep it fighting her memory. The glory and the dream were gone!

A touch of spur urged her mustang into a gallop. The splashing ford of the creek — the still, eddying pool beyond — the green orchards — the white lacy waterfall — and Lolomi Lodge!

Nothing had altered. But Carley seemed returning after many years. Slowly she dismounted — slowly she climbed the porch steps. Was there no one at home? Yet the vacant doorway, the silence — something attested to the knowledge of Carley’s presence. Then suddenly Mrs. Hutter fluttered out with Flo behind her.

“You dear girl — I’m so glad!” cried Mrs. Hutter, her voice trembling.

“I’m glad to see you, too,” said Carley, bending to receive Mrs. Hutter’s embrace. Carley saw dim eyes — the stress of agitation, but no surprise.

“Oh, Carley!” burst out the Western girl, with voice rich and full, yet tremulous.

“Flo, I’ve come to wish you happiness,” replied Carley, very low.

Was it the same Flo? This seemed more of a woman — strange now — white and strained — beautiful, eager, questioning. A cry of gladness burst from her. Carley felt herself enveloped in strong close clasp-and then a warm, quick kiss of joy, It shocked her, yet somehow thrilled. Sure was the welcome here. Sure was the strained situation, also, but the voice rang too glad a note for Carley. It touched her deeply, yet she could not understand. She had not measured the depth of Western friendship.

“Have you — seen Glenn?” queried Flo, breathlessly.

“Oh no, indeed not,” replied Carley, slowly gaining composure. The nervous agitation of these women had stilled her own. “I just rode up the trail. Where is he?”

“He was here — a moment ago,” panted Flo. “Oh, Carley, we sure are locoed. . . . Why, we only heard an hour ago — that you were at Deep Lake. . . . Charley rode in. He told us. . . . I thought my heart would break. Poor Glenn! When he heard it. . . . But never mind me. Jump your horse and run to West Fork!”

The spirit of her was like the strength of her arms as she hurried Carley across the porch and shoved her down the steps.

“Climb on and run, Carley,” cried Flo. “If you only knew how glad he’ll be that you came!”

Carley leaped into the saddle and wheeled the mustang. But she had no answer for the girl’s singular, almost wild exultance. Then like a shot the spirited mustang was off down the lane. Carley wondered with swelling heart. Was her coming such a wondrous surprise — so unexpected and big in generosity — something that would make Kilbourne as glad as it had seemed to make Flo? Carley thrilled to this assurance.

Down the lane she flew. The red walls blurred and the sweet wind whipped her face. At the trail she swerved the mustang, but did not check his gait. Under the great pines he sped and round the bulging wall. At the rocky incline leading to the creek she pulled the fiery animal to a trot. How low and clear the water! As Carley forded it fresh cool drops splashed into her face. Again she spurred her mount and again trees and walls rushed by. Up and down the yellow bits of trail — on over the brown mats of pine needles — until there in the sunlight shone the little gray log cabin with a tall form standing in the door. One instant the canyon tilted on end for Carley and she was riding into the blue sky. Then some magic of soul sustained her, so that she saw clearly. Reaching the cabin she reined in her mustang.

“Hello, Glenn! Look who’s here!” she cried, not wholly failing of gayety.

He threw up his sombrero.

“Whoopee!” he yelled, in stentorian voice that rolled across the canyon and bellowed in hollow echo and then clapped from wall to wall. The unexpected Western yell, so strange from Glenn, disconcerted Carley. Had he only answered her spirit of greeting? Had hers rung false?

But he was coming to her. She had seen the bronze of his face turn to white. How gaunt and worn he looked. Older he appeared, with deeper lines and whiter hair. His jaw quivered.

“Carley Burch, so it was you?” he queried, hoarsely.

“Glenn, I reckon it was,” she replied. “I bought your Deep Lake ranch site. I came back too late . . . . But it is never too late for some things. . . . I’ve come to wish you and Flo all the happiness in the world — and to say we must be friends.”

The way he looked at her made her tremble. He strode up beside the mustang, and he was so tall that his shoulder came abreast of her. He placed a big warm hand on hers, as it rested, ungloved, on the pommel of the saddle.

“Have you seen Flo?” he asked.

“I just left her. It was funny — the way she rushed me off after you. As if there weren’t two—”

Was it Glenn’s eyes or the movement of his hand that checked her utterance? His gaze pierced her soul. His hand slid along her arm to her waist — around it. Her heart seemed to burst.

“Kick your feet out of the stirrups,” he ordered.

Instinctively she obeyed. Then with a strong pull he hauled her half out of the saddle, pellmell into his arms. Carley had no resistance. She sank limp, in an agony of amaze. Was this a dream? Swift and hard his lips met hers — and again — and again. . . .

“Oh, my God! — Glenn, are — you — mad?” she whispered, almost swooning.

“Sure — I reckon I am,” he replied, huskily, and pulled her all the way out of the saddle.

Carley would have fallen but for his support. She could not think. She was all instinct. Only the amaze — the sudden horror — drifted — faded as before fires of her heart!

“Kiss me!” he commanded.

She would have kissed him if death were the penalty. How his face blurred in her dimmed sight! Was that a strange smile? Then he held her back from him.

“Carley — you came to wish Flo and me happiness?” he asked.

“Oh, yes — yes. . . . Pity me, Glenn — let me go. I meant well. . . . I should — never have come.”

“Do you love me?” he went on, with passionate, shaking clasp.

“God help me — I do — I do! . . . And now it will kill me!”

“What did that damned fool Charley tell you?”

The strange content of his query, the trenchant force of it, brought her upright, with sight suddenly cleared. Was this giant the tragic Glenn who had strode to her from the cabin door?

“Charley told me — you and Flo — were married,” she whispered.

“You didn’t believe him!” returned Glenn.

She could no longer speak. She could only see her lover, as if transfigured, limned dark against the looming red wall.

“That was one of Charley’s queer jokes. I told you to beware of him. Flo is married, yes — and very happy. . . . I’m unutterably happy, too — but I’m not married. Lee Stanton was the lucky bridegroom. . . . Carley, the moment I saw you I knew you had come back to me.”

THE END

Wild Horse Mesa

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER I

THE MYSTERY AND insurmountable nature of Wild Horse Mesa had usurped many a thoughtful hour of Chane Weymer’s lonely desert life in Utah. Every wandering rider had a strange story to tell about this vast tableland. But Chane had never before seen it from so lofty and commanding a height as this to which Toddy Nokin, the Piute, had led him; nor had there ever before been so impelling a fascination as that engendered by the Indian.

For the Piute claimed that it was the last refuge of the great wild stallion, Panquitch, and his band.

Panquitch! He had been chased out of Nevada by wild-horse wranglers, of whom Chane was not the last; Mormons had driven the stallion across Utah, where in the canyoned fastnesses south of the Henry Mountains he had disappeared.

Chane’s gaze left the mesa to fall upon the swarthy lineaments of his companion. Could he place credence in Toddy Nokin? The Piutes loved fine horses and were not given to confiding in white hunters. It occurred to Chane, however, that he had befriended this Indian.

“Toddy — you sure Panquitch — on Wild Horse Mesa?” queried Chane, in his labored mixture of Piute and Navajo.

The Indian had the solemn look of one whose confidence had not been well received.

“How you know?” went on Chane, eagerly.

Toddy Nokin made a slow, sweeping gesture toward the far northern end of Wild Horse Mesa, almost lost in dim purple distance. The motion of arm and hand had a singular character, never seen in gesture save that of an Indian. It suggested deviations of trail, deep canyons to cross, long distance to cover. Then Toddy Nokin spoke in his own tongue, with the simplicity of a chief whose word was beyond doubt. Chane’s interpretation might not have been wholly correct, but it made the blood dance in his veins. Panquitch had been seen to lead his band up over the barren trailless rock benches that led to the towering wall of the unscalable mesa. These wild horses left no tracks. They had not returned. Keen-eyed Piutes had watched the only possible descents over the red benches. Panquitch was on top of the mesa, free with the big-horn sheep and the eagles. The fact wrung profound respect and admiration from Chane Weymer, yet fired him with passionate resolve. For a long time that wild mesa had haunted him. The reason for it, the alluring call of the wandering lofty wall, now seemed easily understood.

“Panquitch, I’ve got track of you at last!” he exclaimed, exultantly.

There awoke in Chane then something of abandon to what he had always longed for — a wild freedom without work or restraint or will other than his own wandering fancies. Indeed, his range life had been rough and hard enough, but up until the last year he had been under obligation to his father and other employers, and always there had been a powerful sense of duty and a love for his younger brother. Chess. These had acted as barriers to his natural instincts. Chess was eighteen now and considered himself very much of a man, so much so that he resented Chane’s guardianship.

“Boy Blue doesn’t need his big brother any more,” soliloquized Chane, half sadly, remembering Chess’s impatience at being watched over. Time, indeed, had passed swiftly. Chess was almost a man. It seemed only a short while since he had been a baby boy, back there in Colorado, where he had been born. Chane reflected on his own age — thirty-four, and on those past years when this beloved brother had been a little child. Those early days in Colorado had been happy ones. The Weymers were a family of close ties. Chane’s father had been a ranchman, cattleman, and horse- dealer. It had been on the prairie slopes of Colorado, under the eastern shadows of the Rockies, that Chane had learned what was now his calling — the hunting of wild horses. In time he sought wilder country — Nevada, Utah — and his brother Chess, true to childish worship, had followed him. There had been a couple of years in which the boy had been amenable; then had come the inevitable breaking out. Not that Chess had been bad, Chane reflected, but just that he wanted to be his own boss. Chane had left him, several weeks ago, back across the rivers and the stony brakes of that Utah wilderness, in the little Mormon town of St. George. Chess had begged to go on this expedition to the Piute country, where Chane had come to buy a bunch of Indian mustangs. Here Chane’s musings and reflections were interrupted by Toddy Nokin, who said he would go down to his camp.

“No want leave daughter alone,” he added, significantly. Chane was reminded that one of the horse-wranglers who had fallen in with him — Manerube by name — was not a man he would care to trust.

The Indian’s moccasined feet padded softly on the rocks. Presently Chane was left to himself, and his gaze and mind returned to the object that had caused him to scale the heights — Wild Horse Mesa.

This early September day had been one of storm, clearing toward late afternoon, leaving cloud pageants in the sky to west and north. At the moment there seemed no promise of color — something which Chane always looked for in the sky. All the northland was obscured in paling clouds, leaden in hue.

Chane was at loss to understand the spell which had fascinated him since his first sight of Wild Horse Mesa. It was as if he had been arrested by a prophetic voice that bade him give heed. He could not grasp the vague intimation as a warning; it was rather a call which urged him to come, to seek, to labor, to find. Chane thought of the wild stallion, Panquitch, and though he thrilled, he could not satisfy himself that pursuit of the great horse wholly accounted for this strange beckoning.

A broken mass of gray storm cloud had lodged against the west end of the mesa, where the precipitous red wall towered above the waved area of wind-worn rock. Apparently the cloud hung there, as if against an obstruction, yet it appeared to change form. Chane gazed as he had a thousand times, in idle or wondering moments, yet there was a subtle difference now, either in the aspect of this mesa or in himself. That made him keen-eyed as an Indian and unusually thoughtful.

But it seemed only a vast landscape, grand because of outline and distance, yet at the moment dull and somber. Still, was it not hiding something? The lower edge of the broken mass of cloud extended far down the wall; in some places the top of the mesa was obscured; above the cloud and all to the west was clear. The sun had gone under the huge dark slope that climbed from the undulating canyon country to the mountain.

The cloud above Wild Horse Mesa broke in the center and spread slowly, while the gray color almost imperceptibly changed. Between the mesa and the mountain slope sank a vast deep notch, through which V-shaped portal the ends of the earth seemed visible. Low down the distant rock surfaces were gold; above them the belt of sky was yellow. Canopying this band of pale sky stretched a roof of cloud, an extension of that canopy enshrouding the mesa, and it had begun to be affected by the sinking sun. At first the influence was gradual; then suddenly occurred swift changes, beautiful and evanescent — white clouds turning to rose, with centers of opal, like a coral shell.

The moment came when Chane saw the west wall of Wild Horse Mesa veiled in lilac haze. He was watching a phenomenon of nature that uplifted him, that indefinably troubled him. The flat roof of the cloud took on a fiery vermilion; the west end of the shroud became a flame; and mesa, sky, mountain slope, and canyon depths seemed transfigured with a glory that was not of earth. It held Chane through its stages of infinite beauty — only a few moments of evanescent power — and then the burning fire changed to the afterglow tones of gold, silver, violet. Last came a single instant when the whole world of rock lay under a mantle of purple. When that faded there spread the encroaching of the shades of twilight.

Chane left his lofty perch and descended rapidly over the smooth rock benches, zigzagging the curved slopes, and at last the cedared ridge above Beaver Canyon. Twilight yielded to night; the babble of the brook broke the desert stillness. Then a bright camp fire shining through darkness changed the vague spell that had come to him upon the heights.

The camp fire lighted up the weird cedar trees and the dark forms of men standing in a half-circle. The scene was natural, one Chane had long been accustomed to, yet just now it struck him singularly. He halted out there in the darkness. Some one of the men was talking, but, owing to the rush of the brook, Chane could not distinguish any words. Several Piutes stood grouped near the fire, wild, picturesque figures, lean, ragged, disheveled, with their high-crowned sombreros.

Chane moved on again, not intentionally walking stealthily, yet approaching quite closely to the camp fire before his boot crunched on a stone. He saw Manerube start and cease his earnest talk to the three men who had been listening intently. They too relaxed their attention. It struck Chane that his abrupt arrival had interrupted a colloquy not intended for his sharing. If he had not been deliberately watching the group he would not have observed how obvious this was. But he had marked the quick change and it roused his suspicions. What were these men up to?

They had all been strangers to him before this visit to the Piute country. Three of them had ridden into his camp one night a few weeks before. They claimed to be wild-horse wranglers on the way across the rivers, and offered their services in exchange for camp rations, of which they were short. Chane had been glad to have them help him collect and run the mustangs he was buying to sell to the Mormons, and he could not find any fault with them. Manerube, however, who had joined them recently, was not a man to inspire Chane’s liking. He had been loud in acclaiming himself the best wild-horse wrangler in Utah; he was over-bearing in manner and he was brutal to horses; and lastly he had made trouble with the Piutes.

Chane strode into the camp fire circle with the thought in mind that he might be moody and unreasonable, but he would keep a sharper eye on these unsolicited comrades.

Manerube had his back to the camp fire. He had a rider’s figure, long, lithe, round of limb. As Chane came up Manerube turned to disclose the sunburnt face of a man under thirty, bold, striking, sardonic. It bore lines not easy to read, and its gleaming light eyes and curling blond mustache seemed to hide much. Manerube claimed to be Mormon. Chane had rather doubted this, though the fellow was well educated and had a peculiar dominating manner.

“Well, how was the little squaw sweetheart tonight?” he drawled at Chane. One of the other men snickered.

Chane had good-naturedly stood a considerable amount of this scarcely veiled badinage. He had not been above being friendly and pleasant to Toddy Nokin’s dusky-eyed daughter — a friendliness Manerube had misconstrued.

“See here, Manerube,” replied Chane, at last out of patience, “Sosie is not my sweetheart.”

Manerube laughed derisively and seemed more than usually antagonistic.

“Bah! You can’t fool a Mormon when it comes to women, white or red,” he said.

“I’ve lived a good deal among Mormons,” returned Chane. “I never noticed they talked insultingly about women.”

Manerube’s eyes wavered for a second, yet something was added to their pale gleam.

“Insult a squaw!” he ejaculated, coarsely. “Say, your bluff don’t work.”

“It’s no bluff. I don’t make bluffs,” replied Chane, deliberately. “Sosie’s nothing to me. And I’m telling you not to hint otherwise.”

“Weymer, I don’t believe you,” returned Manerube.

Chane took a quick long stride toward the other. He rather welcomed this turn to the situation.

“Do you call me a liar?” he demanded.

There was a moment’s silence. The Piutes took note of Chane’s sharp voice. Manerube’s comrades backed away slowly. He made a quick angry gesture that was wholly instinctive. Then he controlled his natural feeling. His face showed sudden restraint, though it remained just as bold.

“If Sosie’s nothing to you, why’d you tell her father to keep her away from me?” demanded Manerube, avoiding Chane’s direct question. “She’s only a squaw, and one white man’s the same as another to her.”

“Sosie likes white men. So do all these Indian girls,” said Chane. “They’re simple, primitive children of the desert. That’s why so many of them are degraded by such men as you, Manerube.”

Manerube evidently held himself under strong control because of some feeling other than fear. The red faded out of his face and his eyes glared in the camp fire light.

“Chane, I heard about you over in Bluff,” he burst out, in scorn. “And now I’m not wondering whether it’s true or not.”

“What’d you hear?” queried Chane, calmly.

“That you’d been a Navajo squaw-man.”

Chane laughed at the absurdity of that and replied: “No, I never married a Navajo. But I’ll tell you what. I’d sooner marry a girl like Sosie and be decent to her, than treat her as you would.”

Manerube eyed Chane guardedly and studiously.

“Well,” he said, finally, “I’ll treat Sosie as I like.”

“Not while you’re in my camp,” flashed Chane. “I didn’t ask your help or your company. I don’t like either. You take your horses and pack, and get out, pronto.”

“I’ll think it over tonight,” replied Manerube.

His impudent assurance irritated Chane more than his insults. Moreover, the intent faces of the three comrades were not lost upon Chane. These men had laughed and joked on a former occasion when Chane had voiced his objection to Manerube’s actions. They were different now. There was something wrong here. It did not need to be voiced aloud that these four men understood one another. At the same time he grasped the subtle fact that they were not unaware of his reputation. Chane’s lone-wolf ways and his championship of Indian maidens, his hard fist and swift gun, forced a respect on the wild-horse ranges of Utah and Nevada.

“Manerube, I reckon you don’t want any advice from me,” declared Chane. “But I’ll tell you — don’t let me run into you with Sosie.”

Chane looked into Manerube’s eyes with the same deliberate intent that had characterized his speech. It was the moment which fixed hatred between him and this self-called Mormon. Chane wanted to read what he had to expect from the man. And his first impression had been right — Manerube was not what he pretended to be and he was dangerous. Sooner or later the issue would be forced. Chane did not care how soon that would come. He had lived a good many years among hard men of the open ranges, and it was not likely that he would be surprised. Nevertheless, as he turned away from the group he watched them out of the tail of his eye. He carried his roll of bedding away from the camp, out under a thick cedar tree, where the night shadow was deep.

Snug in his blankets, he stretched his long limbs and felt grateful that slumber would soon come. But he was too sanguine, for sleep held aloof. Somehow the day had been different from others. It had left him full of resentment toward Manerube and his associates, worried despite his fearlessness. Most significant of all, however, was a sense of dissatisfaction with his life.

If Manerube stayed longer at this camp and persisted in his attentions to the little Piute girl — which things he would almost certainly do — there was going to be trouble. Chane had settled this in his mind before he gave Manerube to understand what would happen. But as a matter of fact Chane did not know exactly what would happen. He had concluded that the man was dangerous, but not out in the open face to face; and Chane decided to force a fight at the slightest opportunity and let Manerube’s response settle how serious it would be.

Then Chane pondered over the other men who had attached themselves to him. Day by day, and especially since the arrival of Manerube, they had grown less welcome in his camp. They called themselves Jim Horn, Hod Slack, and Bud McPherson — names that in this wilderness did not mean anything. Chane was not well acquainted on the south side of the San Juan River, having been there only once before. During that time he had hunted horses among the Navajos. The Piutes did not know these men well, and that in itself was thought-provoking. Horn and Slack had not appeared to exhibit any force of character, but McPherson had showed himself to be a man of tremendous energy and spirit. If he had not been so closed-mouthed about himself, so watchful, and manifestly burdened with secret ponderings, Chane would have liked him. Chane brought all his observation and deduction to bear on the quartet, and came to the conclusion that the most definite thing he could grasp was their attitude of watchful waiting. Waiting for what! It could only be for him to get together all the horses he meant to buy from the Piutes. There was nothing else for them to wait for. Wild-horse hunting had not developed into a profitable business, yet it had sustained a few straggling bands of horse thieves. Chane almost convinced himself that these unwelcome wranglers in his camp belonged to such evil fraternity, and that aroused his resentment to anger. But he must be cautious. He was alone and could not expect help from the few Piutes in the vicinity. It seemed wisest to delay completing his horse deal with the Indians.

“Pretty mess I’m in,” he muttered to himself, disparagingly. “This horse-hunting is no good.” And he reflected that years of it had made him what he was — only a wild-horse wrangler, poor and with no prospects of any profit. Long he had dreamed of a ranch where he could breed great horses, of a home and perhaps a family. Vain, idle dreams! The romance, the thrilling adventure, the constant change of scene and action, characteristic of the hard life of a wild-horse hunter, had called to him in his youth and fastened upon him in his manhood. What else could he do now? He had become a lone hunter, a wanderer of the wild range, and it was not likely that he could settle down to the humdrum toil of a farmer or cattleman.

“I might — if — if — —” he whispered, and looked up through the dark foliage of the cedar to the white blinking stars. In the shadow, and in the pale starlight, there seemed to hover a vague sweet face that sometimes haunted his inner vision. Bitterly he shut his eyes. It was a delusion. He was no longer a boy. The best in his life seemed past, gone, useless. What folly to dream of a woman! And suddenly into his mind flashed Manerube’s scathing repetition of gossip spoken in Bluff. Squaw man!

“All because I befriended a Navajo girl — as I’ve done here for Sosie!” he muttered. It galled Chane. Suppose that rumor got to the ears of his father and mother, still living at the old home in Colorado! What would his little brother Chess think? Chane still cherished the family pride. If he had not made anything of his life it had not been because he was not well born, or had lacked home influences and schooling. It shocked him to realize how far he had gone. Few people in that wild country would rightly interpret attention or succor to an Indian girl. Chane had never cared in the least what had been said about him or his ways. He had been blunt in speech and forceful in action toward those brutes who betrayed the simple-hearted, primitive Indian maidens. And these cowards had retaliated by spreading poisonous rumor. What little justice there was in it! He knew deep in his soul how honest and fair he had been. But he had befriended more than one little Indian girl like Sosie, and ridden with them and talked with them, interested, amused, and sometimes in his lonely moods grateful even for their feminine company. Chane could not see how that had been wrong. Yet these Indian girls were only too quick to care for a white man — good or bad. They were little savages of the desert. Chane realized where he had given wrong impression of himself, perhaps to them, certainly to the white men who had run across him among the Indians.

Chane endured a bitter hour of reflection and self-analysis. A morbid resignation seemed about to fix its dark lichen upon his heart. What folly these dreams! How futile to love a horse! Was even the grand Panquitch on Wild Horse Mesa worth the time and toil and pang that it would take to capture him, if such were possible? What hope lay in the future? Why not forget his absurd dreams, his strange belief in the romance that would come to him, his parents and the little brother? Why not drift as the tumbleweed of the desert, where the wind listed? Why not find some solace in little Sosie’s dusky eyes?

But with that thought a revolt stirred in Chane, a fight against the insidious weakness which would make him ashamed of himself. Whatever he had done and however he had failed of the thing people called success, he had remained a man. He clung to the idea. Evil tongues could not hurt him. His life, profitless as it was, still had wonderful charm. He was free, healthy, active; he found that the wild desert meant infinitely more to him than he had known; he had loved a horse, and he could love another. There was always his brother to return to. What did anything else matter? Thus the dark mood was beaten down and conquered.

The cool wind had died away, except for low intermittent moans through the cedars, and the lonely desert silence settled down. The brook murmured faintly and the insects sang their melancholy notes, but these only accentuated the vast dead stillness of the solitude. Chane fell asleep.

He awoke at dawn, when the dark luminous light was changing to gray. The September air held a nipping edge of frost. Chane found that something new, a spirit or strength, had seemed to awaken with him. Not resignation nor bitter dissatisfaction with his lot, but stranger, stronger faith! His life must be what he felt, not the material gain he had once wanted. He lay there until he heard the men round the camp fire and the crack of unshod hoofs on the stones. Then he arose, and pulling on his boots, and taking up his coat, he strode toward the camp. His saddle and packs lay under a cedar. From a pack he lifted his gun-belt, containing a Colt and shells, which he buckled round his waist. This he had not been in the habit of wearing.

Two Piutes had ridden in and sat on their mustangs, waiting to be invited to eat. Three of the men were busy — Slack rolling biscuit dough, Horn coming up with water, and McPherson cutting slices from a haunch of sheep meat. Chane’s quick eye caught sight of Manerube washing down at the brook.

“Say, Weymer, your Injun pards hev rustled in for chineago, as usual,” remarked Slack, dryly.

“So I see. Seems a habit of riders — rustling in on my camp to eat,” replied Chane.

“Wal, them Piutes are pretty white. They’d never let any fellar go hungry,” said Horn.

McPherson looked up at Chane with a curious little gleam in his sharp eyes. He was not so young as his comrades. His face showed experience of wild life in all its phases, and the bronzed lean cheeks, the hard jaw, the lined brow seemed parts of a mask which hid his thought.

“Ahuh! Packin’ your hardware,” he said, with a glance at Chane’s gun.

“Yep. These September days are getting chilly,” replied Chane, with animation.

Slack burst into a loud guffaw and Horn’s dark, still visage wrinkled with a grin.

“What’s eatin’ you, pards?” queried McPherson, with asperity, as he shifted his penetrating gaze to his comrades. “It shore ain’t funny — Weymer struttin’ out hyar, waggin’ a gun.”

“Wal, it was what he said that hit my funny bone,” returned Horn.

“Weymer,” went on McPherson, slowly, “I reckon you ain’t feelin’ none too friendly toward Manerube. An’ I’m sayin’ as I don’t blame you. What he said last night wasn’t easy to swaller. I told him so. He didn’t show up much of a gentleman, seein’ he’s been eatin’ at your camp fire. Wal, I reckon he’s sorry an’ ain’t achin’ to start trouble with you.”

One casual glance at McPherson’s calm face was enough to convince Chane that the man was as deep as the sea. His appearance bore out too well the content of his words. A less keen observer than Chane would have been won to charitableness. But Chane had felt too poignantly and thought too deeply to be deceived by anyone. These men did not mean well by him.

“McPherson, I never look for trouble — except in front of me, and especially behind,” replied Chane, sarcastically. “I just woke up feeling uncomfortable without my gun.”

“Ahuh!” ejaculated the other, soberly, and bent to his task.

Chane reasoned that he had not the slightest fear of these men and wanted them to know it. As long as he kept them face to face they could not shoot him in the back; and if the issue came to an open fight at close range they would suffer as much as he. Men were not quick to draw under such circumstances. As for a fight at long range, Chane would have all the best of that, for he possessed a rifle, which he meant to hide when he did not have it in his hands.

Presently Manerube came up the slope from the brook, wiping his clean-shaven face with a scarf. Chane conceded that the man was a handsome devil, calculated to stir the pulse of a white woman, let alone an Indian girl.

“Good morning, Weymer,” he said, not without effort. “Hope you’ll overlook the way I shot off my mouth last night. I was sore.”

“Sure. Glad to forget it,” replied Chane, cheerfully. Manifestly Manerube had been talked to.

At this juncture Slack called out, “Come an’ git it.”

Whereupon the five men attended to the business of breakfast, a matter of cardinal importance in the desert. They ate in silence until all the food and drink had been consumed.

“Bud, what’re you doing today?” inquired Manerube, as he rose, wiping his mouth.

“Wal, thet depends on the boss of this hyar outfit,” answered McPherson, slowly, and he stared hard at Manerube. But this worthy did not take the hint, if there really was one.

“Weymer, you said once you’d be hitting the trail for the Hole in the Wall,” went on Manerube, “soon as the Piutes rounded up the rest of the mustangs you bought.”

“Why, yes. What’s it to you?” asked Chane, easily.

“You’re going to sell in Wund, so you said. Well, that’s where we’re bound for, and we’ll help you drive through. But let’s rustle along. It’s been raining up at the head of the San Juan. There’ll be high water.”

“The San Juan is up now, so Toddy told me yesterday. I reckon I’ll wait for it to go down,” replied Chane.

“But that might take weeks,” declared Manerube.

“I don’t care how long it takes,” retorted Chane. “You fellows don’t need to wait for me. I’ll take some Piutes. I’d rather have them, anyhow.”

“The hell you say!” burst out Manerube, suddenly flaming.

At that McPherson violently struck Manerube in the chest and thrust him backward.

“See hyar, Bent Manerube,” he said, in voice contrasting with his action, “we ain’t goin’ to have you talk for us. Me an’ Jim an’ Hod are shore glad to wait on Weymer. We’re out of grub, an’ we don’t aim to let you make him sore on us.”

The sullen amaze with which Manerube took this action and speech convinced Chane that he had no authority over these three men, and a break was imminent.

CHAPTER II

CHANE ABRUPTLY LEFT the camp fire circle, not averse to the possibility of argument and action that might leave him less to contend with. Loud angry voices attested to a quarrel among the men. He made significant note of the fact that he did not distinguish McPherson’s voice.

“Cool sort of chap,” soliloquized Chane. “If Manerube has any sense he’ll not rile that man. But I hope he does.”

Chane possessed himself of his rifle, which during his daily rides he had left in camp. For a wild-horse hunter a rifle was a nuisance and a burden on a saddle. But he had reflected that such a long-range weapon might do more than even up the advantage Manerube and his associates had in numbers, for they carried only the short Colt gun common to riders of the range. In the future he would pack the rifle on his saddle, whether it was cumbersome or not.

With this in hand, and his bridle, Chane left camp to hunt for his horses. Glancing back from the edge of the slope, he was pleased to observe that the four unwelcome guests were engaged in a hot argument.

“I’d sure like to know just what and who they are,” muttered Chane. “I’ll bet they’re going to steal my mustangs. Well, that’d be no great loss. But they’ve all taken a shine to Brutus. I don’t like that. They’ll have to take him over my dead body.”

Brutus was Chane’s new horse, an acquisition of this last trip through the Mormon country. Chane had not ridden him and had not yet seen him go through any kind of test. Two years earlier, Chane had lost a beloved horse and since then had been indifferent to all horses except the great and almost mythical Panquitch. The loss had hurt Chane so deeply that he dreaded to find another animal he might love. Brutus, however, had been gradually growing on him, especially since the arrival of the four self-styled horse-wranglers. Horn had tried to beg Brutus of Chane; Slack wanted to borrow him; Manerube offered to buy him; and McPherson jocularly declared that he intended to steal him.

“Funny how men will take to a certain horse,” thought Chane as he swung down the slope. “Now Brutus filled my eye first time I saw him, but I’d never have bought him if he hadn’t been such a bargain. Reckon I was wrong.”

And Chane tried to recall the remarkable eulogy given the horse by the Mormons. Brutus had come from the finest strain of Colorado-bred stock. His sire was a stallion that had been born wild; his dam had come from a long line of blooded horses. He was six years old. All his life he had run over the rockiest, brushiest country in western Colorado. His equal as a cow horse had never been seen there. And as he had not been ridden by cowboys, his fine disposition had not been ruined. He had never been known to fall, or pitch, or balk at anything. He was fast and no rider yet had ever tired him. So much Chane remembered, and he was surprised at himself that he had not taken credence of it long ago. He understood his reluctance, however, for the very thought of Brutus or even Panquitch taking the vacant place in his heart gave him a pang.

Chane left the trail where it crossed Beaver Brook, and followed the watercourse up the canyon, through willow and cedar thickets, under a looming yellow wall of stone. Chane had three pack horses, and two saddle horses besides Brutus; these had been herded by Toddy Nokin up Beaver Canyon. The brush was still wet from the rain yesterday and the water of the brook was not so clear and amber-colored as usual. Bits of brush and dead leaves floated on the swift current. Blue jays screeched from the piñons; canyon swifts twittered and glinted in the sunlight; Indian sheep were bleating somewhere in the distance.

Presently the canyon opened into a narrow park, purple with sage, dotted by red rocks, and bordered by a wandering line of green where grass and willows lined the brook. Here Chane found his horses. He had been riding a white animal called Andy, which, according to the wranglers, was known at St. George as a one-man horse. Chane, more out of vanity to show he could manage Andy than for any other reason, had given him precedence over Brutus. Andy was white, except for a few black markings, lean, rangy, tough, and of nervous disposition. Chane had found him good in every kind of going except sand. Andy did not know sand.

Chane approached the horses with the usual caution of a wrangler, and all of them, except Brutus, moved out of his reach. Brutus gave his superb head a quick uplift and regarded Chane with keen, distrustful eyes.

“Brutus, I reckon we’ve got horse thieves in camp, so I’m going to look you over,” said Chane. He had a habit of talking to horses, perhaps owing to the fact that he was so much alone.

Whereupon he walked round Brutus as if he had never seen him before. He made the discovery that he had never really looked at Brutus. Reluctantly Chane had to confess the horse was magnificent. And he suffered a twinge of conscience that he could ever be so far faithless to the memory of the beloved horse of the past. That confession and remorse changed the status of Brutus.

“Well, you and I must get acquainted,” Chane decided.

Brutus was not exactly a giant of a horse, though he was much higher and heavier than the average. His muscular development made him appear unusual; indeed, a little more muscle would have deformed him. His chest was massive, broad, deep, a wonderful storehouse of energy. Such powerful, perfectly proportioned, and sound legs Chane had seldom seen, and his great hoofs matched them. His body was large, round, smooth, showing no bones. He had a broad arched neck and a fine head, which he held high as he looked directly at Chane. There was an oval white spot on his face, just below the wide space between his eyes. His color was a dark mottled brown, almost black, and his coat glistened in the sunlight.

At the last Chane always judged horses as he judged men — by the look in their eyes. Horses had as much character as men, and similar emotions and instincts. Chane had a theory, not shared by many wranglers, that kindness brought out the best in any horse. If a horse was mean it did not always follow that he had been born so.

Brutus had large dark eyes, soft yet full of spirit, just now questioning and uncertain. They showed his intelligence. Chane made sure that the horse had not been spurred and jerked and jammed around as had most horses six years old. He had not been hurt. The way he threw up his head appealed strongly to Chane. There was pride and fire in his look. It seemed he questioned Chane — what have you to say for yourself?

“Brutus, I had — a horse once,” said Chane, faltering a little, “and I haven’t cared for one since.... But you and I are going to be friends.”

With the words Chane’s old gentle and confident way of handling horses came back to him. He approached Brutus, placing a slow sure strong hand on the glossy neck. Brutus quivered, but did not jerk away. He snorted, and turned his head to look at Chane. It pleased Chane to find that he did not need a rope or halter. Brutus stood to be bridled, not altogether satisfied about it, not liking the rifle Chane held under his arm, but he took the bit easily and began to champ it. Then he followed Chane willingly. He had a long stride and his nose soon came abreast of Chane’s shoulder. Before Chane reached camp he decided that Brutus had missed the attention and company of a rider.

Chane discovered McPherson and his two comrades in camp, but Manerube was not in sight. While Chane saddled the horse McPherson strode up. His face seemed the same rough bronze mask, his eyes told nothing, yet there were traces about his person of recent spent passion.

“Wal, Manerube helped hisself to your grub, packed, an’ rode off,” announced McPherson.

“He’s welcome,” declared Chane, heartily.

“Me an’ him had some hard words, but he wouldn’t throw a gun, so nothin’ come of it.”

“Where’d he head for?” queried Chane.

“He said Bluff, but I reckon thet’s a bluff, all right,” returned the other. “He took the main trail out of Beaver. I climbed the stone over thar an’ watched him. I seen him turn off the trail in the cedars.”

McPherson pointed with sturdy hand across the canyon toward the foot of a cedared ridge. A trail branched off there, leading to the camp of the Piutes.

“I savvy, Bud,” rejoined Chane, laconically. “You’re giving me a hunch.”

“Man, shore as you’re a hoss-wrangler he’ll rustle off with your little Piute squaw.”

Chane’s good humor gave place to irritation. He eyed McPherson with plain disfavor.

“She’s not my squaw,” he said, sharply.

“Wal, I meant no offense. But she belongs to somebody. Toddy Nokin shore. An’ I’m sayin’ thet if Toddy or you hit Manerube’s trail — —”

“I’ll beat him to Toddy’s hogan,” interrupted Chane, leaping on Brutus.

“Hey!” yelled McPherson, hastily. “Don’t git the idee because Manerube didn’t draw on me thet he won’t on you. Me an’ you might be different propositions.”

“Much obliged,” Chane called back. “If Manerube beats me to a gun you’re welcome to my grub.”

McPherson yelled another parting sally, which Chane could not distinguish, owing to the sudden pounding of hoofs. Brutus had not needed spur or word; his answer to the touch of bridle was something that thrilled Chane.

“Say, old boy, you’re there!” he called.

But only a few rods away was the edge of a rocky slope, where Chane had to rein Brutus in. It was not necessary to haul on the bridle and hold hard as in the case of Andy and most spirited horses Chane had ridden. Brutus pounded down the rock-strewn trail and splashed across the brook. His hoofs rang hollow on the stone bench where the water rushed. Chane rode at a gallop up the canyon, through the sage flat, and on to a low cedared break in the wall. There was a trail leading over this, down upon the sage upland beyond, where the Indians pastured their horses and sheep. By the time Chane surmounted this ragged rocky eminence he was aware that he bestrode one horse in a million. His heart warmed to Brutus. Apparently he climbed with no more effort than that required on a level. Once on top, he gave a great heave of his bellows-like chest, and that was the only sign of exertion he manifested.

“Look here, Brutus, I reckon I overlooked you, but you needn’t rub it in,” remarked Chane.

It was an easy ride down the long gradual slope. The fragrant breath of the sage came strong on the breeze. Away rolled the heaving purple upland, with its clumps of green cedar, its groups of yellow rocks, its long level lines of canyon rims, red in the morning sun. Herds of mustangs colored the soft gray and purple of the sage flats; a flock of sheep moved like a wide white-and- black patch out on the desert. A sage prairie it seemed, almost endless to the eastward; but in the north interrupted lines and notches betrayed the break-off down into the wilderness world of wind-worn rock.

Toddy Nokin’s hogan, and that of his relatives, stood at the base of the slope, on the edge of the bare upland. These mounds of earth plastered over framework of cedar were no different from the Navajo structures. The one door faced the east. Door as well as hogan invited the sun. Temporary as were these homes of the Piutes, they yet had the appearance of service. Blue smoke curled from the circular holes in the roofs; white and black puppies played with half naked, dusky-skinned children; mustangs with crude Indian saddles and blankets of bright colors stood bridles down; in a round corral, made of cedar branches planted in the ground, a flock of sheep and goats baa-baaed at Chane’s approach, and the shepherd dogs barked viciously.

As Chane rode down to the first hogan the Indian children disappeared as if by magic, and one of Toddy Nokin’s squaws came out. Inquiry for Toddy elicited the information that he was out hunting horses. An old brave, gray and wrinkled, appeared at the hogan door, to bend a dark skinny hand in direction too complicated for Chane’s deduction. Then he asked for Sosie, assured that, if Manerube really had designs upon her, there was time to outwit him. The squaw pointed toward a clump of cedars on the rise of slope just beyond the corral.

Chane rode thither, to find Sosie in the shade of the trees, beside an older squaw who was weaving a blanket. Chane dismounted and, approaching them, he bent a more than usually interested gaze upon Sosie. His greeting was answered in good English. The Indian maiden, though only sixteen years old, had spent the latter nine of these in the government school. She was very pretty, compared with the older Indian women, as she had retained the cleanly and tidy habits fostered upon her at the school. She was slight in build, with small oval face, a golden-bronze complexion, and hair black as the wing of a raven. Her eyes were too large for her face, but they were beautiful. She wore a dark velveteen blouse and necklaces of silver, and her skirt was long, full, and of a bright color. Her little feet were incased in silver-buttoned moccasins.

Her somber face changed at Chane’s arrival. He was used to finding her moody, and thought that indeed she had reason to be. Sosie talked well, and had told Chane more about the Indians, and the tragedy of educated girls like herself, than he could otherwise have learned. It appeared that this morning she had another grievance. Her father, Toddy Nokin, wanted her to marry a young Piute who already had a wife, and he could not understand her objection. Chane sympathized with her and advised her not to marry any Indian she could not love.

“I couldn’t love an Indian,” replied Sosie, in disgust.

“Why not?” queried Chane.

“Because Indian boys who are educated go back to the dirty habits of their people. We girls learn the white people’s way of living. We learn to like clean bodies, clean clothes, clean food. When we try to correct our mothers and fathers we’re accused of being too good for our own people. My father says to me: ‘You’re my blood. Why aren’t my ways right for you?’ Then when I tell him, he can’t understand.”

“Why don’t you leave them and live among white people?” asked Chane.

“I’d have to be a servant. Only a few Indian girls find good places.”

“Well, Sosie, it doesn’t look as if education for Indian girls was right,” said Chane, soberly.

“I don’t say it’s wrong, but it’s hard. If I could help my family I’d be glad. But I can’t. And when I look at a white man they are angry.”

“Sosie, most white men — out here, anyway — are not fit for you to look at,” replied Chane, earnestly.

“Why? I like them better than Indians,” she said, bluntly.

Chane found his mission rather embarrassing, as it had not occurred to him that Sosie would prefer the company of a bad white man to the best Indian her father could present. After deliberating a moment, he talked to her as plainly and kindly as if she had been his sister, explaining why Manerube or one of his class meant nothing but evil toward her. Chane exhausted his argument, at the conclusion of which Sosie said: “You preach like our missionary at school. I’d rather be made love to.”

“But, Sosie,” exclaimed Chane, aghast at her simplicity, “I never made love to you!”

“No. You’re different from other white men out here,” she replied, in a tone that did not indicate that she respected him for it.

“If I made love to you I’d ask you to marry me,” continued Chane, at a loss what to say to this misguided child.

Her reception of this was a shy surprise, a hint of coquetry and response singularly appealing. It made Chane pity her. At the same time he divined that other white men, in their attention to her, had never touched the chord of fineness and sweetness that lay deep in her. Suddenly he realized the fatality of her position, and it distressed him. He did not love her, but almost he wished he did. In his anxious perturbation he launched into an emphatic declaration against Manerube. Sosie listened intently. It was evidently an exciting hour for her.

“But Manerube says he will take me away,” she replied when Chane had concluded his tirade.

Chane was shocked. “Surely he will. But you mustn’t let him.”

“I’ll run off with him,” the girl replied, with something inevitable about her.

“No, you won’t, Sosie,” declared Chane. “I’ll stop you. I told Manerube he’d better not let me see him with you again.”

“What would you do, Mr. Chane?” she asked, a curious dark flash in her eyes.

“Well — that depends on what he did,” rejoined Chane, somewhat taken aback. “I’d beat him good and hard, at least.”

“I thought you said you weren’t in love with me,” cried Sosie, in a sort of wild gladness.

Chane threw up his hands. It was impossible to hear her talk and remember she was Indian, yet the content of what she said forcibly struck home the proof that she was not white. Chane had a momentary desire to tell her he did care for her and thus save her from Manerube; but he reconsidered the hasty thought because, once acted upon, that would involve a greater sacrifice than he could offer.

“Sosie, can’t you understand?” asked Chane, striving for patience, “I don’t love you as a man of my kind must love a girl to want her — to marry her, you know. But I like you. I’m sorry for you. I think you’re a bright, fine little girl. I want to help you. Manerube means bad by you. I know. I’ve heard him say as much to his pards. He’ll destroy your soul. Promise me you’ll not see him again.”

“Yes, I promise — if you’ll come sometimes,” she replied, won by his spirit. There were tears in her big dusky eyes. She was a simple, impulsive child, honest at heart, with the hot blood of her race.

“Of course I’ll come — as long — —” he said, breaking off suddenly. He had meant to say he would come as long as he stayed in camp there, but he thought it best to hide from her that he was leaving soon. “I’ll be back in an hour. You stay here.”

“Adios, señor,” she murmured, gladly, speaking the Spanish he had told her pleased him.

Chane rode back to the hogan, hoping to find Toddy Nokin or one of the Indian men. He thought it best to tell some one to keep an eye on Sosie. He was not sure he could trust her. But he did not find anyone, and turned Brutus for the open sage. As he rode, perplexed by the unsolvable problem of this little Indian girl, he became conscious that now, although he pitied her, somehow his sympathy was different from what it had been. He had rather idealized Sosie. It affronted and alienated him to learn she was quite willing to run off with such a man as Manerube.

Chane rode across the rolling upland, keeping sharp lookout along the ridge that Manerube would cross if he had ventured toward the Indian camp. There was, however, no sign of horses in that direction.

“Reckon it was a bluff,” declared Chane, with relief. In spite of McPherson’s hint, he did not entertain a very high regard for Manerube’s courage.

Circling to the south, Chane at length reached the rise of ground running along a shallow league-wide valley, gray and purple with sage, spotted with rocks and cedars, and animated by moving horses. Toddy Nokin and his braves were driving in the last of the mustangs Chane had bargained for. This pleased Chane, for some of these had been ranging Piute Canyon, a deep long gorge, accessible by but few trails.

Brutus saw the moving dots below and lifted his head high, his ears erect. Then Chane put him to a lope down the gradual descent. It soon became evident to Chane that this horse did not need to be guided, except possibly in exceedingly bad ground. The sagebrush did not bother Brutus any more than if it had not been there. He crashed through it; and the little washes and ruts in the red earth, that sometimes tripped an ordinary horse, apparently were the same to Brutus as level ground. His hoofs were so big, his legs so strong, his dexterity and judgment so good, that it seemed safe to ride him anywhere a horse could run.

Down in the center of this oval bowl lay a natural corral, a long narrow space of the best pasture land, barred on two sides by low stone walls that came to an apex at the head of the depression, and shut off at its mouth and widest part by a cedar fence. Even at dry seasons there was always water in the deep hole in the rocks where the walls met; and at this time there was a running stream. Chane arrived as Toddy Nokin and his Indians were driving a bunch of mustangs into this corral.

Chane rode inside to take a look at these mustangs. There were nine of them, and the best of the lot he had seen. A blue roan stood out conspicuously among the tan-colored, black-maned buckskins. They were young horses, fat and sleek, and, unlike most Indian ponies, not at all wild. The Piutes handled horses better than the Navajos. The latter were nomads of the desert, and seldom took time to break and train a horse properly. Most Navajo mustangs were head shy, which was a trait Chane did not like. They had been beaten about the head, or broken with cruel hackamores, or in some way hurt so that they never recovered.

Toddy Nokin rode into the corral, and his braves, who were his sons, put up the poles that formed a gate. He held up his hands to Chane and counted with fingers to the number of twenty-six, and informed Chane he would not sell more. Chane had hoped to buy a larger number, but knew it was useless to try to change Toddy’s mind.

He motioned to Toddy to dismount, and, getting off himself, he went among the mustangs. They would not allow him to get close enough to put a hand on them, until Toddy’s sons drove them back into a bunch. Then Chane, following a habit that was pleasure to him as well as business, leisurely examined them one by one. He just naturally loved horses, and if he had been rich he would have owned a thousand. The blue roan at once took his eye.

“Blue, reckon I’ll keep you,” he said.

Presently he had looked them over to his satisfaction, and repaired to the shade of a cedar, where Toddy squatted, making a flat wisp of a cigarette.

“Toddy, they’re worth more than I offered and you agreed to take,” said Chane, frankly.

The Piute made a gesture that signified a bargain was a bargain. Then he asked, “How much Mormons pay you?”

“Twenty-five dollars for most of them and more for the best,” replied Chane.

Toddy nodded his grizzled old head as if that was something to consider.

“Why good horse trade now?” he asked.

Chane explained to him that a St. Louis horse-dealing company had recently stimulated the wild-horse hunting in Nevada and Utah, which business had stirred the Mormons to more activity.

“Ugh!” grunted Toddy, and then he told Chane he would round up more mustangs of his own, and buy from the Navajos, and drive them across the rivers next moon.

“Next moon,” repeated Chane. “That’ll be after the middle of October. Fine. Will you sell to me or the Mormons?”

“Sell Mormons,” replied Toddy, shrewdly, adding he would pay Chane for finding purchasers.

“Maybe I can get a better price from the wranglers,” replied Chane. “Now, Toddy, where will we meet?”

Whereupon the Piute brushed clear a place in the dust, and taking up a bit of stick he began to draw a map. This sort of thing always interested Chane. The Indians were natural artists, and they held in their minds a wonderful knowledge of the country. Toddy Nokin drew lines to represent the San Juan and Colorado rivers; he made a dot to mark the Hole in the Wall, an outlet from the canyoned wilderness made notorious by outlaws a few years before; he drew the Henry Mountains to the right and Wild Horse Mesa to the left, and between these he laid down a trail he would follow. Somewhere beyond Wild Horse Mesa, at a place he called Nightwatch Spring, he would hold the mustangs to fatten up after that long hard journey over the barren rocks.

“Nightwatch Spring,” said Chane. “I’ve heard of that place from someone — maybe a wrangler.... Toddy, mark out where this water lies.”

Toddy showed Chane where to branch off the main Piute trail, north and west of the low end of Wild Horse Mesa, and he gave Chane the impression that this spring had never been known by whites and lay in a beautiful wide canyon where grass was abundant.

“You want have horse ranch sometime,” concluded Toddy, nodding with great vehemence. “Toddy show you place.”

So much from this old Piute thrilled Chane with its possibilities. How well it paid to be kindly and helpful toward the Indians! No Piute had ever left debt unpaid to him.

“Toddy Nokin, you’re a good fellow,” said Chane as he took out his worn wallet and opened it. “Here’s your money for twenty-six horses.” He counted it out, bill after bill, and placed the sum in Toddy’s wrinkled hand. The Indian did not recount it, and slowly rolling it up he put it in an inside pocket of his coat, after the manner of a white man.

“Grass gone here,” he said, waving his hand to indicate the long pasture-corral. “You go now.”

To leave at once with his newly purchased mustangs, which Toddy manifestly advised, had scarcely been in Chane’s calculations. But a moment’s study told him how necessary that was. If the mustangs were turned loose again to feed they would wander in one night back to their regular haunts. It had taken two weeks to collect the band. Chane saw it the same as Toddy — the mustangs should be driven at once on the way across the rivers, and herded at night or hobbled on the best available grass. It had been his intention to postpone leaving the Piute range, owing to his distrust of McPherson, but this now was obviously impracticable. If he ran any risk from McPherson and his comrades it could hardly be any greater now than it might be next week. Chane decided to break camp that very day, and he told Toddy Nokin so. Whereupon the Piute said he and his sons would ride with him a couple of days, until the mustangs were off their range.

Leaving his sons to follow with the mustangs, Toddy accompanied Chane up the sage slope toward the mounds and knolls of yellow rock that marked the canyon country. Toddy’s hogans lay somewhat south and west of this sage valley where the mustangs had been kept. So that upon his return Chane rode in a direction which would cross Manerube’s trail, if this worthy had approached Toddy’s camp. The fact of such possibility reminded Chane of his promise to Sosie. He would see her, to bid her good-bye, and then he must hurry to his camp. From that moment McPherson, Horn, and Slack occupied Chane’s thoughts. The situation was not to his liking, yet there had not occurred to him an alternative.

Riding along at a brisk trot, Chane, with Toddy Nokin loping behind on his shaggy little mustang, approached a zone of gray and yellow wind-worn rocks, as high as hills, and with both sloping and abrupt walls. Cedars grew thickly around them and in the winding lanes that separated them.

Turning a corner of wall, Chane’s quick eye sighted a pack horse trotting toward him, and then part of another horse, mostly concealed by an intervening cedar. They were in line with Chane. Quick as a flash he leaped off, and motioning Toddy Nokin to do likewise he led Brutus behind a thick low-branched cedar. Toddy slipped close behind him, stooping to peer through the branches.

“Ugh!” he grunted.

Chane saw Manerube ride into sight, coming at a good trot and leading a pack horse. Behind Manerube bobbed a black head, now in view, then disappearing. Presently Chane got a better look at it.

“Sosie! Well, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” he ejaculated, in amaze and dismay.

The Indian girl was riding behind Manerube, and she had both arms round him. At the moment her gold-bronze face flashed in the sunlight. Chane watched intently, standing motionless until Manerube had ridden within one hundred feet of the cedar that concealed Chane and Toddy. Sosie’s face bobbed out to the side of Manerube’s shoulder. Most assuredly it was not the face of an unwillingly abducted girl. It wore a smile. The wide dark eyes gleamed. Her white teeth showed.

Chane’s rush of anger was almost as much against her as Manerube. Jerking his rifle from its saddle-sheath, he cocked it and stepped out to level it at Manerube.

“Stop! Quick! Hands up!” he ordered.

The approaching horse snorted and jumped. Manerube hauled it to a halt. Then as his hands shot aloft his ruddy face paled.

“Up they are!” he said, hoarsely, in rage and discomfiture.

Chane strode forward, and he heard the padding of Toddy’s moccasined feet close behind him.

“Sosie — get off that horse,” called Chane, sharply.

The Indian girl almost fell off in the hurry that actuated her. There was no radiance now on her face, nor any of the stoical Indian courage which should have been an heritage. Her big eyes were distended.

“Manerube, I’ve a mind to shoot you,” declared Chane, with the rifle steadily leveled.

“What for? I’ve not done you any dirt,” replied the other, thickly. “You’ve no call to kill me on this little hussy’s account.”

“I’m not so sure. You’ve made her run off with you,” retorted Chane.

“Made nothing. She wants to go.”

Toddy Nokin shuffled round to the side of Chane and approached his daughter. He swung his quirt. Chane saw Sosie shrink and her eyes dilate.

“Hold on, Toddy!” called Chane, and then, stepping aside so that he had the girl in line with Manerube, he addressed her: “Sosie, were you willing to go with him?”

“Yes,” she answered, sullenly. “But it was because he says he’ll marry me.”

“Manerube, you hear what Sosie said. Is it true? You’re talking to a white man now.”

“No, you damn fool!” shouted Manerube. “I wouldn’t marry a squaw.”

Chane eyed Manerube in silence for a moment. The man had no sense of guilt, and he was not afraid to tell the truth.

“Well, I reckon you’d better sit tight and keep your hands high,” went on Chane. “Toddy, you take his gun.”

The Piute advanced upon Manerube, and quickly jerking his gun from its holster, he stepped back. Then Chane strode round Manerube to see if he had another weapon.

“Get off your horse,” ordered Chane, and handed both his rifle and his short gun to the Indian.

Manerube stared, without complying. At the outset of this encounter he had showed fear, but now, as there seemed no certainty of a fatal issue for him, the color was returning to his face.

Chane wasted no more words. Laying a powerful hold on Manerube, he jerked him from the saddle to the ground, where he sprawled hard.

“Get up, before I kick you!” went on Chane, yielding to an anger that grew hot.

Manerube got to his feet, with astonishment giving way to fury. Chane rushed him and knocked him flat. He raised on his elbow, then on his hand, while he extended the other, now shaking with passion. A reddening lump appeared on his face.

“I’ll kill you!” he hissed.

“Aw, get up and fight!” retorted Chane, derisively, and he kicked Manerube, not with violence, but hard enough to elicit a solid thump. It served to make Manerube leap erect and plunge at Chane. They fought all over the place, dealing each other blow for blow. Manerube was no match for Chane at that game, and manifestly saw it, for he tried to close in. Failing that, he maneuvered until he was near enough Toddy to snatch at one of the guns Toddy held. The Indian showed surprising agility in leaping aside.

“Manerube — you’re just — what I said — you were,” panted Chane, hoarsely. Rushing at Manerube and battering him down, Chane did not let him rise, but beat him soundly until he was most thoroughly whipped. Then Chane got up, to wipe sweat and blood and dust from his face.

“Take your gun — and your horses — and rustle,” ordered Chane, jerking the weapons from Toddy. He threw Manerube’s gun at his feet. Then with rifle leveled low Chane watched the man sit up, draw the gun to him by the barrel, and rise with his back to Chane. He shoved the gun into its holster, and strode, staggering a little, toward where his horses had moved. Chane kept close watch on him, ready for another show of treachery. But Manerube mounted and took up the halter of the pack animal, not looking back until he had started to ride off. Then his pallid discolored face expressed a passion that boded ill to Chane. He rode out of sight among the cedars. Chane turned to the Indians. Toddy Nokin had in no wise lost anything of his dignity, at least in his attitude toward Chane. He returned the small gun Chane had handed him. Sosie had quite recovered from what fright she had sustained, and was now regarding her champion with dusky eyes alight. Not before had the fragility of her, nor the prettiness, and something half tame, half wild, struck Chane so forcibly. But his sympathy and her appeal both went down before his anger.

“Sosie, you’re no good,” he declared.

Instantly she grew sullen, defiant.

“I’m what white men have made me,” she responded.

Chane had not adequate reply for that, and indeed felt helpless.

Toddy Nokin yelled something in Piute at his wayward daughter, and as she whirled he aimed a swing of the quirt and likewise a kick at her, both of which fell short. Like a flash the supple figure moved out of reach. She screeched back at them. Chane could not decide whether it was the wild-cat cry of an Indian squaw or the passionate expression of her white learning. Perhaps it was both.

CHAPTER III

SUE MELBERNE’S FATHER would never have allowed her to come on this wild-horse hunting expedition if he had not calculated on finding a new country where he could homestead. Back there at St. George she had heard her father say to Loughbridge, his partner in this venture, “You know, Jim, I’ve shore got to take root in new soil.”

This significant remark had remained in Sue’s mind, like others that had struck her strangely since her return from school in Silver City. Her father was always looking for some one to come unexpectedly, so it seemed. There had been some reason for him to leave the south, then Silver City, then Vegas, and lastly St. George. Sue did not want to dwell on the meaning of this. She had been born in Texas and she had lived long enough in the West to know Westerners.

The pursuit of wild horses had a remarkable fascination for Sue, but she hated the brutality. She loved to see and watch wild horses, not to capture them. Then the camp life, the riding and packing from place to place, the days in the open country — Utah in its beautiful, wild, carved-stone majesty — coming after her four years at school in a bustling town, had irresistible appeal for her.

There had been a chance for her to remain at St. George, teaching a school where most of the children were Mormons. She did not dislike Mormons particularly, but she had no wish to live alone among them. On the other hand, the prospect held out by her father had not at first struck Sue as alluring. It would be, sooner or later, no less than hard pioneer life. But she had decided to try it, to be with her father and younger brother. Sue’s mother was dead, and her father had married again while she was attending school, a circumstance she had not hailed with joy. It had turned out, however, that her stepmother was a clever and lovable woman, who had certainly been good for her father.

Therefore, Sue, who had undertaken the trip out of love for father and brother, and a longing for experience in the desert, found in a few weeks that she was fitting admirably and happily into this nomad life of wild-horse wrangling. She was young, healthy, strong; she could ride a horse and cook a meal over a camp fire; she found in herself a surprising response to all that was characteristic of primitive life in the open. Still she held most tenaciously to her few worldly possessions — dresses, pictures, books — things that had been a part of her development at school. Many a time, on the journey east from St. George, she had ridden on the wagon-seat with Jake, just to keep him from driving recklessly over some of the fearful places along the road. She did not want to see that wagon wrecked, with her precious chest of belongings.

Melberne’s outfit was not a large one, as wild-horse-hunting outfits were considered, but as he and his partner, Loughbridge, had brought their womenfolk and the necessary teamsters, wagons, camp equipment, supplies, all together they made quite a party. If a desirable country were found, with abundant grass and water, Loughbridge would be willing to homestead a ranch, along with Melberne. Their main idea, then, was really not alone the capturing and marketing of wild horses. In the interest, however, of that pursuit it was necessary to keep within one day’s travel of the railroad. Melberne was shipping car-loads of unbroken horses to St. Louis. In considerable numbers, at thirteen dollars a head, he could make money. But he was not striking any country rich in ranching possibilities.

It was on an afternoon of September that the Melberne outfit halted at the head of Stark Valley, which was thirty miles from the railroad.

Sue had heard the men talking about this valley, and all the ride down from the divide to the welcome grove of cottonwood trees below she had gazed and gazed. Utah had been strikingly beautiful with its pink cliffs, wide plains of white sage, rugged black mountains, and then the colorful stone-monumented desert. She had marked that as they traveled eastward the scale and ruggedness and wild beauty had appeared to magnify. This valley was something to make her catch her breath.

She had grown capable of judging the colorful distances, the deceiving purple shadows, the long sweeping lines of the desert. Here she saw a valley which she estimated to be twenty miles wide and eighty long. Really it seemed small, set down in a vast panorama, with a ragged black range of mountains on one side, an endless waving green rise of land sweeping to a horizon on the other. Far beyond the long length of this valley stood what appeared a flat mountain, very lofty, with red walls now sunlit, and a level black top. It was so different from any landmark Sue had ever seen that she was forcibly struck with it. How far away! How isolated! It had a strange, impelling beauty.

“Dad, what’s that mountain?” asked Sue, pointing.

Her father, a stalwart bearded man, turned from his task of unhitching a team, to answer Sue. He had gray, penetrating, tired eyes that held a smile for her.

“Shore I don’t know,” he replied as he glanced in the direction Sue was pointing. “Wal, no wonder it caught your eye! See heah, Alonzo, what’s that flat mountain yonder?”

Alonzo was a half-breed Mexican vaquero, guide to the outfit, and reputed to be the best wrangler in Utah. He was a slim, lithe rider, very light of build yet muscular, and he had a sharp, smooth, dark face, and eyes of piercing black. He gazed a moment down the valley.

“Wild Horse Mesa,” he replied, briefly.

“Reckon I ought to have known, considerin’ all I’ve heard,” said Melberne. “Sue, that’s not a mountain, but a mesa. Biggest mesa in Utah. It’s a refuge for wild horses, so the Mormons say, an’ no white men have set foot on it.”

“Wild Horse Mesa!” exclaimed Sue. “How beautiful — and wild! So far away.... It’s good there’s a place where horses are safe.”

“Wal, lass, there’ll shore be a lot of wild horses safe for a long time,” said her father as he surveyed the valley. “This country is full of them. Look! I see hundreds of wild horses now.”

Sue focused her dreamy gaze, and was surprised and thrilled to see bands of horses dotting the valley. They appeared to be of all colors, and grew in numbers until they faded in the gray haze.

“They’ll shore be the devil to catch,” continued Melberne as his keen eye swept the valley. It was a vast green hollow, treeless, stoneless, with its monotony broken only by the bands of horses and pale gleams of winding streams.

“Dad, we’re to make permanent camp here, didn’t you say?” asked Sue.

“Yep, an’ right glad I am,” he rejoined, heartily. “We’ve shore been on the go, with no chance to make you womenfolk comfortable. Heah we can make a fine camp. Plenty of grass, water, wood, an’ meat. This grove is in a protected place, too. We’ll be heah days, an’ maybe weeks. I’m shore goin’ to trap a great bunch of wild horses.”

“Dad, you mean trap them at one time?”

“That’s my idea. Jim doesn’t agree, but he’ll come to my way of thinkin’.”

“If you’d only keep the wild horses you do catch and tame them!” protested Sue.

“Tame wild horses at thirteen dollars a head!” ejaculated her father, with a laugh. “Child, it can’t be done.”

“Some of the horses I’ve seen, if properly broken, would be worth hundreds of dollars,” replied Sue.

Melberne scratched his grizzled face and pondered thoughtfully; then he shook his head as if the problem was beyond him, and returned to his task.

Many experienced hands made short work of pitching camp. Before the sun set tents were up, fires were blazing, blue smoke was curling upward through the golden-green leaves of the cottonwoods; the fragrant steam of hot biscuits, venison and coffee permeated the cool air.

“I refuse to call out that cowboy slogan,” announced Mrs. Melberne, cheerfully, “but I say come to supper.”

She was a short, stout, pleasant-faced little woman, just now ruddy from the fire heat. Her helper, Mrs. Loughbridge, afforded a marked contrast, in both appearance and manner.

Young Chess Weymer, who was always offering gallant little courtesies to Sue and Ora Loughbridge, lifted a seat from one of the wagons and placed it conveniently out of line of the blowing camp fire smoke.

“There, girls, have a seat,” he said, in his rich bass voice.

Sue complied with a nod of thanks, and seated herself with burdened tin plate in one hand and a cup in the other. But Ora did not get up from where she squatted on the ground. She was a dark-eyed handsome girl, and just now rather sullen of face.

“Come have a seat, Ora,” called Chess.

She flashed him an illuminating look. “Chess, I wouldn’t deprive you of such a chance,” she said, with sarcasm.

“Oh, well, if you won’t, I will,” replied Chess, and seated himself beside Sue.

Sue rather enjoyed the situation. Ora had been plainly captivated by this good-looking boy, who showed a preference for Sue’s society. He was a cleancut lad of eighteen, brown of face and eye, and possessed of a fine frank countenance, singularly winning. At St. George, where he had joined the caravan, he had appeared to be a wild, happy youngster, not above drinking and fighting, and utterly unable to resist the girls. Sue liked his company so long as he did not grow over-sentimental. She was two years older than Chess, and in her mind vastly more mature. She had condescended to regard him with sisterly favor until the Loughbridges joined the party, when Ora had taken most of the pleasure, as well as Chess’s society.

Everybody was hungry after the long ride, and ate without conversing. Sue’s appetite was as healthy as any. It took considerably less time to dispose of the supper than it had required to prepare it. This meal hour, and the camp fire hour afterward, were about the only opportunities Sue had to observe the men all together, and she made the most of them.

The wranglers of the outfit were a continual source of delight to her. There were six of these employed by her father, and they worked in every capacity that such travel and strenuous activity demanded.

Alonzo, the half-breed, was the most fascinating, by reason of the knowledge he could impart. Utah, a wild-horse wrangler, was probably a Mormon, though he never admitted that — a sharp- featured, stone-faced young man, long, slim, bow-legged, hard as rock, and awkward on his feet. He somehow resembled the desert. Tway Miller appeared to be a cowboy who had abandoned cattle- riding because he hated wire fences. He complained that there were no great ranges left, and when taken to task about this, he showed his idea of a range to be the whole southwest. Tway was a tough, wiry little rider, dusty always, ragged and shiny, and he had a face like the bark of a tree. He got his name Tway from a habit he had of stuttering, something his comrades took fiendish glee in making him do. Bonny was a stalwart Irishman, sandy bearded and haired, freckle-faced, and he possessed a wonderful deep bass voice, the solemnity of which suited his big light-blue eyes. His age was about thirty, and he had been ten years in America. His one dislike, it appeared, was anything in the shape of a town. Jake, a man of years and experience, possessed a heavy square frame that had begun to show the wear of time. He was bald. His round brown face was a wrinkled record of all the vicissitudes of life, not one of which had embittered him. Everything ill had happened to Jake. He had once had wife, children, home, prosperity, position, all of which had gone with the years. Yet he was the most cheerful and unselfish and helpful of men. If anyone wanted a service he ran to Jake. And Jake would say: “Why, sure! I’ll be glad to do it.” Jake had been engaged, as had the others, to chase wild horses, and betweentimes help at all jobs. But it turned out that his active riding days were past. It tortured him, racked his bones, to ride all day even on a trotting horse. As teamster, however, cook, and handy man around camp he was incomparable. The last of this sextet so interesting to Sue was a tenderfoot they had named Captain Bunk. The sea to him had been what the desert was to the riders. Somehow he had drifted to Utah. His talk about boats, engines, ships, his bunk-mates, had earned him the sobriquet of Captain Bunk. He had a face as large as a ham, bright red, an enormous nose that never got over sunburn, and eyes and lips that always showed the effect of the dry winds of the desert.

Supper had long passed and the sun was setting when the chores of these men had been completed for the day. Sue stopped a moment, on her way out to find some quiet outlook, there to watch and dream as was her habit, and listened to the camp fire conversation.

“How many wild horses in the valley?” inquired her father, eagerly.

“Reckon I seen five thousand,” replied Loughbridge, holding up his field-glasses.

“Shore you’re jokin’,” ejaculated Melberne.

“No. These glasses don’t lie.”

“By thunder! that’s great news,” declared Melberne, clapping his hands. “Now to plan some kind of a trap to catch five hundred — a thousand — at one clip!”

“Reckon you’re locoed, Mel,” declared his partner. “If we could ketch a hundred at once I’d be satisfied. What’s the use ketchin’ so many when we can only drive a few to the railroad?”

“Wal, that’s so. But we’ve got to learn a way to catch a bunch, an’ drive them, too. Alonzo says he has seen that done, but it kills a lot of horses. An’ he won’t tell me.”

Like a majority of the real wild-horse wranglers, Alonzo had a love for all horses. Melberne was not a hard man, but he was keen to acquire money. Loughbridge would have been glad to sacrifice any number of horses, just so long as he saved enough to make a rich stake. He argued with the reticent Mexican, but to no avail. Alonzo would not reveal the secret of how to capture and drive large numbers of wild horses. Sue liked him for that, as much as she disliked Loughbridge. Her father, she knew, was earnest, strong, but easily led, especially in the direction of profits. Presently he and Loughbridge strolled off into the grove, evidently to talk alone. Whereupon the conversation grew loquacious and general.

“Bonny, how do you like this country?” inquired Captain Bunk, with a defiant note of curiosity.

“My Gawd, Captain, it’s shure gr-r-rand!” replied Bonny, his deep voice ringing solemnly.

“Blow me if it ain’t a hell of a place — this Utah,” exploded Bunk, disgustedly. “There ain’t any water. Why, you couldn’t float a skiff in the whole of this desert!”

“Shure this is land, mon, an’ dom’ foine land,” expostulated Bonny. “All we need is water enough to drink.”

“I-t-t-t-twa-tway-tway-” began Tway Miller.

“Aw, hev a cigarette,” interrupted Utah, handing Miller his pouch. “Listen to our Irish pard an’ this seafarin’ man.”

“T-t-t-t-t-ttt-tway-d-d-da-dam’ it! I can talk if I w-w-want to,” shouted Tway.

“Talk! Say, hombre, you’ve never showed me any sign of talkin’ yet,” drawled Utah.

“Bonny, you wouldn’t live out here among all these headlands?” queried Captain Bunk, hot for argument.

“Live here? Shure I’m goin’ to. It’s gr-r-rand country. I’ll marry one of them squaw Injuns phwat owns a lot of land. Mebbe they’ll be gold or oil. An’ afther I’m rich I’ll git rid of her.”

Some of his listeners howled with glee, while Captain Bunk ejaculated in amazement: “Get rid of your squaw! How?”

“Shure there’d be ways. Knock her on the head, or somethin’ loike,” replied Bonny, earnestly.

“You’re a bloody pirate!” declared Captain Bunk.

“Aw, Bonny’s just talkin’,” put in Jake, in his easy, friendly voice. “He wouldn’t hurt a flea. I think he’s stringin’ you boys.”

“Wal, my Irish lad, if you’ll take a hunch from me, shut up on thet squaw talk,” advised Utah, forcibly. “Squaw men ain’t liked in this country.”

“P-p-p-p-per-perfectly natu-ral,” interposed Tway Miller. “You Mormons want all the w-w-w-wim-wim-men, red skins an’ white.”

“Tway, if you make a crack like thet in St. George, you’d sure get cured,” replied Utah.

“C-c-c-cured of w-w-what?” demanded Tway.

“Talkin’!” retorted Utah, his lean face lighting with a smile.

At this sally all the men, except Tway, roared with mirth. Even the half-breed laughed at Tway’s discomfiture.

Sue lingered near until her presence became rather obvious to the bantering riders; then she strolled farther on, to the edge of the cottonwood grove, where she found a seat on a log.

The sun had set. The valley was full of purple shadows, and far beyond them rose the dim strange bulk of Wild Horse Mesa. How vast and open this Utah wilderness! Reluctantly she confessed its beauty, its appeal to the depths of her, its all-satisfying, inexplicable charm. She heard the fluttering of cottonwood leaves; she smelled fragrant wood smoke; she saw the dim bands of wild horses down on the level floor of the valley. Something took hold of her soul, and the nearest she could come to interpreting its meaning was in her vague glad sense that this experience of hers had just begun and would last long. It seemed connected with dreams of childhood, far off, sweetly remembered things, yet too deep, too mysterious to recall.

A footfall on the leaves roused Sue. Turning, she saw Chess coming, a smile on his frank face.

“Sue, may I sit with you?” he asked.

“Yes — if you’ll be a good boy and fetch my coat. It’s on the wagon tongue.”

“Sue, I’d get anything for you,” he said, and turned away.

Presently he returned with it and held it for her. Chess had thoughtful, courteous little ways that pleased Sue. They spoke well for what he had been to his mother and sister, and for the home where he had learned them.

“Sue, you take me for such a boy!” he expostulated as he flopped down before her and sat Indian fashion with his legs crossed. He was bareheaded and his curly brown locks had a glint of gold.

“Of course I do. You’re only eighteen,” replied Sue.

“Sure. But I’m a man. I had that out with my brother Chane. I feel old as the hills. And, Sue, you’ll be only twenty next month. You’re no Methuselum, or whatever they called him.”

“How did you learn my age?” she inquired.

“I asked your dad.”

“Well, suppose I am only twenty. That is very much older than you.”

“Sue, I can’t see it.... I’m sure old enough to — to be in love with you,” he rejoined, his voice lowering at the last.

She regarded him disapprovingly, not quite sure that there was not more earnestness or something different about him today. She had always disarmed his sentiment by taking it lightly, and she now decided on the same tactics.

“Chess, when did you say the same thing to Ora?” queried Sue.

“I — I never said it,” he denied, stoutly, but a flush tinged his healthy cheek.

“Don’t fib. You know you did,” retorted Sue, shaking her finger at him. “You’ve made love to Ora.”

“Yes, I did, at first — same as I have to all the girls. I reckon I just couldn’t help that. I always liked girls.... Ora, now, she’s pretty and clever, but she — I — I don’t like to say anything about a girl, but, Sue, she’s catty.”

Sue merely looked at Chess, trying to hide the fact that she knew this well enough. Chess was laboring under some stress.

“Ora’s catty. She’s spiteful. She says things about you I don’t like, Sue. That’s about settled her with me.”

“Any jealous girl is that way, you know. Jealousy is the hatefulest feeling. Don’t be hard on Ora. She—”

“Ahuh! All right, but she can’t talk to me about you,” he declared. “And you didn’t let me say what — what I wanted to.”

“No? Well, get it over, then, if it will relieve you.”

“I can prove I wasn’t in earnest with Ora — and all the girls you hint of,” he said, manfully, gazing straight at her.

“Oh, you can!” murmured Sue, wanting to laugh.

“I never asked Ora — or any of them — to marry me,” he declared, in solemn triumph.

This liberated Sue’s laugh, but it was not hearty. His earnestness touched her.

“You never asked me, either,” she retorted, and then could have bitten her tongue.

“No, but I’m asking you now,” he flashed back at her.

“Chess!” exclaimed Sue, aghast.

“You needn’t be so surprised. I mean it. I’m old enough to love you — and big enough to work for you. I’ve thought it all out. You’re too wonderful a girl to mind my being poor; you’re...”

“My dear boy, don’t say any more,” interrupted Sue, forced to gravity. His clean brown face had turned white. “I’m sorry I teased you — didn’t take you seriously. But — Chess, I feel like — like a mother to you. I can’t marry you, boy.”

“Why — not?” he asked, swallowing hard.

“Because I don’t love you,” replied Sue, earnestly.

“I knew that, but I — I hoped you might come to it,” he said, bravely struggling with his emotions.

Sue watched him, rather dubiously inquiring into her memory. Had she been unduly friendly to this impulsive lad? But, though she felt a kind of remorse, she did not have a guilty conscience. She saw Chess fight down his cherished dream. Then it seemed he turned to her with a stranger earnestness, with more eloquent eyes and eager lips.

“All right, Sue. I’ll take my medicine,” he said, hurriedly. “But I want to ask you something just as important.”

“What is it?” she asked, curiously.

“If you won’t marry me, will you wait for my brother Chane?... You can’t help but love him!”

“Why, Chess!...” murmured Sue, and then she halted. She had never been quite so astounded in her life. There had come a sudden change in the boy’s voice — in his big dark eyes — so eloquent and beautiful that it was impossible to consider his request as ridiculous. Sue did not know how to answer him.

“Chane has gone to the Indian reservation — over the canyons,” went on Chess. “He went to buy horses to sell to the Mormons. I wanted to go, but he wouldn’t let me. He tried to make me stay at my job in St. George. But I saw you — and I asked your dad for work so I could be near you.... Now Chane, as soon as he gets rid of those horses, he’ll be hitting my trail. He always hunts me up. He thinks I’m still a boy. He still calls me Boy Blue. He’s afraid I’m going to the bad.... Well, when he finds me he’ll see you, and he’ll fall in love with you. Chane never fell in love with a girl, to my knowledge. But you’re the sweetest, wonderfulest girl in the world. He just can’t help himself.... And then I could have you for a sister.”

The swift words rushed out in a torrent, and the simplicity of them touched Sue to the heart. Indeed, she had not known Chess Weymer. Less than boy — he was a child! But now she understood better why she had liked him.

“I — I’ll be your sister, anyhow,” said Sue, trying to think of something to say that would not hurt him. She sensed a singular relation between him and this older brother who called him Boy Blue. It thrilled Sue. There must be a wonderful love between them. It made her curious to hear more about this brother, yet, in view of Chess’s proposal, she did not quite like to ask. Perhaps that would not be necessary, so she waited.

“Sue, you just can’t help but love Chane,” began Chess, his face lighting. “I’ve watched you. I’ve studied you. I know what you care about. But any girl would love Chane. I’ve never been anywhere with him where there was a girl — that she didn’t fall in love with him. Without his even looking at her!”

“Indeed! Well, this brother of yours must be a — quite a fellow,” replied Sue. “What’s he like?”

“Oh, Chane’s grand,” burst out Chess, thus encouraged. “He’s like my father, only he’s got mother in him, too, which makes him finer. He’s tall and dark, and, say! he looks right through you. Chane’s got the sweetest, gentlest disposition. But he’s a fighter. It’s because of his kindness that he’s always getting into fights. He’s had some worse than fist-fights, I’m sorry to say. He’s ridden all over and has been in many outfits. He hates cattle and loves horses. I guess the Weymers were all horse lovers. My father was born in Kentucky. Chane never settles down. He goes more and more to the wild places. He’s a lonely sort of fellow — gets restless where there’re lots of people. Somebody will get into trouble and then Chane takes up that trouble. He’d never have any trouble if he’d keep away from people — and me. I give him most trouble. I’m always in hot water; then, sooner or later Chane rides up and gets me out of it.”

“No wonder he calls you Boy Blue!” said Sue, impulsively.

“He doesn’t any more, to my face. I hate it,” declared Chess, darkly.

“Is this brother a wild-horse hunter?” asked Sue.

“Chane’s been everything, but he loves horses best. They don’t have to be wild. They just have to be horses, tame or wild, good or bad, young or old. But I reckon lately the wild- horse wrangling has gotten more into Chane. It’s been sort of a fever across Nevada and Utah, you know. Two years ago he saw that great wild stallion, Panquitch. You’ve heard of him. Well, Chane was actually dotty over that wild horse.”

“I can understand the thrill of chasing wild horses. I’ve felt that when I’ve ridden out to watch you riders. But I can’t bear to see horses hurt, whether wild or tame.”

“Chane’s the same way, Sue,” rejoined Chess. “Oh, you and he are a lot alike. Just wait ‘til you meet him. Just wait ‘til you see him handle horses.”

“Very well, Chess, I’ll try to possess my soul in peace — until Chane trails you up,” replied Sue, laughing gayly. “Good night now. I’m sorry if I hurt you — yet, I’m glad you told me about yourself — and Chane.”

Sue left him sitting there in the dusk and returned camp fireward. But she did not tarry in the ruddy circle where the men were talking and laughing, nor did she go to her tent. She went off alone into the deep shadow of the cottonwoods. The air was crisp and cold, sweet with its wild tang; white stars were burning in the deep-blue vault above; the leaves were rustling in the night breeze; the late crickets were chirping with a melancholy note of coming frost; far out in the lonely darkness coyotes were howling.

“So I must wait for this wonderful brother Chane who calls him Boy Blue,” murmured Sue, dreamily.

She had been strangely, profoundly stirred, and could not grasp just why. She reasoned at first that it was because this boy Chess had paid her the highest honor possible, and then because she felt sorry for him, and then, at the revelation of such a beautiful attachment between brothers. These, however, were not conclusive. Chess’s words had struck at a hitherto untouched chord in her heart — the romance, the glory and dream of some love to come, vague, deep, latent, mysterious. Absurd indeed was the boy’s hope and assurance that she could not help but love Chane. What an odd name! She had never heard it before. In spite of her common sense, and her appreciation of Chess’s boyish sentiment, there had come into her mind a sudden strange establishment between her vague dream hero and this lonely desert rider, this horse lover so eloquently portrayed by his adoring brother. Sue scouted the inception. But it was there.

“Oh, it was so silly — his talk,” she whispered. “Who ever could guess what was in that wild boy?”

Sue at last turned away from the lonely night and the speaking stars, and repaired to her little tent. She went to bed not quite mistress of her vagrant fancies, not wholly sure of herself. Night always had that effect upon her; on the morrow she knew she would be her old, practical, sensible self. But the hour at hand, when sleep did not come readily, held her at the mercy of the unknown, the calling voices, the dim awakenings of instinct.

CHAPTER IV

THE SETTLING OF Melberne’s outfit into permanent camp at Stark Valley was characterized by the advent of perfect weather, a welcome change from the storms and winds of the past weeks. The rainy season had lingered late. It was most beneficial to the desert, but hard on wild-horse wranglers and others exposed to the elements. But the very day after Melberne pitched camp in the cottonwood grove it seemed the wonderful Indian summer of Utah smiled its golden purple-hazed welcome. It made camp life a joy, whether there was work or not, especially if some of the time could be idled away. Sue heard Loughbridge say that they might expect such weather to last for a month and possibly longer.

Melberne was not an experienced wild-horse hunter. This game was comparatively new to him. But he had great force and energy and he could handle men. Whatever his weakness, which perhaps was mostly a susceptibility to suggestion, he was just and fair in his dealings. The riders would not take orders from Loughbridge.

“Wal, men, we’re heah,” announced Melberne, cheerfully, after breakfast that first morning at Stark Valley. “An’ now let’s rustle. I’m not goin’ to drive this valley till I’ve a plan mapped out. Some way to trap a lot of horses. I’ll ride with Alonzo an’ Jim down into the valley an’ get the lay of the land. Reckon I can give you-all plenty to do.... Jake, you keep charge of camp an’ help the womenfolks. Build a stone oven, make a stand for the big kettle, pack water, an’ whatever offers.... Captain, saddle your horse an’ snake in a lot of dead hardwood. My boy Tommy will help you saw it. He just loves the end of a cross-cut saw. Ha! Ha!... An’, Miller, you an’ Utah ride up into some of them canyons that open into the valley. Take stock of any place where there’s sign of wild horses.... Chess, you like to hunt. Now we’re out of meat an’ I look to you as provider. Don’t hunt alone. That’s bad business. Take Bonny with you. There shore ought to be lots of game heah.”

“In a pinch we can eat wild-hoss meat,” observed Utah, with a drawl. “It shore ain’t bad.”

“Dad, you wouldn’t kill a beautiful wild horse to eat!” exclaimed Sue, in horror.

“Wal, lass, I never did,” he replied. “Fact is I never tasted horse flesh. Is it good, Alonzo?”

“Señor, I don’t know,” answered the Mexican vaquero, almost curtly. Manifestly the suggestion was not to his liking.

“I’d starve first,” added Sue, spiritedly.

Her father laughed good-naturedly and gave order for the saddle-horses to be brought in. Chess went whistling his pleasure at the duty assigned him, and taking his bridle up he halted before Sue.

“Little Girl Gold,” he said, gayly, “do you want your pony fetched in?”

“No, thanks, Chess. I’ve a heap of mending — washing to do.... And why did you call me that? I’m not little. I weigh — or did — a hundred and thirty. My hair is chestnut, not gold.”

“It had nothing to do with looks,” replied Chess, mysteriously.

“Oh, very well, little Boy Blue,” returned Sue, lightly.

“Say, I can stand that from you,” flashed Chess, “but don’t say it before anybody.”

“You’ll see. Wait till your brother Chane rides in on your trail,” said Sue, teasingly.

“I wish I hadn’t told you,” he replied, with regret. “Because if you do I’m going to get mad.”

“Chess, you have called me a number of names, and none of them suited me.”

“Mrs. Chess Weymer would suit fine, but you’re hard to please,” he retorted, with a laugh. Then he went whistling on his way, leaving behind him a pleasant sense of something fine and gay and irresponsible in him. Sue reflected that it was rather inconsistent of her to note he apparently had not been cast down by her rejection. Sometimes she regarded some of her thoughts and feelings quite dubiously.

She set about her own necessary duties, which, however, were all personal. She was not often called upon to help in the general camp chores. First she got Jake and Bonny to lift her chest out of the wagon and place it in the back of her tent.

“Now, Sue, I’ll bet you’ve got some pretty dresses in here,” ventured Jake, his tanned face wrinkling. He had big brown eyes, full of the kindliest expression.

“A few, Jake. And all the other possessions I have in the world,” she replied.

“No wonder you were afraid I’d drive the wagon over a bank,” responded Jake, with tremendous interest. “Some day you’ll dress up for us, won’t you? I’d like awful well to see you. My little girl, if she’d lived, would be about your age now.”

“Yes, Jake, I will if it would please you,” said Sue.

“Please me! Well now, listen to her!... Bonny, wouldn’t you like to see Sue all dressed up?”

“Shure, Miss Sue, it’d be g-g-grand,” replied the Irishman, with the most intense gravity. “I’d like to see you knock out the black-eyed wench.”

Jake and Bonny stooped out under the tent flaps, leaving Sue on her knees beside her precious chest. “These men.... It’s funny how they give Ora a little dig now and then. She’s pretty. But, no, I guess it’s not funny.”

Sue dragged her tarpaulin and roll of blankets, and her chaps, spurs, gloves, gun, slicker, coat — all her belongings except the big chest, out into the sunlight. She spread the blankets in the sun.

“Jake,” she called, “I want you to help me some more.”

She dispatched the genial Jake to fetch a tarpaulinful of cedar and piñon boughs; and on second thought, finding she had no task at hand while she waited for him, she followed him up the slope and helped him gather the boughs and drag the loaded tarpaulin back to her tent. Jake was the best of company, and, moreover, he had a way of making one feel more thoughtful and tolerant of others. “I’ll tell you, Sue,” he said, very confidentially, “don’t let Bonny or anybody put you against Ora. She’s a nice girl, if you just like her. She’s been spoiled. It’s plain she was sweet on young Chess, and everybody saw Chess favored you. That’s a hard place for a girl. It brings out feelings we all have.”

“Jake, I liked Ora, but lately she’s different,” protested Sue, and she tried to explain to the earnest old fellow how hard it was to be always sweetly disposed toward Ora.

“Yes, I know. But you’d feel better if you never had hard feelings,” replied Jake.

With Jake’s help Sue laid a mattress of fragrant boughs, a foot deep, along one side of her tent, holding them in place with a small log, cut to fit snugly against the canvas at each end. Upon this she spread the tarpaulin, made her bed of blankets upon it, and pulling the long end of the tarpaulin up she tucked it in all around. That done, she and Jake covered the rest of the floor space in the tent with the remaining boughs. Upon this springy carpet she spread the few Indian blankets she had. Jake fashioned a crude little rack to hold whatever she chose to hang upon it. Her duffle bag she placed in a corner. Then upon the chest, which could serve as a table, she placed her little mirror and the other toilet articles she possessed, her sewing kit, and a bag of sundry materials. Whereupon she surveyed the interior of her canvas home with a great deal of satisfaction, and sat down to consider which of her other numerous tasks she would begin first.

The hours sped apace. It was Melberne’s way in camp to have only two meals, breakfast and supper, and the latter usually came around sunset. Sue heard the men ride in, at different times, and she knew the afternoon was waning. But she kept at her mending until Mrs. Melberne called that supper was ready.

“Sue, you should have been with me,” shouted Chess, the instant she appeared. And with a biscuit in one hand and a cup in the other he burst into the narrative of his adventures. She caught more of his thrilling enthusiasm and excitement than of his story. He was radiant. He had shot his first deer — a buck so big that Bonny had to help him pack it to camp.

The Irishman was evidently an inexperienced hunter. He had wasted a good deal of ammunition on deer, without success.

“Shure, I follered them,” said Bonny, “an’ loike as not I’d soon have hit one. But I saw a bear! He walked roight out of a thicket — a gray furry brute, big as a steer — an’ thot’s all I rimimber.”

“Say, mate, didn’t you heave a shot at him?” queried Captain Bunk.

“My horse run, an’ I thot I’d better run after him,” replied Bonny, seriously.

“Haw! Haw!” roared the seafaring man.

Sue’s father rode in just before dark, dusty and weary, but so elated over his day’s experience that, like Chess, he had to talk before he could eat. He had seen thousands of wild horses that apparently had never been chased, so tame were they.

“If there were only trees or brush down in the valley we could cut them and drag them into long fences leading to a trap!” he ejaculated. “What a haul we’d make! But there’s not a tree in this heah valley, so far as we rode.... Sue, I saw a sorrel today — the finest piece of horseflesh I ever beheld. He was light color, not red or brown, but something between. A stallion with mane and tail that almost swept the ground. He had a whole bunch of bays and blacks. As we rode toward them he drove them on. They shore wasn’t bad scared. He whistled like a bugle note.”

“Dad, you may give him to me,” replied Sue, thrilled by his excitement.

Utah’s report appeared equally interesting to the men. Some ten miles or more down the slope of the valley he had come upon a canyon which he thought it well to explore. At the head of this he encountered a wild, broken-up section of ridges, all sloping down from two converging walls that met above. He discovered fine grass and water, and a drove of wild mules. They were in a natural trap, and it was Utah’s opinion they could be caught in one day.

“Wal, shore that’s fine,” declared Melberne. “We’re going to be busy round heah.”

Miller was the last to come in, and he had his supper by the light of the camp fire. Manifestly he had unusual and good reports to make, but, unfortunately, it happened to be a time when his fatal stuttering affected him most. Once he nearly got launched into clear speech, but Utah, who seemed peculiarly irritated by his rider comrade’s failing, yelled out, “Whistle it, you Chinese poll-parrot!”

That was too much for the exhausted wrangler; casting a baleful glance at Utah he subsided into silence.

Long and earnestly the other wild-horse hunters talked. It was an interesting evening round the camp fire. Sue, inspired by Jake’s kind words, deliberately sought out Ora Loughbridge and persistently made herself agreeable. At first Ora was stiff and what Chess had called snippy. But she was not proof against Sue’s kindliness, and gradually she thawed. Somehow during that hour Sue got an impression of Ora’s really deep attachment to Chess. She was about Chess’s age, and a romantic girl of strong emotions. Sue noted that Ora could scarcely keep her eyes from wandering in his direction, yet at the same time she was trying to hide her secret. Her state of mind seemed no longer trivial and amusing; indeed, Sue found that by exerting herself to be kind she had roused her own sympathy for the girl.

Sue divided the mornings between her own tasks and helping her stepmother; in the afternoons she was free to idle or ride or read. The men had not yet completed their reconnaissance of the surrounding country, nor had her father hit upon a satisfactory plan to trap a large number of wild horses.

The first frosts had begun to tint the foliage of the deciduous trees, and this added fresher beauty and contrast to the evergreens. The cottonwood grove was half gold, half green; the oak brush of the canyons began to take on a bronze and russet hue; the vines overgrowing the ledges of rock back of camp showed red against the gray; and up in the canyons bright spots of scarlet stood out strikingly.

Sue liked colors. Blue was most becoming to her fair complexion and chestnut hair, but she was not partial to it. Red caught her eye, held her, thrilled her with something nameless, but it was purple which she loved. And it appeared that on the Indian summer afternoons the whole sweep of valley and stone barriers beyond slumbered under a haze of purple, ethereal and mysterious close at hand, dark and heavy and enveloping in the distance.

The autumn season had halted for the present and all nature seemed to slumber. Even the birds showed the spell, banding in flocks, seldom taking wing, twittering plaintively. Down on the valley floor the wild horses moved almost imperceptibly.

Sue rode far and high one afternoon, accompanied by Ora and Chess, who, however, were more concerned with other things than scenery or Indian summer. Chess had been complimented on his successful hunting and was eager to win more commendation. Ora was mostly concerned with Chess, and liked the hunting only because it furnished means to ride with him. They left Sue on a high open point, back of which was a big country of ridges and ravines, all thickly covered with brush and trees. Here the young hunters disappeared.

Dismounting to await their return, Sue found a comfortable seat and gave herself up to the solitude and loneliness of the surrounding hills, and the wonder of the purple open beneath her. The cottonwood grove which hid the camp appeared a golden patch on the edge of the green valley; the wild horses were but dim specks; the valley itself was only an oval basin lost in a country as wide as the horizons.

What lay and upreared and hid beyond that level rangeland was the thing which drew and chained Sue’s gaze. It was the canyon country of Utah. Long had she heard of it, and now it seemed to spread out before her, a vast shadowy region of rock — domes, spurs, peaks, bluffs, reaching escarpments, lines of cleavage, endless scalloped marching rocks; and rising grandly out of that chaos of colored rock the red-walled black-tipped flat-topped mountain that was Wild Horse Mesa. Here Sue could see a magnificent panorama of the canyon country, above which the great mesa towered a sentinel. If it had earned Sue’s interest from the valley far below, it now fascinated her. Indeed, the rock wilderness emphasized by this isolated tableland called forth feelings which were strange and unintelligible to Sue. Was it just the beauty, the loneliness, and the majesty of nature that had come to arrest her thought and trouble her soul? What was she going to meet out here in wild Utah? Of late her working hours, her idle hours, even her dreams, her walks and rides and rests, had been vaguely haunted by the shadow of a mood that did not wholly break upon her consciousness.

“Something’s wrong,” sighed Sue, and her practical common sense did not drive away the conception. It was in the very solitude of her surroundings, and she could not grasp its meaning. But she divined that much as this new life in the open had come to mean, color and landscape and action, the fun afforded by the riders, and the interest of Ora’s love affair — these were not the secret of her subjection.

At last Sue confessed to her heart that she must be in love. It was one of the most secret of confessions, one of dreams almost, unaccepted by intelligence. But as the vague idea grew it developed out of that deep unconscious sphere where she had hidden her girlish fancies and ideals. It became a thought, amazing, ridiculous, inconceivable. It could not be supported by any facts. With whom could she be in love? Not Chess or Utah or any of the riders! Could it be with herself or life or this magnificent wilderness, or the nature that brooded there so solemnly? Sue tried to recall the dream hero, knight, lover that had been an evolution of her fairy-tale days, but he did not suit her new and masterful image. The new one seemed like this country, hard, rough, wild, untamed, exacting, dominating.

“But it’s only an idea!” burst out Sue, ashamed, astounded. Her cheeks were hot. Her blood ran strong from her heart. She felt it beat, beat, beat. Then there flashed into her mind what the boy Chess Weymer had said about his brother Chane; “You can’t help but love him!”

Sue at once laughed away the absurdity of any connection between the boy’s loyal worship of his brother and her own undivined yearnings. Yet there was something, and to strike a compromise with herself she acknowledged that any girl would have an interest in this wild-horse hunter who had such a great love for his brother and called him Boy Blue. There was enough romance in any girl for that, and if not romance, then a mother feeling.

“I’ve no work,” soliloquized Sue. “It’s this wandering, idle life, like an Indian’s. I think too much. But — there’s the other side to it. How beautiful the earth! I’ve learned to know the sunset, night, the stars, the moon, the sunrise, day — storm and cloud and rain, and now this purple summer. The birds, the animals — horses I love. I love the smell of the cedars, the pines, the earth, the grass. I love the feel of the rocks.... Oh, something has come into my life. There’s a step on my trail!”

SUE waited long for Ora and Chess, and at length they appeared riding under the trees, close together, without any game. Sue had a suspicion that they were holding hands just as they rode out of the timber, but she could not be certain. A further glance told her that they were no longer quarreling, which had been decidedly the case on the way up. Sue mounted her pony and started down the winding descent of the ridge.

About halfway down to camp, Ora and Chess caught up with her, and both appeared to overdo their excuses for such long absence.

“Were you gone long?” inquired Sue. “I hadn’t noticed that.”

Chess’s account of their hunt did not ring like those of former occasions, when he had found game. This time there was not a deer on the mountain-side.

“My brave hunter boy, I’m sure you found one dear,” said Sue, tantalizingly. She felt a tiny feminine twinge of pique. Chess had not long resisted the propinquity of the other girl.

“Aw, Sue, I reckon you are a lot older and wiser than me. There’s no fooling you,” declared Chess, half in regret and half resignedly.

This allusion to her proudly maintained maturity did not please Sue. It was all right for her to think it, but for Chess to accept it all of a sudden somehow irritated Sue. But she reflected that she was in a strange mood and not so kindly disposed as usual. She decided to let them do the talking.

Ora was overdoing it more than Chess. She was enthusiastic about the ride, and the canyon up there, and about a great deal in general, and nothing in particular. Ora’s big dark eyes were unusually bright, her cheeks were redder than seemed natural for slow riding, and her hair was disheveled. There was a singular radiance, a glow in her face, that contrasted markedly with the sullen shade which had characterized it recently. Sue concluded that this rascal Chess had really been making love to Ora.

“Sue, isn’t it just perfectly gorgeous?” murmured Ora, dreamily.

“What?” asked Sue, rather bluntly.

“Oh, everything — the bright colors, the sweet, sleepy something, the horses, riding out this way, this camp life,” babbled Ora.

“I think I know what you’re raving about, Ora,” replied Sue. “I’m glad you’ve come to feel it. Not long ago you were disgusted with the desert, Utah, wild horses, wranglers, and yourself.”

“Yes, I know, Sue,” said Ora, somewhat dampened, “but I — I’m not now.”

There appeared to be a humility in Ora, at this moment, that Sue had never observed before. It strengthened Sue’s conviction as to the cause. Then Chess, who was riding half a horse’s length behind Ora, caught Sue’s eye and winked mysteriously, with a hint of deviltry. Almost it seemed that he was telling Sue that if he could not have her he could have Ora. Sue flashed him a very scornful and accusing glance, and did not deign to notice him again. A little later, however, she could have laughed. She was beginning to understand why this boy’s brother believed he needed looking after.

“Some stranger in camp,” spoke up Chess, quickly, as they rode into the back of the cottonwood grove. Whereupon he trotted on ahead of Sue and Ora. Sue sustained a little shock of excitement that made her conscious of her own interest in a strange rider. What if it might be Chane Weymer! She saw a muddy, weary pack horse sagging under a bedraggled pack. But trees obstructed her view of the rider.

Ora headed her horse for the quarters of the Loughbridges and Sue turned for her tent. When she dismounted, Chess rode up at a lope and leaped off. One glance at his face told Sue that the newcomer was not Chane. Sue felt a sudden relief and vague disappointment! This annoyed her and made her resentful toward Chess.

“Dog-gone — it! I thought maybe Chane had come and I’d get even with you,” said Chess as he began to unsaddle her horse.

“Get even with me! What for?” queried Sue, exasperated.

“Well, I reckon I’d call it lack of reci-pro-city,” declared Chess, cheerfully.

“Chess, you’re not very witty... and please explain how the possible arrival of your brother would enable you to get even with me, as you call it.”

“You’re sure likely to fall in love head over heels, and you might get the cold shoulder, as I got it.”

“Chess, you’re adding rudeness to your many other faults,” retorted Sue, haughtily.

“Aw, Sue, I beg pardon,” said Chess, contritely, as he slid her saddle and blankets to the ground. “I’m only sore. But I’ll get over it.... And listen. Chane’d never give you a cold shoulder. Now remember what I tell you. He’ll fall terribly in love with you.”

Suddenly a hot blush burned Sue’s neck and face. Ashamed, furious with her ungovernable and conflicting emotions, she turned away from Chess.

“Don’t talk — non-nonsense,” she replied, hastily. “Who is the stranger?”

“When I saw he wasn’t Chane I just rode back,” returned Chess. “But soon as I ‘tend to the horses I’ll find out for you.”

Chess mounted and went off whistling, leading Sue’s mount toward Ora’s tent. Sue kicked off her spurs and chaps and went inside her tent to change her masculine garb. It might have been that she paid the least bit more attention than usual to her appearance. Still, though she liked the more serviceable and comfortable garb of men for riding or roughing it, she had always, when possible, given preference to feminine dress. Sue sat down to await the supper call, quite aware of an eager appetite, which, however, did not prevent her from reflection. Presently there came a rustling footfall outside.

“Sue, I yelled once supper is ready,” called Chess. “I’ll bet my horse to your spurs that you’ve been doing the same as Ora.”

“What’s that?” asked Sue, as she spread the flaps of her tent and came forth.

“Aw, Sue!” he ejaculated, staring at her. His handsome boyish face expressed both delight and regret. “I never saw you — so — so sweet.... All for the benefit of the stranger! Ora primped up, too. Sue, you women are all alike.”

“Why, of course! Aren’t men all alike?” returned Sue, archly.

“Not by a darn sight,” he denied, “and you’ll find out some day.”

“Well, who’s the stranger?” demanded Sue, with undue interest, just to torment Chess.

“Ahuh! Well, his name’s Manerube — Bent Manerube. How’s that for a handle? He’s a horse-wrangler from Nevada. Husky, good-looking chap. He’s just in from the Piute country, across the canyons. Sure looked like he’d been riding rough.”

“That’s the country I saw today from up high. Wild Horse Mesa! He can tell us about it, can’t he?”

“I reckon. But see here, Sue,” went on Chess, and as he faced about to walk with her toward the camp fire he took her arm gently and firmly. “Don’t forget you’re to be Chane’s sweetheart — and my sister.”

“Little Boy Blue, I’ll not be won by proxy,” rejoined Sue.

Whereupon he let go her arm and maintained a rather lofty silence. Sue stole a glance at him out of the tail of her eye. His face seemed different, somehow. Then they reached the camp fire and the supper table. Manifestly the men were all waiting.

“Hello, lass!” called her father. “Shore you an’ Ora have held up the festal board.... Sue, meet Mr. Benton Manerube of Nevada. — This’s my daughter. Now, everybody, let’s eat.”

Sue saw a tall man standing beside her father and she bowed in acknowledgment of the introduction. He had gleaming eyes that seemed to leap at sight of her and absorb her. Sue dropped her own. Chess, as usual, was promptly on hand with a seat for her and Ora; and in a moment they were supplied with bountifully laden plates.

“Sue, isn’t he handsome?” whispered Ora.

“Who?” queried Sue.

“Mr. Manerube, of course. Did you think I meant Chess?”

“Why, I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, he’s noticed you, and I’m jealous,” declared Ora.

“Yes, you acted like it on the ride back to camp.... But I’m hungry.”

Some moments later Sue covertly stole a glance at the newcomer, who sat opposite, between her father and Loughbridge. Ora had not been mistaken about the man’s looks, despite a discolored bruise on his face. His hair glinted in the sunset glow, and his complexion, though browned by exposure, was still so fair that it made the other riders look like Indians.

Sue, perhaps following Ora’s example, rather prolonged the eating of her supper. One by one the riders got up from round the tarpaulin tablecloth and clinked away to the tasks necessary before dark. Chess remained sitting cross-legged beside Ora, while Jake, always helpful, began to gather up the plates and cups. Sue’s father, having finished his supper, rose to his feet and threw some wood on the fire. Loughbridge got up and said something in a low tone to Melberne. They were both interested in the newcomer. Naturally this quickened Sue’s perceptions. Finally Manerube stood up, showing the superb figure of a rider and the worn, soiled garb of one who had surely been in contact with hard country. He wore a belt which swung low on his right hip with the weight of a gun. His blouse was a heavy checkered woolen garment, made by the Mormons, Sue thought, and as he wore no coat or vest, his broad shoulders and deep chest showed strikingly. His unshaven beard, of days’ growth, was so fair that it did not detract from the fresh ruddy virility of his face.

“I sure was starved,” he remarked, in a deep voice with a pleasant ring. “No grub for a week, except with Indians. Reckon I could bless your womenfolk, Melberne.”

“Shore, I’ve been hungry,” replied Melberne, heartily. “You looked fagged. An’ Alonzo said your horses were ready to drop. Where you bound?”

“Well, nowhere in particular,” replied Manerube, slowly. “I was disappointed in my errand across the rivers. Fellow got ahead of me, buying horses from the Piutes. Reckon I’ll tie up with the first wrangler outfit in need of a good rider.”

“Ahuh! Do you know this wild-horse game?” asked Melberne, quickly.

Manerube uttered a short laugh. “Do I? Well, Melberne, I reckon so.”

At this juncture Sue noted how Chess sat up, after the manner of a listening jack rabbit. Sue appreciated her own little thrill of interest. What assurance this rider had!

“Have you ever caught wild horses in large numbers, so they could be shipped unbroken?” went on Melberne.

“I’m the man who started that game,” replied Manerube. “Shipped three thousand for Saunders last year.”

“Saunders? Do you mean the Mormon cattleman?” asked Loughbridge.

“Jim Saunders of Salt Lake. He brought me over from Nevada. I was with his Kanab outfit.”

“Mel, I’m thinkin’ Manerube is the wrangler we’re after,” added Loughbridge, turning to his partner. “Let’s give him charge of our outfit.”

“Shore,” rejoined Melberne, quick to respond. “Manerube, if you’ll hang up heah we’ll pay you top wages, with a per cent of our profits.”

“Glad to help you out,” said Manerube, with a wave of his hand, as if success was assured. “Who’re your riders?”

Melberne enumerated and named them, as he knew them, by their first names.

“You’re forgettin’ Alonzo,” interposed Loughbridge.

“Alonzo. Is he a Mexican, a half-breed vaquero, catches wild horses alone?” asked Manerube, quickly.

“Yes, we have him,” replied Melberne.

“Know of him. Great wrangler, they say,” returned Manerube, thoughtfully. “But I reckon I never saw him.... Well, you’ve hardly got enough good riders to handle big bunches of horses. Perhaps the young ladies could help?”

Manerube, while talking, had not been unaware of the presence of Sue and Ora, and now he launched this query at them as well as their fathers.

“Oh, you’re not serious?” exclaimed Ora.

“Never more serious in my life,” replied Manerube, with a winning smile. “Can you ride? I don’t mean like a cowboy, but well enough to ride fast and hard.”

“Shore they can,” declared Melberne, speaking for the girls. “You’re sworn in as wild-horse wranglers.”

“Dad, I’m not so sure I want to be one,” said Sue, shaking her head.

“Why, are you afraid?” queried Manerube. “I can see Miss Loughbridge likes the idea.”

“It’ll be gorgeous,” burst out Ora.

Sue looked at the new rider and did not like the something in his eyes any better than his intimation of her cowardice.

“No, I’m not afraid,” she said.

“Say, Sue’s got more nerve than a man,” interposed Chess, with spirit. “But she hates to see horses hurt.”

“Wal, we won’t argue aboot it,” replied Melberne, genially. “Sue can do as she likes.... Manerube, you come across the valley. Did you see many wild horses?”

“Thousands every day. All the way from Wild Horse Mesa. That’s what the Mormons call the last stand of the wild horses. I saw the finest stock in all this country. It’d pay you, Melberne, after you catch and ship all horses possible near the railroad, to go after the fine stock.”

“But shore we can’t drive over thirty miles,” protested Melberne.

“No. I meant to take time — catch the best wild horses and break them.”

“Wal, shore heah’s a new idea, Jim,” declared Melberne. “I like it. What kind of range land over there?”

“Finest grass and water in Utah,” replied Manerube.

“I heah there are horse thieves in the canyon country,” said Melberne, dubiously.

“Reckon some outfits hold up over there. But you’re just as liable to run across them here. Fact is I run into some Mormon outlaws over across the San Juan. Stayed with them a few days. Not bad fellows to meet, though.”

“Who were they?” asked Loughbridge.

“Bud McPherson and two of his pards, Horn and Slack.”

“Bud McPherson’s pretty well known over St. George way,” declared Loughbridge. “You’ve heard of him, Mel?”

“Shore, I’ve heard of a lot of these horse thieves,” replied Melberne. “They’re not worrying me. I’ve had to do with that brand down in Texas.”

“Say, Manerube, how’d you come to camp with McPherson?” inquired Loughbridge, curiously.

It struck Sue that Manerube was not averse to talking about himself. She was interested, naturally, in so forceful a character, and there seemed something compelling about the man, but all at once she found she did not like him. Ora, however, appeared completely fascinated, a fact that Manerube had manifestly grasped. Chess, too, had, if anything, grown more attentive.

“I was hunting for some Piutes, and run right into Bud and his pards,” began Manerube, taking a seat on a log before the camp fire, somewhat closer to the girls. “It really wasn’t their camp, as I learned afterward. It belonged to the wrangler who beat me getting to the Piutes. You know I told you I went to buy horses for the Mormons. This wrangler got there first. Lucky for me, because McPherson was only hanging round to steal horses. It rather tickles me, for I had a little set-to with that wrangler. He gave me this black eye. But you should have seen him!”

Manerube put his hand to the discolored blotch on his face, and his last remark was addressed to the girls.

Sue became suddenly very attentive, not because of Manerube’s words, but because she saw that Chess was reacting strangely to this rider’s story. He half rose and leaned to listen. His slender body quivered. Through Sue flashed a sudden intimation.

“You had a fight?” queried Melberne, much interested, and he crossed over nearer to Manerube.

Jake likewise had caught the drift of the story, and he stood still, staring at the back of the rider’s head.

“Reckon so. He didn’t seem eager to throw his gun, and I had to beat him.”

“Wal, you don’t say!” ejaculated Melberne, now as interested as any boy at the recital of a fight. “But shore you must have had cause?”

“Yes, I reckon I’d have been justified in shooting the wrangler. But as I said, he wouldn’t draw.... It was all on account of a pretty little Piute girl named Sosie. She’d been to the government school, talked English well, and was crazy about white men. The wrangler had been a squaw man among the Navajos, so I’d heard. Well, he was after Sosie pretty hard. Toddy Nokin, the old Piute father, told him to stay away from her. But he wouldn’t. Finally I felt sorry for Sosie. She was being fooled, poor kid. So I just picked a fight with that wrangler and pounded him as he deserved.”

Manerube ended his story with a casual nonchalance and a deprecatory gesture, as if he rather disliked his personal contact in the affair.

Sue was more than thrilled to see Chess rise with the guarded movement of a cat, sustaining and banding strength, as if for a leap.

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Loughbridge, with gravity. “Did you catch that wrangler’s name?”

“Why, yes, come to think of that,” replied Manerube, blandly. “It was Weymer — Chane Weymer.”

Loughbridge uttered an exclamation, either of surprise or dismay. And Chess leaped wildly to confront Manerube.

“You damned liar!” he burst out, in ringing passionate fury.

Manerube was certainly astounded. “What?” he ejaculated, blankly, and stared.

Chess’s face was white, his big eyes burned, his jaw quivered. He seemed strung like a whipcord.

“Chane Weymer’s my brother!” he cried, and his quivering hand reached to his hip for a gun that was not there. Then, quick as a flash, he struck Manerube violently in the face, a sodden blow that almost toppled the man over. Righting himself, he sprang up with a curse. Rushing at Chess, he lunged out and beat the boy down. Chess fell into Jake’s arms, and Loughbridge sprang before Manerube.

“That’s enough. He’s only a boy,” ordered Loughbridge, hurriedly, and he pushed the other back.

“Boy or not, I’ll — I’ll—” panted Manerube, hoarsely, with his hand on his face.

“No, you won’t do anythin’,” said Loughbridge, forcibly, and he pushed Manerube to a seat on the log. “Reckon you was provoked, but cool down now.”

Jake was having trouble holding Chess, who wrenched and lunged to get free.

“Easy now, Chess,” said Jake, persuasively. “I’m not going to let you go. Why, boy, you’re just mad. You want to look out for that temper. I had one once. I know. Now you just hold on.”

Melberne came to Jake’s assistance, and then the two men, one on each side of Chess, held him firmly until he stopped wrestling. There was blood on his ashen face, and a piercing passion in his eyes. Sue read in them a terrible intent that horrified while it shook her heart. Chess fixed his gaze on Manerube.

“If I’d had my gun I’d have — shot you,” he panted, thickly. “You dirty liar!... I’ll bet you’re what — you made out my brother to be.”

Then Chess turned to Melberne. “Let me go. I’ll — I’ll behave. But I want you to know my brother’s — the soul of honor. If you’d known my mother you couldn’t believe this skunk. Chane wouldn’t lie — he couldn’t hurt a girl, white or red. If he went out of his way for an Indian girl — it was to befriend her.... He’s big enough. He could marry a squaw, but it’d be out of the kindness of his heart.”

Sue was aware that Ora was clutching at her with nervous hands. Chess, just then, seemed magnificent in defense of his brother. Without another word he wheeled away, his white face flashed in the firelight, and then he was gone.

“Manerube, shore you might have kept Weymer’s name to yourself,” said Melberne, with asperity.

“How’d I know he had a brother here?” demanded the other, wrathfully. “He hit me — right where his brother hit me.... And he’d better keep out of my road.”

“Reckon I’ll see that he does,” returned Melberne. “And you’ll oblige me by not making trouble, if you want to stay with us.”

Ora began to cry and ran off in the darkness. Sue sought her own tent, considerably upset by the incident. Sitting down upon her bed in the dark, she went over the whole situation. After all, as far as Chess was concerned, it had only been another fight. It was not the first. This one, however, was serious. Chess had looked dangerous. He had been like a lion. Sue thrilled anew as she recalled the blaze of his eyes, the ring of his voice. Manerube did not show admirably. Sue had not been favorably impressed by his narrative; besides, he was too big a man to beat a boy that way. True, Chess had given great provocation. Sue was thinking back to the real cause of the trouble when she was interrupted by her father outside.

“Sue, are you in bed?” he asked.

“No, dad.”

He opened the flaps of the tent, letting in a ray of firelight. Then he entered, to take a seat on the bed beside Sue.

“Lass, reckon I’d like your angle on the little fracas between Chess and this Manerube,” said her father as he took her hand in his.

Sue told him briefly and candidly what she thought about it.

“Wal, wal, I reckon I think aboot as you,” he replied, ponderingly. “It looks like this heah to me. Manerube wanted to cut a dash before you girls.... Chesty sort of rider. But I’ve met lots like him. Only not so well spoken. Either he’s not what he pretends or he’s been something different from what he is now.”

“I felt sorry for Chess,” murmured Sue.

“Poor boy! But shore I can’t see as he needed sympathy. He said what he thought, like a man, an’ he banged Manerube hard.... Sue, if Chess had been packing a gun — there’d have been blood spilled.”

“Oh, dad!”

“Wal, I reckon I can control the youngster.... Sue, he shore must love that brother Chane.”

“Dad, I happen to know he worships him.”

“More’s the pity. I’m afraid Manerube was telling the truth.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sue. “How — why — ?”

“Wal, Loughbridge told me he had heard a lot aboot this Chane Weymer. Wonderful man with horses! He’s been in some shooting scrapes. Lonely sort of chap. But, shore, that’s all to his credit. It was the rumor aboot Indian squaws.... Loughbridge heard talk in Bluff. Shore, it was Mormon talk. I don’t know. I’d like to believe Chess — he was so damn fine. Somehow he just made me jump. But I reckon the boy’s wrong an’ Manerube’s right. Loughbridge thinks so. Wal, wal, I’m sorry. Good night, lass.”

Sue went to bed without lighting her candle. She felt a little shaken, and slipped under the blankets more quickly than usual. Then she lay wide awake in the darkness. She heard the low voices of men talking by the camp fire. The wind mourned through the cottonwoods. The night seemed sad. Poor devoted Boy Blue, with his wonderful love for the wonderful brother! It was well that the boy’s mother was far away in Colorado, far from the gossip that would wound a loving heart. Chane Weymer! The vague, strange shadow of an ideal faded. Sue experienced a slight sinking sensation, almost a sickness, and following that a little heat at her vagrant and unfounded fancies. She whispered to herself: “Poor boy! He said, ‘You couldn’t help but love my brother Chane!’”

CHAPTER V

TO CHANE WEYMER’S surprise, Toddy Nokin did not drive the mustangs toward the left on the Beaver Canyon trail, but in the direction of the great green bowl of shelving land that led down into the rock country. The long string of bobbing mustangs stretched out, with Toddy’s sons riding in the rear. At the junction of the two trails the old Piute waited for Chane, and motioned for him to dismount. Toddy’s demeanor was in no wise different from usual, yet Chane felt a quickening of his pulse.

Toddy Nokin made one of his slow gestures toward Chane’s camp.

“No want white men,” he said, significantly.

Chane regarded his Indian friend with surprise and dawning comprehension. Toddy had reasons for signifying that Chane should dispense with Bud McPherson and his cronies.

“All right, Toddy. If you say so. I sure don’t want them,” he declared, with finality, and waited for the Piute to speak further. Manifestly Toddy was pondering deeply. At last he said, speaking in his own tongue, that Chane would be wise to leave his camp and supplies, without telling McPherson of his intention to drive the mustangs across the rivers. He could say he was going to ride across country to see a relative of Toddy Nokin’s about purchasing more horses, and would give Chane opportunity to drive his mustangs across the San Juan before McPherson became aware of the ruse. Toddy did not give any reason for this. But the mere suggestion was enough. Bud McPherson was undoubtedly a horse thief. Chane had vague recollection of the name, somehow connected with shady horse deals.

“But, Toddy, what’ll I do for grub and blankets?” queried Chane, reluctant to surrender his outfit. “And there’re my pack horses.”

The Piute said he would get the horses, and without further comment he mounted his mustang and rode down the trail after his sons.

Chane did not have any choice, it seemed, yet he deliberated before getting on his horse. It galled him to sacrifice his outfit to three outlaws. Still, there was nothing of any value, except the food. Perhaps this was the wisest course to get rid of the men, but he could not satisfy himself wholly with it. Would Bud McPherson be so easily fooled? Chane’s hostility had roused with the certainty that these men had imposed upon him and were not what they claimed to be. Why not ride into camp with a drawn gun, fight it out with them, or, better, take possession of their weapons, so they could not ambush his trail?

“Reckon Toddy knows best,” he soliloquized, finally. “There’s less risk in his plan — maybe. I don’t know.... But I’d like to have it out with Bud McPherson.”

Chane did not find it easy to abandon that last idea. He had fought the same thing before more than once, and every time it had been harder. He did not like violent issues, but as he had grown older among the rough men of this desert he had not seen any advantage in turning his other cheek to those who struck him. That stone country taught stern measures.

Mounting Brutus, he headed west on the Beaver Creek trail, reached the great corner of yellow cliff, and rode round under its looming wall, down the rock ledges to the stream, and up the other slope to camp. The cedars were thick, and through them he thought he saw an object move. Then a jack rabbit loped off through the sage. It might have been what he had seen. Chane rode to the cedar where he kept his bed and one of his packs, and here he dismounted. It was some distance from the main camp. There did not appear to be any of the men in sight. This relieved Chane. He strode over to the camp. A fire of cedar boughs was still smoldering, and a pot of beans was smoking. The camp fire duffle appeared as usual. McPherson and his men had ridden off somewhere. Chane returned to his pack, and rummaged round until he found his little notebook and lead pencil. On a leaf of this he wrote that he was going off toward the Navajo country to buy more mustangs. This he tore out of the book, and going back to the camp fire he placed it in a conspicuous place, with a little stone to weigh it down. Upon the return it occurred to him that as the camp was deserted he might take what he wanted. But he must exercise care not to pick up anything McPherson might miss.

When he reached the cedar he found Brutus stamping, either excited about something or impatient to be off. Chane had not known the horse long enough to understand him.

“What’s the matter, old boy?” queried Chane.

Brutus snorted and tossed his head. His ears were up and he had fire in his eyes. Whatever the cause, Brutus’s actions made Chane wary, and he peered around uneasily. No man or Indian or beast appeared in sight. Chane procured a box of rifle shells from his pack, a small leather case, and a bag of parched and salted corn, which he kept for emergency travel. These he folded in his coat and tied on the back of the saddle. As he finished this his quick eye, accustomed to running over horse and saddle, suddenly fell upon his rifle sheath. It was empty.

Annoyance succeeded to dismay. Chane swore, and then thought swiftly to ascertain when last he had surely seen the rifle. It must have joggled out of the sheath, and by retracing his steps he would find it. That often happened to a rider.

“No. It was there — when I got off Brutus,” he said, suddenly. He remembered. He never made mistakes about things like that. Chane peered all around, then down upon the ground. In a bare dusty spot he espied a moccasin track. Fresh! It gave him a start. He recognized it as belonging to a crippled Piute who had often been in camp. Chane had not trusted him. Toddy Nokin said he was a bad Indian. There was no mistaking that malformed moccasin imprint.

“Now, the thing to decide is, is he just a sneak Indian thief, or did McPherson put him up to stealing my rifle?” pondered Chane. It might be either, but Chane leaned to the opinion that McPherson had had a hand in it. If this surmise was correct, then the present locality might not be healthy for Chane. The Piute was somewhere close, in possession of the rifle, and possibly with the hidden outlaws. Chane leaped upon Brutus and for the first time spurred him. The result was grimly thrilling to Chane. Brutus left that spot like an arrow shot from a bow. Chane fully expected to hear the report of his rifle. It would take an unerring marksman to hit Brutus at that speed; and as far as pursuit was concerned, that would be useless.

Chane headed west, directly opposite from what McPherson would have calculated upon, if he were waiting in ambush. The open cedar ridge slanted away for a couple of miles, and Brutus covered it at a pace that positively amazed Chane.

“By golly! I begin to believe what they said about this horse,” he muttered.

The wind whipped his face, blurring his eyes. But dim as his sight was, he made certain there were no riders in pursuit. Therefore checking Brutus, he rode down round the brow of the cedar ridge to the rim of Beaver Canyon. Here it had begun to box into walls, but he was sure he could find a place to cross before it grew deep. Half a mile farther on he encountered a trail used by horses going down for water, and here he reached the canyon floor. It was a shallow canyon, but showed signs of growing ruggedness. Chane had never been down it, and could not risk the easy travel over sand. He took the first possible ascent, a small side ravine sloping out, and soon found himself on the green level above. Here he headed east, putting Brutus to his long easy lope. The horse had as smooth action as one of the light Indian mustangs.

“You never can tell about a horse — what he is — until you know,” mused Chane. “But I’ll have to give McPherson credit for sizing up Brutus. He knew, all right. And he was sure crazy to get Brutus. Meant to steal him! Well, Bud, I think we’ll fool you.”

Chane kept sharp lookout for sight of Toddy Nokin and the string of mustangs. This league-wide basin appeared deceptively level, but there was a decided pitch down toward the yellow rounded rocks, and shallow washes deepened and narrowed in that direction. The gray sage prevailed here, and it was growing stunted. Grass and weed were abundant, and a few cacti. No animal or bird life crossed Chane’s roving gaze. Often he looked back, up at the brow of the purple-sage upland, marked now by the sharp outline of cedar against the sky. He was traveling fast down toward the weird canyon country; still, all around him was open and beautiful, sunny and fragrant.

Chane began to quarter more to the northeast, and soon turned into the trail Toddy Nokin had taken. The dust was cut with fresh hoof tracks. Brutus swung into this winding trail, heading north and sloping perceptibly. As the miles swiftly passed by, Chane saw the great round yellow rocks come closer on each side, and gradually encompass him. They at first stood isolated, like huge mountainous beasts, then gradually they grew closer together until they coalesced into the waved wall, so strange to see from the upland country. A mile-wide space appeared to open into this wilderness of rock, and it sloped from each wall down to the beginning of a canyon.

Chane had not come in this way, but farther to the eastward, by a trail crossing the San Juan east of Piute Canyon. Toddy Nokin was leading toward the little-known trail called the Hole in the Wall, long a rendezvous of outlaws. Presently Chane rode to the rim of a canyon that headed abruptly there. It had sloping bare stone walls, and soon yawned deep and rugged, an irregular vent that wandered down to the chaos of red and yellow rock. Across this canyon Toddy Nokin and his sons appeared, driving the string of mustangs. Chane rode down and climbed out, soon catching up with his Indian friend.

He was quick to observe that the trail here was very old and dim, in places scarcely perceptible. It had been little traveled. Evidently the trail that he had just left was the one mostly used on the way to the Piute ford of the San Juan. Chane lost no time telling Toddy Nokin about the loss of his rifle and the moccasin track of the club-footed Piute.

“Ugh!” grunted Toddy, and his accent was not reassuring. Halting his mustang, he looked back toward the uplands. It was the gaze of a desert falcon. Chane trusted to it, and was relieved that Toddy turned away without comment. But he urged the mustangs to a little faster trot.

They headed narrow deep intersecting canyons, which necessitated a good deal of travel without marking any considerable progress in a straight line. At length the Indians came out on flat hard ground, a bench under a lofty crackling wall, and verging precipitously upon the canyon they were following. The bench was marked strikingly by immense boulders that had broken from the cliffs above and had lodged along the brink of the abyss. Some were ready to topple over. Their prodigious size, from fifty to a hundred feet high, and almost as thick, and the marvelous balancing on the rim, made them objects of awe and speculation.

At length the Piutes started down over the rim, at a place apparently perpendicular, a succession of rocky zigzag steps rather than a trail.

Chane dismounted at the rim and watched the file of mustangs clatter down, sending the rocks rolling to gather in momentum and volume, until there was an avalanche roaring down into this red chasm of ruined stone. Chane had his doubts about Brutus getting down that slope of solid corners and loose footing. He was too big a horse to be nimble enough to turn at the sharp zigzags. But Chane had no choice. He took a last long look up the gradually ascending desert gateway through which they had entered this maze of rock. Nothing moved except the heat veils rising from the stony floor. If McPherson had discovered Toddy Nokin’s ruse to elude pursuit, there was not yet any sign of it.

“Well, Brutus, if you can get down here I’ll be ready to believe you can fly,” said Chane. Heretofore, in climbing or descending bad places Chane had held the bridle and led Brutus. It occurred to him here to trust the horse, making travel easier for both of them, provided Brutus was clever and supple enough to go it alone. So he tied a knot in the end of the reins and hung the loop over the pommel. Then starting down, he called Brutus to follow. For some rods the descent was not so very bad, and Brutus rolled the rocks without paying any heed to travel. He was just walking down, and looking for a tuft of grass here and there. Presently, however, the long zigzags gave place to short ones, narrow, crowded with boulders, winding under projecting walls, and broken by many abrupt steps, some of them four feet straight down. Chane soon realized the fact that this trail, if it were a trail, was never used except in descent.

To Chane’s utter astonishment and delight, Brutus followed him absolutely without nervousness or hesitation. On the short turns he was as quick and supple as a jack rabbit. His big bulk did not hinder him; he had the feet and legs of a mountain goat. When he came to the high steps he would halt and look down at Chane as if for instruction. Chane would call out, “Come on, Brutus.” The horse would look at Chane and snort, then lift both great hoofs evenly, and plunge down, landing them squarely. He would slide. His hind hoofs would follow, to thump down. Then the rocks would roar and scatter. The dust would rise. Chane had to leap and run to keep from being hurt. If Brutus had not met often with the abrupt steps, where he halted until called, Chane would have found it difficult to keep ahead of him.

Down and down horse and man worked, until the ragged red wall loomed terrifically above and the hazy depths began to grow clear, and the opposite wall of canyon rose higher and higher, to blot out part of the glaring sky. Chane could not see either mustangs or Indians below, but he heard the crack and rattle of rocks and the shrill cries of the drivers.

About halfway down, and perhaps a thousand feet from the bottom of the chasm, this tortuous passage wound out upon a narrow cape that looked down sheer into the depths. It was a place to make a man go cautiously, with tense muscle and clear eye, Chane passed it, drew a breath of relief, and stifled a vacillating consideration for Brutus. The horse must not be stopped now. Chane called him. But Brutus did not wholly obey. He pounded down readily, and stamped out on the narrow projection, where, instead of turning, he espied a tiny tuft of grass on the extreme edge. He took two steps, reached for it, plucked it, and then stood on the very edge of the tremendous abyss, gazing down.

Chane’s heart leaped to his throat. The front hoofs of Brutus lapped the edge. If the ground crumbled! If he made a slip! Chane was afraid to trust his voice. Then Brutus turned on the apex of that small point as nimbly as a burro, and came on.

“Hey! I give up!” exclaimed Chane as the horse reached him. And he meant that in more ways than one. He put a hand on the soft warm muzzle and looked into the big dark eyes. It seemed to him those eyes were intensely alive. Brutus understood him. Was it possible for him to understand Brutus?

Chane clambered down, no longer worried about his horse. The canyon wall began to slant more easily toward the bottom; the abrupt places disappeared; the zigzags grew longer, winding through monumental débris from the cliffs above. Soon the mustangs and Indians below became visible, and at length they stretched out on the narrow floor.

When Chane walked out on the level, Brutus was right behind him. So Chane got into the saddle again and soon caught up with the Piutes.

This narrow red gulch, with its lofty overhanging walls, opened into a wider canyon, where color and ruggedness and ruin appeared to keep pace with the increased dimensions. When Chane turned the corner of wall he came upon a wonderful garden spot of green cottonwood and grass, perhaps ten acres in extent, set down like a gem amid the brazen iron devastation. A stream of water, shining like silver in the sunlight, passed through this oasis. A long wide canyon yawned to the west, and at the extreme end, where it notched, the golden sun hung, perceptibly dimming. From the direction of this canyon and the stream that wound through it Chane decided it must be Beaver Canyon. Upon inquiring of Toddy Nokin, he found that his surmise was correct. Beyond the verdant spot the great walls appeared to have collapsed, to choke the canyon mouth and bar egress to the river. Somewhere in the red and russet jumble of rock the stream disappeared.

Toddy Nokin and his sons drove the mustangs into the oasis and let that be the end of the day’s journey. It was obvious that the mustangs would not stray from that luxuriant place. Birds, rabbits, squirrels gave life and color to this beautiful fresh oval of green.

Chane took the saddle and bridle off Brutus, and watched him roll, four times over one way, three times back. He had to confess again that the horse possessed extraordinary powers.

Toddy Nokin said this was the safest place he knew to stop for the night, and the only one where there was plenty of grass. Chane was surprised not to find any indication of Indian camps or travel. Not a hoof track showed along the sand of the stream. It was one of the lonely places seldom frequented by Indians, perhaps never by white men. Chane lost some of his apprehension about McPherson. There did not seem to be probability of the horse thieves surprising him here. The danger, perhaps, was farther on, at or near the ford of the San Juan. Chane did not, however, cease to be worried about the loss of his rifle. If he had that he could afford to laugh at McPherson and his allies.

Chane sought a sandy seat under a cottonwood. He was tired and the heat still hung heavily in the canyon. Bees were humming around the clusters of yellow flowers that gave the oasis a gleam of gold. While he rested, the Indians started a fire and began preparations for a meal. Chane saw Toddy’s younger son stalking rabbits with a bow and arrow, a weapon still much used by the Piute boys.

The shadows grew. Slowly the dull iron red of the walls changed to blue. Low down a purple veil obscured distant objects. When the bees ceased to hum there was left only the murmur of the stream. Tiny bats darted through and above the cottonwood oasis.

Chane partook of the meager Indian supper with relish enough. Many a time he had lived on less. Dusky smoky sunset quickly succeeded to twilight, and at that depth under the canyon walls, twilight reigned only a moment before yielding to night.

The Indians did not talk. Toddy Nokin was more than usually reticent and somber. Chane grasped anew the risk in this venture for him. Tomorrow would tell the tale. Chane made a bed of his saddle blankets, on soft warm sand, and lay down to sleep. But the solemnity of this solitude and the encroaching of the weird canyon influence kept him awake for a while. He was in the gateway to the labyrinthine network of canyons unfamiliar even to the Piutes. It weighed upon him. What would happen? Could he ford the rivers? There seemed to hover over him a shadow of calamity which had not clouded his mind in the light of day.

At last he was succumbing to drowsiness when he was startled and thrilled by a crash of thunder. It filled the canyon — a great volume of sound. But the stars were bright in the heavens. There was no storm. The thunder and bellow came from a section of cliff breaking away and plunging down the rock-strewn slope. It gathered volume until Chane seemed to be deafened. Then it ended, and the weird echoes boomed from cliff to cliff, and rolled away, thundering, rumbling, dying. After that the silence seemed unreal. Chane had a strange sense of his loneliness and helplessness. At last he dropped off to sleep.

CHANE awakened toward dawn and found he was cold. From that time he slept no more, and in the gray wan light he was glad to see a fire kindled by the Indians. He got up, cramped and stiff, and moved about until something of warmth began to creep along his veins. The Indians were cooking sheep meat. Chane ate his scant breakfast before daylight. Toddy Nokin’s sons glided away to drive in the mustangs. Chane stood back to the fire, his hands spread to the heat, his gaze fixed on the wonderful white morning star. It hung over a notch of the canyon rim like a radiant beacon.

“Ugh!” grunted Toddy Nokin, presently attracting Chane’s attention. The Indian had cut strips of the cooked meat, which he had spread on a stone near the fire. He indicated that these were for Chane, and he should salt them or not, as he chose, and take them with him. Chane gathered them up, not forgetting to thank Toddy for his thoughtfulness, and carrying them to his saddle he stowed them away in the bag that contained the parched corn. He would fare poorly until he got among the Mormons.

At daylight Brutus came trotting into camp. He had found good grazing, to judge from his sleek full sides. Yet he nosed around the saddle and blankets, as if hunting for grain. Chane saddled him, and waited for the Piutes to come with the mustangs.

The morning was exquisite, clear, cool, bright, with a sweet tang in the air. Above the eastern rim flared a pale rose glow, herald of the sunrise. The birds had begun to sing all over the oasis, a welcome breaking of the melancholy canyon silence.

Presently Toddy Nokin’s sons rode in with the mustangs, and in a few moments the day’s journey began. Chane faced it with a grim eagerness. They climbed out of the oasis on the eastern side, and threaded an uphill course through sections of broken wall. They came to a level rise of ground upon which the rocks stood scattered like the tents of an army. Some of these boulders had oxidized surfaces, almost black, upon which Indians had inscribed their crude signs.

The sun rose dazzlingly bright above the eastern rock that waved along the horizon. This wall Chane knew to be across the San Juan, but he had not gotten far enough up to see below the waving hummocky crest. The day bade fair to be hot down there.

Chane rode up out of that maze of scattered blocks of sandstone, out upon a height from which he could gaze down into the canyon of the San Juan River. The Indians kept on driving the mustangs down, but Chane halted Brutus and gazed spellbound at the awful scene. Three times before he had crossed the San Juan, far above this point, and at places where desert ruggedness was not wanting. But this was different.

A terrible red gulf wound from east to west, a broad, winding iron-walled canyon, at the bottom of which gleamed and glinted a chocolate-hued river in flood, its dull roar striking ominously upon Chane’s ear. Miles to the eastward it came rushing out of a narrow split in the sinister walls, to wind like a serpent toward the west, pushing its muddy current into another river that swept on between majestic towering walls. This was Chane’s first sight of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. He had crossed this larger river above where the great walls boxed.

It held him mute, this scene of the grandeur of rocks, the desolation of the denuded surfaces, the manifestation of the ruin and decay of millions of years. He did not see a patch of green in all that area of barrenness. There was no life. But there seemed to be an infernal beauty. High above the canyon wall of red and bronze, rose the waving rounded horizon line of yellow stone, the wind-carved surfaces Chane had seen from the sage upland. There appeared to be no break in that opposite wall. It bulged and towered out over the river. On the side from which Chane gazed there were canyon mouths yawning everywhere. The descent from this side down to the river was gradual, and of such a rough nature that travel seemed impossible. Yet Chane saw the Indians and mustangs winding down. Far below the vast rock slides were ridges of colored earth, mostly red, but some of gray, and below these stretched sandy levels parallel with the river.

Brutus did not wait for word from Chane. He started down, and soon Chane felt lost in a world of crumbled cliffs. From time to time he would come out where he could see the river and the lifting walls beyond, but for the most part he was hidden among the broken rocks. The trail here, however, was neither steep nor difficult. Brutus soon was upon the heels of the Piute’s mustang.

Chane did not fail to note how Toddy Nokin’s falcon gaze often studied the vast slope to the right, and especially a rugged corner of canyon. Chane strained his eyes, but he could not discern anything more. All was red glaring rock, reflecting the sunlight. It took a long hot dusty hour to descend to the ridges of red and gray earth, a welcome change of travel. Here the mustangs resumed the leisurely trot that covered distance rapidly. From the ridges the Indians rode down upon a gravel level, almost wholly bare of vegetation. A weed that grew there was as gray as the ground.

The red slope that Toddy Nokin watched now slanted and heaved upward, a steep mile of jagged rocks, to end in a seamed wall which touched the sky. It broke abruptly into a notched mouth of canyon that cut clear down to the level where Chane rode. No doubt out of this canyon came the trail from which Toddy had switched yesterday and from which he felt apprehension today. No living creature gave contrast to the appalling desolation of that red abyss. The river roared sullenly, low, deep, strange, not at all like a natural water in swift current.

The strip of gravel level, that had appeared narrow from far above, now proved to be wide and spacious. The time came when Toddy pointed to a break in the opposite wall, at the bottom of which shone a dense patch of green growth. Also a line of willows began to appear on this side of the river. Here was the place where the Piutes forded the river, to climb out on the yellow rock above.

To Chane the San Juan looked impossible to cross.

“Can I get over?” he asked, voicing his anxiety.

The Piute answered that he had crossed at worse stages of flood than this one, and he pointed ahead to the ford. They rode on, and had passed the mouth of the intersecting canyon when Toddy Nokin suddenly exclaimed, “Ugh!”

His gesture made Chane’s heart sink. Low down over the rocks beyond the sand showed moving clouds of dust.

CHAPTER VI

THOSE DUST CLOUDS had been kicked aloft by moving horses. Toddy Nokin called to his sons, one of whom was far ahead with the mustangs.

“Toddy! Who’s raising that dust?” flashed Chane. “Indians?”

“Ugh!” ejaculated the Piute. His dark gaze was fixed on the isolated boulders that had rolled out upon the level.

As Chane shifted his roving eyes to find what attracted Toddy, he suddenly espied a white man rising from behind one of the foremost rocks. Chane recognized Jim Horn. On the moment he was leveling a gun, resting his elbow on the rock. He was perhaps fifty paces from Toddy’s older son, who was at the head of the string of mustangs.

“Horn! Don’t shoot!” yelled Chane, at the top of his lungs. “These mustangs aren’t worth bloodshed.”

But Horn paid no heed to this call. He shot once — twice at the nearest Piute, who was knocked off his pony, but got up and ran back. Horn now directed his fire at Toddy’s younger son, a mere lad, who uttered a yell and wheeled his horse. The string of mustangs, frightened by the shots and yells, stampeded and turned away with pounding hoofs, raising a cloud of dust.

Chane reached for his rifle. Gone! A swift fierce fury possessed him. How he had been tricked! Toddy Nokin’s dark hand shot out toward the rocks to the right and back. Even as Horn fired again, this time at Chane or Toddy, for the bullet whistled close enough to make Brutus jump, Chane saw Hod Slack riding forward, gun in hand, and directly behind, Bud McPherson appeared, goading his white horse and waving his rifle.

“Run, Toddy!” yelled Chane. “Run for the canyon!”

Brutus was plunging to be off, so that Chane had difficulty in holding him. Perhaps his movement was fortunate for Chane, as another bullet from Horn whizzed uncomfortably close over his head.

In a second more Chane saw his only chance was to outrun McPherson with the rifle, and take to the ford. The Piutes were gone like rabbits in the rocks. The mustangs had run wild, back over the trail by which they had come. Two of the outlaws, one armed with a rifle, blocked escape in that direction. Chane saw if he followed in Toddy Nokin’s steps he would soon have to abandon Brutus. That thought did not hold in his mind.

“Hyar!” yelled McPherson, in voice coming clear. “Git off thet hoss!”

It was Brutus the thief wanted. Chane saw him level the rifle. That was a signal for Chane to spur Brutus and yell at once. The horse leaped into action, head pointed up the river. Chane drew his gun and shot at Horn. That individual was frantically trying to reload. He ducked back behind the rock and returned Chane’s fire. This time his heavy bullet tugged at Chane’s shoulder. The touch of lead infuriated the rider and, suddenly reckless, he swerved Brutus directly at the rock behind which Horn was hidden. The thief broke cover and darted for other rocks. Chane could have shot him in the back, but he held his fire.

“Run him down, Brutus!” called Chane, and goaded the horse.

He saw Horn fumbling at his gun as he dodged away. He dropped shells on the ground, stumbled and fell, sprang up and lunged on. His heavy weight made quick action a thing of extreme violence. The horse bore down upon him like a whirlwind of dust. Chane yelled. Brutus hurdled a rock. Then Horn, frantic in his terror, tried to elude the horse that was thundering down on him. As he whirled and lifted his gun Brutus ran into him. Chane saw a red flame and smoke, but did not hear the shot nor feel the bullet. Horn’s distorted face, livid and savage, gleamed under the horse. Then came a shock, light and sharp, that did not even check Brutus. Horn was thrown as if from a catapult. But he had not been killed. He got up, staggered on, waving his arms, and fell again.

Brutus stretched out in his stride, headed for the curve of the river. Then Chane gave heed to McPherson. That worthy was behind him, between him and the river, and at the instant there flashed a white puff of smoke from the rifle. Chane experienced the bitter impotent rage of a man who heard the hiss of a bullet from his own rifle. But rage could not help Chane. He was in a precarious situation. McPherson had a good horse and possession of the gun. Again a puff of white smoke! Chane saw the whip of sand where the bullet struck far ahead. McPherson was shooting high, evidently careful not to hit this horse he coveted.

“Now, Brutus, make good all that wrangler brag about your speed,” shouted Chane, and he urged the horse to his utmost.

The ground was level hard gravel, and there was a mile of it between him and the bend of river where Toddy had pointed out the ford. Chane did not look back. He gave every sense to his riding of the horse in that critical race. He heard the bullets sing above him and saw them strike ahead. Then, in a moment more, when Brutus settled into the terrible strain of a horse running to save the life of his master, it seemed to Chane that he was sailing through the air. The wind tore at him. The ground became a sheeted dim expanse, sliding under him. Rocks and walls blurred on either side. Never in his life had he bestridden a horse as fleet, as powerful as Brutus. He ran away from McPherson’s white horse.

At the turn of the river Chane looked back. McPherson and Slack were far behind, but they were urging their horses, evidently still sure of their quarry.

Beyond the bend of the river the huge walls of shattered rock encroached upon the banks. Chane saw that he could not ride farther up the river. His one chance was to cross the ford before McPherson could reach him with the rifle.

Chane pulled Brutus out of that dead run. The river widened at this bend. At a glance Chane saw the ford was a shallow rapid half a mile long and perhaps a quarter in width. From the ripples close to shore and out to the middle Chane could tell that the stream-bed was rocky. He rode to the upper end of this rift and then sent Brutus plunging into the muddy water. Manifestly, water had no terrors for the horse, any more than steep rocky trails. Brutus ran through water a foot deep, heading across and downstream. His iron-shod hoofs clanged on rocks like submerged bells. Chane had ridden round the bend of the river and so had lost sight of his pursuers. But they could not be far.

Chane directed Brutus toward the green break in the red wall opposite. It was a peculiar formation, evidently of steps worn by water flowing from above. An oval thicket of green willows choked the lower level. Chane discerned where the trail climbed the ledges, and knew if he could cross he would be safe.

Brutus had reached the middle of the river when McPherson and Slack appeared half a mile down the gravelly beach. They were punishing their horses. Chane gave them one dark glance. If he ever got out of this alive he would remember them!

The horse, aided by swift water now reaching to the stirrups, kept quartering toward the shore. Chane directed anxious gaze toward the point he wished to make, and he discovered that the rocky stream-bed did not extend all the way across. The character of the surface water proved that; it changed from choppy little ripples to long, smooth, gently swelling waves. Under them was quicksand! Chane studied the lay of the water straight across from his position. It was better than below, but if he put Brutus to bucking the current, instead of having it aid progress, he would waste time and let McPherson get in range with the rifle. All the time Brutus was magnificently plunging on, going fast, keeping his foothold, snorting his excitement. The water grew deeper. Chane lifted his feet out of the stirrups and held them up. Soon Brutus reached the line where the swift current verged on the stiller smoother water. Chane felt the horse catch in the sand and labor to extricate himself. As the water was not deep enough for Brutus to swim in, Chane dared not risk going into the sand. So he turned Brutus straight down with the current toward the rapids. Chane saw where he might make a rocky point that marked the extreme limit he dared not pass. He would have to work out above or at that point, or be lost. If he went through the rapid alive he would drift into the narrow stretch below, where McPherson could stand on the bank and easily reach him with a rifle bullet.

The swift water almost swept Brutus off his balance. An ordinary horse would have been swamped here. If Brutus slipped he lunged powerfully and kept his head. The waves grew higher, the current swifter. Chane saw yellow-white froth rushing round the black noses of rocks. He felt Brutus strike with shoulder and leg, but always he was able to guide the horse on the right side of these obstructions, keeping in line with the ledge he must gain.

In a moment more Brutus had the whole force of the current behind him. It swept him along, the waves washing over his haunches, splashing all over Chane. Here was depth of four to five feet. Brutus no longer walked. He was carried, and when his hoofs struck he plunged with tremendous strength.

The heavy roar of the rapids filled Chane’s ears. He all but gave up. He could do no more, yet he still called to Brutus, as if in that din of waters the horse might hear him. Chane’s distended sight fixed on a smooth rushing channel that now lay between him and the ledge of rock. It looked too heavy, too deep, too swift for Brutus to stem. It ran like a mill race, yellow, hideous, seething, and it poured down a slant into the turbulent rapids. This channel ran at right angles with Brutus, coming from the back eddy of smooth water that swung in toward the break in the wall. Just before entering this mill race Brutus was carried against a rock and the weight of the water held him there. Chane crouched in the saddle, and leaping ahead of the horse, floundered and lunged with all his might. His almost superhuman efforts, aided by the swift current, carried him within reach of the ledge. He crawled out.

Brutus, free of his weight, plunged into the swift place. The water rushed round him, splashed over the saddle, but it did not overpower him. He stemmed that current, passed the danger line, reached shallower water, whence he waded. Chane led him to the rocky shore. And it was then he remembered McPherson.

Gazing across the river, he saw McPherson gallop down the sandy bar and leap off, rifle in hand. But he had been distanced. Too late! Even as he shot, Chane drew Brutus behind the protecting corner of wall.

“Bru — tus!” gasped Chane, and reached for the horse, to stand clasping his neck. Brutus was heaving like a huge bellows. The breath whistled from his nostrils. Chane heard the great heart pound. And in that moment such love as he had never given a horse stirred in him.

Presently Chane left Brutus to recover and took care to look about him. This green patch of willows hid a little cove, upon the opposite side of which the trail rose to the first curved ledge. By keeping behind the willows, along the base of the wall, Chane could reach the point where the trail started up. From here he would be out of range from across the river. Returning to Brutus, he found him about recovered from his tremendous exertions. Certainly his excitement was past. Brutus raised his noble head with the old inimitable lift of pride, curiosity, alertness. He whinnied at Chane.

“Well, Brutus — —” began Chane, with impulse to burst out in gratitude and love. But they were too deep. He did not even lay a caressing hand on the tangled wet black mane. But he was thinking hard. He had no possession save this horse. Again he was a poor wrangler. Yet was he not rich? Chane’s one thought of regret concerned the wounding of Toddy Nokin’s son.

Brutus had a bloody welt across the side of his broad breast.

“Horn’s shot — that last one,” concluded Chane, angrily. Removing the saddle, he wrung out the wet blankets and replaced them. His coat and bag of food had remained intact, though somewhat the worse for muddy water. Chane led Brutus along the base of the cove, round to the far side where the trail started up. He climbed to the first step, a half-circle of stone, worn smooth by water. From here he looked across the river.

Slack had joined McPherson, and sat astride his horse, while the latter stamped up and down the beach. Then Slack, espying Chane, drew McPherson’s attention. The horse thief stood like a statue, gazing across the river; and it seemed to Chane that the gaze was one of baffled longing for Brutus. Chane shook a menacing fist at McPherson and called aloud, as if the man could hear above that roaring water, “Bud, we may meet again!”

With that Chane turned to the ascent and straightway forgot his enemies and his loss. He was far from being safe. He had crossed the San Juan, but the Colorado ran between him and the security beyond. If the Colorado, too, was in flood, Chane felt there would be grave risk. He did not know whether or not a trail led from this ford up the river to Bluff. His food supply was too short for anything except straight travel toward the Mormon country, and even then he was going to experience hunger.

The trail wound across the first circular ledge, zigzagged up smooth rock to the next ledge, back across that to the opposite side of this strange break in the cliff, and so on by a succession of steps to the top of the red wall that had appeared insurmountable to Chane.

He found himself among the yellow wind-worn hills of stone that he had seen for days. The trail led through winding defiles and at last up over the smooth soft sandstone. Like a yellow swelling sea the rock waved away toward the north. Chane rode Brutus at a swift walk up and down these slopes and across the rounded summits, and at last down into a narrow break that grew in all dimensions as he descended. All indeed was stone, except for the narrow strip of blue sky above, but this canyon had little in common with the ones Chane had lately traversed. There were no great slopes of talus, no splintered heaps of ruined cliff, no toppling rim-walls, ready to crash down. It was a smooth, clear-cut, well-defined canyon, growing to noble proportions. So deep it went down that the light of day became gloom, almost of dusk.

At length this somber shade brightened and Chane rode round a corner of wall, suddenly to be confronted by open space and sunshine, the silent swift roll of the Colorado River, and the stupendous walls of the Grand Canyon. Across this sullen red river opened the Hole in the Wall, and to Chane it did not belie its reputation.

The river was scarcely any wider than the ford of the San Juan, but it ran deep, swift, strange, somehow tremendous and terrific in flood. But Chane was not daunted. He knew Brutus could swim that tide. What concerned Chane was to what distance the current would carry the horse downstream. It was not possible to get Brutus very far along the bank up this side; otherwise Chane would have had little concern about the crossing. On the other side, however, the break in the great wall was considerable. Brutus might drift a goodly way downstream and still come out within reach of the Hole in the Wall. Far down other breaks showed, canyon mouths, and dark clefts, just mere shadowy lines.

“Brutus, I reckon we don’t want to hang around long,” muttered Chane as he dismounted. “We’ve got to cross.”

Then leading the horse upstream as far as the rugged bank permitted, he looped the bridle over the pommel.

“Go on, boy,” he called, with deep expulsion of breath; and as Brutus plunged into the water Chane grasped his tail and held on. A few steps took Brutus over his depth and compelled him to swim. Chane merely held on to his tail.

It developed that Brutus was as powerful at swimming as he was in other kinds of action. He headed straight across for fifty yards before the current made any perceptible change in his course. Gradually after that he drifted downstream. Chane realized that the current had more weight and volume than had been apparent. No man or beast could have resisted it. But as the river was not very wide and Brutus swam rapidly, Chane did not despair of reaching the break in the canyon wall.

The river made no noise. Brutus seemed to be swimming in oil. The water felt cool, thick, weighted. Chane realized that he could not have held up very long in it. The next time he raised his head to look Brutus had drifted past the center of the Hole in the Wall, and as he was not yet halfway across, there seemed little hope of his making the mark. Indeed, the current grew swifter. Before Brutus had achieved two-thirds of the distance he had drifted beyond the line where he could climb out. Chane had difficulty in keeping his hold. He appeared a leaden weight, at which the water tugged.

When Brutus saw that he was going to run into the frowning blank wall he grew frightened, and tried to turn round to swim back. But Chane, letting go his tail, in several strong strokes reached the bridle. He headed the horse downstream and quartering across, talked to him. Brutus allowed himself to be led, and as in the other river, helped by the current, he made better time. Chane let go of the bridle and dropped back to catch the floating tail. He missed it. Then with a second lunge he secured it, and held on grimly.

Thus horse and man drifted rapidly down the river, while slowly making for the opposite wall. Brutus was in no distress. And Chane saw that the cleft he had aimed for was enlarging into a canyon mouth, and that Brutus would make it with room to spare. But when they reached the rocky bank it was too steep and slippery for Brutus to climb out. He lunged again and again, wasting his energy. The current here swirled and chafed at the shore. Above loomed the dark towering walls, split by the sinister canyon. Chane got hold of the bridle and made the shore. But he could not help Brutus. It was impossible to get him up that steep bank. He floundered along, hanging to the bridle, calling to encourage the horse. They passed down yard after yard and the bank appeared to grow steeper.

Chane resolved to go on down the river with Brutus if he could not get him out here. But that moment was a desperate one. The silent river had a horrible repellant force; the walls of rock seemed barriers lifted against him.

They reached the extreme end of that canyon break in the wall. Chane leaped over a jutting point of bank, to keep even with Brutus, and was about to plunge back into the water, when he saw the horse find bottom. Brutus had fastened those powerful hoofs on solid foundation. He snorted and blew spray all over Chane. He lunged to get hold with his hind feet. Another lunge brought him half out of the water. Then with a magnificent leap, crashing out, he landed on the slippery ledge. Chane had to be quick to get out of his way. Brutus was off his balance. He was quivering when Chane dragged hard on the bridle, helping him to make the step that meant safety.

Brutus blew a great blast of a snort that appeared to get rid of both his fright and the dirty sandy water. As for Chane, he fell in his tracks and lay still a few moments.

“We’re across,” he said, presently, as if that fact ended the hazard. But this canyon mouth was far below the Hole in the Wall. It might have no outlet; it might end in boxed walls. Urged by these considerations, he got up and led Brutus away from the river.

The canyon presented no difficulties of travel that Chane could see. The ascent was gradual, the floor for the most part covered with boulders. The walls were so high and so close that he could scarcely see the sky. The gloom down there was almost dark as night.

Gradually the canyon widened and lightened. Chane mounted Brutus and rode on at a trot wherever possible, impatient to see if he were trapped. But as he progressed, the nature of the canyon appeared to favor his ultimate escape from its confines. The hoofs of Brutus rang off the boulders and struck hollow on the black ledges. Some narrow places required slowing up, but for the most part Brutus had no difficulty. The walls began to shade from red to gray; water appeared running over gravelly beds; grass and vines and flowers made color on the ledges.

Chane rode on for what he considered several miles, always gradually up hill, and meeting with no insurmountable obstacles. This canyon ran north, which was the general direction favorable to him. If he had not been greatly concerned about the possibility of being trapped he would have enjoyed this changing canyon. It narrowed and widened by turns; its walls had an endless variety of blank spaces, caves, bulges, slopes. But, in vast contrast to San Juan Canyon, it had no jumbled heaps of rock. All the débris along that winding lane had been washed down with water at flood time.

Presently Chane rode round into a long wide stretch that permitted him to see afar, both north and south. And he was amazed and thrilled to discover far above and back of his position the unmistakable southern end of Wild Horse Mesa. He could not mistake that majestic fluted wall of gold and red, with the black line of timber fringing the level rim. Like a grand bold-faced mountain it towered above him. This canyon that had engulfed him apparently ran along the eastern base of the mesa. Chane, studying all he could see of the lofty cape, concluded that Wild Horse Mesa sheered down perpendicularly, then spread out great flanges of surrounding escarpment that in turn sheered down to lend its base to winding canyons.

Chane rode on. The hot sun soon dried his clothes. He began to feel the pangs of hunger, but desisted from breaking in upon his slender store of food. The farther up this strange canyon he traveled the more he became prey to apprehension. At any moment he might turn a bend and face an insurmountable wall. Chane could stand to go long on scant ration, but Brutus had to have grass. Therefore Chane lost no time working toward the head of this canyon.

The first sight of cottonwood trees, still beautifully green, cheered him to hopefulness. Brutus could browse on cottonwood leaves if no better offered. Other trees met his trail, and then a grassy bench, a strip of willow bank. It was still summer down here, dreamy, lulled to repose, free from frost and wind, the very heart of the deep canyons.

Again the walls converged and there followed a long stretch bare of green growth or glint of water. At the end of this lane, insulated by its gray walls, Chane saw a sunlit space, and he gave a sudden start, believing that the canyon headed out there into open country. But an instant’s thought scouted this idea. He was still in the depths of the rocky fastnesses. Nevertheless, he quickened to the beautiful vista ahead.

All at once Brutus halted. His long ears shot up. He had seen or scented something that was alive.

“What’s up, old boy?” queried Chane, patting him and peering keenly ahead. He had no fear of what lay before him in the shape of living creature. His enemies were behind. Still, he was intensely curious. Urging Brutus on, Chane kept a sharp outlook.

To his amaze, the canyon aisle led into the most wonderful place Chane had ever beheld. It was an enlargement of the canyon, green and gold and silvery, fragrant and sweet, walled on his right by a cliff that reached to the skies, and on the left by a strange slanting area, a falling of the wall, to a gradual slope of bare yellow stone, dotted by cedar trees growing out of niches in the rock.

Chane’s swift gaze had just time to take this all in when Brutus jumped to a halt and whistled an alarm.

Following that came the swift padding of hoofs on soft ground. Chane had heard that sound too often ever to mistake it.

“Wild horses, by gum!” he ejaculated, with the old thrill of his boyhood.

Then out of the cottonwoods trooped a band of wild horses, bays and blacks, sleek, shiny, with hanging manes and switching tails and keen wild heads erect. They faced Chane.

Brutus neighed now, more with welcome than affright. These were creatures of his kind. His neigh was answered by a piercing whistle that rang like a bugle down the canyon.

“Say, that’s a stallion!” exclaimed Chane.

Then out of the green pranced the most beautiful and wildest horse Chane had ever seen. He recognized him, though he had only sighted him once, and that afar.

“Panquitch!” gasped Chane, in bewildered ecstasy. His heart leaped to his throat and he shook in the saddle.

The king of wild stallions was the color of a lion except for black mane and tail. This quivering mane seemed to stand erect like an arched wave, and fall almost to the sand. He had the points of a racehorse, with the weight and muscle gained from wild life on the desert. But his symmetry and grace, his remarkable beauty, were dwarfed by his spirit. His black eyes shot fire. His nostrils dilated to send forth another piercing blast. Wild, proud, fierce, he was a creature to stop the heart of a wild-horse hunter.

Then with a backward spring, like that of a deer, he wheeled to race into the green. He disappeared, and his band of bays and blacks raced after him. Chane thought they would run up the canyon. No! The sharp click, click, click of bone hoofs on rock told him they had taken to the slope. Above the green of cottonwoods they appeared, Panquitch leading on a run uphill. What a torturing thrill the sight gave Chane! For his first instinct had been one to capture.

Panquitch slowed to a trot, and led his band up and down the waves of slope until Chane lost sight of them. He sat there astride Brutus and marveled. Then he galloped Brutus through the open, and the grove, to the slope. Here he dismounted and took to climbing. As he got up his range of vision widened. Climbing until he was breathless, he halted to look.

He could see north over the waving slope, to the far height where the spreading flange of Wild Horse Mesa met this rising plane of yellow rock. But there was no sign of the wild horses. Thereupon Chane climbed less violently, until he had passed the zone of straggling cedars growing out of the bare rock and mounted high enough to command the prospect. A canyon split the escarpment to the north. Panquitch could not cross there, nor climb to the towering rim of Wild Horse Mesa from that side.

Chane waited. At last, far above, he espied the tawny stallion now driving his band ahead of him. Manes and tails tossed wildly on the summit of a yellow ridge, and vanished. Then Panquitch stood silhouetted against the red of the mesa wall, far beyond. His mane waved in the wind. Every line of his magnificent frame seemed instinct with freedom. There was something about him that made Chane ache. Wild and grand he stood outlined there on the height. Then he vanished.

Chane looked long at the place where he had disappeared. Not easy was it to resist following. But as he was not equipped to chase wild horses, he gave up. Then he studied every line of the heights above, thrilling under the favorable position that had fallen to him through sheer luck.

“Toddy Nokin had it figured wrong,” decided Chane, at length. “Panquitch gets on top the mesa round this end and not to the north. He comes down this canyon to climb up here. Somewhere above he has found a trail to the rim. But — if he comes down this canyon, why hasn’t he been trailed? I’ll find out.”

Chane descended to Brutus and rode on out of the beautiful colored oval. As he had expected, he found fresh horse tracks in the sand, headed toward him. Keen on the trail, he kept on and did not look up until the perceptible darkening of the light demanded his attention.

The canyon had narrowed to a V-shaped cleft, with gleaming walls slanting almost straight up to the sky. How weird and strange! This pass of gleams narrowed and widened as Chane traveled on.

He came to pools of water over beds of gravel, then boulders almost blocking passage. But the trail of the wild horses led Chane on. He heard the gurgle of running water and saw where a stream disappeared under the cliff. He came to a pool that Brutus waded, clean, clear, beautiful green water. Beyond this was bare stone which showed no hoof marks. Then came sand again and the telltale tracks.

Looking ahead, Chane was utterly astounded to see the cliffs come closer and closer together. This cleft grew gloomy and somber. Chane kept on. He was sure of exit now. The wild horses had come down here, and his escape was certain. Besides, he would learn how Panquitch eluded his trailers.

Boulders had to be clambered over, and more pools traversed. The water now was running swift and deep in places. Brutus had trouble keeping his footing. The converging walls took on a darker, weirder gleam. Chane could touch both walls at the same time. The floor of this strange canyon was bare solid rock, with the stream covering most of it.

Chane came to a pool that was twenty feet deep. Brutus swam it. No horse tracks showed now on the granite floor. Even the iron hoofs of Brutus left no trace. The sand was gone.

Pool after pool of deep water Chane had to drive Brutus to swim. And the last was a hundred yards long. Chane could see the green depths under him. Beyond that the canyon widened and the stream rushed shallowly over a granite bed. No intersecting canyons broke these tremendous walls. The trail of the wild horses had come down that stone-floored stream.

Chane remembered the canyon he had marked bisecting the eastern flange of the mesa. Soon he must come to where that opened into this one, unless both were one and the same. He traveled a tortuous mile or more before he reached it. But one glance was sufficient to prove to him that Panquitch had never come down there. It was impassable. Chane kept to the winding lane of denuded rock until at last it opened out into bright space. A stone slope that dwarfed the one below greeted Chane’s expectant gaze. The canyon pierced it and ended in a cleft.

Brutus carried Chane up that long slope and out on a wide desert bench which fell away from the mesa and merged on the seamed and cracked canyon country below. The bench with its scant bits of green appeared rock as far as eye could see. Everywhere along its rim slanted rugged bare declivities of stone, any one of which might lead into a canyon. Chane had marked the place where he had climbed out. He meant to come back. Panquitch’s access to Wild Horse Mesa was no longer a mystery to Chane. He could trap that great stallion.

But what a baffling country was that eastern lower escarpment of the mesa. It appeared endless. To the right stretched the sea of carved rock, lined by its canyon rims, and ending only in the dim rise of purple upland. All on the other side of Chane the towering fluted wall of red wandered northward. Chane’s senses of appreciation had been overwhelmed, yet he gazed on and on with tired eyes.

Fifty miles and more Wild Horse Mesa stretched its level black-fringed horizon line toward the Henry Mountains. Chane rode until sunset without seeing another horse track or a living creature of any species.

Darkness overtook him and he decided to rest for the night.

“Brutus, there’s no grass for you, so I’ll go hungry myself,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll have better luck.”

He made his bed in the lee of a rock, and tying Brutus with his lasso he lay down. What amazing good fortune had been his! He thought of the horse thieves and of his miraculous escape. The cold night wind swept mournfully down this bench; the colossal black wall loomed back of him; white stars burned through the blue sky. Wild-horse hunter though he was, and with the secret of Panquitch revealed, Chane thought last of Brutus, and prayed he could get him safely across the barren land.

CHAPTER VII

SUE MELBERNE MISSED Chess so much that she was surprised, and compelled to admit appreciation of the lad’s many little acts of thoughtfulness and service, not to mention the interest aroused by his personality. She missed the pleasing sight of him, his cheery voice, his whistling, and the fun it created for her to watch him with Ora.

Chess and Jake had taken the big wagon, drawn by two teams, and had driven off to the railroad to fetch back a load of barbed-wire. Sue had overheard Manerube’s talk with her father about how easily a trap to catch wild horses could be constructed in the valley; and despite her own pleadings not to use so cruel a method, and Alonzo’s disapproval, and Utah’s silence, he had listened to Manerube, who was strongly backed by Loughbridge. Therefore he had dispatched Jake and Chess to fetch the wire.

This incident had marked in Sue a definite attitude of mind toward Manerube. Her first impressions had not been favorable, yet these had not kept her from feeling an inexplicable fascination when the man was in her presence. Sue had experienced it when near Mormons she had met in St. George, though not so powerfully. Moreover, she never felt it except when she could see or hear Manerube. But after he had successfully put through a plan to catch wild horses with barbed-wire, Sue thought she despised him. Nevertheless, she was inconsistent about it, for only when alone was she conscious of active dislike. The fact seemed that Manerube’s coming had precipitated a strange sort of crisis in Sue’s life, and she could not understand it any more than welcome it. But she grew convinced that it was owing to her loneliness and to the vague gathering forces of her heart. Once she found herself wishing she could love Chess. This not only amazed her, but made her angry. Moreover, it focused her mind on a bewildering possibility, and that was that her mental unrest had something to do with love.

Three days after Chess had left, Manerube had apparently ousted him from his place in Ora’s fickle affections. Ora certainly was not proof against the virile fascination Manerube seemed to exert. She babbled to Sue about Manerube, utterly forgetting that she had babbled almost as fervently about Chess.

“Ora, listen,” said Sue, finally driven to irritation. “I feel bound to tell you Benton Manerube has tried the same kind of talk on me.”

“Wha-at! Why, Sue?” faltered Ora, suddenly confronted with realities.

“Yes, I mean what I say. It’s not nice to tell things, but if you’re going to be a little fool... To be blunt about it, he has tried to make love to me.”

“What did he say?” asked Ora, with curiosity that approached jealousy.

“Oh, I — I don’t remember,” replied Sue, blushing. “But soft flattery, you know. About my pretty face — how sweet I am — that he never saw anyone like me. Then he makes eyes... and more than once he has got hold of my hand. Does that sound familiar, Ora?”

“Yes, it does,” she replied, solemnly and ashamed. “But, Sue — he has kissed me!”

“Ora!” cried Sue, aghast.

“I — I couldn’t help it,” hastily added Ora, greatly troubled. “We were out under the cottonwoods, last night. He just grabbed me.... He’s like a bear. I boxed his ears, but he just laughed. Then I ran off.”

“Ora, I’m surprised,” returned Sue, much concerned. “Chess is a boy — nice, you know, and maybe harmless. But Manerube is a man, and likely a Mormon who has power over women. I’ve heard of that. He is queer — sort of dominating. But I never felt he had any reverence for women. Ora, I think you had better keep away from him. At least don’t be alone with him.”

“Leave him all for you, I suppose?” queried Ora, sarcastically. “I’ll play hob doing that.”

Sue steadily regarded the girl for a long moment. “Ora, I believe Chess was right — you are catty. Now stop coming to me with your confidences — about Manerube or anybody.” With that Sue turned her back and went to her tent, tingling with anger. She resolved to pay no more attention to Ora and to avoid Manerube.

This latter decision was not easy to uphold. Melberne’s outfit ate and talked and worked as one big family. The geniality of the leader was reflected in all his party. Moreover, Manerube had evidently struck Melberne with unusual favor. During the early hours, and especially at supper time and afterward, Sue could not keep out of Manerube’s way. He watched her across the spread tarpaulin around which they ate, and across the camp fire, and when Sue slipped away to watch the sunset Manerube followed her and stood by the log where she sat. He did not ask for privileges, as was Chess’s way.

“Ora says you told her to keep away from me,” he began, quite pleasantly.

“Did she?” replied Sue.

“Yes. What made you say that?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I will. Say, is Ora Chess’s girl?”

“She was.”

“Humph! Well, Miss Melberne, I’m sorry you think I ought to be avoided. I can’t see that Ora ran away from me.” He laughed, not exactly with conceit, but certainly with a pleasing assurance. “Girls are different. I’ve been weeks alone riding the desert — lonely, hungry for the look and voice of a woman. Would you expect me to avoid one? Ora is full of fun. She’s like a kitten. She’ll purr and scratch. And if I’m fond of being with her, teasing her, how do you think I feel about being with you?”

“I never thought about it,” replied Sue, shortly.

“All right. Think of it now. I’m settled in this horse deal with your father and am likely to go in the ranch business with him later. We’re talking of it. So you’re going to see a good deal of me. And I tell you it’s a different thing from seeing Ora. You’re a woman, a beautiful young woman. If you’d rather I stopped tormenting you, trying to make you like me — I’ll do it. But then I’ll get serious and when I’m serious I’m dangerous.”

“Mr. Manerube, you seem to take a good deal for granted — about yourself,” retorted Sue.

Manerube was not to be offended, rebuffed, or alienated. Sue let him talk and she listened. He grew rather more forceful in his arguments and statements, and as he waxed more eloquent and personal he drew closer to Sue until he sat beside her. His proximity seemed more compelling than his speech. Sue felt that. She knew she was level-headed and had contempt for this man’s estimate of himself. The more he talked the less she liked him, yet she was conscious of some singular attraction about him. When at last the sun sank and the purple shadows of twilight fell like a mantle over the valley, Sue decided it was time to return to camp. So she slipped down off the big log.

“It’s chilly. I’m going back to camp,” she said.

Manerube grasped her hand and tried to draw her closer. It took no small effort on Sue’s part to get away from him.

“Keep your hands off me,” she said, with a heat she could not restrain. “Didn’t I tell you before?”

“Sue, I reckon I’m in love with you,” he replied.

Without replying, Sue fled and went to her tent. She was furious. Her cheeks were hot. She felt them with her cool hands. Not until she was snug and cozy under her blankets did she find composure. Then she thought out her estimate of Manerube. He might have had some education, some advantages beyond those of a range-rider, but he was not a gentleman. Sue intuitively grasped that Manerube was not influenced in the least by her objection to being courted. He was not a man to care what a woman thought or said or did. He had no sense of shame, or perhaps of honor. He would work his will with a woman one way or another.

But as for his effect upon her — that was a matter very much more difficult of analysis. Sue was honest, most of all with herself. She had an honesty of soul and she was not afraid to tell herself what she found out. In this case she seemed baffled. If Manerube did not cease his importunities she was going to hate him, that much was certain, but it did not imply she did not feel some strange power in him. And she pondered over that. It could not be because he was a big bold-looking rider and handsome. She acknowledged that he was that, though she preferred dark men. There must be something which came to her in his presence that thrilled her, yet did not belong to him. Being masculine, virile, strong, he must represent something to her. Then she happened to think of Chess and the singular emotion his simple avowal of love had stirred in her heart. Strange to recall, Manerube’s had likewise quickened her pulse, though she scorned it. This vague power, then, had to do with love. Before that word love she trembled like a guilty creature surprised. It was an Open Sesame. Any man, did he choose to employ it, could make a woman’s heart quiver, if she happened to be in Sue’s peculiar state of unrest, of longing, of fancy-freedom.

Next morning Sue was awakened by her father’s cheery call.

“Up with you, lass, if you’re goin’ to be a wild-horse wrangler.”

Sue sat up in bed with a start. It was dark and the air felt cold.

“But, dad — it’s still night,” complained Sue, reluctantly.

“Fine mawnin’, Sue,” he replied. “Heah’s breakfast ready. Crawl out. We’re shore goin’ to chase wild mules.”

“Mules? Oh, I forgot,” said Sue, with a reviving thrill. “All right, dad. I’m a-rarin’ to go.”

Sue got up, not without feminine qualms and shivers, despite her enthusiasm, and nimbly put on her riding clothes and boots in the dark. Then she rushed out to get to the fire. Her hands were tingling with the cold. Hot water was a boon that morning. She brushed her hair by the light of the blaze, and quickly braided the long mass. Manerube, at her elbow, disconcerted her with a remark that she should be more careful of such beautiful hair.

“If I have to ride any more through the brush I’ll cut it short,” retorted Sue.

“Shore you will not,” replied her father. “Not until you get some boss besides your dad.”

Sue ate her breakfast in a wonderful dark morning twilight. In the east, low over the black waving range, hung the morning star, radiant, blue-white, blinking, a beacon that heralded the dawn. A grayness was imperceptibly stealing over the sky. The other stars looked pale, spectral. Down in the valley the shadows seemed lifting, changing, drifting.

The horses were in, and stamping the ground or champing their bits. When the riders, spurred and chapped, came trooping to the camp fire, Melberne called out:

“Wal, we’re off. Jim, shore somebody has to stay in camp with the women.”

“I reckon so. But we’re short of riders now, Manerube says,” replied his partner.

“Bonny, you an’ Captain Bunk toss up for who goes an’ who stays heah.”

“I’ll stay, boss,” spoke up Tway Miller, with astounding fluency.

“Say, Miller, is this heah stutterin’ of yourn all put on?” demanded Utah. “Playin’ to the porch, huh?”

“T-t-t-t-t-ta-ta-tain’t so!” retorted Miller, hotly, all of a sudden victim to his weakness.

“Aw, now yore naturool ag’in,” replied Utah, dryly.

Bonny won the choice of the toss and graciously waived it in Captain Bunk’s favor, who manifestly was eager to ride out on the mule chase.

“Shure you can go, Cap,” he said. “I was kicked by a mule once.”

“Thanks, mate. I’ll take my chances navigatin’ mules,” replied Bunk, animatedly.

Sue rode beside her father out into the crisp frosty morning. Once beyond the fire she realized how really cold it was. Yet how exhilarating! They rode at a brisk trot, with backs to the lightening east, toward the long wandering dim line of the western wall of the valley. Utah and Alonzo were in the lead; Manerube rode on the other side of her father; Loughbridge with Ora and the two remaining riders brought up the rear.

The exercise soon sent the warm blood dancing all over Sue. How wonderful it was to ride out on an autumn morning like this! The wild quest would not wholly be resisted. She did not want to see a mule hurt any more than another creature, but the adventure appealed to her. Utah and Alonzo rode there ahead, lithe, erect, yet easy, somehow as wild and picturesque as their calling. Then as the morning grayness brightened to full daylight Sue looked to the horizon line with a swelling heart. It was something original, big, splendid to ride along, and gaze at the purple changing to rose, to feel the loneliness and solitude of that vast land. She realized how subtly and surely the charm of this wilderness had enfolded her. Yet she struggled against that which implied surrender.

Jack rabbits and coyotes trotted before the band of riders. A gray wolf watched them from a ridge top. Wild horses kept moving away continually, not allowing near approach. They would stand like statues, erect, sharply defined, resembling the wolf in their wildness; then they would race down the valley, swift as the wind, presently to halt and look again.

Sue heard Manerube propounding with great vehemence his plan for capturing a thousand wild horses, all at one drive. She felt her father’s intense interest, and somehow it filled her with sorrow.

Wild Horse Mesa caught Sue’s eye and held it. Far away, yet how clear-cut and lofty, an endless black-fringed rosy-walled tableland, rising out of purple chaos! It did not seem real. It reached the soft, creamy, fleecy canopy of cloud that was turning pink. Then the sun burst over the obstructing range. All that rolling valley and waving rock line changed so suddenly and wondrously as to bewilder the vision. Wild Horse Mesa became a horizon of fire.

Presently Alonzo and Utah led off the valley slope into the mouth of a canyon, wide, low, gray-saged, and ribbed with outcroppings of ledges. No water showed in the sandy stream-bed. As they rode up the level meadow-like canyon floor the walls gradually grew more rugged, and the breaks fewer. Thickets of oak with gold and russet leaves livened the gray. Deer bounded up the slopes; birds flew in flocks from the acorn copses.

After several miles of travel mostly over even and a scarcely perceptible rising ground the canyon walls came together, forming a narrow gate. These rugged walls did not rise far without a breaking and falling back to ragged and crumbling steps.

This rock-walled lane opened into a long oval valley, sloping gently on each side up to rugged rims, colorful with dark green of cedars and a few straggling pines. The notches at the heads of the ravines were choked with oak thickets, lending an autumn touch of gold to the scene.

Straight ahead, however, the valley changed, showing lines of cottonwoods along a rock-strewn brook, and a number of remarkable ridges that ran up toward the head of the canyon like the ribs of a fan. It was a big country, this oval boxed end of the canyon, and beautiful enough to bring loud acclaim from Melberne.

“Shore this heah’s a place for a ranch!” he ejaculated, slapping his leg. “What do you say, Jim?”

“If we don’t find better we’ll homestead here,” declared Loughbridge, with enthusiasm.

“Pretty enough. Good water and grass,” agreed Manerube. “But it’s nothing to some of the box heads of canyons west.”

Sue was asked for her opinion, which she did not give in words. She just gazed as if spellbound. Manerube saw her rapt attention and asked her if she could be happy living there in a log cabin. The half-curious, half-ironic query gave Sue a remarkable thrill. It was one of deep emotion and it seemed to fling at her mind the truth that she could live happily in such a place — with the man of her dreams.

“Wal, boss,” said Utah, “you-all wait an’ I’ll ride up a ways an’ see if the mules are here yet.”

While Sue sat her horse, looking to all points of this shut-in park, her father and the other men discussed animatedly the wonderful natural trap this canyon afforded. Manerube rather dominated the council. Presently Utah rode back to the group.

“They’re shore here,” he said. “Seen mebbe a hundred. An’ ‘pears to me the boss of the bunch is a gray old cuss thet’s been branded. I didn’t see him the other day. Shore he wasn’t born wild. An old mule who has run away makes the wildest kind of a beast. He’ll take a lot of ketchin’.”

Manerube, with the common consent of Melberne and Loughbridge, began enlarging upon plans for the drive. Utah, who had found the band of mules and manifestly had plans of his own, did not take kindly to being disregarded by a stranger. But Manerube was indifferent to Utah’s suggestions. He ordered cedars cut and dragged to block the far end of the narrow defile through which the party had entered the park.

“We’ll trap the whole bunch,” he concluded, with great gusto.

“Ahuh! Mebbe we will,” declared Utah, sourly, and the look he gave Manerube was expressive. Tway Miller rode off with Utah and his stuttering speech floated back.

“W-w-w-w-why in t-t-t-the h-h-h-hell didn’t you kick? These are y-y-y-yore mules.”

Manerube at last turned to the girls.

“You can help without hard riding,” he said. “When we get ready to drive the canyon you ride up on top that first ridge. Watch the mules, and when they run into the trap here wave your scarfs, so we can all see.”

“I thought I was to chase mules,” pouted Ora, with a reproachful look at Manerube.

“Chase them all you like when they run down this way,” replied Manerube.

The men then set to work cutting and dragging cedars. Sue dismounted and let her horse graze, while she sat under a cottonwood. Ora very manifestly avoided her. As always when resting or waiting, Sue passed the time in dreams. And those several hours were short.

It occurred to Sue that it was not necessary for Manerube to escort her and Ora to the station he had assigned them on the ridge, but he did so, giving his attention solely to Ora. This brought Ora out of her sulky mood, and if the truth had been known pleased Sue as well. She scorned an incipient idea that she had begun to be afraid of this man.

From the ridge top Sue saw the band of mules perhaps a quarter of a mile up the canyon and now below her position. They were out in the open. Some of them were grazing, but most were facing down the canyon, as stiff and erect as any wild horses. Several white ones showed conspicuously. There were also some tans. Most of them were brown. They looked shaggier than any mules Sue had seen before. Finally her glance fell upon the one gray mule in the band. He was large and there was something distinctive about him. Presently the riders appeared below, rounding the corners of the ridge. The big gray mule was the first to move. He headed up the canyon and his band fell in behind him. They were soon out of sight.

At the head of the grassy park the horsemen separated into pairs and rode on, spreading out, until they too disappeared around slopes and into the brushy thickets. That end of the canyon formed a kind of amphitheater with the ridges wide apart at the base and sloping up toward the wall, growing closer as they ascended. The ravines between these ridges were green and gold with oak thickets; the ridges were treeless, some gray with sage, some touched with patches of green grass, some yellow with exposed earth.

Sue was thrilled to see the mules, led by the gray chief, appear in a compact band on the center ridge and move quite swiftly up toward the wall. Puffs of dust rose and, forming clouds like yellow smoke, blew away on the wind. This ridge was long, still Sue could see the mules plainly. By the time they had reached the base of the wall four of Melberne’s riders were climbing. The old gray mule watched them, with his band huddled behind him. There seemed something incongruous about this watching-and-waiting process. These mules did not appear wild.

Presently the gray leader wheeled away, to trot along the base of the wall. His band followed. They passed the heads of several of the ridges, until they came to the last rib of the fan-shaped slope. Here they halted.

Meanwhile, two other riders appeared climbing another ridge. Sue recognized Manerube and Loughbridge. One of them yelled. At this signal Melberne and his men broke into a gallop along the base of the wall in the direction of the mules. Sue began to get excited.

“Ora! Look!” she cried to her companion, some paces distant. “These horse-hunters of ours won’t have such a picnic as Mr. Manerube thought.”

The girl responded with the glare of one whose idol had been insulted.

Then the gray mule tore down the far slope, with his band at his heels. They were lost in clouds of dust. Both groups of riders rode down their particular ridges. Evidently the descent was rather steep. Utah was the only one who maintained a gallop. Both riders and mules disappeared, but the trampling of their hoofs proved they were still moving.

In a few moments Sue saw the band of mules appear from behind the far slope on her side of the canyon. They were running. Sue thought they would come down the valley. But the wary old leader never even headed down that way; he ran across the wide part of the park and took to another slope.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” declared Sue, in delight.

“Don’t you want them to catch the mules?” snapped Ora.

“I sure don’t. Do you?”

Ora did not deign to reply to that.

Alonzo was the first of the riders to come again into view. He had lassoed a mule and was running with it out into the open. Sue had forgotten the vaquero. He bestrode a racy black horse, without saddle or bridle. There appeared to be a broad strap round his horse. He had hold of the lasso and was handling the mule roughly. Presently he hauled it to a stop and cautiously closed in on it. Suddenly the mule wheeled swiftly, to kick with a violence and viciousness that made Sue gasp. Then she heard the half-breed yell, evidently for help. Manerube hove in sight next, waving his arms.

“What — we — want — one mule? Let go! Help us drive!” came in a faint roar to Sue’s ears.

“Aha!” chuckled Sue. “Ora, your great horse-wrangler is not happy.”

All the riders came into sight and clustered round Manerube. The Mexican somehow dexterously released the mule he had captured, yet restrained the lasso. Manerube waved his arms, manifestly to emphasize the harangue he was giving the riders. There were other waving arms, that attested to a loss of temper, if nothing more. Then Manerube led three riders down to the base of the slope up which the mules had gone. Melberne took the remaining men up the central slope. When both groups had climbed about halfway up their respective ridges the wise old mule led his band along the wall, and taking to a slope between those being ascended by his pursuers he ran down to the level again. The riders halted, manifestly bewildered.

Sue let out a peal of laughter that was most offensive to the sentimental Ora.

“They’ll never catch those mules — not while that old fellow leads,” declared Sue. “Oh, what fun! I wouldn’t miss this for worlds.”

Ora rode down the slope and out into the park. Sue had a desire to follow, but she did not want to lose any of the ridiculous chase. So she stood her ground and watched.

Plain it was that Manerube’s plan had been to get behind the band of mules and drive them down the canyon into the trap. Easy to plan but vain to achieve, was Sue’s contention. Three times as many riders would have been necessary to accomplish this. But the chasers kept on chasing, and grew more violent as the game progressed. Always the gray mule led down an unguarded ridge to run up another. Fast and furious grew the riding of Manerube. He did not spare his horse. It seemed to Sue that Utah and Alonzo did not here live up to their reputations as great riders. Sue did not blame them. Here were a lot of fools chasing a wise old mule.

Once several of the riders got quite close to the mules along the base of the wall. It happened that when the mules charged down a ridge Captain Bunk on his white horse appeared ascending that ridge. For some reason, perhaps the steepness of the slope, he did not see them until they were right upon him. Above the trample of hoofs Sue heard his yell. His horse wheeled in fright and plunged down. Despite her concern for his safety Sue suffered a spasm of glee. The tenderfoot seafaring man made a grotesque figure trying to hang on to his horse. Twice he was unseated, but lurched back into the saddle. The mules caught up with him, and no doubt the roar of their hoofs, their snorts and whistles, increased his terror to the extent that he swerved his horse away from them, over the steep bank, and went sliding down into the brush, out of sight.

The running up and down these ridges apparently left the mules as fresh as ever, but such hard work began to tell on the horses. Manerube’s last effort was to collect all the riders in one group and run the mules without trying to head them. This worked well so far as it went. The horses, even though tired, soon overtook the mules on the level run beneath the wall, and also on the open ground at the foot of the ridges. But the mules could not be headed or turned; they ran right back up one of the slopes.

At last Sue saw the riders give up. Whereupon she rode down from her station and up the canyon. When she turned the curve of the canyon she espied the men in the narrow level where the brook ran. They had halted, manifestly in hot argument. Ora had already joined them. Sue loped her horse the remaining distance, keen to hear and see what was going on. The horses were heaving, and wet with sweat.

Alonzo grinned at her as she rode up, showing his white teeth. Utah sat his horse solemn as a judge. Manerube was raving in a rage. His tawny hair stood up; his face was hot and sweaty; his eyes glared. At the moment they happened to be fixed upon Captain Bunk. The sailor was a spectacle to excite both mirth and sympathy. His clothes had been torn to shreds; his face was scratched and bloody.

“Why didn’t you turn them back?” shouted Manerube, angrily. “That was our one chance.”

“Mate, I took this berth to hunt wild horses, not to be run down by a wild ass,” declared Bunk, with most peculiar significance.

But Manerube was obviously too thick or too chagrined to catch the covert slur flung at him. Sue did not miss it. And as she met her father’s twinkling eyes she was delighted to see that neither Bunk’s wit nor the general humor of the whole chase had been lost upon him. He winked at Sue. Loughbridge, however, was inclined to be sour-faced. Then as Manerube directed his tirade upon Tway Miller that worthy burst into an astonishing sputter, the meaning of which did not require correctly enunciated speech.

“That damned gray mule made fools of us,” fumed Manerube as he dismounted.

“Wal, he shore did,” agreed Melberne.

“I’ll fix him,” declared the rider, and snatching a rifle from Utah’s saddle-sheath he faced the slope. Perhaps five hundred yards up, right out in the open, stood the gray leader in front of his band.

“Kill him, Manerube,” shouted Loughbridge.

“I should smile I will,” announced Manerube as he looked at the mechanism of the rifle, then threw a shell into the chamber.

Sue had stiffened on her horse. Surely Manerube would not murder this wise old guardian of the band. But as the rider leveled the rifle Sue saw the dark grim passion on his face and in that moment she likewise saw the nature of the man.

“Dad!” she cried, poignantly. “Don’t let him shoot! Oh! don’t!”

With a sweep of his long arm her father struck up the leveled rifle just as it was discharged.

“What the hell!” ejaculated Manerube, harshly, whirling to face Melberne.

In that instant Melberne’s humor left him. Sue sustained another kind of thrill, one that struck a chill on her heart.

“Manerube, let the old mule go,” said Melberne, tersely. “He shore outwitted us, an’ I won’t see him shot.”

But Manerube’s fury had not yet cooled. Jerking away, he again looked up to locate the mules. They had disappeared.

“Say, man, who’s runnin’ this heah outfit?” demanded Melberne, with voice still calm, yet edged as by ice. He took the rifle away from Manerube. “I’m allowin’ for temper, because that old gray devil was shore exasperatin’. But cool off now, if you want to get along with me.... Jim, I reckon we might as well rustle for camp.”

“But, Mel, if we killed thet gray leader we’d trap the rest,” complained Loughbridge.

“Mebbe we would, as Utah said. I’ve dealt with mules all my life an’ I’m tellin’ you we cain’t catch this bunch. We haven’t enough riders. I shore knew that first off.”

THEY rode back to camp with the westering sun behind them. Sue felt particularly pleased with the day. What a splendid man her father was! In times of stress he seemed so different, such an anchor, more a Texan then. She shivered a little as she recalled things she had been told about him long ago. She felt gratified at Manerube’s discomfiture, and not a little pleased at Ora’s peevishness. Both Utah and Alonzo had let Sue know, without a word, that Manerube’s methods had not inspired them.

The horses, campward bound, were full of spirit and eagerness. They made short work of the miles. Sue rode the whole distance at a swinging lope. When they reached camp the sun had just set. The camp fire was smoking. Sue rode to her tent, and quickly turned her pony loose. Kicking off spurs and chaps, she wiped the dust from her face and brushed back her disheveled hair. Then she hurried out with a ravenous appetite.

Manerube passed her without even seeing her. His face seemed strangely pale. How different he looked from the rider ranting in temper about the failure to capture the mules! It struck Sue so forcibly that she turned instinctively to gaze after him. Manerube appeared to be striding aimlessly away from the camp fire.

Then Sue espied a wonderful shiny horse, almost black, standing with head down. Her father had just helped a rider to get out of the saddle. Sue halted with a start.

Melberne half supported a tall lithe man whose back was toward Sue. His garb showed rough travel. He could not walk without support. Loughbridge was talking somewhat excitedly as he walked beside Melberne. Utah strode on the other side. The others present appeared much concerned.

Sue ran forward, and reached her father just as he carefully let the stranger down under a cottonwood.

“Never — mind — me,” said the man, in a husky whisper. “Look after — Brutus — my horse!”

“Wal, stranger, we’ll shore have a care for you both,” replied her father, in his hearty way.

Utah folded a blanket to slip under the man’s head, raising it. Sue saw piercing dark eyes, and a black ragged beard of many days’ growth. Something seemed to stop her heart. But it was not the pain in those eyes or the pallid lined brow. Sue recognized a man she had never before seen.

CHAPTER VIII

MELBERNE DREW UP the blanket that Utah had spread over the stranger.

“Reckon you’re Chane Weymer,” he affirmed, rather than asked.

Sue did not need to see the man nod affirmation of his identity. Yet the weary action seemed to set a ringing in her ears. Venturing closer, she dropped upon one knee beside her father.

“Are you hurt anywheres?” went on Melberne, solicitously, with his big hands passing gently over Weymer.

“No — just starved — worn out,” came the whispered reply.

“Ahuh. So I reckoned,” said Melberne, and looked up to tell one of the riders to fetch Mrs. Melberne.

“Wal, I shore knew you was Chess Weymer’s brother the minute I laid eyes on you. Didn’t you reckon that way, Sue?”

Chane Weymer gave a slight start and would have sat up but for Melberne’s restraining hand. The weariness seemed momentarily galvanized out of him.

“Chess! Do you — know him?” he asked, huskily.

“Shore do. He’s in my employ, an’ a fine lad. Isn’t he, Sue?”

It was then the piercing eyes flashed upon Sue and seemed to be penetrating to her very heart.

“Yes — dad,” she replied.

“Where — is he?” queried Weymer, his searching gaze going back to Melberne.

“Wal, he was heah. But I sent him to the railroad with the wagon. He’ll be back aboot tomorrow.”

The weary face of Weymer underwent a singular transfiguration. Those falcon eyes, dark as an Indian’s, shone with a beautiful light. They met Sue’s, and a smile seemed to open them, showing the man’s soul. Then they closed, and he whispered something inaudibly that Sue interpreted as, “Little Boy Blue”!

At that moment Mrs. Melberne came bustling into the group, her comely face wearing an expression of concern.

“Is — he hurt?” she inquired, breathlessly.

“No, Mary. He’s starved. Now I reckon he ought not eat much or anythin’ heavy. A little warm milk with bread, or some soup.”

“Seems like he has some fever,” replied Mrs. Melberne, with her hand on Weymer’s face. “An’ see how he’s twitching.... Make a bed for him — right here — an’ put him in it. I’ll look after him.”

“Shore that’s good,” responded Melberne, heartily, as if both glad and relieved. “I’ll fetch blankets. An’ say, Utah, will you take charge of Weymer’s horse? Feed him a little grain — very little — an’ mix it in some warm water.”

They left Sue kneeling there, uncertain what to do, strangely influenced by something that was not all sympathy. Chess Weymer’s brother had come. It seemed a simple, natural, anticipated event, yet its culmination held a significance which was not made clear by his presence. Suddenly Sue felt a thrill of gladness for Chess. Then, on the instant, Chane Weymer’s eyes opened to meet hers.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asked, a little hurriedly.

“Who are — you?” he returned, curiously, his voice again a husky whisper.

“Sue Melberne. He was my father,” replied Sue, with a motion of her hand toward the camp fire.

“Do you — know Chess?”

“Indeed I do. We’re great friends,” she said, feeling a warmth steal to her cheeks.

“Well!” The single whispered word was expressive enough to cause Sue to drop her eyes and be relieved that her father returned with his arms full of blankets.

“Shore we’ll have a bed in a jiffy,” he said. “Sue, help me fold them. Reckon there ought to be three doubled to go under him. He’s been sleepin’ on the hard ground, if he’s slept at all.”

Sue helped her father make the bed.

“Now, Weymer, let me lift you over,” he said.

“I’m not — quite helpless,” was the reply. And Weymer edged himself over into the bed, where Melberne covered him.

“Shore you’re not. But you’re tuckered out.... Sue, stay with him until mother comes. I’ve got work to do before dark.”

Again Sue found herself alone with this brother of Chess Weymer’s. The fact was disturbing. She did not feel natural. She had an unaccountable shyness, almost embarrassment.

“You’re kind people,” whispered Weymer. “My bad luck — seems broken.... A fellow can never — tell.”

“Tell what?” asked Sue.

“When there’s — no hope left. Maybe there’s always hope.”

“You mean hope of life — during such terrible experience as you must have had?”

“Yes — of life — and happiness,” he whispered, dreamily. “Always, both have seemed just beyond the horizon — for me.... I’ll never be hopeless again.”

“Your strength left you,” said Sue, earnestly. “But of course there’s always hope for any man — if he... But here comes mother with something for you to eat.”

It fell fatefully to Sue’s lot to help Mrs. Melberne feed this newcomer, who was so weak he could not sit up without support. The practical motherly woman bade Sue hold him while she lifted spoon and cup to his lips. Thus Sue found herself kneeling beside Chess Weymer’s brother, with her arms round his shoulders. Pity and kindliness actuated her, the same as these feelings prompted Mrs. Melberne in her gentle motherly way, but there was something else. Chane Weymer’s shoulder touched Sue’s heaving breast as she knelt beside him. Of all the moments of Sue’s life, these endless few were the most astounding and inexplicable.

Weymer might have been nearly starved, but the fact was he could not swallow much, though he tried hard. Soon he lay back on the folded pillow, with whispered thanks, and closed his eyes.

“It’s sleep he needs now more than food,” declared Mrs. Melberne as she rose from her knees. “Sue, stay beside him a little till he falls off. If he doesn’t sleep, then I’ll sit up with him. He might need medicine. But if he sleeps he’ll be better tomorrow an’ can eat.”

Then for the third time Sue found herself alone with the man who called his brother Little Boy Blue. In a few moments indeed he was fast asleep. Then Sue’s stultified emotions seemed to be released.

Dusk stole softly down through the rustling cottonwoods. She heard the clink of riders’ spurs and the thud of hoofs. A mournful coyote barked out in the valley. The sweet fragrance of burning wood blew over her. And the moon, topping the mountain, cast a pale glow down upon the encampment. It lightened the face of the sleeping man. Sue did not want to gaze at him, yet she was powerless to resist it. The dark disheveled head, the ragged black beard, gave something of wildness to this stranger’s presence. He was breathing deeply, as one in heavy slumber.

Sue peered round about her. Darkness had set in; the camp fire blazed, casting a circle of light, through which the riders passed to and fro on their errands. Her position was in the shadow of the cottonwoods. Some one was singing a song. She heard her father’s deep voice. Sue edged noiselessly closer to her charge, so that she could see him better. She suffered a sense of something akin to shame, yet she bent to look at him closely.

In the moon-balanced shadow his face lay upturned, and it seemed to have a sad cast, level noble brow burdened with pain, dark hollows where the eyelids shut, blank spaces, yet how compelling, and stern lines that faded in the ragged beard. Sue drew back, strangely relieved, though why she could not tell. But that face held something which did not mock her interest in the wild rider who called his brother Little Boy Blue.

A sound of wagon wheels rolling down the hard slope back of camp disturbed Sue’s reverie. It did not occur to her, in her thoughtful state, what that sound signified, until she heard some one yell out that Jake and Chess were back.

“Oh, I’m glad!” murmured Sue, with a quick glance at the still face of the sleeper. Chess’s return afforded her some unexplained relief, while at the same time it stirred in her as vague a reluctance to have him find her watching over his brother. Sue could not see that there was any more needful to do; and therefore she rose hastily and went to her tent, intending to go to bed. Once in the dark confines of her tent, however, she sat motionless, lost in thought.

SOME time later, how soon she had no idea, she heard quick footsteps rustling the dry leaves outside, and then an eager voice calling her name.

“Hello, Chess! You back? I’m sure glad,” she replied.

“Oh, Sue! — Chane has come!” he went on, his low voice betraying deep feeling.

“Yes, I know,” replied Sue.

“Are you in bed?” he queried.

“No. But I was just going.”

“Please come out. I want to tell you something,” he begged.

Sue had no wish to resist that earnest appeal; indeed, her pulse was far from being calm. Rising, she slipped out between the flaps of her tent. Chess stood close, a tall dark figure, his face indistinguishable against the background of shadow. He made a dive to secure her hand, and, bending, he kissed her cheek.

“Why — Chess!” exclaimed Sue. Amaze was succeeding to anger when she felt the shaking of his hands, and then, as she peered up, she made out his face. He was greatly excited. Evidently he had no consciousness of a bold action. He was not thinking about her.

“Chane is asleep,” whispered Chess, hoarsely. “I went close — to look at him. Say, it was hard not to wake him. But I was glad, for it gives me time.”

“Time? For what, Chess? Why, boy, you’re all upset!” replied Sue.

“Upset! Huh! You’d be upset, too — if you knew Chane,” went on Chess, hurriedly. “If he finds out Manerube knocked me down — and what for — my God! Sue, he’ll kill him!”

Sue felt a cold tightening prickle of her skin, and her thoughts raced.

“You must keep him from finding out,” she said.

“Sure. I’m going to. When I found out Chane was here I asked your father if anyone had told about my fight with Manerube. He said he’d forgotten that. Then I begged him not to tell Chane. He said I had the right idea. He went with me to fix it with Jake and the other fellows who saw the fight. They were all darn nice about it.”

Sue warmed to the boy as breathlessly he talked, leaning over her, holding her hands in a grip that proved his agitation.

“Then, Sue — what do you think?” he went on, almost pantingly.

“Go on, Chess. Tell me. How can I think, when I don’t know?” rejoined Sue, in haste.

“We looked for Manerube,” whispered Chess, tensely. “No one had seen him since Chane rode into camp. Your dad said that ‘shore was damn strange.’ But I didn’t think so.... Maybe Manerube knows Chane. Anyway, we hunted all around camp, and at last we found him sitting back on a log away from the camp fire. He was thinking deep and our coming startled him. I pitched right in to tell him I — we didn’t want Chane to know about the fight.... I reckon that surprised Manerube. He looked like it. And he got a little chesty, right off. You know how he is. Well, I made my part of it strong. I crawled.... Think of me begging that liar’s pardon, just to prevent a fight here!”

“But, Chess, you hardly needed to humiliate yourself so,” responded Sue. “Manerube would not have told Chane you struck him, that’s certain.”

“Darn my thick head!” ejaculated Chess, in exasperation. “Sure he wouldn’t. I could just feel how relieved he was.... Well, I did it, and I reckon I’m not sorry. It was for Chane’s sake.”

“Chess, it was manly of you,” said Sue, earnestly. “Never mind what Manerube thinks.... But, Chess, in your excitement because of your brother’s return, haven’t you exaggerated any danger of his — of any — —”

“Sue,” interrupted Chess, “I’m not exaggerating anything. Chane might overlook insults — such talk as that squaw-man stuff, or the vile hint about the little Piute girl. It’d be just like Chane to pass all that by, at least in a camp where there were womenfolks. But if he learned Manerube had struck me — beat me in the face for defending his honor — why, so help me Heaven — he’d kill him!”

“Then, boy — you’ve done right,” faltered Sue, unnerved by Chess’s passion.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Sue,” went on Chess, as if suddenly he had been struck by an idea. “I haven’t any fears for Chane’s life. Did you think that? Say — wait till you know this brother of mine! But it’s that I’d hate to have him shed blood on my account.... He’s done it, Sue. He shot a rowdy who mistreated me — in a saloon where I was drinking. Thank God, he didn’t kill him. But that was only luck.... Sue, I ask you to help me be a better man, so Chane will never fight on my account again.”

“Chess — you’re confessing now? You’ve been bad,” whispered Sue.

He dropped his head and let go of her hands.

“Don’t be afraid to tell me. I’m no fair-weather friend,” continued Sue.

“Bad! I should smile,” he replied, with a lift of his head. Then he looked down squarely into her face. “Sue, I was only a wild youngster. You’ve helped me. And I’m getting older... seems to me. Chane coming at this time — just makes me think. I don’t want him to fight for his sake, more than for mine. And for yours, Sue!”

“Mine!” murmured Sue, suddenly shocked out of her warm solicitude. “I — why — what concern is it of mine?”

“Didn’t I say if I couldn’t have you for a wife I’d sure have you for a sister?” he queried, forcefully.

“Yes, you did, and it was very foolish talk,” responded Sue.

“Just you wait! But never mind about that. All this talk of mine means only one thing. I’m scared stiff for fear Chane will fight again. He was terrible the last time.... Now, Sue, Chane will get a job riding for your father. He’ll be with us. I knew that was coming. I’m glad, if only he never finds out about Manerube. If only I can be half a man!”

“Chess, I think you’re pretty much of a man right now,” declared Sue.

“You mean it, Sue, honest?” he asked, eagerly.

“Yes, judging from all you’ve said here. If you stick to that I’ll be proud to help you.”

“You could do anything with a fellow.”

“Very well, flatterer,” returned Sue, trying to be light and gay, but failing. “I’ll put my remarkable powers to a test. Make me one promise?”

“Yes. What is it?” demanded Chess.

“Don’t drink any more. I know these men have liquor in camp.”

“Have you heard anything of my drinking? I haven’t lately,” he said, simply. “But you’ve hit my weakness.”

“Well, then, good night, Little Boy Blue,” she said, with a laugh.

THE pitchy blackness of Sue’s tent, the heavy protecting feel of her blankets, had never before been so welcome as on this night. She was too thoughtful to sleep, at least for long. A kind of shame assailed her, that she could have appeared calm, even patronizing to Chess, where the truth was that she verged on tumult. The cause of such possible agitation forced itself upon her consciousness. She made denials to her accusing self. They were of no avail. The brother Chess had eulogized, the man who had been forced into her inmost thoughts, the wild rider of many adventures and whose name bore a stigma, lay out under the cottonwoods, his stern sad face blanched in the moonlight. He was there. She could not forget his face. These facts had an importance before which all her arguments failed. A restless impatient wonder at herself led at length to rebellion. She called herself a sentimental fool. This desert adventure, throwing her in contact with men of the open, with the primitive life of wild-horse wranglers and the loneliness of that vast land, had warped her for the time out of her sensible and practical habits of mind and action.

“But — how do I know this strong new self is not more truly me than the other?” she whispered to herself. “I always used to hold myself in. Maybe I wasn’t natural.”

So she pondered until she seemed lost in a sea of imaginings. What good did it do to think, considering that her feelings were not dependent upon her thought or governed by it? And as far as understanding what she regarded as queer reactions to a situation in which a strange rider seemed paramount, she arrived nowhere.

But when she remembered Chess and Manerube, then she was not in the least bewildered. Chess loved his brother Chane with a great boyish worship. Manifestly he had been a trouble to that brother. No doubt he was guilty of some act through which the loyal Chane had suffered. At any rate, Chess showed the pangs of remorse; likewise the noble longings to redeem himself. In the few moments of his eloquent talk with Sue he had risen immeasurably in her regard.

As for Manerube — that man had been frightened by the arrival of Chane Weymer. Sue’s observation and intuition met perfectly on this plane. She had clearly seen his pale face, his somber, amazed, sullen look, his preoccupation, his hurry. He had rubbed against her in passing, yet had never seen her. Only one reason for this occurred to Sue — he was afraid to meet Weymer.

“Why, I wonder,” she pondered. “Did he truly whip Chane Weymer, as he bragged he did? He feared Chess would tell Chane about the fight. That he had beaten Chess — been the cause of those dark-blue splotches which still showed on Chess’s face.”

Whatever else there might be behind Manerube’s behavior, the main cause was that he was a coward. Sue had not liked the man, though she admitted his compelling personality, but this development damned him forever. Sue experienced a lifting sense of vague freedom; she had not been certain about Benton Manerube. She realized now where she stood in regard to him. Then, with the inconsistency of sex, which she admitted, Sue’s mind lingered on another phase of the situation; and it was a speculation as to what would actually happen if Chane Weymer were told the truth.

“Chess never asked me not to tell,” she whispered. “Of course I never will — yet, I didn’t promise not to.... What am I thinking? I believe I’d like to see Manerube beaten as he would have beaten Chess!”

Sue could scarcely have believed that, had she not heard her own voice, in low thrilling whisper. It absolutely destroyed what poise she had attained. Rolling over to bury her face in her pillow, Sue gave up to the climax of nervous excitement and cried herself to sleep.

SUE awoke early enough, but she did not answer Mrs. Melberne’s call, or Chess’s; and not until her father slapped on the tent and in hearty stentorian voice ordered her out, did she make any effort to get up. A lassitude seemed to hang on her, and a reluctance to face the clear open day.

When she presented herself for breakfast she found she was the last one. Mrs. Melberne’s eyes twinkled as she observed Sue’s carefully brushed hair, and clean white blouse with bright tie, and a soft woolen skirt, and beaded moccasins.

“Daughter, I thought yesterday’s ride must have been too much for you, seein’ you didn’t bounce out as usual,” she said, dryly. “But I reckon you’re well enough. You sure look pretty. Ora tidied up a bit, too, but you needn’t let it worry you.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Sue, with a hot blush. Seldom indeed did she call Mrs. Melberne mother. “Do you mean to insinuate I — you — —”

“My dear, don’t mind me,” interposed Mrs. Melberne, suddenly warmed and won out of her teasing by that word mother.

Then her father came striding up, and he too was quick to notice Sue did not have on her usual rough and comfortable garb.

“Wal, girls will be girls,” he said, mischievously. “Sue, I reckon you don’t ride with me today.”

“Why, sure, dad! Where are you going?” rejoined Sue, with a tremendous effort not to appear to have caught his inference.

“Ha! Ha! You shore fooled me, lass,” he replied. “Fact is we’re restin’ today an’ drawin’ plans for the great barbed-wire trap to catch wild horses.”

“Dad, are you really going to use barbed-wire?”

“Wal, I reckon so. Shore I’m not keen aboot it. But we use wire or nothin’. The trap will take miles of fence. We cain’t use wood. We’ll have hard enough work cuttin’ an’ draggin’ enough wood for posts.”

“Dad, I’m surprised, that’s all,” returned Sue, coldly, and bent to her breakfast.

Melberne showed that his daughter’s disapproval cut him to the quick. He argued and explained, but as Sue did not look up again or speak, he finally dropped his head and strode off, grumbling to himself. From this Sue divined that she had more influence with her father than she had supposed; and it convinced her that if the barbed-wire trap turned out to be actually brutal she might persuade him to abandon such means.

Before finishing her breakfast Sue discovered with a little shock of dismay that she was vastly curious about Ora this particular morning. Mrs. Melberne’s hint had helped along a feminine interest which had until today fallen to low ebb. She looked everywhere round camp to locate the girl, and the last place was the cottonwood tree where she and her father had made the bed for Chane. It annoyed her, too, to note that she had begun to call him Chane in her thoughts. The bed had been removed and Ora was not in sight. Thereupon Sue insisted upon helping Mrs. Melberne wash and wipe the breakfast utensils, an act which, under the particular circumstances, evidently mystified the good woman.

Jake happened along, his arms full of bundles brought from the wagon; and at sight of Sue his brown seamed face wrinkled into a shiny mass.

“Now, Miss Sue, if you don’t just look good for sore eyes!” he ejaculated. “Is there anything going on today?”

“Not that I know of,” replied Sue, with a smile.

“We’re a lucky lot of bushwhackers, to have two such lasses as you and Ora to remind us of home.... Now I intended to fetch you a box of candy, but the old fellow in the store near dropped dead when I asked him for it.”

“Thanks all the same, Jake.”

Jake stepped closer to Sue and spoke in lower tone: “You know about Chess’s brother being here?”

“Yes, I saw him last night.”

“Say, but that boy Chess is happy,” went on Jake, manifestly having shared Chess’s joy. “He was worried some last night. I talked with him and encouraged him to keep secret that little trouble — you know — when Manerube first came. I like Chess. He’s got a good heart. I’d sure like to meet his mother.”

“Jake, what do you think of Chess’s brother?” queried Sue, deliberately, yet the blood tingled in her cheeks. This kindly, just man was the only one in the camp of whom she could have asked that.

“I’ll tell you when I make up my mind,” replied Jake, seriously. “He’s the finest-looking rider I ever saw. Too bad he’s come to us with Manerube’s — —”

Captain Bunk, staggering under a load of firewood, jostled against Jake, interrupting what he meant to say.

“Heave to, Jake. You’re always on the port side,” said the sailor, pleasantly. “How are you, mate?”

“Couldn’t be better, Cap,” responded Jake, extending his broad hand. “Say, you’re all scratched up. Why, man, have you been fighting wild-cats?”

“Jake, yesterday I went to navigate a fleet of wild mules. They run me into the brush.”

At that moment Chess swung up with his springy stride, bright, keen, all smiles, his eyes glad at sight of Sue.

“Hello, sister! Where have you been all day? There’s somebody here who wants to meet you.”

“Yes? Oh, I suppose you mean your brother,” said Sue, casually. But it was only outwardly that serenity abided with her. She seemed powerless to help her feelings. The sight of Chess simply made her heart beat unwontedly. He liked her so well. How plain that was! Not yet had the idea occurred to him that Sue might not care to meet this disgraced brother. Indeed, in Chess’s mind no idea of disgrace could ever have been harbored. Sue wanted to resent the familiar word sister; she wanted to avoid meeting Chane Weymer. But at that moment she did not have it in her to hurt this boy, who had promised to go straight for her sake. So, assuming an air of amiable indifference, which she was far from feeling, Sue permitted Chess to lead her away under the cottonwoods.

Chess was talking, as usual, only faster, and with elation — how he had moved Chane back in the grove, shaved him, and made him look presentable, and other things Sue did not catch. She was concerned with her own smothered emotions. Vaguely she seemed aware of other sensations — the sense of dragging footsteps over a long distance, the intensely vivid blue sky and gold of cottonwood, the fragrance of wood smoke that drifted across the way. Then Sue espied Chess’s tent, and near it, in the shade of a full-foliaged tree, a bed in which a man was sitting upright. Sue did not see a disheveled head, a pallid face, a ragged beard, things she remembered. Could this person be Chess’s brother? How stupid of her, as Chess was leading her straight to the tree! Sue dropped her eyes. It seemed as if she was being led to some sort of execution. Then a sudden fury of spirit dismissed this incomprehensible mood of perversity and left her as she used to be.

“Chane, here she is — Sue Melberne!” cried Chess, joyfully. His tone expressed a thousand times more than words.

“I’m sure glad to meet you,” said Chane Weymer. His voice had the same ring that was notable in Chess’s, only it was deeper.

“How do you do, Mr. Weymer!” responded Sue, lifting her eyes. “I hope you’re better this morning.”

Before he could reply to Sue they were accosted by her father, who, approaching from the other side, at once drew attention with his genial authoritative presence.

“Wal, heah you are, Weymer, entertained by the young folks,” he said, in his loud voice. “Shore you look like a different man this mawnin’.”

“You’re Melberne, boss of the outfit, I reckon,” replied Chane, extending his hand. “I’m much obliged to you. Yes, I do feel different. But I’m tired — and hungry. Your good wife said I must eat sparingly today.”

“Shore. Go easy on grub. Reckon you’ve had some hard knocks lately?” rejoined Melberne, tentatively. He squatted down beside Weymer with manner curious, as if information was his due, yet wholly the kind and sympathetic host to an unfortunate guest.

Sue seated herself on one of the packs near by and proceeded to employ these few moments when her father’s presence distracted interest from her.

Chane Weymer wore a clean corduroy shirt, too small for his wide shoulders. Sue had seen Chess wear that. This rider did not appear to be brawny of build, yet the muscles rippled under the tight sleeves whenever he moved his arms. His face, shorn of the ragged beard, was the most compelling Sue had ever gazed upon. It was brown and smooth, with a blue tinge under the skin. He did not resemble Chess, yet anyone could have told they were brothers. His dark hair appeared as if touched with frost.

“No, Melberne, I can’t say I’ve had any particular hard knocks,” he was saying. “I’ve been over in the Piute country. Bought a bunch of mustangs from Toddy Nokin. I’d had the bad luck to fall in with some horse thieves — Bud McPherson and his pals. They trailed us, stampeded the stock. I had to take to the river to save my life. McPherson had got hold of my rifle. They ran me up a box canyon, so I had to cross the San Juan. Lucky I had a grand horse. Both rivers were high.... Well, I missed the Hole in the Wall and had to climb out of the canyon country way round under Wild Horse Mesa. I had a little grub the Piutes gave me, but it didn’t last long. Reckon that’s about all.”

“Hum! Lost your stock an’ all your outfit?” replied Melberne, sympathetically.

“All I owned — no, I shouldn’t say that. I’ve got Brutus left. Perhaps I’d never have known what a great horse he is if it hadn’t been for my mishap.”

“Brutus. That’s the black bay you rode in on. Shore he’s all horse.... Wal, where were you headin’ for?”

“Mormon country. I was goin’ to borrow outfit from some of the Mormons, and then come back.”

“What for?” demanded Melberne, with interest.

“I’ve several reasons,” said Weymer, smiling. “One is I expect Toddy Nokin to come over with another string of mustangs. Then I’d like to look for Bud McPherson. And, well, Melberne, I’ve another reason I want to keep to myself for the present.”

“I see. Wal, how’d you like to throw in with me? I need riders. We’ll furnish what you want an’ pay good wages. Chess will be glad to have you, I reckon.”

“I should smile,” replied Chess, for himself.

“Melberne, I’ll take you up,” replied Chane. “May I ask your plans? You’re new to this wild-horse game, aren’t you?”

“Reckon I am,” returned Melberne, shortly. “That’s why I want good riders. Wal, my plans are easy told. I’m aimin’ to trap a thousand horses heah in Stark Valley, ship them out, an’ then move west over there under Wild Horse Mesa, ketch an’ break some good horses, an’ then homestead a fine valley.”

“A thousand wild horses! Reckon you are new to this game. If you do catch them how on earth will you ship them? Wild horses!”

“Wal, I reckon I don’t know, but this rider Manerube knows, an’ I’m leavin’ that to him.”

“Bent Manerube?” queried Weymer, sharply, his fine smooth brow wrinkling slightly between the eyes.

“Yes, he’s the man,” returned Melberne, and he gazed hard at his interrogator.

“Melberne! Do I understand you to mean you’ve hired Bent Manerube?” demanded the rider, in astonishment.

Sue felt Chess’s hand gripping hers, and she returned the pressure, as if to reassure him. It might be a ticklish moment, but she had confidence in her father. He was wise, calm, and just. Sue’s intensity of interest had to do with Chane Weymer. She gazed closely at him, as with piercing eyes he looked up into her father’s face.

“Yes, I told you. Bent Manerube.”

The rider laughed outright, and both incredulity, and something harder, sharper, vanished from his expression.

“Wal, reckon it may seem funny to you,” said Melberne, gruffly.

“Yes it is,” replied Weymer, frankly. “But if you don’t know why, I’m sure not going to tell you.”

“You had some trouble with Manerube across the river, didn’t you?” queried Melberne.

The rider’s head lifted, with the movement of an eagle. Then Sue saw fire added to the piercing quality of his eyes.

“No. I reckon I’d not call it trouble with Manerube,” returned Weymer, in slow cool deliberation. “What did he say?”

Melberne seemed somewhat flustered, compared with his usual free directness. Chess sat as stiff as a statue, yet he was inwardly trembling, for Sue felt his hand quiver. The situation had grown bad for him. Sue bit her tongue to keep from bursting out. She wanted to kick her father to remind him of the issue at stake. But he was not close enough to her, and she did not know how to attract him. Besides, Chane Weymer’s look, his laugh, and then the slow coolness of his last query had robbed her of the feeling Chess had inspired in her. Almost, it seemed, she wanted her father to blurt out Manerube’s story.

“Wal, he didn’t say much,” replied Melberne, warily. “Just mentioned you an’ he had a little scrap. Shore it’s nothin’ to fetch up heah. I’m runnin’ this outfit. An’ all I want to know is if you’ll ride for me.”

The frown deepened on Weymer’s brow, and the sternness of his features, that had hidden behind his smile and glow of gladness, brought sharply to Sue the face she had seen in the moonlight. Certain it was he divined Melberne’s swerving from the actual truth. Perhaps his penetrating gaze found all he wished to know. Then he turned to look at Chess, and as swiftly as a light or shadow could cross his face it changed, softened. He loved that boy. Nothing else mattered. He did not seem to remember Sue was there.

“Sure I’ll ride for you, Melberne,” he said. “If you want to know, I’m right glad of the chance. Here’s Chess — and, well, I might be of other service to you. Quien sabe? as the Mexicans say.”

Melberne shook hands with Chane, and with a curt word of thanks he got up and strode away. Sue was almost as powerfully impressed by the way her father had met this situation, how significantly he had betrayed a surprise, as she was by the effect Weymer had upon her. Face to face with him she could not remember the character Manerube had given him and that Loughbridge said was the estimate of him among desert men. There was more, too, that she could not divine at the moment.

“Boy, it seems I’ve taken a job to ride with you,” said Chane to his brother.

“I should — smile,” responded Chess, choking down some stubborn emotion. “And I’m sure glad. Aren’t you, Sue?”

How the foolish lad always included her in his raptures! He could not see anything except that she must be glad.

“Why, yes, Chess, if it pleases you,” she replied.

“Miss Melberne, my brother tells me you have been good to him,” said Chane, directly, and fastened his eyes on Sue’s face.

“Oh no, hardly that,” murmured Sue.

“Don’t believe her, Chane,” spoke up Chess. “She’s an angel. She calls me Little Boy Blue and I call her sister. Now what do you say to that?”

“I hardly know,” replied Chane, gravely. “I’ll reserve judgment till I see more of you together.”

“Chane, listen,” said Chess, with entire difference of tone. The boyishness vanished. His ruddy face paled slightly. He breathed quickly. “Sue has stopped my drinking.”

“No!” exclaimed the elder brother.

“I swear to you she has,” declared Chess, low and quick. “Chane, I fell in love with her.... She didn’t know it, but I’ve never drank since.... Of course, Chane — you mustn’t misunderstand. Sue doesn’t love me — never can. I’m too much of a boy. Sue is twenty. But all the same she stopped me — and I’ll promise you, too — I’ll never drink again.”

“Little Boy Blue!” replied Chane. “That’s the best news I ever had in all my life.”

Then Sue felt his eyes on her face, and though she dared not raise it, she had to.

“This boy’s mother will love you, too, when she knows,” said Chane. “As for me — I will do anything for you.”

“I declare — you make so much of — of hardly anything,” returned Sue, struggling with unfamiliar emotions. “Chess is the same way. You make mountains out of mole hills.”

He smiled without replying, his dark eyes of fire steadily on her. Sue suddenly felt that if she had been an inspiration to Chess, wittingly or otherwise, it was a big thing. She must not seem to belittle it. And the reverence, or whatever it was she saw in Chane Weymer’s eyes, went straight to her heart, unutterably sweet to the discord there. An incredible shyness was about to master her. In sheer self-preservation she turned to Chess.

“Boy Blue, I’d never make light of your fight against bad habits,” she said. “I’m only amazed that I could help.... But if it’s true — I’m very proud and very happy. I will indeed be your sister.”

Sue left them, maintaining outwardly a semblance of the dignity she tried to preserve. She heard Chess say, triumphantly, “Chane, didn’t I tell you?...” That almost precipitated her retreat to a flight. What on earth had Chess told this brother? Sue walked faster and faster toward her tent.

CHAPTER IX

DAYS PASSED. THE beautiful Indian summer weather held on, growing white with hoarfrost in the dawns, rich and thick with amber light at the still noons, smoky and purple at sunset. The cottonwoods now blazed in golden splendor, and the grove was carpeted with fallen leaves, like a bright reflection from the canopy above.

Melberne’s riders labored early and late, part of them cutting and dragging fence posts, the others stretching barbed-wire down in the valley.

But for Sue Melberne these days were unending, dragging by through hours of restless uncertainty, strange fleeting moments of indescribable joy, followed by quick fastening moods of vague unhappiness — all tormenting, verging on torture.

Then came the most perfect of autumn days, golden, fragrant, smoky, now with long still solemn dreamy lulls, and again sweet and cool with gusts of wind that filled the air as by fluttering bright leaves like birds, and sent the carpet of gold rustling under the trees. Sue wandered about the grove and along the slope, believing she had fallen under a magic spell of Indian summer. For the most part she watched Chess and Chane at their labors up and down the hillside. She heard the sharp ring of Chess’s axe, and sometimes she saw it glint in the sunlight. His mellow voice floated down, crude and strong, singing a cowboy song. The tall Chane gathered several trimmed saplings in his arms, and carrying them to a declivity, he threw them over, where they rolled and clattered down to a level. Here Jake and Bonny and Captain Bunk loaded them into wagons.

Sue watched all the riders, but her gaze went oftenest and lingered longest upon the lithe figure of Chane Weymer. She was not blind to it. She confessed it when moments of torment drove her to truth. But fair as she had been to others, she was stubborn, inconsistent, intolerant to herself. She would think only so far, then, shocked at the possibilities, she would defiantly dispel thought and live in her dreamful sensations.

But this golden day had dawned to strange purpose. Never had there been such a day in her life. All at once she faced her soul and knew her trouble.

She had perched in a favorite seat on a low branch of a gnarled and spreading cottonwood, quite remote from the camp, at the base of the slope where the canyon opened. Here she could see without being seen. Nothing unusual had happened. She had been free of torments for the hour, idling, watching, dreaming away the time. Indeed, the sweet strong spell of the golden and purple autumn lay upon her. Then came a moment when Chane Weymer passed out of sight on the timbered hillside and did not return. Revelation burst upon her quietly, inevitably, without the slightest shock.

“Chane Weymer!... He’s the man,” she soliloquized, mournfully. “I felt something must happen out here in this desert. It’s come.... Chess was right. He said, ‘You can’t help but love Chane!’... I can’t. I can’t.... Oh, I’m done for!”

At last she knew. That moment saw the end of her restless, unsatisfied, uncertain longings, her doubts and fears, her miserable moods and bitter railings at self. Her torments had suddenly given place to a great dawning of something immeasurable. Like a burst of sun in the darkness of her heart! Her spirit did not rise up to crush this betraying love. It could not be crushed. It was too new, too terribly sweet, for her to want to crush. It was herself, her fulfillment; and in a moment she had become a woman.

Long she sat there and time seemed to stand still. The golden day enveloped her. Shadow and sunlight played over her with the swaying of the branches above, the movement of the colored leaves. Before her eyes the red and brown hills sloped up to the black bulk of mountain; behind her rolled the purple valley, its horizon lost in haze. Solitude held the hills in its embrace. From the desert floated a still all-pervading atmosphere, like a fragrance from limitless space.

“When did it happen?” mused Sue, womanlike, trying to retrace the steps of her undoing. Having faced the fatal fact, she was more concerned with the when of it, the how and the why, than with its effect upon her future. The future could be put aside. In a flash of thought it looked appalling.

Sue recalled the night of Chane’s arrival, when she sat beside him as he slept as one dead, his stern savage face blanched in the moonlight. Could love have come to her then? Surely it had been hidden in her heart, mounting unknown to her, waiting, waiting. She recalled the following morning, when the crudeness had gone with his unkempt beard and he had shown her in few words and single glance how forever he would be in her debt for her influence upon his brother. It could not have come to her then. Then, the following days — how utterably impossible to grasp by recollection of them one meeting, one exchange of look or speech more significant than another!

Still there were things she thought more of than others — little incidents that stood out, facts only unusual because of memory — the difference in Ora, the way Manerube avoided the camp fire, the splendid gayety of Chess, the piercing eyes of Chane, who watched her from afar, the wild joy which had come to her while riding Brutus.

“Ah! now I cannot ever ride Brutus again!” she murmured, in dismay.

That focused her thought upon the horse. Chess had brought Brutus up to her one day.

“Sue,” he had said, “Chane says this horse saved his life. Brutus, he’s called. Look at him! You wouldn’t think he’s the greatest horse Chane ever straddled. Chane has had a thousand fine horses. Look. Brutus will grow on you. But you’ll have to take time to find him out, Chane says. Ride him — learn to know him — love him.”

“Chess, the last won’t be hard to learn,” replied Sue, and after the manner she had acquired from riders she walked round him. Sue really knew but little about horses. She could ride because she had been accustomed to horses since childhood and because she was athletic and liked motion. She did not qualify in what the Westerners called horse sense, let alone the great fact of having been born on a horse. Nevertheless, she had it in her to love one.

“Sue, it’d never do for you to love Brutus and not his master,” said Chess, very soberly, with a face as solemn as a judge’s.

Had that been the moment? wondered Sue.

But she had laughed archly, taking him at jest.

“Why not? I don’t see why I can’t love a horse, any horse, independent of his master.”

“Well, you see, in your case it would separate them. Any rider who loved you and found out you loved his horse would give him to you.”

Brutus appeared to be a giant of a horse that somehow grew on her the more she looked. She liked the quick uplift of his head as she approached, and the soft dark eyes intent on her. He had an open honest face, one which on the instant inspired her with trust. She had not the least fear of him.

“How shiny his coat!” she exclaimed, smoothing the wide glossy neck. “He’s black. No, not black. He seems to shine black through brown. Curious. Chess, his skin looks like water reflecting shadows of leaves.”

Brutus took to Sue, not too quickly, not before he had eyed her and studied her and nosed her, but presently, when he had satisfied himself she was what he liked. Then he had acted in a way to delight Sue, to tickle her vanity, for Sue believed she had a winning way with animals.

Chess had put her saddle upon Brutus and insisted she ride him. So this was how it had come to pass that Chane, coming suddenly from under the cottonwoods, had surprised her astride his horse. Would she ever forget his look?

“You can ride?” he queried, earnestly.

“Oh yes. Don’t worry. I’ll ride him,” she replied, loftily.

“Let him go, then,” said the rider. “The faster he goes the easier his gait. Just stick on. Let him run and let him jump. He knows where he can go.”

Brutus, free of rein, had taken Sue on the wings of the wind. After days of rest he wanted to run. Her weight was nothing. How surely she felt Chess and Chane watching her as Brutus raced over the green! She would ride him. Yet as he settled down to a speed she had never known, her audacity succumbed to thrilling fear. Her heart leaped to her throat as Brutus sailed over a deep wash she had not seen. Then wildness ran riot with pulse and thought. The blanket of wind, pressing hard and harder, lifted her out of her saddle, so that one hand had to grasp the pommel. She ran down wild horses that could not escape this fleet racer; and when she turned him in a curve back toward the camp, the wind blinded her, tore her hair loose and strung it in a long waved stream behind her. His hoof-beats clattered and beat faster, until they made a single dim sound in Sue’s roaring ears. She cried out in the abandon of the ride. In her blurred sight the golden grove of cottonwoods seemed to grow and move toward her. Then the swift level sliding through the air broke to a harder gait. Brutus was easing out of his run. His change to a gallop threw Sue up and down like a feather before she could get his swing; and when she did he dropped to long lope, and from this to tremendous trot, so violent in stride that Sue just managed by dint of all her strength to stay upon him. When he pounded to a stop she could see only blurred images against the gold background of grove. She heard Chess’s whoop.

Then, overcome by dizziness, she swayed in the saddle. Not Chess, but Chane had lifted her down, blinded, burning, thrilling. Yet she had felt his gentle hold, his strong arms on her. Had that been the moment?

“Say, Sue, I should smile you did ride him!” Chess was shouting in her muffled ear. “You sure looked good. Honest, I didn’t think you’d dare let him run. And leap — say he went a mile high over the washes.”

“Well, I reckon you rode him, when he was running, anyway,” spoke up the cool, easy voice of that other. “But I’m advising you to break in easier next time.”

And there had been a next time, other times, until Sue loved Brutus, the sight of him, the feel of him, his response to every word. She learned what a tremendous engine of speed and power he was, governed by gentle and spirited mind, if a horse could have one. When she caressed his grand arched neck before a ride or rubbed down his wet quivering flanks after a race, she appreciated what the wonderful muscles were for. She grew to understand him. A horse took on new meaning to her. Brutus was a comrade, a friend, a sweetheart, and he could as well be a savior. Such a horse mastered the desert. Through her knowledge of Brutus and her love for him Sue no longer marveled at a rider’s passion to capture Panquitch. She learned to know a desire to see that great wild stallion.

“Did Brutus ride me into this — this spell?” murmured Sue. But she was denied the satisfaction of understanding when or how or why she had come to fall in love with Chane Weymer. All might have contributed to it, nothing might have been particularly to blame.

Sue’s inherent honesty of soul, as it had forced her to confess the naked truth of her dilemma, likewise in time forced other considerations, to which the dreams and wonderings had so far been subservient. They had been sweet, vague, dreamful, the questionings of awakened love. She next had to deal with sense, not sentiment. And shame flooded through her.

“What is he? A wandering rider, lover of wild horses and Indian girls!... Squaw man!”

Clamoring voices from the unknown depths of her fought for hold in her conscience. But she silenced them. To realize that she had loved unsought, unwooed, made her untrue to the best in her, merciless to the man who had roused this tumult of her heart. She must hide it. She must avoid Chane Weymer; she must welcome anyone whose attention might help to divert suspicion of her humiliating secret.

That night Sue Melberne, with the fierce pride and strange egotism of a woman who must avenge herself upon the innocent cause of her pangs, was the life of the merry camp fire circle. Chess, whom she blamed partly for her woe, was as merry as anyone, until Sue sat down beside Manerube, flushed of face, bright of eye, and talked and laughed with him as she had with the others. Then Chess became suddenly sober. He backed away from the fire, watching her with big staring eyes.

Sue was aware of this. It helped her, somehow. But when Chane silently strode away into the shadows her vivacity lost its inspiration. Still she kept amusing Manerube, who responded, expanded under her laughter and sallies. Her father gazed upon her with pleasure on his tired face. Ora, too, reacted characteristically to Sue’s friendliness. She was not to be outdone. Between them Manerube became the center of repartee he manifestly took to his credit.

The evening wore on. One after another the members of Melberne’s outfit went to bed, until only Manerube and the girls were left, with Chess sitting across the fire, his head on his hands.

Sue knew he was waiting for her to start for her tent — that he would wait no matter how she tarried. At last she could keep up the deception no longer, and rose to go, bidding them good night.

“Sue, let me walk with you to your tent?” asked Manerube.

“No, thanks. Take Ora. She’s afraid of the dark,” replied Sue, tripping away. But once out in the shadow, her feet became as heavy as lead. Chess caught up with her, took hold of her arm, and turned her to face him.

“Sue Melberne, what’s come over you?” he demanded.

“Over me? Why, nothing! Do you mean my — my cutting up a little?”

“Yes, I mean that — with Manerube.”

“Oh! Chess, it’s none of your business if I want to make merry — a little, is it, with him or anyone?”

“No, I reckon not,” replied Chess, darkly, as he stared down at her. “But Manerube! You never were that way before. Didn’t you see Chane walk away the minute you began flirting with Manerube?”

“I — I didn’t flirt,” declared Sue, hotly, and she was honest in her denial.

“Aw, you did. And it wasn’t like you, Sue.”

“How do you know what I’m like — really?” queried Sue. His pain, his reproach, stung her, drove her to say what she thought but did not mean to utter.

“Something’s wrong with you, Sue Melberne. Tell me what it is. Please. Aw, Sue—”

“I’ve nothing to tell you,” she replied, and turned away.

Chess followed her, and once again strode before her, just as she reached her tent. He was in the open, away from the trees. His head was bare, his face clear in the moonlight.

“Are you sure? You can’t hurt us Weymers more than once.”

“Yes, I’m sure. And I think you’re rude.”

“Rude!” he ejaculated. “What in damnation has come over you? You never called me that before.... I’d do anything, though, to keep you from making eyes at Manerube, being sweet — like you were. Promise me you won’t.”

“Chess, have you any right to criticize my actions?” she demanded.

“I’m just asking you something. Will you promise not to flirt with Manerube again?”

“No! I deny I flirted, but if I’m wrong — I’ll do it when I please,” retorted Sue, passionately. The day’s conflicting emotions had worn her out.

Chess stepped back from her as if she had struck him.

“Did you see Chane’s face just before he left?” he asked, in different tone.

“No, I didn’t. What’s it to me how he looked?”

“Nothing, I reckon,” replied Chess, with a dignity Sue had never noted in him. “I’m telling you, though. Chane looked terribly surprised, terribly hurt. He hates a flirt.”

Sue heard a bitter little laugh issue from her lips.

“Oh, he draws the line at white color, does he?... I hear he’s not so righteous — or indifferent toward red-skinned flirts!”

“Sue — Melberne!” gasped Chess, starting as if he had been stabbed.

A sudden hot anger at herself, at Chess, at Chane had possessed Sue; and this, with a sudden tearing pang of jealousy, had given rise to a speech which left her shocked.

Certain it was that Chess turned white in the moonlight, and raised his hand as if to smite the lips which dishonored the brother he revered. Sue awaited that blow, invited it, wanted it, in the shame of the moment. But Chess’s hand fell back, nerveless and shaking. Then with a wrench he drew himself up.

“I didn’t know you, really,” he said. “And I’ll tell you one thing more. If I hadn’t made that promise to Chane I’d sure get drunk tonight.”

Wheeling with a bound, he plunged into the shade of the cottonwoods.

“Oh, Chess — I — I didn’t mean that,” cried Sue. But he did not hear. He was running over the rustling leaves. Sue went into her tent and fell on her bed. “What have I done? Oh, I’m a miserable little beast!... I love that boy as much as any sister could. And I’ve hurt him. His eyes! He was horrified. He’ll despise me now. He’ll tell his brother I — I... Oh, this day, this day! My heart will break!”

SUE rode every day, but no more on Brutus. She nursed the delusion that her pretended friendliness toward Manerube, by deceiving the brothers as to the true state of her heart, would assuage her pain during the process of her struggle. Therefore she adhered to the plan conceived in that hour of her abasement.

Where heretofore she had interested herself solely in the labors of Chess and Chane on the timbered hillside, now she rode far afield and watched the stretching of the barbed-wire fence. Its western flange zigzagged across the valley, cunningly broken at the deep washes, calculated to deceive wild horses. She carried warm food to her father, and otherwise served him during this long arduous task, growing farther and farther from the camp.

These rides kept her out in the open most of the day. Around the camp fire she encouraged Manerube’s increasing attentions, though less and less did she give him opportunity to seek her alone. Ora had tossed her black head and said, tartly, “You can have Bent Manerube and welcome!” She had gone back to Chess, growing happier for the change. Sue sometimes found it impossible to avoid Chess’s scornful eyes. He seldom came near her. How she missed the little courtesies that now no one else had time or thought for! Manerube certainly never profited by kindly actions. Sue seldom saw Chane Weymer, except at a distance. Yet always her eyes roved in search of him. It was bitter to see him, yet more bitter when her search was unrewarded.

She happened to be present one night at the camp fire, after supper, when talk waxed warm about the proposed wild-horse drive very soon now to be started. The argument started by Melberne’s query, “Wal, now our trap is aboot ready, how are we goin’ to start the drive?”

Manerube, as usual, did all the replying, and Melberne had evidently learned by heart this rider’s ideas. Most of Manerube’s talk was devoted to his past performances; he had little to say about future accomplishments, except his brag as to results. This night Melberne, approaching the climax of his cherished enterprise, plainly showed dissatisfaction with Manerube.

“I’ve given you authority to handle this drive,” declared Melberne, forcibly. “Reckon I want to know how you propose to go aboot it?”

“We’ll just spread out and drive down the valley, toward the trap,” replied Manerube, with impatient gesture of finality.

“Ahuh! So that’s all?” returned Melberne, with more of sarcasm than Sue had ever heard on her father’s lips. His eyes held a glint foreign to their natural kindly frankness. Then he addressed himself to his Mexican vaquero.

“Alonzo, what’s your say aboot how to make this drive?”

“No savvy Señor Manerube,” replied the half-breed, indicating the rider.

“What?” shouted Melberne, growing red in the face. “You mean you’re not favorin’ this barbed-wire trap Manerube’s built?”

The vaquero had no more to say. His sloe-black eyes gazed steadily into Melberne’s, meaningly it seemed to Sue, as if he was not the kind of a man to be made talk when he did not choose to. Melberne, taking the hint, repeated his query, without the violence. Alonzo spread his brown little hands, sinewy like an Indian’s, to indicate that the matter was too much for him and he wanted no responsibility. Sue intuitively felt, as formerly, that the vaquero was antagonistic to Manerube.

“Wal, Utah, you know this heah wild-horse game,” said Melberne, turning to the lean rider. “Will you tell me how you think we ought to make this drive?”

“Shore. I think we oughtn’t make it a’tall,” drawled Utah.

Melberne swore, and threw the stick he held into the fire, where it sent up a shower of sparks.

“I didn’t ask that,” he snapped. “You needn’t get smart with me. I’m talkin’ business.”

“Wal, boss, I’m like my pard Tway Miller. Sometimes I cain’t talk business or nothin’,” returned Utah, with his easy, deliberate drawl. There was a smile on his lean bronzed face. Sue grew more and more convinced that her father, Texan though he was, did not understand these riders.

“Jim, look heah,” said Melberne, turning to Loughbridge. “Come to think aboot it, you hired most of these close-mouthed gentlemen. Suppose you make them talk.”

“Don’t think thet’s important, even if I wanted to make them, which I don’t,” replied Loughbridge. “Manerube’s plan suits me to a T. An’ I sure don’t see why you’re reflectin’ on his judgment by naggin’ these other riders.”

“Wal, Jim, I reckon there’s a lot you don’t see,” responded Melberne, with more sarcasm. “We’re deep in this deal now an’ we stand to lose or gain a lot.”

“We don’t stand to lose nothin’,” rejoined Loughbridge, “unless you make these riders so sore they’ll quit us.”

“Jake, please fetch Weymer heah quick,” said Melberne. “Tell him it’s important.”

Sue gathered from this obstinacy on the part of her father that there was something preying on his mind. Quick to read the expressions of his mobile features, she detected more than the usual indecision characteristic of him in situations with which he was not familiar. His deliberate sending for Chane Weymer seemed flinging more than reasonable doubt in the faces of his partners, and especially Manerube. Sue slipped back into the shadow and waited. When presently she heard Weymer’s well-known footstep, he was striding out of the gloom, in advance of Jake. The instant Sue saw the dark gleam of his eyes in the firelight, his forward action, guarded yet quick, the something commanding in his presence, she divined what had actuated her father in sending for him. He was a man to rely upon. The moment of Weymer’s arrival held for Sue less of pain than other times lately, for she sensed that in some way he would become an ally of her father’s.

“What’s wrong, Melberne?” asked Chane, as he halted in the firelight. The absence of his coat showed his lithe powerful form to advantage, his small waist and round rider’s hips. It also disclosed the fact that he wore a gun-belt, with gun hanging low on his right side. Sue had not seen him armed before. A slight cold shudder passed over her.

“Wal, Weymer, I cain’t say there’s anythin’ wrong, exactly,” responded Melberne, standing up to face the rider. “But I cain’t swear it’s right, either. Heah’s the argument.... We’re aboot done fixin’ this wild-horse trap I’m so keen aboot. Reckon the success or failure of this trick means a lot to me. Jim an’ Manerube swear it cain’t fail. Wal, now we’re near ready to drive, I wanted to slow down. I asked Manerube what his plan was. An’ he up an’ says we’ll just spread out an’ drive the valley. That’s all! — I asked Alonzo to tell how he’d do it, an’ he says he doesn’t savvy Manerube. I just don’t get his hunch. Then I asked Utah, an’ he drawls sarcastic like that he cain’t talk no more’n Tway Miller. Mebbe these riders are just naturally jealous of Manerube an’ won’t support him. Mebbe it’s somethin’ else. I don’t know much aboot Utah riders, but I reckon I know men. That’s why I sent for you. I reckoned you’d never let personal grudges interfere with what was right. Now would you?”

“Why, certainly not!” declared Weymer. “And I’d like you to know I don’t bear grudges.”

“Ahuh! All right, then. I’ve a hunch you know this wild-horse- wranglin’ game. Now I’d shore take it as a favor if you’d tell me what you think aboot this drive we’re soon to make.”

Without the slightest hesitation Chane responded with a swift, “Melberne, I hired out to ride, not talk.”

Here Sue, in her mounting interest at this colloquy, expected her father to fall into a rage. Chane’s reply had been distinctly aloof, even cold. But Melberne manifestly had himself now well in hand. He was on the track of something that even the bystanders began to feel. Manerube shifted uneasily from one position to another.

“Shore. That was our understandin’,” went on Melberne, stepping closer to Chane. “Reckon you’re not duty bound to express opinions to me, especially when they concern an enemy of yours. But on the other hand, I’ve befriended you. I fed you when you were starved, an’ then I gave you a job. Now, as man to man, isn’t it fair for you to tell me if you know anythin’ for or against this wild-horse drive?”

“It’d be more than fair of me, Melberne,” declared Chane, significantly. “It’d be more than you or any other man could expect.”

Melberne took that as a man receiving a deserved blow. Chane’s retort had struck home to Sue as well. Chane Weymer was certainly not in duty or honor compelled to approve of or aid the plans of Manerube. Besides, there was a subtle pride in Chane’s meaning, whatever that was.

“Ahuh! I get your hunch,” returned Melberne, gruffly. “Mebbe you’ve somethin’ to say for yourself. If so, I’ll listen.”

“No, Melberne, I don’t have to talk for myself.”

“Dammit, man, self-defense is only right,” retorted Melberne, losing patience. “Even the law expects that.”

“Talk is cheap out here on the desert,” rejoined Chane, with cool disdain. “I’d never employ it in my defense. But you notice I pack a gun?”

“Ahuh! I shore didn’t overlook it,” said Melberne, and his tone lost impatience for menace. There was probability of imminent antagonism here. Sue held her breath. Chane’s fearless disdain matched her father’s fearless uncertainty. Chane showed the proud sense of right; Melberne seemed divided between his doubt of right or wrong. Sue divined that in both men’s minds had risen the thought of the calumny which hung like a shadow over Chane. How scornful and reticent he was, considering what must be true!

“Melberne, any man who believes of me what you believe has got to know he can’t talk it, unless he wants to hear my gun talk,” declared Chane, bitterly.

Thus Weymer threw down the gauntlet between them.

“Weymer,” began Melberne, in slow crisp utterance, “I asked you kindly to do me a favor. Now you’re politely invitin’ me to draw.”

“Bah! Such talk from a Texan!” exclaimed Chane, quick as a flash. “You know I’ve respect and liking for you. The last thing on earth I’d want would be to fight you. The trouble with you, Melberne, is you’ve got your bridle twisted out here in Utah. Your two-bit partner Loughbridge and your skunk foreman Manerube are to blame for that. Why don’t you use your own head?”

If Sue had not been in the cold clutch of deadly terror she would have thrilled to Chane’s surprising arraignment of her father. But she could only stare open-mouthed and quake. Melberne shot a quick expectant glance at Manerube. That individual sat in the fire-lighted circle. At Chane’s stinging remark his face turned livid. But he made no move to rise or speak. Then slowly Melberne shifted his gaze to Loughbridge, less expectant this time. He saw a stupid angry wonder on that worthy’s features. It roused him to a laugh, gruff, not merry.

“Weymer, I reckon I feel like apologizin’ to you for fetchin’ you out heah,” said Melberne, still with gruff, grim voice. The cold edge, however, had left it. His face, too, had lost its tightness. Then it was that Sue felt a sudden flooding warmth of relief, joy, admiration. Her father was indeed a man.

“You needn’t apologize,” returned Chane, visibly softening. “I’m glad you understand me.”

These words from him, following her father’s, so wrought upon Sue that she answered to unconsidered emotional impulse.

“Chane,” she called, rising to step into the light, “I think you ought to tell dad what he asked.” Once spoken, she could not recall her thought, nor could she sink, as she longed to, back into the shadow that had concealed her. Brave it out she must, and so she gazed across the fire.

“Miss Melberne — you do — may I ask why?” he queried, courteously.

“I — I don’t know just why, but I believe you will.”

“You ask me to?” he went on, with an inflection that cut her.

“I beg you to,” she returned. “I don’t approve of this barbed- wire trap. If you know anything against it — please tell dad. If you can make it easier for the poor horses — please tell dad how.”

“Do you realize you are asking me to go against your friend Manerube?” went on Chane, still so cool and courteous.

A hot blush burned up into Sue’s neck and cheeks. How glad she was for the cloak of darkness!

“I am thinking of the wild horses, not of Mr. Manerube’s success or failure — or my father’s profit,” returned Sue, in the spirit of her rising temper. She became aware of some one close behind her. Chess! She had felt his presence. He had been listening. As she half turned, he took a step and encircled her with his arm.

“Chane, old boy, she’s got you figured right,” he spoke up, quite loudly. “Tell the boss what you told me about this wild- horse drive — what a bloody mess it’ll be.”

At this juncture Manerube rose to his feet, sullen-faced, and unmistakably laboring under stress.

“Melberne, am I a horse thief that I have to listen to this gab?” he demanded.

“Wal, it’s a little rough on you, I’ll admit,” declared Melberne, in perplexity. “But you needn’t indulge in crazy talk. If your wild-horse deal is what you claim for it you needn’t fear heahin’ what others think about it.”

Chane had turned his back upon Manerube and was regarding Chess and Sue with something akin to ironical amusement.

“Melberne, the young couple there seem to endow me with great virtue,” he said, smiling. “I’m supposed to concern myself about the good fortunes of your outfit when you-all despise me.”

“Wal, I’ve tried to keep this a confab on horses, not personal character,” rejoined Melberne, testily.

“Melberne, you’ll talk to me some day about personal character,” retorted Chane. “Now, what do you want to know?”

“Your idea aboot drivin’ wild horses into this barbed-wire trap,” replied Melberne, eagerly.

“It’s a cruel, bloody, cowardly method that originated in Nevada. It will catch twice as many wild horses as any other kind of a trap, and kill half of them, and maim many for life. It never ought to be done at all. If you must make this drive do it in the daytime, not by moonlight as Manerube wants.”

“Why so?”

“Because more horses will cut themselves to pieces at night.”

“Ahuh! I reckoned that myself. Now how many horses do you figure we can trap in one drive?”

“Somewhere round two thousand, if we work fast.”

“Two thousand!” ejaculated Melberne. “Shore you’re not serious?”

“I’m serious enough, Melberne. It’s a serious matter — just how bad you don’t realize.”

“Wal, that knocks me flat. Two thousand wild horses in one drive! A whole train-load. Weymer, I could ship an’ sell them all.”

“Ah, there you are wrong. You might sell a train-load if you could ship them. But it’s impossible. You’d be very lucky to get even a hundred head to the railroad in fit shape to ship.”

“How’s that?” queried Melberne, incredulously.

“Hasn’t Manerube informed you how it’s done?” queried Chane, just as incredulously.

“No. He says trap them an’ drive them to the railroad, an’ ship them,” declared Melberne.

“Sounds easy. But it’s the hardest, dirtiest, and meanest job ever tackled by horsemen,” continued Chane, almost wrathfully. “Say you’ve got your horses trapped inside the first big wire corral. All right. We rustle down there at daylight. We open the gate from the big corral to the small one, and let in a few horses. Then we pitch into work. Five good men can handle a wild horse, but seven do it quicker and better. We rope a horse, throw him, jump on him, hold him down. Then one of us takes a short rope and doubles a front foot up under his knee and binds it tight. Round his knee tight! Then we let him up and go after another. The faster we work the more time we have to drive to the railroad. We’ve got to get the bunch of horses to the railroad the same day we tied them up. So we work like dogs say from daylight to noon. Then we start off with maybe a hundred or more horses. These three-legged wild horses take a lot of driving. They can run almost as well on three legs as on four. Some of them will get away from this small outfit. Others will kill themselves plunging and falling. The bound knees sometimes develop terrible swelling sores. Of course the knees have to be untied in the stockyard at the railroad. Then many horses that looked fit to ship develop gangrene and have to be shot. You don’t get paid for them. Well, after the first shipment you ride thirty miles back to camp at night, get a couple of hours sleep, and at daylight tackle the same dirty job again. I’d say three days will be about your limit. The wild horses left in the corrals will cut themselves to pieces, if they don’t break down the fence. Even if you had strong wooden corrals you couldn’t keep so many horses long.... There, Melberne, you have the barbed-wire game. It’s a hell of a job.”

At the conclusion of Chane’s long statement there ensued a silence that testified to its effect. All eyes gravitated from Chane to Melberne. He did not appear in any hurry to speak. Sue imagined she detected a slight paling of her father’s ruddy cheeks.

“Loughbridge,” he said, at length, addressing his partner, “let’s give up this barbed-wire drive.”

“No, by dam!” shrieked Loughbridge, in a frenzy. “If you don’t go through with it I’ll demand half the outfit money back. I ain’t takin’ stock in this pretty talker. Besides, we cain’t ketch wild horses without scratchin’ them a bit. Sure it’s tough on them, an’ men, too. But we’re out for cash, aren’t we? What do we care if we kill a hoss or two?”

Melberne threw up his hands with a gesture of impotence. Disgust distorted his visage. “Turn in, everybody,” he ordered, and taking Sue’s arm he led her away from the camp fire toward her tent.

Sue felt so fatigued from the day’s exertion and stress that she staggered along, leaning on her father. She was unnerved, too. That illuminating explanation of the barbed-wire capture of wild horses had been the last straw.

“Lass,” began her father as they halted before her tent, “I’m shore glad you spoke up to Weymer. If you hadn’t he’d never have told us. But he’s sweet on you an’ you fetched him.... I’m bound to say, Sue, I’m worried. Not only by this horse deal we’re in, but by this mix-up among the men. Loughbridge’s a good friend an’ bad enemy. This Manerube begins to look fishy to me. He doesn’t ring true. Can you imagine a Texan swallerin’ what Weymer called him, before us all? He’s yellow, that’s all. An’ Weymer — he shore shot it into me.... An’ I deserved it. Sue, I was ashamed.... Mebbe this Weymer has been foolin’ with Indian squaws, but he’s straight with men. He has an eye on him, an’ he’s shore dangerous. I’m worried. There’s been bad blood made, an’ some of it’ll get spilled.”

“Don’t worry, dad,” replied Sue, coaxingly, and kissed his worn cheek. “It’ll all come right. You’ve never been anything but fair and square. If the wild horse-drive turns out as we fear — why, you must never do it again. You got led into this. First Jim Loughbridge, and then Manerube.... And, oh, dad, you must keep Chane Weymer from fighting!”

“Lass, I reckon it’s got beyond me,” replied her father. “But shore I’ll do my best. Good night.”

Sue went to bed fighting desperately to silence that insistent trenchant voice within, the voice which cried out in defense of Chane Weymer. What if her father had begun to rely upon this strong-spirited rider of the old school? Fearless he undoubtedly was, one to whom men and women would instinctively draw near in a moment of doubt or peril. He stood out in this company of riders. But for Sue all his fine qualities, that seemed to grow from his arrival in Stark Valley, had been poisoned at the roots. Lover of squaws! She hid her face at the shameful thought. But the still small voice bade her listen — to wait — to watch — to withhold judgment — to be tolerant — to give benefit of a doubt — to plead extenuating circumstances. A desert rider’s loneliness, the need of woman’s touch, kindliness of a big heart, the imperious desires of nature, the hard fierce life of that wasteland, the power of propinquity, even love — these one and all flashed through Sue’s merciless mind, tried her, tested her, and before the flame of her pride and jealousy they perished. But forgiveness was one thing and love another. She could no more help loving Chane Weymer than she could forgive him. Yet as the struggle went on the balance shifted, to the slow corroding and wearing of her spirit.

SUE had been dissatisfied with all the horses she had ridden of late. Brutus had spoiled her. When she passed him in camp, and he threw up his beautiful head with that quick look, to whinny at her, the desire to run to him was well-nigh irresistible. She rode this horse and that mustang, only to like each one less.

And on the last day before the drive, when the barbed-wire fence was completed, she went out to see it, riding another strange horse. He appeared tractable enough and soon she forgot any uneasiness she might have felt at first.

Away down in the valley bands of wild horses dotted the green, some moving, others grazing, ignorant of the plot against their freedom and of those miles of iron-toothed fence that stretched across their domain. Sue gazed upon them with pity, praying for something to scare them far away before it was too late.

In time she circled to the west, and eventually got into rough ground, which she desired to cross, so that she could climb to the valley rampart and ride the ridge top round to where it joined the mountain slope near the camp. Her horse stumbled over a shallow clay-banked wash, and, falling, threw her hard against the opposite bank.

The impact stunned Sue, though not to the point of total unconsciousness. She lay there, numb, for a few moments, slowly becoming conscious of pain in her right knee. After a while she recovered enough to sit up. And feeling of her injured knee she sustained such a excruciating pain that she had a moment of panic. She feared a broken leg. But, presently, despite the pain, she found she could bend her knee, and that relieved her dread.

As the pangs lessened to a considerable degree she stood up with great difficulty and looked for her horse. He did not appear to be in sight. This occasioned Sue genuine distress, and she was wringing her hands and crying out what in the world could she do, when she espied a horse and rider coming down the trail she had intended to climb. Surely he could not pass by without seeing her. Immensely relieved, Sue untied her scarf and waved it. The rider evidently had espied her even before her effort to attract him. And at that instant Sue recognized Brutus, then his rider.

“Chane Weymer!” gasped Sue, with swift change of emotion. “That it’d — have to be he!... Of all the miserable luck!”

Clouds of dust puffed from under the great horse as he leaped the washes. Before Sue had time to think of composure he ploughed the clay and sand before her, sliding to a halt as the rider threw himself off.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, his searching eyes sweeping her from disheveled head to dusty boots.

To find herself tingling to the point of dwarfing her pain roused in Sue a very devil of perverseness.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” replied Sue, flippantly. “I’m admiring the scenery.”

“You’ve been crying,” he said, coming close to her. “You’ve had a fall. Are you hurt?”

“Only my vanity,” she said.

He looked doubtfully at her and inquired about her horse.

“He’s gone, and I hope I never see him again.”

“Did you let him wander off?” queried Chane.

“I reckon he just left without my letting him.”

“Well, it’s good you weren’t hurt,” he went on, severely. “But you shouldn’t ride out alone this way.... Perhaps you meant to meet Manerube!”

“That’s none of your business,” she retorted, with a tilt of her chin. “But I didn’t intend to meet him. I’d rather, though, it’d been he — than you.”

“You can ride Brutus,” he said, ignoring her slighting speech. “I’ll shorten the stirrups.... Miss Melberne, I shall tell your father this is dead wrong of you — riding far from camp this way.”

“I don’t care what you tell. But ride back to camp. Send some one with a — a wagon.”

She saw the brown flash out of his face, and as he whirled from beside Brutus she could not meet his piercing eyes.

“You are hurt!” he exclaimed.

“Yes. My knee. It’s not broken, but it hurts terribly. It’s getting stiff. I — I can’t ride.”

“I’ll carry you,” he said.

“No — no. Ride back to camp. Send some one with the wagon. Don’t scare dad.”

“But it’ll be dark long before the wagon can get here. In fact, nothing on wheels could come within a mile of this place.”

“Oh, what shall I do?” cried Sue.

“I am afraid you must submit to the humiliating necessity of my carrying you,” he replied, with that slight scorn again in his grave voice.

“I’ll not let you,” declared Sue, hotly.

“Miss Melberne, I certainly don’t want to carry you. But the afternoon is far gone. Your folks will be worried. I can’t let you stay here alone. There’s no other way.”

“I — I don’t care,” cried Sue, succumbing to combined pain and mortification. “I’ll — I’ll die before I let you — carry me.”

“Well, what a sweet disposition you have!” he declared. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

Suddenly he placed a hand under each of her arms, and lifted her bodily, with a sweep, and set her feet gently down on the edge of the wash. It was done so adroitly and with such strength that Sue could only stare her amaze and resentment. He returned the resentment fourfold.

“I’m not a rattlesnake or a — a Mormon,” he shot down at her, not without passion. “You stand still. If you make a fuss you’re going to hurt yourself. So don’t blame me.”

Sue did not leave the spot where he had set her down, for the very good reason that her leg pained so badly she did not dare move it. Chane vaulted upon Brutus and rode him down into the wash and close to where Sue stood.

“I’ll have to hold you free of the pommel,” he said, as he leaned out of the saddle and reached for her. “I hope you show some sense. If you act the spoiled baby it’ll hurt all the more.”

Sue stood like a statue, with her head bent. But she could see his arms, one of which he slipped round her waist, and the other under her knees. Gently as he lifted her, the pressure and contact made her wince. Then she found herself resting in his arms, her head on his shoulder.

“Brutus, old boy, you can step out light,” he said to the horse. “We’ve got rather a precious burden.”

Sue closed her eyes, not so much from pain as from the stunning reality of her position. She felt him shift the hold of his right arm, so that it no longer came in contact with her injured knee. After that she began to feel easier. She was in a kind of swing, the light embrace of his arms, and felt only slightly the jar of the horse as he walked. Sue did not open her eyes. If she was detected looking at him she imagined her shameful secret would be known. How endless the moments! He spoke no word and she felt that he did not gaze down upon her.

She lay in his arms — Chane Weymer’s arms — and could not help herself. Then flashed the monstrous truth. The secret emotion she despised reveled in the fact. It burned the truth over all her palpitating body, through veins of fire. It sent messages along her throbbing nerves. She lay in his arms glad, shamelessly glad, despicably glad. Vain to lie to herself! She had changed to a woman and had come to love him more every day. Her love had battened on her bitter, savage, perverse spirit, and now it mocked her.

Every time she swayed gently with the movement of the horse her cheek rolled against Chane’s shoulder. She felt the vibration of muscle, the heat of blood. And her cheek flamed under the contact. She was undone. All the torments she had endured were as nothing to this storm that assailed her — deadly sweet, unconquerable, terrible, the staggering deeps of her betraying heart that had drowned her pride.

The time came when voices caused Sue to open her eyes. Dark had fallen. Brutus had come to a standstill.

“Melberne, it’s all right. Don’t be frightened,” Chane was saying in a calm voice. “I found your daughter down by the west end of the fence. Her horse had thrown her and run off. I’ve packed her home.... Be careful, now. Handle her easy. She’s not bad hurt. Lucky, though, for it was a mean place.”

“Why, lass — is he tellin’ the truth?” asked Melberne, hoarsely, as he received Sue in his arms.

“Oh, dad, I’m terribly hurt,” cried Sue, “but it’s only my — my feelings.”

“Wal, you’re shore pale, an’ I reckon you’re fibbin’.... Wife, come heah. Our lass is hurt.”

Then he glanced up from the girl in his arms to the rider.

“Ahuh! so, Weymer, you just happened along? Wal, now I wonder aboot you!”

The content of his words did not express thankfulness, but the tone trembled with an infinite gratitude.

CHAPTER X

THE FIRST GLIMMER of dawn was lightening the east when Chane Weymer, with Chess and Alonzo, rode away from camp, down into the dark melancholy void of Stark Valley, to begin their part in Melberne’s great wild-horse drive.

“Chane, I’ll bet we owe it to Manerube that we got the hardest job today,” complained Chess.

“I reckon. But what difference does it make?” returned Chane. “We’ll have a day of tough riding. No worse than Utah’s, though. Believe I’d rather have the wide level valley to cover, than that rough ground to the west. Anyway, the harder it is the better I’ll like it, till we get the bloody business over.”

“You think one drive will be enough for the boss, huh?” inquired Chess.

“Reckon I know it. Melberne’s a white man, Chess. If he’d known about this barbed-wire game he’d never have gotten so far along.”

“But if it’s a success? The boss’s keen to make money.”

“If he made ten thousand dollars on this drive he’d never tackle another. I’m gambling on his daughter. She’d keep him from it.”

“I’m not so sure of Sue, lately,” returned Chess, thoughtfully. “One day she’s this way and the next day that. But I was surprised when she spoke up to you the other night. Weren’t you?”

“Boy, I told you twice,” said Chane, trying to steer the conversation away from the charming topic Chess always led round to. It was not that Chane ever tired of eulogies to Sue, or the events of any day that included her, but Chess had an obsession. Some day Sue would be his sister! And when her name came up, which inevitably happened every time Chess came near enough to talk, he would dreamily or unconsciously or cunningly return to the shibboleth which had its pangs for Chane. But Chane never regretted Chess’s beautiful and romantic love for Sue Melberne, for he believed it had been the turning-point toward good in the boy’s wild life. Chane’s pangs were selfish. For it had been his misfortune to worship at first sight the dark-eyed Sue. Chane’s dreams, if he had any at this fruitless time of his hard desert experience, never dared to verge on the extreme edge of Chess’s enchanted visions.

“Horses, señor,” said Alonzo, his lean hand pointing.

“Yes, there’s the first bunch,” returned Chane, peering through the opaque dawn at some horse shapes that moved like specters. “Reckon they’ll run down valley for a while anyhow.”

“Sí, señor,” said the Mexican.

They trotted their horses on, keeping to the edge of the oval valley. The black mountain range loomed above, tipped with paling stars. The valley itself was losing its density of space at night, responding to the invisible influence that hid far under the gray widening mantle of the east. It was a frosty morning, nipping cold, and the iron-shod hoofs rang like silver bells on the stones.

Chess had lighted a cigarette, something he always did when Chane was not responsive to his favorite topic of conversation. His horse was mettlesome and wanted action. In fact, all their mounts showed the good of several days’ rest. Chane saw the long ears of Brutus lifting now and then, as if he were waiting for the word to go. Brutus, however, never wasted energy unbidden. His gentle easy pace kept him abreast of the two trotting horses.

Chane’s thoughts were not unhappy ones, despite the pangs of a passion he had never revealed, or the disgrace which had been laid upon his name by a liar and a coward. He knew, though no one had ever told him, what Melberne believed he was. He felt where he stood in Sue Melberne’s estimation. The thing had happened before, though never in connection with persons whom he yearned to have know him truly and love him. But these Melbernes had steadied Chess, especially Sue, who had changed the boy. For that Chane would serve them with all he had in him. In this service he found something of happiness, the only happiness he had known in years. Yet so stern was he in his pride, so hurt by lack of instant faith in those to whom he had come in need, that he could never go unsolicited to Melberne and prove how Manerube was a snake in the grass. Could he say — Melberne, this outcast Mormon is what he has made you believe I am? How impossible for him to shame Sue Melberne with the facts! True, the genial father was wearing toward uncertainty and suspicion. Let him find out! But as for the daughter, who openly flaunted an incomprehensible regard for this Manerube, it could never matter what she believed. Chane was used to adversity. But this deep trouble of his heart was made supportable, even welcome, by Chess’s mending of his wild ways.

As the riders rode on and down into the valley the dim gloom gave place to an opaque veil of gray, and that lightened with the gray of the eastern sky. A faint rosy glow appeared, gradually deepening. The gray mantle retreated, lifted, vanished. Dawn succeeded to day. The stark valley stretched clear, cold, steely from range to rampart, and far to the upflung level of Wild Horse Mesa. Droves of horses dotted the frosty floor, lending it a singular charm of wild life and beauty.

“Listen!” called Chane, suddenly.

They halted, faces turning sidewise and down. From the bold slope above the valley pealed down the piercing bugle of a bull elk.

“Blow elk, blow while you may!” exclaimed Chane. “The white man will chase your wild brothers off the desert. Then your turn will come.”

“There he is — close — on the ridge end,” said Chess. “Funny how much tamer elk are than wild horses.”

“They don’t know men, yet, in these parts,” returned Chane. “Spread out now, boys, and begin the drive. Keep about a mile apart. Wave and yell and shoot as you drive. When a bunch breaks to run between us — ride!”

Chane was left alone. While waiting for his comrades to reach their stands he bent keen roving eyes on the valley below. Many bands of wild horses were in sight, more than he had entertained any idea would be so far away from toward the center of the valley. Perhaps during the erecting of the trap and fences many bands of horses had grazed north. Chane could see the dim shadow of ridges, far down, where the two flanges of the wire fence joined the corrals. They appeared ten miles distant, perhaps more. All of Melberne’s force of riders were in the field, stretched across the valley; and the work of each and every one was to ride to and fro, and always down, driving the wild horses before them. It would not take hard riding until the horses had traveled miles. As this drive progressed down the valley, toward and into the trap, the lines of riders would converge, at last meeting at the apex of the long triangle of barbed-wire.

“Devilish trick!” muttered Chane, grimly. “Wish I’d shot Manerube that day I caught him running off with Sosie.”

The thought voiced so violently had flashed before through his mind, always to be subdued and cast aside. Yet he could not prevent its recurrence. As time went by he divined more and more that there was something wrong in regard to his status in the Melberne outfit. Nothing openly had been said, or even hinted; Chess had been noncommittal, too frankly so, in his brief remarks about Manerube’s arrival at that camp; but Chane knew his reputation had suffered and that no other than Manerube could be accountable. Never before in any camp had there hovered a shadow over him. As he mulled it over in his mind he felt that for Chess’s sake he did not want to pry into the matter. What did he care for the gossip of a man like Manerube? This individual would soon enough hang himself. But the girl in the case had caused the situation to grow poignant.

Two terrible things had happened, Chane confessed — at first sight he had fallen in love with Sue Melberne, and secondly he had divined she had accepted some base estimate of him. The second made the first something to be vastly ashamed of, and as he had fought down many trials in his life, so he had struggled with this one. But the more he tried to forget the girl the more he loved her.

“Reckon I think of nothing but her,” he soliloquized, aghast at the fact. “Well, it’s only one more trouble.... Maybe I’ll be the better for it. But she’ll never know. I’ll hang on with this outfit till she learns what Manerube is. Reckon that won’t be long. Toddy Nokin will hit this camp sooner or later. It’ll be funny. I rather like the situation. But I wouldn’t want to be in Manerube’s boots.”

The time came when Chane saw Chess lined up with him a couple of miles distant, and Alonzo the same distance farther on. Likewise to the west toward camp Chane made out riders stationed far apart. Presently they began to move, as if by spoken order, and he turned his horse to the south.

Far below Chane espied wild horses, but there were none in his immediate vicinity. A scattered drove began to walk and trot half a mile in front of Chess, and a large number had headed away from Alonzo. The riders west of Chane would have considerable ground to cover before coming upon any wild horses.

Brutus did not want to go slow. He sensed a race with his wild brothers, and though he was good-natured in obeying Chane’s word or touch, he repeatedly manifested his spirit. Moreover, he could see the wild horses very much better than Chane.

“Now I reckon you’d like to run wild with these mustangs,” said Chane. “Brutus, I’m ashamed of you.”

Chane kept his eye roving from west to east, to see how soon the action would begin. In perhaps a quarter of an hour, when he had covered a couple of miles, he saw Alonzo riding to head off a band of light-colored horses that were making a break. Chane halted Brutus and watched, and he espied Chess doing the same thing. Chane’s opinion was that Chess would have to ride hard to help turn this band, and that he ought to be getting started pretty quickly. It turned out, however, that Chess’s inaction must have been due to a better prospective than Chane’s, for he sat his horse watching, while Alonzo, riding like an Indian, intercepted the leaders of the band and turned them back down the valley.

Then Chane resumed his slow advance. If it had not been for the fact that this drive must develop into a brutal business Chane would have found the prospect very thrilling. As it was he watched the distant bands of horses with divided emotions — love for them in their freedom, pity for their inevitable doom.

He could tell when the leader of a band first lifted a wild head and espied him coming. Erect, motionless, like a statue he stood for a moment, then he ran toward his band, excited them, turned to look again, pranced and cavorted, and then drove them before him for a distance, only to halt and turn. Presently several hundred wild horses, in a dozen or more different bands, were moving to and fro across the valley before Chane, gradually working south. One huge stallion, bolder than his fellows, trotted toward Chane, stopped to gaze, and then trotted forward once more, until he satisfied himself that his arch enemy man bestrode Brutus. His piercing whistle came faintly to Chane’s ears. Wheeling as on a pivot, he ran back with the long, even wild stride that Chane so loved to watch, and with his band lifted a moving cloud of dust along the valley floor. In a few moments this particular band was out of sight.

“Wild boy, that fellow,” mused Chane. “I’ll bet he was born in captivity. He sure didn’t like the looks of me and Brutus.”

Chane rode on, and as he advanced the interest of this drive began to increase. It was impossible to look in every direction at once, and as the bands of horses were now moving forward and back, to and fro, some trotting, others running, Chane was hard put to it to see everything. Dust clouds began to dot the green floor of the valley. They moved something like the smoke from a passing railroad train, seen at a distance. The valley floor was well carpeted with bleached grass and gray sage and green growths, though not over its whole area; and when a band of running horses struck a less fertile spot the dust would puff in yellow clouds from under their hoofs.

Brutus whistled a blast and jerked under the saddle. Chane turned to see a string of wild horses racing for the wide open between his and Chess’s position. At that moment Chess was making fast time in the opposite direction to head off another bunch.

At word and touch Brutus dashed into action. A short swift spurt of a quarter of a mile brought him so far in front of the escaping wild horses that they began to swerve. The leader, a lean white mustang, spotted black, wilder than a deer, let out a piercing blast of anger and fear. His mane and tail streamed in the wind. As he ran parallel with Brutus his followers, perhaps more fearful, swerved more to the right, and in half a mile there was considerable distance between them. Chane saw with great pride that Brutus, even carrying his weight, was faster than this spotted mustang. But then Brutus had twice the stride. Chane soon turned this leader toward the others, and presently they were running south as fast as they could go.

Whereupon Chane reined in the eager Brutus and trotted across the ground he had covered, so to regain as equal a position as possible between Chess on the east and the nearest rider on the west. A general survey of the valley straight across in both directions convinced Chane that it would have taken twice the number of riders to drive all these wild horses down into the apex of the barbed-wire fence. While Chane’s back had been turned a small band had raced across his regular position and were now sweeping north in close formation, dark bays and blacks, with their manes and tails tossing. How beautifully they ran! It seemed that nothing could be more smooth and free and fleet. Chane was glad that they had gotten by him.

For a while he had only to ride to and fro, working south enough to keep even with his comrade riders. Chess too was having it easy. But Alonzo, far to the east, evidently had a task cut out for him.

“He’ll eat that job up!” declared Chane, in admiration of the vaquero.

Five thousand wild horses were in motion along a belt of valley three miles deep and perhaps three times as long. Farther than this Chane could not see clearly enough to make estimates. They appeared to be running in every direction, though the general trend was south. To Chane it was an inspiring sight. Horses of every color crossed his vision.

Suddenly Chane espied a big bay, at the front of a straggling bunch of mustangs, headed straight for him. The leader was as large as Brutus and he was a fierce-looking brute. There was nothing beautiful about him, unless it was his stride. Brutus manifestly wanted both to run and to fight, and plunged to meet this huge bay. Chane had been run down by wild horses more than once, and he did not intend to take chances of hurting Brutus. When the space narrowed to less than a hundred yards and the bay kept sweeping on straight as an arrow, Chane resorted to his gun to scare this gaunt leader. At the first shot the bay leaped into the air, seeming to turn in the action, and when he alighted on his feet his ugly head was pointed west. The shot, likewise, stampeded the band, and scattering to both sides they passed at breakneck speed.

“I’d like to bet somebody that big stallion will never be caught by a wire fence,” declared Chane as he halted to watch the bay run. “Didn’t like him, did you, Brutus? Well, I was scared of him myself.”

The bay quartering to the west was soon lost to view among the strings and patches of moving horses.

“Humph! I reckon this picnic for Chess and me is about over. We’ve got to ride some.”

But Chane had another half-hour of leisurely working to and fro across his beat before the strenuous riding he anticipated became necessary. For some reason or other the wild horses did not run his way as much as toward that of the other riders. He kept watch on Chess and was amused at that boy’s undoubted troubles. Alonzo, however, had the widest stretch of valley, and by far the largest number of horses to contend with. In his daring dashes to turn back big droves he let many small bands pass across the line. Finally Chane saw a huge moving patch of black, many acres in extent, sweeping down upon the Mexican’s position. There must have been a thousand wild horses in that drove. Dust rose in yellow clouds similar to the trailing smoke of a prairie fire. Chane did not expect the Mexican to turn back that stampede. The white puffs of Alonzo’s gun showed against the green. Then as the horses swept on in a resistless tide Chane saw how Alonzo had to run for his life. He disappeared behind the moving level mass and showed no more.

That incident was the last Chane had time to watch. Straggling twos and threes of mustangs engaged his attention. And presently he had to get into the race in earnest. The first band of horses that eluded the fleet Brutus told Chane the futility of hoping to head all the horses which raced toward him. He gave up such object and did not attempt the impossible.

As Chane raced to and fro, firing his gun to frighten the horses that trooped toward him, the drive grew to be a rout toward the notch of the fence. Chane could not see it, but he appreciated the fact that it was now not many miles distant. Everywhere the valley floor appeared colorful and active with twinkling legs, bobbing heads, flying manes and tails. The air grew thick with dust, so that in some places a clear view could not be obtained. An intermittent trampling roar of hoofs mostly drowned the gun-shots of the riders. From time to time Chane heard faint shots, like spats, on both sides of him. But he never saw a rider.

Brutus grew hot and wet, and a dusty lather collected on his chest and neck. Whenever a stallion passed near, Brutus would answer the wild whistling challenge. Bands of horses grew numerous and thick, making Chane’s task more difficult and dangerous. He might have turned more horses back if he had been more free with the use of his gun, but Chane had a grim excuse for saving ammunition. He knew presently it would be merciful to shoot with deadly intent.

The drive approached the flanges of the fence. Thousands of wild horses were being driven into a triangular space of comparatively small size. The roar of hoofs, the whistling and snorting, became incessant. A gray dusty haze made fast riding perilous. Chane had to peer through the gloom to protect Brutus. That drive indeed brought out the many and incomparable qualities of this horse. Many times Brutus equaled the keenness and caution of his rider.

At length Chane found himself in a mêlée of running, plunging, maddened wild horses, criss-crossing the space in every direction. There came to be as many horses behind him as in front or on either side. They streaked by like specters. Then, despite dust-clogged nostrils, Chane caught the odor of blood. From this he concluded that he had reached the vicinity of the wire fence.

Wheeling Brutus and slowing to a trot, Chane headed to the left, away from the increasingly thickening streams of horses. As far as he could tell, the riders had driven thousands of horses down into the notch of the trap. Pandemonium certainly reigned down in that pall of dust. Soon Chane rode out into clearer atmosphere where he could see, and found that his deductions were not far short of the mark. All the riders evidently had worked down into the triangle he had left. Still wild horses were numerous, running both ways. They were mad with terror.

Chane at last came upon the left flange of the fence. It presented a gruesome spectacle, that part of it which was still standing. Bits of flesh and tufts of hair showed on the sagging wires, and many places red with blood. The top wire was gone entirely; sections of the fence had been laid flat or carried out of sight; posts were broken and leaning. Farther east along this flange the fence was intact, and here Chane began to encounter crippled and dying horses. Promptly he shot them. Brutus reacted strangely to this work: he did not balk or show unwillingness to go on, but he grew exceedingly nervous.

Most of these wounded horses had been cut across the chest, great deep gaps from which the blood poured. It sickened Chane, yet relentlessly he rode on, until no more horses appeared along that flange of the fence. Upon riding back he saw the dust lifting, rolling away on the wind, and through the cloud a blood- red westering sun shone with weird sinister effect. Strings of horses were running north and west, away from that fatal notch. In the huge corral a dark mass of horses, acres in area, moved in close contact; and the whistling, snorting, squealing din was terrific.

Chane heard a spatting of gun-shots, out along the western flange of the fence, and as he neared the center of the notch he espied Utah riding in, manifestly from the merciful task of ending the misery of crippled mustangs. Chane’s heart was heavy and sore and there had risen in him a temper that boded ill.

At length he reached the spot where Melberne and his riders formed a singular group. Some were still sitting their wet heaving horses; Chess hunched on the ground with his face in his hands; Captain Bunk was trying to walk; Alonzo was so pasted with froth from his horse as to be unrecognizable in feature; Miller was a dust-begrimed rider who would never have been taken for a white man. Utah came riding up, his gun in his hand, a black sternness on his lean face. Loughbridge was jabbering like a wild man, beside himself, evidently, with the extraordinary success of the drive.

“Seventeen hundred! More mebbe! Near two thousand horses trapped! We’ve struck a gold mine!” he shouted.

Manerube received this acclaim as one his just due, but as he encountered Chane’s gaze his pompous air suffered a blight.

Chane last bent a curious look upon Melberne. This was where the Texan must be judged. The leader of the outfit showed nothing of the feeling that characterized Loughbridge. He was weary, and heavy on his feet.

“Well, Melberne, what do you think of your barbed-wire drive?” demanded Chane, in a voice full of scorn and curiosity.

Melberne turned to disclose a gray face and gleaming eyes. He seemed another man. Savagely he cursed, and gave Chane no intelligible reply. But his profanity was expressive enough. It took the edge off Chane’s bitterness, as he replied:

“Man, the worst is yet to come.”

CHAPTER XI

DUSK FOUND THE weary riders approaching camp. Chane led the cavalcade, finding Brutus, as always, light of foot and eager to get home. The flickering camp fire shone like a pin point through the gathering darkness, growing larger and brighter as he rode on. At last Chane, announced by a shrill neigh from Brutus, entered the circle of firelight.

The womenfolk, excited and anxious at his arrival, inquired as one voice the whereabouts of the men and if all was well.

“They’ll be in soon. It’s been a tough day, and I reckon Brutus is the only horse not dead beat,” replied Chane as he wearily swung out of the saddle.

“Good!” ejaculated Mrs. Melberne. “Hungry as bears you’ll all be. We’ll have supper ready right off.”

Sue Melberne limped out of the shadow into the firelight. She was bareheaded and her eyes seemed unnaturally large and dark in her pale face.

“Tell me — was it successful — the drive?” she asked, intensely.

“Successful? Yes, if you mean a big bunch of horses captured,” replied Chane, slowly.

“I don’t mean numbers. Were they caught without crippling and torturing many?”

“No. I’m sorry to say it was the bloodiest mess I ever saw,” returned Chane, grimly. “I wouldn’t tell you how many horses I shot — how they looked. We can never tell the number that broke through the barbed-wire — to die lingering deaths down in the desert.”

“Oh! I feared that!” said Sue, in distress. “How — how did dad take it?”

“I’d rather not say what I think,” returned Chane, and led Brutus away into the grove to have a care for him.

A little later, when Chane went back to the camp fire, all the riders were in and more than ready for the bountiful supper spread by the women. Mostly they ate in silence and like famished wolves. Chane was as hungry as any of them, but he did not miss word or look that passed. He was curious to see the reaction of this day.

Loughbridge, somewhat rested and with appetite satisfied, reverted again to the manner and expression which had so disgusted Chane at the end of the drive. Naturally, after supper, the talk waged vigorously, and opinions, deductions, forecasts were as many and varied as the personalities of the riders. Loughbridge was already raking in big profits from the drive. Manerube had taken upon himself the honors of a hero, and swaggered before the listening women. Chess sat hollow-eyed and raging, his voice lifted high. Melberne presented a queer contrast. He had not spoken a word, but he no longer seemed stultified and thick. Presently Manerube detached himself from the half-circle of men on one side of the camp fire and crossed to where the women sat listening. Ora obviously gave him the cold shoulder. Sue, however, began to question him eagerly.

“You women go to bed,” spoke up Melberne, gruffly.

His wife obediently left the group, but Mrs. Loughbridge and Ora paid no attention to him, and if Sue heard she gave no sign. She stood looking up at Manerube with an interest which could very easily be misunderstood.

“Sue, I told you to go to bed,” called Melberne, sharply.

“But I’m not sleepy,” protested Sue. “I want to hear all about—”

“Go to bed!” interrupted her father, in a voice that Chane had never before heard him use, and he swore at her.

“Why — dad!” faltered Sue, shocked out of her usual independent spirit.

“You seem to take it for granted there’s only one man heah,” replied Melberne, sarcastically. “The rest of us were aboot when it happened, I reckon.”

Sue’s pale face flamed, and turning away without another word she limped into the shadow.

Chane felt sorry for her, that she should be so pointedly reprimanded by her father before them all, but the significance of the incident made his heart beat quickly. The situation grew more to his liking. Sooner or later he would find himself vindicated.

“Loughbridge, listen heah,” said Melberne, deliberately. “You remember our deal. I lent you the money for this outfit an’ you were to pay me half out of your share of the proceeds of our wild-horse huntin’.”

“Yes, I reckon thet was the deal,” replied the other, somewhat wonderingly.

“Wal, on condition I boss this outfit I’ll consider your debt paid right heah. How about it?”

“Suits me fine, Mel,” returned Loughbridge, with his greedy smile.

“Ahuh! All right, it’s settled,” went on Melberne, and then turned to Manerube. “You said we’d divide the outfit into two squads for this ropin’ an’ hawg-tyin’ stunt tomorrow. Now I’m tellin’ you to pick your men.”

“All I need is some help,” said Manerube. “I’ll do the roping and tying. My men will be Loughbridge, Miller, Alonzo, and Utah.”

“Nope, you’re wrong, Mister Manerube,” retorted Utah, coolly. “I wouldn’t be on your side.”

“Utah, you’ll take orders,” said Melberne, testily.

“Shore, but not from him. An’ if you say for me to go on his side, I quit.”

“Manerube, pick another man,” returned the leader.

“Bonny,” said Manerube, shortly.

“Wal, that leaves me, Utah, Captain Bunk, an’ the Weymers. Jake can stay in camp,” said Melberne, reflectively. After a moment he addressed Chane. “I reckon you ought to take charge of our squad?”

There seemed to be a good deal more in Melberne’s mind than he saw fit to speak.

“If you think so I’ll do it,” replied Chane, slowly.

“I’m thankin’ you,” said Melberne. “Now, men, you’d better turn in, as I’ll call you aboot three o’clock.”

Whereupon he left the fire. Chane followed him. Melberne did not walk like a man with hopeful prospects. Chane caught up with him and strode beside him into the grove until they reached a point where Chane’s way led to the left.

“Melberne,” said Chane as they both halted, “I know how you feel. This drive looks bad. It is bad. And I told you, the worst is yet to come. But I reckoned you’d put too much store on the success of catching large numbers of wild horses for the market. You’ve just followed wrong hunches. This deal will likely lose you money. It’ll do worse than that. It’ll hurt you, because you’re a man with human feelings. But it’s nothing to discourage you as to the future. You’ll do well in Utah. The country has great possibilities that men such as you will develop. So don’t worry. This barbed-wire mess will be over in a few days. You’ll soon get things straight.”

“Say, Weymer, are you giving me a good hunch?” inquired Melberne.

“Hardly. I see you’re a little down tonight, and I just wanted you to know I understood.”

“Ahuh! Wal, mebbe you do,” responded Melberne, heavily, and went his way under the cottonwoods.

IT was one thing for Melberne to say he would rout everybody out at three o’clock next morning and another to accomplish it. As the matter transpired, Chane was the early riding riser who called the men and built the fire and went out after the horses. All these except Brutus had been left in the corral at the far end of the grove. In the darkness Chane had difficulty locating Brutus. Instead of being found, he answered Chane’s whistles and made it easy for Chane, though he did not come in of his own accord. Chane led Brutus back through the grove and gave him a double handful of grain.

“Chess, wake up. You’re late,” called Chane.

“I’m — asleep,” mumbled Chess.

“Roll out and get your horse. Breakfast’s ‘most ready.”

“I’m dead. Aw, Chane, do I have to help murder those poor ponies?”

“Boy, you’ve got to help me make it as easy as possible for them. Melberne has made me boss of our squad.”

“I forgot. Sure that’s different,” returned Chess as he rolled out of his blankets, dressed except for his boots.

Chane found a bustle round the camp fire. Jake was cook, with several assistants. Melberne had a quick, serious manner.

“What’ll we need?” he asked Chane.

“Lots of soft rope. Saddlebags for grub and water bags for water. It’ll be a twenty-hour day. And don’t let any fellow forget his gloves!”

CHANE’S squad of five rode out of camp into the dark hour before dawn while Manerube’s men were getting ready. The air was cold, the ground gray with frost, the sky steely blue lighted by white stars. The silent grim men might have been bent on a deadly scouting mission. Chane led at a brisk lope, and when the first streaks of morning brightened the east he drew rein before the huge trap corrals. A whistling and trampling roar attested to the fact that the wild horses had not broken the fence.

“We’ll wait for the other gang,” said Chane. “Reckon we’d better throw off our saddles. It’ll be noon before we get ready to ride.”

The men unsaddled, haltered their horses, uncoiled and recoiled their lassoes, and lastly cut the short lengths of soft rope designated as necessary by Chane. When this was done the other squad rode up.

“You fellars get a hustle on,” said Melberne.

“No rush,” replied Manerube. “Are any of you fellows betting we don’t tie up two horses to your one?”

“Manerube, this is a gambling matter for me, but not for you,” retorted Melberne, significantly.

“Now, boys,” said Chane, “crawl under the wires. We’ll go round to the empty corral.”

Two corrals had been constructed, one a quarter of a mile in diameter, which now contained the seventeen hundred wild horses, the other smaller in size, and with a fifty-foot gate of poles and wires.

“Boys, here’s our system,” said Chane, when his men gathered round him inside the empty corral. “We’ll open the gate and let in ten or a dozen or twenty horses. They won’t need to be driven in yet a while. Keep out of their road. Some wild horses are bad. I’ll do the roping. When I throw a horse you-all make a dive to hold him down. Melberne, you’re the heaviest. You sit on his head. Chess, you hold one front foot while I tie up the other. Utah, you know the game. I’m asking you to look out for Cap till he gets the hang of it.”

Manerube’s squad now appeared in the gray gloom of the morning, and all approached the wide gate. When it had been released at the fastening it was swung open wide. Horses were thick in the gray obscurity of the larger corral, but evidently the dim light did not prevent them from seeing well. Soon a wild leader shot through like an arrow from a bow, to be followed by several passing swift as flashes, and then by a string of them, whistling and plunging.

“Enough. Shut the gate!” yelled Chane. They were just in time to stop a stampede. “Now follow me round,” added Chane, and broke into a run toward the dim shapes of the wild horses. Chane swung his lasso as he ran. Its use was an old story to him. As a boy he could rope the sombrero off a cowboy’s head as dexterously as it might have been snatched by hand.

“Chase them past me,” yelled Chane. “Chess, you stick by me to lend a hand. If a horse gets the jerk on me instead of me getting it on him, I’m liable to be yanked out of my boots.”

A group of wild horses broke up and scattered, running everywhere. Chane ran forward, to one side, swinging a wide loop round his head. In the dim gray he had to guess at distance. But this roping was as much a feeling with Chane as an action. Several horses raced past. At the fourth, a lean wild bay, clearly outlined against the gray, Chane cast his lasso. He did not need to see the horse run into the loop. Bracing himself, Chane gave a sudden powerful jerk just as the noose went taut round the forelegs of this horse. It was in the middle of his leap, and he went down heavily.

“Quick!” yelled Chane to his comrades as hand over hand he closed in on his quarry. Melberne plunged down on the head of the prostrate horse. Utah was almost as quick at his flanks. Captain Bunk fell on the middle of the horse. “Good! Hold hard,” shouted Chane. “I got both his legs.”

Chane loosened the noose and slipped it off one leg, which he drew back from the other. “Grab that leg, Chess. Hang on.”

The groaning, quivering horse lay helpless. He could kick with his two free legs, but to no purpose. Chane hauled the foreleg back, then let go his rope to grasp the leg in his hands. Chess, by dint of strength and weight was holding down the other leg. Chane pulled one of the short lengths of soft rope from the bundle hanging in his belt. He had to expend considerable force to draw the leg up, bending it back. The horse squealed his fury and terror. Then Chane’s swift hard hands bound that bent leg above the knee. It gave the leg an appearance of having been cut off. The foreleg and hoof were tied fast against the inside of the upper part of the leg. Chane slipped off the noose of his lasso, and jumped up.

“Get away and let him up,” ordered Chane. All the men leaped aside with alacrity.

The wild horse got up as nimbly as if he had still the use of four legs. He snorted his wild judgment of this indignity. His first move was a quick plunge, which took him to his knees. But he bounded up and away with amazing action and balance. His speed, however, had been limited to half.

Chane heard the rival squad yelling and squabbling over a horse they had down. The gray gloom was lifting. Chane coiled his lasso, spread the loop to his satisfaction, and ran to intercept another passing horse. His aim went true, but it was good luck that he caught one foreleg instead of two. This horse was heavier. As he went down he dragged Chane, boots ploughing the ground. Chane’s helpers piled upon the straining, kicking horse and forced him flat. Thus the strenuous day began.

CHANE tied up fifty-six horses before he was compelled to ask Melberne for a little rest.

“My — Gawd!” panted Melberne, as he flopped down against a fence post. “I’m daid — on my feet.... Weymer — you’re shore — a cyclone — for work.”

The sun shone bright and hot. A fine dust sifted down through the air. All of Chane’s squad were as wet as if they had fallen into a pond. Melberne’s face ran with dirty streaks of black sweat; his heavy chest heaved with his panting breaths. Chess was the least exhausted of the squad, as his labors had been least. Captain Bunk was utterly played out for the moment.

“Blast me!” he gasped. “I could — drink — the ocean — dry.”

“Cap, don’t let the boys guy you any more,” said Chane. “You’re awkward, but you’re game, and you haven’t shirked.”

They passed the water bag from one to another, and passed it round again. Then Melberne, beginning to recover somewhat, began to take active interest in the operations of Manerube’s squad. On the moment they were dragging a mustang down.

“Weymer, that man cain’t throw a horse,” declared Melberne, testily.

“Wal, boss, how long are you goin’ to be findin’ out he cain’t throw anythin’ but a bluff?” drawled Utah.

Manerube, with the help of Bonny and Miller, downed the mustang. Loughbridge tried to hold down its head, but did not succeed until Alonzo came to his assistance. They were a considerable time tying the knee.

“How many horses have they tied?” inquired Melberne, shifting his gaze to the far side of the corral, where the bound animals stood, already pathetic and dispirited.

“Sixteen or seventeen at most,” replied Chane. “I counted them twice.”

Melberne cursed his amaze and disgust.

“Weymer, let’s go over an’ watch them,” he said.

“Not me. You’re boss of the outfit. You go,” replied Chane.

Whereupon Melberne got up and strode toward the other squad. Perhaps his approach caused them to speed up in action, but it did not add to their efficiency. Chane had needed only one glance to see that Manerube was only ordinary in the use of a lasso. Alonzo could have done better blindfolded. Manerube cast his noose to circle the neck, and this hold, when accomplished, was not a good one for the throwing of a horse. It took three men to haul the horse over on his side, and then he was half choked to death. Melberne lent a hand in holding down this particular horse. Manerube did quicker work this time, but as the horse staggered up Chane saw that the job of tying had not been cleverly done, and certainly not as humanely as it was possible to do. Manifestly Melberne saw this, for he pointed at the flopping shortened leg as the horse hobbled away.

The only unbound horse left in the corral now was a chestnut sorrel, a stallion that had several times taken Chane’s eyes. He was a beauty, big, smooth, graceful, and wild as a hawk. Alonzo and Miller, both clever at herding horses, finally drove him within reach of Manerube’s rope. But Manerube missed, and the lasso, crackling on the head of the stallion, scared him so that he seemed to have wings. In half a dozen magnificent bounds he got stretched out. Then headed for the fence he gave such exhibition of speed that some of the riders voiced their feelings.

“Oh — look at him!” yelled Chess.

“Boys — he’s going to jump the fence,” declared Chane, excitedly.

“He’s got a bone in his teeth,” called out the sailor, admiringly.

“Shure now — he’s gr-rrand!” said the Irishman.

The sorrel meant freedom or death. His action showed more than mere brute wildness of terror. He had less fear of that terrible barbed fence than of the man enemies with their ropes. Like a greyhound he rose to the leap, having the foresight to leave the ground far enough from the fence to allow for the height. Up he shot, a beautiful wild sight, his head level and pointed, his mane streaming back. His forehoofs cleared the top wire, but his hind ones caught it. With a ringing twang the wire snapped. The stallion fell on head and shoulder, rolled over, and regaining his feet, he raced away, evidently none the worse for the accident.

Chane let out a short exultant shout. Melberne, who had come back, gave sharp orders for the men to let in more horses from the big corral. As they ran to do his bidding Chane took a bundle of short ropes from the fence and tucked one end of them under his belt.

“Manerube hasn’t the knack,” declared Melberne, fuming.

“Who said he had?” retorted Chane.

“He did.”

“Well, if you were damn fool enough to believe him, take your medicine,” rejoined Chane, grimly.

Then, as another band of snorting, shrieking wild horses thundered from the big corral both Chane and Melberne had to take to the fence to save their lives. The frightened beasts trooped by: the men closed the gate and hurried up.

“Come on, you wranglers,” shouted Chane. “See if you can stay with me.”

It was a boast, but not made in the cheerful rival spirit characteristic of riders of the open. Chane’s heart was sore, his blood was hot, his temper fierce; and his expression was a taunt, a grim banter. He meant to lay Melberne and the others of his squad flat on their backs, as if he had knocked them there. But they, likewise inflamed, answered violently to his challenge. Chane ran out into the corral, swinging his lasso.

THE glaring sun stood straight overhead and dusty heat veils rose from the trodden floor of the corral.

“Sixty-eight,” said Chane, huskily, as with cramped and stinging hands he slipped his noose from the leg of the last horse tied. “Let — him — up.”

Utah rolled off the head of the horse and lay where he rolled. The struggling beast rose and plunged away.

“Shall we — make it — sixty-nine?” asked Chane, gazing down upon the spent and begrimed rider.

“I — pass,” whispered Utah.

Chane and Utah had been working alone for some time. Chess had given out, then Melberne had succumbed, and finally Captain Bunk, after a wonderful exhibition of endurance, had fallen in his tracks. He had to be carried to the fence. Manerube’s squad had quit an hour ago.

Approaching the spot where Melberne sat against the fence, Chane slowly drew in his dragging lasso.

“Melberne — we made it — sixty-eight. And that — finished Utah.”

“Damn you, Weymer!” declared Melberne, with deliberation.

Chane could only stare a query as to the reason he was being damned, when he had worked like a galley slave for eight hours. Melberne was rested. He had wiped the sweaty, dusty lather from his face, so that his expression could be noted. It seemed enigmatical to Chane.

“Sixty-eight an’ fifty-six make one hundred twenty-four,” said Melberne. “That with the forty-nine Manerube has accounted for sums up one hundred seventy-three.”

“For ten men — some of them — green hands — that’s a mighty — good showing,” panted Chane as he wearily seated himself and began to wipe his dripping face.

“Hell!” ejaculated Melberne, throwing up his hands.

“Sure. I told you — it’d be hell,” replied Chane.

“I don’t mean what you mean,” grunted Melberne.

“Well — boss, the worst — is yet to come,” replied Chane, with as much of maliciousness as he could muster.

“Ahuh! Reckon you said that before.... Weymer, have you heard me squeal?”

“No, Melberne,” returned Chane, quietly. “I’ve only respect — for you.”

“Wal, let’s eat an’ make the drive to the railroad. I’m shore curious aboot that. Chess, fetch the saddlebags of grub, an’ call the men over.”

All the riders, except two, were mounted and ranged on each side of the gate, which, being opened by the riders on foot, left an avenue of apparent escape to the disabled wild horses. They did not need to be driven out. Before the gate was half open some of them broke for the desert, and soon they were all plunging to crowd through.

Chane, closing the gate and leaping astride Brutus, was the last rider to get into action. A long line of bobbing horses stretched before him across the valley, and on each side rode the riders. These three-legged wild horses would take a good deal of driving. Brutus had to run to keep up with them. It was necessary, therefore, to keep them at as uniform a gait as was possible, for if some traveled fast and others slow the line would spread so wide that ten riders could not prevent escape of many. Drives like these were nightmares to Chane. He had never taken one that was not a race. Indeed, the crippled wild horses were racing for freedom. But if any did escape it was only to meet a lingering death. Chane had Alonzo and Utah with him in the rear of the moving line, and they, moved by compassion, would ride their best to keep all the wild horses in.

The first spurt led up out of the valley, over the ridge, and into the level country that stretched north. The three-legged horses had been deprived of their fleetness, but not of their endurance. Still, not until the rough rocky country had been reached did they slow their gait or begin to show an unnatural strain. Chane knew what to expect and hated to look for it. He rode hard, and the chasing and heading and driving of these wild horses occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all else.

TOWARD the middle of the afternoon what was left of Melberne’s first assignment of captured wild horses was driven into the corrals at Wund, a hamlet at the terminus of the railroad. Here help was available, as wild-horse shipping had become quite a business in that section of Utah. Melberne’s drove were on the verge of collapse. Thirty-seven had been lost or killed on the drive in; some were in condition necessitating prompt shooting; others had great raw sores already fly-blown; many had legs swollen to twice their original size.

The ropes that bound the bent forelegs had at once to be removed. This meant roping and throwing the horses, and holding them down until the bonds could be cut. The suffering of these wild horses was something that worked more deeply upon Chane’s emotions than any cruelty to beasts had ever done before. If he had not known how his skill and speed had saved them much more agony he could never have completed the job.

Out of one hundred and seventy-three bound at Stark Valley a total of one hundred and twenty were available for shipping, from which Melberne received a little more than fifteen hundred dollars.

“Wal, that’s twice what my outfit cost me,” he muttered.

Chane, who heard this remark, turned it over in his mind, pondering at its significance. From Melberne’s tone he gathered that it would have been pleasure to throw the money into the sage. Neither disappointment nor bitterness showed in Melberne’s tensity. He labored under a stronger emotion than either. He was no longer his genial self, and showed scant courtesy to his former partner, Loughbridge, who evidently regretted his hasty relinquishing of joint authority in the deal. Most thought- impelling of all Melberne’s reactions was the obvious fact that he seemed to want to get out of hearing of the loud-mouthed Manerube.

During supper, which was eaten in a tavern kept for cattlemen and horse-wranglers, much talk was indulged in regarding the remainder of the captured wild horses back in Stark Valley. Melberne took no part in it. Manerube, backed by Loughbridge, was loudly in favor of taking a large force of men to help tie up the rest of the wild horses.

“I was handicapped,” protested Manerube. “I had to do it all alone. Alonzo lay down on the job. He could, but he wouldn’t. Same with Miller. If I had men, now — —”

“Y-y-y-y-you — you — —” stuttered the accused rider, fiercely.

“Manerube,” interrupted Melberne, coldly, “I reckon Miller is tryin’ to call you a liar.”

“Is that so?” shouted Manerube, rising from the table and glaring at the little rider. “If you can’t talk, make signs, you stuttering idiot. Do you call me a liar?”

Miller had never been an aggressive fellow, and now, dominated perhaps by Manerube’s swaggering assurance before all the men, he did not attempt an answer. He dropped his head and resumed eating his supper. Chane observed that Miller was not the only one who bent his face over his plate. Melberne and Utah both seemed absorbed in the food before them, which on the moment they were not eating. Again Chane sensed the passing of a crisis to which Manerube was as ignorant as if he were deaf and blind.

SUNSET found Chane leading Melberne’s outfit out on the trail for Stark Valley. Brutus at last was satisfied to accommodate his gait to the trot and walk of the other horses. Chess rode beside Chane, too weary to talk. And Chane, steeped in the gloom of that sordid day, had nothing to say, nor any thought of what usually abided with him on a ride through the dark, lonely, melancholy desert night.

CHAPTER XIII

SUE MELBERNE REALIZED fully what she was doing when she hid in the cedars on the west ridge of Stark Valley and watched the riders drive the crippled wild horses northward toward Wund. Her intention was to see them pass out of sight, leaving her safe to carry out a desperate plan. But she had not prepared herself for the actual spectacle of seeing a long line of beautiful wild mustangs hobbling by on three legs, some of them lame, many of them dripping red, all showing an unnatural and terrible stress.

Chane Weymer was the last of those riders. Something in the earnestness of his maneuvers to save the mustangs useless action, the fact that he did not spare Brutus, and once, when a mustang fell, a sharp gesture expressing poignant impotence to do what he would like to — these roused in Sue impressions that not only warmed her heart toward Chane, but strengthened her spirit for the deed she had in mind.

“If dad ever finds me out he’ll half kill me,” soliloquized Sue as she watched the last of the captured wild horses and their drivers disappear. She would have had the nerve to carry out her design even if she had not just been an eye-witness to the brutality of this business. Nothing now could have deterred her. “How can dad do it?” she muttered. “It will be a failure. Those poor mustangs are ruined.... Oh, I’d like to tie up that Manerube and drive him — horsewhip him!”

Sue went back to where she had hidden her pony in the cedars, and mounting with difficulty, for she still had a stiff knee, she rode down the ridge over the ground that the wild horses had just covered. In the distance she could see a dark patch on the valley floor and knew it to be the captured wild horses trapped in the corral. The sight sent a little quiver over her and spurred her to ride at a lope, even though she suffered twinges when her horse broke his stride for the differing lay of the ground.

This ride of Sue’s was not for pleasure. She did not watch the distant purple ranges, or gaze in rapture at the wonderful walls of Wild Horse Mesa. Rabbits, coyotes, lizards caught her quick eye, but did not incite her interest. She was bent on the most independent and reckless deed of her life. She felt driven. The pangs of a consuming and increasing love had played havoc with Sue’s temper. The days since her injury had been dark ones.

At last the wide trail made by the mustangs led to the level of the valley and on to the high barricade of posts and barbed- wire. She reached the first corral. It was the smaller one and empty. The gate had been dragged back in place, but left unfastened. Sue got off her horse and, by tugging hard, opened the gate to its limit. This done, she deliberated a moment. Across this corral she saw another and larger gate. Behind it moved a mass of pounding, snorting, whistling mustangs. Dust rose in a pall over them. The sun poured down hot. How thirsty those poor creatures must be!

“Shall I tie my horse here or over there?” queried Sue, in perplexity. Finally she decided it would be best to keep him near her. Owing to her stiff knee, she preferred to walk across the intervening corral, so she led her horse, and every step of the way felt a rising tumult in her breast. No easy thing was this to do! Had she a right to defeat her father’s labors? When she reached the far side of the corral fear and conscience were in conflict with her love of wild horses. She was panting for breath. Excitement and effort were fatiguing her. Then her pony neighed shrilly. From the huge corral came a trampling roar. The dust flew up in sheets.

She gazed at the wide gate.

“Oh, can I open it?... I will!” she cried.

She had intended to tie her horse and then open the gate. But she saw that it would be necessary to use him. Going close to the barbed-wire fence, she peered through at the horses. Her approach had caused them to move away some rods back from the fence. All heads were pointed toward her. Lean, wild, beautiful heads! She saw hundreds of dark, fierce, terrible eyes, it seemed, fixed accusingly upon her. As she stood and gazed, so the wild horses stood, motionless, quivering. What an enormous drove of horses! There must be hundreds, thousands. Sue trembled under the weight of her emotions. Impossible to draw back!

Then she became aware of an incessant buzzing. It had not been in evidence when the horses were moving. Flies! A swarm of flies buzzed around and over her. Flies as thick as bees — a black cloud of them — horseflies, the abominable pests that made life miserable for all horseflesh. Next Sue’s sharp eyes caught sight of red cuts and scratches on the legs and breasts of the horses. Thus she had a second actual sight of the work of the barbed-wire. Bleeding sores and horseflies! There could be no more horrible combination, to one who loved horses.

It took all Sue’s strength to unwind the wires that held the gate shut. The gate itself she could not budge. Taking her rope from the saddle, she tied one end to the gate, and then pondered whether or not she should ride the horse while he pulled open the gate, or walk and lead him. She decided the latter would be safer, even though she risked losing her horse. So she wound the other end of the rope around the pommel, and urged the horse. He pulled the gate open wide. Hurriedly Sue untied the rope, fearfully listening for the expected stampede. But she had plenty of time to lead her horse away from the gate. Then she peered through the fence.

The foremost wild horses of that dense mass saw the break in the fence which had hemmed them in. They were fascinated. A piercing blast from a stallion seemed signal for a whistling, snorting chorus. Next came a restless pound of hoofs. A leader appeared — a stallion, wildest creature Sue had ever beheld, black as coal, instinct with fire. He trotted warily forward, neared the gate, gazed with fierce bloodshot eyes. Then he bolted. Like a black flash he passed through the opening. A white horse, a bay, a buckskin leaped to follow and, fleet as their leader, sped out to freedom.

“Run! Oh, run!” screamed Sue, her heart bursting in the joy and terror of the moment.

The restless pound stirred, quickened, closed into a roar of trampling hoofs, smiting the hard ground as one horse. The gate emitted a stream of moving horses, heads up, manes and tails tossing. Sue saw the stream lengthen and widen across the corral until it connected both gates. Then dust obscured clear vision. The ground shook under her feet. The din was terrific. It swelled until she could not hear more. What endless time it seemed until the roar of hoofs, the thud of bodies, the shrill blasts passed by her position, sped on, lessened, and died away.

Sue found herself sagging against a post, holding the halter of her horse, weak from tumultuous emotions. Near her the dust clouds floated away. Far out on the valley floor a yellow mantle moved toward the west, and with it a wonderful diminishing sound. Sue sank down on the ground.

“Gone! Free!... Oh, Heaven, what have I done?” she gasped.

It dawned on her then, the wrong she had done her father in being true to something as deep and wild in her as the instinct the horses had showed — for love of life and freedom. For a long time Sue sat there, overcome by the consciousness of the accomplished deed. At length she saw how imperative it was to get back to camp. It was a long ride, and already the sun had gone far on its slant to the west.

Twilight had fallen when Sue rode into the eastern end of the cottonwood grove and on to the encampment. Jake was not in sight. The women were busy at their tasks. Sue unsaddled and freed her horse, and reached the security of her tent without being seen. There she fell upon her bed in a state of exhaustion and agitation unparalleled in her experience. Her body burned and ached. The injury to her knee seemed renewed. And her thoughts and emotions were mostly in harmony with her physical ills. A few moments of utter relaxation and then a little rest enabled her to find composure, so that when she was called to supper she felt she could safely go out. Mrs. Melberne had evidently no idea when Sue returned to camp, and her chief concern was because she had been late in cooking supper. In the shadow round the camp fire neither sharp-eyed Ora nor kindly-attentive Jake saw anything unusual about Sue. The truth was, however, that Sue could just drag herself back to bed.

During the night she was roused out of heavy slumber. She heard horses, then deep voices of men. The riders had returned. Recognition of Chane Weymer’s voice seemed to lift her heart. Soft thud of hoofs and rustle of leaves passed her tent.

“Brutus, old pard, the day’s done. I wish there was no tomorrow.”

His voice sounded low and sad, full of weariness of effort and of life, yet strong in love for that noble horse. Sue felt a tide of feeling wave over her. What would she not have given to hear that note in Chane Weymer’s voice for her? In the pitch blackness of her tent she could speak to her lonely and aching heart. The day made her false.

Sue fell asleep, and did not awaken again until morning, and then she lay for hours, it seemed, before she rose. What would this day bring forth? When she went out she was politely informed by Mrs. Loughbridge that she could get her own breakfast. This eminently pleased Sue, for she wanted to be round the camp fire, yet with some task to cloak her intense curiosity. While she was eating, the different members of Melberne’s outfit rode singly and in groups into camp. Sight of them roused Sue’s audacity. She had outwitted them. Yet, presently, when her father rode up, Sue could not find it in her to face him.

“Wal, lass, is it breakfast or lunch?” he asked, cheerfully, and bent to kiss her cheek. It flashed over Sue that he was like his old self this morning. That delighted while it pained her.

“Why, dad — back so soon?” she replied, raising her eyes.

“Shore. An’ I’m a tired dad,” he said.

“I — I thought you were to drive horses to Wund today,” she managed to say, despising her deceit.

“Haw! Haw! Were is good. Yes, I were! But, Sue, the horses broke out of the corral gates or somebody let them out. They’re gone! An’ the only hide an’ hair of ’em is left on the barbed- wire.”

“Oh!” cried Sue. It was an outburst of emotion. That it seemed relief to Sue instead of a natural exclamation of wonder or amaze or regret was something assuredly beyond her father’s ken.

He bent down to her ear and whispered, hoarsely, “Never was so damn glad aboot anythin’ in my life!”

“Dad!” cried Sue, springing up so suddenly as to spill what remained of her breakfast. The joy in this word was not feigned. She kissed him. She felt on the verge of tears. “You — you won’t use barbed-wire again — ever?”

“Huh! I shore won’t. Sue, there ain’t a cowman in this heah West who hates barbed-wire more than me. An’ I’ll tell you real cowmen, the old Texas school where cowmen came from, all hate wire fences.”

“Dad, I — I’m very — happy,” faltered Sue. “I hope you haven’t lost money.”

“Broke just even, Sue. An’ I’m square with Loughbridge an’ the riders. But listen, don’t you let on I’m glad aboot this busted deal.”

“Dad, dear, I’ve secrets of my own,” replied Sue, with a laugh. Some day she would dare to tell him one of them, at least.

Loughbridge roughly called Melberne to join the group beyond the camp fire. Manerube was there, with two strange riders that no doubt had come from Wund. Sue did not like their looks. The rest of Melberne’s outfit stood back in a half-circle. Excitement attended that gathering, emanating from the Loughbridge group. Sue, in response to a wave of her father’s hand, moved back some steps to the big cottonwood stump, where she halted. Unless absolutely forbidden to stay, she meant to hear and see what the issue was.

“Melberne, somebody in this camp let out them wild horses,” declared Loughbridge, forcefully.

“You still harpin’ on that? Wal, Jim, I’m a tired man an’ your voice ain’t soothin’.”

“All the same, you gotta hear me,” replied Loughbridge, hotly. “Manerube swears he can prove it.”

“Huh! Prove what?” snorted Melberne, his manner changing.

“Thet somebody from this camp opened them corral gates an’ let loose our horses.”

“Say, talk sense. Nobody but Jake an’ our women were heah,” retorted Melberne.

“Some of your outfit rode into camp before eleven last night,” went on Loughbridge. “Between then and daylight there was plenty of time for a rider to do the trick.”

“Wal, I reckon that might be so,” drawled Melberne. “Is Manerube accusin’ any rider who got heah early last night?”

“No, he ain’t. Not yet.”

“Ahuh! All right. I shore hope you tell me before he begins his accusin’, because I’m too dog tired to go dodgin’ round. I want somethin’ to get behind.”

Loughbridge fumed over this slow, sarcastic speech, and he regarded his former partner with some doubt and much disfavor. Then he burst out with redoubled vehemence.

“If Manerube does prove it, you’ll have to pay me half the money we’d earned for two more days’ drive.”

“Loughbridge, you’re plumb locoed,” rejoined Melberne, in a voice that had gathered might. “You’re as crazy as I was when I made a partnership with you or when I listened to Manerube.”

“Crazy, am I?” shouted the other, hoarsely. “But you’ll pay me just the same.”

“Crazy, shore. An’ as for Manerube provin’ that, why I’m tellin’ you he couldn’t prove anythin’ under this heah sun to me.”

“Hell! I’m not carin’ what you think or what you tell. I’m talking business. Money!”

“Wal, you’ve shore got your last dollar from me, Jim Loughbridge. An’ if you think so little of my talk — mebbe you’d listen to bullets!”

The sharp, quick, cold voice ceased and there was a silence that proved the effect of the sudden contrast in Melberne’s tone and manner.

“What!” bellowed Loughbridge, his red face turning ashen.

“Reckon I’ve learned patience from Mormons. But I was born in Texas,” replied Melberne, with more dignity than passion. Still, the menace of his voice and eye had not disappeared.

“Melberne, here we split,” said Loughbridge. “I want half this outfit.”

“Wal, you’re welcome — when you pay me for it. Not before,” rejoined the leader, and with a gesture of finality he strode toward the tents.

Loughbridge drew Manerube and the two strange riders aside, where they took up a low and earnest conversation.

Sue, nervously recovering from the shock of the encounter between her father and Loughbridge, was about to move away when Chane Weymer confronted her. The smile in his dark eyes disarmed Sue for the moment. Certain it was that her heart turned traitor to her will.

“Sue, you’re a dandy brave girl,” said Chane, very low. Never before had he addressed her by her first name, let alone pay her a compliment.

“Indeed?” returned Sue, impertinently. But she knew she was going to blush unless fury or something rushed to her rescue.

“You have such dainty little feet. Your riding boots make such pretty tracks,” went on Chane, still low voiced, still smiling down into her eyes. But now his words held strange significance. Sue felt a cold shiver run over her.

“You — think so,” she faltered.

Chane glanced round, apparently with casual manner, but Sue saw the piercing keenness of his eyes. He was deep. He was kind. She trembled as she realized that somehow again he was helping her. Suddenly he bent lower.

“Manerube must have seen your boot tracks down by the corral gates,” he said, swiftly. “But he can’t prove it. I found them later, and I stepped them out in the dust. They’re gone.”

“Ah!” breathed Sue, lifting her hands to her breast.

“You did a fine thing. You’ve courage, girl. I wanted to free those wild horses.”

Sue could not answer, not because she did not want to thank him for both service and compliment, but for the reason that the look in his eyes, the depths she had never seen before, rendered her mute. He was gazing down at her wonderingly, as if she presented a new character, one that stirred admiration, and he was going to speak again when something interrupted. Sue heard voices and the patter of light hoofs on the leaves. Chane straightened up to look. His dark face lighted with gladness.

“Piutes! By golly! My friend Toddy Nokin has come with my mustangs,” he ejaculated, and he ran toward an Indian rider just entering camp.

Sue saw a small squat figure astride a shaggy pony. Chane rushed to greet him. The Piute’s face, like a mask of bronze, suddenly wreathed and wrinkled into a beautiful smile. He extended a lean sinewy hand which Chane grasped and wrung. Sue could not distinguish the words of their greeting, but it was one between friends.

A drove of clean-limbed long-maned mustangs had entered the grove, surrounded by Indian riders, picturesque with their high- crowned sombreros, their beads and silver. How supple and lithe their figures! With what ease and grace they rode!

When Sue’s gaze reverted to Chane and the Piute she was amazed to see an Indian girl ride up to them. She was bareheaded. Her raven-black hair glinted in the sunlight. She was young. Her small piquant face, her slight, graceful form, the white band of beads she wore round her head, the silver buttons and ornaments bright against her velveteen blouse — these facts of sight flashed swiftly on Sue, just a second ahead of a strange dammed- up force, vague, powerful, yet ready to burst.

Chane shouted something in Indian to this girl — perhaps her name — for she smiled as had the old Piute, and that smile gave a flashing beauty to the dusky face. It broke the barrier to Sue’s strange emotion. Her blood left her heart to confound pulse and vein. The might of that blood was stinging, searing jealousy. Pride and scorn and shame, bitter as they were, could not equal the other. Sue tortured herself one moment longer, with a woman’s perversity, and in it she saw Chane greet the Indian girl. That sufficed for her. Averting her gaze, Sue walked slowly toward her tent and upheld herself with apparent inattention. But when she had once closed and tied the flaps behind her the pretense vanished, and she sank to her knees in misery and shame.

SUE did not answer the call to the midday meal. She remained in her tent, fighting for the fortitude she would need to carry her through the inevitable worst to come. She welcomed the fact that it appeared she had been forgotten. The camp was much livelier than ever before, and Sue’s ears were continually assailed by low voices passing her tent, by loud laughter of the riders, by the movement of horses. Anxious as she was over the break between her father and Loughbridge, she did not long dwell upon it. Her personal trouble was paramount.

A heavy clinking step outside her tent brought Sue up, excited and thrilling.

“Sue, are you home?” asked her father.

“Always to you, dad. Come in,” she replied, untying the tent flaps.

He entered and closed the flaps after him. Then throwing his sombrero on the bed, with the gesture of a man come to stay awhile, he faced Sue with an unusual expression, which to her meant sympathy, perplexity, remorse, and something beyond her at the moment.

“Lass, if you want to see a locoed daddy, just look at me,” he said.

“I’m looking — and, well, you don’t seem quite so bad as you say,” replied Sue, with a nervous little laugh. “What is the matter?”

“Wal, a lot of things, but mostly I’m a damn fool.”

“Have you had more words with Loughbridge?” queried Sue, anxiously.

“He’s all words. He’s been houndin’ me again aboot money. But I’ll settle him shortly. It’s not Loughbridge who’s botherin’ me now.”

“Who, then?”

Her father sat down on the bed, and Sue, with heart beginning to misbehave, dropped to her knees before him. If he had not seemed so kind, and somehow protective, Sue would have been frightened.

“Who’s bothering you, dad?” she went on.

Then he met her eyes. Behind the smile in his there was sadness.

“This heah Chane Weymer,” he said.

“Oh, — dad, don’t say you’ve quarrelled with him!” she exclaimed wildly.

He studied Sue closely, peering deep into her eyes. “Wal, what’d you do if I said me an’ Weymer was goin’ to fight?”

“Fight? Oh, my Heaven! no — no! Dad, I’d never let you fight him,” she cried, suddenly clinging to him.

“Ahuh! I had a hunch you wouldn’t, my lass,” he returned, shrewdly. “Wal, I was just tryin’ to scare you. Fact is there’s no quarrel.”

Sue sank against his shoulder and hid her telltale face, while the awful panic that had threatened slowly subsided in her breast. She grew aware of her father’s arm round her, tenderly and closely holding her.

“Lass, you an’ me are in a devil of a hole.”

“You mean about the horses?”

“No. Aboot Chane.”

“Chane!” she echoed, blankly.

“Yes, Chane. You’re not bright this mawnin’. Wal, I don’t wonder. But haven’t you a hunch what the trouble is?”

“Your trouble with Ch — with him? No, dad.”

“Wal, I shore hate to tell you. Yet, I’m more glad than sorry.... Lass, we’ve done Chane Weymer wrong. I felt it days ago. Now I know. He’s the finest man I ever met in all my life. Manerube is a dirty liar. He’s what Chess called him that night. He’s just exactly what he made out to us Chane was.”

Sue felt as if she had been stabbed. Then joy welled up out of her agony. She sank into her father’s arms, blinded with tears.

“Lass, you love Chane?” he whispered.

The query, the simple spoken words, the tremendous meaning of them in another’s voice, made Sue shake like a leaf. She could speak no answer. She had betrayed herself. Yet it was not the revealing of her secret that held her mute.

“Wal, you needn’t give yourself away,” continued her father, gently. “But I reckon I know. I seen you look at Chane once — the way your mother use to look at me.”

After that he held her in silence for a long while, until Sue recovered in sufficient measure to sit up and wipe her eyes and face the situation.

“Dad, you can’t guess how glad I was to hear you say that about Chane. Never mind now why. Just tell me — how you know.”

“I shore will,” replied her father, earnestly. “These heah Piutes an’ Navajos are friends of Chane’s. They have a bunch of mustangs for Chane to sell, an’ I’ve bought them. Wal, when the old Indian — Toddy Nokin — saw Manerube he just grabbed for his rifle. He shore was goin’ to do for that rider. But Chane got hold of the gun, took it away from him, an’ talked. Toddy Nokin was shore a mad Indian. He couldn’t understand Chane. Neither did I then. But you can bet I was keen to find out. It seems this Piute is a chief an’ a man of dignity an’ intelligence. He speaks some English. He says he thinks Manerube is a horse thief, in with Bud McPherson, but he can’t prove that. But he an’ Chane caught Manerube carryin’ off the little Indian girl, Sosie. You remember how Manerube’s face was all black an’ blue when he came to us? How he bragged we ought to see the other fellow! Wal, Chane beat Manerube soundly an’ drove him off. You remember, Sue, how Manerube said he did just that to Chane?”

“Remember! Can I ever forget I believed it?” cried Sue, shrinking.

“Wal, Manerube is the one with the bad name among the Indians. Not Chane! We talked with the Navajo, too. He said Chane was never a squaw man. Then I got hold of the girl Sosie. Shore I had the surprise of my life. Sue, she’s educated. Talks as well as you! An’ what she said aboot Manerube was aplenty. I’ll gamble the Piutes kill that rider.... Wal, Sosie said Chane was the kind of man among the Indians the missionaries ought to be but wasn’t.”

“Oh, I knew it, in my heart,” wailed Sue. “But I was a jealous cat.”

“Wal, lass, Chane said as much aboot me,” went on her father, breathing heavily. “I went to him an’ I up like a man an’ told him I’d wronged him an’ was sorry. An’ the darned fellow asked me what aboot. I told him I’d believed Manerube’s gossip. An’, Sue, what do you think he said?”

“I’ve no idea,” murmured Sue.

“He said, ‘Melberne, you’re a damn liar. You knew that wasn’t true. Now shut up aboot it an’ let’s be friends.’... Wal, Chane has stumped me more than once. But that was the last straw. Funny, too, because he was right. I knew he was a man. But this horse-wranglin’ had upset me, sort of locoed me.”

“So he forgave you?” queried Sue, dreamily. “Will he ever forgive me?”

“Shore. Why, that fellow’s heart is as tender as your mother’s.”

“Dad, it’s different in my case.... I shall go straight to him, presently, and confess I wronged him.... I can tell him I’m — I’m little, miserable, but I couldn’t ask his forgiveness.”

“Huh! You won’t need to. The fellow’s crazy about you. He — —”

“Dad, please don’t,” whispered Sue, dropping her head.

“Lass, never mind my bluntness. I’m rough an’ thick. Don’t fret over the turn of affairs. It’s sort of tough, but I’m glad, an’ shore you’ll be glad, too.”

“I’m glad now. But it’s terribly worse for me.”

“Wal, lass, fight it out your own way,” he responded, with a sigh. “I know things will work out right. They always do.”

“What’ll you do about Loughbridge and Manerube?” inquired Sue, remembering other issues at stake.

“Get rid of them,” her father replied, tersely. “Then we’ll strike for Wild Horse Mesa.”

“To catch more wild horses?”

“Yes, but in an honest way. Mebbe I’ll have the luck to catch Panquitch. If I do he’s yours. But Chane says the man doesn’t live who can beat him to that stallion.”

“Then — Chane is going with us?” asked Sue, veiling her eyes.

“Shore. An’ he’s goin’ to take us to Nightwatch Spring, which he swears is the most beautiful place for a ranch in Utah.”

LATER Sue sat on the cottonwood log with Chess and Ora, assuredly the most absorbingly interested one in the Piute girl, Sosie. Sue had bravely sauntered forth on what seemed a severe ordeal for her, yet so curious was she to see and hear this Indian maiden that she would have endured anything to satisfy herself. Besides curiosity, disgust had been her most prominent feeling.

Sue found herself in line to be as surprised as was her father. At first she regarded Sosie as an alien creature, unsexed, a wild little savage. Her impressions having been formed long before had become fixed.

Sosie evidently liked the opportunity to be with young white people. Chess soon overcame what little shyness she had felt and inspired her to tell them about herself. Never in her life had Sue listened to so fascinating and tragic a story. Sosie told about her childhood, tending goats and sheep on the desert, how she had been forced to go to the government school, and later to a school in California, how she had learned the language and the habits of white people. The religion of the Indians had been schooled and missionaried out of her. Then when she had advanced as far as possible she was given a choice of becoming a servant or returning to her own people. She chose the latter, hoping her education would enable her to teach her family better ways of living. But her efforts resulted in failure and misunderstanding. Her people believed the white education had made her think she was above them. She could no longer accept the religion of the Indian tribe and she would not believe in the white man’s. She had to abandon her habits of cleanliness, of comfort, of eating, and return to the crude ways of her people. Lastly, she had been importuned to marry. Her father, her mother, every relative nagged her to marry one of her own color. Finally she had yielded and had married one of the braves of her tribe, a young chief who had also received an education at the government schools. He and she had this much in common, that they understood each other and the fatality of the situation. The future held nothing for them, except life in the open, which, somehow, seemed best for the Indian.

An hour after this Indian girl had begun to talk Sue had shifted from disgust and intolerance to amaze and sorrow. Sosie was not what she had expected. The girl was a little beauty. Her small proud head, her shining black hair, like night, her piquant face lighted by great dusky eyes, her red lips and white teeth, her slender form adorned in faded velveteen and ornamented with silver and beads, her little moccasined feet — all these features fascinated and captivated Sue. A white man might have been excused, certainly forgiven, for being attracted to this girl. It was hard for Sue to believe she was an Indian.

At length Ora coaxed Chess to go with her on some errand, and this circumstance left Sue alone with Sosie, which was the opportunity she craved. Sue felt it in her heart to be kind and good to this unfortunate girl. How Sue despised her hasty judgments! The white people, the civilization to which she belonged, had made this Indian girl what she was. But first of all, Sue strangely and passionately longed to hear Sosie speak of Manerube as he had spoken of Chane.

“My dad says you knew Manerube — over there across the rivers?” began Sue, driven to this issue.

“Yes, I knew Bent Manerube,” replied Sosie, frankly, but without rancor. “He made love to me. You know Indian girls like white men to do that. Manerube got me to run off with him. But my father and Chane Weymer caught us.”

“Then — then what — happened?” questioned Sue, faltering in her eagerness.

Sosie laughed, showing her little white teeth. “Chane ordered me off the horse. Then he made Manerube confess he didn’t mean to marry me. They fought, and Chane whipped Manerube. I enjoyed that. I wanted to see him kill the liar.”

“Did you — love Manerube?” continued Sue, desperately. How almost impossible it was to ask these questions! Only Sosie’s simplicity, her lack of sophistication, the something about her that was not white, strengthened Sue to go on with this interrogation.

“I suppose so. But I didn’t after Chane made him tell. And certainly not after my father beat me.”

“Oh, did your father do that?” cried Sue, aghast.

“He did. And he said he’d kill me if I ever ran off with another white man. My tribe once upon a time tore a girl limb from limb for infidelity.”

“How terrible!” exclaimed Sue.

“My education says that was wrong, but my Indian conscience says it was right.”

“Did you know that Manerube came over here and told us he had beaten Chane Weymer for — for mistreating you?” demanded Sue, at last coming to the climax of her importunity.

“Yes. My father took me to your father,” replied Sosie. “And I told just what a dirty lie that was. Manerube is bad. Chane Weymer is good. My father will tell you. Few white men who come among Indians are as good as Chane. I never met one. What’s more, while I was at school I never met a white man like Chane. If I had listened to him I’d never have fallen in love with Manerube. But Chane scolded, advised, talked, almost preached to me when what I wanted was to be made love to. Chane wouldn’t do it. He said he couldn’t love me because he couldn’t marry me.”

“Oh, it’s all wrong — this that the white people have made you suffer,” cried Sue, in distress.

EVENTUALLY Sue ended her long talk with Sosie, and, stirred to her depths by the revelations of this day, she made her way toward the tent of the Weymers. Her full heart cried out to make amends. That was all she could do. She would hurry to abase herself now while she had this tremendous false courage, this accusing conscience, this scornful pity for herself and mounting joy for Chane and Chess. How truly Chess had known his beloved brother!

Sue found them together, Chess at work on a quirt he was braiding for Ora, Chane watching her approach with sad dark eyes. She vowed she would meet their gaze even if they penetrated to her shameful secret love. She vowed she would be her true self if it were the last time in all her life. She walked straight up to him.

“Chane, I have wronged you.”

His bronzed face lost something of its still calm, and it paled.

“You have? How so?” he returned.

“I believed what Manerube said about you.”

“Well. That was unfortunate for me, wasn’t it?” he rejoined.

“I was stupid and shallow,” added Sue, in ringing bitter voice. “Then — afterward — I was too slight and miserable to listen to my weak little conscience.”

“Sue Melberne, this is what you say to me?” he demanded, incredulously.

“Nothing I can say matters to you now. But I wanted you to know what I think of myself.”

“No, it doesn’t matter now what I think of you — or you think of — yourself,” he said.

“But you must hear what I think of myself,” cried Sue, beginning to break under the strain. “You must hear that I’m a silly, mindless, soulless girl.... Why, even when Chess denounced Manerube as a liar I couldn’t see through it! Worse, when Chess spoke so nobly of you I didn’t believe. Most shameful of all, after they fought, when I saw Manerube’s horrid face after he’d beat Chess down — —”

“What!” cried Chane, in piercing interruption. He sprang erect, and the look of him made Sue quake. “Beat Chess down!” he repeated, menacingly. “Say, boy, come here.”

“Sue, you darned little fool! Now you’ve played hell!” wailed Chess.

Chane fastened a powerful hand in the boy’s blouse and with one pull drew him close.

“Boy, you’ve kept it from me,” he said, deliberately. “You’ve double-crossed me. Because I asked you.”

“Yes, Chane — I lied,” choked Chess.

“What for?”

“I was afraid of what you’d do to Manerube.”

“Then he beat you? For defending me? Out with it!”

“Sue’s told you, Chane. But, honest, she’s made it worse than it was.... What’s a few punches to me? It was only a fight and he didn’t get so awful much the best of it.”

Chane let go of the boy’s blouse and shoved him back.

“I knew there was something,” he muttered, darkly, to himself; and then abruptly he dove into the tent.

“Sue, you’ve played hell, I tell you,” said Chess.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to tell. It slipped out. What can I do?”

“You can’t stop Chane now.”

“Yes I can,” cried Sue. She recognized she must do something desperate, but she had no idea what it should be. Her mind seemed clogged. Then, when Chane emerged from the tent, she quailed before the lightning of his eyes. He held a rawhide whip in his left hand. And on his right side a heavy gun swung from his belt.

“Sue Melberne, I’ll use either gun or whip on your lover. But I suspect it must be the whip.”

“Lover! Bent Manerube? How dare you?” burst out Sue, suddenly infuriated beyond endurance. She gave him a swift hard slap in the face.

A bright red spot stained his pale cheek. He lifted a hand to feel the place, while his gaze blazed down on her.

“Thanks. I like that. It was human and womanly, something you’ve never been to me. Did I wrong you with my insinuation?”

“You insulted me. I despised Manerube. I never liked him. I — I flirted with him — to my shame — because — well, I don’t choose to tell.”

“So. You are indeed clearing up much this day,” returned Chane. “I apologize. I reckon that was temper. I didn’t really mean it.... All the same, I’ll use my gun or whip on Manerube.”

Chess did not even attempt to stop Chane, but Sue cried out some incoherent entreaty and tried to hold him back. Not gently did he thrust her aside, and without another word strode toward the group of men plainly discernible round the camp fire.

“Come to your tent, Sue,” begged Chess.

“I guess not. I’ll not quit — like that,” panted Sue. “I’ll tell dad. He’ll stop them.”

“Sue, it’s too late. Anybody getting in front of Chane now will be hurt.”

“But, Chess — he — he might be killed!” whispered Sue.

“Who? Manerube, you mean? Well, it’ll be darn good riddance,” rejoined Chess, hotly.

“Oh, I mean Chane — Chane.... Listen, if you tell I’ll hate you forever. Forever! I — I love Chane. It’s killing me. Now do you understand?”

“You poor girl!” replied Chess, in wonder and pity, and he put his arm round her. “Sue, don’t be scared. Manerube is a coward. He’ll never face Chane with a gun. All he’ll get will be a horsewhipping. Come on — let’s see him get it.”

Sue was unsteady and weak on her feet and needed Chess’s support, yet slow as they were they got out to the edge of the grove in time to see Chane confront the staring half-circle of men, among whom Manerube stood out prominently.

“What’s up?” demanded Melberne, loudly.

“Manerube’s game,” retorted Chane, curtly.

Certain and significant it was that Melberne hurriedly moved out of line, and every man on either side of Manerube backed away, leaving him standing alone.

“Manerube, the jig’s up,” said Chane. “I don’t care a damn about the lies you told. But you laid your dirty hands on my brother for defending me.... You beat him! Are you packing a gun?”

“I reckon,” replied Manerube, white to the lips.

Sue swayed to a resistless up-surging spirit. Tearing herself free of Chess, she ran swiftly to confront Chane, to grasp him with hands strong as steel. But her voice failed her.

“Sue, you’re mad,” he protested, with the first show of softening. “We’ve got to fight. Why not now?”

Melberne stepped swiftly up to Chane, calling to his men. Utah and Miller ran in. Jake followed.

“Grab him, boys,” ordered Melberne. “Chess, get Sue out of this.” Then he strode toward the men opposite. “I won’t have my womenfolk runnin’ risks round heah. Manerube, you’re shore gettin’ away lucky. Take your two rider pards from Wund an’ get out of my camp. An’ Jim Loughbridge, you can go along with him. I’ll make you a present of wagon, team, grub.”

“All right, Melberne,” returned Loughbridge, harshly. “I’ll take you up. But you haven’t see the last of this deal.”

CHAPTER XIII

FAR WEST OF Stark Valley the reconstructed Melberne outfit had halted on a lofty rim to gaze down into a gray-carpeted, green-dotted, golden-walled canyon, wide and long, running close under the grand bulk of Wild Horse Mesa.

“Nightwatch Spring is there, up in the rocky notch where you see the bright green,” Chane Weymer had said, directing Melberne’s gaze. “It’s so big it makes a brook right where it comes out from under the cliff.”

Melberne had never been a man to rave. Here he gazed as if spellbound, at last to burst out, “Beats any place in Texas!” From him that was not unlikely the most extravagant praise possible. Then he continued, with a singular richness and depth in his voice: “Wife, daughter, heah we shall make our home. A rancher down there will shore be rich in all that makes life worth livin’. I’ll send for my brothers, who are waitin’ for word of good country to settle in. We’ve relatives an’ friends, too, who’ll take my word. We’ll homestead this place, an’ right heah I pick the haid of this canyon, takin’ in the spring. One hundred sixty acres for mine, with all them miles of range land to control.... Weymer, I reckon my debt to you grows. I wonder now — won’t you an’ Chess throw in with us heah?”

“Quien sabe?” replied the rider, musingly. “Chess surely will. It’s good for him. But I — well, I’m a wandering wild-horse hunter.”

One dim rough trail led down into this golden-rimmed abyss. Neither Chane nor Toddy Nokin knew where the bands of wild horses dotting the gray had descended from the uplands above, if indeed they had gone that way. This league-wide rent in the rocky earth zigzagged away westward, under the tremendous benched wall of Wild Horse Mesa, and the western end could not be seen. Toddy Nokin said it ended in a split in the stone that no Indian had explored.

Sue was entranced. She had been prepared for something rugged, beautiful, in accordance with Chane’s simple statement, but no words could have done adequate justice to this marvelous place. Not paradise or fairyland was it to her, but sublime in its vastness, unreal in its isolation, gorgeous in color, wild as the sky-towering mesa that bulged stupendously above.

The notch toward which Chane had pointed proved to be a labyrinth of indentations in the wall, all narrow, lined by green borders of spruce and cedar, floored by rich thick bleached grass, turning and twisting, full of golden shadows reflected from the looming walls, lonely, silent, sweetly fragrant with the dry canyon tang, and purple with sage.

Melberne pitched camp on the site he chose for the ranch house he would erect eventually. It was a low bench, sloping with sage toward the open, backed by a belt of timber, and canopied by a leaning golden wall. Nightwatch Spring burst from under this cliff, a thick rushing volume of pure water, and made music down the slope, to meander between willow-bordered banks far as eye could see. Wild horses, deer, rabbits, and many birds proved the fertility and lonesomeness of this spot.

Through the thin belt of spruce trees, higher up on the last swell of sage slope under the wall, Sue espied a place that she determined must be her camp. It looked down upon the bench; it was sheltered by the curve of the wall; it seemed dreamily and drowsily permeated by the song of the stream. It was indeed a throne from which perhaps some barbarian queen of ages past had ruled her subjects. Purple sage bloomed there, and the scarlet of Indian paint-brush, the vermilion of cactus, lavender daisies, and an exquisite flower unknown to Sue, a delicate nodding three- petaled blossom of white with violet heart.

She enlisted Chess and Jake in her service, with the result that sunset and supper time found her task completed — a camp which must surely become a home, comfortable, safe, secluded, and open to a view beautiful close at hand, and in the distance one of exceeding grandeur.

Camp that night had for Melberne’s outfit the best of all virtues for the tired travelers — permanence. It did not disturb Melberne or any of his party that Loughbridge and Manerube had followed on their trail.

“Reckon we’ll have six more weeks of this heah fine weather,” remarked Melberne, as he stood with his back to the fire.

“Hope so. But winter is mild down in these protected canyons,” said Chane. “The snow seldom lays long.”

“Good. Wal, that’ll give me time to throw up a log house heah. Will my wagons be safe where we left them?”

“They’re well hidden. Only an Indian would run across them, and he wouldn’t steal.”

“We cain’t ever drive a wagon down in heah,” observed Melberne.

“That’s the beauty of it. Build a corral and barn up on the rim, and down here also.”

“Chane, you shore have idees. Wal, in a day or two I’ll send Utah an’ Miller back to Wund to mail letters an’ fetch back a wagon-load of supplies. Mebbe my brothers will be so keen aboot this place they’ll come before the snow flies. If not, then by spring, shore.... Wal, wal, I reckon I’m happier than I’ve been for long.”

Sue wondered what her father meant by that. It brought back to her the subtle intimation of an enemy he had always been expecting to meet. Here in this out-of-the-way corner of the world perhaps he felt secure at last from the fear he must kill a man. So Sue interpreted that strange observance of her father’s.

Without the disturbing element of Manerube and the Loughbridges, camp life had indeed taken on a happier order. Chess confessed that he missed Ora, and hinted he might go after her some day. Sue also missed a girl companion, but the rest of that disorganizing contingent did not occasion regret.

“Say, Chane, I reckon I can make a big pond heah, judgin’ by the lay of the land an’ the rocky ground,” observed Melberne, whose mind obviously was active on possibilities.

“Sure you can,” replied the ever-optimistic and enthusiastic Chane.

Captain Bunk removed his pipe, manifestly to deliver a remark of importance.

“Shiver my timbers if I wouldn’t dam up the other end of this hole in the rocks and fill her up with water to the gunwale.”

“W-w-w-wh-wh-what’n hell for would you do t-t-t-t- th — that?” stuttered Miller.

“Why, mate, I’d have a bit of a lake, and run boats on it, and start a fish ranch,” replied Bunk, impressively.

“Haw! Haw!” roared Melberne. “Shore that’s a new one on me. Fish ranch! — Wal, a fish pond ain’t a bad idee. Cap, you’re shore helpin’ me to establish a home.... Sue, we haven’t heard from you aboot this heah homestead of mine. Reckon I’d like somethin’ good from my girl.”

“Dad, it’s wonderful!” replied Sue. “But I can’t think of anything to tell you — except I’ll stay. It’ll be my home, too.”

“Wal, listen to that, wife,” ejaculated Melberne, his broad face beaming in the firelight. “Sue will not go back to the cities to teach. She’ll stay with us — to teach kiddies when they come heah, as shore they will. Mebbe some of her own! These boys will be gettin’ themselves wives before long. An’ that’ll be good.”

Night down in this deep-bottomed, high-walled solitude kept Sue awake for hours. It was so strange, so different from any other night she could recall. It had a haunting melancholy, a perfect peace, a glory of starlit loneliness. The insects might not have belonged to species she knew, so clear-toned and high- pitched were they. A lonesome owl far back in the notched fastnesses bemoaned his watch. The murmuring stream made music like all fast-flowing streams, yet somehow more mellow, the same because it was swift water tumbling over rocks down the mound to a level, yet differing because of innumerable imagined melodies.

Dawn came gray, cool, rich in its dark clearness, taking long to grow lighter. Sue wondered what was the cause. She had never before awakened to a dawn like this. Daylight came, yet all seemed shadowed.

Where was the sun? Where was the east? At last she realized she was down in the very bowels of the earth. The mighty wall of Wild Horse Mesa loomed above her, shutting out the sunrise.

At last a clear wonderful deep-blue light shone over the eastern rim. Low clouds, faintly rose, floated above a strange live effulgence that centered the horizon line. Here was the effect of the sun. Beneath Sue the wide canyon slept, still dark, except over the gray levels, and they were vague. Far to the west the faces of the great escarpments that lifted high above the rim began to brighten, to turn purple. Sue watched the changes, sure of them, though they seemed imperceptible. Under the wandering wall of Wild Horse Mesa showed only a soft dark freshness of dawn.

Sue rose to begin the day, aware of the whistle of the riders below, of the ring of an ax, the smell and blue of a column of smoke, the hearty voice of her father. She felt light, quick, buoyant. She wanted to run, to sing, to ride, to go wild with it all. She was happy, yet there was that break, that wound in her heart. But her sorrow and her shame were not as they had been. Some incalculable difference had followed her avowel of injustice to Chane Weymer, her abasement of self. She had told him. That had not mitigated her blunder, but it had eliminated her vanity. The absence of Manerube had much to do with her mounting pleasure in the present. He was not there with his swaggering figure, his hateful handsome face, to mar every scene for her. How wrong she had been to encourage his attention just to sting the man she loved! She had never forgiven herself for that blindness; she was always uneasily conscious that the end of her blunder was not yet come. Nevertheless, happiness encroached more and more on her trouble. She stifled the whispering voices of dreams; she would not listen to the woman temptress strong in her depths, the feminine that would bid her use charm, coquetry, sex, love to win Chane Weymer. In his heart he must despise her, and though at times this conviction roused a flashing fiery rage in her, she always reverted to the justice of it and accepted it as her punishment for unworthiness. Even sight of Chane had grown bearable, and then a joy, provided he was not close enough to see her watching him. Seldom he spoke to her or noticed her; never unless politeness or the kindness of service made that imperative to a man of his character. Sue had welcomed this aloofness, but as the days passed it had begun to gall her — a fact about which she did not like to conjecture.

Chess had been loyal; he had kept her secret, but always, womanlike, she feared he would betray her to Chane. More and more the lovableness of the boy manifested itself to her. He was a friend, a comrade, a brother. Yet at times he exasperated her so exceedingly that she could scarcely keep from flying at him to slap and scratch. Chess never let her forget that she loved Chane.

MELBERNE began the second day in this place he had chosen to labor and end his years with an energy and heartiness that augured well for his ultimate achievements.

After breakfast he dictated letters which Sue wrote for him, sitting on the ground beside the camp fire, with her writing case on her lap. Then he dispatched Utah and Miller on the long wagon trip back to Wund.

“Pack your guns an’ don’t be slow in usin’ them,” was his last instruction.

Next he set to work with all the men available to fence the mouths of two verdant prongs at the head of the canyon, where he turned loose all his horses. He now had over fifty head, counting the mustangs he had bought from Chane. Toddy Nokin had promised to return in the spring with another band to sell. Melberne had conceived the idea of raising horses as well as cattle. He had vision. He saw into the future when horses would not be running wild over every range, when well-bred stock would be valuable. It took half the day to erect those cedar and spruce fences.

“Wal, now we can breathe easy an’ look around,” he said. “Shore was afraid one of them stallions down there would come up heah an stampede us.”

“Melberne, you’ll want this canyon free of wild horses,” said Chane, thoughtfully. “Because your stock will never be safe where wild stallions are ranging. You know tame horses, once they get away, make the wildest of wild horses.”

“Wal, what’re you foreman of this heah Melberne outfit for?” rejoined Melberne, jovially.

Chane laughed pleasantly. That pleased him. “We’ll get busy and catch the best of the wild stock in here, then drive the rest out. It’s a big country down here. You can’t tell what we’ll run into.”

“Mebbe Panquitch, huh? Forgot that stallion, didn’t you?”

“Forgot Panquitch? I guess not. I’ll bet I’ve thought of him a thousand times since I saw him. There’s his range, Melberne.”

Chane swept a slow hand aloft toward the yellow rampart, so high and far away that the black fringe of cedars and piñons looked like a thin low line of brush.

“On top, hey? Wild Horse Mesa!” ejaculated Melberne, craning his neck. “Chane, I reckon if Panquitch ranges up there he’s no longer a horse. He’s an eagle.”

In the afternoon Sue accompanied her father and the riders out upon a venture that promised thrilling excitement. Alonzo, the Mexican vaquero, was to give an exhibition of his ability to run down and rope wild horses. Sue heard Chane tell her father that Alonzo was the only rider he had ever known who could accomplish this. It seemed a fair and honest matching of speed and endurance against the wild horse, with the advantage all his. Sue imagined it would be worth a good deal to see the vaquero at work.

Melberne had abandoned any further idea of cruel practices in the capturing of wild horses.

Creasing with a rifle bullet, a method considerably used in Nevada and Utah, was to his mind as obnoxious as barbed-wire. A skilled marksman could shoot a wild horse through the outer edge of the nape of the neck and so stun him that capture was easy. The fault with this method of creasing, as it was called, was that if the bullet did a little more than crease, which happened more times than not, it killed the horse.

Water-hole trapping was a humane and easy and exciting way to catch wild horses, but seldom or never did it yield the best results — that is, the fastest and finest horses, especially the stallions, would refuse to enter the trap, or if they did they broke out or leaped the fence or killed themselves. Wild- horse wranglers, however, liked this method, and often employed it. First they located a spring or water hole much frequented by wild horses, and round it they constructed a large corral of poles or logs, and mostly cedar trees which they cut whole and dragged into close formation, leaving space for a wide gate. This gate had to be one that could be shut quickly. When the trap was completed the hunters watched by night for the wild horses to come in to drink. It was always necessary to hide on the side against which the wind blew from the horses. Otherwise their keen noses would soon detect the scent of man. Not always on the first or the second night did the horses enter the trap. But usually their thirst conquered their suspicions. When a number had gone in to drink the hunters rushed out to close the gate.

Chane Weymer’s favorite method, so he told Melberne, was to find a favorable location where wild horses grazed, and one preferably with natural obstructions to flight, such as a wall of rock, or a canyon rim on one side. Then cedar trees were cut and dragged to make a long fence, a wing that stretched as far as needful, perhaps a mile in extreme instances. At the point where this fence joined the wall, or, if there was a canyon rim, at the apex of the triangle, a large corral was built. The wild horses would be chased and driven toward this fence and down into the corral.

“I’ve often tried a method that I got on to by accident,” said Chane as they were riding along. “It takes a mighty fast horse, though. I’m keen now to try it with Brutus. But this particular place wouldn’t suit. The idea is for a rider on the fast horse to get in front of a bunch of wild horses and ride away from them. Other riders must be on both sides and behind the wild horses, driving them. Now the strange fact is this. If the rider in front can keep ahead of the wild horses they will follow him clear to a trap corral. Such drives begin with a small bunch. But as they run along they draw in other wild horses, and at the end of a fifteen-mile drive upward of a hundred and fifty might be in the band.”

“Huh! There’d shore be fun in that,” replied Melberne. “But I reckon none of them stunts would work with your stallion Panquitch.”

“Hardly,” declared Chane, with a short laugh. “If he’s ever caught it’ll be by an accident or trick.”

The riders kept close to the western wall, under cover of the cedars that lined the gentle slope of the wide gray grassy canyon. Thus they avoided frightening the several scattered bands of wild horses that dotted the meadow-like expanse.

To Sue the ride was a continually growing delight. What a perfectly beautiful and amazing place! The deer trotted away into the spruce, scarcely showing fear. Small game was abundant. Birds in flocks fluttered up at the approach of the horses. The high wall was notched like a saw, and each indentation appeared to be a deep fissure, red-walled, thick with green spruce and russet oak and golden cottonwood. Winding gray aisles of sage led back mysteriously; huge blocks of cliff choked some passages; caverns yawned. Along the outside of the main wall the scattered groups of oak, the lines of spruce, the dots of cedar looked as if they had been planted on the gray grassy level to insure effect of stateliness, of park-like beauty. Though it was crisp October weather above, down here the sun shone warm and wild flowers bloomed everywhere, nodding in the soft breeze.

Three or four miles from camp Chane led the riders out into the open, stationing them wide apart across the canyon, for the purpose of keeping the wild horses at that end so Alonzo could have favorable opportunity to chase them.

Sue stayed with her father, who had a central stand. The lithe, sinewy vaquero resembled an Indian jockey. He wore neither coat, hat, nor boots. Sue inquired how could he manage to race without spurs?

“Shore, I’m blessed if I know,” replied her father. “But he shore looks good to me. All muscle. No bones. Reckon he doesn’t weigh more’n a feather.”

Sue thought Alonzo made a picturesque figure as he sat his black racer, scanning the level grassland. His horse was not a beauty, but he had every other qualification of greatness. He was lean, long, slim, powerful of chest, ragged and wiry, with a challenging look. He quivered under the bare heels of the vaquero. Around his middle was belted a broad surcingle. This appeared no less than a band with a ring in the right side, and to this ring was fastened the end of the thin, greasy, snake- like lasso Alonzo carried in loops. Alonzo rode bareback. His horse did not have even a bridle.

“Wal, Sue, I reckon this will be as good as a show,” said Melberne.

Presently Alonzo gave his horse a gentle kick. No spur could have brought better response. The horse sprung from one leap into a long easy lope. How lightly he moved! He did not even raise the dust. And the dark-skinned rider seemed a part of him. Sue had learned that the Mexican vaqueros were the great horsemen of the Southwest, from whom all the cattle-driving and bronco-busting cowboys had learned their trade. It had been a heritage from Texas, and Texas had learned it from Mexico. Sue did not see how it was possible for a rider to sit his horse so perfectly.

Alonzo headed to go round the closest band of wild horses, so to place them between him and the riders on the stands across the canyon. The wild horses saw him, stood erect and motionless, watching for a moment, then began to move restlessly. When he had approached to within a quarter of a mile they broke and ran eastward. Sue uttered a little cry of delight at the beauty and wildness of their appearance and action. The leader, evidently not a stallion, was red in color, and there were whites, blacks, tans, and bays, all actuated as by one instinct. Like the wind they raced, long tails and manes streaming behind them. Then suddenly it appeared that in one bound they had halted and wheeled at once, to gaze back at this lone rider. Presently it developed that the red mustang had espied enemies to the east. Chane and Chess were riding in to turn them back toward Alonzo.

But first the wild horses trotted this way and that, fiery in motion, proud and wild, intolerant of this intrusion upon their lonely precincts. Alonzo kept a little to the north of their position, no doubt fearing a break in that unprotected direction. But manifestly the wild horses knew the unobstructed open distance lay in the opposite direction. Sue espied other bands farther off, gathering together, trotting to and fro, evincing the same curiosity that had at first affected the band upon whom Alonzo had concentrated.

Sue enjoyed this watching experience to the full. The surroundings were such as to exalt her. Calm acceptance of this place of rugged grandeur and isolation was not possible to Sue. The dry sweet air, unbreathed; the blue sky above the great walls; the gray meadow with its waving grass; the borders of green; and then the wild horses and the riders, and the surety that this was to be a clean fine race devoid of deceit or brutality — all this appealed powerfully to Sue, waking again that something which the Utah upland had discovered in her.

The moment came when the vaquero launched his black into the race. Sue, who had seen racehorses leave the post, could not but recognize the superiority of Alonzo’s black. All in a second he seemed wild, too. The band of horses broke and ran, in a way to make their former running seem slow. They stretched out to the east, and the fleetest forged to the front. The red leader had two rivals for supremacy, and these three drew away from the others, though not far.

Alonzo did not appear to gain. He kept to the north of his quarry. His reason for this was obvious. For perhaps half a mile eastward this position was maintained, then shots from Chane’s gun acted like a wall upon the running wild horses. They sheered in abrupt curve toward the open, and were turned by Chess back toward the west. Here the wonderful race began.

The vaquero had now only to head directly toward them to gain the distance that he had been behind. If the fleetness of those wild horses was something thrillingly incredible, that of Alonzo’s black was even more so, because he carried weight. No doubt the vaquero meant this particular race to be short, or perhaps this was his method. At any rate he closed in on the rear of that band, and began to pass mustang after mustang. He wanted to rope one of the best and fleetest.

Wild horses and pursuer were now racing back toward where Sue and her father waited, and the line on which they would pass, if they kept straight, was scarcely two hundred yards.

“Oh, dad, they’ll come close,” cried Sue.

“You bet. Reckon I’ll shoot to scare them if they head closer.... Say, Sue, look at that half-breed ride!”

The stretched-out band did head closer toward Melberne’s stand, and probably would have broken through the line had he not fired his gun. That made the leaders swerve a little north. It also enabled Sue to get a perfect view of the race. The rhythmic thud of flying hoofs thrilled her ears. Thin puffs of dust shot up. The lean, swift wild mustangs rushed on apace. The very action of them suggested wildness, fleetness, untamableness — spirits in harmony with their wonderful flight. But to Sue they did not seem frightened.

As they came on the Mexican gained foot by foot upon the leaders. He could have roped his pick of those behind. But plain it was he wanted one of the three. Sue had only admiration for Alonzo, and something greater for his horse, yet her heart was with the wild mustangs.

“Run! Oh, you beauties, run!” she cried, wildly. “He can’t keep up long.”

“Go it, Alonzo,” roared her father, in stentorian voice. “Ketch me that red mare.”

But Melberne’s ambition was not to be, and Sue’s hopes were only half fulfilled. The black racer was running so terribly that soon he must fall or break his stride. Yet he could only hold the place he had gained. He could not run down the fleet leaders; and as they passed, a wild and beautiful sight to a lover of horses, Sue saw them begin to draw a little away from Alonzo. He saw it, too. The long looped lasso began to swing round his head and he closed in on the horses behind the leaders. Then, at this full speed, he cast the rope. It shone in the sunlight; it streaked out, and fell.

“He’s got one. Whoop!” yelled Melberne.

Sue was not so sure. Presently, however, she saw Alonzo’s horse break his stride, sway and sag, catch himself to go on slower and slower. The band of wild horses swept on and beyond, to disclose one of their number madly plunging and fighting Alonzo’s rope. Then it ran wild, dragging the black. Alonzo appeared to be running with this mustang, yet at the same time holding back. They went a mile or more north, turned to the west, and then faced back again.

Meanwhile Sue and Melberne watched. “Oh, I’m glad, but I’m sorry, too,” said Sue.

“Haw! Haw! You’ll shore make a fine horse-wrangler’s wife.”

“Dad!” expostulated Sue.

“Wal, there’s no cowboy to marry, or school-teacher or preacher out heah,” declared her father. “You shore gotta marry somebody some day.”

The subject did not appeal to Sue and she rode a little way to meet Alonzo, who appeared to have gained some control over the lassoed mustang. She saw the original band of wild horses halt far to the west, and turn about to see if they were still being chased. Chane galloped up to join Melberne, and Chess appeared to be coming.

In a few moments more Sue saw a captured mustang at close quarters, and one that she could gaze at in pleasure, without seeing any evidence of the things that had alienated her.

The mustang was a beautiful animal, a gray-blue in color, with extremely long mane and tail, black as a raven. Alonzo’s rope had gone over its head and one foreleg, so that the noose had come taut around its shoulders and between its forelegs at the breast.

“Wal, he couldn’t have done better with his hands,” declared Melberne. “No chokin’ round the neck, no breakin’ legs.”

“He’s a wonder,” replied Chane. “By golly! I thought once he’d get in reach of the red mare. Say, there’s a horse.”

“What’ll we do now with this heah one?” inquired Melberne.

“We’ll throw him, tie his feet, and let him lay a little while. Alonzo is good for another race on his black. Then I’d like him to ride Brutus. I’ll be darned if I don’t believe he can rope that red mare off Brutus.”

THAT evening at sunset Melberne’s outfit were a happy, merry party. The environment perhaps had something to do with satisfaction, and then the day had been gratifying. Alonzo had roped three wild mustangs, and one of them was the red mare, which had fallen prey to the vaquero’s unerring lasso and to the fleetness of Brutus.

This occasion was the first time Sue had ever seen Chane Weymer happy. He was more of a boy than Chess. The victory of his horse over the wild mustang must have been the very keenest of joys. His dark face, clean-shaven and bronzed, shone in the sunset glow, and his eyes sparkled. He even had a bright look and nod for Sue.

There was one thing forced home to Sue, perhaps, she reflected at the moment when Chane condescended to observe that she was still on the earth. This was, that after the wonderful day, and now facing in mute rapture a sunset of extraordinary glory of gold and rose and purple, seeing for the first time the phenomenon told by Chane about the lilac and lavender haze on Wild Horse Mesa, she could not call herself unhappy.

“Melberne, I reckon I see two of Toddy Nokin’s Piutes riding down the trail,” observed Chane, shading his eyes from the last golden glare of the sun.

“Ahuh! I see them,” replied Melberne. “Ridin’ in for supper, hey?”

Chane looked thoughtful, and, watching the Indians, he shook his head ponderingly, as if he could not just quite understand their coming. Presently two little mustangs, with the wild- appearing riders unmistakably Indian, rode out of the cedars and came across the level in a long swinging lope.

“One of them is Sosie’s brother,” said Chane, peering hard down the bench. “And, by golly! the other one is her husband.”

With that Chane strode down to meet them, and at the foot of the bench he detained them in conversation for some minutes. Presently they dismounted and, slipping the saddles and bridles, they let the mustangs go, and accompanied Chane up to the camp fire.

Sue had seen Sosie’s brother, but not her husband. He was a slender Indian, with lean, dark handsome face and somber eyes. He did not smile or talk, as did his comrade. He carried a shiny carbine which he rested on the instep of his moccasined foot.

“Jake, rustle some grub,” called Chane, and then he turned to Melberne. “Some news, Melberne. Though I’m not surprised. Loughbridge and Manerube, with five men and no women, are camped back on the rim about five miles.”

“Five men now, an’ no womenfolk!” ejaculated Melberne. “Huh! that’s kind of funny. How’d they get rid of Ora and her mother?”

“They’re packing their outfit. They haven’t the wagon you gave Loughbridge. Reckon that’s gone to Wund with the girl and Mrs. Loughbridge.”

“Wal, that’s where Jim Loughbridge ought to be, I’m thinkin’. But shore I’m not carin’ where he is.”

“Would you mind if he packed down here?” inquired Chane.

“Huh! I shore would,” declared the other, bluntly. “I just wouldn’t let him. This is my range.”

Chane threw up his hands as if he had understood before he asked. “That talk is as old as the West, Melberne. You can hold the water rights of Nightwatch Spring. But that’s all.”

“I reckon it’s enough. What’s your idee aboot it?”

“Water is power here. We might be in for trouble if Manerube has control. I’m just wondering if those extra men could be Bud McPherson and his cronies.”

“Wal, I don’t know, that’s shore,” declared Melberne. “But your wonderin’ aboot it makes me think.”

Chane bent lower toward Melberne, so that none but he and Sue who sat with him, could hear.

“It’s got a funny look. Both ways,” whispered Chane. “Especially Sosie’s brother and husband trailing along when I supposed them over the rivers. Do you get my hunch?”

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Melberne, seriously.

CHAPTER XIV

OCTOBER ENDED, BUT Indian summer still lingered down under the zigzag walls of Wild Horse Mesa.

Melberne, along with wild-horse chasing, had thrown up a two- room log cabin of peeled spruce. Utah and Miller had returned with two wagon-loads of supplies, not the least of which was a plough Melberne regarded with the pride of a pioneer. In the spring he meant to drive in cows for domestic use, and cattle to range the grassy reaches.

Loughbridge’s threat that Melberne had not seen the last of their deal was far from being forgotten. Nevertheless, as the days passed without any sign of him or the riders with whom he had chosen to consort, gradually expectation dwindled. Perhaps in the swift rush of the full days, if it had not been for the two Piute Indians riding into camp now and then, without any apparent reason for remaining in the vicinity of Wild Horse Mesa, Melberne and Chane would not have felt any further concern. But the presence of the brother and husband of Sosie Nokin was proof to Chane at least that Manerube still hovered on the trail of the Melberne outfit. Whatever anxiety Chane betrayed, however, appeared to be in the interest of the Indians. Often he was seen in earnest conversation with the Piutes, particularly Sosie’s husband, but he did not divulge what transpired between them.

In the two weeks of their stay there Alonzo had roped close to fifty wild horses, which was about as many as Melberne felt he could handle that fall. The Mexican was now at the harder and longer task of breaking them. Sometimes the Piutes would help him, to Chane’s satisfaction, for they were skilled in that regard. It had been decided a better plan to build a fence of cedar posts and spruce poles all the way across the canyon instead of attempting to drive the wild horses out. More and more horses showed up down in the canyon as the days went by. As yet Chane had not been able to find where they entered. This elongated and walled box was called canyon only for want of a better name. A month of hard riding would be needed to explore the nooks and crannies of the western wall, and thus far Chane had devoted his efforts only to the Wild Horse Mesa side.

He would return at sunset, sometimes on foot, at others riding Brutus, with stories of his vain attempts to find a way up over the wall to the first escarpment of the great mesa.

“I’m sure one of these cracks in the wall can be climbed,” he said. “But I’ve not hit it yet. It’d take days to go up our trail and under the Henry Mountains and round west through the canyons. I want to get up right at this end and save seventy-five miles’ travel.”

“Wal, keep huntin’,” replied Melberne. “I shore want to know all aboot Wild Horse Mesa. Reckon I’ll run cattle up there some day.”

November ushered in days as still and mellow and golden as had been those of October. The only difference Sue could see was a gradual increase in the nipping morning air, a deepening of the autumn purple and gold and red, and an almost imperceptible southward trend of the setting sun.

One afternoon Chane came back to camp ragged and dusty of garb, beaming of face, and bursting with news.

“By golly! I’ve found a way out on top,” he ejaculated, happily. “Funny how easy, after I found it. Took me right under the sharp bluff of the mesa. Grandest view in all the world! Now I can explore the great wall all along this side. And on the other I’ll be right on the bare rock benches that slope down into the canyon country. Fact is I was close to the place where I worked up from the rivers.”

Sue, watching Chane and listening to him, was inclined to believe Chess’s whisper — that Chane had something up his sleeve. “Sue, the son-of-a-gun is on the track of Panquitch,” added Chess, in her ear. Anything concerning Chane had power to interest and excite Sue, and this time she was fascinated. Under his physical weariness and the contrasting enthusiasm of his talk there seemed a deep suppressed emotion. Could Chane care so much about the capture of a wild horse? It was just the intensity of his nature.

“Wal, I’ll tell you what,” interposed Melberne. “I’ll go with you. We’ll take a pack horse an’ explore for a few days.”

Chane did not exhibit his usual happy acceptance of any plan by which he could serve.

“Dad, I want to go and I’m going,” declared Sue, with sudden positiveness.

“You couldn’t keep me from going if you hawg-tied me,” spoke up Chess.

“Say, is this a picnic I’m to be scout for?” queried Chane.

“Shore it’s a picnic,” replied Melberne. “We’ll take the kids, Chane. They can look after themselves. I’ll do the same. That’ll leave you free to carry out your own explorations. But we’ll have a camp we’ll all come back to.”

Sue suddenly realized that she was staring at Chane, caught off her guard. The guilty blood warmed her cheek. What did he mean by his penetrating, almost stern gaze? The days had passed by until the Stark Valley episode seemed dim and far away, yet Chane had not changed. She was nothing to him.

“All — right,” drawled Chane, with returning good nature, “if you can keep up with me.”

“Huh! Thought you said it was an easy climb,” retorted Melberne.

“Boss, the talk of this brother of mine is a delusion and a snare,” averred Chess. “But we don’t care what his easy means. Hey, Sue?”

“We don’t care in the least what Chane — thinks,” rejoined Sue, demurely, with eyes cast down.

Chess let out a merry peal of laughter, Melberne looked wise, and Chane retreated within himself.

NEXT morning in the cold dark clearness of dawn Sue rode out of camp with Chess, following her father and Chane, who were driving two pack horses. The adventure to Sue had an alluringly bright face.

“Well, sister dear,” began Chess, “this little trip will be Chane’s finish. The big stiff of an iceberg!”

“Chess, I declare, if you begin to tease me about — about him — I — I’ll not go,” replied Sue.

“Not go? You’re crazy. This’ll be the chance we want. But I know you’re bluffing. You just couldn’t keep from going.”

How well he knew her! Indeed, Sue could not have imagined on the moment anything that could have kept her back. Chess seemed unusually happy, brotherly, protective, and yet more devilish than ever. He absolutely could not be trusted, so far as his verbosity to her was concerned. Sue no longer had control over Chess. Since that moment of anguish when she had confessed her love for Chane — that it was killing her — Chess had made her completely his own, in a boyish, masterly, brotherly way. She could do nothing with him. He had closed her protesting lips with a kiss. When she slapped him, with no slight hand, he had offered the other cheek. She was afraid to be alone with him, because of this propensity to torture her; yet, strange paradox, his presence, his laughing eyes, his never-ending habit of yoking her name with Chane’s, her future with Chane’s, caused her as much ecstasy as torment.

Sue followed Chess into one of the many mouths of the cracked wall, finding it identical with others she had visited. Presently they passed the zone of fertility, to go into a narrowing gulch where riding soon became impossible. Climbing on foot, however, had one relieving virtue — Chess had to save his breath and so could not tantalize her.

The fissure in the wall narrowed, zigzagged, grew steeper and more choked with rock and shale, until Sue gladly welcomed those intervals when Chane and her father worked to make a trail, cracking with sledge hammer, heaving the stones. There were places where the pack horses had to squeeze through. It was slow, hot, laborsome work, and Sue felt so confined and restricted by the winding upward passage that she had no pleasure in this part of the day’s adventure.

An hour was consumed on the last devious steep ascent of the split in the wall.

“Ea — sy! That — son-of-a-gun said — easy,” panted Chess, as he surmounted the rim. “Come on — Sue.”

Sue’s leaden boots could barely be lifted; they seemed riveted to the trail. At length she made it, and raising her eyes was almost staggered by a colossal red corner of wall, cracked, seamed, stained, sheering up so high that she had almost to unjoint her neck to bend back her head to see the top.

“What’s — that?” she asked, huskily.

“Reckon it’s Wild Horse Mesa. Isn’t Chane an awful liar? Easy to get on top, he said. Why, we’ve only climbed one step of a stairway to the sky.”

The bulging red corner hid whatever lay to east and south. In the other direction the view showed the country back upon which Sue had so often gazed — desert upland, sweeping away, grass and ridge and range, to the distant black mountains. Suddenly she gazed down. The gray canyon yawned at her feet, not unlike when she had first seen it from the other rim. Her father’s labors seemed lost in the vastness of gray and green. Only the column of blue smoke proved that the homestead was a reality.

“Get on and ride,” called Chane.

The bare red rock sloped up gently in the direction Chane and her father were leading. Sue trotted her horse to catch up with them. To her left the stone slanted gradually, growing broken, and at length merged in the deceiving irregularity of the desert. She felt a mounting curiosity to see what lay beyond the close horizon. As for the wall of the mesa to her right, that somehow staggered her.

Chane and her father halted with the pack horses just as Sue reached them. Then for Sue the very world of stone upon which she stood seemed to have dropped away before her transfixed gaze.

The southwest country, the canyon country, lay beneath her, as if by some incredible magic, within the grasp of her vision. Waving gently, bare and red, the rock beneath her sloped down and down, until it seemed to be lost in the gleaming abyss.

Sue did not need to be told that the first terrible gap in the terraced stone was the Grand Canyon. She saw the granite walls, almost black, and under them the swirling red river. Dark and menacing, this canyon wound in rugged sweeps through the leagues of bare stone, meeting lines of cleavage that were other canyons, emptying into it. Between and beyond rolled the endless waves, knolls, ridges, domes of red and yellow rock; and dark clefts, thin, wandering, showed deep in every rounded surface. It was a grand and stunning spectacle. Dimly across this waste of canyon- cut stone rose a flat land, purple in color, overtopped by a round black mountain. The west seemed all closed by the bulk of Wild Horse Mesa. It ranged away, an unscalable wall, for many miles, regular and clear-cut at single glance, but discovering to long study a mountain of seamed and creviced stone, with millions of irregularities, sheering down to the base of bare stone that appeared to be its foundation. This mesa rose from a tableland that in itself towered above the canyon country. The far end of Wild Horse Mesa stood up in supreme isolation and grandeur, bright-walled in the morning sun.

If Chane expected those whom he had brought here to exclaim with rapture their impressions of this spectacle, he had reckoned falsely. Chess was the only one to speak, and his exclamations proved the natural tendency of some persons to be funny when they mean to be impressive. Sue wanted intensely to get off by herself; she gazed no more because her faculties seemed to have become dwarfed.

Chane rode down over the waving stone, to enter a curving- walled break, that soon became a canyon in itself and swallowed them up. It opened at length into a loftier walled canyon, where clear water ran, and the richest of green grass and most exquisite of flowers, white, yellow, lavender, made verdure on the narrow benches. Cottonwood trees showed foliage just beginning to turn gold.

“Here’s a good place to camp,” said Chane. “Grass, water, and wood. And we can explore in four directions.”

“Wal, I reckon we’d better hang up right heah,” declared Melberne. “Because, I’ll be darned, if you show me any more pretty places I’ll get discontented with my homestead.”

“Melberne, did you see any tracks on the way across the bench above?” asked Chane as he swung out of his saddle.

“Tracks! On that bare rock? I shore didn’t,” replied Melberne.

“Well, I did, and some of them were fresh, made by shod horses. They were headed west along the bench. The Piute boys rode up this way yesterday, but their ponies were not shod. I’m inclined to believe Manerube and his outfit made those tracks.”

“Ahuh! Wal, what if they did?” demanded the other.

“No matter, I reckon. They’re leaving us alone,” rejoined Chane, thoughtfully. “But it bothers me — the idea they may be trying to climb Wild Horse Mesa. They’re on the wrong track down that bench, for about ten or twelve miles down there’s an impassable break which runs square up to the wall. That’ll turn them back.”

“How far have we come down heah?”

“Two or three miles, I should say.”

“Wal, I’ll take it afoot an’ go back, keepin’ an eye peeled for them. Shore I’d just as lief do that as go further into these canyons. I want to climb where I can see. What’ll you do?”

“Melberne, I don’t mind telling you I think I can get on top of the mesa.”

“Good! You make shore,” he replied, with satisfaction. “An’, Chess, you an’ Sue prowl around to please yourselves, only don’t work back up the way we come. Now let’s make camp quick, have a bite to eat, an’ then be free till dark.”

Sue and Chess, more in spirit of fun than for any other reason, had trailed Chane down the canyon until they lost his tracks.

“Dog-gone him! Has he turned into a bird?” complained Chess.

“He’s an angel,” said Sue, who had responded strangely to this growing adventure.

The canyon had grown to be a remarkable one, narrow, lofty- walled, full of golden gleams and hollow echoes. It drew Sue on and on. Chess gathered flowers, caught frogs and butterflies for her, helped her over the boulders.

“Do you suppose he climbed out?” inquired Sue.

“Who?”

“Chane, of course, silly.”

“So-ho! You’re just toddling along with me because of him. Sue Melberne, I’d be ashamed.”

“I am,” confessed Sue, boldly. “But then you’re nice at times. And when you are I like to be with you.”

“I don’t see how we could have missed any place where Chane could have gone up with Brutus. It sure is queer. But, Sue, we’ve come mostly over bare wet rock and granite boulders. I’m not so bad following tracks. Still, with a distractingly sweet girl like you, I couldn’t track an elephant in the mud.”

“Chess, you can shore spout,” replied Sue, merrily.

Presently the canyon narrowed until all the space was covered with water. It ran swift in places, and appeared shallow.

“Looks like we’re stumped,” observed Sue, ruefully.

“Us stumped? Never. I’ll carry you,” said Chess, gayly, and without more ado he gathered her up, as easily as Chane had once, and splashed into the stream. The water began to rise above his knees. Chess slipped, then caught his balance. Sue cried out:

“Don’t you dare fall with me, Chess Weymer.”

Suddenly he halted in the middle of the canyon, with roguish eyes on hers. Sue recognized the gleam of deviltry.

“That gives me a wonderful idea,” he said.

“Does it? All right. But hurry and get me out of this.”

“Not at all. That isn’t the idea. I suddenly thought just how much love Chane and I have wasted on you.”

“Oh! Have you? Well, you needn’t waste any more. Hurry, I tell you.”

Chess hugged her a little and laughed down at her.

“Sue, you kiss me or I’ll be sure to slip and fall.”

“I will not. Chess, this isn’t fun,” she said, hurriedly.

“It’s great. I never had such a chance. I’m sure Chane won’t miss one little kiss. Come—”

“Shut up!” interrupted Sue. “I declare you are no — no gentleman.”

“You don’t appreciate me. I’m fighting you for your happiness and for Chane’s. You love each other and you’re a couple of fools.”

“I am, yes. But not he.... Chess, don’t hold me here — jibbering that way — like an idiot.”

“Kiss me, then, and call me brother,” he went on, shaking her gently.

“You — you—” began Sue, and ended abruptly. There did not appear to be any other way out of the dilemma. Chess seemed just a little different today. Yet the look of him was the same as always when he teased her, only now it held something sweet, possessive. “Very well, Little Boy Blue,” she went on, and raised her face to his, to kiss his cheek. “Brother!”

Not the kiss, which she really meant, but the word, which she felt was untrue, sent the blood surging to her temples. Chess gave her a radiant smile, and ploughing through the water, soon reached the dry rocks, where he set her upon her feet. She had meant to upbraid him severely, once she was safe on terra firma, but his happiness disarmed her.

“If Chane only knew! Wouldn’t he just die?... Come, sis, we’re having a jolly adventure,” he babbled, and taking her hand he led her on down the canyon.

“Chess, it’s getting fearful,” murmured Sue, gazing up the dark, almost perpendicular walls to the narrow flowing stream of blue sky overhead.

“What? Roaming round with me this way?”

“No. I mean the canyon. Isn’t it just wonderful? Look! I see golden sunlight far ahead.”

“Sure is a place for sweethearts,” replied Chess, knowingly.

“Chess, you’ve got girls and sweethearts and — love on the brain.”

“Sure have. But it’s stopped my drinking and fighting.”

He could always turn her flippancy into thoughtful silence. She thought she would try not answering him at all. So they walked and waded on down the canyon, inspired now by its alluring mystery and beauty. Presently they entered an enlargement of the canyon, so remarkably and abruptly a contrast that they halted in their tracks, hands locked and eyes roving everywhere. It was a great red-wall oval, open on the right, with a most stupendous waving slope that apparently lifted to the clouds. One side of the huge oval was bathed in golden sunlight and the other was deep shadowed in shade. Sand bars gleamed in the sun like gold. Gravelly beds shone white. Here the stream had disappeared underground. Grassy benches were colorful flower gardens. Cottonwood trees straggled along, growing more numerous, until they bunched in a beautiful grove, with fluttering leaves half yellow and half green. The hollow murmur of swift water down the canyon made dreamy music. Canyon swifts glinted gold in the sun, blue in the shade, and their wild twitterings were in harmony with the place. Yet silence brooded there, and the strange fragrance of deep canyons permeated the air.

Like two children Sue and Chess explored the benches, the grove, and the caverns under the wall. Then, upon going across toward the waved slope Chess discovered horse tracks in the sand.

“I’m a son-of-a-gun! Wild-horse tracks!” he exclaimed, in amaze. “Sue, can you beat that? Here, way down in this canyon!... Look at that slope. Wild horses could climb it.... Oh, Sue, I believe Chane knew there were wild horses down in here. He wasn’t like himself. But I haven’t seen any sign of Brutus’s tracks. I’ll look.”

He went all over the sand and gravel bars, to return to Sue with a puzzled shake of his head.

“Got me buffaloed,” he said. “We trailed Chane so far down this very canyon. Then we lost his tracks. We must have missed some place he went up. But I’ll gamble on one thing sure. He’s got some big idea.”

“Panquitch!” cried Sue, thrillingly.

Chess cracked his fist in his palm.

“It might be. He raved about this side of Wild Horse Mesa. Then, when we wanted to come, all of a sudden he was mum.... Sue, it’s early yet. Let’s climb up this slope. We can’t get lost. All we’ve got to be careful about is to get down and past that deep water before dark.”

“Come on, brother,” cried Sue, carried away by the thrill of his words.

“You mean that, don’t you?”

“Now, Chess, the moment I — I try to be nice you spoil everything.”

He took her hand again and led her toward where the yellow sand met the red slant of the rock.

“Be honest, Sue dear,” he went on, suddenly tender and deep- voiced, in an earnestness that drew Sue against her will. “I mean — you do love Chane? You haven’t gone back on him? Tell me.”

They reached the slope and began to climb, Sue hanging her head, and Chess leaning to see her face.

“You’ve kept my secret?” she asked.

“I cross my heart, yes. And it’s been hard,” he replied.

“You’ll still keep it? Remember, Chess, if you betray me I’ll hate you forever.”

“I’ll never tell what you say to me,” he answered. “But don’t think I’ll not move heaven and earth to fetch you two to your senses.”

“Then — once more — the last time — I’ll tell you,” she said, very low and solemnly, and she looked up at him. “I love your brother with my whole heart and soul.”

Chess took her avowal differently from the way she expected. Instead of breaking out into robust gladness he took it in poignant silence; his face worked, his eyes filled, and he squeezed her hand so hard it hurt her. Then he drew her on up the slope.

The rock was soft brown sandstone which crumbled under the nails of Chess’s boots. The tracks of wild horses could be followed by slow and careful scrutiny. Climbing was easy, compared with the steep trail Sue had essayed that early morning. Moreover, it was exhilarating. Sue and Chess played a game of picking out direction, safe ascents, easy inclines, détours, not yet paying any particular attention to the lofty summit above.

As they ascended, however, they found that difficulties began to face them, and to increase. It grew to be perilous and strenuous work, and therefore the more thrilling. Something drew them onward and upward. They climbed to and fro much farther than straight up. The red stone gave place to a zone of yellow, and then to light green, almost as soft as chalk. At their backs the wall appeared higher than the one they were ascending, and it obstructed their view in that quarter. In other directions knobs and domes of bare stone loomed up, growing larger as Sue and Chess climbed higher.

There came a time when Sue could look round over a remarkably large area of slopes, mounds, pits, bowls, slants, and curves, as naked and bare as tombstones. Gradually they worked to the base of lofty lemon-colored crags, and to the right of them, keeping always to the easiest travel. This sometimes drew them off a straight course to the height they could see, and were surely attaining.

What little talk Sue and Chess indulged in was devoted to the exigencies of their task. Sue’s emotion grew to be an exultation. This climb was strange. Not only physical! Not only was it an adventure of sport and achievement. A voice seemed to call from the heights.

Blue sky only showed above the wavy horizon line so long unattainable. But as they had almost reached it suddenly the grand black-fringed gold-walled level of Wild Horse Mesa rose above the horizon into the blue. It seemed so close as to be overpowering. Then the last few rods of that climb turned the backs of Sue and Chess to the mesa, so when they finally gained their objective point, and stood on the height of the slope, they found themselves gazing down into a tremendous enlargement of the canyon, a valley of marvelous shapes and hues, clear and open in the sunlight, seemingly close, yet far below. Like that of a colossal octopus the dark green body and arms seemed to float on a sea of opal. There were no clouds or sunset to confuse the eye. Nevertheless, there was an impression of many colors, all pale, imperceptibly shading into one another.

Beautiful as Sue found that valley, the instant she turned she forgot it. Awe possessed her. Chess drew a deep hard breath. Wild Horse Mesa loomed before and above them, its great western cape a magnificent promontory, running toward the westering sun. Its inaccessibility seemed more paramount than ever, yet from this height Sue conceived a haunting sense that it was indeed the abode of wild horses.

“Sue, sit down and rest,” said Chess. “I’ve got something to tell you — soon as I can breathe — and talk. This is the place.”

Absorbed in her own feelings, Sue did not want particularly to hear Chess, but gazed and watched and felt with an intense delight. Presently Chess gripped her hand.

“Sue — my brother loves you,” he said.

The absence of his old teasing tone or any semblance of fun, the direct simplicity of his assertion, robbed Sue of power to ridicule, or retreat in anger. She could only look at Chess.

“He loves you terribly,” went on Chess, with swift eloquence. “He dreams of you. He talks of you in his sleep. He keeps me awake.”

Sue covered her burning face with her hands, and bent over, shot through and through with a tumultuous bliss that all her morbid and hateful doubts could not quell. There was truth in Chess’s voice. It had lain at the root of all his teasing.

“But you’ve got to do some big thing to square yourself for believing Manerube’s lies,” went on Chess. “That hurt Chane. He’s never been the same, not even to me. But I’ve watched him close. I know he worships you. But he’ll never tell you unless you break him down. He’ll never forgive you unless you make him.”

“Chess, if you force me to believe he — he loves me — when he doesn’t — I could never stand it,” she whispered.

“No fear. I know.”

“Then what on earth can I do?”

“I’ve no idea, unless you’ve the nerve to do something desperate. Telling him wouldn’t be enough. You’ve got to do something. And, Sue, you must do it quick. Only last night he told me he reckoned he’d be on the go soon.”

“Oh — he means to leave us?”

“Sure he does. I’m afraid he can’t stand it longer. But you mustn’t let him go. His happiness, yours, and mine, too, all depend on you, little girl.”

“Oh — what — what—” choked Sue, overcome by the sudden onslaught of amaze, joy, love, and fear, all in rapid succession.

“Find him alone,” whispered Chess, tensely. “On this trip, before we get back. Throw your arms round his neck!”

“I — I could not,” cried Sue, starting up wildly. “Are you mad, Chess? Have you no — no—”

“It’s a desperate case, Sue,” he interrupted, hurriedly, in the persuasive tones of the tempter. “He adores you. If you can only make him see you love him — quick — throw him off his balance! Chane’s the proudest of all the Weymers I ever knew. He’d freeze you to death if you tried any ordinary way to make up with him. Storm him, Sue, storm him!”

Suddenly, before Sue’s whirling mind could meet that last insidious speech, Chess grasped her arm so violently as to jerk her upright.

“Look! Look!” he shouted, in a frenzy of excitement, pointing down and across the waving hollow bowl. “Wild horses! A whole string of them!”

Sue leaped erect with excitement thrilling out her agitation. Wildly she gazed down, trying to follow where Chess pointed.

“Oh, I can’t see them. Where?”

“Far across and down,” he replied, swiftly. “On the other side of this ridge. Not the slope we climbed. Over the yellow, down on the red, among the cedars.... Sue, sure as we’re alive they’ve come down from Wild Horse Mesa and are working round to go down into the canyon we came up. Maybe for water.”

At last Sue espied them, a file of horses, long-maned and long-tailed, unmistakably wild, passing through some dwarf scattered cedars. Looking toward the head of that file Sue saw a horse the sight of which made her start. Even at that distance he seemed to embody extraordinary beauty and wildness. He was tawny in color, with mane like a black flame, and tail as black that swept the stones. How proudly he stepped! How he moved his wild head to right and left!

“Chess. Look at the leader,” called Sue, in delight.

Then Chess burst out, “PANQUITCH!... Sue, we’re looking at the greatest wild stallion Utah and Nevada ever knew. Oh, the color of him! Look at that mane!... I told you Chane had something up his sleeve. Sue, he’s after Panquitch. But, oh, where is he now?”

CHAPTER XV

CHANE RODE BRUTUS down the dark-walled portal into the rocky maze of the canyon country.

This he meant to be the first of an exhaustive exploration of every possible place that could be an exit or egress of the wild horses to and from Wild Horse Mesa; yet, as it was by no means uncertain that he might not meet Panquitch at any time, he was prepared for such momentous event. He carried two lassoes on his saddle. Presently he dismounted, and taking several burlap sacks he had brought with him, he cut them up, and folded them thick, and tied them securely round the big hoofs of Brutus. Chane did not want to make noise going down the canyon, or leave any tracks. Brutus looked on rather impatiently while this was being done, as if he would like to know what was wrong with his hoofs. Then Chane mounted again and rode on.

It was still early in the day, for now and then the white sun shone above in the narrow gap between the lofty rims. Chane felt that he would have leisure today and the following days to explore every nook and cranny under the mysterious wall of the great mesa. Brutus walked noiselessly over the rocks and left no trace. Chane avoided the sand bars. If the wild horses were out on top and should come down to see horse tracks in the sand of their secret passageway to and from the mesa, they might, under the leadership of Panquitch, at once turn back. Chane remembered wonderful instances of the intelligence, almost reasoning power, of wild stallions. The longer a stallion was hunted the keener and wilder he became. Panquitch had outwitted a hundred wild- horse wranglers. But that had been in open country. Here, deep in these narrow canyons, with their abrupt turns and deep waterways, he would be decidedly at a disadvantage. Chane had not in the least been tempted to bring Alonzo to help him, though he acknowledged the superiority of the vaquero. Chane had the wild-horse hunter’s strange ambition, so far as a great stallion was concerned: he would corner and rope Panquitch unaided.

As Chane progressed down the canyon he paid strict attention to only those places where a crack in the wall, a branch canyon, or a wide enlargement might hide a possible means of exit to the rim above. It was astonishing what careful investigation brought to light. Chane found places where he might have climbed out on foot, but where Brutus, agile as he was, could not follow.

At length he reached the big park-like oval, the expansion of the canyon, where in his memorable flight across the rivers and out of this labyrinth he had encountered Panquitch with his band. Near the upper end of this huge oval Chane dismounted to walk along the stones at the edge of the sandy bars, and worked back to where the water disappeared. He found horse tracks, made, he was sure, the day before. They came to the water and went back toward the low rise of red slope. This point was not where he had encountered Panquitch. That, Chane remembered, was a beautiful constriction of this enlargement of the canyon, a bowl-like place, full of cottonwoods and willows, and characterized by a more wonderful slope than this one.

Chane studied the whole opposite wall, as far as he could see. He could see perhaps a mile of this oval. Just opposite where he stood a wide break in the wall came down to the sand. It was smooth and worn rock, widening like a fan toward the wavy summit of yellow ridges. These he knew were the round knolls so marked when one gazed down upon the canyon country from the rims. Beyond and above, of course, rose Wild Horse Mesa, but Chane could not get a glimpse of it. He noted how the wavy red rock spread beyond and behind bulges of the wall, that to the left and right of him sheered down perpendicularly to his level.

That one to the right of him held his studious attention because he believed it hid much from his gaze. This huge frowning section of canyon wall lay between the slope opposite him and the one below where he had watched Panquitch climb. It looked to Chane as if the wild horses could come down one slope and go up the other. Then he remembered the narrow gleaming walls and the long deep pools of water. Surely the wild horses could not swim these except when on the way out to the upland country above, or when they were returning to their mysterious abode. Chane decided that it would take days to get a clear map in his mind of this maze.

Returning to Brutus, he rode on down the oval, keeping to the curve of wall, far from the center. As he rode he got higher, and farther back, so that his view of the slope opposite was better. Soon, however, the bulge of intervening wall shut out his view entirely of that slope. Then he attended more keenly to what lay ahead.

The oval park ended in a constriction like the neck of a bottle. The sunlight came down from a marvelous slope of red rock, waved and billowed, resembling a sea on end. This slope he recalled so well that he felt a thrill. Here was where he had watched Panquitch climb out. A dark cleft, V-shaped, split the ponderous bulk of the cliff at the end of the oval. It was still far off, but Chane recognized it. Down in there was where he hoped some day to meet Panquitch. His hope was merely a dream, he knew, for the chances were a thousand to one that he never would have such luck.

“Reckon I’ll leave Brutus and climb that slope,” soliloquized Chane.

Whereupon he rode on down past the break in the wall toward the grove of cottonwoods. Here there was shade and patches of green grass. As Chane dismounted Brutus lifted his head and shot up his ears, in the action that was characteristic of him when he heard something unusual.

“Hey! what’d you hear, old boy?” queried Chane, suddenly tense.

A distant hollow sound seemed to be filling Chane’s ears. But it might have been just the strangeness of the canyon wind, like the roar of the sea in a cave. Chane waited, slowly losing his tensity. But he observed that Brutus lost nothing of attentiveness. Chane trusted the horse, and desiring to get under cover he drew Brutus in among the cottonwoods, and selected a place where he could see in all directions without being seen, and have at least one hidden exit, that down into the V-shaped cleft. Chane remembered Manerube and Bud McPherson.

Brutus turned so that he could head up the canyon, and only Chane’s hand and low voice kept him still. The keener ears or nose of the horse had reacted to something Chane could not yet detect.

All at once a weird, horrid blast pealed out, not far from Chane, and higher than where he stood. The echoes bellowed from wall to wall. Chane, seeing that Brutus was about to neigh, clasped his muzzle with strong pressure.

“Keep still,” whispered Chane, fiercely.

He had never heard a sound so uncanny and fearful. It made his blood creep, and for a second he sustained a shock. Then his quick mind solved the realization that in this country nothing but a horse could peal out such a cry. Therefore, when it was followed by light quick clatter of hoofs, Chane was not at all surprised.

“Brutus, we’ve heard that before,” he whispered, patting the horse.

Chane was several hundred yards from where the slope merged into the level canyon floor, and the lower part of it, owing to the cottonwoods, was hidden from his sight. But wild horses were surely coming down, and they might turn to enter the V-shaped cleft instead of up the canyon. Something had frightened them.

“By golly!” he muttered. “This’s a queer deal.” He wanted much to linger there and see the wild horses, but instead of staying he leaped on Brutus and, riding close to the wall, under protection of the cottonwoods, he made quick time to the end of the grove. Here lay sections of wall that had broken from above. At the mouth of the cleft Chane rode Brutus behind a huge boulder, and dismounting there, he peeped out.

This point of vantage, owing to the curve of the wall taking him out and away from the restricted view in the cottonwoods, gave him command of the canyon.

He was just in time to get a glimpse of red and black and bay mustangs entering the cottonwoods from the slope.

Far up that wavy incline he espied a slight figure, moving down. He could scarcely credit his eyes. Did it belong to an Indian? Yet the quick lithe step stirred his pulse! He had seen it before, somewhere. Dark hair streamed in the breeze.

“Sue!” whispered Chane, in utter astonishment. “Well, I’ll be — She and Chess have wandered up there. They’re having fun chasing wild horses. But where’s he?”

Chane could not see that part of the slope to his right, for a projection of overhanging wall hid it from sight.

Then a band of wild horses burst from the cottonwoods, out into the open sandy space of several acres. They were trotting, bunched close, frightened but not yet in panic. Presently, far out on the sand bar they halted, heads up, uncertain which way to go.

From the far side of them Panquitch appeared, trotting with long strides, something in his leonine beauty and wildness, his tawny black-maned beauty, striking Chane as half horse and half lion.

Certain it was that sight of him sent a gush of hot blood racing over Chane. His mind seemed to be trying to overcome mere tense and vibrating sensation, to grasp at some strange fatality in the moment. Here he hid. Panquitch was there, not a quarter of a mile away. If Chess should happen to be on the other side of that band of wild horses they would run pell-mell down toward the V-shaped cleft. Chane’s hand shook as he pressed it close on the nose of the quivering Brutus.

Panquitch trotted in front of his band, to one side and then the other, looking in every direction. He did not whistle. To Chane he had the appearance of a stallion uncertain of his ground. He looked up the slope, at the girl coming down, choosing the easiest travel from her position, now walking, now running, and working toward a bulge of cliff. Then Panquitch gave no further heed to Sue. He was sure of danger in that direction. He trotted out to the edge of the sand bar and faced down, his head high, eager, strained, wild.

“By golly! I’m afraid he’s got a whiff of me and Brutus!” whispered Chane. “What a nose he has! The wind favors us. Now, I want to know why he doesn’t make a break up the canyon.”

Panquitch wheeled from his survey down the canyon to one in the opposite direction. His action now showed that his suspicions were strong in this quarter. His great strides, his nervous halting, his erect tail and mane, his bobbing head, proved to Chane that he wanted to lead his band up the canyon, but feared something yet unseen.

A sweet wild gay cry pealed down from the slope.

Chane espied Sue standing on the bulging cliff, high above the canyon floor, and she was flinging her arms and crying out in the exultance of the moment. Chane saw the sunlight on her face. He strained his ears to distinguish what she was voicing to the wildness of the place and the beautiful horses that called it home.

“Fly! Oh, Panquitch fly!” she was singing to the wind, in the joy of her adventure, in the love of freedom she shared with Panquitch.

Chane understood her. This was girlish fun she was having, yet her sweet wild cry held the dominant note of her deeper meaning. She loved Panquitch, and all wild horses, and yearned for them to be free.

“Girl, little do you dream you may drive Panquitch straight into my rope,” muttered Chane, grimly.

The stallion suddenly froze in his tracks, making a magnificent statue typifying fear. A whistling blast escaped him. The nature of the hollow walls must have given it tremendous volume. It pealed from cliff to cliff, and then, augmented by united whistles from the other horses, it swelled into a deafening concatenation.

Chane’s keen eye detected Chess up the canyon, bounding into view. At the same instant Panquitch wheeled as if on a pivot and leaped into headlong stride down the canyon, with his band falling in behind him.

Like a flash Chane vaulted into the saddle. He sent Brutus flying over stones and through water into the cool shadow of the cleft. Any narrow place to hide, from behind which he could rope the stallion! All Chane’s force went into the idea. A jutting corner tempted him, as did another huge rock, but the gleam of water drew him on. One of the deep long pools lay just ahead. Brutus padded on at tremendous gait. The canyon narrowed, darkened, and more than once Chane’s stirrup rasped on the wall.

Full speed Brutus charged into the pool, and plunged through shallow water. To his knees, to his flanks he floundered on — then souse, he went into deep water, going under all but his head. How icy the water to Chane’s heated blood! He gazed back. Not yet could he see any movement of wild horses.

Fifty yards ahead the straight wall heaved into a corner, round which the stream turned in a curve. If Chane could find footing for Brutus behind that corner, Panquitch would have no chance. What a trap! Chane reveled in the moment. The wildest dream of his boyhood was being enacted.

He did not spare Brutus, but urged him, spurred him, beat him into tremendous action. The swelling wave made by the horse splashed on the walls. Brutus reached the corner — turned it. Chane reined him into the wall. There was a narrow bench, just level with the water. But that would be of no help unless Brutus could touch bottom. He did. Chane stifled a yell of exultation. Fate was indeed against Panquitch. Brutus waded his full length before he reached the ledge. He was still in five feet of water, and on slippery rocks. Chane had no time to waste. The cracking of hoofs up the canyon rang like shots in his ears. Panquitch and his band were coming. Chane needed room to swing his lasso. Should he get out on the ledge or stay astride Brutus? Both plans had features to recommend them. But it would be best to stay on Brutus.

Chane turned the horse round. Brutus accomplished this without slipping off the rocks into deep water.

“Brutus, what do I want with Panquitch when I have you?” Chane heard himself whisper. He did not need Panquitch. It was his hunting instinct and long habit.

Then Chane had burst upon him the last singular fact in the string of fatalities which now bade fair to doom Panquitch. The important thing at the climax here was to have room to cast the lasso. Chane had felt the nearness of the corner of wall. He had planned to urge Brutus into the water the instant Panquitch appeared. But this need not be risked. There was no necessity to get beyond the corner of wall.

Chane was left-handed. He threw a noose with his left hand, and in the position now assumed he was as free to swing his rope as if he had been out in the open.

The trap and the trick were ready. Chane’s agitation settled to a keen, tight, grim exultation. Nothing could save Panquitch if he ever entered that deep pool. Chane listened so intensely he heard his heartbeats. Yes! He heard them coming. Their hard hoofs rang with bell-like clearness upon the boulders. Then the hollow muffled sound of hoofs on rock under the water — then the splashing swish!

Soon the narrow canyon resounded to a melodious din. Suddenly it ceased. Chane realized the wild horses had reached the pool. His heart ceased to beat. Would the keen Panquitch, victor over a hundred clever tricks to capture him, shy at this treacherous pool? — Clip — clop! He had stepped out into the water. Chane heard his wild snort. He feared something, but was not certain. The enemies behind were realities. Clip — clop! He stepped again. Clip — clop! Into deeper water he had ventured. Then a crashing plunge!

It was followed by a renewed din of pounding hollow hoof- cracks, snorts, and splashes. They were all taking to the pool.

Chane swung the noose of his lasso round his head, tilting it to evade the corner of wall. It began to whiz. His eyes were riveted piercingly upon the water where it swirled gently in sight from behind the gray stone. Brutus was quivering under him. The plunging crashes ceased. All the wild horses were swimming. The din fell to sharp snuffing breaths and gentle swash of water. A wave preceded the swimming band.

A lean beautiful head slid from behind the wall, with long black mane floating from it. Panquitch held his head high.

At that short distance Chane could have roped one of his ears. Even in the tremendous strain Chane could wait a second longer. Panquitch was his.

The stallion saw Brutus and his rider — the swinging rope. Into the dark wild eyes came a terror that distended them. A sound like a horrid scream escaped him. He plunged to turn. His head came out.

Then Chane cast the lasso. It hissed and spread, and the loop, like a snake, cracked over Panquitch, under his chin and behind his ears. One powerful sweep of Chane’s arm tightened that noose.

“Whoopee!” yelled Chane, with all the power of his lungs. “He’s roped! He’s roped! Panquitch! — Oh — ho! ho! He’s ours, Brutus, old boy. After him, old boy!”

Panquitch plunged back, pounding the water, and as Chane held hard on the lasso the stallion went under. Chane clacked the rope, and urged Brutus off the rocks. Pandemonium had begun round that corner of wall. As Brutus soused in, and lunged to the middle of the stream, Chane saw a sight he could never forget.

Upwards of a score of wild horses were frantically beating and crashing the water to escape back in the direction they had come. Some were trying to climb the shelving wall, only to slip, and souse under. They bobbed up more frantic than before, screaming their terror. Some were trying to climb over the backs of those to the fore. All were in violent commotion, and uttering some variation of horse sounds.

Panquitch, hampered by the lasso, was falling behind. Chane pulled him under water, then let him come up. Brutus had to be guided, for he tried to swim straight to the stallion. Chane did not want that kind of a fight. It was his purpose to hold Panquitch in the pool until he was exhausted. With that noose round his neck he must tire sooner than Brutus. This unequal struggle could not last long. Chane had no power to contain his madness of delight, the emotion roused by the feel of Panquitch on the other end of his lasso. Panquitch, the despair of Nevada wranglers long before he had shown his clear heels to those of Utah! Panquitch roped! It was incredible good fortune. It was the great moment of Chane’s wild life.

“Aha there, old lion-mane,” he called, true even in that moment to his old habit of talking to horses. “You made one run too many! You run into a rope! Swim now! Heave hard! Dive, you rascal! You’re a fish. Ho! Ho! Ho!”

But when Panquitch plunged round to make for his adversaries the tables were turned. Chane’s yell of exultation changed to one of alarm, both to frighten Panquitch, if possible, and to hold Brutus back. Both, however, seemed impossible. Brutus would not turn his back to that stallion. His battle cry pealed out. Chane hauled on the lasso, but he could not again pull Panquitch under.

Despite all Chane could do, the stallion and Brutus met in head-on collision. A terrific mêlée ensued. Chane was thrown off Brutus as from a catapult. But he was swift to take advantage of this accident. A few powerful strokes brought him round to Panquitch, and by dint of supreme effort astride the back of the wild stallion.

Chane fastened his grip on the ears of the stallion, to lurch forward with all his weight and strength. He got the head of Panquitch under the water.

“BACK! BACK!” yelled Chane to Brutus.

It was a terrible moment. Chane preferred to let Panquitch free rather than drown him. But if Brutus kept fighting on, crowding the stallion, Chane saw no other issue. Under him Panquitch was shaking in convulsions. Chane let go of his head. The stallion bobbed up, choking, snorting. But if terror was still with him it was one of fury to kill. He bent his head back to bite at Chane. His eyes were black fire; his open mouth red and dripping; his teeth bared. Chane all but failed to keep out of his reach.

In his cowboy days Chane had been noted for his ability to ride bronchos, mean mustangs, bucking horses, mules, and even wild steers. The old temper to ride and conquer awoke in him. Fighting the stallion, beating Brutus off, keeping his seat, Chane performed perhaps the greatest riding feat of his career. He had, however, almost to drown the stallion.

At length Panquitch, suddenly showing signs of choking, headed for the shallow water. His swimming was laborious. Chane loosed the tight rope, then plunging off he swam back to Brutus and got in the saddle. He urged Brutus faster and faster, to pass the sinking Panquitch. Not a moment too soon did Brutus touch bottom, and plunging shoreward, he dragged Panquitch after him. The stallion could no longer breathe, yet he staggered out of the shallow water, to the sand, where he fell.

Chane leaped off Brutus to fall on Panquitch and loosen the lasso. The stallion gave a heave. He had been nearly choked to death; perhaps the noose had kept water out of his lungs. His breast labored with a great intake of air. Then he began to shake with short quick pants.

“Aw, but I’m glad!” ejaculated Chane, who for a moment had feared a calamity. But Panquitch would revive. Chane ran back to the heaving Brutus, and procuring a second lasso from the saddle, he rushed again to the stallion and slipped a noose round his forelegs.

“Reckon that’s about all,” he said, rising to survey his captive.

Panquitch was the noblest specimen of horseflesh Chane had ever seen in all his wandering over the rangelands of the west. But in these flaming black eyes there was a spirit incompatible with the rule of man. Panquitch might be broken, but his heart would ever be wild. He could never love his master. Chane felt pity for the fallen monarch, and a remorse. He was killing something, the like of which dwelt in his own heart.

“Panquitch, it wasn’t a square deal,” declared Chane. “I played you a dirty trick. I’m not proud of it. And so help me God I’ve a mind to let you go.”

So the wild-horse-hunting instinct in Chane found itself in conflict with an emotion compelled into existence by the defeat and prostration of the great stallion. Chane missed that crowning joy of the wild-horse wrangler — to exhibit to the gaze of rival hunters a captive horse that had been their passion to catch and break and ride.

“Wo — hoo! Oh — h, Chane, I’m coming!” called a girlish high-pitched voice, pealing along the narrow walls.

Sue appeared at the mouth of the cleft, standing upon a boulder, with her hair shining in the sun. She had espied him and Brutus from afar, and perhaps had guessed the issue. Then Chess’s voice rang down the canyon.

“What you-all doing, Chane Weymer?”

He caught up with Sue, and lending her a hand, came striding with her over the rock benches. He had lost his hat.

Chane heard them talking excitedly, out of breath, wondering, tense and expectant. Brutus whistled. Then Chess and Sue came out of the shadow, into the strip of sunlit canyon. They saw Panquitch lying full length on the sand. Chess broke from Sue and came rushing up. One glance showed him Panquitch was alive.

“Good Lord!” he screeched, beside himself with excitement, running to grasp Chane and embrace him. He was sweating, panting, flushed of face, wild of eye. “Panquitch! And you got him hawg-tied!”

He ran back to the stallion, gazed down upon him, moved round him, gloated over him. “Hurry, Sue! Come! Look! Will you — ever believe it? — We chased — Panquitch right — into Chane’s trap! Of all the luck! Hurry to see him! Oh, there never was such a horse!”

Then he strode back to Chane, waving his hands.

“We climbed that slope — back there,” he went on. “Just for fun. Wanted to see. Then from up on top — I spied the wild horses. Sue saw Panquitch first. We ran down — having fun — seeing how close we could get. Then Sue said: ‘Run down ahead, Chess. I’ll stay here. Turn them — chase them by me — so I’ll get to see Panquitch close.’ So I ran like mad. Queer place up there. I headed them. They ran back — up over that hollow — behind the big knob of wall. Right by Sue! I saw her run down the slope — this way. But I made for the canyon. Just wanted to see them run by. Couldn’t see them. I ran some more. Then the whole bunch trotted out of the cottonwoods. Panquitch lorded it round. He was prancing. He didn’t know which way to run. I heard Sue screaming at him. Then Panquitch bolted this way — and his bunch followed.... Just think! You were here. You saw them. You must have hid.... You roped Panquitch! Chane, you owe it all to Sue. She drove Panquitch to you.”

“I reckon,” replied Chane, conscious of unfamiliar riot in his breast. “Where’d the bunch go — when they ran back?”

“Passed me — like the wind,” panted Chess. “Straight up the canyon!”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Chane, in surprise. “I thought they’d take to one of the slopes. Chess, these wild horses have more than one outlet to their burrow.”

Sue had held back, and was standing some rods off, staring from the prostrate Panquitch to Chane. Her hands were pressed over a heaving bosom. Her eyes seemed wide and dark. There was something about her that made Chane catch his breath. This was not Sue Melberne as he knew her.

“Come on, Sue,” called Chess. “Nothing to fear. Panquitch has ropes on him.”

“Oh, it’s all my fault — my fault,” cried Sue, pantingly, as again she hurried toward them, keeping away from the fallen stallion. “Is he hurt? He breathes so — so hard.”

“Reckon Panquitch’s only choked a little,” replied Chane. “You see, I roped him in the water. Brutus and I had to follow. Panquitch got mad and charged up. I couldn’t manage Brutus. He wanted to fight. So they had it hot and heavy. I was knocked off Brutus. But I swam to Panquitch, straddled him, and had to hold his head under water to keep him from drowning us both.”

“You’re all bloody! You’re hurt,” replied Sue, coming to him.

Chane had not noted the blood on his hands and his face. Evidently he had been scratched or barked in the struggle.

“Guess I’m not hurt,” he said, with a laugh, as he drew out his wet scarf. “Here, Chess, hold the rope while I tie my cuts. If Panquitch tries to get up just keep the rope tight.”

Chess received the lasso and drew it taut. “Hyar, you king of stallions,” he called out. “You’ve sure got tied up in the wrong family. We’re bad hombres, me and Chane. Just you lay still.”

Chane became aware that Sue had come quite close to him.

“Let me do it,” she said, taking the scarf. And without looking up she began to bind his injured hand. She was earnest about it, but not at all deft. Her fingers trembled. Chane, gazing down upon her, saw more signs of agitation. Under the gold brown of her skin showed a pearly pallor; the veins were swelling on her round neck. Her nearness, and the unmistakable evidences of her distress and excitement, shifted the current of Chane’s mind. How momentous this day! What was the vague portent that beat for entrance to his consciousness?

Sue finished binding his hand, and then she looked up into his face, not, it seemed, without effort. She was strained with the exertion and excitement of this adventure. But would that have accounted for a subtle difference in her?

“There’s a cut on your temple,” she said, and untying her own scarf she began to fold it in a narrow band. Her blouse was unbuttoned at the neck, now exposing the line where the gold tan met the white of her swelling bosom. “Bend your head,” she added.

Chane did as he was bidden, conscious of mounting sensations. The soft gentle touch of her hands suddenly inflamed him with a desire to seize them, to kiss them, to press them against his aching heart. Stern repression did not, however, on this occasion, bring victory. He had no time to think. It was like being leaped upon in the dark — this attack of incomprehensible emotion.

“There — if you put your sombrero on carefully — it will stay,” she said.

“Thanks. You’re very good. Reckon I’m not used to being doctored by tender hands,” he replied, somewhat awkwardly, as he drew back from her. That was what made him unsure of himself — her nearness. Strange to him, then, and growing more undeniable, was the fact that as he retreated she followed, keeping close to him. When she took hold of the lapel of his vest and seemed fighting either for command of herself or strength to look up again, then he realized something was about to happen.

“I’m all wet,” he protested, trying to be natural. But he failed. It was not a natural moment or situation or position for them.

“So you are. I — I hadn’t noticed it,” she said, and instead of drawing away she came so close that her garments touched him. Even this slight contact caused Chane to tremble. “Chane, come a little away — so Chess won’t hear,” she concluded, in a whisper.

Chane felt as helpless in her slight hand as Panquitch now was in his. She led him back a few paces, in the lee of a slab of rock that leaned down from the wall.

“What’s — all this?” he demanded, incredulously, as she pushed his back against the rock.

“It’s something very important,” she replied, and then she fastened her other hand in the other lapel of his vest. She leaned against him. The fact was so tremendous that Chane could scarcely force his faculties to adequate comprehension of it. Yet there came to his aid an instinct natural to him through all the strenuous and perilous situations of his desert life, and it was a kind of cool anger of self-preservation.

“Yes?” he queried, doubtfully.

She was quite pale now and the pupils of her dark eyes were dilating over deep wonderful shadows and lights. He felt her quiver. His response was instantaneous and irresistible, but it was a response of his heart, not his will. He would never let her know what havoc this contact played with him.

“Would you do something great for me?” she whispered, her husky voice betraying a dry mouth.

“Great!” he ejaculated. What little control he had when one word could throw him off his balance! “Why, Sue Melberne, I reckon I would — for you — or any girl, if I could.”

“Not for any other girl,” she returned, swiftly. “For me!”

“I’ll make no rash promises. What do you want?”

“Let Panquitch go free.”

Chane could only stare at her. So that was it! Sudden relief flooded over him. What might she not have asked? How powerless he was to refuse her most trivial wish! But she did not know that. This longing of hers to see Panquitch freed was natural and he respected her, liked her, loved her the more for it. Easy now to understand her white face, her soulful eyes, her quivering lips and clinging hands! She loved wild horses. So did he, and he could see her point of view. Alas for the strange vague rapture that her close presence had roused! But he could prolong this delicious moment of torment.

“Are you crazy, girl?” he demanded.

“Not quite,” she replied, with a wistful smile that made him wince. “I want you to let Panquitch go. It was my fault. I was his undoing. I longed to see him close — to scream at him — to watch him run. So I drove him into your trap.”

“Quite true. I’d never have caught him save for you. But what’s that? I don’t care. Once in my life I had a wrangler’s luck.”

“Something tells me it’ll be bad luck, unless you give in.”

“Bad luck? Ha! I reckon I’ve had all due one poor rider,” he replied. “And the worst of it, Sue Melberne, was on your account.”

“You mean — about Manerube?” she whispered.

“Yes, and what went before,” he returned, darkly.

“Chane, did something happen before that?” she asked, softly.

“I reckon it did,” he answered, bitterly.

“Tell me,” she importuned.

Chane felt as if about to fall from a height. What was this all about? His wounded heart probed! Yet did it matter?

“You know,” he said, almost violently. “Chess gave me away.”

“Then, what Chess said was — is true?”

“Yes, God help me, it is.... But enough of talk about me. You wanted me to free Panquitch?”

She did not reply. He had a glimpse of her eyes filming over, glazed, humid, before she closed them. Her head, that had been tilted back, drooped a little toward him, and her slender body now lent its weight against his. Chane had no strength to tear himself away from her, nor could he bear this close contact longer. The poor girl was overwrought, all because of sentiment about a horse.

“Sue, what ails you?” he demanded, sharply, and he shook her.

His voice, his rudeness, apparently jarred her out of her weakness. It seemed he watched a transformation pass over her, a change that most of all nonplused him. A blush rose and burned out of her face, leaving a radiant glow. She let go of his vest, drew back. And suddenly she seemed a woman, formidable, incredible, strong as she had been weak, eloquent of eye.

“Something did ail me, Chane, but I’m quite recovered now,” she replied, with a wonderful light on her face.

“You talk in riddles, Sue Melberne.”

“If you weren’t so stupid you’d not think so.”

“Reckon I am stupid. But we’ve got off the trail. You asked me to let Panquitch go.”

“Yes, I beg of you.”

“You’re awful set on seeing him walk off up that slope, aren’t you?” he inquired, trying to find words to prolong the conversation. He despised himself for longing to have her come close again, to appeal to him. Presently he must tell her that her slightest wish could never be ignored, that Panquitch was hers to free.

“Chane, I’ll do anything for you if only you’ll let him go.”

He laughed, almost with bitter note. “How careless you are with words! No wonder Manerube got a wrong hunch.”

She flushed at that, and lost for a second the smile, the poise that so baffled him. But swiftly they returned.

“I was a silly girl with Manerube,” she replied. “I’m an honest woman now.... I said I’ll do anything for you, Chane Weymer — anything.”

“Reckon I hear you, unless I’m locoed,” he said, thickly. “I’m not asking anything of you. But I’m powerful curious. If you’re honest now, suppose you tell me a few of the things you’d do for me.”

“Shall I begin with a lot of small things — or with something big?” she inquired, in so sweet and tantalizing a voice that Chane felt the blood go back to his heart. She was beyond him. How useless to match wits with any woman, let alone one whom a man adored madly and hopelessly! Chane felt he must get out of this. One more moment, then she could have Panquitch!

“Well, suppose you save time by beginning with something big,” he suggested, in a scorn for himself and for her. It was a farce, this talk, all except her earnest appeal and her sweetness. He could not argue with her, nor follow her subtleties.

She stepped close to him again. And then Chane shook with a sense of impending catastrophe. She seemed cool, brave, and honest as she claimed to be. But her dark eyes held a strange fire.

“Very well. The biggest thing a woman can do is to be a man’s wife.”

Stupefaction held Chane in thrall. It took a moment to recover from the shock of that blow. He had heard her speak. He was not out on the lonely desert, listening to the voices of the cedars. All about Sue Melberne belied that slow, sweet, cool speech. Suddenly a fury of bewilderment, of uncertainty, assailed Chane. Laying powerful hands on her shoulders he shook her as he might have a child.

“You’d marry me to save that horse?” he demanded, incredulously.

“Yes.”

“You’d throw yourself away for Panquitch?” he went on, sternly.

“Yes. But — I’d hardly call it that.”

“Sue Melberne, you’d be my — my wife!” The very idea of such fortune made Chane mad. He released her. He wrestled with himself. Thick and heavy his heart beat. It mattered not why or how he might possess this girl, but the fact that he might was maddening. Still he fought for the right. What a sentimental inexplicable girl!

“Yes, I will, Chane,” she said.

“You love Panquitch so well. I remember you risked much to free the wild horses in the trap corral. But this is beyond belief. Yet you say so. You don’t look daft, though your talk seems so. I can’t understand you. To sacrifice yourself for a horse, even though it’s Panquitch!”

“I wouldn’t regard it as — sacrifice,” she whispered.

“But it is. It’d be wrong. It’d be a crime against your womanhood. I couldn’t accept it. Besides, you’re doing wrong to tempt me. I’m only a poor lonely rider. I’ve always been hungry for a woman. And I’ve never had one.... It’s doubly wrong, I tell you.”

Chane stamped up and down the narrow place behind the rock. Hard violent action in the open had been his life: he brought it to bear on the conflict in his breast. With a black, hot, tearing wrench he got rid of the spell.

“Sue, I brought this — on myself,” he said, gentle of tone, though his voice broke. “I wanted to hear you beg for Panquitch. I wanted you to be close to me. It was madness. All the time I was lying. From the moment you asked me to free Panquitch I meant to do it. You helped me catch him. You can free him.”

Sue walked straight to him, closer than before, almost into his arms. The poise of head, the radiance of face, the eloquence of eye — these had vanished and she seemed stranger than before, a pale thing reaching for him.

“That will make me happy, but only — if I can pay — my debt,” she faltered.

“What do you mean?” demanded Chane, harshly.

“If you free Panquitch you must make me — your wife.”

“Are you out of your head or lying to me?”

“Both,” she whispered, and fell against him.

Chane clasped her in his arms, and held her closer and closer, sure in his bewilderment of only one thing, that if she persisted she would break him down. But now she was in his arms. Her head drooped so that he could not see her face, but she was stirring, turning to him, sinking on his breast. Never could he let her go now! It was all so astounding. His mind and body now seemed to leap to the sweetness of possession. The golden amber sunlight of the canyon moved about him like a glory of lightning, and it was certain that thunders filled his ears. He was realizing what he could not believe. The stunning truth was that Sue Melberne lay in his arms, strangely willing. That was enough for his hungry heart, but his conscience stormed at him. Then, last of all, he felt as in a dream Sue’s arms go up round his neck and fasten there.

“My God!”... he gasped. “Sue, this can’t be for Panquitch.”

Her face came up, white like a flower, wet with tears. But strain and strife were gone.

“If you had any sense you’d have known I — I loved you!”

“SUE MELBERNE!”

“Now, my wild-horse hunter, take your rope off Panquitch — and put it on me,” she replied, and raised her lips to his.

A little later Chane took the rope out of Chess’s hands and held it to Sue. Then he knelt to slip off the noose of the other lasso, the one that was tied to the saddle on Brutus. Swiftly Chane stripped this from the stallion.

“Hey! What you doing?” yelled Chess, in amaze. “He’s come to. The son-of-a-gun will be on his feet in a jiffy.”

Chane apparently took no note of Chess’s concern. This moment was full of unutterable joy in that he was making Sue happy and slipping his rope off Panquitch — freeing the last wild horse he would ever capture. Bending over the stallion he loosed the knot round the forelegs.

“Pull it — easy,” he called to Sue.

Chess actually leaped up in the air, to come down with cracking boots.

“What — the — hell!” he cried, piercingly.

Sue drew the lasso taut, and slid it gently from the stallion. He gave a fierce snort. Then he raised his head. Actually he looked at his legs, and then with muscles knotting all over his body he heaved hard and got up. He was free and he knew it. Hate and fear flamed in his bloodshot eyes. Chane thrilled when he met that look and knew in his soul what he was giving up. Panquitch stood for a moment, with his breaths audible. Thus Chane saw him close, standing unfettered, in all his magnificent and matchless beauty. Indeed, he was a lion of wild horses. Perfect in build, perfect in color, the rarest combination and the only one Chane had ever seen in a tawny shade of yellow, with flowing mane and tail black as night. He had not a scar, not a blemish, not a fault. He represented the supreme handiwork of nature — a creature too beautiful, too proud, too noble, too wild for the yoke of man.

Panquitch shook himself and moved away. He was still weak, but his spirit showed in his prance. He snorted fiercely at Brutus. And Brutus returned the challenge.

“Run — oh, Panquitch, run!” cried Sue, with rich and mellow sweetness in her voice.

But the stallion did not run. His slow action was that of a spent horse. Keeping to the middle of the canyon, he trotted on, by the sand patch where lately he had pranced so proudly, by the cottonwood grove and the wavy slope of rock, and on, out of sight.

Then Chess exploded. He cursed, he raved, he glared, not for a full moment becoming intelligible.

“You let him go! Panquitch, the greatest wild horse in the world. You had him. You could have given him to me. I’ve no great horse, like Brutus. I always wanted one.... Let him go for Manerube to rope! Or some damned lucky rider who’ll happen on him before he recovers.... Oh, you’re locoed. The two of you. Sue, you’re a sentimental fool. Chane, you’re a damn fool.... I could cry. Chane, whatever has come over you?”

“Chess, I reckon I’m no longer boss of the Weymer outfit,” replied Chane, striving to keep undue pride and joy out of his words, but failing utterly.

“Hey?” ejaculated Chess, as if he had been struck. His mouth opened wide, likewise his eyes, and he made a picture of stupidity and incredulity.

“Little Boy Blue, I’m sure going to be your sister,” said Sue, with all of gladness.

Suddenly transfigured with rapture, Chess made at them.

CHAPTER XVI

CHANE STRODE UP the canyon as one in a dream, leading Brutus, with Sue in the saddle. From time to time he looked back to see if she were a reality. Her dark eyes shone, her lips were parted. There was a smile on her face, an exquisite light, a spirit that must be the love she had confessed. Life had become immeasurably full and sweet for him.

Chess had passed from every manner of congratulation, boastfulness as to his bringing about this match, delight in Chane’s good fortune, back to his former despair at the loss of Panquitch.

“Now you two have each other, you don’t care for nothing,” he growled, with finality, and forged on ahead to leave them alone.

It appeared to be about the middle of the afternoon when the amber light of the canyon began to tinge with purple. The breeze had ceased and the air was warm. Less tremendous grew the looming walls, wider the stream of blue sky overhead, lower the rims, and therefore the oppressiveness began to wane, and the sense of overpowering weight and silence.

In many places showed the fresh tracks of the wild horses, last of which were those of Panquitch. He was following his band, on the way to the uplands. Chane would have preferred that they had turned off at the wavy slope below and were now safe under the lee of Wild Horse Mesa. Panquitch, in his spent condition, would hardly be able to escape a fast rider. Still, Chane’s exalted mind could not harbor misgiving, or doubt, or anxiety, not on this day in which he had been lifted to the kingdom of happiness.

Chess strode on with his head bent, his gaze on the tracks of Panquitch, and he passed out of sight round a bend in the canyon.

Many times Chane halted to let Brutus come abreast of him, so that he could look up at Sue or touch her. And all at once something which had been forming in his mind coalesced into an insupportable query.

“Sue, when will you marry me?”

She laughed happily. “Why, we’ve only just become engaged,” she replied, roguishly.

“Darling, this is the wild canyon country of Utah,” he protested. “People only stay engaged in cities or settlements.”

“We’ll really be pioneers, won’t we?”

“Yes. But I shall always see that you go into civilization every summer, for a visit.... Tell me, how long must I wait?”

A rosy glow vied with the gold of Sue’s warm cheek.

“Surely until Uncle Jim comes,” she said, shyly.

“Your uncle! I remember now — he’s a preacher. And he may come yet this fall, certain in the spring?”

“I wish I could fib to you,” returned Sue, “and say spring. But dad is sure Uncle Jim will come by Thanksgiving.”

He pressed her hand, unable to utter his profound joy and gratitude. Then he took up the bridle and strode on, leading Brutus. He saw the widening canyon, the sand bars cut up by many hoofs, the lowering rims, the shallow brook, yet he was not conscious of them, for he walked as one in a trance.

The time came when ahead the canyon made a curve into brighter light. Beyond this point was the junction of the four canyons where camp had been made. As Chane turned the corner Brutus shied so violently that he tore the bridle from Chane’s grasp.

“Hands up, Weymer,” called a tough, husky voice.

Chane’s dream was rudely shattered. More than once he had heard the ominous note which rang now in his ears. He was unarmed. He raised his hands, and at the same instant he saw a dark-bearded man, with leveled gun, stride from behind the cliff.

“Up they are,” he said, and ground his teeth in sudden impotent anger. Then he recognized the man. “Howdy, Slack.”

“Same to you, Weymer,” replied the other, sidling round in front of Chane toward Brutus.

“Reckon you see I’m not packing a gun.”

“Yep, I shore was glad you wasn’t wearin’ any hardware. But just keep your hands up an’ a respectable distance. I’m a distrustful fellar,” replied Slack, and presently, getting within reach of Brutus, he secured the bridle.

Chane’s line of vision, as he stood rigidly, did not include Sue, until Slack led Brutus forward. Then she appeared, white of face and mute in her fear. Manifestly she had no thought of herself, but of the gun Slack held leveled at Chane.

“Mosey on in front, Weymer,” ordered the outlaw.

Chane had no choice but to comply. He had been in such situations before, and this one would not have greatly perturbed him if Sue had not been there. He lowered his hands and strode on toward the camp, intensely curious to see if what he found there would be identical with what he expected.

The triangular space of intersecting canyons presently came unobstructed to his view. A camp fire was burning, and several men surrounded it, one of them sitting. Even at considerable distance Chane recognized the hard lean face of Bud McPherson.

Chess sat on a stone to one side, with his hands tied behind his back. Melberne did not appear to be present.

“Oh, there’s Panquitch!” burst out Sue, in shrill distress.

Chane, shocked at Sue’s exclamation, saw a number of horses, all saddled, standing bridles down, to the left of the camp fire group.

“Look! Look!” cried Sue, as if choking.

As Chane did not know where she was looking and did not care to take too many risks with Slack, he shifted his gaze in search of the stallion.

“Chane! Look!” screamed Sue, this time with fury and horror.

“Manerube! Manerube! he’s got a rope on Panquitch!”

The content of her words flashed on Chane just as he espied Manerube hanging to two lassoes that were fast on Panquitch. The great stallion was holding back with a spirit vastly in excess of his strength.

Many as had been the bitter moments of Chane’s life, that was the bitterest. Sue’s cry of anguish rang in his ears. The wild horse which she had loved and freed was now in the power of a hated rider. It was a blow that to Chane struck home acutely. Panquitch, spent from his fight in the canyon pool, and expending what little strength he had left to catch up with his band, had fallen easily into Manerube’s clutches. The cheap and arrogant rider probably had not even credited his capture to the weakened condition of the stallion. He was crowing like a game cock over his prize, with his braggart’s and bully’s air more pronounced than ever. He whipped the ropes that secured Panquitch, making the horse flinch. The effect of this on Chane was to distort his vision with passion and hate, so that it seemed for a moment he was gazing through a blood-red haze.

“OH-H!” cried Sue, now deep and poignantly. “He’s hurting Panquitch. I won’t stand it.”

“Sue, keep still,” ordered Chane, sharply. “We can do nothing.”

“Hyar, you squallin’ bobcat,” growled Slack, “stop walkin’ your hoss on my heels.”

They reached the camp fire, with Chane a little in the lead. One of the other men, whose face was familiar but whose name Chane could not recall, drew a gun and pointed it at him.

“Bill, he ain’t got no gun, but your idee is correct,” drawled Slack, and turning to Sue he laid a rough and meaning hand upon her, which she repulsed in anger. Then Slack swore at her and pulled her out of the saddle.

“Say, wench, if you know when you’re well off, you’ll be sweet instead of catty,” he declared.

On the moment, when the other men were hawhawing at Slack’s sally, Chane happened to catch Sue’s eye and conveyed to her in one glance the peril of the situation.

“Howdy, Weymer,” said Bud McPherson, coolly. “I’m savin’ some of your good grub.”

“Howdy, Bud. It’s a habit of yours to help yourself to other people’s property,” rejoined Chane. This outlaw was the most dangerous of the group, Chane decided, though he knew little of the two strangers who had followed Manerube from Wund. But McPherson, though a horse thief and a bad man, had elements that Manerube and the others did not show. He was not little.

Back of the camp fire, near where Chess sat bowed and disconsolate, crouched another man, also tied, and he appeared a pretty worn and miserable object. Chane at last recognized the unshaven and haggard face.

“Loughbridge!” he ejaculated, in both amaze and satisfaction. “Well, what’re you hawg-tied for? Reckoned you’d thrown in with this outfit.”

“Weymer, I was fooled worse’n Melberne,” said Loughbridge. “I took Manerube at his brag. I had no idea he was a hoss thief—”

“Stop your gab!” yelled Manerube, stridently. “You’re a white- livered liar. I’m not a horse thief.”

“Bud, give it to me straight,” said Chane. “What’s the deal with Loughbridge?”

“Wal, it ain’t so clear to me,” replied McPherson, wiping his mouth and scant beard and rising to his feet. “Somebody gimme a smoke.... Fact is, Weymer, I wasn’t keen on havin’ this man thrown in with us. Wal, when he found out our plan to appropriate Melberne’s stock — which shore come out at this camp — he hedged an’ began to bluster. You know I never argue. So we just put a halter on him.”

“Where’s Melberne?” added Chane.

“Shore you ought to know. We’re waitin’ fer him.”

“Then what?” demanded Chane.

“Weymer, you allus was a hell-bent-pronto hombre,” declared McPherson, with good humor. “Reckon you want to know bad what the deal is. Wal, I’ll tell you. We’ve been loafin’ in camp waitin’ for you-all to ketch the last bunch of hosses before fall set in cold. Then we seen them two Piutes prowlin’ around, an’ we figgered they’d fetched you another bunch of mustangs. Wal, the deal is hyar. When Melberne comes we’ll rustle back to his homestead an’ relieve you-all of considerable hoss wranglin’ an’ feedin’ this winter.”

“Then, next summer, you’ll look us up again,” asserted Chane, with sarcasm.

“Haw! haw! You shore hit it plumb center,” rejoined the ruffian.

“Bud, you’re no fool,” said Chane, seriously. “You can’t keep up this sort of thing. Somebody will kill you. Why don’t you cut loose from these two-bit wranglers you’ve been riding with? I’ve known horse thieves to go back to honest ranching. It paid.”

McPherson had no guffaw or badinage for this speech of Chane’s. It went home. His frankness relieved Chane. McPherson would hardly resort to blood-spilling unless thwarted or cornered. Chane felt greatest anxiety on behalf of Sue. The outlaw leader, however, had never struck Chane as being a man to mistreat women, white or red. Slack was vicious, but under control of McPherson. It narrowed down to Manerube.

This individual swaggered into the camp circle. He had stretched two ropes on Panquitch, in opposite directions, and for the time being the great stallion was tractable. Manerube’s blond face showed heat, not all of excitement. He shot a malignant glance at Chane, and leered. The true nature of the man came out when he was on the side in control. As he turned to look Sue up and down, Chane saw the surge of blood ridge his neck. Chane also saw a whisky flask in his hip pocket and a gun in his belt.

“Bud, I heard you weren’t boss of your outfit,” said Chane, whose wits were active.

“Huh! The hell you did. When an’ whar did you hear thet?”

“Reckon it was in Wund, when we drove Melberne’s horses in.”

“Wal, you heerd wrong,” replied McPherson, gruffly, and his glance fell on Manerube with a glint that surely fanned a flame of cunning in Chane’s mind.

“Bud, I trapped Panquitch in a deep hole down in the canyon,” went on Chane. “It was a dirty trick to play on such a horse. I roped him. We had an awful time. He nearly drowned Brutus and me. But we got him out. And then — what do you think?”

“I’ve no idee, Weymer,” returned the outlaw, eagerly. He had the true rider’s love for a horse, the true wrangler’s ambition and pride. Only adverse circumstances had made him a thief. Chane knew how to work on his feelings.

“Bud, I let Panquitch go free!” declared Chane, impressively.

“Aw now, Weymer, you can’t expect me to believe thet,” said McPherson, with a broad smile.

“I swear it’s true.”

“But you’re a wild-hoss wrangler. I’ve heerd of you for years,” declared the outlaw, incredulously.

“I was. But no more. Bud, I’m giving it to you straight. Panquitch was the last wild horse I’ll ever rope. I let him go free.”

“But what fer? You darned locoed liar!” shouted McPherson, getting red in the face.

“Ask Sue Melberne,” replied Chane, recognizing the moment to impress the outlaw. He was intensely interested, curious, doubtful, yet fascinated. He turned to Sue. She was pale, yet composed, and aside from the heaving of her bosom, showed no agitation.

“Girl, what’s he givin’ me? Guff?”

“No, it’s perfectly true. He let Panquitch go. I watched him do it.”

“So did I,” spoke up Chess, in a loud voice. “He and Sue were out of their heads. They let Panquitch go!”

“Wal, I’ll be damned!” ejaculated McPherson. “Shore, girl, I don’t see any reason for you to lie about a hoss, even Panquitch. But I gotta know why, if you want me to believe.”

“It was my fault,” replied Sue, deliberately. “I told Chane — if he’d free Panquitch — I’d be his wife.”

“An’ he took you up,” shouted McPherson, in gleeful wonder.

“Yes. He let me pull the lasso free.”

“Wal, I’ve seen the day I could have done the same, even if it had been Panquitch,” boomed McPherson. From the rough, hardened outlaw that speech was a subtle compliment to both Sue and Chane. It hinted, also, of a time when McPherson had not been what he was now. Suddenly he lost that shadow of memory, and wheeled to Manerube, who stood derisive and rancorous, glaring at Chane.

“Didn’t I tell you that hoss was tuckered out? Didn’t I say he was all wet?”

“Yes, you said so, but I don’t have to believe you. And Weymer’s a liar,” retorted Manerube.

“Sure I’m a liar — when you’ve got a gun and I haven’t,” interposed Chane, stingingly.

“Huh! You wouldn’t call the little lady a liar, too, would you?” demanded McPherson.

“She would lie and he would swear to it,” snapped Manerube.

“Wal, that’s no matter, except where I come from men didn’t call girls names. But what I gotta beat into your thick head is this, that Panquitch was a spent horse. An’ you never seen it. You thought you roped him when he was good as ever. You never seen it!”

“Suppose I didn’t,” returned Manerube, furiously. “I roped him, spent or not. And he’s mine.”

“Hell! You’re a fine wild-hoss wrangler!” exclaimed McPherson, in disgust. “You don’t even get my hunch. Let me say it slow an’ plain. In this heah Utah there’s a code, the same among hoss thieves as among wranglers. It’s love of a grand hoss. An’ I’m tellin’ you it’s a damn shame Panquitch fell into your rope.”

“Say, Bud, are you going to let Manerube keep that horse?” demanded Chane, ringingly, sure now of his game. He could play upon this outlaw’s feelings as upon an instrument.

“Wha-at?” queried McPherson, as if staggered. The idea Chane launched had struck like a thunderbolt.

“If it’s your outfit — if you’re the boss, Panquitch is yours,” asserted Chane, positively. “That’s the law of the range. But even if it wasn’t would you let Manerube keep that grand stallion? He’ll ruin the horse. He couldn’t break him. He couldn’t ride him. For this man is not the real thing as a rider. He never was a wrangler.... Now, McPherson, listen. You may be a horse thief, but you’re a real rider. You have a rider’s love for a grand stallion like Panquitch. You have a wrangler’s pride in him. You’d never beat Panquitch, now would you?”

“Hell no! I never beat any hoss,” shouted the outlaw, hoarsely.

“There you are,” announced Chane, with finality, and he threw up his hands. How well he knew the state into which he had thrown McPherson! Chane actually thrilled in the suspense of the issue at stake. His argument had been sound, his persuasion hard for a rider to resist; but he staked most on McPherson’s dislike of Manerube. Any honest rider would despise Manerube, but McPherson, hard, strong, matured outlaw, who, bad as he was, would have died for a horse, would hate him.

“Reckon you’re talkin’ fine, Weymer, but ain’t a little of it fer your hoss Brutus?” queried McPherson, shrewdly.

“No. I never thought of my horse. But now you mention him, I’ll say this. You stole my last bunch of mustangs. Brutus is all I have left. A horse and a saddle! That’s the extent of my riches. You’d not be so mean as to rob me of them?”

“Wal, Weymer, I reckon I wouldn’t now,” he replied, significantly. “Brutus ain’t so bad. But what’d I do with him now? Haw! Haw!”

Chane drew a quick breath of relief, yet the suspense of that argument was in no wise diminished.

Manerube grew black with rage. His light eyes gleamed balefully.

“Bud McPherson, you mean you’ll take Panquitch?” he rasped out.

“Wal, you heerd Weymer’s idee of the code of the range,” replied the outlaw, calmly. With all his acumen and experience he had no fear of Manerube. Rather contempt!

“Code be damned!” yelled Manerube, fiercely. “Panquitch is mine. I roped him.”

“Shore. But you’re in my outfit, an’ what you ketch is mine, if I want it. An’ I want Panquitch. Savvy?”

Chane, watching so piercingly, saw a break in Manerube’s quivering rage. His body grew rigid before the blackness left his face. If Chane had been in McPherson’s boots he would have reacted with subtle keenness to those peculiar changes.

“You’re a — horse — thief,” panted Manerube, suddenly crouching.

“Wal, wal, wal!” guffawed McPherson, and he bent double with the mirth of the joke. When he straightened up it was to meet the red flame, the blue spurt of Manerube’s gun. He uttered a gasp and fell limply, as if his legs had been chopped from under him.

Manerube did not lower the leveled gun. Smoke issued from the dark hole in the barrel. All the men seemed paralyzed, except Chane, who stepped aside, with eyes roving for a weapon in the belts near him. But none showed. Chane read Manerube’s ferocious face. It was now gray and set with murderous intent.

“Jump aside, Slack, or I’ll kill you,” he hissed. “I want Weymer.”

Slack frantically leaped aside, leaving Chane exposed. But Manerube did not fire. The smoking gun shook in his nerveless hand, and fell. At that instant, perhaps a fraction of a second before, Chane heard a tiny spat. He knew what it was. A lead bullet striking flesh!

Chane’s gaze shot over Manerube’s outstretched hand to his face. It was the same, but fixed. Then from the ragged brushy cliff above rang out the crack of a rifle. The echoes clapped back and forth. Over Manerube’s glazed blank eyes, in his forehead, appeared a little round hole, first blue, then red. He swayed and fell, full length, face down.

This action was incredibly swift. Before Chane could make a move to rush to Sue he heard another spat. The bullet spanged off bone. Slack was knocked flat. Again the sharp crack of a rifle rang out. It broke the rigidity of that group. Frantically the three left of McPherson’s band rushed for their horses. Slack leaped up, bloody of face, wild of mien, and he bellowed:

“It’s them hell-hound Piutes! Bud swore they was trailin’ us. Get on an’ ride!”

Not far behind was he in a leap to the saddle. The horses plunged madly and broke up the canyon. Another shot sounded from the cliff, deadened by the trampling hoofs. Then the swiftly moving dark blot of riders disappeared.

Chane’s first thought was for Sue. He ran to her, took her in his arms. She seemed stiff, but her hands suddenly clutched him. Her cheek, which was all he could see as he grasped her, was ashen in hue.

“Come away, Sue dear,” he said, gently, half carrying her. “Over here where Chess is.... You’re safe. I’m all right. We’re all saved. They went up a different canyon from the one your father took. They won’t meet him.”

Sue hid her face against his breast while a long shudder went through her.

“How — terrible!” she whispered, hoarsely. “All so — so sudden!... Let me sit down. I’m weak and sick. But I won’t faint.”

“Sure you won’t. Just keep your eyes away — from over there,” replied Chane, and releasing her he ran to untie Chess’s bonds.

“My Gawd! what blew in here?” queried Chess, in decidedly weak voice.

“Kinda stormy and smoky, wasn’t it, boy,” replied Chane. “I’ve seen some of that sort of thing. Been in it, too.... You go to Sue and talk. Get her mind off it.”

Chane’s next move was to release Loughbridge, who sat up with popping eyes and incoherent speech. From him Chane ran to the dead men, who had fallen close to each other. He covered them with a canvas. After that Chane gazed up at the cliff whence had come the rifle shots. Thin clouds of blue smoke were floating on the still air, gradually thinning. The cliff was broken and ragged, green with brush, and marked by a wildness of ledge up to the rim. It was not far to the top. Full well Chane knew who had fired that shot fatal to Manerube. But he would never tell, and no one else would ever know. The depths of the canyons hid many mysteries.

He hurried back to Sue, finding her recovered, though she was leaning on Chess’s shoulder. Chane promptly relieved him of the burden.

“Humph! I thought she was in the family now,” protested Chess.

“Boy, you wander in mind,” returned Chane, softly.

“If only dad would come!” exclaimed Sue, in anxious dread.

“Well, he’s coming,” said Chane, gladly. “Look up the canyon. Did you ever see your dad run like that? He’s scared Sue, either for himself or us.”

Sue gave vent to a smothered sob of relief and then broke down.

CHAPTER XVII

MELBERNE AMUSED CHANE, and appeared to be a fascinating object to Chess. The leader of the outfit had returned out of breath, and if Chane was any judge of men, both frightened and furious. When he caught his breath he blurted out many queries, but vouchsafed no information about himself. Chane’s observant eye, however, noted Melberne’s skinned and bruised wrists, and how conscious he was of them, a circumstance undoubtedly due to pain.

Bud McPherson had lied to Chane. The outlaws had happened to run into Melberne and had tied him up. Chane grew more convinced of this as the moments passed. Besides Melberne’s telltale wrists, which he had probably skinned by working free of a tight rope, he had come back minus his gun. Moreover, his relief at sight of Sue safe and well, though pale, was so great as to approach collapse. Lastly, when Chane had pulled aside the canvas to expose Manerube and McPherson, lying so ghastly and suggestive, he had cursed them under his breath.

But the amusing part of this sequence was the argument between Melberne and Loughbridge, and Chess’s deep concern.

“I’m sorry, Jim, you shore have queered yourself with me,” declared Melberne for at least the tenth time. His demeanor, however, was not in harmony with his hard words. He strode to and fro nervously, as was his wont when perturbed.

“But, Mel, this here Manerube made a damn fool of you, same as me,” persisted Loughbridge.

“Shore I acknowledge that. But he didn’t make me double-cross you.”

“I didn’t. You ain’t fair. We couldn’t agree, about money mostly, an’ you fired me out of your outfit. I leave it to Chess, here. You ain’t jest fair.”

“Boss, if you’ll excuse me, I think it was more temper with you than justice,” replied Chess, with immense gravity.

“Huh! Wal, I’ll be darned!” quoth Melberne, surveying the boy in great disfavor. “I reckon you’d like to see Loughbridge homestead with us over there at Nightwatch Spring.”

“That’d be fair and square of you,” returned Chess, losing his dignity of a judge.

“An’ fetch Ora along to live with him, huh?” went on Melberne, ironically.

“I should smile,” answered Chess, with an anticlimax of weakness.

“See heah, young man, you’ve got good stuff, but you talk too much. I’ve a mind to fire you.”

“Aw now — boss,” appealed Chess, abjectly.

“Wal, if you don’t marry Ora before spring I will fire you,” growled Melberne.

Then he turned to his former partner. “Jim, I reckon I’ve no call to crow over you. I’ve had my lesson. An’ if you’ve had yours, mebbe we’ll both profit by it. My fault is temper, an’ yours is a little too much fondness for money.... Let’s begin over again, each for himself. It’s a new country. You’re welcome to homestead in my canyon. There’s room for another rancher. Some day before long there’ll be a settlement west of Wund. An’ that’ll make our problem easier.”

PANQUITCH startled Chane, and all the others, with one of his ringing neighs; and with head, ears, and mane erect he faced up the canyon.

Shrill whistles answered him. Chane espied a troop of wild horses coming out of the shadow.

“By golly! there’s Panquitch’s band,” said Chane, pointing. “They’re looking for him. They’ll pass us.... Everybody lie low.”

Chane crouched behind a rock with Sue, who whispered that Panquitch should be free to go with them. It did seem to Chane that the straining stallion would free himself from Manerube’s ropes. For some moments the wild horses could not be seen, owing to the fact that Chane and Sue were low down. At last, however, they came in sight, trotting cautiously, wary as always, but not yet having caught scent of the camp. Only a faint breeze stirred and that came down the canyon. The whistling of Panquitch must have been a factor in their cautious approach. At the junction of the canyons the space was fully a hundred yards wide, and owing to the stream-bed, somewhat lower on the side opposite the camp. The wild horse band worked down this side, trotting, with heads erect, until they caught scent of the camp, then burst into headlong flight, and in a dusty cloud, with a clattering roar they sped by, and down the canyon to disappear.

“Sue, wasn’t it great?” queried Chane, as he got up.

But Sue had not been looking at the fleet band of wild horses; her startled gaze was fixed on Panquitch.

“Oh, Chane, look! He’s broken one of the ropes!” cried Sue.

Chane wheeled in time to see the remnant of broken lasso fall off the superb tawny shoulder. The other lasso was round the noble arched neck of the stallion and had now become taut. Panquitch reared and lunged back with all his weight. As luck would have it, the rope broke at the noose. The stallion fell heavily, then raised on his forefeet, with mouth open. The broken noose hung loose. He was not yet sure of freedom.

CHESS broke the silence with a wailing: “Oh, the ropes were rotten. They broke. He’ll get away.... Gimme a rope. A rope! A rope!”

“Boy, keep still,” shouted Chane, sternly. “Can’t you see Panquitch was never born to be roped?”

The stallion painfully got to his feet. As the broken noose slipped from his neck he jumped as if stung. Then he walked through camp. He shied at the canvas covering the dead men, and breaking into a trot he headed down the canyon.

“Wal, I cain’t pretend to savvy you, Chane,” observed Melberne, scratching his head in his perplexity. “But shore I will say this. Somehow I’m glad you let him go.”

“Damn it! So’m I!” yelled Chess, suddenly red of face, as if he had been unjustly accused. “But I — I was so crazy to keep him!”

Chane turned to Sue with a smile.

“He’s gone, my dear. Suppose we ride down to the slope where he’ll climb up to the mesa. There’s work to do here that I’d rather you didn’t see.”

Melberne approved of that idea for Sue. “An’ when you come back we’ll be packed to change camp.”

NOT until Sue had ridden at quite a brisk trot, keeping up with Brutus, all the way down to the oval break in the canyon, did her blood warm and beat out the dark blot of horror in her mind.

But at the foot of the beautiful slope of wavy rock all that turgid emotion fell away from her, as if it had never been. She had grown weak, but now she was strong. The purple heights above, gold-rimmed under the sun, inspired her as before, only now with something added to the wild joy of freedom.

“Follow me close, sweetheart,” called Chane. “I see Panquitch far above. If we hurry we can reach the top and watch him climb the mesa.”

“Ah, Chane, you’ll never lose me now, on any kind of trails,” called Sue, in reply, and urged her horse close to Brutus.

To and fro, across and around, up and down, far to this side, and back to the other, onward and upward they rode over the smooth waves and hollows of red sandstone. As they climbed, the purple and amber lights grew brighter, and the shadows of the canyons below grew deeper. They reached the zone of cream and yellow rock, crumbling like baked clay under the hoofs of the horses. Out of the dark depths they rose to the sunset-flushed heights.

“Oh, where is Panquitch?” Sue kept calling. But he had always just gone over a wave of rock.

All above the corrugated world of wind-worn stone streamed fan-shaped bars and bands of light, centering toward and disappearing over the height of ridge they had almost attained. Broken massed clouds floated in the west, dark-purple, silver- rimmed, golden-edged, in a sea of azure blue. The lights of sunset were intensifying. Sue felt that she rode up the last curved wave of an opal sea. She saw Chane shade his eyes from the fires of the sun. Like a god of the riders he seemed to her, bareheaded, his face alight, his sharp profile against the background of gold. Then she mounted to Chane’s side, and it was as if in one step she had surmounted a peak.

All the forces of nature seemed to have united in one grand spectacle — the rugged canyon country of colored rock waved level with the setting sun, and above it, from west to north, loomed the cloud-piercing bulk of Wild Horse Mesa.

“Panquitch! I see him, Sue,” said Chane, his voice ringing deep. “He’s all alone. His band has gone up.... Look! the fold in the wall! It could never be seen except when the sun shines as now. What a trail! Even the Piutes do not know it. Hard smooth rock over the bench, and then the zigzag up that crack.... See, he shines gold and black in the sun!”

At last Sue’s straining gaze was rewarded by clear sight of Panquitch climbing, apparently the very wall of the mesa. With abated breath Sue watched him, conscious of more in the moment than just the climbing freedom of a wild horse. But it was beyond her. It led her thoughts beyond emotions, deep into the dim past of her inheritance. But she had loved Panquitch or some creature like him in a world before this.

The intense flare of gold changed as the sun began to sink behind cloud and rim. It yielded to the wondrous lilac haze. Sue cried out in a transport. Panquitch, too, seemed less a wild horse, more of an unreal creature, giving life to the grandeur and desolation of the naked rock-ribs of the earth.

“He’s almost on top,” said Chane, joyfully. He clung to the physical thing — to the flesh and blood Panquitch, to his pursuit and capture and release, to his recapture and escape, to the long winding mysterious and hidden trail in and out of the canyons, to the wonderful wall of Wild Horse Mesa.

Sue felt all these, deeply, poignantly, but beyond them, inexplicable and vague, was the spiritual thing Panquitch typified. She endowed him with soul. She had gazed at him, recognizing in him something within herself.

Panquitch came out on top of the rim, sharply silhouetted against the blue sky, and stood a moment looking down, with his long mane and tail streaming in the wind. The lilac haze lent him unreality, but the uplift of his head gave him life. Wild and grand he seemed to Sue, fitting that last stand of wild horses. He moved against the sky; he was gone.

“Oh, Panquitch, stay up there always!” called Sue.

Chane smiled upon her. “Sweetheart, I’d stake my life he’ll never feel another rope.”

“We alone know his trail to the heights. And we never will tell?”

“Never, Sue.”

“You will not show dad how to get on top of Wild Horse Mesa?” she begged. “So he could run sheep and cattle up there?”

“I promise, Sue. Why, do you imagine I could ever become that much of a rancher? It may be long before another rider, or an Indian, happens on this secret. Maybe never. Some distant day airships might land on Wild Horse Mesa. But what if they do? An hour of curiosity, an achievement to boast of — then gone! Wild Horse Mesa rises even above this world of rock. It was meant for eagles, wild horses — and for lonely souls like mine.”

Slowly the transformation of sunset worked its miracles of evanescent change and exquisite color. Gold and silver fire faded, died away. The sun sank below the verge. Then from out of the depths where it had gone rose the afterglow, deepening the lilac haze to purple.

“Chane, you have made Wild Horse Mesa yours,” said Sue. “Millions of men can never take it from you. As for me — Panquitch seems mine. He’s like my heart or something in my blood.”

“Yes, I think I understand you,” he replied, dreamily. “We must labor — we must live as people have lived before. But these thoughts are beautiful.... You are Panquitch and I am Wild Horse Mesa.”

Captives of the Desert

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I I

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER I

KATHARINE RESENTED FURTHER disruption of her enjoyment of the color and beauty and loneliness of the Arizona desert. But again she was dragged back to reality by the irritating presence of her friend’s husband.

Wilbur Newton kicked a swirl of sand toward the offending automobile and glowered from the disconsolate driver to the ladies in the party: “That carburetor again! ... Now we’ll miss the Snake Dance. Exactly what I expected, though.”

Obviously it was unspeakable impudence for anyone or anything to interrupt the even tenor of Wilbur’s lordly life. His face, his tone, his strutting gait, now all revealed his pettish anger as he swung away from the unpleasant scene and the car that had betrayed him.

Mary Newton sighed audibly.

Sighs could not always be stifled, thought Katharine, pressing her friend’s hand. “Personally,” she said aloud, “I think it’s a lark to break down on the desert. It’s the unexpected that’s fun. Surely other motorists will make the Snake Dance by this trail. They’ll help us.”

There was no response from Mary. Katharine’s gaze followed hers to the boulder some two hundred feet away, where the object of the sigh had halted. The balancing rock against which he stood shaded the tall, lean figure, but the sun, splitting its rays over and under the rock, threw pools of light on his sombrero and spurs, making them exceptionally evident.

“A big hat and a pair of spurs,” murmured Katharine with startling audacity.

“Yes, a big hat and a pair of spurs — and nothing between. That’s what I married,” Mary replied. Her voice was as light and dry as the desert breeze.

“It ain’t so bad, Miss,” the driver explained. “But it’s expert help I need. Now if we could make thet Indian school at Leupp. Still and all, it’s fifteen miles off.”

“Is it likely that a car will pass this way before nightfall?” Katharine asked.

“Might be days before a car’d come by this spot.”

The man’s reply stirred Katharine strangely. She wanted to learn more.

“Then we might be left here to starve or die of thirst?” she asked excitedly. “And our bones to be bleached by the desert sun?”

“No, Marm. Leupp’s too near. Walkin’s good at night if it comes to thet.”

But the driver’s reassurance could not destroy the romance of their situation for the Eastern girl. “Why, we’d enjoy being marooned,” laughed Katharine. “Mrs. Newton and I will be just as dramatic as we please. We’ll find some high place on these boulders where we can watch and pray for help. See, Mary, won’t that make a jolly lookout?”

Mary entered into the spirit of Katharine’s play, and raced with her toward the slope she had indicated.

“Now — what — did — we want to do that for?” panted Mary as they reached their objective. “Running in this sun — when we have a climb — ahead.”

“To put distance between the world and us,” Katharine replied, with a sidelong glance toward Wilbur’s remote figure. How still the man stood, like a painted thing! Was he thinking? If so, what was he thinking about? No, he could not be thinking, for all his usual profound appearance. Mary was right. There was nothing between his hat and his spurs.

The girls climbed the trailless slope, zigzagging between boulders toward the red-rimmed rock of the domineering mound that rose above them. The higher they climbed, the more difficult became their breathing, and they were forced to pause sooner than they had anticipated.

Katharine dropped to a seat on a flat rock. “I’m actually — puffing!” she said.

Then, lost in a transport of joy, she caught her breath. The desert drew and held her eye — leagues and leagues of sand, pink-toned, shimmering, like an opal ocean in dead calm, the dim distant purple cloud banks resting on the rim of the horizon. It seemed that any moment they might lift and disappear.

“Oh, Mary, you were such a dear to include me in this trip!” Katharine declared ecstatically.

“I hope we can inspire you with a love for Arizona, dear. It may happen that you will have to live here always — for Alice’s sake.”

Katharine had never pretended that it was anything but terrifying for her to face the decision to accompany her frail sister to live in Arizona. When the family doctor had declared that Alice might be able to combat the dread tubercular malady which had followed her siege of pneumonia out here, she was sure that she would never have capitulated if Mary’s letters had not been so full of optimism and her own example of courage so radiant. Katharine looked with admiration at the straight, slim figure by her side. There was something of Spartan strength in Mary’s fine features, in her gallant carriage, in the simple, severe way she wore her hair. And five years of a new life had developed Spartan qualities of soul as well. Neither disappointment nor defeat would ever make this brave woman bitter!

“Wilbur isn’t so sociable that he really wanted our company,” said Mary, breaking the silence. “The trip materialized only because Hanley wanted Wilbur to meet him there. Hanley pulls a string and Wilbur dances. What this dance is I don’t know. I reminded Wilbur that four years ago he promised we would make this trip, and therefore he should take me. You were dragged in by the heels.”

“Well, at least I’m being dragged willingly,” said Katharine.

“Oh, I wanted you, dear. But I had to scheme. It would be so nice for me to have company when he conferred with Hanley. You know — that sort of thing. All the while I wanted you just for your precious self, even more than I wanted the trip.”

“For what you could give my ‘precious self,’” Katharine corrected her.

Mary turned away with a lithe stride. “Come on, we’ve dawdled long enough. The higher we get, the more beautiful the prospect.”

Katharine labored bravely upward, half-envious of Mary’s ease in action. Manifestly her friend was desert-tried. As she climbed, her excited oh’s and ah’s were punctuated by little puffs of breath.

“Take it easy. You’re not used to it. Don’t mind me,” Mary called over her shoulder.

It was fully twenty minutes before the girls met on the summit of the red-rimmed rock. It had developed greater proportions as they climbed, as had the desert increased in its staggering magnitude. Now the world was a huge irregular bowl, sand-lined and of translucent pink, an uneven purple fresco painted on its broken rim.

“How gorgeous!” Katharine exclaimed, breathing hard.

“To me it is peace — infinite peace,” murmured Mary. She smiled dreamily. “Somehow having you here reminds me of when we were youngsters. Remember our secret places? Remember Desert Island — a huge rock in a meadow of daisies? It was there we confided all our secrets to each other.”

“And how vast that daisy field seemed. How tremendous our island rock!” replied Katharine.

“Our childish troubles, so insurmountable before we reached the rock, vanished like magic once we made it. That’s what happens when I climb a high place on the desert. Desert magic, I call it. And it is one of the things that hold me.”

During the three weeks in which the girls had renewed their friendship, a time when most girls would have enjoyed the delightful intimacy of talking about themselves, Mary conscientiously had avoided personal references. It was of other people she spoke, with an all-consuming interest in detail. It might have been that she was aware that the life she was living spoke for itself. Today was the first time — and for an instant only — that she had opened the door of her heart and let Katharine look in.

When a half-score of years ago Mary left New York to live with relatives in the South because her father feared conflict between his eighteen-year-old daughter and her temperamental stepmother, a girl scarcely five years his daughter’s senior, Katharine had felt that nothing good would come from so cruel a situation. The thought of proud, aloof Mary being thrust upon relatives whom she hardly knew because there was no place for her in her father’s home had seemed impossible to her. Had Mary been trained to economic independence there would have been a chance of escape. But, no, true to a life-long habit of selfishness, her father had chained her to him to satisfy his creature comforts when her mother’s usefulness had ended in death. Small wonder that Mary had met romance too quickly — that she became Mrs. Wilbur Newton before a year had passed. “I’m marrying a Texan,” she had written, “of a branch of one of the oldest Southern families, a man of sterling qualities, not above becoming a rancher to help retrieve the family fortune. It will be such a wonderful opportunity for service, to help him in the upward climb. I’m so wonderfully in love. I’ll never forget how thrilled I was when I met him for the first time. I heard a clink of spurs, and then I turned and a great big sombrero caught my eye, and underneath a face — really, I haven’t the power to describe him — such kindliness, such reserve, you know, the kind of reserve that suggests silent power. Not dashing, but infinitely daring!”

Six months later there came word that Mr. Wilbur Newton had failed in the ranch enterprise, though Mary had struggled to keep up her end. Of course, so proud a man as he had to flee from his disgrace, so they migrated to southern Arizona. Two years later his farming project in some remote Arizona valley was abandoned — for what reason Katharine never knew — and they transferred their meager possessions to Taho, on the Navaho Indian Reservation, where the man of infinite daring prospered on a salary as assistant to a trader. He was the kind of person who would prosper under any condition, where his wife could scrape and sweat. Katharine had seen. Indignation burned within her. Once Katharine had written from the East, admonishing Mary not to wait too long with news of a little Wilbur Junior. Such news never came, nor any comment on Katharine’s suggestion. The time had come when Katharine was profoundly grateful: neither dogs nor children liked Wilbur.

“The desert is thought-provoking, isn’t it?” Mary’s even words broke through her stormy meditation.

Katharine flushed and hastily replied that it was. But Mary’s eyes, quick and roving, had left her.

“Look!” the older girl cried. “There’s Leupp. See that windmill? See those specks? They’re the government buildings.”

“But that isn’t fifteen miles away!” Katharine protested.

“Oh, yes, good long desert miles. Distances are deceiving, and so is the general topography of this country. Notice that brownish line like a thread dropped carelessly — about halfway between here and Leupp? That’s Canyon Diablo, a great deep canyon. We must cross it to make Leupp.”

“Canyon Diablo? Devil’s Canyon, I presume. Oh, how thrilling! Who’d ever guess this desert below us was anything but a perfectly level floor? ... Now I know I’ll be broken-hearted if we aren’t rescued soon!”

“It’s a strange thing to consider,” Mary explained, “that Indians at Leupp doubtless know this very minute that a party of four people, two men and two women, are stalled on the desert near — well, whatever they call this particular landmark.... More of what I call desert magic. I never yet traveled anywhere on the desert that news of my coming did not precede me.”

“Oh, how spooky!” Katharine cried, thrilled to the marrow. “We are being watched, you mean. While we sit here thinking we are the only souls for miles around, Indian eyes are peering at us and riders are carrying word of our coming.”

Mary laughed, a low, pleasing musical laugh. “There’s not an Indian behind every greasewood bush and cactus patch,” she corrected. “But rest assured, the eyes of the desert are on you.”

“Would the Indians be likely to send back help from Leupp?” queried Katharine.

“No, unless some white friend were expecting a party of our description. That doesn’t happen to be our luck.”

“Anyway, it’s a lark, whatever comes.” Katharine’s words were profoundly sincere. She was seeing so much, living so much, learning so much. “Tell me some more about your fascinating Indians,” she begged.

And as they sat there, looking out over the wasteland, Mary related much that she had learned about the desert dwellers, explaining graphically the dissimilar customs of the gypsy-like, nomadic Navahos and the civic-spirited Hopis who were planning for the solemn snake dance rituals. As Katharine listened she watched the gray tide of cloud shadow slowly advance before a lowering sun. Now the desert appeared more defined through dissolving haze. The distant irregular purple frieze grew bold in profile. Shadow lay upon it like folds pressed in velvet.

“You have only to watch evening come to the desert to understand what stirs these Indians to such religious fervor,” concluded Mary.

“Can we stay here till the sun goes down?” Katharine asked.

“Heavens, no!” returned Mary, swinging to her feet with a start. “There are things to do.”

“Things to do? Surely the only thing to do is wait, watch and enjoy.”

“Yes. Campfire to make — supper to get. The driver will rustle some wood. I’ll handle the rest.”

“And Wilbur, poor dear, what will he do? ... Ah, think, no doubt!” Katharine mimicked the slow, even drawl of the man she ridiculed, then added tartly, “Someday he’ll die from what the observer might call overthoughtfulness, but at the post-mortem it will be discovered that his brains are only cotton wool!”

“Katharine!” begged Mary, with just the least sign of reproach in her searching gray eyes. “I’m sure Wilbur’s a good camper when he’s alone on the trail, or with men. But when I’m along....”

“Oh, yes, dear. I understand, and I’m sorry. But I feel like the bubble in that fairy story my mother used to tell us — the bubble who wanted to burst and couldn’t. You remember: ‘One day the poor bubble got giddy and gay.’ Well, look out!”

“But the consequences were dire,” remarked Mary thoughtfully. “The bubble found that things could never be the same again.”

The full weight of the remark escaped Katharine. Far off in the direction from which they had ridden, she espied a slow-moving object. Could it be a car?

“Look!” she cried.

“That’s a car,” Mary declared. “It’s moving faster than it appears to be. Still pretty far away; but I think it will get to us before dark. Come along now.”

The descent was easy and swift, and they covered the ground between the slope and the stalled car with buoyant steps. The driver was asleep curled over his wheel. Wilbur was nowhere in sight.

“Fine!” thought Katharine. Aloud she said, “Don’t wake the driver. I’ll find wood. These clumps of dead greasewood will do, won’t they?”

Katharine’s fire was not much of a success at first, but was saved under Mary’s instructions.

“Anyone as stubbornly persistent as you will learn,” laughed Mary.

She had laid a small rug at a comfortable distance from the fire and spread camp tableware and a tempting picnic lunch. Katharine sauntered over, feeling very important now that her fire was burning.

“What’s that black iron-pot affair?” she asked curiously.

“Dutch oven,” Mary replied.

“Dutch oven?” Katharine echoed.

“The joy of a cowboy’s existence,” added Mary.

She was busy with flour and water and baking powder, and Katharine watched her quick fingers prepare a biscuit dough.

“One uses different proportions of ingredients in this altitude,” Mary explained. “I could have bombarded a town with the first biscuits I made here by the rule I used back East.... Now you can help by poking out some hot cinders from the bed of your fire. Make a nice little nest of them alongside. That’s for the Dutch oven.”

Katharine applied herself thoughtfully to the task. Poking hot coals from a fire was terrifying. The burning wood above had a way of collapsing and sending out showers of sparks when part of its support was dug away. She was concentrating so intently that when a voice sounded at her elbow she gave a violent start.

“I ain’t being much help to you.” It was the driver, looking decidedly sheepish.

“Oh, I’m enjoying this!”

Her sally was cut with an exclamation of approval from Mary who was coming toward them, the oven swinging from one hand, its lid in the other.

“Splendid work. It isn’t every cook who has an assistant like you.... Look here!”

She swung the oven toward Katharine. Neat little mounds of dough lay compact on the bottom of the pot. Mary set the pot on the bed of cinders, then, laying the lid on a stone conveniently near the fire, she raked out more coals and with a swiftness that excited Katharine’s admiration transferred them to the iron lid. A protecting edge an inch high held the coals safe. Refusing the driver’s protest to let him do that, she thrust a stout stick through the handle of the lid, and balancing it carefully, lifted and fastened it over the pot. Not a coal moved.

“That supplies heat from above!” declared Katharine, with as much pride as if she had invented the ingenious oven herself.

“When the biscuits are done, I’ll put some bacon in,” Mary returned. “It cooks in no time. I really prefer to sizzle mine on a stick. But Wilbur likes everything ready when he sits down.”

The mention of Wilbur jarred on Katharine. She glanced about furtively, wondering what had become of the man. There he was, not far away, a blot against a patch of greasewood. He had a stick in his hand and was moving slowly toward the fire, jogging little jets of dust before him. Vivid light on the rock behind him made Katharine look toward the direction from which it came. The sun was setting between fleecy clouds low over the horizon, chiffon clouds of pink and gold; and the lonely desert was bathed in rosy light showered from purple mesa to purple mesa, through the silent legions of miles.

“And we were getting supper while all this was happening!” thought Katharine, flinging a resentful glance toward the man who walked with his eyes to the ground. She knew he would not speak unless he were addressed, so she called to him as gaily as she could, “Wilbur, isn’t that sunset exquisite?”

He looked up slowly. Ah, that studied grandiose expression of dignity! She hated it. Did it never irritate Mary?

“Hadn’t noticed.... Yeah, it’s pretty fine, I guess. You’ll get used to them,” he drawled.

“Did you sight that car?” Mary greeted Wilbur with the quickness of speech she customarily used when addressing him, perhaps to lay subtle suggestion or to strike a balance, or — and this had not occurred to Katharine before — perhaps from sheer nervousness.

“Mmm. Aboot twenty minutes ago.”

The car was not in sight now. There was a perceptible rise in the desert floor approaching their location, though, as Katharine had noted from above, the whole valley appeared to be level.

“Better hustle through supper,” suggested Wilbur languidly.

“I was trying to delay it until that car came,” Mary explained. “It may carry some hungry people. I’ve made lots of biscuits and lots of coffee. We can be spare with the other things.”

Wilbur’s eyes narrowed and flashed steely blue. “We’re not setting up a desert barbecue. There may be seven or eight people in thet car.”

How evenly he talked! His irritation showed only in his eyes. Mary glanced apprehensively at the driver. Katharine, feeling her friend’s discomfort, wanted to assure her that the stranger had missed Wilbur’s words.

No sooner had they gathered round the campfire in response to Mary’s call than the roar of a motor sounded.

“They’ve been steppin’ on it, thet outfit, like they wanted to get somewhere,” Wilbur commented. “I suppose they’ll be a bunch of cranks who won’t want to tow us. Anyway, they can get word to Leupp and send back a government truck.... Don’t you mention supper, Mary. The quicker they get to Leupp, the quicker we’ll get help.”

The car was in sight now, approaching fast. Two points of light flashed across the sand. Another minute later, with a grind of brakes, it came to a stop along the trail.

“Halloo!” called a cheery voice. “That you, Newton? Trouble, eh? Heard you passed through Tolcheco this morning.”

The people in the car were gray figures in the gray light. Katharine discerned three passengers in the back. The man who spoke rode alone in front. Taking a sudden leap, he cleared the door of the car without opening it and the violent movement sent him half running toward them. As he stepped into the circle of light Katharine experienced a pleasant thrill. She seemed to know this man, as one recognizes a composite of pleasing personalities. He was tall and broad-shouldered yet possessed an athletic slimness, and the fine swing of his gait was the mark of perfect control and muscular co-ordination. What rugged strength of features! He wore no hat. Katharine looked quickly from dark eyes under bushy brows to a stubborn crown of brown hair, then for a second time the flashing white smile and easy presence captivated her attention. Wilbur, addressing him as “Curry,” explained that they had trouble with their carburetor and could not go on.

“Meet the ladies,” Wilbur drawled. “My wife ... oh, beg pardon, you know her, don’t you? ... This is Miss Winfield, Miss Katharine Winfield, from New York.”

Katharine’s fingers were paralyzed by the vicelike grip of Curry’s hand.

“I’m right glad to meet you, Miss Winfield. You’re a long way from home, but you’re in good company.”

Katharine glanced at Mary. Her face was flushed. Greeting people never seemed to excite her. Was she afraid of what her husband might say? That likely was the trouble.

“We do want to make the Snake Dance, if possible,” Mary offered. “More for Miss Winfield’s sake than our own.”

“You’re making it right now!” Curry declared. “I’ll see you through. You bet! Wish I had my own car. I’d tow you. This car I’m driving is borrowed. The folks from the post have mine. I had to come around by way of Flaggerston and pick up my party there this morning — nice middle-aged people. Couldn’t waste my seven-passenger on a party of three. Now I can’t risk another fellow’s car by towing your load.” He ran his fingers through his hair with a jerking pull at the unruly locks, as if by so doing he could assemble ideas more quickly in his mind.

“Here’s how! I’ll take you ladies and send back a truck for the car and men. We’re planning on a bed at Leupp for tonight. I can tinker with your car when it gets there. In the morning all hands will be ready to ford the Little Colorado. We’ll make Oraibi early in the afternoon. Nice to have the Snake Dance at Oraibi for a change.”

Wilbur cleared his throat. “Couldn’t get me in somehow on this load?” A frown accompanied his question.

“Not very well. Running board packed with bedding, and valises stacked in back. We’ll be riding three to the front seat as it is, and that narrow back seat is none too comfortable now. Got to consider my party some. They’re paying for this. And crossing Canyon Diablo with an overloaded car is pretty bad business.”

“You’re shore to send someone back?” drawled Wilbur.

“Sure as a decent man’s word,” Curry retorted.

Katharine was aware that a man like Curry could not take Wilbur’s insolence easily. Suddenly a daring idea stimulated her. “Oh, Mr. Curry,” she said in her most affable manner. “Mr. Newton was suggesting before that we had plenty of supper for an additional small party. I’m sure you folks are hungry.”

“Now, that’s sure fine of you, Newton. Like to sit down with you, but my party’s counting on a big layout at Leupp. They ate lunch late — not powerful hungry yet. You ladies go and get it. My engine needs a little cooling off. Meanwhile I’ll look at that carburetor.”

Wilbur was silent through the hurried meal. He had specific silences for specific occasions. This one bore like a heavy hand. Later, Wilbur’s too emphatic words, supposed to be for Mary’s ears alone, carried to Katharine where she stood brushing crumbs from her skirt.

“Mind me! You let Katharine sit next to thet man. I won’t have you squeezin’ close to him. Better leave the conversation to her, too. She’s got enough tongue to do for two women.”

CHAPTER I I

THE PEOPLE IN Curry’s party, a professor from the University of Chicago and his maiden sisters, made the girls welcome. They were glad to be of service. It all only went to show, they explained piecemeal between them, that nothing man could devise would ever conquer the desert. What good was a car? Had the girls been marooned in a more remote part of the desert, they might have starved to death!

Katharine wanted to tell them about desert magic, how the Indians who kept watch might be saviors under such a circumstance, but she always hated to repeat information just received. Unfortunately Mary seemed too preoccupied to enlighten them.

“A horse is the thing for this country,” spoke up Curry. “When a fellow’s car’s broken down on the road and Indians ride up and look on from their saddles, you know sure as life they’re figuring they have the best of the bargain. And they have. A horse can get where a car can’t. Sure, he may break a leg when he’s traveling, but if he’s your own you’d just as soon starve to death right there anyway.”

“You know how that hurts, don’t you, Mr. Curry?” said Mary softly.

“You bet I do!”

For a moment Katharine was perplexed. There was a strange import in the look that flashed between her seatmates on their exchange of words, an incident that led her to believe they shared something more than a casual acquaintance — an experience, perhaps. Her conjecture seemed trivial, but she wanted to justify their amity. It came to Katharine then that the imperturbable Wilbur had been stirred to an unusual vehemence of speech when he mentioned Curry to his wife.

Katharine fell suddenly thoughtful. She stared out into the dusk. A mellow glow pervaded. There would be no severe blackness such as she had experienced early in her visit at Taho. The desert was a pale-tinted opal in moonlight, gently tenacious of the radiance of day. Everywhere shadows were fleeing before the goddess of the night. One lone star twinkled above the blue-black rim of the world. Katharine found herself listening to silence — an intense silence that seemed to muffle the sound of the car. Was it through such a silence as this that one could hear the voice of God? She thought of the prophets of old who went to the wilderness to commune with God. How terrifying to think of one small soul alone with the Creator — not alone as in prayer, but mute, voiceless, waiting for His word! Did anyone really ever seek such an experience? She, herself, would have fled from it. She was grateful not to be alone in this silence, so alone that there would be only God.... She stole furtive glances at her companions. Suppose they could read her thoughts! How puerile they would seem! ... Nothing could change the silence — it hovered heavily over the desert night. Her companions, too, had become part of it.

Finally Curry spoke, breaking a long lull. “You’ll be a little skeery crossing Canyon Diablo, Miss Winfield. We make automobiles do funny things in this country. We’ve got to.”

“Scare me if you can!” said Katharine. “Bring on your old canyon!”

Curry laughed so heartily that one of the ladies burst out with a nervous “What was that?”

“We have a young lady along who’s sure enthusiastic about that canyon I was hoping we’d make before sunset,” explained Curry. “She’s all primed for a fight.”

“For a fright, you mean,” retorted Katharine. “I don’t feel as brave as I sound.”

“Better grit your teeth then, she’s a-comin’!”

“Where? I don’t see anything.”

“You will as soon as we cover this rise.”

Katharine studied the trail. Could it be that close beyond the gentle rise of ground a canyon yawned? She leaned forward expectantly. They sped along through the silent, mysterious night — pale night, yellow night, ghostly night. Star-gleam ahead, and the canyon! They came upon it soon, a jagged black gulf, a pit of darkness over which they seemed to hang. Light caught slantwise from the moon penetrated part way down the opposite wall, and below was naked gloom. Devil’s Canyon, indeed!

“We’re going down into that — with this car!” exclaimed Katharine incredulously.

“We are, or we’ll never make Leupp till bridge builders get out here!” replied Curry stoutly. “You’ll get shaken up some.”

Katharine braced her feet, a perilous performance in itself, with the emergency brake so close, and spread her arms behind Curry and Mary to get a strong hold from the rear. Mary sat in perfect relaxation. Canyons had no terrors for her.

Strong headlights made the tortuous trail visible over a short area, but below yawned the bottomless black pit. And black walls loomed suddenly before them. From these, they turned and rode on through their shadows, only to meet others, leaning, towering. The automobile pitched and swung and shook, and brakes groaned. Katharine felt as if she were falling, slipping down into the dark abyss. They rode at a perilous angle, fretting their way between rock and boulder in perilous descent. They were subjected to about fifteen minutes of this before the car swung around with a tremendous shake and slid out on a level place where Curry shut down hard on the brakes. A gasp of relief escaped Katharine.

“And now that we’ve come this far, what are we going to do?” she asked.

“Climb out, goose,” returned Mary.

“You can get out of the car and stretch, if you like,” Curry informed her. “I’m walking up a little way to look over a piece of that trail. Sometimes it’s in a poor way. I might have to build it up some.” With what equanimity this strong desert man talked of Herculean things! Katharine smiled on him in admiration.

“May Mrs. Newton and I come along?”

“Sure, anybody can come.”

The ladies and gentleman from Chicago declined; they were still breathing hard from the already too adventuresome excursion. But Mary would miss no chance to explore. She and Katharine toiled up the trail together, following the gleam of Curry’s flashlight. The sandy basin of the canyon was narrow and gorgelike and they came quickly to the precipitous trail up the far wall. Katharine looked up. Dim lavender light sifted down through the rent, and far beyond the jagged purple rim a long, narrow welt of sky gleamed like darkened steel. Yellow stars shone though the blue void, still and cold. The all-pervading silence was almost frightening.

“Isn’t it too awesome for words!” Katharine managed to murmur to her companions. “As if we’d found the gateway to Dante’s Inferno!”

“Night makes the setting more somber,” said Mary. “Day is kinder and doesn’t show the canyon in such a terrifying aspect. This is like being buried alive in a tomb.”

The place Curry was examining was not more than two hundred feet up the trail; still they felt the strain of their climb over the rock-strewn slope. Katharine could see at once how narrow the roadway was at this point. A stout log and jammed rocks built up the edge wide enough to assure the passage of the car.

“We’ve got the world by the tail!” announced Curry. “Someone’s put in a good job here. We can buck right over her!”

“I wonder how often this part of the trail has been rebuilt,” said Katharine thoughtfully.

“As often as there comes a good rain,” Curry replied.

The New York girl looked at him in amazement.

“Every break in that rim becomes a waterfall then,” Mary explained, “and a torrent of water roars through the canyon. Look straight up to that break which looks like a cross-canyon.... Can’t you imagine the water pouring over that ledge? All the dirt beneath that pile of rocks would be washed away, and it would be impossible to cross the trail here.”

“Well, I should say so!” declared Katharine, while deploring in her mind such destruction by the elements of the fruits of men’s labors. “The desert must be unconquerable. That might explain its charm.”

“How do you like our canyon?” queried Curry.

“Yours and the devil’s, you mean,” said Katharine before she could curb her unruly tongue. “As people in Taho would say, ‘I like it fine.’ But heaven forbid that I ever have to cross it on a dark and stormy night! I want the moon.”

“Next time you come through, I’ll see you have a moon. I’ll fix it up with the government agent at Leupp. He’s an obliging cuss.”

“You’re both incorrigible!” Mary declared, laughing as she spoke.

Immediately upon their return to the automobile, two timorous passengers questioned them about the safety in venturing farther over the terrible road.

Curry told them there would be no trouble. “We’ll eat it up. The place I was worrying about is in perfect condition.”

Thus assured, the ladies lapsed into silence, and soon the automobile was moving again, gasping and grinding up the grade. Once when the motor went dead, Katharine’s heart stopped too. Only after Curry recovered control and regained the few feet they had slid could she find breath or voice.

At last they gained the canyon rim and the car shot out upon the desert. Mary clapped her hands in approval of Curry’s masterly handling of the car. One of the ladies quavered, “Well, I never!” a sentiment which the Eastern girl heartily endorsed.

“I’ll let the old nag cool off a bit and then I’ll stick my spurs in her and make her run,” said Curry. “It’s a pretty even stretch now all the way to Leupp. We ought to make it in a half-hour.”

* * * * *

Katharine’s impression of Leupp from a distance was of a treeless community of toy buildings set haphazardly on pale yellow cardboard. But the buildings, which surrounded a formal walk, took substantial proportions as they approached. Several were dark, vacant structures.

“School buildings and dormitories,” Curry informed them, indicating the largest of the group. “No youngsters here now. Vacation. Teachers gone too, I guess. Leupp’s sure a dead place in summer.”

They drove by the buildings and on toward a square brick house where a light shone. There they stopped.

“Hey!” yelled Curry. “Anybody home?”

“You betcher!” bellowed a voice from the doorway. A man of giant stature strode out to greet them. He was grizzled and desert-worn, and had a homely good-natured face.

“Howdy, everybody!” he said in thundering tones. “Want a lodging for the night?”

Mr. Curry introduced the man to his party. His name was Jenkins. He was the government agent at Leupp.

“Aw, shaw! And to think Mrs. Jenkins is in Taho when there’s ladies to entertain!” His disappointment was so genuine that Katharine could not help sharing it.

“Miss Winfield and I are from Taho,” spoke up Mary. “Sorry I haven’t met Mrs. Jenkins there. Guess she’s newly arrived.”

“Yes, she shore is. But if you ain’t away for long you’ll have lots of time to be good to her. She’s to spend a month there with the Burnhams. You know ’em, I guess. You can’t live in Taho and not know everybody.”

“Indeed I do know Mrs. Burnham. It’s certain we’ll meet your wife.”

While the ladies accepted Jenkins’ invitation to “step out and shake your skirts,” Curry explained Wilbur Newton’s plight.

“Shore. I’ll pull him out,” agreed Jenkins. “Likely he’s diggin’ a pair of spurs into a rock somewheres. Ain’t he the dandy? Arizona couldn’t support two of him.”

Curry’s effort to stop the man before he had his full say was futile. Half-whispered words passed between them; then Katharine caught, “Well I’ll be damned! I didn’t get it that she was the missus. Now, ain’t some men lucky, and some women fools!”

Mary was serene through it all, as if she had not heard.

Their arrival had interrupted a card game in which sat a professor from Harvard University and two students, all of archeological bent. This information came unsolicited with the introductions. Jenkins was proud of his guests.

After professor had met professor, no one could separate them, and much to the consternation of the students it became their lot to decide who should accompany Jenkins on his relief expedition. It was obvious that they preferred the company of the ladies. Katharine did not wonder at it, marooned as they were in this remote place where they likely had not seen a girl for many weeks. Finally, in heroic brothers-in-arms fashion they agreed that they both would go.

Jenkins turned the house over to the ladies. They were to do with it what they pleased. There was a kitchen stocked with any amount of canned food. They could cook, play the victrola — at this the students exchanged despairing glances — look through his albums and guest book, or anything else that took their fancy. When it came to sleeping time they could send the men folks to the dormitories where they would find a dozen beds apiece. There were three bedrooms for which the ladies could draw. He wanted them to be sure to “make themselves to home.”

Guided by their host’s suggestion, Mary and Katharine explored the rooms as soon as he left. No small home could have been more complete than the Jenkins’ desert place. And it was spotlessly neat. In the kitchen the girls found Curry, sleeves rolled above his elbow, laying out food supplies he had brought in from the car.

“You’ve had no supper,” said Mary. “You and your party must be starved!”

“Just watch me rustle some grub!” Curry grinned happily.

“Let us do it!” Katharine begged.

“Not while I’ve got legs to stand on.”

“Then let us help,” chimed in Mary. “It will hurry things.”

Curry swung one arm high in surrender. “That’s putting it too straight for me. Dip in if you want to.”

If it had been a competition, Katharine would have had difficulty in deciding whether Curry or Mary were the better cook. While she herself awkwardly carried out the tasks they directed her to do, Mary and Curry were talking as they worked and yet accomplished twice as much. Between the three the work was dispatched quickly.

Mary and Katharine waited table against the protest of the others. Attention of this kind, they declared, would spoil them forever.

Never had Katharine felt such joy in service; never had people seemed so necessary to each other, their interdependence been more clearly established, than here, far from the civilized world. The desert had a power over men, linking their destinies or pulling them far asunder. People met as friends or enemies. There was no intermediate bond.

After supper the maiden ladies retired to their room. They much preferred the room with a double bed to the separate rooms and single beds. The desert seemed to have made them conscious of their impotence, and they clung to each other for strength. Youth had greater vigor and less fear.

Katharine stepped out into the pale yellow night. The droning voices of the two professors came to her. She wanted to hear their interesting conversation on the subject of archeology. But even more than this she wanted the moonlight of the desert and its strange impelling silence; so she walked down the barren path that led to the trail.

This desert solitude was the storehouse of unlived years, the hush of the world at the hour of its creation. It was solemn, grand, incorruptible. It did something to one, something inexplicable; it drew one’s narrow soul from out oneself, and poured in something big, so big it was almost too great to bear. It set one’s heart beating faster. Tears came too, and a strange yearning. Was it the desire to be in tune with the Infinite? Was it self trying to meet God? Was it God trying to storm her soul? Had Mary surrendered to this force, this power, this unnamable magic, that she could find in the desert infinite peace? ... “Come unto me all ye who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” ... It must be that Mary meant that God had received her in the desert, that she too could find Him there. But Katharine was too unsure. This vast, solemn, ageless sepulcher was voiceless and fearsome, and too merciless in aspect. The stars looked down coldly, and the moon. The Eastern girl found companionship in her shadow; and watching it before her, she returned slowly to the house.

Curry and Mary were alone on the porch; he sat against a pillar; she, at the far end of the steps, seemingly unconscious of his presence, was wrapped in deep meditation. Neither was aware of Katharine’s approach until her voice brought them to their feet.

“I didn’t mean to run off. I simply couldn’t resist it.”

“The desert has a way of wooing all its own,” said Mary. “However, I knew you weren’t far.”

“It’s wonderful and so terrifying! Do you ever feel that way about it, Mr. Curry?” Katharine asked.

“I’ve lived on it for years, and I don’t savvy it yet,” Curry returned.

“Someday you will,” put in Mary, turning to him.

“Do you? You sound like you meant that you do.”

“I think so. And I want to continue to think so, because it means peace — it makes me brave enough to meet life.... It’s something a person has to find out for himself.”

Mary rose with a quick smile. “The moon is so lovely,” she continued. “I’d like to stay with it forever, but I’d only fall asleep and miss it all. I’m not a desert owl like you, Katharine. I’m a very domestic bird, and go to my roost early. Will you say good night to Wilbur for me and explain that the men are to sleep in the dormitories?”

Katharine understood Mary’s message. For her sake she stayed and talked with Curry until Wilbur had come, and she had told him, and he had seen.

* * * * *

The next morning Curry and Jenkins were moving about before the sun came up. Katharine, from her room in the rear, heard them enter the kitchen by the back way, and then whispers and the opening of cupboards and an occasional clatter followed by an exclamation of disgust. She identified the voices. The two were stealing a march — preparing breakfast while everyone else still slept. Katharine was amused and delighted at the idea of two men cooking breakfast for four capable women, and such truly masculine men, too! The whole social order seemed reversed. She rose hurriedly.

Mary appeared before Katharine was fully dressed. She was an early riser, accustomed daily to greet the sun. And presently Mr. Jenkins gave a tremendous bellow which ended in the summons, “Time to get up!”

The girls set the table, though Mr. Jenkins at first objected, claiming they had no right to have risen so soon and to spoil half his fun.

How different this man was from Wilbur, who came in when breakfast was half over, expressing mild surprise that he was the last to arrive. It pleased Katharine that the young students, not wholly without guile, had seated themselves one on each side of Mary. Katharine sat next, with Curry on her right. They were well barricaded. Wilbur, frowningly, took the vacant chair opposite.

The offending carburetor having been repaired by Curry the minute it was hauled to the shed at Leupp, everything was in readiness for both parties to move on. A silent rage evidently was burning within Wilbur that he must continue to accept Curry’s favors. Katharine could tell by the two red spots that showed in his usually pale face. Curry offered to ride at the pace Wilbur set all the way to Oraibi, so he could be of assistance if necessary, and Wilbur received the courteous offer boorishly.

Mr. Jenkins, driving the government truck, went with them as far as the Little Colorado, whither at his request several Navaho Indians had come with a team and a high-bodied wagon. The wagon fascinated Katharine. It was a tremendous wooden box set on wheels and without protective covering.

Ford the Little Colorado! She was beginning to understand what such a thrilling experience would mean. Mary explained that although the river seemed wide it was low and shallow, a fact easily conceivable, after studying the topography of the land. For compared to the great, wide sandy wash through which it moved so sluggishly, the river had indeed but a narrow span, and the long slopes from the bank of the wash showed how far from its flood height the river had receded.

“It’s the quicksand that’s worrisome,” said Mary. “These Navahos know the river well, but that doesn’t eliminate the risk.”

The Indians awaited orders with stolid indifference. They were exceptionally picturesque in their bright velvet tunics and the careless twist of gay bands that encircled their foreheads. One wore elaborate silver ornaments and another a string of turquoise. Prosperous Navahos these obviously were.

Jenkins told them to ride on across the wash to the place they had picked as a crossing while the cars followed. The horses and wagon traveled easily over the trail, but at times the wheels of the automobiles, buried deep in the sand, spun ineffectually. When at last the two cars reached the river their engines had to be cooled before attempting the ford.

“Now folks,” dictated Jenkins, “the cars must be cleared of everything and everybody except the drivers. We’ll get them over first, and then cart you and the baggage in the wagon. I reckon we’d better make two trips of that, too.”

The New York girl understood the process as soon as she saw Jenkins and the Indians hitching the team to Curry’s car. The automobiles could not make the crossing under their own power. They must be towed.

Viewed from the river bank, the country was barren. The only visible breaks in the monotonous stretch of terrain were a few clumps of greasewood on the rim of the wash which made lacy prints against the sky. Katharine thought of the majestic view she had had yesterday from the top of the red butte, that now they had left far behind them in the desert. How remote they were from civilization!

Curry and the professor unloaded the cars. Wilbur meanwhile kept busy giving unnecessary advice to Jenkins and the Indians. Katharine, with Mary and the older women, looked about for a shady secluded place, and finding none took refuge in the shadow of the wagon. From there they watched the activities of the men.

As soon as the horses were securelv hitched, each was mounted by an Indian, and Curry took his place behind the wheel of the first car. With shouts and kicks the Indians got their horses started. The car progressed ever so slowly under its own power until the front wheels slid into the water; then Curry turned off the ignition. The rest was up to the horses. They strained and pulled and panted, and breasted the lazy current stoutly. The advance was scarcely perceptible; but slowly the water rose around the wheels of the machine, reached the hubs, and crept up to submerge the four wheels.

“Won’t that water flood the body and engine and everything?” Katharine asked. She was really more worried about the Indians and Curry, but pretended that it was the car about which she was concerned.

“Indeed it will flood the body,” returned Mary. “The cover Mr. Curry put over the hood and radiator will protect the engine some. He’ll open everything up the minute he makes the other side. The sun will dry things in no time.”

“Talked it all over with Curry, I suppose,” drawled Wilbur. “Oh, he’s shore smart, and he’d waste no time telling you about it.”

Jenkins, who was standing near, wheeled quickly. “Look-a-here, Newton, what that hombre is talks so loud in all the fine things he does that he don’t have to go round shootin’ his mouth off about himself to folks.”

One of the maiden ladies peered at them, and Katharine wished devoutly that she had not asked her stupid question.

“Look! They’re stuck, aren’t they?” Mary exclaimed.

Katharine followed Mary’s intent gaze past Wilbur, whose suddenly compressed lips and narrowed eyes expressed malevolent pleasure, out to the middle of the river where the horses tossed heads and strained without advancing. The car might have been a boat anchored in midstream. Only part of the body was visible. The Indians yelled and beat the horses frantically. Behind them Curry held fast to the wheel.

“Quicksand! I’ll be blowed!” muttered Jenkins.

“Head ’em with the current, you fools!” he shouted. And when the Indians turned, he gesticulated wildly, pointing downstream.

There were more high staccato yells and frantic blows. The bewildered beasts staggered and swayed. Each time they jerked their heads forward they met the water. Curry was straining at the steering wheel to turn the front wheels of the car. His action seemed to frighten the horses, a lucky circumstance, because they pawed and reared so violently that the car moved with them and they were on their way again, making surer progress on to firmer bottom. A few rods, and the horses and the car began slowly to emerge from the muddied stream.

Katharine gasped her relief and turned to find a similar expression of relief registered in Mary’s eyes. The professor and his sisters too were showing their concern.

“That’s a terribly dangerous crossing, Mr. Jenkins,” one of the women declared. “I’m not so sure that I want to try it.”

“Don’t you be worryin’, Miss. It’s them cars that play the devil. They’re so heavy. You’ll mostly float over in the wagon.... Funny for them Indians to make straight for that quicksand! Usual they test a place first, and pick out a landmark to put ’em right. You see that big clump of greasewood yonder? Likely they was workin’ one or t’other side of that and got to operatin’ on the wrong side. They won’t be forgettin’ next time.”

“Well, I hope not,” returned the woman severely.

Soon the automobile was safe on the dry sand of the wash. The Indians dismounted to help Curry take down the top and lay the engine open to the sun. Then they waded their horses across the river.

The second car was lighter, and under better piloting made the trip without difficulty.

By the time the Indians had returned, the professor’s sisters had recovered somewhat from their anxiety, but unblushingly requested that Mr. and Mrs. Newton and Katharine precede them across the river. The New York girl caught a twinkle in Mr. Jenkins’ eye.

“Shore, you folks came a year too soon,” he said dryly. “There’s talk of a bridge going up here, mebbe next summer.”

“This will be interesting to talk about afterward,” returned the heretofore uncommunicative sister, “having to ford a river and do such terribly primitive things. But I don’t know that an airplane wouldn’t suit me any better.”

Katharine bade good-by to Mr. Jenkins, and followed by Mary and Wilbur climbed into the high hearselike box of the wagon. The side boards were almost five feet high, and to these they had to cling. There were no seats provided. A narrow shelf across the back supported their baggage, but so insecurely that Wilbur had to stand against it to hold the things in place.

“You look exactly as if you were on the way to be hanged,” came an unemotional comment from below. And Katharine laughed out loud.

This time the Indian riders rested, and one of their companions mounted the wagon, took the reins over the high board and gave a shrill cry to the horses. The wagon rolled easily on its way. The horses started to wade in the shallow water and the wheels of the wagon scattered spray. The farther they advanced, the higher the water rose and the more swiftly it swirled and eddied about them. The river was swifter than it had appeared from the bank. Suddenly the wagon pitched and everyone was jerked violently about. There was a sudden drop in midstream they had not figured on. The water rose above the level of the wagon bottom, and a little seeped in, wetting their shoes. Wilbur swore. Katharine, on the contrary, would have been pleased to find herself ankle deep in water. It was all so thrilling, yet she would have it even more so. She almost envied Curry his misadventure. The water continued to rise, but not for long. The horses were moving quickly in their eagerness to make the bank again, and the river fell away below them. In a short time they were straining and tugging the heavy vehicle up the last few yards to the place where the cars were standing. Curry was alongside the minute the panting horses came to a stop. He helped the girls to descend. Newton swore again, but this time it was just a breath between closed teeth.

* * * * *

As Curry had predicted, it was late afternoon when the cars reached the foot of Oraibi Mesa. For miles Katharine had seen the great promontory take form and color, growing higher, bolder, more sweeping in length, coming out of its lavender haze, warmly red and shimmering. A jagged cliff lifted itself high above the desert, and atop it, on a perch lofty as an eagle’s, rose the red walls of the old Indian village of Oraibi.

While Wilbur dozed, Mary told Katharine the traditions of the place toward which they were climbing. In the ancient village, life was going on much as it had a hundred years ago; old Indians, and the young who adhered to the faith of their fathers, frowned upon the automobiles of the white man, on the encroachment of a modern civilization, hating the recently erected Hopi dwellings at the foot of their noble mesa. The Indians who lived in the despised places had a smattering of education and enough knowledge of the white man’s trade and traffic to copy his commercialism. It was they who encouraged the white man to appear at the Snake Dance ceremonies, so they might rent their houses and horses and sell their handiwork.

The houses at the foot of the mesa were boxlike, one-story structures, some square, some rectangular, all built of adobe pink-red in color. The dwellings were few and widely scattered. Some of the surrounding terrain was under cultivation.

The driver, looking back to see that Curry was close behind, picked a house with a central location and stopped. Curry drew up alongside. Other cars were parked near by on the open desert. A dozen white people were in evidence. Several, not ten yards away, were bargaining with an Indian for a gay-looking basket. A party of six, gathered round a campfire preparing their evening meal, shouted a cheerful welcome to Curry.

“That’s Mr. and Mrs. Weston and guests from the trading post at Black Mesa. Fine people, the Westons,” said Mary.

“Mebbe it would be better to rustle right now, and take stock of folks later,” Wilbur suggested.

Mary opened the car door for him, then she and Katharine stepped out.

Curry, busy with his own party, called over, “See you later, friends! Mosey over to the Westons’ fire for a while this evening.”

“Like hell we will,” muttered Wilbur to himself.

Meanwhile two young women and a man appeared from the doorway of the adobe house. The girls were dressed in riding habits of the latest cut. Their faces beneath small tailored hats were comely. The man was brutish in build, tall, thick-bodied, shoulders heavy and broad, and his legs were bowed, a condition that intensified his likeness to a bulldog. Under a large sombrero which might have been twin to Wilbur’s bulged a wide-jowled, square-cut face. The man was laughing at something one of the girls said, and Katharine beheld a perfect though unconscious imitation of a ventriloquist’s yapping doll.

“There’s Hanley now,” said Wilbur. “Hello, pard,” he called.

That name struck association in Katharine’s mind — Hanley! The man Mary spoke of yesterday!

He looked up and saluted. “Be right over, Newton.”

After a word to the girls he doffed his sombrero and came to join Wilbur. Katharine and Mary forthwith retreated a few yards to where the baggage lay.

“There go two thoroughbred fillies!” Hanley greeted Wilbur, indicating the girls he had just left. His gaze swept down the trim figures of the women, audaciously, speculatively.

Katharine shrank from the prospect of meeting this man, but it could not be avoided for at once Hanley abandoned Wilbur for them, and Mary was forced to perform the amenities.

“Folks come a long way to see them Indians cut up,” he said. “An’ it sure is interestin’. Never seen it before, either of you, I reckon.”

Mary said they had not.

“Don’t miss none of it,” Hanley continued. “Make the old man take you up to the race tomorrow mornin’.” He turned to Wilbur. “You’re takin’ ’em, ain’t you?”

“Race? I haven’t heard anything about a race.”

“Sure! Most everybody goes. You got to get up about four-thirty to make it. It’s on top of the mesy, at sunrise. The Indians will bring your horses in time if you tell ’em.”

“That lets us out. We’re not getting up at four-thirty to see a fool Indian race!” declared Wilbur.

As far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. Mary looked before her, not daring to express an opinion.

“You lazy son-of-a-gun,” Hanley exclaimed, his small eyes snapping. “You might ask the ladies what they’d like to do.”

Katharine felt indebted to him for his remark. She would have said as much to Wilbur, though not quite so forcibly. Hanley was not wholly abominable.

Wilbur scowled, but made no comment.

“I’ll take the ladies, if they’d like to go,” Hanley went on. “I’m goin’ up with the Weston outfit, and likely some other folks’ll join us.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Katharine hurried to say. “I’d love to go, and I’m sure Mrs. Newton would too.”

She had not the slightest desire to encourage companionship with Hanley. She knew what Wilbur’s reaction would be, so she purposely compromised him, enjoying her duplicity.

“If Mrs. Newton goes, I go!” declared Wilbur, a thin cutting edge to his words.

Katharine smiled inwardly.

“Of course, we’ll all go, and gladly,” said Mary quietly. “I appreciate your suggestion, Mr. Hanley. Mr. Newton never did have much zest in anticipation, but he is always glad afterward that someone has dragged him into a thing.”

Hanley declared he could arrange quarters for them easily. The girls he had just left — the Blakely girls, he called them — would share with Miss Winfield and Mrs. Newton the adobe house across the road which they had just bargained for. Wilbur could make camp with him, and the driver would shift for himself.

From Katharine’s point of view, any place was perfect that gave Mary to her for a while without Wilbur’s presence added.

“The Blakelys are kind of society,” said Hanley. “Don’t like campin’ much an’ don’t want to be alone. I promised I’d look ’em up some nice companions.”

Hanley transferred their baggage and bed-rolls at once. That done, he and Wilbur left the girls and went to search for some Indians from whom they could rent horses.

The adobe house was a barren place, just the four pink-red walls and roof, and a doorway with no door — not a stick of furniture, not a single decoration. Whoever lived there must have taken his few possessions with him before he vacated it. Hard clay hut, clean and cool, was the way Katharine described it to herself. It was at most a shelter, if shelter were necessary, though why, Katharine could not imagine, she herself preferring the stars.

“There’s nothing to do here but sit on our bed-rolls and talk,” said Mary. “Wilbur didn’t specify whether we were to wait here or not. Let’s go out to the car. He can’t be provoked at that.”

Once outside, they discovered a short, slight man in riding outfit foraging through their car, dipping into the pockets on the doors in a most dogged fashion and without stealth.

“What does he think he’s doing?” exclaimed Mary, hurrying forward.

Katharine, too surprised to answer, quickened her steps to keep pace with Mary.

As they approached, the man straightened to meet them, jerking into position much like a soldier about to salute. He was very solemn and very important for a man of such a negative type, and appeared offended rather than the offender.

“So this is your car!” he said. “I was wondering. I was looking for liquor.”

“Dreadfully sorry we can’t accommodate you,” said Mary with gentle irony.

The man’s look of injury deepened. “You misunderstand me, Madam! I am the government agent. I am trying to locate liquor. Some has already been passed on to the Indians. Liquor on the reservation is absolutely against the law, and I’m out to make a few arrests.”

Katharine, reflecting on the size of the only lawmen she knew — husky New York policemen — smiled.

“It’s no smiling matter, Madam!” the government agent continued. “It’s really very grave. You’ll pardon me if I make absolutely sure there is nothing in this car?”

He investigated again as thoroughly as before, and came up red in the face.

“We wear no coats and have no hip pockets,” said Katharine demurely.

But he ignored her with perfect dignity.

Then came a volley of questions: “Who drives this car? How many in the party? What are the names? Any hand baggage? How long do you intend to stay? Have you any cameras? If so you’ll have to turn them over until tomorrow evening. No photographing allowed on Oraibi Mesa at the Snake Dance!”

From them he stalked impressively to Curry’s car. The girls watched him, amused beyond words. How shocked the professor and the maiden ladies would have been to discover themselves looked upon as liquor suspects!

Katharine turned to see Wilbur and Hanley returning. Hanley was carrying a burlap bag from which protruded an ear of corn.

“Didn’t happen to see the government agent around, did you?” asked Wilbur.

“Yes, very much in evidence,” Mary returned. “He searched the car for liquor.”

“Been by, has he? Went right on down the line, I suppose,” supplemented Wilbur. “He’s a sketch, isn’t he?”

Hanley sidled over to Curry’s car. “Guess he’ll want some of this corn,” he said, as if to himself, and hoisted the bag over onto the floor of the car.

A minute later, as if from nowhere, Curry himself strode up. He had eyes only for the car, and to Katharine they seemed ablaze. He flung open the door, dragged out the burlap bag, and stalked over to the men.

“Hanley! That’s a skunk trick. I came ‘round that adobe house in time to see you. You’ll risk my reputation instead of yours, will you? Take your dirty liquor!”

“Liquor? — why — why, it’s corn!” declared Mary, her eyes wide with astonishment.

“John Barley Corn, Mrs. Newton, the inseparable companion of Mr. Hanley and his friends.”

“That’s a lie! It’s not liquor,” stormed Hanley, reaching for the bag.

Curry drew it away. “No, not yet, Hanley. I’d better drop the bag and demonstrate to the ladies.”

“For God’s sake, don’t!” Hanley muttered. “Think of what might happen. Think of it sensibly — the ladies and everythin’.”

“You and Newton have given them a heap of consideration, haven’t you?” retorted Curry. He thrust the bag toward the heavy-set man. “I’m sorry they are forced into such company.”

With that he strode off.

Katharine glanced covertly at Mary. She sensed the humiliation her friend was suffering, saw color rise and recede in her still face. Wilbur was white with the paleness of wrath. But Hanley seemed untouched, now that he possessed the bag.

“Can you imagine anyone messin’ up such a row about another feller’s private stock?” he asked. “Everybody knows he don’t drink, and in an emergency he could have helped a feller out.”

To a man of Hanley’s intelligence quotient, that was all the defense his action required.

Mary, head high, walked past Hanley. “You better come with me, Katharine,” she said.

Wilbur grasped Mary’s wrist as she stepped past him. “Where are you going?”

“To the house,” Mary replied quietly. “I’ve quite lost my appetite. I’ll not eat anything this evening. Perhaps Katharine will join you. Call her when you’re ready.”

“But Mary, nothing’s happened,” protested Katharine. “Don’t be so upset.”

Mary sat on a bed-roll, her head tilted back against the wall, the lovely curve of her lips lost in a tight line.

“You’ve told me that Wilbur isn’t a drinking man,” said Katharine. “That’s one of the good things about him. Mr. Curry apparently doesn’t know Wilbur very well.”

“It’s the duplicity,” moaned Mary. “It’s Hanley — his influence. I’m afraid of it. Wilbur is selfish, egotistical, weak in many ways, but there used to be a sweetness, and at times even a bigness, in things sacred just to him and me. At least I thought so. But Hanley isn’t good for him. Hanley has no real regard for women. It’s superficial — play-acting. He’s the kind who thinks all women fundamentally weak because he could brutally ruin a few. He’s poisoned Wilbur’s mind to such an extent that my husband distrusts me.”

“Why does Wilbur hate Curry so?” Katharine asked bluntly. “He’s the kind of man, it seems to me, that one would choose for a friend.”

“Because of the way I first met Curry.” Mary was lost in thought a minute, then she went on, “I went riding alone one day out to a place called Cliff Rocks. I had wanted to go for a year. I knew that I would never get there if I didn’t try it alone. It was twelve miles, but I had a good horse. I wasn’t afraid. The Indians, seen and unseen, are a protection to anyone among them. And Wilbur didn’t care much that I went.... I made it beautifully. Then something drew me to ride farther, just a mile to investigate a curious boulder. I thought a deep wash lay beyond. As I came near the boulder, I thought I smelled blood. Suddenly my horse reared and snorted, and then, Katharine — oh, I’ll never forget it — I saw a horse, recently shot, not fifty feet away down in the wash, and just beyond, a man, stretched full length, and face down in the sand. He was groaning. He hadn’t heard me. I was petrified. I thought a thousand harrowing things. I think I cried out, ‘Oh, what’s the matter?’ or something like that — some childish, thoughtless words. Anyway, the man looked up. He seemed dazed. I didn’t know at first whether he saw me or not. It was Curry, though I didn’t know him then. I had never seen him before. It seems he’d been on a mad race from Castle Mesa to get the doctor at Taho to save some poor Indian youngster’s life. His horse tried to clear the wash and missed, and broke two legs in the fall, and pitched Curry against the rocks. Curry was bruised and cut, and his ankle was sprained. He had to shoot his horse and that broke his heart. He had ridden him for years.

“There we were, two people alone on the desert, with one horse. He wouldn’t take my horse and let me walk, and he couldn’t walk, I knew, though he pretended he could. I mounted and told him I was going for help. I’d seen a hogan about a mile from the trail four miles back, and I figured the Navahos would have horses. I met them, a young boy and an older man, mounted and about to leave the place. I had an awful time making them understand that I wanted only one to go along with me, but that I needed an extra horse. The boy luckily understood a little English. He explained and the older man agreed he should go. I told the boy about the sick youngster at Castle Mesa, and when we had reached the trail I managed to coax him to give the extra horse to me, and go on alone, riding fast to Taho to get the doctor. I was so excited that I never thought about sending a message back to Wilbur.”

Mary paused. Her eyes were soft, dark and eloquent. Her mouth had lost its hard set look. Never had Katharine seen her look so beautiful.

“I rode back to Curry,” she continued presently, “and he managed to mount somehow, and we rode to Taho together. Katharine, that night the sun set perfectly. I will never forget the desert as it looked to me then. And poor Curry, after he explained who he was, that he was a guide and packer for Mr. Weston and lived at Black Mesa half of the year, was silent all the rest of the way. I knew he was in pain. I don’t mean pain from his injuries — the pain of bereavement. It was dark when we got in. Wilbur, lantern in hand, watched us ride up to the post. He was in an ugly mood — wretchedly ugly — but Curry didn’t know because men who had collected to search for me, surrounded him and rode him off to the government hospital. Two weeks later Curry called, and Wilbur deliberately walked out the back way when he saw him come in. Curry brought his bridle to present to me. He said he could never use it on another horse — wanted me to have it as a token of appreciation for what I had done. Later Wilbur hacked it to pieces with a knife. That is all there was to it.”

“That is all!” Long after Mary’s recital, Katharine repeated these words to the night. Mary had retired, and the Eastern girl was alone in her restlessness. The Blakely girls had not come in yet. They were still at the remote red dot of fire that marked the Westons’ camp. Gay voices carried through the night from the spot. Mary should have been there with them, happy and giving happiness. Curry, perhaps, would be there, too. Mary and Curry! Why could not it have been such a man as he that Mary had loved and married? How ghastly to have to live one’s life out with a man like Wilbur, and how difficult to keep one’s soul from dry rot under such a bondage!

CHAPTER III

IT WAS ONLY at intervals that Katharine slept. She heard the Blakely girls come in about an hour after she had taken to her sleeping bag, and this and successive events interrupted her repose. Once she awoke with a start, cold perspiration breaking out over her at the clammy wet touch of something moving against her hand. It was only a stray dog, inquisitive about her presence and which seemed ashamed that he had wakened her. She had scarcely recovered from her fright when a step outside pulled her back from the fringe of sleep, and she started violently at sight of the somber figure of an Indian peering in through the open doorway. Would he dare to come in, or was he, from some sense of guardianship, making sure that all was well? He could not know that she was observing him; she was in the dark, he in the moonglow of the doorway. After a while he left as quietly as he had come. The illuminated dial of her watch read two-fifteen. Sleep continued to evade her. She reached out for comforting contact with Mary, which action, reassuring in its effect, drew Katharine slowly from consciousness to rest. Later a sudden grasp on her arm threw her once more into a spasm of fear until she discovered that it was Mary, pulling herself out of the horror of a dream. That was too much. Sleep no longer was possible, and Mary, now wide-eyed too, was satisfied to hear Katharine’s whispered account of the night. At a little past four they dressed, donning riding clothes, each taking turns standing guard at the door.

While Katharine kept post she observed a woman dressed in khaki advancing through the dusk of early dawn from the direction of the camping grounds, where several fires still blazed brightly. Katharine imagined, watching her, that she had come to wake the Blakely girls, and such was the case. The woman was Mrs. Weston. She was a rather short, stout person with a round face, peach-pink, and a brisk bright smile that came freely. She accepted Katharine as she must have accepted everyone, like a mother suddenly recognizing a strayed member of her brood.

“You must visit me at Black Mesa!” she said with a degree of accusation in her voice which made Katharine feel remiss for not having journeyed to Black Mesa earlier. Mary, who was included in the invitation, assured Mrs. Weston that her several attempts to get there always had been thwarted.

For the Blakely girls, who had slept in almost full attire, dressing was a simple matter — a comb run through bobbed hair, and boots pulled on over rumpled riding-breeches — and they left with Mrs. Weston before Hanley and Wilbur appeared.

Stars were paling and the moon was low, and a sweet dry smell, carried on a light breeze, filled the early morning air. More fires were blazing on the campground. Mounted Indians moved like shadows down the road, leading strings of horses. Here and there some on foot slipped in and out of doorways and corrals, behind automobiles and wagons, quiet, purposeful, fleet in action. To observe the scene was more like dreaming the experience than living it. Hanley and Wilbur breaking into the picture made it all too real. Hanley came only part way, then struck off toward the Westons’ camp.

Whether it was merely because Wilbur had slept well that there was in his manner an unusually gentle deference to Mary, or because, capable of shame, he wished to re-establish himself in a more kindly light in his wife’s regard, Katharine could not decide. But he was proving a most attentive spouse. A campfire and breakfast awaited the girls; and while they partook of the meal, an Indian rode up with their horses. Two of them, like most Indian horses, were small pintos, but the third was a rangy bay.

“Him bad devil, sometime good,” said the Indian of the sturdier of the two pintos, and with a wave of his hand seemed to relegate that particular mount to Wilbur.

However, it was Mary, at Wilbur’s suggestion, who rode the “bad devil.” Wilbur expressed preference for the bay, and after adjusting the stirrups of the other pinto for Katharine, Wilbur mounted his own horse.

One day at Taho Wilbur had expressed great disdain for “the rats of Indian horses that make a man-size hombre look like a fool.” It was evident that under no exigency would he risk such an appearance; rather he would prefer to risk his wife’s safety. There was no doubt the bay became him, added to his pompousness quite as much as he could have desired, and brought out to full advantage his equestrian skill.

When they set out on the long winding trail up Oraibi Mesa the stars were fast disappearing; the daylight was spreading over the farthermost reaches of the desert. Small parties were assembling from everywhere, both Indians and whites, and riding in slow procession along the trail like silent shadows in a silent world. Below them on the plains, white twisted wraiths of smoke blew from dying fires.

The air was cool, clean, sweet. Katharine turned her cheek to catch the caress of the breeze, and breathed deeply. Her entire body warmed with the glow of mounting excitement. What had she ever experienced that gave her such complete delight? She thought of New York, of the hustling, jostling crowds, the hurry-hurry-hurry that beat itself into one’s pulse, the terrible never-ending strife into which the individual plunged and was lost; then she summoned visions of green fields, glades, laughing brooks and mountains, only to let them pass too. The desert was incomparable, its solitude more intimate than that of cities, woods and hills.

The horses needed no guiding. They climbed at a leisurely pace. Tails flicked and heads bobbed as they swung along the steep trail. They came to a fork in the trail, where, for no particular reason, in view of the fact that both branches led to the village, Wilbur took the steepest, roughest way, along a rocky ledge of the mesa. Back from the mesa rim rose the severe outline of the village of Oraibi. A village hewn from one great mound of rock, it seemed, its walls long since blasted by invaders. But what appeared to be breaks were places where the continuous walls were terraced, some of the long low houses rising a story higher than the rest, and no roof being level with another. The tops of crude ladders showed over the highest roofs. Though Oraibi loomed grim and dark against the steely sky like a towering fortress, it in truth housed a peaceful people, home-loving and deeply religious. They were assembled now along the rim of rock, men and women, youths and maidens, and small children too solemn for their years.

The men’s attire varied from ordinary overalls, also plain white cotton shirts hanging over woolen trowsers, to khaki and denim trowsers slit up the side, all worn with velvet tunics of the type common to the Navahos. The women and girls were arrayed in gay calico dresses, with high necks, long sleeves, and full skirts; or in a strikingly simple native garment of a dark blue hand-woven material, obviously made in one piece with a single opening through which the head slipped, allowing the folds partly to cover the arms and to fall below the knees where a touch of color showed in a line of red. This motif at the hem was repeated in the woven girdle which bound the garment loosely at the waist.

Some of the women were barefooted, others wore moccasins, while those in native dress — and they were in majority among the younger girls — wore loosely bound strips of buckskin from ankle to knee, giving their legs a stiff and shapeless look. The older women parted their hair in the center and bound it, with threads of red wool interwoven, in two long forward-hanging braids. The girls either braided their black locks the simplest way, or had them dressed in large shining whorls that covered their ears, and stuck out picturesquely. Contrasted with the variety of dress worn by their elders was the complete nakedness of most of the children, even eight- and ten-year-olds.

Sex segregation seemed a studied practice. Boys and girls were not mingling, though some stood in respectful groups apart from their elders. Others were under the quiet chaperonage of their parents. Holiday spirit was in the air, but no great manifestation of delight. In the light of the hubbub created by the white people, the conduct of the Indians themselves seemed almost subdued.

Katharine and Mary dismounted, and Wilbur led their horses off, then presently returned to direct the girls to a spot safely remote from the places where other white visitors were gathering. Hanley saluted them from afar. Curry, hovering near the Weston outfit, was occupied with the horses for a time, but later joined a man who Katharine decided must be Mr. Weston.

Mary was bubbling with anticipation of the event. The starting point of the race was on the valley floor below, and the entire ground to be traversed was two miles, ending at the rock rim of the mesa. The first sign of the sun above the horizon was the signal for the start. About every quarter of a mile along the staked ground Indian maidens stood with huge cornstalks to stroke the passing contestants and urge them on their way. One could see the girls plainly through the fast-coming brightness of the morning, and beyond, small creatures in the distance, were gathered the fleet-footed men of the tribe, awaiting the starting signal. There would be perhaps a dozen competing. Not far from the starting point stood a priest, ready with a small sack of corn to be snatched by whoever had the lead, and carried on by him until a fleeter runner seized it in passing. The winner of the race, so current legend had it, could choose for a bride whatever girl of the tribe he desired.

A hush pervaded the mesa. Everyone awaited the signal from the sun. It came with startling suddenness. At the edge of the saffron-spread eastern horizon appeared a thin line of red-gold that curved into a bow and continued to curve until by sudden magic it changed into an inverted golden bowl. Then a shout rang out, followed by a chorus of shrill staccato cries. They were off! The race had begun! Small objects moved in close formation on the desert below. One runner valiantly kept the lead for a long time, but at last someone passed him with upflung arm. A third crept up, gained on the new leader and swept by him. The girls with the cornstalks formed a rear guard, falling in behind the runners, only slowly to drop back. Now the lead was indisputable, and judging from the nature of the exclamations of the crowd a favorite among them was on his way to victory. The most difficult part of the event was still before the contestants, a racing climb to the top of the mesa up a tortuous footpath, far more arduous than the trail.

When the runners rounded the foot of the cliff they were lost from sight. The crowd moved in a body toward the goal, to get a better view. Suddenly over the rim the onlookers could see an Indian bearing the bag of meal. He was naked save for a breechclout and moccasins, and his bronze body shone wet with sweat. His face was masklike, nostrils distended, eyes wide and staring, lips curled back, frozen in a smile half agony, half triumph. Again a shout rose from the crowd. Other naked forms now appeared, struggling, panting, but they could not overtake their leader. His sure feet carried him over the jagged rocks, between cactus spines, around brush and greasewood, on and up unflaggingly. Cries of encouragement showered on him from above. Girls reached out in their excitement as if to drag him up. He leaped a rock. Small stones sped away from under him. At last he cleared some brush, miraculously escaping a fall, and came out on a stretch of trail clear of obstacles all the way to the rim. A hundred yards, and he covered the distance to a gate of maidens holding waving cornstalks, and dashed through it to victory! Pandemonium broke loose, and alas for the segregation of the sexes! Indian girls swarmed from everywhere to attack the winner and snatch the precious bag from him. Holding the prize high, he fought them back with only his right arm for defense, until one slim creature pushing her way through made her presence known to him with a glad cry, and the bag of meal dropped into her uplifted hands. The victor had made his choice, and the chosen one had anticipated him.

As soon as the other runners reached the mesa top, they rushed upon the scene waving cornstalks high in the air, inviting tussles with the girls such as the winner had experienced; and they fought desperately against the violence of the homely, less graceful maidens, as if indeed surrender might mean the jeopardizing of their future, and contrariwise yielded all too easily when the objects of their desire appeared before them. Romance, it was quite evident, was not prohibited at Oraibi.

Not all the girls of the village joined in the scramble. Apparently the younger maidens were excluded. It seemed to Katharine that all the girls who encircled the men wore their hair in whorls. She asked Mary if that headdress had any particular significance, and Mary replied that the whorl was a symbol of the squash blossom in bloom, and a manifestation that the girls were of age to be courted. Whereas the long braids represented the fruit of the squash and revealed their wearers as the wives of the tribe.

Good will prevailed. Defeat was received as happily as success, as the screams of laughter betokened. Slowly the commotion subsided. The crowds of Indians dispersed, disappeared quietly, as if serious anticipation of the religious ceremony of the afternoon was now in order. A few inquisitive Navahos remained to mingle with the whites.

Because he was surrounded by acquaintances, Wilbur was forced to be agreeable, to meet the Blakely girls and talk to the professor and his sisters and to Mrs. Weston, who brought her husband and guests to be introduced to the others.

Mr. Weston delighted the New York girl. He was what she had always imagined a desert scout might be like. A man of medium build, thickset yet lithe, with a face made intense by dark eyes under shaggy brows and scar lines of suffering and toil, and in appearance somewhat untidy, he was gruff yet kindly in manner. The guests were an artist, Miss Miller by name, a cartoonist and his wife, and the cartoonist’s young brother, a long-legged lad of perhaps eighteen years.

Katharine missed Curry and Hanley, and unable to explain their absence, was inclined to hope that they might be locking fists somewhere, Hanley, of course, getting the worst of it. She blamed Hanley for the new complexities which burdened Mary, for the pressure of anxiety that Mary was struggling to disguise under false gaiety. Wilbur, she felt, was not so much to blame. He was negative, a weak instrument for Hanley, and therefore pitiable. She did not want to abandon her faith in his one outstanding virtue, his complete abstinence from all kinds of liquor. She had established her faith on Mary’s own declaration of this fact. Now she was beginning to have misgivings. Did not Mary herself doubt him after last night’s episode?

At the moment attention was focused on Miss Miller who, Mrs. Weston declared, was to start a painting of Oraibi Mesa shortly, and had to find the best perspective, but was afraid to scout around alone. Mrs. Weston was ready to accompany her if she could find some other recruits. Wilbur, to Katharine’s amazement, suggested that she and Mary go along. And when Mary agreed, Mrs. Weston was delighted.

So it happened that an hour later their little party of four set out on horseback, prepared for a lengthy excursion by a picnic lunch, and promising that they would return in plenty of time for the dance. Wilbur was left to his own resources — and Hanley’s.

* * * * *

When Katharine and Mary rode up Oraibi Mesa the second time, Wilbur did not accompany them. He failed to appear when and where he had stipulated, and after giving him a half-hour’s grace, Mary accepted Mrs. Weston’s invitation to join her party. Under the circumstances meeting Curry was inevitable. He was again the ingratiating person of Katharine’s first acquaintance. The altercation of last night might never have happened. Manifestly it was forgotten.

“I’d been thinking that Miss Winfield might want a rattlesnake to take home for a pet,” he said when, as he rode along with the girls for a brief time, Katharine had confessed to him her utter horror of snakes. “They’re really good-natured snakes. I like them. They’re square. Always give a fellow a chance to get out of the way, rattle their tails like they were tootin’ horns. These Hopis love them — worship them. You’d never catch them killing a rattler.”

“How ever do they catch them for the dance?” Katharine asked.

“Just like an eagle swooping down. They sneak up on them and nab them just behind the head and press so hard that the snake can’t twist around to strike. You’ll see them at the dance, dropping the snakes and catching them again.”

The Eastern girl considered Curry’s words thoughtfully. “And the snakes are not doped for the dance nor their fangs removed nor anything?”

Curry received the question with a smile. “No Hopi would ever molest a rattlesnake or dope him either. The dancers take precaution by fasting and drinking something they prepare from desert plants, but even that doesn’t make them immune from the effects of a bite. It slows up the working of the poison, and after the dance is over they take one of their strange antidotes. In fact, they all take it whether they need it or not.”

“It’s all so solemn and sacred to them,” murmured Mary. “It’s an appeal to the snake god, who, in their belief, controls the rains. Drought is their one great fear.”

“Then how terrible it would be for them, believing this, if the dance were prohibited. There’s all sorts of legislation on foot about it now,” Katharine demurred. “Why can’t we keep our noses out of other people’s business, particularly when they are not citizens and live only by sufferance?”

“Because since the beginning of time man has wanted to take the mote out of his neighbor’s eye before he casts the beam out of his own,” replied Mary. “Perhaps on an average of once in ten years an Indian might die from a rattlesnake bite received at a snake dance, but any white man’s town, east or west, the size of Oraibi, has two or three fatalities a year because the enforcement of traffic laws is so lax or because no laws exist. We are very, very inconsistent mortals.”

Curry enjoyed Mary’s tirade immensely. “And all this time I’ve been thinking you were a reformer.” The twinkle in his eye belied his words.

“I try to see things whole,” was Mary’s reply.

The dance was to be held in a large square court hemmed in partly by the walls of the pueblo where the Indians were already gathered. Katharine was impressed with the solemnity of the occasion. She felt that she was treading on holy ground amid reverent, worshipful souls. She could not pretend to understand the childish manifestations of the Hopis’ belief, but their apparent faith was nonetheless beautiful, and commanded her respect. She had come to join them in their church. They sat crowded along the roofs, some high, some low, waiting in silence. A few black cotton umbrellas, glaringly incongruous, spread blotches of shade here and there. Surely they were not necessary to a people who loved the sun; rather they were enviable possessions proudly flaunted on special occasions. Even the Indians wore their all to church.

Separation of members of the Weston party could not be avoided because the few available points of vantage were scattered. For Mary and Katharine, Curry chose a low roof, partly shaded by an adjacent wall. The spot was secure, comfortable, and with an unobstructed view. He left them to return to the professor and his sisters. “Now let Wilbur show up if he must,” thought Katharine grimly.

Mary seemed to divine what had passed through Katharine’s mind. “I wonder what is keeping Wilbur?” she whispered.

“Hanley, likely,” returned her friend. “Haven’t you missed him and—” She bit her tongue in irritation over her vast stupidity.

“The Blakely girls?” supplemented Mary. “Yes. But that’s not particularly significant. They’ve witnessed the Snake Dance several times, you know. Wilbur has never seen it.”

The New York girl meditated on the situation. The cartoonist spoke of the Blakely girls as a pretty fast pair from Phoenix, the Phoenix summer variety he said, whatever that might mean. Well, she’d bite her tongue out before she would tell that to Mary!

She felt herself staring steadily at a hut not large enough for a person to enter standing, which stood in the center of the court; she wondered about its use. Something like heavy burlap hung over the place designed for an entrance. Somehow she did not want to question Mary about it. Mary might not know. If, as she suspected, an Indian would suddenly pop out his head, Katharine would have been delighted. However, no such thing happened, and presently a nudge from Mary drew her attention to a corner of the court where a strangely costumed group of Indians came pouring through a doorway in single file.

“These must be the men of the antelope order,” Mary whispered low. “They dance first, I believe.”

They were certainly most extraordinary-looking. An odd block design of black and white paint, applied thickly to their faces, made their heads seem broader than they were long. One noticed at once that they were naked to the waist because their bodies had been treated with an intensely red stain. They wore knee-length dance skirts, and dangling from the waist, tail-fashion, long beautiful foxskins. Their feet were encased in tight-fitting moccasins, and bird feathers were caught in their long black hair. In their hands they carried gourds that rattled with each step. Keeping place as they had emerged, the antelope men marched around the court several times, then drew up in double file, forming a path to the opening of the hut. There they swung from one foot to the other with a quick tapping step, shaking the gourds, and defining each movement with a decided toss of the head. This monotonous performance continued for almost ten minutes, after which time the antelope men dispersed to clear the court for a new procession of dancers, who Katharine surmised must be the snake priests. Their costumes were similar to those of the antelope men. She was too fascinated to try to note any minor dissimilarity, and very concerned about the absence of snakes. The last four to appear were boys not over twelve years of age.

These dancers, too, paraded the court, perhaps half a dozen times, but with speedier movement. They appeared a trifle more impressive than their predecessors. Every time they passed the hut — the kisi, Mary called it — the dancers stamped hard with the right foot on a plank that lay before it. This surely was some special invocation to the gods. Soon they gathered at the entrance to the kisi, in no particular formation, but dancing the tapping step of the antelope men. One among them stood before the kisi, and at once Katharine realized that the great moment had come. Now the purpose of the kisi was revealed. It housed the snakes, and the priest who stood there was to dole them out. He was welcome to his office, Katharine thought. She did not envy him. He lifted the curtain part way and thrust in his arm. Never could he know how prayerfully a certain young lady regarded his movements. In another moment he withdrew his arm, and there, suspended from the firm grip of his fingers in the paralyzing hold of which Curry had spoken, was a rattlesnake fully five feet long, which, quick as a flash, he passed along to the nearest dancer. Skillfully the dancer grasped the snake without giving him an instant’s freedom. What followed filled Katharine with such intense horror that at first she could not believe her own eyes. The man newly possessed of the snake lifted it to his mouth, snapped his lips hard over the place where he had taken the finger hold, and slipping his hand down over the full length of the writhing reptile, looped it up free of the ground. In this manner he held it, tight fast in mouth and hands, the head a few inches from his cheek, but powerless to turn and use its fangs.

Meanwhile the man at the kisi had doled out another snake, and a second dancer seized it in his mouth; and the performance was repeated again and again until each dancer had a snake, even the small boys, who were given the shortest ones.

Now the place swarmed with antelope dancers again, they too participating in this most formal procedure of all. Each snake dancer had an antelope man as a sort of custodian partner who took his place behind him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder, the other gently stroking him with the feather-tipped rod he held in his hand. Advancing in a circuitous route, they danced a hopping step, four beats on the ball of one foot, the last being accentuated, then four on the ball of the other with a strange swaying motion accompanying the change. As they swayed the snakes swayed, and on and on and on. There was no drum, no music, just the beat of feet. Occasionally a dancer liberated a snake, why Katharine could not tell, and the first time it happened it appeared an accident. But quickly she saw that the extra antelope men on the outskirts of the court were there on guard to catch the liberated snakes, pouncing on them much like a cat on a mouse and even more sure of their strike. The snake dancer, unmindful of the snake he had freed, would go directly to the kisi for a fresh one.

The four boys were brave and apparently tireless. They clung fiercely to their snakes and their small feet beat hard upon the ground. Katharine, following the leader with her eyes, saw two forms slip quickly before him and leap to a place on the walls — the Blakely girls, making their belated appearance.

The dance went on — the beat of feet continued. It grew monotonous. The Eastern girl felt that fatigue must surely be creeping over the dancers. Yet she had been so interested that she had not noticed the sun dropping low, withdrawing its heat and flinging shadows across the court.

“This performance will end with the sunset,” said Mary, which made Katharine aware that day was drawing to a close.

She pitied the little boys. “Are they watching the sun?” she wondered. And in the next moment she rejoiced that they were still dancing safely. No dancer had been struck. Was it because they had believed they would not be? Was it more desert faith? More desert magic?

Presently the dancers hesitated, the sound of feet lost momentum just as the tick of a huge clock that is suddenly stopped; then came a stir of action and high cries, and every snake man, raising his snake aloft, fled from the court and out beyond the village upon the open spaces of the mesa. The long-awaited ceremonial dance was ended.

Everyone seemed eager to rise, to exercise cramped limbs. Katharine and Mary slipped easily to the ground. Mrs. Weston, who was perched up on a high wall, signaled Curry for assistance.

“I see the Blakely girls arrived,” said Mary.

That they had was unmistakable. They were scrambling over roofs in high glee, attracting solemn stares from the Indians.

Katharine recognized the trend of Mary’s thoughts. “But Wilbur has not come yet.” Then she added hastily, “Yes, they’ve been here quite a while.”

This brought a strange, quizzical smile to Mary’s eyes. “Katharine, you’re a dear,” was all she said.

Mrs. Weston descended upon them suddenly. “Whatever happened to Mr. Newton?” she asked. “He sure wanted to see the Snake Dance bad enough. I’ll kidnap the two of you if he doesn’t show up soon.”

“Do please kidnap us temporarily,” suggested Mary. “I think we have been passed on to you, anyway.”

With a word and a nod here and there, Mrs. Weston gathered together her friends and the professor and his sisters, and led them on a tour of the village, while Curry and Mr. Weston went off to bring up the horses. To study the village was to understand how primitively the desert-bound Hopis lived, yet Katharine was half-ashamed to poke around, uninvited, in their homes. It seemed audacious to her. Because they were white, they assumed the privilege was theirs, but that in nowise made it right.

On the outskirts of the pueblo Curry met them with the horses. By the time he came over to the girls, he found Mary already mounted. A frown puckered his forehead.

“Mrs. Newton, I don’t like the way that horse of yours lays his ears back and shows his teeth,” he said. “I’m afraid he’s a mean cuss. Perhaps you better ride him around a little before we try the trail.”

“Make her be careful,” he said aside to Katharine as he helped her to mount. “See she walks that horse.”

The horse did not want to be walked, but Mary, who had always been perfect in command on a horse, held him in. They rode out slowly beyond the village, single file, Mary in the lead, along a footpath worn deep by generations of Indians. It was the trail the snake men had followed. They saw the Indians far ahead assembled on the plain.

“We had better not get too far away from the others,” Katharine suggested.

Mary turned in her saddle. “I am trying to get away from Wilbur,” she said in a low tone which only Katharine could hear. “He was coming up over that rocky trail with Hanley when we left. I don’t believe he saw us, and I want to avoid any insulting remarks to me and possibly to Mr. Curry. When Mrs. Weston sees Wilbur, she won’t expect us. People are not stupid. No one here, except Hanley, really desires Wilbur’s company.”

Mary was right, so all Katharine added was, “He’ll see us now. Let him follow. He’ll hardly drag Hanley along.”

In their direction came an Indian rider who had detached himself from the group of snake men. As he approached the girls, he checked his horse and turned him sidewise to block the trail. He gesticulated and uttered strange words, and then at the very moment when it dawned on Katharine that he was trying to tell them that they must go no farther, he swung from his saddle, grasped Mary’s bridle and with a sharp lash from his quirt turned her horse and sent him through the brush and cactus, racing madly back toward the village.

Immediately Katharine wheeled her horse. Memory of Curry’s warning made her fearful of the sight of Mary clinging to the infuriated horse. She tried to keep pace. Her own horse, spurred on by a desire to race, sped swiftly in pursuit; but Mary’s horse plainly was running away. He tore cross-country, heedless of the cruel growths that snatched at him. He was making straight for the rim trail. Or was it for the rim itself? Katharine’s blood froze. The distance widened between them. She urged her horse to greater speed, beat at him frantically with her quirt. Out of the tail of her eye she saw the pueblo village approaching nearer. But all of her attention was on Mary, hatless now, and bent low over the neck of her runaway horse. Soon he would strike the trail. Would he turn? The alternative was too horrible to consider.... But what was that ahead? Katharine felt her eyes straining wide in their sockets. A rider, racing from Mary’s left to head her off at the rim! Now they were almost at the mesa rim! Katharine fought to hold back a shriek of terror. She could not tell which of the racing horses was gaining. Already the rim with its jagged edge seemed only a few steps from either rider.

Then something happened, too quickly for Katharine to see in detail. She only knew that the horses had met at the rim, that the stranger had leaped from his mount and was on foot dragging hard at the runaway’s head. Curry, it was, and when she recognized him she went limp with relief. Curry would save her. Everything would be all right now. In another second he was striding from the rim with Mary in his arms. When he sat her down gently on her feet, she collapsed against him. Katharine rode up, her eyes smarting with tears.

“My God, that was close,” Curry cried hoarsely to the girl, but he was looking at Mary’s pale face resting against his shoulder. There was something more than tenderness in his eyes, something that bordered on despair. “I thought there’d be two of you to handle. Didn’t savvy you had control.”

“An Indian turned us back down there and lashed Mrs. Newton’s horse. I don’t know what I was going to do. I was following, trying my best to overtake her,” murmured Katharine, fighting back the tears.

“It’s my fault,” Curry declared. “I should have told you not to go so far in that direction. That’s the cleaning field. Sacred ceremonies going on down there, and they won’t stand to have any of us butting in.”

Would he never look away from Mary? People were approaching mounted and on foot, and Wilbur was riding in the lead. Distracted, Katharine was about to tell him they were not alone. But Mary stirred, opened her eyes and swayed from him.

“Why did you do it?” she asked dazedly. “Why did you risk your life for me?”

Curry met her question serenely. “I’d have done as much for Miss Winfield, or any other woman, I reckon. Only with you it was different. I was sure I’d save you. I had to. I was plain selfish about it. You’ve done a lot for me. I’ve got to keep on knowing that you’re on this same desert with me even if it happened that I never saw you again.”

“I — I—” Mary’s attempt to reply failed. Then Wilbur came striding toward her.

“Can’t you be left alone for a few hours without trying to make a fool of yourself and me?” he demanded.

“Newton, don’t you know horses well enough to prevent your wife from riding an animal like that?” interrupted Curry. “Blame yourself instead of blaming her.”

“No one’s asking any advice from you, Curry,” Wilbur replied coldly. “Seems to me that you and my wife are staging quite a few of these horseback affairs. How about it?”

Curry would have struck Wilbur if Mary had not quickly stepped between the two angry men. It was Curry she faced, and to him she said, “Won’t you please escort me down from the mesa, Mr. Curry. I’ll ride your horse if you don’t mind. Mr. Newton will escort Miss Winfield.” Then she walked away, and Curry followed her.

When the others came up, Katharine was talking animatedly about the Snake Dance, plainly aware that the absent-minded, disconcerted man to whom she spoke did not hear a word.

CHAPTER IV

WHENEVER MARY DISPLEASED Wilbur there always followed days of contemptuous silence, during which, to emphasize his displeasure, Wilbur made himself as much as possible her companion. Always during such periods Mary waited on her husband hand and foot. All the little attentions that she had given Wilbur freely in their early days of love, but which had long since lost their flavor because of his greedy and thankless acceptance of them, she continued to give mechanically, because she felt it her duty to satisfy his surly demands. But Wilbur’s contemptuous silences made these duties almost unbearable. Pleasing her husband became a hateful task.

It was noon of the seventh day after their return from the Snake Dance that Wilbur found his tongue again. Mary had brought his cigarettes to the table and started to clear away the lunch dishes when suddenly he spoke.

“Lenora is coming to Taho today on the mail stage,” he said.

“Lenora? Your sister?” Mary asked, more startled by his announcement than by the fact that he had chosen to break his silence.

“Yes. I’m going to be away in the Black Mesa country for a couple of weeks buying up silver for MacDonald. Tourists going through have cleaned us out at the post.”

“You didn’t have to send for Lenora — all the way from Texas. I’ve been alone before. Katharine and Alice could have stayed with me,” Mary protested.

“You’d rather have them, I reckon, than a lady from the South who happens to be my sister.”

“But I hardly know Lenora.”

“Well, I’m giving you a chance to get to know her.”

What little Mary had seen of Lenora was not enough to endear her to her sister-in-law.

“Why, Wilbur! You sent Lenora the fare to make the trip.” Mary’s words came as quickly and accusingly as the thought. “Your people can’t afford to send her! And here I’ve scrimped and saved and kept poultry to sell and slaved in a garden — just for that — for your sister’s pleasure.”

“It’s kind of early to say how much pleasure she’ll get out of staying here with you. I’m aboot convinced it won’t be much, seeing how glad you are to have her. I want you to understand that she’s coming as a very special favor to me.”

Mary had nothing more to say, but her hands shook as she carried away the dishes. Two weeks when she might have lived blissfully without Wilbur! Two weeks when she might have had Katharine with her, or spent most of the days on the desert! How could he send for Lenora without consulting her? And the money! Where would the winter coat come from which she needed so badly? Her poultry savings would go for the running expenses of the house. Wilbur would demand it, and if she refused would run up some never-to-be-paid bills. The ghost of debt visited them in continual duns from southern Arizona. Mary had been meeting these bit by bit out of her poultry money. They were beneath Wilbur’s consideration, of course. According to his point of view, his creditors deserved to be hung for annoying him.

Mary plunged her hands into the steaming dishwater. She did not mind the burn. Physical things were inconsequential.... In a few hours Lenora would arrive. Would Wilbur want to give up the bedroom to her at once? He might. He was very considerate in his relations with his own family. She had better proceed on that assumption and change the linen, and make up the living room cot for herself and Wilbur. And she’d have to rush through with the cleaning, and polish the lamp chimneys and the few pieces of silver, and wash out the napkins they had used for breakfast. The pillow cases, too! She was short on pillow cases. Katharine was off on a picnic so she could not borrow from her.

Wilbur walked past Mary and slammed the kitchen screen door behind him. Such was the nature of his good-by. An unpleasant odor wafted in. That chicken house! Wilbur had promised to clean it before they went to Oraibi. After continued failures to keep such promises it had resolved itself into Mary’s job, a job she detested, and this time she had let it go in the hope that he would be forced by the unpleasantness of the condition to attend to it. No chance for him to do it that afternoon. He had to return to the trading post and be on hand to meet Lenora. Lenora, a lady from the South, as Wilbur called her, would have scorned to consider the chicken house a woman’s job. Just the same, Mary would have taken care of it if Wilbur had only warned her of his sister’s arrival.

By two o’clock Mary’s sense of shame for Wilbur got the best of her, and having completed most of her other tasks by dint of driving herself until exhausted, she descended on the chicken house with scraper, scrubbing brush and deodorant powder.... Sometimes the stage was late.

Shortly after four Mary dragged her weary body into the living room and sank into Wilbur’s armchair. She had worked so fast and so hard that her clothes were soaked with perspiration. It was terribly hot in the low, frame chicken house outside. All her energy had been sapped. She felt that she could not even raise her arms to arrange her hair.

She heard steps on the porch and smiled grimly. What luck to have Lenora come now! She was facing the door, could make out the girl’s form and Wilbur through the close mesh of the screen. Immediately she rose to meet them. Seldom had Wilbur seen her appear so untidy. His look of annoyance testified to that. Lenora stared at her sister-in-law from the perfect defense of her china-doll daintiness, her big blue eyes looking more stupidly surprised than usual.

“Hel-lo, Mary,” she said with such a startling pause between “hel” and “lo” that the tired Mary wanted to laugh and weep at the same time. “Did I come before you were expecting me?”

“No, not at all. I just worked too late,” returned Mary, recovering her poise.

Lenora fluttered around her like a bird around a part-rotten cherry which it could not quite make up its mind to peck.

“No, no! Don’t kiss me,” said Mary. “I’m much too awfully dirty.”

“You shore look as if you were going into the pig business,” snapped Wilbur.

“You mean the chicken business, don’t you, dear?” she replied.

Lenora’s presence had a strange effect upon Mary. She had two people to defend herself from now. “It’s the most delicious fun to get really dirty once in a while, Wilbur. You ought to try it.” Mary felt at the moment as if Katharine’s pert nature had taken complete possession of her. “Did you ever?” she added to Lenora, in a disarmingly sincere way.

“No, I never did,” replied Lenora somewhat sourly. “Mother says that even when I was little I never would play in the dirt.”

“The mark of true aristocracy, I suppose.” Katharine was speaking through Mary again. “You know, because I love earthy things I’ve always had a haunting suspicion that I come from a long line of grave-diggers.”

Mary was directing the way to the bedroom as she talked. “I think you’ll be comfortable here,” she said, pausing at the door to step aside so Lenora could enter. Wilbur entered too, just over the sill, to pass judgment on the condition of the room, and after a tender word to Lenora about seeing her at dinner brushed past Mary and disappeared.

“We have no modern conveniences,” Mary explained from the doorway. “You’ll find water in the pitcher and I’ll bring some hot in a few minutes from the kitchen. Then if you’ll excuse me I’ll freshen up and dress.”

“Now, don’t you let me be any trouble,” lisped Lenora with a sugar-sweet drawl.

“No trouble,” said Mary trying to feel as kind as she sounded. “I’ve been heating some for myself and there’s enough for us both.”

No matter how fatigued she felt, a good wash and a vigorous brushing of her hair always gave new life to Mary. The touch of a cool, clean lawn dress was likewise refreshing; and later, casting a last glance in her mirror, she was satisfied that the meditative image reflected there was neat and comely.

She encountered Lenora in the living room, curled up like a kitten in Wilbur’s chair.

“What tons and tons of hair you have!” Lenora commented half-enviously. “And it has that wonderful least little bit of a wave in it. Why don’t you wear it bobbed? They say it’s the thing in warm weather. It’s awfully French, you know.”

“Yes, only I’m not so sure the French ladies wear it that way.” Mary was trying to decide what was wrong with Lenora’s hair.

To Mary’s surprise Lenora burst out unexpectedly, “How do you like it?”

“What?”

“My hair. It’s bobbed. Don’t you think it’s adorable? A little thin, but I think bobbing it will thicken it.”

“Oh, yes, undoubtedly it will!” said Mary, absently.

“Now don’t let me interfere in any way,” Lenora begged sweetly. “I’ve brought several books to read. You don’t have to entertain me. Run along and do what you have to do. And don’t go to too much trouble for dinner tonight. I’m just one of the family, you know.”

Mary set the table, ironed napkins, prepared vegetables and cooked while the third member of the family buried herself in a book, one with a glaring jacket on which a strangely doomed young couple of rather odd physical proportions seemed engaged in an eternal kiss.

Wilbur joined them at dinner, very properly groomed and wearing a brand-new tie.

Mary might not have noticed the tie, engrossed as she was in her duties as wife and hostess, if it had not been for Lenora.

“What a heavenly blue, Wilbur! Just like your eyes! Wasn’t he smart to get a tie to match his eyes, Mary?” she effused. “And did you ever see more beautiful eyes than his?”

At one time Mary had thought them attractive too. Too often, however, since then she had seen them glint with the blue of cold steel, had watched them grow cold and lifeless as soiled snow.

“How am I ever going to marry if I can’t find a man with eyes like Wilbur’s?” Lenora babbled on. “Mother says when he was a baby everyone used to stop his nurse in the street to look at his eyes.”

Wilbur, to Mary’s surprise, seemed to be enjoying Lenora’s childish prattle.

All dinner conversation was created by Lenora, who clung tenderly to the topic of Wilbur, starting from babyhood and reaching — some little time after dessert had been served — that terrible day when Mary took him away from them. Never in all the world or in all time could there have been two men like Wilbur, judging from what Lenora had to say.

“Does she really believe it?” Mary wondered. She looked back from the kitchen after carrying away the dessert plates and saw brother and sister close together, he chucking her under the chin, lifting her little face close under his lowered head. They might have been sweethearts. Presently they walked arm and arm out to the porch. Mary proceeded to wash the dishes, happy to be alone.

She took it for granted that they wanted her to join them later; therefore, as soon as her work was finished, she went outdoors. They were not on the porch, so she walked around to the rear of the house. Maybe Wilbur was showing Lenora the garden. But they were not in the garden either, and Mary, baffled by their complete disregard of her, was about to return to the house when voices floated up to her from under the cottonwood beyond the wire fence. She paused irresolutely. The dead hush of young evening had touched the desert. Clearly through the warm air came the sound of voices — whispers overloud.

First Lenora: “Well, I’ll bet she’s got money and she’s holding out on you. A tricky Northerner, that’s what she is.”

Then Wilbur: “No, Norry, you’ve got that wrong. I thought so once. There’s where I got fooled.”

Tricky Northerner! Tricky Northerner holding out on Wilbur! They meant her! Of course they meant her! Oh, no, it was too sordid, too sordid and too cruel. She could not have heard aright. Mary did not enjoy her role of eavesdropper. She walked noisily along the wire fence. The voices lowered on her approach.

She knew that she was flushed and breathing hard when she approached them, and that her “So there you are!” did not sound as casual as she planned it. It did not astonish her that she had surprised them.

“I came out here to have a little talk with Lenora,” said Wilbur.

“Just Lenora?” asked Mary with a catch in her voice.

“Yes, just Lenora. I’m going away tomorrow and there are things we want to talk aboot that won’t be of interest to you.”

“You don’t mind, dear, do you?” Lenora’s sweetness was exasperating.

“Oh, please don’t consider my feelings in the matter,” returned Mary with a laugh that was not at all gay. “I am used to being put in my place. I wish you both a pleasant evening.”

She left before they could hear the sob that rose to her lips. “I’m tired — too tired,” Mary said to herself, outrunning threatening tears on the way to the porch. There they fell in a quick rush. It made her unhappy to be tired and lonely. The burden of it weighed upon her. But Mary was not given to tears for long. Tears meant surrender, and to surrender was to be weak.

She walked out to the broad avenue, the one and only thoroughfare of Taho, and along it to the desert in which it ended. Theirs was the last house on the avenue, a circumstance that afforded Mary pleasure in her times of stress — the desert close and intimate, and people all behind her, lost in their own petty interests and unconcerned with hers. The desert was like a father, profound in unspoken consolation, in the understanding of the loneliness of one’s soul, wise with the wisdom of years, sad with the sorrow of age.

Mary’s eyes grew accustomed to the darkness which had fallen with the suddenness of the desert. She felt the great loneliness about her, she heard the whispered rustle of a breeze in the brush and the chirp of a cricket, melancholy, sad. She came across a discarded government wagon which would soon go under the ax, and she climbed to the high seat, from which she could look down and through the solemn glory that she loved.

Out there was Castle Mesa and fifty miles beyond Black Mesa, and Curry was there — Curry, the only person who had ever expressed a feeling for her that sprang from the needs of the soul.

* * * * *

The next day Wilbur left. Lenora shed a few tears and promised she would take care of her sister-in-law. “He’s asked me to,” she confided to Mary.

Mary felt that Wilbur’s admonition was pretense and wished with all her hungry heart that it could have sprung from tender solicitude. As she went about her work with the energy of a healthy, vigorous woman, she was aware of Lenora’s scrutiny from time to time.

“You ought to live in Texas where you can get help cheap,” Lenora suggested over the top of her book from the depths of Wilbur’s chair. “We couldn’t exist if we had to do our own housework.”

Mary smiled at this remark from the Texas lady. Lenora had no idea that her own grandmother had referred to the junior Newtons as a lazy shiftless lot, the frayed-out stock of a broken-down aristocracy, and had explained that their continual indebtedness came from such unnecessary luxuries as a general-work girl, or a procession of them who came and left, left usually with a threat to sue for their back wages. How that proud impoverished old lady deplored her son’s deterioration and the hopeless wasters his shiftless wife had brought into the world! Yet her complaints had come over soft, fluffy dresses with which her rheumatic fingers struggled and which her conscience excused with the saying that the girls couldn’t go naked. How Mary had pitied the generous old soul!

Day after day, Lenora, when not reading, lounged under the cottonwood tree that spread its shade into Mary’s front yard from the edge of the broad avenue. Her gay-colored dresses were signals of her presence there. They drew attention from Taho’s citizens and the few strangers who passed through. Following her appearance, several people called on Mary, people not usually given to social intercourse. It developed that Lenora had spoken to them and pressed them to come to the house for tea. She took it upon herself to go to the post and purchase some fancy crackers which she charged to Wilbur.

Soon Mary noticed that several cowboys, engaged in building a government barn across the road, spent the fag-end of their lunch hours along the roadside under the shade of the cottonwood, not far from Lenora’s customary place to which she retreated the minute lunch was over. Presently Lenora announced there was going to be a dance at the government mess and she guessed she would go, though Mary could not, Wilbur being away.

It was a fine-looking half-breed Indian, an educated young man in government employ, who brought Lenora home from the dance. He talked so audibly during scattered moments of the hour that he lingered with Lenora on the porch, that Mary, in the room beyond, recognized his voice and could not sleep.

“Nice set of young folks for such a small place,” Lenora commented the next morning. “But I haven’t seen a man yet who could give me a thrill. There must be some nice ones around somewhere.”

Mary gave Lenora a look that was too honest for the Texas girl to take.

“Oh, I don’t mean that I could marry and live out here,” she hurried to say. “That would be all right if I were a native, to settle in a place like this, but with family, I’ve got to marry family, and someone with money too.”

The remark savored of something that had passed between her and Wilbur that night before he had left, and Mary suffered a strange sinking sensation for a moment.

“Wouldn’t you like to ride someday?” Mary asked by way of changing the conversation. “I can borrow some horses.”

“I’ve got such delicate skin and I’d ruin it out in the sun. Now, if we could ride along in the shade....” Lenora left her conclusions for her sister-in-law to surmise.

Mary made no comment. Lenora, giggling foolishly, started on another tack.

“There’s one condition under which I would go in a minute.”

“What’s that?” Mary asked with no great show of interest.

“If a certain cowboy asked me.”

The remark failed to arouse any curiosity in Mary.

“Does he come this way often?” Lenora purred.

Mary recalled the three cowboys who were now on such easy speaking terms with Lenora. “Which one?” she asked.

“Curry — Mr. John Curry!”

Mary was staggered. She felt the blood mount to her face.

“Now, what are you blushing about?” Lenora taunted. “You — a married woman! That’s why I want to meet him. He must be a wonder. You’re usually so straight-laced, Mary, and if you’ve gone and fallen for him....”

As the girl went on with her merciless harangue, thoughts, strange and terrible, flashed through Mary’s mind.

“You — have — met Mr. Curry?” Mary faltered.

“No, but I’m dying to.... Wilbur told me how completely he had turned your head, and he wants me here to keep him off.”

“Oh-h-h!” Mary’s exclamation was almost a wail. “And you believe your brother’s slanderous, jealous talk! You dare to intimate that I — that I — would.... You are here to watch, to spy, to take care of me — you poor, silly little fool! Why I despise you, I pity you!”

Mary slammed the screen door and hurried out beyond the garden, down along the irrigation ditch toward the little house where Katharine lived. Brush caught at her skirts and tore her stockings. She tore it free and ran. A neighbor called a greeting to her and she shouted a response, but her feet carried her on faster and faster. Katharine at last! She stumbled over the low step and flung herself against the door. It gave way. Katharine, standing at the stove, a spoon in one hand suspended over a pot, was staring at her in amazement.

“Mary, dear, what’s wrong!”

The spoon fell with a clatter. Mary, safe in Katharine’s arms, sobbed out, “Oh, Katharine, it’s too much for me! I tell you, it’s just too much.”

CHAPTER V

JOHN CURRY MAINTAINED his popularity among the cowboys at the Black Mesa trading post by demonstrating his need of their counsel. He was their leader by virtue of his power to control and because of his position of trust with Mr. Weston as chief of the outfit. Though he never pressed his authority, he exercised it wisely. Among the boys he was “good old John,” the buddy of every fellow on the place. An unconscious recognition of John Curry’s leadership was expressed in the epithet “old,” for John, who had just reached twenty-eight, was younger than four or five of his own men.

That the leader of the outfit looked upon High-Lo as his own special charge endeared him even more to the rough, desert-bred men. High-Lo had become completely disassociated from his Christian name by his preference for the nickname John had given him. When addressed as Alex Hardy, he seldom responded. Readdressed as High-Lo, his characteristic grin immediately appeared. Alex Hardy lost his identity one day when Hicks, a cross-eyed, red-haired cowboy, came to John protesting, “I’ve looked for that dumb fool Alex high an’ low an’ I can’t find him anywheres.” Such was the usual state of affairs. Whenever Alex was especially needed, everyone had to join in a search for him, and as Hicks expressed it, “look high and low.” The truant was often found far from camp, high in spirits because he had been up to some deviltry, or low in the torture of self-abnegation, stricken with a sense of his own uselessness. High-Lo, John had decided, was a good name for Alex.

High-Lo was a handsome young fellow short of twenty, with a tremendous store of energy which, in his early youth, had been misdirected. When he was a lad of seven or eight his father had introduced him to the delights of a whisky flask and had nourished in him the false notion that the true measure of a man was his ability to drink heavily without losing his sensibilities. High-Lo had tried his best to measure up to this standard, but seldom succeeded in meeting the required restriction. Consequently he was outlawed before he was eighteen by the man who had ruined him and the community in which he lived. He had faced the county judge once too often. Before High-Lo left the family homestead in Colorado, he rustled three of the county judge’s own maverick calves, marked them with his father’s brand, and personally presented them to the judge as a gift from a father who wished to show his appreciation for the judge’s leniency toward his wayward boy.

It was on High-Lo’s momentous exodus from his home state to nowhere, at which time he was intoxicatedly careless about whether he happened to be riding into Utah or Arizona, that he encountered John Curry journeying to Black Mesa from his brother’s ranch in Colorado. The incident of their meeting opened a new chapter in the boy’s life. High-Lo made the aimlessness of his ride known, and later sobbed out his troubles over a campfire. John adopted the boy at once, nursed him through his drunken sickness, then when he found him drinking again, after making an impressive ceremony of destroying High-Lo’s stock, thrashed him soundly. At the close of a ten days’ journey he brought in a thoroughly steadied new hand for Mr. Weston’s outfit. The new hand developed into a much-loved nuisance, at once the best and the worst cowboy Black Mesa trading post had ever acquired.

At the Black Mesa post, contact with tourists made the cowboys fastidious about their attire, but High-Lo was not affected in like manner. He was individual enough not to care that his hair stuck through a hole in his sombrero, that his boots were seldom blacked and were run down at the heels. However, when John returned from Oraibi, High-Lo met him resplendent in new boots and sombrero and a painfully starched white cotton shirt, and with the confession that he had “fallen for the society stuff.” John was not impressed. The source of High-Lo’s inspiration was too obviously the Blakely girls. They had turned more than one cowboy’s head, and each victim had complained to John of the folly of two nice pretty girls wasting their time on Hank Hanley. Hank Hanley’s kind of girl was no kind for High-Lo. John worried for a week. At last he resolved to protest.

He looked for High-Lo in the store, the kitchen, the laundry, the toolshed, among the men and Indians who were idling before the door of the trading post, and finally, at Hicks’s suggestion, sought him at the corral where he was headed when last seen.

The corral could not be seen from the trading post. The store and the cluster of buildings about it were arranged snugly against the slope of a great curving hill that swung down from the floor of the main valley. The corral was above on the high level, where an enchanting sweep of country never failed to delight John’s love of scenic grandeur. Great hummocky mountains of red rock lifted above the ridges that confined the snug =v=-shaped lowland and hid the post, and bound the larger valley on the east. Four or five miles westward Black Mesa, dark with its growth of cedar, loomed majestically, presenting its impregnable corrugated front as far as the eye could see; and from the intercepting mesas of the north, the tremendous length of the valley broadened to a vast and limitless plain above which towered two great monuments of rock, one red, one black and gray. Greasewood, green from a good season of rain, carpeted the country with color. The air had been sweetened by a shower that had come in the night, and it carried the delicate fragrance of desert flowers.

High-Lo, intent on shoeing a horse, did not see John approach.

“So that’s how you’re putting in your time, cowboy!” John called to him.

High-Lo grinned. “Shore! I ain’t wastin’ none of my time when the boss is around. You want these fellers shoed, don’t you?”

“Yes, the new tourists will be hitting the trail day after tomorrow.”

“I’ll show the outfit I can shoe a horse prettier’n the rest. Them lazy cusses was puttin’ it off fer tomorrer.”

High-Lo slipped some nails between his teeth and continued busily with his task.

“Think I’ll send you out on the trail this time,” John began.

The nails were blown wide, and High-Lo almost gave up his hold on the hoof between his legs. “What? Me? Again?” he expostulated. “It ain’t my turn! What’s the row? You goin’?”

“No, I’m not going.”

“If that’s the goods I’m not worryin’ none about me goin’.”

“I’m dead serious. I ought to keep Stuffy home, and you’ll have to go in his place,” John protested.

“There’s nothin’ wrong with Stuffy ‘cept he’s been eatin’ too much. It’ll be good for him to go out. He’ll have to go easy on grub then.” High-Lo was hammering hard again.

“That’s all right, High-Lo. I’m entitled to an opinion once in a while,” returned John.

High-Lo contemplated his boss a minute. “Say, ain’t you hidin’ suthin’ under your saddle blanket?” he blurted out at last.

John did not meet the question directly. “I’m trying to hide a feeling that you’re about ready to bust loose again.”

“Lordy, cowboy, you hit it!” cried High-Lo. “That’s what I am. An’ I’ll be even worse on the trail. You better keep me close to home. I hate to tell you, John, but I’ve took to liquor again.”

John laughed out loud. “Anyone as smart as you deserves to be let out. Taken to liquor! This place is bone dry. A fellow could safely assure booze fighters that a vacation out here would cure them. You’re not in Colorado. You’re on an Indian Reservation in Arizona. I’d hate to be riding steady since you took your last drop.”

“Then you’re gettin’ tender. I took my last drop yestiddy.”

When High-Lo spoke the truth, he never failed to convince.

“Hey, cowboy, can’t you tell me you’re lying?” asked John uneasily.

High-Lo let go the horse’s leg, led him into the corral and then swung to a seat on the timbers. “Not this time, John,” he announced from his high place. “But don’t get riled. I’ll tell you about it. Honest, it’s sort of funny.”

John was not prepared to see it that way, but he listened.

“Yestiddy there wasn’t no one to take the Blakely girls ridin’, so I ups and offers my services.”

“That’s another thing,” interrupted John. “Stub should have taken them.”

“Stub couldn’t. Someone shaved his hair off, an’ he’s hidin’ like a settin’ hen. Natural-like, with so many of the boys out, I had to take his place.”

Inasmuch as High-Lo sounded so like injured innocence, John could not refrain from saying accusingly, “You’re the hombre who tied Stub and shaved his head, you son-of-a-gun, because he was too popular with the Blakely sisters.”

“Say!” burst out High-Lo, “I thought I was tellin’ you suthin’! You’re gettin’ me off my trail.”

“Beg your pardon,” said John, aware that he himself was being sidetracked now.

“At the last minute one of the girls ups and guesses she won’t go, and leaves me with the other, the youngest and prettiest one,” continued High-Lo. “So me and my sweetie goes ridin’ alone. When we get down in the Red Canyon Wash, she guesses she’ll have a drink, and me not havin’ a canteen thinks she’s plumb crazy and has in mind that muddy water. But, John, she had a little canteen under her slicker no bigger’n a pint. She offers it to me and I thanks her and says no. Then she comes back that she won’t take none unless I do and paralyzes me with a stare from them big calf eyes of her’n. So I hauled off for a swaller, and, by golly, John, I like to died. I spit all over the place. It wasn’t water she handed me, it was good old Scotch. I was sick at the thought of wastin’ it.”

John swore mildly. High-Lo, ignoring him, went on. “She says, ‘What did you think it was? Milk? I’m past my teethin’ days and I only use water to wash in.’ Honest, that girl that I thought must sure be awful nice said that to me. It was the first time I ever had anyone I thought was a lady offerin’ me a snifter. I told her to help herself, an’ then after I’d take another nip, an’ I did.”

“High-Lo, you were a skunk, to do that!” John shouted. “You missed a chance to let her know that all cowboys are not like Hanley. You should have told her what you just said to me — that it was the first time you ever had anyone you considered a lady offer you a drink of liquor. What’s more, you broke your promise to me.”

High-Lo leaped to the ground. “Don’t be so damn quick to call me a skunk and to say I’m breakin’ promises. I had a reason for wantin’ to seem sociable. I would of told you, but I sure ain’t goin’ to now!”

“Suppose I suspect your reason,” returned John. “Suppose that’s the real reason why I’m sending you out on Wednesday.”

“And suppose I won’t go,” muttered High-Lo.

“I’d have to fire you,” retorted John, feeling despite his words an overwhelming affection for the boy.

“Would you?”

“Yes,” replied John.

“Well, if you would, then you can!” At that High-Lo strode off. He ignored John’s shouted order to come back.

Dozens of times in the past High-Lo had threatened to quit. Each time he had succeeded in rousing in John the fear that he might carry out his threat. Usually High-Lo’s outbursts were followed by a two or three days’ disappearance, then a return to his job with no reference to his absence, and a zeal for work never equaled by any other man at Black Mesa.

Today’s bluster seemed less serious, though High-Lo did little save lounge around the post and avoid John every time he came into view. When he appeared for his meal at noon, he took Stuffy’s vacant place instead of his own opposite Curry. Nevertheless John felt relieved.

All went well until late in the afternoon when John saw High-Lo riding out again with the younger Blakely girl. That was a significant climax to High-Lo’s new mode of conduct. High-Lo knew he did not have to accompany Miss Blakely. There were half a dozen boys around who would have traded their horses to go in his place. It might be the girl or it might be the liquor, and one was as objectionable as the other from Curry’s point of view. If it was High-Lo’s way of punishing John, by giving him some anxious hours, he was certainly succeeding.

High-Lo was gone until sunset. John had ridden up to the ridge several times, unnecessarily, to scan the open country. His last trip had satisfied him that High-Lo would be in soon.

When Curry caught sight of the pair loping their horses down the ridge, he loitered behind the saddle shed to watch High-Lo unobserved. The boy appeared soon, a saddle on each arm and singing lustily:

The old sow woke up in the morning, And one of her pigs was dead.

His knowledge of the doggerel was limited to the two lines which he repeated over and over again. They, with the accompanying melody, were infallible signs of High-Lo’s happiest moods, and these moods generally followed upon or led to mischief. His present levity, however, might have had its origin in Miss Blakely’s canteen. John walked away. He did not want to encounter High-Lo right now.

In the hogan at the back of the post, a place used by John and several of the cowboys as a general dressing room, word was astir that an Indian had seen Hanley, who had left a few days before professedly on his way to Flaggerston, making camp twelve miles from Black Mesa in Cedar Pass. Hanley had lived a capricious existence ever since he had grown prosperous enough to hire someone to look after his sheep business; therefore a sudden change in his itinerary meant nothing. But the boys were wont to discuss Hanley on any provocation because they disliked him. John placed no credence in the suggestion that Hanley was laying for the couple of mules that had strayed from Mr. Weston’s last camp in the pass.

The boys were loud in their deprecation of Topsy, one of the missing mules that nobody wanted to see again, when High-Lo arrived, looming tall in the doorway. His body seemed bronzed to the color of his curly hair. His eyes, blue and fiery, showed a dangerous twinkle. He looked about the hogan with grand contempt.

“How are yo’-all this evenin’?” he drawled. “I’ve been asked to announce as how Mr. Wilbur Newton has come to favor us at table, and tonight borrow some of our beddin’ and our desert. I shore think yo’-all ought to be honored.”

A born imitator, he cleverly caricatured Newton’s voice and actions as he strode majestically into the hogan and seated himself, after haughty consideration, on a duffle bag that someone had flung in the center of the room.

“Now, yo’-all have been razzin’ me aboot my new boots and hat, and someone was intimatin’ around that they had a new pair of spurs for me. The time is come when I need them spurs, so take ’em right off, Beany, or I’ll lay you low. I’m competin’ for first prize as Arizona’s dandy, and I’ve been stockin’ up agin the day. Reckon I’m aboot to meet my sole competitor, and I’ve sure got to outshine him like the sun outshines the moon.”

High-Lo turned to tow-headed Stub, whose short body was doubled up in laughter. “Here yo’, Stub! Black my boots.” Then he turned to long, slim Waffles of the pock-marked face. “Here yo’, Waffles! Brush my hat.” He flung these articles of apparel airward.

Beany had paid no attention to the command issued to him, so High-Lo proceeded to fulfill his threat, and there would have been an even match in strength and brawn if John had not intercepted the onslaught, whereupon High-Lo drew himself up full height and said, “Reckon we’ve met before, stranger, so yo’ bettah pack yore gun.”

The boys howled.

“Quit your nonsense!” commanded John of High-Lo. “Has Newton really come?”

“Shore has. An’ in full fancy regalie. He’s buyin’ up stuff from the Indians for the Taho post, but Pop Weston treats him like he’s the best friend he ever had.”

“You needn’t worry that the Indians will sell their best things to Newton,” spoke up Stub. “Pop Weston ain’t worryin’ none either.”

At dinner High-Lo resumed his place opposite John, and Newton fell heir to Stuffy’s vacancy. Guests, host and hostess, and the cowboys, thirty-two people in all, ate at one long table, so it was simple for Mrs. Weston to separate Newton far from the boys, and thus maintain peace.

John gave himself over to speculation during the meal. He did not like it that Hanley was camped at the pass when Newton arrived at Black Mesa. If Newton came through this afternoon he could not have missed Hanley. Somehow it looked prearranged. Hanley purposely had left Black Mesa before Newton arrived. He met him at the pass where no one but a chance Indian might see them. And Hanley would linger there until his friend’s return. John felt sure of these conjectures. There was a reason why, at present, these men did not want to be seen in each other’s company. Hanley had more important interests in mind than rustling a couple of outlaw mules. He found it less dangerous and more honest to cheat Indians in buying and selling sheep. His crooked deals with Hopis in the Taho country were well known. Newton, to all appearances a friend to the Indians, could win for Hanley the Navahos’ confidence, and prepare the way for him to operate in new territory. That this was their game it was easy to believe. Let one Navaho complain of being cheated, then see what would happen to Hanley! The boys at Black Mesa loved the Navahos and meant to protect them.

Under John’s distaste for Newton in his relations to men, boiled the resentment he bore him for his unworthiness of Mary. John had come to think of Newton’s wife as Mary. That was his mother’s name. He associated the mutual goodness of the two women with the simplicity and beauty and holiness of the name. He figured to himself how Newton would react were he aware of this, and pitied the man because he was incompetent to grasp the purity of such a regard. For Newton to force Mary to associate with a man like Hanley was a sacrilege; for him to become involved with the man in any deal that might illegitimately repair his fortunes was the rankest infidelity.

After dinner John took care to avoid Newton. He knew that Mr. Weston would not stand for any violence at the trading post, and that the only way to insure peace was to disappear. He went at once to the hogan in the hope that High-Lo might be there. But High-Lo was nowhere around. Nor had he shown up when John’s watch registered ten o’clock. All the boys were hogan-shy tonight.

Long after ten Beany came in. “Oh, Lordy! You missed it!” he said. “That kid of yours is runnin’ wild out there. He insulted Newton to his face and I was scared to death there would be nothin’ short of gunplay, but that Texan’s hide is so thick it didn’t penetrate.”

“What happened?” John’s voice betrayed anxiety.

“We were all hanging around outside the post swappin’ yarns, the Blakely girls and Mrs. Weston listenin’ in, when High-Lo, casual-like, says, ‘By the way, Newton, I got a story you’ll appreciate. It’s about a feller who was tryin’ for the governorship of one of the Western states. He come by train to a town where he expected to tell the folks how good an’ grand he was, an’ he got a jar when he found there wasn’t no delegation there to meet him. He went paradin’ up an’ down the platform, his cutaway coattails swingin’ madlike and his stovepipe hat jest set up straight like his hair was standin’ up straight under it, when along comes a cowboy who’d been drinkin’ more’n his ma said he could. He got kind of taken with the feller who was measurin’ the platform and starts follerin’ him up an’ down, and sayin’, “It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” He kept sayin’ it so much that he got on the nerves of the high-an’-mighty can’idate, an’ he swings around an’ says, “What’s a lie?” The cowboy hiccups a minute an’ then says, “Mister, it’s a lie! There ain’t no one on God’s earth as important as you look!”’ Would you believe it, Newton laughs first, everybody else holdin’ back, and then lettin’ loose like mad when they see it didn’t hit him the way High-Lo intended!”

“High-Lo shouldn’t have done that. He deserves a call!” It was not sympathy for Newton that brought the angry words from John. He was thinking of Mary, of how crushed she would be to know that everyone at Black Mesa was ready to ridicule the man she once loved enough to marry. He wanted to protect her from the people out there who had laughed. There was no question of the justice of their ridicule, it was a matter of injustice to her. He was furious with High-Lo.

“Hold on now, John, you know it was comin’ to Newton,” Beany expostulated. “Maybe he’s jest slow to ketch on. Maybe he’ll wake up to what High-Lo meant when he gets out on the trail, and take to shootin’ rabbits for spite.”

“Where’s High-Lo now?” asked John.

“Sparkin’ maybe.”

“Sparkin’!” exclaimed John, falling into the vernacular.

“With that youngest Blakely girl he’s so sweet on. She fell for his baby-blue eyes. I never had any real chance, but even if I did I’m sure a gone goose now.” Beany sounded disconsolate. His round shoulders stooped beneath the burden of his despair and he bowed his black head in his hands.

John swore.

“You, too, heh?” commiserated the first sufferer. “No one would of thought it. You ain’t much on the women. Still I was figurin’ on what she’d do to you on that Snake Dance trip.”

Beany’s commiseration was too much for John. He went outdoors to walk and think; and he climbed the hill away from the corral. The night was dark. Few stars shone in the remote dome of the heavens. Clouds, blacker than the night, were massing over Black Mesa. A storm had slipped by them. A silence, cool and heavy like that of a sepulcher, hung over the valley. John was conscious of a deep pity working in his heart for boys like High-Lo and Beany whose values were so warped because of lack of education and experience. They could not recognize subtlety, they could not discriminate readily between girls like the Blakelys and a girl like Mary. They could classify the Blakely sisters with Mary because beauty of clothes and a polish greater than they knew baffled them. An experience like High-Lo’s should serve as an awakening. High-Lo admitted that it did, but among desert men women were not so plentiful that their actions were judged too critically. These boys were bound by their simplicity and the ways of the desert.

The next day John’s concern about High-Lo became a thing of the past. Before breakfast the boy begged a conference with his boss and apologized for yesterday’s outbreak.

“I’ll take Stuffy’s place on the trail,” he agreed. “I ain’t got the right to tell you I won’t. And you needn’t to worry about the Blakely girls. They’re drivin’ their car to Taho today, an’ Mrs. Weston says they’re leavin’ the reservation for good. And I’m shootin’ straight, John, when I tell you that if they’d stayed a year, I’d never be seen with them again.”

John felt a rush of pride in his cowboy. “Well, I’m glad to hear that, son,” he said. “You won’t have to take Stuffy’s place. He’s able to go himself. He’s putting through a little bluff right now. If I got you to take his place, by Thursday Stuffy would be as lively as a frisky mule.”

“But you’re wrong,” protested High-Lo. “Stuffy’s awful sick. He had to take his bed inside last night. Said he had the chills. You better send me. Go ask Mrs. Weston, if you think I’m kiddin’!”

John smiled. “Mrs. Weston is overindulgent about you fellows. The fact is I know Stuffy. Stub found a plate in his tent last night from which a hearty meal had been polished — and he’s supposed to be giving his stomach a rest! He hasn’t a tenth of a degree of temperature. His chills come from the prospect of work. I ordered him up this morning.”

“Send me out with him,” ventured High-Lo. “He’d be no good if he took sick again. The boys would be short of help and things would move slow and this new party strikes me like a bunch of cranks.”

“No need of that,” John returned emphatically.

“Well, all I know is that you better think it over about sendin’ me out,” High-Lo persisted. “Let me know later.”

For a moment John had misgivings about High-Lo. The boy’s intimation of yesterday that he was supplied with liquor which he could consume on the trail flashed to mind. But the idea passed in John’s shame for his doubting the young cowboy. High-Lo was just overzealous in his desire to make amends, an impulse that was typical of him.

Newton made ready to leave the post immediately after breakfast. High-Lo, observing his preparations from the toolshed, vouchsafed to John that Newton’s departure would be good riddance. “Magdaline will be lonesome now,” said the cowboy with a wink.

“Magdaline!” repeated John above the clink of the horseshoes he was tossing from a box.

“Yep, our little Indian friend, Magdaline, the pepper pot of the Navaho Reservation. Newton was walkin’ an’ talkin’ with her last night. Can’t testify to nothin’ else.”

John accepted High-Lo’s news angrily. “I thought Magdaline was visiting her relatives at Sage Brush Springs.”

“She was, but she come in last night. Where were you that you didn’t see her?”

“How could Newton have ever met her?” asked John, ignoring High-Lo’s question. “She was at school in California for three years, and she’s only been home since June, and it was Mrs. Weston who brought her. This is Newton’s first appearance at Black Mesa this summer.”

“Newton didn’t get quite that confidential with me,” High-Lo replied sarcastically. “But I’ve got a hunch he ain’t never seen her before. The oldest Blakely girl gave him the go-by for Beany, and he took what was left. Guess Magdaline was pretty willin’. An’ you know, John, she does kind of get a feller somehow — for an Indian.”

John was thoughtful for a moment before he spoke. “I’m afraid for her. She’s too pretty for an Indian and too well versed in the ways of a white girl, and to add to the pathos of her situation, she has a mighty keen intellect. Her education is bound to make her suffer.”

“What you’re sayin’ don’t mean much to me,” concluded High-Lo, obviously perplexed. “An Indian’s an Indian. They’re square shooters, an’ I like ’em.”

Boss and cowboy repaired to the corral, collecting other hands on the way to join them. There was always much to do on the eve of a party’s leave-taking. John’s attention was divided all through the day. He lost track of High-Lo. Indeed, he was grateful for his absence when it came time for the Blakely sisters to leave. They dallied at departure till John feared at the last moment that they might decide to stay. But at about three o’clock, much too late for them to make the rough road through to Taho by night, they called their good-bys and drove off.

“I’m not worried about them,” said Mrs. Weston. “Let them camp alone if they must. I’m sure the devil takes care of his own.”

John laughed to hear prudent Mrs. Weston talk that way. High-Lo was not on time for supper, a fact John accounted for as the boy’s wish to make amends through work. “Still,” he argued to himself, as the meal progressed, “High-Lo owes it to Mrs. Weston to appear on time.”

“Anybody here seen High-Lo?” he asked of no one in particular.

Stub spoke up at once. “Last I saw of him was about mid-afternoon when he jumped the corral fence and went racin’ down the hill yellin’ that damn song about the sow whose pig was dead.” A red flush covered Stub’s face and mounted to the crown of his shaven head. “Excuse me,” he added, glancing furtively at the nearest guests, “I mean darn song.”

“He must be cleaning up,” said John. “Run up to the hogan, Stub, and tell him to shake a leg.”

Stub was quick to comply and reappeared shortly. “He ain’t there,” he announced.

John tried to hide his annoyance. “Beany, you’re through with your dessert,” he said to the lanky youth next to him. “See if High-Lo is up at the corral.”

To John’s consternation, Beany’s mission was as unfruitful as Stub’s. He tried to assure himself that everything was well, but he had an uncomfortable feeling of alarm. He instituted a search for High-Lo in which the boys resentfully joined. Hicks, the oldest and most reliable cowboy, ended the quest in short order by offering certain deductions he had made.

“High-Lo’s horse is missin’,” he reported to John, “an’ his saddle is nowhere around. Guess he’s rarin’ off somewheres.”

“Thank you, Hicks,” said John.

He strode off, prey to conflicting sensations. There was deviltry astir. High-Lo had left. What bothered him most was that the young cowboy had bluffed him to cover his intentions.

CHAPTER VI

NEXT MORNING THE cowboys rose early to round up the horses and mules that were going on the trail. No one mentioned High-Lo, at least not to John nor in his hearing; whereas John, with High-Lo filling his thoughts, was conscious of everyone’s consideration.

As soon as the stock was brought down from the ridge, John assigned the boys tasks according to their efficiency. Unfortunately the best packer had left. Striving to forget this, John threw himself heartily into the work on hand.

Presently the foreground of the post became a place of color and action. Groups of horses and mules, neighing and hee-hawing, manifesting their rebellious spirits. The cowboys moved among them shouting, “Yo! ... Hold ’em, cowboy! ... Blast that lop-eared mule!” These and like exclamations came to John above the stamp of hoofs and the clink of spurs. Everywhere flashed the colorful designs of saddle blankets. On the edge of the scene Navahos in gay-colored tunics lolled about indolently.

John directed disposal of the piles of goods stacked outside the store — rolls of bedding, duffle bags, food supplies, Dutch ovens, pots and pans. Suddenly he became conscious of watchful eyes. He looked up to see Magdaline standing near and caught her warm glance and the gleam of her perfect white teeth. Her bronze face, unlike so many of her kin, was delicately molded.

“You, John Curry! You hide from me!”

John caught the coquetry in her lowered lashes. The whole charm of her was evident in that look, and in the fashionable cut of her cheap gingham dress.

“I’ve been busy,” returned John in a matter-of-fact manner. “How are you, Magdaline?”

“Lonesome to see my friends,” Magdaline replied, striving to woo his attention.

John met her words with silence.

“My friend High-Lo, no sooner I see him than he goes away,” she persisted. “Why did he ride so fast?”

Her question startled John into immediate attention. “You saw him leave?”

“Yes. But he didn’t see me. He went so like a thief that first I thought he was stealing a horse.”

“What time did he go?”

“Four o’clock maybe. I was up on the ridge sitting by a mound waiting to jump out on you should you come that way. Then, too far away to speak, I saw High-Lo leading a horse. He stopped where a saddle was cached, saddled the horse, and rode away so quick the dust covered him.”

“Which way?” queried John above her last words.

“Toward Four Mile Wash and maybe to the pass.”

“Maybe to the pass,” John repeated aloud. “Thank you, Magdaline.”

“Then you didn’t know at the time that he went. You didn’t know why or where,” Magdaline remarked thoughtfully.

John reflected that Magdaline’s wits needed no sharpening. “Don’t bother me just now,” he returned. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“I wish you liked me as much as you like High-Lo,” the girl went on stubbornly.

John, busy with new thoughts, was irritated by her perseverance. “Please run along, Magdaline,” he said.

As she walked away, John heard one of the boys call her name. A merry response followed immediately. Tom, Dick, Harry — all were alike to her!

Magdaline’s insinuation that High-Lo’s goal was the pass provoked a surmise in John’s mind which involved Hanley. He could conceive a desire on High-Lo’s part to frustrate Hanley’s plans, whatever they might be, by forcing his company on him; and he knew High-Lo would attempt such folly without thought of consequences. For this theory John disregarded his earlier ones wherein the Blakely girls had figured, but he failed to convince himself that he did so more from reasoning than from wishful thinking. His meditations led to a decision to follow High-Lo. Should his latest conjecture be wrong, a good half-day’s ride lay between them, and High-Lo’s destination and purpose would remain as uncertain as before. Someone had to cache grain in Noname Valley, miles beyond the pass. John decided that there was no reason why he could not undertake the mission himself. He would make no pretense about it. He would explain the twofold purpose of his journey to Mr. Weston. And if Mr. Weston protested, he would have to leave the man’s employ. High-Lo’s safety was worth that much to him.

He propounded the issue as soon as the outfit had departed and received prompt permission from his employer. Mr. Weston, too, demonstrated a steadfast affection for the troublesome but likeable High-Lo.

“Give yourself time. Hunt up the young scamp if you can,” Mr. Weston said. “Don’t worry about the post. Hicks will take care of things while you’re away.”

John moved with alacrity as he prepared his pack and loaded the string of pack mules with grain. The mules had to be driven and they would retard his progress; but better that his journey seem business-like to whomever he might meet on the way.

Less than an hour after the others had left, John was driving the mules over the ridge. Then he turned his back upon the tracks the others had made, and followed the trail to Four Mile Wash. The spirited animal in the lead set a brisk trot for the others to follow, which John encouraged with an occasional shout. They moved through the wide sweep of valley, along the interminable wall of Black Mesa on the left, hummocky red mountains and great jagged red peaks on the right, along a trail that cut through greasewood, green near by, gray-green in the distance toward the cedared flank of the mesa.

It was good to be alone. The beat of hoofs was music to John’s ears. His nostrils welcomed the warm, fragrant breeze and his eyes watched its course through the brush. He looked up toward the mountains, thrilled by their majestic height. A pile of Navaho prayer rocks rose like a spiral of red flame on a distant promontory. John imagined a Navaho there looking down in peace over the land he loved, whispering the benediction his prayer bestowed:

Now all is well, Now all is well.

But behind his meditations stirred uneasy thoughts of High-Lo, Hanley, the Blakely girls, and Newton, who, like disembodied spirits, remained in his consciousness. Then, the others fading before her, Mary Newton came to him, flooding his senses with her beauty and serenity. What comfort would come to him if he could only speak to her now, tell her about High-Lo, attempt to explain his devotion to the irresponsible but lovable boy! He could see the deepening serious look she would wear, hear her voice soften with sympathy and understanding. What a mother she would make for a boy like High-Lo! He could see Mary’s black head bent over a fair one, reasoning patiently with such defiance as High-Lo must have shown when young. He could see her looking up from the child with a gentle confidence in her power, and a smile for him. Intimate, personal became Curry’s thought, and a tender yearning possessed him. Unconsciously all the dreams of his youth were revived, and into them Mary had slipped, as the mother of his son, as his wife, into a place heretofore possessed only by an elusive, changing form and face. John felt hot blood mount upward through his throat.

“I’m loco,” he muttered to his horse. “She’s married. She belongs to another man. I swear to God I don’t covet her. But I can’t help seeing what she is. I can’t help what my heart. ... And I can’t let High-Lo go. I’ve got to have someone to take care of.”

The leader of the mules, taking advantage of John’s silence, had slowed down, but a single shout set him to trotting again and his lazy fellows mechanically fell into step.

John tried to evade the issue into which his thoughts had just betrayed him, but the dream persisted. There was no cause for shame. He loved where love was most needed. What had happened to High-Lo in his starved childhood was happening to Mary in young womanhood. Both had ill return for what they so freely gave. That, no doubt, was the thing that drew him to them most. Yet no word of Mary’s had betrayed to him the things he knew. Newton’s actions spoke for themselves. That day at the Snake Dance when for a moment he held her in his arms should have been a revelation to him. Why had it taken more than a week for him to recall the supreme joy of a moment now gone forever? Had the knowledge of her unattainableness come between him and the rapture of that moment? He owed thanks to the Almighty that it had. For John Curry, though he acknowledged his love of Mary Newton, in no way would stop to betray another man.

“Make every experience in your life count for good,” his mother had said to him when as a boy a terrible disappointment had threatened his peace; and he had tried ever since to inculcate in his will the spirit of her words. He would make his love for Mary Newton count in that way. He would be a better man for having known her.

“Make me worthy to love her,” he whispered, his eyes on the pile of prayer rocks. And forthwith to his heart came the knowledge that already the leaven of love was working for his good.

John came upon Four Mile Wash suddenly, so engrossed was he with his thoughts. The storm that had by-passed Black Mesa had made a turgid stream where normally only a dry bed showed. The mules declared their disapproval of the unexpected crossing by halting at the top of the steep declivity which led down into the wash, and refusing stubbornly to budge from their stand. John coaxed, urged, and at last resorted to his quirt. Failing in his efforts, he gathered some sharp stones and drove the animals forward with stinging blows. The wash was so familiar to him that a glance was enough to assure him that no more than three feet of water were passing through. He knew the mules could make it easily.

The Blakely girls’ car had dug deep ruts where they had driven their way out of the wash the day before. And some half-baked horseshoe prints present there had probably been made by High-Lo’s horse a little later in the day. These signs assured Curry that he was on the right trail, even though High-Lo’s and the Blakely girls’ trails seemed to be identical.

The mules’ hoofs scattered dust over their wet thighs in their prodigious labor to gain the sunlight again. Gaining the top of the grade at last, they came to a panting stop. John favored their mood with a few minutes of rest, then sent them forward with a shout.

For a few miles the trail continued as level as a table top, and then began to climb. The rise was so imperceptible that only the distant acclivity could testify to the change. John always anticipated the change in altitude by watching for scrubby cedars and taller greasewood bushes. It was five miles to the pass from the place where the cedars first showed! New uplands bisected Black Mesa and the country of rolling rocks, and these uplands met far ahead where they formed the defile through which John must pass to reach Noname Valley. The trail led slightly to the left for a couple of miles, and Black Mesa seemed more remote the closer the intercepting highlands came. What seemed a mere angular junction viewed from the ridge above Black Mesa trading post became a huge arena encircled by massive walls of terraced red rock on which dwarf cedars grew.

Soon the leader mule was plodding up the steep part of the trail which wound around and over hillocks on its toilsome way up the mountain. From the higher level, where John again halted the pack animals for a rest, the country took on a new aspect. Black Mesa, for a while lost to view, now appeared again, grander, more indomitable than ever. The mountains of red rock were crowned with massive bald hummocks, and they turned aside to form the mouth of Noname Valley, across which cut a wonderful canyon, red-throated and marked with the green of cedar and greasewood. John continued the climb. The trail widened. Above the receding mountains of rock he saw golden spires, new red walls and startling eminences. Presently he was descending to a parklike opening bound on one side by the canyon, on the other by slopes of piñon and cedar. He had reached the camp site of Cedar Pass. Not for a moment did John entertain the thought that Hanley had camped in the open, or that he would be there now. Therefore he dismounted to reconnoiter.

He followed the hoofprints of a shod horse to a nestlike site hidden from the trail by a cluster of cedars and high brush. This place bore convincing evidence of a recent camp. Freshly opened cans, with fragments of their contents still moist, and the charred coals of a recent fire were conclusive proofs. Hoofprints of unshod horses showed on the rise above the camp, likely made by the Indians who had reported Hanley’s presence in the pass. John made a careful survey of the immediate ground. Other and larger tracks showing from another direction proved that a second shod horse had ridden that way. The first tracks mingled with these others and led away in the direction from which the second horse had come. All these tracks had been made since the last rain. High-Lo, an unbidden guest at that camp, had ridden away with his host.

Straightway John went down the hillside, following the progress of the two riders. They had crossed to the sloping wall of the canyon and passed down the canyon trail. Either they were headed somewhere along the canyon or they had crossed over the valley. Curry sat motionless for several long moments, trying to determine which route the two riders had taken and why they had taken it together.

In short order he was on the move again. A broad sheet of water collected from the storms of the week had saturated the floor of the canyon, and made tracking through the adobe mud an easy thing. A bright stream wound its noisy way down the canyon. John watered his animals there. Forward across the canyon led the tracks of the two horsemen Curry was following. What a happy coincidence that they were heading for the valley! His plan of procedure was simple enough now. It was only six miles to the cave in which he intended to cache the grain. Once relieved of his load he could hobble the mules and turn them loose, and be free to go his own way.

With the canyon behind him, John followed the familiar trail between a deep wash and the more remote hummocky hills at the foot of the billowing swells of red rock. Cedar and piñon were plentiful, and high up on the slopes were stubby pines. Noname Valley actually was a succession of valleys, wide in sweep and colorful, opening one upon another at the very places where they seemed shut off by the abutments of the red mountains that encircled them. The trail soon led away from the wash toward the foothills and the nearest defile. Midway into the foothills was the cave John sought, and his practiced eye, keen though it was, often searched and re-searched the slopes before he could locate the cleverly concealed hiding place. There was no trail. The way led over bare rocks. A clump of trees marked the place where his detour began.

Arriving there, John dismounted for a careful study of the tracks he was about to leave. To his surprise he found prints of the shod hoofs of a third horse. At times they came between the other prints, at times they completely blotted them out. The third rider was not an Indian — that was certain. Could he be following the other two? Then it might not have been High-Lo who had joined Hanley at his camp! If not, who had? And where did this third party, if it was High-Lo, cut in? John upbraided himself for being so sure of the second rider’s identity in the first instance. A little doubt would have made him observe the trail more closely.

Caching the grain was a task quickly dispatched, and John did not linger to brood over his mistake or to analyze the new complication. He mounted his horse and drove the reluctant mules over the bald surfaces of the low foothills. There was no sign of life about. The breeze had died out completely. A vast silence was suspended from the blue arch of the sky to the motionless physical features about him. Nothing moved. Only the click of his horse’s hoofs against the rock broke the deep silence. Yet John’s ear was inclined for other sounds, a trained ear waiting to receive. He had a strange apprehension that he was not as completely alone as appearances indicated. Suddenly a sharp crack sounded. Something struck a rock behind the ridge he was mounting. Crack, crack, crack, came the sound again. John, intent on the direction from which the sound had come, leaned forward in his saddle. The mules halted and John rode ahead to the top of the ridge. Then he relaxed with a laugh. On the other side of the ridge was the outlaw mule, Topsy, standing with stupidly inquisitive eyes, one ear erect, one flopping down, nonchalantly rapping her tail against the brush. Topsy was trying to find the oft-trodden way to the cave. She fell into line with a meekness that would have made the boys at the post stare open-mouthed. Her truancy had ended.

John had to rest the mules several times before he reached the cave. But once he arrived, every motion he made counted to bridge time between him and High-Lo. Cedars protected the mouth of the cave and darkened its interior. It was short of five feet in height, but extended back for quite a distance, and it kept the grain secure from any kind of exposure. John had to bend low to enter. The cave was supposed to be cleared of grain, but he could see in the semidarkness that something was stacked against the wall. Immediately unburdening himself of the pack he carried, he crawled back to investigate. He reached out against the bulk before him and withdrew with a shudder of revulsion. He had touched the form of a man that was huddled like a sack against the wall. The thought of an Indian sleeping there came as soon as the momentary horror was dispelled; but he realized at once that this was no Indian. Could it be — John’s breath was held suspended by the terrible thought. Quickly and none too gently he reached for the man and dragged him to the light. Then a terrible helplessness took possession of him.

“My God! It is High-Lo!” he muttered.

There was blood on John’s hand where he supported the boy’s head.

“Foul play!” he said aloud. “Damn them, they’ll pay for this!”

He backed out of the cave, drawing High-Lo with him. High-Lo, it soon was revealed, was not dead; his heart beat a low irregular rhythm and his pulse fluttered weakly. John was conscious of a strange rush of joy electrifying his shaken body. He could see that the blood which matted High-Lo’s curly hair came from a wound near the crown of his head. It was not a bullet wound. He had been struck with something sharp, perhaps from behind. Curry could see that even in his unconsciousness the boy’s lips were drawn tight in pain. No amount of cold water applications to his face and forehead served to revive him, so John set about cleaning the wound and binding it with strips from his cotton undershirt. Then he hobbled the mules, stacked the balance of the grain in the cave, slung High-Lo over his shoulder, and leading his horse by the reins walked with them down the slick mounds of rock to the clump of cedars that marked the trail. Eighteen miles to the post, and High-Lo unconscious — how long unconscious, only God knew! And he might never come out of it! That thought alone was staggering to John.

At the cedars he forced High-Lo into the saddle and mounted behind where he could brace the sagging form with his arms and body. Nugget was a good horse with a good trot, and John loved him more for the service he was about to render. But to trot even with the very best of horses was dangerous to anyone in High-Lo’s condition. John saw at once that High-Lo’s body, limp as a rag, registered each motion like a shock and realized that the banging contact of the boy’s head and his shoulder must be avoided. Therefore he slowed Nugget to a walk. He estimated that it was close to three o’clock when they got started, and trusted that they would make the post before nine.

There were times when John feared that High-Lo had stopped breathing altogether, and there were anxious moments when his own breath came hard. He knew he could not stand to have High-Lo go. He found himself measuring the boy’s worth against many more fortunate men he had known. All High-Lo’s failings passed away before the vision of the struggle the boy had made to abandon his old way of life for things clean and wholesome. If the young cowboy had been born into happier circumstances, with possibilities of education and the right discipline for his willfulness, he would have made a leader of men. At Black Mesa he became the favorite of family and guests alike by reason of his lovableness and happy nature.

In time John became aware that Topsy was mincing along behind, which made him reflect that High-Lo was the only cowboy who had ever been able to elicit any service from the stubborn mule. Did she in her dumb-brute way surrender because she was somehow aware of her master’s presence, or did she follow because she sensed that High-Lo, the once mighty, was now in trouble? Mules were strange beasts, stupid judging from appearance and conduct common to them, yet capable on occasion of demonstrating shrewd intelligence. Right then and there John formed a lasting attachment for Topsy.

Never had the ride from the cave to the pass seemed so interminable; the six miles between, to be sure, were generous cowboy miles. The valley was cool with the shadows of late afternoon before the rim of the canyon showed. The arm that held High-Lo in the saddle was numb, and riding the trail that wound in and out of the canyon was a difficult thing under the circumstances. It took all of Curry’s power of strength and will to keep High-Lo from shifting in the saddle. Topsy still followed along.

While riding through the cedars of the pass John’s attention was arrested by the beat of hoofs, and watching intently in the direction from which the sound came, he descried the shadowy forms of a horse and rider approaching. In another moment he identified the rider as a woman. There was something so familiar about her and her mount that he sensed immediately that the rider was Magdaline. Yet hours earlier he had left Magdaline with the Westons at Black Mesa trading post. An unjustified irritation arose in John.

Though the girl was aware of his approach she gave no sign of greeting until she dismounted several yards away and came to him on foot, running. John checked his horse and swayed uncomfortably in the saddle. Topsy at once trotted off to a shady place under the cedars.

“What’s — the matter — with High-Lo?” Magdaline panted, her eyes wide with fear.

“He’s been hurt. Badly, I’m afraid. Maybe you can help.”

“How far have you come?”

“Six miles down the valley.”

“I see. I wondered why you were so long. Better let him down a while. I can ride like the wind to the post and send back a car. Are you not glad I came to meet you, John Curry?”

“I’m glad you happened to be here,” John returned gruffly.

“Get down while I hold him,” the girl commanded.

John dismounted heavily. A minute later he had High-Lo in his arms and was staggering to a place under a tree which Magdaline indicated.

“How long has he been unconscious?” she asked. Her manner was different now. She was impersonal and aloof.

“About two hours or more that I know of. He was unconscious when I found him.”

“You go back to the canyon and get some cold fresh water,” Magdaline ordered. “You need the exercise. I will work over High-Lo for a while. As soon as you come back I will ride to the post. I think you ought to wait here. I would not move High-Lo now. You may be making him worse.”

She might have been an Indian princess from the manner in which she assumed command. Her dark eyes flashed proudly and her hand moved imperatively with that no-loss-of-motion grace peculiar to the Navahos. And she wasted no more time in foolish questioning; her desire to help was stronger than her curiosity. John warmed toward her, and acted on the advice she gave. He left them together, High-Lo’s head resting on her thigh.

Quickly John dispatched his errand, and the weariness left him as Magdaline had said it would. When he came riding through the cedars again, he saw at once that High-Lo’s position had changed, his face was turned away and an arm was flung over his head.

An assuring smile from Magdaline gladdened his return. “He moved and he spoke,” she said. “But he has not his senses yet. He acts like a tired little boy.”

There was something ineffably sweet about the Indian girl at that moment. She was a mother with a child, a Mary of another race, moved by instincts common to all womankind. She had opened High-Lo’s blouse and exposed his breast, and now her hand moved slowly up and down along his side.

“I’m afraid he is hurt here worse than his head,” she said. “Here is where his hand went to when he groaned.”

John stooped over High-Lo and forced the canteen against his lips. Magdaline, to assist, tilted High-Lo’s chin, and her action more than the water, which largely spattered down his cheek and breast, brought a sign of life from the boy. He writhed and his face screwed up in pain as simultaneously his arm came down in weak protest against her hand. Then he sank back with a groan and his eyelids fluttered in successive attempts to lift. Finally they held in a wide stare.

“Where am I?” High-Lo’s question was accompanied by a sigh. He breathed in irregular jerks and each breath seemed to bring pain. “Where are those dirty sons-of-guns? ... Quit pressin’ my side, you idiot!” Not once while he spoke did his eyes leave John’s face, but there was no recognition in the stony stare.

“Don’t you know me, High-Lo?” John asked. “It’s John.”

High-Lo did not answer. His eyes followed Magdaline’s arm and on up to her face, then returned to John. His brows knit in a perplexed frown. “Why is she here if you’re John?”

“Come on, buddy,” said John gently. “Try to think! This is your pal, John Curry. You ran away yesterday. I trailed you. I found you in a cave.”

Just then Topsy brayed vociferously. Suddenly the first gleam of intelligence showed in High-Lo’s eyes.

“Oh, shore, the cave!” he managed to articulate. “And that damn mule brayin’ all the time.... Oh, my God, my side!” His hand went quickly to his side, the train of his thought broken. “John ... John might come,” he muttered after a while. His eyes traveled aimlessly until they met John’s again. “You say John did come? Oh, yes, so you did.”

Magdaline was a silent, pitying witness, but now she spoke. “He’s coming out of it. Make him drink.”

“Take a swallow, son,” urged John, offering the canteen.

High-Lo gave a wry smile. “Don’t mind if I do.”

He wanted the water, but it seemed to hurt him to swallow, and after a few gulps he pushed it away.

“Someone said something about the cave,” he pursued, as if revived by the little water he had taken, and plainly endeavoring to collect his wits. “Shore, I was in the cave. How did I get here?”

“I brought you,” said John. “But don’t try to think about it now. Magdaline’s going to the post for a car. We’ll get you home as fast as we can.”

“Magdaline ... home,” repeated High-Lo. “Yes, and make it quick, cowboy. I think some of my ribs are broke.”

“I was thinking that,” said Magdaline. “You come here and take my place and get his shirt off.”

“We’ve got to bind him with something,” John insisted.

“Yes, I know,” Magdaline returned. “You do what I say.”

She left them and disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back she waved a white petticoat.

“This will make good bandage,” she called.

In no time she prepared strips and presented them to John. “Not too tight.... There! I’m going now. I’ll send Hicks back too. Mrs. Weston says he can set broken bones.”

She walked to her horse, mounted and rode away. One minute John saw a flash of a gingham dress, the next minute it was gone. Magdaline, true to her word, would race like the wind to the post.

John turned to High-Lo again and found the boy studying him intently.

“Good old John, so it is you,” High-Lo said in glad recognition. “Things are comin’ back to me now. I’ll be able to tell you all about it soon.”

“Let me finish this job first,” John suggested. “And be sure you’re up to it. It can wait, you know.”

John had to knot the strips of cloth together to make his bandage effective, and he took infinite care that the knots came where they were least annoying.

“They’re broke all right,” winced High-Lo. “Careful of — that left side.”

Next John unsaddled his horse to use the saddle and blanket as a prop for High-Lo’s head.

“Wonder where my horse is,” High-Lo said.

It was a question that had baffled John too, but he had long ago committed it to his ignorance of events.

“We won’t worry about your horse,” John returned. “He’ll find his way home unless someone rustles him.”

He settled down beside High-Lo and lit a cigarette.

“Cricket may be a mighty pore horse when he does get home,” High-Lo reflected. “Let me tell you about it now.”

John hesitated to encourage High-Lo, but the boy’s impatience was proof of his normal activity of mind, so he capitulated with a warning to him against overexertion.

“Might as well begin from the beginnin’, buddy,” High-Lo declared. “It goes back a few days. Remember, we had words about that Blakely girl an’ me drinkin’? That starts it. I did like her honest and fine for a bit till I got wonderin’ how she could stand Hanley and how it come she knew him before she come to the reservation. I had a hunch about Hanley that I wasn’t tellin’ to no one. I’m naturally trustin’ and when that fails me I’m always sure there’s suthin’ wrong. Well, the mornin’ of the first day I went ridin’ with Miss Blakely I comes sudden on to her an’ Hanley, and before they see me I hear Hanley say, ‘You needn’t be worryin’ none. Newton’s got a good excuse for comin’ on the reservation. You an’ your sister skip. The rest’s easy.’

“That sounded to me like business and the kind of business I’ve been suspectin’. I didn’t let on I seen them until after I heard. I let ’em think they saw me first. Right then I got awful anxious to go ridin’ with that girl, an’ I got what I wanted, an’ I had to shave Stub’s head to do it.

“I told you what happened — about her offerin’ me a drink. I didn’t get that far in my calcerlations, I didn’t think she had any use for booze herself. I honest was staggered. An’ I took the drink cause I wanted her ter think I was as cheap as herself — that I’d think her pert an’ smart an’ considerin’ of me. I was aimin’ for her to get confidential. It got as far as this — that she could get me some of the stuff awful easy an’ she could get it to me soon. I took her up quick like I wanted it. But she didn’t know the hombre she was buckin’. The next day, after you an’ me locked horns, I took her ridin’ again. I was after more information, but all I got was booze an’ a glad eye. But I was layin’ for Newton to come pretty soon, an’ he did. I had an idea of follerin’ up what was goin’ on, an’ you had to bust it by comin’ along that mornin’ sayin’ I had to go along on the trail. That’s where the row come in. I was goin’ to tell you everythin’, but you made me bullheaded.

“Well, after Newton come — the girls keepin’ away from him like they didn’t want to know him better — I knew I had to trail him an’ Hanley, an’ where I’d find the one bad egg the other’d be in the same nest. It come to me it was just as well I didn’t tell you things. You’d been afraid to let me go, an’ you’d gone yourself, so I tried the goin’ in Stuffy’s place idea just to get away from the post alone. I’d of gone a piece with them an’ then quit the outfit flat, an’ you wouldn’t of known or been worryin’. I was desperate to make a killin’ all by myself. You see, John, I’ve never done nothing worth while in my life before.

“I knew shore as mules kickin’ when Newton headed out for Sage Brush Springs he’d no intention of goin’ there. I could see him trailin’ back around that other mesy an’ goin’ round about to Cedar Pass. I lay to make a getaway early, but them fool Blakely girls put off goin’ until late an’ I couldn’t risk them passin’ me on the trail. It just come dark when I got to the pass. I tied Cricket this side of where we camp, an’ was goin’ ahead on foot when I heard a horse neighin’ down toward the canyon. I’d of killed Cricket if he answered. Guess he was too busy nippin’ brush. Anyway he didn’t answer an’ I almost bust my eardrums listenin’. There were two horses makin’ that canyon trail. I could hear their hoofs against the stones. I let ’em have the canyon to themselves, but I brought my horse over near to the rim. When them fellers got down into the canyon I could make out the sound of ’em clear as a bell. I give ’em lots of rope. I took my time startin’ after, an’ when I did I made my own trail way down the near side of the pass. When I come out the other side of the canyon I saw a fire about three miles down. An’ it wasn’t no squaw fire. Lucky, I knew every rock of the country clear to our cave. I picked my own trail way over toward the hills. Then I tied Cricket in a gully about a mile from that campfire an’ I put out on foot.

“I didn’t have to get too near the place. Hanley and Newton must’ve had a few drinks in them an’ were talkin’ loud. I heard all I needed in a short time. An’ boilin’ it down, it’s this. They’re in a liquor-runnin’ deal with that Mormon horse wrangler, Tim Wake, over to Gallup, to sell booze to the Indians. An’ they was on their way to meet Wake at Canyon Bonito. Seems they was early an’ had to waste time, Newton havin’ to come when his boss sent him. Ain’t he the skunk, stealin’ time from MacDonald? An’ say — the way I heard ’em talkin’ about the Blakely girls who are mixed up in the buyin’ end of the rot-gut booze an’ of other women in general made me mad enough to shoot ’em down right there. John, I’ve heard men talk plenty dirty about women, but never nothing like that. An’, believe it or not, John, they tell me that feller Newton has a mighty sweet wife, pretty as a picture and as good as she’s pretty!”

A pang tore through Curry’s breast. “Yes, I know. I’ve met her.... Go on with your story, High-Lo, and make it short. You’re tiring yourself.”

“Shore that they were stayin’ the night,” High-Lo continued, “I made camp a mile back where I’d left Cricket. I ate a bar of stale chocolate an’ some crackers. It was the only grub I’d brought with me. Next mornin’ I was up ‘fore it was really light an’ sittin’ in a cedar I watched fer smoke from Hanley’s camp. It come, but late. They was takin’ their time. After a while they went on. I had to keep to the hills because they’d see me in that open country. I kept a good mile an’ a half between us, an’ that made me just about below the cave when they reached that narrer pass into the next valley. They was lopin’ their horses then, an’ I figured to do the same an’ make even better time for fear they’d cut over the rocks an’ disappear. I took straight down to the trail an’ set Cricket scootin’.

“Then pretty soon I got mine. It was in that very narrer place where you pass between two cedars. Just as I made it Cricket done the funniest flop I ever seen, an’ throwed me like a bullet so that I was wedged in a place between two rocks. I sort of remember Cricket comin’ to her feet an’ tearin’ away like she was loco. Then I must of passed clean out. I come to pretty dizzy an’ with an awful pain in my head an’ side. I whistled for Cricket, but Lord knows where he went to. Then I walked over to the cedars, an’ I’m tellin’ you, I cussed! Hanley an’ Newton had fouled me. They must of got wind that someone was follerin’, an’ hurryin’ to the pass they stretched a len’th of bobwire across the trail from tree to tree about three feet from the ground. It was so cussed gray there in the shade that it didn’t show. By Judas, when I think of what that damn bobwire must of done to Cricket’s legs! An’ it like to killed me besides. Now just suppose I’d been an innocent son-of-a-gun Indian? I thought of that when I took the blame wire down. I cached it near the tree. Maybe I’ll find use for it someday.

“I knew’d I was pretty bad hurt an’ sick to my stomach, an’ in a devil of a hole at that. It come to me that someone would be cachin’ grain today, an’ then, too, I got a crazy notion you might be comin’ with it a-purpose, so I dragged myself to that cave. I must of been out of my head ‘fore I got there. I remember singin’ goin’ over them rocks. ‘The old sow,’ I guess I was singin’, an’ a mule hee-hawed back at me an’ kept keepin’ on. I figure I must of fainted in the cave with that infernal hee-hawin’ buzzin’ in my ears.”

As High-Lo talked, John had been connecting the liquor episode at Oraibi with Hanley’s and Newton’s present activities.

“So that’s their game,” he muttered. “And they might have killed you and the next fellow who came that way with their barbwire trap. Someday we’ll tie those fellows up with their own wire and turn them over to the sheriff in Flaggerston. I never dreamed that fool Newton would have the guts to stage such an outrage, but I guess he’s pretty much of a slave to Hanley’s whims.”

Curry noticed then that High-Lo’s head had slipped from the saddle. The boy seemed too tired and weak to care, now that his story had ended.

“Let me make you a little more comfortable, son. You’ve exhausted yourself talking,” John said, as he lifted High-Lo’s head to the rolled-up blanket. “It will be getting cool with that sun going down so I’d better rustle some wood.”

High-Lo winced when John moved him, but declared with a grin that he was lucky to be alive. “It’ll take consid’able killin’ to finish me,” he said between clenched teeth.

Red and gold streaked the sky, and through the cedars remote spires and peaks gleamed above vermilion mountains. A breeze sprang up and sighed through cedars and brush. Soon the sun sank, the afterglow faded, and Curry’s fire split the gloom of twilight. High-Lo had fallen into a heavy, troubled sleep. Occasionally John caught the sound of Topsy and Nugget grazing nearby, the rattle of a stone, the scraping of hoof against a rock. But aside from these peaceful sounds and the increasing moan of the desert wind there was silence.

John rehearsed the things High-Lo had related. As the dirty schemes of the two men began to register more clearly in his consciousness, he felt an overwhelming desire someday to catch Hanley and Newton red-handed so he and High-Lo would have the satisfaction of turning them over to the authorities. But he had not thought of Mary then. Suddenly what it would mean to her crowded everything else from his mind. He owed her his protection. Yet how best to protect her was a problem. After all, a man like Newton had to be brought to justice — both he and Hanley — for the harm they could do among the Indians was incalculable. But in that event Mary would be the crushed and broken wife of a man publicly dishonored. Could he have a hand in her disgrace?

Accompanying his thoughts came the mournful sound of the night wind crying its travail through the trees. Hours passed during which John watched, waited, and replenished the fire. After a long time there came the distant sound of a complaining motor climbing a steep grade. John rose, stretched his stiff limbs and walked down to the trail to meet the car.

CHAPTER VII

BY TACIT AGREEMENT, though no compact existed between them, neither John nor High-Lo explained the misadventure in Noname Valley beyond the brief statements that High-Lo had been thrown from his horse and his horse had taken to the hills. If Magdaline had been impressed by the things High-Lo uttered in his delirium, she certainly kept rigid silence. The affair blew over quickly, as had many of High-Lo’s escapades in the past, the boy’s rapid recovery being the sole reminder of his latest adventure. The doctor from Taho had pronounced the extent of the injuries to be a slight concussion and several broken ribs, and rest was prescribed for the cure.

High-Lo, who was deft at hand work, occupied part of his enforced leisure by weaving a quirt for Magdaline out of leather strips. It was his way of expressing his gratitude to the Indian girl. However, when the quirt was completed, he inflicted upon John the duty of its presentation.

“Give it to her with my compliments,” said High-Lo, “an’ tell her it’s the first quirt I ever made for any girl.”

John could not find Magdaline at once, so the quirt was cached in the store. Later, down by the windmill, he came upon her watering her horse. The girl’s dark face did not wear the usual smile. A questioning glance constituted her only greeting.

“I’ve been looking for you,” John called.

She waited for him to draw near. “For me? I thought you had forgotten me. Your time is so busy. You seldom have a word for Magdaline like the other boys.”

With her large, luminous eyes upon him and her pretty olive face in sad repose, it was difficult for John to imagine anyone neglecting Magdaline.

“Oh, come now!” he teased. “Don’t I always say good morning?”

“Yes, I almost forgot that,” she replied with a touch of irony in her low voice. “But I have not forgotten how kind High-Lo is. How is he?”

“Much better, thank God!”

“Why thank God?” Magdaline inquired half-angrily. “Why not thank yourself, and me, and the doctor?”

John was amused by the remark until he was struck by Magdaline’s gravity.

“I do not think there is a God, John Curry, and if there is, what can He have to do with our little lives?” she pursued. “I have been thinking of that all morning. Why, if there is a God, did He make races one to conquer the other, one to be superior to the other, one to break the hearts of the other?”

“Good heavens, girl! What has set you thinking this way?” John exclaimed.

“Well, is it not so? Did not the white man conquer my people? Are they not trying to force their superiority upon us? Look at me! Would I not be happier just an Indian in the hogan of my father with a name that belongs to my people? Who am I? Magdaline! Why Magdaline? Because somebody at the white man’s school cannot say my Indian name, finds it too long and hard to write. So I am Magdaline, a stranger to myself after they make the change. I am taken away from my people, like a dog made to change his master and name. I am put with many other Indian children who are given names that mean nothing to them. For years I go to the white man’s school, first to Taho, then far away to Riverside where for years I do not see my people. And you give me knowledge, you wake something that has been asleep in the breast of my race. You make me desire to learn more and more. But all the things I learn, one on the other, I build up between my people and me like a mountain that has no trails. And when my mountain is high against the sky, you send me back. You say, ‘Now climb this terrible mountain. Your people are on the other side. They will meet you there.’ But you are wrong. I can never meet my people ever again.”

John realized the poignant truth of this tragic-eyed girl’s accusations. Months of brooding were behind the passion of her words and once the long-inhibited ideas were released, she had no will to check them.

“When I came home from Riverside to my people I shook like a cottonwood leaf in a storm I was so glad. ‘Home!’ I thought. ‘Home!’ I sang the word over and over. I was not then aware of the mountain. I forgot I had not been living close to the earth as my people do. I forgot the hogan, ill-smelling to those who were no longer used to it. I forgot the customs of my people — the sheep killed before the hogan and immediately served half-cooked. I forgot that they slept on the ground with sometimes no blanket beneath them. I forgot that living close to animals breeds lice and pests for the body. I had been eating the white man’s food. I had been sleeping in the white man’s bed. I had been living in the white man’s way. I had been thinking much as he thinks even to his God, who was forced upon me and whom I do not understand.”

There were tears of grief and anger in the girl’s eyes as she continued: “And when I came home because of these things, I did not know my people — that is, I could not reach them with my love, and they surely did not know me. They did not want to hear the things I had to tell. How ever could they have understood them? I could not get over the mountain to my people, and they could not get over to me. I stood it only for a night and a day. Then I came to Mrs. Weston who is very good. She seemed to understand and said, ‘Go back and help them, little by little. Teach them the things you know.’ When she spoke I remembered the electric washing machine with which we were taught to wash. And at the same time I remembered my father’s hogan. And my knowledge was like that washing machine. There was no place for it in my father’s hogan. There was no usefulness for one there or ever would be. A washing machine would need electricity, like my knowledge for operation needed desire from my parents. They have no such desire. They are satisfied as they are. And they are strangers to me. They watch me with half-distrust as they would an unknown white woman. My education has made me an outcast. My people have no place for me; and what place has the white man? I can go to his towns and cities and be a servant in the homes, paid much less than a white servant. That I learned at Riverside. I do not want to be an underpaid servant to white people. I do not want to be a servant in that sense. For Mrs. Weston I would work just for love, but she does not need help always — only through the spring and summer months. In the winter I must go back to the hogan — sealed up in a hogan I must be with my family who do not understand me, with my family whose customs are so strange to me now.... And winter is coming soon.”

A stick he had whittled to the thinness of a wafer fell from John’s fingers. He deliberated a moment over his knife as he struggled for words that might console the unhappy girl beside him.

“You won’t always live in the hogan of your father, Magdaline. Some day one of the schoolboys will come home and see what a beautiful girl his old playmate has become and he will fall in love with you and ask you to become his wife.”

She laughed a thin, unnatural laugh. “And because he loves me, I will be supposed to love him and go to his hogan and kill sheep to half-cook for him. Where are your eyes not to see that education makes no difference to the men of my race? They go back quickly to old customs. But I am a girl — a woman. I am altogether different. I could go back, yes, like a slave. But what would it do for me? Some of the girls go back and seem happy. Yes, they are happy in losing one leg to have the other. Some people are that way.”

“But would you trade your desert for the white man’s cities?” John asked.

“No. But I am really unfit for both now. By birth and tradition I am part of the desert. Perhaps that is why you send us back to the desert when you are through changing us. Yet there is such a terrible loneliness in the desert when you are different from your people and like nobody else! Sometimes I am afraid, I am so lonely. I feel a great burst of pain in my heart. I feel as if the great walls of rock under which my people love to ride would fall and crush me if I went close.”

“Poor Magdaline!” John said, his voice very low and very tender. “How you must hate us for all our mistakes! Try to believe that it is only our blindness — that we mean well. You call us a superior race. Intellectually, yes! But morally and spiritually, no! And while we try to develop your intellect we give you an insight to our moral and spiritual weaknesses, and you see the terrible futility of so much that we live and do. We do not, alas, live the lives we profess in our religion. And you wonder because your own people fit their lives to their own faith instead of ours. You are justly contemptuous.... But, Magdaline, it is not our God you do not understand. It is our lives you do not understand — our failure to conform to our professed teachings. I know we preach to you to convert your people from their own beliefs, and that’s a great mistake. Suppose you tried. You wouldn’t convert them, you would only confound them. Even the children we take into the schools become confounded. We say you must believe, and try to tell you that your fathers are damned because they think differently. We are terribly, terribly wrong in this.... But the white people are coming more and more into your lives, into your desert. Change in your people is inevitable, just as inevitable as the progress of what we like to call civilization. Your change will be a part of that progress. Of late years we have been forcing radical changes in your lives, and you, Magdaline, belong to the generation upon whom the change is going to be inflicted. You will suffer most. You are young and your feelings are unbridled. Your parents are suffering, too, Magdaline, but they have a resignation that comes with age. They know they must die soon and that with them must go many of the traditions of their race. To them death will be an escape. On the other hand, your children and the children of your sister now at school in Taho will never know how you and she have suffered. You will make circumstances easier for them.”

“Then I do not matter? I am only a sacrifice!” retorted Magdaline bitterly. “How I feel is nothing.”

“How you feel is very important, indeed, to consider,” John parried. “Just by watching you I understood. I have been sorry and helpless. I would do everything for you, and I can do nothing.”

From fiery wells of reproach Magdaline’s eyes cooled to gentle gratitude.

“You have been watching me,” she said unsteadily. “You have been sorry for me.... I did not know that.”

Curry looked away to the familiar red slopes. Waves of heat rose from the glaring surfaces. They were almost like a visible expression of Magdaline’s trembling voice. Her words themselves were lost to John. Suddenly he felt her hand on his in silent appeal to give back his arrested attention. As soon as she had brought his eyes to hers again, she spoke. Her voice was very low. Her dark eyes never left his.

“There is something you can do for me, John. Marry me. Do so because I love you, because you understand and are sorry and care. Do not make me go to a hogan — or to worse things — to those fears I cannot explain even to myself.”

Her very directness rendered Curry unprepared to meet the startling and moving proposal she had made to him. Nothing could have been further from his thoughts than the solution she was offering with such simplicity and appealing directness that a mist came suddenly to his eyes.

“Magdaline, I can’t marry you,” he said unhappily, taking her hand in his.

The girl turned her eyes away from him, and fixed them as if in careful scrutiny upon a far golden spire.

“Because I am Indian and you are white?”

“Because I don’t love you,” John answered simply.

“That should be enough,” Magdaline said, her eyes still intent on the distant spire. “But maybe I could make you love me.”

“No, Magdaline. You couldn’t do that. And I say that with all finality,” John replied helplessly. “But believe me, I am very very sorry for your unhappiness and for any part of it for which I am responsible.”

Magdaline drew back and swept John with a long and troubled gaze.

“You love someone else,” she said finally. “I thought your heart was empty and hungry like mine.... No, I do not want what you cannot give me.”

She shrugged her shoulders, as if with that gesture she completely abandoned hope. Her eyes went back to steadfast contemplation of the peak.

“There is no girl here whom you love. I would have known,” she went on. “Whoever she is, she does not love you or you would be where she is. Or if she cared, or knew how you care, she would come to you, because she could not stay away. No one who loves you could stay away.”

“I haven’t said I love anyone else,” John declared in an effort to defend himself against her intuition.

“Your sorriness for me tells me that you do. There is pain in your feeling for me because you too have suffered. Perhaps it is better to be sorry for me than for yourself.” Magdaline’s voice trembled again. “Maybe I will try to be sorry for you, now.”

“Count on me as a friend any time and any place,” said John, nonetheless sincerely for his desire to change the direction of Magdaline’s thoughts.

She looked about her quickly, seemingly in a desire to run from herself had the open barrenness of the desert not defied her.

“It is not that I am Indian that makes you hold back your love?” she pleaded once more.

“No!” John’s reply was immediate. “That would make no difference if I cared.”

“There are white men who marry Indian girls!” she insisted, fighting her last doubt. “But you are different from those white men, John, and it is the difference that I love.”

Before John was aware of her intention she had grasped his hand and kissed it. Then she backed away toward her horse with a choking half-laugh, half-cry.

“Good-by, my friend,” she called. “I am going to ride under the great wall that my people love. But if I knew where she lived I would go there first and kill her for not loving you.”

Nimbly she mounted and whirled her horse in the direction of the golden spire. John watched her disappear smaller and smaller into the distance.

Everything he had known or thought concerning Magdaline rushed to him for approval or correction. Mrs. Weston had declared her exceptionally bright and well-read, and deplored that more complete educational advantages were not given to prepare such girls as she for social service work on the reservation, that her inadequate knowledge had not prepared her for such service, but had only rendered her helpless and miserable. And in this he had agreed. And watching Magdaline squander her smiles on any and every man who met her glance, he had feared to think what would become of her. He was convinced that she was a coquette, and fickle in fancy, and he knew too well the ways of men. Now Magdaline had startled him with her earnest protestations of love, and bared to him the strife and struggle in her soul. What would become of her, she whom life among her own filled with repulsion? He could not follow her and bring her back. She would misunderstand such a gesture. Perhaps ancestral pride would stir her blood, and dignity and stoicism help her over her present dark hour. Perhaps she fled to the mountains to summon courage to meet life. John prayed that she might find it.

He rounded up the horses he had brought down to water and drove them to the corral. Then reminded of the hour by the lunch gong, he went to the hogan to clean up. High-Lo hailed him jocularly.

“Did you see my sweetie?”

John was nonplused for a second. “Your sweetie?”

“Magdaline.”

“Yes, I saw her. Why?”

“Well, didn’t she act pleased when you gave her the quirt?”

The quirt! John rebuked himself for forgetting all about his mission for High-Lo. His expression must have betrayed him for High-Lo said at once, “You’re a fine hombre. You forgot. What did you do with it?”

“Left it in the store.”

“Be doin’ Magdaline a lot of good there.”

John felt High-Lo scrutinizing him closely.

“You seldom forget things,” High-Lo continued. “It’s only when you’re worried that you do. I’m all right now, honest I am. I’ll be around in another week lookin’ up more trouble.”

CHAPTER VIII

KATHARINE WAS HANGING up dish towels. As they flapped in the wind, she saw between them Alice’s golden head turn toward her and nestle in careless repose against the top of her cushioned chair.

“Wilbur Newton has been just outrageous to Mary since he came home,” Alice said. “I know you’ll be so worried about her while we are away that you won’t have a good time. I’m willing to give up the trip, Sis.”

“But Mary said you’d love Black Mesa in the middle of September,” replied Katharine. “The rains are pretty well over and the fall flowers will be in bloom. You’re strong enough to make some trips. And you’ve been so enthusiastic about going.”

“I know, but if Mary is in trouble—”

“You don’t want to leave her either,” accused Katharine.

“We must make up our minds,” Alice remonstrated. “If we are to go we must leave on the eighteenth and today is the sixteenth. We’ve already arranged with Mr. Reynolds to take us. We should give him time to accept other passengers if we change our plans.”

“I’ll pay him whether we go or not, if you’ll only iron out that funny wrinkle over your nose!” cried Katharine.

Alice’s face was still too softly girlish to have its wan beauty marred by wrinkles. Katharine wanted to preserve her sister’s youth and beauty and have perfect health glorify it again. She received Alice’s sudden glance with a smile.

“Suppose I run over to see Mary and let my visit decide for us,” she said. “I think the coast is clear. I’d be furious if it wasn’t. I’d sooner run into a rattlesnake than Wilbur. His sister certainly put the finishing touches on his regard for me. Behold a thoroughly dissolute woman who would not be running around the desert if she had the common decency to stay at home. My friend Wilbur, it would seem, has relegated me to the derelict ragbag with that one stinging remark. Ah, the terrible ignominy of it!”

Alice laughed. “I’d like to relegate him somewhere, and I would if he belonged to me.”

“Here! Help me out of this awful apron,” begged Katharine. “There! Will I do? ... Have an eye on the road and if you see my friend Wilbur coming shout, ‘Fire! Fire!’ at the top of your voice and I’ll come sneaking round the back way.”

With that jocular admonition Katharine left, Alice’s wish for a pleasant visit following after.

It was obvious that Mary was glad to see her friend. Immediately she laid aside the corduroy breeches she was mending, and forcing Katharine into Wilbur’s chair, drew up a footstool for herself.

“Oh!” she cried. “I’ve missed you terribly these past two days. It’s all right for you to come here. I don’t think Wilbur expects I can put you out bodily. But I don’t dare stray to your house. For me, at present, there is no greater wifely transgression than that. Oh, Katharine, I feel so bitter! Wilbur is stifling all my better nature. I feel hate creeping in and I have no defense.”

Ostensibly, under Mary’s vehement mood rancorous memories were seething. Katharine’s heart went out to her, but in the tension of the moment she hesitated to offer sympathy.

“Doesn’t your sense of humor help a little, dear?” she ventured.

“Wilbur has a way of twisting all the humor out of any situation, though he did accuse me of trying to suffocate Lenora when I poured water over her to bring her out of her pretended faint. I really have had it in my heart to suffocate her since. I’m sure I have. The indignities I suffered before that girl left! Wilbur says I drove her out. That isn’t true. I fought with myself so hard! Every time she said, ‘We’ll have dinner at such and such an hour. Could you have it ready then? Wilbur wants it on time,’ and a hundred other commands issued to impress me with my inferiority, I’d try to pretend to myself that I hadn’t heard a word that she said, or I’d silently hum a snatch of one of the dear old familiar hymns— ‘Rescue the Perishing,’ no doubt. It should have been that. To her I presented a smiling exterior. Anyway, I did refuse to do her wash, and that precipitated her flurried departure. That very day she had said to Wilbur that I had the hands of a kitchen slattern, and placed her white ones before him for his approval. Not a half-hour later she descended upon me with her dirty laundry.”

“The little fool,” cried Katharine. “Her hands are like putty. Yours are graceful and capable and strong.”

“It wasn’t just vanity that made me rebuke her by refusing to do her personal laundry. My vanity has suffered so many indignities at Wilbur’s hands that I doubt if I have any left. Only Lenora’s remark about my hands was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Thank goodness she’s gone now. That’s over. Now I have a little chance for diversion.”

“Diversion?” Katharine repeated.

“Yes. Mr. MacDonald fired Wilbur yesterday.”

Katharine frowned through a minute of abstraction. “I call that bad, Mary. I happen to know Mr. MacDonald has been dissatisfied with Wilbur’s service for months and kept him on only because he couldn’t get other reliable help. Poor gabby Mrs. MacDonald told me, and she’s spread the news. I doubt if Wilbur can get other employment at Taho.”

“The reservation trip ended it,” Mary declared. “Wilbur was gone almost two weeks and he brought back the scantiest and poorest assortment of stuff Mr. MacDonald ever saw.”

“You must tide over this period somehow. Please don’t be hurt if I suggest that you let me help with a little money,” protested Katharine.

Mary’s upturned eyes smiled into hers through a mist of tears. “Thank you, old faithful. Not yet. There’s the poultry money. And I’ll take a position somewhere — here at Taho, if possible. If not, over at Flaggerston.”

“But Wilbur won’t stand for that. Don’t forget his drivel about family pride. He wouldn’t let you take a position as secretary at the Indian school, if you’ll remember.”

“I’ve met with his objections again,” confessed Mary. “He doesn’t know it, but this time they’ll be overruled. It’s not only that we’ll be in need of money. There’s the dreadful monotony of my days. There’s my childlessness.” A mild note of anguish crept into Mary’s voice. “I would welcome any occupation. I am really glad that Wilbur lost his position. All day I have been almost happy about it. I haven’t had such luck in years!”

Katharine was alive to the passionate earnestness of Mary’s avowal. It exalted her that at last determination and self-confidence had taken root in Mary’s soul.

“Then you may be leaving soon?” she asked.

“It might be a matter of two or three weeks. Mrs. Jenkins is going to Flaggerston before she returns to Leupp and she’s going to look into prospects there and let me know. She’s a splendid woman. She’s mastered the art of always keeping to herself other people’s affairs whether they reach her accidentally or intentionally.”

“If there’s the slightest chance of your going away that soon, I won’t go to Black Mesa,” declared Katharine stoutly.

“By all means go!” protested Mary. “It wouldn’t do any good to stay. You won’t want to visit with Wilbur around. He says he needs a rest. He doesn’t intend to look for employment for a month. That means he’ll be home all day, day after day. He’s riding out this afternoon to see some Indians on a sheep transaction for Mr. Weston. It’s just a lucky accident that he isn’t here.”

Katharine smiled. “You can’t chase me from Taho as easily as that. At least I can sit on my porch and watch you pass down the street. And I’ll be near should any emergency arise.”

There was something unfathomable in Mary’s quick upward glance which followed upon Katharine’s words. The Eastern girl expected immediate opposition to her suggestion, and she saw it in the wondering depths of Mary’s eyes which begged for understanding.

“I want you to go to Black Mesa for my sake. I want you to take a message to John Curry,” she said.

“If it’s imperative, of course I’ll go,” returned Katharine, warily concealing her surprise. She would not question Mary’s intention. It was enough that Mary depended on her now.

“It may seem strange to you, and it may seem inconsequential. Just a verbal message. I’d like you to tell John Curry that if I leave Taho, I will do so of my own volition. You see, if I go he is bound to hear about it. Tell him I’ll be not much farther away than the outskirts of the desert — that I remember what he said to me at Oraibi. But tell him if it’s to Flaggerston I finally go, and he comes there on business, and we should happen to meet, to pass me by with a greeting and avoid me thereafter. Katharine, I have a strange divination that he distrusts Wilbur to the extent of feeling that my safety is in danger, and he might follow me across the desert thinking, metaphorically speaking, to snatch me from another cliff. It may be nonsense for me to feel that way — it may be just because that’s what I really would have him do.”

Katharine met the astonishing statement with all the indifference she could assume. “You mean—” she started, not knowing how to express the wonder in her mind.

Mary’s serious face was cupped in her hands. Not for a moment had her eyes left her friend’s. “I really and truly mean what I said,” she interrupted. “I felt a restfulness and security in John Curry’s presence that I have never known in all my life before. I feel that his friendship might make something within me that is now stunted grow. I’ve been like a plant born in a dark canyon that once in the year of its life happened to feel the sun. After that the plant would struggle harder than ever toward the light, wouldn’t it?”

“So nature intended,” Katharine responded quietly.

“But I must hide away in my canyon. I must avoid the sun. I have no choice. And you’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll go to Black Mesa — you’ll tell John Curry?”

Katharine was moved to a complete realization of her love for Mary. “It’s the least that I would do for you,” she said.

* * * * *

Outside the post office an hour later Katharine saw Wilbur talking with several town retainers who, common gossip had it, were a nuisance in the community; and she noted grimly that not one of the familiar figures was that of an Indian or a sheep dealer.

“Did Mr. Newton just come along?” she asked the postmistress, who from her window had command of the porch and the broad thoroughfare beyond, and exercised the gift of sight most conscientiously.

“He’s been here all the afternoon. Too bad he lost his job. It’s likely to make bad feelings between his wife and Mrs. MacDonald.”

“No one knows. But I don’t think so,” Katharine averred, her mind running riot with thoughts that would have startled the postmistress had she been able to read the girl’s mind.

“Of course you know that poor Mrs. Gordon has another baby, and to me that’s worse than Mr. Newton’s losing his job.”

Katharine mumbled something about Taho’s sudden increase in population and maneuvered a few sidesteps that removed her from confidential range, after which she successfully bolted. Once outside, throwing discretion to the winds, she approached Wilbur.

“Have you had a busy day?” she asked in a sweet, disarming manner. “I saw Mary for a moment and she told me you were off on some sheep business for Mr. Weston.”

Newton colored slightly. From the tail of her eyes Katharine saw the other men were exchanging amused glances.

“I’m leaving for Black Mesa in a couple of days,” she went boldly on. “I thought you might have some word for Mr. Weston about the sheep. I’ll gladly deliver it. It would save you writing.”

A dead white spread beneath the fading color in Newton’s face. “Thank you, Katharine. Yo’re shore most accommodating,” he drawled. “This sheep business is confidential. It wouldn’t be wise even to mention it to Mr. Weston. My wife’s a little indiscreet airing my business aboot.”

Katharine met his rebuff demurely. “Oh, I’m sorry I can’t facilitate matters for you! I got the impression it was very important — business that had to be transacted quickly.”

When Katharine reached home she repeated the incident to Alice.

“But what made you talk to him?” Alice asked. “Were you really serious about it?”

“I was deadly serious in my purpose. Mary clings to her faith in Wilbur’s honesty. I’ve suspected it since I first set eyes on him. I’ve taken every chance I ever had to embarrass him. He has no sheep business for Mr. Weston. That’s his lodge-meeting-tonight excuse to make absences of any duration he pleases seem plausible. Likely his sheep deal with Mr. Weston will carry weight for the next month or more.... Do you know, Alice, I’ve come to think that Wilbur Newton will do worse than break Mary’s heart? I used to think that he was merely negative, a harmless egotist, as lazy as he was vain, but to me now there is something sinister about the man. I had the strangest feeling as I walked away, a feeling that I would never see him again.”

“Oh, come,” chided Alice. “You’ve never been the least bit psychically inclined. You’re doing away with him in your mind because he’s a burden to Mary.”

“I don’t mean that he is going to die,” corrected Katharine. “Why did you interpret my words so unconditionally, you scamp! It may be that he’ll take Mary far away, search pastures new in which to promenade.”

Alice met the defense with laughter. “You’d never leave Mary for an instant if you really thought that.”

* * * * *

During the time prior to her departure from Taho, Katharine did not encounter Wilbur again. She had tempted Providence by calling on Mary to say good-by, but found her alone as her strange presentiment forebode that she would. Her solicitude for Mary grew, and she begged her, if she could manage it, to send a letter to Black Mesa post with each trip of the mail stage.

It was on the mail stage of the following day, at an hour safely early to escape the surveillance of the late-rising Wilbur, that Alice and Katharine waved good-by to Mary.

“Sure, she’s a saint of a woman, she is,” Reynolds acclaimed in an Irish accent as broad as his red-mottled face.

Forthwith Katharine acknowledged him as a judge of a good woman.

They rode down the tree-lined avenue of Taho, and circled the mesa, high above the several green acres of Indian farms that beautified the immediate neighborhood of the valley below them. Then the road led away from the rim across the sandy level of the mesa, away from the red country through pearl-sheen and gray. It was an exceedingly sandy stretch. Time and again the wheels of the automobile ground and whirled and barely escaped digging themselves to a stop. The great expanse of free, open country seemed the very top of the world, yet the vast encircling horizon rose grandly above it, bold jagged cliffs, leagues upon leagues of unbroken walls. Black Mesa, the dark haze-obscured buttress to the fore, seemed almost unattainable. Yet it called across the desert miles in its purple loneliness.

“Are we really going somewhere near that mesa?” questioned Alice incredulously.

“Yes, my dear. Black Mesa post is named after that tremendous looming upland. The post is about four miles east of the mesa, isn’t it, Mr. Reynolds?”

“About, Ma’am,” Reynolds agreed after a moment’s serious speculation.

“Look! Look! Oh, the darlings,” cried Alice, pointing to three jack rabbits which scampered almost from under the wheels into the brush.

“What easy targets they would have been for an Indian youngster!” Katharine said. “The Navaho children hunt them with bows and arrows, even the very little tots. The Indian men do the same, ever since the war, Mary told me, when they were left so impoverished they couldn’t afford ammunition for their guns. Few were lucky enough even to retain their guns.”

Alice swept the country with her searching gaze. “Don’t you love it all!” she exclaimed. “Doesn’t it just break your heart with happiness! Such a wonderful sense of freedom it gives me!”

These words made Katharine regard Alice seriously. Her little sister was not given to extravagance of speech. Her soul had been stirred by the incomprehensible call of the desert.

For a while Katharine vied with Alice in a test of observation powers. In this way they called each other’s attention to the tenants of the desert, the prairie dogs, rabbits, pack rats, a lone hawk and a wary rattlesnake, and a sly coyote slinking behind a barricade of greasewood bushes. They found the desert a homey place, surprisingly teeming with life.

“This is their home, these hundreds and hundreds of miles of unconquerable country,” remarked Alice. “It is their domain, not man’s.”

They lapsed into silence after a time, through which came the lonely whistle of the sweeps of sand that spread across the trail behind them. Black Mesa loomed ever higher. As they covered the miles between, they rode a gentle downward grade which continually changed the perspective for them. The grade ended abruptly beyond a hill so steep that Alice exclaimed aloud. It took on the aspect of a tremendous sand dune. The wind had covered all traces of a trail.

“It’s loikely if this wasn’t sand, after tryin’ it once we wouldn’t have to be a-worryin’ no more about payin’ rent an’ taxes,” declared Reynolds. “As it is, you couldn’t pitch over if you tried.”

Once Katharine felt her heart flutter as the front wheels projected over the ledge, the same sickly feeling that used to come over her when she experienced the highest drop of a roller coaster. Alice clutched her. They clung together, their fear unmitigated by Reynolds’ reassuring words. But the wild forward plunge they anticipated did not materialize. The car might have been operated from above by slow-moving pulleys, so gentle was the descent down the precipitous slope.

“There! Wasn’t I roight?” asked Reynolds, with a twinkle that betrayed what amusement their discomfiture had afforded him. “Bless yer souls! I’m not blamin’ yer fer bein’ scared. I was two hours makin’ up me moind to do it, the first toime I tried it.”

So intent had Katharine been on the terror of the incline that appreciation of the new vista was slow to come. They were in a valley now, more narrowly encompassed than before. Black Mesa, ever elusive, was still remote. New terraces, rocky red steeps, and a yellow range stretched away before them. They rode parallel to the white slope of the plateau they had just left. Greasewood brush grew high and close. The trail showed like a furrow through a green field. Long-eared rabbits, frightened by their approach, bounded quickly to and fro across the road in an effort to reach their shaded coverts. Mounds of red rock sparsely fringed with cedars rose here and there above the plain, and near one, which they passed close by, was a lonely hogan. Chickens scratched around the sand outside the door, and several mules stared at them stupidly, but the Indians were nowhere in sight.

“Good spring round about here somewheres,” vouchsafed Reynolds over the stem of an unlit pipe. “But I ain’t never looked it up. Them prehistoric fellers that used to live in the caves round about here weren’t totin’ water any farther than they could help.”

Following this comment Reynolds gave himself completely to the business of wheel and pipe. Katharine noticed that Alice was soon far afield in thought. All the joy emanating from the young spirit within lit her delicate features with a sublimity which stirred her elder sister almost to tears. If good health sprang from peace and contentment, Alice’s recovery was sure.

Mile upon mile sped away behind them. Presently the trail branched toward the foot of the curving plateau and clung to its shadow for a considerable distance. Whether the great plateau sloped toward the valley at this point, or whether they had been ascending a gradual rise, was hard to tell, but a change of levels was manifest. Another few miles and a very defined ascent confronted them. The car swung up the trail over slopes and into hollows, but continued its gradual climb toward the last ridge, a sand dune, white as had been the terrifying slope by which they had descended the plateau. The wind had molded this dune with the pattern of its action, and left it as rippling and glistening as a breeze-furrowed sea.

“And here’s Castle Mesa, our first stop,” announced Reynolds.

Whereupon there suddenly hove in view a strange house rising just below the ridge out of billows of sand. It was an octagonal structure built of stone, and it reminded Katharine of an observatory she once had visited in the East.

“Like a lighthouse on a wind-swept shore,” exclaimed Alice. “But the sea is only sand. And look! Oh, look, Katharine!”

Katharine’s eyes had caught at once the vast panorama of yellow and red ranges and the beetling battlements of the black mesa. Here was sinister solitude; here was barren, bleak beauty; here was the home of the wind and the abode of desolation.

“It’s as Mary said it would be,” cried Katharine. “Oh, how glad I am that we came!”

On closer approach they saw that the stone house, which stood boldly against the sandy slope, commanded a regal view of the sinister and barren valley. Soon a woman appeared from a doorway and a cheery call reached them.

The woman, tall and comely, with twinkling blue eyes and hair as raven-black as Mary’s, grasped their hands in a most cordial welcome.

“Mr. Reynolds brings me the nicest people,” she said. “I wish he came this way more often. I don’t need to be introduced to you. Think of that!” She nodded to Katharine. “I know by description that you are Miss Winfield. And this young lady, I take it, is your sister.” She smiled at Alice then. “She doesn’t look a bit like you. Like me, you must be the black sheep of your family.”

“And you are Mrs. Shelley?” Katharine asked.

Mrs. Shelley nodded. “That’s right. Better come in. You’re going to have lunch with me.”

Without remonstrance Katharine, followed by Alice, entered by the same door through which Mrs. Shelley had come, and they found themselves in a trader’s store, amid shelves of canned goods, print materials, velveteens, cases of candy and Indian jewelry. There were baskets and plaques hanging everywhere, and piles of rugs on the floor.

“Don’t mind going through the store, do you?” Mrs. Shelley asked. “Jim, my husband, always says he cut our front door for nothing.”

She lifted a hinged section of the counter and directed them to pass through the door beyond. That brought them to a cool adobe room much like a storeroom, where quantities of boxes and rugs were stacked. A shaft of light coming from an outside door revealed a stairway.

“That’s the front door,” Mrs. Shelley acclaimed with a smile. “You see, it leads directly to the stairs and was intended to isolate our quarters from the store. But I always feel to get the atmosphere of Castle Mesa post, visitors should see the store first.”

They mounted the stairs to quarters which drew from Katharine a cry of delight. There was only one room, as large as half the length of the building, which at a glance one could see contained all the utilities essential to the needs of home-making. In the farthermost corner tied-back cretonne curtains revealed a bed, bureau and a rocking chair, and diagonally opposite was a stove with a crackling fire in it and pots atop from which came appetizing odors. There was a cupboard near by and a sink. Over the sink was a window, and Katharine knew that the view from that window was such as to make a housewife’s kitchen tasks seem lighter. Toward the center of the room was a dining room table already set, and several straight-backed chairs stood around it. The remaining area had the atmosphere of a living room, with bookcases, a desk, two couches and low comfortable chairs. There were Indian blankets on the floor and silver-ornamented Indian articles on the walls, and plaques, and some excellent paintings which Mrs. Shelley explained were presented to her by artists who had visited Castle Mesa. The several corners were brightened by tall hand-woven baskets of Hopi design.

A doorway had been cut directly above the door which on the floor below led to the store. It served as a sort of desert French window with a single protective bar across the opening. Through it great broad bands of light sifted, and they drew Katharine to the view it offered. Behind her she heard Alice exclaiming, “What a charming and unique place!” And then Mrs. Shelley, “It’s from this door we see the yellow mesa that looks so much like a grand castle. It was an artist, I believe, who named it.”

Katharine drank her fill of the rugged, wild glory of Castle Mesa before she accepted an invitation from Mrs. Shelley to tidy up a bit if she pleased before lunch. Alice preceded Katharine to washbasin and mirror, and was helping their hostess serve the delicious luncheon when she, tardy but refreshed, joined them. Reynolds appeared presently accompanied by a man so like Mrs. Shelley in coloring and general aspect that Katharine was surprised to discover that he was Mrs. Shelley’s husband and not her brother.

Mrs. Shelley, it developed in their conversation at the table, had been reared in Kansas City, but had not the slightest desire to return or to reside in any other metropolis. She protested that the desert had become part of her and was necessary to her happiness. “When it gets you, it never lets go,” she warned them.

“And do you never grow lonesome?” asked Alice.

“Only once in a while in the winter, now that the children are grown up, and away at school after the first week in September. Mr. Shelley has to leave me once in a while when he goes on buying trips, and at such times I usually send for Mother. She lives in California now. I meet more interesting people here in a year, natives and tourists, than I would meet in a lifetime anywhere else. But even without the people the desert still would hold me.”

“Even without me, so she doesn’t hesitate to tell me,” Mr. Shelley interrupted.

Mrs. Shelley laughed the most pleasing laugh Katharine had ever heard. “I always tell Jim not to put me through the third degree about why I never am lonely. I can’t explain why I am willing to give up the things that seem so necessary to other people’s happiness for the life here. Ask the desert, I say.”

“The desert is a sphinx. It won’t tell. It’s inscrutable. Believe me, I’ve tried,” confessed Katharine.

The two girls were reluctant to leave Castle Mesa and their kind host and hostess. However, they had no alternative but to accept Mr. Reynolds’ hint, delivered immediately after lunch was over, that the mail must be moving on.

They rode away with an oft-repeated invitation by Mr. and Mrs. Shelley to come again called in final adieu from the door of the store.

Once they had negotiated the white sandy slope, they were again on the level floor of a valley. They passed a windmill and near by it a pool of discolored water around which some sheep, several cows and two horses were gathered. Then, once more, they were lost in the anything but monotonous isolation of bleak, barren country. The winding trail which they followed cut between Castle Mesa and the gradual rise of ground that stretched on their right as far as the looming bulk of Black Mesa.

“There’s the gateway to a whole new country,” Katharine said to Alice.

As soon as they had passed through this gateway, there rose before them two great yellow buttes of tremendous height.

“Them’s called ‘Elephant Legs,’” announced Mr. Reynolds, pointing a stubby forefinger at the great rock formations at the very moment that Katharine was forming the comparison for herself.

To their left, beyond the buttes, ran low bluffs, and between them and Black Mesa was a valley, slowly ascending. Thus confined they rode for miles through stretches of greasewood, until at last the trail climbed high enough to meet a new prospect, where a greater span of country spread before their eyes. Black Mesa completely dominated the northward country. All the other eminences seemed low and regular, so remote were they, save one tall yellow spire in the foreground. Ever the aspect of the country changed, and every mile of the journey offered new sights and thrills for the eyes of the two Eastern girls. They moved into an area of yellow rocks where the trail dipped behind hummocks and rose over small passes, always ascending. Before long they were riding on an upland of sage where occasional stubby cedars grew. Black Mesa seemed very close now, even though cedar-crested hills intervened. The stretch of sage was like a beautiful garden; green and yellow were the flowering stalks, purple gray were those bushes now half-dead and those late to bloom. Between the clumps of sage waved dainty purple asters and a few black-eyed Susans.

Suddenly, beyond the garden of sagebrush the stage passengers saw a tremendous blaze of great red, rocky ramparts of staggering magnitude appear before their startled eyes, just as the car rounded the great jutting wall of Black Mesa where it turned away to the north. Down between these ramparts wound a canyon. Katharine scarcely dared to look from the breath-taking reach of the tallest spire down to the silver stream of water that wound through the canyon.

With a jerk of his thumb Reynolds indicated the green country westward. “That valley between them rock mountains is Noname Valley. Just beyond there we come to Cedar Pass.”

First descending, and then climbing, they finally reached the pass. The country beyond, a level and green valley dominated by Black Mesa and the great peak of gold, delighted Katharine’s fancy, but it lacked the bewildering majesty of the country around Cedar Pass.

Ever since they had left Castle Mesa, Alice had been lost in an enchanted reverie, the lovely light on her face speaking her appreciation more loudly than words.

“Four miles to go,” announced Reynolds, after they had crossed the rain-washed gash in the earth which had been named for its distance from the Black Mesa post.

Now that they were approaching the end of their journey, Alice was aroused to comment excitedly on the things she had been led to expect on their arrival. Katharine’s own expectation was disturbed by a flurry of nervous thoughts in anticipation of her meeting with Curry. She felt that destiny was using her to pull together the broken threads of Mary’s life, yet what part Curry would play in it she did not know, and how or when destiny was to take a hand, she could not tell.

The last four miles seemed the longest stretch of the trip, which came to an abrupt and unexpected end, when suddenly and without warning from Reynolds they swung off the main trail down over a ridge and came upon a group of buildings hidden in what had seemed an uninhabited valley.

Loud blasts from Reynolds’ horn enlivened the silence. At once from the low, rambling adobe structures a dozen people, several Indians among them, came running.

Alice grasped Katharine’s hand and whispered, “Just like Western townsfolk meeting a stage in pictures of the old days. Isn’t it thrilling!”

Katharine noted quickly the barnlike store building from which a sign hung, bearing the name of the post, the wide, green lawn hemmed in by a wire fence, the long, low red-walled house behind it, the cottonwoods with leaves aquiver in action much like her own pulse, and then the people, some of whom she now could identify. There were Mrs. Weston, Mr. Weston, and that harum-scarum cowboy, Beany, who had been at the Snake Dance.

Soon she was among them shaking hands, introducing Alice and in turn being introduced with her to others. Then a tall man in corduroys and gray woolen shirt appeared in the doorway of the post. It was John Curry! She heard his strong pleasant voice, “Well! Well! This sure is great!”

He came to her with hand outstretched and took hers and pressed it in a handshake unmistakably the firmest she had ever known.

“I’m sure glad to see you, Miss Winfield,” he said. “And where’s the little sister I’ve heard so much about?”

His eyes lit on Alice with a smile.

“Yes, my sister Alice, I would like you to meet her, Mr. Curry,” said Katharine.

Alice acknowledged the introduction in her quiet, dignified way. Katharine saw that Curry was captivated by her sister’s gentle smile. Then vaguely, because Mrs. Weston was plying questions thick and fast, she realized that Alice and Curry were engrossed in conversation. Her attention was divided. Her sub-conscious self kept repeating, “I have a message for you, John Curry, from Mary Newton.”

The very richest of Indian silverwork and rugs and baskets lined the walls and floor and corners of the living room, through which, later, the girls passed to their bedroom with its cool, unpainted adobe interior. The clean white of washstand, table, beds and chairs added to the refreshing coolness of this retreat. Navaho rugs and a few pieces of pottery completed Katharine’s idea of a perfect desert bedroom.

The Indian maid who had led them there bowed solemnly and left.

“I want to stay here all the rest of my life!” Katharine exclaimed, backing with spread hands to the bed where she relaxed in an abandon of pleasure.

“And I’ll stay with you,” said Alice. “I like these people very much. That Mr. Curry I could love. He’s the only man who ever made me feel that way.”

Katharine felt a tremor pass through her. It was as if Alice with that honest declaration had uncovered the one thing she had not told her about Mary. However, she made no comment. She was conscious suddenly of how obvious to everyone was John Curry’s complete integrity.

CHAPTER IX

THE READINESS WITH which Katharine had agreed to carry Mary’s message to John Curry now seemed to fail her in the execution of her promise. She passed four days at the post and three on a trip to Cathedral Valley without Mary Newton’s name even being mentioned by either of them. On the eighth day, the day that was to see them break camp in Cathedral Valley, she resolutely determined to break the silence. Katharine and Curry were sitting on a log in a cedar cove when she suddenly determined to take the bull by the horns.

Before her in a clearing burned a cheery fire; pots were heating in the cinders, hooks were warming on the crane. The crackle of the fire sounded close, and there came to her above it the tinkling sound of bells that swung from the halter ropes of the feeding horses. The cowboy cook whistled softly over the potatoes he was peeling. Katharine, pleasantly aware of these things, stared into the fire, as if she could snatch courage from the red-hot bed of coals. Alice came up to her. She had been watching High-Lo hobble the pack mules and was returning flushed, to tell of High-Lo’s miraculous escape from a rain of blows from a mule’s hoofs.

“There are three of those mules I’d never want to ride,” she declared. “But I’m getting very proud of my riding at that. High-Lo says no one would guess I was a tenderfoot.”

“Beware of the flattery of a cowboy,” Katharine cautioned her with a laugh. “I think High-Lo is smitten with my sister.”

Katharine had observed High-Lo’s attentiveness. At each camp he had made a bed of cedar boughs for Alice, unwilling to be outdone by John Curry who served Katharine in this way. Such consideration Katharine rather expected from Curry, and she knew he intended to make Alice comfortable too. But handsome, carefree High-Lo was only an apprentice aping his master, and in his deference to Alice he was following a will-o’-the-wisp fancy. Katharine had sensed at once the relationship that existed between John and High-Lo, and Mrs. Weston, always ready in praise of the elder man, had told her the details of their friendship. It was one of her chief delights to discover the many evidences of High-Lo’s fierce loyalty.

At supper to which they were summoned with the lusty call, “Come and get it,” High-Lo served Alice, and Curry served Katharine. Occasionally Beany would look on with his tongue in his cheek and a mischievous twinkle in his eye and waft some remark to the nearest bystander about one man’s success being another man’s failure. And after supper when Katharine drew Curry away from the others by boldly suggesting that they climb the mountain behind camp, she felt Beany’s eyes upon her and also Alice’s, which plainly asked why she should not be invited to go too. When Katharine sauntered past her sister, she was not as serene as she appeared to be.

They climbed around the mound that sheltered camp and over the rocky bluff until they reached a resting place midway up to the top of the great hummock. From this craggy height they could see the tremendous spread of the valley where insurmountable temples and wind-carved domes wore halos of the last low gleams of the sun. Purple shadows were meeting across the darker sage. Over the westward mesa pink, gold and carmine clouds floated through thin, gray-white light, and lower clouds that a short while ago had pushed themselves above the horizon hung high in the heavens like plumes of smoke still tinged with the red of fire. The mellow call of the wind, soughing through the pines below them, made a cheerful sound.

“I wish Mary Newton could be here to enjoy this,” said Katharine gently.

John sent a small stone spinning down the rock. Then he spoke up. “I wish so, too.”

“Because she would love it,” added Katharine.

“And she makes a good companion on the trail,” was John’s cautious return.

“It’s too bad that soon she may have to leave all this.”

Immediately John fell into the trap that Katharine had so warily laid. “Leave it? What do you mean, Miss Winfield?”

“She may be going to Flaggerston to accept a position there. Her husband has lost his job.”

“But can’t he get another? They’re usually short of men at Taho. That is, men who have any idea of permanent residence.”

“I guess you don’t know Mr. Newton very well. Permanent residence or otherwise, no one seems to be anxious to hire him.”

“It’s rumored he’s a lazy cuss. But I didn’t think he was so lazy that he’d let his own wife go to work!” exclaimed John.

“Don’t misunderstand,” Katharine protested. “He doesn’t want her to work. She couldn’t be around at his beck and call all the time if she did. This is her own idea and she intends to carry it through. He wants a month’s vacation, it seems. What kind of heavenly manna he’s depending upon for daily bread meanwhile I don’t know! They are really very poor, Mr. Curry. Mrs. Newton keeps and sells poultry and eggs, but you know how little profit there is in that in a place like Taho where there is such a plentiful supply.”

Katharine looked away to the color-flung west. John sat very still, he too given at the moment to staring at the intensifying hues in the sky.

“He wants a month’s vacation, does he?” John said eventually. “I expect that’s most convenient to his latest shines.”

“What do you mean?” asked Katharine.

He turned about so suddenly that she had no time to withdraw her searching gaze. Curry, she slowly gathered, knew more about Newton than she could have had any reason to believe.

“Miss Winfield, I like you. You’re a person to be trusted,” John said slowly. “I’m going to tell you something about this man Newton that only High-Lo knows. He’s in on a liquor-running deal with Hanley and a couple of women to sell liquor to the Indians on the Navaho Reservation. It’s a good money-making racket because most Indians will sell their souls for liquor. That’s what the white men have done to them. It used to be pretty bad when just an occasional scrupulous man was the only force operating against it. Then, a number of years back, we passed a state law against selling liquor on Indian reservations. That was before the national prohibition law went through during the war. That state law saved many an Indian from poverty and misery. It’s now doubly lawless to sell liquor to Indians. And what’s more, it’s the cruelest, thievingest thing I know of that a man could do. I’ve been aching to shadow Hanley and Newton and catch them red-handed. But there’s Mrs. Newton. She stands between me and that. To convict Newton would be to expose Ma —— , his wife to disgrace.”

A chill crept over Katharine as she listened, partly as a result of the gradual withdrawal of warmth from the desert, partly from the incredible information Curry had disclosed.

“Oh, poor Mary! If she ever learned that about Wilbur!” Katharine faltered.

“Do you see what a position I am in?” Curry asked. “I owe it to the Indians to spill that fine gentleman into the penitentiary. I could, easily, if it wasn’t for that sad-eyed little girl who’d go down under it. I’ve thought of things I might do. Go to Taho and pick a fight with Newton, beat him up and when I got him helpless tell him what I know and scare him into giving it up. But he’s the kind of hombre who would only make her suffer for that. Why, I could shoot him like I’d shoot a pig with an incurable disease. He isn’t any good to himself, let alone to anybody else. He bears watching, I’m telling you. Maybe I better move along to Flaggerston as soon as the season’s over here.”

Unconsciously he gave to Katharine the moment she was waiting for. “You must not do that,” she said. “It won’t do any good.”

“But it couldn’t do any harm just to look the ground over. Suppose someone else got him on this bootleg business? He might involve her. Blast the whole cussed situation, it’s just too devilish hard to handle!”

“Mrs. Newton asked me to warn you that should you and she ever meet by chance in Flaggerston to pass her with a greeting and avoid her thereafter. She wanted me to tell you that probably she would be leaving Taho, but she’d keep close to the desert, that she’s not forgotten what you said to her at Oraibi.”

“That only makes me more anxious to go. It tells me to stay away because she’s afraid of Newton. He’s giving her plenty of trouble. I can see that.”

“But you can’t be like a knight of old, go riding by and snatch the princess from the ogre as you snatched her from the mesa rim at Oraibi. You’re living in the twentieth century, and the lady in question happens to be the wife of the ogre.”

“You mean I’d be taken for a meddler?” muttered John.

“You’d be taken as a man with a too great interest in another man’s wife. Can’t you see that that would hurt her?”

John flung down his sombrero with an impatient gesture and ran his hand through his hair. “Hurt her! That’s the last thing in the world I want to do!” he cried.

“And that’s because the interest is there, John Curry. A deeper interest than you have even confessed to yourself!”

Katharine sat breathless, afraid of her daring. The man beside her seemed to stiffen and become silent. Whereupon an uncomfortable fear possessed her that after all she might have been wrong. If he would only speak! Her gaze was fixed on him, but he, unconscious of it, was looking away into the gathering twilight.

“You’re very keen, Miss Winfield,” he said after a long silence, speaking downward as if she were somewhere on the desert below him instead of by his side. “There is no use pretending to you. I love Mary Newton. It’s the kind of a love that makes a man finer for having it. Please believe me. I wouldn’t do anything to cheapen it for her or for me. Before this I would no more have thought I would ever fall in love with a married woman than I would of being shot by High-Lo or you. I had no use for a man that I’d suspect of such a thing. Circumstance plays with us strangely sometimes and changes things for us. I never forced myself in Mary Newton’s way. The desert threw us together — made us of use to each other. I think I’m stronger for it even if it seems such a hopeless thing to be in love with her. If someone awakens love in you, trying to deny that it’s happened doesn’t give you back your old freedom of heart. I try to be honest about it and not dislike Newton because he happens to be her husband, but he doesn’t try to be worthy of her, and I don’t savvy a man like that. She loved him, I’m sure, when she married him. Maybe she loves him now — women are like that. But she doesn’t love him for what he is, it’s for what she thought he once was. Young marriages are awful mistakes sometimes. I’ll never be so lucky as to have a woman like Mary Newton love me, but if I did I’d sure do my best all my life to make her see I appreciated the honor that she was conferring on me. I’d want to keep clean and fine for her. I couldn’t do anything dishonorable then — ever!”

At the close of the longest speech he had ever made he turned to Katharine again. The struggle within him was manifest in his face. All the maternal spirit in Katharine yearned to console him.

“I don’t condemn you. I feel that if I were a man I’d love Mary, too, regardless,” she said. “It’s serious for you. But you must remember, it might be dangerous for her. When the man a woman loves fails her as completely as Mary may live to learn Newton has failed her, she’s human enough to want to turn to a strong man for protection. It would be a spiritual thing to her — goodness overcoming deceit. And she couldn’t help herself. But the world would condemn her. ... As if human hearts and needs were not holy things!”

“You mean she might come to care for me?” Curry asked, ostensibly disposed to doubt her.

“Why, yes. It’s more than possible,” returned the Eastern girl, inwardly amazed at the naïve modesty of this man whom even shy Alice proclaimed as so lovable.

“I guess I never thought of that. I just accepted unconsciously that to a woman like Mary Newton marriage closed the way for any other man.”

“And so it would, forever, if she had found love and fidelity where she so bountifully had given them. Mary hasn’t.”

“Yes, I see,” John said. “But I think you’re wrong about her ever learning to care for me. I can’t help feeling that it’s only a very small possibility that I may hurt her if I don’t stay away. The only reason why I’m going to think you must know best, Miss Winfield, is because you’re such a good friend to her.”

He looked squarely at Katharine during this declaration. She saw that his face was pale in the dim light of the evening.

“You’ll be a good friend to me too, I hope,” he continued. “I’ve had very few girl friends and I’ve never had a sister. My mother was sort of a sister. She was always very young in looks and spirit, as much of a pal to me as she was a mother. I remember the only binding affection I had ever had for a girl wasn’t in the least bit reciprocated, and Mother helped me over that bad time. She died while I was away in the service. It was her going that brought me here from Colorado. On the way over I tied up with High-Lo.”

“You’ll never leave the desert?” Katharine asked.

“Never for any length of time. I come from a beautiful pastoral country in Colorado and I’ve been in the Colorado desert time and again, but I love Arizona best, her farm country, her woods, and especially her desert. It’s a merciless spell the old desert has. Once it enters your insides you’re a goner. I’ve a lot of cattle in Colorado that run on the same range as my brother’s. He looks after mine for part profit. I’ve often dreamed of getting a big ranch somewhere near Flaggerston, keeping lots of cattle and horses and running a tourist trade, too — taking people out by pack trains from Flaggerston. Mr. Weston’s getting on. He says he’ll have to give up the post in about four years, and if all went well I’d take that over, too.”

“There ought to be good money in it,” said Katharine.

“A gold mine if it’s done right.”

“Perhaps you’d need someone to share in the investment with you,” Katharine suggested. “I would, in a minute, and think myself lucky to have the chance. My grandmother left me some money on her death two years ago. It’s banked and drawing only low interest. So much sickness dogged our family during those two years that I hadn’t the thought or the will to invest it to better advantage.”

“This layout would make a good investment, Miss Winfield,” John returned promptly. “But it will be a year or more before I can think of the ranch and tourist proposition. I don’t want to invest anyone else’s money unless I can meet my share of the investment with the same amount.”

“Would you give me first consideration when the time does come?”

John agreed, with the first smile he had shown since the serious turn in their conversation.

“Splendid!” exclaimed Katharine. “For then I’d always have an excuse for visiting Arizona. Otherwise my people would never understand it. As soon as Alice gets well, spending her summers here in the North and her winters in the South — I guess near Phoenix or Tucson — I’ll have to go back East. Then I’ll have a terrible time convincing my Europe-commuting family and friends that the West is a place for anyone other than invalids or hobos. I think I’ll have to start a reform, a sort of See-America-First campaign.”

A silence fell between them. The wind, fresh and cool, grew stronger as night descended over the valley. It moaned through a sea of boughs like the ocean spending itself upon a lonely shore. Over all was a cloud-ridden sky. Here and there in a patch of purple-blue lone stars shone down upon the gray monuments and mesas. These cathedrals of God’s silent hand, these wonderful rocky slopes, these ledges and benches where the wind spent its force, these caves and crags that echoed with the solemn hymns of desolation, these sage-choked plains, grim, gray, engulfed in the shadows of night, were endeared to Katharine forever. For bound by them she had been permitted to share the burdens of two friends.

“We had better go,” Katharine reluctantly suggested. “The descent will be difficult in the dark.”

John rose to accompany her. He led the way, care for her welfare in every movement. As they reached the gentler grade that led around the knoll to camp, the boughs of the cedars seemed edged with red reflected from the roaring campfire. Then from the shadows beyond the firelight they saw Stub and caught his voice recounting one of High-Lo’s escapades. They could see High-Lo’s face showing part irritation, part good humor, and Alice’s, as she gravely chided Stub for telling tales.

Katharine felt unduly self-conscious as she stepped into the firelight.

The party had ridden almost thirty miles that day, something of a strain for Alice who began to droop soon in heavy-eyed weariness. Bed had a sweet comforting call for all of them. When the girls were snug under their blankets, Alice reached for Katharine’s hand, and from the silence that followed Katharine knew that she was formulating some thought difficult to express.

“Could you really live here forever?” Alice asked after a while. “At Black Mesa or Taho?”

“I would gladly, if I were surrounded by people I love.”

“That’s necessary, of course,” agreed Alice. Another silence hung between them, then she added very solemnly, “You know, Katharine, I think you like John Curry awfully well, yourself.”

“Of course I do, silly. Everybody does,” Katharine replied, keenly aware of the drift of Alice’s questioning. “And I’m sure he must have a sweetheart tucked away somewhere in Arizona.”

Alice said no more. Her hand relaxed from its hold on Katharine. In a short time the girl was sleeping.

But Katharine stared for a long time into the blue sky above her, where the sight of countless other spheres made so trifling the destinies of individuals on the small earth she knew.

“Yet we do matter,” she told herself, resolutely dismissing the dangerous thought Alice had stimulated. “People’s struggles and heartbreaks must be for some good end.”

The wind moaned fitfully. She found herself slipping gently into unconsciousness, and soon she was dreaming of a ranch near Flaggerston where Mary presided with the contentment of a saint come into her own, and John Curry, a confused combination of himself and High-Lo, seemed rightful lord of the establishment.

CHAPTER X

BY LATE AFTERNOON of the next day John was leading his pack train back to the post. The girls, riding fast, had preceded him, and came out with Mrs. Weston on his return, bright and smiling, in the dainty costumes they wore so well, looking more like persons who had stayed at home than like worn travelers.

“We trust you had a fine trip, Mr. Curry. We’re glad to see you home again,” Katharine called gaily to him.

John turned sidewise in his saddle and met Katharine’s laughter. “You’ve sure shaken the dust. No one would believe you had ever belonged to this outfit. I call you thoroughbreds — that’s what!”

It was satisfying to John to be home again, to see Mrs. Weston, mother to the last man of them, bustling around with an inquiring word for each boy’s welfare. Manifestly she missed the boys and anticipated their return as if indeed they were her own sons.

“High-Lo behaved himself?” she asked John. To conceal her conversation she pretended to be engrossed with Nugget whose nose she was patting.

“You bet! He’ll be expecting me to write him a pass to heaven soon.”

“Bless the boy! He’s a caution! Keeps everyone in hot water when he’s around. But when he’s gone I miss him. Between him and Magdaline I’ve felt as if I had an orphan asylum on my hands.”

Magdaline! John had not given her a thought for days. Memory of his recent talk with her stirred a feeling of apprehension within him.

“She’s come back?” he asked.

“No. Not yet. And she’s not at Sage Springs. Her father came into the store yesterday. He knows nothing about her and doesn’t seem to care much. ‘Maybe with white friends,’ he said. We’re none of us responsible for her, of course, but she is such a pretty little thing and so obviously unhappy that I’m afraid.”

Though Mrs. Weston did not particularize, John grasped the significance of her words. Almost immediately he said, “There are times when I’m afraid Magdaline may run wild. Still, she had a bigger field here. And some of the boys wouldn’t have needed much encouragement to help her cut loose. She’s attractive, and some of the boys are pretty raw material. Maybe she’s gone off somewhere just as High-Lo does to nurse a grievance. Anyway, that’s what I’m trying to think.”

High-Lo, coming upon them, broke in with a sly, “What’s that about me?”

John gave him a lusty poke in the ribs. “I was telling Mrs. Weston that if you weren’t such a lazy cuss we’d have these animals watered and in the corral long before dark.”

“Huh! And who’s boss of this outfit?” High-Lo retorted in fine scorn.

“That shuts me up,” said John. “Guess you’ll have to excuse me for the present, Mrs. Weston.”

While the boys were in the midst of their work, the mail stage arrived, which occasion almost precipitated a strike among them, for it was a matter of great moment to hail newcomers and to stand around while the mail was being sorted, speculating on the chance of a word from home. High-Lo, who had never once received a letter during his employment at Black Mesa, was usually the most expectant of all. Yet despite all the protests and High-Lo’s vociferous appeal, John remained obdurate. Horses and mules came first. The boys had to put in a hard half-hour’s work before they were free.

The mail, it developed, was light, and there were no newcomers. Mr. Weston remarked to John over the counter in the post that the season for tourist trade was about over. As usual High-Lo’s ever-anticipated letter failed to materialize, and John, coming from the store with him, smiled at the familiar words, “Strange that I don’t hear from nobody!”

“Miss Winfield got a letter,” added High-Lo. “Golly! Must of been a love letter.” With a swing of his sombrero he indicated Katharine, who in marked preoccupation was walking slowly down the path from the house, tapping a letter thoughtfully against her lips.

John stepped forward to open the gate for her. “Coming out, Miss Winfield?”

She started ever so slightly and then said, “Oh, yes, thank you. I was coming out. In fact I was about to look you up. Can you give me a minute?”

High-Lo wheeled off at once. “I’ll see if them saddles is hung up,” he called back.

Distress was so apparent in Katharine’s face that John was immediately disturbed. “Bad news, Miss Winfield?” he asked.

“News concerning Mary Newton. You’ll understand everything better if you read it for yourself. I’ll tell her someday that I let you read it. Get off by yourself somewhere.... Here!” She thrust the letter into his hands. “I’m going up on the ridge. Join me there soon.”

She moved away. John, standing where she had left him, weighed her request. Such a precious thing to hold in his hand — a letter from Mary Newton! Dare he read the intimate thoughts she had entrusted to Miss Winfield? It did not seem logical that the girl who yesterday had warned him against indiscretion would press him to read this letter without considering the fitness of such an act. He recalled her troubled look and it decided for him.

In the toolshed, locked against possible interruption, he opened the precious document and his eye slipped quickly over the salutation to the content:

I do not know how to tell you what has happened. I cannot think it is true. Wilbur has left me, deserted me. Judging from the note he left he will never return.

Two days ago the question of my accepting a position came up again. I had heard from Mrs. Jenkins that a photographer in Flaggerston wanted someone to keep his books and receive his patrons and wished me to consider the offer, so I approached Wilbur. He was as unyielding as flint. I talked to him suggesting to him that we both try to make our lives count. You know what to me would make my life worth having lived. But I did not mention children, knowing too well his dislike for them. Under the circumstances it would be wrong for me to contemplate motherhood. But I tried to make him see if we shouldered the wheel together, lived carefully and saved our money, that perhaps in five years we could start in the cattle business on a small scale and develop a ranch. I admitted I felt his discontent, and tried to make him see that despite it we must weather life together and try to find some measure of happiness.

It was hopeless the way he met my poor little pleas. He said marriage was a poor game at its best and made a slave of a man, that he didn’t intend to have me trying to hand out advice to him as if I were the smarter of the two. I listened to him, as he revealed the smallness of his nature, until I thought that I just couldn’t bear it. But I was patient and conciliatory. After all, Katharine, Wilbur is the product of foolish vain parents, and perhaps when we were first married I was too indulgent. I was so anxious for approval and so hungry for love. Had I been older and wiser I might have not encouraged in him traits that I did not recognize then as his faults.

That was our last talk. He punished me with one of his gloomy silences, and meanwhile I hesitated to write to Flaggerston. On the afternoon of the following day, when I returned from trading eggs at the post, Wilbur was gone. I found his note which said that he wanted his independence as much as I did and was taking it for good, and now I was free to attract men again, and might even go into partnership with the photographer I was so interested in. He took with him the few bits of jewelry he had given me before our marriage and emptied my change box, too, and left me with the rent unpaid. I would not tell you these miserable details if it were not that in the telling I can smother the regrets that arise to assail me, the something that once was love, and comes like a disturbing presence now that I am alone.

You may think at once that I will surely leave Taho because of these present developments. But I know I shall stay. I can’t leave, Katharine, I am desert-bound. A horizon line of mesas confines my world. I want no other. I can find peace on the desert. There is much to do here. I will try to get employment in the Indian Service. After your winter in the South, perhaps you and Alice will come back to Taho and board with me. Such anticipation would be balm to my chastened spirit.

Do you think, Katharine, that I failed Wilbur? Think over everything you know, and then tell me, dear. And don’t let your personal prejudice or anything that I have said affect your judgment. Try to view as objectively as you can my situation with all your keen perception.

I await your return hungrily, but I beg you not to let this letter speed it. I wanted you to hear the word from me before rumor spreads the suspicion that’s sure to arise. It may be best for me to satisfy inquiring minds with the truth.

Think of me a little. Pray for me with your eyes to the mighty hills, and in the quiet of evening when all Nature is listening.

A fierce, burning anger possessed John. He was seeing straight to the core of Mary’s problem and what he saw was torturing to him. A terrible desire crowded through his mind to find Newton, to choke him half to death, to drag him at a horse’s heels back to the girl he had deserted. “Why are laws made against killing such a man?” he demanded of himself. But instantly he felt rebuked by eyes of patient forbearance. Mary was a woman who would not understand justice meted out in deadly passion. He ground the letter in his hand as if it had been Newton writhing under his strength; then seeing what he had done, he grew quiet and thrust the crumpled sheets into his pocket, unlocked the door, and with giant strides mounted the ridge.

Katharine was there waiting for him.

“I thought you would never come,” she breathed. “The dinner gong will ring any moment. Alice will be looking for me.

“I had to read slowly because I couldn’t believe what I read. Putting it straight, it’s hell, Miss Winfield. I’d like to catch that scamp and drag him back to her. She’s hurt — terribly hurt by this final indignity. You’ll go back to her pretty soon, won’t you? She was feeling brave when she wrote this letter. It may be different now.”

“I’ve decided to go back with Mr. Reynolds in the morning,” Katharine returned. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. John felt them boring into his very mind. With a feeling part curiosity part dread, he waited for whatever else it was that she had to say. “I wonder does Mary realize this may change everything for her?” she went on. “This may make her a free woman. Do you recall that Wilbur Newton suggested that himself?”

John felt himself ardently considering the idea. Yet for a moment he was puzzled. “Free woman? What do you mean?”

“She’s a resident of a state that realizes the folly of keeping embarrassed and lonely forever a good woman whose scamp of a husband has deserted her.”

“Maybe she’ll divorce him, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

The thought of Mary freed from Newton gave rise to a wild, incoherent hope in John, but the wave of emotion subsided when it met his better judgment.

“Somehow to most of us divorce is an ugly thing,” he said. “I always see the green mud of a pigsty when it’s mentioned. It strikes me as something that Mary Newton can’t walk through.”

“It’s the misuse of the law and the cheap scandal that usually accompanies divorces that makes people abhor divorce and would make Mary shrink from it,” returned Katharine. “I know such a thought hasn’t entered Mary’s mind. No doubt, spiritually speaking, she’s trimming a lamp to set in the window of her soul for Wilbur. That’s very noble, Mr. John Curry, and my view may seem materialistic, but at rock bottom it’s not. Mary could give great happiness to a man like you, help you to a fullness of development, bear you beautiful strong children, and train them as children upon whom will depend the future of our country. Is there anything more noble than that? Should her life be wasted at the whim of a man who has deliberately broken the vows of legal contract that bind them? To me it is like the old barbaric custom in India of burning a widow on the bier of her dead husband. To be dead morally and spiritually, as Wilbur Newton is, is greater alienation from a woman like Mary than physical death would be.”

True as Katharine’s words sounded, they were not entirely convincing to John. Still, Katharine had hopes for him. She was a loyal friend. She would break down every barrier in the way of his happiness. There was within the girl an impatience to destroy evil and accomplish good. Altruistic desires, however, did not change circumstances. Curry felt that he understood Mary even better than Katharine did. Yet he fought to submerge in his consciousness the cry that he might be mistaken, that Mary would welcome freedom, sue as early as possible for a divorce, and give him the right to try to win her. Deep within his soul, however, he knew that such notions were false.

They stood there in awkward silence. John, conscious of Katharine’s desire for corroboration, hated to destroy her confidence, but felt that he must do so.

“Newton may come back. This may be a trick to make her give in to him about earning her living.”

Katharine shook her head. “Are you forgetting Wilbur’s new business? Couldn’t it happen that he found it uncomfortable to have a wife who might grow suspicious of his desert journeys? I understand the man so much better since you told me about his machinations with Hanley.”

That was something to consider and John acknowledged the reasonableness of what the Eastern girl had said.

“And that brings up something else,” Katharine went on. “Ought Mary not be told the truth about Wilbur?”

“No!” returned John decisively. “Why hurt her further? She’s suffered enough.”

“But it would help to make her see the light. She’d understand your desire for a closer friendship.”

John flushed. “That’s it. I don’t want to win Mary Newton’s regard that way. I don’t want her to be given that kind of a comparison to judge me by. As you said yesterday, she might want to turn to me. Because then she’d sure know that he had failed her and I naturally would appear in a more favorable light. No, don’t kick him for my benefit. I’d want her to care as if Wilbur Newton had never existed.”

“Yes, yes. Of course,” Katharine said quickly. “Stupid of me not to realize you’d feel that way. I’m overanxious.”

“And I’m hard put to know what to think or do,” John replied. “I could be selfish enough to go to Taho with you.”

“You mustn’t.”

“I know it,” John assented, miserably.

As he spoke the dinner gong rang in high irritation. Katharine heard it with a frown. “How soon will your season end?” she asked without making any move to go.

“It’s about over now. Two weeks more is all Mr. Weston will be needing me.”

“What did you intend to do then?”

“Usually I go back to Colorado. This fall for a while I’d like to keep my eye on Hanley’s operations. A little later I may find someone who will want sheep herded over to Colorado. That would give me an excuse for waiting around.”

“And you want an excuse just for Hanley?”

At once John saw that Katharine had misunderstood him. “Yes. Just for Hanley. I don’t need an excuse for Mary. I wouldn’t leave the country without seeing her, and maybe when I do, I won’t leave at all.”

This Katharine received with a nod of approval. “Let me know when you are coming. I think it would be best for you to see Mary at my place. You’ll be my guest. Not hers. Less chance for gossip.”

Gratitude which he could not adequately express welled in John’s breast. “You’re sure making good on the friendship promise,” he said.

Further word was halted by a reminder from Katharine that the dinner gong had rung and she must be going. John sensed that she would prefer to return to the post unaccompanied, so immediately found urgent reasons why he must look over the stock in the corral before he ate. He was rewarded with a smile more expressive of appreciation than words could be.

* * * * *

When Katharine told Alice that they were going to leave with Mr. Reynolds the next morning, she was grieved by the look of disappointment and challenge she met in her sister’s eyes. At the time Alice was about to start for the living room. Instantly she lost her interest there. Professing fatigue, she slipped into a chair and fell into a stubborn contemplation of the Indian rug at her feet. Katharine recalled then that Alice had met her with a reproachful look when she arrived late at table, which had made her embarrassingly conscious that Curry’s was the only other vacant place. And it had been at her that Alice looked when ten minutes later Curry had appeared. Whatever was Alice thinking? Better that she knew the truth than dwell on morbid fancies! Katharine drew her sister’s eyes to hers with the appeal, “Dear little sister, I can make you understand.”

Alice listened without comment. By turns she appeared startled, sad and shocked. That her alarm over the disclosure of John and Mary’s mutual interest was greater than her distress over Wilbur’s desertion she made plain by her immediate protest. “But, Sis, Mary is married. Mr. Curry can’t change that.”

The remark irritated Katharine. “No. But Wilbur has altered conditions somewhat. So could the law.”

Alice was quick to reply. “I don’t like it. It’s so — well — sort of common — Wilbur’s leaving Mary, and Mary’s—”

“Mary’s what!” demanded Katharine brusquely.

“Oh, Mary’s—” Again the girl found herself at a loss for words.

“The world met in my sister!” thought Katharine with a sigh. Aloud she said, “And Mary’s terrible unhappiness. Of course, dear, you realize that.”

But the appeal excited no sympathy in Alice. Her eyes were cold, her chin firm. Katharine found herself speaking almost too indignantly as she explained in detail Mary’s misery, John Curry’s fineness, and the peculiar circumstances that had thrown John and Mary together.

“You must not be too quick to judge the situation,” Katharine concluded. “There is much to be considered.”

There were tears in Alice’s eyes then. “I love Mary. You know I do,” she faltered. “And maybe my feeling against her caring for John isn’t altogether fair. I’ll get over it after a while.”

Alice’s tears came so fast that Katharine was worried about having excited her so. Was there more behind these tears than the affairs of Mary and Curry? She asked Alice about it, chafing the small cold hands, eloquent in their listlessness.

“Just — a little — something else,” Alice hesitantly admitted between her sobs.

Memory of what Alice said the evening she had first met Curry stabbed Katharine. She could only murmur when she tried to voice her thoughts.

“Do you care for John Curry yourself? Is it that which makes the difference?”

Alice shook her head in violent negation. “Something else.”

With her fear banished, Katharine readily divined that the very slightness of Alice’s reason made confession of it difficult. She did not press her further.

Cries of protest sounded in the living room when Katharine announced her intention of leaving in the morning. The Westons’ concern gave her comforting appreciation of how greatly she and Alice had endeared themselves to the household staff and guests at the post.

“It’s shore hard on us,” said Mr. Weston, “but if it’s necessary for you to go to Taho at once, there’s no way of changing it. So long as you promise to come back next year, we won’t try to hold you now.”

High-Lo and Beany did not accept affairs so philosophically. Their features grew long. As the other boys sauntered in, they passed along the unwelcome news, like brothers in misery seeking the sympathy of all their comrades. Thereafter, every time anyone came through the guest hall a battery of eyes was turned on the doorway. With amusement rising above her distress, Katharine recognized the homage they were paying to Alice. When after an anxious hour of waiting the sight of Alice did brighten their horizon, it was evident that the boys found in the girl’s unsmiling face consolation for their own dejection. What did it matter that they were mistaken about the cause of her sadness?

Morning found the boys spick-and-span and shaved, but low in their minds. Chief mourners at the burial of their dead hopes, they gathered around the mail stage, funereal in aspect.

“No wonder those boys take this so bad,” Mr. Weston said to Katharine as they watched John carry out the baggage. “You’re the last roses of summer. No more young lady tourists this year.”

“It’s Alice,” murmured Katharine. “She’s a whole bouquet to every one of them.”

And it was Alice about whom they clustered, her comfort for which they had concern. Katharine smiled as she watched the leave-taking.

Many messages were given to Katharine in the flurry of good-bys. The cowboys, led by High-Lo, threatened to visit Taho soon. John, handing Katharine to her place in the car, said, “I’ll be riding in to Taho myself. Don’t forget. Say nothing to her about it. I don’t want to run the risk of being told to stay away.”

Then they were off. They could hear shouts and see waving sombreros behind them at the post as the stage mounted the ridge. A few of the boys leaped to their horses and tore alongside making the crest ahead of the car. A few shots were fired into the air in greeting and farewell as the horsemen shouted their last good-bys. The stage turned with the trail. Katharine looked back to see the boys slowly disappear under the ridge; then she sank back, happiness and pain struggling in her breast.

Alice and Katharine at once gave themselves over to the desert silence. They met and passed familiar places: Four Mile Wash, Cedar Pass, Noname Valley, the cool plains of flowering sage, the hogan by the great red mound of rock. And to watch each speed by was like saying good-by to a loved friend. Then followed the great towering elephant legs and the ramifications of Castle Mesa, the mighty and stupendous fortress!

Mrs. Shelley waved a greeting from the tall door-window of her home. Katharine could imagine Bluebeard hiding his wives in such a place as this, hear the last one crying fearsomely from that very watchtower, “Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see someone coming?” But the Mr. and Mrs. Bluebeard of Castle Mesa were as happy and kindly a couple as ever lived.

Again the girls enjoyed a most hospitable reception. Katharine, wishing to know the Shelleys better, invited them to visit her at Taho. They parted happily.

As soon as the sand slope obscured the hospitable Castle Mesa post, Katharine beheld the white bank of the plateau sloping above them. Somehow the once remote place seemed not very far from Taho now. In a short time they reached the great dunelike sand mountain. Not until it loomed before them did either Katharine or Alice realize that while descent had been so thrilling, ascent must be impossible. Mr. Reynolds expressed wonder that they had not thought of that long ago, and grumbled about the extra three miles added to the home journey. But Katharine was well-content. She had ceased to think. She gave herself wholly to the sensorial appeal of the desert. Time sped, and likewise the car. Too soon Taho came into view.

“Straight ter your house?” asked Reynolds.

“No,” replied Katharine. “Mrs. Newton’s house please. Then on your way back to the post office please drop our baggage over the gate.”

“I’ll see it safe to the porch, Ma’am. No bother at all.”

They came then to Mary’s house. Katharine pressed some money into Reynolds’ hand, requesting him to keep the change. Then with Alice following, she hurried up the walk that led to Mary’s porch. A moment later Mary appeared in response to her knock.

CHAPTER XI

“YOU! OH, KATHARINE!” This salutation, voiced with a hungry cry, was sweet reward to Katharine for coming at once to her friend’s side. Mary swayed ever so slightly when Alice stepped beside her sister in the doorway.

“You both gave up your visit for me?” Mary went on. “How good of you! It’s selfish of me to be glad! Come in. I’m all alone.”

Her last words sounded a bit forlorn and her voice was sad as she spoke them. Yet her serenity was as gallant as ever. Mary could meet life stanchly. Her eyes said so, and so did her bearing.

Alice broke through Katharine’s meditation with a call from the door through which Katharine had already passed.

“I’m not coming in, thank you, Mary. Just wanted to say hello. Tomorrow I will. You and Katharine ought to talk alone. Give me the key, Sis, I’ll run over to the house.”

Katharine blessed her sister silently.

“But you must both have supper with me,” Mary protested.

“Indeed not! You’ll have your supper with us. While you and Katharine chat I’ll get busy. Come over in about an hour.”

Katharine squeezed Alice’s hand as she slipped the key into it.

“We’ll be over promptly,” she said. “Mary loves a Spanish omelet, remember?”

“I do remember a few things,” Alice shot back in retort.

The screen door closed with a click. The two girls faced each other, and Alice was forgotten.

“So my letter brought you!” said Mary, as seating herself before Katharine she contemplated her with a look that was almost adoring.

Then the Eastern girl knew that under her friend’s calm exterior there was a desire to relieve her heart.

“Got it and came just as quickly as I could. I knew the sooner you could talk to someone who understands, the better for you. I am here to help if I can. Pour it out, old dear.”

The merest shadow of a smile passed over Mary’s face.

“Well, he’s gone,” she said. “It’s not a bluff this time. He won’t come back. He’s taken everything. At first I was so dazed I didn’t think of his trunk. That’s gone too. I found it missing after I wrote you. Billy Horton, one of the cowboys, came in yesterday to apologize because he let Wilbur transfer the trunk to his shanty. Wilbur had told him to send it to Flaggerston with the first car out, and to express it collect to his mother’s home in Texas. Billy said he wasn’t smart enough to see there was something irregular about Wilbur’s request. That came to him after Wilbur left. He said he’d turn the trunk over to me. But what do I want with it? Why should I hold it?”

“That would be very foolish,” agreed Katharine.

“So I thought. Billy was very good to tell me about the trunk. Indirectly he was informing me where Wilbur had gone.”

“You think then he has gone to Texas?” Katharine inquired.

“Perhaps not straightway. But that’s the only place that seems ever to have been home to him. They understand him there.”

To Katharine’s way of thinking, only blind affection would prevent anyone from seeing Wilbur as he really was. Great pity for Mary consumed her.

“Understand him?” she said. “I wonder! How can they when they are cut from the same cloth, a very drab-looking cloth at that! What depth of real understanding could Lenora have?”

For a moment Mary said nothing. Then she leaned forward, swept by a gust of passion that flashed in her eyes.

“Oh, Katharine! Do you see what a failure I have been? How, why, where I’ve been remiss is so hard for me to discover. I only know sort of helplessly that I have failed. God knows I tried to make Wilbur happy. Yet circumstances were against me right from the start. I’m trying hard to be fair. It can’t be all Wilbur’s fault that our lives were without accord. Am I one of those people who can’t see herself as she really is? Can’t hold a mirror to my soul? I married Wilbur. I was sure that I loved him then. But our period of adjustment covered years instead of months, and never did we truly adapt ourselves. Is it too late, Katharine? Is there something I can still do to make good?”

“Do you love Wilbur now?” asked Katharine.

“There! It’s a relief to have you ask that. I’ve tried so hard to be honest with myself about it. I think I do. But it is a love that is largely pity. And Katharine, I never wanted to love a man that way. It’s like the love of the strong for the weak. Maybe it’s altogether maternal. I don’t know. I only know there is something. Surely, though, not the thing most women crave. Instead of being protected and cared for, when I married Wilbur, I had to become his protector against the world — the people who recognized him as a man whose future was behind him, who saw his monstrous vanity. It was I who had to do all the nurturing of what little love there was. I had even to think for him without making him aware that I was doing so, letting him accept my ideas as originally his own. I had to steer him from mistakes — meet his debts. I was the one to take all the responsibility. I was forced against my nature to be independent. My dependence upon Wilbur had only the substance of his blind reasoning.... What will happen to him now?”

Katharine struggled against the provocation to tell poor wretched Mary the truth about Wilbur and to hurt her beyond the point of a woman’s ability to bear suffering, in the hope that the truth would forever purge her heart of any feeling for the man; but John Curry seemed present to stay her, as indeed he must have been, knowing her first hours in Taho would be with Mary; and her conscience, reminding her of her promise to him, likewise silenced her.

“Rest assured, he will act independent of you,” Katharine said. “And may what he does break him! Breaking a man, Mary, is often the best way for him and the world to discover of what stuff he is made. And who knows? You may prosper if Wilbur does launch into some mad thing. As far as you are concerned it might prove a good investment rather than a loss.”

Plainly, Mary was puzzled. “Aren’t you speaking rather vaguely?” she asked.

Katharine smiled. “I speak conditionally. Perhaps that is why I seem vague. While you are facing so uncertain a future, there is little to do but make conjectures. I call leaving you Wilbur’s first big misstep as concerns his own well-being. You were the one good influence he had to cling to. Aren’t you willing to admit to yourself that your marriage was a misalliance?”

Despite Katharine’s tenderness of voice, Mary flinched under her words.

“It was a misalliance,” she admitted. “But I backed it with a vow sacred in the eyes of God.”

“Yes, of course.” It was so easy to agree to the sacredness of marriage, yet hypocritical to pretend faith in the letter of the law, so Katharine could not drop the matter there. “Mary, why was marriage instituted?” she went on.

“To propagate the race, I suppose. And as a protection for children, the family and the state.... As a protection for love perhaps.”

“Propagate the race! Did Wilbur want children? Protect the family! Whose family? The husband’s? Protection for love! Why, Mary, the only protection for love is love itself. As for Wilbur, I think he is incapable of loving anyone except himself.”

“Still, I’m sure he must have loved me once. I’m reminded of the old adage about love going out of the window when poverty comes in the door. That was the trouble with Wilbur.... If only I had had money!”

Katharine frowned upon this. “Had you some money, then perhaps Wilbur would have found more binding the vow that is sacred in the eyes of God! Is that the idea? I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, but I think God would rather not be connected with so materialistic a proposition as that.”

Tears welled in Mary’s eyes and one fell on her hands which in their tight clasp gave evidence of her distress. Then she looked up with a gesture of self-command, manifestly summoning the will to dry her tears.

“Dear ever-logical Katharine,” she said, “can’t you see that I am fighting these all too evident truths — that the more I am convinced, the harder I must fight? I married Wilbur. I am one-half of the contract. I am trying to keep my end.”

“You mean there is no condition under which you would break it?”

“I think that usually chickens come home to roost, so I must wait.”

“And that’s final,” said Katharine more to herself than to Mary.

Mary made no comment. Her silence was her affirmation.

“Then you have not thought of securing your freedom?” Katharine asked. “In Arizona if a man deserts his wife and does not return within a year the wife on presentment of appeal will be granted a decree of divorce almost at once and without any sensational publicity. I learned this when Mother was studying up on a speech in favor of more liberal national divorce laws that she was to deliver to the Women’s Federation, and I am glad Arizona is fearless in this regard.”

“I will wait for Wilbur.”

Mary’s voice lost all its softness. Such hard, cool tones did not spring from pain or passion. Calm, resolute in her intention, she gave her answer not as a challenge but as an immutable verdict. Only through pretense could Katharine re-open the subject now.

“If you can speak so surely, then you must love Wilbur more than you admit. You want to believe that he will come back.”

“I do. But it is not because I can’t live without him. It’s because there is protection against myself in having Wilbur. There is a self that I can govern only by a sense of duty as his wife. That self is the unsatisfied woman in me. That self is to blame for my interest in John Curry. I didn’t want to be interested in him! Oh, you do understand me, don’t you, Katharine? There was no intentional disloyalty. Taking my interest on its surface value, it is absurd. There can be no genuine depth of feeling. Why, you could count on one hand the times I have seen Mr. Curry!”

For a moment Katharine hung back from a bog of thought on which to venture was perilous indeed. But she plunged through, because Mary was waiting there on the other side, and she might be able to help her.

“How often you have seen Mr. Curry has nothing to do with your feeling for him. You can’t measure it that way. I always have maintained that I would recognize the man I could love the very first time I should see him. And it happened that way. He seemed the composite of all the finest men I ever knew. I had recognized him, though the truth about love dawned slowly.”

“You — love — someone?” Mary faltered.

“Someone who does not love me — who cares for someone else.”

Mary spoke. “I am sorry, Katharine. I wonder why you are denied him? I wonder if there is a reason for such things? You with your bravery make me feel like a coward.”

Katharine smiled down the pain that assailed her. “I can look across the boundaries of the Elysian fields and find a good measure of content. I can find happiness in other people’s happiness. I mentioned this because you begged the authority of time to support your argument. Truth is, there is no argument. You like John Curry very much. I like him myself. So does Alice like him. We should see more of him.”

At the moment Mary’s face was a study. “We?” she blurted out.

“You — I — Alice. Yes! Don’t look at me as if I were the tempter himself. Satisfy yourself about John Curry. Find out if you do care. If you don’t — there’s Alice. It would not take much association with Curry for Alice to find a genuine attachment there. He seemed to find her attractive.”

Mary reddened. “He would, naturally. She is so beautiful — a gentle flower of gold — and he is so strong and tall. They would make a handsome couple. I hope for Alice’s sake that you two, at least, see more of him. Like you I’ve looked over forbidden fields so long I’d almost be afraid to enter even had I the right.”

“I hope he comes this way soon,” added Katharine.

She hated such subterfuge. Mary was too guileless to suspect her, so guileless that the shot had gone home straight and sure, making her wound evident. Now was the way clear for Curry’s visit. Now would the planned event betray no malice of design.

“You gave Mr. Curry my message?”

“I did. Also I gave him your letter to read. I wanted to make him feel murderous.”

Mary leaned close. Her eyes glistened. “And did he?”

“Yes. But he contemplated only half-murder. He wanted to drag Wilbur back to you.”

“Back to me!”

Katharine replied with a quiet yes which disguised her elated feeling of triumph. To outgeneral Mary in the aggressive maneuvers she was waging for Curry was particularly gratifying; to strip away Mary’s defenses was to reach the truth. Mary did care, deeply, dearly, though she would not admit it now, even to herself.

CHAPTER XII

BECAUSE JOHN WAS on his way to Mary, it made little difference that the sky was overcast with gray clouds threatening unseasonable rain. The sky of his mind was aflood with sunshine. The wheel that trembled under his fingers as the car sped along obeyed an unconscious guidance. Restless High-Lo, who swayed in the seat beside him, was burdened with speech of which, bit by bit, he relieved himself, much to John’s discomfort.

“Say, are you takin’ me to jail or just to Taho? An’ what’s the rush an’ silence about?” he asked. “Ain’t you got a few words for a condemned man?”

“Just not feeling talkative,” replied John.

“Thanks for the information. If there’s any more such unexpected news, you better shock me now while I’m strong enough to stand it. I thought you’d swallered your tongue. There’s things I’d like to know about. For instance — what’s the idea of sellin’ your car? When do you expect I’ll ever get to ride another, less it’s a truck?”

“Got to have cash. Want to bank it till its working time is due. Have a friend who may need it anytime. Get the most you can for me in Flaggerston. I’ll give you a percentage.”

“Keep your percentage!” blazed High-Lo. “What interests me is that you’re tryin’ to keep some other cuss like me out of trouble an’ you’ve not been tellin’ me anything about him. Call that square? What gets me is who would you sell this car for? What have I been missin’? You know, John, anytime you want me to keep right on hittin’ a trail, you tell me.”

“Jealous! That was what he was!” thought John. Aloud, he continued: “The day will never come when our trails part, son, unless you tie me at some crossroads in order to escape. This won’t affect you any, High-Lo. It’s something that your friendship has helped me to do. I’ll tell you about it when the time’s right.”

“Riddles!” ejaculated High-Lo in fine scorn. “Well, I’m trustin’ you. If I wasn’t I’d run away with your damn car to make you follow me.”

Dust, like smoke, curled past them. The last time at the wheel of the old car that had given such faithful service! Under other circumstances, John might have suffered regret. As it was, the prospect of service gave him the courage to part with it. “All for Mary!” the whirring motor seemed to say.

“Then you’re shakin’ me in Taho, shore? Not thinkin’ of comin’ on?” High-Lo cut in.

“Right. And you’re to go straight off. I want you back in Taho soon. No stalling in Flaggerston. Quick business and business only.”

“Ye-ah!” drawled High-Lo.

They reached Taho trading post at a time of late afternoon when inactivity marked a waning day. A lone burro stood in the road sleepily observing the car. The pendulum-like wagging of this lop-eared creature’s tail ticked off the dead moments outside the quiet post.

There John and High-Lo parted. The car left as it had come, unheralded by the natives, and John to all appearances had dropped from the blue void above him.

Strange that there should be only a matter of hours now between him and Mary when, unknowing, Mary moved in the little white house that gleamed through the trees up the road. “Call at eight,” Miss Winfield had written. Three hours to wait! No, two hours and fifty minutes. He would give himself ten minutes to walk leisurely up the road. Two hours among the Indians down at the farms. A half-hour coming and going. Twenty minutes to clean up at MacDonald’s house. He’d shave again. Maybe he’d gather some information about Hanley among the Hopis. Hopi John was so proud of his English that he’d tell anything just to use it.

Hopi John did have things to tell. Hanley had recently passed through Taho on his way to Flaggerston and, rumor was current, to Phoenix later. Sheep business again! Always sheep business! Following some deals at the farms intoxicated Indians came to blows in the village. Excellent sheep business! John cursed the man roundly. Hanley came alone and left alone, according to Hopi John’s report. Winter would drive a man such as he south. His insidious operations would be renewed in the spring. Would he meet Newton in Phoenix? The Blakely girls lived in Phoenix. Nice party!

While climbing the long road back to the mesa in the twilight, John considered these things, yet came to no decision as to a plan for himself regarding Hanley. The girl who lived up the road in the house that gleamed through the trees would be the one to decide all things for him now.

Through MacDonald’s courtesy, John was refreshed with a bath and shave, and the dust of desert travel removed from his clothes.

“You may think you’re fussin’ up for a dance, but there ain’t none that I’ve heard of,” said MacDonald. “Or maybe it’s them new young schoolteachers. The one from New York sure is mighty purty.”

“I never was a teacher’s pet,” John returned. “It would be a new experience. I’m half-afraid to try.”

MacDonald laughed and forgot to pry further into his guest’s affairs. “Just lift the latch and walk in when your courtin’s over,” he finished.

The dark leafiness of cottonwoods and poplars shaded the footpath John followed, and he liked this escort of darkness because he felt color beat into his face from the high pulse of his heart. His cold, trembling hands did not seem to belong to him. He thrust them into his pockets out of sight.

“Four houses below Mary’s,” he said to himself.

He had better count down. Still, there was no need of counting. A flare of light burst from all the windows of one house, beacons of welcome. He looked beyond, far down to the white house where Mary lived. It was somewhat like her — white, still, gently present through enveloping shadows. Suddenly he was in a yellow haze of light and his hand irresolutely reached for a gate. Now had come the occasion which unnerved him. But desire was greater than his fear. The gate closed behind him. He was on the walk ... the steps ... in dark silhouette against the light. Before he could knock, Katharine appeared.

The pressure of her hand and a few words quietly spoken were but fleeting incidents. A vision of Mary caught over Katharine’s shoulder stayed his thoughts — Mary, arranging purple asters in a bowl with an unfeigned concentration, and a grace of action which thrilled his hungry heart.

She saw him presently. Perhaps it was only the glow from the rose shade of the lamp that lit her face. Then she smiled.

He had crossed the threshold. He had her slim white hand in his and she was saying, “Katharine said we were to receive a caller. I never dreamed it would be someone from Black Mesa. You’ve come far.”

“I didn’t feel the miles,” said John, happily. “I left and I arrived. It was that quick.”

“And your work at the post is over for the season, I suppose,” came a voice from a remote corner.

Alice was reclining on a couch, half-lost between high piles of gay-colored Indian cushions.

“All over, Queen Alice,” John replied. “And I am the envoy of a dozen lovesick cowboys come to tell you that their affectionate remembrances precede them here.”

Alice frowned on him haughtily. “Be yourself, Mr. John Curry,” she said. “You sound like a sofa-warmer when you talk like that — not at all like a cowboy. It’s unbecoming.”

With her light words Alice put John at his ease. It was no longer strange to be there. The presence of friends, the revival of pleasant associations gave him confidence. It was Mary who seemed suddenly abashed. Katharine led the conversation to Black Mesa activities and drew Mary into an argument about the use of horses for pack animals, defending, as John knew, something she did not really credit, in order to draw reproach from Mary.

“Burros and burros only should be used,” Mary maintained and thus a flood of conversation grew from small currents of thought, Mary contributing volubly to its content, eyes aglow, cheeks flaming, lithe body giving force to the intent of her words.

What they talked about mattered little to John. He was floating down a river of words only because it carried him along with Mary. Time played havoc with him. It halted in its flight, it seemed, till the ticking of a clock through a brief silence reminded him that some occasions slipped too quickly into the past — that time was relentless and favored happy hours least.

Alice and Katharine served lemonade, and delicious squares of cinnamon-covered toast, and cookies which Katharine said Mary had made.

“Not since Mother’s going has anyone given me things as good as this toast and the cookies,” said John. “I hate having the Black Mesa boys miss anything like this, but I warn you, if you’d feed it to them once, they’d pitch their bed-rolls out back of your house and never go home this winter.”

“I’d cook all day for them,” declared Mary. “I can see them like little boys, with fingers in the cookie tin. They’d never find it empty if they were my family.”

A faint rumble of thunder sounded as Mary spoke, and Alice, who hated electrical storms, looked disturbed.

“We can’t be going to have a real storm at this time of year!” she protested.

“Looked rarin’ much like it this afternoon,” John averred. “I thought it would give sooner or later.”

The leaves of the cottonwoods rustled, a jagged fork of lightning rent the sky, thunder rolled and echoed and rolled. Then plashing drops of rain streaked across the window. They multiplied fast and soon a great wave of rain came sweeping over the mesa, drumming on the housetop with a hurried beat.

“My windows!” Mary ejaculated. “Open! Every one of them! I’ll have to go.”

“Goodness, yes!” said Katharine. “That paper house of yours will float in no time. Mr. Curry, you’ll have to take Mary over. I’ll get an umbrella.”

She was at a little cupboard. Beside the umbrella she tossed out a coat. “Make her wear that, too.”

John helped Mary into the raincoat while Katharine opened the door for them, holding it against the wind which would have flung it wide. The light of one lamp blew out. Alice called from over the other which she was lowering, “Shocking! You’re being sent home. Fine hostess my sister is!”

“Thanks for a great time,” called John. “I’m staying on, and would like to rustle some horses to take you ladies riding some day.”

His voice was lost in a clap of thunder.

Once outside, John, placing himself against the rain, felt Mary leaning slightly against his other side. The rain sang all around them like the rush of surf. The umbrella swung and sagged under the weight of the steady wind. John wanted to turn it to the wind and let it go to roll like tumbleweed down the unobstructed avenue, so he could lift Mary in his arms and run with her to shelter; but he clung stoutly to the slender-handled thing, hating its resistance and likewise his own.

Soon they stood at Mary’s door laughing, shaking off the raindrops, watching, for a moment, the stream that poured off the umbrella tip.

The rain and the wind beat upon them. The wind flung the door from Mary’s hand and drove them forward with it. It took all John’s strength to force it shut. Then he struck a match and Mary lit the lamp.

“If you’ll please close these front windows,” Mary directed. “The curtains are soaked already. I’ll take care of the others.”

She was panting heavily when she returned to him, and dropped to a chair near the door.

“Won’t you please sit down?” she said. “This storm is terrific. You never could make the post now. You’d get drenched. Better wait a while.”

John thought of the times and times when he had ridden all night in the rain. It was unpleasant, and it did mess a fellow’s clothes, and — his last thought conscientiously accepted as the vital one — he did not want to leave Mary. He blessed the rain. He hoped it would continue and with it her hospitality.

“Thank you. I will sit down a while,” he said.

There was a chair near the table where he stood, a great, comfortable-looking chair with arms spread invitingly. He was about to sit in it when a cry from Mary checked him.

“No! Not there, please! ... Draw up the rocker if you will.”

Her alarmed tone was baffling. Had he committed some social error? If she had wished to sit in the armchair herself, certainly she would not have corrected him that way. Nevertheless, he reddened.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s waiting for someone — that chair,” Mary went on. “I just couldn’t bear seeing you sit in it because—”

She stopped there, her face the color of the flaming Indian paintbrush. She was radiantly beautiful. She had shed her calm.

Though John was eager to hear her reason, he would not urge her to go on. He said nothing.

“Perhaps — you understand,” she added weakly.

“I’ll not even think about it. I know you are in trouble. I want to help you, Mrs. Newton, in any way you will let me.”

Fluttering eyelids lifted and Mary looked at him again.

“I’m so used to seeing Mr. Newton in that chair that he seems present this minute. Isn’t it ridiculous to think of you as sitting on him had you taken it? Yet that’s how I would have felt. That just came to me now. Perhaps what I say sounds irrational. Does living alone make people queer?”

“I’d advise you not to live alone for long out in this desert country,” John warned her. “Take in some reliable woman to board with you until the Winfield ladies return in the spring.”

“I’d like to. Not that I’m afraid to be alone. Government positions pay so little, and I want to meet certain obligations and later save some money. I’m not getting any younger!”

One could think only of youth in Mary’s presence. The thought burned on John’s tongue, but he did not voice it.

“Take in an Indian girl if you can’t rent. Do it for company’s sake,” he suggested. “I sort of wish you’d promise me to do that because I might be going away some this winter, and I’d be worrying sure. I hate to think of you alone while it’s possible your husband might return. Don’t be hurt by my saying this. Sometimes wife-deserters come back changed — that is, harder than before, especially men who hit a trail for the desert. They often pick up a grievance out there.”

“But Mr. Newton went to Texas. He sent his trunk there,” said Mary.

John felt that Mary was sadly mistaken about her husband’s destination. A flash of lightning and a break of thunder followed after her words angrily. It saved him from remarking on what she had just said. Indeed, her momentary attitude of concentration on something removed from their immediate presence showed that she expected no comment.

“Do you intend to make Taho your headquarters this winter?” she asked presently.

As brief a time as an hour ago John had made that very decision, so with conscience free he said, “I’ve been making plans to do so.”

“And not go to your brother’s ranch in Colorado as you usually do?”

Again a deafening roar! But it could not have been the interrupting clap of thunder that made Mary’s eyes widen with fear. The muscles in John’s mouth tightened. How much she reminded him now of the terror-stricken girl he had rescued from the cliff edge! His blood raced with his thoughts.

“Not go!” he repeated.

“But you must!” she pleaded. Her voice pleaded, her great luminous brown eyes pleaded, and her hands turned outward in her lap, fingers half-curled.

“And why must I go?” asked John, now hopelessly baffled.

“Your — your cattle,” stammered Mary.

He laughed, but he was not amused. Mary was so obviously avoiding the issue.

“The cattle get along without me for eight months. They can stand it once for a full twelve. It’s the mavericks I like to look over. They are the new-borns, you know. They arrive during my absence. They can’t miss me if they’ve never seen me.”

“There’s your brother! He depends upon your coming, I’m sure!”

It was disturbing to have Mary look away, talk at him and not to him. He could not reach the cause of her distress unless she trusted him. Again he tried to treat her evasions lightly.

“On the ranch I’m just another hired man. By staying away I’ll help Colorado’s army of the unemployed.”

“And here in Arizona you plan to help me, you think,” Mary concluded in a low tone.

John waited for her to look at him before he replied. But she continued to stare at her fingers, and she spoke again without lifting her eyes.

“Staying here won’t help me, Mr. Curry. You must go.”

Something stirred in John’s mind, linking this occasion with the predictions Katharine had made. Yet he received her words incredulously. “If my motive were selfish, I wouldn’t be staying on. I swear I wouldn’t.”

She met his eyes at last, and hers burned with a strange light. She seemed to sway toward him. Her breath and voice appeared almost to embrace him.

“You must go, John, because I wanted you to come. I’ve repeated to myself daily a catechism of deceit. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ I would say, and tried to make myself believe it. Before, when you were about to sit in Wilbur’s chair, I cried out. My catechism again — I did not want you there. Truth is, I did want you there, with all my heart, as I have seen you in a dream, crushing Wilbur’s insistent image out of sight.”

She rose, pushing her chair back violently. John watched her move from him. Shock, joy, and a nameless longing emerged through turbulent waves of thought. He felt the fire of her courage entering him. He, too, rose. He strode toward the window. The width of the room was between them. When he turned she stood expectant, her head inclined attentively.

“Thank you for being so frank,” John said. “The truth is best and easiest met. I’ve been wanting to come to you. Ever since one day on the desert when it came to me that you were dearer to me than anyone on earth. You are. If Newton had been the finest fellow in the world I couldn’t change what I feel, and I wouldn’t feel I was hurting him any. It’s no sin to love a woman, whatever her connection, if you have reverence for her and for honor. And for that reason, if Newton were any kind of a worthy chap, I wouldn’t be here now. He didn’t make you happy, and now he’s cut and run. What’s wrong, then, if I want to help you honorably — asking nothing, expecting nothing except the permission to serve?”

“No, not wrong!” Mary shook her head as if to emphasize her denial. “I don’t mean it would be wrong. You’d be honorable and keep it free from scandal. But if I saw you continually, if what I feel strengthens and then Wilbur comes back—”

She finished with a hopeless gesture.

“You’d feel you had willfully put me between you and him,” John supplemented.

“I would know that I had.”

John saw then his own naïveté. Mary was right.

“And if he should never come back — this year, next year, the year following?”

“Then I would know he will never return.”

“And my banishment would end?”

“Banishment!” she echoed in confused haste. “That is an unkind word. It suggests that you have offended me. Believe me that you haven’t! I see you as someone big, splendid, and true, far stronger than I am and almost incapable of wrong. I was not suggesting that you go out of my life altogether. I wouldn’t want that. I want you to go on with your own life as you would have before this crisis came into mine. Go to Colorado. That is what you originally planned. When you return to the reservation, if you come through Taho, visit me as you would your other friends.”

John grasped at once this less harsh sentence which was being so graciously given. “I’m very likely to come through Taho,” he said. “I can think this minute of a dozen things that make it imperative.”

Mary advanced to the pool of light that spread between them. “You will take us riding before you leave for Colorado?” she asked.

“Gladly. I can’t leave for several days. Have to wait for my pal, High-Lo.”

John suddenly found that he had nothing more to say. So much that boiled in his mind was inhibited by the obligation Mary had imposed upon him. Moreover, he was conscious now that they were alone in her house, that the hour was late, that a storm, completely forgotten, still raged outside. And Mary, manifestly, had gone adrift in her thoughts and could not reach him again. He knew he must go, and ventured to remark upon it.

“It’s still raining,” Mary replied.

That was the thing for her to say under the circumstances. It sounded too conventional, and she seemed ashamed of the implied insincerity for she quickly added, “Still, you must go — if only because I must not want you to stay.”

So he left, his hand warmed by the touch of hers. He resisted her insistence that he take Katharine’s umbrella. He forgot about the discomfort of soaked clothing. He wanted the feel of rain in his face. Snug in the depth of his pocket his right hand retained its gift. The outside world was dark. The rain stung him. Clouds still emitted lightning. Thunder reverberated through the blackness which closed with a rush on each flash of illumination. Halfway to the post he cut through an alfalfa field toward the open desert. The naked wasteland, vast, imperturbable, ignored the elements that flayed it.

* * * * *

The riding excursion materialized as John promised it would, and he had Mary’s smiles again. As they rode he watched Katharine’s furtive glances at every mention of Colorado. When the day ended and Mary said, “I’ll look for your return in the spring,” he accepted his dismissal quietly. He would not see her again until spring, unless they met by chance during the day or two that he remained in Taho. He was pressed by restlessness to put out for Colorado at once, but High-Lo had not returned.

That evening he called on Katharine. Alice, weary from the afternoon’s strenuous ride, had retired early, a circumstance which John found favorable. He had come to talk about Mary. Katharine accepted his news tolerantly.

“We must try to believe that Mary’s judgment is best,” she advised him. “I’ve changed my opinions a bit. I’m afraid of Wilbur Newton. He gets white-mad and white-mean and unreasonable about nothing. And if we’re wrong about his carrying on further with Hanley, and he should return, he’d act the offended one and he’d make her pay. For the present it may be well for you to disappear. What Mary plans for herself six months from now, a slacker husband will have little right to question.”

“Your talking like that makes me stand going some better than I thought I would,” John confessed. “Yet I do get skeerish when I think you’ll be leaving soon. But I know how it is. Alice is your first consideration.”

“Yes.”

“Then comes Mary.”

“Yes.”

“And you couldn’t coax her down to Phoenix with you?”

“No. She ought to be here in case Wilbur comes back.”

“Sure enough.... Can you beat that for law? She’d be the one who deserted if she were to be gone when he comes back. Looks like she can’t leave if she wants to.”

“She can’t. But she’s never thought of it that way. And you’re right about divorce. I doubt if she’d ever consider it.”

“Newton’s likely got that figured. What a yellow dog he is! ... Come to think of it, I don’t know what made me suggest Phoenix. He may be there. Hanley’s on his way.”

Katharine nodded assent.

“I’ve made up my mind to one thing,” John confided. “I’ll lay off Newton’s dirty work on the reservation provided he doesn’t come back and mistreat her. That would be my cue. I’d land him behind bars, and she’d be safe. Safe to get away. And she’d go, too, if I had to kidnap her to show her the sense of it.”

He carried this thought away with him. He honestly wished Newton would recover from his present deterioration, if from that Mary could glean some happiness, but if the fool was headed for complete destruction, he would save Mary from being dragged along with the man to whom she was married.

As soon as he reached his room he wrote a letter to his aunt in Texas, asking her to deposit so many dollars — he left a space for the amount — in some bank in San Antonio, to take out a draft for a Mrs. Wilbur Newton for the amount deposited, and to send the draft to her address — Taho, via Flaggerston, Arizona.

CHAPTER XIII

MARY FOUND WINTER days busy times, but she found winter evenings lonely. No one applied for the room she advertised at the trading post and post office, so she communed with a silent house whenever she was home. Anywhere else Mary could not have endured such complete isolation. But Taho held her. She was bound. She could not leave. Sometimes alone in the silent rooms she felt she must flee from her loneliness, but whenever the suggestion came, it passed as quickly as it had appeared. There would come a sudden whiff of sage and snow, the low, barking cry of a coyote, or the restless whistle of wind that whipped along the ground, and the idea of leaving the desert would be forgotten.

The memory of what had happened in September was with her always. Wilbur’s chair never ceased to remind her. She never sat there. She wanted to destroy it. She examined with an open mind her reticence to obey the desire and discovered that as long as she let the chair remain in its place, she had objective proof that John and she, there in her home, had justified their friendship.

Snows had come early. Yet between the frequent storms were days like spring, unseasonably warm. At the school grounds the Indian children wallowed through rivulets of sluggish water whenever they moved from building to building. They loved such places, looked for them rather than avoided them. Then they would become a fretful lot, cheeks swollen, eyes inflamed, and faces screwed time and again for violent sneezes. Headaches were reported. The infirmary would become a busy place.

Then word came that Mrs. MacDonald had been taken violently ill with influenza, and by the next week the disease was a matter of such grave concern that Mrs. Gordon’s baby had died of it. The school doctor looked with alarm at the copper-hued youngsters who came to him labeled “Infirmary Cases.” Day after day cards were filled with such notations as: “Watch for Influenza Symptoms, Mild Case Influenza, Malignant Case Influenza.” And the nurse told one of her schoolteacher friends that the doctor was worried, and soon all Taho knew.

By Christmas the town was under a virtual quarantine. Not that one had been ordered from headquarters. But people were driven by fear to confine their immediate families and shut out the malady if they could. The register of nine at the white children’s school had a blank placed beside it for attendance, and the teacher substituted for a sick teacher in the Indian school. The church Christmas party was canceled, likewise the Indian school holiday festival.

On Christmas Eve fresh snow covered the mud wash of the last storm and fell steadily for a night and a day. Not a soul ventured on the broad avenue that was Taho. Not even an Indian or a stray dog tracked the covering of snow. All Christmas day Mary kept logs burning in the open grate of the living room. She was indebted to Billy Horton for the wood and for killing the chickens she had set to simmer on the kitchen stove preparing a broth to be sent tomorrow to the infirmary. She thought of Billy’s kindness as she sewed small woolen nightgowns which she had cut from a light blanket. They, too, were for the infirmary. Each time she rose to stir the broth or feed the fire she cleared a place on the frosted window and looked out on the cold and shrouded town which lay empty and desolate. It was the loneliest Christmas day she ever had passed.

Late in the afternoon she began to look for lights from the houses down the avenue. Evening would be cheerier, she hoped. To give a feeling of comfort to other lonely souls, she lit her lamps early and scoured the frost from the windows so the light would shine brightly through. Snow was heaped everywhere. It burdened the cottonwood trees and every fence and post bore its load of white. Presently between the laden branches Mary saw yellow patches gleam. They were the infirmary lights. One after another they appeared. Mary imagined the nurse making the rounds with her electric torch. There were lights from every window; rooms never before occupied were in use now. She was reminded that yesterday she had dug up several cots from the school storeroom for the doctor who was loudly deploring their lack of equipment.

Mary was preparing her evening meal when a knock on the front door startled her. She was expecting no one, for the night already was completely dark.

“Who is it?” she called against the wind which howled through the keyhole.

“Dr. Kellogg.”

Assured by the familiar voice, she opened the door, and the doctor entered, tracking snow with him. Normally he appeared a thin wiry man, but in the big bearskin coat he seemed almost rotund. Mary wished the worried look he wore could be removed with the coat.

“Merry Christmas,” he said with not the slightest change in expression, and added immediately, “Are you busy?”

“Not very. Preparing a meal. Perhaps you’ll join me.”

“No, no! Thank you! Wondered if you’d help me out at the hospital. The nurse is down with the flu now. It was bad enough to have only one nurse for forty kids. No nurse at all is terrible.”

“Certainly I’ll help,” said Mary.

The doctor eyed her critically for a minute. “You’ve not got the sniffles, backache, headache, pain in your limbs or sore eyes, have you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Then don’t get them, and you’ll do. I’ll trot along. Come when you can. I mean, come as quickly as you can.”

He let in more snow and a great gust of wind before he closed the door behind him.

“Poor fellow,” thought Mary. “He’s hardly equal to it.”

She shortened her preparations for supper and poured the savory chicken soup into jars to cool. Then she donned rubber boots and a close-fitting cap and brought her very familiar but somewhat threadbare coat from the closet. Turning down the lamp, she sallied forth into the storm. Barring the friendly gleam of lights across the snow, Taho seemed even colder now that the blue shadow of night had descended. Remote houses became spectral things, seeming to sway beyond the intercepting fall of whirling snowflakes. A mass of snow slipped from the slanted roof of the new government building and struck a drift below with a soft thud. The wind shook the curtain of snow and tore at Mary’s cheek. She followed the deep footprints Dr. Kellogg had made. She saw where his coat had dragged, building piles of snow along the way.

Mary reached the infirmary and entered without knocking. It was a frame building, as drear and drab within as the schoolhouses. An odor of coal oil was prevalent. Lamps needed trimming. She would attend to that presently.

The doctor hailed her with, “Think I’m losing a case upstairs. Pneumonia’s set in. Girl. Indian. Such a poor-looking little thing. Comes from Sage Springs. God, but I hanker for the city at times like this. A real hospital, the right equipment, sufficient help. Above all, efficiency. Before Miss Lange came here to nurse I was sent an empty-headed girl who hadn’t completed even a probation term. I set her to labeling medicines and she labeled them all wrong. Had to destroy a lot of medicine for fear she’d use it before I could straighten things out. She might have killed someone. She might be responsible for casualties now through this curtailing of supplies. We were short enough without that. I made out an order for more, but you know the red tape involved in spending money here. It’s awful. I’m running short of everything.”

Mary gasped. “Have you taken the matter up with the government agent, or the missionary, or the school?”

“It’s up for consideration. Everything’s ‘up for consideration’ — supplies, new quarters, extra nurse. But it’s action, not consideration, I need.”

“Can’t you order things from Flaggerston yourself?”

“Yes. With cash on delivery. I’ve bought things, myself, as much as I can afford. I’m supporting a family back East.”

Mary knew how little he could save from his meager salary. “How much of an expenditure would cover your present needs?” she asked.

“Oh, there’s so much! Hot-water bags, ice bags, medicines, blankets, towels — everything! Three hundred dollars would be slim.”

“And five hundred?”

“A fortune.”

“Maybe I can let you have it?”

Now the doctor gasped. “Have it? What do you mean? Who on this reservation owns that much money unless it’s MacDonald?”

“I have a draft for that amount.”

“But where’d you expect to get it back from?”

“I’m not thinking of getting it back.”

“And that, I reckon, is all you own. You with a husband who’s—” The doctor stumbled over another word and then murmured, “I beg your pardon.”

“You haven’t offended me,” Mary returned quickly.

“You mean to give that money for these poor beggars. Come now, you were just a little too impulsive, weren’t you? Suppose you help out with a hundred.”

“I want them to have it all.”

“You’re — you’re too good. You’re — you’re not natural,” sputtered the doctor. “I shouldn’t let you do it, but I can’t help it for the kids’ sake.” Then he groaned, “Oh, but I wish I had it before this storm came on. Wires are down. We can’t telegraph an order, and who’d try to take a car out in this snow?”

“Billy Horton will. He’s a lad with a heart. All I’ll have to do is tell him the situation here.”

“It was an inspiration, a sure-enough heaven-sent inspiration, my going to you tonight,” the doctor declared. “I was desperate. ‘Who’ll help?’ I asked myself. There were faces that turned away from me as quickly as I spoke. But I saw you clear as spring water. And I went to you straightway.”

“Well, put me to work,” said Mary. “And between your labors manage somehow to make out a list of the things you need.”

“God! This is Christmas!” said Dr. Kellogg.

His words thrilled Mary. Her forlorn day became suddenly a very happy one.

“I’ll put you up with Joy,” added the doctor, strictly professional again. “We’ll try to pull her through.”

Joy! What a name for the unhappy isolated little creature into whose room Mary was ushered. She was an eight-year-old mite with a body too frail for such a burden of pain. How pitifully she fought to breathe, plunging her hands upward like one drowning!

Mary thought of Katharine’s description of Alice’s struggle — how oxygen tanks rushed into service helped her through. Oxygen tanks. Oxygen. She shivered in the cold, for the two windows were open top and bottom. Joy needed all this air. She must fight for the precious oxygen, poor child. And meanwhile her body must be kept warm. So bricks had to be reheated and hot-water bags refilled between periods when Mary chafed the rebellious hands. Now and then, through the night, the doctor came in and gave the child hypodermic injections. His visits were brief and he had few words.

After midnight the wind lulled, the snow ceased. An occasional cry sounded from the other rooms, and the sound of coughing. Joy still labored and fought. She uttered sibilant words, staccato cries cut short by the succeeding struggles to breathe. Mary’s own breath came heavily, an unconscious reaction of her effort to help. She felt no need for sleep. The child’s fight had become her fight, and unbroken vigilance was the only way to victory.

It was six o’clock in the morning when Dr. Kellogg pronounced hope. “She may come through,” he said. “And it’s you she can thank.... Sure you’re not feeling stuffy yourself? No pains in your back, head, limbs? Eyes not sore?” He quoted these symptoms mechanically.

“I’m as fit as I was last night.”

“Good. Two things for you to do this morning. See this Horton fellow and then get some sleep. List’s ready.”

“I don’t need sleep,” Mary protested. “A cup of coffee will set me right for the day.”

“Not for the day. Only until I get someone to take your place.”

“Oh, no, doctor! Joy’s mine to pull through now!”

“And then who’ll pull you through?”

“Why, the will to help her, of course.”

“That sounds all right, but I believe in exercising care.”

“And meanwhile take no precautions yourself!”

“I’m a doctor.”

“And I’ve accepted a nurse’s place.”

With the night’s triumph scored in her favor, Mary went to the government mess where she could have breakfast and see Billy Horton at the same time. At first Billy received her request that he drive to Flaggerston as a joke, but when he was convinced of her earnestness and heard the cause for which she was pleading he capitulated without further ado. She went then to fetch the draft. It was in her change box where it had lain for seven long weeks. She had intended never to cash it while its origin remained a mystery, nor would she, had this emergency not pressed her. It represented five hundred dollars deposited in her name in a San Antonio bank. It had arrived in a typewritten envelope with a San Antonio cancellation stamp, but no word or address to explain it. At first she had thought her relatives from Texas had sent it. “If so — why?” she asked herself. They knew nothing of her financial difficulties. Furthermore, they were not given to generosity, and a generous act undeclared would be a breach of their ethics. She could neither reject nor accept it on the assumption that it came from them. The thought that Wilbur might have sent the draft presented itself tardily. It did not seem consistent that Wilbur, who was selfish, who had deserted her, taking with him what money was in the change box and her jewelry, who had no money nor the credit to borrow it, had turned benefactor.

“Texas ... Texas!” she would repeat to herself, trying to stir associations that might reveal a clue. And taking the chance of having a letter to her father intercepted by her stepmother as others had been, she wrote asking him in what state was the copper mine in which he had taken shares for her when she was a child. She knew the mine operations had been suspended years ago, and, as far as she knew, never reopened. An answer that the mine was in New Mexico satisfied her that so far she was more in the dark than ever as to the identity of her benefactor.

While the mystery was yet unsolved, she would not, could not, let the money remain idle in the San Antonio bank when there was a crying need for it in Taho. She hurried to Billy, eager to make her act irrevocable.

Indomitable will and several cups of strong coffee kept Mary at Joy’s bedside through the day, and she would have resisted the fatigue that crept over her toward evening had Dr. Kellogg not said Joy would live, and convinced her his faith had nothing to do with his insistence that she accept relief.

A schoolteacher named Miss Hills took Mary’s place. Not only had the girl slept during the day to fortify herself for the night, but before reporting, thoughtful of all that Mary had undergone, she had arranged with neighbors to have Mary’s house warm for her return. Tears came to Mary’s eyes when she found what had been done. There was a certain sweetness in being so deadly tired. She slept twelve hours. At eight she was on duty again. Joy lifted a feeble hand to greet her.

Several new cases came in that day. Doctor Kellogg grew anxious about Billy Horton. They looked for him hourly, but Billy did not arrive until the morning of the next day. He appeared to have been through a Homeric struggle. When Mary tried to thank him, he turned away shamefaced and said, “You mustn’t be handin’ me too much credit, Mrs. Newton.”

“Why, you — you’ve done everything!” declared Mary.

“You picked me to ask to go because I’ve been doin’ little jobs for you, didn’t you?” Billy asked.

Mary was puzzled. “Yes. That was what made me think of you.”

“An’ you might have been wonderin’ about my sudden interest, an’ thinkin’ it was that trunk business I was tryin’ to square.”

“No. That never occurred to me. I’ve thought of you as a fine upstanding lad who understood my difficulties.”

“And there’s where in the beginning you got me a little wrong. I was asked to help you, so it’s only square I shouldn’t take too much credit.”

“Asked to help me?” echoed Mary.

A more vivid red mounted the boy’s windburned face. “Yes. John Curry asked me and offered to pay me, and I like to throwed him for that. He asked me to do chores for you and make myself generally handy.”

Mary’s cheeks burned in their turn.

“That was thoughtful of Mr. Curry,” she said, very self-conscious and fighting it. “And ever so good of you.”

“What gets me,” Billy went on penitently, “is that I had to be asked. I’d have wanted to do it, you see, if I’d been smart enough to figure you’d be needin’ a man. I’m not smart like John.”

“You are brave,” Mary interrupted.

“But that doesn’t get me over havin’ to be asked. I’d like to do somethin’ on my own, somethin’ that would square me.... Say, if Newton comes back, an’ you don’t want him, I’ll beat him up for you.”

If the boy were not so valiantly serious, Mary would have been amused. As it was, her breath left her and her thoughts whirled dizzily. When words were again at her command she said, “I don’t think it will be necessary to beat Mr. Newton up. He won’t come back.”

Her last remark she uttered with conviction and she repeated it to herself, “He won’t come back!”

For John Curry, who loved her hopelessly and had to go away at her request, she was suddenly lonely, terribly overwhelmingly lonely. Long hours this loneliness persisted.

She would have conquered in the end if Miss Hills that evening had not come in upon her while she was occupied with Joy and said, “You ought to have a child of your own, Mrs. Newton. You’d make a wonderful mother. I hope you’ll marry again, once you get your divorce from that husband of yours.”

“I — I haven’t planned to divorce Mr. Newton,” Mary returned, on the defensive at once.

“But you must! Heavens! Don’t you suppose he wants it? Men don’t leave a girl like you unless there’s another woman in view.”

The words struck Mary with the sting of a lash. The very unexpectedness of the remark made its import seem more monstrous to her. Wilbur’s wanting a divorce.... Another woman in view! Was the moral view of marriage so completely lost that a young girl of good character viewed her situation so lightly? Was there no longer any sacred regard for the marriage relation? Was it all hypocrisy?

“Perhaps to some men marriage is a loss of independence, and they marry without taking that into consideration,” Mary said, suddenly reminded of Wilbur’s own words.

“And loss of their independence merely means a bridle to check them from having affairs with other women. Independence? Nonsense! Who is really truly independent in this world? Independence stopped when man quit supplying all his needs by his own labors. The poor word is rather sadly hackneyed these days.”

“I guess you’re right there,” Mary concluded, then fled from further discussion.

But she could not flee from anxiety so easily. Hadn’t Wilbur intimated that the photographer in Flaggerston whom she had never seen could take his place? He had not mentioned love. Freedom, to have affairs with other men as Miss Hills would put it, he had basely insinuated was a thing she desired. She was married to him then, and divorce had never been mentioned between them. And why should she want a divorce unless to marry again? She shuddered as the thought came to her that she did not want Wilbur to return. Was she not part of the same great hypocrisy? Was that not proof that her own ideals were false, that she was struggling for a belief in the traditions of her fathers rather than receiving intolerantly anything that threatened to destroy them? And there was her love for John. As he had said of himself, she could not change it. All the defenses that she had built around her with evasions and arguments were threatened now. She had a baffled feeling that constancy to a single ideal was being demanded of her, and that fate was leading her blindfolded to make the choice.

Through the days that followed, Mary fostered all her reserve energy to meet the demands on her strength that the long hours at the hospital called for. She had little leisure to think of other things.

The influenza epidemic spread through Taho like fire down a sage plain. It raged in the Indian village, too. Contagion was most prevalent among the men. The schools were closed. Fewer and fewer were the people who attended government mess. All the inhabitants of Taho were numbered either among the sick or the nursing. Mary faced the day when Billy Horton, too, succumbed to the pestilence. That created a grave situation. Billy had taken the place of the cook at the government mess which supplied food for the hospital patients. Someone had to take charge there, and with no one else ready to assume the responsibility, Mary stepped in. She had no idea of the demands it entailed. When she struggled with knife and saw against a resisting quarter of beef, when with the aid of a stout stick she had to enforce her request that an Indian lad kill chickens for her, she was astounded by the proofs of her efficacy.

In spite of the added duties she found time each evening to rub with liniment forty and more chests and backs. Through this faithful service to the children she earned from them the title, “Grease-mother.”

After the epidemic began to wane, there came a morning when Mary did not report at the hospital. While trying to dress at the usual hour dizziness overcame her. She rested a while trying to recover, but the bed seemed to turn round beneath her, and even when she closed her eyes it did not cease circling. She felt deathly sick. Three hours she lay with limbs as stiff as if they had been clamped in irons, and with a strange buzzing in her ears. Mrs. Gordon called. In high alarm she went for the doctor who came at once.

“Exhaustion!” he declared.

Mary, looking at him, thought hazily that he might have been judging his own malady. Yet with a feeling of relief she gave herself over to the tired man’s care.

A week later Mary was about again. The doctor, more wan than ever, was still at his duties with machine-like constancy.

“Two deaths in all,” he told her. “And no more malignant cases.”

“Then Joy has really recovered? No relapse?” asked Mary. She had feared all along that kindness had colored truth in the answers she had received to her inquiries about Joy.

“She recovered. But she shouldn’t go back to school this year. Live outdoors. Sleep outdoors. I’m afraid of her lungs, and she has a slight gland infection.”

“Why can’t she come to live with me?” asked Mary, suddenly impressed with the idea. “I’m off all day Saturday and Sunday, and away only six hours on other days. My neighbor would gladly keep an eye on her during my absence. And Joy’s such a good little thing, perfectly reliable, Miss Hills tells me.”

“That would be the best thing in the world for her!” Dr. Kellogg exclaimed. “Lord! You certainly ought to be able to take care of one after what you’ve done with forty!”

The government agent’s approval of the plan was promptly received, and Joy’s well-loved grease-mother became her foster mother.

News of Mary’s gift to the hospital had long since circulated about Taho. Mary gathered that it had been received incredulously by some, who accepted it later only on the strength of a belief that she had sacrificed an inheritance; but whatever misgivings had arisen, all opinions tended finally to canonize her and to consign Wilbur to a greater depth of degradation for having left a woman so virtuous as she. Mary had not foreseen such a result of her generosity, nor yet the word that went abroad when she adopted Joy.... “Poor girl! You see, she’s wanted children all the time!”

CHAPTER XIV

PATCHES OF GREEN showing through the melting snows of the Colorado uplands began to attract cattle from the valleys where they had grazed during the winter months, and to scatter them hither and yon over the vast area of their summer range. The lowing of cattle, so intimate during the tedious season of snows, now carrying from afar on a breeze laden with the scent of spring, seemed to hold a note of farewell for John. He had had enough of Colorado. He had come here against his own desire. There was a hunger in his heart and a restlessness in his soul that nothing could appease. His eyes turned longingly toward Arizona. He wanted to turn his horse’s head that way and give him free rein. He was riding home from Cleland with the mail, with the realization that he would have to repeat the journey several times before he could conscientiously leave his brother’s ranch. He saw in the distance High-Lo coming to meet him, accompanied by a rider on a mount that seemed somewhat familiar. He tortured his memory until he recognized the horse as one Beany rode in Arizona and then he knew that the slim, straight figure in the saddle was none other than Beany himself.

“Yea, Cowboy!” yelled the rider in a voice that cleared all shadow of doubt. “How are you ridin’ these days?”

“Managing to stick on!” John called in response.

They came up then, wheeling their horses about, one on each side of John.

“Just back from Black Mesa?” asked John.

“Yep,” returned Beany. “And it shore was lonely holdin’ that post alone for the winter.”

“Folks away long?” John followed.

“You’re talkin’! Went to Phoenix for Christmas and come back only a week ago. Guess they was scared of the flu. It shore hit the reservation awful hard — particular down around Taho. Three deaths down there.”

John’s heart began to thump. “Deaths? Who?”

“Lord! I ain’t the local undertaker. How d’you expect me to know?” asked Beany.

“Didn’t any word get through to Black Mesa?”

High-Lo chuckled and intercepted Beany’s answer by saying, “He wants you to tell him that them that died with the flu was Texans.”

“Wal, I can’t give names,” said Beany. “If what I got was true there was a baby, an Indian kid and a kind of youngish woman.”

“White woman?” asked John, legs and arms gone suddenly numb.

Beany slid over hard in one stirrup and peered into John’s face. “Say, are you takin’ the census?”

A hideous fear made John vehement. “Answer me, you fool.”

Beany took offense. “Someone’s been feedin’ you pepper or bad liquor! ... Yes, it’s a white woman. Not been there long. Tuberculosis case and took the flu quick. Wife of one of the government men.”

John gave a great expulsion of breath. A burning heat within him suddenly lost its fire. He felt the reins slipping through his fingers and retrieved them.

“By golly, John!” High-Lo ejaculated. “Bet you were thinkin’ of Miss Alice Winfield. But they were to leave late November. Good they got out.”

“Say! That reminds me!” Beany broke in. “Mrs. Weston saw them Winfield girls pretty much in Phoenix, an’ she run into the Blakely girls there, too, goin’ it pretty strong with Hanley. They say Hanley’s part Mormon. He’s like to want ’em both.”

“Anybody seen anythin’ of Handsome?” asked High-Lo.

“Handsome?”

“Sure. That splinter of a would-be cow-rider called Willy Newton.”

“Oh! Wilbur Newton! Hain’t seen him, but I’ve heard some. He’s opened a small post in that deserted adobe buildin’ at Sage Springs.”

John caught a significant wink and nod from High-Lo.

“On what, I’d like to know?” queried High-Lo.

“Borrowed funds, I’m guessin’. And if he can go any other way but broke, I’ll give him my horse, and the saddle thrown in.”

“Any idea where he gets his supplies from?” asked John.

“Gallup, I guess. Over the Luckachuca Mountains. Some thinks that’s easier than through Flaggerston. Course I don’t know, never bein’ over that way. I’m just figurin’ cause nothin’ comes through by way of Black Mesa.”

Again High-Lo winked and nodded.

“I heard Hanley would be in Colorado some time this winter,” lied John in an attempt to lure Beany into telling some more that he might know and yet appear not too interested. “Did Pop Weston mention his leaving Phoenix early?”

Beany screwed his face into a reflective knot, then untwined it. “Come to think of it, yes. Seems though, speakin’ of Gallup, that it was there Pop Weston said he’d went.”

John did not dare look at High-Lo, for the lad had burst into a whistling of the long-neglected refrain written to immortalize the old sow.

“Gettin’ back to Newton,” said Beany, riding closer to John as their suddenly obsessed companion led off the road onto the sage flat, “ain’t he got a wife? I thought so. Leastways I heard some fellers talkin’ about how she was downright pretty.”

“She’s red-headed and freckle-faced,” announced High-Lo between the last and first phrase of his endless tune.

“She’s not,” said John, off guard at the moment. And re-covering: “You never saw her. You don’t know what she looks like.”

“Oh, don’t I! You’re the one who never saw her. She’s as red-headed an’ freckled as a woman can be. Newton did it. Made her change color like that. She was dark afore she married him. Then one time she come home late, an’ he bein’ such a mean cuss locked her out for the night not carin’ that it was rainin’. An’ bein’ left out in the rain like that she rusted. An’ she ain’t been the same girl since.... O-h-h-h-h—”

John knew what was coming. He heard the first word and note before it fell.

“The old sow woke up in the mornin’, and one of her pigs was dead,” wailed High-Lo.

Beany grinned from ear to ear. “The damn fool!” he drawled. “But say, what d’you make of it? Newton livin’ at Sage Springs alone?”

* * * * *

A night shared with Beany kept John and High-Lo apart. However, early the next morning after Beany had left for Cleland they strolled toward the corral together and relieved their minds of a number of thoughts they shared.

“Of course, you got it,” High-Lo remarked. “Newton’s post is financed by Hanley, the post bein’ a cover for their real business.”

John nodded.

“An’ they’re dumb fools if they think they can get by with that. I reckon when we’re on our way to Black Mesa I can use that roll of bobwire I toted along. It’s hangin’ in the barn.”

John anticipated this reaction from High-Lo and knew he would be hard to handle.

“Don’t be too anxious. Give them plenty of rope to hang themselves with.”

“Hang themselves, nothin’! I’m goin’ to be there for the dance. Why the delay? You wouldn’t go through Sage Springs an’ tip yer hat to that feller!”

“No. I’d tip a gun if I gave in to myself.”

“Wal? Doesn’t that settle things?”

“No. We’re going to Black Mesa by way of Taho.”

High-Lo looked at John in mild contempt. “Taho? A hundred and twenty miles out of our way? Are you gettin’ awful fond of ridin’?”

“No, but that’s the way we’re going,” John replied.

High-Lo halted, thrust his hands into his pockets and rocked gently on his heels. “That’s the way you’re goin’, John. I’m goin’ by way of Sage Springs. I’m so sick of nothin’ happenin’ that I could bust an’ run. You ain’t goin’ to spoil my party. Of course, if you’ve turned yellow—”

John swung around, his right hand itching. “Take that back, High-Lo.”

“Mebbe I will!”

“No! Take it back now.”

“Wal, then I’ll say, ‘if you’ve turned sick,’ instead. You’ve shore turned suthin’! Did you think I wasn’t wonderin’ none why you didn’t foller this up last fall, why you didn’t try follerin’ up Newton like you said we would when we quit Pop Weston, why you’ve cut me short every time I’ve mentioned Hanley to you? What d’you expect me to be thinkin’?”

The time had come when John could no longer deceive High-Lo. The boy was asking for the truth and he ought to have it. “If I mix in this affair I can’t do it without betraying the woman I love,” he said unsteadily.

High-Lo’s jaw fell and his eyes widened to their limit. Then his lips met in a thin line and his eyes narrowed. He studied John a minute. Presently he said, “The woman you love?”

“Yes. She’s Wilbur Newton’s wife.”

High-Lo blinked as if in anticipation of a blow he stood to take.

“Don’t look at me that way, pal,” begged John. “My love’s honest — as honest as heaven. You’ve got to believe me. Let me tell you about it. Not here. We can’t stand here. Come on over to the corral.”

He walked away without looking back, and it was a full minute before he heard High-Lo plodding behind him. He observed that the boy took care not to catch up. When they reached the corral High-Lo still kept his distance, squatting on his heels about twenty feet from where John stood. He snapped a piece of brush and started drawing designs with it in the sand. John moved closer, and though High-Lo’s silence disturbed him, he ignored it, and began his confession starting with the day he first saw Mary. Soon the stick with which High-Lo played ceased moving, and shortly it fell to the ground. John perceived him capitulating slowly to the thrill and romance of the narrative. He was listening intently for all that his head was averted. So John went on, becoming lost in his own recital. Suddenly it was over. He had explained how Mary had sent him away. There was nothing more to tell.

High-Lo looked up. He stared at John in frank amazement. “An’ this has been happenin’ to you,” he muttered, “an’ you not tellin’ me till now?”

“But you understand that, don’t you?” John pleaded.

“Mebbe. You see, I ain’t never been in love. Sure, I’ve been mixed up with women when I was drunk, but I never had the thing that’s hurtin’ you so hard. What you’ve told me makes me see red an’ hate it all. Hate it all! Do you hear me?”

High-Lo’s face moved convulsively as he brought his long speech to its passionate close. John was grieved to see the boy so shaken.

“There’s nothing come between us. Don’t feel that way. I need you more than ever. You’ve saved my life — my self-respect. I’m sure if you hadn’t come to Colorado I’d have gone back to Taho like a weak fool. You’ve been my backbone. God! How I needed you!”

“You’ve got me wrong,” returned High-Lo. “I’d hate anythin’ that hurt you. That’s the trouble. It is hurtin’ you — you who’d give your guts for anyone else. No. Don’t get the idee I’m jealous. Not of any woman.”

John fell prey to emotions that made speech difficult. “And you’ll stick by me?”

A scoffing snort was High-Lo’s only response. There was fire in his eye. He sat deep in thought for a long moment. Then he cried, “I got it!”

“What?”

“All your strange cuttin’ up. Sellin’ the car, talkin’ about stayin’ over in Taho an’ then not stayin’ ... lots of things! An’ you thought it was her died in Taho.... Here’s a bit of advice. Hang on to that five hundred. She’ll be needin’ it. An hombre like him will have to have a fancy funeral.”

“What do you mean?” John asked tersely.

“This!” High-Lo shot back immediately. “All my life I’ve knowed that someday I’d do suthin’ big. All my life I knew that suthin’ not reg’lar was goin’ to happen to me. It’s come. I have to shoot a man. An’ I can do it like I was shootin’ a hydrophobia skunk. Conscience just that clear.”

“Newton?” blazed John.

“My, but you’re smart,” drawled High-Lo. “That’s my man. I’ll shoot him tryin’ to stop me from stoppin’ him sellin’ booze to the Indians. See? He’s a dead man. I’m a hero. You’re a bridegroom.”

“But you can’t shoot Newton!”

“Oh, yes, I can! My arm ain’t paralyzed. I’m leavin’ you mucho pronto for Sage Springs. You’ll still be in Colorado when I’m seein’ my party over the trail.”

High-Lo sprang to his feet and stalked off.

“High-Lo!” called John.

No answer.

“High-Lo!”

Still no answer. The boy’s head was thrown back stubbornly as he swung along.

John drew his gun. “High-Lo, I’ll shoot you in the heel if you don’t come back!”

John might have saved his words. He shot into the air which proved another waste of effort. He fired the gun again. Then High-Lo turned.

“That girl has sure set you crazy!” he yelled back. “Pack your gun. You might need it to poke between me an’ a sheriff.” With that he broke into a run. John, furious at him, started in full pursuit. As he passed the sheepshed he caught sight of an old lasso rope dropped carelessly over the fence. He snatched it and swung the rope to a good-size loop. Then he renewed his pursuit. His arm swept wide, the rope circling, and in another moment High-Lo was checked with a startling jerk, and his hands were bound to his sides. He pulled back fiercely against the taut rope, his eyes blazing.

“Sorry!” said John yanking him closer. “You’ve got to listen to me when my affairs are at stake. When you get an idea of your own you’re worse than a pack mule.”

Though the indignity of his position made High-Lo fume with wrath, he seemed to grasp that John was in deadly earnest and in no way attempting to make a fool of him.

“Well!” he stormed.

“I said I needed you to help me, but you’ll only ruin things if you don’t let my opinions count,” John protested. “You or no other man is going to have blood on his hands for me. I never could face Mary Newton if you did such a thing. Don’t act in the heat of your passions. Cool off. Think clearly. Then act. It happens that Mrs. Newton says she will see me this spring. All winter I’ve been haunted with the thought that Newton had come back. Now I know he hasn’t. I’m pretty sure he never will. I can go to her free and happy. I know she doesn’t want him back. I have a place in her life even if it is small. Don’t take it away from me!”

High-Lo’s head dropped. He scrunched the sand lightly with the toe of his boot. “I’m the fool. I thought you was. Hang close to me, John. I’ll try. I wouldn’t shoot Newton now even if the sheriff hung him up for me for target practice.” He freed himself of the rope and tossed it away with a grin. “Shot at and hog-tied all in one day! That’s better than dyin’ by inches in a place where nothin’ happens.”

* * * * *

The days passed uneventfully. They slipped into weeks. High-Lo grew more restless. John, counting each sun, blessed it for passing. There came the time when he could wait no longer. What if he had to put in a month of unemployment when he reached Arizona? He must see Mary. He went to his brother and told him he was leaving and taking High-Lo with him. His brother expressed no surprise. Rather he agreed that he should go, saying that he felt the time was at hand when John ought to sell out his interests because only habit, grown from a faithfulness to family ties, kept him in Colorado.

High-Lo maintained that he had been waiting for word to go every time John opened his mouth to speak during the past few weeks, and every morning had packed his roll in readiness.

They were off without loss of time. For John their exodus was attended by all the palpitant hope and anticipation of the pilgrim of old to the promised land. Eight days they traveled, sometimes making trading posts at night, more often sleeping in the open and faring on Indian corn and jerked mutton. On the ninth day they climbed the broad back of the mesa behind Taho and saw the town in the far distance, a green oasis in a waste of sand.

CHAPTER XV

ONE AFTERNOON IN April Mary stood in the road in front of the house straining her eyes beneath her hand, wondering anxiously if from an impenetrable cloud of dust the mail stage would emerge. But the dust was being stirred by approaching mounted Indians. In her disappointment, she was conscious of Joy’s black eyes contemplating her smilingly. Like a stray brownie hesitating for a moment in the world of reality the child seemed, a little elf who did not understand, so accepted happily any circumstance that presented itself to her.

“No come?” she said.

“It has not come?” corrected Mary.

“It has not come?” Joy repeated with her unfailing good nature.

“No, dear. But when it comes there’ll be a letter on it telling us Aunt Katharine and Aunt Alice will be here soon. I’m sure of that.”

“Will Aunt Katharine send Joy for school?” Joy’s gleaming white teeth showed as she finished in a smile. But the smile did not mean that she wanted to go back to school. She asked the question often in this disarmingly happy manner. Mary had come to recognize the smile as faith that her answer would be the desired one.

“No, Aunt Katharine will not send Joy to school.”

“To school,” Joy said in devout contrition. She walked closer to Mary. “Maybe soon Joy be white girl,” she announced.

“White girl?” repeated Mary, off guard. Time and again she had been confronted with this announcement. It was an obsession with Joy that she might someday turn white, and her strange little soul seemed to burn incessantly with the longing.

“Yes. See? Joy make white here.” She lifted her arm and pointed to a scar for inspection. “Then Joy don’t go to Indian school.”

“Joy never will be a little white girl,” Mary said gently.

Tolerance for Mary’s misunderstanding glowed from Joy’s great dark eyes. “In Sunday school Joy sing, ‘Wash her, be whiter than snow.’ Joy wash and wash and wash. Joy’s white here.” She fingered the scar triumphantly.

Thought Mary: “‘Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!’”

It was disconcerting to have to cope with Joy’s rebellion against her natural state. She could not compromise with the yearning in order to appease the child. Quietly, insistently she had met it with denial. Now she wondered sadly if she were harming Joy by her devotion. The life she led, the care and love she received as the ward of a white woman, were estranging her from the people of her own race and removing her far from the colorless life of the children who lived in the dormitories. Had she the means, she would educate Joy, send her to college, train her to preserve the best that her race had transmitted to her, to accept the best that the philosophy and art and religion of the white people could give her, develop her to be a help to the women of her own race, who were being sacrificed to an age of change which was crushing their old faiths and customs without adequate substitution. Lacking the resources, she might be cruel and not kind to Joy as she so heartfully desired to be. The little one had quickly won her love. Never had she received such obedience, patience, appreciation from a white child! Nor were her reactions the mere submission of an obtuse, negative individual. Joy was bright. Her inquiring mind dug into many matters Mary had to avoid. She recognized circumvention and repudiated it. Her thirst to learn was so great that Mary feared that she was destined to suffer because of it.

Though the urge of a generous impulse alone had led Mary to adopt Joy, the arrangement had reverted to her own good in the way of self-preservation. Joy had become her refuge from loneliness. Try as she scrupulously did, she could not keep John Curry from her thoughts; yet she continued her losing fight. Feeling deep down in her soul the hypocrisy of her act, Mary placed a picture of Wilbur on the mantle over the fireplace. “My husband,” she would say to herself each morning early, and again each night with as much punctuality and as little feeling as did Joy when she said, “Our Father which art in heaven.” She was merely watering the ground where a flower had been uprooted, trying to make herself believe there would be a reblossoming. For what she thought was her own self-protection, she practiced this self-deceit. And now with April come she still denied the flutterings of her heart, telling herself that her anticipation of spring had to do only with Katharine’s return.

Would Katharine find her changed? she wondered. The wonder developed into fear which made Mary realize that she was not sincerely herself. It was the detection of her hypocrisy that she feared. Was she a coward only because she would not see the truth? Always she put the thought from her as quickly as she could. Going deeper and deeper into the intricacies of thought where Joy’s remark had thrust her, she discovered that the only way she could maintain her peace of mind was to forget everything except the present moment. So she proposed a race to the steps, and this time allowed Joy to win.

As they entered the front door Billy came in the back way with an armful of kindling wood.

“Saw you out there,” he said. “Didn’t knock. How’d you get in so fast?”

“Joy and I had a race,” said Mary.

Billy deposited his load in the woodbox with no trace of his usual celerity. He even picked up the tiny slivers he had scattered, going down on his knees to do so.

“Any word of anythin’ on the reservation out Black Mesa way or Sage Springs?” he asked, devoting himself sedulously to the minute flecks of wood.

“Had a letter from Mrs. Shelley last week and she said the Westons have been back almost a month.”

“Other folks have come back, too,” said Billy.

“No doubt everybody’s getting ready for the summer,” returned Mary.

“Folks have come that we weren’t expectin’ back,” Billy went on. He quit his painstaking job with this remark and walked toward the front door, his back to Mary when he spoke again. “Newton’s out on the desert somewhere,” he said.

Mary stared at Billy’s stalwart form, silenced by the shock his words had carried; and the words became transformed into the tall, lanky form of Wilbur effacing Billy there in the doorway. Wilbur near! Wilbur back — perhaps coming to her now! Returning in the spring! But she knew that it was not Wilbur she had expected!

A sudden awareness of Joy tugging at her skirt and the child’s words, “What’s matter, Mudder?” brought Mary’s mind back to the present.

“On the reservation — you mean?” she said haltingly, while to Joy she gave a smile which was meant to reassure her.

“Yes.”

“Just come?” Mary pursued.

“Looks that way.”

“In other words, you don’t know for sure?”

Billy swung around, his hands in his pockets for defense. He seemed to be holding himself back from a dash to safety. “A feller gets news from Indians and cowboys without knowin’ who handed it on to who, an’ you take the main idee for truth. All I’d want to make a trade on is that right now Newton’s somewheres back toward the border. It’s somethin’ I thought you’d like to know.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“That’s all, Ma’am. An’ I’m around, Ma’am, when you’re needin’ me.” His hand was on the screen door holding it part way open. “Don’t think I’m presumin’,” he continued, “if I give you a little advice, me bein’ a kid an’ all. I’d keep away from Castle Mesa an’ Black Mesa. That is — don’t go out sort of meetin’ him. Men that come back like to come the full way alone. An’ remember, if he does come, an’ you don’t want him, I’m willin’ to help make things hot for him.” As he spoke his face cleared from embarrassment to candor. Before Mary could reply, he was gone.

“What’s matter, Mudder?” Joy asked again.

“Something Joy wouldn’t understand, dear,” Mary hastened to say, shutting her mind against the thought that the child might be taken from her soon. “Run out and watch for the stage. Mother will let you get the mail if you’re good.”

That promise was enough. Joy scampered to the gate at once. Mary sank down into the nearest chair and clung to the sides, as if by so doing she could steady her reeling thoughts. Fate at last was destroying all of her little deceits, forcing a decision which she was not yet ready to make. Wilbur might come any time! All she had believed to the contrary was mere wishful thinking. She was Wilbur’s wife. Wilbur was not the type of man Miss Hills had described. He was vain, weak, negative, but he was not unfaithful. He was returning, but she did not know from where. All she knew was that he had not spent the winter on the reservation. His pride would never allow him to stay where people could point a finger of scorn at him. Mary believed in his pride; it was the only forceful thing about him, the thing that had deceived her into believing that she loved him. Love! Poor defiled word! Poor misquoted symbol! Must she go on inhibiting forever the secret desire of her heart? Life with Wilbur would have as little delight as a purposeless journey over the sands of a vast, colorless desert. She pictured sadly the long procession of the years to come. She had not moved when Joy called in that the stage had arrived and she reminded Mary of her promise.

“Watch till you see Mr. MacDonald go over,” Mary advised the eager little girl. “He waits till the mail is distributed. You may go then.”

Mary tried, by throwing herself busily into her household tasks, to drive from her mind the dread thought of Wilbur’s return, but mechanical duties called for so little concentration that her mind could not shift its harassing burden. The future loomed too dark for her to withdraw the present from its shadow.

How long Joy was gone Mary had no idea. In truth, it took the child’s return to remind Mary of her absence and the letters in her hand of her errand. Joy presented the letters proudly.

“Two, Mudder! ... From Aunt Katharine?”

“One’s from Aunt Katharine,” Mary replied. “The other from New York. H’m! I wonder—”

She slipped the official-looking envelope into her apron pocket and went into the living room. Joy stood by her chair as she perused the letter from Katharine. Short and to the point, it told Mary to expect them that same week. “Next mail stage,” thought Mary.

Joy was delighted with the news, and begged for permission to hold the letter. She examined solemnly the signs that were carriers of such pleasant words. Mary meanwhile opened the other communication. A lawyer, obviously her father’s lawyer, was giving her firsthand the distressing news that her father had suddenly passed away, and that she, joint heir with her stepmother to his estate, had been willed ten thousand dollars, a check for which was enclosed.

Mary was too stunned at first to grasp the truth. She had to reread the letter, to examine the check that was attached with a clip to the typewritten sheet.

“Father! ... Dead!” she said aloud.

“What, Mudder?” asked Joy.

Mary did not reply. Sorrow swept over her for the hard lovelessness of the man to whom she had been only a circumstance of marriage, who tolerated her as a moderately just man tolerates discomforts he has brought upon himself. There had been no abiding love between them. There was nothing from which grief for his partner to her birth could spring. In unemotional regard he had made this settlement on her. She wished sorrowfully that she had known so she could have thanked him before he died. He had said to her once when she thanked him for a Christmas gift, “I can’t stop anniversaries from coming.” She wondered if he would have met her now with, “I can’t stop death overtaking me.”

Ten thousand dollars! It was a fortune to her now. It was wealth. It was power. Ten thousand dollars! To have had it while her father lived — to have had it when Wilbur needed it most! Might it have changed things? ... “She’s holding out on you, tricky Northerner!” Terrible, scathing words that came from the past to torment her! That was what Wilbur had wanted — money!

“Joy, darling, perhaps I can make you happy yet,” Mary cried. “Perhaps all my dark days are behind me now. This may be the beginning of better things.” A taste of salt was on her lips. She was weeping and had not known it. She was crying, yet she did not understand the reason for her tears.

“Yes, Mudder,” said Joy obediently. She came to Mary, alarmed by her distress and worked her way into her lap. This simple token of sympathy was what Mary needed; she accepted it greedily, hugging Joy to her as she repeated between her sobs those alluring promises.

That night, shortly after Joy had been put to bed, Mary heard a heavy step upon the porch followed by a knock. Billy never knocked. Would Wilbur knock if he returned? The very thought of Wilbur paralyzed her. She wanted to call, “Come in,” but her voice failed her. She rose hesitatingly. If, when she opened the door, she should find Wilbur facing her, she knew she would swoon; she could feel all sense of reality slipping away from her now. She made the door; the knob evaded her, but on the second attempt she held on more firmly and the door yielded. Then a cry escaped her. It was John Curry she saw, eager, expectant. Surely someone outside of herself was listening to his words, the girl she was yesterday, perhaps, surely not Mary Newton of today who in a hysteria of dread and fear was waiting for her husband to return. She could only nod as she backed away, inviting him with her eyes to enter. She steadied herself against the table where he came to take her hands and press them hard in his.

“Didn’t expect to come through this early,” she heard him say. “Couldn’t wait. No other excuse. Haven’t you some word for me?”

“I’m — I’m glad to see you,” Mary murmured. “I’m afraid to be so glad.” She raised her eyes imploringly. “Why did I ever tell you to come by in the spring? I’ve been cheating us both with my expectations. I’ve been a creature without strength or decision. Perhaps that is why I am being brought to task at the eleventh hour.”

John’s face bent down to hers. “I don’t understand.”

She saw what he said in his eyes. His face, so beautiful in its rugged strength, was very close. She wanted to caress it. She wanted him to draw closer, she wanted to draw closer to him, to lift her lips for his kisses. She clung to the table with hands that were still numb from his clasp and fought down the mad desire.

“Wilbur’s come back to the reservation,” she said, delivering the announcement in tones as final as her words.

“Wilbur never left the reservation,” John returned quietly.

Mary weighed his remark. It had no meaning. Words — that was all — just words. She felt lightheaded. Her feet were on the ground but she seemed to have to pull at her mind to hold herself steady. “You must be wrong. He went away, but he’s reconsidered. He’s on his way back to me now.”

John was looking at her gravely, tenderly, trying perhaps to read what was taking place behind her imploring eyes.

“Do you want to think that,” he asked, “or do you prefer the truth?”

“Why? Is there something that you know?” parried Mary, conscious that her question was superfluous.

“Wilbur Newton never left the reservation. He’s opened a post at Sage Springs.”

Mary smiled wryly. “That’s awfully strange! Opened a post at Sage Springs? He has no money. No credit. How could he finance a post? Tell me, did you see him at Sage Springs?”

“No, but Beany told me about it. You remember Beany from the Snake Dance trip? And MacDonald knows. He says he wasn’t spreading it because it would be known in Taho soon enough.”

“And Billy knows. That’s what he wouldn’t tell,” said Mary. “He is sparing me. He is kind.” While she spoke she was searching her mind, which rejected and accepted alternately the news Curry had brought and the others substantiated. There was the matter of money. “How could he finance a post?” she repeated to herself. Groping through obscurity, she came upon the idea that Wilbur might have inherited some money of which she knew nothing. It could have happened, as had the unforeseen good fortune which that day had visited her. Besides there was that five-hundred-dollar draft from Texas coming soon after he had left her. He might have taken her change and jewelry because he had no ready cash.

She presented the idea to John. “Perhaps Wilbur has money. Perhaps I was mistaken about his resources.”

Mary sat down then. She had to from sheer weakness. John remained standing. “I received a draft for five hundred dollars in November,” she went on. “It came from Texas. Just a draft. No word. I scoffed at the idea that he had sent it. Now I feel that he must have sent it.”

Because she was looking at John so intently, she saw the confusion which overcame him as she spoke, the way he drew his glance from her as he replied in a tone that was unconvincing, “Anything’s possible.”

In a flash of divination she realized the truth. John Curry was her benefactor! The realization overwhelmed her with exasperation for her stupidity. “Anything is possible but that, is what you mean,” she said bitterly.

“I don’t understand,” he exclaimed, more embarrassed than before.

Mary forced him to look at her. And when their eyes met squarely she returned, “Only this minute it came to me that you sent that draft.”

It seemed at first that he would deny it, but at last with a smile and a nod he confessed. “If you knew how I wanted to help, you wouldn’t hold a little thing like that against me. It’s awkward sometimes when one needs money. I’ve known what it means. If ever a day of need came to you, I wanted you to have a little reserve at hand.”

Mary looked down at her hands for a moment. Then she spoke. “I did need it, not for myself, but for the sick children in the hospital during the influenza epidemic. I cashed the draft. I gave it all away.”

“It was yours to do with as you pleased.”

“No, no! It wasn’t, but I was desperate for the sake of the children.”

Curry strode to the window, then he turned, and coming back to the place he had abandoned he drew up a chair.

“Mary, if the need was so urgent, I would have wanted to help. You did it for me. You’ve made me very happy. You must forgive my blundering ways. Perhaps I am stupid compared to the men you knew in the East; perhaps I’m a fool when it comes to knowing the right thing to do, but you must not be hurt by that. Just try to forgive my blundering ways.”

He was condemning himself. Mary could not stand that. His deed of mistaken kindness had been one of love. She longed to tell him that she understood, but she could only say, “I’m not hurt. In fact, there’s no harm done. I can return the money. I have money now. Today I received word that my father died leaving me a comfortable legacy.”

“I can’t stop here,” she told herself. “I am only hurting him more.” So she floundered recklessly on. “If I had this money long ago things might have been different. And now, who knows, it may not be too late. Wilbur might return if I let him know about it.”

She was filling in time — words, words, words! But when they echoed in her ears, out of their seeming emptiness came a suggestion. Why not send for Wilbur? If money did not bring him back nothing could, and she would know that he had gone from her life forever. The waiting, the fear, the uncertainty would end. She would have to give Wilbur his chance. It was best to force his intentions; if he returned she would resign herself to her lot, and if he did not come — and her longing for John spoke passionately from her heart, “Pray God he won’t” — then there might be happiness for her in the days to come. She was conscious that as she meditated, John was staring at her sharply.

“You would let him know about it?” he asked incredulously.

Mary faced him. “Yes. I want him to know at once. The sooner the better. I want to see how much he cares.... You’ve always declared you wanted to help me. Now is your chance.” Her voice rose hysterically. “Take a letter to Wilbur for me. It will be safe in your keeping. I know it will get to him. I want to be sure that it gets to him.”

John sprang to his feet. “Are you crazy? Are you going to buy that man back?”

How horrible it sounded! Yet it was true. She was trying to buy him back in the hope that she would find she was rid of him forever. No more uncertainty, no more fear! “Yes, since you put it so cruelly,” she said. “If he can be bought, and my purpose is—”

She stopped. John was laughing without mirth. He towered over her, eyes ablaze, lips drawn, a scornful John she had never seen before. “Oh, he’ll be bought all right. You’ll have him back. Husbands — so much per head for the keeping! My God! You! And here I’ve held you in the same reverence I had for my mother. She wouldn’t violate her soul and body that way. Buy back a man whose love is dead, who, God knows, cares only for such bribes as you’re willing to hold out to him now! You’re Mary, are you? My Mary who was with me throughout the lonely watches on the desert, who lived in everything beautiful I saw, who seemed so near perfection that I almost worshiped her! Indeed I am a fool, a blundering fool.... My mistake was only that I made you something that you never were.”

A numbness possessed Mary. Her powers of speech and movement were gone. She was like a person who had witnessed a harrowing play and was waiting for some chance for a happy ending although the final curtain had fallen.

“Write your letter,” the outraged man went on, breaking through her silence. “I’ll take it to him. I don’t go back on my word. If you think that’s the best thing I can do for you, I’ll do it.”

“It will be the last thing,” Mary heard herself say, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

“Very well! I’ll go. I’ll send someone for the letter. I wish you whatever it is you want.”

He had snatched his hat, yet still stood towering before her.

She rose to her feet unsteadily. Her head was high and her blazing eyes gave him no quarter for his angry outburst. But restrained beneath the agony of her resentment was the agony of longing.

He hesitated. He was breathing as if from the effort of violent physical exercise. His eyes were shot with pain. Suddenly he was close upon her, enveloping her in his powerful arms, gathering her in a close embrace. His face loomed over hers, his eyes like darts of flame were burning into hers. She felt her strength give way to his, and flutteringly shut him from her sight. Then came his kisses, hard, demanding, again and again and again. She swayed as he thrust her from him.

“I’ve taken my payment beforehand,” he cried hoarsely. “And now you’ll never see me again.”

She watched him, a blurred object moving toward the door. Then the door slammed. He was gone.

Mary felt the floor sway beneath her. The walls were spinning round. When she reached for the table it seemed to move from her. The flame that had swept over John had consumed her too, with all its devastating power. She called his name, but her anguished cry was wasted on the empty room.

* * * * *

There was no break in the violence that possessed John. He strode down the avenue grinding the sand as he went, his sense of outraged love growing far beyond the bounds of reason. He, who had always been master of his passions, always had obeyed them, now he was their captive. He went straightway to the room at MacDonald’s which he shared with High-Lo. He found the room in grand disarray and High-Lo at the mirror shaving. He flung himself face down on the bed.

“Pack up! We’re moving!” he mumbled.

High-Lo pirouetted, razor suspended in action. “My God! What’s happened to you? Did you get the go-by?”

“I’m going after Newton,” John returned. “I’m to send him back to his wife. She’s been left some money and she wants me to bring him a letter telling him all about it. The money’ll fetch him. She knows it.”

High-Lo flung the razor down, and forgetting the lather on his face came over to John. “Do you mean that straight?”

“It’s true. It’s knocked me for a loop.” Unable to relax, Curry moved to a sitting position. “It means the end of things for me here. I couldn’t stay. I’ll deliver the letter and then we’ll go to Mexico.”

“Mañana land — where there’s nothin’ to do till tomorrer every day of your life ‘cept watch that someone doesn’t spike you in the back.” High-Lo laughed a little grimly. “John, you sure you want to go down there? Doesn’t seem like a place for a man of your ambition.”

“We might make some money in the cattle business,” said Curry, and he rose wearily and began to pace up and down like a lion in too small a cage. “Guess I’m loco, talking about packing tonight,” he said after a while. “Forgot I didn’t get the letter. Go ahead. Shave. Go to your dance. You’ll have to get the letter for me in the morning.”

“Dance be damned! Think I’m goin’ to a dance, do you, when you’re feelin’ like hell? Why don’t you let me go over an’ talk Mrs. Newton out of this thing? Lordy, I can’t imagine anyone wantin’ Newton back after he left without a by-your-leave. Sure she’s not up to payin’ him to stay away? Sure you got the straight of it?”

John halted. “Please keep away from Mrs. Newton. You’ll see her tomorrow morning. And I’m trusting you to say only one thing when you see her — that you’d like that letter Mr. Curry is to deliver for her.” He reached for High-Lo’s arm and swung him around so they stood face to face. “I told you some time ago that Mary Newton was the woman I loved. I was deluding myself then. She isn’t. I never knew her till tonight. I must have been loco. I don’t want to hear her name again. That’s why I’m clearing out.”

High-Lo’s hand fell heavily on John’s shoulder. “Look-a-here, old man. Mebbe I don’t understand all that’s happened. But I know you’re shore kiddin’ yourself now. This stuff about not lovin’ her is all wrong. Don’t I know I can make you mad as blazes an’ have you cussin’ me to hell an’ back, an’ all the time you don’t mean it? Don’t I know that there ain’t a thing I could do that you wouldn’t be overlookin’ soon, no matter how bad it was? Do you think you can make me think that it’s different with this poor girl that got herself hitched to Newton? You’re lovin’ her so damn hard this minute that you’re knocked clear out of yourself.”

Moved by the boy’s earnestness, John turned away. Suppose what High-Lo said were true? It took but a moment’s thought to repudiate the suggestion, and the fierce wrath to possess him again. Why had he forced his embraces if not to show her that he no longer cared?

“You don’t get it,” he cried vehemently. “She’s buying back a man who doesn’t love her. She’s going to live with him. My God! Don’t you know what marriage means?”

“I reckon I do. An’ it’s because you love her that you’re tormentin’ yourself. An’ what kind of a wizard do you think you are anyway to be understandin’ women? Maybe she loves this damn fancy cowboy.”

High-Lo’s final words were staggering to John. “You may be right,” he said. “She may love Newton after all, but — God — to want to buy him back, after he left her flat!”

* * * * *

On the morning of the next day John rode ahead out of town while High-Lo called on Mary Newton. It was the second time he had come to Taho to stay, only to leave abruptly! He thought grimly how in one moment a man’s world could fall in ashes about him, and every prospect change. The desert was a forbidding, desolate place, as unyielding as life itself. It was the burial ground of his hopes. Better to seal off the past quickly. His back to Taho! God! Why were the stars out of reach?

Time seemed interminable before High-Lo appeared.

“Kind of funny the way she took it when I asked her for the letter,” High-Lo said. “It wasn’t writ. She kind of balked a little at first, an’ then set down to the job. Say, she’d be wonderful pretty if she had some color. She’s awful sad-lookin’. Have you ever seen her smile?”

High-Lo handed John the letter with a labored breath that might have been a sigh.

John had no answer for him. He said to himself, pocketing the letter, “The order for my execution.”

CHAPTER XVI

ON THE EVENING of the second day John and High-Lo rode up to Black Mesa post. It seemed deserted, no horses nor cowboys about, no Indians idling near the door. Attracted by a light, they went into the store where they took Mr. Weston by surprise.

“Thought you were in Colorado!” he exclaimed. “What’s the matter? Sheriff drive this kid out?”

“It was a hankerin’ for a holiday that drove us,” said High-Lo. “We’re not lookin’ for work. We’re on our way to God-knows-where.”

Weston looked from one to the other. “Not pullin’ out for good?” he asked in dismay.

John, grasping that High-Lo depended on him to reply, said, “There’s Hicks to take my place if we keep heading south. It’s almost sure we’ll not be back.”

“Oh, come now, ain’t you satisfied here!” ejaculated Mr. Weston. “Wages unsatisfactory? You ought to know you were in for a raise. I’d be treed without you. Hicks is good, but he’s not in your class. Can’t hear of it, John.” Mr. Weston spat his tobacco with a gesture of finality.

John stared through the trading post door over the legions of miles that beckoned him. “Got the wanderlust, partner. I’d like to stay for old times’ sake, but you couldn’t get ten per cent efficiency out of me if I did.”

“You’re ailin’!” declared Weston. “I’m not takin’ you serious. What you need is some of Ma’s home cookin’.” He went to the door and called, “Hey, Ma! Fix up for John and High-Lo. They’ve come to stay.”

Mrs. Weston’s voice carried across the yard, “It’s sure fine to have my boys home. Glad they didn’t wait the month. Bring them in right away.”

“Better be moving over,” was Weston’s laconic comment after John had exhausted his protests.

High-Lo lifted his pack to comply. “Things dead right now, are they?” he asked.

“Indians not buyin’ so well. They sure dug themselves in while I was away, accordin’ to Beany. It don’t seem that Sage Springs post should hurt me any. But something’s wrong.”

“Bad winter? Indians had the flu up this way?” John queried.

“No. Flu didn’t get this far.”

“Heard about it and were scared, I’ll bet,” John added.

“I don’t know!” Weston replied speculatively. “Can’t get to the bottom of it. Remember Magdaline? She’s here. Come in a couple of days ago. Seemed to have gotten around this part of the reservation a lot this winter. Talked to her about the loss of trade and she says in the funniest way, ‘You don’t keep the right sort of stuff, Hosteen Weston.’ Then she wouldn’t say nothin’ more. Newton can’t have in any better stock than I have. I’ve always treated the Indians fair. But he’s sure tradin’ in on rugs an’ silver, an’ even sheep, awful fast.”

What was a mystery to Weston was plain as day to John. Liquor brought the trade. Magdaline was enough Indian to keep their wretched secret. Her scorn for the white man, he figured, must have increased a hundredfold.

Mr. Weston had forgotten his impulse to go at once to the house. “Could you size the situation up if I sent you over to Sage Springs?” he asked, biting off a fresh chew of tobacco.

Before High-Lo could admit that they had intended to go there, John quickly replied that they would ride out in the morning.

“Newton’s hard to get talkin’ — not over sociable,” Weston explained.

“See if you can get a meal from him. Jolly him up about the place. Make him wag that stiff tongue of his. You can pretend I sent you over to see Magdaline’s uncle. He’s promised rugs to me this long while. But don’t say nothin’ to Hosteen Athlata about Magdaline’s bein’ sick. She’s in a bad way. Looks husky enough. But she fainted yestiddy an’ sure scared hell out of the missus. She’s hankerin’ to go to Flaggerston now, right when the missus would be glad for company. She’d make a good hand for the summer. But if she’s made up her mind there’s none of us can hold her. Now maybe a word from you, John—”

John accepted the recommendation with a roar. “No, sir! Don’t count on me!” And thinking it best to change the scene as well as the subject of conversation, he led the way out of the post.

Nothing Weston had said could have prepared John for the shock he received when he saw Magdaline. Attired in Navaho garb which she had vowed never to assume, her figure showed such ample development from the slim creature of a half-year ago that John at first could not believe it was she. And her face, once the register of every emotion that swayed her, now was somber, masklike. If she was surprised or pleased to see him, she concealed the fact. She offered her hand and said, “I hope you are well.”

John replied awkwardly that he was. He was wishing as he spoke that the Magdaline of old could be restored to displace this strange aloof creature, barren of the fire of youth. Had the walls of her canyons crushed her as she feared they would? Was this the manifestation of her doom?

“High-Lo still grows,” she said with only a nod for him.

She did not join the boys at the table where Mrs. Weston had laid a meal of vegetable stew and coffee and a pie of generous proportions, yet John felt her eyes upon him as they passed into the dining room.

He encountered her later on the ridge where he wandered, the victim of a strange restlessness. They met suddenly behind a hillock against which she was crouching.

John exclaimed aloud, and she shrank from him as if his cry had been a blow.

“You frightened me,” John said. “I thought you had gone to your room. So did Mrs. Weston.”

“It is better here,” she said, “but even the desert stifles me now.”

“You are not well, I hear, Magdaline. Is something troubling you? Is it because you are still so unhappy?”

“It is nothing to you,” she retorted, turning away. “I go away tomorrow to Flaggerston.”

“So Mrs. Weston tells me. She’s sorry. She thinks you are in no fit condition to travel.”

She made an impatient gesture. “I understand my condition. I will be well traveling slowly. I am saying good-by to the hills as I go and mocking the prayer rocks of my people for the last time.”

“You don’t mean — you’re so sick — that you feel you—” He spoke stammeringly and could not finish.

“I am going away forever. You mean death? No. I think it must be good to die. Then you do not stifle like I have been for weeks. Your breath and your mind go out like fire. Then you are cool ash without flame. But I cannot die now. I am two fires ... a baby. And I am not married.”

“My God!” muttered John.

Magdaline raised the masklike oval of her face to him. It was very dark, very stolid there in the shadow, and her eyes were listless, much like blackened glass.

“Yes. It is terrible. I cannot help that I have done what is done. Sand cannot help moving when a great wind blows behind it. I have been just as helpless as the sand. But I am thinking after it is done. That is what is terrible. The poor baby that does not ask to be born is going to have a spirit that will make it suffer. I have wished myself never to have been born. Sometimes I think I can save it by killing it — killing us both. That would not be like dying.”

More alarming than her words was her lack of emotion. It was as if she had lost the power to feel, had become insensible to everything and everyone.

“That seems the easiest way when hope is gone,” John said after a minute’s reflection. “But has hope gone entirely?” He was questioning himself as well as Magdaline. “Going through life is something like riding a deep canyon where the light seldom shines. It is a strange canyon with unexpected turns and insurmountable walls and cross-canyons, boxed completely from the light. I suppose when we hit the closing wall of one of these box canyons it looks like the end and we want to beat our life out there. Sometimes by accident, sometimes by design, we feel our way out into the place where the light comes through at times, and we go on down that way because farther on there may be a way out into that light. Don’t you want to struggle on a little longer, Magdaline? I’m boxed in at present myself, in a canyon as dark as hell, but I’m feeling around for the way out.”

The girl stirred a little from her apathy. “You, John Curry, who are so good? I do not understand.”

“I’m more deserving of trouble than you, Magdaline. It is only your own kindness that makes you see me so good. The worst in me is seething right now.” He paused a minute, reflecting on her case. “Why do you go to Flaggerston?” he asked after his brief silence. “Why not stay in Taho? Dr. Kellogg will take care of you.”

“I have a little sister in Taho at school. She must not know what is to happen. No one must know here in the desert because—” A feeble note of feeling had come into her voice, and she turned away.

“Because?” John encouraged her gently.

She looked at him imperturbable once more. “Do not ask me.”

Another silence fell between them, which she presently broke.

“In Flaggerston I have a friend. She married a Mexican who works on the railroad. I can go to her and she will not tell. Then maybe the missionary will send me back to Riverside or to Los Angeles. I will be a servant for white people. Maybe another box canyon, Mr. John.”

John was deeply disturbed. “You’ll need money. You can’t leave the desert penniless, face your trouble without funds.”

She lifted her arms. “There are my bracelets. I will sell them when it is necessary.”

“What they’d bring won’t last long. Let me help you.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re both looking for the light, Magdaline.”

She shrugged her shoulder slightly, giving him a faint reminder of her former self.

“I’m leaving early tomorrow morning,” he went on. “You say you will leave tomorrow. God knows when I’ll be in Flaggerston again. If you don’t make up your mind by morning to let me help, perhaps I never can. Will you tell me by morning?”

“I will not be able to look at you in the light of day. I do not mind the darkness. It hides us both.”

“Then let me make up your mind for you. After you are in Flaggerston a while, call at the post office for a letter. There’ll be money in it.” John took a small purse from his pocket and counted out fifteen dollars. “Meanwhile take this.”

Magdaline pushed it back into his hand. “I should have said before I have fifty dollars. Someone who knows gave it to me.”

“I thought no one knew.”

“One other must know besides me,” she said significantly. “I told him. He can’t marry me. So I got paid. Fifty dollars instead of marriage.”

“You need better protection than that,” John said, with the fire of hate for the unnamed man leaping through his blood. “Look for the letter in Flaggerston.”

“You, too, are in trouble. I cannot help you,” she said stubbornly.

The subject having so firmly been closed, John suggested that Magdaline return with him to the house. “You should,” he insisted. “It will be very cold here presently.”

“I won’t feel it,” was her response. “Go yourself. Walk as you would if you had not found me here. I will return when the house is dark.”

Her command gave him no alternative, so he left. His desire to walk, he found, was gone. Magdaline seemed to fill the desert by her presence and crowded him out. He joined the others and spent the evening listening to Mr. Weston’s tales of the late eighties.

That night John lay awake hours after High-Lo had, in rapturous exhaustion, flung his arms wide and found immediate repose. He could not reconcile himself to the fact that the last lap of his journey to Sage Springs would terminate within another day. Mary came to him, Newton came to him, Magdaline came to him; and when he finally did fall asleep, he dreamed of all three and of the Indian who had wronged Magdaline, and Newton appeared serving liquor to them all, and Mary drank, too, while she rocked an Indian baby on her knees. He woke in a horror of fatigue.

While they were dressing, John cautioned High-Lo to pack light for the trip, as they might have to pack blankets on their return to Black Mesa. They would not have to linger for information. Once the letter was delivered, he could tell Weston that Newton no longer would be a menace to his trade, for Newton soon would be gone.

“What I’m packin’ goes on me,” replied High-Lo.

Looking his way, John saw him buckling on his cartridge belt. “You won’t need that,” he cautioned.

“Never take a long ride without it,” High-Lo rejoined. “Snakes in this country. Once a couple of the varmints cut my horse up some. But it’s not real rattlers I’m afraid of. I’m packin’ against the day when I meet one that don’t give me warnin’!”

They built a fire and cooked their own breakfast. Before they had finished, Weston came in half-dressed and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He went out to the corral with them. It was not yet dawn, only cold, blue-gray light and lusterless stars.

“You’re sure takin’ my wishes hard,” Weston protested. “Didn’t mean for you to get out this early.”

“Want to ride in this afternoon,” said High-Lo. “Gives us time to look things over and get our invitation for the night.”

John said, “We’ll spend about ten minutes at Sage Springs, and we’ll sleep on the desert tonight. Which side of Sage Springs will we find Magdaline’s uncle?”

“Ten miles to the north from the post near some of them worked-out prehistoric caves. Messy-lookin’ hogan. Worst around. But his wife sure can weave blankets.”

They rode away from the rift in the sky where day was breaking. The horses, glad to quicken their blood, broke into a steady trot. Black Mesa valley was bathed in amber light. Through it a lavender haze showed over the corrugated ramparts of the mesa, and ahead blue peaks were overlaid with a sheath of gold; and circling the horizon came a wave of pink that soon receded under the full blaze of sunlight.

“An’ you’re thinkin’ of leavin’ it,” High-Lo ejaculated.

“The sun rises other places,” said John. He was thinking of the legions of unexplored miles in the heart of Mexico.

“But not like it rises on Arizona. I’d rather be buried here than livin’ most places. You sure you want to go away down there? Sure you want to give that letter to Newton today?”

“It’s what she wants that counts with me.”

“She don’t know what she wants. She’s afraid of what she wants, bein’ such a nice girl. ‘Cause on the outside, folks not understandin’, it don’t look so good. What’s more, there’s no girl takin’ an Indian kid to raise who ain’t tryin’ hard to do right about things.”

John hitched to one side of his saddle. “What’s that about an Indian kid?”

“Sure. She’s got a kid around the house. Kid calls her Ma. MacDonald was tellin’ me she saved the kid dyin’ in the hospital an’ then takes her home to cure well an’ is keepin’ her.”

Strangely John felt himself driven to talk about Mary, even though to think kindly of her would be his downfall. “I thought I asked you not to mention Mrs. Newton again,” he said.

“My memory never was much good,” High-Lo returned blandly. “One thing sticks. That’s what Hanley done to me an’ my horse. If I’m seein’ you through your fool business, I reckon it’s up to you to see me through mine. I want Hanley. I’m not exactly hankerin’ to kill him. Want to beat him up good an’ wrap him in his own bobwire. I don’t leave for Mexico till that’s done.”

“That may mean waiting around a month. I’d have to go on without you.”

“What’s a month? Want Hanley to go on breakin’ down the Navahos an’ makin’ ’em poor on liquor? If you think Mrs. Newton ain’t worth savin’ from her husband, is she worth savin’ from what he’s done? Is it worth hurtin’ the Indians who’ve been mighty damn decent to you?”

John’s irritability increased. Truth driven home was not pleasant to him in his present mood. “Go your own way if you’re not satisfied with mine,” he muttered.

“Not while you need lookin’ after,” High-Lo returned. “I was always dependent on you. Now things is changed.”

Down into canyons and washes, up over rocky ridges, through cedars and junipers they rode, sometimes in single file, sometimes together, the sun mounting higher and taking away the chill of morning.

CHAPTER XVII

FROM FIVE DIRECTIONS trails led to Sage Springs post. Not an Indian was in sight along them, a strange coincidence, considering that it was late afternoon when trade should have reached its height.

“Business is poor everywhere,” thought John.

The adobe shack, once the home of a visionary oil prospector, was small for its present use. A poorly lettered sign above the door jutted on either side beyond the width of the shack like a windmill fan. The prospector, favoring alike the distance to the spring and his well, had built the shack halfway between them. So it stood barren, forlorn, against the leaning wall of a low mesa. Almost it was forbidding, as if disease lurked menacingly behind its door. From a distance the door appeared closed. Riding closer, John saw that it was. Moreover, it was barred.

“What do you make of it?” asked High-Lo.

“Don’t know. Indians not coming, it looks queer. Wonder if he’s away?”

They rode up and peered in the windows. The place was deserted yet neat enough inside, with what scant provisions were visible arrayed on counter and shelves. Rugs, draped over a wire, cut off a corner of the one-room shack. Newton’s private quarters, no doubt.

“That’s a piece of bad luck for you!” said John in disgust.

“Maybe he’s not far off,” High-Lo suggested.

“See what we can find out from the Indians over at the Springs. They may know something.”

They wheeled their horses and rode a mile down the mesa and around a promontory that hid a green oasis from view. Several hogans were clustered around cornfields and in the shade of cottonwoods. A pinto pony, ears up, watched their coming. A dog barked at them from the edge of a field. That brought an Indian to the door of the nearest hogan. He was a young fellow whom John recognized as a returned schoolboy. He waited to be approached.

John rode up to him. “Can you tell me if Newton’s likely to be back to the post today? It seems to be shut up.”

“It is,” said the boy. “Hosteen Newton’s gone away.”

“How long is he gone?”

“Yesterday.”

“When will he be back?”

“Maybe so after the Indian dance.”

“Dance?” repeated John. “We haven’t heard of any dance down at Black Mesa.”

“Indians don’t tell. Don’t want Hosteen Weston to come. Don’t want any white people.”

“How is it Newton’s going?” John rejoined.

The boy grunted disdainfully.

“They like his whisky — eh?” John went on.

His remark drew keen attention from the boy.

“You come for whisky?”

John tried to avoid a direct answer. “Like some yourself?” he asked.

High-Lo drew up alongside.

Scornfully the Indian continued to look at both questioner and newcomer.

“No! Pete is no fool. Pete hate the whisky because it make his father foolish. Where go the sheep, one today and one tomorrow? Pay for whisky! Hosteen Newton get rich. Pete’s father get poor. Maybe you got money for pay for whisky.”

“We don’t want whisky,” said John. “We want to stop Newton selling it.”

The Indian fixed a penetrating gaze upon him. “Stop Hosteen Newton? How you stop him?”

“Make him go away.”

“Then come other man.”

“What other man?” asked John, reaching to uncover the intrigue suggested by the boy.

“Pete don’t know him. Pete see him two time with Hosteen Newton.”

“Here?”

“No. Far away in canyon.”

“Never see him here?”

“No.”

“Ever see him alone anywhere?”

“Once far away in canyon.”

“Same canyon?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Last moon. Other dance.”

“Was this other man at the dance?”

“No.”

“Big man, is he? This way big?” John described girth and an expansive abdomen. “Bowlegged like some of the cowboys. Legs so?” John described circular lines with his fingers.

“Yes.”

“I know the man. We’ll send him away too.”

“Most Indians want Hosteen Newton to stay. Like Hosteen Newton for sell them whisky. Damn fool Indians!”

“You bet!” broke in High-Lo. Aside to John he said, “Plain what’s goin’ on here. They’ve been operatin’ right along. Let me nail Hanley if he’s around. Can’t you see what he’s doin’ to these poor beggars, an’ keepin’ under cover all the time? Newton’s the tool!”

“When’s this Indian dance coming off?” resumed John.

“Maybe four days, five days. Indians come long way.”

“I see,” John reflected aloud. “They’ve only begun to gather.”

“Can you take us to the canyon where you saw Newton and this man?” he asked.

“You find him, you send him away?”

“We’ll chase them both, Pete!”

The boy gave a grunt of satisfaction. “Maybe take gun?”

“No, leave your gun home.”

The Indian disappeared into the hogan for a moment, returned with a rope, and strode off for the pony.

“We shore walked into it!” ejaculated High-Lo. “If we can’t find ’em before the dance, we’ll find Newton, anyway, at the dance. Hanley won’t be far away. Makin’ tracks for Gallup, I reckon. Newton we can get shore and quick. Hanley we’ll follow.”

“In either instance, no shooting!”

“Unless someone draws. That makes it different,” High-Lo said.

They took their horses to water in a pool below the spring where presently the Indian, Pete, joined them.

“We go long way around mesa,” he said, a sweeping movement of his arm directing them to wheel their horses northward. Then he pointed somewhere close to the direction of the post and added, “That way Indians go to dance. I will show you how to hide from them.”

A whip cracked. Pinto and rider shot past John and High-Lo, demonstrating the pace they must follow, and though their horses were tired they had to be pushed, for Pete was head of the outfit. He kept close under the promontory wall where they were safest from detection, holding his horse to the lope at which he had started. After a long while he reined in. Then John and High-Lo caught up.

“When dark come we cross valley,” he said as they rode alongside. “Moon come soon. We cross valley before moon come. Camp in mouth of canyon. Nobody see you. Water, too. Maybe little feed.”

It was gratifying to John that Pete had some thought for the horses. According to what he said, they would have to hurry to reach the crossing point before dark, and then, if possible, push right on without a stop. John studied the prospect. He was mistaken about the uplands opposite. They did not meet this mesa. The queer winding of the promontory they had followed had deceived him from a distance. They led five miles on, to the westward, almost parallel to the other mesa. Ten miles at least separated them. The Indian knew his country and would expedite travel for them. They kept their horses moving fast. After a while shadows began to creep upward and outward; the sun was setting. Gold light and red light merged into amber and violet, then faded to gray. Fragrance of sage and cedar freshened on a breeze. The air grew so cold that the heat of a fast-driven horse became desirable.

When they met the valley trail John insisted that they rest their horses a while. However, on the strength of the Indian’s prediction that it took a couple of hours to cross the lonesome expanse of desert, they cut the rest time short.

The moon rose before they reached the mesa, but they escaped its aisle of light in the shadow not yet encroached upon. Before them loomed another wall above which arched the sky with its field of stars.

The shadowy forms of horse and Indian moving ahead beckoned the two white men onward. Suddenly the two were lost to sight. They had gone around an escarpment which John soon realized formed an apron-like turn to the mouth of a canyon. Rounding it, he came onto a bench thick with cedars, and then he saw that there were two levels; below where a narrow ribbon of water glistened was the basin. Pete had dismounted. Manifestly this was to be their camp site.

The Indian gathered wood for a fire while John and High-Lo unpacked and unsaddled the horses. What they needed for comfort was a roaring fire, but for concealment’s sake they built only a small one against the windward wall of a cave. Frugal provisions made necessary a light meal. Luckily the urge to sleep was stronger than the urge to eat. When at last John stretched out, his saddle pillowed under his head, a blanket drawn close around him, he sank quickly into the perfect oblivion of sleep.

With morning came reality. He was on a hunt for Newton to deliver a letter. Yesterday at this time he had thought the mission would be over by nightfall. He felt as if his courage were waning and imagined with melancholy satisfaction that he was as uncertain in purpose as Mary.

They dispatched camp tasks quickly and got an early start. John and High-Lo rode at some distance behind the Indian, who went slowly up the canyon, looking for tracks. As they progressed, the canyon floor widened, the yellow walls rose higher, the notched corners grew denser with sage and cedar.

“If we don’t find them up here,” said High-Lo, “we’ll move right along to the dance. Newton’ll be there, shore.”

John did not feel sure of anything except that he wanted to get the business over as quickly as possible and hurry away. Instinctively he kept studying the sandy trail and the bare patches of ground for tracks. Several times the Indian led down into the deep wash, crossed the thin strip of water with its treacherous quicksand bottom, and up slopes of soft red earth where the horses labored.

They arrived at length at the opening of the canyon, a wide impressive level, where several other canyons intersected with the main one. These great red gates in the walls yawned mysteriously. The soft gray sage flats and the clumps of green-gray cedars on the slopes began to give color and charm to the bare main canyon.

About the center of this oval the Indian ran across a single track, coming from the west. It turned into one of the intersecting canyons. The track was fresh, and the depth of the impression it made in the sand attested to a heavily burdened horse.

This canyon was narrow and deep, high-walled and curving, and it was choked with sections of fallen cliff and patches of oak and cedar groves. A dry stream bed wound tortuously through the canyon; here and there holes in the smooth rock bottom showed the green gleam of water.

John saw several old horse tracks, of different sizes, made at varying times. They had been made by Indian horses. John thought it best to hold their Indian guide with them and to proceed cautiously. The nature of the trail was such that hoofs made no noise. It would be best to surprise Hanley and Newton, and even then he did not anticipate a cordial welcome. They had selected one of the wildest canyons John had ever seen — something quite unexpected, considering its entrance to the main canyon.

They rode for another mile, under beetling walls, through thick green groves, around sharp corners of the canyon wall, along the brink of a deep sandy wash. Once the Indian raised a quick hand implying he had detected something. But he rode on without comment. Soon after that John’s keen nose caught a hint of cedar smoke in the dry air of the canyon. Then they rode round a corner of the wall into a small beautiful glade, backed by a precipitous cliff, under a shelf of which showed camp and fire, horses in the shade, and two men suddenly transfixed in an attitude of surprise.

Hanley had been in the act of opening a bottle of liquor. He bristled. He glared. Newton turned as white as a sheet, and edged behind Hanley, toward the horses.

“That’ll be about close enough,” called Hanley, harshly, when John and his companions reached the center of the small glade. “What’n hell do you want?”

“I want to see Newton, and I’ve got a little straight talk for you,” replied John, bluntly, as his quick gaze took in the evidence of the damning guilt of the hidden camp.

“Wal, he doesn’t want to see you, an’ I’m not hearin’ any kind of your talk,” returned Hanley, sullenly.

“You’ll both have to,” said John calmly.

“Get out of here!” bellowed Hanley, savagely.

John rode ahead of his companions, finding it hard to comply with the rigid rules he had set for himself. This was decidedly not the way to meet a man like Hanley. But Newton, slinking still farther toward the horses, roused only his contempt.

“Hold on, Newton,” called Curry, his voice hard and cutting from the restraint he was putting upon himself. And as he halted, and swung his leg around to dismount, he saw Hanley furiously level a gun and yell. John dodged even before he saw the spurt of flame. The heavy bullet hit him, high in the shoulder, staggering him so that, as his horse plunged and wheeled, he could not regain his stirrup. The horse leaped into a run, carrying John while he swayed out of the saddle. Then he fell heavily to the ground.

He sat up in time to see the Indian disappear frantically down into the wash. Heavy shots drew John’s attention toward the camp. High-Lo’s horse was running into the brush, while High-Lo stood out in the open, a smoking gun in his hand. The shooting had ceased. John got to his feet, putting an instinctive hand on the hot wet wound in his shoulder. Then he saw Hanley stagger out from the shelter of the cliff and fall face forward on the sand.

High-Lo strode forward, looked down on Hanley a moment, then turned to run toward John. Manifestly he was overjoyed to see him on his feet.

“John! Lordy, I hope you ain’t hurt bad,” he exclaimed, and began to tear John’s shirt from his shoulder. He ran a finger into the wound. “Not deep. Didn’t get the bone. You’re lucky. That damn skunk. He let you walk right up to him.... John, I told you what Hanley was.... Wal, whatever he was, he ain’t now!”

“Did you kill him?” asked John.

“I shore did. An’ I’m sorry I didn’t before he plugged you.... John, let’s go up by the camp an’ I’ll wash an’ tie up this bullet hole, best I can. But you ought to get back to the post pronto an’ have it dressed proper.”

“Newton beat it, didn’t he!”

“Guess he’s miles away buryin’ himself in dust. The yellow dog!”

“And I’m stuck with that letter,” said John. Using his left hand he drew it out to satisfy himself of its presence.

“Blood on it now,” remarked High-Lo.

John’s thumbprint showed in red.

“I can’t deliver it in person, that’s sure,” John declared. “Newton’ll never let me get within talking distance. Say, what became of the Indian?”

A rustle in the brush answered John’s question. Pete slipped through, looking about cautiously.

“You say no gun!” he protested.

“Well, I wasn’t figuring very good,” said John. “I guess you’re the hombre with the sense in this outfit, High-Lo. I must be getting softening of the brain.”

“You’ll have worse if we don’t get out of here.”

“But the letter!” John persisted. Then after a moment’s rumination he said, “Pete can take it. It’s the letter, Pete, that will send Newton away from Sage Springs to Taho where he belongs. There’s ten dollars in it for you when you get back to your hogan. Call for it at Black Mesa. I’ll leave it with Weston. Newton’s got to be back in Taho before you get it. Sabe?”

“No gun!” said Pete.

High-Lo laughed. “Gun? Didn’t you see Newton bolt like a scared calf? Run him down till he’s tired. Then he’ll stand still and moo at you. Take Hanley’s gun. See it there? An’ throw it away if you find you don’t need it.”

“Pete go now. Maybe quick catch him.”

He picked up the gun, kicked the soles of Hanley’s boots with a grunt of satisfaction, then mounted and rode away.

It took only a cursory study of the camp to show why the men had been struck with fear. The seat from which Newton had sprung in such haste was a partly opened case of liquor. Hanley had laid out an array of bottles. It began to dawn on John that they had diluted and rebottled the stuff, thus cheating the Indians two ways.

“All ready for the dance,” said John.

High-Lo relieved himself of a few extravagant expletives as he set about to wash John’s wound.

The shoulder burned with a savage heat, and John winced under the treatment. As soon as that duty was done, High-Lo ripped open the case of liquor and smashed the bottles.

“I’m sure cured of the stuff if I can do this,” he said with a sheepish grin. “No Indians goin’ to get the d.t.’s on this. Let the layout explain Mr. Hanley’s finish if anyone gets too curious. Bet the Indians won’t go talkin’ none.”

John’s mind was wandering from the scene. “She’ll never know about this,” he was thinking. “Pete’ll get him. He’ll go back. It’s all over. Now for Black Mesa. Then Mexico.”

* * * * *

They were back at Black Mesa again with a story of a scuffle with Newton and assurance for Weston that the Sage Springs trade would no longer corrupt his. They made light of the shooting incident, mentioning a pal of Newton’s but giving no name.

Thirty-six hours of pain and mental stress conspired to make John hopelessly wretched. He was hungry, yet when he touched food it nauseated him. His wound throbbed, yet he pretended it bothered him very little. Everyone wanted to do something for him. He was ashamed that he resented their interest. His irritation was greater than his will to resist it. His blood boiled without relief.

High-Lo, he noticed, would not let him out of his sight. With an effort to appear as well as he claimed to be, John sat in the living room with a book open before him. Pete, Newton, Mary were living and moving on the black spotted page.... Newton had the letter.... Mary was bringing him back. ... A couple of days and he’d be there. Suppose she already had regretted sending for him? He scoffed at the idea and fell to thinking about Mexico. Desert, cactus, heat. That’s all Mexico meant while his wound throbbed so. “God!” he ejaculated to himself trying to conquer a strange dizziness.

He heard Mrs. Weston. “Magdaline left a letter for you, John. Better give it to you before I forget.”

The letter was near at hand in the table drawer. “There!” she said, tossing it on his book. “Magdaline always worshiped you, John. Poor child! Nobody can do anything with her. I tried my best. The way she went smack back to being Indian was a caution. But that didn’t last. Now she wants the cities again. She’ll never be satisfied.”

Magdaline! He thought of the felicitousness of the name. Then contrary to an impulse not to bother with the letter at the moment, he slashed it open. Her writing to him irritated him. Then he remembered that he had asked her for her address. This was more than an address; it was a lengthy letter. He scanned it. She reminded him of their talk, particularly of his comparison of life to a canyon, saying she could feel her way to the light if only someone strong like John could help her. He was so wise and brave. She was so foolish and cowardly. She had faith, she confessed, in nothing but him. Would he who believed in God pray for her who believed only in him? Maybe then the power she could not comprehend would help her.

She gave no address.

“Poor girl! Poor Magdaline!” he said to himself. “She thinks I’m wise and brave. I was really preaching to myself when I talked to her. She gave no address! What is she going to do? She’s an exile, too. Both of us are exiles. Wonder where she is? Wonder why she didn’t leave her address. Who’ll take care of her? God! The men who will lay in wait! Nothing but an Indian, that’s what they’ll think. Maggots! She needs affection. She needs protection. I’m the only one she believes in. Why can’t I help her? Why am I looking around for something to do to distract me when the job’s right here — here riding the same saddle. She’s an exile, too. I could take her away. Marry her, of course. Who cares in Mexico? Squaw man? What of it? Intelligent, educated woman. Nothing compared to Mary Newton’s sacrifice. So she was going right on out leaving no address, was she?”

His head throbbed. His blood beat through fevered veins. He got up and went out and High-Lo followed him.

“You look like the devil. Why don’t you go to bed?” High-Lo protested.

“I will presently. Got to get some sleep. We’re off tomorrow.”

“You’re off all right now — in the head!”

“I’ve got to get to Flaggerston and find Magdaline.”

John felt High-Lo’s arm gently embracing his left shoulder.

“You’re right plucky, John. But a little fever’s got you an’ you ought to give in to it. You forget we’re goin’ to Mexico, old man. A feller’d think you had gurgled some of that stuff we found yesterday.”

Feeling High-Lo turning him, John resisted forcefully.

“Hold on a bit. Let me tell you what’s on my mind. Then I’ll go to bed.... When we came through here a few days ago Magdaline told me she was in trouble. A baby. See? She’s desperate. It would break your heart to hear her. I might have done more to help her when she was here last summer if I wasn’t so set on my own affairs. I was the one person she poured her heart out to. I saw her walking right straight for trouble and never stopped her. She didn’t understand herself. But I understood her and I should have been more kind. I feel sort of to blame. I was short, I remember. She said she loved me. Told me straight. She writes that she still loves me. I’m going to look her up in Flaggerston and marry her. There will be three of us going to Mexico.”

High-Lo’s arm fell away. “I’ve had crazy ideas in my time,” he said, “but none like that. You’re more than sittin’ in my place, I’ll say! You’re not goin’ to marry Magdaline! You’re plumb crazy!”

Dizziness returned to John. “Oh, yes, I am,” he said in a voice more weak than calm.

He felt his way unsteadily back into the living room. Mrs. Weston looked up as he entered. “Bed for mine,” he said, summoning a little cheeriness to his voice. “Good night, folks.”

Hearing High-Lo’s footsteps behind him he quickened his pace down the hall. Once in his room he quickly shut the door and turned the key to lock it. The handle was shaken ferociously and there followed a bang on the door.

“Let me in,” called High-Lo. “I want to dress that wound.”

“It was dressed an hour ago,” John returned.

“Three hours ago! It needs another. Let me in.”

John sank down on a chair wearily. “No use to bang, High-Lo. I want to be left alone. Go to bed yourself. See you in the morning.”

The more High-Lo swore, coaxed, pleaded, the more John’s determination against letting him in grew. High-Lo was carrying his role of guardian too far. After all, he was only a kid.

By the time John had struggled out of his clothes, High-Lo’s arguments and patience were exhausted. His good night was a rain of blows on the door followed by the sound of retreating footsteps. Satisfied that the boy had given up, John got into bed.

He awakened before dawn with the memory of interrupted sleep, of the ride of the day before, of High-Lo’s dismay last night. What was it about? Events returned in order. Magdaline! Strange he had forgotten! Why, he had decided to marry her! At first he was alarmed at the thought. Three of them going to Mexico — two of them exiled! Three not going if High-Lo knew it! Well, he must not know. The only way to outwit him was to go to Flaggerston without him.

John was out of bed in a flash. Pain drummed in his shoulder. He dressed stealthily, using his one free hand. Once he was dressed, he brought up a chair to the high window to enable him to climb out. He struck his wound in his descent, which brought an involuntary cry to his lips. Dogs barked. Fortunately for him, they had barked once before during the night and even more violently.

Supported by his knees and one arm he crawled below the windows to the front of the house. There he straightened and strode swiftly away. The dogs came to him, tails wagging. They followed him to the corral where he saddled one of Mr. Weston’s horses, downing the voice that reminded him that such a taken-for-granted loan came close to horse-stealing. His own horse was worn. He could not make the trip. John planned to ride hard.

The morning was cold. John’s mount answered promptly to the spur. He seemed to feel the desperation that possessed his rider. They were only a few miles from the pass when the sun came up, but from there on the journey was to be retarded by many an upward climb. During the ride to the pass John suffered no indecision of purpose. The flight was the thing. He had pledged himself to a cause and he would take what came. He could not turn back now!

He measured the trip in his mind. He would camp beyond Castle Mesa that night, many miles beyond Taho the next night, and reach Flaggerston by noon the next day. His horse’s hoofs beat, his wound beat, his heart beat. His mind no longer planned; it was blank to thought. He was conscious only of sounds and feelings and the passing scene: the beat, beat, beat — of hoofs, wound, heart — the miles, miles, miles — mountains, valleys, walls.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE DAY AFTER Katharine and Alice had arrived, Mary awoke with a feeling that she must fly from them. Alone with Katharine the night before she had been unable to confide in her friend the recent harrowing events, and her failure she accepted as a judgment against herself which Katharine would surely comprehend. The letter was on its way to Wilbur. Revocation now was impossible. If she tried to look fearlessly at the future she was conscious only of pretense, conscious that she was false to the man she loved, to the man she had married and to herself. John’s denunciation had left its deadly mark. She told herself that she must forget him, but the frequency with which she repeated the injunction was proof to her honest self that she could not. She did love him. Yet Wilbur was coming — perhaps today. “No, no!” she cried fiercely, cringing before the impending event.

When she called Joy to dress, the child, with eyes of love, saw at once that she was not herself. “Mudder sick! Poor Mudder!” she said. Then she whispered innocently, “Mudder not so glad she was Aunt Katharine come?”

It was obvious that Joy was glad Aunt Katharine had come. Anyone who could produce so fair a vision as Alice was to Joy a generous friend, and that fate was most beneficent which had brought both gift and giver as companions to her home.

That day was destined to be full for Joy; when Mary went to work she was left in care of Alice and Katharine. Mary’s day, on the contrary, was long and wearisome. Time and again her conscience smote her because she should have warned the girls that Wilbur might appear at any time, and not have led them to believe that they were to continue with her. She hurried home straightway at the close of her working hours.

From a distance Mary descried a figure on the porch step, and thinking it was Katharine she hurried along. A nearer view disclosed an Indian girl as alert and motionless as a statue. She rose as Mary turned in at the gate.

Mary was impressed by the sadness of the girl’s face. “Young enough to be a schoolgirl,” she said to herself. She smiled and nodded to her visitor.

“Are you Mrs. Newton who takes care of my sister Joy?” the girl asked.

“I am Mrs. Newton,” replied Mary. “I understood Joy had a sister. You’re from Sage Springs, are you?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve come to see Joy — not to take her from me, I hope.”

The girl gave a quaint gesture of denial with swift eloquent fingers. “I shall not take her home. I came to thank you for your kindness to her. I learned about it in the village. The Indians think you are very wonderful. At Sage Springs we would have known late if she had died, without knowing even that she was sick, they tell me. I was much surprised to find she was not at the school.”

“Did you knock? Is there no one in?” asked Mary.

“No one answered when I knocked.”

“Won’t you come in now? Joy must be away on a walk with friends who are visiting me. You look tired. If you arrived today, I don’t wonder. That’s a long trip. Perhaps you’ll have some tea with me.”

“Thank you,” said the girl.

She followed Mary into the house.

“You’ll be comfortable there,” said Mary, designating Wilbur’s armchair.

The girl gave Mary a scarcely perceptible smile as she took the proffered place.

“And what is your name?” asked Mary.

“Magdaline,” came the reply.

“That’s a beautiful name,” said Mary and added to herself that there was something infinitely sad about it, like her face.

“You have been to school,” Mary went on to the girl. “I know because you speak so well.”

“In Taho and in Riverside.”

“And you came back to the desert to stay?”

“I was sent back. Now I am leaving for good. I go to Flaggerston on the mail stage tonight. That is why I came to see Joy. I may never see her again.”

There was no regret nor sorrow manifest in her colorless voice.

“You are going far?” inquired Mary.

“Yes. Exactly where I do not know. California someplace maybe, after — after a while.”

“But you can always write to Joy. If your parents consent I will adopt her legally. That is — I want to.” Mary thought suddenly of Wilbur to whom children were a nuisance, and involuntarily her eyes strayed to his picture. When she looked at Magdaline again she saw that the girl had followed the direction of her glance and was contemplating the picture, too. Suddenly it seemed that the girl was staring like some wild creature of the woods startled in flight by the sound of a shot. The girl rose and swiftly sped to the mantel. Her action amazed Mary.

She snatched the picture and extended it in a shaking hand.

“Who is this?” she demanded hoarsely.

“Mr. Newton,” Mary replied more alarmed than before.

Magdaline accepted the reply with a defiant toss of her head and a sound, half laugh and half cry. “What is he to you?”

Mary felt as if she had been thrown into a whirling eddy where on each turn Wilbur’s face flashed by her. “My husband,” she said through trembling lips.

“Your husband?” the girl cried hysterically. “Not your brother? ... Mr. Newton, Mrs. Newton.... Your husband you say! Then he lied to me. He said he was not married. No one ever told me anywhere that he was married. Names can be the same when people are not related. I did not think of such a thing when they told me about Joy and you. You were so good, they said. How can he be your husband when you are so good?”

Shaken by the force of her emotion she sank against the mantel for support.

Mary felt her inward self retreating from the presence of this girl and from the Wilbur whom she knew. Even her voice seemed far away as she said, “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

The girl closed her eyes as if to shut the sight of Mary from her. “Nothing. You must forgive me,” she said speaking low.

“That is no answer!” cried Mary. “Tell me the truth. I demand it.”

Slowly the girl looked up. Summoning her voice to a whisper, she asked, “You want to know?”

“Yes! I want to know!” Mary tried to rise and found she could not, she was trembling so violently.

“I have lived with him.”

“Lived with him?” echoed Mary.

“At Sage Springs where he has a trading post,” the girl went on. “I thought maybe someday he would marry me. I was all alone. My people did not want me. White people did not understand me. I was unhappy. I could not live like an Indian. He came to me with soft comforting words. He whispered love to me. He seemed so big and strong. He said Indians were better than white people. He wanted to be friends with the Indians, that was why he left all white people and came to the post. I lived with him. Even my family did not care that I lived with him. Then I found why, and why he would be friends to the Indians. He sold them cheap whisky for which they paid him gladly too much. I hated him then, and his friend Hanley of whom he talked. Together they smuggled in the whisky. White devils both of them! Just the same I asked Wilbur Newton to marry me. I found I had to get married. He refused, sent me away, gave me fifty dollars for a doctor. Said no decent white man married an Indian girl. I wanted to kill him then. Maybe it is better to tell you than to kill him. I do not care if he loves you. I am through with him. He is a rattlesnake — poisonous — poisoning my people. Maybe your hate will kill him.”

A terrible moan escaped Mary. It had been rising to stifle her, gathering in force with each incrimination of Wilbur poured forth by the Indian girl.

Then she felt hands upon her. The Indian girl was kneeling by her side. Involuntarily she shrank from her touch.

“Mrs. Newton, forgive me,” the girl pleaded. “I did not know he was married. I did not know you were waiting for him here. Why should you care for him so? He leaves you here and makes love to another woman, an Indian. There is, then, something worse than being an Indian who is an outcast among her people. It is any woman an outcast from the love of her husband. Hear me when I say that my heart breaks for you. I thought it could break no more.”

Mary bent an intent gaze on the tragic upturned face, her mind for the moment clear of agony, recording what was taking place without effort.

“Me for money, you for lust! From the tricky Northerner to the hungry-hearted Indian girl!” she cried aloud. An ugly passion was born in her in that moment. Like the girl who knelt by her side, she wanted to kill Wilbur Newton. Degraded himself, he had dragged her down with him. Her passion mounted like a flame until her very body seemed to bum and sway under its feverish thrall.

An anguished cry from the Indian girl came to her dully, “Mrs. Newton, take your revenge on me if you will, only do not look like that — like someone who has seen death! I could kill myself for sorrow!”

Then Mary’s faculty of reasoning returned, replacing a strange suspension of thought. She knew she was not alone in her despair, that she shared her experience and pain with this girl of an alien race. Her arm slipped protectingly around Magdaline’s shoulders. The taut body relaxed into the voluminous protecting folds of native dress and, like a child, Magdaline’s head sought Mary’s lap. They sat in silence until they heard a car driven under full power tearing restlessly down the avenue. It startled Mary to terrifying recollection. That might be Wilbur. Any car coming into town might bring Wilbur. She had sent for him. He was coming. It was too awful to contemplate. She tried to rise from her chair.

She grasped Magdaline, compelling the girl’s attention. “You must go on to Flaggerston. Stay until I come; it won’t be long. You can’t go through your trouble alone. I will help you. We must face our trouble together.”

So she persuaded the girl to rise, and herself stood and waited for strength to return to her unsteady limbs. Then gently she urged Magdaline to the door. Neither of them said a word. Black eyes with a haunted look was all that Mary could see in the dark, oval face that for a moment was turned full toward her. The Indian girl was quickly on her way, gliding with noiseless tread down the path to the gate.

Mary went to the kitchen. Why, she did not know. She went to the cupboard, took out a pan, looked at it, thrust it back, shut the cupboard door. Consciousness of her purposeless act drove a dry sob to her lips. She talked to herself in an excited whisper. “What am I doing? What can I do? How can I change it? ... There’s nothing to do. I’m his wife. I sent for him. I wrote that I wanted him! Oh, dear God, what made me write that I wanted him?” The sound of the words amplified. “Five days — six days — it’s too late! He has the letter. And I sent John away. I sent John away. And he’s never coming back again!”

An exclamation of dismay cut Mary’s poignant cry. Alice, unseen, had mounted the back steps with Joy and was standing suddenly transfixed a few feet from the door.

Mary heard her, saw her. Alice was approaching now, words trembling from her lips as she came.

“What’s happened, Mary? What is it? I thought you had company, that you were talking to someone. You look ghastly.”

“Everything’s happened! Everything! And nothing can be done,” moaned Mary, feeling even more poignantly than before the hopelessness of her lot.

Alice moved away toward the door. “I’ll get Katharine,” she said. “She stopped in to visit a minute with Mrs. MacDonald. She’ll come right away.”

“No, you go, dear,” Alice added, her eyes upon Joy who was edging toward Mary. “Go to Mrs. MacDonald’s and tell Aunt Katharine Mother needs her at once.”

“Joy won’t go! Somebody hurt Mudder!” declared the child defiantly.

But the sight of Mary shrinking from her hysterical demand for a kiss was so terrifying that she fled without further appeal.

* * * * *

An hour later Katharine was packing a valise. While she worked she spent part of the time in strange meditation, and the rest meeting Alice’s inquiries. She was basking in the vindication of self for her long-established dislike of Wilbur when Alice interrupted by asking how long she would be gone.

“I can’t tell,” Katharine replied. “My idea is to get Mary away so if Wilbur does come she’ll be gone. It would kill her to see him now. She’s a sick girl. She’s been under a fearful strain for months. Her idea to send Billy Horton to find John is absurd to me, but I’m pretending to believe in it so I can get her away.”

“And suppose you ran into Wilbur at Castle Mesa,” Alice went on. “That could happen. You don’t know where he is, or what has happened.”

“Darling, give your sister credit for having a thought for emergencies. I’ve fixed it up with Billy. We’ll have a little engine trouble at the ridge. He’ll walk down, ostensibly for help, really to see if Newton’s at the post. If he is, Billy will find all the beds at Shelley’s occupied and we’ll go around by way of the far road and camp. Billy’s taking a camp outfit along. If the coast is clear we’ll sleep at Shelley’s. We’ll be arriving late and decamping early.”

“And if that awful man descends on me?” asked Alice with a shudder.

“You know nothing. Take Joy and go at once to Mrs. MacDonald. He’ll not follow you there. And in such event board with Mrs. MacDonald until I return.”

Katharine felt Alice’s hand on her shoulder arrestingly and looked up.

“You’re a very dear, Katharine, always doing for others and never for yourself,” Alice said sadly.

“And what do you think we’re put in the world for?” asked Katharine with a laugh.

“Some of us to fight t. b. and disappointments,” Alice returned.

“Disappointments?” echoed Katharine.

“Oh, not in things concerning myself, but concerning others, things for others that would really be best for them.”

“The narrow, provincial little self again, objecting to poor Mary!” thought Katharine. “Joy will take all your attention while we’re gone,” she said gently. “Perhaps you’ll forget whatever it is that disturbs you so.”

Presently Billy arrived driving an automobile borrowed from Mr. MacDonald. Joy came in to say that Billy and Mother were ready to start as soon as Aunt Katharine joined them. The child was happy again. With the nature of proceedings very vague in her mind, she was averse to Mary’s leave-taking. However, to be left with Alice had for Joy almost as much virtue as being at peace with Mother.

Mary had a deathly pallor. Her eyes were frightened, betraying the condition of her mind. Having said good-by to Joy and Alice, she shrank back within the shadow of the automobile, as if to hide her shame from prying eyes. Katharine caught one of Mary’s listless hands in hers. It was icy cold. She retained it, and Mary did not protest.

“Wherever man puts his foot, though it be an Eden, tragedy stalks,” mused Katharine to herself. How different this journey over the illimitable stretches of the desert! She dreaded it. The trail became a place of danger, a place where almost anywhere they might encounter Wilbur. Mesas were obstacles that prolonged distance except for the crow’s flight; beetling walls suggested impending catastrophe, and jagged peaks the pain of spirit, and the light breeze in the sage, so sad and melancholy, seemed like the sighing of an imprisoned spirit weary of its eternal strivings. She kept her eye on the time. With satisfaction she watched the sun lower. Billy put the car to a strenuous test as he raced over uneven roads and high centers, and on through brush wherever a stretch of mud, left by fitful showers, forced a detour. Mary sat in deep silence, which Katharine did not disturb.

By sunset they had covered considerable mileage. Night would be kind, concealing them under its dark mantle. Still, they were on the highroad. There was to be a moon. Almost Katharine had forgotten about the moon. It came up like a slowly opening eye discovering their flight.

Mary sank farther into her corner. Later she peered cautiously out to see how far they had progressed. Suddenly her body stiffened, swaying against Katharine, and her hand grasped for a hold on Katharine’s skirt.

“Look! A rider!” she cried. “He came around that butte. He’s crossed the road. See him there in the sage?”

Katharine followed the direction of Mary’s strained gaze. Then she, too, saw. Mary’s hand, unmerciful in its strength, was clutching flesh. Mary spoke again before Katharine could answer.

“That’s not an Indian! Did you see him cut through that clearing? He rides a big horse. You don’t suppose he’s—” She left the inference to Katharine.

“Wilbur? Yes. It might be,” Katharine replied promptly. To Billy she said, “Drive as fast as you can through here!”

“And stop for no one,” Mary added.

But the lone rider had swerved far from the trail. He moved out and away through the brush, widening the distance between them at each lope of his horse. Mary relaxed her hold on Katharine, and at last, with an accompanying sigh, her hand slipped free.

Katharine said, “That man seems as anxious to avoid us as we are to avoid him.”

CHAPTER XIX

JOHN STEPPED OUT of the Flaggerston post office a disappointed man. No one knew of an Indian girl calling recently for mail; no one had seen or heard of a person of her description. He was sick and dizzy. Two days’ ride at a killing pace for both horse and rider left him the worse for wear. He needed food, a doctor, sleep. But no sleep would he take till he had found Magdaline. He calculated that Flaggerston was such a small place one on the alert was bound to see every able-bodied inhabitant and identify any strangers before a day’s end. There was no reason to despair.

Food was his first consideration now he was through at the post office, so he went to a restaurant on Main Street, and choosing a seat by the window sat down to enjoy a substantial meal. Opposite him was a man with a newspaper, in which, as a page was being turned, John’s eye caught a headline: COWBOY MARRIES INDIAN GIRL. “Everybody’s doing it,” thought John grimly.

Ravenously he ate. Meanwhile his gaze swept the street for a glimpse of a Navaho girl. He saw only white people: cowboys, young girls, women with market bags. His meal over, John left the restaurant for the Main Street Hotel where from a comfortable chair he could continue his surveillance through the plate-glass front of the lobby. It would be a while before a doctor had the pleasure of ordering him to bed. He was less dizzy now that he had eaten, but desire to sleep was more urgent. He wanted Magdaline. He kept telling himself that he wanted her, in order to counteract the lethargy that was stealing over him, and the heaviness of his eyelids. He registered in his mind everyone who passed. Pretty girl. Skinny woman. Sleepy-looking Mexican. Boys scheming mischief.... The train. Always someone going away. Magdaline going away. Not on the train, however. To Mexico.... More boys — almost ran that woman down.... A cowboy.... Damned familiar cowboy!

“Damned familiar cowboy,” John repeated aloud. He leaped to his feet and strode into the street, conscious of following eyes. “High-Lo, the beggar!” he muttered.

High-Lo it was! Some girls turned to look slyly after him. No wonder they turned! Handsome beggar!

“Followed me!” said John emphatically to himself.

He caught up with him quickly and hailed him with a whack on his shoulder. High-Lo swung around abruptly. His surprise vanished in a smile.

“What are you doing here?” John asked angrily.

“Lookin’ for you. An’ darn well you know it.”

“Had to follow me!”

“Had to stop you from marryin’ Magdaline.”

“You can’t.”

“Yes I can. Fact is, I have.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Evidently you haven’t seen the morning papers,” returned High-Lo complacently.

“What are you driving at?” demanded John.

“I married Magdaline myself, yesterday.”

John stared at High-Lo, confounded.

“Congratulate me, you duffer.”

“You married Magdaline yesterday?” said John when at last he spoke. “How could you — yesterday?”

“With the help of a parson.... You see, you didn’t leave me at Black Mesa. I left you there. Pulled out at two in the morning. Framed it with Weston who loaned me his car. I talked straight from the shoulder to Weston. He knows everything now. But I didn’t tell Weston I’d marry Magdaline. Said I’d send her away. I meant it then. Then I knew you’d follow quick an’ maybe find her. You’d be all the more determined. Nothin’ to do but for me to marry her. It was a pretty good idee at that! It come to me on the desert.”

“But, you locoed fool, you don’t—” John stopped.

“Love her, I suppose you were goin’ to say. No more did you. At that I guess I did care more. Didn’t she help save my life? Even if she was follerin’ you when she did it, that don’t change things none. An’ didn’t I go make her a quirt that you never gave her? Never made nothin’ for a girl before that. Now I’m goin’ to make her a bum husband. She’s got the worst of the bargain.”

Something like a sob rose in John’s throat. “Laying down your life for me, eh, High-Lo? My madness drove you to this extremity? Man! Why did you do it?”

“Could I let you do it? Could I take the least bit of a chance?” There was a beautiful light in High-Lo’s eyes. His nostrils quivered as he spoke. “Couldn’t you see folks would say the kid was yours? What if we went to Mexico? It would leak out someway, an’ your goin’ would look the worse. With me, they’d laugh, sort of pokin’ fun. They’d expect it of me. They’d put it down to just plain deviltry. But you? You’re different. An’ you were forgettin’ the other girl. I’d die ‘fore I’d have her makin’ you out a skunk. She never would smile again then.”

“It’s for life,” John said dully. “You’re not the kind to quit her because she’s Indian and it’d be easy.”

“No more’n you would. You weren’t thinkin’ these things for yourself. Why are you thinkin’ them for me? Look here! I’m a pretty lucky fellow far as the wife goes. Get on to me with an educated wife! No educated white woman with brains like Magdaline would look at me twice. Think of the good to my kids with an educated mother. What if she gives them a dark complexion? I can stand that. What I come from for stock don’t offer ’em much in other ways. The best’ll come from her. ‘Course, there’s Newton’s kid.... I don’t like that much. Hope it’s a boy who can some day knock his father’s block off!”

John comprehended slowly. “Newton’s kid!” he gasped.

“That’s right. You didn’t know?” said High-Lo. “Yes. Magdaline gave me the straight of it. An’ say — she run across Mrs. Newton in Taho an’ spilled it to her. She didn’t know there was a Mrs. Newton, pore kid! Like to drove her crazy. John, there’s justice operatin’ somewheres, but everythin’ is pilin’ up on that pore little woman you jilted.”

High-Lo’s words splintered John’s thoughts like glass. “My God!” he cried. “Where’s Newton now? Where’s she?”

“We’re goin’ to find out, buddy,” said High-Lo. “We’ll ride back hotfoot, after you get some rest.”

John, trying to laugh, made a strange choking sound. “Rest?” he struggled to say. “How can I rest now? For God’s sake take me to her!”

He felt suddenly deathly sick. The street whirled around beneath him. He reeled against High-Lo. Then everything went black. He was plunging downward into this darkness, and High-Lo, far away, was saying, “Get me a car. This man’s sick. Yes. To the hospital.”

* * * * *

Opening his eyes upon the white walls of an all-white room and upon High-Lo talking to a woman in white, John remembered the boy’s last words. He was in bed. His clothes were off and replaced by a nightshirt. On his shoulder which still throbbed was a neat new bandage. He strained to hear the lowered conversation in which he caught his own name.

“I’ll ask the doctor.” That was the nurse.

“I’m sure you can’t keep him more than a couple of days.” That was High-Lo. He continued. “Be worse for him to stay. He’s got to settle up some affairs that are worryin’ him, an’ he’d go loco waitin’. He’s strong! Long as there’s no poison in the shoulder, a little rest’ll fix him. He’s been killin’ himself with a long ride and short food an’ lots of worry.”

Just then High-Lo saw that John had come to. He saluted him with a comic gesture.

“Now we’ve got you put,” he said. “Taken your clothes away. Don’t worry, cowboy. I’ll get you out soon. Got to have some sense about yourself. Golly, I feel like a wife-deserter! S’pose I bring Magdaline around for a minute.”

“It might be awkward,” said John weakly. “She’s told me things. Guess you told her why you were marrying her, too. She knows you stopped me, doesn’t she?”

“She knows more’n that. She knows about you and Mrs. Newton. Say! She worships Mrs. Newton more than ever since I told her. An’ she wants everything to come right for you, John. Let me bring her.”

John capitulated. Tumbling gray patterns in the kaleidoscope of events were shifting about to give place to a brighter design.

An hour later Magdaline came. There was a look of peace about her, in her quiet smile, in the softening lines of her face.

“High-Lo says soon we go to Taho with you,” she said in a calm, quiet voice. John remembered her then as he had seen her when she was administering to High-Lo that memorable day at the pass. She would mother High-Lo. She would live for him from now on.

Magdaline seemed to divine his thoughts. She nodded her head as she observed his ruminating, as if to say, “Yes, it is so.”

Presently she spoke. “By accident I have found my way out into the place where light comes through the canyon, and I see that maybe not so far down there is a way into that light. I believed in your wisdom, John Curry. Now I will do my best to make High-Lo happy, seldom sorry. He has been good and brave like you.”

CHAPTER XX

HIGH-LO WON THE doctor’s confidence, and John was dismissed from the hospital in two days.

Accompanied by Magdaline, they journeyed to Taho, where they found Mary had fled. MacDonald informed them that Billy Horton had borrowed his car to take Mrs. Newton and her friend to Black Mesa. So far as he knew, Newton had not been seen in Taho. John was satisfied that they must go to Black Mesa at once. Late evening of that same day they reached Castle Mesa, where they spent the night, and next morning they arrived at the post.

Weston rushed out to meet them. On High-Lo’s presentation of his wife, he was aghast, but soon collecting himself muttered, “Thank God!” and pumped John’s hand vigorously.

“Mrs. Newton here?” asked John.

“Yes, and Miss Winfield,” said Weston. “That Horton fellow brought them. He’s gone back.”

Mr. and Mrs. Weston were troubled. Beany, who had returned, seemed unhappily out of place. An Indian girl slipped through the living room with a tray in her hands, and a minute later John recognized Katharine’s voice down the hall, “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Newton is feeling better.”

John looked around helplessly, praying for someone to speak.

Weston relieved the strain. “She collapsed after I told her you’d seen Newton and chances were he had her message. And when she found that you had gone — you understand I couldn’t tell her why — she just went to pieces. Miss Katharine’s been nursin’ her. She’ll have to break it kind of slow that you’ve come back. Things are pretty near bein’ consid’able mussed up.”

“No one’s seen Newton?” asked John.

“Ain’t showed up here. Beany rode over to Sage Springs. No sign of him there neither. Believe me, we didn’t want him. Just wanted to get a line on him. Let him show up! He’ll get a closed door here.”

Katharine joined them at lunch. She took John’s presence for granted. Magdaline and High-Lo she received happily. The gloom broke a little with Katharine there driving them to talk and think of commonplace things.

After lunch High-Lo and Magdaline went to the hogan on the hill which the boys had shared last year as a dressing room, and which Mrs. Weston turned over to them, for Magdaline needed rest, and High-Lo wanted to make sure she would be comfortable. Mrs. Weston took up some sewing, Mr. Weston and Beany went over some accounts, and John had an opportunity to talk to Katharine. It was not long before High-Lo joined them. They agreed then that Katharine should tell Mary that John had come. Meanwhile Katharine entertained them with stories about Joy and about Mary’s strenuous winter experience.

Suddenly the sound of a shot split the air. Then followed an ear-piercing shriek.

John and High-Lo stared at each other.

“What was that?” they all asked simultaneously.

Instantly Weston, his wife, and Beany were on their feet. Then John tore out of the room with High-Lo close behind.

At the kitchen door stood the Indian maid waving arms frantically toward the hogan. “Up there!” she cried.

“Magdaline!” groaned High-Lo.

A riderless horse wheeled away as they approached. John remembered in a flash that very horse wheeling from him once before. Wilbur Newton had ridden him then. He heard the thud of other hoofs bearing down his way, but his eyes were on the hogan door. As he made it, he felt High-Lo at his heels.

John stared in horror. High-Lo’s cry shook him as deeply as the thing he saw. On the floor, arms spread wide, face ghastly and drawn, lay Wilbur Newton dead. And near by on the bed, her feet still close to the dead man’s, her hand still grasping the revolver, was Magdaline, swaying in dry-eyed agony. She seemed slow to comprehend that they had come. When they entered, she sprang to her defense with the fierceness of an animal at bay.

“I killed him!” she screamed. “He would not let me go! I killed him.”

Voices sounded outside. A figure glided into the room and knelt swiftly at Newton’s side, only to back away dismayed. It was Pete, the Navaho guide, come strangely from a tragic past into a tragic present.

Magdaline shrank from High-Lo, who leaped over the body to reach her.

“He would not let me go!” she reiterated wildly. “He held me tight!”

Then High-Lo was beside her drawing her head down to his shoulder. “High-Lo, I did not mean to kill him,” she sobbed.

“Sure, you didn’t,” said High-Lo. “Everybody knows you didn’t. Nobody’s goin’ to hurt you. Just tell us what happened.”

Now the others had come. They stood stricken to silence. Magdaline’s sobs seemed terrible in that stillness.

“Tell me what happened,” High-Lo repeated gently.

The girl looked up, at the same time pushing her disheveled hair from her eyes, and with her hand clutching High-Lo’s arm, her eyes intent on his, she spoke dully with fearful haste.

“I was on the bed. I heard somebody. Then Wilbur came crouching into the room. He was looking back, always back. I sat up. Your belt and gun you left there on the floor. I picked it up quick to put beside me so he could not see it. He heard me. He turned frightened. Then he cried my name, glad-like. He came very close. Talked very fast. Said an Indian had been following him everywhere for days. He said he was starving — said he was afraid — said I must hide him from the Indian. I did not know what to think. He has lied to me before. I hate him. I looked in his eyes. Somehow he made me look in his eyes. I saw there something terrible — as though he wanted to take possession of me again. I wanted you then, High-Lo. I was so afraid. I got up to go. He came so close. He took my hands. He said he loved me — he had come to marry me. I was so frightened. I tried to scream and I could not scream. I tried to pull away. His arms came around me tight and his face so close, and he pushed me back on the bed. Your gun was there. It came into my hand, High-Lo. I did not know it. It was there so quick without thinking. When I felt it, I knew I was safe. ‘I can get to High-Lo,’ I said to myself. I kept saying, ‘I can get to High-Lo,’ and it made me strong so I could push him up. But he stood in front of me again, when I got up, with his eyes making me look at him and his arms clutching. And I kept saying, ‘I can get to High-Lo,’ and I cried it out to him, and the gun was there between us, tight against me, tight against him, and my finger pressed when I said, ‘I can get to High-Lo,’ There was the sound then, and he fell and I saw the smoke and the blood and smelled cloth burning. That’s what happened, High-Lo.”

Her hands went fluttering to her neck as if something were choking her.

Pete spoke up. “I follow Hosteen Newton. One day go Sage Springs. Hosteen Newton in post. Door locked. Hosteen Newton go when Pete sleep. Pete follow Hosteen Newton to Black Mesa. Hosteen Newton dead.”

He brought a stained crumpled letter from his blouse and handed it to John. John shuddered. He was receiving a bloody weapon; for verily, the letter had been both Hanley’s and Newton’s undoing.

Magdaline was wearing out her terror in sobs which she smothered on High-Lo’s shoulder. Mr. Weston and Beany covered Newton’s body with Indian rugs. Then John caught a suggestion from Weston to send out Magdaline and High-Lo. He heard Katharine and Mrs. Weston leave. He was so stunned by the recent shocking event and the extenuating circumstances that there seemed no time beyond the stupefying present. Silently he communicated Weston’s hint to High-Lo. High-Lo swept Magdaline into his arms and strode from the hogan. Then Weston advised John to go.

“Leave this to us,” he said. “We’ll box him. Coroner will have to have a look in, an’ the law go its course. But don’t be worryin’ none.”

John wanted to go. There was terrible revulsion in the thought of laying even a finger on the carcass of the coward whose fear had driven him to his doom.

Mary’s voice, plying frantic questions, came to him as he approached the house. Slim in a flowing dark wrap, her black hair enveloping her face like a cloud, she was begging that someone tell her why everyone was running around like mad. When she saw John, she stood like one transfixed. He looked at her helplessly and murmured, “Mary!”

That seemed to release her. She was a breathing demanding creature again. She rushed toward him authoritatively. “You tell me, John. They won’t.”

Conscious that she intuitively knew, and that uncertainty and evasions would be worse than the truth, he said, “Your husband is dead, Mary. Don’t ask for particulars now. There’s time enough to know them.”

“Someone shot him. I know. But you didn’t do it,” she said with a strange calm.

“No. Not I,” John returned firmly.

She smiled the most tragic smile he had ever seen.

“I want to cry,” she said, “and I can’t.”

Then she turned from him still smiling, and walked past the others, ostensibly serene, as quietly and calmly as a nun.

Not a word passed between the group in the room until a door closed down the hall. Then Katharine said, “I had better go to her.”

“It’s Magdaline who needs attention,” said Mrs. Weston, nodding toward the couch where she lay clinging to High-Lo’s hand. “Take her to my room and stay with her. I’ll be in soon.”

High-Lo obeyed. John dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

“The end is not yet in sight.” Mrs. Weston nodded her head in the direction High-Lo had taken with his burden.

John agreed wearily. He heard steps outside. Weston entered. He was the color of ashes.

“Bad business, John,” he said. “Got to clear it up quick. Beany an’ I are going straight to Flaggerston with the body in the truck, an’ we’re takin’ Pete. I’ll report all the details to the sheriff. Come on yourself tomorrow an’ bring High-Lo an’ Magdaline. Make a clean sweep — Hanley an’ everything. A couple of deaths in a liquor clean-up won’t mean much nowadays.”

“You’re right,” said John. “Pete’s a good witness in the first shooting case. My wound will speak for itself. Pete has Hanley’s gun. He took it to use in case Newton got gay.”

“Sure he has it?”

“Did you ever know an Indian to throw away anything useful?” John asked tersely. “As for Magdaline,” he added, “she’ll be her own witness. Let her pour out the tragedy of her life. It will be a good thing for our executives to hear.”

“You’ve got a clear case, but the law has to take its course,” Weston concluded. “What bail is needed, if any, Miss Katharine an’ I will supply. You know her. She’ll do anything to help you folks out.”

“You bet I know her!” ejaculated John. “God bless her, is what I say, and all of you. I’ve sure found the time when I need my friends.”

After the truck with its grim freight had left, the silence of unrelieved tragedy pervaded the house. Mrs. Weston, absent for a long time, at length appeared before John in the living room where he restlessly paced the floor.

“Magdaline won’t be a mother now,” she said in her quiet direct way. “That’s over. She’s in no condition to appear in court for days. You and High-Lo must go without her tomorrow. Miss Katharine will bring her to Flaggerston later.”

“Nature, cruelly kind,” muttered John.

Unable to restrain his anxiety about Mary longer, he asked, “And Mrs. Newton? How is she?”

Mrs. Weston gave a backward glance down the hall. “Here’s Miss Katharine. She’s just looked in on her. She’ll tell you.”

When the Eastern girl entered the room, she saw Curry’s mute question in his eyes.

“I’d give everything I own if she would only cry,” said Katharine. “It’s you she needs. Go to her. Third door to the right.”

John went. He was in the room, without memory of having knocked or entered. He was at the side of her bed kneeling, begging forgiveness.

“I wondered if you were coming!”

Her cry pierced his heart. His head sank to the pillow into the dark cloud of her hair.

She was whispering to him, her words falling in hysterical haste. “I love you. I need you. I can’t go on without you!”

Her cheek was against his, soft as velvet. He heard a convulsive sob. He felt something wet slip down the relaxed smoothness of her skin. She was crying.

CHAPTER XXI

MR. WESTON WAS right. The trials were called early and dispatched speedily. Mary, saved by Dr. Kellogg, who voluntarily testified under oath as to her blameless character, did not have to appear in court. Newton was declared a scoundrel of whom the community was well rid, and Hanley’s name was blackened for all time. The most prominent women of Flaggerston, amazed to discover that the estate of an educated Indian girl was commonly less fortunate than that of her mother, flung high the banners of reform.

Meanwhile, at Black Mesa, where Joy and Alice came to join her, Mary lived in sad-glad expectation from mail to mail. At first John avoided any mention of the trials. Mary loved him all the more for this consideration; but recognizing the major part she had unwittingly played in the tragedies, she would not be spared the details of their reparation. After her protest that she must know everything that was taking place at Flaggerston, his letters gave full details of the court proceedings. Thus she suffered with him, prayed with him, shared his hope, and, at last, the final victories. A day of rejoicing was at hand. The valiant ones were soon to return. The fifteenth of June brought word of their coming.

“Let’s celebrate!” suggested Beany at breakfast the next morning, while the others nodded approvingly. “Every cowboy’s back, an’ the season’s not begun. Let’s have some Indians come over for races, and a sing and dance at night. Pop Weston’s partial to it. He’s so glad to have things smoothin’ out, he’d give the post away.”

The only word of protest came from Mary. “Suppose they don’t come until evening?” She was thinking how tired they would be.

“All the better,” spoke up Beany. “They’d hit right into high doin’s. That’s the idee. We want to have things altogether different from what they was when they went away.”

Mary read Beany’s mind. It was he who had instigated the destruction of the hogan where Wilbur had met his death; and now he was scheming a whirl of excitement to change the once solemn prospect utterly.

“It’s really a great idea,” Mary said. “Could you gather the Indians in time? It’s tomorrow, you know.”

Beany ventured a scathing look of scorn. “What’s Pop Weston got a bunch of riders for?”

Accounting that remark, the deeds were as good as done.

* * * * *

During the following day, from noon on, Mary’s ear was attuned to catch the sound of an automobile. It took considerable restraint not to precede the others to the ridge to scan the trail. When Stub came in to say the folks were about to leave, she could have kissed his plump, beardless cheek. Indeed she wanted to embrace the world.

More than three hundred Indians, men, women and children, had answered the summons; a race meant exchange of jewelry and money, and a dance gave like advantages. On the level desert floor, where greasewood and brush were sparse, they had laid out their racecourse, and they moved over and around it, some mounted, some on foot, bright splashes of color against the black wall of the mesa. Tryouts were in progress, as shrill cheers indicated even before the moving forms of the riders became visible. Other Indians were encouraging betting among the groups on the side lines. Somehow gambling did not seem a vice among these child-like people. They mobbed the cowboys, who, ever good spenders, had helped to make up the purse, and were willing to part with even more silver to add flavor to the betting.

It was thrilling to witness the races. But the growing excitement that stirred Mary had its being in that day’s one great expectation for her — John’s return. The desert floor stretched for weary miles between her and the man she loved. She saw only the league-long distances, not the race; she watched for a whirl of dust on the motionless plain.

Long, almost endless seemed the day. Westward mountains eclipsed the sun, the colors of the afterglow faded, the gray of evening enclosed distance in dim obscurity, and still John had not come.

The Indians made a great brushwood fire and smaller individual campfires. Mrs. Weston, Alice and Mary prepared food for the hungry cowboys and joined them at the repast. Only Mary could not eat. Everyone pretended not to notice her lack of appetite. Flame licked the great pile of brushwood, a beacon light for John. Mary’s ear tried to pierce the sound of its crackling for the vibration of a low distant motor. She understood the meaning of eternity, of never-endingness. At last she heard the long anticipated sound. She imagined she had cried out to the others, the wild voice within her was so strong. It did not matter if she had.

Presently Beany shouted, “Hoo-ray! The folks are comin’! Put an eye to them lights!”

Calm as she appeared, Mary’s swelling heart threatened to burst with its child-like song: “I heard them long ago! I heard them long ago!”

They were camped near the road. The car came to a stop in the circle of their firelight. There was a general exodus from the car; people were crowding around. Mary distinguished only John, whose roving eyes did not rest until they found her. Now he was coming to her, his dear, glad smile still a bit uncertain. Her fingers, fluttering like her heart, sought his protecting grasp. Neither spoke. Almost at once they were separated by the boys and High-Lo and Magdaline who could scarcely wait their turn to speak. There was no hint of sadness in this homecoming. They had relegated the past to oblivion, as if their lives now lay only in the happy future.

The voices of Indian men rose from the direction of the large central fire. The sing was in progress, and the women and girls with the younger men were circling the firelight ready for the dance. John sought Mary, and they went hand in hand to join the Indians. They stood behind the squatting figures and smiled at each other over the intrigue going on about them.

“It’s not the best dancer, it’s the wealthiest dancer an Indian girl wants,” John explained. “The idea is that a girl nails a man who isn’t quick enough to escape her and makes him dance until he buys himself free. They’ll go for the cowboys, too. Cowboys pay in cash. They prefer it to jewelry. Watch the fun.”

Here, there, girls voluntarily, or urged with a whack or push from their mothers, made a beeline each for a particular man, who, the minute he realized his danger, fled. Should he be captured, the man was dragged to the center of light where his dusky captor, keeping to the rear, clung to the waist of her partner’s garment, turning him dizzily round and round, herself supplying a tapping step as she circled with him. Thus they slowly spun to the staccato song of the men, which rose and fell in a strange, wild cadence of boldly accentuated notes. The song had no ending. Couples quit whenever a bargain was consummated. Girls refused to be bought off cheaply. They argued as they danced. Everywhere men were dodging. Now and then a cowboy came sprawling into the ring. There was always someone dancing. Magdaline dragged in High-Lo, and a general shout went up.

Mary felt a pressure on her hand, to which John still clung. He leaned close and whispered, “A deep and abiding affection has sprung between them. I think High-Lo will be happy.”

Again Mary looked their way. What she saw was a tall, handsome cowboy and a slim, stylishly dressed Indian girl pirouetting in and out among the other dancers. They stopped and the girl delivered an imperious command, only to be seized in a great bear hug, the toll she evidently had exacted, and she was borne from the lighted circle in the cowboy’s arms amid the renewed shouts of the crowd.

John drew Mary from the shifting firelight to the shadow and obscurity beyond. Hand in hand they walked away, continuing to the corral and up over the ridge to a place where even the post was shut from view.

The desert lay in glistening serenity. Through moon-blanched luster solitary, solemn peaks and the sacred prayer rocks of the uplands loomed. A time of transfiguration had come. The hours of doubt and waiting were gone. The desert silence, vast yet intimate, enveloped them.

“Desert-bound!” murmured Mary, touched by the profound tranquility of the scene.

“Together!” added John.

Mary felt his arm about her, a gentle hand tilted her face. As their lips met, a flame of ecstasy enveloped her. There was tenderness in his embrace and shy, yet eloquent desire. She lay back presently in the crook of his arm, and they smiled into each other’s eyes with the supreme consciousness of love.

“My little sweetheart. That’s what you are,” he said. “And soon you will be my wife, as soon as the missionary can get here from Taho.”

His words were like a perfect gift.

“Whenever you say,” Mary whispered. And she smiled again from the sweet security of his embrace.

It was the same day of another week.

Katharine and Alice from a lofty perch watched two riders and a pack mule moving westward far down Black Mesa valley into the heart of the desert. So close did they ride that at times one rider would shut the other from view. A nearby ring of hoofs against rock told them that High-Lo, with Joy and Magdaline, were starting back to the post.

“They’ll be gone three weeks,” said Alice, her eyes on the broad sweep of valley.

“And in the fall we’ll have the fun of hunting twin ranches,” returned Katharine. “John says High-Lo’s just the man to take care of our place when we get it.”

“A little gray home in the west, eh, Sis?”

“Yes, dear,” said Katharine smiling.

Then Alice said dreamily, “It was a pretty wedding, wasn’t it, with Cathedral Rock for their church?”

Memory of it stirred Katharine. “And the desert an organ on which to play age-long love songs.”

Now the two riders were becoming smaller and smaller. There came a moment when they quite disappeared into the haze that softened the valley horizon.

“I’m so glad they are happy,” Alice declared, with a gentle laugh that seemed to her sister to express more of sadness than joy. “But it is you that John Curry should have married, dear. I — I never had the courage to tell you, Katharine, until it was too late. But — but now — it’s out. How I hoped and prayed that he would marry you — in the end. I truly hope that they will be happy. He is—” Alice paused a long, long time before she finished “ — a man you could love!”

Almost Katharine lost her composure. A mist came before her eyes and her lips trembled. She turned away from the girl beside her, pretending to fasten the laces of her boots, lest Alice see the confusion her words had caused.

“Just good friends, Sister dear,” she managed to say. “And perhaps someday business partners, if he still wants my small legacy to invest. I’ve been happy to be admitted to his confidence — and his friendship. There never was anything else — with him or — with me. I’m happy about John and Mary. They were fated to love each other — from the beginning.... Come, Sister darling. There’s a chill in the air. We must go.”

THE END

The Vanishing American

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

The first edition

CHAPTER I

AT SUNRISE NOPHAIE drove his flock of sheep and goats out upon the sage slopes of the desert. The April air was cold and keen, fragrant with the dry tang of the uplands. Taddy and Tinny, his shepherd dogs, had wary eye and warning bark for the careless stragglers of the flock. Gray gaunt forms of wolf and tawny shape of wild cat moved like shadows through the sage.

Nophaie faced the east, where, over a great rugged wall of stone, the sky grew from rose to gold, and a splendor of light seemed about to break upon the world. Nophaie’s instinct was to stand a moment, watching and waiting without thought. The door of each hogan of his people opened to the rising sun. They worshiped the sun, the elements, all in nature.

Motionless he stood, an Indian lad of seven years, slim and tall, with his dark face turned to the east, his dark eyes fixed solemnly upon that quarter whence the light and warmth always came. One thin brown hand held a blanket round his shoulders, and the other clasped his bow and arrows.

While he gazed a wondrous change came over the desert. The upstanding gloomy wall of rock far to the fore suddenly burned with a line of flame; and from that height down upon the gray lowlands shone the light of the risen sun. For Nophaie sunrise was a beginning — a fulfillment of promise — an answer to prayer.

When that blazing circle of liquid gold had cleared the rampart of the desert, too fiery and intense for the gaze of man, Nophaie looked no more, and passed on down the aisles of sage behind his flock. Every day this task was his. For two years he had been the trusted shepherd of his father’s sheep. At five years of age Nophaie had won his first distinction. With other children he was out in charge of the accumulated flocks of the tribe. A sandstorm suddenly swooped down upon the desert, enveloping them in a thick yellow pall. Except Nophaie, all the little shepherds grew frightened and fled back to find their hogans. But Nophaie stayed with the sheep. They could not be driven in the face of the storm. They wandered on and on and became lost. Nophaie became lost with them. Three days later Nophaie’s father found him, hungry and fearful, but true to his charge. He was praised. He was taught. He was trusted. Legend and lore, seldom told so young a boy, were his to ponder and dream over.

Nophaie’s shepherding task was lonely and leisurely. He had but to drive the flock from grassy flat to sage slope, slowly on and on, and back again by sunset to the home corral, always alert for the prowling beasts of prey.

He seemed a part of that red and purple desert land. It was home. He had been born under the shadow of the wonderful mountain wall which zigzagged from east to west across the wasteland. The niches were canyons. Its broken segments were pinnacles and monuments, shafts of red stone lifted to the skies, bold, stark, and mighty, chiseled by wind and sand and frost. Between these walls and monuments spread the sandy floor of desert, always gray-spotted with sage, always gray-green with patches of grass and weed, purple in the distance.

That spring the lambs had come early — too early, considering the frosty breath of the dawns. A few lambs had succumbed to the cold. Many a pink-and- white little lamb had been tenderly folded in Nophaie’s blanket, and warmed, and cared for until the heat of the sun made safe its return to its mother. The lambs and kids were all several days old now, fleecy and woolly, grown sturdy enough to gambol in the sage. A few were solid black, and many were all white, and some had beautiful markings, spots of black on white, and four black feet, and two black ears. One was pure white with a black face; another was all black except for a white tail. The dead stillness of the desert dawn was often pierced by the sweet, high-pitched bleat of these lambs and kids. Nophaie wandered on with them, finding a stone seat from time to time, always watching, listening, feeling. He loved the flock, but did not know that. His task was lonely, but he did not realize it.

The flock leisurely traveled on, a white-dotted moving mass against the background of gray, tearing at the sage, nipping the weeds. Taddy and Tinny trotted to and fro and around, important and morose, Indian dogs that knew their work, and they seldom had to bark a warning. Nophaie leisurely plodded along behind, intent and absorbed. An eagle pitched from his lofty perch on one of the red towers, and shot like a thunderbolt down and over the flock, until he saw the Indian boy on guard, and then he swooped up and up, wide-winged and free, to soar away across the skies, a dark bowed shape against the blue. A coyote wailed his desolate note of hunger. From the cliff a canyon swift trilled his strange, sweet, wild song.

The sun rose higher. The golden belt of sunlight along the tops of walls and mesas and monuments widened downward, encroaching upon the shadow and shade. Dawn with its icy edge paled and melted before the warming day. And the desert changed again. Shadow and color and freshness seemed swallowed by an intense and all-absorbing light.

Nophaie was no different from other Indian lads, except that the dominant traits of his tribe and his race seemed to be intensified in him. His was the heritage of a chieftain. His mother had died at his birth, whispering strange and mystic prophecies. The old medicine men, the sages of the tribe, had gathered round him during the one illness of his infancy, and had spread their sand-paintings on a flat rock, and had marveled at his quick recovery, predicting for him unknown and great feats. He was named Nophaie, the Warrior.

Through song and story and dance the traditions of his tribe were forever impressed upon his sensitive mind. The valor of Indian braves in war was a memory of the past, but the spirit lived. The boy was taught to understand the nature of a warrior, and to revere his father and the long line of chiefs from which he had descended. Before Nophaie could walk he had begun to learn the secrets of the life of the open. Birds, lizards, snakes, horned toads, scorpions, pack-rats and kangaroo-rats, prairie-dogs and rabbits — these and all the little wild creatures of the desert were brought to him to tame, to play with, to study and learn to love. Thus the brilliant and intense color of desert life were early stamped upon his brain. The love of natural beauty, born in him, had early opportunity for evolution. The habits and ways of all desert creatures became a part of his childhood training. Likewise the green covering of the earth, in all its beauty and meaning, soon occupied its place of supreme importance in his understanding — the grasses, green in the spring, bearded and seeding in the late summer, bleached white in the fall; the sages with their bitter-sweet fragrance and everlasting gray; the cacti, venomous yet fruitful, with their colors of vermilion and magenta; the paint-brush with its carmine; the weeds of the desert, not without their use and worthiness; the flowers of the deep canyons; the mosses on the wet stones by the cliff-shaded brook; the ferns and lichens; the purple-berried cedars and the nut-bearing pinons of the uplands; and on the mountains the great brown-barked pines, stately and noble, lords of the heights.

Next in order Nophaie learned the need and thrill and love of the hunt. By his own prowess as a hunter he must some day survive. The tracks and signs and sounds and smells of all denizens of his desert environment became as familiar to him as those of his hogan.

Nophaie wandered on with his sheep, over the sage and sand, under the silent lofty towers of rock. He was unconsciously and unutterably happy because he was in perfect harmony with the reality and spirit of the nature that encompassed him. He wandered in an enchanted land of mystery, upon which the Great Spirit looked with love. He had no cares, no needs, no selfishness. Only vaguely had he heard of the menace of the white race encroaching upon the lands of the Indian. Only a few white men had he ever seen.

So Nophaie wandered on with his flock through the sage, content and absorbed, watching, listening, feeling, his mind full of dreams and longings, of song and legend, of the infinite beauty and poetry of his life.

How lonely the vast sweep of purple sage-land that opened out from the red battlements of rock! How silent and dead the gleaming, beetling walls! How austere and solemn the day! But Nophaie was never lonely. He did not understand loneliness. The soft, sweet air he breathed was rich with the whispers of spirits. Above the red wall to the west loomed up a black-and-white dome — a mountain height, pure with snow, fringed by pine — and this was Nothsis Ahn, the home of Utsay, the god of the Indians. He dwelt there with Utsay Asthon, his woman, and together they had made the sun out of fire — they had made all. Utsay was the Great Spirit, and sometimes he communed with the medicine men through their sand-paintings. Nophaie that morning, as he turned from the sunrise to the looming mountain, had breathed a prayer to his Great Spirit.

“High chief of the mountain, the beautiful mountain, To me tell your secrets that it may be well before me as I go, Behind me tell me it may be well, Beneath me tell me it may be well, Above me tell me it may be well, Tell me let all that I see be well, Tell me that the Everlasting will be merciful toward me — Like the Chief of the Good, tell me that it is well with me. That the God of the medicine will let me talk well, tell me Now all is well, now all is well, Now all is well, now all is well.” And Nophaie believed all was well with him, that his prayer had been answered. The rustling of the sage was a voice; the cool touch of the breeze on his cheek was a kiss of an invisible and kindly spirit, watching over him; the rock he leaned a hand upon left a clinging response, from the soul therein. When a hawk sailed low over Nophaie’s head he heard the swish of wings driven by the power he trusted in. The all-enveloping sunlight was the smile of Utsay, satisfied with his people. Nophaie stepped aside to avoid crushing the desert primroses, thriving in the shade of the sage. Through those wide white blossoms looked the eyes of the departed relatives, who watched him from the Happy Hunting Grounds below. Would he walk straight? Would he talk straight? Their love lived on and was eternal. There was no death of spirit for Nophaie and his kind. There was no evil except what he thought, and to think evil of himself, of anyone, was a sin. To think evil made it true.

So Nophaie wandered on and on over the sage trails, proud and fierce as a young eagle, aloof and strange, dreaming the dreams conjured up by the wise men of his tribe. At seven years of age he had begun to realize the meaning of a chief, and that a chief must some day save his people. What he loved most was to be alone, out in the desert, listening to the real sounds of the open and to the silent whisperings of his soul. In the shadow of the hogans, among the boys and girls there, he was only Nophaie. They were jealous. They resented his importance. But out on the desert, in the cold, rosy dawns and the solemn, hot noontides and the golden sunsets, when the twilight stole down softly and white stars smiled at him from the velvet blue — then Nophaie could be himself, could listen and feel, and know how the four winds of heaven whispered of his future, of how he would make the medicine to save his people.

Nophaie did not walk alone. Innumerable spirits kept pace with his light steps. The sage was a carpet of purple, fragrant and sweet, through which breathed the low soft sigh of the wind. The shallow streams of water, murmuring and meandering in the red sandy wash below, lined white along its margins, spoke to Nophaie of winter snows now melting on the heights, of water for the sheep all summer, of Utsay’s good will. To east and west and south heaved up the red gods of rock that seemed to move with Nophaie as he moved, shadow and loom over him as he halted, watch him with vast impassive faces. Though they were far away they seemed close. In their secret stony cells abided the souls of Indians — many as the white pebbles along the stream. The flash of a swift- winged canyon bird was a message. The gleams of melted frost, sparkling and pure, were the teardrops of his mother, who forever hovered near him, wandered with him along the sage trails, in spirit with his steps. The sun, the moon, the crag with its human face, the black raven croaking his dismal note, the basking rattlesnake, the spider that shut his little door above him, the mocking-bird, singer of all songs — these held communion with Nophaie, were his messengers. And all around him and above him, in the great silence, in the towering barriers of stone, in the vast flare of intense sunlight, there seemed to be life in harmony with him, a voiceless and eternal life that he felt but could not see.

Towards sunset Nophaie was far out on the open desert, with many of the monuments and mesas and masses of rim-rock between him and the golden purple glory of the west. Homeward bound with his flock, Nophaie had intent eyes for the colorful panorama of sinking sun and transfigured clouds. A pageant somehow in affinity with his visions crowned the dome of old Nothsis Ahn and shone down behind the great shafts and pillars of rock that speared the horizon light. The sun was going down behind broken masses of soft clouds, creamy and silver where the rays struck, golden in the center of the west, and shading to purple where the thick, mushrooming, billowy rolls reached to the blue zenith.

While Nophaie gazed in the rapture of his wandering, eager heart there came a moment of marvelous transformation. The sun dipped its lower segment from under a white-rimmed cloud, firing the whole magnificent panorama with blaze of gold and rose and opal. A light that seemed beacon of the universe burned across the heavens, clear to the east, where the violet and lilac haze took on a sheen of gold. Against the effulgence of the western sky stood up the monuments, silhouetted on that burnished brightness of sunset, black and clear- cut, weird and colossal, motionless and speaking gods of stone.

A warning bark from one of the shepherd dogs drew Nophaie’s attention from the sunset. A band of white men had ridden down upon him. Several of them galloped ahead and came round between the Indian lad and his home. The others rode up. They had extra horses, wild and dusty and caked with froth, and pack mules heavily loaded. Both men and beasts were jaded.

Nophaie had seen but few white men. None had ever tendered violence. But here he instinctively recognized danger.

“We gotta hev meat,” one dark-visaged man called out.

“Wal, we’d better find the squaw who owns this bunch an’ buy our meat,” suggested another.

“Moze, you know it all,” growled another. “Why squaw?”

“Because squaws always own the sheep,” replied the other.

These men of the desert were tired and hungry, perhaps not honestly so, judging from the extra saddle horses they were driving. More than one furtive glance roved across the sage to the east. Sullen heat and impatience manifested their signs in the red faces.

“We hevn’t time for thet,” spoke up the dark-faced one.

“Wal, we don’t want Indians trailin’ us. I say take time an’ buy meat.”

“Aw, you’ll say next let’s eat hoss meat,” returned the man called Moze. “Knock the kid on the head, grab some sheep, an’ ride on. Thet’s me!”

Moze’s idea seemed to find favor with some of the band. The dominating spirit was to hurry on.

Nophaie could not understand their language, but he sensed peril to himself. Suddenly he darted out between the horses and, swift as a deer, flashed away through the sage.

“Ketch that kid, somebody,” called out the voice of authority.

One of the riders touched spurs to his horse and, running Nophaie down, reached a strong hand to haul him across in front of the saddle. Nophaie hung there limp.

“Bill,” called the leader, “thar ain’t no sense in hurtin’ the kid. Now you- all wait.”

This man was tall, gaunt, gray- haired, and lean, with the eyes of a hawk. He scanned the sage flats clear to the pillars of stone. Neither Indian nor hogan was in sight. Presently he spoke. “Bill, hang on to the kid. An’ some of you drive the sheep ahead of us. Thar’s water over hyar somewheres. We’ll find it an’ make camp.”

“Huh!” ejaculated the man Bill, in disgust. “Talkin’ about sense, what’s the idee, cap, packin’ this heavy kid along?”

“Wal, it ain’t decent to kill him, jest fer nothin’, an’ it is sense to keep him from gettin’ back home to- night.”

“All right, you’re the boss. But I’ll eat sage if them Indians don’t track us, jest the same.”

“Bill, you’re a bright fellar,” retorted the other. “Mebbe this kid’s family will find our tracks by to-morrow, but I’m gamblin’ they won’t.”

Nophaie hung limp over that horse for several miles before he was tumbled off like an empty sack. The band had come to a halt for the night. Nophaie’s hands and feet were bound with a lasso. He heard the bleating of the sheep, and then the trampling low roar of their hoofs as they were driven off into the desert. One of the men gave him food and drink; another covered him with a blanket. Nophaie’s fear eased, but there was birth of a dark heritage of hate in his heart. He did not sleep.

At daylight the band was off, riding hard to the southward, and Nophaie had no choice but to go with them. Toward nightfall of that long day the spirits of the men appeared to rise. They ceased to look back over the rolling ridges of purple sage, or down the leagues of cedar aisles. They avoided the Indian hogans and sheered off well-trodden trails. Next day some of the band were in favor of letting Nophaie go free. But again the leader ruled against them.

“Reckon it’s tolerable lonely along hyar. We don’t want the kid to be lost an’ starve.”

About noontime one day later they let Nophaie go free, and pointed down a road toward an Indian encampment. Then in a cloud of dust they trotted on. Rough but kind they had used him, unconscious of their hand in his destiny. But Nophaie never reached the Indian hogans. Another party of white people, of different look and voice, happened upon him. They were travelers of leisure, seeing the West, riding across the reservation. They had wagons and saddle horses, and Western men to care for them. Again Nophaie ran, only to be caught by one of the riders and hauled before the women of the party.

“What a handsome Indian lad!” exclaimed one.

“Let us take him along,” said another.

An older woman of the group, with something more than curiosity in her face, studied Nophaie for a moment. She, too, was kind. She imagined she was about to do a noble thing.

“Indian boy, I will take you and put you in a school.”

They took Nophaie with them by force. They took him out of the desert and far to the east.

And Nophaie lived and studied in the white man’s school and college for eighteen years.

CHAPTER II

AS THE TRAIN neared the Western town which was her destination Marian Warner realized that this ride was not a dream, but the first act of the freedom she had yearned for, the first step in her one great adventure. All the excitement and audacity and emotion that had been her undoing now seemed to swell into a thrilling panic.

Long days of travel had passed since she had boarded the train at Philadelphia. The faces of friends, of her aunt — the few who loved her — had grown dim, as if every revolution of the wheels had deadened memory as well as lengthened miles. Little had she guessed how she had cut herself adrift. But to the last she had kept her secret.

Somewhere back along the way, where she had crossed the line into this desert state, she had become conscious of a quickening of her long apathetic feelings. Had her first glimpses of the bleached gray of the desert stirred her heart? What of that strange line of red and yellow cliffs — bold rock fronts almost incredible to her? Deep and vague was the emotion they roused. It was April, and the clouds were gray, the weeds tumbling over the land before the wind, the dust puffs whipping up and circling into yellow columns. Bold and raw and inhospitable indeed this desert land! Its bigness began to amaze and frighten her. Miles and miles of barrenness — rocks — flats of gray — black mountains in the distance — and again those strange façades of red cliff! Few and far between were the ranches. And the occasional herd of cattle appeared lost in immensity. Marian strained her tired eyes searching for horses and riders, for the flashes of red blankets of Indians, but these were denied her.

Then, as many times during this long ride, she had recourse to the letter that had influenced her to come west.

Oljato (Moonlight on the Water),

Feb. 10, 1916.

Dear Marian:

Your letters and gifts were welcome as May flowers. I did not get them at Christmas time because I did not ride into Kaidab. The weather then was cold and I had my only living relative to look after. He was ill. He is better now.

I rode the ninety-odd miles to the post between sunrise and sunset, over a trail known only to Indians. And all the way I thought of you, of the love for you that only strengthens with distance and time. Remembering your fondness for horses and how you used to long for wild and lonely places, I wanted you to be with me.

But in spite of the joy that came with your remembrances, my ride back from the post was full of bitterness. I was again brought into contact with the growing troubles of my tribe, and with the world of white men which I have given up.

Marian, my people now are very prosperous. The war has brought false values. Wool is fifty cents a pound. Horses and sheep bring higher prices than any Indians ever dreamed of. They think this will last always. They will not save. They live from day to day, and spend their money foolishly. And when the reaction comes they will be suddenly poor, with the trader’s prices for food and clothing higher than ever.

I have been here nearly a year now, and have yet to find one single Indian who is really a Christian. I have gone all over this part of the reservation. The Indians tell me there have been many good missionaries among those sent out here. White men who were kind, who studied the Indians’ need, who helped them with their hands, who might in time have won their confidence. But for some reason or other they never remained long enough.

And we greatly need help. Come out to the reservation and work for a year or two among my people. It could not hurt you. And you might do much for them. You could be a teacher at Mesa or one of the other schools. None would ever know that you came for my sake.

Your letters heaped upon me terms of reproach. Marian, I have not forgotten one moment of our summer at Cape May. I live over every meeting with you. I love you more than I did then. It seems I am old now. Wisdom came to me here in my desert home, under the shadow of old Nothsis Ahn. I was born under this great mountain. When a boy I was stolen from my home under its red walls. And after eighteen years I have come back. I burned my white man’s clothes and books — even the records of my football games — all except your picture. I put on buckskin and corduroy and silver. I seldom speak English and I am again an Indian. No more Lo Blandy, but Nophaie!

I was young and full of fire that summer at Cape May. I drank the white man’s liquor, Marian. I was praised, fêted, sought because I had become a famous athlete — the football and baseball player, winner of so many points against the great colleges. I danced and played the same as white college men.

Then I met you, Marian. You were different from most of the white girls. I loved you at sight and respected you when I knew you. I stopped drinking for you. And for an Indian to give up whisky, once he knows its taste, is no small thing. I loved a white girl. I called you Benow di cleash, the white girl with blue eyes. And I’m sure your influence kept me from the fate of more than one famous Indian athlete — Sockalexis, for instance, who ruined career and health in one short year.

But when I returned to my people the great change came. Not in my love for you, but in my youth. I am a man now, old as these sage hills, and I’ve learned from them. It was selfish and wrong for me to run after you, to love you, to take your kisses — wrong though it was, the best influence of my life. I am an Indian.

Then, once here, whatever wild dreams I may have had were forgotten. I see the life of my tribe as a tragedy. The injustice to them is the blackest of white men’s baseness. The compulsory school system for the Indian boys and girls has many bad points. The bad missionary is the apostle of hate and corruption. His ways are not the ways of the good missionary. I am an educated Indian — a chief in my tribe. I see their misery. I see them vanishing. I cannot marry an Indian girl, because I love you. I cannot have a child, because I love you. I cannot know any woman because I love you. When an Indian loves he loves forever. It is infinitely easier for an Indian to love a white woman than for her to love him. I don’t know why.

So Marian, I am here, no longer Lo Blandy, but Nophaie. My name means Warrior. The red sand I tread is part the bones and flesh of my ancestors. I will live my life here and mingle my bones with theirs. I will do all I can for them. But alas! the eighteen years’ education forced upon me by the whites enables me only to see the pitiful state and the doom of the Indians.

Come, Marian, to Oljato — come to help me awhile or just to see the wildness and beauty of my home, so that always afterward your memory will be full of the color and music and grandeur and fragrance of the Indian land.

Nophaie.

Marian put the letter away, conscious only at that moment of her emotions. Every perusal of it seemed to glean new sensations of pain, regret, sweetness and love, and awe.

“Nophaie, the Warrior,” she soliloquized, dreamily. “Somehow it suits him.”

She recalled the first time she had ever seen him. It was at Cape May, where a group of college men maintained baseball games with visiting teams, professional and otherwise. Her aunt, with whom she lived, and most of her Philadelphia friends, always spent some weeks at the seashore. And Marian enjoyed games and bathing and dancing as well as anyone. One summer afternoon a friend took her to the athletic field and pointed out the famous Indian star. How curious she had felt! There was a strange pain in the recall of that first sensation. Her eyes fell upon a tall bareheaded athlete, slenderly yet powerfully built, his supple form broadening wide at the shoulders. His face was dark, his hair black as coal. Striking and handsome as he was, it was not his appearance alone that thrilled her so. She was a thoroughly modern young woman and had seen her share of college games. In action the Indian was simply beautiful. He had earned his great fame as a football star, and had been picked by experts for the All American team three successive years. But he did not need to be so great a baseball player to be good to look at. He played an outfield position, and the chances of the game fell so that he had little to do except run. And his running grew more and more thrilling to Marian. How easily he moved — what a stride he had! Marian found she was not alone in her admiration. This Indian athlete did not need her applause. Toward the end of the game, at a critical time for the home team, he hit a ball far beyond the reach of the opposing fielders. The crowd roared its delight. The Indian dashed down toward first base, and, turning, appeared to gather speed as he ran. Marian felt the pound of her heart, the sudden shock of delight and pride in the Indian’s sheer physical prowess. He ran as the Greek runners must have run, garlanded for their victories. How fleet! How incredibly faster and faster! Then he was making the turn for home base, and the crowd was yelling wildly. He seemed to be facing Marian as he sped on, magnificent in his action. He beat the throw and scored his home run, a feat the audience applauded with prodigious abandon. Marian then became aware that she too had been rather undignified.

That night at a dance one of Marian’s friends had asked her.

“Have you met Lo?”

“Lo! and who’s he or she?” queried Marian.

“He’s the Indian crack. You saw him play to-day. Lo Blandy.”

And so it came about presently that Marian found herself facing the Indian athlete she had admired. Not just then had she realized it, but the truth was she had fallen in love with him at first sight. Something in her nature, never dreamed of before, went out to the Indian. He had a fine face, dark and strong, with eyes of piercing blackness. There was something noble in his stature, or the poise of his head, or the eagle look of him.

“Will you dance with me?” he had asked, and appeared as much at his ease as any of the college men.

Marian found herself dancing with an Indian — a very strange and momentous circumstance, it seemed. Evidently he had not made dancing one of his college courses, as most young men made. But he was light and strong; he carried her on without the bold contact so prevalent among most dancing men; and so Marian enjoyed that dance.

They met again by accident on the beach, and because no one else came and they were interesting to each other, they talked for long. After that day Marian went to all the baseball games. And Lo Blandy became one of her numerous admirers, to the amusement of her aunt and friends.

But these meetings had been deadly earnest for Marian. She loved the Indian. She fought against herself — then surrendered and fought no more. He had more principle and better habits than any white boy she knew. So that summer, in the cool amber-lighted mornings by the seashore and on the moonlit nights when dance and music held their sway, Marian quaffed the spiced magic draught of love.

She wondered if she had as true and steadfast a nature as the Indian? Would she love once and once only? Vain queries. She loved now and that was all of pain.

Marian gazed out of the train window at the scenery flashing by. The topography of the country had changed. Dark bushy green trees, very beautiful, had appeared on the slowly rising desert land, and the spaces between them were white with bleached grass. No more cliffs of stone passed under her sight. There were wooded hills in the background. And presently these low green trees gave place to larger ones, growing wide apart, brown-trunked, with spreading branches and thin green foliage at the tops. Pines! She welcomed them. She greeted every little gain of pleasure or knowledge, somehow trying to persuade herself that there was to be education and broadening of sympathy in this wild trip to the West. Marian had not been ashamed of her love for Lo Blandy. She felt that she might reach a point where she would glory in it. But she had shrunk from making confidants of her aunt and her friends. No one guessed the truth of that summer at Cape May. And now she was on a train, far out in the West, soon to take whatever means offered to reach the Indian reservation. The farther she traveled the more untrue her situation seemed. Yet she was glad. A deep within her stirred to strange promptings. She strove to justify her action in her own eyes. Surely one flight of freedom need not be denied her. The laxity of Marian’s social set in no wise gave her excuse for wildness and daring. She hated the drinking and smoking of women, the unrestrained dances, the lack of courtesy, the undeniable let-down of morals. She had welcomed an opportunity to escape from that atmosphere. Outside of love for Lo Blandy or an earnest desire to help his people there had been a trenchant call to some subtle innate wildness in her. The prairie, the mountain, the sea, the desert all called to her with imperious voice. Some day she would surely have listened.

“I have no close family ties,” she said to herself, in sincere defense. “I am twenty-three. I am my own master. I’ve always dreamed of love with honor — of marriage with children. Perhaps in vain! My aunt, my friends, would call me mad. They do not understand me. I am not throwing my life away. I can do good out here. I can help him.... Nophaie — what a strange, beautiful name!... I am not rich. But I have some money, and that I will gladly use now. Let the future take care of itself.”

So she settled the matter of perplexity and of conscience, and gave up to the singular appeal of the prospect before her. Always Marian had yearned to do something different, unusual, big. She had traveled a little, taught school, tried journalistic work, and had one short weakness for dramatics. And she knew she had accomplished nothing. Here indeed was the bright face of adventure, mysterious and alluring, coupled with a work she might make uplifting and all- satisfying.

Flagerstown, the first Western town Marian had ever been in, was not at all like what she had imagined it would be. Her impressions of the West had come from books and motion pictures, which mediums, she was to learn, did not always ring true to life.

It was a thriving little city, bustling with motorcars and active over its lumber, railroad, and cattle interests. It bore no signs of the typical frontier town. What surprised Marian a little was the fact that neither hotel proprietor nor banker, post-office official nor clerk in the store, nor a cattleman she chanced to address showed any curiosity concerning her. When she made inquiry about the Indian reservation she simply stated that she was interested in Indians and might do some journalistic work out there. Marian was compelled to confess that these Western men did not seem to be impressed with her. They were courteous and kindly, yet somehow aloof. It was a novelty to her. In the East she had been endlessly confronted with the fact of her femininity and youth and attractiveness. Here she seemed to catch a breath of life not thick and heavy with the atmosphere of sex. The West was young, virile, open. Already she began to feel free of fetters that had weighed upon her. Back home the ideals of most people were the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, excitement. The cities were congested. Young people left the wholesome countryside to flock to the centers of population, there to mix and strive in crowded places. Marian felt the futility and falseness of such life — that the threshold of decadence had been crossed.

She ascertained that a mail carrier left Flagerstown twice a week for the places on the reservation — Mesa, Red Sandy, and Kaidab. And the post- office man was kind enough to engage passage for her. Next morning the hotel porter called to take her baggage. Marian saw the most dilapidated Ford car that had ever come before her vision. What there was of it appeared to be wired and roped together. And it was loaded heavily with mail bags, boxes, and sacks. There was a coop containing some chickens going by parcel post. Next to the driver’s seat had been left a small space, evidently for Marian.

“Goodness!” ejaculated Marian, as she surveyed this doubtful contraption. “Will it hold together? Is it safe to ride in?”

“Why miss, sho thet Injun will get you thar,” replied the porter.

“Indian! Is the driver an — Indian?”

“Yes-sum. An’ sho blowin’ snow er sand makes no difference to him.”

Marian could have laughed, in spite of her uneasiness. But all she could do was to gaze helplessly at that machine. Then appeared a young man in ragged dark suit. His small feet were incased in brown buckskin moccasins with silver buttons. His dark face appeared to be half hidden by a black sombrero. She could see that he was young. She noted his hands as they slipped over the wheel- -dark, thin, nervous, sinewy hands, well formed and mobile. Then he got into the driver’s seat and looked up at her. He was only a youth. His face was keen, smooth as silk, without a line, dark as bronze. He had a level brow and eyes black as night. Suddenly they gleamed with intelligence and humor. This Indian sensed her consternation.

“You ready go?” he queried, in intelligible English. The tone of it gave Marian a little shock. Something about it, the low pitch or timbre, recalled the voice of Lo Blandy.

“Y-yes, I guess so,” faltered Marian. Dare she trust this frightful junk heap of a car and its Indian driver on a long desert journey? Marian’s Eastern compunctions did not die easily.

“You go Kaidab?” asked the driver.

“Yes,” replied Marian.

“I get you there — five o’clock,” he returned, with a smile. It seemed a flash of understanding. He read her mind, and wished to reassure her. Marian’s new spirit revived with a rush. She had burned her bridges behind her.

“Will it be cold?” she asked, as she was about to climb into the car.

“You need blanket for while,” he said.

Marian had no blanket, but she had brought a heavy coat which would serve as well. This she put on. Then she squeezed into the small space beside the driver. The grinning porter called, “Good night!” which dubious farewell in no wise diminished Marian’s concern.

The Indian driver moved something that made the rickety car crack like a pistol and lurch forward. Marian could not stifle a gasp. The square-fronted buildings with their queer high board signs began to speed back out of her sight. Ahead the white asphalt road merged into one of dark earth, and there appeared a long slope of pine trees. Cold, keen, biting wind fanned Marian’s cheeks. It nipped with its frosty breath. And it brought a strange dry fragrance. The car passed the line of buildings, and to the left loomed a mighty green-and-white mountain mass that hid its summit in gloomy rolling clouds.

“Storm,” said the Indian. “We hurry so get ‘way from snow.”

If anything more were needed to complete Marian’s demoralization, she had it in the gathering speed of that car. It belied its appearance.

“Oh! if they could see me now!” she murmured, as she snuggled down into the warm coat and peeped out at the wonderful green slope of forest. She thought of those at home who would have looked aghast at her boldness. Perhaps this was the moment of severance. Whatever it was, above all Marian’s misgivings and defiance there pealed a subtle voice of joy.

CHAPTER III

THE ROAD UPON which the Indian was driving led out into a pine forest, between the stately trees of which she caught glimpses of cloud-enshrouded mountains.

The cold, the raw wind, the increasing gloominess of the day, with its ominous threat of storm, in no wise checked Marian’s momentary enthusiasm and awakening joy for the open country. She must see all, feel all, experience all with every sense acute. For as long as she could remember she had been cooped up in a town. And in her heart love of nature had been stultified. At last! She breathed deeply of the keen air. And the strong pitchy smell of pine began to stimulate her.

“What mountains?” she asked.

“Spanish Peaks,” replied the driver.

She asked him other questions, to which he gave brief and unsatisfactory reply. Perhaps it took all his attention to keep the car in the road. Besides, it made such a rattle and clank that conversation was really not easy. Marian ceased asking questions.

The road led through a forest of pines such as Marian had never seen, wonderfully fragrant and exhilarating after the cities and railroads. The grass was dead, bleached white, but the green of the pines gave relief to her eyes. Ten miles of forest the car traversed, then an open valley, fine ranch country Marian judged, from which view of the mountain range was magnificent, and then it entered forest again, with the difference that the ground appeared to be all cinders. The car chugged uphill, losing much of its velocity.

From a ridge top Marian’s eyes were greeted by a strange and desolate spectacle — a wide black valley, a slope of black cinders, and a stream of red lava crusted and jagged, and beyond these foothills of black cinders smooth and steep, all waved and ridged like sand dunes carved by wind. A line of pines crested the first hill, and under this green stretch was a long bank of snow, its pure white contrasting markedly with the ebony cinders. A range of these foothills rose off toward the south, growing higher and smoother, weird and sinister monuments to the havoc of volcanic action in the ages past. Beyond and above this range towered a mountain of cinders, strangely barren, marvelously colored in purple, black and red.

Marian saw so much in this scored and devastated region that she regretted passing on so rapidly. Soon her Indian guide reached a downgrade in the forest, ran out of the cinder zone upon hard road again, and here Marian feared every flying mile would be her last.

By and by the pines began to decrease in size and grow farther apart, so that glimpses of open country came to Marian. Then from round a rocky ridge quite abruptly the car sped out into thin forest from which stretched a vast waste of gray. The desert! Marian did not try to repress an exclamation of delight and awe.

She was looking down over many leagues of desert. The pines failed, the cedars began, and beyond them rolled and waved away the white billowy miles of wasteland. Only two colors prevailed — black and white. How soft and velvety! Only the west appeared barred from limitless gaze; and there a succession of rounded hills, bare except for grass, led away down into the desert. These and the cedars and the winding road lured Marian’s sight to the farthest reaches, to what seemed a dim and mounting succession of colossal steps, vaguely colorful, unattainable and incredible. Where did horizon line separate that purple remote land from the sky? But the sky was obscured, and horizon-wide clouds of dull leaden hue and trailing veils of storm filled the vastness above. The desert sloped away league after league and rolled upward majestically doubling leagues, all open to the eye.

Marian feasted her eyes, trying to grasp what it was that she saw. Moments and miles passed, and suddenly a gray squall of rain and snow swooped down from behind, enveloping the car. It brought a piercing cold. What rain there was soon changed to sleet. It pelted Marian, many hailstones bouncing off the glass wind-shield to sting her face. Gloves and pockets appeared little protection against such cold. Marian suffered. Her cheeks, her nose, her ears seemed to congeal to ice. The world around that car was white, swept by a blizzard, with snow fleeting across the ground. The sky was obscured. When Marian opened her eyes, at intervals, she could not see far in front of the car. This obscurity did not deter the Indian from driving fast. So that between her pangs and fears Marian had to make heroic enjoyment out of this hour.

At length the gray cloud lightened, the snow thinned out, and the blue of sky shone through a thin haze of white. That too faded or melted away, and then the storm veered, leaving clear a great open space above. Marian grew aware that she was now far down in the desert, with open bare ridges all around her and the distant prospects out of view. The snow failed. The earth changed its white- and-black hue to a dull red. Once again the car sped out upon a height from which Marian had a second look at the leagues of desert. Here the immense reach and slope struck her more forcibly, and especially the great volume of light.

The sun came out from behind the cloud bank over the east, and the desert magnified lines and colors, and suddenly unmasked an appalling beauty.

Once the Indian stopped the car, to examine some of its mechanism. Thus Marian was enabled to get out, to stretch her cramped, cold limbs. After that, when the journey had been resumed, she soon grew comfortable under a warming sun, and at length forgot both pangs and fears in absorption of this desert land. Her driver traveled downhill for no less than three hours. This brought them to what seemed an incongruity — an iron bridge spanning a rock-walled gorge, through which ran a muddy stream. Here in this valley the sun was hot. Marian had to remove the heavy coat.

Beyond the river stretched a gravelly plain, hard packed by wind, and its slow ascent at last gained another height, from which Marian confirmed her wondering expectations. Three level benches of colored desert, as high as mountains, lifted their wondrous reds and purples and grays and golds toward the blue sky. It was a land of painted steps. It was beyond her power to grasp. She could but revel in a mosaic of color and a strange expanse of earth and rock. This was but the portal of Lo Blandy’s country. What then would Oljato be like? Marian felt confounded in her own impressions. Once she glanced behind her, as if to make sure of distance she had traversed, of land she knew to be solid and not a substance of dreams. The spectacle to the rear was vastly different, a gray desert slope, a red desert slope, league on league, shelving back to rise and lift to a great dark plateau from which the Spanish Peaks showed white pure snow against the sky.

The ensuing hour, during which the Indian driver crossed the bare plains of sand and gravel and climbed the successive steps of colored rock, passed by all too quickly for Marian. The sun beat down hot. To the north, in the direction the car was heading, more storm clouds were gathering. Above the last desert step the earth appeared a place of ruin and decay, a zone of sinister red and strange drab, where rocks and clay had been weathered into fantastic shapes. Marian likened the region to an inferno. Soon it lay behind, and she found herself confronted with a wide valley between glaring walls of rock. Dark rich green fields of alfalfa formed the floor of this valley, making the hot walls of stone naked and stark by contrast. Marian saw clusters of trees beginning to show green, and the roofs of two flat houses.

“What’s this place?” she inquired.

“Copenwashie,” replied the Indian.

“Are those green fields Indian farms?”

“Some are. White people got most land now.”

“But isn’t this a reservation for the use of Indians?” went on Marian, curiously.

All the reply she received was a grunt of disgust. The Indian drove fast up this level valley, making the dust fly from under his car. When he came to the first house he stopped and carried packages in. Marian saw no one. In the fields, however, were picturesque laborers she took to be Indians. Upon resuming the journey her guide pointed out some low stone houses, standing back under shelving cliffs, surrounded by greening trees. These were the homes of missionaries. From that point the road ascended the side of a steep gorge. Up on top of this elevation the land was level, covered with rough low bushes, dull green in color. Gray and red buildings showed in the distance, and long lines of bare trees. In a few moments the car had reached them. Marian was consumed with interest and curiosity.

“Mesa. We stop little while,” said the driver, coming to a halt before one of the stone structures. It was large, with few windows, and appeared rather inhospitable-looking. Little ragged wild ponies wearing crude square- topped saddles stood near by with bridles down.

“Are they Indian horses?” she asked.

“Yes. Not much good. You wait,” he replied, with his reassuring smile. “This trading post. People friendly. You go in. I take mail.”

Marian got out, glad to stretch her limbs again, and strolled to and fro. She saw a wide tree-lined avenue, with well-built gray stone houses on one side, and large red stone buildings on the other. These latter she took to be the government school quarters. How out of place they seemed! The great tableland of desert seemed to encompass them, accentuating their incongruity. The avenue was long, so that Marian could not see what lay at the upper end. Then her attention was attracted toward the trading post. Three men, Indians, had just come out. They wore white man’s garb, even to shoes and hats, and did not rouse Marian’s admiration. What swarthy faces, secretive and impassive — what sloe-black eyes, beady and sharp! These Indians watched her. Marian suffered something of disillusion and disappointment at sight of them. Then a white man appeared, tall, sandy-haired, and open-faced.

“Come in. I’m Paxton, the trader,” he said. “My wife is always glad to meet visitors. You must be tired and hungry. And it’s a good way to Kaidab.”

“Thank you, I am hungry, but not tired,” replied Marian, as she followed him in, wondering how he had learned where she was going. He led her through a huge hall-like storeroom, in which counters and shelves were loaded with merchandise, to another part of the house, into a living room, comfortable and pleasant. There Marian met the trader’s wife, a young and comely woman who was most kindly and agreeable. Neither by word nor by look did she manifest any curiosity. She was merely glad to meet a strange visitor and to give her a little rest and refreshment. Marian liked her.

“I’m on my way to Kaidab,” she volunteered.

“Well, I’m glad of that. It’s fine of you to be interested. God knows the Indians need friends. We traders believe we are about the only friends they have.”

Marian asked casual questions about the Indians, being careful not to give an impression of more than ordinary interest. And altogether she spent a pleasant half hour with Mrs. Paxton.

“I hope you come to Mesa again,” said her hostess, as they passed out through the store. From the door Marian saw a white man standing beside the car, in conversation with the Indian driver.

“There’s Friel,” went on Mrs. Paxton, and evidently the recognition of the man changed her train of thought.

“Who’s Friel?” queried Marian.

“He’s a missionary,” she replied, “but of the kind that I’m afraid does more to antagonize the Indians against the church than to instil the true spirit of Christianity.”

Marian, somewhat startled, made no direct reply to Mrs. Paxton’s statement. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll meet again. Good- by.”

Marian walked out to the car. At her step the man designated by Mrs. Paxton turned to see her. Marian was used to meeting strangers and classifying them, after the manner of women. But she had not any recollection of a type like this man.

“I’m Mr. Friel,” he said, touching his sombrero. “Can I do anything for you?”

“No, thank you,” replied Marian.

His face had the brown of the open, but it was not one that inspired Marian to interest or liking. Quick was she to see the gleam of curiosity in his eyes, and then, as he took a good look at her, the leap of admiration.

“You’re traveling alone,” he said. “May I know your errand?”

Marian told him what she had told the trader’s wife. Then she felt rather than saw an increased interest in her, with something of antagonism.

“Have you permission to go on the reservation?” he inquired.

“No. Is it — compulsory?”

“I — well — no, hardly that. But it is always best for visitors to see Mr. Blucher.”

“Who is he?”

“The agent in charge of the reservation.”

“Very well. Where can I find him?”

“Unfortunately Mr. Blucher is away attending an investigation. But I can take it upon myself to — to make everything all right. Wouldn’t you like to see the school?”

Marian felt that perhaps she was unfairly prejudiced against the man, who was well spoken enough. But apart from that Mr. Friel had the look in his eyes which she hated. And she never met that look twice. Nevertheless, she must accept people out here in the desert as she found them, and if possible without suffering indignity, she must learn from them.

“It would be interesting to see the Indian children. I may return here and find some kind of work with them. But I’ve no time now.”

“I can get you a position here,” he said, eagerly. He was too eager.

“What authority have you?” asked Marian, bluntly. She omitted thanking him.

“Well, no outright authority to hire government employees,” he returned. “But I hire people to work for me occasionally. And I’m hand in glove with Morgan. He’s the power here.”

“Morgan?”

“He’s been here over twenty years. And he runs things.”

“What is he?”

“Missionary.”

“So — and if I return here to find work — whom should I see first?”

“Come to me on the quiet. Then we’ll see Morgan. If you got a job before seeing him you’d soon lose it.”

“Indeed! Well, I’ll think it over,” returned Marian, as she stepped to the car.

Friel took hold of her arm, not to assist her, but to keep her from entering.

“Let me drive you to Kaidab. I have my car here. There’s no room in this filthy junk box. Besides, a handsome girl like you oughtn’t be riding alone with one of these Indians.”

“Why not? He’s the mail carrier. I’m paying him for driving me.”

“They’re all alike, these Indian louts. You’re not safe with any one of them.”

“If that’s true, Mr. Friel, it doesn’t speak well for your missionary work. I’ll take a chance on this Indian. Good day.”

With that Marian resumed her seat in the car and signed the driver to start. He did so after a fashion that presupposed he was glad to leave the vicinity. Marian sat back, just as ready as she imagined he was. The breeze was pleasant. The wide colored spaces beckoned. She was a little amazed at the heat running along and cooling out of her veins. Upon sober reflection, Marian discerned that she resented most the insult to the Indian. She turned to him.

“Did you understand what that man said?”

“I savvy him. His head big stick with skin stretched over.”

Marian was forced to admit that the Indian had discernment and originality. Then straightway she dismissed the irritation from her mind. The ride over the desert was all important. How far was she from Kaidab — from Oljato? Every speeding mile brought her closer to the home of Lo Blandy. She whispered his Indian name over and over again, trying to accept it and make it familiar. She could not succeed. And every thought of him augmented a mounting consciousness of an ordeal to come, baffling and tremendous in its significance. Yet what sweetness of thrill — of strange fire and magic!

The gray clouds soon obscured the sun, and Marian again felt the chill of the wind. She bundled up once more. Her driver had turned off to the north from the Mesa road, and was following a depression of land, where Marian could not see far. There was a stretch of sandy going, then a climb up a long slope that led to a level plateau, sparsely green with plants, and monotonously gray with distance. Here the Indian put the car to its limit of speed, too fast and too noisy for Marian’s pleasure. Yet she gazed from one side to the other, eager to see. Eastward were long ragged lines of blue earth or rock, evidently marking a canyon. To the west the only mark of note was a great white bluff, standing alone, flat-topped, with bare sloping sides. Soon the gray obscurity ahead turned out to be snow, a driving hard storm that put Marian to another test. Burying her face in scarf and coat collar, she crouched there and endured. Meanwhile time passed and likewise the miles. When the storm cleared away and the sun shone again Marian had reached a wide red basin, sand-sloped and walled in by low cliffs, now shining with wet faces.

At two o’clock the Indian brought his car to a halt before Red Sandy, a fort- like trading post located high upon an immense slope of sand. The traders, two young men, were as solicitous and kind as had been the Paxtons. Marian was indeed glad to warm her frozen cheeks and ears and hands. The traders conducted Marian to a loft above their store. It was warm, and somehow peculiarly fitting and picturesque with its blankets and baskets and other Indian handiwork. How weirdly the wind moaned outside!

From the window of this house Marian had a wonderful view that fascinated and repelled her. How desolate and dreary! The immense basin appeared to spread to all points of the compass. Ponds of water glimmered under the lowering sky. Vegetation was so scanty that bushes here and there resembled animals. Across the void rose a whorl of white cliffs, bold and bleak, worn by the elements into strange and irregular conformation. This mass of rock ended abruptly in a sheer bluff facing the south. A wide avenue of spotted desert land separated it from the rise and heave of a black flat mountain to the eastward. Marian saw the almost level line of this tableland wander away into the distance, gradually to disappear in the north. And following the horizon round toward the west she suddenly beheld a dim purple-and-white dome. For long it held her gaze, not alone because of its beauty. It called. It did not seem real, so deep was the purple, so ethereal the white.

“Is that a mountain?” she asked one of the traders.

“It shore is,” he replied. “That’s old Nothsis Ahn. It’s worshiped by the Indians.”

Marian went back to the car, where the Indian sat waiting for her. Almost she resented this swift passage across the desert. It left no time for realization, let alone contemplation. One more moment she gave to Red Sandy. It had beauty, but how austere! There was no life, no movement. The red colors dominated, but did not stand out. They merged with the drab, brown, mauve, and gray. Perhaps the lowering clouds caused the effect of gloom. The silence was impressive.

On the way down across the sandy basin Marian espied dark riders approaching from around the bluff. She watched them grow until they met and passed her, two Indian men and one woman, riding shaggy ponies and packing blankets and sheepskins behind their saddles. The woman was heavy, garbed in loose dirty garments, with dull, dark face and unkempt hair. It was only at a distance that these Indians looked picturesque.

Then there ensued an hour in which the car chugged over a sandy road, mostly uphill, with view restricted except on the eastern side. Here the long black flat mountain assumed nobler proportions. Bands of little horses dotted the gray-green rise of ground. An Indian rider appeared on the rim of a ridge, loping along, lending a touch of wildness and life to the scene. Presently the driver called Marian’s attention to a mound of earth with a dark hole leading into it. “Hogan. Indian house,” he said. How crude and primitive! Verily the wants and the comforts of the Indians must be few.

It was only from the high places, Marian came to learn, that the incredible openness and boundlessness of the desert could be grasped. And there came a ridge summit from which she could see afar, down and across a land of prairie, on to slowly rising bare waste that swept upward to purple and black heights. These colors held her gaze. A round knob of stony hill on the left and the continuous range of mesa on her right seemed gradually to become less prominent in her sight. In another hour she learned that the black heights were forests of cedar and the purple ones were meadows of sage. Long before she reached these beautiful open patches of purple she became aware of a pervading fragrance in the air. It grew keener, stronger, sweeter. Marian recognized the odor of sage. Only how wild and strange, stifling almost, and wholly exhilarating! Here the barrenness of the desert was not in evidence. They had climbed to a high elevation. Forest of cedar and field of sage encompassed her on all sides.

If this long twenty mile upgrade of desert had not slowly grown from waste to verdure, from desolate, sinister badlands to noble heights of keen sweet air and beautiful color, Marian would not have been prepared for the next phase of this bewildering country. But she had been given time. She had grown with the miles.

So that when the Indian driver sped his car down a steep break, round curve and corner, out of the forest into a changed world of stone, Marian was not utterly confounded. The road stretched on through a long narrow pass, above which towered cliffs of red and gold and yellow, so lofty that she had to look almost straight up to see their rims. They seemed not to be cliffs, but stone faces of mountains. Marian gazed upward until her eyes ached.

All too swiftly ran the car and all too short was that pass. It opened out upon ridged gray desert, with the black mesa on the right zigzagging away to the eastward and the red corrugated wall of stone on the left notching its bold skyline away to the north. Ten more miles of travel removed both ramparts far to either side. And another hilltop gave Marian her first sight of Kaidab. Her letters, her gifts to Lo Blandy, had been sent to this trading post. All she saw was several low flat stone houses. A crude and dreary habitation! Yet no splendid spectacle of the whole long ride had given Marian the thrill that now shot over her.

CHAPTER IV

CLOSE AT HAND, Kaidab trading post showed striking aspects of life and activity. Marian looked and looked, with mounting delight and wonder.

First there were a number of the shaggy Indian ponies, unhaltered, standing with uplifted heads, and black rolling eyes askance on the mail carrier’s car. Several were without saddles, having blankets tied on their backs; one was of a cream color almost pink, with strange light eyes and wonderful long mane and tail; most of them were a reddish bay in color; and there was a fiery little black that took Marian’s eye.

Huge bags of burlap containing wool were being packed into a wagon by Indian freighters. And Indians were lounging around, leaning against the stone wall of the trading post. The look of them somehow satisfied Marian. Raven- black hair, impassive faces of bronze, eyes of night, lean and erect figures clad in velvet and corduroy, with glints of silver and bead ornament — these circumstances of appearance came somewhere near fitting Marian’s rather sentimental anticipations.

Before the open front of one building, evidently a storehouse, other Indians were packing wool in long sacks, a laborsome task, to judge from their efforts to hold the sack erect and stamp down the wool. The whole interior of this open house appeared hung and littered with harness, rope, piles of white sacks, piles of wool and skins. The odor of sheep struck Marian rather disagreeably. The sun was hot, and fell glaringly upon the red blankets. Flies buzzed everywhere. And at least a dozen lean, wild- looking and inquisitive- eyed dogs sniffed around Marian. Not one of them wagged its tail. White men in shirt sleeves, with sweaty faces and hands begrimed, were working over a motor- car as dilapidated as the mail carrier’s. Two Indian women, laden with bundles, came out of the open door of the trading post. The older woman was fat and pleasant-faced. She wore loose flowing garments, gaudy in color, and silver necklaces, and upon her back she carried a large bundle or box. When she passed, Marian caught a glimpse of a dark little baby face peering out of a hole in that box. The younger female was probably a daughter, and she was not uncomely in appearance. Something piquant and bright haunted her smooth dark face. She was slender. She had little feet incased in brown moccasins. She wore what Marian thought was velveteen, and her silver ornaments were studded with crude blue stones. She glanced shyly at Marian. Then an Indian came riding up to dismount near Marian. He was old. His lean face was a mass of wrinkles, and there was iron gray in his hair. He wore a thin cotton shirt and overalls — white man’s apparel much the worse for wear. Behind his saddle hung a long bundle, a goatskin rolled with the fur inside. This he untied and carried into the trading post. More Indians came riding in; one of the ponies began to rear and snort and kick; the dogs barked; whisks of warm and odorous wind stirred the dust; the smell of the sheep wool grew stronger; low guttural voices of Indians mingled with the sharper, higher notes of white men.

A sturdily built, keen-eyed man stalked out of the post, with a hand on the Indian mail carrier’s shoulder. He wore a vest over a flannel shirt, but no coat or hat. His boots were rough and dusty.

“Take her bags in,” he said to the Indian.

Then, at his near approach, Marian felt herself scanned by a gaze at once piercing and kindly.

“Glad to welcome you, Miss Warner,” he said. “Been expecting you for two hours. I’m John Withers.”

Marian offered her hand. “Expecting me?” she queried, curiously.

“News travels fast in this country,” he replied, with a smile. “An Indian rode in two hours ago with the news you were coming.”

“But my name?” asked Marian, still curious.

“Mrs. Withers told me that and what you looked like. She’ll shore be glad to see you. Come, we’ll go in.”

Marian followed him into the yard beside the trading post, where somewhat in the background stood a low, squat, picturesque stone house with roof of red earth. Her curiosity had developed into wonder. She tingled a little at an implication that followed one of her conjectures. How could Mrs. Withers know what she looked like? Withers ushered her into a wonderful room that seemed to flash Indian color and design at her. Blankets on floor and couch, baskets on mantel and wall, and a strange painted frieze of Indian figures, crude, elemental, striking — these lent the room its atmosphere. A bright fire blazed in the open stone fireplace. Books and comforts were not lacking. This room opened into a long dining-room, with the same ornamental Indian effects. And from it ran a hallway remarkable for its length and variety and color of its decorations.

Marian’s quick eyes had only time for one look when a woman of slight stature and remarkable face entered.

“Welcome to Kaidab, Miss Warner,” she said, warmly, with extended hands. “We’re happy to meet you. We hope you will stay long.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Withers. You’re very kind. I — I am very glad to get here,” replied Marian, just a little confused and nervous.

“You’ve had a long, cold ride. And you’re red with dust. Oh, I know that ride. I took it first twenty-five years ago, on horseback.”

“Yes, it was hard. And cold — I nearly froze. But, oh, it was wonderful!”

Withers laughed his pleasure at her words. “Why, that’s no ride. You’re just on the edge of real wild country. We’re going to show you.”

“John, put Miss Warner’s bags in the second room. And send some hot water. After she’s comfortable and rested we can talk.”

Marian found the room quaint and strange as the others. It had a clean, earthy smell. The walls appeared to be red cement — adobe, Marian supposed — and they were cold. While washing and changing her dusty clothes she pondered over her singular impressions of Mrs. Withers. She was no ordinary woman. For some reason not apparent to Marian her hostess had a strong personal regard for her. Marian had intuitively felt this. Besides she must have been a woman used to welcoming strangers to this wild frontier. Marian sensed something of the power she had felt in women of high position, as they met their guests; only in the case of Mrs. Withers it was a simplicity of power, a strange, unconscious dignity, spiritual rather than material. But Marian lost no time in making herself comfortable or conjecturing about Mrs. Withers. She felt drawn to this woman. She divined news, strange portents, unknown possibilities, all of which hurried her back to the living room. Mrs. Withers was there, waiting for her.

“How sweet and fair you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Withers, with an admiring glance at Marian’s face. “We don’t see your kind out here. The desert is hard on blondes.”

“So I imagine,” replied Marian. “I’ll not long remain ‘Benow di cleash!’... Is that pronounced correctly?”

Mrs. Withers laughed. “Well, I understand you. But you must say it this way... ‘Benow di cleash!’”

Her voice had some strange, low, liquid quality utterly new to Marian.

“Mrs. Withers, you know where I got that name,” asserted Marian.

“Yes, I’m happy to tell you I do,” she rejoined, earnestly. Marian slowly answered to the instinct of the moment. Her hands went out to meet those offered by Mrs. Withers, and she gazed down into the strange strong face with its shadows of sorrow and thought, its eyes of penetrating and mystic power.

“Let us sit down,” continued Mrs. Withers, leading the way to the couch. “We’ll have to talk our secrets at odd moments. Somebody is always bobbing in.... First, I want to tell you two things — that I know will make us friends.”

“I hope so — believe so,” returned Marian, trying to hold her calm.

“Listen. All my life I’ve been among the Indians,” said Mrs. Withers, in her low voice. “I loved Indians when I was a child. I’ve been here in this wild country for many years. It takes years of kindness and study to understand the Indian.... These Indians here have come to care for me. They have given me a name. They believe me — trust me. They call on me to settle disputes, to divide property left by their dead, to tell their troubles. I have learned their dreams, their religion, their prayers and legends and poetry, their medicine, the meaning of their dances. And the more I learn of them the more I love and respect them. Indians are not what they appear to most white people. They are children of nature. They have noble hearts and beautiful minds. They have criminals among them, but in much less proportion than have the white race. The song of Hiawatha is true — true for all Indians. They live in a mystic world of enchantment peopled by spirits, voices, music, whisperings of God, eternal and everlasting immortality. They are as simple as little children. They personify everything. With them all is symbolic.”

Mrs. Withers paused a moment, her eloquent eyes riveted upon Marian.

“For a good many years this remote part of the Indian country was far out of the way of white men. Thus the demoralization and degradation of the Indian were retarded, so far as this particular tribe is concerned. This Nopah tribe is the proudest, most intelligent, most numerous, and the wealthiest tribe left in the United States. So-called civilization has not yet reached Kaidab. But it is coming. I feel the next few years will go hard with the Indian — perhaps decide his fate.”

“Oh — there seems no hope!” murmured Marian.

“There indeed seems none, if you look at it intelligently and mercilessly. But I look at this question as the Indian looks at everything. He begins his prayer, ‘Let all be well with me,’ and he ends it, ‘Now all is well with me.’ He feels — he trusts. There really is a God. If there were not I would be an infidel. Life on the desert magnified all.... I want you to let me help you to understand the Indian.... For sake of your happiness!”

Marian could not voice her surprise. A tremor ran over her.

“Nophaie showed me your picture — told me about you,” went on Mrs. Withers, with an exquisite softness of voice. “Ah! do not be shocked. It was well for him that he confided in me.... I met him the day he returned from the East. I remembered him. I knew him as a boy, a little shepherd who refused to leave his flock in a sandstorm. I know the place where he was born. I know the sage where he was stolen. I knew the horsethief who stole him. I knew the woman who took him East and put him in school.... But Nophaie did not remember me. He went out to the sage slopes of Nothsis Ahn, and when he rode back he had not his white man’s clothes, or speech, or name. He was Nophaie. And he rode here now and then. The Indians told me about him. He is a chief who wants to help them in a white man’s way. But the Indians want him to be a medicine man.... Well, I saw his trouble, and when he came here I talked. I helped him with his own language. It returned but slowly. I saw his unhappiness. And in the end he told me about you — showed me your picture — confessed his love.”

Marian covered her burning face with trembling hands. She did not mind this good woman knowing her secret, but the truth spoken out, the potent words, the inevitable fact of it being no dream shocked her, stormed her heart. Nophaie loved her. He had confessed it to this noble friend of the Indians.

“Marian, do not be ashamed of Nophaie’s love,” went on Mrs. Withers, appealingly. “No one else knows. John suspects, but is not sure. I understand you — feel with you... and I know more. You’d not be here if you did not love Nophaie!”

“Of — course I love — him,” said Marian, unsteadily, as she uncovered her face. “You misunderstand. I’m not ashamed.... It’s just the shock of hearing- -knowing — the suddenness of your disclosure.”

“You musn’t mind me — and my knowing all,” returned the woman. “This is the desert. You are among primitive peoples. There’s nothing complex out here. Your sophistication will fall from you like dead scales.”

Gathering courage, and moved by an intense and perfect assurance of sympathy, Marian briefly told Mrs. Withers of her romance with Nophaie, and then of her condition in life and her resolve to have her fling at freedom, to live a while in the West and in helping the Indians perhaps find something of happiness.

“Ah! You will grieve, but you will also be wonderfully happy,” replied Mrs. Withers. “As for Nophaie — you will save him. His heart was breaking. And when an Indian’s heart breaks he dies.... I kept track of Nophaie. He had a remarkable career in college. He was a splendid student and a great athlete. I’ve heard that Nophaie’s father was a marvelous runner. And he carried the Testing Stone of the braves the farthest for generations.... But what good Nophaie’s education and prowess will do out here is a question. He must learn to be an Indian. Eighteen years away made him more white than red. He will never go back to the white man’s life.... Marian, I wonder — does that worry you? Be honest with me?”

“No. I would not want him to go back,” replied Marian.

“And you said you had no near and dear ties?” queried Mrs. Withers, with her magnetic eyes on Marian’s.

“None very near or dear.”

“And you were sick of artificial life — of the modern customs — of all that- -”

“Indeed I was,” interrupted Marian.

“And you really have a longing to go back to simple and outdoor ways?”

“Longing!” exclaimed Marian, almost with passion, carried out of self- control by this woman’s penetrating power to thrill her. “I — I don’t know what it is. But I think under my fair skin — I’m a savage!”

“And you have some money?”

“Oh, I’m not rich, but then I’m not poor, either.”

“And you love Nophaie — as you’re sure you could never love another man — a white man?”

“I — I love him terribly,” whispered Marian. “How can I foretell the future — any possible love — again? But I hate the very thought. Oh, I had it put to me often enough lately — marriage for money or convenience — for a home — for children — for anything but love? No. No! Not for me.”

“And will you marry Nophaie?” added Mrs. Withers.

Marian uttered a little gasp. Again it was not shame that sent the prickling hot blood to her cheeks, but a liberation of emotion she had restrained. This blunt and honest woman called to her very depths.

“Nophaie is an Indian,” Mrs. Withers went on. “But he’s a man. I never saw a finer man — white or red.... I think you’re a fortunate girl. To love and be loved — to live in this desert — to see its wildness and grandeur — to learn of it from an Indian — to devote your energies to a noble cause! I hope you see the truth!”

“I don’t see very clearly, but I believe you,” replied Marian. “You express something vague and deep in me — that wants to come out.... I ought not forget to tell you — Nophaie never asked me to — to marry him.”

“Well, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to, believe me,” returned the older woman. “I’ve seen some lovelorn Indians in my day, but Nophaie beats them all.... What do you think you’ll do — send for him or ride out to his home?”

“I — I’d rather meet him out — away — somewhere in the desert,” replied Marian, in thoughtful perplexity. “But would that be — be all right? It’s so unheard of — this thing I’m doing. I want to do it. The strongest feelings in me sanction it. But I’m sensitive — I don’t want people to know. Oh, it’s the cowardice and deceit of my kind.”

“Certainly it’ll be all right. John will take you to meet Nophaie,” rejoined Mrs. Withers, warmly. “And no one, except John and me, will be in the secret. We’ll tell the men and everyone who happens along that you’ve come out to work among the Indians.”

“Thank you. That will make it easier for me until I find myself.... I was brazen enough when I started out. But my courage seems oozing away.”

“I reckon these first days will be hard for you. But don’t get blue. All will be well. You’re young, healthy, strong. You have a mind. You’ll have a wonderful experience out here and be the better, if not the happier for it.”

At that juncture Withers came tramping into the room.

“Say, you look like you’d be good medicine,” he said heartily, as he stood gazing, somewhat surprised and wholly delighted. “What the desert will do to that complexion!... Well, miss, a Pahute Indian just rode in. He saw Nophaie this morning and talked with him. I thought you’d be glad to hear that.”

“Oh — to-day! So near!” exclaimed Marian.

“Shore can’t call it near — if you mean where Nophaie is. Nigh on to a hundred miles.”

“What did he tell you?” queried Marian, eagerly.

“Not much, I just asked if he’d seen Nophaie. He said he had, at sunup this morning. Nophaie was with the sheep. It’s lambing time out there. Nophaie was a great shepherd boy. I’ve heard before how he goes with the sheep. This Pahute laughed and said, ‘Nophaie forgets his white mind and goes back to the days of his youth.’ I think all the Indians feel joy over Nophaie’s renunciation of the white man’s life.”

“May I take a look at this Pahute?” asked Marian.

“Come on. I’ll introduce you,” replied Withers, with a laugh.

“Yes, go out with him,” interposed Mrs. Withers. “I must see about dinner.”

“I don’t want to be introduced or have this Pay — Pahute see I’m interested,” said Marian to Withers, as they passed out of the house. “I think it’s a matter of sentiment. I just want to — to look at the Indian who saw Nophaie this very day.”

“I was only joking, Miss Warner,” returned Withers, seriously. “This Pahute is a bad Indian. He’s got a record, I’m sorry to say. He’s killed white men and Indians both.”

“Oh! I’ve heard or read that fights and bloodshed were things of the past.”

“Shore you have,” said Withers, with a grim note in his voice. “But you heard or read what’s not true. Of course the frontier isn’t wild and bad, as it was forty years ago, when I was a boy. Nor anything so tough as fifteen years ago when the Indians killed my brother. But this border is yet a long way from tame.”

He led Marian through the back of the gray stone house into the store. The center of this large room was a stone-floored square, walled off from the spacious and crowded shelves by high counters. Indians were leaning against these counters. Marian saw locks of raven black hair straggling from under dusty crumpled black sombreros. She saw the flash of silver buckles and ornaments. She heard the clink of silver money and low voices, in which the syllable predominating sounded like toa and taa. All these Indians had their backs turned to Marian and appeared to be making purchases of the white man behind the counter. Piles of Indian blankets covered the ends of the counters. Back of them on the shelves were a variety of colored dry goods and canned foods and boxes and jars. From the ceiling hung saddles, bridles, lanterns, lassos — a numberless assortment of articles salable to Indians.

“Here’s your Pahute,” said Withers, pointing from the doorway out into the open. “Not very pretty, is he?”

Marian peeped out from behind the trader to see a villainous-looking little Indian, black almost, round-faced, big-nosed, with the boldest, hardest look she had ever seen on a human being’s face. He wore a high-crowned conical- shaped sombrero, with a wide stiff brim. It was as black as his hair and ornamented with bright beads. His garb consisted of a soiled velvet or corduroy shirt, and trousers of blue jeans. His silver-dotted belt held a heavy gun. A shiny broad silver bracelet circled a sinewy wrist, from which hung a leather quirt. Altogether this Indian was not a pleasant and reassuring sight for the eyes of a city girl, new on the desert. Yet he fascinated Marian.

“Well, what do you think of him?” asked Withers, smiling.

“I’m not especially taken with him,” replied Marian, with a grimace. “I prefer to see him at a distance. But he looks — like—”

“Like the real thing. You bet he is. But to give the devil his due, this Pahute hasn’t done a mean or vicious thing since Nophaie came back. The Indians tell me Nophaie has talked good medicine to him.”

“What is this medicine?” asked Marian.

“The Indians make medicine out of flowers, roots, bark, herbs, and use it for ills the same as white people do. But medicine also means prayer, straight talk, mystic power of the medicine men of the tribe and their use of sand paintings.”

“What are they?”

“When the medicine man comes to visit a sick Indian he makes paintings on a flat rock with different colored sands. He paints his message to the Great Spirit. These paintings are beautiful and artistic. But few white people have ever seen them. And the wonderful thing is that the use of them nearly always cures the sick Indian.”

“Then Nophaie has begun to help his people?”

“He shore has.”

“I am very glad,” said Marian, softly. “I remember he always believed he could not do any good.”

“We’re glad, too. You see, Miss Warner, though we live off the Indians, we’re honestly working for them.”

“The trader at Mesa said much the same, and that traders were the only friends the Indians had. Is it true?”

“We believe so. But I’ve known some missionaries who were honest-to-God men — who benefited the Indians.”

“Don’t they all work for the welfare of the Indians?”

The trader gave her a keen, searching look, as if her query was one often put to him, and which required tact in answering.

“Unfortunately they do not,” he replied, bluntly. “Reckon in every walk of life there are men who betray their calling. Naturally we don’t expect that of missionaries. But in Morgan and Friel we find these exceptions. They are bad medicine. The harm they do, in many cases, is counteracted by the efforts of missionaries who work sincerely for the good of the Indian. As a matter of fact some of the missionaries don’t last long out here, unless they give in to Morgan’s domination.”

“Why, that seems strange!” said Marian, wonderingly. “Has this Morgan power to interfere with really good missionaries?”

“Has he?” replied Withers, with grim humor. “I reckon. He tries to get rid of missionaries he can’t rule, or, for that matter, anybody.”

“How in the world can he do that?” demanded Marian, with spirit.

“Nobody knows, really. But we who have been long on the reservation have our ideas. Morgan’s power might be politics or it might be church — or both. Shore he stands ace high with the Mission Board in the East. There’s no doubt about the Mission Board being made up of earnest churchmen who seek to help and Christianize the Indians. I met one of them — the president. He would believe any criticism of Morgan to be an attack from a jealous missionary or a religious clique of another church. The facts never get to this mission board. That must be the cause of Morgan’s power. Some day the scales will fall from their eyes and they’ll dismiss him.”

“How very different — this missionary work — from what we read and hear!” murmured Marian, dreamily thinking of Nophaie’s letter.

“I reckon it is,” said Withers. “Take, for instance, the case of young Ramsdell, the cowboy missionary. Ramsdell’s way of work ruffled Morgan. This cowboy preacher first got the Indians to like and trust him. Morgan and his ally feared Ramsdell was getting influence. He worked with the Indians digging ditches, plowing, planting, and building. Ramsdell was a good mechanic and he tried to teach things to the Indians. Then he did not thrust his religion down their throats. Hell’s fire and all such things had no place in his talks. More significant, perhaps, to the Indians, was the fact that Ramsdell never had anything to do with Indian women. He was a rough diamond, a hard-riding parson. Well, Morgan called one of his investigations, his tribunals. He and Friel and the agent Blucher constituted themselves the Mission Board out here. They brought Ramsdell to their court and accused him of being a leader in heathenism. This charge was based on the fact that he dressed in Indian costume for the entertainment of Indian children. Another charge was that he was too friendly with us traders to be a true missionary. He was dismissed. So rolls on the Christian Juggernaut! Sometimes I do not wonder at the utter incredulity and scorn of the Indians.”

Withers seemed suddenly conscious of the profound shock his statements had given Marian. Then, just as earnestly, though not so forcefully, he talked further. He explained that many of the missionaries sent out there had been misfits in other walks of life. Some of them had not been preachers. Many of them had been weak men, who found themselves far from civilization and practically in control of a defenceless race. They yielded to temptation. They were really less to blame for evil consequences than the combination of forces that had sent them out there to the bleak, wild desert. Lastly, Withers claimed that it was this system which was wrong — the system that ignorantly and arbitrarily sent inferior men to attempt to teach Christianity to Indians.

Marian sensed poignantly the subtle and complex nature of this question of the missionary work. The Paxtons had given the same impression. Again she remembered Nophaie’s letter, which she had reread only the day before, and now began to acquire her own objective impressions of what must be a tremendous issue. And suddenly she realized that she was no longer at sea in regard to her motive or intention — she had fixed and settled her determination to stay out there on the desert.

“Miss Warner, do you want me to send a message or letter to Nophaie by this Pahute?” inquired Withers. “He’ll ride out to-morrow.”

“No. I’d rather go myself,” replied Marian. “Mrs. Withers said you’d take me. Will you be so kind?”

“I shore’ll take you,” he rejoined. “I’ve got some sheep out that way, and other interests. It’s a long ride for a tenderfoot. How are you on a horse?”

“I’ve ridden some, and this last month I went to a riding school three times a week. I’m pretty well hardened. But of course I can’t really ride. I can learn, though.”

“It’s well you broke in a little before coming West. Because these Nopah trails are rough riding, and you’ll have all you can stand. When would you like to start?”

“Just as soon as you can.”

“Day after to- morrow, then. But don’t set your heart on surprising Nophaie. It can’t be done.”

“Why? If we tell no one?”

“Things travel ahead of you in this desert. It seems the very birds carry news. Some Indian will see us on the way, ride past us, or tell another Indian. And it’ll get to Nophaie before we do.”

“What will get to Nophaie?”

“Word that trader Withers is riding west with Benow di cleash. Shore, won’t that make Nophaie think?”

“He’ll know,” said Marian, tensely.

“Shore. And he’ll ride to meet you. I’ll take you over the Pahute trail. You’ll be the first white person except myself ever to ride it. You must have nerve, girl.”

“Must I? Oh, my vaunted confidence! My foolish little vanity! Mr. Withers, I’m scared of it all — the bigness, the strangeness of this desert — of what I must do.”

“Shore you are. That’s only natural. Begin right now. Use your eyes and sense. Don’t worry. Take things as they come. Make up your mind to stand them. All will be well.”

At a call from the interior of the store Withers excused himself and left Marian to her own devices. So, not without dint of will power, Marian put hesitation and reserve away from her and stepped out among the soft-footed nosing dogs and the shaggy, wild-eyed ponies and the watchful, lounging Indians. She managed to walk among them without betraying her true sensations. The ordeal, so far as the Indians were concerned, gradually became easier, but she could not feel at ease among those pale-eyed sheep-dogs, and she did not lose her fear of being kicked by one of the ponies. The wool freighters interested her. They piled on the enormous brown sacks until the load stood fifteen feet above the wagon bed. Marian wondered if they intended to start off at this late hour. Presently the coarse odor of sheep grew a little too much for her and she strolled away, past the group of Indians toward the gate of the yard. Then from the doorway Mrs. Withers called her to supper.

She managed to walk among them without betraying her true sensations.

CHAPTER V

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AT Kaidab were for Marian exceedingly full and prolific of new sensation.

A sunset over the deep notch between the red rampart and the black mesa to the west — trailing transparent clouds of purple and rose and white rimmed by golden fire; a strange, sad twilight, deepening into desert night with the heavens dark blue and radiant with a million stars; a walk out into the lonely melancholy silent emptiness; a wonderful hour with this woman who loved and knew the souls and lives of Indians; a sinking to sweet rest with eyelids seemingly touched by magic; a broken moment of slumber when the dead stillness awakened to wild staccato yelps and mournful cries; a cold, keen, invigorating dawn; and then a day of thrills, not the least of which was a horseback ride out across the sandy, green-dotted plain with an Indian boy — these somehow augmented the process of change in Marian’s heart, and clarified her mind, and established the strange fact of love for the desert. It seemed like the evolution of long period. Out of these hours grew realization of the unlimited possibilities of life and joy and labor. Never before had she divined the meaning of the words, “The world is so full of a number of things.”

That evening in another and more important council with Mrs. Withers, the matter of Marian’s work was discussed. They both agreed that a beginning should be made at Mesa, in whatever connection might be available at the Indian school. It was decided that in case Marian’s overtures there were futile she could come back to Kaidab and go about her work among the Indians on her own initiative. Nophaie’s possible wishes and suggestions were taken into consideration. Neither Mrs. Withers nor Marian, however, anticipated anything but approval from him. What he might have to tell Marian could only inspire her or drive her to greater efforts. As for the language, Marian decided she would be quick to learn enough of that to get along with the Indians, and proficiency would come with time.

Next morning Marian arose at five o’clock. Did the cold desert air have all to do with her exhilaration? How strange the long black horizon line with its sharp silhouettes against the pure pale golden flare of sky! Marian’s heart swelled and beat high. What sweetness life held! She was grateful for this new significance. The water had a touch of ice and made her fingers tingle. It was with real pleasure that she donned her rough warm outdoor garb — blouse of flannel, riding trousers and boots. She had coat and sweater and heavy gloves to go with them. But somehow the hat she had brought did not now seem suitable. It was too jaunty, too small. Still, she would have to wear it, for she had nothing else. Other necessities she packed in a small duffle bag.

When she got outdoors the sun had risen and appeared to be losing its brightness. A gray haze of cloud overspread the sky. The wind was cold, gusty, and whipped at Marian’s hair. Indians were riding in to the post, and already the work of the day was under way. Withers, bareheaded and coatless as usual, was directing the packing of two mules. Manifestly he did not wholly approve of the way the men were roping on the huge canvas rolls, for he jerked a loop loose and called out, derisively, “That’s no diamond hitch.” And he proceeded to do it in a style that suited him. Marian could not follow the intricate looping, but she certainly saw Withers and his man stand on opposite sides of the mule, and place a foot on him while they both leaned back and pulled with all their might. No wonder the poor mule heaved and laid back his ears and looked around as if in protest. Marian thought it was strange the animal did not burst. Presently Withers espied her. Then he halted in his task.

“Say, Johnny, will you run in the house and ask for Miss Warner,” he said, quite seriously.

Marian was nonplused and then confused. Could it be possible that Mr. Withers did not recognize her? Indeed, it was a fact that the dignity of her twenty- three years and something of her stature seemed to vanish when she put on masculine garb.

“But — Mr. Withers. I — I am Miss Warner,” she said, almost involuntarily. She did not quite trust him.

A broad smile spread over his face and a twinkle shone in his eye.

“Shore I thought you were a boy,” he said. “Was wondering where such a boy might come from. You shore look good medicine to me.”

His frank admiration was pleasing to Marian. She would have much preferred to appear before Nophaie in distinctly feminine apparel, such as she had worn when he first saw her. But it would have been out of place here, and she had a moment of happiness in the thought that perhaps Nophaie, too, would find her attractive in this riding suit.

“Reckon we’re going to have some wind to-day,” said Withers, as he scanned the eastern horizon. “Couldn’t you put off going till to- morrow?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t!” cried Marian, aghast. “Mr. Withers, you don’t really mean we oughtn’t to go?”

“Yes, I do, but if you feel that way, we’re shore going,” he replied, decidedly. “You may as well get used to blowing sand now as later. Have you got glasses?”

“Yes, I have my auto glasses.”

“That’s good. But you’ll have to find another hat.”

“Oh, I was afraid of this — the looks of it, I mean. What’s wrong with it?”

“Shore, its looks are great. But it’s no good. You want a sombrero with a wide brim. It protects your face from sun and rain. You’re going to get sunburnt, miss.”

“That won’t bother me, Mr. Withers,” replied Marian, “My skin looks delicate, but really it’s tough. I burn red — then brown.”

“Well, we shall see. If you haven’t a sombrero I’ll dig up one for you.”

Marian never experienced such an endless hour as the ensuing one before Withers was ready to start. Breakfast for her seemed a superfluous thing. Yet she was hungry. All the time she was aware of Mrs. Withers’s eloquent and penetrating glances, and the subtle little smile of understanding and sympathy. This woman who loved Indians understood her, and was living with her these thrilling, calling moments of young life. Yet a haunting sadness, too, seemed to hover, like a shadow, in those magnetic eyes. Withers was gay, and given to raillery, directed at Marian’s boyish looks. But at last breakfast was over, and the interval of wait following.

“Marian, you’re in for a hard but glorious trip. No words of mine can tell you. Nophaie’s country is beyond words to describe. Remember, study of this desert will reward you.... Be careful on high trails. Good-by.”

Two Indians drove the pack-mules ahead of Marian. Withers had instructed her to mount and ride after them. He would presently follow. To her disappointment, she had been given a horse instead of one of the shaggy Indian mustangs — a short, stocky horse not at all spirited and quite ugly. But when she had gotten astride him, ready to try to adapt herself to saddle and motion, she found to her amaze that she did not seem to need to do anything. The horse started off. He moved briskly. But it was not a trotting gait. She had ridden at a trot yesterday, and assuredly soon tired of it. This gait was new to her, and she had imagined she knew something about horses. She felt as if she were riding in a rocking- chair that moved on a level, if such a thing were possible. The motion delighted her.

One of the Indians was old, judging from his gray hair and sloping shoulders. He wore a red bandana round his head; a thin cotton blanket, gaudily colored like calico, covered his shoulders, and his long legs dangled below his stirrups. The other Indian was a boy of sixteen years, perhaps, and sight of him was pleasing to Marian. His ebony hair waved in the wind; his darkly brown face was round and comely; he had eyes as black as his hair, and these, together with the smiling parted lips showing white even teeth, made of him a handsome youth.

To see everything was Marian’s resolve. Yet just sight of these colorfully clad Indians and the bobbing pack-mules made her forget to look anywhere else. She felt the cold puff of wind, she smelled the dust, she rode easily without any strain whatever. Then the mustangs and mules ahead suddenly went out of sight. The trail had led down over a steep bank. Presently Marian reached it. She was amazed to see a deep red gash in the earth, with crumbling walls, and a muddy, noisy stream. Mules and mustangs were edging foot by foot down a declivity right at the edge of the water. The Indians rode fast into the stream, making mud and water fly. They yelled at the mules. Marian felt her skin begin to prickle and her heart to beat unwontedly. This horse of hers manifestly had no more regard for perpendicular places than for levels. He went right down! Marian had no easy time holding on. And though not looking directly at the mules, she seemed aware of the sudden shortening of their legs. Also she heard a noise behind her.

“That’s quicksand,” called Withers from above. “Safe, but you need to hurry Buckskin.”

Marian had no time even to make up her mind. Buckskin piled off the bank and floundered into the quicksand. Marian had her first fright. She felt one of his legs go in deep, then another, and another. But he kept moving. He did not let two hoofs sink at once. And once well started, he crossed that muddy stream at a sharp gait, and climbed a sandy steep trail to the top of the bank. There Marian got her foot back in the stirrup and regained some semblance of her composure before Withers reached her side.

“How do you like Buckskin?” queried he. Not a word about that awful place!

“I — I guess I like him a lot,” she replied.

“Shore thought you would. He’s a pacer. You’ll ride him where you’d fall off another horse. Just let him go. He knows the trail and he’ll keep up. Afraid we’re in for some squalls of wind.”

Withers rode ahead to the pack-mules and quickened their pace. The Indians jogged on in the lead. And Marian appeared to be left to her horse and the trail and the encompassing scenery. Ahead bare hills of yellow stone loomed up high toward the overcast sky. Behind, the desert across the wash yawned wide, with level brown floor leading away to the trading post and then swelling to bolder heave, swept away to meet the irregular mesa wall, black against the sky.

“This — this is just not happening to me,” murmured Marian to herself. She would not have changed places with anyone in the world. She was free to let herself feel.

The trail led into a defile through the hills of rock. Slanting surfaces rose on both sides of her and gradually lifted to imposing heights. In pockets and niches grew stunted cedar trees, with roots growing out of the solid rock. The wind did not strike her here, a fact she found relieving. Buckskin held to a pace that kept him within sight of the horses ahead. On rocky places of the trail he appeared as surefooted as in the sand. Marian began to appreciate why Withers had chosen him for her. Slowly the slopes closed in, grew higher, and the trail led uphill. Marian could not see far. She now felt comfortably warm. Perhaps half an hour of a gradual climb brought Marian out on top of a ridge from which she soon saw into the distance. How splendid a scene greeted her! Withers had waited for her, evidently anticipating her delight.

“Thought you’d like this ten-mile strip,” he said. “The big black rock standing out of the plain is called ‘the Captain.’ And the Indians call that sharp monument you see ‘Slim Rock that stands High.’ It’s twice as high as your Washington soldier monument.”

Long and green and broad appeared the level hollow of desert that led to these upstanding figures, lonely and sentinel-like in the distance. Ten miles! It did not seem a third of that. Yet Marian, riding on and on, always watching these statues of rock, soon discovered how deceiving was the distance. For a whole hour these desert monuments did not change shape or size or color. In another hour Marian rode between them, to gaze up in awe, to marvel at the black granite grandeur of the Captain and the red sandstone splendor of Slim Rock that stands High. And these were outposts to the gateway of desert land, beyond Marian’s comprehension. She could only look and look, and ask Withers questions, and ride on and on, slowly to grow, hour after hour, into realization of the deceit of distance, the marvel of color, the immensity of these uplands, and the weird, fantastic, and sublime nobility of sculptured shafts of stone.

Cold wind, and overshadowing clouds, and frequent gusts of flying dust, and brief squalls of pelting sleet, passed by over Marian with no more effect than if they had never been. Something great was entering her soul. Was this the home of Indians? What did white people realize of the nature and wildness and loneliness that had created these children of the desert? What must dwell in the minds of a race living in this land of enchantment?

Then, toward mid-afternoon, what Withers had feared and predicted came to pass. “Sandstorm,” he said. “But not bad. It won’t last long. Get on your glasses, and cover your mouth and nose with your scarf.”

A pall of yellow swooped down out of the west. Dark and weird, magenta in hue, the sun shone through this wall of dust. The wonderful landmarks ahead were blotted out. The sweep of this desert storm seemed fierce and swift, swallowing up the monuments and the plains, and moving down upon Marian with a majestic and inevitable precision. Then it enveloped her.

Marian imagined she grew suddenly blind. And she began to choke and suffocate. She had to breathe through the scarf, which seemed a thick band and permitted no air to pass. There was not enough air. Her lungs lifted and heaved. The smell of dust seemed as stifling as the substance of it. She felt the fine, thin, stinging particles on face and neck. And when that heavy front of the storm passed by Marian emerged just in time to escape acute distress. Riding was disagreeable still, but gradually the gusts of whirling dust lessened, until the storm blew away toward the eastward, enveloping the uplands there as it had in the west. The sun came out, most pleasantly warming Marian’s cold hands and face and lighting the desert. Soon there came the best hour of that day, close to sunset, warmer and without wind.

Again Withers waited for her.

“We’re getting somewhere. I didn’t tell you before. This is the sage flat where Nophaie used to shepherd his sheep. Here he was stolen.... Yonder, under that red mesa, is the place where the thieves drove his flock. We’ll camp near it. Way over here — that great break in the red wall — is the pass into the Valley of Gods. Nophaie was born there.”

Withers rode on. Marian stared after him and then down at the gray sage. She reined in her horse. Here! Nophaie, the little Indian boy, lonely shepherd, here stolen! A wave of emotion swelled Marian’s breast. Tears dimmed her eyes, so that the gray soft color beneath her grew blurred and misty. She wiped her eyes. There appeared to be no mark of stone within the circle of her vision. A wide gray-green, gently rolling plain of sage led everywhere toward the upstanding rocks, the closest of which was the red mesa Withers had signified. Marian dismounted and, gathering a bit of the fragrant sage, she placed it in the pocket of her blouse, and meant to treasure it always. Then with a hand on her horse she gazed away across the plain toward the uplands where Nophaie had been born. It meant much to her, to tread on the earth that had known Nophaie’s boyhood feet, to see the wild rock towers that had shadowed his birthplace. Magnificent monuments, pillars and columns and shafts, all reflecting the gold and red of the sunset, far away and infinitely lonely, speared the horizon line and the white clouds. Valley of Gods!

Marian mounted and did not look back. Her heart was full. To the fore stretched the trail, winding through the sage. It led her under the shadow of the ponderous red mesa, a massive butte with columns like an organ, standing out alone in the desert, far from the main wall of the uplands. Upon a grassy bench Withers had made camp. Already a fire was burning. The horses were rolling. The Indians were unpacking the mules.

“Get down and come in,” said Withers, cheerily. “Find a seat and rest yourself. We’ll soon have supper.”

Marian became conscious of aching bones and tired muscles. She was glad to rest. All that pertained to this trip was of extreme interest to her, but just now seemed subservient to the personal haunting thoughts in connection with Nophaie. She forced herself to watch Withers at his camp tasks. He did not appear to be in a hurry, yet results multiplied magically, and all in a few minutes, apparently, there was supper steaming fragrantly, and a little tent stretched over a roll of blankets for her bed. Camping out was not entirely new to Marian. She had sat round camp fires in Maine and the Adirondacks. But this was different, just as the Dutch oven was a strange and fascinating cooking utensil in her sight. It was a black iron pot with a lid. Withers had thrown the lid into the fire. The pot sat upon a bed of red coals, raked to one side. Withers deposited the hand-modeled biscuits in the oven, lifted the lid out of the fire with a stick and set it on the pot. Then he piled red-hot coals over the lid, and apparently forgot this part of his task. Marian was curious to see what happened.

“Come and get it,” presently spoke up Withers, in his hearty voice.

“Get what?” queried Marian.

“That speech is the Western call to eat.”

“Oh... and what’s to become of the biscuits in that black pot?”

“Young lady, after you eat some of my biscuits you will never be happy again,” replied the trader, laughing, and forthwith proceeded to knock the lid off the oven. Marian could scarcely believe her eyes. Next moment she was sitting cross- legged before a strip of canvas upon which Withers spread the repast. The odor that assailed her suddenly awakened a ravishing hunger. And Marian began her first meal out on the desert, with an appreciation and relish never before experienced in her life. Withers served her, then the Indians, who stood by with eager eyes, and then himself. Marian’s acute senses fixed the reality of that hour — the picturesque Indians, the Western trader, forceful and wholesome and kindly, the fragrance of bacon and coffee and hot biscuits, the penetrating cold wind that swept in and blew the pungent smoke in her face, the pleasant heat of the fire on her back, and outside of that camp circle the vague sage-plain environed by looming walls.

“Shore there’s nothing wrong with your appetite,” remarked Withers, in his quaint way.

“I’m ashamed of myself, Mr. Withers,” replied Marian. “But my excuse is that I never was so hungry nor did I taste such good things to eat. Your boast about your biscuits was not an idle one.”

The trader evidently enjoyed Marian’s hearty appetite and her praise. Later, too, when she insisted upon doing some little share of the after-supper tasks, he seemed amused. Marian began to associate the simplicity of this Westerner with the bold ruggedness of force that characterized him.

Marian found she needed her heavy coat, but in lieu of that she wrapped a blanket round her and strolled away from the camp for a while. The afterglow of sunset came out on the distant walls, as if for her especial benefit. How delicate and exquisite the softness of rose and gold! They faded while she watched. Twilight seemed to last long, but at length night fell. Marian felt alone in the desert. The place where Nophaie had been captive with his flock was infinitely lonely and sad. The cold wind chilled her and swept by her, strangely soundless. There was absolutely no break in the silence. She felt that she could not have borne such silence for long. Great white stars fired the blue sky above the black walls. Thought and emotion and loneliness, such as Marian had then, would soon have driven her back to camp. But beyond these she was growing very cold, and the strange dead darkness roused fear, and she was worn out from the long ride. So she turned toward the flare of light and the red blaze which marked camp.

Upon near approach Marian had a picture etched upon her mind’s eye — the bright glow of camp fire, emphasizing the black windy hall of the desert, with the Indians sitting before the ruddy blaze and Withers standing with back to the heat. Rough bold figures, singularly typical of all that pertained to Western color and life, they stood out in sharp relief.

“Shore, I was just going to call you,” said the trader. “You mustn’t stray far at night, or any time. Reckon you’d better turn in. To-morrow we hit that Pahute trail.”

Marian crawled into the little tent, that was so low it touched her head as she sat upon her bed, and, making a pillow of sweater and coat, she wearily unlaced her boots and slipped gratefully down under the heavy woolen blankets. She tried to think some more, to realize all that had happened, to ponder and dream over the future, but at once she was claimed by sleep.

In the morning Withers called her, and when she crawled out of the little tent it was into a wonderful gray of dawn, cold and pure, stingingly sweet with its perfume of desert, with the great mesa standing clear and sharp and black against the eastern gold of sky.

“To-day we climb out on top,” was one of the trader’s droll remarks.

An hour after starting, Marian appreciated what he meant, though she was utterly at a loss to see how they could ever surmount the tremendous red wall toward which they were riding. It looked the scarred, blunt face of a mountain. The slant of broken rock that leaned against its base might be surmountable, but it did not extend far up. For the hundredth time Marian learned that what she saw at a distance was vastly different at close range.

Marks that had appeared to be scars turned out to be ledges and lines of broken cleavage and slopes of talus and masses of broken rock, through and over which it at last seemed barely possible to climb. The close approach to this lofty barrier was not without excitement for Marian. And when Withers led off the well-defined trail that kept to the lowlands, to take a dim rough trail which turned straight for the wall, she felt a deep thrill. This must be the Indian trail never traveled by white people.

“Here’s our Pahute trail,” said Withers, as he dismounted. “It heads in from cross country.... I’m sorry to say you’ll have to walk. Climb slow — rest often — and in bad places keep on the up side of your horse.”

The Indians were climbing on foot, leading their mustangs. The mules were bobbing the packs up a zigzag trail. Withers likewise began the ascent. Marian followed, confident and eager, with eyes roving everywhere. What struck her singularly was the fact that, though the immense ascent appeared to be perpendicular, there was really foothold upon its slope. Whenever she halted to catch her breath she gazed at the Indians. They did not rest. Nor did the mules. How wonderfully that trail had been worked out, zigzagging the first long slope, then taking to ledge and crack, and then worming from side to side up a break between two craggy capes! It made Marian dizzy to look high at the rim. The Indians passed out of her sight and so did the mules, while Withers slowly got far ahead of her. Marian did not particularly like this aspect of the case, and discovered that Buckskin did not, either. She became extremely hampered and hindered by the horse climbing too fast behind her. He bumped her with his shoulder, nearly knocking her over, and he stepped upon her heels. Marian had to keep ahead of him, and on the increasingly steeper bits of trail this grew almost too much for her. Buckskin either could not or would not climb slowly; and at length Marian became aware that he had to expend considerable effort to make the grade. Thus Marian was hard put to it herself.

“Look out below. Dodge the rocks,” yelled Withers from far above her.

The zigzags of the trail had placed him directly over her, and evidently his horse had loosened stones. Marian heard them clattering down, and quickly she chose a shelving portion of wall for protection. The sliding stones passed below her, gathering momentum and more stones on the way, until the sound augmented into rattling roar. Then it ceased.

Marian resumed the climb, with most of her confidence gone and all of her breath. People back East never saw a hill! She thought of a friend who used to refuse to walk on a level, let alone upgrade. And soon the sensations of warmth and breathlessness passed to those of fire and pain. A burden pressed upon her chest and her legs felt dead. She learned that to rest long was worse almost than no rest at all. For it grew too wonderfully good, if she halted more than a moment. So she staggered along and upward, panting laboriously, hot and wet, trying to avoid Buckskin and to keep from looking down into the void that had become awful. The light grew brighter over her. She heard the trader’s cheery call of encouragement. How endless that last steep zigzag to the top!

“Fine! Shore, you’re there as a climber. But it’s nothing to Pahute Canyon,” Withers was saying.

“O — h!” panted Marian, as she dragged herself up to fall upon a stone seat. She could not talk. Her breast seemed as if it were caved in. The trader’s compliment fell upon most doubting and scornful ears.

“Rest a little,” said Withers, kindly. “And then look around. We’re on the rim of Nophaie’s country.”

That roused Marian to a renewed interest. First she looked back at the lowlands from which she had climbed. How far below! Straight down the trail sheered, yet she had ascended it. The Valley of Gods rose prominently out of the vast stretch of desert, now visible to the eye; and the crowns of the monuments were on a level with the great wall from which Marian gazed. They belonged to the same strata of red sandstone. All that space below and between had weathered away. Worn by wind and sand and frost! The fact was plain to Marian, yet incredible. What of the ages! This land of mystery and beauty bade fair to transform her. Far away these red stone gods stood up, aloof, stupendous, and grand. She watched them for moments, and gradually her composure and strength returned.

“Shore, I’m glad to see you take to the look of this desert,” observed Withers, seriously. “Most people don’t. Though of course very few ever have the luck to get such a view as this. What I mean is, all we have here is wonderful country. Indians, horses, birds — what few living things there really are seem absolutely not to exist because we seldom see them. So there’s nothing to look at but the vastness — nothing to think of. That is why an Indian is great. He’s like his surroundings.”

“I don’t — know what I feel — and couldn’t tell — if I did,” replied Marian. “I want days and months here.... Yet afterward — could I ever be happy again?”

“Places have more to do with happiness than people,” rejoined Withers. “Well, let’s be drifting. We’ve only climbed the first step up this stairway.”

And then Marian dreaded to look toward the west. Yet she was impelled. Huge and beetling, wild with fringe of green trees, another wall obstructed the sky. It was close, and northward it broke off abruptly. Withers was riding off through a forest of cedar trees. Marian got on her horse, not without some sharp pains, and followed the trader, deeming it best to keep him in sight. The trail was dim. On that bare ground, however, Marian believed she could have followed the fresh tracks of the horses in the lead.

This bench of fragrant green forest soon led to the base of a rocky rise where Withers waited for her.

“Just let Buckskin have free rein,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on you. And say, I saw where an Indian horse’s tracks cut in on this trail. I’ll bet our Pahute you admired has gotten ahead of us. If so Nophaie will be on his way to meet us before sundown this day.”

Marian tried to drive thought of such a contingency out of her mind. It stormed her and left nothing of sense to meet the ever-increasing requirements of this ride. She wanted to see all, and not dream the hours away. She yearned for this meeting with Nophaie, yet dreaded it.

Withers held back now and accommodated his progress to Marian’s. She felt relieved to have him near, though she did not want to talk. Withers, however, had little to say, considering time and distance. They began a long climb up over bare yellow rock, wavy, hummocky, ridgy, with hills and holes, that somehow permitted a labyrinthine travel toward the summit. Not wholly bare was it, for Marian saw dwarfed cedars growing in niches where dust and water had given growth to a seed. Half a mile this strange slope ascended, at length reaching the level of the huge abutment of stone she had first noted from the rim below. She seemed now on the very summit of the uplands. Yet this was not true. There were farther and higher points to the westward. To the north the view offered wide contrast with long black ranges of mountains rising to peaks of white.

“Look back and down!” exclaimed Withers, with a ring in his voice. “I’ve been here only once, yet I never could forget that — and never will.”

From this height Marian found the spectacle to be immense and baffling — league on league of gray-green desert — the red ramparts on each side of the portal to the Valley of Gods — and between these wide sentinels the pinnacles of grandeur and mystery and light — sacred to the Indian. She felt the uplifting of her spirit. Could any soul be dead to this? What was nature if not eternal? There were moments of life transcendent in revelation to the roused mind. Nophaie had made gift to her of this sublimity and never would she be the same as she had been. Soon she would behold him — the Indian she loved — through whom had come deep thoughts and stirrings of her heart, and now the birth of nobler understanding. Nature flung its immortal task in her face and she learned her first lesson in humility.

CHAPTER VI

FROM THAT VANTAGE point of exceedingly wide range Withers led away to the west, ascending one step of the bold corner of bluff, and then traveling along at the base of a shelving wall, in the shade of which were rich green growths. Damp, cold atmosphere here assailed Marian. The cause of this appeared to be banks of snow filling the hollows under the wall. A crusting of red dust covered the snow.

Marian reveled in riding the kind of trail here presented. It was soft red earth, without rocks or deep washes, and it wound along the bold corners of the wall, under the looming shade, through thick piñions and cedars, with always a changing scene out across the wild uplands. The last quarter- circle round that widened wall sent the creeping cold sensations over Marian, for the overhanging sections of crumbling cliff above and the abrupt opening of an abyss below, a sinister chasm, a thousand feet deep, made this part of the trail a perilous one.

Then once more Marian rode out into the sunlight, with level open desert ahead. The Indians and pack-mules were in sight, going into a dark-green forest of cedars and piñions, larger and richer than those below. Mile after mile this forest rolled westward, rising to plain of purple sage. Beyond the horizon of deep color rose a black-and-white dome of a mountain that Marian believed she recognized as Nothsis Ahn, the first sight of which she had obtained at Red Sandy. As she rode westward this mountain top dropped below the horizon.

Marian began to find the saddle and stirrups and motion most uncomfortable things. The easy gait of Buckskin very likely had saved her up to this hour. But now the riding had commenced to tell upon her. Grateful indeed was she for the stretch of good country, for she feared bad trails more than growing discomfort. Indeed, she rather gloried in her aches and pains. Despite a hot sun the air was cold. And it grew to hold such dry sweet fragrance that Marian felt in it a kind of intoxication. By and by all the landmarks of stone dropped out of sight. There appeared to be only undulating forest of green interspersed with patches of purple. Nevertheless there was a gradual ascent in size of trees and green of foliage and fragrance of sage.

The sun climbed high and burned hot. A warm breeze, burdened with the sweet incense of the desert, blew in Marian’s face. She rode on, losing track of time. No weariness nor pangs could deaden her enthusiasm or interest, nor that haunting and recurring surety of the growing nearness of Nophaie. There were live creatures to watch on this endless rolling plateau — dark blue jays that uttered singular piercing cries, and lizards that darted across the red bare earth, and hawks that sailed low, looking for prey, and rabbits that scurried away in the sage.

It was hunger that reminded Marian of the passing hours and discovered to her that she had ridden until noon. Five hours of steady riding! At four miles an hour, she had in all covered twenty miles. She wondered if Buckskin was tired. He paced on, steadfast and leisurely, as if distance or time or sun were nothing to him. Marian had recourse to her sandwich and a bit of chocolate, and a drink from her canteen, therein to be rendered grateful and thoughtful for such simple things. It was the need of anything that made it precious. When before in her life had a dusty black-crusted biscuit seemed at once a pleasure and a blessing? How often had she no taste for chocolate! And as for water and its wonderful refreshing power she had known nothing. There must be a time then for food, for drink, to mean a great deal. And if for these, why not for all things?

So Marian rode on, pondering thoughts thus evolved. All at once she looked up to see a tremendous gash in the green-forested earth ahead. Withers, on foot, was waiting for her on the brink of a chasm. Far across Marian saw the opposite rim, a red-gold, bare-faced cliff, sheering downward. She was amazed. The very earth seemed to have opened. As she rode up to Withers the chasm deepened to astonishing depths and still she could not see the bottom. The trader halted her before she got to the rim.

“Pahute Canyon,” he said. “And it’s bad medicine. You’ve got to walk fast. Because the horses can’t go slow and I’ll have to lead them. Be sure to keep me in sight, otherwise you might lose the trail.”

Marian dismounted, and handing her bridle to the trader she walked to the rim. A ghastly and naked glaring canyon yawned beneath her, tremendously wide and deep, bare of vegetation and blazing with its denuded and colored slopes.

“White people don’t get to see Pahute Canyon,” said Withers, as he gazed from beside her. “It’s the wildest and most beautiful spot in the West. Reckon it’ll be shore a spell before automobile tourists will drive in and out of her, eh?”

He laughed grimly, with some note of gratification in his voice. Marian felt speech difficult. She was astounded. Pictures of grand canyons could not convey any adequate conception of what was given by actual sight.

“Wonderful!... Fearful!” exclaimed Marian, feeling the strange drawing power of the depths. “Oh! it seems impossible even to — to slidedown there.”

“Well, let me get down a ways with the horses before you start, so you won’t roll on me,” said the trader. “Then you’d shore better come a-sliding, if you want to see Nophaie to-day. We’ve got to rustle to make the other rim before dark.”

“Do — do you really believe — he’ll meet us?” queried Marian.

“I’d gamble on it.... Be careful you don’t sprain your ankle on these loose stones.”

With that Withers looped the bridle of Marian’s horse over the pommel, and started him down. Buckskin sent the stones cracking. Then the trader followed, leading his own horse. Marian watched him for a moment. Assuredly they had to descend rapidly or lose their equilibrium. From farther down in the depths soared up the mellow voices of the Indians, evidently calling to the mules. Cracking of rocks and sliding rattles attested to the nature of that descent far below.

Marian took one long thrilling gaze at the opposite rim where she had been assured Nophaie might meet her. It seemed a most fitting place for this meeting so fraught with significance for her. A green-fringed red-gold canyon rim, bold and beautiful, lofty and lonely as the crag of eagles — it was indeed an outlook wherefore the Indian might watch and wait. When Marian let her gaze slowly wander down from that rim she was struck with the stupendous height and massive formation of the canyon wall. Five miles distant it was, yet it looked so high and sheer and immense that she could not repress a cry. If she had to climb that to see Nophaie this day! The idea seemed absurd. She did not possess wings. How beyond comprehension were these Westerners, red men and white men, who conquered the obstacles of nature!

Under the colossal wall lay a flat of yellow sand through which a bright winding stream, like a white thread, meandered along shining under the sun. The stark nudity of that canyon floor was relieved by several clumps of trees, richly green in foliage. It was a light green, proving these trees to be other than evergreens, and that summer had come down in those depths.

Then Marian’s gaze returned to the declivity at her feet. The angle was forty- five degrees and the trail was a narrow line of loose rocks. Marian drew a deep breath and essayed the start. But, loath to take the plunge that would permit of no more gaze at length and breadth of this wonderful canyon, she halted to satisfy herself and make the spectacle hers forever. The declivity was almost straight down, rough, bowlder strewn, and far below apparently shelved out into a zone of colored earths, worn into corrugations. Northward the canyon widened into a vast amphitheater of exceedingly wild nature, with slopes and walls and benches and lines of strata and slides of rock, and numberless fan-shaped facets of clay, forming a mosaic of red, yellow, purple, gray, and violet, glaring bare and bright under the sun.

Pahute Canyon had all that made the Valley of Gods an unforgettable memory picture, and moreover it had the strangeness of desolation and decay and death. Nature had its moods and here was ruthless despoliation of the face of the earth. Marian could not see any reason why the beautiful plateau of cedar and piñon should have been riven by this catastrophe of time. Yet what else could have uncovered those intense mineral colors, which at the very least had served to charm the Indian’s eye and furnish his paints.

Reluctantly Marian turned away from this vista of canyon beauty. She had not taken half a dozen steps before she forgot all about the scenery. She became suddenly and violently aware of the treachery of loose rocks and of the hard nature of contact with them. The first fall hurt her considerably, especially bruising her elbow; but it also hurt her vanity. She started anew, more carefully, and soon found herself wildly clutching at the air and balancing on rolling stones. This time she saved herself. But she had a good scare. Caution would not do on this trail. She had to step lightly and swiftly, to be off a loose stone before it could turn with her. There was a thrill in this descent, and she began to grow reckless. Action liberated her spirit, and the faster she progressed the less she felt fear. At sight of the worst places, long slants of loose rock on a bed of soft earth, she halted long enough to select a line of rocks, and then she tripped down, faster and faster, growing more surefooted with practice. Once she saw the horses and Withers far below, working out over ridged red earth. As she went down, either the trail grew easier or she did better; and despite sundry knocks and several slips she began to get fun out of it. The race for her was to keep her balance. Down and down she zigzagged, growing out of breath. The slope of bowlders sheered out, affording less precipitous descent. Stones as large as houses lay everywhere. Presently Marian ran out of this bowlder zone upon red earth, still steep but affording safer and easier going. When she gazed upward, to see the red rim far above, she could scarcely believe her eyes. Little steps, but many of them, made short work of distance! It was an achievement that she felt proud of as she ruefully rubbed her bruises. Then she ran on down the easy stages over soft ground, soon to find Buckskin standing, bridle dragging in the trail. Withers waited a little way ahead. Marian mounted, then became conscious that excitement had kept her from realizing both pain and fatigue. She rode on to meet Withers.

“You’re no tenderfoot,” he said, gayly.

“That’s all you know,” retorted Marian. “My feet appear to be intact, but I assure you I have some tender places.”

“Did you slide some?”

“I did... and I could surely give pointers to some baseball players I’ve seen.”

“Get on and ride now. Don’t be scared of the jump-off places in the trail below. Just hang on.”

“Do you know, Mr. Withers, you have the most wonderful and easy solution to these trail problems?... Just hang on!”

The trader laughed and turned his horse to the descent. Marian let Buckskin have free rein. The clay slopes below presented a strange variegated appearance and seemingly stood on end. Red succeeded to yellow, and yellow to violet, and that to pale chocolate. The horses slid down places so steep that Marian could scarcely keep her seat in the saddle. Some places Buckskin just slipped down. These always meant a deep wash to cross, with a climb up the opposite side. Buckskin would not climb leisurely. He usually jumped the washes, and before Marian could establish herself properly in the saddle again he was loping up the bank. The result was mortifying to her, and sometimes painful and not wholly without panic. Wither’s admonition was faithfully acted upon by Marian, though not always without frantic and violent measures. Nevertheless, she had moments of thrill and pleasure, intermingled with the other sensations. It seemed she was descending into the very bowels of the earth. How deep this canyon! Though early in the afternoon, the sun just tipped the western wall. Marian grew extremely tired just holding on, and was indeed glad when the last incline led down to a sandy wash, that in turn opened out into the canyon floor.

The stream which from above had appeared a thread of silver now proved to be a shallow and wide flow of roily water into which the horses hurried to drink. Withers got off, lay flat, and quenched his own thirst. The Indians had halted beside one of the clumps of green trees and were talking to another Indian who was on foot.

“Take a rest in the shade of these cottonwoods,” suggested the trader. “You’ll need all your strength climbing out. I see some Pahutes.”

Not until Marian had ridden across the sandy flat almost to the cottonwoods did she observe other than the one Indian. Then she saw an Indian woman with a child sitting somewhat beyond the clump of trees. Upon dismounting, Marian searched in her pockets for something to give the child, and found a piece of chocolate that had escaped her at lunch time. With this she approached the two.

A fire was smoldering on the sand. Two cooking utensils sat near by, each with a remnant of food adhering to it. The woman was young and rather pretty, Marian thought. She wore a dark dress of some thick material, a bead necklace round her neck, and silver bracelets studded with turquoises, very crude in design. The child appeared to be a girl of about three years, tiny of form, with little dark, frightened face. The mother showed a shyness that surprised Marian. Indeed, there was something wild about these two natives in this canyon, especially in the black tangled hair of the little one.

“Here,” said Marian, with a smile, proffering the chocolate. It amused her greatly to see that, despite an unmistakable fright, the child flashed out a brown hand and snatched the candy. Then she shrank closer to her mother, as if to hide behind her. Marian wanted to stand there and make known her friendliness, but out of kindness she turned away. Her presence was assuredly a source of fear to the child and of extreme embarrassment to the mother. From the shade of the cottonwoods Marian watched them with wondering interest and sympathy. No hogan or shack or habitation of any kind appeared to be in sight. But that this place was home for these Indians Marian had no doubt. She saw the flat ground was a cornfield, and that the Pahute man now talking to Withers carried a crude-handled shovel. What a stalwart Indian! He was young, and little there was about him to connect him with the dirty, slouching Indians Marian had seen at Mesa. As she looked he raised a strong, capable hand, pointing, with singular grace and expressiveness and slow meaning movement, toward a point above and beyond the canyon. It was a beautiful gesture.

Withers came to Marian.

“The Pahute whose tracks we saw crossed here early this morning. He’s shore to meet Nophaie. And he’ll tell Nophaie the same he told this Indian here.”

“What?” queried Marian, catching her breath.

“Benow di cleash on the Pahute trail,” replied the trader, with a smile. “That may be strange to these Indians. But it won’t be to Nophaie!”

For answer Marian rose, averting her face, and went to her horse. As she reached for the bridle she saw her gloved hand tremble. Strong indeed was the hold she had on herself, but she could no longer trust it.

Once more she fell in behind Withers and the Indians. They rode up the canyon to a break in the wall, where they turned upward. The mouth of this gorge was narrow and jagged, opening back into the mountain of rock. To gaze up over the long jumble of broken cliff, far to the apex of that notch, made Marian’s blood rush back to her heart.

Withers allowed her to ride for a long distance. A sandy bank ran under the right wall. Running water dashed over the rocks at the bottom of this gorge. Cottonwood trees, with foliage bright green and fresh, shaded part of the trail. Soon the rocks began to encroach upon that sandy strip. Marian saw the Indians above her on the left, toiling over the weathered slide.

At a crossing of the stream Withers bade her dismount. He filled her canteen. Marian found the water cold and fine, free of acrid taste, and very satisfying.

“You should drink oftener,” he said, as he watched her. “You’ll dry up in this desert. Well, shore you’ve a climb ahead. Go slow. Be careful. Rest often. You can’t miss the trail.”

With that he started up a ledge of soft blue rock, leading Marian’s horse. His own was evidently in charge of one of the Indians.

Marian gazed aloft, with something of shock and awe. She actually saw a wedge of blue sky, fitting into that red notch far above her. This gorge dug deeply back into the solid earth, and sides and floor were one bewildering jumble of rocks of every size and shape. She felt impelled to gaze upward, but the act was not conducive to encouragement.

The climb she began with forced husbanding of her strength and a restraint to her eagerness. Time enough, if she ever surmounted this frightful steep, to think of Nophaie! In spite of what Withers had said, Marian had little faith in her hopes. To-morrow perhaps she would meet Nophaie. With eyes seeking out the tracks of the horses and marks of the trail, Marian slowly lent her energies to the ascent. This trail must have been very old, she thought, judging from unmistakable ruts worn in ledges and places where avalanches and weathering slides had not covered it. At every convenient rock to sit or lean upon she rested. In half an hour she found the gorge opening wide, bowl shaped in the center, with slopes of broken rock leading up on all sides. Another half- hour apparently made little progress toward the distant rim, yet it brought her to solid rock. All below now appeared the slanted floor of this gorge, choked with the debris from the cliffs above.

The trail kept to the left side and led up toward the face of an overhanging mountain of ledges, walls, juts, and corners, the ensemble of which seemed an unscalable precipice. Marian had climbed an hour, just to get started. Moreover, the character of the ascent changed. She became fronted by a succession of rocky steps, leading up to ledges that ran at right angles with the trail, and long narrow strips of rock standing out from the slope, all bare and smooth, treacherous in slant and too hard to catch the nails of her boots. How the horses ever climbed these slippery places was a mystery to Marian. But they had done so, for she saw the white scratches made by their iron shoes on the stone.

More than once Marian heard the Indians and Withers working far above her. The clang of a hammer rang out with keen metallic sound. She had observed a short- handled sledge on one of the mule-packs; now she understood its use on the trail. Withers was cracking rocks to roll them, and breaking the corners of jutting cliff to permit the mules to swing by with their packs. She welcomed these periods, for she had long rests, during which she fell into dreams.

When she ascended to the points where trail work had been necessary she had all she could do to scramble up. And her hands helped as much as her feet. An endless stairway of steps in solid rock, manifold in character, with every conceivable angle and crack and sharp point and narrow ledge. Mostly she feared the narrow ledges. For if she slipped on those it might mean the end of her. Treading these, she dare not look over into the abyss, now assuming dreadful depths.

This toil took Marian not only far upward, but far back into the gorge. The sky began to lighten. The ragged red rim above seemed possibly attainable. Below her shadows of purple began to gather under the deep walls. Her watch told the hour of five. Marian feared she had made too leisurely a task of it, or had rested too long. Still, these had been her orders from Withers. But the long climb all alone, the persistent exertion, the holding back of emotion, the whole time increasingly fraught with suspense had begun to weaken her. Resting long might have been advisable, but she could not do it. At every risky place she grew nervous and hurried. Once she lost her footing and fell, to slide hard against a projecting rock. That hurt her. But the fright she suffered was worse than the hurt. For an instant she shook all over and her heart seemed to contract. Suppose she had slipped on one of the narrow ledges!

“Oh! this is — new and — hard for me,” she panted. “Mr. Withers shouldn’t — have trusted me — to myself.”

She realized she had been thrown upon her own resources. If she had not been equal to this climb Withers would never have left her. That moment alone there in the gorge, calling upon all her courage and reserve force, was one Marian felt to her depths. She scorned herself, but she recognized natural fear- -an emotion she had never felt before in her life. She conquered it. And resolutely, but with trembling lips she had to bite to still, she began to climb again.

Once more the character of the slope changed. The solid gleaming granite gave way to soft red sandstone; and the long reaches of ledge and short steps to wide zigzags, the corners of which turned on promontories that sheered out over the depths. Marian found the going easier here, and if she had not been worn out she would have climbed well. As it was she dragged her weary feet, slow step after step, up the long slants of trail.

Six o’clock by her watch and the gold of sunset on the far points of the rim! It seemed only a short climb now, from every turn, yet she did not get there. Nevertheless, weary and almost desperate as she was, the moment came when the strange glamour of that canyon stole over her. Perhaps the sunset hour with its gold gleams high, and purple shadows low, could be held accountable for this, or the sublimity of the heights she had attained. Wild realm of solitude! Here must the eagles clasp the crags with crooked claws.

Slowly Marian toiled round an abrupt corner on a bare promontory. She paused, her eyes on the incredible steps she had ascended. Her breast heaved. A cold wind from above cooled her hot, uncovered brow.

Suddenly a cry startled her. Piercingly high and strange it pealed down, and the echoes from the canyon walls magnified it and clapped it from cliff to cliff, until it died weirdly far below.

With uplift of head Marian swept the rim above. An Indian stood silhouetted against the gold of sky. Slender and tall, motionless as a statue, he stood, a black figure in singular harmony with the wildness and nobility of that height.

“Nophaie!” whispered Marian, with a leap of her heart.

He waved his hand aloft, a slow gesture, significant and thrilling. Marian waved her sombrero in reply, and tried to call out, but just then her voice failed. Wheeling away with swift strides, shot through and through with a current of fire, she began the last few zigzags of that trail.

Endless that last climb — unattainable the rim! Marian had overreached herself. Dizzy, half blind, with bursting heart she went on, upward, toward Nophaie. She saw him dimly as in a dream. He was coming. How strange the light! Night already? Vaguely the rim wall waved and rocked, grew darker.

No, she had not fainted. Not for one second had she wholly lost sense of that close, hard contact, of an arm like iron around her, of being borne upward. Then — one long moment — not clear, and again she felt the bursting throb of her heart — that pang in her breast. Her breath came and went in hurried little gasps. The dimness left her eyes. She saw the gorge, a blue abyss, yawning down into the purple depths of Pahute Canyon. But she could not see anything else, for she was unable to move. Nophaie held her close, her cheek against his breast.

“Benow di cleash!”

“Nophaie!”

There was no other greeting between them. He did not kiss her, and his close clasp slowly loosened. Marian rallied to the extent of being able to stand and she slipped away from him, still holding his hand. The Indian she had known as Lo Blandy had changed with the resigning of that white man’s name. Dark as bronze his fine face had grown, lean and older, graver, with long sloping lines of pain, not wholly hidden by his smile of welcome. His eyes, black and piercing with intense light, burned into hers. Unutterable love and joy shone in them.

“Nophaie — you have — changed,” she said, breathlessly.

“So have you,” he replied. An indefinable difference in the tone of his voice struck Marian forcibly. It was lower, softer, with something liquid in its depth, something proving that his mother tongue had returned to detract from the white man’s.

“How have — I — changed?” murmured Marian. Her pent-up emotions had been eased, if not expressed. The great longed-for moment had come, strangely unlike what she had expected, yet full and sweet. Slowly she was realizing.

“Still Benow di cleash, but woman now, more than girl.... It’s the same face I saw first at Cape May, only more beautiful, Marian.”

“At least you’ve not changed Lo Blandy’s habit of flattery.”

“Do not call me that,” he said, a somber look momentarily shadowing the gladness of his eyes.

Marian hesitated. She was trying to realize him, to find him again as she had known and loved him. But it was not easy.

“Must we get acquainted all over?” she asked, seriously.

“You must.”

“Very well, I am ready.”

“Then you have come to work among my people?”

“Of course,” replied Marian, simply. “I’ve come to do what you want me to.”

Love and loyalty spoke unmistakably in her voice and in the gaze with which she met his piercing eyes. For an instant, then, Marian trembled in a consciousness of his gratitude, of his sudden fierce desire to gather her to his breast. She felt that, and saw it in the slight leap of his frame.

“You are noble. You prove my faith. You save me from hate of the white race.” Loosening her hands, he took a long stride toward the rim and gazed away across the purple canyon.

Then Marian had her first real sight of him. This appeared but a shadow of the magnificent form of the famous athlete, Lo Blandy. Thinned out, lean and hard he looked. He was dressed in worn corduroy and velveteen, with silver- buckled belt and brown moccasins. His black hair was drawn back and bound under a red band that encircled his head. This garb, and the wonderful poise of his lofty figure against the background of wild canyon, removed him immeasurably from the man Marian had known as Lo Blandy. If there had ever been anything untrue or unreal about him, it was gone now. He satisfied some long unknown yearning in Marian’s heart. Even the suggestion of the tragic was not discordant. What was in his soul then?

“I’m glad for what you think I am,” she said, stepping to his side. “For what you say I do... and I want to — to make you happy.”

“Happy! Benow di cleash, this is the first happy moment I have ever lived- - since I was a shepherd boy — Nophaie, down there with the sheep. Happy, because, Indian as I am, I know you love me.”

“Yes, I — I love you, Nophaie,” she said, low, unsteadily. She wanted him to know again, at once.

Hand in hand then they gazed out across the purpling depths and the gold- rimmed walls, to the vast heave of desert beyond. The sun set while Marian watched and divined the strange exaltation of the moment. Incalculable were to be her blessings — the glory of loving, and forgetting self, the work that was to be hers, the knowledge of this lonely and beautiful land, seen through the eyes and soul of an Indian. Marian marveled now that she had ever hesitated or feared.

“Come, we must go,” said Nophaie. “You are tired and hungry. Withers will make camp some miles from here.”

“Withers!” echoed Marian, with a little laugh. “I had forgotten him — and camp — and that I ever was hungry.”

“Do you remember how you used to hate clams and like ice-cream, back in those Cape May days?” he asked.

“Yes, and I haven’t changed in that respect,” she replied, gayly. “You do remember, don’t you?... Well, sir, how about Jack Bailey?”

“Your dancing lizard. I am jealous again — to hear you speak his name.”

“Nophaie — after you went away there was no more cause. I have been true to you.”

Marian felt, too, that she was ridiculously happy, and quite unlike herself in some wild desire to torment Nophaie and break his reserve. Always she had felt this Indian’s strength, and, woman-like, half resented it. She found him stranger than ever, harder to reach, in spite of the love in his eyes.

His mustang was the largest Marian had seen, a wild shaggy animal of tan color. When it came to getting upon her own horse again she was not above a little feminine vanity in her hope to accomplish a graceful mount before Nophaie. But she made indeed a sorry one, for almost all her strength was gone. Then they rode side by side through a fragrant level land of piñon and sage, with the afterglow of sunset lighting the western sky. The romance of that moment seemed an enchantment of her dreams. Here was the gloaming hour, and a beautiful place of the desert wilderness, and the man she loved. His color and his race were no hindrances to her respect. She talked a little while of their last times together at the seashore, and then of friends of hers whom he knew, and lastly of her home, in which she had no longer seemed to fit happily. Nophaie listened without comment. When, however, she broached the subject of her arrival in the West, and her reception by the Withers, she found him communicative. Withers was a good man, a trader who helped the Indians and did not make his post a means to cheat them. Mrs. Withers was more to the Indians than any other white person had ever been.

Presently the thickening twilight was pierced by the bright blaze of a campfire. And Marian followed the Indian down into a shallow ravine where a gleam of water reflected the blaze and the dark branches of cedar trees. Withers was busy at the supper tasks.

“Well, here you are,” he called out, cheerily. “Marian, you’re a little white through your sunburn. Get down and come in. Did you climb up Pahute Canyon? Ha- ha! I kept an eye on you.... Nophaie, turn Buckskin loose and lend a hand here. Shore, we’ll soon have this lady tenderfoot comfortable and happy.”

Marian thought she might be a good deal more comfortable, but scarcely happier. It was about all she could do to drag herself to the seat Withers made for her. The warmth that stole over her, and the languor, would have ended in sleep but for the trader’s hearty call, “Come and get it.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to bring it to me,” replied Marian. “If I get up I’ll fall down.”

Withers and Nophaie served her, and she discovered that exhaustion and physical pangs did not destroy hunger, or, in her case, keen enjoyment of the meal. Nophaie sat beside her, the light of the camp fire playing upon his face. The other two Indians came for their supper, soft-footed and slow, and they sat down to eat.

After the meal Withers and Nophaie made short work of what tasks were left to do. The two Indians appeared to mingle with the encircling darkness. For a moment the low, strange notes of their voices came back to Marian, and then were heard no more. Withers erected the little tent under the piñon near the fire, and then drawled, “Shore, I reckon that’s about all.” Then bidding Nophaie and Marian good night, he discreetly retired to his own bed under an adjoining piñon. The night silence settled down upon the camp, so lonely and sweet, so strangely full for Marian, that she was loath to break it. She watched Nophaie. In the flickering light his face seemed impassively sad, a bronze mask molded in the mood of sorrow. From time to time he would lift his face and turn his dark gaze upon Marian. Then she thrilled, and felt a warmth of gladness wave over her.

“Will you stay with us to-night?” she asked, at last.

“No. I will ride back to my hogan,” he said.

“Is it far?”

“For you, yes. I will ride back to meet you in the morning.”

“Is your — your home at Oljato?”

“No. Oljato is down in the lowland. Some of my people live there.”

“People? You mean relatives?”

He replied in the negative, and went on to tell of his only living kin. And he fell to talking of himself — how he had chosen this wildest and loneliest part of the reservation because he wanted to be far away from white people. It was a custom of the tribe for the women to own the sheep, but he had acquired a small flock. He owned a few mustangs. He was the poorest Indian he knew. He did not possess even a saddle or a gun. His means of livelihood was the selling of wool and hides, and working for some of the rich Indians in that section. He had taught them how much better corn would grow in plowed land. He built dams to hold the spring freshets from the melting snows and thus conserve water for the long period of drought. What his tribe needed most was to learn ways that were better than theirs. But they were slow to change. They had to see results. And therefore he did not find a great deal of work which was remunerative.

It had never occurred to Marian that Nophaie might be poor. She remembered him as the famous athlete who had been highly salaried at Cape May. Yet she might have guessed it. The white people had taught him to earn money in some of their pursuits, which he had renounced.

Poverty had always seemed a hideous condition. Marian had never known real luxury and did not want it, but she had never been in need of the simple and necessary things of life. Perhaps to the Indian poverty was nothing. The piñons might be his room and warmth, the sage-covered earth his bed, the sheep his sustenance. Marian hesitated to voice her sympathy and perplexity. She could help Nophaie. But how? Maybe he did not want more sheep, more horses, more clothes and blankets, a gun and a saddle. Marian felt that she must go slowly. Nophaie’s simplicity was striking and it was easy for her to see that he had not been well fed. His lean face and his lean form were proofs of that. Had she ever dined at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel with this very Indian? Incredible! Yet no more incredible than this hour on the lonely desert, with a flickering camp fire lighting Nophaie’s dark face! How much stranger was real life than the fiction of dreams!

After a long silence, which Marian yearned to break, but could not, Nophaie rose and touched her hair with his hand.

“Benow di cleash, your eyes are heavy,” he said. “You must sleep. But I shall lie awake. I will start back with the sunrise. Good night.”

Would he bend to kiss her? She had treasured and remembered his kisses, few as they had been. But he moved away, silently, his tall form dark against the pale starlit sky, and vanished from her sight.

Long Marian sat there, fighting sleep, fighting to stay awake to think of this place and Nophaie and her love, and what must be the outcome. Fatality hovered there in the night shadow. In Nophaie’s look and voice, and the condition he confessed, she had read catastrophe for the Indian. Yet Marian could not be unhappy. She divined her power to give; and that Nophaie, stoic, nailed to his Indian martyrdom, would not wholly miss the blessedness and glory of love.

Marian repaired to the little tent and its bed of blankets. How good they felt! What a wonderful relief to stretch out and lie still! Sleep soon must deaden the throbbing of pulse, the aching of muscle, the burn of cheek. But would not her thoughts of Nophaie persist even in her dreams? Shadows of branches cast by the firelight moved on the walls of her tent, weird and strange. A low wind rose to moan in the piñions. The desert seemed to brood over her.

CHAPTER VII

UPON AWAKENING NEXT morning Marian realized how dearly she must pay for her horseback rides and climbs on foot. Breakfast had to be kept waiting for her, and Withers expressed both solicitude and amusement.

“I may look funny, but I don’t feel funny,” complained Marian, with a rueful face. “How will I ever live through this trip?... Oh-h-h! those awful trails straight down and up!”

“We’ll not go back the Pahute Canyon,” replied Withers. “Now you eat all you can and walk around some. You’ll find you feel better.”

Marian was so sore and stiff that she had not the slightest faith in what he said, yet upon following his advice she found he had spoken truly. Nevertheless, when she came to mount Buckskin she had an ordeal that left her smarting with pain. There was nothing to do but endure until gradually the exercise warmed her blood and eased her pangs. Then she began again to have interest in her surroundings.

The slow heave of piñion and cedar forest reached its highest ridge after perhaps an hour of riding. The sun was then high, and it lighted an enormous country of purple sage and clumps of piñions and yellow mounds of rock, now clear to Marian’s gaze. How strong the sweet scent of sage! And seemingly the whole quarter of the west swelled and bulged into a superb mountain, rising to a dome of black timber and white snow. Away to the northward rose dim, faint outline of a red-walled desert chaos.

The splendid spectacle, the fragrance of sage, the cold air, so untainted, the marvelous purple of the undulating desert, here no longer dominated by naked expanse of rock or forest green — these stirred in Marian the emotion of yesterday. How wild and free! This upland appeared verdant, a beautiful surprise of the stark and naked desert. The same loneliness and solitude reigned over it, the same intense and all-pervading light of sun, the same mystery of distance, the same incomprehensible magic of nature.

Withers waited for her, and as she rode abreast of his position he pointed far down and across the purple plain.

“Nophaie is riding to meet us,” he said. “Show me how good eyes you have.”

Eagerly Marian strained her gaze in the direction he was pointing, but she could not see anything that resembled a horse and rider.

“Oh, I can’t see him!” she cried.

“Farther to the left. There, in line with that clay-colored bluff under the mountain. Keep your eye close down along the sage.... Two moving dots, one white — one black.”

“Yes! Yes! I see those dots. But how tiny! Can they be horses?”

“Shore they can. Nophaie is riding the black and driving the white. I’ll bet there’s a present for you. Nophaie has one fine mustang, I’ve been told. But he never rode it into the post.”

“For me! You think so? That would be wonderful. Oh, will I be able to ride it?”

“Some of these Pahute ponies are well broken and gentle. I don’t think Nophaie would give you anything else.”

Marian had use for her eyes from that moment on. She rode with gaze searching for the moving dots. Sometimes she lost them and had difficulty in finding them again. But gradually they grew larger and larger until they assumed the forms of horses, loping gracefully across the sage, lending wild and beautiful life to that lonely desert. The time came when she clearly saw Nophaie, and after that when she recognized him. Then she made the astonishing discovery that the white mustang had a long black mane and tail, flying in the breeze. At closer view Marian was sure she had never seen any horse so beautiful. At sight of the Indians and the mules he halted, standing on a ridge, head up, mane flying. Then Nophaie caught up with him and drove him down into the trail, where he swerved to go round the mules. He pranced and tossed his head and whistled. His hoofs rang like bells on the stones. Marian now saw that he was almost pure white, of medium build, and well set up, with black mane and tail reaching almost to the ground. These alone would have made any horse beautiful. It appeared presently that his wildness was only a spirit of youth and temper, for he evinced an inclination to trot along with the other horses. Nophaie’s mount, however, was a really wild creature, a black, shaggy stallion, powerfully built, but ungainly, that had a halter round his nose as well as bridle.

Nophaie’s greeting to Marian was in his Indian language, the meaning of which was unmistakable. His smile and handclasp would have been enough to make her happy. Then, indicating the white mustang, he said. “I’ve brought you one of my ponies. He’s Pahute, and the gentlest and best gaited horse I’ve seen out here.”

“Oh, thank you, Nophaie! How beautiful he is! You are very kind indeed.... Gentlest, did you say? He looks as if he’d jump right over the moon.”

“He wants to run, and he’s lively, but you can ride him,” replied Nophaie. “Would you like to try him now?”

“I’d love to, but, Nophaie, I — well — it’s just all I can do to stay on this horse at the present moment. Perhaps to-morrow I will feel up to it.... How far to your camp, Nophaie?”

“I never think of distance as miles. Riding at this gait, we’ll get there at noon. Suppose we lope ahead. That will rest you.”

“Lope!... Withers says ‘just hang on’ and now you say lope. Very well. I consign my poor aching bones to your machinations.”

A touch and word from her were all Buckskin needed. Indeed, he seemed to be both surprised and pleased. He broke into a long lope that Marian found, to her amaze, a most agreeable change of gait and altogether delightful motion. It changed everything — her sensations, the scenery, the colors and smells, the feel of the wind. Nophaie loped beside her, outside of the trail, through the sage. How sweet to Marian the cool fragrance blowing hard in her face! Her blood began to race, her nerves to tingle. Always she had loved to go fast, to be in action, to feel her own spirit and muscle in dominance of the moment. This was beyond her wildest dreams. She could ride. She really had not believed it. On and on they loped, each horse gradually warming to the work, and at last settling down to a steady swinging gait that covered ground swiftly. Marian imagined there could be no place in the world more beautiful than this boundless sage-plain, purple in color and heavy with its dry, sweet tang, lonely and wild, with the great mountain to the fore, and away across the distance the strange, calling, vast and naked desert of rock.

That ride intoxicated Marian. When at the end of three or four miles Nophaie called for her to pull Buckskin to a walk she found herself breathless, utterly reckless, and full of wild longings to race on and on, to capture this new exquisite joy just liberated, to range the desert and forget the world.

“Oh! — splendid!” she cried. “I — never knew — what a ride — could be.... You must race — with me.”

“Wait till you get on your white pony to- morrow. He will run like the wind.”

They slowed to a walk and rode side by side. Marian awoke to the realization of a stinging happiness. Could it last? What was the cause? Herself, Nophaie, their love — these did not account wholly for that new significance of life. Then she remembered what Withers had said — that places had more to do with happiness than people. What did he mean by that? She told Nophaie this remark of the trader’s and asked for an explanation.

Nophaie did not reply for some moments. “People are false. Human nature is imperfect. Places are true. Nature itself is evolution — an inexorable working for perfection.”

His reply made Marian thoughtful. How strange, coming from an Indian! For a moment she had forgotten that Nophaie had been almost as famous for his scholarship in college as for his athletic prowess. She must learn from him and in that learning perhaps realize the strange combination of his Indian nature developed by the white man’s intellect. Could any such training be other than tragic? Marian divined what she had not knowledge to explain.

They rode on across the undulating sea of purple, for a while at a walk, talking, and then breaking again into a lope, and from that to slower progress once more. For Marian time ceased to exist.

The baa-baa of sheep suddenly pierced the air.

“My flock,” replied Nophaie, answering Marian’s quick look.

“Where?” she asked, eagerly.

“In the cedars there.... Benow di cleash, here is the home of Nophaie.”

Marian’s keen eyes swept the half-circle of country indicated by Nophaie’s slow impressive gesture. She saw that they had ridden down miles and miles of gentle slope, which ended in a vale marked by richer luxuriance and purple of the sage, by clumps of beautiful cedar trees, and by isolated red and yellow mounds of rock. Above loomed the great mountains, now close enough to dominate and protect. A bare rock-floored stream bed meandered through the vale, with crystal water gleaming on smooth inclines and tinkling over little falls. A column of blue smoke rose from among the cedars. Marian could smell that smoke, and it brought rushing to memory the delight she always had in burning autumn leaves. A brooding summer solitude and peace hung over this vale.

Nophaie led Marian in among the cedars. They were not numerous enough to make a forest, yet they furnished all that was needful to make this spot absolutely perfect in Marian’s eyes. For her camp site Nophaie chose a very large cedar, with branches spreading over a little sliding fall and pool in the stream. The rock floor of the stream appeared to be solid as granite and as smooth as glass. The ground under the cedar was soft and brown and fragrant. Indian paint- brush, with its vermilion hue vied with white and purple primroses.

“Here I have thought of you many and many an hour, and dreamed, and tried to pray,” said Nophaie. “We will put your tent here, and your bed here, for you must sleep in the open, unless it rains.... Come now, rest a while — then you can meet Maahesenie, my relative. You will see my hogan and my sheep.”

Nophaie helped her out of the saddle, a service she welcomed, for she was very near exhaustion again; and he arranged a comfortable seat for her in the shade of the old cedar with the beautiful pool of amber water at her feet.

“Cold snow water from Nothsis Ahn, my Mountain of Light,” he said.

“Nophaie, fill my canteen,” she replied. “Oh, how thirsty I am!”

When she had drunk deep of that pure water, so cold it had to be taken slowly, she understood another meaning of the desert.

Nophaie unsaddled the horses and turned them loose. A shaggy gray animal came bounding to him. Marian thought it a wolf, but it was a dog.

“Here’s Taddy, my shepherd — and he looks like the Taddy of my boyhood.... Taddy, go to Benow di cleash.”

Marian held out her hand and called “Taddy.” He advanced slowly, obediently, and without fear or distrust. But in the pale strange eyes shone a watchful, inquisitive light. This dog was like the soft-footed canines Marian had feared at the post. But he permitted her hand to pat his fine head. Marian had been used to vicious dogs and fawning dogs and jealous dogs, all of which were as unlike Taddy as if he had really been a wolf. He was as curious about Marian as she was about him, and vastly less inclined to friendliness.

Nophaie came to look down upon Marian, with something soft and glad in his dark eyes.

“Benow di cleash to see you here — to have you come for my sake!” he exclaimed, with emotion he had not shown before.

“Nophaie, it is as good for me as for you,” replied Marian.

“That could not be,” he replied, with grave smile. “Your soul is not in danger.”

“Nophaie!” she exclaimed.

But he offered no word in explanation of his strange speech, and, bidding her rest, he strode away, with the dog beside him. Marian was left alone. The shade was cool, making it needful to cover herself with her coat. A drowsy buzz of bees or other insects mingled with the murmuring and dreamy low song of the stream. They seemed to lull her thoughts and burden her eyelids. She fell asleep. Upon awakening, it seemed to her a long time had lapsed, for she felt wonderfully rested. But she could not have slept long. Withers and the Indians had arrived with the pack outfit and were making camp some little distance away. It was Nophaie who brought her duffle bag and roll of bedding. Withers followed, carrying tent and ax.

“Shore you look comfortable,” was the trader’s greeting. “Isn’t this sage- cedar country great? I’ve never seen any part of the desert to equal this.”

“A land where it is always afternoon,” interposed Nophaie, with his eyes on Marian.

“Quote all the poetry you want to,” she said, languidly. “I refuse to be surprised by you again.”

The two men erected the tent on one side of Marian, and spread the canvas roll with the blankets on the other.

“Young lady, you’ll see the stars and get your nose nipped to- night,” observed Withers.

“Nipped? By stars — or what?” she queried.

“By frost,” he returned. Then seriously he continued: “I love this purple sage upland. I’ve come here often, though not by the Pahute trail. You wouldn’t dream this fine open country jumps off over here — down into the most terrible broken desert. Rocks — canyons that’re impassable.”

“Yes, I would. I saw where,” replied Marian.

“Well, I’m going to ride over here some ten miles south, round the corner of the mountain where an old Pahute lives,” continued Withers. “I buy a good deal from him, and he buys from me. He’s rich and an old scoundrel. He salts his wool. Now only few Indians do that.”

“Salts his wool? What does that mean?”

“He spreads his wool out in the sun and covers it with salt. That salt draws moisture from the air and melts into the wool, making it almost twice as heavy.”

“Withers, I’ve persuaded Etenia not to do that any more,” spoke up Nophaie.

“You have! Well, by golly! I’m shore glad, as much for Etenia’s sake as mine. I like him. He’s an industrious, intelligent Indian. The blankets of his women are the best we buy. Nophaie, he’s wealthy. I should think he would go shares with you in some sheep deal.”

“Yes, he would,” replied Nophaie, “but he wanted me to marry his daughter, and when I refused he grew very angry. Said I had Indian body and white-man mind.”

“Humph! that’s pretty serious,” returned Withers, soberly, and, shouldering his ax, he turned toward his camp.

“Is it serious, Nophaie?” asked Marian.

“I’m afraid so — for me.”

“Why? Because you can’t — can’t marry or become what this Indian thinks?”

“Both. You see my position is hard. My people are proud that I have renounced the white man. But they expect me to fall at once into their ways. I tried. I have failed in many things.”

Thought-provoking indeed were these words to Marian, and she began to get a glimpse of the problem before her.

“I’m rested now,” she said, rising. “Take me to see your hogan and Maah — whatever you called him.”

Beyond the stream some hundred or more yards, in an open space of higher ground, stood a large beehive-shaped mound of red earth with a column of blue smoke rising from the center of its round roof. At nearer view Marian saw that the earth had been plastered thickly over a framework of wood. The open door faced the east.

Nophaie spoke to her in his Indian tongue — something she sensed to be ceremonious and indicative of the sacredness of his act in bidding her enter. She stooped to go in. A smoldering fire occupied the center of this habitation called a hogan, and the smoke from it seemed to float round and round, to drift at last up through the hole in the roof. This roof was a marvel of ingenuity and skill, being constructed of heavy trunks of cedars planted in the ground, and affording support for the many thick branches that formed a concave network to hold the covering of red earth. How substantial and strong this Indian edifice! Something about it impressed Marian with a significance of its long adoption by the tribe.

A few iron and stone utensils lay scattered beside the fire. A haunch of meat hung from one of the posts, and beside it on the ground lay a sack of flour, with some boxes and tins that evidently contained food supplies. Besides these there were two beds in the hogan, one on either side of the fire, close to the wall.

“Which bed is yours?” asked Marian, unable to restrain her curiosity.

“Here,” said Nophaie.

His action designated an Indian blanket and a sheepskin with woolly side uppermost. Obviously the former was Nophaie’s coverlet, and the latter was his mattress. Marian thought of the hard bed of the Spartans. So Nophaie slept there! She forced her gaze to search farther, to the end that she saw an old coat, a leather pouch studded with silver buttons, and a worn hunting knife. These then were Nophaie’s possessions and this was his home. Suddenly Marian’s eyes blurred and smarted. Was that because of the acrid wood smoke and the heavy pungent odor? Whatever the causes, Marian realized she could not have remained there for five minutes longer. Nor could she utter one word as to her feelings or impressions.

“I sleep out under the cedar often, but Maahesenie doesn’t like that,” said Nophaie.

“Let me see your sheep,” rejoined Marian.

She did not speak, nor did Nophaie, while they were threading a way through the tall sagebrush, the long light-green, purple-tinted sprigs of which reached to her shoulder. She stripped a tiny branch and, crushing the soft leaves, she pressed them to her lips and nostrils. How bitter the taste — how like a drug the intoxicating pungency of fragrance! She saw purple berries on the cedar trees, and a golden dust-like powder upon the foliage. Then she heard the baa of sheep and bleat of lambs.

Soon Marian emerged from the zone of cedars into the open sage, and here her sight was charmed by a flock of sheep and goats, and many lambs. If Nophaie had only a small flock, Marian wondered what a large one would be. No less than several hundred was her calculation of their number. Most of them were white, and many were black, and some were brown. The lambs all appeared as fleecy white as wool could be. They played round Marian’s feet and had no fear of her. The baaing and bleating were incessant and somehow struck pleasantly upon Marian’s ear.

Then she observed another Indian, tall and gaunt, with stoop of shoulders and iron-gray hair. He folded a thin blanket round him as he walked toward her. What a record of life was his face! Years and storms of the desert!

“Maahesenie — Benow di cleash,” said Nophaie.

“How do?” returned the Indian, extending a brown hand to Marian.

She shook hands with him and greeted him, not, however, without hesitation over the pronunciation of his name.

“White girl come far?” he asked, with slow curving arm extended toward the east. His English was intelligible.

“Yes, very far,” replied Marian.

“Saddle heap hard seat — huh?” he queried, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Marian nodded and laughed her affirmation. What sharp sight these Indians had! From a distance this Maahesenie had observed in her walk the evident tell- tale truth of how the saddle had punished her. Moreover, besides keen eyes he also had a keen sense of humor. This old Indian was laughing at her. But when he addressed Nophaie it was with dignity and gravity, and his gestures made known to Marian the fact that he was talking about her. When he ended Nophaie led her back toward the camp.

“What did he say about me?” she asked, very curious.

“I didn’t get it all. You see, my mother tongue comes back slowly to me. But I got enough to make you vain. He said, ‘Eyes of the sky and hair of the sun.’ Then something about your skin being like a sago lily.”

“Well, bless him!” exclaimed Marian, in delighted surprise. “And what’s a sago lily?”

“Most beautiful of desert flowers. They grow in the deep canyons.”

Marian slept again for a couple of hours, and awoke to feel somewhat eased of pangs and weariness. The afternoon was far spent, waning in a solemn glory of light and peace. Marian listened to the hum of bees and the murmur of water. Gentle stream and colorful sage! The cruelty of nature and life did not seem to abide in them, yet a few moments of sharp-eyed scrutiny made known to her tiny denizens of both, seeking to destroy. Mystery of mysteries that living creatures must prey upon other living creatures! Where was God in such nature? If species preyed upon species, why not man upon man?

“I declare,” murmured Marian, suddenly aghast at her thoughts, “this desert is giving me the queerest ideas.”

Withers called her to an early supper. Nophaie sat with her, and the other Indians sat opposite. All of them did justice to the extraordinary meal served by the trader.

“Well,” he said, “my plan is to eat all the grub quick at the beginning of a hard trip. That builds up strength to finish.”

After supper Nophaie walked with Marian, singularly thoughtful and sad. Suddenly he pointed to a distant cone-shaped mound of stone that appeared to have a monument on its summit.

“I want you to climb there with me — to-night or to- morrow,” he said.

“Take me now,” she replied. “But why there particularly?”

“I want you to see my Marching Rocks from there — and my Mountain of Light.”

“Nophaie — you want me to climb there — just because they are beautiful?” she queried, keen to divine his unexpressed thought.

“No. But because seen from that height they give me strength.”

“Strength?” she echoed. “For what — do you need strength now?”

He seemed to shudder and shrink, with a strange, faint vibrant convulsion not natural to him.

“To tell you my trouble!”

Nophaie’s somber gaze, and the pathos and solemnity of his voice, further augmented Marian’s fears and prepared her for catastrophe. His trouble must become hers. How singular his desire for her to climb to this particular height so that he could unburden himself! Their silent walk through the sage, and slow climb up a hill of smooth bare stone, gave Marian time to fortify herself against disaster of her hopes. She also anticipated some extraordinary spectacle from the summit of this hill. The slope was steep, and ascent difficult. Looked at from their camp, it had not appeared nearly so high as it actually was. They climbed from the eastern side, walking in long zigzag slants, and resting often. Near the summit there was a depression, the upper side of which terminated in the point of stone that supported the monument. This pyramid of rocks stood eight or ten feet high, and crude as it was it had some semblance of symmetry and dignity. It meant something more than a landmark to passing Indians.

“Who built it?” asked Marian.

“Men of my tribe,” replied Nophaie.

“What does it mean?”

“It signifies a place for prayer. Indians climb here to pray. Never unless they have something to pray for.”

“Does each Indian make his own prayer?”

“No. There are many prayers, but they are those used by our forefathers.”

“Have you prayed here?” asked Marian, speaking low.

“Many times,” replied Nophaie.

“Are you going to pray — now?”

“Yes, to my Marching Rocks and to my Mountain of Light and to the Blue Wind.”

“Will you let me hear your prayers?”

“Indeed, I want you to!”

With that Nophaie again took Marian by the hand and led her up the remaining few steps to the summit of this stone hill which had obstructed the view.

“Look, Benow di cleash,” he said.

Marian did as she was bidden, suddenly to become silent and thrilled, motionless as the monument upon which she rested a reverent hand. As she gazed Nophaie began his prayer.

“Marching beautiful Rocks, Part red and part white, With light falling on you from the sky. The wonderful light! I give you this; This a prayer for you. On this day make my foot well, Make my leg well, Make my body well, Make my face well, Make my soul well. On this day let me rise from my bed, Let me walk straight, Let me not have fever, Let it be well before me, Let all that I see be well, Let me believe now all is well.” Marian listened as she gazed, and felt that forever on her memory would be limned the splendor and the strange phenomenon of the apparent life of this weird land of Marching Rocks.

Below Marian a cedared plateau, gray with grass and sage, led eastward toward bare mounds of rock, isolated and strangely set, with semblance to great prehistoric beasts. Scattered and striking they led on over the wide green plain, round and bare and huge, all seeming to move forward, to march on, to be impelled, to be endowed with mighty and majestic life. Marching Rocks! Van of the army of naked earth, vast riven mass of rock, rising and spreading from north to south, marching down from afar, driven by the dim slopes and immense heave of mountains!

“Benow di cleash, the sculptor who carved those Marching Rocks is the wind,” said Nophaie. “Listen to our prayer:”

“Blue wind, beautiful chieftess,  Send out a rainbow by which let me walk.  Blue clouds, blue clouds,  With your shoes let me walk.  Blue clouds, with your leggings make me walk;  Blue clouds, with your shirt let me walk;  Blue clouds, with your hat let me walk;  Blue clouds, make it dark behind me;  Blue wind, make it light before me;  Earth Woman let it rain much for me,  By which let the green corn ripen.  Make all peaceful with me.” Then Nophaie bade Marian sit down and lean against him beside the monument.

“We will watch the sun set over the desert,” he added. “Sunset — the fulfilment, the glory, the end of the Indian’s day!... White people do not rise to see the breaking of the morning light. And they do not care to watch the declining sun. But for Indians these hours are rituals.”

To the west, where Nophaie directed Marian’s rapt gaze, the scale grew grand, a supreme manifestation of nature’s sculpturing. The purple shadows now began to define the canyons and lift the wavy knolls of red rock. From out that thick sunset haze of the direct west swept majestic escarpments, level and dark, to overshadow the world of carved and graven marching rocks. Farther around, beyond the blazing center of the west, began the black jagged uplift of Nophaie’s Mountain of Light. It sheered up to a round, white-patched, black- fringed dome. The pure snow and lofty pine held dominion there.

Every moment the spectacle changed, and out over the wasteland there was chaos of light and color. The purple shadows turned to black; the red and yellow grew less intense. Vast rays of light slanted down from the broken sunset of clouds. Marian’s emotion increased with the growing transformation. Before her eyes stretched a belt of naked earth, two hundred miles long and one hundred wide, curving from east to west. No human sight was adequate to grasp its tremendousness and its meaning. Eye of eagle or condor, most delicate and powerful of all organs of vision, must be limited here. There was no movement of anything — only the illusion of the Marching Rocks; no sound, nothing but the stark upflung nakedness of the earth, beyond comprehension to the human mind, exalting to the soul. A world of naked rock, and cedar, and sage for the Indian! Marian cried out in her heart in pity for the Indians that eventually must be driven from this world, so still, so solemn, so awful, yet a refuge and an abode of life.

The dark walls of granite grew dusky red; the marching rocks moved like mammoths, mystic evidence of the ages. Distance was made clear by the lifting of haze from the canyoned shadows, by the last piercing light of the sun. It seemed that a million facets of chiseled rock caught this dying glow of sunset and reflected it, throwing the marvel of light upon the clouds. The shadows lengthened and widened and deepened. Marian’s sense of color and proportion grew magnified or dwarfed, she could not tell which. Thousands of rock ridges, facing the sun, marched down to meet it.

The air grew chill. Farthest away across the riven rock a grayness blotted out the horizon. The splendid landmarks seemed to be receding, retreating, dying with the sunset. Every moment became more solemn than that preceding. It was a place not meant for white man. Yet how beautiful! The great light was fading. Over most of the rocky area the strange gray shadow encroached while Marian gazed; only to the eastward did the bright gleams of sunlight fall upon the highest faces of the Marching Rocks. Again these rays shot slanting from out of rifts in the clouds, growing strong and glorious, strangely lighting for the moment the horizon peaks of white. Then all that far east, as had the north, paled and darkened. It was a blight. It spread toward the sunset. Low down ruddy gleams suddenly caught the van of the Marching Rocks. But that beauty of radiance was ephemeral. The ball of half-clouded fire tipped the slope of Nothsis Ahn, and the chasms became veiled in haze of rose. Nophaie’s mountain grew dark and clear against the steel-blue sky. All the upland in its shadow seemed bathed in ethereal light. Strange change! How cold! The sun was sinking. The desert darkened. Only a disk of the sun remained, still overpowering, still master of the day. It was sinking farther. The day was nearly done. How rosy the tips of the stone hills! Then the radiant disk of white fire vanished. A golden glow on cloud and sky marked the place where the sun had gone down. The earth of naked stone seemed to gather power, to rise, to come out clear and cold, to reach for the encroaching twilight.

Marian turned to Nophaie and said: “I have seen. I feel all you feel.... Now tell me your trouble.”

Nophaie rose, lifting her with him, and towered over her, his face as she had never beheld it. Mystery and grief, age and strength, came out in the bronzed lineaments; and his eyes were terrible. Marian imagined she saw the soul of the Indian.

“I am an infidel!” he said, hoarsely.

The shock of intense surprise sustained by Marian precluded her utterance.

“I did not know this when I came back to the reservation,” Nophaie went on, as if passion-driven. “I tried to return to the religion of my people. I prayed — trying to believe. But I cannot.... I am an infidel!... I cannot believe in the Indian’s God — I will not believe in the white man’s God.”

“Oh, Nophaie!” gasped Marian, suddenly released from stunning surprise to the consternation and horror. “Your faith — will come back.”

“Never. My white teaching killed it. The Indian’s religion is best for him. This Morgan kills the Indian’s simple faith in his own God — makes him an infidel — then tries to make him a Christian. It cannot be done. There is not one real Christian Indian on the reservation.”

“Why — that is terrible!” replied Marian. “But you — Nophaie — I am distressed. Oh, do you mean you have no belief in a future life?”

“An infidel has no faith.”

“But yours will come back. It must. I will help you. Surely your religion is as good as mine. No one realizes more than I the necessity of faith in God and immortality. What good could life be without them?... Nophaie, we must strive and pray for yours.”

“Marian, cannot you understand?” asked Nophaie, in pathetic earnestness. “The knowledge forced upon me by white people — my developed intelligence — makes it impossible for me to believe in the Indian’s religion.”

“Impossible!” echoed Marian.

A silent and impressive spreading of his hands, gesture of impotence and helplessness, fixed in Marian’s mind the immutability of Nophaie’s spiritual catastrophe. The certainty of it pierced her heart. Sorrow for him was succeeded by resentment and anger at the white people who had done his soul this injury. Nophaie’s soul had as much right to its inheritance of ideals and faiths as any white man’s. Marian could not bring herself to the point of wanting Nophaie to accept the white man’s religion. If she were in his place she would not do it. But how to help him!

“Let us go down before night falls,” said Nophaie, taking her hand.

With careful little steps Marian essayed the descent of the stone hill, which in the gathering darkness was difficult. An infinite melancholy pervaded the gray, silent desert. A camp fire blazed out of the shadow of the cedars. And by the time they had reached a level twilight had enfolded the sage.

“Nophaie, listen to my plan for work among your people,” said Marian. And forthwith she briefly told him the result of her interviews with Mrs. Withers. Nophaie not only expressed approval, but also gratitude, and was particularly desirous of having her find a place at Mesa, in the school.

“You can do so much good,” he said. “The young Indian girls will love you. And as soon as you can speak their language you will influence them against evil. They are primitive children. There’s one Indian girl you must look after. She is Gekin Yashi — the Little Beauty. She is fourteen years old and large for her age. I know her father, Do etin — the Gentleman. He is a fine old Indian. He approves of the school and likes good missionaries, but he hates Morgan, who seems to be in control at Mesa. He is too much interested in Gekin Yashi.”

“Ah! — Nophaie, I am beginning to understand a little of the Indian problem,” replied Marian.

“That is good. Now tell me, you will stay here a little? So we can ride and climb and talk?”

“Yes, I’ll stay two days. Withers cannot spare more.... Ride? I’ll race you through the sage.... Then I’ll go back to Kaidab — then to Mesa, where I’ll begin my work, for you, Nophaie. You will come to Mesa?”

“Yes. I’ll ride there every week. But we must meet in secret — somewhere out in the desert, to protect you. The agent Blucher has only seen me twice, but he took instant dislike to me as soon as he learned I was an educated Indian. He is bad medicine, Marian. Blucher and Morgan run the reservation and the school, not for government or Indians, but for themselves. They keep down the better influences. They dominate government employees, and either get rid of good missionaries or put obstacles in their way. You will soon see through them.”

“Then you’ll come every week,” rejoined Marian, gladly. “Oh, that will be fine! And you think I must meet you secretly? I am not ashamed, Nophaie. I am proud of — of my friendship with you.”

“Blucher and Morgan must not know you meet me,” declared Nophaie. “You could not stay there after they found out. I’ll ride to Kaidab in ten days and find out from Mrs. Withers what you’ve done at Mesa. Then I’ll write you and tell you when I’ll come.”

“And how and where to meet you? I’ll have my white pony, you know. I can ride out on the desert.”

“Yes,” he said, simply.

With this most important matter understood, Marian once more felt a warmth and stirring along her veins, a regurgitating of that happiness which had been suddenly crushed by Nophaie’s disclosure. She would be able to see him often! That was the shibboleth of her joy — the inspiration to her endeavor. Would not her love for him and faith in him somehow gladden the dark days of his martyrdom? For she considered his life no less.

The desert night settled down, cool and still, with a blackness of shadow over sage and cedar, and the velvet sky effulgent with its myriads of white stars. Marian walked beside Nophaie, hand in hand, through the sage toward the flicker of camp fire. A coyote wailed its cry out of the silence. Marian felt more than the fullness of her heart. The sage, the rocks, the murmuring stream, the desert night seemed invested with a spiritual power, a breathing soul.

CHAPTER VIII

THAT YEAR THE summer rains came late — just in time to save the upland country from severe drought. Nophaie’s people all attributed the coming of the black thunderstorms and the down-dropping veils of moisture and the rainbows curving over the desert, to the efficacy of their dancing prayers. But Nophaie could not believe this.

Up under the brow of Nothsis Ahn these rains were cold even in August. Sometimes sleet fell, pattering on the sage, whitening the flat rocks and patches of red earth, and crusting the woolly backs of the sheep. Maahesenie, who tended the flock during Nophaie’s frequent absences, was exposed to these cold rains. Indian as he was, he did not seek shelter. The rain was good, even if it was cold. And when Nophaie returned from Kaidab he found his only relative seriously ill of a malady that had grown with the years.

Tending the flock in the rain and sleeping in wet clothes had brought Maahesenie’s rheumatism in more severe form. Nophaie feared that he had come home too late. Maahesenie, relieved of his responsibility, went to his bed a very sick man. At that altitude the nights were cold, and even in daylight Maahesenie’s bed in the hogan was not nearly so warm as it should have been. Nophaie made a warm and comfortable bed of sheepskins and blankets, but his sick relative would not stay in it. The bed he had always been used to was what he wanted. Nophaie had brought him blankets from Kaidab. And the first Pahute who passed got these blankets in a trade for some tobacco. Nophaie undertook to instruct his sick and contrary relative.

“Maahesenie, you have what white medicine men call rheumatism. It is a disease of the blood, affecting joints and muscles, and is caused by exposure to cold and wet. You must keep very warm and dry.”

Maahesenie looked at Nophaie as at a younger man who spoke idly of things he did not understand.

“Maahesenie is victim of the Evil Spirit,” replied the Indian. “Maahesenie thought evil thoughts. A whirlwind, traveling from right to left, which is the wrong way, struck Maahesenie when he did not know the prayer to say. And it caused his body to be twisted. Maahesenie must have medicine to straighten him. Maahesenie must smoke the medicine in a jet pipe which the medicine man carries in his medicine bag.”

Therefore Nophaie had to ride forth across the uplands to fetch a medicine man of the tribe. This old Indian accompanied Nophaie, but held no communion with him. Plain indeed was the fact that he would rather have been alone in the hogan with Maahesenie to administer to him. He gave Maahesenie the jet pipe to smoke, and when that custom had been observed he took some salt from his medicine bag, and wetting this in his mouth he mixed it with the ashes from the pipe. Then he proceeded to rub this upon Maahesenie and to massage him, meanwhile chanting what Nophaie recognized as the Wind Chant. Nophaie approved of the massaging, and it reminded him of how the football trainers used to work over him. Well he knew what was good for sore muscles.

The medicine man’s next treatment was to procure flat rocks from the stream outside, and to pour different colored sands from his medicine bag upon these rocks. He was a wonderful artist. These maneuvers in sand soon took the form of symmetrical figures, over which the medicine man mumbled impressive and weird incantation. This done, he brushed the sand from the rocks, and gathering his effects together he left the hogan and went on his way.

Nophaie was not amazed to see Maahesenie very much better and able to get up. Probably if he had been a young man the treatment would have made him well. But he was old, and used up, and no faith could wholly banish disease. Next day he again fell victim to ague, to the slow twisting knot of his muscles. He gave up then and in somber and silent stoicism awaited the end. Nophaie divided his time between Maahesenie and the sheep.

One day nearly a month after Maahesenie had been stricken a Pahute rode into camp with a letter for Nophaie. The Indian had ridden from Kaidab in ten hours. Nophaie took the letter, which had been typewritten, and was without address or signature. Yet, singular at first glance as this seemed, he knew who had written it and that it was important. Rewarding the Indian courier and asking him to stay, Nophaie repaired to the solitude of his favorite cedar and spread out the letter.

I have ridden three times to our meeting-place, once each week on the day set, and have been disappointed, and worried and distressed that you did not come.

To-day I met Withers at the trading post and he told me Maahesenie was dying. I am very sorry, yet relieved in that I now know what has detained you. Withers said he would wait while I wrote this letter to you and take it to Kaidab and send it to you by special messenger. He is very kind and good. You may trust him in every way. So I am writing here in the trader’s office, pretending the letter is for Mrs. Withers. Believe me caution is imperative. I am already deeply involved in the secret underhand workings of this dreadful place.

Do not send me any more letters through the mail. If you cannot come to meet me — and I’ll ride out every week on the day we set — do not send messages unless in care of Withers. It is not safe. My mail from the East has been opened. I doubt not that my letters home have been opened. Some of them were never received by my aunt and friends. At first I put this down to the idle curiosity and jealousy of busy-bodies or of the clerk in the post-office. He had done me the honor to press his attentions upon me, which I didn’t accept. But I know now that he is merely a tool of Blucher. No letter of importance sent East to government or missionary board would ever get by this agent, unless favorable to him and Morgan. I suspected this, and fortunately I have written nothing home except my own personal interests, mostly concerning people there.

Two weeks ago Blucher asked me to do office work for him several hours each day after my regular duty at the school. I thought it policy to oblige him, but I insisted on one afternoon for myself, which of course is the time I am to meet you. Blucher apparently thinks well of me. I heard him arguing with Morgan. He called me a tow-headed doll and laughed at Morgan’s advice to watch me. He said I minded my own business and did not hobnob with the men or gossip with the women. Then he heard me set Friel right. You remember the annoyance this Friel caused me. As for Morgan, the Indians hate him. Never in a hundred years would they believe one word he preaches or says. How can a man lie to the Indians, cheat them in money deals, steal their water and land, and expect to convert them to Christianity?

This duty in Blucher’s office has been prolific of much information for me. I see, hear, and read a great deal more than my work calls for. I feel justified in this. I am out here in your interest. Blucher is German. He is deeply concerned over the war in Europe. He hates England and he hates America. I know how to serve him to my own interest. But Morgan is suspicious of every one. He really is in control here. He boasts of having put the “steam roller” under former superintendents of this reservation. How he has power to do this I have begun to find out. When any new government employee or missionary comes here Morgan loses no time in his peculiar politics. By his lies and persuasions he influences the newcomer to his side, and if he is successful, which he usually is, he proceeds at once to lay some kind of a trap for that person. A frame-up you know, instigated by him and carried out by his henchmen. If he fails, then he at once takes violent hatred of this interloper and begins the same kind of cunning to have him or her ousted. He really has something he can use against Blucher. That would not be difficult for an intelligent person to find. For instance, the half-breed Noki Indian, Sam Ween, is Blucher’s interpreter. Blucher pays Sam twenty dollars a month, when he pays him at all. I asked Sam. And I saw in government papers the amount appropriated by the government for Blucher’s interpreter. But Morgan has something more on Blucher than the little matter of stealing from Uncle Sam.

All of which leads to the point of this letter. Morgan’s most important emissary is Miss Herron, the matron of the Indian girls. I have won the love and trust of Gekin Yashi. She is not only the little beauty her name signifies but she is sweet and good. I have talked much with her, and though very shy and afraid she tells me her troubles. Miss Herron hates her. And my interest in Gekin Yashi has incurred Miss Herron’s enmity toward me.

Now the situation as regards Gekin Yashi is this. Morgan talks religion to her, and to us teachers he speaks of Gekin Yashi’s intelligence and that he could soon make a Christian of her. But it seems to me Morgan’s interest in Gekin Yashi is not only to make a Christian of her.

Do etin, the father of Gekin Yashi, will not allow her to go to Morgan’s house or chapel. There is no rule to enforce this, and both Morgan and Blucher are angry at Do etin. Morgan has influenced Blucher to have a rule enforced whereby Indian girls are compelled to go to Morgan’s chapel to hear him preach. This rule, I understand, is about to go into effect. I fear it will cause trouble among the Indians.

But the rule will come and Morgan will have his way. Gekin Yashi is so afraid of Morgan that she actually shakes when I speak of him. The only way I can see to save Gekin Yashi is for you to steal her away from this school and hide her in one of those wild canyons until Morgan forgets her. This may save Gekin Yashi, but not the next pretty little Indian girl who will be unfortunate enough to fall into a like situation. You understand, of course, that you incur risk in attempting such a plan. Risk of your life! Risk not only of jail, but of your life! Mine may be a foolish plan, for it is certain that Indians in Morgan’s employ could track you wherever you hid Gekin Yashi. But I could not think of any other plan.

This is a long letter, my friend, and Withers is waiting. My personal messages must go until I see you, which I hope indeed will be soon.

Nophaie pondered over this letter and reread it, only to become more somber and thoughtful. The plan suggested by Marian had occurred to him also, and now in the light of her revelation he decided he would risk stealing Gekin Yashi from the school. But he was tied here to the bedside of his dying relative and there appeared to be every reason to hurry to Mesa. It could not be done. Maahesenie was closer to him than Gekin Yashi.

Nophaie waited, with his burdened heart growing heavier, and while shepherding the flock he resolved in mind plans to rescue Gekin Yashi and safely hide her. It would be easy to hide her from white men, but almost impossible from Indians. Yet he must try.

Maahesenie died one night while Nophaie slept. Although he had expected this, the actual fact was a shock. More of Nophaie’s Indian nature came out in the presence of death. His people were all afraid of a dead man. And from this stiff ghastly mask of bronze the spirit had fled. Where had it gone? Where was it now? The mystery of death was as great as the mystery of life. Were not the strange beliefs and faiths of the Indian as credible as those of the white man? But here, in this solemn stirring moment, as in all the hours past, Nophaie felt aloof from the soul of this dead Indian.

Nevertheless, Nophaie paid stern and strict observance to the burial custom of the tribe. Indians of his own tribe came to view Maahesenie, but left him for Nophaie to bury. The Pahutes who rode by that day halted to express their sympathy, and then rode on. Nophaie had forced upon him the fact that the Nopahs did not care to bury their dead. They shirked it whenever possible. Their burial ceremony lasted four days and they could not eat until it was over.

Nophaie had assisted at the funeral services of several of the tribe. He knew what to do, though he could not recall most of the prayers and chants.

First he dressed Maahesenie in his best garments and moccasins and silver. Then he set about the difficult labor of digging a grave with only an ax and sharpened cedar sticks for implements. He worked all one day at this, keeping the sheep near at hand.

Next day Nophaie, according to the custom of the tribe, broke a hole in the hogan. The dead body of Maahesenie must not be taken through the door. And it must be carried in a perfectly straight line to the grave. Nophaie spent a long time over the accuracy of this line, until he believed it was as straight as eye of Indian could make it. Then he wrapped Maahesenie in his best blanket and carried him out and lowered him into the grave. Nophaie’s next duty was to cover the dead man and fill the hole level to the sage. Maahesenie’s saddle had then to be split and laid upon the grave. Likewise his kettle had to be broken and deposited there, and the other cooking utensils habitually used by him. This breaking was performed to liberate the spirits of these necessary utensils so that they could accompany Maahesenie to the Happy Hunting Ground under the earth. Following this ceremony Nophaie went out into the sage to bring in Maahesenie’s horses, three of which must be sacrificed. Rigidly as Nophaie desired to conform to the Indian’s rituals, he had to fight himself all the way. Maahesenie’s horses were not many and three of them were all Nophaie could find near at hand. They were young and beautiful and full of the joy of life. What a pity to kill them! Why kill them at all? The hardest task Nophaie had given himself since his arrival in the Indian country was to lead these three horses up to Maahesenie’s grave and there kill them. One of them even had to be bridled so that Maahesenie could easily catch him in the other world.

Sunset of that day found Nophaie’s tasks ended, except to destroy or burn the hogan. He waived this last custom of the tribe, but he did not enter the hogan and never would again. He erected a brush shelter under the cedar where Marian had slept. Night found him alone, except for the shepherd dog, Taddy, and the sheep. Long into the dark hours did Nophaie lie awake. He was the last of his family and he would never have a child. The burden of his life pressed hard upon him then. The great breathing spirit of nature all around him was as true to him as any spirit the Indians might have worshiped. It was there — the mysterious power — the eternal thing — the infinite. Life went on. The soul left the body. Did it perish or live again in some other State? Nophaie could not answer that as an Indian. He must answer it as an atheist. That was the curse of his tragedy, the bitter gall of this cup he must drain. For since his advent on the desert his Indian soul and white man’s intelligence had merged in one beautiful thing and in one only — a love of all nature. Sage and mountain, the gleaming red walls and purple canyons; gahd, the cedar tree, and choe, the spruce; the bright faces of desert flowers — these were a part of his very being. He felt the spiritual power in the rocks and he gloried in the mighty sweep of the bow-winged eagle. His Indian nature made him singularly acute in all his sensorial perceptions, but he could not think in the Indian’s way.

At dawn next morning Nophaie rode out into the sage on the trail to Mesa.

A few miles from the eastern slope of Nothsis Ahn he sheered off the trail to visit a Pahute camp where he engaged a boy to tend his sheep during his absence. The Pahutes Were glad to see Nophaie and made him welcome. They were rich in sheep and horses; their wants were few; they lived, peaceful and contented, in the loneliness of their desert home. They never saw a white man, except on the infrequent trips to trading posts. Nophaie had forced upon him the beauty of their lives. If some of the older men saw the vision of the future and the doom of the Indian, they showed no sign of it. But Nophaie saw it, and rode on his way sad and pondering, wishing that he too could be as happy and self-sufficient as they.

His route lay through the range of the prosperous old Nopah chief whom Withers had accused of salting wool. Etenia, the Wealthy, had words of sympathy for Nophaie’s loss of kin, and forgot his reason for discord. Nophaie did not tarry there long. He saw anew, however, the evidences of Etenia’s wealth — a stone hogan of imposing proportions, corrals, and cultivated fields, thousands of sheep and droves of horses, water in abundance, and all around the wide cedared rolling country hogans of his people. Etenia had all any Indian could wish for. Yet the only thing for which Nophaie envied him was that simple faith which had been handed down from his forefathers.

Nophaie loped along the sage trail, with the cool fragrance of desert in his face, the wide green-clumped expanse of purple open to his eye. How immeasurably far apart he felt from the people who lived there! Every day brought more bitter proof. When he conversed with Indians he used their language, but when he thought, his ideas were expressed in his mind by words of English. For long he had striven to conquer this. But it was impossible. Any slow, deliberate thought expressed in Indian words was intelligible to him, even natural, yet never did it convey the same meaning as the white man’s language. That was Nophaie’s tragedy — he had the instincts, the emotions, the soul of an Indian, but his thoughts about himself, his contemplation of himself and his people, were not those of the red man. As he saw the beauty of this wild, lonely land, and the rugged simplicity of the Indian, his marvelous endurance, his sustaining child-like faith in the supernatural and the immortal, so likewise he saw the indolence of this primitive people, their unsanitary ways of living, their absurd reverence for the medicine man, their peculiar lack of chastity, and a thousand other manifestations of ignorance as compared with the evolutionary progress of the white man, Indians were merely closer to the original animal progenitor of human beings.

Nophaie did not easily yield the supremacy to the white man. There were many ways in which he believed an Indian superior. He thought of Maahesenie’s resignation to death and how he had lain down to meet it. “My son,” he had said to Nophaie, “do not stand over me to obstruct the sunlight. Go out with the sheep. My day is done. Leave me alone to die.”

How incalculably more selfish and ignoble the custom of the white man! Nophaie remembered a time in the East, at Cape May, when he was playing baseball and living among white people — how a dying man was kept alive by nitrate of amyl five days after he should have been dead. Five days of intolerable anguish forced upon him by loving but misguided relatives! The Indian knew better than that. He had no fear of death. The mystic future held its promise. Life hereafter was a fulfilment of the present. The white man hated to let go his hold on material pleasures; the red man loved the belief of his spiritual metamorphosis.

That day, as many times before, he came upon the Testing Stone, lying along the trail. It stood about two feet high and was bulky. This was the stone that made a brave of a boy. There were many stones like this one scattered over the Indian country, and boys of every family tugged and toiled over them, day after day and year after year, until that wonderful time came when they could lift and carry them. It took years to develop and gather such strength. When an Indian youth could lift that stone he had become a brave; when he could carry it he was a strong man. If he could carry it far he was a giant. This exercise explained to Nophaie why an Indian could carry a stump of a spruce or the whole of a cedar down the mountain side.

Nophaie dismounted. He could not pass by this Testing Stone. It flaunted in his face a heritage of his people. Strength of manhood! The might revered by the gods! Power of arms that brought the beautiful light to the dusky eyes of Indian maidens!

Drawing a deep breath and bending down, Nophaie encircled that stone with his arms and heaved to the uttermost of his strength. He lifted it. He moved it a little way. And then its ponderous weight dragged him down, loosed his hold, and left him wet with sweat and labored of chest. Bitterly he gazed down at this proof of the Indian sinew. Scornfully he remembered his triumphs of the football field — the college records so lauded by his white comrades. Any youth of that desert was as strong as he. And to the men of the Nopahs he was as a pygmy. Maahesenie in his prime had lifted that very stone to his shoulder and had carried it for one hundred steps.

Nophaie rode on his way, and thought of Benow di cleash, and watched the changing panorama. Suddenly his horse rounded a cedar tree and shied at a monument.

Nophaie had often seen this pile of stones, but never had it halted him until now. It had peculiar significance for him. Whenever an Indian passed that way, bent on a hunt or a quest involving peril, he gathered a sprig of cedar from the tree and, laying it on the monument, he placed a stone over it and spoke his prayer.

Nophaie yielded to the instinct that impelled him to reach for a sprig of cedar. He added his stone to the monument and spoke a prayer for his adventure. The idea seemed beautiful to him. He was the Indian chief faring forth on an enterprise of peril. The dream — the fancy — the faith of the red man! But futile was his simple and instinctive abnegation of the white man’s knowledge. Swiftly it flashed back to reveal the naked truth. His quest was to save the soul of Gekin Yashi. He would be too late, or if not too late, he could only delay a crime and a tragedy as inevitable as life itself.

Eight hours steady riding across country brought Nophaie to the crest of the great plateau from which he saw the long green lines of poplar trees that marked the location of Mesa. Far removed was this country from the sage uplands surrounding Nothsis Ahn. Bare yellow sandy desert, spotted with pale green, and ridged by lines of blue rock, swept and rolled away on the three sides open to his gaze. Heat veils rose waveringly from sand and smoke; and the creamy white clouds rolled low along the dark horizon line.

Some wind-carved rocks of yellow marked the spot Nophaie and Marian had chosen as a rendezvous. There was cool shade, and shelter from rain or blowing sand, and a vantage point from which to watch. Marian was not there, nor did her white mustang show anywhere down the long bare slope toward the poplars. The time was about the middle of the afternoon, rather early for Marian. Therefore Nophaie composed himself to wait.

By and by his vigil was rewarded by sight of a white horse gliding out from the green and heading toward his covert. Nophaie watched Marian come. She had learned to sit a saddle like an Indian. Nophaie felt the shadows lift from his soul, the doubts from his mind. Always, sight of her uplifted him. More and more she was a living proof of many things: the truth of love and loyalty — the nobility of white woman — the significance of life being worth while for any human creature — the strange consciousness of joy in resistance to evil, in a fight for others, in something nameless and hopeful, as deep and mystical as the springs of his nature. How could he be a coward while this white woman loved him and worked to help his people? She was a repudiation of all his dark doubts. To think evil was to do evil. For the hour then Nophaie knew he would be happy, and would part from her strengthened. Nothing could cheat him out of the wonder of her presence.

At last she rode into the lane between the yellow rocks, and waved a gauntleted hand to him upon the shady ledge above. Dismounting, she tied the white mustang to a knob of rock, and climbed to Nophaie’s retreat. He helped her up the few steep steps, and holding her hand, he knew she would have come straight into his arms if he had held them out to her. Never before had he so yearned to enfold her, to yield to a strong shuddering need of her. But he owed her proof of her ideal of the Indian. She had once called him her noble red man. Would he let any white man be more worthy of that word?

But five weeks had changed Benow di cleash. Did the light-colored blouse and divided skirt, instead of the usual mannish riding garb, constitute all the difference? As she talked on and on Nophaie listened, and watched her. What had become of the fair skin, so like the pearly petal of a sago lily? Her face was now golden brown, and thinner, and older, too, except when she smiled. Only the blue eyes and hair of gold now held her claim to Benow di cleash. Her form had lost something of its former fullness. The desert summer was working upon her; the hot winds were drying up her flesh. And in repose of face there was a sadness that added new beauty and strength to her. Nophaie could accept this devotion to him and his people only because he saw that she was growing to nobler womanhood. In years to come she would look back upon this time and Nophaie without regret. He had vision to see that, and it permitted him to be happy with her.

Then she passed from news of her friends in the East to matters at Mesa, and naturally, as was her way, she told humorous things that had delighted her in the Indian children. The school brought out as many funny things as pathetic. Nophaie was pleased with the progress she had made in the Nopah language, and yet he had a strange and unaccountable regret at hearing her speak it. From tales of the Indian children she shifted to an account of the intrigue at Mesa, which was now involving friends she had made there, a young Texan and his wife, who were in trouble, owing to the machinations of Blucher and Morgan.

Nophaie knew the Texan, whose name was Wolterson. He was a government stockman and his duties were to ride out over the ranges to instruct the Indians in the care of sheep and horses and cattle. What little Nophaie had heard from the Indians about Wolterson was all to his credit. This heightened Nophaie’s interest in what Marian had to say, and he soon gathered the truth of Wolterson’s case, which held something of significance for him.

Wolterson had come to the desert in search of health. He was a cattleman and received an appointment from the government to be inspector of Indian stock on the ranges adjacent to Mesa. Being a young man of fine southern family and highly recommended, he at once incurred the dislike of the superintendent. When he asked Blucher what his duties would be that individual succinctly replied: “Ride around,” and that comprised all the directions he ever received. Morgan solicited the good offices of Wolterson through Miss Herron’s overtures to Mrs. Wolterson. As soon, however, as the Woltersons discovered conditions patent to all old residents of Mesa, those overtures fell flat. Then began the insidious underhand undermining work against Wolterson.

“After I’ve gone to-day,” concluded Marian, “I want you to ride down and see Wolterson. Then ask the Indians about him. Soon Blucher will trump up some charge against him and call an investigation. Unless Wolterson can disprove it he will be dismissed. Then we’d lose a good friend of the Indians. Wolterson has befriended Do etin. That is the real cause of Morgan’s enmity.”

“And — Gekin Yashi?” asked Nophaie, in slow reluctance.

“Safe and well, still,” replied Marian, in glad eagerness. “The mills have been grinding as of old, but not so fast. Morgan has been to Flagerstown. Blucher has been wrangling all his time with his henchmen — Jay Lord and Ruhr and Glendon. I don’t hear much, but enough. It’s mostly about Wolterson now and something about the land and water mess stirred up by the Nokis at Copenwashie. Friel has obtained a patent to the land once owned or at least controlled by the Nokis. Blucher, of course, aided Friel in this deal, but now, true to the twist in his brain, he is sore about it.... The edict has not gone forth compelling the Indian girls to go to Morgan’s chapel after school hours. But it is certain.... I have had talks with Gekin Yashi. She is ready to run off. We contrived to get permission for her to visit her father. Wolterson is dipping Do etin’s sheep and this morning Gekin Yashi rode out to the hogan. She’s there now and will remain over Sunday. You can go out there at night and make your plans to meet her as she rides back alone.”

“Do etin will be glad,” said Nophaie. “Is Wolterson in the secret?”

“Yes. He approves. But we must not let him have a hand in it.”

“I shall take Gekin Yashi to a Pahute in the Valley of Silent Walls,” rejoined Nophaie, thoughtfully. “But few Nopahs know this place. It is down under the west side of Nothsis Ahn, deep in the canyons.”

“Valley of Silent Walls,” mused Marian. Then she flashed at Nophaie, “Will you take me there some day?”

“Yes, Benow di cleash,” replied Nophaie. “But you run a danger.”

“Of what — whom?”

“Me!”

Marian flushed under her golden tan and her eyes searched his. Nophaie dropped his gaze, that, alighting upon her brown hand, saw it tremble and then clench at her glove.

“You — you are jesting.”

“No. I think I am telling the truth,” responded Nophaie. “Some day the savage and civilized man in me will come to strife. My Valley of Silent Walls is the most enchanting — the wildest and most beautiful place — the loneliest in all this desert. Walls of white and red, so high you cannot see their rims — running snow water, flowers and grass and trees!... If I ever got you down there I might never let you go.”

“Some day the savage and civilized

man in me will come to strife.”

“Well, you frighten me,” laughed Marian. “I see that you still retain some of your brutal football training.... But if all goes well — take me there to visit Gekin Yashi. Will you?”

“Could you get away from here?”

“Nophaie, I will never be permitted to work long at Mesa,” replied Marian. “Some day Blucher will awake to my two-faced nature. For I have certainly used woman’s wits to fool him.”

“Well, then I will take you to my Valley of Silent Walls.” Marian placed her hand on Nophaie’s and looked up into his face and then down, with evident restraint of emotion.

“Nophaie — Gekin Yashi loves you.”

“That child! Why, she has seen me but a few times,” protested Nophaie, painfully reminded of Do etin’s proposal that he marry his daughter.

“No matter. She has seen you enough. These Indian girls mature early. Gekin Yashi is not yet fifteen, but she is a woman in feeling. I think she is very lovable and sweet. She is quite the best scholar in the school. I have spent all the time possible with her. Believe me, Morgan is not the only venomous reptile that threatens the girl. Gekin Yashi is Indian clear through, but she has sense. She likes the ways of good white women. I have taught her that when a white woman loves she holds herself sacred for the man who has won her.”

“Marian, are you thinking that the way for me to save Gekin Yashi is to marry her?” inquired Nophaie.

“It might — be,” murmured Marian, tremulously, “if — if you—”

“But I do not love her and I cannot marry her,” declared Nophaie. “So much has white education done for me.”

After that no more was said about Gekin Yashi. Nophaie felt a great throb of pity and tenderness for this white girl. How she inspired him to mastery of self, to beat down the base and bitter! Something of gayety and happiness came to her in the closing moments of that meeting. Then the time arrived for her to go. Lightly touching his face with her hand, she left him, to run down the declivity and mount her mustang. Once, as she was galloping away, she turned to look back and wave to him. Her hair flashed gold in the sun. Nophaie watched her out of sight, with emotion deep and strange, half grief for the fate that was his, half exaltation that, miserable and lost Indian as he was, this woman of an alien white race made him a king.

CHAPTER IX

AT THE UPPER end of the long poplar lined avenue that constituted the only street in Mesa, the Woltersons occupied a little stone house built by the earliest founders of the settlement. A grove of cottonwood trees surrounded a tiny reed-bordered lake where ducks swam, and swamp blackbirds and meadowlarks made melody. Here were rich, dark-green verdure and cool shade and a sweet drowsy breath of summer, blowing in from the hot desert.

On the other side of the Wolterson house lay a garden that bordered on the spacious playground of the Indian school.

Nophaie watered his horse at the thin swift stream that ran down from the lake through Wolterson’s garden, and along the fence to the orchards. The sun was westering low and the heat of the day was dying. Down at the other end of the long avenue Nophaie espied Indians and mustangs in front of the trading post. He went into the open gate of the Wolterson place and let his horse graze on the rich grass bordering the irrigation ditch.

“Howdy, Nophaie!” drawled a slow voice. “Shore am glad to see you.”

Nophaie returned the greeting of the Texan, speaking in his own tongue. Few white men on the reservation had ever heard him speak English. Wolterson was a young man, tall and lithe, with a fine clean-cut face, bronzed by exposure. He did not appear to be rugged. His high-heeled horseman’s boots and big sombrero were as characteristically Texan as his accent.

Nophaie dropped the bridle of his horse and took a seat near where Wolterson was damming up an intersection from the irrigating ditch. He tossed a cigarette case to Nophaie, and then went on working. Indians rode by down the avenue. A freighter’s wagon, drawn by six mustangs and loaded with firewood, lumbered along, with the driver walking. Bees hummed somewhere in the foliage and the stream murmured musically.

“The Nopahs think well of you and your work,” said Nophaie, presently. “You’re the first stockman they ever praised. If you are brought before an investigating committee I’ll get Etenia, and Tohoniah bi dony, and several more influential chiefs to testify for you.”

“Shore that’s fine, Nophaie,” declared Wolterson. “I’m giving you a hunch, I’ll need them.”

Nothing was said about Gekin Yashi. Wolterson spoke of his plans for dipping sheep over the ranges as far as Etenia’s place. Nophaie and the Pahutes of that upland country must drive their flocks down there. Grass on the lowlands had begun to grow, so that the Nopahs would not have to range so far. Then Wolterson informed Nophaie that the government was going to instigate a blood test of cattle and horses, as the latter especially showed evidence of tuberculosis.

“Any horse or steer that has become infected will have to be shot,” said Wolterson, seriously. “Now isn’t it going to be hard to convince the Indians of the necessity of this?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it can’t be done,” replied Nophaie. “Is there a real necessity of testing stock for this disease?”

“I think so. I have sent my approval to Washington. But I dislike the prospect of trouble with the Indians.... Nophaie, would you be willing to help me by explaining this test to your people?”

“I will, if you can convince me of its need.”

“Well, when the order comes I’ll ride first to your range, and you shall see me make tests. Has Etenia many cattle?”

“Not a great many. They are all healthy.”

“Nophaie, they may look healthy and still have tuberculosis.”

At this juncture the little Indian boys and girls began to pour out of the big red dormitory like a stream of blue gingham. Nophaie noted that only the children from three years to five or six years of age appeared to be in evidence. They were a scampering, silent little horde, playing without the noise characteristic of white children. They spread over the playground to the number of several hundred, making a scene of color and animation. Several little boys came along to peer through the wire fence at Nophaie. They looked healthy and well cared for, and certainly were cleaner than any Indian boys he had seen. How stolid they seemed! They gazed at Wolterson with blank black eyes, and at Nophaie with scarcely more of interest.

Nophaie also observed that two of the school teachers were out on the grounds with the children, but did not approach near enough for Nophaie to recognize them. Then Mrs. Wolterson appeared, coming into the garden, wearing gloves and carrying a trowel. She was a striking young woman, dark as an Indian, beginning to show the effect of desert wind and heat. She had a pleasant greeting for Nophaie. He saw her glance run over the three Indian boys and beyond to the playground, as if she were looking for some one.

“Here comes Marian with Evangeline,” she said, as if pleased.

It was then Nophaie saw Marian leading a little Indian girl toward them, and he got the impression that this meeting was not as accidental or casual as might appear to others. The two teachers were watching Marian. And Nophaie, with his sharp eyes, caught a glimpse of a woman’s face in a window of a house across the avenue. This appeared a busier thoroughfare now. Indians were riding out toward the desert. Some of the older schoolboys were playing ball. Three Indian workmen passed by, carrying long shovels over their shoulders.

“Shore,” drawled Wolterson, with eyes on the avenue, “and here comes the champion liar of the reservation.”

“Bob, don’t say that,” said Mrs. Wolterson, quickly. “Somebody might hear you. The very trees have ears, not to speak of these Indian boys.”

Nophaie saw a heavily built young man, roughly clad, typically Western in corduroys and boots and sombrero, swinging with rider’s gait up the avenue. Upon sighting the group in the garden he swerved and, tilting back his sombrero, he lounged against the gate-post. His face was brown and broad, rather coarse, with thick lips and prominent eyes, wine dark in color.

“Howdy folks!” he said, with a slow grin. “You ain’t really workin’?”

“Howdy, Jay!” responded Wolterson. “I don’t get much time except of evenings.”

“Why, you seem to have all the time there is,” returned the other, dryly, with satire. “And look who’s here — the handsome Mrs. Bob. I calculate to find me a wife like her.”

This was the first time Nophaie had ever seen Jay Lord. Careless, easy, cool, with his air of devilish insouciance, this leering Westerner did not enhance Nophaie’s respect for the white men. Sight of him, so palpably other than the good-natured friend his familiarity assumed, roused something latent and dormant in Nophaie.

“Jay Lord, you’re a sad flatterer,” observed Mrs. Wolterson.

“Sad? I reckon not. I’m gay,” he replied, and sauntered into the garden. His bold gaze fell upon Nophaie, and he addressed him in Nopah.

“Say, ain’t this the college Injun?” he inquired of Wolterson, seeing that Nophaie paid no attention to him.

“Who’s that?” drawled Wolterson.

“Aw, come off,” retorted Lord, in disgust. “I mean college — where this redskin went. You know as well as anybody.”

“Jay, shore, I don’t know anything.”

“Right. You spoke wisdom for once. An’ I reckon the less you know the safer, hey?”

Then Lord espied Marian, who had come up to the fence, leading the little Indian girl. Mrs. Wolterson went over to them, answering Marian’s greeting. Lord doffed his sombrero and waved it low, crude in his assumption of a dignified salute, yet dauntless in his admiration.

“I reckon I’ll hang round awhile,” he said, as he approached the fence and hung over it. “Why, who’s this here little girl? Aren’t you an Injun?”

“I’m not,” piped up the little girl, in astonishingly good English, “I’m Miss Evangeline Warner.”

“Ho! Ho! Listen to the little Injun girl,” replied Lord, with a loud laugh.

“Jay, please don’t tease Eva,” asked Mrs. Wolterson, appealingly. “All the men tease her, just because she’s so bright. But you will spoil her.”

Nophaie had heard of this three- year-old prodigy. Her Indian mother had been glad to get rid of her, yet showed great pride in Eva’s fame. For some strange reason the child, who was a full- blooded Indian, had taken remarkably to the white people’s language and ways, and after two years hated the very name of Indian. She was a sturdy child, with heavy round face and black staring eyes and straggling black hair, in neither appearance nor expression any different from the other little Indian girls. Nophaie roused to a strong interest in Eva.

“No, I’m not — I’m not,” declared Eva vehemently, and she kicked at the wire fence.

“Never mind, Eva,” said Mrs. Wolterson, as she knelt down to take the little girl’s hand. “Say your go-to-bed prayer for us.”

Evangeline appeared wholly devoid of the shyness characteristic of Indian children.

“Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake,  I should worry!” Jay Lord roared with laughter, and Wolterson, too, enjoyed a laugh.

“Why — why, goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Wolterson, divided between horror and mirth. “Evangeline, where did you learn those last words?”

“From one of the men, that’s sure,” said Marian. “I never heard her say it that way before.” Then she stooped to Evangeline and, peering into the little dark face, she shook her gently. “Eva, you will get spanked. Say your prayer over again — the right way. Remember... you will get spanked.”

Very soberly the little Indian miss eyed her teacher:

“Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake,  You will get spanked!” Before Marian could protest or even before the men could laugh, a loud voice, of peculiar timber, rang out from behind:

“Shut that brat’s mouth!”

Nophaie knew before he wheeled that the speaker was Morgan. And he had closer view of this man than ever before.

“Come Eva,” said Marian, hurriedly, and, rising, she led the child away.

“That sounded a heap like the Old Book, now didn’t it?” rasped out Morgan, glaring about him.

Nophaie saw a matured man of medium height, thick-bodied, with something slack in his physical make-up. He had a smooth face the striking features of which were pale eyes the color of ice and a long, thin-lipped, tight-shut mouth. He had a big nose, somewhat of a reddish hue, and his complexion was an olive tan, rather than the healthy bronze peculiar to the desert. Morgan seemed not to be an outdoor man. His was a strange, strong face with an intense cast of thought or will, a deeply lined face, especially in the furrowed, frowning brow. He was magnetic, but it seemed a magnetism of strife of mind, a dynamic energy of brain, a tremendous mental equipment. All about him breathed of intolerance.

Jay Lord was the first to answer Morgan. “Sounds like one of them schoolmarms, to me.”

“Mr. Morgan, I’m sure Marian could never have taught Eva that,” interposed Mrs. Wolterson. “Why, she was shocked! So was I.”

The missionary might not have heard her, for all the sign he gave.

“Wolterson, the agent tells me you drove Gekin Yashi home this morning.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the stockman, leaning on his shovel and slowly lifting his gaze.

“How come?” jerked out Morgan.

“Wal,” drawled the Texan, “if you mean what did I have to do with it — Blucher gave Gekin Yashi permission to visit her father. I am dipping sheep out at Do etin’s. Had to haul supplies this morning. Gekin Yashi rode on the wagon. That’s all.”

“Humph! When’s she coming back?”

“I don’t know. She said she hoped her father would keep her home.”

When Morgan’s restless glance fell upon Nophaie it became fixed. Nophaie met that glance. One of the qualities he had not absorbed from his long association with white people was their habit of dissimulation or deceit. Something emanating from this man called to the depths of Nophaie. Not the old racial hatred of red man for white foe! It was a subtle, complex instinct, born of the moment. Leisurely Nophaie rose to his tall stature, and folding his arms he gave Morgan eye for eye.

“Are you the college Indian?”

Nophaie did not feel that he was required to answer.

“Sure he’s the one,” put in Jay Lord. “They call him Nophay or somethin’ like.”

“Can’t you speak English?” demanded Morgan, sharply. “Let’s hear some of your Eastern lingo.”

“I would not have to speak English very well to do it better than you,” replied Nophaie, in his low, level tones, perfectly enunciated.

“Wha-at?” blurted out Morgan.

Nophaie eyed him with inscrutable meaning and did not vouchsafe any more.

“Have you ever been to my church?” went on Morgan.

“No.”

“Well, then, I want you to come.”

“What for?” queried Nophaie.

“To hear me preach. If you speak English as well as you brag, you can carry the word of God — of Christianity — home to your heathen tribe. Teach them how to get to heaven.”

“We have no desire to go to your heaven,” returned Nophaie. “If there really is such a paradise as you preach about, all the land there will be owned by missionaries. And the Indians would have none to grow their corn and hay.”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” snarled Morgan.

“Morgan, the most stupid Indian on this reservation is smart enough to see through you.”

“Bah! Your tribe of gut-eaters are too ignorant to see anything, let alone the white man’s religion.”

“The Indian’s own religion is infinitely better for him than the white man’s.”

“Humph!” fumed Morgan. “Did you learn that at college?”

“No. I learned it upon my return to my people. What is more, I learned there is not one single real Christian Indian on the reservation, and it is your own fault.”

“That’s a damned lie,” shouted Morgan, growing purple in the face.

“What do you know of the Indians out there?” demanded Nophaie, pointing to the desert. “You have never been out there in the desert.”

Slowly the color left Morgan’s face and there was visible a contraction that suggested a powerful effort of will to control fury and amaze. When he had himself in hand, amazement still was his predominant expression. He had encountered an Indian beyond his widest experience. That sudden check, that sudden restraint, showed Morgan’s depth. He could retrench. Nophaie read his craftiness. Also he received subtle intuition that this missionary must be a composite of knave and fanatic, an unscrupulous usurper who had no illusions as to his honesty, yet was a visionary zealot who believed himself an apostle.

“What do you think you know of me?” he demanded.

“Only what the Indians say — and what I can see,” returned Nophaie, in subtle scorn.

“I have been missionary here for over fifteen years. The Nopahs are harsh. They are slow to appreciate my work.”

“No, Mr. Morgan,” retorted Nophaie, “you have it wrong. My tribe has been swift to appreciate your work. Don’t try any of your religious talk on me. It is all bunk. You are not a true missionary.”

“Insolent heathen!” ejaculated Morgan, choking so that the thick folds of flesh on his fat neck worked up and down.

“A missionary is a man sent out by church to propagate religion in the faith that an alien race will be saved,” continued Nophaie. “It is not altogether a mistaken sincerity. The churches are sincere, and most of the missionaries are noble men. The government, too, is sincere, and trusts such men as you and Blucher. That must be the reason why you have been able to hang on here so long. If you were a real man you might help the poor Indians like a real missionary would do. You might teach them better ways to build, cook, harvest, irrigate, shear their sheep and store their corn. You might teach them sanitary laws. By improving their physical condition, you might raise their moral standards. You might, by example, show them how a white man works with his hands. But you do not work. Your hands, I see, are softer than Mrs. Wolterson’s — if she will permit that doubtful compliment.... No, Mr. Morgan, you are not a builder. You are a destroyer, and not only of the Indians’ faith, but of the toil and sacrifice of true missionaries of God.”

Morgan’s egotism was stronger than his restraint — his outraged sovereignty could not all in a moment be silenced.

“I — I’ll put you in jail,” he said, with hard expulsion of breath.

“What for? Telling the truth?” rejoined Nophaie, in lofty scorn. “This is a free country. I am an American. An honest Indian!”

“I’ll haul you up for this,” he threatened, lifting a shaking hand.

Swift as light Nophaie leaped out of his statuesque posture, so suddenly that both Morgan and Lord recoiled, as if from attack. Certain it was that Morgan’s face paled.

“Haul me into court!” returned Nophaie, piercingly. “Haul me before your investigation committee! I would like nothing better. I will have Indians there, and real white men to listen.... Do you get that, Mr. Morgan?”

But Morgan shirked an answer, and with somber glance sweeping away he drew Lord with him and passed out of the gate, down the avenue. Lord’s voice, low and hoarse, came back on the breeze.

Thereupon Nophaie turned to Wolterson and his wife. The Texan’s habitual calm appeared to have been broken.

“Shore, you gave him hell,” he said, breathing deep. “You could have knocked him down with a feather — and me, too.... About the happiest few minutes I ever passed in Mesa!”

But Mrs. Wolterson appeared pale and distressed.

“Oh, he was furious!” she whispered.

“Shore, I never saw Mr. Morgan upset like that,” returned her husband, with a slow grin. “He just couldn’t believe his ears.... Nophaie, take a hunch from a Texan. Somehow and some way Morgan will injure you. He has had to suffer an unparalleled affront before other people. Besides, he actually was afraid of you — amazed — furious — then afraid. I felt it. I’ve long studied this man. And I can’t prove much, but I feel he is capable of anything.”

“Morgan is a coward and liar. I wonder that some Indian has not killed him long ago,” said Nophaie. “It proves the patience and the restraint of my people.”

“Nophaie, I’ve lived among violent men,” rejoined the Texan, soberly. “Don’t underrate Morgan. He was a rough Westerner when first he came here. He’s been long in power. He’s arrogant — malicious. I’d put nothing beyond him.”

“Well, to be forearmed is half the battle,” replied Nophaie, as he turned to his horse. “I’ll not ride to Mesa any more in daylight, nor let Morgan know I’m ever here.”

It was long past dark when Nophaie reached the hogan of Do etin. A fire still burned and in its flickering light sat the father of Gekin Yashi, a man little beyond middle age, stalwart, deep-chested, with massive head and great rolling eyes like those of an ox.

Nophaie saw that he had been expected. Bread and meat and drink were tendered him. While he ate hungrily his host smoked in silence. Do etin was not rich in horses and sheep, as were most of his neighbors, nor was he a chief. Yet he occupied a position of respect and dignity in the tribe, by reason of his intelligence. Gekin Yashi was his only child. Do etin’s range had long been a grassy flat in a shallow canyon watered by a never-failing spring. Nophaie looked round in the shadows of the hogan for Gekin Yashi and her mother, but they were not there. Perhaps Do etin waited upon him to go into council, and had sent his women to a hogan of relatives near at hand.

By and by Do etin broke his silence. He gave his consent for Gekin Yashi to go with Nophaie and approved of that procedure. But he doubted it would be possible to hide his daughter for long. Nophaie should not at once incur risk of government punishment by marrying Gekin Yashi or letting it be found out that he had hidden her away. Do etin believed the white man’s education good for the Indian boys and girls. It taught them to help their parents in new and better ways of living. But the religion forced upon them was not acceptable, and the ruin of Indian girls by white men employed on the reservation was the basest and blackest crime of the many crimes the white race had perpetrated upon the red.

Do etin went on to tell of the confessions made to him by Gekin Yashi — of Blucher’s enmity toward her father — of Morgan’s haranguing at her — of the matron’s forcing upon her menial labors when she should have been in school — of brutality to the Indian children — how all the milk and fruit, which should have gone to the children, was used by Blucher and his associates.

Nophaie brought the information of Blucher’s new ruling, enforcement of which, soon to go into effect, meant that the Indian girls must go to Morgan’s chapel to hear him preach.

Do etin showed intense passion and vehemence. “Never shall Gekin Yashi go to Morgan!”

After this outburst he was long silent, pondering, brooding, manifestly doubtful of the future. Something pathetic and impotent about Do etin touched Nophaie to pity.

“Do etin, we are in the power of white men,” he said, earnestly. “But there are good white men who believe in justice to the Indian. There are many good missionaries. Still, we must look far ahead. The Indian will merely be pushed back upon the barren lands and eventually swept off the earth. These things we strive against, as the Nokis fight being cheated out of their water and land, or as our efforts to save Gekin Yashi — these things are nothing but incidental to the whole doom of our people. We must resist, but the end will come, just the same.”

“Better to fight and die, as our forefathers,” rolled out Do etin, sonorously.

“Yes, it would. But who will fight? Only one Indian, here and there, whose heart has not been crushed.”

Do etin bowed his massive dark head, and the somber firelight shadows played over his still form.

“Nophaie, you come with the white man’s vision of the future,” he asserted.

“Yes. You were taught to see with your heart. The white education taught Nophaie to see with his mind.”

“The sun of the Indian’s day is setting,” replied Do etin, mournfully. “We are a vanishing race.”

In the clear, cool gray dawn Nophaie waited out on the desert for Gekin Yashi, as had been planned.

Eastward the dim light on sand and shrub lifted to the long blue wall of rock that cut the plateau, and above it flared the pale gold herald of sunrise. The desert was as still as death. Nophaie waited, at last fixing his gaze down the gradual slope at a point where Gekin Yashi must appear. She came into sight, a slim dark figure on a gray mustang. Nophaie felt a thrill in that moment. Deep in him old Indian instincts survived. He was the Indian brave waiting for his Indian maiden. The desert stretched there vast and lonely. Mountain and mesa, vale and canyon, the long greasewood-dotted ridges, the innumerable stones, and the sands of the wastes — all seemed to cry voicelessly of the glory of Indian legends of love.

The sun rose, now shining upon Gekin Yashi’s raven-black hair, upon the face that was like a dark flower. Two months had changed Gekin Yashi. And never had he beheld her in other than the blue gingham uniform of the government school. She wore now the velveteen and silver and beads and buckskin common to her tribe. As she reined in the little mustang beside Nophaie her dusky eyes flashed one shy, frightened, yet wondrously happy glance at him; they were dropped under dusky lashes. Her bosom heaved. Gekin Yashi could not hide her love, perhaps did not want to. Nophaie mourned in his heart his unworthiness and the futility of his life.

“Daughter of Do etin, listen,” he said. “Nophaie is the Indian with the white man’s mind. He has come back to help his people. He is Do etin’s friend. He loves Gekin Yashi, but as a brother. Nophaie will never marry.... He will take Gekin Yashi far into the white-walled canyons, to the Pahutes, and hide her there. And always he will be her brother and try to make her as the white girl Benow di cleash, teaching her what is evil and what is good.”

Naphaie rode away with Gekin Yashi to the northward, avoiding all trails, hiding as best he could their tracks, searching the desert with keen eyes for Indian riders he wished to avoid. As sunset came he turned to the hogan of a Nopah he could trust. Next day the black slopes of Nothsis Ahn loomed on the horizon. Gekin Yashi gradually found her voice and came at last to talk to Nophaie. Thus he had opportunity to study the effect of the government school upon an Indian girl. Most of what she had learned was good. Some of it was bad. When she went back to her home and married, to have children of her own, she and they must certainly be the better for her schooling. Nophaie saw that as a fact — provided she could return to Indian ways. In the long run many educated Indian girls and boys might change the squalor and improvidence then natural to their elders. It relieved Nophaie to settle this question in his mind. Education then for the young Indian was good. The fault in the system in this particular case and the terrible wrong to the Indian girls were due to the individuals who were in power. The simple-minded, worshipful Indian maiden, primitive in her instincts and unsustained by any moral law, was merely prey for beasts of white men. White race and red race could not mix. If the red man was inherently noble, a dreamer of the open, a fighter of imaginary foes, a warrior against warrior of another tribe, a creature not meant for civilization, then the white man was a step above the Indian in evolution, past the stage of barbarism, steeped in a material progress of the world, selfish and intellectual, more pagan than the Indian, on the decline to a decadence as inevitable as nature itself. For Nophaie saw clearly that nature was the great law. The Indian, even the barbarian, was nearer the perfection for which nature worked so inscrutably. The individual must perish that the species might survive. Nature’s ideal was strength, virility, fecundity, long life, all physical. If nature was God, then the only immortality of man lay in his offspring. How bitterly every channel of Nophaie’s thought led to his consciousness of being an infidel!

In three days Nophaie reached the Pahute camp under the brow of Nothsis Ahn, believing that the few Indians to whom he had trusted Gekin Yashi would keep her secret. It cost him all his sheep to engage these Pahutes in Gekin Yashi’s service. They could not leave their range and go into the deep canyons for an indefinite period without being well paid for it. Nophaie had not thought of that, but he gladly gave up his flock. It was much harder to say good-by to Gekin Yashi. “Nophaie! Nophaie!” she called, as he rode away. Her cry pierced his heart. What was it that he saw in her dusky eyes? Shadow indeed of the Indian’s doom! He rode back to cheer her, to speak for once words that he could not swear were truth. Then he rode out again. “Nophaie!” Her faint cry pealed out over the sage. But he did not look back.

CHAPTER X

FROM THE HOUR Nophaie gave up his sheep to the Pahutes in payment for their care of Gekin Yashi he became a nomad — a wanderer of the sage.

With responsibility removed from his life, he was no longer tied to his lonely upland home — a fact that at first seemed grievous. But he was soon to discover how his loneliness had been a kind of selfishness which had kept him aloof from his people. In the past he had spent only a small part of his time among the Indians, and that upon his rides to Kaidab or to Mesa and return. How little had he really helped them compared with what he might have done! Looked at now, he found this owing to his love of being alone, of wandering with his sheep in the sage, of brooding over his strange life; and also to the sensitiveness with which he realized that, though he could go among his people, he could not become a part of them.

A few rides from hogan to hogan showed Nophaie that his status among the Nopahs had undergone a remarkable change. Not at once did he grasp what it was to which he must attribute this welcome change. At Etenia’s home, however, the subtle fact came out in the jealousy of Etenia’s daughter — she and all the Nopahs had learned of his abduction of Gekin Yashi. Nophaie was much concerned over this discovery, for it augured ill for the seclusion of the Little Beauty of the tribe. Upon consulting the old Indian, he learned that the news had traveled far and wide across the ranges, from rider to rider, from hogan to hogan, from lip to lip. Soon every Nopah on the reservation would become acquainted with the great feat of Nophaie — who had stolen Gekin Yashi from Mesa. Nophaie had been born of chieftains; he was now a chief of wisdom and valor. The spirit of the Nopahs still lived. The glory and the dream were gone, but there still lived a man of the olden time, a master. Etenia swore there was not one Indian in all the tribe who would betray Gekin Yashi. Perhaps some of the sneaking, crawling Nokis, in fear of Morgan and Blucher, would trail Gekin Yashi to her hiding place. But every Nopah gloried in the deed of Nophaie. He was a hero. All the greater Indian now because he had used his white man’s brain to save the maiden of proud Do etin!

“Nophaie will marry Gekin Yashi now,” concluded Etenia, and all his enmity seemed gone. He honored Nophaie and feasted him, and had his braves sit round the hogan fire and sing the beautiful Nopah legends of love and courage. Nophaie was powerless to correct this impression that had gone abroad. All Nopahs, and Pahutes, too, took it for granted that the Little Beauty was destined to be Nophaie’s wife. All in a day, it seemed, his fame had been transformed. Every Indian knew Nophaie’s story, and all the aloofness and scorn and disgust engendered by his white education would be now as if they had never been.

Etenia knew his people. Nophaie had put into actual deed the secret longing of every Indian. In a week of riding over the country Nophaie had impellingly forced upon him the truth of Etenia’s judgment. Indian boy, maiden, brave, chief, medicine man — all revered him. The Nopahs had been warriors. There still survived in them worship of the strong, the courageous, the fighter. The youths of the tribe looked up to him as one whom their elders held to be a master, one whose greatness would one day be told to them.

Nophaie rode far to keep his next appointment with Marian at Mesa, and for the whole hour of their meeting he talked of the change that had come through his taking Gekin Yashi away from the power of the missionary. Telling her seemed to clarify the vague and strange conceptions of what had happened to him. Then her instant joy was uplifting.

“Nophaie, now your great opportunity has come,” she said, with glad and earnest eyes on his. “You can be a power among your people. But keep secret — that their faith is not yours.”

“I will,” he replied. In just those few words she illumined the wondering, brooding subjectiveness of his mind. Whatever he was, opportunity now smiled upon him, and it seemed great. He would be listened to and followed.

“Now let me talk — for soon I must go,” said Marian.

“No one suspects you. All they know at the agency is that Gekin Yashi has disappeared. Blucher did not care. But Morgan was furious. I heard him raving. This will make bad blood between them. And Do etin will suffer. I fear for him. What a grand old Indian! He thrilled me — so calm, so somber and aloof, before those men. He answered every question put to him, yet he seemed not to lie!

“‘Do you think she ran off?’ demanded Morgan.

“‘Yes,’ answered Do etin.

“‘Where?’

“‘Gekin Yashi’s tracks led north off the road to Mesa — and disappeared in the sands.’

“‘You’ll help us find her — get her back?’

“‘No.’

“‘Yes you will!’

“‘Do etin will die before he hunts for Gekin Yashi.’”

“Marian, let me tell you,” returned Nophaie, “Do etin said as much to me,” returned Nophaie.

“Oh, I fear for Do etin,” cried Marian. “They will do him harm. After Do etin left, Morgan ordered me out of the office. ‘Get out, you white-faced cat!’ he shouted. And he pushed me out and slammed the door. I heard him say: ‘Blucher, when we find this Indian hussy you’ve got to enforce that rule. And if Do etin doesn’t put his thumb mark on my paper it’ll go bad for him. — And you’ll get the steam roller!’... Blucher replied, ‘The hell you say?’ And Morgan yelled back: ‘Yes, the hell I say! I’ve put that steam roller under eleven former agents of this reservation and I’m good for a full dozen. Me, and the Old Book back of me, are just that strong!’... Then they quieted down and I could not distinguish what they said, but they were talking for a long time. I think you ought to advise Do etin to move to the very farthest point on the reservation.”

“He would not go a step,” replied Nophaie.

“Then indeed I fear for him,” said Marian. “It was the look of Morgan — the tone of his voice. The terrible nature of the man seemed unmasked. Blucher, too, is growing harder. He is under a strain. I think the war in Europe is on his mind.”

Nophaie returned by way of Red Sandy, where at the trading post he was surrounded by Nopahs he had never seen before and made to realize his importance. The trader there was buying wool at fifty cents a pound and complaining about the scarcity of it. The Indians did not need money. They were not making any blankets. Nophaie was struck with the evidence of prosperity and independence exhibited by these lowland Nopahs. None of their silver trappings were in pawn to the trader — which was an unparalleled sign of good times.

Riding off across the sand to the northward with some of these Indians, Nophaie covered twenty miles and more before he dropped the last horseman at his hogan door. Everywhere the gray-green benches were spotted with flocks of sheep and little bands of mustangs, and cattle. At every hogan the women crowded to the door to peep out at him, smiling and whispering. One old squaw elbowed her way out.

“Nophaie, look at Nadglean nas pah,” she said, with great dignity, “who tended your mother at your birth. Nadglean nas pah washed your eyes. She lives to see you, Nophaie, the Warrior.... Come, feast with us.”

Nophaie stayed there, keen to learn of his mother, grateful to feel stealing over him a closer touch with his people. By nightfall, when the feast was served, the hogan had no room for more Indians. They ate for hours and sang until late in the night. The occasion seemed one of honor and joy to these Indians who delighted in Nophaie’s company. Many a dusky eye shone the brighter for his words.

Next morning he rode on his way, more impressed than ever before with the prosperity and happiness of the Nopahs. It seemed he now could reasonably calculate that all the twenty thousand Nopahs of the reservation were on the high tide of well-being. Almost, his hopes rose to a point of believing what Nadglean nas pah had said; “Now all is well.” Only the wise old men like Etenia and Do etin saw the future. Most of the simple-minded Indians lived on in the present, taking their wealth as a matter of their worthiness, eating, sleeping, riding, shepherding the days away, unmindful of the handwriting of the white man like a shadow on the sage.

Night overtook Nophaie on the crest of the great heaving slope that led to the upland country. He had made a short-cut from Shibbet taa, westward toward Etenia’s range. His horse was weary. Nophaie turned it loose in the sage and made his bed under a thick-branched cedar. For his meal he ate meat and corn given him at the last hogan.

All that was truly Indian in him beat in his blood and stirred in his soul here in the solitude and the loneliness. He was miles from any trail he had ever ridden. Only sight of Nothsis Ahn could give him his bearings. He was lost in the desert, reckoning with a white man’s reason, but the red nature of him whispered he could never be lost. He lay down on cedar boughs, with a saddle under his head, a blanket over him, and peered up at the white stars. The silence was of the desert locking its elements in repose. There was no sound, no life but the breath of nature, the penetrating power of an invisible spirit hovering over all, abiding in the rocks, floating in the fragrance of the sage.

For long Nophaie lay with the absorbed senses of the Indian tranced in their singular capacity of absolute thoughtlessness. He did not think. He felt. He had this Indian inheritance, unknown to the white man. Though he did not realize it in a thinking act, he was unutterably happy while this trance lasted. He saw. The vast star-studded dome of the blue sky arched over him, endless, boundless, only obstructed by the horizon line. He saw the shooting stars gleam across the heavens. He saw through the blue depths to the infinite beyond. He saw the shadow of gahd, the cedar, against the sky; and the gray obscurity of the sage and the dim hills, spectral, like hills in the dawn of the earth. He smelled the dry pine-scented dead and fallen leafage under him, the woody cedar, the taint of gophers in the holes of the dusty ground, the fragrance of the sage, the faint hint of rain wafted on the still air from far- off storm, the horse odor of his saddle, the warmth of his body. He tasted the breath of living things and the death of the desert, all in the bits of cedar and sage he unconsciously chewed. His ears drank in the sounds of the silence — nothing but the vast low thrumming of nature, which might have been the beat of blood in his breast. And he felt all the deathlessness and immortality around him, the link between his living frame and the dust of bones of his simian progenitors, felt life all about him in stones and woods, in the night shadows, in the mystic dim distance, felt the vast earth under him and the measureless void above as parts of his being.

Then across his idle, vacant, opaque mind suddenly shot thought and memory and image. He saw Marian’s beautiful face — the crown of golden hair — the eyes of azure blue. His love surged up, like a flood undammed. And he remembered he was Nophaie, wanderer of the sage, outlaw of his people, an infidel, without home or kin or flock, the poorest of Nopahs, doomed to illusion, beating his life against the bars of alien hate.

Upon reaching the upland pasture under Nothsis Ahn, Nophaie herded his horses into a band and drove them out on the Pahute trail. That night he camped down in the deep canyon with the family who lived there, finding in this remote place that his fame had arrived before him. Welcome was his in every Indian habitation. At sunrise he headed his horses up the overhanging colored slope of earth and rock, out on the cedared flats, down into the monument country where Oljato and the range of his boyhood called with poignant sorrow and regret, and across the red-and-yellow desert to Kaidab.

“Sure I’ll buy your horses,” said Withers, in reply to Nophaie’s query. “What will you take for them?”

Nophaie hesitated a moment, then named a figure.

“That’s not enough,” replied Withers. “I’ll give you five more on each horse. What’ll you take — cash or trade?”

Nophaie took part of the deal in new outfit for himself, which included a gun.

“Reckon you’re going to do what Blucher told Wolterson,— ‘ride around,’” said Withers, with a laugh. “You can do some riding here for us. I’m glad you came. Mrs. Withers was about to send for you.”

Nophaie wondered what the trader’s wife could want with him, unless for something in connection with Marian. Also he was curious to see if she had any knowledge of his rise to fame among the Indians through his taking Gekin Yashi from the school. Mrs. Withers was glad to see him and was eager to hear news of Marian, but she had heard nothing of his abducting Do etin’s daughter.

“Nophaie, I would like you to help us here in a little job — our kind of missionary work,” she said, presently. “Do you know this half-crazy Indian we call Shoie?”

“No,” replied Nophaie.

“Well, he claimed to have bewitched a squaw who died. And he has told two other squaws that he means to work his spell upon them. The first one, Nolgoshie, the loping woman, got to thinking about this, and she fell sick. I’m afraid it will kill her. I want you to help me get Shoie to say he will remove his spell. Then ride over to Nolgoshie’s hogan and tell her. The other squaw is the wife of Beleanth do de jodie. He is a rich Nopah and a good man. I’m afraid his wife will also get to brooding about this spell. We want you to tell her that it’s the same thing that you called Morgan’s teaching.”

“What was that?” inquired Nophaie, curiously.

“Bunk!” exclaimed the trader’s wife, with a twinkle in her eyes. “That word has spread all over the reservation. I’ve had a dozen Indians ask me what bunk meant. You see loud-mouthed Jay Lord told it in the trading post at Mesa, before some Indians. That’s how it got out. I wouldn’t commit myself to calling Morgan’s preaching bunk, but that surely describes the talk of Shoie.”

“I thought Jay Lord was one of Morgan’s right-hand men,” observed Nophaie, reflectively.

“No; he’s Blucher’s tool. For that matter, they all hate one another. — Now, will you stay here at the post for a few days and help me to deliver these squaws from Shoie’s spell?”

“Mrs. Withers, do you really believe these Indian women can fall ill and die of such a thing?”

“Believe it? I know it. It happens often. To think evil is to be evil, for an Indian. If you can make any Indian think a thing it is true for him.”

“Yes, I know. But I never heard of a half-crazy Indian casting a spell.”

“Nophaie, it will take years before you learn the superstition of your people. You never will understand wholly. Remember, you have lived your life away from them.”

“I can influence this Shoie,” he replied, and then briefly related what had happened in Wolterson’s yard at Mesa, his interview with Do etin, his taking Gekin Yashi away into hiding, and the strange reaction of his tribe.

Mrs. Withers grew intensely animated, almost excited, and she seemed at the halfway point between elation and anxiety.

“So that was it!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been wondering about this sudden interest in you. Well, Nophaie, there is no other single thing you could have done to establish a great name for yourself among the Indians. That will put you high up. So in one way it is good, for no matter what happens, your name is made. But it is bad in other ways. They will get Gekin Yashi. Some of the Nokis will trail her. If Blucher finds out your part in it he will arrest you. — And when they do find Gekin Yashi I wonder how Do etin will act.”

Thereupon Nophaie told of Do etin’s anger and his stern ultimatum.

“That is very bad,” she said gravely. “Do etin can’t keep Gekin Yashi from going to Morgan’s chapel, once that rule is put into effect. You see, the Indians are really prisoners on this reservation. They have to obey the government. If they don’t they will be forced to.... That is bad. Do etin will never break his word or give in. It means jail for him — or worse.”

Nophaie took some time over the selection of his outfit, especially the gun. He felt himself a novice in the use of firearms, and after considerable deliberation he decided a small weapon he could conceal if desirable, or carry on his belt, would be best for him.

“Here’s your man Shoie,” said Withers, coming into the post.

Nophaie approached this Indian with interest and something of disgust, and yet with a strange, vague reluctance. This last must have emanated from the early mental associations of Nophaie’s boyhood, intimations of which often stirred him to wonder and doubt.

Shoie appeared to be an Indian of perhaps twenty years of age, a big- headed brave with bushy hair, from which he derived his name. His face might have impressed a superstitious squaw, but Nophaie saw it as that of a vain, sullen Indian, lacking in intelligence. Shoie’s garb was not that of a prosperous Nopah.

He was evidently flattered to be singled out of the group of Indians, and showed the same deference for Nophaie that had become universal. Nophaie affected to be impressed with Shoie, bought cigarettes and canned fruit and cakes for him, and spent some time with him before broaching the subject of Shoie’s spell of bewitchment. Then Shoie denied that he had cast a spell upon any squaw. But after some persuasion he confessed it, saying these women were possessed of evil spirits which he wanted to exorcise. Nophaie at length induced him to say that he would remove the spell.

Nophaie decided at once to ride out to the hogans of these Indians and take Shoie with him. When Mrs. Withers had been informed she asked to see Shoie, and conversed with him for a moment.

“Maybe it will work,” she said to Nophaie, “but I have my doubts. Shoie is much impressed. He thinks he’s a big fellow. He sees that he can make himself felt. Now what will happen is this. He’ll do as you want to-day. But to- morrow or some other day he’ll tell the Indians he has put back the spell. You see, he’s just demented enough to make the superstitious Indians afraid of him.”

Nolgoshie, the loping woman, lived out across the desert, in a canyon that opened into the mountain mesa. Hogans were numerous under the looming wall of this upland. Nophaie made rather a ceremonious visit out of this trip, talking with Indians and asking some to accompany him. Nolgoshie owned many sheep. She was an expert blanket weaver. Her husband had gone off to some other part of the reservation. Nophaie found her tended by female relatives or friends. Before he entered the hogan he called these women out and told his errand, indicating Shoie, who stood by, hugely alive to his importance. The women were glad; they cast dark and fearful glances at this Indian possessor of witchcraft. Nophaie thought best not to take Shoie into the hogan with him.

Nolgoshie lay on her blankets, a squaw still young and not uncomely, and for all Nophaie could tell she looked perfectly healthy. But she was sick in her mind.

“Nophaie has brought Shoie. He is outside,” said Nophaie, impressively. “He will take away the spell.”

The squaw stared at Nophaie and then at her attendants, all of whom nodded vehemently and corroborated his statement. The effect on Nolgoshie was magical. Her face lost its set solemn gloom. Her eyes dilated and she sat up. Nophaie talked to her for a few moments, assuring her that the evil spirit had departed and would not return. Nolgoshie grew better even while he was there. Nophaie left, marveling at the effect of thought upon the mind and body of a human being.

He rode with Shoie to the far end of that pasture-land, some ten miles to the westward of Kaidab. Beleanth do de jodie was at home, much concerned about his wife. She was very ill. The medicine man had done her no good. Nophaie had audience with her also, and saw at once that it was precisely the same kind of case as Nolgoshie’s, only this squaw had thought herself into a more dangerous condition. Nophaie was not sure that he reached her understanding. She, at least, showed no sign of improvement. Nophaie went out to find Beleanth do de jodie pressing presents upon Shoie, an unwise proceeding, judged in the light of Mrs. Wither’s words.

Next day a messenger arrived in Kaidab with news that Beleanth do de jodie’s wife had died. This gave Nophaie a profound shock. He exerted himself in every possible way to keep Nolgoshie from finding out. In vain! Her own attendants, in spite of advice and importunity and threats, told her of the death of the other woman who had been under Shoie’s evil spell.

Nolgoshie fell back into the panic of superstitious fears. Nophaie besought her with all the eloquence and persuasion he could command. She only grew worse. Then he galloped off in search of Shoie. At last he found him, on the very moment bragging he had put back the spell upon Beleanth do de jodie’s wife, and intended to do the same for Nolgoshie.

“Come back with me,” demanded Nophaie. “So that Nolgoshie may hear from your own lips the spell is broken.”

“No!” returned Shoie, sullenly, with an uplift of his bushy head.

“You will come,” replied Nophaie, sharply, and he dismounted.

The Indians present, all except Shoie, rose in respect to Nophaie. An old chief, who had evidently been listening, put his head out of a hogan.

“Nophaie is master,” he said. “Shoie is an Indian with twisted mind. He is not a medicine man. His spell is a lie.”

Nophaie knocked Shoie down and beat him, and dragging him to his feet shoved him back to his horse.

“Get up,” he ordered.

Nophaie forced the bleeding and frightened Indian to ride with him to the hogan of Nolgoshie. But they arrived too late to lend any light to that darkened brain. Nolgoshie was raving.

Nophaie drove Shoie off with a threat to kill him if ever again he claimed to cast a spell of witchcraft on an Indian. Upon Nophaie’s return to Kaidab with the news Mrs. Withers expressed sorrow, but not surprise.

“I knew just that would happen,” she added. “Nolgoshie will die.”

And next day came the messenger with news of her death and that none of the Indians would bury her. Nophaie took this duty upon himself.

CHAPTER XI

MARIAN WARNER BELIEVED that six months of intensive work in close contact with missionaries, and diligent study of every book she could get on the Indian problem, had given her a fair understanding of the weighty question. To this observation and study she brought as keen and critical and unbiased a judgment as was possible for her. Emotion did not govern her judgments. Strange and poignant as her feeling was, through her relation to Nophaie, she kept it from clouding her vision or narrowing her mind or obstructing her sense of justice. Something about the desert and its primitive peoples had sharpened her intelligence, changed her whole outlook of life.

Agents were appointed by the government; missionaries were there only by courtesy. The whole relation between them, and the fate of the Indians, lay in what kind of men they were. Political influence sent many men to be superintendents of reservations, but few of them were efficient. Failure in other walks of life was not a great asset for success in a most complex and difficult field. The very ablest and finest of men would meet with work needing all their acumen and broad-mindedness. The bigger they were, it seemed, the more complicated their positions. Possibilities of the Indian were unlimited, but so also were the difficulties of helping him. It was, however, pretty safe to assume that agents did not accept appointments for love of Indians or yearning to do good. Marian got the complete history of a dozen agents before Blucher, and often when she should have been sleeping she was writing down these records. The one agent among these whom the Indians respected and liked, who bade fair to help them, did not last long with the redoubtable Morgan.

Most of these agents had been hopelessly out of their element. They were holding down an irksome job; they were out there because they had failed in the East or for poor health or because they had political influence enough to gain a job they were not equal to, or in some instances to get away from an environment that regarded them askance. Some there were who had honestly tried hard to adapt themselves to this work, only to find it beyond them. But from the point of view of Indians and missionaries and employees of the government, and especially of the traders, almost all of these agents were failures. Undoubtedly the subtle complex situation was too much for any man of ordinary attainments.

Years of earnest study and love were of cardinal necessity in learning to understand the Indians’ need. Even the honest missionaries of sense and character had a tremendous task on their hands.

Marian found that the Indian’s conception of religion was beyond the comprehension of some missionaries. He thought in symbols. His God was nature. The Indian conceived God in sensorial perceptions of an immense and mystic spirit of life and death about him. All that occurred in nature was a manifestation of a supreme being’s control of the universe. To these manifestations he prayed and chanted. He prayed to the sun for heat to warm him and melt the snow, and bring back the green to corn and fruit. Out of the soft earth sprang the bread that he ate, the grass for his flocks. It nurtured life. Snow, rain, and dew, the frost and the wind — these come from the Great Spirit. The sliding avalanche, the thundering flood, the splitting crash of lightning, the blizzard, and the torrid, leaden-hazed day of summer, the yellow sandstorm, swooping along with shriek and moan — all the phenomena of nature had direct and personal connection with the Indian’s inner life. His head was in the clouds. He walked with shadows. He heard the silent voices. He was mystic. He was closer to the earth than white men. His vision was enchanting. Beauty, color, melody, line, and curve, movement and fixity existed for him. From the tree came the bow, from the flint the arrowhead, from the beast the sinewed string — from physical things about him all needs of his material life. From the invisible center of his surroundings breathed the potency of creation, the divine essence, the secret. At sunrise the Indian stood entranced, in adoration of the renewed burst of light, facing the east, with his prayer on his lips. At sunset he watched the departing glory of the lord of day, silent, rapt, his soul absorbing that golden effulgence, and his prayer ending, “Now all is well.”

Only the few men and women who had spent long years in the Indian country with open minds and hearts could grasp adequately his symbolism, the poetry and beauty of his unuttered thought, the worship of nature that was the Indian’s.

The sincere missionary, the man who left home and comfort and friends to go into a lonely hard country, burning with zeal to convey the blessings of Jesus Christ to those he considered heathen, had little conception of the true nature of his task, of the absurdity of converting Indians in a short time, and lastly of the complications fomented by a despot like Morgan, and by employees of the government, the cliques, the intrigues, the inside workings of the machine. How little did the world outside a reservation know of this tremendous and staggering question! The good missionary’s life was a martyrdom.

Least of all did the majority of these newcomers understand the desert and its meanings, its subtle influence upon life, its inscrutable ruthlessness and ferocity.

Missionaries, with other white people, born to a life in civilization and comfort, were thrown here and there in little communities all over the desert reservations. They worked or idled as suited their natures, but they lived. They were unconsciously affected by their environment. The desert was wild, open, vast, free, lonely, silent, fierce and violent, hard and cruel, inevitable as nature itself. The sun was no respecter of people who lived in places not meant for them. Winter and summer the great vast light, the glare of the sun, was terrible. It was not to be endured by people with white skins. The God of the Indian, at least, did not intend white men for the desert. The Bedouin, the Guacho, the Indian all had dark faces — the pigment of their skins was created to resist sunlight. For months the heat was torrid, incalculable in its effect upon mind and blood. In the spring the simoon blew — piercing winds, flying walls of sand, days and days of yellow palls of dust, irritating to eyes and souls of white people. The storms were fierce, sudden, violent, like the nature of the desert. The winters in the high altitudes, on the open wastes, were bitter and long and cold.

The elements, loneliness and solitude, the great emptiness, the endless encroachment of the desert, invariably and inevitably worked upon the minds of white people. Were their hearts in this life and their hopes for a future lived on the desert, the effect on character, as well as physical being, would be vastly different. But mostly they hated the wild country that held them for the time. Thus deterioration was sure, both bodily and mentally. Always, in sparsely inhabited places, especially in wastelands where the elements make life stern, men and women found self-interests and human weaknesses growing magnified. They went back in the scale of progress. Hate was more of hate, love was fiercer, jealousy, greed, cowardice, selfishness stalked out from under the thin skin of civilization and grew rampant. Endurance brought out the weakness or strength of any man. Self-preservation was the first law of life, and on the desert this instinct came to the fore. But few men, and those the lovers of the open and who welcomed the hard life, ever grew nobler for contact with the desert. That some men and women did grow wonderful through a strange evolution wrought by desert life was proof of the divinity that was in them. These were closest to the Indian. But those who deteriorated had the excuse of being unfortunately placed in an environment that brought out the frailties of the human family.

Not improbably this elemental influence explained in part the wrong perpetrated upon Indian women by white men. Whatever white men might have been back in civilization, out in the wild country they were confronted with life in the raw. They reacted to it subtly.

The Indian girl of the desert was strangely and pitifully susceptible. She was primitive. She had still the instincts of the savage. Her religion did not make for sophistication — did not invest her with a protection universal in white girls. Her father, perhaps, was a polygamist. Her mother did not teach her to restrain her instincts. There was no strict observance of moral law in the tribe. She did not think evil, because in her creed to think evil was to be evil. She was shy, dreamy, passive, though full of latent fire, innocent as an animal, and indeed similar to one. Her mind was a treasure store of legends and lore, of poetry and music, of maiden enchantments, but her blood was red and hot, and she was a child of the elements.

CHAPTER XII

MORGAN PUT SOME letters in a drawer of his desk and locked it.

“I’ve got the Old Book behind me,” he muttered, with a sibilant note of exultation in his voice.

He gathered together a number of typewritten pages, all soiled, with the dirty thumb marks of Indians at the bottom. These he placed in an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and placed it in his pocket, to give personally to the Indian mail carrier. Morgan never intrusted his communications to the post- office at Mesa. Pondering a moment, with his fat fingers thrumming on the desk, he had an intense and preoccupied air. The furrows on his brow knit into a knot.

His office adjoined the chapel where he preached to the Indians. It was not a severe and austere room by any means. Color and comfort were exceedingly in evidence. There was a significant absence of anything of Indian design. This study had two other doors, one opening into his living room, the other out upon a back porch.

Presently Morgan got up and went to the open window. The September morning breeze bore a hint of melting frost. The summer was waning. Already the orchard showed the gold and bronze colors of autumn. But out beyond the sweep of desert seemed as changeless as it was endless. That wide expanse of green and yellow, with the dark rugged lines of canyons in the distance, and the stark acres of clay and rock, seemed an encompassing barrier. Morgan had no love for the open spaces.

His first visitor that morning was Jay Lord. Heavy-booted, lazy-striding, he entered familiarly without removing sombrero or cigarette, and his bold face wore a mask of a smile. His dusty garb attested to recent travel.

“Howdy, Morgan!” he said. “I got back last night. Haven’t seen Blucher yet. Reckon I wanted to see you first.”

“Did you find out anything?” queried Morgan.

“Wal, yes an’ no,” returned Lord. “I can’t prove what Blucher wants. Them Pahutes are sure close-mouthed. But I’ve a hunch the Injun Nophay had a lot to do with Gekin Yashi’s disappearance.”

“So had I that hunch,” retorted Morgan, darkly. “Blucher didn’t want to send you. He doesn’t care, now the girl has been brought back. But Icare. And I want examples to be made of Do etin and whoever rode off with Gekin Yashi.”

“Reckon you’ll never prove anythin’ on either Do etin or Nophay,” said Lord, dryly. “You’ll just have to frame them.”

“Jay Lord, I don’t like your talk.”

“Wal, if you don’t like it you can lump it,” drawled the other. “I told you I was ready to work for your interests, in the dark. An’ so I am. But don’t call spades hearts to me. I’ve been ten years rustlin’ round this reservation.”

Morgan’s pale eyes studied the blunt, nonchalant Lord with that penetrating, somber gaze of a shrewd man who trusted no one.

“Very well. We’ll call spades spades,” replied Morgan, succinctly. “I need you. And you want to replace Wolterson. I’ll see that Blucher puts the steam roller under him. And I’ll pay you, besides.”

“How much?” asked Lord, laconically.

“What it’s worth to me,” snapped Morgan. “I don’t pay men before they work.”

“Ahuh! Wal, we understand each other. An’ is my hunch about Blucher correct?”

“What is that?”

“Wal, you wasn’t particular clear, but I sort of got an idee you wanted more on Blucher, so you could steam-roll him when it suited you.”

Morgan deliberated. The way his hand closed tight betrayed his realization that he was dealing with a shrewd, unscrupulous man whom he must bind and hold.

“You’re no fool, Jay Lord. That’s why I want to keep you here at Mesa.... Now tell me why you believe this Indian had something to do with Gekin Yashi’s disappearance?”

“Wal, the day after she was lost I rode across the mesa,” rejoined Lord. “I found where Gekin Yashi had rode off the trail. An’ I searched round till I saw moccasin tracks in the sand, an’ hoss tracks. I’ve been a hoss-tracker all my days, an’ there wasn’t a wrangler in my country who could beat me. I jest got down on my knees an’ made a picture in my mind of them moccasin tracks an’ hoss tracks. Then I measured them. I trailed them tracks all day, till I seen they were goin’ straight north. Then I came back.”

“Well, go on,” said Morgan, impatiently. “The Nokis did as well as that.”

“Sure. But it took them long to find out what I knew right off — that they’d lose the trail when they came to the sage and the flat-rock country up towards Nothsis Ahn.”

“Yes, but if the Nokis lost that trail how did they eventually find Gekin Yashi?”

“Wal, I found that out this trip. Your Nokis didn’t find Gekin Yashi. The Pahutes who had her brought her to the camp of the Nokis.”

“Hump! Pahutes? That is queer. Were these Pahutes afraid?”

“Not of you or Blucher,” replied Lord, with a sardonic grin. “It came about this way. There’s a half-nutty Nopah named Shoie. He’s a spellbinder. He heard about these Pahutes having Gekin Yashi hid deep in the canyons. Of course all the Nopahs knew that. Wal, this nutty Injun sends word by a Pahute that he had put his spell upon Gekin Yashi to kill her. He’d already killed two Nopah women with his spell. The Pahutes are more superstitious than the Nopahs. They fetched Gekin Yashi out to the Nokis who were huntin’ her.”

“Well!” ejaculated Morgan. “And how do you connect the college Indian with this?”

“Wal, that’s the funny part, hard to prove to anybody but myself,” responded Lord, scratching his head. “While I was up in that country I found out where Nophay had lived an’ buried his relation. Sure it’s a wild country. But I rode across it, an’ I finally found Nophay’s hogan. I searched around for hoss tracks and moccasin tracks like them I had pictured in my mind. An’ I found them, plain as print. I found clean-cut moccasin tracks on the grave of Nophay’s relation. I recognized that track. An’ on the way down here I asked a Nopah who buried Nophay’s relation an’ he said Nophay.... Now, Morgan, that’s my hunch. It doesn’t prove anythin’, except to me. I know who stole Gekin Yashi away.

“That’s proof enough for me,” returned Morgan, somberly. “Lord, you’re a sharp fellow. I didn’t appreciate you. We’ll get along.... Now, don’t tell Blucher this about the Indian.... Go now and do Blucher’s bidding. Keep your eyes and ears open. And see me often.”

Morgan intercepted the mail carrier and safely deposited the precious affidavit of his zeal in that trusty Indian’s pocket.

He then wended his observant way up the shady avenue of tall poplars towards the agent’s office. Morgan was light-footed. He stepped softly, though not from any instinct like the Indians. Manifold indeed were the intricacies of his habit of life. As he mounted the high porch steps he heard voices. Friel and the Warner girl! Morgan paused to listen.

“Let me alone,” wearily protested the girl.

The sound of scraping chair on the floor followed, then swift, soft steps, and a man’s voice, with a quick note, rather hoarse. “Marian, don’t you know when a man loves you?”

Morgan opened the door and entered. Friel was trying to enfold Miss Warner in his arms and she was thrusting him back.

“Hah! Excuse me, young folks,” said Morgan, with severe levity. “Am I interrupting a love scene?”

“You are not!” cried Miss Warner, hotly, now jerking free of Friel. Her face was red. Her dark blue eyes blazed. Her bosom heaved. For the first time Morgan thought this blond girl handsome. Only dark women appealed to him.

“So ho?” he ejaculated, with pretension of surprise. “What was it I interrupted, then?”

“Mr. Morgan, you can judge for yourself,” replied the girl.

“Attack, I suppose,” interposed Morgan, as the girl paused breathless.

Friel confronted Morgan in suppressed agitation. He was a tall man, not yet beyond middle age, thin and nervous.

“See here, Morgan, you’re at your old trick of framing some one,” he rasped out.

“Miss Warner, this is serious, but I acquit you of blame,” said Morgan, paying no attention to the irate Friel. “Where is Blucher?”

“He went to the dormitory to consult Miss Herron.”

“Please go for him. Don’t mention this unfortunate — affair. Leave that to me. I’ll see you are not attacked again.”

When Miss Warner had gone Friel roused from his momentary angry consternation, and he fell into a fury. For a moment he was beside himself, flung his arms, tore his hair, and choked in his utterance.

“Friel, this is a serious charge,” declared Morgan.

“Trump it up! Hatch something! Frame one of your damned tricks!” exclaimed Friel, in low, hoarse passion. “Bah! I’m on to you. How you jump at anything to further your nefarious ends!... I’m honestly in love with that girl. I want her to marry me. You interrupted my love-making. — That and nothing more!”

“Friel, I’d like to believe what you say,” replied Morgan, caustically, “but Miss Warner’s plain talk proves you’re either a liar or out of your head.”

“My heavens! It was her temper, I tell you. She knows I didn’t mean her harm,” protested Friel.

“Suppose I call an investigation by the mission board? If Miss Warner testified to her convictions and if I told what I saw — you would be rather seriously involved, now wouldn’t you?”

Friel gave Morgan one comprehensive glance, keen and malignant, and somehow impotent. Then his whole demeanor changed. Manifestly he had been surprised by Morgan in the expression of amatory advances he did not deem criminal, and next he had fallen prey to perfectly natural wrath. But now he had suddenly lost his excessive irritation, his impulsive and explosive fury.

“Investigation!” he echoed, slowly. “You wouldn’t call one on me?”

“I’ve been your friend here. I’ve kept you here on the reservation. This behavior of yours is not becoming to a missionary. And your ranting at me did not sound like music to my ears. I might call an investigation by the board.”

“You might,” returned Friel, sarcastically. “Which means you won’t just so long as I stand hand in glove with you?”

“Precisely. You remember that little irregularity of yours concerning the testimonials — the thumb prints of Indians who didn’t know they were signing away their land and water right? For land you now have a patent to?”

“Yes, I remember — and most decidedly I remember the idea did not originate wholly in my brain.”

“That you cannot prove,” replied Morgan, tersely. “So I think you’ll be wise to stand on my side of the fence. Here comes Blucher. Not a word of this!”

Morgan locked the door of Blucher’s private office. He did not need more than sight of the agent’s face to see that the German’s twist of mind was at work.

Blucher was stocky of build, light-complexioned, broad of face, with the German look. Intolerance!

“What’s the trouble?” asked Morgan, and it was certain he lowered his voice.

Blucher’s gray-blue eyes dilated and suddenly appeared to gleam dancingly with little arrows of flame.

“What’s your trouble?” he queried, with a laugh. “You’re stewed up, same as I am.”

“Don’t talk so loud,” replied Morgan, with significant look and motion at the door of Miss Warner’s room. “I don’t trust that girl. My Noki says he saw her at the Castle Rocks talking to our college Indian. If it’s true I can see through a good deal. But I’m not so sure of that. The Noki wasn’t close to them. But we’re cautious now.”

“Suppose it was true?” asked Blucher, interested.

“It was that educated Nopah who stole Gekin Yashi from the school.”

Blucher vibrated to that.

“Who told you? How do you know? What — —”

“Never mind how I get my facts. I know. That’s enough.”

“But what you know doesn’t satisfy me,” returned Blucher, testily. “I like Miss Warner. She’s a fine girl. I can’t see one fault in her. What’s more, she’s a great help to me. I’d miss her.”

“I’m not suggesting you give her a ride on my steam roller,” rejoined the missionary. “If she’s valuable, get all you can out of her — until we know for sure. And meanwhile be cautious.”

“How’re we going to know for sure? We’ve read some of her letters. But they didn’t prove anything to me. I think you’re overcautious.”

“Not me. Those letters of hers gave me an idea. She lived in Philadelphia and spent her summers at the seashore. She wrote of seeing baseball games there. Now I’ve learned that our college graduate was one of the most famous athletes the Eastern colleges ever developed.”

“That Indian!”

“Yes, that Indian,” rejoined Morgan. “I’m not likely to forget the sample he gave me of his education. That Nopah has brains. Well, I’m wondering if Miss Warner might have known him in the East. I’ll write to my Philadelphia friend and ask him for more information, especially if this Nopah played baseball at the seashore.”

“Why not cut straight to the heart of a problem?” queried Blucher, impatiently. “You work in the dark.”

“It’s never wise to show your hand.”

“Let’s not waste opportunity. I’ll have Miss Warner in here,” replied Blucher.

The missionary raised a warning hand, restraining the agent.

“Wait a moment.” Morgan’s concentration of thought grew more intense. “All right. Fetch her in. But let me question her. I’ll take a chance.”

Blucher, unlocking the door, opened it and called, “Miss Warner, please step here.”

She came in, quiet, composed, but a keen eye could have detected a slight constriction of her throat, a glistening dilation of the pupils of her blue eyes. Morgan assuredly saw the slight signs of agitation. He fixed his cold, icy gaze upon her face.

“Miss Warner, do you deny you’re a friend of the graduate, Nophaie — that you meet him secretly?”

The girl’s golden tan seemed to recede, leaving a clear pallor on cheek and brow. A quick breath escaped her. Then she flushed dark red, her eyes blazed as they had blazed at Friel, her head went up with dauntless spirit.

“Mr. Morgan, am I to understand that I am a hireling to whom you are privileged to put such personal questions?” she flashed at him, in counter query.

Morgan made a slight motion of his hand, as if for Blucher to dismiss her. Manifestly he had been answered to his satisfaction.

“Do you deny?” interposed Blucher.

“I would not deny any implication whatever made by Mr. Morgan,” returned the girl, loftily.

“Very well. That will do,” said Blucher, waving her to the door, which he closed and locked after her.

Morgan signed him to draw a chair closer, and he whispered:

“It’s more than I suspected. Your doll-face is a deep, clever woman. She meets the Indian. Maybe she’s in love with him. Absolutely she’s not what she seems.”

The agent stroked his chin and gazed with abject wonder and disgust at the missionary.

“Morgan, you look for rottenness in every man and woman because your mind is rotten,” he said. “I don’t believe what you think about her.”

Morgan’s stout body jerked a little, as with the propelling of blood in sudden anger. And the lowering cold shadow of his eyes might have been thought- provoking to a less stolid man than Blucher.

“I usually find what I look for,” rejoined Morgan. “Let’s drop Miss Warner for the present. How about the Wolterson case?”

The agent unlocked his desk and produced letters and papers.

“Wolterson is about ready for your steam roller,” said Blucher, grimly. “All my reports have gone through. Here’s copy of a letter to Wolterson from Commissioner Salisbury, Department of the Interior at Washington.”

Blucher spread a paper covered with handwriting in lead pencil and he read:

Robert Wolterson

Through Supt., Mesa Indian School.

Sir:

Reports indicate that your services as stockman are not satisfactory; that you lack energy and initiative; that you boast you can make a living without work; that you are wholly inattentive to your duties and have no interest in the welfare of the Service; that you spend your time in idleness, loafing around your quarters, at different traders’ stores, or taking pleasure trips; that you almost invariably remain in bed after the other employees are at their work; that you have neglected the agency stallions, which were in your care, to such extent that one of them died; and that through your negligence a young heifer recently died.

You will be given ten days from the receipt of this letter to show cause, if any, why you should not be transferred or dismissed from the Service. Your reply should be submitted through the Superintendent within the time specified.

Respectfully,

Otto Salisbury.

“Humph!” ejaculated Morgan. “That’s not much of a charge against Wolterson. What was his reply through you?”

“It’s too long to read. Take this copy with you. One thing sure, Wolterson makes a strong case, and just about proves it. More than that, he has bobbed up with influential friends in Texas, one of them a Senator. The best we can expect is that Wolterson will be transferred to some other point on the reservation.”

“That will do. What we don’t want is an investigation out here. Wolterson is sharp enough to get that college Indian down here, with a lot of Nopahs who know things.... I see this Indian, and Wolterson, his wife, Miss Warner, the traders, all in a clique to oust you.”

“If me, why not you?” queried Blucher, darkly.

Morgan waved a deprecatory hand, singularly expressive.

“You’re only the superintendent.”

“And you have the Old Book behind you, yes?” demanded Blucher, scornfully.

“I, yes, yes, YES!” replied Morgan, in rising crescendo.

“Missionary Morgan, do you really believe what you say?” queried Blucher.

“I know,” said Morgan, with finality.

“Hell!... You and what you believe will go smash some day — the longer you last the harder you’ll smash.”

“Perhaps. But you’ll not be here to enjoy it,” retorted Morgan. “We get off the issue.... I think we need to make further charges against Wolterson. I suggest you involve him in this kidnapping of Gekin Yashi.”

“It won’t be necessary. Wolterson will be through here when I approve this transfer. I advised his dismissal, but evidently that was a little strong.”

“So much for him,” mused Morgan, with deep gaze into space. “Before we get on to the Do etin case let’s thresh out this matter of the Indian young men getting into the girls’ dormitory at night.”

“Isn’t that my affair?” queried Blucher. “Are you superintendent of this school and reservation?”

Morgan’s reply was neither negative nor affirmative. It was a silent study of the face of the agent.

“I got the truth of it,” slowly began Blucher.

“From what source? — Miss Herron told me all she knew before you heard of the goings-on.”

“You think she told you all,” retorted Blucher, with malice. “As a matter of fact, she didn’t. I believe she had something to do with those Indian youths stealing into the dormitory.”

It was Morgan’s turn to show amaze and skepticism.

“I knew Miss Herron before she became matron of the school,” declared Morgan, as if the bare statement of such fact refuted any possibility of culpability.

The superintendent stared. Then he laughed outright. Evidently this interview was not wholly irksome.

“What’s that to do with it?”

“It has all to do with it,” replied Morgan. “I gave Miss Herron the responsible duty of looking after the moral welfare of the girl students.”

“Bah! Morgan, can’t you call things by their proper names, at least to me?” queried Blucher. “What you mean is that this particular matron was put in her job by you. Therefore she is responsible to you. Responsible to you, yes, for the moral welfare of these Indian girls — and for accurate record of what goes on, so that you could be kept posted.”

Morgan made a gesture which seemed to intimate that Blucher’s talk was Sanscrit to him.

“I can’t prove anything on Miss Herron, so there’s no need of my giving reasons for what I believe,” went on Blucher.

“Yes, there is,” returned Morgan, sharply. “I am responsible for Miss Herron. And any word breathed against her must be substantiated with facts.”

Blucher did not appear so dense that he was unconscious of being dominated by this missionary. Nor was his impotence a lack of courage or wit to resist. There was something else.

“Facts? Well, the first fact I established is that this night-visit business has been going on for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Ever since you first evinced interest in Gekin Yashi,” returned Blucher, significantly.

Significance appeared to be lost upon Morgan. “So? Then say about six months.”

“Yes. And you know how Miss Gale started the investigation by telling us Gekin Yashi had run to her room for protection. This happened only a few days after Gekin Yashi was brought back to the school. Now Gekin Yashi told me that several times before she left the school she had to run to Miss Herron for protection.... Funny, now, that your conscientious matron did not report that to the superintendent?”

If Morgan strove to keep his face from being a study he did not altogether succeed. Blucher took a cigar from his desk, and lighting it, puffed a few times, all the while watching his visitor.

“Morgan, I know you and others credit me with the block-headedness supposedly common to Germans,” continued Blucher. “But I’m not so thick that I miss everything.... I suspect, mind you, I suspect that Miss Herron did not lie awake at nights praying for the protection of Indian girls — especially Gekin Yashi. I know beyond a doubt that Miss Herron was glad when Gekin Yashi disappeared. Also I know from Miss Herron’s own lips that she strongly disapproves of the rule making it compulsory for the Indian girls to go to your chapel.... Are any of these facts illuminating to you?”

“Not particularly,” returned Morgan, with a heavy expulsion of breath. “But the goings-on of these young Indians prove they are heathen and will stay heathen until they are Christians.”

“Which will be never,” declared the superintendent.

The missionary was not proof against this outspoken repudiation of his entire work in the Indian field.

“I have many converts,” he declared, haughtily, with the blood rising to his temples.

“Morgan, your converts are illusions of your fertile brain,” said the German, contemptuously. “You show a paper to an Indian. You pretend to read what is not there. You say to this Indian: ‘Have you not learned from my sermons? Have you not accepted my God?...’ And the Indian replies, ‘Yes.’... What he means is, ‘Yes, I have not!’... And you get his thumbprint on your paper and send it to your mission, your church.”

“Blucher, what you think of me and what I think of you are not the issues at present,” said Morgan, deliberately. “By and by we are going to clash. But just now we’ve serious business that necessitates unity.”

“Yes, I know,” grunted Blucher, “and I hate to get down to it.”

“If you don’t make examples of Do etin and Nophaie your authority on this reservation will absolutely cease,” declared Morgan, impressively. A singular force emanated from him. He radiated strong suggestiveness of will.

“Damn that old Indian!” exclaimed Blucher, with sudden passion. His face set like that of a bulldog. “I’ll make him consent to that rule or — or—”

“You’ll never make him do anything,” interrupted Morgan. “You don’t know Indians. Do etin will keep his word. He’ll never consent to Gekin Yashi coming to my church.”

“I don’t blame him a damn bit for that,” retorted Blucher, brutally. “But Gekin Yashi is not the point with me. Do etin has bucked me. He has opposed me. He will make me look weak to all the Indians. But how to make an example of him!”

Morgan leaned forward to whisper tensely. “Send Rhur, the policeman, Glendon and Naylor, at night to arrest Do etin. Do etin will refuse to consent to the new rule of the government. He will resist arrest.”

“For once we agree,” said Blucher in reply. “And how about the college graduate?”

Swiftly Morgan snapped his fingers, but the lifted hand shook before Blucher’s strained gaze.

“That educated Indian is the most dangerous man, red or white, on this reservation,” hissed Morgan. “Leave him to me!”

“Then it’s settled,” replied Blucher.

“Send your men after Do etin to-night,” added the missionary.

“Yes, the sooner the better. And that compulsory rule goes into effect right now.”

Morgan hurried across the wide avenue toward his house. He strode as a man who would be dangerous to meet on a narrow footway. Apparently all he saw was the hard-packed sand upon which he trod.

In his study sat the Indian whom he had expected — Noki, a slim, tall, very dark man with straight black hair, and eyes of piercing sharpness. This Indian’s latest service to Morgan had been the bringing back of Gekin Yashi. Long had he been the missionary’s spy and tool of craft.

Morgan gripped his arm and dragged him to the couch, there to force him down and loom masterfully over him. Moistening his lips, Morgan began in hoarse whisper of singular potency.

“Noki, to-night you pay your full debt to the white man of God.... Go to Do etin’s hogan. Be there just at dark. Let the Indians see you, but not the white men who come. Watch these white men go into Do etin’s hogan. Steal close and listen to what they say. Trust to the darkness. Listen to that council. Remember every word you hear. And watch — see every move. — When the white men go away you hurry back to me.”

The Noki’s sloe-black eyes shone with something more than comprehension. The Nopahs were hereditary foes of the Nokis.

For a long time after the Indian had left Morgan sat motionless in his study, locked in thought, his brow a congested mass of furrows. What bound him there was a habit of mind — a recourse to invention to meet every possible future angle, to fortify against the unexpected, to hide the machinations of a master strategist, to satisfy a monstrous egotism. No still small voice pierced the conscience of this man of God!

At last he arose, muttering, half aloud:

“That for sure puts the steam-roller under Blucher.”

CHAPTER XIII

MORGAN STAYED UP until a late hour that night, expecting the Noki to return with news of what had actually happened. But the Indian did not come. Morgan grew rather toward a conviction that nothing unusual had occurred. So at midnight he put aside the Bible he had been studying and went to bed. His slumbers were not disturbed by nightmare or visitor.

Next morning, while at breakfast Morgan had a caller — the old man who had been the government farmer at Mesa for years. His short wedge-shaped figure seemed energized by rugged vitality; his features were a record of the desert.

“Mr. Morgan, the Nokis down at Copenwashie are raisin’ hell with me,” he began.

“Yes? What for? And when you address me pray do not be profane.”

“It’s a dry season. All but two of the springs have failed. The Nokis haven’t enough water for their alfalfa. Friel gets the water first for his land. That’s what the Nokis are sore about. An’ I’m sayin’ they’ve got reason!”

“Why do you come to me? I deal with the souls of Indians, not their water rights.”

“Wal, Friel’s deals are mostly with their water rights,” replied the farmer, bluntly. “Now my stand is this. The Nokis are industrious farmers. They’ve worked hard on that alfalfa. An’ I don’t want to see it burn up. Friel said what he did was none of my business. I want the Indians to have more of the water that belongs to them.”

“Belongs to them? How do you figure that?”

“The Nokis were here before either the Nopahs or the whites.”

“That’s nothing. The water belongs to the government. And Mr. Friel has a patent on land and water from the government. I couldn’t do anything, even if I wanted to.”

“Friel has no horses suffering for hay or water. He sells his hay. The Indians need good hay and plenty of water. They can’t send their horses out into the desert to live on soapweed and greasewood. These Nokis are freighters. They freight supplies from Flagerstown. That’s how they earn their living.... They’re not gettin’ a square deal.”

“Go to Blucher,” replied Morgan.

“I just left him,” returned the farmer. “He wasn’t interested — sent me to you. I reckon he was upset by his men havin’ to kill an Indian last night.”

“That so? I hadn’t heard,” rejoined Morgan, with no especial interest. He might not have been aware of the grey desert eyes bent upon him.

“Wal, it was owin’ to some new rulin’ or other Blucher ordered,” went on the farmer. “Do etin refused to obey, as I heered the story. When Rhur with his deputies, Glendon and Naylor, tried to arrest Do etin he fought — an’ they had to kill him.”

“That was unfortunate,” said Morgan, gravely shaking his head. “But Indians must learn to obey.”

“Mr. Morgan, would you be good enough to have Friel ease up on the water?” asked the farmer, earnestly. “He’s usin’ more than he needs. An’ we haven’t had a lot of rain at Copenwashie.”

“No. Such a request from me would imply that I shared your opinion as to Mr. Friel’s wastefulness, which I don’t.”

“Ah-huh!” ejaculated the government man, and abruptly turned on his heel. His heavy boots thumped on the porch. Then he was gone.

In the course of the day Morgan heard many versions of the killing of Do etin. He read Blucher’s brief statement to the officials at Washington; he asked for the distressed Miss Warner’s knowledge of it; he heard Rhur tell how it had happened, and also Glendon. He showed grave concern as he met the stockman, Wolterson, and asked what he had heard about it. All stories were substantially the same, precisely what the school policeman and his deputies had reported first to the superintendent and later told to other government employees. There was no excitement nor any particular comment. The death of an Indian was nothing. But when Morgan asked Jay Lord what he had heard, he added a few trenchant words of his own to the reiterated story: “Wal, that’s what they say!”

Late that day Morgan received the Noki spy in his study, the windows and blinds of which were closed. And peering down into the dark, inscrutable face of this Noki who hated Nopahs, Morgan heard a long story, told with all the singular detail of an Indian’s subtle and faithful observance, a story strangely and vastly different from all the others concerning Do etin’s tragic death.

It was again night, and one of those nights set for the Indian girls selected by Morgan to come to his chapel to hear him preach. This missionary had not mastered the Nopah language; he had merely been among the Indians so long that he had acquired a use of their tongue sufficiently to make his meaning clear.

He harangued at the still, dark faces. “You must learn to obey me. Your people are too old to learn. They are heathen. Their God is no good. Their religion is no good. Your parents have no chance for heaven. They are steeped in ignorance and sin. They will burn forever in Hell’s fire.”

“Heaven and Hell are places. Most of the things you do and believe now will send you straight to Hell when you die, unless you take my religion. The fox made the Nopah Indian, and the fox is the lowest of beasts. As you are now, each of you is like a big ugly sore. The school doctor, the medicine man, makes medicine over it, and it looks fine from the outside. But under that coat it is still a sore. So are you Nopah girls rotten at the heart. You think if you can put on bright clothes so you will appear fine on the outside you are all right. For this you are going straight to Hell!”

“You must forget the songs and the legends and the prayers of your people. Indians are heathen. They must accept the white man’s way, his clothes, his work, his talk, his life, and his God. Then some day the Indians will become white in heart.”

Thus the missionary preached for an hour to those still, dark faces. Then he dismissed his congregation, but at the door of the chapel he drew one Indian girl back.

“Gekin Yashi — you stay,” he said, as he held her. “I will preach to you alone, so you can spread my word to your sisters.”

This Indian maiden did not have a still, dark face. It was pale and agitated, yet beautiful with its contour, its great dusky eyes, its red lips. She was trembling as the missionary led her back from the door. Suddenly he pushed her into a seat and towered over her, strung in all his body, obsessed with his fanaticism.

“Gekin Yashi, do you know your father is dead?” he asked, in harsh sharp voice.

“Oh — no, sir,” the girl faltered, sinking back.

“He is.... He was killed last night — killed because he fought the white men who went to arrest him. But it was sin that killed him. He would not obey.”

The missionary paused. Gekin Yashi’s sweet and youthful face slowly changed — quivered with tears streaming from her tragic eyes — and set in a strange dull expression of fear, bewilderment, and misery. Then her dark head drooped.

“You ran off to the Pahutes,” went on the missionary. “Who took you?”

Gekin Yashi made no answer.

“It was Nophaie. He will be shot the same as your father — unless you confess your sin — and then accept my religion.... Speak! Did Nophaie take you away?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But Gekin Yashi has not sinned. She is like the white girl Benow di cleash.”

Then the missionary thundered at her.

“Yes, you have sinned. You are all sin. Only the Word can wash you clean. Bid me speak it — pray for you to Jesus Christ.... I will save you from the ice-pits and the fire- caves of Hell.... Tremble in your fear! — Fall on your knees, you daughter of heathen!... Hate that false nature worship!... Love me — the white man of God!... Promise to do what I tell you!”

The Indian girl lifted her face, and then her little brown hands that fluttered like leaves in a storm.

“Gekin Yashi — promises,” she breathed, almost inaudibly.

CHAPTER XIV

MARIAN, WHILE WAITING for the dismissal she expected every day, worked on as if no untoward thing had happened. But in reality nothing was left for her save a morbid curiosity in the affairs of this government school and her faithful, stubborn, unquenchable desire to help the Indians.

The autumn days wore on close to winter — wonderful keen clear days with the desert imperceptibly changing its hue. At night the wind mourned outside her sleeping quarters and moaned in the poplar trees. By day the sun shone in a cloudless sky, blazing over the desert, a flooding, all-embracing light.

No more did Marian ride out to Castle Rocks. No more did she have the thrill and joy of meeting Nophaie. Neither he nor she had any proof that his life was in danger, but they suspected it, and they knew his liberty was threatened. Nophaie had entrusted one letter to Withers and another to a Nopah sheepherder, both of whom delivered these missives through Wolterson. A note of despair and of love rang through Nophaie’s wild words, troubling her soul, yet somehow they were inexpressibly sweet. Separation made him desperate. He needed her. And Marian, in her growing poignancy, longed to go to him, to be his wife. She would have lived in a hogan. Yet even in her longing she realized the nobility of the Indian and his attitude toward her. She was not meant for a hogan — to raise her children in a mound of earth, like a troglodyte. Infinite respect for Nophaie had added to her love. He was a man. How passionately she burned to prove to the world what an Indian could be! Somehow she would prove that, if not by her own modest pen, then by the power of some one to whom she could tell her story. Nophaie, the same as she, was waiting for developments — perhaps for the hour of her dismissal. Meanwhile his entreaty was for her to hold on and keep her courage, and do what good she could in her own way. What sustained Marian most of all was the cry of his heart for her.

So she waited, and the weeks passed. And as they passed her experience with the Indian children widened, her knowledge of the hidden wheels of this government machine grew by leaps and bounds. But the ideal she had cherished so sentimentally, so impulsively, faded away as an illusion, and the hopes she had entertained day by day burned themselves to bitter ashes.

Between her and Gekin Yashi had come a strange, cold, somber shadow, like that in the Little Beauty’s dusky eyes. Marian refused credence to the fears her intelligence prompted. Circumstances had altered her opportunities to be with Gekin Yashi. These came now but seldom. Miss Herron’s enmity was open and scarcely possible to combat. The matron was all-powerful in the school. Moreover Gekin Yashi no longer received Marian with shy sweet gladness. The Indian maiden had aged. She listened, but did not respond. She seldom raised her eyes. Only rarely did Marian penetrate her reserve. Never again would she hurt Gekin Yashi by mentioning Nophaie. And another illuminating reaction of Gekin Yashi’s was her reply to one of Marian’s appeals, “Oh, no one ever tells me beautiful things!” Marian wondered whether all Gekin Yashi’s pathos was due to the loss of her father?

As winter approached and the war in Europe extended its claws farther and farther over the world, and especially toward the United States, Blucher indubitably leaned more to an obsession of the rights of Germany. Marian typed many of his letters and she noticed that he let slip the mental note of lesser things. He could scarcely put his mind on the tasks before him on the reservation, let alone solve their problems. Thus he grew lax in caution, at least so far as Marian was concerned. Nor was he guarded in speech with any one. One afternoon a number of the government employees were in Blucher’s office, the door of which stood open. News had arrived in the mail of various angles of the war, mostly favorable to Germany. The talk of the men was general, though forceful enough, until all at once Wolterson spoke out:

“Shore, somebody ought to shoot that Kaiser.”

Blucher started up as if he had been struck; and if ever a man’s face was charged with concentrated passion his was then. He actually addressed Wolterson in German — and then, seeing how all the men stared, he grew red and blurted it out in English.

“Would you shoot the Emperor?”

“Well, wouldn’t you?” drawled Wolterson.

“I certainly would not,” snapped Blucher.

The Texan’s reply rang out minus the drawl:

“Shore, I’d like to.”

Blucher suddenly seemed to see in Wolterson something vastly more inimical than concerned the sordid petty interests of a government reservation for Indians.

What Blucher’s reply was, if he made any, Marian did not hear, nor did she get another look at him. From that hour, however, she dated a fixed change in Blucher. A tremendous force changed the direction of his mind, so that his weakness was as if it had never been. Marian pondered over this and also over a remark made to her by Wolterson. “If the good old U. S. has to go to war with Germany, life will shore be hell for us on this reservation.”

Meanwhile Marian’s observations and convictions grew with the passing of time. How much she would have to tell Nophaie upon their next meeting!

Morgan was a master in a Machiavellian game of politics. Many of the employees were not adversaries of the missionary, although they had been brave enough to take exception to extraordinary statements made to the Indians. Girls had been taken from the reservation, during the absence of the agent, and sent to another state to attend Bible school. Morgan had been seen repeatedly on the school fields and at the school stables, and in other isolated places, talking earnestly to enemies of Blucher.

Most significant of all was the singular fact that letters written to Washington, and to the Mission Board were not only never answered, but never received by the officials to whom they were addressed. The chief of all the Nopahs, a most intelligent Indian, wrote through an interpreter a letter to Washington, telling and substantiating facts important to the government and to the reservation. He concluded this letter — a copy of which Marian read and considered a remarkable document — by asking a question: “Is this reservation a reservation for Indians?” No reply was ever received.

Marian had great difficulty in learning the real deep significance of the Indian’s religion. The Nopahs prayed to the Sun, Moon, Stars, Wind, Thunder, Lightning — anything beyond their understanding, and all of which they symbolized. They recognized the unseen power which sent the sun each day, and the warm winds and the cold, and all physical phenomena. They heard the idea that God was a person and abided in a particular place, but they argued if there was a personal God and a material Heaven, there would be a road leading to it. They believed there was a physical life for spirits of the good, which belief accounted for their custom of sending with the dead the best horses, bridle, saddle, belt, beads, gun. Tools of all sorts were sent — the spirits of the tools — everything that was sent along for the spirit of the dead man had to be killed so that they could go along. Nopahs believed that spirits of evil persons went into animals here on earth — into the coyote, bear, cougar, snake — and this was the reason why the Indians seldom or never killed these creatures.

Yet keen as was Marian’s curiosity, she avoided some things that would have been easy to see. On the other hand, there were incidents she did not care to see yet could not help seeing. At the midweek service Morgan slapped the Indian boys who did not remain quiet while he ridiculed the beliefs of their people. Morgan often reported the children to the matron with instructions that they be punished. Marian had seen several instances of Miss Herron’s punishments. She compelled children to bend forward, hands touching the floor, or to stand erect, with hands lifted high, for as many minutes as they could endure it. Not unusual was it for a girl to faint under this punishment. One day some Indian boys ran across the porch of Blucher’s house. Marian saw the agent run out, catch one of them, knock him down, and kick him after he was down. The little fellow did not rise very readily.

Another day, early in December, when, despite the bright sunshine, there were ragged edges of ice along the irrigation ditches, Marian was hurrying by the cellar door of one of the storehouses. Through the door she saw two tiny Indian boys trying to assort a huge pile of potatoes. It was very cold down there in the cellar and the potatoes were covered with frost. The boys were so cold they could not speak and could scarcely hold a potato in their little hands. Marian took them to the engine room, where they could get warm. Then she reported the incident to Blucher, who insulted her for her pains.

By a process of elimination Marian arrived at a few proofs of the compulsory school education being beneficial to the Indians. Perhaps ninety- nine out of a hundred students returned to the old life, the hogan and the sheep. They could not help but carry ideas of better life, better methods, better management. They could understand English and knew the value of money and of a trade. So that whether they liked it or not they were somewhat better equipped to meet the inroads of the white man. These advantages, however, were negligible, especially in case of the Indian girls, when compared with the disadvantages of the compulsory school system. Marian inclined more and more to the conviction that the whole government school and reservation system was wrong.

These weeks of comparative inaction for Marian and the dearth of news from Nophaie and the apparent indifference of Blucher and Morgan to her presence as an employee of the government in no wise lulled her fears, and certainty of ultimate dismissal. The powers were intent on matters of more importance. Marian grew brooding and nervous, and was troubled by strange portents impossible to define. She felt that something was about to happen.

And one morning, when Miss Herron, her hard face pale and agitated, came running into the room where Marian was working she felt a shock. Her intuition had prompted her aright.

The matron ran into Blucher’s office, the door of which was open.

“Where’s Morgan,” she asked, shrilly. “I can’t — find him.”

“What’s wrong?” queried Blucher, with a frown of annoyance at this intrusion or disruption of his thought.

“That college Indian — forced himself into the school room,” cried Miss Herron. “He scared me out of — my wits. He’s dragged Gekin Yashi into the hall — where he’s talking to her. I heard Morgan’s name — then I ran out — over to his house — to tell him.... Oh, that Indian looked terrible!”

“Nophaie!” ejaculated Blucher. Manifestly that Indian name conjured up swift and bewildering ideas. Blucher looked mightily concerned. When Miss Herron started to run out he detained her. “You stay right here — and keep your mouth shut.” Then he grasped the telephone.

The shock to Marian had kept her standing just where she had been when Miss Herron entered. Shuffling, soft footsteps that she recognized as Morgan’s gave her another shock. Then the missionary entered. Certain it was he did not know of the presence of Nophaie. But his glance at Marian, and then sight of Miss Herron in the next room, told him something was amiss.

“What — why are you here?” he demanded, entering the office.

“Shut up!” interrupted Blucher. “Morgan, there’s hell to pay. Your college Indian is here — with Gekin Yashi.... Hello!... Yes, this is Blucher. Where’s Rhur?... Not there? Where is he? Find him quick.”

Blucher slammed down the receiver of the telephone and glared at Morgan. Marian could only partially see the missionary’s face, and what she saw was pale.

“Morgan, that Indian is with Gekin Yashi now,” said the agent, hoarsely. “Your friend Herron here heard him speak your name.”

“What’s — it mean?” blurted out Morgan, incredulously.

“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be in your boots for a million,” replied Blucher, sardonically. “Have you got a gun?”

“No.”

“Well, the Old Book won’t be behind or in front of you now!”

“Lock the door,” shouted Morgan, wheeling. He banged it hard. Marian heard the key turn.

Marian had a glimpse of his face as he shut the door and somehow sight of it roused her. She peered through the open door, out into the yard, toward the dormitory. A tall Indian was running fleetly toward the office. Marian thrilled to her depths. Had she not seen that magnificent stride? This Indian was Nophaie, running as she had seen him many a time — running with the incomparable swiftness that had made him famous. Before she could draw another breath he had reached the porch steps to mount them in one pantherish bound. His moccasined feet padded on the floor. Then — he flashed in upon her, somehow terrible. A soiled handkerchief, folded narrow, and spotted with blood now dry, circled his brow and black hair. His eyes seemed to pierce Marian.

“I saw Morgan come in,” he said. “Is he there — with Blucher?”

“Oh — yes,” gasped Marian. “They’re locked in. You mustn’t.... Oh!”

Nophaie pulled a gun from somewhere, and lunging at the locked door, he shoved his foot against it with tremendous force. The lock broke. The door swung in. Nophaie bounded across the threshold.

Marian, suddenly galvanized into action, ran after him.

Miss Herron lay on the floor in a faint. Blucher sat back in his chair, mouth agape, eyes wide. Amaze had begun to give way to fear. Morgan was ghastly.

Nophaie, with his right hand, held the gun low. It was cocked and it had an almost imperceptible quiver. With left hand Nophaie significantly touched the bloody bandage round his head.

“Do etin’s murderers did not give me that,” said Nophaie. “They came three times to find me. But they failed. It was your Noki who ambushed my trail and shot me.... I have his confession.”

Neither of the accused could utter a word. The Indian’s menace was unmistakable, as inevitable as it was terrible.

“Morgan — I thought well to get Gekin Yashi’s confession also — so I can kill you without the compunction white education fostered in me.”

Morgan gasped and sagged against the wall. Blucher, livid and fearful, began to stammer incoherently.

Marian felt a tremendous sensation in her breast. It seemed to lift her. It passed, and she found herself burning deep within, suddenly undamped from that icy terror.

“I am going to kill you both,” said Nophaie.

With that Marian shut the door behind her. Then she got between Nophaie and the men, facing them. She realized what she had to do, and was equal to it.

“Keep quiet,” she ordered.

Wheeling to Nophaie, she went closer to him, with one hand going to his shoulder, the other forcing down the leveled gun.

“You must not kill these men.”

“Why not? Blucher had his men murder Do etin. Morgan has murdered Gekin Yashi’s soul.”

“That may be true,” responded Marian. “It’s not a question of justice. If you shoot them you will go to the gallows.”

“Yes, if I were caught. And then I would like to tell in a court-room what these men are.”

“Nophaie, you would not be believed except by a few who could not help you.”

“Then I’ll kill them in revenge. For Gekin Yashi — for my people.”

“No! No! You are above that, too. It’s only your passion. There is no good to be accomplished. The evil these men have done will earn its punishment. Don’t kill them.”

“I must. There is no justice. Your government is not honest or fair with the Indian. It never was and never will be. Not to save the Indian! These reservations are not for Indians. They are desert fields, isolated wastes with which a few white men induce the government to appropriate fifteen million dollars — that they may keep their fat, useless jobs.... The whites have educated me. And all I know cries out to kill these devils. I must do it.”

“But you are the man I love,” cried Marian, driven to desperation by his cold truth, by the remorselessness of his just wrath. “You are the man. It would break my heart if you became a murderer — a fugitive from justice — and if — if they hanged you — I’d die!... My God! Nophaie, for sake of my love — for me- -let these men live. Think of what it means to me. I’ll marry you. I’ll live with you. I’ll spend my life helping your people — if — if only you — will not — spill blood.”

She embraced him, clung to him, weakening at the end of her long appeal.

Nophaie slowly let down the hammer of his gun. “Benow di cleash, hold this for me,” he said.

Trembling, Marian accepted the heavy weapon, wondering the while what he meant to do. She began to throb and thrill. His look, his demeanor, the very radiation of him had undergone a remarkable transformation. The deadliness, the something foreign to Marian’s conception of him, had vanished. Strangely he recalled Lo Blandy.

“Gentlemen, this girl of your race has saved your lives,” he said. “I meant to kill you.... But not even she, or your government, or the God you pretend to worship, can save you wholly from the Indian.”

Then with swift violence he turned upon Morgan, and in one singular powerful motion, in which his whole body appeared to participate, he shot his knee up into the man’s prominent abdomen. The blow made a sodden sound not unlike a heavy beat upon a drum. Morgan crashed against the wall, his head struck hard, his mouth spread wide, and a tremendous expulsion of breath followed. All the wind had been kicked out of him. As he sank to his knees his face grew hideous. His hands beat the air!

Next, in one bound Nophaie leaped upon the desk, and from that right down on Blucher, breaking the chair and sending the agent hard to the floor. Nophaie did not even lose his balance. How light, supple, wonderful his movements!

Marian could not have cried out or moved to intercept him to save her life. She was in the grip of an absolutely new and strange and terrible spell. Nophaie no longer meant to kill: he meant only to hurt. And that liberated something deep in Marian’s blood. It seemed to burst and shoot in fiery currents all over her. The Indian’s actions fascinated her. How strange that he never made a move to strike Blucher, who was cursing in fury and terror, trying to get up! But he could not. Nophaie kept kicking him down. Every time the German got to hands and knees Nophaie would swing a moccasined foot. He kicked and he shoved. And then it appeared he was plunging Blucher nearer and nearer to Morgan, whose convulsions had evidently gained him some breath. Another kick sent the agent hard against the kneeling missionary, knocking him over.

“At college I learned a great many white man’s tricks,” said Nophaie, with grim humor. “And one of them was to kick. College men claimed I could kick a football harder and farther than any other athlete who ever lived. Now since I scorn to soil my heathen red hands on such dirty beasts as you I must resort to kicking.”

And without particular violence or rancor, he kept up this game of football until both men were disheveled bloody-nosed wretches. Suddenly he ceased. Marian saw then that Miss Herron had revived and was sitting up. Nophaie looked at her with the same disgust that the men had inspired in him.

“I ought to kick you too,” he said. “But I have a white man’s education.” Drawing Marian out of the room, he closed the door and took his gun from her shaking hands.

“Don’t be frightened, Benow di cleash,” he said, with a strong, tender arm round her. “You saved me again. I can do nothing but love you more — and go back to my canyons.... Don’t worry about what Blucher and Morgan will do. They are cowards. They will not speak one word of this. If you get dismissed, go to the trader’s house. I beg of you — stay on the reservation yet awhile. Send me word through Withers. Good-by.”

“Oh, Nophaie!” cried Marian, trying to find her voice.

He glided out upon the porch, looked to right and left, and then leisurely trotted down the steps, down the path to the road. Marian espied his horse tied to the fence near the gate. She expected to see men running from all directions. But there were none. Marian’s heart slowly moved down out of her throat. She saw Nophaie mount his horse and lope away.

CHAPTER XV

DEEP IN THE canyoned recesses of the rock- ribbed earth, far beneath the white dome of Nothsis Ahn, Nophaie established his refuge in one of the almost inaccessible niches of his Canyon of Silent Walls.

He had packed supplies in from Kaidab and had left the post with an arrangement whereby any letters from Marian and more supplies would be sent once a month by a trusted Pahute.

Nophaie held dear to heart and conscience Marian’s appeal that he would not become a murderer. And it seemed the only way he could escape spilling blood was to hide himself in the canyons, there to spend the winter months, and to wait. He had little fear of Blucher’s hired policemen finding him here. Long before they could get near the only entrance to the Canyon of Silent Walls they would have lost any possible trace of him. Between his retreat and the upland plateau of Nothsis Ahn lay many miles of labyrinthine canyons, and the great western roll of the Marching Rocks. There was no trail over these hills of marble. The smooth wind-worn slopes left no trace of hoofs or moccasins. Many were the perilous precipices along which wound the only course over this range of wind-carved mounds. The last Pahute hogan stood on the cedared brow of the upland slope, thirty miles away in an air line, three days of exceedingly toilsome travel up and ever upward out of the rocky depths.

Nophaie penetrated to the furthermost corner of one of the canyoned wings of the valley; and here where the foot of white man had never trodden, under gleaming white walls lifting to the sky, he pitched his camp. It was a place of all places for the lonely Indian. The upland country was now in the grip of winter. Down here the grass and moss were still green, the willow and oak leaves had thinned out, yet many were left, fluttering gold in the sunlight, and the cottonwoods tenaciously clung to their autumn hues. Flowers still bloomed on the benches where the sun lingered longest. Bees and beetles buzzed throughout the noonday hours. Choe, the spruce tree, beloved by Nophaie, could be seen standing black and slender far up on the snow-margined brow of Nothsis Ahn, but down here in the valley gahd, the cedar, flourished and kept its everlasting rich green. Tolie, the blue jay, sacred to Nopah ceremonies, had come down off the mountain to spend the winter where the heat of the sun was reflected from lofty walls. Mocking-birds heralded the late sunrise with bursts of melody. Shy wild little birds, nameless for Nophaie, darted among the willows above the murmuring stream, now and then uttering melancholy notes. And from the high niches and crannies pealed down the sweet, strange piercing twitter of the canyon swift, bird that pitched downward like the gleam of an arrow.

Nophaie had reasoned that if there was anything to help him now in his extremity it was communion with his soul, and mastery of his physical self, here in the shadow of these lonely, silent walls. If arrest for assault threatened him out there on the reservation he could not long have gone on working among his people. Besides, more than arrest surely threatened him. The wound from Noki’s treacherous bullet had scarcely healed. So that there were several reasons why it was well for him to hide, to be alone, to await some mystic issue which was written. He would escape his enemies; he would be free of the cold winter that bound all Indians to their hogans; he could live in utter freedom here in this beautiful valley; he could dream and think the hours away, facing his soul, finding himself, growing away from that fierce hatred, realizing some melancholy happiness in the sweetness of love for Benow di cleash.

Nophaie’s valley resembled somewhat the shape of an octopus, except that the main body was narrow and crooked and the arms extended far and winding. This body was about a mile in length, and the larger arms were much longer. Innumerable ramifications on a lesser scale cut into the cliff walls everywhere. A thousand undiscovered and untrodden nooks and corners, caves and caverns, cliff-dwellings and canyons in miniature assuredly were lost in the intricacies of this valley. The great carved arm that cut deep into the bulk of Nothsis Ahn was a tremendous canyon in itself, lofty-walled at its head, opening wide at its juncture with the main body, margined by wondrous shining smooth walls waved like billows, red and yellow in hue, and crossing the valley proper to narrow again and lift its ramparts to the sky. Through this canyon ran the stream of water, and its course was one of ruggedness. That stream in flood, swollen by suddenly melting snows on the mountain, had cut a deep and devious gorge and had carried a million bowlders on its way. It had dug a dry river bed of rocks. Gravel-bars, sand-bars hid their white surfaces amid the bowlders, and cottonwood trees stood up among them, and willows shaded them. Thickets of reeds and matted brush and long coarse-bladed grass made impenetrable barriers to the wilder recesses. This canyon showed most the forces of the elements and it was a wilderness.

Nophaie seemed driven to explore, to seek, to search, to climb — especially to climb for a height that was unattainable but to which he must aspire. All Indians loved lofty places. And Nophaie was like an eagle in his love of the lonely crag and the wide outlook. The silent walls close at hand had no greater fascination than those beyond ascent. Time would surely come when they would speak to him. These dreaming walls had a voice for others beside the red man — for all humanity. But it had to be waited for and earned. Nature was jealous of her secrets. She spoke only to those who loved her.

Rest and calm returned to Nophaie, and then the days seemed to merge into one another, to glide on and on toward a nameless and wished-for end, an unveiling of the future.

The day had been unusually warm for that time of year. At sunset, when Nophaie climbed the high cone-shaped knoll in the amphitheater of the valley, there was still heat on the smooth rock. He felt it through his moccasins, and when in climbing he touched it with his bare hand the contact was pleasant. A partially overcast sky and an absence of wind had kept out the cool air from off the mountain.

Nophaie reached the round summit and there he reclined. Bees or beetles went humming past him, evidently toward the higher cedared part of the valley. These belated toilers made the best of daylight.

The overcast sky broke but slightly in the west, and that only enough to send a faint rose color to the tips of the great white towers. Through the gap to the north Nophaie saw the dim purple rim of a distant mesa. The long slow twilight was one of the strange and beautiful features of this Canyon of Silent Walls. Sunset came early because the insulating walls stood up so loftily that before the day was done they hid the westering sun. So the waning light lingered. Nophaie watched the faint rose fade and the gray shadows rise. What he longed for eluded him. He had only the strange joy of his sensorial perceptions.

Before darkness enveloped the valley he descended from the knoll, walking on a long slant, sure- footed as a sheep, sliding here and there, down and down into the bowlder- strewn ravine, where indeed night had fallen. There beside the stream he was halted by sounds he had not heard before — the strange croaking of canyon frogs. The unusually warm day had brought summer again to the denizens of the canyon. But the croaking of these frogs was weird and weak, as if they had only half awakened. One uttered a faint hoarse rattle, another a concatenated twang, another a kind of bellow, at widely separated intervals. Then followed a few trills, neither high nor sweet, yet somehow melodious. With the cool night wind these songs of belated summer ceased, and Nophaie heard them no more.

But that little he had heard was good for him. While he sat there on a huge bowlder the night fell black. He felt the sadness and tranquillity of the hour, and realized that many such hours must be his, out of which might come some alleviation of his sorrow.

Above him the rounded wavy lines of the knolls loomed dark, and beyond them towered the canyon walls with crags against the sky. No blaze of stars illumined the heavens. There was no blue. From the shadow under him there rose a sweet music — tinkle and babble and murmur, and splashing and gurgling of swift water over stones. It accentuated the loneliness and silence of this isolated rent in the earth. Nophaie’s people, and the world of white men, seemed far away and not necessary for him at that hour. Time spent here would teach Nophaie the superfluity of many things — perhaps resignation to his infidelity and the futility of love. The silent walls, so like great eyelids full of dreams, the deep shadows, the haunting memory of the trilling frogs, the soft cool breeze, bringing breath of snow, the vast black heave of the mountain rock, and the infinite sky above, more mystic without its trains of stars — these brought a sense of the littleness of all living things, of the exceeding brevity of life.

Nophaie’s emotions gradually grew deep and full. That bitter and hateful mood of the past slowly lost its hold on him. He seemed to be stripping off the clutch of a half- dead lichen from his soul. The oppression of the wonderful overhanging rocks — a sense surely that had not been Indian — left him wholly. Noble thoughts began to form in Nophaie’s mind. His work left undone, his duty to his people, his responsibility to a white woman who had blessed him with love, must be taken up again as the only rewards of his life. Emotion uplifted Nophaie and intelligence combated selfishness. Yet always sadness dominated — an ineradicable sadness now because there had come to him a tremendous realization of the mastery and tragedy of nature. Any human nature was a fascinating study; his own in contact and relation to his people was a sorrowful thing; here against the loneliness and solitude of this wilderness it was forced out stark and naked. He seemed an animal with a soul — the necessity to eat and no longing for life — the power to recreate and no right to love — the seed of immortality in him and no belief in God.

But strangely, a hope seemed gestating in Nophaie’s soul, trying to be born. More and more he felt its stirrings deep within him. It was like that fleeting conception of aboriginal man he sometimes caught when he narrowed his eyelids and looked at nature as if he were the first human to evolve. It was as ephemeral as the moment in which he felt but did not think. It had to do altogether with the physical. In nature then was not only the secret, but also salvation for him, if any were possible. What he yearned to reach was the God of his forefathers. This surely was a worship of nature, but not as he saw nature. The spirit of dead men did not go into rocks and trees and clouds. Was there a spirit that went anywhere? Nophaie saw through superstition. In Indians it was ignorance — the need of worship of supernatural things — of powers greater than human. But if there were a spirit in man that left his dead body might there not be a spirit in nature infinite and everlasting? Nophaie’s stirring hope was that he had really begun to hear the voices of the silent walls. Not morbid fancy, but sentiment, not lonely, brooding, erotic love, not the fear of death and the blind strengthening of false faiths, not anything but intelligent grasp at the soul of nature! Scientists would not grant nature a soul. But wise as scientists were they could not solve the riddle of life, the extent of the universe, the origin of time, the birth of man, the miracle of reproduction. Their deductions were biological, archæological, physiological, psychological, metaphysical. Nophaie was at war with the intellectual forces that had robbed him of his religion. There was something in these dreaming, silent walls, these waiting, brooding, blank walls, these wind and water sculptored stone faces of the ages. So he wondered under their shadow, he watched them at dawn, in the solemn noonday light, at sunset, and under the black canopy of night. So he climbed over them and to their summits, and high upon one to see another.

Nophaie was sitting up high in the center of the amphitheater and the hour of sunset was nigh. An intense hue of gold crowned all the rounded rims and domes that faced the west, out of which poured a glory of sunset light. High on the white towers of rock the gold was red; higher still on the snow of Nothsis Ahn it was rose. Away across the gap of the valley, northward, loomed up the great mesa, veiled in lilac haze. Faint, soft, dying lights attended the waving slopes under the ragged crags that touched the colored sunset sky. Clouds floated there — fleecy, like wisps of coral in a turquoise sea — cumulus, creamy white, edged by silver, mushrooming in rosy columns — clouds of pearl and alabaster, and higher in the intense blue, smoky wreaths of delicate mauve, and bossy beaten masses of burnished bronze.

Every moment then had its transfiguration. Every moment seemed endless in its gift to the recording soul. This was the living world of nature and its change was one of the elements of its marvelous vitality. The beauty and the glory might have existed only in Nophaie’s mind. But they were tangible things. The light fell golden upon his hand. All the valley was full of luminous glow, moving, changing, rays and shadows, a medium of enchantment. An eagle, bow- winged and black against the luminosity of the sky, swept across the field of Nophaie’s vision, flashing like a streak of darkened light, to plunge into the purple depths beyond the walls. It gave life to Nophaie’s panorama. It gave him a strange joy. From the lofty tower above the monarch of the heights had shot downward like a thunderbolt, free, alone, beautiful, wild as the wild wind, to gladden Nophaie’s sight, to add another thrill to his hope.

Nophaie knew not the prayer to say there upon his rounded altar of rock. Not one Nopah of all the tribe would have been so wanting! But he breathed one of his own.

“Glory of sun at dying day,  Beauty of cloud in the sky,  Splendor of light on the crag,  Passionless god of nature Make me as thou.  Lend me thy gift.  Teach me thy secret.  Give me thy spirit.  “Eagle of the marvelous flight,  Shade of the purple height,  Ray and veil and mystic glow,  Blue of heaven and rose of snow, Come to Nophaie.  “Come all things of heaven and earth,  Come out of west and north and east,  Come from the blowing wind.  Come from without the silent walls, To the lost and lonely soul And call me thine.” Nophaie turned to face the east — the sacred direction of the sun- worshiper. Grandeur of the west must be reflected in the east. Rounded rocks, waved on high, billowing higher to the rims, in velvet tones of crimson and lavender, heaved to the loftier walls. Where the setting sun struck the wall- faces in full light it painted them a vivid orange red. Deep shadows made sharp contrast. Crevices and lines of cleavage hid their purple mystery from the blaze of the sun. They lifted the golden surfaces, contoured them with edge of violet. The Canyon of Silent Walls had been flooded with transforming hues. It shone upon a thousand surfaces of gold and red, with undertones of steps, leading up and up, stairway of the gods, to the castellated towers above. Gray towers, white towers, tinged with gold, rugged and spired, crowned this horizon wall of rock and led Nophaie’s gaze onward to the south where the grand north wall of Nothsis Ahn was emblazoned with the cataclysmic scars of ages.

Of all the silent walls insulating Nophaie’s valley, that was the loftiest and the most aloof, the one most calling, the wall of weathered slope of avalanche, of the green-black timber belt shining in the sun, of the pure white dome of snow. Here were the unattainable heights. Baffled and haunted, Nophaie could only withdraw his gaze down and down to the canyoned amphitheater beneath him and reconstruct in imagination this magnificent speaking wall of rock, this barrier of stone, this monument of nature, this beautiful face of the mountain of light.

Beneath Nophaie there was shade of canyon depths — the dark cedar clumps, the blank gray thickets, the pale bowlders, all growing obscure and mysterious in the purple twilight. Where the base of the lower wall began to sheer upward it was dark, carrying on its face the conformation of the western walls that cast the shadow. Darkly the wavering edge of shade stood out with startling distinctness against the deep red sunset — mirrored cliffs beyond. Perceptibly this dark line of shade crept on high. As the sun sank lower the shadows of all intervening walls rose like a tide, and the radiance moved upward. There was no standing still of these contrasting bands of light and darkness. They moved and their color changed. A canyon swift swept glitteringly down from the heights, like a flying spark of golden fire, and darted into the shadows, perhaps to the warmer shelves of rock for the night. Sweet, wild, and faint twittered out their notes.

The red walls sheered up to those of gold, where line and regularity broke into a thousand cliffs, corners, benches, caves, a vast half- circular mountain front of rock where niches were fringed by stunted cedars and arches festooned by clinging lichens. An army of cliff-dwellers might once have dwelt on that great slope. A mile wide and nearly as high was this one wall of belted gold, rugged, jutted, jagged, buttressed, terraced, and crowned by cornice of white crags. Only winged creatures could ever rest on those towering pinnacles. They belonged to the condors and the clouds — towers like idols of the gods, golden at the base, white as clay above, with ruddy crowns pointing to the broad black belt of Nothsis Ahn, and the rose-white dome of snow.

Wall columnar as the rolling lofty cloud of the sky! Nophaie gazed upward, lost in contemplation. Of all gifts the gift of sight was best. But the eye of mind saw into the infinite. And while he gazed the sun went on with its miracle of transfiguration. Life of color — spirit of glory — symbol of eternal change! This enchantment of a moment was the smile of nature.

Nophaie pictured the wondrous scene from above; he imagined he had the eye of the soaring eagle. Underneath that strong vision lay the dark canyons, the red knolls, the golden walls, a broken world of waved bare stone. High on one of the rounded hills of rock stood a lonely, statuesque figure of man — the Indian — Nophaie — strange, pitifully little, a quivering atom among the colossal monuments of inanimate nature. He was the mystery of life thrown against that stark background of the age-old earth. Like a shipwrecked mariner on his spar- strewn sinking deck the Indian gazed up at the solid and enduring mountain. Bright stone-face of light! Silent wall with a thousand walls!

All Nophaie’s profound worship of the elements, his mastery of will and stern projection of soul, his sublimity of hope, the intense cry of his spirit for light — more light — light of God like this glorious light of sun — left him standing there on the height, alone in the solitude, with burden unlifted, with the passionless, pitiless, ruthless, all-pervading and all-concealing eyes of nature on him in his abasement.

Days passed into weeks and time was naught. The north wind roared on Nothsis Ahn and storm clouds lodged there, black, with dropping gray veils. But down in the Canyon of Silent Walls there was neither winter cold nor wind. Nophaie sought the sunny walls and dreamed in their reflected heat. Only one arm of the canyon still remained unexplored, and he had left that for some task of energy and action to fall back upon when his spirit ebbed low.

One day, from far down the canyon, pealed and echoed the call of an Indian. It startled Nophaie. He had forgotten the Pahute whom Withers was to send with supplies. He had forgotten that and more. Surely there would be news of the world beyond these silent walls, of the reservation, and of the affairs at Mesa — last and most desired, word from Benow di cleash.

Nophaie ran. It was with the fleetness of an Indian, but the gladness of a white man. Almost he scorned that eagerness, that strange knocking at his heart. The solitude he had sought seemed to stand out clearer now, an enemy to his intelligence. Lonely canyons were abodes for barbarians, savages, Indians — not for men with developed thought. The work of white men should ever be to help the increasing progress of the world toward better life. But he was not a white man. And as he ran his thoughts multiplied.

Nophaie found the Pahute in the main arm of the canyon. He had brought a pack- mule heavily laden. Nophaie led him to his camp, and there unpacked the mule, and cooked a meal for the Indian, and learned from him that white policemen had sought him all over the reservation and had returned to Mesa. No other news had the Pahute, except that the trader at Kaidab had told him to get to Nophaie on this day. “Jesus Christ Day,” added the Indian with a grin.

“Christmas!” exclaimed Nophaie, and strange indeed were his memories.

The Pahute left early in the afternoon, saying he wanted to get over the Marching Rocks before nightfall. Nophaie was again alone. Yet how different the loneliness now! There were packets and packages in that pile of supplies which, despite their outside wrappings of burlap and paper, did not bear the hall-mark of an Indian trader. Nophaie felt rich. It struck him significantly that he was unutterably glad. But was it not a certainty of messages from Marian? That assuredly, yet he could not be sure it was all! Unpacking the heavier parcels first, Nophaie found that the trader had added considerable to the monthly order. Then there was a bundle of lighter weight, more carefully packed, and inside was a tag upon which was written in English. “Merry Christmas from Withers’ outfit.”

Nophaie tried to be annoyed at this, but he could not, and he found that what irritated him was the happy greeting in English. “I am an Indian,” muttered Nophaie. Yet he did not speak that in the Indian language. “Christmas gifts and greetings,” he added, “and I am glad.” Indian or not he could not help his feelings. It was kind of the Withers family to remember the educated Indian in his lonely solitude. Nophaie found cigarettes, matches, chocolate, raisins, a clasp knife, a little hand-ax, a large piece of tanned buckskin with needles and thread, and woolen socks and a flannel shirt. Withers had guessed his needs and had added luxuries.

Then with hasty fingers Nophaie opened the smallest packet that he somehow knew was from Marian. Inside the heavy paper was more paper, and inside that waterproof cloth, and inside this a silken scarf all neatly folded round a soft flat object. Nophaie unfolded the scarf to behold a large clean thick white envelope upon which had been written one word: Nophaie. Marian’s handwriting! A thrill went over him. There were illusions, but also there were realities. No moment of life that did not bring happiness to some mortal!

He put the letter aside, and opened the second packet, larger, flatter, more strongly wrapped, incased in pasteboard. He expected to find a photograph and was not disappointed. But before he opened the cover out dropped an envelope containing snap-shot pictures of Marian taken at Mesa with her own camera. The best picture was one of her riding the white mustang he had given her. They were all good, yet not one of them seemed like the image he had in memory. The desert was hard on Marian. But when Nophaie opened the large envelope he saw a beautiful likeness of the fair face he loved and remembered so well. This was a fine photograph, taken in Philadelphia, probably some time after he had left the East.

“Benow di cleash!” he murmured, and all the white flower-like fairness seemed to flash in a beautiful light from that pictured face. Gazing, he forgot everything for a while.

When he went back to his packages he found books, magazines, late newspapers, pads and pencils and envelopes, a small hunter’s sewing kit, a box of medicines, bandages, candy, nuts and cakes, and last of all, a watch with radium numerals, and a buckskin fob decorated with Nopah buttons. She had not forgotten to include in all this loving munificence some token of the Indian. That thrilled him as nothing else had.

One by one he handled these gifts and pondered over the effect they had upon him. Beyond peradventure of doubt these established the connection between him and the world of white people. Eighteen years of his life, the forming and fixing period, had developed to such things as these, and not those of the red man. He might starve naked in a cave of the canyons, with nothing representative of the white race near him, but that could not change facts. He loved Marian Warner. Her gifts made him happy. The isolated solitudes of the desert were good for his soul and body, but they could never wholly satisfy.

CHAPTER XVI

NOPHAIE CARRIED MARIAN’S letter to his favorite resting and dreaming place. Not on the heights did he care to read her message, but in the amber shadow of the Silent Walls.

This place was a strange one, a narrow section of canyon, where the west wall leaned to meet the cavernous eastern wall, the lofty red rims of which showed a blue ribbon of sky above. Here the canyon turned sharply to the left and then to the right, giving a strange impression of stupendous leaning walls. At the base of the cavernous cliff ran the murmuring stream of clear green water. Banks of moss and grass stood out from the wall, dry, odorous, and gray. The leaves of the cottonwoods were not yet devoid of their autumn hue. And sound here was weird, hollow, ringing, melodious, and echoes magnified all. Nophaie found his accustomed seat and with mounting beat of heart he opened Marian’s letter. Was he really there — lonely outcast Nopah in the solitude of a silent canyon — holding in his hands the letter of a noble and loving woman of a hated race?

Dearest Nophaie:

Greetings on your Christmas Day! I could not be happy without sending to you my greeting, and love, and my gifts. May these find you well. May they assure you at least of the constancy of Benow di cleash. I shall not be able even on Christmas Day to believe wholly in the spirit: “Peace on earth — good will to man.” Not when the one I love, whom I know is worthy, lies hidden in the wilds, persecuted by men of my color!

If I could write you a whole volume I would never be able to crowd in all. My dismissal came quite some time after your visit. In fact, I ran the office until Blucher and Morgan came out of seclusion. Then I got the “steam- roller” all right and without my month’s pay. I’m grateful for that, because it gives me an excuse to go back to the office, which I have done regularly since I came here to stay with the Paxtons. They are very kind to me, and allow me to pay my board. I help in the trading store sometimes and thus I keep up my study of the Indians. Here I get another angle on the reservation.

As far as I am able to tell, nothing has yet leaked out in Mesa about that football match you had with Blucher and Morgan. I will never get over that day. Never will I trust myself again. If you were an Indian, I was a savage. I just swelled and tingled and burned with fiendish glee every time you kicked one of the — footballs. My only regret rises from the fact that I never saw you play real football in the college games that made you famous.

My last interview with Blucher and Morgan was a nightmare. Blucher was poison. Morgan tried to intimidate me and drive me off the reservation. He said- -but never mind what he said. The Indian police have returned from their search for you, I imagine. You will do well to lie low for awhile. There is a seething volcano under this particular part of the reservation. The Woltersons expect dismissal any day. All communication to Wolterson comes through the superintendent. Why, I could run this reservation better than it is run. The whole Indian Service, if judged by this arm of it, is merely a gigantic political machine. But that you know.

I suspect that Blucher is greatly concerned about the possibility of the U. S. being drawn into war with Germany. There is indeed a grave possibility of that very thing. You will see the latest news in the papers I send. These came to- day with the mail carrier from Flagerstown. Read them carefully. You may be a Nopah, but you are also an American. One of the truest of Americans — the red- blooded species. German militarism threatens not only the peace of the world, but also the freedom. If war is declared I trust you will tell the truth to every Nopah on this reservation. For I absolutely know that Blucher will oppose any Indian help to the United States army. I read a letter he wrote to a German in New York. He was typing it himself and when some one called him I read it. If I could only have secured a copy of it or have remembered it. But I was excited — shocked. Blucher is all German. If war is declared the situation here on this reservation will be a terrible one. Think how to meet that, Nophaie.

I have seen Gekin Yashi but once. She was in the school yard near the fence as I passed on my way here from Woltersons’. I got close to her before she saw me. Her face has altered strangely. It gave me a pang. For a second I felt that I could tear and rend.... When she espied me she ran. I called, but she paid no heed.

The Indian girl who was put in the maternity hospital here recently, gave birth to a child. She will be sent to Riverside — separated from her baby under the mandate of studying for five years before she can have it. Indian women love their babies. I hear Blucher has sent the father to jail. Various and weird the law of this reservation school!

I have no plans. I am waiting. You may be sure I’ll not leave the reservation. I might be taken off, but they’ll have to carry me. This winter is no great problem. I need rest and I want to write some. Later, if nothing comes up here, I might go out to Kaidab. In the spring I hope to see you, I want you to know that I meant what I said in Blucher’s office the day you confronted him and Morgan there. I would be happy to marry you and share what I have with you, and your life and work among your people. I have the means for a start. And we can work. I ask only that we spend some part of each year in California or the East. I have vanity enough not to let myself dry up in this desert air and blow away!

Time and trouble change character, do they not? I am the stronger for what has come to me out here. The desert is terrible. It destroys and then builds. I never knew what light was — the wonderful sun — and wind and dust and heat — stars and night and silence — the great emptiness — until I came to the desert. Perhaps so with love!

Somehow I will endure the long silence, for you must not risk writing me yet. I will dream of you — see you among the rocks. Always, as long as I live, rocks and walls of stone will have thrilling and sad significance for me.

Benow di cleash.

Nophaie gazed in seeming terror at the stupendous wall of stone opposite. He could not see either of its corners or its base. Solid rock, impenetrable and immovable and insurmountable! The temptation that confronted him now was just as much a wall, a barrier, an overpowering weight.

Benow di cleash loved him. She would marry him. She would share all she had as she would share his life. Live with him! Belong to him alone!

The fact was a staggering blow. Here under the accusing eyes of his silent walls he had feeling that no other place could inspire. Loneliness had augmented his hunger for a mate. Nature importuned him for her right. And suddenly Nophaie found himself stripped bare of all ideals, chivalries, duties, of the false sophistries of his education, of the useless fetters of his unbelief.

Human being, man, Indian, savage, primitive beast — so he retrograded in the scale. As a human he aspired to martyrdom, as a man he sacrificed love, as an Indian he steeped his soul in noble exaltation, as a savage he felt only the fierce race of hot blood, as a primitive beast he struggled in the throes of hereditary instincts, raw and wild, ungovernable — the imperious and inscrutable law of nature.

While he lay motionless on that mossy bank it seemed the elemental — the natural — the mindless automaton of living flesh must win. There was nothing else in life. This staggering bundle of nerves, vessels, organs, blood, and bone that constituted his body had millions of cells, each one of which clamored for its right to completion, expression, reproduction. Death to cell, organ, body, individual, but life to the species! This instinct that Nophaie strove to kill was the strangest of all forces in the universe.

One terrible moment Nophaie lay there under the walls that seemed to thunder the meaning of nature. Then he sprang up to force this living body of his, this vehicle he abhorred, this beating, burning frame of blood- veined muscle, into violent and sustained effort, into exhausting physical activity that must bring subjugation of the instincts which threatened his downfall. He must win now — in this hour — or lose forever. Thought, reflection, reason, argument — these faded in his consciousness like pale vapors of mist when the blazing sun rose. Before he could think he must subdue something in him, hydra- headed, multiple-lunged, insatiate instinct to project his life into another life. Nophaie refused that species of self-preservation. If it was instinct that maddened him and instinct that he fought, it was also instinct that sent him out to move, to run, to climb.

There were none of his race to see him, to bring their medicine men to exorcise the evil spirits which possessed him. Only the silent walls had eyes to watch him in his terror.

Nophaie ran. He leaped the brook. From bowlder to bowlder he bounded. Along the grassy benches, under the looming ledges, over the washes, through the thickets, up the canyon he sped with that incomparable stride of the Indian runner trained under the great masters of college athletics. Strange place for the famous athlete who had delighted the crowds — who had heard their trampling, pealing roar when he ran! The white man had trained him — the white man had educated him. But it was now the Indian nature that gave Nophaie the instinct to run away from himself.

He halted at his camp long enough to lay aside the precious letter from Benow di cleash. He did not want to soil that white paper with its beautiful and appalling words of love. All his life he must keep them. And he feared them now. Again the shuddering of his flesh, the burning of the marrow of his bones. Out he ran — straight for the notch of the canyon — with wild eyes on the white- towered wall of Nothsis Ahn. No Indian had ever surmounted that wall. But Nophaie would surmount it or perish in the attempt. To see afar over the desert, to pray and to absolve himself, the Indian had always climbed high.

Nophaie’s moccasined feet padded softly over the bare stone slope. He ran up the long wavy red mound, and from its round dome, where often he had watched the eagles and the sunset, he put his keen vision to the task of finding a way to climb the north face of Nothsis Ahn. There were a hundred intricate zigzag ascents up that mountain wall, not one of which seemed possible for man.

Down the waved knoll Nophaie ran, light and sure as a wildcat, and over the wide area of bare rock to the main base of the wall.

There he began to climb in a long slant, up the brown smooth incline, veined and striped, and around the headed corners, and back to a long slant in the other direction, up and up by these zigzag courses, to the curved and rolling rim of red, where began the vast slow heave of the white amphitheater.

All this slope was wind-swept, bare, soft to the foot, a white stone that disintegrated under force; and it was like a rolling sea slanted on end. Levels, mounds, benches, ridges, holes, gorges, all rounded and smooth, with never a crack or cutting edge or loosened fragment, passed by under Nophaie’s swift steps. Impetuosity and passion drove him. He climbed on, gradually slowing to the steeper ascent. From far below this white amphitheater had appeared what it was not. Its dimensions magnified with approach. A line of cleavage seen from below was on nearer view a great wide dip in the ocean slope of rock. Nophaie’s detours consumed miles of travel. To and fro across the corrugated face of this mountain wall he traveled, always climbing higher. A rare cold atmosphere, thin in oxygen, further slowed his efforts. Climbing grew hard. He no longer ran. He sweat, he burned, he panted. He saw only the stone under his feet and the gray looming towers above, still seemingly as unattainable as ever.

Along the last circling ledge of the amphitheater he worked around to the bold rugged bluff, surmounted it, and climbed into a world of cliffs, precipices, promontories, sharp and jagged and jutting in strange contrasts to the waved and heaved ascent he had accomplished. Here he had exercise for the eye of an eagle, the leap of a mountain sheep, the sure- footedness of a goat. Far back on the other side of the towers he worked, finding them still high above him, still unscalable. On and upward he toiled, and at last reached a point where the huge white-towered abutment joined the bulk of Nothsis Ahn. Nothing of this was visible to eye below in the valley. He had ascended to the white crags that stood out and up to hide all but the dome of the mountain. Nophaie pulled himself up, he let himself down, he leaped fissures, he crept along abysmal chasms blue in depth, he rimmed the base of crags, and climbed around and between them.

Out of the zone of white pillars and turrets at last! Level with the nests of eagles! Nophaie stood at the base of the weathered slope of Nothsis Ahn, the track of the avalanches, the tilted level of loose rocks; and he looked almost straight up to the green band of timber and the glistening dome of snow. If climbing had been difficult and hazardous before, now it was approaching the impossible. Nophaie sent the rocks sliding below him; he started the slides into avalanches. He loosened the slopes above him. He performed miracles of agility, speed, and endurance. Like the Indian masters of the legends, he consorted with eagles, bounded with the feet of the wind, and swung on the edges of the clouds.

Snow and spruce halted Nophaie, a forest of evergreens, matted and webbed into impenetrable windfalls, buried deep in the white ice of the heights. He could not go higher. At the edge of the snow line, on a gray brow of rock, he built a monument, so that it would be visible to eye of Indian from below. But he offered no prayer to the god of the mountain.

In the piercing cold of that altitude, blown upon by the strong northwind, Nophaie gazed out and down upon the naked earth below. Dim, abysmal, obscure the depths from which he had toiled! Beauty and color were naught. Distance was lost. The great canyons were dark purple threads. Over all the immensity of ghastly desert brooded a spirit of desolation and death and decay. The sun blazed down a terrible truthfulness of light.

What Nophaie had climbed so desperately for seemed never to have been. He had spent the forces of his nature — the physical instincts. For that hour, perhaps forever, he had conquered. On the heights came a regurgitation of emotion, a flashing back of thought. There was blood on the worn edges of his moccasins; his finger nails were worn to the quick. The ache in his bones, the pang in his lungs, the deadness of his muscles attested to the nature of that climb. Hours could be measured as years!

Long after dark that night Nophaie dragged his bruised and weary body into camp, there to crawl into his bed and stretch his limbs, as if never to move them again. Sleep and rest, for days and nights, restored his strength, yet he knew that climb had been the supreme physical effort of his life. The strain of a hard football game had been as nothing. A hundred-mile run across the desert had been as nothing. Likewise Nophaie realized that he could never again climb the north wall of Nothsis Ahn. Powerful, fleet, sure, agile, enduring, keen- sighted and Indian-sinewed as he was, these faculties did not alone account for that superhuman task. The very inspiration for the climb had receded somehow, dimmed and paled back into the secret and mystic springs of his nature. But as the days and nights multiplied in the shadow of the silent walls Nophaie learned that the noble proof of his love for Marian was not in surrender to it. He would not drag her down to his level. Utterly impossible for him was a life among white men. He had been wronged, robbed, deprived of his inheritance. He saw the incredible brutality and ruthlessness of white men toward his race. He saw that race vanishing. He was the Vanishing American. He had no God, no religion, no hope. That strange hope born there in the canyon had been burned out in the fire kindled by Marian’s offer of love. Nature had fostered that hope. It had deluded him. It had been a veiled beautiful face lifted to him.

The silent walls heard Nophaie’s denial — and how strange a light gleamed on their faces! Benow di cleash loved him and he must break her heart. But grief would give her strength that his burden could never give. Nature in her inscrutable way had drawn Nophaie and the white girl together; and no doubt that merciless Nature divined a union which would further her evolutional designs. Nature recognized no religion, no God. Nature desired only birth, reproduction, death, in every living creature. Love was the blind and imperious tool of Nature. How could that love endure with age and death?

Days passed into weeks and weeks into months. Three times the Pahute came, and three times a white, thick letter stormed Nophaie’s soul — yet left him stronger.

He measured the passing of winter by the roar of wind on the slope of Nothsis Ahn, by the circling back of the sun, by the earlier dawns, by the hot days and the peeping of frogs at nightfall. He lived that swiftly flying time in his simple camp tasks, in wandering and climbing as if the unattainable would one day be his, in dreaming of Marian and writing thoughts and experiences for her, in study of the nature of his stone-walled retreat.

Not until a late day of his sojourn there did he explore the one remaining arm of canyon. What was his amaze and regret to find it beyond comparison with any of the others.

Three miles or more of exceedingly rough travel brought Nophaie to a point where this canyon changed its color, its height and width, its bed, its skyline, its every feature. Nophaie named it “Canyon of Gleams.” Its hue was the strange one of pale marble in the moonlight; its height sheerly perpendicular and incredible; its width six feet at the base, gradually widening in V-shape to perhaps fifty feet at the top; its bed was solid, smooth, grayish rock hard as iron, worn into deep smooth ruts by the rushing stream; and its skyline was a long, even, straight lane of blue as far as Nophaie could see. No bird, no lizard, no beetle or bee, no frog or insect, no living creature or sprig of vegetation crossed Nophaie’s vision. The hollow, reverberating, mocking voice of the stream was the only sound that could be heard. There was no wind. The uneven stream bed gleamed, the water gleamed, the walls gleamed, the band of sky gleamed.

Nophaie penetrated this gigantic split in the vast bulk of rock until his progress was impeded by a further narrowing of the canyon and a depth of water that would make it necessary to swim if he went on. By placing a foot on each wall and hitching himself up Nophaie reached a height from which he could see that the canyon extended a long way, with increasing obstacles. Did he hear a faint roar of waterfall? He determined to swim through there some day when the water lost its edge of ice.

This Canyon of Gleams grew to have an insatiable fascination for Nophaie. He wandered there often, never to find it altogether the same. The hollow bellow of water never changed. But all else! No direct sunlight ever penetrated that colossal rent. At night it was so black he had to feel his way out to the open part. Afternoon seemed the most wonderful there, by reason of some conformation of the rims above reflecting a thick, rich, tangible, gleaming light with tinge of gold. The gleams of water and wall were as mutable as the shades of sunset. Here Nophaie felt least the encroachment of the white man, the dominance of his knowledge, the loss of faith, the sacrifice of love, the imminence of unabatable grief.

The vast walls pressed close upon him, to give him the fear they might suddenly slip together and bury him forever in the bowels of the rock-ribbed earth. They were not dead things, these walls. They had a spiritual power, and were more beautiful than paintings. Indeed they seemed to be painted windows through which the soul of nature gleamed. Silent — always silent to Nophaie yet full of unuttered sounds! The Indian in him was comrade of the rocks. The earth was his mother. And all the sands of the sea and grains of the desert were rock, the vast upheaved magnificence of Nothsis Ahn was rock, and the desert. The earth itself was rock, and rock its foundations. Therefore the solid wall was his mother and the gleams were her smiles and the silence her unutterable voices.

Spring! The water of the brook swelled and lost its green for hint of yellow; the frogs changed their peeping to solemn croak and sweeter trill. The white primrose and the lavender daisy bloomed in sunny places. Blades of grass shot up as if by magic and the cottonwoods lost their gray. Nophaie grew restive. The hold of the silent walls lessened. In him were contending tides. Silence and solitude had dragged him to the verge. Forgetfulness, and the thoughtlessness of the Indian, had closely infringed upon his memory. Nature had importuned with all her insidious and supreme mastery over the senses. Hate and unbelief had trampled in vain on his soul. He was still free.

The day came when a loud call awoke the drowsy echoes of the silent canyon. It startled Nophaie. That had not been the voice of an Indian. Had the long solitude worked upon his mind? Nophaie ran to the wide gateway between the red walls. He saw horses, mules with packs, an Indian — and then out from the shade of a cedar strode Withers, mopping his heated face.

Nophaie ran to the wide gateway between the red walls.

“Howdy, Nophaie!” he said, with smile and earnest gaze. “You look fine.”

Nophaie stirred to the warmth of the trader’s close handclasp. He returned it and that was all his response. Utterance seemed difficult. Long had his voice been silent. Besides, Withers bore a look of intense strain. He was thinner, older. A suppressed passion seemed rampant in him.

“Come out of the sun,” said Withers, turning. “It’s hot and I’ve ridden hard.”

A LOUD CALL AWOKE THE DROWSY ECHOES OF THE SILENT CANYON. NOPHAIE RAN TO THE GATEWAY BETWEEN THE WALLS. HE SAW HORSES, MULES WITH PACKS, AN INDIAN

Nophaie followed him to a seat on a flat rock in the shade. The moment seemed to hinge on strange events. The trader’s presence might mean that which must add to Nophaie’s burden.

“Throw saddles and packs right here,” said Withers to the Indian who had come with him. “Nophaie, where is your horse?”

“Gone,” replied Nophaie. “I have not seen him for a long time.”

“I figured on that and I fetched one for you.”

“Withers, why did you bring me a horse?” queried Nophaie, conscious of an inward tremor.

“Because I think you’ll hit the trail back with me,” replied the trader, significantly.

“Has anything happened to Marian?”

“Sure — a lot’s happened. But she’s O.K. — well and fine.”

“Withers, it’s a long rough ride here. You’ve got a strong reason for coming yourself. Tell me.”

“Strong! Wal, it sure is strong,” retorted the trader, grimly.

“Why did you come?” demanded Nophaie.

“War!” flashed Withers.

In one bound Nophaie was on his feet, transfixed and thrilling.

“No!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, by God!” returned the other, and he too rose from his seat. A steel- gray flinty light shone from his eyes.

“Germany — and the United States?”

“Nophaie, you’ve said it!”

“Blucher — and the Indians?” Nophaie’s voice was quick and ringing.

“I haven’t a damned word to say about Blucher,” burst out Withers, passionately. “But I’ll tell you a few facts outside the reservation.... Germany sunk the Lusitania with American men, women, and children aboard.... She has torpedoed American trading vessels — threatened and bullied President Wilson — insulted the American flag.... Then she sent submarines to our very shores.... The President and Congress have declared war!”

Nophaie recalled Marian’s letters. Certain passages now seemed limned on his memory in letters of fire! — German militarism! Downfall of civilization! Death of freedom! Slavery of Americans! — By every right and law and heritage he- -Nophaie — was the first and best blood of America. The depths of his whole soul roused to strange fierce passion.

Withers held out a shaking hand.

“My son has gone,” he said, thickly. “Already!... He did not wait for the draft.”

“Draft! What is that?”

“A new law. A war law. Every young man between twenty-one and thirty-one is called to army and navy — to fight for his country.”

“Will this draft affect the Indians?” queried Nophaie, sharply.

“No. They can’t be drafted. But the government has appealed to all Indians to register. That means, as I understand it, an enrolling of the names and numbers of Indians — their horses and stock, so that the government can have this information for reference — for some use that is not clear to me. We’re all drawn into the war — whites and Indians. But no Indian can be compelled to go to war.”

“Can they go if they want?”

“Yes. And the call is strong for Indians to enlist.”

“I will go!”

Withers forced that shaking hand down on Nophaie’s shoulder, where it gripped hard. For an instant speech was beyond him. How strange the agitation of his rugged face! The unplumbed passions of the man had been upheaved.

“Nophaie, you don’t have to enlist. You owe nothing to the people of the United States. They have wronged you.”

“I am an American,” replied Nophaie sonorously.

“I didn’t come to ask you to go to war,” responded Withers, in earnest passion. “But I came to tell you this... the Nopahs are being lied to. They do not understand the idea of registering. They are being made to believe it is a ruse, a trick to get their names, their thumb marks on paper. They are being deceived into believing this register is only another white man lie — and if they sign they can be drafted.... Old Etenia met me on the way here. He said: ‘If the Big Chief at Washington wants my young braves for war why did he not ask them to go? The Nopahs have been warriors. But never have they been forced to fight.’ Another old Indian said, ‘Let the Germans kill all the Americans. Then we can get our land back and live in peace.’... Nophaie, this tribe of yours numbers over twenty thousand. They must not be made to believe they can be unjustly driven to war. The truth must be told them. This false rumor of government treachery — this damned propaganda must not spread further.”

Nophaie understood why the trader’s lips were sealed as to what he knew. Marian had prepared Nophaie for understanding of this fostering of hostility among the Indians.

“I will tell the Nopahs the truth,” he said. “I will take Indians with me to war.”

CHAPTER XVII

NOPHAIE BADE A long farewell to his Canyon of Silent Walls. At the eastern portal — high above the narrow defile between ragged cliffs — he gazed down at the green valley with its wavy confines of red, and fixed that picture on his memory forever. A faint cold sensation — was it tremor or sinking of heart? went over him. Was it mystic portent that he would never again dream under those silent gleaming walls? He cast out the vague thought.

He and Withers made a record ride to the camp of the Pahutes, where they stayed overnight. Nophaie began his work there. None of the few Pahute men present, however, came within the prescribed limits of the war demands.

Another day brought Nophaie and the trader across the upland sage to the range of Etenia. The old Nopah had sons and relatives, and more horses and cattle than any other Indian in this quarter of the reservation. It was important that he be persuaded to accede to the act Withers had called registration.

Nophaie found himself received with a respect and deference. It augured well for the success of his new work among the Indians. Nophaie sought council with Etenia, which was granted; and the old Indian asked the honor of the trader’s presence. Nophaie had gone over in mind an exhortation he believed to be honest, eloquent, and persuasive, and which he believed would appeal to the Indians. This he delivered to Etenia with all the force he could muster.

The old Nopah smoked in silence. He had been deeply impressed, and could not at once reply to such a strong discourse. At last he spoke.

“Nophaie sees with the mind of the white man — far and wide. He should sit in the councils of the Nopahs. Etenia believes and will register his name. He will sell cattle and horses to the government. He will say to his sons— ‘One of you shall go fight for America, for the white people, for the land where they keep us.’ Etenia will say his sons shall draw lots for him who is to go to war.”

That night Etenia had all his sons and relatives at his hogan in honor of Nophaie and to hear him speak. He ordered a feast to which Withers was invited. They ate and made merry and sang. Then the old Nopah rose to address the assembly. He was solemn and austere, darkly impassive, chieftainly in his dignity.

“Sons — and sons of my people — Etenia has come to many years. He has worked hard and he is rich. He owes no white man so much as a silver button. He owes no Indian.... Etenia has not the wisdom of the gods. He cannot heal like the medicine men. Etenia’s age makes him want to trust younger men. Therefore has he heeded Nophaie.

“Our white Father at Washington has declared war on a wicked people far across the broad water where the sun rises. These wicked people are warriors. They have long worked at the arts of war — they have long made guns and bullets and powder to prepare for war.... For three years now they have fought their neighbors — the white peoples who have sought to live in peace. And they are driving these good peoples out of their homes, killing men, women, and children. They will win the war unless our white Father at Washington sends many young warriors across the broad waters.

“Lies have been told us. Etenia’s sons do not have to go to war. The white men who have spread such lies are snakes in the grass. Their forefathers belonged to that wicked people who practice war. They are not Americans. They are not friends of the Indian.

“Etenia’s people are asked to register — to give their names to the government — and the number of their horses and cattle. Etenia believes Nophaie and the white trader. These men are not liars. Nophaie will ride over the ranges to carry truth to those who are being deceived. Etenia will register and he tells his sons and all Indians to follow in his footsteps. He will give one of his sons to go to war with Nophaie.”

Then Nophaie rose to make his address, deeply stirred by the words of Etenia. And with ringing voice he damned the evil force at work on the reservation, and brought home to the dark, still-faced Nopahs the truth of the real danger that menaced them. He did not appeal directly to the Indians to enlist. But he finished his speech with a trenchant statement of his own stand.

“Nophaie will go to war. Nophaie and all the Nopahs are the first of Americans. He will fight for them. And he will believe he is fighting no more for the white people than he is fighting for the Indian and his land.”

When lots were drawn among the sons of Etenia it turned out that the youngest, the favorite of the old Nopah, the joy of his declining years, must be the one to go with Nophaie.

“Etenia says it is well,” declared the father, with lofty pride.

At Kaidab there was a crowd of Indians, and an unrest and excitement totally new and strange to the trading post.

Nophaie found the white people stirred and upset, under the stress of an emotion that none could control. Nophaie talked with all of them. The trader’s wife showed the strain of worry, and a mother’s fear for her son, and a suppressed anger and concern over the Indian situation. The Indians were excited. They collected in little groups and talked. Every hour saw more Nopahs ride into the trading post, and Nophaie found them sullen, distrustful, and hard to approach. But for his late rise to the dignity of one worth listening to he could not have gotten their ear at all. A subtle and powerful influence had been at work among them. Nophaie had guessed its origin and he discovered how and by whom it was being propagated. He realized at once that he had been too late to influence the Indians in a body and would have a difficult task to persuade them to register, let alone go to war. Nevertheless, he did not allow this unfortunate circumstance to deter him from his great task.

At the outset of his activities he encountered Shoie, the binder of evil spells on Indian women. Nophaie was about to pass him in contempt. But suddenly he halted. This Indian was young, strong, a keen scout, a wonderful breaker and tracker of horses. His mentality might be one to adapt itself readily to war. Nophaie meant to leave no stone unturned.

“Shoie, I am going to fight for the Americans,” he said, in the Nopah tongue. “You are a warrior. Will you go with me?”

“Shoie will fight for Nophaie,” replied the Indian, with a gleam in his dark eyes.

For days Nophaie haunted the trading post and importuned the visiting Indians. His dogged efforts earned success, but nothing that satisfied him. Always he gained the attention and the respect now due him; only he encountered the wall of doubt that, once raised in an Indian’s mind, was almost impossible to break down. One old Nopah said, “All white man are liars!” Another Indian said, “No white man can lie to me twice.”

The government idea of registration met with subtle and powerful check. Nophaie could not learn from any Indian just what was the content of the hostile propaganda. He guessed, however, that the idea of registering had been falsely represented to the Indians, and it was just such an idea that would stick in their minds.

Nophaie decided that it would be wise for him to ride out over the reservation and head off this German propaganda. He had intended that in any event, but now he saw he must make haste. Yet he was loath to abandon Kaidab with only seventeen Indian names promised for registration and but three for service. Withers’s comment on this was significant.

“Nophaie, you’ve done well.”

At this juncture Nophaie received another letter from Marian, and it acted as a spur. Affairs were at white heat in Mesa — all relative to the war. Nophaie must do his utmost to counteract German influence among the Indians. Marian knew he would do his noblest and then go to France to fight for his country. She had spent some time at Flagerstown and was as well and strong as she had ever been. There now would surely be work for her on the reservation. The war had opened avenues for women. But whatever work fell to her lot, he was to understand that she would come to him, if he could not come to her, before he went to training camp. Somehow her words made Nophaie’s heart swell with the thought of the part he could play for her in war.

And there was a concluding passage in the letter that made his blood boil in fury against the sordid malignity of those in control at Mesa. Nophaie read this passage over again.

My beautiful white mustang, Nopah, is dead! He had to be shot. Oh! it nearly broke my heart!... Wolterson has been compelled to make blood tests for tuberculosis in Indian horses. He said he never would have touched Nopah. But Blucher saw my horse and ordered the test. Wolterson made it and reported Nopah’s blood perfectly healthy. All the same, Rhur came over and shot him.

Nophaie rode out into the desert on his mission, and few were the hogans he missed. It would be impossible for him to cover all of the reservation, and he did not have many weeks before he must report for service. But he rode fast, far, and late. Most of the Nopahs in that vicinity now had heard of his stand and were ready to listen to him. Every name added to his list strengthened his cause. Slowly the list grew and with it his influence. If only he could have forestalled the German! Nophaie thrilled to his heart. He could have led a regiment of Nopahs — strong, young, fierce, hard-riding desert-bred Indians to war. The thought of being too late was sickening. It goaded him on to ride faster and farther to find Nopahs who had not been deceived.

One after another, as the days passed swiftly, he found young braves who would be guided by him. He gave these instructions and knew they would keep their word. Of the hundreds of Nopahs he approached, only one here and there would listen. Those who yielded to his persuasion were mostly free young men, sick of reservation life and restriction. Grateful for their falling in line to swell his list, Nophaie rode on and on. Many a mustang he left spent at a hogan in exchange for another willingly lent him. Never a Nopah but accorded him welcome at nightfall. His quest was that of a warrior and a chieftain, even though his people could not follow him.

Thus as time flew by, fleet as the hoofs of Nophaie’s mustangs, he gradually worked into territory new to him, far across the great mesa to the east, where he was not known. Here he had less trouble to find converts, but the country was more sparsely inhabited. The active propaganda had not taken root among these Nopahs.

One afternoon near sunset Nophaie reached a small trading post kept by a squaw man. The last Indian Nophaie had interrogated had bidden him ride in haste to this post. Mustangs exceeding a score in number were standing haltered and loose before the squat red-stone house. But no Indians were in sight. Dismounting, Nophaie went to the door and looked in. He saw the backs and black- banded sombreros of a crowd of Indians all attentive to the presence of a white man sitting on the high counter. That white man was Jay Lord.

Nophaie stole in unobserved and kept behind the Indians. He listened. Lord was lighting a cigarette. Evidently he had either paused in his harangue or had not yet begun. The careless air of the erstwhile Jay Lord seemed wanting. Nonchalance did not rest upon his round, dark face this day. Indeed, Nophaie was quick to grasp a weary and furtive irritation. And the strain that showed in all white men’s eyes these days was not wanting in Lord’s.

“Indians, listen,” began Lord, in fluent Nopah. “Blucher has sent me out all over the reservation to tell you not to register. Don’t put your names or thumb marks on any paper. If you do your horses and cattle will be taken and you will have to go to war. There’s no law to compel Indians to fight. You can’t be forced to go. But if you sign papers — if you register — the government will have you bound. Then you’ve got to go. This register order is not what it seems. It’s an old government trick to fool you. You’ve been fooled before. Listen to your real friends and don’t register.”

When he concluded his harangue there followed an impressive silence. Then an old Nopah, lean and wrinkled and somber, addressed the speaker.

“Let the white man tell why Blucher sends him. If the government lies to the Indians — to make warriors of them — then Blucher lies too, for he is the government.”

“Blucher is a friend of the Nopahs,” replied Lord. “He does not think the registration is honest. The government has made a law to drive young white men to war. It does not hesitate to cheat the Indians for the same reason.”

The ensuing silence of a moment seemed pregnant with the conviction of the Indians. Presently another of them moved forward. He leaped on the counter. He too was old, a scar-faced Indian, with fierce, dark mien. He shook a sinewy hand at the young men before him.

“Hagoie will kill any Nopah here who registers!” he thundered.

That appeared to end the speech-making, for all the Indians began to jabber excitedly. Nophaie took advantage of the moment to slip outdoors. Twilight had fallen. He walked to a corral near the house and sat down out of sight to wait for darkness and to think. He did not intend to let Lord get away from that post without being confronted. He had noticed that he was packing a gun. Therefore it would be policy to surprise him. Nophaie argued dispassionately that he had good cause to kill Lord aside from the possibility of self- defense.

In twos and threes the Indians came out of the trading post to mount their horses and ride away into the gloom of the desert. Soon Nophaie felt that he could venture close to the house. At an opportune moment he approached and leaned in the shadow of the stone wall. More Indians came out, until there appeared only a few left. Then, as Nophaie had hoped for, Jay Lord came out the door with the squaw-man. The latter was speaking. Evidently Lord was going to see about his horse.

“I’m married to a Nopah squaw — shore,” said the trader, with a hint of wrath, “but I ain’t no Indian — nor fool, either. I didn’t like your talk about this register order.”

“Ahuh! Wal, be damn good and certain you keep your dislikes to yourself,” growled Lord. “Otherwise you won’t last long here.”

The squaw-man retired into his house and Lord strode toward his horse.

Nophaie glided after him. Then just as Lord reached for his bridle he must have heard something, for he stiffened. Nophaie pressed his gun against Lord’s side and said low and sharp.

“Don’t move your hands. If you do I’ll kill you.”

“Nophay?” ejaculated Lord, hoarsely.

“Yes — Nophaie.”

“Wal — what you want?”

“Listen.... I heard your talk to the Indians. I know now what has influenced them all over the reservation. It’s German propaganda — and you’re Blucher’s mouthpiece. You’re no better than a German yourself. You’re a traitor. Do you hear me?”

“Hell! I ain’t deaf,” growled Lord, straining to hold himself stiff. His face now made a pale blotch in the gloom.

“Lord, this talk of yours is treason,” went on Nophaie, “Do you have to be told that by an Indian?... If I had time I could get Nopahs, and white men too, who’d help me prove your guilt. But I want all my time left to undo your dirty work. I’m going to war — to fight for your country.... Now here, if you don’t quit spreading these propaganda lies for Blucher I’ll ride to Flagerstown and enlist. Then I’ll come back on the reservation. I’ll be an American soldier, outside the law. Blucher can’t touch me or hold me.... And I’ll kill you — Lord — I swear I will!... Do you believe me?”

“Wal, I reckon I do,” replied Lord, gruffly. “An’ if you want to know, I’ll give you a hunch I’m damn glad to be scared off this job.”

“Just the same — get on that horse and keep your back to me,” ordered Nophaie.

In another moment Lord, cursing under his breath, was in the saddle. A hard, leathery thud and jangle attested to his use of spurs. The horse plunged away to be enveloped by the darkness.

Nophaie stayed at the squaw-man’s house for two days, and all his earnest talks to the Indians who visited the post failed signally to overcome the insidious poison spread by Jay Lord.

To Nophaie’s dismay he found that the farther he penetrated into this part of the reservation the colder were the Nopahs to his solicitations.

Hot weather came. The desert summer lay like a blanket over sage and mesa and sand. All the mornings dawned cool and pleasant, with the sky clear and blue, the sun a glorious burst of gold, and the desert a rolling open land of color. But as soon as the sun tipped the eastern mesa the heat veils began to rise from the sand. Toward noon white, creamy clouds rose above the horizon, to mushroom and spread and grow dark, eventually to let down the gray winding curtains of rain. Each thunderstorm had its rainbow, and there were times when Nophaie rode down a vast shingle of desert with rainbows and storms on the horizon all around him while upon his head the hot sun fell. Many a storm he weathered, grateful for the gray wet pall out of which he emerged drenched to the skin.

At length Nophaie headed his horse back toward the west and the country he knew best. One whole day he rode along the rim of a deep blue canyon, before he could cross. Many a day he went hungry, and slept where night overtook him.

At the Indian hogans east and south of Mesa Nophaie ran into conditions not heretofore experienced by him. As the taint of white civilization began to be more pronounced here, so was the agitation incident to the war. Nophaie did not find the groups of excited Indians sympathetic to his cause. These Nopahs close to the borders of civilization and the railroad were markedly different from the Nopahs far to the north. Rumors had been spread all over that section — enforcement of the draft, confiscation of stock and wool, seizing of all firearms. Blucher’s minions had done their underhand job well. Nophaie saw more drunken Indians in little time than he had ever seen before in all his rides over the reservation. Many were selling wool to the traders, in a hurry to dispose of it. Prosperity was at its peak. But an ominous shadow lowered over the desert. The Indians seemed to feel it. Their work was neglected. Crowds of Indians rode into Flagerstown, to return with their minds chaotic. The fever of the whites communicated itself to the red men. The medicine men predicted dire troubles for the Nopahs.

Nophaie’s passionate dream of leading thousands of Indians to war had to be dispelled. His tireless labors resulted in upward of two score of Nopahs signing their thumb marks to his paper. Word came to him from various sources that Indians were enlisting in the army, but he could not verify this until he got out of the desert. A terrible bitterness at the government worked on him. In war time what was the secret of holding a German spy to an important post, where he could undermine the faith of thousands of Indians who would have made great soldiers? What stolid ignorance and blindness on the part of government officials! Blucher was guilty of treachery and treason. He had been just keen enough to grasp the fact that these Nopahs could and would fight for America. And he had deceived them, adding to their already weary disgust at falsehood and falsehood. Nophaie saw the truth in all its appalling nakedness. He realized what might have been possible with the proud fierce young Nopahs. A great page of American history — an Indian army joining the white man in battle for liberty — would never be written. Nophaie had the vision. He loved his people. He knew their wonderful qualities for war. They might have made — they would have made — a glorious record, and have paid the government good for evil. Heroism for injustice! They would have earned citizenship in the United States. What magnificent opportunity lost! Lost! Nophaie’s heart burned with hatred for the German who had ruined the noblest opportunity that had ever confronted his people.

“I should have killed Blucher,” muttered Nophaie. “No service I can render now will ever be one-thousandth as great as that would have been.”

Nophaie rode into Mesa, there to take farewell of Marian. Long he had dreaded this and thrust it from his mind. But now with his work ended, and the near approach of the date set for him and his Nopahs to enlist, he had to think of her.

Much as he yearned to see Marian, he was greatly relieved to learn from Paxton that she was in Flagerstown and would expect him there. She had left Nophaie a short note, telling him where to find her, and she entreated him not to tarry long at Mesa.

Nophaie had need of that entreaty. Never in his life before had he been the victim of the dark and terrible mood now fastened upon him. The wrath roused in him by the murder of Do etin and his ambushment by the Noki, and the tragedy of poor little Gekin Yashi, had not been the same as this, now so murky and hot in his soul. The idea of war had liberated something deep and latent in Nophaie. The menace to the fair seaboard of the United States, which he remembered so well, the encroachment of an utterly unscrupulous enemy, had stung and roused in him the instinctive savageness of his nature.

It was in this mood that Nophaie reached Mesa, and the pathos of Marian’s letter and the proximity of Blucher and Morgan only added fuel to the smoldering fire.

Nophaie made no effort to hide. He was in reality an American soldier. He had ridden thousands of miles in the service of the army. No reservation jail, no jail at Flagerstown, could hold him now. Freely he mingled with the Indians at the trading post. An unusual number were there, some drunk, all excited, and a few were bound for Flagerstown, on the same errand as Nophaie. The mail carrier had two of them engaged as passengers, and readily agreed to take Nophaie. It was a five-hour run by automobile. Nophaie thrilled to his depths. Five hours only — then Benow di cleash! He gazed from the stone step of the trading post, out across the sand and brush of the mesa, away over the stark and painted steppes of the desert to the unflung black-peaked range of mountains. Benow di cleash would be there. Already the sun had begun its western slant, and when it touched the horizon rim he would see the white girl.

Ought he not see Gekin Yashi? The thought flayed him. No! That would be the last straw added to the burden of his hate for Morgan and Blucher.

Nophaie took no part in the jabbering of the Indians around him, but sat back behind them on the stone steps, his sombrero pulled down to hide his face. There he smoked his cigarette in silence, brooding and dark in his mind. When school recess time came and the Indian boys ran to and fro like blue- ginghamed little automatons, Nophaie watched them from under the brim of his sombrero. What would be their future? And then when beyond them, through the fence he espied the brown-faced black-haired little Indian girls, each of them a Gekin Yashi for some Nopah, he looked no more.

An automobile thrummed up the road from Copenwashie and stopped before the trading post. Two white men beside the driver occupied it. One of them was Blucher. Had that round bullet face thinned out? Nophaie felt the leap of his blood. Blucher and his companion got out of the car and climbed the stone steps, in earnest conversation not distinguishable to Nophaie. But as the superintendent passed to enter the trading post Nophaie could have reached out a long arm to touch him.

Kill him now! The whisper ran through Nophaie’s being. It was a flame. Almost it precluded thought. Could he serve his America or his own people in any better way than to kill this German? No! All Nophaie’s intelligence justified his passion. What matter if civilization beyond the confines of the desert knew nothing of this man’s iniquity? Nophaie knew. What matter if the callous and mighty government machine never knew — or knowing would not care — or blindly wound in its red-tape and infinite ignorance — hanged Nophaie for his deed? Nophaie knew. There were things outside of reason or self-interest. But the face of Benow di cleash rose in Nophaie’s reddening sight, and he was again master of himself.

Presently Blucher and his attendant came out, accompanied by Paxton, who appeared to be talking about flour he had exchanged for wool. Blucher stood for a moment at the doorstep. Again Nophaie could have reached him. And all the burning fires of hell in Nophaie’s heart were smothered into abeyance of his love for a white woman. Just to save her pain he sacrificed the supreme and only savage lust of his life. Once he was all Indian. How easy to kill this man! What inexplicable emotion quivered to the thought! To rise — to fling his sombrero — to thrust a gun into this traitor’s abdomen — to eye him with the eye of Indian ruthlessness and white man scorn — to free passion in the utterance: “Look, German! It is Nophaie! And your last vile moment of life has come!”

But Nophaie gave no outward sign of the storm within him. It passed, like a wind of death. And he marveled at the strange chances of life. Here stood this Blucher, utterly unaware of the presence of the Indian who had no fear of anything, who had waived murder by the breadth of a hair. Evil men there had been and still were in the world — men who knew the perils of life and had the nerve to gamble with them — but Blucher was not one of these. Morgan was a stronger man, as he was a greater villain, yet he too was as blind as a bat. Dead to something righteous and terrible in the souls of some men! The agent of the government and the missionary of the church were but little and miserable destroyers, vermin of the devil, with all their twisted and deformed mentality centered upon self.

Before sunset that day Nophaie was in Flagerstown and had dispatched a note to Marian. Before he started to meet her he had enlisted at the recruiting station and was a soldier of the United States army.

At the end of a street near the outskirts of town Nophaie found the number he was looking for. And as he mounted the porch of the little cottage Marian opened the door. Fair golden flash of face and hair! He did not see clearly, stumbling as he went in. Her voice sounded strange. Then they were alone in a little room with vague walls. Dread he had felt at prospect of this meeting, but he had not understood. He only wanted to spare her pain. This woman now, holding his hands, gazing with strained dark eyes of agony up at him, was remembered by her beloved fair face, but something in it was strange to him.

“Benow di cleash!” he said, unsteadily.

“Nophaie — lover — my Indian!... You are going to war,” she whispered, and threw her arms round his neck.

Even as Nophaie bent to her white face and to her lips, he grasped at the meaning of her singular abandon. One word had been enough. War! And he pitied her, and loved her as never before, and understood her, and clasped her close, and kissed her until she sank against him, pale and spent. To him her kisses, with all their sweetness of fire, called to his own lips only an austerity of farewell. Long ago, in his Canyon of Silent Walls, he had fought his battle against love. Here he was as strong, tranquil, grave as she was weak and passionate.

“Nophaie — when do you — go away?” she whispered.

“To-night at ten.”

“Oh! — So soon? — But you go first to training camp?” she queried, breathlessly.

“Yes.”

“You might not be sent abroad.”

“Benow di cleash, do not have false hopes. You want me to go to France. I’m fit now to fight. And it will not take long to make soldiers of my Nopahs.”

“That means the — the front line — the trenches — scout and sharpshooter duty — the most dangerous posts!” she cried, with a hand going to her mouth.

“Indians would not court the safe places, Benow di cleash. We are going — sixty-four Nopahs, most of whom I enlisted.”

Then he told her of his long rides and his importunities to beat Blucher’s influence, and of his failure. She warmed to that and in her anger at the treachery of the agent and her pride in Nophaie she passed by the more poignant moment of this meeting.

“I knew he was pro-German,” she said, with flashing eyes. “Yet strange to say he has strong friends here. Oh, this little town is out of its head. What must Philadelphia or New York be now?”

“If the Indians are excited, what must white men be?” replied Nophaie. “All this war feeling is bad, wild, terrible. But I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I—”

“Nothing to — to — lose,” she cried, suddenly sobbing, and again her arms flashed round his neck. “Nophaie — you have me to lose.... Don’t you love me still?”

“Love you! Child, you are beside yourself,” he replied, tenderly. He saw the havoc of war in this girl’s breaking of reserve and intensity of emotion. “Only to-day I proved my love to you, Benow di cleash.”

“How? Not to me — not yet.”

He told of the incident where Blucher passed within reach of his arm — at a crucial moment when all the savagery of Indian nature was in the ascendant, and he had denied it.

“Only thought of you kept me from killing him,” he concluded.

“Me! I’d have been glad,” she returned, with again that strange blaze in her eyes.

Nophaie realized anew that the white girl now presented a complexity of character perhaps beyond his comprehension. She who had been the one to save Blucher’s life now would have gloried in hearing of his death through her lover. This war spirit had unsettled her mind.

“Nophaie, let me follow you to New York — to France,” she begged.

“Let you follow me! Why, Benow di cleash — I couldn’t prevent you, but I implore against it.”

“I would never disobey you. Let me go. I can become a nurse — do Red Cross work — anything.”

“No. If you want to obey me — give me happiness — stay hereand go on helping my people until I come back — or—”

“Don’t say it,” she cried and shut his lips with hers. “I can’t bear the thought. Not yet. Maybe some courage will come to me after you have gone. I love you, Nophaie. A million times more since I came out here to your country. The desert has changed me. Listen, after you leave I will go East for awhile. But I promise I will come back here and work — and wait.”

“All is well, Benow di cleash,” he said. “I feel that I will come back.... Now let us go outside and walk. I cannot say good-by to you inside a house.”

Gold and purple clouds attended the last steps of sunset — a magnificent panorama along the western slope of the mountain range. At the end of a lane a low rocky eminence rose, the first lift toward the higher ground above the town. Stately pine trees grew there. Wide apart, rugged and brown, with their thick green tops, they appealed strangely to Nophaie. A solemn and beautiful and splendid emotion came to him as he walked under them with Marian. Strength seemed to have passed from him to her. She was growing calmer and assimilating something of his faith, of the mystic in him.

The warm summer air floated away, and the cool wind from the mountain took its place. The rosy afterglow of sunset faded into pale blue. A lonely star glimmered in the west. The great still pines grew black against the sky.

“Benow di cleash, when the Indian says at the end of his prayer, ‘All is well,’ he must mean just that. Your missionary never interprets any prayer as a submission to life, to nature. The white prayer is a fear of death — of what comes beyond. I have no fear of death, nor of what comes after — if anything does come. The only fear I have is for you — and such of my people as Gekin Yashi. Women of my race are marked for suffering. I deplore that. It is one of my atheistic repudiations of the white man’s God. There is enough physical suffering for women. Just last week when I stayed at a hogan I saw an Indian woman die in childbirth.... You must understand how gladly I welcome a chance to forget myself in a righteous war. I know the nature of fight — what violence does to the body — and if it does not kill me it will cure my trouble. Perhaps over there I may find the God I could not find in my silent canyons. Then there is the man — the Indian in me — rising up fierce and hard to fight. If all Germans are like Blucher I want to kill some of them.... You must not have one unhappy hour on account of my going to war. Think of me as an American soldier. Physical pain is nothing to me. I have played football with injuries that would have laid white men in the hospital. I welcome this chance to justify the Indian. Any Indian not steeped in his ancestral blindness and ignorance would be as I am now. So I bid you not be unhappy. If I live to come back to the reservation then you may have cause to be unhappy about me. For I know the war will bring misery and poverty and plague to my people. But be glad now that with all my misfortune I can rise above it and hate, and fight for you and your people. Love of you saved me from the dissolute life so strangely easy for the Indian among white people. It saved me to strive against my unbelief. And it has uplifted me to believe I may come somewheres near the noble Indian you have dreamed me.”

CHAPTER XVIII

AFTER NOPHAIE’S DEPARTURE Marian felt as if the end of all had come. She had not looked beyond this last meeting. And now with the poignant and stinging experiences in the past she seemed lost and broken- hearted. She fell into a terrible depression out of which she struggled with difficulty. The desert called her; the promise to Nophaie was a sacred obligation; but she could not at once return to her work among the Indians. She decided to go back East for a while.

The hour she arrived in Philadelphia she realized that outside of her need of change and the pleasure of old associations there was other cause for her to be glad she had returned.

Philadelphia, like other great cities, was in the throes of preparing for war. The fever of the war emotion had seized every one. The equilibrium of the staid and tranquil city of brotherly love had been upset. Marian found her relatives as changed as if many years had intervened between her departure and return. They had forgotten her. Each was obsessed by his or her peculiar relation to the war. The draft of a son or brother or nephew, the seeking of war offices, the shifting of trade to meet the exigencies of war demands — all these attitudes seemed personal and self-seeking. Many of Marian’s acquaintances, young men under thirty, in one way or another evaded the clutch of the service. Conduct such as this was thrown into relief by the eagerness with which others enlisted before the draft. Young women were finding the world changed for them. Every opportunity appeared thrust upon them, even to the extreme of donning khaki trousers and driving ambulances in France. Marian could have found a hundred positions, all more remunerative than any she had ever had. It was a time of stress. It was a time of intense emotional strain. It was a time when the nobility and selfishness of human nature were enhanced. It was a time that tried the souls of mothers. It was a time which called forth strange, deep and far-reaching instincts in young women. It was a time when many soldiers misused the glamour of their uniforms.

Marian had her own reasons for being personally and tremendously stirred by the war. That made her charitable and generous in her judgments of others. But the wildness and unrestraint she could not condone. She could not blame any girl for heedlessly rushing into marriage with a soldier — for she had yearned to marry Nophaie — but she was affronted and disgusted by the abandon she saw in so many young people. The war had given them a headlong impetus toward she knew not what.

Yet Marian felt this strange and terrible thing herself.

Why did her heart swell when she saw a soldier? Why did her eyes dim when she saw from her window a train-load of soldiers speeding toward New York? The spectacular sale of Liberty Bonds, the drives, the bazaars, the balls, the crowded theaters, the enlistment of half the graduating class of the University of Pennsylvania — in the midst of all this strange exalting atmosphere Marian found her reason for being glad she had come. No American should have failed to see and feel these days. The desert had isolated and insulated Marian, until it had seemed she was no longer a part of the great Republic. She had as much reason as any woman — except mother of a soldier — to be terribly drawn into the chaos of war times. Whenever she thought of Nophaie a shuddering possessed her internal body and she was sick. Yet there was a pride in him that was growing infinite.

Marian did her bit in the way of buying and selling bonds, and in Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross work. But for her promise to Nophaie to go back to the reservation she would have gone, like so many young women, to extremes of war enthusiasm. The urge to go to France was something hard to resist.

Nophaie’s letters were few and far between, and not what they had been out in the desert, but upon them Marian lived and sustained her hope. In September she went to the seashore to get away from the humidity and tainted air of the city, which, since her sojourn in the West, she could hardly endure. And she needed rest. She went to Cape May and haunted the places on the beach where she had been with Nophaie.

The restless bright Atlantic! Marian bathed in the surf and spent long hours upon the sand. This period was restful, yet it was singularly acute and living. The grand roll of the breakers, the thunder and boom, the white foam and the flying spindrift, the green heaving sea far out — these elements seemed to be understood better and appreciated more through her memory of the desert. But she loved the desert most; and every day the call of the wide colored wastes, the loneliness, and something she could not define, rang more insistently in her ears.

So time flew by, and autumn began to decline into winter. It took time for Marian to dispose of the little property she had, and following that came a letter from Nophaie telling her when he was to sail from New York for France. Marian went to New York in a vain hope of seeing him. But all she had of him was the sound of his voice over the telephone. For this she was unutterably grateful. The instant she had answered his “hello,” he had called: “Benow di cleash?” Then shaking all over there in the little booth, she had listened to his brief words of love and farewell.

She was one of the throng of thousands of women on the Hoboken docks when the huge liner left her moorings. Thousands of faces of soldiers blurred in Marian’s sight. Perhaps one of them was Nophaie. She waved to them and to him. She was only one of these thousands of women left behind to suffer and endure. This was harder for Marian than the farewell in Flagerstown.

White fluttering sea of waving handkerchiefs! Flash of ruddy boyish faces! These meant so much. They were so infinitely more than just incidents of life.

The keen bright winter sun shone down on the deck of weeping women, on the huge liner with its tan-colored fringe of human freight, on the choppy green- waved Hudson River, and the glitter of the city beyond.

Marian returned to Philadelphia with her spirit at lowest ebb and for once in her life fell prey to an apparently endless dejection. Besides, the cold wet climate had a bad effect upon her after the dry bracing desert. She suffered a spell of illness, and when she recovered from that she deemed it best to wait for spring before starting west. Meanwhile she went into war work. All of her notes on the reservation and the Indian school remained untouched. She had not the heart to rewrite them for publication. She read newspapers and periodicals upon the war until her mind was in a chaotic state. Once at least she was stung into specific realization and an agony of suspense.

A newspaper printed a report of French operations along a river at the front. For some reason not stated it was important that observations be kept from the end of a certain bridge, long under German gun-fire. For three days a soldier had stood motionless, whitewashed to resemble a post, at the exposed end of that bridge. He was successful in his observations and had not drawn the gun- fire of the enemy. But he died from the strain and the coatings of whitewash. This scout was an American Indian.

“He — he might have been Nophaie!” whispered Marian, in torture.

In the spring Marian received a reply to a letter she had written Mrs. Wolterson:

Dear Marian:

I am long indeed in replying to your most welcome and interesting letter. But you will forgive me, for my excuse is work, work, work. Imagine! out of six white people and thirty little Indian children I was the only one not down with influenza.

First your account of the goings-on of people in the East, and all that war stuff, stirred me to thrills, made me long to be home — for I too am an Easterner — and yet caused me to thank God I am out in the open country.

We were transferred here, as you already know, and left Mesa without regret, except for our few true friends there. We are fortunate to be retained in the service at all. The wrong done my husband by Blucher and Morgan was not undone and never will be.

Blucher, you will be glad to hear, had a sudden check to his open pro- Germanism. Something or somebody frightened him. My friends write me that his reaction to this fear, whatever it was, resulted in his applying himself to reservation work. But he will not last much longer as superintendent. He will get the ‘steam-roller.’

Morgan, however, goes on his triumphant way with his Old Book behind him. What a monster that man is! It is utterly inconceivable that such a fanatical devil could have such power among many good missionaries.

Here is a bit of news that comes closer to us. Gekin Yashi has again disappeared. Headquarters reported she had run off. But my correspondent in Mesa does not believe it. No attempt was made to trace her. If she had run off she would have been tracked. Neither Rhur or any of the policemen has left Mesa. I know what I think, and so does Robert. But it seems best not to trust my suspicions to a letter. Some day the truth will come out. Alas for the Little Beauty of the Nopahs! When I think of her, and the child prodigy Evangeline, and noble Nophaie, I am sore at heart.

King Point is not at all like Mesa. I loved Mesa, despite what I suffered there. This place is high up on the desert, over seven thousand feet above sea level. It is bleak, barren, bitter cold, and the winds are terrible. The snow last winter blew level with the sand. It did not fall! But there is beauty here. Great red bluffs, covered with cedars and sand dunes forever changing with the wind, and yellow mesas, and long white slopes of valley. But the solitude, the cold, and the mournful winds are dreadful. Influenza swooped down on us late in winter, a very fortunate circumstance. Had spring not come I believe the whole population of thirty-six would have been wiped out.

As it was everybody but myself fell sick. Can you imagine my labors? I had them all to myself before a doctor came, and then after he was gone. The poor little Indian children — they were so sick! I hardly had time to eat, let alone sleep. And when relief came it was none too soon for me.

I have no direct information regarding influenza ravages at other points on the reservation. But I understand it hit the Nopahs pretty hard. I never saw any disease like this. I dread the return of winter. Warm weather kills the germ or whatever spreads this sickness. If it should come early in winter I shudder to think what might happen out here on the reservation.

You wrote in your letter of returning. We are glad to hear this news. Mrs. Withers wrote me that she had received a letter from Nophaie from France, and that he said he had seen you on the pier at Hoboken just before his ship sailed. But you did not see him! — How strangely things happen!... I have two brothers at the front in France. When I think of them I think of Nophaie.

All good wishes to you, Marian, and let us hear from you.

Sincerely,

Beatrice Wolterson.

Marian went back to the Indian country prepared to work independently for the welfare of the Nopahs. At Flagerstown she rented a little cottage out near the pines, from which she could see the green slopes and gray peaks of the mountains. This time, with knowledge and means to set about her task, she provided a comfortable place to live in during absences from the desert.

Marian’s first trip on the desert took her to King Point, where she spent a profitable day with the Woltersons. King Point was as cool and pleasant in summer as Flagerstown. Marian found instant antagonism in the head of the Indian school there, making any project of hers rather out of the question. Besides, there was no place to stay. The school was a small branch of the main system, and no Indians lived in the near vicinity. The missionary there had been stationed by Morgan. And his wife seemed to regard Marian with ill- disguised suspicion.

To Marian’s regret, she found matters not happy for the Woltersons. Blucher’s enmity had a long arm. Wolterson had encountered the same underhand tactics that had been operative at Mesa. Moreover, the altitude and the cold, and the poor quarters furnished by the government, had not improved his health. Marian advised him to leave the Indian service.

“Shore, I’ve got to,” he drawled, “but I hate to quit just now. Looks like I’d be driven out.”

Before Marian left she received a suggestion from Wolterson that made her thoughtful. He told her about the little settlement of Nokis at Copenwashie, how they were growing poorer in water and land and had a hard winter ahead of them.

“Shore, they’ll not be able to feed their stock,” said Wolterson.

“Why?” inquired Marian.

“Because they have less land than formerly and very little water. They can’t raise enough alfalfa.”

“Why less land than formerly?”

“Friel and Morgan have gotten most of the Indians’ land.”

“Oh, I remember. But how can they do that? It seems absolutely unbelievable to me.”

“Listen and I will tell you,” replied Wolterson. “First Friel or Morgan selected the particular piece of ground he wanted. Then he got the superintendent to report to Washington that his land was not needed by the Indians. It was naturally the best piece of ground. The government granted the use of a little tract of land upon which a church might be built. Soon it was further reported that this was not sufficient for the missionary to raise garden and hay. Another tract was available and this was also turned over. After a time Friel applied for and received a patent to this land. Other patents are pending. With the land goes a supply of water for irrigating, and often in addition a good spring, and this much water is simply taken from the Indians. Water on the desert is limited. Last year was dry. This one may be drier. — And there you are.”

“Well!” ejaculated Marian. “So that is how these men acquire their lands!”

Marian had planned to go next to Kaidab, but influenced by the incentive of Wolterson’s suggestion, and a dread of seeing just yet the beautiful sage uplands beloved by Nophaie, she decided first to look over the field at Copenwashie. The Paxtons at Mesa gave her a warm welcome, and between them, for the sake of a subterfuge that might be wise, they arranged a basket and blanket buying job for her.

Copenwashie lay down on the edge of the mesa two miles or more from the government post. At any time it was a barren, desolate outlook, and in summer under the leaden haze of heat it was surely mercilessly inhospitable to a white person.

The Nokis were agricultural in their pursuits, not nomads like the Nopahs. The two tribes had long been inimical to each other. One aged Noki woman, who was so old she did not know her age, had told Paxton she could remember when the Nopahs could ride down on the village and throw Nokis over the cliffs. Their houses were flat-roofed, built of stone and adobe, cool in summer and warm in winter, a very great improvement on the hogan of the wilder Nopah. In many cases rude corrals adjoined the houses. The several lanes of the village were, upon Marian’s first visit, colorful and active with burros, dogs, chickens, cows, and Indian children. A keen tang of cedar smoke filled the air. It brought to Marian’s mind the camp fire of the upland country. Thin curling columns of blue smoke rose from invisible holes or chimneys.

Marian went from door to door of these little low houses and asked for baskets. She saw stoves, beds, sewing- machines common to white households. The rooms she got a peep into were whitewashed and clean. The Nokis were short in stature, broad-faced, resembling a Japanese more than a Nopah, and the women all appeared to be heavy. They spoke a little English, but they were reserved and shy. Marian was hard to please in style of baskets, but she paid the price asked without haggling. Thus she carefully felt her way along the line of procedure she had adopted. When she left the village and ascended the slope to the level of Mesa she looked back.

The place seemed a jumble of little rock and mud huts perched on the very edge of a precipice. Below lay a wide green valley with Indian laborers at work and threads of water running to and fro. Across the valley rose a red-and- yellow bluff, rimming out on the ghastly desert. To the right of where Marian stood loomed an imposing structure of stone, built by masons, two stories high and with a tower. This was the home of Friel. Somehow Marian resented its presence there. She was looking at it with an Indian’s eye. She thought of the cowboy missionary, Ramsdell, who had slept and lived like the riders of the open. Knowing what she knew, Marian had difficulty in restraining more than prejudice.

Paxton had driven her down to Copenwashie, and said he did not consider it safe for her to walk. Opportunity to ride was infrequent, so Marian adjusted herself to a slow progress of passing the time and winning the confidence of the Nokis. But there were other demands upon her time — study, reading, writing letters, keeping in touch with all pertaining to the war. The heat of midday was, after all, not unendurable, and she got used to it, though she endeavored to stay indoors during those hours. She hired the Indian mail carrier, who remembered her, to carry her letters to Flagerstown and to do her errands. Three or four times a week she visited the Noki village. On each trip she bought baskets, and she always left candy and dolls and musical toys with the children. When a Noki woman asked her if she was a missionary Marian thought she had gained a point in her emphatic negative.

She anticipated embarrassing situations and prepared for them. Jay Lord sat on the trading-post steps during the summer evenings. Morgan had asked somebody what that “white-faced cat” was doing back on the reservation? Friel had learned of her presence. But so far Marian had been clever and fortunate enough to avoid meeting either of them face to face. She did not care, however, when that might happen.

If happiness could have been hers it might have come to her here on the desert that had somehow changed her, and in the work she had chosen. But she could not be really happy. Nophaie wrote but seldom. He was “somewhere in France.” His letters were censored, and he wrote so little of himself. Marian lived in constant dread that she would never hear from him again — that he would be killed. It did not torture her that he might be injured. For she knew that he was an Indian to whom injuries were nothing. She could not break the morbid habit of reading about the war. She had terrible dreams. She hated the Germans more and more. Even the tranquillity of the desert, its wonderful power to soothe, did not help her with this war emotion. Life did not stand still, but her heart seemed to. She endured, she made the most of her opportunities among the Nokis, and she tried not to fail in faith and hope. But the long hot summer dragged, relieved only by one short visit to the cool and mountain altitude of Flagerstown.

With the end of summer there seemed to be an end to the uneventful waiting monotony of her life.

Withers called for her one day and packed her off in his car to Kaidab. His wife was not very well and needed a change of climate, and wanted Marian to take a short trip with her to California. Marian gladly consented, and while preparations were under way for this journey she rode horseback, and climbed high on the black mesa to try to get a glimpse of Nophaie’s country. All she could attain was sight of the red pinnacles of the monuments of the Valley of Gods. But she was grateful for that.

Looking across that wild and wonderful desert of upflung rocky ramparts and green reaches of lowland, Marian thought of the Indian boy who had been born there, who had shepherded his flock in the lonely solitude, listening to the secret voices of Indian spirits, who was now fighting in France for the white men and for America. Marian’s old strength seemed to flow back to her heart. She had been sick, lonely, brooding, weary for Nophaie. She needed love. But she realized her utter selfishness in contrast to Nophaie’s nobility. Just a sight of the upland country revived her earlier spirit. She must not be found wanting. Every day added to this renewal of courage and with that, and the cooler days, there came a quickening of her energies.

Withers found the time propitious for a short absence from Kaidab. His partner, Colman, said business would grow poorer instead of better. The decline of the Nopahs’ fortunes had begun. Price of wool had been steadily falling. There was no demand for baskets and blankets. The Indians had been prodigal of everything. There were no stores laid away. And they misunderstood the decline in price for their wool while the price of all the trader’s wares soared higher.

“They’re facing the hardest winter they ever had on this desert,” concluded Colman.

“Wal, you’re talkin’,” responded Withers thoughtfully. “And if that ‘flu’ disease strikes the reservation when cold weather comes it’s good night!”

“Will the war never end?” sighed Mrs. Withers.

“End? It’s ended now. The Germans are licked. They’re stallin’ for time right now,” retorted the trader, with fire in his eyes. “They’ll never go through another winter. I almost wish they would not show a yellow streak. France has got their number. Marshal Foch ought to be allowed to wipe the Germans off the earth. If he isn’t, the Germans will trump up some trick, and they’ll come back in the future, worse than ever.”

Wither’s son Ted had gotten to France, but he was still among the reserves, back of the front line, and that fact evidently irritated the Westerner. He wanted his son to fight. Mrs. Withers, on the other hand, was grateful for the chances that had so far spared her only son. The sister of this boy shared her father’s aggressive ideas. Marian had grown war- weary. The whole terrible, incredible, and monstrous riddle revolved around Nophaie. And she had not heard from him for many weeks.

The last day of Marian’s stay at Kaidab she prevailed upon Miss Withers to ride out and climb the highest point available. Withers sent one of his Indian riders with them. They had a long, hard, and glorious ride. From the brow of a great divide Marian saw the whole vast reach of the Valley of Gods — the red sentinels of the desert — lonely and grand against the haze of distance. She saw the dark organ- shaped mesa under the shadow of which Nophaie had been born. Then far to the westward, up and up over the giant steps, she caught a glimpse of green-cedared and purple-saged uplands, and above them the huge bulk and dark dome of Nothsis Ahn.

Marian felt a tremor that was more than thrill. Her breast heaved, her sight dimmed. Wild, lonely, beautiful land of sage and canyon! She loved it. The clearest teaching of her life had come from its spell. She longed to climb the endless and rugged trail to Nophaie’s silent walls. They were not silent for her.

This day had been full, poignant, resurging with the old flood of emotions. As Marian rode across the level stretch of gray desert before Kaidab the sunset was gilding the rims of the distant mesas. Rose and lilac hazed the breaks in the walls, and the waste of sand and grass waved away under a luminous golden light.

Withers was waiting at the gate for the riders. His face wore an excited, eager, and happy expression, such as Marian had never before seen there. What could have broken this intrepid Westerner’s reserve? Marian experienced a sensation of weakness.

“Get down and come in,” he called. “Come a-rustlin’ now. I’ve got news.”

Marian tumbled off some way, and ran at the heels of Wither’s daughter, who was crying: “Oh! Dad’s got a letter from Ted!”

So indeed it turned out to be. Mrs. Withers had been crying, but was now radiant. The trader fumbled over many sheets of paper, closely covered with writing.

“Sis, you can read all of this afterward,” he was saying. “Ted’s all right. Fussin’ because he won’t see any real fight. He says what I told you all- -the Huns are licked. Whoopee!... You know I wrote Ted months ago and asked him to find out about our Indians. I’d given up hoping. But he’s found out a lot, and I’ll read it. Marian, your Nophaie has got the D.S. medal! What do you know about that?”

Marian could not have spoken then to save her life. She seemed locked in sensation — mute in the sweetest, richest, fullest, most agonizing moment of her life.

The trader fumbled over the sheets of paper. His fingers were not wholly steady.

“Here,” he began, “this letter seems less cut up than any we’ve had. Ted writes: ‘I had some luck. Happened to run across a soldier — who’d been in the thick of the front-line battles with some of our Indians. What he had to say about them was aplenty. He knew Lo Blandy when he played college football. So it’s a good guess Lo Blandy is our Nophaie. I got thick pronto with this soldier. His name is Munson. He hails from Vermont. He’d not only been in the front-line trenches with our Indians, but in the hospital with some of them. I’ve forgotten names and places, if he told me. This French lingo is sure hard for me. Munson said an officer told him there were thousands of American Indians in the service. That was news to me. It sure tickled me.

“‘A good many Indians have been killed. Whether or not any of them were Nopahs I can’t say. But the Indian who pulled the bear-trap stunt is our own nutty Shoie, the spellbinder. Munson said they called him that, and he answered exactly to the description I gave. Now it appears that every night or so Shoie would pull a crippled German into the trenches. These German soldiers would have either an arm or leg broken, and terribly lacerated. Shoie never had much to say over here. You know the Indian. But like all the other redskins, he was a wonderful scout, and therefore had something more of freedom than the white boys. These Indians were no more afraid of No Man’s Land than of crossing the desert at night. Shoie was watched. And it was discovered that he pulled these crippled Germans into the trenches in a number four bear trap, attached to a long wire. Shoie would crawl out in the darkness — they say he always picked the places where German soldiers were sneaking — and set the bear trap. Then he’d slip back to the trench to wait. When he got one, everybody along that line sure knew of it. For the Germans hollered like hell. At that to crawl into a number four bear trap would make any man holler. All Shoie said was: “Me catch- um whole damn German army!”... I guess maybe the buddies didn’t hand it to this Indian.

“‘Well, there’s more about Lo Blandy. Munson lay in the hospital with him, and found out he had been wounded four times, the last time seriously. But he seemed nearly well then. That was three weeks ago. Blandy — or Nophaie — was to be discharged and sent home as an invalid, incapacitated for further service. He had been in everything the war afforded except actual death. That seemed to miss him. Munson said Nophaie was indifferent to danger and pain. Shell-shock had affected him somewhat, and gassed lungs made him a probable consumptive. But to Munson he was certainly far from a physical wreck. I think Munson said Nophaie got into the great Chatoo-Therry (how’d you spell that?) mix-up, and that an officer gave him the D.S. right off his own breast. Sure some stunt for an officer, believe me!

“‘Anyway, Nophaie, along with other Indians, must be on the way home by now. I’m sure glad. It simply was grand to hear what devils they were among the Germans. I can’t remember ever caring a whoop about the Nopahs. But I’ve a hunch that a lot of Americans, including myself, haven’t ever appreciated the red man.

“‘My chance of plugging a Fritz has become slim indeed, and for that reason I’m sure homesick for you all, and the smell of cedar smoke and sheep wool.’”

CHAPTER XIX

NEWS OF THE armistice did not reach Mesa until late in the afternoon of that memorable November day. It came from the lips of the mail carrier. He was not credited. Paxton rushed to the telephone to call up Flagerstown, only to find the wire down. A crowd of Indians collected around the mail carrier, and they all believed him. Only the whites were skeptical.

“Oh, it’s too good to be true,” said Mrs. Paxton to Marian.

“It must come soon,” breathed Marian, tensely. Had she not a letter in her bosom — from Nophaie — telling of the deterioration of German morale?

Paxton came striding in, half out of his wits between doubt and hope. He nearly fell over the baby. He hugged his wife — then suddenly ridiculed her hopeful assumption.

Marian went out through the store, down the stone steps, and into the crowd of Indians around the mail carrier. Both Nokis and Nopahs formed that group. Excitement was rife. They jabbered in their low guttural speech. Marian smelled whisky. But resolutely forcing her way in, she got to the mail carrier.

He was certainly in possession of his senses. Indeed, he was somber, almost stern. If emotion held him it was deep set.

“What have you heard?” she asked in her own language.

“War over. Germans run — holler no more shoot — want make big council,” he replied.

“Who said so?”

“All come over wire. Heap talk over wire.... Men run round — get drunk — white squaws yell like hell.... All stop work — bells ring — big smoke pipe on lumber mill blow steam long time — no hear.”

And the Indian made significant motion to his ear, and then to his head, indication of his idea of a people with whirling brain.

Marian hurried back to the Paxtons.

“Friends, the Indian is telling the truth. There’s a jubilee in Flagerstown. What else but peace could account for it?”

“Oh, it’s too good to be true,” repeated Mrs. Paxton.

Just then Paxton’s clerk came running in. He was pale, and appeared about to choke.

“Eckersall on the phone,” he blurted out. “War over!... Friel brought news — he and Leamon. They just got in from town. Everybody gone crazy.”

Eckersall was the government farmer down at Copenwashie and an old Westerner not given to hyperbole.

Paxton suddenly sat down as if glad for support. His wife hugged the little baby, and cried out, “Thank God!”

The clerk ran back to the store, and Paxton got up to rush after him. Marian and Mrs. Paxton indulged in a few moments of heartfelt felicitations, not unmixed with tears. And these few simple reactions appeared to be the forerunners of an hour of mounting excitement. Supper was not thought of. Outside in front of the trading post the crowd grew apace, and now white faces began to mingle with the dark ones. Friel’s car came humming along, and it contained three other white men and several Indians. The latter leaped off as Friel drove on. He saw Marian standing on the steps, and waving his hand he yelled, “War over!” Marian waved back, and this was the only time she had ever been glad to see the missionary. He was the bearer of blessed news. He drove on, manifestly in a hurry to get to government headquarters.

The November air was raw and cold. It chilled Marian through. She went into the Paxtons’ sitting-room, where she sat by the window. The trader came through and opened the window. “Don’t miss anything. There’ll be hell. Blucher has arrested some Nopahs. And I’ll bet they never go to jail.”

Marian was now all eyes and ears. The trader kept running to and fro, with his wife at his heels. She was trying to make him stay in the house. Nothing unusual, however, occurred outside for a while. The crowd swelled to upwards of a hundred Indians, a motley dark assemblage, divided into several groups, each of which undoubtedly surrounded an Indian with a bottle. The white men had drawn apart.

It had been rather an overcast day, with clouds massing in the west. The time was perhaps an hour before sunset. The purple-and-gray curtain broke to let out a ruddy sulphurous glow that brightened the desert and tinged the canopied sky. There was no hue of silver or gold. Shades of red burned against the purple, making a strange, weird, yet beautiful approach to sunset.

Marian saw an Indian running down the avenue between the poplars. Some of the watching Indians shouted. This Noki evidently was frightened, for he looked back, and then darted in among his fellows.

Friel’s car appeared, still containing the same number. Marian recognized two of them. The missionary drove to the steps, where he stopped the car and got out. Manifestly he was starting for the window to speak to Marian, when one of the other men called out, “Hold on, Friel.”

The missionary, halted by the peremptory call, impatiently turned back. The Indians were looking now up the avenue. Marian heard another car coming. Before it reached range of her sight four white men came hurrying along. Rhur, the policeman, was the foremost, and the last two were Glendon and Naylor. Marian did not recognize the second man. They had the mien of angry, excited men, yet not overbold. Then the second car hove in sight. Sam Ween, the interpreter, was driving it. Morgan stood on the running board and Blucher stood up inside. It was not a difficult matter for Marian to perceive the state of their minds. When the car stopped Morgan dropped off and Blucher piled out.

“Arrest that Indian!” he yelled.

Rhur apparently had the least reluctance to penetrate the suddenly silent crowd of Indians, and one of his deputies, the stranger Marian did not recognize, rather haltingly followed him. Glendon and Naylor hung back, a fact that added to Blucher’s exasperation. Morgan, too, edged away from the ominous- looking front line of Indians. Presently that line was broken to emit Rhur dragging an Indian behind him — the Noki that had hidden. Blucher ran in and shackled him.

“What’d you put irons on him for, you blockhead?” called Morgan. “Indians hate irons. And I told you they were in bad mood. Some of them drunk!”

“Who’s doing this?” hoarsely called the agent.

The younger and probably more intoxicated number of the Indians suddenly appeared to move in unison and to spread round Blucher and his men. They closed in, shouting.

“Let that Indian go!” yelled Morgan, with all his might.

“See him — in hell first,” yelled back Blucher.

Then the crowd became noisy, violent, and decidedly threatening. Marian lost sight of the white men in the mêlée. She felt her pulses beat in excitement and fear. Surely the Indians were in no mood to trifle. How dark and wild their upturned faces! They surged into a knot. That, too, broke as before, only more rudely, and it let out the white men, disheveled, pale, and thoroughly frightened. The Indians had forced Blucher to unshackle the Noki he had arrested. They jeered at him. Bottles flashed aloft, held by dark, sinewy hands. “Whisky!” some of the Indians shouted, and several deliberately drank in the very face of Blucher. He was forced back toward the side of the trading post, as it chanced near the window where Marian crouched.

“Skin stretched over stick!” yelled a Noki who could speak good English. Then both Nokis and Nopahs took up that slogan, each in their own tongue. Taunt, contempt, hate, and warning all seemed embodied in this outburst.

Then older and sober Indians in the crowd dragged the violent ones back and away from the trading post. But, plainly, it was no easy task. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and it seemed that Blucher and Morgan had narrowly escaped violence.

“What’d I tell you?” shouted the missionary, hoarsely.

Blucher vouchsafed no reply. His pale sweaty face seemed to have fixed in an expression of furious trance. Marian had a good look at him as he passed the window to go to his car. He might have been walking in a nightmare. Indians were naught to him. His strident orders and violent movements had been merely explosion of an unabatable and terrible passion. Stolid, heavy, immovable German that he was, he had heard news to unseat his reason for this hour.

Likewise Marian had a fleeting glimpse of Morgan’s face. Did she catch a lurking sardonic gleam, a malignant flash of eyes? Or had her sensitive imagination conjured up illusive justifications of her opinion of this man? She marveled at the missionary. As a woman she seemed to shrink from her enormous conception of him. Was she right or wrong? She would have wagered her all that his mind was an abyss as dark as hell and that his soul was a wilderness.

Then these two men, at once so infinitesimally little in her conception of life and so monstrously powerful to rouse the drum and beat of her passions, slowly passed out of her sight.

December came, bleak and raw, but holding off on the inclement weather that made the desert an inhospitable place for white people. Influenza was reported by the authorities on widely separated parts of the desert. No effort was made to check the disease or to minister to any Indians except the school children. But it was not considered serious.

Marian awoke one day to a realization that she had found favor with the Nokis. Long before she expected it she was welcome in the secluded homes of these strange desert people. After all, they were very human, very susceptible to kindness and goodness. They would accept charity and presents, but a material gift was no sure way to their hearts. Marian really did not discover this until after she had won them.

Then it became clear to her that she had been under as intelligent and careful a scrutiny as she had bent upon them. She was judged by what she said and did, and by developments that verified the appearance of her actions.

After Marian had acquainted herself with the actual condition of these Indians she set to work in her own way to help them. There were babies and old men going blind from trachoma; there were children with congenital hip- disease; there were always injured horsemen and sick housekeepers; last of all, the whole village was poor and growing poorer.

The war might be over, but its aftermath had just begun. There were signs that more than warranted the gloomy forebodings of Withers.

Marian never saw the government school doctor waste a ride down to Copenwashie. She brought a physician from Flagerstown. And his several visits, followed by her own ministrations, alleviated considerable distress. When the skeptical Nokis saw there was no aftermath from this, no obligation, nothing but the kindness of Benow di cleash, they subtly and almost imperceptibly changed. The old Nokis learned to relax their somber faces in a slight smile; the children grew glad to see Marian, more for her presence than for gifts.

It was very hard for Marian to remain even half an hour inside the little houses because of the acrid smoke from the open fires. This severely affected her eyes and even her throat. When she got out into the cold cutting desert wind she was always relieved. So she did the best that she could, grateful indeed that her efforts were not futile.

Paxton went out of his routine to help her. Eckersall, in his rough, uncouth way, left no stone unturned in her behalf. Between the two of them Marian seldom had to walk the wind-swept two-mile stretch up the mesa. She did not come into contact with Blucher or Morgan, and so far as she could tell, they were not paying any attention to her affairs. This apparent fact, however, did not blind Marian to their possibilities. They were like moles, burrowing in the dark.

Naturally Marian’s increasingly close relation to some of the Nokis resulted in their confidences. And by the middle of December most of the little tribe who owned horses or cattle, and especially all of the freighters were hard pressed for feed for their stock. Marian lent money to some of the neediest. But the situation was not to be met by the little money she could spare. So she took up the matter with Eckersall.

“Reckon I seen it comin’ all along,” was Eckersall’s reply. “The Nokis are in for a hell of a winter, if you’ll excuse my talk, miss.”

“How much will it cost to buy hay for the winter?” asked Marian.

“Them freighters alone will eat up a thousand dollars before spring.”

“Oh, so much! I can’t afford that.”

“Wal, sure you can’t. An’ what you are doin’ more’n shows up this bunch.”

“Where can we get help?” went on Marian.

“Reckon I don’t know. Have you any friends you could ask?”

“Hardly. I wonder if Withers could help us.”

“Withers! I should say not. Why, that trader is goin’ broke on the Indians this winter. Mark my words. I met him at Red Sandy last week. An’ I asked how about things out Kaidab way. He just threw up his hands.”

“Eckersall, who has all the alfalfa raised here this last summer?” queried Marian, curiously.

“Friel has most of it.”

“Ah! And has Blucher any hay?”

“Aplenty. Some I raised an’ the rest freighted from town.”

“Well, cannot the Indians get some of that hay?”

“Hump! They’ll have to pay d —— high for it. An’ jest now is a bad time. Blucher is sore over the meat deal.”

“What is that?”

“Wal, miss, I’m only a government employee, an’ I reckon I ought to keep my mouth shut. Sure I could trust you. But that’s not the point.... I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go to the agent an’ make a strong talk for the Nokis.”

“Thank you, Eckersall. That’s good of you. Maybe we can do something.”

But Marian’s hopes were not high. And when from another source she learned the current talk about the meat deal she was even less sanguine. It appeared that as the winter advanced Blucher had solicited meat from the Nokis and Nopahs. But he would not pay over five dollars for a beef. As a result the Indians sold but little of their stock and the Indian school children had considerably less of a meat diet. Marian knew that the government advanced more money than offered by Blucher. But he refused to pay more than five dollars. It took no clever acumen to deduct why this was so and what he did with the difference.

Several days elapsed before Marian again saw Eckersall.

“Wal, me an’ you are on the wrong side of the fence,” he complained, ruefully, in reply to her eager query.

“How so?”

“We have a hankerin’ for these poor devils of Indians.... Miss, I went to our German agent an’ I made the speech of my life. I painted the woe of the Nokis an’ the sufferin’ of the horses as it was never done before. I told him that he made the Nokis freight supplies from town; that he didn’t pay them enough; that these freighters had no other way to make a livin’. He said he hadn’t any hay to spare at twenty dollars the ton. Go to the missionary!... Wal, I went to Friel an’ talked with him. An’ he said forty dollars a ton!... The Nokis can’t pay that. So I went back to Blucher an’ railed at him again. He snapped at me: ‘If Friel wants forty dollars a ton for their hay, then the Indians will have to pay forty dollars!’”

Not long after that Marian met one of the freight wagons at the foot of the mesa grade. The wagon was packed full of boxes and bales, making a prodigious load to haul through sand and up the desert hills. Three teams of mustangs Were hitched to it. Six little horses! They were skin and bones. How dejected and weary and hungry they appeared! Their ribs showed like fence pickets. Raw sores had been worn by the makeshift harness.

The drivers, both young Nokis, were walking. One held the long reins; the other led at the head of the first team. They were as tired as their horses. They had walked from Flagerstown — the whole distance of near eighty miles — to spare their teams. Marian questioned them, and though they grinned, their replies were significantly of depression.

Following that incident, Marian fell upon another equally illuminating. Friel had several times told an intelligent Noki: “Hay and grain will be provided by Jesus Christ if you believe all I tell you.” This missionary left his two skinny horses to graze round the trading post. One day the intelligent Noki was driving home and in his wagon was some hay for his horses. When the Noki went into the post the starved horses belonging to Friel approached the wagon and ate up the hay. Upon discovering the circumstance, the Noki dryly remarked:

“Yes, missionary off somewhere praying Jesus Christ to send hay — and his horses here steal and eat mine!”

The Nokis realized that their land was being gradually taken away from them and this winter they had grown restive and morbid under the strain. In former years the Nokis had been allowed to raise alfalfa on a certain number of acres of the school farm, but this year that privilege had been taken from them. If the government was using all the hay raised and if the missionary demanded exorbitant prices for theirs, then all the Noki could do was to quit freighting supplies. For his horses had grown too weak to pull.

Winter came at last, biting, icy, and the desert became an open waste to dread. Day after day dark clouds rose, threatening storm.

Privation followed hard on the cold heels of winter, and many of the Noki families began to suffer. What with lack of food for man and beast the outlook was discouraging indeed. Marian bought stores of supplies from Paxton — who charged exactly what they had cost him — but these did not go far or long.

Then came the incident that heaped fuel on the fires of Noki resentment.

Friel had made a hurried trip to Flagerstown, where he learned that flour had gone up two dollars a hundred weight. It so happened that on his return trip he passed several Noki wagons going into Copenwashie to buy flour. Therefore, in possession of this information, he hurriedly drove to the trading posts at Copenwashie and Mesa, and bought all the flour the traders had, some two thousand pounds, at the old price.

Friel before this incident had won a universal dislike for himself. It then fell out that he was to go beyond the endurance of even these stoical Nokis.

He got permission from the agent to preach to the school children after they had assembled in the schoolroom each day. So he chose the first hour of the morning session and talked to the children about his interpretation of the Bible. The Nokis objected to Friel’s taking the time from the school work to impose his doctrine upon them, and they complained to the agent. Nothing was done. The Nokis grew more resentful. They roused dissension. Their activities caused reports to be made to the government, and an inspector was sent out. He ruled that the preaching during school hours be discontinued. But after he had gone Friel was seen to get audience with Morgan and Blucher, with the result that he kept up the preaching during the forbidden hour.

The Nokis held council over this turn of affairs and absolute usurpation of their rights. The chief himself came to Marian and asked her to read to him the ruling of the inspector. She did so, in Nopah and in English, both of which languages he understood.

“Benow di cleash, don’t you think we ought to kill him?” asked the Noki.

Marian was shocked and told him with all the force she could command that murder would only add to their troubles.

“Don’t you think we ought to kill him?” the chief kept repeating to everything Marian said.

“No, no, you must not,” she protested. “Try sending a delegation to face Friel. Show him the inspector’s ruling and tell him you have had white people read it.”

“Don’t you think we ought to kill him?” was all the chief said.

But the next day, while Friel was preaching to the children, this delegation suggested by Marian assembled in front of the village.

It was a cold, lowering day, with wind sweeping down across the desert. The village had been swept clear of snow, except in the protected corners of stone walls. Marian had anticipated some untoward event, and she had borrowed a horse to ride down early. That trip had required something of fortitude. When she neared the village she saw Nokis riding in from the Red Sandy trail. And when she reached the dip of mesa rim she had further cause for excitement.

The delegation contained all the male Nokis, and some of the other sex, with a plentiful addition of Nopahs. Marian’s eyes gladdened at sight of the tall, graceful, picturesque Nopah riders, blanketed as they were. Manifestly there was something in the wind. The crowd was walking and riding toward the school. Marian followed. It was some distance, and all the way new riders fell in with the delegation. What surprised Marian and added to her excitement was the apparent fact that the Nopahs were going to take part in this protest. But to Marian it looked more ominous than a formal stating of objections. The Nokis meant to stop the preaching that they considered an imposition on the time and attention of the school children.

“Friel, come out!” shouted a clear voice, in good English. It rang in Marian’s ears. Unmistakably Indian, but was it Noki? Marian had to restrain a strange agitation. She convinced herself she was nervous and overinclined to imaginings. But she felt that she could trust to her eyes, and she rode farther, to within one hundred feet of the school.

Friel did not appear promptly enough to please the Nokis. They began to shout. Some one pounded on the door. Then again the clear, high Indian voice pealed above the others, silencing them.

“Come out or we’ll come in!”

The door opened and Friel appeared. His face was red. His figure, which resembled Morgan’s, seemed instinct with intolerant authority. Yet in spite of this he was not at ease.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Get out. Quit preaching,” replied the leader, and from the crowd came shouts confirming his order.

“I won’t!” yelled Friel, furiously. “Blucher gave me permission to preach. I’m going to do it.”

“Read the order from Washington.”

The man waved aside the paper flaunted in his face. It appeared to be in the hands of a short Noki, beside whom stood a tall Nopah. He wore a wide sombrero pulled down over his face. The crowd of Indians rode and pressed closer. A low hubbub of voices began to rise.

“Come. Go to Blucher. Let us hear what he says. Let us have understanding. You’ve got to stop preaching in school!”

“No!” exclaimed Friel, hotly. “I won’t stop. And I won’t go to Blucher.”

One of the mounted Nokis cast a lasso, the noose of which circled Friel’s neck. The crowd shouted wildly.

“Haul him out,” yelled the leader.

Then the mounted Noki rode away from the school, drawing the lasso taut and dragging the missionary out through the crowd. His face was not now red. Both his hands clutched at the noose round his neck. Manifestly the intention had merely been to rope him and drag him into the presence of the agent. A wild young Noki, mounted on a spirited horse, pulled it up until its front hoofs pawed the air.

“Hang him!” this Indian yelled in Noki.

A roar broke from the crowd. In a twinkling the somber spirit broke to let out the devil. The time was evil. Long had the war oppression and passion been dammed in the breasts of these Indians. Their wrongs burned for revenge. Some of their number were undoubtedly the worse for liquor. But one of this crowd recognized the peril to Friel and chose to divert it. He yelled piercingly and split the cordon of Indians closing around the missionary.

That piercing yell not only silenced the angry Nokis; it gave Marian the most startling shock of her life. She recognized that voice.

The tall Nopah reached Friel’s side and his long arms grasped the taut lasso. With one powerful lunge he jerked the Noki from his horse.

That tall form! That action! Marian thought she had lost her mind. Then the Nopah, in recovering from this exertion, rose to expose his face.

Nophaie! Marian screamed the name, but no sound left her lips. She reeled in her saddle. She clutched the pommel. A terrible uplift of her heart seemed to end in bursting gush of blood all over her.

One sweep of long arms sent the noose flying from Friel’s neck. How ghastly and livid his face! He fell against the Indian, either in collapse or feigning faint.

The Indian braced Friel, shook him hard, hauled and pushed him through the crowd, and released him at the door of the school. Friel staggered in out of sight. When the Indian turned to face the crowd, tall, lithe, with singularly free stride, Marian assuredly recognized Nophaie. He began to push back members of that mob, once again pressing toward the schoolhouse. Other Indians, guided by his example, fell in line to avert further violence, and at length the whole mass, sullen and gesticulating, was forced back into the village.

It was afternoon and Marian waited in Paxton’s sitting room for Nophaie.

She had met Withers at the post. He had come to Mesa with Nophaie to take her back to Kaidab. They needed her there. Outside the dark day had grown colder and grayer. A snow-flurry whitened the ground. The wind mourned. Withers had said Nophaie looked well enough. No one could tell! He had reached the reservation from a point on the railroad east of Flagerstown. Two whole days! Forty-eight hours he had been on the desert without her knowledge! He had ridden down to the village to find her. God indeed had smiled on a missionary that day. A Nopah had saved his life.

Would Nophaie never come? Withers had gone to fetch him back. But Marian could not wait. If she could only see him, feel him, make sure this was not the madness of a dream — then she could be calm, unutterably thankful, strong to stand any shock!

Suddenly she heard a step. Soft, quick, padded sound of Indian moccasin! Her heart stopped beating. Nophaie entered. He was the Indian of her memories.

“Benow di cleash,” he said, in voice that was rich and happy.

She raised both arms and lips before strength left her. Then as he enveloped her she needed nothing but to feel. One woman’s flash of sight — the keen, dark Indian face, thinner, finer, softening in its bronze — then she could see no more. But she felt — rippling of muscles that clasped and set round her like iron bands. Pressed against his wide breast, she felt its heave and pound. And his lips!

“Oh, you seem well! Are you well?” Marian was saying, later, for what seemed the hundredth time.

“Well, yes — but I’ll never again climb the north wall of Nothsis Ahn,” he replied, with a sad smile.

“Nophaie! Oh, I am not quite myself,” she whispered. “You feel strong — you look the same.... No, there’s a strange change.... Your eyes!... Nophaie, your mouth! They twitch.”

“That’s only shell shock,” he said. “It will pass away. Really I am pretty well, considering. The gas left me liable to consumption, but I haven’t got it yet. And my old sage uplands will cure me.”

Marian could scarcely believe her eyes. She had expected to see him maimed, broken, aged, wrecked, but he was none of these. Slowly she realized. Then she espied a medal on the dark velveteen shirt he wore. His D.S.! How did he win that? Was she not a woman?

“Benow di cleash, my dearest, I’ve not been to pink teas, like the ones you used to drag me to at Cape May,” he replied, with a laugh that signalized the acuteness of her joy.

“You fought! Oh, I’ve heard!” she cried out. “The Withers boy wrote home. He had met a soldier who knew you — told him all about you.... Munson!”

“Yes. We met over there. But soldiers are apt to be quiet about themselves and to praise the other fellow.”

“Nophaie — forgive me — something in me demands to know,” she said, unable to repress her strange emotion. “I — I think loving you and living out here has made me — a little more American than I was.... More Indian! Did you play football with any Germans?”

He laughed, but not the same way. For an instant he seemed no longer Nophaie.

“Benow di cleash, I did — yes. I got into a field of Germans — scattered — running like the old football players.... Only I had a bayonet!”

CHAPTER XX

A MODERATION OF the severe January weather attended Marian’s arrival at Kaidab.

Withers had said to her: “We’re a pretty discouraged outfit and we need a little of your sunshine. We all had the ‘flu’ except Colman. Mrs. Withers isn’t her old self yet. That’s the worst of this queer sickness. It leaves half its victims with some infirmity. We’re going to need you, and I reckon you’ll be better off and shore happier at Kaidab. And if it’s work you’re looking for among these poor Indians — Ha! — I reckon you’ll have enough. For this winter has started in a way to scare the daylights out of us.”

At first Marian did not see justification for the trader’s grim statements. His wife was rather pale and weak, but she was getting well, and certainly was cheerful. The son was still in France, safe, now, at least, from the Germans. Colman had grown thin and somewhat somber, yet appeared perfectly well. The Indian servants were identically the same as when Marian had last seen them. She felt that she must not, however, be oversanguine as to the well- being of the Withers household. She sensed, rather than saw, an encroaching shadow.

Nophaie had no home now, except the open, and Withers forced him to accept room and board in his house. Marian was sure that one of the trader’s needs of her was to help him keep Nophaie from going back to the hogans of his people, to do which in mid-winter would be fatal for him.

The afternoon of Marian’s arrival at Kaidab was not without something of pleasure and happiness. The dark cloud hovered at the horizon of the mind. She herself brought cheer and gayety, for she felt she certainly owed them that. Besides the proximity of Nophaie made her more light-headed than she would have cared to confess.

“Marian, you should see Nophaie in the uniform he wore when he got here,” said Mrs. Withers.

“His service uniform?” responded Marian, eagerly.

“Yes, and it sure showed service.”

Whereupon Marian conceived an irresistible desire to see Nophaie in the garb of a soldier. So she asked him to put it on. He refused. She importuned him, only to be again refused. Nophaie seemed a little strange about the matter. But Marian did not care, and, persisting, she followed him into the long hall of the Indian decorations, and there she waylaid him.

“Please Nophaie, put your uniform on for me,” she begged. “It’s only a girl’s sentimental whim. But I don’t care what it is. That girl loves you.”

“Benow di cleash, I hate the sight of that uniform now,” he said.

“Oh, why?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t hate it until I got back here — on the desert — home.”

“Oh! Well, you need never put it on again after this time. Just once for me. I want to take your picture. Think — I have pictures of you in football suit, baseball suit, Indian suit, and now I want one of you as a soldier — an American soldier. Why not?”

And she was not above lending her arms and lips to persuasion, which quite vanquished him.

“You’re a white girl, all right,” he laughed.

“White? Certainly, and your white girl.”

Somehow she seemed to want to be unutterably tender and loving to him, as if to make up for what she owed him. But when she saw him stride out in his uniform she quite lost her teasing and affectionate mood. It was almost as if sight of him had struck her dumb. The slouchy loose garb of an Indian had never done justice to Nophaie. As a soldier he seemed magnificent. She dragged him out in the sunlight and photographed him to her satisfaction. Then all the rest of the afternoon, which they spent in the living room before the big open fireplace, she was very quiet, and watched him.

After dinner he went to his room and returned in velveteen and corduroy, with his silver-buckled belt and moccasins. Nophaie again! Marian felt glad. That soldier uniform had obsessed her. Its meaning was so staggering.

Withers seemed to throw off cares of the present and forebodings of the future. He teased Marian and he kept coaxing Nophaie to tell something about the war. Marian added her entreaties to those of the trader. But Nophaie would not speak of himself. He told about the deaths of four of his Nopahs, all in action at the front, and each story had for Marian a singular tragic significance. Then he told about Shoie, who had turned out to be more than a bear-trapper of Germans. American officers discovered late Shoie’s remarkable gift for seeing or picking out weaknesses in the German front line, when they were driving. Nophaie said it was simply the Nopah’s wonderful eyesight. At any rate Shoie was sent out on scout duty, by both day and night. He could hide himself on apparently level bare ground. He needed no more cover than a jackrabbit. He had the Indian’s instinct for stealthiness.

From one of his scouting trips Shoie did not return. He was reported among the missing. But sometime during the fourth night of his absence he crawled back to his own trenches. A sentry stumbled over him. Shoie could not talk, and appeared covered with blood, probably seriously wounded. Examination proved that he had been spiked to a wall through hands and feet, and his tongue had been cut out. As Shoie could not write his own language or understand much of the white man’s, it was difficult to find out what had happened to him. Indians of his own kind at length pieced out the probable truth of his story. He had ventured too far and had been captured. The Germans had tried to force him to talk, or to make signs in regard to his regiment and trenches. They did not understand an Indian. Shoie made faces at them. They drove spikes through his hands and feet and left him to hang for a day. Then they tried again to make him tell what they wanted to know. Shoie stuck out his tongue at the intolerant Germans. They ordered his tongue cut out. And still they left him to hang. That night Shoie worked the spikes through his hands, then pulled out those that held his feet. And he crawled across No Man’s Land to his own trenches. He recovered from his injuries.

“Oh — monsters!” cried out Marian. “Could they not have killed him?”

“Benow di cleash, the Huns were like Blucher,” replied Nophaie.

That was the only word he ever said against the Germans, the only time he ever spoke of them.

“And is Shoie here?” queried Marian, eagerly.

“Wal, I reckon so,” replied Withers. “He was in the store to- day, begging tobacco. Sure, it’s a sight when he tries to talk. The Indians are more scared of him than ever. They think he has offended the evil spirits who had his tongue cut out to punish him for casting spells. Something strange about what’s happened to Shoie!”

It was intensely interesting to hear Nophaie talk of Paris, and crossing on the troop-ships, and his return to New York. Marian could not be sure, but she divined somehow that women had been one of the incomprehensible side factors of the war. A flash of jealousy, like fire, flamed over Marian, only to subside to her absolute certainty of Nophaie’s aloofness.

“Withers, this will interest you particularly,” said Nophaie, “as it deals directly with the Indian problem.... In New York I ran into one of my old college teachers. He remembered me well. Was not at all surprised to see me in Uncle Sam’s uniform. And he was glad I had done something. He took me to dinner and we talked over my school days and football records. Asked me what I was going to do, and if I’d like a job. I told him I was going home to work with my people. That made him serious. He said: ‘The work needed among the American Indians now lies along the line of citizenship. This government reservation bureau is obsolete. The Indian myth is punctured. Whenever the Indians protest against attempts to civilize them it is owing to the influence of reservation officers and politicians who want to keep their easy pickings. These fakers encourage the belief that the Indian question is still serious, and that the government must still control them. Almost all the Indians have been born under bureau administration. They have been controlled by the political bureau. Most of them have learned to be dependent upon the government. They know nothing of white men’s ways — which certainly is a black mark against the Indian Bureau.

“The Indian in the war service brought to all intelligent and honest American thinkers something of vital significance. The Indians did not have to go to fight. They enlisted, perhaps ten thousand of them. Many were killed. They were in all branches of the service. I am absolutely certain that these Indian soldiers were not in sympathy with the bunko game of adopting American generals into the tribe. That was only some more of the politician’s tricks to keep the reservations under government control and restrict the Indian to the desert.

“And it is not only unjust to the Indian, but a detriment to the government and people. If never before the Indian has now earned a right to get out among white men if he wants to or to live free upon his unmolested land. If these Indian Bureau men were honest in their work to civilize Indians they would make them free and give them the rights of citizenship. Suppose the government restricted all the aliens and immigrants who settle in America. They would never become real Americans as most of them do.

“The real good to the Indian has been subordinated to the main issue — and that is the salary of eight thousand government employees. It is a waste of money. Actually most of it is wasted!”

Withers then indulged in some language a good deal more forcible than elegant; and he concluded his outburst by asking Nophaie if the official had mentioned Morgan.

“No,” returned Nophaie. “Well, when I told him how the missionary with the Old Book behind him actually governed this reservation he was dumfounded.”

“Nophaie, how would you decide the Indian problem?” asked Withers. “I’ve been among Indians all my life. My wife knows Indians better than any other white person I’ve ever heard of. It’s a problem with us. As old Etenia says, you’ve got a white mind and red blood. Tell us your angle.”

Nophaie leaned on the high mantle and poked his moccasined toe at a stick of wood fallen from the fire. He seemed tranquil and sad. He had a thoughtful brow. His eyes had the piercing look, the somber blackness peculiar to his kind, but they had something more, and it was much for this nameless light that Marian loved him. She seemed to see it as the soul of an Indian — a something the white man did not believe in. She was curious to see how Nophaie would answer the trader’s earnest question, and did not believe he would answer at all.

“I could solve the Indian problem. First I’d exclude missionaries like Morgan,” he replied, with a strange, dark bitterness. “Then I’d give the Indian land and freedom. Let him work and live as he chose — send his children to school — move among white men and work with and for them. Let the Indians marry white women and Indian girls marry white men. It would make for a more virile race. No people can overcome handicaps now imposed upon us. Not much can be done in the way of changing or improving the matured Indian. But he was good enough as he was. This Indian wants none of the white man’s ways. He cares only for his desert and his people. He hates the idea of being dependent. Let him work or idle for himself. In time he would develop into a worker. The Indian children should be educated. Yes! But not taught to despise their parents and forego their religion. Indian children would learn — even as I have learned. What ruined me was to make me an infidel. Let the Indian’s religion alone.... The Indian is no different from a white man — except that he is closer to elemental life — to primitive instincts. Example of the white man’s better way’s would inevitably follow association. The Indian will absorb, if he is not cheated and driven.... I think the Golden Rule of the white men is their best religion. If they practiced that the Indian problem would be easy.”

Late that night after the Withers family and others of their household had gone to bed Marian sat a while with Nophaie before the glowing embers in the fireplace.

This hour really was the happiest and most beautiful in its teaching of any she had ever spent with him. Much of his bitterness had vanished. If he had been great before he went to war, what was he now? Marian could only feel little, humble, adoring, before this strange composite of a man. For Marian he was now more of a lover than he had ever been. Marian trembled a little, fearful even in her hour of bliss. Why had he let down his Indian reserve? What did he know that she did not? If he had gotten rid of the scourge of his soul — his unbelief — he would have told her. But she would have divined that. Nophaie was at once closer to her than ever, yet farther away. All she could do was to grasp at the skirts of the happy and thrilling and thought-provoking hour.

Next day Marian encountered Shoie. It seemed to her that Withers tried to attract her attention from the Indians in the trading post, but he was not successful.

She went into the store, back of the counter, and drew closer to this Indian hero who had been mutilated by the Germans. She did not recognize Shoie. He was some other Indian, like the evil spirit he claimed to possess. His face had been strangely lacerated, and he resembled a creature distorted by demoniacal laughter. Shoie was a physical wreck. His Indian garb, that manifestly he had acquired from an Indian of larger stature, hung loosely upon him, and it was ragged. She did not see how he could keep warm, for he had no blanket. And he huddled over the stove. Presently he observed that Marian was looking at him. She could not tell whether he was angry or glad. He opened his mouth. His scarred lips moved to let out a strange sound. It bore no semblance to words. Yet how plain it was that he tried to speak! Only a roar issued from that tongueless cavity. To Marian it was horrible. She fled.

Bad news arrived that day, along with more raw, cloudy weather. Both white travelers and Nopah couriers reported increasing illness in the sections of desert they had traversed.

“It’s come,” grated out Withers, somber as an Indian.

That night the desert wind mourned under the eaves of the house. Marian could not sleep for a long while. How mournful! It wailed low and rose to a shriek and lulled again. It made Marian shiver. It had an unearthly sound. Its portent was storm, cold, evil, plague, death, desolation.

At dawn a blizzard was blowing. Snow and sleet and dust sheeted across the bleak levels, obscuring the mesa. It lasted two days, and broke to raw rain that melted most of the snow. Then sleet again, followed by bitter cold! The sun did not show. At night the moon and stars were hidden. A dark leaden rolling canopy obscured the heavens.

Nophaie rode the ranges. Neither Withers nor Marian could keep him in. And the concluding weeks of that month brought the catastrophe Withers had predicted.

The Indians were caught like rats in a trap. Their hogans were no places to fight influenza. Three months of growing poverty had suddenly culminated in a terrible situation. These Indians had saved no money. They had only horses, sheep, and corn. The price of wool fell to nothing. Withers managed to hold the best of the blanket weavers working at a loss to himself. He kept these families. And no Indian was turned away empty-handed from the store. Meat and corn were about all most of the Nopahs had to eat, and the time came when many of them did not have that. From a prosperous people they fell in six months to a starving people, at the mercy of a disease that seemed fatal to most. It killed them quickly. Those it did not kill it left blind or infirm or deaf.

In February hundreds died of the disease, within a radius of fifty miles of Kaidab. Whole families were taken. For many more days the sun did not shine, and the nights were black. The Indians thought the sun and moon had failed them. The medicine men prevailed upon them to believe that the only thing left to save them was the eating of horseflesh. Therefore they killed and ate great numbers of their best horses.

One morning Colman found a dead Nopah lying beside the stove in the trading post. He had probably hidden behind the counter while the trader was locking up. Apparently he had not been ill the previous day. But the influenza had attacked him in the night and had killed him.

This mystery and terrible nature of the disease absolutely appalled the Indians. They could not regard it as a natural sickness. It was a scourge of the evil one. And most certainly it was not a sickness carried by one Indian to another, though just as certainly it was contagious. It struck here and there and everywhere. Lone sheepherders who had not been seen or met by any Nopah for weeks were found dead. Hogans full of Indians were found dead. Young and old went alike, but the strong and healthy braves in the prime of life were killed quickest. Peculiarly raw and brutal were the ravages of the scourge. It came unawares like a lightning stroke. And the Indian suddenly filled with palsy and fever surrendered at once. He was like a wolf caught in a trap, stricken, spiritless, ready for death. The proud spirit of Nopah bowed under this brand of his evil gods.

“Influenza — pneumonia?” queried Withers, scoffingly. “Hell! It’s a plague. A black plague. A war plague! Don’t I know these Indians? Why, bad colds and pneumonia are nothing. But this damned disease is a beast of hell. Don’t talk to me of germs. It’s no germ. It strikes from the air. It comes down. It must be some of that infernal gas the Huns let loose on the world. How else can we explain the strange way it acts? Yesterday some Mormons rode through. They told of meeting seven Nopahs on the trail. These Nopahs were O.K. Next day they went down in a heap. I sent men over there. Six of the Nopahs were dead. A little boy was living, half buried under the dead bodies. Old Etenia fell off his horse and died in two hours. His family has been nearly wiped out. Nopahs die on their way here. Do you think they were sick when they started? That’s what jars me — the way it strikes these Indians and how quick it kills! A white man will fight, but an Indian won’t. Not this plague! It has got his goat, as the cowboys say.”

In the midst of this tragic time Withers received word that Gekin Yashi had fallen victim to the dread malady. A sick Indian rode in with the news, disclosing the whereabouts of the Little Beauty. She was married to Beeteia, a young Nopah chief who had been to France, but who had never given Withers a hint that might have cleared up the mystery of her disappearance.

“Just like a Nopah!” ejaculated the trader. “Well, Gekin Yashi is down with ‘flu.’ It’ll kill her — almost sure. Maybe we can get her out in time. Her husband’s a fine Nopah. His hogan is somewhere up Nugi Canyon. I’ve sent Indians with horses to the mouth of the canyon. I’ll take the car. Maybe I can drive up to the pass — maybe to the canyon.... Give me medicines and whiskey.”

He had been talking to Colman and his wife. Marian sat beside the fire, startled and grieved into silence. Suddenly Nophaie entered, unfolding his blanket. His quirt hung on his wrist. Snowflakes gleamed on his sombrero.

“Ah! Here’s Nophaie,” said Withers. “I was hoping you’d get back. Have you heard about Gekin Yashi?”

“Yes. We must hurry. She is dying. And she has a baby.”

Marian leaped up, stung into action. “Let me go with you,” she entreated.

Nophaie showed less willingness to take her than Withers. But Marian prevailed upon both of them, helped by Mrs. Withers.

“Bundle up warm. Take a hot stone for your feet,” she advised, “and don’t get either overheated or chilled. It’s a squally day — storm and shine.”

“Don’t count the shine,” observed Withers. “You’ll have to ride against the wind. Reckon you’ll not forget it.”

The ride in the car, with a hot stone at her feet and heavy blankets round her and over her face, was not much for Marian to endure. But when she got into the saddle, headed toward the wind, it was a different matter.

The day was not far advanced, and the sky appeared divided into sections of lowering gray pall, broken purple clouds, and steely blue sky. The sun shone fitfully. At the outset the cold was not bitter, though the wind cut like a knife.

Neither sad errand nor inevitable discomfort could keep Marian from being responsive to other sensations. The mouth of Nugi Canyon yawned wide, a jagged red-cliffed portal, specked with white snow-patches and black cedar trees. The bold faces of stone were glistening wet. A deep wash meandered out of the canyon. Cold and wintry as was the scene it held fascination for Marian; and though not in any degree so magnificent as Pahute Canyon it was impressive and beautiful. The towers stood up carved, cragged, creviced, yellow in the sun, red in the shade, white on the north summits.

A familiar yet strange sensation assailed Marian — something which at first she was at a loss to define. Presently, however, she associated it with the icy, cutting, tangible quality of the air, and from that she discovered it was a fain fragrance of sage. Again she had come in contact with the most significant feature of the uplands. But she could not see any sage and concluded it must be farther on.

The threatened storm held off and the wind appeared to be shifting and falling. Marian grew fairly comfortable in the saddle, warming to the exercise. And when the clouds broke and the sun shone forth she had opportunity to see this canyon.

It appeared to be a grand winding portal into the solid rock bulk of the upland desert. Pahute Canyon was too deep and wide and tremendous to grasp. This canyon was on a scale that did not stun the faculties. It had a noble outline of rim, exceedingly broken into spires, domes, crags, peaks, monuments, escarpments, promontories; and the side canyons intersecting it were too numerous to count. That appeared its most singular feature. At one point Marian rode across a wide open space that might have been classified as the hub of a wheel, from which many canyon spokes ran off in all directions. From above Nugi Canyon must have had the shape of a centipede, with the main canyon constituting the body, and the fringe of side canyons the legs.

About five or six miles up the Nugi there came a change of conformation. It spread wider, the cliffs lowered, the perspective was much better because the former overpowering proximity was now gone. Marian was now not so close to the canyon that she could not see it.

THE STORM SWEPT ON, WREATHING THE RIMS AND FILLING THE NARROW CANYON BEHIND

Wide flats of greasewood sloped up gradually from the steep red-earth banks of the wash. A shallow muddy creek, lined with shelves of dust-colored ice, wound between them. Riding across this creek, which had to be done several times, was an ordeal for Marian. The ice shelves broke under the hoofs of the horses; and they had to trot through the water to keep from miring in quicksand. The steep trails up soft sandy banks further worried her. She had to grasp pommel and mane to hang on; and when she rode down, that was worse, because she slid far forward.

“Benow di cleash, do you see there is no feed for horses or sheep here?” asked Nophaie, turning once to wave his hand toward the flats. “This used to be the most fertile of canyons. Two dry years! And do you see the empty hogans?”

Marian had not observed either of these features. But now the fact struck her forcibly. How bare the soil! Not a blade of bleached grass! Dead greasewood, gray as ashes, vied with the stunted cedars and a few scrubby oaks in relieving the barrenness of the canyon floor. Long slopes of yellow sand, spotted with horse tracks, ran up from the wash. Slopes of snow showed white in protected places on the north side.

Gradually the trail climbed, and gradually the canyon took on more of beauty and less of grandeur. The colors grew brighter. Patches of purple sage made wonderful contrast to the red cliffs. This softer aspect accentuated the loneliness and desolateness of the deserted hogans. How dark, haunting the eye- like doors, facing the east! No more did Indian rise to stand on his threshold, to see the sun break over the eastern ramparts! A melancholy stillness pervaded the atmosphere of this canyon. No sound, no living creature! Winter had locked the canyon in its grip, but there was more than winter to hold accountable for the solitude, the seeming death of life.

A gray moving cloud, low down, filling the canyon thickly as fog, came swooping down. It was a snow-squall. It obscured cliffs, side canyons, turrets and towers, yet Marian could see its upper margin, a soft rolling gray mass, against the blue of sky.

Withers led off to the left into one of the intersecting canyons. It looked narrow, steep-sided, gloomy, and mysterious under the approaching storm. When the snow reached Marian she had a few moments of exhilaration in the feathery white pall; and then as it came thick and cold she protected her face and paid attention only to the trail.

That appeared to go on end more than its predecessors. Marian rode up and down until she felt she was not sure of her equilibrium. Finally the trail took to the bottom of a wash, on a stream bed of sand and icy sheets and an inch of clear water. The snow squall lost its vigor, thinned out, and began to blow away as it had come.

Suddenly Marian saw a strange radiance. She looked up. The snow was still slanting down, large white flakes far apart, and they seemed to be of some exquisite composite hue. Blue — white — gold! Or was it only the strange light? Marian had never seen the like. The sun was shining somewhere and through the marvelous moving veil of snow gleamed the blue sky. How unreal! Then it became a transparent medium, revealing the golden rims of canyon above, and magnified a tower into a Babel of mosaics. Clearer, more amber, grew the light; and soon purple slopes of sage rose from the streambed to the snow-banks under the cliffs. Here the sage gave off pungent odor too thick and powerful to be fragrance. It was a breath, cold, spicy, intoxicating. The storm swept on, wreathing the rims and filling the narrow canyon behind. To the fore all was clear once more — blue sky — golden towers — gleaming down upon a closed notched end of this canyon. It was a wild, beautiful place, inclosed by wet-faced cliffs, fringed by black spruce, sloped in snow and sage.

The storm swept on, wreathing the rims and filling the narrow canyon behind.

When Withers rode up a bank, and into a clump of cedars to dismount before a hogan, Marian realized with a shock that she was at the end of the ride. She had forgotten its portent.

Nophaie slid off his horse, and dropping his blanket from his shoulders he bent his lofty form and entered the hogan. Withers ordered the two Indians he had brought with him to build a fire under the cedars.

“Get down and exercise a bit,” he said to Marian. “They’ll soon have a fire to warm you.”

“Won’t — you let me see Gekin Yashi?” asked Marian, with hesitation.

“Yes — but wait,” he replied, and taking a saddle- bag off his saddle he hurried into the hogan.

Marian had scarcely dismounted before the trader came out again, with a look on his face that made Marian’s halting lips stiffen.

“Too late!” he ejaculated, a little huskily. “Gekin Yashi died in the night. Beeteia’s mother must have gone sometime yesterday.... And—”

“Some one said there was a — a baby,” faltered Marian, as the trader hesitated.

“Come here to the fire,” rejoined the practical Withers. “You look blue.... Yes, there is a baby — and it’s half white, as any one could see.... It’s about gone too, breathing its last. I can’t do anything but stay — and bury them.”

“Oh! Withers, let me go into the hogan?” asked Marian.

“What for? It’s no sight for you — let alone the risk.”

“I’m not afraid of sight or risk. Please. I feel it’s a duty.... I cared for Gekin Yashi.”

“Reckon that’s one reason why I’d rather you remembered her as she used to be.... By God! every white man who has wronged an Indian girl should see Gekin Yashi now!”

“I will never forget the Little Beauty of the Nopahs,” murmured Marian, sorrowfully.

“All right — you can go, but wait,” went on Withers. “I want to tell you something. Beeteia was one of the best of the young Nopahs. He had loved Gekin Yashi since she was a kid. But she didn’t care for him, and Do etin wouldn’t make her marry him. She ran off from the school at Mesa — in her shame. For Gekin Yashi was as good as she was pretty. But if she did run off it was made easy for her. Beeteia found her — his brother, who’s with us, told me — and he took her home and married her. The half-white baby was welcome, too. Now he’s in there holding on to the poor little dying beggar — as if it were his own.”

It took courage for Marian to walk up to that hogan and enter. The smouldering fire was almost out. She saw Nophaie sitting with bowed head beside a young Nopah — the counterpart of hundreds she had seen — who held a four or five months old baby on his lap.

Nophaie did not look up; neither did the other Indian. Marian bent over that tiny bundle and peered into the convulsed face. How dark the Indian’s hand alongside of the baby’s cheek! Even as Marian gazed an indefinable changing reached its culmination and set. She believed that had been the passing instant of life. Marian felt the drawing back of her instinctive self, repelled and chilled at heart.

Beyond these sitting Indians lay a blanketed form close to the hogan wall. It suggested the inanimate nature of stone. Snow had drifted in through the open framework of the hogan upon the folds of blanket. Behind Marian on the other side next the wall lay a slighter form, not wholly covered. Marian saw raven- black hair and shape of head she thought she recognized.

“Nophaie,” she whispered. “This — this one must be Gekin Yashi.”

“Yes,” replied Nophaie, and rising he stripped back the blanket from the dead girl.

At once Marian recognized Gekin Yashi and yet did not know her. Could this be the face of a sixteen-year-old girl? Disease and death had distorted and blackened it, but this change was not alone what Marian imagined she saw. Gekin Yashi’s songs and dreams and ideals had died before her flesh. She looked a matured, settled Indian wife. She had gone back to the Indian way of thought and feeling, somber, mystic, without bitterness or hope, pagan or barbarian now, infinitely worse off for her contact with civilization.

Marian fled out of the hogan, back to the fire under the cedar. A horror possessed her — of she knew not what. Her own religion and faith rocked on its foundation. Plague and death were terrible, but not so terrible to contemplate as human nature, passion, hate, and life. Gekin Yashi had passed away. It was better so. Bruised, trampled flower of the desert! Had she not cried out to Marian, “No one ever tells me beautiful things!” What was that cry of the soul? How great had been the potentiality of that awakening mind?

Marian’s poignant reflections were interrupted by the voice of Withers inside the hogan.

“Nophaie, the baby is dead. Make Beeteia give it up. We’ve got to bury these Indians and beat it out of here pronto.”

Marian spread her cold and trembling hands to the fire. Somehow the trenchant words of the practical trader roused her out of the depths. Such men as Withers bore the greater burdens. He had kindness, sympathy, but he dealt with the cold hard facts. He was making himself a poor man for this Nopah tribe and working like a galley slave and risking his life. Through him Marian saw more of the truth. And it roused a revolt in her — against weakness and a too great leaning toward idealism and altruism — and for the moment against this stark and awful plague of influenza.

Nophaie might be taken. He would be if he kept riding the range day and night, exposing himself to both bitter weather and the disease. The fear struck at Marian’s heart. It did not pass. It shook her and stormed her. If there were lioness instinct in her it raged then.

Withers strode out of the hogan, accompanied by the Indians.

“Get the tools,” he said, pointing to the pack he had brought.

Nophaie remained beside the hogan door where Beeteia leaned, a tragic and strangely striking figure. He seemed a groper in the dark. Trouble and grief burdened him, like weights. He did not seem to hear the earnest words of Nophaie or see the tall form before him. Marian sensed a terrible revolt in him.

Beyond the hogan, in a level patch of sage half-circled by cedars, Withers set the two Indians to digging graves. Then the trader approached the hogan and, wielding an ax began to chop a hole through the earthen covering and interlaced poles beneath. Marian remembered that the dead bodies of Indians should not be taken out at the door. Manifestly, where it was possible Withers did not spare himself in observing the customs of these people of the desert.

Beeteia turned away from Nophaie and went back to his dead. Marian called Nophaie to her, and she led him behind the clump of cedars, where the horses were nibbling at the sage. Nophaie’s mind seemed clouded. She held his hand, endeavoring to quell her mounting excitation. The sun had come out momentarily, crowning the towers with gold. How deeply purple bloomed the sage!

“Benow di cleash, you should not have come,” said Nophaie, regretfully.

“I’m glad. It has hurt me — done something more than that,” she replied. “I was sick — sick deep in my soul. But I’m over it, I think... and now I want to talk.”

“Why — you’re white — you’re shaking!” he exclaimed.

“Is it any wonder? Nophaie, I love you — and I’m terror- stricken.... This awful plague!”

He did not reply, but his hands pressed hers closely and his eyes dilated. Marian had learned to sense in him the mystic, the Indian, when it stirred. She wrenched her hands free and then threw her arms around his neck. The action liberated and augmented the storm in her breast. What she had meant to express utterly, in her frenzy to save Nophaie and make him take her out of the desert, burst all bounds of woman’s subtlety and deliberation. What she said or did in this mad moment of self- preservation she never realized. But she awakened to a terrifying consciousness that she had inflamed the savage in Nophaie.

He crushed her in his arms and bent to her face with eyes of black fire. He did not kiss her. That was not the Indian way. Tenderness, gentleness, love had no part in this response to her woman’s allurement. His mastery was that of the primal man denied; his brutality went to the verge of serious injury to her. But for the glory of it — the sheer backward step to the uttermost thrill of the senses — deep in the marrow of her bones — she would have screamed out in her pain. For he handled her, bent her, swung and lifted her, and flattened her body as might have a savage in sudden possession of a hitherto unconquerable and unattainable woman of the wilds.

Like a sack he threw her across her saddle, head and feet hanging. But Marian, once partially free of his iron arms, struggled and rose, and got into better position on her horse. She reeled against Nophaie. She could scarcely see. But she felt release from his grip. Something checked him, and his blurred face began to grow distinct — to come closer — until it pressed against her bosom.

“White woman — you’ll make — an Indian of me,” he panted, in husky, spent passion.

It pierced Marian. What more strange, incomprehensible appeal could he have made? Yet how deep it struck! She — who had loved the nobility of him — to drag him from the heights! To use her physical charm, her power in supreme selfishness! It was damnable. It showed the inherent nature of the female. She abhorred it. Then came her struggle. Only the tragedy of this Indian man could ever have mastered the woman at that moment. Gekin Yashi, the poor demented Shoie, Beeteia and his unquenchable sense of loss, Do etin and Maahesenie — these strange figures loomed beside Nophaie’s. That was a terrible moment. She could work her will with Nophaie. Nature had made the man stronger, but the ultimate victory was woman’s. But what of the soul? Could she deny it, crush it, repudiate it?

“Nophaie — forgive!” she whispered, encircling his head with her arms, and pressing it closer to her breast. “I’ve been — beside myself. This plague — this death has made me a coward. And I tried to make you—”

“Benow di cleash, that’ll be about all,” he said, raising his face, and he smiled through tears.

An hour later Withers’s melancholy task had been completed. Beeteia refused to leave with the party. Marian’s last sight of him was one she could never forget — the dark-faced Indian standing before the hogan he could never enter again, peering across the graves of his mother and wife, and the ill- gotten baby he had meant to father — across the gray sage flat to the blank walls of stone. What did he see? What did he hear? Whence came his strength?

Withers grumbled as he rode past Marian, to take the lead.

“I can’t do more. He wouldn’t come. That Nopah is going to do something terrible. He worries me.... Well, it’ll be a hard ride back. Rustle along. Get-up, Buckskin!”

Snow began to fall and the canyon grew gray as twilight. Marian followed the others at a brisk trot. The air had grown colder. When they rode up into the open reach of the main canyon a driving wind made riding against it something to endure. Gray, dull, somber, and dreary wound the Nugi, with palls of snow swooping low down, roaring through the cedars. The snow was wet. It adhered to Marian’s clothes, and grew thicker as she rode on. She could scarcely see where to guide her horse. And she suffered with the cold.

That snow-squall passed to permit wider prospect of gloomy canyon, obscured towers, white mantled rims, dark caverns, and forlorn barren benches. Another storm, with long gray veils sweeping the cliffs, came up the canyon. The wind and snow made a sweeping whine through the cedars. As fast as Marian shook off the white covering it returned, until, too weak and frozen to try any longer, she gave up. Branches of cedar stung her cold face. When at last she reached the end of that ride she was indeed glad to let Nophaie lift her off the horse.

The car ploughed homeward through snow and mud, down out of the pass into level valley. Again the gray masses of clouds spread and rolled away.

Marian saw the great tilted ledges, mountains in themselves, the tip of the lonely black sentinel above the red north wall, the round- knobbed horizon line to the east, and the gray cold wet waste of the desert.

CHAPTER XXI

THREE THOUSAND NOPAHS died of the plague, and from one end of the reservation to the other a stricken, bewildered, and crushed people bowed their heads. The exceedingly malignant form of the influenza and the superstitious convictions of the fatalistic Indians united to create a deadly medium. When spring came, with its warm sun, dissipating the strange wind of death, the Indians believed that the eating of horseflesh had saved them.

Slowly the clutch of fear loosed its possession of Marian’s heart. Slowly the long spell of gloom yielded to a hope inspired by sunshine and a steady decline in the death-rate of Nopahs. Yet not wholly did her old spirit return. There was something ineradicable — vague, tenacious, inscrutable — something she felt every time Nophaie smiled at her.

They all worked to alleviate the sufferings of the Indians. If the trader had ever saved any money, he lost it all and more that winter. Marian’s means had shrunken to almost nothing. Civilization seemed far away, absorbed in its own problems. The affairs of the reservation moved on as always. And the little circle of white people at Kaidab lived true to something the Indians had inspired in them, forgotten by the outside world.

March with its last icy breath of winter yielded to April with its sandstorms. The wind blew a gale one day and the next was calm, warm, with spring in the air. Only a few cases of influenza were reported, and deaths but seldom.

Yet Marian could not quite feel free. The tentacles of a deep-seated emotion, stranger than love, still were fastened in her heart.

Nophaie had ridden to Oljato, and when he did not return the following day the nameless thing that was neither thought nor feeling laid its cold hand on Marian’s soul.

She worked on Withers’s accounts that day; she wrote long-neglected letters; she busied herself for an hour over a sadly depleted and worn wardrobe; she rode horseback, out to the rocky ridge above Kaidab, and strained her eyes on the trail of Oljato.

But these energies did not allay her nervousness or quell the woman’s sixth sense. She tried the trading post, which of late had been hard to bear. Hungry, gaunt Indians would come in and stand around, staring with great dark eyes until Withers or Colman gave them something to eat. It was a starved tribe now.

Marian saw Indians carrying bows and arrows, a custom long past, which had been resumed because the hunters had sold their guns or could not buy ammunition. Wool had practically ceased its use as a means of trade. The Indians would not shear sheep for the price offered. A few goatskins and an occasional blanket were bartered over the counter. It was distressing to watch an Indian woman come in with a blanket, often a poorly made one that Withers did not want and could not sell, and haggle over a price which was ruinous for the trader to offer. In this way Withers kept alive the Nopahs of his district. They did not thank him, for none of them understood.

This day Marian encountered Shoie again, and despite the feeling almost of horror that he incited she resolutely stood her ground and watched him. Shoie’s companion was a young Nopah, very dark and wild looking, ragged and unkempt, with a crippled foot. Something about this second Indian impelled Marian’s sensitiveness even more than Shoie. He was watching Shoie’s signs and the contortions of his lacerated lips as he tried to convey some meaning. Withers observed Marian’s perplexity and gave her his interpretation.

“That crippled Nopah is one of the few criminals of the tribe. He’s the Indian who assaulted one of Etenia’s little daughters. They caught him and held his foot in the fire until it was burned to a crisp. That was his punishment and he is now an outcast. I reckon Shoie is trying to say that he’ll cast an evil spell over him.”

Marian earned her momentary forgetfulness of self then in contemplation of these two Indians. Extremes as they were, they fixed her mind on the mystery of life. A monstrosity she had seen at Copenwashie, a Noki albino Indian, white- haired and pink-eyed, hideous to behold, had not affected her as either of these two Nopahs. She compared them with Ba ho zohnie and Nophaie. But when thought of Nophaie recurred she could no longer stay in the store.

Outside it was growing cool. The sun had set, and there shone a ruddy effulgence over the tilted sections of wall in the west. Coyotes were wailing. Marian walked in the twilight. It seemed an immense and living thing, moving up out of the desert. An oppression weighed upon her. How dark and lonely the empty space out beyond! The stone-walled confines of the wasteland flung their menace at her thinking mind.

Withers appeared unusually quiet that night. His wife talked a little, in her low voice, grown like an Indian’s. But the trader had not much to say. Marian sat beside the hearth, with eyes on the glowing white and gold embers. Suddenly she was startled out of her reveries.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Horse. Must be Nophaie,” replied the trader, as if relieved.

Marian sat still, listening. But she heard on a strange knocking at her heart. At length the door opened with a sweep. Nophaie! His eyes were those of an Indian, but his face seemed that of a white man. He staggered slightly as he closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. His whole body was in vibration, strung, like that of an athlete about to leap. His piercing gaze left Marian’s face to search the trader’s.

“John — give me a room to die in!”

Withers gasped and sank back limp. His wife uttered a frightened and compassionate cry.

“It’s got me!” whispered Nophaie.

Marian’s terror voiced its divination of her nameless instinct.

“Oh, my God — Nophaie!” she screamed, and ran to him.

Nophaie reeled over her. Intense and terrible seemed the strain of spirit over body. He clasped her shoulders — held her away from him.

“Benow di cleash, I should have been dead — hours ago.... But I had to see you.... I had to die as — a white man!”

Marian shuddered under the strange clasp of his hands. They burned through her blouse.

“White woman — savior of Nophaie — go back to your people.... All — is — well!”

Then he collapsed against her and was caught by the trader. They half carried him to his room and laid him on the bed. Then began frantic ministrations in his behalf. The fire of his face, the marble pallor, the hurried pulse, the congested lungs, the laboring heart all proclaimed the dread plague.

Once in the dim lamplight, as Marian knelt beside the bed in agony, calling, “Nophaie — Nophaie!” he opened his eyes — somber, terrible, no longer piercing with his unquenchable spirit; and it seemed to her that a fleeting smile, the old beautiful light, veiled for an instant his tragic soul and blessed her.

Then it seemed to Marian that a foul black fiend began to thrust the life of Nophaie from her. It became a battle, all unconscious on the part of the victim. Poison fires sucked at his life’s blood. This was not an illness — not a disease — but a wind of death that drove out the spirit and loosed devastating corruption upon the living flesh. Yet the vitality of the Indian held it at bay.

The trader entreated her to leave the bedside and at length dragged her back to the sitting room. There Marian huddled down before the fire, racked with pangs. Oh! must this end in the futility of Nophaie’s life and of her love! Mrs. Withers came and went, softly stepping, tender of hand, but she did not speak. The night wore on. Outside the wind rose, to mourn into the dead silence. The vines under the eaves rustled.

Sometime in the late hours Withers came to her and touched her gently.

“Marian,” he said, huskily.

“Nophaie — he — is — gone?” whispered Marian, rising.

“No. Unconscious, but he’s stronger — or I’m crazy.... I must tell you the strangest thing. Many of these Nopahs who died of this plague turned black.... Nophaie talked of turning white. He’s out of his head. I was shocked. It’s as strange as what he said, ‘John, give me a room to die in!’ — Marian, it must mean he is true at the last — to the mind — the soul developed in him. Yet his life here was one endless struggle to be true to his birthright. But I don’t believe Nophaie will die. He’s past the crisis that kills so many. I never saw such strife of spirit against disease. It just can’t kill him.”

Marian wrapped a blanket round her and went out into the night. The cold desert wind fanned her face and whipped her hair. Dawn was not far away. The stars were paling and the blackest hour was at hand. Desert and sky, the shadows, the mournful wind, the silence, — all kept their secret. But life was here, and there, only a step away was death. “All — is — well!” she breathed Nophaie’s words. Her soul seemed flooded with infinite thankfulness. Perhaps the tremendous conflict in Nophaie was for more than life. Her belief in God told her so. She stood once more with Nophaie on the heights above the Marching Rocks! Had this dark proximity to death illumined his unbelief?

The desert was to be her home, in spirit and dream. Always it must be an irresistible influence for thought, for good, for the clarifying of life. She quivered with happiness to divine that always she was to see the upland sage of purple, the golden-crowned monuments asleep in the sunlight, the long green sweep and slope, the shadows of the silent walls — and somewhere against that background, the Indian Nophaie.

CHAPTER XXII

NOPHAIE’S RETURN TO consciousness left him with fading memory of black hideous depths, where something inexplicable in him had overthrown demons.

He had expected that he would die, but now he knew he would live. Had he not welcomed death? A vast struggle had gone on within his physical being. Vaguely it seemed that he had been in terrible conflict with the devil over possession of his soul. Haunting brooding thought of this strange thing occupied his waking hours and lingered in his dreams.

The satisfaction of the Witherses and the joy of Marian at his quick strides toward recovery gave Nophaie a melancholy happiness. They loved him. They did not recognize any barrier between him and Benow di cleash. Was there really a barrier? What was it? He spent hours trying to grasp the dim facts of former convictions, vows, duties. They eluded him. They grew dimmer. Something had happened to his soul or else the plague had left his mind impaired.

Nophaie was up and around on the fourth day after the crisis of his illness. He avoided contact with the Indians, and indeed with his white friends also as much as that was possible without being discourteous. And they in turn appeared to understand and help him. Yet always while he sat in the warm sun of the May mornings or walked under the greening cottonwoods Marian’s eyes followed him. He felt them. And when he met her gaze at close hand there shone a beautiful glad light. It thrilled him, swelled his heart, yet he felt it to be a reckoning he must some time deal with.

In a few more days Nophaie’s vigor had returned enough to warrant his leaving Kaidab. So, at an opportune moment, when he was alone with Withers and his wife and Marian, he spoke out about his plan.

“John, will you give me a pack of grain and a little grub?”

“What for?” queried the trader, in quick surprise.

“I want to ride off alone — into the sage — and the canyons,” replied Nophaie, thoughtfully.

Marian left her seat beside the fire and came to him, quite pale, with wondering, darkening eyes.

“Nophaie, are you — strong enough?” she asked, fearfully.

“It will cure or kill me,” he replied, with a smile, and he took her hand.

“Reckon it’s not a bad idea,” agreed Withers, more to his wife than to the others. She was silent, which in her meant acquiescence. Then he turned to Nophaie. “You can have anything you want. When’ll you go? To-morrow? I’ll get your horse in or you can have one of mine.”

“Yes, I’ll go at sunrise, before Benow di cleash is up,” returned Nophaie.

“You’ll go off alone and stay alone?” queried the trader.

“Honest Injun,” replied Nophaie.

“Good. Reckon I don’t mind telling you I’m worried a little,” went on Withers, running his hand through his tousled hair. “Beeteia has begun to play hell with the Indians.”

“I knew that,” said Nophaie.

“Beeteia!” exclaimed Marian. “Isn’t that Gekin Yashi’s husband? The young chief I saw up — there?”

“That’s the Indian,” rejoined the trader.

“Beeteia has the best blood of the Nopahs,” interposed Mrs. Withers. “He comes from the first clan. He’s really a great chief.”

“Reckon that means more than I thought,” said her husband. “He’s inflaming the Indians against Morgan and Blucher. I hear he’s — developed into a wonderful orator — anyway he has never gotten over Gekin Yashi’s death. He is trying to get the Indians to rise against the whites. That’s not new by any means here on the reservation. It probably will fizzle out, as all the uprisings do. But it might not. I just don’t like Beeteia’s influence. Could he be stopped, Nophaie?”

“You would have to kill him,” replied Nophaie.

“Ahuh! — Well, all we can do is hope nothing will come of it,” returned the trader, rising.

Mrs. Withers followed her husband out, leaving Nophaie alone with Marian. She still stood by his chair, looking down on him.

“Nophaie, where will you go?” she asked.

“I’ll go to Naza.”

“So — far?” she ejaculated, with a little catch in her voice.

“It’s not far for me.”

“But why Naza — if it’s only loneliness — the sage and canyons you feel you need?” she went on, earnestly.

Nophaie released her hand and put his arm round her waist. He felt a little shock go over her and then a long tremble. The sweetness and meaning of her presence had never been more potent. There seemed a difference in their relation — he could not tell what. That was another thing he must learn. He felt weaker, less able to hurt her.

“Benow di cleash, I’m not sure, but I believe I’m going to Naza because it’s the greatest god of the Nopahs.”

“Oh — Nophaie!” she faltered. “Are you still tortured? You told me how all the Nopah gods failed you. Even Nothsis Ahn was only a gray cold mountain, without voice or soul for you.”

“Yes, I remember, Marian,” returned Nophaie. “But I don’t seem to be tortured or driven, as I was when I climbed the north slope of Nothsis Ahn. It’s something I can’t explain. I don’t even know that my desire to go is anything but physical. Yet I’m in strange mood. I want solitude. And somehow Naza calls. There’s light — perhaps strength for me in those silent canyons.”

“Oh, if you could only find peace!” murmured Marian.

Nophaie left Kaidab before sunrise and rode out across the desert in the gray melancholy dawn. The discordant bray of a burro was the only sound to break the silence.

From a rise of ground he turned in the saddle to look back at the trading post. A white object, fluttering from a dark window, caught his quick eye. Marian was waving good-by to him. The act was something he might have expected. Reining in his horse on the height of ground, he watched for a long significant moment, while conflicting emotions burdened his heart. He would answer her surely. The little white handkerchief fluttered more vigorously. She saw that he was watching her. Then he answered with the slow sweeping gesture of an Indian who was going far across the ranges, to a place that beckoned him and from which he would soon return. He saw her face gleam from the window and he imagined the light upon it. Wheeling his horse, he rode down the other side of the ridge, out of sight of the post, and forced consciousness of Marian out of his mind.

Nophaie’s mount was one of Withers’s best, a big strong mottled bay horse, easy-gaited and tireless. He did not appear to note the added weight of pack and blanket tied behind the saddle. Nophaie felt dizzy and insecure, sensations he attributed to his weakened condition. These would leave him, sooner or later, and for the time being he walked the horse. Once out of sight of fences and cattle he began gradually to relax, to change, to shuffle off old morbid thoughts and feelings as if they had been dead scales. This journey would be the most cardinally important one of all his life. He divined that, but did not know why. Would Naza prove to be a shrine? Then he surrendered to the longing to give himself wholly to sensorial perceptions.

A pink glow suffused the steely blue sky over the eastern ramparts, leagues to Nophaie’s right. Northward he could see the tip of a red butte rising above the yellow cedar-dotted ridges of rock. The song of a mocking- bird, the yelp of a coyote, the scurrying of a cottontail into the brush gave life to the desert scene. Nophaie smelled the wood-smoke from Indian hogans; he saw blanketed Nopahs watching him from a cedar ridge; he heard the wild piercing song of a shepherd moving away with his flock. He avoided the well- beaten trails, so that he would not meet any of his people. He meant not to exchange one word with a living soul while on this pilgrimage.

He crossed the deep wash, and climbing out of it, and up the wind- scalloped and rain-carved rocky slope beyond he reached a point where he might have looked down upon Kaidab, but he faced ahead, eyes keen to catch the first sight of the great valley of monuments.

Soon he espied, from tip down to base, a massive red butte, with columns like a pipe organ, standing out upon the desert from the main wall of the uplands. It was still far, but he hoped to camp there that night and renew acquaintance with the sweet sage slopes where as a boy he had shepherded the flocks of his father. Across his senses flashed a wondering query as to why he should long to see them now, when always since his return to the reservation he had avoided those vivid scenes of boyhood. He answered nothing; he refused to reflect.

It was as if he saw the desert with new eyes. All the old landmarks appeared magnified. The walls and pyramids that for hundreds of years had been invested with the spirits of his race seemed glorified in his sight, yet they were not idols or gods to kneel before and worship. Through them his senses grasped at a different meaning of beauty and nature, time and life.

Nophaie rode down into a wide yellow-walled canyon and out upon a green and sandy level, where the sun grew hot and the dust puffed up in whorls. The wide far-flung horizon was now lost, and he appeared encompassed by walls, sweeping and long, broken and irregular. For hours Nophaie rode on, aware of sun and wind, of the steady clip-clop of hoofs and the swing of the horse, of the open stretch of valley around him and the red and yellow walls that seemed to travel with him. At the far end of this stretch he climbed a low pass, where a colossal black shaft of rock speared the sky, and looked down into the Nopah valley of monuments where his people had lived and where he had been born. The spectacle held him for moments.

His destination for that day was the great pipe-organ mesa, now looming grandly ten miles farther on. It guarded the entrance to the sacred valley, where each separate monument was a god of the Nopahs. Fatigue and exhaustion wore upon Nophaie. But these were nothing. Only collapse or death itself could have halted him.

When he reached the magnificent mesa sunset was burning the walls and monuments with gold and rose. The desert floor was gray and near at hand, purple in the distance. Above the red barrier which he must climb on the morrow a glorious cloud pageant held his gaze as he leaned panting on his horse.

A thin stream of water wound shining down the sandy wash. The color of cloud and mesa flowed in it. Nophaie unsaddled the horse, fed him grain, and, hobbling him, turned him loose. Then he set about his own simple needs. Hunger was not in him, but he forced himself to eat. This hard journey that he was taking would soon restore his elemental instincts.

A soft gray twilight was creeping out from the red walls when Nophaie reached the spot where he had sat so many days as a boy, watching the sheep. It was a long ridge not far from the great butte. Grass and sage were thick there even as in his boyhood. The fragrance filled his nostrils, and memory, sad and sweet, flooded his mind. He found the flat red rock where he and his sister used to sit together. How long ago! She was dead. All his people were gone.

Nophaie gazed across the gray valley to a V-shaped crack in the south wall. The narrow ribbon-like stream shone winding out of this canyon. Up there, where the canyon boxed under close-looming cliffs, he had been born. Nophaie could remember when he was three years old.

“The Indian in me speaks,” he soliloquized. “It would have been better for me to have yielded to the plague. That hole in the wall was my home — this valley my playground. There are now no home, no kin, no play. The Indians’ deeds are done. His glory and dream are gone. His sun has set. Those of him who survive the disease and drink and poverty forced upon him must inevitably be absorbed by the race that has destroyed him. Red blood into the white! It means the white race will gain and the Indian vanish.... Nophaie is not yet thirty, yet he feels old. He is ruined, he is lost. There is nothing left. He too should vanish. This spot should be his grave. Under the sage!... Death, sleep, rest, peace!”

But Nophaie’s intelligence repudiated that Indian fatalism. It might be true to his instincts, but not to his mind. He was still young. The war had not destroyed him. The plague could not kill him. His body was tough as the desert cedar, his spirit as unquenchable as the light of the sun. Every day that he lived he could mitigate in some degree the misery of his race, if he chose. But his hatred — the hatred of Morgan and Blucher, of all the white men who had wronged the Indian — that was the cancer in his soul. Neither an instinctive Indian life, nor one governed by his white education, could be happy while that hate curdled his blood. Then flashed the uplifting thought that the love of Marian, given him with all the wondrous strength and generosity of a white woman’s heart, should overcome his hate, compensate for all his sufferings, and raise him to a state far above revenge or bitterness. She had paid him for all personal wrongs done him by her people.

But here Nophaie felt the ignominy of his bitterness. His love for Benow di cleash, her love for him, did not seem to have power over that hate. Something more was needed. And suddenly he knew this was the meaning of his strange quest — of his pilgrimage to Naza.

Long Nophaie reclined there in the gathering darkness. White stars peeped over the black ruins. The cold night wind rose and moaned through the sage. The flicker of his campfire shone against the black base of the mesa. From far across the valley came the faint bleat of lambs, sad, plaintive, significant of life on the lonely desert.

In the rosy, silent dawn, with the sunrise at his back, Nophaie rode into a dim and untrodden trail that climbed from the low country, up over the first red rampart, and on across a flat region of rocks and washes, up again and farther higher into the uplands of cedar, piñon and sage. Behind him the great shafts and monuments rose out of the lowlands, continuing to a level where Nophaie rode in the same red stratum. Often he turned to gaze back, to see them dark and majestic against the white clouds.

Nophaie gathered strength from these surroundings, and from the spicy tang on the cool wind, and the slow-gathering sense of his agonies, like the miles, fading back of him. It was not that he was coming into his own again — though the purple sage uplands and Nothsis Ahn would soon be in sight; rather it seemed that he would find something new, all-sufficient and soul- sustaining.

He rode up a bare slope of rock, a gradual mile in ascent, wavy and hummocky with ridges and hills, canyons and holes, yet always bare yellow rock. Then he turned a great corner of wall and lost the backward view. To the fore was cedared flat, mile on mile, red-rocked and green-patched, stretching away to another wall. Nophaie rode at a trot now, and entered this flat belt, to come at length to a deep canyon. It yawned below him, half a mile in depth, with ragged slopes too precipitous for any but an Indian trail. Nophaie walked, leading the horse. The descent into the dry hot canyon, under the ragged cliffs, and through the maze of great blocks of red rock, down into the region of colored clay and dusty wash, was attended by a mounting joy. The old physical urge, the instinct of muscle achievement, the fighting of unknown forces by endurances, revived in Nophaie. Climbing the opposite side was travail. From the rim another flat stretched out endlessly toward the mountain wall, now vivid in colors of red, yellow, and violet.

Nophaie arrived at its base in the gray of twilight, and made dry camp in a clump of cedars. He was getting away from the Indian reservation now. Little risk of meeting Indians from here on! Nophaie felt strange relief, that was almost shame. Was he running away from his race in more ways than one? Twenty- four hours and twice as many miles had removed him immeasurably from familiar scenes, from bound emotions. It began to be easier for him to hold long to the watching, listening, feeling, smelling perception that engendered happiness. If he could only abandon himself to that wholly! The night was cold, the wind mourned in the cedars, the coyotes howled.

Next morning Nophaie climbed the barefaced mountain wall that seemed insurmountable. It resembled a barrier of human passion. Spent, wet, and burning, he fell on the rim and panted. Ten days ago he had been abandoned by his tribe as a dead man! But his white friends had ministered unto him. His white sweetheart had prayed for his life. She had not confessed that; no one had told him, but he knew. He was alive. He was a man.

Nophaie labored to his feet and mounted the horse. Something ineffably sweet and precious went fleeting over him. He could not grasp it.

For miles he rode through cedar and sage upland. At noon the tremendous chasm of Nopah yawned in sight. It was wide and very deep, and marked by talus of many hues — clays of lilac, heliotrope, and mauve. There was no vegetation — only a barren abyss of erosion and decay. It opened into a colored gulf where all was dim, hazy, vast. Gazing down, Nophaie experienced a thrill of exultation. He would cross this canyon where few Nopahs had ever set foot.

The ordeal consumed the rest of that day. Nophaie lost himself in absorption of declivity and descent, of sliding slope, of weathered rock and dusty wash, of the heat of cliff and glare of red, of vivid green cottonwoods and shining surging stream, of sheer looming colossal wall, and of the crawl upwards like a lizard.

His reward was the rolling purple-saged, green- cedared plateau crowned by noble Nothsis Ahn. Crags of yellow, black belts of spruce, gleams of white snow — thus the Mountain of Light returned to Nophaie. It was the same. Only he had changed. How could wars of selfish men affect Nothsis Ahn? What was the trouble of Nophaie? As he gazed upward it flashed across him that there was really no trouble. But this idea seemed the calm, the strength, the soul of the mountain.

The sun was far down in the west. Nophaie chose an open patch of sage, backed by cedars, and here he made camp, with Nothsis Ahn looking down upon him.

Two days later Nophaie had crossed the uplands, traveled down under the north slope of the great mountain, down and down into the canyons.

It was summer down there. Hot, fragrant air moved lazily in gentle winds. Green trees and grass and flowers and silver scale bordered the narrow red- walled lanes. Indian paintbrush added its vermilion and magenta to the colorful scene. Down and down Nophaie rode, under the gleaming walls, through sunlight and shade, along and across the murmuring rock-strewn brooks, beside banks of amber moss and white lilies, and through thickets of green oak and cottonwood, down at last into the well- remembered and beloved place where he had lived so long in loneliness and solitude — his Canyon of Silent Walls.

Nophaie rested there that night and the next day. In this deep canyon where water and grass were abundant Nophaie’s horse profited by the stay. As for Nophaie, he strove valiantly to make the idle hours those of an Indian contented with natural things. Still he felt the swelling in him of a great wave of emotion. Something was about to burst within him, like the breaking of a dam. Yet he knew that with every moment he grew farther away from and above any passion similar to that of Beeteia’s. A power of the working of which he was conscious, seemed to be gradually taking possession of his soul.

Starting on his pilgrimage again at sunset, Nophaie rode all night, down Naza Boco, the canyon in the far depths of which hid the great Nopah god.

That ride seemed a vigil. Daylight would have robbed it of some strange spiritual essence. The shadows under the mounting walls now showed black and again silver. The star- fired stream of blue sky above narrowed between the black rims, farther and higher as he rode down and down into the silent bowels of the rock-ribbed earth. Every hour augmented the sense of something grand, all-sufficing, final, that awaited him at the end of his pilgrimage.

Dawn came with an almost imperceptible change from black to gray. Daylight followed slowly, reluctantly. It showed Nophaie the stupendously lofty walls of Naza Boco. Sunrise heralded its state by the red-gold crown on the rims. Gradually that gold crept down.

Nophaie rode round a rugged corner of wall to be halted by a shock.

Naza! The stone bridge — god of the Nopahs arched magnificently before him, gold against the deep-blue sky. He gazed spellbound for a long time, then rode on. At first it had seemed unreal. But grand as Naza towered there, it was only a red-stained, black-streaked, notched and cracked, seamed and scarred masterpiece of nature. Wind and rain, sand and water were the gods that had sculptured Naza. But for Nophaie the fact that his education enabled him to understand the working of these elements did not mitigate in his sight their infinite power.

He rode under the bridge, something that a Nopah had never done before him. The great walls did not crumble; the stream of blue sky did not darken; Nothsis Ahn, showing his black-and-white crown far above the notch of the canyon, did not thunder at Nophaie for what would have been a sacrilege for a Nopah. Nothing happened. The place was beautiful, lonely, silent, dry and fragrant, strangely grand.

Leisurely Nophaie unsaddled and unpacked in the shade of a cedar. Already the canyon was hot. The crystal amber water of the stream invited relief from thirst and heat.

Nophaie spent the long austere day watching the bridge from different angles, waiting for what was to happen to him.

Then came the slow setting of the sun, a strange thing here in the depths of the canyon. Nophaie watched the marvelous changing of colors, from the rainbow hues of the arch to the gold of the ramparts and the rosy glow on the snowy summit of Nothsis Ahn. Twilight lingered longer than in any other place Nophaie remembered. It was an hour full of beauty, and of a significance of something evermore about to be.

Darkness fell. The low murmur of the stream seemed to emphasize the lonesomeness. At long intervals owls mourned their melancholy refrain. Naza stood up dark and triumphant, silhouetted against the sky, crowned with silver stars. Nophaie saw the Dipper turned upside down. By night the bridge gained something spectral and mysterious. Night augmented its grandeur.

Nophaie did not sleep. He never closed his eyes. Every moment hastened what he now divined to be an illumination of his mind.

Toward dawn a faint green light shone on the walls facing the south. The moon was rising. After a while the gleam grew stronger. Soon the shadow of the bridge curved on the opposite wall, and under the arch shone a dim moonlight, weird and beautiful.

After twenty-four hours of vigil under this shrine Nophaie prayed. With all the passion of his extremity he recalled the prayers of the Nopahs, and spoke them aloud, standing erect, with face uplifted in the moonlight. His impulse had been mystic and uncontrollable. It came from the past, the dim memories of his childhood. It was the last dying flash of Indian mysticism and superstition. The honesty and yearning of it had no parallel in all the complex appeals of the past. But it left him cold. Despair chained his soul. Then that strangely loosed its icy clutch. He was free. He realized it.

Time ceased for Nophaie. Earth and life seemed to stand still. Would there ever be another dawn? How locked he was in the rock confines of the earth! At last he found a seat against a huge fragment of cliff and from here he gazed with renewed eyes. What was the secret of Naza? The name was only Indian, handed down from those remote progenitors of the Nopahs who came from the north. Was there any secret? The spirit abiding in that magnificent bridge was an investiture from the soul of man. The Indian mind was still struggling far back along the dim trails of the progress of civilization. Blank wall of black on one side, wall of moonlit marble on the other, gleaming pale, sheered to the wan-blue, star-fretted sky; and across the opaque space arched the spectral rock rainbow, magnified in its night shadows.

Nophaie saw it now as if blindness had fallen from his eyes — saw it in all its nakedness and strength, its appalling beauty, its terrific strangeness. But it had become a thing, physical, inanimate, static. It needed the tremendous sheer of walls to uphold that massive arch. Beauty upheld by stark stone! Sublimity carved by the chisels of wind and water! Elemental toil of ages! A monument to the spirit of nature! But it could not endure.

Naza! The Nopah God! Bridge of sandstone! It was there. How grand the walls it joined! Those walls had been cut by the flowing of water, by the blowing of wind. Thousands of millions of tons of sand had eroded away — to leave Naza arched so magnificently there, as if imperishable. But it was not imperishable. It was doomed. It must fall or wear away. All that exceeding beauty of line and color, that vastness of bulk, must in time pass away in tiny grains of sand, flowing down the murmuring stream.

Then to Nophaie came the secret of its great spell.

Not all beauty or grandeur or mystery or immensity! These were only a part of its enchantment. For Nophaie it spelled freedom. Its isolation and loneliness and solitude meant for him the uttermost peace. There dawned upon Nophaie the glory of nature. Just so long as he could stay there he would be free, all- satisfied. Even sorrow was sweet. Memory of his white sweetheart was exalting.

The world of man, race against race, the world of men and women, of strife and greed, of hate and lust, of injustice and sordidness, the materialism of the Great War and its horrible aftermath, the rush and fever and ferocity of the modern day with its jazz and license and drink and blindness — with its paganism, — these were not here in the grand shadow of Naza. No sharp wolfish faces of men limned against this silence! No beautiful painted faces of women! No picture of the Indian tribes, driven from the green pastures and running water of their forefathers, herded into the waste places of the earth! The white man had not yet made Naza an object of his destructiveness. Nothing of the diseased in mind and body, the distorted images of mankind, the incomprehensible stupidity, the stony indifference to nature and beauty and ideals and good — nothing of these here in this moon-blanched canyon.

For the period of its endurance Naza would stand there, under its gleaming silent walls, with its rainbow hues and purple shadows at sunset, its golden glows and rosy veils at sunrise. The solemn days would pass and the dreamful nights. Peace and silence would reign. Loveliness would vie with austerity.

As the sun cleared away the shadows of night, so the spell of Naza clarified Nophaie’s mind of Indian superstition, of doubt and morbid fear. The tragic fate of the vanishing American, as he had nursed it to his sore heart, ceased to exist.

For Nophaie the still, sweet air of that canyon was charged. In this deserted, haunted hall of the earth, peace, faith, resurging life all came simply to him. The intimation of immortality — the imminence of God! That strife of soul, so long a struggle between the Indian superstitions of his youth and the white teachings forced upon him, ended forever in his realization of the Universal God of Indian and white man.

CHAPTER XXIII

AT KAIDAB TRADING post Marian watched the desert horizon with troubled eyes.

Nophaie had been absent for over two weeks. And developments of the last few days and nights had somewhat disrupted the even tenor of Withers’s household. One night signal fires had suddenly blazed up on all the lofty points around Kaidab. Next day bands of Indians rode by, silent and grim, scarcely halting at the trading post. This latter fact was unprecedented. Even Mrs. Withers could not extract from any Indian what it was all about. But the trader said he did not need to be told.

“There’ll be trouble at Mesa,” he said, with fire in his eye. “Reckon I haven’t seen the Indians like this since they killed my brother, years ago.”

In the afternoon he drove away in his car.

That night more fires burned. Marian went with Mrs. Withers and others of the post to see the wonderful spectacle of signal fires on Echo Peaks. To Marian it seemed that the heavens were aflame. She, like Mrs. Withers, was silent, not joining in the loud acclaim and awe of their companions. The trader’s wife had lived her life among the Indians, and her face was an augury of calamity.

Next day many Nopahs trooped by the post. Then with the advent of darkness the magnificent panorama of fires was repeated. By midnight they burned out.

Marian lay sleepless in her dark little room. Some time late the hum of a motor car thrilled her. Withers was returning, and the fact of his return seemed propitious. But the automobile hummed on by the post, at a high rate of speed. That dismayed Marian. It had never happened before. Kaidab was a stopping-place for every car, at any hour. Somehow this incident portended evil. Thereafter Marian slept fitfully and was harassed by fearful dreams.

Next morning she was on the verge of despair. Catastrophe had befallen Nophaie or he would have returned long ago. She connected his lengthy absence with this uprising of the Nopahs. Nevertheless, she scanned the desert horizon to the north, praying that she might see Nophaie ride into sight.

Her attention, however, was attracted to the other direction. The droning of another motor car roused Marian to eagerness. She ran from the porch to the gate. Dust clouds were traveling swiftly along the road toward the post. Then they disappeared. Marian watched the point where the road turned over the ridge. Soon an open car shot into sight. She thought she recognized it. The driver appeared to neglect risk for the car or himself. Marian ran outside into the wide open space before the trading post.

In a moment more she was confronted by a dust-begrimed Withers.

“Howdy, Marian!” he greeted her. “Where’s everybody? I shore drove some. But bad news travels fast on the desert, an’ I wanted to beat it here.”

“Bad — news?” faltered Marian.

“Wal, I reckon,” he returned, darkly. “Come on in an’ find my wife.”

“Nophaie! — Have you seen him?” whispered Marian.

“See here, lass, you’re white as a sheet. An’ you’re shakin’ too. Wal, no wonder. But you’ve got to stand up under the worst.... They’re bringin’ Nophaie in Presbrey’s car. He’s alive — an’ for all we could see he’s unhurt. But he’s in bad shape. Strange!... Come, here’s the wife. She looks scared, too.”

While Withers half led and half carried her into the living room Marian fought desperately to ward off the sick faint blackness that threatened to overcome her. Withers lowered her into a chair, and then stood erect to wipe his dusty face.

“Wal, wife, you’re ‘most as pale round the gills as Marian,” he began. Then, having cleaned his face, he heaved a great breath of relief and flopped into a chair. “Listen. Beeteia’s uprisin’ flivvered worse then we’d have dared to hope for. Strange! Reckon it’s the strangest thing in all my desert experience.... When I got to Mesa there was a mob, a thousand Nopahs an’ Nokis hanging around pow-wowin’, waiting for Blucher an’ Morgan. Luckily they’d gone away — to fire some poor devil off the reservation, I heard. The Indians thought they’d run away to Washington, to get the soldiers. They cooled off. Then old Indians harangued them on the foolishness of this uprisin’ business. Beeteia was hustled away to save him from arrest. So far so good!”

Withers paused to catch his breath, perhaps to choose words less calculated to startle the staring women.

“Last night we got word that Presbrey’s post was to be burned,” went on the trader. “I didn’t believe it because Presbrey stands well with the Indians. But it worried me. So I left Mesa an’ drove pronto for Presbrey’s. Was shore relieved when I saw his tradin’ post safe an’ sound. Presbrey met me, some excited for him. An’ he told me Blucher, Morgan, an’ Glendon had hid all night in his post an’ had just left, takin’ the old road over the ridge. Presbrey said a good many Indians had passed his post in three days. Yesterday they petered out, an’ last night Blucher an’ Morgan came.”

“I heard their car. I thought it was you returning,” spoke up Marian.

“Wal, while Presbrey an’ me were talkin’ three Nopahs rode up,” continued Withers. “We figgered somethin’ was wrong, an’ finally got news that Shoie was at the mouth of the Nugi with a gang of Nopahs. They had been on their way to burn Presbrey’s post an’ were stopped by Nophaie. So tellin’ Presbrey to follow me I hit only the high places. At the Nugi I found Shoie with some two hundred Indians. Nophaie was there, lying under a cedar beside my horse he’d evidently ridden to death. Shoie was with him. First off I thought Nophaie was dead. But he was alive, though exhausted almost to the last heartbeat. Shoie couldn’t talk. The Indians were sullen. It took some time for me to piece together what this all meant. But I’m sure I got it figgered. Nophaie must have heard on the uplands that Shoie was bent on mischief. Wal, from the looks of my horse an’ Nophaie I’d say there had been a wild ride. Anyway, Nophaie headed off Shoie, an’ at least stopped the burnin’ of Presbrey’s post. Doesn’t it have a strange look, when you think about Blucher an’ Morgan bein’ hid in that very tradin’ post at that very hour? Shoie would have burned them alive. Nophaie is the only man who could have stopped Shoie.”

“Then — Nophaie saved their lives — Morgan — Blucher — Glendon?” burst out the trader’s wife.

“Wal, I reckon,” replied Withers, grimly. “It’s quite beyond me.... Presbrey came along soon an’ we put Nophaie in his car, where there was more room. They’ll be here presently.”

Mute and stifled, racked by a convulsion rising in her breast, Marian fled to her room and locked the door and pulled down the shades. She wanted it dark. She longed to hide herself from even her own sight.

Then in the gloom of the little adobe- walled room she succumbed to the fury of a woman once in her life reverting to primitive instincts. “Oh, I could kill them — with my bare hands!” she panted. She had not known such black depths existed in her. She was worse than a mother bereft of her child. Her mood was to destroy. But for the collapse swiftly following she might have done herself physical violence.

When her mind cleared she found herself lying on the bed, spent and disheveled. Slowly she realized what havoc had been wrought in her by passion. She was amazed at this hitherto unknown self, but she made no apologies and suffered no regrets. In a revulsion of feeling that ensued she crept off the bed to her knees, and thanked God. For she divined that Nophaie’s great deed had been dominated by the spirit of Christ. Nophaie had always been a man, and one prompted to swift, heroic, generous acts, but this saving of the Mesa triumvirate from the vengeance of Gekin Yashi’s race, from a horrible death by fire, could mean only that Nophaie’s pilgrimage to Naza had saved his soul. She absolutely knew it.

A knock on the door interrupted her devotions.

“Marian, come,” called Mrs. Withers. “Nophaie is here.”

Leaping to her feet, Marian stood a moment, trembling and absorbed.

It took a few moments to smooth out hair and attire and erase somewhat the havoc of emotion from her face. Then she opened the door and stepped into the long hall. By the time she had traversed it and passed through the living room to the door she was outwardly composed.

Through the green cottonwoods Marian espied a car in front of the gate, with an excited crowd around it. Mrs. Withers stood holding the gate open. Marian halted outside the door. She saw moccasined feet and long limbs incased in yellow corduroy slowly slipping down out of the car. Then she saw a silver- ornamented belt, and a garnet velveteen shirt. She recognized them. They were moving and her heart seemed to swell to bursting. Next Nophaie’s dark face and bare black head emerged from the car. Withers and another man helped him out.

Marian’s devouring gaze flew over him. His tall lithe form, so instinct with grace and strength, seemed the same as always. Then she saw his face distinctly. There shone upon it a kind of dark radiance. He smiled at her. And suddenly all her icy terror and numb agony vanished. She ran to meet him to halt the little procession.

“Nophaie!” she said, tremulously.

“All is well,” he replied.

Everything that was humanly possible was done for Nophaie. But it was manifest that he was dying and that the last flickering of his spirit had been held for this moment with the white girl.

She knelt beside him.

“Nophaie — your pilgrimage was not — in vain,” she asserted, brokenly. “You found — —”

“Your God and my God — Benow di cleash,” he whispered, a dark mystic adoration in the gaze he fixed on her. “Now all is well!... Now — all — is — well!”

Some hours later Marian stood in the doorway watching the Indians ride away into the sunset.

It was a magnificent, far-flung sunset, the whole west flaming with intense golden red that spread and paled far into the north.

Against this glorious background the Indians were riding away, in dense groups, in long straggling lines, in small parties, down to couples. It was an austere and sad pageant. The broken Indians and the weary mustangs passed slowly out upon the desert. Shoie, the tongueless, was the last to depart. It appeared that he turned with gleaming visage and gesture of denunciation. Far to the fore the dark forms, silhouetted against the pure gold of the horizon, began to vanish, as if indeed they had ridden into that beautiful prophetic sky.

“It is — symbolic—” said Marian. “They are vanishing — vanishing. Oh! Nopahs!... Only a question of swiftly flying time! My Nophaie — the warrior — gone before them!... It is well.”

At last only one Indian was left on the darkening horizon — the solitary Shoie — bent in his saddle, a melancholy figure, unreal and strange against that dying sunset — moving on, diminishing, fading, vanishing — vanishing.

THE END

The Thundering Herd

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER I

AUTUMN WINDS HAD long waved the grass in the vast upland valley and the breath of the north had tinged the meandering lines of trees along the river bottoms. Gold and purple, and a flame of fire, shone brightly in the morning sunlight.

Birds and beasts of that wild open northland felt stir in them the instinct to move toward the south. The honk of wild geese floated down upon the solitudes and swift flocks of these heralds of winter sped by, sharply outlined against the blue sky.

High upon the western rampart of that valley perched an eagle, watching from his lonely crag. His telescopic eye ranged afar. Beneath him on the endless slope and boundless floor of the valley, moved a black mass, creeping with snail-like slowness toward the south. It seemed as long as the valley and as wide. It reached to the dim purple distances and disappeared there. The densest part covered the center of the valley, from which ran wide straggling arms, like rivers narrowing toward their sources in the hills. Patches of gray grass, dotted with gold, shone here and there against the black background. Always the dark moving streams and blots seemed encroaching upon these patches of grass. They spread over them and covered them. Then other open spaces appeared at different points. How slow the change! Yet there was a definite movement.

This black mass was alive. The eagle was gazing down upon leagues and leagues of buffalo. Acres of buffalo, miles of buffalo, millions of buffalo! The shaggy, irregular, ragged herd had no end. It dominated slopes, and bottomlands, and the hazy reaches beyond.

The vision of the eagle was an organ for self-preservation, not capable of appreciating the beauty and sublimity of the earth and its myriads of wild creatures. Yet with piercing eye the eagle watched from his lonely crag. Boundless void, with its moving coverlet of black, the wide space of sky keen with its cool wind — valley of leagues, with its living heritage of a million years! Wild, primitive, grand was the scene. It was eloquent of the past. The future stretched away like the dim, strange, unknown purple distances, with an intimation of tragedy. But the hour was one of natural fruition, wild life in the open, with the sun like an eye of the Creator, shining over the land. Peace, silence, solitude attended the eagle in his vigil.

Yet a brooding sadness, like an invisible mantle, lay over the valley. Was it the dreamy, drowsy spell of autumn? Was it the pervading spirit of a dying season, reluctant to face the rigor of snow and ice? The fact was that autumn lingered, and nature brooded over some mystery, some problem, some blunder. Life was sweet, strong — scented on the wind, but there was death lurking somewhere, perhaps in the purple shadow of distance to the southward. The morning was bright, golden, glorious, yet it did not wait, and night was coming. So there was more than the melancholy languor of autumn in the still air. A mighty Being seemed breathing there, invisible and infinite, all-encompassing. It kept its secret.

Suddenly the eagle plunged like a thunderbolt from his crag and shot down and down, at last to spread his closed wings, and sail slowly and majestically round and round, over an open grassy patch encircled by buffalo.

In this spot, well toward the center and front of the vast herd, appeared about to be enacted a battle between a monarch and his latest rival for supremacy.

The huge leader, shaggy, brown, ragged, was not a creature of beauty, but he was magnificent. He had twice the bulk of an ox, and stood as high as a horse. His massive head, with the long shaggy hair matted with burrs, was held low, muzzle almost to the ground, showing the big curved short horns widely separated. Eyes of dark fire blazed from beneath the shaggy locks. His great back slowly arched and his short tufted tail rose stiffly erect. A hoarse rumble issued from the cavern of his chest — a roar at the brazen effrontery of this young bull that dared to face him.

Many and many had been the battles of this old monarch. For years he had reigned, so many that he had forgotten the instinct of his youth, when he, like the rival before him, had bearded the king of the buffaloes. He had to fight again, in obedience to that law which respected only the survival of the fittest.

The bull that had challenged the king to battle was also magnificent. He too lowered his huge head, and with short prodigious strokes he pawed tufts of grass and heaps of earth up into the air. His color was a glossy seal brown and he did not have the ragged, worn appearance of the monarch. His shaggy hair hung thick and woolly from head and shoulders and knees. Great rippling muscles swelled on his flanks as he pawed and moved round his enemy. He meant to attack. He shone resplendent. He seemed the epitome of animal vigor and spirit. The bawl with which he answered the roar of the monarch rang clear and hard, like a blast. He possessed something that the old warrior had lost. He had beauty and youth.

The surrounding buffalo did not appear concerned over this impending battle. They were aware of it, for they would raise their shaggy heads from the grass and gaze a moment at the king and his jealous aspirant. Then they would return to their feeding. It was noticeable, however, that the circle did not narrow; if anything, it gradually widened.

The king did not wait for his foe to begin the struggle. He charged. His dash was incredibly fast for so heavy a beast and his momentum tremendous. Square against the lowered head of the young bull he struck. The shock sent forth a sodden crash. The bull staggered under the impact. His whole bulk shook. Then he was lifted, head up, forefeet off the ground, higher, and with grinding clash of horns he was hurled heavily upon his back.

Under the great force of that charge the old monarch went to his knees, and the advantage which might have been his was lost. He heaved in his rage.

Nimbly the young bull rolled over and bounded to his feet, unhurt. Nature had by this time developed him to a perfect resisting force. His front was all bone, covered by matted hair. Swifter than a horse, as quick as a cat, he launched his bulk at his antagonist, and hit him with a shock no less terrific than the one that had opened the battle. But the old warrior received it as if he had been a great oak rooted in the earth.

Then with heads pounding and horns grinding, these beasts, relentless as nature itself, settled down to the wonderful and incredible battle of buffalo bulls. Bent and bowed, always head to head, they performed prodigious feats of ramming and butting, and endeavoring to give each other a fatal thrust with horn.

But under that heavy mat of wool was skin over an inch thick and tougher than hardened leather. These bulls were made to fight. They had extraordinary lung capacity and very large nostrils. Their endurance was as remarkable as their physical structure.

In a cloud of dust they plowed up the prairie, driving the grazing buffalo back and forth, and covering acres of ground in their struggle. The crash of heads and rattle of horns gradually diminished in vigor of sound, indicating that the speed and strength of the rivals were wearing down. Not so their ferocity and courage! It was a battle to death or complete vanquishment. In time the dust cloud blew away on the wind, and then the bulls could be seen in action less strenuous but still savage.

The old monarch was near the end of his last battle. His race was run. Torn and dirt-covered and bloody, he backed before the onslaughts of his foe. His lungs, like great bellows, sent out gasps that were as well utterances of defeat. He could not withstand the relentless young bull. Age must go down. He was pushed to his knees and almost bowled over. Recovering, he wearily fronted that huge battering black head, and then was shoved to his haunches. Again, narrowly, he escaped the following lunge. That was the moment of defeat. He was beaten. The instinct for life took the place of the instinct for supremacy. Backward, step by step, he went, always facing the bellowing young conqueror. There came intervals when he was free of that lowered battering head; and during the last of these he sheered away among the stragglers of the herd, leaving the field to the victor. The old monarch had retired to the ranks and there was a new leader of the herd.

The eagle soared back to his lonely perch, there to clutch the crag with his talons and sweep the valley with crystal eye.

Out to the front of the black mass of buffalo a whirlwind twisted up a column of dust. Funnel-shaped it rose, yellow and spreading, into the air, while it raced across the valley. That, or something as natural, stirred a movement in the fore-ranks of buffalo. All at once the leaders broke into a run, heading south. The movement, and the growing pound of their hoofs, ran through the herd as swiftly as a current. Then, magically and wondrously, the whole immense mass moved as if one spirit, one mind, dominated it. The throbbing pound of hoofs suddenly increased to a roar. Dust began to rise and blow back, like low clouds of yellow smoke, over the acres, and then the miles of bobbing black backs. The vast herd seemed to become a sea in swift and accelerating action.

Soon a rising pall of dust shrouded the thousands of buffalo, running under what seemed an obscure curtain. The volume of sound had swelled from rhythmic pound and beat to a mighty and appalling roar. Only the battlements of the upper air, assailed in storm by the ripping of lightning, could send back such thunder as now rose from the shaking earth. But this was one long continuous roll. The movement of buffalo in unison resembled a tidal wave and the sound was that of an avalanche. The ground trembled under the thundering herd.

The eagle perched motionless on his crag, indifferent to the rolling chaos beneath him. The valley-wide cloud of dust floated low down. Time passed. Halfway to the zenith rose the sun. Then gradually the tremor of the earth and the roar of hoofs diminished, rolled, and died away. The herd had passed. On his lofty perch the eagle slept, and the valley cleared of dust and movement. Solitude, loneliness, and silence reigned at the solemn noontide.

It was spring of an era many years after the lone eagle had watched the buffalo herd.

An upland prairie country rolled and waved down from snow-capped Rocky Mountains to spread out into the immense eastern void. Over the bleached white grass had come a faint tinge of green. The warm sun had begun its renewal of the covering of the earth. A flock of wild geese, late on their annual pilgrimage, winged swift flight toward the northland. On the ridges elk grazed, and down in the hollows, where murmuring streams rushed, clouded with the blue color of melted snow, deer nibbled at the new tender shoots of grass.

Below the uplands, where the plain began, herds of buffalo dotted the patches and streaked the monotony of the gray vastness. Leagues and leagues it spread, always darker for the increase of buffalo, until all was a dense black that merged into the haze of distance.

A river wended its curving way out across the plains, and in a wooded bend an Indian encampment showed its white tepees, and red blankets, and columns of blue smoke lazily rising.

Hidden in the brush along the river half-naked red men lay in wait for the buffalo to come down to drink. These hunters did not need to sally forth for their game. They had only to wait and choose the meat and the hide that best served them for their simple needs. They did not kill more than they could use.

Along the river bank, far as eye could see, the shaggy monsters trooped down to drink. Bulls and cows and calves came in endless procession. In some places, where the bank was steep, the thirsty buffalo behind pushed the row ahead into the water, whence rose a splashing mêlée. The tawny calves, still too young to shed their coats and turn the seal brown of their mothers, bawled lustily as they were shoved into the river.

Near the encampment of the Indians, where trees and brush lined the shore, the buffalo were more wary. They liked the open. But stragglers came along, and the choicest of these fell prey to the deadly arrows of the red men. A shaggy young bull, sleek and brown, superb in his approaching maturity, passed within range of the chieftain of that hunting clan. He rose from his covert, a lean, dark Indian, tall and powerful of build, with intense face and piercing eyes turned toward his quarry. He bent a bow few Indians could have drawn. He bent it till the flint head of the arrow touched his left hand. Then he released the arrow. Like a glint of light it flashed and, striking the bull behind the shoulder, buried half its length there. The animal grunted. He made no violent movements. He walked back as he had come, only more and more slowly. The chief followed him out to the edge of the timber. There other buffalo coming in saw both Indian and wounded bull, but they only swerved aside. The bull halted, and heaving heavily, he plunged to his knees, and then rolled over on his side.

After the hunters came the squaws, with their crude flint and bone implements, to skin the buffalo and cut up the meat and pack it to the encampment.

There the chief repaired to rest on his buffalo hide under a tree, and to think the thoughts and dream the dreams of the warrior. Beyond the white-peaked mountain range lived enemies of his, red men of a hated tribe. Other than remembrance of them he had no concern. His red gods could not tell him of the future. The paleface, who was to drive him and his people into the fastnesses of the arid hills, was unknown and undreamed of. Into his lofty serene mind no thought flashed of a vanishing of the buffalo while yet his descendants lived. The buffalo were as many as the sands of the river bottoms. They had always been; they would always be. The buffalo existed to furnish food, raiment, shelter for the red man.

So the chief rested in his camp, watching beaver at work on the river bank, as tame as were the buffalo. Like these animals, he and his tribe were happy and self-sufficient. Only infrequent battles with other tribes marred the serenity of their lives. Always the endless herds were to be found, to the south or the north. This chief worshiped the sun, loved his people and the wild, lonely land he believed was his; and if there was in his tribe a brave who was liar or coward or thief, or a squaw who broke the law, death was his or her portion.

A straggling band of white men wearily rode and tramped across the great plains centuries before that wonderful level prairie was to be divided into the Western states of America.

These white travelers were the Spanish explorers under the command of the intrepid Coronado. It was a large band. Many of them rode horses — Arabian horses of the purest breed, from which the Western mustang was descended. But most of them walked, wearing queer apparel and armor not suitable to such arduous travel. They carried strange weapons.

Hardy, indomitable, and enduring, this first band of white men to penetrate the great plains and the deserts of the South and West, recorded for history something of their marvelous adventures and terrible experiences and strange sights.

Many hundreds of leagues they traveled, according to their historian, Castaneda, over tremendous plains and reaches of sand, stark and level, and so barren of trees and stones that they erected heaps of the ox dung they found, so that they could be guided back by the way they had come. They lost horses and men.

All the way across these great plains of grass and sand the Spaniards encountered herds of crooked-back oxen, as many as there were sheep in Spain. But they saw no people with the crooked-back cattle. These weary and lost travelers, almost starved, found in the oxen succor they so grievously needed. Meat gave them strength and courage to go on through obstacles none save crusaders could have overcome. Sometimes in this strange country it rained great showers of hailstones as big as oranges; and these storms caused many tears and injuries.

Castaneda wrote:

These oxen are the bigness and color of our bulls. . . . They have a great bunch of hair on their fore shoulders, and more on their fore part than their hinder part, and it is like wool. They have a horse-mane upon their backbone, and much hair, and very long from their knees downward. They have great tufts of hair hanging down their foreheads, and it seemeth they have beards because of the great store of hair hanging down at their chins and throats. The males have very large tails, and a great knob or flock at the end, so that in some respects they resemble the lion, and in some others the camel. They push with their horns; they run; they overtake and kill a horse when they are in their rage and anger. The horses fled from them, either because of their deformed shape, or else because they had never before seen them. Finally it is a foul and fierce beast of countenance and form of body.

Coronado and Castaneda, with their band of unquenchable spirits, were the first white people to see the American buffalo.

CHAPTER II

ALL DURING TOM Doan’s boyhood, before and through the stirring years of the Rebellion, he had been slowly yielding to the call that had made so many young men adventurers and pioneers in the Southwest.

His home had not been a happy one, but as long as his mother lived and his sisters remained unmarried he had stayed there, getting what education there was available at the little Kansas village school, and working hard on the farm. When Kansas refused to secede to the South at the beginning of the Rebellion, Tom’s father, who was a rebel, joined Quantrill’s notorious band of guerillas. Tom’s sisters were in sympathy with the South. But Tom and his mother held open leaning toward the North. It was a divided family. Eventually the girls married and left home. Tom’s mother did not long survive her husband, who was shot on one of Quantrill’s raids.

Tom outlived the sadness and bitterness of his youth, but they left their mark upon him. His loyalty to his mother had alone kept him from the wildness of the time, and their poverty had made hard work imperative. After the war he drifted from place to place, always farther and farther toward the unsettled country. He had pioneer blood in him, and in his mind he had settled the future. He meant to be a rancher, a tiller of the soil, a stockman and a breeder of horses, for these things he loved. Yet always there was in him the urge to see the frontier, to be in the thick of wild life while he was hunting and exploring for that wonderful land which would content him. Thus Tom Doan had in him a perfect blending of the dual spirit that burned in the hearts of thousands of men, and which eventually opened up the West to civilization.

Not, however, until the autumn of 1874 did he surrender to the call. The summer of that year had been a momentous one in the Southwest. Even in years of stress this one stood out as remarkable, and the tales drifting up from the frontier had thrilled Tom’s heart.

A horde of buffalo-hunters, lured by the wild life and the development of a commercial market for buffalo hides, had braved the Indians in their haunts and started after the last great herds. This had resulted in an Indian war. The Cheyennes, Kiowas, Arapahoes, and the Comanches had gone on the war-path. A thousand warriors of these tribes had made the memorable siege of a small band of buffalo-hunters and their soldier escort, and after repeated and persistent charges had been repulsed. The tale of this battle was singularly thrilling to Tom Doan. Particularly had the hunting of buffalo appealed to him. Not that he had ever hunted a buffalo, for in fact he had never seen one. But stories told him as a boy had fixed themselves in his mind, never to be effaced.

Early spring found Tom Doan arriving at the outfitting post from which an army of buffalo-hunters were preparing to leave for the long haul to the south.

The atmosphere of this frontier fort and freighting station was new to Tom, and affected him deeply. The stir of youthful love of wild tales was here revived. At a step, almost, he had found himself on the threshold of the frontier. Huge freighting wagons, some with six horses attached, and loaded with piles and bales of green buffalo hides, lumbered in from the level prairie land. The wide main street of the town presented a continual procession of men and women, mostly in rough garb of travel, and all intent on the mysterious something that seemed to be in the air. There was a plentiful sprinkling of soldiers, and pale-faced, frock-coated gamblers, and many stylishly dressed women who had a too friendly look, Tom thought. There were places of amusement, saloons and dance halls, that Tom found a peep into sufficient. Dust lay inches deep in the street, and the horses passing along continually raised clouds of it.

The camp on the outskirts of this town soon drew Tom. Here, ranged all around, it appeared, were the outfits of the buffalo-hunters, getting ready to travel south. Tom meant to cast his lot with one of them, but the tales he had heard about the character of some of these outfits made him decide to be careful. According to rumor some of them were as bad as the Comanches.

The first man Tom accosted was a tall, rugged, bronzed Westerner, with a stubby red beard on his lean face. He was encamped under a cottonwood, just bursting into green, and on the moment was busy jacking up the hind wheel of his huge canvas-covered wagon.

“I’ll give you a lift,” offered Tom, and with one heave he raised the rear end of the wagon.

“Wal!” ejaculated the Westerner, as he rapidly worked up his jack to meet the discrepancy occasioned by Tom’s lift. “Reckon you’re husky, stranger. Much obliged.”

Tom helped him complete the job of greasing the wagon wheels and then asked him if he were a buffalo-hunter.

“I am thet,” he replied. “An’ what’re you?”

“I’ve come to join one of the outfits. Are there really good wages to be made?”

“Wal, you are new heahaboots,” returned the other, grinning. “My early fall hunt netted me five hundred dollars. Late fall then I made four hundred. An’ this winter I hunted down on the Brazos, cleanin’ up six hundred an’ eighty.”

Tom was amazed and excited over this specific information, direct from the hunting grounds.

“Why, that’s wonderful!” he replied. “A fellow can make enough to buy and stock a ranch. Did you have a helper?”

“Shore — my two boys, an’ I paid them wages.”

“How much?” inquired Tom.

“Twenty-five a month. Are you lookin’ fer a job?” rejoined the Westerner, with an appreciative glance at Tom’s broad shoulders.

“Yes, but not for such wages as that. I’d like to go in for myself.”

“It’s the way to do, if you can buy your own outfit.”

Upon inquiry Tom found that outfits were high, and with his small savings he could hardly hope to purchase even an interest in one. It would be necessary for him to hire out to the best advantage, and save his earnings toward buying horses, wagon, and equipment for himself. Nevertheless, opportunity seemed indeed knocking at his door. The rewards of buffalo-hunting, as set forth by the Westerner, were great enough to fire the blood of any young man. Tom experienced a sudden lift of his heart; a new and strong tide surged through him.

At the end of the road Tom came to a small grove of cottonwoods, just beyond the edge of the town; and here he caught the gleam of more canvas-covered vehicles. He found three outfits camped there, apart from one another, and the largest one was composed of several wagons. A camp fire was burning. The smell of wood smoke assailed Tom’s nostrils with more than pleasurable sense. It brought pictures of wild places and camp by lonely streams. A sturdy woman was bending over a washtub. Tom caught a glimpse of a girl’s rather comely face peering out of the front of a wagon. Two young men were engaged at shoeing a horse. Under a cottonwood two men sat on a roll of bedding.

As Tom entered the grove one of the men rose to a lofty stature and showed himself to be built in proportion. He appeared past middle age, but was well preserved and possessed a bearded, jovial face, with frank blue eyes that fastened curiously upon Tom. The other man had remarkable features — sharp, hard, stern, set like a rock. Down his lean brown cheeks ran deep furrows and his eyes seemed narrowed inside wrinkled folds. They were gray eyes, light and singularly piercing.

Tom had an impression that this was a real plainsman. The giant seemed a man of tremendous force. Quick to form his likes or dislikes, Tom lost no time here in declaring himself.

“My name’s Tom Doan,” he said. “I want a job with a buffalo-hunter’s outfit.”

“Glad to meet you. I’m Clark Hudnall, an’ this is my friend, Jude Pilchuck,” replied the giant.

Whereupon both men shook hands with Tom and showed the interest common to the time and place. Hudnall’s glance was a frank consideration of Tom’s stalwart form and beardless face. Pilchuck’s was a keen scrutiny associated with memory.

“Doan. Was your father Bill Doan, who rode with Quantrill?” he inquired.

“Yes — he was,” returned Tom, somewhat disconcerted by this unexpected query.

“I knew your father. You favor him, only you’re lighter complexioned. He was a hard rider and a hard shooter. . . . You were a boy when he got—”

“I was fifteen,” said Tom, as the other hesitated.

“Were you on your dad’s side?” asked Hudnall, curiously.

“No. I was for the North,” returned Tom.

“Well, well, them days were tough,” sighed Hudnall, as if he remembered trials of his own. Then he quickened with interest. “We need a man an’ I like your looks. Have you any hankerin’ for red liquor?”

“No.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Ever hunt buffalo?”

“No.”

“Can you shoot well?”

“I was always a good shot. Have hunted deer and small game a good deal.”

“What’s your idea — throwin’ in with a hide-hunter’s outfit?”

Tom hesitated a moment over that query, and then frankly told the truth about his rather complicated longings.

Hudnall laughed, and was impressed to the point of placing a kind hand on Tom’s shoulder.

“Young man, I’m glad you told me that,” he said. “Back of my own reason for riskin’ so much in this hide-huntin’ is my need to make money quick, an’ I’ve got to have a ranch. So we’re two of a kind. You’re welcome to cast in your lot with us. Shake on it.”

Then Tom felt the mighty grip of a calloused hand that had known the plow and the ax. Pilchuck likewise offered to shake hands with Tom, and expressed himself no less forcibly than Hudnall.

“Reckon it’s a good deal on both sides,” he said. “The right kind of men are scarce. I know this buffalo-huntin’. It’s a hard game. An’ if skinnin’ hides isn’t tougher than diggin’ coal, then I was a meathunter on the U. P. an’ the Santa Fe for nothin’.”

Hudnall called the two younger men from their task of shoeing the horse. Both appeared under thirty, stocky fellows, but there the resemblance ended.

“Burn, shake hands with Tom Doan,” said Hudnall, heartily. “An’ you, too, Stronghurl. . . . Doan is goin’ to throw in with us.”

Both men greeted Tom with the cordial good will and curiosity natural to an event of importance to them. It was evident that Burn, from his resemblance to Hudnall, was a son. Stronghurl had as remarkable a physiognomy as his name, and somehow they fitted each other.

“Burn, you’ll take Doan with your wagon,” said Hudnall. “That fills our outfit, an’ we’ll be pullin’ to-morrow for the Panhandle. . . . Hey, you women folks,” he called toward the wagons, “come out an’ meet my new man.”

The stout woman left off washing at the tub and came forward, wiping her red hands on her apron. She had a serious face that lighted with a smile.

“Wife, this is Tom Doan,” went on Hudnall, and next in order he presented Tom to Burn’s wife, whom Tom recognized as the young woman he had seen in the wagon. Last to emerge was a girl of eighteen or thereabouts, sister of Burn and manifestly Hudnall’s pride. She was of large frame, pleasant faced, and she had roguish eyes that took instant stock of Tom.

Thus almost before he could realize his good fortune, Tom found himself settled with people of his own kind, whom he liked on sight. Moreover, Hudnall had the same pioneer urge which possessed Tom; and the fact that Pilchuck, an old buffalo-hunter, was to accompany them down into Texas, just about made the deal perfect. To be sure, Tom had not mentioned wages or shares, but he felt that he could safely trust Hudnall.

“Where’s your pack?” inquired Burn. “An’ what have you got in the way of outfit?”

“I left it at the station,” replied Tom. “Not much of an outfit. A bag of clothes and a valise.”

“Nary horse or gun. Have you any money?” went on Burn, with cheerful interest.

“I’ve got two hundred dollars.”

“Good. Soon as we get this horse shod I’ll go uptown with you.”

“Well, son,” spoke up Hudnall, “I reckon Tom had better let Pilchuck buy gun an’ horse an’ what else he needs.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs. Hudnall. “If I know men you’ll all have a say about horses an’ guns.”

“Mr. Doan, wouldn’t you like me to help you pick out that horse?” inquired Burn’s sister, mischievously.

“Why, yes,” replied Tom, joining in the laugh. “I’d like you all to help — so long as I get one I can ride.”

The women returned to their tasks while Hudnall went off with Pilchuck toward the town. Left to his own devices, Tom presently joined Burn and Stronghurl, who were not having any easy job shoeing the horse. It was a spirited animal.

“Doan, would you mind fetchin’ that bay horse back?” asked Burn, presently pointing toward the other side of the grove, where several canvas-covered wagons gleamed among the trees.

Tom picked up a halter and strode away under the trees, at once pleasantly preoccupied with thought of the most satisfying nature. He came up with the bay horse, which he found eating out of a girl’s hand. Tom saw and heard other people close by, but he did not notice them particularly. Intent on the horse, he did not take a second glance at the girl, until she spoke.

“I’ve caught your horse twice to-day,” she said.

“Much obliged. But he’s not mine,” replied Tom, and as he put the halter over the neck of the animal he looked at the girl.

Her eyes met his. They were large, black as midnight, and they gazed up from a face almost as dark as an Indian’s. Her hair was brown and appeared to have a sheen or light upon it.

Tom’s glance became what hers was — steady, almost a stare without consciousness, a look of depth and gravity for which neither was responsible.

Then Tom withdrew his glance and attended to knotting the halter. Yet he could see her still. She was of medium height, neither robust nor heavy, yet giving an impression of unusual strength and suppleness for a girl. She was young. Her dress of homespun material looked the worse for wear.

“He’s a pretty horse,” she said, patting the sleek nose.

“Yes, he is. I hope the horse I’ve got to buy will be like him,” replied Tom.

“Are you a buffalo-killer, too?” she inquired, in quicker tone.

“I expect to be.”

“Milly,” called a gruff voice, “you’re not a hoss thief and you’re not makin’ up with strangers.”

Tom turned hastily to see a big man looming across the camp fire. He wore a leather apron and carried a hammer in his brawny hand. It was impossible that this blond giant could be the girl’s father. Even in that moment of surprise and annoyance Tom felt glad of this conviction. The man’s face bore a thin yellow beard that could not hide its coarseness and brutality. He had bright, hard blue eyes.

“Excuse me,” said Tom, stiffly. “I had to come after Mr. Hudnall’s horse.” Then turning to the girl, he thanked her. This time her eyes were cast down. Tom abruptly started off, leading the animal.

It did not occur to him that there was anything significant about the incident, except a little irritation at the coarse speech and appearance of the blond man. Nevertheless, that part of it slipped from his mind, and the vague, somehow pleasurable impression of the girl persisted until the serious and thrilling business of choosing horse and gun precluded all else.

The fact that Hudnall and his men left off work, and Pilchuck insisted on being the arbiter of these selections, attested to the prime importance with which they regarded the matter. Hudnall argued with Pilchuck that he knew the merits of horses as well as the latter knew guns.

So they journeyed into town, up the dusty motley-crowded street, rubbing elbows with Indians, soldiers, hunters, scouts, teamsters, men who bore the stamp of evil life upon their lean faces, and women with the eyes of hawks. Pilchuck knew almost everybody, it seemed. He pointed out many border celebrities to Tom’s keen interest. One was Colonel Jones, a noted plainsman, who in the near future was to earn the sobriquet “Buffalo Jones,” not like his contemporary, Buffalo Bill, for destroying buffalo, but for preserving calves to form the nucleus of a herd. Another, and the most striking figure of a man Tom had ever seen, was Wild Bill, perhaps the most noted of all frontiersmen. He was a superb giant of a man, picturesquely clad, straight as an Indian, with a handsome face, still, intense, wonderful in its expression of the wild spirit that had made him great. Tom thought he had never before seen such penetrating, alert eyes. Pilchuck mentioned casually that not long since, Wild Bill had fought and killed twelve men in a dugout cabin on the plains. Bill got shot and cut to pieces, but recovered. Tom was far from being a tenderfoot, yet he gaped at these strange, heroic men, and thrilled to his depths. Seeing them face to face stimulated and liberated something deep in him.

The supply store where Pilchuck conducted Tom and the others was full of purchasers, and except for absence of liquors in bottles it resembled a border barroom. It smelled of tobacco in bulk; and Tom saw shelves and stacks of plug tobacco in such enormous quantity that he marveled to Hudnall.

“Golly! man, we gotta have chaw tobacco,” replied that worthy.

A counter littered with a formidable array of guns and knives appeared to be Pilchuck’s objective point.

“We want a big fifty,” he said to the clerk.

“There’s only one left an’ it ain’t new,” replied this individual, as he picked up a heavy gun. It was a fifty-caliber Sharps rifle. Pilchuck examined it and then handed it over to Tom. “I’ve seen better big fifties, but it’ll do for a while. . . . Next you want a belt an’ all the cartridges you can lug, an’ both rippin’ an’ skinnin’ knives.”

When these purchases were made Tom had indeed about all he could carry. Hudnall then ordered the supplies needed for his outfit, and when that was accomplished Pilchuck led them down the street to the outskirts of town, where there was a corral full of dusty, vicious, kicking horses. It took an hour for Pilchuck and Hudnall to agree on a horse that Tom could ride. Having been a farm hand all his days, Tom was a good horseman, but he was not a bronco-buster. Finally the selection was made of horse, saddle, bridle, blanket, and spurs. When this purchase was paid for Tom laughed at the little money he had left.

“Things come high, an’ they ain’t worth it,” complained Pilchuck. “But we haven’t any choice. That’s a good horse — young enough, strong, easy gait, but he never saw a buffalo.”

“What of that?” asked Tom, with a little check to his elation.

“Nothin’. Only the first buffalo he sees will decide a lot.”

Tom regarded this rather ambiguous remark with considerable misgiving and made a mental note of it, so he would not forget.

What with their purchases, and Tom’s baggage, which they got at the station, the party had about all they could take back to camp. The afternoon then was a busy one for all concerned. Tom donned rough garb and heavy boots, suitable to life in the open. The change was not made without perception of an indefinable shifting in his spirit. He was about to face the perils of the frontier, and serious and thoughtful as he endeavored to make himself, he could not repress an eager, wild response. He tried out his horse, which he named Dusty, because at that time nothing but a bath could have removed the dust from him. Dusty gave a creditable performance and won the approval of all save Pilchuck. Hudnall, and his daughter Sally, particularly liked the horse. Tom saw that he could sell or trade at his discretion, and so for the time was well pleased.

The rest of the afternoon he spent helping Burn Hudnall arrange and pack the big wagon that was to transport their precious outfit, and later, out on the plains, haul the hides they expected to get.

“I was tellin’ father I’d like to pick up a boy somewhere,” said Burn.

“What for?” inquired Tom. “We can take care of this outfit.”

“Sure, for the present. But when we get out among the buffalo we’ll need some one to drive the wagon an’ keep camp while we chase an’ kill an’ skin buffalo.”

“I see. Then the idea will be a main camp kept by your father, and the rest of us in pairs with wagons and outfits will range all over?”

“I reckon that’s Pilchuck’s idea. From what I can gather there’ll be a lot of hustlin’ an’ movin’ when we strike the herds of buffalo.”

“I should think it’d be a chase with no time for camp,” said Tom.

“Reckon so. Anyways we’re bound to know soon,” replied Burn, grimly.

At sunset Tom heard the cheery call of the women folk to supper; and he was not far behind Burn in getting to the table, which was a canvas spread on the ground. They all appeared hungry. Hudnall loaded his tin plate, filled his cup, and then repaired to the wagon, and set his supper upon the seat. He was too big to squat on the ground, cross-legged and Indian fashion, but his stature enabled him to stand and eat from the wagon seat. Pilchuck, too, had his peculiar habit. He set his plate down, and knelt on one knee to eat.

They were all excited, except Pilchuck, and though this in no wise distracted from a satisfying of hunger, it lent a sparkle and jollity to the occasion. Tom was not alone in having cut away from the humdrum of settled communities and in cherishing dreams of untrammeled country and future home and prosperity.

After supper he again walked into the town, purposely going alone. He did not pry into his reason. This third visit to the main street did not satisfy his vague longing, whatever it was, and he retraced his steps campward.

When he reached the end of the street passers-by became scarce, and for that reason more noticeable. But Tom did not pay attention to any one until he heard a girl’s voice. It came from behind him and had a note of annoyance, even anger. A man’s reply, too low and husky for coherence, made Tom turn quickly.

A young woman carrying a heavy parcel was approaching, a step or two in advance of a man. It required only a glance to see that she was trying to get away from him.

Tom strode to meet her, and recognized the girl with whom he had exchanged words at the camp adjoining Hudnall’s.

“Is that fellow bothering you?” demanded Tom.

“He insulted me,” she replied.

Tom broke into swift strides toward the offender.

“Say, you!” he called, forcibly. But the man hurried away, at a pace that would have necessitated running to catch him.

“Never mind. Let him go,” said the girl, with a little laugh of relief.

“This town is full of ruffians. You should not have come in alone,” was Tom’s reply.

“I know. It’s happened before. I wasn’t afraid — but I’m glad you came along.”

“That package looks heavy. Let me carry it,” offered Tom.

“Thank you, I can manage very well,” she returned.

But he took it away from her, and in so doing touched her hand. The effect on Tom was sudden and profound. For the moment it destroyed his naturalness.

“Well — I — it is heavy — for a girl,” he said, awkwardly.

“Oh, I’m very strong,” she rejoined.

Then their eyes met again, as they had when Tom had reached for the horse and looked at her. Only this time it seemed vastly different. She looked away, across the open toward the grove where fires gleamed in the gathering twilight. Then she moved. Tom fell into step beside her. He wanted to talk, but seemed unable to think of anything to say. This meeting was not an ordinary incident. He could not understand himself. He wanted to ask her about who she was, where she was going, what relation she bore to the rude man who had called her Milly. Yet not a word could he utter. He could have spoken surely, if he had not been concentrating on the vagueness and uncertainty of himself.

Before they had quite reached the edge of the grove she stopped and confronted him.

“Thank you,” she said, softly. “I’ll carry it now.”

“No. We’re still a long distance from your camp.”

“Yes — that’s why,” she returned, haltingly. “You must not go with me. . . . He — my step-father, you heard him. I — I can’t tell you more.”

Tom did not yield up the parcel with very good grace. “I may never see you again!” he burst out.

She did not answer, but as she relieved him of the package she looked up, straight and clear into his face. Her eyes held him. In them he read the same thought he had just exclaimed aloud. Then she bade him good night, and turning away, vanished in the gloom of the grove.

Not until she was gone did Tom awake to a realization that this chance meeting, apparently so natural on her part and kindly on his, just an incident of travel, two strangers exchanging a few civilities, was the most significant and appealing and thought-provoking experience of his life. Why had he not detained her, just a moment, to ask for the privilege of seeing her again? Still, he could see her to-morrow. That last look of her big black eyes — what did it mean? His mind revolved many useless questions. He found a seat at the edge of the grove and there he pondered. Night came, dark and cool. The stars shone. Behind him sounded the crackle of camp fires and the voices of men and the munch of horses at their grain.

A strange thing had happened to him, but what was it? A girl’s eyes, a few words, a touch of hands! Had they been the cause of this sudden melancholy one moment and inexplicable exaltation the next, and his curiosity about her, and this delving into himself? But he did not call it silly or foolish. Tom was twenty-four years old, yet this condition of mind was new. Perhaps the thrill, the excitement of the prospects ahead, had communicated themselves to an otherwise ordinary incident. The thought, however, he ridiculed. Every moment of his musing tended toward consciousness of a strange, dreamy sweetness inspired by this girl.

CHAPTER III

WHEN TOM ROUSED next morning to Burn Hudnall’s cheery call he found that he had slept later than usual for him.

He rolled out of his bed of blankets under the wagon, and pulling on his boots and washing his face and hands, was ready for breakfast and the eventful day.

The sun had just risen above the eastern horizon. West and southwest the rolling prairie-land shone green and gold under the bright morning light. Near at hand horses and cattle grazed. Far down the clearly defined road canvas-covered wagons gleamed white. Some of the buffalo-hunters were already on their way. Tom stood a moment, watching and thinking, as he drew a deep full breath of the fresh crisp air, feeling that whatever lay in store for him beyond the purple horizon — adventure, hardship, fortune — he was keen to face it.

While at breakfast Tom suddenly remembered his meeting with the girl, Milly. In the broad light of day he did not feel quite the same as in the gloaming of last night. Yet a sweetness stole pervadingly upon him. Glancing through the grove toward the camp where the first meeting with her had taken place, he missed the white wagons. That end of the grove was empty. The wagons were gone — and with them the girl. Tom experienced a blankness of thought, then a sense of loss and a twinge of regret. After this moment he thoughtfully went on eating his breakfast. Nothing was to come of the meeting. Still, her people were buffalo-hunters, too, and somewhere down in that wild country he might see her again. What a forlorn hope! Yet by cherishing it he reconciled himself to the fact that she was gone.

After breakfast his curiosity led him to walk over to where her camp had been; and he trailed the wagon tracks out into the road, seeing that they headed toward the southwest. His grain of comfort gathered strength.

“Our neighbors pulled out early,” he remarked, halting where Pilchuck and Hudnall were packing.

“Long before sunup,” replied Hudnall. “Did you hear them, Jude?”

“Huh! They’d waked the dead,” growled Pilchuck. “Reckon Randall Jett had his reason for pullin’ out.”

“Jett? Let’s see. He was the man with the yellow beard. Come to think of it, he wasn’t very civil.”

“I heard some talk about Jett uptown,” went on Pilchuck. “‘Pears I’ve met him somewheres, but it’s slipped my mind. He’s one of the hide-hunters that’s got a doubt hangin’ on him. Just doubt, it’s only fair to say. Nobody knows anythin’. Jett has come out of the Panhandle twice with thousands of hides. He’s made money.”

“Well, that’s interestin’,” replied Hudnall. “He’s just been married. My wife had some talk yesterday with a woman who must have been Mrs. Jett. She was from Missouri an’ had a grown daughter. Married a few weeks, she said. My wife got a hunch this woman an’ daughter weren’t keen about the hide-huntin’ business.”

“Well, when you get down on the Staked Plains, you’ll appreciate Mrs. Jett’s feelings,” remarked Pilchuck, dryly.

Tom listened to this talk, much interested, recording it in memory. Then he asked if all the buffalo-hunters followed the same line of travel.

“Reckon they do,” replied Pilchuck. “There’s only one good road for a couple of hundred miles. Then the hunters make their own roads.”

“Do they scatter all over the plains?” went on Tom.

“Well, naturally they hang round the buffalo. But that herd is most as big as the Staked Plains.”

Tom had no knowledge of this particular part of Texas, but he did not fail to get a conception of magnitude.

“When do we pull out?” he concluded.

“Soon as we hitch up.”

In less than an hour the Hudnall outfit, with three good wagons drawn by strong teams, were on the move. The women rode with the drivers. Tom had the job of keeping the saddle horses in line. They did not want to head out into the wilderness, and on the start were contrary. After a few miles, however, they settled down to a trot and kept to the road.

Soon the gleam of the town, and groves of trees, and columns of smoke, disappeared behind a rolling ridge, and all around appeared endless gray-green plain, bisected by a white road. No other wagons were in sight. Tom found the gait of his horse qualified to make long rides endurable. The lonely land was much to his liking. Jack-rabbits and birds were remarkable for their scarcity. The plain appeared endlessly undulating, a lonesome expanse, mostly gray, stretching away on all sides. The soil was good. Some day these wide lands would respond to cultivation.

The Hudnall outfit traveled steadily until about four o’clock in the afternoon, making about twenty-five miles. A halt was called in a grove of elm trees that had long appealed to Tom’s eye. It amused him to see the amiable contention between Pilchuck and Hudnall. The former, like all guides and scouts long used to outdoor life, wanted to camp at the first available spot where others had camped. But Hudnall sought a fresh and untrammeled place, driving some distance off the road to a clean glade under spreading elms just beginning to green. A shallow creek ran under the high bank. Birds and rabbits were plentiful here, and cat and coyote tracks showed on the muddy shore.

There was work for everybody and something of confusion. Further experience in making camp was essential before things could be done smoothly and expeditiously.

“I laid out jobs for everybody. Now rustle,” was Hudnall’s order.

The teams were unhitched and turned loose to drink and graze. Harness and collars were hung upon the front wheels. Tom scouted for firewood, which appeared plentiful, and the ring of his ax resounded through the glade. Hudnall and his son lifted the cook stove and mess box from a wagon, then the cooking utensils and tableware. A level spot was cleaned off, a fire started on the ground and also in the stove, then the meal preparations were turned over to the women. Hudnall erected a tent for himself and his wife. Sally’s bed was made in the wagon. Pilchuck helped Stronghurl pitch a tent beside their wagon, but he spread his own bed, consisting of blankets on a tarpaulin, outside under the trees. Burn Hudnall put up a tent for himself and his wife, and Tom unrolled his bed under Burn’s wagon.

At sunset they ate supper. The gold and pink of western sky appeared to send a reflection upon the winding stream of water. Everybody was hungry, and even Pilchuck seemed to feel something good in the hour and the place. If there had been any misgivings on the part of the women, they had now vanished. The talk was jolly and hopeful. Sally Hudnall made eyes at Tom, and then, seeing her advances were apparently unobserved, she tried the same upon Stronghurl.

After supper Tom chopped and carried wood for the camp fire that night and for next morning. This done, he strolled along the creek toward the grazing horses. Fresh green grass grew abundantly on the banks and insured reasonably against the horses’ straying that night. Tom decided not to hobble Dusty.

A few hundred yards from camp the creek circled through a grove of larger elms and eddied in a deep pool. Here on a log Tom lingered and indulged in rest and musings. His thoughts seemed to flow and eddy like the stream, without any apparent reason. But when thought of the girl, Milly, recurred, it abided with him. Here in the solitude of this grove he seemed to remember more vividly, and after reviewing gravely all the details concerning her it seemed to him not improbable that she was unhappy and unfortunately situated. “I — I can’t tell you more,” she had said, hurriedly, in a tone he now realized held shame and fear. Tom meditated over that, and at the end of an hour, when dusk was creeping under the trees, he threw off the spell and retraced his steps toward camp. There was little chance of his ever seeing her again. With resignation to that, and the vague sadness attending it, he put her out of his mind.

Soon a camp fire blazed through the dusk, and seen from afar, with the black shadows of men crossing its brightness, it made a telling picture. Tom joined the circle sitting and standing round it. The air had grown cold, making the warmth most agreeable.

“That ‘tarnal smoke follows me everywhere I turn,” said Sally Hudnall, as she moved to a seat beside Stronghurl.

“Elm wood ain’t so good to burn,” observed Pilchuck. “Neither is cottonwood. Smoke smells an’ makes your eyes smart.”

“Mary has a likin’ for hickory,” said Hudnall. “Golly! I’ll bet I’ll never again have apple pie baked over a hickory fire.”

“Unless you go back to Illinois,” added his wife, dryly.

“Which’ll never be, Mary,” he replied, with finality.

His words, tinged with a suggestion of failure back there in Illinois, checked conversation for a moment. They all had places dear to look back upon. Pioneers had to sacrifice much. Tom gazed at the circle of quiet faces with more realization and kindness. Buffalo-hunting was but to be an incident. It had dominated his thought. In the background of his mind, in the future, had been the idea of a ranch. With these people home and farm were paramount. Tom wondered if they were not starting out upon an ill-advised enterprise. Not to think of its peril!

Day by day the Hudnall outfit traveled over the prairie, sometimes west, and then south, yet in the main always southwest. They made from fifteen to twenty-five miles a day, according to condition of the road and favorable places to camp. Now and then they passed a freighting outfit of several wagons, heavily loaded with buffalo hides. The days passed into weeks, until Tom lost track of them.

Down here on the great plains spring had surely come. All was green and beautiful. The monotony of the country had been broken up by streams winding away between wooded banks, yet the rolling level seemed to hold generally, viewed from afar. On clear mornings a gray heave of higher ground appeared to the south. What farther north had been an openness and sameness of country now assumed proportions vast and striking.

One sunset, when halt was made for camp in an arroyo, Pilchuck waived his usual work and rode off up a slope. Reaching the summit, he dismounted and, elevating a short telescope, he looked long to the southward. Later, when he returned to the camp, all eyes fixed upon him.

“See anythin’?” queried Hudnall, impatiently.

Tom felt a thrill merely from the look of the scout.

“Buffalo!” announced Pilchuck.

There was a moment’s silence. The women responded more quickly to this good news. Hudnall seemed slow and thick. Burn Hudnall threw down a billet of wood he had held in his hand.

“Buffalo!” he echoed, and the quick look of gladness he flashed upon his father proved how much he had been responsible for this trip.

“How many?” demanded Hudnall, with a long stride toward the scout.

“Reckon I couldn’t say, offhand,” replied Pilchuck. “Herd is another day’s ride south.”

Sally Hudnall interrupted her father as he was about to speak again: “Oh, I’m crazy to see a herd of buffalo. Are there lots of them?”

“Tolerable many,” replied Pilchuck, with a look of professional pride. “Reckon this herd is about fifteen miles long an’ three or four deep!”

Then Hudnall let out a stentorian roar, and that was a signal for equally sincere if not so exuberant a rejoicing from the others.

Next day’s travel was the longest Tom had ever endured. The ground was dusty, the sun hot, the miles interminable, and there appeared ahead only the gray-green stretch of plain, leading the eyes with false hopes. But at last, toward sunset, a fringe of winding foliage marked the course of a stream. It seemed a goal. Beyond that water the great herd of buffalo must be grazing. An hour more of weary travel over uneven prairie — for Pilchuck had turned off the road early that morning — brought the outfit down into a coulee, the wildest and most attractive camp site that had yet fallen to them.

Tom made short work of his camp duties that evening, and soon was climbing the highest ridge. He climbed fast in his eagerness. Abruptly, then, he reached the top and looking westward, suddenly became transfixed.

The sun was setting in a golden flare that enveloped the wide plain below. Half a mile from where he stood was an immense herd of huge woolly beasts, wild and strange to his sight, yet unmistakably buffalo. Tom experienced the most tingling thrill of his life. What a wonderful spectacle! It was not at all what he had pictured from tales he had heard. This scene was beautiful; and the huge straggling bulls seemed the grandest of big game beasts. Thousands of buffalo! Tom reveled in his opportunity and made the most of it. He saw that the herd circled away out of sight beyond the other end of the ridge upon which he stood. Long he gazed, and felt that he would never forget his first sight of a buffalo herd.

Upon his return to camp he found that he was not the only one late for supper. Hudnall had been out with Pilchuck. Burn was on the moment coming in with his wife and sister, who were talking excitedly about what they had seen.

“How many did you see?” asked Hudnall, of Tom.

“Oh, I’ve no idea — all of five thousand — and I couldn’t see the end of the herd,” replied Tom.

“We saw ten thousand, an’ that on the other side of the ridge from you,” added Hudnall, tensely. His big eyes were alight and he seemed to look afar. Tom sensed that Hudnall had not responded to the wildness and beauty of the spectacle. He saw thousands of hides to sell.

“Reckon I heard shootin’ down the river a couple of miles,” said Pilchuck. “There’s another outfit on the trail. We’ll be lucky if we don’t run into a dozen.”

“Is this the main herd you spoke of?” inquired Tom.

“No. This is only a little bunch,” returned Pilchuck.

Mrs. Hudnall broke up the colloquy. “Are you all daffy about buffalo? Supper’s gettin’ cold.”

“Mary, you’ll be fryin’ buffalo steak for me to-morrow night,” rejoined her husband, gayly.

After supper Hudnall called the men aside for the purpose of consultation.

“Pilchuck an’ me are pardners on this deal,” he said. “We’ll pay thirty cents a hide. That means skinnin’, haulin’ the hide to camp, an’ peggin’ it out. No difference who kills the buffalo.”

“That’s more than you’ll get paid by most outfits,” added Pilchuck.

Stronghurl and Burn agreed on that figure; and as for Tom he frankly admitted he thought thirty cents a hide was big pay.

“Huh! Wait till you skin your first buffalo,” said the scout, grinning. “You’ll swear thirty dollars too little.”

“Well, my part of this deal is settled. I furnish supplies an’ pay for hides,” said Hudnall. “Jude here will boss the hunt.”

“Not much bossin’,” said that individual. “We’re a little farther south than I’ve hunted. I rode through here with some soldiers last fall, an’ know the country. This bunch of buffalo is hangin’ along the river. Reckon there’s buffalo for miles. They’ll hang around here, unless too many outfits get chasin’ them. A good way to hunt is to catch them comin’ to drink. Aim to hit behind the shoulder, an’ shoot till he drops. Sometimes it takes two or three bullets, an’ sometimes five on the old bulls. When you hunt out in the open you’ve got to ride like hell, chase them, an’ keep shootin’ till your cartridges are all gone.”

“That’s easy, an’ ought to be heaps of fun,” said Burn.

“Reckon so. An’ don’t forget it’s dangerous. Keep out of their reach. The real hard work comes in skinnin’ an’ peggin’ out. Before you get good enough at that to make three dollars a day, you’ll be sick of the job.”

“Three dollars!” echoed Burn, in scorn. “I expect to make five times that much.”

Tom had much the same aspiration, but he did not voice it. Pilchuck looked amused and mysterious enough to restrain undue enthusiasm.

“Finally — an’ this is a hunch you want to take serious,” went on Pilchuck, lowering his voice so the women could not hear. “We might run on to Indians.”

That sobered all the listeners.

“Last summer was bad an’ fall was worse,” he continued. “I don’t know now how conditions are or what the Indians are doin.’ Reckon somebody, hunters or soldiers, will happen along an’ tell us. My belief is there’ll be some tough fights this year. But, of course, the redskins can’t be everywhere, an’ these buffalo are thick an’ range far. We may be lucky an’ never see a Comanche. But we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled all the time an’ mustn’t get far apart. If we see or hear of Indians, we’ll move camp an’ stand guard at night.”

“Jude, that’s stranger talk than you’ve used yet,” responded Hudnall, in surprise and concern.

“Reckon so. I’m not worryin.’ I’m just tellin’ you. There’ll be a heap of hunters in here this summer. An’ like as not the soldiers will see what women there are safe to the fort or some well-protected freightin’ post.”

Tom thought of the dark-eyed girl, Milly. Almost he had forgotten. How long ago that meeting seemed! Where was she now? He convinced himself that Pilchuck’s assurance of the protection of soldiers applied to all the women who might be with the hunting bands.

No more was said about Indians. Interest reverted strongly to the proposed hunt to begin on the morrow. Tom fell in with the spirit of the hour and stayed up late round the camp fire, listening to the talk and joining in. Once their animated discussion was silenced by a mournful howl from the ridge-top where Tom had climbed to see the buffalo. It was a strange sound, deep and prolonged, like the bay of a hound on a deer scent, only infinitely wilder.

“What’s that?” asked somebody.

“Wolf,” replied Pilchuck. “Not a coyote, mind you, but a real old king of the plains. There’s a lot of wolves hang with the buffalo.”

The cry was not repeated then, but later, as Tom composed himself in his warm blankets, it pealed out again, wonderfully breaking the stillness. How hungry and full of loneliness! It made Tom shiver. It seemed a herald of wilderness.

Tom was the first to arise next morning, and this time it was the ring of his ax and the crash of wood thrown into the camp-fire circle that roused the others. When Stronghurl sallied forth to find the horses, daylight had broken clear; and by the time breakfast was ready the sun was up.

Pilchuck, returning from the ridge-top, reported that buffalo were in sight, all along the river, as far as he could see. They were a goodly distance out on the plain and were not yet working in for a drink.

“I’ll take my turn hangin’ round camp,” said Hudnall, plainly with an effort! “There’s a lot to do, an’ some one must see after the women folks.”

“It’d be a good idea for you to climb the ridge every two hours or so an’ take a look,” replied Pilchuck, casually. But his glance at Hudnall was not casual. “I’ll leave my telescope for you. Don’t miss anythin’.”

The men saddled their horses and donned the heavy cartridge belts. They also carried extra cartridges in their pockets. Tom felt weighted down as if by a thousand pounds. He had neglected to buy a saddle sheath for his gun, and therefore would have to carry it in his hand — an awkward task while riding.

They rode behind Pilchuck down the river, and forded it at a shallow sand-barred place, over which the horses had to go at brisk gait to avoid miring.

“How’re we ever goin’ to get the wagons across?” queried Burn Hudnall.

“Reckon we’ve no choice,” replied Pilchuck. “The hides have to be hauled to camp. You see the actual chasin’ an’ killin’ of buffalo doesn’t take much time. Then the real work begins. We’ll have all the rest of the day — an’ night, to skin, haul to camp, an’ peg out.”

This side of the river bank was more wooded and less precipitous than the other. Buffalo tracks were as thick as cattle tracks round a water-hole. The riders halted at the top of the slope where the level plain began. Out on the grassy expanse, perhaps a mile or more, extended a shaggy dark line like a wall.

“Reckon there’s your buffalo,” said the scout. “Now we’ll scatter an’ wait under cover for an hour or so. Hide in the brush or behind a bank, anywhere till some come close. Then burn powder! An’ don’t quit the buffalo you shoot at till he’s down. When they run off, chase them, an’ shoot from your horses. The chase won’t last long, for the buffalo will run away from you.”

Pilchuck stationed Tom at this point, and rode on down the edge of the plain with the other men. They passed out of sight. In that direction Tom could not see far, owing to rising ground. To the southwest, however, the herd extended until it was impossible to distinguish between vague black streaks of buffalo and dim distance.

“Pilchuck said this was only a little bunch!” soliloquized Tom, as he scanned the plain-wide band of beasts.

Dismounting, he held his horse and stood at the edge of the timber, watching and listening. It was a wonderfully satisfying moment. He tried to be calm, but that was impossible. He recognized what had always been deep in him — the love of adventure and freedom — the passion to seek these in unknown places. Here, then, he stood at his post above the bank of a timber-bordered river in the Panhandle of Texas with a herd of buffalo in sight. He saw coyotes, too, and a larger beast, gray in color, that he was sure was a wolf. Hawks and buzzards sailed against the blue sky. Down through the trees, near the river, he espied a flock of wild turkeys. Then, in connection with all he saw, and the keenness of the morning which he felt, he remembered the scout’s caution about Indians. Tom thought that he ought to be worried, even frightened, but he was neither. This moment was the most mysteriously full and satisfying of his life.

Opposite his point the buffalo did not approach more closely; he observed, however, that to the eastward they appeared to be encroaching upon the river brakes.

Suddenly then he was thrilled by gun-shots. Boom! Boom! . . . Boom-boom! His comrades had opened the hunt.

“What’ll I do now?” he mused, gazing down the river, then out toward the herd. It presented no change that he could distinguish. “I was told to stay here. But with shooting begun, I don’t think any buffalo will come now.”

Soon after that a gun roared out much closer, indeed, just over the rise of plain below Tom.

“That’s a big fifty!” he ejaculated, aloud.

Far beyond, perhaps two miles distant, sounded a report of a Sharps, low but clear on the still morning air. Another and another! Tom began to tingle with anticipation. Most likely his comrades would chase the buffalo his way. Next he heard a shot apparently between the one that had sounded close and the one far away. So all three of his fellow hunters had gotten into action. Tom grew restive. Peering out at the herd, he discovered it was moving. A low trample of many hoofs assailed his ears. Dust partially obscured the buffalo. They appeared to be running back into the gray expanse. Suddenly Tom became aware of heavy and continuous booming of guns — close, medium, and far-away reports mingling. As he listened it dawned on him that all the reports were diminishing in sound. His comrades were chasing the buffalo and getting farther away. After a while he heard no more. Also the dust-shrouded buffalo opposite his position had disappeared. His disappointment was keen.

Presently a horseman appeared on the crest of the ridge that had hidden the chase from him. The white horse was Pilchuck’s. Tom saw the rider wave his hat, and taking the action as a signal he mounted and rode at a gallop to the ridge, striking its summit some few hundred yards to the right. Here he had unobstructed view. Wide gray-green barren rolling plain, hazy with dust! The herd of buffalo was not in sight. Tom rode on to meet Pilchuck.

“Tough luck for you,” said the scout. “They were workin’ in to the river below here.”

“Did you kill any?” queried Tom, eagerly.

“I downed twenty-one,” replied Pilchuck. “An’ as I was ridin’ back I met Stronghurl. He was cussin’ because he’d only got five. An’ Burn burned a lot of powder. But so far as I could see he got only one.”

“No!” ejaculated Tom. “Why, he was sure of dozens.”

“Reckon he knows more now,” returned Pilchuck. “You ride down there an’ see how many you can skin. I’ll go back to camp, hitch up a wagon, an’ try to come back across the river.”

The scout rode away, and Tom, turning his horse eastward, took to a trot down the immense gradual slope. After searching the plain he espied a horse grazing, and then a dark shaggy mound which manifestly was a slain buffalo. Tom spurred his horse, rapidly covering the distance between. Soon he saw Burn at work skinning the buffalo.

“Good for you!” shouted Tom, as he galloped up.

“Helluva job — this skinnin’!” yelled Burn, flashing a red and sweaty face toward Tom. “Hey! Look out!”

But his warning came too late. Tom’s horse snorted furiously, as if expelling a new and hateful scent, and, rearing high, he came down and plunged so violently that Tom flew one way and his gun another.

Tom landed hard and rooted his face in the grass. The shock stunned him for a second. Then he sat up and found himself unhurt. The surprise, the complete victory of the horse, and the humiliation of being made to root the ground like a pig stirred Tom to some heat.

“Hope you ain’t hurt?” sailed Burn, anxiously, rising from his work.

“No, but I’m mad,” replied Tom.

Whereupon Burn fell back and rolled over in the grass, roaring with mirth. Tom paid no attention to his comrade. Dusty had run off a hundred or more paces, and was now walking, head to one side, dragging his bridle. Tom yelled to stop him. Dusty kept on. Whereupon Tom broke into a run and caught him.

“You’re a fine horse,” panted Tom, as he mounted. “Now you’ll — go back — and rub your nose — on that buffalo.”

Dusty appeared placable enough, and trotted back readily until once again close to the buffalo. Tom spurred him on and called forcibly to him. Dusty grew excited as he came nearer. Still he did not show any ugliness.

“Don’t hurry him,” remonstrated Burn. “He’s just scared.”

But Tom, not yet cooled in temper, meant that Dusty should go right up to the buffalo. This he forced the horse to do. Then suddenly Dusty flashed down his head and seemed to propel himself with incredible violence high into the air. He came down on stiff legs. The shock was so severe that Tom shot out of the saddle. He came down back of the cantle. Desperately he clung to the pommel, and as Dusty pitched high again, his hold broke and he spun round like a top on the rump of the horse and slid off. Dusty ceased his pitching and backed away from the dead buffalo.

Only Tom’s feelings were hurt. Burn Hudnall’s “Haw! haw! haw!” rolled out in great volume. Tom sat where he had been dumped, and gazing at the horse, he gradually induced a state of mind bordering upon appreciation of how Dusty must have felt. Presently Burn got up, and catching Dusty, led him slowly and gently, talking soothingly the while, nearer to the buffalo, and held him there.

“He’s all right now,” said Burn.

Tom rose and went back to the horse and patted him.

“You bucked me off, didn’t you?”

“Tom, if I were you I’d get off an’ lead him up to the dead buffalo till he gets over his scare,” suggested Burn.

“I will,” replied Tom, and then he gazed down at the shaggy carcass on the ground. “Phew! the size of him!”

“Looks big as a woolly elephant, doesn’t he? Big bull,” Pilchuck said. “He’s the only one I got, an’ sure he took a lot of shootin’. You see the buffalo was runnin’ an’ I couldn’t seem to hit one of them. Finally I plunked this bull. An’ he kept on runnin’ till I filled him full of lead.”

“Where are those Pilchuck got?” queried Tom, anxious to go to work.

“First one’s lyin’ about a quarter — there, to the left a little. You go tackle skinnin’ him. It’s an old bull like this. An’ if you get his skin off to-day I’ll eat it.”

“I’ve skinned lots of cattle — steers and bulls,” replied Tom. “It wasn’t hard work. Why should this be?”

“Man, they’re buffalo, an’ their skin’s an inch thick, tougher than sole leather — an’ stick! Why it’s riveted on an’ clinched.”

“Must be some knack about the job, then,” rejoined Tom, mounting Dusty. “Say, I nearly forgot my gun. Hand it up, will you? . . . Burn, I’ll bet you I skin ten buffalo before dark and peg them out, as Pilchuck called it, before I go to bed.”

“I’ll take you up,” said Burn, with a grim laugh. “I just wish I had time to watch you. It’d be a circus. But I’ll be ridin’ by you presently.”

“All right. I’m off to win that bet,” replied Tom, in cheery determination, and touching Dusty with the spurs he rode rapidly toward the next fallen buffalo.

CHAPTER IV

DUSTY EVINCED LESS fear of the second prostrate buffalo, which was even a larger bull than the huge tough old animal Burn was engaged in skinning.

This time Tom did not take any needless risks with Dusty. Riding to within fifty feet of the dead beast, he dismounted, led the nervous horse closer, and round and round, and finally up to it. Dusty behaved very well, considering his first performance; left to himself, however, he edged away to a considerable distance and began to graze.

Tom lost no time in getting to work. He laid his gun near at hand, and divesting himself of his coat he took ripping and skinning knives from his belt. Determination was strong in him. He anticipated an arduous and perplexing job, yet felt fully capable of accomplishing it and winning his bet with Burn. This buffalo was a monster; he was old and the burrs and matted hair appeared a foot deep at his forequarters; he was almost black.

First Tom attempted to turn the beast over into a more favorable position for skinning. He found, however, that he could scarcely budge the enormous bulk. That was a surprise. There appeared nothing to do but go to work as best he could, and wait for help to move the animal. Forthwith he grasped his ripping knife and proceeded to try following instructions given him. It took three attempts to get the knife under the skin and when he essayed to rip he found that a good deal of strength was required. He had calculated that he must expend considerable energy to make any speed, until practice had rendered him proficient. The considerable energy grew into the utmost he could put forth. After the ripping came the skinning, and in very short time he appreciated all Burn had said. “Helluva job is right!” Tom commented, remembering his comrade’s words. But he did not spare himself, and by tremendous exertions he had the buffalo skinned before Burn finished his. Tom could not vouch for the merit of the job, but the skin was off. He could vouch, however, for his breathlessness and the hot sweat that bathed his body. Plowing corn or pitching wheat, jobs he had imagined were hard work, paled into insignificance.

“Say — wonder what pegging out the hide — will be like,” he panted, as he sheathed his knives and picked up his gun. Mounting Dusty he rode eastward, scanning the plain for the next dead buffalo.

Presently he espied it, and galloping thither he found it to be another bull, smaller and younger than the others, and he set to work with renewed zeal. He would have to work like a beaver to win that bet. It took violence to make a quick job of this one. That done, Tom rode on to the third.

While he was laboring here Burn rode by and paid him a hearty compliment, which acted upon Tom like a spur. He could not put forth any greater zeal; indeed, he would do wonders if he kept to the pace he had set himself. But as he progressed he learned. This advantage, however, was offset by the gradual dulling of his knives. He had forgotten to bring his steel.

He toiled from one dead buffalo to another. The breeze died away, the sun climbed high and blazed down upon the plain. His greatest need was water to drink. Hour by hour his thirst augmented. His shirt was so wet with perspiration that he could have wrung it out. The heat did not bother him so much. Gradually his clothes became covered with a lather of sweat, blood, grease, and dust. This, and the growing pangs in his body, especially hands and forearms, occasioned him extreme annoyance. He did not note the passing of time. Only now and then did he scan the plain for sign of his comrades. Indians he had completely forgotten. Burn and Stronghurl were to be seen at intervals, and Pilchuck, driving the wagon, was with them. Once from a high knoll Tom thought he espied another wagon miles down the river, but he could not be sure. He did, however, make out a dim black blur to the southward, and this he decided was the buffalo herd, ranging back toward the river.

During this strenuous time there were incidents of much interest, if he could only have given them due attention. Buzzards swooped down over him, closer and closer, till he felt the wind of their wings. A lean gray wolf came within range of his gun, but Tom had no time for shooting. He toiled on and the hours flew.

When, late in the afternoon, he tore off the hide that assured him of winning the wager, he was exultant. He was now two miles from the wagon, which he made out was approaching. Only one more buffalo did he find, and this he skinned by the time Pilchuck drove up.

“Wal, if you ain’t a Kansas cyclone!” ejaculated the scout, with undisguised admiration. “Seventeen skinned your first day! Doan, I never seen the beat of it.”

“I had a bet with Burn,” replied Torn, wiping his hot face.

“If you can keep that lick up, young man, you’ll make a stake out of this hide-huntin’,” returned Pilchuck, seriously.

“Wait till I learn how!” exclaimed Tom, fired by the praise and the hopes thus engendered.

“Reckon I’ll cut the hump off this young bull,” remarked the scout, as he climbed out of the seat. “Buffalo steak for supper, hey?”

“I could eat hoofs. And I’m spitting cotton,” said Tom.

“You forgot a canteen. Son, you mustn’t forget anythin’ in this game,” admonished Pilchuck. “Rustle back to camp.”

Tom was interested, however, to learn how Pilchuck would cut the desirable hump from the carcass. Long had Tom heard of the savory steaks from the buffalo. The scout thrust his big knife in near the joining of the loin, ripped forward along the lower side as far as the ribs ran; then performed a like operation on the upper side. That done, he cut the ends loose and carved out a strip over three feet long and so thick it was heavy.

“Reckon we can rustle back to camp now,” he said, throwing the meat on the pile of hides in the wagon.

“Is that the herd coming back?” queried Tom, pointing from his horse.

“Yes. They’ll be in to-night yet to drink. We’ll find them here to-morrow mornin’. Did you hear the big fifties of the other hunters?”

“You mean others besides our outfit? No, I didn’t.”

“There’s a couple of outfits down the river. But that’s lucky for us. Probably will be hunters all along here soon. Reckon there’s safety in numbers an’ sure the buffalo are plenty enough.”

Tom rode back to camp facing a sunset that emblazoned the western ramparts in gold and purple. The horizon line was far distant and lifted high, a long level upland, at that moment singularly wild and beautiful. Tom wondered if it could be the eastern extension of the great Staked Plains he had heard mentioned so often. Weary as he was from his extraordinary exertions, he yet had spirit left to look and feel and think. The future seemed like that gold-rimmed horizon line.

He reached camp before dusk, there to receive the plaudits of his comrades and also the women folks. Burn was generous in his eulogy, but he created consternation in Tom’s breast by concluding, “Wait till you try peggin’ out a hide!”

“Aw! I forgot there was more. I’ve not won that bet yet,” he rejoined, dejectedly.

After attending to his horse Tom had just about enough energy left to drink copiously and stretch out with a groan under a tree. Never before in his life had he throbbed and ached and burned so exceedingly. An hour’s rest considerably relieved him. Then supper, which he attacked somewhat as if he were a hungry wolf, was an event to be remembered. If all his comrades had not been equally as ravenous he would have been ashamed. Pilchuck got much satisfaction out of the rapid disappearance of many buffalo steaks.

“Meat’s no good when so fresh,” he averred. “After bein’ hung up a few days an’ set, we call it, an’ fried in tallow, it beats beef all hollow.”

Before darkness set in Tom saw Pilchuck peg out a hide. First the scout laid the hide flat and proceeded to cut little holes in it all around the edge. Next with ax and knife he sharpened sticks nearly a foot long. Three of these he drove through the neck of the hide and deep enough into the ground to hold well. Then he proceeded to the tail end and stretched the skin. Tom could well see that skill was required here. Pilchuck held the skin stretched, and at the same time drove one peg, then another, at this end. Following that, he began to stretch and peg the side, eventually working all around. The whole operation did not take long and did not appear difficult.

Tom essayed it with a vim that made up for misgivings. Like the skinning, it was vastly more difficult than it looked. Cutting the holes and making the pegs was easy; however, when it came to stretching the hide and holding it and pegging it all by himself, he found it a most deceiving and irksome task.

Sally Hudnall offered to help Tom, but he declined with thanks, explaining that he had a wager to win. The girl hovered round Tom and curiously watched him, much to his annoyance. He saw that she was laughing at him.

“What’s so funny?” he queried, nettled.

“You look like a boy tryin’ to play mumbly-peg an’ leap-frog at once,” she replied with a giggle.

Tom had to laugh a good-natured acknowledgment to that; and then he deftly turned the tables on her by making a dry, casual remark about Stronghurl. The girl blushed and let him alone to ponder over the intricacies of this hide pegging. No contortionist ever performed more marvels of stretching his body than Tom achieved. Likewise, no man ever so valiantly stifled back speech that would have been unseemly, to say the least, in the hearing of women. His efforts, however, were crowned with the reward of persistence. By midnight he had the job done, and utterly spent he crawled into his bed, where at once his eyes seemed to glue shut.

Next morning he readily answered Pilchuck’s call, but his body was incapable of a like alacrity. He crawled out of his blankets as if he were crippled. A gradual working of his muscles, however, loosened the stiffness and warmed the cold soreness to the extent that he believed he could begin the day with some semblance of service.

It was again, in Pilchuck’s terse terms, every man for himself. Tom welcomed this for two reasons, first that he could go easy, and secondly that he wanted to revel in and prolong his first real encounter with the buffalo.

Hudnall changed Tom’s plans somewhat by relegating him to watch camp that day, while he went out with the other men. He modified this order, however, by saying that if any buffalo came near camp Tom might go after them.

Breakfast was over at sunrise. Pilchuck brought out his heavy ammunition box, with which each hunter was provided, and told Tom he could help a little and learn while he helped. His belt contained more than thirty empty shells that were to be reloaded.

“Reckon I ought to have done this last night,” he explained to Hundall, who was impatient to be off. “You fellows go on down the river. I’ll catch up with you.”

The three hunters rode off eagerly, and Pilchuck got out his tools for reloading. Tom quickly learned the use of bullet-mold, swedge, lubricator, primer, extractor, tamper, and patch-paper.

“Reckon I’m all set now,” affirmed the scout. “You put these tools away for me. An’ keep a good lookout. I’m not worryin’, but I’d like to know if there’s Indians huntin’ this herd. Take a look from the ridge with my glass, an’ there’ll be buffalo on the other side of the river to-day, you can keep in sight of camp an’ get a shot.”

With that Pilchuck mounted his horse and trotted away through the timber. Tom leisurely set about the few tasks at hand. It pleased him when he was able to avoid Sally’s watching eyes. She seemed to regard him with something of disapproval. When the camp chores were finished Tom took the telescope and climbed to the ridge-top. Apparently more buffalo were in sight than on the previous day and about in the same latitude. Tom swept the circle of surrounding country, gray-green rolling plain, the low ridges, the winding river depression, with its fringe of trees. Some miles down the river rose a column of smoke, marking, no doubt, another camp. Far away to the south and west loomed the strange upheaval of land. Clearly defined by the telescope, it appeared to be an escarpment of horizon-wide dimensions, gray and barren, seamed by canyons, standing in wild and rugged prominence above the plains.

Not until late in the morning did Tom’s watchful gaze espy buffalo approaching camp. Then he was thrilled to see a number of what appeared to be bulls grazing riverward opposite the camp. Hurrying down from the eminence whence he had made this observation, he got his gun and cartridges, and crossing the river he proceeded up the thickly wooded slope some distance to the west of his first stand of yesterday. It looked to him as if the bulls might work down into a coulee which opened into the river depression. He was quite a little time reaching the point desired — the edge of woodland and brink of the ravine — and when he peered from under the last trees he was moved with such an overwhelming excitement that he dropped to his knees.

Out on the open plain, not a hundred yards distant, grazed nine buffalo bulls, the leader of which appeared larger than the largest he had skinned the day before. They had not scented Tom and were grazing toward him, somewhat to the right, manifestly headed for the coulee.

Trembling and panting, Tom watched with strained sight. He forgot he held a “big fifty” in his hands, and in the riotous sensation of that moment he did not remember until from far down the river came a dull boom — boom of guns. It amazed him to see that the buffalo bulls paid no attention to the shooting. He made up his mind then to take his time and await a favorable opportunity to down the leader. They were approaching so slowly that he had ample time to control the trembling of his muscles, though it was impossible to compose himself.

Several of the bulls piled over the little bank into the coulee, and while they were passing within fifty yards of Tom the others leisurely began the descent, the huge bull nodding along in the rear. The near ones passed into the timber, getting farther away from Tom. He had difficulty in restraining his eagerness. Then one bull began to crash in the brush. He made as much noise as an elephant. Tom watched with an intense interest only second to the hot-pressed lust to kill. This bull was crashing against thick brush, and it soon became plain to Tom that the beast was scratching his shaggy hide, tearing out the matts of burrs and the shedding hair. It came away in great tufts, hanging on the sharp broken ends of the brush. This old bull knew what he was about when he charged that thicket of hackberry.

Suddenly Tom was electrified by a puff which assuredly came from the nostrils of a buffalo close to him. He turned cautiously. Behind and below him, closer than fifty yards, the other bulls were passing into the timber. He plainly heard the grinding of their teeth. They were monsters. Instinctively Tom searched for a tree to climb or a place to run to after he fired. What if they should charge his way? He would scarcely have time to reload, and even if he had, of what avail would that be?

Then the monarch wagged his enormous head in line with Tom’s magnifying vision. What a wide short face! His eyes stood out so that he could see in front or behind. His shaggy beard was dragging. Tom could see only the tips of the horns in all that woolly mass. Puff! came the sound of expelled breath.

Tom felt he hated to kill that glorious and terrifying beast, yet he was powerless to resist the tight palpitating feverish dominance of his blood. Resting the heavy rifle on a branch, he aimed behind the great shaggy shoulder, and with strained muscles and bated breath he fired.

Like a cannon the old Sharps roared. Crashings of brush, thudding of heavy hoofs, sounded to the right of the cloud of smoke. The other bulls were running. Tom caught glimpses of broad brown backs cleaving the brush down the river slope. With shaking hands he reloaded. Peering under the drifting smoke, he searched fearfully for the bull he had fired at, at first seeing only the thick-grassed swelling slope of the coulee. Then farther down he espied a huge brown object lying inert.

The wildness of the boy in Tom conquered all else. Leaping up, he broke out of the woods, yelling like an Indian, and charged down the gentle slope, exultant and proud, yet not quite frenzied enough to forget possible peril. From that quarter, however, he was safe. The monarch was heaving his last breath.

Pilchuck rode in at noon that day, in time to see Tom stretch the hide of his first buffalo.

“You got one, hey?” he called, eying the great shaggy hide with appreciation. “Your first buffalo! Wal, it’s a darned fine one. They don’t come any bigger than that fellow.”

Tom had to tell the story of his exploit, and was somewhat discomfited by the scout’s remark that he should have killed several of the bulls.

“Aren’t you back early?” queried Tom, as Pilchuck dismounted.

“Run out of cartridges,” he said, laconically.

“So quick!” exclaimed Tom, staring. “You must have seen a lot of buffalo.”

“Reckon they was thick this mornin’,” returned the scout, dryly. “I got plumb surrounded once an’ had to shoot my way out.”

“Well! . . . How many did you down?”

“Twenty-one. I think when we count up tonight we’ll have a good day. Burn is doin’ better than yesterday. . . . Wal, I want a bite to eat an’ a drink. It’s warm ridin’ in the dust. Then I’ll hitch up the wagon an’ drive down for the hides. Come to think of it, though, I’ve a job to do before. You can help me.”

Later Pilchuck hailed Tom to fetch an ax and come on. Tom followed the scout down into the thickets.

“Cut four strong poles about ten feet long an’ pack them to camp,” said Pilchuck.

Tom did as he was bidden, to find that the scout had returned ahead of him, carrying four short poles with forks at one end. He proceeded to pound these into the ground with the forks uppermost, and then he laid across them the poles Tom had brought, making a square framework. “We’ll stretch a hide inside the poles, loose so it’ll sag down, an’ there we’ll salt our buffalo humps.”

Pilchuck then brought in a team of horses and hitched it to the big wagon. “Wal, son,” he said to Tom, “I ain’t hankerin’ after skinnin’ hides. But I may as well start. We’re goin’ to kill more buffalo than we’ll have time to skin.”

He drove out of camp down the slope into the shallow water. The horses plunged in at a trot, splashing high. Pilchuck lashed out with the long whip and yelled lustily. Any slowing up there meant wheels stuck in the sand. Horses, driver, and wagon were drenched. From the other side Pilchuck looked back. “Fine on a day like this,” he shouted.

Not long after he had gone Tom heard one of the horses up the river neigh several times. This induced him to reconnoiter, with the result that he espied a wagon coming along the edge of the timber. It appeared to be an open wagon, with one man in the driver’s seat. Another, following on horseback, was leading two extra horses.

“More hide-hunters,” Tom decided as he headed toward them. “Now I wonder what’s expected of me in a case like this.”

When the driver espied Tom come into the open, rifle in hand, he halted the horses abruptly.

“Dunn outfit — hide-hunters,” he announced, with something of alarmed alacrity, as if his identity and business had been questioned. He appeared to be a short, broad man, and what little of his face was visible was bright red. He had bushy whiskers.

“I’m Tom Doan, of Hudnall’s outfit,” replied Tom. “We’re camped just below.”

“Clark Hudnall! By all that’s lucky!” exclaimed the man. “I know Hudnall. We talked some last fall of going in together. That was at Independence. But he wasn’t ready and I come ahead.”

Tom offered his hand, and at this juncture the horseman that had been behind the wagon rode forward abreast of the driver. He was a fat young man with a most jocund expression on his round face. His apparel was striking in its inappropriateness to the rough life of the plains. His old slouch hat was too small for his large head, and there was a tuft of tow-colored hair sticking out of a hole in the crown.

“Ory, shake hands with Tom Doan, of Hudnall’s outfit,” said Dunn. “My nephew, Ory Tacks.”

“Much obliged to meet you, Mister Doan,” replied Tacks, with great aplomb.

“Howdy! Same to you,” greeted Tom, in slow, good humor, as he studied the face of this newcomer.

Dunn interrupted his scrutiny.

“Is Hudnall in camp?”

“No. He’s out hunting buffalo. I’m sure you’re welcome to stop at our camp till he comes in. That’ll be around sundown.”

“Good. I’m needing sight and sound of some one I know,” replied Dunn, significantly. “Lead the way, Doan. These horses of mine are thirsty.”

When the travelers arrived at Hudnall’s camp, Tom helped them unhitch in a favorable camping spot, and unpack the necessary camp duffle. Once during this work Ory Tacks halted so suddenly that he dropped a pack on his foot.

“Ouch!” he cried, lifting his foot to rub it with his hand while he kept his gaze toward Tom’s camp. It was an enraptured and amazed gaze. “Do I see a beautiful young lady?”

Thus questioned, Tom wheeled to see Sally Hudnall’s face framed in the white-walled door of Hudnall’s prairie wagon. It was rather too far to judge accurately, but he inclined to the impression that Sally was already making eyes at Ory Tacks.

“Oh! There!” ejaculated Tom, hard put to it to keep his face serious. “It’s a young lady, all right — Miss Sally Hudnall. But I can’t see that she—”

“Uncle Jack, there’s a girl in this camp,” interrupted Ory, in tones of awe.

“We’ve got three women,” said Tom.

“Well, that’s a surprise to us,” returned Dunn. “I had no idea Hudnall would fetch his women folks down here into the buffalo country. I wonder if he . . . Tom, is there a buffalo-hunter with you, a man who knows the frontier?”

“Yes. Jude Pilchuck.”

“Did he stand for the women coming?”

“I guess he had no choice,” rejoined Tom.

“Humph! How long have you been on the river?”

“Two days.”

“Seen any other outfits?”

“No. But Pilchuck said there were a couple down the river.”

“Awhuh,” said Dunn, running a stubby, powerful hand through his beard. He seemed concerned. “You see, Doan, we’ve been in the buffalo country since last fall. And we’ve sure had it rough. Poor luck on our fall hunt. That was over on the Brazos. Kiowa Indians on the rampage. Our winter hunt we made on the line of Indian Territory. We didn’t know it was against the law to kill buffalo in the Territory. The officers took our hides. Then we’d got our spring hunt started fine — west of here forty miles or so. Had five hundred hides. And they were stolen.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Tom, astonished. “Who’d be so low down as to steal hides?”

“Who?” snorted Dunn, with fire in his small eyes. “We don’t know. The soldiers don’t know. They say the thieves are Indians. But I’m one who believes they are white.”

Tom immediately grasped the serious nature of this information. The difficulties and dangers of hide-hunting began to assume large proportions.

“Well, you must tell Hudnall and Pilchuck all about this,” he said.

Just then Sally called out sweetly, “Tom — oh, Tom — wouldn’t your visitors like a bite to eat?”

“Reckon they would, miss, thanks to you,” shouted Dunn, answering for himself. As for Ory Tacks, he appeared overcome, either by the immediate prospect of food, or by going into the presence of the beautiful young lady. Tom noted that he at once dropped his task of helping Dunn and bent eager energies to the improvement of his personal appearance. Dunn and Tom had seated themselves before Ory joined them, but when he did come he was manifestly bent on making a great impression.

“Miss Hudnall — my nephew, Ory Tacks,” announced Dunn, with quaint formality.

“What’s the name?” queried Sally, incredulously, as if she had not heard aright.

“Orville Tacks — at your service, Miss Hudnall,” replied the young man, elaborately. “I am much obliged to meet you.”

Sally took him in with keen, doubtful gaze, and evidently, when she could convince herself that he was not making fun at her expense, gravitated to a perception of easy conquest. Tom saw that this was a paramount issue with Sally. Probably later she might awake to a humorous appreciation of this young gentleman.

Tom soon left the newcomers to their camp tasks, and went about his own, which for the most part consisted of an alert watchfulness. Early in the afternoon the distant boom-boom of the big buffalo guns ceased to break the drowsy silence. The hours wore away. When, at time of sunset, Tom returned from his last survey of the plains, it was to find Hudnall and his hunter comrades in camp. Pilchuck was on the way back with a load of fifty-six hides. Just as twilight fell he called from the opposite bank that he would need help at the steep place. All hands pulled and hauled the wagon over the obstacle; and hard upon that incident came Mrs. Hudnall’s cheery call to supper.

Tom watched and listened with more than his usual attentiveness. Hudnall was radiant. This day’s work had been good. For a man of his tremendous strength and endurance the extreme of toil was no hindrance. He was like one that had found a gold mine. Burn Hudnall reflected his father’s spirit. Pilchuck ate in silence, not affected by their undisguised elation. Stronghurl would have been dense indeed, in the face of Sally’s overtures, not to sense a rival in Ory Tacks. This individual almost ate out of Sally’s hand. Dunn presented a rather gloomy front. Manifestly he had not yet told Hudnall of his misfortunes.

After supper it took the men two hours of labor to peg out the hides. All the available space in the grove was blanketed with buffalo skins, with narrow lanes between. Before this work was accomplished the women had gone to bed. At the camp fire which Tom replenished, Dunn recounted to Hudnall and Pilchuck the same news he had told Tom, except that he omitted comment on the presence of the women.

To Tom’s surprise, Hudnall took Dunn’s story lightly. He did not appear to grasp any serious menace, and he dismissed Dunn’s loss with brief words: “Hard luck! But you can make it up soon. Throw in with me. The more the merrier, an’ the stronger we’ll be.”

“How about your supplies?” queried Dunn.

“Plenty for two months. An’ we’ll be freightin’ out hides before that.”

“All right, Clark, I’ll throw in with your outfit huntin’ for myself, of course, an’ payin’ my share,” replied Dunn, slowly, as if the matter was weighty. “But I hope you don’t mind my talkin’ out straight about your women.”

“No, you can talk straight about anyone or anythin’ to me.”

“You want to send your women back or take them to Fort Elliott,” returned Dunn, brusquely.

“Dunn, I won’t do anythin’ of the kind,” retorted Hudnall, bluntly.

“Well, the soldiers will do it for you, if they happen to come along,” said Dunn, just as bluntly. “It’s your own business. I’m not trying to interfere in your affairs. But women don’t belong on such a huntin’ trip as this summer will see. My idea, talking straight, is that Mr. Pilchuck here should have warned you and made you leave the women back in the settlement.”

“Wal, I gave Hudnall a hunch all right, but he wouldn’t listen,” declared the scout.

“You didn’t give me any such damn thing,” shouted Hudnall angrily.

Then followed a hot argument that in Tom’s opinion ended in the conviction that Pilchuck had not told all he knew.

“Well, if that’s what, I reckon it doesn’t make any difference to me,” said Hudnall, finally. “I wanted wife an’ Sally with me. An’ if I was comin’ at all they were comin’ too. We’re huntin’ buffalo, yes, for a while — as long as there’s money in it. But what we’re huntin’ most is a farm.”

“Now, Hudnall, listen,” responded Dunn, curtly. “I’m not tryin’ to boss your outfit. After this I’ll have no more to say. . . . I’ve been six months at this hide-huntin’ an’ I know what I’m talkin’ about. The great massed herd of buffalo is south of here, on the Red River, along under the rim of the Staked Plain. You think this herd here is big. Say, this is a straggler bunch. There’s a thousand times as many buffalo down on the Red. . . . There’s where the most of the hide-hunters are and there the Comanches and Kiowas are on the war-path. I’ve met hunters who claim this main herd will reach here this spring, along in May. But I say that great herd will never again get this far north. If you want hide-huntin’ for big money, then you’ve got to pull stakes for the Red River.”

“By thunder! we’ll pull then,” boomed Hudnall.

“Reckon we’ve got some good huntin’ here, as long as this bunch hangs around the water,” interposed Pilchuck. “We’ve got it ‘most all to ourselves.”

“That’s sense,” said Dunn, conclusively. “I’ll be glad to stay. But when we do pull for the Staked Plain country you want to look for some wild times. There’ll be hell along the Red River this summer.”

In the swiftly flying days that succeeded Dunn’s joining Hudnall’s outfit Tom developed rapidly into a hunter and skinner of buffalo. He was never an expert shot with the heavy Sharps, but he made up in horsemanship and daring what he lacked as a marksman. If a man had nerve he did not need to be skillful with the rifle. It was as a skinner, however, that Tom excelled all of Hudnall’s men. Tom had been a wonderful husker of corn; he had been something of a blacksmith. His hands were large and powerful, and these qualifications, combined with deftness, bade fair to make him a record skinner.

The Hudnall outfit followed the other outfits, which they never caught up with, south along the stream in the rear of this herd of buffalo. Neither Dunn nor Pilchuck knew for certain that the stream flowed into the Red River, but as the days grew into weeks they inclined more and more to that opinion. If it was so, luck was merely with them. Slowly the herd gave way, running, when hunted, some miles to the south, and next day always grazing east to the river. The morning came, however, when the herd did not appear. Pilchuck rode thirty miles south without success. He was of the opinion, and Dunn agreed with him, that the buffalo had at last made for the Red River. So that night plan was made to abandon hunting for the present and to travel south in search of the main herd.

Tom took stock of his achievements, and was exceedingly amazed and exultant. How quickly it seemed that small figures augmented to larger ones!

He had hunted, in all, twenty-four days. Three hundred and sixty buffalo had fallen to his credit. But that was not all. It was the skinning which he was paid for, and he had skinned four hundred and eighty-two buffalo — an average of twenty a day. Hudnall owed him then one hundred forty-four dollars and sixty cents. Tom had cheerfully and gratefully worked on a farm for twenty dollars a month. This piling up of money was incredible. He was dazzled. Suppose he hunted and skinned buffalo for a whole year! The prospect quite overwhelmed him. Moreover, the camp life, the open wilderness, the hard riding and the thrill of the chase — these had worked on him insensibly, until before he realized it he was changed.

CHAPTER V

THERE WAS JUST daylight enough to discern objects when Milly Fayre peeped out of the wagon, hoping against hope that she would be able to wave a farewell to the young man, Tom Doan. She knew his name and the names of all the Hudnall party. For some reason her stepfather was immensely curious about other outfits, yet avoided all possible contact with them.

But no one in Hudnall’s camp appeared to be stirring. The obscurity of the gray dawn soon swallowed the grove of trees and the prairie schooners. Milly lay back in her bed in the bottom of the wagon and closed her eyes. Sleep would not come again. The rattle of wagon trappings, the roll of the crunching wheels, and the trotting clip-clop of hoofs not only prevented slumber, but also assured her that the dreaded journey down into the prairie had begun in reality.

This journey had only one pleasing prospect — and that was a hope, forlorn at best, of somewhere again seeing the tall, handsome stranger who had spoken so kindly to her and gazed at her with such thoughtful eyes.

Not that she hoped for anything beyond just seeing him! She would be grateful for that. Her stepfather would not permit any friendships, let alone acquaintances, with buffalo-hunters. Five weeks with this stepfather had taught her much, and she feared him. Last night his insulting speech before Tom Doan had created in Milly the nucleus of a revolt. She dared to imagine a time might come, in another year when she became of age, that would give her freedom.

The meeting with Tom Doan last night had occasioned, all in twelve hours, a change in Milly Fayre. His look had haunted her, and even in the kindly darkness it had power to bring the blood to her face. Then his words so full of fear and reproach— “I may never see you again!” — they had awakened Milly’s heart. No matter what had inspired them! Yet she could harbor no doubt of this fine-spoken, clear-eyed young man. He was earnest. He meant that not to see her again would cause him regret. What would it mean to her — never to see him again? She could not tell. But seeing him once had lightened her burden.

So in Milly Fayre there was born a dream. Hard work on a farm had been her portion — hard work in addition to the long journey to and from school. She did not remember her father, who had been one of the missing in the war. It had been a tragedy, when she was sixteen, for her mother to marry Randall Jett, and then live only a few months. Milly had no relatives. Boys and men had tormented her with their advances, and their importunities, like the life she had been forced to lead, had not brought any brightness. Relief indeed had been hers during those months when her stepfather had been absent hunting buffalo. But in March he had returned with another wife, a woman hard featured and coarse and unreasonably jealous of Milly. He had sold the little Missouri farm and brought his wife and Milly south, inflamed by his prospects of gaining riches in the buffalo fields.

From the start Milly had dreaded that journey. But she could not resist. She was in Randall Jett’s charge. Besides, she had nowhere to go; she knew nothing except the work that fell to the lot of a daughter of the farm. She had been apathetic, given to broodings and a growing tendency toward morbidness. All the days of that traveling southward had been alike, until there came the one on which her kindness to a horse had brought her face to face with Tom Doan. What was it that had made him different? Had the meeting been only last night?

The wagon rolled on down the uneven road, and the sudden lighting of the canvas indicated that the sun had risen. Milly heard the rattling of the harness on the horses. One of the wagons, that one driven by Jett, was close behind.

Movement and sound of travel became more bearable as Milly pondered over the difference one day had wrought. It was better that she was going on the road of the hide-hunters, for Tom Doan was one of them. Every thought augmented something vague and deep that baffled her. One moment she would dream of yesterday — that incident of casual meeting, suddenly to become one of strangely locked eyes — how all day she had watched Hudnall’s camp for sight of the tall young man — how she had listened to Jett’s gossip with his men about the other outfits — how thrilled she had been when she had met Tom Doan again. It had not been altogether fear of her stepfather that had made her run off from this outspoken, keen-eyed young man. She had been suddenly beset by unfamiliar emotions. The touch of his hands — his look — his speech! Milly felt again the uplift of her heart, the swell of breast, the tingling race of blood, the swift, vague, fearful thoughts.

The next moment Milly would try to drive away the sweet insidious musing, to ponder over her presence there in this rattling wagon, and what might be in store for her. There had been a break in the complexity of her situation. Something, a new spirit, seemed stirring in her. If she was glad of anything it was for the hours in which she could think. This canvas-topped wagon was her house of one room, and when she was inside, with the openings laced, she felt the solitude her soul needed. For one thing, Jett never objected to her seeking the privacy of her abode; and she now, with her new-born intuition, sensed that it was because he did not like to see the men watching her. Yet he watched her himself with his big hard blue eyes. Tom Doan’s eyes had not been like that. She could think of them and imagine them, so kindly piercing and appealing.

This drifting from conjectures and broodings into a vague sort of enchanting reverie was a novel experience for Milly. She resisted a while, then yielded to it. Happiness abided therein. She must cultivate such easy means of forgetting the actual.

Milly’s wagon lumbered on over the uneven road, and just when she imagined she could no longer stand the jolting and confinement, it halted.

She heard Jett’s gruff voice, the scrape of the brakes on the wagon behind, and then the unsnapping of harness buckles and the clinking thud of heavy cooking-ware thrown to the ground. Milly opened the canvas slit at the back of her wagon, and taking up the bag that contained her mirror, brush and comb, soap, towel, and other necessities, she spread the flaps of the door and stepped down to the ground.

Halt had been made at the edge of a clump of trees in a dry arroyo. It was hot, and Milly decided she would put on her sunbonnet as soon as she had washed her face and combed her hair.

“Mawin’, girl,” drawled a lazy voice. It came from the man, Catlee, who had driven her wagon. He was a swarthy fellow of perhaps forty years, rugged of build, garbed as a teamster, with a lined face that seemed a record of violent life. Yet Milly had not instinctively shrunk from him as from the others.

“Good morning, Mr. Catlee,” she responded. “Can I get some water?”

“Shore, miss. I’ll hev it for you in a jiffy,” he volunteered, and stepping up on the hub of a front wheel he rummaged under the seat, to fetch forth a basin. This he held under a keg that was wired to the side of the wagon.

“Dry camp, Catlee,” spoke up a gruff voice from behind. “Go easy on the water.”

“All right, boss, easy it is,” he replied, as he twisted a peg out of the keg. He winked at Milly and deliberately let the water pour out until the basin was full. This he set on a box in the shade of the wagon. “Thar you are, miss.”

Milly thanked him and proceeded leisurely about her ablutions. She knew there was a sharp eye upon her every move and was ready for the gruff voice when it called out: “Rustle, you Milly. Help here, an’ never mind your good looks!”

Milly minded them so little that she scarcely looked at herself in the mirror; and when Jett reminded her of them, which he was always doing, she wished that she was ugly. Presently, donning the sunbonnet, which served the double duty of shading her eyes from the hot glare and hiding her face, she turned to help at the camp-fire tasks.

Mrs. Jett, Milly’s stepmother, was on her knees before a panful of flour and water, which she was mixing into biscuit dough. The sun did not bother her, apparently, for she was bareheaded. She was a handsome woman, still young, dark, full faced, with regular features and an expression of sullenness.

Jett strode around the place, from wagon to fire, his hands quick and strong to perform two things at once. His eyes, too, with their hard blue light, roved everywhere. They were eyes of suspicion. This man was looking for untoward reactions in the people around him.

Everybody worked speedily, not with the good will of a camp party that was wholesome and happy, bent on an enterprise hopeful, even if dangerous, but as if dominated by a driving spirit. Very soon the meal was ready, and the men extended pan and cup for their portion, which was served by Mrs. Jett.

“Eat, girl,” called Jett, peremptorily.

Milly was hungry enough, albeit she had been slow and, receiving her food and drink, she sat down upon a sack of grain. While she ate she watched from under the wide rim of her sun-bonnet.

Did she imagine a subtle change had come over these men, now that the journey toward the wild buffalo country had begun? Follonsbee had been with Jett before and evidently had the leader’s confidence, as was evinced by the many whispered consultations Milly had observed. He was a tall, spare man, with evil face, red from liquor and exposure, and eyes that Milly had never looked into twice. Pruitt had lately joined the little caravan. Small of stature, though hardy, and with a sallow face remarkable in that its pointed chin was out of line with the bulging forehead, he presented an even more repulsive appearance than Follonsbee. He was a rebel and lost no opportunity to let that fact be known.

These men were buffalo-hunters, obsessed with the idea of large sums of money to be made from the sale of hides. From what little Milly had been able to learn, all the men except Catlee were to share equally in the proceeds of the hunt. Milly had several times heard argument to that effect — argument always discontinued when she came within hearing.

Milly had become curious about her stepfather and his men. This interest of hers dated back no farther than yesterday, when her meeting with Tom Doan, and a few words exchanged with the pleasant Mrs. Hudnall, and her eager watching of the Hudnall camp, had showed her plainly that Jett’s was a different kind of outfit. No good humor, no kindliness, no gay words or pleasant laughs, no evidence of wholesome anticipation! Jett had never been a man she could care for, yet up to the last few weeks he had been endurable. The force of him had changed with the advent of these other men and the journey into unsettled country. In him Milly now began to sense something sinister.

They did not speak often. The business of eating and the hurry maintained by Jett were not altogether cause for this taciturnity. Catlee was the only one who occasionally made a casual remark, and then no one appeared to hear him.

“Rustle along, you-all,” ordered Jett, gruffly, as he rose from his meal.

“Do you aim to camp at Wade’s Crossin’ tonight?” queried Follonsbee.

“No. We’ll water an’ get wood there, an’ go on,” returned Jett, briefly.

The other men made no comment, and presently they rose, to set about their tasks. The horses were hitched up while munching their grain out of the nose bags. Milly wiped the plates and utensils that Mrs. Jett hurriedly and silently washed.

“Mother, I — I wish we were not going on this hunt,” ventured Milly, at last, for no other reason than that she could not stand the silence.

“I’m not your mother,” replied the woman, tersely. “Call me Jane, if the name Mrs. Jett makes you jealous?”

“Jealous? Why should I be jealous of that name?” asked Milly, in slow surprise.

“You’re no more related to Jett than I am,” said Mrs. Jett, pondering darkly. She seemed a thick-minded person. “For my part, I don’t like the hunt, either. I told Jett so, an’ he said, ‘Like it or lump it, you’re goin’.’ I reckon you’d better keep your mouth shut.”

Milly did not need such admonition, so far as her stepfather was concerned. But from that moment she decided to keep both eyes and ears open. Jett’s domineering way might be responsible for the discontent of his wife and the taciturnity of his men.

When all was in readiness to resume the journey Milly asked Jett if she could ride on the seat with the driver.

“Reckon not,” answered Jett, as he clambered to his own seat.

“But my back gets tired. I can’t lie down all the time,” remonstrated Milly.

“Jane, you ride with Catlee an’ let Milly come with me,” said Jett.

“Like hob!” sneered his wife, with a sudden malignant flash of eyes that was a revelation to Milly. “Wouldn’t you like that fine now, Rand Jett?”

“Shut up!” returned Jett, in mingled anger and discomfiture.

“You’re mighty afraid some man will look at that girl,” she went on, regardless of his gathering frown. “How’s she ever goin’ to get a husband?”

Jett glared at her and ground his teeth.

“Oh, I see,” continued Mrs. Jett, without lowering her strident voice. “She ain’t goin’ to get a husband if you can help it. I’ve had that hunch before.”

“Will you shut up?” shouted Jett, furiously.

Whereupon the woman lifted herself to the seat beside him. Jett started his team out toward the road. As Pruitt and Follonsbee had driven ahead in their wagon, Milly was left alone with Catlee, who seemed to be both amused and sympathetic.

“Climb up heah, miss,” said he.

Milly hesitated, and then suddenly the new turn of her mind obstructed her old habit of obedience and she nimbly stepped to a seat beside the driver.

“Reckon it’ll be warmer out heah in the sun, but there’s a breeze an’ you can see around,” he said.

“It’s much nicer.”

Catlee plied his long lash, cracking it over the horses without touching them, and they moved off in easy trot. The road lay downhill, and ahead the gray prairie rolled in undulating vast stretches to the horizon.

“Are we going to Indian Territory?” Milly asked the driver.

“Miss, we’re in the Territory now,” he replied. “I don’t know when, but in a few days we’ll cross the line into the Panhandle of Texas.”

“Is that where the buffalo are?”

“I ain’t shore aboot that. I heard Jett say the big herd would be comin’ north an’ likely run into the hunters somewheres near Red River.”

“Will all the hunters go to the same place?”

“Shore they will, an’ that’ll be where the buffalo are.”

Milly did not analyze the vague hope that mounted in her breast. She felt surprised to find she wanted to talk, to learn things.

“Is this strange country to you?” she asked.

“Shore is, miss. I never was west of the Missouri till this trip. Reckon it’s goin’ to be hard. I met some hunters last night. They was celebratin’ their arrival in town, an’ I couldn’t take too great stock in their talk. But shore they said it was bad down heah where we’re goin’. I’m afraid it ain’t no place for a girl like you.”

“I’m afraid so, too,” said Milly.

“Jett ain’t your real father?” queried Catlee.

“He’s my stepfather,” replied Milly, and then in a few words she told Catlee about herself, from the time her mother had married Jett.

“Well, well, that accounts,” rejoined Catlee, in tones unmistakably kind. But he did not vouchsafe to explain what he meant. Indeed, her simple story seemed to have silenced him. Yet more than before she felt his sympathy. It struck her singularly that he had stopped talking because he might have committed himself to some word against her stepfather.

Thereafter Milly kept the conversation from personalities, and during the afternoon ride she talked at intervals and then watched the dim horizon receding always with its beckoning mystery.

Sunset time found Jett’s caravan descending a long gradual slope ending in a timbered strip that marked the course of a stream. Catlee pointed out two camps to Milly. White wagons stood out against the woodland; fires were twinkling; smoke was rising. The place appeared pleasant and sheltered. Jett drove across the stream, unhitched the horses, and he and Follonsbee watered them and filled the kegs while Pruitt and Catlee gathered firewood, which was tied on behind the wagons.

One of the campers below the crossing came out in the open to halloo at Jett, more in friendly salutation than otherwise. Jett did not reply. He lost no time hooking up traces and harness and getting under way. He led on until nearly dark and halted at a low place where grass appeared abundant.

“Why didn’t my stepfather camp back there with the other outfits?” queried Milly, as Catlee halted his team.

“Shore he’s not sociable, an’ he’s bent on travelin’ as far every day as possible,” replied the driver.

While Milly was busily engaged helping Mrs. Jett round the camp fire, darkness settled. Coyotes were yelping. A night wind rose and, sweeping down into the shallow coulee, it sent the white sparks flying. The morose mood of the travelers persisted. After supper was over and the tasks were finished Milly climbed to the seat of her wagon and sat there. It was out of earshot of the camp fire. Jett’s wagon had been drawn up close beside the one she occupied. Heretofore camp had always been pitched in a sheltered place, in a grove or under the lea of a wooded hill. This site was out on the open prairie. The wind swept around and under the wagon, and it needed only a little more force to make it moan. But few stars lightened the cloudy sky. Lonesome, dismal, and forbidding, this prairie land increased Milly’s apprehensions. She tried not to think of the future. Always before she had been dully resigned to a gray prospect. But now a consciousness grew that she could not go on forever like this, even if her situation did not grow worse. Of that, she had no doubt. Someone had told her that when she was eighteen years old she would be free to look out for herself. Yet even so, what could she do? She worked as hard for the Jetts as she would have to work for anyone else. Perhaps eventually she might get a place with a nice family like the Hudnalls. Suddenly the thought of Tom Doan flashed into her mind, and then of marriage. Her face burned. She hid it, fearful that even under cover of night someone might see her and read her thoughts. No use to try to repudiate them! She yearned for the companionship of women who would be kind to her, for a home, and for love.

These thoughts became torture for Milly, but only so long as she strove against them. She had awakened. She could not be deprived of her feelings and hopes. Thus her habitual morbid brooding came to have a rival for the possession of her mind. When she went to bed that night she felt not only the insidious inception of a revolt, but also a realization that strength was coming from somewhere, as if with the magic of these new thoughts.

Days passed — days that dragged on with the interminable riding over the widening prairie — with the monotony of camp tasks, and the relief of oblivion in sleep.

Milly always saw the sun rise and set, and these were the only incidents of the day in which she found pleasure. She had exhausted Catlee’s fund of stories and his limited knowledge of the frontier. He was the only one in the outfit that she could or would talk to. Follonsbee was manifestly a woman-hater. Pruitt had twice approached her, agreeably enough, yet offensive through his appearance; and she had cut his overtures short. Mrs. Jett’s hawk eyes never failed to take note of any movement on her husband’s part in Milly’s direction, which notice finally had the effect of making Jett surlily aloof. Yet there was that in his look which made Milly shrink. As days and miles passed behind, Jett manifestly grew away from the character that had seemed to be his when Milly’s mother married him. Here in this environment harshness and violence, and a subtle menace, appeared natural in him.

Not a day went by now that Jett did not overtake and pass an outfit of two or more wagons bound for the hunting fields. These he passed on the road or avoided at camping grounds. When, however, he met a freighter going out with buffalo hides, he always had spare time to halt and talk.

Jett pushed on. His teams were young and powerful, and he carried grain to feed them, thus keeping up their strength while pushing them to the limit. The gray rolling expanse of Indian Territory changed to the greener, more undulating and ridged vastness of the Panhandle of Texas. Where ten days before it had been unusual to cross one stream in a day’s travel, now they crossed several. All of these, however, were but shallow creeks or washes. The trees along these stream bottoms were green and beautiful, lending contrast to the waving level of the plains.

Milly conceived the idea that under happy circumstances she would have found a new joy and freedom in riding down into this wilderness.

One afternoon, earlier than usual, Jett turned for good off the road, and following a tree-bordered stream for a couple of miles, pitched camp in a thick grove, where his wagons and tents could not readily be seen. Evidently this was not to be the usual one-night stand. If it were possible for Jett to be leisurely, he was so on this occasion. After helping unpack the wagons he gave orders to his men, and then saddling one of the horses he rode away under the trees.

It was dusk when he returned. Supper had been timed for his arrival. About him at this moment there was an expansion, an excitement, combined with bluff egotism. Milly anticipated what he announced in his big voice.

“Bunch of buffalo waterin’ along here. We’ve run into the stragglers. It’ll do to hang at this camp an’ hunt while we wait to see if the big herd runs north.”

The announcement did not create any particular interest in his comrades. No one shared Jett’s strong suppressed feeling. After supper he superintended the loading of shells and sharpening of knives, and the overlooking of the heavy rifles.

“The old needle gun for me!” he exclaimed. “Most hunters favor the big fifty.”

“Wal, the fifty’s got it all over any other guns fer shootin’ buffs at close range,” responded Follonsbee.

“We might have to shoot some other critters at long range — redskins, for instance,” commented the leader, sardonically.

Jett’s superabundant vitality and force could not be repressed on this occasion. Apparently the end of the long journey had been cause for elation and anticipation, and also for an indulgence in drink. Milly had known before that Jett was addicted to the bottle. Under its influence, however, he appeared less harsh and hard. It tempered the iron quality in him. Likewise it roused his latent sentimental proclivities. Milly had more than once experienced some difficulty in avoiding them. She felt, however, that she need not worry any more on this score, while Mrs. Jett’s jealous eyes commanded the scene. Still, Mrs. Jett could not be everlastingly at hand.

It turned out that Milly’s fear was justified, for not long after this very idea presented itself, Jett took advantage of his wife being in the wagon, or somewhere not visible, to approach Milly as she sat in the door of the wagon.

“Milly, I’m goin’ to be rich,” he said in low hoarse tone.

“Yes? That’ll be — good,” she replied, bending back a little from his heated face.

“Say, let’s get rid of the old woman,” he whispered. His eyes gleamed in the flickering firelight, with what seemed devilish humor.

“Who — what?” stammered Milly.

“You know. The wife.”

“Mrs. Jett! Get rid of her. . . . I — I don’t understand.”

“Wal, you’re thicker ‘n usual,” he continued, with a laugh. “Think it over.”

“Good night,” faltered Milly, and hurriedly slipped into her wagon and tried with trembling fingers to lace up the flaps of the door. Her head whirled. Was Jett merely drunk? Pondering over this incident, she was trying to convince herself that Jett meant no more than ill humor toward his wife, when she heard him speak a name that made her heart leap.

“Hudnall, yes, I told you,” he said, distinctly. “His outfit is somewhere in this neck of the woods. I saw his wheel tracks an’ horse tracks.”

“Wal, how do you know they’re Hudnall’s outfit?” queried Follonsbee.

“Huh! It’s my business to know tracks,” replied Jett, significantly. “There’s two outfits camped below us. I saw horses an’ smoke.”

“Rand, if I was runnin’ this outfit I wouldn’t hunt buffalo anywhere’s near Hudnall.”

“An’ why not?” demanded Jett.

“Say, you needn’t jump down my throat. I jest have an idee. Hudnall’s pardner, Pilchuck, is a plainsman, an’—”

“Huh! I don’t care what the hell Pilchuck is,” retorted Jett, gruffly ending the discussion.

CHAPTER VI

JETT HAD CHOSEN this secluded camp site, as he had all the others on the way down into the buffalo country, to render his whereabouts less liable to discovery. Anyone hunting for camps along the river would have found him, but the outfits traveling casually by would not have been aware of his proximity.

Next morning he had everybody up at dawn, and never had his dominating force been so manifest.

“Catlee, your job is horses,” he said, curtly. “Keep them on this side of the river. The road’s on the other side. You’ll find the best grass along this strip of timber. Some time to-day I’ll ride in an’ help you hitch up to haul hides.”

To his wife he gave a more significant order.

“Jane, I don’t want any fire burnin’ except when I’m in camp with the men. You an’ Milly keep your eyes open, an’ if you see Indians or anybody, slip off in the brush an’ hide.”

With that he rode off, accompanied by Follonsbee and Pruitt. Manifestly the hunt was on.

Milly, despite apprehension at the possibility of Indians, was glad to see the buffalo-hunters ride away. From what she had heard, this hide-hunting was an exceedingly strenuous business, consuming all of the daylight hours and half of the night. She had accepted her stepmother’s sulky aloofness, finding relief also in that. The work given her to do she performed speedily and thoroughly. Then with a book and her sewing she slipped away from camp into the dense growth of underbrush.

By taking time she threaded a way without undue difficulties, and finally came out upon a beautiful grass-covered and flower-dotted bank above the stream. The place delighted her. The camp was within call, yet might have been miles away; the brush leaned over the fragrant shady nook, and above spread the giant elms; the stream widened here at a turn and formed a pool, the only one she had seen on the ride. A wide strip of sand ran along the opposite slope. On that side the wood appeared open, and led gently up to the plain. Milly could see the bright sky line barred by black trunks of trees. The road ran along the edge of the timber, and if any travelers passed she could see them. What would she do if she recognized the Hudnall outfit? The very thought made her tremble. Perhaps such hope dominated her watching there. For the rest, she could have hours alone, to think and dream, or to sew and read, and all the time she could see everything opposite her without being seen herself.

It did not take long for her to discover that this place had much to distract her from meditation or work. Suddenly it awoke in her a feeling that she did not know she possessed. Solitude she had always yearned for, but beauty and nature, the sweetness of sylvan scene and melody of birds, as now revealed to her, had not heretofore been part of her experience. They seemed strangely harmonious with the vague and growing emotion in her heart.

Milly did not read or sew. Wild canaries and song-sparrows and swamp blackbirds were singing all around her. A low melodious hum of many bees came from the flowering brush above. Somewhere under the bank water was softly rippling. A kingfisher flew swiftly downstream, glinting in the sunlight. At the bend of the stream, on a jutting sandbar, stood a heron, motionless and absorbed, gazing down into the water. The warm fragrant air seemed to float drowsily toward her.

The peace and music of this scene were abruptly dispelled by crashing, thudding sound’s from the slope opposite. Milly gazed across. Shaggy dark forms were passing from the open plain down into the woods.

“Oh! — buffalo!” cried Milly, at once delighted and frightened. Her heart beat high. Gathering up her book and sewing, she was about to answer to the instinct to run when it occurred to her that she was on a steep bank high above the stream, out of danger. She decided to stand her ground. Sinking low behind a fringe of grass and flowers, she peeped over it, with bated breath and wide eyes.

Everywhere along the sky line of the wooded slope she saw the dark forms, not in a thick troop, but straggling in twos and threes. Lower down the foremost buffalo appeared, scattering dead leaves and raising the dust. A hundred yards below Milly the first buffalo came out of the woods upon the sand and crossed it to drink. Then gradually the line of bobbing brown humps emerged from the trees and grew closer and closer to Milly until she began to fear they would come right opposite to her. What wild, shaggy, ox-like beasts! If she had been fearful at first, she now grew frightened. Yet the wonder and majesty of these buffalo were not lost upon her. On they crashed out of the woods! She heard the splashing of the water. Like cattle at a long trough they lined up to the stream and bent huge woolly black heads.

“If any come close — I’m going to run!” whispered Milly to herself.

It did not appear, however, that she would have to resort to flight. The line of buffalo halted some fifty yards below her position. Thus she managed to avert utter panic, and as the moments passed her fears began to subside. Suddenly they were altogether dispelled. A number of buffalo broke ranks and turned again to the woods, leaving open spaces where tawny little buffalo calves could be seen. Milly experienced a feeling of utmost pleasure. All her life on the farm she had loved the little calves. These were larger, very wild looking, fuzzy and woolly, light in color, and did not appear, like the calves she had seen, weak and wabbly in their legs. These young animals were strong and nimble. Some left their mothers’ sides and frisked along the sand a little way, in an unmistakable playfulness, yet unlike any play Milly had ever seen. They lifted themselves off their front feet and gave their heads a turning, butting movement, quite agile, and nothing if not aggressive. Then they fled back to their mothers. Only a few of these calves drank from the stream, and they did not appear thirsty, as did the matured buffalo. Gradually the ranks thinned, and then the last of the grown buffalo turned to the slope. The calves, though loath to leave that enchanting spot, did not tarry long behind. The herd leisurely trooped up the slope and disappeared.

To Milly it did not seem possible that she had actually seen buffalo close at hand. The reality was strikingly different from the impression she had gathered. Huge beasts, yet not ugly or mean! They seemed as tame as cattle. Certainly if unmolested they would never harm anyone. Suddenly the bang of heavy guns rang from far over the slope.

“Oh, Jett and his hunters!” she exclaimed, in quick comprehension. “They are killing the buffalo!”

Not until that moment had the actual killing of buffalo — the meaning of it — crossed Milly’s mind. Bang — bang — bang came the shots. They made her shrink. Those splendid beasts were being killed for their hides. Somehow it seemed base. What would become of the little calves? There dawned in Milly’s mind an aversion for this hide-hunting. If the meat was to be used, even given to the hungry people of the world, then the slaughter might be condoned. But just to sell the hides!

“Tom Doan is a hide-hunter, too,” she soliloquized. “Oh, I’m sorry! . . . he looked so nice and kind. I guess I — I don’t care much about him.”

What a man’s vocation happened to be was really a serious matter to a woman. Milly recalled that one of the troubles between her mother and Jett had been his hatred of farm labor. Manifestly this hunting buffalo was to his liking, and perhaps he did not call it work.

Thus the incident of the buffalo coming down to drink had upset Milly’s short period of revel in the sylvan place. Even when the muddy water cleared out of the stream, and the dust clouds disappeared from the woods, and the melody of birds and bees was renewed Milly did not recover the happy trend of feeling. Realization of the fact that Tom Doan was a hide-hunter had spoiled everything. Milly tried to read, and failing that she took up her sewing, which occupation had the virtue of being both necessity and pastime. For an hour or more the bang-bang of guns upon the plain above disturbed her. These reports appeared to get farther and farther away, until she could not hear them any more.

Some time after this, when she was returning to the dreamy mood, she heard a crashing of brush opposite and below her. Listening and peering in this direction, where the wood was thicker, she waited expectantly for buffalo to appear. The sound came at regular intervals. It made Milly nervous to become aware that these crashings were approaching a point directly opposite her. A growth of willows bordered the bank here, preventing her from seeing what might be there.

Then she heard heavy puffs — the breaths of a large beast. They sounded almost like the mingled panting and coughing of an animal strangling, or unable to breathe right.

Another crash very close sent cold chills over Milly. But she had more courage than on the first occasion. She saw the willows shake, and then spread wide to emit an enormous black head and hump of a buffalo. Milly seemed to freeze there where she crouched. This buffalo looked wild and terrible. He was heaving. A bloody froth was dripping from his extended tongue. His great head rolled from side to side. As he moved again, with a forward lurch, Milly saw that he was crippled. The left front leg hung broken, and flopped as he plunged to the water. On his left shoulder there was a bloody splotch.

Milly could not remove her eyes from the poor brute. She saw him and all about him with a distinctness she could never forget. She heard the husky gurgle of water as he drank thirstily. Below him the slow current of the stream was tinged red. For what appeared a long time he drank. Then he raised his great head. The surroundings held no menace for him. He seemed dazed and lost. Milly saw the rolling eyes as he lurched and turned. He was dying. In horror Milly watched him stagger into the willows and slowly crash out of sight. After that she listened until she could no longer hear the crackling of brush and twigs. Then Milly relaxed and sank back into her former seat. Her horror passed with a strong shuddering sensation, leaving in her a sickening aversion to this murderous buffalo hunting.

The sun mounted high and the heat of the May day quieted the birds. The bees, however, kept up their drowsy hum. No more buffalo disturbed Milly’s spasmodic periods of sewing and reading and the long spells of dreaming. Hours passed. Milly heard no horses or men, and not until the afternoon waned towards its close did she start back to camp. To retrace her steps was not an easy matter, but at last she wound her way through the brush to the open space. Camp was deserted, so far as any one stirring about was concerned. Milly missed one of the wagons.

Some time later, while she was busy making her own cramped quarters more livable, she heard the voices of men, the thud of hoofs, and the creak of wheels. With these sounds the familiar oppression returned to her breast. Jett would soon be there, surly and hungry. Milly swiftly concluded her task and hurried down out of her wagon.

Presently the men came trooping into camp on foot, begrimed with dust and sweat and manifestly weary. Catlee was carrying a heavy burden of four guns.

Jett looked into his tent.

“Come out, you lazy jade,” he called, roughly, evidently to his wife. “A buffalo wolf has nothin’ on me for hunger.” Then he espied Milly, who was in the act of lighting a fire. “Good! You’d make a wife, Milly.”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed Follonsbee, sardonically, as he threw down hat, gloves, vest, and spread his grimy hands. “No water! Gimme a bucket. If I had a wife there’d be water in camp.”

“Huh! You hawk-faced Yankee — there ain’t no woman on earth who’d fetch water for you,” taunted Pruitt.

“Wal, if Hank thinks he can teach Jane to fetch an’ carry he’s welcome to her,” responded Jett.

This bluff and hearty badinage, full of contention as it was, marked a change in the demeanor of Jett and his men. Catlee, however, took no part in it. He was connected with Jett’s outfit, but did not belong there.

Mrs. Jett then appeared among them, and her advent, probably because of Jett’s remark, occasioned ill-suppressed mirth.

“I heard what you said, Rand Jett,” she retorted, glaring at him. “You can’t make me welcome to any man, much less a hide thief like Hank Follonsbee.”

“Shut your face,” returned Jett, in an entirely different tone. “You know your job. Rustle to it.”

That ended the approach to humor. When Follonsbee fetched the water they all washed and splashed with great gusto. This pleasant task finished, they showed plainly what little leisure was now possible to them, for they got their kits and began reloading shells and sharpening knives.

“Catlee, you clean the guns,” ordered Jett.

While thus busily engaged they talked of the day’s hunt — of the half hour of shooting that was fun and the eight hours of skinning that was labor — of the hide-stretching still to do before sleep could be thought of. Milly listened with keen ears in the hope they might drop some word of the Hudnall outfit, but she spent her attention in vain.

Presently Mrs. Jett called, “Come to supper.”

“Or you’ll throw it out, huh?” queried Jett, rising with alacrity.

They ate hurriedly and prodigiously, in silence, and each man reached for what he wanted without asking. Jett was the first to finish.

“Fill up, you hawgs,” he said to his comrades; “we’ve work to do. — Jane, you an’ Milly clean up — then go to bed. We’ll be just outside the grove, stretchin’ hides.”

Milly lay awake a long while that night, yet did not hear the men return. Next day they had breakfast before sunrise and were off with a rush. Milly spent quiet hours on the shady bank, where the sweetness and music were undisturbed. Another day passed in which she saw nothing of the men except at the morning and evening meal hours. Jett and his helpers were settling into the strenuous routine of hide-hunting.

On the fourth day they broke camp and traveled twenty miles down the same side of the river, to halt in the only clump of trees Milly had noted for hours. Next morning Jett’s men were again hunting buffalo. That night they did not return until long after dark. Milly had gone to bed, but she heard their gruff, weary voices.

The following day was again one of breaking camp and traveling south. Milly observed that the country changed, while yet it seemed the same; and she concluded that it was the vastness and wildness which grew. Next morning she heard shooting up until noon. She was so grateful to be left alone that the hours seemed to fly. There was always a place where she could hide near camp, and Jett seldom forgot to mention this. As they journeyed farther south his vigilance as well as his excitement increased day by day. From the camp-fire talk Milly gathered that both the number of buffalo and of hunters were augmenting. Yet Jett appeared to have established the rule of traveling one day and hunting the next. As he progressed the work grew more arduous. There was no road over this endless plain, and the level stretches were cut up, sometimes necessitating the unloading and reloading of the wagons. May warmed to June. The plain was now one wide rolling expanse of green, waving gently to every breeze; the stream courses were marked by a line of deeper green, trees now in full foliage. Herds of buffalo began to show to the east of this stream Jett was following. His hunting, however, he did on the west side, where Milly understood the buffalo ranged in larger numbers.

At length Jett traveled two days southward and then crossed the stream to its west bank. Following it down on that side, he was halted by a large river.

“Ha, boys, here’s the Red, an’ it’s our stampin’ ground this summer,” he rolled out, sonorously.

For a camp he chose a spot hard to reach, as well as hard to espy from above. A forest of timber and brush bordered both sides of this Red River, and once down in it neither river nor plain could be seen. Jett spent the remainder of that day making permanent camp. Follonsbee, whom he had sent on a reconnoitering ride up the river, returned about sunset.

“Believe I saw fifty square miles of buffalo,” he announced, impressively, sitting in his saddle and gazing down at the leader.

“Huh! I took that for granted,” replied Jett. “How far did you go?”

“Reckon about five miles up an’ climbed a big bluff above the river. Could see for miles. An’ shore that sight stumped me. Why, Rand, I couldn’t see the end of buffalo, an’ I was usin’ the telescope, too!”

“That’s more to the point — how many outfits could you spot?” demanded Jett, impatiently.

“Wal, I spotted enough, an’ some to spare,” drawled the other. “West of the bluff I seen camp smokes all along the river, as far as I could see.”

“Any camps close?”

“Only two between ours an’ the bluff,” replied Follonsbee. “Then there’s one on the point across the creek. Reckon outfits are strung down the river, too. Buffalo everywhere.”

“Ahuh! It’s the main herd. Now, I wonder will they run north.”

“Reckon so. But if they do they’ll turn back.”

“You figger on their bein’ blocked by the gang of hide-hunters behind us?”

“Prezactly. We couldn’t be in a better stand. This big herd is massed in a triangle. River on the south; Staked Plain on the west, an’ on the third side thousands of hunters.”

“Yes. It’s seems that way. Mighty big bit of country, but it is a trap.”

“Where do the Indians come in your calculatin’?” queried Follonsbee.

“Nowhere. If they get mean the buffalo-hunters will band together an’ do what the soldiers couldn’t do — chase the damned redskins up in their Staked Plain an’ kill them.”

“Wal, it looks like a hell of a summer, huh?”

“I reckon so, all around. It means the end of the buffalo, an’ that means peace with the Indians, whether they fight or not.”

“Rand, this is the huntin’ ground of Comanches, Cheyennes, Kiowas, an’ Arapahoes. The land an’ the buffalo are theirs.”

“Theirs — hell!” exploded Jett, in contempt.

“Shore I know your sentiments,” returned Follonsbee, rather shortly. “Like most of these hide-hunters, you say wipe the redskins off the earth. To me it looks like a dirty trick. I’d rather steal from a white man than an Indian. . . . But I’m givin’ you my idee for what it’s worth. We’ll have to fight.”

Jett appeared for the moment in a brown study, while he paced up and down, swinging a short rope he had in his hand.

“If the Indians are on the war-path, as we hear, won’t they wait till this bunch of hunters has a big store of hides on hand — before startin’ that fight?” he queried, shrewdly.

“I reckon they would,” admitted Follonsbee.

“An’ when they do come raidin’, we’re goin’ to get the hunch in plenty of time, aren’t we?” went on Jett.

“We shore have a fine stand. With hunters east an’ west of us, an’ millions of buffalo out there, we can’t hardly be surprised.”

“Wal, then, what’s eatin’ you?” growled Jett.

“Nothin.’ I was just gettin’ things clear. We’re agreed on the main points. Now one more. The sooner we make a big stake, the better?”

Jett nodded a significant acquiescence to that query, and then went about his tasks. Follonsbee, dismounting, took the saddle off his horse. Soon after that Mrs. Jett called them to supper.

At this camp Milly lost her wagon as an abode, a circumstance, on the moment, much to her displeasure. The wagon, being high off the ground, and with its box sides, had afforded more of protection, if not comfort. Jett had removed hoops and canvas bodily and had established them as a tent, a little distance from the main camp. Milly pondered apprehensively over this removal by some rods from the rest of the tents. Perhaps Mrs. Jett had inspired this innovation, and if so Milly felt that she would welcome it. But she had doubts of every move made by the leader of the outfit.

Upon entering the improvised tent Milly found that she could not stand erect, but in all other particulars it was an improvement. She could lace both doors tightly, something impossible when the tent was on the wagon. She unrolled her bed and made it up. Then she unpacked and unfolded her clothes and hung them conveniently at the back. Her bag, with its jumbled assortment of things she had thought so poor, now, in the light of this wild travel, assumed proportions little short of precious. She could have been worse off — something which before had never crossed her mind. Without soap, linen and muslin, a sewing kit, mirror, a few books, and many other like articles, she would have found this camp life in the wilderness something formidable to face.

When she went outside again daylight was still strong and the afterglow of sunset was spreading in beautiful effulgence over the western sky. Milly gazed about her. It appeared that a jungle lay between camp and the river. Jett and his men were in earnest and whispered council, with guns and tools and ammunition for the moment forgotten. Mrs. Jett sat a forlorn and sullen figure in front of her tent. Milly needed and wanted exercise. She began to walk around the camp. No one paid any heed to her. Indeed, since reaching the buffalo fields, she had become a negligible attraction, for which she was devoutly thankful.

Summer had indeed come to this northern part of Texas. The air was drowsy and warm. She found a few belated flowers blossoming in a shaded place. A spring bubbled from under a bank, and as she passed it frogs plumped into the water. She heard the mournful cooing of turtledoves.

Milly found a trail that evidently made short cut of the distance up to the plain, and she followed it, not without misgivings. Jett, however, did not call her, and emboldened by this she ventured on. The slope was gradual and covered by heavy timber. Her heart began to beat and her breath to come and go quickly. She felt her stagnant blood enliven to the call made upon it. She saw a flare of gold and rose sky beyond the black tree trunks. It was not so very far from camp — this first level of the plain. She wanted to see the great herd of buffalo. Thus engrossed, she went on to the edge of the timber, and halted there to gaze outward. A wonderful green plain stretched away to the west, rising gradually. It was barren of animals. The rich colors of the afterglow were fading. Was that a level purple-gray bank of cloud along the horizon or a range of upland hills?

A clip-clop of trotting horse made her start sharply. Wheeling, she espied a rider close upon her. He had come from round a corner of the wooded slope.

Milly took backward steps, meaning to slip out of sight. But the rider had seen her. Coming on so quickly, while she was slow in moving, he rode right upon her, and uttering an exclamation of surprise, he leaped from the horse.

Sight of him down on the ground where Milly could see him better gave her a galvanizing shock. Was this tall young man the image of her dreams? She stared. He took a step forward, his ruddy face lighting. He seemed strange somehow, yet she knew him. His eyes pierced her, and she suddenly shook with a sure recognition of them.

“Milly!” he cried, incredulously. His tone held the same wonderful thing that was in his look.

“Oh — it is you!” burst out Milly, all at once beside herself. She ran straight to meet him.

“Milly! Say — what luck! — I’d given up ever seeing you again,” he said, trying to hold her hands.

“Tom — Doan!” she ejaculated in realization, She felt the hot blood flame in her face. Shamed and frightened, yet tingling with a joy nothing could check, she backed falteringly away. His glad eyes held her gaze, though she strove to avert it. Had he changed? His face was thinner, darker, a red bronze where it had been clear tan.

“Sure it’s Tom Doan,” he replied in delight. “So you remembered me?”

“Remembered — you?” faltered Milly. “I — I—”

A loud halloo from the wooded slope below interrupted her. It was Jett’s voice, calling her back to camp.

“That’s Jett,” she whispered, hurriedly. “He must not see you.”

“Go back. You’ve time. He’s far off,” replied Doan.

“Oh yes — I must go.”

“Listen — just a second,” he whispered, following her, taking her hand. He seemed intense. “Hudnall’s camp is only a few miles up the river. I’m with him, you know. Meet me here to-night when the moon comes up. That’ll be early.”

“Here — at night?” murmured Milly, tremulously. The idea was startling.

“Yes. At moonrise. Promise!” he entreated.

“I’ll come.”

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll be waiting for you — right here. . . . Go back to camp now. Don’t give yourself away.”

Then he shot her a bright, intent look and strode noiselessly away, leading his horse into the grass.

Milly wheeled to run down into the woods, almost coming to disaster in her excitement. It was farther to camp than she thought and some parts of the trail necessitated care in the gathering twilight. Jett did not appear to be coming after her. In a few moments she recovered from her breathless headlong precipitation. The flicker of a camp fire shone through the woods, and that would have guided her had she lost the plain trail. Thoughts and emotions relative to the meeting with Tom Doan were held in abeyance. She must hurry back to camp and allay Jett’s suspicions or fears concerning her. Dusk had fallen when she reached camp, which she approached leisurely. She saw Jett and all his outfit grouped round the camp fire.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, gruffly.

“Walking under the trees,” she replied, easily.

“Why didn’t you answer me?”

“Do I have to yell because you do?” she returned.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Follonsbee, and he gave Pruitt a dig in the ribs.

“Wal,” continued Jett, evidently satisfied, “when it gets dark that’s your bedtime. Jane can set up all night if she likes.”

“Because I’ve no need of sleep, eh?” demanded the woman, sarcastically.

“Why, you’re a handsome jade,” responded Jett.

Milly found in the situation a development of her own resourcefulness. She did not want this hour after supper to appear different from any other; so she stood a moment back of the circle of light, watching the camp fire, and then going to where the water pail stood she took a drink. Leisurely then she moved away to her tent. How fortunate now that it stood apart from the others!

Milly crawled inside to flop down on her bed. For a moment the self-restraint under which she had been taut lingered by reason of its very intensity. Then suddenly it broke. In the darkness of her tent she was safe. Thought of Jett and his outfit flashed into oblivion.

“Oh — what has happened? What have I done? What am I going to do?” she whispered to herself.

It all rushed back, strong and sweet and bewildering. She had to fight feeling in order to think. Some incredibly good instinct had prompted her to stray away from camp. Tom Doan! She had met him. In all that wide vast wilderness the one and only person she had met was the one she yearned for. She had spoken to him; she had promised to meet him later when the moon rose.

Tremendous as was the import of these facts, it did not seem all. What had happened? With mounting pulse she forced herself to recall everything, from the moment she had heard the horse. How she strung out the sensations of that meeting! Had she felt them all then? No — some of them, the deeper ones, were an augmenting of those which had been thoughtless. Could she ever gather into one comprehensive actuality the wildness of amaze, joy, and hope that had constituted her recognition of Tom Doan? What had gone on in her mind all these endless days? Futile to try to understand why! She had almost run straight into his arms.

“Oh, I — I had no time to think!” she whispered, with her burning face buried in the blankets.

Night and darkness and silence and loneliness could not help Milly now. She was in the throes of bursting love. Unawares it had stolen insidiously into all her waking and perhaps sleeping hours — and then, in an unguarded moment, when chance threw Tom Doan again into her presence, it had brazenly surprised her into betrayal. She knew now. And she lay there suffering, thrilling, miserable, and rapturous by turns. It was a trying hour. But it passed and there followed another mood, one wanting only proof, assurance of her wild dream, to border on exquisite happiness. She forgot herself and thought of Tom.

She saw him as clearly as if she had been gazing at him in the light of the sun. Older, thinner, graver, harder his face came back to her. There were lines he had not had, and a short fuzzy beard, as fair as his hair. There had been about him the same breath of the open plain and the buffalo and gunpowder and sweating brown that characterized Jett and his men. This could account for the hardness, perhaps for every change in him.

Only his eyes and the tone of his voice had seemed the same. And in recalling them there flooded over her a consciousness of the joy he had expressed at meeting her again. He had been as happy as she. It was impossible to doubt that. Without thought of himself or of what he was doing he had answered as naturally to the meeting as she had. Friendlessness, loneliness always had engendered a terrible need for love; and this raw life in the buffalo-fields, in the company of hard men and a woman who hated her, had but added a yearning for protection. Milly could understand; she could excuse herself. Yet that did not help much. It was all so sudden.

Absorbed in her new-born emotions, Milly had no cognizance of the passing of the hours. But when the gloom inside of her tent lightened and the canvas showed shadows of leaves moving and waving, she realized that the moon had risen. Trembling all over, she listened. The camp was silent. When had the men gone to bed? Only the murmur of insects and soft rustle of wind kept the silence from being dead. She peeped out. Low down through the trees a silvery radiance told of a rising moon. As Milly watched, with a growing palpitation in her breast, a white disk appeared and almost imperceptibly moved upward, until half the great beautiful moon sailed into her sight, crossed by black branches of trees.

“It’s time to go,” she whispered, and felt a cold thrill. She realized her danger, yet had no fear. If discovered in the act of meeting a lover she would surely be severely beaten, perhaps killed. But nothing could have kept Milly from keeping that tryst.

Cautiously she crawled out on hands and knees, and then away from the tent, keeping in the shadow. A log on the camp fire flickered brightly. She saw the pale gleam of the tents and her keen ear caught heavy breathing of one of the tired sleepers. At length she rose to her feet and, moving away silently, she lost sight of all round the camp except the fire. Then she circled in the direction of the trail that led up the slope.

Her nervous dread of being caught passed away, leaving only excitement. She did not know where to look for the trail, except that it started somewhere at the base of the slope behind the camp. She would find it. How big and black the elms! Shadows lay thick. Only here and there showed the blanched patches of moonlight. A stealthy step, a rustling, halted her and gave a different tingle to her pulse. Some soft-footed animal stole away into the obscurity. Relieved, she moved slowly to and fro, peering in the grass at her feet, searching for the trail. She remembered that it had led down to the spring and not to Jett’s camp. As the spring lay east she worked that way. At last she stepped into the trail and then her heart throbbed faster. He would be waiting. What should she say?

As she climbed with swift steps the shadows under the trees grew less dense. Then she faced a long aisle where her own shadow preceded her. Beyond that she passed into thicker timber where it was dark, and she had to go slowly to hold to the trail. An incautious step resulted in the sharp cracking of a twig. It startled her. How lonely and wild the woods!

Milly reached level ground, and there not far was the end of the trees, now standing out clear and black against a wide moonlit plain. She glided faster, drawn in spite of herself, hurrying to meet him. Vague were her conjectures: sweet were her fears. She ran the last few yards.

As she entered the zone of moonlight and stood expectantly, peering everywhere, she felt the terrible importance of that moment. He was her only friend. Where was he? Had she come too early? If he had not . . . Then a tall dark form glided out into the moonlight.

“Milly!” came the low, eager voice. He hurried to her, drew her back into the shadow.

Milly’s strained eagerness and the intensity of purpose that had brought her there suddenly succumbed to weakness. His presence, his voice, his touch changed her incomprehensibly. In desperation she tried to cling to her resolve not to be like she had been at that first meeting there.

“I thought you’d never come,” he said.

“Am I — late?” she whispered.

“It’s no matter, now you’re here,” he replied, and took her into his arms.

“Oh — you mustn’t,” she entreated pushing back from him.

“Why, what’s wrong?” he queried, in sudden concern.

In a silence fraught with exquisite torture for Milly she stood there, quivering against him. He put a hand under her chin and forced her head up, so that he could see her face.

“Girl, look at me,” he ordered, and it was certain that he shook her a little. “Don’t you know what I mean?”

Milly felt that she must drop then. Almost the last of her strength and courage had vanished. Yet she was impelled to look up at him, and even in the shadow of the trees she saw the fire in his eyes.

“How could I know — when you’ve never told — me?” she whispered, haltingly.

“I love you — that’s what,” he flung at her. “Do you have to be told in words?”

How imperative that was he could never have understood. It quite robbed her of will. She swayed to him with her head on his breast.

“Milly, did I take you in the wrong way?” he asked, bending over her.

“How — did you take — me?”

“That you must care for me.” Fear and anxiety vied with a happy masterfulness in his voice.

“Do you have to be told in words?”

“No,” he answered, low, and bent to her lips. “But tell me both ways.”

Milly might have yielded to his importunity had his ardor left her any force. But she could only lean against him and cling to him with weak hands, in happiness that was pain. For a while then he held her in silence.

“What’s your name?” he asked, suddenly.

“Mildred Fayre,” she found voice to reply.

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen — nearly eighteen.”

“Did you ever love any other man before me?”

“Oh no!”

“Ah, then you do?” he queried, bending to kiss her cheek.

“Don’t you know that I do?”

“Will you be my wife?” he flashed.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“When?”

“The very day I am of age — if you want me so soon.”

“Want you! — I’ve wanted you so badly I’ve been sick, miserable. It was not so terrible at first. It grew on me. But I loved you from the moment I said I might never see you again. Do you remember?”

“Yes, Tom Doan, I remember as well as you.”

“Oh, you do? Well, when did you love me? I’m curious. It’s too good to be true. Tell me when.”

“Since the instant I looked over that horse to see you standing there.”

“Milly!” He was incredulous, and as if to make sure of his good fortune he fell to caressing her.

Later then, sitting against one of the trees, with his arm round her waist, Milly told him the story of her life. She did not dwell long on the poverty and hard work of her childhood, nor the vanishing hopes and ideals of her school days, nor the last sordid months that had been so hard to endure.

“You poor girl! Well, we must have been made for each other,” he replied, and briefly told his own story. Life had been hard work for him, too, full of loss, and lightened by little happiness. Evidently it hurt him to confess that his father had been a guerilla under Quantrill.

“I always was a farmer,” he concluded. “I dreamed of a fine ranch, all my own. And I’m going to have it. Milly, I’m making big money in this buffalo-hide business. I’ll be rich. I’ll have you, too!”

Milly shared his rapture and did not have the heart to speak of her disapproval of his killing buffalo, nor of her fear of Jett. She embraced joy for the first time.

The night hours wore on and the moon soared high in the heavens, full, silvery white, flooding the plain with light. Out there coyotes were yelping their sharp wild notes. From the river bottom came the deep bay of a wolf. An owl hooted dismally. All of this wildness and beauty seemed part of Milly’s changed and uplifted life.

“Come, you must go back to your camp,” said Doan at length.

“Oh — must I? I may never see you again!” she whispered.

“Plague me with my own words, will you?” he retorted, and his kisses silenced her. “Will you meet me here to-morrow night, soon as your folks are asleep?”

“Yes.”

“Come then. It grows late. Lead the way, down, for I’m going as far as I dare with you.”

Within sight of the pale gleam of the tents he bade her good-by and silently stole back into the shadow of the slope. Milly as stealthily reached her tent and slipped into it, full of heart and wide awake, to lie in her bed, realizing that in gratefulness for the changed world and the happiness she would now never relinquish, she must go back to the prayers of her childhood.

CHAPTER VII

AT DAWN THE singing of wild canaries awakened Milly Fayre. There must have been a flock of them that had alighted on the elm tree which sheltered her tent. She listened, finding in the sweet treble notes an augury for her future. How good to awaken to such music and thought.

A loud hoarse yawn from the direction of camp proclaimed the rising of one of the men. Soon after that a sharp ring of Jett’s ax drove away the canaries. Rays of rosy light penetrated the slit of Milly’s tent, final proof that another day had come. Milly felt a boundless swell of life within her. Never before had any day dawned like this one! She lingered in her bed long after the crackling of the camp fire and the metallic clinking of Dutch oven and skillet attested to the task of breakfast.

“Hey, Milly, you’re gettin’ worse than the old lady!” called out Jett, in voice for once without gruffness. “Are you dead?”

“I’m very much alive,” replied Milly, almost in glee at the double meaning of her words.

“Pile out, then,” added Jett.

Milly did not hurry so much as usual; a subtle courage had stirred in her; she felt inspired to outwit Jett. Yet she meant to pretend submission to his rule. Her hope was strong that the arduous toil of hunting and skinning buffalo would continue to leave Jett little time in camp, and none to molest her with evil intentions. He was too obsessed to make money to spare time for drinking.

“Wal, the bombardin’ has begun,” Follonsbee was heard to say.

“Some early birds that’s new to buffalo huntin’,” replied Jett. “My experience is you get only so much shootin’ in a day. I reckon, though, with the stragglin’ bunches of this big herd rompin’ to an’ fro, we’ll hear shootin’ all day long.”

The men were gone when Milly presented herself at the camp fire. She ate so little that Mrs. Jett noted the absence of her usual appetite.

“Are you sick?” she asked, with something of solicitude.

“No. I just don’t feel hungry,” replied Milly.

“You’ve got a high color. Looks like a fever,” said the woman, her bright bold eyes studying Milly’s face. “Better let me mix you a dose of paregoric.”

“Thanks, no. I’m all right,” returned Milly. But despite her calm assurance she was intensely annoyed to feel an added heat in her flushed cheeks. It might not be so easy to fool this woman. Milly divined, however, that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility for Mrs. Jett to be sympathetic regarding Tom Doan. Still, Milly dare not trust such impulsive premonition. She performed her accustomed tasks more expeditiously and even better than usual, then repaired to her tent.

After that the interminable hours faced her. How many till moonrise! They seemed everlasting and insupportable. She could neither read nor sew; all she could do was to sit with idle hands, thinking. At length, however, she discovered that this very thinking, such as it had come to be, was happiness itself. She had only the short morning and evening tasks now, and all the hours to wait here in this permanent camp for the stolen meetings with Tom Doan. Hours that would become days and weeks, even months, all to wait for him! She embraced the fact. Loneliness was no longer fearful. She had a wonderful secret.

The morning was still and warm, not so hot as on other days, by reason of a cloudily hazed sky. The birds had gone away, and there was not a sound close at hand. But from the plain above and from across the stream that flowed into the Red River, and from all around it seemed, when she concentrated her attention, there came the detonations of guns. None were close by, and most appeared very distant. They had no regularity, yet there were but few intervals of perfect silence. On the other hand, sometimes a traveling volley of reports would begin away in the distance and apparently come closer and then gradually withdraw to die away. A few shots together appeared a rare occurrence.

“At every shot perhaps some poor buffalo falls — dead — or dying like that great crippled bull I saw. Augh!” exclaimed Milly, in revulsion at the thought. “I’d hate to have Tom Doan grow rich from murdering buffalo. . . . But he said he did not kill many — that he was a skinner.”

Then her ears seemed to fill with a low murmur or faint roar, like the rumble of distant thunder. At first she thought a storm was brewing out toward the Staked Plain, but the thunder was too steady and continuous. In surprise, she strained her hearing. Long low roar! What could it be? She had heard about the rumble of an earthquake and for a moment felt fear of the mysterious and unknown force under the earth. But this was a moving sound that came on the still summer air. It could be made only by buffalo.

“The thundering herd!” exclaimed Milly in awe. “That’s what Jett called it.”

She listened until the roar very slowly receded and diminished and rolled away into silence. Still the shooting continued, and this puzzled Milly because it was reasonable to suppose that if the hunters were pursuing the herd the sound of their guns would likewise die away.

Milly wandered round the camp, exploring places in the woods, and several times resisted a desire to go up the trail to the edge of the plain. Finally she yielded to it, halting under cover of the last trees, gazing out over the green expanse. It was barren as ever. The banging of guns appeared just as far away, just as difficult to locate. Milly wished she could climb high somewhere so that she might see over the surrounding country.

Near by stood a tree of a kind she did not know. It had branches low down and rose under one of the tall elms. Milly decided she would be much less likely to be seen up in a tree; besides, she could have her desire gratified. To this end she climbed the smaller tree, and from it into the elm, working to a high fork not easily attained. Then she gazed about her, and was so amazed and bewildered by the panorama that she had to exert her will to attend to any particular point of the compass.

Westward the green prairie rose in a grand fan-shaped slope of many leagues, ending in the horizon-wide upheaval of bold gray naked earth which the hunters called the Staked Plain. It was as level-topped as a table, wild, remote, austere, somehow menacing, like an unscalable wall.

In the middle of that vast stretch of green plain there were miles and miles of black patches, extending north and south as far as eye could see. Though they seemed motionless at that distance Milly recognized them as buffalo. Surely they could not be parts of the herd whence came the low, thundering roar.

Far to the left, along the shining green-bordered river, there appeared a belt of moving buffalo, moving to the southwest, and disappearing in what seemed a pall of dust. By turning her ear to that direction and holding her breath Milly again caught the low roar, now very faint. Much banging of guns came from that quarter. Out on the plain from this belt were small herds of buffalo, hundreds of them, dotting the green, and some were in motion.

Then Milly espied thin threads of black moving across the river. Buffalo swimming to the southern bank! These were several miles away, yet she saw them distinctly, and line after line they extended, like slender bridges, across the river until they, too, vanished in the curtain of dust. South of the river the boundless plain showed irregular ragged areas of black, and meandering threads, leading into the haze of distance. Eastward Milly gazed over a green river-bottom jungle, thick and impenetrable, to the level prairie blackened with buffalo. Here were straggling lines moving down toward the river. Altogether, then, the surrounding scene was one of immense openness, infinite waving green prairie crossed by widely separated streams, and made majestic by the domination of buffalo — everywhere buffalo, countless almost as the grasses of the prairie.

“What a pity they must die!” murmured Milly. For in the banging of the guns she heard the death knell of this multiplicity of beasts. She had seen the same in the hard, greedy, strong faces of Jett, and buffalo-hunters like him. Nature with its perfect balance and adjustment of the wild beasts was nothing to Jett. He would kill every buffalo on the plains for the most he could get, if it were only a bottle of rum.

Milly pondered over vague ideas in her developing mind. God might have made the buffalo to furnish the Indians and white men with meat and fur, but surely not through the sordidness of a few to perish from the earth.

Above Milly, in the blue sky, and westward till her sight failed, were huge black birds, buzzards, sailing high and low, soaring round and round, till the upper air seemed filled with them. Buzzards! Birds of prey they were — carrion-eaters, vultures that were enticed from their natural habits, from the need for which nature created them, to fall foul on this carnage left by the hunters.

Some of these uncanny birds of prey swooped down over Milly, and several alighted in a tree not far distant. Solemn, repulsive, they inspired in Milly a fear of the thing called nature. Were they necessary?

She did not long remain up there in her perch, and she discovered that descent was not so easy as climbing. Nevertheless she got by the worst of it without mishap, and then she breathed easier.

The thud of hoofs below caused her to stop abruptly. Horsemen were somewhere close at hand. Owing to the thick foliage she could not see what or where they were. Circling the trunk of the tree with her arm she leaned against it, making sure of her balance. She was still thirty feet from the ground, adequately hidden by bushy leaves, unless some one looked upward from directly beneath her. It was natural to suppose these riders were buffalo-hunters. Presently she espied them, indistinctly through the network of branches. They were riding from the north, evidently having come along the stream. To Milly’s consternation they halted their horses almost directly under her. Then she made out that they were soldiers. She need have no fear of them, yet she did not like the idea of being discovered.

“Captain,” spoke up one, “there’s a good spring down this trail. I’d like a drink of fresh cold water. — Here, one of you men take some canteens down and fill them. The trail leads to the spring.”

One of the half dozen soldiers dismounted, and collecting several canteens from his companions he lounged off out of sight.

“Ellsworth, you know this Red River country?” spoke up another soldier.

“Reckon I do, though not very well down this far,” came the reply. “This is God’s country compared to the Staked Plain. I know that well enough.”

“Well, I figure we’re on a wild-goose chase,” said another, evidently an officer. He had dismounted to fling himself under one of the trees. He removed his sombrero to reveal a fine, strong, weather-beaten face, with mustache slightly gray. “We can never persuade these hide-hunters to go to the fort on account of Indian raids.”

“Reckon not. But we can persuade them to send their women to a place of safety. Some of the fools have their women folk. For my part, I’d like to see these hunters band together against the Indians.”

“Why?”

“Well, they’re a hard lot and Lord only knows how many there are of them. They’ll do what we soldiers never could do — whip that combination of redskin tribes.”

“Better not say that in the colonel’s hearing,” said the officer, with a laugh.

“I wouldn’t mind. Reckon I’ve hinted as much. I’m serving on scout duty, you know. But one thing’s sure, these hide-hunters have started a bloody mess. And it’s a good thing. This section of Texas is rich land. It’s the stamping-ground of the Indians. They’ll never give it up till the buffalo are gone. Then they’ll make peace. As it is now they are red-headed as hell. They’ll ambush and raid — then run back up into that devil’s place, the Staked Plains.”

“I’ll bet you we get a taste of it before this summer ends.”

“Like as not. If so, you’ll remember the campaign,” said the other, grimly.

Presently the soldier returned with the canteens, which manifestly were most welcome.

“There’s a camp below, sir,” said the soldier.

“Buffalo outfit, of course?”

“Yes. Three wagons.”

“Did you ask whose outfit it is?”

“No one about camp, sir.”

The officer got to his feet, and wiping his heated face, he stepped to his horse.

“Ellsworth, we’ve passed a good many camps of hide-hunters, all out in the open or along the edge of the timber. What do you make of an outfit camped way down out of sight. That’s a hard pull for loaded wagons.”

“Hunters have notions, same as other men,” replied the scout. “Maybe this fellow wants as much protection as possible from storm and dust. Maybe he’d rather get out of the beaten track.”

“Colonel’s orders were to find trace of hide thieves,” said the officer, thoughtfully. “That stumps me. They’re hundreds of these outfits, all traveling, killing, skinning together. How on earth are we going to pick out thieves among them?”

“You can’t, Captain,” returned the scout, decidedly. “That’ll be for the hunters themselves to find. As I said, they’re a hard lot and jumbled one. Outlaws, ex-soldiers, adventurers, desperadoes, tenderfeet, plainsmen, and pioneers looking for new ground, and farmers out on a hunt to make money. I reckon most of them are honest men. This hide-hunting is something like the gold rush of ‘49 and ‘51, of course on a small scale. Last summer and fall there were hide thieves operating all through the Panhandle. A few of them got caught, too, and swung for it. This summer they’ll have richer picking and easier. For with the Indian raids to use as cover for their tracks how can they be apprehended, unless caught in the act?”

“But, man, you mean these robbers waylay an outfit, kill them, steal the hides, burn the camp, and drive off to let the dirty work be blamed on Indians?”

“Reckon that’s exactly what I do mean,” replied Ellsworth. “It’s my belief a good many black deeds laid to the Indians are done by white men.”

“Did you tell the colonel that?”

“Yes, and he scouted the idea. He hates Indians. Got a bullet in him somewhere. I reckon he’d rather have bad white men on the plains than good Indians.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the officer, and mounting his horse he led the soldiers west along the edge of the timber.

Milly waited a good while before she ventured to descend from her perch; and when she reached the ground she ran down into the woods, slowing to a walk when within sight of camp. She repaired to her tent, there to lie down and rest and think. She had something to ponder over. That conversation of the scout and officer had flashed grave conjectures into her mind. Could her stepfather be one of the hide thieves? She grew cold and frightened with the thought; ashamed of herself, too; but the suspicion would not readily down. Jett had some queer things against him, that might, to be sure, relate only to his unsociable disposition, and the fact, which he had mentioned, that he did not want men to see her. Milly recalled his excuse on this occasion, and in the light of the soldiers’ conversation it did not ring quite true. Unless Jett had a personal jealous reason for not wanting men to see her! Once she had feared that. Of late it had seemed an exaggeration.

Fearful as was the thought, she preferred it to be that which made him avoid other camps and outfits, than that he be a hide thief and worse. But her woman’s instinct had always prompted her to move away from Jett. She was beginning to understand it. She owed him obedience, because he was her stepfather and was providing her with a living. Nothing she owed, however, or tried to instil into her vacillating mind, quite did away with that insidious suspicion. There was something wrong about Jett. She settled that question for good. In the future she would listen and watch, and spy if chance offered, and use her wits to find out whether or not she was doing her stepfather an injustice.

The moon took an unconscionably long time to rise that night, Milly thought. But at last she saw the brightening over the river, and soon after, the round gold rim slide up into the tree foliage.

Her task of safely leaving camp this evening was rendered more hazardous by the fact that Jett and his men were near the camp, engaged in laborious work of stretching and pegging hides. They had built a large fire in a wide cleared space to the left of the camp. Milly could both see and hear them — the dark moving forms crossing to and fro before the blaze, and the deep voices. As she stole away under the trees she heard the high beat of her heart and felt the cold prickle of her skin; yet in the very peril of the moment — for Jett surely would do her harm if he caught her — there was an elation at her daring and her revolt against his rule.

Halfway up the trail she met her lover, who was slowly coming down. To his eager whispered “Milly” she responded with an eager “Tom,” as she returned his kiss.

Tom led her to a grassy spot at the foot of a tree which was in shadow. They sat there for a while, hand in hand, as lovers who were happy and unafraid of the future, yet who were not so obsessed by their dream that they forgot everything else.

“I can’t stay long,” said Tom, presently. “I’ve two hours pegging out to do to-night. Let’s plan to meet here at this spot every third night, say a half hour after dark.”

“All right,” whispered Milly. “I always go to my tent at dark. Sometimes, though, it might be risky to slip out at a certain time. If I’m not here you wait at least an hour.”

So they planned their meetings and tried to foresee and forestall all possible risks, and from that drifted to talk about the future. Despite Tom’s practical thought for her and tenderness of the moment, Milly sensed a worry on his mind.

“Tom, what’s troubling you?” she asked.

“Tell me, do you care anything for this stepfather of yours?” he queried, in quick reply.

“Jett? I hate him. . . . Perhaps I ought to be ashamed. He feeds me, clothes me, though I feel I earn that. Why do you ask?”

“Well, if you cared for him I’d keep my mouth shut,” said Tom. “But as you hate him what I say can’t hurt you. . . . Milly, Jett has a bad name among the buffalo outfits.”

“I’m not surprised. Tell me.”

“I’ve often heard hints made regarding the kind of outfits that keep to themselves. On the way south some freighter who had passed Jett ahead of us gave Pilchuck a hunch to steer clear of him. He gave no reason, and when I asked Pilchuck why we should steer clear of such an outfit he just laughed at me. Well, to-day Pilchuck found Jett skinning a buffalo that had been killed by a big-fifty bullet. Pilchuck knew it because he killed the buffalo and he remembered. Jett claimed he had shot the buffalo. Pilchuck told him that he was using a needle gun, and no needle bullet ever made a hole in a buffalo such as the big fifty. Jett didn’t care what Pilchuck said and went on skinning. At that Pilchuck left, rather than fight for one hide. But he was mad clear through. He told Hudnall that hunters who had been in the Panhandle last summer gave Jett a bad name.”

“For that sort of thing?” inquired Milly, as Tom paused.

“I suppose so. Pilchuck made no definite charges. But it was easy to see he thinks Jett is no good. These plainsmen are slow to accuse any one of things they can’t prove. Pilchuck ended up by saying to Hudnall: ‘Some hunter will mistake Jett for a buffalo one of these days!’”

“Some one will shoot him!” exclaimed Milly.

“That’s what Pilchuck meant,” rejoined Tom, seriously. “It worries me, Milly dear. I don’t care a hang what happens to Jett. But you’re in his charge. If he is a bad man he might do you harm.”

“There’s danger of that, Tom, I’ve got to confess,” whispered Milly. “I’m afraid of Jett, but I was more so than I am now. He’s so set on this hide-hunting that he never thinks of me.”

“Some one will find out about you and me, or he’ll catch us. Then what?” muttered Tom, gloomily.

“That would be terrible. We’ve got to keep any one from knowing.”

“Couldn’t you come to Hudnall’s camp to live? I know he’d take you in. And his wife and daughter would be good to you.”

Milly pondered this idea with grave concern. It appealed powerfully to her, yet seemed unwise at this time.

“Tom, I could come. I’d love to. But it surely would mean trouble. He could take me back, as I’m not of age. Then he’d beat me.”

“Then I’d kill him!” returned Tom, with passion.

“He might kill you,” whispered Milly. “Then where would I be? I’d die of a broken heart. No, let’s wait a while. As long as he’s so set on this hunting I have little to fear. Besides, the women out here with these buffalo-hunters are going to be sent to the fort.”

“Where’d you hear that?” demanded Tom, in amaze.

Milly told him of the impulse that had resulted in her climbing the tree, and how the soldiers had halted beneath her, and the conversation that had taken place. She told it briefly, remembering especially the gist and substance of what the officer and scout had said.

“Well! That’s news. I wonder how Hudnall will take it. I mustn’t give way where I heard it, eh, little girl. It’d be a fine thing, Milly. I hope the soldiers take all you women to the fort quick. I wouldn’t get to see you, but I could endure that, knowing you were safe.”

“I’d like it, too, and, Tom, if I am taken I’ll stay there until I’m eighteen.”

“Your birthday is to be our wedding day,” he said.

“Is it?” she whispered, shyly.

“Didn’t you say so? Are you going back on it?”

His anxiety and reproach were sweet to her, yet she could not wholly surrender her new-found power or always give in to her tenderness.

“Did I say so? Tom, would you quit murdering these poor buffalo for me, if I begged you?”

“What!” he ejaculated, amazed.

“Would you give up this hide-hunting business for me?”

“Give it up? Why, of course I would!” he responded. “But you don’t mean that you will ask it.”

“Tom dear — I might.”

“But, you child,” he expostulated, “the buffalo are doomed. I may as well get rich as other men. I’m making big money. Milly, by winter time — next year surely, I can buy a ranch, build a house, stock a farm — for you!”

“It sounds silly of me, Tom. But you don’t understand me. Let’s not talk of it any more now.”

“All right. Only tell me you’ll never go back on me?”

“If you only knew how I need you — and love you — you’d not ask that.”

Milly, upon her stealthy approach to camp, observed that the men had finished their tasks and were congregated about the fire, eating and drinking. The hour must have been late. Milly sank noiselessly down in her tracks and crouched there, frightened, and for the moment unable to fight off a sense of disaster. She could do nothing but remain there until they went to bed. What if Jett should walk out there! He and his comrades, however, did not manifest any activity.

“No — not yet. We’ll wait till that Huggins outfit has more hides,” declared Jett, in a low voice of finality.

“All right, boss,” rejoined Follonsbee, “but my hunch is the sooner the better.”

“Aw, to hell with buffalo hides,” yawned Pruitt. “I’m aboot daid. Heah it’s midnight an’ you’ll have us out at sunup. Jett, shore I’m sore, both body an’ feelin’. If I knowed you was goin’ to work us like this heah I’d never throwed in with you.”

“But, man, the harder we work the more hides, an’ the less danger—”

“Don’t talk so loud,” interrupted Follonsbee.

“It shore ain’t me shoutin’,” replied Pruitt, sullenly. “If I wanted to shout I’d do it. What’s eatin’ me is that I want to quit this outfit.”

Jett shook a brawny fist in Pruitt’s face, that showed red in the camp-fire light.

“You swore you’d stick, an’ you took money in advance, now didn’t you?” demanded Jett in a fierce whisper.

“I reckon I did. I’m square, an’ don’t you overlook that,” retorted Pruitt. “It’s you who’s not square. You misrepresented things.”

“Ahuh! Maybe I was a little overkeen in talkin’,” admitted Jett. “But not about what money there is in this deal. I know. You’ll get yours. Don’t let me hear you talk quit any more or I’ll know you’re yellow.”

For answer Pruitt violently threw a chip or stick into the fire, to send the sparks flying, and then rising, with one resentful red flash of face at Jett, he turned and swaggered away towards his tent, without a word.

“Bad business,” said Follonsbee, shaking his head pessimistically. “You’ve no way with men, Rand. You’d get more out of them if you’d be easy an’ patient, an’ argue them into your opinions.”

“Reckon so, but I can’t stand much more from that damned rebel,” growled Jett.

“He’s harder to handle than Catlee,” went on Jett. “He’s beginnin’ to see a hell of a risk in your way of hide-huntin’. Catlee ain’t wise yet. He’s as much a tenderfoot as Huggins or a lot more of these jay-hawkers who’re crazy to get rich off the buffalo. I was afraid of these two fellars, an’ I said so.”

“We had to have men. We’d lost a week waitin’,” complained Jett.

“Yes, but it’d have been better to wait longer, till you got the right men.”

“Too late now. I’ll make the best of it an’ try to hold my temper.”

“Good. Let’s turn in,” replied Follonsbee, and rose to go toward the tents. Jett spread the fire and followed him. Soon the camp appeared dark and deserted.

Milly crouched there under the big elm until she was sure Jett had crawled into his bed, and then swiftly and noiselessly she covered the ground to her own tent. In the interest of this colloquy among the men she had forgotten her fright. That, in her opinion, had been strange talk for honest hunters. Yet she could only surmise. While she was revolving in her mind the eventful disclosures of the day sleep overtook her.

Days passed. They flew by, it seemed to Milly. The idle hours that fell to her lot were yet not many nor long enough for these ravenous hide-hunters. She watched in the daytime and listened at night, yet the certainty of what she feared did not come.

Her meetings with Tom Doan continued regularly as the third nights rolled round, without hitch or mishap; and in them Milly seemed to grow into the fullness of a woman’s feeling. They talked of their love, of their marriage, and their plans for a home. There was little else to talk about except the buffalo, and the status of Jett and his men. Milly always suffered a pang when Tom, forgetting her love of all animals, raved about how many buffalo he had killed and skinned. Once she got blood on her hand from one of his boots, which she had inadvertently touched, and she was so sick and disgusted over it that she spoke sharply. Almost they quarreled. As for the truth concerning Jett, all Milly’s observation and Tom’s inquiry could not satisfy them as to what was the actual truth.

More days went fleeting by, ushering in hot July, more hide-hunters along the river brakes, and, what seemed incredible, more buffalo.

“They’re massin’ up an’ makin’ ready for a hell of a stampede one of these days,” declared Jett, in his booming voice.

One night Milly was awakened by an unusual sound. Horses were snorting and stamping in camp. She peeped out. A wagon with two teams hitched to it stood just beyond the waning camp fire. Jett’s burley form held the driver’s seat; Follonsbee, rifle in hand, was in the act of climbing beside him; Pruitt stood on the ground, evidently intent on Jett’s low, earnest voice. Milly could not distinguish what was being said. Jett drove away into the gloom of the woods. Where could he be going at this hour of the night? Milly could only conclude that he was driving out for another load of hides. Perhaps Jett had made trips before, unknown to her.

Next day disclosed the odd fact that Jett had not returned. Pruitt and Catlee evidently pursued the hunting as heretofore, and did not commit themselves to any words in Milly’s presence. Sunset and supper time found Jett still absent. On the following morning, however, Milly learned that he had returned in the night and was asleep in his tent. She repaired to her own quarters and remained there till noon, when she saw him ride away. That afternoon Milly wandered around, as usual, with apparently no object in view, and eventually approached the glade where Jett kept his hides. She hated to go near it because of the unpleasant odor, the innumerable flies, and the sickening evidence of slaughtered buffalo.

The glade had been cleared farther on the side toward the stream, and everywhere were buffalo hides, hundreds and hundreds of them, some pegged out to dry, others in piles shaded by cut branches. Milly, because of her former reluctance to visit this place, had no record in her mind of quantity of hides, so she could not tell whether or not there had been a sudden and suspicious addition.

The day after that Jett loaded two wagons with hides, and with Catlee driving one of them they set off for a freighting station. They were gone five days, during which Milly had the most peaceful time since she had left the settlements. Twice she was with Tom, and they made the best of their opportunity. Mrs. Jett during this period was almost amiable. Follonsbee and Pruitt worked about as before.

When Jett returned, his presence, or something connected with it, seemed to spur his men to renewed efforts. Early and late they were toiling at this game. Tom Doan had told her that the great drive of buffalo was on. Milly, however, had not needed this information. She could see and hear.

No daylight hour was without its trampling thunder! Somewhere on one side of the river or other a part of the great herd was always in motion. Dust blew thick over the sky, sometimes obscuring the sun. And an unfavorable breeze, which fortunately occurred but seldom, brought a stench that Milly could not endure. By day the guns banged east, north, south, west, as if a battle were raging. Crippled buffalo limped by the camp, with red tongues hanging out, making for the brakes of the river, to hide and die. By night the howl of coyotes was sleep-preventing and the long-drawn deep, wild bay of wolves filled Milly with a haunting fear.

CHAPTER VIII

ONE DAY IN July a band of soldiers rode into Hudnall’s camp. The officer in charge got off his horse and appeared to be a lithe, erect man of forty, with a stern bronzed face.

“Who’s the owner of this outfit?” he inquired.

Hudnall strode forward. “I am. Clark Hudnall’s my name.”

“Glad to meet you,” replied the officer. “I’m Captain Singleton of the Fourth Cavalry, stationed at Fort Elliott. This is my scout, Ellsworth. We’ve been detailed to escort buffalo-hunters to the fort or one of the freighting posts. The Indians are raiding.”

“But I don’t want to go to the fort,” protested Hudnall, obstinately.

“You’ll stay here at your own risk,” warned Singleton.

“We never expected anything else,” returned Hudnall, bluntly. “If you want to know, you’re the first soldiers we’ve seen.”

“Have you women with you?” inquired the officer.

“Yes. My wife an’ daughter an’ my son’s wife.”

“Didn’t you know any better than to fetch women out here in this Indian country?” went on Singleton, severely.

“We heard bad rumors, sir, but didn’t believe them, an’ I may say we’ve had no trouble so far.”

“You’ve been lucky. Did you know Huggins?”

“Can’t say I do — by name,” rejoined Hudnall, reflectively.

“Huggins had the outfit several miles below here. One helper at least with him, maybe more. Their camp was raided, burned — hides stolen. No trace of Huggins or his helper.”

“Indians?” queried Hudnall, sharply.

“Very likely. We’ve found no trace of Huggins or his man. They might have escaped to some other outfit or to a freighting post. But that’s doubtful. West of here twenty miles or more a band of Comanches attacked some hunters, and were driven off. Unless you buffalo men camp together some of you are going to be killed.”

“We’ll fight,” declared Hudnall, determinedly.

“But you must take your women to a place of safety,” insisted the officer.

Hudnall called his wife and daughter. They came forward from their quarters, accompanied by Burn Hudnall’s wife. Evidently they had heard something of the conversation; fear was manifest in their faces.

“Ladies, pray do not be frightened,” said the officer, courteously. “There’s no need for that right now. We’re here to escort you to a place where you will be safe while your men folks are hunting. It is not safe for you here. Any day Indians might ride down on you when you are alone in camp.”

Despite Singleton’s courtesy and assurance, the women were alarmed, and gathering round Hudnall they began to talk excitedly.

“Captain, you an’ your men make yourselves at home while we talk this over,” said Hudnall. Pilchuck and Tom Doan, just in from skinning buffalo, stood near during this conversation. Tom welcomed sight of soldiers, and he intended to inform Captain Singleton of the two women in Jett’s camp.

“Say, Ellsworth,” said Pilchuck to the soldier scout, “if this Huggins outfit was killed by Indians they’d not have disappeared. Comanches don’t bother to bury or hide white men they’ve killed.” Ellsworth leaned close to Pilchuck. “Reckon it doesn’t look like redskin work to me, either.”

Pilchuck swore under his breath, and was evidently about to enter into earnest consultation with the soldier scout when Hudnall called him and Tom. They held a brief council. It was decided that Stronghurl and Pilchuck, with the addition of the outfit, Dunn and Tacks, would remain in camp, while Hudnall, Burn Hudnall, and Tom, accompanied by the women, would go with the soldiers. Hudnall did not consider it needful to send them all the way to Fort Elliott; the nearest freighting post, Sprague’s, some three days’ journey, would be safe and far enough. Hudnall intended to take advantage of this opportunity to freight out his buffalo hides, of which he had a large number.

“Reckon it may work out best, after all,” he averred, brightening. “I’ll run no risk losing the hides, an’ then we’ll soon be in need of supplies, ‘specially cartridges.”

How dense he seemed to the imperative side of the issue — safety for the women! But he was not a frontiersman. He was brave, though foolhardy.

“We’ll pack an’ leave early to-morrow,” he informed Singleton.

“We’ll catch up with you, perhaps before you get to the military road,” said the officer.

“I don’t know that road, an’ with Pilchuck stayin’ here I might lose my way,” returned Hudnall, in perplexity.

“The military road runs from Fort Elliott to Fort Dodge. You’ll strike it about eighteen miles northwest.”

“Reckon you can’t miss it,” added Pilchuck. “An’ there’s water aplenty.”

Hudnall invited Captain Singleton and his soldiers to have supper, which invitation was accepted, much to Tom Doan’s satisfaction. He wanted to think over what was best to say to Captain Singleton about the Jett outfit.

There was indeed bustle and rush around the Hudnall camp that afternoon, part of which work was the preparation of a hearty supper. It was cooked and eaten long before sunset. Afterward Tom found occasion to approach the officer.

“Captain, may I have a — a word with you — about something very important?” he inquired frankly, despite a certain embarrassment he could not help.

“Certainly, young man. What can I do for you?” he replied, with keen gray eyes on Tom.

As they withdrew a little, Tom lost his hesitation and briefly told who he was, what he was doing in Hudnall’s outfit, and thus quickly reached the point.

“Captain, please let what I tell you be confidential,” he went on, earnestly. “It’s about a girl with the Jett outfit. She’s Jett’s stepdaughter. They’re camped below the bluff at the mouth of White Creek, several miles down.”

“Jett outfit,” mused the officer. “I’ve heard that name. I know where his camp is — down in the woods. Hidden.”

“Yes. Well, I — I’m in love with this girl, Milly Fayre — engaged to her. We expect to be married when she’s eighteen. And I’m afraid for her — afraid of Jett more than the Indians. So is Milly. He’ll not like this idea of sending his women to the fort or anywhere away from him. You see, he’s got a wife, too, no relation to Milly — and he has them do the camp work. He’s a hog for this hide-hunting. Then there are two hard nuts with him, Follonsbee and Pruitt. It’s not an outfit like ours, Captain, or most any along the river. I can’t honestly bring anything bad against Jett, unless it’s that he’s a brute and is after Milly. I know that. She won’t admit it, but I can feel how she feels. She ought to be taken to the fort or wherever our women go — and please, Captain, don’t fail to bring her. If you ask her you’ll find out quick that she knows what’s best for her.”

“Suppose you ride down there with us,” suggested Singleton.

“I’d like to, but I’d better not,” replied Tom. “Jett knows nothing of me yet. Milly thinks it best he doesn’t know until she’s free. He might harm her. And if he ever lays a hand on her I’ll kill him.”

“What’d you say your name is?” inquired the officer.

“Tom Doan.”

“All right, Tom, I’m for you and Milly. Here’s my hand on it.”

“Then you’ll fetch her along?” queried Tom, trying to content himself, as he gripped the hand of this fine and soldierly man.

“If she’s still there.”

“I saw her last night — we’ve been meeting secretly. She’s there.”

“Then you will see her to-morrow again, for we’ll catch you on the road,” replied the officer, with a smile.

“We can never thank you enough,” returned Tom, with emotion.

It was indeed with a thankful heart that he saw Singleton and his soldiers, leading their pack-horses, ride off down the river. After that Tom worked as never before, and not only got all his work done, but considerable of the others’. The Hudnall outfit went to bed late and got up early. By the time the July sun was blazing over the prairie the three heavily laden wagons were moving toward the northwest. Tom had the biggest load of hides in his wagon. The women rode on the drivers’ seats with Hudnall and his son.

The route lay along the swell of the slope as it gently dipped to the river, then up on the level prairie and northwest toward the far escarpment of the Staked Plain, a sharp gray landmark on the horizon. Tom followed fairly good wagon tracks until they all appeared to converge in one well-trodden road. Here for hours good time was made. Tom did not mind the heat or the flies or the dust. Over and over again he had counted the earnings Hudnall owed him, and the sum staggered him. Hundreds of dollars! But splendid as that was, it shrank into insignificance at the good fortune of having Milly safely away from Jett and the Indians.

Hudnall made a noon stop at a shady crossing of a little stream. Here the horses were watered and fed and the travelers partook of a light meal. When the journey was resumed Tom could no longer resist the desire to look back along the road in the hope that he might see the soldiers coming. Really he did not expect them before camp that night, yet he was unable to keep from looking back.

All through this morning’s travel they had skirted the ragged edge of the buffalo herd. Long, however, had they passed out of hearing of the guns of the hunters. Then early in the afternoon they ran into a large herd coming from the north. It was not a grazing herd, nor could it be called a stampeding herd; but the movement was steady and rapid. Hudnall drove way off the road to try to get round the leaders; this move, however, resulted in the three wagons being caught and hemmed in, with a stream of buffalo passing on both sides.

Tom believed it was a rather ticklish situation. The herd did not appear to be more than a mile wide, but the end toward the north was not in sight. The wagons were halted to wait until the herd had passed. The buffalo split round the wagons, probably fifty yards on each side, and they loped along lumberingly, not in any sense frightened. They raised dust enough to make the halt very uncomfortable, and noise enough to make it necessary to shout in order to be heard.

Tom’s dissatisfaction had to do solely with the fact that Hudnall had gotten far enough off the road to miss the soldiers, if they came up presently. Hudnall, however, did not mind the halt, the discomfort, the loss of time, or the probable risk, should the buffalo become frightened.

To Tom’s utter amaze, Hudnall presently took up his gun, and picking out bulls running somewhat away from the massed herd, he dropped four in as many shots. On that side the herd swerved away, the inside ranks pressing closer toward the middle, but they did not stampede. Then Burn Hudnall, not to be outdone by his father, dropped three buffalo on his side. The shooting served only to widen the oval that encompassed the wagons. Then the intrepid and indefatigable hunters proceeded to skin the slain beasts, regardless of the trampling mass passing so closely by.

Tom, contrary to his usual disposition, did not offer to help; and when Hudnall yelled something unintelligible he waved his hand at the herd.

It required two hours for this herd to pass the wagons, and another hour for the Hudnalls to complete skinning the seven they had shot. The women complained of the hot sun and the flies and the enforced wait. Tom spent a good deal of that last hour standing on top of the huge pile of hides in his wagon, scanning the horizon in the direction of the Red River camps.

“Hey, Tom, you might have helped along,” said Hudnall, as he threw the wet hides up on his wagon.

“You might have been run down, yourself,” retorted Tom.

“Father, I think Tom’s scared of the Indians the soldier talked about,” remarked Sally Hudnall, a little maliciously. She had never quite forgiven Tom for being impervious to her charms.

“Tom afraid? Nope, I can’t savvy that,” replied her father, in his hearty way.

“Well, he’s looking back all the time,” said Sally, with conviction.

Her tone, more than the content of her words, brought to Tom’s mind a thought that when the soldiers did come along with Milly, there might result an embarrassing situation. What was he to say in explanation of his acquaintance with Milly? A moment’s reflection convinced him that no explanation was necessary, nor need the Hudnalls know just yet of his engagement to her. Still, Milly had not been consulted; she would be overjoyed to see him and to meet the Hudnalls; and she was young, impulsive. How would she act? Tom told himself that he did not care the least what she said or did, but all the same an unusual situation for him seemed impending.

As Hudnall led off toward the road, Tom allowed Burn to fall into second place, leaving him to take up the rear, and from this position he could look back to his satisfaction.

Soon they were in the road again, and late in the afternoon turned into the military road Captain Singleton had indicated. Here the horses could travel, mostly at a trot. Tom had craned his neck sidewise so many times looking backward that he had put a crick in it, all to no avail. The soldiers did not put in an appearance. Tom began to worry. Suppose Jett had gotten wind of their coming and had moved camp! Might not the Comanches have raided Jett the same as Huggins! Tom had rather a bad hour along the military road.

At sunset the Hudnall wagons began to draw near a richly green depression of the prairie, where a stream wound its way. And when Hudnall, now far in the lead, turned off the road, Tom was suddenly compelled to pay some attention to the foreground.

Horses were grazing in the grass; tents shone white against the background of green trees; a camp fire sparkled, and round it stood men. Soldiers! Tom’s heart gave a leap. Captain Singleton had forged ahead, probably during the delay caused by the buffalo herd.

Tom urged his team to a trot and soon caught up with Burn Hudnall, who turned off the main road towards the camp. Tom followed closely, to be annoyed by the fact that Burn’s wagon obstructed his view. Once or twice Tom caught a glimpse of the tents and the fire; yet, peer keenly as he could, he did not discern any women. His heart sank. If Milly was there she would be out watching the wagons drive up. Tom passed from joy to sadness. Yet hope would not wholly die. He kept looking, and all the time, up to the very halt, Burn’s wagon prevented him from seeing everything. Therein lay his one hope.

“Hey, Burn, don’t you an’ Tom drive smelly hides right in camp,” yelled Hudnall.

Thus admonished Tom wheeled his team away from the camp. Burn turned also, thus still obstructing Tom’s vision. But there had to be an end to it some time. The next time Tom looked up, after he had halted the team, he was probably fifty yards from the camp fire.

He saw soldiers in dusty blue, Hudnall’s stalwart form, all three of the Hudnall women, and then a girl in gray waving an excited hand at him. Tom stared. But the gray dress could not disguise the form it covered. Milly! He recognized her before he saw her face.

With surging emotions Tom leaped off the wagon and strode forward. In the acute moment, not knowing what to expect, trying to stifle his extraordinary agitation, Tom dropped his head until he came to the half circle of people before him. Their faces seemed a blur, yet intent, curious on him. Milly stepped into clear sight toward him. She was pale. Her eyes shone large and dark as night. A wonderful smile transfigured her. Tom felt the need of an effort almost beyond him — to greet Milly without betraying their secret.

But Milly was not going to keep any secrets. He felt that, saw it, and consternation routed his already weakened control.

“Oh, Tom!” she cried, radiantly, and ran straight into his arms.

Only this was terrible, because she forgot everybody except him, and he could not forget them. She almost kissed him before he had wit enough to kiss her first. With that kiss his locked boyish emotions merged into one great gladness. Realizing Milly, he stepped beside her and, placing his arm round her, moved to face that broadly smiling, amazed circle.

“Mrs. Hudnall, this is my — my girl, Milly Fayre,” he said.

“Tom Doan! For the land’s sake!” ejaculated the kindly woman. “Your girl! . . . Well, Milly Fayre, I’m right happy to make your acquaintance.”

She warmly kissed Milly and then introduced her to Sally and Mrs. Burn Hudnall. That appeared to be sufficient introduction for all present.

Hudnall was the most astonished of men, and certainly delighted.

“Wal, Milly, I reckon Tom Doan’s boss is sure glad to meet you,” he said, and shook her hand with a quaint formality. “Would you mind tellin’ me where this scallywag ever found such a pretty girl?”

“He found me — out here,” replied Milly, shyly.

“Ah!” cried Sally Hudnall. “Now I know why Tom used to slip away from camp almost every night.”

“An’ leave off peggin’ buffalo hides till the gray mornin’,” swiftly added Hudnall. “I always wondered about that.”

Amid the laughter and banter of these good people Tom stood his ground as long as possible; then, seeing that in their kindly way they had taken Milly to their hearts, he left her with them and hurried to unhitch the team he had driven.

Burn Hudnall followed him. “You buffalo-skinnin’ son of a gun!” he exclaimed, in awe and admiration. “She’s a hummer! By gosh! you’re lucky! Did you see Sally’s face? Say, Tom, she was half sweet on you. An’ now we know why you’ve been so shy of women.”

Upon returning to camp, Tom met Captain Singleton, who had a smile and a cordial handshake for him.

“Well, lad, I fetched her, but it was no easy job,” he said. “She’s a sweet and pretty girl. You’re to be congratulated.”

“Was Jett hard to manage?” queried Tom intensely interested.

“Yes, at first, I had trouble with him. Rough sort of man! Finally he agreed to let her come to the freighting post until the Indian scare quieted down. He wouldn’t let his wife come and she didn’t want to. She struck me as being almost as able to take care of herself as any man.”

“Well!” exclaimed Tom, blankly.

“Lad, don’t worry,” replied the officer, understanding Tom’s sudden check of enthusiasm and warmth. “This Indian scare will last. It’ll grow from scare to panic. Not until the buffalo are gone will the Indians quit the warpath. Maybe not till they’re dead.”

On the second day following, about noon, the Hudnall outfit, with their escort, arrived at Sprague’s Post, which was situated on a beautiful creek some miles below Fort Elliott. Here the soldiers left the party and went on their way.

Sprague was one of the mushroom frontier posts that had sprung up overnight. It consisted mainly of a huge one-story structure built of logs, that served as sutler’s store, as well as protection against possible Indian attacks. The short street was lined with cabins, tents, and shacks; and adjacent to the store were acres and acres of buffalo hides piled high. There were a dance hall, several saloons, a hotel and restaurant, all in the full blast. Buffalo outfits, coming and going, freighters doing the same, in considerable number, accounted for the activity of this post. The sutler’s store, which was owned by Sprague, was a general supply center for the whole northern section of Texas.

Hudnall engaged quarters for the women folk, including Milly, that seemed luxurious after their camping experience. Sally Hudnall was to share her room, which had board floor and frame, roofed by canvas, with Milly; and the other Hudnall women had two rooms adjoining, one of which would serve as a kitchen. Hudnall had only to buy stove, utensils, supplies and fuel, to establish his wife and companions to their satisfaction.

Tom could hardly have hoped for any more, and felt that he would be always indebted to the Hudnalls. Fortune had indeed favored him by throwing his lot in with theirs.

Hudnall sold his hides to Sprague, getting three dollars each for the best robe cowhides, two dollars and a half for the bulls, and one dollar and seventy-five cents for the rest. His profits were large, as he frankly admitted, and he told Tom he thought it only fair to pay more for skinning. As for Tom, the roll of bills given to him for his earnings was such that it made him speechless. At the store he bought himself much-needed clothing and footgear, and a new rifle, with abundance of cartridges. Nor did he forget to leave some money with Mrs. Hudnall, for Milly’s use, after he had gone. But he did not tell Milly of this.

“Tom,” said Hudnall, seriously, when they had turned the horses loose in the fine grama grass outside of town, “I never saw the beat of this place right here for a ranch. Did you? Look at that soil!”

Tom certainly had not. It was rich prairie land, rolling away to the horizon, and crossed by several winding green-lined streams.

“Gee! I’d like to shove a plow into that,” added Hudnall, picking up the turf. “Some day, Tom, all this will be in wheat or corn, or pasture for stock. Take my hunch, boy, we haven’t seen its beat. We’ll run up a cabin, at the end of this hunt, an’ winter here. Then by another spring we can tell.”

Tom found Sprague’s Post the most interesting place that he had ever visited, and considerably much too wild, even in daytime. Dance hall and gambling hell, however, had only momentary attraction for him. Sprague’s store was the magnet that drew him. Here he learned a great deal.

The buffalo south of the Brazos and Pease Rivers had at last turned north and would soon fall in with the great herd along the Red River. This meant that practically all the buffalo in the Southwest would concentrate between the Red River and the Staked Plain — an innumerable, tremendous mass. The Comanches were reported to be south of this herd, traveling toward the Red; and the Kiowas were up on the Staked Plain, chasing buffalo east; Cheyennes and Arapahoes, whose hunting ground had always been north of this latitude, were traveling south, owing to the fact that the annual migration of buffalo had failed this year. Failed because of the white hunters! An Indian war was inevitable.

Tom heard that Indian Territory was now being guarded by United States marshals; Kansas had passed laws forbidding the killing of buffalo; Colorado had done likewise. This summer would see all the buffalo hunters congregated in Texas. That meant the failure of the great herds to return north into Indian Territory, Kansas, and Colorado. The famous hunting grounds along the Platte and Republican Rivers would be barren. It seemed a melancholy thing, even to Tom, who had been so eager to earn his share of the profits. It was a serious matter for the state legislatures to pass laws such as this. No doubt Texas would do the same.

Tom reasoned out this conclusion before he learned that at this very time the Texas Legislature was meeting to consider a bill to protect buffalo in their state. So far it had been held up by remarks credited to Gen. Phil Sheridan, who was then stationed at San Antonio, in command of the military department of the Southwest. Sprague gave Tom a newspaper to read, and spoke forcibly.

“Sheridan went to Austin an’ shore set up thet meetin’. Told the Senators an’ Representatives they were a lot of sentimental old women. They’d make a blunder to protect the buffalo! He said the hunters ought to have money sent them, instead of discouragement. They ought to have medals with a dead buffalo on one side an’ a dead Injun on the other.”

Tom was strongly stirred by the remarks credited to General Sheridan, and he took the news-paper to the Hudnalls and read the passage:

“These buffalo-hunters have done more in the last year to settle the Indian trouble than the entire regular army has done in thirty years. They are destroying the Indians’ commissary. Send them powder and lead! . . . Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo are exterminated. Then the prairie can be covered with speckled cattle!”

“Great!” boomed Hudnall, slapping his big hand down. “But darn it — tough on the Indians!”

Tom was confronted then with a strange thought; he, like Hudnall, felt pity for the Indians, yet none for the buffalo. There was something wrong in that. Later, when he told Milly about what he had heard, and especially Hudnall’s expression of sympathy, she said:

“Tom, it’s because of the money. You men can’t see right. Would you steal money from the Indians?”

“Why, certainly not!” declared Tom, with uplift of head.

“You are stealing their food,” she went on, seriously. “Their meat — out of their mouths. Not because you’re hungry, but to get rich. Oh, Tom, it’s wrong!”

Tom felt troubled for the first time. He could not laugh this off and he did not have any argument prepared to defend his case.

“Tom Doan,” she added, very sweetly and gravely, “I’ll have something to say to you — about killing buffalo — when you come to me on my eighteenth birthday.”

Tom could only kiss her for that speech, subtle, yet wonderful with its portent as to her surrender to him; but he knew then, and carried away with him next morning, the conviction that Milly would not marry him unless he promised to give up buffalo-hunting.

CHAPTER IX

AS TOM DROVE his team after the Hudnalls, southward along the well-beaten military road, he carried also with him a thought of his parting from Milly — and something about her words or looks was like the one bitter drop in his sweet cup.

Early as had been the hour, Milly with the Hudnall women had arisen to prepare breakfast and see their men folk off. Hudnall and Burn were having their troubles breaking away from wives, daughter, and sister, so they had no time to note the poignancy of Milly’s farewell to Tom.

At the last she had come close to Tom, fastening her trembling hands to his hunting coat. She looked up into his eyes, suddenly wonderful, strange.

“Tom, you are all I have in the world,” she said.

“Well, dear, I’m all yours,” he had replied, tenderly.

“You must not stay away long.”

“I’ll come back the very first chance,” Tom had promised.

“You should not leave me — at all,” she had whispered then, very low.

“Why Milly, you’re safe here now,” he expostulated.

“I’ll never be safe until — until Jett has no right over me.”

“But he will not come for you. Captain Singleton and Sprague say the Indian scare has just begun.”

“Tom — I’ll never be safe — until you take me.”

“Dearest . . .” he had entreated, and then Hudnall boomed out, “Come on, break away, you young folks.” And there had been only time for a last embrace.

Milly’s last look haunted Tom. How big, black, tragic her eyes! How beautiful, too — and their expression was owing to love of him. His heart swelled until it pained. Was it right to leave her? He could have found work at Sprague’s. A remorse began to stir in him. If he had only not been so poor — if he had not been compelled to hunt buffalo! He realized that he was returning to the buffalo fields no longer free, bearing the weight of a great responsibility, — a lonely girl’s happiness, perhaps her life.

The summer morning was warm, colorful, fragrant with soft breeze off the prairie, full of melody of birds, and bright with the rising sun. But Tom did not respond as usual. The morning passed, and the hot afternoon was far spent before he could persuade and argue himself into something of his old mood. Common sense helped him. The chances of his returning to find Milly safe and well were very much greater than otherwise; yet he could not forget the last few moments they had been together, when under stress of fear and sorrow she had betrayed Jett’s real status and her own fatalism. All that day Milly was in his thoughts, and afterward, when he lay in his bed, with the dark-blue, star-studded sky open to his sleepless gaze.

It took Hudnall only two days and a half, hauling light wagons, to return to the Red River camp. Conditions were identically the same as before the trip. Pilchuck and his three helpers had killed and skinned three hundred and twenty five buffalo during Hudnall’s absence. The chief of the outfit was delighted; and late in the afternoon as it was, he wanted to go right at the slaughter.

“Take it easy,” growled Pilchuck. “We want some fresh grub an’ some news.”

Manifestly, Pilchuck and his associates had not fared well since the departure of the women folk. “Dam the pesky redskins, anyhow,” he complained to Hudnall. “Who’s goin’ to cook?”

“We’ll take our turn,” replied Hudnall, cheerfully.

“Lot of fine cooks we got in this outfit,” he growled. “Wal, there’s one consolation, anyway — reckon we won’t have to eat much longer.”

“An’ why not?” demanded Hudnall, in surprise. “I fetched back a wagon load of grub.”

“Wal, we’re goin’ to be scalped by Comanches directly.”

“Bosh!” boomed Hudnall, half in anger. “You plainsmen make me sick. You’re worse than the soldiers. All this rant about Indian raids! We’ve been out over two months an’ haven’t seen a single Indian, tame or wild.”

The scout gazed steadfastly at Hudnall, and the narrow slits of his eyes emitted a gray-blue flash, cold as light on steel.

“It’s men like you who can’t savvy the West, an’ won’t listen, that get scalped by Indians,” he said, with a ring in his voice.

Hudnall fumed a moment, but his good nature prevailed and he soon laughed away the effect of Pilchuck’s hard speech. Dread he seemed to lack.

Next morning Tom followed the others of the Hudnall outfit out to the chase, which they returned to with redoubled energy and a fiercer determination. Concrete rewards in shape of gold and greenbacks paid to them by Hudnall were the spurs to renewed effort.

Tom started that day badly. Just as he came within range of the first buffalo and aimed at it he thought of Milly’s reproachful dark eyes and he wavered so that he crippled the beast. It escaped into the herd. Tom was furious with himself for wounding a buffalo that could only limp away to die a lingering death. After that he put squeamishness out of his mind and settled down into the deadly and dangerous business of hide-hunting.

The day was one of ceaseless and strenuous labors, extending long after dark. Bed was a priceless boon; memory had little opportunity; sleep was something swift and irresistible.

Thus was ushered in the second phase of Tom Doan’s buffalo-hunting.

The vast herd of buffalo, reported by Pilchuck to be several miles wide and more miles in length than any conservative scout would risk estimating, never got farther north than the vicinity of the Red River.

Gradually it was driven west along the river to the North Fork, which it crossed, and then, harassed by the hunters behind and flanked on the west by the barren rise of the Staked Plain, it turned south, grazing and traveling steadily, to make the wide and beautiful Pease River divide in ten days.

Here began a fearful carnage. Hudnall’s outfit fell in with the thick of the buffalo-hunters, many of whom had been a year at the game. They were established in name and manifestly proud of that fact. “Raffert’s, Bill Stark’s, Nebraska Pete’s, Black and Starwell, Bickerdyke’s, Uncle Joe Horde, Old Man Spaun, Jack and Jim Blaise,” and many other names became household words in the Hudnall camp.

Tom kept eyes and ears open for news of the Jett outfit, but so far had not been successful in learning its whereabouts. There were hundreds of gangs strung along the rivers for many miles, and by far not all of the buffalo were in the great massed herd.

On a tributary of the Pease it was decided by Pilchuck and Hudnall to make permanent camp until fall.

“I want four thousand hides by November,” boomed Hudnall, rubbing his huge hands.

“Easy. I’ll show you how to kill a hundred to-morrow in three hours,” replied Pilchuck.

“When we’ll freight back to Sprague’s?” queried Tom, anxiously.

Thus each man voiced the thing most in his thoughts.

Next day Pilchuck outdid his boast in the estimated time, killing one hundred and eighteen buffalo — a remarkable feat. But he had a fast, perfectly trained horse; he was daring and skillful; he rode his quarry down and made one shot do the work.

Day by day Tom Doan killed fewer buffalo. He did not notice the fact until it was called to his attention. Then, going over his little book of record, which he kept faithfully, he was amazed and chagrined to discover that such was the case. He endeavored to right the falling off, only to grow worse. He wavered, he flinched, he shot poorly, thus crippling many buffalo. It made him sick. The cause was Milly. She dominated his thoughts. The truth was that Milly had awakened him to the cruelty and greed of this business and his conscience prevented him from being a good hunter.

Hudnall solved the knotty problem for Tom, very much to his relief.

“Tom, you’ve lost your nerve, as Pilchuck says,” said the chief. “But you’re the best skinner he ever saw. You’re wastin’ time chasin’ an’ shootin’ buffalo. We’re killin’ about as many as we can skin, an’ we could kill more. Pilchuck can, anyhow. Now you follow us an’ skin buffalo only. We’ll pay you thirty five cents a hide.”

“You bet I take you up,” declared Tom, gladly. “I didn’t know I’d lost my nerve, but I hate the killing.”

“Wal, it’s begun to wear on me, to be honest,” sighed Hudnall. “I’d rather push a plow.”

Next moment he was asking Tom to make accurate estimate of the stock of ammunition on hand. Tom did his best at this calculation and reported: three hundred forty six pounds of St. Louis shot-toner lead in twenty-five pound bars; about five thousand primers; five cans of Dupont powder, twenty-five pounds to a can; and three cans of six pounds each.

“Jude, how long will that last us?” inquired Hudnall of Pilchuck, who had heard Tom’s report.

“Wal, let’s see. I reckon August, September, October — unless we have to fight Indians,” replied the scout.

“Ho! Ho! There you go again,” derided Hudnall. “This Injun talk is a joke.”

With this skinning job Tom soon found himself in better spirits, and worked so effectively that he won golden praise from his employers.

“Shucks! What a scalper of redskins that boy would make!” declared Pilchuck. “He can keep a knife sharp as a razor an’ cut with it like a nigger.”

If Tom had been able to get some leisure he would have found much enjoyment in the permanent camp. It was situated on a beautifully wooded bench above the wild brakes of a tributary to the larger river near by, and game abounded there. Down in the brakes were bear, panther, wildcats in numbers too plentiful for wandering around without a gun. The wide belts of timber appeared to be full of wild turkey and deer. Antelope, tame as cattle, grazed on the prairie; and in the wake of the buffalo slunk hordes of howling coyotes. Bands of big gray wolves, bold and savage, took their toll of the buffalo calves.

The diet of buffalo steak was varied by venison and antelope meat, and once with wild turkey. This last trial of a changed menu resulted disastrously for Tom. It happened to be his turn as cook and he had killed several wild turkeys that day. Their flesh was exceedingly bitter, owing to a berry they lived on, which was abundant in the brakes. Pilchuck, who suffered with indigestion, made sarcastic remarks about Tom’s cooking, and the other men were vociferous in their disapproval. Unfortunately Tom had not cooked any other meat.

“Tom, you’re a valuable member, but your cookin’ is worse than your shootin’,” remarked Hudnall, finally. “We’ll relieve you of your turn an’ you can put that much time to somethin’ else. . . . No offense, my lad. You just can’t cook. An’ we can’t starve to death out here. Reckon when you come to ranchin’ you’ll be lucky to have that pretty black-eyed Milly.”

“Lucky!” exploded Burn Hudnall, who it was hinted suffered a little from being henpecked. “Say, he is an’ he doesn’t savvy it.”

“Wal, we’re all pretty lucky, if you let me get in a word,” said the scout, dryly. “Here we’ve been days in hostile country, yet haven’t been molested.”

“There you go again!” protested Hudnall, who had become wearied of Indian talk.

“Wal, am I scout for this outfit or just plain plugger of buffs?” queried Pilchuck.

“You’re scout, an’ pardner, an’ everything of course,” replied Hudnall. “Your scoutin’ for buffalo couldn’t be beat, but your scoutin’ for redskins, if you do any, hasn’t worried me.”

“Wal, Hudnall, I don’t tell you everythin’,” rejoined Pilchuck. “Yesterday, ten miles below on the river, I met a bunch of Kiowas, braves, squaws, kids, with ponies packed an’ travois draggin’. They didn’t look sociable. To-day I saw a band of Comanches tearin’ across the prairie or I’m a born liar! I know how Comanches ride.”

“Jude, are you tryin’ to scare me into huntin’ closer to camp?” asked Hudnall.

“I’m not tryin’ or arguin’,” responded the scout. “I’m just tellin’ you. My advice to all of you is to confine your huntin’ to a radius of five or six miles. Then there’d always be hunters in sight of each other.”

“Jude, you an’ Burn an’ I killed one hundred ninety-eight buffalo yesterday on ground no bigger than a fifty-acre farm. But it was far off from camp.”

“I know. Most hunters like to kill near camp, naturally, for it saves work, but not when they can kill twice as many in the same time farther out.”

“I’ll kill mine an’ skin them an’ haul them in,” replied the leader.

“Wal, wal,” said Pilchuck, resignedly, “reckon advice is wasted on you.”

Tom, in his new job, worked out an innovation much to Hudnall’s liking. He followed the hunters with team and wagon, and through this hit by accident upon a method of skinning that greatly facilitated the work. Taking a forked stick, Tom fastened it to the middle of the hind axletree, allowing the other sharpened end to drag. Tying a rope to the same axle and the other end to the front leg of a dead buffalo, Tom would skin the upper side down. Next he would lead the horses forward a little, moving the beast. The stick served the purpose of holding the wagon from slipping back. Then he would skin down the center of the sides, and stop to have the team pull the carcass over. Thus by utilizing horse power he learned to remove a hide in half the time it had taken him formerly.

Often the hunters would kill a number far exceeding Tom’s ability to haul to camp. But with their help all the hides were removed generally the same day the buffalo were slain. If Tom could not haul all back to camp, he spread them fur side up, to collect the next day. Tom particularly disliked to skin a buffalo that had been killed the day before; because the bloating that inevitably occurred always made the hide come off with exceeding difficulty. Like all expert skinners, Tom took pride in skinning without cutting holes in a hide.

Tom often likened the open ground back of camp on the prairie side to a colossal checkerboard, owing to the many hides always pegged out in regular squares. Five days from the pegging process these hides would be turned fur side up for a day, and turned again every day until dry. They had to be poisoned to keep the hide bugs from ruining them. As the hides dried they were laid one over the other, making as huge piles as could be handled. To tie these bundles strips of wet buffalo hide were run through the peg-holes of the bottom and top hides, and pulled very tight. All bull hides were made into one bundle, so marked; and the others sorted according to sex, age, and quality. Taken as a whole, this hunting of buffalo for their hides, according to the opinion of all hunters, was the hardest work in the world.

One morning a couple of drivers, belonging to Black and Starwell’s outfit, halted their teams at Hudnall’s camp, and spread a rumor that greatly interested the leader. They were freighting out thirteen hundred hides to Sprague’s. The rumor had come a few days before, from hunters traveling south, to the effect that Rath and Wright of Dodge City was going to send freighters out to buy hides right at the camps. This would afford the hunters immense advantage and profit. The firm was going to pay regular prices and do the hauling.

These loquacious drivers had more news calculated to interest Hudnall. It was a report that the Kansas City firm, Loganstein & Co., one of the largest buyers of hides in the market, were sending their hides to Europe, mostly to England, where it had been discovered that army accouterments made of leather were much better and cheaper when made of buffalo hide. This would result in a rise in prices, soon expected, on the buffalo hides.

All this excited Hudnall. He paced the camp-fire space in thought. Ordinarily he arrived at decisions without vacillation, but this one evidently had him bothered. Presently it came out.

“I’ll stay in camp an’ work,” he said, as if answering a query. “Tom, you an’ Stronghurl shall haul all the hides we have to Sprague’s. You can see our women folks an’ bring back the straight of this news. Let’s rustle, so you can go with Starwell’s freighters.”

The journey to Sprague’s Post was an endless drive of eight long, hot glaring days; yet because each day, each hour, each minute, each dragging step of weary horses bore Tom closer to Milly, he endured them joyfully.

Making twenty-five miles the last day, Tom and his companions from the Pease River reached Sprague’s late at night, and camped in the outskirts of the settlements, where showed tents and wagons of new outfits. Early next morning Tom and Stronghurl were besieged by prospective buffalo-hunters, intensely eager to hear news from the buffalo fields. Invariably the first query was, were the buffalo really herded by the millions along the Red, Pease, and Brazos Rivers? Secondly, were the Indians on the warpath? Tom answered these questions put to him in the affirmative; and did his best with the volley of other interrogations, many of them by tenderfoot hunters. He remembered when he had been just as ignorant and raw as they were now.

Thus, what with bringing in the horses, breakfast, and satisfying these ambitious newcomers, Tom was held back from rushing to see Milly. Stronghurl said he would see the Hudnalls later. At last, however, Tom got away, and he had only to hurry down the almost deserted street of the post to realize that the hour was still early. He was not conscious of anything save a wonderfully warm and blissful sense of Milly’s nearness — that in a moment or so he would see her.

Tom’s hand trembled as he knocked on the canvas door of the Hudnall quarters. He heard voices. The door opened, to disclose Mrs. Hudnall, wary-faced and expectant.

“For the land’s sake!” she cried, her expression changing like magic. “Girls, it’s Tom back from the huntin’ fields.”

“You bet, and sure glad,” replied Tom, and could hardly refrain from kissing Mrs. Hudnall.

“Come right in,” she said, overjoyed, dragging him into the kitchen. “Never mind Sally’s looks. She just got up. . . . Tom, I know from your face all’s well with my husband.”

“Sure. He’s fine — working hard and making money hand over fist. Sent you this letter. Stronghurl came, too. He’ll see you later.”

Sally Hudnall and Mrs. Burn Hudnall welcomed Tom in no less joyful manner; and the letters he delivered were received with acclamations of delight.

Tom looked with eager gaze at the door through which Sally had come, expecting to see Milly. But she did not appear.

“Where’s Milly?” he asked, not anxiously, but just in happy eagerness.

His query shocked the Hudnall women into what seemed sudden recollection of something untoward. It stopped Tom’s heart.

“Milly! Why, Tom — she’s gone!” said Mrs, Hudnall.

“Gone!” he echoed, dazedly.

“Yesterday. Surely you met her on the road south?”

“Road south? . . . No, no,” cried Tom, in distress. “Jett! Did he take her away?”

“Yes. He came night before last, but we didn’t know until mornin’,” continued Miss Hudnall, hurriedly. “Had his wife an’ two men with him. Jett sold thirty-four hundred buffalo hides an’ had been drinkin’. . . . He — well, he frightened me, an’ poor Milly. I was never so sorry for any one in my life.”

“Oh, I was afraid he’d come!” burst out Tom, in torture. “Milly said I shouldn’t leave her. . . . Oh, why, why didn’t I listen to her?”

“Strange you didn’t meet Jett,” replied Mrs. Hudnall. “He left with three wagons yesterday afternoon. They went straight down the military road. We watched them. Milly waved her scarf for a long time. . . . She looked so cute an’ sweet in her boy’s clothes.”

“Boy’s clothes?” ejaculated Tom, miserably. “What do you mean?”

“Jett came here in the mornin’,” went on Mrs. Hudnall. “He was soberin’ up an’ sure looked mean. He asked for Milly an’ told her that she was to get ready to leave with him in the afternoon. His wife wasn’t with him, but we met her later in Sprague’s store. She struck us as a fit pardner for Jett. Well, Milly was heart-broken at first, an’ scared. We could see that. She didn’t want to go, but said she’d have to. He could take her by force. She didn’t say much. First she wrote you a letter, which I have for you, an’ then she packed her clothes. When Jett came about three o’clock he fetched boy’s pants, shirt, coat, an’ hat for Milly. Said on account of Indians scarin’ the soldiers the military department were orderin’ women out of the buffalo fields. Jett was disguisin’ his women in men’s clothes. Milly had to have her beautiful hair cut. Sally cut it. Well, Milly dressed in that boy’s suit an’ went with Jett. She was brave. We all knew she might come to harm, outside of Indians. An’ we felt worse when Sprague told us last night that this Mrs. Jett had been the wife of an outlaw named Hardin, killed last summer at Fort Dodge. That’s all.”

“Good heavens! it’s enough!” declared Tom, harshly, divided by fear for Milly and fury at himself. “What can I do? . . . I might catch up with Jett. But then what?”

“That’s what I’d do — hurry after her,” advised Mrs. Hudnall. “Somehow you might get her away from Jett. Tell my husband. He’ll do somethin’. . . . Tom, here’s Milly’s letter. I hope it tells you how she loves you. For you’re all the world to that child. She was cryin’ when she gave it to me.”

“Thank you,” said Tom, huskily, taking the letter and starting to go.

“Come back before you leave,” added Mrs. Hudnall. “We’ll want to send letters an’ things with you.”

“An’ say, Tom,” called Sally from the doorway, “you tell Dave Stronghurl if he doesn’t run here to me pronto it ‘ll be all day with him.”

“I’ll send him,” returned Tom, and hurried back to camp, where he delivered Sally’s message to Dave.

“Aw, I’ve all the time there is,” drawled Dave, with an assured smile.

“No! We’ll be leaving just as quick as I can sell these hides for Hudnall.”

“Wal, I’ll be goshed! What’s the rush, Tom! . . . Say, you look sick.”

“I am sick. I’m afraid I’m ruined,” replied Tom, hurriedly, and told Dave his trouble.

His comrade swore roundly, and paced a moment, thoughtfully. “Tom, mebbe it ain’t so bad as it looks. But it’s bad enough. I’d hate to see that girl fall into the hands of the Indians.”

“Indians? Dave, it’s Jett I’m afraid of. He’s bad and he means bad. . . . I — I think I’ll have to kill him.”

“Wal, quite right an’ proper, if he’s what you say. An’ I’ll back you. Let’s see. We’d better rustle. You tend to sellin’ the hides an’ what else Hudnall wanted. An’ I’ll tend to Sally.”

With that Stronghurl paid some elaborate though brief attention to his personal appearance, then strode off toward the post. Left alone, Tom hurriedly tore open Milly’s letter. It was written in ink on good paper, and the handwriting was neat and clear. Tom thrilled at his first sight of Milly’s writing.

Sprague’s Post

July 19.

DEAR TOM:

It is my prayer you get this letter soon — surely some day. Jett has come for me. I must go. There isn’t anything else I can do. But if you or Mr. Hudnall were here I’d refuse to go and let Jett do his worst.

He’ll surely take me back to the buffalo camps, and where they are you will be somewhere. I know you will find me.

I’m scared now and my heart’s broken. But I’ll get over that and do my best to fool Jett — to get away from him — to save myself. I’ve bought a little gun which I can hide, and if I have to use it to keep him from harming me — I will do it. I love you. You’re all I have in this world. God surely will protect me.

So don’t feel too badly and don’t lose hope. Don’t ever give up looking for me. Whenever you pass a camp you haven’t seen before, look for a red scarf tied somewhere in sight. It’ll be mine.

MILLY.

Tom sat there with clenched hands and surging heart. The letter at once uplifted him and plunged him into the depths. He writhed with remorse that he had ever left her alone. The succeeding moments were the most bitter of his life. Then another perusal of Milly’s letter roused his courage. He must be true to the brave spirit that called to him; and he must hope for the best and never give up seeking her, though he realized how forlorn it was.

Tom sold Hudnall’s hides at a higher figure than Hudnall had received for his first batch. Sprague not only corroborated the rumors that had been the cause of Hudnall sending Tom out, but also added something from his own judgment. The peak of prices for hides had not been reached. He offered so much himself that Tom wondered whether or not Hudnall would sell at all to the buyers from Dodge City. Tom gathered that there was now great rivalry among the several firms buying hides, a circumstance of profit to the hunters.

“I’ll give you another hunch,” said Sprague. “After the hides, the bones of the carcasses will fetch big money. I just heard thet a twenty-mile pile of buffalo bones along the Santa Fe railroad sold for ten dollars a ton. For fertilizer!”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Tom, in surprise.

“What’ll Hudnall think of that? But, Sprague, it isn’t possible to haul bones from the Red River country in quantity enough to pay.”

“Reckon that seems far fetched, I’ll admit. But you can never tell.”

“Now about the Indian scare,” went on Tom, anxiously. “What’s your honest opinion? Is it serious?”

“Doan, listen,” replied Sprague, impressively. “Believe what the scouts an’ plainsmen say. They know. The whole half of Texas is bein’ run over by a lot of farmers — hide-hunters for the time bein’. They don’t know the West. An’ some of them will be killed. That’s the least we can expect.”

“Then — these hide thieves. What do you know about them?” inquired Tom.

“Not much. Thet’s not my business. I’m buyin’ hides from anybody an’ everybody. I can’t afford to be suspicious of hunters.”

“Did you know the little girl, Milly Fayre, who was staying with Mrs. Hudnall?”

“Shore did, an’ I took to her pronto. Mrs. Hudnall told me aboot Jett bein’ her stepfather, an’ was packin’ her off with him, togged out as a boy. I sold Jett the boy’s clothes, but didn’t know then what he wanted them for.”

“She’s engaged to marry me. She hates Jett and is afraid of him.”

“So thet’s the story!” ejaculated the sharp-featured Westerner, with quick gesture of comprehension. “Doan, I ain’t sayin’ much, but this deal looks bad.”

“It looks terrible to me. Is Jett just a — a rough customer?”

“Doan, what he may be doesn’t matter, I reckon,” returned Sprague, in a low voice. “But take this hunch from me. Follow Jett an’ get your girl out of his clutches — if you have to kill him. Savvy?”

Tom had seen the same dancing light gleam, sharp as fiery sparks, in the eyes of Pilchuck, that now shot from Sprague’s.

“Yes — I savvy,” replied Tom, swallowing hard.

An hour later he was driving his team at a brisk trot south on the military road, and Stronghurl was hard put to it to keep up with him.

CHAPTER X

RISING EARLY AND driving late, Tom Doan, with Stronghurl keeping in sight, traveled southward over the prairie toward the buffalo fields. He made it a point always to reach at night the camp of outfits that had been ahead of him. Thus every day was a dragging one of anxious hope to catch up with Jett, and every sunset was a time fraught with keen, throbbing excitement. Always, however, his search among the outfits ended in bitter disappointment.

A remarkable thing about this journey was that every outfit he passed on the way put on more speed and tried to keep him and Stronghurl in sight. Tom considered it just as well that they did so, for they were fast penetrating into the Indian country.

Early on the ninth morning of that long journey Tom and Stronghurl forded the Pease River, at a dangerous crossing, and entered the zone of slaughter. No live buffalo were in sight, but the carcasses left by the advancing hunters polluted the summer air and made of the prairie a hideous shambles. They passed thousands and thousands of bone piles and rotten carcasses; and as they advanced the bone piles became fewer and the solid carcasses more. Coyotes in droves, like wild dogs, fought along the road, regardless of the wagons. Indeed, many of them were so gorged that they could not run. And as for buzzards, they were as thick as crows in a Kansas cornfield in October, likewise gorged to repletion.

The wake of the hide-hunters was something to sicken the heart of the stoutest man and bring him face to face with an awful sacrifice.

Tom verified another thing that had long troubled him and of which he had heard hunters speak. For every single buffalo that was killed and skinned there was one which had been crippled and had escaped to die, so that if ever found its hide would be useless. In every ravine or coulee or wash off the main line of travel Tom knew, by investigation of those near where he and Stronghurl camped or halted at noon, there lay dead and unskinned buffalo. If he saw a hundred, how many thousands must there be? It was a staggering arraignment to confront the hide-hunters.

Toward noon of that day herds of live buffalo came in sight, and thereafter grew and widened and showed movement. Tom eventually overhauled a single wagon drawn by four horses, and drew up beside it, asking the usual query.

“Whoa, thar!” called the stout old driver to his team. “Jett? No, I ain’t heard that name, Hev you, Sam?”

His companion likewise could not remember such a name as Jett.

“We’ve met up with lots of outfits an’ never heerd nary name a-tall,” added the former.

Then Tom asked if they had seen an outfit of three large wagons, three men, a woman, and a boy.

“Big outfit — wal, I reckon. Was the boss a yaller-bearded man?”

“Yes, that’s Jett,” replied Tom, eagerly.

“Passed us this mawnin’ back a ways. I recollect sure, ‘cause the boy looked at us an’ waved a red kerchief. He had big black eyes.”

“Milly!” breathed Tom, to himself. “Thank you, men. That’s the outfit I’m after.”

He drove on, urging the tired horses, and he was deaf to the queries his informants called after him upon their own account. Hope and resolve augmented in Tom as he traveled onward. Jett was hurrying back to the main camps, and he would not be hard to locate, if Tom did not catch up with him on the road. Milly’s letter lay in the breast pocket of Tom’s flannel shirt, and every now and then he would press his hand there, as if to answer Milly’s appeal. He drove so persistently and rapidly that he drew far ahead of Stronghurl and the string of outfits which followed.

Miles farther, with straggling herds on each side, and then the boom-boom-boom of heavy guns! From the last ridge above the river he saw a pall of dust away to the west. Here there was action. But it must have been miles away. The river meandered across the prairie, a wide strip of dark green cottonwood and elm. In an hour Tom reached it. Not yet had he come in sight of a three-wagon outfit. With keen eyes he searched the dusty road to make sure that no wheel tracks swerved off without his notice.

Not long after this time he drew near the zones of camps, and presently passed the first one, new since he had come by that way about two weeks before. It was now August.

Tom’s misery had diminished to a great extent, and he could contain himself with the assurance that Milly would be somewhere along this tributary of the Pease River.

Boom-boom-boom boomed the big fifties, not louder than at first, yet more numerous and on both sides of the river. Tom rolled by camp after camp, some familiar to him, most of them new. But no red scarf adorned any tent or wagon to gladden his eye. Miles he drove along the river, passing many more camps, with like result. The hunters were returning from the chase; a gradual cessation in gun-fire marked Tom’s approach to Hudnall’s outfit. It was now impossible to see all the camps; some were too far from the road; others down in the widening brakes of the river. There were wagon tracks that turned off the main road to cross the river. Tom found no sign of Jett’s outfit; yet, though much disappointed, it did not discourage him. Jett would be among the hunters after this main herd.

Before sunset he drove into Hudnall’s camp.

“If it ain’t Tom!” yelled Burn, who was the first to see him.

But Hudnall was the first to get to Tom, and almost embraced him, so glad and amazed was he.

“Back so soon? Gosh! you must have come hummin’!” he rolled out, heartily. “Say, we’ve had great huntin’. Hard, but just like diggin’ gold. What’d you get for my hides?”

“Fifty cents more on every hide,” replied Tom, producing an enormous wad of bills. “Maybe I’m not glad to get rid of that! And here’re letters. There are newspapers, magazines, and other stuff in a basket under the seat.”

“How’s my women folks?” asked Hudnall, fingering the greenbacks.

“Just fine. You couldn’t hope for better. But my — but Milly was gone,” answered Tom.

“Milly? Who’s she? Aw yes, your girl. I’d forgotten. . . . Say, Doan, you’re thin, you look used up. Trip wear you out?”

Hudnall was all kindliness and solicitude now.

“No. Worry. I’ll tell you presently. . . . Dave is somewhere along behind, heading a whole caravan of new hide-hunters.”

“The more the merrier. There’s room an’ we don’t see any slackin’ up of buffalo,” said Hudnall. “Pilchuck got two hundred an’ eighty-six day before yesterday. That’s his top notch. But he says he’ll beat it. Tom, I forgot to tell you we’ll pay you for drivin’ out the hides. Five dollars a day, if that’s all right?”

“Much obliged,” replied Tom, wearily, as he sank down to rest. “Guess I’m fagged, too. You see, I tried to catch up with Jett. He left Sprague’s a day ahead of me with Milly.”

“The hell you say!” ejaculated Hudnall, suddenly losing all his animation. “We’ve heard bad rumors about that Jett outfit. You must take Milly away from them.”

“Couldn’t get track of Jett until to-day,” went on Tom. “He was just ahead of me, though I couldn’t see his wagons. He hit the river along about midafternoon and he’s somewhere.”

“Wal, we’ll find him, an’ don’t you worry. These camps are no place for women folks. I’ve come to seein’ that, Tom.”

“What’s happened since I left?” queried Tom.

“Son, if I believed all I heard I’d be pullin’ stakes for Sprague’s,” declared Hudnall. “Reckon some of it’s true, though. All I seen for myself was some Kiowas that got killed at the forks of the river above. They raided a camp, an’ was crossin’ the river when some hunters on the other side piled them up, horses an’ all.”

“Believe I expected to hear worse,” replied Tom, soberly.

“Wash up an’ take a rest,” advised Hudnall. “I’ll look after the horses. Reckon we’d better hold off supper a little. Pilchuck’s always late these days. He likes the evenin’ hunt an’ I don’t see any sign of Stronghurl.”

“Dave was in sight when I struck the river,” said Tom. “Then I slowed up. So he can’t be far behind, unless he broke down.”

Later, after a bath and shave and the donning of clean clothes, Tom felt somewhat relieved in body. His mind, however, was busy, pondering, clouded; and so it must continue until he had found Milly.

Pilchuck rode in after sunset, a dust-covered, powder-begrimed figure, ragged, worn, proven, everything about him attesting to the excessive endeavor that made him a great hunter. His jaded horse was scarcely recognizable; froth and sweat and dust had accumulated in a caked lather, yellow and hard as sun-baked mud, over front and hind quarters.

“Howdy, Doan!” was his greeting to Tom, with the offer of a horny, grimy hand. “As a freighter you’re A number one. Reckon you look sorta washed out — an’ washed up, too. Shore you’re spick an’ span. I’ll go fall in the crick, myself.”

“Did you have a good day?” asked Tom, after returning his greeting.

“Huh! Not much. I dropped fourteen bulls early, then got jammed in a herd an’ had to quit shootin’. Wasn’t no stampede or mebbe my story would never have been told. But the pesky bunch took me more’n twenty miles along Soapberry, an’ when I did get clear of them I run plumb into some mean-lookin’ Kiowas. They was between me an’ camp. I had to head off west a little. They rode along for a couple of miles, keepin’ on the wrong side for me, an’ then seein’ I was sure alone, they took after me.”

The scout abruptly ended his narrative there, and went about his tasks. Tom, strange to realize, took the incident with a degree of calmness that seemed to him to be an acceptance of times grown heroic and perilous.

A little later Dave Stronghurl drove into camp with weary team, and tired himself, yet unusually loquacious and robustly merry for him. Tom could tell that Dave had something on his mind, and awaited results with interest. Hudnall greeted Dave in the same cordial way as he had Tom, asked the same questions, made the same statements about the hide-hunting and news of camp. And he also took charge of Dave’s team.

“Get any line on Milly?” asked Dave, as he peeled off his shirt. “By gum! you shore rustled across the prairie to-day.”

Tom was glad to acquaint his comrade with the trace he had obtained of Jett’s outfit. Dave vented his satisfaction in forceful, though profane, speech.

While he was performing his ablutions Dunn and Ory Tacks drove in with the day’s total of hides, eighty-six, not a good showing. Dunn threw the folded hides out on the open ground some rods from camp, while Tacks unhitched the team.

Hudnall, swift and capable round the camp fire as elsewhere, had a steaming supper soon ready, to which the six men sat down hungry as wolves and as talkative as full mouths would permit.

Ory Tacks had now been some weeks in the buffalo fields. Not in the least had it changed him, except that he did not appear to be quite so fat. Toil and danger had no power to transform his expression of infantile glee with life and himself. He wore the old slouch hat jauntily and, as always, a tuft of tow-colored hair stuck out through a hole in its crown.

Ory plied Tom with queries about Sprague, obviously leading up to something, but Tom, being both hungry and thoughtful, did not give him much satisfaction.

Forthwith Ory, between bites, turned his interest to Stronghurl, with the difference that now he was more than eager.

“Mr. Strongthrow,” he began, as usual getting Dave’s name wrong, “did you see my — our — the young lady at Sprague?”

“No, she was gone with Jett, I’m shore sorry to say,” replied Dave.

“Miss Sally gone!” ejaculated Ory.

“Naw, I meant Tom’s girl, Milly Fayre,” replied Dave, rather shortly.

“But you saw Miss Sally?”

“Shore did.”

“Haven’t you a letter for me from her?” inquired Ory, with astonishing naïveté.

“What?” gaped Dave, almost dropping a large bite of biscuit from his mouth.

“You have a letter for me from Sally,” said Ory, now affirmatively.

“Boy, do you reckon me a pony-express rider, carryin’ the mail?”

“Did you see much of her?” inquired Ory, with scrupulous politeness.

“Nope. Not a great deal.”

“How long were you with her? I’m asking, because if you saw her for even a little she’d have given you a message for me.”

“Only saw her about thirty minutes, an’ then, ‘cause Tom was shore rarin’ to leave, Sally an’ me was busy gettin’ married,” replied Dave, with vast assumed imperturbability.

It had the effect to crush poor Ory into bewildered silence; he sank down quite staggered. Tom wanted to laugh, yet had not quite the meanness to let it out. Hudnall looked up, frowning.

“Dave, that’s no way to tease Ory,” he reproved, severely. “Ory’s got as much right to shine up to Sally as you. Now if she sent him a letter you fork it over.”

Dave got red in the face.

“She didn’t send none,” he declared.

“Are you sure?” added Hudnall, suspiciously. “I ain’t placin’ too much confidence in you, Dave.”

“So it ‘pears. But I’m not lyin’.”

“All right. An’ after this don’t make any fool remarks about marryin’ Sally, just to tease Ory. It ain’t good taste.”

“Boss, I wasn’t teasin’ him or talkin’ like Ory’s hair sticks through his hat,” returned Dave, deliberately.

“What?” shouted Hudnall.

“Me an’ Sally was married.”

“You was married!” roared Hudnall, in amaze and rage.

“Yes, sir. There was a travelin’ parson at Sprague, an’ Sally an’ me thought it a good chance to marry. So we did.”

“Without askin’ leave of me — of her dad?”

“You wasn’t around. Sally was willin’ — an’ we thought we could tell you afterward.”

“Did you ask her mother? She was around.”

“Nope. I wanted to, but Sally said her mother didn’t think I was much of a match.”

“So you just run off with my kid an’ married her?” roared Hudnall, beside himself with rage.

“Kid! Sally’s a grown woman. See here, Hudnall, I didn’t reckon you’d be tickled, but I shore thought you’d have some sense. Sally an’ me would have married, when this huntin’s over. I wanted some one to take care of my money, an’ keep it, case I get killed out here. So what’s wrong about it?”

“You big Swede!” thundered Hudnall. “You didn’t ask me. That’s what. An’ I’m a mind to pound the stuffin’s out of you.”

Stronghurl was not profoundly moved by this threat.

“If you feel that way, come on,” he replied, coolly. He was a thick, imperturbable sort of fellow, and possibly, Tom thought, he might be a Swede.

Pilchuck was shaking with silent mirth; Ory Tacks was reveling in revenge; Burn Hudnall sat divided between consternation and glee; old man Dunn looked on, very much amazed; and as for Tom, he felt that it looked mightily like a fight, yet he could not convince himself it would go that far.

“Come on, huh?” echoed Hudnall, boomingly, as he rose to his lofty height. He was twice the size of Stronghurl. He could have broken the smaller, though sturdy, bridegroom in short order. Slowly Stronghurl rose, at last seriously concerned, but resigned and forceful.

“Reckon you can lick me, Hudnall,” he said, “an’ if it’s goin’ to make you feel better let’s get it over.”

For answer Hudnall seemed to change, to expand, and throwing back his shaggy head he let out a stentorian roar of laughter. That eased the situation. Pilchuck also broke out, and the others, except Dave, joined him to the extent of their mirth. Hudnall was the last to recover, following which he shoved a brawny hand at Stronghurl.

“Dave, I was mad, natural-like, but you takin’ me serious about fightin’ over Sally was funny. Why, bless your heart, I’m glad for Sally an’ you, even if you didn’t ask me, an’ I wish you prosperity an’ long life!”

Stronghurl’s armor of density was not proof against this big-hearted and totally unexpected acceptance and approval, and he showed in his sudden embarrassment and halting response that he was deeply moved. Nor did he take the congratulations of the rest of the outfit as calmly as might have been supposed he would, from his announcement of the marriage. Ory Tacks showed to advantage in his sincere and manly overture of friendliness.

What with this incident, and the news of Sprague to be told to Hudnall and Pilchuck, and their recital of the hunting conditions to Tom and Dave, the outfit did not soon get the day’s hides pegged down, or to their much-needed beds.

Next morning Hudnall made the suggestion that each and all of the outfit would ride out of their way to look over new camps and to inquire of hunters as to the whereabouts of Randall Jett.

“Tom, we can’t stop work altogether, but we can all spare some time,” he said. “An’ I’ll drive the wagon out an’ back, so you’ll have time to ride along the river. It’s my idea we’ll find Milly pronto.”

“Then what?” queried Tom, thrilling deeply with this good man’s assurance.

“Wal, you can leave that to me,” interposed Pilchuck, dryly. Tom was quick to sense something in the scout’s mind which had not been spoken.

But that day and the next and the following passed fleetly by without any trace of Jett’s outfit. Ten miles up and down the river, on the west bank, had been covered by some one of Hudnall’s outfit. No three-wagon camp had been located.

“Shore Jett must be across the river,” averred Pilchuck. “There’s outfits strung along, an’ enough buffalo for him.”

“What’ll I do?” queried Tom, appealingly.

“Wal, son, you can’t work an’ do the job right,” replied the scout. “I’d take a couple of days off. Ride down the river twenty miles or so, then cross an’ come back on the other side. If that don’t fetch results ride up the river, cross an’ come back. Ask about Indians, too, an’ keep your eyes peeled.”

Tom’s saddle horse, Dusty, had been ridden by Burn Hudnall and Pilchuck also during Tom’s absence, and had developed into a fleet, tireless steed only second to Pilchuck’s best buffalo chaser. Next morning Tom set off, mounted on Dusty. Well armed, with a small store of food, a canteen of water, and a field-glass, he turned resolute face to the task before him.

In less than two hours he had passed the ten-mile limit of his search so far, and had entered unfamiliar country where camps were many, and buffalo apparently as thick as bees round a hive. But very few of the camps had an occupant; at that hour all the men of each outfit were engaged up on the prairie, as the incessant boom of guns proved. How Tom’s eyes strained and ached to catch a glimpse of the red scarf Milly said she would put up wherever she was! What bitter disappointment when he espied a blanket or anything holding a touch of red!

From each camp Tom would ride up the prairie slope to a level and out toward the black-fringed, dust-mantled moving medium that was buffalo. Thus he came upon hunters, skinners, teamsters, all of whom gave him less cordial greeting than he had received from hide-hunters before he went north. It took some moments for Tom to make his sincerity felt. These men were rushed for time, and a feeling of aloofness from strangers had manifestly passed south from camp to camp. Not one of them could or would give him any clue to Jett’s outfit.

“Air you lookin’ fer hide thieves?” queried one old grizzled hunter.

“No. I’m looking for a girl who has been brought down here by a man named Jett.”

“Sorry. Never heard of him. But if you was lookin’ fer hide thieves I’d be damn interested,” replied the hunter.

“Why?” asked Tom, curiously.

“Because I had eleven hundred hides stole from my camp,” he replied, “an’ ain’t never heerd of them since, let alone seein’ hide or hair.”

“Too bad. Is there much of this dirty work going on?”

“How ‘n ‘ll can we tell thet?” retorted the man. “Thar’s forty square miles of buffler, millin’ an’ movin’, too. Nobody can keep track of any one. It’s all mad rush. But some dirty sneaks air gittin’ rich on other men’s work.”

Very few men Tom encountered, however, had any words to spare; and before that day was over he decided not to interrogate any more. It went against his grain to be regarded with hard, cold, suspicious eyes. There was no recourse for him but to search till he met Jett or found his camp. That struck him as far from a hopeless task, yet his longing and dread were poignant. He went on until he had passed the zone of camps and had drawn out of hearing of the boom-boom-boom of the big fifties. Not by many miles, though, had he come to the end of the buffalo herd.

It was the middle of the afternoon, too late for Tom to reach camp that day. He crossed the stream, now a clear shallow sandy-bottomed little watercourse, running swiftly. He was probably not many leagues from its source up in the bluffs of the Staked Plain, stark bald-faced heave of country, frowning down on the prairie.

Tom took the precaution to sweep the open stretches in front with his field-glass. All that he saw there were buffalo, near and far, everywhere, dots and strings and bands, just straggling remnants of the immense herd back over the stream.

A good trail, with horse tracks in it, followed the course of the water east, and led along the edge of the timber and sometimes through open groves. But Tom did not come to a road or see a camp or man or horse. The prairie was a beautiful grassy level, growing brown from the hot sun. Bands of antelope grazed within range of his gun, as tame as cattle; deer trotted ahead of him through the timber; wild turkeys by the hundreds looked up at his approach and made no effort to run. He saw bear and panther tracks in the dust of the trail.

Sunset overtook Tom and still he rode on. Before dark, however, he espied a thick clump of timber in which he decided to spend the night. Finding a suitable place well down from the trail, he unsaddled Dusty and led him to the stream to drink, then picketed him with a long lasso on a grass plot.

Twilight stole down into the grove while Tom ate some of the meat and bread he had taken the precaution to bring. No fire was necessary, as the air was close and sultry; besides, it might have attracted attention. He spread his saddle blankets for a bed, placed his saddle for a pillow, and with weapons at his side he lay down to sleep.

This was the first night he had been alone on the Texas prairies. It was novel, strange, somehow exhilarating, and yet disturbing. His anxiety to find Milly had led him far from the hunters’ camps, into wild country, where he must run considerable risk. His state of mind, therefore, rendered him doubly susceptible to all around him.

Dusk mantled the river brakes. The night insects had begun their incessant song, low, monotonous, plaintive. And frogs joined in with their sweet, mellow, melodious trill. In spite of these sounds silence seemed to reign. Solitude was omnipresent there. Tom found it hard to realize that the extermination of America’s most numerous and magnificent game beast was in frenzied operation along this river; that bands of Indians were on the warpath, and hide-robbers foraging secretly. Here the night and place were lonely, sad, provocative of such thoughts as had never before disturbed Tom.

By and by his attention was attracted at intervals by soft padded steps somewhere near, and the cracking of twigs down in the brakes, and the squealing of raccoons. Once a wild cry startled him, so nearly like a woman’s scream was it, and he recognized it as the rare cry of a panther. He had heard hunters at the camps tell of it. Gradually his nervousness wore away. These creatures of the wilderness would not harm him; he had only to fear those beings made in his own image.

The night, the stars, the insects, the stealthy denizens of the brush, the soft, drowsy, sultry summer darkness with its dim flare of sheet lightning along the horizon, the loneliness and freedom of the open country — these worked on Tom’s mind and from them he gathered a subtle confidence that there was something stronger than evil in men. Milly would not be lost to him.

At last Tom slept. He was awakened by the scratching and clucking of wild turkeys, so close that he could have tossed his hat among them. The sun was red in the east. He had slept late. To eat his meager breakfast, water and saddle his horse, fill his canteen, were but the work of a few moments, and then he was on his way again, alert, cautious, not to be misled by his ardor.

Tom traveled ten miles farther east before his ears again throbbed to the boom of the big buffalo guns. Scattered herds grazed out on the prairie, but appeared unmolested by hunters. The shooting came from across the river. Five miles farther on, however, Tom reached the zone of camps on that side, and heard the boom of guns.

Between that point and the river bluffs, which he recognized as landmarks near Hudnall’s present location, he found and rode through seven camps of buffalo-hunters. Wagons, tents, reloading kits, mess boxes, bales of hides, squares and squares of hides pegged out — these were in no wise different from the particulars of the camps opposite.

But Tom did not find what he sought. He crossed the river and rode towards Hudnall’s with a heavy heart.

The afternoon was far spent, still it was too early for Tom not to be surprised to see his comrades in camp. There appeared to be other hunters — a group, talking earnestly.

Tom urged his tired horse to a trot, then a lope. Something was wrong at Hudnall’s. He felt it. There came a cold tightening round his heart. Reaching camp, Tom flung himself out of the saddle.

Ory Tacks, the nearest to Tom, as he advanced toward the men, was crying. Dunn sat near him, apparently dazed. Burn Hudnall’s head was buried in his arms. Stronghurl and Pilchuck were in conversation with a group of seven or eight men, among whom Tom recognized hunters from adjoining camps. It was significant to behold these men all carrying their rifles. More significant was Pilchuck’s face, hard, cold, forbidding, with his thin lips set in tight line and his eyes almost narrowed shut.

“What’s — happened?” burst out Tom, breathlessly.

Burn Hudnall raised a face Tom could never forget.

“Father was murdered by Indians.”

“Oh, my God — no!” cried Tom, in distress.

“Yes. . . . I saw him killed — an’ I just got away — by the skin of my teeth,” replied Burn, in a dreadful voice.

“How? When? Where?” panted Tom, shocked to his depths.

“It was father’s carelessness. Oh, if he had only listened to Pilchuck. . . . Mebbe two hours ago. I was west of here four or five miles when I saw a band of Indians. They were ridin’ towards us. I was skinnin’ a bull an’ was concealed behind the carcass. Father was off a quarter of a mile, ridin’ round a small bunch of buffalo, shootin’ fast, an’ blind to anythin’ else but buffalo. I yelled my lungs out. No use! He couldn’t hear. I got to my horse an’ was thinkin’ of runnin’ over to save father, when I saw I was too late. . . . The Indians rode like the wind. They ran down on father. I saw puffs of smoke an’ heard shots. Father fell off his horse. Then the Indians circled round him, shootin’, yellin’, ridin’ like naked painted devils. . . . Presently they quit racin’, an’ rode into a bunch, round where he lay. Some of them dismounted. Others rode toward the wagon an’ team. These Indians saw me an’ started for me. I tell you I had to ride, an’ they chased me almost into camp. . . . Tom, I know what it is to hear the whistle of bullets!”

“He’s out there — on the prairie — dead?” gasped Tom.

“Certain as death,” replied Burn, solemnly. “Who’s to tell mother an’ Sally?”

“But — but we must go out there — to see — to find out — .”

“Pilchuck’s taken charge, Tom,” replied the other. “He says the Indians were Comanches an’ in pretty strong force. We’re to wait till morning, get a bunch of men together, an’ then go out to bury father.”

Tom was stunned. The catastrophe as persistently portended by Pilchuck and corroborated by Sprague had at last fallen. Splendid, fine, kindly Hudnall was dead at the hands of revengeful savages. It was terrible. To be warned of such a thing was nothing, but the fact itself stood out in appalling vividness.

“Let’s rustle supper while it’s daylight,” said Pilchuck, coming over. “We don’t want a camp fire to-night. Reckon there’s hardly any danger of attack, but we want to stand guard an’ not take any chances.”

Camp tasks had to go on just the same, and Tom helped Dunn and Ory Tacks. The other hunters turned to leave with an understanding that they were to stand guard at their camps, and return in the morning.

“Starwell, we’ll plan to-morrow after we bury Hudnall,” said the scout.

“One only plan,” replied the other, a lean, dark, forceful looking Westerner whom Tom felt he would not care to cross. “We buff-hunters must band together an’ trail them Comanches.”

“Reckon you’re right, Star,” returned Pilchuck, grimly. “But there’s no rush. Them redskins have done more’n kill Hudnall, I’ll bet you. They’ve been raidin’. An’ they’ll strike for the Staked Plain. That means we’ve got to organize. If there’s a hell of a place in the world it’s shore the Staked Plain.”

Supper without the cheerful presence of Hudnall would have been a loss, but the fact that he lay dead, murdered, surely mutilated, out there on the prairie, was monstrous to Tom. He could not eat. He wandered about camp, slowly realizing something beyond the horror of the calamity, a gradual growth from shock to stern purpose. No need to ask Pilchuck what was in his mind! The plainsman loomed now in Tom’s sight big and strong, implacable and infallible.

Tom stood guard with Stronghurl during the earlier watches of the night; and the long-drawn mournful howl of the prairie wolf had in it a new significance. This wild West was beginning to show its teeth.

CHAPTER XI

MORNING CAME, AND Pilchuck had the men stirring early. When Tom walked out to the camp fire dawn was brightening, and there was a low roll of thunder from the eastward.

“We’re in for a thunderstorm,” he said to the scout, who was cooking breakfast.

“Storm, mebbe, but not thunder-an’-lightnin’ storm,” replied Pilchuck. “That sound you hear is new to you. It’s a stampede of buffalo.”

“Is that so? . . . Say, how like thunder!”

“Yep, we plainsmen call it the thunderin’ herd. But this isn’t the main herd on the rampage. Somethin’, most likely Indians, has scared the buffalo across the river. They’ve been runnin’ south for an hour. More buffalo over there than I had an idee of.”

“Yes, I saw miles of scattered herds as I rode up the river,” said Tom.

“I smell smoke, too, an’ fact is, Doan, I don’t like things a damn bit. If the main herd stampedes — holy Moses! I want to be on top of the Staked Plain. Reckon, though, that’s just where we’ll be.”

“You’re going after the Comanches?” inquired Tom, seriously.

“Wal, I reckon. It’s got to be done if we’re to hunt buffalo in peace.”

Burn Hudnall presented himself at the camp fire, his face haggard with grief; but he was now composed. He sat at breakfast as usual, and later did his share of the tasks. Not long afterward Starwell and his men rode into camp, heavily armed and formidable in appearance.

“Jude, what you make of that stampede across the river?” he asked, after greetings were exchanged.

“Wal, I ain’t makin’ much, but I don’t like it.”

“We heerd shootin’ yesterday at daylight down along the river from our camp,” returned Starwell. “Small-bore guns, an’ I don’t calkilate hunters was shootin’ rabbits for breakfast.”

“Ahuh! Wal, after we come back from buryin’ Hudnall we’ll take stock of what’s goin’ on,” said Pilchuck. “By that time camp will be full of hunters, I reckon.”

“Hardy rode twenty miles an’ more down the river, gettin’ back late last night. He said there’d be every outfit represented here this mornin’.”

“Good. We kept the horses picketed last night, an’ we’ll be saddled in a jiffy.”

Burn Hudnall led that band of mounted men up on the prairie and southwest toward the scene of yesterday’s tragedy. The morning was hot; whirlwinds of dust were rising, like columns of yellow smoke; the prairie looked lonesome and vast; far out toward the Staked Plain showed a dim ragged line of buffalo. Across the river the prairie was obscured in low covering of dust, like rising clouds. The thunder of hoofs had died away.

Tom Doan, riding with these silent, somber men, felt a strong beat of his pulse that was at variance with the oppression of his mind. He was to be in the thick of wild events.

In perhaps half an hour the trotting horses drew within sight of black dots on the prairie, and toward these Burn Hudnall headed. They were dead and unskinned buffalo. Presently Burn halted alongside the first carcass, that of a bull, half skinned.

“Here’s where I was, when the Indians came in sight over that ridge,” said Burn, huskily. “Father must be lyin’ over there.”

He pointed toward where a number of black woolly dead buffalo lay scattered over the green plain, and rode toward them. Presently Pilchuck took the lead. His keen eye no doubt had espied the corpse of Hudnall, for as he passed Burn he said, “Reckon it’d be more sense for you not to look at him.”

Burn did not reply, but rode on as before. Pilchuck drew ahead and Starwell joined him. The riders scattered somewhat, some trotting forward, and others walking their horses. Then the leaders dismounted.

“Somebody hold Burn back,” shouted Pilchuck, his bronze face flashing in the sunlight.

But though several of the riders, and lastly Tom, endeavored to restrain Burn, he was not to be stopped. Not the last was he to view his father’s remains.

“Reckon it’s Comanche work,” declared Pilchuck, in a voice that cut.

Hudnall’s giant body lay, half nude, in grotesque and terrible suggestiveness. He had been shot many times, as was attested to by bullet holes in his torn and limp limbs. His scalp had been literally torn off, his face gashed, and his abdomen ripped open. From the last wound projected buffalo grass which had been rammed into it.

All the hunters gazed in silence down upon the ghastly spectacle. Then from Burn Hudnall burst an awful cry.

“Take him away, somebody,” ordered Pilchuck. Then after several of the hunters had led the stricken son aside the scout added: “Tough on a tenderfoot! But he would look. Reckon it’d be good for all newcomers to see such a sight. . . . Now, men, I’ll keep watch for Comanches while you bury poor Hudnall. Rustle, for it wouldn’t surprise me to see a bunch of the devils come ridin’ over that ridge.”

With pick and shovel a deep grave was soon dug, and Hudnall’s body, wrapped in a blanket, was lowered into it. Then the earth was filled in and stamped down hard. Thus the body of the careless, cheerful, kindly Hudnall was consigned to an unmarked grave on the windy prairie.

Pilchuck found the tracks of the wagon, and the trail of the Comanches heading straight for the Staked Plain.

“Wal, Star, that’s as we reckoned,” declared the scout.

“Shore is,” replied Starwell. “They stole wagon, hosses, gun, hides — everythin’ Hudnall had out here.”

“Reckon we’ll hear more about this bunch before the day’s over. Must have been fifty Indians an’ they have a habit of ridin’ fast and raidin’ more’n one place at a time.”

“Jude, my idee is they’d not have taken the wagon if they meant to make another raid,” said Starwell.

“Reckon you’re right. Wal, we’ll rustle back to camp.”

More than thirty hunters, representatives of the outfits within reaching distance of Hudnall’s, were assembled at camp when the riders returned from their sad mission. All appeared eager to learn the news, and many of them had tidings to impart.

An old white-haired hunter declared vigorously: “By Gord! we air goin’ to give the buffalo a rest an’ the Injuns a chase!”

That indeed seemed the prevailing sentiment.

“Men, before we talk of organizin’ let’s get a line on what’s been goin’ on,” said Pilchuck.

Whereupon the hunters grouped themselves in the shade of the cottonwoods, like Indians in Council. The scout told briefly the circumstances surrounding the murder of Hudnall, and said he would leave his deductions for later. Then he questioned the visiting hunters in turn.

Rathbone’s camp, thirty miles west, on a creek running down out of the Staked Plain, had been burned by Comanches, wagons and horses stolen, and the men driven off, just escaping with their lives. That had happened day before yesterday.

The camp of two hunters, names not known, had been set upon by Indians, presumably the same band, on the main branch of the Pease. The hunters were out after buffalo. They found wagons, hides, tents, camp destroyed; only ammunition and harness being stolen. These hunters had made their way to the main camps.

An informant from down the river told that some riders, presumably Indians, had fired the prairie grass in different widely separated places, stampeding several herds of buffalo.

Most of the representatives from the camps up the river had nothing particularly important to impart, except noticeable discontent in the main herd of buffalo, and Starwell’s repetition of the facts relating to the shots he and his camp-mates had heard yesterday morning.

Whereupon a lanky man, unknown to Pilchuck’s group, spoke up:

“I can tell aboot thet. My name’s Roberts. I belong to Sol White’s outfit across the river. We’re from Waco, an’ one of the few outfits from the South. This mawnin’ there was a stampede on our side, an’ I was sent across to scout around. I crossed the river aboot two miles above heah. Shore didn’t know the river an’ picked out a bad place. An’ I run plumb on to a camp thet was so hid I didn’t see it. But I smelled smoke an’ soon found where tents, wagons, an’ hides had been burnin’. There was two daid men, scalped, lyin’ stripped, with sticks poked into their stomachs — so I hurried up this way to find somebody.”

“Men, I want a look at that camp,” declared Pilchuck, rising. “Some of you stay here an’ some come along. Star, I’d like you with me. Roberts, you lead an’ we’ll follow.”

Tom elected to remain in camp with those who stayed behind; he felt that he had seen enough diabolical work of the Comanches. Burn Hudnall likewise shunned going. Ory Tacks, however, took advantage of the opportunity, and rode off with Pilchuck. Tom tried to find tasks to keep his mind off the tragic end of Hudnall and the impending pursuit of the Indians.

Pilchuck and his attendants were gone so long that the visiting hunters left for their own camps, saying they would ride over next day. Worry and uncertainty were fastening upon those men who were not seasoned Westerners. They had their own camps and buffalo hides to consider. But so far as Tom could ascertain there was not a dissenting voice against the necessity for banding together to protect themselves from Indians.

About mid-afternoon the scout and newcomer from across the river returned alone. Pilchuck was wet and muddy from contact with the river bank; and his mood, if it had undergone any change, was colder and grimmer.

“Doan, reckon I’m a blunt man, so get your nerve,” he said, with his slits of piercing eyes on Tom.

“What — do you mean?” queried Tom, feeling a sudden sinking sensation of dread. Bewildered, uncertain, he could not fix his mind on any effort.

“This camp Roberts took me to was Jett’s. But I think Jett got away with your girl,” announced Pilchuck.

The ground seemed to fail of solidity under Tom; his legs lost their strength, and he sat down on a log.

“Don’t look like that,” ordered Pilchuck, sharply. “I told you the girl got away. Starwell thought the Indians made off with her. But I reckon he’s wrong there.”

“Jett! Milly?” was all Tom could gasp out.

“Pull yourself together. It’s a man’s game we’re up against. You’re no tenderfoot any more,” added Pilchuck, with a tone of sympathy. “Look here. You said somethin’ about your girl tyin’ her red scarf up to give you a hunch where she was. Do you recognize this?”

He produced a red scarf, soiled and blackened.

With hands Tom could not hold steady to save his life he took it.

“Milly’s,” he said, very low.

“Reckoned so myself. Wal, we didn’t need this proof to savvy Jett’s camp. I’d seen his outfit. These dead men Roberts happened on belonged to Jett’s outfit. I recognized the little sandy-haired teamster. An’ the other was Follonsbee. Got his name from Sprague.”

Then Tom found voice poignantly to beg Pilchuck to tell him everything.

“Shore it’s a mess,” replied the scout, as he sat down and wiped his sweaty face. “Look at them boots. I damn near drowned myself. Wal, Jett had his camp in a place no Indians or buffalo-hunters would ever have happened on, unless they did same as Roberts. Crossed the river there. Accident! . . . Doan, this fellow Jett is a hide thief an’ he had bad men in his outfit. His camp was destroyed by Comanches all right, the same bunch that killed Hudnall. But I figure Jett escaped in a light wagon, before the Indians arrived. Follonsbee an’ the other man were killed before the Indians got there. They were shot with a needle gun. An’ I’m willin’ to bet no Comanches have needle guns. All the same they was scalped an’ mutilated, with sticks in their bellies. Starwell agreed with me that these men were killed the day or night before the Indians raided the camp.”

“Had Jett — gotten away — then?” breathlessly asked Tom.

“Shore he had. I seen the light wheel tracks an’ Milly’s little footprints in the sand, just where she’d stepped up on the wagon. I followed the wheel tracks far enough to see they went northeast, away from the river, an’ also aimin’ to pass east of these buffalo camps. Jett had a heavy load, as the wheel tracks cut deep. He also had saddle horses tied behind the wagon.”

“Where’d you find Milly’s scarf?” asked Tom, suddenly.

“It was tied to the back hoop of a wagon cover. Some of the canvas had been burned. There was other things, too, a towel an’ apron, just as if they’d been hung up after usin’.”

“Oh, it is Milly’s!” exclaimed Tom, and he seemed to freeze with the dreadful significance it portended.

“So much for that. Shore the rest ain’t easy to figure,” went on Pilchuck. “I hate to tell you this part, Doan, because — wal, it is worryin’ . . . I found trail where a bleedin’ body, mebbe more’n one, had been dragged down the bank an’ slid off into the river. That’s how I come to get in such a mess. The water was deep there an’ had a current, too. If we had hooks an’ a boat we could drag the river, but as we haven’t we can only wait. After some days corpses float up. I incline to the idee that whoever killed Follonsbee an’ the other man is accountable for the bloody trail leadin’ to the river. But I can’t be shore. Starwell thinks different from me on some points. Reckon his opinion is worth considerin’. In my own mind I’m shore of two things — there was a fight, mebbe murder, an’ somebody rode away with the girl. Then the Comanches came along, destroyed the camp, an’ scalped the men.”

“An’ say, scout,” spoke up Roberts, “you’re, shore forgettin’ one important fact. The Indians left there trailin’ the wagon tracks.”

“Ahuh, I forgot that,” replied the scout, averting his gaze from Tom’s. “Jett had a good start. Now if he kept travelin’ all night—”

“But it looks as if he had no knowledge of the Indians comin’,” interrupted Tom, intensely.

“Shore. All the same, Jett was gettin’ away from somethin’. He’d rustle far before campin’,” continued the scout, doggedly bent on hoping for the best.

This was not lost on Tom nor the gloomy cast of Pilchuck’s lean face. Tom could not feel anything save black despair. Either Jett had the girl or the Indians had her — and the horror seemed that one was as terrible as the other.

Tom sought his tent, there to plunge down and surrender to panic and misery.

Next morning the hunters round their early camp fires were interested to hear a low thunder of running buffalo. It floated across the river from the south and steadily grew louder.

“That darned herd comin’ back,” said Pilchuck, uneasily. “I don’t like it. Shore they’re liable to cross the river an’ stampede the main herd.”

An hour later a hunter from below rode in to say that buffalo by the thousands were fording the river five miles below.

Pilchuck threw up his hands.

“I reckoned so. Wal, we’ve got to make the best of it. What with raidin’ Comanches an’ stampedin’ buffalo we’re done for this summer — as far as any big haul of hides is concerned.”

Men new to the hunting fields did not see the signs of the times as Pilchuck and the other scouts read them; and they were about equally divided for and against an active campaign against the Indians.

A good many hunters along the Pease continued their hide-hunting, indifferent to the appeal and warning of those who knew what had to be done.

The difficulty lay in getting word to the outfits scattered all over northern Texas. For when the buffalo-hunters organized to make war upon the marauders, that meant a general uprising and banding together of Comanches, Kiowas, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes. Also there were Apaches on the Staked Plain, and they, too, according to reports, were in uneasy mood. Therefore buffalo-hunters not affiliated with the war movement, or camping in isolated places unknown to the organizers, stood in great peril of their lives.

Investigation brought out the fact that a great number of hunters from eastern Texas were on the range, not in any way connected with the experienced and time-hardened band camped on the trail of the main herd. Effort was made to get word to these eastern hunters that a general conference was to be held at Double Fork on a given date.

Over three hundred hunters attended this conference, including all the scouts, plainsmen, and well-known frontier characters known to be in the buffalo country. Buffalo Jones, already famous as a plainsman, and later known as the preserver of the buffalo, was there, as strong in his opinion that the Indian should be whipped as he was in his conviction that the slaughter of buffalo was a national blunder.

It was Jones’s contention that the value and number of American buffalo were unknown to the world — that the millions that had ranged the Great Plains from Manitoba to the Rio Grande were so common as to be no more appreciated than prairie-dogs. Their utilitarian value was not understood, and now it was too late.

The Indians knew the value of the buffalo, and if they did not drive the white hunter from the range, the beasts were doomed.

“Only the buffalo-hunters can open up the Southwest to the farmer and cattleman,” averred Jones. “The U. S. army can’t do it. . . . But what a pity the buffalo must go! Nature never constructed a more perfect animal.”

The buffalo, according to Jones, was an evolution of the Great Plains, and singularly fitted to survive and flourish on its vast and varied environment. He estimated the number as ten million. The blizzard of Montana or the torrid sirocco of the Staked Plain was no hindrance to the travel of the buffalo. His great, shaggy, matted head had been constructed to face the icy blasts of winter, the sandstorms and hot gales of the summer. A buffalo always faced danger, whatever it might be.

Different men addressed the council, and none were more impressive than Pilchuck.

“Men, I’ve lived my life on the plains. I’ve fought Indians all down the line from Montana. I’ve seen for a long time that we buffalo-hunters have got to fight these Southern tribes or quit huntin’. If we don’t kill off the buffalo there’ll never be any settlin’ of northern Texas. We’ve got to kill the Comanches, an’ lick the Kiowas, Cheyennes, an’ Arapahoes. I reckon we’ll have to deal with Apaches, too. . . . Now the Indians are scattered all over, same as the buffalo-hunters. We can’t organize one expedition. There ought to be several big outfits of men, well equipped, strikin’ at these Indians already on the warpath. . . . We hunters along the Pease River divide will answer for that section. There’s a bunch of Comanches been raidin’, an’ are now hidin’ up in the Staked Plain. Outfits ought to take care of the Brazos River district an’ also the Red River. . . . Now there’s one more point I want to drive home. Camps an’ outfits should be moved close together in these several districts that expect to send out fightin’ men. An’ an equal or even strong force should be left behind to protect these camp posts. Last, I shore hope the tenderfoot hunters will have sense enough to collect at these posts, even if they won’t fight the Indians. For there’s goin’ to be hell. This will be a fight for the buffalo — the Indians fightin’ to save the buffalo an’ the white men fightin’ to kill the buffalo. It’ll be a buffalo war, an’ I reckon right hereabouts, halfway between the Brazos an’ Fort Elliott, will see the hottest of it. I just want every man of you who may be on the fence about fightin’, an’ mebbe doubtin’ my words, to go out an’ look at the acres an’ acres of buffalo hides, an’ then ask himself if the Indians are goin’ to stand that.”

The old scout turned the tide in favor of general arming against the tribes on all points of the range. Then Pilchuck, with his contingent from the Pease River, left for their own camps, four days’ travel, determined to take the field at once against the Comanches.

They visited every camp on the way south and solicited volunteers, arriving at Pease River with twenty-seven men ready to follow Pilchuck to the end. One of these was a friendly Osage Indian scout called Bear Claws by the men; another a Mexican who had been a scout in the United States army service and was reported to know every trail and water hole in the wild Staked Plain.

But Pilchuck, elated by his success in stirring up the hunters to the north, was fated to meet with a check down on the Pease River. Seventy-five of the hundred hunters who had agreed to take part in the campaign backed out, to Pilchuck’s disgust. Many of these had gone back to hunting buffalo, blind to their danger or their utter selfishness. Naturally this not only held up Pilchuck’s plan to start soon on the campaign, but also engendered bad blood.

The site of Hudnall’s camp was now the rendezvous of from twenty to thirty outfits, most of which had failed the scout. At a last conference of hunters there Pilchuck, failing to persuade half of these men to fall in line, finally delivered a stinging rebuke.

“Wal, all I got to say is you’re hangin’ behind to make money while some of us have got to go out an’ fight to protect you.”

One of these reluctants was a young man named Cosgrove, a hard-drinking loud-mouthed fellow with whom Tom Doan had clashed before, on the same issue.

Tom had been a faithful and tireless follower of Pilchuck, as much from loyalty to the cause as from desire for revenge on the Comanches, whom he was now convinced had either killed or carried off Milly Fayre. No authentic clew of Jett’s escape or death had been found, but vague rumors of this and that, and more destroyed camps toward the north, especially a one-night-stand camp with a single wagon and but few horses, had at last stricken Tom’s last remnant of hope.

Accordingly, Tom’s state of mind was not conducive to tolerance, especially of such greed and selfishness as was manifested by some of the hunters.

Cosgrove was louder than usual in voicing his opinions.

“Aw, to hell with the Indians,” he said. “I’m a-goin’ to keep on huntin’ buffalo. It’s nothin’ to me who goes off on wild-goose chases.”

“Cosgrove, you won’t be missed, that’s sure,” retorted Tom.

“What d’ye mean?” demanded the other, his red, bloated face taking on an ugly look. He swaggered over to Tom. There was a crowd present, some thoughtful, many indifferent.

“I mean we don’t want such fellows as you,” replied Tom.

“An’ why not? Didn’t Pilchuck just ask me?”

“Sure. He’s asked a couple of hundred men, and lots of them are like you — afraid to go!”

“What!” shouted Cosgrove, hotly.

“We’ll be better off without cowards like you,” returned Tom, deliberately standing up, strung for any move.

“You’re a liar!” flashed Cosgrove, advancing threateningly.

Tom knocked him down. Then, as Cosgrove, cursing with rage, scrambled to his knees and drew his gun, the crowd scattered away on each side. All save Pilchuck, who knocked the half-leveled gun out of Cosgrove’s hand and kicked it far aside.

“Hyar!” yelled the scout, sternly. “You might get hurt, throwin’ a gun that way. I’m advisin’ you to cool down.”

“He needn’t, far as I’m concerned,” spoke up Tom, ringingly. “Let him have his gun.”

Pilchuck wheeled to see Tom standing stiff, gun in hand.

“You young rooster!” ejaculated Pilchuck, in surprise and disapproval. “Put that gun up an’ rustle back to camp.”

Thus had Tom Doan at last answered to the wildness of the buffalo range.

Worse, however, grew out of that incident, though it did not affect Tom Doan in any way.

One of Pilchuck’s lieutenants was a Texan known on the range as Spades Harkaway, a man to be feared in a quarrel. He had been present when Tom had knocked down young Cosgrove, and later he had taken exception to the talk of a man named Hurd, who was in the same outfit with Cosgrove.

Rumor of a fight reached Hudnall’s camp that night, but not until next day were the facts known. Hurd had denounced Pilchuck’s campaign, which had brought sharp reply from Harkaway. Bystanders came between the men at the moment, but later the two met again in Starwell’s camp. Hurd had been imbibing red liquor and Harkaway had no intention of avoiding trouble. Again the question of Pilchuck’s Indian campaign was raised by Hurd and coarsely derided. To this Harkaway had answered, first with a flaming arraignment of those hunters who meant to let Pilchuck’s company stand the brunt of the fighting, and secondly with short, cutting contempt for Hurd. Then the latter, as the story came, had shot at Harkaway from behind other men. There followed a bad mess, in which the Texan killed Hurd and crippled one of his friends.

These fights traveling along the shortened lines of camp, brought the question to a heated pitch and split the hunters in that district. The majority, however, turned out to be on the side of the Hurd and Cosgrove type. Pilchuck had over fifty men to take on his campaign, and about the same number to remain behind to protect camps and hides. These men were to continue to hunt buffalo, but only on limited parts of the range near the camps, and always under the eyes of scouts patrolling the prairie, with keen eyes on the lookout to prevent surprise. Over twenty outfits, numbering nearly seventy-five men, who had not the nerve to fight Indians or to remain on the range, left that district for Fort Elliott and Sprague’s Post, to remain until the Indian trouble was ended.

CHAPTER XII

PILCHUCK’S BAND CONTAINED fifty-two men, most of whom owned, or had borrowed Creedmoor Sharps 45-caliber rifles for this expedition. These guns were more reliable and of longer range than the big fifties. Each man took at least two hundred loaded cartridges. Besides that, reloading tools and extra ammunition were included in the supplies. Four wagon loads of food and camp equipment, grain for horses, and medical necessities, were taken in charge of the best drivers.

This force was divided into three companies — one of twenty men under Pilchuck, and two, of sixteen men each, under old buffalo-hunters. This was to facilitate camping operations and to be in readiness to split into three fighting groups.

Tom Doan was in Pilchuck’s company, along with Stronghurl, Burn Hudnall, Ory Tacks, Starwell, Spades Harkaway, the Indian called Bear Claws, Roberts, and others whom Tom knew. There were at least eight or ten hunters, long used to the range, and grim, laconic men who would have made any fighting force formidable.

Pilchuck, Bear Claws, Starwell, and Tom formed an advance guard, riding two miles ahead of the cavalcade. Both the scout and Starwell had powerful field-glasses. The rear guard consisted of three picked men under Harkaway. The route lay straight for the Staked Plain and was covered at the rate of fifteen miles a day. At night a strong guard was maintained.

On the fourth day the expedition reached the eastern wall of the Staked Plain, a stark, ragged, looming escarpment, notched at long distances by canyons, and extending north and south out of sight. This bold upheaval of rock and earth now gave at close hand an inkling of the wild and inhospitable nature of the Staked Plain.

The tracks of Hudnall’s wagon led into a deep-mouthed canyon down whose rugged bottom poured a clear stream of water. Grass was abundant. Groves of cottonwood trees filled the level benches. Game of all kinds abounded in these fastnesses and fled before the approach of the hunters. Before noon of that day a small herd of buffalo, surprised in an open grassy park, stampeded up the canyon, completely obliterating the wagon tracks Pilchuck was following, and all other signs of the Comanches.

This flight of the buffalo, on the other hand, helped to make a way where it was possible to get the four wagons of supplies up on the Staked Plain. Many horses and strong hands made short work of this labor.

Tom Doan gazed in fascination at the wild, strange expanse before him, the Staked Plain, which though notorious of reputation, was so little known. He had expected to find it a gray level plain of sand. Sand there was, assuredly, but many other things at the same time, as appeared manifest in the sand dunes and bluffs and the ragged irregular brakes, and patches of grass, and wide areas of brush. In Tom’s opinion, hunting Indians up there was indeed the wild-goose chase which the expedition had been stigmatized by many of the hunters who had remained behind.

Nevertheless, the Mexican scout led straight to the spot where there had recently been a large encampment of Comanches. They had been gone for days, no doubt having gotten wind of the campaign against them. The tracks of Hudnall’s wagon were found again.

As it was now late in the day, camp was pitched here, with the three forces of hunters close together. By dark, supper was finished, the horses were picketed and herded, guards were on duty, and Pilchuck was in council with his two scouts and the more experienced of his men. It was decided to hold that camp for the next day, and send out detachments with the scouts to try and locate the Comanches.

Round the camp fire that night Tom made the further acquaintance of Spades Harkaway, and found him an unique character, reticent as to himself, but not unwilling to talk about Texas, the buffalo, and the Indians. He had twice crossed the Staked Plain from its western boundary, the Pecos River, to the headwaters of the Brazos on the east.

“Thet name Llano Estacado means Staked Plain,” said the Texan. “It comes from the early days when the Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to San Antone was marked by ‘palos,’ or stakes. There was only two trails across in them days an’ I reckon no more now. Only the Indians know this plain well an’ they only run in heah to hide awhile. Water an’ grass are plentiful in some parts, an’ then there’s stretches of seventy miles dry an’ bare as a bone. Reckon aboot some of the wildest an’ roughest holes in Texas are up heah, as shore you-all will find oot.”

Harkaway claimed the Llano Estacado was shaped like a ham, with a north-to-south trend, about four hundred miles long, and more than half as much wide. It was a tableland, resembling more the Russian steppes than the other upland districts known in the West. Its height above the prairie was perhaps a thousand feet. Some of its most pronounced characteristics, that had helped to make its ill fame, were enumerated and described by the Texan as tremendous obstacles to overcome on an expedition like Pilchuck’s.

“Thar’s bare patches too big to see across,” he specified, “an’ others growed over with mesquite so thick thet ridin’ it is impossible. Thar’s narrow deep canyons thet can only be crossed in places miles apart. Then I’ve seen, myself, canyons thet opened out wide an’ full of jumbles of broken cliff, where no man could go.”

Higher up on the Staked Plain there were levels of a hundred miles in length, like a gravel floor, treeless, grassless, waterless, where the wind swept all before it. There were zones where ponds of water lay at times, a few of them permanent, sulphurous, or salty, and at dry seasons unfit to drink for man or beast. Near the southern end of this strange steppe was a belt of glistening white sand dunes, many miles wide, impassable for a horse, and extremely perilous for a man. Not, however, from lack of water! For here the singular nature of the Staked Plain was more than unusually marked. Permanent ponds lined by reeds and rushes existed in the very region of sand dunes. Along the whole eastern escarpment of the Staked Plain, for three hundred miles, the bold rock rim was cut and furrowed by the streams that had their sources in this mysterious upland.

Late next day the Mexican scout returned with the information that he had found the main encampment of the Comanches. He had been on a reconnoiter alone. Bear Claws and Pilchuck, who had essayed to follow the tracks of Hudnall’s wagon, had actually lost all sign of them. For miles they had trailed the marks of the iron-shod wheels over an area of hard-packed gravel, only to lose them further on in tough, short, springy grass that after the recent rain left no trace.

“The Indian says he can find the wagon tracks by making a wide circle to get off the grass,” Pilchuck informed Starwell, “but that might take days. Besides, the Indians sent the wagon off their main trail. Reckon they expected pursuit. Anyway, we’ll not risk it.”

When Pilchuck made this decision he did not yet know that the Mexican had located the Comanches. Upon consulting with him the information came out that a large band of Indians had been encamped in a canyon, and undoubtedly their lookouts had seen him.

This was verified next day, after a hard ride. An Indian band, large enough to have hundreds of horses, had hastily abandoned the encampment in the canyon and had climbed up on the plain, there to scatter in all directions. Plain trails were left in several cases, but these Bear Claws would not pay any attention to. The Mexican sided with him. They concentrated on dimmer trails over harder ground to follow.

It was after dark when Pilchuck and his men got back to camp, hungry and weary from a long day in the saddle. Next morning camp was moved ten miles to the west, to a secluded spot within easy striking distance of the place where Bear Claws had left off trailing the night before.

That day the Osage Indian lost track of the Comanches for the reason that the trail, always dim, finally vanished altogether. Three days more of searching the fastnesses within riding distance of this camp availed nothing. Camp had to be moved again, this time, at the Indian’s suggestion, across the baffling stretch of plain to a wild and forbidding chaos of ruined cliffs, from which center many shallow canyons wandered for some leagues.

“Reckon we’ve got to rely on our field-glasses to see them before they see us,” said Pilchuck.

When the sun rose high enough next morning to burn out the shadows Pilchuck stood with his scouts and some of his men on the crest of the rocky wilderness.

“Shore that’s a hole!” he ejaculated.

Far and wide heaved the broken billows of gray rock, like an immense ragged sea, barren, monotonous, from which the heat veils rose in curtains. Here and there a tufted cedar raised its dwarfed head, but for the most part there was no green to break the stark nudity. Naked eyes of white men could only see the appalling beauty of the place and enable the mind to grasp the deceiving nature of its distance, size and color. Pilchuck took a long survey with his field-glass.

“Reckon all them meanderin’ gorges head in one big canyon way down there,” he said, handing the glass to Starwell.

“I agree with you, an’ I’m gamblin’ the Comanches are there,” replied Starwell, in turn handing the glass to the man nearest him.

Tom had a good look at that magnified jumble of rocks and clefts, and the wonder of its wildness awed and thrilled him.

Standing next to Tom was Bear Claws, the Osage Indian, and so motionless, so striking was he as he gazed with dark, piercing eyes across the void, that Tom marveled at him and felt the imminence of some startling fact. Pilchuck observed this, also, for as he stood behind the Indian he watched him steadily.

Bear Claws was over six feet tall, lithe, lean, erect, with something of the look of an eagle about him. His bronze, impassive face bore traces of vermilion paint. Around his neck was the bear-claw necklace from which the hunters had nicknamed him. In the back of his scalp-lock, a twisted knot of hair, he had stuck the tail feathers of a prairie bird. Bright bracelets of steel shone on his wrists. He was naked to his beaded and quilled breech-clout.

“Me,” he grunted, reaching for Pilchuck’s field-glass, without taking his fixed gaze from what held him. With both hands then he put the glass to his eyes.

“Ugh!” he exclaimed, instantly.

It was a moment of excitement and suspense for the watching men. Pilchuck restrained Starwell’s impatience. Tom felt a cold ripple run over his body, and then as the Indian said, “Comanches!” that ripple seemed suddenly to be strung with fire. He thought of Milly Fayre.

Bear Claws held the glass immovable, with stiff hand, while he stepped from behind it, and drew Pilchuck to the exact spot where he had stood. His long-reaching arm seemed grotesque while his body moved guardedly. He was endeavoring to keep the glass leveled at the exact spot that had held him.

Pilchuck fastened hard down on the glass, that wavered slightly and then gradually became still. To the watching men he evidently was an eternity. But at last he spoke: “By thunder! he’s right. I can just make out . . . Indians on trail — goin’ down — head of that canyon all these rock draws run into. . . . Starwell, take a look. . . . Hold there, over that first splinter of cliff, in a line with the high red bluff — an’ search at its base.”

Other glasses were now in use and more than one of the hunters caught a glimpse of the Comanches before they disappeared.

A council was held right there. The distance was approximately ten miles, yet incredibly the Osage Indian had seen something to make him take the field-glass and verify his wonderful keenness of vision. The Mexican scout knew the topography of the rough rock waste and guaranteed to place Pilchuck’s force within striking distance of the Comanches by dawn next day.

Thereupon the hunters retraced their steps from that high point and returned to camp. Pilchuck took the scouts to search for a well-hidden pocket or head of a box canyon where wagons and horses not needed could be concealed to advantage and protected by a small number of men. This was found, very fortunately, in the direction of the Indian encampment, and several miles closer. The move was made expeditiously before dark.

“Reckon this is pretty good,” said Pilchuck, with satisfaction. “We’re far enough away to be missed by any scout they send out to circle their camp. That’s an old Indian trick — to ride a circle round a hidin’ place, thus crossin’ any trail of men sneakin’ close. It hardly seems possible we can surprise a bunch of Staked Plain Comanches, but the chance shore looks good.”

In the darkest hour before dawn forty grim men rode out of camp behind the Mexican and Pilchuck.

Tom Doan rode next to Bear Claws, the fifth of that cavalcade, and following him came Spades Harkaway. No one spoke. The hoofs of the horses gave forth only dull, sodden sounds, inaudible at little distance. There was an opaque misshapen moon, orange in color, hanging low over the uneven plain. The morning star, white, luminous, like a marvelous beacon, stood high above the blanching velvet of the eastern sky.

They traveled at walk or trot, according to the nature of the ground, until the moon went down and all the stars had paled, except the great one in the east. This, too, soon grew wan. The gray of dawn was at hand. Dismounting in the lee of a low ledge, where brush grew thick and the horses could be tied, Pilchuck left two men on guard and led the others on foot behind the noiseless Mexican.

In less than a quarter of a mile the Mexican whispered something and slipped to his hands’ and knees. Pilchuck and his followers, two and three abreast, kept close to his heels. The fact that the Mexican crept on very slowly and made absolutely no sound had the effect of constraining those behind him to proceed as stealthily. This wrought upon the nerves of the men.

Tom Doan had never experienced such suspense. Just ahead of him lay the unknown ground never seen by him or any of his white comrades, and it held, no one knew how close, a peril soon to be encountered.

The dawn was growing lighter and rows of rocks ahead could be distinguished. The ground began to slope. Beyond what seemed a gray space, probably a canyon, rose a dim vague bulk, uneven and woolly. Soon it showed to be canyon slope with brush on the rim.

Tom, finding that he often rustled the weeds or scraped on the hard ground, devoted himself to using his eyes as well as muscles to help him crawl silently. Thus it was that he did not look up until Pilchuck’s low “Hist!” halted everybody.

Then Tom saw with starting eyes a deep bend in a wonderful gully where on a green level of some acres in extent were a large number of Indian tepees. A stream wound through the middle of this oval and its low rush and gurgle were the only sounds to accentuate the quiet of the morning. Hundreds of Indian ponies were grazing, standing, or lying down all over this meadow-like level. Not an Indian appeared in sight. But as the light was still gray and dim there could not be any certainty as to that.

Pilchuck raised himself to peer over a rock, and he studied the lay of the encampment, the narrow gateways of canyon above and below, and the approaches from the slope on his side. Then he slipped back to face the line of crouching men.

“By holdin’ high we’re in range right here,” he whispered, tensely. “Starwell, take ten men an’ crawl back a little, then round an’ down to a point even with where this canyon narrows below. Harkaway, you take ten men an’ go above, an’ slip down same way. Go slow. Don’t make noise. Don’t stand up. We can then see each other’s positions an’ command all but the far side of this canyon. That’s a big camp — there’s two hundred Indians, more if they have their families. An’ I reckon they have. Now Indians always fight harder under such conditions. We’re in for a hell of a fight. But don’t intentionally shoot squaws an’ kids. That’s all.”

With only the slightest rustle and scrape, and deep intake of breath, the two detachments under Starwell and Harkaway crept back among the stones out of sight. Then absolute silence once more reigned.

Pilchuck’s men lay flat, some of them, more favorably located than others, peering from behind stones. No one spoke. They all waited. Meanwhile the gray dawn broadened to daylight.

“Ugh!” grunted Bear Claws, deep in his throat. His sinewy hand gripped Tom’s shoulder.

Tom raised his head a couple of inches and he espied a tall Indian standing before a tepee, facing the east, where faint streaks of pink and rose heralded the sunrise. Tom felt a violent start jerk over his whole body. It was a hot burst of blood. This very Comanche might have been one of the murderers of Hudnall or, just as much a possibility, one of the despoilers of Jett’s camp, from which Milly Fayre had disappeared. That terrible loss seemed to Tom far back in the past, lengthened, changed by suffering. It was nothing less than hate with which Tom watched that statuesque Indian.

Presently another Indian brave appeared, and another, then several squaws, and in a comparatively short time the camp became active. Columns of blue smoke arose lazily on the still air. The ponies began to move about.

What an endless period it seemed to Tom before Harkaway and Starwell got into their positions! Tom wondered if Pilchuck would wait much longer. His blood beat thick at his temples; his throat was dry; and a dimness of eye bothered him every few seconds.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Bear Claws, and this time he touched Pilchuck, directing him toward a certain point in the encampment.

At that juncture there pealed out a singularly penetrating yell, most startling in its suddenness and nerve-racking with its terrible long-drawn and sustained wildness.

“Comanche war-cry!” hissed Pilchuck. “Some buck has glimpsed our men below. Wait! We want the shootin’ to begin below an’ above. Then mebbe the Indians will run this way.”

Scarcely had the scout ceased his rapid whisper when a Sharps rifle awoke the sleeping echoes. It came from Starwell’s detachment below.

In an instant the Indian camp became a scene of wild rush and shrill cry, above which pealed sharp quick shouts — the voice of authority. A heavy volley from Starwell’s men was signal for Harkaway’s to open up. The puffs of white smoke over the stone betrayed the whereabouts of both detachments. A rattle of Winchesters from the camp told how speedily many of the Indians had gotten into action.

Despite Pilchuck’s orders, some of his men began to fire.

“All right, if you can’t wait. But shoot high,” he shouted.

Twenty Creedmoors thundered in unison from that rocky slope. It seemed to Tom then that hell had indeed broken loose. He had aimed and shot at a running brave. What strange fierceness he felt! His hands shook to spoil his aim and his face streamed with cold sweat. All the men were loading and firing, and he was in the midst of a cracking din. Yet above it all rose a weird piercing sound — the war-cry of the Comanches. Tom thought, as he shuddered under it, that he understood now why hunters had talked of this most hideous and infamous of all Indian yells.

In a few moments the first blending roar of guns and yells broke, and there intervened a less consistent din. Pandemonium reigned down in that encampment, yet there must have been many crafty Indians. Already the front line of tepees was in flames, sending up streaks of smoke, behind which the women and children were dimly seen running for the opposite slope. A number of frightened mustangs were racing with flying manes and tails, up and down the canyon, but the majority appeared to be under control of the Indians and coralled at the widest point. Soon many braves, women and children, dragging packs and horses, were seen through or round the smoke on the opposite slope.

The Comanche braves below then lived up to their reputation as the most daring and wonderful horsemen of the plains. To draw the fire of the hunters numbers of them, half naked demons, yelling, with rifles in hands, rode their mustangs bareback, with magnificent affront and tremendous speed, straight at the gateway of the canyon. They ran a gauntlet of leaden hail.

Tom saw braves pitch headlong to the earth. He saw mustangs plunge and throw their riders far. And he also saw Indians ride fleet as the storm-winds under the volleys from the slope, to escape down the canyon.

No sooner had one bunch of rider braves attempted this than another drove their mustangs pell-mell at the openings. They favored the lower gate, beneath Starwell’s detachment, being quick to catch some little advantage there. The foremost of four Indians, a lean wild brave, magnificently mounted, made such a wonderful target with his defiance and horsemanship that he drew practically all the fire. He rode to his death, but his three companions flashed through the gateway in safety.

“Hold men! Hold!” yelled Pilchuck, suddenly at this juncture. “Load up an’ wait. We’re in for a charge or a trick.”

Tom Doan drew a deep breath, as if he were stifling. His sweaty powder-begrimed hands fumbled at the hot breech of his Creedmoor. How many times had he fired? He did not know, nor could he tell whether or not he had shot an Indian.

Following with sharp gaze where the scout pointed, Tom saw through smoke and heat the little puffs of white, all along behind the burning front line of tepees. There were many braves lying flat, behind stones, trees, camp duffle, everything that would hide a man. Bullets whistled over Tom’s head and spanged from the rocks on each side of him.

“Watch that bunch of horses!” called Pilchuck, warningly. “There’s fifty if there’s one. Reckon we’ve bit off more’n we can chew.”

Dimly through the now thinning smoke Tom could see the bunch of riders designated by Pilchuck. They were planning some audacious break like that of the braves who had sacrificed themselves to help their families to escape. This would be different, manifestly, for all the women and children, and the young braves with them, had disappeared over the far slope. It was war now.

“Jude, they’re too smart to charge us,” said a grizzled old hunter. “I’ll swear thet bunch is aimin’ to make a break to git by an’ above us.”

“Wal, if they do we’ll be in a hell of a pickle,” replied the scout. “I’ll ask Bear Claws what he makes of it.”

The Osage readily replied, “No weyno,” which Tom interpreted as being anything but good for the hunters.

The Mexican urged Pilchuck to work back to higher ground, but the scout grimly shook his head.

Suddenly with remarkable swiftness the compact bunch of Indian horsemen disintegrated, and seemed to spill both to right and left.

“What the hell!” muttered Pilchuck.

One line of Comanche riders swerved below the camp, the other above, and they rode strung out in single file, going in opposite directions. Starwell and Harkaway reserved their fire, expecting some trick. When halfway to each gate the leader of each string wheeled at right angles to head straight for the slope.

“By God! they’re goin’ between us!” ejaculated Pilchuck. “Men, we’ve shore got to stick now an’ fight for our lives.”

At two hundred yards these incomparable riders were as hard to hit with bullets as birds on the wing. Starwell’s detachment began to shoot and Harkaway’s followed suit. Their guns were drowned in the dreadful war-cry of the Comanches. It seemed wilder, more piercing now, closer, a united sound, filling the ears, horrid yet not discordant, full of death, but for all that a magnificent blending of human voices. It was the cry of a wild tribe for life.

It lifted Tom’s hair stiff on his head. He watched with staring eyes. How those mustangs leaped! They crossed the open level below, the danger zone of leaden hail, without a break in their speeding line. When they reached the base of the slope they were perked to their haunches, and in a flash each one was riderless. The Comanches had taken to the rocks.

“Ahuh! I reckoned so,” growled Pilchuck. “Pretty slick, if I do say it. Men, we’ve got crawlin’ snakes to deal with now. You shore have to look sharp.”

This sudden maneuver had the same effect upon the Starwell and Harkaway detachments as it had on Pilchuck’s. It almost turned the tables on the white men. How grave it was perhaps only the experienced plainsmen realized. They all reserved their fire, manifestly directing attention to his new and hidden peril. The Comanches left in camp, a considerable number, redoubled their shots.

“Men, reckon it ain’t time yet to say every one for himself,” declared Pilchuck. “But we’ve shore got to crawl up to the level. Spread out, an’ crawl flat on your bellies, an’ keep rocks behind you.”

Thus began a retreat, fraught with great risk. Bullets from the Winchesters spanged off the rocks, puffing white powder dust into the air. And these bullets came from the rear. The Comanches on each side had vanished like lizards into the maze of bowlders. But every hunter realized these Indians were creeping, crawling, worming their way to places of advantage, keeping out of sight with the cunning natural to them.

Tom essayed to keep up with Bear Claws, but this was impossible by crawling. The Osage wriggled like a snake. Pilchuck, too, covered ground remarkably for a large man. Others crawled fast or slowly, according to their abilities. Thus the detachment, which had heretofore kept together, gradually disintegrated.

It had been a short two hundred yards from the top of this slope to the position the hunters had abandoned. Crawling back seemed interminable and insurmountable to Tom. Yet he saw how imperative it was to get there.

Some one was close behind Tom, crawling laboriously, panting heavily. It was Ory Tacks. As he was fat and round, the exertion was almost beyond his endurance and the risks were great. Tom had himself to think of, yet he wondered if he should not help Ory. Roberts crawled a little to Tom’s left. He too was slow. An old white-haired buffalo-hunter named Calkins had taken Pilchuck’s place on Tom’s right. The others were above, fast wriggling out of sight.

A bullet zipped off a stone close to Tom and sang into the air. It had come from another direction. Another bullet, striking in front of him, scattered dust and gravel in his face. Then bullets hissed low down, just over the rocks. The Comanches were not yet above the hunters. Calkins called low for those back of him to hurry, that the word had been passed back from Pilchuck.

Tom was crawling as flat as a flounder, dragging a heavy gun. He could not make faster time. He was burning with sweat, yet cold as ice, and the crack of Winchesters had the discordance of a nightmare.

“Doan,” called Roberts, sharply. “The fellow behind you’s been hit.”

Tom peered around. Ory Tacks lay with face down. His fat body was quivering.

“Ory! Ory! Are you hit?” flashed Tom.

“I should smile,” he groaned, lifting a pale face. His old slouch hat was still in place and a tuft of tow-colored hair stuck out through a hole. “Never mind — me.”

“Roberts, come help me,” called Tom, and began to back down toward Ory. Roberts did likewise, and they both reached the young man about the same time.

“Much obliged to see you,” said Ory, gratefully, as they took hold of his arms, one on each side.

Up to that moment Tom had been mostly stultified by emotion utterly new to him. It had been close to panic, for he had found himself hard put to it to keep from leaping up to run. But something in connection with Ory’s misfortune strung Tom suddenly and acutely to another mood. Grim realization and anger drove away his fear.

“Drag him; he cain’t help himself,” panted Roberts.

Then began what Tom felt to be the most heart-breaking labor imaginable. They had to crawl and drag the wounded Ory up hill. Tom locked his left arm under Ory’s, and dragging his rifle in his right hand he jerked and hunched himself along. Bullets now began to whistle and patter from the other side, signifying that the Comanches to the right had located the crawling hunters. Suddenly above Tom boomed a heavy Creedmoor — then two booms followed in succession.

“Good! — It was — aboot time,” panted Roberts.

Tom felt the coldness leave his marrow for good. It was fight now. Pilchuck, Bear Claws, the Mexican, and some of the old plainsmen had reached the top of the slope and had opened on the Comanches. This spurred him, if not to greater effort, which was impossible, at least to dogged and unquenchable endurance. Roberts whistled through his nose; his lean face was bathed with sweat. Ory Tacks struggled bravely to help himself along, though it was plain his agony was tremendous.

The slope grew less steep and more thickly strewn with large rocks. Tom heard no more bullets whiz up from direction of the encampment. They came from both sides, and the reports of Winchesters, sharp and rattling above the Creedmoors, covered a wide half circle. Farther away the guns of the Starwell and Harkaway forces rang out steadily, if not often. It had become a hot battle and the men were no longer shooting at puffs of white smoke.

Not a moment too soon did Tom and Roberts drag Tacks over the top of the slope into a zone of large bowlders from behind which Pilchuck and his men were fighting. For almost at the last instant Tom heard a dull spat of lead striking flesh. Roberts’ left arm, on which he was hunching himself along, crumpled under him, and he dropped flat.

“They — busted — me,” he declared, huskily, then let go of Tacks, and floundered behind a rock.

Tom by superhuman exertion dragged Ory farther on, behind a long low ledge, from which a hunter was shooting. Then Tom collapsed. But as he sank flat he heard the boy’s grateful, “Much obliged, Tom.” For a few moments then Tom was deaf and blind to the battle. There was a bursting riot within his breast, an overtaxed heart fluttering to recover. It seemed long that he lay prostrate, utterly unable to lift face or hand. But gradually that passed. Pilchuck crawled close, smelling of sweat, dust, and powder.

“Tom, are you hurt?” he queried, shaking him.

“No — only — all in,” whispered Tom, huskily, between pants. “We had to — drag Ory — up here. He’s hit; so’s Roberts.”

“I’ll take a look at them,” said the scout. “We’re shore in better position here. Reckon we can hold the red devils off. Lucky Starwell an’ Harkaway are behind them, on both sides. We’re in for a siege. . . . Bullets flyin’ from east an’ west. Peep out mighty careful an’ look for an Indian. Don’t shoot at smoke.”

Tom crawled a little to the left and cautiously took up a position where he could peer from behind the long flat rock. He could see nothing move. An uneven field of bowlders, large and small, stretched away, with narrow aisles of gray grass and ground between. The firing had diminished greatly. Both sides were conserving ammunition. Not for several moments did Tom espy a puff of white smoke, and that came from a heavy Creedmoor, four hundred yards or more away, from a point above where Starwell’s men had guarded the gateway of the canyon.

Meanwhile as he watched for something to shoot at he could hear Pilchuck working over the wounded men, and ascertained that Roberts had been shot through the arm, not, however, to break the bones, and Ory Tacks had a broken hip. Tom realized the gravity of such a wound, out there in the wilderness.

“I’d be much obliged for a drink of water,” was all Tom heard Ory say.

Pilchuck crawled away and did not return. Ory Tacks and Roberts lay at the base of the low ledge, out of range of bullets for the present. But they lay in the sun and already the sun was hot. The scout had chosen a small oval space irregularly surrounded by bowlders and outcroppings of rough ledges. By twisting his head Tom could espy eight or ten of Pilchuck’s force, some facing east behind their fortifications, others west. Tom heard both profanity and loquacious humor. The Mexican and the Osage were not in sight.

Then Tom peeped out from behind his own covert. This time his quick eye caught a glimpse of something moving, like a rabbit slipping into brush. Above that place then slid out a red streak and a thin blue-white cloud of smoke. Sputt! A bullet hit the corner of his rock and whined away. Tom dodged back, suddenly aghast, and hot with anger. A sharp-eyed Indian had seen him. Tom wormed his way around back of the long rock to the other end. Behind the next rock lay the old white-haired hunter, bare-headed, with sweat and tobacco stains upon his grizzled face.

“Take it easy an’ slow,” he advised Tom, complacently. “Comanches can’t stand a long fight. They’re riders, an’ all we need is patience. On the ground we can lick hell out of them.”

The old plainsman’s nonchalance was incredible, yet vastly helpful to Tom. He put a hard curb on his impetuosity, and forced himself to wait and think carefully of every action before he undertook it. Therefore he found a position where he could command a certain limited field of rocks without risk to himself. It was like peeping through a knot hole too small for any enemy to see at a distance. From this vantage point Tom caught fleeting glimpses and flashes of color, gray and bronze, once a speck of red. But these vanished before he could bring his rifle into play.

“If you see suthin’ move shoot quick as lightnin’,” said the old plainsman. “It might be a gopher or a cottontail, but take no chances. It’s likely to be a two-legged varmint.”

Intense concentration, and a spirit evolving from the hour, enabled Tom to make considerable progress toward the plainsman’s idea of fighting Comanches. Tom fired again and again, at the flit of a bird across a narrow space, at the flash of gun, a gleam of a feather. But he could never see whether or not he hit an Indian. Strange to note, however, was the fact that these fleeting movements of something were never repeated in the same place. Concentration brought to Tom the certainty that he was seeing a faint glimpse now and then of these elusive Comanches. This, with the crack of Winchesters and hum of bullets, in time bred in him some semblance of the spirit of the old plainsman. It was indeed a fight. He had his part to perform. Life was here, and an inch away sped death. Grim, terrible, but exalting, and strangely memorable of a vague past! Tom Doan realized the inheritance he had in common with men, white or red.

The hours passed swiftly for the fighters. Another wounded man joined Roberts and Ory Tacks, and the ordeal must have been frightful for them. Tom forgot them; so did all the defenders of that position. The glaring sun poured down its heat. Stones and guns were so hot they burned. No breeze stirred. And the fight went on, favorable for the buffalo-hunters because of their fortifications, unfavorable in regard to time. They were all parching for thirst. By chance or blunder the canteens had been left on the saddles and water had come to be almost as precious as powder. The old plainsman cursed the Staked Plain. Tom’s mouth appeared full of cotton paste. He had kept pebbles in his mouth till he was sick of them.

Noon went by. Afternoon came. The sun, hotter than ever, began to slope to the west. And the fight went on, narrowing down as to distance, intensifying as to spirit, magnifying peril to both sides. The Creedmoors from the Starwell and Harkaway forces kept up the bulk of the shooting. They were directing most of their fire down into the encampment, no doubt to keep the Comanches there from joining their comrades on the slope. Mustangs showed on the farther points, and evidently had strayed.

Presently Pilchuck came crawling on hands and knees, without his rifle or coat. A bloody patch showed on his shoulder.

“Tom, reckon I got punctured a little,” he said. “It ain’t bad, but it’s bleedin’ like hell. Tear my shirt sleeve off an’ tie it round under my arm over my shoulder tight.”

An ugly bullet hole showed angrily in the upper part of the scout’s shoulder, apparently just through the flesh.

“Notice that bullet come from behind,” said Pilchuck. “There shore was a mean redskin on your side. He hit two of us before I plugged him. There — good. . . . Now how’s the rest of your hospital?”

“I don’t know. Afraid I forgot,” replied Tom, aghast.

“Wal, I’ll see.”

He crawled over to the wounded man and spoke. Tom heard Roberts answer, but Ory Tacks was silent. That disturbed Tom. Then the scout came back to him.

“Roberts ‘s sufferin’ some, but he’s O. K. The young fellar, though, is dyin’, I’m afraid. Shot in the groin. Mebbe—”

“Pilchuck! . . . Ory didn’t seem bad hurt—”

“Wal, he is, an’ if we don’t get some water he’ll go,” declared the scout, emphatically. “Fact is, we’re all bad off for water. It’s shore hot. What a dumbhead I was to forget the canteens!”

“I’ll go after them,” returned Tom, like a flash.

“It’s not a bad idee,” said Pilchuck, after a moment’s reflection. “Reckon it’d be no riskier than stayin’ here.”

“Direct me. Where’d you leave the horses?”

The scout faced south, at right angles with the cross-fire from the Comanches, and presently extended his long arm.

“See that low bluff — not far — the last one reachin’ down into this basin. It’s behind there. You can’t miss it. Lucky the rocks from here on are thick as cabbages.”

“I can make it,” declared Tom, doggedly. “But to get back! That stumps me.”

“Easy. You’ve got to go slow, pickin’ the best cover. Just lay a line of little stones as you crawl along. Reckon the Comanches are all on these two sides of us, but there might be some tryin’ to surround us.”

“Anything more?” queried Tom, briefly.

The scout apparently had no thought of the tremendousness of this enterprise to Tom. It was as if he had naturally expected of Tom what he would do himself if he had not been partially incapacitated. Tom realized he had never in his life received such a compliment. It swelled his heart. He felt light, hard, tense, vibrating to a strange excitation.

“Wal, I can’t think of anythin’,” replied the scout. “Comin’ back be slower’n molasses, an’ get the drift of the fight. We’re holdin’ these redskins off. But I reckon Starwell an’ Harkaway have been doin’ more. If I don’t miss my guess they’ve spilled blood down in the canyon. Comanches are great on horseback, but they can’t stick out a fight like this. If they rush us we’re goners. If they don’t they’ll quit before sunset.”

CHAPTER XIII

MILLY FAYRE RODE out of Sprague’s Post on the front of a freighter’s wagon, sitting between Jett and his wife. The rest of Jett’s outfit followed close behind, Follonsbee and Pruitt in the second wagon, and Catlee driving the last.

For as long as Milly could see the Hudnalls she waved her red scarf in farewell. Then when her friends passed out of sight Milly turned slowly to face the boundless prairie, barren of life, suddenly fearful in its meaning, and she sank down, stricken in heart. What she had dreaded was now an actuality. The courage that had inspired her when she wrote the letter to Tom Doan, leaving it with Mrs. Hudnall, was a courage inspired by love, not by hope. So it seemed now.

“Milly, you ain’t actin’ much like a boy, spite them boy’s clothes,” said Jett, with attempt at levity. “Pile over in the back of the wagon an’ lay down.”

Kindness from Jett was astounding, and was gratefully received by Milly. Doing as she was bidden, she found a comfortable place on the unrolled packs of bedding, with her head in a shade of the wagon seat. It developed then that Jett’s apparent kindness had been only a ruse to get her away so he could converse with his wife in low, earnest tones. Milly might have heard all or part of that conversation, but she was not interested and did not listen.

Dejectedly she lay there while the steady trot of the horses carried her back toward the distant buffalo range. To be torn from her kind and loving friends at the post and drawn back into the raw hard life led by her stepfather was a bitter and sickening blow. Her sufferings were acute; and as she had become used to hope and happiness she was now ill fitted to cope with misery and dread. She did not think of the future or plan to meet it; she lived in the present and felt the encroaching of an old morbid and fatalistic mood, long a stranger to her.

The hours passed, and Jett’s deep, low voice appeared never to rest or cease. He did not make a noon stop, as was customary among the buffalo-hunters. And he drove until sunset.

“Forty miles, bedam!” he said, with satisfaction, as he threw the reins.

Whether Milly would have it so or not, she dropped at once back into the old camp life, with its tasks. How well she remembered! The smoke of the camp fire made her eyes smart and brought tingling as well as hateful memories.

The other wagons drove up rather late, and once more Milly found herself under the hawk eyes of Follonsbee and the half-veiled hidden look of the crooked-faced Pruitt. Her masculine garb, emphasizing her shapely slenderness, manifestly drew the gaze of these men. They seemed fascinated by it, as if they both had discovered something. Neither of them spoke to her. Catlee, however, gave her a kindly nod. He seemed more plodding in mind than she remembered him.

One by one the old associations returned to her, and presently her fleeting happiness with the Hudnalls had the remoteness and unreality of a dream and she was again Jett’s stepdaughter, quick to start at his harsh voice. Was that harshness the same? She seemed to have a vague impression of a difference in his voice, in him, in all of his outfit, in the atmosphere around them.

A stopping place had been chosen at one of the stream crossings where hundreds of buffalo-hunters had camped that year, a fact Jett growled about, complaining of the lack of grass and wood. Water was plentiful, and it was cold, a welcome circumstance to the travelers. Jett had an inordinate thirst, probably owing to his addiction to rum at Sprague’s.

“Fetch some more drinkin’ water,” he ordered Milly.

She took the pail and went down the bank under the big, rustling, green cottonwoods. Catlee was at the stream, watering the horses.

“I seen you comin’, an’ I says who’s that boy?” he said, with a grin. “I forgot.”

“I forgot, too,” she replied, dubiously. “I don’t like these — these pants. But I’ve made a discovery, Catlee. I’m more comfortable round camp.”

“Don’t wonder. You used to drag your skirts round. . . . Gimme your bucket. I’ll fill it where the water’s clear.”

He waded in beyond where the horses were drinking and dipped the pail. “Nothin’ like good cold water after a day’s hot ride.”

“Jett drank nearly all I got before and sent me for more.”

“He’s burnin’ up inside with red liquor,” returned Catlee, bluntly.

Milly did not have any reply to make to that, but she thanked Catlee, and taking the pail she poured out a little water, so she would not spill it as she walked.

“Milly, I’m sorry you had to come back with Jett,” said Catlee.

She paused, turning to look at him, surprised at his tone. His bronze face lacked the heat, the dissolute shades common to Jett and the other men. Milly remembered then that Catlee in her opinion had not seemed like the rest of Jett’s outfit.

“Sorry? Why?” she asked.

“I know Sprague. He’s from Missouri. He told me about you, an’ your friend Tom Doan.”

“Sprague told you — about — about Tom!” faltered Milly, suddenly blushing. “Why, who told him?”

“Mrs. Hudnall, he said. Sprague took interest in you, it ‘pears. An’ his wife is thick with the Hudnall women. Anyway, he was sorry Jett took you away — an’ so’m I.”

Milly’s confusion and pain at the mention of Tom did not quite render her blind to this man’s sympathy. She forced away the wave of emotion. Her mind quickened to the actuality of her being once more in Jett’s power and that she had only her wits and courage to rely upon. This hard-faced, apparently dull and somber man might befriend her. Milly suddenly conceived the inspiration to win him to her cause.

“So am I sorry, Catlee,” she said sadly, and her quick tears were genuine. Indeed, they had started to flow at mention of Tom’s name. “I — I’m engaged to Tom Doan. . . . I was — so — so happy. And I’d never had — any happy times before. . . . Now I’ve been dragged away. Jett’s my stepfather. I’m not of age. I had to come. . . . And I’m terribly afraid of him.”

“I reckon,” rejoined Catlee, darkly, “you’ve reason to be. He an’ the woman quarreled at Sprague’s. He wanted to leave her behind. For that matter, the four of them drank a good deal, an’ fought over the hide money.”

“For pity’s sake, be my friend!” appealed Milly.

The man stared at her, as if uncomprehending, yet somehow stirred.

“Catlee,” she said, seeing her advantage and stepping back to lay a hand softly on his arm, “did you ever have a sister or a sweetheart?”

“I reckon not or I’d been another kind of man,” he returned, with something of pathos.

“But you’re not bad,” she went on, swiftly.

“Me not bad! Child, you’re crazy! I never was anythin’ else. An’ now I’m a hide thief.”

“Oh, it’s true, then? Jett is a hide thief. I knew something was terribly wrong.”

“Girl, don’t you tell Jett I said that,” replied Catlee, almost harshly.

“No, I won’t. I promise. You can trust me,” she returned, hurriedly. “And I could trust you. I don’t think you’re really bad. Jett has led you into this. He’s bad. I hate him.”

“Yes, Jett’s bad all right, an’ he means bad by you. I reckon I thought you knowed an’ didn’t care.”

“Care! If he harms me I’ll kill him and myself,” she whispered, passionately.

The man seemed to be confronted with something new in his experience, and it was dissipating a dull apathy to all that concerned others.

“So that’s how a good girl feels!” he muttered.

“Yes. And I ask you — beg you to be a man — a friend—”

“There comes Pruitt,” interrupted Catlee, turning to his horses. “Don’t let him or any of them see you talkin’ to me.”

Milly bent over the heavy bucket and, avoiding the dust raised by Pruitt with his horses, she hurried back to camp. Her return manifestly checked hard words between Jett and his wife. Milly took up her tasks where they had been interrupted, but with this difference, that she had become alive to the situation among these hide thieves. Jett’s status had been defined, and the woman was no doubt culpable with him. Catlee’s blunt corroboration of Milly’s fears had awakened her spirit; and the possibility of winning this hardened man to help her in her extremity had inspired courage and resolve. All in a flash, then, it seemed she was the girl who had written that brave letter to Tom Doan.

Supper was cooked and eaten. The men, except Catlee, were not hungry as usual, and appeared to be wearing off the effects of hard drinking. They spoke but seldom, and then only to ask for something out of reach on the spread canvas. Darkness settled down while Milly dried the pans and cups. Catlee came up with a huge armload of wood, which he dropped with a crash, a little too near Pruitt to suit his irascible mood.

“Say, you Missouri hay seed, can’t you see my feet?” he demanded.

“I could if I’d looked. They’re big enough,” retorted Catlee. “I ain’t wonderin’ you have such a care of them.”

“Ain’t you? Shore I’d like to know why?” queried Pruitt.

“I reckon what little brains you’ve got are in them.”

“You damn Yank!” ejaculated the little rebel, as amazed as enraged. “I’ve shot men for less’n thet.”

“Reckon you have,” rejoined Catlee with slow, cool sarcasm. “But in the back! . . . An’ I’m lookin’ at you.”

There was not the slightest doubt of Catlee’s emergence from the character of a stolid dull teamster into something incalculably otherwise. Jett rolled out his loud, harsh laughter. It amused him, this revolt of the stupid farmer.

Likewise it showed his subtle change. Was there reason for him to invite antagonism among his men? Assuredly there was strong antagonism toward him. Follonsbee gazed in genuine amaze at Catlee, and slowly nodded his lean buzzard-like head, as if he had before in his life seen queer things in men. As for the fiery little rebel, he was instantly transformed, in his attitude toward Catlee, from a man who had felt a raw irritation, to one who hated and who doubted. However Follonsbee read the erstwhile Missouri farmer, Pruitt got only so far as a cold and waking doubt. Enmity was thus established and it seemed to be Pruitt’s natural mental attitude, and to suit Catlee better than friendliness.

Milly heard and saw this byplay from the shadow beyond the camp-fire circle. If that were Catlee’s answer to her appeal, it was a change, sudden and bewildering. The thrill she sustained was more like a shudder. In that moment she sensed a far-reaching influence, a something which had to do with future events. Catlee stalked off into the gloom of the cottonwood, where he had made his bed.

“Rand, are you sure thet feller is what you said he was — a Missouri farm hand, tired of workin’ for nothin’?” demanded Follonsbee.

“Hank, I ain’t sure of anythin’ an’ I don’t give a whoop,” replied the leader.

“Thet’s natural, for you,” said the other, with sarcasm. “You don’t know the West as I know it. Catlee struck me queer. . . . When he called Pruitt, so cool-like, I had come to mind men of the Cole Younger stripe. If so—”

“Aw, it’s nothin’,” cut in Pruitt. “Jett spoke my sentiments aboot our Yankee pard. It r’ils me to think of him gettin’ a share of our hide money.”

Jett coughed, an unusual thing for him to do. “Who said Catlee got a share?” he queried, gruffly.

Follonsbee lifted his lean head to peer at the leader. Pruitt, who was sitting back to a stump, his distorted face gleaming red in the camp-fire light, moved slowly forward to gaze in turn. Both men were silent; both of them questioned with their whole bodies. But Jett had no answer. He calmly lit his pipe and flipped the match into the fire.

“Shore, now I tax myself, I cain’t remember thet anybody said Catlee got a share,” replied Pruitt, with deliberation. “But I thought he did. An’ I know Hank thought so.”

“I’d have gambled on it,” said Follonsbee.

“Catlee gets wages, that’s all,” asserted the leader.

“Ahuh! . . . An’ who gets his share of the hide money?” demanded Pruitt.

“I do,” rejoined Jett, shortly.

“Jett, I’m tellin’ you that’s in line with your holdin’ out money for supplies at Sprague,” said Follonsbee, earnestly. “You was to furnish outfit, grub, everythin’, an’ share even with all of us, includin’ your woman. You got your share, an’ her share, an’ now Catlee’s share.”

“I’m willin’ to argue it with you, but not on an equal divvy basis.”

There followed a long silence. The men smoked. The fire burned down, so that their faces were but pale gleams. Milly sought her bed, which she had made in the wagon. Jett had sacrificed tents to make room for equal weight of buffalo hides. He had unrolled his blankets under the wagon, where the sullen woman had repaired soon after dark. Milly took off her boy’s shoes and folded the coat for a pillow, then slipping under the blankets she stretched out, glad for the relief.

How different, lying out under the open starry sky! She liked it. The immense blue dome was alight, mysterious, beautiful, comforting. Milly said her short prayer, childish and loyal, somehow more than ever helpful on this eventful night. Often, before she had met the Hudnalls and Tom Doan, she had omitted that little prayer, but never since she had learned from them the meaning of friendship and love.

The night was warm; the leaves of the cottonwoods near by rustled softly in the breeze; insects were chirping and a night bird was uttering plaintive notes.

Jett, Follonsbee, and Pruitt remained around the camp fire, quarreling in low voices; and that sound was the last Milly heard as slumber claimed her.

Milly’s eyes opened to the bright light of day, and pale-blue sky seemed canopied over her. Not the canvas roof of her tent! Where was she? The smell of cottonwood smoke brought her with surging shock to realization. Then Jett’s harsh voice, that had always made her shrink with fear, sent a creeping fire along her veins.

She lay a moment longer, calling to the spirit that had awakened last night; and it augmented while she seemed to grow strangely older. She would endure; she would fight; she would think. So that when she presented herself at the camp fire she was outwardly a quiet, obedient, impassive girl, inwardly a cunning, daring woman.

Not half a dozen words were spoken around the breakfast canvas. Jett rushed the tasks. Sunrise shone on the three wagons moving south at a brisk trot.

Milly had asked Catlee to fix her a comfortable place in the back of Jett’s wagon. He had done so, adding of his own accord an improvised sun shade of canvas. She had watched him from the wagon seat, hoping he would speak to her or look at her in a way that would confirm her hopes. But the teamster was silent and kept his head lowered. Nevertheless, Milly did not regard his taciturnity as unfavorable to her. There had been about Catlee, last night when he had muttered: “So that’s how a good girl feels,” a something which spoke to Milly’s intuition. She could not prove anything. But she felt. This man would befriend her. A subtle unconscious influence was working on his mind. It was her presence, her plight, her appeal.

Milly thought of a thousand plans to escape, to get word to Doan, to acquaint buffalo-hunters with the fact of her being practically a prisoner, to betray that Jett was a hide thief. Nothing definitely clear and satisfactory occurred to her. But the fact of her new knowledge of Jett stood out tremendously. It was an infallible weapon to employ, if the right opportunity presented. But a futile attempt at that would result fatally for her. Jett would most surely kill her.

It seemed to Milly as she revolved in mind plan after plan that the wisest thing to do would be to play submissive slave to Jett until he reached the end of the drive south; and there to persuade Catlee to take her at once to Hudnall’s camp, where she would betray Jett. If Catlee would not help her, then she must go alone, or, failing that, wait for Tom Doan to find her.

Before the morning was far advanced Jett gave wide berth to an oncoming outfit. Milly was not aware of this until the unusual jolting caused her to rise to her knees and look out. Jett had driven off the main road, taking a low place, where other drivers had made short cuts. Four freight wagons, heavily laden with hides, were passing at some distance to the right. The foremost team of horses was white — Milly thought she recognized it as Hudnall’s. Her heart rushed to her lips. But she had seen many white teams, and all of them had affected her that way. If she leaped out and ran to find she was mistaken, she would lose every chance she had. Besides, as she gazed, she imagined she was wrong. So with a deep sigh she dropped back to her seat.

The hours passed quickly. Milly pondered until she was weary, then fell asleep, and did not awaken until another camp was reached. And the first words she heard were Jett’s speaking to Follonsbee as he drove up abreast the leader, “Wasn’t that Hudnall’s outfit we passed?”

“First two teams was,” replied Follonsbee. “That young skinner of Hudnall’s was leadin’, an’ that ugly-face cuss was drivin’ the second team. I didn’t know the other outfits.”

Milly had to bite her lips to repress a scream. Jett was clamboring down from the seat above. The woman, grumbling under her breath, threw out the canvas bags of utensils, that clinked on the ground. Milly hid her face as Mrs. Jett descended from the seat. Then, for a moment, she shook like a leaf with the violence of her emotions. So near Tom! Not to see his face! It was heartrending. She lay prostrate, with her mind in a whirl. Of the many thoughts one returned — that Tom would reach Sprague’s Post next day and get her letter. That thought had strength to impart. He would lose no time following, perhaps would catch up with Jett before he got to the Pease River, and if not then, soon afterward. This thought sustained her in a trying moment.

The weakness passed, leaving her somewhat thick witted, so that as she climbed out of the wagon she nearly fell, and later her clumsiness at her assigned camp tasks fetched a reprimand from Mrs. Jett. Soon the men were back from attending to the horses, and this evening they were hungry. Meeting outcoming freighters with buffalo hides had for the moment turned the minds of Jett and his two lieutenants from their differences.

“How many hides in them outfits?” queried Jett.

“It weren’t a big haul,” replied Follonsbee.

“Shore was big enough to make us turn off the road,” said Pruitt, meaningly.

Jett glared at him. Then Catlee drawled: “Funny they didn’t see us. But we went down on our side some. That first driver was Hudnall’s man, Tom Doan.”

“Ahuh! Well, suppose it was?” returned Jett, nonplussed at this remark from the habitually unobserving Catlee.

“Nothin’. I just recognized him,” replied Catlee, casually, as he lowered his eyes.

When he raised them, a moment later, to look across the canvas supper cloth at Milly, she saw them as never before, sharp as a dagger, with a single bright gleam. He wanted her to know that he had seen Tom Doan. Milly dropped her own gaze and she spilled a little of her coffee. She dared not trust her flashing interpretation of this man’s glance. It seemed like a gleam of lightning from what had hitherto been dead ashes. Thereafter he paid no attention to her, nor to any of the others; and upon finishing the meal and finishing his chore of cutting firewood, he vanished.

Jett and his two disgruntled men took up their quarrel and spent a long, noisy, angry hour round the camp fire.

The next day came and passed, with no difference for Milly except that Catlee now avoided her, never seemed to notice her; and that she hung out her red scarf, with a hopeful thrill in its significance. Then one by one the days rolled by, under the wheels of the wagons.

Seven days, and then the straggling lost bands of buffalo! The hot, drowsy summer air was tainted; the gently waving prairie bore heaps of bones; skulking coyotes sneaked back from the road. A thousand times Milly Fayre looked back down the endless road she had traveled. No wagon came in sight!

Noon of the ninth day brought Jett within sight of the prairie-wide herd of buffalo. He halted to point it out to his sullen, unseeing men; and later he reined in again, this time to turn his ear to the hot stinking wind.

“Aha! Listen,” he called back to Follonsbee.

Milly heard the boom-boom-boom-boom of guns, near and far, incessant and potent. Strangely, for once she was glad to hear them!

All that hot midday she reclined on the improvised seat in her wagon, holding her scarf to her nostrils and looking out occasionally at the sordid ugliness of abandoned camp sites. The buffalo-hunters had moved on up the river, that now showed its wandering line of green timber.

Milly took a last backward gaze down the prairie road just as Jett turned off to go into the woods. Far away Milly saw a dot on the horizon — a white and black dot. Maybe it was Tom Doan’s horses and wagon! He could not be far behind. It was as well now, perhaps, that he had not caught up with Jett. The buffalo range had been reached; and it could not be long before her situation was changed.

Jett drove off the prairie, into the timber, along a well-defined shady road where many camps had been pitched, and then down into the brakes. Brutal and fearless driver that he was, he urged his horses right through the tangled undergrowth, that bent with the onslaught of the wagon, to spring back erect after it had passed. Follonsbee came crashing next. Jett drove down into the bottom lands, thick and hot and aromatic with its jungle of foliage. He must have had either wonderful judgment as to where it was possible for horses to go, or an uncanny luck. For he penetrated the heavily wooded brakes clear to a deep shining river.

Milly would not allow herself to be unduly distressed because Jett meant to hide his camp, for she knew that any one hunting wagon tracks and camps would surely not miss his. In a way Milly was glad of the shade, the murmur of the river, the songs of birds, the absence of the stench. A camp on the edge of the prairie, with the rotten carcasses of buffalo close at hand, the dust and heat, the flies and bugs, would be well-nigh unendurable.

Jett halted his team in a shady glade of cottonwoods just back from the river and Milly then discovered that this was the scene of Jett’s previous encampment. His tents and fireplace, boxes and bales, evidently had not been molested during his absence.

“Turn horses loose an’ unload the wagons,” he ordered his men. “I’ll take a look for my saddle horses.”

“No fear of hosses leavin’ grass an’ water,” rejoined Follonsbee. “But there might be hoss thieves on the range.”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed Pruitt, in his mean way. “Shore you know these heah buff-hunters are all honest men.”

Jett strode off into the green brakes. The men unloaded the wagons and set the boxes and bags of supplies under a cottonwood. Mrs. Jett opened a tent near the fireplace.

“Miss,” said Catlee, “the canvas wagon cover you had before got ripped to pieces. There ain’t any tent for you till that one’s mended.”

“Can’t I stay in the wagon?” she asked.

“Don’t see why not. We’ll hardly be movin’ or haulin’ very soon.”

It was late in the afternoon when the rays of the sun began to lose heat. Milly was sorely in need of a little freedom of limbs. She had been cramped and inactive so long. So she walked to and fro under the trees. This camp was the most secluded Jett had ever chosen — far from the prairie, down in the brakes at the edge of the river, hidden by trees from the opposite densely foliaged bank. If it had not hinted of a sinister meaning and was not indeed a prison for Milly she could have reveled in it. If she had to spend much time there she would be grateful for its quiet, cleanliness, and beauty. She strolled along the green bank until Mrs. Jett curtly called her to help get supper.

About the time it was ready Jett returned, with muddy boots and clothes covered with burrs and bits of brush.

“Found all the horses except the bay mare,” he announced. “An’ to-morrow we can go back to work. I’m aimin’ at hard work, men.”

“Huh! I’d like to know what you call all we’ve done,” returned Follonsbee.

“Wal, Jett, there shore won’t be any work aboot heah till you settle up,” added Pruitt, crisply.

Jett’s huge frame jerked with the shock of surprise and fury he must have felt.

“So that’s it?” he queried, thickly. “Waited till you got way down here!”

“We shore did, boss,” returned Pruitt.

In sullen silence then Jett began and finished his supper. Plain it was he had received a hard, unexpected blow, that he seemed scarcely prepared to cope with. He had no further words with his men, but he drew his wife aside; and they were in earnest conversation when Milly fell asleep.

Next day brought forward a situation Milly had not calculated upon. Jett had no intercourse whatever with his men, and saddling his horse rode off alone. The woman sulked. Follonsbee and Pruitt, manifestly satisfied with their stand, played cards interminably, now and then halting to talk in low tones over something vital to them. Catlee rigged himself a crude fishing tackle and repaired to the river bank, where he found a shady seat within sight of the camp.

Milly was left to herself. Her first act, after the tasks of the morning were ended, was to hang up her red scarf in a conspicuous place. Then she had nothing to do but kill time. With the men in camp, this was not easy. Apparently she had liberty. No orders had been given her, but perhaps this was owing to the timid meekness she had pretended. She might have wandered away into the brakes or have trailed the wagon tracks up to the prairie. But she could not decide that this was best. For the present she could only wait.

Already the boom of guns floated in on the summer air from all sides, increasing for a while, until along the upriver prairie there was almost continuous detonation. Every boom, perhaps, meant the heart or lungs of a noble animal torn to shreds for the sake of his hide. As Milly settled down again to the actual presence of this slaughter she accepted the fact with melancholy resignation.

In the course of her strolling round the camp Milly gravitated toward Catlee, where he sat contentedly smoking his pipe and fishing. She watched him, trying to make up her mind to approach him on the subject nearest her heart. But she knew the men and Mrs. Jett could see her and that any such action might arouse suspicion. Therefore she desisted. Once Catlee turned, apparently casually, and his gray gaze took her in and the camp. Then he winked at her.

That droll action established anew Milly’s faith in an understanding between her and this man. She had no assurance that he would help her, but there was a secret between them. Milly felt more than she could prove. The incident made the long day supportable.

CHAPTER XIV

JETT’S OUTFIT FELL into idleness for more days than Milly could remember. She waited for time to pass, and no one would have suspected her longing. When Jett returned to camp from one of his lonely rides Milly would hear his horse breaking the brush along the trail, and she could never repress a wild throb of hope. It might be Tom! But it was always Jett.

One day Jett returned in great perturbation, apparently exhausted. His horse was jaded. Follonsbee and Pruitt were curious, to no end, for Jett did not vouchsafe any explanation. Whatever had happened, however, brought about a change in him and his habits. He stayed in camp.

The business of hide-hunting had been abandoned; not improbably in Jett’s mind for a temporary period, until his men weakened. But they did not weaken; they grew stronger. More days of this enforced idleness crystallized a growing influence — they would never again follow the extraordinary labors of hunting and skinning buffalo. Whatever had been Jett’s unity of outfit was destroyed.

Milly heard the woman tell Jett this, and the ensuing scene had been violent. It marked, further, the revealment of Mrs. Jett’s long-hidden hand in the game. She was the mainspring of Jett’s calculated mechanism, and when the other men realized it, it precipitated something darkly somber into the situation. Follonsbee and Pruitt had manifestly been playing a hand they felt sure would win. Jett could no longer hunt hides, or steal them, either, without his men. All of these lonely rides of his had been taken to find other accomplices, whom Follonsbee and Pruitt knew could not be obtained there on the buffalo range.

Milly heard the bitter quarrel which ensued, between Jett and his wife and the two lieutenants. Catlee was always there, listening, watching, but took no part in any of their talks or quarrels. He was outside. They did not count him at all. Yet he should have been counted immeasurably, Milly concluded. Like herself, Catlee was an intense, though silent, participator in this drama.

The content of that quarrel was simple. Jett had weakened to the extent of wanting to settle in part with his men. Follonsbee and Pruitt were not willing to take what he offered, and the woman, most tenacious and calculating of all of them, refused to allow Jett to relinquish any share of their profits.

There was a deadlock, and the argument put aside for the present. Follonsbee and Pruitt walked away from camp; Jett and his wife repaired to their tent where they conversed heatedly; Catlee and Milly cooked the supper. Milly did not know when the absent men returned.

Next day the atmosphere of Jett’s outfit had undergone further change. The leader was a worried and tormented man, beset by a woman with will of steel and heart of hate; and he saw opposed to him Westerners whose reaction now seemed formidable and deadly. That had roused an immovable stubbornness in him.

Milly saw the disintegration of this group, and what she could not divine herself she gathered from study of Catlee. Indeed, he was the most remarkable of the outfit — he whom the others never considered at all. Not that Milly could understand her impressions! If she tried to analyze Catlee’s effect upon her it only led to doubt. As for Jett and his men, they were a divided outfit, wearing toward dissolution, answering to the wildness of the time and place. The evil that they had done hovered over them, about to enact retribution.

Milly began to dread the issue, though the breaking up of this outfit augured well for her. Then any day Tom Doan, with Hudnall and his men, might ride into Jett’s camp. That meant deliverance for her, in one way or another. If Jett refused to let her go she had but to betray him. Milly held her courage all through this long ordeal, yet she felt more and more the looming of a shadow.

Toward the close of that afternoon the tension relaxed. Follonsbee and Pruitt sauntered off with their heads together; Jett fell asleep under a cottonwood and his sullen wife slouched into her tent; Catlee sat on a log by the river bank, not fishing or smoking, but deep in thought.

Milly, answering the long-resisted impulse, slipped to his side.

“Catlee, I must tell you,” she whispered. “This — all this I’ve gone through has got on my nerves. I’ve waited and hoped and prayed for Tom Doan. . . . He doesn’t come. He has missed this road. I might have stood it longer, but this fight between the Jetts and his men wears on me. I’m scared. Something awful will happen. I can’t stand it. . . . I know you’re my friend — oh, I know it! . . . But you must help me. Tell me what you think. Tell me what to do. It’s all so wild — so strange. . . . That awful woman! She eyes me so — as if she guessed what the men are not thinking of now, but would be soon. . . . Catlee, you’re no — no — you’re not like these people. But whatever you were — or are — remember your mother and save me before — before—”

Milly’s voice failed her. Liberating her fears and hopes had spent her force in expression.

“Lass, have you said all you want to?” queried Catlee, in tense undertone.

“Yes — yes — I could only repeat,” faltered Milly, but she held out trembling hands to him.

The man’s face underwent a change not on the surface. It seemed light, agitation, transpiring beneath a mask.

“Don’t go out of my sight!” he said, with ringing sharpness that made her gasp. Then he turned away, imperturbable as ever.

But Milly had seen or heard something terrible. She backed away from Catlee, sensing this was what he wanted her to do. Yet not out of his sight! What had he meant by that? It signified a crisis nearer than even her fears had presaged, and infinitely worse. All the time he had known what was to happen and all this time he had been her friend. This was what had been on his mind as he watched and listened.

Returning to the wagon that was her abode, she climbed to the seat and sank there, with wide eyes and beating heart. She could see Catlee sitting like a statue, staring into the river. Mrs. Jett came out of her tent, with slow, dragging step, and a face drawn, pale, malignant. Her eyes were beady, the corners of her hard mouth curved down. Heavy, slovenly, she moved to awaken Jett with a kick of foot no less gentle than her mien.

“Come out of it, you loafer,” she said. “My mind’s made up. We’ll break camp at daylight to-morrow. . . . As you ain’t got nerve to kill these men, you can have it out with them to-night. But I’m keepin’ the money an’ we’re goin’ to-morrow.”

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Jett, with a husky finality.

The habit of camp tasks was strong in her, as in all of her companions. Methodically she bestirred herself round the boxes of supplies. Catlee fetched firewood as if he had been ordered to do so. Follonsbee and Pruitt returned to squat under a cottonwood, with faces like ghouls. Jett went into his tent, and when he came out he was wiping his yellow beard. He coughed huskily, as always when drinking.

For once Milly made no move to help. No one called her. It was as if she had not been there. Each member of that outfit was clamped by his or her own thoughts. Supper was prepared and eaten in a silence of unnatural calm. Lull before the storm!

Catlee brought Milly something to eat, which he tendered without speaking. Milly looked down into his eyes, and it seemed to her that she had been mistaken in the kindly nature of the man. As he turned away she noticed a gun in his belt. It was unusual for buffalo-hunters to go armed in such manner.

After supper Mrs. Jett left her husband to do her chores, and slouched toward her tent with a significant, “I’m packin’ an’ I want to get done before dark.”

Milly saw Follonsbee motion for Pruitt and Catlee to draw aside. When they had gone, in separate directions, Follonsbee approached Jett.

“Rand, it’s the last deal an’ the cards are runnin’ bad,” he said.

“Ahuh!” ejaculated the giant, without looking up.

“Your woman has stacked the deck on us,” went on Follonsbee, without rancor. “We ain’t blamin’ you altogether for this mess.”

“Hank, I’m talked out,” replied Jett, heavily.

“You’ve been drinkin’ too much,” went on the other, in conciliatory tones, “but you’re sober now an’ I’m goin’ to try once more. Will you listen?”

“I ain’t deaf.”

“You’d be better off if you was. . . . Now, Rand, here’s the straight of it, right off the shoulder. You’ve done us dirt. But square up an’ all will be as before. We’ve got another chance here for a big haul — four thousand hides if there’s one, an’ easy. Use your sense. It’s only this greedy woman who’s changed you. Beat some sense into her or chuck her in the river. It’s man to man now. An’ I’m tellin’ you, Pruitt is a dirty little rebel rattlesnake. He’ll sting. I’m puttin’ it to you honest an’ level-headed. If this goes on another day it’ll be too late. We’re riskin’ a lot here. The hunters will find out we’re not killin’ buffalo. We ought to load up an’ move.”

“We’re goin’ to-morrow,” replied Jett, gloomily.

“Who?”

“It’s my outfit an’ I’m movin’. If you an’ Pruitt want to stay here I’ll divide supplies.”

“You’re most obligin’,” returned Follonsbee, sarcastically. “But I reckon if you divide anythin’ it’ll be money, outfit, an’ all.”

“There’s where the hitch comes in,” snarled Jett.

“Are you plumb off your head, man?” queried the other, in weary amaze. “You just can’t do anythin’ else.”

“Haw! Haw!” guffawed Jett.

Follonsbee dropped his lean vulture face and paced to and fro, his hands locked behind his back. Suddenly he shouted for Pruitt. The little rebel came on the run.

“Andy, I’ve talked fair to Jett, an’ it ain’t no use,” said Follonsbee. “He an’ the woman are breakin’ camp to-morrow.”

“Early mawnin’, hey?” queried Pruitt.

“Yes, an’ he’s offered to let us stay here with half the supplies. I told him if he divided anythin’ it’d be money, outfit, an’ all.”

“Wal, what’d he say then?”

“That here was just where the hitch come in. I told him he couldn’t do anythin’ else but divide, an’ then he haw-hawed in my face.”

“You don’t say. Wal, he ain’t very perlite, is he? . . . Hank, I’m through talkin’ nice to Jett. If I talk any more I’ll shore have somethin’ hard to say. Give him till mawnin’ to think it over.”

Pruitt’s sulky temper was not in evidence during this short interview. Milly could not see his face, but his tone and the poise of his head were unlike him.

“Will you fellars have a drink with me?” asked Jett, in grim disdain.

They walked off without replying. Milly peered round. Catlee leaned against a tree close by, within earshot, and the look he cast at Jett was illuminating. Jett was new to the frontier, though he had answered quickly to its evil influence. But otherwise he had not developed. The man’s quick decline from honest living had been the easiest way to satisfy a naturally greedy soul. Drink, the rough life of the open, had paved the way. His taking to this frontier woman was perhaps the worst step. And now the sordid nature of him lowered him beneath these thieves, who had probably put the evil chances in his way. But Jett did not understand Western men, much less desperadoes such as Follonsbee and Pruitt manifestly were.

Darkness settled down over the camp and the river. The crickets and frogs were less in evidence with their chirping and trilling. The camp fire had died out, and soon the dim light in Jett’s tent was extinguished. The lonely night seemed to envelop Milly and strike terror to her soul. What was the portent of the wild mourn of the wolves? Yet there came a mounting intuitive, irresistible hope — to-morow she might be free. Somewhere within a few miles Tom Doan lay asleep, perhaps dreaming of her, as she was thinking of him.

Milly heard Catlee’s stealthy tread. He had moved his bed near her wagon, and his presence there was significant of his unobtrusive guardianship. It relieved her distraught nerves, and soon after that her eyelids wearily closed.

Milly awoke with a start. The stars above were wan in a paling sky; a camp fire crackled with newly burning sticks; the odor of wood smoke permeated the air. The wagon in which she lay was shaking. Then she heard the pound of hoofs, the clink and rattle of harness, a low husky voice she recognized. Jett was hitching up.

With a catch in her breath and a gush of blood along her veins Milly raised herself out of her bed and peered over the side of the wagon. The dark, heavy form of Mrs. Jett could be discerned in the flickering light of fire; contrary to her usual phlegmatic action, she was moving with a celerity that spoke eloquently of the nature of that departure. Apparently none of the others were stirring. Milly moved to the other side of the wagon and peered down, just making out Catlee’s bed under the cottonwood. A dark form appeared against the dim background. Milly saw it move, and presently satisfied herself that Catlee was sitting on his bed, pulling on his boots.

Jett’s huge figure loomed up, passing the wagon. Milly dropped down, so she would not be seen. He spoke in the low, husky voice to the woman. She did not reply. Presently Milly heard again the soft thud of hoofs, coming closer, to cease just back of her wagon. Next she heard the creak and flop of leather. Jett was saddling the fast horses he used in hunting. Again Milly cautiously raised her head. She saw Jett in quick, sharp, decisive, yet nervous action. He haltered both horses to the back of the wagon, and slipped nose bags over their heads. The horses began to munch the oats in the bags.

In a moment more Jett approached the wagon and lifted something over the footboard, just as Milly sank back into her bed. His quick heavy breathing denoted a laboring under excitement. She smelled rum on him. He disappeared, and soon returned to deposit another pack in the back of the wagon. This action he repeated several times. Next Milly heard him fumbling with the wire that held the water keg to the wagon. He tipped the keg, and the slap and gurgle of water told of the quantity.

“Half full,” he muttered to himself. “That’ll do for to-day.”

His heavy footsteps moved away, and then came sound of his hoarse whisper to the woman. She replied:

“Reckon they’ll show up. We’ll not get away so easy, if I know men in this country. You’d better keep a rifle in your hand.”

“Boh!” burst out Jett, in disgusted doubt of her, himself and the whole situation.

“Eat an’ drink now, pronto,” she said. “We won’t stop to wash an’ take these things. I packed some.”

The boil of the coffee pot could be heard, and then a hot sizzle as the water boiled over into the fire. Some one removed it. Again Milly peeped out the wagon side. Dawn was at hand. All was gray, shadowy, obscure beyond the trees, but near at hand it was light enough to see. Jett and the woman were eating. His rifle leaned against the mess box. They ate hurriedly, in silence.

Just then a low rumble like thunder broke the stillness of the morning. Deep, distant, weird, it denoted a thunderstorm to Milly. Yet how long and strangely it held on!

Jett lifted his big head like a listening deer.

“Stampede, by gosh! First one this summer. Lucky it’s across the river.”

“Stampede!” echoed the woman, slowly. “Hum! . . . Are there lots of buffalo across here?”

“They’d make a tolerable herd if they got bunched. I ain’t in love with the idee. They might start the big herd on this side. We’re aimin’ to cross the prairie to the Red River. An’ even if we had two days’ start, a runnin’ herd would catch us.”

“I don’t agree with you, Jett,” remarked the woman. “Anyway, we’re goin’, buffalo or no buffalo.”

Milly listened to the low, distant rumble. What a strange sound! Did it not come from far away? Did she imagine it almost imperceptibly swelled in volume? She strained to hear. It lessened, died away, began again, and though ever so faint, it filled her ears.

Imperceptibly the gray dawn had yielded to daylight. The Jetts had about finished their meal. Whatever was going to happen must befall soon. Milly strove to control her fearful curiosity. Her heart beat high. This issue mattered mightily to her. Peeping over the far side of her wagon, she saw Catlee sitting on his bed, watching the Jetts from his angle. He saw Milly. Under the brim of his sombrero his eyes appeared to be black holes. He motioned Milly to keep down out of sight. Instinctively she obeyed, sinking back to her bed; and then, irresistibly impelled, she moved to the other side, farther up under the low wagon seat, and peeped out from under it.

At that juncture Pruitt and Follonsbee strode from somewhere to confront the Jetts. Milly would have shrunk back had she not been as if chained. The little rebel struck terror to her heart. Follonsbee resembled, as always, a bird of prey, but now about to strike.

“Jett, you ain’t bravin’ it out?” asked Pruitt, cool and laconic. “Shore you ain’t aimin’ to leave heah without a divvy?”

“I’m leavin’ two wagons, six hosses, an’ most of the outfit,” replied Jett, gruffly. He stared at Pruitt. Something was seeking an entrance into his mind.

“You’re lucky to get that,” snapped the woman.

“Listen to her, Hank,” said Pruitt, turning to Follonsbee.

“I’m listenin’, an’ I don’t have to hear no more. She stacked this deal,” replied Pruitt’s comrade, stridently. Only the timbre of his voice showed his passion; he was as slow and easy as Pruitt.

“Talk to me,” shouted Jett, beginning to give way to the stress of a situation beyond him. “Let my wife—”

“Wife? Aw, hell,” interposed Pruitt, contemptuously. “This Hardin woman ain’t your wife any more’n she’s mine. . . . Jett, you’re yellow, an’ you’re shore talkin’ to men who ain’t yellow, whatever else they are.”

Jett cursed low and deep fumed in his effort to confront these men on an equality. But it was not in him. Fiercely he questioned the woman, “Did you tell them we wasn’t married — yet?”

“Reckon I did. It was when you was silly over this black-eyed step-daughter of yours,” she replied suddenly.

Assuredly Jett would have struck her down but for the unforgetable proximity of Pruitt and Follonsbee. The latter laughed coarsely. Pruitt took a stride forward. His manner was careless, casual, but the set of muscles, the action of him, indicated something different.

“Jett, did you tell your woman you wanted to get rid of her — so’s you could have your black-eyed wench?” demanded the little rebel, with all his insolent meanness. “You shore told us — an’ you wasn’t so orful drunk.”

The woman seemed to tower and her face grew black.

“I didn’t,” yelled Jett.

Wordlessly the woman turned to question these accusers.

“Jett’s a lyin’ yellow skunk,” declared Pruitt. “He shore meant to give the girl your place. ‘Cause he wouldn’t give her to me or Hank heah!”

“It’s true,” corroborated Follonsbee. “It’s Jett an’ not us who’s lyin’. Why, I wouldn’t lie to save both your dirty lives.”

That convinced the woman, and she turned on Jett with incoherent fury. He tried to yell a break into her tirade; and not till he had seized her in brutal hands, to shake her as if she had been a rat, did she stop. Then, after a pause, in which she glared at him with the hate of a jade, she panted: “I’ll put — that little hussy’s eyes out. . . . An’ Rand Jett — you’ll never — get a dollar of this hide money!”

“Shut up or I’ll mash your jaw!” he shouted, hoarsely.

“Haw! Haw!” laughed Follonsbee, in glee that seemed only in his tones. He did not move hand or foot.

“Jett, I’m shore hopin’ we can leave you to this sweet lady,” cut in Pruitt, “for you deserve it. But I’m feared your bull-headedness will aboot force our deal. . . . Once more an’ last time, damn you — will you divvy hide-money, outfit, an’ supplies, as you agreed?”

“Naw, I won’t,” declared Jett, fiercely. He looked a driven man; and strangely his gaze of hate was for the woman and not the man who menaced him.

“Then we’ll take it all!” flashed Pruitt, ringingly.

In violent shock Jett wheeled to face Pruitt, at last with comprehension. What he saw turned his skin white back of his yellow beard. His large, hard, bright blue eyes suddenly fixed in wild stare on Pruitt. And he began to shake. Suddenly he dove for his rifle.

Milly’s gaze had been riveted on Jett. Dimly she had seen Pruitt, but not to note look or action. Her fascinated spell broke to a horror of what was coming. Swiftly she dropped down to cover and wrapped her head in the blankets of her bed. Tightly she pulled them over ears and eyes, and twisted and rolled. And deep concussions seemed to beat at her brain. The wagon lurched. The blackness that enveloped her was not all from the blankets. Her senses seemed whirling dizzily. Then heart, pulse, thought returned to degree of discrimination.

She listened. There was no sound she could discern while under the folds of blankets. She was suffocating. She threw them off. Then, fearfully she lay there. All was still. No sound! A low thunder of stampeding buffalo floated across the river. Milly listened for voices. The camp appeared deserted. Had these men run off into the brakes? Sullen, sousing splashes in the river under the bank transfixed her into blank, icy horror. Something was ended. She could only wait, lying there in a tremble.

Suddenly she heard a soft step close to the wagon. Then Catlee’s hat and face appeared over the side. He looked down at her with eyes the like of which Milly had never seen in a human.

“Lass, it’s half over, but the worst’s to come,” he whispered, and with dark, gray gleaming gaze on her, bright, almost smiling, he dropped down out of her sight. He had not seen her desperation. He had not appealed to her to bear up under this tragedy. His look, his whisper, had made of her a comrade, brave to stand the outcome. Likewise they were a warning for herself to interpret, a suggestion of his imminent part in this terrible affair. They strung Milly’s nerves to high tension. What might her part be? Compared with this experience, the West had dealt to women fatality and catastrophe which dwarfed hers. Life was sweet, never more so than at that moment, when memory of Tom Doan flashed back to her. She felt the grim and somber presence of death; she felt the imminence of further developments, sinister, harrowing, revolving more around her. Must she surrender to her emotions? Milly bit and choked them back. She needed all the strength, will, nerve possible to a woman; and in her extremity, with a racked heart, and unseeing eyes on the cottonwoods above, she propelled her spirit with the thought of Tom Doan, to endure or achieve anything.

Low voices diverted the current of her mind. Some persons, at least two, were returning from the river bank. Milly sat up, to look over the wagon-side. Follonsbee and Pruitt were entering the camp clearing. Neither Jett nor the woman was to be seen. Milly suffered no shock, she had not expected to see them. Pruitt was wet and muddy to his hips.

“. . . Shore may as well stay heah an’ hunt hides, same as the other outfits,” he was saying.

“I’m ag’in’ stayin’,” replied Follonsbee.

“Wal, we won’t argue aboot it. Shore I ain’t carin’ much one way or other,” responded Pruitt.

They reached the camp fire, the burned-out sticks of which Pruitt kicked with a wet boot. Follonsbee held his hands over the heat, though they could not have been chilled. The morning was warm. Milly saw his hands quivering very slightly.

“Shore we ought to have got that job off our hands long ago,” said Pruitt. “Wal, Hank, heah’s my idee. Let’s pull out, ford the river below, an’ strike for the Brazos. There’s buffalo, an’ this main herd won’t be long comin’.”

“Suits me good,” responded the other, in relief. “Now let’s have everythin’ clear. We’ve shared the hide money Jett’s woman had. How about the rest of the outfit?”

“Same way, share an’ share alike.”

“Ahuh. The deal’s made. Shake on it,” said Follonsbee, extending his hand.

Pruitt met it halfway with his own.

“Hank, we stuck together for aboot two years, an’ I reckon we’re a good team.”

“How about the girl?” suddenly demanded Follonsbee.

Their backs were turned to Milly, who heard this query with the sharp ears of expectation. She was fortified by her own resolve and the still hidden presence of Catlee.

“Wal, if I didn’t forgit aboot our black-eyed wench!” ejaculated Pruitt, slapping his leg.

“Toss you for her — or cut the cards?” asked Follonsbee, with his sleek, narrow, beak-like head lowered.

“No, you won’t. Yo’re shore too lucky. . . . We’ll share the girl same as the rest of the outfit.”

“All right. It’ll be a two-man outfit, half of everythin’ for each — even the girl. Then we can’t squabble. . . . But say, we forgot Catlee. Where the hell’s he been?”

“Reckon he was scared. Mebbe he’s runnin’ yet.”

“Nope. I tell you, Andy, your hate of Yanks has got you figgerin’ this Catlee wrong,” protested Follonsbee.

“That farm hand!” retorted Pruitt, with infinite disgust.

“Farm hand nothin’,” replied the other bluntly. “I don’t know what he is, but he’s got me figgerin’. We’d better give him a hoss an’ pack an’ turn him loose.”

Pruitt pondered this suggestion for a moment and then somberly shook his head. That idea did not appeal to him, while at the same time it manifestly introduced another and uncertain element into the situation.

Milly heard quick, rustling footsteps behind her. Catlee appeared round the wagon, with a gun leveled low in his right hand. Follonsbee saw him first and let out a startled exclamation. Pruitt jerked up. Then he froze.

“Howdy, men!” was Catlee’s greeting, in voice these companions evidently had never heard him use before.

Follonsbee uttered a gasp of amazed conviction.

“Andy! I told you!”

Pruitt scarcely moved a muscle, unless in the flicker of an eyelash. He did not change expression. He hissed out, “Who’n hell are you now?” That was his swift acceptance of Follonsbee’s reiterated hints.

“Small matter,” replied Catlee, as with weapon quiveringly extended he sheered round squarely in front of Pruitt, “but if it’d please you to be acquainted with me at this late day — you can bow to Sam Davis.”

“Ahuh! Late pard of the Youngers,” retorted Follonsbee, going white in the face.

“Reckon I’m used to hard company,” whipped out Catlee, stingingly, “but never yet took to sharin’ innocent little girls!”

Pruitt suffered no suggestion of Follonsbee’s weakening to the power of a name, whatever it was. The leveled weapon, covering him and his comrade, was the great factor in his reaction. Not for the slightest fraction of a second did he take his dancing, furious gaze from Catlee. The uselessness of more words seemed marked in his almost imperceptible gathering of muscular force. All the power of sight and mind was transfixed on Catlee’s eyes, to read there the intent that preceded action. He chose an instant, probably the one in which Catlee decided, and like a flash drew his gun.

As it left his hip and snapped, Catlee’s gun crashed. The force of the bullet knocked Pruitt flat.

“Hur-ry Hank!” he yelled, in fierce, wild tone of terrible realization, and flinging the empty weapon he had forgotten to load he lurched like a crippled panther to get his hands on Jett’s rifle.

Milly saw only the intrepid Pruitt, but she heard Catlee’s second shot and the sodden thud of Follonsbee falling. He made no outcry. Pruitt’s actions were almost too swift to follow — so swift that Catlee missed him, as with spasmodic dive he grasped and carried Jett’s rifle over the mess box. Up he sprang, grotesque, misshapen, yet wonderfully agile, to discharge the heavy rifle even as he received Catlee’s fire square in his chest. Staggering backward, he dropped the weapon, his arms spread, and he seemed falling step by step. An awful blankness blotted out the ferocity of his crooked face. Step by step, he fell backward over the bank into the river. A sounding splash followed his disappearance.

Milly’s set gaze wavered. A silence intervened. Her lungs seemed to expand. The appalling fixidity of her attention broke with a shock and she looked for Catlee. He lay on the ground beside the camp fire. His hand twitched — released the smoking gun. Milly leaped out of the wagon and ran to him.

She knelt. His hat was off, his face vague, changing. The gray storm of his eyes seemed fading.

“Oh — oh — Catlee!” cried Milly, poignantly.

“Good luck,” he whispered. His lips set, his eyelids fluttered — all his body quivered to a relaxation. He had been shot through the breast.

“My God! how awful! . . . He’s dead! They’re all dead. I’m left — alone. It’s over. . . . Brave Catlee! Oh, he saved me! . . . But what can I do? I—”

Milly’s outburst was silenced by the shrill neigh of one of the horses hitched to the wagon. It was a neigh that heralded sight or scent of another horse. Wild and sharp then pealed out a whistling answer from across the river.

Milly bounded erect to peer out under the cottonwoods, thrilling with joy. But her joy sustained a bewildering check, and it died when steadier glance revealed mounted Indians riding down into the river. For one moment Milly stared, biting her fingers in her horror; then the spirit born of these trying hours ran through her like a white flame, and climbing to the seat of the wagon she whipped up the reins.

Her instinct was to escape. She had no time to think of a better way. And the horses, restive, not wholly recovered from fright, needed no urging. They broke into trot, dragging the saddled animals behind the wagon. Out of the clearing, into the brakes they crashed, and were hard to hold. Road there was none, but a wide lane of crushed weeds and brush marked where Jett had driven the wagon in, and later had ridden to and fro on horseback. The team followed it and they tore through the bending clumps of brush that hung over it and bumped over logs. Branches of trees struck Milly as she passed, blinding her for a moment. When she could see clearly again the horses were no longer in the lane through the brush. They had swerved to one side or the other, she did not know which. But she kept her sense of direction: to the right was down river, and to the left was the prairie, the main herd of buffalo, and the camps of the hunters.

She must get out into the open quickly. If the Indians had not heard her drive away there would be a little time before they would strike out on her trail through the brakes.

“Oh, I forgot,” she cried. “They heard the horse neigh.” And with a sinking of her daring spirit she let the horses have free rein. They quickened their gait, but showed no sign of bolting. They wanted to get out of that jungle, and they broke a path through thickets, over rotten logs, and under matted hanging vines. Milly had all she could do to keep from being torn from her seat.

They got by the worst of the brakes and Milly saw light ahead low down through the trees, but it seemed to be in the wrong direction. She should turn more to the left. Her efforts to head the iron-jawed team in that direction were unavailing. They kept to a straight course, out into the light. But this open had deceived Milly, and probably the horses also. It was a wide bare strip of sand where a tributary of the Pease flowed in wet season. Here the horses slowed to a dragging walk, yet soon crossed the sand to enter the brakes again.

Here in the shade and dust, and the mêlée of threshing branches round her face, Milly lost all sense of the right direction. She realized her peril, yet did not despair. Something had always happened; it would happen to save her again.

Suddenly a crashing of brush in front of her stopped her heart. She almost fell back into the wagon. A huge brown buffalo bull tore ahead of her, passing to the left. Milly recovered. Then again she heard crashing ahead of her, to one side, and more at a distance. There were buffalo in the brakes.

Above the swish of brush and rattle of wagon and pound of hoofs she began to hear a low, rumbling thunder, apparently to the fore and her right.

“They said stampede!” she cried fearfully.

Her horses heard it and were excited, or else the scent and proximity of stray buffalo had been the cause of their faster, less regular gait. Milly essayed again to swerve them to the left, but in vain. And indeed that left side grew more and more impractical, owing to obstructions which shunted the horses in an opposite direction. Quite unexpectedly then they burst out of the brakes into open prairie.

Milly was as amazed as frightened. The plain was so dusty she could not see a mile, and strings of buffalo were disappearing into a yellow broken pall. They appeared to be loping in their easy, lumbering way. The thunder was louder now, though still a strange low roar, and it came out of the dust curtain which obscured the prairie. The horses, snorting, not liking dust or buffalo, loped for a mile, then slowed to a walk and halted. Milly tried to get her bearings. The whole horizon to fore and right was streaky with dust and moving buffalo. From behind her the line of river timber extended on her right to fade in the obscurity of dust. This established her position. She had crossed the brakes of the tributary and was now headed east. The buffalo were then coming out of the south and they were crossing the Pease. Milly realized that she was far out of her proper course and must make a wide turn to the left, cross the dry stream-bed, and then go up the river to the camps of the hide-hunters.

Suddenly she missed something. The two saddle horses! They had broken off in the rough ride. Milly looked back at the dark, ragged line of the timber from where she had come. The air was clearer that way. Movement and flash attracted her gaze. She saw animals run out into the open. Wild, lean, colored ponies with riders! They stretched out in swift motion, graceful, wild, incomparably a contrast to the horses of white hunters.

Milly realized she was being pursued by Indians.

CHAPTER XV

MILLY SCREAMED AT the horses and swung the lash, beating them into a gallop. The lightly loaded wagon lurched and bounced over the hummocky prairie, throwing her off the seat and from side to side. A heavy strain on the reins threatened to tear her arms from their sockets.

It was this physical action that averted a panic-stricken flight. The horses broke from gallop into run, and they caught up with scattered groups and lines of buffalo. Milly was in the throes of the keenest terror that had yet beset her, but she did not quite lose her reason. There were a few moments fraught with heart-numbing, blood-curdling sensations; which on the other hand were counteracted by the violence of the race over the prairie, straight for the straggling strings of the buffalo herd. The horses plunged, hurtling the wagon along; the wind, now tainted with dust and scent of buffalo, rushed into Milly’s face and waved her hair; the tremendous drag on the reins, at first scarcely perceptible, in her great excitement, began to hurt hands, wrists, arms, shoulders in a degree that compelled attention. But the race itself, the flight, the breakneck pace across the prairie, with stampeding buffalo before and Comanche Indians behind — it was too great, too magnificent, too terrible to prostrate this girl. Opposed to all the fears possible to a girl was the thing roused in her by love, by example of a thief who had died to save her, by the marvel of the moment.

Milly gazed back over her shoulder. The Comanches had gained. They were not half a mile away, riding now in wide formation, naked, gaudy, lean, feathered, swift and wild as a gale of wind in the tall prairie grass.

“Better death among the buffalo!” cried Milly, and she turned to wrap both reins round her left wrist, to lash out with the whip, and to scream: “Run! Run! Run!”

Buffalo loped ahead of her, to each side and behind, in straggling groups and lines, all headed in the same direction as the vague denser bunches to the right. Here the dust pall moved like broken clouds, showing light and dark.

She became aware of increasing fullness in her ears. The low rumble had changed to a clattering trample, yet there seemed more. The sound grew; it came closer; it swelled to a roar; and presently she located it in the rear.

She turned. With startled gaze she saw a long, bobbing, black, ragged mass pouring like a woolly flood out over the prairie. A sea of buffalo! They were moving at a lope, ponderously, regularly, and the scalloped head of that immense herd crossed the line between Milly and the Comanches. It swept on. It dammed and blocked the way. Milly saw the vermillion paint on the naked bodies and faces of these savages as they wheeled their lean horses to race along with the buffalo.

Then thin whorls of rising dust obscured them from Milly’s sight. A half mile of black bobbing humps moved between her and the Comanches. She uttered a wild cry that was joy, wonder, reverence, and acceptance of the thing she had trusted. Thicker grew the dust mantle; wider the herd; greater the volume of sound! The Comanches might now have been a thousand miles away, for all the harm they could do her. As they vanished in the obscurity of dust so also did they fade from Milly’s mind!

Milly drove a plunging maddened team of horses in the midst of buffalo as far as the eye could see. Her intelligence told her that she was now in greater peril of death than at any time heretofore, yet, though her hair rose stiff and her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, she could not feel the same as when Pruitt had parceled her, share and share with Follonsbee, or when those lean wild-riding Comanches had been swooping down on her. Strangely, though there was natural terror in the moment, she did not seem afraid of the buffalo.

The thick massed herd was on her left, and appeared to have but few open patches; to the fore and all on the other side there were as many gray spaces of prairie showing as black loping blotches of buffalo. Her horses were running while the buffalo were loping, thus she kept gaining on groups near her and passing them. Always they sheered away, some of the bulls kicking out with wonderful quickness. But in the main they gave space to the swifter horses and the lumbering wagon.

The dust rose in sheets now thin, now thick, and obscured everything beyond a quarter of a mile distant. Milly was surrounded, hemmed in, carried onward by a pondering moving medium. The trampling roar of hoofs was deafening, but it was not now like thunder. It was too close. It did not swell or rumble or roll. It roared.

A thousand tufted tails switched out of that mass, and ten times that many shaggy humps bobbed in sight. What queer sensation this action gave Milly — queer above all the other sensations! It struck her as ludicrous.

The larger, denser mass on the left had loped up at somewhat faster gait than those groups Milly had first encountered. It forged ahead for a time, then gradually absorbed all the buffalo, until they were moving in unison. Slowly they appeared to pack together, to obliterate the open spaces, and to close in on the horses. This was what Milly feared most.

The horses took their bits between their teeth and ran headlong. Milly had to slack the reins or be pulled out of the seat. They plunged into the rear of the moving buffalo, to make no impression otherwise than to split the phalanx for a few rods and be kicked from all sides. Here the horses reared, plunged, and sent out above the steady roar a piercing scream of terror. Milly had never before heard the scream of a horse. She could do nothing but cling to the loose reins and the wagon seat, and gaze with distended eyes. One of the white horses, Jett’s favorite, plunged to his knees. The instant was one when Milly seemed to be clamped by paralysis. The other white horse plunged on, dragging his mate to his feet and into the race again.

Then the space around horses and wagons closed in, narrowed to an oval with only a few yards clear to the fore and on each side. Behind, the huge, lowered, shaggy heads almost bobbed against the wagon.

The time of supreme suspense had come to Milly. She had heard buffalo would run over and crush any obstruction in their path. She seemed about to become the victim of such a blind juggernaut. Her horses had been compelled to slacken their gait to accommodate that of the buffalo. They could neither forge ahead, nor swerve to one side or other, nor stop. They were blocked, hemmed in, and pushed. And their terror was extreme. They plunged in unison and singly; they screamed and bit at the kicking buffalo. It was a miracle that leg or harness or wheel was not broken.

A violent jolt nearly unseated Milly. The wagon had been struck from behind. Fearfully she looked back. A stupid-faced old bull, with shaggy head as large as a barrel, was wagging along almost under the end of the wagon-bed. He had bumped into it. Then the space on the left closed in until buffalo were right alongside the wheels. Milly wrung her hands. It would happen now. A wheel would be broken, the wagon overturned, and she . . . A big black bull rubbed his rump against the hind wheel. The iron tire revolving fast scraped hard on his hide. Quick as a flash the bull lowered head and elevated rear, kicking out viciously. One of his legs went between the spokes. A crack rang out above the trample of hoofs. The bull went down, and the wagon lifted and all but upset. Milly could not cry out. She clung to the seat with all her strength. Then began a terrific commotion. The horses plunged as the drag on the wagon held them back. Buffalo began to pile high over the one that had fallen, and a wave of action seemed to permeate all of them.

Those rushing forward pounded against the hind wheels, and split round them until the pressure became so great that they seemed to lift the wagon and carry it along, forcing the horses ahead.

Milly could not shut her eyes. They were fascinated by this heaving mass. The continuous roar, the endless motion toward certain catastrophe, were driving her mad. Then this bump and scrape and lurch, this frightful proximity of the encroaching buffalo, this pell-mell pandemonium behind, was too much for her. The strength of hands and will left her. The wagon tilted, turned sidewise, and stopped with a shock. An appalling sound seemed to take the place of motion. The buffalo behind began to lift their great heads, to pile high over those in front, to crowd in terrific straining wave of black, hideous and irresistible, like an oncoming tide. Heads and horns and hair, tufted tails, a dense, rounded, moving, tussling sea of buffalo bore down on the wagon. The sound was now a thundering roar. Dust hung low. The air was suffocating. Milly’s nose and lungs seemed to close. She fell backward over the seat and fainted.

When she opened her eyes it was as if she had come out of a nightmare. She lay on her back. She gazed upward to sky thinly filmed over by dust clouds. Had she slept?

Suddenly she understood the meaning of motion and the sensation of filled ears. The wagon was moving steadily, she could not tell how fast, and from all sides rose a low, clattering roar of hoofs.

“Oh, it must be — something happened — the horses went on — the wagon did not upset!” she cried, and her voice was indistinct.

But she feared to rise and look out. She listened and felt. There was a vast difference. The wagon moved on steadily, smoothly, without lurch or bump; the sound of hoofs filled the air, yet not loudly or with such a cutting trample. She reasoned out that the pace had slowed much. Where was she? How long had she lain unconscious? What would be the end of this awful race?

Nothing happened. She found her breathing easier and her nostrils less stopped by dust and odor of buffalo. Her mouth was parched with thirst. There was a slow, torrid beat of her pulse. Her skin appeared moist and hot. Then she saw the sun, quite high, a strange magenta hue, seen through the thin dust clouds. It had been just after daylight when she escaped from Jett’s camp. Ah! she remembered Catlee! — Sam Davis, one of Younger’s clan! . . . Hours had passed and she was still surrounded by buffalo. The end had not come then; it had been averted, but it was inevitable. What she had passed through! Life was cruel. Hers had been an unhappy fate. Suddenly she thought of Tom Doan, and life, courage, hope surged with the magic of love. Something had happened to save her.

Milly sat up. She saw gray prairie — and then, some fifty yards distant, the brown shaggy bodies of buffalo, in lazy lope. The wagon was keeping the same slow speed. Milly staggered up to lean against the seat and peer ahead. Wonderful to see — Jett’s white team was contentedly trotting along, some rods in the rear of straggling buffalo. She could scarcely believe what she saw. The horses were no longer frightened.

On the other side wider space intervened before buffalo covered the gray prairie. She could see a long way — miles, it seemed — and there were as many black streaks of buffalo as gray strips of grass. To the fore Milly beheld the same scene, only greater in extent. Buffalo showed as far as sight could penetrate, but they were no longer massed or moving fast.

“It’s not a stampede,” Milly told herself in sudden realization. “It never was. . . . They’re just traveling. They don’t mind the wagon — the horses — not any more. . . . Oh, I shall get out!”

The knotted reins hung over the brake, where she had left them. Milly climbed to the driver’s seat and took them up.

The horses responded to her control, not in accelerated trot, but by a lifting of ears and throwing of heads. They were glad to be under guidance again. They trotted on as if no buffalo were near. It amazed Milly, this change. But she could tell by the sweat and froth and cakes of dust on them that they had traveled far and long before coming to this indifference.

Milly did not drive the horses, though she held the reins taut enough for them to feel she was there; she sat stiff in the seat, calling to them, watching and thrilling, nervously and fearfully suspicious of the moving inclosure which carried her onward a prisoner. Time passed swiftly. The sun burned down on her. And the hour came when the buffalo lumbered to a walk.

They were no different from cattle now, Milly thought. Then the dust clouds floated away and she could see over the backs of buffalo on all sides, out to the boundless prairie. The blue sky overhead seemed to have a welcome for her. The horses slowed down. Gradually the form of the open space surrounding the wagon widened, changed its shape as buffalo in groups wandered out from the herd. Little light tawny calves appeared to run playfully into the open. They did not play as if they were tired.

Milly watched them with a birth of love in her heart for them, and a gratitude to the whole herd for its service to her. No doubt now that she was saved! Nearly a whole day had passed since the Indians had seen her disappear, and leagues of prairie had been covered. The direction she was being taken was north, and that she knew to be favorable to her. Sooner or later these buffalo would split or pass by her; then she would have another problem to consider.

But how interminably they traveled on! No doubt the annual instinct to migrate northward had been the cause of this movement. If they had stampeded across the Pease, which had not seemed to her the case, they had at once calmed to a gait the hunters called their regular ranging mode of travel. Her peril at one time had been great, but if this herd had caught her in a stampede she would have been lost.

The stragglers that from time to time came near her paid no attention to horses or wagon. They were as tame as cows. They puffed along, wagging their big heads, apparently asleep as they traveled. The open lanes and aisles and patches changed shape, closed to reopen, yet on the whole there was a gradual widening. The herd was spreading. Milly could see the ragged rear a couple of miles back, where it marked its dark line against the gray prairie. Westward the mass was thick and wide; it was thin and straggly on the east. Northward the black creeping tide of backs extended to the horizon.

Milly rode on, escorted by a million beasts of the plain, and they came to mean more to her than she could understand. They were alive, vigorous, self-sufficient; and they were doomed by the hide-hunters. She could not think of anything save the great, shaggy, stolid old bulls, and the sleeker smaller cows, and the tawny romping calves. So wonderful an adventure, so vast a number of hoofed creatures, so strangely trooping up out of the dusty river brakes to envelop her, so different when she and they and the horses had become accustomed to one another — these ideas were the gist of her thoughts. It was a strange, unreal concentration on buffalo.

The afternoon waned. The sun sank low in the west and turned gold. A time came when Milly saw with amaze that the front leagues of buffalo had disappeared over the horizon, now close at hand. They had come to edge of slope on river brake. What would this mean to her?

When the wagon reached the line where the woolly backs had gone down out of sight Milly saw a slope, covered with spreading buffalo, that ended in a winding green belt of trees. In places shone the glancing brightness of water. Beyond, on a level immense plain, miles and miles of buffalo were moving like myriads of ants. They were spreading on all sides, and those in the lead had stopped to graze. The immensity of the scene, its beauty and life and tragedy, would remain in Milly’s memory all her days. She saw the whole herd, and it was a spectacle to uplift her heart. While the horses walked on with the buffalo streaming down that slope Milly gazed in rapt attention. How endless the gray level prairie below! She understood why the buffalo loved it, how it had nourished them, what a wild lonely home it was. Faint threads of other rivers crossed the gray; and the green hue was welcome contrast to the monotony. Duskily red the sun was setting, and it cast its glow over the plain and buffalo, stronger every moment. In the distance purple mantled the horizon. Far to the northwest a faint dark ruggedness of land or cloud seemed limned against the sunset-flushed sky. Was that land? If so it was the Llano Estacado.

Milly’s horses reached the belt of trees, and entered a grove through and round which the buffalo were traveling. She felt the breaking of the inclosure of beasts that had so long encompassed her. It brought a change of thoughts. She was free to let the remainder of the herd pass. Driving down, behind a thick clump of cottonwoods she turned into a green pocket, and halted. Wearily the horses stood, heaving, untempted by the grass. On each side of Milly streams and strings and groups of buffalo passed to go down into the river, from which a loud continuous splashing rose. She waited, watching on one side, then the other. The solid masses had gone by; the ranks behind thinned as they came on; and at last straggling groups with many calves brought up the rear. These hurried on, rustling the bush, on to splash into the shallow ford. Then the violence of agitated water ceased; the low trample of hoofs ceased.

Silence! It was not real. For a whole day Milly’s ears had been filled and harassed by a continuous trample, at first a roar, then a clatter, then a slow beat, beat, beat of hoofs, but always a trample. She could not get used to silence. She felt lost. A rush of sensations seemed impending. But only a dreamy stillness pervaded the river bottom, a hot, drowsy, thick air, empty of life. The unnaturally silent moment flung at her the loneliness and wildness of the place. Alone! She was lost on the prairie.

“Oh, what shall I do now?” she cried.

There was everything to do — to care for the horses, and for herself, so to preserve strength; to choose a direction, and to travel on and on, until she found a road that would lead her to some camp or post. Suddenly she sank down in a heap. The thought of the enormous problem crushed her for a moment. She was in the throes of a reaction.

“But I mustn’t think,” she whispered, fiercely. “I must do!”

And she clambered out of the wagon. The grove sloped down to the green bench where she had waited for the buffalo to pass. Grass was abundant. The horses would not stray. She moved to unhitch them, and had begun when it occurred to her that she would have to hitch them up again. To this end she studied every buckle and strap. Many a time she had helped round horses on the farm. The intricacies of harness were not an entire mystery to her. Then she had watched Jett and Catlee hitch up this team. Still, she studied everything carefully. Then she unbuttoned the traces and removed the harness. The horses rolled in a dusty place which the buffalo had trampled barren, and they rose dirty and yellow to shake a cloud from their backs. Then with snorts they trotted down to the water.

Milly was reminded of her own burning thirst, and she ran down to the water’s edge, where, unmindful of its muddy color, she threw herself flat and drank until she could hold no more. “Never knew — water — could taste so good,” she panted. Returning to the wagon, she climbed up in it to examine its contents. She found a bag of oats for the horses, a box containing utensils for cooking, another full of food supplies, a bale of blankets, and lastly an ax and shovel.

“Robinson Crusoe had no more,” said Milly to herself, and then stood aghast at her levity. Was she not lost on the prairie? Might not Indians ride down upon her? Milly considered the probabilities. “God has answered my prayer,” she concluded, gravely, and dismissed fears for the time being.

In the box of utensils she found matches, which were next to food in importance, and thus encouraged she lifted out what she needed. Among the articles of food were a loaf of bread and a bag of biscuits. Suddenly her mouth became flooded with saliva and she had to bite into a biscuit. There were also cooked meat and both jerked venison and buffalo. Salt and pepper, sugar, coffee, dried apples she found, and then did not explore the box to the uttermost.

“I’ll not starve, anyway,” murmured Milly.

Next she gathered dry bits of bark and wood, of which there was abundance, and essayed to start a fire. Success crowned her efforts, though she burned her fingers. Then, taking up the pail, she descended the bank to the river and filled it with water, which was now clarifying in the slow current. Returning, she poured some into the coffee pot and put that in the edge of the fire. Next, while waiting for the water to boil she cut strips of the cooked buffalo meat and heated them in a pan. She had misgivings about what her cooking might be. Nevertheless, she sat down presently and ate as heartily as ever before in her life.

Twilight had fallen when she looked up from the last task. The west was rose with an afterglow of sunset. All at once, now that action had to be suspended, she was confronted with reality. The emotion of reality!

“Oh, I’m lost — alone — helpless!” she exclaimed. “It’s growing dark. I was always afraid of the dark.”

And she shivered there through a long moment of feeling. She would be compelled to think now. She could not force sleep. How impossible to fall asleep! Panthers, bears, wildcats, wolves lived in these river brakes. She felt in her coat for the little derringer. It was gone. She had no weapons save the ax, and she could not wield that effectively.

Yet she did not at once seek the apparent security of her bed in the wagon. She walked about, though close by. She peered into the gathering shadows. She listened. The silence had been relieved by crickets and frogs. Slowly the black night mantled the river bottom and the trains of stars twinkled in the blue dome.

The presence of the horses, as they grazed near, brought something of comfort, if not relief. She remembered a dog she had loved. Rover — if she only had him now! Then she climbed into the wagon, and without removing even her boots she crawled into the blankets. They had been disarranged in the rough ride. She needed them more to hide under than for warmth. The soft night seemed drowsily lulling.

Her body cried out with its aches and pains and weariness, with the deep internal riot round her heart, with throb of brain. Not all at once could she lie still. But gradually began a slow sinking, as if she were settling down, down, and all at once she lay like a log. It was too warm under the blanket, yet when she threw it back and saw the white stars, so strange, watchful, she grew more aware of her plight and covered her face again. At length her body relaxed to the point where it was no longer dominating with its muscular sensations. Then her mind grew active — reverted to the terrible tragedy of Jett’s outfit. Catlee! . . . All the time he had watched over her. He had killed for her — and died for her. A man who confessed he had never been anything else than bad! Something great loomed in Milly’s simple mind. Could Jett have had any good in him? . . . She prayed for their souls.

They had left her alone, and she must find her way — whither? And into that dark gulf of mind flashed the thought and the vision of Tom Doan. Milly began to weep. It was too terrible, the remembrance of him, and his love and kisses, of his offer of marriage and his plan for their home. Terrible to dwell upon when she was lost in the prairie. She might never see him again! But she must try with all her power to find her way out.

“I — will try — for him!” she sobbed, and remembered her prayers. Then grief and worry succumbed to exhaustion; she drifted into slumber.

The singing of birds awakened Milly. The sun had risen; the green leaves were fluttering with a silken rustle. It took a moment for realization of her situation to rush into thought. Yet the darkness of mind, the old reluctance to return to consciousness, was absent this morning.

When she got to her knees, and knelt there, stretching her bruised and cramped muscles, she looked over the wagon to see the white horses grazing near under the cottonwoods. Sleek gray deer were grazing with them, as tame as cattle. A rabbit crossed the aisle of green. The morning held a strange bright beauty and peace.

Milly brushed out her tangled short curls. Her face was burned from the wind and sun of yesterday’s ride. Then she climbed out of the wagon, ready for the day. She did not have to dress, and she thought bathing her face might make the sunburn worse.

First she put a quart of oats in each nose bag, and carried them out to the horses. She did not need to go far. Both horses saw her and came, to meet her; and slipping the nosebags in place, she led them to the wagon and haltered them. Breakfast did not take long to prepare and eat. Then she cleaned the utensils, packed them away in the box, shook out her blankets, and rolled them. This left the task which worried her — that of hitching up.

But when she came to undertake it she found that she remembered where every part of the harness belonged. To lift the heavy wagon tongue and hold it while she snapped the hooks into rings required all her strength.

“There!” she muttered, with something of pride and wonder. “Now what?”

Was the wagon all right? She walked round it, as she had seen Jett do. One spoke had been broken out of the left hind wheel; other than that she could not see any damage. Jett had greased the wagon wheels the day before his intended departure. Nothing more to do but start! Milly was almost overcome at the thought. It seemed incredible that she would dare to drive across the prairie.

“I can’t stay here. I’d be as badly off as on the move,” she burst out, desperately. “Oh, I must go! But where — how?”

She wrung her hands and fought her fears. A terrible problem confronted her. Yet was it as perilous as when she was practically a prisoner in Jett’s outfit. Again she remembered that her prayers had been answered. Suppose she was only a timid weak girl? Could she not make herself do what any boy might do? Once and for all she drove herself passionately into a spirit of daring and faith. She resolved to feel these, even though she had to endure agonies of dread.

Then she plumped to her knees before a little bare spot of sand, and gazing down at it she thought with all her might. Not for nothing had she been keen to observe men in camp, when they talked about roads, trails, places. Jett had been poor at direction and location, but Follonsbee had the whole buffalo country in his mind. Milly had seen him draw maps in the dirt. To this end she took up a stick.

“The west is there,” she said, thoughtfully. “I saw the sun set. Then the north is there. Northwest is my direction. It was ten days’ travel from Pease River to Sprague’s Post. . . . Here’s the Pease.”

And she drew a line in the sand.

“Yesterday I came thirty miles — maybe forty, almost due north, to this stream. Then I’m here.” She made a dot in the sand, and another line representing this stream. “I don’t dare try to find my way back to the buffalo camps. I might meet the Indians. I must not follow this stream west. I must cross it and head northwest. I must cross every stream I meet. When I reach one too deep to ford I must follow along it till I find a place.”

Milly’s reasoning was the result of her experience with the Jett outfit. It took no particular degree of intelligence to calculate about where she was on the prairie and what to do to get out. The great task was to accomplish what her judgment dictated. She had traveled enough over the untrodden prairie to have some faint conception of the enormity of what faced her. Thought of meeting with buffalo-hunters persistently flaunted hopes. They encouraged her, but she could not trust to them. This Texas prairie covered a vast space, and in it she was lost.

“That’s all!” she said, blankly.

The moment of decision had come. Milly drew a deep breath and flung wide her arms, with hands clenching. How she hated to leave the apparent protection of these friendly cottonwoods! Then, with a great throb in her breast, she turned to mount the wagon.

Not reluctant indeed were the horses. They had grazed and drunk their fill and they knew their noses were pointed homeward, away from the buffalo fields. Milly had all she could do to hold them. She drove out of the grove, to the right where the buffalo had worn a wide trodden belt down to the stream. The last fifty yards were quite downhill. Milly reined in to scrutinize her first obstacle of the day.

Thousands of buffalo had forded the stream here. Far as she could see, the banks on both sides were trodden fresh and dark with tracks. At this point the stream was perhaps three feet deep and forty wide; nothing for strong and nimble buffalo to ford. But these buffalo had not been hampered with a wagon. Still, the crossing was not especially bad. Jett would not have given it a second glance. He would have plunged across. The sandy bottom would assuredly be hard packed. Milly had only to start right, not too carefully, and to keep the horses going.

She threw on the brake and called to the horses. “Get up! Whity! Specks! . . . Easy now!”

They trotted down the slope — faster — faster, Milly leaned back on the reins. Her face blanched. Her teeth clenched. It was fearful, yet it roused defiance. She could drive them. They were eager, unafraid. The wagon propelled them. Plunge! the water crashed and splashed high. And the wagon bounced after them, to souse into the stream, over the front wheels. Milly was deluged. For an instant she could not see for water in her eyes, for the flying spray. But she called to the horses. They took the stream at a trot. It was no deeper than their knees, and they sent sheets of muddy water ahead of them. The opposite bank was low, easy for them; and Milly, before she realized it, pulled up on the level open prairie.

“Easy, and I got a bath!” she cried, exultantly. “Oh, Whity and Specks, I love you!”

She searched for her scarf to wipe her wet face and hair. But it, too, like her little gun, was gone. She had lost it. No! She recalled that she had left it tied on the hoop of the wagon cover in Jett’s camp. The memory startled her. Suppose Tom Doan should at last find Jett’s camp and see her red scarf. But that misery for him could never be. The Indians would have made blackened embers of that camp.

Milly took her direction from the sun and drove out upon the prairie. It was a gray, beautiful plain, luxuriant with ripened grass, sloping very gently to the north. Far to the eastward she espied the black horizon — wide line of buffalo. They had grazed down the stream. In the bright sunlight the whole panorama was splendid and stirring to Milly.

The horses started at a trot, and in the thick grass slowed to a steady brisk walk. The wagon was light, the ground level; and this powerful team had no serious task ahead of them, if they were only guided aright. Milly was excited, thrilled, and yet troubled. The adventure was tremendous, but the responsibility too great except for moments of defiance or exaltation. She could not all the time remain keyed up with a spirit that was unquenchable.

Several miles of travel brought her to the summit of the gradual slope of valley, and here, as on the side from which she had come, she obtained commanding view of the surrounding country. It was grand, but she had eyes only for the northwest. Across the leagues of billowy prairie, so gray and monotonous and lonely, there stood a purple escarpment, remote and calling. It was the Llano Estacado. Milly recognized it, and seemed for an instant to forget the sense of being lost. But it was far away, and the northern end disappeared in purple haze. On the other hand it was a landmark ever present from high points, and somewhere between it and her present position ran the road of the buffalo-hunters.

To her left meandered the green line of trees, like a fringed ribbon on the soft gray of prairie, and it headed toward the Staked Pain, where she knew all these Texas streams had their source.

“I could reach the road to-day or to-morrow, if I drove straight west,” soliloquized Milly.

It was a sore temptation, but her good sense forbade her to take such added risk. The Comanches were between her and the buffalo camps. She must aim diagonally across the prairie, toward the extreme northwest corner of the escarpment, and perhaps four or five days she would strike the road. Then she would know the camping grounds, and would surely fall in with oncoming hunters or outgoing freighters. To find water at night, and to cross such streams as she met — these were her present problems.

Meanwhile, as she drove on, thinking only of this incredible journey, she could not help seeing and being momentarily thrilled by the wild creatures of the prairie.

Sleek gray, white-rumped antelope scarcely bothered to trot out of her path, and with long ears erect they watched her pass. Wild? These beautiful prairie deer were not wild. Milly believed she could in time have had them eating out of her hand, like she had the squirrels and birds at the Pease River camp. It was men who made animals wild.

She ranged the wide gray expanse for sight of buffalo. There were none. She saw a band of coyotes sneaking round the antelope. Farther on she espied a gaunt wolf, almost white, watching her from a ridge-top. Rabbits were always scurrying from before the horses, and prairie birds flitted out of the grass. Once Milly saw a red hawk poised in midair, fluttering its wings with marvelous rapidity, and then it shot down like a streak, to strike the grass and rise with a tiny animal in its talons. Always beauty and life present, and with them, cruelty — death!

Milly drove from early morning until an hour before sunset, when she reached the only water of the day. It was a pond in a sandy stream-bed. There were fringes of hackaberry brush along the banks, but no sheltering trees. Farther west some six or eight miles she thought she espied the green of timber, but that was far away and off her line of direction. She must take what afforded; and to this end she unhitched, turned the horses loose, and made the simple preparations for her own wants.

Whity and Specks, as she had christened the horses, after drinking at the pond returned to linger near the wagon. They manifested extraordinary interest in Milly and even got in her way.

“What’s the matter with you white-faced beggars?” she asked. “It’s oats you want, yes? Well, I’m not going to let you eat all the oats right away.”

Yet she was not proof against their nosing round her. Long had she been gentle and kind to these horses — the more so because of Jett’s brutality. They knew her well, and now that she was master they began to prove the devotion of dumb brutes. Milly gave them sparingly of the oats, and petted them, and talked the more because solitude had begun to impinge upon her mind.

This sunset hour found her tired after the long day’s drive. With change of action, followed by food and drink she needed, there came a rally of spirits. Darkness soon hid the lonely, limitless expanse from Milly’s gaze, and then it seemed the night was lonelier. Only a faint murmur of insects! She would have welcomed a mourn of wolf, or even a cry of panther. A slight breeze fanned the red embers of the meager fire. She went to bed afraid of the silence, the night, afraid of sleep, yet she could not keep her eyes open or stay the drowsy fading away of senses.

Next morning Milly was up early, and on the way before sunrise. She started well. But at the end of the first hour she ran into rough prairie, hindering travel. The luxuriant prairie grass failed and the gray earth carried only a scanty covering. The horses plowed up dust that rose and blew back upon her; the sun grew hot and glaring; and there was a wide area of shallow washes, ditches, gullies, like the depressions of a washboard. Having plodded miles into this zone, she could not turn back, unless absolutely balked, so she applied herself to careful driving, and kept on, true as possible to the distant purple landmark.

The strong horses, used to a heavy hand, could not altogether be controlled by Milly, and they plunged into many places without her sanction. What with holding the reins as best she could, and constant heed to brake and distance, and worry lest she would damage a wheel, she was in grievous straits most of that day. It passed swiftly, swallowed up in miles of hard going, and left no time for scanning the prairie or fearful imaginings. It was work.

Toward evening she drew out of this zone and came presently to good grass once more, and just at dusk hauled up to a timber belt that bordered water. The thirsty horses stamped to get down to it. Milly labored to unhitch them, and when the task was done she sank to the ground to rest. But she was driven to secure firewood while there was light enough. She felt too tired to eat, yet she knew she must eat, or else fail altogether of strength. The long hanging to the reins was what had exhausted Milly. Her hands hurt, her arms ached, her shoulders sagged. Driving that iron-mouthed team was a man’s job. Milly was no weakling, but her weight and muscular force were inadequate to the demand of such driving.

Supper, bed, night, sleep — they all passed swiftly, and again the sun rose. Milly could not find a place to ford the stream. It was not a depth of water that prevented, but high banks unsafe to attempt. For miles she drove along it, glad of the green foliage and singing birds and wild creatures, and especially glad that its course for most of the morning ran a little west of north. When, however, it made an abrupt turn to the west, she knew she must cross. She essayed the best ford she could find, made it safely, wet, shaken, frightened, and nearly pulled apart. On that far side she rested in the shade, and wept while she ate.

When about to start again she remembered that the men had never passed a stream or pond without watering the horses. Whereupon she took the bucket and went down to fill it. Four trips were necessary to satisfy the thirst of Whity and Specks. She had done well.

“We had two dry camps between Sprague’s and the Pease,” she said, and thought she must not forget that.

The afternoon drive began favorably. The sun was somewhat hazed over, reducing the heat; a level prairie afforded smooth travel; the horses had settled down into steady stolid work. The miles came slowly, but surely.

Milly’s courage had not failed, but she was beset by physical ills, and the attendant moods, fancies, thoughts that could not everlastingly be overcome. She grew to hate the boundless prairie-land, so barren of life, of any color but gray, of things that might mitigate the deceit of distance. Nothing save gray level and purple haze! It wore on her, ever flinging at her the attributes of the prairie openness, a windy vastness, empty of sound, movement, the abode of solitude, the abode of loneliness. Lonely, lonely land! She was as much lost as ever. There was no road, no river, no camp, no mountain, only the dim upflung false Llano Estacado, unattainable as ever.

But while Milly succumbed to her ills and her woes the horses plodded on. They knew what they had to accomplish, and were equal to it. They crowded the hours and miles behind them, and bore Milly to another watercourse, a wide glade-bordered enlargement of a stream, where ducks and cranes and kingfishers gave life to the melancholy scene.

While she performed her tasks the lake changed from blue to gold, and at last mirrored the rose of sunset sky. Then dusk fell sadly, and night came, dark, lonely, pierced by the penetrating trill of frogs and the dismal cry of a water fowl. They kept Milly awake and she could not shake the encroachment of morbid thoughts. Where was she? What would become of her? The vast gloomy prairie encompassed her, held her a prisoner, threatened her with madness. She had feared Indians, rivers, accidents, but now only the insupportable loneliness. Would she not die of it and be eaten by buzzards? The stars that had been so beautiful, watching, helpful, now seemed pitiless, remote, aloof, with their pale eyes on her, a girl lost on the endless prairie. What was beyond those stars? Not a soul, no kindly great spirit to guide her out of this wilderness? Milly prayed once more.

She dragged herself from bed next day, long after sunrise, and had spirit to begin the ordeal, if her flesh was weak.

Whity and Specks waited in camp for their oats. Milly scorned herself for dreading they would run away, leaving her utterly alone. She fed them and caressed them, and talked as if they were human. “You belong to me,” she said. “I was Jett’s stepdaughter. He’s gone. And you’re mine. . . . If you ever get me out of this—”

But she did not think she would ever get out now, unless Providence remembered her again. She had no hunger. A fever consumed her and she drank copiously of water. Hitching up was a dragging job. The heavy wagon tongue nearly broke her back. At last she was in the driver’s seat. Whity and Sparks started of their own accord, splashed across the shallow lake, and pulled up on the gray flat expanse.

Milly was either ill or almost spent, she did not know which. She had power to sit up, hold the reins, guide the horses toward that futile illusive landmark days away on the horizon, but she could not control her mind.

The wandering roll of prairie-land mocked her with its shining gray distances, its illusive endlessness, its veils of heat. The hot sun rose, glared down, slanted to the west, and waned. She found no water that sunset. The horses had no drink. Milly mixed their oats with water from the keg. Hunger exceeded all her sensations, even the pains; and tenaciously she clung to her one idea of effort, to keep trying, to follow judgment she had made at the outset. She ate, and crawled into her wagon-bed, no longer afraid of night and loneliness. So tired — so tired she wanted to die!

But the sun awakened her and the will to go on survived. The faithful horses waited, whinnying at her approach. Mechanically she worked, yet was aware of clumsiness and pain; that she must water them that day. The prairie smoked with heat. It beckoned, flaunted, slanted to the hot steely sky. She closed her eyes and slept with the reins in her hands; she awakened to jolt of wagon and crunching of stone. Thunder rumbled out of the sky and clouds obscured the sun. She drove into a storm, black, windy, with driving sheets of cool rain and white zigzag ropes of lightning, crashing thunder, long roll across the heavens. She was drenched to the skin and strangely refreshed. That fiery band round her head had snapped and gone. The horses splashed into a buffalo-wallow and drank of the fresh rain water.

Away the storm rolled, purple clouds and pall of drifting gray and sheets of flame. The north showed blue again, and presently the sun shone. The horses steamed, the prairie smoked. Milly’s clothes dried as the gray miles passed behind the tireless team.

The day’s journey ended at a river, and as if her troubles need be multiplied, it was unfordable at that point. Milly camped. And the morning found her slower, stiffer, yet stern to go on. This river, too — could it have been the Louisiana Red? — had a northwest trend. All day she followed it, often in the shade of trees. No tracks, no trails, no old camps — the region was like a luxuriant barren land.

Next morning she found a disused buffalo ford. The tracks were old. They stirred her sluggish blood, her submerged hopes. She gained a little therefrom. If only she could drop the reins and rest her hands, her arms! But the faithful horses had to be guided. Would she ever come to a road? Was this whole world devoid of the manifestations of travel? Miles and miles, as gray, as monotonous as a dead sea!

Then she drove into a zone of buffalo carcasses, and was startled into wonder, hope, wild thought. Where was she? Fifty — maybe a hundred miles east of the Staked Plain, and still lost! These carcasses were black and dried; they had no odor; they were ghastly heaps of bones and hides. She drove ten miles across this belt of death and decay; and no sign of horse or wagon cheered her aching sight.

Milly lost track of hours, days, time. Sunset, a camp by water, black night with hateful stars, the false dawn, day with its gray leagues and blistering sun, the white horses forever moving on and on and on, night, blackness, light once more, and horrible weary pangs.

“What’s this?” cried Milly, and wide flew her eyes. She was lying back in the wagon, where she had fallen from faintness. She remembered. It had been early morning. But now the sun was high. The wagon creaked, swayed, moved on to strange accompaniment — clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop. The horses were trotting on hard road. Was she dreaming? She closed her eyes the better to listen. Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop! This was no lying trick of her jaded ears, worn out from silence.

“Oh — thank Heaven!” panted Milly. “It’s a road — a road!” And she struggled to rise. Gray endless prairie, as always, but split to the horizon by a white hard road! She staggered to the seat. But driving was not necessary. The reins were looped round the brake. Whity and Specks needed no guidance now, no urging, no help. They were on the homeward stretch. With steady clip-clop they trotted, clicking off the miles. Whity was lame and Specks had a clanging shoe, but these were small matters.

Milly sank down overwhelmed with joy. On the Fort Elliott road! The Llano Estacado showed no longer the deceiving purple of distance. It showed gray and drab, shadowy clefts, rock wall and canyons. She forced herself to eat and drink, though the dried meat and bread were hard to swallow. She must brace up. Many were the buffalo-hunters who traveled this road. Surely before the hour was gone she would see a white wagon on the horizon. Milly lifted her head to gaze backward, toward the south, and then forward toward the north. The prairie was still a lonely land. Yet how different!

She rested, she thought, she gazed the hours away; and something came back to her.

Afternoon waned and sunset came; and with the fading of rosy and golden light the horses snorted their scent of water. Milly was stronger. Hope had wonderfully revived her. And she called to the horses.

Another horizon line reached! It was the crest of one of the prairie slopes. Long had it been unattainable, hiding while it beckoned onward. A green-mantled stream crossed just below. Milly’s aching and exhausted heart throbbed to sudden recognition. She had camped here. She knew those cottonwoods. And strong sweet wine of renewed life fired her veins.

Whity and Specks remembered. This was the cold sweet water from the uplands, well loved by the buffalo. They snorted and lifted dusty, shaggy hoofs, to plod on and stop. Milly looked down on the green bank where Catlee had voiced his sympathy.

Another sunset, one of gold and red out of purple clouds, burned over the prairie-land. The sloping shadows crept along the distant valleys; the grassy undulating expanse shone with dusky fire. And a winding river, like a bright thread, lost itself in the far dim reaches.

Milly Fayre drove Whity and Specks across the cattle-dotted pasture which flanked the river banks outside of Sprague’s Post.

Horses mingled with the cattle. Between the road and the cottonwoods camps sent up their curling columns of blue smoke. Tents gleamed rosily in the sunset glow. Dogs ran out to herald the coming of another team. Curious buffalo-hunters, on the way south, dropped out to halt Milly. Natives of the Post strolled across from the store to question the traveler from the buffalo fields.

“Howdy, sonny!” greeted a white-haired old Westerner, with keen blue eyes flashing over weary horses, and wagon with its single occupant. “All by yourself?”

“Yes,” replied Milly, amazed to hear her husky voice.

Men crowded closer, kindly, interested, beginning to wonder.

“Whar you from?” queried the old man.

“Pease River,” replied Milly.

“Aw, say now, sonny, you’re—” Then he checked his query and came closer, to lay a hand on the smoking horse nearest to him. The rugged faces, some bronzed, some with the paleness that was not long of the prairie, were lifted to Milly. They seemed beautiful, so full of life, kindness, interrogation. They dimmed in Milly’s sight, through her tears.

“Yes, Pease River,” she replied, hurriedly and low. “My outfit fought — killed one another. . . . Comanches swam the river. . . . I drove Whity and Specks through the brakes. . . . The Indians chased us. . . . We ran into stampeded buffalo. . . . Driven all day — surrounded — dust and roar. . . . Oh, it was terrible! . . . But they slowed up — they carried us all day — forty miles. . . . Since then I’ve camped and driven — camped and driven, days, days, days, I don’t — know — how — many!”

A silence ensued after Milly’s long poignant speech. Then the old Westerner scratched his beard in perplexity.

“Sonny, air you jest foolin’ us or jest out of your haid? You shore look fagged out.”

“It’s — gospel — truth,” panted Milly.

“My boy,” began the kindly interrogator, with graver voice, and again his keen gaze swept over grimy horses and travel-worn wagon.

“Boy!” exclaimed Milly, as spiritedly as her huskiness would permit. “I’m no boy! . . . I’m a girl — Milly Fayre.”

CHAPTER XVI

TOM RAISED HIMSELF as high as he dared and studied what he could see of the field in the direction of the bluff. A man might trust himself boldly to that jumble of rocks. Accordingly he crawled on hands and knees to the end of this stone-like corral, and there, stretching on his left side, with left hand extended and right dragging his rifle, he crawled as swiftly and noiselessly as possible. He peered only ahead of him. There was no use to look at the aisles between the rocks at the right and left, because he had to pass these openings, and looking was not going to help him. Trusting to luck and daring he went on, somehow conscious of a grim exultance in the moment. Fear had left him. At the outset he had a few thoughts of himself — that he could only die once, and if he had to do so now it would be for his comrades. Milly Fayre’s dark haunting eyes crossed his memory, a stabbing, regretful pain; and for her he would have embraced any peril. Some way these Comanches had been the cause of Milly’s flight, if they had not caught her. To them he owed loss of her. And he wanted to kill some of them. But all he asked was luck and strength enough to get back with the water. After those few flashing thoughts all his senses were fixed on the physical task ahead of him. He had to go swiftly and noiselessly, without rest. His efforts were supreme, sustained. Coming back he would adhere to Pilchuck’s advice, but on the way out he could not take it, except in the matter of laying a line of small stones as he progressed.

After the first ten or a dozen rods were behind him there came an easing of a terrible strain. His comrades behind him were shooting now something like a volley, which action he knew was Pilchuck’s way of diverting possible discovery from him. The Indians were shooting more, too; and he began to draw considerably away from the cross-fire. He heard no more bullets whiz over his head. As it was impossible to crawl in a straight line, owing to rocks impeding his progress, he deviated from the course set by Pilchuck. This entailed a necessity of lifting himself every few moments so that he could peep over the rocks to keep the direction of the bluff. These wary brief actions were fraught with suspense. They exposed him perilously, but were absolutely imperative.

Bolder he grew. He was going to succeed in this venture. The sustained exertion threatened collapse, yet he still had strength to go on. A few more rods might safely earn rest! The burning sun beat down pitilessly. Tom’s tongue hung out, dripping a white froth. His heart expanded as if trying to burst bands of steel. Despite the sternest passion of will he could not help the low gasping intake of air or the panting expulsion. A listening Indian within fifty yards could have heard him. But he kept on. His wet hand and wrist gathered a grimy covering of dust. His rifle grew slippery from sweat from his other hand. Rocks obstructing his advance, the narrow defiles he had to squeeze through, the hard sharp edges tearing his shirt, the smell of the hot earth, the glaring sun — all seemed obstacles that put the fact of Indians in the background.

Again Tom lost his direction. He was coming to a zone more open, and surely not far from the bluff that was his objective point. Usually he had chosen a high and large stone from which to peep. At this juncture not one of such size was available. Low down along the side of a flat stone he peered out. All he could see was a rather wide space, not thickly studded with rocks. But from that angle the bluff was not in sight.

Almost spent from his long crawl, with both muscle and will about played out, he raised himself to locate the bluff. Not on the right side! Dropping down, he crawled the few feet to the left end of this rock, and kneeling sidewise he raised himself again to look over.

Something like a sharp puff of wind whipped by. He heard a hiss. Then he felt a shock, solid, terrific, followed by a tearing burning pain across his back. Almost the same instant came the bursting crack of a rifle. Swift as light Tom’s sight took in the open ahead. A half-naked Indian, red skinned, snake-like, stood with smoking rifle, a wild and savage expectation on his dark face.

Tom fell flat behind the rock, all the power of his mind in supreme and flashing conflict against the stunning surprise. It galvanized him. One second he gripped his rifle hard, cocked it, while his muscles gathered and strung for a mighty effort.

Tom leaped up and shot in the same action. It seemed he did not see the Indian clearly until after the discharge of the rifle. The Indian’s gun was leveled. But it flew aside, strangely, as if propelled. And on the same instant there was a metallic crack. Tom’s bullet had struck the breach of the Indian’s gun and had glanced.

The Indian gasped and staggered. He seemed to push his gun away from him. It fell to the ground. Blood gushed from his mouth. He had been mortally wounded. His dark face was terrible to look upon. He was swaying, yet he snatched out a knife and made at Tom. A black flame of hate burned from his eyes.

For a second Tom stood transfixed. The Indian came lurching with the knife. Then Tom jumped just in time to avoid its sweep. Horror gave place to fury. He had no time to reload, so he whirled his rifle, making a club of it. But he missed the Indian, and such was the force of the blow he had aimed that he nearly lost his balance. As it was he righted himself to find the Indian lunging down with the knife.

Like a flash Tom’s left hand caught the descending wrist and gripped it. Then he tried to swing the rifle with his right. But the Indian intercepted the blow and held the rifle.

Thus on the moment both were rendered helpless to force the issue. They held each other grimly.

“No — weyno!” gasped the Indian, thickly.

“Comanche! You’re — no good — yourself!” panted Tom.

It was a deadlock. Tom exerted himself to the utmost to hold that quivering blade back from his body. He saw the advantage was on his side. Blood poured from a wound in the Indian’s throat. The nearness of it, the terrible nature of the moment, the unabatable ferocity and courage of his red adversary were almost too much for Tom. He all but sank under the strain.

Then came a sudden shuddering convulsion on the part of the Indian, a last supreme effort. It was so great that it broke Tom’s hold. But even as the Indian wrenched free his strength failed. The corded strung muscles suddenly relaxed. His working, fiercely malignant visage as suddenly set somberly. He dropped the knife. He swayed and fell.

Tom bent over him. The Indian gazed upward, conscious. Then the hate in his dark eyes gave way to a blankness. He was dead. Tom stared, slowly realizing.

In a moment more he was alive to the situation. He had conquered here. But he was not yet out of danger. Still, if any Indians had seen this encounter they would have shot him before this.

Crouching down, Tom peered round until he had again located his objective point. Then he ran as fast as his spent strength permitted and soon reached the red bluff. But he did not locate the hiding place of the horses until Jake Devine saw him and called. Tom staggered round the bluff and into the pocket where the horses were concealed.

Devine came rattling down from a ledge where evidently he had been watching. Then Al Thorndyke, the other guard, appeared from the opposite quarter. They ran to Tom.

“Say, you’re all bloody!” declared Jake, aghast.

“Tom, I seen thet fight,” added Thorndyke, sharply. “But I couldn’t shoot fer fear of hittin’ you.”

“I’m hit — I don’t know — how bad,” panted Tom. “But it can’t — be very bad. . . . Hurry, boys. I came after water. Tie me up. I’ve got to rustle back.”

“We’ll shore go with you,” said Devine.

They tore Tom’s shirt off. It was wringing wet and as red as a flag.

“Reckon you sweat a heap,” put in Thorndyke, encouragingly.

Tom winced as one of them ran a finger in the wound on his back.

“Nothin’ bad. Long deep cut,” said Devine. “Fetch water, Al.”

The two men washed Tom’s wound and bandaged it tightly with a scarf.

“I’ve got to take some canteens back,” declared Tom.

“I’ll go. You stay with Al,” replied Devine.

“Wal, I ain’t a-goin’ to stay. I’ve got to git in thet fight,” asserted Thorndyke.

“Listen to the shootin’,” exclaimed Devine.

Tom heard a rattling volley of Creedmoors, punctuated by the sharper, lighter cracking of Winchesters. It was certainly an exciting sound.

“But I wasn’t told to fetch you,” protested Tom.

“Thet don’t make no difference. What’s the use of us hidin’ here? If the Comanches found us we couldn’t hold the horses. We’d just be goners. Out there we can git in the fight.”

Devine’s logic was unanswerable. So Tom made no further objection. The three men took two canteens each, and their rifles, and hurried forth.

Tom led the way. It was easy walking, but when he reached the point where he thought it needful to stoop, the hard work commenced. The heavy canteens swung round and hung from his neck.

He reached the spot where he had fought the Comanche, and here he crouched down. Devine and Thorndyke came up with him. The Indian lay stark — his eyes wide open — his hands spread.

“Fellars, I’ll fetch thet Indian’s gun an’ belt,” said Devine, practically.

Tom wondered how Devine could pack these in addition to the load he already carried. But the stocky little man appeared equal to the occasion. Soon Tom lay flat to crawl like a snake. It was well that he had laid a trail. Tom kept the lead, ten feet in front of Thorndyke, who was a like distance ahead of Devine. Tom had to stop every little while to rest. His lungs appeared to stand the test, but his muscles were weak. Still he knew he could make the distance. The long drink of water he had taken had revived him.

Whenever Tom halted to rest he would listen to the shooting. His followers would creep up to him and make some comment. They were eager to join the fray.

“Tom, I reckon you’re tuckered out,” whispered Thorndyke, on the last of these occasions. “But do your damndest. For we’re shore needed.”

Thus admonished, Tom did not rest again, though he crawled less violently, trying to husband what strength he had left. The return had not been so exciting, and for that reason was harder work. It was different. Nothing but bullets could have stopped him.

They had crawled close to where Pilchuck and his men were shooting, and therefore within the zone of the Indians’ fire, when a bullet kicked up the dust in front of Tom. He hesitated. Then a bullet clipped the crown of his hat. This spurred him to a spasmodic scrambling forward to cover behind a bowlder. From there Tom squirmed round to look back. Jake Devine was kneeling with leveled rifle, which on the instant belched fire and smoke. Jake dropped down and crawled forward. His face was black and his eyes blazed.

“Thet redskin is feed fer lizards,” he said, grimly. “Go on, Tom.”

Tom recalled the fact that Devine was a frontiersman, used to fighting Indians. So he crawled on, inspired by a sense of such companionship. Bullets now began to sing and hum overhead, and to spang from the rocks. Jake prodded Tom’s feet.

“Tom, you’re slower’n molasses,” said Jake, “Reckon you don’t mind this sort of thing. But, by golly! I’m scared. An’ Al is hangin’ on to my boots.”

Sometimes Jake would give Tom a shove, rooting his face in the dust. “Crawl, you belly-whopper!” he whispered, gayly. And then he would call back to Thorndyke. “Come on, Al. Dy’e you want to git plugged all to yourself?”

At last Tom and his comrades reached the smoky place that marked Pilchuck’s position.

“I ain’t hankerin’ fer this part of the job,” said Devine. “Suppose they take us fer redskins.”

But Pilchuck was too wise a leader to allow blunders of that nature. He was on the lookout, and his grimy, sweaty, stern face relaxed at sight of Tom.

“Shore was good work, Tom,” he said. “It’s next door to hell here. Hurry to Ory an’ Roberts.”

Tom hurried to where the young man lay, under a sunshade Roberts had rigged up with his shirt and a stick. Roberts gave Tom a husky greeting. Manifestly his voice was almost gone.

Ory’s face was pale and clammy. When Tom lifted his head he opened his eyes and tried to speak. But he could not.

“Ory, here’s water,” said Tom, and held a canteen to the boy’s pale lips.

Never until that moment had Tom appreciated the preciousness of water. He watched Ory drink, and had his reward in the wan smile of gratitude. “Much obliged, Tom,” whispered Ory, and lay back with a strange look. Then he shut his eyes and appeared to relax. Tom did not like the uneasy impression he received on the moment, but in the excitement he did not think any more about it.

Roberts handed the canteen to the other wounded fellow and watched him drink. Then he slaked his own thirst.

“Say!” he ejaculated, with a deep breath. “Thet shore was all I needed.”

The white-headed old plainsman crawled over for his share.

“Son, them canteens will lick Nigger Horse,” he said.

“What! Are we fighting that chief?” queried Tom, in amaze.

“Accordin’ to Pilchuck we’re doin’ jest that,” responded the plainsman, cheerfully. “Old Nigger an’ a thousand of his redskins, more or less.”

Then Tom crawled to the vantage point behind the rock he had used before, and gave himself up to this phase of the fight. It did not take longer than a moment to realize what Pilchuck had meant. There was scarcely a second without its boom of Creedmoor or crack of Winchester. A little cloud of white smoke hung above every bowlder. Tom exercised the utmost vigilance in the matter of exposing himself to the Indians’ fire. He was almost spent, and suffering excruciating pain from his wound. How infernally hot the sun burned down! His rifle and the stones were as fire to his hands. But as he began to peer out for an Indian to shoot at, and worked back into the fight, he forgot his pangs, and then what had seemed the intolerable conditions.

Tom grew intensely absorbed in his own little part in this battle. With the smell of gunpowder and smoke clogging his nostrils, with the thunder of the Creedmoors behind him, with the circling rattle of the Winchesters out there in the hot haze of the sun, he gave them but vague attention. He applied himself to an intent watchfulness, and a swift aim and shot at every moving thing in the direction he covered. It grew to be a grim duel between him and Indians he knew saw him. Like him they had to expose themselves somewhat to get in a shot. But as it was imperative to be swift their aim was necessarily erring. Nevertheless, bullets spat the dust from Tom’s rock, sometimes within a few inches of his head. What a tingling sense of justice and deadly wrath these roused in Tom! It made the fight even. He welcomed these bullets, because they justified his own. He caught glimpses of shiny rifle barrels, of black sleek heads, of flashes of brown; and toward these, whenever possible, he directed his aim. Whether or not he ever hit his mark he could not tell. But he believed his bullets were making it hot for several Comanches.

Slowly the pitch of the fight augmented, until it was raging with a reckless fury on part of the Comanches, and a desperate resistance on that of the besieged. Sooner or later Tom was forced to realize in his own reactions the fact that the fighting and the peril had increased to an alarming extent. A stinging bullet crease in his shoulder was the first awakening shock he sustained. He had answered to the Indians’ growing recklessness. He had been exposing himself more and redoubling his fire. He had missed Indians slipping stealthily from bowlder to bowlder — opportunities that only intense excitement and haste had made him fail to grasp. Then, when he crouched back, forced to cover, aghast at this second wound, he became fully aware of the attack.

The Comanches had pressed closer and closer, now better concealed by the pall of smoke that overhung the scene.

“Hold your fire! Look out for a charge!” yelled Pilchuck in stentorian voice.

The booming of Creedmoors ceased, and that permitted a clearer distinguishing of the Indians’ fire. Their Winchesters were rattling in a continuous volley, and a hail of lead whistled over and into the bowlder corral. Manifestly the Indians had massed on the west side, between Starwell’s position and Pilchuck’s. This occasioned the leader to draw up his men in line with Tom’s fortification. Closer and hotter grew the Indians’ fire. Through the blue haze of smoke and heat Tom saw dim swiftly moving shapes, like phantoms. They were Comanches, gliding from covert to covert, and leaping from bowlder to bowlder. Tom’s heart seemed to choke him. If the Indians were in strong enough force they would effect a massacre of Pilchuck’s men. Suddenly, as Tom dwelt fearfully on such contingency, the firing abruptly ceased. A silence fraught with suspense ensued, strange after the heavy shooting.

“It’s a trick. Look sharp!” Pilchuck warned his men.

“Wal, seein’ this fight’s ag’in’ the exterminatin’ of the buffalo, I reckon old Nigger Horse will do or die,” said Jake Devine.

“If you’d ask me I’d say these hoss-ridin’ redskins was up to their last dodge on foot,” averred the old white-headed plainsman.

“Look out it’s not our last dodge,” replied Pilchuck.

Scarcely had he spoken when the Indians opened up with a heavy volley at alarmingly close range. Pilchuck shouted an order that was not intelligible in the cracking of firearms. But only its content was needed. The big buffalo guns answered with a roar. In another moment the firing became so fast and furious that it blended as a continuous thundering in Tom’s ears. He saw the rush of the Indians, incredibly swift and vague through the smoke, and he worked his rifle so hard that it grew hot. Above the roar of guns he heard the strange ear-splitting yell of the Comanches. Almost at the same instant smoke veiled the scene, more to the advantage of the white men than the red. The Creedmoors thundered as continuously as before, and the volume of sound must have been damning to the desperate courage of the Comanches. Perhaps they had not counted on so strong a force and resistance. Their war-cry pealed to a shrill pitch and ceased; and following that the rattling volleys fell off. Then Pilchuck ordered his men to stop shooting.

Tom saw the old white-haired plainsman stand up and survey the smoke-hazed slope. Then he dropped down.

“Fellars, they’re draggin’ off their dead an’ crippled,” he said. “They’re licked, an’ we ought to chase them clear to their hosses.”

“Right,” replied Pilchuck, grimly. “But wait till we’re sure.”

Tom could not see anything of the retreat, if such it was. The smoke mantle was lifting above the bowlders. With the sudden release of strain the men reacted according to their individual natures. Those new to such fighting were silent, as was Tom, and lay flat. Jake Devine was loquacious in his complaints that he had not downed any Comanches. The old plainsman urged Pilchuck to chase the Indians. Then when the receding fire of the enemy ceased altogether Tom heard yells close at hand.

“That’s Harkaway,” said the scout, eagerly, and he called out a reply.

Soon Harkaway and his men came stooping and crawling to join Pilchuck. They were panting from exertion.

“Boss — they’re — workin’ down,” he said, breathlessly.

“Mebbe it’s a trick,” replied the wary scout. “I’ll sneak out an’ take a look.”

Tom drew back from his position and eased his cramped limbs. His shirt was wet with blood. Examination showed his second bullet wound to be a slight one, but exceedingly annoying. He got Devine to tie it up, running a scarf under his arm and over his shoulder.

“Wal, a couple more scratches will make an old residenter out of you, Tom,” he said, dryly.

Tom was about to make some fitting reply when Pilchuck returned in haste.

“Men, it’s goin’ to be our day,” he said, his gray eyes alight with piercing intensity. “If we rout old Nigger Horse it’ll be the first victory for the whites in this buffalo war. Us hunters will have done what the soldiers couldn’t do. . . . Harkaway, you stay here with two of your men to guard these cripples. All the rest of you grab extra cartridges an’ follow me.”

Tom was not the last to get his hands into that cartridge bag, nor to fall in line after the scout. Once out of the zone of smoke, he was thrilled to see Indians disappearing over the edge of the slope. There was a good deal of shooting below, and the unmistakable booming reports told of Creedmoors in action. From the sound Tom judged Starwell had changed his position. But this could not be ascertained for sure until the brow of the slope was reached. Pilchuck advanced cautiously, gradually growing bolder as ambush appeared less probable, and the time came when he broke into a run.

“String out, an’ come fast,” he called back.

Tom fell in behind Jake Devine, and keeping some paces back he attended to the difficulty of running over the rough ground. Thus it was he did not look up until he reached the edge of the slope. Here he found Pilchuck and some of the men in a group, gazing, talking, and gesticulating all at once. Tom’s breast was heaving from the hard run. He was hot and wet. But it was certain that a reviving thrill ran over him. The Comanches were in retreat. There was no doubt of that. It was still an orderly retreat, with a line of warriors guarding the rear. Tom saw Indians dragging and carrying their wounded and dead; others were gathering in the horses; and the mass was centered in the middle of the encampment, where there were signs of great haste.

One by one Pilchuck’s arriving men added to the group on the slope.

“Starwell has the idea,” declared Pilchuck. “See. He’s moved this way an’ down. He can still cover that gate an’ also reach the camp.”

“Jude, we shore hev our chance now,” spoke up the old white-haired plainsman.

“I reckon,” replied the scout. “Now listen, men. When I give the word we’ll charge down this hill. Each an’ every one of you yell like the devil, run a dozen jumps, drop down on your knee an’ shoot. Then load, get up, an’ do the same over again. Head for that pile of rocks this side of Starwell’s position.”

Silence followed the scout’s trenchant speech. Then ensued a tightening of belts, a clinking of cartridges, a rasping of the mechanism of the Creedmoors. Tom was all ready, quivering for the word, yet glad of a few moments’ rest. Pilchuck and the old plainsman stood close together, keen eyes on the Indian encampment. The sun was low over the escarpment to the west and it was losing its heat. The canyon seemed full of golden lights and blue haze, through which flashed and gleamed moving objects, horses, Indians, collapsing tepees, a colorful and exciting scene. The rear guard of Indians backed slowly to the center of the encampment. Their horses were being brought in readiness. Tom could not help but see the execution of a shrewd Indian brain. Still, there were signs of a possible panic. Already the Comanches had suffered in this fight, as was manifested by the number of those incapacitated, and which had to be packed off. Already the far slope of the canyon was covered by ponies dragging travois.

The sudden breaking up of the rear guard, as these Indians leaped for their horses, was a signal for Pilchuck.

“Charge, men!” he yelled, harshly, and plunged down the slope.

“Hi, fellars,” shouted Jake Devine, “old Nigger Horse is my meat!”

In a moment Pilchuck’s men were spread out on the jump, yelling like fiends and brandishing their weapons. Tom was well to the fore, close behind Devine and Pilchuck. Their heavy boots sent the loose stones flying and rattling down the hill. White puffs of smoke showed suddenly down in the encampment and were followed by the rattle of Winchesters. Presently Pilchuck plunged to a halt and, kneeling, leveled his Creedmoor. His action was swiftly followed by his men. His Creedmoor boomed; that of Devine and the plainsman next, and then the others thundered in unison. It was a long range-shot and Tom aimed generally at the commotion in the encampment. Pandemonium broke loose down there. All order seemed to vanish in a rushing mêlée. Pilchuck leaped up with a hoarse command, which his men answered in wild exulting whoops. And they plunged again down the slope, faster, rendered reckless by the success of their boldness.

Tom felt himself a part of that charging line of furious buffalo-hunters, and had imbibed the courage of the mass. Like the others, he had calculated on the Indians charging back to meet them, thus precipitating a pitched battle. But this was not the case. The Indians began returning the fire from all parts of the canyon. It was a hasty action, however, and did not appear formidable. They were now bent on escape. That gave irresistible momentum to the charge of Pilchuck’s force. Starwell and his men, seeing the Indians routed, left their covert and likewise plunged down, firing and yelling as never before.

Tom, following the example of the men before him, ran and knelt and fired four times in rapid succession on the way down to the level floor of the canyon. By this time all the Indians were mounted and the mass of them abandoned the idea of a slow climb up the opposite slope. They broke for the canyon gate. This meant they had to lessen the long range between them and Pilchuck’s force, a fact that did not daunt them. Their lean, racy mustangs were quickly in a running stride, and each rider was presenting a rifle toward the enemy.

“HOLD HERE, MEN!” bawled Pilchuck, stridently. “If they charge us take to the rocks!”

Tom no longer heard the bang of any individual gun, not even his own. And he was loading and firing as fast as possible. A roar filled his ears, and the ground seemed to shake with the furious trample of the mustangs racing by. How long and low they stretched out — how lean and wild their riders! What matchless horsemen these Comanches! Even in the hot grip of that fighting moment Tom thrilled at the magnificent defiance of these Indians, courting death by that ride, to save their burdened comrades climbing the slope. Some of them met that death. Tom saw riders throw up their arms and pitch headlong to the ground. Mustangs leaped high, in convulsive action, and plunged down to roll over and over.

Tom seemed aware of the thinning of Pilchuck’s ranks. And when the order came to run down the canyon to prevent a possible massacre of Starwell and men, who had impetuously advanced too far, some were left behind. From that moment Tom lost clear perception of the progress of the fight. The blood rage that obsessed the frontiersmen was communicated to him. He plunged with the others; he felt their nearness; he heard their hoarse yells and the boom of their guns; but he seemed to be fighting alone for the sake of the fight itself. The last of that mounted band of Comanches swooped across toward Starwell’s men, driving them to the rocks. Pilchuck’s force, charging down the level, came abreast of them, and there in the open a terrible, brief, and decisive battle ensued.

If the Comanches had not halted in the face of the booming Creedmoors there would have been an end to Pilchuck’s buffalo-hunters. They would have been run down. But the Indians were not equal to victory at such cost. They shot as they had ridden, furiously, without direct attention. As for the white men, fury made them only the more efficient. They advanced, yelling, cursing, shooting and loading as men possessed of devils. The smoke and din seemed to envelop Tom. His gun scorched his hands and powder burned his face. When he reloaded he seemed to reel and fumble over his breech-lock. The compact mass of Indians disintegrated to strings and streams, vague, not so close, lean wild savage figures hard to aim at. Then something struck Tom and the vagueness became obscurity.

When Tom returned to consciousness he felt a dull pain, and a thickness of mind that did not permit him to establish a clear conception of his whereabouts or what had happened. He was being carried; voices of men fell upon his ears; daylight seemed fading into a red duskiness. A blankness intervened, then again he dizzily awoke. He was lying on his back and a dark bluff rose above him. Then he became aware of cold water being dashed in his face, and a familiar voice.

“Tom’s not bad hurt,” said Jake Devine. “Thet last bullet bounded off’n his skull. He shore is a hard-headed fellar.”

“Aw! I reckon I’m glad,” replied Pilchuck. “Looked to me like he’d gone.”

“Nope. He’ll come round tip-top. . . . I’m a son-of-a-gun if he ain’t come to right now! Hey, Tom!”

“I’m all right, thanks,” said Tom, weakly. “How’d we make out?”

Whereupon Devine began an eloquent account of how they had stood off Nigger Horse and two hundred braves, had whipped them, and finally routed them completely with a considerable loss. But Devine omitted to mention what Pilchuck’s force had suffered.

Though feeling considerable pain and much weakness through loss of blood, Tom was able to eat a little, after which effort he fell asleep.

Daylight brought clear consciousness to him, and one glance round at his lame and bandaged comrades gave an inkling of what the victory over Nigger Horse had cost. Not a man had escaped at least one wound! Burn Hudnall had escaped serious injury. Tom missed familiar faces. But he did not make inquiries then. He submitted to a painful treatment of his wounds. Then he was glad enough to lie quietly with closed eyes.

Later that morning he had strength enough to mount his horse and ride with the slow procession back to the permanent camp. He made it, but prayed he would have no more such ordeals. The shady, cool camp with its running water was a most soothing relief. One by one the injured were made comfortable. It was then Tom learned that seven of Pilchuck’s force had been killed in the fight. Ory Tacks had been the first to succumb. Thus Tom had verification of his fears. Poor, brave, cheerful Ory! These heroic men would find graves on the spot where they had helped to break forever the backbone of the Comanches’ hostility.

Pilchuck visited with the injured men that day. His sternness had vanished.

“Boys,” he said, “I never expected any of us to get out of that fight alive. When those yellin’ devils charged us I thought the game was up. We did well, but we were mighty lucky. It’s sad about our comrades. But some of us had to go an’ we were all ready. Now the great good truth is that this victory will rouse the buffalo-hunters. I’ll go after more men. We’ll shore chase the Comanches an’ Kiowas off the Staked Plain, an’ that will leave us free to hunt buffalo. What’s more important, it will make Texas safe for settlers. So you can all feel proud, as I do. The buffalo-hunters will go down in history as havin’ made Texas habitable.”

CHAPTER XVII

IN 1876 MORE than two hundred thousand buffalo hides were shipped east over the Santa Fe Railroad, and hundreds of thousands in addition went north from Fort Worth, Texas.

For this great number of hides that reached eastern and foreign markets there were at least twice the number of hides sacrificed on the range. Old buffalo-hunters generally agreed on the causes for this lamentable fact. Inexperienced hunters did not learn to poison the hides, which were soon destroyed by hide bugs. Then as many buffalo were crippled as killed outright and skinned, and these wounded ones stole away to die in coulees or the brakes of the rivers. Lastly, a large percentage of buffalo were chased by hunters into the quagmires and quicksands along the numerous streams, there to perish.

1877 saw the last of the raids by Comanches and Kiowas, a condition brought round solely by the long campaign of united bands of buffalo-hunters, who chased and fought these Indians all over the Staked Plain. But this campaign was really a part of the destruction of the buffalo, and that destruction broke forever the strength of these hard-riding Indians.

In the winter and spring of that year the number of hide-hunting outfits doubled and trebled and quadrupled; and from the Red River to the Brazos, over that immense tract of Texas prairie, every river, stream, pond, water-hole and spring, everywhere buffalo could drink, was ambushed by hunters with heavy guns. The poor animals that were not shot down had to keep on traveling until the time came when a terrible parching thirst made them mad. Then, when in their wanderings to find some place to drink, they scented water, they would stampede, and in their madness to assuage an insupportable thirst, would plunge over one another in great waves, crushing to death those underneath.

Tom Doan, during the year and a half of the Indian raids, fought through three campaigns against Comanches, Kiowas, and Llano Estacado Apaches.

Pilchuck’s first organizing of buffalo-hunters into a unit to fight Comanches drove the wedge that split the Indians; and likewise it inspired and roused the hide-hunters from the Territory line to the Rio Grande. Thus there was a war on the several tribes, as well as continued slaughter of the buffalo.

In the spring of 1877, when, according to the scouts, the backbone of the Southwest raiding tribes had been broken, Tom Doan bade good-by to Burn Hudnall, his friend and comrade for so long. Dave Stronghurl had months before gone back to Sprague’s Post to join his wife, and Burn, now that the campaign had ended, wanted to see his wife and people.

“I reckon I’m even with the Comanches,” he said, grimly. That was his only reference to his father’s murder.

“Well, Burn, we’ve seen wild life,” mused Tom, sadly. “I’m glad I helped rout the Comanches. They’ve been robbed, I suppose, and I can’t blame them. But they sure made a man’s blood boil for a fight.”

“What’ll you do, Tom?” queried Burn.

Doan dropped his head. “It’d hurt too much to go back to Sprague’s Post — just yet. You see, Burn, I can’t forget Milly. Of course she’s dead long ago. But then, sometimes I see her in dreams, and she seems alive. I’d like to learn the truth of her fate. Some day I might. Pilchuck and I are going south to the Brazos. The last great hunt is on there.”

“I’m goin’ to settle on a ranch at Sprague’s,” said Burn. “Father always said that would be center of a fine cattle an’ farmin’ district some day.”

“Yes, I remember. It used to be my dream, too. But I’m changed. This roving life, I guess. The open range for me yet a while! Some day I’ll come back.”

“Tom, you’ve money saved,” returned Burn, thoughtfully. “You could buy an’ stock a ranch. Isn’t it risky carryin’ round all your money? There’s worse than bad Comanches now in the huntin’ field.”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Tom. “It does seem risky. So I’ll ask you to take most of my money and bank it for me.”

“It’s a good idea. But see here, old man, suppose you don’t come back? You know, we’ve seen things happen to strong an’ capable men down here. Think how lucky we’ve been!”

“I’ve thought of that, too,” said Tom, with gravity. “If I don’t show up inside of five years invest the money for your children. Money’s not much to me any more. . . . But I’m likely to come back.”

This conversation took place at Wheaton’s camp, on the headwaters of the Red River, in April. A great exodus of freighters was taking place that day. It was interesting for Tom to note the development of the hide hauling. The wagons were large and had racks and booms, so that when loaded they resembled hay wagons, except in color. Two hundred buffalo hides to a wagon, and six yokes of oxen to a team and twenty-five teams to a train! Swiftly indeed were the buffalo disappearing from the plains. Burn Hudnall rode north with one of these immense freighting outfits.

Tom and Pilchuck made preparations for an extended hunt in the Brazos River country, whence emanated rumors somewhat similar to the gold rumors of ‘49.

While choosing and arranging an outfit they were visited by a brawny little man with a most remarkable visage. It was scarred with records of both the sublime and the ridiculous.

“I’m after wantin’ to throw in with you,” he announced to Pilchuck.

The scout, used to judging men in a glance, evidently saw service and character in this fellow.

“Wal, we need a man, that’s shore. But he must be experienced,” returned the scout.

“Nary tenderfoot, scout, not no more,” he grinned. “I’ve killed an’ skinned over four thousands buffs. An’ I’m a blacksmith an’ a cook.”

“Wal, I reckon you’re a whole outfit in yourself,” rejoined Pilchuck, with his rare broad smile. “How do you want to throw in?”

“Share expense of outfit, work, an’ profit.”

“Nothin’ could be no more fair. I reckon we’ll be right glad to have you. What’s your handle?”

“Wrong-Wheel Jones,” replied the applicant, as if he expected that cognomen to be recognized.

“What the hell! I’ve met Buffalo Jones, an’ Dirty-Face Jones an’ Spike Jones, but I never heard of you. . . . Wrong-Wheel Jones! Where’d you ever get that?”

“It was stuck on me my first hunt when I was sorta tenderfooty.”

“Wal, tell me an’ my pard here, Tom Doan,” continued the scout, good-humoredly. “Tom, shake with Wrong-Wheel Jones.”

After quaintly acknowledging the introduction Jones said: “Fust trip I busted a right hind wheel of my wagon. Along comes half a dozen outfits, but none had an extra wheel. Blake, the leader, told me he’d passed a wagon like mine, broke down on the Cimarron. ‘Peared it had some good wheels. So I harnessed my hosses, rode one an’ led t’other. I found the wagon, but the left hind wheel was the only one not busted. So I rode back to camp. Blake asked me why I didn’t fetch a wheel back, an’ I says: ‘What’d I want with two left hind wheels? I got one. It’s the right one thet’s busted. Thet left hind wheel back thar on thet wagon would do fust rate, but it’s on the wrong side.’ An’ Blake an’ his outfit roared till they near died. When he could talk ag’in he says: ‘You darned fool. Thet left hind wheel turned round would make your right hind wheel.’ An’ after a while I seen he was right. They called me Wrong-Wheel Jones an’ the name’s stuck.”

“By gosh! it ought to!” laughed Pilchuck.

In company with another outfit belonging to a newcomer named Hazelton, with a son of fifteen and two other boys not much older, Pilchuck headed for the Brazos River.

After an uneventful journey, somewhat off the beaten track, they reached one of the many tributaries of the Brazos, where they ran into some straggling small herds.

“We’ll make two-day stops till we reach the main herd,” said Pilchuck. “I’ve a hankerin’ for my huntin’ alone. Reckon hide-hunters are thick as bees down on the Brazos. Let’s keep out of the stink an’ musketeers as long as we can.”

They went into camp, the two outfits not far apart, within hailing distance.

It was perhaps the most beautiful location for a camp Tom had seen in all his traveling over western Texas. Pilchuck said the main herd, with its horde of hide-hunters, had passed miles east of this point. As a consequence the air was sweet, the water unpolluted, and grass and wood abundant.

Brakes of the tributary consisted of groves of pecan trees and cottonwoods, where cold springs abounded, and the deep pools contained fish. As spring had just come in that latitude, there were color of flowers, and fragrance in the air, and a myriad of birds lingering on their way north. Like the wooded sections of the Red River and the Pease River Divide had been, so was this, Brazos district. Deer, antelope, turkey, with their carnivorous attendants, panthers, wildcats, and wolves, had not yet been molested by white hunters.

Perhaps the Indian campaigns had hardened Tom Doan, for he returned to the slaughter of buffalo. He had been so long out of the hunting game that he had forgotten many of the details, and especially the sentiment that had once moved him. Then this wild life in the open had become a habit; it clung to a man. Moreover, Tom had an aching and ever-present discontent which only action could subdue.

He took a liking to Cherry Hazleton. The boy was a strapping youngster, freckle faced and red headed, and like all healthy youths of the Middle West during the ‘seventies he was a worshiper of the frontiersman and Indian fighter. He and his young comrades, brothers named Dan and Joe Newman, spent what little leisure time they had hanging round Pilchuck and Tom, hungry for stories as dogs for bones.

Two days at this camp did not suffice Pilchuck. Buffalo were not excessively numerous, but they were scattered into small bands under leadership of old bulls; and for these reasons offered the conditions best suited to experienced hunters.

The third day Tom took Cherry Hazleton hunting with him, allowing him to carry canteen and extra cartridges while getting valuable experience.

Buffalo in small numbers were in sight everywhere, but as this country was rolling and cut up, unlike the Pease prairie, it was not possible to locate all the herds that might be within reaching distance.

In several hours of riding and stalking Tom had not found a position favorable to any extended success, though he had downed some buffalo, and young Hazleton, after missing a number, had finally killed his first, a fine bull. The boy was wild with excitement, and this brought back to Tom his early experience, now seemingly so long in the past.

They were now on a creek that ran through a wide stretch of plain, down to the tributary, and no more than two miles from camp. A large herd of buffalo trooped out of the west, coming fast under a cloud of dust. They poured down into the creek and literally blocked it, crazy to drink. Tom had here a marked instance of the thirst-driven madness now common to the buffalo. This herd, numbering many hundreds, slaked their thirst, and then trooped into a wide flat in the creek bottom, where trees stood here and there. Manifestly they had drunk too deeply, if they had not foundered, for most of them lay down.

“We’ll cross the creek and sneak close on them,” said Tom. “Bring all the cartridges. We might get a stand.”

“What’s that?” whispered Cherry, excitedly.

“It’s what a buffalo-hunter calls a place and time where a big number bunches and can be kept from running off. I never had a stand myself. But I’ve an idea what one’s like.”

They crept on behind trees and brush, down into the wide shallow flat, until they were no farther than a hundred yards from the resting herd. From the way Cherry panted Tom knew he was frightened.

“It is sort of skittish,” whispered Tom, “but if they run our way we can climb a tree.”

“I’m not — scared. It’s — just — great,” rejoined the lad, in a tone that hardly verified his words.

“Crawl slow now, and easy,” said Tom. “A little farther — then we’ll bombard them.”

At last Tom led the youngster yards closer, to a wonderful position behind an uprooted cottonwood, from which they could not be seen. Thrilling indeed was it even for Tom, who had stalked Comanches in this way. Most of the buffalo were down, and those standing were stupid with drowsiness. The heat, and a long parching thirst, then an overcharged stomach, had rendered them loggy.

Tom turned his head to whisper instruction to the lad. Cherry’s face was pale and the freckles stood out prominently. He was trembling with wild eagerness, fear and delight combined. Tom thought it no wonder. Again he smelled the raw scent of buffalo. They made a magnificent sight, an assorted herd of all kinds and ages, from the clean, glossy, newly shedded old bulls down to the red calves.

“Take the bull on your right — farthest out,” whispered Tom. “And I’ll tend to this old stager on my left.”

The big guns boomed. Tom’s bull went to his knees and, grunting loud, fell over; Cherry’s bull wagged his head as if a bee had stung him. Part of the buffalo lying down got up. The old bull, evidently a leader, started off.

“Knock him,” whispered Tom, quickly. “They’ll follow him.” Tom fired almost simultaneously with Cherry, and one or both of them scored a dead shot. The buffalo that had started to follow the bull turned back into the herd, and this seemed to dominate all of them. Most of those standing pressed closer in. Others began to walk stolidly off.

“Shoot the outsiders,” said Tom, quickly. And in three seconds he had stopped as many buffalo. Cherry’s gun boomed, but apparently without execution.

At this juncture Pilchuck rushed up behind them.

“By golly! you’ve got a stand!” he ejaculated, in excited tones for him. “Never seen a better in my life. Now, here, you boys let me do the shootin’. It’s tough on you, but if this stand is handled right we’ll make a killin’.”

Pilchuck stuck his forked rest-stick in the ground, and knelt behind it, just to the right of Tom and Cherry. This elevated him somewhat above the log, and certainly not hidden from the buffalo.

“Case like this a fellow wants to shoot straight,” said the scout. “A crippled buff means a bolt.”

Choosing the bull the farthest outside of the herd, Pilchuck aimed with deliberation, and fired. The animal fell. Then he treated the next in the same manner. He was far from hurried, and that explained his deadly precision.

“You mustn’t let your gun get too hot,” he said. “Over-expansion from heat makes a bullet go crooked.”

Pilchuck picked out buffalo slowly walking away and downed them. The herd kept massed, uneasy in some quarters, but for the most part not disturbed by the shooting. Few of those lying down rose to their feet. When the scout had accounted for at least two dozen buffalo he handed his gun to Tom.

“Cool it off an’ wipe it out,” he directed, and taking Tom’s gun returned to his deliberate work.

Tom threw down the breech-block and poured water through the barrel, once, and then presently again. Taking up Pilchuck’s ramrod Tom ran a greasy patch of cloth through the barrel. It was cooling rapidly and would soon be safe to use.

Meanwhile the imperturbable scout was knocking buffalo down as if they had been tenpins. On the side toward him there was soon a corral of dead buffalo. He never missed; only seldom was it necessary to take two shots to an animal. After shooting ten or twelve he returned Tom’s gun and took up his own.

“Best stand I ever saw,” he said. “Queer how buffalo act sometimes. They’re not stupid. They know somethin’ is wrong. But you see I keep knockin’ down the one that leads off.”

Buffalo walked over to dead ones, and sniffed at them, and hooked them with such violence that the contact could be heard. An old bull put something apparently like anger into his actions. Why did not his comrade, or perhaps his mate, get up and come? Some of them looked anxiously round, waiting. Now and then another would walk out of the crowd, and that was fatal for him. Boom! And the heavy bullet would thud solidly; the buffalo would sag or jerk, and then sink down, shot through the heart. Pilchuck was a machine for the collecting of buffalo hides. There were hundreds of hunters like him on the range. Boom! Boom! Boom! boomed out the big fifty.

At last, after more than an hour of this incredible stolidity to the boom of gun and the fall of their numbers, the resting buffalo got up, and they all moved round uneasily, uncertainly. Then Pilchuck missed dead center of a quartering shot at a bull that led out. The bullet made the beast frantic, and with a kind of low bellow it bounded away. The mass broke, and a stream of shaggy brown poured off the flat and up the gentle slope. In a moment all the herd was in motion. The industrious Pilchuck dropped four more while they were crowding behind, following off the flat. A heavy trampling roar filled the air; dust, switching tufted tails, woolly bobbing backs, covered the slope. And in a few moments they were gone. Silence settled down. The blue smoke drifted away. A gasp of dying buffalo could be heard.

“Reckon I never beat this stand,” said the scout, wiping his wet, black hands. “If I only hadn’t crippled that bull.”

“Gosh! It was murder — wusser’n butcherin’ cows!” ejaculated the boy Cherry. Drops of sweat stood out on his pale face, as marked as the freckles. He looked sick. Long before that hour had ended his boyish sense of exciting adventure had been outraged.

“Lad, it ain’t always that easy,” remarked Pilchuck. “An’ don’t let this make you think huntin’ buffalo isn’t dangerous. Now we’ll make a count.”

One hundred and twenty-six buffalo lay dead in space less than three acres; and most of them were bulls.

“Yep, it’s my record,” declared the scout, with satisfaction. “But I come back fresh to it, an’ shore that was a grand stand. Boys, we’ve got skinnin’ for the rest of to-day an’ all of to-morrow.”

The two outfits gradually hunted down the tributary towards its confluence with the Brazos. As the number of buffalo increased they encountered other hunters; and when May arrived they were on the outskirts of the great herd and a swarm of camps.

Hide thieves were numbered among these outfits, and this necessitated the consolidation of camps and the need for one or more men to be left on guard. Thus Tom and Cherry often had a day in camp, most welcome change, though tasks were endless. Their place was at a point where the old Spanish Trail from the Staked Plain crossed the Brazos; and therefore was in line of constant travel. Hunters and freighters, tenderfeet and old timers, soldiers and Indians, passed that camp, and seldom came a day when no traveler stopped for an hour.

Cherry liked these days more than those out on the range. He was being broken in to Pilchuck’s strenuous method and the process was no longer enticing.

Once it happened that Cherry and Dan Newman were left together. Tom had ridden off to take up his skinning, in which he had soon regained all his old-time skill, but he did not forget to admonish the boys to keep out of mischief. Wrong-Wheel Jones, who had been recovering from one of his infrequent intemperate spells, had also been left behind. When Tom returned he found Jones in a state of high dudgeon, raving what he would do to those infernal boys. It was plain that Wrong-Wheel had very recently come out of the river, which at this point ran under a bank close to camp. Tom decided the old fellow had fallen in, but as the boys were not to be found, a later conclusion heaped upon their heads something of suspicion. At last Tom persuaded him to talk.

“Wal, it was this way,” began Wrong-Wheel, with the air of a much-injured man. “Since I lost them two hundred hides — an’ I know darn well some thief got them — I been drinkin’ considerable. Jest got to taperin’ off lately, an’ wasn’t seein’ so many queer things. . . . Wal, to-day I went to sleep thar in the shade on the bank. Suthin’ woke me, an’ when I opened my eyes I seed an orful sight. I was scared turrible, an’ I jest backed off the bank an’ fell in the river. Damn near drowned! Reckon when I got out I was good an’ sober. . . . An’, say, what d’ye spose them boys done?”

Wrong-Wheel squinted at Tom and squirted a brown stream of tobacco into the camp fire.

“I haven’t any idea,” replied Tom, with difficulty preserving a straight face.

“Wal,” went on Jones, “you know thet big panther Pilchuck shot yestiddy. Them boys hed skinned it, shot-pouched it, as we say, an’ they hed stuffed it with grass, an’ put sticks in fer legs, an’ marbles fer eyes. An’ I’m a son-of-a-gun if they didn’t stand the dummy right in front of me, so when I woke I seed it fust, an’ I jest nat’rally went off my head.”

Another day an old acquaintance of Tom’s rode in and halted on his way to Fort Worth.

“Roberts!” exclaimed Tom, in glad surprise.

“Just come from Fort Sill,” said Roberts, evincing equal pleasure. “An’ I have shore some news for you. Do you remember old Nigger Horse, the chief of that band of Comanches we fought — when I had this heah arm broke?”

“I’m not likely to forget,” replied Tom.

“Wal, the Comanches that are left are slowly comin’ in to Fort Sill an’ goin’ on the reservation. An’ from some of them we got facts aboot things we never was shore on. The soldiers lately had a long runnin’ fight with old Nigger Horse. Some sergeant killed the old chief an’ his squaw, an’ that shore was a good job.”

“Nigger was a bad Comanche,” agreed Tom. “Did you ever hear any more about Hudnall’s gun?”

“Shore. We heerd all aboot it, an’ from several bucks who were in our fight where I had my arm broke, an’ other fights afterwards. . . . I reckon you remember Hudnall had a fine gun, one shore calculated to make redskins want it. An’ possession of that rifle was bad medicine to every consarned Indian who got it. Nigger Horse’s son had it first. He was the brave who led that ride down the canyon to draw our fire. He shore had spunk. Wal, I reckon he was full of lead. Then an Injun named Five Plumes got it. ‘Pears we killed him. After that every red-skin who took Hudnall’s rifle an’ cartridges got his everlastin’. Finally they quit usin’ it, thinkin’ it was bad medicine. Now the fact is, those Comanches who used Hudnall’s gun got reckless because they had it, an’ laid themselves open to our fire. But they thought it had a spell of the devil.”

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MIDDLE OF July found Tom Doan and Pilchuck far down on the Brazos, in the thick of the slaughter. Thirty miles of buffalo-hunters drove the last great herd day by day toward extermination.

If the weather had been uncomfortable in midsummer on the Pease River Divide, here it was worse than hot. Moreover, up there in earlier days the hunting had been comparatively easy. Here it was incessant toil. The buffalo had to be chased.

The prairie was open, hot, dusty, and vast. Always the buffalo headed to the wind; they would drink and graze, and go on, noses to the breeze. If the wind changed overnight, in the morning they would be found turned round, traveling toward it. All day they grazed against it. They relied on their scent more than on sight or hearing; and in that open country the wind brought them warning of their foes. But for the great number of hide-hunters these buffalo might have escaped any extended slaughter.

The outfits were strung along the Brazos for many miles; and as the buffalo had to drink they were never far from water. Thus a number of hunters would get to them every day, kill many on the chase, and drive them on to the next aggregation of slayers.

Tom Doan had been in hard action for over two months; and he and Pilchuck and Jones had killed thirty-nine hundred and twenty buffalo, losing only a small percentage of skins. Their aim was to last out the summer and fall if endurance could be great enough. They had no freighting to do now; they sold their hides in bales on the range.

The days grew to be nightmares. As the buffalo were driven up the river, then back down, and up again, the killing was accomplished for weeks in comparatively small area. It got to be so that Tom could not ride many rods without encountering either a pile of bones, or rotten carcass, or one just beginning to decompose, or a freshly skinned one torn over the night before by the packs of thousand of coyotes that followed the herd. Some days hundreds of newly skinned buffalo shone red along with the blackened carcasses over a stretch of miles. Buzzards were as thick as bees. And the stench was unbearable. The prairie became a gruesome, ghastly shambles; and the camps were almost untenable because of flies and bugs, ticks and mosquitoes. These hunters stuck to a job that in a worthy cause would have been heroic. As it was they descended to butchers, and each and all of them sank inevitably. Boom! Boom! Boom! All day long the detonation filled the hot air. No camp was out of hearing of the guns. Wagons lumbered along the dusty roads. All the outfits labored day and night to increase their store of hides, riding, chasing, shooting, skinning, hauling, and pegging, as if their very lives depended upon incessant labor. It was a time of carnage.

Long had Tom Doan felt the encroachment of a mood he had at one time striven against — a morbid estimate of self, a consciousness that this carnage would debase him utterly if he did not soon abandon it. Once there had been a wonderful reason for him to give up the hunting. Milly Fayre! Sometimes still her dark eyes haunted him. If she had not been lost he would long ago have quit this bloody game. The wound in his heart did not heal. Love of Milly abided, and that alone saved him from the utter debasement of hard life at a hard time.

One morning when he drove out on the dust-hazed, stinking prairie he found a little red buffalo calf standing beside its mother, that Tom had shot and skinned the day before. This was no new sight to Tom. Nevertheless, in the present case there seemed a difference. These calves left motherless by the slaughter had always wandered over the prairie, lost, bewildered; this one, however, had recognized its mother and would not leave her.

“Go along! Get back to the herd!” yelled Tom, shocked despite his callousness.

The calf scarcely noticed him. It smelled of its hide-stripped mother, and manifestly was hungry. Presently it left off trying to awaken this strange horribly red and inert body, and stood with hanging head, dejected, resigned, a poor miserable little beast. Tom could not drive it away; and after loading the hide on the wagon he returned twice to try to make it run off. Finally he was compelled to kill it.

This incident boded ill for Tom. It fixed his mind on this thing he was doing and left him no peace. Thousands and thousands of beautiful little buffalo calves were rendered motherless by the hide-hunters. That was to Tom the unforgivable brutality. Calves just born, just able to suck, and from that to yearlings, were left to starve, to die of thirst, to wander until they dropped or were torn to shreds by wolves. No wonder this little calf showed in its sad resignation the doom of the species!

August came. The great herd massed. The mating season had come, and both bulls and cows, slaves to the marvelous instinct that had evolved them, grew slower, less wary, heedless now to the scent of man on the wind.

At the beginning of this mating time it was necessary to be within a mile or less to hear the strange roo roo roo — ooo. This sound was the bellow of a bull. Gradually day by day the sound increased in volume and range. It could be heard several miles, and gradually farther as more and more bulls bellowed in unison. ROO ROO ROO — OOO! — It began to be incessant, heard above the boom! boom! boom! of guns.

The time came when it increased tremendously and lasted day and night. Tom Doan’s camp was then ten miles from the herd. At that distance the bellow was as loud as distant thunder. ROO ROO ROO — OOO! It kept Tom awake. It filled his ears. If he did fall asleep it gave him a nightmare. When he awoke he heard again the long mournful roar. At length it wore upon him so deeply that in the darkness and solitude of night he conceived the idea he was listening to the voice of a great species, bellowing out for life — life — life.

This wild deep Roo — ooo was the knell of the buffalo. What a strange sound, vastly different from anything human, yet somehow poignant, tragic, terrible! Nature had called to the great herd; and that last million of buffalo bellowed out their acceptance of the decree. But in Tom’s morbid mind he attributed vastly more to this strange thunder, which was not the trampling thunder of their hoofs. In the dead of night when the guns were silent he could not shake the spell. It came to him then how terribly wrong, obsessed, evil were these hide-hunters. God and nature had placed the wonderful beasts on earth for a purpose, the least of which might have been to furnish meat and robe for men in a measure of reason. But here all the meat was left to rot, and half the hides; and the remaining half went to satisfy a false demand, and to make rich a number of hunters, vastly degraded by the process.

Roo — ooo — ooo! Tom heard in that the meaning of a futile demand of nature.

Tom Doan and Pilchuck reined their horses on the crest of a league-sloping ridge and surveyed the buffalo range.

To their surprise the endless black line of buffalo was not in sight. They had moved north in the night. At this early morning hour the hunters were just riding out to begin their day’s work. No guns were booming, and it appeared that Tom and the scout had that part of the range to themselves.

“Wal, we spent yesterday peggin’ hides in camp, an’ didn’t think to ask Jones if the buffalo had moved,” remarked Pilchuck, reflectively.

“The wind has changed. It’s now from the north,” said Tom.

“Shore is. An’ the buffs will be grazin’ back pronto. That is, if they are grazin’!”

“Any reason to doubt it?” asked Tom.

“Wal, the breedin’ season’s just about ended. An’ that with this muggy, stormy, electric-charged mornin’ might cause a move. Never in my huntin’ days have I seen such a restless queer herd of buffalo as this one.”

“No wonder!” exclaimed Tom.

“Wal, it ain’t, an’ that’s a fact. . . . Do I see hosses yonder?”

Tom swept the prairie with his glass.

“Yes. Hunters riding out. I see more beyond. They’re all going downriver.”

“Come to think of it, I didn’t hear much shootin’ yesterday. Did you?”

“Not a great deal. And that was early morning and far away,” replied Tom.

“Buffs an’ hunters have worked north. Let’s see. The river makes a bend about ten miles from here, an’ runs east. I’d be willin’ to bet the herd hasn’t turned that bend.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll never go north again. For two months the trend has been south, day by day. Some days a wind like yesterday would switch them, but on the whole they’re workin’ south. This ain’t natural for midsummer. They ought to be headed north. ‘Course the mob of hunters are drivin’ them south.”

“But how about to-day?” inquired Tom.

“Wal, I’m shore figgerin’. Reckon I can’t explain, but I feel all them outfits ridin’ north will have their work for nothin’.”

“What will we do?”

“I’m not carin’ a lot. Reckon I’ve sickened on this job, an’ I shore know that, when I stay a day in camp.”

Tom had before noted this tendency in the scout. It was common to all those hunters who had been long in the field. He did not voice his own sentiment.

“I’ve been wantin’ to ride west an’ see what that next ford is goin’ to be like,” said the scout, presently. “We’ll be breakin’ camp an’ movin’ south soon. An’ the other side of the river is where we want to be.”

For the first time Tom experienced a reluctance to a continuation of the old mode of traveling south. Why not turn north once more? The thought was a surprise. There was no reason to start north, unless in answer to the revulsion of hide-hunting. This surely would be his last buffalo hunt. But he did not think it just to his partners to quit while they wanted to keep on. His reflection then was that Pilchuck was wearing out, both in strength and in greed.

They rode west, aiming to reach the river some four or five miles farther on.

It was a cloudy, sultry summer morning, with storm in the air. The prairie was not here a beautiful prospect. Tom seemed to gaze over it rather than at it. Westward the undulating gray rise of ground stretched interminably to a horizon bare of landmarks. Far in the east rays of sunlight streamed down between sullen, angry, copper and purple-hued clouds. The north threatened. It was black all along the horizon. Still, oppressive, sultry, the air seemed charged.

From time to time Pilchuck turned in his saddle to gaze backward along the empty range, and then up at the cloudbank. It appeared to Tom as if the scout were looking and listening for something.

“What ‘re you expecting?” queried Tom, yielding to curiosity. “A thunderstorm?”

“Wal, I’ll be darned if I know,” ejaculated Pilchuck. “Shore I wasn’t thinkin’ about a storm. Wasn’t thinkin’ at all! Must be just habit with me. . . . But now you tax me, I reckon I’m oneasy about that herd.”

Pilchuck led west farther than he had calculated, and struck the river at a wonderful place where the prairie took a sudden dip for miles, sheering steeply to the shallow water. Here was the buffalo ford, used by the herds in their annual migrations. Trees were absent, and brush and grass had not the luxuriance common to most stretches of river bank. From prairie rim to margin of river sloped a long steep bank, even and smooth; and at one point the wide approach to the ford was split and dominated by a rocky eminence, the only high point in sight along the river.

The place seemed dismal and lonely to Tom, as he sat on his horse while Pilchuck forded the river. Contrary to most river scenes, this one was lifeless. Not a bird or animal or a fish or turtle in sight! Loneliness and solitude had their abode in this trodden road of the buffalo.

At length the scout returned and rode up to Tom.

“Wal, I wouldn’t care to get a team stuck in that sand,” he remarked. “It shore ain’t packed none. . . . Lend me your glass.”

The scout swept a half circle of the horizon, and finally came to a halt westward, at a point on the prairie some distance from the river.

“See some small bunches of buffalo,” he said. “Let’s ride up on them, make our kill, skin what we get, an’ pick them up with the wagon on our way south to-morrow.”

“You’re the boss,” replied Tom.

“Wal, I wish some one was bossin’ me,” returned Pilchuck, enigmatically.

They trotted off over the gray prairie, and after traveling a couple of miles, could see the buffalo plainly. Meanwhile a slight breeze began to blow from the north.

“I’ll be darned!” ejaculated Pilchuck, with annoyance. “Wind’s turned again. If it blows stronger we’ll not slip up on this bunch.”

Another mile brought increase of wind, and the wary buffalo, catching the scent of the killers, loped away over the prairie. Pilchuck watched them in disgust. “Run, you old dunder-heads! Run clear across the Rio Grande! . . . Tom, I reckon we’re all spoiled by the past easy huntin’. It’ll never be easy again. An’ somehow I’m glad. Let’s work back.”

They turned about to face the breeze, now quite strong, cooler, with a heavy scent of rotting buffalo carcasses.

“Faugh!” exclaimed the scout. “I’d rather have nose an’ eyes full of Cottonwood smoke.”

Tom’s quick ear caught a very low rumble of thunder. He turned his head. The sound had ceased. It had come on a stronger puff of wind.

“What’d you hear?” inquired the scout, whose eye never missed anything.

“Thunder.”

“Wal, it does look stormy. But I never trust thunder in this country,” replied the scout, significantly.

He halted his horse; and Tom did likewise. They gazed at the north. Dull, leaden mushrooming clouds were moving toward them, not rapidly, but steadily, in heavy changing forms. They merged into a purple-black mass down which streaked thin zigzag ropes of lightning.

“Storm all right,” observed Pilchuck. “Listen.”

After a moment in which nothing was heard save the heaving of horses, the rattle of bridle, and creak of leather, the scout dismounted.

“Get off, Tom, an’ walk away from the horses. . . . Listen now.”

Presently Tom again heard the low dull rumble.

“There,” he said.

“Shore. That’s genuine thunder, an’ it means rain for this stinkin’ dusty hot range. . . . Listen some more, Tom.”

The two men stood apart, Pilchuck favoring his right ear, Tom his left; and they remained motionless. Several times the mutter of thunder, distinct now to Tom, caused the scout to nod his head.

“Reckon that’s not what I’m expectin’,” he said, gloomily. “An’ we’ve no time to stand here all day. . . . Listen hard, Tom. You’re younger than me.”

Tom’s sluggish blood quickened a little. He had been two years with this old plainsman, during which there had been numberless instances of his sagacity and vision, and remarkable evidences of experience. Pilchuck was worrying about that herd of buffalo. Thereupon Tom bent lower, held his breath, and strained his ear with all intensity possible. Again he heard the muttering long rumble — then the beat of his heart, the stir of his hair over his temple — the sweep of wind. Thunder again! That was all; and he abandoned the strain.

“Nothing but storm,” he told Pilchuck.

“I reckon my ears are old, an’ my imagination makes me think I hear things,” returned the scout. “But a moment ago . . . Try again. I want to be shore.”

Thus incited, Tom lent himself to as sensitive and profound listening as was possible for him. This time he seemed to hear the thunder as before, somewhat louder; and under it another, fainter sound, an infinitely low roar that did not die out, that went on and on, deadened by another mutter of thunder, and then, when this was gone, beginning again, low, strange, unceasing.

Then he straightened up and told Pilchuck what he had heard. How sharply and intelligently the scout’s gray eyes flashed! He made no reply, except to raise one of his brawny hands. Leaving it extended, he froze in the attitude of an Indian listening. Tom again lent his ear to the strengthening breeze. Thunder — then long low menacing roar — thunder again — and roar! He made his own deductions and, lifting his head, waited for the scout to speak. Long did Pilchuck maintain that tense posture. He was a slow, deliberate man on occasions. Sometimes he would act with the most incredible speed. Here he must have been studying the volume, direction, distance of this thrilling sound, and not its cause. Suddenly his big brown hand clenched and shot down to crack into the palm of the other. He wheeled to Tom, with gray lightning in his eyes.

“Stampede! . . . The whole herd!” he ejaculated. “I’ve been expectin’ it for days.”

Then he gazed across the northern horizon of the prairie round to a point due east.

“You notice we can see only four or five miles,” he said. “The prairie rises slow for about that distance, then dips. That’d deaden sound as well as hide any movin’ thing. We can’t be shore that herd is far away. . . . Funny how we run into things. Reckon we’d better ride!”

They mounted, and were off at a gallop that gave place to a run. Tom had lost his fleet, faithful Dusty, and was now riding a horse strong and sound and fairly fast, but no match for Pilchuck’s hunter. So Tom fell behind gradually. He did not goad the horse, though he appreciated Pilchuck’s brief hint of danger.

The scout rode east, quartering toward the river, and passed a couple of miles out from where he and Tom had stopped at the ford. Tom gradually fell behind until he was fully a quarter of a mile in the rear. As long as he could keep Pilchuck in sight he did not have any anxiety about the separation. The horse could run, and he was sure-footed. Tom believed he would acquit himself well even in a grueling race with the buffalo. It seemed strange to be running away from an unseen danger. While riding he could not hear anything save the rhythmic beat of hoofs and rush of wind. He observed that the direction Pilchuck had chosen was just a point east of the center of the black storm cloud. Far to its right showed the dim fringe of river timber. There was a wide distance between the end of that cloud and the river, most of which was gently sloping prairie. He had a keen eagerness to know what could be seen beyond the long ridge-top.

Next time he gazed at Pilchuck he was amazed to see him pulling his horse to a halt. Tom rode on with eyes now intent. The scout reined in and leaped out of the saddle. He ran a few paces from the horse, and stopped to lie flat on the ground. Tom realized that Pilchuck was listening with ear close to the earth. The action startled Tom. Not improbably this situation was growing serious. Pilchuck lay a moment, then got up and stood like a statue. Then he abruptly broke his rigid posture and leaped astride. But instead of riding off he waited there, face to the north. Tom rapidly overhauled him and pulled his mount to a stand.

“Jude, what’s wrong?” he called, sharply.

“I ain’t shore, but I’m damned scared,” replied the scout.

“Why? I can’t see or hear anything.”

“See that yellow dust way to the right of the black sky. Look! It’s movin’! — I’m afraid if we go farther this way we’ll get headed off an’ run into the river. We could cross, but it’d take time, an’ when we got over we might have to run south. That’d never do. We’ve got to go east or west.”

“Jude, I hear a roar,” said Tom.

“Shore. So do I. But it was the movin’ dust that stopped me. . . . Keep still now an’ let me figger. If I’ve any prairie cunnin’ left we’re in a hell of a fix. We’ve got to do what’s right — an’ quick.”

Therefore Tom attended to sight of the low, rounded, yellow cloud of dust. It did move, apparently slowly, and spread to the right. Against the background of purple sky it held something ominous. Tom watched it rise gradually to the left, though in this direction it did not spread along the prairie so rapidly. The ground sloped that way, and the ridge-top stretched higher than the level to the east, where the dust now rolled plainly. The roar was a dull distant rumble, steady and ear-filling though not at all loud. It was a deceiving sound, and might be closer than it seemed or farther away.

Suddenly it became loud. It startled Tom. He turned to see what Pilchuck made of that. The scout sat his fidgety horse, with his head extended, his long neck craned forward. Suddenly he jerked back as if struck.

“Doan, look!” he shouted, in a tone Tom had never heard. His voice seemed to merge into a rolling rumble.

Tom wheeled. Along the whole of the prairie horizon had appeared a black bobbing line of buffalo. Above them rose the yellow dust, and beyond that spread the storm-cloud of purple. The ragged front of the herd appeared to creep over the ridge-top, like a horizon-wide tide, low, flat, black. Toward the west the level gray horizon was being blotted out with exceeding swiftness, as the herd came in sight. It spread like a black smoke, flying low. To the east the whole space before noted by Tom had been clouded with black and yellow. The front line of the herd, then, did not appear to be straight across: it was curving from the right.

One moment Tom gazed, rapt, thrilling, then his blood gushed hot. The great herd was at last on the stampede. Not five miles distant, running downhill!

“By God! we’re in a trap!” yelled Pilchuck, hoarsely. “We’ve only one chance. Follow me an’ ride!”

He spurred and wheeled his horse and, goading him into a run, headed for the river ford. Tom spurred after him, finding now that his horse, frightened by the roar, could keep up with Pilchuck’s. They ran straight away from the eastern front of the herd, that was curving in and quartering away from the western front. Tom had ridden fast before, but Pilchuck’s start bade fair to lead him into the swiftest race of his experience on the range. He was aware of drawing away somewhat from the roar in the rear; on his right, however, the sound augmented. Tom gazed around. His eyes, blurred from the rush of wind, showed a league-wide band of black, sliding down the prairie slope, widening, spreading. He did not look behind.

Pilchuck’s fleet horse began to draw ahead. The old scout was riding as he had never ridden away from Comanches. Tom remembered what fear these old plainsmen had of the buffalo stampede. It was the terror of the plains, more appalling than the prairie fire. Comanches could be fought; fires could be outridden or back-fired, but the stampede of buffalo was a rolling sea of swift insane beasts. With spur and fist and voice Tom urged his horse to its utmost, and kept the distance between him and Pilchuck from widening further.

Both horses now were on a headlong run strained to the breaking point. The wind hissed by Tom’s ears, swayed him back in his saddle. On both sides the gray prairie slid by, indistinct, a blurred expanse, over which he seemed to sail. He could not see the river depression, but before long he made out the rocky eminence that marked the site of the ford. Pilchuck’s intention now was plain. At first Tom had imagined the scout meant to try to cross the river ahead of the herd; now, however, he was making for the high point of rock. This realization unclamped Tom’s cold doubt. If the horses did not fall they could make that place of safety. Pilchuck was fifty feet ahead, and not only was he driving the horse at breakneck speed, but he was guiding him over what appeared to be the smoother ground. Tom caught the slight variations in the course and the swervings aside; and he had only to follow.

So they flew. The gray mound of rock seemed close, the prairie flashing by, yet how slowly the distance lessened. Tom saw Pilchuck turn. His brown face gleamed. He waved his hand. A beckoning and an encouragement! Peril was not over, but safety was in sight. Then the scout leaned back, pulling the horse to his haunches, on which he slid to a stop. Over Pilchuck’s head Tom saw the pale brightness of water. The river! Behind Tom rolled a rumbling thunder, strange to hear with his ears full of rushing wind, He dared not look back.

The straining horse broke his stride, caught it again, stretched on, and plunged to the bare rise of rocky ground. Tom hauled with all his strength on the bridle. He checked the maddened animal, but could not stop him. Pilchuck stood ten feet above the bank. He had dismounted. Both hands were uplifted in gesture of awe. Tom leaped off just as his horse slowed before the first rocky bench. Dragging him up, Tom climbed to Pilchuck, who seemed to yell at him. But Tom heard no voice. The rocky eminence was about half an acre in extent, and high enough above the bank to split the herd. Tom dropped the bridle and whirled in fear and wonder.

His first thought when he saw the ragged, sweeping tide of beasts, still a third of a mile distant, was that he would have had time to spare. The herd had not been so close as his imagination had pictured.

Pilchuck dragged at Tom, pulling him higher on the rock. The scout put his mouth close to Tom’s ear and manifestly yelled. But Tom heard no voice; felt only a soundless, hot breath. His ears were distending with a terrific thunder. His eyes were protruding at an awful spectacle.

Yet he saw that sweep of buffalo with a marvelous distinctness, with the swift leap of emotion which magnified all his senses. Across the level front of his vision spread a ragged, shaggy black wall of heads, humps, hoofs, coming at the speed of buffalo on the stampede. On a hard run! The sea of bobbing backs beyond disappeared in a yellow pall of dust curled aloft and hung low, and kept almost the speed of the front rank. Above the moving mantle of dust, farther back, showed the gray pall of storm. Lightning flashed in vivid white streaks. But there was no thunder from above. The thunder rolled low, along the ground.

Spellbound Tom gazed. He was riveted to the rock. If he had not been he would have fled, up, back, away from that oncoming mass. But he could only gaze, in a profound consciousness of something great and terrifying. These buffalo might not split round the higher ground; those in line might run over the rock. What an end for hide-hunters! Killed, crushed, trampled to jelly, trampled to dust under the hoofs of the great herd! It would be just retribution. Tom felt the awful truth of that in his lifting heart. It was mete. The murderous hide-hunters, money-grubbers, deserved no pity. He could not feel any for himself. How furiously angry that curling surf of woolly heads and shiny horns and gleaming hoofs! On! On! On! The thundering herd! How magnificent and appalling!

Suddenly his ears ceased to function. He could no longer hear. The sense had been outdone. There was no sound. But he saw yet the mighty onsweep, majestic, irresistible, an army of maddened beasts on the stampede, shaking the earth. The rock under his feet began to tremble. It was no longer stable. He felt the queer vibrations, and the sensation added to his terror.

Transfixed, Tom awaited the insupportable moment for the rolling front ranks to reach the rock, either to roll over it like a tidal wave, or split round it. The moment was an age. Pilchuck was holding to him. Tom was holding to Pilchuck. The solid earth seemed about to cave in under them. Shaggy black heads bobbing swiftly, gleam of horns, and flash of wild eyes, hoofs, hoofs, hoofs sweeping out, out, out — and the awful moment was at hand.

The shaggy flood split round the rock and two streams of rounded woolly backs, close-pressed as water, swift as a mill-race, poured over the bank toward the river.

Pilchuck dragged Tom away from the back position to the front of the rock. As if by supernatural magic the scene was changed. Below, far on each side, the mass of buffalo spilled over the embankment to plunge into the river. Up and down the water line spread white splashes; and over and into them leaped the second ranks of buffalo, too close to miss the first. Then what had momentarily been ranks on the slope closed up into solid mass of black. Bulge and heave — great sheets of muddy water — a terrible writhing massing forward along that irregular front! Then the tide of buffalo swept on, over, once more a flat, level multitude of heads and humps, irrepressible as an avalanche. They crossed the river on the run; the stampede had been only momentarily retarded. Downriver, below the ford, far as eye could see, stretched lines of buffalo swimming, swiftly, like an endless flock of enormous geese. Upriver stretched the same, as far as eye could see. The slope of the prairie to the water was one solid mass of buffalo, moving as one beast, impelled by motive as wild as the action. Above swept the dust, blowing as a storm wind from the prairie, and, curling like a yellow curtain of smoke, it followed the buffalo across the river up the long slope, and out upon the prairie.

Tom and Pilchuck were on that level between the moving dust above and the moving buffalo below. All view back toward the prairie whence the herd rolled was soon obliterated. Likewise the front ranks of the great mass disappeared on the opposite side, under this accompanying mantle. But the river, for a while, lay clear to their gaze, miles up and miles down, and all visible space of water and ground was covered with buffalo. Buffalo more numerous than a band of ants on the march!

Tom sank down, overcome by the spectacle, by the continuous trembling of the earth under him, by the strangulation which threatened, by the terrible pressure on his ear-drums.

Suddenly night seemed to intervene. A gale swooped the dust away across the river; and in place of yellow curling curtain of dust there came a slanting gray pall of rain. It blackened as the light grew less. Blazing streaks of lightning played through the gray gloom. But if there was thunder above, it could not be heard in the thunder below.

Pilchuck drew Tom under a narrow shelf of rock, where, half protected from the deluge, they crouched in the semi-darkness. What seemed hours passed. Yet there was no end to the passing of the great herd. The rain ceased, the sky lightened and cleared, and clearer grew the black mantling of prairie and river. All was buffalo, except the sky. Then the sun broke out of the clouds.

Tom’s stunned senses rallied enough for him to appreciate the grandeur and beauty suddenly given the scene by a glorious sheen of gold and purple, streaming down from the rifts between the clouds. The dust was gone. The thousands of shining black backs moved on and on, rapidly, ponderously, swallowed up by the haze of the disappearing storm. And still the buffalo came over the prairie, obscuring the ground.

But at last the time came when the mass showed breaks in the ranks, and then, in the rear line, more ragged than had been the fore. Tom’s hearing seemed gradually to be restored. That, he realized, was only the diminishing of the vast volume of sound to the point where it was no longer deafening. It was a blood-deadening thunder that gradually lessened as the end of the herd rolled on from the prairie, down over the bank, and across the river.

The thundering herd swept on out of sight. And the thunder became a roar, the roar a rumble, and the rumble died away.

Pilchuck rose to his lofty height and peered across the river, into the gray haze and purple distance that had swallowed up the buffalo. He seemed to be a man who had lived through something terrible.

“The last herd!” he said, with pathos. “They’ve crossed the Brazos an’ they’ll never come back. . . . The storm of rain was like the storm of lead that’ll follow them.”

Tom also got dizzily to his feet and faced the south. What he felt about the last herd could not be spoken. He had been spared a death he felt he deserved; and he had seen a mighty spectacle, incalculable in its spiritual effect. All in vain was the grand stampede of that thundering herd. It must drink, it must graze — and behind would troop the ruthless hunters of hides. But Tom had seen and felt its overpowering vitality, its tremendous life, its spirit. Never would he kill another buffalo! And a great sadness pervaded his mind. As he stood there, trying to form in words something to say to Pilchuck, a huge old buffalo bull, one of the many that had been mired in the sand, floundered and wallowed free, and waddled to the opposite shore. Stupidly he gazed about him, forlorn, alone, lost, a symbol of the herd that had gone on without him. Then he headed south out into the melancholy gray of the prairie.

“Jude, I’m — going — north!” exclaimed Tom, haltingly, full of words that would not come.

“Shake!” replied the old scout, quick as a flash, as he extended his brawny hand.

CHAPTER XIX

FROM THE CREST of the long prairie slope, beginning to color brown and gold in the September sun, Tom Doan gazed down at the place that had been Sprague’s Post. It had grown so as to be almost unrecognizable. Ranches dotted the beautiful sweep of fertile land. Near at hand, the river wound away, hidden in green foliage, and far out on the plain it glistened in the sunlight.

Despite the keen pang in Tom’s heart, and the morbid reluctance to return that had abided with him, strangely he found he was glad. The wildness of the buffalo range, loneliness and silence and solitude, and the loss that he felt was irreparable — these had dwarfed his former kindliness and hopefulness, and his old ambition to know the joy of his own home and ranch. But might there not be some compensation?

The long wagon train of hides and camp outfits lumbered across the prairie to enter the outskirts of the Post and haul up on the green square between the town and the river. Huts and cabins had taken the place of tents. Still there were new wagons and outfits belonging to hunters bound for the buffalo range. Tom wanted to cry out about the pains and blunders they were so cheerfully and ignorantly traveling to meet.

Big wagon trains such as this one were always encountered at the Post. News traveled ahead of such large caravans; and there was a crowd on the green. There were half a dozen wagons ahead of the one Tom drove, and the last of these was Pilchuck’s. The lean old scout was at once surrounded by hunters eager to learn news of the buffalo range.

Tom saw Burn Hudnall and Dave Stronghurl before they saw him. How well they looked — fuller of face and not so bronzed as when they had ridden the open range! Eager and excited also they appeared to Tom. They would be glad to see him. If only he could avoid meeting their women folk! Then Burn espied him and made at him. Tom dropped the knotted reins over the brake with a movement of finality, and stepped down out of the wagon.

“Howdy, boys! It’s sure good to see you,” he said, heartily.

They grasped him with hands almost rough, so forceful were they; and both greeted him at once in a kind of suppressed joy, incoherent and noisy, all the more welcoming for that. Then they hung on to him, one at each side.

“Say, have you boys taken to drink?” retorted Tom, to conceal how their warmth affected him. “I haven’t just come back to life.”

“Tom, I — we — all of us was afraid you’d never come,” burst out Burn. “You look fine. Thin, mebbe, an’ hard. . . . My Gawd! I’m glad!”

“Tom — I’ve got a baby — a boy!” beamed Dave, his strong smug face alight.

“You don’t say! Dave, shake on that. . . . I’m sure glad. How time flies! It doesn’t seem so long—”

“We’ve got other news, but the best of it’ll keep till we get to the ranch,” interrupted Burn. “Tom, I’ve got that five hundred acres father liked so well. Remember? You can buy next to me, along the river. Dave has thrown in with Sprague. The town’s boomin’! We’ve a bank, a church, and a school. An’ wait till you see the teacher! She’s—”

He rambled on, like a boy, to be silenced by Dave’s look. Then Dave began, and being more practical he soon got out Tom’s bag and gun and roll of blankets.

“You’re comin’ with us this hyar very minnit,” he concluded, as Tom tried to make excuses. “Burn, grab some of his outfit. Reckon this team an’ wagon belongs to Pilchuck?”

“Yes, it does,” replied Tom.

“Come along then, you buffalo-chasin’, Comanche-ridin’ Llaner Estacador,” went on Dave. “We’ve orders to fetch you home before these hyar town girls set eyes on you.”

They dragged Tom and his belongings out of the crowd, pushed him up into a spring-wagon, and while Burn piled his baggage in the back, Dave climbed up beside him and started a team of spirited horses out along the river road.

If the welcome accorded Tom by Burn and Dave had touched him, that given by their women folk reached deeply to his heart. They were all at the front of Burn’s fine ranch house. Burn’s wife was weeping, it seemed for joy; and Sally Hudnall gave Tom a resounding kiss, to his consternation. Mrs. Hudnall, whose motherly face showed the ravages of grief, greeted him in a way that made Tom ashamed of how he had forgotten these good people. She took possession of him and led him indoors, ahead of the others. They had all seemed strange, hurried, suppressing something. They were not as Tom remembered. Alas! had he grown away from wholesome simplicity? They wanted to welcome him to their home.

Mrs. Hudnall shut the door. Tom had a sense that the room was large, lighted by windows at each end. Clearing his throat, he turned to speak. But Mrs. Hudnall’s working face, her tear-wet eyes, made him dumb. There was something wrong here.

“Tom, you’re changed,” she began, hurriedly. “No boy any more! I can see how it hurts you to come back to us.”

“Yes, because of — of Milly,” he replied, simply. “But you mustn’t think I’m not glad to see you all. I am. You’re my good friends. I’m ashamed I never appreciated you as I should have. But that hard life out there—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, huskily. “You know how it hurt me. . . . But, Tom, never mind the past. Think of the present.”

“My heart’s buried in that past. It seems so long ago. So short a time to remember! I—”

“Didn’t you ever think Milly might not have been lost?” she asked.

“Yes, I thought that — till hope died,” replied Tom, slowly.

“My boy — we heard she wasn’t killed — or captured — or anything,” said Mrs. Hudnall, softly.

“Heard she wasn’t? My God! That would only torture me,” replied Tom, poignantly. He felt himself shaking. What did these people mean? His mind seemed to encounter that query as a wall.

“Tom, we know she wasn’t,” flashed the woman, with all the ecstasy in face and voice.

He staggered back suddenly, released from bewilderment. He realized now. That had been the secret of their excitement, their strangeness. His consciousness grasped the truth. Milly Fayre was not dead. For an instant his eyes closed and his physical and spiritual being seemed to unite in a tremendous resistance against the shock of rapture. He must not lose his senses. He must not miss one word or look of this good woman who had given him back love and life. But he was mute. A strong quiver ran over him from head to foot. Then heart and pulse leaped in exquisite pain and maddening thrill.

“Milly is here,” said Mrs. Hudnall. “We tried again and again to send you word, but always missed you. Milly has lived here — ever since she escaped from Jett — and the Indians. She has grown. She’s taught the school. She is well — happy. She has waited for you — she loves you dearly.”

Voice was wrenched from Tom. “I see truth in your face,” he whispered, huskily. “But I can’t believe. . . . Let me see her!”

Mrs. Hudnall pushed back the door and went out. Some one slipped in. A girl — a woman, white of face, with parted lips and great, radiant black eyes! Could this be Milly Fayre?

“Oh — Tom!” she burst out, in broken voice, deep and low. She took a forward step, with hands extended, then swayed back against the door. “Don’t you — know me?”

“I’d lost all hope,” whispered Tom, as if to himself. “It’s too sudden. I can’t believe . . . You ghost! You white thing with eyes I loved!”

“It’s your Milly, alive — alive!” she cried, and ran to envelop him.

Later they stood by the open window watching the sun set gold over the dim dark line of the Llana Estacado. She had told her story. Tom could only marvel at it, as at her, so changed, so wonderful, yet sweet and simple as of old.

“You shall never go back to the buffalo range,” she said, in what seemed both command and appeal.

“No, Milly,” he replied, and told her the story of the stampede of the thundering herd.

“Oh, how wonderful and terrible!” she replied, “I loved the buffalo.”

Mrs. Hudnall called gayly to them from the door. “Tom — Milly, you can’t live on love. Supper is ready.”

“We’re not hungry,” replied Milly, dreamily.

“Yes, we are,” added Tom, forcefully. “We’ll come. . . . Milly, I’m starved. You know what camp grub is. A year and a half on hump steak!”

“Wait. I was only teasing,” she whispered, as with downcast eyes, like midnight under their lashes, she leaned a little closer to him. “Do you remember my — my birthday?”

“I never knew it,” he replied, smiling.

“It’s to-morrow.”

“You don’t say. Well, I did get back at the right time. Let’s see, you’re eighteen years old.”

“Ah, you forget! I am nineteen. You lost me for over a year.”

“But, Milly, I never forgot what was to have been on your eighteenth birthday, though I never knew the date.”

“What was to have been?” she asked, shyly, with a slow blush mantling her cheek.

“You were to marry me.”

“Oh, did I promise that?” she questioned, in pretended wonder.

“Yes.”

“Well, that was for my eighteenth birthday. You never hunted me — you hunted only buffalo. You might have had me. . . . But now you shall wait till — till I’m twenty.”

“Milly, I hunted for you all through summer, fall, winter. And my heart broke.”

“But — but I can only marry you on a birthday,” she replied, shaken by his words, and looked up at him with dusky, eloquent eyes.

“Dear, I’m so happy to find you alive — to see you grown into a beautiful woman — to know you love me — that I could wait for ten birthdays,” he said, earnestly. “But why make me wait? I’ve had a lonely hard life out there in the buffalo fields. It has taken something from me that only you can make up for. I must go back to my dream of a ranch — a home, cattle, horses, tilling the soil. Have you forgotten how we planned when we met in secret under the cottonwoods? Those moonlight nights!”

“No, I never forgot anything,” she whispered, her head going down on his shoulder.

“Well — since to-morrow is your nineteenth birthday, and I’ve lost you for an endless hateful year — marry me to-morrow. Will you?”

“Yes!”

THE END

Under the Tonto Rim

CONTENTS

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter I

LUCY WATSON DID not leave home without regrets. For a long time she gazed at the desert scenery through tear-blurred eyes. But this sadness seemed rather for the past — the home that had been, before the death of her mother and the elopement of her younger sister with a cowboy. This escapade of Clara’s had been the last straw. Lucy had clung to the home in the hope she might save her sister from following in the footsteps of others of the family. Always she had felt keenly the stigma of being the daughter of a saloon-keeper. In her school days she had suffered, under this opprobrium, and had conceived an ideal to help her rise above the circumstances of her position. Clara’s deflection had left her free. And now she was speeding away from the town where she had been born, with an ache in her heart, and yet a slowly dawning consciousness of relief, of hope, of thrill. By the time she reached Oglethorpe, where she was to take a branch-line train, she was able to address all her faculties to a realisation of her adventures.

Lucy had graduated from high school and normal school with honours. Of the several opportunities open to her she had chosen one of welfare work among backwoods people. It was not exactly missionary work, as her employers belonged to a department of the state government. Her duty was to go among the poor families of the wilderness and help them to make better homes. The significance of these words had prompted Lucy to make her choice. Better homes! It had been her ideal to help make her own home better, and so long as her mother lived she had succeeded. The salary offered was small, but that did not cause her concern. The fact that she had the welfare department of the state behind her, and could use to reasonable extent funds for the betterment of these primitive people, was something of far greater importance. When she had accepted this position two remarks had been made to her, both of which had been thought-provoking. Mr. Sands, the head of the department, had said: “We would not trust every young woman with this work. It is a sort of state experiment. But we believe in the right hands it will be a great benefit to these uncultivated people of the backwoods. Tact, cleverness, and kindliness of heart will be factors in your success.”

Lucy had derived gratification from this indirect compliment. The other remark had aroused only Amusement. Mrs. Larabee, also connected with the welfare work, had remarked: “You are a good-looking woman, Miss Watson. You will cause something of a stir among the young men at Cedar Ridge. I was there last summer. Such strapping young giants I never saw! I liked them, wild and uncouth as they were. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them married you.”

Oglethorpe was a little way station in the desert. The branch-line train, consisting of two cars and the engine, stood waiting on a side track. Mexicans in huge sombreros and Indians with coloured blankets stolidly watched Lucy carry her heavy bags from one train to the other, A young brakeman espied her and helped her aboard, not forgetting some bold and admiring glances. The coach was only partly filled with passengers, and those whom Lucy noticed bore the stamp of the range.

Soon the train started over an uneven and uphill roadbed. Lucy began to find pleasure in gazing out of the window. The flat bare desert had given place to hills, fresh with spring greens. The air had lost the tang of the cattle range. Occasionally Lucy espied a black tableland rising in the distance, and this she guessed was timbered mountain country, whither she was bound.

At noon the train arrived at its terminal stop, San Dimas, a hamlet of flat-roofed houses. Lucy was interested only in the stage-coach that left here for her destination, Cedar Ridge. The young brakeman again came to her assistance and carried her baggage. “Goin’ up in the woods, hey?” he queried curiously.

“Yes, I think they did say woods, backwoods,” laughed Lucy. “I go to Cedar Ridge, and farther still.”

“All alone — a pretty girl!” he exclaimed gallantly. “For two cents I’d throw up my job an’ go with you.”

“Thank you. Do you think I need a — a protector?” replied Lucy.

“Among those bee hunters an’ white-mule drinker I reckon you do, miss.”

“I imagine they will not be any more dangerous than cowboys on the range — or brakemen on trains,” replied Lucy, with a smile. “Anyway, I can take care of myself.”

“I’ll bet you can,” he said admiringly. “Good luck.”

Lucy found herself the sole passenger in the stage-coach and soon bowling along a good road. The driver, a weather-beaten old man, appeared to have a grudge against his horses. Lucy wanted to climb out in front and sit beside him, so that she could see better and have opportunity to ask questions about the country and the people. The driver’s language, however, was hardly conducive to nearer acquaintance; therefore Lucy restrained her inquisitive desires and interested herself in the changing nature of the foliage and the occasional vista that opened up between the hills.

It seemed impossible not to wonder about what was going to happen to her; and the clinking of the harness on the horses, the rhythmic beat of their hoofs, and the roll of wheels all augmented her sense of the departure from an old and unsatisfying life toward a new one fraught with endless hopes, dreams, possibilities. Whatever was in store for her, the worthy motive of this work she had accepted would uphold her and keep her true to the ideal she had set for herself.

The only instructions given Lucy were that she was to go among the families living in the backwoods between Cedar Ridge and what was called the Rim Rock and to use her abilities to the best advantage in teaching them to have better homes. She had not been limited to any method or restricted in any sense or hampered by any church or society. She was to use her own judgment and report her progress. Something about this work appealed tremendously to Lucy. The responsibility weighed upon her, yet stimulated her instinct for conflict. She had been given a hint of what might be expected in the way of difficulties. Her success or failure would have much to do with future development of this state welfare work. Lucy appreciated just how much these isolated and poor families might gain or lose through her. Indeed, though beset by humility and doubt, she felt that a glorious opportunity had been presented to her, and she called upon all the courage and intelligence she could summon. There was little or nothing she could plan until she got among these people. But during that long ride through the lonely hills, up and ever upward into higher country, she laboured at what she conceived to be the initial step toward success — to put into this work all her sympathy and heart.

Presently she plucked up spirit enough to address the stage driver.

“How far is it to Cedar Ridge?”

“Wal, some folks calkilate it’s round twenty-five miles, then there’s tothers say it’s more,” he drawled. “But I don’t agree with nary of them.”

“You would know, of course,” said Lucy appreciatingly. “How far do you call it?”

“Reckon aboot twenty miles as a crow flies an’ shinnyin’ round forty on this uphill road.”

Lucy felt rather bewildered at this reply, and did not risk incurring more confusion. She was sure of one thing, however, and it was that the road assuredly wound uphill. About the middle of the afternoon as stage reached the summit of what appeared rolling upland country, grassy in patches and brushy in others, and stretching away toward a bold black mountain level with a band of red rock shining in the sun. Lucy gazed westward across a wide depression, grey and green, to a range of ragged peaks, notched and sharp, with shaggy slopes. How wild and different they seemed to her! Farther south the desert mountains were stark and ghastly, denuded rock surfaces that glared inhospitably down upon an observer. But these mountains seemed to call in wild abandon. They stirred something buoyant and thrilling in Lucy. Gradually she lost sight of both ranges as the road began to wind down somewhat, obstructing her view. Next to interest her were clearings in the brush, fields and fences and cabins, with a few cattle and horses. Hard as she peered, however, Lucy did not see any people.

The stage driver made fast time over this rolling country, and his horses trotted swingingly along, as if home and feed were not far off. For Lucy the day had been tiring; she had exhausted herself with unusual sensation. She closed her eyes to rest them and fell into a doze. Sooner or later the stage driver awoke her.

“Say, miss, there’s Cedar Ridge, an’ thet green hill above is what gives the town its name,” he said. “It’s a good ways off yit, but I reckon we’ll pull in aboot dark.”

Lucy’s eyes opened upon a wonderful valley, just now coloured by sunset haze. A cluster of cottages and houses nestled under a magnificent sloping ridge, billowy and soft with green foliage. The valley was pastoral and beautiful. This could not be the backwoods country into which she was going. Lucy gazed long with the most pleasing of impressions. Then her gaze shifted to the ridge from which the town derived its name. Far as she could see to east and west it extended, a wild black barrier to what hid beyond. It appeared to slope higher toward the east, where on the horizon it assumed the proportions of a mountain.

To Lucy’s regret, the winding and ascending nature of the road again obscured distant views. Then the sun set; twilight appeared short; and soon darkness settled down. Lucy had never before felt mountain air, but she recognised it now. How cold and pure! Would the ride never end? She peered through the darkness, hoping to see lights of the village. At last they appeared, dim pin-points through the blackness. She heard the barking of dogs. The stage wheeled round a corner of trees, to enter a wide street, and at last to slow down before looming flap-topped houses, from which the yellow lights shone.

“Miss, anybody goin’ to meet you?” queried the driver.

“No,” replied Lucy.

“Wal, whar shall I set you down? Post office, store, or hotel?”

Lucy was about to answer his question when he enlightened her by drawling that she did not need to make any choice, because all three places mentioned were in the same house.

When the stage came to a halt Lucy saw a high porch upon which lounged the dark forms of men silhouetted against the yellow light of lamps. Despite the lights, she could scarcely see to gather up her belongings. To her relief, the stage driver reached in for her grips.

“Hyar we air — Cedar Ridge — last stop — all out,” he drawled.

Lucy stepped down hurriedly so that she could stay close to him. The darkness, and the strangeness of the place, with those silent men so close, made her heart beat a little quicker. She followed her escort up wide rickety steps, between two lines of men, some of whom leaned closer to peer at her, and into a large room, dimly lighted by a hanging lamp.

“Bill, hyar’s a party fer you,” announced the driver, setting down the baggage. “An’, miss, I’ll thank you fer ten dollars — stage fare.”

Lucy stepped under the lamp so that she could see to find the money in her purse, and when she turned to pay the driver she espied a tall man standing by him.

“Madam, do you want supper an’ bed?” he asked.

“Yes. I am Lucy Watson of Felix, and I shall want room and board, perhaps for a day or two, until I find out where I’m to go,” replied Lucy.

He lighted a lamp and held it up so that he could see her face.

“Glad to help you any way I can,” he said. “I’m acquainted in these parts. Come this way.”

He led her into a hallway, and up a stairway, into a small room, where he placed the lamp upon a washstand. “I’ll fetch your baggage up. Supper will be ready in a few minutes.”

When he went out Lucy looked first to see if there was a key in the lock on the door. There was not, but she found a bolt, and laughed ruefully at the instant relief it afforded.

“I’m a brave welfare worker,” she whispered to herself scornfully. Then she gazed about the room. Besides the washstand before noted it contained a chair and a bed. The latter looked clean and inviting to Lucy. There would be need of the heavy roll of blankets at the foot. The cold air appeared to go right through Lucy. And the water in the pitcher was like ice. Before she had quite made herself ready to go downstairs she heard a bell ring, and then a great trampling of boots and a scraping of chairs on a bare floor.

“Those men coming in to supper!” she exclaimed. “Bee hunters and white-mule drinkers, that brakeman said!...Well, if I have to meet them I — I can stand it now, I guess.”

The hall and stairway were so dark Lucy had to feel her way down to the door. She was guided by the loud voices and laughter in the dining-room. Lucy could not help hesitating at the door. Neither her courage nor her pride could prevent the rise of unfamiliar emotions. She was a girl, alone, at the threshold of new life. Catching her breath, she opened the door.

The dining-room was now brightly lighted and full of men sitting at the tables. As Lucy entered, the hubbub of voices quieted and a sea of faces seemed to confront her. There was a small table vacant. Lucy seated herself in one of the two chairs. Her feeling of strangeness was not alleviated by the attention directed toward her. Fortunately the proprietor approached at once, asking what she would have to eat. When she had given her order Lucy casually looked up and around the room. To her surprise and relief, none of the young men now appeared to be interested in her. They had lean, hard faces and wore dark, rough clothes. Lucy rather liked their appearance, and she found herself listening to the snatches of conversation.

“Jeff’s rarin’ to plough right off,” said one. “Reckon it’ll be plumb boggy,” was the reply. And then others of them spoke. “My hoss piled me up this mawnin’,” and “Who air you goin’ to take to the dance?” and “Lefty March paid what he owed me an’ I near dropped daid,” and “Did you-all hear about Edd Denmeade makin’ up to Sadie again, after she dished him once?” and “Edd’s shore crazy fer a wife. Wants a home, I reckon.”

The talk of these young men was homely and crude. It held a dominant note of humour. Probably they were as fun-loving as the riders of the low country. Lucy had expected to be approached by some of them or at least to hear witticisms at her expense. But nothing of the kind happened. She was the only woman in the room, and she might not have been there at all, for any attention she received. Something of respect was forced from Lucy, yet, woman-like, she suffered a slight pique. Soon her supper came, and being hungry she attended to that.

After supper there was nothing for her to do but to her room. It was cold and she quickly went to bed. For a while she lay there shivering between the cold sheets, but presently she grew warm and comfortable. The darkness appeared pitch-black. Distant voices penetrated from the lower part of the house, and through the open window came the sound of slow footsteps accompanied by clink of spurs. Then from somewhere far off sounded the bay of a hound, and it was followed by the wild bark of a coyote. Both bay and bark struck lonesomely upon her spirit.

Lucy realised that actually to experience loneliness, to be really cut off from family and friends, was vastly different from the thought of it. She had deliberately severed all ties. She was alone in the world, with her way to make. A terrible blank sense of uncertainty assailed her. Independence was wholly desirable, but in its first stage it seemed hard. Lucy was not above tears, and she indulged in a luxury long unfamiliar to her. Then she cried herself to sleep.

When she awoke the sun was shining in upon her. The air was crisp and cold and bore a fragrance wild and sweet, new to Lucy. With the bright daylight all her courage returned, even to the point of exhilaration. She put on a woollen dress and heavier shoes. The cold air and water had greatly accelerated her toilet. When had her cheeks glowed as rosily as now? And for that matter, when had her hair been as rebellious? But she had no time now to brush it properly, even if her hands had not been numb. She hurried down to the dining-room. A wood fire blazed and cracked in the stove, to Lucy’s great satisfaction. The dining-room was empty. Presently the kitchen door opened and a stout woman entered with a pleasant greeting.

“Miss Watson, my husband said we might find somethin’ we could do for you,” she said kindly.

“Yes, indeed, you may be able to give me information I need,” replied Lucy.

“I’ll fetch your breakfast an’ then you can tell me what you want to know.”

The proprietor’s wife introduced herself as Mrs. Lynn, and appeared to be a motherly person, kindly and full of curiosity. Lucy frankly explained the nature of the work she was about to undertake.

“I think it’s a fine idea,” responded Mrs. Lynn emphatically. “If only the Denmeades an’ the rest of them will have it.”

“Will they be too proud or — or anything to give me a chance?” asked Lucy anxiously.

“We’re all plain folks up here, an’ the backwoods families keep to themselves,” she replied. “I don’t know as I’d call them proud. They’re ignorant enough, Lord knows. But they’re just backwoods. Like ground-hogs, they stay in their holes.”

On the moment the woman’s husband came in from the street. He appeared to be a gaunt man, pallid, and evidently suffered from a lung complaint, for he had a hoarse cough.

“Bill, come here,” called his wife. “Miss Watson has what I think a wonderful mission. If it will only work!...She’s been hired by the state government to go among our people up here in the backwoods an’ teach them things. She has explained to me a lot of things she will do. But in few words it means better homes for those poor people. What do you think about it?”

“Wal, first off I’d say she is a plucky an’ fine little girl to take such a job,” replied Mr. Lynn. “Then I’d say it’s good of the state. But when it comes to what the Denmeades an’ the Claypools will think about it I’m up a stump.”

“Bill, it’s such a splendid idea,” said his wife earnestly. “She can do much for the mothers an’ children up there. We must help her to get a start.”

“I reckon. Now let’s see,” returned her husband, ponderingly. “If our backwoods neighbours are only approached right they’re fine an’ hospitable. The women would welcome anyone who could help them. But the men ain’t so easy. Miss Watson, though, bein’ young an’ nice-lookin’, may be able to make a go of it...If she can keep Edd Denmeade or one of them bee hunters from marryin’ her!”

Here Lynn laughed good-humouredly and smiled knowingly at Lucy. Mrs. Lynn took the question more seriously.

“I was goin’ to tell her that myself,” she said. “But we mustn’t give her the wrong impression about our neighbours. These backwoodsmen are not Bluebeards or Mormons, though they are strong on gettin’ wives. They are a clean, hardy, pioneer people. Edd Denmeade, for instance, now — he’s a young man the like of which you won’t see often. He’s a queer fellow — a bee hunter, wonderful good to look at, wild like them woods he lives in, but a cleaner, finer boy I never knew. He loves his sisters. He gives his mother every dollar he earns, which, Lord knows, isn’t many...Now, Miss Lucy, Edd like as not will grab you right up an’ pack you off an’ marry you. That would settle your welfare work.”

“But, Mrs. Lynn,” protested Lucy, laughing, “it takes two to make a bargain. I did not come up here to marry anyone. With all due respect to Mister Edd’s manner of courting, I feel perfectly capable of taking care of myself. We can dismiss that.”

“Don’t you be too sure!” ejaculated Mrs. Lynn bluntly “It’s better to be safe than sorry!...I ain’t above tellin’ you, though — if Edd Denmeade really fell in love with you — that’d be different. Edd has been tryin’ to marry every single girl in the country. An’ I don’t believe he’s been in love with any one of them. He’s just woman hungry, as sometimes these backwoodsmen get. That speaks well for him bein’ too clean an’ fine to be like many others. An’ as to that, Edd is only one of a lot of good boys.”

“Thanks for telling me,” replied Lucy simply. “Of course I want to know all I can find out about these people. But just now what I need to know is how to get among them.”

“Mary, I’ve been thinkin’,” spoke up Mr. Lynn, “an’ I’ve an idea. Suppose I call in the Rim Cabin school-teacher. He’s in the post office now — just rode in. I reckon he’s the one to help Miss Watson.”

“Fetch him in pronto,” replied Mrs. Lynn with alacrity; and as her husband went out she continued: “It’s Mr. Jenks, the school-teacher. First man teacher ever here. You see, the youngsters at Rim Cabin school never got much teachin’, because whenever a schoolmarm did come one of the boys would up an’ marry her. So they’re tryin’ a man. It’s workin’ out fine, I hear. Mr. Jenks is in this high, dry country for his health, same as my husband. I reckon he wasn’t always a school-teacher. Anyway, he’s a good Christian man, not young enough to have the girls makin’ sheep eyes at him.”

At this juncture Mr. Lynn returned with a slight, stoop-shouldered man whose thin, serious face showed both suffering and benevolence. He was introduced to Lucy, who again, somewhat more elaborately, explained the reason for her presence in Cedar Ridge.

He made her a very gallant bow, and seated himself at the table, to bend keen, kind blue eyes upon her.

“You are a courageous young woman,” he said, “and if you are sincere these people will take you into their homes.”

“No one could be more sincere,” replied Lucy, with spirit. “I have absolutely no motive but to do good. I chose this out of a number of positions offered me. I wanted something different — and not easy.”

“You have found it,” he said. “The opportunity is here and it is big. There are a score or more of children who might as well belong to savages for all the civilisation they get. No doctor when they are sick, no church, no amusement, no pretty things common to children, no books or toys — nothing except what little schooling I can give them. They have no school in winter, on account of weather. I’ve been here a month. There are twenty-seven pupils in my school, the eldest a boy of nineteen — a man, really — and the youngest a girl of four. They are like a lot of wild Hottentots. But I really think more of them than any children I ever taught. The problem is to win them.”

“It must be a problem for an outsider,” replied Lucy seriously.

“I believe they will take more quickly to a girl,” he went on. “At least the children and boys will. Your problem will be a different one from mine. I’ll not dwell on it, lest I discourage you. What’s more to the point, I can say as their teacher I’ve learned a good deal about their lives. At first this seemed a tragedy to me, but I am learning that a good many of our necessities are not really necessary, after all. These children and young people are really happy. They have few wants because they do not know what more civilised people have in their lives. It is not through sophistication that you will benefit them. To brighten their surroundings, change the primitive squalor, teach the children useful things — therein lies your opportunity.”

“Can you advise me how to start — whom to approach first?” asked Lucy.

“Come with me,” replied Mr. Jenks earnestly. “I’m driving back to-day. I live at Johnson’s — five miles down from the Rim Cabin, which, by the way, is the name of my school. I’ll take you up to see Lee Denmeade. He lives some miles farther on, up in the woods under the Rim Rock. He’s probably the most influential man among these backwoodsmen. I rather incline to the opinion that he will like your proposition.”

“It’s very good of you. Thank you,” replied Lucy gratefully. “I am ready now to go with you.”

“I’ll call for you in an hour,” said Mr. Jenks, rising.

After he had gone out Lucy returned to Mrs. Lynn to ask: “I wonder — when he hinted about my problem and said he didn’t want to discourage me — did he mean this — this marrying propensity you spoke of?”

“I reckon you hit it plumb,” replied Mrs. Lynn gravely, yet with a smile. “It’s the only problem you have. You will be a blessin’ to them overworked mothers an’ a godsend to the children.”

“Then — I can stand anything,” rejoined Lucy happily, and she ran upstairs to repack the grip she had opened. While her hands were busy her mind was preoccupied, now humorously and then thoughtfully, and again dreamily. She was indeed curious about these backwoods people — earnestly and sympathetically curious. It was impossible not to conjecture about this Edd Denmeade. She made a mental picture of him, not particularly flattering. Poor fellow! So all he wanted was a wife, any girl he could get. The thought afforded Lucy amusement, yet she felt pity for the lonesome fellow. “I hope to goodness he doesn’t run after me!” soliloquised Lucy, suddenly aghast. “I certainly wouldn’t marry a backwoodsman — or a cowboy...Pooer little foolish sister! I wonder how soon she’ll find out her mistake. That Rex Wilcox was no good...I wish everybody wouldn’t make me think of marriage. It’ll be a long time until I want to — if ever.”

Lucy sighed, dispelled her dreams, and finished her packing, after which she gazed out of the window.

It was considerably longer than an hour before Lucy found herself seated in an old buckboard beside Mr. Jenks, rattling along a dusty road behind the heels of two big shaggy horses.

But the brisk trot soon ended at the base of the steep ridge, up which the road zigzagged through a low-branched thick-foliaged forest, remarkable for its fragrance.

“What smells so sweet?” was one of Lucy’s many questions.

“Cedar. Those gnarled trees with the grey sheafs of bark, hanging like ribbons, and the dense fine light-green foliage, are the cedars that give name to the ridge and village,” replied Mr. Jenks. “They are an upland tree, an evergreen. I like them, but not so well as this more graceful tree with the chequered bark. That’s a juniper. See the lilac-coloured berries. They grow ripe about every two years. And this huge round green bush with the smooth red-barked branches is manzanita. And that pale green plant with the spear-pointed leaves like a century plant — that’s mescal...But perhaps you would be more interested to hear about the people.”

“Yes. But I love the outdoors and all that grows,” replied Lucy enthusiastically. “I’ve never had a chance to live in the country, let alone in the wilds.”

“You may find it too wild, as I did at first,” replied the teacher in grim amusement. “I walk from Johnson’s to the schools — five miles. I used to see fresh bear tracks in mud or dust. I seldom see them now, as the bears have moved up higher. Almost every day I see deer and wild turkey. One night I was late leaving the cabin. It was moonlight. A big grey animal followed me half-way down to Johnson’s. I didn’t know what it was until next day, but anyhow my hair stood on end.”

“And what was it?” queried Lucy.

“A mountain lion,” replied Mr. Jenks impressively.

“A lion?” echoed Lucy incredulously. “I didn’t know there were lions in this country.”

“It was a panther, or cougar. But mountain lion is the proper name. I’ll show you his skin. Lee Denmeade put his hounds on the track of the beast and killed it. He gave me the skin...Oh, it’ll be wild enough for you. After we get on top of the ridge you won’t wonder that bears and lions live there.”

Lucy, being an artful questioner and inspiring listener, led Mr. Jenks to talk about the people among whom she expected to dwell.

He told how some of his child pupils rode their little burros six and eight miles to school; how a slip of a boy came on horseback from his home twelve miles away; how sometimes they were frightened by wild animals and cattle. He told of the dance that was held at the school-house once every week — how everyone for miles around attended — babies, children, young people, and grown-ups — and stayed from sundown to sunrise. All of which time the boys and girls danced! It was their one and only time to be together. Distance and hard work precluded the pleasure of company. Sometimes on a Sunday or a birthday one family would visit another. The girls spent what little leisure they had in sewing. The boys passed their spare time in hunting and fighting.

Mr. Jenks said he had at first been dreadfully concerned at the frequent fights. But as these young backwoodsmen appeared to thrive on it, and seldom were any less friendly for all their bloody battles, he had begun to get used to it.

So interesting was the talk of the school teacher that Lucy scarcely noted the tedious miles up the long ascent of the ridge, and was only reminded of distance when he informed her they were almost on top and would soon have a magnificent view. Despite his statement, however, Lucy was wholly unprepared for what suddenly burst upon her gaze from the summit.

“Oh — how glorious!” she cried.

It seemed she gazed down on an endless green slope of massed tree-tops, across a rolling basin black with forest, to a colossal wall of red rock, level and black fringed on top, but wildly broken along its face into gigantic cliffs, escarpments, points, and ledges, far as eye could see to east or west. How different from any other country Lucy had ever viewed! A strong sweet breath of pine assailed her nostrils. Almost she tasted it. In all the miles of green and black there was not a break. If homes of people existed there, they were lost in the immensity of the forest. An eagle soared far beneath her, with the sun shining on his wide-spread wings. A faint roar of running water floated up from the depths, and that was the only sound to disturb the great stillness. To one who had long been used to flat desert, the drab and yellow barrenness, how fertile and beautiful these miles and miles of rolling green! That wild grand wall of rock seemed to shut in the basin, to bar it from what lay beyond. Lastly the loneliness, the solitude, gripped Lucy’s heart.

“We’re on top of Cedar Ridge,” the school teacher was saying. “That mountain wall is called the Red Rim Rock. It’s about thirty miles in a straight line...We’re looking down upon the homes of the backwoodsmen you’ve come to live among.”

Chapter II

THE ROAD DOWN into this forest-land contrasted markedly with the ascent on the other side of the ridge; it was no longer steep and dusty; the soil was a sandy loam; the trees that shaded it were larger and more spreading. Birds, rabbits, and squirrels made their presence known.

Some ferns and mosses appeared on the edge of the woods, and pine trees were interspersed among the cedars. Mr. Jenks was nothing if not loquacious, and he varied his talk with snatches of natural history, bits of botany, and considerable forestry. It appeared he had once been a forest ranger in one of the Northern states. Lucy had a natural thirst for knowledge, something that her situation in life had tended to develop.

They descended to a level and followed the road through pine thickets above which an occasional monarch of the forest reared itself commandingly. At length they abruptly drove out of the woods into the first clearing. Lucy’s thought was — how hideous! It was a slash in the forest, a denuded square, with dead trees standing in the brown fields, a rickety fence of crooked poles surrounding a squat log cabin, with open door and dark window suggestive of vacancy.

“Family named Sprall once lived here,” said Mr. Jenks. “Improvident sort of man. He has a large family, more or less addicted to white mule. They moved back in some canyon under the Rim.”

“I’ve heard of this white mule,” replied. Lucy.

“Of course it’s a drink, and I gather that it kicks like a mule. But just what is it?”

“Just plain moonshine whisky without colour. It looks like alcohol. It is alcohol. I once took a taste. Fire and brimstone! I nearly choked to death...The people of this district make it to some extent. They raise a kind of cane from which they distil the liquor. But I’m bound to say that seldom indeed do I see a drunken man.”

Beyond this deserted clearing the road tunnelled into a denser forest where the pungent odour of pine thickly pervaded the atmosphere. The ground was a smooth mat of pine needles, only sparsely grown over with underbrush. Live-oak trees appeared, at first stunted, but gradually developing into rugged members of the forest. Noon found the travellers halted beside the first brook, a tiny trickling rill of clear water. Lucy was grateful for a cool drink. Mr. Jenks had been thoughtful to provide a lunch, of which they partook while sitting in the shade of an oak.

Here Lucy had opportunity to observe a small reddish-brown squirrel that was the sauciest little animal she had ever beheld. It occupied a branch above her and barked in no uncertain notes its displeasure and curiosity. Presently its chatter attracted a beautiful crested blue jay that flew close and uttered high-pitched notes, wild and fierce in their intensity.

“I hope the people here are not as antagonistic as this squirrel and bird,” observed Lucy.

“A few of them are — like the Spralls, for instance,” replied. Mr. Jenks. “Well, we still have far to go. I call it five miles from here to Johnson’s. You’ll say it’s five leagues.”

If Lucy had not been eager and anxious to establish her position securely here in the region she would have revelled in the winding shady road through the green-canopied, sun-flecked forest. Along here it had a considerable sameness, that added to the distance. Lucy indeed found the so-called five miles almost interminable. About two o’clock Mr. Jenks drove into another clearing, somewhat less hideous than the first one, but still a crude, ragged, unpastoral kind of farm. A wide green field dotted by cows and horses was the only redeeming feature. Log corrals and pole fences led the eye to a large log cabin surrounded by shacks old and mouldy roofed, manifestly the first buildings erected.

“This is the Johnson place, where I live,” said Mr. Jenks, with a smile. “That framework of boards, covered by a tent, is my humble domicile. Do you know, Miss Watson, I have actually grown to love sleeping out there?...This is Sunday, which means the Johnsons will all be home or all away visiting.”

The school teacher drove through an open gate in the log fence, and past a huge flat barn, dark and odorous of horses, to draw rein at the back of the cabin. “I was wrong. Sam Johnson is home, at least. I don’t know the boy with him,” said Mr. Jenks as he threw the reins and got down.

“I’d like to walk a little,” rejoined Lucy.

“You’ll probably walk, and climb, and besides ride horseback, before you’re through to-day,” replied Mr. Jenks, laughing, as he reached for his parcels on the seat.

“Oh, that’ll be fine!” exclaimed Lucy, delighted. And naturally she gazed over at the young men sitting on the rude porch. They might have been two of the boys she had seen in the dining-room at Cedar Ridge.

“Sam, she’s a looker,” drawled one of them in a perfectly audible voice.

The other stood up, disclosing a tall, lithe form clad in blue jeans. He had a shock of tousled chestnut hair and a freckled face that on the moment bore a broad grin.

“Dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “Teacher has fetched back a wife.”

Lucy met the teacher’s eyes. They were twinkling. She could not restrain a laugh, yet she felt a blush rise to her face.

“Sam flatters me, Miss Watson,” said Mr. Jenks in a low voice. “But that illustrates.”

“They must have this wife business on the brain,” retorted Lucy, half nettled.

The teacher called to the young man, Sam, who approached leisurely, a young giant somewhere over twenty years of age, clean-eyed and smooth-faced.

“Howdy, teacher!” he drawled, but his light hazel eyes were fixed on Lucy.

“This is Sam Johnson,” spoke up Mr. Jenks, turning to Lucy. “Sam, meet Miss Lucy Watson of Felix. She has come to sojourn awhile with us.”

“Right glad to meet you,” said Sam, somewhat shyly.

“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” replied Lucy.

“Sam, will you saddle two horses for us? I’m taking Miss Watson up to Denmeade’s,” interposed Mr. Jenks.

“Shore will, teacher,” rejoined Sam, and moved away with sidelong glance at Lucy.

“Have you any riding clothes?” inquired Mr. Jenks, as if suddenly reminded of something important.

“Yes. I was careful not to forget outdoor things,” replied Lucy.

“Good! I’ll carry your grips to my tent where you can change. Of course we’ll have to leave your baggage here until we interview Denmeade. If all goes well it can be packed up to-night.”

The interior of Mr. Jenks’s abode was vastly more prepossessing than the exterior. It was such an attractive little place that Lucy decided she wanted one similar to it, for the summer at least. The furnishings included a comfortable-looking cot, a washstand with mirror above, a table, books, lamp, and pictures. Several skins, notably a long grey furry one she took to have belonged to the lion Mr. Jenks had mentioned, served as rugs for the rude board floor. A picture of a sweet, sad-looking woman occupied a prominent place. Lucy wondered if she was his wife.

It did not take her many minutes to get into her riding clothes. Fortunately they had seen a service which now appeared likely to serve her in good stead. At normal school Lucy had ridden horseback once a week, and felt that she was not altogether a tenderfoot. Finding her gauntlets, she had the forethought to pack her travelling suit, so that in case she remained at Denmeade’s her baggage could be sent for. Then, with a last and not unsatisfied glance at herself in the mirror, she sallied forth from the tent, keen for this next stage of her adventure.

A glossy, spirited little bay pony stood there saddled and bridled, champing his bit. Another horse, dusty and shaggy, large in build and very bony, was haltered to the hitching rail near by. Mr. Jenks was lacing something on the saddle of the smaller horse. Sam Johnson lounged beside him and the other fellow had approached. He did not appear so tall or so lean as young Johnson.

Lucy felt uncertain how these backwoodsmen would take her rather trim and natty riding suit, but as she knew she looked well it gave her no great concern. She had made up her mind to win the liking of all these people, if possible.

“What a pretty pony!” she exclaimed. “Am I to ride him, Mr. Jenks?”

“Yes — if you can,” returned the teacher dubiously as he looked up from his task. “I assure you he is no pony, but a very mettlesome mustang.”

“Aw, teacher, Buster’s as gentle as a lamb,” protested Sam. Then, indicating his companion by a sweep of his long arm, he said, “Miss Lucy, this here is my cousin, Gerd Claypool.”

Lucy had to give her hand to the brown-faced young man, for he had extended a great paw. She liked his face. It was rich and warm with healthy blood, and expressive of both eagerness and bashfulness. Lucy was not going to forget his remark, “Sam, she’s a looker!” and she gazed as demurely as possible into his blue eyes. It took only one glance to convince her that he was of the type Mrs. Lynn had praised so heartily. Lucy also saw that he was quite overcome.

“Mettlesome mustang?” echoed Lucy, gazing from Mr. Jenks to Sam. “Does that mean anything terrible? I assure you I’m no cowgirl.”

Sam’s shrewd eyes sought her boots and then her gauntlets. “Wal, you’re shore no stranger to a hoss. Buster isn’t a bronc. He’s never pitched with a girl yet. Talk to him some an’ pat him as if you’d no idea a hoss could be mean.”

Lucy did as she was bidden, successfully hiding her nervousness; and it appeared that Buster did not show any viciousness or fear. He had a keen, dark eye, somewhat fiery, but not at all fierce. As he was a small horse, Lucy mounted him easily, to her satisfaction.

“How’s the length of your stirrups?” asked Mr. Jenks.

“Just right, I think,” replied Lucy, standing up in them.

“Wal, I reckon they’re a little long — I mean short,” drawled Sam, approaching.

Lucy was quick to grasp the guile in this young gentleman of the woods. He was as clear as an inch of crystal water. She grasped just as quickly the fact that she was going to have a good deal of fun with these boys. Sam knew her stirrups were all right; what he wanted was a chance to come close to her while she was in the saddle. It was an old cowboy trick.

“Thanks, I’m very comfortable,” she said, smiling at him.

Meanwhile Mr. Jenks had mounted and turned his horse toward the road.

“I never rode this nag,” he said. “Come now, Miss Watson.”

“Teacher, look out she doesn’t run off from you,” called Sam as they started. His voice was full of mirth. “An’, Miss Lucy, that’s shore a regular hoss you’re ridin’.”

Lucy turned in the saddle. “I nearly forgot to thank you, Mr. Johnson. It is good of you to let me ride him.”

She found Buster rather hard to hold in. Before she had followed Mr. Jenks many paces she heard Sam blurt out to his cousin, “Gerd, by golly! it’s shore worth a lot to have Edd Denmeade see that girl ridin’ my best hoss.”

“Haw! Haw!” roared Gerd, and then made a reply Lucy could not distinguish.

Presently she caught up with her guide and together they rode out through the corral.

“Mr. Jenks, did you hear what they said?” inquired Lucy.

“Indeed I did. They’re full of the Old Nick, those boys. I’d like to be in your boots, yet again I wouldn’t.”

“What did he mean by saying it was worth a lot to have Edd Denmeade see me riding his horse?”

“It was a compliment to you, especially his emphasis on the qualifying adjective before girl,” replied the teacher, with a chuckle. “You see, Edd Denmeade seems a superior sort of person to most of the boys. Really he is only forceful — a strong, simple, natural character. But the boys don’t understand him. And the girls do still less. That is why I suspect some have refused to marry him. Sam now is tickled to have Edd see the very prettiest girl who ever came to Cedar Ridge ride up on his horse. Edd will be wild with jealousy.”

“Goodness! I’m afraid most girl visitors here have been homely,” replied Lucy.

“No, they haven’t been, either,” declared the teacher. “Now, Miss Watson, we have a mile or so of good sandy road before we cut off on the trails. Let’s have a gallop. But be sure you don’t do what Sam hinted — run off from me. You might get lost.”

With that he urged his mount from walk to trot and from trot to gallop. Lucy’s horse did not need urging; he bolted and shot down the road ahead of Mr. Jenks. Lucy was alarmed at first and found it hard to keep her feet in the stirrups. But soon she caught the swing of the mustang and then a wild impulse prompted her to let him run. How fast he sped on under the pines. His gait made the saddle seem like a rocking-chair. But she hauled hard on Buster, obedient to the resolve she had made — that she would restrain herself in all ways. Pulling him to a swinging canter, Lucy took stock of pleasant sensations. The rush through the pine-scented air was exhilarating; soon the exercise had her blood dancing all over her; low branches of pine tore at her hair; the turns of the winding road through the woods allured with their call of strange new scenes. Rabbits darted ahead of her, across the open, into the pine thickets. At length, some distance ahead she saw where the road forked, and here she brought Buster to a stand. She was tingling, pulsing with heated blood, and felt that she could have cried out with the joy of the moment.

Mr. Jenks came galloping up to halt beside her. “That was bully,” he said. “Miss Watson, you need not be ashamed of your riding...We take the left-hand road. That to the right goes on to my log-cabin school. I wish we had time to see it. A little way farther we strike a trail.”

Soon after that Lucy was riding behind the teacher along a narrow trail that almost at once began to lead downhill. The forest grew denser and the shade became dark and cool. Rocks and ledges cropped out of the ground, and all about her appeared to tend toward a wilder and more rugged nature. The dreamy, drowsy hum which filled Lucy’s ears swelled to a roar. It came from far down through the forest. It was running water, and it thrilled Lucy. How sweet and welcome this verdant forest to eyes long used to desert glare! The trail took a decided pitch, so that Lucy had to cling to the pommel of her saddle. It led down and down, into a ravine full of mellow roar, deep, murmuring, mystical, where the great trees shut out the sky.

Only faint gleams of sunlight filtered down. They came to a rushing brook of amber water, brawling and foaming over rocks, tearing around huge mossy boulders, and gleaming on down a wild defile, gloomy with its shadows.

The horses stopped to drink and then forded the brook, crashing on the rocks, plunging on to splash the water ahead. Lucy had a touch of that sweet cold water on her face. On the other side the trail turned up this beautiful glen, and followed the brook, winding in and out among boulders that loomed high overhead. Ferns and flowers bordered the trail. Maples and birches grew thickly under the stately pines. Lucy became aware of another kind of tree, the most wonderful she had ever seen, huge-trunked, thick with drooping foliage, and lifting its proud height spear-shaped to the sky. Her guide informed her that this tree was a silver spruce, which name seemed singularly felicitous.

Again they forded the brook, to Lucy’s mingled dismay and delight, and after that so many times that she forgot them and also her fears. The forest became a grand temple. Higher towered the forest patriarchs, two hundred feet and more above her head, mingling their foliage in a lacy canopy, like a green veil against the blue. She caught a glimpse of wild, sleek, grey creatures bounding as on rubber legs into the brush. Deer!

At last the trail led out of the fragrant glen and zigzagged up a slope, to the dry forest of pines, and on and upward, farther and higher until Lucy felt she had ascended to the top of a mountain. She lost the mellow roar of the brook. The woodland changed its aspect, grew hot with dusty trail and thick with manzanita, above which the yellow-barked pines reached with great gnarled arms. Open places were now frequent. Once Lucy saw a red wall of rock so high above her that she gasped in astonishment. That was the Red Rim Rock, seemingly so closer though yet far away. Lucy became conscious of aches and pains. She shifted from side to side in the saddle, and favoured this foot, then the other. Often she had to urge Buster on to catch up with her guide.

Suddenly she turned a corner of the brushy trail to ride out into a clearing. Bare brown earth, ghastly dead pines, like spectres, seemed to lift her gaze to where, sky-high, the red wall heaved, bold, strange, terrific, yet glorious with its zigzag face blazing in the hues of sunset, and its black-fringed crown wandering away as if to the ends of the earth.

Strangely then into her mind flashed a thought of this backwoods boy whose name had been on the lips of everyone she had met. Born under that colossal wall! All his life in this forest and rock solitude! Lucy could not help but wonder what manner of man he was. She resented an involuntary interest. The force of a personality had been thrust upon her. It was feminine intuition that caused her, unconsciously, to fortify herself by roused antagonism.

Mr. Jenks pointed to a little rough grey house, half log, half stones, that dominated the clearing. “Denmeade built it twenty-three years ago,” said the teacher. “He and his wife walked up here, from no one knows where. They had a burro, a cow, a gun, and an axe, and some dogs. They homesteaded this section. He has five girls and four boys, all born in that little one-room hut. Edd is the oldest — he’s twenty-two. Last year they built quite a fine log cabin, up in the woods beyond the fields. You can’t see it from here.”

The surroundings seemed fitting for such heroic people as these Denmeades.

“They may be backwoodsmen,” declared Lucy, voicing her thought, “but I’d call them pioneers. Which is to say real Americans.”

“Miss Watson, I like that,” replied the teacher warmly. “You have gotten the significance. These people are great.”

Over against that impulsive impression Lucy had the crudeness of the scene to oppose it. She was intelligent enough to accept crudeness as a part of pioneer life. It could not be otherwise. But she gazed over the slash cut in the forest, and found it lacking in anything she could admire. The Red Rim Rock and the encircling belt of mighty green were facts of nature. This space of bare ground with its ghastly dead trees, its ruined old hut, its uncouth shacks of boards and poles, its pigs rooting around, its utter lack of what constituted her idea of a farm, somehow did not seem to harmonise with the noble pioneer spirit. Lucy hesitated to make this impression permanent. She did not like the look of this place, but she was broad-minded enough to wait. She hoped she would not find these people lazy, shiftless, dirty, existing in squalid surroundings. Yet she feared that would be exactly what she would find.

The trail led along a patchwork fence of poles and sticks, here rotting away and there carelessly mended by the throwing of an untrimmed branch of tree. At the corner of the huge field snuggled the rude shacks she had seen from afar, all the worse for nearer view. They rode between these and a round log corral, full of pigs of all sizes, and from which came an unbearable stench. Some of the hogs were stuck in the mud. Lucy saw some tiny baby pigs, almost pink, with funny little curly tails, and sight of these gave her unexpected pleasure. So she experienced two extremes of feeling in passing that point.

From there the trail led through an uncared-for orchard of peach trees, into a narrow lane cut in the woods. The pines had been left where they had fallen, and lay brown and seared in the tangle of green. This lane was full of stumps.

“You appreciate why we needed horses to get here, don’t you?” inquired Mr. Jenks.

“Indeed I do!” replied Lucy.

“Denmeade said he’d never live in a place where wheels could go. I rather sympathise with that spirit, but it is not one of a progressive farmer. I dare say you will have it to combat.”

The lane descended into a ravine, where clear water ran over stones that rang hollow under the hoofs of the horses. Lucy saw cows and calves, a very old sheep, woolly and dirty, and a wicked-looking steer with wide sharp horns. Lucy was glad to get safely past him. They rode up again, into a wider lane, at the end of which showed a long cabin, somewhat obscured by more peach trees. A column of blue smoke curled up against the background of red wall. A fence of split boards surrounded the cabin. A strip of woods on the right separated this lane from the bare field. Lucy could see light through the pine foliage. The brook meandered down a shallow ravine on this side; and on the other a deep gully yawned, so choked with dead trees and green foliage and red rocks, that Lucy could not see the bottom. She heard, however, the fall of water.

A dog barked. Then rose a chorus of barks and bays, not in the least a friendly welcome. It increased to an uproar. Lucy began to be conscious of qualms when a loud sharp voice rang out. The uproar ceased.

“Hyar, you onery dawgs, shet up!” the voice continued.

Then Lucy saw a tall man emerge from the peach trees and come to the gate. His garb was dark, his face also at that distance, and they gave a sinister effect.

“That’s Denmeade,” whispered Mr. Jenks. “We’re lucky. Now, young lady, use your wits.”

They rode on the few remaining rods, and reaching the rude hitching rail in front of the fence, they halted the horses. Mr. Jenks dismounted and greeted the big man at the gate.

“Howdy, teacher!” he replied in a deep pleasant drawl.

“Fine, thank you, Denmeade,” returned Mr. Jenks as he extended his hand over the fence. “I’ve brought a visitor to see you. This is Miss Lucy Watson of Felix.”

Lucy essayed her most winning smile as she acknowledged the introduction.

“Glad to meet you, miss,” responded Denmeade. “Get down an’ come in.”

Dismounting, Lucy approached the gate, to look up into a visage as rugged as the rock wall above. Denmeade was not old or grey, though his features showed the ravages of years. Lucy had no time to mark details. The man’s eyes, grey and piercing as those of an eagle, caught and held her gaze.

“If you please, I’d like to talk to you alone before I go in,” she said appealingly.

Denmeade removed the huge battered black sombrero, and ran a brawny hand through his thick dark hair. The grey eyes twinkled and a smile changed the craggy nature of his face.

“Wal, seein’ as Edd ain’t hyar, I reckon I can risk it,” he drawled.

Mr. Jenks suggested that they sit in the shade; and presently Lucy found herself seated on a stump, facing this curious backwoodsman. He seemed a more approachable person than she had pictured, yet there was something about him, strong, raw, fierce, like the wilds in which he lived. Lucy had worried about this coming interview; had schooled herself to a deliberate diplomacy. But she forgot worry and plan. The man’s simplicity made her sincere.

“Mr. Denmeade, I want a job,” she announced bluntly.

It was good to see his astonishment and utter incredulity. Such a situation had never before happened in his life. He stared. His seamed visage worked into a wonderful grin.

“Wal, I reckon yo’re foolin’,” he said, and he turned to Jenks. “Teacher, shore you’ve hatched some kind of a joke.”

“No, Denmeade. Miss Watson is in earnest,” replied the school-teacher.

“Indeed I am,” added Lucy, trying to restrain her impulsiveness.

But Denmeade still could not take her seriously. “Wal, can you chop wood, carry water, pick beans, an’ hop around lively — say fer a fellar like my Edd?”

“Yes, I could, but that is not the kind of a job I want,” returned Lucy.

“Wal, there ain’t no other kin’ of work up hyar fer a woman,” he said seriously.

“Yes, there is...It’s to make better homes for the children.”

“Better homes! What you mean?” ejaculated Denmeade.

Briefly Lucy explained some of the ways the homes in the wilderness could be made happier for women and children. Denmeade was profoundly impressed.

“Wal now, young woman, I reckon it’s good of you to think of them nice an’ pretty ways fer our kids an’ their mothers. But we’re poor. We couldn’t pay you, let alone fer them things they need so bad.”

Lucy’s heart throbbed with joy. She knew intuitively that she had struck the right chord in this old backwoodsman. Whereupon she produced her papers.

“It’s a new thing, Mr. Denmeade,” she said earnestly. “State welfare work. My salary and the expenses I incur are paid by the state. It’s all here for you to read, and my references.”

Denmeade took her papers in his horny hands and began to read with the laborious and intense application of one to whom reading was unfamiliar and difficult. He took long to go over the brief typed words, and longer over the personal letter from the superintendent of the state department that had engaged Lucy. Finally he absorbed the import.

“Welfare! State government! Dog-gone me!” he ejaculated, almost bewildered. “Say, Jenks, what ails them fellars down thar?”

“Perhaps they have just waked up to the needs of this north country,” replied the teacher.

“Shore them papers don’t read like they had an axe to grind. Reckon it ain’t no politics or some trick to make us pay taxes?”

“Denmeade, they read honest to me, and my advice if you ask it is to accept their help.”

“Humph! It shore took them a long time to build us a school-house an’ send us a teacher. Whar did they ever get this hyar welfare idee?”

“Mr. Denmeade,” spoke up Lucy, “I had something to do with this idea. It really developed out of my offer to go into welfare work in a civilised district.”

“Wal, comin’ from a gal like you, it ain’t hard to accept,” he declared, and he extended his great brown hand. His grey eyes flashed with a softened light.

Lucy placed her hand in his, and as he almost crushed it she was at considerable pains to keep from crying out. When he released it she felt that it was limp and numb.

“You — you mean it — it’s all right?” she stammered. “You’ll let me stay — help me get started?”

“I shore will,” he replied forcefully. “You stay hyar with us as long as you want. I reckon, though, the other four families close by in this high country need you more’n us. Seth Miller’s, Hank Claypool’s, Ora Johnson’s, an’ Tom Sprall’s.”

“Miss Watson, the Ora Johnson he means is a brother of the Sam Johnson you met,” interposed Mr. Jenks.

Lucy was too happy to express her gratitude, and for a moment lost her dignity. Her incoherent thanks brought again the broad grin to Denmeade’s face.

“Jenks, come to think about it, thar’s angles to this hyar job Miss Lucy is aimin’ at,” he remarked thoughtfully. “She can’t do a lot for one family an’ slight another. If she stays hyar with us she’ll have to stay with the others.”

“Of course. That’s what I expect to do,” said Lucy.

“Wal, miss, I ain’t given to brag, but I reckon you’ll find it different after stayin’ with us,” rejoined Denmeade, shaking his shaggy head.

Plain it was for Lucy to see that Mr. Jenks agreed with him.

“In just what way? queried Lucy.

“Lots of ways, but particular, say — Ora Johnson has an old cabin with one room. Countin’ his wife, thar’s eight in the family. All live in that one room! With one door an’ no winder!”

Lucy had no ready reply for such an unexpected circumstance as this, and she gazed at Mr. Jenks in mute dismay.

“I have a tent I’ll lend her,” he said. “It can be erected on a frame with board floor. Very comfortable.”

“Wal, I reckon that would do fer Johnson’s. But how about Tom Sprall’s? Thar’s more in his outfit, an’ only two cabins. But shore no room for her. An’ the tent idee won’t do — sartin not whar Bud Sprall goes rarin’ around full of white mule. It wouldn’t be safe.”

“Denmeade, I had that very fear in mind,” said Mr. Jenks earnestly. “Miss Watson will have to avoid Sprall’s.”

“Shore, it’d ought to be done. But I’m reckonin’ that’ll raise hell. Tom is a mean cuss, an’ his outfit of wimmen are jealous as coyote poison. They’ll all have to know Miss Lucy is hyar helpin’ everybody equal. They’ll all want equal favours from the state. I ain’t sayin’ a word ag’in’ Tom, but he’s a rustler. An’ thar’s turrible bad blood between Bud Sprall an’ my boy Edd.”

“You see, Miss Watson, it’s not going to be as rosy as we hoped,” said Mr. Jenks regretfully.

“I’m not afraid,” replied Lucy resolutely. “It never looked easy. I accept it, come what may. The Spralls shall not be slighted.”

“Wal, you’ve settled it, an’ thar ain’t nothin’ wrong with your nerve,” replied Denmeade. “Come in now an’ meet my folks. Teacher, you’ll eat supper with us?”

“I’m sorry, Denmeade. I must hurry back and send Sam up with her baggage,” returned Jenks, rising. “Good-bye, Miss Watson. I wish you luck. Come down to school with the children. I’ll see you surely at the dance Friday night.”

“I’m very grateful to you, Mr. Jenks,” replied Lucy. “You’ve helped me. I will want to see you soon. But I can’t say that it will be at the dance.”

“Shore she’ll be thar, teacher,” said Denmeade. “She can’t stay hyar alone, an’ if she wanted to, Edd wouldn’t let her.”

“Oh — indeed,” murmured Lucy constrainedly, as Denmeade and the school-teacher exchanged laughs. How irrepressibly this Edd bobbed up at every turn of conversation! Right then Lucy resolved that she would certainly not go to the dance. And she realised an undue curiosity in regard to this backwoods boy.

Chapter III

LUCY FOLLOWED HER escort into the yard and between the blossoming peach trees to the cabin. She saw now that it was a new structure built of flat-hewn logs, long and low, with a peaked roof of split shingles covering two separate square cabins and the wide space between them. This roof also extended far out to cover a porch the whole length of the building. Each cabin had a glass window, and the door, which Lucy could not see, must have faced the middle porch. The rude solid structure made a rather good impression.

A long-eared hound stood wagging his tail at the head of the porch steps. Lucy’s roving eye took in other dogs asleep in sunny spots; several little puppies with ears so long they stumbled over them as they ran pell-mell to meet Denmeade; heavy rolls of canvas, no doubt blankets or bedding, were piled along the wall; saddles and saddle blankets were ranged in similar order on the opposite side; the cabin wall on the right was studded with pegs upon which hung kitchen utensils and tools; that on the left held deer and elk antlers used as racks for hats, guns, ropes. The wide space of porch between the two cabins evidently served as an outdoor dining-room, for a rude home-carpentered table and benches occupied the centre.

At Denmeade’s call a flock of children came trooping out of the door of the left cabin. They were big-eyed, dirty and ragged, and sturdy of build. A sallow, thin-faced little woman, in coarse dress and heavy shoes, followed them.

“Ma, this hyar is Miss Lucy Watson from Felix,” announced Denmeade.

Mrs. Denmeade greeted Lucy cordially and simply, without show of curiosity or astonishment. Then Denmeade told her in his blunt speech what Lucy had come for. This information brought decided surprise and welcome to the woman’s face. Lucy was quick to see what perhaps Denmeade had never known in his life. She added a few earnest words in her own behalf, calculated to strengthen Mrs. Denmeade’s impression, and to say that when convenient they would talk over the work Lucy was to undertake.

“Reckon you’re a new kind of teacher?” queried Mrs. Denmeade. “Sort of home-teacher?”

“Why yes, you could call me that,” replied Lucy smiling.

“Shore, that’ll please the kids,” said Denmeade. “They sort of look up to a teacher. You see we’ve only had school-teachers a few years. Edd went four years, Allie three, Dick an’ Joe three, Mertie two, Mary an’ Dan one. Liz an’ Lize, the twins hyar, five years old — they haven’t started yet.”

Whereupon the children were presented to Lucy, a situation rich in pleasure and interest for her. The twins were as like as two peas in a pod, chubby, rosy-cheeked little girls, fair-haired, with big eyes of grey like their father’s. To Lucy’s overtures they were shy, silent, yet fascinated. Dan was a dark-headed youngster, with eyes to match, dirty, mischievous, bold, and exceedingly responsive to Lucy. Mary, too, was dark, though lighter than Dan, older by a year or two, a thin overworked girl who under favourable conditions would be pretty. The several other children present were Claypools, visiting the Denmeades. When Lucy had greeted them all she was to meet Denmeade’s older daughters Allie, a young woman, huge of build, with merry face, and Mertie, a girl of sixteen, quite beautiful in a wild-rose kind of way. She was the only one of the family who showed anything of colour or neatness in her attire. Manifestly she wore her Sunday dress, a coarse print affair. Her sharp dark eyes seemed more concerned with Lucy’s riding habit, the way she had arranged her hair and tied her scarf, than with Lucy’s presence there.

Lucy was taken into the left-hand cabin, to meet the mother and sister of the Claypool children. They, too, were hard-featured, unprepossessing, and bore the unmistakable marks of hard labour in a hard country. All these impressions of Lucy’s were hasty ones that she knew might pass entirely or change. Intense as was her interest, she could not stare at or study these people. She had to confess that they put her at her ease. There was not a suspicion of inhospitality, or, for that matter, except on the part of the children, the betrayal of anything unusual about this new-corner. Lucy was given one of the few home-made chairs, a rude triangular board affair that could be set two ways. And then the conversation which no doubt her advent had interrupted was resumed by the older women.

The twins began to manifest signs of being irresistibly drawn to Lucy. They were in the toils of a new experience. Lucy had been used to children, and had taken several months of kindergarten work, which was going to be of infinite value to her here. She listened to the conversation, which turned out to be homely gossip, differing only in content from gossip anywhere. And while doing so she had a chance to gaze casually round the room.

The walls were bare, of rough-hewn logs, with the chinks between plastered with clay. There was a window on each side. A huge rough stone fire-place occupied nearly all the west end of the cabin. In a left-hand corner, next to the fire-place, was a closet of boards reaching from floor to ceiling. This ceiling appeared to be of the same kind of shingling Lucy had observed on the roof. The floor was rough clapboard, like that of the porch outside. The two corners opposite the fire-place contained built-in beds, bulky with a quilted covering. There were no other articles of furniture, not even a table or lamp.

Lucy appreciated that this living-room, despite its lack of comforts, might be far superior to the dark, clay-floored cabin rooms she had heard about. It was at least dry and light. But its bareness jarred on her. What did these people do with their leisure time, if they had any? The younger women talked of nothing save dances and boys; their elders interpolated their gossip with bits of news about the homely labours that spring had brought. Mary was the only one of the children whom Lucy could induce to talk; and she had, apparently, a limited range of subjects. School, the burro she rode, the puppies she played with, appeared to be in possession of her mind.

At length the Claypools announced that if they were to reach home by dark they must hurry.

“Come an’ see us,” invited the mother, addressing Lucy, and the grown daughter added: “‘By. Reckon Edd’ll be fetchin’ you an’ Mertie to the dance.”

Lucy murmured something non-committal in reply, and accompanied the women and children outside. They left the porch at the far end of the cabin, and went through a side gate out into the woods, where two horses and a burro were haltered to trees. Dogs, sheep, and chickens tagged at their heels. There was a rather open clearing under the pines, trodden bare, and covered with red and white chips of wood.

Women and children talked all together, so that it was impossible for Lucy to distinguish much of what was said. She gathered, however, that Mrs. Denmeade told Mrs. Claypool something about Lucy’s welfare work. Then mother and daughter, unmindful of their skirts, mounted the two horses.

The burro raised one long ear and cocked the other at the three Claypool youngsters. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie lifted them up on the back of the burro. It had a halter tied round its nose. The little boy, who could not have been more than four years old, had the foremost position astride the burro. He took up the halter. His sisters, aged, respectively, about three and two, rode behind him. The older girl got her arms round the boy, and the younger did likewise by her sister. Lucy was not only amazed and frightened for the youngsters, but also so amused she could scarcely contain herself.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall off?” she asked, standing abreast of them.

“Naw!” said the boy. And the elder girl, with a sober smile at Lucy, added: “‘Tain’t nuthin’ to fall off. But it’s hard gettin’ back on.”

It required considerable beating and kicking on the part of the three to start the burro after the horses, but at last he decided to move, and trotted off.

“How far have they to go? inquired Lucy, as she watched them disappear in the woods.

“Reckon five miles or so. They’ll get home about dark,” replied Mrs. Denmeade. “Now, girls, there’s supper to get. An’, Miss Watson, you’re goin’ to be more one of the family than company. Make yourself to home.”

Mary attached herself to Lucy and led her around the corner of the cabin to see the puppies, while the twins toddled behind. Lucy wanted to know the names of the puppies and all about them. When Mary had exhausted this subject she led Lucy to see her especial playground, which was across the ravine in a sheltered spot redolent of pine needles. She showed Lucy a nook under a large manzanita where she played with pine cones and bits of Indian pottery, which she said she had found right there. Lucy had to see the spring, and the stone steps across the brook, and the big iron kettle and tub which were used in washing. Lucy looked in vain for an outhouse of any description. There was none, not even a chicken-coop. Mary said the chickens roosted in trees, like the wild turkeys, to keep from being eaten by beasts. Lucy inquired about these beasts, and further if there were snakes and bugs.

“Rattlers, trantulars, an’ scorpions in summer. That’s all that’s bad,” said Mary.

“Goodness! That’s enough!” exclaimed Lucy.

“They won’t hurt nobody,” added the child simply. Then she led Lucy across the clearing, where the twins tarried on an enterprise of their own, and down a trail into the deep gully. Here among the rocks and ferns, overshadowed by the pines and sycamores, they got away from the despoiled forest above. Lucy was glad to rest a little and listen to Mary’s prattle. How wild and rugged this gully. Yet it was scarcely a stone’s-throw from the cabin. The clear water babbled over smooth red stone and little falls and gravelly bars.

“It dries up in summer,” said Mary, indicating the brook. “Sometimes the spring does, too. Then we all have to pack water from way down.”

They came at length to a green bench that had been cleared of brush and small trees, yet, owing to the giant spreading pines above, did not long get direct rays of the sun. Rude boxes, some of them painted, were scattered around on little platforms of stones.

“Edd’s beehives,” said Mary, with grave importance. “We must be awful good. Edd doesn’t mind if we behave.”

“I’ll be very careful, Mary. I don’t want to get stung. Are they real wild bees?”

“Shore. But Edd tames them. Oh, Edd loves bees somethin’ turrible,” answered the child solemnly. “Bees never sting him, even when he’s choppin’ a new bee tree.”

“Why does Edd do that? inquired Lucy.

“Didn’t you ever — ever hear of Edd Denmeade’s honey?” returned Mary, in great surprise. “Pa says it’s the best in the world. Oh-umum! He’ll shore give you some. Edd likes girls next to his bees...He’s a bee hunter. Pa says Edd’s the best bee liner he ever seen.”

“Bee liner! What’s that, Mary?”

“Why, he watches for bees, an’ when they come he lines them. Bees fly straight off, you know. He lines them to their hive in a tree. Then he chops it down. Always he saves the honey, an’ sometimes he saves the bees.”

The child added to the interest accumulating round the name of Edd Denmeade.

“Where is Edd now?” asked Lucy.

“He went to Winbrook with the pack burros,” replied Mary. “That’s up over the Rim an’ far off, to the railroad. Edd’s promised to take me there some day. Shore he ought to be back soon. I want him awful bad. Candy! Edd always fetches us candy. He’ll come by Mertie’s birthday. That’s next Wednesday. He’s fetchin’ Mertie’s new dress. Her first boughten one! She’s sixteen. An’ Edd’s givin’ it to her. Oh, he’ll come shore ‘cause he loves Mertie.”

“Of course he loves you, too? queried Lucy, winningly.

“Ma says so. But Mertie’s his favourite. She’s so pretty. I wish I was,” replied Mary, with childish pathos.

“You will be, Mary, when you are sixteen, if you are good and learn how to take care of yourself, and have beautiful thoughts,” said Lucy.

“Ma told Mrs. Claypool you was a home-teacher. Are you goin’ to teach me all that?”

“Yes, and more. Won’t you like to learn how to make nice dresses?”

“Oh!” cried Mary beamingly, and she burst into a babble of questions. Lucy answered. How simple! She had anticipated cudgelling her brains to satisfy these backwoods children. But Mary was already won. They remained in the gully until the sun sank, and then climbed out. Mary ran to confide her bursting news to the little twin sisters, and Lucy was left to herself for the time being. She walked down the lane, and across the strip of woodland to the open fields, and out where she could see.

Westward along the Rim vast capes jutted out, differing in shape and length, all ragged, sharp, fringed, reaching darkly for the gold and purple glory of the sunset. Shafts and rays of light streamed from the rifts in the clouds, blazing upon the bold rock faces of the wall. Eastward the Rim zigzagged endlessly into pale cold purple. Southward a vast green hollow ran like a river of the sea, to empty, it seemed, into space. Beyond that rose dim spectral shapes of mountains, remote and detached. To the north the great wall shut out what might lie beyond.

How unscalable it looked to Lucy! Points of rim ran out, narrow, broken, sloping, apparently to sheer off into the void. But the distance was far and the light deceiving. Lucy knew a trail came down the ragged cape that loomed out over Denmeade’s ranch.

She had heard someone say Edd would come back that way with the pack-train. It seemed incredible for a man, let alone a burro. Just to gaze up at that steep of a thousand deceptive ridges, cracks, slants, and ascents was enough to rouse respect for these people who were conquering the rock-confined wilderness.

This lifting of Lucy’s spirit gave pause to the growth of something akin to contempt that had unconsciously formed in her mind. After hearing and reading about these primitive inhabitants of the wild she had developed abstract conceptions of kindliness, sympathy, and close contact with them. They had been very noble sentiments. But she was going to find them hard to live up to. By analysing her feelings she realised that she did not like the personal intimations. Her one motive was to help these people and in so doing help herself. She had come, however, with an unconscious sense of her personal aloofness, the height to which, of course, these common people could not aspire. Yet their very first and most natural reaction, no doubt, was to imagine a sentimental attachment between her and one of these backwood boys.

From amusement Lucy passed to annoyance, and thence to concern. She had experienced her troubles with cowboys even in town, where there were ample avenues of escape. What would she encounter here? Would she find at the very outset a ridiculous obstacle to her success, to the fine record of welfare work she longed to establish?

The matter became a problem, no less because a faint accusing voice had begun to reach her conscience. She listened to it and strained at it until she heard something like doubt of her being big enough for this job. She humiliated herself. It had never occurred to her that she might be found wanting. A wonderfully stabilising though painful idea this was. After all, what excuse had she for superiority?

Standing there in the open fields, Lucy forgot the magnificent red wall and the gorgeous sunset-flushed panorama. She realised her vanity, that she had wounded it, that in all probability it would have to be killed before she could be wholly worthy of this work. Her humility, however, did not withstand the rush of resentment, eagerness, and confidence of her youth. Lucy stifled in its incipiency a thought vaguely hinting that she would have to suffer and grow before she really was what she dreamed she was.

Presently she heard the crack of hoofs on rock, and, turning, she espied two riders entering the corral at the end of the field. She decided they must be two more of the Denmeades, Dick and Joe, if she remembered rightly. They dismounted, threw their saddles, turned the horses loose. They appeared to be long, lean, rangy young men, wearing huge sombreros that made them look top-heavy. They whistled and whooped, creating sounds which clapped back in strange echo from the wall. It emphasised the stillness to Lucy. Such hilarity seemed out of place there. Lucy watched the tall figures stride out of sight up the lane toward the cabin.

“One thing sure,” soliloquised Lucy, gravely, “I’ve got to realise I have myself to contend with up here. Myself!...It seems I don’t know much about me.”

She returned to the cabin, entering the yard by the side gate. Some of the hounds followed her, sniffing at her, not yet over their hostility. The Denmeades were collecting round the table on the porch. The mother espied Lucy and greeted her with a smile.

“Reckon we was about ready to put the hounds on your trail,” she called, and when Lucy reached the table she added: “You set in this place...Here’s Dick an’ Joe. You’ve only one more to see, an’ that’s Edd. Boys, meet Miss Lucy Watson of Felix.”

Lucy smiled at the young men, waiting to sit down opposite her. Which was Dick and which Joe she could not tell yet. The younger was exceedingly tall and thin. The older, though tall and angular, too, appeared short by comparison. Both had smooth, still, shining faces, lean and brown, with intent clear eyes.

“Hod-do!” said the older boy to Lucy, as he took his seat across the table. He was nothing if not admiring.

“Joe, did you meet teacher Jenks?” asked Denmeade, from the head of the table.

“Yep. Saw him at Johnson’s. He told us about Miss Watson. An’ we passed Sam on the trail. He was packin’ her baggage.”

Before Allie and Mertie, who were carrying steaming dishes from the kitchen, had brought in all the supper, the Denmeades set about the business of eating.

“Help yourself, miss,” said the father.

The table was too small for so many. They crowded close together. Lucy’s seat was at one end of a bench, giving her the free use of her right hand. Mary sat on her left, happily conscious of the close proximity. The heads of the little girls and Dan just topped the level of the table. In fact, their mouths were about on a level with their tin plates. At first glance Lucy saw that the table was laden with food, with more still coming. Pans of smoking biscuits, pans of potatoes, pans of beans, pans of meat and gravy, and steaming tin cups of black coffee! Lucy noted the absence of milk, butter, sugar, green or canned vegetables. She was hungry and she filled her plate. And despite the coarseness of the food she ate heartily. Before she had finished, dusk had settled down around the cabin, and when the meal ended it was quite dark.

“I hear Sam’s hoss,” said Dick, as he rose, clinking his spurs. “Reckon I’ll help him unpack.”

Lucy sat down on the edge of the porch, peering out into the woods. The children clustered round her. Mrs. Denmeade and her older daughters were clearing off the supper table. A dim lamplight glimmered in the kitchen. Lucy was aware of the tall form of Dick Denmeade standing to one side. He had not yet spoken a word. Lucy addressed him once, but for all the answer she got he might as well have been deaf. He shifted one of his enormous boots across the other. In the dim light Lucy made out long spurs attached to them. Then Mrs. Denmeade ordered the children off to bed. One by one they vanished. Mary’s pale face gleamed wistfully and was gone.

It dawned on Lucy, presently, that the air was cold. It had changed markedly in an hour. Big white stars had appeared over the tips of the pines; the sky was dark blue. The blackness of the night shadows had lighted somewhat or else her eyes had become accustomed to it. Quiet settled over the cabin, broken only by low voices and sounds from the kitchen. It struck Lucy as sad and sombre, this mantle of night descending upon the lonely cabin, yet never before had she felt such peace, such sweet solitude. By straining her ears she caught a dreamy murmur of the stream down in the gorge, and a low mourn of wind in the pines. Where were the coyotes, night hawks; whip-poor-wills, all the noisy creatures she had imagined lived in the wilderness?

Pound of hoofs and clink of spurs became audible in the lane, approaching the cabin. Lucy heard a laugh she recognised, and low voices, merry, subtle, almost hoarse whisperings. Then the gate creaked, and the musical clink of spurs advanced toward the porch. At last Lucy made out two dark forms. They approached, and one mounted the steps, while the other stopped before Lucy. She conceived an idea that this fellow could see in the dark.

“Wal, Miss Lucy, here’s your bags without a scratch,” said Sam Johnson’s drawling voice. “Shore I bet you was worried. How’d you find my hoss Buster?”

“Just fine, thank you,” replied Lucy. “Full of spirit and go. Yet he obeyed promptly. I never had a slip. Now were you not trying to frighten me a little — or was it Mr. Jenks? — telling me he was some kind of a mustang?”

“Honest, Buster’s gentle with girls,” protested Sam. “Shore he pitches when one of these long-legged Denmeades rake him. But don’t you believe what anyone tells you.”

“Very well, I won’t. Buster is a dandy little horse.”

“Wal, then, you’re invited to ride him again,” said Sam, with subtle inflection.

“Oh, thank you,” replied Lucy. “I — I’ll be pleased — if my work allows me any spare time.”

“Howdy, Sam!” interposed Allie, from the kitchen door. “Who’re you goin’ to take to the dance?”

“Wal, I ain’t shore, jest yet,” he returned. “Reckon I know who I’d like to take.”

“Sadie told me you asked her.”

“Did she?...Sent her word. But she didn’t send none back,” protested Sam lamely.

“Sam, take a hunch from me. Don’t try to shenanegin out of it now,” retorted Allie, and retreated into the kitchen.

Lucy was both relieved and amused at Allie’s grasp of the situation. No doubt Sam had been approaching another invitation.

Denmeade’s heavy footfall sounded on the porch, accompanied by the soft pad of a dog trotting. “That you, Sam? How’s yore folks?”

“Tip top,” replied Sam shortly.

“Get down an’ come in,” drawled Denmeade as the other shuffled restlessly.

“Reckon I’ll be goin’,” said Sam. “I’ve a packhoss waitin’...Evenin’, Miss Lucy. Shore I hope to see you at the dance.”

“I hardly think you will,” replied Lucy. “Thank you for fetching my baggage.”

Sam’s tall form disappeared in the gloom. The gate creaked as if opened and shut with forceful haste. Almost directly followed the sound of hoofs going off into the darkness.

“Hey, Sam!” called Joe, coming out of the cabin, where he had carried Lucy’s grips.

“He’s gone,” said his father laconically.

“Gone! Why, the dinged galoot had somethin’ of mine! Funny, him runnin’ off. He shore was rarin’ to get here. Never saw him make such good time on a trail. What riled him?”

“Wal, I have an idea,” drawled Denmeade. “Allie give him a dig.”

“I shore did,” spoke up Allie, from the kitchen, where evidently she heard what was going on outside. “It’s a shame the way he treats Sadie.”

Lucy began to gather snatches of the complexity of life up here. After all, how like things at home! This girl Sadie had refused to marry Edd Denmeade. There was an intimation that she was attached to Sam Johnson. On his part, Sam had manifested a slight interest in a new-comer to the country.

Mrs. Denmeade came out of the kitchen carrying a lighted lamp, and she called Lucy to accompany her into the other cabin. She set the lamp on the high jutting shelf of the fire-place.

“You sleep in here with the children,” she said simply.

“Yes — that will be nice,” rejoined Lucy, peering around. Dan was asleep on the floor in a corner, his bed a woolly sheep skin, his covering a rag quilt. Mary and the twins were fast asleep in one of the beds. Lucy stepped close to peer down at them. Liz and Lize lay at the foot, curly fair heads close together. Their faces had been washed and now shone sweet and wan in the lamplight. Their chubby hands were locked. Mary lay at the head of the bed, and her thin face bore a smile as if she were having pleasant dreams.

“Where — shall I wash?” asked Lucy, with diffidence.

“You’ll find water, basin, towel out on the porch...Good night. I reckon you’re tired. Hope you sleep good.”

Lucy bade her hostess good night, and turned musingly to the opening of one of her grips. She could hear the low breathing of the sleepers. Somehow, to be there with them, under such circumstances, touched her deeply. It was for the sake of such as they that she had forsaken personal comfort and better opportunities. Despite a somewhat depressed spirit, Lucy could not regret her action. If only she won their love and taught them fine, clean, wholesome ways with which to meet their hard and unlovely futures! That would transform her sacrifice into a blessing.

The room was cold. A fire in the big stone fireplace would have been much to her liking. By the time she got ready for bed she was chilled through. Before blowing out the lamp she took a last look at the slumbering children. They seemed so still, so calm, so white and sweet. Lucy trembled for them, in a vague realisation of life. Then, with some difficulty she opened one of the windows. Once in bed, she stretched out in aching relief. That long ride, especially on the horse, had cramped and chafed her. The bed was as cold and hard as ice. There were no sheets. The blankets under her did not do much to soften the feel of what she concluded was a mattress filled with corn husks. It rustled like corn husks, though it might have been coarse straw. The coverings were heavy rag quilts.

Nevertheless, Lucy had never before been so grateful for a bed. If this bed was good enough for those innocent and happy and unfortunate children, it was good enough for her. Unfortunate! She pondered. She would have to learn as much as she taught.

She heard heavy boots and the jangle of spurs on the porch, the unrolling of one of the canvas packs, faint voices from the kitchen, and then footsteps over her head in the attic. One of the boys spoke up there. Probably that was where they slept. Lucy now remembered seeing the ladder that led from the middle porch to a wide hole in the ceiling. She wondered where the rest of the Denmeades slept. No doubt she was robbing father and mother of their room and bed.

Gradually all sounds ceased, except the faint murmur of water and wind, out in the woods. Lucy grew warm and sleepy. Yet so novel and strange were her sensations that she fought off the drowsy spell. She was really there up in the backwoods. She could scarcely credit it. The blackness of the room, the silence, the unfamiliar fragrance of pine and wood smoke, were like unrealities of a dream. She lived over the whole journey and would not have changed any of it. Suddenly the stillness broke to a deep-ringing, long-drawn bay of a hound. It made her flesh creep. How it rang out the truth of her presence in the wild forest, in the hard bed of these lowly pioneers! The home that had failed her was gone for ever. The one person she had loved most — her sister Clara — had failed her. And in the lonely darkness she wept, not as on the night before, childishly and unrestrainedly, but with sorrow for loss and gratefulness for the future that promised so much.

She would be happy to face the morrow, come what might. It could only bring another kind of strife, that in itself might be good for her soul. With such hope and a prayer that it would be so she fell asleep.

Chapter IV

LUCY AWAKENED IN a half-conscious dream that she was in a place unfamiliar to her. Before she opened her eyes she smelled wood smoke. Then she saw that daylight had come, and she was looking at her open window through which blue smoke and sunlight were pouring in. Bewildered, she gazed around this strange room — bare wood and clay walls — big stone fire-place — rude ceiling of poles and shingles. Where was she?

With a start she raised on her elbow. Then the effort that cost her, the sense of sore muscles, and the rustling of the corn-husk mattress brought flashing to memory her long ride of yesterday and the backwoods home of the Denmeades.

She was surprised, and somewhat mortified, to see that the children were up and gone. On the moment Lucy heard the patter of their feet outside on the porch and the ringing strokes of an axe on hard wood. Whereupon she essayed to hop out of bed. She managed it all right, but not without awkwardness and pain.

“Oh, I’m all crippled!” she cried ruefully. “That ride!...And say, it’s Greenland’s icy mountains here.”

The plain, substantial woollen garments that she had brought for cold weather were going to be welcome now. Lucy dressed in less time than ever before in her life. Then with soap, towel, comb, and brush she sallied out on the porch and round to the side of the cabin. The children were in the kitchen. An old man sat on a bench. He was thin, grey, with cadaverous cheeks, a pointed chin bristling with stubby beard.

“Good mawnin’,” he said.

Lucy greeted him and asked where the water was.

“I jest fetched some,” he said, pointing to a stand at the end of the porch. “Right pert this mawnin’. I reckon the frost won’t do them peach blossoms no good.”

Lucy indeed found the water pert. Her ablutions, owing to her impetuosity, turned out to be an ordeal. Evidently the old fellow had watched her with interest, for as she finished her hair and turned back he said with a huge grin, “Rosy cheeks!”

“Thanks,” replied Lucy brightly. “I’m Lucy Watson. I didn’t meet you last night.”

“Nope. But I seen you. I’m Lee’s oldest brother. Thar’s four of us brothers hyar in the woods. Uncle Bill the kids call me.”

Upon her way back to the room she encountered the extremely tall young Denmeade who appeared too bashful to return her greeting. Lucy hurriedly put her things away and made her bed, then presented herself at the kitchen door, to apologise for being late.

“Reckon you’d be tired, so I wouldn’t let the children call you,” replied Mrs. Denmeade. “Come an’ eat.”

They were having breakfast in the kitchen. Mary was the only one of the children to answer Lucy’s greeting. Dan did not appear bashful, but his mouth was so full he could not speak. Mrs. Denmeade and Mertie were sitting at the table, while Allie stood beside the big stove. They did not seem stolid or matter-of-fact; they lacked expression of whatever they did feel. Lucy sat down to ham, eggs, biscuits, coffee. “Some of Edd’s honey,” indicated Mrs. Denmeade, with pride, as she placed a pan before her. Lucy was hungry. She enjoyed her breakfast, and as for the honey, she had never tasted anything so delicious, so wild and sweet of flavour.

After breakfast, Lucy was greatly interested in the brief preparations for school. Dan had to be forced away from the table. He was bareheaded and barefooted. Lucy went out to the gate with him and Mary. Dick was coming up the lane, leading two little grey lop-eared burros and a pony, all saddled. Dan climbed on one burro and Mary the other. Mertie came out carrying small tin buckets, one of which she handed to each of the children. Mary seemed reluctant to leave Lucy, but Dan rode off down the lane, mightily unconcerned. Mertie mounted the pony, and then had her brother hand up books and bucket. She smiled at Lucy. “You must get the boys to lend you a horse, so you can ride down to school with us,” she said.

“That’ll be fine,” replied Lucy. “But the ride I had yesterday was enough for a while. I’m afraid I’m a tenderfoot.”

Dick picked up a bucket and a rifle, and made ready to start.

“Do you walk to school?” queried Lucy, smiling. “Yes’m, I like walkin’,” he replied.

“Look at his legs,” said Mertie. “Pa says Dick can outwalk any of them, even Edd.”

“He does look as if he could take long steps,” returned Lucy, laughing.

“Reckon it’d be nice if you could teach us at home,” said Dick shyly.

“Yes, it would, and I shall teach you a good deal,” replied Lucy. “But I’m not a regular school teacher.”

Lucy watched them go down the lane after Dan and was unexpectedly stirred at sight of the little procession. When she turned back up the path, Mrs. Denmeade met her.

“They’re gone. It was fun to see the little burros,” said Lucy. “How far do they have to ride, and why does Dick carry the gun?”

“It’s five miles. Woods all the way. An’ Dick doesn’t pack that gun for fun. There’s bears an’ cats. An’ hydrophobia skunks. I’m afraid of them, But when Dick’s with the children I don’t worry.”

“What in the world are hydrophobia skunks?” queried Lucy.

“Nothin’ but polecats with hydrophobia,” replied the other. “Lee reckons the skunks get bitten by coyotes that have hydrophobia. It makes the skunks crazy. They come right for you. If you ever run across a pretty white-an’-black cat with a bushy tail — you run!”

“I will indeed,” declared Lucy. “An ordinary skunk is bad enough. But this kind you tell of must be dreadful.”

“Wal, Miss Lucy, this is wash-day for us,” said Mrs. Denmeade. “An’ we never seem to have time enough to do all the work. But I want to help you get started. Now if you’ll tell me—”

“Mrs. Denmeade, don’t you worry one minute,” interrupted Lucy. “I’m here to help you. And I shall lend a hand whenever I can. As for my work, all I want is your permission to plan for what I think necessary — to buy things and make things for the house.”

“Reckon I’m glad to agree on anythin’ you want,” replied Mrs. Denmeade. “Just call on me, an’ Lee or the boys.”

As they walked up the patch to the cabin Lucy was telling Mrs. Denmeade how it had been the decision of the welfare board to endeavour to teach the people living in remote districts to make things that would further easier and better living.

Denmeade, coming from the fields, apparently, met them and could not help but hear something of what Lucy said. It brought the broad grin to his weather-beaten face.

“Wife,” he said, as he surveyed Lucy from head to foot, “this hyar city girl has got sense. An’ she looks like she might grow into a strappin’ fine young woman. ‘To work with their hands,’ she says. She’s hit it plumb. That’s all we ever done in our lives. That’s why we never learned new tricks...All the same, if Miss Lucy teaches us somethin’, we can do the same for her.”

“I certainly expect you to,” said Lucy gladly. “I’d like to learn to take care of a horse, chop wood, and line bees.”

Denmeade let out a hearty laugh.

“Wal, now, listen to her,” he ejaculated. “Take care, young woman, an’ don’t let my boy Edd hear you say you want to line bees. ‘Cause if you do he’ll shore take you. An’ say, mebbe hangin’ to that long legged boy when he’s on a bee line, mebbe it ain’t work!”

“All the same, I shall ask him to take Mertie and me sometime,” declared Lucy.

“You couldn’t hire Mertie to tramp up an’ down these woods all day for anythin’, let alone bees,” replied Mrs. Denmeade with scorn. “Mertie sews clothes for herself or me all day, an’ shore she dances all night. But she’s not like the rest of the Denmeades. I reckon Dick would be the best one to go with you an’ Edd.”

“Wal, how’d you like to help me an’ Uncle Bill plough to-day?” asked Denmeade quizzingly.

“Plough! Oh, that would be a little too much for me just yet!” laughed Lucy. “Why, that ride yesterday knocked me out! I’m stiff and sore this morning.”

“Shore. That’s no easy trail to anyone new to hosses,” said Denmeade.

“Mr. Denmeade, I’d like to accept the loan of that tent the school-teacher offered,” rejoined Lucy. “I think I could make myself very comfortable and I would not be depriving you and your wife of your room.”

“Shore. Anythin’ you like. Reckon the boys could make a tent tight enough to keep out bugs, snakes, dogs, wild cats, lions an’ bears — an’ mebbe hydrophobia skunks.”

“Goodness!...Mr. Denmeade, you’re teasing me,” exclaimed Lucy.

“Wal, reckon I was,” he replied. “Fact is, though, it ain’t a bad idee. Summer is comin’ an’ the weather will soon get fine fer sleepin’ outdoors. I seen the way Jenks had his tent fixed. Reckon me an’ the boys can do it. But to-day we want to get through ploughin’ before the rain...See them clouds comin’ up out of the south-west? That means storm. Mebbe to-night or to-morrow or next day — but storm shore an’ sartin.”

“I hope Edd gets in before the rain,” said Mrs. Denmeade. “Mertie would be sick if her new dress got spoiled.”

“Ahuh! I reckon,” returned Denmeade gruffly. Then as Lucy mounted the steps to the porch he said to her, “You have the run of the place now, Miss Lucy, an’ you can call on me or the boys any time.”

“Who’s the best carpenter?” queried Lucy.

“Wal, I reckon Dick is shore handy with tools,” replied Denmeade. “An’ he has time before an’ after school. But tools is all-fired scarce about hyar.”

“Can we buy them at Cedar Ridge?”

“Shore. An’ I reckon someone will be ridin’ down after the dance.”

Lucy did not need to spend much more time looking around the cabins, inside or outside. The possessions of the Denmeades were so few that a glance had sufficed to enumerate them. Manifestly also their wants were few. But the comfort and health of a home did not depend upon how little was necessary. The children of pioneers should have some of the conveniences of civilisation. Lucy did not under-estimate the problem on her hands.

She found that Mrs. Denmeade had removed from the closet whatever had been there, leaving it for Lucy’s use. This enabled Lucy to unpack most of her belongings. When that was done she took pencil and pad and went outdoors to find a place to sit down and think and plan.

One of the old black hounds, a dignified and solemn dog, looked at Lucy as if he realised she should have company, and he went with her. How amused Lucy was to see the hound walk along with her, manifesting no evidence of friendliness other than his accompanying her.

Lucy crossed the strip of woods to the edge of the field, and then walked along under the pines toward the slope. Through the green and black of the forest she could see the looming red wall. At the end of the field she halted. Deep dark woodland merged upon the edge of the clearing. She sat down under a huge pine, from which position she could see out across the open.

“Oh, I’ll never be able to concentrate on anything here!” murmured Lucy, thrilled with the wildness and splendour of the forest. Birds and squirrels were boisterous, as if rejoicing at the spring. The wind moaned through the tree-tops, a new sound to Lucy, stirring her blood. Most striking of all was the fragrance of pine. Lucy revelled a few moments in this sweet wild solitude, then made a valiant effort to put her mind on her work. At the very outset she made notes on her pad. The fact that expenditure of funds for the betterment of living conditions up here had been trusted to her common sense and discretion made Lucy extremely conscientious. She would purchase only what was absolutely necessary, and superintend the making of many useful things for the Denmeades. To this end she applied herself to the task of choosing the articles she must buy and those she must make.

It turned out to be a fascinating task, made easy by the course of manual training she had taken at normal school. Prominent among the articles selected to buy were tools and a sewing-machine. Tools meant the constructing of chairs, tables, closets, shelves, and many other household articles; a sewing-machine meant the making of sheets, pillows, towels, curtains, table-covers, and wearing apparel.

Lucy pictured in her mind what the inside of that cabin would look like in a couple of months. It filled her with joy for them and pride for herself. The expense would be little; the labour great. She had already convinced Denmeade that this welfare work was not charity; in the long run it must be for the good of the state.

Between such dreams and calculations Lucy mapped out the letters and orders she would write that afternoon. Then she would have to wait so long until the things arrived. Still, she reflected, a number of necessities could be obtained at the store in Cedar Ridge. She would persuade Denmeade to go or send someone at once.

At length Lucy discovered that without thinking about it she had changed her position several times to get out of the shade into the sun. The air had grown chill. Then she became aware of the moan of wind in the pines. How loud, mournful, strange! Clouds were scudding up from the south-west. They were still broken, but much heavier and darker than they had been in the early morning. They made great dark shadows sail along the rolling green crest of the forest. Gazing upward, Lucy was amazed to see that the clouds obscured the Rim at the high points. From up there drifted down a low, steady roar. Wind in the pines! It was a different sound from the sough in the near-by tree-tops. Birds and squirrels had ceased song and chatter.

Once more Lucy applied herself diligently to her task, and for a while forgot herself. The wind increased to a gale, intermittent, but steadily growing less broken. She heard it and thrilled, yet went on with her figuring. Suddenly a heavy crash somewhere in the woods close at hand thoroughly frightened her. No doubt a dead tree had blown over. Nervously Lucy gazed about her to see if there were other dead trees. She espied several and many bleached gnarled branches shaking in the wind. A great primeval forest like this seemed to be a dangerous place.

“I always imagined it would be wonderful to live like an Indian — wild in the woods,” soliloquised Lucy. “But I guess it might be fearful on occasions.”

She became prey then to conflicting impulses — one to run back to the cabin, the other to stay out in this roaring forest. For a moment the latter dominated her. She stepped out from under the pine into a glade and threw back her head. How the wind whipped her hair! The odour of pine was now so strong that it was not far from suffocating. Yet its sweetness seemed intoxicating. The cold air was exhilarating, in spite of its increasing chill. Against the background of blue sky and grey cloud the pine crests waved wildly and thin streams of brown pine needles flew before the gale.

Lucy’s daring did not extend beyond a moment or so. Then the old black dog appeared, to eye her solemnly and trot off. She followed as fast as she could walk, sometimes breaking into a little run. Soon she was breathless and light-headed. Such little exertion to tire her! Lucy recollected that high altitudes affected some persons thus. Her heart pounded in her breast. It became absolutely imperative that she go slower, or give out completely. Even then, when she reached the cabin porch she was glad to sink upon it with a gasp.

The golden sunshine was gone. A grey mantle appeared to be creeping over the forest world. The roar of the wind now seemed behind and above the cabin. Presently Mrs. Denmeade, coming out for a pail of water, espied Lucy sitting there.

“Storm comin’,” she said. “It’ll blow for a while, then rain.”

“Oh — I’m — so — out of — breath!” panted Lucy. “It was — wonderful, but — scared me...The children! Will they stay at school?”

“Not much. They’ll come home, rain or shine. Edd is goin’ to catch it good. Dave Claypool just rode by an’ stopped to tell me he met Edd up on the mountain.”

“Met E — your son! When?”

“This mornin’. Dave was ridin’ through. He lets his hosses range up there. Said he’d run across Edd about fifteen miles back down the Winbrook trail. Shore now Edd can drive a pack-train of burros. But they’re loaded heavy, an’ Edd will spare the burros before himself. I reckon he’ll hit the Rim just about dark. An’ if the storm breaks before then he’ll have somethin’ tough. Rain down here will be snow up there. But he’ll come in to-night shore.”

Her matter-of-factness over what seemed exceedingly serious and her confidence in the return of her son through gale and darkness awakened in Lucy a first appreciation of the elemental strength of these backwoods people. Lucy respected strength to endure above all virtues. How infinitely she herself had been found wanting! She hurried to her room, conscious that again this Edd Denmeade had been forced upon her attention.

Lucy got out her writing materials and set herself to the important task of the letters she had planned. At intervals she found her mind wandering, a thing not habitual with her. Yet the circumstances here were extenuating. And all the time she was aware of the gale. It swooped down the chimney with hollow roar. She was able to think and write consistently through the hours. The Denmeades ate whenever some of them came in hungry, a bad and labour-consuming habit, Lucy thought, which she would endeavour to break. She was glad, however, that there was no midday meal except Sundays. She grew cramped and cold from sitting so long on the uncomfortable chair, writing on her lap. But she accomplished the task of a dozen letters, and an enlarging and copying of her notes.

This accomplishment afforded her great satisfaction. Putting on a heavy coat, she went outside to walk off the chill in her blood. She found Mrs. Denmeade and Allie carrying the day’s wash up from the brook down in the gully. Lucy promptly lent her assistance, and when she had made four trips, carrying a heavy burden, she was both out of breath and hot from the effort.

The grey mantle overhead had darkened. Only occasional rifts showed a glimpse of blue sky. The air was perceptibly damper. And the roar of wind now had no break.

Lucy rested a little, trying the while to win Liz and Lize to talk to her. They did not sidle away from her any longer, but had not yet reached the communicative stage.

Lucy was conscious of worry, of dread, and not until she saw Mary and Dan, with Mertie behind them, coming up the lane, did she realise the significance of her feelings. They were safe. And by the time they reached the gate the tall form of Dick came stalking into sight.

Manifestly for them the journey home through the forest, under the threshing boughs of the trees, was merely an incident of school days. However, when Mertie heard from her mother that Edd had been seen back up on the Rim and would surely be caught in the storm, she gave vent to an excited concern. Not for her brother’s safety and comfort, but for her birthday present of the new dress! Mrs. Denmeade petted and soothed her. “Don’t worry, Mertie,” she concluded. “Reckon you ought to know Edd. There’s sacks of flour on them pack-burros. It ain’t likely he’ll see that flour spoiled, let alone your new dress.”

“But, ma!” protested Mertie, miserably, “Edd’s only human! An’ you know how terrible storms are up there.”

“Wal, it was your fault Edd packed to Winbrook,” retorted her mother. “He could of got the flour at Cedar Ridge, only one day’s pack. But you had to have a city dress.”

Mertie subsided into sullen restless silence, and took no part in the preparations for supper. The children gravitated to Lucy, who essayed to play with them on the windy porch. The afternoon darkened. Presently the men returned from their labours, loud-voiced and cheery, smelling of horses and newly ploughed earth. At the wash-bench they made much splashing.

“Wal, ma, we got the field ploughed, an’ now let her rain,” announced Denmeade.

“Let her rain!” cried Mertie shrilly, as if driven. “That’s all anybody cares. Storm — rain — snow! For Edd to be caught out!”

“Aw, so thet’s what ails you,” returned her father. “Wal, don’t you worry none about him.”

During supper Denmeade again silenced his unhappy daughter, and though he drawled the reprimand in cool, easy words, there was a note in them that gave Lucy an idea of the iron nature of these backwoodsmen. This was the only instance so far in which the slightest discord or evidence of authority had appeared in the Denmeade family. To Lucy they seemed so tranquil, so set in their rugged simplicity.

After supper the grey twilight deepened and a misty rain blew in Lucy’s face as she stood on the porch. Above the sound of the wind she heard a patter of rain on the roof.

“Reckon she’ll bust directly,” said Denmeade, as he passed Lucy, his arms full of wood. “I’m buildin’ a fire fer you. It’s shore goin’ to storm.”

By turning her ear to the north and attending keenly Lucy was able to distinguish between the two main sounds of the storm — the rush and gusty violence of the wind around the cabin, and the deep mighty roar of the gale up on the Rim. She shivered with more than cold. At dark the fury of the storm burst. Torrents of rain fell, drowning all other sounds. Lucy was forced back against the wall, but the rain, driving under the porch roof in sheets, sent her indoors.

A bright log fire blazed and cracked in the open fire-place of the room she occupied. The children were sitting on the floor, talking, and such was the roar on the roof and the bellow down the chimney that Lucy could not hear a word they said. Evidently, however, something in the fire attracted them. Mary was looking at it, too, thoughtfully, even dreamily, her thin face and large eyes expressive of a childish hunger for something.

The hour seemed a restless, uncertain one for Lucy. How the storm raged and lashed! She had an almost irresistible desire to run out into it, a sensation at once overcome by abject fear. Even the porch, with its two open doors of lighted rooms, was as black as pitch. Lucy knew she could not have gone a rod from the cabin without being lost. The gale outside would howl and shriek accompaniments to the roar on the roof; now and then a gust of wind sent a volley of raindrops, thick as a stream, against the windowpanes. The red fire hissed with the water that dripped down the chimney. Lucy walked from window to window, from the fire-place to the door; she sat down to gaze with the children at the opalescent embers settling on the hearth; and she rose to pace the floor. Her thoughts were wholly dominated by the sensations of the storm. At last Lucy put on her long heavy coat and braved the porch. But this time she went to the back, where in the lee of the cabin she was out of the fury of wind and rain. There she stood against the wall, peering out into the blackness, feeling the whip of wind, the cold wet sting of flying hail.

It had grown colder. The rain was lessening in volume and some of it was freezing to sleet. While she cowered there the roar on the roof subsided, and gradually the strife of the elements around the cabin slowed and softened. Presently Lucy became aware of the terrific roar of the storm up on the Rim. It shook her heart. It seemed a continuous thunder and it roused in her unaccustomed feelings. How strange to realise that she both feared and loved the black wild roaring void out there.

She seemed thousands of miles from her home, from the desert where she had lived always, the hot glaring little city, with its sun-baked streets winter and summer, its throng of people, intent upon money-making, marrying, living. What a contrast they presented to these few hardy families of the mountains! Lucy wondered if a race of people in their gregarious instincts, their despoliation and destruction of the wilderness, could not lose something great and beautiful. She felt it vaguely. How had men lived in the long ages before there were cities or settlements?

How was it possible for this Edd Denmeade to find his way home, in this ebony blackness, under the roaring and cracking pines, down over a two-thousand foot mountain wall? The thing was incredible. Yet his father and his mother expected him as a matter of course. He had done it before. They trusted him. Even the vain Mertie, despite her fears and doubts, knew he would come. Then considering all this, what manner of Man was Edd Denmeade? Lucy no longer repudiated her interest. In her heart there was a vague longing for she knew not what, but in this case she imagined it due to her disappointment at home, with Clara and her suitors, with the type of young men that had the good will of her father. They had received scant courtesy from Lucy. No understanding of sentiment stirred in Lucy. What could a boy of the backwoods be to her? But this wild-bee hunter was surely pretty much of a man, and Lucy was curious to see him.

She remained out on the porch until she was thoroughly cold and wet, and still longer, until she had convinced herself that she had a faint realisation of what a storm was in this high timbered country. Then she went in.

All the family, including Uncle Bill, had assembled in her room. Denmeade, his brother, and Dick and Joe, were grouped near the fire-place. Denmeade knelt on one knee, in what Lucy later discovered was his characteristic resting position, his dark face in the light, his big black hat pushed back on his head. The others were sitting on the floor, backs to the wall, listening to what he was saying. The mother and Allie were seated, silent, on the children’s bed. Mertie, crouched on one of the chairs, stared sombrely into the fire. Mary was bent over, so that she could catch the light on a book. The children played as before.

As Lucy went in, it was Mary who got up to offer her chair. Lucy, as she advanced to the blazing logs, was astonished to see how wet her coat had become. She held it to the fire, most gratefully conscious of the warmth. Then at the moment Joe interrupted his father’s talk.

“I hear bells. Reckon some of the burros got in. Edd won’t be far.”

“Wal, he’ll be with the pack outfit. Rustle out thar,” replied his father.

While Denmeade replenished the fire the others stamped out, their spurs clanking. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie went into the kitchen. Mertie’s apathy vanished and she rushed out into the darkness of the porch. Her voice pealed out, calling to Edd. Likewise the children responded to the home-coming of their brother.

Lucy felt happy for all of them. Hanging up her coat, she wiped the raindrops from her face and gave a touch here and there to her dishevelled hair. Then she stood, back to the fire, palms turned to the genial heat, and, watching the door, she waited with sustained interest, with something of amusement, yet conscious of a vague unformed emotion.

Presently clamour of childish voices, pitched high above the deeper ones of men, and the thump of heavy boots, and jingle of spurs, moved across the porch to the door of the cabin. Lucy stepped aside into the shadow. Then the light of the fire streamed out of the door.

“In thar, all of you,” boomed Denmeade. “Let Edd get to the fire.”

It seemed to Lucy that a tall dark form emerged from the gloom into the light, and entered the door With the children and girls. For a moment there was a hubbub. The older members of the household came in, somewhat quieting the melee.

“Mertie, here’s your present,” said the new-corner. His voice seemed rather drawling and deep. Disengaging himself from clinging hands, he laid a large parcel, wrapped in a wet slicker, upon a vacant chair. Mertie let out a squeal, and pouncing upon the package, dropped to her knees and began to tear it open.

“Oh, Edd!...If you got it — wet!” she panted.

“No fear. It’s wrapped in paper an’ oilskin, under the slicker,” he said. Then he drew another package from the inside of his huge fur-collared coat. “Liz! Lize! Danny!”

“Candy!” screamed the children in unison. And straightway pandemonium broke loose.

When the young man threw his wet sombrero on the floor near the hearth, and removed his rain-soaked coat, Lucy had a better chance to see what he looked like. Certainly his face was not handsome, but she could not say how much of its dark, haggard rawness was due to exposure. He did not change expression as he gazed down upon those whom he had made happy. But Lucy’s keen sight and power to read divined the fact that he worshipped Mertie and loved the children. He untied a wet scarf from his neck and threw that beside his sombrero. All the older members of the family were silently gazing down upon the fortunate one. Mary seemed to be revelling in Mertie’s excitement, yet, as she gazed up at Edd, her large eyes questioned him.

“Mary, reckon I have somethin’ for you in my pack,” he said. “Wait till I warm my hands. I’m near froze.”

With that he strode to the fire and knelt before it, one knee on the floor, in a posture Lucy had descried as characteristic of his father. Edd extended big, strong, capable-looking hands to the blaze. They were actually stiff and blue. Seen nearer, his face, with the firelight shining directly upon it, was an open one, lean, smooth, with prominent nose and large firm-lipped mouth and square chin. His eyes were larger than those of the other Denmeades, light in colour, intent in gaze. Still, Lucy could not be certain she liked his face. It looked bruised, pinched, blackened. His hands, too, were grimy. Water dripped from him and ran in little streams over the hearth to sizzle on the hot ashes. He seemed to bring with him the breath of the open, cold and damp, the smell of the pines and burros, odorous, rank.

Gasps of delight emanated from those surrounding Mertie as she held up a white beribboned dress, and many were the mingled exclamations that followed. It was the mother who first recovered from the spell. Peering into the shadow, she at last espied Lucy.

“There you are,” she said. “I was wonderin’ if you was seein’ the circus...This is my oldest boy. Edd, meet Miss Lucy Watson from Felix. She’s our home-teacher, come to live with us for a spell.”

Lucy spoke from the shadow. Edd peered out of the firelight, as if locating her with difficulty. She did not see the slightest indication that he was surprised or interested. What had she expected from this much-talked-of wild-bee hunter?

“Can’t see you, but hod-do just the same,” he drawled.

Then Denmeade advanced to lean his tall form Against the mantel.

“Dave rode down early — said he’d seen you, an’ figgered you’d hit the Rim trail before the storm busted.”

“Wind held us back all afternoon,” replied the son. “An’ some of the packs slipped. Reckon I’d made it shore but for that. The storm hit us just back from the Rim. I’ll be dog-goned if I didn’t think we’d never get to where the trail starts down. Hard wind an’ snow right in our faces. Shore was lucky to hit the trail down before it got plumb dark. I led my hoss an’ held on to Jennie’s tail. Honest I couldn’t see an inch in front of my nose. I couldn’t hear the bells. For a while I wasn’t shore of anythin’. But when we got down out of the snow I reckoned we might get home. All the burros but Baldy made it. I didn’t miss him till we got here. He mighty have slipped over the cliff on that narrow place. It shore was wet. Reckon, though, he’ll come in. He was packin’ my camp outfit.”

“Edd, come an’ eat, if you’re hungry,” called his mother from the kitchen.

“Nary a bite since sun-up. An’ I’m a-rarin’ to feed,” he replied, and gathering up his smoking coat, scarf, and sombrero, he rose.

“Boy, did Blake buy yore honey?” queried his father, accompanying him toward the door.

“I reckon. Every bucket, an’ I whooped it up to a dollar a gallon.”

“Whew! Dog-gone me! Why, Edd, you’ll make a bizness of your bee huntin’!” ejaculated Denmeade.

“Shore I will. I always meant to,” asserted the son. “Pa, if I can find an’ raise as much as five hundred gallons this summer, I’ll sell every pint of it.”

“No!” Denmeade’s exclamation was one of mingled doubt, amaze, and wondering appreciation of a fortune. They crossed the porch into the kitchen, from which Lucy heard them but indistinctly. Then Mrs. Denmeade appeared at the farther door.

“Lucy, take the candy away from the children an’ put it where they can’t reach it,” she called. “Else they’ll gorge themselves an’ be sick.”

Lucy approached this dubious task with infinite tact, kindliness, and persuasion. Liz and Lize were presently prevailed upon, but Dan was a different proposition. He would not listen to reason. When he found Lucy was firm he attempted to compromise, and failing of that, he gave in ungraciously. Flouncing down on his sheepskin rug, he pulled the rag coverlet over him. Lucy could see his eyes glaring in the firelight.

“Danny, don’t you undress when you go to bed?” asked Lucy gently.

“Naw!” he growled.

“Don’t you ever?” she went on.

“Not any more. The kids do, but not me.”

“Why not you?” demanded Lucy. “It’s not healthy to sleep in your clothes. Tell me, Danny. I’m your home-teacher, you know.”

“Nobody ever said nuthin’ to me,” retorted the lad. “Pa an’ Joe an’ Dick sleep in their clothes. An’ Edd — why, I’ve sleeped with him up in the loft when he never took off nuthin’. Went to bed right in his boots an’ spurs.”

“Oh, indeed!” murmured Lucy constrainedly, somewhat taken aback. “Well, Danny, all the same it’s not a healthy thing to do, and I shall teach you not to.”

“Teacher, you’d make me sleep naked?” he protested. “Aw, it’d be cold in winter, an’ I never have enough covers nohow.”

“Danny, I shall make you night-clothes to sleep in. Nice soft warm woolly stuff.”

“No long white thing like Mertie sleeps in,” he asserted belligerently.

“Any way you want. Shirt and pants, if you like,” said Lucy.

“Then I can wear them all day, too,” he rejoined with interest, and lay down.

Lucy turned her attention to the twins, very pleased to find them growing less shy with her.

“Can we have some, too?” asked Lize timidly.

“Have what, my dear?” queried Lucy, as she drew the children to her.

“Them Danny’ll have to sleep in.”

“Indeed you shall! Long white nightgowns, like the little princess in the fairy story.”

The twins had never heard of princesses or fairies but they manifested the most human trait of children — love of stories. Lucy held them entranced while she undressed them and put them to bed. She was quick to realise her power over them. Her victory was assured.

Then Denmeade entered, carrying some sticks of wood.

“Reckon you can put them on, if you want to keep up the fire,” he said. “Wal, you’ve put the kids to bed. Now, Miss Lucy, shore that will please ma.”

When Mrs. Denmeade came in with towel and basin she appeared astounded to find the children undressed and in bed.

“You rascals never did it all by your lonesome,” she averred. “Teacher has been takin’ you in hand. But she forgot your dirty faces an’ hands.”

“Teacher telled us stories,” whispered Liz rapturously.

“Candy an’ stories all at once!” exclaimed the mother as she wielded the towel. “Reckon that’ll make bad dreams...Stop wigglin’. Don’t you ever want a clean face?...An’ your teacher is tired an’ needs sleep, too.”

After Mrs. Denmeade had gone Lucy closed the door, catching as she did so a glimpse into the dimly lighted kitchen with its dark faces, and she dropped the bar in place quite instinctively. The action made her wonder why she did it, for last night she had left the door unbarred. But to-night she had found the Denmeades walking in and out, as if she were not domiciled there. She did not put it beyond any one of them to burst unbidden in upon her at any hour. And she wished for the tent Mr. Jenks had offered. Yet, suppose she had been in a tent to-night, out there alone in the blackness, with a flimsy shelter overhead and a scant flooring under her feet! It actually gave her a tremor.

Lucy made no effort to hurry to bed. Drawing the chair closer to the dying fire, she toasted her hands and feet and legs that had felt like ice all evening. Outside, the wind moaned under the eaves, and from high on the Rim came that thrilling roar. Rain was pattering steadily on the roof, a most pleasant sound to desert ears. Heat Lucy knew in all its prolonged variations; but cold and rain and snow were strangers. She imagined she was going to love them.

Gradually as the fire died down to a pale red glow the room darkened. It seemed full of deep warm shadows, comforting Lucy, easing the strain under which she had unconsciously laboured.

The event that had hung over the Denmeade home ever since she reached it had been consummated — the bee hunter had returned. Lucy had no idea what she had expected, but whatever it had been, it had not been realised. An agreeable disappointment dawned upon her. Edd Denmeade had not struck her as bold, or as a bully or a backwoods lout, foolish over girls. His indifference to her presence or appearance had struck her singularly. Her relief held a hint of pique.

“I think I had a poor opinion of him because everybody talked of him,” she mused. “He fooled me.”

But that could not account for her sensations now. Never before in her life had Lucy welcomed the firelit shadows, the seclusion of her room, to think about any young man. During school, too, she had imagined she had been falling in love. This feeling which grew strangely upon her now was vastly dissimilar from that mawkish sentiment. She could analyse nothing clearly. Edd Denmeade had impressed her profoundly, how or why or just what moment she could not tell. Had she been repelled or attracted? She fancied it was the former. She could be repelled by his raw, uncouth, barbarian presence, yet be fascinated by the man of him. That hurried return through the storm, down over the fearful trail, in a Stygian blackness — a feat none the less heroic because it had been performed to please a shallow little peacock of a sister — that called to something deep in Lucy. She thought of her sister Clara, selfish, unloving, thoughtless of others. Lucy felt that she and Edd Denmeade had something in common — a sister going the wrong way!

She recalled his look as Mertie had frantically torn at the package. Serene, strong, somehow understanding! It flashed over Lucy, intuitively as much as from deduction, that Edd Denmeade knew his sister’s weakness and loved her perhaps all the more because of it. That thrilled her, warmed her heart, as did her memory of his smile at the twins, Liz and Lize.

But all the rest was incomprehensible. Her pride, not of family, but of personal attainments and consciousness of her power to rise above her station, precluded any romantic thought of Edd Denmeade. He was a backwoodsman. She had come there to teach his people and their relatives and neighbours how to alleviate the squalor of their homes. The distance between her and them could not be bridged. So her interest and admiration must have been impersonal: it was the strange resentment which grew on her, the sense of being repelled by a hunter of the woods, that was personal and intimate.

Lucy crouched there before the fire till the red embers faded. The rain pattered steadily, the wind mourned, the wild night wore on. Forced thoughts, trying to solve riddles of her mind and heart, did not bring her tranquillity. At night her imagination and emotion were always more active. Lucy did not trust them. She fought the insidious drifting towards dreams, repelled it, and went to bed sure of herself.

Chapter V

ON MERTIE DENMEADE’S birthday several of her girl schoolmates rode up from the school with her. They were to stay overnight and go back to school next morning. Lucy could not help wondering where they were going to sleep.

Among these girls was Sadie Purdue, whom Lucy observed with attention. Sadie possessed but little charm, so far as Lucy could see. Her face and figure were commonplace, not to be compared with Mertie’s, and her complexion was pitted and coarse fibred, well suited to her bold eyes and smug expression. Her shoulders were plump, her hands large, her feet clumsy. Lucy could not but wonder what Edd Denmeade saw in this girl. She reflected then that it was absurd for her to have assumptions or opinions, until she knew more of these people. Every one of these Jacks had their Jills. It seemed inconceivable for Lucy to pass critical judgment on this Sadie Purdue and not include her companions. Lucy found them colourless, civil, hardy girls, somewhat like Allie Denmeade. She was gravely astonished to find that she had an inexplicable antagonism toward Sadie. For that reason she went out of her way to engage Sadie in conversation.

The girl, as well as her companions, was exceedingly curious about Lucy’s work. She asked numerous questions, the gist of which appeared to be a greedy interest in what they all were going to gain through Lucy’s presence.

“We live ‘way down near Cedar Ridge,” she informed Lucy. “I stay with my cousin, Amy Claypool, while I’m goin’ to school. This’s my last term, thank goodness.”

“What will you do then?” inquired Lucy. “Teach school?”

“Me teach? Laws no! couldn’t teach. Reckon a girl in this country has nothin’ to do but marry when she leaves school. I’ve had offers, but I’m in no hurry.”

“Do girls up here marry so young?” asked Lucy.

“From fifteen up. I’m sixteen, same as Mertie.”

Lucy encouraged the girl to talk, which seemed to be very easy to do. Sadie was impressed by Lucy’s interest, and besides that manifestly had motive of her own for establishing a repute. Lucy gathered that neither Sadie nor Mertie wanted to marry one of these bee-hunting, corn-raising, wood-chopping “jacks.” They aspired to homes in Winbrook, or at least Cedar Ridge. But they were not averse to being courted and taken to dances.

“Trouble is, when a fellow keeps company with you, he ain’t long satisfied with just Courtin’,” confided Sadie, giggling. “He wants to marry — wants a woman. Here’s Edd, Mertie’s brother. He took me to one dance an’ spent a Sunday callin’ on me. Asked me to marry him!...When he’d never even kissed me or put his arm round me! — The big boob! I told him he hadn’t learned much from his honey-bee huntin’.”

Lucy found that remark a difficult one to answer, and she was at some pains to conceal her own reaction. Fortunately Sadie was rushed off by her several friends for the purpose of a joint attack upon Mertie, to make her display the birthday dress. It amused Lucy to see how Mertie refused and affected modesty, when underneath she was burning to reveal herself in the new dress. At last she allowed herself to be persuaded. “All right, but only you girls can see me.”

They were in the room Lucy occupied. Mertie barred the door, saying: “I don’ mind you, teacher. But you mustn’t tell.”

Whereupon, with utter lack of modesty, and obsessed by a strange frenzy, Mertie donned the dress, to create consternation and rapture among her friends. By a lucky chance, which Lucy appreciated more than the others, the dress actually fitted the girl, and changed her wondrously. Many were the exclamations uttered, and one found lodgment in Lucy’s memory. “Mertie,” said Amy Claypool soberly, “you an’ Sadie call Edd a big boob. But I think he’s grand.”

Late in the afternoon Mrs. Denmeade and Allie began to spread the porch table with a birthday dinner for Mertie and her visitors. Several young men had ridden in, foremost of whom Lucy recognised as Sam Johnson. These young people arranged themselves around the porch and began what seemed to Lucy a remarkable exhibition of banter and absurdity.

The children dragged Lucy out on the porch, where Sam Johnson performed the office of introduction that Mertie neglected or omitted by choice. Gerd Claypool was a blue-eyed young giant with tawny hair, and Hal Miller was a lean, rangy cowboy type, solemn of face, droll of speech. These new visitors manifested enough interest in Lucy to convince her that it was not pleasing to Mertie and Sadie, so Lucy made excuses and left them to their peculiar fun. She played with the children, helped Mrs. Denmeade, and then sat in her room, the door and window of which were open. Part of the time Lucy was aware of the banter going on, but she did not become acutely interested until the Denmeade boys came on the scene.

“Wal, if here ain’t the ole bee hunter, home early an’ all shaved nice an’ clean,” drawled Sam Johnson.

“Mertie’s birthday, Sam,” replied Edd. “How are you all?”

“Jest a-rarin’ to go,” said Gerd Claypool.

“Edd, I reckon we’d like a lick of that honey pot of yours,” added Hal Miller.

“I gave ma the last half-gallon for Mertie’s party,” replied Edd. “You might get some, if you don’t back on your halter too long.”

“What’s become of all your honey?” queried Sam with interest. “I remember you had a lot.”

“Sold. An’ I’m offered a dollar a gallon for all I can fetch to Winbrook.”

Sam whistled. “Say, you ain’t such a dog-gone fool as we thought, chasin’ bees all the time.”

“I’ll make it a business,” said Edd.

“Edd, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to save some of your honey,” interposed Sadie Purdue slyly.

“What you mean?” asked Edd bluntly.

“Girls like honey,” she answered, in a tormenting tone no one could mistake.

“Reckon I savvy,” returned Edd with good humour. “But honey words an’ honey ways with girls don’t come natural to me, like with Sam.”

His reply raised a howl of laughter at Sam’s expense.

“Wal, I ain’t noticin’ that I ever go to any dances alone,” rejoined Sam sarcastically.

Lucy could see from the shadow of her room through the door most of the group of young people on the porch. Sam leaned behind Sadie, who sat by the porch rail. Gerd and Hal occupied seats on the canvas packs. The other girls sat on a bench. Dick was the only one of the Denmeade boys in sight. He appeared rather out of it, and stood in the background, silent, listening, with a rather pleasant smile on his keen face.

It was most interesting and instructive for Lucy to observe and hear these young people. What struck her most was the simple, unrestrained expression of what she divined as a primitive pleasure in tormenting. At the bottom of it was the unconscious satisfaction at another’s pain. Sadie’s expression was a teasing, joyful malignance. Manifestly she was revelling in the fun at the boys’ expense. Mertie wore a bored look of superiority, as if she were tolerating the attentions of these young men for the moment. Amy Claypool’s face, honest and comely, was wreathed in smiles. The boys near them wore lazy, bantering expressions, without selfish or unfriendly hint. But to the sensitive Lucy, used to the better educated, their talk seemed crude, almost brutal.

For a while the sole topic of conversation was the dance on Friday night. It expressed the wholesome and happy regard these youths and maidens held in the only recreation and social function that fell to their lot. Personalities and banterings were forgotten for the moment and other wonderful dances were remembered; conjectures as to attendance, music, ice cream, were indulged in. Presently, however, when they had exhausted the more wholesome reactions to this dance subject they reverted to the inevitable banter.

“Say, Dick, have you found a girl tall enough to take to the dance — one you wouldn’t have to stoop ‘way over to reach?” drawled Sam Johnson.

Dick’s youthful face turned ruddy. The attention suddenly and unexpectedly thrown upon him caused him intense embarrassment. The prominent bone in his throat worked up and down.

“Boy, yore handy with tools,” interposed Hal. “Make a pair of stilts for that fat little sister of mine yore sweet on. She’s four feet eight an’ weighs one fifty. Reckon you’d make Sam an’ Sadie look sick.”

Other sallies, just as swift and laugh-provoking, gave the poor boy no time to recover, even if he had been able to retaliate. It was his sister Allie who came to the rescue from the door of the kitchen.

“Sadie, who’re you goin’ with?” she inquired sweetly.

“Sam. He’s the best dancer in this country,” she announced.

“So it’s settled then,” rejoined Allie casually. “When I asked him the other day who he was goin’ with I kind of got a hunch it might not be you.”

Sadie flashed a surprised and resentful look up at Sam. He took it, as well as the mirth roused by Allie’s covert remark, with an equanimity that showed him rather diplomatic.

“Sadie, I told Allie you hadn’t accepted my invite, which you hadn’t,” he said.

“Reckon it wasn’t necessary,” she retorted, in a tone that conveyed the impression of an understanding between them.

“Wal, Sadie,” drawled Edd’s slow, cool voice, “I reckon you’ll find it necessary to hawg-tie Sam for dances — or any other kind of shindig.”

This sly speech from Edd Denmeade gave Lucy an unexpected and delightful thrill. Almost she joined in the hilarity it stirred. Even the self-conscious Mertie burst into laughter. For a moment the tables had been turned; Sam was at a loss for a retort; and Sadie gave a fleeting glimpse of her cat-like nature under her smugness and pleasant assurance.

“Edd, have you asked any girl yet?” she inquired sweetly.

“Nope. Not yet. I’ve been away, you know,” he replied.

“‘Course you’re goin’?”

“Never missed a dance yet, Sadie.”

“It’s gettin’ late in the day, Edd,” she went on seriously. “You oughtn’t go alone to dances, as you do sometimes. It’s not fair to break in on boys who have partners. They just have to set out those dances...Edd, you ought to be findin’ you a regular girl.”

Sadie’s voice and face were as a transparent mask for the maliciousness of her soul.

“Shore, Edd,” put in Sam, “an’ you ought to hawg-tie her, too.”

“Funny aboot Edd, ain’t it?” interposed Gerd. “The way he can see in the woods. Say, he’s got eyes! He can line a bee fer half a mile. But he can’t line a girl.”

“Nope, you’re wrong, boy,” replied Edd, with evident restraint. “Never had no trouble linin’ a girl. But I haven’t got the soft-soap you fellows use.”

“Who are you goin’ to ask to the dance?” insisted Sadie.

They nagged him, then, with this query, and with advice and suggestions, and with information that no matter what girl he asked he would find she had already accepted an invitation. It must have been their way of having fun. But to Lucy it seemed brutal. Almost she felt sorry for Edd Denmeade It struck her that his friends and relatives must have some good reason for so unmercifully flaying him.

For, despite the general bantering, they had made him the centre and the butt of their peculiar way of enjoying themselves. The girl Sadie seemed the instigator of this emphasis thrown upon Edd, and Sam ably seconded her.

Amy Claypool, however, manifested a kindlier spirit, though apparently she did not realise the tirade was little short of a jealous brutality.

“Edd, I’d ask the new schoolmarm,” she said, lowering her voice. “She’s awful pretty an’ nice. Not a bit stuck-up.”

Lucy heard this suggestion, and at once became a prey to amusement and dismay. Why could not the young people, and their elders, too, leave her out of all reckoning? Her pulse quickened with an excitation that displeased her. How her very ears seemed to burn!

Sadie Purdue burst into a peal of laughter. “Amy, you’re crazy!” she exclaimed. “That city girl wouldn’t go dancin’ with a wild-bee hunter!”

This positive assertion did not produce any mirth. No doubt Sadie had no intention now of being funny. A red spot showed in her cheek. The sudden scrape of boots and clank of spurs attested to the fact that Edd Denmeade had leaped to his feet.

“Sadie Purdue, I reckon it’s no disgrace to hunt bees,” he said sharply.

“Who said it was?” she retorted. “But I’ve been among town folks. You take my hunch an’ don’t ask her.”

Edd stalked off the porch, coming into range of Lucy’s sight when he got down into the yard. His stride seemed to be that of a man who was hurrying to get away from something unpleasant.

“Sadie, you shore don’t know it all,” said Amy mildly. “If this home-schoolmarm wasn’t a nice an’ kind sort she’d not be up heah. Fun is fun, but you had no call to insult Edd.”

“Insult nothin’,” snapped Sadie. “I was only tryin’ to save his feelin’s.”

“You never liked Edd an’ you don’t want anyone else to,” returned Amy. “I know two girls who might have liked Edd but for you.”

Lucy’s heart warmed to this mild-voiced Amy Claypool. She did not make the least show of spirit. Sadie turned petulantly to Sam, and there was a moment of rather strained silence.

“Come an’ get it, you birthday party,” called Allie from the door.

That call relieved the situation, and merriment at once reclaimed the young people. Lucy was glad to see them dive for seats at the table. She was conscious of a strength and depth of interest quite out of proportion to what should have been natural to her. Still, she had elected to undertake a serious work among these mountaineers. How could she help but be interested in anything that pertained to them? But the wild-bee hunter! Quick as a flash then Lucy had an impulse she determined to satisfy. Would Edd Denmeade give these guests of his sister’s the last bit of the honey upon which he set such store? Lucy felt that he ought not to do so and would not, yet she contrarily hoped that he might. There appeared to her only one way to ascertain, and that was to walk by the table and see. Despite her determination, she hesitated. Then fortunately the problem was solved for her.

Allie, sailing out of the kitchen door, set a pan rather noisily upon the table. “There’s the last of Edd’s honey. Fight over it!”

The next few moments’ observation afforded Lucy the satisfaction of seeing the birthday guests actually engaged according to Allie’s suggestion. From that scene Lucy formed her impression of the deliciousness of wild-bee honey.

Lucy did not lay eyes upon Edd Denmeade until late the following morning, when, after the visitors and school children had ridden away, he presented himself before her where she played with the twins on the porch.

“Mornin’. Reckon I’d like a few words with you,” he said.

“Why, gladly!” replied Lucy, as she sat up to gaze at him.

Edd was standing down in the yard, holding his sombrero in his hands and turning it edgewise round and round. On the moment he did not look at her. Seen now at close range, with all the stains of that terrible ride home removed from garb and face, he appeared vastly different. He was labouring with thought.

“Ma an’ pa have been tellin’ me about you, but I reckon I’m not satisfied.”

“Yes? Is there anything I can tell you?” said Lucy, relieved. She had actually been afraid he would ask her to go to the dance.

“Shore. I want to know about this here work you’re goin’ to do.”

Then he looked up to meet her eyes. Lucy had never met just such a glance. His eyes were so clear and grey that they seemed expressionless. Yet Lucy conceived a vivid impression of the honesty and simplicity of the soul from which they looked. Whereupon Lucy took the pains to explain quite at length the nature of the work she had undertaken among his people. He listened intently, standing motionless, watching her with a steady gaze that was disconcerting.

“Pa an’ ma talked more things you were goin’ to get the state to buy for us,” he said reflectively. “I’m wonderin’ if they don’t take more to that.”

“It would be only natural,” responded Lucy earnestly. “I must have time to show actual good, rather than gain.”

“I reckon. Pa’s sendin’ me to Cedar Ridge, where I’m to post your letters an’ buy all that outfit you want. I’m takin’ three burros to pack. Reckon I’ll put the sewin’ machine on Jennie.”

“Oh — a little burro to carry it — all alone!” exclaimed Lucy.

“Shore. Jennie packed the kitchen stove up that trail you come on. An’ she packed a hundred an’ fifty pounds of honey to Winbrook.”

“Well, I’ll say that Jennie is a wonderful little beast of burden,” replied Lucy.

“Now — you aim to stay with us awhile, an’ then go to Claypool’s an’ Johnson’s an’ Miller’s an’ Sprall’s?”

“Yes, that is my plan, but no definite time is set. I have all the time there is, as I heard your Uncle Bill say.”

“Wal, it’s a bad idea. It won’t do,” he declared.

“How? Why?” queried Lucy anxiously.

“First off, you’re too young an’ pretty,” he said, wholly unconscious of the language of compliment.

“Oh!” returned Lucy, almost confused. “But surely, Mr. Denmeade—”

“Nobody ever called me mister,” he interrupted.

“Indeed!...I — well — surely my youth — and my good looks, as you are kind to call them, need not stand in my way?”

“Shore they will. If you were an old woman, or even middle-aged, it might do. But you’re a girl.”

“Yes, I am,” rejoined Lucy, puzzled and amused. “I can’t deny that.”

Manifestly he regarded his bare statement as sufficient evidence on the point, whatever this was; for he went on to say that the several families would quarrel over her, and it would all end in a a row.

“Reckon no matter what pa said I’d never let you go to Sprall’s,” he concluded simply.

“You...May I ask what business it would be of yours?”

“Wal, somebody has to take these here things on his shoulders, an’ I reckon most of them fall on me,” he replied.

“I don’t understand you,” said Lucy forcibly.

“Wal, somethin’ wrong is always happenin’ up here among us people. An’ I reckon I’m the only one who sees it.”

“Wrong! How could it be wrong for me to go to Sprall’s?” protested Lucy. “From what I hear they need me a great deal more than any family up here.”

“Miss, I reckon you’d better not believe all you hear,” he returned. “If you was to ride over to Sprall’s you’d say they’d ought to be washed an’ dressed, an’ their cabin burned. But that’s all you’d see unless you stayed a day or so.”

“Oh!...Suppose I’d stay?” queried Lucy.

“You’d see that was long enough.”

“But don’t you understand I’m here to help poor families — no matter how dirty or ignorant or — or even wicked?” cried Lucy poignantly.

“Shore I understand. An’ I reckon it’s your goodness of heart, an’ of these people who sent you. But it won’t do, maybe not for us, an’ shore an’ certain never for such as the Spralls.”

“You must tell me why, if you expect me to pay the least attention to what you say,” retorted Lucy stubbornly.

“Shore! can’t talk about the Sprall women to a girl like you,” he protested. “If ma won’t tell you, it’s no job for me. But I reckon there’s no need. You’re not goin’ to Sprall’s.”

Lucy was at a loss for words. His bare assertion did not seem to stir her anger so much as a conviction that for some reason or other she would not go to Sprall’s.

“I’ve heard, since I’ve been here, that there was bad blood between you and Bud Sprall. It must have been your mother who said it,” replied Lucy slowly, trying to keep her temper.

“Nope. The bad blood is on Bud’s side. Reckon if there’d been any on mine I’d have killed him long ago...Now, miss, you’re a city girl, but you ought to have a little sense. If I told you I couldn’t let Mertie stay where Bud Sprall was — you’d understand that, I reckon.”

“Yes. I am not quite so stupid as you seem to think,” retorted Lucy.

“Wal, for the same reason I’d not let you go, either...Now we’re wastin’ time talkin’ about Sprall’s. To come back to this here work of yours, I’m sorry I can’t see it favourable like pa an’ ma. But I just can’t.”

“I’m sorry, too,” replied Lucy soberly. “. It’ll be discouraging to have even one person against me. But why — why?”

“I reckon I can’t figure that out so quick,” he replied. “. It’s the way I feel. If you was goin’ to live among us always I might feel different. But you won’t last up here very long. An’ suppose you do teach Liz an’ Lize an’ Danny a lot of things. They’ve got to grow up an’ live here. They might be happier knowin’ less. It’s what they don’t know that don’t make any difference.”

“You’re terribly wrong, Edd Denmeade,” replied Lucy with spirit.

“Ahuh! Wal, that’s for you to prove,” he returned Imperturbably. “I’ll be goin’ now. An’ I reckon I’ll fetch your outfit in about midday to-morrow.”

Lucy stared after the tall figure as it stalked with a flapping of chaps keeping time with a clinking of spurs. Edd Denmeade was six feet tall, slender, yet not lean like his brothers. He was built like a narrow wedge, only his body and limbs were rounded, with small waist, small hips, all giving an impression of extraordinary suppleness and strength. Lucy had seen riders of the range whose form resembled this young bee hunter’s. They had been, however, awkward on their feet, showing to best advantage when mounted on horseback. This Denmeade had a long, quick, springy stride.

When he had passed out of sight down the lane Lucy let the children play alone while she pondered over his thought-provoking words. She realised that he was right in a way, and that it might be possible to do these children more harm than good. But never if she could only impress them lastingly. The facts of the case were as plain as printed words to her. These backwoods people were many generations behind city people in their development.

In a fairly intelligent and broad way Lucy had grasped at the fundamentals of the question of the evolution of the human race. Not so many thousand years back all the human family, scattered widely over the globe, had lived nomad lives in the forests, governed by conditions of food and water. Farther back, their progenitors had been barbarians, and still more remotely they had been cave men, fighting the cave bear and the sabre-toothed tiger. Lucy had seen pictures in a scientific book of the bones of these men and beasts. In ages back all the wandering tribes of men had to hunt to live, and their problems were few. Meat to eat, skins to wear, protection from beasts and ravaging bands of their own species! Yet, even so, through the long ages, these savages had progressed mentally and spiritually. Lucy saw that as a law of life.

These backwoods people were simply a little closer to the old order of primitive things than their more fortunate brethren of civilisation. Even if they so willed with implacable tenacity they could not for ever hold on to their crude and elemental lives. They could never evade the line of progress. Edd Denmeade’s father was a backwoodsman; Edd himself was a bee hunter; his son would most likely be a forest ranger or lumberman, and his grandson perhaps become a farmer or a worker in the city.

Naturally this giant boy of the woods understood nothing of all this. Yet he had a quaint philosophy which Lucy felt she understood. In a sense the unthinking savage and the primitive white child were happier than any children of civilised peoples. In a way it might be a pity to rob them of their instincts, educate them out of a purely natural existence. But from the very dawn of life on the planet the advance of mind had been inevitable. Lucy was familiar with many writers who ascribed this fact to nature. Her personal conviction was that beyond and above nature was God.

If Edd Denmeade was not stupid and stubborn she believed that she could enlighten him. It might be interesting to teach him; yet, on the other hand, it might require more patience and kindliness than she possessed. Evidently he was the strongest factor among the young Denmeades, and perhaps among all these young people. Despite the unflattering hints which had fostered her first impression, she found that, after talking seriously with him, she had a better opinion of him than of any of the other young men she had met. In all fairness she was bound to admit this.

All the rest of the day and evening Lucy found the thoughts Edd had roused running in her mind, not wholly unsatisfying. Somehow he roused her combativeness, yet, viewed just as one of the Denmeades, she warmed to the problem of helping him. Moreover, the success of her venture with this family no doubt hinged mostly upon converting the elder son to her support. Perhaps she could find an avenue open to her through his love of Mertie and devotion to the children.

Next morning found Lucy more energetic and active mentally than she had been so far. She had rested; the problem she confronted had shifted to a matter of her own powers. Nevertheless, neither the children, nor helping Mrs. Denmeade, nor reading over some half-forgotten treatises relative to her work, interested her to the point of dismissing Edd Denmeade from mind. Lucy realised this, but refused to bother with any reflection upon it.

She was in her room just before the noon hour when she heard Uncle Bill stamp up on the porch and drawl out: “Say, Lee, hyar comes Edd drivin’ the pack-burros.”

Denmeade strode out to exclaim. “So soon! Wal, it do beat hell how that boy can rustle along with a pack-outfit.”

“Heavy load, too. Jennie looks like a camel,” replied Uncle Bill. “Reckon I’ll lend a hand on packin’.”

Lucy quite unnecessarily wanted to run out to see the burros, a desire that she stifled. She heard the tinkle of their bells and the patter of their little hoofs as they came up to the porch.

“Wal, son, you must been a-rarin’ to git home,” drawled Denmeade.

“Nope. I just eased them along,” replied Edd. “But I packed before sunup.”

“Fetch all Miss Lucy’s outfit?”

“Some of it had to be ordered. Sewin’ machine an’ a lot of dry goods. It’ll be on the stage next week, an’ I’ll pack it then. Reckon I had about all I could pack to-day, anyhow.”

“Say, Edd,” called Allie’s lusty voice from the kitchen, “who’d you go an’ storm for the dance?”

“Reckon I haven’t asked nobody yet,” replied Edd laconically.

“You goin’ to stay home?” rejoined Allie, her large frame appearing in the kitchen doorway. Her round face expressed surprise and regret.

“Never stayed home yet, Allie, did I?”

“No. But Edd, you mustn’t go to any more dances alone,” said his sister solicitously. “It makes the boys mad, an’ you’ve had fights enough.”

“Wal, you didn’t notice I got licked bad, did you?” he drawled.

Allie went back into the kitchen, where she talked volubly in the same strain to her mother.

“Edd, reckon we’d better carry this stuff in where Miss Lucy can keep the kids out of it, huh?” queried Denmeade.

“I shore say so. It cost a lot of money. I hope to goodness she makes out with it.”

Lucy heard his quick step on the porch, then saw him, burdened with bundles and boxes, approaching her door. She rose to meet him.

“Howdy! I got back pronto,” he said. “Pa thinks you’d better have this stuff under your eye. Where’ll we stack it? Reckon it’ll all make a pile.”

“Just set light things on the beds, heavy ones on the floor. I’ll look after them,” replied Lucy. “Indeed you made splendid time. I’m very grateful. Now I shall be busy.”

Some time during the afternoon, when the curious members of the household had satisfied themselves with an exhaustive scrutiny of the many articles Lucy had in her room, and had gone about their work and play, Edd Denmeade presented himself at the door.

“Reckon I’d like to ask you something,” he said, rather breathlessly and low.

“Come in,” replied Lucy, looking up from where she knelt among a disarray of articles she had bought.

“Will you go to the dance with me?” he asked.

Lucy hesitated. His shyness and anxiety manifestly clashed. But tremendous as must have been this issue for him, he had come out frankly with it.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Thank you, Edd, but I must decline,” she replied. “You see what a mess I’m in here with all this stuff. I must straighten it out. To-morrow work begins.”

He eyed her with something of a change in his expression or feeling, she could not tell what. “Reckon I savvied you’d say no. But I’m askin’ if you mean that no for good. There’s a dance every week, an’ you can’t help bein’ asked. I’m givin’ you a hunch. If any schoolmarm stayed away from dances, folks up here would believe she thought she was too good for us.”

“Thank you. I understand,” replied Lucy, impressed by his sincerity. “Most assuredly I don’t think I’m too good to go to a dance here, and enjoy myself, too.”

“Maybe, then — it’s just me you reckon you’d not like to go with,” he returned, with just a tinge of bitterness.

“Not at all,” Lucy hastened to reply. “I’d go with you the same as with anyone. Why not?”

“Reckon I don’t know any reason. But Sadie Purdue was pretty shore she did...You wouldn’t really be ashamed of me, then?”

“Of course not,” replied Lucy, at her wits’ end to meet this situation. “I heard you spoken of very highly by Mrs. Lynn at Cedar Ridge. And I can see how your parents regard you. At my home in Felix it was not the custom for a girl to go to a dance upon such slight acquaintance as ours. But I do not expect city customs up here in the woods.”

“Reckon I like the way you talk,” he said, his face lighting. “Shore it doesn’t rile me all up. But that’s no matter now...Won’t you please go with me?”

“No,” answered Lucy, decidedly, a little nettled at his persistence, when she had been kind enough to explain.

“Shore I didn’t ask any girl before you,” he appealed plaintively.

“That doesn’t make any difference.”

“But it means an awful lot to me,” he went on doggedly.

It would never do to change her mind after refusing him, so there seemed nothing left but to shake her head smilingly and say she was sorry. Then without a word he strode out and clanked off the porch. Lucy went on with the work at hand, becoming so interested that she forgot about him. Sometime later he again presented himself at her door. He was clean shaven; he had brushed his hair while wet, plastering it smooth and glossy to his fine-shaped head; he wore a light-coloured flannel shirt and a red tie; and new blue-jean trousers. Lucy could not help seeing what a great improvement this made in his appearance.

“Reckon you haven’t thought it over?” he queried hopefully.

“What?” returned Lucy.

“About goin’ to the dance?”

“I’ve been very busy with all this stuff, and haven’t had time to think of anything else.”

“Shore I never wanted any girl to go with me like I do you,” he said. “Most because Sadie made fun of the idea.”

This did not appear particularly flattering to Lucy. She wondered if the young man had really been in love with that smug-faced girl.

“Edd, it’s not very nice of you to want me just to revenge yourself on Sadie,” rejoined Lucy severely.

“Reckon it’s not all that,” he replied hurriedly. “Sadie an’ Sam an’ most of them rake me over. It’s got to be a sore point with me. An’ here you bob up, the prettiest and stylishest girl who ever came to Cedar Ridge. Think what a beat I’d have on them if I could take you. An’ shore that’s not sayin’ a word about my own feelin’s.”

“Well, Edd, I must say you’ve made amends for your other speech,” said Lucy graciously. “All the same, I said no and I meant no.”

“Miss Lucy, I swear I’d never asked you again if you’d said that for good. But you said as much as you’d go some time. Shore if you’re ever goin’ to our dances why not this one, an’ let me be the first to take you?”

He was earnest; he was pathetic; he was somehow most difficult to resist. Lucy felt that she had not been desired in this way before. To take her would be the great event in his life. For a moment she laboured with vacillation. Then she reflected that if she yielded here it would surely lead to other obligations and very likely to sentiment. Thereupon she hardened her heart, and this time gave him a less kindly refusal. Edd dropped his head and went away.

Lucy spent another hour unpacking and arranging the numerous working materials that had been brought from Cedar Ridge. She heard Mrs. Denmeade and Allie preparing an early supper, so they could ride off to the dance before sunset. Lucy had finished her task for the afternoon and was waiting to be called to supper when again Edd appeared at the door.

“Will you go to the dance with me?” he asked, precisely as he had the first time. Yet there seemed some subtle change in both tone and look.

“Well, indeed you are persevering, if not some other things,” she replied, really annoyed. “Can’t you understand plain English?...I said no!”

“Shore I heard you the first time,” he retorted. “But I reckoned, seein’ it’s so little for you to do, an’ means so much to me, maybe you’d—”

“Why does it mean so much to you?” she interrupted.

“‘Cause if I can take you I’ll show them this once, an’ then I’ll never go again,” he replied.

It cost Lucy effort to turn away from his appealing face and again deny him, which she did curtly. He disappeared. Then Mrs. Denmeade called her to supper. Edd did not show himself during the meal.

“Edd’s all het up over this dance,” observed Mrs. Denmeade. “It’s on account of Sadie’s sharp tongue Edd doesn’t care a rap for her now an’ never did care much, if my reckonin’ is right. But she’s mean.”

“Laws! I hope Edd doesn’t fetch that Sally Sprall,” interposed Allie. “He said he was dog-goned minded to do it.”

“That hussy!” ejaculated Mrs. Denmeade. “Edd wouldn’t take her.”

“Ma, he’s awful set on havin’ a girl this dance,” responded Allie.

“I’ll bet some day Edd gets a better girl than Sadie Purdue or any of her clan,” declared the mother.

A little while later Lucy watched Mrs. Denmeade and Allie, with the children and Uncle Bill, ride off down the lane to disappear in the woods. Edd had not returned. Lucy concluded he had ridden off as had his brothers and their father. She really regretted that she had been obdurate. Coming to think about it, she did not like the idea of being alone in the cabin all night. Still, she could bar herself in and feel perfectly safe.

She walked on the porch, listening to the murmur of the stream and the barking of the squirrels. Then she watched the sun set in golden glory over the yellow-and-black cape of wall that jutted out toward the west. The day had been pleasantly warm and was now growing cool. She drew a deep breath of the pine-laden air. This wild country was drawing her. A sense of gladness filled her at the thought that she could stay here indefinitely.

Her reflections were interrupted by the crack of iron-shod hoof on rock. Lucy gave a start. She did not want to be caught there alone. Peering through the foliage, she espied Edd striding up the lane, leading two saddled horses. She was immensely relieved, almost glad at sight of him, and then began to wonder what this meant.

“If he’s not going to ask me again!” she soliloquised, and the paradox of her feeling on the moment was that she was both pleased and irritated at his persistence. “The nerve of him!”

Edd led the two horses into the yard and up to the porch. His stride was that of a man who would not easily be turned back. In spite of her control, Lucy felt a thrill.

“Reckon you thought I’d gone?” he queried as he faced her.

“No; I didn’t think about you at all,” returned Lucy, which speech was not literally true.

“Wal, you’re goin’ to the dance,” he drawled, cool and easy, with a note in his voice she had never heard. “Oh — indeed! I am?” she exclaimed tartly.

“You shore are.”

“I am not,” flashed Lucy.

With a lunge he reached out his long arms and, wrapping them round her, he lifted her off the porch as easily as if she had been an empty sack. Lucy was so astounded that for an instant she could not move hand or foot. A knot seemed to form in her breast. She began to shake. Then, awakening to this outrage, she began to struggle.

“How dare you? Let me down I Release me!” she cried.

“Nope. You’re goin’ to the dance,” he said, in the same drawling tone with its peculiar inflection.

“You — you ruffian!” burst out Lucy, suddenly beside herself with rage. Frantically she struggled to free herself. This fierce energy only augmented her emotions. She tore at him, wrestled and writhed, and then in desperation fraught with sudden fear she began to beat him with her fists. At that he changed his hold on her until she seemed strung in iron bands. She could not move. It was a terrible moment, in which her head reeled. What did he mean to do with her?

“Reckon I’ll have to hold you till you quit fightin’,” he said. “Shore it’d never do to put you up on Baldy now. He’s a gentle hoss, but if you kicked around on him I reckon he might hurt you.”

“Let — me — go!” gasped Lucy hoarsely. “Are — you crazy?”

“Nope. Not even riled. But shore my patience is wearin’ out.”

“Patience! Why, you lout — you brute — you wild-bee hunter!” raved Lucy, and again she attempted to break his hold. How utterly powerless she was! He had the strength of a giant. A sudden panic assailed her fury.

“My God! You don’t mean — to hurt me — harm me?” she panted.

“You dog-gone fool!” he ejaculated, as if utterly astounded.

“Oh!...Then what — do you mean?”

“I mean nothin’ ‘cept you’re goin’ to that dance,” he declared ruthlessly. “An’ you’re goin’ if I have to hawg-tie you. Savvy?”

Whereupon he lifted her and set her in the saddle of one of the horses, and threw her left foot over so that she was astride.

“No kickin’ now! Baldy is watchin’ out of the corner of his eye,” said this wild-bee hunter.

The indignity of her position, astride a horse with her dress caught above her knees, was the last Lucy could endure.

“Please let — me down,” she whispered. “I’ll — go — with you.”

“Wal, I’m shore glad you’re goin’ to show sense,” he drawled, and with action markedly in contrast to his former ones he helped her dismount.

Lucy staggered back against the porch, so weak she could hardly stand. She stared at this young backwoodsman, whose bronzed face had paled slightly.

He had bruised her arms and terrified her. Overcome by her sensations, she burst into tears.

“Aw, don’t cry!” Edd expostulated. “I’m sorry I had to force you...An’ you don’t want to go to a dance with red eyes an’ nose.”

If Lucy had not been so utterly shocked she could have laughed at his solicitude. Hopeless indeed was this backwoodsman. She strove to regain control over her feelings, and presently moved her hands from her face.

“Is there any place down there — to change — where a girl can dress?” she asked huskily. “I can’t ride horseback in this.”

“Shore is,” he said gaily.

“Very well,” returned Lucy. “I’ll get a dress — and go with you.”

She went to her room and, opening the closet, she selected the prettiest of the several dresses she had brought. This, with slippers, comb, and brush and mirror, she packed in a small grip. She seemed stunned, locked in a kind of maze. Kidnapped! Forced by a wild-bee hunter to go to a backwoods dance! Of all adventures possible to her, this one seemed the most incredible! Yet had she not been selfish, heartless? What right had she to come among such crude people and attempt to help them? This outrage would end her ambition.

Then hurriedly slipping into her riding clothes, Lucy took the bag and returned to the porch.

“Wal, now that’s fine,” said Edd, as he reached for the grip. He helped her mount and shortened the stirrups without speaking. Then he put a big hand on the pommel of her saddle and looked up at her.

“Shore now, if it’d been Sadie or any girl I know, she’d have gone in an’ barred the door,” he said. “I just been thinkin’ that over. Shore I didn’t think you’d lie.”

Lucy endeavoured to avert her gaze. Her horror had not faded. But again the simplicity of this young man struck her.

“Do you want to back out now an’ stay home?” he went on.

“You are making me go by force,” she returned. “You said you’d hawg-tie me, didn’t you?”

“Wal, reckon I did,” he replied. “But I was riled an’ turrible set on takin’ you...Your havin’ a chance to lock yourself in! Now you didn’t do it an’ I savvied you wouldn’t.”

Lucy made no reply. What was going on in the mind of this half savage being? He fascinated while he repelled her. It would have been false to herself had she denied the fact that she felt him struggling with his instincts, unconsciously fighting himself, reaching out blindly. He was a living proof of the evolution of man toward higher things.

“Wal, reckon I’ll let you off,” he declared at length.

“Are you afraid I’ll tell what a brute you were?” she flashed sarcastically.

His lean face turned a dark red and his eyes grew piercing.

“Hell, no!” he ejaculated. “Shore I don’t care what you tell. But I’d hate to have you think same as Sadie an’ those girls.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she replied. “You’d never understand.”

“Wal, I would, if you thought like them.”

“Is it possible you could expect me to think anything but hard of you — after the way you treated me?” she demanded, with returning spirit.

“Hard? Reckon I don’t mind that,” he returned ponderingly. “Anyway, I’ll let you off, just because you wasn’t tricky.”

“No, you won’t let me off,” asserted Lucy. “I’m going to this dance...and you’ll take the consequences!”

Chapter VI

AT THE CORRAL gate Edd Denmeade swung his long length off his horse and held the gate open for Lucy to ride through.

“Wal, want to go fast or slow?” he asked as he mounted again.

“Prisoners have no choice,” retorted Lucy.

Evidently that remark effectually nipped in the bud any further desire for conversation. His grey eyes seemed to be piercing her, untroubled yet questioning. He put his horse to a trot. Lucy’s mount, without urging, fell in behind. His easy gait proved to be most agreeable to her. He was a pacer, and Lucy recognised at once that he was the kind of a horse it was a great pleasure to ride. He appeared to be eager, spirited, yet required no constant watching and holding.

The trail led into the forest, a wide, dusty, winding path full of all kinds of tracks, one of which Lucy thought she recognised as Dick’s. She had noticed his enormous feet. Patches of manzanita, clamps of live oak, thickets of pine, bordered the trail. Above these towered the stately rugged-barked monarchs of the forest. The last of the afterglow of sunset flowed rosily on the clouds; through the green lace-work of trees gleamed the gold of the wandering wall above her. Shadows were lying low in the ravines headed away from the trail. Presently this level of woodland ended and there was a sharp descent, down which the trail zigzagged by easy stages. Then again the forest appeared level. Lucy heard the dreamy hum of a waterfall. Here Edd took to a swinging lope, and Lucy’s horse, as before, fell into the faster stride.

The forest grew darker and cooler. The trail wound in and out, always hiding what was beyond. Sometimes Edd’s horse was out of sight. Lucy found herself in a strange contention of mind. Despite her anger and the absurdity of her being dragged virtually a prisoner to this dance, the novelty of the situation and the growing sensations of the ride seemed to be combining to make her enjoy them, whether she wanted to or not. That would be a humiliation she must not suffer. Yet no doubt the horse Baldy was the finest she had ever ridden. She had to fight herself to keep from loving him. Nor could she help but revel in this lonely, fragrant trail through the wild dales and glades. They rode out of levels and down steps, and crossed rushing brooks; and it appeared that Edd kept going a little faster all the time. Yet he never looked back to see how she fared. No doubt he heard her horse.

Twilight turned the greens and browns to grey. In the denser parts of the forest Lucy could scarcely see the dim pale trail ahead. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of a fire. It disappeared as she loped along, and then reappeared. Then, all too soon, she thought, they rode into a clearing dominated by a large low building, half logs and half rough boards. A fire burned brightly under a huge pine near the edge of the clearing, and it was surrounded by noisy boys and girls. Horses were haltered to saplings all around. Wagons and queer-looking vehicles attested to the fact that a road led to this forest school-house.

Edd halted at the rear of the building, and, dismounting, he set Lucy’s grip on the ground and turned to help her off. But Lucy ignored him and slipped quickly down. She was warm, throbbing from the brisk exertion of riding, and in spite of herself not wholly unresponsive to the adventure.

“Wal, we’re shore here,” drawled Edd happily, no doubt keenly alive to the shouts of the young people round the fire. “You can dress in there.”

He led her to a door at the back of the school-house. Lucy mounted the high log steps to enter. The room was bare, a small addition built against the building. There was no one in it, a fact that relieved Lucy. A lighted lamp stood on a table. On one side was a built-in couch covered with dried pine boughs. Besides these articles of furniture there wag a box to serve as a chair.

Lucy closed the door and hurriedly set about the business of dressing. She was not in any hurry to go out to meet Edd and the people at this dance; but she found it expedient to do so, owing to the cold. The bare room was like a barn. Once dressed, Lucy rather regretted bringing her best and most attractive gown. She had selected it hastily and in a moment of stress. Excitement and exertion had left her pale, with eyes darker than usual. She could not spare time on her hair, but it looked the better for that.

“If this mirror doesn’t lie I never looked half so well,” she murmured. “Now, Mr. Edd Denmeade, wild-bee hunter and wild kidnapper, we’ll see!”

Lucy’s mood did not tolerate the maxims and restraints she had set for herself. On the moment she was ready to abandon her cherished ambition to succeed in welfare work. Gorillas and outlaws and bee hunters were a little beyond her ken. Edd Denmeade had laid hold of her in a savage manner, to which the dark-blue marks on her white arms could attest. Lucy did not stop to analyse her anger and the limits to which it might drive her. One thing at least was clear to her, and it was that she would use all a woman’s guile and charm to make Edd Denmeade rue this night. At first she had intended to go straight to his father and mother and tell of the indignity that had been done her. But she had changed her mind during the ride, and now that she was dressed in her best her mood underwent further change. She had brought a light-blue silk scarf to go with her white gown, and throwing this round her bare shoulders she sallied forth. As she stepped down to the ground the bright blaze from the fire blinded her, yet she saw a tall dark form detach itself from the circle there and approach her.

“You shore dressed pronto,” drawled Edd.

Lucy put her hand on his arm and walked beside him, perfectly aware of his long stare. He led her round the school-house to a front entrance, where another crowd of boys and girls whispered and gaped.

“Our old fiddler’s late,” said her escort, “an’ I reckon the gang is rarin’ to dance.”

Edd had to push himself through a crowd just inside the door, and he did it in a rather imperative way. Once through this line, Lucy saw a large bare board floor, then a large room lighted by many lamps, and many people sitting and standing around the walls. Edd was leading her across the room toward a corner where there were a stove and a table. Here was congregated another group, including women and children. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie came to meet them; and if Lucy had wanted any evidence of creating a sensation, she had it now.

“Wal, ma, here we are,” drawled Edd as coolly as if there were no strained situation. Perhaps for him there was none.

“For goodness’ sake!” exclaimed his mother, in delight. “Lucy, I’m shore awful glad to see you here. You fooled us bad. That boy of mine is a fox.”

Lucy’s murmured reply did not include any of the epithets she might have laid upon Edd Denmeade. Allie appeared even more delighted to see her.

“Oh, it was good of you to come!” she whispered, taking Lucy’s arm and squeezing it. “You look perfectly lovely. An’ all the boys will die.”

“I hope it’ll not be so bad as that,” laughed Lucy, softening unexpectedly. The warmth of her welcome and the extravagant praise of her appearance were too much for her. Whatever she felt toward Edd Denmeade, she could not extend to these simple, impulsive people. This was their social life, the one place they gathered to have pleasure, and here they seemed very different. Lucy was at once the cynosure of all eyes, and was surrounded by old and young alike. The twins, Liz and Lize, after their first blank bewilderment as at an apparition in white, clung to her with the might of conscious pride of possession. Denmeade and Uncle Bill greeted her with wrinkled faces wreathed in smiles. Lucy met Claypools, Millers, Johnsons, and numberless others whose names she could not remember. Edd brought young men, all lean, rangy giants, whom she could not have distinguished one from another. It dawned on Lucy that he wanted most of the boys there to meet her and dance with her. Indeed, he showed no selfish interest. But Lucy did not really look at Edd until Mrs. Denmeade, during an opportune moment, whispered to her:

“Lucy, I reckon Edd’s the proudest boy in the whole world. Pa said the same. We never seen him this way before. He was never happy at our dances. But you’ve done him good by comin’, an’ I’m thankin’ you.”

Whereupon Lucy forced herself to gaze upon the escort who had gone to such an extreme to bring her to this dance. And she was to discern that, whatever his misconduct toward her, he was now wearing his laurels with becoming modesty. For Lucy could not blind herself to the fact that she was the star attraction of this dance, and that Edd had brought his rivals to a state of envy. Both circumstances pleased her. Seldom had she ever been the belle of a dance. Every young man who met her begged the privilege of dancing with her. And as introductions were quick and many she could not remember names. How she enjoyed seeing Sam Johnson beg Edd for a dance with her! And Edd showed no rancour, no remembrance of insults, but with a courtesy that would not have ill become one in higher walks of life he gratified Sam. Lucy found the situation different from what she had anticipated. To revenge herself upon Edd Denmeade she had determined to be frigid to him and as sweet as she could make herself to every other boy there, particularly Sam Johnson. Not yet did she repudiate that unworthy resolve, though something was working on her — the warmth of her welcome — the pleasure she was giving — the honour she had unwittingly conferred upon this crude woodsman, the simplicity with which he took his triumph.

It dawned upon Lucy that there was only one reason why she could not thoroughly enjoy this dance, and it was because of what she called the brutal circumstances of her coming. Why had she not been willing and glad to come? Too late! The indignity had been perpetrated and she could not forget it. Nevertheless, she felt stir in her something besides the desire to shine and attract for the sole purpose of making Edd Denmeade miserably jealous. It was an honest realisation that she could like these people and enjoy herself.

Commotion and stamping of feet and merry voices rose from the front of the school-house. Lucy was informed that the music had arrived. She saw an old man proudly waving a violin and forging his way to the tiny platform. The children screeched and ran for him. Edd joined the group with whom Lucy was standing. Then a loud twang from the fiddler set everyone to expectancy. When he began to play the couples moved out upon the floor. Edd said no word, but he reached for Lucy.

“Wait. Let me watch a moment,” she said. “I want to see how you dance.”

“Wal, shore we’re no great shucks at it, but we have fun.”

Soon the floor was half full of wheeling, gliding couples, with more falling in line every moment. Their dancing had only one feature in common with what she understood about dancing, and that was they caught the rhythm of the old fiddler’s several chords.

“Very well, Mr. Denmeade, I think I can catch the step,” said Lucy.

As he took hold of her it was not possible to keep from stiffening somewhat and to hold back. Still, she was to ascertain that Edd showed no thought of holding her closely. How serious he was about this dancing! He was surprisingly easy on his feet. At first Lucy could not fall in with his way of dancing; gradually, however, she caught it, and after several rounds of the room she was keeping time with him. It required a great deal of effort and concentration for Lucy to live up to her repute as a dancer. Manifestly Edd Denmeade did not talk while he danced. In fact, none of the dancers talked. They were deadly serious about it, and the expressions on different faces highly amused Lucy. She could not see that dancing held any sentimental opportunities for these young people. It seemed to Lucy a bobbing, gyrating performance, solemnly enjoyed by boy and girl in markedly loose contact. Really they danced wholly with their own intent and energy. Lucy found Edd’s arm as rugged and unyielding as the branch of an oak. At last the dance ended, to Lucy’s relief.

“Shore you can dance!” exclaimed Edd heartily. “Like a feather! If you hadn’t leaned on my arm I’d not have known you was there. New kind of dancin’ for me!”

Lucy did not deign to reply. He led her back to the corner, where he found her a seat beside his mother. “Shore I hope you dance them all down,” he whispered. “Reckon I wouldn’t be in Sam Johnson’s boots for a lot.”

“What did he mean?” inquired Lucy of his mother, after he had left them.

“Dancin’ anyone down is to make him give up — tire him out,” she replied. “An’ that about Sam Johnson is funny. Sam is reckoned to be the best dancer in these parts. An’ so is Sadie. Wal, as everybody seen right off, Sadie can’t hold a candle to you. An’ Sam is goin’ to find it out.”

“Someone will surely dance me down,” replied Lucy, with a laugh. “I am out of practice.”

It developed that the time between dances was long, and given over to much hilarity and promenading around. The children took advantage of this opportunity to romp over the floor. Lucy soon was surrounded again, so that she could not see very much of what was going on. Sam Johnson claimed her for the next dance. He struck Lucy as being something of a rural beau, quite taken with himself, and not above intimating that she would surely like dancing with him better than with a big-footed bee hunter.

As a matter of fact, when the fiddler started up again Lucy found Sam’s boast to be true. He was a surprisingly good dancer and she enjoyed dancing with him. But it was not this that prompted her to be prodigal of her smiles, and to approach audacity, if not actual flirtation, to captivate Sam. She did not stop to question her motive. He and his girl Sadie had been largely responsible for Edd Denmeade’s affront to her. Yet Lucy did not dream that she was championing Edd. She had been deeply roused. The primitive instincts of these young people were calling to the unknown in her.

Once in the whirling maze of flushed faces Lucy found herself looking right into Sadie Purdue’s eyes. Lucy nodded smilingly. Her greeting was returned, but Sadie failed to hide her jealousy and resentment.

When that dance ended Lucy was besieged by the young men, and gradually she gave herself up to the novelty of the occasion. Now and then she saw Edd dancing or attending someone, but he did not approach her. Mrs. Denmeade apparently took great pride in Lucy’s popularity. The children gradually drooped and were put to sleep in the corner at the back of the stove. Lucy had to take a peep at them, some dozen or more of curly-headed little boys and girls, and several babies, all worn out with excitement and now fast asleep.

Dance after dance followed, stealing the hours away. By midnight, when the intermission and supper were announced by Mr. Denmeade, it seemed to Lucy that she had allowed her impulsiveness and resentment to carry her away. Sam Johnson had more than lived up to the reputation Edd had given him. Only Lucy’s tact saved him from utterly neglecting Sadie; and as it was he made a fool of himself. Mr. Jenks, the teacher, did not dance, and devoted himself to the older people. He had not found opportunity for more than a few words with Lucy, but several times she had caught him intently watching her, especially while she was with Sam. This, more than any other thing, made her reflect that perhaps she had already forgotten the ideal she had propounded to him. She suffered a moment of regret; then, when at the intermission Edd presented himself before her, cool and nonchalant, she could not help being rebellious.

“Wal, reckon I’ll have to lick somebody before this night’s over,” he drawled as he led her across the room.

“Indeed! How interesting!” replied Lucy icily.

“Shore will, unless somebody backs down on what he said...Ma wants you to set with her at supper. Teacher Jenks has somethin’ to say to you. Shore tickles me...Why, Lucy Watson, you’ve made this night the wonderfulest of my life! I’ve had enough dancin’ an’ gettin’ even an’ crawlin’ of these here corn-huskers to last for ever.”

Lucy was afraid that for her, too, something wonderful lurked under the commonplaces of this experience, but she could not confess that Edd Denmeade had created it. She felt how little she was to regret that he had surprised her by not living up to the status of boor and ruffian. Instead of this he had turned out to be something approaching a gentleman. He became an enigma to her. It must be that he had no conception of his rude seizure of her person, his utter disregard of her feelings. Yet here at the dance he had eliminated himself, content to see her whirled about by his cousins and friends, simply radiating with the pride of being her cavalier.

“Reckon I’ll help feed this outfit,” he said, leaving her in a seat between his mother and Mr. Jenks.

“Well, I’d hardly have known you,” said the school teacher with a smile and cordial greeting.

“Wal, I said the same,” averred Mrs. Denmeade. “Shore she just looks lovely.”

Lucy had the grace to blush her pleasure. “I declare this night will ruin my promise as a welfare worker. Too many compliments!”

“Not your promise, but your possibility,” whispered Mr. Jenks significantly. “Young lady, I intend to talk to you like a Dutch uncle.”

“Indeed, I hope you do,” replied Lucy soberly. “Then I’ll have something to tell you.”

A corps of young men, among whom was Edd, passed round the room, distributing sandwiches and coffee, cake and ice cream. Soon the large hall-like place hummed with voices. Every seat along the walls was occupied. Around the entrance clustered a group of youths who had come without partners, and it was plain they felt their misfortune. Nevertheless, they had established some kind of rapport between themselves and other boys’ partners. Lucy’s keen susceptibilities grasped the fact that many of the girls welcomed this state of affairs.

Presently Mr. Jenks found opportunity to say, “You have created a havoc, Miss Lucy.”

“Have I? Well, Mr. Jenks, I’m surely afraid that I wanted to,” she confessed.

“I am not joking,” he continued more earnestly. “Indeed, I make all allowance for a girl’s natural vanity and pleasure in being admired. You are ‘shore good fer sore eyes,’ as I heard one old codger say. You have stormed this schoolhouse crowd. If looks could kill, Sadie Purdue would have had you dead hours ago. They all say, ‘Sam is gone!’...It would be funny — if it were anything else but up in this backwoods.”

“Oh, have I forgotten myself?” exclaimed Lucy aghast.

“Pray don’t misunderstand,” said Mr. Jenks hastily. “I think you very modest and nice, considering the unusual situation. But you have forgotten your welfare work. Of course I don’t see how you can avoid these dances. And that’s the rub. Your popularity will make enemies among the girls and fights among the boys.”

In self-defence Lucy related briefly and vividly how Edd Denmeade had seized her and held her powerless, threatening to tie her, until in her shame and fear she had consented to come to the dance.

“I’m not surprised,” said Mr. Jenks gravely. “These fellows are built that way, and Edd is really what they call him, a wild-bee hunter. I believe that implies almost an Indian’s relationship to the woods. But you must not mistake Edd and do him injustice. It never dawned on him that violence would be a profanation to a girl such as you...Could you honestly accuse him of the least boldness — you know what I mean?”

“No, I’m bound to confess that he handled me as if I were a boy or an old sack,” replied Lucy honestly.

“Well, then, try to understand him. It will not be easy. He’s a savage. But savages are closer to nature than other men, and somehow the better for it...What surprises me is that Edd has not made any fuss yet over Bud Sprall’s attentions to you.”

“Bud Sprall!” exclaimed Lucy with a start of amaze. “Have I met him?”

“Wal, I reckon,” as Edd would say, rejoined the teacher, amused at Lucy’s consternation. “You have danced twice with Bud, and showed that you liked it.”

“Oh, but I didn’t know,” wailed Lucy. “I didn’t catch half the names...Show him to me.”

The school teacher managed presently, in an unobtrusive manner, to indicate which one of Lucy’s partners had been the disreputable Bud Sprall.

“That handsome young fellow!” she burst out incredulously.

“Handsome, yes; Bud’s good-looking enough and he can dance. But he is not just the fellow you can have dangling after you.”

“I took him for one of the relations. There’re so many. And I didn’t see anything wrong with him except, come to think of it, he might have been drinking a little. But he was not the only one upon whom I detected drink.”

“White mule! These boys will fetch a bottle to the dances. It’s the one objectionable feature about their social family affairs. Naturally white mule kicks up fights.”

“Oh, how unfortunate! How thoughtless of me not to know what I was doing!” cried Lucy.

“Don’t be distressed,” he returned kindly. “No harm yet. But I advise you to avoid Bud hereafter.”

“I’m sure I promised him another dance,” said Lucy in perplexity.

“Get out of it, then. And that’s the worst of it. Bud will be sore and make trouble, unless you are very clever.”

“Oh dear! How can I get out of a dance I’ve promised?...And that Sam Johnson I was nice to him, deliberately. He’s such a conceited fellow. I’m afraid I let him think he’d made a wonderful impression on me.”

“Miss Watson, I have an inspiration,” rejoined Mr. Jenks animatedly. “Confide in Edd. Get him to help you out of your dilemma.”

“Edd! How could I? Impossible!” replied Lucy heatedly.

“Of course that’s for you to say. But if you don’t, and cannot extricate yourself, I imagine you will only get in deeper.”

Lucy, seeing Mrs. Denmeade approaching with friends, was unable to continue discussing the situation with Mr. Jenks. The parents of the children present were eager to talk to Lucy, and they asked innumerable questions. Before she realised the fleeting by of the supper hour the fiddler started one of his several tunes, and there followed a rush of dancers to the floor.

Edd did not exhibit any considerable alacrity in approaching her for this first number after the intermission.

“Want to dance this with me?” he queried coolly.

“Isn’t it customary?” replied Lucy as she glanced over the dancers to select some she knew.

“Shore. But if you don’t want to dance with me I’d as lief not have you.”

“Oh, really!...Would you expect me to be dying to dance with you?” retorted Lucy with sarcasm.

“Nope. I’m not thinkin’ about myself. But you think I am. My folks all reckon you’re havin’ the wonderfulest time. Wal, I hope so, but I’ve a hunch you’re not. For I’ve been watchin’ you. I saw you with Mr. Jenks.”

“Really, it’d only be honest to confess that — that I’m enjoying myself — when I forget how I happened to come,” said Lucy.

“So I reckoned. An’ you can have this dance with anyone you want.”

“But — you brought me here. Won’t it look strange if you don’t dance with me?” she queried with concern.

“Wal, the strangest thing that ever happened in this school-house was for a Denmeade’s girl to dance with a Sprall,” he returned bitterly.

“Oh! I am not your girl...And I had not the remotest idea I was dancing with Bud Sprall. I only just found out. Mr. Jenks told me.”

“Say, you didn’t know it was Bud Sprall you danced with twice?” he demanded, with piercing eyes of doubt.

“Absolutely no. I never caught his name,” confessed Lucy.

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned! I wish everybody knew that. Shore I can tell my folks,” he said ponderingly.

“Edd, I’m afraid I promised him another dance — after supper,” went on Lucy nervously. She realised there was an undercurrent here, a force of antagonism quite beyond her. When his face turned white she was nearer the truth. Abruptly he wheeled to leave her, but Lucy was quick to catch his sleeve and draw him back. The dancers crowded them to the wall.

“Do not leave me alone,” she said swiftly. “Remember that I am a stranger here. You brought me against my will. I can hardly be blamed for dancing with Bud Sprall when I did not know who he was.”

“Reckon that’s all right,” he replied, gazing down on her. “But you was sweet on Bud, an’ you’ve shore turned Sam Johnson’s head.”

Lucy strove valiantly to keep her temper and find her wits. She began to have an inkling why Mr. Jenks was so concerned over her predicament.

“Suppose I was? Didn’t you deserve to be punished?” she queried.

“Reckon I don’t savvy you,” he rejoined doubtfully. “Shore you strike me a little like Sadie Purdue.”

“We are all women. Nevertheless, I don’t consider that a compliment. But...you brought me here. I’ve made a mess of it. I was — well, never mind now. Only, it’s your duty to help me not make, it worse.”

“Who’s sayin’ I wouldn’t help you?” he queried.

“You started to leave me.”

“Wal, you said you’d another dance with Bud.”

“But I didn’t know who he was. Now I do know, I won’t dance with him. I don’t want to. I’m very sorry I blundered. But he seemed nice and — and—”

“Bud has a way with girls,” said Edd simply, “Shore he’s slicker than Sam.”

“Will you take me home?” she asked urgently.

“Shore. But I reckon that’d make worse talk. You’d better stay an’ let me take care of you.”

“I — I’ll do what you want me to,” replied Lucy faintly.

“Wal, dance this with me. Then I’ll hang around an’ keep an eye on you. Keep out of that ring-around dance where they change partners all the time. When Bud or Sam comes up, you give me a look, an’ I’ll be there pronto. Shore all your dances are mine, an’ I don’t have to give any more to Bud or Sam.”

“Thank you. I — I hope it turns out all right,” replied Lucy.

While she danced her mind was active. She regretted her rash determination to make this crude backwoods youth jealous. He had certainly disappointed her in that regard. After awakening to the situation, first through her conversation with Mr. Jenks and later with Edd, she realised she had jeopardised her welfare work. No matter what affront she had suffered; she should not have been so silly, so reckless, so undeserving of the trust placed in her. Yet what provocation! Her nerves tingled at the thought.

When the dance ended Edd relinquished her to one of his cousins, and gradually Lucy lost her worry for the time being. The next dance was the ring-around, which Lucy refused to enter, remaining beside Mrs. Denmeade. Here she had opportunity to watch, and enjoyed it immensely. The dancing grew fast and furious. When the dancers formed in a ring and wheeled madly round the room, shrieking and laughing, they shook the school-house till it rattled.

It developed that Edd Denmeade was more than a match for Bud Sprall when he presented himself for the dance Lucy had promised. But the interchange of cool speech struck Lucy keenly with its note of menace. Sprall’s dark handsome face expressed a raw, sinister hate. Denmeade wore a laconic mask, transparent to any observer. The advantage was his. Finally Sprall turned to Lucy.

“I ain’t blamin’ you, for I know you want to dance with me,” he said. “Reckon I’ll not forget. Good night.”

Sam Johnson was not so easy to dispose of. Manifestly he and Edd were friends, which fact made the clash devoid of rancour.

“Wal, Sam, see here,” drawled Edd finally. “You go an’ fetch Sadie up. Reckon I’d like a dance with her. You’ve only had five dances with Miss Lucy. This here one will be six, if Sadie is willin’ to trade off. So fetch her up.”

“Edd, I haven’t got Sadie for this dance,” fumed Sam. “Then you’re out of luck. For I shore won’t give up my partner.”

Sam tramped away in high dudgeon. Lucy danced once round the room with Edd, and then joined the group outside eating ice cream beside the fire. Dawn was grey in the east. How dark the forest and mournful the wind! Lucy edged nearer the fire. She had become conscious of extreme fatigue, and longed for this unforgettable night to end.

Nevertheless, she danced until daylight. Her slippers were worn through. Her feet were dead. Never before in her life had Lucy expended such physical energy. She marvelled at those girls who were reluctant to let the old fiddler off.

Lucy changed the white dress and slippers for her riding clothes. Though the morning was frosty, she did not feel the cold. How she could ever ride up to the Denmeade cabin she had no idea.

“Better get me on your horse before I drop,” she told Edd.

He wanted her to remain there at the school-house with the children and girls, who were not to go home until evening. Mrs. Denmeade and Mrs. Claypool were getting breakfast for those who stayed. Lucy, refusing, was persuaded to drink a cup of coffee. Then Edd put her up on Baldy. All around the clearing boys and girls were mounting horses, and some of the older folk were driving off in wagons. Gay good-byes were exchanged. Lucy rode into the woods with the Denmeades.

At first the saddle and motion seemed a relief after such incessant dancing. But Lucy soon discovered that her strength was almost spent. Only vaguely did she see the beauty of the forest in the clear, crisp, fragrant morning. She had no sense of the stirrups and she could not catch the swing of the horse. The Denmeades trotted and loped on the levels, and walked up the slopes. Lucy could not have endured any one kind of riding for very long. She barely managed to hang on until they reached home.

The sun was rising in rosy splendour over the eastern wall. Wild turkeys were gobbling from the ridge behind the cabin. The hounds rang out a chorus of bays and barks in welcome.

Lucy almost fell out of the saddle. Edd was there beside her, quick to lend a hand.

“Wal, I reckon it was a night for both of us,” he said. “But shore I don’t want another like it, unless what I pretended was really true.”

Murmuring something in reply, Lucy limped to her room, and barring the door she struggled to remove her boots. They might as well have been full of thorns, considering the pangs they gave her.

“Oh — oh — what a — terrible night!” she gasped, falling on the bed, fully dressed. “Yet — I know I wouldn’t have missed it — for worlds...Oh, I’m dead! I’ll never wake up!”

Chapter VII

IT WAS MIDSUMMER. The mornings were pleasant, the days hot and still, the evenings sultry and purple, with massed clouds in the west.

The July rains had left the ridges and open patches and the edges of the clearings colourful and fragrant with flowers. Corn and cane and beans were green and wavy in the fields. A steady line of bees flew by the cabin porch, to and fro from hives to woods. And a drowsy murmuring hum made music down by-the shady stream.

At sunrise the home of the Denmeades seemed to be a rendezvous for the frisky chipmunk and chattering red squirrel, for squalling blue jay and whistling hawk and cawing crow, and for the few wild singing birds of the locality. At noon the woods were locked in hot, drowsy stillness; the pine needles did not quiver; heat veils rose smokily from the glades. At evening a melancholy pervaded the wilderness.

One Saturday Lucy sat meditating in the tent that had long been her abode. It was situated out under the pines on the edge of the gully. The boys had built a platform of rough-hewn boards, and a framework of poles, over which the canvas had been stretched. The floor was high above the ground, so that Lucy had long lost the fear of snakes and tarantulas. Indeed this outdoor home had grown wonderfully dear to her. By day she heard the tiny patter of pine needles on the tent; at night the cool winds blew through, and in the moonlight shadows of swaying branches moved above her.

Lucy had problems on her mind. As far as the Denmeades were concerned, her welfare work had been successful beyond her dreams. The time was approaching when in all fairness she must go to another family. She would keenly regret leaving this place she had learned to love, yet she wanted to do as well by others as she had done by the Denmeades. When to go — that was part of the problem.

Another disturbing factor came in the shape of a letter from her sister Clara. It had shocked her and induced a regurgitation of almost forgotten emotions. The letter lay open in her lap. It must be reread and considered and decided upon — matters Lucy was deferring.

The last and perhaps most perplexing question concerned Edd Denmeade. Lucy had to go back in retrospect. The trouble between Edd and her dated back to the dance in May, the one which he had forced her to attend. Lucy had gone to other dances since then, but Edd had never attended another. She might in time have forgiven him for that exhibition of his primitiveness, but shortly afterward he had precipitated something which resulted in their utter estrangement. The bee hunter was the only one of the Denmeades who had not wondrously benefited by her work. He had lost by her presence. He had gone back farther. He exhibited signs of becoming a solitary wanderer in the woods most of the time, a violent and dangerous young man when he did mingle with people. Lucy had forced upon her the undoubted fact that she was the cause of this. No one else knew yet, not even Edd’s mother. Lucy could not take unadulterated pride and joy in her success. She did not see how she could have avoided such a situation, yet regret haunted her. And now with decisions to make she vacillated over the important ones, and brought to mind the scene that had turned Edd Denmeade aside from the happier influences and tasks which she had imposed upon his family.

Shortly after that dance Edd had come up to her where she sat on the corral fence watching the boys roping and shoeing a horse.

“I reckon I’m goin’ to ask you a question,” he announced. Almost his tone was the cool drawling one habitual with him; here, however, there seemed something deep, inevitable behind his words.

“Goodness! Don’t ask me to go to another dance,” laughed Lucy.

“Reckon I’ll never dance again, unless—” He broke off. “An’ what I’m goin’ to ask you I’ve asked other girls. Shore this is the last time.”

“Well, what is it?” queried Lucy, suddenly perturbed. “Will you marry me?”

Notwithstanding the fact that she was startled, Lucy burst into mirth. It must have been the opposite to what she felt, a nervousness expressing itself in laughter. But it appeared to be unfortunate.

“I — I beg pardon, Edd,” she made haste to say. “Really! didn’t mean to laugh at you. But you — you surprised me so...You can’t be serious.”

“Reckon I don’t know just what I am,” he replied grimly. “But I’m askin’ you to marry me.”

“Because you want a home and a woman? I heard your father say that.”

“Shore. That’s the way I’ve felt. Reckon this is more. I’ve told my folks an’ relations I was askin’ you. Wanted them to know.”

“Edd, I cannot marry you,” she replied gravely.

“Why not?” he demanded. “You’re here. You want to work for us. An’ I reckon I could help you as much as you could me.”

“That’s true. You could help me a great deal. But I’m sorry I can’t marry you.”

“Reckon you’re too good for a backwoodsman, a wild-bee hunter who’s been jilted by other girls,” he asserted, with a strange, deep utterance.

“No. You’re wrong,” declared Lucy, both touched and angered by his speech. “I don’t think I’m too good. That dance you dragged me to cured me of my vanity.”

“Wal, then, what’s the reason?” he went on. “Ma says you’re goin’ to stay among us people for years. If that’s so you’ll have to marry one of us. I’m askin’ you first.”

“Edd, an honest girl could not marry a man she didn’t love,” replied Lucy. “Nor can a man be honest asking a girl whom he does not love.”

“Shore I am honest. I’m no liar,” he retorted. “I’m just plain man. I don’t know much of people or books. But I know the woods, an’ reckon I can learn what you want me to.”

“I don’t mean honest in that sense,” rejoined Lucy. “I mean you don’t love me.”

“Love you! Are you like Sadie, who told around that I’d never kissed her?”

“No, I’m not like Sadie,” answered Lucy with rising temper.

“Wal, I’m askin’ your pardon,” he said. “Shore you’re different from Sadie...As for this love you girls talk about I don’t know — I always felt a man should keep his hands an’ his lips to himself until he had a wife.”

“Edd, I respect you for that,” replied Lucy earnestly. “And understand you better...But love is not kisses and all that.”

“Wal, what is it, then?”

“It is something beautiful, spiritual as well as physical. It is a longing for the welfare, the happiness, the good of someone as well as the sweetness of desire. For a woman love means what Ruth said in the Bible, ‘Whither thou goest, I will go. Thy people shall be my people, thy God my God.’...A man who loves a woman will do anything for her — sacrifice himself. The greater his sacrifice the greater his love. And last he ought to feel that he could not live without the object of his affections.”

“Wal, I reckon I don’t love you,” replied Edd ponderingly.

“Of course you don’t. You’re only thinking of yourself,” rejoined Lucy.

“Reckon I can’t help what I think. Who put all this in my head?”

“Edd, you haven’t got anything in your head,” retorted Lucy, unable to restrain her pique and scorn. “That’s the trouble. You need education. All your people need education more than anything else.”

“Wal, why don’t you teach me same as you do Liz and Lize?” he complained.

“You’re a grown man!” ejaculated Lucy. “You want to molly me! And you talk like a child.”

“Shore I could make you marry me — same as I made you go to the dance,” he said ruthlessly.

For an instant Lucy stared at him, too stunned to reply. The simplicity of his words and conviction was as monstrous as the idea they conveyed. How strange that, though a fury suddenly flamed up in her breast, she had a doubt of herself, a fear that he could do what he wanted to do with her!

“Make me marry you! Never!” she burst out thickly.

“Shore I’d not care what you said,” he replied.

Lucy’s amaze and wrath knew no bounds. “You — you—” She choked, almost unable to express herself. “You savage! You couldn’t even love yourself. You’re—” She was utterly at a loss to find words. “Why, you’re a fool — that’s what you are!...If you mention marriage again I’ll give up my work here and leave.”

Then and then only did it seem to dawn upon him that there was something wrong with his mind. He gave Lucy a blank, dead stare, as if he saw something through her. The vitality and intensity withered out of his face. He dropped his head and left her.

That scene had been long weeks past. For days Edd had remained out in the woods, and when he returned there was a difference in him. None of the family, however, apparently attributed it to Lucy. But she knew. At first, such was her antagonism, she did not care what he did or what became of him; but gradually, as the weeks wore on and she had such wonderful success with her work, while he grew wilder and stranger, she began to pity instead of despising him. Poor backwoods boy. How could he help himself? He had been really superior to most of his cousins and friends. Seldom did he do any work at home, except with his bees. Rumour credited him with fights and brawls, and visits to the old moonshiner who distilled the liquor called white mule. His mother worried incessantly. His father passed from concern to grief. “Dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “Edd’s headed like them Sprall boys. An’ who’d ever think it!”

Likewise, Lucy passed from pity to worry, and from that to a conscience-stricken accusation. If for no other reason she was to blame because she had come to Cedar Ridge. This fall of Edd’s was taking the sweetness out of her success. Could the teaching of a few children balance the ruin of their brother? How impossible not to accuse herself of the change in him! She felt it every time she saw him.

At last Lucy saw clearly that her duty consisted in a choice between giving up her welfare work there and winning Edd Denmeade back to what he had been before she came. Thought of abandoning that work would scarcely stay before her consciousness, yet she forced herself to think of it. She had found a congenial, uplifting vocation for herself. But it was one that she could give up, if it were right to do so. There were other things she could find to do. Coming to think of the change in the Denmeade household, the cleanliness and brightness, the elimination of unsanitary habits, the saving of labour, the development of the children’s minds, she could not persuade herself that it would be otherwise than cowardice for her to quit now.

“I must stay,” soliloquised Lucy, at last seeing clearly. “If I quit now, all my life I’d be bitter because I failed of the opportunity I prayed for...Then, if I stay I must save Edd Denmeade...It would be welfare work of the noblest kind...What it costs me must not matter.”

Lucy deliberately made the choice, for good or ill to herself, with her eyes wide open and all her faculties alive to the nature of her task and the limits it might demand. Her home life had inured her to sacrifice. That thought brought her back to Clara and the letter which lay open in her lap. With a wrench of her spirit she took it up and reread:

Felix,

July 10.

Dearest Lucy,

I came back from Mendino to find you gone. I deserved my disappointment, because I’ve never written you. But, Lucy, it wasn’t because I’d forgotten. I was ashamed. I eloped with Jim, as you know, because father had no use for him. Well, if I had listened to you I’d not be miserable and alone now. Jim turned out worse than anyone thought. He didn’t even marry me. I’m as much to blame for the whole business as he. The most shameful thing for me, however, was to discover I didn’t love him. I was just crazy.

Father shut the door in my face. I’ve been staying with an old schoolmate, Mamie Blaize, who has been kind. But, Lucy, I can’t stay here. Felix will be no place for me, after they find out.

I went to the State Department who employ you. From them I got your address. The woman there was very nice. She spoke of your success, and that you had paved the way for extensive welfare work in other parts of the state. Lucy, I’m proud of you. It was always in you — to do good.

I’m not very well or very strong. Won’t you please let me come out there and stay with you? I’ll get well and work my fingers to the bone for you. Let me show you I’ve had my bitter lesson. I need you, Lucy, dear, for sometimes I grow reckless. I have horrible spells of blues. I’m afraid. And if you fail me I don’t know what in the world I’ll do. But you won’t fail me. I seem to feel that deep inside me. It makes me realise what I lacked.

Send me money at once to come, and tell me what to do — how to get there. Please, Lucy, I beg you. I’m in the dust. To think after scorning your love and advice I’d come crawling on my knees to you. Judge what has happened to me by that. Hurry and write.

Love,

Clara.

This letter saddened Lucy more because of its revival of memory of the beloved little sister than the news it contained. Lucy had never expected anything but catastrophe for Clara. It had come, and speedily; Clara had been away from Felix a year and a half. She was now nearly nineteen. This frank letter revealed a different girl.

Lucy re-read it, pondered over what she confessed, wept over the ruin of her, yet rejoiced over the apparent birth of soul. Clara had never been one to beg. She had been a sentimental, headstrong girl and she could not be restrained. Lucy forgave her now, sorrowed for the pitiful end of her infatuation for the cowboy Jim Middleton, and with a rush of the old sisterly tenderness she turned to her table to answer that letter. Her response was impulsive, loving, complete, with never a word of reproach. She was accepting Clara’s changed attitude toward life as an augury of hope for the future. She would help take the burden of responsibility for that future. It was never too late, Clara must reconstruct her life among new people, and if her disgrace became public she could never return to Felix. Better perhaps that Felix become only a memory!

Lucy concluded that letter with interesting bits of information about this wilderness country, the beauty of its forests, and the solitude of its backwoods homes. She did not include any remarks anent the stalwart young backwoodsmen or their susceptibilities to the charms of young girls. Even as she thought of this Lucy recalled Clara’s piquant, pretty face, her graceful form, her saucy provocative ways. How would Edd Denmeade, and that fine quiet brother Joe, respond to the presence of the pretty sister? Lucy had to dispel misgivings. The die was cast. She would not fail the erring Clara. Enclosing a money order on her office, Lucy sealed the letter and stamped it with an air of finality and a feeling of relief and happiness. It had taken a calamity to drive Clara to her heart and protection.

“There!” she breathed low, almost with a sob. “That’s done, and I’m glad...Come to remember, that’s the second decision in regard to my problem. There was a third — when should I leave the Denmeades?...I can’t leave just yet. I will stay. They have begged me to stay...It cannot matter, just so long as I do my duty by these other families.”

Then Lucy assuaged her conscience and derived a strange joy out of the decisions she had made. Where might they lead her? The great forest arms of the wilderness seemed to be twining round her. She was responding to unknown influences. Her ideals were making pale and dim the dreams she had once cherished of her own personal future — a home — children — happiness. These were not for everyone. She sighed, and cast away such sentiment.

“Edd would say I’m bogged down in welfare work,” she said. “Now to go out and begin all over again!”

It seemed significant that as she stepped out of her tent she espied Edd stalking up the lane toward the cabin. He had not been home for days and his ragged apparel showed contact with the woods. As Lucy halted by the gate to wait for him, she felt her heart beat faster. Whatever sensations this wild-bee hunter roused, not one of them was commonplace.

“Good morning, Edd,” said Lucy cheerfully, as if that greeting had always been her way with him. “You’re just the person I want to see. Where have you been so long?”

“Howdy!” he replied as he stopped before her. He gave her one of his piercing looks, but showed no surprise. He appeared thin, hard, hungry, and strained. He had not shaved for days, and his dark downy beard enhanced the strange wild atmosphere that seemed to cling round him. “I’ve been linin’ new bees. Reckon it was high time I set to work. It’s shore a fine year for bees. You see, there wasn’t much rain. A rainy spring makes lots of yellow-jackets, an’ them darn insects kill the wild bees an’ steal their honey. This dry season keeps down the yellow-jackets. Reckon I’ll have my best year findin’ honey. Lined two trees to-day.”

“When will you get the honey?” inquired Lucy.

“Not till after frost comes. October is best.”

“Will you take me some day when you line bees and also when you get the honey?” asked Lucy, plunging headlong into her chosen task. She wanted to burn her bridges behind her. If she listened to caution and selfish doubts she could never keep to her decision. She expected her deliberate request to amaze Edd and cause him to show resentment or bitterness. But he exhibited neither.

“Shore will. Any time you say,” he drawled, as he dragged his trailing rope to him and coiled it.

“I’ve news for you. I’m having my sister Clara come out to live with me,” she announced.

“Shore that’ll be good,” he replied with interest. “How old is she an’ what’s she like?”

“Clara is nearly nineteen. She’s blonde, very different from me. And very pretty.”

“Wal, you’re light-headed yourself, an’ I reckon not so different.”

“Edd, are you paying me a compliment?” she asked archly.

“Nope. I just mean what I say. When’ll your sister come?”

“If all goes well she’ll arrive in Cedar Ridge on the stage Wednesday week. But someone must ride in to-morrow so my letter can catch Monday’s stage.”

“Give it to me. I’m ridin’ to Cedar Ridge this afternoon.”

“Edd, did you intend to go anyway?”

“Wal, reckon I didn’t,” he declared honestly. “I’ve had about enough of town.”

“You’ve been drinking and fighting?”

“Shore,” he answered simply, as if there were no disgrace attached to that.

“I don’t want you to go to town with my letter unless you promise me you’ll neither drink nor fight,” she said earnestly.

Edd laughed. “Say, you’re takin’ interest in me mighty late. What for?”

“Better late than never. I refuse to discuss my reasons. But will you promise?”

“Wal, yes, about the white mule. Sorry I can’t promise about fightin’. I’ve too many enemies I’ve ticked, an’ if I happened to run into one of them, drunk or no drunk, they’d be a-rarin’ to get at me.”

“Then I’d rather you stayed away from Cedar Ridge.”

“Wal, so would I. Honest, Lucy, I’m sort of sick. Don’t know what it is. But to-day in the woods I began to feel a little like my old self. It’s bee huntin’ I need. To get away from people!”

“People will never hurt you, Edd. It’s only that you will not like them...Tell me, have you had trouble with Bud Sprall?”

“Nope. Funny, too. For Bud’s been lookin’ powerful hard for me. He never goes to town an’ I never go to dances, so we haven’t bucked into each other.”

“What’s this trouble between you and Bud? Doesn’t it date back to that dance you took me to?”

“Wal, it’s part because of somethin’ he said about you at that dance. I’d have beat him half to death right there, only I didn’t want to spoil your good time.”

He seemed apologising to her for a softness that he regretted.

“About me!” exclaimed Lucy in surprise. “What was it?”

“Reckon I’m not hankerin’ to tell,” he replied reluctantly. “Shore I always blamed myself for lettin’ it happen. But that night I was plumb locoed.”

“Edd, if it is something you can tell me, do so at once,” demanded Lucy.

“Wal, I can tell it easy enough,” returned Edd, with a smile breaking the hardness of his grimy face. “Bud just bragged about peepin’ through the cracks of the shed back of the schoolhouse. Swore he watched you undress.”

“Oh — the sneak!” burst out Lucy, suddenly flaming.

“Wal, don’t let the idea upset you,” drawled Edd. “For Bud was a liar. He never saw you. He just hatched that up after you wouldn’t give him the other dance.”

“How do you know?” queried Lucy, in swift relief.

“Reckon I didn’t know that night. But shore I found out afterward. I rode down to the schoolhouse an’ looked. There wasn’t a crack in that shed anywheres. Not a darn one! You can bet I was careful to make shore. Bud just lied, that’s all. He’s always been a liar. But I reckon I hold it as much against him as if he had seen you...An’ now there’s more I’m sore about.”

Lucy did not delve into her mind to ascertain why she had no impulse to nullify Edd’s anger against Bud Sprall. The subject seemed natural to Edd, but it was embarrassing for her.

“How about my letter?” she asked, ignoring his last speech.

“Gerd’s ridin’ in to-day an’ he’ll go by here. Fetch me the letter an’ I’ll see he gets it.”

Lucy ran back to her tent, and securing it she returned to hand it to Edd, with a word as to its importance.

“Shore. More trouble for us backwood boys!” he ejaculated, amicably, as he grinned.

“Trouble! What do you mean?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well.

“Another pretty girl ridin’ in,” he rejoined, with a hint of pathos, “an’ one that wouldn’t an’ couldn’t care a darn for the likes of us.”

“Edd, that is unkind,” protested Lucy, uncertain how to meet such speeches of his. There seemed only one course to pursue, and that called on all her courage.

“Reckon it is. I’m not as kind feelin’ as I used to be.”

“Indeed you’re not,” returned Lucy hastily. “And I want to talk to you about that. Not now. Some time when you’re rested and cheerful...Come here. I want to show you what I have done during this last absence of yours.”

She led him across the open clearing and along a new-cut path into the woods. It ended abruptly on the edge of the gully. A board walk had been erected on poles, extending some yards out over the gully, to a point just above the spring. By means of a pulley and rope a bucket could be lowered into the spring and hauled up full of water, at very little expenditure of energy. Lucy demonstrated it with ease, showing the great saving of time and effort. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie had been compelled to make many trips a day to this spring, going down the steep trail and climbing back.

“Now what do you say to me? I thought that out and had your father and Uncle Bill put it up,” declared Lucy with pride.

Edd appeared to be either dumbfounded or greatly impressed. He sat down rather abruptly, as if this last manifestation of Lucy’s practical sense had taken something out of him.

“Simple as A B C,” he ejaculated. “Why didn’t pa or me — or somebody think of that long ago? I reckon ma an’ Allie are ashamed of us.”

His torn black sombrero fell to the ground, and as he wiped his moist face with a soiled scarf his head drooped. How tremendously he seemed to be struggling with a stolid mind! He resembled a man learning to think. Finally he looked up squarely at her.

“Reckon I’m about licked,” he declared. “I’ve been dyin’ hard — Miss Lucy Watson from Felix. But thick as I am I’m shore no darned fool. This here job to make fetchin’ water easy for ma an’ Allie is shore enough to make me kick myself. It makes me understand what you mean. I was against you. Every time I came home ma showed me somethin’ new. Shore that livin’-room, as they call it now, seemed no place for my boots an’ spurs an’ chaps — for me. But I couldn’t help seein’ a difference in ma an’ Allie an’ the kids. They began to look like that room, with its furniture an’ curtains an’ pictures an’ rugs an’ bright both day an’ night. Reckon I can’t tell you just how, but it felt so to me. Clean clothes, pretty things, must mean a lot to women an’ kids...An’ so I’m comin’ down off my hoss an’ I’m thankin’ you.”

“Then you really believe I’m helping to make your people live better and happier?” asked Lucy earnestly.

“It’s hard for me to knuckle, but I do. I’m not blind. You’ve been a blessin’ to us,” he replied with emotion.

“But — Edd,” she began hurriedly, “I — I haven’t helped you.”

“Me!...Wal, some fellows are beyond helpin’. I’m a savage. A big fool!...Only a wild-bee hunter!”

As his head drooped and his bitter reply ended Lucy divined the havoc that had been wrought by those hard words of hers, uttered long weeks before, in an anger she could not brook. He had taken them to heart. Lucy yearned to retract them, but that was impossible.

“Edd, judged by my standard for men, you were — what I called you,” she said. “But I was unjust. I should have made allowance for you. I was hot-tempered. You insulted me. I should have slapped you good and hard.”

“Wal, reckon I could have stood that,” he replied. “You must have heard what Sadie an’ other girls called me. An’ you said it, too. Shore that was too much for me.”

“If you’ll promise not to — to talk the way you did then — never again, I’ll forgive you,” said Lucy hesitatingly.

“Wal, don’t worry, I’ll shore never do it again. But I’m not askin’ you to forgive me,” he returned bluntly, and rising, he stalked away toward the cabin.

Lucy realised that somehow she had been too impulsive, too hasty in her approach toward friendliness. Perhaps the old lofty superiority had unwittingly cropped out again. Nevertheless, something had been gained, if only her deeper insight into this wild-bee hunter. He was vastly ignorant of an infinite number of things Lucy knew so well. Somehow she had not accorded him a depth of emotion, a strength of individuality, the same that abided in her. Because he was a backwoodsman she had denied him an intimate personal sense of himself. She had not tried to enter into his way of looking at life or people or things. As far as he was concerned she had been a poor judge of humanity, a poor teacher. No easy task would it be to change him. Her reflection brought out the fact that the brief conversation with him had only added to her concern. His confession gratified her exceedingly. She had wanted more than she knew to have him see that she was helping his people to a better and happier life. How powerfully this motive of hers had seized hold of her heart! It had become a passion. He had called her a blessing to his family. That was sweet, moving praise for Lucy. No matter how he had been hurt in his crude sensitiveness, he surely was grateful to her. He was not wholly unapproachable. Only she must be tactful, clever, sincere. The last seemed the most important. Perhaps Edd Denmeade would see through tact and cleverness. Lucy pondered and revolved in mind the complexity of the situation. It must be made so that it was no longer complex. The solution did not dawn on her then, but she divined that she could learn more about him through his love of bees and the forest where he roamed.

Mary Denmeade espied Lucy sitting by the path to the spring, and, as always, she ran to her. The children could not get enough of Lucy’s companionship. Through her their little world had widened wonderfully. Games and books, work and play, had already made incalculable differences. These backwoods children were as keen mentally as any children Lucy had been associated with in the city and vastly easier to interest.

“Here you are,” cried Mary excitedly, her eyes wide. “Edd is scolding Mertie. She’s awful mad. So’s ma. But ma is mad at Mertie and Mertie’s mad at Edd.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mary. Perhaps I had better not go in yet,” returned Lucy. “What’s the trouble? Isn’t it very strange for Edd to scold anyone, much less Mertie?”

“Strange? I don’t know. He never scolds any of us but Mertie. Ma says it’s because he loves her best...Miss Lucy, Edd’s not like he used to be. He stays away more an’ when he does come home he’s no time for us. Mertie said he was moony about you.”

“Was that what caused the trouble?” asked Lucy quickly.

“Oh, no. Mertie said that a long time ago...I wasn’t in the kitchen, but I peeped in and heard him say: ‘Mert, you’ve been ridin’ with Bud Sprall again.’ An’ Mertie said: ‘I’ve no such thing. But It’d be no business of yours if I had.’ An’ Edd said: ‘Don’t lie to me. Someone saw you.’ Then Mertie had one of her bad spells. She raved an’ cried. Ma took her part Edd got hold of Mertie an’ said he’d choke the truth out of her. He looked awful. Ma made him let Mertie go. An’ Edd said: ‘Wal, you stayed last night at Claypool’s. Now what time did you get there after school?’ Mertie said she couldn’t remember. She had the reddest spots in her cheeks an’ she couldn’t look at Edd.”

“Mary, did you listen to all that?” asked Lucy disapprovingly, as the child halted to catch her breath.

“I couldn’t help hearing,” went on Mary. “But I did peep in the door. But they didn’t see me. Edd said: ‘I had a hunch before, Mert Denmeade. An’ yesterday when I was told by someone who seen you I just rode down to Claypool’s, an’ I found out you didn’t get there till near dark. Took you three hours to ride from school to Amy’s home! I asked Amy when she seen you last. She looked darn queer, but I made her tell. You went off down the road with Sadie Perdue.’ Then ma pitched into Mertie so mad that I run.”

Lucy soothed the excited child and importuned her not to tell anyone else about the family quarrel and that perhaps it was not so much against Mertie as it looked. Mary shook her head dubiously, and presently, finding Lucy preoccupied, she gravitated toward the other children playing in the yard.

This was not the first time Lucy had been cognisant of an upset among the Denmeades owing to Mertie’s peculiar ways of being happy. She had been the idol of the family, solely, no doubt, because of her prettiness. Lucy considered Mertie a vain little ignoramus with not enough character to be actually bad. Nevertheless, Lucy reflected, she might be as mistaken in Mertie as she had been in Edd. Of all the Denmeades, this second daughter was the easiest to influence because of her vanity. Lucy had won the girl’s regard with a few compliments, a few hours of instruction in dressmaking, and perhaps that was why Lucy did not value it very highly. Still, for Edd’s sake, and, more seriously considered, for the girl’s sake also, Lucy was now prepared to go to any pains to bring about a happier relation between brother and sister.

Perhaps, however, before she could be accused of meddling in personal affairs she had better wait until her kind offices were invited.

On her way back to her tent she heard the gate chain clank violently, and upon turning she espied Edd stalking away, black as a thundercloud. Should she let him go or halt him? Inspirations were not altogether rare with Lucy, but she had one now that thrilled her. This was her opportunity. She called Edd. As he did not appear to hear, she raised her voice. Then he wheeled to approach her.

“My, but you were tramping away fast and furiously!” said Lucy amiably.

“Reckon I was. What you want?”

“Are you in any great hurry?”

“No, I can’t say I am. Fact is I don’t know where I’m goin’. But I’m a-rarin’ to go, just the same.” His voice was strained with spent passion and his lean face seemed working back to its intent, still expression.

“Come over in the shade and talk with me,” said Lucy, and led him into the pines to a nook overlooking the gully, where she often sat. Plain it was that Edd followed her under compulsion. But this rather stimulated than inhibited Lucy.

“Don’t go away angry,” she began, and seating herself on the clean, brown pine mats, she clasped her knees and leaned back to look up at him.

“Reckon it’s not with you,” he rejoined, drawing his breath hard.

“Of course not. I know what’s wrong. Mary heard you quarrelling with Mertie. She told me...Now, Edd, I wouldn’t for worlds meddle in your affairs. But my job is as wide as your woods. It’s hard for me to tell where to leave off. The question is, if I can be good for Mertie, you want me to, don’t you?”

“Wul, I shore do,” he declared forcibly. “More’n once I had a hunch to ask you. But I — I just couldn’t.”

“You should have. I’m sorry I’ve been so — so offish. It’s settled, then. Now tell me what you think is wrong with Mertie.”

“Reckon I don’t think. I know,” he replied heavily. “Mertie is just plain no good. All she thinks of is her face an’ of somethin’ to deck herself in so she’ll attract the boys. Any boy will do, though she sticks up her nose at most of them, just the same. She’s got one beau, Bert Hall, who lives in Cedar Ridge. Bert is sweet on Mertie an’ I know she likes him best of all the fellows who run after her. Bert owns a ranch an’ he’s got a share in his father’s sawmill. Course he wants to marry Mertie an’ Mertie wants to run wild. Dance an’ ride! I reckon Sadie Purdue hasn’t helped her none...Wal, this summer Mertie has taken on airs. She says if she’s old enough to be asked to dances an’ to marry, she’s her own boss. Pa an’ ma can’t do nothin’ with Mertie. I used to hold her down. But shore — I’ve a hunch my time is past.”

“Well?” queried Lucy, as he ended haltingly. “I understand. What about this Bud Sprall?”

“Mertie always liked that black-faced pup!” declared Edd darkly. “She’s been meetin’ him on the sly. Not alone yet, but with Sadie, who’s got the same kind of interest in Bud’s pard, a hoss-wrangler who lives over Winbrook way. Mertie lied about it...Wal, if I can’t break it up one way I can another.”

“You mean you’ll go to Bud Sprall?” queried Lucy instantly.

“I shore do,” he said tersely.

“You two will fight — perhaps spill blood,” went on Lucy intensely. “That might be worse than Mertie’s affair with Bud, whatever it is. Edd, surely it is just a flirtation.”

“Reckon I fooled myself with ideas like that,” returned Edd bluntly “Boys an’ girls up here do their flirtin’ at dances. Straight out, Miss Lucy, this here sneakin’ has a bad look. I know Sadie Purdue. She jilted me because I was too slow. Reckon she’d never have married me. Funny thing is she never would, even if she’d wanted to, because I found her out. Nobody but you knows that. Wal, Mertie is thick with Sadie. An’ they’re meetin’ these boys. Reckon you know how it will end, unless we stop it. Bert’s an easy-goin’ boy. But Mertie could go too far...You see, Miss Lucy, you haven’t guessed yet just how — how thick many of us backwoods boys an’ girls get. Not me! That’s one reason why I’m a big boob...An’ I always hoped an’ prayed I could keep Mertie different. Shore it goes kind of hard to see I’m failin’.”

“Edd, you’ve failed yourself,” asserted Lucy ringingly. “You’re on the down grade yourself. You’ve taken to the bottle and to fights. How can you expect to influence your sister to go straight if you’re no good yourself?”

“By God! that shore’s been — eatin’ into me!” he ejaculated huskily, and hid his sombre face in his grimy hands.

“Oh, I’m glad you see it!” cried Lucy, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Edd, you must come back to your old self.”

“Yes, I reckon I have to,” he agreed. “If only it’s not too late — for Mertie!”

“Let us hope and pray it is not,” rejoined Lucy earnestly. “I’m shocked at what you say, but yet I feel absolutely sure Mertie is still good. She’s vain, she’s wild. I know her kind. And, Edd, I promise to devote myself to Mertie. I must go to Felix for a week this fall. I’ll talk about that to Mertie, hold it out to her. I’ll take her with me. Oh, I know how to manage her. We’ll marry her to Bert before she knows it.”

“Wal, what ma said about you is shore true,” he said, lifting his dark face stained with tears. “An’ I’ll make you a promise.”

“Yes?” queried Lucy encouragingly.

“I’ll go back to my wild-bee huntin’.”

Lucy divined the import of that strange promise and she rejoiced over it, happily proud for him and the Denmeades.

Chapter VIII

THE NEWS THAT Lucy’s sister was coming spread all over the immediate country. Lucy was hugely amused at the number of gallants who visited Denmeade’s on Sunday and found transparent excuses to interview her. There was no use to try to avoid them on the issue that portended.

Lucy exhibited Clara’s picture with conscious pride, and did not deem it necessary to explain that the likeness dated back several years. She was both delighted and concerned over the sensation it created. Of all the boys she had met there, Joe Denmeade appeared to be the quietest and nicest, the least given to dances, white mule, and girls. Lucy experienced one acute qualm of conscience before she approached Joe to ask him to meet her sister at Cedar Ridge. That qualm was born of a fear that Joe might meet his downfall in Clara. She silenced it with the resigned conviction that circumstances were beyond her. What a feeble little woman she was!

Sunday afternoon on the Denmeade porch found the usual visiting crowd largely augmented. Sam Johnson paid his first call for weeks, this time without Sadie. He seemed less debonair and obtrusive than had been his wont. Least of all did he question Lucy about the pretty sister, but he drank in all that was said. Lucy watched Sam closely as he looked at Clara’s picture; and soberly she judged by his expression that, unless, as she devoutly hoped, Clara had changed, there would be some love-lorn gallants haunting the Denmeade homestead.

“When’s she comin’?” queried Sam.

“I’ll hear in to-morrow’s mail. Wednesday or Saturday,” replied Lucy.

“Reckon you’re goin’ in to meet her?”

“Indeed I am. Joe will drive me to town from the school-house. Mr. Jenks has offered his buckboard.”

“Joe! So he’s the lucky cub?” snorted Sam. “Reckon you’d need a man.”

Lucy’s choice was news to all the listeners, including Joe himself, who, as usual, sat quietly in the background. She had shot him a quick glance, as if to convey they had an understanding. Whereupon Joe exhibited surprising qualifications for the trust she had imposed upon him.

“Sam, you don’t get the hunch,” he drawled. “Miss Lucy’s sister isn’t a well girl. She’s goin’ to need rest!”

The crowd was quick to grasp Joe’s import, and they laughed their glee and joined in an unmerciful bantering of the great backwoods flirt.

After supper, as Lucy sat on the steps of her tent, Joe approached her.

“Now, teacher, how’d you come to pick on me?” he asked plaintively.

“Pick on you! Joe, you don’t mean—”

“Reckon I mean pick me out, as the lucky boy,” he interrupted. “I’m just curious about it.”

Lucy liked his face. It was so young and clean and brown, square-jawed, fine-lipped, with eyes of grey fire!

“Joe, I chose you because I think you will give my sister a better impression than any other boy here,” replied Lucy with deliberation.

“Aw, teacher!” he protested, as shyly as might have a girl. “Are you jokin’ me? An’ what you mean by this heah impression?”

“Joe, I ask you to keep what I tell you to yourself. Will you?”

“Why, shore!”

“My sister is not well and she’s not happy. It would give her a bad impression to meet first thing a fellow like Sam or Gerd or Hal, who would get mushy on sight. Edd now would be too cold and strange. I ask you because I know you’ll be just the same to Clara as you are to me. Won’t you?”

“An’ how’s that, teacher?” he queried, with his frank smile.

“Why, Joe, you’re just yourself!” answered Lucy, somewhat taken at a disadvantage.

“Never thought aboot bein’ just like myself. But I’ll try. I reckon you’re not savvyin’ what a big job you’re givin’ me. I mean pickin’ me out to take you to town. If your sister comes on Saturday’s stage every boy under the Rim will be there in Cedar Ridge. Reminds me of what I heard teacher Jenks say once. Some men are born great an’ some have greatness thrust on them. Shore I’m goin’ to be roped in that last outfit.”

“I like you, Joe, and I want you to live up to what I think of you.”

“Miss Lucy, are you shore aboot me bein’ worth it?” he asked solemnly.

“Yes, I am...To-morrow you stay till the mail comes for Mr. Jenks. He’ll have mine. Then we’ll know whether Clara is coming Wednesday or Saturday. I’d like you to borrow Edd’s horse Baldy for Clara to ride up from the school-house. Any horse will do for me. We’ll have to leave early.”

“It’d be better. I can drive in from the school-house in three hours. The stage arrives anywheres from eleven to four. I’m givin’ you a hunch. We want to be there when it comes.”

The following day when Joe rode home from school he brought Lucy’s mail, among which was the important letter from Clara — only a note, a few lines hastily scrawled, full of a wild gratitude and relief, with the news that she would arrive at Cedar Ridge on Saturday.

“It’s settled, then, she’s corning,” mused Lucy dreamily. “I don’t believe I was absolutely sure. Clara was never reliable. But now she’ll come. There seems some kind of fate in this. I wonder will she like my wild, lonesome country.”

Lucy had imagined the ensuing days might drag; she had reckoned falsely, for they were singularly full of interest and work and thought. Edd had taken to coming home early in the afternoons, serious and moody, yet intent on making up for his indifference toward Lucy’s activities with his family. He veered to the opposite extreme. He would spend hours listening to Lucy with the children. He was not above learning to cut animals and birds and figures out of paper, and his clumsy attempts roused delight. Lucy had, in a way vastly puzzling to the Denmeades, succeeded in winning Mertie to a great interest in manual training, which she now shared with Mary. Edd wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything. He lent Dick a hand in the carpentry work, of which Lucy invented no end. And he showed a strange absorption at odd moments in the children’s fairy-story books. He was a child himself.

Naturally, during the late afternoon and early evening hours of the long summer days he came much in contact with Lucy. She invited his co-operation in even the slightest tasks. She was always asking his help, always inventing some reason to include him in her little circle of work and play. She found time to ask him about his bee hunting, which was the one subject that he would talk of indefinitely. Likewise she excited and stimulated an interest in reading. As he read very slowly and laboriously, he liked best to listen to her, and profited most by that, but Lucy always saw he was left to finish the passage himself.

At night when all was dark and still, when she lay wide-eyed and thoughtful under the shadowy canvas, she would be confronted by an appalling realisation. Her sympathy, her friendliness, her smiles and charms, of which she had been deliberately prodigal, her love for the children and her good influence on Mertie — all these had begun to win back Edd Denmeade from the sordid path that had threatened to lead to his ruin. He did not know how much of this was owing to personal contact with her, but she knew. Edd was unconsciously drawn toward a girl, in a way he had never before experienced. Lucy felt he had no thought of sentiment, of desire, of the old obsession that he “must find himself a woman.” Edd had been stung to his soul by his realisation of ignorance. She had pitied him. She had begun to like him. Something of pride, something elevating, attended her changing attitude toward him. What would it all lead to? But there could be no turning back. Strangest of all was for her to feel the dawn of real happiness in this service.

Saturday morning arrived earlier for Lucy than any other she remembered. It came in the dark hour before dawn, when Joe called her to get up and make ready for the great ride to Cedar Ridge — to meet Clara Lucy dressed by lamp-light and had her breakfast in the dim, pale obscurity of daybreak. Mrs. Denmeade and Edd were the only others of the household who had arisen. Even the dogs and the chickens were asleep.

It was daylight when Lucy arrived at the corrals, where the boys had the horses saddled.

“I’d like to ride Baldy as far as we go horseback,” said Lucy.

“Shore,” replied Edd. “An’ I reckon you’d better ride him back. For he knows you an’ he might not like your sister. Horses have likes an’ dislikes, same as people.”

“Oh, I want Clara to have the pleasure of riding him.”

“Shore she’ll take a shine to him, an’ then you’ll be out of luck,” drawled Edd as he held the corral gate open.

“Indeed, I hope she takes a shine to Baldy and everything here,” declared Lucy earnestly.

“Me an’ Joe, too?” he grinned.

“Yes, both of you.”

“Wal, I reckon it’ll be Joe...Good-bye. We’ll be lookin’ for you all about sundown.”

Joe rode into the trail, leading an extra horse, which would be needed upon the return; and he set off at a gait calculated to make time. Lucy followed, not forgetting to wave a gloved hand back at Edd; then she gave herself up to the compelling sensations of the hour and thoughts of the day.

There were scattered clouds in the sky, pale grey, pearly white where the light of dawn touched their eastern edges, and pink near the great bright flare above the Rim. The forest seemed asleep. The looming wall wandered away into the soft misty distance.

Joe did not take the school-house trail, but the wilder and less travelled one toward Cedar Ridge. The woodland was dark, grey, cool. Birds and squirrels had awakened noisily to the business of the day. Deer and wild turkeys ran across the trail ahead of the horses. The freshness and fragrance of the forest struck upon Lucy as something new and sweet. Yet the wildness of it seemed an old familiar delight. Green and brown and grey enveloped her. There were parts of the trail where she had to ride her best, for Joe was making fast time, and others where she could look about her, and breathe freely, and try to realise that she had grown to love this wilderness solitude. Her grandfather had been a pioneer, and her mother had often spoken of how she would have preferred life in the country. Lucy imagined she had inherited instincts only of late cropping out. How would her sister react to this lonely land of trees and rocks? Lucy hoped against hope. There was a healing strength in this country. If only Clara had developed mind and soul enough to appreciate it!

Lucy well remembered the dark ravine, murmurous with its swift stream, and the grand giant silver spruces, and the mossy rocks twice as high as her head, and the gnarled roots under banks suggestive of homes for wild cats, and the amber eddying pools, deep like wells, and the rushing rapids.

The climb out of this deep endlessly sloped canyon brought sight of sunrise, a rose and gold burst of glory over the black-fringed Rim. Then a brisk trot through a lighter and drier forest ended in the clearing of the Johnsons.

Early as was the hour, the Johnsons were up, as was evidenced by curling blue smoke, ringing stroke of axe, and the clatter of hoofs. Mr. Jenks, too, was stirring, and soon espying Lucy, he hastened to come out to the fence.

“Mawnin’, folks,” he drawled, imitating the prevailing mode of speech. “Miss Lucy, I shore forgot this was your great day. Reckon I’m out of luck, for I’ll not be here when you drive back. I’m going to visit Spralls’, to see why their children are absent so much from school.”

“Mr. Jenks, will you please take note of these Spralls, so you can tell me about them?” asked Lucy eagerly. “I feel that I must go there, in spite of all I hear.”

“Yes, I’ll get a fresh line on them,” he replied. “And if that isn’t enough to keep you away I’ll find other means.”

“Oh, you are conspiring against me,” cried Lucy reproachfully.

“Yes, indeed. But listen, I’ve news for you,” he went on as Joe led the unsaddled horses inside the fence. “Your sister’s coming has given me a wonderful idea. When she gets well, which of course she will do here very quickly, why not let her take my school? Affairs at my home are such that I must return there, at least for a time, and this would provide me with a most welcome opportunity.”

“I don’t know,” replied Lucy doubtfully. “Clara had a good education. But whether or not she could or would undertake such a work, I can’t say. Still, it’s not a bad idea. I’ll think it over, and wait awhile before I speak to her.”

Mr. Jenks made light of Lucy’s doubts, and argued so insistently that she began to wonder if there were not other reasons why he wanted a vacation. She had an intuitive feeling that he wanted to give up teaching, at least there, for good. They conversed a few moments longer, until Joe drove up in the buckboard. Then Mr. Jenks helped Lucy to mount the high seat beside Joe, and bade them a merry good-bye.

Whatever the trail had been, the road was jarringly new to Lucy. There developed ample reason for Joe’s advice to “hang on to the pommel,” by which he must have meant anything to hold on to, including himself. The big team of horses went like the wind, bowling over rocks, ruts, and roots as if they were not there at all. Lucy was hard put to it to remain in her seat; in fact, she succeeded only part of the time.

“Say — Joe,” cried Lucy, after a particularly sharp turn, which the buckboard rounded on two wheels, and Lucy frantically clung to Joe, “are you — a regular — driver?”

“Me? Say, I’m reckoned the best driver in this heah country,” he declared.

“Heaven preserve me — from the worst,” murmured Lucy.

“You picked me out, Miss Lucy, an’ I shore mean to beat that outfit of boys in to Cedar Ridge,” said Joe. “The whole darned caboodle of them will be there. Gerd an’ Hal slept heah all night with Sam. An’ they’re already gone. Suppose the stage beats us to Cedar Ridge!...Say, Sam is up to anythin’.”

“Drive as fast as you want, only don’t upset me — or something awful!” returned Lucy desperately.

On the long descent of the cedared ridge Joe held the big team to a trot. Lucy regained her breath and her composure. When at last they turned out of the brush into the main road of the little town Lucy was both thrilled and relieved.

“Wal, heah we are, an’ we beat the stage,” drawled Joe.

“You must be a wonderful driver, Joe, since we actually got here,” averred Lucy. “But there’ll be no need to drive that way going back — will there?”

“Reckon we want Clara to know she’s had a ride, don’t we?” he queried coolly.

“Joe!”

“What’d you pick me out for? Reckon I’ve got to be different from that outfit. Look at the hosses. Whole string of them!”

“You mean the boys will waylay us?” queried Lucy, anxiously.

“Like as not they’d bust this heah buckboard if I left it long enough. Shore they’ll expect to meet Clara an’ have a chance to show off. But we’ll fool them. When the stage comes you grab her. Go in to Mrs. Lynn’s an’ get some grub to pack with us. Don’t eat in there. Sam’ll be layin’ for that. Hurry out an’ we’ll leave pronto, before the gang get their breath.”

“But, Joe, why all this — this fear of the boys, and the rush?” queried Lucy.

“Reckon you know the boys. They’ll be up to tricks. An’ on my side, since you picked me, I want to have Clara first.”

“Oh, I — see!” ejaculated Lucy. “Very well, Joe. I trust you, and we’ll do your way.”

They reached the post office, where Joe reined in the team. Lucy espied a porch full of long-legged, big-sombreroed, clean-shaven young men, whose faces flashed in the sun.

“Miss Lucy, I’ll feed an’ water the hosses,” said Joe. “Reckon you need a little stretch after that nice easy ride.”

“It’ll be welcome,” declared Lucy, getting down. “You keep an eye open for the stage while I run in to see Mrs. Lynn.”

By going into the hotel entrance Lucy avoided the boys slowly gravitating toward her. Mrs. Lynn greeted her most cordially, and was equally curious and informative. Lucy took advantage of the moment, while she was chatting, to peep out of the window. The cavaliers of Cedar Ridge lounged on the porch, and stalked to and fro. One group in particular roused Lucy’s amused suspicions. Sam Johnson was conferring most earnestly with several of his cronies, two of whom were Hal Miller and Gerd Claypool. They were not particularly amiable, to judge from their faces. A gesture of Sam’s attracted Lucy’s gaze toward two picturesque riders, lean and dark and striking. She recognised the handsome face and figure of one of them. Bud Sprall! The other was a taller, lither man, with flashing red face and flaming hair of gold. Young, bold, sinister, dissipated as he appeared, the virility and physical beauty of him charmed Lucy’s eye.

“Who is that man — there, with Bud Sprall?” queried Lucy, trying to appear casual.

Mrs. Lynn peeped out. “I was askin’ my husband that very question. He didn’t know the fellow’s name. Pard of Bud’s, he said. Two of a kind! Some of the boys told him Bud was thick with cowboys of the Rim outfit. This one is new in Cedar Ridge.”

Presently as Joe appeared driving the buckboard to a shady place under a cottonwood, some rode from the front of the post office. Through the window, which was open, Lucy caught amusing and significant remarks.

“Howdy, boys!” drawled Joe, in answer to a unit of greetings.

“What you-all doin’ here with them work clothes on?” queried one.

“Joe, yore shore kinda young to tackle this hyar city proposition,” said another.

“Wal, Joe, I reckon you can’t drive that big team with your left hand,” asserted a third banteringly.

“Hey, Joe, I see you’re a Denmeade all over,” said another. “But take a hunch from Edd’s cold tricks.”

These remarks and others in similar vein attested the dominant idea in the minds of these young countrymen — that a new girl was soon to appear upon the scene, and that only one attitude was possible. She was to be seen, fought over humorously and otherwise, and to be won. It afforded Lucy much amusement, yet it was also thought-arresting.

She went out and climbed to a seat beside Joe, careful to appear very vivacious and smiling. The effect was to silence the bantering boys and to cause, on the part of Sam and several others, a gradual edging toward the buckboard. Lucy appeared not to notice the attention she was receiving, and she quite bewildered Joe with a flood of rather irrelevant talk. Then one of the boys shouted that the stage was coming.

That checked all fun-loving impulses in Lucy. Her heart gave a lift and began to pound against her side. Glimpses she caught of the dusty well-remembered stage, while many thoughts flashed through her mind. Would Clara come, after all? How much had she changed? Would she be as sweet and repentant and appealing as her letters had implied? What a situation would arise if she did not like this wilderness country! Then a thrilling, palpitating joy that Clara had at last yearned for her!

The stage wheeled round the corner of cottonwoods, and the old driver, with great gusto and awareness of his importance, hauled the sweaty horses to a halt in front of the post office.

Lucy leaped down and ran. There were four or five passengers, and a great store of bags, boxes, and bundles, all of which she saw rather indistinctly. But as she reached the stage she cleared her eyes of tears and gazed up expectantly, with a numbness encroaching upon her tingling nerves. Clara might not have come.

There was a hubbub of voices. Manifestly others of these passengers had friends or relatives waiting.

“Hallo — Lucy!” cried a girl’s excited, rather broken voice.

Lucy almost screamed her reply. Behind a heavy old woman, laboriously descending the stage steps, Lucy espied a slim, tall, veiled girl clad in an ultra-fashionable gown and hat the like of which had not been seen at Cedar Ridge. Lucy knew this was her sister, but she did not recognise her. As the girl stepped down to the ground she threw back her veil, disclosing a pale face, with big haunting blue eyes that seemed to strain at Lucy with hunger and sadness. Indeed it was Clara — vastly changed!

“Sister!” cried Lucy, with a sudden rush of tenderness. Clara met her embrace, mute and shaking. How strange and full that moment! Lucy was the first to think of the onlookers, and gently disengaging herself from clinging hands she burst out: “Oh, I didn’t know you. I was afraid you’d not be in the stage...I’m so glad I’m half silly....Come, we’ll go in the hotel a moment...Don’t mind all this crowd.”

Thus Lucy, talking swiftly, with no idea of what she was saying, led Clara away; but she was acutely aware of the fierce clutch on her arm and the pearly whiteness of her sister’s cheek. Lucy did not dare look at her yet. The sitting-room inside the hotel happened to be vacant. Clara did not seem to be able to do anything but cling mutely to Lucy.

“You poor dear! Are you that glad to see me?” murmured Lucy, holding her close.

“Glad — My God!” whispered Clara huskily. “You’ll never — know how glad. For you’ve never — been without — friends, love, home, strength.”

“Oh, Clara, don’t — don’t talk so!” cried Lucy, in distress. “Don’t break down here. Outside there are a lot of young backwoods boys, curious to see you. We can’t avoid that. They are nice, clean, fine chaps, but crazy over girls...Don’t cry. I’m so glad to see you I could cry myself. Brace up. We’ll hurry away from here. There’s a long ride in a buckboard and a short one on horseback. You’ll love the horse you’re to ride. His name is Baldy. You’ll love the woods. I live in a tent, right in the pines.”

This meeting had proved to be unexpectedly poignant. Lucy had prepared herself for a few moments of stress, but nothing like this. Clara seemed utterly changed, a stranger, a beautiful, frail, haunted-eyed young woman. Lucy was deeply shocked at the havoc in that face. It told her story. But strange as Clara seemed, she yet radiated something Lucy had never felt in the old days, and it was love of a sister. That quite overpowered Lucy’s heart. It had come late, but not too late.

“Clara, I hope you’re strong enough to go on to-day — to my home,” said Lucy gently.

“I’m not so weak as that,” replied Clara, lifting her face from Lucy’s shoulder. It was tear-stained and convulsive. “I was overcome. I — I never was sure — till I saw you.”

“Sure of what?” asked Lucy.

“That you’d take me back.”

“You can be sure of me for ever. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know you want to come...Let us sit here a few moments. As soon as you rest a little and compose yourself we’ll start. I’ve ordered a lunch which we’ll eat as we ride along.”

“Ought I not to tell you — about my trouble — my disgrace — before we go?” asked Clara, very low.

“Why should you — now?” rejoined Lucy, in surprise.

“It might — make a difference.”

“Oh no! You poor unhappy girl. Do you imagine anything could change me? Forget your troubles,” returned Lucy tenderly.

“I wanted to — at least when I met you after so long a separation. But those tall queer men outside. Such eyes they had! They must know about me.”

“Only that you’re my sister and coming to stay with me,” said Lucy hurriedly. “They’ve ridden into town to see you — meet you. Don’t worry. They won’t meet you. I have told only that you were ill.”

Clara seemed passionately grateful for Lucy’s thoughtfulness. She had little to say, however, yet listened strainingly to Lucy.

A little later, when they left the hotel, Clara had dropped the veil over her white face, and she clung closely to Lucy. Meanwhile Joe had driven up to the high porch, from which Lucy helped her sister into the buckboard.

“Clara, this is Joe Denmeade,” said Lucy, as she stepped in beside Clara.

Joe quaintly doffed his huge sombrero and spoke rather bashfully. Lucy was pleased to see his fine brown, frank face smile in the sunlight.

“Wal, reckon we’re all heah,” he said briskly. “The stage driver gave me five valises — four big an’ one small. They were tagged Clara Watson. I packed them in. An’ if that’s all the baggage we can be movin’ along.”

“That is all, thank you,” returned Clara.

“Miss Lucy, did you fetch the lunch?” asked Joe, with his eye on the boys, who had nonchalantly sauntered closer to the buckboard.

“I have it, Joe. Drive away before—” whispered Lucy.

Sam Johnson, the foremost of the group, stepped forward to put a foot on the wheel of the buckboard. His manner was supremely casual. No actor could have done it better.

“Howdy, Joe! Good afternoon, Miss Lucy,” he drawled blandly.

Lucy replied pleasantly, and introduced him to Clara, and after they had exchanged greetings she added: “Sorry we’ve no time to chat. We must hurry home.”

Sam made rather obtrusive efforts to pierce Clara’s veil. Then he addressed Joe: “My hoss went lame comin’ in, an’ I reckon I’ll ride out with you.”

“Awful sorry, Sam,” drawled Joe, “but I’ve got a load. Heah’s Miss Clara’s five valises, an’ a pack of truck for ma.”

“I won’t mind ridin’ in the back seat with the girls,” rejoined Sam, in the most accommodating voice.

“Shore reckon you wouldn’t,” returned Joe dryly. “But this heah’s Mr. Jenks’s buckboard an’ he asked me particular not to load heavy. So long, Sam.”

Joe whipped the reins smartly, and the team started so suddenly that Sam, who had been leaning from the porch with one foot on the wheel, was upset in a most ridiculous manner. The boys on the porch let out a howl of mirth. Lucy could not repress a smile.

“Serves him right,” said Joe. “Sam’s shore got a nerve. All the time with Sadie in town!”

“Joe! Did you see her?” asked Lucy quickly.

“I shore did. She was across the road, peepin’ out of Bell’s door when Sam got that spill.”

Lucy, relieved as well as amused at the quick start, turned to find Clara removing the veil. Her face was lightened by a smile. Slight as it was, it thrilled Lucy.

“Young men are — funny,” she said, with a tinge of bitterness.

“Indeed they are,” vouchsafed Lucy heartily; “Well, we’re free of that crowd. Joe, are they apt to ride after us?”

“Like as not,” drawled Joe. “But the road is narrow. They shore can’t pass us, an’ all they’ll get will be our dust.”

“Suppose we eat lunch while we don’t have to hold on,” suggested Lucy. “Presently the road will be rough, and — to say the least, Joe drives.”

“Let him drive as fast as he can,” replied Clara tensely. “Oh — the breeze feels so good! The air seems different.”

“Clara, you’ll find everything different up here. But I’m not going to say a word till you ask me....Now, let’s eat. We’ll not get supper till dark or later...Biscuits with jam. Chicken — and pie. Joe, I overheard one of those boys speak of your driving with one hand. So, surely you can drive and eat at the same time?”

“I reckon,” rejoined Joe. “But see heah, Miss Lucy. Gerd Claypool said that, an’ he shore didn’t mean I’d be usin’ my free hand to eat.”

“Joe, do you think me so dense? Don’t those boys ever think sense about girls?”

“Never that I reckoned. Edd used to lie worse than any of them. But he’s over it, I guess, since you same, Miss Lucy!”

Whereupon Clara’s quick glance caught Lucy blushing, though she laughed merrily.

“Joe Denmeade! That is a doubtful compliment...Come, you’d better begin to eat — this and this and this...Clara, I get ravenously hungry up here. It’s the wonderful air. I hope it will affect you that way.”

Whereupon they fell to eating the ample lunch, during which time Lucy made merry. Nevertheless she took occasion now to observe Clara, unobtrusively, at opportune moments. Out in the clear bright sunlight Clara seemed indeed a pale frail flower. Always as a girl she had been pretty, but it would have been trivial to call her so now. Her face had strangely altered, and the only features remaining to stir her memory were the violet eyes and golden hair. They were the same in colour, though Clara’s eyes, that had once been audacious, merry, almost bold in their bright beauty, were now shadowed deeply with pain. Clara had been an unconscionable flirt; to-day no trace of pert provocativeness was manifest. Indeed, suffering, shock, whatever had been the calamity which was recorded there, had removed the callow coarseness of thoughtless adolescence, and had left a haunting, tragic charm. Lucy thought the transformation almost incredible. It resembled that birth of soul she had divined in Clara’s letters. What had happened to her? Lucy shrank from the truth. Yet her heart swelled with wonder and ache for this sister whom she had left a wild girl and had found a woman.

By the time the lunch had vanished Joe was driving up the narrow zigzag road leading to the height of the cedared ridge. Here he ceased to look back down the road, as if no longer expecting the boys to catch up with him. But he lived up to his reputation as a driver.

“Reckon you froze them off,” he said at length. “Sam, anyhow. He’ll shore never get over bein’ dumped on the porch.”

Lucy, talking at random, discovered that Clara was intensely interested in her welfare work in this backwoods community. Thus encouraged, Lucy began at the beginning and told the story of her progress in every detail possible, considering that Joe was there to hear every word. In fact, she talked the hours away and was amazed when Joe drove into the Johnson clearing.

“What a hideous place!” murmured Clara as she gazed around. “You don’t live here?”

“No, indeed!” replied Lucy. “This is where Sam Johnson lives. We have a few miles to go on horseback. Clara, have you anything to ride in?”

“Yes; I have an old riding suit that I hate,” said her sister.

“It doesn’t matter how you feel about it,” laughed Lucy. “Where’s it packed? We can go into Mr. Jenks’s tent while Joe tends to the horses.”

Lucy conducted Clara to the teacher’s lodgings, and then made some pretext to go outside. She wanted to think. She had not been natural. Almost fearing to look at Clara, yearning to share her burdens, hiding curiosity and sorrow in an uninterrupted flow of talk, Lucy had sought to spare her sister. What a situation! Clara the incorrigible, the merciless, the imperious, crawling on her knees! Lucy divined it was love Clara needed beyond all else. She had been horribly cheated. She had cheated herself. She had flouted sister, mother, home. Lucy began to grasp here the marvellous fact that what she had prayed for had come. Years before she had tried in girlish unformed strength to influence this wayward sister. When she gave up city life to come to the wilderness it had been with the settled high resolve to do for others what she had been forced to do for herself. The failure of her home life had been its sorrow, from which had sprung this passion to teach. She had prayed, worked, hoped, despaired, struggled. And lo! as if by some omniscient magic, Clara had been given back to her. Lucy choked over the poignancy of her emotion. She was humble. She marvelled. She would never again be shaken in her faith in her ideals. How terrible to contemplate now her moments of weakness when she might have given up!

Her absorption in thought and emotion was broken by Clara emerging from the tent.

“Lucy, here’s all that’s left of me,” she said whimsically.

It was not possible then for Lucy to say what she thought. Clara’s remark about an old riding suit had been misleading. It was not new, but it was striking. Clara’s slenderness and fragility were not manifest in this outdoor garb. If she was bewitching to Lucy, what would she be to these simple girl-worshipping backwoodsmen?

When Joe came up with the horses, and saw Clara, there was no need for Lucy to imagine she exaggerated. The look in his eyes betrayed him. But if he had been struck as by lightning it was only for a moment. “Reckon I can pack one of the valises on my saddle, an’ carry another,” he said practically. “To-morrow I’ll fetch a burro to pack home the rest. I’ll put them in Mr. Jenks’s tent.”

“This is Baldy. Oh, he’s a dear horse!” said Lucy. “Get up on him, Clara....Have you ridden lately?”

“Not so — very,” replied Clara, with voice and face sharply altering. Then she mounted with a grace and ease which brought keenly home to Lucy the fact that Clara had eloped with a cowboy and had gone to live on a ranch south of Mendino. Clara had always been an incomparable rider.

Soon they were travelling down the road, Joe in the lead, Lucy and Clara side by side. For Lucy there was an unreality about the situation, a something almost like a remembered dream. Clara’s reticence seemed rather to augment this feeling. Gradually there welled into Lucy’s mind a happy assurance, tinged perhaps with sadness.

Once Clara remarked that it was new to her to ride in the shade. She began to show interest in the trees, and when they turned off on the trail into the forest she exclaimed, “Oh, how beautiful!”

Lucy was quick to observe that Clara managed Baldy perfectly, but she was not steady in the saddle. She showed unmistakable weakness. They rode on, silent, on and on, and then down into the deep green forest, so solemn and stately, murmurous with the hum of the stream. Clara subtly changed.

“If anything could be good for me, it would be this wild forest,” she said.

“Don’t say ‘if,’ dear. It will be,” responded Lucy.

“It makes me feel like going out of the cruel hateful light — that I hate to face — down into cool sweet shadow. Where I can feel — and not be seen!”

At the fording of the rushing brook Clara halted her horse as if compelled to speak. “Lucy, to be with you here will be like heaven,” she said, low and huskily. “I didn’t think anything could make me really want to live. But here!...I’ll never leave these beautiful, comforting woods. I could become a wild creature.”

“I — I think I understand,” replied Lucy falteringly. From the last crossing of the rocky brook Clara appeared perceptibly to tire. Lucy rode behind her. Half way up the long benched slope Clara said, with a wan smile:

“I don’t know — I’m pretty weak.”

Lucy called a halt then, and Joe manifested a silent solicitude. He helped Clara dismount and led her off the trail to a little glade carpeted with pine needles. Lucy sat down and made Clara lay her head in her lap. There did not seem to be anything to say. Clara lay with closed eyes, her white face and golden hair gleaming in the subdued forest light. Her forehead was wet. She held very tightly to Lucy’s hand. Lucy was not unaware of the strange, rapt gaze Joe cast upon the slender form lying so prone. Several times he went back to the horses, and returned restlessly. On the last of these occasions, as he reached Lucy’s side Clara opened her eyes to see him. It was just an accident of meeting glances, yet to Lucy, in her tense mood, it seemed an unconscious searching, wondering.

“You think me — a poor weak creature — don’t you?” asked Clara, smiling.

“No. I’m shore sorry you’re sick,” he replied simply, and turned away.

Presently they all mounted again and resumed the journey up the slope. When they reached the level forest and above, Clara had to have a longer rest.

“What’s that awful wall of rock?” she asked, indicating the towering Rim.

“Reckon that’s the fence in our back yard,” replied Joe.

“I couldn’t very well jump that, could I?” murmured Clara.

Meanwhile the sun sank behind scattered creamy clouds that soon turned to rose and gold, and beams of light stretched along the wandering wall. Lucy thrilled to see how responsive Clara was to the wildness and beauty of the scene. Yet all she said was, “Let me live here.”

“It’ll be dark soon, and we’ve still far to go,” returned Lucy, with concern.

“Oh, I can make it,” replied Clara, rising. “I meant I’d just like to lie here — for ever.”

They resumed the ride. Twilight fell and then the forest duskiness enveloped them. The last stretch out of the woods and across the Denmeade clearing, up the lane, was ridden in the dark. Lucy leaped off and caught Clara as she reeled out of the saddle, and half carried her into the tent to the bed. The hounds were barking and baying; the children’s voices rang out; heavy boots thumped on the cabin porch.

Lucy hastened to light her lamp. Joe set the valises inside the tent.

“Is she all right?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

“I’m — here,” panted Clara, answering for herself, and the purport of her words was significant.

“She’s worn out,” said Lucy. “Joe, you’ve been very good. I’m glad I ‘picked you,’ as you called it.”

“What’ll I tell ma?” he asked.

“Just say Clara can’t come in to supper. I’ll come and fetch her something.”

Joe tramped away in the darkness, his spurs jingling. Lucy closed the door, brightened the lamp, threw off gloves, hat, coat, and bustled round purposely finding things to do, so that the inevitable disclosure from Clara could be postponed. Lucy did not want to know any more.

“Come here — sit by me,” said Clara weakly.

Lucy complied, and felt a constriction in her throat. Clara clung to her. In the lamplight the dark eyes looked unnaturally big in the white face.

“I’m here,” whispered Clara.

“Yes, thank Heaven, you are,” asserted Lucy softly.

“I must tell you — about—”

“Clara, you needn’t tell me any more. But if you must, make it short.”

“Thank you...Lucy, you never saw Jim Middleton but once. You didn’t know him. But what you heard was true. He’s no good — nothing but a wild rodeo cowboy — a handsome devil...I ran away with him believing in him — thinking I loved him. I was crazy. I might have — surely would have loved him — if he had been what I thought he was...We went to a ranch, an awful hole, in the desert out of Mendino. The people were low trash. He told them we were married. He swore to me we would be married next day. I refused to stay and started off. He caught me, threatened me, frightened me. I was only a kid...Next day we went to Mendino. There was no preacher nearer than Sanchez. We went there, and found he was out of town. Jim dragged me back to the ranch. There I learned a sheriff was looking for him. We had a terrible quarrel...He was rough. He was not at all — what I thought. He drank — gambled...Of course he meant to marry me. He wanted to do so in Felix. But I was afraid. We hurried away from there. But afters...he didn’t care — and I found I didn’t love him...To cut it short I ran away from him. I — couldn’t go home. So I went to work at Kingston. I tried several jobs. They were all so hard — the last one too much for me. I went downhill...Then—”

“Clara,” interrupted Lucy, distraught by the husky voice, the torture of that face, the passion to confess what must have been almost impossible, “never mind any more. That’s enough...You poor girl! Indeed you were crazy! But, dear, I don’t hold you guilty of anything but a terrible mistake. You thought you loved this Jim Middleton. You meant well. If he had been half a man you would have turned out all right. God knows, no one can judge you harshly for your error. It certainly does not matter to me, unless to make me love you more.”

“But — sister — I must tell you,” whispered Clara faintly.

“You’ve told enough. Forget that story. You’re here with me. You’re going to stay. You’ll get well. In time this trouble will be as if it had never been!”

“But Lucy — my heart is broken — my life ruined,” whispered Clara. “I begged to come to you — only for fear of worse.”

“It’s bad now, I know,” replied Lucy stubbornly. “But it’s not as bad as it looks. I’ve learned that about life. I can take care of you, get back your health and spirit, let you share my work. Sister, there’s no worse, whatever you meant by that. This wilderness, these backwoods people, will change your whole outlook on life. I know, Clara. They have changed me.”

Mutely, with quivering lips and streaming eyes, Clara drew Lucy down to a close embrace.

Chapter IX

“WAL, DIDN’T YOU all invite yourselves to pick beans?” drawled Edd, coming out at the head of a procession of big and little Denmeades.

“Wal, we shore did aboot that,” drawled Lucy, mimicking him. “Don’t you see I’m rigged out to chase beans, bears, or bees?”

“Which reminds me you haven’t gone wild-bee buntin’ yet,” said he reflectively.

“Humph! I’d have to invite myself again to that, also,” declared Lucy.

“Honest, soon as the beans are picked I’ll take you. An’ I’ve lined a new tree. Must have a lot of honey.”

Mrs. Denmeade called out: “Make him stick to that, Miss Lucy. He’s shore awful stingy about takin’ anyone bee huntin’.”

“Come, Clara,” called Lucy into the tent. “We’re farmers to-day. Fetch my gloves.”

When Clara appeared the children, Liz and Lize, made a rush for her and went romping along, one on each side of her, down the trail ahead of the procession. Lucy fell in beside Edd, and she was thinking, as she watched Clara adapting herself to the light steps of the youngsters, that the improvement in her sister was almost too good to be true. Yet the time since Clara had arrived at the Denmeades’, measured by the sweetness and strength of emotion it had engendered, seemed very much longer than its actual duration of a few weeks.

“Wal, teacher, summer’s about over,” Edd was saying. “An’ soon the fall dances will begin.”

“Indeed? What a pity you can’t go!” exclaimed Lucy tantalisingly.

“Why can’t I?”

“Because you vowed you had enough after taking me that time.”

“Wal, reckon I did. But shore I could change my mind — same as you.”

“Am I changeable?...I was only teasing, Edd. I got a hunch that you’re going to ask me again.”

“Correct. You’re a smart scholar. How do you feel about goin’?”

“Shall I refuse, so you can indulge your — your wild-bee hunter proclivities and pack me down on your horse?” queried Lucy demurely.

“Sometimes I don’t savvy you,” he said dubiously. “Reckon all girls have a little Sadie Perdue in them.”

“Yes, they have, Edd, I’m ashamed to confess,” replied Lucy frankly. “I’d like to go with you. But of course that’ll depend on Clara. To be sure, she’s getting well, wonderful! It makes me happy. Still, she’s far from strong enough for one of your dances.”

“Joe asked her, an’ she said she’d go if you went, too. I reckon she meant with me.”

“Edd, you’re learning from Sam Johnson.”

“Nope, not me. I’d choke before I’d copy that honey bee.”

“So Joe asked her?...Well!” murmured Lucy thoughtfully.

“Reckon she likes him, Lucy.”

“Oh, I hope — I know she does. But, Edd—”

“Wal, I get your hunch,” he interrupted. “You think maybe she oughtn’t go with Joe because it’ll only make him worse.”

“Worse?” queried Lucy, turning to eye Edd.

“Yes, worse. But, Lucy, I reckon it couldn’t be worse. Joe thinks of Clara by day an’ dreams of her by night. He’s been that way since the day she came to us.”

“Edd, you’re pretty sharp. I imagined no one but me had seen that. I’m sure Clara hasn’t...It’s a problem, Edd. But I knew it’d come.”

“Wal, you’re shore good at problems. What’re you goin’ to do about this one?”

“What would you do?” Lucy countered.

“I’d let Joe take her to the dance. You can manage her. Why, your slightest wish is law to Clara. That shore makes me think heaps of her. Wal, she could dance a few, an’ look on some. Then we’d come home early.”

“Would you promise that?”

“I shore would.”

“Well, Edd, I’ll think it over. You know if we go to this dance we’ll be inclined to go again — perhaps often.”

“Not with Joe an’ me. I reckon this one would do us for a spell.”

“Oh, that is different! And why?”

“Wal, you forget how you drove them boys crazy. I reckon this time, with Clara, you’d break up the dance. I’ve a hunch once would be enough for a spell. But shore I’d like it. So would Joe.”

“Edd, this little sister of mine has broken up more than once dance — and a cowboy dance at that. Why couldn’t we go and have a nice time, dance a little, and leave early, without what you hinted? — Fights!”

“That’d be easy, if you an’ Clara could behave,” he drawled.

“Edd Denmeade!” cried Lucy.

“Wal, you know you played hob with the boys. Why can’t you be honest? Shore, Lucy, I wouldn’t want to go if you did that again.”

“All right. I promise to behave if I go. I’ll talk to Clara.”

“Wal, suit yourself. But I reckon you know I’ll never go to another dance unless I can take you.”

“Never?” echoed Lucy.

“Yes, never,” he retorted.

“Why, Edd? That’s a strong statement.”

“Reckon because every dance before that one I was made fun of, most when I took a girl. But when I had you they didn’t dare. That shore was sweet.”

“Thanks, Edd. Sometimes you say nice things.”

So they talked as they walked along the cool, sandy, pine-mat bordered trail. It was quite a walk from the cabin to what the Denmeades called the High Field. This was a level piece of ground, perhaps fifty acres in area, irregular in shape, and surrounded by the green forest of cedar and pine.

Of all the slashes cut into the woodland, this appeared to Lucy the most hideous. It was not a well-cultivated piece of ground. These Denmeades were hunters, wood-hewers, anything but farmers. Yet they were compelled to farm to raise food for themselves and grain for horses and hogs. Nevertheless, the hogs ran wild, subsisting most of the year upon roots, nuts, acorns, and what the backwoodsmen called mast.

A hundred or more dead trees stood scattered round over this clearing, cedars and pines and oaks, all naked and bleached and rotting on their stumps. They had been girdled by an axe, to keep the sap from rising, which eventually killed them. This was done to keep the shade of foliaged trees from dwarfing the crops. Corn and beans and sorghum required the sun.

It was the most primitive kind of farming. In fact, not many years had passed since Denmeade had used a plough hewn from the fork of an oak. High Field was fenced by poles and brush, which did not look very sure of keeping out the hogs. Right on the moment Danny and Dick were chasing hogs out of the field. Corn and weeds and yellow daisies, almost as large as sunflowers, flourished together, with the corn perhaps having a little advantage. The dogs were barking at some beast they had treed. Hawks and crows perched upon the topmost branches of the dead pines; woodpeckers hammered on the smooth white trunks; and the omnipresent jays and squirrels vied with each other in a contest calculated to destroy the peace of the morning.

Beyond the large patch of ground that had been planted in potatoes lay the three acres of beans, thick and brown in the sunlight. Beans furnished the most important article of food for the backwoods people. Meat, potatoes, flour, honey mostly in place of sugar, were essential and appreciated, but it was as Denmeade said, “We shore live on beans.”

This triangle of three acres, then, represented something vastly important in their simple lives. They made the picking of beans a holiday, almost a gala occasion. Every one of the Denmeades was on hand, and Uncle Bill packed two big bags of lunch and a bucket of water. The only company present, considering that Lucy and Clara were not classified under this head, was Mertie’s beau, young Bert Hall, a quiet boy whom all liked. Lucy regarded his presence there as a small triumph of her own. The frivolous Mertie really liked him, as anyone could plainly see. She had only been under the influence of Sadie Perdue. By a very simple expedient Lucy had counteracted and so far overcome this influence. She had devoted herself to Mertie; roused her pride through her vanity, subtly showed Bert’s superiority to the other boys who ran after her, and lastly had suggested it would be nice to have Bert go with them to Felix. How important little things could become in this world of the Denmeades It caused Lucy many pangs to reflect upon how often their lives went wrong for lack of a little guidance.

Manifestly Edd was the captain of this bean-picking regiment. He was conceded to be a great picker, and had a pride in his prowess second only to that of his lining of bees. Denmeade, the father, had two great gifts, according to repute — he could wield an axe as no other man in the country, and he was wonderful with his hunting hounds. Joe was the best one with horses, Dick with tools. Uncle Bill would plough when, according to him, all his relatives had been laid away in the fence corners. Thus they all excelled in some particular thing peculiarly important to their primitive lives.

“Wal, all hands get ready,” called out Edd cheerily. “Reckon we got to clean up this patch to-day. You girls an’ the kids can pick here in the shade. We’ll pack loads of beans to you....Bert, seein’ you’re company, I’ll let you off pickin’ out there in the sun. You can set with the girls. But I’m recommendin’ you set between Lucy an’ Clara. Haw! Haw!”

So the work of picking beans began. The children made it a play, a game, a delight, over which they screamed and fought. Yet withal they showed proficiency and industry.

The men fetched huge bundles of beans on the vines, and deposited them on the ground under the shady oaks at the edge of the field. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie picked with nimble and skilful hands. The girls sat in a little circle, with Bert in attendance and the children monopolising all the space and most of the beans. Bert, having deposited piles of beans in front of each member of the party, was careful to sit down between Lucy and Clara, an action that caused Mertie to pout and laugh.

The process of stripping beans appeared a simple one to Lucy, yet she saw at once where experience counted. She could not do so well even as Mary. It piqued her a little. After all, intelligence and reason were not factors that could at once bridge the gap between inexperience and dexterity.

As they sat there talking and laughing and working, Lucy’s thought ran on in pleasant and acquiring trend. Above all, what brought her happiness in this hour was the presence of her sister. Clara had begun to mend physically, and that, with the lonely environment, the simplicity of the Denmeades, the strength of natural things had unconsciously affected her spiritually. She loved the children. She was intensely interested in their little lives. She fell to this fun of bean picking with a pleasure that augured well for the blotting of trouble from her mind. Clara had begun to be conscious of the superficiality of many sides and points of life in civilised communities. Here in the backwoods life seemed an easier, happier, simpler thing.

From time to time Lucy stole a look out into the field at Edd as he worked. He moved forward on his knees, keeping a sack pushed in front of him, and his hands flew. He was an engine of devastation to the rows of beans. She seldom heard his voice. When he finished a row he would get up, and gathering a huge bundle of vines he would carry them to where the women were picking. Dust and sweat had begrimed his face; his shirt was wet through. There seemed something tremendously rugged, vital, raw about his physical presence. He took this task seriously. Lucy wondered what was going on in his mind. Did things she had talked of or read to him revolve as he worked? There was a suggestion of the plodding nature of his thought, strangely in contrast with the wonderful physical energy of his work. She mused over the fact that she liked him as he was, yet was striving to teach him, change him, put him on the road to being a civilised man. Yet — ! Something vaguely regretful stirred deeply within her consciousness.

These more serious thoughts, however, only recurred at intervals; for the most part she was alive to the objective task of learning to pick beans, and to the conversation around her. Allie Denmeade was as incessant a talker as Joe was a listener; she had a shrewd wit and a sharp tongue. Mertie was charming under favourable influence, and when she was receiving her meed of attention. Mrs. Denmeade had a dry geniality and a store of wilderness wisdom. Mary was the sweet dreaming one of the family.

Lucy had no idea that the noon hour had arrived until the dusty men stalked in from the field, hungry and thirsty, bringing with them an earthy atmosphere. “Nineteen rows for me,” declared Edd, “an’ I’m spittin’ cotton...Where’s the bucket? I’ll fetch fresh water from the spring.”

“Wal, ma, how’d you all git along?” queried Denmeade, wiping his sweaty face.

“I disremember any better mawnin’ for pickin’,” she replied. “Bert has been fillin’ the sacks. Reckon there’s quite a few.”

“Even dozen,” exulted Bert.

“Good! We’ll finish early. Edd shore is a cyclone for pickin’ beans...An’ now, ma, spread out the grub. I’m a hungry old Jasper.”

Uncle Bill carried forth the packs of food, which he had hidden from the children.

“It was a tolerable pickin’, though I’ve seen better,” he said. “The season’s been dry an’ thet’s good for beans an’ pickin’...Wal, Lee, I’m noticin’ Miss Lucy an’ her sister have shore done themselves proud, fer tenderfeet.” Denmeade surveyed the respective piles of beans, one before Lucy, and a smaller one in front of Clara. “Not so bad,” he said genially. “An’ it shore is good to see you both settin’ thar.”

“Lee, tell their fortune with beans,” suggested Mrs. Denmeade.

“I reckon I wouldn’t risk that,” he replied.

“Ma, you tell them. An’ Bert’s, too. It’ll be fun. He’s never been here to a bean pickin’,” said Mertie. “All the same, I had mine told once, down at Sadie’s. Her old aunt told it,” said Bert. “An’ once is enough for me.”

“A Mexican woman once told my fortune,” interposed Clara with a smile that was not all mirth. “It came true. And I — I don’t want to know any more what’s going to happen to me.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid,” called out Lucy. “Come, Mrs. Denmeade. Tell mine.”

Whereupon Mrs. Denmeade, to the infinite delight of the children, selected some differently coloured beans and pressed these into Lucy’s palm. Then she intently studied Lucy’s face, after which she struck the outstretched hand, causing some of the beans to roll off and others to change position and settle.

“Wal, you’re goin’ to find happiness takin’ someone else’s troubles on your shoulders,” said Mrs. Denmeade, impressively. “Your past has been among many people who didn’t care for you. Your future will be among a few who love you...I see a journey — a secret — something that’ll never come out — two dark years with white ones followin’. A child!...A cabin! A happy wife!”

This conclusion was greeted with a merry shout from the children and girls. Lucy, in her amusement, wished to carry the thing as far as possible to please them all. It struck her that Clara’s faint colour had vanished. How a few words could pain her! Lucy had no faith in any kind of fortune telling; she hardly took Mrs. Denmeade seriously.

“Wonderful!” she ejaculated. “Do the beans tell what kind of a husband I get?”

“No,” rejoined Mrs. Denmeade, “but I reckon he won’t be a city man.”

“How interesting! I think I’m rather glad. Clara, I’m to have a country man for a husband. These red and white beans have foretold my fate.”

She became aware then that Edd had returned and, standing behind her, evidently had heard her concluding words. Quite absurdly the fact embarrassed Lucy. The gay remarks forthcoming from all around fell upon her somewhat unfelicitously.

“Wal, Lucy, I see ma an’ Allie have worked an old trick on you,” he drawled. “Shore I told you to look out for them.”

“Oh — it was only fun!” exclaimed Lucy, relieved despite her common sense.

Mrs. Denmeade smiled enigmatically. She seemed to possess some slight touch of mysticism, crude and unconscious. Lucy dispelled any idea that there was connection between the red and white beans and Mrs. Denmeade’s prophecies. For that reason she found herself fixing in mind the content of those statements regarding her past and future.

“Come set around, folks,” called Uncle Bill with gusto,

The lunch hour of the bean-pickers was as merry as a picnic dinner. The Denmeades had rushed through the morning hours; now they had leisure to eat slowly and to talk and joke. Lucy enjoyed this pleasant interval. It had but one break, an instant toward the end, when she espied Joe Denmeade sitting as always quietly in the background, with eyes of worship fixed upon Clara’s face. That troubled Lucy’s conscience.

Lucy wore out her gloves and made blisters on her fingers, acquiring along with these accidents a proficiency in the art of picking beans. Clara wearied early in the afternoon, and went to sleep under a pine tree. Mertie and Bert finished their allotment of beans, and wandering along the edge of the forest, they seemed to become absorbed in each other. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie worked like beavers, and the children drifted to playing.

The men soon finished picking and sacking the beans. Then Edd and his brothers stalked off to fetch the pack-burros. Uncle Bill still found tasks to do, while Denmeade rested and talked to his wife. Lucy leaned comfortably against the oak, grateful for relief from work, and because of it, appreciating infinitely more the blessing of rest. She did not try very hard to resist a drowsy spell, out of which she was roused to attention by a remark of Denmeade to his wife.

“Wal, it’d shore make bad feelin’ between the Denmeades an’ Johnsons if Sam homesteaded on the mesa.”

“Reckon it would, but he’s goin’ to do it,” returned Mrs. Denmeade. “Mertie told me.”

“Sadie Perdue’s back of that,” said Denmeade meditatively.

“She’s never forgive Edd...It’d be too bad if Sam beat Edd out of that homestead.”

“Don’t worry, wife. Sam ain’t a-goin’ to,” returned her husband. “Edd located the mesa, found the only water. He’s just been waitin’ to get himself a woman.”

“But Edd oughtn’t to wait no longer,” protested Mrs. Denmeade.

“Wal, I reckon,” rejoined Denmeade thoughtfully, “we’ll begin cuttin’ logs an’ get ready to run up a cabin. It’s bad enough for us to be on the outs with Spralls, let alone Johnsons...I’m goin’ to walk up to the mesa right now.”

Suiting action to word, Denmeade started off. Lucy sat up and impulsively called. “Please take me with you, Mr. Denmeade. I — I’d like to walk a little.”

“Come right along,” he responded heartily.

Lucy joined him and entered the woods, taking two steps to one of his long strides.

“I’m goin’ up to a place we call the mesa,” he was saying. “Edd has long set his heart on homesteadin’ there. It ain’t far, but uphill a little. Sam Johnson has been talkin’ around. Shore there ain’t no law hyar to prevent him stealin’ Edd’s homestead. An’ I reckon there’s bad blood enough. So I’m goin’ to begin work right off. That’ll throw Sam off the trail an’ then we won’t have no call to hurry.”

Lucy was interested to ask questions until she became out of breath on a rather long and steep slope. Here she fell back and followed her guide, whose idea of distance, she averred, was vastly different from hers.

At last, however, they reached a level. Lucy looked up, to be stunned by the towering, overpowering bulk of the Rim, red and gold, with its black-fringed crown, bright and beautiful in the westering sun. She gazed backward, down over a grand sweep of forest, rolling and ridging away to the far-flung peaks. Her position here was much higher than on any point she had frequented, and closer to the magnificent Rim.

“There’s two or three hundred acres of flat land hyar,” said Denmeade, sweeping his hand back toward the dense forest. “Rich, red soil. Enough water for two homesteads, even in dry spells. It’s blue snow water, the best kind, comin’ down from the Rim. Wal, I’m hopin’ Dick or Joe will homestead hyar some day. It’s the best farm land I know of.”

“Why, Mr. Denmeade, it’s all forest!” exclaimed Lucy.

“Shore. It’ll have to be cleared. An’ that’s a heap of work.”

“Goodness! It looks it. How do you go about making a farm out of a thick forest?”

“Wal, we’ll cut logs first to run up a cabin,” replied Denmeade. “Then we’ll clear off timber an’ brush, an’ set fire to it, leavin’ the stumps. They’ll rot out in a few years. The big trees we kill an’ leave standin’...This hyar mesa is high an’ dry, warm in winter an’ cool in summer. It joins on to a big canyon where there’s water an’ grass for stock. An’ it’s the best place for bees in this country. I reckon Edd’s pretty smart. He’s shore goin’ to do somethin’ with his bee-huntin’.”

They entered the level forest, and Lucy was at once charmed and fascinated. This woodland differed from any she had visited. It was level, open in glades, aisles, and dense in thickets and patches. A dry, hot fragrance of pine and cedar and juniper seemed to wave up from the brown-carpeted earth. How easy and delightful the walking here! As they penetrated deep into the forest the pines grew so huge that they actually thrilled her. Then the other trees were as large in proportion. Some of the junipers were truly magnificent, six feet thick at the base, symmetrical and spreading, remarkable for their checker-board bark and lilac-hued berries. Under every one of these junipers the ground was a soft, grey-green mat of tiny needles, fragrant, inviting rest. Under the pines Lucy kicked up furrows in the dry depths of brown needles, and these places even more called her to tarry. A wonderful sweet silence pervaded this mesa forest. No birds, no squirrels, no deer or turkeys! Yet Denmeade pointed out tracks in every dusty trail. “Reckon game’s all down by the water,” he explained. “There’s a gully runs right through this mesa, dividin’ it in half. Shore is a wild place. I’ll show you where an old she bear jumped on me. She had cubs, an’ a mother bear is bad.”

Lucy revelled in this exploration. The farther she followed Denmeade the more delighted she was with the wilderness and beauty, the colour and fragrance of the forest.

“Oh, but it will be a shame to cut all these trees — and burn a hideous slash in this beautiful forest!”

“I reckon. Shore Edd says the same,” replied Denmeade. “But we have to make homes. An’ the forest, just like this, will surround the homesteads. We only cut an’ clear land where there’s water. A few acres slashed don’t make much of a hole in these woods...Look hyar. See between the pines, up there where the bluffs run down — it shows a break in the woods. That’s the canyon I spoke of. It looks narrow and short. Wal, it’s wide an’ long, an’ it’ll always be wild. It can’t never be cut. An’ there’s many canyons like it, runnin’ in under the Rim....Miss Lucy, I come hyar twenty years ago. There’s as many bear an’ deer now as then. An’ I reckon it’ll be the same in twenty more years.”

“I’m glad,” breathed Lucy, as if in relief. How strange for her to feel that she did not want the wilderness despoiled. Indeed, she was responding fully to inherited instincts.

Denmeade led her on under the vast pines and through glades the beauty of which swelled Lucy’s heart, and finally to the edge of a gully. She looked down into a green, white, brown, golden chaos of tree trunks, foliage, boulders, and cliffs, trailing vines and patches of yellow flowers, matted thickets of fallen timber — in all an exceedingly wild hollow cut deeply into the mesa. Lucy heard the babble and tinkle of water she could not see.

“Edd aims to have his cabin hyar,” explained Denmeade “I heard him say once he’d clear an acre hyar, leaving these big trees, an’ the forest all around. The crop field he wants a little ways off. He’d keep his bees down in the gully, clearin’ out some...Now you rest yourself while I climb down to the water. It’s shore been a dry season, an’ last winter the snows was light. I reckon I can get a good line on how much water there’ll be in dry seasons.”

Denmeade clambered down a steep trail, leaving Lucy above. Though she stood amid deep forest, yet she could see the Rim in two directions, and the magnificent looming tower stood right above her. It marked the bold entrance of the canyon. In the other direction Lucy looked down a slant of green, darkly divided by the depression made by the gully, to the rolling forest below, that led the eye on and on to the dim purple ranges. A cry seemed to ring out of the remote past, appealing to Lucy’s heart. It stung her mind to flashing, vivid thought. Her immediate ancestors had lived a few hundred years in villages, towns, cities; the early progenitors from which her people had sprung had lived thousands of years in the forested wilderness, barbarians, nomads. She felt it all so intensely. The giant seamy-barked pines, rough and rugged, were more than trees. They had constituted a roof for her race in ages past, and wood for fire. The fragrance, the strength of them, were in her blood. Likewise of the cedars, the junipers, the grey and white sycamores down in the gully, the maples and oaks, the patches of sumach, all that spread colourful protection around her. Deeper than sentiment, stronger than education, this passion claimed her for the moment.

“If I loved Edd Denmeade, how happy I could be in a home here!”

It did not seem to be the Lucy Watson she knew that whispered these involuntary words. They came from beyond reason, intelligence, consideration. They just dashed up out of instinct. She did not resent them, though she stood aghast at intimations beyond her control. How impossible was fulfilment of them! Yet she pondered why they had come. In vain! The loneliness, the solitude, the grand imminence of the Rim, the silent guarding pines, the eye-soothing softness of grey and green — these physical things dominated her and would not be denied.

“It is a fact,” she whispered. “I could live here...I’d want Clara to be close...I’d want to go back to Felix now and then...I’d want books, letters, papers — to keep up with my idea of progress...I’d want to go on with my welfare work. But these are nothing. They do not induce me to want to live in a log cabin...I am amazed at myself; I don’t know myself. I am not what I think I am!”

Lucy remained alone on the shady rim of the gorge for half an hour — surely a critical and portentous time in her realisation of change. Yet, what seemed incredible to her was the fact that she would not have changed anything in the present. Perhaps she had given too much thought to herself. Vanity! Mertie Denmeade was not alone in this peculiar feminine trait. Lucy arraigned herself, and tried to persuade herself that she possessed something of worldliness. All to little purpose! She was happier than she had ever been in her life and that was all there was to it.

Denmeade led back across the mesa by a shorter route, and down the slope by an old trail. Lucy trudged along in his tracks, vastly less curious than on the way up. It had been another full day. Her hands attested to the labour of it. And as to her mind, the shadows of the past seemed dim, fading away.

As they again approached level forest Lucy caught glimpses of the yellow clearing. She heard the discordant bray of a burro, then the shrill peal of childish laughter. She emerged on the edge of the timber in time to see the packed burros filing away through the corn, and on top of the last two sat Liz and Lize, triumphantly riding on sacks of beans. Edd strode beside them. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie were plodding on ahead. Far down the edge of the field Mertie and Bert appeared hand in hand, sauntering away toward the trail for home. Something about them, perhaps those linked hands, stirred Lucy to a divination of how little other people mattered to them. She had been right in her surmise. Propinquity was all that had been needed.

Denmeade cut across the cornfield, while Lucy wended her way back along the edge of the woods to the pine tree where she had left Clara. Perhaps Clara, too, had gone with the others.

The day was over. Sunset was gilding the Rim. Crickets had begun to chirp. The air had perceptibly cooled. Crows were sailing across the clearing. Faint and sweet came the shouts of the children.

Then Lucy espied her sister sitting with her back against the pine. Joe Denmeade stood near, gazing down upon her. If either were talking, Lucy could not hear what was said; but she inclined to the thought that on the instant there was no speech. They did not hear her footsteps on the soft earth.

Without apparent cause Lucy experienced a thrill that closely approached shock. How utterly she, too, was at the mercy of her imagination! Clara and Joe together, in perfectly simple pose — what was there in that to stop Lucy’s heart? Verily she was growing like the Denmeades. On the other hand, there seemed profound significance in Joe’s gazing down upon Clara, as she sat there, with the last touch of the sun making a golden blaze of her hair. Joe had been hopelessly lost, from that first sight of Clara. It had seemed of no great moment. Lucy in her passionate devotion had thought only of her sister. But Lucy had a flash of revelation. This wilderness environment was marvellously strong. Lucy caught just a vague hint of its elemental power — the earth, its rugged beauty and vitality, its secret to unite and procreate, since the dawn of human life ages before. What little people knew! They were but moving atoms dominated by nature.

“Oh, here you are!” called Lucy, to start the pensive couple out of their trance. “I had the dandiest walk. Climb, I should say...And what have you two been talking about all this time?”

“Joe came just this moment to tell me they were going home,” replied Clara, looking up at Lucy.

“Teacher, I was aboot to say she was goin’ to get well heah in the woods, an’ that I’d heard her laugh to-day,” he replied, in his slow speech.

“How strange!” murmured Clara, as if mocking a belief. She studied Joe with doubtful eyes, as if she refused to believe the truth manifested in him. Lucy wisely saw nothing, said nothing, though she was stirred to speak.

“It has been a lovely day,” she said as she turned away. “Come, we must go.”

“Wait, Lucy,” complained Clara. “I may be getting well, but I can’t run.”

“Make her hurry, Joe. It’s late,” replied Lucy, and she crossed the devastated bean-field to enter the rustling rows of corn. She did not look back. It was twilight when she arrived at the tent, and wearied with exertion and emotion, throbbing and burning, she threw herself on the bed to rest a few moments.

Clara came just as darkness fell. “Are you there, Lucy?” she asked, stumbling into the tent.

“Shore I’m heah,” drawled Lucy.

“Why did you leave me alone — to walk back with that boy?” queried Clara plaintively. “He’s falling in love with me — the fool!”

“Oh, Clara he’d be a fool if he wasn’t,” retorted Lucy.

“But it’ll only make him wretched. And you — you must stop believing I’m worthy of love.”

“Maybe Joe is like me,” said Lucy, and this reply silenced her sister.

Chapter X

SEPTEMBER CAME, WITH the first touches of frost on the foliage, the smoky haze hovering over the hollows, the melancholy notes of robins and wild canaries, the smell of forest fire in the air.

Edd did not remind Lucy that he had promised to take her bee-hunting. This, like so many things in the past, piqued her; and the more she upbraided herself for that the less could she forget it. Finally she said to him one night at supper:

“Edd, I thought you were going to take me bee-hunting.”

“Shore. Whenever you say,” replied Edd. “Then I say to-morrow,” returned Lucy.

A clamour from the children and an excited little cry from Clara attested to the eagerness of others to share Lucy’s good fortune. She was curious to see if Mrs. Denmeade would approve of some one else accompanying them. Lucy had in mind that among the people with whom she had associated in Felix it would hardly have been the proper thing for her to go with Edd into the woods alone.

Edd laughed down the importunities of the children.

“Nope, kids; you wait till I’m ready to cut down a bee tree not far away,” he said, to appease them. “I’ve got one located...An’ as for you, Miss Clara, I reckon you’d better not risk a long climb till you’re stronger.”

“Will you take me with the children?” asked Clara wistfully.

“Shore. Reckon I’ll be glad to have you all packin’ buckets of honey,” drawled Edd.

“Edd, I seen the other day that Miss Lucy’s boots wasn’t hobnailed,” spoke up Denmeade. “Reckon you mustn’t forget to put some nails in them for her. Else she might slip an’ hurt herself.”

“Wal, now you tax me, I’ll just naturally have to hobnail her boots,” returned Edd dryly. “But fact was I wanted to see her slide around some.”

“Very sweet of you, Edd,” interposed Lucy in the same tone. “Couldn’t you wait till winter and find me some ice?”

“Say, slidin’ down a slope of grass an’ pine needles will take the tenderfoot out of you,” he retorted.

“Oh, then you think I need that?” she queried.

“Wal, I reckon you don’t need no more,” he said quaintly.

“Is Edd complimenting me?” asked Lucy, appealing to Mrs. Denmeade. She nodded smilingly.

“Thanks. Very well, Edd. I shall fetch my boots for you to hobnail. And to-morrow you may have the pleasure of watching me slide.”

After supper she watched him at work. He had an iron last, upside down, over which he slipped one of her boots. Then with a hammer he pounded small-headed hobnails into the soles. He was so deft at it that Lucy inquired if he were a shoemaker.

“Reckon so. I used to tan leather an’ make my own shoes. But I only do half-solin’ now.”

Presently he removed the boot from the last, and felt inside to find if any nails had come through.

“That one’s jake,” he said.

Lucy examined the sole to find two rows of hobnails neatly and symmetrically driven round the edge. Inside these rows were the initials of her name.

“Well, you’re also an artist,” she said. “I suppose you want to make it easy for anyone to know my boot tracks.”

“Wal, I can’t say as I’d like anyone trailin’ you,” he replied, with a deep, grave look at her.

Lucy changed the subject. When she returned to her tent dusk had fallen and Clara was sitting in the doorway. Lucy threw the boots inside and sat down on the lower step to lean back against her sister. Often they had spent the gloaming hour this way. The cool, melancholy night was settling down like a mantle over the forest land. Bells on the burros tinkled musically; a cow lowed in the distance; a night hawk whistled his strange, piercing note.

“Lucy, I like Edd Denmeade,” said Clara presently.

“Goodness! Don’t let him see it — or, poor fellow, he—”

“Please take me seriously,” interrupted Clara. “I believed I’d always hate men. But to be honest with myself and you, I find I can’t. I like Mr. Denmeade and Uncle Bill — and the boys. Edd is a wonderful fellow. He’s deep. He’s so cool, drawly, kind. At first his backwoodsness, so to call it, offended me. But I soon saw that is his great attraction for me. As you know, I’ve gone with a lot of city boys, without ever thinking about what they were...I wonder. City clothes and manners, nice smooth white hands, ought not be much in the make-up of a man. Edd’s old jeans, his crude talk and ways, his big rough hands — they don’t repel me any more. I don’t quite understand, but I feel it. He’s good for me, Lucy dear. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes. And I’m glad. You’ve had a bitter blow. No wonder you think now what boys are...As for me, I don’t really know whether Edd has been good — or bad for me.”

“Lucy!”

“Listen. I’ll tell you something,” went on Lucy, and she related the story of Edd’s taking her to the dance.

“How funny! How—” exclaimed Clara, laughing— “how I don’t know what!...Lucy, I just believe it tickles me. If he had been rude — you know, fresh, I mean — I’d have despised him. But the way you told it. Oh, I think it’s rich! I believe I would have liked him better.”

Lucy might have confessed that deep in her heart she had done this very thing herself, but the fact was not acceptable to her.

“Joe is the best of the Denmeades, and quite the nicest boy I ever knew,” she said earnestly. “What do you think of him, Clara?”

“It’s dreadful of me, but I like to be with him,” whispered Clara. “He’s so — so sweet. That’s the only word. But it does not fit him, either. He has the same strong qualities as Edd...Lucy, that boy rests me. He soothes me. He makes me ashamed...Tell me all about him.”

“Well, Joe’s ears will burn,” laughed Lucy and then she began her estimate of Joe Denmeade. She was generous. But in concluding with the facts about him that had come under her observation and been told by his people, Lucy held rigidly to truth.

“All that!” murmured Clara thoughtfully. “And I’m the only girl he ever looked at?...Poor Joe!”

Next morning there was a white frost. Lucy felt it and smelled it before she got up to peep out behind the curtain of the tent door. The sun had just tipped the great promontory, a pale blaze that made the frost on grass and logs shine like an encrustment of diamonds.

“Ooooo, but it’s cold!” exclaimed Lucy as she threw on her dressing-gown. “Now I know why Edd insisted on installing this stove. Any old ‘morning now I’d wake up frozen!”

“Come back to bed,” advised Clara sleepily.

“I’ll start the fire, then slip back for a little. Oh, I wonder — will we have to give up living out here when winter comes?”

The stove was a wood-burning one, oval in shape, and flat on top, with a sheet-iron pipe running up through the roof of the tent. Lucy had thought it sort of a toy affair, despite Edd’s assertion as to its utility. He had laid the pine needles, and splinters and billets of wood, so that all Lucy had to do was to strike a match. She was not an adept at building fares, and expected this to go out. Instead it flared up, blazed, crackled, and roared. Fortunately Lucy recollected Edd’s warning to have a care to turn the damper in the stove-pipe.

“This stove is going to be a success. How good it feels!”

Then she noticed the neat pile of chips and billets of red-wood stacked behind the stove, and a small box full of pine needles. Edd Denmeade was thoughtful. Lucy put a pan of water on the stove to heat, and slipped back into bed. Her hands and feet were like ice, matters that Clara was not too sleepy to note. Soon the tent-room was cosy and warm. Lucy felt encouraged to think it might be possible for her and Clara to occupy this lodging all winter. Edd had averred the little stove would make them as snug as birds in a nest. To make sure, however, that they could live outdoors, he had suggested boarding the tent wall half-way up and shingling the roof.

“Sleepy-head!” called Lucy, shaking her sister.

“Ah-h!...I just never can wake up,” replied Clara. “It’s so good to sleep here...I didn’t sleep much down there in the desert.”

“My dear, you’ve slept three-fourths of the time you’ve been here, day as well as night. It’s this mountain air. I was almost as bad. Well, good sleep is better than wasted waking hours. Now I’m going to be heroic.”

By nine o’clock all trace of frost had vanished from grass and logs. Edd presented himself at the tent.

“Wal, I’m a-rarin’ to go.”

“Yes, you are!” called Lucy banteringly. “Here I’ve been ready these last two hours.”

“City girl! You can’t line bees till the sun gets warm.”

“Backwoods boy! Why not?”

“Bees don’t work so early. You see, it’s gettin’ along towards fall.”

“I’ll be right out...Let’s see — my gloves and knapsack...Well, sister mine, why do you stare at me?”

Clara was sitting at the little table, with speculative gaze fastened upon Lucy. It made Lucy a little sensitive to her attire. This consisted of a slouch felt hat, a red scarf round the neck of her brown blouse, corduroy riding trousers, and high boots. On the moment Lucy was slipping on her gauntlets.

“Clara, it’ll be a long, hard tramp, up and down,” declared Lucy, as if in self-defence.

“You look great,” rejoined Clara, with one of her sweet, rare smiles. “I’m not so sure about your welfare work, in that get-up. I think it’s plain murder?”

Clara made an expressive gesture, to indicate Edd outside. Lucy was not quite equal to a laugh. Sometimes this realistic sister of hers forced home a significance that escaped her idealistic mind.

“If you only could go!” sighed Lucy. “I — I think I need you as much as you need me...Don’t forget your welfare work. Good-bye.”

Edd carried a gun, a small black tin bucket, and a package which he gave to Lucy to put in her knapsack.

“Ma reckoned you’d like somethin’ to eat,” he explained.

So they set off across the lane, through the strip of woods, and out into the sorghum-field. Lucy experienced an unaccountable embarrassment. She felt like a callow girl taking her first walk with a boy. She did not feel at all at her ease in this riding garb, though the freedom of it had never been so manifest. She was guilty of peering round to see if any of the Denmeades were in sight, watching them cross the field. She could not see anyone, which fact helped a little. Then she did not discover her usual fluency of speech. Finding herself alone with this stalwart bee hunter, facing a long day in the wilderness, had turned out to be something more than thrilling. Lucy essayed to throw off the handicap.

“What’s in your little black bucket?” she inquired. “Honey. I burn it to make a sweet, strong smell in the woods. That shore fetches the bees.”

“What’s the gun for?”

“Wal, sometimes a bear smells the honey an’ comes along. Bears love sweet stuff, most of all honey.”

“Bears! In broad daylight?” ejaculated Lucy.

“Shore. One day not long ago I had four bears come for my honey. Didn’t have no gun with me, so I slipped back an’ hid. You should have seen the fun they had stickin’ their noses an’ paws in my bucket of honey. They stole it, too, an’ took it off with them.”

“You won’t leave me alone?” queried Lucy fearfully.

“Wal, if I have to I’ll boost you up into a tree,” drawled Edd.

“I wonder if this is going to be fun,” pondered Lucy. Suddenly she remembered the proclivity for playing tricks natural to these backwoods boys. “Edd, promise me you will not try to scare me. No tricks! Promise me solemnly.”

“Aw, I’m shore not mean, Lucy,” he expostulated. “Fun is fun an’ I ain’t above little tricks. But honest, you can trust me.”

“I beg your pardon. That about bears — and boosting me up into a tree — somehow flustered me a little.”

Soon they crossed the clearing to the green wall of cedars and pines. Here Edd led into a narrow trail, with Lucy at his heels. His ordinary gait was something for her to contend with. At once the trail began to wind down over red earth and round the head of rocky gullies, choked with cedars, and downward under a deepening forest growth.

Lucy had never been on this trail, which she knew to be the one that led over the Rim. She thrilled at the thought of climbing to the lofty summit of that black-fringed mountain mesa, but she was sure Edd would not put her to that ascent without a horse. The low hum which filled her ears grew into the roar of a brawling brook.

“Bear track,” said her guide, halting to point at a rounded depression in the dust of the trail. Lucy saw the imprint of huge toes. Her flesh contracted to a cold, creeping sensation. “That old Jasper went along here last night. Reckon he’s the bear that’s been killin’ our little pigs. Pa shore will be rarin’ to chase him with the hounds.”

“Edd! Is there any danger of our meeting this old Jasper, as you called him?” inquired Lucy.

“Reckon not much. Shore we might, though. I often run into bears. They’re pretty tame. Hope we do meet him. I’d shore have some fun.”

“Oh, would you? I don’t believe it’d be very funny for me,” declared Lucy.

“Wal, in case we do, you just mind what I say,” concluded Edd.

Somehow his drawling confidence reassured her, and she reverted again to the pleasurable sensations of the walk. The trail led down into a deep gorge, dense with trees large and small, and along a wildly boulder-strewn stream bed, where the water roared unseen through its channel. Here towered the lofty silver spruces, so delicate of hue and graceful in outline. The sunlight filtered through the foliage. Everywhere Lucy gazed were evidences of the wildness of this forest, in timber and rock and windfalls, in the huge masses of driftwood, in the precipitous banks of the stream, showing how the flood torrents tore and dug at their confines.

Lucy did not see a bird or squirrel, nor hear one. But as to the latter the roar of rushing water would have drowned any ordinary sound. Gradually the trail left the vicinity of the stream and began a slight ascent, winding among beds of giant boulders covered with trailing vines. Lucy was particularly struck by the almost overpowering scent of the woodland. It appeared dominated by the fragrance of pine, but there was other beside that spicy tang. Through the woods ahead she caught glimpses of light and open sky. Then Edd halted her.

“I hear turkeys cluckin’,” he whispered. “Hold my bucket, an’ keep right close to me, so you can see. Walk Injun, now.”

Lucy complied instinctively, and she was all eyes and ears. She could not, however, give undivided attention to the scene in front and at the same time proceed noiselessly. Edd walked slower and stooped lower as the trail led round a corner of thicket toward the open. Lucy saw a long narrow clearing, overgrown with small green cedars and patches of sumach shining red and gold in the sunlight. At the same instant she saw something move, a white and brown object flashing low down. Edd swiftly rose. The gun cracked so suddenly that Lucy was startled. Then followed a tremendous flapping of wings. Huge black and grey birds flew and sailed out of the clearing into the woods, crashing through the foliage. Next Lucy heard a loud threshing in the brush just in front, and a heavy thumping. Both sounds diminished in volume, then ceased.

“Wal, I reckon you’ll have turkey for dinner to-morrow,” said Edd, looking to his gun. “Did you see them before they flew?”

“I saw a flash. Oh, it went swiftly! Then you shot, and I saw them rise. What a roar! Did you kill one?” replied Lucy excitedly.

“I shore did. It was a good shot. He was rarin’ to get out of here,” said Edd, as he walked forward through the patch of sumach.

Lucy followed him to the open place where lay a beautiful wild turkey, its shiny plumage all ruffled and dishevelled, its wings wide, its gorgeous bronzeawl-white tail spread like a huge fan. Lucy was astonished at the variety and harmony of the colours. This wild bird was as beautiful as a peacock.

“Gobbler, two years old,” said Edd. “Just fine for eatin’. I’ll hang him up in the shade an’ get him on our way home. Shore it’s risky, though, because there’s cats and lions around.”

He carried the turkey into the edge of the woods, where Lucy heard him tramping around and breaking branches. When he emerged again he led her to the upper end of this clearing, meanwhile telling her that his father had years before cut the timber and tried to cultivate the ground. It had not been a successful venture. A tiny stream of water ran through the upper end, making smooth, deep holes in the red clay. Edd pointed out deer and turkey tracks, with muddy water in them. He followed the stream to its source in a spring at the head of the clearing. A small, shallow basin full of water, weeds, and moss lay open to the sun.

“Wal, here’s where we start,” announced Edd enthusiastically. “Listen to the hum of bees.”

The air seemed murmurous and melodious with the hum of innumerable bees. What a sweet, drowsy summer sound! Lucy gazed all around.

“Oh, I hear them! But where are they?” she cried.

“Wal, they’re flyin’ around, workin’ in the tops of these pine saplings,” replied Edd.

“Do they get honey up there?” queried Lucy in amaze.

“They shore get somethin’,” replied Edd. “If you go climbin’ round pine trees an’ get your hands all stuck up with pitch an’ sap you’ll think so, too. I reckon bees get somethin’ in these pines to help make their wax...Now look down along the edge of the water. You’ll see bees lightin’ an’ flyin’ up. I’ve watched them hundreds of times, but I never made shore whether they drank, or diluted their honey, or mixed their wax with water.”

“Well! Who’d have thought honeybees so interesting?...Yes, I see some. Will they sting me?”

“Tame as flies,” returned Edd easily.

Trustingly Lucy got down on hands and knees, and then lay prone, with her face just above the water. Here, at a distance of a foot, she could see the bees distinctly. At once she noted several varieties, some yellow and black, which she knew to be yellow-jackets, some fuzzy and brown like the tame honeybee, and a few larger, darker. As she leaned there these wilder bees flew away.

Edd knelt to one side and pointed at the bees. “The yellow ones are jackets, an’ she shore hates them.”

“She! Who’s she?” queried Lucy.

“Wal, I call the wild bees she. Reckon because I’ve caught an’ tamed queen bees. Shore that’s some job.”

“I remember now. You told me in rainy season the yellow-jackets fought and killed the wild bees and stole their honey. These yellow bees are the ones...They’re pretty, but they’re mean-looking.”

“Hold still,” said Edd suddenly. “There’s a wild bee, the kind I’m goin’ to line to-day. He lit by that little stone.”

“I see him,” whispered Lucy.

“Wal, now look close. Is he drinkin’ or movin’ his legs in the water? You see he’s just at the edge. Look at his knees. See the little yellow balls? That’s wax.”

“How funny!” said Lucy, laughing. “Why, his legs look deformed, burdened with those balls! Where does he carry his honey?”

“I never was shore, but I reckon in his mouth. Some bee hunters think the yellow balls are honey. I never did. It tastes like wax.”

“It’s beeswax. I know what that is. But where does the bee use it?”

“Shore you’ll see that when I cut down a bee tree.”

Apart from Lucy’s great sympathy with the singular passion this wild bee hunter had for his calling she was quite fascinated on her own account. It needed very little to stimulate Lucy’s interest, especially in a problem or mystery, or something that required reason, study, perseverance to solve. She was getting acquainted with bees. The yellow-jackets were lively, aggressive, busy-body little insects that manifestly wanted the place to themselves. The wild bees had a very industrious and earnest look. At the approach of yellow-jackets they rose and flew, to settle a little farther away. Lucy espied bees all along the edge of the water. The big one Edd had called her attention to flew away, and presently another took its place. Lucy wished for a magnifying glass, and told Edd that if they had one they could tell exactly what the bee was doing there.

“By George!” ejaculated Edd, in most solemn rapture. “Shore we could. I never thought of that. Wal, I never even heard of a glass that’d magnify. Where can we get one?”

“I’ll fetch you one from Felix.”

“Lucy, I reckon I don’t want you to go, but I’d shore love to have that kind of a glass.”

“Why don’t you want me to go?” asked Lucy gaily.

“It’s hard to say. But I’m not so shore. Reckon Mertie will have a grand time. You’re awful good to take her. But won’t she get her head full of notions about clothes an’ city boys?”

“Edd, you’re worrying a lot, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Haven’t you faith in me? I’m going to satisfy Mertie’s passion for pretty things. Once in her life! And I’m going to see that Bert Hall goes with us.”

Lucy raised on her elbows to mark the effect of this statement upon her companion. For once his stoicism was disrupted. He seemed thunderstruck. Then his dark face beamed and his grey eyes shone with the piercing light Lucy found hard to face.

“Wal! — Who in the world’s ever goin’ to make up to you for your goodness?”

“Edd, it’s not goodness exactly,” returned Lucy, somewhat affected by his emotion. “It’s not my welfare work, either. I guess I’ll get more out of it than Mertie and Bert. Real happiness, you know.”

“Shore. But I know what I think.”

Lucy dropped back to study the bees. A number of the wild species had settled down right under her eyes. They were of different sizes and hues, and the very smallest carried the largest balls of wax on his knees. She strained her eyes to see perfectly, and was rewarded by sight of an almost imperceptible motion of both their heads and legs.

“Edd, I believe they drink and wet their wax. Both. At the same time.”

“Wal, shore I’ve reckoned that often. Now get up an’ watch me line a bee.”

This brought Lucy to her feet with alacrity. Edd’s voice sounded a note entirely at variance with his usual easy, cool, drawling nonchalance. About most things he was apparently indifferent. But anything pertaining to his beloved bee hunting touched him to the quick.

“Now, you stand behind me an’ a little to one side,” he directed. “An’ we’ll face toward that far point on the Rim. Eagle Rock we call it. Most of the bees here take a line over there.”

Suddenly he pointed. “See that one?”

Though Lucy strained her eyes, she saw nothing. The wide air seemed vacant.

“Don’t look up so high,” he said. “These bees start low. You’ve shore got to catch her right close...There goes another.”

“I’m afraid my eyes aren’t good,” complained Lucy, as she failed again.

“No. Keep on lookin’. You’ll line her in a minute.”

Just then Lucy caught sight of a tiny black object shooting over her head and darting with singularly level, swift flight straight away. It did not appear to fly. It swept.

“Oh, Edd, I see one!...He’s gone.”

“Shore. You’ve got to hang your eye on to her.”

Lucy caught a glimpse of another speeding bee, lost it, and then sighted another. She held this one in view for what seemed an endless moment. Then having got the knack of following, she endeavoured to concentrate all her powers of vision. Bee after bee she watched. They had a wonderful unvarying flight. Indeed, she likened them to bullets. But they were remarkably visible. No two bees left the water-hole together. There was a regularity about their appearance.

“Wal, you’re doin’ fine. You’ll shore make a bee-hunter,” said Edd. “Now let’s face west awhile.”

Lucy found this direction unobstructed by green slope and red wall. It was all open sky. A line of bees sped off and Lucy could follow them until they seemed to merge into the air.

“Why do some bees go this way and some that other way?” she queried.

“She belongs to different bee trees. She knows the way home better than any other livin’ creature. Can’t you see that? Straight as a string! Reckon you never heard the old sayin’, ‘makin’ a bee line for home.’”

“Oh, is that where that comes from?” ejaculated Lucy, amused. “I certainly appreciate what it means now.”

“Now shift back to this other bee line,” instructed Edd. “When you ketch another, follow her till you lose her, an’ then tell me where that is. Mark the place.”

Lucy made several attempts before she succeeded in placing the disappearance of a bee close to the tip of a tall pine on the distant ridge.

“Wal, that’s linin’ as good as ever Mertie or Allie,” asserted Edd, evidently pleased, and he picked up his gun and bucket. “We’re off.”

“What do we do now?” queried Lucy.

“Can’t you reckon it out?”

“Oh, I see! We’ve got the bee line. We follow it to that pine tree where I lost the last bee.”

“Right an’ exactly,” drawled Edd.

“Oh — what fun It’s like a game. Then where do we go?”

“Wal, I can’t say till we get there.”

“We’ll watch again. We’ll sight more bees. We’ll get their line. We’ll follow it as far as we can see — mark the spot — and then go on,” declared Lucy excitedly.

“Lucy, your granddad might have been a wild-bee hunter,” said Edd, with an approving smile.

“He might, only he wasn’t,” laughed Lucy. “You can’t make any wild-bee hunter of me, Edd Denmeade.”

“Shore, but you might make one of yourself,” drawled Edd.

Lucy had no reply for that. Falling in behind him as he headed across the clearing, she pondered over his words. Had they been subtle, a worthy response to her rather blunt double meaning, or just his simplicity, so apt to hit the truth? She could not be sure, but she decided hereafter to think before she spoke.

Edd crossed the clearing and plunged into the forest. As he entered the timber Lucy saw him halt to point out a tree some distance ahead. This, of course, was how he marked a straight line. Lucy began to guess the difficulty of that and the strenuous nature of travelling in a straight line through dense and rugged forest. She had to scramble over logs and climb over windfalls; she had to creep through brush and under fallen trees; she had to wade into ferns as high as her head and tear aside vines that were as strong as ropes.

They reached the bank above the roaring brook. As Edd paused to choose a place to get down the steep declivity, Lucy had a moment to gaze about her. What a wild, dark, deep glen! The forest monarchs appeared to mat overhead and hide the sun. Boulders and trees, brook and bank, all the wild jumble of rocks and drifts, and the tangle of vines and creepers, seemed on a grand scale. There was nothing small. The ruggedness of nature, of storm and flood, of fight to survive, manifested itself all around her.

“Wal, shore if you can’t follow me you can squeal,” shouted Edd, above the roar of the brook.

“Squeal! Me? Never in your life!” replied Lucy, with more force than elegance. “If I can’t follow you, I can’t, that’s all. But I’ll try.”

“Reckon I didn’t mean squeal as you took it,” returned Edd, and without more ado he plunged in giant strides right down the bank.

Lucy plunged likewise, fully expecting to break her neck. Instead, however, she seemed to be taking seven-league-boot-steps in soft earth that slid with her. Once her hands touched. Then, ridiculously easily, she arrived at the bottom of the forty-foot embankment. Most amusing of all was the fact that Edd never even looked back. Certainly it was not discourtesy, for Edd was always thoughtful. He simply had no concern about her accomplishing this descent.

Crossing the brook had more qualms for Lucy, and when she saw Edd leap from one slippery rock to another she thought it was a good thing she had been put on her mettle. Edd reached the other side without wetting a foot. Lucy chose boulders closer together, and by good judgment, added to luck, she got safely across, though not without wet boots.

Then Lucy climbed after Edd up a bank of roots that was as easy as a ladder, and thence on into the forest again. A thicket of pine saplings afforded welcome change. How subdued the light — how sweet the scent of pine! She threaded an easy way over smooth, level mats of needles, brown as autumn leaves. Edd broke the dead branches and twigs as he passed, so that she did not have to stoop. On all sides the small saplings shut out the light and hid the large trees. Soon the hum of the brook died away. Footsteps on the soft needles gave forth no sound. Silent, shaded, lonely, this pine smale appealed strongly to Lucy. Soon it ended in a rough open ridge of cedar, oak, and occasional pine, where Edd’s zigzag climb seemed steep and long. It ended in an open spot close to a tree Lucy recognised.

“I thought — we’d never — get here,” panted Lucy. “That was easy. Can you pick out where we stood in the down clearin’?”

Lucy gazed down the slope, across the green thicket and then the heavy timber marking the channel of the brook, on to the open strip bright with its red sumach.

“Yes, I see the water,” she replied.

“Wal, turn your back to that an’ look straight the other way an’ you’ll soon get our — bee line.”

She had not stood many moments as directed before she caught the arrowy streak of bees, flying straight over the ridge. But owing to the background of green, instead of the sky that served as background, she could not follow the bees very far.

“Here’s where we make easy stages,” remarked Edd, and started on.

Open ridge and hollow occupied the next swift hour. Lucy had enough to do to keep up with her guide. The travel, however, was not nearly as rough as that below, so that she managed without undue exertion. She had been walking and climbing every day, and felt that she was equal to a gruelling task. She had misgivings, however, as to that endurance being sufficient for all Edd might require. Still, she had resolved to go her very limit, as a matter of pride. Mertie had confided to Lucy that the only time Sadie Purdue had ever gone bee-hunting with Edd she had given out, and that, too, on a rather easy bee line. It would have to be a bad place and a long walk that would daunt Lucy this day.

Edd’s easy stages proved to be short distances from mark to mark, at every one of which he took pleasure in having Lucy again catch the bee line.

“When are you going to burn the honey in your bucket?” asked Lucy, once, happening to remember what Edd had told her.

“I don’t know. Maybe I won’t have to,” he replied: “If I lose the bee line, then I’ll need to burn honey.”

“It seems, if things keep on as they are, you’ll lose only me,” observed Lucy.

“Tired?”

“Not a bit. But if I had to keep this up all day I might get tired.”

“We’ll eat lunch under this bee tree.”

“That’s most welcome news. Not because I want the hunt to be short, at all! I’m having the time of my life. But I’m hungry.”

“It’s always good to be hungry when you’re in the woods,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because when you do get to camp or back home, near starved to death, everythin’ tastes so good, an’ you feel as if you never knew how good food is.”

Lucy was beginning to appreciate what this philosophy might mean in more ways than applied to hunger. It was good to starve, to thirst, to resist, to endure.

The bee line led to the top of a slope, and a hollow deeper, rougher than any of the others, and much wider. Edd lined the bees across to the timber on the summit of the ridge beyond, but he was concerned because there appeared so little to mark the next stage. The pines on that side were uniform in size, shape, and colour. There were no dead tops or branches.

“Now, this is easy if we go straight down an’ up,” said Edd. “But if we go round, head this hollow, I reckon I might lose our bee line.”

“Why should we go round?” inquired Lucy.

“Because that’d be so much easier for you,” he explained.

“Thanks. But did you hear me squeal?”

Edd let out a hearty laugh, something rare with him, and it was an acceptance that gratified Lucy. Thereupon he went straight down the slope. Lucy strode and trotted behind, finding it took little effort. All she had to do was to move fast to keep from falling.

“Yes, I see the water,” she replied.

“Wal, turn your back to that an’ look straight the other way an’ you’ll soon get our — bee line.”

She had not stood many moments as directed before she caught the arrowy streak of bees, flying straight over the ridge. But owing to the background of green, instead of the sky that served as background, she could not follow the bees very far.

“Here’s where we make easy stages,” remarked Edd, and started on.

Open ridge and hollow occupied the next swift hour. Lucy had enough to do to keep up with her guide. The travel, however, was not nearly as rough as that below, so that she managed without undue exertion. She had been walking and climbing every day, and felt that she was equal to a gruelling task. She had misgivings, however, as to that endurance being sufficient for all Edd might require. Still, she had resolved to go her very limit, as a matter of pride. Mertie had confided to Lucy that the only time Sadie Purdue had ever gone bee-hunting with Edd she had given out, and that, too, on a rather easy bee line. It would have to be a bad place and a long walk that would daunt Lucy this day.

Edd’s easy stages proved to be short distances from mark to mark, at every one of which he took pleasure in having Lucy again catch the bee line.

“When are you going to burn the honey in your bucket?” asked Lucy, once, happening to remember what Edd had told her.

“I don’t know. Maybe I won’t have to,” he replied: “If I lose the bee line, then I’ll need to burn honey.”

“It seems, if things keep on as they are, you’ll lose only me,” observed Lucy.

“Tired?”

“Not a bit. But if I had to keep this up all day I might get tired.”

“We’ll eat lunch under this bee tree.”

“That’s most welcome news. Not because I want the hunt to be short, at all I I’m having the time of my life. But I’m hungry.”

“It’s always good to be hungry when you’re in the woods,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because when you do get to camp or back home, near starved to death, everythin’ tastes so good, an’ you feel as if you never knew how good food is.”

Lucy was beginning to appreciate what this philosophy might mean in more ways than applied to hunger. It was good to starve, to thirst, to resist, to endure.

The bee line led to the top of a slope, and a hollow deeper, rougher than any of the others, and much wider. Edd lined the bees across to the timber on the summit of the ridge beyond, but he was concerned because there appeared so little to mark the next stage. The pines on that side were uniform in size, shape, and colour. There were no dead tops or branches.

“Now, this is easy if we go straight down an’ up,” said Edd. “But if we go round, head this hollow, I reckon I might lose our bee line.”

“Why should we go round?” inquired Lucy.

“Because that’d be so much easier for you,” he explained.

“Thanks. But did you hear me squeal?”

Edd let out a hearty laugh, something rare with him, and it was an acceptance that gratified Lucy. Thereupon he went straight down the slope. Lucy strode and trotted behind, finding it took little effort. All she had to do was to move fast to keep from falling.

This mode of travel appeared to be exhilarating. At least something was exhilarating, perhaps the air. Lucy knew she was excited, buoyant. Her blood ran warm and quick. What an adventure! If only she could have felt sure of herself! Yet she did not admit to her consciousness where she felt uncertain. “I’ll live this with all I have,” she soliloquised, “for I might never go again.”

The slope into this hollow was a delusion and a snare. From above it had appeared no denser than the others. It turned out to be a jungle of underbrush. Live-oak, manzanita, buckbrush formed an almost impenetrable thicket on the southerly exposed side. Edd crashed through the oaks, walked on top of the stiff manzanita, and crawled under the buck-brush.

Water ran down the rocky gully at the bottom. How Lucy drank and bathed her hot face! Here Edd filled a canvas water bag he had carried in his pocket, and slung it over his shoulder.

“Shore was fun ridin’ the manzanitas, wasn’t it?” he queried.

“Edd, it’s — all fun,” she breathed. “Remember, if I fall by the wayside — I mean by the bee line — that my spirit was willing but my flesh was weak.”

“Humph! Sometimes I don’t know about you, Lucy Watson,” he said dubiously.

When Lucy imagined she deserved a compliment it seemed rather disillusioning to hear an ambiguous speech like that. Meekly she followed him in and out of the clumps of brush toward the slope. Her meekness, however, did not last very long. Edd had the most astonishing faculty for bringing out all that was worst in her. Then by the time she had gotten half-way through a grove of large-leaved oaks she had forgotten what had inflamed her spirit. Every strenuous section of this journey had its reward in an easy stretch, where beauty and colour and wilderness took possession of her.

Edd zigzagged up this slope, and the turns were so abrupt that Lucy began for the first time to feel a strain. Edd saw it and paused every few moments to give her time to regain breath and strength. He did not encourage her to waste either in speech. This slope stood on end. The ridge proved to be a mountain. Lucy was compelled to dig heels and toes in the hard, red earth, and often grasp a bush or branch, to keep from slipping back.

At last they surmounted the great timbered incline. Lucy fell on a pine mat, so out of breath that she gasped. She had an acute pain in her side. It afforded her some satisfaction to see Edd’s heaving breast and his perspiring face.

“What’re — you — panting about?” she asked, heroically sitting up.

“Reckon that pull is a good one to lumber up on,” he said.

“Oh-h-h! Are there — any worse pulls?”

“Shore I don’t know. We might have to climb up over the Rim.”

“Well,” concluded Lucy, with resignation, “where’s our bee line?”

“I got plumb off,” confessed Edd, in humiliation, as if the error he had made was one of unforgivable proportions. “But, honest, sometimes it’s impossible to go straight.”

“I accept your apology, Edward,” said Lucy facetiously. “But it wasn’t necessary. No human being — even a bee hunter — can pass through rocks, trees, hills, walls of brush, and piles of logs...What’ll we do now?”

“I’ll walk along an’ see if I can find her. If I don’t we’ll burn some honey. That’ll take time, but it’ll shore fetch her. You rest here.”

Lucy could see the two clearings of the Denmeades nestling green and yellow in the rolling lap of the forest. How far she had travelled! She was proud of this achievement already. With her breath regained, and that pain gone from her side, she was not the least the worse for her exertion. Indeed, she felt strong and eager to pursue the bee line to its end. Only by such effort as this could she see the wonderful country or learn something about the forest land. She was high up now, and yet the Rim still towered beyond and above, unscalable except for eagles. She was revelling in the joy of her sensations when Edd’s step disrupted them.

“I found her. We wasn’t so far off. Come now, if you’re rested,” he said.

“Edd, how far do bee lines usually run from where you find them?” asked Lucy.

“Sometimes miles. But I reckon most bee lines are short. Shore they seem long because you have to go up an’ down, right over everythin’.”

Rolling forest stretched away from the ridge-top, neither level nor hilly. Despite the heavy growth of pines the bee line seemed to penetrate the forest and still preserve its unwavering course. Lucy could see the bees flying down the aisles between the tree-tops, and she was unable to make certain that they curved in the least. Edd could line them only a short distance, owing to intervening trees. Progress here was necessarily slower, a fact that Lucy welcomed. Birds and squirrels and rabbits enlivened this open woodland; and presently when Edd pointed out a troop of sleek grey deer, wonderfully wild and graceful as they watched with long ears erect, Lucy experienced the keenest of thrills.

“Black-tails,” said Edd, and he raised his gun.

“Oh — please don’t kill one of them!” cried Lucy appealingly.

“Shore I was only takin’ aim at that buck. I could take him plumb centre.”

“Well, I’ll take your word for it,” rejoined Lucy. “How tame they are!...They’re going...Oh, there’s a beautiful little fawn!”

She watched them bound out of sight, and then in her relief and pleasure to see them disappear safely she told Edd she was glad he was a bee-hunter instead of a deer-hunter.

“Wal, I’m not much on bees to-day,” he acknowledged. “But that’s natural, seein’ I’ve a girl with me.”

“You mean you do better alone?”

“I reckon.”

“Are you sorry you brought me?”

“Sorry? Wal, I guess not. ‘Course I love best to be alone in the woods. But havin’ you is somethin’ new. It’s not me, but the woods an’ the bees an’ the work you’re thinkin’ about. You don’t squeal an’ you don’t want to get mushy in every shady place.”

Lucy, failing of an adequate response to this remarkable speech, called his attention to the bees; and Edd stalked on ahead, peering through the green aisles. The beautiful open forest was soon to end in a formidable rocky canyon, not more than half a mile wide, but very deep and rugged. Lucy stood on the verge and gazed, with her heart in her eyes. It was a stunning surprise. This deep gorge notched the Rim. Red and yellow crags, cliffs, ledges, and benches varied with green slopes, all steps down and down to the black depths. A murmur of running water soared upward. Beneath her sailed an eagle, brown of wing and back, white of head and tail, the first bald eagle Lucy had ever seen.

“Dog-gone!” ejaculated Edd. “Shore I was hopin’ we’d find our bee tree on this side of Doubtful Canyon.”

“Doubtful? Is that its name?”

“Yes, an’ I reckon it’s a Jasper.”

“Edd, it may be doubtful, but it’s grand,” declared Lucy.

“You won’t think it’s grand if we undertake to cross.”

“Then our bee tree is way over there some place,” said Lucy, gazing at the blue depths, the black slopes, the yellow crags, the red cliffs. They would have looked close but for the dominating bulk of the Rim, rising above and beyond the canyon wall. All was green growth over there except the blank faces of the rocks. Ledges and benches, nooks and crannies, irresistibly beckoned for Lucy to explore.

“If! We’re certainly going to cross, aren’t we?” she queried, turning to Edd.

“Wal, if you say so, we’ll try. But I reckon you can’t make it.”

“Suppose I do make it — can we go home an easier way?”

“Shore. I can find easy goin’, downhill all the way,” replied Edd.

“Well, then I propose we rest here and have our lunch. Then cross! Before we start, though, you might let me see you burn some honey. Just for fun.”

This plan met with Edd’s approval. Just below they found a huge flat ledge of rock, projecting out over the abyss. Part of it was shaded by a bushy pine, and here Edd spread the lunch. Then while Lucy sat down to eat he built a tiny fire out on the edge of the rock. Next he placed a goodly bit of honey on a stone close enough to the fire to make it smoke.

“Pretty soon we’ll have some fun,” he said.

“Wrong! We’re having fun now. At least I am,” retorted Lucy.

“Wal, then, I mean some more fun,” he corrected. Whereupon they fell with hearty appetites upon the ample lunch Mrs. Denmeade had provided. Edd presently said he heard bees whizz by. But a quarter of an hour elapsed before any bees actually began to drop down over the smoking honey. Then Edd poured some of the honey out on the rock. The bees circled and alighted. More came and none left. Lucy asked why they did not fly away.

“Makin’ pigs of themselves,” he said “But soon as they get all they can hold they’ll fly.”

By the time the lunch was finished a swarm of bees of different sizes and hues had been attracted to the honey, and many were departing. As they came from different directions, so they left. Edd explained this to be owing to the fact that these bees belonged to different trees.

“Do all these wild bees live in trees?” she asked.

“All but the yellow-jackets. They have holes in the ground. I’ve seen where many holes had been dug out by bears...Wal, we played hob with the lunch. An’ now I reckon it’s high time we began our slide down this canyon.”

“Slide? Can’t we walk?”

“I reckon you’ll see. It’ll be a slidin’ walk,” averred Edd. “Shore I’m goin’ to have all the fun I can, ‘cause you’ll shore never go anywheres with me again.”

“My! How terrible this sliding walk must be!...But I might fool you, Edd. I’ve decided to go to the dance with you, an’ let Clara go with Joe.”

“Aw! That’s nice of you,” he replied, with frank gladness. His face lighted at some anticipation. “Joe will shore be proud.”

He walked out upon the ledge to get his bucket, driving the bees away with his sombrero, and when he had secured it he took a last long look across the canyon. Lucy noticed what a picture he made, standing there, tall, round-limbed, supple, his youthful leonine face sharp against the sky. He belonged there. He fitted the surroundings. He was a development of forest and canyon wilderness. The crudeness once so objectionable to her was no longer manifest. Was it because of change and growth in him — or in her? Lucy fancied it was the latter. Edd had vastly improved, but not in the elemental quality from which had sprung his crudeness.

“She’ll be right across there,” he said, pointing with long arm. “I can line her half-way across. Reckon I see the tree now. It’s an oak, sort of grey in colour, standin’ on a ledge. An’ it’s got a dead top an’ one big crooked branch.”

“Very well, I’ll remember every word,” warned Lucy.

“I’ll go ahead, so when you come slidin’ I can grab you,” he said.

“See that you don’t miss me,” replied Lucy, as she started to follow him down off the ledge. At first the descent, though steep, was easy enough. Had Edd zigzagged down she would have had no trouble at all. But he descended straight down over bare earth, rock slides, banks and benches, swerving only for trees and brush, and then taking care to get back again in alignment with whatever he had marked to guide him. Lucy could not go slowly, unless she sat down, which, despite an almost irresistible temptation, she scorned to do. Quite abruptly, without preparation, she found herself standing at the top of a wonderful green and brown slope dotted by pine trees and remarkable for its waved effect. It descended at an angle of forty-five degrees, an open forest standing almost on end! The green colour was grass; the brown, pine needles. This place made Lucy’s heart leap to her throat. An absolutely unaccountable and new species of fright assailed her. Never in her life before had she seen a slope like that, or been attacked by such dread.

“Wal, here’s where we slide,” drawled Edd, gazing up at her. “Whatever you do, do it quick, an’ keep in line with me.”

Then he started down. His action here was very much different from any before. He descended sidewise, stepping, or rather running, on the edge of his boots, holding gun and bucket in his left hand, and reaching back with his right. His position corresponded with the slant of the slope. He slid more than he ran. His right hand often touched the ground behind him. He left a furrow in grass and needles. Forty or fifty feet below he lodged on a bench. Then he straightened round to look up at Lucy.

“Wal, city girl!” he called gaily. His voice was bantering, full of fun.

It lent Lucy recklessness. Through it she recovered from the queer locked sensation.

“All right, country boy, I’m coming,” she replied, with bravado.

Then she launched herself, heedlessly attempting to imitate Edd’s method of procedure. A few swift steps landed her upon the pine needles. Quick as lightning her feet flew up and she fell. Frantically she caught the ground with her hands and held on, stopped her momentum. Both breath and bravado had been jarred out of her.

“Wal, you’ve started comin’, so come on,” called Edd, never cracking a smile.

Lucy, holding on in most undignified manner, glared down upon him, making one last desperate effort to keep her equilibrium and her temper. If he had laughed or smiled, she might have trusted him more.

“Did you get me here on purpose?” she demanded, with magnificent disregard of reason.

“Shore. We’re on our bee line. You couldn’t be talked out of it,” he replied.

“I mean on this terrible hill,” she added, weakening.

“How’d I know she’d make a bee-line over this hill?” he demanded.

Lucy, seeing that action, not talk, was imperative, got up, and ran downhill right at him. She forgot his method of descending, but executed a very good one of her own. She ran, she flew, she fell, right upon Edd. He caught her outstretched hands and kept her from upsetting.

“Heavens!” gasped Lucy. “Suppose you hadn’t been here?”

“Wal, you’d have slid some,” he said. “But, honest, you did that fine.”

“It was an accident,” confessed Lucy as she fearfully gazed below. The next stage, to a bench below, seemed still steeper, and the one below that made Lucy’s head reel.

“I’m sorry I called you city girl,” he said contritely. “For you’re shore game, an’ quick on your feet. You hunt bees like you dance.”

Lucy’s misery was not alleviated by the compliment, because she knew she was a sham; nevertheless, she felt a weak little thrill. Maybe she could go on without killing herself.

“Don’t hang on to me,” added Edd as again he started. “That’s not the way. We’ll both slip, an’ if we do we’ll go clear to the bottom, same as if this hill was snow...When I make it down there you come, same as you got here.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Lucy wildly. “Don’t worry, I’ll come.”

Edd made a splendid achievement of the next descent, and halted in a favourable position to wait for Lucy. It encouraged her. Stifling her vacillations, she launched herself with light steps, leaning back, and depending on her gloved hand. She kept her feet most of the distance, but landed before Edd in a sliding posture. On the next attempt a couple of pine trees made descent easy for her. Below that were successive stages calculated to give her undue confidence.

“Wal, this is plumb bad,” ejaculated Edd, gazing below and to right and left. “But we can’t climb back. An’ it’s worse on each side. Reckon there’s nothin’ to do but slide.”

And he did slide and fall and roll, and finally lodge against a tree.

“Hey! you can’t do worse than that!” he shouted. “Come on. Don’t wait an’ think...Come a-rarin’.”

Lucy was in a strange state of suspended exhilaration and acute panic. She was both inhibited and driven. Actually she closed her eyes on the instant she jumped. Then she ran. Her objective was Edd and she had to look. She expected to plunge head over heels, yet she reached Edd upright, and earned another compliment. They went on with varying luck, but at least they made remarkable progress. The farther down this slope they proceeded the thicker lay the mats of pine needles and the scantier grew the patches of grass. Naturally the needles slipped and slid downward. Also, trees and brush grew scarce. Then, to make the situation worse, the descent took a sharper angle and the benches cropped out farther apart. At last they reached a point where Edd seemed at a loss. The slope just below was not only more precipitous and longer than any yet, but it ended in a jump-off, the extent of which Edd could not determine.

“Lucy, I’ve played hob gettin’ you into this,” he said, in remorse.

“It was my fault,” returned Lucy, frightened by his gravity. “Go on. Let’s get down — before I lose my nerve.”

All the nerve she had left oozed out as she watched Edd slide to the landing-place selected below. He never took a step. He sat down and slid like a streak. Lucy thought he was going over the precipice. But he dug heels into needles and ground, and stopped his flight in the nick of time.

“Not so bad as it looked,” he shouted. How far below he was now “Come on. It’s safe if you let yourself slide straight. So you won’t miss me!”

But Lucy did not obey. She realised how silly she was, but she simply could not deliberately sit down and slide. She essayed to do as she had done above. And her feet flew higher than her head. She alighted upon her back and began to shoot down. She turned clear over on her face. Dust and flying needles blinded her. Frantically she dug in with hands and feet, and rolled and slid to a halt.

When she cleared her sight she found she had got out of line with Edd. He was crawling along the precipice to intercept her. Lying prone on the slippery slope, she had to hold with all her might to keep from sliding. Edd’s yells, added to all that had happened, terrified her, and she clung there instinctively. It seemed a frightful drop to where Edd knelt. She would miss him and slide over the precipice. Inch by inch she felt herself slip. She screamed. Edd’s voice pierced her drumming ears.

“...darn fool, you! Let go! Slide!”

Lucy let go because she could no longer hold on. Then she seemed to rush through air and flying needles and clouds of dust. Swifter she slid. Her sight blurred. Sky and trees grew indistinct. She slid from her back over on her face, and plunged down. A mass of debris seemed to collect on her as she plunged. Suddenly she collided with something and stopped with terrific shock. She felt Edd’s clutch on her. But she could not see. Again she was moving, sliding, held back, pulled and dragged, and at last seemed to reach a halt. Breathless, stunned, blinded, burning as with fire, and choked with dust, Lucy wrestled to sit up.

“You shore slid,” Edd was saying. “You knocked us over the ledge. But we’re all right now. I’ll go back for my gun.”

Lucy’s mouth was full of dirt and pine needles her eyes of dust. She sputtered and gasped, and could not see until welcome tears washed her sight clear. Then she found she was at the foot of the terrible slope. Edd was crawling up to the bench above. Her hair and blouse and trousers, even her boots and pockets, were full of dust, pine needles, twigs, and dirt. Standing up, shaking and spent, she essayed to rid herself of all she had collected in that slide. Incredible to believe, she had not sustained even a bruise that she was aware of. Then Edd came slipping down, gun and bucket in hand. As he reached her he seemed to be labouring under some kind of tremendous strain.

“No — use!” he choked. “Shore — I can’t — hold it.”

“What, for goodness’ sake?” burst out Lucy.

“If I — don’t laugh — I’ll bust,” he replied, suddenly falling down.

“Pray don’t do anything so — so vulgar as that last,” said Lucy, attempting hauteur.

But sight of this imperturbable backwoods boy giving way to uncontrollable mirth affected Lucy peculiarly. Her resentment melted away. Something about Edd was infectious.

“I must have been funny,” she conceded.

Edd appeared incapacitated for any verbal explanation of how laughter-provoking she had been; and Lucy at last broke her restraint and shared his hilarity.

An hour later Lucy perched upon a ledge high above the canyon, exhausted and ragged, triumphant and gay, gazing aloft at a grey old oak tree that had breasted the winds and lightnings for centuries. Part of it was dead and bleached, but a mighty limb spread from the fork, with branches bearing myriads of broad green leaves and clusters of acorns. On the under side of this huge limb was a knot hole encrusted with a yellow substance. Beeswax. It surrounded the hole and extended some distance along the under side, changing the grey colour of the bark to yellow. A stream of bees passed in and out of that knot hole. Edd had followed his bee line straight to the bee tree.

“She’s a hummer,” he was saying as he walked to and fro, gazing upward with shining eyes. “Shore, it’s an old bee tree. Reckon that whole limb is hollow an’ full of honey...Easy to cut an’ let down without smashin’! I’ll save maybe fifty gallons.”

“Aren’t you afraid of those bees?” asked Lucy, seeing how they swooped down and circled round Edd.

“Bees never sting me,” he said.

Lucy assumed that if there was no danger for him there would be none for her; and desiring to see the bees at close range as they streamed in and out of the aperture, she arose and approached to where Edd stood.

Hardly had she raised her head to look up when a number of bees whizzed down round her face. In alarm Lucy struck at them with her gloves, which she carried in her hand.

“Don’t hit at them!” shouted Edd, in concern. “You’ll make them mad.”

But it was too late. Lucy had indeed incurred their wrath and she could not resist beating at them.

“Oh, they’re after me!...Chase them away... Edd...” She screamed the last as she backed away, threshing frantically at several viciously persistent bees. Then, as she backed against a log and lost her balance, one of the bees darted down to sting her on the nose. Lucy fell back over the log. The bee stayed on her nose until she pulled it off, not by any means without voicing a piercing protest. Then she bounded up and beat a hasty retreat to a safer zone. For a moment she ached with the burning sting. Then the humiliation of it roused her ire. The glimpse she had of Edd through the saplings caused her to suspect that he had again succumbed to shameless glee. Else why did he hide behind the bee tree?

Lucy was inclined to nurse her wrath as well as her nose. At any rate, she sat down to tenderly hold the injured member. It was swelling. She would have a huge, red, ugly nose. When Edd came to her at length, looking rather sheepish, Lucy glared at him.

“That horrid old bee stung me right on my nose,” she burst out. “Just for that I’ll not go to the dance.”

“I have some salve I made. It’ll take out the sting an’ swellin’,” he replied kindly.

“Does it look very bad yet!”

“No one’d ever see it,” he comforted.

“Oh, but it hurts. But if it doesn’t disfigure me for life I guess I can stand it.”

He gazed thoughtfully down upon her.

“You stuck to me bettor than any girl I ever took on a bee hunt. I’m shore goin’ to tell everybody. Pa an’ ma will be tickled. Now I’m askin’ you. Reckonin’ it all, aren’t you glad you had that awful spill an’ then got stung?”

“Well,” replied Lucy, gazing up at him just as, thoughtfully, “I’m not glad just this minute — but perhaps I will be later.”

Two hours of leisurely travel down a gradual descent, through a trailless forest, brought Lucy and her guide back to the brook. Edd had been careful to choose open woodland and the easiest going possible. Sunset found them crossing the clearing. Lucy could just wag along, yet she could still look up with delight in the golden cloud pageant, and at the sun-fired front of the Rim.

“Edd, you forgot the turkey,” said Lucy as they entered the lane.

“Nope. It was only out of our way, comin’ back. After supper I’ll jump a hoss an’ ride after it.”

“Well, Edd, thank you for — our bee hunt.”

As she passed the yard she waved and called gaily to the Denmeades, hiding to the last the fact that she was utterly spent. Clara heard her and flung open the door of the tent, glad-eyed and excited. Lucy staggered up into the tent and, closing the door, she made a long fall to the bed.

“Oh — Clara,” she whispered huskily, “I’m killed I’m dead!...Walked, climbed, slid, and stung to death!...Yes, stung! Look at my poor nose!...We found a bee line, and went a thousand miles — up and down...I stuck to that wild-bee hunter I did, Clara...But, oh, it’s done something to me!...What a glorious, glorious day!”

Clara leaned lovingly over her, and listened intently, and watched with sad, beautiful, wise eyes.

“Lucy, dear,” she said gently, “you’re in love with that wild-bee hunter.”

Chapter XI

LATE IN OCTOBER Lucy returned from Felix, where she had stayed four weeks instead of two, as she originally intended. Her work had so interested the welfare board that they considered the experiment a success, and they brought her in contact with other workers whom they wanted to have the benefit of Lucy’s experience. Thus she had found herself rather an important personage in that little circle.

Though the stage arrived at Cedar Ridge late in the afternoon, Lucy did not want to tarry there till next day. She had a strange, eager longing to get back to her sister and to the place she called home, the lonely homestead under the Rim. That had been the cause, she thought, of her restlessness while in the city.

Bert and Mertie, vastly important about the change in their lives, hurried to his home to reveal their secret, assuring Lucy that they would come out to the ranch next day. Lucy hired one of the few automobiles in Cedar Ridge, and in charge of a competent driver she arrived at Johnson’s just before sunset. Sam’s younger brother offered to ride up to Denmeade’s with her, and pack her baggage. As there was no school session during late fall and winter, Mr. Jenks had left with the understanding that he would return in the spring.

Once on horseback again, Lucy began to feel free. How long she had been gone! What changes had come! These were exemplified in the transformation fall had wrought in the verdure along the trails. Only the great pines had not changed, yet their needle foliage had a tinge of brown. The fern leaves that had waved so beautifully green and graceful were now crisp and shrivelled; the grape vines were yellow; the brown-eyed daisies were all gone; the sycamore trees were turning and the cottonwoods had parted with their beauty. Likewise had the walnut trees.

In places where Lucy could see the Rim she was astounded and delighted. She had carried away a picture of the coloured walls, but now there was a blaze of gold, purple, cerise, scarlet, all the hues of fire. Frost had touched maples, aspens, oaks, with a magic wand. It seemed another and more beautiful forest land that she was entering. Up and down, everywhere along the trail, her horse waded through autumn leaves. The level branches of spruce and pine, that reached close to her, were littered with fallen leaves, wrinkled and dried. How different the sound of hoofs! Now they padded, rustled, when before they had crunched and cracked.

The melancholy days had come. As the sunset hues failed Lucy saw purple haze as thick as smoke filling the hollows. The aisles were deserted of life, sear and brown, shading into twilight. She rode down into the deep forest glen and up out of it before overtaken by night. How comforting the dusky halls of the woodland! Assuredly she was going to find out something about herself when she could think it out. Sam’s little brother talked whenever the trail was steep and his horse lagged close to Lucy’s. Homely bits of news, pertaining to his simple life, yet Lucy found them sweet.

The hunter’s moon lighted the last mile of the ride up to the Denmeade clearing. Weird, moon-blanched, the great wall seemed to welcome her. What had come to her under its looming shadow? Black and silent the forest waved away to the dim boundaries. Lucy forgot her weariness. The baying of the hounds loosened the thrills that had been in abeyance, waiting for this moment when she rode up the lane. She peered for the white gleam of her canvas tent. Gone! Had Clara moved into the cabin? Then she made out that the tent wall had been boarded half-way up and the roof shingled. A light shone through the canvas. Lucy could scarcely wait to get her baggage from the boy and to tell him what to do.

Her voice stirred scrape of chair and flying footsteps inside the tent. The door swept open and Clara rushed out with a cry of welcome. Even in the poignant joy of the moment Lucy, as she folded Clara in a close embrace, missed the fragile slenderness that had characterised her sister’s form. Then they were in the brightly lighted tent, where for a little the sweetness of reunion precluded all else.

“Let go of me, so I can see you,” said Lucy, breaking away from her sister. “Oh, Clara!”

That was all she could say to this beautiful brown-faced, radiant-eyed apparition.

“Yes, I’m well!” cried Clara. “Strong as a bear. Almost fat! I wondered what you’d think...You see, your wilderness home and people have cured me...More! Oh, sister, I’m afraid to say it — but I’m happy, too.”

“Darling! Am I dreaming?” burst out Lucy, in a rapture. “What has happened? How have you done it? Who?...Why, I worried myself sick about you! Look at me! I’m thin, pale. And here you show yourself...Oh, Clara, you’re just lovely! What have you been doing?”

“Simple as A B C, as Danny says,” retuned Clara. “When you left I just felt that I would get well and — and all right again — or I’d die trying. I took up your work, and I’ve done it. I worked every way they’d let me. I rode and climbed and walked every day with Joe. And eat? Oh, I’ve been a little pig!”

“Every day with Joe!” echoed Lucy, with eyes of love, hope, fear, doubt upon this strange sister. “Has that changed you so wonderfully?”

When had Lucy seen such a smile on Clara’s face?

“Yes. But no more than taking up your work,” she rejoined, with sweet seriousness. “Joe cured my body. He got me out into the fields and the woods. I really wasn’t so sick. I was weak, starved, spiritless. Then your work with the children, with all the Denmeades, showed me how life is worth living. I just woke up.”

“I don’t care who or what has done it,” cried Lucy, embracing her again. “Bless Joe!...But, oh, Clara, if he was the way Edd said he was before I left — what is he now?”

“He loves me, yes,” said Clara, with a dreaming smile.

Lucy’s lips trembled shut on a query she feared to utter, and she endeavoured to conceal her emotion by lifting her baggage to the bed.

“Well, that’s no news,” she said lightly. “How’s my wild-bee hunter?”

“I can’t see any change,” replied Clara, laughing. “You wrote me only twice, and him not at all.”

“Him? Clara, did he expect to hear from me?” asked Lucy, facing about.

“I’m not sure, but he wanted to. Every night when he got home from his work — he’s gathering honey now — he’d come to me and ask if I’d heard. I think he missed you and Mertie. He wondered how she’d get along in Felix.”

“I ought to have written,” said Lucy, as much to herself as to Clara. “But I found it hard. I wanted to...I don’t know where I stand. Perhaps now...Heigho! Well, as for Mertie, he needn’t have worried about her.”

“Lucy, I confess I’m curious myself,” replied Clara.

“Mertie was just a crazy country girl who’d been badly influenced,” went on Lucy. “She had good stuff in her, as I guessed, and she really cared for Bert. Mertie wanted something, she didn’t know what. But I knew. And I gave it to her. I bought her everything she fancied and I took her everywhere. It did not seem possible to me that anyone could be so wildly happy as she was. And Bert? Goodness! It was good to see him...They’re married, and, I’m sure, settled for life.”

“Married! Well, Lucy Watson, you are a worker. So that was why you took them to Felix?” replied Clara.

“Not at all. But it fell in with the natural order of things. Don’t you breathe it. Mertie and Bert will be out here to-morrow to surprise the folks. They’ll be glad. I wonder how Edd will take it.”

“He’ll be happy,” mused Clara. “He loves that flibbertigibbet...So they’re married. It seems about all young people can do.”

“Are you speaking for yourself, or for me, sister?” queried Lucy teasingly.

“Not for myself, surely...Lucy, I think I hear Allie calling us to supper.”

The welcome accorded Lucy in that simple household was something even more satisfying that the meed of praise she had received at Felix. Edd Denmeade was not present. His father said he was out, camping on a long bee hunt. Lucy tried to ward off conviction that his absence was a relief. Yet she wanted to see him. The feelings were contrary.

Lucy parried the queries about Mertie by saying that she would be home to-morrow to answer for herself. The clamour of the children was subdued by the delivery of sundry presents from town. For that matter, Lucy did not forget any of the Denmeades. She had remembered what joy a gift brought to them, one and all. For Edd she had purchased a magnifying glass and a field glass, for use in his study of bees.

“Sis, what’d you bring me?” queried Clara jealously when they were back in the tent.

“Myself. Is that enough?” teased Lucy.

“Of course...Lucy, you must have spent a lot of money,” said Clara seriously.

“I shore did. All I had except what you wrote for. I have that.”

“It’s very — good of you,” replied Clara.

“What’d you need so much money for?” asked Lucy frankly. “It surprised me.”

“It’s — I — Well, there’s a woman in Kingston,” said Clara, averting her face. “I owed her money. I hated to tell you before, hoping she’d wait till I could earn some. But she wrote me.”

“How did she know you were here?” queried Lucy in surprise.

“I wrote to her first — about it,” returned Clara.

“You mustn’t owe money to anyone,” said Lucy decidedly. “Send her a money order from Cedar Ridge...Don’t look like that, dear. I’m glad to help you. What’s mine is yours...You’ll be pleased when I tell you my salary was raised and my work highly recommended. I had to teach several new welfare workers.”

And Lucy talked on and on, trying to chase away that strange look from Clara’s face, and also to talk herself into a forgetfulness of questioning surprise and vague misgivings. Not in a month could Clara recover wholly from the past! Lucy was unutterably grateful for a change far beyond her hopes.

“It was warm in Felix. Here it’s cold,” said Lucy, shivering closer to the little stove. “But the frost, the air feel so good.”

“We had six inches of snow,” replied Clara importantly. “I just loved it. Second snow I ever saw! But it melted off next day...Edd and Joe fixed up our tent. Oh, when the wind howled and the snow seeped, it would have been great if you’d been here. I was a little afraid, all alone!”

“Snow already? Well, I missed it, didn’t I?...Clara, let’s stay out here all winter.”

“Oh, I hope we can. I don’t see what else we can do — not till spring...Lucy, I’ve news for you. Mr. Denmeade told me that both the Claypools and Johnsons had complained to him because he was keeping you here so long. They say you’re partial to the Denmeades, and that if you don’t go to them soon they’ll report you. I hope it’s not possible for them to hurt you.”

Lucy had expected to hear this very news. While in Felix she had anticipated it and prepared her employers for complaints of this nature.

“They can’t hurt me, Clara,” she rejoined soberly. “I made this job and I can handle it to suit myself. But the Claypools and Johnsons are right. I am partial to the Denmeades, so far. I always meant to be fair, and I shall try to be. Circumstances, however, make my duty harder than I thought it would be. Indeed, I was fortunate to come here first. I owe my success to that. Now I’ve got to face the music. We’ll ride down to Claypool’s and then to Johnson’s and arrange to go to them in the spring and summer. But we’ll return here in the fall.”

“We! Must I go with you?” exclaimed Clara.

“Must you? Why, Clara, of course you must go with me,” declared Lucy, in amaze. “Whatever are you thinking of? How could I get along without you now?”

“I — I thought you might let me stay here,” replied Clara, with confusion rare in her. “They have talked about it, and I’d hate to leave, to break into a strange family. Mr. Denmeade and Joe, the mother and children, all say they won’t let you go. Edd says you’ll have to go, and you will go because you’re honest...I’m selfish, Lucy. I hope you can do your welfare work from here. You could in all seasons but winter. We could ride horseback twice a day, even as far as Miller’s. But if you can’t see it that way, or let me stay here at least part of the time, of course I’ll be glad to go, to work for you. I’m just a coward. These Denmeades have put something back in my heart. To live near that Sam Johnson would drive me wild. Mrs. Denmeade says the Spralls are bad, and Edd says you’ll go there despite him or all of us. I met Bud Sprall one day when I was hunting squirrels with Joe. He was at the dance we went to in September. I caught him looking at me. And you should have seen him looking at me when I was with Joe...Lucy, he couldn’t have heard about me, could he?

“I don’t see how,” declared Lucy emphatically. “Way up here in this wilderness? Impossible! I did not hear about you even in Felix. I met all our old friends. But no one even hinted of what you fear.”

Clara received this information with a stress of feeling disproportionate to its importance, Lucy thought, and she seemed singularly grateful for it.

“Lucy, there’s bad blood between Edd and this Bud Sprall,” went on Clara. “I’ve heard things not intended for my ears. You’ve got to hold in your wild-bee hunter or he’ll kill Bud Sprall.”

“Clara, I called Edd Denmeade my wild-bee hunter just for fun,” protested Lucy. “I — I thought it would amuse you. But goodness! he’s not mine! That’s ridiculous! And I’m not responsible for his feuds. He hated Bud Sprall before I ever came here.”

“That’s perfectly true, Lucy, but the fact remains Edd is yours whether you want him or not. And you can keep him from killing this fellow.”

“What have I got to do?” demanded Lucy flippantly. “I suppose you’ll suggest that I — I throw myself into Edd’s arms to keep him from becoming a murderer.”

“It’d be noble welfare work, wouldn’t it? And you like the boy!”

“I don’t like him as much as that,” muttered Lucy doggedly.

“Well, then, you’re as fickle as I used to be. For when you came back from the bee hunt with Edd last month you were in love. Or else I don’t know that little old disease.”

“Nonsense, Clara!” exclaimed Lucy, greatly irritated and perplexed with her sister. “I was out of my head. Excited, full of the joy of the outdoors. I might have been in love with the forest, the canyon, the wildness and beauty of this country. I am so still. But that’s—”

“Edd Denmeade and this wilderness are one and the same,” interrupted Clara. “But pray don’t mind my arguments, dearest Lucy. Sometimes you seem my little sister, instead of me being yours. We always disagreed. I suppose we always shall. I don’t think you will ever care to live in Felix again. I know I never shall. And we can’t help the effect we have on these boys...Something will come of it, that’s all...You’re tired, and I’ve worried you. Let’s go to bed.”

Next day Lucy was too devoted to getting settled and taking up the threads of her work to face at once the serious self-scrutiny that was inevitable. She welcomed any excuse to postpone it. Besides, she was weary of introspection. She felt like a fluttering leaf attached to a shaking twig and soon to be at the mercy of the storm. Always something was going to happen, but so far as she could tell it had not happened yet. Clara was an enigma. Despite the marvellous improvement in her, Lucy could not dispel a vague dread. It was intuitive, and resembled the shadow of a sword over her head.

She had a frank talk with Denmeade about the Claypools and the Johnsons. The old backwoodsman was honest and fair in his attitude toward them, in his statement of how much more they needed Lucy now than his own family. She could not delay her service in their behalf longer than early spring. He believed that Lucy could allay their jealous anxieties by going to see them and to plan with them for her coming. At the conclusion of this interview with Denmeade Lucy carried away the rather disturbing impression that the Denmeades had made her presence there a sort of personal triumph. She was living with them. What she had taught them, the improvements she had installed for cleaner and happier living, had only elevated them in their own regard above their neighbours. It made a bad situation.

Late that afternoon Mertie and Bert arrived in their best Felix clothes, mysteriously radiant.

“Clara, look,” said Lucy, peeping out of the tent. “I knew nothing in the world would keep Mertie from arriving in that dress. She has ridden horseback — from Johnson’s anyway.”

“She looks nice. It’s a pretty dress,” replied Clara. “Bert, though — isn’t he perfectly killing? Acts like a young lord...I hope they’ll be happy.”

“Let’s not miss this. They can’t keep it longer. Why, it shines from them!”

“Excuse me, Lucy. You go. I’ll see them later,” returned Clara.

Though Lucy went out at once, she was too late to be present when the young couple confessed. As Lucy entered the yard an uproar began on the porch. Mertie and Bert had timed their arrival for an hour when the whole family was at home. The parental blessing had certainly been received. Lucy halted a moment to peep through the thin-foliaged peach trees. The children were screaming at the top of their lungs, yet that din could not quite drown the gay, happy, excited voices of the Denmeade women and the deep, hoarse tones of the men.

Lucy’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and her heart throbbed with gladness. Only she knew just how responsible she had been for this happy event. Only she — and perhaps Edd — had known the narrow verge Mertie Denmeade had wilfully trod. Therefore she tarried a little longer at the fence, patting the noses of the smoking horses.

When she did present herself to the family on the porch the wild excitement had subsided.

“Reckon the boys an’ girls will storm Mertie tomorrow, shore,” Denmeade was saying. “An’ you want to make ready for a high old time.”

Lucy mounted the porch to gaze about her, smiling, with pretended surprise.

“What’s all the fun about?” she inquired.

“Wal now, Miss Lucy!” ejaculated Denmeade, rising and actually taking off his hat. Then he seized her hand in his big rough ones and beamed down on her, his brown grizzled face as rugged as the bark of a pine, yet expressive of the deepest feeling. “Wal, now, you played hob!”

That was all he had time to say before the children enveloped Lucy, and Allie and Mrs. Denmeade for once manifested their womanly appreciation of her goodness to them. The boys were undemonstrative. Dick stood like a tall sapling outlined against the open sky. Joe sat in the background against the wall, quiet-eyed, intent. Edd had evidently just come home, for his ragged leather chaps and his jeans bore substance and odour of the woods. He stood behind Mertie, who sat on the edge of the table, pale with the passion of her importance and the sensation she had created. She had her hands behind her, holding to Edd’s. The bright silk dress contrasted strangely with the subdued colours around her. Bert stood, foot on a bench, elbow on his knee, gazing adoringly down upon his bride. His gaudy necktie matched her gown.

“Howdy, city girl!” drawled Edd to Lucy. He gave her no other greeting. The deep gaze accompanying his words was embarrassing and baffling to Lucy. She laughed and retorted:

“Howdy, wild-bee hunter!”

Thereupon Mertie launched again into the wild and whirling recital that evidently Lucy’s arrival had broken for the moment. When, presently, she paused for breath, Bert flicked the ashes off his cigarette and announced to Denmeade:

“Pa turned over the sawmill to me. Weddin’ present!”

“Dog-gone me!” ejaculated Denmeade vociferously. “If you ain’t lucky — gettin’ the mill an’ Mert at one lick.”

“Yep, my luck turned that day we had our bean pickin’,” replied Bert happily.

“Wal, to talk business, we’ve been runnin’ up a log cabin for Joe’s homestead, over on the mesa. ‘Crost the gully from Edd’s place. An’ I’m wonderin’ if you can saw an’ deliver a lot of floor boards, door frames, an’ such.”

“I just can, you bet,” declared the young man. “Give me your order. I’ll deliver lumber at foot of the mesa trail in less than a week.”

“Fine! You’re a Jasper for rustlin’. Shore I expected to pack the lumber up on the burros. Long job, but Dick an’ Joe can drive the pack while the rest of us work. Edd expects to be done cuttin’ for honey soon. Then he can help. We’ll have Joe’s cabin done by the time snow flies.”

“Get pencil an’ paper so we can figure out just what lumber you want.”

Father and son-in-law went into the kitchen, while Mertie broke into further elaboration of her romance. Lucy remained a few moments longer, fascinated by the rapt faces of the listening Denmeades, especially Edd. He seemed transfigured. Lucy suffered a twinge of remorse for having considered him a clod. How tremendously he had been affected by this happy settling of Mertie’s affairs! More than once Lucy had heard it said that a Denmeade married was safe. Presently Lucy returned to her tent and unfinished tasks.

Supper was not ready until dusk, a fact which testified to the upsetting of the household. Then the lack of the usual bountiful meal was made up for by merriment. Lucy felt glad to free herself from an excitement that had begun to wear on her nerves. Moreover, she needed to be alone. As she passed Clara and Joe sitting on the porch steps she could just catch the gleam of their faces in the dim lamplight, Clara’s pensive and sweet, and Joe’s locked in its impassive youthful strength. Oh, boy and girl! thought Lucy with a pang. They could not help themselves. One called to the other. Clara’s tragic girlhood was fading into a past that was gone. She had to live, to breathe, to move; and this wilderness called to primitive emotions.

As Lucy halted a moment to pay her usual silent tribute to the black Rim above and the stars of white fire, she heard the gate creak and then a quick step and jingle of spurs.

“Wait!” called Edd, with a ring in his voice. He could see her in the dark when she could not see him. The word, the tone halted her, and she seemed conscious of a sudden inward stilling. His tall form appeared, blacker than the darkness, loomed over her. Involuntarily Lucy took a backward step. Then Edd clasped her in his arms.

It was like the hug of a bear. Lucy’s arms were pinned to her sides and she was drawn so close she could scarcely catch her breath. A terrible weakness assailed her. Not of anger, not of resentment! It was something else, strangely akin to a mingling of amaze and relief. Caught at last in her own toils!

“Oh — Edd!” she whispered, meaning to beg to be let go, but she never completed the appeal. Her arms moved instinctively upward, until stopped by the giant clasp that held her. What had she meant to do? How her mind whirled! He did not speak, and the moment seemed an age.

She felt the ripple of his muscles and the rough flannel of his shirt against her cheek. The scent of pine and honeybees and the woodland clung to his clothes. Lucy quivered on the brink of a tumultuous unknown.

Suddenly his arms uncoiled. Lucy swayed a little, not sure of her equilibrium.

“Shore I had to,” he gasped huskily. “Words don’t come easy — for me...God bless you for savin’ Mertie.”

He plunged away into the blackness, his boots thumping, his spurs clinking. Lucy stood motionless, gazing into the gloom where he had vanished. Her heart seemed to take a great drop. Shivering, she went into the tent.

There she swiftly put a few knots of wood into the stove, set the damper, blew out the lamp, and hurriedly undressed for bed.

The darkness and the blankets were comforting A faint crackle of burning wood broke the silence, and tiny streaks of firelight played upon the tent walls.

“It was for Mertie he held me in his arms,” whispered Lucy.

And she had taken it for herself. His gratitude had betrayed her. Lucy realised now that if her arms had been free she would have lifted them round his neck. She had not known what she was doing. But now she knew she loved him. Edd Denmeade, backwoodsman, wild-bee hunter! She suffered no shame in that. Indeed there was a hidden voice deep within her ready to ring the truth. She had sought to save and she had lost herself.

Lucy lay wide-eyed long after Clara slept, nestled with an arm around her as in childish days. The night wind moaned through the forest, mournful, wild, lonely, as if voicing the inscrutable cry in Lucy’s soul.

She had no regrets. She had burned her bridges behind her. The visit to Felix had clarified in mind all the perplexing doubts and dreads about the past. She and Clara had not had the training, the love, and the home life necessary to equip girls to deal with life happily. All her childhood she had suffered under the ban of position; all her girlhood had been poisoned by longings she could not attain, ignominies she could not avoid. She had grown to young womanhood terribly sensitive to the class distinctions so ruthlessly adhered to in all cultivated communities. She was old enough now to realise that true worth always was its own reward and seldom failed of ultimate appreciation. But city life, multitudes of people, the social codes had all palled upon her. Never again could she live under their influence. Her victory over environment had come too late. The iron had entered Lucy’s soul.

It was good to find herself at last. Every hour since her return to the Denmeades had been fraught with stirrings and promptings and misgivings now wholly clear to her. The wild-bee hunter, in his brotherly love, had hugged away her vanity and blindness. Poor groping Edd! It was what he was that had made her love him. Not what she wanted to make him! Yet the cold sensation of shock round her heart seemed to warm at the consciousness of his growth. Before her coming to the wilderness home of the Denmeades had he, or any of the children, ever thought of God? Lucy realised that the higher aspect of her work was missionary. Always she had been marked for sacrifice. In this hour of humility she delved out her acceptance.

Her sister slept on, with that little hand clinging close even in slumber. Lucy listened to her gentle breathing and felt the soft undulations of her breast. The mystery of life was slowly dawning upon Lucy. She had no wish to change what was, and the prayer she mutely voiced eliminated herself.

Outside the night wind rose, from mournful sough to weird roar. A hound bayed off in the forest. A mouse or ground squirrel rustled in the brush under the floor of the tent. The flicker of the fire died out.

A frosty air blew in the window. These things were realities, strong in their importunity for peace and joy of living. It was only the ghosts of the past that haunted the black midnight hour.

Chapter XII

DENMEADE’S PREDICTION WAS verified. Before noon of the next day the younger members of the neighbouring families began to ride in, nonchalant, casual, as if no unusual event had added significance to their visit. Then, when another string headed in from the Cedar Ridge trail, Denmeade exploded.

“Wal, you’re goin’ to be stormed,” he said warningly to the bride and groom. “Shore it’ll be a Jasper, too.”

“For the land’s sake!” exclaimed his good wife. “They’ll eat us out of house an’ home. An’ us not ready!”

“Now, ma, I gave you a hunch yestiddy,” replied Denmeade. “Reckon you can have dinner late. Mrs. Claypool will help you an’ Allie.”

“But that young outfit will drive me wild,” protested Mrs. Denmeade.

“Never mind, ma. I’ll take care of them,” put in Edd. “Fact is I’ve a bee tree only half a mile from home. I’ve been savin’ it. I’ll rustle the whole caboodle up there an’ make them pack honey back.”

“Mertie will want to stay home, dressed all up,” averred his mother.

“Wal, she can’t. We’ll shore pack her along, dress or no dress.”

Early in the afternoon Edd presented himself before Lucy’s tent and announced:

“Girls, we’re packin’ that spoony couple away from home for a spell. The women folks got to have elbow room to fix up a big dinner. Whole country goin’ to storm Mert!”

Clara appeared at the door, eager and smiling. “Edd, this storm means a crowd coming to celebrate?”

“Shore. But a storm is an uninvited crowd. They raise hell. Between us, I’m tickled. I never thought Mertie would get a storm. She wasn’t any too well liked. But Bert’s the best boy in this country.”

“Maybe he is,” retorted Clara archly. “I know a couple of boys left...Edd, give us a hunch what to wear.”

“Old clothes,” he grinned. “An’ some kind of veil or net to keep from gettin’ stung. Wild bees don’t like a crowd. An’ Sam Johnson thinks he’s a bee tamer. This tree I’m goin’ to cut is a hummer. Full of sassy bees. An’ there’s goin’ to be some fun.”

Lucy and Clara joined the formidable group of young people waiting in the yard, all armed with buckets. Lucy sensed an amiable, happy spirit wholly devoid of the vexatious bantering common to most gatherings of these young people. Marriage was the consummation of their hopes, dreams, endeavours. Every backwoods youth looked forward to a homestead and a wife.

Mertie assuredly wore the bright silk dress, and ribbons on her hair, and white stockings, and low shoes not meant for the woods. Bert, however, had donned blue-jeans overalls.

The merry party set out with Edd in the lead, and the gay children, some dozen or more, bringing up the rear. Edd carried an axe over his shoulder and a huge assortment of different-sized buckets on his arm. He led out of the clearing, back of the cabin, into the pine woods so long a favourite haunt of Lucy’s, and up the gradual slope. The necessities of travel through the forest strung the party mostly into single file.

Lucy warmed to the occasion. It was happy. How good to be alive! The golden autumn sunlight, the flame of colour in the trees, the fragrant brown aisles of the forest, the flocks of birds congregating for their annual pilgrimage south — all these seemed new and sweet to Lucy. They roused emotion that the streets and houses of the city could not reach. Bert might have been aware of the company present, but he showed no sign of it. He saw nothing except Mertie. Half the time he carried her, lifting her over patches of dust, logs, and rough ground. Only where the mats of pine needles offered clean and easy travel did he let her down, and then he still kept his arm round her. Mertie was no burden for his sturdy strength. He swung her easily up and down, as occasion suited him. Lucy was struck by his naturalness.

Mertie, however, could not forget herself. She posed. She accepted. She bestowed. She was the beginning and the end of this great day. Yet despite exercise of the ineradicable trait of her nature, the romance of her marriage, the fact of her being possessed, had changed her. She had awakened. She saw Bert now as he actually was, and she seemed reaping the heritage of a true woman’s feelings.

Aside from these impressions Lucy received one that caused her to sigh. Clara reacted strangely to sight of Mertie and Bert. Lucy caught a glimpse of the mocking half-smile that Clara’s face used to wear. No doubt this bride and groom procession through the woods, the open love-making, oblivious at least on Bert’s part, brought back stinging memories to Clara.

Edd led the gay party out of the woods into a beautiful canyon, wide and uneven, green and gold with growths, dotted by huge grey rocks and trees. A dry stream bed wound by stony steps up the canyon. Edd followed this boulder-strewn road for a few hundred yards, then climbed to a wide bench. Maples and sycamores spread scattered patches of shade over this canyon glade. A riot of autumn colours almost stunned the eyesight. The thick grass was green, the heavy carpet of ferns brown.

“Wal, there she is,” said Edd, pointing to a gnarled white-barked tree perhaps a hundred paces distant. “First sycamore I ever found bees in. It’s hollow at the trunk where she goes in. I reckon she’s a hummer. Now you-all hang back a ways while I look her over.”

Edd strode off toward the sycamore, and his followers approached, mindful of his admonition. They got close enough, however, to see a swarm of bees passing to and fro from the dark hollow of the tree trunk. Edd’s perfect sang-froid probably deceived the less experienced boys. He circled the sycamore, gazed up into the hollow, and made what appeared to be a thorough examination. Sam Johnson showed that he was holding back only through courtesy. The remarks of the boys behind him were not calculated to make him conservative. Sadie Purdue and Amy Claypool expressed diverse entreaties, the former asking him to cut down the bee tree and the latter begging him to keep away from it. Lucy had an idea that Amy knew something about bees.

Presently Edd returned from his survey and drew the “honey-bucket outfit,” as he called them, back into the shade of a maple. Mertie draped herself and beautiful dress over a clean rock, as if she, instead of the bees, was the attraction. Lucy sensed one of the interesting undercurrents of backwoods life working in those young men. Edd’s position was an enviable one as far as bees were concerned. This was a bee day. Sam Johnson could not possibly have kept himself out of the foreground. There were several boys from Cedar Ridge, including Bert, who ran a close second to Sam. On the other hand, the boys who inhabited this high country, especially Gerd Claypool, appeared unusually prone to let the others have the stage. Joe Denmeade wore an inscrutable expression and had nothing to say. Edd was master of ceremonies, and as he stood before the boys, his axe over his shoulder, Lucy conceived a strong suspicion that he was too bland, too drawling, too kind to be absolutely honest. Edd was up to a trick. Lucy whispered her suspicions to Clara, and that worthy whispered back: “I’m wise. Why, a child could see through that hombre! But isn’t he immense?”

“Sam, I reckon you ought to be the one to chop her down,” Edd was saying, after a rather elaborate preamble. “Course it ought to fall to Bert, seem’ he’s the reason for this here storm party. But I reckon you know more about wild bees, an’ you should be boss. Shore it’d be good if you an’ Bert tackled the tree together.”

“I’ll allow myself about three minutes’ choppin’ to fetch that sycamore,” replied Sam. “But Bert can help if he likes.”

“Somebody gimme an axe,” said Bert, prowling around. Dick Denmeade had the second axe, which he gladly turned over to Bert.

“Bert, I don’t want you gettin’ all stung up,” protested Mertie.

“No bees would sting me to-day,” replied Bert grandly. “Don’t you fool yourself,” she retorted.

“Aw, she’s tame as home bees,” interposed Edd. “Besides, there’s been some heavy frosts. Bees get loggy along late in the fall. Reckon nobody’ll get stung. If she wakes up we can run.”

“I’m a-rarin’ for that honey,” declared Sam, jerking the axe from Edd. “Come on, Bert. Start your honeymoon by bein’ boss.”

That remark made a lion out of the bridegroom, while eliciting howls and giggles from his admirers. Sam strode toward the sycamore and Bert followed.

“Reckon we all better scatter a little,” said the wily Edd, and he punched Gerd Claypool in the ribs. Gerd, it appeared, was doubled up in noiseless contortions.

“Serve Sam just right,” declared Sadie, “for bein’ so darn smart. He never chopped down a bee tree in his life.”

“Well, if I know anythin’ he’ll never try another,” added Amy. “Oh, Edd Denmeade, you’re an awful liar. Sayin’ wild bees won’t sting!”

“Shore Sam wanted to cut her down. He asked me back home,” declared Edd.

Some of the party stood their ground, notably Mertie, who rather liked the clean, dry rock. Edd gravitated toward Lucy and Clara, presently leading them unobtrusively back toward some brush.

“Dog-gone!” he whispered chokingly when he was out of earshot of the others. “Chance of my life!...Sam’s cut a few bee trees in winter, when the bees were froze...But, gee! these wild bees are mad as hornets. I got stung on the ear, just walkin’ round. She’s been worried by yellow-jackets...Now there’s goin’ to be some fun. She’ll be a hummer...Girls, put on whatever you fetched along an’ be ready to duck into this brush.”

“Edd, you’re as bad as a cowboy,” said Clara, producing a veil.

“Looks like great fun for us, but how about the bees?” rejoined Lucy.

“There you go, sister. Always thinking about the under dog!...Edd, do you know, I can’t see how anyone could help loving Lucy,” retorted Clara mischievously.

“Shore. I reckon nobody does,” drawled Edd. “Wal, Sam’s begun to larrup it into my sycamore. Now watch!”

Sam had sturdily attacked the tree, while the more cautious Bert had cut several boughs, evidently to thresh off bees. Scarcely had he reached the objective spot when Sam jerked up spasmodically as if kicked from behind.

“Beat ’em off!” he yelled.

Then, as the valiant Bert dropped his axe and began to thresh with the boughs, Sam redoubled his energies at the chopping. He might not have possessed much knowledge about wild bees, but he could certainly handle an axe. Quick and hard rang his blows. The sycamore was indeed rotten, for it sounded hollow and crackling, and long dusty strips fell aside.

Lucy stole a glance at Edd. He was manifestly in the grip of a frenzied glee. Never before had Lucy seen him so. He was shaking all over; his face presented a wonderful study of features in convulsions; his big hands opened and shut. All at once he burst out in stentorian yell: “Wow There she comes!”

Lucy flashed her glance back toward the axe-man, just in time to see a small black cloud, like smoke, puff out of the hollow of the tree and disintegrate into thin air. Sam let out a frantic yell, and dropping the axe he plunged directly toward his admiring comrades.

“You darn fool!” roared Edd. “Run the other way!”

But Sam, as if pursued by the furies, sprang, leaped, wrestled, hopped, flew, flapping his hands like wings and yelling hoarsely. Bert suddenly became as if possessed of a thousand devils, and he raced like a streak, waving his two green boughs over his head, till he plunged over a bank into the brush.

Some of the Cedar Ridge boys had approached a point within a hundred feet of the sycamore. Suddenly their howls of mirth changed to excited shouts, and they broke into a run. Unfortunately, they were not on the moment chivalrously mindful of the girls.

“Run for your lives!” screamed Amy Claypool.

Lucy found herself being rushed into the bushes by Edd, who had also dragged Clara. He was laughing so hard he could not speak. He fell down and rolled over. Clara had an attack of laughter that seemed half hysterical. “Look! Look!” she cried.

Lucy was more frightened than amused, but from the shelter of the bushes she peered forth, drawing aside her veil so she could see better. She was in time to see the bright silk dress that encased Mertie soaring across the ground like a spread-winged bird. Mertie was noted for her fleetness of foot. Sadie Purdue, owing to a rather short stout figure, could not run very well. Sam, by accident or design, had fled in her direction. It did not take a keen eye to see the whirling dotted circle of bees he brought with him. Some of them sped like bullets ahead of him to attack Sadie. Shrieking, she ran away from Sam as though he were a pestilence. She was the last to flee out of sight.

Presently Edd sat up, wet-faced and spent from the energy of his emotions.

“Reckon I’ve played hob — but dog-gone! — it was fun,” he said. “Shore Sam’s a bee hunter! I’ll bet he’ll look like he had measles...Did you see Sadie gettin’ stung? She was that smart. Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Joe came crawling to them through the bushes. For once his face was not quiet, intent. He showed his relationship to Edd.

“Say, Sam will be hoppin’ mad,” he said.

“He shore was hoppin’ when last I seen him,” replied Edd. “Wal, I reckon I’ll have to finish the job. You girls stay right here, for a while, anyhow.”

Whereupon Edd pulled a rude hood from his pocket and drew it over his head and tight under his chin. It was made of burlap and had two rounded pieces of window screen sewed in to serve as eyeholes. Then putting his gloves on he got up and tramped out toward the sycamore. Lucy left Clara with Bert, and slipped along under the bushes until she reached the end nearest the tree. Here she crouched to watch. She could see the bees swarm round Edd, apparently without disturbing him in the least. He picked up the axe, and with swift, powerful strokes he soon chopped through on one side of the hollow place, so that the other side broke, letting the tree down with a splitting crash. After the dust cleared away Lucy saw him knocking the trunk apart. The swarm of bees spread higher and wider over his head. Lucy could hear the angry buzz. She felt sorry for them. How ruthless men were! The hive had been destroyed; the winter’s food of the bees would be stolen.

“Hey, Joe!” called Edd. “Round up that outfit to pack honey back home. There’s more here than we got buckets to hold. Tell them I’ll fetch it part way, so they won’t get stung no more.”

Lucy caught glimpses of the members of the party collecting a goodly, safe distance away, along the edge of the timber. Judging by gestures and the sound of excited voices coming faintly, Lucy concluded that the storm party was divided in its attitude toward Edd. Sadie Purdue evidently was in a tantrum, the brunt of which fell upon Sam. Amy’s high, sweet laugh pealed out. Presently the girls were seen entering the forest, no doubt on their way back to the cabin; the boys showed indications of standing by Edd, at least to the extent of waiting for him to collect the honey.

Lucy saw him filling the buckets. He used a small wooden spoon or spade, with which he reamed the honey out of the hollow log. She was intensely eager to see this bee hive and Edd’s work at close hand, but felt it wise to remain under cover. The screams of the girls who had been stung were a rather potent inhibition to curiosity.

The honey had a greyish-yellow cast and a deep amber colour, from which Lucy deducted that one was the comb, the other the honey. When Edd had filled four buckets he took them up and proceeded to carry them toward the waiting boys. A number of bees kept him company. How grotesque he looked with that home-made hood over his head!

“Hey! you better lay low,” he called to Lucy, seeing her peeping out of her brushy covert, “unless you want your pretty little pink nose stung!”

“Edd Denmeade, my nose isn’t little — or pink!” protested Lucy.

“Wal, no matter; it shore will be pink if you don’t watch out. Didn’t you get stung on it once?”

Half-way between the bee tree and the boys Edd set the buckets down on a rock, and cutting some brush he covered them with it. Then he shouted:

“Pack these home, you storm-party suckers!”

Upon his return to the fallen sycamore he scraped up a bundle of dead grass and sticks, and kindled a fire, then added green boughs to make a heavy smoke. Lucy saw him vigorously slap his back and his legs, from which action she surmised that he too was getting stung Next with two leafy boughs he made an onslaught on the whirling, shining mill-wheel of bees. He broke that wheel, and either killed or scattered most of the swarm. Then he proceeded to fill more buckets, which he carried away as before. Meanwhile Joe and Gerd Claypool had come for the first buckets.

Lucy crawled back through the bushes to where she had left Clara. She found her prone on the grasp, her chin propped on her hands, musingly watching the proceedings.

“Funny how we are,” she said. “It’s a long time since I felt so good over anything. Sam and Sadie were immense...Pride — and conceit, too — go before a fall!”

“You remember I was stung on the nose by one of these wild bees,” replied Lucy. “It hurts terribly.”

They remained in the shade and security of this covert until Edd had filled all his buckets.

“Hello, girls! Go back through the bushes to the bank, an’ get down,” he called. “Wait for us below.”

Lucy and Clara scrambled away into the thicket and down into the stream bed, which they followed to the woods. Joe and Gerd and Dick came along laden with heavy buckets, and rather harassed by a few persistent bees.

“Keep away from us,” cried Lucy. “I’ve been initiated into the wild-bee fraternity.”

“But Clara hasn’t,” replied Joe.

“Young man, if you know when you’re well off, you’ll not lead any wild bees to me,” warned Clara, gathering up her skirts ready to flee into the woods. She was smiling, yet earnest. How pretty she looked, her eyes flashing, her brown cheeks flushed, her blue veil flying round her golden hair! Lucy saw what Joe saw.

Next Edd came striding out of the willows, down into the gully. He carried four buckets, all manifestly laden. He had removed his hood, and his face was wet with sweat and wreathed in smiles.

“Run along ahead till she gets tired followin’ me,” he called to the girls.

They were not slow to act upon his advice, yet did not get so far ahead that they could not see the boys coming. The forest seemed so shady and cool after the hot sunny open.

“Why does Edd speak of bees as she?” queried Clara curiously.

“He told me once he had captured and tamed queen bees, and after that always called bees she, whether collectively or individually. It is funny.”

“He’ll be making you queen bee of his hive some day,” said Clara tantalisingly.

“Oh, will he? It requires the consent of the queen, I imagine...As to queen-bee hives; Joe’s is being built, I hear.”

Clara squeezed Lucy’s arm and cringed close to her, as if to hide a shamed or happy face. “Oh, what will become of us?...When I don’t think, I’m full of some new kind of joy. When I remember, I’m wretched.”

“Clara, we are two babes lost in the woods,” declared Lucy, half sadly. “But if you must think, do it intelligently. We could be worse off.”

“I love it here,” answered Clara swiftly, with a flash of passion.

Then Edd’s halloo halted them. Presently Lucy had opportunity to see wild honey fresh from the hive The buckets were full of the yellow combs and amber honey, all massed together, in which numbers of bees had been drowned.

“Shore it’s got to be strained,” explained Edd.

“What’ll become of the bees — those you didn’t kill?” she inquired.

“Wal, now, I wish you hadn’t asked that,” complained Edd. “Shore you always hit at the sufferers...Lucy, I hate to treat a bee tree like we did this one. But I can’t capture an’ tame the old swarms. They’re too wild. I have to destroy them. Sometimes I burn them out...She’ll hang round that sycamore, an’ starve to death or freeze. It’s too bad. I reckon I’m no better than the yellow-jackets.”

That bee-tree episode had taken the younger element of the storm party away from the Denmeade home for the greater part of the afternoon, a fact for which Mrs. Denmeade was devoutly thankful. She and Allie, with the kind assistance of the Claypool women, prepared on short notice an adequate feast for this formidable array of uninvited guests.

Lucy learned this, and much more, upon her arrival at the cabin. Mertie had torn the bright silk dress and was inconsolable. She did not seem to mind so much the sundry stings she had sustained. But Sadie Purdue almost disrupted the hilarious and joyful tone of the occasion. She had been severely stung on hands and arms and face. Sam Johnson, however, was the one who had suffered most. All the members of that expedition, except Lucy and Clara, had reason to vow vengeance upon Edd.

“Oh, wait, you wild hunter of bees! Wait till you’re married!” was the reiterated threat.

“Shore I’m safe,” drawled Edd. “No girl would ever throw herself away on me.”

Sam took his punishment like a man, and made up for the ravings of his fiancée. She had the grace, presently, to get over her fury. And by supper-time, when Mertie was won back to a happy appreciation of the honour of having the largest storm party ever known in that country, the jarring notes were as if they had never been.

All the chair, bench, and porch space was necessary to seat this merry company. It was quite impossible for Lucy to keep track of what followed. But she had never seen the like of that dinner. Uproarious, even violent, it yet gave expression to the joy and significance of marriage in that wilderness.

White mule flowed freely, but in marked contrast with its effect at the dances, it added only to the mirth and the noise. After dinner the young people nearly tore the cabin down with their onslaughts upon the bride and groom, the former of whom they hugged and kissed, and the latter mauled. Dancing was not on this programme. Then, evidently, for the young backwoodsmen present, it was a natural climax to fly from their felicitations of the bride to salutations to the possible brides-to-be in that gathering. They were like young bears.

Lucy and Clara fled to the security of their tent, and refused to come out. Certain it was that both of them were more than amused and frightened. Manifestly a storm party on a bride was regarded as an unexampled opportunity.

“Whew!” gasped Clara, with wide eyes on Lucy. “I thought cowboys were wild. But alongside these fellows they’re tame.”

“Deliver — me!” panted Lucy. “Almost it’d be — safer to be — in Mertie’s boots!”

The celebration, however, turned out to be as short as it had been intense. Before dark the older people were riding down the lane, calling back their merry good-nights, and not long after the boys and girls followed. Soon the homestead of the Denmeades was as quiet as ever; and a little later, when Lucy peeped out, yard and cabin were shrouded in the blackness of the melancholy autumn night.

Chapter XIII

IT WAS MIDWINTER. Lucy’s tent was cosy and warm, softly coloured with its shaded lamplight, falling on bear rugs and bright blankets, on the many paper pictures. The Clara that sat there beside the little stove, occupied with needlework, was not the Clara who had arrived at Cedar Ridge one memorable day last summer. Lucy was having leisure for books.

The tent seemed to be full of the faint fragrance of juniper, and that came from the wood which the little stove burned so avidly. Lucy was wont to say that of all Clara’s homestead accomplishments that of feeding wood to a fire was what she did best and liked most. “Maybe I’ll have to chop wood myself some day. I could do worse,” was Clara’s enigmatic reply.

Outside, the snow seeped down, rustling like the fall of leaves on dry grass, floating softly against the window. No mournful wail of wind broke the dead silence. The homestead of the Denmeades was locked in winter. Lucy and Clara had long since grown used to it. For a while they had suffered from cold, but that was owing to their susceptibility rather than severe weather. Denmeade’s heavy bear rugs on the floor had added much to the comfort of the tent. The girls wore woollen sweaters and no longer noticed the cold. At ten o’clock they went to bed, enjoying to the utmost this most important factor of outdoor life. Night after night, for weeks, they had spent like this, reading, sewing, studying, writing, talking, and then sleeping.

The zero mornings had put them to the test. With the fire long dead, the cold was practically the same inside as outside. They had taken turn about kindling a fire, and the one whose morning it was to lie snug and warm in bed while the other slipped out into the icy air seldom failed to tease and crow.

When the tent was warm they got up and dressed, and made coffee or tea, and cooked some breakfast. No matter how deep the new-fallen snow, there was always a path shovelled from their tent to the cabin, Edd and Joe vying with each other to see who could beat the other at this task. Lucy’s work now was confined to instructing the children, and Clara was studying hard to enable her to take Mr. Jenks’s place as teacher of the school. The afternoons were usually sunny and clear. After a snowstorm the warm sun melted the snow away in a few days. But there were unexampled opportunities to tramp and romp and play in the snow, things in which the girls found much pleasure. They had been born and brought up in a snowless country, where the summers were torrid and the winters pleasant.

The Denmeades, however, might as well have been snowed in. Lucy marvelled at this, and came to understand it as a feature of backwoods life. The men kept the fires burning and fed the stock, outside of which they had nothing, or thought they had nothing, to do. The women cooked, sewed, and washed, almost as actively as in summer. No visitors called any more on Sundays. They saw no outsiders. Once a week Dick or Joe would ride down to Johnson’s for, the mail, or for supplies that had been sent for. It seemed a lonely, peaceful, unproductive existence.

Edd, being the eldest of the Denmeade boys, had received the least schooling, a fact he keenly deplored, and through these winter days he laboriously pored over the books Lucy gave him. Joe was the keenest of the children, as well as the quietest, and he seconded Edd in this pursuit of knowledge.

Lucy and Clara had supper with the Denmeades, which they endeavoured to serve before dark. Sometimes, when the meal was late, the light in the kitchen was so dim they could hardly see to eat. After supper the children and young people would make a rush into the other cabin where Denmeade kept a huge log or stump burning in the open fire-place. Mertie was gone, and her absence seemed a benefit. Allie and Joe were the thoughtful ones who helped Mrs. Denmeade. Seldom was a lamp lighted until Edd stamped in to resort to his books.

Every time the door was opened the dogs would try to slip in, and always one or more of them succeeded, and occupied a warm place in front of the fire. The children played until put to bed. Uncle Bill was not long in climbing to his bed in the attic. Denmeade smoked his pipe and sat gazing at the blazing log. How many hours of his life must have been spent so! Lucy and Clara always passed part of the early evening hours in this living-room. Seldom or never did they have a moment alone with the boys. It was a family gathering, this after-supper vigil in front of the big fire.

Denmeade typified the homesteader of that high altitude. Winter was a time of waiting. Almost he was like a bear. Spring, summer, fall were his active seasons. The snow, the sleet, the icy winds of winter shut him in.

Lucy counteracted this growing habit in the boys. She convinced them that winter was the time to improve the mind and to learn something of what was going on in the outside world. Her success in this she considered equal to any of her achievements here. The old folks, of course, could not be changed; and Lucy confined herself to the children. Many times she thought of how all over the wild parts of the west, in high districts, children and young people were wasting golden hours, with nothing to do but what their parents had done before them. What a splendid work she would accomplish if she could make known the benefits of home instruction! But it really did not seem like work. Thus the winter days and nights passed.

The coming of spring was marked by Allie Denmeade’s marriage to Gerd Claypool. These young people, wise in their generation, invited everybody to their wedding, which took place in Cedar Ridge. Lucy and Clara remained at home with the children.

March brought surprisingly fine weather, the mornings and evenings cold, but the middle of the day sunny and warm. Soon the wet, red soil dried out. The men, liberated from the confines of winter, were busy taking up the tasks that had been interrupted by the first fall of snow. One of these was the completion of Joe’s cabin. Lucy, using a walk with the children as excuse, climbed the mesa trail to see the men at work. Clara did not want to go. She was more studious and complex than ever, yet seemed strangely, dreamily happy.

The mesa, with its open glades, its thickets of red manzanita, its clumps of live oak, and giant junipers and lofty pines, manifested a difference hard to define. Lucy thought it had to do with spring. The birds and squirrels and turkeys voiced the joyfulness of the season.

Joe’s homestead edifice was a two-cabin affair, similar to that of the Denmeades. Lucy particularly liked the clean, freshly-cut pine and its fragrant odour. She urged Joe to build in several closets and to insist on windows, and kitchen shelves, and a number of improvements new to the cabin of the backwoodsman.

“Joe, are you going to live here alone?” queried Lucy.

“On an’ off, while I prove up on my homesteadin’ patent,” he replied. “You see, I have to put in so many days here for three years before the government will give me the land.”

His frank answer relieved Lucy, who had of late been subtly influenced by a strangeness, an aloofness, in Clara, which mood somehow she had attributed to Joe’s infatuation for her. The boy had no pretence. His soul was as clear as his grey eyes. Lucy was compelled to believe that the erecting of this cabin was solely to forestall a threatened invasion of the mesa by other homesteaders.

On the way home Lucy stopped awhile at the beautiful site Edd had selected for his cabin. She found that thought of the place, during the fall and winter months, had somehow endeared it to her. Long communion with the secret affection of her heart had brought happiness with resignation. She knew where she stood; and daily she gathered strength to bear, to serve, to go on, to find a wonderful good in her ordeal.

The forest had wrought incalculable change in her. It was something she felt rush over her thrillingly when she approached the green wall of pines and entered it, as if going into her home. She thought more actively, she worked better, she developed more under its influence than in the city. This she knew to be because the old bitter social feud under which her youth had been oppressed was not present here. Lucy was ashamed of that relief, but she could never change it.

As she was soon to go to the Claypools to take up her work there, Lucy knew it might be long before she had the strange, inexplicable joy of dreaming here in this spot of perfect solitude and wild beauty. So while the children played at keeping house among the bears and turkeys, she gazed around her and listened and felt. She was quite at the mercy of unknown forces and she had ceased to beat and bruise her heart against them, as might have a bird against the bars of its cage. Above all, there came to her the great, simple fact of a harmony with this environment. She could not resist it and she ceased to try.

Mr. Jenks arrived at the Johnsons’ in the latter part of March and attended the meeting of the school board. He wanted to turn over the teaching to Clara, but in case she did not accept the position he would be glad to remain another summer. Denmeade returned from that board meeting to place a proposition squarely before Clara. And in his own words it was this: “Reckon we don’t want to change teachers so often. Every schoolmarm we’ve had just up an’ married one of the boys. Wal, if you will agree to teach two years, whether you get married or not, we’ll shore be glad to let you have the job.”

“I give my word,” replied Clara, with a firmness Lucy knew was a guerdon that the promise would be kept.

What struck Lucy markedly on the moment was the fact that Clara did not disavow any possibility of marriage.

The deal was settled then and there, and later, when the girls had gone to the seclusion of their tent, Clara evinced a deep emotion.

“Lucy, I’ll be independent now,” she said. “I can pay my debt...I — I need money—”

“My dear, you don’t owe me any money,” interposed Lucy, “if that’s what you mean.”

Clara’s reply was more evasive than frank, again rousing in Lucy the recurrence of a surprise and a vague dread. But she dismissed them from her consciousness.

“We’ll have to settle another thing, too,” said Lucy. “Once before you hinted you didn’t want to go to Claypool’s with me.”

“I don’t, but I’ll go if you insist,” rejoined Clara.

“If you will be happier here than with me, by all means stay,” replied Lucy in a hurt tone.

“Don’t misunderstand, Lucy, darling,” cried Clara, embracing her. “I’m used to this place — these Denmeades. It’s like a sanctuary after—” She broke off falteringly. “It will be hard enough for me to teach school, let alone live among strangers...And aren’t you coming back here in the fall?”

“I don’t know. It depends,” answered Lucy dubiously. “Well, it’s settled then. You will live here. I suppose you’ll ride horseback to and fro from the schoolhouse. That would be fine.”

“Yes. Joe or Dick will ride with me every day, so I’ll never be alone.”

Lucy turned away her face and busied herself with papers on her table.

“Clara, have you anything particular you want to tell me?”

“Why — no,” came the constrained and low reply. Lucy divined then that there was something Clara could not tell her, and it revived the old worry.

Edd Denmeade, alone of all the family, did not take kindly to Lucy’s going to the Claypools. The others, knowing that Clara was to continue to live with them and that Lucy would probably come back in the fall, were glad to propitiate their neighbours at so little a loss.

“But, Edd, why do you disapprove?” Lucy demanded, when she waylaid him among his beehives. She did not want to lose her good influence over him. She wanted very much more from him than she dared to confess.

“I reckon I’ve a good many reasons,” returned Edd.

“Oh, you have? Well, tell me just one,” said Lucy.

“Wal, the Claypools live right on the trail from Sprall’s to Cedar Ridge.”

“Sprall’s!...What of it?” demanded Lucy, nonplussed.

“Bud Sprall rides that trail.”

“Suppose he does. How does it concern me?” rejoined Lucy, growing irritated.

“Wal, it concerns you more’n you think. Bud told in Cedar Ridge how he was layin’ for you.”

“I don’t understand. What did he mean?”

“Lucy, that hombre isn’t above ropin’ you an’ packin’ you off over the Rim, where he holds out with his red-faced cowboy pard.”

“Nonsense! The day of the outlaw is past, Edd. I haven’t the least fear of Bud Sprall. Indeed, so little that I intend some day to take up my work with the Spralls.”

Wheeling from his work, he loomed over her, and fastening a brawny hand in her blouse he drew her close. His eyes flashed a steely fire.

“You’re not goin’ to do anythin’ of the kind,” he said, darkly.

“Who’ll prevent me?” queried Lucy.

“If you go to Sprall’s I’ll pack you back if I have to tie you on a hoss.”

“You — will?” Lucy’s voice broke in her fury.

“Shore you bet I will. Reckon you haven’t forgot that dance I made you go to. I wasn’t mad then. Wal, I’m as mad as hell now.”

“Why do you presume to interfere with my work?”

“Can you crawl in a hog-pen without gettin’ dirty?” he demanded. “I reckon your work is somethin’ fine an’ good. I don’t begrudge that to Sprall’s. But you can’t go there, unless just in daytime, an’ then with somebody...You think I’m jealous. Wal, I’m mot. Ask pa an’ ma about this Sprall idea of yours.”

“But, Edd, weren’t you somewhat like Bud Sprall once? Didn’t you tell me I helped you? Might I not do the same for—”

Edd shoved her away with violence.

“Ahuh! So you want to work the same on Bud?...Wal, the day you make up to him as you did to me I’ll go back to white mule...An’ I’ll kill him!”

As he stalked away, grim and dark, Lucy shook off a cold clutch of fear and remorse, and ran after him.

“Edd! You must not talk so — so terribly!” she cried appealingly. “You seem to accuse me of — of something...Oh that I haven’t been fair to you!”

“Wal, have you, now?” he queried, glaring down at her.

“Indeed — I — I think so.”

“Aw, you’re lyin’. Maybe you’re as deep as your sister. Shore I’d never deny you’d been an angel to my family. But you worked different on me. I was only a wild-bee hunter. You made me see what I was — made me hate my ignorance an’ habits. You let me be with you, many an’ many a time. You talked for hours an’ read to me, an’ worked with me, all the time with your sweet, sly girl ways. An’ I changed. I don’t know how I changed, but it’s so. You’re like the queen of the bees...All you told me love meant I’ve come to know. I’d do any an’ all of those things you once said love meant...But if you work the same on Bud Sprall you’ll be worse than Sadie Purdue. She had sweet, purry cat ways, an’ she liked to be smoothed. That was shore where Sadie didn’t cheat.”

“Cheat!...Edd Denmeade, do you mean — you think I made you love me — just to save you from your drinking, fighting habits?” queried Lucy, very low.

“No. I reckon I don’t mean that. You just used your — yourself. Your smiles an’ sweet laugh — your talk — your pretty white dresses — your hands — lettin’ me see you — lettin’ me be with you — keepin’ me from other girls — workin’ on me with yourself...Now didn’t you? Be honest.”

“Yes. You make me see it. I did,” confessed Lucy bravely. “I’m not sorry — for I — I—”

“Wal, you needn’t figure me wrong,” he interrupted. “I’m not sorry, either. Reckon for my family’s sake I’m glad. Shore I have no hopes of ever bein’ anythin’ but a lonely wild-bee hunter...But I couldn’t stand your workin’ that on Bud Sprall.”

“You misunderstand me, Edd,” returned Lucy. “I couldn’t have done what you imagined. Now I fear I can never do anything...You have made me ashamed. Made me doubt myself.”

“Wal, I reckon that won’t be so awful bad for you,” he drawled, almost caustically, and left her.

This interview with Edd befell just before Lucy’s time of departure to the Claypools, most inopportunely and distressingly for her. Edd had declared a great, and what he held a hopeless, love for her. Lucy suffered an exaltation embittered by doubt, distress, even terror. The sheer fact that he loved her was a tremendous shock. Not that she had not known of his affection, but that he had arisen out of his crudeness to her ideal of love! She could not overcome her pride in her power to uplift him. It was sweet, strange, sustaining, yet fraught with terrors for her. It forced her into a position where she must find out the truth and bigness of love herself. She could not trust this new elemental self, this transformation of Lucy Watson in the wilderness. She must have long lonely hours — days — nights to fight the problem. What terrified her was the memory of that beautiful mesa homestead and the thought of Edd Denmeade’s love. Together they threatened to storm her heart.

Next morning Lucy was ready early for her departure. She had entirely overlooked what kind of an occasion it might be, but she soon discovered that it was not to be joyous. The children were pitiful in their grief. Lucy felt as if she had died. They were inconsolable. Mary was the only one of them who bade her good-bye. Mrs. Denmeade said she was glad for the sake of the Claypools.

“Wal, Miss Lucy,” said Denmeade, with his rugged grin, “reckon by the time you get through with the Claypools an’ Johnsons you’ll find us all gone to seed an’ needin’ you powerful bad.”

“Then I’ll be happy to come back,” replied Lucy.

Clara, however, gave Lucy the most thought-provoking surprise of this leave-taking. Evidently she had cried before getting up, and afterward she was pale and silent. When Edd and Joe arrived with saddle horses and the burros, Lucy, after taking out her baggage to be packed, returned to find Clara had broken down. Lucy could not understand this sudden weakness. It was not like Clara. They had a most affecting scene, which left Lucy shaken and uncertain. But she had the sweet assurance of Clara’s love and reliance upon her. For the rest, her sister’s emotion seemed a betrayal. Lucy felt that in Clara’s clinging hands, her streaming hidden eyes, her incoherent words. But in the few moments of stress left her before departure she could neither comfort Clara nor find out any adequate reason for this collapse.

“Hey!” called Edd for the third time. “Reckon the burros are rarin’ to go, if you ain’t.”

Lucy left Clara face down on the bed. Before she closed the door she called back softly: “Don’t be afraid to trust me with your troubles. I’ll share them....Good-bye.”

Lucy had seen the Claypool clearing, but she had never been inside the cabins. There were two families and many children, all assembled to greet her. Allie and Gerd still lived there, pending the clearing of a new tract of forest near by. They took charge of Lucy and led her to the little hut that had been constructed for her use. It had been built of slabs fresh from the sawmill, and these boards, being the outside cut from logs, still retained the bark. The structure was crude, yet picturesque, and it pleased Lucy. The inside was the yellow hue of newly cut pine, and it smelled strongly of the woods. Lucy had to laugh. What a wonderful little playhouse that would have been — if she were still a little girl! It had one window, small, with a Wooden shutter, a table, and a closet, a shelf, and a built-in box couch, full of fragrant spruce. A deer skin with the fur uppermost lay on the floor. In the corner nearest the door was a triangular-shaped shelf, three feet above the floor, and under it sat a bucket full of water and on it a basin and dipper and lamp.

Allie and Gerd were plainly proud of this lodging house for Lucy.

“It’s pretty far from the cabins,” concluded Gerd, “but there’s a big bar for your door. Nothin’ can get in.”

“I am delighted with it,” declared Lucy.

Edd and Joe drove the pack burros over to Lucy’s new abode and carried her bags in. She noted that Edd was so tall he could not stand upright in her little room.

“Wal, I reckon Gerd shore didn’t figure on your entertainin’ me,” drawled Edd with a grin.

“It’s pretty nice,” said Joe practically. “With your rugs an’ pictures, an’ the way you fix things up, it’ll be Jake.”

Edd lingered a moment longer than the others at the door, his big black sombrero turning round in his hands.

“Wal, Lucy, do I go get me some white mule an’ hunt up Bud Sprall?” he queried with all his cool, easy complexity.

Lucy felt the sting of blood in her cheeks. When she stepped toward him, as he stood outside and below, one foot on the threshold, his face was about on a level with hers. Lucy looked straight into his eyes.

“No, you don’t, unless you want me to call you again what hurt you so once.”

“An’ what’s that? I disremember.”

“You know!” she retorted, not quite sure of herself.

“Wal, I reckon you won’t need do that,” he said, simply. “I was only foolin’ you about the white mule. I wouldn’t drink again, no matter what you did. An’ I reckon I wouldn’t pick a fight, like I used to.”

Lucy had been subjected to a wide range of emotions through the last twenty-four hours, and she was not prepared for a statement like this. It wrought havoc in her breast. In swift impulse she bent forward and kissed Edd on the cheek. Then as swiftly she drew back, slammed the door, and stood there trembling. She heard him gasp, and the jingle of his spurs, as slowly he walked away.

“There! I’ve played hob at last!” whispered Lucy. “But I don’t care...Now, my wild-bee hunter, I wonder if you’ll take that for a Sadie Purdue trick?”

Chapter XIV

CONGENIAL WORK WITH happy, eager, simple people made the days speed by so swiftly that Lucy could not keep track of them.

She let six weeks and more pass before she gave heed to the message Clara sent from the school-house by the Claypool children. From other sources Lucy learned that Clara was the best teacher ever employed by the school board. She was making a success of it, from a standpoint of both good for the pupils and occupation for herself.

Joe Denmeade happened to ride by Claypool’s one day, and he stopped to see Lucy. Even in the few weeks since she left the Denmeades there seemed to be marked improvement in Joe, yet in a way she could hardly define. Something about him rang so true and manly.

During Joe’s short visit it chanced that all the Claypools gathered on the porch, and Gerd, lately come from Cedar Ridge, narrated with great gusto the gossip. It was received with the interest of lonely people who seldom had opportunities to hear about what was going on. Gerd’s report of the latest escapade of one of the village belles well known to them all was received with unrestrained mirth. Such incident would have passed unmarked by Lucy had she not caught the expression that fleeted across Joe Denmeade’s face. That was all the more marked because of the fact of Joe’s usually serene, intent impassibility. Lucy conceived the certainty that this boy would suffer intensely if he ever learned of Clara’s misfortune. It might not change his love, but it would surely kill something in him — the very something that appealed so irresistibly to Clara.

The moment was fraught with a regurgitation of Lucy’s dread — the strange premonition that had haunted her — that out of the past must come reckoning. It remained with her more persistently than ever before, and was not readily shaken off.

Some days later, one Friday toward the end of May, Lucy rode down the school-house trail to meet Clara and fetch her back to Claypool’s to stay over Sunday. It had been planned for some time, and Lucy had looked forward to the meeting with both joy and apprehension.

This school-house trail was new to her, and therefore one of manifold pleasure. It led through forest and glade, along a tiny brook, and on downhill toward the lower country.

Lucy was keen to catch all the woodland features that had become part of her existence, without which life in this wilderness would have lost most of its charm. Only a year had passed since first it had claimed her! The time measured in work, trial, change, seemed immeasurably longer. Yet Lucy could not say that she would have had it otherwise. Always she was putting off a fateful hour or day until she was ready to meet it. Her work had engrossed her. In a few weeks she had accomplished as much with the Claypools as she had been able to do for the Denmeades in months. She had learned her work. Soon she could go to the Johnsons. Then back to the Denmeades! To the higher and wilder forest land under the Rim! But she was honest enough to confess that there were other reasons for the joy. Lucy lingered along the trail until a meeting with the Claypool and Miller children told her that school was out. They were riding burros and ponies, in some cases two astride one beast, and they were having fun. Lucy was hailed with the familiarity of long-established regard, a shrill glad clamour that swelled her heart with its message.

“Hurry home, you rascals,” admonished Lucy, as she rode back into the trail behind them. Then she urged her horse into a lope, and enjoyed the sweet forest scents fanning her face, and the moving by of bright-coloured glades and shady green dells. In a short time she reached the clearing and the schoolhouse. She had not been there for a long time. Yet how well she remembered it!

At first glance she could not see any horses hitched about, but she heard one neigh. It turned out to be Baldy, and he was poking his nose over the bars of a small corral that had recently been erected in the shade of pines at the edge of the clearing. Lucy tied her horse near and then ran for the school-house.

The door was open. Lucy rushed in, to espy Clara at the desk, evidently busy with her work.

“Howdy, little schoolmarm!” shouted Lucy. Clara leaped up, suddenly radiant.

“Howdy yourself, you old backwoods Samaritan!” returned Clara, and ran to embrace her.

Then, after the first flush of this meeting, they both talked at once, without any particular attention to what the other was saying. But that wore off presently and they became rational.

“Where’s Joe?” queried Lucy, desirous of coming at once to matters about which she had a dearth of news.

“He and Mr. Denmeade have gone to Winbrook to buy things for Joe’s cabin.”

“Are you riding the trails alone?” asked Lucy quickly.

“I haven’t yet,” replied Clara, with a laugh. “Joe has taken good care of that. Edd rode down with me this morning. He went to Cedar Ridge to get the mail. Said he’d get back to ride up with us.”

“You told him I was coming after you?”

“Shore did, an’ reckon he looked silly,” drawled Clara.

“Oh Indeed?...” Lucy then made haste to change the subject. She had not set eyes upon Edd since the day she had shut her door in his face, after the audacious and irreparable kiss she had bestowed upon his cheek. She did not want to see him, either, and yet she did want to tremendously.

“Let’s not wait for him,” she said hurriedly.

“What’s wrong with you?” demanded Clara. “Edd seems quite out of his head these days. When I mention you he blushes...Yes!”

“How funny — for that big bee hunter!” replied Lucy, essaying a casual laugh.

“Well, I’ve a hunch you’re the one who should blush,” said Clara dryly.

“Clara, sometimes I don’t know about you,” observed Lucy musingly, as she gazed thoughtfully at her sister.

“How many times have I heard you say that!” returned Clara, with a mingling of pathos and mirth. “Lucy, the fact is you never knew about me. You never had me figured. You were always so big yourself that you couldn’t see the littleness of me.”

“Ahuh!” drawled Lucy. Then more seriously she went on: “Clara, I’m not big. I’ve a big love for you, but that’s about all.”

“Have it your own way. All the same, I’m going to tell you about yourself. That’s why I sent word by the children. You didn’t seem very curious or anxious to see me.”

“Clara, I was only in fun. I don’t want to — to know any more about you — unless it is you’re happy — and have forgotten — your — your trouble,” rejoined Lucy soberly.

“That’s just why I must tell you,” said her sister, with swift resolution. “I did forget because I was happy. But my conscience won’t let me be happy any longer until I tell you.”

Lucy’s heart contracted. She felt a sensation of inward chill. Why had Clara’s brown tan changed to pearly white? Her eyes had darkened unusually and were strained in unflinching courage. Yet full of fear!

“All right. Get it over then,” replied Lucy.

Notwithstanding Clara’s resolve, it was evidently hard for her to speak. “Lucy, since — March the second — I’ve been — Joe Denmeade’s wife,” she whispered huskily.

Lucy, braced for something utterly different and connected with Clara’s past, suddenly succumbed to amaze. She sat down on one of the school benches.

“Good heavens!” she gasped, and then could only stare.

“Darling, don’t be angry,” implored Clara, and came to her and knelt beside her. Again Lucy felt those clinging, loving hands always so potent in their power.

“I’m not angry — yet,” replied Lucy. “I’m just flabbergasted. I — I can’t think. It’s a terrible surprise...Your second elopement!”

“Yes. And this made up for the — the other,” murmured Clara.

“March the second? That was the day you took the long ride with Joe? Got back late. On a Saturday. You were exhausted, pale, excited...I remember now. And you never told me!”

“Lucy, don’t reproach me,” protested Clara. “I meant to. Joe wanted to let you into our secret. But I couldn’t. It’s hard to tell you things.”

“Why? Can’t I be trusted?”

“It’s because you do trust so — so beautifully. It’s because you are so — so good, so strong yourself. Before I did it I felt it would be easy. Afterwards I found out differently.”

“Well, too late now,” said Lucy sadly. “But how’d you do it? Where? Why?”

“We rode down to Gordon,” replied Clara hurriedly. “That’s a little village below Cedar Ridge. We hired a man to drive us to Menlo. More than fifty miles. There we were married...Came home the same way. It was a terrible trip. But for the excitement it’d have killed me.”

“March the second! You’ve kept it secret all this time?”

“Yes. And want still to keep it, except from you.”

“Clara — I don’t know what to say,” rejoined Lucy helplessly. “What on earth made you do it?”

“Joe! Joe!” cried Clara wildly. “Oh, let me tell you. Don’t condemn me till you hear...From the very first Joe Denmeade made love to me. You could never dream what’s in that boy. He loved me. My refusals only made him worse. He waylaid me at every turn. He wrote me notes. He never let me forget for an hour that he worshipped me...And it grew to be sweet. Sweet to my bitter heart! I was hungry for love. I wanted, needed the very thing he felt. I fought — oh, how I fought! The idea of being loved was beautiful, wonderful, saving. But to fall in love — myself — that seemed impossible, wicked. It mocked me. But I did fall in love. I woke up one morning to another world...Then I was as weak as water.”

Lucy took the palpitating Clara in her arms and held her close. After all, she could not blame her sister. If no dark shadow loomed up out of the past, then it would be well. Then as the first flush of excitement began to fade Lucy’s logical mind turned from cause to effect.

“Clara, you didn’t tell Joe about your past,” asserted Lucy, very low. She did not question. She affirmed. She knew. And when Clara’s head drooped to her bosom, to hide her face there, Lucy had double assurance.

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t,” said Clara brokenly. “Between my fears and Joe’s ridiculous faith in me, I couldn’t. Time and time again — when he was making love to me — before I cared — I told him I was no good — selfish, callous little flirt! He would only laugh and make harder love to me. I tried to tell him about the cowboy beaux I’d had. He’d say the more I’d had, the luckier he was to win me. To him I was good, innocent, noble. An angel! He wouldn’t listen to me...Then when I fell in love with him it wasn’t easy — the idea of telling. I quit trying until the night before the day we ran off to get married. Honestly I meant seriously to tell him. But I’d hardly gotten a word out when he grabbed me — and — kissed me till I couldn’t talk...Then — I was sort — of carried away — the — second time.”

She ended in a sobbing whisper. All was revealed in those last few words. Lucy could only pity and cherish.

“You poor child! I understand. I don’t blame you. I’m glad. If you love him so well and he loves you so well — it must — it shall come out all right...Don’t cry, Clara. I’m not angry. I’m just stunned and — and frightened.”

Clara responded to kindness as to nothing else, and her passion of gratitude further strengthened Lucy’s resolve to serve.

“Frightened! Yes, that’s what I’ve become lately,” she said. “Suppose Joe should find out — all about me. It’s not probable, but it might happen. He would never forgive me. He’s queer that way. He doesn’t understand women. Edd Denmeade, now — he could. He’d stick to a girl — if — if — ! But Joe wouldn’t, I know. At that I can tell him now, if you say I must. But it’s my last chance for happiness — for a home. I hate the thought that I’m not the angel he believes me. I know I could become anything in time — I love him so well. Always I remember that I wasn’t wicked. I was only a fool.”

“Dear, regrets are useless,” replied Lucy gravely. “Let’s face the future. It seems to me you should tell Joe. After all, he hasn’t so much to forgive. He’s queer, I know—”

“But, Lucy,” interrupted Clara, and she looked up with a strange, sad frankness, “there was a baby.”

“My God!” cried Lucy, in horrified distress.

“Yes...a girl — my own. She was born in Kingston at the home of the woman with whom I lived — a Mrs. Gerald. She had no family. She ran a little restaurant for miners. No one else knew, except the doctor, who came from the next town, and he was a good old soul. In my weakness I told Mrs. Gerald my story — whom I’d run off with — all about it. She offered to adopt the baby if I’d help support it. So we arranged to do that.”

“That was the debt you spoke of,” replied Lucy, huskily. “Why you needed money often.”

“Yes. And that’s why I was in such a hurry to find work — to take up this teaching...She had written me she would return the child or write to its — its father unless I kept my part of the bargain. I was so scared I couldn’t sleep...I was late in sending money, but I’m sure it’s all right.”

“You married Joe — with this — hanging over you?” queried Lucy incredulously.

“I told you how that came about. I know what I felt. I suffered. But it all came about. It happened,” answered Clara, as if driven to desperation.

“Only a miracle can keep Joe from learning it some day.”

“Miracles sometimes happen. For instance, your giving me a home. And my love for this boy!...You can never understand how close I was to death or hell...Kingston is a long way off. This is a wilderness. It might happen that God won’t quite forget me.”

“Oh, the pity of it!” wailed Lucy, wringing her hands. “Clara, how can you repudiate your own flesh and blood?”

“I had to,” replied Clara sadly. “But I’ve lived with the memory, and I’ve changed...I’ll meet Mrs. Gerald’s demands, and some day I’ll make other and happier arrangements.”

“If you only hadn’t married Joe! Why, oh, why didn’t you come to me?” cried Lucy.

Clara offered no reply to that protest. She straightened up and turned away.

“I hear a horse,” she said, rising to look at Lucy. “Must be Edd,” returned Lucy nervously.

“Riding pretty fast for Edd. You know he never runs a horse unless there’s a reason.”

The sisters stood a moment facing each other. Perhaps their emotions presaged catastrophe. Outside the sound of rapid hoofbeats thudded to a sliding halt. Lucy was occupied with anticipation of being compelled to face Edd Denmeade. Less prepared than at any time since her sentimental impulse at Claypool’s, she could not on such short notice master her feelings.

Nevertheless, under the strain of the moment she hurried toward the door, to make her hope that the arrival was not Edd a certainty.

Clara went to the window and looked out.

Lucy reached the threshold just as her keen ear caught the musical jingle of spurs. Then a step too quick and short for Edd! In another second a tall slim young man confronted her. He wore the flashy garb of a rider. Lucy wondered where she had seen that striking figure, the young, handsome, heated red face with its wicked blue eyes. He doffed a wide sombrero. When Lucy saw the blaze of his golden hair she recognised him as the individual once pointed out to her at Cedar Ridge. Comrade of Bud Sprall!

“Howdy, Luce! Reckon your kid sister is heah,” he said coolly.

Lucy’s heart seemed to sink within her. Dread and anger leaped to take the place of softer emotions now vanishing.

“How dare you?” she demanded.

“Wal, I’m a darin’ hombre,” he drawled, taking a step closer. “An’ I’m goin’ in there to even up a little score with Clara.”

“Who are you?” queried Lucy wildly.

“None of your business. Get out of my way,” he said roughly.

Lucy blocked the door. Open opposition did much to stabilise the whirl of her head.

“You’re not coming in,” cried Lucy. “I warn you. Edd Denmeade’s expected here any moment. It’ll be bad for you if he finds you.”

“Wal, I reckon Edd won’t get heah pronto,” rejoined this cowboy impertinently. “I left my pard, Bud Sprall, down the trail. An’ he’s a-rarin’ to stop Edd one way or another. Bud an’ I have been layin’ for this chance. Savvy, Luce?”

She gave him a stinging slap in the face — so hard a blow that even her open hand staggered him.

“Don’t you believe it, Mr. Red-face,” retorted Lucy furiously. “It’d take more than you or Bud Sprall to stop Edd Denmeade.”

“Wild cat, huh? All same Clara!” he ejaculated, with his hand going to his face. The wicked eyes flashed like blue fire. Then he lunged at her, and grasping her arm, in a single pull he swung her out of the doorway. Lucy nearly lost her balance.

Recovering, she rushed back into the school-house in time to see this stranger confront Clara. For Lucy it was a terrible thing to see her sister’s face.

“Howdy, kid! Reckon you was lookin’ for me,” he said.

“Jim Middleton!” burst out Clara in queer, strangled voice. Then she slipped limply to the floor In a faint.

For Lucy uncertainty passed. She realised her sister’s reckoning had come, like a lightning flash out of a clear sky, and it roused all the tigress in her. Running to Clara, she knelt at her side, to find her white and cold and unconscious. Then she rose to confront the intruder with a determination to get rid of him before Clara recovered consciousness.

“So you’re Jim Middleton?” she queried, in passionate scorn. “If I had a gun I’d shoot you. If I had a whip I’d beat you as I would a dog. Get out of here. You shall not talk to my sister. She hates you. Nothing you can have to say will interest her.”

“Wal, I’m not so shore,” returned Middleton, without the coolness or nonchalance that before had characterised his speech. He looked considerably shaken. What contrasting gleams of passion — hate — wonder — love — changed the blue gaze he bent upon Clara’s white face! “I’ve a letter she’ll want to read.”

“A letter! From Mrs. Gerald?” flashed Lucy, quivering all over as his hand went to his breast.

“Yes, if it’s anythin’ to you,” retorted the cowboy, shaking a letter at her.

“Mrs. Gerald wants money?” Lucy went on.

“She shore does,” he answered resentfully.

“I suppose you’re going to send it to her?”

“I am like hell!”

“Also I suppose you’ll want to right the wrong you did Clara? You’ll want to marry her truly?” demanded Lucy, with infinite sarcasm.

“You’ve got the wrong hunch, Luce,” he replied, laughing coarsely. “I jest want to read her this letter. Shore I’ve been keepin’ it secret these days for her to see first. Then I’ll tell Joe Denmeade an’ every other man in this woods.”

“Haven’t you made Clara suffer enough?” queried Lucy, trying to keep her voice steady and her wits working.

“She ran off from me. I reckon with another man.”

“You’re a liar! Oh, I’ll make you pay for this!” cried Lucy, in desperation.

Suddenly she saw him turn his head. Listening. He had not heard her outburst. Then Lucy’s strained hearing caught the welcome clatter of hoofs. Quick as a flash she snatched the letter out of Middleton’s hands.

“Heah, give that back!” he shouted fiercely.

Like a cat Lucy leaped over desks into another aisle, and then, facing about, she thrust the letter into the bosom of her blouse. Middleton leaned forward, glaring in amaze and fury.

“I’ll tear your clothes off,” he shouted, low and hard.

“Jim Middleton, if you know when you’re well off you’ll get out of here and out of the country before these Denmeades learn what you’ve done,” returned Lucy.

“An’ I’ll beat you good while I’m tearin’ your clothes off,” he declared as he crouched.

“Edd Denmeade will kill you!” whispered Lucy, beginning to weaken.

“Once more,” he hissed venomously, “give me that letter...It’s my proof about the baby!”

And on the instant a quick jangling step outside drew the blood from Lucy’s heart. Middleton heard it and wheeled with muttered curse.

Edd Denmeade leaped over the threshold and seemed to fill the schoolroom with his presence. Blood flowed from his bare head, down his cheek. His eyes, like pale flames, swept from Lucy to Middleton, to the limp figure of the girl on the floor, and then back to Lucy. The thrill that flooded over her then seemed wave on wave of shock. He had been fighting. His clothes were in rags and wringing wet. He advanced slowly, with long strides, his piercing gaze shifting to Middleton.

“Howdy, cowboy! I met your pard, Bud Sprall, down the trail. Reckon you’d better go rake up what’s left of him an’ pack it out of here.”

“The hell you say!” ejaculated Middleton, stepping to meet Edd half-way. He was slow, cautious, menacing, and somehow sure of himself. “Wal, I’d as lief meet one Denmeade as another. An’ I’ve shore got somethin’ to say.”

“You can’t talk to me,” returned Edd, with measured coldness. “I don’t know nothin’ about you— ‘cept you’re a pard of Sprall’s. That’s enough...Now go along with you pronto.”

The red of Middleton’s face had faded to a pale white except for the livid mark across his cheek. But to Lucy it seemed his emotion was a passionate excitement rather than fear. He swaggered closer to Edd.

“Say, you wild-bee hunter, you’re goin’ to hear somethin’ aboot this Watson girl.”

Edd took a slow, easy step, then launched body and arm into pantherish agility. Lucy did not see the blow, but she heard it. Sharp and sudden, it felled Middleton to the floor half a dozen paces toward the stove. He fell so heavily that he shook the school-house. For a moment he lay gasping while Edd stepped closer. Then he raised himself on his elbow and turned a distorted face, the nose of which appeared smashed flat. He looked a fiend inflamed with lust to murder. But cunningly as he turned away and began to labour to get to his feet, he did not deceive Lucy.

“Watch out, Edd! He has a gun!” she screamed.

Even then Middleton wheeled, wrenching the gun from his hip. Lucy saw its sweep as she saw Edd leap, and suddenly bereft of strength she slipped to the floor, back against a desk, eyes tight shut, senses paralysed, waiting for the report she expected. But it did not come. Scrape of boots, clash of spurs, hard expulsions of breath, attested to another kind of fight.

She opened wide her eyes. Edd and Middleton each had two hands on the weapon, and were leaning back at arm’s-length, pulling with all their might.

“I’m agonna bore you — you damn’ wild-bee hunter!” panted the cowboy, and then he bent to bite at Edd’s hands. Edd gave him a tremendous kick that brought a bawl of pain and rage from Middleton.

Then began a terrific struggle for possession of the gun. Lucy crouched there, fascinated with horror. Yet how the hot nerves of her body tingled! She awoke to an awful attention, to a dim recollection of a fierce glory in man’s prowess, in blood, in justice. Edd was the heavier and stronger. He kept the cowboy at arm’s-length and swung him off his feet. But Middleton always came down like a cat, He was swung against the desks, demolishing them; then his spurred boots crashed over the teacher’s table. They wrestled from there to the stove, knocking that down. A cloud of soot puffed down from the stove-pipe. The cowboy ceased to waste breath in curses. His sinister expression changed to a panic-stricken fear for his own life. He was swung with violence against the wall. Yet he held on to the gun in a wild tenacity. They fought all around the room, smashing desk after desk. The time came when Middleton ceased to jerk at the gun, but put all a waning strength in efforts to hold it.

When they were on the other side of the room Lucy could not see them. What she heard was sufficient to keep her in convulsive suspense.

Suddenly out of the corner of her eye she saw Clara sit up and reel from side to side, and turn her white face toward the furiously struggling men.

“Clara — don’t look!” cried Lucy huskily, almost unable to speak. She moved to go to her sister, but she was spent with fright, and when Clara’s purple eyes fixed in an appalling stare, she quite gave out. Then crash and thud and scrape, harder, swifter, and the whistle of men’s breath moved back across the room into the field of her vision. Edd was dragging Middleton, flinging him. The fight was going to the implacable bee-hunter.

“Let go, cowboy. I won’t kill you!” thundered Edd.

Middleton’s husky reply was incoherent. For a moment renewed strength seemed to come desperately, and closing in with Edd he wrestled with the frenzy of a madman.

Suddenly there burst out a muffled bellow of the gun. Edd seemed released from a tremendous strain. He staggered back toward Lucy. For a single soul-riving instant she watched, all faculties but sight shocked into suspension. Then Middleton swayed aside from Edd, both his hands pressed to his breast. He sank to his knees. Lucy’s distended eyes saw blood gush out over his hands. Dragging her gaze up to his face, she recoiled in a fearful awe.

“She — she was—” he gasped thickly, his changed eyes wavering, fixing down the room. Then he lurched over on his side and lay doubled up in a heap.

Edd’s long arm spread out and his hand went low, to release the smoking gun, while he bent rigidly over the fallen man.

“It went — off,” he panted. “I was only — tryin’ to get it — away from him...Lucy, you saw.”

“Oh yes, I saw,” cried Lucy. “It wasn’t — your fault. He’d have killed you...Is he — is he — ?”

Edd straightened up and drew a deep breath.

“Reckon he’s about gone.”

Then he came to help Lucy to her feet and to support her. “Wal, you need a little fresh air, an’ I reckon some won’t hurt me.”

“But Clara!...Oh, she has fainted again!”

“No wonder. Shore she was lucky not to see the — the fight. That fellow was a devil compared to Bud Sprall.”

“Oh!...Edd, you didn’t kill him, too?” implored Lucy.

“Not quite. But he’s bad used up,” declared Edd as he half carried her across the threshold and lowered her to a seat on the steps. “Brace up now, city girl. Reckon this is your first real backwoods experience...Wal, it might have been worse... Now wouldn’t you have had a fine time makin’ Bud an’ his pard better men?...There, you’re comin’ around. We need to do some tall figurin’...But I reckon, far as I’m concerned, there’s nothin’ to worry over.”

After a moment he let go of Lucy and rose from the step. “Lucy, what was it all about?” he queried quietly.

She covered her face with her hands, and a strong shudder shook her frame.

“Wal,” he went on, very gently, “I heard that fellow ravin’ as I come in. But all I understood was proof about the baby.”

“That was enough to hear, don’t you think?” replied Lucy, all at once recovering her composure. Out of the chaos of her conflicting emotions had arisen an inspiration.

“Reckon it was a good deal,” he said simply, and smiled down on her. “But you needn’t tell me nothin’ unless you want to. I always knew you’d had some trouble.”

“Trouble!” sighed Lucy. Then averting her gaze she continued: “Edd, I ask you to keep my secret...The baby he spoke of — was — is mine.”

He did not reply at once, nor in any way she could see or hear express whatever feeling he might have had. Lucy, once the damnable falsehood had crossed her lips, was stricken as by a plague. When she had thrown that off there was a horrible remorse pounding at the gates of her heart, Her body seemed first to receive the brunt of the blow she had dealt herself.

“Wal, wal — so that’s it,” said Edd, in a queer, broken voice. He paused a long moment, then went on, in more usual tone. “Shore I’ll never tell...I’m doggone sorry, Lucy. An’ I’m not askin’ questions. I reckon it doesn’t make no difference to me...Now let’s think what’s best to do. I’ll have to send word from Johnson’s about this fight. But I’m goin’ to see you home first, unless you think you can get there all right.”

“That depends on Clara. Come with me.”

They went back into the schoolhouse to find Clam showing signs of returning consciousness.

“Please carry her outside,” said Lucy.

As he lifted the girl in his arms Lucy’s fearful gaze roved round the room. Amid the ruins of the crude furniture lay the inert form of Jim Middleton, face down, hands outstretched in a pool of blood. Though the sight sickened her, Lucy gazed until she had convinced herself that there was no life in the prostrate form. Then she hurried after Edd and reeled out into the sunlight and the sweet fresh air. Edd carried Clara to the shade of pines at the edge of the clearing.

“I’ll go down to the brook,” he said. “Reckon we don’t want her seein’ me all over blood.”

Presently Clara’s pale eyelids fluttered and unclosed, to reveal eyes with purple abysses, hard for Lucy to gaze into. She raised Clara’s head in her arms.

“There, dear, you’re all right again, aren’t you?”

“Where is he?” whispered Clara.

“Edd’s gone down to the brook to fetch some water. He’s all right.”

“I mean — him...Ah, I saw!” went on Clara. “Edd killed him!”

“I fear so,” said Lucy hurriedly. “But it was an accident. Edd fought to get the gun. It went off...Don’t think of that. God has delivered you. I have the letter Mrs. Gerald wrote Middleton. He did not betray you. And now he’s dead...Edd knows nothing about your relation to this cowboy. See that you keep silent.”

Edd returned at this juncture with a shining face, except for a wound over his temple; and he handed his wet scarf to Lucy.

“Wal, shore she’s come to,” he drawled, with all his old coolness “That’s good...Now I’ll saddle up her horse an’ pretty soon she’ll be able to ride home.”

“I think she will,” returned Lucy. “But what shall I say about — about this?”

“Say nothin’,” he replied tersely. “I’ll do the talkin’ when I get home...An’, Lucy, on my way to Johnson’s I’ll take a look at my old friend Bud Sprall. If he’s alive, which I reckon he is, I’ll tell him damn’ good an’ short what happened to his pard, an’ that he’ll get the same unless he moves out of the country. These woods ain’t big enough for us two.”

“He might waylay you again as he did this time — and shoot you,” said Lucy fearfully.

“Wal, way-layin’ me once will be enough, I reckon. Bud has a bad name, an’ this sneaky trick on you girls will fix him. They’ll run him out of the country.”

While Edd saddled Clara’s horse Lucy walked her to and fro a little.

“Let’s go. I can ride,” averred Clara. “I’d rather fall off than stay here.”

Edd helped her mount and walked beside her to where the trail entered the clearing. Lucy caught up with them, full of misgiving, yet keen to get out of sight of the school-house.

“Go right home,” said Edd. “I’ll stop at Claypool’s on my way up an’ tell them somethin’. Shore I won’t be long. An’ if you’re not home I’ll come a-rarin’ down the trail to meet you.”

“Oh, Edd — be careful!” whispered Lucy. She hardly knew what she meant, and she could not look at him. Clara rode on into the leaf-bordered trail. Lucy made haste to follow. Soon the golden light of the clearing no longer sent gleams into the forest. They entered the green, silent sanctuary of the pines. Lucy felt unutterable relief. How shaded, how, protecting, how helpful the great trees! They had the primitive influence of nature. They strengthened her under the burden she had assumed. Whatever had been the wild prompting of her sacrifice, she had no regret for herself, nor could she alter it.

Clara reeled in her saddle, clinging to the pommel but as she rode on it appeared she gathered strength until Lucy came to believe she would finish out the ride. And what a tragic ride that was! Clara never once looked back, never spoke. The pearly pallor still showed under her tan. Lucy felt what was going on in her sister’s soul, and pitied her. Scorn for Clara’s weakness, anger at her duplicity, had no power against love. The reckoning had come and the worst had befallen. Lucy experienced relief in the knowledge of this. Clara’s future must be her care. It was not right, but she would make it right; it was not safe, yet she must insure its safety. And all at once she realised how she loved Edd Denmeade, and that eventually she would have gone to him as naturally as a bird to its mate. Then the green forest seemed to pierce her agony with a thousand eyes.

Chapter XV

AT THE CONCLUSION of that ride Clara collapsed and had to be carried into her tent, where she fell victim to hysteria and exhaustion. Lucy had her hands full attending to her sister and keeping the kindly Denmeades from hearing some of Clara’s ravings.

Next day Clara was better, and on Sunday apparently herself again. To Lucy’s amaze she announced she could and would go back to school next day.

“But, Clara — how can you, considering—” faltered Lucy.

“I know what you mean,” replied her sister. “It’ll be rather sickening, to say the least. Yet I’d prefer to be sick than have the awful feeling of dread I had before.”

Nevertheless, Lucy would not hear of Clara’s going to teach for at least a week. Amy Claypool would be glad to act as substitute teacher for a few days, or, failing that, the pupils could be given a vacation. Clara did not readily yield this point, though at last she was prevailed upon. During these days Lucy avoided much contact with the Denmeades. It was not possible, however, not to hear something about what had happened.

Upon his return Edd had conducted himself precisely as before the tragedy, a circumstance that had subtle effect upon Lucy. By degrees this bee-hunter had grown big in her sight, strong and natural in those qualities which to her mind constituted a man. From Joe she learned certain developments of the case. Bud Sprall, late on the day of the fight, had been carried to Johnson’s, the nearest ranch, and there he lay severely injured. Middleton had not been removed until after the sheriff had viewed his remains on Saturday. Gossip from all quarters was rife, all of it decidedly favourable to Edd. The dead cowboy had not been well known at Cedar Ridge, and not at all by the name of Middleton.

On Monday Lucy returned to her work at Claypool’s, leaving the situation unchanged so far as she was concerned. She and Edd had not mentioned the thing that naturally concerned them both so vitally nor had Lucy confessed to Clara what she had take upon herself. There would be need of that, perhaps, after the sheriff’s investigation.

Lucy’s work did not in this instance alleviate a heavy heart. Once more alone, away from the worry about Clara’s health and the excitement of the Denmeades, she was assailed by grief. Clara’s act, viewed in any light possible, seemed a sin, no less terrible because of unfortunate and mitigating circumstances. It was something that had been fostered long ago in the family. Lucy had expected it. She blamed the past, the lack of proper home training and ideals, the influence inevitable from her father’s business.

After her work hours each day she would walk off into the deep forest, and there, hidden from any eyes she would yield to the moods of the moment. seemed as various as the aspects of her trouble. But whatever the mood happened to be, grief was its dominant note. Clara had gotten beyond her now. She was married, and settled, providing Joe Denmeade was as fine a boy as he seemed. But if Clara’s true story became public property and Joe repudiated her, cast her off — then her future was hopeless. Lucy could not face this possibility. It quite baffled her.

Then there was something else quite as insupportable to face. Sooner or later she must take up the burden she had claimed as her own. It would be hard. It meant she must abandon her welfare work there among the people she had come to love. They needed her. She would have to go farther afield or take up some other kind of work. It was not conceivable that her sister’s child could be left to the bringing up of strangers. That would only be shifting the responsibility of the weak Watson blood upon someone else. It did not make in the least for the ideal for which Lucy was ready to lay down her life.

Perhaps hardest of all was the blow to what now she recognised as her unconscious hopes of love, dreams of happy toil as a pioneer’s wife. She knew now, when it was too late, what she could have been capable of for Edd Denmeade. She had found a fine big love for a man she had helped develop. She would rather have had such consciousness than to have met and loved a man superior in all ways to Edd. Somehow the struggle was the great thing. And yet she had loved Edd also because he was self-sufficient without her help. How she cared for him now, since the killing of one enemy and crippling of another, was hard for her to define. So that this phase of her grief was acute, poignant, ever-present, growing with the days.

She found out, presently, that going into the forest was a source of comfort. When there seemed no comfort she went to the lonely solitude of trees and brush, of green coverts and fragrant wild dells, and always she was soothed, sustained. She could not understand why, but it was so. She began to prolong the hours spent in the woods, under a looming canyon wall, or beside a densely foliaged gorge from which floated up the drowsy murmur of a stream. All that the wild forest land consisted of passed into her innermost being. She sensed that the very ground she trod was full of graves of races of human beings who had lived and fought there, suffered in their blindness and ignorance, loved and reared their young, and had grown old and died. No trace left! No more than autumn leaves! It seemed to be this lesson of nature that gradually came to her. Thereafter she went to the woods early in the mornings as well as the afternoons, and finally she had courage to go at night.

And it was at night she came to feel deepest. Darkness emphasised the mystery of the forest. Night birds and crickets, prowling coyotes with their haunting barks, the wind sad and low in the pines, the weird canopy of foliage overhead studded with stars of white fire — these taught her the littleness of her life and the tremendousness of the spirit from which she had sprung. She was part of the universe. The very fear she had of the blackness, the beasts, and the unknown told of her inheritance. She came at length to realise that this spell engendered by nature, if it could be grasped in its entirety and held, would make bearable all aches of heart and miseries of mind. Her contact with actual life covered twenty little years in a town among many people; her instincts, the blood that beat at her temples, the longings of her bones, had been bred of a million years in the solitude and wild environment of the dim past. That was why the forest helped her.

A Saturday in June was the day set for an investigation of the fight that had resulted in the death of Jim Middleton. It would be an ordeal for which Lucy had endeavoured to prepare herself.

But from what she heard and saw of the people interested she judged the day was to be rather a gala one. Certainly the Denmeades were not worried. Lucy did not see Edd, but Joe seemed more than usually cheerful, and evidently he had prevailed somewhat upon Clara. If she had any misgivings as to what might develop, she certainly did not show them. She rode by with Joe and the other Denmeades before Lucy was ready. Allie and Gerd dressed up for the occasion as if they were going to a dance. Lucy rode with them as far as Johnson’s where she was invited to go the rest of the way in a car with Sam and other of the Johnsons. During this part of the ride Lucy had little chance to think or brood. The party was a merry one, and their attitude toward the occasion was manifested by a remark Sam finally made to Lucy:

“Say, cheer up. You’re worryin’ about this investigation. It won’t amount to shucks. Everybody in the country is glad of what Edd did. Shore there won’t be any court proceedings. This whole case would have been over long ago an’ forgotten if Bud Sprall hadn’t been too bad crippled to talk. Just you wait.”

Lucy found some little grain of assurance in Sam’s words, and bore up under her dread. Perhaps she worried too much, and felt too deeply, she thought. Sam drove as if he were going to a party, and the twenty miles or more seemed as nothing. Cedar Ridge was full of people, to judge from the horses, cars, and vehicles along each side of the main street. When Sam halted with a grand flourish before the hotel Lucy was thrilled to see Edd Denmeade step out from a motley crowd. He was looking for her, and he smiled as he met her glance. He read her mind.

“Howdy, Lucy I Reckon you needn’t be scared. Shore it’s all right,” he said, pressing her hand as he helped her out. “Howdy there, you Sam! Just saw Sadie an’ she shore looks pert. Howdy, you-all!”

Lucy was conducted into the hotel parlour by the sheriff, who seemed very gallant and apologetic and most desirous of impressing her with the fact that this meeting was a pleasure to him.

The magistrate she met there appeared equally affable. He was a little man, with sharp blue eyes and ruddy shaven face, and he had only one ann.

“Wal, now, it was too bad to drag you away from thet good work we’re all a-hearin’ aboot,” he said.

“Judge,” spoke up the sheriff, “we got Edd’s story an’ now all we want is this girl’s. She see the fight over the gun.”

“Sit down, miss, an’ pray don’t look so white,” said the magistrate, with a kindly smile. “We see no call to take this case to court. Jest answer a few questions an’ we’ll let you off...You was the only one who see the fight between Edd an’ thet cowboy?”

“Yes. My sister had fainted and lay on the floor,” replied Lucy. “But just at the last of it I saw her sit up. And after, when I looked back, she had fainted again.”

“Now we know thet Harv Sprall threw a gun on Edd—”

“Sprall!” interrupted Lucy. “You’re mistaken. The other fellow was Bud Sprall and he wasn’t in the schoolroom. Edd had the fight for the gun with—”

“Excuse me, miss,” interrupted the judge in turn. “The dead cowboy was Harv Sprall, a cousin of Bud’s. He wasn’t well known in these parts, but we got a line on him from men over Winbrook way...Now jest tell us what you saw.”

Whereupon Lucy began with the blow Edd had delivered at the so-called Herv Sprall, and related hurriedly and fluently the details of the fight.

“Wal, thet’ll be aboot all,” said the judge, with his genial smile, as he bent over to begin writing. “I’m much obliged.”

“All! May — I go — now?” faltered Lucy.

“Go. I should smile. I’m escortin’ you out. Not thet we’re not sorry to have you go,” replied the sheriff, and forthwith he led her out to where the others were waiting in the porch.

Lucy came in for considerable attention from the surrounding crowd; and by reason of this and the solicitude of her friends she quickly regained her composure. Presently she was carried away to the house of friends of the Johnsons. She wondered where Clara was, and Joe and Edd, but being swift to grasp the fact that the investigation had been trivial, she was happy to keep her curiosity to herself.

During the several hours she remained in town, however, she was destined to learn a good deal, and that by merely listening. The name Jim Middleton was mentioned as one of several names under which Harv Sprall had long carried on dealings not exactly within the law. He had been known to absent himself for long periods from the several places where he was supposed to work. If Bud Sprall had known anything about his cousin’s affairs with Clara, he had kept his mouth shut. The investigation had turned a light on his own unsavoury reputation, and what with one thing and another he was liable to be sent to state prison. The judge had made it known that he would give Sprall a chance to leave the country.

It seemed to be the universally accepted idea that the two Spralls had planned to waylay Edd or Joe Denmeade, and then surprise the young school teacher or overtake her on the trail. Their plans had miscarried and they had gotten their just deserts; and that evidently closed the incident.

Lucy did not see Edd again on this occasion, and someone said he had ridden off alone toward home. Clara and Joe did not show inclination for company; and they too soon departed.

Before dark that night Lucy got back with the Claypools, too tired from riding, and weary with excitement and the necessity for keeping up appearances, to care about eating, or her usual walk after supper. She went to bed, and in the darkness and silence of her little hut she felt as alone as if she were lost in the forest. To-morrow would be Sunday. She would spend the whole day thinking over her problem and deciding how to meet it. If only the hours could be lengthened — time made to stand still!

That Sunday passed by and then another, leaving Lucy more at sea than ever. But she finished her work with the Claypools. July was to have been the time set for her to go to the Johnsons or the Millers. When the date arrived Lucy knew that she had no intention of going. Her own day of reckoning had come. Somehow she was glad in a sad kind way.

The Denmeades welcomed her as one of the family; and their unstinted delight did not make her task any easier. They all had some characteristic remark to thrill and yet hurt her. Denmeade grinned and said: “Wal, I reckon you’re back for good. It shore, looks like a go between Joe an’ your sister.”

Meeting Clara was torturing. “Well, old mysterious, get it off your chest,” said her sister, with a shrewd bright look. “Something’s killing you. Is it me or Edd?”

“Goodness! Do I show my troubles as plainly as that?” replied Lucy pathetically.

“You’re white and almost thin,” returned Clara solicitously. “You ought to stay here and rest — ride around — go to school with me.”

“Perhaps I do need a change...And you, Clara — how are you? Have you found it hard to go down there — to be in that schoolroom every day?”

“Me? Oh, I’m fine. It bothered me some at first — especially that — that big stain on the floor. I couldn’t scrub it out. So I took down a rug. I’m not so squeamish as I was. But I go late, and you bet I don’t keep any of my scholars in after school hours.”

“Don’t you ever think of — of—” faltered Lucy, hardly knowing what she meant.

“Of course, you ninny,” retorted Clara. “Am I a clod? I think too much. I have my fight...But, Lucy, I’m happy. Every day I find more in Joe to love. I’m going to pull out and make a success of life. First I thought it was for Joe’s sake — then yours. But I guess I’ve begun to think of myself a little.”

“Have you heard from Mrs. Gerald?” queried Lucy finally.

“Yes. As soon as she got my letter. Evidently it was all right again. But she never mentioned writing to Jim.”

“She would be glad to get rid of her charge — I imagine?” went on Lucy casually.

“I’ve guessed that, myself,” rejoined Clara soberly. “It worries me some, yet I—”

She did not conclude her remark, and Lucy did not press the subject any further at the moment, though she knew this was the time to do it. But Lucy rather feared a scene with Clara and did not want it to occur during the waking hours of the Denmeades.

“Have you and Joe told your secret?” queried Lucy.

“Not yet,” replied Clara briefly.

“Where is Joe now?”

“He’s working at his homestead. Has twenty acres planted, and more cleared. They’re all helping him. Edd has taken a great interest in Joe’s place since he lost interest in his own.”

“Then Edd has given up work on his own farm. Since when?”

“I don’t know. But it was lately. I heard his father talking about it. Edd’s not the same since he — since that accident. Joe comes home here every night and he tells me how Edd’s changed. Hasn’t he been to see you, Lucy?”

“No.”

“Of course Edd’s down in the mouth about you. I don’t think killing that cowboy worries him. I heard him say he was sorry he hadn’t done for Bud Sprall, too, and that if he’d known the job those two put up on him there’d have been a different story to tell...No. It’s just that Edd’s horribly in love with you.”

“Poor — Edd, if it’s so!” murmured Lucy. “But maybe you take too much for granted, just because Joe feels that way about you.”

“Maybe,” replied her sister mockingly. “Edd will probably come home to-day with Joe, as he hasn’t been here lately. Take the trouble to look at him and see what you think.”

“Are you trying to awaken my sympathies?” queried Lucy satirically.

“I wish to goodness I could,” returned Clara under her breath.

Lucy realised that she was not her old self, and this had affected Clara vexatiously, perhaps distressingly. Lucy strove against the bitterness and sorrow which in spite of her will influenced her thought and speech. She would not let another day go by without telling Clara what she had taken upon herself. That would be destroying her last bridge behind her; she could go forth free to meet new life somewhere else, knowing she had done the last faithful service to her family.

The Denmeade boys came home early, but Lucy did not see Edd until at supper, which, as usual, was eaten on the porch between the cabins. He did seem changed, and the difference was not physical. He was as big and brawny and brown as ever. Sight of him reopened a wound she thought had healed.

“Come down an’ see my bees,” he invited her after supper.

The time was near sunset and the green gully seemed full of murmuring of bees and stream and wind. Edd had added several new hives to his collection, all of which were sections of trees that he had sawed out and packed home.

“How’d you ever keep the bees in?” she asked wonderingly.

“I stuffed the hole up an’ then cut out the piece,” he replied. “It can’t be done with every bee tree, by a long shot.”

For once he seemed not to be keen to talk about his beloved bees, nor, for that matter, about anything. He sat down ponderingly, as a man weighted by cares beyond his comprehension. But the stubborn strength of him was manifest. Lucy had at first to revert to the thought that the flying bees were harmless. With them humming round her, alighting on her, this association of safety did not come at once. She walked to and fro over the green grass and by the sturdy pines, trying to bring back a self that had gone for ever. The sun sank behind purple silver-edged clouds, and the golden rim stood up to catch the last bright flare of dying day.

“Wal, you’re leavin’ us soon?” queried Edd presently.

“Yes. How did you know?” replied Lucy, halting before him.

“Reckon I guessed it...I’m awful sorry. We’re shore goin’ to miss you.”

That was all. He did not put queries Lucy feared she could not answer. He showed no sign of thoughts that pried into her secret affairs. Somehow he gave Lucy the impression of a faithful animal which had been beaten. He was dumb. Yet she imagined his apparent stolidity came from her aloofness. Lucy, in her misery, essayed to talk commonplaces. But this failed, and she was forced to choose between falling on her knees before him and flying back to the tent. So she left him sitting there, and then from the bench above she spied down through the foliage upon him until dusk hid him from view.

Was she a traitor to the best in herself? Had she not betrayed this backwoods boy who had responded so nobly to every good impulse she had fostered in him? But blood ties were stronger than love. How terribly remorse flayed her! And doubts flew thick as leaves in a storm. Nevertheless, she could not weaken, could never depart in any degree from the course she had prescribed for herself. That was a dark hour. Her deepest emotions were augmented to passion. She was reaching a crisis, the effect of which she could not see.

Later the moon arose and blanched the lofty Rim and the surrounding forest. Black shadows of trees fell across the trail and lane. The air had a delicious mountain coolness, and the silence was impressive. Lucy drank it all in, passionately loath to make the move that must of its very momentum end these wilderness joys for her. But at last she dragged herself away from the moonlit, black-barred trail.

She found Clara and Joe sitting in lover-like, proximity on the rustic bench near the tent. As she approached them she did not espy any sign of their embarrassment.

“Joe. I want to have a serious talk with Clara. Would you oblige me by letting me have her alone for a while?” said Lucy.

“If it’s serious, why can’t I hear it?” queried Joe.

“I can’t discuss a purely family matter before you,” returned Lucy. “I’m going away soon. And this matter concerns us — me — and things back home.”

“Lucy, I belong to your family now,” said Joe, as slowly he disengaged himself from Clara and stood up.

“So you do,” replied Lucy, labouring to keep composed. “What of it?”

“I’ve a hunch you haven’t figured us Denmeades,” he rejoined rather curtly, and strode away.

“What’d he mean?” asked Lucy, as she stared down at Clara, whose big eyes looked black in the moonlight.

“I’m pretty sure he meant the Denmeades are not fair-weather friends,” said Clara thoughtfully. “He’s been trying to pump me. Wants to know why you’re here and going away — why you look so troubled...I told him, and Edd, too, that I wasn’t in your confidence. It’s no lie. And here I’ve been scared stiff at the look of you.”

“If you’re not more than scared you’re lucky. Come in the tent,” said Lucy.

Inside, the light was a pale radiance, filtering through the canvas. Lucy shut the door and locked it, poignantly aware of Clara’s lingering close to her. Her eyes seemed like great staring gulfs.

Lucy drew a deep breath and cast off the fetters that bound her.

“Clara, do you remember the day of the fight in the school-house — that you were unconscious when Edd arrived?” queried Lucy in low, forceful voice.

“Yes,” whispered Clara.

“Then of course you could not have heard what Jim Middleton said. He was about to leap upon me to get the letter I had snatched. He threatened to tear my clothes off. Then he said it was his proof about the baby...Edd ran into the schoolroom just in time to hear the last few words...Later he said he’d heard — and he asked me — whose it was. I told him — mine!”

“Good — God!” cried Clara faintly, and sat down upon the bed as if strength to stand had left her.

“I spoke impulsively, yet it was the same as if I had thought for hours,” went on Lucy hurriedly. “I never could have given you away...and I couldn’t lie — by saying it — it was somebody’s else.”

“Lie! It’s a — terrible lie!” burst out Clara hoarsely. “It’s horrible...You’ve ruined your good name...You’ve broken Edd’s heart. Now I know what ails him...But I won’t stand for your taking my shame — my burden on your shoulders.”

“The thing is done,” declared Lucy with finality.

“I won’t — I won’t!” flashed her sister passionately. “What do you take me for? I’ve done enough.”

“Yes, you have. And since you’ve shirked your responsibilities — cast off your own flesh and blood to be brought up by a greedy, callous woman — I intend to do what is right by that poor, unfortunate child.”

Her cutting words wrought Clara into a frenzy of grief, shame, rage and despair. For a while she was beside herself, and Lucy let her rave, sometimes holding her forcibly from wrecking the tent and crying out too loud. She even found a grain of consolation in Clara’s breakdown. What manner of woman would her sister have been if she had not shown terrible agitation?

At length Clara became coherent and less violent, and she begged Lucy to abandon this idea. Lucy answered as gently and kindly as was possible for her, under the circumstances, but she could not be changed. Clara was wildly importunate. Her conscience had stricken her as never before. She loved Lucy and could not bear this added catastrophe. Thus it was that Clara’s weak though impassioned pleas and Lucy’s efforts to be kind yet firm, to control her own temper, now at white heat, finally led to a terrible quarrel. Once before, as girls, they had quarrelled bitterly over an escapade of Clara’s. Now, as women, they clinched again in such passion as could only be born of blood ties, of years of sacrifice on the part of one, of realisation of ignominy on the part of the other. And the battle went to Lucy, gradually, because of the might of her will and right of her cause.

“You can’t see what you’ve done,” concluded Lucy in spent passion. “You’re like our father. Poor weak thing that you are, I can’t blame you. It’s in the family...If only you’d had the sense and the honour to tell me the truth! — before you married this clean simple-minded boy! Somehow we might have escaped the worst of it. But you married him, you selfish, callous little egotist! And now it’s too late. Go on. Find what happiness you can. Be a good wife to this boy and let that make what little amends is possible for you...I’ll shoulder your disgrace. I’ll be a mother to your child. I’ll fight the taint in the Watson blood — the thing that made you what you are. To my mind your failure to make such fight yourself is the crime. I don’t hold your love, your weakness against you. But you abandoned part of yourself to go abroad in the world to grow up as you did. To do the same thing over!...You are little, miserable, wicked. But you are my sister — all I have left to love. And I’ll do what you cannot!”

Clara fell back upon the pillow, dishevelled, white as death under the pale moonlit tent. Her nerveless hands loosened their clutch on her breast. She shrank as if burned, and her tragic eyes closed to hide her accuser.

“Oh, Lucy — Lucy!” she moaned. “God help me!”

Lucy walked alone in the dark lane, and two hours were but as moments. Upon her return to the tent she found Clara asleep. Lucy did not light the lamp or fully undress, so loath was she to awaken her sister. And, exhausted herself, in a few moments she sank into slumber. Morning found her refreshed in strength and spirit.

She expected an ordeal almost as trying as the conflict of wills the night before — that she would have to face a cringing, miserable girl, wrung by remorse and shame. But Clara awoke in strange mood, proud, tragic-eyed and aloof, reminding Lucy of their youthful days when her sister had been reproved for some misdemeanour. Lucy accepted this as a welcome surprise, and, deep in her own perturbation, she did not dwell seriously upon it. The great fact of her crisis crowded out aught else — she must leave the Denmeade ranch that day, and the wilderness home which was really the only home she had ever loved, Delay would be only a cruelty to herself. Still, the ordeal was past and she had consolation in her victory. At least she would not fail. This was her supreme and last debt to her family.

Never before had the forest been so enchanting as on that summer morning. She punished herself ruthlessly by going to the fragrant glade where she had learned her first lessons from the wilderness. Weeks had passed, yet every pine needle seemed in its place. Woodpeckers hammered on the dead trunks; sap suckers glided head downward round the brown-barked trees; woodland butterflies fluttered across the sunlit spaces; blue jays swooped screechin’ from bough to bough; red squirrels tore scratchingly in chattering pursuit of one another. Crows and hawks and eagles sailed the sunny world between the forest tips and the lofty Rim. It was hot in the sun; cool in the shade. The scent of pine was overpoweringly sweet. A hot, drowsy summer breeze stirred through the foliage. And the golden aisle near Lucy’s retreat seemed a stream for myriads of Edd’s homing bees, humming by to the hives.

Lucy tried to convince herself that all forests possessed the same qualities as this one — that the beauty and charm and strength of it came from her eye and heart — that wherever she went to work she now could take this precious knowledge with her. Trees and creatures of the wild were ministers to a harmony with nature.

A forest was a thing of infinite mystery, a multiple detail, of immeasurable design. Trees, rocks, brush, brook could not explain the home instinct engendered in the wild coverts, the shaded dells, the dark caverns, the lonely aisles, the magnificent archways. The green leaves of the trees brought the rain from the sea and created what they lived upon. The crystal springs under the mossy cliffs were born of thirsty foliage, of the pulse in the roots of the trees. These springs were the sources of rivers. They were the fountains of all life. If the forests perished, there would be left only desert, desolate and dead.

Lucy sat under her favourite pine, her back against the rough bark, and she could reach her hand out of the shade into the sun. She thought for what seemed a long time. Then the forgot herself in a moment of abandon. She kissed and smelled the fragrant bark; she crushed handfuls of the brown pine needles, pricking her fingers till they bled; she gathered the pine cones to her, soiling her hands with the hot pitch. And suddenly overcome by these physical sensations, she lifted face and arms to the green canopy above and uttered an inarticulate cry, poignant and wild.

Then a rustling in the brush startled her; and as if in answer to her cry Edd Denmeade strode out of the green wall of thicket, right upon her.

“Reckon you was callin’ me,” he said, in his cool, easy drawl.

“Oh-h!...You frightened me!” she exclaimed, staring up at him. He wore his bee-hunting garb, ragged from service and redolent of the woods. His brown, brawny shoulder bulged through a rent. In one hand he carried a short-handled axe. His clean-shaven, tanned face shone almost golden, and his clear grey eyes held a singular piercing softness. How tall and lithe and strong he looked! A wild-bee hunter! But that was only a name. Lucy would not have had him different.

“Where’d you come from?” she asked, suddenly realising the imminence of some question that dwarfed all other problems.

“Wal, I trailed you,” he replied.

“You saw me come here?...You’ve been watching me?”

“Shore. I was standin’ in that thicket of pines, peepin’ through at you.”

“Was that — nice of you — Edd?” she faltered.

“Reckon I don’t know. All I wanted to find out was how you really felt about leavin’ us all — an’ my woods.”

“Well, did you learn?” she asked, very low.

“I shore did.”

“And what is it?”

“Wal, I reckon you feel pretty bad,” he answered simply. “First off I thought it was only your old trouble. But after a while I could see you hated to leave our woods. An’ shore we’re all part of the woods. If I hadn’t seen that I’d never have let you know I was there watchin’ you.”

“Edd, I do hate to leave your woods — and all your folks — and you — more than I can tell,” she said sadly.

“Wal, then, what’re you leavin’ for?” he asked bluntly.

“I must.”

“Reckon that don’t mean much to me. Why must you?”

“It won’t do any good to talk about it. You wouldn’t understand — and I’ll be upset. Please don’t ask me.”

“But, Lucy, is it fair not to tell me anythin’?” he queried ponderingly. “You know I love you like you told me a man does when he thinks of a girl before himself.”

“Oh no — it isn’t!” burst out Lucy poignantly, suddenly, strangely overcome by his unexpected declaration.

“Wal, then, tell me all about it,” he entreated.

Lucy stared hard at the clusters of fragrant pine needles she had gathered in her lap. Alarming symptoms in her breast gave her pause. She was not mistress of her emotions. She could be taken unawares. This boy had supreme power over her, if he knew how to employ it. Lucy struggled with a new and untried situation.

“Edd, I owe a duty to — to myself — and to my family,” she said, and tried bravely to look at him.

“An’ to somebody else?” he demanded, with sudden passion. He dropped on his knees and reached for Lucy. His hands were like iron. They lifted her to her knees and drew her close. He was rough. His clasp hurt. But these things were nothing to the expression she caught in his eyes — a terrible flash that could mean only jealousy.

“Let me go!” she cried wildly, trying to get away. Her gaze drooped. It seemed she had no anger. Her heart swelled as if bursting. Weakness of will and muscle attacked her.

“Be still an’ listen,” he ordered, shaking her. He need not have employed violence. “Reckon you’ve had your own way too much...I lied to you about how I killed that cowboy.”

“Oh, Edd — then it wasn’t an accident?” cried Lucy, sinking limp against him. All force within her seemed to coalesce.

“It shore wasn’t,” he replied grimly. “But I let you an’ everybody think so. That damned skunk! He was tryin’ his best to murder me. I had no gun...I told him I wouldn’t hurt him...Then what’d he do? He was cunnin’ as hell. He whispered things — hissed them at me like a snake — vile words about you — what you were. It was a trick. Shore he meant to surprise me — make me lose my nerve...so he could get the gun. An’ all the time he pulled only the harder. He could feel I loved you. An’ his trick near worked. But I seen through it — an I turned the gun against him.”

“Oh, my God! you killed him — intentionally!” exclaimed Lucy.

“Yes. An’ it wasn’t self-defence. I killed him because of what he called you.”

“Me!...Oh, of course,” cried Lucy hysterically. A deadly sweetness of emotion was fast taking the remnant of her sense and strength. In another moment she would betray herself — her love, bursting at its dam — and what was infinitely worse, her sister.

“Lucy, it don’t make no difference what that cowboy said — even if it was true,” he went on, now huskily. “But — were you his wife or anybody’s?”

“No!” flashed Lucy passionately, and she spoke the truth in a fierce pride that had nothing to do with her situation, or the duty she had assumed.

“Aw — now!” he panted, and let go of her. Rising, he seemed to be throwing off an evil spell.

Lucy fell back against the pine tree, unable even to attempt to fly from him. Staring at Edd, she yet saw the green and blue canopy overhead, and the golden gleam of the great wall. Was that the summer wind thundering in her ears? How strangely Edd’s grimness had fled; Then — there he was looming over her again — eager now, rapt with some overwhelming thought. He fell beside her, close, and took her hand in an action that was a caress.

“Lucy — will you let me talk — an’ listen close?” he asked, in a tone she had never heard.

She could not see his face now and dared not move.

“Yes,” she whispered, her head sinking a little, drooping away from his eyes.

“Wal, it all come to me like lightnin’,” he began, in a swift, full voice, singularly rich. And he smoothed her hand as if to soothe a child. “I’ve saved up near a thousand dollars. Reckon it’s not much, but it’ll help us start. An’ I can work at anythin’. Shore you must have a little money, too...Wal, we’ll get your baby an’ then go far off some place where nobody knows you, same as when you come here. We’ll work an’ make a home for it. Ever since you told me I’ve been findin’ out I was goin’ to love your baby...It’ll be the same as if it was mine. We can come back here to live, after a few years. I’d hate never to come back. I’ve set my heart on that mesa homestead...Wal, no one will ever know. I’ll forget your — your trouble, an’ so will you. I don’t want to know any more than you’ve told me. I don’t hold that against you. It might have happened to me. But for you it would have happened to my sister Mertie...Life is a good deal like bee-huntin’. You get stung a lot. But the honey is only the sweeter...All this seems to have come round for the best, an’ I’m not sorry, if only I can make you happy.”

Lucy sac as if in a vice, shocked through and through with some tremendous current.

“Edd Denmeade,” she whispered, “are you asking me — to — to marry you?”

“I’m more than askin’, Lucy darlin’.”

“After what I confessed?” she added unbelievingly.

“Shore. But for that I’d never had the courage to ask again...I’ve come to hope maybe you’ll love me some day.”

This moment seemed the climax of the strain under which Lucy had long kept up. It had the shocking power of complete surprise and unhoped-for rapture. It quite broke down her weakened reserve.

“I — love you now — you big — big—” she burst out, choking at the last, and blinded by tears she turned her face to Edd’s and, kissing his cheek, she sank on his shoulder. But she was not so close to fainting that she failed to feel the effect of her declaration upon him. He gave a wild start, and for a second Lucy felt as if she were in the arms of a giant. Then he let go of her, and sat rigidly against the tree, supporting her head on his shoulder. She could hear the thump of his heart. Backwoodsman though he was, he divined that this was not the time to forget her surrender and her weakness. In the quiet of the succeeding moments Lucy came wholly into a realisation of the splendour of her love.

It was late in the day when they returned to the clearing. Hours had flown on the wings of happiness and the thrill of plans. Lucy forgot the dark shadow. And not until they emerged from the forest to see Clara standing in the tent door, with intent gaze upon them, did Lucy remember the bitter drops in her cup. Clara beckoned imperiously, with something in her look or action that struck Lucy singularly. She let go of Edd’s hand, which she had been holding almost unconsciously.

“Wal, I reckon your sharp-eyed sister is on to us,” drawled Edd.

“It seems so. But, Edd — she’ll be glad, I know.”

“Shore. An’ so will Joe an’ all the Denmeades. It’s a mighty good day for us.”

“The good fortune is all on my side,” whispered Lucy, as they approached the tent.

Clara stood on the threshold, holding the door wide. Her face had the pearly pallor and her eyes the purple blackness usual to them in moments of agitation. She did not seem a girl any longer. Her beauty was something to strike the heart.

“Lucy — come in — you and your gentleman friend,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. Yet there was a faint note of pride or mockery of self or of them in it.

“Wal, Clara, you may as well kiss me an’ be done with it,” drawled Edd, as he entered behind Lucy. “For you’re goin’ to be my sister two ways.”

Clara’s response was electrifying. Her face seemed to blaze with rapture and the swift kiss she gave Edd admitted of no doubt as to her acceptance of Edd’s blunt speech. But she made no move to approach Lucy.

Joe Denmeade sat on the edge of the bed, white and spent. Sight of him caused Lucy’s heart to leap to her throat.

“Howdy, Lucy!” he said, with a smile that was beautiful, “Is my brother Edd talkin’ straight?”

“Yes, Joe. I’m going to be doubly your sister,” she replied.

“I couldn’t ask no more,” he rejoined, with deep feeling.

There followed a moment of constraint. Lucy could not grasp the situation, but she felt its tensity. Then, trembling, she turned to face Clara.

“I have told Joe,” said Clara as Lucy met her eyes.

Lucy received this blow fully, without preparation, and following hard on stress of feeling that had left her spent. Her intelligence was swift to accept the wondrous and almost incredible fact of Clara’s regeneration, but her emotions seemed dead or locked in her breast. Mutely she stared at this beloved sister. She saw an incalculable change, if she saw clearly at all. She might have been dazed. In that endless moment there was a slow action of her own mind, but something she expressed wrought havoc in Clara. The glow, the rapture, the exaltation that so enhanced Clara’s beauty, suddenly faded and died. Even her moment of supreme victory had been full of thought of self. But Lucy’s agony transformed it.

“I — told him,” burst out Clara, sobbing. “I couldn’t stand it — any longer. I wanted him to know...I could have gone on — living a lie — if you had not taken my — my shame. But that was too much. It killed something in me...So I told him I couldn’t let you do it. I must do it myself. And I gave Joe up...But, Lucy, he forgave me!...He will stand by me!”

“Oh, Joe — how splendid — of you!” gasped Lucy, and with the hard utterance her bound faculties seemed to loosen. She ran to Joe’s side. “But how can you meet this — this terrible situation?”

Joe took her trembling hands in his.

“Why, Lucy, don’t be upset!” he said. “It’s not so bad. If Clara had told me long ago I reckon you’d both been saved a lot of heart-breakin’...There’s only one way. The preacher who married Clara an’ me will keep our secret. An’ he’ll marry us again. We’ll just leave out tellin’ anybody that this — this cowboy forgot to marry Clara himself.”

“Yes — yes!” cried Lucy wildly.

“Reckon thet’s aboot all,” continued Joe, with his rare smile. “Clara an’ I will tell the folks, an’ leave at once...An’ we’ll come back with the baby!”

Here Edd Denmeade strode to a position before them, and though he seemed to be about to address Joe, he certainly looked at Lucy.

“Reckon you’d do well to have the parson meet you in Cedar Ridge an’ marry you there,” he said.

Lucy could have laughed had she not been fighting tears. “Edd, are you talking to Joe — or me?”

“Lucy, would you marry me at the same time?” he queried hoarsely.

“I — I fear the crowd at Cedar Ridge. They’ll storm us,” faltered Clara.

“Shore we can fool them,” returned Edd.

“All right. We’ve settled it all,” said Joe, in a grave kind of happiness. “I’ll go in an’ tell the folks.”

“Wal, I’m goin’ with you,” rejoined Edd as Joe rose. They strode out together, and Edd’s brawny arm went round his brother’s shoulder. “Joe, I reckon it’s as good one way as another. It’s all in the family. The three of them’ll be Denmeades.”

Lucy closed the tent door after them and turned to her sister. Clara’s eyes were shining through tears.

“Aren’t they good?” she murmured. “‘It’s all in the family,’ Edd said. Either he or Joe would have been happy to be father to my baby...Oh, I did not appreciate them. I did not understand Joe — or you — or myself...I did not know what love was...Now I can atone for the past.”

At sunset Lucy escaped the hilarious Denmeades and slipped into the forest, to hide in an unfrequented glade. She had to be alone.

The profound transformations of the day were less baffling and incredible once she found herself in the loneliness and solitude of the forest. Life was real and earnest, beautiful and terrible, inexplicable as the blaze of the setting sun, so fiery golden on the rugged, towering Rim. In the depths of the quiet woods she could understand something of simplicity. For her and Clara life had been throbbing and poignant. For the Denmeades life seemed like that of the trees and denizens of the forest.

The sun sank, the birds ceased their plaintive notes, and a dreaming silence pervaded the green world of foliage. Late bees hummed by. The drowsy summer heat began to cool.

Lucy’s heart was full of reverent gratitude to whatever had wrought the change in Clara. Love, suffering, the influence of nature, all had combined to burn out the baneful, selfish weakness that had made Clara a victim to circumstances. And these were only other names for God.

How inscrutably had things worked to this happy end! She tried to look backward and understand. But that seemed impossible. Yet she realised how stubbornly, miserably, she had clung to her ideal. If she had only known the reward!

The great solemn forest land was after all to be her home. She would go on with her work among these simple people, grateful that she would be received by them, happy that she could bring good to their lonely homes. The thing she had prayed most for had become a reality. If doubt ever assailed her again, it would be of short duration. She thought of the bee-hunter She would be his wife on the morrow!

Dusk mantled the forest. A faint night wind arose, mournful and sweet. Lucy threaded her way back toward the clearing. And the peace of the wilderness seemed to have permeated her soul. She was just one little atom in a vast world of struggling humans, like a little pine sapling lifting itself among millions of its kind toward the light. But that lifting was the great and the beautiful secret.

THE END

Lost Pueblo

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 1

JANEY ENDICOTT DID not see anything of Arizona until morning. The train had crossed the state line after dark. New Mexico, however, with its bleak plains and rugged black ranges, its lonely reaches, had stirred in her quite new sensations. Her father had just knocked upon her door, awakening her at an unusual hour. She had leaped at her father’s casual proposal to take a little trip West with him, but it had begun to have a rather interesting significance to her. And Janey was not so sure how she was going to take it.

They had arrived at Flagerstown late in the night, and Janey had gone to bed tired out. Upon awakening this morning, she was surprised at an absence of her usual languor. She appeared wide awake in a moment. The sun streamed in at the window, very bright and golden; and the air that blew in with it was sharp and cold.

“Gee! I thought someone said it was spring-time,” said Janey, as she quickly got into slippers and dressing gown. Then she looked out of her window. Evidently the little hotel was situated on the outskirts of town. She saw a few scattered houses on each side, among the pine trees. There were rugged gray rocks, covered with vines and brush. The pines grew thicker and merged into a dark green forest. In the distance showed white peaks against the deep blue of sky. Janey had an inkling that she was going to like this adventure.

She did not care to admit it, but, although she was only twenty years old, she had found a good deal to pall on her at home in the East. Serious thought appeared to be something she generally shunned; yet to her, now and then, it came involuntarily.

While she dressed she pondered upon the situation. She had never been West before. After college there had been European travel, and then the usual round of golf, motoring, dancing, with all that went with them. She was well aware of her father’s dissatisfaction with her generation. Despite his attitude he had seldom interfered with her ways of being happy. This trip had a peculiar slant, now that she scrutinized it closely. They were to meet a young archaeologist here in Flagerstown, and probably arrange to have him take them to the canyon and other scenic places. Janey had become acquainted with him in New York, where he had been lecturing on the prehistoric ruins of the Southwest. Phillip Randolph had struck Janey as being different from the young men she played about with, but insofar as her charms were concerned he was as susceptible as the rest. Randolph had never betrayed his feelings by word or action. He had seemed a manly, quiet sort of chap, college bred, but somewhat old-fashioned in his ways, and absorbed in his research work. Janey had liked him too well to let him see much of her. Not until she and her father had been out West did he mention that he expected to meet Randolph. Then she was reminded that her father had been quite taken with the young archaeologist. It amused Janey.

“Dad might have something up his sleeve,” she soliloquized. “I just don’t quite get him lately.”

Janey found him in the comfortable sitting room, reading a newspaper before an open fireplace. He was a well-preserved man of sixty, handsome and clean-cut of face, a typical New Yorker, keen and worldly, yet of kindly aspect.

“Good morning, Janey,” he said, folding his paper and smiling up at her. “I see you’ve dispensed with at least some of your make-up. You look great.”

“I confess I feel great,” responded Janey, frankly. “Must be this Arizona air. Lead me to some lamb chops, Dad.”

At breakfast Janey caught a twinkle in her father’s fine eyes. He was pleased that she appeared hungry and not inclined to find fault with the food and drink served. Janey felt he had more on his mind than merely giving her a good time. It might well be that he was testing a theory of his own relative to the reaction of an oversophisticated young woman to the still primitive West.

“Randolph sent word that he could not meet us here,” remarked her father. “We will motor out to a place called Mormon Canyon. It’s a trading post, I believe. Randolph will be there.”

“We’ll ride into the desert?” asked Janey, with enthusiasm.

“Nearly a hundred miles. I daresay it will be a ride you’ll remember. Janey, will you wear that flimsy dress?”

“Surely. I have my coat in case it’s cold.”

“Very well. Better pack at once. I’ve ordered a car.”

“Are there any stores in this burg? I want to buy several things.”

“Yes. Some very nice stores. But hurry, my dear. I’m eager to start.”

When Janey went out to do her shopping, she certainly wished she had worn her coat. The air was nipping, and the wind whipped dust in her face. Flagerstown appeared a dead little town. She shuddered at the idea of living there. Limiting her errands to one store, she hurried back toward the hotel. She encountered Indians who despite their white man’s garb were picturesque and thrilling to her. She noted that they regarded her with interest. Then she saw a Mexican boy leading several beautiful spirited horses. There was nothing else in her short walk that attracted her attention.

In a short time she was packed and ready for her father when he came to her room. He acted more like a boy than her erstwhile staid and quiet parent. The car was waiting outside.

“We’re off,” declared Mr. Endicott with an air of finality. And Janey bit her tongue to keep from retorting that he could speak for himself.

Soon they left the town behind and entered a forest of stately pines, growing far apart over brown-matted, slow-rising ground. The fragrance was similar to that of Eastern forests, except that it had a dry, sweet quality new to Janey. Here and there the road crossed open ranch country, from which snow- clad peaks were visible. Janey wondered why Easterners raved so about the Alps when the West possessed such mountains as these. She was sorry when she could see them no more. Her father talked a good deal about this part of Arizona, and seemed to be well informed.

“Say, Dad, have you been out here before?” she asked.

“No. Randolph talked about the country. He loves it. No wonder!”

Janey made no reply, and that perhaps was more of a compliment than she usually paid places. The road climbed, but neither the steepness nor the roughness of it caused the driver any concern. Soon the car, entering thicker forest, dark and cool, reached the summit of a ridge and started down a gradual descent, where the timber thinned out, and in a couple of miles failed on the edge of the desert.

It was Janey Endicott’s first intimate sight of any desert. She felt strongly moved; yet whether it was in awe or wonder or reverence or fear, or a little of each combined, she could not tell. The sum of every extended view she had ever seen, in her whole life, could not compare with the tremendous open space before her. First it was silver and gray, dotted with little green trees, then it sloped off yellow and red, and ended in a great hollow of many hues, out of which dim purple shapes climbed.

“That must be the Painted Desert, if I remember Randolph correctly,” said her father. “It is magnificent. Nothing in Europe like it! And Randolph told me that this is nothing compared to the Utah country two hundred miles north.”

“Let’s go, Dad,” replied Janey, dreamily.

From that time on the ride grew in absorbing interest for Janey, until she was no longer conscious of reflection about her impressions. The Little Colorado River, the vast promontory of Kishlipi, the giant steppes up to the Badlands, the weird and sinister rock formations stretching on to an awful blue gulf which was the Grand Canyon; the wondrous flat tablelands called mesas by the driver, the descent into glaring sandy Moencopi Wash, and up again, higher than ever, and on and on over leagues of desert, with black ranges beckoning — these successive stages of the ride claimed Janey’s attention as had no other scenery in her experience.

She was not ready for the trading post. They had reached it too soon for her. It looked like one of the blocks of red rock they had passed so frequently. But near at hand it began to look more like a habitation. All about was sand, yellow and red and gray; and on the curved knife-edged ridge-crests it was blowing like silver smoke. There were patches of green below the trading post, and beneath them a wide hollow, where columns of dust or sand whirled across the barren waste. Beyond rose white-whorled cliffs, wonderful to see, and above them, far away, the black fringed top of an endless mesa.

“What do you think of it, Janey?” asked Endicott curiously.

“Now I understand why Phillip Randolph seemed such a square peg in a round hole, as my friends called him,” replied Janey, enigmatically.

“Humph! They don’t know him very well,” declared her father.

They were met at the door of the post by the trader, John Bennet. He was carrying some Navajo rugs. His sombrero was tipped over one ear. He had a weather-beaten face, and was a middle-aged man of medium height, grizzled and desert-worn, with eyes that showed kindliness and good humor.

“Wal, heah you are,” he welcomed them, throwing down the rugs. “Reckon we wasn’t expectin’ you so soon. Get down an’ come in.”

Janey entered the door, into what appeared to be a colorful and spacious living room. Here she encountered a large woman with sleeves rolled up showing brown and capable arms. She beamed upon Janey and bade her make herself “to home.” Then she joined the others outside, leaving Janey alone.

She looked around with interest. The broad window seat, with windows opening to the desert view, appealed strongly to Janey. Removing coat and hat she sat down to rest and take stock of things.

The long room contained many Indian rugs, some of which adorned the walls. On a table lay scattered silver-ornamented belts, hatbands and bridles. Over the wide fireplace mantel hung Indian plaques, and on top of the bookcase were articles of Indian design, beaded, and some primitive pottery. A burned- out fire smoldered on the hearth.

At this point Mrs. Bennet came in, accompanied by the trader, and Endicott, and a tall young man in khaki. Janey had seen him somewhere. Indeed, it was Phillip Randolph. Brown-faced, roughly garbed, he fitted the desert environment decidedly to Janey’s taste.

“Miss Endicott, I reckon you don’t need no introduction to Phil here,” announced Mrs. Bennet, with a keen glance running over Janey’s short French frock, sheer stockings and high-heeled shoes.

“Phil?... Oh, you mean Mr. Randolph.” The young man bowed rather stiffly and stepped toward her.

“I hope you remember me, Miss Endicott,” he said.

“I do, Mr. Randolph,” replied Janey, graciously, offering her hand.

“It’s good to see you out here in my West. I really never believed you’d come, though your father vowed he’d fetch you.”

“Well, Dad succeeded, though I can’t understand it,” rejoined Janey, laughing.

“Mr. Endicott, did you-all have a nice trip out?” asked Mrs. Bennet.

“I did. My daughter’s rather doubtful yet, I fear.”

“Now, isn’t that too bad, Miss Endicott,” sympathized the genial woman. “I saw right off how pale you are. You’ll get your health back in this desert.”

“My health!” exclaimed Janey, almost indignantly. “Why, I’m absurdly healthy. I’ve been picked for a health poster. It’s my father who is ailing.”

“Excuse me, Miss,” said Mrs. Bennet, embarrassed. “You see your father looks so strong—”

“It isn’t his body that’s weak, Mrs. Bennet,” interrupted Janey. “It’s his mind.”

Here Phillip came to the rescue, as Janey remembered he had always done in New York.

“Mrs. Bennet, it’s not a question of ill health for anybody,” he explained. “Mr. Endicott was an old friend of my father’s. I met him in New York. He wanted to come out West and get Miss Janey as far away from civilization as possible, to—”

“I’ll say he’s done it,” interrupted Janey. “It must be a real knockout to live here if you’re crazy about miles of nothing but sand, rocks and sky, and you’ve committed some crime or other and want to hide.”

Mrs. Bennet tried to control her amazement.

“Mr. Endicott, your rooms are not quite ready. Please wait here a little ...Pa, see that them lazy cowboys fetch in the baggage.”

“Phil, where are the boys, anyhow?” asked Bennet, as his spouse bustled out.

“They were lounging in the shade when the car came up. Then they disappeared like jack rabbits in the sage. Sure they’re going to be funny. I’ll help you find them.”

“Folks, make yourselves comfortable,” invited Bennet, and left the room with the archaeologist.

Mr. Endicott sauntered over to Janey and gazed disapprovingly down upon her.

“Janey, I don’t mind you calling me crazy or poking fun at me. But please don’t extend that to my young friend Randolph. His father was the finest man I ever knew, and Phillip is pretty much like him...Janey, you’ll have to put your best foot forward if you want to appear well to Phillip Randolph. He’s not likely to see the sophisticated type with a microscope out here. In New York he had you buffaloed. You couldn’t like him because you didn’t understand him.”

“Darling Father,” replied Janey, smiling tantalizingly up at him. “Your name may be Elijah, but you’re no prophet. I liked your young friend well enough to let him alone. But that was in New York where there are a million men. I don’t know about out here. Probably he’ll bore me to extinction. Can’t you see he’s as dry as the dust of this desert? He’s living two thousand years behind the times. Fancy digging in the earth for things of the past. Well, he might dig up a jeweled corncob pipe and discover there were glamour girls in the old Aztec days.”

“Janey, you’re nothing if not incorrigible,” returned Mr. Endicott in despair.

“Dad, I’m your daughter. I don’t know whether you’ve brought me up poorly or I’ve neglected you. But the fact is all our educators and scientists claim the parents of the present generation are responsible for our demerits.”

“Janey, I’m responsible for your conduct out here, at all events,” declared Mr. Endicott, forcefully.

“Oh, you are! Well, my dearest Dad, I’m here all right — or else I’ve been drinking.”

“Janey, there’ll be no more of this drinking business.”

“Dad, you’ve got me figured wrong. I admit my crowd hit the booze pretty strong. But I never drank. Honest, Dad.”

“Janey, I don’t know whether to believe you or not. But I’ve seen you smoke.”

“Oh, well, that’s different. Smoking isn’t very clean, but it’s a fashionable vice, and restful at least.”

“How about all your men?” queried Endicott, evidently emboldened for the minute. “Lord! When I think of the men you’ve made idiots! Take that last one — the young Valentino who brags of being engaged to you.”

Janey laughed merrily. “Dad, do you think that’s nice? Bert Durland is just too sweet for words; also he dances divinely.”

“Durland is a slick little article. Like his social ladder-climbing mama. But I’ll see that he doesn’t dance or climb into your inheritance.”

“To think you separated me from him!” cried Janey, pretending tragic pathos.

A slim young Indian girl entered. She was dark and pretty.

“Meester, you room ees ready.”

“Thank you,” said Endicott, picking up his coat and hat. “Janey, you’ve got me right. I did separate you from Durland. Also from a lot of other fortune hunters. That’s why you’re out in this desert for a spell. Except for Bennet and Randolph, whom you can’t flirt with, there’s not a man within a hundred miles.”

Janey eyed her retreating parent, and replied demurely, “Yes, kind, sweet, thoughtful father.”

Endicott went out with the Indian maid, and at the same moment a young man entered the other door, carrying a valise in each hand. He had a ruddy face, and was carelessly dressed in striped woolen shirt, overalls and top boots. He wore a big dusty sombrero.

When he spotted Janey his eyes popped wide open and he dropped one valise, then the other.

“Was you addressin’ me, Miss?” he asked, ecstatically.

“Not then. I was speaking to my father. He just left the room... You — sort of took me by surprise.”

“Shore, you tuk my wind.”

“Do you live here?” asked Janey, with interest. This trading post might not turn out so badly after all.

“Shore do,” replied the young man, grinning.

“Are you Mrs. Bennet’s son?”

“Naw. Jest a plain no-good cowboy.”

“My very first cowboy!” murmured Janey. “Aw, Miss! I’m shore honored. I’ll be yore yore first anythin’. Ain’t you the Endicott girl we’re expectin’?”

“Yes, I’m Janey Endicott.”

“An’ I’m Mohave. The boys call me that after the Mohave Desert which ain’t got no beginnin’ or end.”

As Janey broke into laughter another young man entered, also carrying a grip in each hand. He was overdressed, like a motion-picture cowboy, and he had a swarthy, dark face. He gave Janey a warm smile.

“Cowboy, reckon you can put them bags down an’ get back for more,” blandly said Mohave.

“Buenos dias, Señorita,” greeted this one, dropping the bags and sweeping the floor with his sombrero. Janey was quick to see that Mohave suddenly remembered to remove his own wide headgear.

“Same to you,” replied Janey, smiling as teasingly as possible.

“Miss Endicott, this here’s Diego,” said Mohave, apologetically. “He’s a Mexican. He seen a Western movie once an’ ain’t never got over it. He’s been dressed up all day waitin’ for you.”

“I’m tremendously flattered,” returned Janey.

“Mees, thees are your bags I carry. I peeck them ut weeth your name on.”

“Now there, Buffalo Bill, you mustn’t flatter me any more,” replied Janey, coquettishly.

“Oh, Mees! Señor Buffalo Beel you call me. I have seen heem in the movies.”

Here he drew two guns with an exaggerated motion-picture-drama style. “A- ha! Veelian! Een my power at las’! A-ha! Your time ees come. I keel you!”

He brandished both guns in Janey’s face. In alarm she slipped off the window seat to dodge behind a table.

“Diego, you locoed cowpuncher, get on the job,” ordered Mohave, forcibly. “Ray is comin’.”

Diego evidently had respect for Mohave. Hurriedly sheathing his guns, and picking up his sombrero he recovered the two valises. Meanwhile Janey emerged from behind the table.

“Mees, Diego will act for you again,” he announced grandly.

“Ye-es. Thanks. But please make it someplace where I can dodge,” replied Janey.

Diego left the room, and Mohave, taking up his load, turned to Janey.

“Miss Endicott, don’t trust Diego, or any of these other hombres. An’ perticular, don’t ride their horses. You’ll shore get throwed an’ mebbe killed. But my pet horse is shore gentle. I’ll take you ridin’ tomorrow.”

“I’d love to go with you,” returned Janey.

Then Mohave made swift tracks after Diego, just in time to escape being seen by a third cowboy, who entered from outside, carrying a trunk as if it had been a feather. He set it down. He was bareheaded, a blond young man, not bad looking, in size alone guaranteed to command respect. And his costume struck a balance between that of Diego and Mohave.

Janey gazed at him and exclaimed, “Well! Tarzan in cowboy boots, no less.”

Ray stared, then walked in a circle to see whom she meant. But as there was no other man present he seemed to divine the truth, and approached her straightaway.

“Wal, for Gawd’s sake!” he broke out, in slow sepulchral tones.

“Oh, yes, indeed, it’s you I mean,” returned Janey, all smiles. “I’ll bet when your horse is tired you pick him up and carry him right home.”

“Wal, for Gawd’s sake!” ejaculated Ray, exactly as before.

“Are there any more verses to that song?”

“Wal — for Gawd’s sake!”

“Third and last — I hope.”

“First time I ever seen an angel or heered one talk,” he declared.

“Please don’t call me an angel. Angels are good. I’m not. I’m wild. That’s why I’ve been dragged out West. Ask Dad, he knows. Say, that reminds me. I’m dying for a smoke. Dad’s old-fashioned and I don’t carry them when he’s around. Could you give me a cigarette?”

Ray merely stared.

“Please, handsome boy! Just one little cigarette.”

“Ain’t got nothin’ but the makin’s,” he finally ejaculated.

“Thanks. That’ll do,” replied Janey, receiving the little tobacco pouch he handed her.

It fascinated Ray to see Janey roll her own. He was so absorbed that he failed to note the entrance of a fourth cowboy, who was burdened with hatboxes and more grips. He was the handsomest of the lot. With his fine intent eyes straight ahead, not noticing Janey, he crossed the room and went into the hallway. Janey had watched him pass in a surprise that grew into pique. He had never looked once at her. He would have to pay for that slight.

“Wal! Yore shore some pert little dogie,” remarked Ray, lighting a match for her.

“Dogie!... Say, Mr. Cowboy, explain what you mean!”

“A dogie is a calf or a colt that ain’t got no mother.”

“Where did you learn anything about me?” asked Janey, a bit wary.

“Shore any kid with a ma couldn’t ever roll a cigarette an’ smoke it like you do.”

“Indeed! Ray, are you a desert preacher?” queried Janey, distantly.

“Sorry, Miss. Shore didn’t mean to hurt yore feelin’s. But it kind of got me — seein’ you smoke like thet. Yore so damn— ‘scuse me, I mean yore so shore pretty that it goes agin my grain to see you up to dance-hall tricks.”

“You don’t like women to smoke?” returned Janey, curiously.

“Perticular, I don’t like to see you smokin’.”

“Then I won’t,” decided Janey, and walking to the fireplace she threw the cigarette down.

“Jes-jes ‘cause I don’t like you to smoke?” ejaculated Ray, rapturously.

“Jes ‘cause you don’t like me to.”

“An’ you’ll forgive me fer talkin’ like I did?”

“Surely.”

“I’m askin’ you to prove thet.”

“How?”

“Go ridin’ with me tomorrow,” suggested Ray, breathlessly. “You can ride my pet hoss. He’s shore gentle. You don’t wanna ride any of these hombres, horses. You might get throwed an’ hurt. They’re shore mean.”

“I’d love to go with you,” responded Janey, dreamily.

At this moment the handsome cowboy returned, and was again crossing the room, straight-eyed and hurried, when Ray hailed him. “Rustle now, you cowboy. Fetch them bags in.”

Janey had taken a few steps forward. The cowboy glided round the table to avoid encountering her, and then bolted out of the room.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Janey. “You’d think I was Medusa. He didn’t see me... He simply didn’t see me!... Who is he?”

“Thet’s Zoroaster. Mormon cowpuncher. Fine fellar, but awful scared of women. Ain’t never seen any but Mormon girls. He’ll never look at you!”

“Oh, he won’t!” replied Janey, with a threat in her voice.

“Shore not. An’ don’t you ever talk to him. He’d like as not drop dead. Last year a girl from the East asked him to dance, an’ he run right out of the hall. Didn’t show up for a week.”

“It’s an awful chance to take, but that boy needs reforming,” declared Janey. Ray stared at her a moment before he took to his defense— “Wal, for Gawd’s sake!”

Mohave came in with a sly grin on his ruddy face.

“Ray, Mr. Bennet is askin’ fer you,” he said.

“Where?” asked Ray, in both doubt and disgust.

“He’s gone out to the post and wants you pronto.”

Ray went out grumbling and Mohave approached Janey with evident profound satisfaction.

“Looks like you’re goin’ to be as popular as stickin’ paper with flies,” he said, meaningly.

“Mohave, after flies take to flypaper they struggle to get away. That’s not a pretty compliment.”

“Say! Did you know you called me Mohave?” he asked, in amazement.

Janey feigned surprise. “Did I?”

Then she was electrified at the entrance of still another cowboy.

“‘S-s-scuse me, f-f-folks, w-w-w-where’s Ray?”

“Tay-Tay, he’s gone to the post an’ I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Like h-h-hell he has,” interrupted Tay-Tay.

“Bennet is lookin’ fer him.”

“L-l-last I saw of Bennet he was runnin’ the car in the shed.”

“Good. Then he won’t be right back an’ Ray’ll have to find him.”

Janey stood fascinated by Tay-Tay’s struggle with words.

“B-b-b-bad I’d say! For you an’ Ray! The cows are yore job, an’ yore both locoed b-by this d-d-dame. It’s g-g-goner rain like hell!”

Janey turned to Mohave. “Perhaps you b-b-better go...Well, I hope to die if I’m not stuttering too!”

Here Diego, filling the doorway, struck a dramatic pose and fixed sentimental eyes on Janey.

“Por ultimo! Señorita mia!” he said eloquently.

“Too many languages around here for me,” returned Janey.

“Here’s Diego to give a hand. I was jest tellin’ Miss Endicott how you could ride. An’ she’s shore ailin’ to see you round up the cows.”

Diego’s look of fiery pride slowly changed to one of suspicion; and Tay- Tay stared from him to Mohave. The next thing to happen was Ray shoving Diego into the room, and stalking after him, to transfix Mohave with menacing eyes.

“Wal, for Gawd’s sake! So you was jest gettin’ me out of the way. Said Bennet was lookin’ for me. Wal, cowboy, he ain’t.”

“Don’t you accuse me of no sneakin’ trick,” replied Mohave, flaring up.

“Bennet was askin’ fer you. He’s plumb forgot. He’s gettin’ absent- minded, you know. Ask Tay-Tay here if Bennet didn’t send him lookin’ fer you to fetch in the cows.”

“S-s-smatter with you, Mohave?” retorted Tay-Tay. “B-B-Bennet didn’t send me nowhere. I c-c-ame fer myself.”

“Tay-Tay, yore tongue’s not only more tied since you seen Miss Endicott, but yore mind is wuss,” complained Mohave.

Then followed a silence which Janey hugely enjoyed. What a time she was going to have! Wouldn’t she turn the tables on her tricky father? Mohave backed away from the threatening Ray. The other boys edged nearer to Janey, who thought it wise to retreat to the window seat. The suspense of the moment was broken by the entrance of Zoroaster, who swung two pairs of boxing gloves in his hands. Behind him entered the Indian maid.

“Mees, your room ees ready,” she announced, and retired.

Janey was in no hurry to follow. Something might happen here too good to miss.

“Thar you are!” announced Zoroaster, indicating Tay-Tay. He might be a Mormon, but he was certainly good to look at, decided Janey.

“W-w-what y-y-you w-w-want me for?” stuttered Tay-Tay, rebelliously.

“Yore time’s come. I’ve been layin’ fer you. An’ right now we can have it out,” returned the grim Mormon.

“W-w-why right now more’n another time?” asked Tay-Tay.

“Wal,” spoke up Ray, “I reckon a blind man could see thet. Lope on outdoors, Tay, an’ get yours.”

Diego showed his white teeth in a gleaming smile.

“Geeve the gloves to Ray an’ Mohave. They’re lookeen for trouble.”

“It’s me who’s lookin’ fer trouble, an’ after I’m through with Tay I’ll take any of you on. Savvy?”

“B-b-but if I w-w-want to q-q-quit in the m-m-middle of a round I won’t be able to say s-s-s-stop,” replied Tay-Tay.

“Aw, yore jest plain backin’ out before this lady...Wal, who of you will put them on?”

Zoroaster looked from one to the other. They all appeared to have become absentminded. Janey had an inspiration, and rose, radiant, from the window seat.

“I will, Mr. Zoroaster,” she said.

The Mormon cowboy’s face turned redder than his hair. He was dumbfounded, and plainly fought to keep from running. But Janey’s smile chained him. If she saw in the boxing bout an opportunity to get acquainted with Zoroaster, he evidently saw one to outdo the other zealous suitors for her favor. Awkwardly he thrust a pair of gloves at her.

“All right, Miss. You’re shore showin’ these hombres up. But I’ll be careful not to hurt you.”

Janey was athletic and, as it happened, was the best boxer in her club. Pretending unfamiliarity with boxing gloves she begged someone to help her put them on. All save Ray rushed to her assistance.

He stared, open-mouthed, and finally ejaculated, “Wal, for Gawd’s sake!”

“There! Now, Mr. Zoroaster, give me a few pointers, please,” suggested Janey, winningly.

“It’s easy, Miss,” he said, extending his gloved hands. “Keep one foot forward, an’ lead with your left hand. Keep yore eyes on my gloves an’ duck.”

Janey affected practice while Zoroaster circled her. Plainly he was not a scientific boxer; and Janey, who had had many a bout with the club instructor, saw some fun ahead. Suddenly she ceased her pretense and went for Zoroaster, swift and light as a cat, and grasped at once that she could hit him when and where she pleased.

“Ride ’em, cowgirl. Oh, my!” cried Mohave.

“Thet’s placin’ one, Miss,” shouted Ray, in great glee.

“S-s-s-soak him fer me,” stuttered Tay-Tay, in delight.

“Señorita, you ees one grande boxer,” declared Diego, dramatically.

Zoroaster’s fear and amazement helped to put him at Janey’s mercy. She danced around the transfixed Mormon, raining taps upon his handsome nose. Finally she struck him smartly with her left, and followed that up with as hard a right swing as she could muster. It landed square on Zoroaster’s nose and all but upset him.

The cowboys, instead of roaring, seemed suddenly paralyzed. Janey, glowing and panting, turned to see what was wrong. Her father stood in the doorway, horrified, completely robbed of the power of speech. Zoroaster bolted out of the front door, followed by his cowboy comrades.

Janey’s mirth was not one whit lessened by the sight of her father’s face. Gayly she ran to him, extending the gloves to be untied.

“Weren’t they something? I love ’em all, and that handsome red-headed devil best. Oh, bless you, Dad. I’ll stay here forever!”

CHAPTER 2

FROM THAT MOMENT events multiplied. Janey could not keep track of them. She was having the time of her life. And every now and then it burst upon her what really innocent fun it was, compared to the high pressure of life in the East.

She had disrupted the even tenor of the trading post. Bennet averred that something must be done about it. His cowboys had gone crazy. If they remembered their work it was to desert it or do it wrong. They manufactured the most ridiculous excuses to ride away from the ranch, when it chanced that Janey was out riding. When she was at home they each and every one fell victim to all the ailments under the sun.

Janey saw very little of Randolph during her first days at the post. He always left before she got up in the morning, and returned from his excavating work late in the afternoon. She met him, of course, at dinner, when they all sat at a long table, and in the living room afterward, but never alone. Janey was quite aware of the humor with which he regarded her flirtation with the cowboys. She did not like his attitude, and wasted a thought now and then as to how she would punish him.

On the whole, however, she was too happy to even remember her father’s reason for fetching her out to the desert. The actual reasons for her peculiar happiness she had not yet analyzed.

It was all so new. She rode for hours every day, sometimes alone, which was a difficult thing to maneuver — and often with her father, and the cowboys. The weather was glorious; the desert strangely, increasingly impelling; the blue sky and white clouds, the vivid colors and magnificent formations of the rock walls had some effect she was loath to acknowledge.

When had she been so hungry and tired at nightfall? She went to bed very early because everybody did so; and she slept as never before. Her skin began to take on a golden brown, and she gained weight. Both facts secretly pleased her. The pace at home had kept her pale and thin. Janey gazed in actual amazement and delight at the face that smiled back at her from the mirror. Once she mused, “I’ll say this Painted Desert has got the beauty shops beaten all hollow.”

Her father had asked her several times to ride over to Sagi Canyon, where Randolph was excavating. But Janey had pretended indifference as to his movements. As a matter of fact, she was curious to see what his work was like — what in the world could make a young man prefer digging in the dust to her company? There was another reason why she would not go, and it was because the more she saw of Philip Randolph and heard about him from the cowboys and Bennet — who were outspoken in their praise the better she liked him and the more she resented liking him.

For the present, however, the cowboys were more than sufficient for Janey. They were an endless source of interest, fun and wholesome admiration.

In ten days not a single one of them had attempted to hold her hand, let alone kiss her. Janey would rather have liked them, one and all, to hold her hand; and she would not have run very far to keep from being kissed. But it began to dawn upon her that despite an utter prostration of each cowboy at her feet, so to speak, there was never even a hint of familiarity, such as was natural as breathing to the young men of her set.

First it struck Janey as amusing. Then she sought to break it down. And before two weeks were up she began to take serious thought of something she had not supposed possible to the genus Homo, young or old, East or West.

Janey did not care to be forced to delve into introspection, to perplex herself with the problem of modern youth. She had had quite enough of that back East. Papers, magazines, plays, sermons, and lectures, even the movies, had made a concerted attack upon the younger generation. It had been pretty sickening to Janey. How good to get away from that atmosphere for a while! Perhaps here was a reason why she liked the West. But there seemed to be something working in her, which sooner or later she must face.

One afternoon Janey returned from her ride earlier than usual, so that she did not have to hurry and dress for dinner. She had settled herself in the hammock when her father and Randolph rode in from the opposite direction. The hammock was hidden under the vines outside the living-room window. They did not see Janey and she was too lazy or languid to call to them.

A little later she heard them enter the living room. The window there was open. “Janey must be dressing,” said Endicott.

“She’s back. I saw her saddle. We have time for a little chat. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“Go ahead. I’m glad our ride didn’t tire you. By the way, what did you think of my Sagi?”

“Beautiful but dumb, as Janey would say. Quietest place I ever saw. Why, it was positively silent as a grave.”

“Yes. It is a grave. That’s why I dig around there so much,” replied Randolph, with a laugh. Janey remembered that laugh, though she had heard it very seldom. It was rather rich and pleasant; and scarcely fitted the character she had given him. She had two sudden impulses, one to make them aware of her presence, and another not to do anything of the kind. Second impulses were mostly the stronger with Janey.

“Randolph, I’m very curious about you. What is there in it for you — in this grave-digging work, I mean?”

“Oh, it’s treasure hunting in a way. I suppose an archaeologist is born. I seldom think of reward. But, really, if I discovered the prehistoric ruin I know is buried here somewhere it would be a big thing for me.”

“Any money in it?” inquired the New York businessman.

“Not directly. At least not at once. I suppose articles and lectures could be translated into money. It would give me prestige, though.”

“Hum. Well, prestige is all right for a young man starting in life but it doesn’t produce much bread and butter. Do you get a salary, in addition to your remuneration for articles and lectures?”

“You could call it a salary by courtesy. But besides bread-and-butter fare of the simplest kind, it wouldn’t buy stockings for a young lady I know,” returned Randolph, and again he laughed, the same nice infectious laugh.

“Now you’re talking,” responded Endicott, with animation. “The young lady, of course, being Janey... Randolph, we’re getting to be good friends. Let’s be confidential. Did you ever ask my daughter to marry you?”

“Lord, no!” ejaculated Randolph.

“Well, that’s a satisfaction. It’s good for a young man to have individuality. I’m glad you’re different from the many... May I ask — forgive my persistence; the awful responsibility of being this girl’s father, you know — weren’t you in love with her?”

There was quite a long silence in which Janey’s heart beat quickly and her ears tingled. She had never really been sure of Randolph. That, perhaps, was his chief charm.

“Yes, Mr. Endicott,” replied the archaeologist, constrainedly. “I was in love with Janey. Not, however, as those young men were in the East. But very terribly, deeply in love.”

“Fine!... Oh, excuse me, Phillip,” rejoined Endicott. “I mean — that’s what I thought. That’s why I liked you. These young lounge lizards play at love. They make me sick. Between you and me I’ve a sneaking suspicion they make Janey sick, too... Now, Phil, here’s the vital question. Is all that past tense?”

Janey made the discovery that she was trembling, and imagined it was from the shame of being an unwitting eavesdropper. How impossible now to call out! Yet she might have slipped away. But she did not.

“No. I never got over it. And now it’s worse,” said Randolph, not without a tragic note.

“Phil! by heavens, you are a loyal fellow. Would it surprise you to know I’m pleased?”

“Thank you, Mr. Endicott. But I fear that I’m more than surprised.”

“See here, Phil, you want to be prepared for jars, not only from Janey, but also me. I’m her Dad, you know... Listen, I brought Janey out to your desert with barefaced deliberate intent. To marry her to you and save her from that pack of wolves back there... Incidentally, of course, to make both of you happy!”

“My God!” gasped Randolph. He was not the only one who gasped. Janey in her excitement nearly fell out of the hammock.

“It’s an honest fact and I’m not ashamed,” went on Endicott, getting earnest.

“But, Mr. Endicott — you do me honor. You are most wonderfully kind — but you are quite out of your head.”

“Maybe I am. I don’t care. I mean it. I love Janey and I’d go to any extreme to save her. Then I like you immensely. Your father was my dearest friend in college and until he died. I’d get a good deal of happiness out of putting a spoke in your wheel of fortune.”

“Save her!” ejaculated Randolph.

“For God’s sake, Randolph, don’t say you think it’s too late,” appealed Endicott, in sudden distress.

No quick response came, and Janey’s heart stood still as she waited for Randolph’s answer. What did that fool think, anyway? She was getting a little sick with anger and fear when Randolph burst out: “Endicott, you’re crazy. I I meant — what did you mean when you said save her?”

“I meant a lot, my boy, and don’t overlook it... Tell me straight, Randolph. This is a serious matter for us all. Do you think Janey is still a good girl?”

“I don’t think. I know,” returned Randolph, ringingly. “Your question is an insult to her, Mr. Endicott.”

“I wonder whether or not any question is that, in regard to young women in this age,” went on Endicott, soberly. “I gave you credit for being a brainy clear-eyed fellow, for all your grave-digging propensity. I saw how you disapproved of Janey — her friends and habits.”

“Yes, I did — deplorably so. But nevertheless—”

“Love is blind, my son,” interposed Endicott. “You think more of Janey than she deserves. All the same I’m glad. That’ll help us out. I regard you as an anchor.”

“Mr. Endicott, I — I don’t know what to say. I’m overwhelmed.”

“Well, I dare say you’ve reason to be. But all the same you listen to me patiently. Will you?”

“Why, certainly.”

“You were justified in being shocked at my question about Janey. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for a pretty raw opinion of modern girls. I have it myself... To be brief, they have gotten under my skin, if you know what that means. Janey’s generation is beyond my understanding. They have developed something new. They are eliminating right and wrong. They have no respect for their parents, and so far as I can see very little affection. They have a positive hatred for all restraint. They will not stand to be controlled. They have no faith in our old standards. As a rule they have no religion. They wear indecent clothes, or I might say very few clothes at all. They dance all night, drown themselves in booze, pet and neck indiscriminately, and most of them go the limit.”

“Mr. Endicott!” expostulated Randolph, somewhat taken aback by the elder man’s outburst.

“Phil, I’m telling you straight. This is not my theory. I know. I’ve got this young crowd figured that far, at least. I have no patience at all with the fatuous mamas and papas who claim the young people are all right. They are not all right. They are a fast crowd and the nation that depends on them and can’t change them is slated for hell. These wise-acres who say there is no flagrant immorality are far off the track. Those who claim young women of today are no different from yesterday are simply blind. They are different, and I don’t mean wholly the emancipation of women since the war. I was always for woman suffrage... Well, I’m not concerned with the causes, as whether or not we parents are to blame. I’ve done my damnedest for Janey and it hurts to think maybe I’ve failed. I’m honest in believing I’ve not been a bad example for my child. But sometimes Janey makes me crawl into a dark corner and hide ... I’m concerned with the facts of what I’m telling you. I want to see Janey married to a good and straight and industrious young man. Janey says he doesn’t exist... Her mother was like Janey, though not so beautiful. She was willful, intelligent, bewildering. But she had no vices... Now I take it Janey is about as fascinating as a young woman could be. Perhaps she is all the more so because of this complexity of modern times. She knows it. I wouldn’t call Janey conceited. She’s not really vain. She’s rather a merciless gay modern young woman who takes pleasure in wading through a mob of men. If she heard her friends speak of a man who was not likely to fall for her, as they call it, Janey would yell, ‘Lead me to him!’ Despite all this I feel and hope Janey can be saved. Lord, fancy her hearing me say that! To my mind if she drifts with her crowd she’ll never amount to anything. She would probably divorce one husband after another. I don’t like the idea. Janey’s mother left her something which she will have control of in another year. And then of course she’ll get all I possess, which isn’t inconsiderable. Her prospects then, and her beauty, make her a mark for the men she comes in contact with, and their name is legion. I have tried to keep her away from the worst of them. But it’s impossible.”

“Why impossible?” broke in Phillip, tersely.

“I gave up because when I’d tell Janey a certain young fellow was no fit acquaintance for her I would only stimulate interest. She’d say, ‘Dad, you think you know a lot, but I’ll have to see for myself’ — and you bet she would.”

“Then Janey wouldn’t obey you?” asked Randolph.

“Obey!” echoed Endicott, in surprise. “Most certainly she would not.”

“Then indeed you are to blame for what she is.”

“Ha! I’d like to see you or anybody else make Janey obey.”

“I could and I would,” declared Randolph.

“My dear young Arizona archaeologist! May I ask how?” returned Endicott, not without sarcasm and amusement.

“I’d take that young lady across my knee and spank her soundly.”

“Good Lord! You don’t know what you’re saying... Why, if I subjected Janey to such indignity she’d — she’d — well, what wouldn’t she do? Wrecking the place where it happened would be the least... Yet, oh — how I have wanted to do that same little thing!”

“Mr. Endicott, your daughter is a spoiled child,” asserted Randolph, in a tone that made Janey want to shriek.

“Spoiled — yes — and everything else,” agreed Endicott, helplessly. “But with it all she is adorable. Have you noticed that, Phil?”

“Why, come to think of it I believe I have,” he answered, with dry humor.

“Well, we are agreed on a few things, anyway. We can dismiss her demerits by acknowledging that, and her intelligence, truthfulness, and other cardinal virtues which she has in common with all the young people today. It may be that they are too advanced for us of the older generation to understand. It might be that something wonderful will come of such a paradox. But I can’t see it, and my problem is to check Janey’s mad career... Ha! — Ha!”

“If I may presume to advise you, Mr. Endicott, you are undertaking a perfectly impossible task,” said Randolph.

“No! Why, Phil, I am sometimes damn fool enough to believe Janey might do all I ask just because she loves me. I know she does. But I always put things to her in a way that makes her furious. So I’ve quit it... This is my last card — my trump.”

“This?” asked Randolph, with curiosity.

“This trip, and the plan I’ve decided upon. Here it is! I’m going to marry Janey to you.”

There was an absolute blank silence. Janey felt what a shock this must have been to Randolph. It was no less a shock to her.

“Now — now I know what’s the matter,” said Randolph, finally, in a queer voice.

“What?”

“You really are out of your mind!”

“Well, that may be,” returned Endicott, with good humor. “But I’ll stand by my guns. I’ve sense enough to understand that you will at first indignantly refuse such a proposition. Won’t you?”

“I certainly do,” replied Randolph, bluntly.

“Randolph, no young man who knew and loved Janey could refuse for any other reason than he thought it preposterous... That she didn’t care two straws for him?”

“Exactly. In my case one straw.”

“The only weakness in my proposition is the hope, the dream, that Janey might love you someday. You must remember I know her as I knew her mother. Janey, too, is capable of the most extraordinary things.”

“It surely would be that for her to — to — Oh, Endicott, the idea is ridiculous,” returned Randolph, beginning in bitterness and ending in anger.

“Hear me out. If you don’t I’ll think you, too, are just like the rest of this generation... I base my hopes on this. Janey likes you — respects you. She makes all manner of fun of you, but underneath it there’s something deep. At least it’s deep enough to keep her from adding your scalp to her belt... You’ll forgive me, Phil, for saying that any fancy-free girl would learn to care for you — under favorable circumstances.”

“What are they?” queried the archaeologist.

“Never mind details. But I mean the things that make a man. I’ll swear I don’t believe Janey has ever met a real man... Well, to go on. I save my conscience in this case by believing she could care for you. And my plan is simply to give Janey a terrific jar — and then nature, with such a favorable start, will do the rest.”

“Believe me, it would have to be a terrific jar, all right,” said Randolph, with another of his resonant laughs.

“Believe me, it is. And it’s simply this. Be as nice as pie to Janey. Then at an opportune time just throw her on a horse and pack her off to one of your ruins in the desert. Kidnap her! Keep her out there a little while — scare her half to death — let her know what it is to be uncomfortable, hungry, helpless. Then fetch her back. She’d have to marry you. I would insist upon it... Then we’d all be happy.”

“Mr. Endicott, the only sane remark you’ve made is that epithet you applied to yourself a few moments ago.”

“It is a most wonderful opportunity. You are ambitious. This would make you.”

“No.”

“I will make you a most substantial settlement. You will be independent for life. You can follow up your archaeological work for the love of it. You—”

“No!”

“Now, Phil, I can apply that epithet to you. May I ask why you refuse?”

“You — I — Oh, hell!... Endicott, it’s because I really love Janey. I couldn’t think of myself in such a case. If I did I’d — I’d be as weak as water... Why, Janey would hate me.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” replied Endicott, sagely. “You can’t ever tell about a woman. It’s a gamble, of course. But you have the odds. Be a good sport, Phil. Even if you lose you’ll have gained an experience that You’ll remember a lifetime.”

“Mr. Endicott, you’re taking advantage of human nature,” replied Randolph, with agitation. Janey could hear him pacing the room, and she felt sorry for him. It pleased her that he had refused. But she knew her father, his relentless ways, and she held her breath.

“Certainly I am,” agreed Endicott, growing warmer. “Phil, look at it this way. Consent for Janey’s sake!”

“But man, I can’t believe that wonderful girl is going to hell. I can’t.”

“Naturally. You’re in love with her. To you she’s an angel. All right. Think of it this way then. You admitted she was adorable. You just said she was wonderful. You know how beautiful she is. Well, here’s your chance to make her yours. Maybe it’s a thousand-to-one shot. Remember, you’ll do her good in any case. And you’ve that one chance in a thousand. Her mother was the most loving of women. Why, Phil, if Janey loved you, you would be entering the kingdom of heaven. She might.”

“My — God!” gasped the young man. “I am her father. I worship her. And I am begging you to do this thing.”

“All — right. I — I’ll do it,” replied Randolph, in a queer strangled voice. “It will be my ruin. But I can’t resist... Only, understand — I couldn’t accept money.”

“Fact is, I didn’t think you would,” replied Endicott, quickly. “And your refusal makes me sure you are the right man. Come, shake on it, Phil. I’ll be forever grateful to you whether we win or lose.”

Janey heard him rise and cross the room. Taking advantage of this she slipped out of the hammock and ran round to the back of the house, and entering the long corridor she arrived at her room in a more excited and breathless state than she had ever been in all her life. Closing the door she locked it and then relaxed against it, with a hand over her throbbing breast.

“If that wasn’t the limit!” she exclaimed, and succumbed to conflicting emotions, among which such rage as she had never felt assumed dominance.

Not long afterward her father knocked on the door. Janey did not answer. He knocked again, and called anxiously.

“Janey?”

“Yes.”

“Dinner is ready. We’re waiting.”

“I don’t want any,” she replied.

“Why, what is the matter?”

“I’ve a headache.”

“Headache!... You? Never heard of the like before.”

“Maybe it’s a toothache.”

“Oh!” he returned, and discreetly retired.

When Janey’s anger had finally subsided so that she could think, she found she was deeply wounded. Things for her had come to a very sad pass indeed, if her father could go to such extremes. But were they so bad for her? How perfectly absurd! There was not anything wrong with her. Yet all the same an awakened consciousness refused to accept her indignant assurance. She knew she was the pride and joy of her father’s life. He was a trying parent indeed; nevertheless she could not seriously say he had neglected her or given her a bad example. He was just thick-headed, and too much concerned about her affairs. Janey, however, dodged for the present any serious thought concerning her friends and acquaintances at home. They were as good as any other crowd.

Randolph! She could overcome her shame and resentment enough to feel sorry for him. What chance had he against her father, especially if he was genuinely attracted to her? Janey blushed in the loneliness of her room. Randolph had saved his character, in her estimation, by scorning her father’s opinions, by resisting his subtle attack, by refusing any consideration of a material gain in his outrageous proposals.

Then Janey happened to remember what Randolph had said about spanking her. In a sudden fury she leaped up and began to pace the little room. There was not very much in the way of disgust, contempt, amazement, pride, wrath, that did not pass through her mind. What an atrocious insult! He had been in earnest. He talked as if she were a nine-year-old child. Her cheeks burned. She refused in the heat of the moment to answer a query that knocked at her ears.

“Oh, I won’t do a thing to Phillip Randolph!” she said, under her breath, and as she said it she caught sight of her face in the mirror. When had she looked like that? Only the other day she had fancied she wore a tired bored look. At least she was indebted to Randolph for a glow and a flash of radiance.

A hundred thoughts whirled through her mind. One of them was to run off from her father and punish him that way. Another was to actually be what he feared she was or might become. The former appeared too easy on him and the second unworthy of her. It stung her acutely that she was compelled to prove to him how really different she was. But revenge first! She would show them. She would play up to their infamous plot. She would walk right into their little trap. Then — she would frighten her clever parent out of his wits. And as for Randolph! She would reduce him to such a state of love-sick misery that he would want to die. She would be ten thousand times herself and everything else she could lend herself to. She would help him on with the little scheme, make him marry her; and then, when he and her father were at the top of their bent and ridiculously sure of her so-called salvation, she would calmly announce to them that she had known all about it beforehand. She would denounce them, and go home and divorce Randolph.

The next morning Janey saw Randolph and her father ride away on their horses, evidently well pleased with themselves over something. Then she went late to her breakfast, finding it necessary to play the actress with the solicitous Mrs. Bennet. She would have to be a brilliant actress, anyway, so she might as well begin. She might develop histrionic ability, and make a name on the stage.

She did not ride that morning. Part of the time she spent in her room, and the other walking in the shade of the cottonwoods.

After lunch Janey tried to read. All the books and magazines she had appeared to be full of humor or tragedy of the younger generation. One after another she slammed them on the floor.

“This business is getting damn serious,” ejaculated Janey.

All the preachers, editors, physicians, philosophers, were explaining either how horrible the young people were, or else how misunderstood, or abandoned by money-mad parents to their dark fate. Even college boys and girls were writing about themselves. Something was wrong somewhere; and as the thought struck Janey she found herself reaching for a cigarette. With swift temper she threw the little box against the wall. She would have to quit smoking — which meant nothing at all to Janey. She could quit anything. She remembered, however, that in accordance with the plan to revenge herself upon her father and Randolph, she must smoke like a furnace. So she took the trouble to pick up the cigarettes. Still, she did not smoke one then.

The afternoon slowly waned. It had been an upsetting day for Janey. She had changed a hundred times, like the shifting of a wind vane. But the thing most permanent was the stab to her pride. Not soon would she get over that hurt. She did not realize yet just why or how she had been so mortally offended, but she guessed it would come to her eventually.

For the first time in years Janey missed her mother. Was she self- sufficient as she had supposed? She certainly was not, for she fought an hour against rather strange symptoms, and then succumbed to a good old-fashioned crying spell.

CHAPTER 3

THAT EVENING A little before suppertime, when Randolph walked into the living room, Janey made it a point to be there. She had adorned herself with a gown calculated to make him gasp. She perceived that he had difficulty in concealing his dismay. The day of mental stress, without the usual exercise and contact with the open, had left her pale with faint purple shadows under her eyes. Janey thought she could take care of the rest.

“I’m sorry you were indisposed,” said Randolph, solicitously. “I see you haven’t been out today. That’s too bad.”

“It has been a lonely, awful day,” replied Janey, pathetically.

“I hope you haven’t been very ill. You looked so — so wonderful yesterday. You’re pale now. No doubt you’ve overdone this riding around with the cowboys.”

“I guess I’m not so strong as Dad thinks I am. But I’m really not tired that is, physically.”

“No? What’s wrong then?”

Janey transfixed Randolph with great melancholy eyes. “I’m dying of homesickness. This place is dead. It’s a ruin. You could dig right here and find a million bones.”

“Dead!... Oh, yes, indeed, it is rather quiet for a girl used to New York,” he returned, plainly disappointed. “I rather expected you would like it — for a while, and really, you seemed to be enjoying yourself. I know your father thinks you’re having the time of your life.”

“I was. But it didn’t last. Nothing happens. I imagined there’d be some excitement. Why, I can’t even get a kick out of a horse,” complained Janey.

“Take care about that,” said Randolph, seriously. “Bennet has seen to it that you’ve had only gentle horses. I heard him rake the cowboys about this. None of their tricks!”

“Mr. Randolph,” returned Janey, sweetly explaining, “I didn’t mean that kind of a kick. I’d like a horse to run off with me — since there’s no man out here to do it.”

Janey was blandly innocent, and apparently unconscious of Randolph’s slight start and quick look. She was going to enjoy this better than she had expected.

“I — I daresay the cowboys — and all Westerners — couldn’t understand you, Miss Janey,” rejoined Randolph. “They will exert themselves to amuse you — take care of you. But never dream — of — how—”

“That a New York girl requires some stimulant,” interposed Janey. “Oh, I get that. These nice dumb cowboys! I thought they were going to be regular fellows. But, do you know, Mr. Randolph, not a single one of them has attempted to kiss me!”

“Indeed! From what I know of them I think that’d be the last thing they’d attempt. They are gentlemen, Miss Endicott,” said Randolph, rather stiffly.

“What’s that got to do with kissing a girl?” retorted Janey, hard put to restrain her laughter. “It’d be fun to see their line of work. And in the case of that handsome Zoroaster — well, I might let him get away with it.”

Randolph stared at her incredulously, with infinite disapproval.

“Outside of yourself, Mr. Zoroaster is the only good-looking man around the place. And as you don’t seem to be aware of my presence here, I’d rather welcome a little attention from him.”

“Miss Endicott!” ejaculated Randolph. “You are complimentary — and rather otherwise, all in one breath. It is you who have not been aware of my presence.”

“What could you expect?” queried Janey, with a bewildering confusion. “I might flirt with a cowboy. But I couldn’t — well throw myself at a man of your intelligence and culture. All the same I’ve been hoping you’d take me around a little. To your ruins and interesting places. And maybe amuse me in the evenings, or at least do something to kill the awful monotony. In New York you seemed to like me. I daresay Dad has talked about me — queered me with you.”

Randolph had been reduced to a state of speechlessness. He actually blushed, and there leaped to his eyes a light that made them very warm and appealing. At this point Mr. Endicott came in. He looked unusually bright and cheerful, but at sight of Janey his smile faded.

“Janey, dear, you look sort of down,” he commiserated, kissing her. “I forgot you had a headache or something.”

“Dad, I’ve just been complaining to Phil. But he doesn’t care whether I’m sick or homesick, or what.”

“Phil! — Homesick? — Why Janey!” exclaimed Mr. Endicott, quite taken aback.

“Dad, will you let me go home?” she asked, mournfully.

“Janey!”

“Don’t look like that. What do you think anyway? You’ve dragged me out to this dead hole. Nothing happens. You said Phil would be tickled pink to run around with me.”

“I didn’t say anything of the kind,” declared her father, turning a little pink himself.

“Oh, I mean words to that effect,” replied Janey, airily. “But, as you’ve seen, he has studiously avoided me — as if I was a pestilence. Left me to the mercy of these cowboys!”

“I’m sure there is a misunderstanding,” returned Mr. Endicott, divided between doubt and exultation.

“There certainly is,” added Randolph, emphatically. “I hope it isn’t too late for me to correct it.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Janey, with eyes on him. “Else how could I ever have told you?”

“Nonsense,” spoke up her father. “Janey, you must be a little off your feed or something.”

“Dad, I’m not a horse or a cow — and I would like a little fruit salad or a lobster.” Suddenly she clapped her hands. “I’ve an idea. Perfectly delicious. Let me send for Bert?”

“What? That last faint gasp of the Durland family?”

“Dad, I’d have a perfectly glorious time riding around with him.”

“Humph! I don’t believe it. You don’t know what you do want.”

“Please, Daddy. Bert would at least amuse me.”

“He would. And us, too. But no, Janey. I can’t see it,” declared Endicott.

“Very well, Father,” agreed Janey. She never called him “Father” except in cases like this. “I’ve done my best to please you. The consequences will be upon your head.”

Endicott grunted, gave Janey a baffled glance and stepped out the open door to view the afterglow of the sunset. Randolph was perturbed. Janey enjoyed the assurance that her new line had been effective. No man could resist subtle flattery!

“Miss Janey — if you — if I — if there has been a misunderstanding — let me make it right,” began Randolph, with a sincerity that made Janey feel villainous. “Frankly, I — I didn’t think you cared two straws about my work, or the ruins — or me either. So I never asked you. You remember I used to try to interest you in the desert. Indeed there is much here to interest you — if you will only see. Suppose you ride out with me tomorrow.”

Janey fixed sad eyes upon his earnest face.

“No, Phil. I told you — it’s too late. You’d never have thought of it, if I hadn’t gone down and out. I’m sorry, but I can’t accept solicited attention.”

“You’re very unkind, at least,” rejoined Randolph, vexed and hurt. “You’ve scarcely looked at me, since your arrival. Now you complain of my — my neglect. I tell you — to accuse me of indifference is perfectly ridiculous.”

Then the little Indian maid called them to supper. When Endicott followed them in and caught a glimpse of Randolph’s face he threw up his hands, then he laughed heartily. Janey understood him. It was a return to good humor and the hopelessness of ever doing anything with her. His mirth, however, did not infect Randolph, who scarcely said another word, ate but little, and soon excused himself.

“Say, honey, what’d you do to Phil?” inquired Endicott, genially.

“Nothing.”

“Which means a whole lot. Well, tell me.”

“I let him know I did like him very much that his indifference has hurt me deeply — and that now—”

“Ah! I see. Now, in the vernacular of your charming crowd there’s nothing doing,” interrupted her father. “Janey, dear, if I were Phil I’d be encouraged. I remember your mother. When I was most in despair my chances were brightest. Only I didn’t know it.”

“Dad, I did like Phil,” murmured Janey, dreamily.

“It’s too bad you don’t any more... What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“Perhaps I will feel well enough to ride a little.”

“Good. I’m motoring to Flagerstown. I’ll be back before dark, I think. I’ve got important letters and telegrams to send.”

“You won’t let me wire for Bert Durland?” asked Janey.

“Janey, don’t always put me at a disadvantage,” returned Endicott, impatiently. “You know I’d let you have anyone or anything — if you convinced me of your need. But, darling, you know Durland would bore you to death. Be honest.”

“I suspect he might — after he got here,” acknowledged Janey, demurely. “But, Dad, just think of the fun the cowboys would have out of him. And he’d make Phil perfectly wild!”

“Aha! You’ve said it, my daughter,” declared Endicott, clapping his hands. “I had a hunch, as Bennet says... Well, Janey, you must excuse me. I’ve got to spend the evening writing. You can have a nice quiet hour reading.”

“Hour! I can’t go to bed for hours.”

“Janey, you look perfectly wonderful, ravishing — and — well, indecent in that flimsy white gown. It’d make a first-rate handkerchief for one of these man-sized Westerners. But it’s wasted on the desert air.”

“Yes, I’m afraid my desire to look well for Phil was wasted,” returned Janey. “Men are no good. You can’t please them.”

“Perhaps the emancipation of women has peeved us,” remarked Endicott, slyly.

Janey was curious to see if Randolph would come back to the living room. She hoped he would not, for he appeared to be giving her a taste of something different in masculine reactions. She talked to the Bennets about the cowboys and Randolph, learning more and more for her amusement and interest. They regarded the archaeologist as one of the family and were immensely proud of his work. It might have been gold hunting, for all the store they put on it. Janey began to gather some inkling of the importance of Randolph’s discovery of the pueblo claimed by scientists to have existed there centuries past. She began to hope for his success.

Randolph did not appear again and the Bennets retired early. Janey was left to her thoughts, which she found pleasant. Soon she went to her room, and to bed. Though she would not admit it to her father, the quiet of the night, the comfortable feel of wool blankets, the black darkness appealed strongly to her.

What few words and glances it had taken to upset Phillip Randolph! If Janey had not been so outraged her conscience might have given her a twinge. Deep within her dwelt a respect for honesty and simplicity. The idea she had given Randolph — that she had expected and hoped for a little attention from him — had completely floored him. After all it was not much of a deceit. She had expected more than a little. There was something warm and sweet in the thought of his really caring for her like that. Janey believed that no real woman of the present or of the future would ever feel otherwise than stirred at a man’s honest love. It was in the race, and the race’s progress toward higher things depended upon it. Janey made the mental observation that the world had not progressed very much lately.

Next morning she again delayed going into breakfast purposely to miss Randolph and her father. Janey put on her riding clothes, taking her time about it.

After breakfast the only one of the cowboys around the corrals was Ray.

“Mornin’,” he greeted her. “When did you come back to life? Us boys figgered you was daid.”

“Me? Oh, I never let anybody get tired of me,” responded Janey. “Can I have Patter saddled?”

“I reckon, but I cain’t see what for. That cayuse is no good. He’s got a mean eye when he rolls it. Now my little roan—”

“Ray, you boys can’t fool me any longer about the horses. They’re all good. Please saddle Patter for me.”

While Ray went to fetch the horse Janey walked into the trading post, always and increasingly interesting to her. Bennet was selling supplies to the Indians. Janey liked to hear the low strange voices. One of the Indians was nothing if not frankly admiring. He was a tall, slim, loose-jointed individual, wearing corduroys and moccasins, a huge-buckled and silver-ornamented belt, a garnet-colored velveteen shirt, and a black sombrero with a bright-braided band. He had a lean face like a hawk, dark and clear, and piercing black eyes. Janey had been advised not to appear interested in the Indian men — that they misunderstood it, and had been known to give Eastern women some rude shocks. As usual Janey disregarded advice.

She noticed when she left the post that the Indian sauntered out to watch her. Janey thought if Phil Randolph would act that way, she would be highly gratified. Patter was saddled waiting for her, a fine little bay mustang.

“What’s Smoky followin’ you for?” queried Ray, gruffly.

“Smoky, who’s he?”

“Thet blamed Navey.”

“Oh, I see. I don’t know, Ray. I certainly didn’t ask him to. It’s quite flattering, though. But not complimentary to you boys.”

“Wal, Miss, if you excuse me I’ll say thet’s not funny an’ you ain’t ridin’ out alone,” said Ray.

“Indeed. Ray, you can be most disagreeable at times. It spoils a perfectly wonderful man. I am going to ride alone.”

“Nope. If you won’t listen to me I’ll tell Bennet.”

“Aren’t you just inventing an opportunity to ride with me?”

“Reckon not. I don’t care particular aboot ridin’ with you, after the deal you gave me last time.”

“What was that, Ray? I forget.”

“Wal, never mind... Now this Indian Smoky is a bad hombre an’ it’s really because he’s not all there. He’s not to be trusted. He might foller you around jes’ curious. But if you got too nice to him things might happen. If he annoys you he’ll be a daid redskin damn quick.”

“Thank you, Ray, I’ll say that’s talking,” responded Janey. “But tell me, what do you do to white men out here, when they insult Eastern girls?”

“Wal, Miss, white men — that is, Westerners don’t insult girls from anywhere,” returned Ray, forcefully.

“But they do. I’ve heard and read of lots of things — Suppose now just for example you were to kidnap me and pack me off into the desert. What would happen to you?”

“If I didn’t get strung up to a cottonwood I’d shore be beat till I was near daid... But, Miss Janey, you needn’t worry none about me. I’ve learned to fight my natural instincts.”

Janey laughed merrily. Some of these cowboys were full of wit and humor.

“Ray, I’ll compromise this ride with you,” said Janey. “I want to surprise Mr. Randolph at his work. So you take me out and show me where he is. But you must wait some little distance away — But won’t I be taking you from your own work?”

“Boss’s orders are that I look after you, Miss Janey,” said Ray, with emphasis on the personal pronouns. “I’ll throw a saddle an’ be heah pronto.”

They rode out along the fenced ground, where Bennet kept stock at times, and came upon Tay-Tay, Diego and Zoroaster digging postholes. If there was anything a cowboy hated more than that, Ray declared he did not know what it was. The trio doffed their sombreros to Janey, and grinned because they could not help it, but they were galled at the situation.

“Reckon that’s fair to middlin’,” declared Ray, eying the postholes. “But you ain’t diggin’ them deep enough.”

Zoroaster glared at Ray and threw down the long-handled shovel. Diego wiped the sweat from his face.

“Say, are you foreman on this ranch?” he asked, scornfully.

“G-g-g-go along w-w-w-with you or you’ll g-get h-h-h-hurt,” stuttered Tay- Tay.

“Wal, as I don’t care to have Miss Endicott see you boys any wuss than you are now reckon I’ll move along,” drawled Ray.

Janey gave each in turn a ravishing smile, intended to convey the impression that she wished he were her escort rather than Ray. Then she trotted Patter out on the desert after Ray.

They climbed a gradual ascent to the level of the vast valley and faced the great red wall of rock that loomed a few miles westward. She rode abreast of Ray for a couple of miles, talking the while, then, reaching uneven ground, she had to fall behind on the rough trail. Ray halted at a clump of cedars.

“Reckon this is as far as you’ll want me to go,” he announced. “Follow the trail right to where it goes into the canyon. You’ll see a big cave in the wall. That’s the old cliff dwellin’ where Mr. Randolph is diggin’ around.”

“Thank you, Ray. Will you wait for me?”

“Wal, not if you’re ridin’ back with him,” returned Ray, reluctantly. “But I want to be shore about it.”

“I think you’d better wait. I’ll not be long.”

Janey had not ridden a hundred paces farther before she forgot all about Ray. The trail led down into a red-walled wash where muddy water flowed over quicksand, which she had to cross. She had already crossed this stream at a different point, though not alone. Here she had to use her own judgment. She made Patter trot across; even then he floundered in the quicksand and splashed muddy water all over Janey. Once he went in to his knees and Janey’s heart leaped to her throat. But he plowed out safely. It was this sort of thing that so excited and pleased Janey. All so new! And being alone made it tenfold more thrilling. The dusty trail, the zigzag climb, the winding in and out among rocks and through the cedars, with the great red wall looming higher and closer, the dry fragrance of desert and sage, the loneliness and wildness, meant more to Janey this day than ever before. Not for anything would she let Phil Randolph and her father into the secret that she was actually learning to love Arizona. The beauty and color and solitude, the vastness of it had called to something deep in her. First she had complained of the dust, the wind, the emptiness, the absence of people. But she had forgotten these. She was now not so sure but that she might like the hardship and primitiveness of the desert.

Presently she rode out of the straggling cedars so that she could fully see the great wall. Janey threw back her head to gaze upward.

“Oh — wonderful!” she exclaimed. “I thought the New York buildings were high. But this!”

It was a sheer red wall, rising with breaks and ledges to a cedar-fringed rampart high against the blue sky. The base was a slope of talus, where rocks of every size appeared about to totter and roll down upon her.

Then Janey discovered the cave. It was the most enormous hole she had ever seen, and she calculated that Trinity Church would be lost in it. The upper part disappeared in shadow; the lower showed a steep slope and ruined rock walls, which Janey guessed were the remains of the cliff dwellers’ homes. She was being impressed by the weirdness of the scene when she heard a shout and then spotted a man standing at the foot of the cave. It was Randolph. He waved to her and began to descend the slide of weathered rock. As he drew nearer to her level Janey saw that he had indeed been working. How virile he looked! She quite forgot the object of her visit; and almost persuaded herself that if he was particularly nice she would climb up to see him at his work.

“Howdy, Phil,” she called, imitating the trader, as nearly as possible. It struck Janey then that Phil did not appear overjoyed to see her.

“Is your father with you?” he asked. “No. He went to town.”

“I hope to goodness you didn’t ride up here alone,” he said.

“Sure I did. And a dandy ride it was.”

“Janey!” he ejaculated.

“Yes, Janey!” she returned.

He did not grasp any flippancy on her part.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, almost angrily.

“Well, come to think of it I guess I wanted to see you and your work,” she returned, innocently.

“But you’ve been told not to ride out alone — away from the post.”

“I know I have, and it makes me sick. Why not? I’m not a child, you know. Besides, there aren’t any kidnapers about, are there?”

“Yes. Kidnapers and worse... Frankly, Miss Endicott, I think you ought to have a good stiff lecture.”

“I’m in a very good humor. So fire away.”

“You’re a headstrong, willful girl,” he declared, bluntly.

“Phillip, you’re not very kind, considering that, well — I relented a little, and rode out here to see you,” she replied, reproachfully.

“I am thinking of you. Somebody has to stop you from taking these risks. The cowboys let you do anything, though they have been ordered to watch you, guard you. If your father can’t make you behave somebody else must.”

“And you’ve got a hunch you’re the somebody?” inquired Janey, laconically.

“It seems presumptuous, absurd,” he answered, stubbornly. “But I really fear I am.”

“We’re both going to have a wonderful time,” said Janey, with a gay laugh. “But before you break loose on this reforming task let me confess I came alone only part way. I left Ray back down the trail at that gully.”

“You did! But you told me — you lied—”

“I wanted to see how you would take it,” she said, as he hesitated.

Randolph sat down on a slab of rock and regarded her as one baffled.

“That’s the worst of you,” he asserted. “A man can’t quite give you up in despair or disgust. There always seems to be something wholesome under this damned frivolity of yours.”

“I’m glad you are so optimistic,” returned Janey.

“No need to ask you how you are feeling,” Randolph observed. “Yesterday you were pale — drooping. Your father was really worried. And I... But today you look like a sago lily.”

“Sago? That’s the name of your canyon, isn’t it? And what kind of a flower? Is it pretty?”

“I think it the most exquisite in the world. Rare, rich, vivid. It blooms in the deep canyons in summer. I daresay you’ll not stay long enough to see one.”

“Phil, I never guessed you could be eloquent, or so good at blarney,” she said, studying him gravely. “I’m beginning to believe there are unknown possibilities in you for good — and maybe evil, too.”

“Sure. You can never tell what a man may do — or be driven to.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me to get down and come in?” she asked, archly.

“You must pardon my manners,” he said, rising.

Janey slipped out of the saddle without accepting the hand he offered, and leading Patter to a near-by cedar she tied the bridle to a branch.

“I want to see your cave.”

“It’s pretty much of a climb.”

“I suppose yesterday will stump you for some time,” she replied. “Can’t I have an off day once in a while without being considered a weakling? Come on, let’s go.”

Janey soon found that it was indeed a climb. Distances deceived her so strangely here in Arizona. There was a trail up to the cave, but it wound steep and rough, with many high steps from rock to rock. She was glad to accept Randolph’s hand; and when they surmounted the slope she was breathless and hot. Randolph held her hand longer than necessary.

“Oh-h — Gee!” panted Janey, flopping down on a rock in the shade. “Some — climb.”

“You made it without a stop,” returned Randolph, admiringly. “Your heart and lungs are sure all right — if your mind is gone.”

“Mr. — Randolph!”

“That’s your father’s assumption,” said Randolph, dryly. “I don’t exactly share it.”

“Maybe I am — just a healthy — moron,” laughed Janey, removing her sombrero. “Wouldn’t it be fine — if the desert and you — developed me into a real woman?”

“Morons don’t develop,” he replied, ignoring her intimation.

Janey now took stock of the archaeologist’s cave. It was an amazing cavern. She sat at the lower edge of the slope of its back wall, yet the vaulted roof, far overhead, reached out into the canyon. A dry, dusty, musty odor, not unpleasant, permeated the place. The debris from the walls and slopes was red and yellow. Far up Janey discerned the remains of walls. In the largest section a small black window, like a vacant eye, stared down at her. It gave her a queer sensation. Human eyes had gazed out of that window ages ago. She saw a trench near her, with pick and shovel lying where Randolph had thrown them.

“Mr. Randolph, were you in the war?” asked Janey, suddenly.

“Yes, a little while. Long enough to learn to dig. That’s about the only real good the service did me,” he replied, somewhat bitterly.

“You should be grateful. My friends who went to France came back no good. You certainly seem free of any injury.”

“I am, I guess, except a twist in my mind. I only knew of it recently — last winter in fact.”

“Indeed. And how does it affect you?” asked Janey, doubtfully.

“I think it developed a latent weakness for beauty.”

“In nature?”

“Oh, no. I always had that. It must be in — woman.”

“Any woman. Well, that is no weakness. It’s a very commendable thing, and gives you a kinship with most men.”

“Miss Endicott, I didn’t say in any woman,” returned Randolph, sharply. “Didn’t you? Very well, it doesn’t matter... Now, show me around the place and tell me all about your work.”

Randolph had something on his mind. He did not seem natural. It was as if he had been compelled to be someone he was not. Janey half regretted that she had not encouraged him to tell more about the woman he had a weakness for. So far she was inwardly elated with the success of her machinations.

“You wouldn’t make much of a hit as a guide for lady tourists,” remarked Janey, after Randolph had shown her the several trenches he had dug, some bits of pottery, dry as powder, and the ruined walls.

“On the contrary, I was a decided success for the party of schoolteachers who visited me here last summer,” declared Randolph.

“Oh. Then I have some inhibitory effect upon you,” remarked Janey.

“Probably. I don’t seem to care a — er — anything about archaeology, geology, theology, or any other kind of ology,” returned Randolph, ruefully.

“I’m sorry. I must not tax your mental powers so severely,” said Janey.

“You think you’re being sarcastic. But as a matter of fact you have taxed all my powers to the limit. Powers of patience, resistance, faith — and I don’t know what all—”

“What a dreadful person I am!” interposed Janey, really in earnest. “Please, if you can’t forget it, at least you needn’t rub it in... Where do you expect to uncover this buried pueblo? Dad said you had set your heart on discovering it.”

“You don’t care two whoops for any ruin — unless it is the ruin of a man.”

“Maybe I didn’t at first. But I do now. Can’t you credit me with change or growth or something worth while?”

“I don’t know what to think about you,” he returned, almost dejectedly.

“Assuredly you don’t. Well, I’m quite capable of coming out here and finding that ruin for you.”

“Please don’t. I’m perfectly miserable now,” he retorted, grimly. But there was a light in his eyes that belied his words. Janey knew he was saying to himself he must not have faith in dreams.

“It would mean so much to you — finding this pueblo?”

“Yes. There’s only one thing that could mean more.”

“I don’t suppose I’d look very well digging around in this dirt,” mused Janey. “But as you haven’t any use for me in up-to-date evening clothes perhaps you might like me all dusty and red and hot. So here goes.”

Janey began to clamber down into the deepest trench, and when she got up to her shoulders she grasped the pick.

“Miss Endicott, can’t you be serious?” burst out Randolph. “You’re not a bit funny. And that talk about me—”

“I’m serious about making you admire me, at least,” laughed Janey, brandishing the pick.

“Please come out of there. You’re just soiling your clothes.”

“Nope. I’m going to dig,” rejoined Janey, nonchalantly. “Quien sabe? I may have to marry an archaeologist someday.”

“Come out of there,” called Randolph, peremptorily.

Janey began to dig in the red earth. She dragged up stones, and presently what looked very much like a human bone.

“Ugh! I declare. What’s that thing?” ejaculated Janey.

“It’s a leg-bone, of course. You’re digging in a grave. I told you that.”

“You didn’t,” retorted Janey.

“Never mind about that. You come out of there.”

“Mr. Randolph, you might send me to my own grave, but you can’t make me get out of this one.”

As she brandished the pick again he reached down to grasp it. Janey held on. Randolph slipped his grip down the handle until he caught her gloved hands. Whereupon he forced the pick from her and dragged her, not at all gently, up out of the trench.

He let go of her rather abruptly, probably because of the look she gave him; and Janey’s impetus, being considerable, caused her to stumble. It was a little downhill on that side. She fell right upon Randolph who caught her in his arms. The awkwardness of her action made Janey more indignant than ever. Her sombrero fell off and her hair covered her eyes. She raised her face from his shoulder and sought to catch her balance. Suddenly, Randolph bent to kiss her full on the lips.

CHAPTER 4

JANEY BROKE AWAY from Phil and started back. For a moment she was too conscious of unfamiliar and disturbing agitations to remember that she had adopted the role of actress.

“Janey! — Miss Endicott!” stammered the young archaeologist. “I — I didn’t mean that. I must have been out of my head. Forgive me!”

“Now you’ve done it!” exclaimed Janey. She was not sure yet what he had done, but it was certainly more than he felt guiltily conscious of.

“I was beside myself,” said Randolph, hurriedly. “You must believe me. I — I had no such intention. I’m — I’m as — as shocked as you are... You fell right into my arms. And I — I did it involuntarily.”

“You may tell that to the marines,” replied Janey, recovering, and getting back to the business of her part.

“You won’t believe me?” he demanded, He let go of her rather abruptly, probably because of the look she gave him; and Janey’s impetus, being considerable, caused her to stumble. It was a little downhill on that side. She fell right upon Randolph who caught her in his arms. The awkwardness of her action made Janey more indignant than ever. Her sombrero fell off and her hair covered her eyes. She raised her face from his shoulder and sought to catch her balance. Suddenly, Randolph bent to kiss her full on the lips.

CHAPTER 5

JANEY BROKE AWAY from Phil and started back. For a moment she was too conscious of unfamiliar and disturbing agitations to remember that she had adopted the role of actress.

“Janey! — Miss Endicott!” stammered the young archaeologist. “I — I didn’t mean that. I must have been out of my head. Forgive me!”

“Now you’ve done it!” exclaimed Janey. She was not sure yet what he had done, but it was certainly more than he felt guiltily conscious of.

“I was beside myself,” said Randolph, hurriedly. “You must believe me. I — I had no such intention. I’m — I’m as — as shocked as you are... You fell right into my arms. And I — I did it involuntarily.”

“You may tell that to the marines,” replied Janey, recovering, and getting back to the business of her part.

“You won’t believe me?” he demanded, getting red in the face.

“Certainly not,” returned Janey, coldly, as she smoothed her disheveled hair. “I wouldn’t put it beyond you to treat every girl that way — especially if she was fool enough to visit you alone out here.”

He glared at her in mingled wrath and distress.

“I never kissed a girl before!” he asserted, stoutly.

“Well!” exclaimed Janey, in simulated contemptuous doubt, when really she was thrilled with what seemed the truth in his eye and voice. “You must have a poor opinion of my intelligence. If you had come out like a man and told me straight that you couldn’t resist such an opportunity and were glad of it, I might have forgiven you. It’s nothing to be kissed. But you’ve pretended to be so self-righteous. You’ve scorned my young men friends. You’ve deceived me into thinking highly of you — respecting you. And I honestly believe I did like you... Now I’m quite sure I ought never ride out alone.”

Randolph groaned. Then he leaped into the trench and seizing the pick he began to dig with great violence, making the stones fly and the dust rise. Janey spoke again, but either he did not or would not hear her. Whereupon she recovered her sombrero and turned to find her way down the slope. She had just reached the rough part, and was searching for the trail when she heard Randolph behind her.

“I quite forgot. I can’t let you attempt getting down here alone,” he said.

“Mr. Randolph, I’d fall and break my neck before I’d let you help me,” returned Janey, loftily.

“I warn you not to fall again within my reach,” he declared, grimly.

Janey started down, aware that he followed closely. She was glad she had her face turned away from him. When she got to the broken sections of rock she performed apparent feats of balancing which would have put a tightrope walker to shame. She would sway this way and that, and almost fall. Then she leaped the fissures, and took some chances of hurting herself. But she descended the jumble of rocks safely, and then the rest of the slope with ease. Randolph had halted about a third of the way from the bottom, and when Janey looked over the saddle of her horse she saw him sitting on a stone, watching her.

“Good-by, wild woman,” he called.

“Good-by, cave man,” she retorted.

Mounting she rode away without looking back, which was an act that required will power. Once in the cedars, out of sight and alone, she reveled in the unexpected turn and success of her venture. Randolph was simply an honest boy, very much in love, and at the mercy of his feelings. He had helped along her little plan by placing himself at a disadvantage. How astounded he had been, then furious at himself and her! Janey remembered that he had winced when he said it was nothing to be kissed. Well, she had lied in that. It was a great deal to be kissed, as she began to realize now. She had chosen to lead him to believe kissing was merely a casual and familiar thing in her young life, when in reality she had not been nearly as indiscriminate in her games as she had let on.

Janey believed she was angrier than ever with Randolph, a great deal more so now than at her father. Yet there was a tempering voice she would not listen to. It was piercing her armor to some extent when she rode right upon Ray, so abruptly that she was surprised. That ended her meditations, for Ray appeared curious and keen about her visit to the archaeologist. It did not occur to Janey to tantalize Ray, or to stop and torment the cowboys at their fencepost digging. By the time she was again at ease in her room she realized the cowboys had begun to fade out of the picture. Janey did not regret it, though she wondered at herself. Naturally, however, if a girl was going to be abducted against her will, and maltreated, and finally married, she must be quite interested in the man who was daring to do all this.

At lunch she was outspoken about her visit to Randolph’s cave. The Bennets were much pleased. Plain indeed was it that they were fond of Randolph and proud of his archaeological work.

“Wal, if you liked that Sagi hole you shore ought to see Beckyshibeta,” remarked Bennet.

“Beckyshibeta! My, that’s a jawbreaker,” replied Janey, with a laugh. “What and where is it?”

“Beckyshibeta means cow water. It’s Navajo for a water hole. I never saw it when it wasn’t muddy an’ shore tastin’ of cows. Reckon it’s about sixty miles by trail, nearer across country. Wild rocky place where the Indians seldom go. Phil thinks they’ve a reason for avoiding it, same as in the case of Nonnezoshe, the great Rainbow Bridge. He has a notion there might be a buried pueblo at Beckyshibeta. There are cliff dwellin’s still in good state of preservation, an’ many ruins. We seldom recommend Beckyshibeta to our visitors. It’s far off. The cowboys hate the rocky country because they have to pack hoss feed and water. An’ shore there are places interestin’ enough near at hand, an’ comfortable for camp. But before you an’ your father leave you want to see both Nonnezoshe an’ Beckyshibeta.”

“I’m sure I’d love to,” responded Janey.

She did not meet the cowboys again that day until after supper when she walked out to see the sunset, and to look for her father. This was always an attractive hour at the post. Indians were riding up and departing; the picturesque cowboys, mostly through with work for the day, were lounging about on the bales of wool and blankets. The moment Janey arrived they became animated as one man. Janey did not take much notice of them, despite their transparent acts and words. Strolling a little way she halted at the hitching rail to watch the pageant in the gold-and-purple West.

“Mighty cool evenin’,” remarked Mohave, in a voice that came clearly to Janey.

“Say, fellars, did anythin’ hit you in the eye, kinda like a chunk of ice?” drawled Zoroaster.

“S-s-s-some of y-y-y-youse hombres has done s-s-s-somethin’,” stuttered Tay-Tay, belligerently.

“Our gracious Señorita is in one of her grand moods,” Diego said.

“Aw, you punchers are locoed,” added Ray, scornfully. “Cain’t you tell when to get off and walk?”

Janey moved on out of earshot of her loyal cavaliers. It was the first time she had not paid attention to one or all of them. What had happened to her? But she soothed both conscience and concern with former arguments.

In the west the bulge of desert waved black as ebony against the intense gold flare of sky. Above this belt, a broken reef of purple clouds appeared beaten upon by contending tides of silver and rose. Through a ragged rent the sinking sun sent shafts of radiant light down behind the horizon.

In the east the panorama was no less striking and beautiful. The desert sent its walls and domes and monuments of red rock far up into the sky of gorgeous pink and white clouds.

Janey drew a deep full breath. Yes, Arizona was awakening her to something splendid and compelling. How vast and free and windswept this colored desert! She had learned to recognize a faint fragrance of sage, which came only in a north breeze. It was sweet and cool now in her face. Then up over a near- by ridge appeared a black silhouette of an Indian and mustang, wild and lonely. Next the hum of a motorcar broke her absorption. No doubt it was the trader’s Studebaker returning with her father.

“Look here, peaches,” quizzically remarked her father, when they had gotten indoors. “Anyone would think I’d been absent a month. What’s the bright idea?”

“Oh! Did I make such a fuss over you — as that?” asked Janey, merrily.

“You sure did. Fact is you never welcomed me like that, even on my returns from Europe... Have you been lonely and blue again? Is that why?”

“Not today,” returned Janey. “No, I was just happy and unconscious of it, Dad... I guess maybe I did miss you a lot.”

“Well, you can bet I’m glad, whatever it is.”

Janey left him in the dining room, too hungry for conversation. Then she delved a little into her mind. She had absolutely forgotten her new role. She was supposed to be very angry with her father, but she wasn’t. She had not been in the least lonely for him or homesick. In reality she had skipped about ten years of her life and had met him as a child. Janey’s deductions took her back through the eventful day at the tilt with Phil, and then she got no further. It was rather confusing. But at length she assuaged her wounded vanity by accepting her remarkable fine spirits as due to the way she was turning the tables on Phil and her father.

“Maybe I’m kidding myself,” murmured Janey, with a snicker. “Ye Gods! Could I have been so happy because he kissed me?”

Janey was wholly at ease again when her father joined her in the living room. He was full of his trip to town, and claimed the ride in — looking the opposite way to that in which they had come — was even more beautiful. Telegraph communications from New York had been eminently satisfactory.

“How’s your day been?” he asked, when he had concluded about his own.

“Mine? Oh, rich, immense,” replied Janey. “I hope you haven’t played any more hob with these cowboys.”

“Oh, dear, no. I’ve scarcely seen them, but once or twice... I did take Ray, and rode out to see Phil’s cave. Surprised him. I left Ray below a little way and went on alone.”

“You did!” exclaimed Endicott, surprised and pleased. “That was nice of you. What did you think of Phil’s cave? I’ve been there, you know.”

“An awful hole! Just suits him to a ‘T.’ He’s a cave man. Don’t you overlook that, darling Papa.”

“Cave man? Phil Randolph! Why, he’s the gentlest and mildest of men.”

“Not so you’d notice it. At least for me,” replied Janey, giggling. “No, Dad, you’re vastly mistaken in Phil’s character. He’s a bad hombre.”

“Did you quarrel?” Endicott probed, his curiosity overcoming his doubt of her.

“Oh, we scrapped as usual. He wasn’t at all tickled to see me. Made some idiotic remarks about being a lover of beauty in woman — one woman. Naturally I kidded him, and when he got wise to that he was sore. Well, finally, to prove my interest in his old cave I climbed down in one of his graves. I took the pick and began to dig. Do you know, Dad, he didn’t like that a bit.”

Endicott let out a hearty laugh. “Janey, you are incorrigible. No wonder he wasn’t tickled to see you. Why, he wouldn’t let even me dig in one of those holes. Said I might break a piece of precious pottery. Besides in your case he wouldn’t like you to soil your clothes and blister your hands.”

“I should think he would have liked that,” returned Janey. “Once he called me fastidious and elegant. Another time one of the idle rich. He held my hand once and had the nerve to say it was a beautiful useless thing. Well, to go on, he ordered me out of the grave. I paid no attention to him. Then he took hold of the pick, pulled me up till he could reach me. Next he yanked me out. Gentle? You should have seen him. But he let go of me too quick and I stumbled. Like a ninny I fell into his arms. Did he gently set me upon my feet? I should snicker not. This paragon of yours, this nice quiet gentleman, grabbed me and kissed me smack on my mouth — as I never was kissed in my whole life!”

Whereupon Janey’s father exploded with mirth. Recovering and seeing her face he apologized contritely.

“Janey, it’s just too good,” he added. “I think a lot more of Phil for having the nerve to do it. I wonder, now, did that make you so happy?”

“Rot!” exclaimed Janey, with hot cheeks. “It wasn’t nerve in him. He just went loco. Then he swore he’d never kissed any girl before. Fancy that?... Well, I’ve told you. I don’t quite know what to do about it.”

“I shall congratulate Phil on punishing you properly.”

“I don’t take punishment easily,” said Janey, with menacing hauteur.

“Lord. Be easy on the poor chap, Janey.”

Bennet interrupted them at this point and asked if they would require any or all of the cowboys for any especial trip the next few days.

“I want to drive some cattle out, an’ reckon this is about the best time,” he added. “I’ve got some tourist parties comin’ soon, an’ the boys will take them to Nonnezoshe. After that the rains will be here.”

“Thanks, Bennet. We can do very well without the cowboys,” returned Endicott, brightly. Janey guessed why her father felt so chipper about that news.

“Do you have a rainy season here on this desert?” inquired Janey, aghast.

“Nothin’ to concern you, Miss,” replied the trader. “Reckon you’ll like the thunderstorms, the clouds an’ rainbows. But for us the rains are sometimes bad, because the washes get full of water an’ quicksand, so we can’t move the stock.”

“Thunderstorms? I love them. It will be great to be out in one here,” said Janey.

Janey was lying in bed reading when she heard Randolph come in and go to his room. The hour was rather late for him. She wondered if he had gone supperless.

Next morning when she went in to breakfast her father and Randolph were there. If Janey had expected him to be downcast or embarrassed she had reckoned without her host. He was neither. He greeted her as if nothing unusual had occurred and he gave her a cool steady stare. Janey’s quick intuition grasped that Randolph had burned his bridges behind him. It did not seem likely that her father could have had much to do with this late decision in Randolph. Janey had bidden him good night at his door, and he was not an early riser. So she concluded Randolph had fought out something with himself and the die was cast. It stirred Janey as had nothing she could recall. She was ready, even eager for the adventure.

“When is Bennet sending out the cowboys?” inquired Randolph.

“Today,” replied Endicott, with a meaning glance at his young friend. “It’ll be terrible for Janey to be left without anybody to pick on. Phil, suppose you knock off work and stay home to amuse her.”

“Very happy to,” returned the archaeologist. “I’m sure I can think up something that will amuse even the blasé Miss Endicott.”

“You needn’t concern yourself about me,” said Janey, spiritedly. “And I’ll have you know I’m not blasé. Did you ever see me look old or bored?”

“Certainly not old, but bored — yes indeed, and with your humble servant, myself.”

“You don’t bore me any more, Phillip,” replied Janey. “You have become a mystery. Your possibilities are unlimited.”

“Much obliged,” rejoined Randolph, with nonchalance. “I hope I can live up to your idea of my development.”

“When will you start amusing me?” asked Janey, with a provoking little smile.

“There’s no time like the present.”

“Very well, begin. You have only to be perfectly natural.”

“That is what I thought. So I need not exert myself. After breakfast come with me for a walk. I know where to find some horned toads.”

“How far is it?”

“Quite near. In the big wash over the ridge. But I advise you to change that child’s dress for something comfortable and protecting.”

“Goodness! This is a tennis skirt and blouse.”

“Who’d guess it,” returned Randolph, dryly. “Be ready in about an hour.”

Janey went to her room. Phillip had been quite businesslike. She had fancied he would take her for a long ride someday, which would give him better opportunity to make off with her. Surely he would not attempt the abduction while on a short stroll near the post. But she felt uncertain about him. She had best be prepared. To this end she considered what it would be best to wear. If she donned riding clothes and boots, which she heartily wanted to do, it would rouse Randolph’s suspicions. Outside of that all her clothes were unsuitable for the kind of a jaunt she was likely to have. She gave Randolph about one day and one night before fetching her back to the post. That, however, was long enough for his purpose, though she remembered her father hinting otherwise. Janey searched among her things, and finally found an old woolen outing skirt, absurdly short. It would have to do. She selected the heaviest stockings she could find, which were thin at that, tennis shoes, a blouse with high collar and long sleeves. She put on a soft felt hat and gloves. Then as an afterthought she slipped a vanity case into the pocket of her short sport coat, and tried to choose the things she would need badly, in case she were kidnaped. But pocket space was limited. Thus equipped, and full of suppressed mirth, yet not free from other agitation, she sallied forth to meet Mr. Randolph.

Janey knew she had occupied more than an hour, but she was surprised to find he was not waiting for her. Nor was her father anywhere in sight. “Something’s up I’ll bet,” soliloquized Janey. She went out to see the cowboys ride away with Bennet. They were a disconsolate lot, and gazed at her from afar.

Upon her return to the house she met Randolph. His boots were dusty, and his face heated from exertion. He looked too grim and tense for a little walk. Unless he meant to propose to her! Or else carry out her father’s plan. Janey knew it was one or the other; and she trembled. But Phil seemed too concerned with himself to note that she was not wholly at ease. And in another instant Janey regained composure.

“Here you are,” he said, as he met her. “Glad you’re a little more sensibly dressed.”

“I thought maybe you’d have me digging round in the sand after horned toads,” she replied.

“Daresay you’ll be digging round for more than that before we get back.”

He led her out the side exit of the yard, where the foliage of peach trees and the house obscured their departure from anyone who might have been looking from the post.

“Horned toads are really one of the wonders of the desert,” he said, as he walked briskly out toward the rise of ground. “They have protective coloration. It is very difficult to see them. They are beautiful, with eyes like jewels. At rare times when angry one will emit blood from its eyes.”

While he talked he was leading Janey up the ridge. Then in a few moments they were over and going down on the other side, out of sight of the post. He talked horned toads until he had exhausted his fund of natural history, then he switched to desert scenery. Janey knew he was only marking time, endeavoring to absorb her so that she would scarcely notice the distance they had come and that it was still far to any break in the floor of the desert. She helped him by listening intently. It was a full ten miles to the wash.

“Phil, didn’t you say it was only a little walk?” she asked, innocently.

“Why, yes. Isn’t it?”

“If you’d ask me I’d say it was long. Where do we go from here?” returned Janey, gazing down into the sandy void. There was no trail she could see, though in the sand just below she discerned horse tracks. Randolph jumped down off the bank to the slope, which was several feet under the level.

“Come,” he said, and Janey detected a slight change of tone.

“Gee. I can’t get down there,” she replied, fearfully.

“If you won’t let me lift you down, why, slide.”

“Slide! — Mr. Randolph, I’m not a baseball player.”

Quick as a flash, then, he reached for her, clasped her knees and lifted her so that she fell over his shoulder.

“Oh!” cried Janey, in genuine surprise. How powerful he was! She might have been a sack of potatoes. He carried her several strides down before Janey began to protest and squirm. She would have kicked if her legs had been free. At any rate her struggle and the steep soft slope of sand caused Randolph to lose his balance and fall sidewise. Janey rolled off his shoulder and sat up. Randolph stumbled to his feet, and seeing her sitting there wide-eyed and blank he burst into laughter. Janey could not help following suit.

“Mr. Randolph, is this how you hunt horned toads?” she asked sternly.

“No. But why did you overbalance me? I could have packed you down to the bottom.”

“My position was scarcely dignified. In the future if it is necessary to pack me, as you call it, please give me a moment to prepare.”

“All right. Come on. Let’s see if you’re any good on seven-league boots,” he said, and strode down with giant steps.

Janey tried to imitate him, succeeded admirably, and reached the bottom of the wash in good time.

“My shoes are full of sand,” she announced, and sat down to remove them.

“Don’t let a little thing like that fuss you. It may happen again.”

“You’re quite gay, all of a sudden,” remarked Janey, as she shook the sand out of her shoes.

“Yes. Why not? It’s something to see Miss Janey Endicott as she is this morning,” he responded, eying her with a glint of admiration.

“I suppose you mean me in this short skirt,” she returned, calmly. “But you needn’t look. It was the only old thing I had.”

Soon she was following him down the wash. It appeared to be quite deep, with a dry stream bed of rock and gravel at the bottom. Desert plants grew sparsely along the banks. Randolph did not look back nor speak, and he walked a little too swiftly for Janey who lost a few paces. Presently they turned a corner, and Janey spotted what she had been expecting — two saddled horses. Later she saw another animal carrying a pack.

Janey plodded on, pretending not to see them. How foolish! Nevertheless she was aware of a palpitating heart, of a rush of blood, of prickling skin. A quick glance up showed Randolph had halted beside the horses. Janey strove to find wits and nerve to meet this situation as she had planned. Where was her anger? It had oozed out of her trembling finger tips. But that was only momentary. Sight of Randolph rallied her courage. She would deceive him, punish him and her father if it took all the spirit and endurance she could muster.

“Whose horses?” asked Janey, as she reached Randolph, and sat down on the slope of sand. She did not look at him directly. “It’s pretty warm — for a short walk. When do we hunt horned toads?”

As he did not answer she glanced up at him. Assuredly he was tense and altogether too pale. Janey suddenly realized that despite what he had undertaken he was afraid of her and of the outrageous indignity he had been persuaded to attempt. That acted as a spur to her. It was the stimulus she needed.

“What’s the matter, Phil? You look strange. Your eyes! You’re staring at me. It’s the second time. I can’t complain of lack of attention right now.”

“Better late than never.”

“Come here, Mr. Archaeologist. I won’t hurt you,” said Janey, beckoning.

“You want me? Over there?”

“Ah — huh!”

“You’re taking a chance. I’ve become a — a bad man,” he returned, doggedly, as if he needed to convince himself.

“Since when? Since that episode at the cave? Well, if you repeat that your end will be near... I asked you whom these horses belonged to?”

“They’re mine.”

“Yours! — What are they doing here — saddled? Surely we don’t need this outfit to hunt horned toads.”

“Janey, that about the toads — was a lie,” he returned, haltingly. “It was a trick to get you away from the post.”

“A trick? How thrilling! Well, now you’ve so basely deceived me and got me here — what are you going to do with me?”

“I’ve — kidnaped — you,” he declared, huskily.

Janey laughed merrily. “Oh, I remember. You were to amuse me. Fine, Phil! I suppose you planned a little ride and picnic for me. But my dear man, I can’t ride in this skirt.”

“You can’t walk, so you’ll have to ride,” he returned.

“Have to! Say, Phil, this is getting to be more than a joke. I can stand a lot of fun. But horseback in this knee-high skirt? Nothing doing!”

“It’s not a joke, Janey. I’m in deadly earnest. You’re going with me willingly — or otherwise.”

“Indeed! Isn’t that sweet of you? Lovely little all-day party, eh?”

“We will not return tonight.”

“Mr. Randolph!” she exclaimed, coldly. That was the crucial moment for Philip Randolph. His face paled.

“Are you drunk or mad?” she added, icily.

“Both! Drunk with your beauty — mad for love of you,” he replied, hoarsely.

“It would seem so,” said Janey. She turned her back upon him and started to walk away. Then he seized her by the shoulders, whirled her round and forced her back to the shade.

“If you run it’ll only be the worse for you,” he warned, releasing her.

“You beast!” cried Janey, wheeling. “Let me go.”

Randolph confronted her, and when she tried to get by he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a good hard shove. Janey staggered backward. The sand was soft and deep. She lost her balance and suddenly fell on the slope, thus losing coat and sombrero. This was most undignified. Yet Janey wanted to laugh. She sat there, blazing up at him, in a gathering might of wrath.

“Beast or anything you like,” said Randolph, darkly. “But you go with me, if I have to throw you on that horse.”

“Father will beat you for this.”

“No doubt. But it will be too late.”

“And the cowboys will do worse.”

“Yes. But I shall have queered you with them.”

Janey got to her feet and stepped close to Randolph. There was now a dangerous gleam in his eye — a wild dark light. He had gotten by the most difficult part for him — the announcement of his intention. Janey saw that he did not expect any serious trouble with her. How she would fool him!

“Don’t you dare lay a hand on me again,” she said, passionately.

“I hope it won’t be necessary. But you get on this horse.”

“No!”

“I tell you—”

Janey rushed to pass him, yet was not quick enough. He caught her arm. As he swung her around she gave him a terrific slap on the side of the face. Randolph dropped her arm. His hand went to his cheek which was as red as fire. It seemed realization was upon him, augmenting shame and fury. Janey realized that but for her blow he might have betrayed himself and given up this outrageous affair.

“You — you struck me,” he said, hoarsely, and suddenly snatched out and caught her left arm.

“Sure I did, Mr. Hoodlum,” rejoined Janey. “And I’ll do it again. Did you think you’d get away with this so easy? There!” And she struck him quick and hard, this time with a tight little fist.

“Wildcat!” shouted Randolph, roused to battle, and then he closed with her. Janey was strong, lithe, supple as a panther, and she fought him fiercely. It was no longer pretense. The rough contact of his hands and her own violent action brought her blood up, gushing and hot. He was endeavoring to subdue her and she was struggling to get away. At the same time she beat and tore at him with all her might. She scratched his face. She got both hands in his hair and pulled. Naturally the fight could not last long, for he was overpowering her. When he got his left arm under her right and around her waist to grasp her left he had her nearly helpless. Then he put his other arm under her knees and lifted her.

His hair stood up like the mane of a lion; his face was bloody from the scratches; his eyes gleamed with fire.

“My God!” he panted. “Who’d have — thought it in you.”

“Let me down!” cried Janey, straining and writhing.

“Will you get — on that horse?”

“No — you wild-west boob!”

“Boob? — Ha! Ha! You’ve hit it,” he replied, wildly. “Very well — my Eastern princess — take this from the Western boob.” He bent his head and kissed her quickly then again, crushing his hot lips on hers.

“I’ll — kill — you!” gasped Janey, when she could speak.

“Kill and be damned. I wish you would,” he returned, passionately. Then he surrendered to the contact and possession of her. Clasping her tight he rained kisses on her lips and neck. Janey felt the wet blood from his scratched face on her cheek. Her muscles grew rigid. She was like bent steel about to spring. Suddenly she sank limp. His passion had overcome her where his strength had failed. But Janey did not lose her wits. It was as if she knew she had to keep playing her part. Yet her collapse and the shaking of her relaxed body had nothing to do with reasoning. He had surprised her into the primitiveness of a savage. The change in her reaction struck him, and he released her.

Janey slipped down, as it chanced, to her knees. The thing could not have happened better.

“I — I — understand now,” gasped Janey. “You mean — to—”

“My God!” cried Randolph, staggering back, in horror.

“Phillip,” went on Janey, piteously. “I — I’m not the girl I — I’ve made you believe. This is as much — my fault — as yours. But have mercy. Don’t be a brute.”

“Shut up!” shouted Randolph, his face changing to a dusky red.

He backed against a stone and sat down, to cover his face with his hands, deeply and terribly shaken.

Janey sank back herself, to rest a moment, and to straighten her disheveled apparel. Her rage had died a sudden death. She was still conscious of disturbing unfamiliar sensations, which, however, were gradually subsiding. Much had happened that had not been down on the program. She realized that Randolph had not intended even the least insult, let alone the assault on her. And certainly in her plan Janey had not dreamed of making him think she believed him capable of more. Even at that troubled moment Janey realized that more could come of this incident than had been expected. Both of them were trifling with deep and unknown instincts. They might pass from jest to earnest. But Randolph had not the slightest inkling of Janey’s duplicity.

“You’ve blood on your face,” said Randolph, suddenly.

“Yes, it’s yours. If I had my way I’d have your blood on my hands,” returned Janey, murderously.

“Wipe it off,” he ordered, getting up. Janey produced a wisp of a handkerchief. “Where is it?” she asked.

“On your cheek — the left one. Here, let me rub it off. That inch- square rag is no good.” He had a silk scarf, which he used to remove the blood from her cheek. He applied considerable force, and his action was that of a man trying to remove a stain of guilt.

“You scratched me like — like a wildcat,” he said, harshly.

“Did you expect me to purr?” she returned, with sarcasm. Then she rose to her feet. “You tore my sleeve half off. I hope you happen to have a needle and thread.”

Ignoring her facetiousness he picked up her coat and sombrero, and handed them to her.

“Get on that horse,” he ordered.

CHAPTER 6

WITHOUT COMMENT AND as one subdued Janey went up to the horse and mounted. Her skirt slipped halfway above her knees. She stood in the stirrups and pulled it down, but at best it was so short that it exposed several inches of bare skin above her stockings.

“Is this supposed to be a movie or a leg show?” she asked, bitingly.

“I can’t help it if you’ve no decent clothes,” he replied.

“Why didn’t you suggest I wear my riding clothes?”

“I didn’t think of that. But you’d have suspected something.”

“Me? No. I’m much too stupid. If I had been capable of thinking I’d have known you were a villain... To force a girl to ride a horse with her dress — this way!”

“I don’t care how you look,” he flashed, hotly, stung at her retort. “At that you don’t look much worse than usual.”

He picked up Janey’s coat, which she had dropped, and hung it on the pommel, and draped it over her knees.

“That’ll keep you from sunburn, at least.”

“You’re very thoughtful and kind, Mr. Randolph,” said Janey, sweetly. “And may I inquire our destination?”

“Start up the wash,” he rejoined, gruffly. “You take the lead.”

“Want to watch me, eh? You think I might run off? I note you’ve given me a plug of a horse that probably never ran in its life.”

“You might do anything, Miss Endicott,” he said.

“What wonderful trust you have in me!” exclaimed Janey.

Whereupon she rode on up the deepening gully. Randolph followed her, leading the pack horse.

So the great adventure was actually on! Janey could not have believed it but for the bruises she had sustained in the fight with Randolph, and her torn blouse, and this ridiculous skirt that had begun to have resemblance to a ballet dancer’s.

After she had taken stock of her physical state she delved a bit into the mental. She found she was still trembling ever so slightly. Her heart beat high. And her mind was racing. She was stirred by bitterness toward her father, and resentment toward this man who had been led to believe she was no good and needed this kind of a lesson. They thought they had her number, mused Janey, defiantly. Pretty but vain! Intelligent, yet too languorous to think or work! Adorable, though probably immoral! Modern, still there were hopes!

An alarming thought struck her which she had experienced vaguely before. It was barely possible that these accusations were justified. Janey swore, and refused to listen to such a treacherous voice.

Something more pleasant to dwell upon was a genuine pity for Randolph. He had been a perfectly straightforward, fine and promising young man until he met her father. He was now in line to become a first-rate villain. No doubt when Janey finally divorced him there would be no hope whatever. She decided, in order to make it impossible that he ever could recover, she would delay the divorce proceeding for a time — and meanwhile be very sweet and sorrowful and might-have-been-loving to him, so that he would be abjectly crushed.

Her meditations on this phase of the experience were decidedly pleasant. And it was most agreeable to be on horseback again. She had been rather unjust to the horse, for he was turning out to be docile, easy-gaited and willing. He had struck into a trail which wound up the gorge.

The walls were perceptibly higher and changing their character somewhat. The sand slopes were disappearing. Presently this wash turned at right angles and opened into a canyon. It was deep, yellow-walled, and rugged, and through the center of it meandered a thin stream of water. Janey believed this creek was the Sagi, which she had crossed a number of times above. But she had not seen this canyon. The very sight of it was exciting and disturbing. There was sure to be quicksand. Janey hoped she would have some narrow escapes, so that she would find out what Randolph was made of. If no risks came along naturally she would make some.

The sand in the creek bed, however, was disappointingly solid. In the next hour Janey crossed this water a dozen or more times, without a mishap. Her horse was a much better judge of places than she. Meanwhile the canyon grew wider and deeper.

It also grew hot. Janey began to feel the burn of the sun. And as the movement of the horse often jolted her coat from its protective service her knees began to get red. This was a novelty, and she was divided between concern and a satisfaction that she could presently show Randolph more objective proofs of his cruelty.

Unobtrusively, at moments when the trail made a short turn, she saw Randolph in the rear. He did not look in the least like a bold bad man. He drooped. Apparently he did not see her, let alone watch closely against any attempt she might make to escape. Perhaps he was disgusted now and hoped she would run off. This was embarrassing. Janey did not want to escape. She was getting a tremendous kick out of being kidnaped. But she would not let him know that. She considered the advisability of attempting to get away. It did not strike her favorably. If Randolph did not or would not catch her, there would be something of a different predicament. She would be lost, unless she could go back as they had come.

Janey rejected the idea. Too much risk! And she adopted another, equally feminine, and very much better. When a turn of the trail hid her from Randolph’s sight she selected a soft place in the sand and slid off her horse, careful to make it look as if she had fallen.

Presently she heard the hoofs of Randolph’s horse padding closer. Then Janey made herself look as much like a limp sack as she could. From under the brim of her sombrero she saw him come into sight. He gave a violent start. Leaping out of the saddle he ran to her. His action, his look were unaccountably sweet to Janey. It was hard to close her eyes.

Evidently he stopped to gaze down upon her a moment, for there was a silence, then he knelt to lay a hand on her shoulder.

“Now, what’s the matter?” he inquired, with more doubt than sympathy.

Janey stirred and sat up.

“I fell off my horse,” she said.

“What for?”

“Guess I got dizzy or something. You must have hurt me internally. Or I wrenched my side — anyway I had a terrible pain.”

“That’s too bad. I’m sorry. I never calculated on any weakness, physical or mental.” He was studying her face with deep inscrutable eyes, and despite his words he was not sympathetic.

“Weak! Why I’m bordering on nervous collapse right now,” returned Janey.

“Yes, I observed how weak you were — physically,” he said. “You could probably throw me in a catch-as-catch-can wrestling match. And when you hit me on my nose — with your fist — well, you came very near being alone for a while.”

Janey gave him a searching look. “Will you take me back to the post?”

“Certainly not.”

“But if I’m hurt or ill.”

“You’re going to Beckyshibeta in any event.”

“Beckyshibeta? Why, that’s a long way, you told me.”

“Sure. It’s far away, and lonely too, believe me. No one will find us there.”

“How long do we — do you mean to keep me prisoner there?”

“I have no idea how long it will take for you to change — or die.”

“Oh!... Very well, you can bury me at Beckyshibeta,” concluded Janey, getting up wearily.

She refused his proffered assistance, and made a fine effort at mounting, as if some of her bones were broken. And she rode on, thinking that the weak- sister stuff would not work with Phil Randolph. She must slowly recover her strength and become a veritable amazon. Perhaps some accident would occur that might be calculated to frighten even her, though she could not imagine what it could be. Then she would try the clinging vine. Even Phil Randolph would fall for that. But it must be something over which a modern girl could safely lose her nerve. A terrible storm or a flood! Janey prayed for both. Phil Randolph must be reduced to a state of perfect misery.

Janey rode on, gradually recovering her poise in the saddle. The canyon opened wide, with the walls far away. There were flats of green grass and cedar groves to cross. In one place she saw several deserted hogans. Indians had lived there. She had a desire to peep in at the dark door, facing the east.

The trail came to a point where it forked. Janey waited for Randolph to come up.

“Which way, Sir Geraint?” she inquired.

“Left,” he said. “And I don’t think you’re a bit like Enid. She was meek. Besides she was Geraint’s wife.”

“Well, Geraint drove Enid ahead, so she would encounter all the risks and dangers first. No doubt the similarity of our ride to theirs ends right there.”

“The only danger here, Miss Endicott, is the one I’m incurring. And it’s too late to avoid that.”

Danger! What did he mean? Perhaps the wrath of the cowboys, for it was certain they could not have been let into the secret. How would they take this stunt of Randolph’s? Janey began to wonder why she had not thought of that before. True, they had ridden away with a herd of cattle, but they must return sooner or later, and find out. Here was a factor her father had not considered. Even if he did have to tell them she knew the cowboys, especially Ray, would not stand for it. On the other hand, perhaps Randolph had meant the danger to be love of her. And he had said it was too late to avoid it. She was very glad, and if it were actually true she would see to it that he suffered more and more.

They took the left-hand fork of the trail and entered an interesting canyon, which narrowed until the crumbling walls seemed ready to tumble down upon her. Soon the trail became so rough that Janey had to pay heed to it and have a care for her horse. The ascent increased until it was steeper than any Janey had ridden. As she climbed, the trail took to a zigzag course up the slope and often she could look directly down upon Randolph, who was not having the best of luck with the pack animal.

Presently it took Janey’s breath to gaze down and she quit it. The trail sometimes led along a ledge so narrow that she wondered how the horse could stick to it. But he never made a misstep or a slip, and appeared unconcerned about the heights. Janey christened him Surefoot.

At last the trail led up to a level again, from which Janey gazed back and down at the red slope, the huge rocks, the slides of weathered stone, the cedars, and the winding dry stream bed at the bottom. Janey had to look awhile to locate Randolph. It was no trail for a pack horse, or rather the horse was not one for such a narrow steep obstructed trail. Randolph was walking, dragging at the animal. When he finally reached the summit he was red-faced and panting.

“I note the way of a transgressor is hard,” observed Janey.

“Why — didn’t you — run off?” he asked.

“I’d only have got lost. Besides I think it’d be unwise to leave the commissary department. Also I have an absorbing desire to see what is going to happen to you.”

“That’ll be nothing compared to what’s coming to you,” he returned, as he mounted again. “Oh, by the way, how is that internal injury I gave you?”

“It’s better. But I can bear it for your sake, Phil. I want so much to help you make a success of this cradle-snatching stunt.”

“Say, you flatter yourself,” he retorted.

“Well, yes, I’m not exactly an infant. But I’ll be good practice for you, so that later, when the tourists come, you may be able to manage some of the girls pretty well.”

“Would you mind riding on, and not talking so much,” he said, with asperity.

“I certainly wouldn’t have waited for you, if there’d been any trail. But it’s disappeared.”

“Ride straight toward those red rocks,” he returned, pointing.

Janey did as she was bidden, glad to be able once more to let her horse look out for himself, so that she could attend to the surroundings. The sun was slanting westward, toward a high wall that ran away to the northward. The desert stretched level ahead of her, with a horizon line matched by red rocks. Not far in front, a growth of purple brush began to show sparsely and to thicken in the distance. It was very fragrant and beautiful. Presently Janey recognized the fragrance of sage.

Huge clouds had rolled up, and except in the west they were black and stormy. Dark curtains hung down from them to the floor of the desert. They must be rain. The afternoon was hot and sultry, without a breath of wind. By and by the clouds hid the sun and turned duskily red.

Janey was somewhat surprised to have Randolph catch up and pass her.

“Better trot your horse, if you’re not too weak to hang on,” he said. “It’s going to storm and we must reach the shelter of the rocks.”

“How lovely! I hope it rains cats and dogs,” she returned amiably.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be scared stiff when night comes, if it does.”

Janey was about to laugh at him scornfully, but happened to remember that she really was afraid of storms.

“Are desert storms bad?” she inquired, anxiously.

“Terrible... You can’t see. You get half drowned. Rocks roll down the cliffs and floods roar down the washes.”

“How lovely!... I imagine one of your brilliant ideas to keep me interested.”

Surefoot had an easy trot, for which Janey was devoutly thankful. She had begun to realize that she was not made of leather. And the faster gait had a businesslike look of getting somewhere.

Meanwhile the sun disappeared wholly behind massing clouds, and thunder rolled in the distance. Drops of rain began to fall, and the warm air perceptibly cooled. Janey put on her coat; and was once more reminded of the annoying brevity of her skirt. What a picture she must make! How her riding friends would have howled to see her mounted in this rig! She wondered what Randolph would do if it rained heavily. Janey had a sneaking suspicion that he would let her get as wet as if she were under Niagara. But after all a warm rain would not be such a hardship. Thunder and lightning, however, made her nervous, even indoors.

The storm quartered slowly across the desert, a wonderful sight to eyes used to close walls and crowded streets. Janey breathed deeply. The sage fragrance seemed to intoxicate her. The misty rain felt sweet on her hot cheeks. The growing breeze brought a breath of wet dust.

Randolph was trotting his horse at as fast a clip as the pack animal could keep up. Janey set Surefoot to a lope. Then she experienced an exhilaration. She was astounded that she was not thinking about the possibility of being wretchedly wet and uncomfortable.

It turned out, however, that they beat the gray pall of rain which moved behind them across their trail. Randolph led her down among the strange scrawled rocks Janey had seen for so long into the shelter of a shelving cliff. Clumps of cedar and patches of sage dotted the slope in front, and, opposite, a high wall of rock shut out the horizon.

“Throw your saddle,” ordered Randolph, practically, as he dismounted.

When Janey had accomplished this Randolph was at hand to hobble her horse and turn him loose.

“If there isn’t a water hole in this canyon there sure will be one pronto,” he said.

“You think it will storm?” she asked, dreamily.

“Storm? You’re to see your first real storm. Say, are you any good at camp work?”

“You mean chopping sticks, cooking stuff and washing dishes?”

“Well, not exactly. We don’t chop sticks, etc. But you have grasped my meaning.”

“I’m perfectly helpless,” Janey assured him, which was a lie.

“Fine wife you’ll make,” he replied.

“Mr. Randolph, I’m used to being waited upon,” said Janey, elevating her chin. “And I didn’t coax you to fetch me on this — this camping trip.”

“Ye Gods!” he expostulated, spreading his hands wide. “I know that... But I didn’t figure on what we’re up against.”

“You should combine study of weather conditions with your archaeological and girl pursuits.”

“Dammit!” he returned, doggedly. “I can’t get rid of the idea that you’d be a thoroughbred — a real sport in any kind of a situation.”

Randolph turned away then, unconscious that he had brought delight to Janey’s heart. She hoped she had deserved what he had said. And there appeared to be signs that she would be tested to the utmost. She decided, however, to allow him to labor under doubts for a while longer.

Finding a seat where she could lean against the wall Janey watched her captor with interest. He unpacked with swift hands. Then he strode to the cedars and fetched back an enormous load of firewood, which he threw down with a crash. His next move was to start a fire, and wash his hands. Following this, with a speed and facility that astonished Janey, he mixed biscuit dough in a pan. There were several canteens full of water, and a number of canvas sacks, all bulging. He had two small iron ovens in the fire and a coffeepot. If Janey had been blind she would soon have been pleasantly aware of steaming coffee and frying bacon. Presently Randolph straightened up and glanced in her direction.

“Of course you can swear you’ll starve to death. But you won’t do it. And you can save your face by not making the bluff... Will you have supper?”

“Yes, Professor Randolph, I’m hungry. And besides, I’m curious to see if you can cook. You have such varied accomplishments.”

He brought her supper and laid it on the level rock beside her. Janey had told the truth about being hungry, but she did not tell him how good everything tasted. The hot biscuits, well buttered, were delicious. And when had she tasted such coffee? For dessert she had a cup of sliced canned peaches. And altogether the meal was most satisfying. Janey was ashamed to ask for more, but she could have eaten it.

Meanwhile the afternoon had waned, and twilight shadows were filling the hollows below. A steady rain set in. The campfire lighted up the shelving roof of the cliff. Janey walked to and fro, round the corner of projecting wall, and explored some of the niches. She felt pretty tired and sore. Her knees burned from their exposure to the sun. Her cheeks felt pleasantly warm.

Randolph was packing loads of firewood. He did not appear to mind the rain, for he certainly was wet, and did not take the trouble to put on his coat. It was seeing him in a different light. Janey remembered a good many of her friends and acquaintances, who could dress and talk and dance and grace social occasions in the great city, who she doubted would have been her selection for service and protection in the desert.

She walked to the campfire and held her hands to the blaze. The night air had begun to have a little chill. The hot fire felt pleasant.

“You got your hair wet,” said Randolph, disapprovingly.

“So I did,” replied Janey, with her hand to her head.

“Well, there isn’t very much of it, so it’ll dry quickly... You must have had beautiful hair once.”

“Once?”

“Yes, once. Women have sacrificed for fad and comfort. The grace, the glamour, the exquisite something natural to women disappeared with their long hair. It’s a pity. Why did you want to look like a man?”

“Look like a man? I never did.”

“Why did you cut your hair then?”

“To be honest I don’t know. My reasons would sound silly to you. But as a matter of fact women are slaves to fashion. They used to be slaves to many things — men, for instance. But we’ve eliminated that.”

“I wonder if women are eliminating love also?” he inquired, gloomily.

“They probably are, until men are worthy of it.”

Randolph stalked off into the darkness, and stayed so long that Janey began to be anxious. Surely he would not leave her alone. It was pitch dark now; the rain and wind were augmenting; the solitude of the place seemed accentuated. Janey gazed out into the dark void, and then back at the caverned cliff. There might be all kinds of wild animals. Snakes and reptiles. It was delightful for a woman to be alone on occasions, but here was one when there seemed need of a man. To her relief Randolph emerged from the gloom, packing another load of firewood.

“Are you going to stay up all night?” he asked. “Tomorrow will be the hardest day you’ve had. You need sleep and rest.”

“Where am I supposed to get them?”

“I made your bed up there,” said Randolph, pointing to a ledge. “It’s easy to climb up from this end. You’ll be dry... I’ll spread my tarp and blankets here by the fire.”

Janey did not show any inclination to retire at once. She was tired enough, but did not choose to be sent to bed like a child. She stood by the fire until she was thoroughly dry. Then she sat down on a stone just the right distance from the red crackling logs. Randolph stood on the other side, looking down with his hands outstretched. He seemed to have the burden of the world upon his shoulders. Then he turned his back to the fire, and stood that way for a long time. The wind whipped in under the shelving rock, cool and damp; the rain pattered steadily outside; the fire sputtered and cracked; the fragrant smoke blew this way and that. At last Randolph turned again to face the fire. And he looked more troubled than ever.

“Mr. Randolph, you seem gravely thoughtful for a man who has accomplished his purpose,” observed Janey.

“I was just thinking,” he replied, giving her a strange glance, “how pleasant a picnic it would be — if we were good friends.”

“Yes, wouldn’t it?” returned Janey, flippantly.

“Very unreasonable of me, I know. I didn’t and couldn’t expect you to enjoy being dragged off this way. But being here made me think how — how wonderful it would be if — if—”

He did not conclude the sentence and his closing words were full of regret. Quite evidently he felt that he had sacrificed a great deal to her father’s whim. Janey had an uneasy consciousness that sooner or later he would betray her father and explain this unheard-of proceeding. She did not want Randolph to do this and must prevent it coming about. The only way, she repeated to herself, was to give him such a hard time that he would carry the thing out through sheer anger and disgust. As an afterthought Janey reflected that she could correct the terrible impression she was likely to give him. But suppose she could not! She dismissed that as absurd.

“I’d prefer you had kidnaped me in a limousine,” she said lightly. “I’m used to being whisked off — and kept parked in some outlandish place.”

“Good God!” he ejaculated. “I’ve begun to believe your father!”

“What did he say?”

“Never mind. But it was enough... And — will you oblige me by keeping your your habits to yourself.”

Janey tittered. “If that isn’t just like a man! A lot of thanks I get for trying to make it easy for you.”

“Make what easy?” he asked, belligerently.

“Why, this stunt of yours... Now you’ve got me off on your old desert I should think you’d be glad to find I’m not — well, an innocent and unsophisticated little gal.”

“Janey Endicott, you’re a liar!” he almost shouted at her, starting up, bristling. Then he wheeled and strode off into the darkness along the cliff wall.

He left Janey with a heart beating high. In spite of her bald remarks he was struggling to keep alive his ideal of her. Janey thought she might go too far and stab it to death. But the truth was that her father had grossly misrepresented her, and that she had aided and abetted it by falsehood. Love was not easily killed, certainly not by a few lies. She would carry on. And the revelation of her true self to Randolph would be all the sweeter. Gazing into the opal heart of the campfire Janey lost herself momentarily in a dream, from which she awakened with a start. A coyote had wailed his dismal war cry. It made Janey shiver.

She left the campfire, and climbed up the slanting rough rock to the ledge where Randolph had made her bed. What a nice snug rock, high and dry! Janey would feel reasonably safe when Randolph came back. She sat down on the tarpaulin covering her bed, and her sensation roused the conception that it would not be a feather bed or a hair mattress by an exceedingly long shot. Suddenly she realized she would have to sleep in her clothes for the first time in her life. How strange! Then without more ado she took off her coat, made a pillow of it, and removing her shoes she slipped down into the blankets, stretched out and lay still.

The bed consisted of two thicknesses of blankets and the canvas under and over them.

Hard as a board under her! Yet what a relief, warmth and comfort the bed gave! The fire cast flickering fantastic shadows upon the roof of this strange habitation. Gusts of wind brought cool raindrops to her fevered face and the smell of wood smoke. Above the steady downpour of rain she heard a renewed crackling of the fire. Rising on her elbow she saw Randolph replenishing it with substantial logs. The night gave Janey satisfaction. She dropped back, laughing inwardly. Phil Randolph was in quite a serious predicament.

Janey settled herself comfortably to think it all over. But she did not seem to be able to control her mind as usual. Her eyelids drooped heavily and though she opened them often they would go shut again, until finally they stuck fast. A pleasant warmth and sense of drowsy rest were stealing over her aching body. She had a vague feeling of anxiety about snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, but it passed. She was being slowly possessed by something vastly stronger than her mind. The rainfall seemed to lessen. And her last lingering consciousness had to do with the fragrance of smoke.

Janey half roused several times during the night, in which she rolled over to try to find a softer place in her bed. But when she thoroughly awoke it was daylight. The rain had ceased. Sunrise was a stormy one of red and black, with a little blue sky in between. When she sat up with a groan and tried to straighten she thought every bone in her body was broken. She sat on her bed and combed her hair, and slyly cleaned her sunburned face with cold cream. Over the edge of rock she spotted Randolph, brisk and whistling round the campfire. Whistling! Janey listened while she put on her shoes. Then she got to her knees. Never had she had so many sore muscles. The arm Randolph had wrenched was the worst.

“Hey, down there,” called Janey. “What was the name of that robber baron who ran off with Mary Tudor?”

Randolph stared up at her, almost laughing.

“Bothwell, I believe,” he replied, constrainedly.

“Well, good morning, Mr. Bothwell,” added Janey.

He returned her greeting with the air of a man who had almost forgotten something unpleasant. He did not whistle any more, and eyed Janey dubiously as she limped and crawled down the slope to a level.

“How are the eats?” she asked, brightly. “I was just about to call you,” he said.

“Breakfast will be ready soon as the coffee boils.”

“What kind of a day is it going to be?”

“Bad, I fear. It’s let up raining, but I think there’ll be more.”

“Gee, how sore I am! You nearly broke my arm. And that slabstone bed finished me.”

“I hope the internal injury is better,” he rejoined dryly.

“Oh, that. I guess that was hunger, or else a terrible pang of disappointment to find you such a monster... Call me when you’re ready to give me something to eat.”

Janey walked about to stretch her limbs. The overhanging sky was leaden and gray, except where a pale brightness had succeeded the ruddy sunrise. She heard a roar down in the canyon and concluded it was running water. Little muddy streams were coursing down the shallow ditches. Beyond the cliff she saw water in sheets running off the rocks above. The cedars were green and fresh; and the sage had an exquisite hue of purple. Janey ventured to the edge of the cedar grove; and saw down into the canyon where a red torrent swirled and splashed. She recalled hearing the trader tell of sudden floods pouring down the dry washes. This was one of them; and she understood now why heavy storms impeded desert travel.

A shout turned Janey’s footsteps camp-ward. Randolph had breakfast ready, and it was equally as appetizing as the supper the night before.

“Evidently you’re not going to starve me into submission, anyway,” she observed.

“I don’t know about submission, but you’ll be starved into something, all right,” he declared.

“Do we have to cross this canyon?”

“We do, and pronto, or we won’t cross at all.”

“Why, there’s a regular torrent.”

“Not bad yet.”

“Then we must hurry?”

“Yes. If we rustle along — and are lucky — we may make Beckyshibeta tonight.”

Not for anything would Janey have importuned Randolph to turn back. But the serious nature of desert travel under unfavorable conditions now dawned upon her; and her mood of levity suffered a sidetracking. She had no more to say. Hurrying through breakfast she proceeded to assist Randolph with the camp chores. He objected, but she paid no attention to him.

“Where are the horses?” she asked, suddenly.

“They’ll be near somewhere. They’re hobbled, you know, and wouldn’t stray from good grass. I’ll fetch them in.”

He was absent so long that Janey began to worry. At last he showed up, riding his horse bareback, and leading the other two. Surefoot looked fat. Janey undertook the job of saddling him. As she swung up the heavy saddle she observed Randolph watching her out of the corner of his eye. When her horse was ready she turned to Randolph. He was loading the pack animal. Janey had watched the cowboys throw what they called the diamond hitch — an intricate figure-eight knot that held the pack on — and she now saw Randolph was as expert as any of them. Nevertheless some assistance from her was welcome to him. He made only one remark, which concerned the way she pulled on the rope. When the pack was on tight Randolph saddled his own horse.

“I’ve left my chaps out for you to wear,” he said, indicating a pair of worn leather chaps lying on a rock.

“How can I wear chaps in this dress?” asked Janey.

“I don’t know. Stuff your skirt down in them. Reckon there’s not much to stuff.”

Janey overlooked his retort, and picking up the chaps she stepped into them. They were too long and too large. From the expression on Randolph’s face she gathered that she must be a peculiar-looking object.

It was when Janey tried mounting her horse that she came to grief. The chaps were stiff and heavy, and she could not reach the stirrup with her foot. Randolph offered to lift her up, but she declined. Finally she made a violent effort, a sort of spring. She missed the pommel with her hand and the stirrup with her foot, and fell flat. Janey scrambled up quite enraged. If there was anything she hated it was to look clumsy. Randolph’s face had a strained look. He was holding in his laughter.

“I — I suggest you try to mount from the rock there,” he said.

“I’ll get up here or die,” replied Janey, furiously.

Next time she lifted her left foot with both hands and got it in the stirrup. Then she leaped, sprung from her right foot, and, catching pommel and cantle, she dragged herself up into the saddle.

“Not so bad for a tenderfoot,” observed Randolph. Whereupon he rode off, leading the pack horse.

Janey followed down the slope of wet red earth, by some scrawled rocks, into the canyon. They rounded a corner to come upon the muddy swift stream. It was silent here, but from below came up a dull roar. Janey had never seen such dirty-looking water. It was half silt. What a terrifying place to venture into!

Randolph crossed a flat sand bar, and urged his horse into the water. He spurred, and yelled, and dragged at the pack animal. They set up a great muddy splashing. Janey gathered that the more speed used here, the easier and safer the crossing. Her heart simply leaped to her throat. Randolph’s horse went in to his flanks. What a tremendous but clumsy struggle the two animals made! Janey almost lost sight of them in the splashing. They reached shallow water, heaved up, and waded out safely on the bar opposite. Randolph halted his horse and turned to look. For a moment he merely looked.

“Well, Central Park,” he called, in a tone that challenged Janey.

“Coming, fossil hunter!” she replied, defiantly.

Surefoot naturally would rather have turned back. Janey had to kick him to start him at all. And then she could not make him go fast enough. He splashed in to his knees, slowed up, and began to flounder.

“Come hard,” yelled Randolph.

Janey urged her horse with all her might. It was too late for good results. Surefoot struck the deep water at too slow a gait, and the current carried him off his feet. Janey’s distended eyes saw the red flood well to her hips. How cold, angry, strong. Randolph rode madly down along the opposite bank, yelling she knew not what. In the presence of real peril Janey’s sense and nerve rose to combat her terror. She kept her seat in the saddle. She pulled Surefoot diagonally downstream. He was half swimming and half wading. Fifty yards below where Randolph had crossed, Janey’s horse struck shallow water and harder bottom and made shore just above a place where the stream constricted between steep banks, and began to get rough.

Randolph had waded his horse in to meet hers.

“You should have ridden in fast,” he said, almost harshly. But the fact that his face was white caused Janey to forgive his rudeness.

“You told me a little late,” replied Janey, coolly.

“I apologize. I — I thought you would follow suit,” he returned with an effort.

Janey did not need to be told what a narrow escape it had been. She effectively concealed her real feelings.

“Pray don’t apologize. I didn’t expect much courtesy from you,” she said, evenly.

The blood leaped to Randolph’s pale cheek and he stifled a retort. Then he rode back to the pack animal and took up the halter again. Janey rode on behind him, pondering over the possibilities of this eventful day.

CHAPTER 7

FIVE HOURS LATER, and fifteen miles farther on over this awful desert, Janey had experienced sensations never before known to her except by hearsay.

She had been wet to the skin for hours. It was not rain but a deluge. She had forded so many gutters and wastes and gorges that she could no longer remember the number. She had fallen off her horse into the mud. She had been compelled to dismount and climb up steep wet sand slopes, where every step seemed the last one before she flopped down to die. She had been pulled across raging creeks by Randolph, and rescued from certain death at least twice. And the wonder of it all was that she had kept the true state of her misery and terror from her captor. She vowed nothing would ever make her show yellow and crawl — to give this man and her father the satisfaction they craved. She would prove one thing anyhow that a modern girl could have more nerve than all the old-fashioned women put together. Lastly she was unable to decide whether she would end by passionately hating Randolph or loving him. Certainly he could not have planned such opportunities as had come up. He treated her almost precisely as if she had been a young man. Indeed it was because of this in two instances that she had nearly drowned. Yet he was amazingly cool, indifferent to her and danger as well. But when necessary, he had the quickness, the judgment and strength to drag her to safety.

The rain let up now and then, so that Janey could see the desert. If it had ever been level, it was no longer so. It was turned on end, broken into ragged pieces, upheaved and monumental, a wild world of walls, cliffs, rocks, canyons.

There was not a dry stitch on her, and she appeared to be red mud from head to toe. Sand and water were mixed inside her shoes. When Randolph trotted his horse, or dismounted to descend into some gully and climb out, Janey, following suit, grew hot and breathless from the unusual exercise. When they rode slowly, which fortunately was not often, she grew cold. And now she began to get hungry.

She remembered she had wrapped up a piece of meat and a biscuit, and deposited it in her pocket. With dismay she found the biscuit wet and soggy. But she ate it anyhow. Then the piece of meat. She had never before known anything to taste so good. And she reflected on how little she had ever appreciated food. A person must starve to realize that.

The rain poured down again, so thick and heavy that Janey could only dimly discern the pack horse scarcely fifteen paces ahead. Janey’s saddle held a pool of cold water. It rained down inside her chaps into her shoes. What a miserable sensation that was! It pelted her back and ran in a stream off the brim of her hat. Patiently she waited, praying for a lull. But none came. And her state became one of utter wretchedness. All she asked now was to live long enough to choke her father and murder Randolph.

Janey was to learn something undreamed of — the latent endurance of a human being. She managed to stick on her horse, to keep up without screaming. But she knew another gorge, if they encountered one, would be her finish. She would just fall off her horse and sink out of Randolph’s sight. Maybe that would touch the indifferent brute!

No more canyons were met, however, though the rock walls grew mountainous. All at once Janey seemed to realize the dull gray light was darkening. The day was ended, and the storm appeared to increase in fury. At times the great walls afforded protection, but largely they rode in the open. Surefoot now kept on the heels of the pack horse. When Randolph at last halted, Janey had an overpowering sense of huge black walls, and a roaring of wind or water.

“It’s been some rotten day,” said Randolph, as he reached to take her from the saddle.

Janey could see his face dimly in the gloom. When she tried to get out of the saddle, she simply slid off into Randolph’s arms. He carried her a few steps and set her upright on a rock.

“You’re a game kid, anyway,” he muttered, as if speaking to himself. Then he disappeared. Janey found she could lean back against a wall, which she did in unutterable relief. Evidently they were under some kind of shelter, for it was dry. She smelled dust that had never been wet. The blackness above was split by a pale band, which must have been the sky. Sound of wind and water filled the place with hollow roar. She was very cold, miserable, inert and hungry. If she could only sleep or die! Her wretchedness was a horror. She could scarcely lift a hand. Every bone in her body seemed broken, every muscle bruised. And she was so wet she felt she would liquefy into a stream of water!

Suddenly a light pierced the blackness, and she heard a crackling. Randolph’s figure showed in a dim flare. He had kindled a fire. Wonderful man to find dry wood in a deluge! She saw a blue-gold blaze leap up through a tangle of brush and sticks. In a moment the place was illumined by a roaring fire. It had a subtle effect upon Janey. She saw sheer walls of rock on three sides, and a black void on the other.

Randolph approached her, and drew her to the fire.

“Get dry and warm. It’ll make a difference,” he said, and he placed one of the canvas packs for her to sit upon. But Janey, weak as she was, stood up to the blaze, extending cold trembling hands.

“It feels good,” she replied.

Indeed she wanted to walk into that blazing pile of sticks. What had she ever known about a fire? Of its singular beauty, its power to cheer, its wonderful property to warm cold flesh! It was the difference between death and life. She understood the barbarians who first invented, or found it. She knew now why she loved the sun.

Her wet clothes began to steam. She turned from one side to the other, as long as she could stand the burn.

“Sit down and let me pull off the chaps,” suggested Randolph.

When he had accomplished this task, which was not easy, in view of the fact that Janey had to hold desperately on to the pack to keep from being dragged off, she felt almost as if she were undressed. The short skirt of woolen material had shrunk and wrinkled until it was a spectacle that made Janey shriek with laughter, despite her woes. Randolph laughed with her, but evidently avoided looking at her. After wringing the water out of her skirt as best she could, Janey approached the fire, standing as close as she dared. She turned round and round, sat down upon the pack until she rested, then repeated the performance. It was amazing how quickly her clothes dried. And equally amazing was the effect upon her spirits.

Meanwhile Randolph was cooking the meal so quickly that Janey thought there must be very little firewood left.

“What’s the rush?” asked Janey. “Looks as if we’d have to stay here tonight, anyhow.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Famished.”

“Well, that’s reason enough.”

“You’re awfully good to me... Where are we?”

“Beckyshibeta.”

“So soon!” exclaimed Janey, gazing around her. The flare from the fire showed yellow walls, dark caverns, cracks; and in front a space of rock-strewn ground leading to dimly outlined trees, and then a blankness.

“So it was your life’s ambition to fetch me here?” Janey said incredulously. “Gee, men are queer! You might have accomplished much more by taking me to the Waldorf Astoria!”

“Any man could do that,” replied Randolph. “At least you’ll remember this trip.”

“I’ll say I will!”

The rain had ceased and the wind had lost its force. Janey heard a low, dull rumble. Randolph informed her it was thunder and that they were in for an even worse storm.

“But we’re safe and dry, unless we get flooded out. That’s happened here before.”

“Indeed! Interesting place.”

“Are you dry?”

“Just about, I guess. And burned to a crisp.”

“Come to the festal board, then,” he concluded.

The wants of primitive peoples must have been very few. Shelter, warmth, food, and something to wear. Yet what cardinally important wants these were! Janey was so grateful for the first three wants that she almost reconciled herself to the lack of the last. She reflected that if her skirt shrunk any shorter she would have to don Randolph’s chaps permanently or else look like one of the chorus girls in the Follies. She did not care, after all. It would only add to the sum of Randolph’s iniquity.

Janey was thinking along that line, and eating prodigiously, when something happened. All went dazzlingly, blindingly white. She lost her sight. Deep blackness again, then an awful terrific crash. The great walls seemed to be falling. Janey screamed, yet did not hear her own voice. A tremendous boom and bang resolved into concatenated thunder, which rolled away, leaving Janey weak and paralyzed with fear.

“W-what was — th-that?” she faltered.

“Just a little lightning and thunder,” he replied. “They’ll get bothersome presently, when the streaks of lightning come down like the rain. Better finish your supper. Then you can crawl under your blankets and shut out the flashes, anyhow.”

Janey’s appetite had been effectually checked, but she swallowed the rest of her meal, every moment dreading another earth-riving crash. But it did not come at once. She had surprise added to dread. The stillness and darkness became most oppressive.

“Where’s — my bed?” asked Janey, rising.

“I haven’t unrolled it yet,” replied Randolph, jumping up.

Just then a sudden silver-blue blaze struck Janey blind. She stood as one stricken, every muscle, nerve, and brain cell in abeyance to the expected crash. Such a shock came that it knocked Janey flat. And when she became conscious of sound again a mighty rumble of thunder boomed at the walls. Randolph was trying to lift her. Janey opened her tight-shut eyes and clung to Randolph. He had got her to her knees when another white flash and awful clap made her collapse in his arms.

Randolph carried her a few steps back and put her down. But she still clung to him.

“It’s only a storm — just lightning and thunder,” he was saying, most earnestly. “We’re safe. We can’t be struck or hurt. There’s only one danger — that of being caught in a flood. But it’d have to rain a long time... Janey, don’t be such a child. Why—”

His assurances did not compose Janey. She knew it, too. She had been worn out physically. And from childhood she had always dreaded a storm. That fear had been born in her. And never had she seen or heard anything to compare with this lightning and thunder. They were blinding, deafening, nerve-racking and absolutely stunning. That was why Janey had her face on Randolph’s breast and clung to him with all the strength she had left. She was aware that he tried to disengage himself — that he kept on talking, but both action and voice augmented her terror. They would come again, and she wanted to be hidden, to be held. They did come, and Janey, even with her eyes shut and face pressed hard against Randolph’s breast, saw the intense white light. Then followed the stupendous crash. The earth shook under her. The whole world seemed full of staggering sound. It clapped back and forth from wall to wall, and rolled away like a mountain of stone.

Janey had a last lingering recollection of the part she had meant to play, of a wicked hope for this very opportunity.

“Y-you’ve taken m-me from m-myself,” she faltered.

Randolph’s reply was drowned in another explosion. But Janey felt him take her closely in his arms and hold her tightly. Then it seemed the storm broke into incessant flash and crash, until there was no darkness or silence again. That period, long or short, was the worst Janey had ever experienced. When the storm passed she was dazed. But she felt Randolph lay her down and cover her with blankets. And that was the last thing she knew.

When she awakened the sun was shining somewhere, for she saw a gold- crowned rim of lofty wall. She remembered instantly where she was and how she had gotten there. Yet the place was as weird and magnificent as any dream. Great walls and columns of colored stone rose above her. Only a narrow strip of blue sky could she see. She heard a sullen roar of waters and smelled wood smoke.

“So this is Paris — I mean Beckyshibeta,” murmured Janey, wonderingly. And she tried to rise so that she could look about her. But with the movement such a pang shot through her body that she fell back, uttering a sharp little cry. She was so cramped and stiff that the slightest sudden effort caused pain. Whereupon she moved her aching limbs very cautiously and stretched her sore body likewise.

Janey was swearing softly to herself when she discovered her muddy shoes on a rock beside her bed. She did not recall taking them off. Randolph had done that. Her coat, too, was under her head. Then she ascertained with relief that these two kindly services constituted the extent of Randolph’s activities as lady’s maid.

She heard a step grate on rock. Randolph appeared to gaze anxiously down upon her.

“Did you call?” he asked, quickly.

“I just squealed,” she replied, gazing up at him, careful to draw the blankets close to her chin.

“Good morning,” he went on, as an afterthought.

“Good morning,” returned Janey, sweetly. “How are you?”

“I’m not sure, but I think I’m dead.”

“You’re sure a live and handsome corpse,” he said, bluntly. “Lord, I wonder if anything could mar your beauty.”

His tone was one of exasperating resignation, as well as reluctant admiration. To Janey it was like a drink of wine.

“Phil, are you calling on the Lord?”

“I sure am.”

“Well, I think it’s sacrilege!”

“In extreme cases the most degraded of men might naturally express himself so. I own it was silly of me. I can’t expect to be saved,” he said solemnly.

“You shouldn’t expect mercy either, from the Lord — or me.”

“Probably you’ll be more inclined to be merciful if I fetch you a nice hot breakfast,” he said tentatively.

“Yes. Your cooking is your one redeeming virtue.”

“Thanks,” he replied, and turned to go. “Phil, wait,” she called. “What did I do last night?”

“Do? Why, nothing in particular.”

“I remember being knocked flat by a stroke of lightning. That must have dazed me, for the rest seems a sort of dim horror.”

“It was a bad electric storm even for this desert. No wonder you were shocked. You see it’s very much worse when you’re walled in by cliffs. The echoes crack from cliff to cliff — truly terrific.”

“Was I frightened?”

“Rather.”

“Did I scream or — say anything?”

“You told me I had taken you from yourself.”

“Heavens!... What did I do?” she exclaimed, intensely curious.

“I fear it would embarrass you.”

“No doubt. That’s why I insist. I want to know.”

“Well, I picked you up, intending to carry you up here, where it’s more sheltered. But you grabbed me — hid your face — and hung on as if for dear life. So I just held you till the storm was over.”

“Indeed!... Did the storm last long?”

“Hours.”

Janey gave him an inscrutable glance and smile.

“I presume you would have a storm like that every night.”

“Yes. I would if I had the power,” he said, intensely.

“You would be worse than cruel,” she rejoined, gravely. “My mother was a very highly organized and sensitive person, inordinately afraid of lightning and thunder. I was prematurely born after a storm... One of the recollections of my childhood is that mother used to take me into a dark hallway during a storm.”

“I’m sorry I said that,” he replied, and left. Presently he fetched up her breakfast and retired rather hurriedly, without speaking again. Janey struggled to a sitting posture, and applied herself diligently to the ham and eggs, toasted biscuit, well buttered, and coffee. Truly Phillip Randolph was astounding. Where did he get fresh eggs? Of course he had fetched them. But how? Perhaps he believed that the way to a woman’s heart lay through her stomach.

Janey had intended to stay in bed and rest. But one look over the bulge of rock up at lofty golden rims and down into a wilderness of bright green canyon put idleness out of the question. She would explore Beckyshibeta if she had to drag herself around. Consulting her little mirror she saw that her face had been sunburned, but not unbecomingly so. And the other sunburn, even if it did hurt, did not matter, any more than her shriveled and shrunken garments. There was no danger of any critical and supercilious woman seeing her. Suppose Bert Durland’s mother could see her in this outfit! Janey giggled. It would be priceless. Nevertheless she did not care for that catastrophe.

She got up groaning. Muscles and bones were no doubt essential to the human frame, but this morning she would rather have dispensed with them. She was weak, lame, sore and burned. The band of sunburn above her knees was particularly annoying.

“Oooo!” moaned Janey, as she drew herself erect. “Why did I leave home?”

Finally she wore off the stiffness to the extent of being able to walk; then she laboriously climbed down to a level and gazed about her. The place appeared to be simply an enormous cavern with a dome higher than that of the Grand Central Station, which was going some, Janey admitted. It opened on a level bench that extended out over a green canyon, perhaps half a mile wide and twice as long. How refreshing and colorful the different kinds of foliage! It contrasted beautifully with the red and gold of gorgeous colossal cliffs that sheered up as if to the very sky. A sullen roar of water greeted Janey’s ears. She heard the twitter of birds in the cedars and cottonwoods. All appeared bright and clean, with a warm sun shining after the storm. Thin waterfalls were dropping over the cliffs, and at the apex of the canyon, its upper end, a heavy torrent was tumbling down over the broken masses of rocks.

These were Janey’s first impressions and sensations. She walked out of the shade into the sunshine. Every step was an effort, but resulted in a wonderful reward in an enlargement of her view of the weird and magnificent surroundings. The stone walls were higher than any New York skyscraper. They were full of great caverns and hollows near their base, and above were cracked and stained and covered with moss, with niches and ledges where green growths grew. Janey stood spellbound. Beckyshibeta! What a marvelous place! It was majestic, grand, and increased in beauty and wonder as she grasped its true perspective. The canyon stunned her too, with its shut-in solitude.

“Oh, glorious!” murmured Janey. “I had no idea it was like this. He never said so. Mr. Bennet didn’t lead me to expect much. But this!”

Janey sat down in the sun, and time was as nothing. She might have been there minutes or an hour. It was long, however, for cramped muscles told her so. She breathed it all in. Her eyes feasted. Something seemed transformed within her. What had she missed all these idle years? Never, except in a highly colored romance or two, had she read of such places as this, and she had believed them merely fiction. But no pen, no brush could do justice to the truth of Beckyshibeta.

Janey felt that she would be unutterably grateful to Randolph always. Still she could not let him know. Where was he anyhow? For a kidnaper who had made off with a victim, he was certainly elusive.

She went in search of him. Owing to her crippled condition and the awesome nature of the place, Janey did not make much progress. She got around an immense corner of wall, below the cavern he had chosen for their camp, and found another cave higher and larger than the first. It was full of the ruins of sections of wall that had fallen. Janey threaded slow passage between blocks of rock and over weathered slides to another projecting corner which she thought hid the mouth of the canyon. The roar of water grew louder. Her way was so beset with obstacles that she was long in reaching her objective. But at last she got around the corner.

If she had gazed and gaped before, what did she do now? All the details she had seen were here repeated and magnified. In addition, a wicked red stream went brawling down in a series of rapids. The canyon opened into a larger one, bewildering to Janey’s eyes.

Next she spotted Randolph digging with a pick. He stood just round the jutting point of wall, and it had been the cracking of his pick that attracted her attention. Janey made her way to him. Strange he did not see her! He was shamming or absorbed, not improbably the latter. He dug like a man who had found the foot of the rainbow.

Janey hailed him with: “Hey, there, subway digger!”

Randolph was startled. He whirled and dropped his pick. Janey did not need to be told that he had actually forgotten her.

“Why — Miss Endicott — you — I he stammered.

“Fine morning on the avenue,” she returned.

“It is fine,” he said, recovering himself, and reaching for the pick.

“Phillip, you forgot me, didn’t you?”

“I’m afraid I did.”

“Left me alone to be eaten by grizzly bears or run off and get lost or anything!”

“There are no bears. And you can’t run off until the creek falls. Nor can anybody get across to frighten you.”

“Very well, but that doesn’t explain your leaving me alone.”

“No, it doesn’t. To be honest, I just plain forgot you.”

“Can you beat that!... You’re a fine kidnaper. As you evidently didn’t intend to maltreat me, I certainly expected to be taken care of, amused and instructed. And you forget me!”

“I always forget everything, when I come to Beckyshibeta,” he replied, apologetically. “Everything except that here, somewhere in these caverns, is buried the lost pueblo of Beckyshibeta. I know it. I have read the signs... I daresay if I had run off with Cleopatra or Helen of Troy, I’d have forgotten.”

Janey was impressed again by his singular simplicity and passion. The man seemed so keen, so sincere, so strong and hopeful that she almost wished that he would find the treasure upon which he set such store.

“I’ll find Beckyshibeta for you,” she said, impulsively.

He stared, then laughed. “I suppose that’d be woman’s revenge. To heap coals of fire upon my head. To flay me with remorse... But, fun or no fun, please don’t find Beckyshibeta for me.”

“Why not? It seems to be your driving passion. Most men I know are driven by other motives. Money, power, fame.”

“Beckyshibeta would give me all these. But I’ve never thought of them.”

“Then why don’t you want me to find it?”

“I’m quite mad enough over you now. If you found Beckyshibeta, I—”

“Oh. So that’s it? That would be a calamity.”

“I agree with you. Therefore be careful not to go digging around these caves. As to that, you stay in camp and stop following me.”

“I’ll follow you if I want to — but I don’t,” retorted Janey.

“I don’t approve of you running around here,” he said, severely. “I thought you’d rest all day.”

“Take me back,” returned Janey, imperiously.

“You found your way here alone. Now go back and stay there,” he ordered.

Janey did not know whether to swear or laugh at him. He was most decidedly in earnest. It might be well to save the profanity for a more fitting time. So she laughed.

“My Lord, I go,” she said. “When will it please you to return to our castle?”

“I’ll be along later,” he rejoined, quite oblivious to her levity. “You can fix yourself some lunch.”

Whereupon Janey left him to his explorations and turned back, pondering the interview. Every encounter with Randolph left her unsatisfied, but she could not figure out why. It took her a good half hour, resting frequently, to retrace her steps; and all this while she divided her thoughts between Randolph and Beckyshibeta. At last she reached camp and found a comfortable slab. She was exhausted, yet the exertion had been good for her.

“Dad was not such a damn fool, after all,” soliloquized Janey. “I like Phillip Randolph... It’s up to me to find out why. I’m sorry Dad picked him to run off with me. Because I want to hate him and foil him utterly. But thank the Lord I’ve finally run into one man who isn’t drunk with alcohol, money or women.”

Janey found resting so good that she went back to her blankets, and did such an unheard-of thing as to fall asleep in the daytime. When she awoke it was the middle of the afternoon. She felt better. Randolph had not returned. The fact that he stayed away from her, on any pretext, astonished Janey. She was unaccustomed to that in men in her society. She had scarcely believed that he would remain away all day. “He’s gone on me, I don’t think,” she told herself, emphatically. She was puzzled, piqued, amused, resentful, and something else she did not quite realize yet. It was, however, having a salutary effect.

Janey contented herself with watching the changing afternoon lights in the canyon; and toward sunset, which came early, owing to the high walls, she thought she had been transported to some enchanted world. She saw the top of a distant mesa turn bright gold; exquisite rays of indescribably pure and beautiful light streamed down over the rims; in the distance, far through the gateway of the canyon, she saw purple of so royal a hue that she exclaimed in delight; walls were shrouded in pink haze, and near at hand the amber air seemed to float over the soft green foliage.

“I’m glad to be here,” sighed Janey. And she began to discover hidden depths in herself. It might be possible that she could be self-sufficient for a while. There was something incalculably strong working against the habit of mind that had been hers. Clothes, luxury, amusement, idleness, the theater, the dance, the ever-present necessity of unlimited money, the attention of men — these were most astonishingly unnecessary here. Janey shook off the spell. Beckyshibeta was only a hole in the rocks. Beautiful, strange, wild, yes, but it was not a place to change one’s soul. And she resented the awakening, insistent tearing at her mind.

The sun had set and the sky was full of rosy clouds when Randolph returned, dusty and tired, wiping his tanned face. He seemed different to Janey, or she saw him with different eyes. There was something proven about him.

“How’s my fair prisoner?” he asked.

“If I’m better in body and mind, I can’t thank you for it,” she replied.

“Quien sabe?” he returned. “Do you like Beckyshibeta?”

“This terrible shut-in lonely hole in the rocks? Heavens!” she ejaculated, languidly. “Janey, be honest,” he said.

“Why, Phillip, honest is my middle name,” she averred.

“No. It might be game, but it’s not honest. You are as crooked as a rail fence mentally... Please be honest once, Janey.”

“Why?” she inquired, curious, in spite of her frivolity.

“Because I have always connected you somehow with Beckyshibeta. Strange, but it’s so. I believed you would like it — be inspired, perhaps softened.”

“Phillip, am I hard?”

“Hard as these rocks.”

“You are not flattering.”

“Maybe not. But I’m honest,” he said, stoutly.

“No, you’re not. You’re not straight about this stunt of yours. Dragging me off here!” And she bent penetrating eyes on Randolph.

“You will find me honest in the end,” he replied, the dark red blood staining his cheek.

“Ah-huh,” returned Janey, doubtfully.

“Are you going to be honest or not?” he inquired, sharply. “I still have faith left in you — enough to believe you’re not utterly lost to — to the dream of glory of nature.”

“Ain’t nature grand?” rejoined Janey, with simpering impudence.

“Janey Endicott, if you don’t love Beckyshibeta, I shall despise you,” he declared, hotly.

There was no doubt about this, Janey saw. Randolph was at war with the world — backing his faith in her against the materialism and paganism of the modern day. It thrilled Janey — quite robbed her of her contrariness.

“Philip, I’d like to make you despise me, but I can’t honestly. I do love Beckyshibeta, and I am glad you dragged me here,” she said, with a rich note in her voice, and turned away her face.

“Thank you. That will help,” he replied, with emotion.

Janey watched him go down to the creek with the water bucket. It would hardly do, Janey considered, for her to think seriously about him just then. But she realized she must, sooner or later, have a reckoning with herself. For the present, she must stick to her part, and not let any earnestness or eloquence of Randolph’s betray her into honesty again.

Randolph returned whistling. Besides the brimming bucket, he carried a log of wood big enough to crush most men Janey knew. She leisurely approached the camp and watched him swing an ax. He started a fire, put on the oven, and then went for more wood. This time he brought such a big load that Janey objected.

“You’ll break your back,” she said in alarm. “Phillip, you may not be the most desirable of companions, but you’re better than a cripple. Please be careful.”

“Say, I’m not half a man. You ought to see an Indian pack in firewood. He fetches a whole tree... But come to think of it, if that causes you concern, I’ll try a big load next time.”

Janey did not answer this. She sat down close by and watched him get supper.

“Phillip, how long will our supplies last — grub, as the cowboys call it?” she asked.

“I packed enough for three weeks, but did not allow for your unsuspected capacity. I daresay, if I stint myself, it’ll last ten days.”

“And then what?”

“Sufficient unto the day. We can subsist on rabbits, or I can ride to an Indian camp over here and get more. Or — we can return to the post.”

“What! You’d take me back there — to face my father, the Bennets and the cowboys, knowing me ruined, disgraced?” she exclaimed.

“Sure, I will,” he replied, cheerfully.

“Philip, if any other man had done this thing to me, and fetched me back — what would you do?”

“Do? A whole lot. I’d kill him.”

“Exactly. But it’s all right for you to do it?”

“Janey, my intentions are honorable.”

“Do you imagine you can make the cowboys believe that?”

“I confess I’m a little worried on that score,” he replied, ponderingly. “As a rule cowboys are obtuse and inclined to be bullheaded. Then they were so absurdly infatuated, and each of them thought he owned you. Stupid, conceited jackasses! Still they had ample encouragement.”

Janey relapsed into silence, the better to enjoy the ever-increasing humor of this situation, and the deliciousness of another sentiment that seemed hard to define. Presently Randolph began to talk, as if she were the most interested of comrades, as indeed, if the truth were admitted, she was.

“I followed another blind lead today, all to no avail. Eight hours of digging for nothing. How often have I done that here! But I know Beckyshibeta is buried here somewhere. If I only had unlimited time! But the department insists on definite rewards, so to speak. I have to find things — bones, pottery, stone utensils and weapons. In short, I am forced to explore where they tell me to and not where I want to. Elliot, head of our department, was out last year. I think I told you. Awful pill — Elliot! He’s only a surface scratcher. Well, he belittled my theory. He said there was little sign of ancient pueblo here at Beckyshibeta... And so I can get only snatches at work here.”

“Suppose we tell Elliot to go where it’s hot,” suggested Janey.

“I wish I could. But I must have bread and butter, and some clean clothes occasionally,” he returned.

“Phillip, do you always expect to be poor?” she asked.

“I hope not. I have my dream. But I suppose I really always will be.”

“Too bad. But I don’t know. Money is a curse, they say. Personally, I don’t see it... Do you know I am rich?”

“No. Your father, of course. But are you, too?”

“Yes, disgustingly rich. My mother left me several hundred thousand dollars when she died.”

“Good Lord!” ejaculated Randolph. “Your father never told me that.”

“Well, it’s true. And Dad tells me it has nearly doubled. You see I can’t touch the whole principle until I’m twenty-five. I have only the income from it — fifty thousand or so a year — and I confess, I’m broke half the time. I’m always borrowing from Dad.”

“Janey, are you honest, now?”

“Assuredly. I certainly wouldn’t string you about money.”

“Damn him, anyway,” declared Randolph, forcefully, with a violent gesture.

“Who? Dad?” she asked, innocently.

But Randolph did not answer and there was an immediate change in his demeanor. He prepared supper in silence, and remained glum during the eating of it. She partook heartily of the good meal, and then left Randolph to himself. By this time the early twilight was creeping under the walls and it would soon be night. Janey strolled a little on the edge of the bank. She saw one lone star come wondrously out of the paling pink. Fair as a star when only one was shining in the sky! She had read that somewhere. Wordsworth, perhaps. What would he or Tennyson or Ruskin make out of Beckyshibeta? There was nothing in Europe to compare with the canyon country. Janey felt proud of that.

As it grew dark she returned to the campfire. Randolph had disappeared. She looked into the opal heart of the embers and saw beautiful disturbing visions there. Then she climbed up the rock to her bed.

As she sat down on it she was surprised to find it high and soft. Upon examination she discovered a foot layer of cedar boughs under it. How fragrant! Randolph must have done that right after supper. He was a paradox. He had handled her roughly, had driven her to the limit of endurance, yet he was thoughtful of her comfort. But the new bed certainly was a relief and a joy. Janey sighed for some soft woolly pajamas. But she had to sleep in her clothes. After removing her shoes, she decided she would take off her stockings, too.

She crawled in between the blankets, and knew in her heart she would not have exchanged them for silk sheets. Weary, aching as she was, she could not wish it otherwise. She had never actually experienced rest. She had never been sufficiently aware of comfort, ease. They had been habits, with no reason for them. Here they served a wonderful blessing, a reward.

Where had Randolph gone? It had upset him to learn she was rich. Janey could not figure out just why. No one would take him for a fortune hunter. It would be more embarrassing, of course, to compromise a wealthy girl than a poor one, simply because marriage would not have such a sacrificial look. Every hour of this adventure had enhanced its romance, augmented its possibilities for delight as well as pain. What would the new day bring?

CHAPTER 8

JANEY HAD BEEN alone all morning. For several hours she had welcomed the solitude. She had not seen Randolph, who had called to her that he was leaving her breakfast on the fire. If anything she was more stiff and sore than ever, but the pangs wore off more quickly with the use of her muscles. About noon she began to feel relief.

She simply could not get over Randolph leaving her to her own devices. Beckyshibeta was more to him than she was. That both irritated and pleased Janey. But of course she would not stand for it. So she set out to hunt him up.

The day was lovely, although when she emerged into full sunshine, which was seldom, it was hot. The fragrant smells of summer wafted down into the canyon, mingling the sweetness of sage with wild flowers and fresh green verdure. The creek had run down and was no longer a roaring torrent. Janey thought she could wade in it if she wanted to. It would have been nothing for a horse.

When she walked away from camp under these magnificent walls, she became somebody else. She grew pensive, dreamy, absorbed and happy. No use to deny her feelings! Only she did not want Randolph to see them. A confusing thing, too, was the fact that under their spell she had to force herself to be true to her old inclinations. Therefore she refused to realize, or at least to seek to understand, the elevating power of this strange canyon wilderness. She could not help sensation. She had to see, to feel, to smell the place, and even to taste the sweetness of the dry desert air.

By the time she had worked her way round the second jutting wall, where Randolph had been digging, she was warmed by the exertion and free of stiff joints. In truth she felt fine. Randolph had abandoned this cavern. So Janey went on, to encounter the most difficult and hazardous climbing over rocks that the kidnaping escapade had led her to.. There was a thrill in it. How gratified she felt to surmount the last rock pile! She discerned Randolph about on a level with her. But the canyon jumped off deep below him and zigzagged in wonderful hair-raising ledges beyond.

Randolph did not see Janey. She had opportunity to approach him by way of a dangerous ledge before he would be aware of her presence. High places did not bother Janey. She was level-headed and cool, and reveled in taking risks.

When she got about halfway to him, however, she had to halt. She was getting in trouble and faced inclines that made even a girl of her bravery quail. So she sank down to rest and gaze.

The canyon opened wide. It was much vaster and wilder than that part of Beckyshibeta where Randolph had pitched the camp. Janey felt something pull at her heartstrings. Was not this desert fastness simply marvelous? But to look down now made her shiver. She had been aware of the gradual height she had attained. Below, a hundred feet or more, spread a slope of talus, a jumble of broken rock that fell roughly down to the green thicket. She almost forgot Randolph and her mission in a realizing worship.

Randolph’s pick, ringing steel on stone, brought Janey back. She discovered a ledge above her where no doubt Randolph had crossed to the wide area beyond. Coming to a narrowed point, she got on hands and knees, and began to crawl out. She knocked some loose rocks off the ledge. They rattled down. Janey swore. Randolph heard the rattling and turned to look up.

Flinging aside his pick he ran forward to the end of the bench.

“Stop!” he shouted.

Janey obeyed, more from suggestion than anything else. She gazed across the void at Randolph.

“Howdy, Phil,” she called, gaily. “Didn’t I tell you not to follow me?” he said, angrily.

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes you do.”

“All right, then I do.”

“You turn round very carefully and go back,” he ordered. “Be careful... You’ll turn my hair gray!”

“That’d make you very handsome and distinguished looking,” replied Janey.

“Go back!” he shouted, sternly.

“Not on your life!” retorted Janey, and started to crawl again. She was approaching the narrowed part. It might have daunted her before, but now she could have managed a more hazardous place.

“Stop! Turn back!” thundered Randolph. This was pouring oil upon the flame. “You go to the devil!” cried Janey, and kept on crawling. She passed the risky point without a tremor or a slip, and presently, reaching the bench, she stood up before Randolph in cool triumph.

“If you do that again, I’ll I’ll—” he choked.

“That was a cinch,” replied Janey, coolly. “My stockings are thin, though, and the rock hurt my knees.”

She rubbed them ruefully, quite unabashed by Randolph’s staring.

“You’ll fall and kill yourself,” he stormed.

“No, nix, never, not little Janey. I did tumbling in my class at college. That little jaunt across there was just an exercise in coordination, that’s all.”

“I tell you it was extremely dangerous,” expostulated Randolph.

“We’ll always disagree, Phil. I imagine life together for us will be one long sweet hell.”

“No it won’t. I might have entertained such an idiotic idea once, but it’s dispelled.”

“We needn’t discuss the future now. I’ve begun to reconcile my — myself to this and you. Don’t spoil it... Did you have a nice dig this morning?”

“Come. I’ll help you back over this ledge. Then you go to camp and stay there,” he said, peremptorily.

“No, I won’t. I want to be with you.”

“Very sorry, but I don’t want you here.”

“Why? I’ll sit still and watch you, and be quiet.”

“No!”

“Please, Phil,” she pleaded.

“I couldn’t work with your big eyes mocking me. You make me remember I’m only a poor struggling archaeologist.”

“But you brought me here.”

“Yes, and I’d — I’m damned sorry for it. Someday I’ll tell you why I did it.”

“Are you repudiating your — your, well, your interest in me?” she queried, with hauteur.

“Call spades, spades,” he returned. “You mean my love for you. No, I don’t repudiate that. I’m not ashamed of it, though it has made me a fool.”

“Oh! Then there’s another reason why you brought me to Beckyshibeta?” she went on, gravely. It seemed to Janey that there was no use in trying to stall off the inevitable. Things tumbled over one another in a hurry to drive her. Pretty soon she would get sore and face them.

“Yes, there’s another, and of that I am ashamed. But come, get out of here and leave me in peace.”

“Mr. Randolph,” said Janey, now haughtily. “Has it occurred to you that I ought not to be left alone — entirely aside from my loneliness?”

“No, it hasn’t,” he returned, clenching his hands, and gazing helplessly down at the river.

“Well, you’re rather dense. Some Indian or desperado — anybody might come. They could get across now, I think.”

“No one ever comes here. At least, very seldom, and then I know they’re coming. You’re quite safe. And certainly you don’t want my society.”

“It is rather dreadful. But I’ll stand it awhile. I’ll stay here until you get ready to go back to camp,” replied Janey, airily, and she promptly sat down.

Randolph took her hand and pulled at her. “Come,” he said, trying to control his temper.

“Let go, or we’ll have another fight,” she warned. “The other time I didn’t hit below the belt or bite.”

He gave up. “Very well, if you’re that mulish, stay. But look here, you spoiled brat if you cross this dangerous place again you’ll be sorry.”

“Why will I?” asked Janey, immensely interested.

“Because you’ll get what you should have had — long ago and many a time.”

“And what’s that, teacher?”

“A damned good spanking.”

Janey could not believe him serious, yet he looked amazingly so. But that was only temper — a bluff to rout her utterly. It was so preposterous that she laughed in his face.

“Mr. Randolph, pardon my laughing, but you are so crude — so original,” she said, and here the Janey Endicott of Long Island spoke in spite of her.

Perhaps nothing else she could have said would have stung him so bitterly.

“I have no doubt of it. All the same, I meant what I said. We are in Arizona now. And if you can’t see the difference between real life and modern froth, I’m sorry for you. Most of America is too far gone for a good, healthy spanking. It has, I might say, a vastly different kind of interest in a young woman’s anatomy. But among the few pioneers left in the West, thank God, there are parents who are still old-fashioned. I’m not a parent. All the same I can make myself into one, and give you damn well what you need.”

He strode away to his work leaving Janey for once at a loss for words. It took some moments for Janey to recover her egotism. Randolph must be having hallucinations. She would put him to the test presently.

Sauntering closer to the middle of the wide bench, where he was plying his pick, she found as restful a seat as appeared available. It would tantalize him to have her so near, watching, as he called it, with her mocking eyes. She confessed to herself, however, that her interest in his work was growing keenly sincere. She truly wanted him to find Beckyshibeta.

“Phillip, how will you know when you strike this buried pueblo?” she asked, suddenly. “What will it be like?”

“I’d know the instant I struck my pick in it,” he replied, with surprising animation. Randolph evidently was quick to recover from anger or slight.

“You would, of course, but how would I know?”

He gave her a depreciating glance.

“Well, judging by the intelligence you’ve shown lately, you never would know a pueblo. Not if you fell into a kiva!”

“Ah — huh! Gee, I’m a bright girl... What’s a kiva?”

“It’s a deep circular hole in the ground, covered by a roof, with an entrance. Used by the cliff dwellers—”

Janey interrupted him. All she had to do was to ask a question of an archaeological nature and he forgot everything else.

“Then if you disappear suddenly I’m to search for your remains in a kiva? Very appropriate end for you, I’d say.”

Randolph went back to work and though Janey pestered him with questions he apparently did not hear them. She grew provocative. He gave no heed. Then she called him mummy hunter, grave robber, bone digger and like names. Finally, she resorted to “cradle snatcher,” but that glanced off his thick hide, too.

“Say,” she concluded in disgust, “if I offered to kiss you, would you talk?”

“Yes,” he flashed, swiftly facing her with a gleam in his eye.

“Oh! Well, I withhold the offer, but I’m glad you’re not altogether a dead one.”

“Janey Endicott, you’re an unmitigated fraud,” he returned. “Also, you are a teaser.”

“I don’t like the sound of that last word. Where did you hear that?”

“It’s a term I heard in New York. I gathered that it was applicable to a young woman who enticed with false smiles and words and suggestions. Who allured with all feminine — I should say female powers — and never gave a single thing she promised.”

“Philip, you are calling a turn on all women from Eve to Mata Hari... Say,” she burst out suddenly, “I’ll bet you a new saddle to a pair of gauntlets that I make you swallow your slight.”

“You’re on, Miss Endicott,” he declared. “I’ll enjoy riding that saddle, and remembering this winter, while you are back in New York—”

“Doing what?” she interposed, as he hesitated.

But he dropped his head and returned to his interrupted digging.

“I’ll finish it for you,” she added with scorn. “While I am idling, flirting, dancing, sleeping away the beautiful sunrise hours, wasting money, drinking — and worse!”

She saw him flinch, then his jaw set, but that was all the satisfaction she got. Janey had an unreasonable longing to hear him passionately deny at least some of these vices for her. But he did not. He believed them — perhaps now thought the very worst of her. This was what she had desired, yet most inconsistently, she would have preferred him to defend her as he had to her father.

Janey let him alone for a while, although her contemplative gaze often returned from the lofty crags and wonderful walls to his strong, stooping figure, and his tireless labor.

When the enchantment of the canyon began once more to lay hold of her, with its transforming magic, she had recourse to a very devil of perversity and provocation. Studying the ledges and slopes of all this great section of ruined wall she at last noted a narrow strip where even a goat might have had difficulties. It led toward another projecting corner of red wall, beyond which another and larger level beckoned with a strange spell. Janey studied the place a long time. She had reason to believe that Randolph had not worked any farther than where he now stood. She yielded to an unaccountable impulse to gain that level.

Rising, she took occasion to stroll around in front of Randolph, then up to the edge of the amphitheater and in the direction of a rounded wall which led toward the objective point.

The ring of Randolph’s pick ceased. Janey missed it with infinite satisfaction.

“Janey, where are you going?” he demanded. “Didn’t I—”

She crossed the rim of curved wall and gained the near end of the narrow strip. How fearful the depth below looked.

“Hold on!” yelled Randolph, his boots thudding over the rock.

Then Janey turned. “Don’t dare come another step!” she cried, more than defiantly.

Randolph halted short, perhaps a matter of fifty steps from her.

“Please, come back.”

“I’m going across to the next bench.”

“Janey! That is worse than this other place. I have never risked beyond where you are now. Honest. It is more treacherous than it looks.”

“I don’t care.”

“My God, girl, if you should slip! Have you no sense?”

“You’ll have only yourself to blame.”

Randolph struggled as if resisting a temptation to leap. He was silent a full moment. Janey saw his expression and color change.

“You damned little fool!” he roared, at last. “Come back!”

“Nothing doing, Phil,” she taunted. “Come back!” The stentorian voice only inflamed Janey the more.

“Say, how’d you get like that?”

Randolph started for her and strode halfway round the curved rim wall before he halted. Janey backed upon the narrow strip, an exceedingly risky move, but her blood was up and she had no fear. He saw and stopped as if struck.

“Janey, darling,” he called, with an importuning, almost hopeless, gesture.

This, strangely, came near being Janey’s undoing. She wanted to obey him. Never could she be driven, but she was not tenderness-proof. Her sudden incomprehensible weakness roused her to fury.

“Philly, sweetheart, you’ve kidnaped the wrong woman!” she screamed at him.

Randolph deliberately wheeled and went back to the bench. Facing her then he called out: “Go and be damned. You’ll find out you can’t fly. And you’d better stay over there, for if you ever come back, you’ll pay for this.”

Thus inspired, Janey turned to the narrow strip. It would not have frightened her if it had been a beanpole across Niagara. Sure as a mountain sheep she stepped, and never got down on hands and knees until she reached the knifelike edge. Over this she crawled like a monkey. She stood up again and ran the rest of the way. Gaining the bench she went for a peep round the vast corner of wall. The most wonderful of all the caverns opened before her. It was stupendous, overpowering. How marvelous to come back again and explore! Whereupon she retraced her steps.

Randolph remained as motionless as a statue watching her. On the return, Janey exercised coolness where at first she had been daring. She crawled most of the way and never looked down into the abyss once. Breathless and hot she rested a moment before taking to the rim wall, then walked across that to where Randolph stood waiting. She saw that he was white to the lips, but he wheeled before she could get a second look at his face. It seemed silly to follow him, but she did, wondering what he would do or say. He led the way back toward camp.

Janey had not anticipated this. Had she gone too far? Had she hurt him irretrievably? And now that it was over she reproached herself. What a spiteful vengeful little fool she was! Still this was the part she had set herself to play.

She had difficulty in keeping up with Randolph. She kept up on the easy level ground, but over the rock slides she fell behind. It seemed a long way back to camp. Excitement and exertion had told on her. When the last corner of wall had been passed Janey thought she was pretty well all in.

Randolph had his back to her. How square his shoulders — rigid! He pivoted on his heels, to disclose terrible eyes.

“Janey Endicott, do you remember what I told you?” he demanded.

Swift as his words came a sensation of sickening weakness. Like a stroke of lightning it had come. She imagined she had been prepared, but she was not. She had misjudged him, underestimated his courage. Her subtle mind grasped at straws.

“Re-member?” she faltered, trying to smile. “About being — mad about me?”

“Mad at you!” he replied, grimly.

Then he seized her before she could move a hand. Surprise and fear inhibited her natural fighting instinct. Randolph lifted her — carried her.

Suddenly he sat down on the flat rock and flung her over his knees, face down. All her body went rigid. A terror of realization and horror of expectation clamped her mind. He spanked her with such stunning force that it seemed every bone in her body broke to the blow. The pain to her flesh was hot, stinging, fierce. The shock to her mind exceeded the sum of all shocks Janey had ever sustained. She sank limp over his knees. Smack! Harder this time. Her head and feet jerked up. Her teeth jarred in their sockets. Again! Again! Again!

Janey all but fainted. Intense fury saved her that. She rolled off his knees to the ground and bounded up like a cat. A bursting tearing gush of hot blood ran riot in her breast.

“I’ll — kill you!” she panted, low and deep.

Randolph was somewhat shaken at her fury, when she blazed so fiercely, her fists clenched, her breast swelling.

“Once in your life, Miss Endicott!” he said, huskily. “It’s done. You can’t change that. And I did it. I shall have that unique distinction among your acquaintances.”

Janey tried to fly at him, to scratch his eyes out, to beat him before murdering him. But she let him pass. She felt her legs sag under her. Blindly then she groped and crawled up to her bed, sank under the blankets and covered her face. The tension of her body relaxed. She stretched limp, palpitating, quivering. That numb dead sensation gradually gave place to burning smarting pain. The physical suffering at first had precedence over the chaos of her mind. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. And she lay there panting, slowly succumbing, her spirit subservient to her tortured flesh.

It was dark when she had to uncover her head to keep from suffocating. The bright shadows of a campfire flickered on the stone above her.

“Janey, child,” called Randolph, like a fond parent, “wash your face and hands and come to supper.”

Her blood leaped and boiled again. Rising on her hand, she was about to give passionate vent to all the profanity she had ever heard, but as she saw Randolph moving round the fire she stilled the impulse. She sank back under a compulsion she had never known. Was she beaten — whipped — cowed? No! She had only been preposterously shamed and humiliated by an educated ruffian. Her pride had been laid low. Her vanity was bleeding to death. Janey writhed in her bed, only to be made painfully aware again of the maltreated part of her anatomy. The instant there was a possibility of her returning to the old Janey Endicott, that burning pain had to recur. What a strangely subduing thing! Her mind had no control over it or the whirling thoughts it engendered.

She composed herself at last, in as comfortable a position as she could find. Again Randolph called her to supper. Eat! She would starve to death before she would eat anything he had prepared. How terribly she hated him! The revenge she had planned seemed nothing to her wild ragings now. Mere killing would not be enough. Death ended all sufferings. He must be made most horribly wretched. He must grovel at her feet and bite the very dust.

These bitter thoughts had their sway. They did not have permanence. All of a sudden Janey discovered she was crying. To realize that, to fight it and fail, added to her breakdown. She cried herself to sleep.

Her eyes opened upon azure blue sky and gold-tipped wall. Consciousness came as quickly as sight. Her impulse was to shut out the beautiful light of day. She was ashamed to face it. But slowly she moved the blanket aside. Listening, she soon ascertained that Randolph was not in camp. Peeping over the rock she saw a smoldering fire, and the steaming coffeepot and oven on it.

Janey got up. If she had needed anything to remind her of the insufferable outrage she had sustained, she had it in sudden pains, more excruciating than any she had yet endured. The ape! He had not realized his strength. Maybe he had, though. How coldly and calmly he had gone about the beating! To wait until they had come all the way back to camp! In the light of another day his offense seemed greater.

There was her breakfast on the fire. Janey remembered that she had sworn she would starve before she would touch Randolph’s food again, but she did not see any sense in that now. As a cook she was not a genius.

“If there was a mantelpiece here it’s a cinch I’d eat my breakfast off it this morning,” she said, mirthlessly.

Dark, brooding thoughts attended the slow meal. Afterward it occurred to Janey to wash the few utensils Randolph had left for her use. There was a pan of hot water at hand. This she did and not without an almost conscious gratification. Then she stared awhile into the fading red coals of the fire. Next she walked in the sun, and could not shut out a sense of its warmth, of the sweet songs of wild birds, of the fragrance of sage and canyon thicket, of the glorious light under the walls.

What was she going to do? There were a thousand things. But first, and of absolutely paramount importance, was the fact dawning upon her that she had to repeat the foolhardy act of yesterday. A new vague sweet self raised soft voice against it, but was howled down by Janey Endicott proper. She had to show Randolph that this so-called cave-man dominance of the past, as well as the masculine superiority of the present, were things abolished, obsolete, blazed out of the path by modern woman. This was no part she was playing. She had ceased to be an actress. That fun, that desire to turn the tables upon her father and Randolph had vanished in the night.

Randolph was at work higher up than the day before and close to the amphitheater around which Janey had crossed to the next bench.

She walked right past him, casually glancing in his direction. How could he guess that her heart was beating fast and that contending tides of emotion warred within her?

If she ever saw a man surprised it was then. The last thing Randolph would imagine was that she would come back. What sweet healing balm to Janey’s crushed vanity! He leaned on his pick and watched her. Would he order her back? Would he plead with her again?

Janey was not foolish enough to underestimate the risk of this slanting narrow trail. This time, her nerve and caution, and lightness of foot, balanced the audacity of yesterday. She crossed without a slip.

Randolph stood leaning on his pick, watching. Not a word had come from him! She could guess, of course, that he was completely routed, and probably furious. But was he disappointed? That she was an irresponsible child! Janey tossed her head. What did she care? Something hot seared her and she accepted it as hate.

Once round the huge buttress of wall, out of Randolph’s sight, she forgot him. Here was an amphitheater that dwarfed the Coliseum at Rome, and it was set against a background of magnificent forbidding walls. How silent! Janey felt that she was alone in a sepulcher. Her steps led her high, so high she marveled and thrilled, and trembled sometimes at the gigantic fissures and the leaning cliffs.

Suddenly she spotted what appeared to be little steps cut in the rock. She was astounded, could not believe her eyes. But there they were, one after another, worn, scarcely distinguishable in the smooth stone. They had been cut by hand. Intensely absorbed, Janey mounted them, forgetting the fear of high places and crumbling walls.

Presently she lost the little steps. She halted, breathless and flushed. Evidently she had climbed far. Before her spread a level bench most wonderful in its location and isolation. To look back and down made her gasp. How would she ever descend?

Her quick eye grasped at once that this wide protected bench could be reached only by the slope up which she had climbed. Suddenly it dawned upon her that the predominating feature of this place was its inaccessibility. These little steps had been cut by cliff dwellers! Her heart beat faster than ever. She had discovered something. If Randolph had known of this place surely he would have told her.

Janey began to explore. In the smooth rock she found round polished holes where grain had been ground centuries before. She found the stone pestles lying as if a hand had laid them aside only yesterday. She found the edge of a wall buried in debris. Little red stones, neatly cut and cemented! High up she sighted a cliff dwelling pasted like a mud wasp’s nest against the shelf of rock. She had thought this amphitheater level, but it was not. It began to look as if a great space had been buried by avalanche or the weathering processes of ages. It would take days to explore it.

Janey stepped into a hole up to her knee. It appeared to her the ground had given way under her. Pulling her leg out she was overcome to discover that she had stepped through a roof over something. Carefully she brushed aside the dirt and dust. She found poles of wood, close together, and as rotten as punk.

“Ah — huh! That’s something,” she ejaculated.

The hole made by her foot stared at her like a black eye. It spoke. Janey began to thrill and shake. She dropped a little stone in it. No sound! She tried a large stone. She heard it strike far down. Then this was a kiva. Well? Then Janey’s mind bristled into action. “Beckyshibeta!” she whispered, in awe.

She sat down, suddenly overcome. She had discovered the ancient pueblo for which Randolph had been searching so diligently. It stunned her. How strange! What luck! There seemed a destiny in the willfulness that had led her to this place. It must be more than chance.

Then she remembered boasting to Randolph that she would find Beckyshibeta for him. She had done so. She had not a single doubt. And suddenly her joy equaled her amazement and transcended it. What a perfectly wonderful thing for Randolph. She was so happy she laughed and cried at once. It was not a delusion. Here opened the black mysterious eye of a kiva.

Janey was consumed with only one desire. To tell Randolph! She climbed, she ran. The little steps cut in the stone slope had no terror for her now. In bad places she sat down and slid, unmindful of her dress or skin. Yet how long it took to get down. Once on the bench below she could not go fast. It was too rough. And at that she got more than one knock from a rock. At last she got round the last corner of wall, out of breath, panting so that she had to rest a moment.

Randolph was there, digging, digging, digging. Presently he would have something to dig for. With her breast heaving, Janey watched him. The moment was somehow rich, sweet, beautiful, far reaching and inscrutable. Then she cupped her hands and called through them piercingly.

“Mr. — Randolph.”

He heard her, for he straightened up, looked, and then resumed work with his pick.

“Come! Come over!” called Janey. He looked again, but did not reply.

“Phillip. Come over!”

Here he quit his labors and leaned upon his pick, evidently nonplussed.

“Phil! Please come!” shrilled Janey.

“No. Not. Never. Nix!” he called, imitating her.

“Phil, I want you,” she went on. “Nothing doing.”

“If you come over — you — you — you’ll have the surprise of your life.”

“I don’t care for your kind of surprises, Miss Endicott,” he replied after a jarring pause.

“But you will, I tell you.”

“Not on your life!”

“Honest. Only come,” she called, now pleadingly.

No answer. Randolph stood like a statue. Janey could hardly contain herself any longer. He was making it so perfectly wonderful for her. What a climax! She must lead him to her discovery. In her excitement she was quite capable of going to unheard-of limits to accomplish her purpose. Beckyshibeta had changed the world for Janey. She had no time to stop to analyze the transformation.

“I’ll make you happy, Phil,” she trilled, persuadingly.

“You’ve got another guess coming, Miss Endicott,” he said.

What a stubborn creature a man could be anyway! And this one with his dream of ambition waiting for him! Janey had a wild notion that she might include herself in the finding of Beckyshibeta. Assuredly there was need of her discovering herself now.

“Phillip, dear. Come,” she called, despairingly.

“I told you not to go over there,” he answered. “Now you can get back by yourself.”

“I’m terribly scared, Phillip. I — I’ve sort of found out — something.”

“Fly over,” he replied, mockingly. “Is that nice — when I want you?” “Janey Endicott, every word you utter is a lie.”

“No. I’ve stopped lying. Come and see.”

“I tell you I’m as unmovable as these rocks,” he shouted, in a tone that signified considerable strain.

He just imagined he was, thought Janey, but still he might carry his stubbornness to a point of spoiling her little plan. Nevertheless, if she could not move him now, she would have the pleasure of keeping it secret longer.

“Phil, dearest,” she called.

“You go to the devil!” he yelled, using her very words, but his tone was vastly different.

“My darling!” cried Janey, at the end of her rope. If that did not fetch him!

Randolph desperately jumped into the hole he had been digging. She could see his pick move up and down, with speed that implied tremendous effort. Janey realized that her plan was useless for the time being, so she decided she had better husband her resources and attack him later. What she could not accomplish at such long range would be easy enough by close contact.

Whereupon she stepped out on the narrow strip. As she did so her eye, for the first time, caught the perilous depth and the jagged rocks far beneath. Janey stepped back with a sudden cold sensation. Life might have grown singularly full all at once, but death was still only a step away. But she was not one to lose her head during excitement. She crossed this dangerous bridge with coolness and courage, taking no chances, and unmindful of her sore knees. She made it successfully.

Randolph’s back was turned. She approached and hiding behind a large rock, peeped out at him. For what seemed long moments he did not look. But at last he straightened up and gazed around evidently to see where she had gone. Janey took good care to keep hidden. She was tingling all over. He concluded that she had passed him and gone on out of sight. Then he sat down on the edge of the hole, removed his sombrero and wiped his face. He sat there idle, lost in thought. How sad his expression! His trouble in this unguarded moment was there to read. Janey conquered her impulse to rush out and tell him there were at least a couple of reasons why he should be tickled to death. But the moment gave her a glimpse into his heart. And it stirred Janey so deeply, so strangely, that she wished to escape being seen by Randolph. At length, wearily and without hope, he looked again in the direction he supposed Janey had taken, and then resumed his work. Janey slipped away noiselessly and rounded the corner of wall without being seen.

Soon she yielded to a desire to sit down and think about herself. What had happened? She went over it all. Where had vanished the delight, the inexplicable joy she had anticipated? Randolph’s sad face had checked her, changed the direction of her thoughts. She felt so sorry for him that she wanted to weep. Resuming her journey back to camp she went on a little way, then stopped again. Something was wrong. Her breast seemed oppressed, her heart too full. She felt it pound. Surely she had not exerted herself enough for that. No — the commotion was emotional. She had sustained an unaccountable transition. She was no longer the old Janey Endicott. A last time she sat down to fight it out — to face her soul. After all how easy! Only to be honest! For the first time in her life, she was honestly, deeply, truly in love. No need of wild wonderings, of whirling repudiations! She had fallen in love with this adventure, with the glorious desert, with the lonely soul- transforming canyons, and with Phillip Randolph.

The instant the solution flashed out of her brooding mind she knew it was the truth. It seemed annihilation of self-catastrophe, yet it held a paralyzing sweetness. Janey received the blow of her consciousness, like a soldier, full in the face, while she was gazing down the canyon, now magnifying its gold and purple, its wonderful speaking cliffs.

Then she heard the thud of hoofs. A horse! Startled, she turned the corner of the wall that separated her from camp. Her alarm vanished in amazement at sight of a dudish young man dismounting from a pinto mustang as flashy as its rider. He wore a ten-gallon sombrero that appeared to make him top heavy; white moleskin riding trousers, tight at the knees, high shiny boots and enormous spurs that tripped him as he walked. Janey then recognized this young man, Bert Durland, the darling of many week-end parties, a slick, dark, dapper youth just out of college. Also she heard more thuds of hoofs and voices coming. Cursing to herself, Janey slipped in behind a section of rock that had split from the cliff, and ran along it to the far end, where she crouched down to peep through a crack.

CHAPTER 9

JANEY WAS AMAZED, curious, resentful at this rude disruption of her rapture. Bert was a nice kid, but to meet him here! Where she was alone with Randolph!

Two riders appeared above the bulge of the bench, off to the left. One was an Indian, leading a pack horse. Presently Janey made out the second rider to be a woman. Mrs. Durland! No human creature could have looked more out of place, or uncomfortable, or ridiculous. Mrs. Durland’s marked characteristic had been dressing and playing a part to improve the family fortunes. Here, if Janey had not been suddenly furious, she could have shrieked. They approached camp. The Indian dismounted and began to slip the pack. Bert went to his mother’s assistance. Manifestly it was no joke to get her off a horse. She was heavy, and looked as if her bones had stiffened.

“0 mercy! My muscles — my flesh!” she wailed.

“Cheer up, Mother. We’re here at last,” replied Bert, with satisfaction.

“This is the place then?” she asked, peering round in disgust.

“Beckyshibeta.”

“It looks like it sounds. I don’t see much of a camp. Mr. Endicott said his daughter was here with some friends.”

“Perhaps this is the guides’ camp. We’ll look around and find them. My word! It’ll be good to see Janey!”

“Bert, our Indian is riding away!” exclaimed Mrs. Durland, in alarm.

“I understood he was going to see his family.”

“Suppose he doesn’t come back? Suppose we don’t find Miss Endicott and party! Here we are in a godforsaken hole a hundred and ninety miles from a railroad. Nothing but a lot of wild Indians around. We may get scalped.”

“You needn’t worry, Mother,” returned Bert. “You’d never get scalped. You can take off your hair and hand it over. I’m the one to worry.”

“Bert Durland! How dare you talk that way? You ought at least be respectful after my being good enough to let you drag me out here.”

“Pardon, Mother,” said the youth, contritely. “I’m sore. This beastly trip through all that horrible desert! And no sign of comfort here. It’s most annoying.”

“Whose fault is it?” queried Mrs. Durland, as she carefully looked round a rock to see if there were snakes or bugs present. Then very wearily she sat down.

“Yours,” returned young Durland, looking at his drooping horse. “I suppose I’ll have to remove that awful saddle.”

“My fault? You miserable boy!” exclaimed his mother, highly indignant. “You know I’m doing it all for you. Chasing this worthless girl! I’ve suffered agonies on this ride. And that horrid place where we tried to sleep last night! Will I ever forget it? And this awful sunburn!”

“Janey isn’t quite worthless, Mother dear,” rejoined Bert, complacently. “Her dad has several millions. And Janey is pretty well fixed. You know that’s why you’re here.”

“There’s gratitude for you,” declared Mrs. Durland, witheringly. “Here I am trying to make it easy for you. You who’ve gone through most of your father’s money. Now you make it appear I’m doing this for myself.”

“All right! All right!” said Bert, impatiently. “But don’t blame me for bringing you on this particular wild-goose chase. I didn’t like the idea, believe me. I told you in New York that Endicott was taking Janey to a tourist hotel. That’s what I believed then.”

“Didn’t you say Janey told you her father was taking her into one of the loneliest places in the world?”

“I sure did. Mother, Arizona looks to me to be about half of the United States. And it’s lonely all right, all right. Imagine fine-combing this desert all to hunt up a girl! That fellow who charged a hundred dollars for a car ride that scrambled my insides! I’d like to get hold of him. Mother, I’ve an idea Endicott and that trader Bennet were laughing at us up their sleeves.”

“Humph! That dirty-looking trader laughed in my face,” asserted Mrs. Durland. “And as for the wasting of a whole hundred dollars that’s your fault, too. You never knew how to bargain. You just threw money away. It drives me mad. You have no backbone, no stamina. Otherwise you’d have eloped with Janey before her father ran off with her to this terrible place of rocks.”

“Eloped! My dear Mother, you don’t know Janey Endicott,” returned her son, significantly.

“Perhaps we’d better not talk so loud or mention names,” remarked Mrs. Durland, apprehensively.

“Didn’t you try to tell that Indian guide and the car driver our family history?... Hello! Here comes a white man! Tough-looking customer!”

“Oh, dear, I hope he isn’t a desperado,” replied Mrs. Durland, in alarm.

This last from mother to son tickled Janey so keenly that she was hard put to it to keep from side-splitting laughter. She peeped round the edge of her covert. Yes, Phil was coming. He had spied the visitors, and he was peering everywhere for Janey.

“How do you do,” greeted Randolph, as he came up. “Your Indian told me of your arrival.”

“Very nice of him to find someone,” returned Mrs. Durland, gratefully.

“Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?”

“Mrs. Percival Smith Durland, of New York, and her son Bertrand. Of course you’ve heard of us.”

“I regret to say I never have.”

Janey giggled inwardly at this slight, because she had more than once told Phil about the Durlands.

“Indeed. I see. You’ve never been away from this raw crude Arizona,” replied Mrs. Durland, apologizing for his ignorance. “Do many tourists come here to this Becky — something or other?”

“Very few. We don’t encourage them.”

“There, Mother. I told you so,” broke in Bert, who had been staring hard at Randolph. “Is there any resort for tourists near?” asked Mrs. Durland.

“Bennet’s trading post is the nearest habitation of white folks. But you’d hardly call it a resort.”

“I should say not. We stopped there to get ready for this trip... May I ask your name?”

“Phillip Randolph, at your service, Madam.”

“Randolph? Surely that’s the name we heard. You’re an archaeologist, I understand.”

“Yes, Madam,” returned Randolph, shortly. “Work for the government, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the Mr. Randolph. Well, I’m sorry for you. There’s a Mr. Elliot at the post now. He came the day we arrived. He’s from Washington, D.C. I heard Mr. Bennet say he was furious that you had gone to this Becky — place before the time scheduled, and it would likely cost you your job.”

“Mr. Elliot at the post! Well, that is a surprise,” returned Randolph, quite perturbed.

“I daresay. It’s too bad. I’m sorry for you. But you might find decent work somewhere. You look stronger than those bowlegged cowboys.”

“Thank you. Yes, I think I am rather strong. You spoke of cowboys. Were they — did you see any round the post?”

“Cowboys! I rather think so. They nearly rode us down. Stopped our car to keep us from being killed by stampeding cattle. One of them was tow-headed, and pretty fresh, to say the least.”

“Cattle stampede! Oh, Lord!” muttered Randolph, in distress.

“What did you say?” asked Mrs. Durland. “I — I was just talking to myself,” replied Randolph, hastily.

“We are looking for Miss Janey Endicott and her party,” interrupted Bert, with importance. “I’ll give you ten dollars to guide us to her camp.”

“There you go, Bert Durland, flinging money to the four winds,” declared his mother.

“Miss Janey Endicott and party!” echoed Randolph.

“That’s what I said,” returned the young man, testily. “Mr. Endicott informed me. I’m a very dear friend of Janey’s — in fact of the family.”

“Did Endicott say how many were in the party?” inquired Randolph.

“No. I gathered there were several. People from the post. Where are they camped?”

“Not here. I have not seen any — party. Do you mean you’ve ridden all the way out here to see Miss Endicott?”

“Certainly. Do you know her?” replied Bert, suspiciously.

“I think I’ve seen the young woman,” said Randolph, dryly.

“You haven’t. Any man who ever saw Janey Endicott wouldn’t think he’d seen her. He’d never forget her.”

“Oh, excuse me, perhaps I’m wrong. The person I saw was about twenty, and acted fifteen, and dressed as if she were ten. Very coy and vivacious, and wild, I may say. She was not bad looking.”

“Miss Endicott is strikingly beautiful, one of the loveliest girls in New York,” returned young Durland, grandly.

The expression on Phil’s face made Janey want to shout with glee.

Mrs. Durland had been looking at the bits of broken pottery and stone utensils which lay carefully arranged on a flat rock.

“Is this the kind of bric-à-brac you dig for?” she inquired. “You appear to be careless with it.”

“It’s broken when we find it, Madam. I could not be careless with such priceless relics.”

“Priceless? That lot of junk!” interposed Bert, in amazement.

“We would like to see a little of your — your place here,” said Mrs. Durland, graciously. “Then I will engage you to find Miss Endicott’s camp for us.”

“Beckyshibeta is very dangerous,” returned Randolph. “You have to climb over rough rocks.”

“Excuse me from climbing. But we’ll take a look. Come, son.”

“I don’t care anything about Beckyshib — or Becky Sharp,” responded Bert. “I want to see Janey Endicott.”

“What! After our long journey out here to see this wonderful place?”

“You called it beastly before Professor Randolph dropped in,” replied Bert, scornfully.

“Oh, dear, this generation. No appreciation of art or love of the beautiful!”

“I’ll have a look up the canyon to see if Miss Endicott — and party — are camped near,” said Randolph, moving away with Mrs. Durland.

Bert unsaddled his horse. Janey, convinced that the Durlands would find her sooner or later, preferred to surprise Bert. So she took advantage of his occupation with horse and saddle to run back the way she had come. Then she boldly turned round the corner. Durland was sauntering here and there, inspecting the camp, plainly nonplussed. Presently he heard Janey’s step and wheeled.

“Oh!” cried Janey, starting back.

“Janey!” he burst out, rapturously. “What luck! By heaven, I’m glad to see you!”

“Young man, you frightened me,” returned Janey. “What are you doing here?”

Suddenly his gaze took in her apparel and his eyes popped. Janey had not realized until that moment what a scarecrow she must look like.

“Janey Endicott! Good Lord! What a getup you’ve got on! You look like a ballet dancer. Mother will have a fit!... Why, you look...”

“See here, boy, you’re pretty impudent.”

“Why all the bluff, Janey?” he asked with a laugh. “It’s great to see you again, even if you are a sight to make Park Avenue weep.”

He approached her with outstretched arms and unmistakable intention.

“Don’t you dare. I’ll yell for my husband,” cried Janey.

“Husband? Now look here. This sounds serious.”

“I said my husband.”

“Janey Endicott with a husband! Impossible!”

“I’m Mrs. Phillip Randolph, wife of the archaeologist in charge of the excavation here!”

“Wife? Phillip Randolph?... Good God! But you’re Janey Endicott. Your father said you were here.”

“You’re crazy. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“No, I’m not crazy, but you are.”

Janey pointed imperiously down the canyon. “Take your horse and get out of here.”

“Janey Endicott, you can’t stall me like that,” he replied, hotly. “I’ve come clear across the country to rescue you from your father. This is how I find you! It has a damn queer look!”

His eyes held a sharp suspecting glint of anger and jealous doubt.

“Poor boy!” said Janey, solicitously. “You must have gotten away from your keeper. There! There! Run along and find him.”

Bert pointed to Janey’s left hand. “If you’re Mrs. Randolph, where’s your wedding ring?”

“In the years I’ve lived here with my husband, I never saw the like of you,” declared Janey. “Either you’re an escaped lunatic or a college freshman — trying to impersonate Hopalong Cassidy. I’m going to call my husband.”

“Go ahead. It’ll be great when Mother sees you. Janey, it’s your wheels that are twisted, not mine.” Then he seemed to become genuinely concerned. “You know, Janey, you do look strained and queer. My God! You might have lost your memory!”

Janey backed away trying to elude him, but he moved to stand in front of her.

“No, you won’t escape that way. I’m going to make you remember.”

“Let me by!” cried Janey, wildly. She was really possessed with an infernal glee. What would Phil say to this? “Get out, or I’ll have my Phil take care of you.”

“Janey, dear, you’re strange. Your eyes. Try to concentrate. I’m Bert. Bert Durland. Something terrible has been done to you or you’d remember me and how I love you. Why I couldn’t hurt a hair of your lovely head.”

Janey kept maneuvering for a loophole to dodge through.

“If you touch me I’ll scream!”

Bert made a lunge and captured her, and before Janey could thwart his intention he had grasped her hand and looked at her ring. “There! You are Janey Endicott. I know that diamond as well as if it were my own. It was a present from your father.”

“Stop mauling me,” cried Janey, breaking free from him. “I don’t know you. I never saw you in my life!”

“You do it well, Janey, if you’re not truly mad. I’m afraid there’s something behind all this, young lady, and I’m going to find out.”

Indeed there was, Janey thought; and never in her wildest flights of imagination could she have planned anything so good. She almost wanted to hug Bert for happening along at this opportune hour. Then voices drew Bert’s attention and he hurried to meet Randolph, of whom Janey caught a glimpse among the cedars. She ran up the rock slope to hide in a niche where she could not be easily discovered. When she got herself satisfactorily crouched she peeped out with eyes that fairly danced. This was better than any comedy she had ever seen. Bert and Randolph were approaching. Randolph had a baffled look. His sweeping gaze about camp explained to Janey one of the reasons he was so concerned. She wondered what had become of Mrs. Durland.

Bert viewed the desert camp in dismay. “I’ll be damned!” he ejaculated.

“Will you please produce the young lady?” demanded Randolph, stiffly.

“She’s gone.”

“My dear young fellow, she was never here.”

“I tell you she was,” retorted Durland, angrily. “Janey,” he yelled. “You come back here. This has gone far enough.”

“I agree with you,” said Randolph.

“She was here. I talked with her, though she denied she was Janey. She looked awful. Her clothes were soiled and torn — dress up to her neck. Most disgraceful! And either her reason’s gone or she’s a clever actress.”

At this point Mrs. Durland appeared, red and puffing.

“Bert — this Mr. Randolph — talks strange,” she panted. “He left me a few minutes ago most unceremoniously. There’s no other camp. Janey isn’t here.”

“Yes she is, Mother. Or she was a moment ago,” asserted Bert, positively. “But now she’s gone.”

“Gone! Where?”

“I haven’t an idea. She just vanished.”

“Why don’t you find her? You’ve chased her long and far — why not a little more? My son, you act queer.”

“There you are,” interposed Randolph, with exaggerated conviction. “Why don’t you chase this hallucination of yours? I’m sorry indeed to see a fine young fellow like you, laboring under mental aberration.”

“What?” snapped Bert.

Randolph turned to Mrs. Durland: “Have you ever had your son under observation or — er — examined, you know?”

“You — you — commoner! How dare you!” burst out Mrs. Durland.

“Really, I don’t mean offense. If he was all right then it’s the long ride, the heat, the loneliness of the desert. These things act powerfully upon some persons, especially any who are not strong mentally and physically.”

Bert strode forward to confront Randolph with dark and angry mien.

“See here, Sir,” he said, “cut that stuff. You’re trying to string me. But you can’t do it. I tell you there was a girl here not ten minutes ago. If she wasn’t Janey Endicott then I am out of my head. But it was Janey, and it’s she who is crazy. She doesn’t know who she is. She forgot she’s engaged to marry me.”

“Engaged to you!” ejaculated Randolph, taken aback.

“Yes, to me. Ask Mother.”

Randolph turned bewildered with a voiceless query.

“There was an understanding between my son and Miss Endicott,” replied Mrs. Durland. “No formal announcement, but all their friends knew.”

Randolph seemed stunned.

“Look here, Randolph,” spoke up Bert, suddenly. “Are you a married man?”

“Certainly not,” replied Randolph, surprised into the truth.

“So! That’s it!” shouted Bert, triumphantly. “I’ve a hunch you’re a damned villain. Wait until I find that girl!” He rushed to and fro, and finally disappeared round the corner.

“Mrs. Durland, don’t you think I had better stop him?” queried Randolph, in real concern. “This canyon is a big place. He could get lost or fall off a cliff. He’s so slim he could almost slip down into a gopher hole.”

“I don’t care what happens,” complained Mrs. Durland. “I’m overcome at this shocking turn of affairs. I’m beginning to think Janey Endicott was here. The fools men make of themselves over that girl!... I wish I’d never come to your miserable old ruin. I’ll crumble myself before I get away.”

“Courage, Madam. All is not lost!”

“Stop calling me Madam,” replied the woman, testily. “My name is Mrs. Durland.”

“Pardon... Shall I endeavor to locate your son before he...”

Bert hove in sight at that moment high up on the shelving rock. Janey had caught sight of him before the others, and she tried to melt into the niche. But she was a little too substantial. Part of her protruded and young Durland saw it.

“Aha!” he shouted, leaping down the slope. Janey wanted at least to show her face, because she was fighting a wild laugh, but as soon as Bert laid rough hands on her, she blazed with wrath.

“Here you are. Come out of it,” he said, exultantly. “Hey, you down there. I’ve found her.”

“Let go of me, you — you...” cried Janey.

“You shameless thing! No wonder you can’t face me... Out you come!”

“Let go! — Philip!” shrieked Janey, as Bert dragged her out. She wrenched free to glare at him.

“Durland, I’ll knock your head off,” called Randolph, loudly.

“So he is your party?” sneered Bert, in jealous contempt. “I’m on to you, Janey Endicott. This beats any stunt you ever pulled back East. Came out West for a real kick, eh? Well! Won’t it sound sweet back home?”

“Yes, and you’ll be just about the kind to blab about it,” retorted Janey.

“Come on down here. You’ve got to face them,” he said, snatching at her.

Durland did not release her even when they reached a level. In fact, he dragged her in a most undignified, if not actually brutal way, toward his mother.

“Phil!” cried Janey, in pain and mortification.

Randolph intercepted Durland and gave him a resounding slap that was certainly equivalent to a blow. Durland went down in a heap. His grand sombrero rolled in the dust.

“You blackguard!” screamed Mrs. Durland. “To strike my son! You’ll suffer for this.”

Bert got tangled up in his long spurs and with difficulty restored his equilibrium.

“Say, you young jackass,” declared Randolph, coolly. “If you touch this young lady again, I’ll take a real poke at you.”

“Don’t hit him, Phil,” interposed Janey, trying to recover her humor. “I don’t want his death on our hands.”

Then ensued an awkward silence. Bert went from white to red. He brushed the dust from his immaculate riding breeches, and picked up the huge velvet sombrero. Meanwhile Mrs. Durland was staring in wide-eyed recognition at Janey.

“Well, Mother, do you know the young lady? Was I right or wrong?”

“Right, Bertrand,” snapped Mrs. Durland. Whereupon Bert turned to the others. “Janey, I’ve got the goods on you,” he said. “You needn’t take the trouble to keep up the farce any longer. What I can’t understand is that your father should tell us you were here.”

“I can’t understand that, either,” replied Janey, soberly.

“He must have guessed it and hoped I’d rescue you,” went on Bert. “Or else he saw you gone beyond redemption.”

“That probably is it, Bert,” said Janey, with sweet meekness.

Randolph appeared the most uncomfortable of the four, although Mrs. Durland was getting ready to explode.

“Anyway, it’s too late,” concluded Durland, with bitterness.

“Randolph, you told me you were not married. ‘Certainly not,’ you said.”

“Yes, I — did,” returned Randolph, haltingly, as if his mind was not working.

“There! Janey, you swore you were Mrs. Phillip Randolph, didn’t you?” went on the accuser, bolder as he recognized he had the whip hand.

“Yes, I — did,” returned Janey, bending terrible eyes upon Phillip.

“Miss Endicott!” burst out Mrs. Durland, in accents of horror. “You’re here with this man alone?”

“Yes, but not willingly, Mrs. Durland,” answered Janey, with profound sorrow. “He kidnaped me.”

“Kidnaped you? Good heavens! Then he isn’t what he pretends to be?”

“Indeed he isn’t.”

“Desperado — Wild West villain sort of man?” she whispered, huskily.

“Worse than that.”

Durland had turned pale at this revelation. His distended eyes, fast upon Randolph, denoted both fear and anger.

“Your name isn’t Randolph?” he queried, apprehensively.

“Looks as if my name is mud,” returned Randolph, coming out of his stupefaction.

“Bert, the truth is he is Black Dick, a notorious character hereabouts,” explained Janey.

“Black Dick! I — heard about him from the driver,” rejoined Durland, apprehensively. “But, Janey, why did you try to deceive me about yourself? Why didn’t you tell me in the first place who this man was?”

“It was the shame — the ignominy of it all, Bert,” she said, enjoying Randolph’s discomfort. “I knew he’d drive you off and I thought I could get away with that story. I’d rather have died out here than have — anyone know.”

“And he actually kidnaped you?”

“Well, I just guess he did. Ambushed me when I was in camp with friends on the way here. He caught me alone. Seems he followed all the way from the post where he’d been watching me for days. He grabbed me. I fought with all my might. But he was too much for me. Tied me on a horse. Oh, it was awful! Look at these black-and-blue marks. These are nothing to others I have that I — I can’t very well show you. I had to ride a whole day and night in the most terrible storm. When we got here I was more dead than alive.”

“By heaven, it’s like a book!” ejaculated Durland. “Kidnaped you for ransom? Heard about your dad’s wealth, of course?”

“No, Bert, it isn’t money he’s after,” declared Janey. “I imagined that at first. And I offered to give him everything from ten to a hundred thousand dollars. But the brute would only laugh and kiss me again. Swears the minute he saw me at the post he went mad over me.”

Bert’s consternation and fright were strong, but he laughed — hysterically — nonetheless. He rocked to and fro.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! It was coming to you — Janey Endicott! Drove him mad? Ha! Ha! He’s only one of many. Prefers making love to you to a hundred thousand bucks!... By golly, you’ve finally got the kick you were always longing for!”

“Bert, I deserve all I’m getting,” rejoined Janey, sadly resigned.

“Why didn’t your father get word of this? What is the matter with your friends?”

“I think they must have been captured by Black Dick’s outfit and are being held.”

“My God! And — and where is Randolph, the archaeologist? They said he was here.”

Janey managed a convincing moan. “There was a Mr. Randolph, a wonderful man, but now he’s — he’s gone, and there’s nobody but this vicious desperado left.”

Bert turned white. “You mean

“Hush!” Janey almost screamed. “Don’t remind me!”

All this time Randolph had been standing near gazing at them and absorbing the fantastic dialogue. He had assumed a most ferocious aspect; and Janey, after a second glance, thought it was genuine. Then, the Indian guide who had brought the Durlands, appeared riding through the cedars. Randolph strode to intercept him and spoke some Indian words in very loud and authoritative tones. The rider wheeled his horse and disappeared the way he had come.

“Look!” whispered Janey. “I told you. He’s driven off your guide.”

“Janey, I’ll beat it and fetch a horse back to save you,” whispered Bert, breathless with the excitement of the idea, and he made for his horse.

“Bertrand! Don’t leave me!” screamed Mrs. Durland, who had been listening, pale and mute up to this minute.

Randolph also spotted Durland, and vigorously called him to come back. But Bert only went the faster. Whereupon Randolph pulled his gun and fired in the air. Bang! Bang!

“Come hyar,” roared Randolph, “or I’ll make a sieve out of you!”

Mrs. Durland gave a loud squawk and promptly fainted. Bert ran back, very wobbly and livid.

“D-don’t kill me — Mr. Dick,” he implored. Plain it was the two shots had brought him realization.

“All right then, but no monkey business,” growled Randolph, flipping up the gun and returning it to his belt. “You better look after your mother. I reckon being strong-headed doesn’t run in the family.”

Whereupon Randolph strode toward Janey. She saw him coming and went in the opposite direction. Randolph caught up with her at the corner of the wall.

“Something of a mess, isn’t it?” he said, quietly, as he detained her.

Janey sat down upon a flat rock and fastened solemn eyes upon him. There did not seem to be need of further pretense, for she was really distressed, yet she not only welcomed the facts of the case but also meant to keep on accentuating them.

“Phillip, you have ruined me,” she said, tragically.

“Oh, Janey, it can’t be as bad as all that,” he protested.

“Why didn’t you acknowledge me as your wife?” she asked.

“My God! I guess I just didn’t think about it. Durland asked me if I was married. And I said, ‘Certainly not.’ He suspected, of course, and I was fool enough to fall into his trap.”

“Bert knows many of my friends. He will talk.”

“But he said you were engaged to marry him!” ejaculated Randolph.

“Nonsense! I never was. How could you believe it?”

“I’m afraid I could believe almost anything of you,” he returned, in bitter doubt.

“That has been evident all along,” she replied, aloof and cold. “But it does not mitigate your offense... It might be possible to keep Bert from talking. But not Mrs. Durland. She’s an old gossip. This little escapade of ours will kill her ambition to see me Bert’s wife. She will get it through her thick head that it always was impossible. And she’ll take her vindictiveness out on me. She’ll ruin my reputation.”

“How can she?” asked Randolph, miserably. “I thought modern girls didn’t have reputations to lose.”

“That’s an hallucination of yours and my father’s. Granted a certain freedom and license of modern life, it’s true all the same that there are still limits. In her eyes, we’ve transgressed the most vital one.”

“Not you, Janey. I’m the one to blame.”

“That’ll do me a lot of good, I don’t think,” rejoined Janey, dismally.

“But maybe we can carry out this idea of me being Black Dick. He’s well known on the reservation. Travels round with a half-breed Piute. They’ve been known to hold up tourists. Perhaps I can carry the bluff through.”

“You can try, surely. But in my opinion it’s a forlorn hope. Besides the cowboys will trail us. You heard what Mrs. Durland said. The cowboys evidently changed their plans.”

“Your father — er — or something may put them off the track,” said Randolph, lamely.

“Father! Why, he’ll send the cowboys after me,” exclaimed Janey. “I declare I don’t know where your wits are.”

“If I ever had any they vanished when you appeared on my horizon. So did my peace! And now, I may add, my character, too, is gone.”

“Nonsense! What is disgrace nowadays to a man?” retorted Janey, with supreme contempt. “You ran off with a girl!... It’ll never hurt you. It’d make you more attractive — after I divorce you!”

“Divorce me?” echoed Randolph, feebly.

“Certainly. You’ll have to marry me, at least, to make this stunt of yours halfway decent. Then I’ll get a divorce.”

“But if the Black Dick bluff should go over?” he asked, hopefully.

“Fine for the Durlands,” replied Janey. “But I was thinking of the cowboys and the Bennets after the Durlands go. We can’t fool those sharp-eyed Westerners. However, they may hang you. And I suppose that would save my reputation, if not the notoriety.”

“Hang me! I wish to God they’d come and do it,” returned Randolph. “I’m surely at the end of a rope right now.”

“No such luck!” sighed Janey. “You may come out of it scot-free. The woman pays.”

“I — I’m most desperately sorry,” said Randolph, wringing his hands. “I’d like to have — somebody — here to choke... But it can’t be so bad. We’ll fool or muzzle these Durlands. As for the Westerners — well, they’re not so free at gossip and Arizona is a long way from New York. You will—”

“Phillip, don’t fool yourself,” interposed Janey. “You’ve ruined me irretrievably.”

Janey wished to drive this point home. She appeared to be having fair success, for he swore under his breath, and sitting down he covered his face with his hands.

“You’re a fine brave kidnaper and desperado,” said Janey. “Don’t let the Durlands see you look like that.”

He took no heed of her banter. “I’ve ruined you — and — and what am I?... When Elliot’s word reaches headquarters I’ll be done for.”

“Well, suppose you are fired. You can go on your own. Wouldn’t it be better for you to discover Beckyshibeta now than when you were employed by the government?”

“You talk like a child,” he replied, wearily.

“Why?” inquired Janey, in lofty surprise. “I think I’m pretty gracious, considering.”

“What do I care about Beckyshibeta?” he burst out, with sullen passion. “When you step out of my life there will be nothing left.”

“That is sad — if true,” she returned, with proper pity and constraint. “But you have only yourself to blame.”

“Bah!”

“I respected you once — liked you,” went on Janey, in merciless sweetness. “Now you have made me — hate you.”

“I could expect nothing else,” he said, lifting his head with dignity. “I am not asking your pity — or even your forgiveness.”

“Oh, as to that, of course I could never forgive. One thing you’ve done, an angel herself could not forgive — though I don’t quite fit into that category.”

“Not quite,” he responded, dryly, and stood up, hard and stern. “But what’s to be done? We’re up against these confounded friends of yours.”

“It’ll be best to keep them here,” replied Janey. “Until something turns up. Carry on the Black Dick bluff. Let’s see what an actor you can be.”

“I’m no actor. I couldn’t deceive a child.”

“You deceived me,” protested Janey. “I imagined you gentle, kind — the very opposite to what you are. Be natural now. Be a brute to me, like you were. I’ll play up to it. And make these Durlands pay for butting in on our — what shall I call it? — our canyon paradise... Be a monster to Mrs. Durland, and scare the everlasting daylights out of that fortune-hunting young Romeo.”

“That last will be easy,” replied Randolph, grimly.

CHAPTER 10

RANDOLPH’S PREOCCUPATION WITH himself interfered with his acting a part. But that very grim aloofness made him the more convincing and mysterious to the Easterners.

Durland was a picture of astonishment when he saw Janey staggering into camp under a load of firewood.

“Don’t you do it, Janey,” he begged. “I’ll get the wood.” And leaving his mother, who importuned him to stay, he started off with Janey.

“Hyar, girl, don’t go traipsing out of my sight with that jackass,” growled Randolph, in so natural a tone that Janey knew he was not masquerading.

Then while Bert went off alone, Janey approached Mrs. Durland.

“I’ve money and jewelry on my person,” stated that lady, nervously. “Isn’t that ruffian liable to steal them?”

“Sure. He’ll search you presently,” affirmed Janey.

“Search me!” gasped Mrs. Durland.

“I should smile,” replied Janey, cheerfully. “Has he searched you?”

“Not yet. But anyone could see I couldn’t hide anything. I’ve so little on.”

“If he does I’ll — I’ll expire in my tracks,” declared Mrs. Durland, and she looked it.

Randolph yelled for Janey to come back to the fire.

“Does he mean me, too?” asked Mrs. Durland.

“You’ll know when he means you. And for heaven’s sake, obey him quick. He’s an awful brute. Nothing for him to give you a good sound kick!”

“The unspeakable monster! Of all acts — to kick a lady. He should be flayed alive... He beats, too?”

“Oh, often. I’ve learned to mind him promptly, and to keep my eye on him when he isn’t occupied.”

“What a horrible situation!” exclaimed Mrs. Durland. “I see him eying me now.”

“Girl, come hyar,” yelled Phil, loudly.

Janey hurried back to Randolph, who continued still in a loud voice: “What’re you plotting with that old dame?”

“I was only sympathizing with her,” replied Janey.

Bert appeared, carefully carrying a few sticks of firewood, to avoid soiling his moleskin riding breeches. Randolph noted this and glared.

“Huh! ‘Fraid of dirtying your pants,” he snorted, and he snatched up a blackened frying pan and wiped it brusquely on Bert’s breeches.

That, for present, however, appeared to be the limit of Randolph’s duplicity. He forgot again and lapsed into silence. Janey helped him get supper. She found it no easy matter to look dejected and frightened when she felt actually the opposite. She certainly could stand this situation for a while. It would only grow more absorbingly amusing and thrilling as time wore on. The Durlands were completely taken in. They were scared out of their wits. Janey realized that for the time being her reputation had been saved. But what if the cowboys came! Or anybody who really knew Randolph! Janey groaned at the very idea. She was somewhat dubious about the reaction of the cowboys, especially Ray, to this kidnaping stunt of Randolph’s. But so long as they did not resort to violence she imagined their advent would heighten the interest. Cowboys, however, were an unknown quantity to her. It was quite possible that even she could not stop them in dealing what they might believe was summary justice to an offender of desert creed.

“Come and get it,” called Randolph, most inhospitably.

“Get — what?” asked Mrs. Durland, startled. The suggestion in those words and tone did not strike her happily.

“Grub — you tenderfeet!”

Randolph’s mood had not hindered his capacity as a good cook, a fact to which the Durlands, once set down to the meal, amply attested. For Janey, aside from satisfying honest hunger, the meal was otherwise a considerable success. Conversation was lacking until toward the end of supper Randolph told Mrs. Durland she would probably starve to death and have her bones picked by coyotes.

“I opened your pack,” he added, by way of explanation. “You must have been going on a day’s picnic.”

“That Indian ate most of ours,” ventured Bert.

“We can always get sheep,” said Randolph to himself.

After supper he ordered the Durlands to make their beds at the foot of the rock slope. Bert asked and obtained permission to cut some cedar brush to lay under their blankets. Randolph gathered firewood, while Janey rested aside, dreaming and watching. When the shadows of the canyon twilight stole down, accentuating the loneliness, Randolph stalked away.

“What a strange — desperado!” exclaimed Mrs. Durland. “I think he must have been someone very different once. That fellow has breeding. A woman can always tell.”

“Black Dick is the most gentlemanly outlaw in these parts,” replied Janey. “Despite his habit of killing people,” she added hastily.

“Janey, I apologize for all the nasty remarks I made,” said Bert. “If we get out of this alive — why, everything can be as it was before.”

“Ah-huh,” returned Janey, dreamily. Nothing could ever be the same again. The future and the world had been transfigured prodigiously. But she wanted the present to last, even if she were compelled to stand for more love-making from Bert Durland. The young man, however, was still a little too perturbed over Black Dick to grow sentimental.

“Where does he sleep?” asked Mrs. Durland, anxiously.

“Black Dick? Oh, when he sleeps at all it’s right by the fire. But he’s an an owl.”

“Where’s your bed?” asked Bert.

“Mine is high up on this ledge behind,” replied Janey.

“Couldn’t you let Bert fetch it down by ours?” inquired the mother.

“Black Dick might not like that.”

A bright campfire dispelled the gloom under the cliff if not that in the minds of the captives. Janey, at last, stole away to be alone. Her heart was full — full of what she knew not. Yet some of it was mischief and a great overwhelming lot was a deep rich emotion that seemed strange and stingingly sweet. It threatened to take charge of her wholly; therefore, rebelliously, finding it real and true, not to be denied, she compromised by putting off resignation until later. Very difficult was it to crush down this feeling, to resist the most amazingly kindly feelings toward the Durlands, to scorn forgiving her poor old dad, who had erred only in his love for her, and to fight off generally an avalanche of softness.

What could be expected to happen? — that was the question. Randolph had settled down to a waiting game, and he would stick there if they all starved. After all, he had been tempted into this thing; there were excuses for him, though, of course, no excuse whatever for the atrocious punishment he had meted out to her. The mask of night hid Janey’s blush, but she felt its heat. Contemplation of that would not stay before her consciousness.

Indians might drop in upon them, or tourists, or sheepmen, or possibly roving riders of doubtful character. The possibility of any or all of these occurrences was remote, but anything could happen. The cowboys would surely come. Janey wanted that, yet she feared it. There was no hope of Randolph keeping up his deception for any considerable length of time. So Janey was in a quandary. She wanted the Durlands to have a good scare and leave Arizona under the impression they now entertained. She wanted dire and multiple punishments to fall upon Randolph’s head. If it pleased her to assuage them later, that was aside from the question. If he could be reduced to abject abasement, to want really to be hanged, as he said, to taste the very bitterest of repentance, then would be the time for her denouement. For although he had not the slightest inkling, even the remotest hope, of his two driving passions, Janey knew. Janey herself had done the discovering of Beckyshibeta and of the true state of her heart, but that did not make them any the less his. What a profound thought! Janey trembled with it. There was a bigness about these discoveries that began to divorce her from the old Janey Endicott. She would, she must, have her revenge; she fought this subtle changing, as it seemed, of her very nature. She still hated, but the trouble was she could not be sure what. Janey sighed. Oh, what a fall this would be! Janey Endicott, on a pedestal of modern thought, freedom, independence, equality — crash!

Nevertheless, despite everything, Janey sought her bed, happy. For a while she sat on the ledge and gazed down into the campfire lightened circle. Mrs. Durland and her son huddled there, keeping the blaze bright, whispering, gazing furtively out into the black shadows, obviously afraid to seek their beds. Presently Randolph strode out of the gloom. Janey tingled at sight of him. She marveled at herself — that any man could make her feel as she did.

“Madam, the hour grows late,” declared Randolph, harshly, to the cowering woman. “Must I put you to bed?”

Whereupon Mrs. Durland made hasty retreat to her bed, which was under the ledge out of Janey’s sight.

“Young fellar, you sit up and keep watch,” continued Randolph, as he unrolled his camp bed near the fire. “And remember, no shenanigans. I always sleep with one eye open.”

When Janey took a last look, Randolph appeared to be sleeping peacefully while Bert was nailed to the martyrdom of night watch.

The shadows flickered above Janey on the stone wall, played and danced and limned stories there. If she could have chosen she would rather have been here in this bed than anywhere else in the world. But all the strangeness and sweetness of the present at Beckyshibeta could not suffice to keep her awake.

Janey’s slumbers were disrupted by a loud voice. Randolph was calling his captives to breakfast. Janey sat up and made herself as presentable as possible. The face that smiled at her from the little mirror did not require make-up. It was acquiring a beautiful golden tan. Her eyes danced with delight.

She went down to breakfast. Randolph did not glance up, at least while she was close. Bert was heavy-eyed and somber, and Mrs. Durland was a wreck.

“Good heavens, you look like you’ve slept,” was Mrs. Durland’s reply to Janey’s greeting.

“I sure have,” returned Janey, and then ate her breakfast with a will.

“Lord preserve me from another such night,” prayed Mrs. Durland, fervently. “I lay on the rocks — turned from side to side. My body is full of holes, I know. Mosquitoes devoured me. Some kind of animals crawled over me. I nearly froze to death. And I never closed an eye.”

“That’s too bad,” replied Janey. “But you’ll get used to it after a while. Won’t she, Mr. Black Dick?”

“Wise men say a human being can get used to any kind of suffering, but I don’t believe it myself,” astonishingly replied the supposed outlaw, with somber accusing eyes piercing Janey in a quick look.

“Mr. Black Dick, you were a better man once?” ventured Mrs. Durland, almost with sympathy.

“Yes. Much better. I was ruined by a woman,” he replied, somberly.

This startling revelation enjoined silence for a while, which was broken by the sound of hoofs cracking the rocks.

“Indians coming down the canyon,” said Randolph, who had arisen.

“Oh, gracious! Are they hostile?” cried Mrs. Durland.

“Well, about half-friendly Navajos,” returned Randolph.

Three picturesque riders rode from the cedars into camp. One of them, particularly, caught Janey’s eye, as he dismounted in a sinuous action. He was tall with a ponderous head that made him appear top heavy. He wore brown moccasins, corduroy trousers, a leather belt with large silver buckle and shields, and a maroon-colored velveteen shirt. His huge sombrero with ornamented band hid his features, but Janey could discern that his face was red.

“Better eat while the eating is good,” warned Randolph.

Then he spoke to the Indians in Navajo. Their actions then signified that he had asked them to partake of the meal. Janey was glad she had about finished hers. The meat, the biscuits, the potatoes disappeared as if by magic. Mrs. Durland, who had filled her plate, but had scarcely tasted anything, appeared electrified to see her portion of breakfast disappear with the rest. To do the Indians justice, however, she was not holding the plate at the moment. She had set it on a rock by the campfire.

“Ugh!” grunted the big Indian after each bite. Randolph had made fair- sized biscuits, but one bite sufficed for each.

“That wretch appropriated all my breakfast,” declared Mrs. Durland, astounded and angry. Evidently she took it for granted that these Navajos could neither speak nor understand English.

“Of all the hogs!” ejaculated young Durland. “Mother, that Indian made away with nine biscuits. I counted them.”

“Mr. Dick said they were half friendly,” complained Mrs. Durland. “I declare I don’t see it.”

Randolph contrived in an aside to whisper to Janey: “That big Indian is smart. Keep your mouth shut and for that matter stay right here.”

“Don’t worry, Phil,” whispered Janey. “I’ll stay in camp. What’s his name?”

“The cowboys call him Ham-face.”

Presently Janey had opportunity to get a good look at him. The sobriquet was felicitous. He certainly had a face that resembled a ham. But it was also a record for desert life. Janey could not decide whether he was young or old. He had great black eyes, piercing and bold, yet somehow melancholy. There were sloping lines of strength and he had a thoughtful brow. Seating himself before Mrs. Durland he spoke to her in Navajo.

“What’d he say?” she asked, half fascinated and half frightened.

“Mrs. Durland, I regret I do not translate Navajo well,” replied Randolph. “But he wanted to know something or other about why you wore men’s pants.”

Janey did not believe a word of that. She could tell when Phil was lying.

“The impudent savage!” ejaculated the woman, indignantly.

Ham-face addressed her again, gravely, with a face like a mask.

“He wants to know if you are any man’s squaw,” explained Randolph.

“Mother, you’ve made a conquest,” laughed young Durland.

That affronted his mother who got up from beside the Navajo and left the campfire. Ham-face followed her, much fascinated, evidently, by her general appearance. It was to be admitted, Janey thought, that Mrs. Durland in tailored riding breeches, much too small for her portly figure, was nothing, if not a spectacle. When she became aware she was being followed she grew greatly perturbed, and hastened this way and that, though not far from the others. Ham- face pursued her.

“What’s the fool traipsing after me for?” she cried.

Finally in sheer fright she came back to the seat beside her son, and sat there fuming, tapping the ground with her boot. Ham-face continued to walk around her and study her with grave eyes.

“Talk about the noble red men!” she exclaimed. “They’re abominably rude ... Why don’t they go away?”

The three Navajos appeared to be in no hurry. Ham-face kept devoting himself to Mrs. Durland, while the other two smoked cigarettes and talked in low tones to Randolph. Janey had taken refuge behind the packs, from which only her head protruded. Bert was interested despite his alarm. At length Ham-face’s attention to Mrs. Durland became so marked that the nervous high-strung woman burst into a tirade that might have been directed at the whole Indian race.

Ham-face imperturbably lighted a cigarette and blew a puff of smoke upward. “Pardon me, Madam, if I seem to stare,” he remarked in English as fluent as her own. “But you are the most peculiar-looking old lady I’ve seen. I’d like to introduce you to my squaws. When I was in New York and Paris, during the war, I met some modern up-to-date women, but you’ve got them beaten a mile!”

Mrs. Durland’s jaw dropped, her eyes popped, and with a gasp she collapsed. Janey, standing behind the packs, stuffed her handkerchief in her mouth to keep from shouting in glee. Ham-face was assuredly one of the educated Navajos whom the cowboys had mentioned.

After that he ceased annoying Mrs. Durland, but presently, after an enigmatical look at Janey, he joined Randolph and his two comrades near the horses. They conversed a little longer. Then the Indians mounted and rode away. Ham-face turned to wave a hand at Mrs. Durland.

“Adios, little Eva,” he called.

When they disappeared Mrs. Durland came out of her trance.

“That long-haired dirty ragged savage!” she raged. “To think he understood every word I uttered and then talked just like a white man!... He added insult to injury. Oh, this hideous Arizona with its lying traders, cowboys, Indians, outlaws and pitfalls!... Oh, my son, my son, get me out of this mess!”

“Mother, I’ve a feeling the worst is yet to come,” replied her young hopeful.

Janey got up from where she had sprawled, and tried to catch Randolph’s eye. But his face was averted and he stood motionless in a strained attitude of one listening.

“What is it?” whispered Janey.

“I thought I heard a horse,” he replied. “Not the Indians’. It came from down the canyon.”

“Hands up!” rasped out a hard voice from behind them.

Janey stood paralyzed. She saw Randolph extend his arms high, and then slowly turn.

His ruddy tan fled. “My God — it’s really Black Dick himself!” he breathed, huskily.

Janey’s heart skipped beating and then leaped. Turning, she saw two men in rough rider’s garb. The foremost was heavy and broad, with what seemed a black blotch for a face. He held a gun which was pointed at Randolph.

“Howdy, Professor,” he said. “Jest stand steady-like while Snitz gets your gun.”

The second man, a little red-faced, redheaded, bow-legged person, with a greasy blue leather shirt, appropriated Randolph’s weapon, and then very deftly his wallet.

“Hum! Looks flatter’n a pancake to me,” said the robber, eying the latter with disdain. “Wal, mebbe these hyar tenderfeet will be better heeled.”

Mrs. Durland and Bert stood rigid, with hands high and startled expressions.

“Reckon Willie Whitepants ought to have a lot of money, an’ if he hain’t Mrs. Hatchet-face will.”

A swift search of Bert brought to light a few bills of small denomination and some change.

“Wal, if he ain’t a two-bit sport,” exclaimed the leader, in disgust. “All them fine togs an’ no yellow coin!... Say, lady, have you any money an’ vallables?”

“Not h-h-here,” stammered Mrs. Durland. It was plain that not only was she lying but very frightened.

“‘Scuse us, lady, fer gettin’ so familiar when we ain’t even been introduced. I’m Black Dick, from the border, an’ this hyar pard of mine is Snitz Jones.”

“Oh, my! There are two Black Dicks!” groaned Mrs. Durland.

“Wal, there’s only one real Black Dick an’ I’m the gent,” returned the robber, with lofty humor.

“He calls himself Black Dick,” burst out the woman, dropping a weak hand to point it at Randolph.

“Y-yes — so — he does,” corroborated Bert, impressively.

“The hell you say! Wal, now, I call that complimentary. But, folks, he was only joshin’ you. Mebbe havin’ fun with my rep!”

“You — you mean he isn’t Black Dick and you are?” faltered Mrs. Durland.

“Precisely an’ exactly, lady,” returned Black Dick, amiably.

“Who is he, then?”

“Wal, I ain’t sure, but I think he’s Phil Randolph. The cowmen hyar aboot call him Professor Bone-digger.”

The guilty archaeologist dropped his hands with a laugh and sat down abruptly. Janey realized that the cat was out of the bag.

“Impostor! Liar!” burst out Mrs. Durland.

“Wal, I’ll be dog-gone!” ejaculated Black Dick, with mild interest. “Snitz, somethin’ up hyar, an’ I’ve a hunch it’s amoozin’. But we mustn’t forget to collect all vallables fust.”

“Fork over, mum,” said Snitz, thus admonished, his eager hands extended.

“I — I tell you I’ve nothing,” replied Mrs. Durland, weakly.

“Search her, Snitz,” ordered Black Dick, sternly. “Hey — lady — keep them hands up.”

Whereupon the little red-headed ruffian went at Mrs. Durland with an alacrity and verve that made Janey nearly choke, while at the same time she felt misgivings as to what might happen to her.

“Aha! Hyar’s a lump of somethin’ that feels heavy an’ sounds moosical,” announced Snitz, slapping at Mrs. Durland’s hip pocket.

“You — thieving — lecherous — scoundrel!” Mrs. Durland screeched.

It must have hurt her to see that fat jingling bag brought to light. Snitz burst it open. Greenbacks, gold coins — jewelry!

“Whoopee!” yelled the little robber. “It’s a haul, boss. This hyar lady shore didn’t bulge all over fer nothin’.”

“Business is lookin’ up,” remarked Black Dick, with satisfaction. “Now Snitz, hand all that over to me, an’ hey a look at this gurl. Looks to me she’d have a million — if you jedge by eyes... Ain’t she a looker?”

As Snitz approached Janey, grinning, eager, full of the devil as well as greed, she suddenly became terrified. This was not so funny.

“Phil!” she cried. “Don’t let him touch me.”

“Be sensible, child. They’ve held us up,” admonished Randolph.

Janey slipped off her diamond ring and stretched it out at the length of her arm and let it drop in Snitz’s palm.

“That’s all I’ve got. Honest,” she said, earnestly, in the stress of wanting to escape those rude hands.

“Little gurl, you don’t look like a prevaricateer, but we jest can’t trust you,” returned Black Dick, soothingly.

“Peachy, if you run it’ll be the wuss for you,” added Snitz, reaching for her.

His touch, following the devilish little gleam in his eye, inflamed Janey. With one wrench she tore free and struck at Snitz with all her might. A quick duck of head just saved him.

“Whew!” he ejaculated, astounded and checked.

“Wow!” added Black Dick, in gleeful admiration. “She strikes like a sidewinder, Snitz. If that one had landed you’d hev knowed it... Wal, now what a fiery wench!”

Janey blazed at the leering astonished robber. “You damn little beast! If you touch me again I’ll knock your red head off!”

Black Dick guffawed uproariously, while Snitz, though he joined in the mirth, took her seriously.

“Who’d a thunk it, boss?” he said. “Look at that tight little fist an’ the way she swings it.”

“Wal, I reckon I’m noticin’,” added the leader, sheathing his gun and approaching. “We gotta be gennelmen, you know, Snitz... See hyar, mighty little gurl, are you tellin’ us true? You hain’t nothin’ on you but this ring?”

“That’s all,” returned Janey, breathing hard. “Wal, turn round fer inspection,” he ordered. Janey did as she was bidden.

“Do it again, an’ not so damn fast. This ain’t no merry-go-round.”

Whereupon Janey, realizing that she was to escape indignity, turned for their edification like a dress model in the Grande Maison de Blanc.

“Peachy, you ain’t got a whole lot of anythin’ on,” remarked Snitz, fervidly.

Black Dick surveyed her with the appraising eyes of a connoisseur.

“Wal, sweetie, I reckon if you had a dime hid on you I could see it,” he concluded, with finality.

CHAPTER 11

“SAY, YOU’RE GETTIN’ too big a kid fer sech short dresses,” observed Black Dick disapprovingly to Janey.

“We were caught in the rain and my clothes shrunk,” explained Janey.

“Reckon you’re about sixteen years old, hain’t you?”

“Oh, I’m a little more than that,” dimpled Janey, very much pleased.

“How much?”

“Several years.”

“Humph! No one would take you fer a grown girl. I’m afeared your mother hain’t brought you up right — lettin’ you run around with your fat knees all bare.”

“Fat? They’re not fat,” retorted Janey, promptly insulted.

“Excuse me. Wal, they’re bare. You can’t deny that. An’ after I give your ma a lecture I’ll give you one,” concluded Black Dick.

“Snitz,” he said to his lieutenant, “you go diggin’ round an’ see if thar’s anythin’ more wuth takin’.”

Then he confronted the dejected and crushed Mrs. Durland. “Look ahyar, lady,” he began. “Your gurl says she’s eighteen years old. An’ I’m tellin’ you she hain’t been brought up decent. Wearin’ sech clothes out hyar in the desert! Why, it ain’t respectable. An’ it ain’t safe, neither. You might meet up with some hombres thet was not gennelmen like me an’ Snitz.”

Mrs. Durland was spurred out of her apathy into a wrathful astonishment that rendered her mute. Black Dick evidently saw that he had made a profound impression.

“I took her fer a kid, like them I see in town, wearin’ white cotton socks thet leave their legs bare,” he said. “An’ hyar she’s of age. There ought to be somethin’ done about it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to let your dotter run around like thet.”

“My daughter?” burst out Mrs. Durland, furiously. “Not much! She’s no kin of mine.”

“Excoose me, lady. I had a hunch she was sister to this dude you’ve got with you,” returned Black Dick, coolly. “Come to think aboot it I might have known from her looks.”

Snitz approached at this moment, carrying various articles he had taken from Mrs. Durland’s saddle. One of them was a light handbag, which Black Dick promptly turned inside out. It contained gloves, handkerchief, powder puff, cosmetics, and a magazine with a highly colored front page. The robber kept this and returned the other things.

“Snitz, you poke around some more,” he said laconically, and turned to Janey. She, from her perch on the packs, had expected this and prepared herself with sad face and tearful eyes.

“Wot’s your name?” he asked.

“Janey.”

“Kind of suits you somehow... Wot you cryin’ aboot?”

“I’m very scared and unhappy.”

“Scared? Of me?”

“Oh no. I’m not afraid of you. I think you’re a real man. But these people have kidnaped me — to get money out of my father.”

“Ahuh. Wot’d this fellar Randolph pretend he was me fer?” asked Black Dick, growing more and more curious.

“I suppose to intimidate me. But he wasn’t a bit like you.”

“So thet old bird is a kidnaper?” mused Black Dick, darkly. “An’ Randolph’s been roped in the deal. Wal, I’ll be doggoned. Shore are a lot of mean people. Now, I’m only an old desert pack rat, snoopin’ round when I get broke, but I could see you was a nice girl. Kidnapin’ wimmen fer money shore ain’t in my line. I was jest throwed off a little by your dress bein’ so short.”

“Thank you, Mr. Black Dick,” said Janey, thinking that never had she received more sincere approval.

“Wal, we’ll see wot can be did with this old hen,” said the robber. Then he happened to notice Randolph sitting there as if he had not a friend in the world.

“Say, Randolph, my Navvy friends tipped me off aboot these pickin’s. And what were you up to? Don’t you reckon it’s dangerous pretendin’ to be me? There are men who’d shoot at you fer it.”

“I never thought of that at the time,” returned Randolph, lowering his voice. “The honest truth is I was just in fun. And I’m not so sure it was all my idea.”

Then they got their heads together and conversed in such low tones that Janey could not hear any more.

“Boss, there ain’t any more stuff worth hevin’, onless it’s the grub,” announced Snitz, coming up. “Some orful fancy eats!”

“Well, I’ve a grand idee,” said Black Dick, slapping his knee, and he winked one of his great bold black eyes at Janey. “We’re goin’ to have aristocracy cook for us.”

Whereupon he approached Mrs. Durland with a slow rolling step, his sombrero cocked on one side of his head, his right thumb in the armhole of his vest, and his left hand holding onto the magazine.

“Lady,” said Dick, grandly, “you’re goin’ to be honored by cookin’ a meal fer Black Dick. An’ if you don’t do your best I’ll feel it my bounden duty to tote you off an’ larn you how.”

Mrs. Durland fell back with horror in her face.

“I like my wimmen with spunk,” went on the desperado. “Could you lam to cuss, an’ toss off a drink, an’ kick me in the shins?”

“Merciful heavens — no!”

“Wal, then, you cook an’ Whitepants hyar can be cookee. Rustle up some firewood... An’ now, sister, waddle along. An’ mebbe I’ll let you off.”

“Beast!” screamed Mrs. Durland, and she ran toward the campfire.

“Cook dinner thar, you two,” yelled Dick. “An’ don’t be all day aboot it.”

Janey had observed that these men, despite the earlier action of robbing the party, and their later antics, took occasion now and then to gaze up and down the canyon. The younger one, Snitz, was particularly keen. These outlaws expected someone to come along or else were just habitually cautious and watchful.

Black Dick and Snitz sat down close together, with the magazine on the former’s knees. They had the air of guilty gleeful schoolboys about to partake in a thrilling and forbidden act. They made a picture Janey would never forget, and reminded her of the mischievous cowboys. All these natives of Arizona had some inimitable Western quality, the keynote of which was fun.

Dick’s huge dirty hands turned the pages, until suddenly they froze; then the bent heads grew absorbed.

“Jerusalem!” ejaculated Dick.

“Ain’t she a looker!” exclaimed his comrade, raptly.

They turned a page and giggled. Then Black Dick looked up, swept the immediate horizon, and happening to see Janey, he waved a hand, as if to tell her to go away far back somewhere and leave them to their joy. Dick turned another page; and they whispered argumentatively. Another page brought a loud gasp from Snitz and something that sounded very much like an oath from Black Dick. Then they were as petrified.

“My Gord!” finally burst out Dick. “Snitz, do you see wot I see?”

“I’m lookin’ at thet lady in the Garden of Eden,” replied Snitz, breathing heavily.

“She ain’t got a damn thing on,” said Dick, in consternation. “Say, this must be gettin’ to be an orful world.”

“Wonder who tooked thet picture,” returned Snitz. “It had to be tooked by a photographer.”

“It says so — an’ a man at thet. Shore I wouldn’t been him fer a million dollars.”

“I’d tooked thet picture fer nuthin’!” said Snitz.

Black Dick continued turning the pages, very slowly, as if he expected one of them to explode and blow them to bits.

“Wal, hyar’s somebody with clothes on — sech as they are,” he observed, presently.

“Actress. Not so bad, huh? — You’d get a hunch there ain’t any men in New Yoork.”

“Men don’t cut much ice nowheres,” said Dick, shrewdly. “When Eve got thick with thet big snake they fixed it so men did all the work, or become tramps like us, or went to jail.”

“Dick, it ain’t so long ago when the pictures we seen — most on them cigarette cairds — was wimmen in tights,” said Snitz, reminiscently.

“Shore, but it’s longer’n you think. You can bet there ain’t nothin’ like that these days. The world is goin’ to hell.”

“Hold on,” interposed Snitz, halting Dick’s too impetuous hand. “Heah’s a nice picture.”

“Nice? Snitz, you was brought up ignorant. Thet ain’t nice. Can’t you see it’s two girls in a room? They’re half undressed an’ smokin’ cigarettes. Turrible fetchin’ but shore not nice.”

“Aw heck, I cain’t see nuthin’ wrong with it,” said Snitz. “At least they’re real purty.”

“Snitz, this hyar all ain’t so damn funny. Thet’s the fust picture of this kind I’ve seen since the war. Wal, time changes every-thin’... But, Snitz, we ain’t so bad off. Shore, we’re often hungry an’ oftener broke waitin’ fer a chance like this, an’ we’re dirty an’ unshaved, with a few sheriffs lookin’ fer us; but I’m damned if I’d change places with any of them people — even thet photographer. Would you?”

“Nary time, Dick. Give me a hoss an’ the open country,” replied Snitz, rising to take a look up and down the canyon. Black Dick’s ox eyes rolled and set under a rugged frown. Evidently in the magazine he had been confronted with a mysterious and perplexing world. Janey decided about this time that this desert rat several sheriffs were looking for was not half a bad fellow.

Presently Mrs. Durland called them to the meal she had been forced to prepare. Her face was very red and there was a black smudge on her nose, but she faced them with confidence. Snitz let out a whoop and alighted on the ground with his legs tucked under him — a marvelous performance considering the long spurs. Black Dick surveyed the white tablecloth spread upon the tarpaulin and the varied assortment of cooked and uncooked food.

“Wal, if I ain’t dreamin’ now I’ll have a nightmare soon,” he said, and squatted down. Snitz had already begun to eat. Dick, observing that he had not unfolded his napkin, took it up and handed it to him.

“Wot’s — thet?” asked Snitz, with his mouth full.

“You ignoramus. Sometimes I wonder if your mother wasn’t a cow... Wal, I never had indigestion or colic, but I’m goin’ through hyar if it kills me.”

Janey had seen hungry cowboys eat, to her amazement and delight, but they could not hold a candle to these outlawed riders of the range. Their gastronomic feats were bewildering, even alarming to see. Not a shadow of doubt was there that Mrs. Durland had served concoctions cunningly devised and mixed to make these men ill, if not poison them outright. Sandwiches, cakes, sardines, cheese, olives, pickles, jam, crackers, disappeared alike with hot biscuits, ham, potatoes, and baked beans. When they had absolutely cleaned the platter Black Dick arose and quaintly doffed his sombrero to Mrs. Durland.

“Madam, you may be a disreputable person, but you shore can hand out the grub,” he said.

Snitz had arisen also, but his attention was on the far break of the canyon, where clouds of dust appeared to be rising.

“Look at that, pard,” he said.

“Ahuh. Get up high somewheres, so you can see,” returned Dick, and strode toward the horses that had strayed to the cedars. When he led them back Snitz had come down from the ledge.

“Bunch of cowpunchers ridin’ up the canyon,” he announced.

“Wal, we seen ’em fust,” said his comrade, mounting. Then he surveyed the expectant group before him. “Madam, I reckon I’ll never survive thet dinner you spread. Randolph, if you ain’t in fer a necktie party, I don’t know cowpunchers. Miss Janey, so long an’ good luck to you. Bertie, if we ever meet again, I’m gonna shoot at them white pants.”

He rode away. Snitz, swinging to the saddle, flashed his red face in a devilish grin at Janey.

“Good-by, peachy,” he called, meaningly. “I’d shore love to see more of you.”

Spurring his horse he soon caught up with Black Dick. Together they rode into the cedars and disappeared up the canyon.

“Thank God, they’re gone!” cried Mrs. Durland, sinking in a heap. “Gone with every dollar — every diamond I possessed!... Bert Durland, you will rue this day.”

Janey had been realizing the return of strong feeling. It did not easily gain possession of her at once. The cowboys were coming. And that recalled the bitter shame and humiliation Randolph had heaped upon her. How impossible to forgive or forget! The anger within her was like a hot knot of nerves suddenly exposed. She hated him, and the emotions that had developed since were as if they had never been.

“Mr. Randolph, the cowboys are coming,” she said, significantly, turning to him.

“So I heard,” he replied, curtly. He looked hard and he was slightly pale. Perhaps he appreciated more than she what he was in for. Janey was disappointed that he did not appeal to her. But she would only have mocked him and perhaps he knew that.

The dust clouds approached, rolling up out of the cedars. Crack of iron- shod hoof on rock, the crash of brush, and rolling of stones were certainly musical sounds to Janey. There was something else, too, but what she could not divine. She knew her heart beat fast. When Ray rode out of the cedars, at the head of the cowboys, it gave a spasmodic leap and then seemed to stand still. How strange a thought accompanied that! She wished they had not come. They did not appear to be a rollicking troupe of gay cowboys; they were grim men. It was very unusual for these cowboys to be silent.

Ray halted his horse some little distance off, and his companions closed in behind. His hawk eyes had taken in the Durlands. Janey noted what a start this gave him. She heard them speaking low. Then Ray dismounted, gun in hand. That gave Janey a shock. This lout of a cowboy, whom she could twist round her little finger, seemed another and a vastly different person. They all slid off their horses.

“Reckon Randolph’s got a gun, but he won’t throw it,” said Ray. “Wait till I... see who these people are.”

He strode over to confront Mrs. Durland and Bert.

“Who are you people?” he asked, bluntly.

“I am Mrs. Percival Durland, of New York, and this is my son Bertrand,” she replied, with dignity.

“How did you get heah?”

“We employed an Indian guide.”

“How long have you been heah?”

“It seems a long time, but in fact it is only a couple of days.”

“What’d you come for?”

“We used to be friends of Miss Endicott,” returned Mrs. Durland, significantly. “We heard at the post she was out here, so we came — to my bitter regret and shame.”

“Who else has been here?”

“Two miserable thieving wretches,” burst out Mrs. Durland. “Black Dick and his man. They robbed us.”

“Reckon they saw us an’ made off pronto?” went on Ray, his keen eyes on the ground.

“They just left — with all I had,” wailed Mrs. Durland.

“You’re lucky to get off so easy,” said Ray curtly. “You found Miss Endicott an’ Randolph alone?”

“Very much alone,” replied the woman, scornfully. “He had kidnaped her.”

“That’s what she says,” interposed Bert, with sarcasm.

“Ahuh. I savvy,” replied Ray, fiercely. “You’re intimatin’ Miss Endicott might have come willin’?”

Bert was about to reply, when one of the cowboys, whose back was turned and whom Janey could not recognize, slapped him so hard that he fell off the rock backward.

“Wal, you better keep your mouth shet about it,” said Ray, with a wide sweep of arm shoving the belligerent cowboy back.

“Thet shore won’t save Randolph.”

“Oh, this awful West!” screamed Mrs. Durland. “You’re all alike. Cowboys — robbers — traders — Indians — scientists! You’re a mob of deceiving bloody villains.”

“Madam, I reckon it ain’t goin’ to be pleasant round heah. You an’ your dandy Jim better leave pronto.”

“Leave! Where and how? That man drove our guide away. We can’t saddle and pack horses, and much less find our way out of this hellish hole.”

“Take yourself off then, out of sight,” he continued, harshly, and turned to come toward Randolph and Janey, his gun low, but unmistakably menacing. Diego, Mohave, Zoroaster, and Tay-Tay came striding after him. The musical jingling of their spurs did not harmonize with their demeanor.

Ray fixed Janey with a cold penetrating stare. She realized that for him, as a glorious entity — a girl to worship — she had ceased to exist. This escapade of Randolph’s had ruined her with Ray beyond redemption. Janey was afraid to look in the faces of the others, for fear she would see the same condemnation. It was a sickening conception. It added fuel to the fire of her roused wrath at the perpetrator of this situation.

“You beat it,” ordered Ray, with a slight motion of his gun, signifying that Janey was to get out.

“What for?” she asked, sharply.

“This heah ain’t no place for a — a woman,” he replied. He was going to say lady. Janey saw the word forming on his lips, but he changed it. She was no longer an object of respect, even to these crude cowboys. Her spirit flamed at them, at herself, at Randolph.

“After what I’ve gone through, I can stand anything. I’ll stay,” she said, heatedly.

He gave her a strange glance. What eyes he had — like hot blades! No man had ever dared to look at her with such unveiled disillusion.

“Randolph, stand up an’ stick out your hands,” ordered Ray. The archaeologist looked up, disclosing a dark set face and eyes that matched the cowboy’s!

“You go to hell,” he replied, coolly. “Fellars, jerk him up off thet pack an’ tie his hands behind him.”

This order was carried out almost as soon as Ray had spoken. Randolph was a bound man.

“Thanks,” returned Ray. “But I ain’t aimin’ to go where you belong... We don’t care pertickler to heah your musical voice either, but if you’re any kind of man you’ll say whether you kidnaped Miss Endicott or not.”

“Certainly I did, you knuckle-headed cowpuncher,” retorted Randolph.

“You heah thet, boys?” called Ray, imperiously.

“We shore heerd him,” yelled the others as one man.

“Fetch a lasso,” ordered Ray, dragging Randolph forward. “An’ look fer a cedar high enough to hang this guy.”

They moved off in a body toward the cedars, leaving Janey almost paralyzed. She saw them stop under one of the first trees. They were talking in low tones. Evidently Randolph spoke. The cowboys guffawed in ridicule. Then Mrs. Durland and Bert hurried up to Janey.

“What are they going to do?” panted Mrs. Durland.

“Hang him,” whispered Janey, in awe.

“Serve him quite right,” declared the woman, nodding in great satisfaction. “If only they had that dirty Black Dick, too!”

Janey broke from her trance and ran the short distance to the group. She heard the Durlands following. Janey would have been at her wit’s end without the fright that had inhibited her. Certainly she would have to do something. If she gave way to a growing idea that the situation was beyond her — what might not happen? She gathered there had been an argument between Ray and the cowboys, for she heard sharp words on each side, and then suddenly at her approach they were silent. Randolph appeared less upset than any of them. The look of Ray gave Janey an icy chill. She had not been much frightened at Black Dick. But this lean-faced cowboy! All in a flash her hatred of Randolph and her unworthy passion for revenge were as if they had never been. She seemed as vacillating as a weather vane.

“Ray — wh-what are you going to do to him?” she asked, struggling to control her voice.

“We’re going to make it the last time this fake scientist kidnaps a girl,” replied Ray.

“But — that rope! You can’t really hang a man for so little. Why, you’d hang too if you did such a thing. There’d be an investigation.”

“Real kind of you, Miss, to worry aboot us,” returned Ray, ironically. “Duty and the law are one and the same in Arizona. By hangin’ this fellar we save the government expenses of keeping him in jail.”

“But he didn’t do anything so — so very terrible,” went on Janey, still struggling.

“Look heah, young woman,” said Ray, sharply. “Randolph kidnaped you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” admitted Janey.

“Wal, thet’s plenty. But it shore wasn’t all — now, was it?” questioned the cowboy, his piercing suspicious eyes on hers. His jealousy probed the secret and his naturally primitive mind made deductions.

Janey blushed a burning scarlet. It was a hateful thing to feel before those keen-eyed boys who had revered her. It had as much to do with an upflashing of furious shame as the recollection of Randolph’s one unforgivable indignity.

“Fellars, look at her face. Red as a beet!!” ejaculated Ray, passionately.

“Aw, Ray, cut it,” burst out Mohave. “Ain’t you overdoin’ it, Ray?” asked Zoroaster, darkly.

“Y-y-y-y-you—” stuttered Tay-Tay, in unmistakable protest. But he never achieved coherent speech.

“Damn you all! Shut up!” hissed Ray, in a deadly wrath. If his comrades meant to intercede on Janey’s behalf, at least to save her from insult, he certainly intimidated them for the time being.

“Miss Endicott, you can’t say honest that Randolph didn’t mistreat you,” asserted rather than asked Ray. He was a hard man to face and Janey, strangely agitated, yet still not roused, was not equal to it. Besides his words were like stinging salt in a raw wound.

“No matter what he did — you can’t hang him,” burst out Janey. Ray turned purple. The other cowboys subtly changed.

“Wal, for Gawd’s sake!” bawled out Ray. “Ain’t thet jest like a woman?”

“An’ he stole my hoss, too,” added Mohave, darkly.

“But, Mohave, my father would buy you a hundred horses,” spoke up Janey, eagerly.

“Say, Miss, what’s your father got to do with this?” demanded Ray. “He didn’t steal the hoss. Randolph did. An’ thet’s as bad as stealin’ you. Course Arizona has quit hangin’ hoss thieves. But when you put the two together, why it’s shore a hangin’ case... Miss Endicott, your friend Randolph ain’t only a villain. He’s a coward.”

“I’m beginning to think a lot of things about you,” retorted Janey, hotly. “And one of them is — you’re a liar!”

Ray flinched as if he had been lashed with a whip. His eyes burned and his face became like flint.

“Wal, I ain’t no kidnaper of girls — whether they’re innocent — or not,” he said, coarsely.

Randolph turned half round to look at the circle of cowboys behind him.

“Fellows, I’ll be perfectly willing to be hanged if you’ll grant me one request.”

“You talk to me,” ground out Ray. “I’m boss of this rodeo. What you want?”

“I’d like my hands untied so I can beat your dirty loud mouth shut,” replied Randolph, ringingly.

Ray completely lost control of himself, and lunging out, he struck Randolph a sounding blow, knocking him flat.

“Oh, you dirty coward!” cried Janey. “To strike a man whose hands are tied!”

Mrs. Durland screamed: “They’re all outlaws, blacklegs, murderers!”

It was Tay-Tay who assisted Randolph to rise to his feet. Blood was flowing from his mouth.

“Mebbe thet’ll keep your mug shet,” declared Ray.

“Say, Ray, this ain’t gettin’ us anywheres,” interposed Mohave. “Mebbe we’re far enough.”

“Move along, Randolph,” ordered Ray, shoving his gun into Randolph’s side. He forced the archaeologist to walk on to a point under a high-branched cedar. “Somebody throw a rope over thet limb.”

But nobody complied with this order. Again Janey intuitively guessed that this situation had not been what it looked on the face. The cowboys were a divided group. Ray was deadly, implacable. No doubting his real intention! Janey had sensed his jealousy and now realized his brutality. But another sharp scrutiny of the other faces convinced Janey that with them it had been a well- acted jest, which Ray was trying to drive to earnest. But he would never succeed. Janey racked her brain for some expedient to circumvent him.

Ray snatched the lasso from Mohave and threw the noose end over the branch, pulled it down, and with the skillful dexterity of a cowboy tossed the loop over Randolph’s head.

“Thar’s your necktie, Mr. Kidnaper,” he said, with fiendish satisfaction.

Mohave seemed to pull himself together. Janey caught his quick significant glance at Diego, and she took her cue from that.

“Wal, I’m pullin’ the rope,” announced Mohave, stepping forward.

“Nothin’ doin’... I’m the little man who hangs this gent. It’s my rope,” replied Zoroaster.

“I weel pull the rope,” said Diego, impressively.

“W-w-w-wh-where do I come in?” stammered Tay-Tay, evidently offended.

Janey was now almost certain of her ground, except for the silent Ray.

“Gentlemen, let me decide which of you shall have the honor of being the first to crack Randolph’s neck,” interrupted Janey, with entire change of front.

They gaped at her, nonplussed. Ray’s tense face relaxed to a slight sardonic grin. Janey feared him. The majority would rule here. Besides she had an idea.

“Let me decide, please,” she continued. “F-f-f-fair enough,” said Tay- Tay.

“Pick me, Miss Janey. I’m the strongest,” entreated Mohave, who seemed to be returning to his natural self.

The others, excepting Ray, loudly acclaimed their especial fittingness for the job.

“I can’t show any favoritism among you boys,” went on Janey. “Lay down your guns. Then blindfold me. I’ll pick one of them up and whoever owns that gun shall have the first pull.”

“Fine idee,” declared Mohave, and then deposited his gun at Janey’s feet. One by one the others gravely complied, until it came to Ray. He held the lasso in one hand and his gun in the other. Janey feared he would block her daring scheme, which was to get possession of all the guns and hold up the cowboys.

“Bert!” gasped Mrs. Durland. “She’s a barbarian! A fit consort for the likes of these!... To think I ever allowed you to anticipate marrying such an impossible creature!”

“That’ll be aboot all from you, Madam,” retorted Ray, threateningly.

“Come, Ray, your gun,” called Janey, in a nervous hurry. “Who’ll lend me a scarf?”

“You’re smart, but you can’t fool me,” rejoined Ray, darkly. “I don’t lay down my gun fer no woman. I’m onto you, Miss... Now you easy-mark cowpunchers, jest step back. Stop! Never mind pickin’ up them guns.”

Slowly the cowboys edged back, and Janey with them. At that moment Ray was more to be feared than Black Dick had ever been. Ray had this game beaten and knew it. He exchanged rope and gun from one hand to the other. With a quick pull he tightened the noose hard around Randolph’s neck, straining his body, lifting him a little.

“Reckon it’s a doubtful honor, but I’ll have it myself,” he said, his cold eyes on Janey.

“My God! — Ray! You don’t mean to go on with it?” cried Janey, finding her voice.

“I shore do. I’ve got the goods on Randolph. You accused him, an’ he confessed. Everybody present heard you both. An’ there ain’t a court in Arizona that’d hold me fer a day.”

He was triumphant and malignant. Fierce jealousy had brought out the evil in him. Janey had a terrible realization of her guilt — for she had flirted with this hot-headed cowboy. She had looked upon him with caressing eyes; she had listened to his sentimental talk and led him on. What an idiot she had been! Vain, detestably bent on conquest — heartless, wrong. Ray resembled a devil and he certainly had overwhelming odds in his favor. Janey seemed to be sinking in stupefied terror. Almost blindly she stepped out.

“Ray — for God’s sake — don’t — don’t add murder to this — this thing,” she implored.

“So! You’re intercedin’ fer a man you swore treated you outrageous?” sneered Ray.

“Yes. I beg of you. Don’t let your — your — whatever actuates you — go any farther. Cool down. Think!”

“I’ve been thinkin’ all right,” he rejoined, with brooding intimation.

“Randolph did not kidnap me,” spoke up Janey, gathering strength. “I came with him willingly.”

“What’s thet?” snarled Ray, almost crouching.

Randolph responded with his first show of perturbation. “Ray, don’t you believe a word she says. She’s trying to clear me by implicating herself.”

“Wal, she’s a liar all right, but mebbe this is straight,” said Ray, somberly. “Say, gurl, if you come willin’ — what was it fer?”

“One reason was I wanted to get a kick out of it,” replied Janey, coolly. “I was sort of blasé. Tired of ordinary life. I wanted something new, different.”

“Ahuh! An’ how aboot this heah outrageous treatment?” asked Ray, gruffly.

To have saved Randolph’s life Janey could not have stayed the coursing flame of red that burned from neck to face. But her spirit flamed likewise.

“I disobeyed him,” she confessed, bravely. “He — he chastised me... I deserved it.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” guffawed Ray, loudly, mirthlessly. That laugh contained bitter doubt, scorn, hate.

“Ray, I’m afeared I hear hosses,” interrupted Mohave, sharply.

“So, you come willin’, huh?” he questioned, with terrible eyes on Janey. “Liked to be treated out-rag-eous, huh? Wanted a new different kick, huh?... Wal, now watch your lover kick!”

Ray was a bully and a brute. But he did not know the fiber of the girl he had so grossly insulted. That was all Janey required to find herself. As Ray bent down to stretch the lasso over his hip, dragging Randolph to the tip of his toes, she sprang forward. She grasped the tightening rope above Randolph’s head and pulled it loose. Then she confronted Ray.

“Stop, you madman!” she cried, imperiously. “Don’t you dare — If you do I’ll kill you!”

“Wal, fer Gawd’s sake!” ejaculated Ray, surprised into his usual expression, and he momentarily slackened the lasso.

Quick as a flash Janey seized the noose and flipped it from Randolph’s neck.

“Listen, cowboy!” she said. “What business is it of yours? If Randolph and I wanted to come out here to Beckyshibeta and lie about it that was our business. But it’s gone too far for jokes now.”

Janey backed up against Randolph and took his arm.

“Shore it’s gone too far!” furiously returned Ray, recovering from his amazement. “An’ you haven’t give me one reason why he shouldn’t hang.”

“Very well, I’ll try another,” said Janey, with calm proud exterior, while inwardly she was in a state of exaltation. “I love him. Can you understand that?... I love him!”

For a long moment all her hearers seemed petrified. Ray looked shocked into credulous defeat. Then he choked out: “You white-faced slut!”

“Shet up!” yelled Mohave, sternly. “Heah comes Bennet an’ some Indians... Mr. Endicott, too... all ridin’ like hell! Cool down, Ray, or you’ll get yours!”

CHAPTER 12

THE INSTANT JANEY had a close scrutiny of her father’s face, which was when he reined his horse before the group, she knew his gay greeting and nonchalant survey of them had no depth. He had always been a capital actor, but he could not deceive his daughter.

“Hello, Janey,” he had called out, before reaching them. “How are you? Little white, aren’t you, for a modern amazon?”

Janey’s emotion, whatever its great extent, suffered a swift transition to fury. Nevertheless she had wit enough to remember that this was no time to play against her father. Her cue was to be miserable and happy at one and the same time. At that she need only be natural.

“Howdy, Phillip,” said Endicott, genially, sitting his horse at ease and gazing down upon the center of this motionless group. “Bet you’re glad I arrived. Sorry we are rather late. But that darned storm turned us back.”

Janey removed herself from Randolph’s proximity. What had she said and done? She did not regret it, but the lofty spirit, which had prompted it, was failing. Randolph stood there, pale, with gleaming eyes and bloody lips, his hands still bound behind him. The noose that Janey had thrown off dangled not far above his head. The cowboys stood on uneasy feet. Ray still held his gun, and it was manifest that a dim realization of his part in this farce had dawned upon him. He was sweating now. The guns of the other cowboys lay where they had deposited them.

Mr. Endicott surveyed this scene with the air of a Westerner of long experience. He was too cool. Then he spotted the Durlands, and doffed his sombrero.

“Good day, Mrs. Durland. Hello, Bert. I hope you have had a nice little visit with Janey and her fiancé.”

If anything could have struck fire from Mrs. Durland that speech might have done so, but she was beyond words. But Bert, now that danger had passed, showed an ugly temper.

“We’ve had a rotten visit, if you want to know,” he howled. “We’ve been deceived, insulted, beaten and robbed.”

“Robbed! Oh, not quite that, I’m sure,” replied Endicott, laughing. “No doubt Randolph’s a desperate character, but I can’t believe he’d steal.”

“We were held up and robbed by Black Dick and his partner,” continued Bert, hotly.

“All my diamonds — and money — gone!” wailed Mrs. Durland.

“Indeed. That’s too bad. It’s something of a shock,” returned Endicott, solicitously. “But I’ll make your losses good. You see, I didn’t calculate on a real desperado.” Here he laughed. “It’s all a little joke of mine. I wanted Janey to have a scare. So I persuaded Randolph to run off with her. My plan was to send the cowboys the very same day. But they didn’t get back, and when they did the washes were flooded by the storm.”

“Somebody untie my hands,” called out Randolph, cutting and grim. “I’ll show you what kind of a joke it was.”

Mohave was the cowboy who complied with the request, and it was plain he was nervous. He whispered something to Randolph. But it did not prevent Randolph, the instant he was free, from making long strides to confront Ray.

“You’re a skunk,” said Randolph, deliberately. “I always had you figured as a bully and a conceited ass of a cowboy — mushy over every girl who ever came out here. But not till today did I know you to be a dirty foul- mouthed rat. You—”

“Hold on, Randolph,” interrupted Endicott, aghast. “I told you I was to blame. Ray was only following my instructions.”

“Randolph, we’ll shore make allowance for your feelin’s,” added Bennet, conciliatingly. “But you’re usin’ strong language — too strong for a little joke.”

“Joke, hell!” flashed Randolph. “This locoed cowboy meant to hang me!”

“Good God! Why, boy, you’re quite out of your head,” expostulated Endicott.

Bennet began to see something serious in the situation. And he took his hint more from Ray’s face than Randolph’s words. Slipping out of his saddle he strode quickly to get between the men. Randolph gave him a shove that almost upset him.

“Don’t you butt in. You’re a little late to save me the rottenest deal any man ever got. And you’re a lot too late to save this cowpuncher of yours from the damndest kind of a beating.”

“Man! Look out for thet gun!” warned Bennet, shrilly.

“I don’t care a damn for his gun,” replied Randolph. “He wouldn’t shoot a rabbit.”

“Wal, I’d shoot a coyote damn quick or a gurl-chasin’ scientist,” replied Ray, laughing coarsely.

“Drop thet gun!” ordered Bennet. “Can’t you see Randolph is unarmed?”

“I’m takin’ no more orders from you,” said the cowboy, sullenly.

“You bet your life you’re not,” shouted the trader, angrily. “But you throw thet gun on Randolph an’ you’ll have me to deal with.”

Suddenly Randolph, in a pantherish spring, leaped upon Ray, and caught his arm just as he was lifting it with the gun. Randolph threw all his weight upon that gun arm, forced it down. Ray struggled and cursing yelled: “Leggo, er I’ll plug you!”

Randolph bent swiftly to fasten his teeth in the dangerous hand. The cowboy let out a howl of pain and fury. Bang! Bang! Janey screamed and hid her eyes in horror. She heard the thud of feet and wrestling of bodies, then hoarse calls from the onlookers. Her heart seemed to burst. This awful farce was going to end in a tragedy. Randolph! Terror forced her to open her eyes. Ray had dropped the gun. The hand Randolph gripped was red with blood. On the instant Randolph gave the gun a kick. It flew to the feet of Mohave, who bent and snatched it up. Then Randolph, releasing Ray, struck him full in the face, with a blow that sounded like a mallet. Ray went down with a sodden thump.

Nobody wasted any more words. The spectators were too intense for speech, and the contestants too mad with rage. Randolph seemed a man who once in his life had let go. Ray, as he bounded up like a cat, looked a demon.

He rushed at Randolph and the fight began. Janey could not watch it, though now she had fascination added to her horror. But there was enough gentleness left in her to make her shrink instinctively. She stood there with hands pressed over her eyes. Thus blinded she could still hear. And the smash of fists, the scrape of boots, wrestling tussles of hard bodies in contact, the pants and whistles of furious breathing — these were worse to hear than to see. How must the battle go? Randolph, the gentleman, the mild-mannered archaeologist, would surely be worsted by a younger man and one inured to all the roughness of the desert. Crash! One of the fighters had been knocked into the cedar brush. He burst up again, bawling awful curses. Ray! What a hot tingling thrill Janey experienced! It seemed to change her very nature. She wanted more than anything ever before in her life for Randolph to beat down the vile-mouthed cowboy. She had known the cause of Randolph’s white anger. It was because of Ray’s bald insinuations. Randolph was fighting for her, to whip the cur before those onlookers who had heard. So it was impossible for Janey to keep her eyes covered any longer.

She found she stood alone. The fighters had worked away up the bench. Even the Durlands had followed the men. Janey ran. She saw Phil first, face turned toward her. He was all bloody and dirty. Then Ray’s face swept round into sight. He was horribly battered, his face resembling a bloody beefsteak. He lunged wildly. He had no science. Randolph was agile, swift, and when he struck out he landed. Ray plunged down at Randolph’s legs, caught them, and dragged him down. They clinched furiously, and rolled over and over, now one on top, then the other. Ray kicked viciously. It was clear that he was trying to dig his spurs into Randolph’s legs. The cowboys yelled their derision of this further evidence of Ray’s cowardly tactics. He must have imagined that a rough- and-tumble fight would give him the advantage. But it soon became clear that he was as badly off as in a fair stand-up fight. Randolph was out to give the cowboy a terrific beating, and it looked as if it would end that way.

Once, when in their rolling over Ray landed on top, he snatched up a dead branch, quite weighty, and brought it down hard upon Randolph’s head, where it cracked into many bits.

“You dirty dog!” yelled Mohave, who was now plainly Randolph’s champion. “If you knock him out that way you’ll have me on you.”

But if Ray heard he paid no heed. He snatched up a rock and swung that.

“Drop it or I’ll shoot your arm off,” shouted Bennet, whipping out a gun.

The maddened cowboy tried to smash Randolph’s head. Missed him! Bennet meant to shoot, but obviously feared he would either kill Ray or hit Randolph. Then he grasped his gun by the barrel, meaning to hit Ray with it. The cowboy struck again with the rock. Randolph dodged, but was slightly hit.

“For God’s sake, Bennet, stop him! He means murder,” called Endicott, frightened.

“Oh, Phil — don’t let him kill you!” screamed Janey, wildly.

Mohave leaped close to do something, no one could guess what. Mrs. Durland collapsed in a faint. Randolph might not have been doing his utmost before, because his fury and strength became marvelous. With one powerful blow he knocked the stone flying out of Ray’s hand. Another broke Ray’s hold on his throat. Then he heaved mightily. He tossed Ray clear of him, and was on his feet as quickly as the cowboy. He rushed Ray. A blow stopped the cowboy. The next staggered him. Randolph swung his left biff Then his right — smash! Ray, who was falling at the first blow, shot down with the second as if it had been from a catapult. He fell headlong, and slid over the brink of the bench, to crash into the brush below.

Randolph glared a moment at the puff of dust which the cowboy had raised, then striding to his pack he picked up his towel and went off down the slope toward the creek.

Janey was so tottering and weak that she sat down on a rock. Bennet sheathed his gun.

“Wal, that was good,” he declared, in great relief. “I hope he broke his neck. Some of you boys go down and see... Endicott, Mrs. Durland has fainted. No wonder. Thet came near bein’ a real scrap. Young man, fetch some water, an’ we’ll bring your mother to.”

Janey sat dizzily conscious of the subsiding of the terrible emotions that had swayed her. Very slowly she recovered. Mrs. Durland was revived and lifted to a seat. Bennet appeared very kindly and solicitous. Janey’s father wore a haggard look of remorse displacing fear. Bert, who hovered over his mother, showed the pallor of a girl, and hands that shook. Mohave was the only cowboy left on the bench.

“What in the hell happened?” questioned Bennet, sternly.

“Boss, I swear it was as much of a surprise to us as to you,” began Mohave, most earnestly. “The boys will back me up in that... You know Mr. Endicott was awful keen on makin’ this fake hangin’ look like the real thing. We had our orders to do some tall actin’ — like them motion-picture fellars. You can bet we had a lot of fun plannin’ this. Talkin’ it over! We must look terrible mad, as if we meant bizness. Wal, Ray acted so powerful good thet we all was plumb jealous. Even when he began to say nasty things we thought he was only oversteppin’ a little. When he insulted Miss Janey then I was flabbergasted. Same with the other boys. Once I opened my trap, but Ray shet me up pronto. Still it was all so sudden I jest couldn’t see through Ray until he called Miss Janey a white-faced slut.”

“Ahuh! Aboot time you seen through him, I’ll say. Wal?” grumbled the trader.

“Then it all come in a flash,” went on Mohave, breathing hard. “We was obeyin’ orders — havin’ an awful big kick out of it. But Ray wasn’t actin’. He meant to hang Randolph. No doubt of thet, sir. He had it all figgered out an’ knowed the facts would clear him in any court.”

“But the damn locoed idget!” burst out Bennet. “To hang Randolph in earnest! What on earth for?”

“Wal, I ain’t shore. But I believe Ray thought Miss Janey was his gurl,” replied Mohave, manfully, though it was evident he hated to be frank. “He shore talked like it. An’ when he seen — wal, that he was what you called him, boss, why he went plumb out of his haid with jealousy.”

“Ahuh! Wal, I’m damned!” ejaculated Bennet.

Mr. Endicott had listened to all this conversation and now he turned to his daughter.

“Janey, you let that cowboy make love to you,” he said. He did not ask; he affirmed.

“Dad, I did,” replied Janey, bravely. It was confession that was accusation. “To my regret and shame — I did. I let him kiss me — talk a lot of nonsense.”

“Well, that’s no crime,” he said, gravely. “But in this case it nearly led to murder. I hope it will be a lesson to you.”

Janey dropped her face into her hands and hid it. Lesson! What lesson had she not had? She would be days accounting for them and their clarifying and transforming power. Now there was only one man in all the world whom she would allow to kiss her. And would he want to again?

Zoroaster and the other cowboys came back from below.

“Ray’s not crippled, sir,” reported Zoroaster. “Bad bunged up, but nothin’ serious.”

“Able to ride?” asked Bennet, tersely.

“Reckon so, if someone shows him where to go. Both eyes are swelled shet.”

“Wal, let’s see. The Indians can look after us. You boys take him back to the post. Tell Mrs. Bennet to pay him off an’ let him go. Clear out now... An’ say, boys, if you want to stay with me, keep mum aboot this deal. Not one little word! Savvy?”

They promised soberly, and picking up their guns, they led their horses down through the cedars out of sight.

“Reckon we might as well stay heah fer a day or two, hadn’t we?” inquired Bennet of Endicott. “The Indians will look after our horses, an’ pack firewood. I can cook.”

“Surely. I want to see this Beckyshibeta. Besides—” replied Endicott, who, happening to glance at Janey, did not complete what had been on his mind to say. Then seeing Randolph returning he advanced to meet him. He certainly got a cold shoulder from that individual. Standing blankly a moment he threw up his hands, then stalked off tragically. Janey had noticed this little by-play. So had Bennet, who was not above chuckling. This and Randolph’s reception of her father did much to spur Janey to some semblance of sanity.

“Wal, lass, it was an awful mess, wasn’t it?” said the trader, sympathetically, as he seated himself beside Janey.

“Mess is the word, Mr. Bennet,” replied Janey, finding her voice somewhat strained.

“Your father had good intentions,” went on Bennet. “But jumpin’ horn toads! What a damn fool idee! He never told me till it was all done, an’ the cowboys on your trail. Shore I could have held them back, or come along. I thought somethin’ was kinda queer. Sort of in the air. But, Lord, how could I guess it?”

“Don’t apologize, and please don’t be sorry for me,” murmured Janey.

“Aw now—”

“What this — this mess has done to me I don’t realize yet,” interrupted Janey. “But today has been terrible... When I — I get my nerve back, I’ll be all right... I don’t blame Dad. He meant well. He wanted to give me a — a real scare. I’ll say he succeeded beyond his wildest hopes... Still, it was my fault, Mr. Bennet. I can’t crawl out. I must have driven poor Dad crazy. And that miserable cowboy Ray! I don’t know what to say. I — I wanted Phil to kill him. Think of that!”

“Wal, I’d have shot Ray myself if I hadn’t been leary of hittin’ Randolph,” said Bennet. “Don’t you waste too much pity on Ray. He’s plain no good. I know a lot of things aboot Ray. He was a good man with hosses an’ cattle. An’ not a hard drinker. I’ve gotta say thet fer him. But Ray always was loony aboot girls. He wouldn’t up an’ marry one. No sir-ee! He always said he didn’t want to be hawg-tied... Wal, I reckon he had a genuine case on you.”

“As far as Ray is concerned — and that terrible fight — I am solely to blame,” confessed Janey, almost choking. “It makes me deathly sick. Mr. Bennet, I — I made a fool of—”

“Never mind, lass,” interposed the trader, putting a rough kind hand on hers. “I heard what you said to your Dad. You’re game, as we say in the West, an’ takin’ your medicine. You jest didn’t savvy cowboys, much less a dangerous hombre like Ray. We’re lucky it didn’t turn out bad... Randolph shore was chain-lightnin’ when he rode up, wasn’t he? Wal, I reckon, after all, the most dangerous men are the quiet ones. I’ll never get over the surprise he gave me, though... Now, you pull yourself together. Reckon I’d better look up your Dad.”

With that Bennet arose, and giving the Indians some instructions, he strode off in the direction Endicott had taken. Janey felt that she had pulled herself together, in a sense, though she was far too wise to trust herself yet. Still, she had to go about facing things, and she chose the hardest first. She went up to Randolph. He had changed his stained, torn shirt for a clean one, and washed the blood from his cut and bruised face. And he did not appear such an ugly sight as she had anticipated.

“Phil, it was — fine — wonderful for you to fight that way for me. You — I — I can’t find words.”

“What I did is nothing compared to the way you stood up before them and lied for me,” he said, with deep feeling.

Janey had forgotten about that. All in a second she felt unaccountably tender and realized she was on most treacherous ground. She had not lied, and she longed to tell him so.

“Don’t look so distressed,” he went on. “They all know you lied to save me and they’ll think more of you for it.”

“I don’t care what they think,” returned Janey. “I’m pretty much upset. I just wanted to tell you how I felt — about your fighting for me... and to ask you — please not to quarrel with Dad.”

“Sorry I can’t promise. It’s certainly coming to that gentleman,” said Randolph, grimly.

Janey was not equal to any more just then; and when she slowly ascended the little rock slope to her retreat she realized how unstrung she was. Once there she lay down on her bed and did not care what happened. She did not quite sleep, but she rested for a couple of hours. Still she did not feel up to the exigencies of this hectic situation. Curiosity, however, was an entering wedge into the chaos of her mind. She sat up and tried to make herself more presentable — thinking, with a wan smile as she saw the havoc in her face, that this was a favorable sign of returning reason.

The Indians appeared to be busy around the campfire, cleaning the mess left by Black Dick and his partner. Never would she forget them! And pretty soon she would find herself in the unique and embarrassing state of inquiring into their wholesome effect upon her. The Durlands were fixing up some kind of a shelter in the cedars, and evidently were quite interested. Janey reflected that an adjustment to their material loss might make considerable difference in their reaction. Randolph and Bennet were nowhere to be seen. But presently Janey saw her father. He had been so near, under the wall in the shade, that she had overlooked him. Hatless, coatless, vestless, collar open at the neck, dejected, he certainly presented a most unusual counterpart of himself. For an instant Janey had a wild start. What if Randolph had chastised him too! But no, that was improbable. Nevertheless something had happened to Mr. Endicott, and seeing him this way revived Janey’s spirit. Could she carry on? She would die in the attempt! These two detractors had not been punished enough to satisfy her. Especially Randolph! So after thinking it over for a little longer Janey went down to her father.

“Well, Dad, you appear to be having a most enjoyable time,” she said.

“Ah! — Hello, Janey. Yes, I’m having a grand time. Ha! Ha!” he replied.

It was worse than Janey had imagined. She began to soften a little, though she never would let it show.

“How do you like Beckyshibeta?” she asked.

“Becky-hell and blazes!”

“What’s happened, Dad?” she went on, quietly.

“Nothing. I’ve had the most uncomfortable hour of my life,” he rejoined, miserably. She saw that unburdening himself would be well, so she encouraged him.

“I didn’t know that man Randolph at all,” he exploded.

“Neither did I,” replied Janey, musingly.

“Janey, that confounded Westerner came up to me with fire in his eye. And he said: ‘Damn you, Endicott. I ought to punch you good!’ I thought he was going to do it, too. So I made some feeble reply about how sorry I was to place him in such a fix. ‘Fix? Hell!’ he yelled at me. ‘I’m not thinking of myself. It’s the fix you’ve got her in. It’s not I who’ll have ruined her reputation. It’s you! You made a damn fool of me. But you’ve hurt her. Those Durlands will be nasty. Your own daughter! You made me believe she was wild — going straight to hell!’ I yelled back at him that you were. Then he shut me up all right. He shook that big fist under my very nose. He called me a blankety-blank liar!... Then he swore at me. He cussed me. Such profanity I never heard. He must have collected it from every cowboy in the West. He never stopped until he was out of breath. Then he went off somewhere with Bennet.”

“Is that all?” she inquired.

“All? Good God! What would you want? Have him beat me up like he did that cowboy?”

“I thought perhaps he might.”

“You’d have been an orphan all right, if he had... Janey, you don’t mean you’re dead sore at me?”

“You are an unnatural parent,” returned Janey, beginning to revel.

“Why, I thought I’d been the easiest dad any girl ever had,” he protested, not without pain. “Our friends always took me to task for giving you freedom — everything you wanted.”

“Yes. But never the love I was so hungry for,” said Janey, cruelly.

“Janey!” he exclaimed, amazed and shocked. “I always worshiped you — and spoiled you. This miserable trick I played on you — that’s turned out so badly — why it was a proof of — of—”

“Not of faith, Father,” she interrupted, coldly.

“Faith! Of course it was faith. I swore to myself that our rotten life in the East had not yet ruined you.”

“Please do not argue with me,” she returned, sweetly. “The thing’s done. You have ruined me, that’s certain. And I’ll never, never forgive you.”

This so crushed him that she had to leave before she must yield to an irresistible softness. And by way of a counter-irritant she went over to talk to the Durlands. They were cold and reserved at first, but presently her sad face, and the struggle she apparently was making to keep up, quite warmed Mrs. Durland. Her son, however, came around slowly. Finally he broke out in a tirade against Randolph and her father.

“Yes, I know, Bert, they’re all you say and more. But that doesn’t help me. I was perfectly innocent. You know what kind of a girl I am.”

“You bet I do. But, Janey, that about coming here willingly? Then you stood up so — so wonderfully and said you loved him!”

“You ninny. I was trying to save his life,” protested Janey.

“It was great of you, old girl, believe me,” replied Bert, fervently. “And I believe you did.”

Janey decided the Durlands would be hard to handle. Under her direct influence they would respond, but once away from it they would be likely to gossip, unless she could make them loyal to her. On the face of it that seemed an impossible task. And she was silly to hope for it, selfish to ask for it. She began to stroll around, hoping to get a peep at Randolph, conscious of a sneaking delight. She saw Bennet returning to camp, but the archaeologist had vanished. Could it be possible that the man was again digging for Beckyshibeta? If so she would have to hand him a laurel wreath. She could not, however, venture to find out, and had to content herself with waiting.

Out of sight of camp Janey found a lofty perch in the sun and there she succumbed to the glory and dream of this canyon country. There was no sense or use in trying to resist its charm. But it was a way with Janey to try to understand what got the best of her. This place had taken hold of her heart.

What was the spell of this deep fissure in the rocks? She dreamily attended to her senses. It had such a strange sweet dry fragrance, with sage predominating, but with other perfumes almost as clean and insidious. It was as colorful ‘as a rainbow. It changed with the movements of the sun, never very long the same. It had mystic veils of light, rose and pink at dawn, amber and gold at this hour of high noon, and in the afternoon with shadows lengthening, deepening into lilac, purple, black. Then the immensity of the cliffs, the lofty rims, the far higher domes and mesas beyond, the hundreds of inaccessible and fascinating places where only squirrels and birds could rest — these added to the spell. Not a little, too, was the evidence of a wild people once having lived and fought and died here. Perhaps loved! Lastly Janey was discovering the blessedness of solitude, the something leveling in loveliness, the elevating power of the naked sheer walls with their inscrutable meaning.

All of which led to a consciousness of the thing that had come to her. She called it “thing,” when she confessed to her soul that it was new, transforming, exalting love. And she dared not give in to that just yet. When she must, when she could no longer stand the old Janey Endicott, when pride and vanity, and the host of other faults must go by the board, then she would face the truth and its appalling problems. She had a tremendous consciousness that she would engulf all — this marvelous desert, her aging, worrying father, her friends — and Randolph. And it was going to hurt almost mortally.

Janey returned to camp. Sight of Randolph thrilled yet shocked her. That hour alone in the canyon had transformed him in her mind. And the reality of him was confounding.

Evidently she had interrupted a conference, or at least an argument. She caught Randolph’s slight gesture to enjoin silence.

“Wal, Randolph,” said Bennet. “I reckon Miss Janey needn’t be excluded.”

“If I’m intruding,” replied Janey, haughtily, turning to go.

Bennet detained her. “We was jest talkin’,” he said, “an’ mebbe you might put a word in. Randolph has lost his job. Mr. Elliot, haid of the New York Museum, is now at the post, waitin’ for some of his men to come over from New Mexico. ‘Pears he’s been agin Randolph’s explorations out heah. Wants to find Beckyshibeta himself. After Randolph has dug up the desert! Wal, he took this unauthorized trip of Randolph’s out heah as an excuse, an’ fired him. Your father feels bad aboot bein’ to blame, and he offered Randolph substantial means to go on with his explorations on his own hook. Randolph turned it down cold... What do you think aboot it?”

“I! Oh, I think it very unfortunate and distressing that Phil — Mr. Randolph should be discharged — and disgraced through father’s idiotic scheme,” replied Janey. “Certainly father could do no less than offer to repair the material loss. And just as certainly Mr. Randolph could not accept it.”

“Why not?” demanded Endicott.

“Well, Dad, if you’re so dense you can’t see why — I am not going to enlighten you.”

“Thank you, Miss Endicott,” said Randolph. “You understand, at least.”

Endicott might have exploded then, if he had had energy enough left to express himself as he looked. As it was, his first exclamation was unintelligible and scarcely mild. Then he added: “If you temperamental young fools weren’t loggerheads I could still save the situation.”

“Yes, you could,” declared Randolph, sarcastically. “Endicott, my private opinion is that you might save your face if—”

“See here, you hot-headed jackanapes!” interrupted Endicott. “You’ve insulted me enough.”

“I could still add injury to insult,” retorted Randolph.

Here Bennet stepped in and tried his Western common sense and kindliness. Janey had been thinking desperately. What astounded her now was that she simply could not stand Randolph’s unhappiness. She, who had wanted to make him writhe and moan and curse himself with remorse!

“Mr. Randolph, may I have a word with you alone?” she asked, very businesslike. No one could have guessed there was a lump in her throat.

“Certainly,” he said, with freezing politeness, “if you consider it necessary.”

He went aside with her, manifestly with misgivings. Janey heard her father whisper to Bennet, “Now what’s she up to? There’s no telling about a woman.”

Janey maintained an outward composure. She could rise to the moment and this one was big.

“Will you make me a promise?” she asked.

“I couldn’t very well be surprised at you. And if you’ll pardon my bluntness — no, I won’t,” he replied.

Janey was looking with a woman’s penetrating intuitive eyes into his face; and what she read there made the ordeal worse, yet gave her a hint of the assurance she needed.

“Well then, if you make me a promise — will you keep it?” she continued, steadily.

“Yes. If!”

“Do you recall the last time I was around where you were digging?”

“I’m not likely to forget it.”

“I am going to tell you the honest truth.”

“Miss Endicott, are you capable of that?” he asked, acidly.

“If you were big enough to fight for my honor you can be big enough to give me the benefit of the doubt — when I particularly appeal to you. Will you?”

That struck him deep. He lost his grim cold look of doubt and became merely wretched.

“I’m not quite myself. But tell me what you want to.”

“If I reveal something to you will you promise never to tell it to anyone?” she asked, hurriedly and low.

“I don’t see any need of your revealing secrets to me,” he replied.

“Will you promise?” she went on, appealing as well with her eyes.

“You can trust me,” he said, surrendering in spite of himself.

“Thank you. The secret you have promised to keep is that I have found Beckyshibeta for you,” she whispered. “Go at once far beyond that place where I crossed and risked my life — where I taunted you and you told me to go to the devil... Go high up around the great cracked leaning rock. Find a stairway of little cut steps in the stones. Follow them. They will lead you to Beckyshibeta. Don’t doubt. Don’t laugh. But go!”

Janey did not wait to see his incredulity or to hear whatever he might have to say. She hurried away, up to her ledge. When she sank to her knees upon her bed, and looked back, Randolph had disappeared. Soon he would learn that her words had not been idle. The greatest ambition of his life attained! Beckyshibeta! How would he return to her?

CHAPTER 13

JANEY HAD ANTICIPATED peace, satisfaction, relief from her whirling thoughts. But she was wrong. Suppose it had not been Beckyshibeta at all? What a horrible mistake! Her eloquence, her exaction of a sacred promise, her cool certainty had convinced Randolph. But she might have been wrong. How could she be sure about cliff dwellings?

So she was tortured. How to make amends to Randolph if she had blundered! Of course she could give him herself. It did not seem possible that she could rival Beckyshibeta in this mad scientist’s valuation; nevertheless she might be some little consolation. That would be what she must do; that was what she had intended for long endless growing hours. Only it would have to be done at once, right there where this catastrophe had happened, instead of waiting until she felt utterly and forever avenged.

An hour passed, surely an hour Janey would never want to live over. The camp was deserted. She had not heard anyone leave. And presently she felt that she could not lie there any longer, waiting in actionless suspense. She must move around, do something.

Janey wandered in the opposite direction to the one she was sure the others had taken. She went round under the cliffs farther on that side than she had ever been. But for once the speaking walls had no power of solace. She was not ready to take stock of her own spiritual needs. It was Randolph of whom she was thinking. If she had actually discovered Beckyshibeta she would presently be the most fortunate — the happiest of women. She did not try now to reason out why. It was something she most devoutly believed and prayed for.

She found a clump of sage and lingered in it, reveling in its fragrance and color. She gathered an armful of the sprigs, meaning to treasure them in a pillow, to have near her a memory-stirring sweetness of the desert. Then she sat down with the sage in her lap, and tried to plan clearly her procedure from this hour. But she could only dream, because everything was uncertain.

Time passed, however, and upon her return to camp she found all the others there, except Randolph. At first glance they appeared to be friendly enough. There must be some occasion for intimate talk. Then her father spotted her and came running. Janey sighed with relief. Mr. Endicott was not given to overexertion in ordinary movements or when he was gloomy.

“I’ve had the very devil of good luck,” he announced, as he reached her, and quite forgetful of a former state of mind he put his arm around her and squeezed her.

“You have? Well, that’s fine,” replied Janey, yielding to him, as he pulled her to a seat on a rock.

“Randolph and I have made up,” said Mr. Endicott, with great pleasure and satisfaction.

“Made up! Indeed? I did not imagine it possible that he would ever forgive you — either.” Janey added the “either” as an afterthought. It quite escaped Mr. Endicott.

“Janey, the lucky dog discovered the lost pueblo — Beckyshibeta!” exclaimed her father.

“Oh! — How wonderful!”

“It’s true. And, well, I don’t know when I’ve been so glad about anything.”

“Tell me about it,” said Janey, composedly, although she kept her face half averted.

“Bennet was showing us the ruins,” went on Endicott, wiping his hot face. “We ran into Randolph. I declare I thought he was crazy. So did Bennet. At first we did not take him at all seriously. He convinced us finally. He had discovered Beckyshibeta — the pueblo about which archaeologists have been raving for years. Quite by a strange lucky accident. He was radiant. I never saw a man so completely happy. He was so absurdly grateful to me for sending him out here. Why, the fellow embraced me. I was embarrassed, remembering how he treated me a few hours before... Janey, he had actually forgotten. I declare it upset me — I was so glad. I like Randolph, and when I queered myself with him it hurt. He’s one of the finest chaps I ever knew!”

“I’m glad — for his sake and yours,” rejoined Janey. “This discovery must mean a great deal to him?”

“I didn’t understand that until after he rushed off again,” replied Endicott. “Bennet told me! It means fame and money to Randolph. In one word — success. Scientifically this is a very important discovery. Beckyshibeta is one of the greatest pueblos, says Bennet. An ancient buried city! Then the best of it is that Randolph was not working for the museum people when he found the pueblo. He was all on his own. That upstage Elliot, you know, fired him. Bennet says Elliot will practically expire. Randolph will have the credit, and everything else that comes with it. The work of excavation will be under his control, instead of Elliot’s. I’m just tickled over it.”

“Excavation,” mused Janey. “He will undertake that? Won’t it be expensive?”

“I’ll back him. It’s a big thing,” replied

Mr. Endicott, heartily.

“Do you think he would accept that?”

“Phillip has already accepted,” went on her father, happily. “He said he could raise any amount of money. The government would want to help. Patrons of scientific research would want to donate — to have their names connected with Beckyshibeta. But I beat them to it. And Phil was delighted.”

“Where is — he now?” asked Janey, with her glance downcast upon the bunch of sage. It would never have done for her to let anyone see her eyes then.

“He went back. Bennet and I tried to follow him. But he crossed a terrible place. We’d have broken our necks. So we returned to camp.”

It was night with silvery radiance streaming down over the dark canyon rims. The moon was rising. Janey lay in her blankets, waiting to see the white disk slide up over the black ragged rockline above. She had not cared to trust meeting Randolph at the campfire, and pleading fatigue had retired to her ledge, where her father brought her supper.

Randolph did not return until the others had finished their meal; and then he quite forgot to eat. His ragged appearance attested to hours of contact with the rough rocks, and his radiant face to the discovery that had made him a changed man. While he talked to Bennet and Endicott his glance went so often toward Janey’s perch that she feared she might be caught peeping. But she was in dark shadow there, and could revel in watching and listening. If she had ever seen three happy men it was then.

The Durlands had thawed considerably. They hovered around Randolph, fascinated, and warming to the man’s enthusiasm. When at last they went off to their shack, Bennet said: “Wal, Endicott, can you dig up a drink?”

“No. I didn’t bring any,” replied Endicott, regretfully.

“How aboot you, Randolph?”

“I had some for possible snakebite, but it leaked out.”

Bennet turned over his saddle and procured a flask. “Heah, friends, we’ll drink to Beckyshibeta!”

What a long time they were in getting ready for bed! At last Randolph was left alone. He sat for what seemed an endless hour, gazing into the ruddy dying fire. What was he thinking about? Fame and fortune, the goddesses of all men’s ambitions, thought Janey, jealously. Certainly he did not appear to remember her.

The moon soared across the narrow opening between the rims of rock above; the dark shadow on one side of the canyon moved magically across to the other. An impenetrable silence enfolded the lonely place. Janey had sat up peeping until her back ached. Several times she lay down again, only to rise up and peep once more. Randolph was a magnet. She laughed happily under her breath as she watched him. If he but knew!

Endicott and Bennet lay prone in their beds, deep in slumber. It touched Janey to see the silver of her father’s hair, bright in the moonlight.

Randolph glanced rather markedly and long at them. Then stepping noiselessly he entered the zone of shadow and vanished. But soon the outline of his head and shoulders were silhouetted against the moonlight. Janey gave a wild start and shrank back. He was climbing to her ledge.

The sudden burning of her face and beating of her heart accompanied a panic she could not quell. But she covered herself with the blankets and feigned sleep. To her own eyes it had been almost as bright as day up there.

But Randolph, coming from the open moonlight, would find it dark. Yet if he stayed long enough! A child could read her heart in her face. She heard a slight rustling on the rock, and she began to tremble. Next she felt his presence. He was there, gazing down upon her. How could she lie still? What was his intention? Then she realized that he would surely awaken her, and she sought to still her nerves. Something lightly brushed her hair. His hand or his lips? Another instant she knew, for she caught a slight sound of intense breathing very close to her face. He had kissed her hair. If he dared to kiss her lips her rigid arms would fly up round his neck. She knew it. She waited, surrendering in her heart, ready to end the fight royally.

But instead he touched her softly and whispered: “Janey!”

That saved her. She caught at her ebbing self-control; and her conscious swift thought balanced her emotion.

“Janey,” he whispered. “Wake up. It is I — Phil.”

She opened her eyes, not needing to pretend a start. She saw him distinctly — his face pale, rapt. He knelt beside her.

“Oh! — Who? — What?” she faltered. “Don’t be frightened,” he said, swiftly and low. “It’s Phil. I couldn’t wait till tomorrow.”

“You — you startled me. What is it? — Oh, I hope my father—”

“Don’t speak so loud,” he interrupted. “There is nothing wrong. I simply could not wait till morning. I had to wake you.”

“Why, may I ask — if all’s well?”

“Janey, it was no dream,” he went on with deep feeling. “You were right. You have found Beckyshibeta for me.”

“Of course. Did you wake me to tell me that?”

He hesitated, and then went on explosively. “No... but — it — they you all go together.”

Janey did not answer.

“Janey, please don’t be — be—” he added, hastily.

“What?” she asked, not encouragingly.

“Why, cold,” he burst out. “At least don’t freeze me to death. Let me tell you — let me unburden myself.”

“It’s quite unconventional, to put it mildly. But I haven’t ordered you out, have I?” she replied, and put a hand out to lift her pillow.

“Thank you,” he said, huskily. “I’ll be relieved and happy to get this off my mind... Janey, you’ve made my fortune. Beckyshibeta is marvelous. I have not had time to gauge its scope, but from what I’ve discovered already, it is vastly larger and more important than I ever dreamed it would be. In fact, Beckyshibeta is one of the great ancient buried cities. It will take years to excavate, and in a scientific way is a priceless discovery. The fact that Elliot discharged me from the museum staff is particularly fortunate for me. I am all on my own. I can dictate terms. I can raise any amount of capital, but I believe I’ll accept your father’s aid. It will be a fine thing for him, too.”

“But, Phil,” replied Janey, as he paused, “you told me all this before. When you explained what it would mean to you if you discovered the ruin.”

“Yes, but I never dreamed of its magnitude... Janey, I’ve tried more than once to make you see how my heart was in this work. It appeals to me in so many ways. I like delving into the musty past. But I could not advance because I had neither capital nor luck. You have made my fortune. I’ll be famous. I’ll make money writing, lecturing, and I’ll have a big position offered to me. Expeditions in foreign countries, if I want, or research work all over this desert. I simply cannot think of all the advantages that will come to me. But I think you should release me from my promise not to tell you made the discovery.”

“Certainly not. I am glad it means so much to you. You know I always wanted you to succeed, even if I didn’t appear interested. And I can feel that I returned some little good for the — the evil you did me.”

“Janey!”

“You have ruined my good name,” she went on, gravely. “It’s Dad’s fault, but that does not excuse you.”

“Oh, Janey, it really all amounts to nothing — nothing,” he whispered, hoarsely. “In this age! Why, even if the kidnaping had been real, it could not have hurt you vitally.”

“I can’t agree with you, and we needn’t discuss that.”

“Listen. I loved you from the first moment I saw you. But I had no hopes or delusions. You remember when I saw you in New York... Well, I don’t think I’d ever have gotten over it. I’d never have cared for any other girl. But my heart would not have broken. This trip of yours out here — your father’s crazy plan — the wonderful hours in the desert — and lastly, your finding Beckyshibeta for me — I can never stand them. I can never get over them. I loved you before, but I worship you now... Janey, will you marry me?”

Janey tried to withdraw her hand from his warm clasp, for fear that it might betray the true state of her heart.

“I will no longer be a nonentity,” he hastened on. “Nor a poor beggar. I can offer you a home — good enough for any good girl. I can make you happy, Janey. Oh, you never fooled me. That gay idle luxurious life never brought out the best in you. There’s a lot in you, Janey. What a wonderful girl to help a man make something out of himself! To make a real American home!”

“Not long ago you thought me all that was bad,” she replied, scornfully.

“I did not. I never even took you for what you appeared to be on the face of it.”

“I remember what you said, Phil,” she returned, sadly.

“I don’t care what I said. God knows I had provocation enough for anything. I don’t care what I thought, either. The inspiration of your discovery of Beckyshibeta has given me vision. I see clearly. I know you as you are in your heart. You are deceiving yourself, not me... I beg you, listen to me. I’ll never importune you again. I love you. I worship you. If you will only rise to the beauty and splendor of what I see!”

“Phil, you don’t allow for a woman’s feelings,” she returned, earnestly. “I respected you — liked you. And I proved it by letting you alone. If you had refused Dad’s miserable advances. If you had told me. If you had borne with me and been my friend — Quien sabe? — But now it’s too late!”

“Janey, you can’t be so little as that,” he pleaded, in torture. “If you liked me at all, it might be lasting.”

“You forget you — you beat me!” she whispered, and felt the hot blood move up to her cheeks.

“No, I don’t forget,” he said, stubbornly. “I’m sorry, of course. But I’d do it again under the same circumstances. Only I want you to understand I didn’t beat you. I spanked you. There is a very great difference.”

“I don’t care about the difference... Phil, do you honestly believe I oughtn’t hate you for that?”

“Hate me? Good heavens, no! My love for you robs that terrible humiliation of any hate.”

Janey knew that was true, and just then hated herself for the passion which held her to her pride and revenge. She knew also that she must end this talk abruptly or yield to him.

“Phil, any moment you may awaken the others,” she said, managing a hauteur that must have been sickening to him. “But take my answer. It is all too late for the beautiful thing you vision. Too late!... I shall insist that you take me to Flagerstown at once — and give me the protection of your name. I shall go to New York, and free you there.”

“Oh, Janey!” he cried, in passionate disappointment, and threw her hand from him.

“You will — do that much — for me?” she asked, unsteadily.

“Yes, I’ll make you Mrs. Phillip Randolph,” he answered, bitterly, and went silently down the ledge, disappearing in the shadow.

Janey lay back with a long sigh. The ordeal was over. She realized that in a few moments she would be gloriously happy. Just the instant she had satisfied her insistent modern mind! As she settled back, and drew the blankets close about her shoulders, she felt the quivering of her body. She was cold and exhausted. But for the darkness she could never have carried on that intimate talk with Phillip to the climax it had attained. She had deceived him. She had tortured him with the hint of what might have been. The assurance of his love had been what she craved. Her breast swelled and her conscience flayed her as she recalled his words, his emotion, his faith. She would take exceeding great care that no word or act of hers would do anything but increase his remorse and love. Nevertheless she would go clear to the very last minute with her revenge. No longer revenge, but fun, simply love itself, something to enhance her surrender to him with the sweetest and most unforgettable turning of the tables.

A thought flashed by — was this trifling with her happiness — going too far, risking too much? No! If Phillip worshiped her — and how thrillingly she believed it — dared not yield to it! — a few more days on the desert and then that marvelous climax she must devise to follow their marriage in Flagerstown, would make him more miserable, more lovelorn, more wholly hers. How she must rack her brain to make her victory complete — something for which he could only love her more!

Janey lay long awake. Sleep would have robbed her. The night wore on. The silver gleam on the walls paled, darkened, vanished. And the canyon grew black, mysterious, silent as a tomb. But by intense concentration Janey managed to hear a very low murmur of running water and then the faintest of mournful winds. How wonderful the night, the darkness, the loneliness and wildness, the meaning of these old walls, the echo of past life there, the living powerful love in her heart, and the intimation that nothing died!

Then, as if by magic, the gray dawn came, the brightening of the canyon.

Janey lay in bed and thought and dreamed, and smiled, and pinched herself to prove she was awake. Presently she became aware of sounds of camp stirring below. They were early this morning. But she was loath to leave the warm blankets, and would rather have lingered there with her thoughts.

Then her father appeared on the ledge, carrying her riding habit and boots.

“Hello, you’re awake,” he said.

“Good morning, Father,” she replied, demurely peeping from behind the edge of her blanket. He did not look happy and the smile he usually had for her was wanting.

“We’re breaking camp. Randolph acquainted me with your wishes and intentions. We will leave for the post and Flagerstown at once.”

“So soon! Leave Beckyshibeta today?” she exclaimed, in dismay.

“Assuredly. I daresay you will appreciate this place — and some other things — after you have lost them. Hurry and dress yourself. Breakfast is waiting.”

Janey stared after his retreating form rather blankly. “Well!” she soliloquized. Then she laughed. What could she have expected? He was tremendously disappointed in her. All the better! Things were working out magnificently. She would certainly teach him a lesson that would last for life. Yet she was very glad indeed that he was so disappointed. She could endure a little longer that he and Randolph should continue to be sad about her and the mess she was going to make out of her life.

Janey got into her riding habit and boots with extraordinary pleasure and satisfaction. What a transformation! The scant garb she had been wearing did not harmonize with dignity, and certainly had not enhanced her good looks. All the same she would keep that shrunken skirt and torn blouse and the soiled stockings. She rolled them in the blankets. The worn shoes, too! Some distant future day she would don them to surprise and delight Phil.

Her little mirror showed a golden-tanned face, with glad eyes and a glorious smile; and shiny rippling hair, all the prettier for being wayward and free. Janey did not need to hide her feelings any longer. She would let Randolph and her father make their own deductions regarding her happiness.

As she descended the ledge she heard Mrs. Durland squeal with delight. Something had excited her. Randolph and Bennet were busy packing. Breakfast steamed on the fire. The Indians were coming up with the horses. A pang tore Janey’s heart. Only an hour more, perhaps less, of these gleaming canyon walls! But she would come back. The gentlemen were not blind to her changed attire and mood, though they did not fuss over her. Indeed she could not catch Randolph’s eye.

Mrs. Durland came up almost running, breathless, triumphant, and radiant. “Oh, my dear, how different — you look!” she panted. “What do you think? — That villain Black Dick forgot to take our money — and jewels. My bag was hanging on a cedar twig. Imagine! I was simply overcome ... and here’s your diamond ring.”

“Well, of all the luck!” cried Janey, surprised and pleased, as she took the ring. “I’m very glad for you, Mrs. Durland. Of course my loss would have been little... So our desperado forgot to take what he stole? Well, he was a queer one.”

“I can almost forgive him now,” replied Mrs. Durland, fervently.

Bert came up and tipped his sombrero to Janey. But his sour look did not fit his graceful gesture. Janey did not need to be told that her father had passed on the important news. The Durlands might be civil, but Bert, at least, would never forgive her. Janey reflected that it might not matter how they felt or what they did. She would be careful, however, to make it plain to Randolph and her father that she feared the Durlands and desired to placate them.

Janey had her breakfast alone. One of the Indians left his work and stood nearby, apparently fascinated at the sight of her. Randolph kept his back turned and worked hard on the packs.

“Phil, please get me another cup of coffee,” she called.

He hurriedly complied and fetched it to her.

“You make such lovely coffee,” she said, looking up at him. “I’ll miss that, at least, when I’m home again.”

“Bennet made this coffee,” replied Randolph, brusquely.

“Oh!” But nothing could have hurt Janey this wonderful morning. Nothing except leaving her canyon! She went aside by herself so that she could feel and think, unaffected by Randolph or her father. The gleaming walls spoke to her. The great red corner of rock that led off toward Beckyshibeta beckoned for her to come. And she went far enough to peep round. How wild and ragged and rocky! It was a wilderness of broken stones. Yet for her they had a spirit and a voice. The stream murmured from the gorge, the canyon swifts darted by, their wings shining in the sunlight, the sweet dry sage fragrance filled her nostrils.

Janey gazed all around and upward, everywhere, with deep reverence for this lonely chasm in the rock crust of the earth. She would return soon, and often thereafter while Randolph was at work on the excavation of the ruined pueblo. She would like to plan her future, her home, her usefulness in the world, here under the spell of her canyon.

How soon would that be? Not yet had she planned any farther than Flagerstown. No farther than the hour which would make her Phil’s wife! The tumultuousness of that thought had inhibited a completion of her plan. But was not that the climax — the end? It did not satisfy Janey. It entailed confession, total surrender, both of which she would be glad to give, yet — . Suddenly she had an inspiration. It absolutely dazzled her. It swept her away. It was a perfect solution to her problem, and she could have laughed her joy to these watching jealous walls. But — was it possible? Could she accomplish it? How strange she had not thought of it before! Easy as it was wonderful! Whereupon she gave herself up to a mute reverent farewell to Beckyshibeta.

A lusty shout interrupted Janey’s rapt mood: “Come on, Janey. We’re off!” called her father.

Very soon then Janey was astride a horse, comfortable and confident in her riding outfit, going down the trail through the cedars. She was the last of the cavalcade. Randolph and the Indians were ahead, driving the pack animals. Bennet was looking after the Durlands. Endicott rode ahead of Janey. They crossed the boulder-strewn stream bed, climbed the dusty soft red trail, and wound away through cedars. Janey did not look back. It would not have been any use, for her eyes were blinded by tears. They did not wholly clear until she rode out of the rock walls, up on to the desert.

Janey rode alone all day. And surely it was the fullest and sweetest day of all her life. Forty miles of sage to traverse to the next camp — purple color and wondrous fragrance all around — red and gold walls beckoning from the horizons — the sweep and loneliness of vast stretches — sometimes all by herself on the trail, far behind the others — these were the splendid accompaniments of her happy dreams and thoughts, of long serious realizations, of the permanent settling of convictions and ideals, of consciousness of a softened and exalted heart.

Sunset fell while they were yet upon the trail — one of the incomparable Arizona sunsets that Janey had come to love. A black horizon-wide wall blocked the West. The red and golden rays of sunlight swept down over it, spreading light over the desert. Above masses of purple cloud with silver edges hid the sky. And it all gloriously faded into dusk.

A flock of black and white sheep crossed the trail in front of Janey. The shepherds were a little Indian boy and girl both mounted on the same pony. How wild and shy! The dogs barked at Janey. The sheep trooped over the ridge top. And lastly the little shepherds and their pony stood silhouetted against the afterglow. Janey waved and waved. The little girl answered — a fleeting shy flip of hand. Then they were gone.

Soon after that a bright campfire greeted Janey from a bend in the trail. She rode into camp and dismounted, to discover she felt no fatigue, no aches, no pains — and that the exhilaration of the morning had not worn away in that long ride. Mrs. Durland was bemoaning her state; Bert limped to his tasks; and Bennet showed the effect of long sitting in a saddle. The Westerners were active.

The camp was in the open desert, in the lee of some low rocks. Coyotes were wailing and yelping out in the darkness. A cold wind swept round the rocks and pierced through Janey. How good the blazing bits of sage. She was ravishingly hungry.

Janey ate her supper sitting on an uncomfortable pack, and she had to eat it quickly while it stayed warm. Firewood appeared to be scarce, and the desert wind grew colder. There was little or no gayety in the company. Bennet tried to make a few facetious remarks to Mrs. Durland, but they fell flat. Janey edged so close to the fire that she almost burned her boots. Randolph kept in the shadow. She felt him watching her, and needed no more to keep her spirits high. Endicott huddled on the ground on the other side of the fire, and his head dropped. Bert was silent and dejected. Mrs. Durland complained of the awful effects of the ride, the food, the cold, the wind and everything.

“Are those terrible wild creatures going to keep that din up all night?” she asked.

“Wal, I reckon so,” replied Bennet. “Coyotes are noisy an’ they’ll come right up an’ pull at your hat, when you’re in bed.”

“Heavens! And we must sleep on the flat ground!”

“You might bunk up on the rock. It’ll be tolerable windy... Miss Janey, aren’t you scared and frozen stiff?”

“Both,” laughed Janey. “But I think this is great. I love to hear those wild coyotes.”

“No more desert for me,” sighed Mrs. Durland.

“Bert, surely you will come back to Arizona someday?” asked Janey, curiously.

“What for?” he asked, fixing her with gloomy eyes.

“Of course, Janey, you’ll be coming back often to see your husband digging in that heap of stones?” added Mrs. Durland.

“Y-yes, but not very soon,” replied Janey. “Father is coming back shortly to start the excavating of Beckyshibeta. Aren’t you, Dad?”

“Sure. I’m going to dig a grave for myself out here,” growled her father.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” bawled the trader. “Did you heah that, Randolph?... Wal, folks, you’ll all come back to Arizona. I’ve yet to see the man or woman who’d slept out on this desert an’ didn’t want to come back.”

“You all better turn in,” said Randolph. “Firewood scarce, and you’ll be called at dawn.”

“I forgot about bed,” exclaimed Janey, giving her palms a last toast over the red coals. “Phil, where’s my couch?”

“Here,” he replied, and led her a few steps.

“Ugh, it’s windy. I hate to think of bed on the cold rocks,” returned Janey, trying to see in the dark.

“Yours won’t be windy or cold or hard,” he replied, briefly. “Here. There’s a foot of sage under your blankets, and a thick windbreak. You’ll be comfortable.”

“Oh!... You found time to do this for me?” she asked, looking up at him. The starlight showed his face dark and troubled, his eyes sad.

“Certainly. It was little enough.”

“Thank you, Phil. You are good to me,” she said, softly, and held out her hand.

Randolph gave a start, clasped her hand convulsively, and strode away without even saying good night.

Janey gazed a moment at his vanishing form. Then she plumped down on her bed. “Gee,” she whispered, “I want to be careful. He might grab me — and then it would be the end!”

Removing only her boots Janey slipped down into the bed. How soft and fragrant of sage! Her pillow was a fleecy sheepskin, one she had seen in Randolph’s pack. Then her feet, bravely stretching down, suddenly came in contact with something hot. It startled her. Presently she ascertained it was a hot stone wrapped in canvas. Randolph had heated this and put it in her bed. Let the desert wind blow! The white stars blinked down at her from the deep blue dome above. Had she ever thought them pitiless, indifferent, mocking? The wind swept with low moans through the sage; the coyotes kept up their wild staccato barks; the campfire died out and low voices of men ceased. Tranquil, cold, beautiful night enfolded the scene. And Janey lay there wide-eyed, watching the heavens, wondering at the beauty and mystery of nature, at the glory of love, marveling at the happiness that had been bestowed upon her unworthy self.

Next day about mid-afternoon they rode across the wide barren stretch of desert to the post, the pack train far ahead with Randolph in the lead, and Bennet trying to hold Mrs. Durland in the saddle to the last. Janey brought up the rear, so late that when she reached the last level all the others had disappeared in the green grove that surrounded the post.

Mohave met Janey at the gate, bareheaded, respectful, but with a face of woe.

“Why, Mohave, have you lost your grandmother — or something?” exclaimed Janey.

“I reckon it’s worse, Miss Janey,” he replied, meaningly.

“Oh goodness! For a moment I felt sorry for you. Mohave boy, you keep shy of Eastern girls after this. They’re no good.”

“Most of them ain’t, I reckon. But I know one who’s an angel. An’ she’s gonna be married to a—”

“Mohave, who told you?” interrupted Janey, as she slipped out of the saddle.

“Thet big-mouthed, lop-eared, hard-headed Bennet. He came aroarin’ it to everybody, an’ no winter cyclone could have knocked us flatter.”

“Mohave, honest now, aren’t you glad for my sake?” asked Janey, sweetly. She liked this frank clean-cut cowboy.

“Wal, Miss Janey, since you tax me — yes, I am, seein’ I cain’t have you myself,” he replied, with reddening face. “I never liked thet kidnapin’ stunt an’ didn’t understand. Shore, if we’d known you was engaged all the time there’d never been such a mix-up. Poor old Ray, he was the hardest hit, I reckon.”

“How about him, Mohave?” asked Janey, anxiously.

“Gone. An’ mighty shamed of himself. Asked me to tell you he’d plumb lost his haid. An’ wanted you to know it wasn’t the first time.”

“Well!! What did he mean?”

“I reckon Ray figgered thet if you knowed he’d made a fool of hisself over a gurl before, you wouldn’t feel so bad aboot what you did to him.”

“He was man enough to confess his weakness. I call that square of him, don’t you, Mohave?”

“It shore is. Wal, Ray was a good sort, when he wasn’t loco over a gurl, or full of licker.”

“How are the other boys?”

“They wasn’t so bad, till this news came. Reckon now they’re down at the bunkhouse drownin’ their grief. They shore left the work to me an’ the boss.”

“How funny! What did they say?”

“Wal, I can’t recollect all, but one crack I’ll never fergit. Tay-Tay busted out like this. ‘W-w-w-what the h-h-hell you think of thet grave robber? He’s s-s-s-stole our gurl an’ he’s got a face like a sick c-c-cow!’”

“Well, I never,” laughed Janey. “Mr. Randolph ought to look well and happy, oughtn’t he?”

“He shore ought. I reckon, though, he feels turrible bad aboot your goin’ East an’ him havin’ to stay on account of Beckyshibeta. Bennet told us. You can jest bet, Miss Janey, no cowboy would let you go off alone.”

For once Janey was startled, but she maintained her outward air of coolness. Somehow she had forgotten that the cowboys would wonder why she did not stay here with Randolph until his plans were complete. To let Mohave or any of the others guess her secret would upset all her plans.

“I fancy not,” she said, quickly. “But you mustn’t think ill of Mr. Randolph. The discovering of the pueblo has upset all our plans. It’s very important. I’m hoping to persuade him to go East with us for a few weeks, but I have some very urgent business reasons for going back immediately with Father. Please regard that as confidential, Mohave. And tell the boys we’ll be leaving early in the morning. I wouldn’t want to miss saying good-by.”

When Mohave had left Janey breathed a sigh of relief. Her excuse had been a lame one, but the honest cowboy had apparently swallowed it without a second thought.

Janey then went on into the house, first encountering Mrs. Bennet, to whose warm greeting she responded. The Indian maid showed shy gladness at Janey’s safe return. Bennet came bustling in with Endicott, both of them blushing and coughing. Janey thought her father looked much better and she guessed why. The Durlands were evidently in their rooms, and Randolph was not in sight.

“Mr. Bennet, we shall want to leave early in the morning,” said Janey.

“Aw, Miss Janey! One more day,” he entreated.

“I’m sorry, but we must go. Some other time we shall come and stay longer ... Dad, I’ll change and pack now. Will you please tell Phil I want to talk to him presently. Say in an hour. Tell him to knock at my door.”

“All right, star-eyed enigma,” returned her father, with puzzled glance upon her.

Janey rushed to her room, and lost no time in bathing. She put on her most fetching gown, one of those scant creations that Randolph had hated, yet could not resist. How swiftly her blood ran! What a glow on her face! Indeed her eyes were like stars. Would Randolph see — would he be proud and wretched at once — would he betray himself? While she packed her mind whirled, keeping pace with her racing pulse. If she had not conceived a grand finale to this desert romance she was a poor judge of wit and humor. Her father would be completely floored, and, best of all, won forever. Randolph? But no stretch of imagination could picture Randolph as she hoped to see him.

A tap sounded on the door. It startled Janey. She caught her breath and her hand went to her breast. She glanced at her mirror and the image she saw there quickened her agitation. But as quickly she recovered her composure.

“Come in,” she said.

But the door did not move, nor was the rap repeated. Janey went swiftly and opened it. Randolph stood there. She had not seen him like this.

“Oh, it’s you, Phil. I’d forgotten. Come in. I want to talk to you.”

He did not make any move to enter and apparently he was dumb.

“Well, you’re very reserved — and considerate, all of a sudden,” she said sarcastically. “Pray don’t be shy about entering my bedroom now... Please come in.”

Randolph entered reluctantly. There was no bully about him now.

“What do you want? Was it necessary to ask me here?”

“Yes, I think so. The living room is not private. And I want to ask a particular favor of you. Will you grant it?”

He went to the window and looked out. Then presently he turned with an almost grim look.

“Yes — anything.”

“Thank you, Phil,” she went on, going close to him, quite closer than was necessary.

Every moment made Janey more sure of herself. There was a strange and magical sweetness in this sincerity of deceit. Yet was it deceit? She risked a great deal, trusting to his mood, his humility. It was a woman’s perverse thrilling desire to tempt him. But if he should seize her in his arms! Even so, she would carry out her plan.

“Before I ask the favor, I want to tell you that I would rather have had this otherwise.”

“Ha! Maybe I wouldn’t!” he exclaimed. “But what do you mean?”

“It’s hard to say. Partly, I’d like to have spared you this.”

“Never mind about me. What’s the favor you’d ask?”

“Phil, you are going to marry me — aren’t you?”

“Certainly. Unless you change your mind.”

“Everybody knows it. Everybody thinks we’ve been engaged.”

“That appears to be the way Bennet and your father have spread it on,” he replied, in bitterness.

“What is the object of this marriage?” she asked, proudly lifting her head.

“Your father says — and you say — to save your reputation.”

“Yes. My honor!... And I fear your sacrifice will fail if you continue to look and act as you do. You are no happy bridegroom to be. Tay-Tay said you had a face like a sick cow. You certainly look wretched. If you don’t cheer up and change — act and look like a lover — the Durlands will guess the truth. So will the cowboys. Not to mention those in Flagerstown with whom we come in contact. It is a tremendous bluff we are playing. I can do my part. You see that I look happy, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” he answered, miserably. “And so help me God, I can’t understand you. Always you seem a lie.”

“All women are actresses, Phil. I shall not fail here. And I ask this last favor of you. Look and play the part of an accepted lover. For my sake!”

“My God! — Janey Endicott, you can ask that of a man whose only crime has been to love you so well?... And who must lose you!”

“Phil, if you loved me that well you could die for me.”

“I could, far more easily than do what you ask. It is almost an insupportable ordeal you set me. I was never much at hiding my feelings.”

“Phil, the Durlands and the cowboys must not guess this marriage is a — a fake.”

“I grant that. And I know I look like a poor lost devil. But I thought that’d seem natural to everybody. They all heard I was not going East.”

“You don’t know women, my desert friend. Mrs. Durland is keen as a whip. If you can deceive her — make this engagement seem real and of long standing, you will stop her wagging tongue. Then after I get to New York I can find ways socially to please her. Right here is the danger.”

“Perhaps you see it more clearly than I,” Randolph said, mournfully. “Anyway, I’ll accept your judgment.”

“Then you will grant my favor?” asked Janey, beginning to succumb to repressed emotion.

“Favor! I call it the hardest job ever given me. Marrying you will be nothing, compared to this damned hypocrisy you ask.”

“I do ask, Phil. I beg of you. Now at the last I confess I’m not so brazen. I’m afraid of scandal. Nothing bad ever has touched my name yet. All this modern stuff about freedom, independence, license is rot. Face to face with the truth, I beg of you — do this thing for me. At any cost.”

“Yes — Janey,” he gulped, and leaned against the window.

Janey’s reserve strength had oozed out in expression. She waited in suspense. She saw his lean jaw quiver and the cords set in his neck. He turned to transfix her with accusing eyes.

“On one condition,” he said.

“Condition! — What?” she whispered.

“This, then, is the last time you and I will ever be alone together?” he asked, huskily.

She was past falsehood and could only stare mutely at him.

“Of course it must be. Well, my price for your favor is that you let me ... No! I will not bargain... You lovely heartless thing — you’d only refuse. I’ll take what will give me strength to do your bidding!”

Janey backed against the wall, her hands against her breast, as if to ward him off. But when like a whirlwind he seized her in his arms he never knew those trembling hands locked round his neck. Mad with grief and unrequited love, he crushed her to his breast and pressed wild unsatisfied kisses upon her closed eyes, her parted lips, her neck. And releasing her as suddenly, he staggered to the door, like a blinded man, and leaned his face against it, sobbing: “Janey! Janey!... Janey!”

He did not turn to see her outstretched arms, her convulsed face. And as Janey could not speak he bolted out in ignorance. Janey closed her eyes, slowly recovering.

“I thought — that was — my finish,” she whispered, pantingly. “Poor boy — he never looked at me!... Well, it’ll only be — all the sweeter!”

CHAPTER 14

THE SUN HAD set when the car entered the heavy forest of pine that skirted the mountains. Snow was blowing. The wind was bitter cold, and moaned in the trees. How the car hummed on! Night fell, and the forest was black. The headlights cast broad gleams into the forest at the curves of the road, making specters of the dark pines.

Soon, then, the street lamps of Flagerstown terminated that wonderful ride.

In the hotel lobby, Janey, indifferent to loungers there, held frozen ungloved hands to the open fire. She had learned the real good of fire, its dire necessity, as she had begun the learning of many other things.

As Janey turned, she saw a tall stoop-shouldered man, rather lean and scholarly, rise from a chair to accost Randolph.

“How do you do, Mr. Elliot,” replied Randolph, constrainedly. “How are you? This is my friend — and patron, I may add — Mr. Endicott, of New York.”

“Ah! How do you do, Mr. Endicott,” returned Elliot, rather slowly, extending his hand to meet Endicott’s. “Patron? Of what, may I ask?”

“Hardly patron, just yet,” replied Endicott. “Randolph is a little previous, naturally.”

“Yes, he is, indeed,” returned the doctor, not without sarcasm. “Overzealous, I may say, in estimating things. Dreamy when he should be scientific. Witness the ridiculous rumor just phoned in from Cameron.”

“Rumor? What was it?” asked Randolph, tersely. Janey liked the lift of his head, and grew interested. No doubt this was the museum director who had discharged Phillip.

“Some nonsense about your having discovered Beckyshibeta,” replied Elliot, with a dry laugh. “It was telephoned in to the newspaper by a chauffeur. Annoying to me, to say the least.”

Randolph glanced at Endicott and said, “We stopped at Cameron for gas.”

“Must have been Driver Bill,” replied Endicott, sprightly, with a shrewd eye upon Elliot.

“Yes, Dr. Elliot, it was — rather previous,” said Randolph in as dry a tone as the director’s. But there was fire in his eye.

“Ahem! — I’m waiting here for two of our men due from New Mexico. Expect to put them on the job from which I removed you. I trust Mr. Bennet, the trader, informed you of this move.”

“Yes, Bennet told me you had fired me. Mr. Endicott here will corroborate it.”

Endicott nodded in reply to the doctor’s questioning look, but he did not speak. Janey knew the gleam in her father’s eye. He would say something presently.

“Randolph, I was very sorry indeed to remove you,” went on Elliot blandly. “There’s no need to repeat my reasons. You’ve been advised often enough.”

“Dr. Elliot, you need not distress yourself over doing what you considered your duty,” rejoined Randolph. “It certainly doesn’t distress me. In fact it was the only lucky thing that ever happened to me since my connection with the museum.”

“Indeed. Excuse me if I fail to see any good fortune in that for you,” replied Elliot, stiffly.

“You never could see much about me. Perhaps you will when I tell you that after you removed me I discovered Beckyshibeta.”

“What!” exclaimed Elliot, incredulously.

“I discovered Beckyshibeta,” repeated Randolph, forcefully, truth clear in his paling face and piercing eye. “Probably the greatest of all pueblo ruins. I have my proof. Mr. Endicott and his daughter can substantiate my claim. Bennet, the cowboys, and a Mrs. Durland with her son were all there.”

Speechlessly Dr. Elliot turned to Endicott for corroboration of this astounding assertion.

“Fact,” said Endicott, shortly. “I’m about to wire Dr. Bushnell, head of the museum. Also Jackson, a good friend of mine. Want them to know that I stand behind Randolph. It remains to be decided whether we shall let the museum in on the excavation work.”

“Dr. Bushnell! Jackson!” ejaculated Elliot, weakly. “May I ask — are you Mr. Elijah Endicott?”

“The same, sir,” returned Endicott, bowing, and abruptly left the astounded director to join Janey beside the fire.

“Janey, old girl, did you get that?” he whispered. “I’m simply tickled pink, as you say... Now listen to Phil lay him out cold.”

Dr. Elliot seemed to be in the throes of amazement and consternation.

“Ah! Indeed! — So it’s true,” he began, floundering to retrieve himself. “Most remarkable. Incredible, I may say. But of course, I understand — a fact. You are most fortunate, Randolph, in your discovery and to have gained the interest of Elijah Endicott. I congratulate you... And I — er — ahem — perhaps it is I who is somewhat previous. Pray forget your hasty dismissal. It really was not authentic — going through a third party. Somewhat irregular. We can adjust the matter amicably. In fact I — I’d consider it a favor if you will not mention the matter to our New York office.”

“I’ve accepted my release, Dr. Elliot, thank you, and shall wire the museum to that effect,” replied Randolph, with cold dignity, and bowed himself away.

The director looked a dazed, beaten and frightened man.

“Say, Janey, didn’t Phil look great?” crowed Endicott, with gleeful pride. “What a coup for him! That will cost Elliot his job. And by gad, I’ll see that it’s offered to Randolph.”

“Daddy, you like Phillip, don’t you?” asked Janey, softly.

“Love him, you icicle. And you bet I’ll push him for keeps.”

“You’re kind and good. I’m glad you — you care for him,” responded Janey, and turned to gaze into the fire. “It’s too bad you — Phillip — I — Oh, words are idle and useless.”

“Janey, darling, just then you reminded me of your mother,” said her father, with feeling.

“It’s a long time since you’ve done that.”

“Mother?... I’m glad, Daddy. Perhaps — after this — this lesson of yours I will grow more like her.”

“Janey,” whispered Endicott, bending over her, “you mean to go on with this cruel marriage and—”

“Yes,” she returned, dropping her eyes. “It will kill Phillip.”

“Nonsense. Men don’t die of unrequited love.”

“If your mother had led me to the altar — and left me — I’m sure I’d never have lived to face it.”

“Phil Randolph is made of sterner stuff. Besides he has a brilliant future ... I’m tired now, Dad, and very hungry.”

The sunshine poured in at Janey’s window, telling her that she had slept late, though this was to be the day of days. She lay watching the gold shadows on the curtain, aware of the fresh cool dry air on her face. Her active mind took up the development of plans where the night before she had left off. Her father had secured a Pullman drawing room on the Limited. The securing of this, or at least a compartment on the train, was of paramount importance. Only one more detail to arrange — the strongest link in the chain to her climax!

Janey arose, conscious of inward excitation and suspense. After all, she could not be sure of anything until she was Phillip’s wife. That would be the consummation of hopes, the allaying of fears. The rest would be like the denouement of a good play.

She looked out of her window. How blue the sky! The mountain peaks stood up like dark spears. Patches of snow shone in the sunlight, running down to the edge of the vast green belt of forest land. She could see into the fields adjacent to town. Horses were romping with manes flying in the wind; red and white cattle were grazing on a grassy hill; the scattered pine trees seemed to call to her to come and ride. Cut-over timberlands led her gaze to distant foothills and these to far-off black bluffs and hazy desert. Arizona! There was no place in the world so full of romance and beauty, and the natural things that stirred the soul.

Janey went into the little open parlor of the hotel, where her father sat before a cozy fire, reading a newspaper.

“What a lazy bride-to-be!” he said good-humoredly. “We had breakfast long ago.”

“Mawnin’, Dad,” drawled Janey. “Reckon I’ll have a cup of coffee and some toast up heah.”

“You look very sweet and lovely for a prospective murderess,” he said. “Janey, old dear, I give up forever trying to figure women.”

“Fine! Now you will be the best of fathers. Where’s Phil?”

“He was here a moment ago with the marriage license. Lord, but he’s funny. Like a sleepwalker! I have made a ten o’clock appointment with a minister — Dr. Cardwell. Nice old chap. He’s from Connecticut. Came here years ago with lung trouble. His life had been despaired of in the East. But he’s hale and hearty now. I tell you, Janey, this Arizonie, as Bennet calls it, is a wonderful country.”

“Arizona. Mellow, golden, sustaining, beautiful, clean with desert wind,” murmured Janey, gazing down into the fire. “Presently I shall tell you what it has done for me.”

“I’ll fetch your coffee and toast,” returned Endicott, with alacrity.

The moments passed with Janey musing. Presently her father entered, carrying a small tray. Randolph also came in. He wore a dark suit that showed his stalwart form to advantage. Janey admired again the clean-shaven tanned face, lean and strong.

“Good morning, Miss Endicott,” he said, with courtesy, but his steady gaze made Janey almost feel a little uneasy in spite of herself. She gazed at him over her cup of coffee.

“Howdy, Phil. Are the horses ready?”

“No,” he flashed. “But the taxi is.”

Janey laughed, her composure restored. How eager Randolph was to get this awful business settled!

“Dad, you said our train left at seven something, didn’t you?”

“Seven-ten. It’s the Limited and always on time,” he replied.

“So long to wait. I wish for Mr. Randolph’s sake it left hours earlier.”

“Don’t worry about Phillip, my dear,” returned Endicott. “We’ve got a lot to talk over and won’t bother you.”

“Thank you... I’ll get my things on and be back pronto,” said Janey, and hurried away to her room.

Randolph showed that the strain was wearing upon him. Janey thought it would be wise for her to see as little as possible of him after the wedding up until nearly train time. She felt nervous and tense herself. It wanted but a few minutes to ten o’clock. She put on her coat and hat, and a veil, which she carefully arranged. How white her face and big her eyes! Then she hurried back to join the gentlemen, who rose at her entrance.

“I’m ready,” she said, rather tremulously. “Is — everything arranged?”

“Why, I’m sure it is, Janey,” returned her father, turning to Randolph. “There’s not so much. Minister, license, taxi. What else?”

“Mr. Randolph, did you purchase a wedding ring?”

“No,” he replied, with the strangest of glances at her.

“Then you must do so at once. I’ll go with you. Surely there’s a jeweler here.”

“I have a wedding ring. It was my mother’s. It hardly matters whether it fits or not.”

“Doesn’t it? — That’s all you know,” said Janey. Her hands were trembling while she tried it on. “Oh, it’s a perfect fit... What a pretty ring! I like old-fashioned wedding rings best.”

“Old-fashioned weddings, too,” added her father. “Lord, Janey, I always dreaded one of those swell weddings for you. Might have saved myself a lot of worry. Come on. We’ll have this over in a jiffy.”

He led her downstairs, through the lobby, and out to a waiting taxi. Randolph had evidently stopped behind for something. Presently he came out, and squeezing into the taxi he laid something on Janey’s knee without a word. She tucked aside a corner of her veil and opened the loose paper package on her lap. Flowers of some kind! Then she thrilled. The tiny bouquet was composed of bits of cedar and juniper foliage, with their green and lavender berries, several wild roses, and a sprig of sage with the exquisite rare purple blossoms. Janey was so deeply touched that she could not speak, and she quickly dropped the corner of veil, lest Phil should see the havoc wrought by these sweet symbols from the desert.

The short ride, the simple brief ceremony, and the return to the hotel were like changing moments of a trance to Janey. She would not have exchanged the simplicity of her marriage for all the pomp of royalty.

Once more safe in her room she laid aside the bouquet, flung her gloves, tore off the veil, and threw aside hat and coat. And she did not recognize the face in the mirror. Janey had never raved about her looks, but she gloried in them now.

“It’s over. I’m his wife,” she whispered, kissing the slim band of gold on her finger. “Now! Now I’m safe — and oh, so unutterably happy!... How can I wait to tell him? Suppose he ran off to his desert before I could!... Oh, my bursting heart!”

Janey wept in the exaltation of that hour. It was long before composure returned, and then it was such composure as she had never known. No one would have guessed that she had cried like an overjoyous girl.

Her father knocked at her door and called: “Janey, we’ve arranged a lunch over here at a restaurant. Will you come?”

“Indeed I will. Just a minute, Dad, and I’ll join you.” She dispensed with the veil this time. Let them be mystified at the glow on her face and the light in her eyes! They were only men who knew nothing of the wondrous strength and generosity of a woman’s heart. Then she went out.

“My word, Janey, but you look great!” exclaimed Endicott, with conscious pride.

Randolph stared at her as if she were an impenetrable stone image hiding the truth of woman. Nevertheless, once seated at table, the constraint eased, and they enjoyed a capital luncheon.

“Well, that was fine,” said Endicott, with satisfaction. “Now, Janey, we’ll take you back to the hotel, where Phil and I must go into an important conference over plans for work at Beckyshibeta.”

“I shall not be lonely. I’ll visit the stores — and look out for cowboys,” replied Janey, gaily.

“You’ll find cowboys on every corner,” warned Endicott. “Be careful, Janey,” he grimaced.

“Wait, Dad, please,” replied Janey, catching his sleeve. “I’ve something to tell you and — my husband.”

Randolph winced at the first use of that word between them. Endicott dropped back in his chair, sure of catastrophe.

Janey transfixed them with a glance in which long-past resentment and pain blended now with some emotion they could not name.

“Gentlemen, do you recall one late afternoon at Bennet’s trading post when you planned to kidnap me?”

Randolph looked stricken and Endicott gulped: “No. Can’t say I do.”

“Tax your memory, Dad,” went on Janey, dryly. “It never was good. But this was a special occasion.”

Randolph coughed uneasily. “I remember, Miss Endicott.”

“I am no longer Miss Endicott,” corrected Janey.

“Pardon, Mrs. Randolph,” he corrected himself mockingly.

“Dad, I was lying out in the hammock beside the open window when you made your infamous offer to Phil Randolph,” said Janey.

“My God, no!” cried her father, thunder-struck. “I don’t believe you.”

“Listen. You’ll believe your very own words,” replied Janey, and went on to repeat many things that had been burned indelibly on her memory.

“That’s enough,” suddenly interrupted her father, very red in the face. “I can see you were there.”

“All the time you knew!” exclaimed Randolph, wide-eyed and ashamed.

“All the time,” replied Janey, smiling at them.

“Lord save me from another daughter,” burst out Endicott, helplessly.

“I’ll run along now,” added Janey, rising. “Thanks for the luncheon. I’ll remember it... Dad, we will wait for dinner on the train... Mr. Randolph, you will go to the train with us to say good-by? Please. It will look better. Must I remind you—”

“No, you needn’t remind me of anything,” interrupted Randolph, almost violently, dark and passionate pain and reproach in his eyes. “I’ll be at the train to bid — good-by — to my wife — forever.”

“Ah — Thank you. Then all is well,” replied Janey, averting her eyes. “Adios — till then.”

As she glided away from them, out into the main restaurant, she heard her father say: “Phil, my God I need a drink.” Randolph’s reply followed with a sudden scrape of a chair on the floor.

“Eli, you old villain, I’ll need two,” he said, weakly. “And we’ll drink to all that’s left to me — Beckyshibeta.”

Janey went out tingling, blushing, glowing. It was even more fun, more satisfaction than she had anticipated. How flabbergasted her father had been! And she had dared only one fleeting look at the stricken Randolph. “All the time you knew!” he had cried. Janey reflected that when he had returned to sanity he would recall many things that might embarrass her. But she would take good care he never recovered his sanity. Then she went about the last few tasks needed to insure this blissful future for Randolph.

First she engaged the hotel porter to fetch Randolph’s bag to the train with hers and her father’s. She made it clear to the bright-eyed colored lad — as well as remunerative — that Randolph was not to see this removal of baggage. Next she set out to look for some cowboys.

But not until actually embarked on this quest did she realize its absurdity and risk, not to consider embarrassment. It was an early afternoon hour on Saturday. Flagerstown appeared full of cowboys and those she passed on the street were certainly not unaware of her presence. Finally, near the post office, Janey located three typical cowboys standing beside a motion-picture advertisement that graced the corner of the block. It happened to be a vacant lot, which accounted, perhaps, for the cowboys being comparatively alone.

Janey walked slowly by, calmly appraising them. How like Mohave, Zoroaster, Ray! Cowboys all resembled one another. Janey expected to be noticed and commented upon. She was not disappointed.

“Andy, did you see what I seen?” broke out one.

“Wal, I reckon. An’ I’m shore dizzy,” was the reply.

“Some looker, pards,” added the third.

The encounter ordinarily would have ended there, but these cowboys, or some cowboys, at least, were indispensable to her plan. She had to have them. She was prepared to go to the limit of making eyes at them to carry her point. Thinking hard Janey decided to walk by them again, down the street, then return, and ask them to come into the post office. To that end she turned back. As she neared them she was afraid she was smiling. What a warm feeling she had for these lean, hard-faced cowboys!

She passed, with ears acute to catch any whispers.

“My Gawd — Andy, look at them legs!” hoarsely whispered one. “Wimmin ought to be arrested fer wearin’ them short skirts.”

“Only seen her eyes, but thet was aplenty,” came the reply. “My pore little Susie! I’ll never love her any more.”

Janey did not hear the third man’s remark, and was glad she had not. Her face burned. What keen devils these cowboys! Right then and there Janey’s plan, so far as they were concerned, went into eclipse. Still she would not give up. Crossing the street she went into the department store, made a few purchases, and going out, crossed the street again, at the other end of the block, and came down to enter the post office. She was cudgeling her brain. If those cowboys saw her and followed her into the post office she would risk speaking to them. Most cowboys were chivalrous gentlemen at heart, for all their coarseness and deviltry.

There appeared to be only two men in the post office. One was huge and dark, the other small and fair. Suddenly Janey stood transfixed. She recognized bold black eyes in the giant and sly twinkling ones in the other. She knew these men.

“Black Dick! Snitz!” she exclaimed, in astonishment. “Oh, I’m glad to meet you.”

“Same hyar, Miss Endicott,” replied Dick, smiling broadly, as he removed his ragged sombrero. “How about you, Snitz?”

“Me? I never was so tickled in my life,” said Snitz, gallant and bareheaded. “It shore is fine of you to speak to us — after the deal we gave you.”

“Never mind that. But aren’t you afraid to be in town? Aren’t you in danger of being arrested?”

“Wal, Miss, not that we know of. You see I’m not exactly the fellar you took me fer.”

“Oh, then you’re not Black Dick, the outlaw?” asked Janey, in disappointment.

“I’m awful sorry, Miss, but I ain’t. Honest. Didn’t your father tell you aboot us?”

“My father! No,” replied Janey, ponderingly.

“Wal, he shore ought to have. Fer he hired me an’ Snitz to give you a scare.”

“Ah, I see... And it was no accident that you left Mrs. Durland’s jewel bag behind?”

“Accident? I should smile not. I jest hung it on a tree where she’d bump her haid on it.”

“Well! Well! My Dad’s the limit, isn’t he?”

“If you want my idee, Miss, I think he’s a prince,” replied Dick, heartily.

“You’ll always be Black Dick and Snitz to me. But I’m indeed glad you’re not real desperadoes. What a trick you played on us!”

Suddenly a thought like a bright flash struck Janey into radiance.

“Come here, both of you,” she whispered, and drew the grinning men away from the door into a corner. Here they were out of sight of the post-office employees. No others had yet entered. What luck! Janey felt a gush of riotous blood heat her veins. “Will you do me a favor? Do you want to make fifty dollars apiece?”

“Well, Miss Endicott, your voice is sweet music,” whispered Dick.

“Lady, I’ll lay down my life fer you fer nothin’,” declared Snitz.

“Listen,” began Janey, hurriedly. “I am no longer Miss Endicott. I was married to Mr. Randolph today... Never mind congratulating me. Listen. Father and I leave tonight on the Limited. Mr. Randolph my husband — I’m afraid he doesn’t want to go East with me very bad. But I want him to go. I want him terribly. Will you help me kidnap him?”

“Wal, we’ll hawg-tie the cold-hearted scoundrel an’ throw him on thet train,” declared Dick, his eyes rolling.

“I never heard of the like,” added Snitz, most forcefully. “The lucky son- of-a-gun! But them archaeologists are plumb queer ducks. Lady, we’ll shore do anythin’ fer you.”

“Splendid. Can you get another trusty man — a friend — one who is big and strong? Randolph will fight.”

“Shore. I know a fellar who’s bigger’n a hill. He can throw a barrel of flour right up into a wagon. Reckon the three of us can put Randolph on thet train in less’n a couple of winks.”

“Very well. Then it’s settled,” went on Janey, now calm and serene. “Here are your instructions. The three of you be at the station when the Limited comes in. Keep sharp lookout for me. I’ll be with father and Mr. Randolph. Follow us a little behind — not too close — and when we reach our Pullman you wait a little aside. I’ll stop at the car entrance nearest the drawing room. I’ll wait until the conductor calls all aboard. When I step up that will be your signal to seize Randolph and carry him after me. Be quick. And don’t be gentle. Remember, he is powerful and will fight. I want this to go off just like that.”

And Janey snapped her fingers.

“Lady, say them instructions over,” replied Dick, earnestly.

She repeated them word for word.

Black Dick lifted his shaggy black head.

“Jest like thet,” he said, snapping huge fingers. “Lady, it’s as good as done.”

“Then here’s your money in advance,” said Janey, producing some bills. “You won’t fail me?”

“I wish my chanst fer heaven was as good,” rejoined Dick, fervently.

“Lady, you shore picked the gentlemen fer thet job,” added Snitz, warmly.

“You are my very good friends,” concluded Janey, all smiles. “You are helping me more than you can guess. I’ll never forget you. Good-by.”

She left them there, rooted to the spot, and swept out of the post office in a state of supreme bliss. The gods had favored her. Suddenly she saw the three cowboys not far ahead, standing expectantly. They had seen her come out. Janey checked a wild impulse to break across the street in the middle of the block, so she would not have to pass them. Then, very erect, with chin tilted, she went on and by, as if she had never seen them.

“Say, Andy, did you feel a cold wind round heah?” asked one, in disgust.

“Huh! I been stabbed with a pitchfork of ice,” came the reply.

“Pard, she’s a goddess, an’ I like ’em hard to win,” said the third.

If they could have seen Janey’s convulsed and happy face, when she reached the corner, they would have had more cause to wonder about the female species.

The afternoon passed like a happy dream. Janey spent most of it trying to think of things to say to Phillip when the revelation came. She changed it a hundred times. How could she tell what to say? But every moment that brought the climax closer found Janey’s state more intense. She must hold out. She must stay to the finish. When the porter knocked she leaped up with a start.

“Mr. Endicott is waiting,” he announced. “The Limited is in the block.”

“Where is — Mr. Randolph?” asked Janey, with lips that trembled.

“He’s waiting, too. I’ll fetch your baggage — all of it, right after,” he replied, and he winked at her.

Janey hurriedly got into hat and coat, and omitted the veil. How white she was! Her eyes looked like great dark gulfs. She went downstairs. Her father looked exceedingly uncomfortable. Randolph had not a vestige of color in his face. She joined them, and they went out in silence. Dark had fallen. The street lamps were lit. The air had mountain coolness in it. On the moment the Limited pulled into the station, and slowed down to a stop, steam blowing, bell clanging.

It was only a brief walk from the hotel to the broad platform where the Pullmans stood. Janey had the glance of a hawk and saw every group of persons there. Not until she spied Black Dick and his comrades did the tension in her break. What a stupendous man the third one was! He made Dick look small. Janey knew Dick had seen her, though he seemed not to notice. He and his allies kept outside the platform, where Randolph was oblivious of them. Indeed he seemed oblivious of everything.

“Here’s our car,” spoke up Endicott, with an effort.

“See if our drawing room is at this end,” replied Janey, and she stepped to face round. That made her confront Randolph. Over his shoulder she saw her three accomplices scarcely a rod away, and Black Dick was watching. It was going to be a success. Janey felt a blaze within her — an outburst that had been smothered.

Her father touched her arm. He looked miserable, shaken.

“Drawing room at this end. I’ll go in. So long, Phil.”

And he fled. Janey edged nearer to Randolph, close, and peered up at him, knowing that a blind man could have read her eyes. But he was more than blind. She pulled at a button on his coat, looking down, and then she flashed her eyes into his again.

“Phillip, I’m sorry. Promise me you’ll never — never kidnap another girl.”

“God! I’d do it tomorrow if I thought it’d hurt you,” he returned, hoarsely.

The engine bell rang, to echo in Janey’s heart.

“All aboard!” yelled the conductor somewhere forward.

Janey wheeled and ran up the car steps, and turning, was in time to see three dark burly forms rush Randolph, and literally throw him up the steps, onto the platform. Janey ran into the hallway, shaking in her agitation. She heard loud exclamations, the tussling of bodies, the thud of boots. Then the men appeared half dragging, half carrying the fiercely struggling Randolph.

Janey fled to the door of the drawing room. They were coming.

“Soak him, Bill. He’s a bull,” said Dick, low and hard.

Janey heard a sodden blow. The struggle ceased. The men came faster. They were almost carrying Randolph. Janey’s heart leaped to her throat.

“In — here,” she choked, standing aside.

They thrust Randolph into the drawing room, and rushed back toward the exit. Black Dick turned, his big black eyes rolling merrily. Then he was gone. The train started — gathered momentum. Outside the porter was yelling. He slammed the vestibule doors and came running.

“Lady — what’s wrong?” he asked, in alarm. “Three men upset me. I couldn’t do nothin’.”

“It’s all right, porter,” replied Janey. “My — my husband had to be assisted on the train.”

“Aw now, I was scared.”

Janey’s father appeared from down the aisle.

“What was that row?” he asked, nervously. Janey barred the door into the drawing room.

“Dad — I’ve kidnaped Phillip,” she said, very low and clear. Endicott threw up his hands.

“Holy Mackali!” he gasped.

Janey closed and locked the door. The drawing room was dark. She turned on the light. Randolph was breathing hard. He had been dazed, if not stunned. There was grime on his face and a little blood. The bruise Ray had left over his eye, and which had not wholly disappeared, had been raised again. Janey darted to wet her handkerchief. She wiped his face — bathed his forehead. She had told that ruffian Dick not to be gentle. Remorse smote her. Suddenly she touched Phillip’s face.

He was staring with eyes that appeared about to start from his head. He grasped her with shaking hands. He gaped at the car window and the lights flashing by. Then he seemed to realize what had happened.

“They threw me on the train,” he burst out, incredulously.

Janey rose to stand before him.

“You — you—”

“Yes, I’ve kidnaped you,” she interrupted.

“My God! — Janey, could you carry revenge so far? Oh, how cruel! You pitiless woman!”

He fell face down against the cushion.

“Philip,” she called, trying to stay the trembling hands that leaped toward him.

When he did not look or speak, she went on softly: “Phil.”

No response. Her head fluttered to his shoulder.

“Husband!”

At that, his haggard face lifted and his terrible eyes stared as those of a man who knew not what he saw.

“I have kidnaped you — yes — forever!” He fell on his knees to clasp her blouse with plucking hands.

“Janey, if I am not drunk or mad — make me understand,” he implored.

She locked her hands behind his head. “Indeed you are hard to convince. Have we not been married? Are you not my captive on this train? Is this not the eve of our honeymoon?”

“It’s too good — to be true,” he replied, huskily. “I can’t believe it.”

She bent to kiss the bruise on his forehead. “Will that do?”

“No!”

She kissed his eyes, his cheeks, and lastly, as he seemed rapt and blind, his lips. “Phillip, I love you,” she said.

“Oh, my darling, say that again!”

“I love you. I love you. I love you... It was what you did to me. Oh! I confess. I deserved it. I was no good — and if not actually bad I was headed for bad... Oh, Phillip, you spanked some sense into me in time, and your desert changed and won me. I bless you for making me a woman. I will give up what was that idle, useless, wasteful life — and work with you — for you — to make a home for you... Forgive this last little deceit. Oh, you should have seen Dad’s face... Kiss me!... Come, let us go tell him I’m your Beckyshibeta.”

THE END

Forlorn River

First serialised in Ladies Home Journal in 1926, Forlorn River introduces the character Ben Ide, who spends his time chasing wild horses in Northern California, accompanied by the wanderer Nevada and his Indian companion, Modoc. Rather than catching horses, he has earned the reputation of being a cattle rustler. But Ina Blaine, his childhood sweetheart, knows this is impossible. She defends Ben against the suspicions of her newly-rich father and his mysterious associate, Les Setter, who has a previous connection to Nevada.

Looking toward the future, Ben Ide and his companions buy out a couple of ranchers in a severe drought and proceed to catch a group of wild horses, hoping to find one in particular, California Red, whom Ina’s father had promised as a present for her, if any man should catch him.

The story is set in a remote wilderness valley located in northern California. The author accurately describes the geography of the region throughout the novel, identifying Mount Shasta, Tule Lake and the landscape in and around Lava Beds National Monument. The “Forlorn River” that flows through the area is the Lost River which flows out of Clear Lake Reservoir in California and into Oregon near Klamath Falls, eventually flowing back into California and emptying into Tule Lake.

The Lost (Forlorn) River near Bonanza, Oregon

The first edition

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

The 1937 film adaptation of the novel

CHAPTER I.

BEN IDE NAMED this lonely wandering stream Forlorn River because it was like his life.

Ben was well-born and had attended school until sixteen years of age, but from the time he had given up to his passion for the open country and the chase of wild horses he had gotten nowhere. That seemed the way of Forlorn River. It had its beginning in Clear Lake, a large body of surface water lying amid the Sage Mountains of north-western California. It had begun well enough at its source under the beautiful rounded bare mountains of grey sage, and flowed bravely on for a few miles, then suddenly it became a lost river. That was what it was called by the Indians.

It meandered around the foothills with their black fringe of juniper, into the wide, grey valleys where thousands of wild horses roamed; to and fro across the open country as if seeking escape, on toward the dark pine-timbered ranges of Nevada; and back again, a barren little stream without creeks or springs to freshen it, a wilderness waterway, dear to the Indian and horse hunter and cowboy; slackened by the thirsty Clay Flats to the west, and crowded away on the north by the huge red bluff that blocked entrance into Wild Goose Basin, forced at last to describe a wandering hundred-mile circle and find on the other side of the sage hills, not far from its source, a miserable sand-choked outlet into the vast level ranch and pastureland which had been once the bottom of Tule Lake.

Ben’s grey weather-beaten cabin partook somewhat of the melancholy austerity of the country, yet it was most picturesquely located on the south shore of the big lake, on the only elevated and wooded cape that jutted out into the wind-ruffed waters. Forlorn River was born just under his door, for his cabin did not face the lake, but the river and the west. Ben could watch the aimless windings of the stream for many a mile. Scattered juniper trees saved this slight eminence of land from the baldness of the irregular shore line. Clear Lake was ten miles round, and everywhere but at this point the grey sage reached down to the white high-water line. Back from the cabin where the cape widened stood a large well-built bam, which adjoined an enormous corral. Spirited horses kicked up the dust, and whistled, perhaps to their wild kindred in plain sight on the distant grey slopes, swelling toward the blue sky. Bam and corral, presenting such marked contrast to the little grey cabin, might have told an observant eye that Ben Ide loved horses and thought little of himself.

Spring had come late, the driest of six successive dry springs. Clear Lake was lower than ever before in the memory of the Modoc Indians, who had lived there always. The white baked earth spread a long distance down from the sage line to the water. Flocks of ducks dotted the yellow surface of the lake. Wild geese tarried here on the way north, and every hour of day or night Ben heard their resonant and melodious honk, honk, honk. It was high country. Frost glistened on the roof of the barn and ice glinted along the shores of Forlorn River. Snow peaks notched the blue sky above the black-timbered range of Nevada mountains. The air was cold and crisp, fragrant with the scent of sage.

Ben Ide came out on the porch to gaze across the river and the long grey slope that led up to a pass between two of the Sage Mountains. His keen eye followed the winding thread that was a trail disappearing over the notch.

“No use to worry. But they ought to have got back last night,” he muttered, as he again scanned the trail.

Then from force of habit he looked on up the vast heave and bulge of the mountain, so softly and beautifully grey and purple in the morning sunlight. Here he did not meet with disappointment. Nine wild horses were in sight, two pure white that shone wonderfully in the clear air, and the rest all black. They lived on that mountain-top. They had been there all the four years Ben had lived at Forlorn River. During the first year of his sojourn there he had often chased them, as much for sport as for profit. But the advantage had always been theirs, and as they could not be driven from the great dome of this mountain, he let them alone, and came at last to watch for them in pleasure and love. When there was snow on the slopes they never left the mountain, and in summer, when they ventured down to the lake to drink, it was always at night. They never raised a colt and never took a strange horse into their band.

Just the mere sight of them had power to thrill Ben Ide. He hailed them gaily, as if they were as near as his own whistling horses in the corral. He gloried in their beauty, freedom, and self-sufficiency. He understood them. They were like eagles. They could look far away and down, and see their kindred, and their enemy, man. Years had taught them wisdom.

“Oh, you wild horses, just how long will you last up there?” he cried, poignantly. “Another dry year means your doom! Nothing to eat but sage, and the water going fast!”

That reminded Ben of his own long-unrealised hopes. If he were ever to catch a valuable string of wild horses and prove to his father that wild-horse hunting was not profitless, not the calling of a wanderer and outlaw, he must do it this year. If he were ever to catch California Red, the sorrel stallion that more than anything had lured him into this wild lonely life, he must accomplish the almost hopeless task before another dry season killed all the horses or drove them far out of the country.

Fifteen thousand wild horses grazed in that sage country between the grey California mountains and the Nevada ranges. They were the bane of the cattlemen who had begun to work back into the wild country. Horses were so plentiful and cheap in Oregon and California that there was no sale of any except good stock. Ben Ide was chasing a rainbow and he knew it. Yet something irresistible bound him. He would rather catch one beautiful wild mustang and keep it for himself than sell a hundred common horses at a profit. That very failing had ruined him. Ranchers had made attractive deals with Ben Ide, deals calculated to earn him money and free their ranges from these pests of wild horses, but Ben had always fallen short of success. At the crucial times he had loved the horses, not the money. He could not be brutal to the fiercest stallion, and he could not kill the meanest mustang.

Along the winding trail below the notch between the Sage Mountains appeared low rolling clouds of yellow dust.

“Nevada and Modoc. Good!” ejaculated Ben, as he watched with squinting eyes. “Travelling along right pert, too. That means they’ve sold my horses.... Wonder if I’ll hear from home.”

Ben Ide had never failed to look and hope for some word from home, though seldom indeed did he get any. Sometimes his sister Hettie, who alone remained true to him, contrived to send him a letter. The last one had been received six months ago. With the return of spring dormant feelings seemed to revive in Ben. During the long cold winter he had lived somewhat like a hibernating bear. The honk of the wild geese and the new fragrance of sage, the grey slopes coming out of the snow, and the roving bands of wild horses — these stirred in his heart the old wandering urge to get into the hills, and along with it awakened keener memories of mother and sister, of his stem father, of the old ranch home and spring school days.

He sat on the porch bareheaded, and watched the moving clouds of dust come down to a level and fade into the grey sage along the lake. Black dots appeared and grew in size, and at length took the shape of horses. Watching them, Ben experienced a familiar old thrill — the vague boyish emotion he had learned to associate with sight of the wild lonely country and the smell of sage and whistle of mustangs, sunrise and the long day ahead. But happiness no more attended this fleeting state. He had thought too much; he had grown older; he had realised that he must find something more significant to live for. Not that the wild open country did not suffice! But he was unsatisfied and could not divine why.

Horsemen and pack-horses wound along the grey sage-slope shore line, splashed through the shallow mouth of Forlorn River, and climbed to the level shady patch in front of the cabin.

A stout square-faced Indian, dressed like a cowboy and wearing his hair short, was in the lead. The other rider was a striking figure. He sat his saddle as if he had grown there. His hair was long and black, showing under a dilapidated old sombrero. He had a lean face, clean and brown, a long nose, and piercing dark eyes, and an expression of reckless good nature. He wore a checkered blouse, a flowing scarf of red, a silver-buckled belt about his lean waist, and rough leather chaps. From a pocket of these, low down, protruded the brown handle of a heavy gun.

“Howdy, Ben!” he called, as he slid out of his saddle. “Made a jim-dandy deal with the hosses. Paid all your debts an’ got six months’ grub. How about that, old timer?”

“Nevada, if you’re not lying, it’s sure great,” replied Ben, heartily.

“It’s true, Ben, I’m dam glad to say,” said Nevada. “An’ here’s a letter from your sister. I just rode over to the ranch, sent a kid in to tell Hettie, an’ waited.”

“Oh, but you’re a life-saver!” declared Ben, as he eagerly grasped the thick envelope Nevada held out. “I was feeling pretty blue.”

“We had supper in town, an’ have been ridin’ ever since,” returned Nevada, wearily.

“Say, you must be tired and hungry.... And how’re you, Modoc?”

“Bad. Town no good for Indian,” replied Modoc, with a grin.

“Ben, I wouldn’t trade this camp for any town on earth,” declared Nevada.

“Neither would I, if you and Modoc were here. It’s been lonesome,” said Ben, as he set to the task of unpacking the three laden horses. Presently Modoc led away the smoking wet animals.

“Nevada, this is an awful lot of stuff,” continued Ben, surveying the large assortment of boxes, bags, and bales.

“Bought every dam thing I could think of,” rejoined Nevada mildly.

‘First time I’ve felt rich for years. Now I’ll pack this outfit inside and then get some breakfast.”

It took all of the small storeroom, the kitchen shelves, and half of the loft of Ben’s cabin to hold the new supplies. While Ben worked at this task Nevada lay on one of the narrow red-blanketed couches and talked.

“Got an all-fired lot of news,” he said, complacently, “if I can only remember. Reckon though it won’t make any difference how it comes.... Ben, your dad has made a pile of money. Sold two thousand acres that used to be under water, they said. The drainin’ of Tule Lake made your dad rich. But he ain’t the only one. Hart Blaine had the most of that low land. I loafed around Hammell in the saloons an’ stores, waitin’ for it to get dark, so’s I could sneak over to your dad’s ranch. An’ I shore asked questions. All the ranchers livin’ away from Tule Lake drains have been hard hit by the drought. Stock poor an’ grass scarce. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. This dry spell hasn’t hurt your dad or Blaine, or any of them farmers in the middle of the basin. But if Forlorn River dries up this summer they’re goin’ to be in the same boat with the others.... I run into that McAdam guy an’ he wasn’t overly civil askin’ about you. I strung him good an’ plenty when all the time I wanted to slam him on his slick jaw. One of the waitresses told me he had a cinch on the Blaine girl — I forget her name — the one that’s been away to school. An’—”

“Was it Ina?” interrupted Ben, quickly.

“Yep, shore was. Sort of pretty little handle to Blaine, huh?”

“Ina Blaine,” said Ben, dreamily, pausing in his task. “She ought to be nineteen now.”

“Pard, was this Ina Blaine an old girl of yours?” queried Nevada, with great interest. But as there was no reply forthcoming he went on: “Reckon she was only a kid when you left home.... Well, to resoom, I hired a lad to take me over to your dad’s place, while Modoc rode on with the pack outfit. Smart little fellar, keen about wild-hoss huntin’. No use talkin’, Ben, there’s somethin’ about a wild hoss that gets even a boy. He rode behind me an’ we got to the ranch before dark. I hid outside in a grove of trees an’ sent the kid in. It was just a gamble, you know, because there was ten to one he’d run into somebody else beside Hettie. But, by golly! she came to the door, he said, an’ we waited. Hettie slipped out with the letter I gave you.... Ben, she’s grown up. I couldn’t see her as well as I’d have liked, but it was enough. She was nice, Ben, soft-voiced an’ sweet — an’ it got me. Reckon I’d better not pull this letter stunt for you again.

But she asked me to come an’ I was fool enough to promise.

... So I took the kid back to Hammell, an’ hung around some more.... Ben, there’s an outfit of wild-hoss hunters over here between Silver Meadow an’ the Nevada line that’s takin’ to stealin’ cattle.”

“Who said so?” demanded Ben, suspiciously.

“Common gossip round Hammell,” continued Nevada. “But after buyin’ some drinks for two cowboys I got a hunch who’d branded wild-hoss hunters as cattle thieves. Nobody else but Less Setter. You know we run into some of his deals last summer, an’ he rode right in here one day when you was away. Ben, I’m tellin’ you Less Setter is not on the level.”

“How do you know?” queried Ben, sharply.

“How do you know a hoss that’s thoroughbred from one that ain’t? But it’s only fair for me to admit that I knowed Less Setter before he came to California.”

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Ben, with intent gaze on his friend’s mask-like face. That statement of Nevada’s was absolutely the first he had ever made in reference to his past. Years before, one night back in the sage hills, Nevada had ridden up to Ben’s lonely camp fire. He had a wound in his arm: he was exhausted and almost starved; his horse limped. Ben expressed himself twice: “Get down and come in, stranger,” and, “Where are you from?” The answer had been “Nevada.” Ben had succoured this rider and had never asked another question. Nevada had become attached to Ben and had never mentioned his past “What’s more to the point,” went on Nevada, calmly, “Less Setter knowed me. An’ it’s a good bet he has never gabbed about me. If he had — your folks might reckon I wasn’t fit company for you.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Ben, bitterly. “Nevada, don’t talk in riddles. Tell me anything or not, just as you like. I love you for what you are, not what you might have been.”

“Ben, you’re talkin’ strong,” said Nevada, with his piercing eyes softening. “Reckon-no one ever loved me in all my life till now — if you really do. I wouldn’t want you to throw around such talk careless, you know.”

“Well, I do,” declared Ben, stoutly.

“All right, pard,” replied Nevada, and there was a beautiful light in the gaze he bent on Ben. “We make a good or bad pair to draw to, accordin’ to the draw.... I get queer hunches sometimes. Not many, but when I get one I can tie to it. An’ I’ve had a hunch your bad luck has changed. It came to me when Hettie put that letter in my hands. Funny feelin’, Ben. It’s not a thought. It just comes from somewhere outside.”

At this moment the Indian entered with his slow silent tread and taking up the water pails he went out. Ben replenished the fire in the wide stone fireplace, and then set swiftly to the preparation of biscuits, coffee, bacon. His mind worked as swiftly as his hands.

“I’d like to believe the tide of my fortune has turned,” he said, seriously. “It sure was lucky I sent you. I’m no fellow to sell or buy, to make deals and carry them out. But you’re as smart as a whip, Nevada, and for me at least you drive good bargains.”

“Ben, have you noticed anythin’ particular about me?” inquired Nevada, complacently.

“Can’t say I do,” returned Ben, looking up from his work. “You’ve got a nice clean shave an’ a new scarf.”

“No good. You lose. Ben, I didn’t have one single solitaree drink at Klamath or Hammell. The reason was I had a hunch I might see your sister Hettie, an’ I didn’t want her to smell whisky on me.”

“That’s to your credit, Nevada. I’ll bet it would please Hettie.... But what about it?”

“Nothin’, only I feel better. Reckon I’ll quit drinkin’,” rejoined Nevada thoughtfully. “Ben, if I ketch California Red for you—”

“What?” shouted Ben, jumping as if he had been struck. “Excoose me, pard. I meant if I help you ketch that darned wild stallion you’re so dotty about, will you listen to some sense?”

“Yes, Nevada. I’ll listen to that right now. But see here, you’ve heard something about California Red.”

“Sure have, an’ it’ll keep. I want some breakfast an’ if I told you where that red hoss is you’d chuck everythin’ an’ run.” Ben thrilled at the words and at the bright light in Nevada’s eyes, but he smothered his burning eagerness.

“Reckon I don’t know whether this is sense or the hunch I mentioned,” said Nevada. “But it’s got me, pard. Now listen. We’ve homesteaded three hundred an’ twenty acres of this sage. There are three homesteads we can buy for almost nothin’. That acreage takes in the best of Forlorn River Valley an’ gives control of the range beyond. Right here under our noses is a big cattle country. Let’s go in for cattle, Ben.... Damn! Don’t look like that. I tell you I’ve had a hunch. Now’s the time to buy cattle, when there’s no water or grass. Let’s make up our minds an’ get the money afterwards. When the rains come this Clear Lake country is goin’ to boom. The wild hosses have got to go. You admit that, Ben. Well, let’s ketch California Red an’ a thousand head, an’ keep them for ourselves, an’ settle down to ranchin’ on a big scale.”

“Nevada, you said you didn’t have one drink.”

“I swear I hadn’t.”

“What’s got into you then?”

“Sense an’ hunch.”

“Nevada, how long did you talk to my sister?” queried Ben gravely.

“It seemed like a few swift seconds, but I reckon it might have been longer,” replied Nevada, with unconscious revelation of enchantment.

“What did Hettie say?” continued Ben, hungrily.

“She remembered me, but all the same she asks, ‘You’re Ben’s friend, Nevada?’ an’ I answers I was. Then she fired a beltful of questions at me, all about how you were, an’ I shore answered quick. After that she looked square up at me — reckon it was then I fell — an’ she asks, ‘Nevada, if you’re Ben’s friend you’re mine, too. Tell the truth. Are you an’ Ben livin’ honest?’ An’ I says, ‘Miss Hettie, I wouldn’t lie to no girl, let alone you. Me an’ Ben are shore livin’ honest!’... She squeezed my hands an’ cried. It was awful for me. Then she fired up. ‘Aren’t you two boys ashamed to be thought — what you are? This is a new country. It’ll be big. You’re young, strong. You’re great riders. Why don’t you do somethin’? Chase wild hosses, if you must, but ketch them. Sell them. Buy cattle. Homestead land. Study an’ think an’ plan, an’ work. Fool these hard-shelled old people! Make big ranchmen out of yourselves.’... Pard Ben, you could have roped me with a cobweb. An’ there I stood, burstin’ to talk, but couldn’t say a word. She told me how to fetch word from you an’ then she ran off.”

“Hettie! God bless her!” exclaimed Ben, heartily. “I’m not surprised. Even as a kid she was big-hearted. Hettie has grown up. She’s sixteen. And to think I’ve not seen her for two years!”

Modoc returned with the pails of water. Ben soon had breakfast ready, and when his companion sat down at the rude table he went outside to read Hettie’s letter. He threw himself in the shade and with trembling fingers tried to open the envelope quickly yet not tear it.

“THE RANCH.

“DEAREST ΒEN,

“I’m in a terrible rush and won’t be able to write half what I want to, as the little boy said ‘Nevada’ is waiting for me outside and I must hurry. Oh, how I wish it were you!

“Dad is away. He went to Klamath Falls with Mr. Setter. They’re making big cattle deals. So many poor ranchers are failing on account of the dry season. I think it’d be more to dad’s credit if he helped some of these little fellows, instead of taking advantage of their bad luck. I don’t like Mr. Setter, and when I see you I’ll tell you why.

“Ben, it’s a long time since I wrote you last. Nearly a year. I’m through high school. Dad wants me to go to college and mother wants me to stay home. Dad and Mr. Blaine and several more of the old lake pioneers have made an awful lot of money since the government drained Tule Lake. I don’t know whether it’s good or not. In a few ways it’s nice, but there’s something gone. Dad always was hard, you know, and now he has gotten ‘stuck up.’ And I’m afraid I must tell you that your brothers and sisters (except me) are almost as bad. I’d like to write you just what they do, but you must wait until I can tell you. And that brings me to the important thing in this letter.

“Mother is not well, Ben. There’s no use to dodge the truth. She’s failing. It breaks my heart. You were her favourite, Ben, and she has pined in secret. I believe dad’s bitter hardness about you, his injustice to you, has broken mother. Anyway, she is ailing and I know longs to see you. She’d obey dad, of course, and not ask you to come. But you can surprise her. And, Ben, dearest, if you could only prove to mother that you were not wasting your life — that these vile things Mr. Setter and others have told dad are lies — I think she might improve. So the day you get this ride in to the ranch. I’ll be looking for you down the lane just about dusk. You can see mother for a little, and then you and I will go out in the grove and have a long, long talk.

“I’ve a lot to tell you, Ben, about what’s going on here. And I’m going to put some pretty plain questions to you. Dare say you’ll know some of them before you see me, because if I have a minute with this ‘Nevada’ I’ll sure put some to him.

“Ben, I mustn’t end this without a word about Ina Blaine. She’s home from school. I was afraid to meet her, but, oh! Ben, she’s as sweet and nice as ever she was when you and she were kid sweethearts and I was for ever pestering you. And she’s lovely. School has improved her, that’s certain, and if it weren’t for mother I’d grasp my opportunity and go.

“I’ve seen Ina three times. I believe we’re going to be friends. We think the same about a lot of things. Ina isn’t crazy about money, and I’ll miss my guess if she goes in for the town gaiety that has struck the Blaine family.

“Ben, she remembers you. I’m not in her confidence yet but I can feel how she feels. She likes you, Ben. I don’t believe the years of school have made any difference in her, except to improve. The difference in her looks, though, is tremendous. You’ll not know Ina. Already she’s heard this village gossip about you. For she asked me straight out. I told her no, that you had your choice and took it. She wants to help you, and says we are arch-plotters. She was awfully curious about that terrible wild horse they say you’re mad to catch. Brother, you know I wouldn’t mislead you, and I’m telling you I couldn’t make a mistake about how I feel — or mother — or Ina Blaine. And if we care for you still you’ve got to do something. She’ll be the richest and most popular girl in this whole valley of towns and ranches. Do you imagine that’ll ever change her? No! Ben, you’ve more to catch around these sage hills than a beautiful wild mustang. You’ve your boyhood’s sweetheart, Ina Blaine. So there!

“I must close now, but it’s hard. Don’t let anything keep you from coming. I’m quite capable of riding out to Forlorn River.

“With love,

“HETTIE.”

When Ben finished the letter his eyes were blurred and he had a hard, dry contraction of his throat, a pang deep in his breastbone. Wave after wave of emotion had swept over him. And then he sat there motionless, the open letter in his hands, his gaze across the grey melancholy river to the dim grey hills of sage. He did not see them. The eyes of his mind were fixed on the dear familiar scenes of boyhood, home and mother, and freckled-faced Hettie with her big, loving, blue eyes, on the miles of wind-swept swamp land along Tule Lake, on the schoolhouse at Hammell and the long lane that led from the Ide ranch down to Blaine’s. He saw a girl of fourteen with a chestnut braid down her back, a white pearly skin that even the summer sun could not tan, and dark eyes of velvet softness. Then the heart-numbing pictures faded for the stalwart figure of his father, iron of muscle and of mind, the grey, clear eye like sunlight on ice, and the weathered wrinkled face, a record of labour and strife.

A second and more thoughtful perusal of Hettie’s letter fixed Ben’s mind upon the most poignant and unavoidable fact of it — that pertaining to his mother. She was failing. What a terrible sickening shock ran through him! Then he was gripped in the cruel clutches of remorse. It was a bitter moment, but short because, his decision to go was almost instantaneous. Folding Hettie’s letter, Ben went into the cabin.

“Modoc, saddle the grey,” he said shortly.

The Indian laid down pan and dishcloth and abruptly glided out. Nevada looked up quickly from his task, with swift, curious gleam of eyes searching Ben’s face.

“Bad news, pard?” he queried.

“Yes. Hettie says mother is — is failing, and I must come in to see her,” returned Ben, getting down his spurs and chaps. “It’d hurt like hell, Nevada, in any case, but to realise I’ve broken mother’s heart — it’s — it’s—”

With bowed head he slouched to the bed, dragging his chaps and dropping the clinking spurs, and sat down heavily.

“Ben, it’s tough news, but don’t look on the dark side,” said Nevada, with swift hand going to Ben’s shoulder. “Your mother’s not old. Seein’ you will cheer her. She’ll get well. Don’t be downcast, Ben. That’s been your disease as drink was mine. Let’s make an end to both of them.... Shake on it, pard!”

“By Heaven! Nevada, you’ve got something in your mind that you must drive into mine,” replied Ben, rising with violence, and jerking up his head he wrung Nevada’s hand. “I’ve got to get over not caring. Oh, it’s not that. It was that I cared too much.”

“Ben, you can’t care too much,” went on Nevada. “When you don’t care you’re no good. I never cared — till I rode into your camp on Forlorn River.... Let’s brace up an’ fool the whole country.”

“If I only had in — in me what Hettie believes — what you believe — muttered Ben, thickly, struggling for self-control.

He flung his chaps on and buckled them with shaking hands. There seemed to be a tight painful knot in his breast that must burst before he could feel relief.

“Ben, I felt this comin’ to us six months back,” said Nevada, soft-voiced, hovering around Ben like a woman. “Reckon I didn’t know what it was. But Hettie gave me the hunch. I tell you our luck has changed.... Mebbe I’ll have to kill Less Setter, but that’s neither here nor there....You ride in to see your mother an’ sister. Make them happy for havin’ faith in you. While you’re gone I’ll do a heap of thinkin’. But come back to-morrow night.”

“What’ll you think so hard about?” asked Ben, curiously. “Wal, most about California Red,” replied Nevada, with utmost seriousness. “Ben, that red-skinned mustang has wintered over here at Mule Deer Lake.”

“Nevada!” expostulated Ben, suddenly transfixed.

“It’s a fact unless all them cowmen was lyin’. An’ I don’t see why they should lie. Red is pretty darn smart. We thought he was rangin’ round the lava beds an’ Modoc caves, where there was so many wild hosses, or else over in that big country east of Wild Goose Lake. But the son-of-a-gun wasn’t ten miles from here all winter. Nobody chased him. Reckon those who knew didn’t think there was any chance. But I say winter’s the best time to ketch wild hosses. I’ll prove it to you yet.”

“Too late now. Here’s spring and summer coming fast. You and Modoc ride over to Mule Deer Lake to-morrow.”

“Shore will. I hate to tell you, Ben, there’ll likely be more’n one outfit after California Red from now on.”

“Why now, more than last winter or summer?” queried Ben, sharply.

“Wal, I heard a lot of talk in the saloons,” replied Nevada. “One of them new-rich lake ranchers, Blaine it was, has offered three thousand dollars for California Red, sound an’ well broke.”

“Blaine!” ejaculated Ben, in amaze. “That’s Hart Blaine. There’s only one. He’s a neighbour of my father’s.... Three thousand dollars! Why, that’s a fortune! He used to be so stingy he wouldn’t give a boy an apple out of his orchard. All that money!”

“You ought to be tickled to death,” declared Nevada. “For no one else but you will ever ketch Red.”

“I didn’t think of the money. But what could Blaine want that wild horse for? Sound and well broke!”

“Say, any rancher in northern California would go broke for Red,” rejoined Nevada. “Some cowboy said Less Setter offers more than three thousand. If he pays it I’m goin’ to think money’s comin’ easy, an’ you can bet I’ll look around on the ranges.... Yes, I mean just that, Ben Ide. But the fellows at Hammell reckon Blaine wants California Red for his daughter.”

The idea’ struck Ben so strangely that he uttered a loud laugh. California Red, that wild, fleet sorrel mustang, for sweet little Ina Blaine! It seemed so ridiculous. Yet Ina Blaine was the only person Ben could have allowed to possess the great stallion, even in thought. California Red was his, by right of discovery — for Ben had been the first to see the red-flashing colt on the sage — and by the years of watching and striving.

CHAPTER II

HONK! HONK! HONK! The coarse wild notes pierced Ina Blaine’s slumbers. She opened her eyes, and in the dim room with cool, grey dawn at the window she did not recognise where she was. Honk! honk! honk!

“Oh, wild geese!” she cried out suddenly, with rapturous recognition. “Oh, I’m home — home!”

All the time Ina had been away at school she had never heard the melodious cry of a wild goose. She had forgotten, perhaps, the most significant feature of the wild life about Tule Lake. But once the loved honk penetrated her mind, what hosts of sweet memories, stretching back to childhood! It was a welcome home. The sound offered some little compensation for the loss of the lake. Ina had been astounded and dismayed to see vast green and yellow and brown fields, crisscrossed by irrigation ditches, where once Tule Lake had rippled and smiled, a great shining oval of water lying between the grey sage hills and the black lava beds. Tule Lake was gone. It seemed to change even the towering white glory of Mount Shasta.

Ina lay there watching the dawn brighten through the casement. This large luxurious room was not the one in which she had spent her childhood and girlhood. That had been a tiny one, whitewashed, with a low slanted ceiling and one small window. “The days that are no more,” she whispered. That dear room, sacred to her dreams, was gone as Tule Lake was gone. The childhood days, so sweet and stinging now in memory, had passed away for ever. Her old home was not the same. Father, mother, sisters, and brothers had changed. She realised all this with sadness. While she had been away at school, growing up, nothing at home had stood still.

The sun rose red over the sage hills and streamed in at her window, gilding the new furniture. A cool breath of morning, with a hint of frost, made her snuggle down under the warm blankets. She had awakened happily, but there had come with memory and thought a check to her joy. She had not anticipated change. Yet all was changed. Even she? Yet the honk of wild geese had found her heart true to the old life, the old order.

Ina Blaine was the third child of a family of four boys and three girls, the favourite of a Kansas farmer who had emigrated to northern California and had taken up a great tract of marshland along Tule Lake. In wet seasons his land was under water. He had laboured there, along with several other farsighted pioneers. And when the government drained Tule Lake it was as if their fortunes had been touched by the magic of Aladdin.

But he had sent Ina to a Kansas college long before fortune had smiled upon him. He had a brother at Lawrence, in whose home Ina was welcome during the period of her schooling. It had not been his intention to leave Ina there all this time. But one thing and another, including lack of funds and illness’ in her uncle’s family, had prevented Ina from spending a vacation at home. So she had been away four years, during which wealth had come, as if overnight, to the Blaines.

To revel in being home, to delight in her freedom, to play a little after the long years of study, to put off the inevitable settling down to the serious things of life — these had been Ina’s cherished hopes.

“I must see the funny side of it,” she soliloquised, with a little laugh. “For it is funny. Dad so important and pompous — mother fussed over a multitude of new fandangles — Archie impressed with his destiny as the eldest son of a cattle king — Fred and Bob leaning away from farm work to white collars and city girls. Kate engaged to a Klamath lawyer! I really can’t savvy her. The kids, though, will make up for much. We’ll get along, when once they remember me.

“To begin, then,” said Ina, resolutely, and she got up on the right side of the bed. She was home. Whatever had been the changes in country and family, here was where she had longed to be and meant to live and serve. She had spent time in St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, the last of which she had found most interesting. But she would never be happy in the confines of a city. She loved northern California — the vastness of it, the great white mountains, the ranges of soft round sage hills, lakes and rivers and streams, and in the midst of them, the little villages here and there, not too close together, and the green flat ranches, still few in number.

“Last night, when I said I’d teach school some day, didn’t dad roar?” she mused. “And mother looked offended. What has happened to my dear parents? I fear they must suffer for my education. I wonder what they have in mind. Heigho!

I feel tremendously old and learned.... Back to the tomboy days for Ina! I’ll slide down the haymow with Dall. I’ll fish and ride and swim with Marvie. How keen he was to ask me that!... And Ben Ide?... Not a letter from him all these years. Dear old Ben! I seem to have forgotten much until now. How time flies! They wrote me Ben had gone to the bad. I never believed it — I think I didn’t. Ben was queer, not like the other boys, but he was good.... Has he forgotten me? Ben was a year younger than Archie. He’s twenty-four now. Quite a man! Five years didn’t make such difference when I was fifteen.”

Ina peeped out of her window. The east above the grey range blazed brightly gold, and the glow of the spring morning shone over the level waving plain where Tule Lake had once shimmered. Flocks of ducks dotted the rosy sky, and a triangle of wild geese headed toward the dim blue swamp land under the black lava mounds. Old Mount Shasta stood up majestically, snow-crowned and sunrise-flushed. The fresh, keen air vibrated with sounds — honk of geese, song of spring birds, bawl of calf and low of cow. The pasture was alive with horses, cattle, pigs. Cocks were crowing, and out by the jumble of barns a cowboy whistled merrily.

Ina went downstairs and through the wide new hallway that connected with what had been the old house. Her father had made the mistake of erecting a large frame structure as an addition to the old half-log, half-stone house. It was significant that despite his rise in the ranching world he could not quite forsake his humble abode. And indeed he had his room and office there still. A kitchen had been added to the living-room, which evidently, from the long tables and benches, was now a dining-room for her father’s horde of cowboys.

Ina peeped into this dining-room before she ventured farther. It was empty. Then she heard her mother in the kitchen. Ina ran through to surprise Mrs. Blaine helping the man-cook.

“Good morning, Mother. Where’s everybody?” cried Ina, gaily.

“Bless your heart, how you scared me!” ejaculated her mother, quite manifestly embarrassed. She was a large woman, grey-haired and somewhat hard-featured. “Nobody’s up yet, except me an’ your father.”

“Well! Why, Mother, Archie used to clean out the horse stalls, and Kate used to milk the cows!” retorted Ina, laughingly.

“They don’t any more,” replied Mrs. Blaine shortly.

“I shall try, at least, to milk the cows.”

“Ina, your father didn’t give you a college education for that,” protested her mother, in vague alarm.

“But you used to milk cows and I’d never be above what you did,” said Ina, sweetly, and embraced her mother.

“Father has some big hopes for you, Ina,” returned Mrs. Blaine, dubiously. She did not quite know this long-lost, grown-up daughter. She seemed bewildered by circumstances of monumental importance, but which were unnatural.

“The cow-hands will be comin’ in for breakfast any minute,” she said. “You’d better go.”

“Why? I’d like to see them.”

“Your father said he’d not have any cowboys gallivantin’ round after you.”

“Indeed! But suppose I liked it,” retorted Ina, merrily. “You married dad when he was a cowboy.”

“But that was different, Ina.”

“I’d like to know how.’

“My child, I was a milkmaid on the Kansas farm where Hart Blaine was a hand. You’re the daughter of a rancher who will be a millionaire some day.”

“Mother, that last is very high-sounding, but it doesn’t impress me,” returned Ina, with seriousness. “Dad and I are going to have some arguments.”

“Ina, you were our most obedient child,” said Mrs. Blaine, divided between conjecture and doubt.

“I’ll still be, Mother dear — with reservations. And I’ll begin now by running off so the interesting cowboys will not get to see me this time.”

Ina returned to the other part of the house, with a thoughtfulness edging into her happy mood. Her mother was plodding amid perplexities and complexities beyond her ken. The old simple hard-working farm life seemed to have been disrupted. Ina went to the sitting-room, which she had explored yesterday and had found attractive in spite of its newness. There were some sticks of burning wood in the open fire-place. Ina liked that. A familiar fragrance, not experienced for a long time, assailed her nostrils. How warm and stirring the emotions it roused! Her girlhood again, trails and ponies and camp fires!

Ina curled up in a big chair before the fire, as she had been wont to do as a dreamy child, and was about to give herself up to the pleasure of retrospection when Dali came bounding in, pursued by Marvie. Sight of Ina interrupted hostilities.; Dali was a gawky, growing girl of twelve and Marvie a handsome lad of fourteen, tow-headed and blue-eyed, as were all the Blaines except Ina. An animated conversation ensued, in which Dali reverted to her endless queries about college, Kansas, towns, and travel, while Marvie tried to tell about his horse and that on Saturday Ina must ride with him and go fishing.

In due time the oldest girl, Kate, came down wearing a dress rather unsuited to morning, Ina thought, and certainly not becoming. Kate Blaine was twenty-two, tall and spare, resembling her mother somewhat, but sharper of face and eye. She had not manifested any great delight in Ina’s return.

Yesterday Ina had become aware of Kate’s close observance, flattering, yet somehow vaguely disconcerting. Ina’s consciousness had never been crossed by a thought other than loving all her people. She had been compelled to thrust something away from her mind.

“Marvie, you an’ Dall needn’t eat Ina,” said Kate, with a sniff. “She’s home for good. An’ ma says you’re to hurry up with breakfast, or be late for school.”

Ina followed them into the dining-room, where Mrs. Blaine was waiting. It was a cheerful, sunny room, well appointed, though elaborate for a rancher’s home.

“Where are dad and the boys?” asked Ina, as she seated herself.

“Bob an’ Fred have early breakfast with the cow-hands,” replied Mrs. Blaine, then added, reluctantly, “an’ sometimes your father does, too.”

Dall and Marvie sat one on each side of Ina, and she felt that they would save any situation for her. They were still too young to be greatly affected by whatever it was that had changed the elder Blaines. Ina sensed happily that she could bring much to her younger sister and brother. As for her mother and Kate, they began to force Ina to face the establishing of ideas that would be far from humorous.

“Ina, we ride in a buggy to school,” announced Dall, with just a hint of the importance so obvious in the others.

“I used to have to walk,” declared Ina. “Oh, maybe I don’t remember that long muddy road in the winter — dusty in summer!”

“Aw, I like the ridin’, but I hate the hitchin’ up,” said Marvie. “Say, Ina, paw lets me have the horse and buggy on Saturdays. Day after to-morrow is Saturday.”

“I’ll go anywhere with you,” replied Ina. “I want to ride horseback, too, Marvie. Has dad any saddle horses?”

“Say, where have your eyes been?” demanded the boy. “Pasture’s full of horses. So’s the corral and barn. An’ the cowboys tell me paw has ranches full of horses. He’s gone in with a big horse dealer, Less Setter, who has outfits all over the country. I’ve got two horses. Dall has a pony. Bob an’ Fred have a whole string. Just you tell paw you want California Red an’ see what happens.”

“Who’s California Red?” asked Ina, with interest. “Is he a cowboy or a horse?”

“He’s a wild stallion, the swiftest an’ beautifullest ever heard of. Red as fire! Too smart for all the wild-horse hunters.... Aw, Ina, I’d sure like to see you get California Red.”

“Marvie, you thrill me, but I want a tame horse, one I can saddle myself and ride and pet.”

“Wild mustangs make wonderful pets, once they’re broke proper.”

“Well, then, just for fun I’ll tell dad I want California Red, to see what happens.”

It was Kate who broke up this conversation and hurried Marvie and Dall to get ready for school. Ina went out with them, and made them let her ride as far as the end of the lane, to their immense delight.

The long lane had not changed. She remembered it, and the trees and rocks and bushes that bordered it. Facing back, she saw the green grove half hiding the white house, and the cluster of barns, new and old, and all around and beyond the wonderful level ranch land that had once been under water. Spring was keen in the morning air. Flocks of blackbirds swooped low and high. From somewhere came the honk of wild geese. Far beyond the level expanse rose the brown lava mounds, rising to the dignity of hills, step by step, until they changed their hard bronze for the green of pine. Above them white Shasta gleamed like a sharp cloud, piercing the blue. To the south and east the soft, grey sage mountains barred the way to the wild country beyond. Ina breathed it all in, colour and fragrance and music, the sweet freedom of that ranch surrounded by wild mountains. It filled her heart to overflowing. Here she had been born. The dear, sad, happy memories of childhood flooded her mind. She realised now that she had never changed. All she had learned had only strengthened her hold upon the simple natural things that had come to her first.

Ina lingered long in the grove of pines and maples that, happily for her, had not been touched in the improvement of Tule Lake Ranch. The fork of a gnarled old maple seemed precisely the same as when she had perched there in her bare legs and feet. And the spreading pines gave no hint of the passing of years. It frightened her to realise the growth and change in herself while these beloved trees had remained the same as in her earliest remembrance. How incredible the power of a few years over human life! There was one pine, her favourite, a great old monarch that split just above the ground and rose in separate trunks, sending low branches spreading down, affording the shelter of a natural tent. Many a storm she had weathered there.

Suddenly another memory picture flashed upon her inward eye. She and Ben Ide had quarrelled only once and this had been the scene of that youthful difference. What had been the cause? Ina blushed as she leaned between the tree trunks. It had been because of Ben’s one and only departure from their tranquil Platonic comradeship. The thought held a pervading sweet melancholy, somehow disturbing. She would meet Ben presently, as she expected to meet all her other schoolmates. And she wanted to, yet, as far as Ben was concerned, she guessed she would rather not see him very soon. About the old pine tree clung vague haunting scenes, dim and imperfect, all of which Ben shared.

Ina’s prolonged walk brought her at length to the picturesque old corral and barn, which, strange to note, had not been altered with the advent of newer structures. Hart Blaine had, unconsciously perhaps, preserved some of the old atmosphere of Tule Lake Ranch.

She espied her father’s tall spare form, not quite familiar in severe shiny black. She remembered him in soiled overalls and top boots. He was bareheaded now and his grey locks waved in the breeze. He was talking to a man seated in a buckboard, holding the reins of a spirited team. They did not observe Ina’s approach. The several cowboys near by, however, were keen to see her, and as she passed them, frankly interested in their presence, they appeared to be strangely disrupted from their work.

“... tell you, Setter, it’s a deal I don’t like,” her father was saying, impatiently, as Ina approached.

Then the man in the buckboard sat up quickly and Blaine turned to see Ina. His seamed, hard face lost its cragginess in a smile of surprise, love, pride. Ina was the apple of his eye.

“Hello, Dad!” she said gaily. “I’m poking around to see what you’ve done to my Tule Lake Ranch.”

“Mawnin’, lass,” he replied, extending his long arm. He had big, grey eyes, still keen, a hooked nose like the beak of an eagle, and a large mouth showing under a grizzled moustache.

“Ina, this is one of my pardners, Less Setter, from Nevada,” went on Blaine. Then he faced the man, drawing Ina forward with arm round her shoulder. “My blue-ribbon lass, just home from school.”

“Proud to meet you, Miss Ina,” returned Setter, gallantly, with a gloved hand touching his sombrero. As Ina acknowledged the introduction she looked up into a yellow-bearded mask of a face, with almond-shaped, heavily-lidded eyes that seemed to devour her. Setter did not appear young, yet he looked vigorous, intense, different from men Ina had been in the habit of seeing. Even in that casual moment, when she was not interested, he made such impression upon her that it broke her mood of gaiety. She felt instant distrust of her father’s partner, and she had impatiently to force herself from intuitive womanly convictions. Suddenly Marvie’s talk about horses flashed into her mind, and she grasped with relief at something to say.

“Dad, I want a saddle horse,” she said, brightly, turning to him.

“Lass, you can have a string of horses,” he replied. “We’ve got in a lot of stock. Mr. Setter just sold me a hundred head, all from Nevada, an’ some of them are beauties. I’ve a big order from Seattle, so you must take your pick.”

“But, Dad, I always dreamed of a really grand horse,” went on Ina, which was telling the truth.

“Lass, I don’t recollect you bein’ keen over any kind of horses,” observed her father.

“We were very poor,” she said softly. “You must recollect that I walked to school, winter and summer.”

“Haw! Haw! Yes, Ina, I sure do, an’ somehow it’s good to think of.... Wal, my daughter, we’re not poor now, an’ if you want the best hoss in all this country, you’ve only to say so.”

“Dad, I want California Red,” she rejoined, swiftly. “What! That wild stallion?” ejaculated Blaine, in amaze. “Why, lass, all the hoss outfits in three States have swallowed the dust of that sorrel.”

“Oh, he must be grand!” exclaimed Ina, now thrilled about what had grown out of a joke.

“Miss Ina, he is indeed a grand horse,” interposed Setter. “I saw him once, two years ago. He’s a racy, fine; cleanlimbed animal, red as fire, with a mane like a flame. An’ he’s not a killer of horses, as so many stallions are. Most of the riders an’ hunters think he’d break gentle. So you get your dad to promise.... I’m witness, Blaine, mind you, of your word.”

“California Red is yours, Ina, if he can be caught,” replied her father.

“He can be, I reckon,” said Setter, meditatively. “There’s only a few outfits after him. That is, they claim to be wild-horse hunters, but it’s only a blind to hide their thieving of cattle and range horses. Hall an’ his outfit are workin’ close to Silver Meadow now. Probably the only hunters really chasin’ Red, are this Ide boy an’ his pards. They’re leanin’ to crooked deals too, but I reckon, Ide wants Red so bad—”

“Ide!” interrupted Ina, quickly. “Do you mean Ben Ide?”

“Yes, his name’s Ben,” replied Setter.

“You lie! Ben Ide is no horse thief,” flashed Ina, hotly. “See here, lass, easy, easy,” interposed her father. “You’ve been away from home a long time. Much has happened to others, as well as to your folks. Bad as well as good!”’

Then he addressed Setter.

“You see, Less, it’s news to Ina. She an’ Ben went to school together. They used to play here as kids. An’ I reckon it’s a kind of a blow to learn—”

“Dad, I don’t believe it,” spoke up Ina, still with heat, her voice breaking.

“It’s too bad, Miss Ina,” said Setter. “I’m sorry I was the one to hurt your feelin’s. But it does appear your boy schoolmate has gone to the bad.”

Ina turned her back upon Setter, suddenly gripped by an unfamiliar fury and pain. Surprise at these feelings had a part in her agitation.

“Dad,” she said, striving to hide it, “has any — any dishonest thing ever been traced to Ben Ide?”

“Lass, there’s been a lot of talk,” replied her father. “Soon after you left home Ben took to the hills, crazy about wild hosses. Amos Ide, if you remember, was a religious man, an’ I reckon Ben represented to him somethin’ you do to me. Anyway, Amos couldn’t break the boy — make him settle down to work. They had a final quarrel. Ben’s been gone ever since. I’ve never seen him, though others have. Mrs. Ide takes it hard, they say. I drop in to see them now an’ then. But Ben’s name ain’t never mentioned. The last two years we’ve begun to run cattle out in the valleys an’ flat along Forlorn River. Ben lives over there. An’ a good many cattle an’ hosses have — wal, disappeared. So Ben had worse said about him. But I can’t say anythin’ has ever been proved.”

“It’s not easy to fix rustlin’ an’ hoss stealin’ on anyone in an unsettled country,” cut in the cold voice of Setter, with its note of authority. “Stock missed by your father or other ranchers is never seen again. That means it goes over the line into Nevada or down across the high Sierras.”

“All the more reason a young man of good family — once a neighbour and — and friend of ours — should not be accused of being a—”

As Ina halted over the unspeakable word Setter flicked the ash from his cigar and then bent his inscrutable colourless eyes upon her.

“Any man is known by the company he keeps,” he asserted. “Young Ide lives with a renegade Modoc Indian, an’ a cowboy who was run out of Nevada for bein’ a horse thief.” The pointed positiveness of the man struck Ina strangely even while his information made her heart sick. She stared at Setter until his cool assurance seemed slightly to change. Ina caught a glimpse of what hid behind that mask. She was fascinated by something impossible to grasp. Forced to listen to damning statements, she was unconsciously peering, with a woman’s strange inconsistency, at a man whose face and voice and look struck antagonism from her. There was no reason in the attitude of her mind.

“Dad, what Mr. Setter said does not strike me quite right,” she declared, frankly. “It makes me remember Ben Ide more than I thought I did. Dad, I don’t believe Ben would steal to save his life. How could any boy change so in a few years?” Then she deliberately faced her father’s new partner.

“Mr. Setter, if I remember Ben Ide at all you will have to prove what you say. I shall certainly see him and tell him.”

“Ina, what’re you talkin’ about?” queried Blaine, impatiently. “That’s ‘most an insult to Setter. An’ you can’t hunt up this Ide boy. I wouldn’t let you be seen talkin’ to him.”

“I should think you would take me to see Ben, so I — —” Ina saw the leap of red to her father’s craggy face and suddenly remembered his temper; she also saw several cowboys that had edged closer and now stood gaping.

“Girl, you’ve come back with queer ideas,” declared Blaine. “If that’s all school’s done for you I’m sorry I sent you.”

“Dad, I have a mind of my own — I can think,” replied Ina, feelingly.

“Wal, you needn’t do any thinkin’ about seein’ Ben Ide, an’ that’s all there is to that.”

“My dear father, I shall most certainly see Ben Ide,” said Ina.

“Go in the house,” ordered Blaine, harshly.

Ina strode away with her head high and face burning, and it was certain that she looked straight at the cowboys.

She heard Setter say: “Spunky girl, Hart, an’ you have your hands full.”

“Why’d you rub it in about young Ide?” demanded her father, angrily. “Seems you’re set on it, blowin’ at Hammell an’ all over—”

Ina passed out of hearing, and when she was also out of sight she slipped through the bars of a gate and went back to the grove. Here she found a seat under the double pine tree, and the act of returning there established a link between the past and the lamentable news she had just heard. Whereupon she went over the whole conversation. It left her with a desire to feel grieved at instantly distrusting a man close to her father, and at the ensuing clash, but she could not feel in the least sorry. Instead, she found she was angry and hurt.

“If it’s — true,” she faltered, “I’ll — I’ll — somehow I’ll bring Ben back to his old self.”

CHAPTER III

INA SPENT THE rest of the morning under the pine tree in the grove; and after she had recovered her equanimity she applied some solid and tolerant thought to the problem which, confronted her.

The complexity of that problem would have to be understood and dealt with as it became obvious. She would not try to cross any bridges before she came to them. Disappointment must not be allowed to get a hold on her.

She had lunch alone with her mother. Kate had gone to Hammell with Mr. Blaine. Ina exerted herself to be amusing and sympathetic, to reach her mother, and was not wholly unsuccessful. She had quickly sensed that if she let herself be guided by the desires and whims of her family there would be no strife. Mrs. Blaine seemed preoccupied with the innumerable duties of a rancher’s wife, when these duties had mostly been made impossible for her. For thirty years she had been a slave to labour, early and late, to the imperative need of saving. She now occupied a position where these things, though fixed in habit and mind, must not be thought of at all. It was impossible to forget them, and her trouble rose from the consequent bewilderment. The truth was, she was a sorely puzzled and unhappy woman because the circumstances of the Blaines had vastly changed. Yet she did not know this. It would have been natural for her to talk to Ina about the past, and their trials and joys, about all the homely tasks that had once been and were now no more, about neighbours as poor as they used to be, gossip, blame, worries, praise, and the possibility of a manly young rancher who might come wooing Ina. But as she had to talk of things relating to this new and different life, she was no longer natural. Ina thought her mother a rather pathetic person, yet recalling the severe toil and endless complaint of earlier years she concluded this was to be preferred.

“Mother, tell me about the Ides,” asked Ina among other casual queries.

“Well, I’m sorry to say the Blames and the Ides are not the neighbours they used to be,” replied Mrs. Blaine, reflectively. “I reckon it’s your father’s fault. Amos Ide has made money, but it’s never got him anywhere. He thinks we’re stuck up. Mrs. Ide these late years has kept more to herself. She used to go to church regular. But since the parson preached about prodigal sons she has stayed away. I haven’t been over there in ages. But I’ve seen Hettie. She has grown up. Fred was sweet on her once, but lately he’s taken to a town girl.”

“How about Ben?” inquired Ina.

“He’s a wild-horse hunter now, the cowboys say.”

“Sort of a — an outcast, isn’t he?” went on Ina.

“The story goes that Amos Ide gave Ben a choice between ploughin’ fields an’ livin’ his wild life in the hills. Ben preferred to leave home. It was hard on his mother.”

Ina gained some little grain of comfort from her mother’s talk, and she decided to go over and call on Mrs. Ide and Hettie some day. But once the idea had come, it gave her no peace. Ina spent the early part of the afternoon unpacking her belongings and changing her room into a more comfortable and attractive abode. Books, photographs, pennants, served her in good stead, and were reminders of happy college days. While she was thus occupied her mind was busy with the Ides, and when she had finished she decided to go that very afternoon to visit them.

Once upon a time there had been a well-trodden path between Tule Lake Ranch and the farm of the Ides. Ina had observed that it had been ploughed up in places and fenced in others. She would take the lane out to the road, and upon her return wait for Dall and Marvie to pick her up on their way home from school.

While changing her dress Ina suddenly realised that she was being rather particular about her appearance, something which since her arrival home had not caused her concern. She could not deny that she had unconsciously desired to look well for the Ides. “What Ide? Do I mean Mrs. Ide or Hettie?” she asked, gravely, of the dark-eyed, fair-faced girl in the mirror. The answer was a blush. Ina became somewhat resentful with her subtle new self.

It happened that Kate saw Ina come down the front stairs. “For the land’s sake!” she ejaculated, in genuine surprise. “Goin’ to a party?” Her hawk eyes swept over Ina from head to toe and a flush and a twinge appeared on her sallow face.

The look and the tone completely inhibited Ina’s natural frank impulse, which was to tell where she was going.

“Like my dress, Kate?” she asked coolly. “Aunt Eleanor got it for me in St. Louis. It’s only a simple afternoon dress, but quite up-to-date.”

“I’m not crazy about it,’ snapped Kate.

Ina laughed and went out. Her elder sister bade fair to be quite amusing. Ina’s genuine love of home and family had buried for the whole of her school period certain irritating traits, especially peculiar to Kate. They were recalled.

“It almost looks as if Kate does not like my coming home, and especially my clothes. Wait till she sees my graduation dress!”

There was a clean footpath along one side of the lane, and when Ina started down it she found herself facing the sage mountains, far across the level lake basin land, and the bulge of red rocky ground beyond. The afternoon sun, low in the sky, cast a soft light upon the round, grey domes and the beautiful slopes. Suddenly her heart beat quicker and fuller. An old love of the open country, of lonely hills, of the wind in her face, and the fragrance of sage revived in her. That was another reason for her inward joy at returning to the scenes of her childhood. Moreover, as she gazed intently, these mountains of grey, with the shadows of purple in the clefts, seemed to call to her. It was a distinct sensation almost like an audible voice. The beckoning hills! Then it occurred to her that beyond them lay Forlorn River. She checked her thought and hurried on, with pensive gaze on the black buttes of lava to the west.

Before she realised it she had come to the Ide farm. The same old barred gate! The untrimmed hedge! The green shady yard and the lane that led into the old house seemed exactly to fit her expectations. Almost she expected to see Rover, Ben’s dog, come bounding out to meet her. But Rover did not come. Ina entered the gate, and found that habit led her round to the back door. Yard and house had the homely appearance of use and comfort. Ina crossed the wide porch and knocked on the door.

It opened at once, revealing a pleasant-faced girl with fine blue eyes and curly hair. She had freckles that Ina remembered. She wore a gingham apron; her sleeves were rolled up to firm round elbows; in one hand she held a broom. For a moment she stared at Ina.

“Hettie, don’t you know me?” asked Ina.

“I — I do and — I don’t,” gasped the girl, with her face lighting.

“I’m Ina Blaine.”

“Oh — of course — I knew you were, but you’re so different — so — so changed and lovely,” replied Hettie in charming confusion. “We heard you were home. I’m glad to see you. Come in. Mother is here.”

“Hettie, you’ve grown up wonderfully, much more than Dall or Marvie,” said Ina, as she entered the big, light kitchen that made her remember raids on the cupboard. “And I can return your compliment.”

“Thanks,” replied Hettie, blushing. “You always used to say nice things, Ina. Come in and see mother.” She led the way into the large sitting-room.

“Mother,” announced Hettie, to the sad, sweet-faced woman who rose from beside a table, “this is Ina Blaine, come to call on us the very next day after she got home.”

“Mrs. Ide, I hope you remember me,” said Ina, advancing with a little contraction of her heart. Faintly she grasped at an affinity that brought her close to this woman.

“Ina Blaine!” exclaimed Mrs. Ide, in a slightly quavering voice, making haste to adjust her spectacles. “I ought to remember. That name is almost as familiar as Hettie’s.... So you are Ina! I wouldn’t have known you. Welcome home to Tule Lake, my dear. It was like you to come to us at once. I told them last night you’d never change.”

“Oh, I’m changed, grown up, Mrs. Ide,” replied Ina, taking the proffered hand, and then yielding to a warm impulse she kissed the faded cheek. “But I’m happy to be home, and I — I intend to be as I used to be.”

“Of course you will,” responded Mrs. Ide. “Even though you are a young woman now. Come, sit here an’ tell us all about yourself.”

Ina had never before found such inspiring listeners and she talked for an hour, telling all about her school life, and just touching at the end on her arrival home.

“It’s good to hear you, Ina,” murmured Mrs. Ide. “I hope an’ pray the changes that have come will not make you unhappy.”

“I shall not let myself be unhappy,” replied Ina, spiritedly. “I confess I’d have liked to find my home — my people — the same as when I left them. But — they’re not. I’ll adjust myself to it.”

“Are you going to come to see us occasionally?” inquired Mrs. Ide, gravely.

“Same as I used to,” replied Ina, with feeling.

“Your father will not like that, Ina. He is a hard man, as hard in some ways as Amos Ide.”

“We have already clashed,” said Ina, naïvely. “To my discomfiture.”

“Mother, Ina’s as spunky as when she used to quarrel with Ben,” spoke up Hettie, impulsively.

Manifestly it was an unfortunate allusion, for the older woman appeared to retreat within herself. Ina regretted the reference to Ben, for she knew she must say something about him, and was at a loss.

“Yes, I remember Ben and our quarrels as well as anything,” she replied, simply. “It would be nice to — to talk over old times, but we’ll leave that till another day. Good-bye, Mrs. Ide. I shall come to see you often.... Hettie, will you walk down the lane with me? I’m going to meet Marvie and Dali.”

“That I shall,” rejoined Hettie, heartily.

But once out of the house, Ina felt the constraint that bound Hettie as well as herself. She would make an end of that. But despite her overtures, it was not until they were well down the lane that she hit upon the right way to reach Hettie.

Suddenly turning to Hettie, she had queried, bluntly: “Now tell me about Ben.”

Hettie turned so pale that the freckles stood out prominently upon her face, and her eyes filled with tears.

“You’ve heard?” she asked, huskily.

“A lot of gossip,” replied Ina, swiftly. “I don’t believe a single word of it. Hettie, tell me the truth.”

“Oh, Ina — that’s so good of you,” burst out Hettie, almost sobbing, and she seized Ina’s hand. “There’s not so much to tell. Ben loved the wild country and wild horses. He couldn’t help it. Father drove him away from home — made an outcast of him. It broke mother’s heart — and it’s breaking mine. All kinds of lies have been flying around about Ben. Of late, since that man Setter came to Tule Lake, they’re growing worse.”

“I met Setter. I don’t like him or trust him, Hettie. He said some hard things about Ben’s friend, a cowboy from Nevada.”

“I hate him,” flashed Hettie, with a dark flush. “I could tell you a reason outside of his lies about Ben.”

“You needn’t. I’ve met and seen many men these four years of my absence.... Hettie, I just cannot believe Ben would steal. I can’t.”

“Ina, I know he wouldn’t,” rejoined Hettie, eloquently. “It’s not easy to tell how I know, but it’s in my heart.”

“Have your family lost faith in Ben?”

“Yes, all except mother. But it’s hope now, more than real faith. Father has broken her. Ben was his pride if you remember. The disappointment has made father old.... Oh, such a mess to make over a boy’s love of horses! I grow sick when I think of it.”

“Well, Hettie, it seems we’re of the same mind,” went on Ina, soberly. “Now it’s not what we must do, but how “Ina, I don’t — understand you,” faltered Hettie.

“We’ve got to save Ben before it’s too late,” declared Ina, and the strange, sweet warmth that seemed liberated by her conscious words brought the hot blood to her cheeks.

“We’ve got to! You and I?” asked Hettie, in low, wondering voice.

“Yes. You’re his sister and I’m — his old playmate. Probably his only friends, except the cowboy from Nevada.... Hettie, I’m forming impressions of that cowboy Setter claimed was a horse thief. I believe he’s someone who’s standing by Ben.

He has found Ben alone, forsaken, an outcast. Perhaps he too loves wild horses. Hettie, we’ve got to see these boys, especially Ben, if we have to ride out to Forlorn River.”

“I’ll go, though father will half kill me when he finds out,” declared Hettie, in awe.

“As a last resort, we’ll do it,” returned Ina. “But let us wait. Something may happen. We might get word to Ben. He might hear of my return and want to see me.”

“He’d want to, Ina, but he’d never come, even if you sent him word,” said Hettie, sadly.

“Poor Ben! What a pass he must have come to!... Well, here’s the end of your lane and I think that’s Marvie coming way down the road. I’ll see you soon again, Hettie. Meanwhile, remember we are arch-plotters.”

“Oh, Ina Blaine, I could hug you!” cried Hettie, in passionate gratefulness.

“Well, do it!”

But Hettie turned and fled down the lane.

Saturday came and passed. Ina spent it with Marvie out in the open — a long, beautiful spring day, full of laughter and excitement, yet with moments for appreciation of the soft grey sage slopes above the brook where Marvie loved to fish, and lonely intervals when she dreamed.

Through some machination of Kate’s, that almost roused Ina’s temper, Dall was not permitted to accompany them. So Ina, not to disappoint Marvie, had gone alone with him.

It was dark when they drove into the lane of Tule Lake Ranch. Ina, as she shuffled wet and dishevelled into the bright kitchen, did not need sister Kate’s wry look to appreciate her appearance. She did not care. She was tired and strangely happy. Her father’s displeasure with Marvie, her mother’s divided state of mind, Kate’s manifest disapproval, had not the least effect upon her. What a day to bring back the past! She hardly remembered even the thrilling incidents, let alone the multitudinous commonplace ones.

Marvie had proved to be such a brother as any sister must love. He made Ina a chum. How little did her dignity and schooling impress him! Ina had shared everything. She had driven, walked, climbed, and waded; she had fallen off a slippery bank into the rushes; she had rowed a boat while Marvie had fished with intense hopefulness; she had helped him fight a fish that got sway.

Ina, spurred despite herself by Kate’s peremptory call from below, made haste with her bath and change of clothes. Then she hurried down to have late supper alone with Marvie. Someone evidently had crushed the boy’s exuberant reminiscences of the day. Ina felt that nothing could crush her remembrance of it nor take from her the nameless joy. She was cheerfully oblivious of Kate, and soon won her mother to keen interest in the adventures of the day.

“Wal,” said her father, “reckon it was fun for you. But you’re growed up now. Marvie ought to have knowed better than to take you to Forlorn River.”

“But we only went to the mouth of the river above Hammell,” protested the boy. “Not over the hills.”

“Why not over the hills?” queried Ina quickly. “I want to ride everywhere. Next Saturday we’ll go to the lake.”

Mr. Blaine shot a significant glance at his wife, as if to remind her of some prediction he had made, and he got up with a little cough that Ina well remembered.

“Marvie, you’d make a wild tomboy out of your sister,” he said, severely. “You shan’t have no horse an’ buggy next Saturday.”

“But Paw, Ina can’t walk all over,” protested Marvie, getting red in the face. “I’d just as lief walk.”

“Ina will have someone to drive her around,” replied Mr. Blaine.

“Ahuh! That Sewell McAdam fellow, for one, I s’pose,” ejaculated Marvie in imminent disgust.

“Sewell McAdam? Who is he?” inquired Ina, glancing from Marvie to her father.

“Reckon the boy guessed right that time,” laughed Mr. Blaine. “I forgot to tell you about Sewell. He’s a fine young chap from Klamath. Father’s a frend of mine. Owns the big three C stores. You’ll meet Sewell. I asked him for Sunday dinner.”

“I shall be pleased, of course,” said Ina, dubiously, with her eyes on Marvie. The boy did not show that he would share her pleasure. After supper, in the sitting-room, when they were alone except for Dall, Ina put a query to him anent this young man who was coming Sunday.

“He’s a city fellar, Ina,” replied Marvie. “Kind of a willie-boy who puts on style.”

“Don’t you like him, Marvie?”

“Haven’t any reason not to, but you bet I wouldn’t take him fishin’.”

“That’s very conclusive,” said Ina, thoughtfully. “I don’t remember dad inviting young men to dinner Sundays.”

“Ina, I heard somethin’ — if you won’t tell,” whispered Marvie, swiftly glancing round. “Dall knows, for she was with me.”

“Cross my heart,” replied Ina, solemnly.

“We heard paw an’ Mr. McAdam talkin’ out by the bam.

They had some kind of a big deal on. This McAdam man is the father of Sewell, who’s comin’ Sunday. He’s awful rich. Owns stores. He an’ paw are goin’ into somethin’, an’ you figgered in it.”

“Marvie! What are you saying?” exclaimed Ina, in amaze.

“Ask Dall,” returned the boy.

“Ina, I heard pa say if Sewell got sweet on you pretty quick it’d work out fine,” answered Dall, her eyes bright and round with importance.

“Did you tell anyone?” asked Ina.

“I told mother, an’ Kate heard. Mother seemed sort of fussed, like she is so much. Kate chased us out of the kitchen. She was mad as thunder. Kate’s city beau is a friend of this Sewell McAdam.”

“Don’t tell anyone else, please,” said Ina, earnestly.

“I promise,” rejoined the boy, with loving gaze upon her. “But, Ina, if you let this city fellar come courtin’ you, I — I’ll never take you fishin’ again.”

He ended stoutly, though manifestly fearful that he had overstepped his brotherly limit. Ina’s heart warmed to him, and she acted upon the feeling by giving him a kiss.

“Don’t worry, Marvie. We’ll go fishing whenever you’ll take me.”

They were interrupted then, and Ina had no opportunity to think over this odd gossip until she went to her room. At first the idea seemed ridiculous and she endeavoured to dismiss it. But other considerations added their peculiar significance; and it was not long before she confessed the exasperating complexity of the situation. Only for a moment did it dismay her. Ina was dauntless. But to oppose the wills and desires of her people hurt her. That seemed inevitable. She did not determine upon any course of action. It was necessary to await developments. Nevertheless, she looked forward with something of curiosity and humour to the meeting with Mr. Sewell McAdam.

Sunday morning acquainted Ina with the fact that for the Sabbath, at least, much of the old home life of the Blaines had been retained.

There was indeed more elaborate dressing, especially on the part of Kate, than Ina could remember. Her sister showed more than ever that she was a country girl unduly influenced by city associations and ambitions. The boys, it appeared, except Marvie, had their own horses and buggies to drive to church. Mr. Blaine drove the rest of the family in a two-seated vehicle that Ina imagined she recognised. She and Dall rode on the front seat with their father.

The village church, of grey and weather-beaten boards, the young men loitering round the entrance, self-conscious in their shiny clothes, the girls in bright dresses and bonnets, and the horses hitched in the shade — these looked precisely to Ina the same as before she had left home.

As they entered, her father leading up the aisle, very pompous, her mother trying to live up to her part, and Kate proud as a peacock, Ina became aware that they, and particularly herself, were the cynosure of many eyes. This fact did not embarrass her, but it quite prevented a free range to her curiosity and interest. Some time elapsed after they were seated before she recognised anyone. Ina sat between Marvie and Dall, both of whom added not a little to her self-consciousness. Marvie, with his handsome face to the front, serious as was becoming to the occasion, kept slyly pinching her and making slight signs for her to notice some young men in the pew in front. Ina did not look directly, because she felt she was being stared at. Dall was tremendously concerned with what she evidently thought was a sensation Ina was creating.

The preacher was strange to Ina, a plain middle-aged man of serious gentle mien, who had a fine voice and talked simply and earnestly. Ina had listened to poorer preachers in big city churches. After the sermon, when all bowed during the prayer, Marvie leaned close to Ina and whispered like an imp: “That’s Sewell McAdam right in front, settin’ with Kate’s city beau. Couple of slick ganders! But they ain’t foolin’ me.”

Ina hid her face and cautioned Marvie, by both hand and whisper. She found herself, without any apparent justice or reason, quite in accord with Marvie, and she feared he might discover it.

On the moment, however, Ina did not have opportunity to satisfy her lively curiosity. And when the congregation filed out she soon found herself besieged by old acquaintances, schoolmates grown up as she was, and people who had been neighbours and friends. There were a good many warm welcomes accorded her; yet she did not miss the poisoned honey of some tongues or the expressive glances of many eyes. Ina was quick to grasp that her father’s rise in the world of Tule Lake had engendered envy and contempt. She met the keen, inquisitive eyes of motherly women who no doubt were wondering if she, too, had been spoiled by education and riches.

She was introduced presently to Kate’s fiancé, rather a matured man, whose name she did not catch. He had a florid, handsome face, and his manner was intended to be suave and elegant, but was neither. Ina did not care for his keen-eyed appraisement of her person.

His companion, a dapper young man, blond, with curling moustache and large, languid, blue eyes, was Mr. Sewell Mc-

Adam. He wore gloves and carried a cane. It was plain that Ina was being presented to him, and that the occasion afforded him a gratification he did not intend to betray. Ina’s quick ear did not catch any words of pleasure at the meeting.

Gradually the crowd dispersed with groups and couples going toward their conveyances, and others walking down the street. Mr. McAdam quite appropriated Ina, but it pleased her to see that Marvie stayed close beside her.

“I’m having dinner with you,” announced her escort. “You can ride home with me. I’ve a fast little high-stepper.”

“Thank you, Mr. McAdam,” replied Ina, sweetly, “but I’m afraid of fast horses. I’ll ride home with my folks.”

The young gentleman appeared surprised and then annoyed. Ina bowed and passed on with Marvie, who was certainly squeezing her hand. They both climbed to the front seat, where Dall was already perched, while Mr. Blaine untied the horses at the hitching rail. Upon turning, with the reins in his hands, he espied Ina.

“Didn’t Sewell ask you to ride home with him?” he queried.

“Yes,” replied Ina, smiling.

“What’re you doin’ in here, then?” he demanded.

“Well, Dad, I’d rather ride home with Marvie and Dall,” returned Ina.

The presence of others, no doubt, restrained her father from a sharp retort. Ina saw the jerk of his frame and she heard him mutter as he climbed to the seat. Ina divined there was more here than just casual suggestion of the moment. It made her thoughtful all the way home, gravely anxious to reserve judgments.

Ina’s first Sunday dinner at home was saved from being boresome, even irritating, by Marvie and Dali. These youngsters were wise enough to grasp the opportunity company at table afforded. Dall had a secret which she intuitively shared with Ina. Marvie was subtly antagonistic with all the ingenuity and devilishness of a keen boy. Some of his remarks were lost upon his father, whose appetite precluded observation, and his mother, buried in thought. They glanced off Mr. McAdam, too, but Kate’s glare was provocative of more, and Ina’s kicking him under the table made no impression.

“Mr. McAdam, you must have lots of sweethearts with that fast horse you drive,” remarked Marvie, naïvely. “Most girls wouldn’t mind anthin’ if they could ride behind a horse like yours.”

“Not so many, Marvie,” replied the young man, blandly.

“Can you drive him with one arm — so you’ll have the other one free?” inquired the boy.

“With my little finger.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Marvie.

The dinner was a bounteous repast, which it took time to consume. At its conclusion Marvie was dispatched on an errand, invented for the hour, and Dall was sent to her room. Kate paraded away with her fiance, evidently to go out riding, and Mr and Mrs. Blaine, without any excuses, left Ina alone to entertain their caller. The, thing struck Ina as almost barefaced, and but for the pity she felt for her parents and older sister she would have resented it. How childish and silly of them! Ina viewed with augmenting dismay the gulf between her and them, something that could be bridged only by her understanding. Then she addressed herself to the task of entertaining this most eligible young man. Ina commenced amiably enough, but did not progress in a way that she thought flattering to herself. Mr. McAdam first interrupted her to say they would go out for a drive; then, when it transpired that she was of different mind, he stated he always took a lady out riding on Sunday afternoons.

“That’s very nice of you,” responded Ina. “It’s still early in the afternoon. I’ll excuse you.”

He stared at Ina as if she were a new species, and when finally it dawned upon him that she actually would not go and was sweetly advising him to hunt up another girl, he betrayed in sulky resentment not only his egotism, but a manifest disillusion. The moment ended Ina’s tolerance and desire to do her duty to her father’s friends.

“I wanted to drive you over to Lakeville. Told some friends I’d fetch you. Well, next Sunday we’ll go,” he said, his petulance easing out to words of finality. It did not occur to him that Ina might again refuse.

After conversation had been renewed he began to question Ina about her college life and her relatives in Kansas. Ina replied fluently, for to her it was a pleasing subject; but very quickly she grasped that Mr. McAdam was not interested in anything concerning it except the men she had known. He was not adroit in concealing his jealous curiosity. Ina would have had more respect for him if he had deliberately asked her if she was engaged or had a sweetheart, or if she flirted promiscuously or at all. Promptly then she cut her discourse on college and Kansas, and led him to talk of himself. He required no urging. Suggestion was not imperative. All she needed to do was listen.

Sewell McAdam was a salesman. He sold commodities for money. Stores and people, no credit and quick turnovers of goods, long hours and small wages for employees — of these things he was glibly full. His little leisure he devoted to fast horses, adornment of person, pinochle, and pretty girls. Never had Ina felt so immensely flattered! He had no love for open country. Never had sat round a camp fire in his life! Hunting was too hard work and fishing a dirty waste of time. The draining of Tule Lake was a master stroke of business minds, of whom his father claimed to be one. He had never seen a wild horse or the purple-grey of the sage hills.

“Let’s go out for a little walk in the yard,” suggested Ina, rising. So she got him outdoors where there was air, but no escape. They inspected the corrals, sheds, barns, horses, with all of which Mr. McAdam found fault. He hated farm life anyway.

“You’ll like living in Klamath Falls,” he said, as if inspired.

“Indeed!” murmured Ina, stifling a laugh. If only Marvie would appear to the rescue! But certain it was that this favoured suitor from the city had been accorded a fair field.

Then to Ina’s dismay the voluble young gentleman spied the grove of large trees far back of the house and desired to go thither. In truth he was sentimental.- Ina suffered herself to be led there. It seemed a sacrilege — something she did not quite understand. But the sympathy and humour with which she had accepted her father’s company vanished under the old double pine tree. Here Sewell McAdam possessed himself of her hand, unobtrusively he made it appear on two occasions. On the third, however, Ina had to pull to release it.

“Mr. McAdam, I fear I do understand you,” she said. “But you don’t understand me. I’m not in the habit of letting young men hold my hand.”

“Aw, be sociable, Ina. What’s a little hand-holding?” he urged.

“It doesn’t amount to much, but I haven’t any desire for it,” she said, edging away.

“Say, I may strike you as pretty thick, but I’m not that big a fool,” he returned, frowning.

“As what?” queried Ina.

“Why — to believe you’re that uppish, when you’ve been away for years at school among a lot of Tom, Dick, and Harrys. Besides, it’s a bad start for us if you’re to be — if we’re — if things are — —”

Ina’s grave, questioning gaze brought him to a floundering halt.

“Mr. McAdam, you are labouring under some mistake,” said Ina. “We — if you mean you and I — have not made any kind of a start. Come, let us return to the house.”

He accompanied her sulkily. Ina was quick to give him an opportunity to say good-bye and make his departure. But he carried his petulance even into the presence of her father and mother, now sitting on the porch with other visitors, of whom Mr. Setter was one. Ina was relieved to join them. A few minutes later Kate and her escort drove into the yard. Presently Ina excused herself and went to her room.

An hour’s pondering alleviated her anger and disgust, but she did not intend to endure any more afternoons like this one. She did not feel sure of her father’s motive, but his action had been rather pointed. Ina had dim recollections of the trials of country girls whose fathers’ wishes were the law. She saw that the only course for her was to assert herself at once. Accordingly, when the company had departed and she was again in the presence of the family, she addressed her father.

“Dad, why did you all leave me alone with that Mr. McAdam?”

“Wha-at!” ejaculated Mr. Blaine, and when she repeated her query he said: “Reckon Sewell was callin’ on you.”

“But I did not know him; I didn’t ask him.”

“That makes no difference. I asked him.”

Ina saw him then, somehow transformed from the loving though hard parent she had cherished in memory. He had been as powerfully affected by the touch of money and his false position as had her mother, only in a vastly different way.

“Why did you?” went on Ina, aware that her composure and spirit were inimical to her father’s temper.

“Sewell’s a fine young chap. His father’s my friend, an’ maybe partner. Reckon I thought you an’ Sewell would take a shine to each other.”

“Thank you. That explains Mr. McAdam. He seemed pretty sure that I’d take a shine to him, as you call it.”

At this juncture Marvie exploded into a rapturous: “Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“Shet up, an’ leave the table,” ordered Mr. Blaine. Then turning to Ina with face somewhat reddened, he continued: “Ina, I ain’t denyin’ I told Sewell you’d sure like him.”

“I’m sorry, for I don’t.’

“Wal, that’s too bad, but I reckon you will when you get acquainted.”

“It’s quite improbable, Father,” returned Ina, unconscious that for the first time she omitted the familiar dad.

“Sewell’s father an’ me are goin’ into a big business deal,” said Mr. Blaine, laboriously breathing, and his huge hands held up knife and fork. “They’re mighty proud folks. If you snubbed Sewell it’d hurt my stand with them.”

“I’ll not snub him or any of your friends or partners,” replied Ina. “I’ll be respectful and courteous, as one of your family, when they call here. But I do not want to be left alone again with Mr. Sewell McAdam or any other man. And I won’t be, either.”

“Paw, Ina is still sweet on Ben Ide,” interrupted Kate, spitefully.

All the blood in Ina’s heart seemed to burn in her face. The name of Ben Ide, spoken aloud, had inexplicable power to move her. This was so thought-provoking that it rendered her mute.

“You ought to be grateful for the attentions of Sewell McAdam,” declared Kate, with a flare in her eyes.

“Listen, Kate, I’m not so susceptible as you are to the blarney of city men,” returned Ina, goaded beyond restraint. “They might be actuated by the change in our fortunes.”

This precipitated the imminence of a family quarrel, which was checked by Mrs. Blame’s bursting into tears and Marvie’s yelling derisively at Kate from the hall. Mr. Blaine stamped after him. Kate, white-faced and shaken, sat there in silence. Ina endeavoured to soothe her mother; and presently, when Mr. Blaine returned with fire in his eye muttering, “That damn youngster’s goin’ to be another Ben Ide!” they all resumed their supper, jointly ashamed of the upset.

That night Ina sat alone in her dark room beside the open window. Spring frogs were piping plaintively. How the sweet notes made Ina shiver! They too flooded her mind with memories of the home she had cherished in her heart, of childhood and youth. Of Ben Ide! She could make out the dim high black hills beyond which lay Forlorn River. Dropping her head on the window-sill, she wept.

CHAPTER IV

BEN MOUNTED HIS grey horse, and splashing across Forlorn River, he headed north, his mind teeming with poignant thoughts. He timed this ride to get him into Hammell late in the afternoon, but the grey was not a slow traveller, and Ben, lost in vain regrets and hopeless longings, forgot to hold him to a walk At noon, from the divide between the sage mountains, Ben looked back and down at Clear Lake, shining like a green jewel set in the grey-purple of sage, and far across to the dot that was his cabin home, “What a country! I’d hate to see it settled. But that’ll come, and my chance to get possession of Forlorn River Valley.”

Northward down the other side of the pass spread the vast level range land of California and Oregon, green and gold, square-patched in brown, threaded by bright ribbons of water, bordered by the black lava beds and buttes. Far beyond glittered snow-clad Shasta, solemn and white in the sky. Survey of both east and west was blocked by the bulk of the grey mountains.

It was Ben’s habit to look and think while he rode along the trails; and this day his sensorial perceptions were abnormally active while grief, resolve, hope, dream, and doubt possessed his heart in turn. That part of Hettie’s letter referring to Ina Blaine recurred and recurred despite stem effort to dismiss it. Hettie was faithful, brother-worshipp’ng, and she had allowed her imagination to run riot. Ben gave no credence to her wild beliefs. Yet what smothering sweetness overcame him! Madness lay in mere dreaming of what Hettie suggested. No, Ina Blaine was not for a poor, lonely, wild-horse hunter.

Ben rode into Hammell ahead of the hour he had set, and tying the grey to the hitching rail in front of Ketcham’s big store he went in. How good to feel free of debt! Ketcham’s greeting was cordial enough to please even Ben. He exchanged bits of news with the genial merchant, and then crossed the wide street to the high board-faced saloon. He found welcome here, too, from Smatty McGill and his bar-tender, to loungers, cowboys, gamblers, most of whom knew Ben.

“Soft drinks only for me, fellows,” he said, inviting them all to the bar. “But have what you like on me. And tell me all that’s going on around.”

He spent an hour there, hearing again all Nevada had told him, and more besides. He had worked with one of the cowboys. When Ben was about through with his pertinent questions, Strobel, the county sheriff, strolled in. Ben knew him well and was sure of his stand with this lean-jawed, narrow-eyed officer.

“Howdy, Ben!” replied Strobel, to Ben’s greeting. “Haven’t laid eye on you for a year. Tell me aboot yourself.”

It was then that Ben realised the subtle transition which had taken place in his affairs. All in one day! Ben had to draw upon Nevada’s queer ideas and auguries about the future. When spoken out, frankly, Ben felt that they became fact.

“Wal, Ben, I feel I ought to tell you there’s queer talk floatin’ around aboot you,” drawled Strobel, confidentially, and he proceeded to acquaint Ben with some unsavoury gossip.

“Charlie, they’re the dirtiest kind of lies,” declared Ben, with sincere heat. “You’ve known me since I was a kid. Don’t you ask me to deny I’m a horse thief.”

“Wal, I reckon I never took much stock in it, far as you’re concerned,” went on Strobel. “But how aboot your pards?

That Modoc had a bad name before he went to ridin’ fer you. An’ Less Setter swears Nevada is a thief an’ a gun fighter of note in other parts.”

“I knew about Modoc.” replied Ben, earnestly. “But I know as little about Nevada before he came to this country as you do. Since they’ve been with me they’ve been straight, Charlie. They couldn’t do anything crooked without me finding out. What’s more, I intend to live this talk down.”

“Wal, Ben, I’m dog-gone glad to hear you say that,” responded the sheriff. “I always felt close to your father till he fell into a gold mine. It’s my idea lie was hard on you. Now don’t go blowin’ aboot it, but you can count on Charlie Strobel.”

“You bet that makes me proud, Charlie,” responded Ben, feelingly.

“Wal, keep this under your hat. I’ve been jacked up considerable lately ‘cause I can’t lay my hands on this thievin’ outfit back in the sage hills. An’ I’m het up aboot it. Your father an’ Hart Blaine both are on the Council. Reckon you know what that means. Now, Ben, come over to my office and I’ll swear you in as a deputy, secret, of course. Then you keep your eye peeled out in the hills an’ if you run acrost any fellers you’re not sure of you can arrest them on the spot.”

“Thanks for your trust, Charlie, but I can’t bind myself. I’ll keep my eye peeled, though, and post you in no time.”

“Good. I’ll take it as a favour, Ben.”

“Wait a minute, Charlie,” added Ben, as the sheriff shook hands with him. “Tell me, who is this Less Setter?”

“Wal, come to think of it, darn if I know,” rejoined Strobel, musingly. “He hails from east of the range somewhere. Talks big. Spends lots of money. Makin’ deals all the time — cattle, hosses, land. Particular friend of Hart Blaine’s, now.”

“Sounds like a whole lot,” returned Ben, thoughtfully in turn. “All the same, Charlie, I’m giving you a hunch. Watch this Less Setter. Dig quietly into his deals. It can’t do any harm and it may surprise you.”

“Ben, you’ve got your nerve,” said Strobel, his narrow eyes like slits over blue fire. “But I’m a son-of-a-gun if you haven’t hit me plumb centre.”

They parted at the door, Strobel plodding thoughtfully down the road, and Ben wrapped in a profound study, starting to cross to where he had tied his horse. As he approached the hitching rail he saw a buckboard and a spirited team in front of the store. He heard the gay voices of young people. Untying his horse, he was about to step into the saddle when he remembered he wanted matches. So, leading the grey, he walked toward the steps.

Someone, a girl in blue, came tripping down. Ben saw her trim feet halt. Then he looked up into a face that was an older, sweeter image of the one cherished in his heart. Ina Blaine, tall, slim, stood gazing at him with the velvety, dark eyes that had been her greatest charm.

After the shock of recognition, whirling thoughts and feelings crowded Ben’s mind.

“Ben Ide! Don’t you know me?” she asked. The gladness, the reproach in look and voice, upheld him from utter confusion. He became aware of people in front of the store, of those in the buckboard. Before them he must not be awkward; and that, with the spur of her undoubted intention to meet him as an old friend, inspired him to cool, easy dignity; “It’s Ina,” he said, meeting her outstretched hand.

“Oh, Ben — how you’ve grown!” she exclaimed, running an appraising glance from his boots to his bare head. “Why, you’re a man!... Older, Ben, and —— She studied his face with dark eyes growing troubled. ‘But I knew you. Are you well, Ben, and — and all right?”

“I reckon I was both until about a minute ago,” he replied.

“Same old Ben,” she said, gaily, yet she blushed.

With that, restraint seemed to seize upon them both. Ben tried to break it. “You look wonderful, Ina. I hope your homecoming made you happy.”

“Ben, it did, and then it didn’t,” she rejoined. “I’ve so much to tell you. And we can’t talk here. When can you see me?”

“That’s for you to say, Ina,” he answered, his eyes on hers.

She looked away, hesitated, and then, as if with a happy thought, turned to him: “I’m to meet your sister to-night at eight o’clock, in the lane between the house and the road. Won’t you come?”

“Ina, I’m on my way to see Hettie and mother. I’m afraid you’d risk a good deal, meeting me.”

“Risk? In what way, Ben?”

“People would gossip if they saw you with me. Then your father—”

“I’ll welcome the risk, Ben. Say you’ll come with Hettie to meet me.”

“If you really — wish it — yes — I’ll—” he replied, thickly, halting over the last words.

“Thank you. Good-bye till eight,” said Ina, and turned away.

Ben strode up the steps, passing men whose faces blurred, on into the store where with difficulty he remembered what it was he wanted to purchase. His mind was in a whirl.

“That was young McAdam in the Blaine buckboard,” announced Ketcham, confidentially, as he waited for Ben to make known his wants.

“Didn’t see him. McAdam? Who’s he?” returned Ben.

“Father’s a big merchant in Klamath. This boy Sewell is a high-stepper. He’s runnin’ after Ina pretty keen, an’ folks say Hart Blaine would like him as son-in-law.”

Ben moved away as quickly as possible from a radius of such gossip. He scouted it with strange savage intensity, but that did not assuage the hurt. Then he recalled what Nevada had said about this fellow McAdam.

Ben, suffering a division of mood, went outside and led his horse to a livery stable to get him grain and water. Then the bethought himself of his own needs, though hunger seemed far from him. But he headed toward a restaurant. The hour was near sunset. A cool wind came down from the hills. Wild geese were honking overhead.

Dusk had fallen over the Tule Lake basin when Ben Ide rode into the lane that had once known the imprint of his bare feet. Over the distant range a brightness attested to the rising of the moon. Half-way down the lane, in the shadow of a clump of trees, Ben halted his horse and proceeded to walk.

The smell of freshly ploughed earth filled the cool air. A sadness, fitting the gloaming hour, pervaded the level land.

All Ben’s boyhood flooded back in swift memories. It seemed long past. None of it could ever return. He was an outcast, sneaking home in the absence of his father. Yet with the shame of it burned a righteous wrath. Somehow the fault had not been all his.

As he turned off the lane toward a gate, indistinct in the shade, the figure of a girl approached him noiselessly.

“Ben?” she called, in a shrill whisper.

“Yes, I’m here,” he replied.

She ran into his arms and held him closely, crying low and incoherently. He returned the embrace instinctively. Of course it was his sister. But she was tall, a woman grown, firm and strong of build, and a stranger, except in her voice.

“Why, Hettie!” he whispered, deeply touched.

“Oh, Ben — I’m just — glad to see you,” she replied, moving back from him yet clinging to his arm. “How big you are! It was good of you to come — at once. I owe that Nevada cowboy something. He’s nice. Ben, I want you to slip in with me and see mother. She’s alone. But somebody might come any minute. You and I can talk afterward. I hope the surprise will not hurt mother. But I just believe it’s what she needs. Come. You’re clumsy, Ben, and your spurs jingle.”

“Hettie, I can’t get over how tall you are,” whispered Ben, permitting himself to be led under the dark trees toward the lighted window of the kitchen. They reached the porch. She cautioned him not to make a noise. How tightly she gripped his hand! Ben’s heart throbbed high. The past flashed back stingingly — the many times he had come home in the dark, after a day of running wild against his father’s command, to be protected by his mother. His feet seemed leaden and his spurs clanged. Hettie opened the door. The kitchen was empty. Ben slipped in behind her. Nothing had changed. His father’s new riches were not proclaimed in this homely kitchen. The ticking of the old clock suddenly seemed to smother him. It had ticked like that when his little brother Jude lay dying. So many years ago!

—

Then Hettie turned toward him in the bright light, her face pale, her eyes bright, a prayer on her lips.

“Mother,” called Hettie, in a voice low and broken, “here’s somebody to see you “Well, child, fetch somebody in,” replied her mother, complacently, from the sitting-room.

“No, you’re requested to come out here,” returned Hettie.

There was a moment’s silence. Ben’s heart kept time with the clock. Hettie moved toward the door of the sitting-room. Ben heard the sound of a chair pushed back, then slow footsteps, almost feeble, he thought: a shadow crossed the light that shone in this room. Then Ben saw his mother’s face and it seemed all the riot of his heart suddenly ceased.

“Mother!” called Ben, unable to keep silent longer. Two strides brought him into the glare of the lamp. She saw him, recognised him. The grief, the care, the age of her sweet face vanished marvellously.

“Ben! My son — oh, my son!” she cried, holding out her arms.

A little while later Hettie led him out through the yard, now moonlit in places, shadowed in others, to the gate.

“Let’s wait here. I’m expecting someone you might like to see,” said Hettie, drawing him to a bench in the shade. “Oh, Ben!... my prayers are answered. Somehow I knew what mother needed was to see you — and find out what I always felt — that these stories about you are lies. You convinced her. She is a changed woman. Oh, it will all come out well, now. Father can’t help coming round.”

“Humph! He’d never forgive me in a million years,” returned Ben.

“Little you know him! If you made a success of the very thing he hates, he’d sing a different tune. Father worships industry, success, money. Too much! Ben, before I forget, let me tell you that he and Mr. Setter are going to buy up homesteads out in Forlorn River country. Prick up your ears, Ben. If there’s to be a boom in land and cattle out in your wild-horse range, get in on it yourself.”

“Nevada had the same hunch,” replied Ben, thoughtfully. “We each have a homestead, and we can buy up three more. How many acres in five times one sixty?”

“Why, you dunce, eight hundred acres, of course!”

“Whew! That’s a lot of land. But I’ll risk it. I’ll sign up for those three homesteads to-morrow. Moore and Sims are sick of the long dry spell. Want to sell quick and cheap. But I’ve got mighty little money. It may ruin me.”

“It will be the making of you,” declared Hettie, vigorously. “Be sure you have those homesteads when father and Mr. Setter ride out there to buy. I’d like to see their faces.... Ben, I wrote you I didn’t like Mr. Setter. He tried to be too — too familiar with me.”

“That’s something else and worse against Less Setter,” muttered Ben, grimly.

“He is to blame for most of this new talk about you, Ben. For the life of me I can’t see why he should lie about you. He gives me a creepy feeling. But father thinks he’s a big booster for Tule Lake, and he’s thicker than hops with Mr. Blaine.”

“Don’t bother about Setter, but keep out of his way,” said Ben. “I’ve a hunch this summer will surprise some folks. Hettie, now I’ve seen you again, it’ll go harder with me to lose you for a long time.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” declared Hettie, hugging his arm. “Oh, I’m an arch-plotter, and I’ve got somebody wonderful to help. We’re going to keep sight of you and Nevada.”

“We? Who’s the other arch-plotter?”

“Ina Blaine,” whispered Hettie.

“You talk — like — like a book,” said Ben, incredulously. Yet he thrilled all over. The circumstances of the last twenty-four hours were too much for his hardened bitterness. He had softened. He could not resist Nevada and Hettie and Ina Blaine, if they persisted in this talk.

“Just you wait till you see Ina,” went on Hettie, forcibly. “Hettie, I have seen her. I met her to-day in Hammell. She asked me to meet her here when she comes to see you.”

“Well, I never! Of all the luck! Doesn’t it prove what I hinted?”

“Hettie, it proves nothing except that Ina is as sweet, kind, good as ever. She’s heard about my downfall. She’d risk her reputation to show she still believed in her old friend.”

“Friend, nothing!” scouted Hettie, warmly. “You and Ina were sweethearts. I tell you she loves you, Ben. I know it, if no one else does.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Hettie, don’t talk nonsense!” burst out Ben, passionately. “You’ll drive me mad.”

“Don’t you love Ina still?” queried his sister, inexorably. “Love her! Never ‘ thought — of that,” returned Ben, huskily. “No — of course not. How’d I dare? Hettie, you forget I’m a poor horse hunter, disowned by my family, disgraced, branded as an outcast and thief.”

“Hush! Here comes Ina now,” whispered Hettie. “Marvie is with her. He’s true blue, Ben, and worships you. Talk to Ina as you did to mother.”

Rising, she left Ben and went out into the moonlit lane to meet two dark figures approaching. Ben crouched there, fighting a strange wildness that threatened to master him. His mother! Hettie! They had unnerved, uplifted him. And he trembled at the approach of that slim, tall figure in the moonlight.

Hettie met Ina and Marvie in the lane and led them through the gate. Ben could see clearly, himself unseen. Ina stood bareheaded, her hair waving in the slight breeze. How fair her face! She seemed intent upon Hettie’s whispers. The boy clung to her. Then Hettie said: “Come, Marvie, walk with me a little.”

Ina came slowly out of the white moonlight into the black shade. She walked as if into obscurity, holding out her hands. She bumped into the bench.

“Ben,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Ina,” he replied.

“I was afraid you might not wait,” she went on, seating herself beside him. “I’m late.”

She bent closer to look at him, evidently with her eyes still affected by coming suddenly out of the bright moonlight. But Ben saw her eyes clearly enough. Too clearly for the composure he struggled to attain! How dark, eloquent, wonderful they shone out of her white face.

“Hettie said you saw your mother — left her better, happier. Ben, I’m so glad I — I could cry.... You denied all this vile talk?”

“Yes,” muttered Ben.

“You swore it was false? Made her believe you? Vowed you’d outlive it? You were honest, you’d be honest. You’d work, you’d keep sober, you’d save money, you’d show your hard old father that he’d have to be proud of you in the end. Come to you on his knees?”

“Yes, Ina, I’m afraid I committed myself to all you’ve mentioned,” replied Ben, hoarsely. “But though I meant it all, I’m afraid it’s too much. Hettie’s faith, mother’s love, made me weak. I’d have sworn anything.”

“Ben, it was the best in you speaking. You must live up to it. -. Not Hettie, nor even your mother, believes in you any more than I do.”

“Ina! Don’t talk — nonsense,” stammered Ben. “What do you know of me now — after all my wandering years out there?’’

“Has your heart changed?” she asked, softly.

“No, by Heaven! it hasn’t,” he muttered, dropping his head.

“Have you wronged anyone since you became a wild-horse hunter?”

“No,” he declared, “unless it was a wrong to mother not to obey father. But, Ina, I couldn’t stick to farm work. Father always gave me ploughing, milking, digging, fencing, errands — anything except the work of a cowboy or range rider. He wanted to kill my love for the open country. But he only made it worse.”

Stirred by these few full utterances, Ben burst into a swift, tense story of his free, lonely life on Forlorn River — of his faithful friends and dumb companions, of the wild horses shining on the hills, of the glory of California Red as he raced like a flame through high grass, of the dawns and sunsets at Clear Lake, of the geese and deer and wolves, of all that made his home among the sage slopes something that he could not forsake.

“Ben, if your father was human he’d recognise the opportunity for you in the country you love,” replied Ina, gravely. “And he would help you. But he is as hard as the lava out yonder. You must go it alone, Ben.... My father is more set in his mind than yours. Then wealth and dreams of more have turned his head. I was wildly happy to get home. But gradually it dawned on me that home was not what I had left. It was no longer a home. Mother is out of place and does not understand. She has no sense of humour. She is obsessed with the vast change in our circumstances. She is absent-minded. She forgets that she must not churn butter. Oh, it is pathetic. Kate has been affected differently. She has become a snob, and she’s engaged to a city man, who, I sadly fear, has his eye on her prospects. My older brothers are no longer cowboys. They lean cityward, and Tule Lake Ranch will surely lose them. Marvie and Dall are still kids. They are my insolation. I’ll stand by them and fight for them. Father and I clash. And the first time, by the way, was through a man named Less Setter, one of father’s stock partners. This Setter accused you of being a horse thief, and I told him he lied. I also told him that if I had not forgotten Ben Ide he would have to prove what he said.”

“Ina you stuck up for me that way, before your father?” queried Ben, huskily.

“I did. And that was the cause of our first quarrel. We’ve had others since. I believe, though, that after he gets over his anger he has a sneaking admiration for me. I hear him championing me to Kate My older sister doesn’t like my looks, my ideas, my clothes. We don’t get along at all. But mother and I, when we’re alone, do better all the time. I’m helping mother, Ben, and I shall stick for her sake and the youngsters’.”

“I never thought you’d have trouble at home. Aw, what a shame! These old farm hands grown rich!... But Hart Blaine will marry you to some partner of his, like Setter, or — or that nincompoop McAdam I hear so much about.”

Ben’s feelings, flowing and augmenting with the outburst of his words, ended in misery. It confounded him with a possible revelation of the true state of his heart, of an appalling trouble that he dared not face.

“You flatter me, Ben,” returned Ina, with something keen edging into the softness of her tone. “You’ve forgotten me — and many things.”

“No, no. — Forgive me, Ina. It’s you who forget. I’ve lived a lonely hard life since we — since you left. Straight, I swear to God, but nothing to help me toward your level... Only don’t you dare say I’ve forgotten you.”

“I understand you, Ben,” she said, in sweet earnestness. “You’ve suffered. You think you’re bitter, hopeless, no good. Oh, Ben, what a blunder! You’re hurt because of the infamy which has been heaped upon you. Because you imagine you’re an outcast from your father’s house. Because you must meet me, your old playmate, in secret. You’re proud. I would not have you any different, except to see things clearly.”

“I don’t understand you. I can’t follow you, Ina. I’m only a poor, stumbling fool. Even your kindness amazes me. We were schoolmates — playmates, childish sweethearts — and I’ve never had another in any sense, but that’s all past. It’s over, done, buried. I’m a poor wild-horse hunter, to say the least.

You’ve come home a lovely girl, educated. You’re the pride of a rich old farmer who wants to hobnob with city folks. That’s how I see it. And I’d far rather—”

She rose abruptly and standing over him, her face finding a ray of moonlight that penetrated the leafy foliage, she placed a hand on each of his shoulders. Ben’s instinct was to sink under that touch, but some magic in it or her look caught his spirit, and he seemed to be uplifted Before she could speak Hettie came running to them, panting and excited.

“Ben — father is driving — down the lane,” she said. “I must be with mother — when he comes. Good-bye. Send Nevada for letters. Good night, Ina. You and Marvie better slip through the field.”

Ben had risen while Hettie was speaking, and as she hurried away he noticed a boy standing near.

“Hello, Marvie! Take care my father doesn’t see Ina here,” he whispered. “Come out to Forlorn River and fish with me.”

“You bet I will,” replied Marvie.

Above the clatter of rhythmic hoofbeats Ben heard the sound of his father’s voice. It turned him cold. Ina stood there calm, white, as if all the cruel fathers in the world could not concern her. Ben felt, as he leaned toward her, that the great, dark eyes would haunt him.

“You’ll never know my gratitude,” he whispered. “I’ll try to live up to — try to be... Good-bye, Ina.”

“Not good-bye, Ben,” she returned.

He touched her extended hand, then leaped away into the dark shade of the yard and ran on until he reached the fence that bordered the field. As he paused he heard the clatter of hoofs pass up the driveway to the house.

Like a fugitive Ben stole along the shadow of the fence to where he had tethered his horse, and he rode away from the Ide Ranch as if he were being pursued. He was pursued by remorse, by resolves that mocked him, by an unknown emotion he could not stifle and feared to face.

Clouds covered the moon, and as he began to climb out of the basin he drew away from the pin-pointed lights in farmers’ houses and from the barking of dogs. At last he mounted the rough slope of the basin rim, leaving the low country behind out of sight. He felt safer then; he breathed freer; he could think. A terrible sense of havoc confounded him. He rode on through the dark, cool spring night, immeasurably glad for the lonely melancholy silence, the smell of sage, the looming domes of the mountains. But would these ever again suffice for his happiness? Happiness was nothing save a dream word. He did not want that or need it, or anything unless it was the something about his wild horses, his little cabin, his Forlorn River that made life there sweet.

Coyotes barked from the sage slopes. Wild geese honked overhead. The rhythmic hoofbeats of the tireless horse thudded softly on the dusty trail. Ben rode round the western bulge of the mountain and soon felt the sweep of wind from the great depression of land from the bottom of which Clear Lake gleamed pale and obscure. Some time after midnight he reached his homestead, and turning the horse into the corral he walked wearily to his cabin. Nevada and Modoc would not have returned from their scouting trip back in the direction of Silver Meadow. Ben sat down on the porch. Sleep seemed to be something impossible.

Hours of intense thought and feeling had followed his first wild state when he had fled from the Ide Ranch. He no longer hated his father. It had come to him how to overcome that dour individual. Remorse for the grief he had caused his mother and Hettie had turned away with the realisation that he could make up for it all. As he gazed out over the dark river and lake he grew conscious of how these things pertaining to his family had changed, lessened, faded in the tremendous might of Ina Blaine’s place in his life.

He worshipped her. He would never have run away to be a wild-horse hunter if she had stayed at home.

“What did she mean? What was she going to say when she put her hands on my shoulders?” He whispered aloud what he had thought a thousand times in agony during that ride. “I believed it just big-hearted Ina’s way. She would not forget an old schoolmate. She would never listen to gossip or care what people said.... But the look of her — those lovely eyes — the tremble in her voice — the straight, noble talk! Was that merely friendship? I’d be a fool to think so. She doesn’t know yet, but the old feeling has grown along with her to womanhood.

... She didn’t know, but she was waiting for me to take her into my arms. My God! If I’d guessed that, no thought of my honour or her good name would have stopped me. But I didn’t see.... Oh, the sweetness of her! Ina, my little sweetheart — a woman, fine, strong, splendid, sensible. Just to think of her raises me out of the dust. But I must not let her go any farther. She would be ruined, disgraced. Her heart would break.... Yet, it might be that — Oh, it’ll take me years to clear my name. Years in which she’d have to wait for me and suffer the scorn of her people, the gibes of friends. And I — consumed by longing, jealousy! No, it can’t be. Ina Blaine’s not for me. I will not see her again. So best can I prove worthy of her faith.”

CHAPTER V

BEN’S RESTLESS SLUMBERS were disrupted at dawn by a noisy trampling of boots on the cabin porch. Nevada and Modoc had returned.

“By golly! he’s heah in bed!” declared the former, stalking in.

Sitting up abruptly, Ben surveyed the cowboy with magnificent disfavour.

“I’ve a mind to lick you,” he shouted.

“Now, pard, what’ve I done?” queried Nevada, incredulously.

“You woke me up,” yelled Ben.

“Shore. It’s time. Was you havin’ pleasant dreams?” returned the cowboy, grinning.

“Dreams? No! But I was dead to the world. You tramp in here — wake me up — bring it all back.”

“Huh! Bring what back?” flashed Nevada, stung in an instant.

“The cold, hard facts,” moaned Ben. “I’m the unluckiest, poor, damn miserable beggar on earth. I want to get a horrible drunk, but I can’t — I can’t.”

Nevada’s keen scrutiny lost its edge and something like relief replaced it. For a long moment he gazed down upon Ben.

“Shore you can’t get drunk, you locoed fool,” he declared, shortly. “That’s past for you an’ me. What’d you do in town?”

“Aw — it was bad going in, but hell coming back,” groaned Ben.

“Find your mother — well?” asked Nevada.

“Pretty well. Better than I expected. I cheered her up. Oh, Lord, the things I swore to. Nevada, I’ll never be able to live up to them. But I’ll have to!”

“Shore. I savvy. An’ how aboot Hettie?” rejoined the cowboy, eagerly.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” declared Ben. “She’s grown that tall. And a good-looker, too. But what struck me most was her cheerfulness and faith. Why, she seemed almost happy to see me.”

“Funny, now, ain’t it?” drawled Nevada “Wal, did you run into the old man?

“No, thank goodness.”

“Or anybody else who thinks you’re a low-down hoss thief?”

“No, I was lucky that way. Not even in Hammell. Met Strobel, the sheriff, and I swear I believe he’s my friend.”

“Good! Wal, then, what’s all this hollerin’ aboot? Looks to me you’ve no call to be down in the mouth.”

At that Ben dropped his head in shameful recollection. The momentary glow of hope and satisfaction faded away in a mounting tide of incredible disaster. To awaken to that awful trouble, and find that the night had only augmented it, was more than Ben could bear “Ben, I reckon you seen your sweetheart,” declared Nevada, as if enlightenment had come to him.

“Who — what?” stammered Ben, jerking up.

“Your kid sweetheart, as Hettie called her,” drawled Nevada, deliberately “This young college dame who’s goin’ to be worth a million dollars. The girl them Hammell cowboys call the peach from Tule Lake Ranch.”

“Shut up, or I’ll soak you over the head with a chunk of firewood,” yelled Ben, frantically.

“Lord! you must have it bad!” ejaculated Nevada, shaking. “You’re shore full of gratitude. Say, if you go drivin’ me off, who’s goin’ to handle this heah love affair for you?”

Ben groaned and writhed. “Nevada, it’s terrible to hear you speak out — so — so — cold-blooded — as if — as if—”

“But, pard, you’re up in the air an’ I’ve got it figgered,” declared the cowboy, persuasively. “You did see Ina Blaine? Now confess up.”

“Yes. That’s what ails me,” rejoined Ben, abjectly.

“Aw, she wasn’t changed — stuck up like the rest of them Blaines? Don’t tell me Hettie made a mistake,” implored Nevada.

Ben straightened up suddenly as if goaded to expression of something that it was impossible to place credence in.

“Nevada, I did meet Ina Blaine. Twice, once at Hammell, and last night at home. She greeted me on the main street of Hammell, before her friends and lots of the other people — just as if nothing had happened.... Then last night when I was with Hettie in the yard Ina came. We were alone — I don’t know how long. It seems like a dream. But I’m not quite crazy. I remember facts.... She was sweet. Oh! she was wonderful! She set me on fire with her faith — her — her — I don’t dare think what. But she’s on my side, just as Hettie said. She’d already had a fight with her father in front of Less Setter, whom she heard call me a horse thief.... And, oh, she said so many things. We were interrupted before she’d said all she wanted to. My father came driving in and I had to run.... But I felt her hands on my shoulders — I saw her eyes in the moonlight... and Nevada, I may be mad, but I believe Ina cares for me still.”

“Ahuh! An’ you fell in love with her all over again, deeper an’ a million times wuss?”

“That must be it,” whispered Ben, drawing his breath hard.

Nevada reacted to that confession in a manner totally unfamiliar to Ben. After all, Ben did not know this cowboy so very well. Nevada seemed to be accepting a responsibility that entailed grave things only he could vision “Get up, you big baby,” he said, coolly, with a light in his eyes not meant for Ben. “You’ve got a fight on your hands. Cut this misery stuff! You can love your girl as she deserves an’ break your heart over her. But that’ll only make you more of a man. The hunch I had grows stronger every day. We’re goin’ to gamble, Ben Ide, with all we’ve got — with love an’ life itself. I know this man Setter. He’s got some deep game, an’ blackin’ your name is part of it. Reckon I’ve a hunch why, too. Setter wouldn’t let anythin’ stand in his way, Ben.”

“Come to remember, Nevada, I’ve worse than that against him,” asserted Ben, darkly.

Nevada leaned over with quick, tense action that thrilled Ben.

“Ahuh! An’ what is it?”

“I’m half afraid to tell you.”

“But you can’t hold it back nor.”

“Nevada, my sister Hettie confessed that Setter had tried to get too — too familiar with her,” rejoined Ben, gravely.

Instantly Ben felt himself clutched by an iron hand and jerked upright of! the bed. Nevada glared at him with eyes of black fire.

“Say, have you got that straight?” he queried, in a voice which cut.

“Sure. Hettie can be depended upon, Nevada. She’s not given to exaggeration. I didn’t ask for any details. She just said he’d tried to get too familiar with her.”

“I’ll kill him!” rasped out Nevada, letting go of Ben so suddenly that he sat back upon the bed.

“I’m pretty sore myself, Nevada, but it doesn’t call for killing. You just cool off. I don’t want you going to jail even for my sister.”

“Wal, you’ll sing another tune when you know Less Setter as well as I do,” returned Nevada, grimly. “Let’s eat. Then we’ve got lots to figger on, pard, an’ you shore can bet on that.”

Ben found that despite the poignancy of his emotional state he was drawn into the current of Nevada’s keen energy and spirit. Always Ben had been the dominating factor in this partnership: nevertheless, at this turn of their fortunes Nevada took the upper hand.

“All this talk about buying out Sims and his neighbours, catching another string of wild horses, and Lord knows what else, yet you haven’t said a word about what you and Modoc found out,” protested Ben.

“Wal, pard, fact is I don’t want you to fork your fastest hoss an’ leave us heah with all the work,” drawled Nevada.

“You don’t trust me?”

“When a fellar’s in love he ain’t reliable.”

“See here, Nevada, I believe you’re in love, too. With my sister! That’s what has changed you from a lazy, good-humoured, don’t care cowboy to a regular devil with highfalutin hunches.”

Nevada’s face turned a dusky red and he halted at his task of packing to bend a piercing dark gaze on Ben. His lean hand shook as he held it out in a gesture of unconscious appeal.

“An’ suppose I am in love with Hettie?” he asked, with effort.

“Suppose you are! Why, it’s plain as your nose, which is pretty long. What do you mean?”

“Pard, I’m not fit to wipe the dust off Hettie’s little boots. I’m tellin’ you. But meetin’ her has changed me.”

“Nevada, I don’t believe you’ve been so darn bad,” said Bea, frankly. “Anyway, I’d trust Hettie with you. I told her so.”

“You did? My Gawd!” cried Nevada, huskily. “An’ what’d she do?”

“Hettie got as red as a rose,” laughed Ben. “And she said, ‘Why, Ben, I’m only sixteen!’... If you want a hunch from me, Nevada, here it is. My sister likes you pretty well. That’s sure We Ides are queer. But if we love anybody it’s for ever. Of course, my father would horsewhip you off the ranch if he caught you hanging round.”

“Reckon that’ll do. I’ll say you’re my kind of a man, Ben Ide. I owe you more’n I can ever pay.”

“We’re square, Nevada.”

“Wal, on that we’ll never agree. But lookin’ things plumb in the face, heah we are two ragamuffin hoss-wranglers, outcasts if not outlaws, so all-fired crazy as to love the daughters of the richest an’ hard-headedest ranchers in northern California. Funny, ain’t it — aboot as funny as gettin’ kicked in the gizzard by a mean hoss?”

“Nevada, it’d look funny to other people, especially to guys like Mr. Sewell McAdam. But it’s not funny to us. It’s great and terrible. Maybe it’ll be the saving of us.”

“Ahuh! You’re comin’ around to sense. Cinch that tight, Ben.... An’ now enough of this mushy gab. Shake hands on this, Ben. We’ll make good, or die!”

Nevada’s ringing harsh words, his lean, working, white face, the passionate fire in his eyes, swayed Ben utterly. Their hands met in a grip of iron.

“Now, Ben, we’re shore goin’ to gamble,” said Nevada, his cool, easy drawl returning.

“Are we?” queried Ben, ironically, yet with a thrill.

“How many hosses have you got in that river pasture?”

“Forty head. What of it?”

“How much are they worth?”

“I wouldn’t sell them.”

“You shore will. You’ll have to. What’ll they fetch, quick, at Klamath?”

“A hundred dollars a head, maybe more. Any horse dealer could see they’re worth two hundred.”

“Good. I reckoned so, but I wasn’t shore. Now, Ben, how many haid of that bunch can you let go?”

“Not a darn one!” yelled Ben.

“Boy, calm yourself. Listen. This heah card is the first you’re playin’ in the deal for Ina Blaine.”

Something shot like a bolt through Ben, a sensation that was both thrill and pang. Nevada was inexorable and irresistible. He held the mastery here and he knew it.

“All right, Nevada. How many horses do you want?” returned Ben, as if the words were wrung from him.

“Thirty haid. That’ll be three thousand dollars, enough to buy out these three homesteaders an’ to spare. I saw Sims yesterday an’ asked him if he’d sell. He thought I was razzin’ him. He’d almost give that hundred an’ sixty acres away, just to get out. He’s been there three years, an’ this is the sixth dry year. He’s ruined, an’ so are his neighbours. They can’t stick it out. Wal, we’ll not drive any hard deals, Ben. It’s a cinch Less Setter has his eyes on them homesteads. He’s buyin’ up for Hart Blaine. They aim to buy for a few hundred. I heard at Hammell that Blaine had bought a dozen ranches heah aboots, ‘most for nothin’.”

“Pretty tough on these little ranchers, caught at the end of this long drought. I don’t think much of Hart Blaine.”

“Wal, Blaine has lost his head. He was always poor. Then he got rich quick. Like a drunken cowboy with money! An’ don’t overlook that he’s fallen under the influence of Less Setter.”

“Heigho! it’s a great world,” sighed Ben. “Let’s get this horse deal over quick, unless you want to kill me. Thirty of my last and best horses! That leaves me ten. Ten! I wonder what ones I’ll keep.”

“Wal, let me pick out ten for you,” suggested Nevada, grinning.

“I should say not. Let’s see. Gray and Knockeye, of course, Juniper, Brushy, Modoc Black, Gander. That’s my six favourites. I’d starve to death before I’d part with them. Now to choose between Sandy and Bess, Simple Simon and Blue Boy—”

“Aw, say, Ben, you’re not hesitatin’ aboot Sandy, are you?

I love that hoss. Shore you never gave him to me, but—”

“For Heaven’s sake, take Sandy now. He’s yours,” burst out Ben wildly, stamping up and down the little cabin room. “You see for yourself how hard it is.”

“Shore it’s hard, Ben. But you mustn’t be silly. Keep the hosses you love best. So will I. That’ll be aboot a dozen haid in all. An’ that’s plenty. We’ve got to ketch another string, an’ say, if we happen — excuse me, pard — when we happen to ketch California Red, are you goin’ to get stuck on him an’ keep him?”

“I’ll never keep him. I’ll give him to Ina secretly, then sell him to her dad. That’d tickle her, I’ll bet. Oh, she’s a thoroughbred.”

“Ahuh! I’m shore anxious to get a look at that girl.... Wal, let’s throw these packs on a hoss an’ rustle out to the pasture an’ get the dirty deed done.”

Modoc, the Indian, had been standing outside with two pack animals. When these were ready he led them away toward the barn while Ben and Nevada mounted their horses and rode at a brisk trot along the river trail to the pasture.

Ben had fenced about one hundred acres of his land, a long strip five acres deep bordering the river. It was a piece of low land, covered with sage and grass, and near the edge of the water still fertile enough to take care of his horses.

Never had Forlorn River so deserved its name as now. It appeared to be a pale, discoloured, stagnant lane of water, covered with green scum and bordered by sun-dried rushes, winding away between the grey sage hills. Every day the water lowered an inch or two.

“Dryin’ up,” said Nevada. “Another month like this an’ the river above heah will be a mud hole. Ben, it shore was lucky when you found that spring heah.”

Nevada pointed down the bank to a green spot and a little willow-shaded cove that cut somewhat into the bank. Here at the lowest stage of water ever known in the country a spring of cold running water, remarkable in volume considering the six dry years, had been discovered. Not even an Indian had ever suspected its presence, because heretofore it had been covered by the river. It belonged to Ben and was indeed a priceless possession. If both lake and river dried up he would still have that spring. Both Ben and Nevada believed the water came from the high back range to the south. They knew every foot of that country, and it was waterless. Here then must be the outlet of water stored in the mountains.

“Pard, that’s why we can afford to gamble,” asserted Nevada. “That gurglin’ little spring hole is a gold mine.”

“Nevada, guess our luck has turned,” replied Ben, soberly. “I swear I forgot about this spring.”

“Ahuh! Now, Ben, I’ll cut out these hosses. You ride on down an’ open the pasture gate. I’ll leave your favourites an’ a couple of mine.”

Ben did as he was bidden, reconciled now and strangely glad the die had been cast. Indecision, love of horses, had always kept him from concluding profitable deals. Here was an end to his vacillation. He dared not think openly of Nevada’s curt statement that the deal was the first for Ina Blaine, yet Ben could not deceive himself. The romance of it was at the back of his mind, like a muffled song, barely distinguishable. He gazed around him, with dreamy eyes of vision, at the dry waste of sage and the lonely little river, at the majestic round hills, almost yellow in the sunlight. There would always be beauty and solitude here, even in that mythical future when this wild country was settled by prosperous ranchers. Ben had a doubt that was father to his hope. It was a desert and sage country with one wandering little river to supply nourishment.

Ben assisted Nevada to drive a string of spirited horses across the grey barren, between the sage slopes, to a wide basin called Mule Deer Flat. In fertile seasons this was a beautiful and wonderful country. After six years of drought, however, it was a dusty, sordid bowl with a yellow water hole in the centre and gradual slopes of scant sage and grazed-off grass. A few gaunt cattle stood here and there. Bleached bones and dried carcases were not wanting in that scene of a rancher’s failure.

The three homesteads Nevada and Ben intended to purchase comprised the whole basin and part of the higher slopes. Ben had not passed by there for a year. What a deplorable change! This lake region was one of the finest bits of ranching ground in all the country. But the lake was surface water, from snow and rain, and as there had been practically no precipitation for six years it was all gone except a patch of yellow filthy water that would soon kill any stock which drank it.

Ben and Nevada drove their horses into the pole-fenced corral and went on to the little log cabin, where Modoc had stopped with the pack-horses. Sims lived there. He was a fine specimen of cowboy turned rancher, a lean, rangy fellow, clear-eyed and bronze-faced. He looked worn, and his person and surroundings had the appearance of hard times.

“Get down an’ come in,” was his cordial greeting. “Whar you goin’ with all thet fine stock? Say, how on earth do you keep them hosses alive?”

“Nevada, let me do the talking.” said Ben, as Nevada assumed a very important air “Sims, we’re here to buy you out. Do you and your partners want to sell?”

“Man alive! Do we?” ejaculated the rancher. “Ide, we come in hyar on a shoestring, an’ if we’d had rain we’d made a success of it. But this terrible drought has ruined us. I’m tellin’ you thet these three homesteads are the poorest buys in northern California. Moore’s place is as bad as this, an’ Nagel’s is burned black.”

“Will these fellows sell?”

“They’d break their necks takin’ what they could get,” replied Sims, abruptly.

“All right. What do you want?”

“But, Ide, you ain’t really serious, are you?”

“Yes, Nevada and I are going to gamble,” said Ben, frankly.

“I wish I could afford to. But I’m stone broke an’ no credit. Our mistake in the first place homesteadin’ hyar without allowin’ for dry seasons. We knew Mule Lake was surface water. A big reservoir would have saved us. An’ there’s a canyon on Moore’s land where a good cement dam would have done the trick. It’d take money.”

“Shore we’ll build the dam,” interposed Nevada, complacently.

“What’s the lowest you’ll take?” demanded Ben.

“Wal — would say — eight hundred dollars be too much?” hesitatingly returned Sims.

“It’s too little,” replied Ben. “I’ll make it a thousand. Get Moore and Nagel over here pronto. I’ve thirty head of fine horses out there in your corral. You can sell them to-morrow at Klamath for a hundred dollars each. And if you hang on to them a little you can get two hundred. What do you say?”

“By jiminy! I take you up,” shouted Sims, “an’ I’ll say you are a good fellar, Ben Ide.”

The deal went through, Sim’s partners proving as eager as he, if not more so; and by midday, Ben had the satisfaction of seeing them ready to drive off toward Klamath Falls.

It struck him that Sims acted a little queer, now jubilant, and again preoccupied. He had something on his mind. Finally Moore arrived in a spring wagon with his family.

“Wal, look at that ragged little outfit,” declared Nevada, with sympathy. “Moore’s woman is cryin’ for very Joy. Ben, you done her a good turn.”

At the last, when the horses were out of the corral, headed north, Sims called Ben aside and leaned down from his saddle.

“Ide, soon as I sell my share an’ fix up papers for you I’m headin’ for the wheat country on the Big Bend, in Washington,” he said, low-voiced. “Will you keep it under your hat?”

“Why, sure!” replied Ben, feeling a surprise, more at Sim’s manner than at his disclosure.

“You’re goin’ strong for cattle hyar?” he went on.

“Yes, some day.”

“I want to be square with you. Moore’s wife is my sister. She was dyin’ hyar. An’ I reckon you’ve saved my bacon. Now if I put you wise to somethin’ will you give me your word never to tell?”

Ben extended his hand and Sims wrung it. He was pale, tense and his eyes glinted.

“I had to throw in with this cattle-thievin’ outfit thet hides in the mountains back of Silver Meadow. It was thet or starve. Wal, this outfit has a big cattleman backin’ it. Someone you’d never suspect. I had no use for them fellars an’ I was suspicious. So I spied on them. Now my hunch to you is this. Don’t throw in with anybody. Don’t trust any of these big dealers or ranchers. Don’t put any cattle in hyar till the thieves quit. An’ do a little spyin’ round on your own hook.”

With that Sims spurred his horse and galloped away across the dusty flat, leaving Ben standing there dumbfounded. Nevada strolled up from somewhere.

“What the devil was Sims tellin’ you?” he inquired casually, yet his keen glance scrutinised Ben.

“Nevada, I’m not at liberty to say, but it was a hell of a lot,” replied Ben, drawing his breath hard.

“Ahuh! Wal, pard, Modoc an’ I could tell you somethin’ aboot why these homesteaders was so darned glad to sell out an’ shake the dust of Tule Lake.”

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” rejoined Ben.

“Shore. An’ their loss is our gain. We’ve fallen into four hundred and eighty acres of the best land in this country. But, Ben, my boy rancher, we’ll let it lay fallow for a while. Savvy?”

“You’re a cute son-of-a-gun,” retorted Ben, regarding his friend with admiration, not guessing how much Nevada knew.

“Wal, if I do say it myself I reckon I’m a pretty good pard to tie to,” said Nevada, complacently.

“Best in the world,” returned Ben, eloquently. Then he added, quizzically: “That is, the best man pard.”

“You darned fickle, wild-goose-chasin’ Forlorn River hermit!” ejaculated Nevada, with infinite disgust. “No woman, not even Hettie, could ever make me say that.”

“Nevada, I’ll bet Hettie could make you do anything. But we’re getting mushy again Couple of fine industrious cowmen we’ll be unless—”

“Ben, the cattle business is a side bet with us. We’re goin’ to ketch, breed, raise, an’ sell hosses. Let’s ride over this four eighty of ours an’ see what we’re up against. Then to-morrow we’ll ride over to the lava beds and ice caves.”

Ben gave Nevada a quick, interrogating look. “Holding out on me, hey?” he flashed.

“Wal, not exactly,” drawled the cowboy. “I seen your haid was full of Ina Blaine. An’ I shore didn’t want to see that sweet little girl forgot all in a minnit.”

“Nevada, I’ll biff you one right on your long jaw,” declared Ben, half in earnest.

“In that case, then, I’ll have to elucidate. Day before yesterday Modoc spotted a big band of wild hosses. He was on the mountain yonder an’ saw the hosses down in the valley, making straight for the ice caves.”

“By thunder!” shouted Ben, in an instant all excitement. “What we’ve laid low for all these dry years!”

“You bet. Water all gone on this range. Them wild hosses are sick of drinkin’ out of this mud-hole. An’ Forlorn River above your spring is growin’ green an’ bitter. There’s cold, clear water down in them ice caves. Modoc tells how his people used to trap hosses there. An’, as you say, we’ve been layin’ low for the chance.”

“Of all the luck! You knew this when you jumped on me with both spurs — driving me to sell my horses?”

“Shore. I just wanted to see how much of a sport you was.”

“Did Modoc see California Red?” asked Ben, eagerly.

“No, but I shore did,” replied Nevada, quickening to the excitement of his friend. “I was ridin’ north six or eight miles above heah, lookin’ for tracks. I climbed pretty high, an’ swingin’ round a curve I run plumb into Red. He had a small bunch with him, mostly mares. They were travellin’ north. Say, when he seen me! W’hoopee! Talk aboot your red streak. Closest I ever was to him. I watched him out of sight. An’ I’m shore he was makin’ for that high black range.”

“Good! Out of the way for this summer,” exclaimed Ben, with gratification. “That leaves us time to work. We’ll catch Red when the snow drives him down out of the hills.”

“Ben, you’re gettin’ real human sense. I declare failin’ in love all over again.... Hold on! Ouch! — I’ll take it back.”

“You’d better. Come on, now. Let’s ride this four eighty, as you call it.”

It required no great acumen for Ben to realise that they had secured a remarkable bargain in the homesteads. There were fully three hundred acres of level land, a grey loam very productive under normal rainfall. This did not include the area of Mule Deer Lake, which was now a ghastly yellow basin, with a small circle of muddy water left in the centre. The mouth of Moore’s canyon proved an ideal site for a dam. A wall thirty feet high and two hundred in length would dam up a lake of large dimensions, storing water enough for years. Irrigation in that warm protected bowl would make it a paradise. What an oversight on the part of these homesteaders! Ben and Nevada were highly elated and talked like boys and planned like ranchers with means. Yet the evidence was there to see. Ben realised he had bought a magnificent ranch for a bunch of horses. What would his father say to that? What would Ina Blaine think when some day she saw this sage-sloped valley green and verdant? Ben’s heart beat with unwonted vigour. His luck had turned. He was on the track of something that would surprise those hard-fisted grasping ranchers back at Tule Lake. But he reflected he would never abandon his homestead on Forlorn River.

Toward sunset of the following day Ben and Nevada, with Modoc behind driving the pack animals, were approaching the wild region known as the lava beds. Miles of sage flat led to the forest of pine that rose in undulating steps to the bare, grey cinder slope and black lava ridge and dome of the mountain. In the foreground the pine trees showed faintly yellow, gradually losing that hue for a healthy green.

At the edge of the forest Ben called a halt to make dry camp. One out of every three pine? trees appeared to be dying. The pine-needle foliage was sear and yellow. Six years of drought had doomed many of these noble trees. The forest was extremely dry and almost suffocatingly odorous.

During the day the men had crossed the track of the band of wild horses; arid while busy with the camp duties, arid after supper round the fire, their sole topic of conversation related to the chase. Next morning they were on their way before sunrise, slowly climbing and working somewhat to the west.

When the sun rose to blaze into the open forest Ben thought he had never seen so beautiful, so dry, and so dead a place. Not a sound, not a living creature! The trees were yellow pines, large, stately, and widely separated. A thin bleached white grass stood above the strange volcanic soil. It was no less than grey granulated pumic stone, soft and springy, so light that clouds of white dust puffed up from every step of horse. The travel was therefore slow and tedious. Under the pines, where a mat of brown needles covered this treacherous ground, the travel was easier. On all sides there was a rain of dead pine needles falling from the starved trees, sifting, floating, glinting down in a weird silence.

Modoc, who took the lead, kept to the base of the grey slope, now working westward. Through openings in the forest a red cinder mountain stood up against the blue sky. It had a fringe of pines. The fine dust that puffed up from under the hoofs of the horses was hard on both man and beast. It clogged the nostrils. It choked. It had a smarting, constricting power, like that of alkali.

As the hunters progressed, getting higher all the time, the characteristics peculiar to this lava-bed country appeared to be magnified in every detail. The pine trees grew immense; the grey ridges of pumice sloped up, too steep for a horse to climb without effort; out of this strange medium the pines sprang; and the brown of trunks, the green and red of foliage, against that soft, pearly, grey background, was strikingly beautiful.

Toward noon Modoc worked down a little, coming to the parklike slope of a great canyon, across which loomed the steep red cinder cone. Here there began to be manifested harsher evidences of the volcanic power that had dominated the region in ages past. Outcroppings of bronze and black lava showed here and there under the pines. These increased in size and number, and presently it was noticeable that a thin layer of pumice covered a tremendous stratum of lava.

At length Ben reached a point where he could see down out of the forest to a vast belt of lava beds below. Miles and miles of ghastly ragged lava rolled away toward the grey expanse of sage. In colour it was blue, black, red, like rusty iron, seamed and fissured, caked and broken, a rough file-surfaced place over which travel was almost impossible.

Modoc soon led into the region of the ice caves. Huge holes gaped abruptly; black vacant apertures stared from under ledges; windows of mysterious depths showed right out of the grey pumice. Each and every cavern was a blow hole that had formed in the cooling lava. It was an uncanny region where riding a horse did not feel safe. Some of the holes were fifty feet deep and twice as long, black and jagged-walled, brush-filled, with the dark doors of caves somewhere at the bottom. Every one of them led into a cave. And down in these caves there was always supposed to be ice, from which cold crystal water flowed.

As to this latter fact, however, it transpired that Modoc had his doubts. He dismounted beside several holes and laboriously descended to seek water. At last he found one. But the water was not accessible for a horse, and must be drawn up with rope and bucket. Here camp was pitched. Modoc slipped away on foot to see if he could locate the wild horses. Along this canyon slope the bleached grass grew in sufficient quantity to furnish feed. Ben could not help but believe a lucky star was rising for him. Upon Modoc’s return he was sure. The Indian wore a smile.

“Good — most dry time — ever see,” he panted. “Find old Modoc cave — trail — water..., We make trap — catch plenty horse.”

CHAPTER VI

BEN AND NEVADA were intensely eager to see the trap Modoc spoke of with such assurance, but they were advised by the Indian to wait until a more favourable time. What little wind there was appeared to favour the horses. Toward late afternoon, however, it veered to the west and freshened a little. Whereupon Modoc took up an axe and some large nails, and bidding his comrades follow he set off on foot.

Modoc led them down out of the forest upon the lava. Like a tumultuous iron-crusted sea it waved and billowed before them, presenting a most sinister aspect. Once molten, it was now hard as steel, and broken into every conceivable manner of split, fissure, crack, cave, and cavern, coloured in rusty drab lanes. Pine trees, saplings, and brush grew marvellously right out of the crevices, apparently without earth as sustenance and foundation for their roots. Many of the pines had lately died, and as many more were beginning to turn yellow at the tops, betraying starvation by thirst.

As the hunters with difficulty progressed westward, the violence of the lava stream gradually smoothed out, but the great blow-holes grew larger and more numerous. Ben peered into caves huge enough to hide a church. The whole stratum of lava appeared to be honeycombed into a labyrinthine maze of holes, passages, caves.

At length Modoc halted on the brushy tree-bordered rim of, the largest depression Ben had seen. It was over an acre in extent, precipitous on three sides, and shelving very roughly on the fourth side. Deep and flat-floored, it formed a remarkable natural corral. Ben’s sharp eye was quick to note where a trail had been worn, narrow and sharp and steep at the rim, and gradually growing broader and easier of descent until it resembled a road. It led into a gigantic cavern.

“Geemanee!” ejaculated Nevada. “Made to order!”

“Modoc, the water’s down in that cave,” asserted Ben, eagerly, pointing.

“Big hole full water. No bottom. Ice all over,” replied the Indian.

“By golly! Nevada, we’re rich. Let’s go round to the head of that trail and have a look.”

Ben had heard from the Indian how the Modocs used to lie in ambush around this cave, watch at night for the wild horses to go down to drink, then run and block the narrow place where the trail led over the rim. How absurdly simple the trap! The moment Ben laid eyes upon the head of the trail he felt almost shame to be guilty of catching wild horses so easily. There were, however, two great difficulties. One was that only in rarely occurring, extremely dry seasons were the wild horses driven to this extremity. And secondly, after they were trapped in the cave, to get them out safely was a hazardous and strenuous undertaking. That did not in the least daunt Ben; he had a way with horses, and as for Nevada, the cowboy was incomparable with a lasso.

Modoc shuffled away to begin chopping down saplings. When Ben had gazed his fill at that fascinating trap he ‘drew Nevada away with him to help the Indian. They built a gate, so heavy that they had difficulty in carrying it to the objective point, where they partially hid it under brush. Two great boulders of lava, one on each side of the trail, attested to their use as anchors for trap-gates in the past.

“Doggone!” ejaculated Nevada, after heaving one of the boulders into better place. “Is this all the work we have to do? Shame to take the money!”

“The worst is to come,” replied Ben, in grim satisfaction. “You mean gettin’ the hosses up out of there an’ movin’ them, after we do ketch them?” queried Nevada.

“I sure do. It’ll be the toughest job we ever tackled.” Whereupon the cowboy subsided, and lost his enthusiasm in thoughtfulness. On the return to camp Modoc explained one of the methods adopted by the Indians for capturing the horses after they had been trapped. It was to let one or two out of the gate at a time and rope them. But Ben could not accept this plan as practical for him. The Indians wanted only a few horses, while he wanted many. It would take time to capture them.

“Well, let’s wait till we see how many we trap and how good they are,” decided Ben, finally.

“Reckon I figger same way,” replied Nevada. “I’ve an idea, though, an’ it’s pretty dam slick.”

They hurried through with their camp chores, and before daylight had failed they were snugly hidden on a high point of lava near the cave. Modoc had located the trail used by the horses coming in to drink, and had chosen the hiding-place with keen regard to the direction of the wind.

Their plan was to take turns at sleeping and watching. Ben chose the early watch, and while his comrades rolled in their blankets he composed himself to a task full of infinite joy for him.

Night fell black. One by one stars appeared in the sky. A cool wind with a breath of snow came down from the lava heights. At intervals sounds of the wilderness broke the silence; and of these the honking of wild geese thrilled him most. They passed very high overhead, bound to the far north, late in their pilgrimage. From the flat country toward Mule Deer Lake the sharp staccato notes of coyotes pierced the loneliness. Then from a far ridge pealed down the wild mourn of a wolf. An owl hooted weirdly. Next Ben heard the slow, shuffling, scratching progress of a porcupine working across the lava near at hand. Then followed a swift, silky rush of wild fowl flying low. The rustling of brush, the snapping of twigs, the rolling of bits of lava, the faint cracking of hoofs on hard substance acquainted Ben with the fact that deer were going down into the cave to drink. Also he caught the soft padded footsteps of a heavier animal.

These sounds of the wild were as familiar to Ben as the voices of his comrades. Yet he never tired of them. There was something about them which he could not understand. But love of them had always been in him. And this kind of a lonely vigil seemed full and all-satisfying.

Ben chose not to wake his comrades, except once to shake Nevada, who was blissfully snoring. He did not need sleep; he did not care to miss any of this night. It came to him, finally, that there was something extraordinarily more beautiful about it all — the velvet blue sky, the white stars, the silver forecast of the moon behind the black ridge, the night with its rare, wild sounds, the peace of the wilderness, the glory of the solitude. And he divined that his love for Ina Blaine was responsible for this. At that hour he felt only exaltation. Unhappiness could not abide in him. The overmastering love that had grown so suddenly was something great in his heart, too splendid a privilege, too profound a gift ever to hurt him again. At such an hour, in such a place, he could feel the mystery and significance of his life.

The moon soared white and grand above the mountains and the black mantle that had obscured the billowy lava beds seemed lifted away. The soft night wind all but died away, and the wild sounds ceased. The majesty of utter solitude held full sway until Ben’s rapt abstraction broke to the crack of hard hoofs on hard rock. A suffocating excitement gripped Ben. The wild horses were coming to drink! Long past midnight it was. He waited a moment to revel in his strange joy before awakening his companions.

At a touch of hand Modoc raised himself cautiously and turned his head to one side. “Ugh!” he whispered.

Nevada was harder to awaken, and noisy when he did rouse himself. “My Gawd! I dreamed I roped California Red an’ gave him to Hettie an’ you shot me!”

“Quiet! you big cowpuncher!” said Ben, bending low over him. “The wild horses are coming.”

Instantly Nevada’s lax length stiffened, and he rolled over noiselessly. “Now you’re talkin’, pard,” he whispered. “Aha! I hear them. Steppin’ along right pert.”

“Wind good. No scare. We have luck. Catch lot,” whispered Modoc.

Ben had not yet been able to get the exact direction from which the horses were coming, but he kept his gaze riveted on the grey depression where the trail ran. The sound of hoofs came faintly, then distinctly, and all but ceased — to begin again. Gradually the faint clip-clops, the sharp cracks, the clear rings augmented into a steady rhythm. Then as it ceased near at hand it seemed to move away to die in the distance. Ben knew this happened when the leaders halted and the others strung out behind gradually followed suit.

“Ugh! See ‘em,” whispered Modoc.

Dark shadows began to form in the grey obscurity. Ben felt thrilling expectation and satisfaction. Who would not be a wild-horse hunter? He preferred his state to that of kings. Yet on the instant a pang pierced his joy. No chance of California Red being leader of this band! The great stallion was not to be caught in caves.

Nevada laid a clutching hand on Ben. “Look! way over heah!” he whispered.

Ben withdrew his gaze from the grey depression out of which the dark forms were coming, and looked down upon the moon-blanched lava. A noble black stallion stood shining in the moonlight. He had come around a huge abutment ahead of the string of horses Ben had been watching. Obviously he was the leader. He looked rough and wild. But evidently his halt was only the caution of leadership. He stood motionless until a string of horses filed from behind the lava bank and another column filed up out of the grey depression, then proceeded toward the cave and disappeared over the rim. Long lines of horses followed him, blacks and greys, spotted and light, to mass in a dark group at the head of the trail. Ben heard the rattling and cracking of pieces of lava, the uneasy tramp of many hoofs. He crouched there transfixed with the excitement of the moment. Nevada was whispering to himself. The Indian rose noiselessly to his feet.

“Get ready to run!” whispered Ben, also rising.

“Give them time,” said Nevada. “Nothin’ on their minds, but a nice cold drink.”

It seemed long to Ben before the last of that black mass of horses melted over the rim. He waited in a tingling suspense until the crackling, rolling, rattling sounds became fused by distance, then gave the word to run. Ben was a swift runner and Nevada had long legs, but the Indian beat both of them to the rim and was dragging at the heavy gate when they arrived.

“All together,” whispered Ben, hoarsely, laying hold of the gate. “Now, heave.”

They staggered with the heavy burden to the wide crack in the rim. In a few more seconds the opening was covered, the huge rocks in place to hold the gate.

Then Ben stood up, wet with sweat, and stared speechlessly at the cool cowboy.

“Wal, Ben, how aboot my hunch now?” he drawled.

“Hunch?” echoed Ben.

“Shore. Aboot the change in our luck. Reckon you was so crazy you couldn’t see. But I figgered there was over a hundred haid of horses in that bunch. They’re trapped. They’re ours. Nothin’ to it but a little work. An’ what do we care for work?”

“Nevada — your hunch — must be straight,” panted Ben, sitting down and wiping his wet face. “My Heavens! how easy! It’s too good to be true.”

“Nope. It’s good enough to be true. When we ketch California Red — then you can rave. This is all just in the day’s work for us.”

“Let’s get back — from the rim,” said Ben, rising to peer into the huge shadowy abyss. One side was black in gloom, the other silver in the moonlight. The wild horses did not yet know that they had been trapped. Hollow ring of hoofs came from the cavern. It seemed tremendously deep and large, magnified by the night.

“Wal, heah’s my idea,” began Nevada, very businesslike, when they had moved back from the rim. “It’s a big haul of wild hosses. They’ll be some fine ones, an’ a lot of good stock. It’ll cost money to save them, but nothin’ compared to what they’re worth. Send Modoc to Hammell for hay an’ grain, wire an’ rope an’ nails. We’ll need a couple wagon loads of stuff. We can pack in heah from the road. While Modoc is gone we’ll cut fence posts. We’ll build a big corral. We’ll feed them hosses, an’ when we’re ready we’ll let some up into the corral where we can ketch them. A few at a time, while the main bunch down there is gettin’ used to us. Huh?”

“It’s a grand idea, Nevada,” averred Ben. “If there are as many as you think we’ll be a month and more on the job.”

“Ben, you know a bunch of hosses at night is always deceivin’,” said Nevada, seriously. “Even a small bunch will have a lot of hosses. An’ that was an awful big bunch crowdin’ to go down the trail.”

“Nevada, you’re a comforting cuss,” returned Ben, happily.

He breathed a long, deep sigh. “By golly! Some day—”

“Ahuh!” drawled Nevada, interrupting. “Don’t you try to steal my hunch. Suppose we take another little snooze.”

“Not me!” exclaimed Ben, shortly. “Dawn is not far away. I’ll sit up.”

“Wal, it’s shore nice to be in love, but I got to sleep an’ eat regular, too.”

Modoc, who had been standing to one side, suddenly uttered a low exclamation. Then he said: “More wild horse come.” Instantly Ben and Nevada became silent statues.

“Shore as you’re born,” whispered the cowboy, in elation. Ben was the last to hear the unmistakable dull thud and slow clip-clop of hoofs.

“Catch lot mote,” announced the Indian.

“By golly! Ben, we shore can,” returned Nevada, now excited. “Listen. You see the bunch we’ve trapped are far down in the cave drinkin’ an’ waitin’ for their turn. They don’t know they’re ketched. Wal, we can raise the gate, stand it to one side an’ hide close by. Some of the new hosses will go down shore.”

Ben felt the leap of temptation, but he found strength to deliberate, and attractive as the idea was he decided against it.

“We’ll let well enough alone,” he said. “A bird in the hand, you know. We might catch more. But we stand a chance to lose what we’ve got. Suppose the horses down there would start a stampede up that trail. We could never close the gate on them. It’s too risky.”

“Wal, second thought is best. I reckon you’re right,” returned Nevada, reluctantly. “An’ even if our luck held we might ketch too many to handle.”

It seemed to Ben that the moon would never go down and dawn never come. To and fro he strolled over the lava, under the pines, revolving thoughts new to him. Several times a trampling, snorting uproar came from the cave. The trap was an efficient affair, because in the upper part of the trail there was room for only one horse at a time. With the gate closed over the outlet the horses could not get started. Ben had an idea they would give up rather quickly for wild horses.

At length the moon went down and gradually the grey obscurity turned to black shadow. The darkest hour came and passed. Then a faint brightening in the east told of the approach of day. Soon the sky lightened and turned rose; the shadows paled and vanished; quickly then, it seemed, day was at hand.

Ben and his two companions crawled into a covert of brush and peeped over the rim of the cave. Nevada evidently got the first glimpse of the wild horses, for he gave Ben a tremendous punch that all but knocked both breath and sight out of him. It certainly was not because Ben discovered anything that he returned the punch with good measure. In another instant, however, he saw clearly. The white ash floor of the great hole was covered with wild horses, and toward the ascent where the trail started up horses were packed closely. A line of them narrowed up the trail clear to the top. They stood motionless, dejected, as if they knew their case was hopeless.

Ben drew back to relax and collect his wits. Nevada kept looking for a long time. When at length he did move back to confront Ben his face was alight with amaze and joy, and his dishevelled black hair appeared to stand on end.

“By — golly!” he whispered, hoarsely. “Did you see that bunch of hosses?”

“I — sure did — but not very clear,” replied Ben, breathlessly.

“Pard, we’re rich!”

“Oh, now, Nevada, don’t you go off your head,” whispered Ben, hurriedly.

Modoc drew back to join his two comrades. His bronze face was wreathed in a smile seldom seen there.

“Lot horses all good,” he said.

“Ben, I’m knocked into a cocked hat,” whispered the cowboy. “There’s at least a hundred an’ fifty haid in that bunch. Reckon I never seen a finer lot of wild hosses.”

“Let’s peep again, then chase back to camp and get things started,” said Ben.

This time Ben took his fill gazing, and his sober conclusion was that Nevada had not exaggerated in the least. What a splendid catch! Ben could not locate the magnificent black stallion that had been the leader, but he saw enough individually fine horses to fulfil the most exacting hopes of a wild-horse hunter.

“Reckon they might just as well have a look at us,” said Nevada, and, rising, he exposed himself on the rim. Ben got up in time to see the horses break into a trampling, whistling, plunging uproar. They surged from one side to the other, plunged at the ascent, only to press closer into a dense mass. Many on the outside ran back into the dark cavern; some pounded at the steep iron walls; those on the trail were crowded off to admit of others. A cloud of white and red dust rose to hide them. Nevada called down to the captured horses, but in the din Ben could not distinguish what he said. Drawing the cowboy back, Ben led him in the steps of Modoc, who was hurrying toward camp.

They partook merrily of a hearty breakfast. Then after Modoc had been dispatched post-haste on the important mission, Ben and Nevada set to work in grim earnest on the long, strenuous task.

During the day they often left off cutting poles and posts to walk around the rim of the cave, purposely showing themselves to the trapped horses. On each occasion a terrific mêlée ensued. The second day was like the first, and on the third the wild horses began to get used to their captors.

Modoc arrived eventually with all Ben’s pack-horses heavily laden, and he announced the wagons would reach the end of the road late that day.

It took two whole days to pack the supply of hay, grain, rope, hardware, and other supplies up to the camp. By this time the wild horses had grown thin and gaunt, but not to the extent that Ben was concerned about them.

While Ben and his comrades were in sight on the rim the wild horses would not eat the hay thrown down to them, but when morning of the next day came it had all been consumed.

With these important initial steps of the plan wholly successful, Ben and his men were jubilant, and confident of the outcome. They built a large corral around the level space on the trail side of the cave, with high fences running to the gate. Then began the strenuous job of letting out a few of the horses at a time, roping them, and breaking them sufficiently to lead them across the miles of forest and sage to Ben’s pasture on Forlorn River.

Early and late they toiled, dexterous, patient, indefatigable. Horses were skinned, bruised, lamed during the laboursome process, but not one was seriously crippled. The hardest job of all was to drive the half-broken horses across to Ben’s pasture. Nevada managed four, while Ben and Modoc had about all they wanted with three each.

Once out of the corral, these horses plunged into a run, stretching the lassoes and dragging their captors at a breakneck pace. They ran until they gave out. Then the task was to pull them the remaining distance to the pasture. This drive took half a day. Then, after a rest, the men, mounting fresh horses, rode back to their camp.

Ben lost track of days. But he knew indeed that summer had come, for the days grew hotter and hotter, and the drought correspondingly worse. The situation as regarded cattle and horses on the ranges became aggravated. If the fall rains failed this year all live stock in that section was doomed.

CHAPTER VII

FOR INA BLAINE the early summer weeks were full and sweet, despite the slow tangling of threads that bade fair to grow into an inextricable knot.

It became a certainty that she was helping her mother. Her merry presence, her patience and tact, her affection were making life easier for that perplexed woman. And Ina saw how greatly she was influencing Dall and Marvie in a situation their youthful minds could not have encompassed. Then she had become an intimate friend of Hettie Ide, to their mutual benefit. The more she saw of Hettie the more she found her to be good and lovable, the comfort and stay of a broken-hearted mother.

Over against these happy facts were arrayed others fraught with bitterness. Ina’s father, finding that he could not dominate her, had become harsh and hard, unyielding to the genuine love he bore her. The older brothers did not understand her. Kate, from being covertly jealous, had grown openly hostile, which situation, however, had been relieved by her marriage and consequent absence from home. Sewell McAdam had in no wise been discouraged by her indifference. Every Sunday he went regularly to church with the family, and spent the rest of the day with them, complacently vain in the position gossip gave him as Ina’s suitor. On these occasions he was her shadow, until Ina could scarcely conceal her disgust and chagrin. Her resentment had grown to the proportions of a revolt. The last time her father had broached the subject of marriage with McAdam he had intimated an obligation to the McAdams that was beginning to be serious. Ina had refused, appealed, protested, argued, all to no avail. She began to be afraid he might marry her to McAdam against her will, though she did not see how that could be possible.

Lastly, and most disturbing, her father had become deeply involved with Less Setter in horse dealing on a large scale, in land and cattle deals, in the foreclosing of mortgages on small ranchers forced to the wall by the unprecedented drought.

Ina’s keen ears had heard a good deal not intended for her. Less Setter was the big factor in these deals, but her father furnished the money. Several worthy ranchers had been ruined by Setter’s drastic measures. To be sure, the law was on Blaine’s side, but the consensus of opinion around Hammell appeared to be that Blaine had not gained any liking or respect through his partner’s high-handed methods. Added to all this there was a personal implication for Ina, inasmuch as Setter had been making preposterous and offensive advances to her. Ina had not told her father, because she had sensed veiled threat and power in this man’s talk. She exercised all her wits to keep out of his way, but sometimes it was impossible.

One day, early in June, Blaine announced to his family that he would close the house at Tule Lake Ranch for the summer.

“I’ve got hold of a place on Wild Goose Lake,” he said. “It’s all run down an’ cabins ain’t fit for women folks. But we’ll put up some tents for you an’ the kids.”

Marvie and Dall, who happened at the time to be in the good graces of their father, let out yelps of joy. Ina was taken aback, but she managed otherwise to hide her own amaze and delight. Mrs. Blaine did not evince any regrets at the idea of closing the big house for the summer.

“Sort of summer outin’, as they call it in town,” went on Blaine, blandly. “Lots of families with means do this nowadays. The McAdams go to Upper Klamath Lake.... Now as I expect to have large interests around Wild Goose Lake an’ up Forlorn River, we may just as well start developin’ a summer place up there. Reckon it’s about forty miles, considerable higher an’ cooler. There’s a fine grove of trees a little ways from the cabins, an’ I aim to put up the tents in it. The problem is water. But that’s a terrible problem everywhere this year. I’ve sent well-diggers. If they fail to reach water Setter has a plan he thinks will work. So I reckon you can all pack up an’ get ready to move.”

Whereupon there followed considerable excitement and bustle in the Blaine household. Marvie’s first statement to Ina, when they were alone, proved the predominance of his ruling passion.

“Sis, the fishin’ in Forlorn River is grand. Only ten miles across the lake,” he whispered, with wide, bright eyes.

“But, Marvie, the lake and river are drying up, I hear,” replied Ina, who was conscious of disturbing and not unpleasant emotions on her own behalf.

“There’re spring holes in Forlorn River an’ the trout will collect there,” asserted the boy. “Ben Ide will show us.”

Ina found herself blushing and consciousness of the fact brought an added wave of scarlet.

“Say, Sis, you’re as red as a beet,” declared Marvie, wonderingly.

“Am I?... Oh, it’s nothing,” replied Ina, feeling her hot cheeks. But she knew it was a great deal.

Marvie leaned close to her and his loyal eyes pierced her. “Ben lives across the lake, at the mouth of the river. We can see his home from where we’ll be campin’.”

“Well, what of that?” queried Ina, smiling at him.

“Why, nothin’ much, except you can bet I’ll slip over there to see Ben, an’ take you along if you want to go.”

“Marvie, you think I’ll want to?” went on Ina, composedly. Marvie was showing depths hitherto unsuspected.

“I’ve a hunch you will,” declared the boy, bluntly. “Outside of ridin’ an’ fishin’!... Now listen, Sis. I knew about this plan of dad’s before he sprung it on us. I heard him an’ Less Setter talkin’ out by the bam. They were talkin’ about gettin’ hold of Ben Ide’s water an’ land. Dad wanted to buy from Ben, but Setter swore he was goin’ to run Ben out of the country. An’, Ina, after that I heard one of our cowboys say Setter had dad buffaloed.”

“Well!” ejaculated Ina, with difficulty controlling the flash of resentment that swept over her. “Marvie, I don’t like that,” she added, deliberating.

“Neither do I,” rejoined the lad, stoutly. “An’ worse than that I hate the way Setter looks at you, Ina. Goodness knows I thought that McAdam fellar was hard enough to stand. But Setter’s different.... I wish I was older an’ bigger.”

“Marvie, you’re fine, just as you are,” said Ina, sweetly. “We’ve a secret between us. I — almost hate Mr. Setter myself. I’m afraid he is not what dad thinks. And between them they are going to injure Ben Ide.... Marvie, Ben was — is a dear old friend. I don’t believe what they say about him.”

“Ina, I’m for Ben any day, an’ you can bet on that,” replied Marvie.

“That’s fine, Marvie. I don’t believe you will be sorry. Let’s keep our eyes and ears open. It’s not dishonest, considering what we believe is injustice to Ben Ide. Let’s play a game, Marvie.”

Ina did not explain just what kind of a game she meant; nevertheless Marvie fell into it with an air of intense eagerness and importance.

“Don’t tell Dall nothin’,” he said, finally. “She’s only a girl an’ can’t be trusted. An’ she’s afraid of dad.”

At the end of this little conversation Ina found that, no matter what had heretofore been the state of her mind regarding Mr. Setter, she was now convinced of his crookedness. This related to his business relations with her father; she had long been satisfied that both she and Hettie Ide were objects of Less Setter’s dishonest intentions.

Ina spent the day packing, with frequent periods of abstraction, part of which were so dreamy and pleasant that she felt guilty of being very happy over this summer-camp plan.

Next morning before sunrise she and Marvie were off on horseback at the head of a string of pack-horses and wagons. Marvie was not only good company, but also served somewhat to embarrass the several ambitious cowboys who approached Ina on every possible occasion. Ina liked them, and liked their company, except when they got what Marvie called “sweet on her.”

Riding in the early morning was delightful, and the long, winding, dusty road toward the sage hills was not formidable. But when the flat country lay behind and the ascent of the great basin slope began and the sun grew hot, then it was different. It became work, yet not without satisfying sense of achievement. At noon the cavalcade had crossed the divide between two of the huge sage hills and found easier travel downward. Presently Blaine ordered a halt at the last ranch on the north side of Wild Goose Lake. The owner’s name was Blake, and like all poor ranchers in that country he was, as a cowboy tersely put it, “holdin’ on heah by the skin of his teeth.” They rested and had lunch in the shade. Ina was pleased with Marvie’s keenness when the boy whispered to her: “Did you see we wasn’t very welcome? This fellar Blake is scared of dad.” For her own observation tallied exactly with Marvie’s.

For two hours following that noonday rest the ride was most uncomfortable, hot, dusty, slow, over a rough road, from which nothing but bleached and sear grass slopes could be seen. But at last, when they emerged on the outlook above Wild Goose Lake, Ina suddenly felt rejuvenated.

A breeze which was hot, but still a breeze, swept up from the vast grey-and-black basin. The slope was long, rolling, somehow beautiful despite the aridity. At a distance the sage appeared softly grey merging into purple. Wild Goose Lake was an immense round body of muddy water, surrounded by mile-wide shore lines, denuded, stark in the sunlight. The sage hills now appeared to rise to the dignity of mountains, long-sloping, domelike. A cowboy called Marvie’s attention to black and white dots on the far high slope. Wild horses! How Ina thrilled to the words and the sight! Yet this feeling was slight to that which gripped her when Marvie pointed across the great open space of land and water to a winding pale ribbon — Forlorn River. Could a more felicitous name have been given it? Dim and almost indistinct was the mouth of the river. It looked as if it sank into the sands. And scarcely clearer was the point of land, with its dark blur of trees that marked the wild and lonely homestead of Ben Ide.

Ina’s heart swelled into her throat. No wonder he loved that place. She loved it herself, at first sight; and a vague sweet emotion attended the assurance. Far across and above the grey monotony where Forlorn River wound its way climbed the black ranges into the sky. These, a cowboy said, were the mountains of Nevada.

The hours of riding that followed did not wear on Ina’s spirit, though at the last she suffered in flesh and bone. She had an ever-changing, ever-wonderful prospect to gaze upon, and always a feeling of some intimate connection with it. She did not trouble to explain this latter complex assumption. But she thought once — what extraordinarily good luck for her that Hart Blaine and Less Setter should have chosen Wild Goose Lake and Forlorn River for their field of operations this summer! Almost she laughed aloud in a strange exultation, totally foreign to her. But deep in her there had been born a rankling strife. Here, approaching an environment she had cherished in her thoughts, she was conscious of roused and accepted conflict. And like a lightning flash came the query, why? Ina dared not answer it with her mind. Involuntarily the leap of her pulse, her blood, answered it physically.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon when the Blaine party arrived at the deserted ranch. Ina had never seen such a squalid place. Dilapidated sheds, fences rotting on the ground, mummified remains of dead cattle, two old, flat, black log cabins, patched with yellow boards and sheets of tin, dust and dirt and rocks everywhere, with not a blade of grass or living shrub of green — these were the dominant characteristics of the latest acquisition of Hart Blaine.

To Ina’s great relief One of the wagons and some of the pack-mules were driven on past the ranch to a grove of scattered junipers on a high bench facing a deep brushy canyon that opened out into the lake basin. This location afforded a wonderful view of the sage mountains that towered above, and the great round bowl below. The ground was carpeted with bleached grass and brown mats from the junipers. In the shade of these bushy trees there was retreat from the hot sun. What a dry, fragrant spot! It was somewhat removed from the bare open ranch, and far enough from the lake basin for distance to lend enchantment. Ina calculated that as a crow flies it was ten miles across to Ben Ide’s homestead. She could see the little grey cabin facing the west.

Half a dozen lusty cowboys made short work of unpacking the horses and wagon and pitching a few tents for temporary use. Marvie and Dall were in a seventh heaven of youthful experience. The forty-mile ride had only served to liberate their exuberance. Ina, however, had made the whole distance in the saddle, and she was tired. Her mother showed a surprising alacrity and pleasure. Ina reflected that her mother, as a young woman, had spent a good deal of her time on the open cattle ranges.

That night Ina went to bed with Dall under a juniper tree with no covering except blanket and tarpaulin. It was really her first experience of the kind and she shared Dali’s excitement. The night was dark, with only flickering lights from a camp fire. The wind swept over their bed, tugged at their hair, and rustled through the junipers. Coyotes barked from the black mountain slope. Where was the heat that had made the nights uncomfortable at Tule Lake? Ina saw white stars crowning the black dome of the looming mountain. Dall nestled close to her, whispering her wonder and delight, and as well, a fear of crawling things and prowling animals. Presently it seemed to Ina as if a ponderous, sticky weight had closed her eyelids. How restful, languid sweet the sensation! And that was her last conscious thought.

She awakened at sunrise, to become aware that Marvie was poking at her with a fishing-pole.

“Sleepyhead!” he called, derisively. “What kinder ranchman’s wife are you goin’ to make, anyhow?... Somethin’ to tell you, Sis.” And he winked mysteriously at her.

Ina felt stiff and sore from the long ride, and found it hard to arise and begin the day. A little exercise, however, rendered her more fit for the multiplicity of tasks. Marvie vanished like a will-o’-the-wisp, and that added to Ina’s curiosity. She went with her mother and Dall to get breakfast at the chuck wagon, which had been stationed half-way between the two cabins on the ranch. Ina did not linger long at that meal, and she shared her mother’s express wish to have a cook tent of their own over at their camp. This her father promised would be put up that very day. Indeed, he was unusually jovial, energetic, and forceful. Ina felt a strengthening of her conviction that he had considerable on his mind regarding this Wild Goose Lake country. He had started his army of cowboys to work cleaning up the squalid ranch. The stench of burning carcases, rotten wood, rubbish, and what not assailed Ina’s nostrils. She saw cowboys tearing out the insides of the cabins, demolishing the old sheds and fences, digging and raking and hauling. Manifestly her father meant to make this ranch livable. Water had been brought in barrels from Tule Lake. She heard her father complain because the well-diggers had not arrived.

Upon returning to the grove, Ina found several of the cowboys there with tents, lumber, tools, all eager to set to work, and incidentally to make sheep’s-eyes at her. Presently her father and mother arrived and the task of making a comfortable summer camp began.

“Daughter, show us where you want your tent,” he said, “an’ I’ll set these lazy boys to work.”

Ina chose a spot beside the large juniper under which she had slept. By the magic of swift cowboy hands a floor of boards was quickly erected high off the ground, with a skeleton framework over which the tent was stretched. And over this they put up a wide canvas fly that projected out in front, serving as a roof for a porch.

For the present Ina and Dall decided to sleep out in the open, under the spreading juniper, and use their tent for all other purposes. To which end they carried their numerous bags and boxes into the tent, where they proceeded to unpack them. While they were thus engaged two cowboys appeared at the tent door, one with hammer and nails, and the other with a huge pine box into which shelves had been built.

“Wal, now. Miss Ina, I reckon you’ll need somethin’ to hang things on,” said one, proceeding to hammer nails into the wooden crossbeam of the framework.

“Heah’s a box I fixed for a washstand,” offered the other cowboy. “It ain’t very good, but I couldn’t find no better. An’ I spotted a big new water pail down by the chuck wagon. I’ll fetch it up full of water, if I don’t happen to run into your dad.”

“Why, what difference would that make?” laughed Ina, looking up.

The cowboy, a fine-faced, square-jawed young fellow, stood bareheaded and respectful, but he was all eyes.

“Wal, he says go slow on the water we fetched from Tule, an’ if we have to wash, to use the lake water heah.”

“But, my gracious! we have to wash — and that muddy water is impossible!” protested Ina.

“Shore. We told him so. But you know your dad. He didn’t say just us cowboys, so he might have meant everybody.”

Ina knew full well that her father was quite capable of including his womenfolk in an order forbidding the use of water.

“Why in the world did dad buy this place?” she queried, blankly.

“He got it for nothin’, Miss Ina. An’ he has his eye on Forlorn River. We shore tried to persuade him not to come heah, this awful dry time, anyhow. There ain’t any water. It’s all dried up. Diggin’ wells won’t do no good. An’ we’d have talked him into waitin’ till the rains come if it hadn’t been for Mr. Setter. He shore was set on comin’.”

“Well... thank you, boys,” replied Ina, thoughtfully. “Fetch a bucket of water, anyway. I’ll take the responsibility.”

Ina almost yielded to the temptation to ask a pertinent question about Mr. Setter. Upon reflection, however, she felt that the frank cowboy’s tone had intimated a dislike for her father’s partner. At former times she had received impressions as to the regard in which some of the cowboys held Less Setter. The sum of these impressions added weight to her own, and she had an inkling that the next few weeks would be prolific of most interesting developments.

The day passed so quickly that Ina could not realise what had become of the hours. There had been no noon meal to mark the flight of time. Her father had placed the summer camp under the same rule that prevailed among his cowboys’ outfits when on the open range — two meals a day.

Ina’s appetite this evening was not a thing to be denied, and she had the pleasure of helping her mother in the little cook tent of their own. Supper-time brought Marvie, muddy and dishevelled, wearing a long, weary face.

“Aw, there ain’t any fish,” he burst out in reply to Ina’s solicitude. “I rode an’ walked about nine hundred miles. Nothin’ but mud. Nothin’ but tadpoles in that darned lake.”

“Did you get as — as far as Forlorn River?” asked Ina, experiencing a strange little thrill at the spoken words.

“Yep, but not very far up. I went to Ben Ide’s place. Doggone it, he wasn’t home. Looks like he’s been gone a long time. An’ I was just bankin’ on Ben.”

“Surely he will return soon,” said Ina, encouragingly, while she wondered on her own behalf. No doubt Ben was away on one of his wild-horse jaunts.

Marvie was not to be consoled, and his misfortunes of the day were brought to a climax when his father saw him.

“Where you been?” was the demand.

“Fishin’,” replied Marvie.

“Do you have to get dirty like that when you fish?”

“‘Course. I’m no city fisherman.”

“Marvie, I’ve a hunch you are a lazy, good-for-nothin’ boy who hates work,” declared Mr. Blaine, severely.

“It ain’t so,” retorted Marvie hotly. “You said I could fish all I wanted. This here is vacation time. I passed high in all my studies.”

“Yes, I know. An’ I’m not goin’ back on what I said. I was just thinkin’ how maybe this fishin’ an’ huntin’ might make you turn out like young Ben Ide.”

Marvie flushed red over all his dirty face, and manifestly there was an angry retort on his lips, but he caught Ina’s quick glance and held his tongue. He appeared at supper with clean blouse, shining face and hair, tactful improvement not lost upon the head of the family. Later Marvie came to Ina as she lay in her hammock watching the sunset, and he said with a thoughtfulness beyond his years:

“Sis, dad’s got Ben Ide on the brain. It’s funny, an’ I’d like to know why. Now what’s dad goin’ to say when it comes out that Ben isn’t what they make him?”

“Marvie, I wonder about that, too,” murmured Ina, with dimming eyes. She wanted to kiss Marvie for his boyish simplicity and faith.

Several days sped by, at once busy and restful for Ina, and altogether happy. The best development of this summer-camp plan was the improved mental condition of her mother. Mrs. Blaine had fallen upon old tasks, the habits of a lifetime that sudden wealth had denied her, and she became another woman. Ina noted with eager curiosity how her father was struck by the change and thereby rendered thoughtful. At heart he was good and loving; and if an idea only pierced his dense brain it lodged there to become productive.

Saturday found the old worn-out ranch vastly renewed. All the débris had been burned; new fences, sheds, corrals, newly shingled roofs shone in the sun; a large bam was under course of construction; and other improvements attested to Hart Blaine’s energy and management.

The end of this eventful week brought two other circumstances, both disturbing to Ina. The first was the arrival of Less Setter, subtly more forceful and bold than ever, showing in his sleek blond features and suave tones something of hidden power and confidence that, heretofore, had been veiled. He presented himself before Ina with all the assurance of Sewell McAdam, as an equal, as one who always got what he wanted. Ina saw that her father was as blind as a bat where this man was concerned. And for the few moments before she could escape, when she had to be courteous, she raged in impotent fury.

The other circumstance affected Ina quite as powerfully but in an immeasurably different way. Marvie was her informant and his jubilance permeated her like a breath of fresh air. “Gee, Ina — whatju think?” he panted, evidently having run to her with the news. “Ben Ide come home — to-day. Bill Sneed rode in — just now — an’ I heard him tell dad. Bill said Ben an’ his Modoc Indian — drove a bunch of wild horses — into Ben’s river pasture. An’ Bill was sure spoutin’.’Dingest purtiest lot of hosses I ever seen in my life. One was a black stallion an’ he shore hit me as hard as California Red.’... There, Ina, that’s what Bill Sneed said.”

Ina was glad the dusk hid her face from this keen little brother. She felt concerned about it and the strange rioting thrill that coursed through her.

“An’, Ina,” went on the lad, “Less Setter heard Bill tell dad. I was keepin’ my eyes an’ ears peeled, you can bet. An’ I wish you could have seen Setter look at dad. But all he said was, ‘Blaine, I’ll take some boys an’ ride over there tomorrow.’ Dad pulled him in the cabin an’ shut the door. I listened by the window, but couldn’t hear nothin’. Now I’m goin’ back an’ hang around.”

“Marvie, be very careful,” whispered Ina, trembling for she knew not what.

“I’ll be like an Indian,” asserted Marvie, loftily. “Less Setter doesn’t dream I’m anythin’ but a stupid kid. Neither does dad.”

Then he darted off, leaving Ina a prey to conflicting thoughts. She went to sleep, however, before Marvie returned from the ranch; and next morning he was gone with the cowboys before she awoke.

Ina was destined to miss Marvie for quite another reason, which presented itself in the shape of Sewell McAdam on his regular Sunday visit. Now Marvie had always been her ally in extricating her from embarrassing situations, and he had deserted her to go fishing. Ina had depended upon being free from McAdam’s attentions during the summer months. It was too exasperating. She had reached the end of her patience. An instant decision to tell him flatly that she would not waste any more precious time listening to his inane conceited talk acquainted Ina with the development of her revolt.

McAdam arrived early, in a light buggy, drawn by a team of spirited horses. Their heaving, dust-lathered flanks attested to the manner in which they had been driven. One of the cowboys unhitched the horses, while the stylishly groomed young man strolled, whip in hand, toward the cabin, where her father was breaking his Sunday rule by working. Ina saw distinctly from her hammock, and precisely what she expected happened. McAdam at once came out of the cabin and headed toward the grove. Ina watched him coming with mingled contempt and disgust. Even Less Setter struck her as being more of a man. At least she could feel fear of him.

When McAdam had approached within a few rods Ina pretended to be asleep, in the hope that he might show something of the instinct of a gentleman. But as he drew near he began to tiptoe, and he came so softly that Ina could scarcely hear him. She regretted her pretence, but she meant to stick it out as long as possible. Suddenly she felt him close — caught the odour of liquor. And she opened her eyes and violently swerved in the hammock just in time to avoid being kissed. Then she sat up. Anger would have consumed her, but for the flashing thought that at last he had given her real offence. She was almost glad to see him.

“How do, Ina! Thought you were asleep,” he greeted her, in no wise discomfited.

“I’m quite well, thank you, Mr. McAdam,” replied Ina, pertly. “But I wasn’t asleep.”

“What’d you lay that way for?” he demanded, his eyes losing their smile. His face was slightly heated, but he did not appear under the influence of drink.

“I wanted to see what you’d do if I had been asleep. I found out.”

“Well, I was only going to kiss you. What of that?”

“You insulting cad!” retorted Ina, rising to her feet. Even on the moment she was struck by something in McAdam very similar to what she had noted in Setter. These men had returned to the Blaine environment with singular suppositions.

“It’s no insult for a fellow to try to kiss his girl, is it?” he asked, with the most amazing effrontery.

“I’m not your girl,” returned Ina, icily.

“Well, if you’re honest about it, and you’re not, then my dad and me are getting a rotten deal,” he said, bluntly. But he doubted her honesty. The half-smile on his smug face attested to his half-won conquest.

“Mr. McAdam, you amaze me. If you and your father are getting a rotten deal, or any kind of a deal, it is absolutely without my knowledge. I’ve been perfectly honest with you. I never liked you. I despise you now. You never struck me as particularly bright. Besides, your enormous conceit makes you blind to the truth. But do you understand me now? If not—”

“Yes, that’s enough, Ina Blaine,” he returned, hoarsely, his face growing darkly red, and he shook a gloved fist in her face. “Your father let us think you were as good as engaged to me. On the strength of that my dad went thousands of dollars into cattle and ranch deals. And more — he got all balled up with that damned slick, Less Setter. You—”

Ina silenced him with a raised hand. She felt her face growing white.

“I won’t hear any more,” she said, ringingly. “I know nothing of the deals you mention. If my father really did what you claim — it — it was doing me a terrible wrong. Now all that remains for me to say is this. I wouldn’t marry you to save my father from ruin — or even my own life.”

“You’ve changed some since I last saw you, Ina Blaine,” declared McAdam, with the studious bitter acumen of jealousy. “I haven’t forgotten the way you greeted Ben Ide that day in Hammell. If I have to lay this throw-down to that lousy wild-horse hunter it’ll be bad for him.”

Ina checked on the tips of her opening lips a flippant retort that he was precisely right in his suspicions.

“You wouldn’t dare say that to Ben Ide’s face,” she blazed, instead.

“Now I’ve got you straight,” he hissed. “I see it in your face. You pretty, lying cat! Coming home with all your education and style to take up with that horse thief!”

There were, it seemed, limits to Ina’s endurance. She gave McAdam a stinging slap across his sneering mouth. The blow brought the blood.

“I’ll tell Ben Ide what you’ve said,” she cried, passionately. “And I hope I’m around when he meets you. That, Mr. McAdam, is the last word I’ll ever speak to you.”

Whereupon Ina went into her tent, shut and hooked the screen door, and pulled down the blind. She heard McAdam stride away, cursing, striking the junipers with his whip. Then she sank into a chair, suddenly limp and weak.

“Whew? All in a minute! Something’s got into me, surely.

... But he was insufferably rude. I’m glad it happened just that way.... Now for dad! He’ll come like a mad bull.... Well, I’ll just settle him, too.”

Ina did not have long to wait, certainly not long enough to cool off or lose her nerve. She heard the stamp of his heavy boots.

“Ina!” he called, stridently.

She waited until he called again, louder this time. Then she answered:

“Dad, I’m in my tent.”

“Wal, come out.”

“But I’m not coming out just yet.”

“Wha-at?” he roared, stamping to the front of her tent. “I’m expecting to feel very bad — pretty soon — so I don’t want to come out. “ How cool and audacious she felt! Almost she could have laughed. But at the depths of her feeling there was a new and cold emotion, sterner than any she had ever felt.

“You come hyar an’ apologise to young McAdam,” shouted her father.

“I won’t do anything of the kind,” flashed Ina, in a voice her father had certainly never heard. Nor had she ever heard it! Still, she was frightened.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Mr. McAdam insulted me.”

“He did, now! — an’ how?”

“He tried to kiss me. Then after a few pretty plain words from me he insulted me again. So I slapped his face. And I ended by saying I’d never speak to him again.”

“But, Ina, you will? This is serious business for me,” implored her father, hoarsely.

“I’m sorry, Dad. You were wrong to encourage him,” replied Ina, softening for an instant. “For I absolutely will never look at him again.”

“Girl, who are you to cross me this way? I’ll have obedience,” he went on, in low-voiced fury. “Come out hyar, before I break down that door.”

He laid a heavy hand on the knob and shook it violently s Ina stood up to face him, and she paused before answering. This was the crucial moment. Alas! She felt sick at heart. But it was her life, her happiness at stake, and she knew he was hard, ignorant, intolerant, if not worse. Then she heard herself speaking coldly, clearly:

“Father, if you break in here and drag me out in front of that cur, I’ll go to Hammell if I have to walk — and I’ll get a job if I have to be waitress in the hotel.”

She heard his choking, husky ejaculation. Then silence ensued for a long moment. The handle of the door turned, but it was only with release. Her father’s step sounded heavily, backing away. Then her mother’s voice broke the silence: “Hart, I couldn’t help but hear. Don’t be mad at Ina.”

“Mad? Haw, haw, haw!” he rejoined, harshly. “Reckon I was mad, but she’s licked me — that college daughter of yours — she’s licked me.”

CHAPTER VIII

SHORTLY AFTER THE altercation with her father Ina had a visit from her mother.

“He’s gone, daughter, an’ I reckon I never saw him so stumped in all our years together,” she said, with unconscious satisfaction.

“I feel pretty shaky now,” replied Ina, with a queer little laugh. “But, Mother, I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

They sat on the steps of Ina’s tent porch, from which the ranch cabins could be plainly seen. Her father and McAdam were standing in plain sight. Ina could translate that interview from the deprecatory gestures of her father and the wild ones of her rejected suitor. The most amazing thing then was to see her father abruptly turn his back upon McAdam and go into the cabin.

“Hart can be awful bullheaded when he’s mad,” muttered Mrs. Blaine, as if speaking to herself.

“Mother, it’s a wonder to me that young nincompoop didn’t make dad mad long ago,” rejoined Ina, with a giggle.

“Your father has a mighty lot of patience where money is concerned.”

“I’m afraid he has become deeply involved with the McAdams.”

“Hart Blaine has got involved with everybody, particularly this man Setter,” said Mrs. Blaine, in bitter impatience. “He’s changed. He won’t listen to me. We were poor so long that money when it came sent him crazy.”

“Then it’d be a good thing for him to lose some of it,” declared Ina.

“That’s what I told him. Land’s sake! I thought he’d knock me over.... Well, well, maybe things will come out. You needn’t tell it, daughter, but I’m glad you wouldn’t marry young McAdam. He didn’t suit me at all. I try to keep my ideas to yourself, as I don’t seem to fit well in this new world of ours. Just now I happened to be at the door of my tent when young McAdam came up to you. I thought you was asleep in the hammock. An’ when you jumped away from him I sure wanted one of the cowboys to happen along. Then when you slapped him — that tickled me. Well, I hope we’ve seen the last of McAdam an’ can have a little comfort by ourselves on Sundays.”

“Mother, bless your heart, you do understand. I feel suddenly freed.... But, oh, I forgot Mr. Setter,” exclaimed Ina, impulsively.

“What do you mean, daughter?”

“I didn’t mean to let that slip. But maybe it’s just as well. Mother, of late Setter has been — well, offensive, where McAdam was only silly. McAdam only annoyed me, but Setter has worried me, even frightened me.”

“For the land’s sake? What’s he done?” exclaimed her mother, bewildered.

“It’s enough to say, Mother, that he has neither scruples nor decency,” declared Ina, with heat. “The last few weeks before we moved over here he waylaid me in the parlour, out under the pines, on the road when I went to meet Dall, in fact, everywhere I was alone.”

“Waylaid you! What’s that word?... You don’t mean courtin’ you? Why, he’s old enough to be your father!”

“Courting is a mild way to put it. Mother,” continued Ina, gravely. “Courting implies marriage. And Mr. Less Setter has not done me the honour to hint of marriage. But he makes brazen love to me. I have to fight, even run to get away from him. There, it’s out!”

Mrs. Blaine passed from astonishment to anger. A slow dull red coloured her lined face and her usually mild eyes snapped. “You never told your father,” she asserted.

“No. Once or twice I’ve said sharp things to Mr. Setter and got a terrible scolding from dad. Then of late dad has got so thick with him that I was actually afraid. He’d get terribly angry now and he wouldn’t believe me. Then I’ve had suspicions that Setter would cheat dad sooner or later. So I just relied on my wits to avoid this gay Lothario of a cattleman.”

“Ina, I’m glad you told me,” said her mother. “I hope Hart Blaine learns a lesson. If he can’t protect his own daughter an’ lets her brothers go gallivantin’ to the city — well, it’s a great pity. If I was in your place I’d make up to some strappin’ big cowboy who would protect me from a man like Less Setter.”

“Mother!” cried Ina, incredulously.

“That’s plain talk, Ina, an’ maybe common, as young McAdam’s mother said I was. But I don’t care what it is. Wealth isn’t everythin’. I know good from bad. An’ pretty soon I’ll give your father a piece of my mind.”

Dall came noisily into sight then, dragging a puppy and a rabbit. Whereupon Mrs. Blaine left Ina and went to her tent.

“Ina, you look like the dickens,” said Dali. “Come play with us.”

“Surely, if you and your menagerie will stick close to my lookout station here,” replied Ina.

“Lookout station! You mean a forest-fire lookout?”

“Forest fire, thunder and lightning, earthquake, any kind of catastrophe,” said Ina, pointing to the juniper tree, the white tarpaulin spread over their bed, the comfortable wide hammock with its cushions, and the box table littered with books.

“I savvy,” returned Dall seriously. “You want to see when to run from dad and Mr. Klamath Falls and Mr. Blondy Popeyes.”

“Dall, despite what Marvie says, your brain seems to be growing along with your legs. You hit it right on the head. Come on; I’ll play with you. And we must not forget to read over your Sunday-school lesson.”

The rest of the morning hours passed swiftly and pleasantly.

Perhaps the most pleasant incident for Ina was to see Sewell McAdam drive away with his high-stepping horses and shiny black buggy. Marvie did not return. Mrs. Blaine served dinner outside in the shade of a juniper, but her husband failed to appear. Mother and daughters had dinner to themselves, and Ina reflected that it was the first Sunday meal for weeks at which she had felt at ease. Afterward she and Dall helped their mother wash and dry the dishes. “Your father forgot this was Sunday,” said Mrs. Blaine, complacently. “We always have Sunday dinner at noon. He’ll miss his an’ have to eat with the cowboys.”

Ina spent most of the afternoon in her hammock, reading, dreaming, both wide-eyed and asleep. In truth, her sleeping dreams were disturbed by a very abashed and respectful cowboy who brought a message from her father, requiring her presence at his office at once. Ina, somewhat upset in mind, walked over to the ranch with the cowboy, and took advantage of the few moments to make casual inquiries.

One of the cabins had been fitted up to serve as a living-room and office for Mr. Blaine. It did not look very tidy, but it was a pleasant, light room, an improvement on the one used for the same purpose at Tule Lake Ranch.

Ina’s father was not in. She glanced at the large table, covered with letters and papers, deeds and contracts, all jumbled together in hopeless confusion. She had often asked her father to let her keep his books, and file his papers for convenience, but he had scouted the idea. He did not need any book-keeper. Ina, studying that table-load of documents, wondered just why her father did not care to have her in his office. Then she heard trotting horses outside. Through the window she espied Setter and three cowboys riding in. Also her father appeared crossing the space between the cabins. Setter intercepted him, and waving the cowboys away he dismounted and walked beside him toward the office. The window was open, and Ina stood a little back from it. As her father and his partner approached she remained motionless, without compunction attending to their conversation.

“... twenty head of wild horses, half broke,” Setter was saying with enthusiasm. “Ide must have left last night. Anyway, he wasn’t home. His cabin door was nailed shut. But I pried it open. Nice place he’s got, clean as if he had a woman there. Nothin’ there but grub, which we helped ourselves to.”

“Wal, if Ben Ide wasn’t home, of course you couldn’t talk business,” said Blaine, thoughtfully.

“No, but I’ll go again an’ stay till he comes,” rejoined Setter.

“Suit yourself, but I’m advisin’ ag’in’ it.”

“I know you are,” replied the other, patiently. “But why? You don’t give me any good reason.”

“Wal, I reckon I haven’t any ‘cept I know his father, Amos Ide.”

“Hart, I don’t care a damn for Amos Ide, or his son, either,” retorted Setter, coolly. “Ben Ide has the key to this valley. Why, this place will be priceless some day! With that an’ the three ranches round Mule Deer Lake we can control all the good range clear to your holdings at Silver Meadow. Thirty miles of Forlorn River! That’s the cream of this country. How did you cattlemen fail to see it?”

“Wal, we’ve all been workin’ too hard, till lately,” responded Blaine, dryly. “But I agree with you. There’s a fortune to be made on Forlorn River.”

“Fortune? Well, I should snigger,” said Setter scornfully. “Ide’s got one spring over there that’s worth a million. Your cowboys said it had always been under water — under the river. If Ide knew it he sure kept his mouth shut.”

“Reckon he did know. He always was a smart boy. Perhaps he’s seen the future of this valley. Mebbe that’s why he bucked his father so hard. If so we’ll never buy him out.”

“See here, Hart, it’s only you talkin’ about buyin’ out this boy’s holdings,” returned Setter, testily. “We won’t buy him out. We’ll drive him out. Remember I told you Ben Ide is tied up with a Nevada outlaw. I know him. Their ranchin’ an’ wild-horse huntin’ are only bluffs. Blinds to hide their cattle rustlin’. It’s an old gag. I’ve seen it work in Montana, Arizona, Nevada. But it’s new here in California.”

“Strong talk again, Setter,” said Blaine, tersely.

“Yes, an’ it comes natural to me,” replied Setter, meaningly. “I’ll make these plans an’ carry them out. All you do is furnish what ready cash we need, an’ I’ll bet we can buy out Sims an’ his neighbour homesteaders for next to nothin’.”

“Poor devils! I shouldn’t wonder. I’m givin’ you a hunch that I ain’t as keen about this ranch buyin’ as I was. Some of my old friends have turned ag’in’ me for it. My wife, too, is worryin’ me.” — , “I’ve seen all that, Blaine, an’ am allowin’ for it,” rejoined Setter, suavely. “But business is business. These poor devils would be all the worse off if we didn’t buy. Let’s put this big Forlorn River deal through an’ then we’ll have about all we can handle.”

“Huh! Reckon I’ve got that now;” said Blaine, gruffly. “There was hell to pay to-day.”

“What?” queried Setter, sharply.

Ina, watching keenly, saw in this man’s swift responsiveness, in the alert, intent flash of his prominent eyes, a preparedness, a reserve force not to be accounted for by what lay behind her father’s statement. This man wore a mask. He was two men at the same time.

“Young McAdam showed up here to-day,” explained Blaine. “He got to monkeyin’ round Ina an’ she slapped his face. Then she turned him down cold. Wal, he came to me, ugly an’ mean. Reckon I didn’t savvy him. An’ I got ugly, too, an’ called him a few names on my own hook. He left swearin’ he’d have me in court. Now I’ll have to go to Klamath to-morrow an’ raise that thirty thousand old McAdam put in one of our deals. You see, I didn’t tell you he was set on his son Sewell marryin’ Ina. An’ I, like a damn fool, encouraged them. Without thinkin’ much about my girl, I’m bound to say. But I got the thirty thousand on the strength of a marriage between Sewell an’ Ina.”

“I’d call you somethin’ stronger’n that,” declared Setter, with sarcasm. “Why didn’t you tell me the terms of that deal? I’d have blocked it. Sewell McAdam! That pasty-faced potato-head on a whip-handle!... Blaine, even if you could have arranged this marriage I’d have blocked it.”

“You would?” blurted out Blaine.

“Yes, I would.”

“The hell you say!” Here the old independence of a hard pioneer of the West spoke, dry, crisp, somehow menacing, with just a hint of curiosity. It thrilled Ina more deeply than any word or deed she remembered of her father’s.

“No need to argue about that now,” added Setter, smooth and conciliatory again. “The McAdam deal is off. Probably we’re well rid of that shrewd old hombre.”

“Reckon so, ‘specially as he’s thick with Amos Ide’s banker.

I had a devil of a time persuadin’ Amos to throw in with us.”

“Don’t worry, Hart. That’s done. Ide is in with us, up to his neck, deeper than he knows.... Hello! there are the cowboys ridin’ in from Mule Deer Lake. I sent them over. Hey, boys?”

A lean rider detached himself from his companions riding up the road and trotted over to Setter and Blaine.

“Nobody at home at Mule Deer Lake,” he announced. “Reckon the drought drove them out. No water. Place all burned brown. Few cattle an’ deer dead from drinkin’ mud.”

“That’s strange,” muttered Setter. “Moved out.... But, of course, those homesteaders couldn’t live there without water. Blaine, I’ll bet you can find Sims at Hammell to-morrow.”

“Wal, I’ll ask for him,” replied Blaine, turning on his heel. When he entered the office Ina was sitting at the other end of the room, apparently reading. He was surprised to find her there.

“Dad, you sent for me,” she said.

“Wal, so I did. I forgot.”

He looked harassed and worn; he ran a horny hand through his grizzled hair as if to revive vague thoughts.

“Ina, I’m out of favour with you an’ ma,” he began, not appealingly, but merely making a statement. “In your case I want to make Clear that I thought you’d sure care for Sewell McAdam. Kate’s case with her city beau might be some to blame. I couldn’t bide what I took for your disobeyin’ me, an’ I got mad. Now I want to know if you really meant you’d run off from me an’ be a waitress in a hotel.”

“Dad, I certainly meant it. But I could surely get a better job than that.”

“Wal, you needn’t think about it again. I’m sort of ashamed, an’ I don’t take kind to your mother’s late opinion of me. After all, I’m workin’ an’ storin’ up for my family, not for myself.”

“Yes, I know, Dad. But mother and I and Dali — Marvie, too — would like kindness and love now, rather than any material proof of them in the future.”

“Ahuh. Reckon I’ve had a heap on my mind lately,” he replied, not quite comprehending. He had received a shock, but it would take a great deal more to clarify his obtuse mind, if that were ever possible. “An’ from the hunches I’m gettin’ it looks like I’d have more. But your old dad ain’t done for yet, even if his favourite daughter did lick him.”

Ina kissed his brown cheek and laid a hand on his broad shoulder.

“You will be glad some day that I had the independence to stand by my rights.... Dad, I think sudden wealth has placed you in a position where you make new decisions. They’re strange to you. And some of them are beginning to get you into trouble.”

“Lordy! you hit it. Half the time lately these deals stump me. Reckon I don’t mean cattle an’ land. I know them. But the papers, figgers, mortgages, an’ interest — they get me buffaloed. If it wasn’t for Setter I’d be worse than stumped.”

“Dad, have you talked over all your deals with a good lawyer?” asked Ina, earnestly.

“Not one of them. What do I want to pay lawyer’s fees for? Setter is lawyer enough.”

“But Dad — how do you know he is honest?”

Her father straightened up with a jerk. “What? Honest? I never thought anythin’ else. Setter’s a mighty big man. He could buy an’ sell me ten times over... Child, where did you get a queer idea that he might be — ?”

A crunching of the gravel outside and a jingling of spurs interrupted Blaine’s questions. Setter stepped into the doorway. When he saw Ina his wine-dark eyes leaped and his mobile face lighted with a smile that made him rather handsome. His gladness at sight of her was unmistakably sincere.

“Evenin’, Ina, was wonderin’ when I’d see you,” he said, approaching her. “Your dad told me how you chased that false-face with its little moustache back to Klamath. I’m tellin’ you I’d have chased him myself pretty soon.”

“Oh, I guess dad did the chasing,” replied Ina, nervously.

“Now, some older chaps, like me, can have a chance,” he said, and taking hold of her arms above her elbows he gave her a gentle pull. He appeared smiling, suave, yet there was unveiled boldness in eyes and manner.

Ina did not move nor look up at Setter. She watched her father while she stood there in Setter’s grasp. What she saw confirmed a suspicion born of that very moment. Setter had a hold on her father, who was realising this, and that it involved his daughter.

Then Ina slipped not gently out of Setter’s grasp and left the room. Soberly she bent her steps toward camp. What had only seemed vexatious and offensive had developed into a plot. In the first flush of this possibility she felt trapped, helpless. Her father was no match for Less Setter. How deeply he must have become involved! Setter’s air was that of a master of a situation, a conquest over which he exulted. Then Ina’s temper fired away her dread and into her mind flashed her mother’s advice.

“A strapping big cowboy who would fight for me!” murmured Ina, half aloud. “Oh, it sounds beautiful! I’d find one. But how can I — when — when I love Ben Ide.”

Here Ina halted in her tracks, aghast. Suddenly she began to tremble. Her heart had ambushed her and in a moment of poignant uncertainty had betrayed her with the truth. A simple, natural confession, spoken aloud, suddenly grew to astounding proportions. Ben Ide! Love! — Ever since her childhood! The truth burst imperiously upon Ina, overwhelming her. Friendship, loyalty had been guises to deceive herself. She hurried on, suddenly afraid of being seen, of the sunlight, of herself. She ran, at first fleetly, to the grove, under the juniper trees, and then almost blindly into her tent, where she locked herself in, and leaned back against the door, hands clutched to her surging breast. Her terrible predicament dawned upon her. It was agony — that piercing, staggering surrender to love. “Ben! Ben!” she whispered, wildly. “My God — it’s my life!”

Not for many hours, indeed not until late the next day, did Ina recover from the storm of emotion that had overwhelmed her, and then it seemed she was herself again intensified and magnified beyond understanding. Out of the spiritual chaos emerged a woman infinitely surer of herself, one who scorned weakening before the problems of yesterday.

From that crucial time every hour seemed full, dreamy, prophetic, yet they passed swiftly. She kept busy and active as much as the limited opportunities permitted. She helped her mother, sewed, read, studied, played with Dall, rode horseback with Marvie, but there were often intervals in which she idled, dreamed, waited for something that she knew was going to happen. Dread had departed. She had no more fear of Setter and made no effort to avoid him, a circumstance he manifestly grasped. It puzzled him. Whatever his mental attributes he was not thick-headed and egotistical like McAdam. Ina’s changed attitude, however, did not affect him, as it was plain he was indifferent to the state of her mind and heart. Ina saw that he had no conception of the spirit of a woman. He was merely baser, bold, brutal. He did not want love or respect. She was no more than a horse to be possessed and beaten.

In a clever and unobtrusive way Ina managed to dip into her father’s affairs. After all, he could be approached. It was Setter who resented Ina’s interest and suggestion. But with regard to this situation he was between the devil and the deep sea, because he revelled in Ina’s visits to the ranch and office.

Late in the afternoon of the day Setter had again ridden to Forlorn River, Ina was startled by clattering hoofs outside her tent, and then Marvie’s yell. Hurriedly she ran out.

Marvie was slipping off a wet and heaving pony. The lad’s face, hot, red, radiant, electrified Ina, and before she could utter a word he burst out.

“Oh, gee! — I’m out of breath,” he panted. “Rode fast — to get here first.... Dad yelled like mad — as I come by. He’ll kill me. I run off — you know.... Was at Ben Ide’s — when Setter got there.... Ina, what happened will tickle you — half to death. But don’t make me — tell now. You want to be over at the ranch — when Setter rides in. Hop my pony — an’ ride over.”

Ina was not dressed for riding, but she did not let that interfere. As she mounted, Marvie added, “I’m hopin’ Dad’ll be so upset he’ll forget about me. If he isn’t — you—”

Ina, galloping away, did not catch the conclusion of Marvie’s speech, but she guessed at it She was tremendously excited and curious and thrilled. Marvie had said she would be tickled half to death. What had happened to Setter? To Ben Ide? Ina did not like to urge the tired pony, and when, looking down the road beyond the ranch, she espied Setter and three cowboys coming, she restrained her hurry. She found her father and some of his men out in front of the cabin, evidently much interested in Setter’s return.

“Where’s that young rascal, Marvie?” he demanded, irately “I think he fled to mother for protection,” replied Ina, demurely.

“Ahuh! Wal, that won’t save him. I’ll lick him good.”

“What for, Dad?” asked Ina, sharing the smiles of the men.

“He rode by hyar yellin’ like an Injun, an’ wouldn’t stop for me,” replied her father.

“What was he yelling?” inquired Ina.

“Reckon somethin’ about Setter. I didn’t ketch it. Never seen the lad like that before. He’s growin’ up an’ gettin’ wild. I’ll have to use a halter on him.”

“Dad, wait till you see what has happened. Marvie was terribly excited. I think there has been a fight at Forlorn River.”

“Fight?... Wal, wal!” he ejaculated, and his rugged face changed. “I told Setter to be careful.”

One of the men pointed down the road toward the group entering the ranch gate.

“Boss, looks like Bill Sneed was holdin’ Setter on his hoss.”

Blaine, muttering under his breath, started to stride across the open to intercept the horsemen, who were heading toward the second cabin. Ina’s keen eye caught Setter’s impatient gesture, clearly significant of the fact that he preferred not to be met just then. But Blaine strode on, with his men close behind. Ina did not intend to miss anything and she followed. The result was that Setter and the three cowboys with him were intercepted in front of the cabin.

“What’n hell happened to you?” shouted Blaine, astounded, as he strode forward.

Setter wore no coat. His white shirt was torn half off, soaking wet with sweat, discoloured by blood and dust. Ina would not have recognised him. His face was a spectacle to behold. A great black, puffy lump hid one of his eyes. The other glared with sullen fury. His mouth was swollen and bleeding Raising a dirty shaking hand, Setter began to speak huskily: “Ide an’ his cronies beat me.”

“Wha-at?” demanded Blaine, hotly, and his grizzled mane bristled.

“They took my gun an’ set on me,” said Setter as he painfully dismounted. Evidently he was pretty severely crippled.

“Them damn hoss-wranglers, Wal, by heavens, we can’t overlook this,” ejaculated Blaine, divided between rage and amaze. “Looks like a job for Strobel.... But, say, did my cowboys stand around to see you beat by three men?”

One of the cowboys started up as if he had been struck. Ina recognised the clean-cut, red-faced Bill Sneed, who was Marvie’s particular chum. This young man flung out a gauntleted hand in fiery gesture of repudiation. His blue eyes flashed fire. The look of him sent Ina’s blood racing.

“Aw, Setter, tell it straight,” he said, stingingly.

“You shut up or I’ll fire you,” shouted Setter.

“Fire, hell!” retorted Sneed, with passionate disgust. “You couldn’t fire me. I quit. An’ I’m goin’ to tell this straight.”

“So you’re in with Ben Ide, hey? Well, I’ll tend to all of you later,” rasped Setter, shaking from weakness and fury. His bloody face expressed a hideous malignancy. Then he surged away to enter his cabin and bang the door.

“Bill, he’s my pardner, but he’s not firin’ my hands,” spoke up Blaine, gazing up at the angry cowboy.

“All the same, I quit, Mr. Blaine. I wouldn’t be caught dead workin’ for anyone who can stand for Setter.”

“All right, Bill. Reckon I was independent once myself. I’m waitin’ to hear what you said was the straight of this mess.”

“Setter offered us boys a hundred dollars apiece to let him make you-all think Ben an’ his pards had pounded him up three to one. But it didn’t happen that way. Ben did it alone. He slugged Setter, an’ it shore was good to see.”

“Wal, what about?”

Sneed settled back in his saddle, with less belligerent air. Evidently it relieved him to see he was going to be heard.

“We got to Forlorn River along about noon,” began Sneed. “Ben Ide was home with his Indian, an’ he asked us to eat hospitable as anybody could be. Told us his pard was over at the lava beds, where they’d ketched a bunch of wild hosses. He an’ Modoc had been drivin’ some of them to Forlorn River every day. After havin’ grub we went out to look over the hosses. They shore was a purty lot. Ben must be a wonder with wild hosses. Setter had a fit over them. He got excited. An’ presently he up an’ said: ‘My pardner Blaine aims to buy you out, along with Sims an’ his neighbours, an’ you can throw them hosses in the bargain.’ Ben looked sort of queer an’ spoke up quietlike that he wouldn’t sell. An’ as for Sims an’ his neighbours — they couldn’t sell because Ben had bought them out long ago.”

Sneed halted here long enongh to laugh outright.

“Why, Mr. Blaine, it was funny the way Setter went up in the air. He just hopped, he was so mad. An’ when Ben had refused again cold an’ curt, Setter yelled: ‘You’ll sell out or be drove off!’ — Ben wanted to know who’d undertake to do that little job. Setter swor that he could an’ would. Then Ben said as it was a free country, an’ he’d proved up on his own ranch an’ paid for the others, he didn’t see how he could be drove off. Then Setter said, ‘You know damn right well this hoss-wranglin’ of yours is only a bluff — a blind.’”

Here Sneed paused again, his frank, steely-blue eyes fixed upon Blaine’s intent face, and as if to augment the suspense he shifted a leg over the pommel of his saddle. Ina thrilled at the power she felt he held in the dénouement of his story. He was enjoying the telling.

“Spit it out,” growled Blaine, clenching his big fist. No doubt he knew before being told.

“Ben got kinda white,” resumed Sneed, “an’ he stepped close to Setter, an’ he asked, very cuttin’, ‘What do you mean by bluff an’ blind?’... Then Setter said, ‘Ide, you better take Blaine’s offer an’ clear out.’... Ben roared, ‘No, I tell you. An’ I’m callin’ your bluff.’... Setter got black in the face an’ yelled: ‘We’re on to your shady deals!’

“Ben hit him square in the eye. Oh, what a soak! Setter’d have fallen a mile but for the fence. He throwed his gun. But Ben grabbed it — shoved it up as it went off. If he hadn’t been quick as lightnin’ he’d have been bored. They fought an’ Ben got the gun. I thought he’d kill Setter, but he throwed the gun away. An’ then he gave Setter the damnedest beatin’ I ever seen any man git. It took us an hour to fetch him to an’ we’ve been all afternoon packin’ him back here.... That’s all, sir, an’ the boys will tell you I gave it straight.”

Old Blaine did not glance at Sneed’s comrades for corroboration of the story.

“Ahuh!... Wal, Bill, I’ll take it as a favour if you’ll change your mind about quittin’ me,” he said.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll sleep on it,” replied Sneed, soberly. Ina dismounted and followed her father into his office. He did not appear upset.

“Wal, daughter, reckon supper’s not ready, an’ I’ll just have time to lick Marvie.”

“Oh, Dad, don’t whip the boy. Consider how wildly excited he was. He saw that fight.”

“Humph! You look pretty wild yourself,” returned her father, shrewdly. “Reckon I shouldn’t have let you stay to hear that yarn. Marvie wanted you to hear it, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did,” confessed Ina.

“Wal, I’ll lick him for that, too. I’ll lock up now.... Come on, daughter. What’s on your mind, that you stand there sort of queer?”

“There’s a good deal, Dad, and I must confess it isn’t worry over Marvie,” said Ina. “Haven’t you been made thoughtful?”

“What about?” he drawled as he locked the door.

Ina led Marvie’s pony and walked beside her father toward the camp. On her own account Ina wanted much to be alone to dwell on Sneed’s story, to thrill and gloat over Ben Ide’s repudiation of a slur upon his honesty. But likewise she was intensely curious to find out what her father thought.

“About the way Setter approached Ben Ide,” she replied. “Wal, I don’t see nothin’ there to make me thoughtful.”

“Then about the way Ben whipped him?”

“Nope. All I think about that is Setter deserved it good an’ plenty,” he returned, somewhat grimly.

“Oh, Dad!” Ina had to bite her lips to restrain impulsive and perhaps self-betraying utterance. “Then — doesn’t it make you thoughtful — the way Setter lied?”

“Lass, I’m afraid to think,” said Blaine, bluntly. “I’m up to my neck in deals with Setter. He has my paper for thousands. I can’t back out. I must go on.... Now, about the fight I’ll say this. I knowed there’d be one. I advised Setter. What surprises me an’ does make me thoughtful is that Ben Ide didn’t kill him.”

“Dad, I think I know why,” murmured Ina, and then she fled to hide her face.

From the safe sanctity of her tent she heard Marvie’s shrill voice in protest:

“Dad, what’re you lickin’ me for?”

“Reckon for runnin’ off when I told you to stay home,” was the stern rejoinder.

Then followed sundry slaps and cracks, and shuffling sounds, pierced by Marvie’s wail: “I’ll never — do it — no more!”

CHAPTER IX

INA’S FATHER LEFT for Klamath Falls and was absent four days, during which period Mr. Setter did not show himself, at least away from the ranch.

Marvie took his whipping more as a disgrace than a punishment, and appeared more rebellious than ever. He coaxed Ina to ride with him over to Forlorn River, and never guessed that her calm refusal hid a tremendous tumult of temptation. Ina yearned to see Ben Ide, but she could not yet bring herself to go to him, though she knew he was not likely to approach her without invitation.

Mr. Blaine returned from his trip accompanied by Sheriff Strobel of Hammell. Ina was filled with consternation and alarm. Her father proved evasive and stern: perhaps something untoward had happened in Klamath or Hammell. Ina determined to find out. Sheriff Strobel was a tall, rangy man with a big, sandy moustache and keen, grey eyes. He wore a huge black sombrero and did not appear to own a coat. Ina took his measure in one intuitive survey, and watching her chance, she contrived to meet him alone, in her father’s office.

“Mr. Strobel, will you talk to me a little?” she asked, earnestly, with her most appealing smile.

“Now, Miss Ina, I’d be de-lighted,” he replied in kindly interest and humour. “I’d like to make these young buck cowboys jealous.”

“I’m terribly serious. Your coming here — frightens me,” she said, gravely looking up into his clear grey eyes. “Did my father fetch you here?”

“No. Reckon I come on my own invitation,” he returned. “Father told you of that — that terrible fight?” she went on, hurriedly.

“Yes, but not till we were on the way out.”

“Oh — that relieves me.... Please tell me why you came.”

“Wal, Miss Ina, the ranchers round Hammell, your dad an’ Amos Ide in particular, want this cattle-stealin’ band broke up. I sent deputies roundabout through the hills, an’ I’m goin’ on to Silver Meadow. There’s one gang of rustlers operatin’ up that way.”

“Silver Meadow. Is that near the lava beds?”

“No. Silver Meadow is straight up Forlorn River forty miles, I reckon. The lava beds are west of Tule Lake.”

His searching eyes inspired Ina with trust. He seemed curious, respectful, sympathetic.

“Mr. Strobel,” she began, eloquently, “Ben Ide and I were once schoolmate friends. I have come home after four years’ absence to find him an outcast. Lying tongues have made him out a — a thief. It’s criminal. Ben loves wild life — the chasing of horses, particularly. But he’s honest. I know, Mr. Strobel. This is no silly girl sentiment.... I’ve talked with Ben and I’m going to stand by him.”

“Wal, wal, Miss Ina, ‘pears like Ben ain’t so bad off for friends,” replied Strobel, his penetrating gaze on her. He spoke constrainedly, but there seemed to be something behind his speech.

Swiftly then Ina told the story of Setter’s visit to Ben and the fight exactly as she had heard it related by Bill Sneed. Roused as she was, with faculties intensely keen, she was quick to see a subtle effect of the narrative upon the sheriff.

“Your dad didn’t tell it that way,” he said, quietly.

“No, I dare say he wouldn’t. But I’ve told you word for word,” replied Ina, forcibly. “Get hold of Bill Sneed. Hear it from him. Setter will swear Bill is in with Ben. But Bill never saw Ben Ide until the other day. He’s straight. Setter couldn’t corrupt him.”

“Wal, now, Miss Ina, I reckon I’m to understand you’re a secret deputy of mine?” he queried, with a droll, shrewd smile.

Ina’s heart bounded at the significance of his words. “I am — if you’ll have me,” she replied, in breathless surprise.

“Wal, we’ll shake on that.... Reckon I’m proud to have you. An’ I’m not underratin’ your value. A smart woman beats a man all hollow for figgerin’ things you can’t see. Now give me your angle on this Less Setter. Remember any confidences will never pass me.”

“Very well, then. First I’ll give you my personal angle, as you call it,” returned Ina, warmly. “Less Setter is a bad man, morally I mean. I felt that before I knew it. He insulted Hettie Ide once — frightened her terribly another time. Where women are concerned he is brazen, unscrupulous, treacherous. His advances toward me were at first smooth, flattering. Then when he found he made no headway with me, so to speak, he changed his tactics. Briefly, he made violent love to me — waylaid me on all possible occasions. It wasn’t safe for me to go anywhere alone.”

“Miss Ina!” exclaimed the sheriff, incredulously. “You mean — he would have laid hold of you?”

“My dear Mr. Strobel,” replied Ina, almost impatiently, “I’m telling you as plainly as I know how. He did lay hold of me, more than once. But I’m strong — and, well, I got away from him.”

She thought no less of this man that his bronze face grew like iron and he cursed under his breath.

“Lately Setter’s attitude toward me has changed somewhat,” went on Ina. “There’s a hint of possession in it. I think he means marriage now. At first that never entered his mind.”

Strobel’s mute acceptance of these statements left no doubt in Ina’s mind that she had been wise to confide in him. Intuitively she felt more of his stand than he realised on the moment.

“Now as to what I think,” she hurried on, “you must take for what it’s worth. Dad’s sudden rise from hard times if not actual poverty — his opportunities to make money have gone to his head. Dad knows farming and that’s all. He’s simple, trusting, enthusiastic as a boy. Setter has gotten around him. They’re in all kinds of deals. Dad has furnished money, paper, collateral, and Setter has furnished the brains. No doubt to his own profit! It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Setter has dad involved in really crooked deals. Certainly he’s got dad tied up. Pretty soon he’s going to try to make dad force me to marry him.”

“An’ that will be funny, won’t it?” blurted out Strobel, suddenly revealing his depth of warmth.

“It certainly will,” laughed Ina, spiritedly.

“Wal, I’m sure thankin’ you, Miss Ina,” he said. “You’ve given me a different angle to work on. You’re a smart girl. Reckon I’d rather be in Ben’s boots right now than in your dad’s.”

His smile, his tone seemed an unmasking of an aloof and unresponsive character. Ina began to quiver with a fear that she was hoping too much.

“You don’t mean — on account — of me?” she queried, falteringly.

“No, just on the face of things, as they look now,” he replied, thoughtfully. “Still, you can never tell. I represent the law hereabouts, but if I don’t round up these rustlers this summer I’ll lose my job. Amos Ide, your dad. Setter, an’ other ranchers on the board have given me that hunch. An’ if they fetch officers from Redlands, or Klamath, it might result in trouble for Ben. They’re after him. Even Ben’s own father says he ought to be run out of the country.... But as for me — wal, even before I had this talk with you I’d have had to ketch Ben Ide stealin’ cattle before I’d arrest him.”

Toward the close Strobel had spoken ringingly, the force and content of which words quite overcame Ina. She could only stare up at this tall sheriff in speechless gratitude.

“An’ here’s why, Miss Ina,” he concluded, smiling down at her. “I’ve known Ben Ide since he was a kid. I taught him to fish. He’s no more a cattle an’ hoss thief than I am.”

That was too much for Ina’s dignity and reserve, already sadly decimated by her success in propitiating this sheriff. She answered only to joyous impulse. She wanted to give him all she owned; she could have bestowed a fortune upon him, had she possessed one. But she had nothing to give a man — except gratitude, admiration, affection. His smile was understanding though wistful. Suddenly Ina reached up and warmly kissed his brown cheek. Then she sank down, abashed and scarlet of face, yet laughing at the spectacle of this matured man standing as if petrified.

“There, Mr. Strobel, that’s not from your deputy — but from your friend — for ever,” she said, with a gaiety full of depth, and then she fled out of the office.

Next day Sheriff Strobel rode away down the lake trail toward Forlorn River. No doubt he intended to visit Ben Ide on his way south. At first the idea pleased Ina, then on second thought it frightened her. Surely Strobel would mention her tremendous interest in Ben and his fortunes. That might be all right and then again it might not. It depended upon how Strobel had interpreted her interest and upon what he told. Big-hearted, simple man, he might take for granted that Ben knew she loved him! Most assuredly she had betrayed that love to Strobel. She didn’t mind his knowing. But Ben! Ina suffered an incomprehensible attack of fright, dread, wonder and horror, shame and glory, all inextricably mixed together. She had a bad hour, and when she came out of it she was downcast and thoughtful all the rest of the day. At supper-time Marvie brought news that ordinarily would have been sufficient to make her happy.

“Setter drove off fer Klamath,” announced Marvie, with fine satisfaction. “Heerd him say he’d be gone a week on business. But Bill Sneed said Setter was goin’ to a dentist to have the teeth put back that Ben Ide knocked out.”

Marvie had other news which he reserved for Ina’s private ear when, after supper, she lay in her hammock watching the sunset. Some of the cowboys had been at Forlorn River that day. Ben Ide had come home again. He had a pasture full of the finest wild horses ever captured in that country. In another few days Ben’s partner and the Indian would get back with the last of the horses caught at the lava beds, and then they would make a prolonged stay at the ranch.

“An’ you bet I’m ridin’ over to see Ben soon as dad’s gone,” averred Marvie. “You knew. Sis, didn’t you, about dad’s goin’?”

“No, I didn’t,” replied Ina, sitting up with interest. “When? Where?”

“To-morrow, the boys said. I’m sure gettin’ up early so I’ll be away when dad leaves. Then he can’t tell me not to do nothin’. He’s goin’ with the chuck wagon an’ outfit of cowboys to one of his ranches near Silver Meadow. Lots of talk among the men about this Silver Meadow. I’m darned curious, fer they always shut up when they see me.”

“Why don’t you keep out of sight, then?” asked Ina.

“I forget sometimes. Say, Ina, this’ll be a good chance for you to ride over to Forlorn River with me,” returned Marvie, lowering his voice.

“Oh, Marvie!” murmured Ina. “I — I couldn’t think of it now.”

“Why, sure, you could,” whispered the tempter. “Are you afraid of dad an’ old Pop-eyes?”

“It’s not on their account,” said Ina. “No — Marvie, I can’t.”

“Aw, you said you would. What ails you now? Ben will be tickled stiff. He’ll show us that spring hole under the bank which the boys say is chuck-full of trout. We won’t let anybody see us an’ dad’ll never know.... Ina, I’d go anywheres with you.”

She was weak, she was helpless, she was won. Marvie did not need to discourse so eloquently, had he but known.

“All right, I’ll go — some day,” she replied, trying to pretend it was his persuasion and not her longing that prompted the reconsideration. What a relief when Marvie went whooping and bounding away! She could sink back in the hammock unseen, and relax, and be herself, communing with her traitor heart.

Nevertheless, the hammock did not hold her long. A restless mood came upon her. To and fro under the junipers she walked, until action and reason had restored a semblance to calm thought. Meanwhile the sun had sunk behind the grey sage mountains. The light, however, still shone on the far slopes of the basin and the uplands beyond leading to the black ranges and the crowning clouds of gold and rose.

Ina found her favourite seat on a rock at the extreme point of the elevated bench, out of sight from the tents and affording unrestricted view in all other directions.

“I can’t go to Forlorn River,” she soliloquised. “I want to see Ben — oh, how I want to!... I love him. And perhaps — probably — surely he doesn’t love me.... I didn’t seem to feel he did. My heart would have told me.... I mustn’t go to him. Still, I’ll fight for him — just the same.”

The golden sunlight receded from the wooded cape and little cabin across the lake where Ben Ide lived; and to Ina, there seemed to be a similarity between that passing and her mood of the moment. She changed every day, every hour. She was growing toward something — perhaps a great sadness.

The spectacle before her was sad as well as grand. Twilight was stealing out from under the sage mountains behind her, down across the basin, dark and melancholy in its barrenness, while there was still a mantle of gold and rose, turning purple, on the vast reaches of open country leading up to the heavy cloud banks in the sky. The day had been hot and that country, rendered a desert by the years of drought, showed the ghastly lifelessness of sun-baked earth and seared sage. Forlorn River wound away between the hills, a thread of fire growing pale, dying out in the dim purple. Soon it would be lost in the sands. Narrow strips of black lined some of the deep valleys. A stillness, an austerity, pervaded the scene, filling Ina with a sense of the magnitude of the earth and the inscrutableness of nature. She was only a living, palpitating atom in all that immensity.

She realised fully now how this wild country had taken hold of her imagination and heart. She wanted to stay there most of the time, if it was livable. She felt that she preferred strife with the elements, with a hard, lonely wilderness, to misunderstanding and dependence, to the dislikes and hatreds of people, to life such as she imagined her sister Kate had embraced.

“I have pioneer blood, so Uncle Charlie always said,” she mused. “All I need is the pioneer!”

She laughed at this, but not mirthfully. All that was necessary to round out her life, make it full and happy and productive, was for Ben Ide to come over here and take her back as his wife to that little grey cabin facing the west. As she looked, the last glow of light receded from it. Was Ben there gazing across the lake? Surely he knew she was at this newest of the Blaine ranches.

“Oh, I must not dream this way,” she whispered, rousing herself. “It’s madness. He’ll never know — and if he did he’d never come.”

Next day she had the same struggle all over again, and so it went on for days, augmented by the loyal and loving Marvie, who nagged at her to come with him to see Ben. She was driven to impatience with him.

“Aw, say, I’d a crazy notion you liked Ben,” he retorted, in a huff. “Stay home. Play with Dali. You’re no pardner for a man. You don’t know your mind one darned little minnit. I’ll go alone, an’ what I’ll tell Ben will be aplenty.”

That fired Ina with panic-stricken wrath.

“Don’t you dare,” she flashed.

“Geewhiz! Ina, you’re gettin’ to be a myst’ry,” complained Marvie. “I’ve a hunch you’ll tell dad I run off again.”

“You bet I will, unless you promise,” added Ina, grasping her opportunity.

“All right, I promise to say only what you tell me to,” capitulated Marvie rather lamely. “I can’t go to see Ben an’ tell him nothin’.”

“Why can’t you?”

“‘Cause I’ll have to tell Ben somethin’ you said. We’re on his side of the fence. He knows that. Wasn’t you nice to him over at Hettie Ide’s? Say, it looked so to me. Have you quit all of a sudden? Do you want to be yellow an’ hurt his feelings? There’s that fight he had with Setter. We was tickled to death. Don’t you want him to know it?”

“Wait, Marvie!” implored Ina, succumbing before this bombardment of logic, scorn, and loyalty. The boy was perfectly right. Ben would misunderstand silence. She must send a message — something as kind, as trusting as had been her words to him that night at the Ide ranch. But what? She needed time to think and there stood Marvie eyeing her with strange disfavour.

“Give Ben my regards,” she began, with misgivings as to where spoken words might lead her. “Tell him I’m glad about the great catch of wild horses. Tell him Sheriff Strobel is —

No, never mind—”

“Gee! is that all?” queried Marvie, as she floundered. “Fine lot of guff!”

“Oh, shut up, you — you little devil!” she cried, wildly, driven to desperation. “Tell Ben I was tickled to death when I saw Setter — and knew who’d beaten him. There!” But the momentum and emotion of her words, with the sudden glad light on Marvie’s face, proved her utter undoing. “And tell him — to come over.”

“Now you’re talkin’, Sis,” replied Marvie, suddenly radiant. “I knew you’d come around. But, gosh! you had me guessin’. I’ll leave for Ben’s as soon as I can fork a horse.”

After Marvie had gone and the reaction from her feelings had set in, Ina was sure she would be unhappy, ill, miserable; but she was nothing of the kind. Indeed, she did not know herself. What burn in her cheeks! She wanted to run, sing, dance. How ridiculous to deny youth, hope, love! She was happy for the first time for days because pride and vanity had fallen down before the truth of her heart — happy because she had asked Ben Ide to come to see her. He might not come, but that did not change the fact of her frank invitation. To be sure, she would rather he did not come very soon — at least until she had gained some control over this incorrigibly strange Ina Blaine.

About the middle of the forenoon she was drawn to her favourite place of outlook, which she seldom frequented until afternoon, and straightway espied a horseman riding up the slope from the west side of the lake. Cowboys never took that course. There was no trail. Ina wondered, grew curious and interested. He was avoiding the ranch, that looked certain. She could not remember ever having seen either rider or horse before.

The horseman surmounted the slope, at a point some distance beyond Ina’s position, and then rode directly toward her. There was not the slightest doubt of his having observed her, as she had come out on the edge of the bench in plain sight, and now stood there motionless.

Rapidly he loped his horse to her, halted, and slipped out of the saddle with singular quick grace. His spurs jingled. Ina thought him the most striking rider she had ever seen. Tall, slim, lithe, broad of shoulder, dark as an Indian, with black piercing eyes, he could be none other than Ben’s friend. Ina recognised him from Hettie’s description. It seemed she would have known him without ever having seen him or heard him described.

“Mawnin’, Ina Blaine,” he drawled, in the cool, easy tone of a Southerner. He removed his sombrero, revealing long raven-black hair, and made her a gallant bow. “Shore I’m lucky to meet you heah.”

“Nevada!” exclaimed Ina. “You’re Ben Ide’s friend. I know you.”

“Reckon we both called the turn, without ever havin’ seen each other. Nothin’ could be no more natural. Ben’s pard an’ Ben’s girl.”

“Oh, I’m glad to meet you,” returned Ina, blushing as she extended her hand.

“Shore I’m glad to meet you, Ina,” he said, removing his glove to shake hands with her.

“You came to see me?” she queried.

“Yes.”

“Did you meet my little brother, Marvie? He left for Forlorn River this morning.”

“No. But I didn’t come by the trail.”

“Did — did Ben send you?” she went on, rather hurriedly.

“I should smile not. Why, lady, Ben would murder me if he knew what I was aboot this heah day. He shore would.”

“Is — is everything all right — over there at Forlorn River?” queried Ina, haltingly. Her heart began to pound.

“Fine an’ dandy. Shore gettin’ better every day. Ben an’ me are on the rise.”

“Did Strobel visit you?”

“Stayed all night with us, an’ we’d never have knowed he was a sheriff.”.

“Did he — mention me?”

“I should smile. Reckon you was aboot all he talked aboot.” From pounding, Ina’s over-sensitive heart took to sinking. “What did he say?” Ina forced herself to ask.

“Wal, it was Ben’s fault that Strobel talked so much,” replied Nevada, with a smile that warmed and somehow reassured Ina. “Strobel wanted to talk hoss an’ range to us, but Ben wouldn’t give him no peace. Shore all Ben wanted to heah aboot was you. An’ all Strobel would tell him was how smart an’ pretty you were an’ how nice you treated him. Ben kept sayin’, ‘She knew you was comin’ heah an’ didn’t send no word!’ an’ then Strobel would say, ‘Ben, I don’t recollect no word, though she spoke of you casual-like, regardin’ the fight an’ wild ho’sses.’ Then Ben would groan an’ tear his hair. ‘That’s not like Ina Blaine.’”

Toward the end of this drawling speech, so agreeable in Nevada’s cool, easy tone, Ina speedily recovered her equanimity, and found herself excited over the purport of the rider’s presence.

“Come, let’s sit in the shade,” she said, cordially. “I’d like to lead your horse. Oh, isn’t he wonderful? A sorrel. Of course he was wild once. I see that in his eye. Yet he knows I won’t hurt him.”

“Lady, wait till you see California Red,” replied Nevada. “Talk aboot a grand hoss. An’ he’s goin’ to be yours before this year’s out.”

“Oh, has Ben been attracted by that extravagant offer of my father’s?” inquired Ina.

“Reckon he was first off. But now he swears when we ketch Red, that nobody could buy him, an’ he’s goin’ to give him to you.”

“That’s not good business for a poor wild-horse hunter,” said Ina, shaking her head. “You tell Ben to hold dad to that offer.”

Presently Ina found herself sitting in the shade with this friend of Ben’s, strangely revelling in the fact, and wholly at ease. She could look at him now without thinking of herself and her secret. He was indeed good to look at. She had never seen a face like his, long and lean, with clear brown skin, beardless and smooth, with a few strange hard lines that vanished when he smiled. His eyes were wonderful in their piercing blackness. Ina feared their penetrating power, yet felt secure under their gaze. She liked him. She trusted him. She felt a something sweet and protective that must have been his loyalty to Ben and his pride in Ben’s friend.

His lean head, with the ebony hair brushed back carelessly and curling at his collar, had some resemblance to that of an eagle. His garments, both cloth and leather, showed long service and somehow fitted him the better for that. He wore rough chaps, of a style Ina had not noticed among the cowboys on the ranch. From a pocket on the right leg, low down, protruded the handle of a deadly-looking gun. He had small feet, well-booted, and wore enormous spurs.

“I cain’t take Ben any messages without givin’ myself away,” he was saying.

“Nevada, surely you didn’t come out of curiosity to see me?” she asked, suddenly recalling the strange fact of his visit.

“No, I shore didn’t. But I was awful curious to see you, just the same.”

“Perhaps you wanted news of Hettie?” she ventured, shyly. Then it was Nevada’s turn to blush. It became him. It betrayed him, robbed him of that singularly cool and careless assurance.

“Shore I wanted it, but I swear I didn’t come purpose for that,” he asserted.

“Well, I’m glad I won’t disappoint you,” said Ina, gaily. “I saw Hettie two weeks ago yesterday. We had a long talk. She was well and happy. So glad her mother’s improving. She spoke of you. She likes you, believes you are Ben’s loyal friend. That you’re both honest and will give the lie to this vile gossip. Oh, you’d grow vain if I told you all.”

Indeed, Ina had been outspoken enough, to judge by Nevada’s agitation. A spasm of agony crossed his face, like a twisting shadow.

“My God! if I could only forget the past an’ remember only the present!” he exclaimed, despairingly.

‘ “Nevada, you can live down any past,” responded Ina, surprised and touched.

“Even if it was bad?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Could I ever be worthy of Hettie?” he asked, wistfully. “Surely you could. Be what she wants you — what she asked you to be. That will make you worthy.”

“I love her,” he said, covering his face with his hands. He remained stiff and tense for a long moment, then his strong, brown hands left his face, and he was himself again. “Reckon I didn’t intend to talk of myself. But it’s no harm. Shore I’m glad you know how I feel. An’ shore it won’t do no harm for you to know how Ben feels.”

“And how’s — that?” asked Ina, catching her breath between words. The flash of his black eyes startled her. “Ben’s dyin’ of love for you!”

“Bon!... Dying? Oh Nevada, you’re — you’re—”

“Shore, I am. But that’s true. Ben’s breakin’. He’s strong an’ hard to kill. But it’s begun to knock him. He doesn’t eat or sleep or rest. He’s crazy aboot you.”

Ina had bowed as if under a storm and she leaned against the juniper, quivering under a blow of combined torture and bliss.

“Ina, forgive me for burstin’ right out with this,” Nevada went on, touching her head with gentle hands. “But we’ve got to do somethin’. Listen. Hettie told me she thought you loved Ben. That you’d loved him when you were kids an’ would never change. She only thought so, but now I know.

I’ve learned it heah. You don’t deny it, do you?”

“No, it’s — miserable — terrible — truth,” faltered Ina.

“It may shore be terrible, but not miserable,” he went on in a changed voice, swift, vibrant with strong feeling. “Ben an’ you will shore get to each other now. I’m goin’ to kill this heah Less Setter—”

“Nevada!” cried Ida, sitting up in frantic haste. “What are you saying? That’d be horrible.”

“Killin’ Setter may be the only way to save you two. He’s no stranger to me, Ina. We crossed in Nevada. He’s aboot the most powerful man wherever he goes. Shore he might step in his rope over heah, in which case, mebbe, there’d be no call to throw a gun on him.”

“Surely, Setter will ruin himself,” protested Ina.

“No doubt in the world aboot that,” agreed Nevada, “but if he’s let alone he’ll shore drag us to destruction with him. An’ we’re concerned with his dealin’s right heah an’ now....

Ina, if I’d been at Forlorn River when Setter rode in there—”

“Hettie Ide’s heart would have been broken,” interrupted Ina, ruthlessly.

That retort pierced Nevada’s armour and made him hang his head. But soon he ponderingly shook it erect.

“No, for two reasons. Reckon if she didn’t care for me, then it shore wouldn’t make no difference what I did. Seemed if she — Lord, it takes nerve even to suppose this — if she loved me — she’d not give me up for killin’ Setter. An’ I’ll tell you, Ina, it’ll turn out, an’ you’ll see that the law an’ the people will soon forget Setter. When they find him out they’ll welcome some fellow handy with guns. An’ that’s me, though it’s not known in these parts. Setter knows, though. He’d have to get advantage before he’d throw a gun on me as he did on Ben.”

“He meant to kill Ben, to get rid of him that way?” asked Ina, shuddering.

“Huh! He shore did, an’ it was my tough luck that I wasn’t there,” rejoined Nevada, shortly. “But we’ve drifted ‘way off the trail. I’m afraid of somethin’ worse than fightin’ for Ben. He might dodge bullets, but he cain’t dodge love. An’ love’s got him roped, hobbled down. That’s why I came over heah. To tell you what Ben wouldn’t unless you surprise or tear it out of him.”

Ina blindly held up a hand to this persuasive friend. “Tell him to come to me,” she whispered.

“I cain’t tell him that,” replied Nevada. “Shore he’d know I’d been to you. Find some other way. Reckon it’ll take more than Marvie to fetch him. When Hettie comes out, please let me see her. Tell her I love her. Tell her I’ll stick to Ben to my last gasp. Tell her we’re goin’ straight, an’ that Less Setter an’ all hell cain’t make us go crooked. Things are workin to a climax, Ina, an’ it’ll shore come by fall. Ben an’ I have a trump card to play. This Indian pard of Ben’s — Modoc we call him — is aboot the slickest scout an’ tracker I ever seen. We’re goin’ to trail these cattle thieves an’ ketch them red-handed. You can tell Hettie. What will your dad an’ Ben’s dad say then?.. Ina, we’re fightin’ mad an’ we cain’t be licked But you — only you can brace Ben up. Will you?’’

“Oh, Nevada, how good you are! Bless you!” whispered Ina, clinging to him. “I will — I will. I’ll see Ben if I have to ride to Forlorn River.”

CHAPTER X

BEN IDE FOUND himself exceedingly strained and nervous these days, and things that formerly he might have at least endured, now often threw him off balance.

This morning Nevada had mysteriously ridden off somewhere without a word to either him or Modoc. Nevada had a habit of doing that. Ben would not have been upset about it had they been anywhere except at Forlorn River. The Blaine summer camp across the lake had been a catastrophe for Ben.

“Modoc, did he ride off for that camp?” asked Ben, of his Indian helper.

“Me find no track on trail. Look other side lake. No savvy Nevada. He do what he want.”

“By golly! you said a lot,” growled Ben. “Go hunt all around, Modoc. Find his tracks.”

The Indian returned presently to report that he had found Nevada’s horse tracks across the river, headed down the west side of the lake.

“That’s darned funny. Could he be headed for Hammell?”

“His horse lope. Nevada no start long ride fast.”

“Sure he wouldn’t. He doesn’t care a damn for me, but he loves his horse. Any horse... Modoc, he was going to the Blaine camp, but not by the trail.”

The Indian corroborated that statement by a vigorous nod of head.

“Son-of-a-gun!” soliloquised Ben, broodingly. “Nevada’s going to kill that Less Setter, sure as I’m a miserable wretch. I’ve raved and cussed all to no good.”

Whereupon he grew exceedingly harassed by worry and dread.

“Somebody on trail,” spoke up the Indian, pointing with slow gesture.

Ben espied a cloud of dust far along the left side of the lake, and under it the dark figure of horse and rider. Ben’s hope that it might be Nevada was short-lived. He went indoors to get his field-glass With its aid he made out the rider to be a boy on a pony, which fact relieved Ben of anxiety and annoyance. Still, the visitor might be a messenger from Camp Blaine. Ben had to abide the wait in patience, something he was short of these last trying weeks. Before the rider grew close enough for possible recognition or scrutiny he passed out of sight under the ridge of Ben’s high promontory. When he reappeared, on the Forlorn River side, Ben recognised the bright, freckled face of Marvie Blaine.

“Howdy, Ben!” the lad greeted him, radiantly. “Didn’t have no chance to be with you that other day, so I come again.”

“Well, boy pard, get down and come in,” replied Ben, delighted beyond expression. “I hardly saw you that day. But you didn’t lack amusement, did you?”

“I sure didn’t,” returned Marvie, meaningly, as he fixed Ben with the rapt eyes of hero worship.

“Marvie, I’m awful glad to see you. It was darn good of you to come. And I’m going to give you a wild pony for thinking of poor lonely Ben Ide. He’s only a colt and but half broke. It’ll be best for me to keep him awhile, till you can ride him.”

“Ben Ide, you’re a-goin’ to give me a wild colt?” shouted the lad.

“Sure am,” smiled Ben.

“Whoopee! When all I was wantin’ was to see you an’ go fishin’. Gee! the luck!”

“Well, climb off that cayuse and come see some good horses. Aha! I see you’ve brought your jointed fish-pole. Let’s see.... It’s not very strong, Marvie, not for my trout.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Marvie, with eyes growing round. “Modoc, you take care of Marvie’s pony,” said Ben, sitting down on the porch to examine the lad’s fishing tackle. “I use a cut-pole, Marvie, and as long a line as I can cast. Good and strong. These trout are husky. If you hook a big one he’ll bust this outfit all to flinders. Do you want to risk it?”

“Sure. I told dad it was no good. Got it for Christmas. If I bust it let me use yours.”

“Rig it up now your way. Nothing pleases any fisherman so much as his own ways... Say, Marvie, did you meet my pardner, Nevada? He rode over that way this morning.”

“Didn’t meet no one,” replied the lad. “An’ you bet I had my eyes peeled.”

“Well, he was on the other side of the lake from you. Thought maybe he might have cut across round the dry lake bed.”

“Nevada? Was he goin’ to our ranch?” queried Marvie with interest.

“Modoc thinks so, and I guess I do, too.”

“What for? I hear the cowboys talkin’ about you an’ Nevada. They like you both a heap, since you licked Setter, They’re more curious about Nevada, though. He’s a stranger. Why’d he go to dad’s ranch?”

“I’m not sure, Marvie, but I’m some worried,” replied Ben, looking the lad squarely in the eye. It was a handsome boyish face, with features enough like his sister’s to make Ben look and look with possession-taking gladness. Marvie struck him as being a bright youngster, longing for a life just like his and Nevada’s, at a most impressionable age, and perhaps not getting along well with his father. Ben sympathised with Marvie. Then it seemed to Ben that he was idolised by this lad. He felt a melancholy happiness: It brought him closer to Ina. Likewise it made him slow to judge how best to meet Marvie’s advances.

“Huh! I’ll bet you’re worried for fear Nevada will do worse to Setter than you did,” declared Marvie.

“Son, you’re not far wrong,” replied Ben, smiling at the boy’s acumen.

“Bill Sneed said he’d bet Nevada would never have throwed Setter’s gun away. He’d have throwed it on him.... Well, Ben, you needn’t worry about Setter gettin’ it to-day, or very soon, ‘cause he went to Klamath to get the teeth you knocked out put back.”

“Say, I must have bunged Setter up some,” laughed Ben. “I was pretty mad. Just had sense enough to fight and not shoot.”

“Let’s talk of someone else. Setter makes me sick. I found out yesterday that, his bein’ kind to me, givin’ me things, lendin’ me guns an’ horses, was just to get me out of the way.”

“Out of the way?” echoed Ben, with a sudden start.

“Sure. He’s after Ina,” declared the lad, vehemently nodding his head. “He’s got dad buffaloed, so the cowboys say, an’ now—”

“After Ina!” flashed Ben, suddenly on fire. “No, Marvie, not that — that—”

“Sure as you’re born,” said Marvie, interrupting in turn. “It’s doggone sickenin’. I wish I was bigger an’ older.... Ben, you needn’t look like you was at a funeral. Ina hates Setter. Hates him like my dog hates a skunk. It won’t make no difference what dad says or wants. Look what she did to McAdam. That dude stood in with dad an’ thought he was engaged to Ina. Was he? I should snigger not. Do you know what she did — when he got gay tryin’ to kiss her? Ma saw the whole thing... She told me, ‘cause she didn’t ever want me to be like McAdam. What do you think of that, Ben?”

“Hurry — what’d Ina do?” burst out Ben.

“Huh! She just slapped the stuffin’ out of him an’ said she’d never speak to him again. He went home red-headed. An’ dad had to hustle off to Klamath to pay money he’d borrowed from old McAdam. I heard dad tell Ina that an’ a lot of other guff. Ina swore she’d go to work waitin’ on table in the Hammell hotel before she’d marry McAdam. That’s what kind of a sister I got.’

“You — don’t — say!” replied Ben, in smothered voice, bending over Marvie’s tackle. But this attempt to hide his ridiculous state of sudden ecstasy availed him nothing.

“Ben, you’re fond of Ina,” went on Marvie, seriously now, with the accent of a big-brother guardian.

Looking up, Ben realised that the truth was best, whatever it cost him.

“Boy, I should smile,” he replied, but he did not smile. “Had a hunch you was,” continued Marvie, with satisfaction. “Got it that night we met Hettie.”

“Yes?” inquired Ben, encouragingly. He wanted to hug the lad. How Marvie reminded him of Ina when she was a youngster.

“Ben, does she know you’re fond of her?”

“Why, Marvie — I’m not sure — reckon she doesn’t,” answered Ben, helplessly.

“It’d be a darn good thing for her to know, Ben,” went on the lad, earnestly. “Ina has a rotten time of it, tryin’ to brighten mother up an’ keepin’ dad from drivin’ her. Say, them Sundays when McAdam was with us all day — gee! they were tough. But he’s gone now.’

“Marvie, you’re old enough to know that I can’t go to your sister and — and tell her such a thing,” said Ben, striving to be clear. “My dad threw me out. People believe I deserved it — that I’m a no-good horse hunter — and worse.”

“Scat!” exploded Marvie, in fine scorn. “Ina has heard all that. I’ll bet it’s only made her like you more.”

“Ah, son, you must be wrong,” murmured Ben, hanging his head.

“If I’m wrong she acts darn funny. But I’ve a hunch I’m right,” returned Marvie, stoutly. “Would Ina send you messages if she didn’t like you?”

“Messages! By whom?” cried Ben, jerking up quickly.

“By nobody but me, Ben Ide,” declared Marvie triumphantly.

“You little son-of-a-gun! You’ve been here hours without telling me? Hurry, or I’ll be Injun giver and take back your wild horse.”

“Huh! Thought that would fetch you,” said the lad, with a grin. “Well, I’m sorry I got your hopes way up, ‘cause Ina didn’t really give me much to tell you. She sent her regards—”

“Yes?” cried Ben, eagerly, as Marvie paused to watch impressions.

“An’ was glad about your wild-horse catch.”

“Yes?” not so eagerly or hopefully.

“An’ about your fight with Setter an’ the way he looked when he got back she said to tell you—”

Ben could scarcely keep from choking this tantalising young rascal.

“What?” he demanded “She was tickled to death!”

Ben drew a deep breath and glared suspiciously at Marvie. Could this clear-eyed boy be guilty of terrible duplicity?

“Son, if you could lie to me about such a thing!.. No horse, no fishing, no pardnership with me!”

“Ben, I’m tellin’ you true,” protested Marvie, with sudden haste. “Ina said that, an’ what’s more she said somethin’ you’ll like a dam sight better.”

“Then for Heaven’s sake, tell me!” said Ben, suddenly weak.

“She said, ‘Tell Ben to come over.’... Now, Ben Ide, what’ve you got to say?”

“I’m beyond words, son,” rejoined Ben, experiencing the swell of an emotion that would render his reply true. Then for the lack of speech he dragged the boy with him, out of the yard, beyond the barns and corral, to the pasture. There seemed to be a thrumming song in his ears; the sky shone a deeper, intenser blue than ever he had seen; the dry fragrance in his face, a message, a symbol of life; the vast pillared clouds, pearly and golden, gorgeous thrones of gods, hung motionless from the dome of the heavens He could not explain the transformation in the aspect in nature, nor the ringing, singing self within himself.

He shared Marvie’s delight in the whistling, racing wild horses; in the black-and-white pinto colt some day to be the boy’s very own.

“Come, son, don’t hang here all day,” said Ben, finally dragging Marvie off the fence. “We’ll likely find some grasshoppers along the river. I like them best as bait for trout.

But they’re getting scarce. This dry spell has killed them off.”

“I’ve got fishin’ worms, if we can’t get grasshoppers,” replied Marvie, with the confidence of a fisherman.

“Where on earth did you get worms at this dry time?” asked Ben, in surprise.

“Got them at home, in one of the ditches,” replied Marvie. “Brought them along with me, packed in wet moss, an’ feed them milk. See — look.” And Marvie produced a wide flat tin box full of long, fat, shiny angleworms.

“Say, son, these big rainbows will break their necks after those worms,” exclaimed Ben, enthusiastically. “But let’s catch some grasshoppers, anyhow.”

They had a hot, merry, exciting chase through the dead grass, which ended in their exhaustion and the capture of a few great yellow grasshoppers.

“Gee! they’re dandy big ones. Regular tobacco-chewers,” declared Marvie, with the eye of a connoisseur. “I wish Ina had come with me.”

Forthwith Ben led his visitor along the river bank to the break where willows and cat-tails and tule flags were green, in vivid contrast with the sun-seared sage. The river was like a pond thick with green scum, but between the high bank and a jutting cape covered with willow lay a deep swirling pool of clear water. Marvie showed amaze and delight. He heard the babble and tinkle of Ben’s priceless spring as it burst from under the bank. This pool was not very wide, though fairly long, extending for some rods before the clear running current slowed and disappeared in the yellow stagnant water of the river. Swamp blackbirds and green-backed frogs and basking turtles were much in evidence.

“Now watch,” said Ben, and taking one of the grasshoppers he threw it down into the pool.

Flashes of gold, pink, silver elicited a yell from the lad. Trout appeared swift as light. There was a smash on the surface of the pool, and a trout as long as Marvie’s arm beat the others to that grasshopper.

“Oh, Lord!” whooped Marvie, and he sat down as if his legs had buckled under him.

“He was a big one, about eight pounds, but there’re some that’ll make him a baby,” announced Ben. “Say good-bye to your Christmas gift tackle.”

Marvie seemed obsessed with the mystery and beauty in the depths of that pool. They were fascinating, and Ben recalled the days when he was Marvie’s age.

“I told Ina I could bank on Ben,” Marvie soliloquised impressively. He was manifestly making a most momentous decision.

“Come on,” called Ben, gaily, rousing the lad. “We’ll climb down up here, and get on that point. It’s the best place, though when I want a trout to eat I just yank him up from here.”

“Yank one of those big ones?” queried Marvie, incredulously.

“No, not the biggest,” laughed Ben. “But the small ones, say one to two pounds, sometimes more. They’re best to eat.”

It was necessary for Ben to help Marvie down the high bank and out to the end of the cape. The footing was precarious, and though Marvie was valiant he did not possess length of limb to conquer certain steps without help. The point, however, afforded a comfortable and safe place from which to fish. Ben did not miss the trembling of Marvie’s hands or the startled, dreamy, expectant light of his eyes.

“Try a worm bait first,” advised Ben. “Then maybe you’ll catch a few before some big lunker takes that outfit away from you.”

Marvie seemed speechless, but he gazed up at Ben with a fleeting glance of ecstasy. Then he baited his hook and cast it out. Scarcely had it time to sink before a trout seized it and ran. Marvie jerked so hard that he pulled the trout unceremoniously out, to drop flopping on the bank, where he and Ben frantically pounced upon it. Ben secured it, a nice fat rainbow about a pound in weight.

“Gee!” whispered Marvie very low. “Biggest trout I ever caught!”

“Son, he’s a baby,” said Ben, stringing the fish on a willow. “His great-great-great-great-granddad is in that hole.”

“Oh, why wouldn’t Ina come!” cried Marvie poignantly.

“Wouldn’t she?” asked Ben, in apparent innocence.

“No. Girls are queer. Said she couldn’t run after you. I’ll get her to come yet.... Now, Ben, here goes again. You’ve got me scared stiff. But, oh, this’s heaven.”

Marvie found himself at once attached to another trout, not much larger than the first, but one that got his head and gave the lad some trouble and immense excitement before it was landed.

On a third cast a fish took the wiggling worm right off the surface, exciting Marvie to the extent that he jerked too soon and missed.

“Let them have it a little bit,” advised Ben. “You’re too nervous. Take time, son, take time.

“Say, if you felt like me?”

Then, in quick succession, Marvie captured three more rainbows, averaging slightly heavier than the others.

“Don’t wake me up, Ben. Let me go on dreamin’ — What a place to fish! This darned hole is deep an’ full of hungry trout.... Now we’ll see.... There! Wow, Ben — I can’t budge him! Am I snagged on a log? Oh no! No!”

That’s a big loggy one,” shouted Ben. “Play him easy, Marvie. Don’t lift so hard.... See, you pulled the hook out.”

“What’d I do then?” asked Marvie, after a long gaze of realisation.

“Too strong. You should have let him run round and round till he was tired — Don’t look sick, boy. There’s a wagon load of trout like him in that hole. Put on a big grasshopper now, and cast over here under the willows in the shade.”

Marvie did as he was bidden, carefully, earnestly, with bated breath and an air of certain calamity. His education had begun. He realised something electrifying and terrible was about to happen.

Ben saw a huge rainbow gleam out of the black depths and smash a hole in the surface on his rush for the grasshopper. He was so savage and fast that he hooked himself. Out he leaped, two feet long, broad and rainbow-hued, glistening in the sun. Sight of him absolutely paralysed Marvie. He could not lower the rod, and when the big fish surged down the pool there came a snap. The rod broke in the middle. Marvie presented a spectacle for fishermen. The trout again leaped, headed away. Marvie’s line whizzed off the reel, overrun, tangled. Crack! The reel came off the rod and fell, to bound and dart like a live thing as the big trout dashed on with more line. Then, before Ben could move, the reel bounced up from the ground, caught against the guides on Marvie’s nodding rod. The line whizzed harder, rasped and twanged. Down jerked the rod. Marvie staggered forward in bewilderment, made a misstep and plunged into the water. Ben leaped to catch his legs and haul him out.

Blinking, dishevelled, dazed, the lad got his equilibrium, and gazing from the broken rod and limp line up into Ben’s convulsed face he sputtered: “What — come off?”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” exploded Ben, shaking with mirth. “Guess the trout come off. And the reel — and line — and you!”

“He got away.... Was that a fish?” murmured Marvie, wide eyes on the pool.

“Son, he sure was a whopper. Twelve or fifteen pounds, I’d say. He wrecked your outfit, and he’d have drowned you but for me. Didn’t you see him?”

“I saw somethin’ with jaws open. Must have been a flyin’ alligator,” returned Marvie, his gaze transfixed on the quiet pool.

“Well, you’ve got a nice mess for supper. Five, and all together they’re heavy enough to lug. Next time fetch a strong outfit or use mine.”

The words “next time” recalled the lad to the fact that, dolorous as was the hour, life was still worth living, and future fishing called. By the time Ben got him back to the cabin he was almost cheerful again. Modoc served them with something to eat, and after they had talked awhile it was time for Marvie to leave.

“Ben, I’d rather live here with you than in our big house on Tule Lake,” he said, from the back of his pony. “An’ I’ll bet Ina would, too.”

“Pard, it’s different with girls — about homes,” returned Ben, trying to be natural when he wanted to stand on his head. “We fellows like the open range, you know, horses and outdoor work, hunting and, sure, fishing. But girls like comfort, luxury, people, amusement, and all that.”

“Mebbe, some of them. But not Ina. She loves all those things you said, same as you an’ me. Besides, she’s crazy about you, Ben. Aw, she’s a girl an’ she can’t fool me. I know darned well she is.”

He rode away, leaving Ben standing there as still and staring as if lightning had struck him. And that mental fixity, if not the physical, abided with him in the cabin, where he lay on his couch for a long while, staring straight through the rough shingles of the roof. He roused, at length, to the ring of iron-shod hoofs on stone. Going outside, he espied Nevada riding up. He had forgotten Nevada completely, and at sudden sight of him the former anxiety and dread returned tenfold.

“Where you been?” he queried, shortly, as Nevada rode up.

“Howdy, Ben! Heah you had company?” countered Nevada, nonchalantly. He seemed more than usually his virile, cool, and lazy self. Ben groaned inwardly. How he loved this lithe, long-haired, dark-skinned rider!

“Where you been?” repeated Ben, impatiently.

“Me? Oh, I been ridin’ around over the lone countree,” returned Nevada, as he stepped out of his saddle.

“Where the hell have you been?” shouted Ben. His partner was most irritating to contemplate when he wore this gay, cool, aloof mask.

Nevada turned from uncinching his saddle and gazed with mild amaze at his friend.

“Ben, you’re shore powerful curious aboot me.”

“Yes, and I’m quite capable of licking you good,” declared Ben.

“Wal, reckon you’ve got the ornery cross-grained disposition too, but, Ben, old pard, you ain’t big an’ strong enough to lick me.”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t torment me now with your cowboy gags. I want to know. Did you ride off to find Less Setter?”

“Ben, it wouldn’t have done no good if I had. Setter’s away gettin’ new teeth, so I heah.”

“Answer me, did you ride out to meet him? If you went without a word to me, I’m going to take it pretty hard.”

“Wal, pard, fact is, if I gotta be honest, I never thought of that pop-eyed rustler boss.”

“Nevada, you wouldn’t lie to me?”

“No, ‘cept for your own good.”

“You called Setter rustler boss. Nevada, isn’t that just some more cowboy talk?”

“Shore, an’ this heah cowboy is talkin’ straight. Some day, Ben, if you live out the summer, you’ll have the fun of heahing me call Setter that to his damn lyin’ face.”

In the speech Nevada passed from jest to earnest.

“But you rode over to the new Blaine ranch?” went on Ben, hoping to worm at least something from this exasperating Nevadian.

“Ben, you’d shore make a great scout, figgerin’ things so correct.”

“What’d you go for?”

“We had a day off, didn’t we? An’ I had a fresh hoss. I wanted to look over our neighbours. I had a hunch aboot Hart Blaine, an’ as usual I was right. He meant to make that ranch the first of a string of ranches includin’ Forlorn River, all the way to his holdin’s round Silver Meadow, an’ he’ll play hob doin’ it.”

“Who’d you see?” hurried Ben, irresistibly driven.

“Wal, Marvie Blaine for one. Met up with him out heah on the trail. Near talked my head off about fish an’ hosses. Nice kid, Ben. He shore thinks a heap of you.”

“Yes — who else?”

“Wal, I was lucky. Findin’ out Setter an’ Blaine were away, I scraped acquaintance with some of the hands. Cowboys all gone. Ben, what do you make of Blaine ridin’ over heah south of us, with chuck wagon an’ outfit?”

“Blaine is just branching out — grasping sounds better.”

“Ahuh. Wal, your cute little pardner didn’t talk to them hands for nothin’. Blaine took a wagon besides the chuck wagon, an’ it was full of tools — shovels, picks, axes, a plough an’ scraper, an’ some cans of giant powder.”

“Well! That means road work.”

“I’ll hit their trail to-morrow an’ see what he’s up to. It fussed me some, but after thinkin’ aboot it I come to the conclusion roads are shore goin’ to make our property twice as valuable.”

“That’s so. I forgot we owned four ranches.... Well, who else did you see?”

“Reckon nobody else.... Oh yes, I did, too. Saw your girl, Ina Blaine. I knowed her, Ben, quick as you could snap your quirt.”

“You saw her!” ejaculated Ben, in great excitement. “But not to speak to?”

“Shore did, a little bit. She was darned sweet to me. An’ if I wasn’t plumb crazy aboot Hettie I’d take Ina away from you. She’s as pretty as — as — oh, Lord! I never seen anyone or anything as pretty. No wonder you cain’t sleep or eat or rest or work, or even be decent to your pard. A girl plays hell with a man, doesn’t she?”

Ben stared fn impotent agitation at his loquacious and imperturbable friend. Behind all Nevada said and did there hid inscrutable mystery. Ben had to content himself with what little grist he could grind from Nevada’s utterances. But recalling the past, and puzzling over former complex situations, he realised that Neyada’s motives, strange and obscure as they seemed at first, always turned out to be clear as crystal and pure as gold. Ben had to face the monumental truth that Nevada seemed to think only of him.

“Nevada,” he asked, in grave finality, “did you talk with Ina alone?”

“Shore I did, a little.”

“About me?”

“Why, of course! You don’t suppose the girl would want to heah aboot me? An’ you don’t suppose I’d lose any chance to boost you?”

“But you and Hettie, and Marvie, too, make her think I’m a million times better than I am,” groaned Ben.

“Say, how’n ‘ell could we do that?” flashed Nevada, showing, as often, how easy it was to strike fire from him.

“I’ll bet you-all are driving Ina crazy about me — same as you’re driving me crazy about her.”

“Nix. You, anyhow, was crazy before. Ben, what you an’ Ina need to do is to get off some lonesome place in the moonlight—”

“Hold your tongue,” shouted Ben, frantically. “Can’t you understand it wouldn’t be square or honourable for me to disgrace Ina? I’m an outcast. And they’re liable to make me an outlaw yet.”

“Shore. Same as your pard, huh?” exclaimed Nevada, bitterly.

“Oh, say, my friend! Don’t misconstrue my words. That talk about you never influenced me. I don’t care a damn what you were, Nevada. It’s what you are to me — and that’s the finest and noblest of pards.”

“Thanks,” replied Nevada, lifting his head. “Shore I take it I am your pard, though I shy on the noble stuff. An’ that’s why I gotta talk. I was sayin’ you an’ Ina need to get off in the moonshine somewhere, an’ run into each other’s arms, an’ stick there for some hours more or less — anyhow, till you discover you cain’t live without each other.”

CHAPTER XI

THE SECOND NIGHT after Nevada’s return, Ben, sitting up late watching the moon, yielding to dreams of hopeless fulfilment, heard a faint distant clip-clop of trotting horses on the hard trail down by the lake.

Riders were approaching from the direction of the Blaine ranch. As the hour was not one to expect visitors or travellers, Ben rather anxiously picked up his rifle and hurried out through the trees to the edge of the bluff. The night was almost as light as day. A full moon soared high in the rich, dark sky; the vast basin appeared boundless, with glistening white bands of sand surrounding the silver lake.

Two horsemen were approaching. They did not, however, keep to the trail that turned the corner of the bluff and climbed the west side to Ben’s cabin. Ben decided that he would intercept them, and gliding down the slope he soon reached the zone of huge rocks that had rolled from above. He stole cautiously along, keeping in the shadows, wonderingly curious. Who were these riders? Why did they leave the trail, apparently to approach his cabin from the rear? The sound of hoof-beats gave place to footsteps, light and pattering on the gravelly ground. Presently Ben saw a slight dark form come from out of shadow into the moonlight. A boy! It was no other than Marvie Blaine.

Ben’s suppressed excitement changed to amaze and relief. He strode out into the moonlight.

“Hands up!” he ordered, in a deep gruff voice.

Marvie jumped like a startled jack rabbit, and his hands shot up above his head.

“Aw — mister!” gasped Marvie. “I — I won’t hurt — you!”

“Meet rustler Bill Hall. Money or your life!” replied Ben, fiercely.

The lad made a grotesque figure, shaking now with horror, his face white in the moonlight.

“Only got — two dollars,” he gulped hoarsely.

Ben lowered the rifle. It would have been fun to continue the deception. But Ben was strung like a whipcord. Who was Marvie’s companion?

“Son, you can keep your two dollars,” said Ben. “What’re you doing out here? Who is with you?”

Marvie nearly collapsed. “Aw!... Aw!... It’s Ben! Omilord! how you — scared me!... You oughtn’t h’done that. I might have shot you.”

“Who’s with you?” demanded Ben sternly ignoring Marvie’s remarkable exclamation.

“Ina, of course,” replied the lad.

“Your sister?” whispered Ben.

“Sure. Who’d you think? Ketch me guidin’ any cowboys over here after night. An’ say, Ben, Ina hired me to fetch her. What you think of that? Sure I’d have fetched her for nothin’, but I saw what a chance I had. Gave me some things she had I wanted bad. An’ five dollars for new fishin’ tackle!”

“You young scoundrel! Letting her come way out here, alone, in wild country like this!”

“Lettin’ her? Say, you wake up,” retorted Marvie. “She made me come. Swore she’d come alone if I didn’t.”

“But — what on earth for?” queried Ben, now in amaze and bewilderment.

“She wanted to see you,” replied Marvie. “I’ve been tryin’ to coax her to come over. But, no, she wouldn’t. Somethin’ changed her mind, Ben. Mebbe ‘cause of the two strangers who rode in this mornin’. I didn’t like their looks, blusterin’ an’ pryin’ around.”

“Where is Ina?” asked Ben.

“Down here, sittin’ on a rock. She didn’t want to go up to your cabin an’ be seen by anybody else. So I picked out this place. It was like apple pie, gettin’ over here. Cowboys all away. Dad and Setter away. I got my pony an’ Ina’s horse an’ kept them in the corral. Soon as ma went to bed we sneaked off, round the ranch, an’ hit the trail below. Bet we made the trip in an hour.... There’s Ina. I’ll take the horses over here a ways. An’, Ben, you needn’t be in a hurry.”

Ben espied the horses first and then the girl’s slender form, dark against the moon-blanched background. His pulses throbbed so violently that they pained him. She was sitting on a high flat rock, and as his step crunched on the ground she turned. Next moment he was gazing up into her face, meeting her outstretched hands. And that moment seemed the sweetest and most compelling of his life.

“Good evening, Ben.... He found you quickly. I’m glad to see you.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” he returned, breathing deeply. “Oh, it was easy. Marvie’s a brick. You can ride home with us. Dad will never know. So what’s there to scold about?”

“You might — be caught,” he replied, unsteadily aware that she was giving his face a scrutiny not in keeping with her light words. Did he read aright her wonderful penetrating eyes, black as the shadows and as mysteriously full?

“I don’t think I’d care sc much if I were.... Ben, you’re thin, haggard.” She withdrew a hand from his and touched his cheek. “Are you quite well?”

“Well? Of course I’m well. Except just now I feel I could drop at your feet.... I’ve had six weeks’ very hard work, Ina. I’ve lost weight.”

“I don’t know whether or not to believe you,” she considered sweetly, gravely studying him.

“Did that fool Nevada say I was sick?”

She gave a slight start. “Then he told you he saw me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“No. Nevada didn’t say you were sick — exactly. He—”

“I don’t want to know what he said,” interrupted Ben, hastily. He must keep his head. He must impress upon her the madness of risking her father’s anger, as well as the peril of such a lonely ride at night. But it was not easy to think of words. She sat bare-headed, her knees level with his shoulder, and she leaned a little down. The cool wind blew strands of her hair across her brow. She was lovely. She seemed different somehow. He felt something he could not understand.

“I like Nevada,” she said. “And if you consent I’ll let him come to see Hettie when she visits me.”

“You’re having Hettie? That’s good of you, Ina,” he replied, in a warmth of surprise and pleasure.

“Don’t thank me. Hettie’s a dear girl. You couldn’t blame any man for loving her.”

“So Nevada loves my sister. I suspected it, even though I thought his talk just cowboy rant. Ina, he has told you.”

“Ben, I didn’t say so,” she replied archly.

“You’re strange to me. You take my breath,” he returned. “What chance on earth have I against you, let alone Nevada and my sister and Marvie, all in league to — to — ?”

“Make my dad and your dad and everybody see you as the man we know you to be,” she interposed, with soft directness.

It dawned upon Ben that she was as she had been the last few moments when they were together at Hettie’s — only now more formidable by reason of a strange power of confidence, of knowledge that he could not share. He divined it. And she did not make the slightest move to release the hand he held. Whereupon he tried to release it himself, but as he tried, a slight clinging pressure of warm palm irresistibly drove him to grasp it again, closer, tighter.

“Ben, listen,” she began, seriously. “I had a good reason to risk coming over here. And if I chose to lie to you I’d let you think that was my excuse. But even before I knew what I found out to-day I was going to come, anyway.”

“Ina!”

“Yes. Terrible of me. Wouldn’t dad rave? And Mr. Popeyes, as Marvie calls Setter. Oh, I shudder to contemplate his jealous rage! But listen, Ben.... This morning two strangers rode into the ranch and made themselves at home. I could have avoided them, of course, as our camp is located quite a little way from the ranch. But naturally I was curious, and in the absence of dad and Mr. Setter and the cowboys, I took advantage of the opportunity to find out who they were. So I went over to the ranch and asked them who they were and what they wanted. They were rather evasive and, well, smart-alec, at first. One was a big, heavy man, ruddy-faced and pretty loud. His name was Judd. The other was tall and lanky, with thin face and big nose. He wore a sombrero that hid his eyes, but he didn’t inspire me with confidence. His name was Walker. They hailed from Redlands. Well, I asked them the second time, bluntly, what their business was there. Then the big fellow exhibited a silver shield and said he was a sheriff from Redlands. Walker was his deputy. They had come at urgent call from Setter, who claimed to represent the Hammell Stock Association. They had come prepared to arrest certain persons against whom Setter would produce evidence and charges. That’s all I could get out of them. But it was enough to worry me sick. So I got Marvie to come over with me.”

“Certain persons must mean Nevada and Modoc and myself,” muttered Ben, darkly, in response to the sudden shift of his emotions.

“Of course it means you. But I don’t believe dad had a thing to do with their coming. I tell you, Ben, he has something to think about. He’s so deeply mixed up that he doesn’t know whether he is riding or walking, as Bill Sneed said.... Now, Ben, these officers can’t arrest you just on Setter’s say-so, can they?”

“They wouldn’t if they’re straight. But the worst of it is that Setter may have hatched up some trick, or found some charge against Modoc, or particularly accused Nevada of something he’d done long ago, before he came here. They could twist it around to involve me. Frankly, Ina, I don’t like the looks of it.”

“But, Ben, if you’re prepared? Forewarned is forearmed, you know,” said Ina, in anxious earnestness.

“Ina, it was like you to hurry over here to warn me. Thanks—”

“I told you I didn’t come for that reason,” she interrupted. “I was coming, anyway.”

“Oh, you were — and why?” replied Ben, constrainedly. The change in the direction of his thoughts had helped him toward self-control. But he had not let go of her hand! It seemed that he stood trembling on the edge of a precipice.

“One thing at a time, Benjamin,” she retorted. “Or business before — pleasure.” She laughed in a way that made him wonder if he heard aright. “What are you going to do?”

“Why, Ina, we can’t do anything but go on with our work,” replied Ben, in perplexity. “Whatever is bound to happen will happen. I wouldn’t mind being arrested. They couldn’t prove me guilty of any wrong. But I’d hate the disgrace on account of mother and Hettie.”

“And me!” she added, swiftly.

Ben dared not let his consciousness face that extraordinary implication. His mind seemed about to fly to pieces.

“For myself — I — I wouldn’t mind arrest,” he went on, hurriedly. “But these sheriffs can’t arrest Nevada. If they try it he’ll hold them up and escape — or he’ll kill them. Oh, he’s quicker than eyesight with a gun. Sometimes he throws a gun on me, just for fun. But, Ina, I don’t laugh. I grow cold all over. For I love that fellow and I feel that he’s been something terrible — somewhere.”

“Nevada loves you, Ben,” returned Ina, softly. “He will do whatever you ask.”

“Yes, he would, mostly. I’ll never forget when he rode in on me four years ago. He was wounded, starved, exhausted. I took him in and kept him — nursed him back to health. He stayed with me and we’ve grown like brothers. But he’s never told me who he is.”

“It was a fine thing for you to do. And your friendship is beautiful. Surely you can keep him from spilling blood.”

“I don’t know, but I feel I can’t. Not if these officers try to arrest me. And when Nevada finds out Setter got them here — —” Ben left off words to whistle.

It was not possible for him to keep his eyes averted all the time. Involuntarily they came back to Ina’s face. How sweet — how lovely! She was gazing down upon him. Suddenly Ben had to fight a terrible longing to take her in his arms. He released that warm clinging hand — then instantly had a wild desire to take it back again.

“Ben, did Marvie tell you how this man Setter has hounded me?” queried Ina, as if driven to speak.

“What!” ejaculated Ben, flaring up. “Marvie talked a lot about Setter. But Marvie hates him, and he’s only a crazy kid. I didn’t take him seriously.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have let that slip out,” cried the girl, regretfully. “I’m so contrary these days. I don’t know myself, Ben. Never mind what I said about Setter.”

“You tell me,” he rejoined, passionately, seizing her arms.

The suddenness and violence of his action startled her. It was only his hold upon her that kept her from falling over in his arms. He realised this and seemed staggered. What avail were resolution and honour? Again the possibility that she might really love him waved over him.

“Ben,” she whispered, “don’t look like that. I haven’t done anything I — you’d—”

“You said Setter had hounded you,” interrupted Ben. “How? Tell me. What did you mean?”

“Setter’s a bad man,” hurriedly answered Ina. “He made bold love to me. Ile hunted me out when I was alone. If I saw him in time I’d run. But when he waylaid me — I — I — Ben, I had to fight.”

“My God!” cried Ben, furiously. “Your father let that snake in the house? Gave him opportunities to force himself upon you! That damned money-grubbing cow-hand! I’ll horsewhip him.”

“Hush such talk!” exclaimed Ina, with emotion. “Can’t I tell you things without your flying off the handle? That was weeks ago. Setter has changed his tactics. Now it looks as if he meant to force dad to marry me to him.”

“Ina Blaine!” burst out Ben, hoarsely, in fury and despair. “I’ll kill Setter myself!”

“Ben!” she whispered. Her face grew ashen pale in the moonlight. Her eyes seemed to expand and fix in black staring horror. “Oh — what have — I done?” and freeing her arms she clasped them round his neck.

“Ina! What do you mean?”

“If you killed Setter — they — they would hang you. Then I’d die,” she cried, in anguish.

“I won’t kill him. I won’t even meet him,” said Ben, in wild haste to relieve her terror. His heart seemed about to burst. “Promise me — then?” she begged.

“I promise — anything,” he returned, weakening.

She released him, very slowly withdrawing her arms from about his neck. Then as terrible realisation dawned upon Ben she smiled, and that was too much for him. Bowing his face upon her knees, he almost sobbed out:

“I knew — I shouldn’t see you. What a fool I am! It’s all come out... I adore you — worship you.... And it’s killing me.”

He felt her stroking his head with gentle caressing hand, under which he quivered.

“Well, you needn’t let that kill you,” she said, with something sweetly deep and rich in her voice. “For I love you, Ben!”

“No — no!” he whispered, in mingled despair and ecstasy. “Oh, but I do! Love you as I did when we were kid sweethearts.... And more — with the love of a woman who’ll stand by you through everything.”

Ben lifted his head. His tears seemed burned away. Surrender was upon him. A perilously sweet and glorious joy consumed him like a flame.

“You wonderful girl!” he whispered, huskily.

“Why don’t you say, ‘my wonderful girl’?” she whispered in return, leaning to him.

“Because I can’t believe — can’t accept this — this sacrifice of yours. Ina, think! I’m an outcast — about to be arrested. And you — the sweetest, noblest girl in all the world! I can’t disgrace you. I won’t.... Oh, what in Heaven’s name can I do?”

“Well, if you’re needing advice, Bennie, I’d say meet me in Hammell to-morrow or next day.”

“Hammell! Why? For people to see my worship of you — and my cowardice?”

“No — your pride,” she flashed.

“Ina, I can’t savvy you. I’m off my balance. My mind’s muddled.”

“Yes, poor boy, you are pretty stupid — to let me do it all. But then I understand.... I meant you should meet me in Hammell — and then — then fetch me back here — to your cabin.... To take care of you and fight with you!”

“Ina Blaine! You’d marry me?” he rang out, with incredulous passion.

“I rather think I would, Ben Ide — if you’d ask me.”

“You are mad. We’re both out of our heads.”

“Speak for yourself, Ben. I’m quite sane — and happy. Happier than I’ve been since coming home.”

“Happy! You’d marry me? My God! I never dreamed of such a thing! Hettie wrote me you hadn’t changed. Marvie said you were crazy about me. But I couldn’t believe. And now you tell me—”

“It’s true. Marvie had it right. I do love you. And I glory in it.”

“Then, Ina — will you marry me when—”

“Yes, Ben, without whens or ifs,” she interposed, radiantly. “I don’t purpose to give you a loophole.”

“Ina, you’ll consent to marry me when I’ve wiped out this stain upon my name? Your love — your promise will save me — make me rise to anything.,.. Darling, it must be this way.”

“Very well — my beloved,” she returned, with her hands going back to his shoulders, and her lovely flushed face, with its tremulous lips and starry eyes, leaning closer over him. “If you think best — if you won’t have me — to-morrow to help you make this fight, why, I must await your lordship’s pleasure. But don’t forget I offered.”

“You torture me. I can’t stand much more.”

“Oh — Bennie!” she sighed, and slipped into his arms. “Sweetheart! — My Ina of the old — kid days,” he whispered, brokenly. “I think you’ve saved my soul, if not my life. God bless you! I pray to be worthy of you.”

He kissed her, and the sweet fire of her lips seemed to enter his blood and thrill along his veins. She hid her face upon his breast. Then he stood there wrapping her in a close embrace, while the cool wind blew her silken hair against his cheek. He gazed out across the moon-blanched lake, tranquil and splendid in its solitude The wandering river gleamed away into the soft silver blur of the sage hills; the dark tree-fringed cape stood out silhouetted against the clear sky. Ever since boyhood this lonely place had called to him. Its nameless promise had been fulfilled.

Ben rode home with Ina and Marvie, bidding them good-bye at the foot of the lake slope not far from the ranch. It was broad daylight when he got back to Forlorn River. As he had expected, Nevada met him in high dudgeon.

“Where’n hell have you been?” he exploded, in as much relief as anger.

“Me? Aw, I been ridin’ around the lone countree,” drawled Ben, who was a capital imitator.

“Huh! Shore ridin’ all night without any sleep agrees with you,” retorted Nevada, shrewdly. “You look powerful bright an’ pert.”

“Yes, and I’ll lick you to get up an appetite for breakfast unless you rustle. Where’s Modoc?”

“He’s got breakfast ready,” rejoined Nevada, studying Ben with narrowed piercing eyes. “Wal, I’ll be gol-darned if I haven’t got it figgered.”

“What?”

“You.”

“Me? Why, Nevada, I’m nothing to figure. I’m as clear as spring water. You’re the mysterious cuss.”

“You’ve been with Ina Blaine.”

Ben uttered a short exultant laugh.

“Wonderful, Nevada. How’d you guess it?... You darned slick hypocrite. You know right well what’s happened.”

“Aw no, I don’t, Ben. Honest. Tell me,” pleaded Nevada.

“I have been with Ina. We’re engaged to be married. Good God! how impossible it sounds.... Yet it’s true. I don’t know how much you had to do with my great good fortune and happiness, but I’ve a hunch it is a lot. Ina wouldn’t give you away.”

Nevada’s face worked convulsively and suddenly shone with a strange glow. He shared Ben’s joy.

“Put her thar, pard,” he said, in a deep voice, and he wrung Ben’s hand till it was numb.

“Nevada — friend,” said Ben, unsteady for an instant, “we’ve no time now to talk about how and when and where it happened. We’ve got a hard job on hand. Now what I want to know is this. We’re partners, sure, in this new deal of ours, but you’ve looked to me for decisions and that sort of thing. Will you do as I say, no matter what I tell you or what comes up?”

“Wal, Ben,” replied Nevada, slowly, his mood changing to serious pondering, “I shore will. But understand I’m shy on that in one particular. When I meet up with Less Setter I’m my own boss. Savvy?”

“All right. That’s the one condition — the one time I’m not boss. Shake on it.... Now, listen. Setter has had officers come over from Redlands. A sheriff named Judd and his deputy, Walker. They’re at the Blaine ranch now. Ina didn’t think much of their looks and talk. But she was smart enough to get a line on them. It seems Setter is to return to prefer charges upon somebody they didn’t name. Sure that somebody is you and I. No doubt Setter is hatching up some trick. We haven’t time to wait. Now my plan is this. I’ll send Modoc into Hammell to-day with a letter to Frisbie. You know he’s keen to take my horses, if he can buy them cheap. Well, I’ll instruct him to send his men out here to-morrow to drive in all the horses we leave in the pasture. He can put the money to my credit in the Hammell bank. You and I will pack, and take our best horses, and light out for Silver Canyon and Bill Hall’s trail. Modoc can meet us at The Cedars, which is the only water hole this side of Silver Canyon. We’ll stay out until we catch Hall red-handed. Now what do you think of my plan?”

“Wal, reckon it’s the best to be made under the circumstances,” replied Nevada, in a brown study. “But it shore has some weak spots.”

“What are they?”

“Sellin’ the hosses for one hundred dollars a haid when if we kept them an’ broke them proper we’d sell for two hundred in Klamath. Second, leavin’ heah so sudden. Looks like we was scared off an’ takin’ to the timber. Third, it’ll give Setter a chance to do some dirty trick heah at Forlorn River. Fourth, your dad’s new cattle range ain’t so darned far from Silver Canyon. He an’ Blaine have been buyin’ out the homesteaders round Silver Meadow. It’d look damn strange to Ide an’ Setter if you was seen up there, ‘specially if Hall rustled any stock of your dad’s. Perfectly natural for them to think Ben Ide’s stealin’ cattle from his dad. Reckon you savvy me?”

“Nevada, your mind is like a whip,” declared Ben. “I figured a couple of those hitches in my plan. But never thought of my father. Good Lord! Could he be made to believe I’d steal from him?”

“Reckon he could. It’s easy for a young rustler to begin on his dad’s stock. Fact is, that’s common. An’ everybody knows you’ve been treated pretty shabby by your dad. They wouldn’t blame you a darn bit.”

“But, Nevada, the truth is I haven’t stolen from dad or any man, and I never will. Believe me, pard, the truth is a might, factor in life. Let’s gamble on it. They say murder always comes out. Probably all cattle stealing never does, but just the same we have right and justice on our side. Ina made me see that. She talked a lot about it on our way home. Nevada, she even said she didn’t believe God would let the devil win so evil a case as this. Let’s gamble on Ina’s and Hettie’s blind faith in the working out of truth.”

“Wal, Ben, there’d have been a heap of sense in that, even if the girls hadn’t given us the hunch. Lookin’ back, I can see how honesty would have been best, always. But a boy has to live an’ learn. Take Setter, for instance. He’s got so strong an’ rich he thinks he cain’t be caught. But his day will come.”

“You approve, then?” queried Ben, hurriedly bent on settling the matter. He did not like Nevada’s half-meditative talk or the dark, set look on his face.

“Shore. It’s our only bet. An’ if we’d happen to kill Hall, or better, ketch him alive — aw, say, pard!... I’d shore like to see this Bill Hall. If he hails from Nevada, then I’ve got the kibosh on Setter.”

“Look here,” exclaimed Ben, suddenly, “you don’t connect Setter in any way with Bill Hall?”

“Wal pard, I just do. I kinda dreamed it in my sleep.”

“Good Heavens! Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing for Ina’s dad, and mine?... Oh, Nevada, it’s too far-fetched! It’s ridiculous.”

“Ben, you don’t know the cattle business in a new country. Setter’s work is like the faker’s at a circus. But only when you see it straight. What surprises me is the way Setter hangs on heah. He ought to be gone long ago. But mebbe your dad an’ Ina’s dad, comin’ into money so sudden, an’ bein’ such soft putty-haided marks for Setter, accounts for his hangin’ on so long.”

“Yes, that and Ina,” replied Ben. “It’s hard to believe, but she told me. Nevada, if he did marry Ina he’d make himself so solid with Blaine and those Hammell men that he couldn’t be held, even if we uncovered his tracks.”

“Shore, an’ Setter knows it. But, pard, while you’re gamblin’ you can bet on this heah,” drawled Nevada, once again his cool, easy, nonchalant self, “Setter ain’t figgerin’ none on the uncertainty of life.”

“I know. Success and money have gone to his head,” said Ben, and then, unable to conquer the weakness of fear and jealous love, he added: “But he might somehow get hold of Ina.”

“Not in a million years,” flashed Nevada. “Unless he’d kidnap her! Then, with Modoc, I could track him over bare rock. An’ he wouldn’t live long.”

It was next day, toward the waning of the afternoon, that Ben and Nevada finished the thirty-mile ride to The Cedars and made camp under the grey-barked trees which gave the spot its name.

This was considerably higher than Forlorn River, and the cold air after the heat below was welcome to the riders. Their fears that the spring might have gone dry proved to be groundless. Water was still seeping out of the sand, though very slight in volume. It formed a pool below, where green verdure, flocks of birds, deer and other game, attested to the scarcity and preciousness of water.

“No hoss been heah for a long time,” observed Nevada, after a bent scrutiny of the cut up ground round the pool. “Ben, I’ll bet you a hat these rustlers have water holes the cowmen never seen.”

“Of course. It’s a big, wild country. And I’ll bet California Red and his band have water holes the rustlers have never seen.”

“Say, clean forgot that red son-of-gun. Shore now it’d be bothersome as the devil if while we was roundin’ up these rustlers we’d run plumb into Red, wouldn’t it?”

“Heavens! it’d be terrible. It’d ruin us!” exclaimed Ben, aghast.

“How so? I don’t savvy.”

“You know I’d quit anything under the sun to chase and catch that wild horse.”

“Shore, but I forgot. You darned locoed, puddin’-haided, spineless, wild hoss-chasin’ jackass!” ejaculated Nevada, with most consummate wonder and ridicule.

Ben dropped his head in shame. He knew he deserved all Nevada called him and infinitely more. But who could understand him? The very flash of memory of California Red thrilled him to the core.

“Say, Ben Ide,” kept on Nevada, mercilessly, “if your girl Ina was hangin’ over that precipice there, by one finger an’ her eyelash, an’ California Red come in heah to drink — you’d run for the hoss, wouldn’t you?”

“No, of course not, you idiot, denied Ben, hotly.

“Aw, I’m shore glad you’re not that bad. But I’ll bet a million if you was to marry Ina to-morrow an’ you had a chance to ketch that red hoss you’d not be at the church.”

Ben pondered for some retort to silence Nevada, and finally spoke up with animation. “Speaking of marriage, Ina and I decided to postpone ours until Hettie and you could be married with us.”

Nevada gave a wild start, and then, suddenly beaten, suddenly succumbing to what seemed abject misery, he turned to take up the camp tasks. Ben had his revenge, but was sorry he had taken it that way. Nevada’s reception of a remark meant only in fun roused thought-provoking conjectures. If Nevada was so frank about his love for Hettie as Ina, had assured Ben, why did the thought of marriage make him mute and miserable? It must be because Nevada could not honestly consider marriage. That worried Ben. Presently, realising how idly he sat there, thinking, dreaming, worrying, he decided it would be far better for him and the success of his venture to apply all his faculties to that and, so far as was possible, forget his sister and his sweetheart for a while.

Whereupon Ben fell quickly into the primitive joys of work and life in the open. This job on hand was going to be an adventure.

“Modoc ought to get here by day after to-morrow,” observed Ben, after supper, as they sat enjoying the warmth of the camp fire.

“Sooner. That Injun can ride when he’s alone,” replied Nevada.

“He said he saw these rustlers from one of the high ridges back of here and that he can find them again,” said Ben, reflectively. “Well, now, in case we do find them, what’s your idea of a plan?”

“Easy as pie. The three of us will slip up on them at night when they’re asleep, hold ’em up an’ rope ’em fast.”

“By George! it might be done,” declared Ben, slapping his knee.

“Ben, if Modoc finds that rustler outfit, an’ they don’t see or heah us, why, the job’s good as done. You see, I’m figgerin’ on this Indian. I’ve a hunch he’ll more than pay you for takin’ him home when he was kicked out of that saloon in Hammell. Modoc has eagle eyes an’ a nose like a hound. As a tracker he’s the best I ever seen, an’ shore trackin’ has been my job always. The more I think of this trick, Ben, the more I wonder why we didn’t get the hunch sooner. Bill Hall’s outfit is small — only four or five men. S’pose they are bad men. They gotta sleep, an’ shore as you’re born Modoc will find them, an’ we’ll ketch them asleep.”

“It’d be rich if we caught them with some stolen stock,” mused Ben.

“Say, use your haid. What’d Hall be over heah for unless he had some stock? Modoc seen the outfit. It’s a shore bet they’ve got cattle hid somewheres. An’ you know, Ben, all this stolen stock goes south an’ west over the ranges. None of your ranchers ever see a brand or a hoof of it again. Shore is a paradise for rustlers.”

“Aren’t we liable to run into Strobel? Ina told me he had gone to Silver Meadow. Hart Blaine, with a road outfit, is working up that way.”

“We won’t run into any of them,” declared Nevada, significantly. “We got too darn good eyesight. But I reckon we’re too far west.”

“But if Hall drives cattle up into the hills from Silver Meadow he’s bound to leave tracks. They could be followed. Strobel might deputise some of dad’s cowboys and hit Hall’s trail.”

“Shore it’s feasible,” admitted Nevada, “but it’s never been done before. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt us none to run ag’in’ Strobel. He’s a close-mouthed cuss aboot his real meanin’, but I had a hunch he likes you.”

“Yes, I fished with him when I was a kid,” mused Ben. “Well, let’s turn in. To-morrow we’ll ride high up and ‘look round,’ as Modoc says. Did you hobble the horses?”

“Nope. No need. They’re not goin’ to walk two steps from this little wet strip of grass. I tied up the black. Must say, for a wild stallion not long ketched, he’s pretty decent. I tell you, Ben, it’s the feed that gets any hoss. Blacky likes the grain.” While Nevada took a final look at the horses Ben extinguished the camp fire, and then unrolled his bed and sat upon it to remove his boots. Soon he was snug in his blankets. But he did not feel in the least sleepy. Nevada fell into the deep breathing of slumber almost simultaneously with his stretching out near Ben.

This night Ben seemed to revert to a former state of mind regarding the solitude and wilderness of the ranges. The dread that had weighed upon him for so long had eased and vanished. He found himself more like the boy of old. At any rate the joy of the wilderness returned to him, alluring and satisfying, with the added thrill of strange adventure.

The wind moaned and mourned through the wide-armed cedars. It was cold, with a breath of frost. Ben was reminded of the fact that summer was passing swiftly. The moon rode the waving line of black range like a silver ship. He could hear the munch of the grazing horses. A fox barked from the brush. As Ben rolled over his cheek came in icy contact with the butt of his gun. That reminded him of the quest for an outlaw, some of whose depredations had been laid at Ben’s door. It was unjust. It was evil. Ben did not blame Hall, but he was bitter against Setter, and others who had defamed him.

CHAPTER XII

BEN WAS UP before sunrise, kindling a fire. He had been awakened early by the cold.

A thin sheet of ice glistened on the pool.

“Pretty nippy for summer,” muttered Ben, spreading his hands to the blaze. “But we’re up high and summer’s getting on.”

Then he gave Nevada a prodigious shove, literally rolling that individual out of his slumbers. Nevada sat up, protesting with vigorous and profane speech.

“Howdy, Nev, old timer! Nice cold morning to pull on boots. Try it.... Well, you son-of-a-gun! Slept in your boots! You’ll never get civilised.”

“Got ’em wet last night,” explained Nevada as he arose with several motions, like a camel. “Knowed darn shore I’d never get them on if I took them off. Wal, rustle breakfast.”

“You fetch in the horses,” said Ben.

Nevada cracked the ice to wash, and yelled lustily, “Hey — did you — stick your snoot — in heah?”

“Fine and nippy,” replied Ben. “It’ll make a man of you.” While Nevada attended to the horses, Ben rolled biscuits, cut meat, and filled the coffee-pot, and otherwise made preparations for breakfast. When the sun tipped the ridge they were in the saddle, headed up-country.

From the lower slopes of the range, where the ridges, mountains in themselves, ran and wound down to the basin, they travelled upward. Between the ridges sank canyons, some shallow, others deep, all of them apparently dry as tinder and seared by the sun. Patches of sage and acres of short, bleached grass and clumps of cedar increased toward the black heights.

No living creature, either bird or beast, revealed itself to Ben’s roving sight. It was indeed a lonely country. The deer and wild horses were farther up in the hills.

Silver Meadow lay around and below the spur of range, toward the east. Ben and Nevada wanted to look over that valley before taking up a survey of the canyon heads. As they climbed, their command over the country widened. Wild Goose Lake and Forlorn River appeared almost under their position; Tule Lake gleamed yellow with its grain over the sage hills; Mule Deer Lake looked like a dot in a grey waste; beyond it the black lava beds waved to the green forest benches that lifted to the bare mountain ridge. Far away noble Mount Shasta stood up, white and lonely, in the morning sunlight.

At length Ben and Nevada reached their lookout point, several thousand feet above an immense valley, or series of valleys, separated by low foothills. Silver Meadow suited its name. It was an oval valley half a dozen miles long by a couple in width, covered with white sage and bleached grass. Ben took a long survey with his field-glass, and then, without comment, handed it to Nevada.

“Wal,” said Nevada, after an equally long gaze, “not so much stock as I figgered we’d see. Pretty dry down there. Ben, do you reckon there’s cattle an’ hosses up the draws, grazin’ on trees?”

“They sure are, unless they’re dead,” replied Ben, shortly.

“Or stolen,” supplemented Nevada. “I’ll gamble on that. Ben, if the rains don’t come this fall all the stock in there will die.”

“Don’t say if. The rains must come. Nature may be cruel, but not utterly ruthless.... Nevada, I rather expected we could sight Blaine’s outfit or some cowboys.”

“Nary a sign. Reckon Blaine is somewheres north of the Meadow. There’s some good little homesteads along the river. Shore doesn’t look like a river up heah, huh? She’s dry, Ben, dry as sand.”

“Shall we ride on to Silver Canyon?” queried Ben.

“Hold your hosses, Benjamin,” drawled Nevada. “It’s pretty far, an’ we ought to have the Indian. Let him ride one side of the canyon an’ we’ll ride the other.”

“Couldn’t you and I split up and do that?” impatiently asked Ben.

“Reckon we could. But would it be good sense when we’re huntin’ rustlers? Besides, I’ll be darned if I know where Silver is from heah.”

“I do, but it’ll take a climb. Perhaps we’d better go back to camp. Modoc ought to be in to-night.”

But Ben was mistaken. The Indian did not put in an appearance, and when, morning came with him still absent, Ben began to worry. All day they watched and waited. By sunset they knew something unusual had happened to their faithful ally. Ben made vain conjectures.

“I lay it to Setter,” said Nevada, broodingly.

“Bet you’re right,” declared Ben, leaping up. “I never thought of Setter. If he met Modoc in Hammell he’d stop him sure.”

“Wal, he’d try damn hard. But that Injun ain’t so easy to stop. Let’s don’t give up yet, Ben.”

A little after dark Modoc rode into the bright camp fire circle and slipped off a saddleless horse. He had ridden bareback. “How! Heap hungry,” he said, with a grin.

“Plenty grub, Modoc, but let us warm it up. What’s happened?”

“Setter lock me up in Hammell jail,” replied Modoc. “Me break out, find hoss, come camp.”

“Ben, what’d I tell you?” demanded Nevada, ringingly, with fire in his eye.

“Well? Setter arrested you! What for?”

“Me ask jail-man. He laugh. Say long time ago me got drunk — fight in saloon.”

Ben felt so relieved to hear the charge that he laughed while Nevada cursed.

“Modoc, did you ever have two fights in Hammell?”

“No; me fight one time. Me no drunk. They drunk. They beat me — throw me out. Same time you found me.”

“I remember. Setter — the d —— low-down skunk! That’s all he could hatch up. Nevada, I’m surprised at Setter. He’s clumsy. He must think we are outcasts, without a friend in the world. That there’s no justice in California.”

“Wal, I reckon he just put another nail in his coffin,” drawled Nevada. “I’ll look after Modoc’s hoss. Lucky we fetched an extra saddle.”

“Modoc, did you see Frisbie?” queried Ben, suddenly remembering the important mission upon which he had sent the Indian.

“Yes. He glad. Sent lot cowboys.”

“Good. That settles that.... I’m glad you broke jail. I’d have done it myself.... Now, Modoc, we’ve got a big job on hand. To-morrow you guide us to where you saw Hall’s outfit. If we find them — well, we will make our plans then.”

Ben’s first peep over the rim of Silver Canyon was something he felt he would never forget. He had been familiar only with the lower reaches of this wild canyon, where it appeared more like a valley. From this point, to which he and Nevada had been directed by Modoc, he saw into a deep sage and rock-walled gorge with a beautiful broad winding green line of trees at the bottom. A branch of the canyon, opening on the opposite side, appeared even more verdant. It was full of morning haze, like autumn smoke. The main canyon headed up in a notch or saddle, astonishingly accessible, seen now from this point; and over this pass Modoc believed the rustlers drove their stolen stock down into another country. Ben felt convinced the moment he studied the lie of the land. What a wonderful place for thieves to work and hide! It was not clear to him yet how they got the cattle over the rough ridge if they did so at all. Nevada inclined to the opinion that they boldly drove cattle up the whole length of the canyon. If this theory was correct the cowboys had not, for some strange reason, cared to track them. For that would have been easy for even novices at trailing. The canyon, however, afforded most effective places for ambush where a few determined men with rifles could hold back ten times their number.

“Pard, I see cattle,” whispered Nevada, who was using the glass. “By thunder!... An’ I’m a son-of-a-gun if they aren’t wearin’ the Ai brand. A number one, the cowboys say. Amos Ide! Your dad.”

Ben was so amazed and excited that it took moments for him to verify Nevada’s statements. But at length the glass proved these beyond all doubts.

“Heavens!” he gasped, staring at Nevada.

That worthy was smiling at him.

“Shore luck’s comin’ our way. What do you think of Modoc now?”

“Nevada, let’s ride further on, so we can see past this bluff that sticks out.”

“Reckon we ought to be careful,” warned his companion. “If that Hall outfit sights us, it’ll spoil our plan.”

But Ben was eager to reconnoitre, believing that because of the distance it would be safe. They rode back off the rim, around rough broken rock, through brush and patches of cedar, to another open stretch. Here they sighted upward of two hundred head of cattle, grazing along a slope and on into the green timber.

“Look!” whispered Nevada, suddenly. “Smoke!... Down this way, Ben.”

“I see. That’s from a camp fire,” replied Ben, excitedly. “Shore it is.... An’, Ben, it reminds me that Modoc told us to keep watchin’ across the canyon for him. We plumb forgot. Gimme the glass. Shore he could see us when we couldn’t see him.”

Nevada levelled the glass and took careful survey of the opposite side, beginning well up toward a point above the cattle. Ben watched in a mounting suspense. Suddenly the cowboy steadied the glass, fixed it, and remained motionless.

“I see Modoc... Straight across — back from the rim. The darned Injun sees us. Talk aboot eyesight!... Ben; he’s wavin’ us back from the rim — pointin’ down.... Hell! he means Hall’s outfit has seen us — or they’re goin’ to. Let’s get back pronto.”

Quickly they rode back out of sight from possible gazers in the depths of the canyon. Then, dismounting, they located Modoc again. Ben took the glass and soon satisfied himself that the Indian was trying to communicate important information. Ben watched closely. Modoc’s signs were emphatic and picturesque. Most of his gestures indicated something unusual going on down below.

“Nevada, I believe Modoc means they’ve seen us. He points down — down — then sweeps his arm away. Let’s crawl to the rim.”

Cautiously they wormed their way to a point behind some brush where, lying flat, they could look over without fear of being seen. But a long keen scrutiny of slopes, weathered rocks, and green groves of trees failed to reward them with any more than the pale column of blue smoke. When again Ben searched the rim opposite for Modoc, he finally caught a glimpse of him riding away into the timber.

“Modoc’s riding off, Nevada. What you make of that?”

“Darn if I know what. I’m afraid they seen us. Reckon we’ll find out pronto. ‘Cause they won’t know who or how many men are after them. Shore they wouldn’t risk headin’ out that canyon pass, an’ it’s a safe bet they won’t stay down there.”

“Oh, it’s too bad if we let them see us,” said Ben, poignantly. “I’m to blame. I was in too big a hurry.”

Then they watched in silence for several more moments, which for Ben were fraught with growing bitter regret. What an opportunity! It sickened him to think of failure. They must go on despite this blunder.

“By golly! I see them, Ben!” whispered Nevada, excitedly, stretching a long finger. “Right under us — that thin place — where you can see through the trees.... Look sharp. One — two — three — four riders.... An’ a pack-hoss. They shore throwed that pack quick, unless they was ready.... Do you see, Ben?”

“Yes. I’ve counted five men, but only one pack. Nevada, they’re in a hurry.”

“Shore. They seen us an’ they scared. You can always tell men that are runnin’ away. Least I can, ‘cause I’ve been there myself.”

“What’s to be done?” sharply rejoined Ben. “Let’s head them off.”

“Cain’t do it from this side. Bet a million they’ll go down that branch canyon. If they do, Modoc will sure keep tabs on them.”

“Maybe it’s not so bad, after all.”

“Ben, in a minute they’ll pass even with us,” returned Nevada, forcibly. “I’ve an idea. They don’t know how many there are of us. Let’s empty both our Winchesters, then our guns, fast an’ jerky like. It’s ‘most a thousand yards down there. We cain’t hit nothin’. But heahin’ a lot of bullets will make them think there’s a whole outfit of sheriffs an’ cowboys. That’ll scare them bad. An’ we’ll stick to their tracks.”

“Come on,” replied Ben, cocking his rifle.

When the dark figures of horsemen showed through the thinned-out place in the timber below, Ben and Nevada fired a volley of thirty-two shots in a very few seconds. The walls of the canyon gave the reports a strange thundering volume.

“Look at ’em run!” exulted Nevada, in grim satisfaction, holding aloft his smoking gun. “Out of sight already. Scared. By golly! it worked. Now let’s watch. Bet they run down that branch canyon.”

“Nevada, wasn’t that great?” whispered Ben, huskily, as he laid his gun down to cool. “I swear I hit one of them. He lurched in his saddle.”

“Wal, it ain’t likely, but you might of. Shore I hope so. Now look sharp.”

In a few moments they were rewarded by sight of a string of riders scattered over some distance, entering the mouth of the branch canyon. A pack-horse, running wild, furnished proof of the difficulties the rustlers were having.

“Left their beds behind,” said Nevada, gleefully. “Reckon Bill Hall has had such an easy time that he forgot what bullets sounded like. Look at ’em go. Someone behind the pack-hoss now.”

The riders disappeared over a rise in the grassy slope of the canyon mouth, and soon reappeared on an open level into the canyon. Suddenly a heavy rifle report rang out, from the wall above them.

“You heah that? Modoc’s forty-five!” cried Nevada, beside himself with delight. “He figgered us, an’ he waited till they got by.... Bow! — Bang! — Spow! Listen to that big gun! Sounds like a cannon. An’ say, boy, where’s the rustlers?”

“They broke and run,” replied Ben, just as excited as Nevada. “Listen to Modoc shoot!... Six — seven — eight — nine — ten! And now the echoes in that narrow canyon! Can’t tell the difference.”

“We shore made a hell of a racket,” replied Nevada. “They’re runnin’ like a lot of scared jack rabbits. Bet they think there’s an outfit on each side of the canyon.”

“It was fun, by gosh! and maybe it was good,” declared Ben. “But what next?”

“Back to camp for us,” answered Nevada, rising. “Let’s load our guns just for luck. An empty gun ain’t much use. It’s a long ride back to camp. We cain’t do nothin’ with these cattle down heah. But, Ben, mebbe we’ll have to prove things. Gimme your scarf. It’s got your initials on. I’ll tie it heah, so if need be we can prove we sighted your dad’s cattle from this point. Least we can show we was heah. An’ you bet if we was rustlin’ them cattle we’d be down there.”

“Nevada, they’ve left some of their outfit in camp, sure and certain. Oughtn’t we get it?”

“No time. That’d take a whole day. Shore we want to rustle back to camp an’ have light packs ready so when Modoc comes we can leave pronto. Wonder where that branch canyon runs. Might be good for us, an’ might be bad. Modoc will know. But one thing shore. Bill an’ his gang are makin’ for low country where water’s scarce. He’s goin’ to be out of luck.”

It took three hours of hard riding to get down to the valley where they had crossed from the other side. Cattle tracks appeared more significant now. Probably Hall had not massed his stolen stock into a herd until he got into the canyon.

Ben and Nevada rode up the far slope, and surmounting it they took the crest of it and went down till they had to cross another canyon and another ridge; and this kind of hard going continued for miles, at last to lead out upon the descent to their camp, which they reached at dark.

Modoc was there, with a warm supper waiting, the horses fed, and part of the outfit packed.

“Injun son-of-gun!” was Nevada’s lusty encomium.

Ben shook hands with Modoc in a manner that made speech unnecessary. Nevada, however, was seldom deprived of the power to talk.

“Modoc, we shore was a couple of wooden-haided scouts,” he said, scornfully. “Ben for givin’ us away an’ me for lettin’ him do it. But it happened so darn quick, soon as we hit that part of the canyon where it haids out to the pass. Wal, I’m damn sorry, for you did a wonderful job.”

“No cause for sorry. Heap good,” replied Modoc, with his gleaming grin.

“What you mean?” shrilly queried the cowboy, his face lighting.

“Hall take wrong canyon. Best way out down big canyon. He thinks lots men shoot — ride — hold ’em up. So he take little canyon. No way out till Mule Deer Lake. More twenty miles. Rough like lava beds. Hard on hoss. No water. No grass. Hall be more bad off when reach Mule Deer Lake. He be close ranch, but no dare go. Have go Modoc caves for water. We track ’em — ketch ’em like hosses.”

That was a very lengthy speech for the Indian, who never used unnecessary words. The importance of it, however, and the satisfaction he evinced, must have been accountable. Ben had never before heard anything from Modoc to compare with this for length and content. He had never known the Indian to make a single blunder in calculations that pertained to matters of the wild country. He had stated he would find the rustlers; now he avowed they would catch them. For lack of suitable expression Ben smacked the Indian’s shoulder with a strong hand.

“One Hall man crippled,” announced Modoc. “You must shot him. He got behind. Me see ’em look back — yell — make sign he come quick. But he no ride fast long.”

At this juncture Nevada nearly knocked the breath out of Ben.

“Had a hunch — this very minnit,” he yelled. “We’re goin’ to get Hall daid or alive. No matter which. If we kill him we can prove he stole your dad’s cattle.”

“Let’s cool off — eat supper — see what’s to do,” replied Ben. “We go quick,” said the Indian, quietly. “Take extra hoss — lots grub — lots water — lots grain.”

“Modoc, old chief, you an’ me belong to the same tribe of trackers,” returned Nevada. “An’ we’re shore goin’ to track that outfit day an’ night.”

“Leave the rest of our horses and outfit here?” queried Ben, dubiously. “I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I. But we gotta do it, Ben. Reckon we don’t run much risk, way up heah. I’ll tie Blacky on a long rope on the best bit of grass an’ water heah. The other hosses will hang round.”

Between them they overruled Ben’s reluctance and unaccountable sense of calamity. Finally he analysed it as a personal and intimate reaction regarding the beautiful wild stallion. When he was persuaded of this he acquiesced readily, wondering at his strange contradictions of nature. Would he not make a terrible blunder some day through his passion for wild horses?

In less than an hour they were in the saddle, Modoc leading the way, with Ben and Nevada attending to pack-horses and extra saddle horses. They carried two ten-gallon water bags for the animals and a smaller one for their own needs. Ben felt assured they could make a trip to the Modoc caves without grave risk.

During the early part of the night the travel was slow, but as soon as the moon rose they made up for lost time. Modoc had departed from the trails, and Ben did not know where he was, except that the stars said westward. The hours passed swiftly like the miles and before Ben realised either time or distance the stars had faded, the moon was paling in the grey of dawn. When daylight came Ben looked down upon the dreary scene of the drab basin where Mule Deer Lake gleamed with its colour like an evil eye.

At the foot of the slope Ben and Nevada halted while the Indian rode out to cross the canyon mouth in search of tracks. He did not get half-way across before he waved his arm, then pointed toward the sheet of green-and-yellow water. Ben and Nevada headed their horses in the direction, soon to become aware of a rank odour of rotting flesh. Presently they espied carcases scattered here and there around the lake, and upon closer view were amazed to see that they were deer. Driven by terrible thirst, the deer had drunk freely of this poison water and had foundered and died.

Modoc pointed to horses’ tracks leading to the edge of the vile pond at one point and another, as if different horses had approached the water only to turn or be dragged away.

“No hoss drink,” said Modoc, and he trotted round the lake to find the tracks of Hall’s outfit heading north. They had passed the lake not many hours before. Ben argued that it might be as well for them to travel a little slower, so as to give the outlaws no inkling that they were so closely pursued. Whereupon they rested in the first patch of sage, ate something themselves, gave the horses grain and water, and changed saddles. Soon they were on the move again with the dry fragrant sage and pine-scented wind in their faces and the green-stepping forest rising before them.

At sundown they made camp in the pines.

“Can we trail them over the pumice and the pine needles?” queried Ben, ever anxious.

“Ben, I could do that myself,” replied Nevada. “Slow, mebbe, but I shore could. An’ Modoc will see their tracks without even gettin’ off his hoss. Ben, it’s all up with this Hall outfit.”

“But Hall might lie in wait for us now. Shoot us from some thicket.”

“Shore he might. But it ain’t likely. He never would figger anyone this close on his trail. We’ve done some all-fired ridin’, an’ made short cuts, too. Nope, he’s campin’ somewheres within five miles of us now an’ never dreamin’ we’re close. All we gotta do is stick to the Indian. I won’t lose a wink of sleep.”

“We better stand watch, hadn’t we, turn about?”

“Reckon we had, come to think of that. Don’t want a hoss to slip a halter at this stage.”

Next morning proved that Hall was taking some pains to make his trail less plain, and he would have bothered an ordinary tracker. The Indian, however, lost no time.

“Crippled man no ride like friends,” said Modoc, pointing to irregular disturbances of the pine-needle mats. “He no care. He sick. He make tracks.”

This tracking was of a nature to swallow up the hours. Ben was set and cool now that the chase appeared to be nearing an end. He knew that Modoc calculated to come upon the rustlers at their first camp in or near one of the caves where water was to be found. This was a wise move, Ben thought, because Hall might start next morning for the high lava mountains where game and water were abundant.

About the middle of the afternoon, Modoc, who had ridden quite far in the lead, waited for his followers, and when they came up he announced: “Me see ‘em. Ride slow. Help crippled man. He about ready drop. They stop first cave where water. Me know.”

“How far is it, Modoc?” queried Ben, in a tense whisper, gazing round at the waving ridges of timbered pumice, as if to calculate his own estimate of the distance to the outcropping lava. It struck him that this was not far.

“Long walk. Little ride,” replied Modoc. “Me walk. You lead hoss. No make noise. Look round good.”

Silently Ben and Nevada watched the short, squat Indian glide through the forest. He was as much at home here as the wild creatures. He made no more noise than a bird, and always he appeared to be screened by tree trunk or shrub or pine thicket. When he had drawn away some three or four hundred yards, almost out of sight, Ben and Nevada rode slowly on, just fast enough to keep him in view.

Thus they slowly climbed the white, green-patched, pine-barred ridges of grey pumice, until they reached a point where Modoc turned downhill. Soon Ben saw the black-and-red edges of lava, marring the soft beauty of the forest and revealing its sinister nature. Small pits, full of pine cones and needles, became common and soon dark apertures showed under outcropping ledges of lava. They had reached the edge of the caves.

“Ben, she’s shore gettin’ hot,” whispered Nevada. “Just look at that Injun! Ain’t he grand? I’ll bet you a hoss he sees them now. I’m powerful afraid I’m itchin’ to throw a gun.”

“You shoot when I tell you,” ordered Ben.

“But, darn it, pard, you might be a week late! I’m in the habit of thro win’ a gun—”

“Sssschh!” whispered Ben, gripping Nevada’s arm. “Modoc is making signs.”

“Wal, I seen him. What was I talkin’ aboot?”

“Nevada, I believe he means for us to tie our horses and come to him.”

As Ben spoke Nevada was already off his horse, hitching the halter of his led horse to a sapling. Ben followed suit. Then they tied their saddle horses, and lastly Modoc’s. Ben felt a clutch on his arm and he turned to meet eyes like black diamonds on fire.

“Pard, this will be new for you,” he whispered, hoarsely.

“Remember we’re after men who’d kill you on sight — shoot you in the back.”

“I savvy, Nevada,” replied Ben. “But my orders are not to kill if we can hold them up.”

“Shore. Reckon they’ll be better for us alive than daid. We’ll make Bill Hall talk.... Come on now, easy.”

Ben was panting when he reached the side of the crouching Indian. Before them the forest was level, with pines scattered about in stately aloofness. Scarcely a hundred rods out there in the open showed a brush-fringed depression that surely led to a cave. Ben did not recall this one, though there were so many that he might or might not have seen it.

“Good. Cave me know,” whispered Modoc, with dark impressiveness. “Little water all time. Cave deep. Other hole far.” Here the Indian made signs that the other entrance or end of this cavern was some hundred yards off in the woods, at the edge of that level bench. “Hall no get there quick.”

“Did they go down?” asked Ben with a leap in his blood. “Yes. Lead hoss an’ hold crippled man. They about down now; soon hoss drink — then come up for grass. Modoc think best run quick — hood ’em up.”

“Ahuh. Now you’re talkin’, Injun,” ejaculated Nevada, looking to the breech of his rifle.

“How about the other hole?” queried Ben, sharply, tightening his belt.

“Hole far. No get there quick. Me go after little. Roll rock — shut hole up.”

“Is there only one trail down into this hole? And on this side?”

“Yes, same as wild-hoss trap. Good,” replied the Indian. “Come on, then. Not so fast. Don’t get out of breath. If we meet them coming out — hold them up.”

Despite his warning, the agile Indian and the long-legged rider covered ground rapidly, so that Ben had to run fast to keep up with them. His skin felt tight and wet, tingling underneath, and his feet seemed to have no weight at all. They reached the brush and kneeling abreast crawled quickly to peep over into the hole. Ben saw black lava very steep, directly opposite; then to his right a wide shelving cavern, the floor of which slowly descended toward a large dark opening.

“Seen the last hoss go down,” whispered Nevada, who had been first to peep over the rim. “An’ heah’s the trail — pretty dam narrow an’ steep. Made to order.... An’, Ben, look at that pack. The size of it! Not enough grub there to feed a jack rabbit for a week.”

“It is pretty small,” whispered Ben, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. “Maybe they had another pack.”

“Nope. Only one. That’s it. Aw, how easy! Aw, how slick! Aw, shame to take the money!... Now, Ben Ide, you listen.” He changed, suddenly, to a fierce whisper. “I don’t see that crippled fellar. Mebbe he’s too far back under this side. ‘Cause shore they wouldn’t pack him way down to the water. He’s layin’ heah, somewhere. Now we’ll let them get their drink an’ come up. We want them hosses to run up out of heah. Men can eat hoss flesh, you know. I’ve done it. Wal, it’s pretty shore the hosses will come up first. We’ll wait an’ see how the men foller. Mebbe we can hold them up. But the place ain’t good for that. Anyway, we’ll begin shootin’ pronto, to scare the hosses out. Then we’ve got Hall abso-lute-tel-lee.” Ben had no fault to find with Nevada’s plan for the finish. It looked perfect. The rustlers were trapped in a place that one wide-awake guard could hold indefinitely. Ben could scarcely choke down his emotion. In the silence of suspense that ensued he heard faint hollow voices from the dark aperture — ring of iron shoe on lava — snort of horse — voice of man. He listened with strained ears, holding his breath. How interminably the moments dragged! Modoc lay as quietly relaxed as if this were rest. Nevada was whispering to himself. At last the crack of hoofs rang oftener and louder. Ben saw shadows back in the hole. They emerged. Then six horses clamped over the rough lava floor and out upon the soft pumice, where their hoofs scarcely made a sound.

Ben quivered slightly at sight of another shadow. It merged into a man — short, heavy-bodied, dark-garbed, with face hid by black slouch hat.

“Hey, Bill,” called a weak voice, from directly under where the watchers crouched, “I heerd somethin’ above.”

“What’d ye hear?” demanded Hall, stopping short to whip out a gun. Shadows appeared behind him, growing clear.

“Sounded like footsteps back on top — an’ then whisperin’,” replied the other.

Suddenly Nevada’s body strung as if he meant to leap.

“HANDS UP!” he roared, in stentorian voice.

Hall’s answer was to shoot and leap in one swift action. It carried him out of sight behind the shelving edge of the cavern. A bullet hit the branch above Ben’s head and, spang, it sped off into the forest. Nevada began to fire as rapidly as he could work the lever of his Winchester. Then Modoc chimed in with his heavy gun. Answering shots rang from below. The horses stampeded, and snorting in terror, plunging and pounding, they crowded up the trail, raising a cloud of dust, under which they fled into the forest. Ben reserved his rifle fire. He heard the bullets of his comrades spotting on the walls of the cavern, and the whiz and zip of the bullets from the rustlers. These were coming uncomfortably close. Ben drew back, and hauled Modoc and then Nevada out of danger.

That ended the shooting. Modoc calmly reloaded. Nevada began to take shells from his belt, while he looked with bright eyes at Ben.

“Pard, time of my life!” he said. “You know I hate to shoot for keeps an’ this is fun. Now, I’ve got a big hunk of lava picked out, a little way past the haid of the trail. I’ll crawl round where I can see down an’ be safe behind cover. You lay low heah till I call.”

“Me go,” whispered Modoc, and glided away noiselessly after Nevada like a snake.

Ben remained where he had last crouched. He could see part of the cavern floor, but nothing of the shelf under which the rustlers were hidden. Turning to look the other way, he watched Nevada and Modoc crawl to positions behind a bulge of lava on the rim. It was a stand that surely commanded the whole situation.

“Hey, Hall,” yelled Nevada, in a ringing voice that corroborated just what Ben had decided, “got you daid to rights!”

“Who’n the hell are you?” came in rough, hoarse query.

“Me? Aw, I’m only one of a big outfit. Sheriffs, deputies, cowboys, Injuns — an’ one gunman I shore know of.”

“Wal, what you want?”

“Surrender. Throw your guns out heah where I can see them. An’ walk out one at a time, with hands up.”

“Ahhaw! An’ s’pose we don’t?” queried the thick voice.

“Last an’ only chance you get,” retorted Nevada. “We’ll shore shoot on sight.”

“Shoot an’ be damned,” growled the rustler, and a low angry hum of voices attested to argument among his men.

“Heah’s this crippled pard of yours, right in sight. Shall I bore him?”

“Shoot him an’ be damned — if you’re that kind of a sheriff.”

“Wal, reckon I’ll let him off. Once more, now, will you surrender an’ save yourselves an’ us a lot of trouble? ‘Cause we shore can starve you out.”

The answer to this sally of Nevada’s was a medley of cursing that Ben had never heard approached in all his life. It made his heart beat high, his blood run riot, for it was proof of the extremity of the rustlers. It lasted several moments, then gradually died down.

“Wal, how aboot it?” drawled Nevada.

“Wal, Mister Sweet Voice,” drawled Hall, in scornful imitation, “we ain’t agreed down heah, but I say come down an’ git us!”

CHAPTER XIII

NEVADA ACCEPTED THE rustler chief’s ultimatum as if it was exactly what he had expected, and he wasted no more words in that quarter. Calling Ben over to his side, he said:

“Hall knows, if his men don’t, that we’ve got them corralled. Now let’s put our haids together.”

“Question of time and close watch,” replied Ben, thoughtfully.

“Yep. Some one of us must have an eye on that cave hole day an’ night.”

“Modoc, you say there’s a back door to this cave?”

“Yes. Me shut ’em so Hall no get out.”

“Good! When you do that fetch our horses and outfit up. We’ll camp right here under the pines. Then take the horses to another cave, water them, and hobble them on the best grass near.”

Without a word the Indian crawled away from the rim, and presently rising he glided away through the forest.

“Ben, did we fetch any nails?” asked Nevada.

“Sure. There’s a handful of spikes in the horseshoe bag.”

“Wal, we’ll cut poles an’ make some kind of contraption with sharp ends an’ jam it tight in the narrow part of the trail. Hall might try to slip out at night or charge us. But we’ll block that. Fact is, he cain’t climb out one darn place but this heah trail. Talk aboot luck! Why, it’s smotherin’ us!”

“You think he’ll surrender?”

“Absolute-tel-lee,” replied Nevada, lingering over his best-beloved word. “Reckon, though, he’ll take time. He’ll work every dodge. Might risk a fight before the grub gives out. But when it does give out he shore won’t last long.”

“You figure he can get the pack of grub after night?”

“Easy. Though I might heah them. An’ I’m pretty shore I seen a stack of firewood when I first peeped over the rim. Reckon we could see it better from heah. But I don’t advise playin’ giraffe.”

“Modoc never made a mistake I can recall,” mused Ben, as if trying to assure himself of this phenomenal good fortune.

“Ben, we’re gamblin’ on the Indian,” replied Nevada, with serious certainty. “It’s a thousand to one we’ll win.”

“We must, Nevada. It means all the world to us both.”

“Your dad an’ Ina’s dad are drawin’ bad cards this very minnit,” declared the cowboy, almost fiercely. “An’ Setter — damn him! it’s a worse deal for him.”

“Even if Judd and his man should track us here — we couldn’t lose.”

“Hope they do. We’ll let them go down an’ arrest the rustlers. Haw! Haw!”

“About the other hole to this cave. Could Modoc alone roll stones big enough to hold these men in?”

“Trust that Injun, Ben. But we’ll see to satisfy ourselves. I reckon Modoc will cover the other hole with poles or brush, an’ then so many chunks of lava that a hundred men couldn’t budge them.”

Ben’s fears one by one were allayed.

“All now depends on our vigilance. We must not be caught napping.”

“Huh! I could lay heah twelve hours at a stretch an’ never bat an eye. Ben, we’ll keep two of us watchin’ all the time, while the other fellar sleeps an’ gets water an’ grub, looks after the hosses an’ so forth. Reckon as soon as Modoc comes with the outfit an’ tends to the hosses we’d better take turns on makin’ somethin’ to close this trail.”

The hours of this eventful day passed swiftly, and there was never a moment that two pairs of sharp eyes were not watchful.

Toward sunset Nevada smelled smoke, and as Modoc had not yet started a camp fire for them, the only inference was that the rustlers had one down in the cave. It was Nevada’s assumption presently, that as they would not need or want a camp fire without their supplies, they were burning wood for torches.

The night fell and Ben and Nevada held watch together behind the bulge of lava along the rim. Soon the hole was as black as pitch. Nevada heard something which caused him to touch Ben lightly. Straining his ears, Ben caught a faint scraping sound, which he decided was caused by canvas sliding over a rough surface.

“They’re getting their grub, all right,” said Ben.

For answer Nevada rose on one knee and rapidly fired several shots down into the black void. Ben, lying flat at the right of the bulge of lava, with his rifle over the rim, saw bright red flashes of answering shots from the vigilant rustlers. Instantly he aimed at the point where he had seen the last flash. A lusty yell attested to the fact that he had come dangerously close to a man if he had not actually hit one. Then silence ensued.

“Say, did you heah them bullets whiz past?” queried Nevada grimly.

“No.”

“Wal, I did. One on each side of me. Hall was watchin’ an’ he shot quicker’n lightnin’. An’ say, mebbe I didn’t duck! — Ben, I reckon that sizes Hall up, huh?”

“Don’t take any more chances,” replied Ben. “We’ll play it safe.”

At midnight Modoc relieved Ben, and when dawn came Ben cooked and carried breakfast to his watching comrades, then relieved Nevada so he could have his turn at sleep. The rustlers had secured their pack of supplies, and had also removed the crippled one of their number back into the cave. This established the siege. It required infinite vigilance on the part of the besiegers, but the stake was so tremendous that they never lost for a moment their keen zest and mounting hope. The hours passed swiftly. Each man took his turn at camp fire duties, but Modoc attended to the horses and carried water. On the third day he returned to camp with the information that he had caught and hobbled the rustlers’ horses.

“Aw-aw-aw!” jubilated Nevada to this good news, and he gave Ben a dig in the ribs that hurt for hours.

On the afternoon of this day, Ben, following careful direction from Modoc, found the place where the Indian had blocked the far outfit to the cave. The aperture must have been small and Modoc had covered it with tons of lava. If there were indeed no other entrances and exits to this particular cavern, Hall and his gang must soon surrender or fight. And in a fight the odds were all against them. Nevada’s plan for blocking the trail appeared wholly effective, and if the rustlers rushed it at night they would only get shot for their pains. Ben had only one anxiety and this was that there might be another exit unknown to Modoc. Upon returning to camp he put this forcibly to the Indian.

“Mebbe so,” replied Modoc. “But far-away far. No Indian find yet.”

“Huh! You can bet your boots it’s far,” said Nevada. “Reckon they’ve searched every corner of this cave.”

During the first stage of their vigil Ben and his comrades had ample evidence of the presence of their prisoners. The smell of smoke, and often the blue smoke itself, emerged from the cave. Voices sometimes penetrated to the outside, and more rarely the sound of an axe splitting wood. Several times on the darkest nights faint noises down in the hole brought rifle shots from the watchful guard. Indeed, Nevada often fired his rifle by way of assuring the trapped rustlers how keen were their captors. The longer, however, that Hall waited to attempt escape by the trail the keener Nevada bade his allies watch. Hall’s apparent inaction and his incredible patience invited extra suspicion.

Two weeks passed by. Ben experienced amaze when he counted up the little sticks he had laid aside, one for each passing day. Yet he might have realised the approach of autumn in the cold mornings and the changing hues of vine and oak leaves. Modoc reported thick ice on the water in the cave from which he supplied their needs. Another proof of the changing season was the fact that deer were coming down from the heights. Modoc shot one from the camp. Ben saw deer often, and heard them every night. They knew the trail to the cave where the rustlers hid.

One afternoon Modoc returned from his daily visit to the horses, and he wore a sombre visage.

“Wal, Injun, what’s up?” queried Nevada.

Ben gazed at his faithful comrade with a slow sinking of his heart.

“Bad,” said the Indian, slowly. “Modoc no want tell.”

“Don’t keep anything from me,” returned Ben.

“Red stallion drink at our trap cave.”

“Red stallion! You mean California Red?” shouted Ben, starting up wildly.

“Yes.”

“Hey, you dam redskin, what’d you tell him for?” yelled Nevada, furiously.

“Me always tell boss,” replied the Indian.

“Aw, Lord! if that ain’t hard luck,” wailed Nevada, suddenly falling back as if all was over.

Ben leaned on a trembling elbow to stare breathlessly at the Indian. One flash of thought, following his realisation of the wonderful truth that California Red had at last been driven to the caves, was sufficient to warn him that if he vacillated a single moment he would be lost. It wrenched him to make a decision that would preclude any weak surrender to growing temptation.

“Modoc, take your axe — destroy that trap gate,” he said, hoarsely, and then without a word turned back to his watching task ‘Water’ most gone in hoss cave,” returned Modoc. “Soon California Red have go winter range.”

Ben did not reply, and strange to see, Nevada for another rare occasion had been rendered speechless. Resolutely Ben forced his mind to dwell upon other things. He knew it was not safe to think of California Red. But nothing except thought of Ina, which he had also prohibited himself, could keep him from longing memory of this noblest of wild horses. Therefore Ben admitted again to his consciousness the sweet face of Ina Blaine, her avowed love, her willing kisses. And then, though he stared at the black cave which held the rustlers, he thought only of this girl who had roused him to significant life.

The day came when neither sound nor smoke emerged from the doorway of Bill Hall’s cave refuge.

This stirred Ben and Nevada to conjecture. Had the rustlers used up all their wood? Why did they no longer speak aloud? Could it be possible they had at last found an exit from their hiding-place?

“Shore it’s a trick,” averred Nevada, stoutly. “Bet they’ll keep it up till they’re starved out. You see, Ben, it’s wearin’ on our nerves when we don’t heah or see them. Hall savvies that. He’s smart. Mebbe he thinks we cain’t stand uncertainty. I’ll agree it’s tough.”

“It doesn’t follow because they’re out of wood that they’re out of grub,” said Ben, ponderingly.

“Nope. An’ if Hall had any say with his men he’d shore make them eat light. But that’s our weakness. Waitin’ without knowin’. Some fellars would have to make shore by slippin’ down there. Not us! We’ll hang right heah.”

Ten more days passed by — days of slow, patient watching, with a gradually growing suspense. September had come. The sugar and coffee were gone. Ben and his allies were living on bread and meat and water, some parched corn and dried apples. But they did not suffer from that. Ben got to the point where he ate only once a day.

One morning the sun did not show. A grey pall of cloud had swept down from the heights. The cold air bore a suggestion of snow. Nevada was hopeful that the long drought would be broken. Ben echoed that wish. Modoc, however, said: “Mebbe so — not soon.” And toward evening the grey curtain broke and blew away.

More days passed, becoming interminable, endless. No sound or sign of the rustlers! It seemed impossible that they could be hidden down there still alive. But Ben, who suffered most under the strain, realised that it was probably easier for the besieged than the besiegers. Hall had no uncertainty. His only chances were for his captors to quit or else risk entering the cave.

Modoc discovered a hole in a lava bank some distance away, and he said it might have connection with the cave they were guarding. Ben had to see it. Leaving Nevada on the lookout, he followed Modoc through the forest, down over a grassy and pine-needle descent of lava to a wide shallow depression, almost a gorge in dimensions. Here Modoc led Ben to a small black hole. A cool wind blew from it, proving that it had another opening somewhere. Ben listened intently beside the hole for a long time. Absolute silence was the fruit of his effort.

“Modoc, you go back to Nevada,” he said, finally, and he leaned there until the Indian had disappeared from sight. Then removing his coat and boots, and with gun in hand, he crawled into the cave, careful to be absolutely noiseless.

He felt that the floor consisted of large slabs of lava, too heavy to move with his weight. Therefore he was able to proceed silently. The roughness of the lava, however, hurt his hands and knees. When he turned round he found he had progressed only forty or fifty feet from the opening, and it had seemed that he had come a long way. Looking backward enabled him to see the grim walls near the hole. They appeared to open and spread into an enormous cave.

Crawling on very cautiously, he attained at length another fifty feet. Then he crouched in pitch blackness. The air was cold and dark. Behind him the aperture where he had come in looked small and far away. He reasoned that it would never do to go out of sight of this exit. Besides, the floor began to slant downhill, and the rocks of lava to become small enough to stir and grate under him. Still he kept on, intense in his desire to hear, if possible, something of the rustlers. The door at the back shrunk to a pin-point.

A few more feet, Ben thought, would be all he could dare. But he did not progress even another yard. Suddenly his free hand reached into a void. He lowered it, and as it found no support he slipped and almost lost his balance. Holding tight with his knees and toes and one hand, he moved the other, to feel that he had come to an abrupt break in the lava floor. Gradually he worked back a little, then relaxed to pant and tingle. Cold sweat broke out upon him. What a ghastly black pit!

When he recovered he detached a piece of lava from a slab and dropped it over into the abyss. Presently he heard it rattle, far below. That hole was deep, and evidently straight down. Other bits, thrown in different directions, apparently proved a precipice of no small dimensions. One piece of lava alighted in water. Ben assured himself that no human beings could ever have escaped from there without help. This gave him such relief and joy that he thought the risk he had incurred was well worth while.

Then he sat up in more comfortable posture and gave himself over to intense listening. Again he felt the cool wind, coming from somewhere. It was dry. It smelled of lava. The silence was deathly, and the blackness was appalling. Ben endured them for perhaps an hour — surely one of the broadening hours of his life. He might as well have been in the bowels of the earth. He was in a deep lava cave that had existed for perhaps a million years. Nature was most mysterious and inscrutable. How easy there in the terrible solitude and silence, in the impenetrable night, to believe in God!

Laboriously Ben crawled back to the exit and out. When had he ever been so grateful for sunlight, blue sky, green trees? He pitied Hall and his men. They were indeed indomitable.

Ben returned to camp and the unwearied Nevada. “Say,” he began, reprovingly, “you stayed away long enough for me to get plugged.”

“Pard, I crawled down into a cave. Got my belly full of caves — don’t you forget! But I’m satisfied Hall and his gang are here yet.”

“Shore. An’ I’ll bet we heah from them pronto.”

At dawn next morning Ben came on watch to relieve Modoc.

“Pard, I shore heahed a boot down there,” whispered Nevada.

Ben had no time to utter a glad reply. From the black depths of the cave pealed a husky voice.

“Hey, up thar!”

“Good mawnin’, Bill,” yelled Nevada, clutching his rifle and leaning over it.

“You still up thar?”

“Shore as shootin’. Just settlin’ down now to real waitin’.”

“Wal, damn you — we’re starved out. What’s your terms?”

“No terms. Bill. Come walkin’ out — one of you at a time — an’ pitch your guns way ahaid of you on the ground.”

“You agree not to shoot?” went on the hoarse voice.

“Shore not, unless you get tricky,” replied Nevada, sharply.

“All right.... Got any grub?”

“Shore have. Venison steak an’ hot biscuits an’ black coffee with cream an’ sugar — mashed potatoes an’ gravy — an’ apple pie—”

“Shut up, you lyin’ Southerner,” shouted Hall, huskier than ever. “We surrender an’ we’re comin’.”

Ben’s piercing gaze caught a moving shadow that merged into the burly form of the rustler leader. He strode fearlessly into the light of the shelving cavern, carrying his gun by the barrel. When he reached the open he pitched the gun into the middle of the hole. Bareheaded, unkempt, dirty, and haggard, he looked the terrible havoc of those weeks.

“Fine, Bill,” shouted Nevada. “Step out an’ over to your right. Stick your hands up.... There. Now call out your men, one at a time.”

“Come out, Jenks, an’ do the same as me,” called the leader.

A tall, ragged ruffian appeared, and flinging his gun with an oath took a stand beside Hall, with gaunt, hungry face exposed to the light. The third form in line was a young stalwart man with blond locks and yellow beard. And the fourth was slight of build and as dark as a Mexican. The last came out slowly with a limp, proving manifestly that he was the crippled rustler.

“Where’s your rifles?” queried Nevada, whose sharp eye did not miss anything.

“Down thar,” replied Hall, wagging his huge head toward the cave.

“Wal, let one fellar go back an’ pack them up an’ pile them with your other guns.”

This order was soon complied with, whereupon Nevada rose, rifle held in readiness, and told Ben and Modoc to remove the obstruction from the trail.

“Now, Hall, come up pronto,” continued Nevada. “An’, Ben, when he gets up you cover him with a gun, make him set down so Modoc can tie his feet.”

It seemed to the exultant and tingling Ben that in a very few moments the five rustlers sat with feet securely bound. What a ghoulish crew! Their ragged garb and unkempt hair and beards, their smoke-blackened, weary faces and hungry eyes, attested to the ordeal that had at last driven them to succumb “Jest three of you?” queried Hall, gruffly.

“Shore. What you want?” drawled Nevada. “But we got some outfits comin’. Ben, heah, is the son of the man whose cattle you had in Silver Canyon.”

“Hey, air you Ben Ide?” asked Hall, bending his evil, intelligent eyes upon Ben.

Ben nodded, not with any evident enthusiasm. It struck him that Bill Hall had heard of him.

“Wal, now you got us, what’re you a-goin’ to do?’’ demanded Hall, turning back to Nevada.

“Bill, you’re goin’ first to Hart Blaine’s ranch. We want you to face a fellar named Less Setter. Ever meet him?”

“Wal, I’m not gabbin’ about it now,” replied Hall.

“Ahuh. Shore there’s no hurry aboot talkin’. I’m a close-mouthed cuss myself.”

“All right. Feed us.”

“See heah. Hall. You’ve been out of grub for days?”

“Not more’n five or six. But we’re damn hungry.”

“Hadn’t you better go a little easy on eatin’ first oft? Stuffin’ yourself now might kill you. I’ve heard of starved men—”

“We’ll risk thet. Rustle some of thet grub you sang about.”

“Wal, we’re not goin’ to risk it, you bet,” declared Nevada. “But we’ll feed you a little — three times to-day. More tomorrow an’ then good square meals.”

Nevada’s next move was to replenish the camp fire. Ben went to his assistance. Modoc was dispatched to fetch up the rustlers’ guns and saddles, after which he was to go for the horses. While Nevada worked he kept close watch upon the five men. Ben caught Hall’s curious gaze fixed upon him more than once.

Excitement and strenuous labour, with the unexpected in hazard always impinging, made the ensuing hours like moments to Ben.

Not until he was in the saddle in the rear of a string of bound rustlers did he have leisure to see the actual evidences of this wonderful enterprise and to dwell upon the incredible good they represented to him. Then he soared to the blue skies. Toil and weariness were as if they had never been. He dared again to think of Ina — of the precious reward she would bestow upon him for this deed. To defeat that crafty Setter! To show Ina’s father what her lover was made of! To meet his own father and see him shamed and sorry! To keep his promise to his mother! These thoughts were sweet — sweeter than any that had ever engulfed him in irresistible emotion. He lived as many changes of them as he passed trees of the forest. His mind was full while he performed his duty as the rear guard of that cavalcade.

Nevada was leading the way and it was his dominant will in command. Ben felt content to obey orders.

“We’ll take a rest an’ eat at the edge of the woods,” Nevada had decided. “Feed the hosses all the grain left an’ empty the water bags. That’ll let us travel light. We’ll ride all night an’ get to Forlorn River by sun-up.”

Not long after dark they were on the move again and found cool travel by night much preferable to that by day.

Hall, the rustler leader, was loquacious and inclined to belittle the capture of his outfit. He did not address Nevada, but it was plain he wanted to talk with Ben. They trotted and walked the horses out across the flat sage country, and as the night wore on the air grew colder. Fortunately there was no wind; if there had been the riders, especially those with hands and feet bound, would have suffered severely. Ben wanted to talk to Hall, but had decided to wait until he had seen the rustler face Setter. Something would come of that.

They rode on and the night grew colder. White frost sparkled under the starlight. The sharp iron shoes of the horses rang with metallic clink on the stones. Modoc was far ahead with the pack-animals. Nevada rode in front of the rustlers, his rifle across his saddle, and every moment or so he would turn to look at them. Ben kept close behind Hall, who was the last in the string of bound riders.

Ben watched for the paling of the stars. When it came he was thrilled anew. Dawn was not far away. Soon he would be home, and then not far from the Blaine ranch and Ina.

Mule Deer Lake shone ghastly white in the wan starlight. It was frozen. The sight augmented Ben’s consciousness of cold, and it surprised him, too. But he reflected he had once seen ice on Forlorn River at an earlier date than this. Nature seemed relentless. The drought had been terrible, but now ice had been added. What would become of the deer, the cattle? It hurt him like physical torture to think of wild horses dying of thirst.

The stars paled in the grey dome. After a dark hour the east lightened and over the black ranges came the dawn. How bitterly cold!

Progress was very slow, not because of lagging horses, for they were in fine fettle, but owing to the gradual weakening of the injured rustler.

Bright daylight came while the cavalcade drew close to Ben’s ranch. They passed between the empty pasture and the frozen river. All the doors of the barn and the gates of the corral were open. Surely Frisbie had not done that. The cabin door, too, was open. Ben was about to declare himself forcibly when he saw Modoc rise in his stirrups as if to peer across the lake, then duck down quickly. Ben, sensing something most unusual, rode quickly by the rustlers to face Modoc, who had turned. Nevada was peeping over the rise of ground to the lake.

“What do you see?” demanded Ben.

“Wild red stallion — way out on ice,” replied the Indian, impressively.

“California Red.’... On THE ICE?” cried Ben, poignantly “Shore’s you’re born, pard,” returned Nevada, lowering himself into his saddle. “Only six hosses with him. The lake’s frozen ‘cept for circle in centre. They’re talcin’ a drink. Look!”

“No,” whispered Ben, but he had not the will to do what he divined he should. Raising himself in the stirrups, he peered over the edge of the bluff. Wild Goose Lake was white with ice, and everywhere tufts of bleached grass stood up. Far out, perhaps two miles, he espied horses. Wild! He knew the instant his eyes took in the graceful slim shapes, the flowing manes and tails, the wonderful posture of these horses.

California Red stood at the edge of the ice. He was not drinking. Even at that distance Ben saw the noble wild head high.

“Nevada, watch Hall,” said Ben, and fumbled at the leather thongs which secured his field-glass to the saddle. He loosened it, got it out of the case, levelled it. But his hands shook so he could see only blurred shapes. Fiercely he controlled himself and brought the round magnifying circle of glass to bear upon horse after horse, until California Red stood clear and beautiful.

Red as a flame! Wilder than a mountain sheep! Ben saw him clear and close, limned against the white ice, big and strong, yet clean-limbed as any thoroughbred racehorse. While his band drank he watched. To what extremity had he been brought by the drought!

Ben fell limp into his saddle. Any other time in his life but this! What irony of fate! But he knew in another flash that he could not pass by this opportunity, cost what it might.

“Well, pard, it’s shore tougher than any deal we ever got,” said Nevada, in distress. “California Red on the ice! We always dreamed we’d ketch him waterin’ on a half-froze lake, an’ lay a trap for him, or get enough riders to run him down.”

“We can catch him!” shouted Ben, hoarsely.

“Nope. We cain’t,” replied Nevada, tragically.

Ben felt something burst within him — a knot of bound emotion — or riot of blood — or collapse of will — he never knew what. But with the spring of a panther he was out of his saddle, confronting Nevada.

“We’ve got four men here. With us it makes seven!”

“Aw, my Gawd! Ben, you wouldn’t—”

“I would,” hissed Ben. “I’ll have that red horse. Say you’ll help me.”

“I’m damned if I will!” yelled Nevada, shrilly. His dark face grew dusky red and his eyes dilated.

“I never reminded you of your debt to me,” went on Ben, in swift inexorable speech. “I remind you now.”

“Hell, yes!” roared Nevada, “if you put it that way. But, you locoed idiot — I’ll never forgive you.”

“Lighten your horses — untie your lassoes,” ordered Ben, and then, drawing his clasp knife, he opened it and strode back to Hall. He knew that he was under the sway of a passion of power of which he had never before been aware. It made him unstable as water. At the same time it strung him to unquenchable spirit and incalculable strength.

“Hall, there’s a wild stallion out here on the ice. I’ve wanted him for years. If I promise to let you and your men go free will you help me catch him?”

Hall bent his shaggy head to peer the closer into Ben’s face, as if he needed scrutiny to corroborate hearing.

“Yes, I will,” he boomed.

Without more ado Ben cut his bonds and passed on to the next rustler. Soon he had released them all.

“You needn’t go,” he said to the cripple.

“If it’s all the same to you, I will,” replied this man, cheerfully. “I can’t ride hard, but I can yell an’ fill up a hole. I’ve chased wild horses.”

Ben ran back to his mount and with nimble fingers lightened his saddle, tightened the cinch, and untied his rope. The rustlers got off to stretch their legs.

“Cinch up,” he panted. “Nevada, take two men — and go around to the left. Keep out of sight. I’ll take — Hall and another man — with me. We’ll cross — the river. Modoc, you stay here — till we both show on the banks. Then ride in.... We’ll close in on Red slow.... Soon as he gets to running he’ll slip — on the ice.... He’ll fall and slide... That’ll demoralise him.... Rest — will be — easy!”

Nevada rode off with two of the men, while Ben, calling Hall and Jenks, wheeled back toward the barn and went down to the river. The ice cracked and swayed, but held the horses. Once across, Ben led the way at a swift gallop round to the west of the lake, keeping out of sight of the wild horses. When he reached a point far enough along the lake he swerved to the height of ground. As he surmounted it he saw Nevada with his two riders come into sight across the lake, and another glance showed Modoc, with his followers, emerging by the mouth of the river.

California Red was a mile out on the ice, coming directly toward Ben. His stride was a stilted trot, and he lost it at every other step. His red mane curled up in the wind. The six horses were strung out behind him. Discovering Ben, the stallion let out a piercing whistle and wheeled. Then his feet flew out from under him and he fell. Frantically he tried to rise, but his smooth hoofs on the slippery ice did not catch hold.

“Ah, my beauty!”’ yelled Ben, wildly, with all his might. “It’s no square chase — but you’re mine — you’re mine.”

The other wild tiorses wheeled without losing their footing, and soon drew from the slipping, sliding stallion. At last he got up on four feet and turned toward his band. It seemed that he knew he dared not run. At every step one of his hoofs slipped out from under him. Ben caught the yells of his helpers. They were running their horses down the sandy slope toward the ice. Another wild horse went down and then another. It was almost impossible for them to rise. They slid around like tops.

Meanwhile, swift as the wind, Ben was running his fast horse down to the lake, distancing his followers, who came yelling behind. Hall’s heavy voice pealed out, full of the wild spirit of the chase. Ben reached the ice. The sharp iron shoes of his horse cut and broke through the first few rods, but reaching solid ice, they held. Ben reined in to wait for the men to spread and form a circle. Nevada was far out on the ice now, and he had closed the one wide avenue to the west. Soon the eight riders had closed in to a half-mile arc, with the open lake as an aid.

California Red turned back from the narrowing gap between Nevada and the lake. When he wheeled to the west Modoc’s group left a gateway for the wild horses nearest. They plunged and ran and slid and fell — got up to plunge again, and at least earned their freedom. This left two besides the stallion on the ice. He appeared at terrible disadvantage. Wild and instinct with wonderful speed, he could not exercise it. The riders closed in. Nevada rode between Red and the open water. Another of the horses escaped through a gap.

“Close in, slow now,” bawled Ben, swinging the noose of his lasso.

The moment was fraught with a madness of rapture. How sure the outcome! Presently the great stallion would stampede and try to run. That was all Ben wanted. For when Red tried to run on that glassy ice his doom was sealed.

He was trotting here, there, back again, head erect, mane curled, tail sweeping a living flame of horse-flesh. Terror would soon master him. His snorts seemed more piercingly acute, as if he protested against the apparent desertion of his band.

“Farther around, Modoc,” yelled Ben. “Same for you, Nevada — on other side. Keep him in triangle.... Now, men, ride in — yell like hell. And block him when he runs.”

Suddenly the red horse gathered himself in a knot. How grandly he sprang! And he propelled his magnificent body into a convulsive run, with every hoof sliding from under him. Straight toward Ben he came, his nostrils streaming white, his hoofs cracking like pistol shots. It seemed that his wild spirit enabled him to overcome even this impossible obstacle of ice, for he kept erect until he was shooting with incomparable speed.

At the height of it he slipped, plunged on his side with a snort of terror, turned on his back, and as he slid with swift momentum over the ice, his hoofs in the air, Ben’s lasso uncurled like a striking snake. The noose fell over the forelegs and tightened.

Lusty yells from leather lungs! California Red had run into a rope. Ben hauled in his skilful horse. The great stallion flopped back on his side. The rope came taut to straighten out his legs, and stop him short. He could not rise. When he raised his beautiful head the Indian’s rope circled his neck. His race was run.

Nevada came trotting up, noose in hand, white of face and fierce of eye.

“Pard, he’s ruined us, but he’s worth it or I’m a livin’ sinner,” he shouted.

Ben gazed almost in stupefaction down upon the heaving graceful animal. California Red lay helpless, beaten, robbed of his incomparable speed. Every red line of him spoke to Ben’s thrilling soul.

“Wal, Ide,” boomed Bill Hall, slapping Ben on the shoulder, “I’m glad you ketched this grand hoss.... You’re a good sport. Put her thar!... If I had time I’d tell you somethin’. But I see riders comin’ along the lake an’ we must rustle.”

CHAPTER XIV

AS DAY AFTER day passed at the Blaine ranch, Ina watched and prayed for the return of her father. She dreaded the thought of Setter coming back to find her alone. She no longer feared him, but he could make the situation there most exasperating, if not actually distressing. Moreover, there was always the uncertainty.

Two of Blaine’s cowboys rode in with pack-horses for another week’s supplies. They reported a most unsatisfactory situation at the head of Forlorn River, and that in consequence Blaine was in bad temper. Marvie caught a few words not meant for his ears, to the effect that Strobel had conflicted with the cowboys.

Sunday, about noon. Setter arrived. It was Marvie who brought the news to Ina. She and the lad had grown closer than ever in the opposition to Less Setter and the forces that seemed bent upon destroying Ben Ide.

Ina fortified herself against something inevitable and disastrous. Her mother and Marvie were adequate protectors in a way but she could not be with either all the time. Marvie had his work and his play, and to have been deprived of his fishing would have broken his heart. Twice he had returned from Forlorn River with smashed fishing tackle and most extraordinary tales.

From the camp Ina kept pretty close watch on the ranch. She possessed a field-glass, which she brought to bear upon other places than Forlorn River. Setter passed under her sight several times that day, manifestly in serious council with the sheriff, Judd, and his deputy, Walker. From her tent Ina watched them, and after each look her resentment augmented. How she hated this sleek coarse man of intrigue!

Naturally she expected Setter to approach her sometime that afternoon or early evening. When he did not, she experienced relief, yet a sense of calamity. Marvie, who played eavesdropper outside Setter’s cabin an hour after dark, rather added to the complications of the case. He reported that Setter and the two officers talked endlessly, but too low for him to get at the drift of their conversation. Marvie protested, however, that they must be hatching some plot.

Next morning he tapped on Ina’s tent door while she was dressing. She peeped out. “Hello, early fisher bird! Are you after worms?”

“Naw, they’re snakes,” he retorted, with his bright smile. “Look, Sis. There goes Judd an’ Walker, with pack outfits. On the Forlorn River trail!”

After a moment’s survey of the grey waste beyond the ranch, Ina made out four horses headed down toward the lake.

“Wonder what they’re up to?” she mused.

“After Ben,” muttered Marvie, darkly. “An’ they’re goin’ to ransack Ben’s ranch before huntin’ him.... Ina, if you’ll lie to dad for me, case it’s necessary, I’ll ride around the other side of the lake an’ see what Judd is up to.”

“I’ll say I sent you and fight for you, Marvie. Go. Take my field-glass and keep out of sight,” she replied, resolutely.

An hour after breakfast, as had been her custom since her father’s absence, Ina went down to the ranch office. She had completed the small tasks he had grudgingly permitted her to undertake, but she did not let that keep her from going. Indeed, she needed to precipitate whatever it was that seemed inevitable.

As some of the ranch hands were always within call, the office was perhaps the safest place for Ina. Ina was sitting at her father’s desk with open record book before her and pen in hand when Setter’s frame filled the doorway.

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” he said, blandly.

Ina did not look up or reply, and went on writing.

Setter laughed and there was something in his laugh that rankled deep in Ina, dissipating indifference if not self-control. He advanced slowly and sat upon the desk near her.

“Ina, aren’t you goin’ to say good mornin’?” he went on, pleasantly.

“Not to you,” she replied, and rose to face him, outwardly composed. His appearance had vastly improved since she last saw him, though his features still bore the marks of the beating Ben had given him. There was visible, too, more of that strange confidence in his utter mastery of this situation. It inflamed Ina — baffled her — roused her to battle.

“Mr. Setter, will you please leave the office?” she requested coldly. “I’ve work, and I can’t do it with you here.”

“Why not get used to me?” he retorted, subtly.

“Nothing could induce me to.”

“Sharp of tongue this mornin’,” he muttered, eyeing her speculatively with his bold gaze. “What’s come over you?”

“My feelings are none of your business,” flashed Ina. “Will you get out of here?”

“No. An’ you can’t put me out,” he returned insolently. “If you’ve got to be told, this office belongs more to me than to Hart Blaine.”

Ina betrayed no surprise. This was precisely what she had expected and wanted to hear. Affronting this man might lead her into an embarrassing if not hazardous situation, but it certainly was productive of information.

“Indeed? But I think you’re a liar,” she said, just as insolently.

“It’s no lie,” he returned, louder, and his olive-skinned face began to take on a heated tinge. “I’ve got your father’s paper. The McAdam deal fell through. Amos Ide finally refuses the backing he promised. The Hammell bank holds Blaine notes for two hundred thousand. An’ when I say so they shut down on him. That’ll take his ranch, an’ I’ve got his cattle.”

“Well, assuming all this is true — what then?” queried Ina.

“You marry me or I’ll ruin him,” snapped Setter, leaning toward her.

“Mr. Setter, do you still harp on that?” asked Ina, in pretended amaze.

“On what?” he rasped.

“Marriage. It’s too ridiculous. Even if I didn’t despise you I wouldn’t marry you.”

“I tell you I’ll ruin your father,” shouted Setter, angrily. “I can make him a pauper.”

“Do it, then,” flashed Ina, passionately. “Who’d care? My mother and I would welcome poverty. We hate this sudden wealth. That has ruined father, as much as crooked men like you.”

“Bah! I don’t swaller that, Miss Ina Blaine,” said Setter. But it was plain that her unexpected repudiation of his offer and indifference to her father’s ruin staggered him, and therefore made him furious.

“I don’t care what you ‘swaller’,” rejoined Ina. “But get out of here or let me out.”

“Just you wait till I’m through talkin’,” he went on, with calculating eyes. “I didn’t tell you I can put your father in jail for hirin’ rustlers. Wal, I can.”

Ina saw in his face that he was telling the truth, if not all the truth. This, then, had been the secret of his veiled power; and he unmasked himself before her because he believed she dared not betray him. Indeed, the thought of disgrace and imprisonment for her father filled her with exceeding bitterness, but she did not weaken under it. After a momentary faltering she was again strong, with keen mind revolving and grasping the possibilities Setter’s brutal candour laid open.

“Oh, I see!” she spoke up, mockingly. “A while back it was poor Ben Ide who was an accomplice of rustlers. Now it’s my dad.... I suppose you mean that dad and Ben Ide are partners in crime.”

“I’ll run Ben Ide out of the country or put him in jail,” hissed Setter.

“You will not!”

“Oh-ho! You flare up about Ben, eh? More than about your father. I begin to see a nigger in the woodpile.”

“If my father has been such a fool — such a greedy fool as to let you make him dishonest — he deserves disgrace, and jail too,” declared Ina, hotly. “But Ben Ide is as good as gold. He’s been driven away from home and friends. He’s honest. He’s true. And the truth will prevail. Your vile insinuations, your lying evidences, can be torn to tatters by any honest magistrate.... It’s you, Less Setter, who’d better run out of the country. For I’ll stand by Ben Ide until he’s vindicated.”

“The hell you say!” ejaculated Setter, stridently, and with swift movement he grasped her arm. “What’s Ben Ide to you?”

“Let go of me! That’s none of your business either, but you’re welcome to know,” cried Ina, suddenly ceasing her effort to get away from him. “I love Ben Ide.... I’m engaged to him.... I intend to marry him.”

“Ben Ide!... You white-faced cat!” he returned hoarsely, in a rage of defeat and amaze. Livid, savage, he dragged her to him. “Then Ben Ide will get what I leave!”

Instead of weakening under his rude clutch and vile kisses, Ina became endowed with almost superhuman strength. Clenching her fists she pounded his face, aiming at his sore and discoloured eye. Her aim went true. She hurt him terribly, for he uttered a kind of hoarse bawl and momentarily lost his equilibrium. Then Ina wrestled away from him and pushed him with all the violence she could summon. Setter tripped on a chair and fell heavily. Ina darted out at the open door, and hurrying toward camp, panting and hot, shaking in every muscle, she swore that if Setter attacked her again she would kill him.

Marvie did not return until after dark. He said he had watched Judd and Walker through the glass, and had been able to gather that they pretty well took possession of Ben’s cabin and were not going to leave soon. Marvie had seen them carry what looked like a sack out into the barn and then reappear empty-handed. They left barn doors and corral gates open.

“Likely they’ll stay there until Ben returns,” said Marvie.

“Ben won’t come soon,” rejoined Ina, broodingly.

“Where’d he go?”

“Marvie, you mustn’t breathe it. Ben went away to catch the very rustlers he’s supposed to work secretly with.”

“Bill Hall’s outfit? The cowboys say Ben is in cahoots with Hall.... It looks funny — Ben goin’ off now just when they’re lookin’ for him. An’, Ina, how’n earth could Ben with only two pardners ketch a whole rustler gang? Dang it!”

And evidently Marvie went away labouring under a doubt. What he had said found lodgment in the fertile seeking soil of Ina’s mind. Despite her uttermost faith in Ben, she could not but admit that even a boy’s logic was incontestable. Loyally and prayerfully she tried not to ponder and brood over things she could not understand. Her duty was clear.

Next morning to Ina’s extreme surprise Setter rode away from the ranch alone, leading a pack-horse. He, too, took the direction of Forlorn River. Was he going to join the officers from Redlands or her father? Ina calculated that Setter would do both. Thus the plot revolving around Ben Ide thickened and lengthened its ramifications.

Camp life during the August days was delightful, except perhaps in the very early morning, when at this altitude the air was too cold. The days passed, and Ina accommodated herself to the best obtainable from them. As before, she found work and play preferable to idle moments. These were conducive to the dominance of the hydra-headed dread that would not stay quiet. It was well, she thought, that Hettie Ide had postponed her visit. She could not have kept the truth from Hettie, either the love of Nevada or Ben’s terrible predicament.

Not until the wild geese came honking back did Ina realise the end of summer was at hand. By day and by night the honkers passed, some alighting on the shores of the lake, but most of them holding their flight to the south. Their melodious cries haunted Ina; and in the blackness of night, when sleep would not come, she covered up her head so she could not hear.

Early in September her father arrived at the ranch, with his cowboys and Setter.

Ina was dismayed at sight of him. If business troubles had begun to worry him before he left, they now weighted him down. Rather than add to them, Ina held her tongue, sure in her intuitive feeling that revelations would come soon enough. She scarcely saw her father, not even at meals, and certainly did not go out of her way to meet him. Most of all she was curious about what Less Setter had told him. It was conceivable that her father’s difficulties precluded serious attention to her.

With the arrival of this party at the ranch there flourished much gossip, which Marvie heard among the cowboys and carried to Ina.

Judd and his deputy had found proofs at Ben Ide’s ranch of his guilt, so far as the rustling of cattle was concerned. They had taken his trail for the hills. Amos Ide’s stock at Silver Meadow had been sadly depleted in a July raid. Strobel, the Hammell sheriff, had approached Blaine at a rancher’s homestead, and had locked horns with him about something that was not clear. The cowboys thought Strobel was calling Blaine to some accounting. Certain it appeared that this interview upset Blaine and changed his plans. Lastly the arrival of Setter had thrown the old man into a fit of spleen that amounted almost to a serious illness. Bill Sneed avowed that Setter pestered the life out of Blaine.

At this juncture Mrs. Blaine, perhaps through sympathy and worry, became indisposed, so that Ina and Dall had to nurse her, besides do all the other work.

“Dad, let’s go home,” begged Ina, the first opportunity that offered. “It’s too cold for mother. These nights are growing a little too wintry for tents.”

“Ina, I’d gone back to Tule Lake long ago,” he replied, sombrely. “But mebbe, it’s not mine any more. So Setter says. This ranch is all I’ve got without a lien on it.”

“Dad, it isn’t possible?” exclaimed Ina.

“I don’t know. I’m muddled. But I balked on Setter. He’s naggin’ me now to make you marry him. He’s like a bulldog. Reckon I wouldn’t want you to marry him if you was willin’.”

“Thank you. Dad,” she replied, in gladness. “Now don’t you give up one more single inch. Not for anything. Just you wait.”

“Wait?... Wal, daughter, I was weakenin’ over a final deal, but, by thunder! now I’ll wait.”

September brought a skim of ice round the edges of the lake, and daily it whitened and lengthened. The autumn days were glorious with blue skies, fleecy clouds, colouring hills, and a bracing sage-scented wind.

Then’ one morning, which was so beautiful that Ina forgot the shadow which hovered over the ranch, Marvie rushed in on her.

“Judd an’ — Walker’s back,” he burst out, breathlessly. “They’re waitin’ for dad before — holdin’ a regular court.” Ina hurried to the tent of her mother, who was well again, but not very active, and found her father there. She had observed that he spent a good deal of time with her mother.

“Dad, those officers from Redlands are back and want you,” announced Ina.

“Wal, I’m glad,” he said, wearily. “If they’ll only help to clear up this mess.”

She held to his arm and walked with him, studying what was best to say.

“Dad, will you listen to me?” she appealed earnestly.

“‘Course I will, child.”

“I mean really listen,” she went on, suddenly seized by impulse. “It can’t do harm. It may do good.”

“Wal, I’ve come to a sad pass if I can’t listen serious to the lass I wanted educated.”

“Then take what I’ve worked out in my mind,” she rejoined, swiftly. “Setter means to ruin you, and poor Ben Ide along with you. For I’ll not marry Setter, even if you or Ben would let me.... But, Dad, evil as Setter is, he can’t accomplish all this. Something will happen. I can’t explain. It’s what I feel — here!... No matter what apparent facts these officers show, don’t act upon them. Don’t do anything. Just wait!”

“Lass, I’ve drunk in Setter’s honey words an’ listened to everyone ‘cept mother an’ you,” he replied, with pathos. “It’s high time I remembered that.”

They approached the office cabin together. Cowboys lounged around lazily. Saddle horses stood, heads down, dusty and weary, waiting to be led away. Bill Sneed sat on the steps and Ina thought he meant her to catch the glint of his eye. Setter stood inside, conversing intently with Judd and Walker. Ina entered beside her father and she did not miss Setter’s dark conjecturing glance.

“Mornin’, men,” said Blaine, stiffly. “What you wantin’ of me?”

“Good mornin’, Mr. Blaine,” replied Judd, in his loud voice. “We’ve got results. I’m glad to report. We found proofs in Ben Ide’s bam that he’s been stealin’ cattle. Also we took his tracks an’ found his camp up in the hills. He got wind of us some way, mebbe with a glass, an’ left his camp the night before we got there. Left supplies, clothes, hosses, and a black wild stallion he’d just broke. We lost his tracks then, but we kept ridin’ all over, an’ one day we hit upon cattle tracks in a deep canyon. We trailed them, an’ come on a herd of two hundred an’ fifty head. Most of these had Amos Ide’s A1 brand. But there were some steers belongin’ to you. Fine stock that you got in the deal for Welch’s homestead, near Silver Meadow.”

“You rounded up some missin’ stock, hey.? Wal, how’re you goin’ to fix it on Ben Ide?” rejoined Blaine.

“I just informed you,” replied Judd, testily. “We found his camp with things that identify him near a canyon full of your stolen cattle.”

“Wouldn’t amount to shucks in court,” said Blaine. “Sure he might be guilty an’ mebbe he is, but leavin’ a camp sudden means nothin’. He’s a wild-hoss hunter. What’s your other charge?”

Here Setter intervened with step forward and authoritative mien.

“We’re withholdin’ that till Ide is arrested. I expect you to appear against him.”

“Wal, I won’t do it,” declared Blaine, bluntly.

“I can force you to. I’m your partner. He stole our cattle.”

“Setter, when I go to court it’ll be to recover more than a few head of steers,” returned Blaine with enigmatic stubbornness.

“I’ll make Ide’s own father appear against him,” shouted Setter, paling with passion.

“Wal, that’d be a low-down trick,” observed Blaine, in weary amaze.

Setter cursed behind his teeth. Ina, watching him closer, felt that his case against her father and Ben was not as perfect as he wanted it. There seemed a flaw somewhere.

One thing and another, in the way of camp articles and a rider’s apparel, were brought in to exhibit to Blaine. Ina could not doubt her eyes when she was confronted with Ben’s initials burned in leather. Her heart misgave her somewhat. It was hard to be brave in the face of all this incredible animosity toward Ben Ide. Still, her father’s gruff antagonism to Judd’s arguments and Setter’s plans surprised her. It was a hopeful sign. She was not the only one surprised. Setter chafed under a restriction that he could not afford to disregard for fear he might lose prestige in the eyes of these officers.

“Mr. Blaine, will you send cowboys to Silver Canyon to drive out the stolen cattle?” inquired Judd.

“How’re the grass an’ water there?”

“Best we’ve seen in all this country.”

“Wal, better leave the stock there, anyways till Amos Ide has his say,” decided Blaine.

“We’ll send a messenger to notify Mr. Ide an’ advise him to come over here,” added Judd, with an interrogating glance at Setter.

“Good idea,” spoke up that individual. “Ide’s deep in this, too.”

For the time being then there appeared to be a deadlock. Ina left the office, to wander campward, divided between a mounting emotion of hope for her father and again that strange insidious question as to the apparent contradictions in her defence of Ben. The instant it entered her consciousness she passionately repudiated it, as if she could be so low as to doubt him. She did not.

The day endured, as if minutes were hours, every one of which wore on Ina’s nerves. She had waited almost to the limit of her reserve. Something must happen any moment. She worried over the strained situation between her father and Setter. But at last the day ended and she found much-needed oblivion in sleep. Toward dawn she awoke, almost freezing. Dall had appropriated more than her share of the blankets. She dropped into slumber again, to be awakened by Marvie, at her door.

“Ina, wake up, for goodness’ sake!” he called.

“Hel-lo, Marv! What’s up?” she answered, rousing.

“Not you, by gosh! I’m sorry, Ina, but I just had to wake you. Sun ain’t up yet, either. Gee! it’s colder than blue blazes.”

“Don’t I know how cold it is? Why’d you wake me? Is dad — has anyone — has anyone — What — ?”

“Nope. Everythin’ peaceful so far as I know, ‘cause they’re all asleep. I had to wake you, Sis, ‘cause if I was a gurl in love with a wild-hoss wrangler I’d sure want to see what I’m seein’ now.”

“Marv Blaine! I’ll — I’ll—” burst out Ina, half angry and half curious.

“Ina, the lake’s ‘most froze over this mornin’ an’ wild horses are walkin’ out on the ice. Seven of them. Pretty close to Ben’s place.”

“Honest, Marv?” queried Ina, with a thrill.

“Cross my heart.”

“I’ll get up, cold or no cold. Fetch me some hot water and I’ll let you use my field-glass.”

Ina had scarcely had time to get into some warm clothes when Marvie came with the water. She handed him the field-glass in exchange and heard him plump down on her steps. Then she forgot him, to be reminded presently that he was still there.

“Omilord! Omilord!” he was uttering in ecstasy.

“Marvie, what ails you?” she called, halting in her ablutions.

“Omilord! Omilord!” he ejaculated, in tones of most intense awe and joy.

This was too much for Ina, and hastening with her toilet, and throwing on a heavy coat, she rushed out. Marvie sat hunched on her step with the glass levelled out over the lake. Ina’s gaze followed the direction thus indicated. How beautiful the white frost-coated ice! Far across the open circle of water she saw a number of horses, black against the background. They looked small, but she saw them move.

“So they’re wild horses,” she mused. “Too bad Ben’s away.”

“Omilord!” moaned Marvie.

“You goose! Are you getting as wild as Ben?”

“Ina, look — look at that leader in front!” cried the boy, leaping up to put the glass to her eyes.

It took a little time for Ina to readjust the glass and to find anything but muddy water and white level expanse of ice. Suddenly into the clear circle walked a magnificent horse, red as fire, wild as nothing Ina had ever seen.

“Oh! — Marvie! A red horse!... Is that what you saw? No wonder!... Oh, how beautiful!”

“Is that all you see?” scornfully and agitatedly queried Marvie. “He’s red — he’s a stallion.”

“Yes, I see that, Marv.”

“Well?”

“Well what, you queer boy?”

“That’s California Red — the wild stallion Ben loves,” declared Marvie, impressively.

Ina nearly dropped the glass, lost direction and object, fumbled with fingers all thumbs, laughed at her blurred eyes — and then, controlling herself, she soon found the horse again and brought him distinctly into her sight. She saw him differently now. She revelled in his colour, grace, wildness. Long she gazed.

“Now — I don’t blame Ben,” she whispered, as if in judgment on herself.

“What the dickens!’ muttered Marvie, turning away. “Who’s yellin’?”

“It’s the cowboys,” declared Ina. “See, in the bunk-house door.... Marvie, they see the wild horses. That’s what they’re yelling at.”

“Funny. Darn. I’m sorry they seen California Red on the ice. He could be ketched easy. Nobody but Ben oughta ever own Red,” declared Marvie, turning again to the lake. “By gosh! More wild horses.... I dunno, though. Sis, gimme the glass?”

The instant Marvie got the glass levelled to suit him he yelled: “Riders pilin’ down on the ice. Ina, they’re goin’ to chase Red.”

“Oh, let me see, Marvie — please!”

“Just a minnit.... Three riders on this side — two comin’ out from the river — three more on other side.... Who’n the dickens are they? I’ll bet Ben has got some fellars to help him.... Omilord! it is Ben. He’s on his grey.... Gee! look at him go! Out on the ice!”

Ina snatched the glass away from her brother, and even as she brought it to bear she heard the wild yells of the cowboys and hoarser, deeper cries following. Like Marvie, they had at once connected these horsemen with Ben. She grew tremendously excited and thrilled.

The wild horses were moving to and fro, haltingly, it seemed. Perhaps the distance caused their movements to look slow and awkward. All of them except the red stallion showed black against the white. It was difficult for her to hold the glass steady; she trembled so that she had to sit down on the steps and rest her elbows on her knees. Then she got the circle of action under clear vision and watched with palpitating heart.

California Red pranced forward and back, then moved swiftly and fell on the ice. His efforts to rise were those of a horse with crippled hind quarters. He appeared left alone. The horsemen drew closer. Ina made out the grey horse mentioned by Marvie, and though she did not recognise it she believed she recognised its rider. She strained her eyes. The lithe form and wide shoulders belonged to Ben Ide. She was unable to hold the glass so as to enclose him and the wild stallion at one and the same time. When she changed the direction it took a moment for her to find anything. Then she found California Red again and decided to keep the glass on him.

For a wild horse he acted strangely. Why did he not flee? If he was the king of all swift horses, he could escape. She wanted him to have freedom, yet contrarily she hoped Ben would gain the desire of his heart. The stallion appeared moving with mixed gait that was very ungraceful. Horsemen appeared beyond him, drawing closer. He wheeled this way, then that, and his actions were expressive of uncertainty. He was hemmed in.

All at once he seemed to lower himself, then plunged into a run. How his red mane and tail flew in the wind! Swift — he was like an arrow from a bow. Ina screamed in joy of his freedom. Suddenly he went headlong. Had he been shot? He slid over the ice. The grey horse flashed into Ina’s field of vision. His rider swayed in the saddle. Other horsemen entered the circle. From under the hoofs of the grey horse flashed white puffs, probably ice cut by the sharp iron shoes. Suddenly he plunged back on his haunches. Ina saw California Red slide to a quick stop.

“Oh, Marvie, Ben has caught him!” exclaimed Ina, in a transport.

“Gimme the glass!” shouted Marvie. “Yes — he’s down — he’s down. Ben’s horse holdin’ back.... There’s another rider close. Ropin’. Gee! I know that swing.... Ina, your California Red is a gone goslin’!... Whoopee!”

Marvie’s yell of conquest and exultation appeared strangled before full utterance. Ina saw him look and start. Then she discovered that horsemen were galloping away from the ranch.

“Aw, hell!” groaned the lad, and that was the first profane word Ina had ever heard him use. “Look!... Judd an’ Walker goin’ over to arrest Ben.”

CHAPTER XV

THE REMAINDER OF that morning, so thrillingly started, was a long-drawn-out hateful period of suspense for Ina. She spent the last of it in her tent with a coverlet over her eyes to shut out the light of day.

A little before noon, Marvie, acting under her instructions, returned for her, rapping at her door.

“Ina — they’re comin’,” he said, reluctantly.

“Have — have they got Ben?” she asked, uncovering her face. “Yes. They’re a good ways down the road yet. But I seen with the glass. They’ve got Ben an’ the Indian.”

“I’ll come. I must — be there,” faltered Ina, rising.

“I should smile you will,” retorted Marvie, more like his real self. “We just gotta get mad, Ina. Wait till you see Setter down there — big cigar — swellin’ out his chest — an’ rubbin’ his hands when he thinks he ain’t seen. But I was spottin’ him.” Marvie’s resolute passion and the content of his words held strange power to inspirit Ina. She felt the shock of suddenly released blood, with its accompanying heat and accelerated pulse. She brushed her scarf, and went out to join Marvie.

He met her with a quick, intent look of pride and confidence. “Come on; we mustn’t miss nothin’ now,” he said, taking her hand. “Mother is down at the office. Setter an’ dad wanted her to sign papers. She wouldn’t. Then Setter got ugly an’ that made dad mad. He an’ Setter were havin’ it hot an’ heavy when Mr. Ide come in.”

“Ben’s father!” exclaimed Ina.

“Yes. Gee! he looked like an owl. But his comin’ stopped the row. Setter took Mr. Ide to his cabin, where they are now. Dad fired me out of his office, but I peeped in a winder. Heard him tell mother he was glad she wouldn’t sign the papers. An’ dad cussed Setter awful. ‘Somethin’ wrong about that man.’... An’ then ma said, ‘It oughtn’t be new to you.’... Then dad: ‘Wal, it’s too late. I’ll not give in. I’ll go to jail with Ben Ide. That’s what sticks in my craw — the way Setter is houndin’ this poor boy. It’s come to have a queer look.’”

“Oh, Marv, did dad say that?” whispered Ina, squeezing her brother’s hand. “Did you hear any more?”

“No. Some cowboy yelled that Judd was in sight, so I made sure, then hustled up to get you.”

“Then — is Ben in sight?”

“Yes. Down the road. Take a look with the glass.”

“No.” Ina pushed the glass away. She would put off as long as possible the spectacle of her lover riding in under arrest.

Soon she and Marvie crossed the sage field to enter the ranch. The square between the cabins contained a dozen or more saddled horses, and groups of cowboys, all with heads together. The usual lazy languor of a Blaine ranch was not in evidence.

“Cowboys been in row,” whispered Marvie. “Bill Sneed on Ben’s side, an’ that split the outfit. I tell you, Sis, there’s a-goin’ to be a hot time here.”

As Ina drew closer she saw that her father’s entire force of employees was present, and whatever the direction of their sympathies, it was plain that excitement ran high. The nearest cowboy group left off their whispering as Ina walked by to the cabin. She did not espy either Mr. Ide or Setter. Her father was in the office alone with her mother.

“Ina, Mr. Setter says dreadful things about your father,” spoke up Mrs. Blaine, almost tearfully. “If I don’t sign papers an’ if you won’t marry him—”

“Mother dear, don’t be distressed,” interrupted Ina. “I’ve heard Mr. Setter’s threats. We’ll stick together if we all go to jail.”

“But that’d be terrible!”

“Indeed it would. But it’ll never happen,” declared Ina, earnestly.

“Daughter, the sheriff is comin’ with Ben Ide,” said her father.

“I know. Marvie told me.”

“An’ Agios Ide is here. It’s toughest for him. That d —

Setter has got him in a corner now.”

Ina ran to her father, and slipping an arm round his shoulders, as he sat stooping, she whispered: “Dad, once in your life — now — think, and boss this affair, whatever it’s to be. You’re on your own property. Don’t let Setter dominate things. Don’t let him do all the talking. Be fair an’ square to Ben Ide — for I — I love him. Dad.”

Ina expected her father to be shocked and furious. He was neither, yet she saw that her poignant speech had penetrated deeply. He rose to his tall height and looked down upon her with a softer light in his grey eyes than she had ever seen there. Trouble, realisation, defeat had begun their broadening work upon Hart Blaine.

“Lass, I’m sorry I didn’t wake up to this long ago,” he said, with regret. “Marvie gave me a hunch, but I didn’t take it.... So you love Ben Ide?”

“Yes, Dad,” she replied, proudly.

“Wal, an’ I reckon you take yourself to be a Blaine?”

“Did you ever boss me, Dad?” she laughed.

“Huh! I should smile not.... But you should have told me. It’d make a difference, even if I was bullheaded.... Now it’s too late. They’ll make Ben out a rustler even if he ain’t. But—”

“Dad,” yelled Marvie, at the door, “they’re here!”

Blaine strode out of the office, and Ina with her mother followed. Four horsemen had ridden into the square. Blaine advanced, with the cowboys crowding behind. Ina felt Marvie holding her and whispering fast, but she could not distinguish his words. Her mother appeared nervous and excited, and Ina thought it was as well that she had her to look after. In another moment further advance was checked by the halting crowd, and Ina with staring eyes looked over the shoulder of a cowboy.

Judd had just reined in his horse. His florid face beamed; he waved a big gloved hand, with gesture that suited his look.

Ina saw a grey, mettlesome horse, wet with sweat — then its rider, Ben Ide. His face was white. He seemed dazed. His unnatural posture was owing to handcuffs. Beside him rode a sombre, dark-faced Indian, also handcuffed. Walker, the deputy, sat his horse a little behind the others. Ina’s gaze, rushing back to Ben, fastened on his face. Her heart swelled to the bursting point. Why did he look like that? His eyes had a’ terrible haunting shadow. Was he hopeless? Had he no defence?

“Here’s your man, Mr. Blaine,” called out Judd, pompously. “I told you we’d fetch him. An’ we sure got him dead to rights, ketched red-handed—”

“Say, Mr. Judd,” broke in Blaine, almost roughly. “I’m lettin’ you understand he’s not my man. I had nothin’ to do with this arrest.”

“But your partner, Mr. Setter, he did. Same thing,” expostulated Judd, nonplussed and affronted.

“No it ain’t the same. Setter an’ me are not partners. Do you understand?”

“I’ll be darned if I do,” shouted Judd, beginning to fume. “Setter said he represented you — that you offered a thousand reward—”

“Shut up!” called Blaine, in a voice that Ina well remembered. “I aim to do some talkin’ here myself.... I offered no reward an’ I’ll pay none.”

Judd’s heavy jowl dropped. He was silenced, and in bewilderment and rousing resentment he gazed about, manifestly for Setter.

Blaine strode up beside Ben’s horse and laid a hand on his knee.

“Ide, I’m sorry to see you here,” he said, gruffly, but not unkindly.

Ben showed instant surprise and a fleeting look of gratitude.

“Thanks, Mr. Blaine. You can’t guess how sorry I am,” he said.

“Your dad is here with Setter.”

Ben’s haggard face burned duskily red.

“Yes, sir — I — expected that,” he replied, huskily.

“Boy, are you guilty?” went on Blaine, gravely.

“Yes, I am — guilty as hell,” confessed Ben, in a passion of shame and remorse. “But I was crazy — out of my head. I never thought — I never thought how it would look.”

Ina sustained a terrible shock. For a moment she seemed frozen within — clamped round a knot of agony. She almost fainted. The deathly spasm passed, and sight, thought, emotion became inextricably mixed. She stared at Ben Ide. She saw the torture in his working face. The words of his confession thundered in her ears, stirring wild and whirling thoughts. Guilty as hell! He had betrayed himself. And worse — he had betrayed to her his deceit, his weakness. The damning truth almost broke her heart then and there. But she longed to fly to him, to stand by him even in his guilt.

“Wal — Ide,” she heard her father speak in sorrow and amaze, “I reckon I can’t help you none.”

There was a commotion outside the circle of cowboys to Ina’s left. Someone crowded through — made a lane. Setter strode into view, pale, with burning eyes. Amos Ide entered the space, but kept back, half hidden by the other.

“Aha, Judd — you’ve only two of them here. Ide an’ the Indian. Where’s the third man? That one they call Nevada,” demanded Setter, loud-voiced, authoritatively.

“He got away,” replied Judd.

“What! You let that one escape? You’re a fine sheriff,” ejaculated Setter, furiously.

“Wal, listen to facts in the case before you go to rakin’ me,” returned Judd, sullenly. “This Nevada fellar acted tractable enough. But when he seen the handcuffs Walker had, why, he said, ‘Have you the gall to try puttin’ them on me?’

... Walker tried it an’ got knocked flat. Then Nevada jumped his hoss an’ got away. I shot three times at him. Missed. He rode off after Bill Hall an’ his outfit.”

Ina, in her piercing intensity of gaze, felt as if she saw the sudden check to Setter’s thoughts, under a blank mask.

“Bill Hall!... What do you mean? — This Nevada rode off after Bill Hall?”

“I mean what I say,” retorted Judd, more testily. His temper had been ruffled. His great coup had not earned him anticipated adulation. “Bill Hall an’ outfit was with Ide. They was chasin’ this wild stallion California Red. They ketched him, too.”

“Bill Hall with Ide — chasin’ wild hosses?” ejaculated Setter, as if he had not heard aright. His olive tan showed a shade of grey, his prominent eyes a questioning furtive glint.

“Say, Mr. Setter,” returned Judd, with a sneer, “didn’t you expect Bill Hall to be with Ben Ide?”

“No — not at this stage of the game,” returned Setter, with effort. “He — I But no matter.... If Hall was there why didn’t you arrest him, too?”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” guffawed the sheriff. His mirth might have been ridicule of such hazardous enterprise or it might have meant something else. Ina thought she caught a subtle double meaning. How complex the circumstances! She had to fight to keep her faculties keen. At this juncture Marvie squeezed her hand, and letting it go he slipped between the cowboys into the circle. Ina’s last glimpse of his tow-coloured head showed him edging toward his father.

“Blaine,” spoke up Setter, turning, “we’ve got two of the rustlers, an’ conviction will help break up as slick a gang as I ever heard of. Will you appear in Hammell court against them?”

“No, Setter, I won’t,” replied Blaine, curtly.

“All right, you’ll appear there in another capacity,” harshly rejoined Setter.

The tall form of Amos Ide stalked past Setter. His lined and craggy face was set in stem bitterness. He strode out to confront his son. The whispering cowboys grew silent. No one moved. Even the horses seemed to sense catastrophe.

“Benjamin, you’ve come to what I predicted,” said the father.

“Yes, with your help,” replied Ben.

“Prodigal son! Wild-horse hunter! Associate of low outcasts!... A prisoner to be tried an’ sentenced in your home town! Rustler!”

“That last is a damn lie!” cried Ben, passionately.

“Rantin’ will do no good. You’d better turn state’s evidence an’ get off. You might spare your family the shame of havin’ a son an’ brother in jail.”

Ben’s white face worked convulsively in a spasm of pain, and he tried to speak and raise his manacled hands in protest.

“I’ve done nothing I can turn state’s evidence for,” he finally managed to say. And with the words he attained a bitter cold grimness.

“Don’t perjure your soul. Don’t lie to your father.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you to save my life,” replied Ben, sitting erect with ashen lips.

“You’ve already confessed your guilt. Why now do you deny? I tell you a clean breast of it will save you much. All of us.”

“God knows I’m guilty, but not of what you think.”

“Do you deny you’ve stolen cattle?”

“Deny! Do I have to deny that to my own father?” flashed Ben, with eyes like flames.

“I’m afraid you will. But do you deny it?”

“YES!” thundered Ben, his face swelling black for an instant. His terrible force checked the ruthless father, who shrank, momentarily, as if baffled. But passion, deeply controlled, began to rise in him also, and he returned to the attack.

“Do you deny you harboured an Indian outcast?”

“No. But I made him an honest man.”

“Do you deny you made a partner of a Nevada outlaw?”

“I can’t deny because I don’t know. He never told me. But I made a friend who has helped me more than you.”

“What do you say to the findin’ of a sack of steers’ ears up in the loft of your barn?”

Ben stared at his father in blank, mute consternation. “They found them. I’ve seen them,” went on Ide, remorselessly. He seemed to be obsessed by the passion to prove something to himself. “These ears were slit, an’ some nicked. We know from such marks who owned the stock they came from. So did you. You killed cattle to eat an’ kept tally on numbers! An old trick of rustlers.”

“You say I did?” questioned Ben, hoarsely and low.

“Yes. I saw the ears found in your loft.”

Suddenly Marvie leaped out from the edge of the circle to confront Ide. He was pale, bristling, bursting with a fury of passionate conviction.

“Mr. Ide, there wasn’t any sack in Ben’s loft,” he cried, shrilly. “I’ve hid my fishin’-pole up in that loft all summer. It was empty.”

Setter aimed a kick at Marvie and all but reached him. “Get out!” he growled, menacingly, forgetting the crowd.

“Come here, lad,” spoke up Blaine. “If you know anythin’ you can tell me.”

“But, Dad,” burst out Marvie, “now’s the time to tell them.”

“Blaine, keep that brat’s mouth shut,” ordered Setter, and he spoke so fiercely that Marvie slunk behind his father.

“Yes, Setter, for the present,” grimly answered Blaine. Setter’s frame jerked with the loosening of restrained passion. His face was sweating and no longer olive tan.

“Mr. Ide,” he said, “that Marvie Blaine is a little liar an’ smart Alec. He doesn’t mind his father. He steals hosses to ride out alone. He’s a wild kid.”

“Startin’ in the steps of my son,” returned Ide, bitterly. “Hart Blaine, you better not spare the rod on that boy, or you’ll suffer some day as I do now. He’ll likely become a wild-horse hunter an’ rustler.”

“Wal, whatever he becomes I’ll stick by him,” declared Blaine, in dry sarcasm.

Ide turned again, slowly and ponderously, to the bitter task of catechism. The momentary by-play of Marvie’s had released the tension, which now tightened. Ben Ide’s big eyes were black with pain. He seemed to see in his father a heartless Nemesis.

“You drove cattle into Silver Canyon?” he demanded.

“No.”

“These officers found your camp in Silver Canyon.”

“That’s another lie. It was half a day’s hard ride.”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” roared Judd, reeling in his saddle. “Mr. Ide, you seen some of his things we fetched. But we left others at his camp in Silver. The cattle are there an’ his camp. If you need more proof, ride over with us.”

“You black-hearted devils!” shouted Ben, in a hoarseness of realisation. He rose in his stirrups. Then he sank as if near collapse.

Amos Ide raised a shaking hand — a long finger of accusation.

“You stole from ME!”

“Oh, my God! Father, you don’t believe that?”

“You must indeed be wild. Mad is the word. Look at the proofs. If you’d come out like a man — tell the truth — I’d try to—”

“Proofs? They’re not proofs — but lies — lies,” cried Ben, brokenly. He was as white as death and his eyes streamed. He wrung his fettered hands. All seemed forgotten save this accusing father. “Listen — please — for God’s sake listen! Dad! don’t turn away! Hear me!... I’m innocent of what you think! I never stole! Never! Never! I’m guilty enough. I don’t care what they do with me. But don’t believe I stole from you! That’s horrible! Do you believe me a hardened, vile criminal?

... I’m innocent. Listen.... Nevada and I and Modoc here — we went out to catch Bill Hall and his gang. Modoc had struck his trail. We found the cattle in Silver Canyon. We chased Hall out. Trailed him clear to the lava beds. Holed him in one of the caves! And we camped there — kept watch days, weeks — we starved Hall and his men out. We tied them up and started on our way to this ranch. I wanted Hart Blaine to see the proof of my honesty.... But at Forlorn River the Indian saw California Red out on the ice.... My God! it was terrible for me!... I’ve loved that wild stallion for years. I had to have him. You can’t understand, but believe me, I had to catch him.... There were only three of us. We couldn’t corner him — run him down alone. So I thought of Hall and his men.... I offered them freedom if they’d help me.... They agreed. We caught him.... California Red! It was like a dream.... Then Hall saw these officers coming — and dragging one of my pack-horses. He and his men left — without even their guns.... That’s all, Father — and it’s — the honest — God’s — truth!”

Amos Ide stood shaken, incredulous, terribly agitated by Ben’s poignant narrative.

“My son, what would you make of these officers — and Less Setter?” he queried, in husky voice.

“For mother’s sake — for Hettie’s — say you believe me!” entreated Ben. “Let them jail me. I can stand — anything — if you’ll only say you believe — I couldn’t steal from you.”

Amos Ide’s heart might have been convinced, but it could not in such hour of stress pierce the armour of his long disappointment in his son, of his stubborn positiveness.

“You tell a wild tale. It’s like your life,” he replied, with bitter repudiation.

Ina saw Ben’s anguished face set and his head fall. He had asked only a last faith — that an unforgivable sin should not have his father’s seal. He was scorned, ruined, damned. If Ina had possessed the strength she would have sprung to him, to reveal her love, her fidelity. But she was unable to move. She had doubted Ben; she had believed his self-accusation; and she hated herself for her miserable weakness. Too late! The moment passed. Even if she could walk out now, to his side, to bid him lift his head, it would be too late for her own consciousness of unfaith. She had not been big enough in his hour of great trial. And she was growing spent with the agony of the moment when she felt herself clutched from behind. Marvie was there, trembling, unable to speak. He pointed down the road. Ina’s startled gaze caught a horse and rider approaching with the swift even celerity that characterised a racing cowboy. Who could this be? How swiftly he came! Through the gate, past the corrals! The rhythmic beats of hoofs seemed one rapid patter. She saw long black hair streaming in the wind. Nevada!

As she stood, paralysed, clinging to Marvie, the horse bore down on the circle of men. With loud cries they broke the lines, just escaping the sliding hoofs.

Ina saw Nevada in the air. He lit on his feet, almost within reach of her. As he passed, the unearthly whiteness of him, the terrible eyes, seemed to flash on her.

A thundering shot — and another — burst in front of Nevada.

Judd lurched out of his saddle and fell suddenly, face in the dust. His horse plunged. Walker screamed horribly. His face was half blown away. His horse, leaping, threw him to the ground, where he beat and wrestled like a decapitated fowl.

Bill Sneed, securing the bridle of Ben’s plunging horse, dragged it down and aside.

“Don’t move!” called Nevada, in a voice that whipped.

His black, smoking gun, held low, quivered in his lean hand.

“You!” gasped Setter, his eyes popping out.

Nevada’s hawklike head nodded in a terrible significance.

“All the time — you’ve been — Ben Ide’s pard?” queried Setter, as if strangling.

“Pard? I reckon. Take a look at Judd an’ Walker.”

Setter’s face flashed a greenish white.

“My God!”

“Setter, look down the road,” shouted Nevada. “See who’s comin’. Bunch of riders, huh? Too far away, yes?... That’s Strobel an’ his deputies comin’ with Bill Hall. I helped Strobel ketch that outfit. I made Bill Hall give you away to Strobel. An’ I steered them heah!... Shore now it’ll be great when Hall tells Mr. Blaine an’ Mr. Ide just who you are.”

Panic seemed to clutch Setter. But he did not appear to be concerned with Nevada’s denouncement. There was a more vital and intimate thing. His changed face betrayed the malignant soul of a man of tremendous passions, betrayed, defeated, overwhelmed. His eyes stood out like round black balls. About him there was a suggestion of terrific need for hurry without the power. He knew what Nevada knew.

Then spasmodically he jerked at his gun.

Crash — crash! Nevada’s gun spoke twice, so swiftly that the two shots were almost as one. The bullets whipped up dust far behind Setter. They had passed through his body. He seemed to stop — action — glare — meaning. Then he sank like an empty dropped sack.

Nevada strode over, holding the smoking gun up, and looked down.

“Ahuh!” he exclaimed, in strange, cold finality.

Then wheeling, he made long strides for his horse. He did not see Ina, who could have touched him. Leaping astride, he bent a piercing gaze upon the stunned and sagging Ben. A wonderful smile lightened the corded marble of his lean face. He spurred the horse.

“So long, pard. We’re square,” he called. “I’ll stop over home long enough to get a pack — an’ take a good-bye look at old California Red.”

The last words came as he was speeding away. Through the gate he passed swift as a flash and swung off to avoid the group of horsemen riding up the road. The dust trailed from under the fleet horse. Nevada did not look back. Soon he disappeared in a hollow.

BEN sat his horse, eyes riveted on the grey slope where Nevada’s wild pace had soon taken him out of sight. So long, pard. We’re square! That farewell would ring in Ben’s ears and heart until he died. Nevada had saved him. But deliverance at the cost of his friend seemed on the moment pale and worthless. Ben’s varying emotions had clamped into a wrenching, insupportable pang. His one instinct was to fly in pursuit of this friend who had loved him.

Other sensations tore Ben from the fixity of his gaze down the sage slope, from consciousness of the havoc in his heart. There was a pulling at his leg. Marvie, wild with rapture, the brown freckles standing out on his white face! On Ben’s other side someone was taking his manacled hands. Ina! She was sobbing, clinging to him. Her eyes were pools of transport, anguish, of unutterable thought.

Bill Sneed, too, was there, bareheaded, with wrinkled brows and stern lips.

“Miss Ina, let go his hands,” he said, tersely. “Dam keys got Judd’s blood all over them. They was in his breast pocket.... There, Ben.”

“Thanks, cowboy,” rejoined Ben, spreading his arms with a strange sense of the significance of freedom. It rushed over him, sweet as life in its sweetest moments. Then he lowered a hand to Ina, beginning to feel a release from shock. She seized it in both hers, carried it to her lips, her wet face. The crowd pressed close, staring, clamouring. Ina was drawn away by a woman, perhaps her mother. Marvie was tugging at him. In the babble of hoarse and excited voices Ben could not hear him. Then the hubbub quieted.

“Clear the way! Get back, you cow-punchin’ hombres” That was Strobel’s voice.

Ben saw the sheriff, on foot, gun in hand, come into sight with a group of riders. The widening circle revealed the prostrate bodies of the three men, lying in grotesque laxity.

“Damn me!” ejaculated Strobel, raising a hand in awe.

“Wal, Sheriff,” replied Blaine, advancing, “we couldn’t have done anythin’ if we’d wanted to. He rode down on us like a whirlwind, an’ it ‘peared to me he shot Judd an’ Walker before he hit the ground. Then he razzed Setter to pull a gun.

... An’, you see!”

Strobel stood over Setter, curiously, without compassion, and then with his foot shoved the inert body over on its back.

“Two bullet holes — inch apart — over that left vest pocket! By gum! who was thet fellar Nevada?”

“We don’t know. Young Ide said he didn’t, either,” returned Blaine. “But Setter knew him — that’s sure as death.”

“Wal, sir, Nevada was so amiable on the way over I never suspected him of any deep game,” said Strobel. “But when he lit out down the road a ways I shore was afraid he was up to somethin’ bad.”

“Reckon it’s somethin’ bad to you, Sheriff, but it has another kind of a look to me,” responded Blaine, feelingly.

“These other two fellars, Judd an’ Walker, who’re they?” queried Strobel.

“Sheriff an’ deputy from Redlands.”

“Humph! Never heard of them. Must be new appointed. I was in Redlands last winter. By gum!”

“Strobel, is it true you’ve got Bill Hall?”

“Look at him, thar!... The heavy fellar with the big, bushy head. That’s Hall. An’ there’s his outfit.... Hart, I don’t mind tellin’ you it was the darndest piece of fool luck I ever seen.”

“Wal, wal, so say I,” returned Blaine, with loud breath. “Let’s clear up this muddle right now.”

Blaine gave orders to his cowboys to cover up the dead men. “Mr. Ide, go into my office, please,” he went on. “Strobel, bring in Hall, an’ anybody else you want. Marvie, you come with me.... Ben, I reckon you’re needed.”

The strangest hour of that terrible day, and as sad as full of joy, was this in which Ben found himself in Blaine’s office. One look at his father’s face had been enough for Ben. His bitterness, his almost hate, suffered a violent check.

Blaine proved a wonderful contrast to Amos Ide. Havoc, indeed, showed in his worn visage, but it could not dim the light, the unutterable relief, the return of will strengthened by the grief and wisdom of experience.

“Men,” he said, sitting on his desk, with his arm around his wide-eyed son, “I’ll have my say first, an’ be short an’ sweet about it. Setter was responsible for all the deals I went into. I won’t lay the blame of greed at his door. To my shame I confess I was greedy. But I’d been poor so many years that when money came, with the power it brings, I lost my head. I never meant to be dishonest. I always hated buyin’ out these homesteaders. If I’ve been drawn into somethin’ crooked — an’ lately I’ve feared I have been — it was because of my ignorance an’ blindness. I can an’ will be square by every rancher I’ve ever dealt with. I reckon I can save Tule Lake Ranch out of the wreck. But that’s all, unless the paper of mine Setter held can’t be taken over by banks or men he dealt with.”

“Mr. Blaine, I’m shore glad to tell you that any paper dealin’s of Setters are null an’ void,” spoke up Strobel.

“Wal, then, I’m luckier than I deserve to be,” rejoined Blaine, fervently. “Amos, where do you stand in this deal?”

“Nothin’ but Setter’s death could have ever saved me from ruin — maybe worse,” replied Amos Ide, solemnly.

“Wal! Reckon I thought I was the only fool round Tule Lake,” responded Blaine, bluntly. “Amos, mebbe some of our differences can be laid to the door of Less Setter.”

“That’s dawnin’ on me,” said Ide, ponderingly.

“Now, Strobell, will you tell us your side of these doin’s?” asked Blaine, turning to the sheriff. “Just pass over our quarrel at Welch’s ranch. I was wrong an’ you was right.”

“As to that, Mr. Blaine, I’m bound to tell you I’m a good deal better informed than I was then,” replied the sheriff, frankly. “But as you say, I was on the right track. All losses of stock for the last two years can be summed up in-one word. Bill Hall! We have him here, an’ he vouches for that. So I can get down to to-day.... I was ridin’ some miles up Forlorn River when this cowboy Nevada met me. He whooped an’ threw up his hat in the strangest way. I reckoned the darn fool was drunk. But shore he wasn’t. ‘Heah’s Bill Hall an’ outfit, over heah a ways, on spent hosses, an’ without guns!’... Wal, then I thought Nevada was crazy. But he wasn’t. I let him guide us an’ soon we caught up with Hall. He surrendered without a fight. That’s all, an’ I reckon Hall can clear up a good deal.”

Blaine’s face was now a study. “Hall, come here,” he called to the handcuffed rustler, who stood in the background.

The burly Hall strode with heavy step to confront Blaine. He smelled of sweat and tobacco, and he made a dusty, ragged, sordid figure. But there was frankness in his mien and fearlessness in his eyes.

“Hall, would promise of light sentence persuade you to turn state’s evidence in court an’ talk straight to us here?” demanded Blaine.

“Reckon it would,” replied the rustler.

“Wal, you have my promise. An’ if Amos Ide an’ Strobel agree you’ll sure get off easy.”

“Strikes me all right,” said Strobel.

They turned to interrogate Amos Ide. He stood erect, in exactly the same posture that he had assumed on entrance, and his features attested to grave conflict of soul. Blaine had to repeat the question at issue.

“I’ll not prosecute Hall. I’ll not appear in court,” answered Ide.

“There, Hall — you’re as lucky as — as the rest of us,” went on Blaine. “What’s your idea of this talk of Ben Ide rustlin’ cattle — especially his father’s?”

“Damn nonsense!” replied Hall, with gruff bluntness. “You fellars must have been locoed. Setter filled your heads full. It was plain business with him.”

“Setter! Business?... Then he was a rustler?” ejaculated Blaine.

“Reckon he was, if you split hairs over it. We worked together. I rustled the cattle an’ he sold them. Five years ago we worked in Arizona. It got hot for him thar. He went to Nevada. An’ then he come to Californy an’ sent fer me.”

“How long ago?”

“Reckon about three years.”

“Are there any other rustler outfits around Silver Meadow?”

“No. Mine is the only one. But we worked so it’d look like thar was other outfits. Thet was Setter’s idea. We drove most stock up over Silver Canyon Pass. Down on the south side thar was homesteaders who knowed cattle was bein’ rustled. The reason they never squealed was because Setter had us leave a good many unbranded calves an’ heifers on their range. Thet was another of his idees. So we got the cattle across the Nevada line.”

“Who’re Judd an’ Walker?”

“Reckon I don’t know,” rejoined Hall. “Thet’s straight. But the last time I seen Setter, more’n a month ago, he was full of his biggest an’ last deal. He didn’t say what. But thet’s plain now as the nose on your face. He was keen to fix rustlin’ on young Ide hyar, fer reasons I couldn’t see then. So we planned to drive some of the Ide stock into Silver an’ hold it thar. Judd an’ Walker fitted in hyar somewhars. Reckon I had their deal pat soon as I seen them lyin’ dead out thar. Mebbe Judd was a bonyfide sheriff. But if you’ll go to the county he represents you’ll find he hasn’t been thar long. Thet he had lots of money, spent it free, an’ got himself appointed sheriff. Another old trick of Setter’s.”

Hart Blaine cast a look of mingled pity and scorn at his rancher rival, Amos Ide. Then he bent to the wide-eyed Marvie.

“Lad, I reckon you can speak up now,” he said, kindly. “You didn’t get much chance out there. But your daddy was sure to hear what you had to say.”

“I stole a hoss an’ run off to watch Judd an’ Walker,” began Marvie, and hesitated fearfully.

“Ahuh! Wal, reckon it’s the first time any good ever come of your runnin’ off, an’ you’ll escape a lickin’ this time. Go on.”

“I took Ina’s field-glass, an’ rode round the west side of the lake, an’ got off, an’ crawled behind sage bushes till I could see Ben’s cabin. Then I watched. An’ I saw Judd an’ Walker carry a heavy sack from Ben’s cabin to the bam. When they came out they didn’t have it. An’—”

“Strobel,” spoke up Blaine, interrupting the lad, “Judd fetched over a few of the split an’ nicked steers’ ears that he swore he’d got out of a sack up in Ben’s loft. Said he’d left the sack there to show us.”

“Well, Dad, it never was there before Judd went over,” burst out Marvie, “‘cause I hid my fishin’ tackle up in Ben’s loft, an’ I went up there ‘most a dozen times. Never was no sack there — never!”

Blaine regarded the youngster with a grave smile.

“Marvie, among other things cleared up,” he said, seriously, “there seems to be the fact of your stealin’ a horse an’ runnin’ off to Forlorn River — say ‘most a dozen times.”

“Y-ye-yes — sir,” faltered Marvie, suddenly appalled.

Blaine drew the lad to him and actually hugged him, while his grey, hard eyes glistened.

“My boy. I’ll give you your hoss to ride when you like,” he said, “an’ as for fishin’ an’ chasin’ wild hosses — wal, mebbe me an’ my friend there — Amos Ide — mebbe we missed somethin’ that might have made us better men — an’ fathers.” Then he arose with dignity.

“Strobel, I guess our little private confab is over,” he said. “You can have the boys an’ buckboards to drive to Hammell.... Good day, Bill Hall. I wonder what made you a rustler. Wal, wal! go mend your ways, as all of us need to.”

With that he turned to Ben and offered his horny hand. “Reckon you’ll stay for dinner before ridin’ back to Forlorn River an’ that red hoss.”

Ben met the outstretched hand and found other response difficult.

“Thank you, Mr. Blaine. I’ll grab a bite an’ rustle back. I clear forgot California Red.”

“You remember my ten-thousand-dollar offer for him?”

“No. I’d forgotten. But I — now — it — Oh, Mr. Blaine, I can never take the money.”

“Why not? You earned it, an’ if you didn’t, surely then — Nevada—”

‘No — no!” broke in Ben, hastily, checking the rancher. “I can’t part with Red.”

“Wal, you’ll have to take the money, anyhow,” he replied, slyly. “I expect it an’ you an’ California Red will all be in the family.”

Then he stalked out of the open door.

Ben, suddenly ecstatic, tom by thrills and heart-beats that were dazing him, hastened to follow. And he caught a glimpse of his father still standing motionless, like a statue, riveted to the spot. Ben wheeled — passed on.

“Benjamin!” called his father, in a tone Ben had never heard. Nevertheless he rushed on.

“Ben!”

But Ben went out, deaf to that voice.

Hurriedly Ben swung around the cabin toward the Blaine camp. Marvie made a’ dive for him.

“Can I ride over with you an’ see California Red?” pleaded the lad.

“Sure, if your dad lets you,” replied Ben.

“Gee! Dad took my breath. I was scared stiff when I gave myself away. But now I know you an’ me together, an’ mebbe Ina, too, have got dad licked.”

“It looks that way, Marvie,” said Ben, as he strode swiftly on, with the lad running at his side.

“Ben, we worse than licked your dad,” babbled Marvie, in high glee. “Did you see how he looked — after my dad got through spoutin’?”

“No — Marvie — I didn’t,” returned Ben, huskily.

“By golly! you should of seen him. He looked somethin’ terrible.... But you spoke to him, didn’t you?”

“No, Marvie. I just run.”

“Ben, you will, won’t you?” queried Marvie, earnestly. “After all, he’s your dad. We’ve sure had hard nuts to crack in our dads, huh?... Ben, what my dad said about fishin’ an’ chasin’ wild hosses was an eye-openin’, wasn’t it? Gosh! I’d have liked Ina to hear that. Sort of a dig at your dad, too.”

“Indeed it — was,” returned Ben, with a deep-throated laugh.

“Here’s Ina in the hammock,” said Marvie. “Aw, she’s cryin’, Ben.”

They approached the juniper tree and the swaying hammock. Ben thought Marvie’s eyes were sharper than his, or at least clearer at the moment. Ben saw a lovely face and woebegone eyes.

“Ina!”

Marvie gave the hammock a tug. “Say, I’ll turn my back for a minnit,” he said, mischievously.

Ben heard, but could not take advantage of Marvie’s fine appreciation of the moment. He drew the box seat closer to Ina, and took her hands in his.

“Oh — Ben!” she faltered.

“Ina, how terrible for you!” he ejaculated. “All the worry — and suspense — and then — Nevada!... My God! he was terrible!... I see it all, now, dear. It was written from the first!... But you must forget — you must think—”

“Ben, you — you misunderstand,” sobbed Ina wildly. “It’s not the worry — or suspense — or Nevada!... Oh! He was grand!... I’m down in the dust — because — because — I — believed — you guilty!”

Ben’s heart froze. He leaped to his feet.

Marvie shied away from the hammock, suddenly panic-stricken. “Ben, this ain’t no place for me. I’ll rustle the hosses.”

“What?” whispered Ben, almost inaudibly, with transfixed gaze on those beautiful, darkly dilating eyes.

“‘Guilty as hell,’ you said,” wailed Ina. “I believed it.... I thought you meant — guilty of stealing. How could I — know — about California Red?”

“But you loved me!” burst out Ben, who seemed to be labouring under a horrible dread.

“It didn’t look — as if I did,” cried Ina.

“You love me now?”

“Ben Ide! — you — you... I love you so.... If you don’t stop looking like that — and forgive me — I’ll — I’ll die right here — at your feet.”

Ben fell upon his knees and gathered her in his arms, hammock and all. An interval followed, devoid of clear sight, and reason, and consciousness of emotion, except for something exalting and unutterably sweet. And then it was Ina who brought him back to his senses.

“Dad said that ten thousand dollars — and you — and California Red — would all be in the family?” asked Ina, rapturously, after Ben had narrated the proceedings in her father’s office.

“Yes. You could have knocked me down with a feather.

... Asked me to dinner, too! But I can’t stay. Modoc and I will have to hurry back to California Red. We’ve got him tied down in the corral.”

“Oh, it’s all too good to be true!” murmured Ina. “This will teach dad some sense. And your dad, too.”

Ben hung his head.

“You let him make up with you, of course?”

“I did not.... Never looked when he called,” replied Ben hoarsely.

“He called you? Oh, Ben, you should have gone to him! He’s old, and it was his very love for you that hurt him so — made him hard.... You forgave me. Now forgive him.”

“I’m afraid I never will.”

“Ben! That’s not like you. It’s cruel, bitter. It’s not Christian. Be magnanimous. Be big like Nevada!”

“Don’t speak of him,” whispered Ben.

“Oh, dearest, forgive me,” entreated Ina. “It’s too soon to think of him — and your father.... Now, Ben, take up your work — the life you love — before you were forced to fight.... What you do I will do — what you love I will love.”

“It’s settled then? Ina, you will marry me?”

“Yes,” she answered, softly.

“When?”

“Whenever you come for me. Dad said he would pack up at once for Tule Lake Ranch. That means work.... As soon as I get home I’ll go at once to see your mother and Hettie. Imagine their joy! Oh, it will be happiness to tell them.... You will find me at home — waiting.”

“You — you angel,” whispered Ben, unsteadily. Then with a tender touch on her flushed cheek he stood up again, with decision and renewed energy. “I’ll hurry back to California Red. I’m the richest man in the world with you and him.... Ina, that reminds me, I must have ten or twelve thousand dollars in the Hammell bank. For wild horses! Poor dad, I’d like to show him that bank account. So you’ll not be marrying a poor man, exactly.... As soon as I break Red I’ll come to you, Ina. I want to ride Red into Hammell — to Tule Lake Ranch.... Yes, I want my father to see that horse.... But, Ina, I couldn’t sell him.”

“I should think not. He belongs to me,” replied Ina archly. “Of course he does, but you belong to me,” returned Ben, with happy significance. “And now I must go, Ina. I see Marvie and Modoc waiting with the horses. By George! there’s my black stallion — one we caught in the caves. Judd found him, brought him in. Luck! luck!... And now, if it’ll only rain!”

“It will, Ben. I know. An old wild goose honked it down to me not long ago.”

Of all the wild horses Ben had ever broken — and they numbered hundreds — California Red turned out to be the easiest to handle, the most intelligent, the most responsive. Considering the spirit of the great stallion and his years of absolute mastery of the wild range, Ben thought his capitulation most remarkable. And he put a good deal of it down to the treachery of the ice, making the capture of Red so quick and easy. Ben made a mental reservation, growing out of his experience with wild horses, that Red would never again, in all his life, trust himself on ice.

With infinite patience and kindness, yet with arm of iron and inflexible will, Ben broke the stallion after a method of his own.

One sunset in early October, when the day’s work was done and Ben allowed himself to dream of his triumphal ride into town, he observed Modoc most attentively watching the last flight of wild geese toward the south. The familiar honk, honk, honk seemed singularly full and significant of the beauty and strangeness of nature.

“What do they say, Modoc?” he queried.

The Indian turned his gaze on the darkly sinister red-and-purple sunset, and from that to the wonderful panoply of clouds over the grey sage hills.

“Heap storm soon. Heap rain — snow — big winter,” replied Modoc, with his inscrutable mystic gleam of eye, and his slow majestic gesture toward the horizon.

Then into Ben’s heart full of thanksgiving and joy there crept a cruel recurrence of a new pang. Nevada! His friend would not be there to revel in the rain, to share his gratitude that the stock of the ranges and the wild creatures would be saved. Nevada was gone, surely to some unknown range, never back to his old life, whatever that had been. Setter’s recognition of Nevada had been illuminating with its terrible significance.

Morning brought a leaden, swiftly moving canopy of clouds, and a fine drizzle. All day the storm gathered, slowly, as if the forces of nature moved ponderously to this long-neglected task.

Night brought the bursting of the flood gates of the heavens. Such a deluge poured down upon the little cabin that Ben feared the roof would cave in. How he revelled in the roar and patter and gust and ceaseless drip, drip, drip.

It rained all night, and all the next day, and for six succeeding days and nights there were only few intervals when rain was not roaring over the land.

Muddy streams poured off the hills; raging torrents tore down the canyon beds; the sage flats around Mule Deer Lake were submerged with water; Forlorn River emptied a wide turgid yellow flood into the swelling lake.

When at length the black pall of cloud broke, and the sun burst through, it shone down upon a brightened and freshened land. The clouds lifted, dispersed, and blew away on a bracing October wind. After seven years of unparalleled drought Northern California was saved.

Of an Indian-summer day, when the golds and crimsons and purples of autumn flamed on the hills, Ben rode California Red into the village of his boyhood, from which he had been an outcast, and where he discovered he had become a hero.

The great stallion created more of a sensation than any circus that had ever visited Hammell.

Quite by accident, or incredible good fortune, or through fate — Ben could not decide which — he met Ina and Marvie and Hettie on the main street of Hammell. They drove up in a new shiny buckboard just as Ben mounted Red to ride out to Tule Lake Ranch. Marvie yelled and Hettie screamed, while Ina clasped both hands to her breast and gazed at Ben’s horse in such mute rapture that it seemed she never saw Ben at all.

Ben’s star was in the ascendant that day. The surprise of meeting him shocked Ina from her balance; the manifest change of public opinion about him quite overwhelmed her. He never knew what prompted him to importune her, when they had a moment alone, to marry him then and there.

Ina had no resistance. Her eyes hung upon his, fascinated, in a mute transport.

“Dearest, I didn’t intend this,” he went on, swiftly. “It’s just happened. This is my day. Make it perfect.... Marry me now. We’ve Marvie and Hettie to go with us to the minister’s.”

“Oh, Ben — it’s so sudden,” she gasped. “I know I promised — I should — I must keep it.... But, oh! — Why, I’m not dressed to — to — and what will they say at home?”

“Just think what it’d mean to me to ride up to Hart Blaine and say, ‘Meet my wife!’... I hope I’m above revenge, Ina, but that thought stampedes me.”

“It’d — it’d — make you very — very happy?” she faltered.

“Such a question! I can’t tell you. Please, Ina, please — darling! What difference does a day or a week matter?”

She was pale now, with a pallor that made her eyes dark purple gulfs. She was earnest, grave — and Ben trembled at what he saw.

“If I consent — when we’ve told mother and dad — will you let me take you home to your father?” she flashed.

“Ina!” he cried, in poignant distress. The thought pierced his happy ardour. He had forgotten the hard old man who had never understood him, never believed in him. A wrenching pang brought back the old trouble and the new conflict. This time it seemed to rend his soul.

“I’ve seen your dad,” went on Ina. “His heart is breaking. At last he sees that he should have let you choose your own life.... Ben, say you will forgive him.”

Her hand was on his; her eyes were shining with divination of her victory.

“Yes — yes, I will,” burst out Ben, and it seemed that with those words rancour and bitterness passed out of his heart.

So they were married, and Ben rode California Red alongside the buckboard, from which Marvie shot naïve remarks, and where Ina sat as one in a dream, and Hettie smiled mysteriously, as if she was in possession of vast love secrets herself.

Ben rode up the lane ahead of the buckboard and into Tule Lake Ranch, finding at the sunset hour a horde of noisy cowboys home from work. With Bill Sneed at their head they ringed the great stallion, raising a clamour that filled a long empty void in Ben’s heart.

In the midst of the excitement Hart Blaine strode out, his grey hair standing, his ruddy face wreathed in a smile of welcome and wonder.

“My land! I seen him from the house. So this is California Red?... Reckon at last I understand you, Ben.... Ride over an’ show him to Amos Ide.”

Marvie drove the buckboard in with a grand flourish and he stood up to yell: “Ben, have you told dad yet?”

Ben vibrated to that, as if he had been suddenly galvanised, but he was panic-stricken. Ina made the situation worse by blushing scarlet at Marvie’s words and beating a precipitous retreat to the house.

“What’s up, Ben?” queried Blaine, with his characteristic bluntness, but he was grinning. “You look sort of white round the gills.”

“I forgot to tell you,” blurted out Ben, “Ina and I got married in town... I — I should have spoken out at once, sir, but I forgot.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Blaine, slapping his leg with a broad hand. “Wal, reckon it’s a wild-hoss hunter’s way to be sudden.... Come in an’ tell mother.... An’ that cheque for California Red squares me for a weddin’ present.”

The afterglow of sunset kept the day lingering as Ina led California Red across the intervening fields, with Ben walking between her and Hettie. The wire fences had gates where the old path used to cross and a new path showed well trodden. It led into the yard, where at the wood pile Amos Ide in his shirt sleeves was wielding an axe. He did not hear until they were quite close. Then, springing erect, he dropped his axe and became riveted.

One glance filled Ben’s heart with remorse, but he clung to his preconceived plan of a meeting with his father.

“Hello, Dad,” he said, cheerfully, as if they had not been separated for more than a few days, as if no dark obstacle had ever loomed between them.

“My son!” exclaimed Ide, huskily.

“Brought my wife and California Red home,” went on Ben, with extended hand.

The old man fought valiantly to rise to Ben’s idea of reconciliation — to realise his astounding statements without being utterly overcome.

“Ben? — Your wife! Daughter of Hart Blaine.... You’ve come home — back to the old man?”

“Sure, Dad. Back to you and mother, for a visit, anyhow. I always was coming.... Take a peep at my bank book, Dad, and at this cheque Hart Blaine just gave me!... And look at this girl!... All in one day, Dad!... Now what do you think of your wild-horse hunter?”

THE END

Nevada

The 1928 novel Nevada is a sequel to the previous year’s Forlorn River. The narrative portrays how, restless with the rancher life, Ben Ide moves his family to Arizona, ostensibly for his mother’s health, but also to search for his missing partner, Nevada. Ide buys a handsome ranch, in a territory known for cattle rustling. The deal soon turns sour as he struggles to keep his cattle and prize horses from the network of rustlers about the wild country of Arizona, no longer sure who he can trust. Hettie Ide pines away for the missing Nevada, meanwhile fending off a horde of suitors.

Nevada, having escaped the end of Forlorn River with only his life, resumes the life of an outlaw, seeking a way out of his situation, but working his way deeper amidst the labyrinthine social network of Arizona, in which everyone is a rustler and no one will say who leads the gangs.

The first edition

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER ONE

AS HIS GOADED horse plunged into the road, Nevada looked back over his shoulder. The lane he had plowed through the crowd let him see back into the circle where the three men lay prostrate. The blue smoke from his gun was rising slowly, floating away. Ben Ide’s face shone white and convulsed in the sunlight.

“So long, Pard!” yelled Nevada, hoarsely, and stood in his stirrups to wave his sombrero high. That, he thought, was farewell forever to this friend who had saved and succored and uplifted him, whom he loved better than a brother.

Then Nevada faced the yellow road down which his horse was racing, and the grim and terrible mood returned to smother the heart-swelling emotion which had momentarily broken it.

There was something familiar and mocking about this precipitate flight on a swift horse, headed for the sage and the dark mountains. How often had he felt the wind sting his face on a run for his life! But it was not fear now, nor love of life, that made him a fugitive.

The last gate of the ranch was open, and Nevada flashed through it to turn off the road into the sage and go flying down the trail along the shore of the lake. The green water blurred on one side of him and the gray sage on the other. Even the winding trail was indistinct to eyes that still saw red. There was no need now for this breakneck ride. To be sure, the officers of the law would eventually get on his track, as they had been for years; but thought of them scarcely lingered a moment in his consciousness.

The action of a swift and powerful horse seemed to be necessary to the whirling of his mind. Thoughts, feelings, sensations regurgitated around that familiar cold and horrible sickness of soul which had always followed the spilling of human blood and which this time came back worse than ever.

The fierce running of the horse along the levels, around the bends of the trail, leaping washes, plunging up and down the gullies, brought into tense play all Nevada’s muscular force. It seemed like a mad race away from himself. Burning and wet all over, he gradually surrendered to physical exertion.

Five miles brought horse and rider far around to the other side of the lake. Here the trail wound down upon the soft sand, where the horse slowed from run to trot, and along the edge of the lake, where the midday sun had thawed the ice. Nevada had a break in his strained mood. He saw the deep hoof tracks of horses along the shore, and the long cuts and scars on the ice, where he and Ben and the freed outlaws had run that grand wild stallion, California Red, to his last plunge and fall. Nevada could not help but think, as he passed that place, and thrill as he remembered the strange lucky catch of the wild horse Ben Ide loved so well. What a trick for fortune to play! How mad Ben had been — to bargain with the rustlers they had captured — to trade their freedom for the aid they gave in running down the red stallion! Yet mad as that act had been, Nevada could only love Ben the more. Ben was the true wild-horse hunter.

Nevada reached the bluff where Forlorn River lost itself in the lake, and climbed the sloping trail to the clump of trees and the cabin where he and Ben had lived in lonely happiness. Ben, the outcast son of a rich rancher of Tule Lake — and he, the wandering, fugitive, crippled gunman, whom Ben had taken in with only one question.

“Where you from?” Ben had asked.

“Nevada,” had been the reply. And that had been the only name by which Ben had ever known him.

It was all over now. Nevada dismounted from his wet and heaving horse. “Wal, Baldy,” he said, throwing the bridle, “heah we are. Reckon the runnin’s aboot over.” And he sank heavily upon the porch step, pushed his sombrero back to run a hand through his wet hair, smoothing it away from his heated brow. He gazed across the lake toward the dots on the far gray slope — the dots that were the cabins and barns of the Blaine ranch. With the wrench which shook him then, the last of that icy nausea — that cold grip from bowels to heart — released its cramping hold and yielded to the softening human element in Nevada. It would have been better for him if that sinister fixity of mind had not passed away, because with its passing came a slow-growing agony.

“Reckon I cain’t set heah mopin’ like an owl,” soliloquized Nevada, getting up. “Shore, the thing’s done. An’ I wouldn’t have it otherwise. . . . Dear old Ben!”

But he could not just yet enter the cabin where he had learned the glory of friendship.

“He was the only pard I ever had, except a hoss or two. . . . Wal, Ben’s name is cleared now — thank God. Old Amos Ide knows the truth now an’ he’ll have to beg forgiveness of Ben. Gosh! how good that’ll be! But Ben, he’ll never rub it in on the old gent. He’ll be soft an’ easy. . . . Hart Blaine will know, too, an’ he’ll have to come round to the boy. They’ll all have to crawl for callin’ Ben a rustler. . . . Ben will marry Ina now — an’ he’ll be rich. He’s got California Red, too, an’ he’ll be happy.”

From the lake Nevada gazed away across Forlorn River, over the gray sage hills, so expressive of solitude, over the black ranges toward the back country, the wilderness whence he had come and to which he must return. To the hard life, the scant fare, the sordid intimacy of crooked men and women, to the border of Nevada, where he had a bad name, where he could never sleep in safety, or wear a glove on his gun-hand! But at that moment Nevada had not one regret. He was sustained and exalted by the splendid consciousness that he had paid his debt to his friend. He had saved Ben from prison, cleared his name of infamy, given him back to Ina Blaine, and killed his enemies. Whatever had been the evil of Nevada’s life before he met Ben, whatever might be the loneliness and bitterness of the future, neither could change or mitigate the sweetness and glory of the service he had rendered.

Nevada went into the cabin. He had expected to find it as always, clean and neat and comfortable. The room, however, was in rude disorder. It had been ransacked by violent hands. The pseudo-sheriffs, who had come at the beck of Less Setter to arrest Ben, had not hesitated to stoop to thievery. They had evidently searched the cabin for money, or anything of value.

Nevada gazed ponderingly around on this disorder.

“Wal,” he muttered, grimly, “I reckon Less Setter won’t be rammin’ around heah any more — or any other place short of hell!”

With that remark Nevada strode out and down the path to the corrals. There were horses in at the watering trough. He caught one, and securing packsaddle and packs, he returned to the cabin. Here he hurriedly gathered his belongings and food, blankets, ammunition. Then mounting his horse he drove the pack animal ahead of him, and rode down to the shallow ford across Forlorn River.

“Shore, Ben will always keep this ranch as we had it,” he mused. “An’ he’ll come heah often.”

Hot tears fell from Nevada’s eyes, the first he had shed since his orphaned boyhood, so dim and far away. It was no use to turn his eyes again to the little gray cabin half hidden among the trees, for he could not see. But as he rode up the river his tears dried, and he saw the pasture where the horses he had owned with Ben raised their heads to look and to neigh. From a ridge top a mile or more up the lonely river, Nevada gazed back at the cabin for the last time. Something surer than his intelligence told him that he would never see it again. The moment was poignant. It opened a door into his mind, which let in the fact he had so stubbornly resisted — that when he bade good-by to the little cabin it was not only good-by to it and to his friend, but to the most precious of all that had ever entered his life — Hettie Ide.

Nevada made that farewell, and then rode on, locked in thought which took no notice of the miles and the hours. Sunset brought him to an awareness of the proximity of night and the need of suitable camp for himself and his animals. While crossing the river, now a shallow rod-wide stream, he let the horses drink. On the other side he dismounted to fill his waterbag and canteen. Then he rode away from the river and trail in search of a secluded spot. He knew the country, and before long reached a valley up which he traveled some distance. There was no water and therefore an absence of trails. Riding through a thicket of slender oaks, which crossed the narrowing valley, he halted in a grassy dell to make his camp.

His well-trained horses would not stray beyond the grass plot, and there was little chance of the eyes of riders seeing his camp fire. How strange to be alone again! Yet such loneliness had been a greater part of his life before he chanced upon Ben Ide. From time to time Nevada’s hands fell idle and he stood or knelt motionless while thought of the past held him. In spite of this restlessness of spirit he was hungry and ate heartily. By the time his few camp chores were done, night had fallen, pitch black, without any stars.

Then came the hour he dreaded — that hour at the camp fire when the silence and solitude fell oppressively upon him. Always in his lonely travels this had been so, but now they were vastly greater and stranger. Something incomprehensible had changed him, sharpened his intelligence, augmented his emotions. Something tremendous had entered his life. He felt it now.

The night was cold and still. A few lonesome insects that had so far escaped the frost hummed sadly. He heard the melancholy wail of coyotes. There were no other sounds. The wind had not risen.

Nevada sat cross-legged, like an Indian, before his camp fire. It was small, but warm. The short pieces of dead hard oak burned red, like coal. Nevada spread his palms to the heat, an old habit of comfort and pleasure. He dreaded to go to the bed he had made, for he would fall asleep at once, then awake during the night, to lie in the loneliness and stillness. The longer he stayed awake the shorter that vigil in the after hours of the night. Besides, the camp fire was a companion. It glowed and sparkled. It was something alive that wanted to cheer him.

The moment came when Hettie Ide’s face appeared clearly in the gold and red embers. It shone there, her youthful face crowned by fair hair, with its earnest gray eyes and firm sweet lips. It looked more mature than the face of a sixteen-year-old girl — brave and strong and enduring.

Strange and terrible to recall — Nevada had kissed those sweet lips and had been kissed by them! That face had lain upon his breast and the fair hair had caressed his cheek. They would haunt him now, always, down the trails of the future, shining from every camp fire.

“Hettie — Hettie,” he whispered, brokenly, “you’re only a kid an’ shore you’ll forget. I’m glad Ben never knew aboot us. It’ll all come out now after my gunplay of to-day. An’ you an’ Ben will know I am Jim Lacy! . . . Oh, if only I could have kept it secret, so you’d never have known I was bad! An’, oh — there’ll never be any one to tell you I cain’t be bad no more!”

Thus Nevada mourned to himself while the shadow face in the fire softened and glowed with sweetness and understanding. It was an hour when Nevada’s love mounted to the greatness of sacrifice, when he cast forever from him any hope of possession, when he realized all that remained was the glory and the dream, and the changed soul which must be true to the girl who had loved him and believed in him.

Beside that first camp fire Nevada’s courage failed. He had never, until now, realized the significance of that moment when Hettie and he, without knowing how it had come to pass, found themselves in each other’s arms. What might have been! But that, too, had only been a dream. Still, Nevada knew he had dreamed it, believed in it, surrendered to it. And some day he might have buried the past, even his name, and grasped the happiness Hettie’s arms had promised. Ben would have joyfully accepted him as a brother. But in hiding his real name, in living this character Nevada, could he have been true to the soul Ben and Hettie had uplifted in him? Nevada realized that he could no longer have lived a lie. And though he would not have cared so much about Ben, he had not wanted Hettie to learn that he had been Jim Lacy, notorious from Lineville across the desert wastes of Nevada clear to Tombstone.

“Reckon it’s better so,” muttered Nevada to the listening camp fire. “If only Hettie never learns aboot the real me!”

The loss of Hettie was insupportable. He had been happy without realizing it. On the steps of friendship and love and faith he had climbed out of hell. He had been transformed. Never could he go back, never minimize the bloody act through which he had saved his friend from the treachery of a ruthless and evil man. That act, as well, had saved the Blaines and the Ides from ruin, and no doubt Ina and Hettie from worse. For that crafty devil, Setter, had laid his plans well.

Nevada bowed his bare head over his camp fire, and a hard sob racked him.

“Shore — it’s losin’ her — that kills me!” he ground out between his teeth. “I cain’t — bear it.”

When he crawled into his blankets at midnight it was only because the conflict within him had exhausted his strength. Sleep mercifully brought him oblivion. But with the cold dawn his ordeal returned, and the knowledge that it would always abide with him. The agony was that he could not be happy without Hettie Ide’s love — without sight of her, without her smile, her touch. He wanted to seek some hidden covert, like a crippled animal, and die. He wanted to plunge into the old raw life of the border, dealing death and meeting death among those lawless men who had ruined him.

But he could not make an end to it all, in any way. The infernal paradox was that in thought of Ben’s happiness, which he had made, there was an ecstasy as great as the agony of his own loss. Furthermore, Hettie’s love, her embraces, her faith had lifted him to some incredible height and fettered him there, forever to fight for the something she had created in himself. He owed himself a debt greater than that which he had owed Ben. Not a debt to love, but to faith! Hettie had made him believe in himself — in that newborn self which seemed now so all-compelling and so inscrutable.

“Baldy, I’ve shore got a fight on my hands,” he said to his horse, as he threw on the saddle. “We’ve got to hit the back trails. We’ve got to eat an’ sleep an’ find some place where it’s safe to hide. Maybe, after a long while, we can cross over the desert to Arizona an’ find honest work. But, by Heaven! if I have to hide all my life, an’ be Jim Lacy to the bloody end, I’ll be true to this thing in my heart — to the name Ben Ide gave me — Nevada — the name an’ the man Hettie Ide believed in!”

Nevada traveled far that day, winding along the cattle trails up the valleys and over the passes. He began to get into high country, into the cedars and piñons. Far above him the black timber belted the mountains, and above that gleamed the snow line. He avoided the few cattle ranches which nestled in the larger grass valleys. Well-trodden trails did not know the imprint of his tracks that day; and dusk found him camped in a lonely gulch, with high walls and grassy floor, where a murmuring stream made music.

Endless had been the hours and miles of the long day’s ride. Camp was welcome to weary man and horses. The mourn of a wolf, terrible in its haunting prolonged sadness and wildness, greeted Nevada by his camp fire. A lone gray wolf hungering for a mate! The cry found an echo in the cry of Nevada’s heart. He too was a lone wolf, one to whom nature had been even more cruel.

And once again a sweet face with gray questioning eyes gleamed and glowed and changed in the white-red heart of the camp fire.

On the following day Nevada climbed the divide that separated the sage and forest country from the desert beyond. It was a low wide pass through the range, easily surmountable on horseback, though the trail was winding and rough. The absence of cattle tracks brought a grim smile to Nevada’s face. He knew why there were none here, and where, to the south through the rocky fastness of another and very rough pass, there were many. But few ranchers who bought or traded cattle ever crossed that divide.

From a grassy saddle, where autumn wild flowers still bloomed brightly, he gazed down the long uneven slope of the range, to the canyoned and cedared strip of California, and on to the border of Nevada, bleak, wild, and magnificent. The gray-and-yellow desert stretched away illimitably, with vast expanse of hazy levels and endless barren ranges. The prospect in some sense resembled Nevada’s future, as he imagined it.

As he gazed mournfully out over this tremendous and monotonous wasteland a powerful antagonism to its nature and meaning swept over him. How he had learned to love the fragrant sage country behind him! But this desert was hard, bitter, cruel, like the men it developed. He hated to go back to it. Could he not find a refuge somewhere else — surely in far-off sunny Arizona? Yet strange to tell, this wild Nevada called to something deep in him, something raw and deadly and defiant.

“Reckon I’ll hide out a while in some canyon,” he reflected.

Then he began the descent from the divide, and soon the great hollow and the upheaval of land beyond were lost to his sight. The trail zigzagged down and up, under the brushy banks, through defiles of weathered rock, over cedar ridges, on and on down out of the heights.

Before Nevada reached the end of that long mountain slope he heard the dreamy hum of a tumbling stream, and turning off the trail he picked his way over the roughest of ground to the rim of a shallow canyon, whence had come the sound of falling water. He walked, leading his horses for a mile or more before he found a break in the canyon wall where he could get down.

Here indeed was a lonely retreat. Grass and wood were abundant, and tracks of deer and other game assured him he could kill meat. A narrow sheltered reach of the canyon, where the cottonwood trees still were green and gold and the grass grew rich along the stream, appeared a most desirable place to camp.

So he unpacked his horses, leisurely and ponderingly, as if time were naught, and set about making a habitation in the wilds. From earliest boyhood this kind of work had possessed infinite charm. No time in his life had he needed solitude as now.

Nevada did not count the days or nights. These passed as in a dream. He roamed up and down the canyon with his rifle, though he used it only when he needed meat. He spent hours sitting in sunny spots, absorbed in memory. His horses grew fat and lazy. Days passed into weeks. The cottonwoods shed their leaves to spread a golden carpet underneath. The nights grew cold and the wind moaned in the trees.

The time came when solitude seemed no longer endurable. Nevada knew that if he lingered there he would go mad. For there encroached upon his dream of Hettie Ide and Ben, and that one short beautiful and ennobling period of his life, a strange dark mood in which the men he had killed came back to him. Nevada had experienced this before. The only cure was drink, work, action, a mingling with humankind, the sound of voices. Even a community of the most evil of men and women could save him from that haunting shadow in his mind.

Somberly he thought it all out. Though he had deemed he was self-sufficient, he found his limitations. He could no longer dwell alone in this utter solitude, starving his body, falling day by day deeper into melancholy and mental aberration. There seemed to be relief even in the thought of old associations. Yet Nevada shuddered in his soul at the inevitable which would force him back into the old life.

“Reckon now it’s aboot time for me to declare myself,” he muttered. “I cain’t lie to myself, any more than I could to Hettie. I’ve changed. I change every day. Shore I don’t know myself. An’ this damned life I face staggers me. What am I goin’ to do? I say find honest work somewhere far off. Arizona, perhaps, where I’d be least known. That’s what Hettie would expect of me. She’d have faith I’d do it. . . . An’, by Gawd! I will do it! . . . But for her sake an’ Ben’s, never mindin’ my own, I’ve got to hole up till that last gun-throwin’ of mine is forgotten. If I were found an’ recognized as Jim Lacy it’d be bad. An’ if anyone did, it’d throw the light on some things I’d rather die than have Hettie Ide know.”

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS A cold, bleak November day when Nevada rode into Lineville. Dust and leaves whipped up with the wind. Columns of blue wood smoke curled from the shacks and huts and houses of the straggling hamlet. Part of these habitations, those on one side of the road, lay in California, and those on the other belonged to Nevada. Many a bullet had been fired from one state to kill a man in the other.

Lineville had been a mining town of some pretensions during the early days of the gold rush. Deserted and weathered shacks were mute reminders of more populous times. High on the bleak drab foothill stood the ruins of an ore mill, with long chute and rusted pipes running down to the stream. Black holes in the cliffs opposite attested to bygone activity of prospectors. Gold was still to be mined in the rugged hills, though only in scant quantity. Prospectors arrived in Lineville, wandered around for a season, then left on their endless search, while other prospectors came. When Nevada had last been there it was possible to find a few honest men and women, but the percentage in the three hundred population was small.

Nevada halted before a gray cabin set well back in a large plot of ground just inside the limits of the town. The place had not changed. A brown sway-back horse, with the wind ruffling his deep fuzzy coat, huddled in the lee of an old squat barn. Nevada knew the horse. Corrals and sheds stood farther back at the foot of the rocky slope. Briers and brush surrounded a garden where some late greens showed bright against the red dug-up soil. Nevada remembered the rudely painted sign that had been nailed slantwise on the gate-post Lodgings.

Dismounting, Nevada left his horses and entered, to go round to the back of the cabin. A wide low porch had been stacked to the roof with cut stove wood, handy to the door. Nevada hesitated a moment, then knocked. He heard a bustling inside, brisk footsteps, after which the door was opened by a buxom matron, with ruddy face, big frank eyes, and hair beginning to turn gray.

“Howdy, Mrs. Wood!” he greeted her.

The woman stared, then burst out: “Well, for goodness’ sake, if it ain’t Jim Lacy!”

“I reckon. Are you goin’ to ask me in? I’m aboot froze.”

“Jim, you know you never had to ask to come in my house,” she replied, and drew him into a cozy little kitchen where a hot stove and the pleasant odor of baking bread appealed powerfully to Nevada.

“Thanks. I’m glad to hear that. Shore seems like home to me. I’ve been layin’ out in the cold an’ starvin’ for a long time.”

“Son, you look it,” she returned, nodding her head disapprovingly at him. “Never saw you like this. Jim, you used to be a handsome lad. How lanky you are! An’ you’re as bushy-haired as a miner. . . . What’ve you been up to?”

“Wal, Mrs. Wood,” he drawled, coolly, “shore you’ve heard aboot me lately?” And his gaze studied her face. Much might depend upon her reply, but she gave no sign.

“Nary a word, Jim. Not lately or ever since you left.”

“No? Wal, I am surprised, an’ glad, too,” replied Nevada, smiling his relief. “Reckon you couldn’t give me a job? Helpin’ around, like I used to, for my board.”

“Jim, I jest could, an’ I will,” she declared. “You won’t have to sleep in the barn, either.”

“Now, I’m dog-gone lucky, Mrs. Wood,” replied Nevada, gratefully.

“Humph! I don’t know about that, Jim. Comin’ back to Lineville can’t be lucky. . . . Ah, boy, I’d hoped if you was alive you’d turned over a new leaf.”

“It was good of you to think of me kind like that,” he said, moving away from the warm stove. “I’ll go out an’ look after my pack an’ horses.”

“Fetch your pack right in. An’ I’ll not forget you’re starved.”

Nevada went out thoughtfully, and slowly led his horses out to the barn. There, while he unpacked, his mind dwelt on the singular effect that Mrs. Wood’s words had upon him. Perhaps speech from anyone in Lineville would have affected him similarly. He had been brought back by word of mouth to actualities. This kindly woman had hoped he would never return. He took so long about caring for his horses and unpacking part of his outfit that presently Mrs. Wood called him. Then shouldering his bed-roll and carrying a small pack, he returned to the kitchen. She had a hot meal prepared. Nevada indeed showed his need of good and wholesome food.

“You poor boy!” she said once, sadly and curiously. But she did not ask any questions.

Nevada ate until he was ashamed of himself. “Shore I know what to call myself. But it tasted so good.”

“Ahuh. Well, Jim, you take some hot water an’ shave your woolly face,” she returned. “You can have the end room, right off the hall. There’s a stove an’ a box of wood.”

Nevada carried his pack into the room designated, then returned for the hot water, soap, and towel. Perhaps it was the dim and scarred mirror that gave his face such an unsightly appearance. He was to find out presently that shaving and clean clothes and a vastly improved appearance meant nothing to him, because Hettie had gone out of his life forever. What did he care how he looked? Yet he remembered with a twinge that she would care. When an hour later he strode into the kitchen to confront Mrs. Wood, she studied him with eyes as speculative as kind.

“Jim, I notice your gun has the same old swing, low down. Now that’s queer, ain’t it?” she said, ironically.

“Wal, it shore feels queer,” he responded. “For, honest, Mrs. Wood, I haven’t packed it at all for a long time.”

“An’ you haven’t been lookin’ at red liquor, either?” she went on.

“Reckon not.”

“An’ you haven’t been lookin’ at women, either?”

“Gosh, no. I always was scared of them,” he laughed, easily. But he could not deceive her.

“Boy, somethin’ has happened to you,” she declared, seriously. “You’re older. Your eyes aren’t like daggers any more. They’ve got shadows. . . . Jim, I once saw Billy the Kid in New Mexico. You used to look like him, not in face or body or walk, but jest in some way, some look I can’t describe. But now it’s gone.”

“Ahuh. Wal, I don’t know whether or not you’re complimentin’ me,” drawled Nevada. “Billy the Kid was a pretty wild hombre, wasn’t he?”

“Humph! You’d have thought so if you’d gone through that Lincoln County cattle war with me an’ my husband. They killed three hundred men, and my Jack was one of them.”

“Lincoln County war?” mused Nevada. “Shore I’ve heard of that, too. An’ how many of the three hundred did Billy the Kid kill?”

“Lord only knows,” she returned, fervently. “Billy had twenty-one men to his gun before the war, an’ that wasn’t countin’ Greasers or Injuns. They said he was death on them. . . . Yes, Jim, you had the look of Billy, an’ if you’d kept on you’d been another like him. But somethin’ has happened to you. I ain’t inquisitive, but have you lost your nerve? Gunmen do that sometimes, you know.”

“Shore, that’s it, Mrs. Wood. I’ve no more nerve than a chicken,” drawled Nevada, with all his old easy coolness. It was good for him to hear her voice and to exercise his own.

“Shoo! An’ I’ll bet that’s all you tell me about yourself,” she said. “Jim Lacy, you left here a boy an’ you’ve come back a man. Wonder what Lize Teller will think of you now. She was moony about you, the hussy!”

“Lize Teller,” echoed Nevada, ponderingly. “Shore I remember now. Is she heah?”

“She about bosses Lineville, Jim. She doesn’t live with my humble self any more, but hangs out at the Gold Mine.”

Nevada found a seat on a low bench between the stove and the corner, a place that had been a favorite with him and into which he dropped instinctively, and settled himself for a talk. This woman held an unique position in the little border hamlet, in that she possessed the confidence of gamblers, miners, rustlers, everybody. She was a good soul, always ready to help anyone in sickness or trouble. Whatever her life had been in the past — and Nevada guessed it had been one with her outlaw husband — she was an honest and hard-working woman now. In the wild days of his former association with Lineville he had not appreciated her. She probably had some other idler or fugitive like himself doing the very odd jobs about the place that he had applied for. Nevada remembered that her kindliness for him had been sort of motherly, no doubt owing to the fact that he had been the youngest of the notorious characters of Lineville.

“Lize married yet?” began Nevada, casually.

“No indeed, an’ she never will be now,” replied Mrs. Wood, forcibly. “She had her chance, a decent cattleman named Holder, from Eureka. Reckon he knew he was buyin’ stolen cattle. But for all that he was a mighty fine sort for Lineville. Much too good for that black-eyed wench. She was taken with him, too. Her one chance to get away from Lineville! Then Cash Burridge rode in one day — after a long absence. ‘Most as long as yours. Cash had been in somethin’ big, south somewhere. An’ he came back to lie low an’ gamble. He had plenty of money, as usual. Lost it, as usual Lize was clerk at the Gold Mine. She got thick with Cash. He an’ Holder had a mixup over the girl, an’ that settled her. Maybe I didn’t give her a piece of my mind. But I might as well have shouted to the hills. She went from bad to worse. You’ll see.”

“Cash Burridge back,” rejoined Nevada, somberly, and he dropped his head. That name had power to make him want to hide the sudden fire in his eyes. “Reckon I’d plumb forgot Cash.”

“Ha! Ha! Yes, you did, Jim Lacy,” replied the woman, knowingly. “No one would ever forget Cash, much less you. . . . Dear me, I hope you an’ he don’t meet again.”

“Wal, of course we’ll meet,” said Nevada. “I cain’t hang round your kitchen all the while, much as I like it.”

“Jim, I didn’t mean meet him on the street, or in the store, or anywhere. You know what I meant.”

“Don’t worry, Mother Wood. Reckon Cash an’ I won’t clash. Because I’m not lookin’ for trouble.”

“You never did, my boy, I’ll swear to that. But you never run from it. An’ you know Cash Burridge. He’s bad medicine sober, an’ hell when he’s drunk.”

“Ahuh, I reckon, now you remind me. Has Cash been up to his old tricks lately?”

“I haven’t heard much, Jim,” she returned, thoughtfully. “Mostly just Lineville gossip. No truth in it, likely.”

Nevada knew it would do no good to press her further in this direction, which reticence was proof that Cash Burridge had been adding to his reputation one way or another. Nevada had a curious reaction — a scorn for his own strange, vague eagerness to know. Old submerged or forgotten feelings were regurgitating in him. A slow heat ran along his veins.

“Lineville shore looks daid,” he said, tentatively.

“It is dead, Jim. But you know it’s comin’ on winter. An’ this Lineville outfit is like a lot of groundhogs. They hole up when the snow flies. There’s more travel along the road than ever before. Three stages a week now, an’ lots of people stop here for a night. I get a good many; been busy all summer an’ fall.”

“Travel on the road? Wal, that’s a new one for Lineville. Prospectors always came along. But travel. What you mean, Mother Wood?”

“Jim, where have you been for so long?” she asked, curiously. “Sure you must have been buried somewhere. There’s a new minin’ town — Salisbar. An’ travel from north has been comin’ through here, in spite of the awful road.”

“Salisbar? Never heard aboot it. An’ stagecoaches — goin’ through Lineville. By golly!”

“Jim, there’s been only couple of hold-ups. None of this outfit, though. We hear the stage line will stop runnin’ soon, till spring.”

“You mentioned aboot a cattleman named Holder buyin’ heah since I’ve been away. Shore he’s not the only one?”

“No. But cattle deals have been low this summer. Last bunch of cattle come over in June.”

“Wal, you don’t say! Lineville is daid, shore enough.”

“Jim, that sort of thing has got to stop sometime, even if it is only a lot of two-bit rustlin’.”

“Two-bit? Ha! Ha!”

“Jim, I’ve seen thousands of longhorns rustled in my day.”

“Ahuh! Reckon you have, I’m sorry to say,” responded Nevada, looking up at her ruddy face again. “Shore you never took me for a rustler, did you, Mother?”

“Goodness, no! You was only a gun-packin’ kid, run off the ranges. But, Jim, you’ll fall into it some day, sure as shootin’. You’ll be in bad company at the wrong time. Now I’m from Texas an’ I always loved a good clean hard-shootin’ gunman, like Jack was. There wasn’t nothin’ crooked about Jack for years an’ years. But he fell into it. An’ so will you, Jim. I want you to go so far away from Lineville that you can’t never come back.”

“I’ll go in the spring. Shore I’m not hankerin’ for the grabline ride these next few months.”

“Fine. That’s a promise, my boy. I’ll not let you forget it. An’ meanwhile it’ll be just as well for you to be snug an’ hid right here. Till spring, huh?”

“Mother Wood, you said you wasn’t inquisitive,” laughed Nevada, parrying her question. Then he grew serious. “When was Hall heah last?”

“In June, with the last cattle that come over the divide. An’, Jim, the right queer fact is he’s never been back.”

“Wal, I reckon that’s not so queer to me. Maybe he has shook the dust of Lineville. He rode in heah sudden, so I was told. An’ why not ride off that way? To new pastures, Mother Wood?”

“No reason a-tall,” she said, reflectively. “Only I jest don’t feel that way about Hall.”

“An’ that high-flyin’ Less Setter from the Snake River country. Did he ever come again?”

“No. That time you clashed with Setter was the only time he ever hit Lineville. No wonder! They said you’d kill him if he did. I remember, Jim, how that night after the row you talked a lot. It was the drink. You’d had trouble with Setter before you come to these parts. I never told it, but I remember.”

“Wal, Mother, I came from the Snake River country, too,” replied Nevada, with slow dark smile.

“It was said here that Less Setter was too big a man to fiddle around Lineville,” returned the woman, passing by Nevada’s cryptic remark, though it was not lost upon her. “Hall said Setter had many brandin’ irons in the fire. His game, though, was to wheedle rich cattlemen an’ ranchers into speculations. He was a cunnin’ swindler, low-down enough for any deal. An’ he had a weakness for women. If nothin’ else ever was his downfall, that sure would be. He tried to take Lize Teller away with him.”

“Wal, you don’t say!” ejaculated Nevada, trying to affect interest and surprise that were impossible for him to feel. Again he casually averted his face to hide his eyes. For that cold, sickening something had shuddered through his soul. Less Setter would never have a weakness for women again. He would never weave his evil machinations around Ben and Hettie Ide, or anyone else, for he and two of his arch conspirators had lain dead there in the courtyard before Hart Blaine’s cabins on the shores of Wild Goose Lake Ranch. Dead by Nevada’s hand! That was the deed that had saved Ben Ide, and Hettie, too. It seemed long past, yet how vivid the memory! The crowd that had melted before his charging horse! The terror of the stricken Setter! Revenge and retribution and death! Those villains lay prone under the drafting gunsmoke, before the onlookers. Nevada saw himself leap back to the saddle and spur his horse away. One look back! “So long, pard!” One look at Ben’s white, convulsed face, which would abide with him forever.

“Lineville has had its day,” the woman was saying, as if with satisfaction at the fact. “Setter saw that, if he ever had any idea of operatin’ here. Hall saw it, too, for he’s never come back. Cash Burridge knows it. He has been away to the south — Arizona somewhere — lookin’ up a place where outside travel hasn’t struck. He’ll leave when the snow melts next spring, an’ he’ll not go alone. Then decent people won’t be afraid to walk down to the store.”

“Good luck for Lineville, but bad for Arizona somewhere,” returned Nevada, dryly. “Shore, I feel sorry for the ranchers over there.”

“Humph! I don’t know. There are wilder outfits in Arizona than this country ever saw,” rejoined the woman, contemptuously. “Take that Texas gang in Pleasant Valley, an’ the Hash Knife outfit on the Tonto Rim, not to speak of the Mexican border. Cash Burridge isn’t the caliber to last long in Arizona. Waters an’ Blink Miller are tough nuts to crack, I’ll admit. I suppose Hardy Rue will trail after Burridge, an’ of course that loud-mouthed Link Cawthorne. But there’s only one of the whole Lineville outfit that could ever last in Arizona. An’ you know who he is, Jim Lacy.”

“Wal, now, Mother, I shore haven’t the least idee,” drawled Nevada.

“Go long with you,” she replied, almost with affection. “But, Jim, I’d rather think of you gettin’ away from this life than lastin’ out the whole crew. I’ve heard my husband say that gunmen get a mind disease. The gunman is obsessed to kill. An’ if another great killer looms on the horizon the disease forces him to go out to meet this one. Jest to see if he can kill him! Isn’t that terrible? But it was so in Texas in the old frontier days there.”

“It shore is terrible,” responded Nevada, gloomily. “I can understand a man learnin’ to throw a gun quick for self-defense. Shore that was my own excuse. But for the sake of killin’! Reckon I don’t know what to call that.”

During the hour Mrs. Wood, who had a gift for learning and dispensing information of all sort, acquainted Nevada with all that had happened in Lineville since his departure. She did not confine herself to the affairs of the outlaw element who made of Lineville a rendezvous. The few children Nevada had known and played with, the new babies that had arrived in the interim, the addition of several more families to the community, the talk of having a school, and the possibilities of a post office eventually — these things she discussed in detail, with a pleasure and satisfaction that had been absent in her gossip about Lineville’s hard characters.

But it was that gossip which lingered in Nevada’s mind. Later when he went into his little room he performed an act almost unconsciously. It was an act he had repeated a thousand times in such privacy as was his on the moment, but not of late. The act of drawing his gun! There it was, as if by magic, level, low down in his clutching hand. Sight of it so gave Nevada a grim surprise. How thoughtlessly and naturally the fact had come to pass! And Nevada pondered over the singular action. Why had he done that? What was it significant of? He sheathed the long blue gun.

“Reckon Mrs. Wood’s talk about Cawthorne an’ the rest of that outfit accounts for me throwin’ my gun,” he muttered to himself. “Funny. . . . No — not so damn funny, after all.”

He had returned to an environment where proficiency with a gun was the law. Self-preservation was the only law among those lawless men with whom misfortune had thrown him. He could not avoid them without incurring their hatred and distrust. He must mingle with them as in the past, though it seemed his whole nature had changed. And mingling with these outlaws was never free from risk. The unexpected always happened. There were always newcomers, always drunken ruffians, always some would-be killer like Cawthorne, who yearned for fame among his evil kind. There must now always be the chance of some friend or ally of Setter, who would draw on him at sight. Lastly, owing to the reputation he had attained and hated, there was always the possibility of meeting such a gunman as Mrs. Wood had spoken of — that strange product of frontier life, the victim of his own blood lust, who would want to kill him solely because of his reputation.

Nevada was not in love with life, yet he felt a tremendous antagonism toward men who would wantonly destroy him.

“Reckon I’d better forget my dreamin’ heah,” he soliloquized. “An’ when I’m out be like I used to be. Shore it goes against the grain. I’m two men in one — Nevada an’ Jim Lacy. . . . Reckon Jim better take a hunch.”

Whereupon he deliberately set about ascertaining just how much of his old incomparable swiftness on the draw remained with him after the long lack of exercise. During more than one period of his career he had practiced drawing his gun until he had worn the skin of his hand to the quick, and then to callousness.

The thing had become a habit for his private hours, wherever he might be.

“Slower’n molasses, as Ben used to say aboot me,” he muttered. “But I’ve the feel, an’ I can get it all back.”

The leather holster on his belt was hard and stiff. He oiled it and worked it soft with strong hands. The little room, which had only one window, began to grow dark as the short afternoon waned.

It was still daylight, however, when Nevada went out, to walk leisurely down the road into town. How well he remembered the wide bare street, with its lines of deserted and old buildings, many falling to ruin, and the high board fronts where the painted signs had been so obliterated by weathering that they were no longer decipherable! He came at length to the narrow block where there were a few horses and vehicles along the hitching-rails, and people passing to and fro. There were several stores and shops, a saloon, and a restaurant, that appeared precisely as they had always been. A Chinaman, standing in a doorway, stared keenly at Nevada. His little black eyes showed recognition. Then Nevada arrived at a corner store, where he entered.

The place had the smell of general merchandise, groceries, and tobacco combined. To Jones’ credit, he had never sold liquor. There was a boy clerk waiting on a woman customer, and Jones, a long lanky Westerner, who had seen range days himself.

“Howdy, Mr. Jones!” said Nevada, stepping forward.

“Howdy yourself, stranger!” replied the storekeeper. “You got the best of me.”

“Wal, it’s a little dark in heah or your eyes are failin’,” returned Nevada, with a grin.

Whereupon the other took a stride and bent over to peer into Nevada’s face.

“I’m a son-of-a-gun,” he declared. “Jim Lacy! Back in Lineville! I’ve seen fellers come back I liked less.”

He shook hands heartily with Nevada. “Where you been, boy? You sure look well an’ fine to me.”

“Oh, I’ve been all over, knockin’ aboot, lookin’ for a job,” drawled Nevada, easily.

“An’ you come back to Lineville in winter, lookin’ for a job?” laughed Jones.

“Shore,” drawled Nevada.

“Jim, I’ll bet if I offered you work you’d shy like a colt. Fact is, though, I could do it. I’m not doin’ so bad here. There’s a lumber company cuttin’ up in the foothills. It’s a long haul to Salisbar, but they pass through here. Heard about Salisbar?”

“Yes. Reckon I’ll have to take a look at it. How far away?”

“Eighty miles or so,” returned Jones. “Some miners struck it rich, an’ that started Salisbar off as a minin’ town. But it’s growin’ otherwise. Besides mineral, there are timber an’ water, some good farmland, an’ miles of grazin’. All this is wakin’ Lineville up. There’s business goin’ on an’ more comin’.”

“Shore I’m glad, Mr. Jones,” said Nevada. “Lineville has some good people I’d like to see prosper.”

From the store Nevada dropped into a couple of places, where he renewed acquaintance with men who were glad to see him; and then he crossed to the other side of the wide street and went down to the Gold Mine. Dark had fallen and lamps were being lighted. The front of the wide two-story structure appeared quite plain and business-like, deceiving to the traveler. It looked like a respectable hotel. But the Gold Mine was a tavern for the outlaw elect, a gambling hell and a drinking dive that could not have been equaled short of the Mexican border.

Nevada turned the corner to take the side entrance, which led into the long dingily-lighted barroom. A half-dozen men stood drinking and talking at the bar. They noted Nevada’s entrance, but did not recognize him, nor did he them. The bartender, too, was strange to Nevada. A wide portal, with curtain of strung beads, opened into a larger room, which was almost sumptuously furnished for such a remote settlement as Lineville. The red hangings were new to Nevada, and some of the furniture. He remembered the gaudy and obscene pictures on the wall, and the card and roulette tables, and particularly the large open fireplace, where some billets of wood burned ruddily. Six men sat around one table, and of those whose faces were visible to Nevada he recognized only one, that of a gambler called Ace Black. His cold eyes glinted on Nevada, then returned to his game.

Nevada took the seat on the far side of the fire, where he could see both entrances to the large room. At the moment there was something akin to bitter revolt at the fact of his presence there. Certainly no one had driven him. No logical reason existed for his visiting the Gold Mine. He would never drink again; he had but little money to gamble with, even had he been so inclined; he rather felt repugnance at the thought of seeing Lize Teller, or any other girl likely to come in. But something restless and keen within him accounted for his desire to meet old acquaintances there. Trying to analyze and understand it, Nevada got to the point of dismay. Foremost of all was a significant motive — he did not care to have Cash Burridge or his followers, especially Link Cawthorne, or anyone ever associated with Setter, think he would avoid them. Yet that was exactly what Nevada wanted to do. The mocking thing about it was the certainty that some kind of conflict would surely result. He could not avoid this. Deep in him was a feeling that belied his reluctance. Could it be a rebirth of old recklessness? He would have to fight that as something untrue to Hettie Ide. And as a wave of sweet and bitter emotion went over him, a musical rattling of the beaded-curtain door attracted his attention.

A girl entered. She had a pale face, and very large black eyes that seemed to blaze at Nevada.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE CAME SLOWLY toward him, with the undulating movement of her lissome form that he remembered even better than her tragic face. Life had evidently been harsher than ever to Lize Teller.

Nevada rose and, doffing his sombrero, shook hands with her.

“Jim Lacy!” she ejaculated, with stress of feeling that seemed neither regret nor gladness.

“Howdy, Lize!” drawled Nevada. “Reckon you’re sort of surprised to see me heah.”

“Surprised? Yes. I thought you had more sense,” she returned.

“Wal, now Lize, that’s not kind of you,” he said, somewhat taken back. “An’ I reckon I just don’t get your hunch.”

“Sit down, Jim,” she rejoined, and as he complied she seated herself on the arm of his chair and leaned close. “I’ve been looking for you all afternoon. Lorenzo saw you ride in and stop at Mrs. Wood’s.”

“Ahuh! Wal, no wonder you wasn’t surprised.”

“But I am, Jim. Surprised at your nerve and more surprised at the look of you. What’s happened? You’ve improved so I don’t know you.”

She leaned against him with the old coquetry that was a part of her and which Nevada had once found pleasing, though he had never encouraged it.

“Thanks, Lize. Wal, there was shore room for improvement. Nothin’ much happened, except I’ve been workin’ an’ I quit the bottle.”

“That’s a lot, Jim, and I’m downright glad. I’ll fall in love with you all over again.”

“Please don’t, Lize,” he laughed. “I’ve quit throwin’ guns, too. An’ I reckon it’d be unhealthy for me, if you did.”

“Probably will be, boy. You sure have me guessing,” she replied, and she smoothed his hair and his scarf, while she gazed at him with deep, burning, inquisitive eyes. “But don’t try to lie to me about your gun tricks, sonny. You forget I’m the only one around Lineville who had you figured.”

“Lize, I don’t know as I remember that,” he said, dubiously. He found she embarrassed him less than in former times. He had always feared Lize’s overtures. But that dread was gone.

“Jim, you forget easily,” she rejoined, with a touch of bitterness. “But God knows there was no reason for you to remember me. It was natural for me to miss you. For you were the only decent man I knew. But you treated me like you were a brother. And that made me hate you.”

“Lize, you didn’t hate me,” he said. “That was temper. Maybe you got a little miffed because you couldn’t make a fool of me like you did the others. Shore I cain’t believe you’d be mean enough to hate me.”

“Jim, you don’t know women,” she replied, bitterly. “I can do anything. . . . Where’d you say you’d been — workin’ — all this long while?”

“Wal, now, Lize, I don’t recollect sayin’,” he drawled. “Shore never liked to talk aboot myself. What have you been doin’?”

“Me! Aw, hell! Can’t you see? If I live another year I’ll be in the street. . . . I hate this damned life, Jim. But what can I do? . . . Of course Mrs. Wood told you all she knew about me.”

“Wal, she told me — some,” replied Nevada, hesitatingly. “Wish I’d been heah when you made such a darn fool of yourself.

“I wish to God you had,” she flashed, with terrible passion. “You’d have shot Cash Burridge. He double-crossed me, Jim. Oh, I know I’m no good, but I’m honest. Cash actually made me believe he would marry me. I told Holder I was not a good girl. He seemed willing to take me, anyhow. But Cash told him a lot of vile lies about me, and it fell through. . . . I’m working here at the Gold Mine now — everything from bookkeeper to bartender.”

“Lize, I heah you’re thick with Link Cawthorne,” said Nevada.

“Bah! You can call it thick, if you like,” she returned, scornfully. “But I call it thin. He’s a jealous tight-fisted brag. He’s as mean as a coyote. I was half drunk, I guess, when I took up with him. And now he thinks he owns me.”

“Wal, Lize, wouldn’t it be interestin’ for me right now — if Link happened in?” drawled Nevada.

“Ha! Ha! More so for me, Jim,” she trilled. “I’ll give him something to be jealous about. But Link could never be interesting to you. He’s a bluff.”

“All the same, Lize, if you’ll excuse me I’ll stand up an’ let you have the chair,” replied Nevada, coolly, as he extricated himself and arose.

She swore her amaze. “What the devil’s come over you, Jim Lacy?” she demanded. “Why, two years ago, if Link Cawthorne had come roaring in here with two guns you’d have laughed and turned your back.”

“Two years ago! Lize, I’ve learned a lot in that long time.”

With sudden change of manner and lowering of voice she queried, sharply, “Jim, did you kill Less Setter?”

Nevada had braced himself for anything from this girl, so at the point-blank question he did not betray himself.

“Setter! . . . Is he daid?”

“Yes, he’s daid,” she replied, flippantly mimicking his Southern accent. “And a damn good thing. . . . Jim Lacy, I lay that to you.”

“Wal, Lize, I cain’t stop the wonderin’s of your mind, but you’re shore takin’ a lot upon yourself,” he returned, coldly.

She caught his hand.

“Jim, I didn’t mean to offend,” she said, hastily. “I remember you were queer about — you know — when you’d had some gunplay.”

“Ahuh? Wal, there’s no offense. Reckon I’m sort of hurt that you accuse me.”

“Jim, I notice you don’t deny it,” she retorted, with her brilliant searching eyes on him. “But listen. Only a few people in Lineville have heard Setter is dead. You know how we keep mum about that sort of thing. I heard it from a chance traveler who stayed here overnight. Setter had been shot by a wild-horse hunter over in California. That was all. That reminded me of something else. Last summer Steve Elkins saw you in a saloon in Hammell. He used to come through here occasionally and he’d seen you. So when I remembered that, I remembered you had a grudge on Setter, also that you loved wild-horse hunting, and I put two and two together and figured you had done for Setter. But I’ve never mentioned my suspicions to anyone. I’m not sure, but I don’t believe anyone here has connected you with that little gunplay. Cash Burridge was glad enough to hear the news, you can bet. He had been sent to Arizona by Setter on some deal only the two of them were in. Cash had a roll of money big enough to stop up a stovepipe. He went to Arizona. And he never saw Setter again. That I know, for he told me so. Well, he didn’t tell me how he’d benefited by Setter’s death. I figured that, too.”

“Lize, you’re shore a clever girl,” said Nevada, admiringly. “Reckon you hit most deals right on the haid. But shore I’d rather you didn’t give me credit for removin’ so many undesirable citizens from the world. You used to do that. I’m not Billy the Kid, or Plummer, or Wess Hardin.”

“Have it your own way, Jim,” she returned, with a sly laugh. “And now for what I was coming to. Did you ever hear of Hardy Rue?”

“Wal, yes, somewhere or other that name struck me. Never saw the man, though.”

“He wasn’t here during your time. But he’s here now, and he’s the man for you to watch. I think he was Setter’s right hand man and came to Lineville to check up on Cash Burridge. They don’t get along. I’d say Rue is a dangerous man. Deep sort of chap, seldom talks, never drinks, hates women, and has an eye like a hawk. He’s . . . Hello! Somebody calling me. I forgot I have to work. I’ll see you later. You bet I want to be around when Link strolls in.”

She ran from the room, leaving Nevada with plenty to think about. Yet he was considerably relieved that his name had not been openly used in connection with Setter’s death. That would have made his position less secure in Lineville. Not that security in this border town was possible for him or any other of its desperate men!

Gradually the gaming tables filled up. More than one keen-eyed player gave Nevada a curt nod of recognition. Probably everybody in Lineville now knew of his return. There was nothing unusual about that. All of these men were absent now and then. Nevada felt that he labored with an unreasonable desire to be somebody else, thus to avoid the complications sure to be woven around the name Jim Lacy.

He was approached presently by two newcomers, one of whom, a little alert man, no longer young, with a face like that of a weasel, and eyes that had a trick of opening and shutting quickly, he recognized as Blink Miller.

“Howdy, Blink!” he replied to the other’s greeting.

“You’re lookin’ fust-rate, Lacy,” replied Miller. “Shake hands with my friend, Hardy Rue.”

Nevada found himself under the surveillance of a quiet, penetrating gray gaze. This man Rue was matured, a stalwart type of miner rather than the rangy rider. He had a hard lined face, with prominent chin and set thin lips.

“Care to drink with me, Lacy?” he inquired.

“No, thanks,” replied Nevada. “Reckon I’m not fixed to buy drinks, so I’m not acceptin’ any.”

“Ain’t you grown awful particular since you’ve been away so long?” queried Miller, with a smile.

“Wal, Blink, come to think aboot it, I have,” drawled Nevada, with all his old cool carelessness. “Particular aboot not owin’ anybody favors an’ particular aboot who I drink with.”

Nevada, despite his calculations beforehand, could not help giving that tart answer. If it was anything it was an instinct of antagonism, quick to grasp antagonism in others.

Miller blinked at Nevada. “Reckon that’s particular nice of you, Lacy. Nobody wants to buy drinks for a feller who’s broke.”

Then Rue gave Nevada an inscrutable look, more deceiving for the pleasant voice with which he accompanied it.

“But you’re not particular about throwin’ a gun on — anybody?” he queried.

Nevada’s cool bright stare was not so deceptive. And then he drawled: “Not at all — not at all, Mr. Rue. Shore it’s just a habit. I never mean anythin’ uncivil.”

The two men passed on to a gaming table, where seats evidently awaited them. Nevada turned on his heel, muttering: “Damn them anyhow. They just cain’t let me alone.”

Among others who entered presently was Cash Burridge. He was a tall man nearing forty, but he looked younger. He had the build of a horseman, a fine figure in top-boots and spurs. Nevada was quick to see where he packed his gun, and that was significant. Burridge was a handsome, dissolute man, blond, with a curling mustache, almost gold, and light, gleaming, restless blue eyes.

Nevada knew that Burridge had seen him the instant of entrance, if not before, and he wondered what the outcome would be. It did not matter one way or another to Nevada. Burridge had been the ringleader in the stage hold-up to which Nevada had been a party. The one deed to which he owned with shame!

At length Burridge disengaged himself from his companions and deliberately walked around between the tables to get to Nevada.

“Jim, I’m dog-gone glad to see you!” he said, extending his hand, and his handsome face corroborated his words.

“Howdy, Cash!” replied Nevada, meeting the outstretched hand. “Reckon I’m glad you’re glad to see me.”

“It’s good you blew in. I’ve often wondered what’d become of you. I’ll tell you, Jim, I’m not curious about where you’ve been or what you’ve been doin’, but I’m plumb interested in what you’re goin’ to do.”

“Why so?” asked Nevada, not without surprise. He was not wholly proof against Burridge’s warm welcome.

“Are you goin’ to hole up here this winter, same as the rest of us?” queried Burridge.

“Reckon I am, as far as I know,” returned Nevada, slowly feeling his way.

“Broke?” queried Burridge, with a knowing look.

“Shore am.”

“I’m not so well heeled myself, but I can stake you to a roll.”

“Thanks, Cash. But I cain’t borrow. I don’t like borrowin’, an’ maybe I never could pay back. I’ll get a job for my keep heah. An’ the cairds an’ drinks won’t bother me.”

“Jim, what’ll you do after the snow flies?”

“I’ll be hanged if I know,” replied Nevada, truthfully enough.

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” spoke up Burridge, with great satisfaction. “I’ve got a deal on — the biggest I ever handled. It’s—”

“Cash, reckon you’re not goin’ to ask me to rustle cattle with you?” interrupted Nevada, severely.

“No. I swear I’m not,” hastily returned Burridge, and if he was not sincere, he surely was a splendid actor. “By Heaven! it’s an honest deal, Jim.”

“Wal, I’m glad to heah you say that. An’ I’ll listen to you.”

“This ain’t the place for us to talk. Besides, I’ve a poker game on. The deal I’m in is big; it’s cattle, an’ it’s honest. I’ve got to have a hard-shootin’ outfit, an’ a leader with a reputation like yours.”

“But, Cash, I heard you say this deal was honest,” protested Nevada.

“If it ain’t then I don’t know what honesty is,” declared Burridge, forcibly. “Sure my talk is plumb misleadin’. But you wait till I tell you all about the deal.”

“Wal, Cash, I’ll shore try to be patient waitin’,” drawled Nevada.

“I’m givin’ you a hunch,” rejoined Burridge. “Keep it to yourself.”

Burridge withdrew then to his card game, while Nevada returned to his chair by the fire. “What the devil is Cash up to now?” pondered Nevada. “Honest deal? Cattle? Hard-shootin’ outfit . . . I’ll be darned.”

Nevada discovered that the word honest inhibited all his deductive powers in relation to what Cash Burridge might be engaged in. Cash’s deliberate assertion was a poser. Nevada could not solve it. But he grasped one significant fact at once, and that was a motive for Burridge’s warm greeting. He had never before shown any kindliness to Nevada. Where Burridge had any special interest he could be agreeable, and, if the case required, most persuasive and dominating. These traits, however, had never before been exercised upon Nevada.

Meanwhile the saloon and gambling room filled up. In the former there was raucous noise and in the latter a contrasting silence, broken by the low voice of a gamester now and then, and a clink of coin, or the whir and rattle of the roulette wheel. During this period Nevada sat beside the fire, glancing at it occasionally, but seeing always those who came in and went out. The glowing embers of any fire cast a spell upon Nevada, always bringing the face which haunted his waking and sleeping hours.

A little later Lize Teller returned, and before he could get up to offer her the chair she had plumped herself over the arm.

“You sit still or I’ll jump into your lap,” she threatened, half petulantly and half merrily. She would have done it, too; therefore Nevada decided he had better be quiet. What had once been shyness in him had now become aloofness.

“But, Lize, shore if you want to make a show of yourself, you don’t need to pick on me,” mildly protested Nevada.

“Jim Lacy, there isn’t a man in this room, except you, who wouldn’t put his arm around me if I sat like this on his chair.”

“Wal, suppose you let me see some of them do it.”

“Aha, you’re the smart one. Listen! If you want to make me your friend — I say friend — forever, just be lover-like for a few minutes. Or if you can’t be that, make a bluff at it.”

Nevada laughed at her in spite of the annoyance he could scarcely conceal. “What’re you up to, Lize?”

“Link Cawthorne just came in,” she replied, tossing her black head defiantly.

She still had some of the charms of girlhood left. With what pity in his heart did Nevada recognize this, and contrast the havoc of her face with the semblance of the thing she momentarily felt!

“So I reckoned,” replied he. “Wal, Lize, it may be fun for you to use me in your little tricks, but it mightn’t be funny for me. An’ it might turn out bad for Link.”

“That’s why. He makes me sick. I’m so tired of him I ache. . . . He’s in there drinking. I want him to come in and find me with you. He was up all last night, in a card game, and he doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Lize, it strikes me you don’t want very much a-tall,” returned Nevada. “I hate to be rude to a lady, but I want to get up.”

“I’ll make it worse,” she almost hissed, with the somber fire in her eyes leaping to a blaze. “You know me.”

“All right. I reckon it’s bad enough without you makin’ it worse,” he said, with a forced resignation.

“Bad? Bah! I can handle Link Cawthorne. All I want is for the conceited lout to see I can like some other man.”

“Lize, I reckon you must have given Link some reason for bein’ so conceited. Now didn’t you?”

“I suppose I did. I thought I was mad about him, but I guess I was only mad at Cash Burridge. . . . Women are strange, Jim.”

“Wal, you cain’t prove it by me,” answered Nevada.

“There he comes,” she whispered, in fiendish glee, and then leaned over Nevada, radiant with some feeling quite beyond his comprehension.

Nevada looked up, not without a stir in his veins. Link Cawthorne stood with the bead curtain parted. How well Nevada remembered the heated face, the beady little eyes too close together, the reckless, weak, leering lips, the choice and manner of garb that inclined to dandyism. Indeed, he had been called the dandy outlaw, an epithet far from displeasing to him.

Nevada doubted Lize’s assertion that Link had been unaware of his return to Lineville. He certainly did not start, nor change his expression materially. But he looked steadily at Lize, while she babbled to Nevada, apparently oblivious to her lover’s advent.

Nevada’s feeling, in that moment, changed from a good-natured contempt for Link and a vexation at his own part in this little farce to something vastly different. It seemed to be premonition that amounted to shock. He saw something, as a dream might foreshadow a future event — something that moved gray, cold, sickening across the swift stream of his consciousness. The sensation was so sudden and dismaying that Nevada heard nothing of Lize’s whispered pretenses. It took violent effort of will, which was effected with Cawthorne’s stalking across the room, to return to his cool, keen self.

A year and more did not set lightly upon Link Cawthorne’s features. Nevada judged all these men by the changes that had risen in himself. Cawthorne halted before Lize and Nevada, bending his lean, hawklike head, with his elbows crooked and his hands at his hips. His right hand covered the butt of a gun belted high. Whatever he had intended to say or do manifestly yielded to the passion which arose at close range. His gimlet-eyes fastened first upon Lize, who did not turn her face away from Nevada for a long moment. Then Lize’s glance traveled from Cawthorne’s! boots slowly upward, at last to meet his piercing gaze with surprise that seemed as genuine as insolent.

“Oh, you here?” she said. “Link, have you ever met my old friend, Jim Lacy?”

“Cat!” he spat out, fiercely, and his body jerked with the liberation of something in the word.

“Howdy, Link!” interposed Nevada, thinking to pour oil on the troubled waters. “Reckon Lize has forgotten you an’ me was acquainted.”

“Forget — hell!” responded Cawthorne, in hard scorn. “Never mind Lize. I’ll settle with her. I’m addressin’ you, Jim Lacy.”

Nevada seemed a long moment in replying, during which he looked steadily up at Cawthorne.

“Ahuh. Wal, strikes me you’re not very civil aboot it.”

“Strikes me you’re too familiar with Lize,” flashed Cawthorne, hotly.

“Familiar? Say, you’re out of your haid. If it’s any of your business, we’re old acquaintances. Shore I never had nothin’ but a brotherly feelin’ for her. An’ if she wants to sit on the arm of my chair—”

“Guff!” interrupted the other. “She was sittin’ on your lap. An’ that won’t go with me.”

“Link, look for yourself,” returned Nevada, quietly. “There’s where she’s been all the time. Shore that isn’t anythin’ to raise a row, even if you an’ she are engaged.”

“Pooh!” burst out Lize, airily.

That word must have been a blow to Cawthorne, and his whole body leaped with a muscular violence.

“Jim Lacy, you’re a liar!” he burst out, stridently.

Lize, swift as a panther, slid off Nevada’s chair, to spring erect like a released willow bough. Nevada could not see her. He heard her panting breaths. He was gazing hard up at Cawthorne’s face, which had suddenly turned white. In his ungovernable fury he had said what had not been calculated upon. A sudden cessation of all sound from the gamesters was proof that they had heard him denounce Nevada. Cawthorne stood a moment as one transfixed, if not with terror, then with the inevitableness of catastrophe.

“Now, Link, I’m not a liar an’ you know it,” replied Nevada, without evident stress. “Reckon I can make allowance for your feelin’s.”

The young outlaw’s face lost its pallor and rigidity. It waved red, and all at once his hair appeared to bristle. His youth, his fury, his conceit, not to define his lack of penetration, misled him into mistaking Nevada’s reply.

“I’ll have no allowances from you,” he shouted. “I’m invitin’ you for a little walk outdoors.”

CHAPTER FOUR

NEVADA CALMLY ROSE to his feet and stepped aside from the chair. He did not believe that Cawthorne would attempt to draw on him, but as there was no certainty, he wanted to be on his feet. Even at the moment he seemed strange to himself. Yet after that first flash he felt coolly master of himself.

Cawthorne, more emboldened every instant, shouted the louder:

“I’m invitin’ you outdoors.”

“What for?” queried Nevada.

“You know what for.”

“I haven’t an idee, Link,” went on Nevada. “Shore I see you’re r’iled. But I reckon there’s no call for me to get r’iled, too, aboot your mistake. It’s cold outdoors. An’ I like this warm fire. If you’ve any more to say, why, go ahaid.”

Cawthorne expanded under this wholly unprecedented experience. A few drinks had addled his brains and an unreasonable jealousy had set them on fire. To realize Jim Lacy had refused the challenge born of wild haste had set him on the pinnacle of his dream of fame.

“Say?” he demanded, with hoarse and pompous contempt. “I’ve no more to say. I’ve called you, an’ you’re yellow. That’s all.”

Whereupon he turned to the amazed and discomfited Lize and, half leading, half dragging her, left the room. The business of the gamblers was resumed, with a loud laugh here and caustic remarks there. Nevada heard the content of some of them: “What the hell’s got into Lacy?” . . . “He always was a decent chap.” . . . “Reckon he couldn’t kill thet durn fool right before the girl’s eyes.” . . . “You’re wrong, gentlemen,” said a cold-voiced gambler. “That was a little by-play between a real gunman and a would-be. I’ve seen it often.”

As Nevada resumed his chair and drew it closer to the fire these and other remarks did not escape him, and that of the gambler lingered with him moodily. Gradually his momentary depression passed away. He saw Hettie Ide’s face in the golden glow of the fire. How he quivered in heart and body! He had been put to the test and he had been true to what she would have expected of him.

Nevada went early to his lodgings and his sleep was untroubled. When he awoke in the morning he was glad to face the sun.

There was plenty of work for him to do, which he set about with a will. He found tasks that Mrs. Wood did not think of. Thus, with most of the daylight hours passed in manual labor, Nevada began his winter in Lineville.

For nearly a week he stayed away from the Gold Mine. Then one night at supper Mrs. Wood spoke up seriously:

“Jim, that big-mouthed Link Cawthorne is braggin’ around you’re afraid to come downtown.”

“Wal, you don’t say,” drawled Nevada.

“Yes, I do say. I don’t like it at all, Jim. You can’t let him keep that up.”

“Shore, I don’t care what Link says.”

“Son, that’s not the way of the West,” she went on, gravely. “I’ve lived all my life on the frontier. No man can afford to lose the respect of his associates, even if they are mostly a worthless outfit of gamblers, rustlers, an’ sech. They can’t understand it. Least of all Link Cawthorne can’t. He’s likely to shoot you from behind a corner an’ swear he met you on an even break.”

“But, Mother Wood, what can I do?” queried Nevada, robbed of his imperturbability.

“Well, as long as you’re here in Lineville be Jim Lacy as they used to know him,” she declared, forcefully. “If you let this towhead run amuck with his brag, pretty soon he’ll get the nerve actually to draw on you. Now, Jim, you don’t want to have to kill him. Lize was fond of him. An’ if she’s fond of anyone it keeps her straight. You go downtown an’ slap Link’s face. Take his gun away from him an’ stick it down the back of his pants!”

Nevada laughed mirthlessly. “Wal, maybe you’re right,” he said, with a sigh. “By gosh; I wish spring would come, so I could hit the trail.”

“Mark my words, son,” she replied, earnestly, “the best way for you to make sure of spring an’ summer an’ fall is to be yourself!”

Nevada went back to the Gold Mine, dubious in mind, once more doubtful that he could ever escape the inevitable consequences of his name.

It chanced that Link Cawthorne was sober and deeply involved in a card game, where he was having a remarkable run of good luck. He merely sneered when Nevada strolled in.

Cash Burridge, however, made at once for Nevada, with all show of friendliness.

“Where you been, Lacy?” he inquired, disapprovingly. “We’ve certainly looked for you here.”

“Aw, been workin’ hard an’ goin’ to bed early,” replied Nevada. “Then, Cash, I reckon I wanted to avoid meetin’ Cawthorne.”

“Bah!” snorted Burridge. “You’ll have to shoot that damned brag, an’ the sooner you do it the better we’ll all be pleased.”

“Wal, we won’t argue aboot it, Cash, but I’m not seein’ it that way.”

“I’ll bet you five to one Link will nag you to draw. I’ve seen a hundred four-flushers like him. An’ they all got the same.”

“Wal, I cain’t bet with you, that’s shore,” returned Nevada, in good humor.

“Let’s go up to my room, where we can have a quiet talk,” said the other, and led the way through the hall and upstairs.

“Shore, you’re comfortable heah,” remarked Nevada, gazing around the room.

“I like it nice when I’m not in the saddle,” returned Burridge. “Take a seat, an’ if you won’t drink have a smoke. . . . One more word about this Link Cawthorne. He was harmless enough until Lize made him a snake in the grass. That girl is a hell’s rattler. My advice is for you to beat the daylights out of Link or call his bluff an’ kill him.”

“Reckon I’m some worried, Cash,” admitted Nevada.

“A man like you must always worry,” rejoined Burridge, with evident sympathy. “You can’t ever be free unless you hide your name. It’s bad enough to have sheriffs after you, an’ natural enemies, but it must be hell to know there’re men who want to kill you just because of your reputation.”

“Wal, I hope I don’t get sore an’ go back to drinkin’,” said Nevada, gloomily.

“Jim, I want to talk serious to you now,” went on Burridge, with change of voice.

“Wal, fire away. You’ll shore get my honest opinion, anyway.”

“Lineville is gettin’ a little too much travel to suit me. In another year it won’t be any place for me, let alone you. Agree with me?”

“Shore do. When spring comes I go for good.”

“Exactly. Same here. Now I want to tell you about my deal. I’ll tell you straight. An’ if you don’t want to go in with me, it’ll be all right, only I want you to respect my confidence here in Lineville. Will you do it?”

“I reckon,” replied Nevada, soberly.

Burridge showed satisfaction at that assurance, but he plainly hesitated over the next disclosure. Little flecks of light danced in his eyes, suddenly to coalesce in a set, cold gleam.

“Jim, you knew Setter was shot over in California?” he queried, sharply.

“I heard it from Lize,” rejoined Nevada, matter-of-factly.

“Killed by a wild-hoss hunter,” went on Burridge, with emotion. “Jim, there are men who connect you with that gun-play.”

“Shore. I get blamed for a lot of things,” returned Nevada, imperturbably.

“Well, that’s none of my business,” spoke up Burridge, with more relief, “only I want to say that whoever killed Setter did me a good turn.”

“Me too. Setter did me dirt once, over on the Snake River.”

Burridge drew a long breath and laid aside his cigar.

“Listen,” he began, with tenseness. “I was in on several deals with Setter. After he left here he sent for me to meet him at Klamath Falls. I did it. He had gotten in with big cattlemen an’ had more money than he knew how to spend. He told me he wouldn’t risk settlin’ down in Oregon. He’d sell out there pretty soon, an’ he wanted a new an’ safe place. No more rustlin’ or sharp speculation with other ranchers’ money. He might marry. Anyway, he was goin’ in for honest ranchin’, an’ wanted me as a partner. Well, the upshot was that he gave me a hundred thousand dollars to buy a well-stocked ranch in Arizona. I was to own half, an’ to help him develop cattle an’ horses on a big scale. He had never been in Arizona an’ only knew it by hearsay. He left the choice of place to me, makin’ the provision that I find a wild an’ unsettled range, where money would develop water.”

Burridge halted in his narrative, the recital of which manifestly stirred him deeply, and picking up his cigar he puffed on it a moment, and leaned back in his chair, with his light hard eyes intent upon his listener.

“Well,” he resumed, “I went to Arizona an’ rode hossback from the New Mexico border clear to the White Mountains. Talk about wild an’ beautiful country! Arizona has everythin’ beat. I bought out a rancher who wasn’t keen to sell. He owned a big ranch, had miles of grazin’ range, an’ ten thousand head of stock. I ain’t tellin’ you the location until you decide to accept my offer. After the deal was settled an’ property turned over to me I began to get a few hunches. But I hustled back here an’ sent word to Setter. He hadn’t consummated his deals over there. I waited. No word came from him. I went back to Arizona — that was early last summer. Then I had my eyes opened. It was funny. Such a joke on me, an’ especially Setter. Well, I had been huntin’ for wild country, an’ you can gamble I’d hit on it. Our cattle were bein’ rustled right an’ left. I suspected the very cowmen I’d taken over with the property. It was a grand big country — desert, canyon, plateau. There were many more ranchers an’ cattle than I’d suspected. Some of these ranchers were rustlers, thick with the worst of the outfits. You’ve heard of the Hash Knife gang an’ the Pine Tree outfit. But nobody seemed to know just who belonged to them an’ who didn’t. Then there were some hard nuts known to everybody. This country around Lineville even in gold-rush days couldn’t hold a candle to that neck of the woods in Arizona.”

Burridge made a final flourish with the cigar he had let go out.

“Now when I got back here a few weeks ago I sent word to Setter an’ waited. No reply. Then we heard Setter was dead. Hardy Rue brought the news. I’ve a hunch he’s got somethin’ up his sleeve. Anyway, he knew Setter, an’ I’m not worryin’. That property in Arizona is mine. An’ my job is to get back there to run it. Here’s where you come in. Jim Lacy! That wouldn’t sound so pleasant to those outfits. I’ll make you foreman an’ give you an interest. It’ll take some fightin’ to keep my cattle. I want a bunch of the hardest-ridin’ an’ hardest-shootin’ boys that can be hired. An’ you to lead them! . . . An’ now a last word, Jim. You know that many an honest an’ prosperous rancher was once a rustler. . . . What do you think an’ what do you say?”

“Wal, Cash, reckon I’ll think more’n I say,” returned Nevada, ponderingly. “You shore talked straight. I savvy when a man’s tellin’ me the truth. It’s a darn interestin’ story. What the courts might say aboot it I cain’t guess. But I reckon half that hundred thousand Setter gave you is honestly yours. Maybe the other half, too. Nobody could tell just how much money Setter earned an’ what he got speculatin’. He was always careful to get the other fellow to take the risks. Yes, sir, I reckon the Arizona ranch is yours, all right.”

“Good. I’m glad you see the deal that way,” replied Burridge, rubbing his hands together. “An’ you’ll accept my offer?”

“Cash, I cain’t promise that yet,” responded Nevada, slowly. “Reckon to be honest, the day might come when I’d be glad to take you up. But now I want time to think aboot it.”

“Take all the time you want,” spoke up Burridge, heartily.

“Wal, I might need a lot. There’s a couple of points that’ll shore be hard to get over.”

“What are they, Jim? I might help you.”

“Wal, the first is — your past deals might crop up any day.”

“I thought long about that,” returned Burridge, earnestly. “An’ at last I figured myself free of any worry. I’m not known in Arizona. Idaho never knew me as Cash Burridge. An’ what do any two-bit deals here amount to? They’ll be forgotten after I’ve gone.”

“Reckon you don’t miss it far,” replied Nevada. “But my second point is the serious an’ important one. That is, so far as I am concerned.”

“Shoot!” replied Burridge, with good-natured impatience.

“Wal, Cash, I don’t mean any offense, but I’m just plain doubtful that you can ever go straight.”

Burridge threw his cigar at the stove and the dark blood waved over his face in a tide. “By Heaven! that sticks in my craw, too! I wonder. But I’m no damn fool an’ I’m not without some brains.”

“Shore. I admit that. But, Cash, you’ve asked my opinion an’ heah it is. You’ve a weakness for women an’ red liquor. An’ the crux of the deal is — can you stand prosperity?”

“Ha! I never had a chance to find out,” replied Burridge, clenching his fist. “I’ve got it now. We’ll see. I swear I want to make the best of it. An’ I’d do better with my chance if I had you beside me. That’s all.”

“Wal, I appreciate that, Cash, an’ I’ll think it over. What I hate aboot it is livin’ up to my name.”

Nevada went downstairs with Burridge and amused himself by standing and walking in front of Cawthorne for a while. Lize did not put in an appearance. It was mid-week and business was slack. Nevada left the Gold Mine early, not forgetful that Mrs. Wood surely would wait up for him. The night was dark and cold, with a hint of snow in the air. The wind whistled through the leafless trees. Excitement and distraction had somehow been good for him. He found his landlady waiting up beside the kitchen fire.

“Wal, Mother Wood, heah I am, standin’ on both feet an’ without any hole in my haid,” he said, cheerily.

“So I see, Mr. Lacy,” she returned. “But that might be only a matter of luck. Did you run into Link?”

“Shore. I stood around hours, but nothin’ happened. So I reckon you got me all scared for nothin’.”

“Scared! Pooh! I wish I could put the fear of the Lord in you,” she replied.

“Wal, I’ll agree to let you, if you will give me a piece of pie an’ a mug of milk.”

The short days passed, the snow fell, adding to Nevada’s work. In the evenings, if the weather was not stormy, he would drop in at the Gold Mine. Burridge had made another strong plea for Nevada to join him, and then had left for Arizona, intending to make a wide detour through Oregon and California to avoid the snow.

Lize Teller had passed from jest to earnest in her mood toward Nevada. She was vain, willful, and malignant when under the influence of drink. Her life worked daily toward some final tragedy. During the early part of the winter she had made love to Nevada, more, he thought, to inflame Cawthorne than for any other reason. But the time came, which was coincident with Cawthorne’s further bold attempt to force or aggravate Nevada into a fight, when she ceased wholly her flirting with Nevada. Soon after that she broke her engagement with Cawthorne and took to wild flirtations and drinking bouts with the gamblers. She lost all restraint and began to fail in health.

When Nevada at length took her to task, as if indeed he were a brother, he received an impression that gave him concern.

“No decent man wants me and I’m slated for hell,” she told him, bitterly.

From this speech Nevada conceived the idea that somehow he had failed the girl. It could not have been otherwise, yet the fact hurt him. Another side of the situation was the peril she had incurred by jilting Cawthorne. There was, however, no use in talking to Lize about that. Whenever Cawthorne accosted her, whether humbly or harshly, or in a maudlin way, she flouted him as she would have a repulsive dog.

Days and weeks went by, and this situation wore on, growing toward its climax.

Nevada resisted his premonition of its outcome. Almost he yielded to the urge to leave Lineville even in the dead of winter. But the side of him that was Jim Lacy, brooding, augmenting, always in conflict with Nevada, would not let him run from a cheap bully and from a worthless girl whom he yet might help. Something held Nevada back from the easiest escape out of that dilemma.

Always there was encroaching upon his gentle kindly mood, eating like a poison lichen into the sorrow and dream of his love for Hettie Ide, lost to him forever, that dark instinctive fire of spirit, that antagonism of the gunman.

Nevada acquitted himself of any responsibility for what he had become. As a mere boy he had been thrown among brutal and evil men. He had worked himself above their influence time and time again, only to be thrown back, by accident, by chivalry in him to redress a wrong done some one, by passion to survive, into that character which fate had fastened upon him and to which he seemed unfortunately and wonderfully fitted.

“Reckon it’ll always be so for me,” he soliloquized, somberly. “I cain’t get away from myself. . . . I wonder if Hettie would believe me false to her faith. No! No! . . . I’ll always know, even if I’m forced to be Jim Lacy again, that I’m true to her.”

One afternoon Nevada, actuated by an impulse beyond his ken, bent his steps toward the Gold Mine. All night an oppression had persisted through his slumbers, and all morning he had been restless, brooding.

He entered the place by the side door, and paused in the hall before the entrance to the gambling room. The usual quiet of that den had been disrupted.

With his left hand Nevada quickly opened the door and entered sidewise, his right arm crooked. The room was full of men, all standing. Cards, coins, chips, glasses on the tables showed evidence of having been violently abandoned. There followed whispers, a cough, shuffling of feet. The noise that had halted Nevada came from the saloon. Suddenly it augmented to a banging on the bar accompanied by the bellow of a harsh voice.

“Rum! Hand it out — er I’ll bust your head, too!”

Nevada strode to the nearest group of men. Something terrible had happened. He saw it in their faces. Immediately he connected it with the raucous voice in the saloon.

“What’s happened?” he queried.

“There’s been a hell of a mess,” replied one, wiping a moist face.

“Jim, we was playin’ our card games, quiet as usual,” spoke up the gambler, Ace Black, “when we heerd an awful row in the hall there. Then a woman’s screams, quick hushed, I’ll tell you. An’ after that a heavy fall. We all jumped up an’ some one rushed out to see what it was. An’ by Gawd—”

“Wal?” broke in Nevada, cool and grim, as Black choked.

“Lize Teller! She was layin’ half naked, streamin’ blood. Link Cawthorne had beat her over the head with his gun. She’ll die! . . . An’ listen to him!”

In three long bounds Nevada had reached and split the beaded door-curtain. His swift eye swept all.

“Cawthorne!” he yelled, in piercing voice that brought an instant breathless silence.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT WAS SPRINGTIME in northern California. Old Mt. Shasta stood up grandly and took the morning light, his vast snowslopes beginning to be ridged by black. From the Tule Lake depression the land waved upward in wide belts, brown and gray, and at last green as emerald.

Honk! Honk! Honk! The wild geese were coming from the south. Great flocks in triangle formation, led by huge old honking ganders, came flying over the sage hills, to circle the grain fields and drop down among their fellows.

The wide acres of the Ide ranch, mostly lake-bottom land that the draining of Tule Lake had made available, spread rich and fertile along the southern shore. The squares of brown soil but recently ploughed, the fields beginning to show a tinge of green, the pasture lands, running far up on the gray sage slopes, the droves of horses and herds of cattle, the hedge fences, the orchards, young and old, the neat sheds and the rambling red-roofed barn, and the white house half hidden in a grove of maples and pines — all these amply testified to the prosperity of the Ides.

Hettie Ide had awakened this morning twenty years old. The wild geese that she had loved since childhood had come back from their pilgrimage to the south, and were honking as if they knew it was her birthday and that on this beautiful May day she must be joyous with young life.

But Hettie had a secret sorrow, which she hid deep in her heart, while she ministered to her ailing mother, and shared with her brother Ben the one bitter drop in his cup of happiness.

It wanted an hour yet before breakfast. As Hettie tripped down the stairs she heard Ina shrieking with laughter, no doubt at little Blaine’s pranks. How happy they were and how blessed by God! But Hettie had no envy in her heart this birthday morning. She was closer to Ben than ever, and she loved Ina and the child as if indeed they were her own flesh and blood.

Hettie went outdoors. What a glorious morning! Bright and warm was the sun; the birds were singing in the maples; violets lifted their sweet faces out of the green; the wild-lilac buds were bursting into pink.

She knew where to find Ben. Down in the hedge-lined lane to the corrals she strolled, her heart full, yet with the old pang keener, listening to the hum of bees and the honk of wild geese, the bawl of calves and the twittering of the swallows.

Above all these sounds, so sweet to her listening ears, she heard the shrill whistle of Ben’s great wild stallion, California Red. He was trooping across the pasture in defiance of Ben, or venting his displeasure at the corral bars.

Hettie found Ben sitting on top of the corral fence. California Red was inside, and indeed he did not like it. Hettie halted to peep through at him. She loved this wonderful horse, too, for his beauty, his spirit, and for another reason which only Ben would ever have suspected.

California Red had been in captivity four years. He had been broken, yet never had lost his spirit. It took a halter to make him lower his ears and stop rolling his fine dark eyes. Red was never gentle, but, on the other hand, he had not one mean trait. He shone red, glossy, silken, beautiful, and his long mane was a flame. He was a big horse, yet so perfectly proportioned that most observers would not have judged his size. High and rangy, with body round as a barrel, a wonderful deep wide chest, legs powerful, yet not heavy, and an arching neck and noble head, he looked indeed what he had been for years, the wild stallion king of the sage hills of northern California.

Hettie climbed to a seat beside her brother.

“Mawnin’, pard,” she drawled, mimicking the Southern accent of one neither of them ever forgot.

Ben gave a little start. He had been gazing out over the red stallion, over the corrals and fields and the sage slopes, to something beyond. Hettie did not often take such liberty with her brother. But this was her birthday and she meant to recall something of the past that might hurt them both.

“Wal, howdy there, old girl!” replied Ben, surprising her with his answering drawl. Beneath the humor in his voice lay deep feeling. But as he reached for her with his gloved hand he did not look at her.

“What’re you doing, Ben?” she asked, brightly, as she took his hand in both hers.

“I was just coaxing that red son-of-a-gun,” he replied, nodding at the stallion.

“Red doesn’t seem to obey you very well.”

“I’d have to rope him before he’d lay down those ears.”

“Ben, you mustn’t expect him to grow tame.”

“Tame? No, I only want him to love me.”

“Perhaps love was left out of Red’s makeup,” laughed Hettie. “Or perhaps he can’t forgive you for taking him from his sage hills. I certainly wouldn’t love you, if I were Red.”

“It’s four years now,” said Ben, thoughtfully. “What a long time! I couldn’t ask a finer, gamer horse. Sure there isn’t one in all California that can touch him. But I — I always seem to want something from Red — I never get.”

“Ben dear,” replied Hettie, pressing his hand, “what you want is something — some one to tame Red.”

“I reckon. . . . The only man who ever could tame Red,” muttered Ben, more to himself than to her.

“Your old pard, Nevada,” she whispered, leaning closer.

Ben dropped his head, and his gloved hand closed tight on Hettie’s.

Not for a long time had Hettie dared to broach this subject and now that she had, she meant to follow it up in a way to help her, and perhaps Ben, too.

“Ben, this is my birthday,” she spoke up, softly.

“Well, so it is,” replied her brother, starting out of his reverie. “I plumb forgot. But I reckon I can dig you up a present of some kind. . . . Let’s see, you must be eighteen — nineteen.”

“Twenty,” she added, gravely.

“How time flies! Why, you’re a grown woman, and a darned fine handsome one, too. But you always seem my kid sister.”

And as he turned to kiss her cheek she saw tears in his dark eyes. There were threads of gray, too, in the hair over Ben’s temples. That shocked Hettie. He, so young and strong and virile! But Ben, all those long years exiled from his home, outcast and wild-horse hunter, had led a lonely and hard life. It was Nevada who had saved him. And now, as so often in the past, she prayed God to bless Nevada, and keep him good and clean and brave as when she had known him.

“Ben,” she spoke up, “I don’t want any present on my twentieth birthday. But I ask this. If I’m a woman now I’m old enough to be listened to. Let me talk to you as I want — as I need to.”

“Hettie, I’m sorry you had to ask me that,” he returned, contritely. “But you hurt so. . . . And I thought you just a — a sentimental girl — that you’d forget.”

“Forget him? Never,” she whispered. “Have you forgotten?”

“If I ever do may God forgive me,” replied Ben, poignantly.

“Ben, I know your secret, and I think Ina knows, too,” went on Hettie, earnestly. “We are dear friends — nay, we’re sisters. She’s so good — so lovable. . . . We have talked often. You remember when Ina came home from college — when you were a poor wild-horse hunter of the hills and father almost hated you — remember how Ina and I plotted for you and Nevada. How we fought for you!”

“Ah, Hettie — I do remember,” said Ben, dreamily.

“Well, Ina and I know what ails you. It’s loss of your pard, Nevada!”

“No, Hettie dear, not all loss of mine,” burst out Ben, passionately. “I’m not so selfish as that. I could stand loss. But what has grieved and shamed me — and, well, broken my heart — is that Nevada saved me, made all my good fortune, my happiness, possible, by sacrificing himself. Father forgave me, took me back home to mother and you. Hart Blaine was proud to give me — me, the lonely wild-horse hunter — his talented and beautiful daughter, the richest girl in all this valley of rich ranchers. I had fame, family, home, love, happiness beyond belief. Then father died, leaving me rich. I should say leaving us rich, for half of all this wonderful ranch is yours, Hettie. Next little Blaine came to bless me — my boy! . . . And Nevada went back to where he came from. God only knows where that is. I’ve spent a lot of money searching the West for a lean-faced rider who drawled his Texas accent — and answered to the name Nevada. And I can’t find him.”

“Some day you will, Ben,” she whispered, thrillingly.

“Always I believed I would,” went on Ben, whose tongue, once loosed, seemed in haste to unburden itself. “I lived on that hope. But it’s four years now. Four years. And that Forlorn River Ranch of ours is now worth a fortune. Half of that is Nevada’s. Half of the Mule Deer Flat Ranch is Nevada’s. He’s worth money. . . . Why didn’t he come back? The whole country rose up to bless him for killing Less Setter and his two accomplices. Why didn’t he ever write? Just a line — a word to let me know he was alive and hadn’t forgotten. Oh, damn him — damn him!”

“Hush — Ben,” returned Hettie, almost faltering. “You don’t mean to damn Nevada. . . . Don’t you understand that the reason he disappeared like that, and became as one dead to you, was not because he feared the law might hold him for killing those wicked men who had trapped you. No! But because he feared we would find out who he really was. Oh, I know, Ben. That was it. Nevada had been bad. How bad I dare not imagine. . . . Don’t you remember that day when he rode so furiously into the crowd to face Setter? How the mere sight of him froze them with terror. . . . Oh, Ben, I fear Nevada had been some great and terrible gunman. . . . That gentle, soft-voiced boy who was afraid to touch me with his little finger! Oh, the mystery, the pity of it!”

“Gunman?” queried Ben, almost harshly. “I reckon so. I think I guessed it, he was so strange with guns. He handled a gun so marvellously. But what was that to me? . . . He could be Billy the Kid, or Plummer, or Wess Hardin, or Kingfisher, or Jim Lacy, or any other desperado I ever heard the name of — and what would I care?”

“Ben, dear, you quite overlooked something,” rejoined Hettie, bravely, while she felt the hot blood mount to cheek and temple. “Nevada loved not only you — but me too . . . and I — I loved him.”

“Well, now, Hettie,” replied Ben, strangely softened, “I reckon that’s no news, though you never declared it so — so openly. But even though that was true, why should it make such a difference?”

“The boy came of a good family,” replied Hettie. “He had fine instincts. And one of them was an instinct to disappear when there was danger of my learning who he really was. There can be no other reason. He had pride. And he loved me so — so well, he couldn’t bear to shame me.”

“Damn him, anyway!” burst out Ben, again. “He’s broken your heart, too.”

“Not yet,” replied Hettie, in strong vibrating tones.

“Hettie, did that son-of-a-gun make love to you?” queried Ben, struggling with his resentment and remorse.

“Did — he?” murmured she, with a little broken laugh. “Ben, when he found out I cared — he — he made the most terrible love to me. . . . Oh, I can never forget — never get over it!”

“Well!” ejaculated her brother, amazed out of his own pain. “How and when did he ever get the chance?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” asked Hettie, archly.

“And you — my little sixteen-year-old sister! . . . Who can ever tell about a girl?”

“Ben, didn’t Ina Blaine love you when she was five years old — and ten — and fourteen?” queried Hettie. “And at eighteen after she’d been away from you four years?”

“Thank the Lord, she did. I’ve never begun to understand it. But it’s beautiful, wonderful. . . . Did my pard, Nevada, ever know you, too, had that strange, glorious thing — woman’s love — for him?”

“Yes, Nevada knew,” replied Hettie, eloquently. “He knew he had my faith, too. . . . And, Ben, that is why I’ve never lost him. I know. It’s the way a woman feels. Nevada is not dead. He is not false to me — to what I believed he had become. And somewhere, somehow, he will come back to me — to us.”

“My God! that’s good to hear!” exclaimed Ben, with fervent emotion. “You strike me right in the heart, Hettie.”

“I’m glad. I’ve wanted to speak for long,” replied Hettie, simply. “And there’s another thing that touches us closely.”

“What’s that?” he asked, anxiously, as she gazed solemnly up at him, and hesitated.

“Mother is failing. Haven’t you noticed it?”

Ben nodded his head sorrowfully. “I reckon I try not to see, but I do.”

“She has brightened up since spring came,” went on Hettie. “Mother loves the sun, the trees, the flowers, the birds. She likes to be outdoors. Winter is long and cold here. It rains and snows and sleets. She dreads the icy wind. Honestly, Ben, I don’t think it’s grief for father. She has gotten over that. I believe this valley is bad for her. It’s bad for me, too, in winter.”

“I’ve been afraid of that very thing,” declared her brother, thoughtfully. “But there’s a possibility of some organic disease.”

“Mother’s not old,” said Hettie. “She ought to live many years yet. But we must do something to help her. Ben, I suggest you take her to San Francisco. Get the opinion and advice of some up-to-date physician. Take Ina with you. Blaine will be safe with me. I’ll run the ranch, never fear.”

“By George! it’s a great idea,” declared Ben, with amazing enthusiasm. He leaped down off the corral fence, then turned to help Hettie. “Ina will be tickled. She’ll get her brother Marvie to stay with you.”

“Ben, I actually believe you’ve decided already,” replied Hettie, suddenly feeling radiant.

“Reckon I have, and I’ll bet you Ina squeals with joy. Let’s go tell her this minute.”

Hettie peeped through the corral fence at California Red.

“Good-by, you beautiful, stand-off wild thing!” she cried. “Some day some one will come and he’ll tame you to eat out of my hand.”

With arms locked, Hettie and Ben hurried down the lane, eager with the import of new hopes, happier than they had been for a long time. It was Ben now who talked, while Hettie kept silent. She thrilled with the consciousness that she had roused Ben from a creeping sad abstraction that had grown more noticeable of late. Ben not only missed his old friend, Nevada, but also the wild-horse-hunting life which had been his sole occupation for years before his marriage, and which had been the cause of the alienation from his father.

Ina was in the yard, gathering violets, which certainly matched the blue of her spring dress and the color of her eyes. Little Blaine babbled at sight of his father and ran as fast as his short fat legs could carry him.

“Well, good-mawnin’, you-all!” said Ina, gayly. “Say, you look excited.” . . . Then she kissed Hettie and continued, “Many happy, happy returns of the day.”

Ben snatched the boy up and, holding him on his arm, he confronted Ina with a smile that held great portent.

“How soon can you get ready for a trip to San Francisco?” he asked, quite naturally, as if he were in the habit of speaking so every day.

“What! Oh, I knew something was up,” she cried, the color flashing to her beautiful face. “How soon? . . . Fifteen minutes!”

“Ha! Ha! I thought you’d hit the saddle and ride that idea pronto,” said Ben, happily. “But you needn’t be so swift as that.”

“Ben, are you really going to take me to Frisco?” asked Ina, eagerly.

“Yes. It’s all settled. But—”

“You darling,” she cried, kissing him. “I wanted to go somewhere. The winter has been so long, so confining. Klamath Falls was my hope. But San Francisco! Oh!”

“Ina, I’m sorry I don’t think of such things,” replied Ben, ruefully. “I guess I’d fallen into a rut. You must thank Hettie.”

Whereupon Ina most heartily embraced Hettie, and then, coming down to earth, she said: “Let’s go in to breakfast. You can tell me there all about this grand idea.”

“We’ll tell you now,” said Ben. “The trip to Frisco is on mother’s account and we mustn’t discuss it before her. The fact is, Ina, mother is failing. Something wrong with her. Hettie suggested we take her to San Francisco to see a competent physician. Blaine will be safe with Hettie and so will the ranch. What do you say, dearest?”

“I say it’s a happy and wise suggestion,” returned Ina, with a nod of commendation toward Hettie. “This damp cold Tule Lake does not agree with mother.”

The only hitch in the plans formulated by Ben and Hettie concerned the coming of Marvie Blaine to stay at the Ide ranch. Hart Blaine would not allow his son to go.

“That boy can’t run a mowin’ machine, let alone a ranch,” old Blaine had said to Ben.

There was trouble between Marvie and his father, for which, in Ben’s opinion, both were equally to blame.

“Sure reminds me of my scrap with dad,” remarked Ben to Hettie. “Only I was right and dad was wrong. Marvie refused to go to college. Reckon he’s not so different from me. He likes horses and the open country.”

“Some day Marvie will run off just as you did, Ben Ide,” Hettie had answered.

So Hettie was left alone in the Ide homestead with little Blaine and the two women servants. She rather welcomed the solitude. She found how much her mother had taken of time and thought. Part of the day she had the servants take care of Blaine while she devoted herself to the many set tasks at hand and the new ones always arising. After supper, when Blaine had been put to bed, she had hours to be alone and think before her own rest claimed her.

The running of the ranch had at first seemed something that would be pleasure, rather than work. She discovered presently that it was not only work, but an extremely embarrassing and exasperating task. There were eighteen hands employed on the lake ranch, and as many more out in the hills. Most of these employees were young men of the valley, unmarried, and very desirous of changing that state of single blessedness. Some had been schoolmates of Hettie’s. And there were several riders, long, lean, rangy fellows from the South, with whom Hettie grew most annoyed. They continually found reasons to ride in to the ranch. Some of the excuses were ridiculous in the extreme. These droll boys of the open range paid court to her, wholly oblivious of her rebuffs. In two weeks’ time the whole contingent was in love with Hettie or trying to make her believe so. And the plowing, the planting, the movement of stock, the hauling of supplies, the herding of cattle, in fact all tasks pertaining to the operation of Ben Ide’s ranches, had to be talked over elaborately with the temporary mistress.

Hettie had fun out of it, except in the case of the several lean-faced, quiet-eyed riders from the hills. They made love to her. Moreover, they reminded her of Nevada, and that inflamed her lonely, hungry heart.

If Nevada had come to mind often in the past, what did he do now but haunt every hour? She saw him in every one of the range riders. Yet how incomparably he bestrode a horse! Hettie saw his lean, fine still face, so clean cut and brown, with the sleepy eyes that yet could wake to flame and also smile with a light she had never seen in any other. His old black sombrero, with bullet holes in the crown, when laid aside had appeared a disreputable thing, but on his head it had seemed picturesque and beautiful. His old silk scarf with the checks of red, the yellow vest with the string of a little tobacco pouch always hanging out of a pocket, the worn leather wristbands, the high top-boots with their scalloped edges, and their long bright jingling spurs — how well she remembered them, how vividly they were limned in the eye of her memory! Then, as something inevitable at the end of reminiscence, something that seemed an inseparable part of Nevada, she recalled the dark and heavy gun he had always worn. It had bumped against her as she walked beside him. When he had taken her in his arms, even in the sweet madness of that moment, she had felt the gun hard and cold against her.

The years had brought Hettie stronger and deeper love for Nevada. As she looked back now she remembered her open aversion to his gun, and to the something about him that hinted of its deadly use. She had been a callow, sentimental girl, sickened at the thought of bloodshed, hostile toward the spirit and skill that had eventually saved her brother from ruin and perhaps herself from the villainous Setter.

She had lived and suffered during the four years since Nevada had ridden away, leaving death and calamity behind him. She was a woman now. She saw differently. She divined what she had been to him — how her friendship and love had uplifted him. How great and enduring had her own love become! She was his alone. Separation could never change her.

“What did it matter who Nevada was or what he was before he came to Ben and me?” she mused, sitting by the open window in the dark, listening to the last sleepy honks of wild geese and the melancholy peep-peep of spring frogs. “But he could not see that. Yet he must have known it would not matter to me, so long as he kept himself the Nevada we knew and loved. . . . Would he ever fall to rustling cattle, if that had once been his crime? No! Would he ever drink again? No! Could he sink to the embrace of some bad woman? Never! . . . Will he use again that terrible gun? . . . Ah, he will! I feel it. If not for himself, then for some one. . . . He was flame and lightning to destroy!”

CHAPTER SIX

HETTIE’S FOLK DID not return from San Francisco on the date they had specified, nor did she receive any letter from them. Every day thereafter she expected them, only to be disappointed. This, added to the increasing perplexity of the duties that had been left to her, and the persistence of her admirers, wore her into such a nervous state that she failed to keep her boast about running the ranch.

One day several strangers from Klamath Falls called upon Hettie. They were business men, representing an Oregon syndicate, who were buying up land around Tule Lake Valley. There had been considerable speculation in that vicinity since the draining of the lake. The Ides had received offers before, but never anything like the one made by these men. Hettie was shrewd enough to grasp that some situation had arisen, such as the possibility of a railroad from Klamath Falls, to increase the value of the Ide property enormously. She neither refused nor accepted the offer, saying that control of the ranches was in her brother’s hand. Her amazement and gratification, however, lingered after their departure. She scarcely ever thought of herself as sharing equally with Ben the fortune their father had left them.

Hettie happened to be out on the farm somewhere when her people returned; and upon coming back to the house, hot and dusty and weary, what was her surprise and joy to be waylaid in the hall by her mother and Ina. It took no second glance to see that the little trip had been happily beneficial, especially to her mother.

When they reached the sitting room, Hettie was on the verge of tears. Sight of Ben then was too much for her, and she ran weeping into his outstretched arms.

“Oh — Ben,” she cried, “I — I fell down on running the ranch! . . . The silly fools nagged me — to death!”

“Who?” queried Ben, suddenly aghast.

“The boys — and some of the men — too. They just — made my life — miserable.”

“Well! The lazy sons-of-guns!” ejaculated Ben. “I’ll fire the whole caboodle of them.”

Ina’s tender solicitude and Ben’s anger at once calmed Hettie.

“Oh no, Ben. It’s not so — so bad as that. They only hatched every pretense and excuse to approach me — just to make outrageous love.”

Ben’s haw-haw mingled with Ina’s scream of laughter. Hettie had to accept that mirth with the best grace possible. Her troubles were over, at last, and she could not but forgive the suitors who had so besieged her. The high spirits of Ben and Ina and the certain evidence of her mother’s improvement were sufficient to lift Hettie to the heights.

“What’d you bring me from Frisco?” she asked presently, with all a child’s eagerness.

“Candy,” replied Ben, with a smile.

“A new spring dress and hat — oh, adorable,” replied Ina.

“Well, daughter, I fetched you somethin’ too,” added Mrs. Ide, beaming.

“I — I’m almost glad you went off and left me alone,” responded Hettie, gratefully.

Nothing was said during supper about the main object of the journey to San Francisco. Ina told of their trips to the stores, and Ben of their jaunts to seashore and parks and theaters. Later, when Mrs. Ide had retired, Ben took Hettie into Ina’s room, where the ecstatic Blaine gloated over his new toys.

“Well, Hettie, your sending us off on this trip means a great change in our lives,” began Ben, gravely.

“Oh — Ben!” faltered Hettie.

Here Ina interposed to reprove Ben for his abruptness and lack of tact. Then she added, “Hettie dear, it’s nothing to frighten you.”

“Winter and spring are too damp and cold for mother,” continued Ben. “To keep her here longer will endanger her life.”

“Then we certainly won’t keep her,” replied Hettie, resolutely.

“Exactly. Ina and I got that far, anyway, in our decision.”

“Will mother — be all right in some other climate?” queried Hettie, with hesitation.

“She’ll get well,” answered Ben. “She needs a mild, dry, warm climate in winter and a high, dry, bracing climate in summer.”

“Where can we find them?”

“Easy enough. But the thing that stumps Ina and me is how to decide what’s best to do.”

“That’s easy enough,” returned Hettie. “I will go with mother and live with her.”

“Sure you will. But that doesn’t solve the problem.”

“Surely we can afford it, Ben?”

“I reckon. However, the point is I don’t want to be separated from mother and you. Neither does Ina. That much is settled. We won’t be separated.”

Hettie gazed with suddenly dim eyes at her brother. He and Ina felt what she had not spoken. They were both in dead earnest, and Ina’s color had faded. Evidently they had talked this thing over, to a conclusion that was momentous.

“Ben, you can’t imagine how happy you make me,” said Hettie, feelingly. “Separation would be hard. I have only mother and you and yours to live for. . . . Then, if you won’t let mother and me leave you . . .”

“We’ve sure got to go with you,” interrupted Ben, forcibly. “But what to do is sure a sticker.”

“Sell — out!” said Hettie, huskily.

“But we’ve lived here all our lives. This land has made us prosperous. It’s home.”

“Ben, it’d not be home without mother.”

“No. And it wouldn’t be the same if we were all separated. But I’d hate to sacrifice the land just to get a quick sale. And we’ll need money, wherever we go.”

“Ben, I can sell this lake property of ours for two hundred thousand,” declared Hettie.

Her brother stared at her. At length he spoke: “Hettie, don’t make wild statements like that. It’s hard enough on me to make decisions.”

“I can sell for that to-morrow,” grandly added Hettie, conscious of a sudden tremendous importance.

“Now I know she’s crazy,” wailed Ben, turning to his wife.

“She looks pretty sure and sane to me, Bennie boy. You’re only a wild-horse hunter, anyway. Hettie and I have the business brains.”

“By George!” cried Ben, leaping up. “You’re right. But I can’t believe we could sell for that.”

“It’s true, Ben. Listen,” said Hettie, and then briefly told about the offer of the Klamath Falls syndicate.

“Horses not included in the deal? Not California Red?” queried Ben, beginning to manifest signs of extreme excitement.

“Their offer embraced land and buildings on this ranch, and all the Ide cattle. But not horses.”

“Girls, it’s settled, it’s done!” cried Ben, giving way to the force of something that had been impelling him. He kissed Ina and hugged Hettie. He tore up and down the room. He woke little Blaine, who had fallen asleep on the bed amid his toys.

“Ben, aren’t you ashamed? All that show of gladness over selling our home!” exclaimed Ina, reproachfully.

Hettie did not voice her surprise and disapproval. She had not seen Ben show excitement like that for years. What did it mean?

Ben ceased his violent expressions and faced them, quite pale, with his dark eyes full of fire.

“Forgive me and try to understand,” he said. “Remember I have not the tender associations with Tule Lake that actuate you girls. It is home and I reckon I love it, but not as you. Father was hard on me for years. He made me an outcast. For years more I lived over there across the sage hills, hunting wild horses, lonely and wretched. Then Nevada dropped into my life. Then, Ina, you came, too. . . . And so between you I was brought home again. But despite all, there has been something lacking. . . . This ranch country is too populated for me. It is too rich. There’s not enough hard work for me. The sage hills and the valleys, once so wild, where the horses roamed free, are now ranches and farms. I’d be happier in a new country — say in Arizona, where the ranges are vast and ranches few. I’d do better, working as I used to. . . . That’s why I’m glad to sell out here, to take mother where she’ll get strong again, where you all will be the happier because of these things.”

“Arizona? Ben, you didn’t tell me you’d decided,” expostulated Ina.

“I hadn’t until now. Hettie settled it, bless her heart.”

“Arizona!” murmured Hettie, thoughtfully. “We know so little about Arizona. Isn’t it very wild?”

“Wild? I reckon,” replied Ben. “Arizona is everything northern California used to be. Then it has vast grass and sage ranges, desert and valley, canyons and mountains, great forests, great rivers. There are thousands of wild horses in Arizona. Deer, bear, lion, turkey — wonderful hunting. It has minerals — gold, silver, copper. There’s just been war between cattlemen and sheepmen. Oh, it is a wonderful country for the pioneer.”

“Hettie,” added Ina, “we met an Arizonian in Frisco, a grizzled old fellow. I wish you could have seen him. He surely was full of Arizona. But Ben didn’t tell you all.”

“What’d I forget?” inquired Ben, lamely.

“About the bad crews who live off the ranchers — Indians, Mexicans, rustlers, horse thieves, wild cowboys, gunmen — and I don’t remember who else. That plan of Arizona worries me, Ben, if you must go there.”

“It’d worry me, too, if I thought I’d fall into such company as the old Arizonian bragged about. But he was only blowing. . . . At that, though, I think I could stand a few wild cowboys. Couldn’t you, Hettie?”

He spoke teasingly and laughed with something of his old boyishness. Verily this possibility of Arizona had stimulated him.

Hettie tried to smile, but her effort was a wan one. There had seemed to come a knocking at her heart.

“I’ll keep Forlorn River Ranch and Mule Deer Flat,” mused Ben, pacing the room. “I’d never part with them. We own them, Nevada and I, share and share alike. . . . Some day I’ll come back to see them, and who knows?”

Hettie lay sleepless and distracted late into the hours of the night.

She could not tell whether she wanted to weep or rejoice. Ben’s revelation had not been such a surprise, though the violence of his feeling dismayed her. Despite all that wealth, home, wife, child could give Ben, he yearned for the old free life in the open, for his lean-faced beloved friend, for the color of the sage and the movement of wild horses on the horizon. How he had welcomed this opportunity to get away from Tule Lake! And Ina was as wise as she was loving. Her home was where her heart abided. That night she had followed Hettie to her room to say: “Hettie, we didn’t guess how it was with Ben. And I want to ask you, don’t you think this change will be as good for Ben’s soul as for mother’s health?”

“I do indeed, Ina,” Hettie had replied. “Ben was a strange boy, even when he was little. Father never understood him.”

“Well, I’ll be happy with Ben anywhere,” returned Ina, simply. “My folks will make a fuss about this. They’ll be shocked to hear we are going back to the pioneer life in far-away Arizona. Money has made snobs of my people, except Marvie. He’s eighteen now, and as wild to hunt and fish and ride as when he used to run away to Forlorn River. He just worshiped Ben and Nevada. He and dad are at odds now. I wonder how our going will effect Marvie?”

“Ina, you needn’t wonder,” said Hettie. “That boy will go with us.”

“Oh, if he only could!” sighed Ina. “But dad would rave at the very idea.”

“Marvie will run off,” declared Hettie, positively.

Whenever Hettie’s thoughts wandered back to herself, she wanted to weep. There was regret, of course, mingled with the emotions roused by the thought of leaving Tule Lake, where she had lived all her life. But not regret was it that threatened to bring the tears. Rather a joy rising from the depths of her! The old oppressive certainty that Nevada would never come back to Forlorn River was now lifted from her heart. She would no longer eat her heart out in waiting. Over there in wild Arizona she might see him again. Ben would never cease to search for Nevada. Surely he would locate him some day. How Ben loved that comrade of his lonely Forlorn River days!

Ben was late at breakfast next morning. No one had to tell Hettie and Ina that he had been out to the corrals. He strode in more like his old self than for months, keen-eyed, virile, with the spring of a rider in his step.

“Say, girls, what do you think?” he declared, radiantly. “Red came to me this morning. The wild son-of-a-gun! He did, and it sure tickled me. And I said to him, ‘Old boy, you’re going back to the unfenced ranges.’ He understood me, too. . . . Oh, Ina — Hettie, I’m another man this mawnin’!”

“You look it, Bennie,” replied Ina, with her beautiful eyes warm and glad.

“But you and Hettie look as if you’d lain awake and cried all night.”

“That’s a way women have, sometimes,” said Ina. “It’s a break, of course. But we’re happy for you, and, thank God, we’ve found the way to restore mother.”

“Blaine, my boy,” said Ben, leaning to the child in his highchair, “we’re going to Arizona. Are you glad?”

“Papa happy?” replied Blaine, with big-eyed, questioning wonder.

“Well, there’s a bright youngster,” declared Ben, raising his head to smile at Ina.

Mrs. Ide came in at the moment, to take her place next to Hettie. “What’s that I hear about Arizona?”

“Oh, nothing much, mother,” laughed Ben. “I was teasing Blaine about Arizona.”

“Reckon you’re full of Arizona since you met that cattleman,” rejoined Mrs. Ide, placidly. “I didn’t think much of him. He was as rough as the country he bragged about.”

“Nana, we’s doan Ar-zoonie,” chirped up little Blaine, with great importance.

Mrs. Ide had not until that moment been given any inkling of the secret.

“Land’s sake!” she ejaculated. “So that’s the mystery. . . . Ben Ide, you ain’t goin’ back to chasin’ wild hosses? Your father would turn over in his grave.”

Ben Ide was not noted for deception or beating round the bush. Despite warning glances from Hettie and a kick under the table from Ina he told his mother that he was thinking of selling out and moving to Arizona. Mrs. Ide declared she would never go or permit Hettie to leave home. Ben tried to expostulate with her and, failing that, tried to laugh it off. But when his mother asked him a deliberate question he maintained silence. Whereupon she rose from the table and, weeping, left the room.

“Blaine, I reckon you’re not such a bright kid, after all,” said Ben, ruefully.

“It was a shock, Ben,” rejoined Ina. “You were so abrupt. But she’ll come round to it all right.”

“Leave mother to us,” added Hettie.

They talked it over, and at the conclusion of breakfast both Ina and Hettie urged Ben, now that he had made the great decision, to proceed at once toward its fulfillment.

“I’ll run over to tell mother and dad,” said Ina. “They’d never forgive me if I didn’t tell them first. Maybe they’ll not forgive me, anyway. . . . And Marvie! I’ll bet he lets out a whoop.”

“By George!” ejaculated Ben. “Marvie will want to come with us. Ina, it’s a big chance for the boy.”

“I believe it is, Ben,” she replied.

“Well, there’s something sort of tough about this deal,” went on Ben. “Yet it’s great, too. . . . I’ll go to Klamath Falls today. Reckon the papers will require your signature, Hettie. Say, what’re you going to do with all that money?”

“What money?” queried Hettie, blankly.

“Why, ninny, your share in the Ide property!”

“Goodness! I never thought of that in money. Ben, I’ll want the same share in your Arizona ranch.”

“Good. You’re one sister in a million. I’ll leave you to talk some sense into mother, and you, Ina, to do the same by your folks. Reckon that’ll be leaving you a job, because you and Marvie have all the sense in the Blaine family.”

Ben left early for Klamath and Hettie had her hands full, not only with her mother, but with the ranch boys and riders among whom the news spread like wildfire in dry grass. Ben had not been any more tactful than usual. But then, Hettie reflected, since everybody had to know, what difference did it make whether they were told sooner or later?

Hettie told nine boys, one after the other, that Ben had not been joking, and that the Ide ranch was to pass into strange hands. Each and every one of these ranch hands was visibly agitated at the news.

“Miss Hettie,” said one, “I reckon we ain’t carin’ what becomes of Tule Lake Ranch, but we care an awful lot about what becomes of you an’ the boss. You can’t get along without us.”

“Oh, I wish Ben would take you all,” replied Hettie, half distracted.

Then she had a long and trying hour with her mother, who, of course, could not be told the most important reason for this breaking of old home ties. But Hettie knew how to handle her mother, and with patience and common sense, and dwelling much on the need of a change for Ben, she at last won the victory.

“After all, Hettie, it doesn’t — matter about me,” concluded Mrs. Ide, weeping. “But you’ll be marryin’ one of them long-legged, long-haired Arizona jacks, like that terrible Nevada.”

“Why, mother, what a happy thought!” exclaimed Hettie, with a divine blush. “I might be just that lucky.”

Ina, however, did not have such success with her folks. She returned both with fire in her eyes and with traces of tears on her cheeks.

“Oh, Hettie, they were just horrid,” she said. “Kate was there, too, and you know she hates me. Dad was idiot enough to suggest that I come back to live with him. And Kate said I’d never need any more pretty dresses and hats out in that wild, woolly Arizona. My clothes always stuck in Kate’s craw. But Marvie. Oh, he was adorable! In front of dad he never batted an eye. Once outside, though, he nearly hugged the breath out of me. ‘Come with you?’ he shouted, so loud I was afraid they’d hear. ‘By the great jumpin’ horn of Jehosaphat, I’m comin’! Dad can’t stop me. Nor ropes, nor jails! I’ll ride for Ben, an’ chase wild horses, an’ hunt an’ fish. . . . Who knows, I might see Nevada out there.’”

“Bless the boy’s heart!” exclaimed Hettie, her eyes filling with tears.

“Strange how Ben and Marvie loved Nevada,” mused Ina.

“Strange?” queried Hettie, smiling through her tears.

“No. I don’t mean that. . . . I think I loved him, too.”

“Well, Ina, we’ve broken the ice,” rejoined Hettie, quickly changing the subject. “Mother made a fuss, but I won her over. Your folks will have to come round, whether they like it or not. Now we must get our heads together. Ben will think of taking you and Blaine, and us, and his horses. That’s all. But you know there are many things he can’t part with. What a job it will be! How will we travel?”

“Goodness! I hope Ben doesn’t make us ride horseback or in tent-covered wagons,” replied Ina. That’d be just like him.”

“It’d be fun, once we got started,” said Hettie, dreamily.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THREE DAYS LATER the Ides stood on their front porch and watched a buckboard drawn by a spirited team of horses rapidly passing down the lane toward the main road. This vehicle contained Ben’s lawyer and a representative of the Oregon syndicate. Ben held a certified check in his hand, for which he had signed away the broad fertile acres of Tule Lake Ranch. He had also agreed to turn over the property before the first of September.

“By George! It happened quick!” he exclaimed, breathing hard. “Ina — Hettie — we’re homeless.”

“Ben, if it hurts you to lose this ranch, how will you ever give up Forlorn River?” asked Hettie, wonderingly.

“I’m sure keeping Forlorn River,” declared Ben, but he winced perceptibly. “That reminds me, I’ll have to ride out there.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Hettie.

“Me, too,” added Ina. “Reckon you-all haven’t any corner on love for old Forlorn River.”

“Honest, girls, I’d rather go alone,” returned Ben.

“We won’t intrude on your grief, Bennie dear,” smiled Ina.

“I stopped over in Hammell on my way back from Oregon,” said Ben. “You remember Sheriff Strobel. He always was a friend of mine, even in those outcast days when I was suspected of being a rustler. Strobel knows a good deal about Arizona. I asked him to come out this afternoon. I’ll sure take what he says pretty serious.”

“Now that we’ve burned our bridges behind us, it’s late to ask advice,” said Hettie.

“Yes, as far as going is concerned,” agreed Ben. “But about where to go — that’s another matter. Arizona is a big place.”

No wonder, thought Hettie, that Ben wanted to consult some one who was familiar with Arizona. She had begun to realize the responsibility of their undertaking. Therefore she was quite as eager to hear Sheriff Strobel as Ben; and Ina, too, did not want to be excluded from the interview.

They sat out on the shady porch, and while little Blaine played on the grass they explained to Ben’s old friend the exigencies of the case.

“Wal, if you’ve sold out an’ have got to go, there ain’t no use advisin’ ag’in’ it,” replied Strobel. “I reckon it’s a pity. Folks around will miss you-all. . . . But what’d you pick out Arizona for, of all places?”

“Arizona has the climate. The doctor recommended it,” said Ben.

“Wal, Arizona sure has a lot of climate,” admitted Strobel. “There ain’t no gainsayin’ that. But climate is the only good thing it has got. The rest is desert, rocks, cactus, Gila monsters, an’ tarantulas, side-winders, bad varmints, greasers, rustlers, an’ gun-throwers.”

“That’s the worst I’ve heard yet,” returned Ben, regretfully. “Are you giving Arizona a square deal?”

“Wal, after all, it’s a wonderful country,” replied the sheriff, as if forced to make a concession. “I went there twice, first time in the early days of the Territory, an’ second about two years ago. Outside of the Indians bein’ quiet, I didn’t see much difference. Of late, hard characters have slipped into Arizona from all over.”

“I’ve heard that,” said Ben, impatiently. “It’s about all anyone seems to say. What I want help in is where to strike for.”

“Reckon I don’t know enough about Arizona to tell you that. I’m able, though, to give you some hunches about where not to go. Southern Arizona is too hot, an’ in the north it’s too cold. On the other hand, you want to steer clear of the Tonto Basin, the Sierra Ancas, the Mogollons, the Little Colorado country. Around Springerville an’ Snowflake there’s fine grazin’ lands. That’s near the White Mountains. But Mormons mostly have settled in there. The Santa Fé Railroad has just lately been laid across Arizona. An’ all along the line new ranches have been added to the few settlers that were there. Anyone goin’ into the cattle game on a big scale, as of course you will, don’t want to get too far from the railroad. I’d say a hundred miles should be the limit, an’ that’s too far, in Arizona. Roughest, wildest country on earth, I reckon. . . . Now, Ben, the only advice I’ll presume to give you is this. Have a winter home in San Diego, California. There’s the mildest, most equable climate in all the world. That’s the place for your mother an’ for all of you. San Diego is not so far from southern and central Arizona. By doin’ so you can pick the best range land in Arizona, an’ needn’t worry so much about winter climate. Some of them high plateaus get plumb cold in winter, but are grand all the rest of the year.”

“By George! that’s a good idea,” exclaimed Ben, enthusiastically. “Never thought of that myself. I’ve heard about San Diego. It’s on the seashore near the Mexican border. They say the sun shines there every day in the year. By George! — it solves our problem, Ina.”

“I like the idea very much indeed,” replied Ina.

“How about you, Hettie?” queried Ben, eagerly.

“It would appeal to mother,” said Hettie. “She’s a little hipped on this wild and woolly Arizona, as your San Francisco informant called it.”

“Sheriff, you sure have given me a hunch,” declared Ben, turning to his friend. “Now, about my horses. You know I’d never go anywhere without Red and some of the others. But why not take the best of my stock?”

“Wal, by all means take them,” replied the sheriff. “That’s a hoss country, an’ also a hoss-thief country. I’d send them overland by easy stages in care of some reliable men. Send a chuck wagon, an’ also another wagon, so they can haul outfits an’ plenty of grain. An’, Ben, I’d start them soon as possible. They’ll need time. They got to cross Nevada an’ most of Utah. That depends on the best route, which they’ll have to find.”

“Exactly. The main thing, though, is an objective point. Where shall my men go in Arizona?”

“Wal, that is a stumper,” replied the other. “Here it’s well along in May now. You said you’d agree to vacate this range in about two months.”

“Yes. But, come to think of it, that’s just prolonging the agony. . . . Girls, how about it? Couldn’t you get out of here in two weeks?”

“Oh dear!” cried Hettie, helpless before this rush of events and the wonderful stir it roused.

“Yes, Ben, we could. The sooner the better,” replied Ina, wide-eyed with the seriousness of this decision.

“Good!” ejaculated Ben. “Then I’ll go with the horses. You can pack what you want to take, send it to Klamath to be freighted. Then you and Hettie can fetch Blaine and mother by way of Frisco.”

“They can take the Santa Fé from Los Angeles,” interposed the sheriff.

“And be landed somewhere in wild Arizona to wait weeks for you,” asserted Ina.

“Ben, if you go overland I’m going with you,” added Hettie, spiritedly.

“We’ll all go with you,” added Ina, a spot of red showing in each pearly cheek.

“Aw, girls, that’ll never do,” expostulated Ben. “It’s — it’s a crazy idea.”

“We could stand it,” returned Ina, gathering courage with the growing conception. “I think we’d have fun. Back to the pioneer days! Remember how our mothers used to brag about the wagon-team into Oregon?”

“It would be great,” added Hettie, in low voice, and she felt her breast heave.

“Say, you’re laying it on thick,” declared Ben, at his wits’ end. Plain it was he had at once set his heart upon riding overland. “You girls might do it, but think of Blaine and mother.”

“Mother would not only like it, but she could go through with it,” said Hettie, jumping up. “I’ll ask her.”

She ran in to lay the point before her mother.

“Well, daughter,” came the reply, with unusual animation, “reckon that’s the first sensible idea Ben has thought of, if it did come from him. It’d do me good. Work an’ livin’ outdoors is what I need.”

Hettie rushed outside triumphantly to announce her mother’s opinion, at which Ben threw up his hands.

“I’ll have to give up that plan,” he said, regretfully.

Whereupon he took the sheriff off for the corrals, leaving Hettie and Ina deep in a discussion of this important phase of their exodus into a new country. On Blaine’s behalf, Ina could not see any reason why he should be a deterrent. And Hettie found innumerable arguments in favor of the overland journey.

“We can pack a wagonload of trunks and chests and boxes with the things most dear to us, and ship the rest,” averred Ina. “It’d be a safer way.”

Hettie agreed wholly with Ina on the economic and practical aspects of the matter, and did not slight the romance, or the adventure side. In the end they convinced each other that the overland journey was the one they wanted to take.

“Leave Ben to me,” concluded Ina.

“Oh, what will Marvie say to this?” added Hettie, with shining eyes.

As Hettie had suspected, her brother was not so easy to persuade as Ina had confidently anticipated. During the two days of this deadlock the affairs of the ranch went topsy-turvy. What time Ben was not listening and gradually weakening to Ina’s importunities he lounged around the corrals, not in a very approachable mood.

At daylight on the third morning Ben pounded on Hettie’s door.

“Wake up!” he shouted, gayly. “You’ll make a fine wife for a pioneer.”

“Oh, Ben, what’s the matter?” cried Hettie, sitting up in alarm.

“Roll out. There’s work to do, young lady.”

“Are you — have you—” faltered Hettie.

“I reckon. We leave June first,” he replied, deep-voiced.

“Overland?”

“Sure. And Marvie goes with us. Ina’s father was pretty decent, for him. Agreed to let Marvie come with us for a year, on trial. I had to give my word of honor I’d send him back if he went wild.”

“Marvie won’t go wild — that is, not much,” replied Hettie. “Oh, I’m glad! Ina loves him best of all her family. . . . Ben, then we’re — really going?”

“You bet, unless you girls four-flush on me,” rejoined Ben, and then he thumped away down the hall with rapid stride.

Hettie gave a little gasp and fell back on her pillow. She seemed suddenly weak. What a wonderful prospect, yet terrifying for all its thrill! Before she recovered Ina came running in, fully dressed, with wild dark eyes of radiance.

“Get up, you lazy girl,” she said, hugging and pulling at Hettie. “It’s all settled. Ben was over home till late. I was asleep when he got back. He woke me at four o’clock and told me he’d decided. We’re to go overland. We’ll have a regular wagon-train. Oh, I’m so excited I’m silly. . . . I believe it was Marvie who turned the scales. He can do anything with Ben — he’s so like Nevada. Wasn’t it bright of me to enlist Marvie in our cause?”

“Bright? You’re wonderful! The Ide outfit wouldn’t be complete without Marvie.”

That dawn was the beginning of excited, full, strenuous days. Hettie did not know where the hours flew. If anything inspired her more than her own secret longing that she might meet Nevada but in Arizona, it was the interest and enthusiasm shown by her mother. They wasted as much time in choosing what to take as they worked hard and late in packing. Ben sold most of the furniture almost over their heads. As the first of June drew swiftly and fearfully on, Hettie realized she must spare time to see a few old school friends before she left. As it turned out, however, they called to see her.

Ben bought several new, large, deep-bodied wagons, which he had covered with canvas stretched over high hoops. One for Hettie and her mother, and another for himself, Ina, and Blaine, he had fitted out so that they made comfortable little rooms. What tingling pleasure Hettie derived from climbing into her wagon, that must be her home for weeks, possibly months! It was almost like, when she had been a little girl, playing at keeping house.

Wherefore furnishing this wagon-house proved both a joy and problem. Hettie arranged curtains just behind the wide driver’s seat in front. The two single cots had a narrow aisle between them, which was covered with a strip of carpet. Underneath the cots Hettie stowed bags and boxes. At the rear of the wagon was space enough for a low chair, a bureau with mirror, a tiny washstand, and an improvised cloth-curtained wardrobe in which to hang clothes.

The morning of departure was like a nightmare for Hettie. But after she had passed through Hammell, which passing was in the nature of a parade, Hettie began to recover. Her mother lay quietly on her cot, wearied, but not manifesting any signs of deep grief. Hettie parted the front curtains and got out on the high seat with the driver, one of the older men, who had worked for the Ides as long as Hattie could remember. She did not want to cry, and thought that outside she might better keep from it.

A string of horses, mostly bays and blacks, among which California Red shone like fire in the sun, led the cavalcade up the long hill road. They were in charge of three of Ben’s best riders. Next came the chuck wagon, and after it the one containing extra supplies, both of which were drawn by four horses. Ben’s wagon came third, and Hettie’s last.

She had a powerful impulse to look back, but she resisted it until they had passed over the hill. When at last Hettie turned to look her eyes were so wet that she had to wipe them so she could see. How far they had already come! The cluster of houses that constituted the village of Hammell lay at the foot of the long hill. Beyond widened the green valley, for miles and miles, with its threads of bright water and its shining remnant of lake, and the great squares of grain, waving in the wind. She located the Ide ranch, the fields, the barns, the dark patch of maples, the white house. Home! She was leaving it, surely forever. Yet she whispered to herself that she was glad to go; her heart had almost broken there; she would never return unless — unless . . .

Hettie had overestimated her powers of resistance. That one lingering last look back at Tule Lake was her undoing. She crept through the curtains again and sought her couch, where she hid her face and let emotion have its sway. Following that, a relaxation from the weeks of excitement and work set in, and she was glad to rest and sleep. Late in the afternoon she awoke, refreshed and calm, soon to feel a lively interest in the present.

At this juncture a halt was made for the first camp. Hettie saw that wagons and horses had stopped off the road in a level place where gnarled oaks stood far apart and a trickling stream wound between green banks. She walked here and there to stretch her legs, conscious of the return of a vague delight. She had always loved camping out, of which she had experienced but little. This indeed was to be a real camping adventure. The horses were rolling on the ground, in all kinds of violent action to scratch and dust their sweaty backs. Some of the more spirited animals were being hobbled. Ben was coaxing California Red with a nosebag of grain. The driver of the chuck wagon, who was also the cook, staggered under a load of firewood. Rolls of bedding were being thrown from another wagon.

When Hettie got back to her wagon and Ben’s, which were close together, she found her mother, Ina, and Blaine all out, smiling and interested. Just then Marvie Blaine strode up with an ax on his shoulder. He was a tall, well-built youth, freckled and homely, with fine clear eyes. He wore overalls, high boots, long spurs, and he packed a gun. Ina espied this latter simultaneously with Hettie.

“Marvie Blaine!” cried Ina, pointing at the gun. “What’s that?”

“Why, my six shooter, of course!” retorted Marvie, with importance.

“What’re you going to do with it?” queried his sister, in consternation.

“Ina, I’m sure not wearing it for ornament,” replied the lad.

“Gracious! It might go off and hurt somebody!”

“Ahuh! That’s the whole idea of packing a gun,” replied Marvie, and strode on.

“Hettie, did you hear him?” asked Ina, wide-eyed.

“I sure did,” said Hettie, with a laugh. “Marvie’s awakened to reality.”

“And Ben swore to dad he’d keep that boy from going wild,” ejaculated Ina.

Ben, who approached on the moment, heard his wife’s exclamation, and he picked up little Blaine to toss him up and catch him. “Ha! Ha! reckon here’s another gunman in the making.”

“There’s nothing funny about that remark,” said Ina, reproachfully.

Just then the cook came shuffling up to Ben, manifestly in a high state of dudgeon.

“Boss, your mother says she’s a-goin’ to do the cookin’, an’ thet I can wait on table an’ wash dishes,” he asserted.

“By George! I forgot about mother,” rejoined Ben, struggling with his mirth. “Now, Hank, that’s nonsense, of course. But you must use some tact. Mother wants to help along. Can’t you let her putter around?”

“Putter, hell!” sputtered Hank. “She calls me dirty an’ greasy — throws out my sour dough — an’ snooks into everythin’. . . . Now, boss, I’m a-goin’ to quit.”

“Hank, you wouldn’t go back on me,” returned Ben, in alarm. “Come, I’ll talk to mother.”

When Ben had gone with the irate cook, Ina and Hettie burst into merry peals of laughter.

“Hettie, I wouldn’t have — missed this trip — for the world,” said Ina.

“Neither would I. But I’ve begun to have glimmerings.”

“Of what?” asked Ina, curiously.

“Of lots besides fun,” replied Hettie, soberly.

Presently Ben returned, somewhat crestfallen. “By George!” he said, throwing off his sombrero and pulling at his dark locks. “I fixed it up, but I’m scared stiff. I reckon all camp cooks are more or less rough and not very particular. It’s sure fire mother won’t stand for dirt. She knows, too. I forgot she used to travel with dad years ago. She wouldn’t even consider the plan Hank and I had agreed on — that we’d eat first, then the men. No, says mother. Waste of time and work. We’ll all eat together.”

“That’s sensible,” replied Ina.

“I am reminded that I’m starved,” interposed Hettie.

“I’s hungry,” chirped up little Blaine, from the grass.

“We all are, son,” agreed Ben.

Presently they were called to supper. The picturesque significance of that scene was vividly impressed upon Hettie — the smoking fire, and smell of burnt wood, the steaming pots, the new white tarpaulin spread under an oak, the hot biscuits, and sizzling bacon with its savoury fragrance; the tall, lean, dark-faced young riders, still in chaps and spurs; her mother, bustling and happy as Hettie had not seen her in years; young Marvie with his shining freckled face and conscious air; Ina, with violent eyes alight; and the tumbling, disheveled Blaine, at last in his element, and Ben, both gay with the zest of this journey and thoughtful with its responsibility.

Then after supper came the hour beside the camp fire. As dusk settled down and the night wind arose there were comfort and pleasant sensation in the heat from the red logs.

Hettie watched and listened, conscious of a mounting interest in all that pertained to this overland journey. The men talked with Ben about the practical details of travel, the need of shoeing a certain horse, the greasing of a wagon wheel, the night-watches, and especially of the road ahead.

“We’ll have fust-rate goin’ fer a couple of days,” said Raidy, one of Ben’s older hands. “I’ve been over this hyar road lots of times, far as Jefferson. We turn off, howsomever, about day after to-morrer. An’ that road used to be a terror for a wagon. Over the foothills into Nevada. But I heerd in Hammell thet it’s been improved by travel. There’s new minin’ towns sprung up, Salisbar is quite a town.”

“How about that thar border place, Lineville?” asked one of the riders.

“I ain’t never been there,” replied Raidy. “All I know is hearsay. Reckon it’s growed, too, along with the booms. But she shore was a wide-open town once. Not so long ago, either, as time goes. We’ll hit Lineville along late the fourth day from hyar, if my figgerin’ is correct an’ we have any kind of travelin’ luck.”

“Boss, do you aim to go through Salt Lake City?” queried another.

“No. We’ll strike Utah far south of Salt Lake,” replied Ben.

“Then we don’t hit Tombstone?”

“I’m not sure. How about that, Raidy?”

“We don’t run into Tombstone,” returned Raidy, “an’ thet’s jest as well. Our trail zigzags across Nevada, workin’ down. Bad road, but passable. We go into Marysville, Utah. Thet burg is pretty far across the line an’ pretty far south. Thar’s a road from Marysville down over the line into Arizona, an’ way around to a crossin’ of the Colorado called Lee’s Ferry. Mormons have been comin’ across the head of the Grand Canyon thar fer years. Reckon we can travel whar any Mormons go, though thet country is said to be the grandest an’ roughest in all the West. It’ll save us a thousand miles.”

When Hettie retired to her wagon that night she had a clearer realization of the tremendous task of travel Ben had set himself. Almost it daunted her. But there came a strengthening and enduring memory.

Her little tent room was as cozy and comfortable as she could have wished. Evidently her mother had found it likewise, for she was fast asleep. Hettie prepared herself for bed, put out the lamp, and slipped into her blankets. The novelty and strangeness of the situation precluded sleep for the time being. She lay wide-eyed, staring at the flickering shadows on the canvas. After a while the low voices of the men ceased and the firelight faded. Black night and deep silence enfolded her. What had become of the horses? The wind swept through the oaks, now softly and again with a rush. She felt it blow cold through the curtains, fanning her cheek. Then lonely sharp wild barks made her flesh creep. Coyotes! She was on the edge of the wilderness.

Ben’s cheery call seemed to rend Hettie’s slumbers. To her dismay, she saw the sunlight gilding the canvas and that her mother had arisen without awakening her. Hettie made such haste that she was not late for breakfast. The men had eaten earlier, despite the law laid down by Mrs. Ide.

It was a wonderful moment when the horses came trooping in behind the yelling riders. After that all seemed action and noise, color and life. Breakfast over, Hettie helped in what few tasks she could find, then made her bed and was ready for the long day’s ride. She found she had to kill time, however, while the horses were hitched and the chuck wagon packed. So she gathered wild flowers until Marvie rode up on her, proud as a peacock in his chaps and mounted on one of Ben’s spirited horses.

“Hettie, you don’t want to get left, do you?” he asked, gruffly.

“I should smile not, Marvie,” she replied, secretly amused at him.

“Well, rustle to your wagon,” he replied, and spurred his horse away.

Hettie watched the lad. He could ride. “I wonder,” she mused. “Some Arizona girl will fall in love with him.”

“Men, here’s the deal,” Ben was saying as Hettie reached the wagons. “We’re in no hurry. Save the horses and stick close together. About mid-afternoon look for water and grass.”

Then followed days that held increasing interest for Hettie. Once off the main road, swift progress would have been impossible, even had Ben desired it. The road was not merely rough, but narrow and dangerous. Yet it showed signs of considerable travel. But they met not a wagon or horseman going or coming.

The third day, while climbing the foothills Hettie grew tired of dust and heat and the brush that continually obstructed her view, and she sought the comfort and security of the inside of their little canvas home. Camp was made so late that darkness had intervened. The next day was hard, a long jolting ride downhill, with nothing to see but rough slopes, gullies, and dust.

They expected to reach Lineville in time to pitch camp early, but sunset had come and gone before they rode into a wide street lined by strange old houses, which constituted the border town. Hettie would have been more curious had she been less fatigued. As it was, the place gave her a queer sensation and she would far rather have gone on to camp in the open.

The wagons halted. Rough-looking men, some with picks and packs over their shoulders, passed by with bold eyes seeking out Hettie and Ina. Also she saw Chinamen peep from dark portals, and tall white-faced men in black garb and high hats stare fixedly at her. So she sought her tent.

Presently Ben poked his head between the curtains at the back of the wagon and said: “There’s a hotel here, but I reckon we’ll dodge it. It’s called the Gold Mine. Raidy said it was a terrible dive once, an’ it’s pretty raw yet. But there’s a woman has a nice place near the edge of town. We can drive in her yard and get our supper there. It’ll be a little change and save waiting. The men will go on to a farm outside town and make camp.”

Hettie peeped out to take a look at the Gold Mine. It was a drab low building, with vacant eye-like windows, the blinds of which seemed to hide secrets. Dark faces peered from a wide doorway.

“Ben, I’d rather not stay in this town,” said Hettie.

“Reckon I’m not keen on that myself,” replied Ben, with a laugh. “After supper we’ll drive on to where the boys make camp.”

Hettie did not look out again. The driver called, “Getdap” to his tired horses, and again the wagon rolled on. It relieved Hettie that some distance was traveled before they made another halt.

Darkness had fallen when again Ben called: “Come, mother and Hettie. Supper is ready. And I’ll bet it’ll be good, for I was in the kitchen. The woman’s name is Mrs. Wood. She’s a Westerner, all right, and likes to talk.”

Ina was beside Ben, and he held the sleepy Blaine in his arms. The house apparently stood back in a large lot, surrounded by trees through which the wind roared. Ben led the way round to the side, where a bright light shone. They were ushered into a clean, warm kitchen, where in the light Hettie saw a stout, ruddy-faced woman who appeared most agreeable and kind. She had keen eyes that did not miss anything. Hettie liked her, particularly her solicitude for the weary little Blaine, who did not thoroughly awake until he was being fed. Hettie sat at the table, aware of the ample and appetizing supper, and hungry enough to do justice to it. But for some reason she could not eat much. She attributed her inhibition to a nervousness roused on the entrance into this border town. Yet she was seldom nervous.

Ben and Ida enjoyed the meal, and were not in the least affected by any unaccountable something in Lineville. Ben particularly found the woman interesting. He kept asking questions. Hettie noted that, though Mrs. Wood appeared talkative in the extreme, she never made one query or showed any curiosity whatever.

“How long have you lived here?” asked Ben.

“Nigh on to six years now,” she replied.

“Then you must have seen Lineville in its heyday?”

“I seen it when it was bad, if that’s what you mean. Course Lineville ain’t no Sunday school to-day, but, shucks! it’s nothin’ to what I’ve seen it. Lineville is a growin’ town. We’ve got a school, post office, church, new stores, an’ people comin’, mostly people connected with minin’ interests.”

“Any cattle?” asked Ben.

“No. The cattle went with the rustlers,” she replied, smiling.

“That’s lucky for your town and for the ranchers over the range,” laughed Ben.

“Yes, I guess so. But some rustlers weren’t so bad, when you come to know them. All cattlemen on the open range are rustlers, if you know what I mean. I’ve met a pile of Westerners in my day, an’ I’ve knowed worse men than rustlers. The gamblers, now, I’ve no use for them, though my husband was a gambler once, an’ a gunman, too — years back in Texas an’ New Mexico, where life was uncertain, I’ll tell you.”

“Raidy, one of my men, tells me life used to be pretty uncertain right here in Lineville, not so long ago,” said Ben.

“Well, that depends upon experience,” replied the woman. “Your man never seen any real frontier towns, such as old Dodge, an’ Cimmaron, or Lincoln, or a hundred others. Not that there wasn’t some real killers droppin’ in Lineville now and then, years back. McPherson, a gambler an’ a gunman, which was unusual for gamblers. An’ Sandy Hall. He killed four men here once in a shootin’ row. An’ a miner named Hendricks. He was no slouch with a gun, either. Reckon, though, Jim Lacy was the most dangerous man who ever struck Lineville.”

“Jim Lacy?” said Ben, with interest. “I’ve heard of him, at least. What was he like? Did you ever see him?”

“See Jim Lacy! Why, he lived with me two winters,” replied Mrs. Wood. “He used to set right there behind my stove an’ talk for hours. Jim was only a boy. Somethin’ like Billy the Kid, who I knew well. But Jim wasn’t mean. He was just the quietest, nice, soft-speakin’ fellar. Circumstances must have made Jim a gunman. He hailed from Idaho an’ he was hell when he got riled. Jim killed several men here years back. The last one was a loud-yappin’ coyote named Cawthorne. Link Cawthorne. He was the cheap notoriety-seekin’, braggin’ gunfighter. An’ he was always tryin’ to force Jim Lacy into a fight. Everybody knew Link’d get killed. But the fool himself couldn’t see it. He beat a girl to death. Then Jim called him out an’ shot him. After that Jim left for Arizona. I’ve never heard of him since.”

“Arizona? That’s where we are bound for,” replied Ben, smiling. “We hoped to find the climate there beneficial. But if Arizona is full of Jim Lacys it might not be so healthy.”

“Arizona or any other Territory would only be the better for men like Jim Lacy,” returned the woman, rather brusquely.

“Reckon so. I was only joking,” said Ben, as he arose. “We must be going. Thanks for a capital supper.”

She received the money Ben proffered and led the way to the door, holding the lamp.

“Good luck to you, sir,” she said. “It’s a glorious country you’re goin’ to. But you’ll lose this big-eyed sister of yours over there. . . . Good-by, little boy; you’ll grow up on a horse in Arizona. Good-by, lady, an’ you, miss.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DAYS MULTIPLIED until Hettie no longer could keep account of them. Endless leagues of Nevada, wastes of barren ground, plains of green, valleys between bleak ranges, ridge and upland ever heaving higher, lay back along the winding, rolling road.

“Boss, we’re gettin’ into the wild-hoss country,” said old Raidy, one morning, when the caravan was about ready to start. “Yestiddy we seen herds of broomtails. An’ the boys had their troubles. California Red had to be roped. An’ I reckon, to-day, if you don’t put him under a saddle we’ll have to hawg-tie him.”

“Fetch Red in,” replied Ben, with a gleam of light flashing across his darkly tanned face. “I’ll ride him and help drive the horses.”

The road led over high country, where from every elevation the defiance of far-flung distances seemed to greet the travelers. A vast monotony like an invisible blanket covered the land. Gone were the towns, the mining camps, the lonely ranches of western and central Nevada. Away to the east and south stretched the desert solitude, day by day changing by almost imperceptible degree, gathering color and force, calling and beckoning toward some unseen yet promised infinitude.

Hettie Ide had come to touch happiness again, strangely, fearfully, as if these June days were dreams. The action and incident and life of such travel, day after day, with every mile bringing new scenes, with the future there beyond the purple ranges, satisfied a longing she had scarcely known she possessed. The dust and wind, the chill storms that blew down from the rocky heights, the rough descents and the slow uphill climbs, the rolling, rolling of the wagon wheels, the late camps and black nights, the work that it was imperative she share — all these did not pall upon Hettie. Rather they discovered some bond between her and the vague past and grew toward fulfillment of a need of her soul.

And in watching for and sighting the bands of wild horses she came at last to understand her brother Ben. His passion for wild horses that had almost been his ruin! But such conviction, so long her father’s, and therefore accepted by family and friends, had begun to lose its hold on Hettie. Might not such love of horses and the open range, solitude, freedom, the hard fare and toil, the kinship with nature — might not these develop character to noble ends?

She saw the clouds of dust way out on the desert, under which dark moving bands of horses, with long manes and tails streaming in the wind, swept onward, to be swallowed by the gray obscurity. Black and sharp stood a stallion on a ridge top, silhouetted against the sky, to leap away and down, wildly instinct with freedom. On the cedar slopes, where the gnarled and stunted trees grew wide apart and the bleached dead grass waved over the outcropping green, wild horses grazed to start erect, lean heads high, ears and tails up, to stand like statues an instant, bays and buckskins, blacks and whites, with a pinto flashing like a zebra here and there, suddenly to bound into action and speed away.

“I know now why the boys call them broomies,” Hettie told her mother. “Most of them have tails like brooms. Wild, ragged, scrawny horses! Yet some are sleek and graceful, long of tail and mane. And now and then I can pick out a beauty.”

“I don’t want to see any wild horses,” replied Mrs. Ide. “I hope there’ll be none where we settle down to ranch.”

At times, on level plains or down long slopes, Hettie could see how Ben and the riders had almost to fight off wild stallions. How California Red glistened in the sunlight! He was in his element with the scent of his kind in his nostrils. Sometimes a piercing whistle floated back to Hettie.

The day passed as if it had flown, and Hettie recorded in memory pictures of lone stallions, and stragglers and strings and herds of wild horses numbering into the thousands. That night, far into the late hours, Hettie heard Ben’s riders yelling and shooting, galloping in and out of camp. It was a hard night for them.

More wild-horse days, as Ben called them, passed and were added to the weeks. Then the colored rock walls of Utah rose above the long slopes of sage and greasewood.

Marysville at last! The Mormon town, far over the border into Utah, had been a Mecca for the riders. Here on the outskirts horses were rested, wagons were repaired, supplies were bought, and much-needed information secured.

“Yes, you can cross over into Arizona,” an old Mormon told Ben in Hettie’s hearing, while his keen eyes, like blue lightning, flashed over her. “Good road to Lund an’ Kanab. Then you cross into the land of cliffs an’ canyons. An’ from there it’s slow travel. Vermilion Cliffs, Buckskin, Rock House Valley, under the Paria Plateau, an’ so on, down the Lee’s Ferry an’ the Canyon. When you reach there, stranger, you’ll want to turn back. Better abide here with us, in this desert we’ve made blossom.”

Hettie liked the black-hooded Mormon women, though she pitied them, and the unseen sealed wives the riders whispered about. The healthy happy children were most lovable. But when she saw the old white-bearded Mormons or the tall, still-faced, fire-eyed sons, she wanted to run back to the covert of her tent.

Then on again, rolling downgrade over a hard desert road, eating up the miles, the Ide caravan traveled, descending league-long slopes of red earth and green growths, with the red cliff walls keeping pace with them, and ever rising higher, as they wandered on down into the dim-hazed marvelous region of canyons.

Kanab was a lonesome Mormon settlement close to the Arizona line. Its white church stood out against the green background; orchards and fields encompassed log cabins and stone houses; irrigation ditches bordered the road on both sides. The sun smiled upon the fertile spot.

Arizona at last! Early the next morning Hettie heard that pealing slogan from Ben’s lusty throat. What magic in a name! But as she gazed down the green-and-red hollow, thirty miles that looked like only three, up the purpling slope to the black fringe of Buckskin Plateau, where it flowed like a river of trees that merged into a lake of forests, and on to the grandly-looming Vermilion Cliffs, she marveled no more at the enchantment of that name. One long breathless look won Hettie Ide forever. After all the weeks of travel, the training of eye, the judgment of color and distance, she was confounded here on the border of Arizona.

“Oh, Ben,” she called, “let us stop here!”

But Ben rode far ahead, ever thoughtful of his beloved horses. Hettie could see him gaze away down the wonderful valley toward the dim obscurity of the rock-walled fastnesses and again up at the vast frowning front of Buckskin.

At sunset the riders halted to camp in the edge of the pines, far above the valley which it had taken all day to cross. It had to be a dry camp, but the horses had been watered below. Hettie stood under the last pines and faced the west. She could not tell what it was that she saw. A glory of gold and purple cloud overhung a region of red rock, distant, broken, carved, where a lilac haze in transparent veils and rays spread from the sinking sun. She looked through that haze into an obscurity baffling and compelling, where shadows might be mountains and the purple depths beyond conception.

Then, as the pageant failed and faded, leaving her with a pang of regret, as if she had suffered actual loss, she turned to the forest and the camp. What magnificent pines! Black squirrels with white tails scurried over the brown-matted, bluebell-dotted ground. Marvie was to be seen prowling from tree to tree with his rifle. After so many camps on the desert, wide and open and windy, where camp fires were meager, and there was neither friendliness nor intimacy, how wonderful this temporary stand in the forest! Hettie had difficulty drawing her breath and the tang of pine seemed to clog her nostrils. Ben whistled as he brushed and combed his horse; the riders sang as they came in with bridles and nosebags on their arms; little Blaine, now like an Indian, gamboled about, and Mrs. Ide, as always, was bustling around the camp fire. Ina seemed busy at the back of her wagon. Hettie imagined they were nomads, gypsies on the march.

“Supper,” sang out Mrs. Ide, cheerily.

“Come an’ git it!” yelled Hank as if to outcall her.

“Marvie!” called Ben. His deep voice peeled down through the darkening aisles of the forest.

That night Hettie sought her bed early, exhausted in mind and body. But she did not at once fall asleep. Packs of coyotes surrounded the camp and kept up a continual howling, yelping, barking, whining. But what a wild, satisfying medley! Back on Tule Lake it had been an event for Hettie to hear one lonesome coyote, far off on the hills. On Buckskin Plateau it appeared the coyotes were many and bold. She was sure several ventured close to her wagon. At length they gradually worked away, until their wails and mourns died in the deep forest.

Hettie imagined she had prepared herself for Arizona. But next day, when riding horseback for a change, she emerged from the pines to the edge of the plateau, she was unable even to give an echo of Ben’s stentorian long-drawn “WHOOPEE!”

Wild, beautiful, majestic, zigzagged the Vermilion Cliffs, towering over another and the vastly greater valley, softly, deeply purple, and sweeping away, widening like a colossal fan, out to the desert, where a ragged rent in the earth, tremendous and awe-inspiring, told Hettie she was gazing at the Grand Canyon.

From that moment time seemed to cease for Hettie Ide. She let her horse follow the leaders, and rode down and down, where neither dust nor heat meant aught to her. The purple valley yawned and seemed to swallow her. Lost was the sweep of the range and that fascinating rent in the desert. The red wall towered on the left, and on the right mounted the gray-sloped black-fringed plateau.

Over the purple sage-flat strung out the cavalcade, hour after hour, until another sunset halted the weary travelers in a grass-green basin, where water salt to the taste wound its gleaming musical way.

“Two more days, folks, and then the Rubicon!” called out Ben, prayerfully, yet gayly.

“Wal, boss, what may thet there Rubicon be?” asked Raidy as he wiped his grimy face.

“Lee’s Ferry, man, where we cross the Colorado — if we ever do.”

“Son, we ain’t crossin’ any Rubies or ferries till we come to them,” relied Raidy. “I’m thinkin’ luck is with this Ide outfit.”

“Not a horse lost yet, not a wheel slipped,” returned Ben, throwing up his head, like a lion tossing its mane.

“Wal, we ain’t met any hoss thieves yet, or real bad roads. But the Mormons say wait till we hit across the canyon.”

On the morrow, up out of the valley they climbed, like snails; up out of the green to the dragging sand, and toiled on ever nearer and nearer the grand jutting corner of the red cliff that hid the desert beyond.

But at last they rode round under this colossal wall, and Hettie Ide gasped. Desolation and ruin of earth seemed flung in her face. Splintered and tumbled wall of red wound down to a notch where the sinister red river broke through; and on the other side, another wall as red and ghastly, and lifting its rent and riven front high to serrated crags, formed the far side of that great Y-shaped pocket of the desert. No eye-soothing greens softened the glaring red and yellow. It was a pit of hell, from which the river gleamed through the split at the apex of the notch.

The sun beat down terribly hot. The red dust rose in clouds. Ever lifted the vast overhanging bulge of the plateau, from the ruins of which countless avalanches had crushed down, to litter the whole slope between wall and river with myriads of rocks, huge, sand- and wind-worn into grotesque shapes, adding to the ghastliness of this inferno.

Here the wagons crept along on slow-creaking wheels; here the horses lagged and the riders sagged in their saddles; here Hettie closed her eyes to shut out the glare, the dreadful decay and devastation, and the millions of glistening surfaces of rock, red and redder as the red sun sank to rest.

But before the afternoon light failed the travelers rounded the last corner of the wall, and Hettie opened her eyes upon a scene that seemed one of enchantment.

A rich dark green oasis lay deep down under lofty precipitous walls. On three sides these walls enclosed the oval acres of green, and on the other the sullen river swept by, as sinister as its surrounding confines, and slid swiftly on into the dark box-like canyon head, whence floated a bellowing roar of waters.

“Lee’s Ferry,” announced Raidy to the speechless onlookers. “An’ the river’s low. I was afeared of meltin’ snow up in the mountains. There’s the old scow we cross in. Wal, wal! if luck ain’t settin’ right in the saddle of this Ide outfit!”

CHAPTER NINE

IT WAS LATE July and the long wagon-train journey had ended. The Ides were comfortably camped on a running brook in a grove of cottonwoods outside the little Arizona hamlet of Sunshine. Ben had secured a grazing permit for his horses on a ranch near by; and while his family rested, he scoured the ranges round about in search of a new home.

Hettie had never seen a man so full of zest and thrill over any project as Ben was in his search for a ranch in this amazing and glorious Arizona. His happy eagerness seemed reflected in all. But on the other hand, it turned out he had difficulty in finding a place which suited him.

“I want a thousand acres or more — five thousand if I can get them,” he said. “Good water most important. Next I want grass and timber. Next a fine site for a ranch house, with a splendid view.”

“Say, boss, you sure don’t want very much a-tall,” declared old Raidy, a little sarcastic. “Why, they hain’t got all thet in this darned country.”

Hettie shared Ben’s enthusiasm, and encouraged him in his ambition. They had journeyed days up from the Colorado River to this high plateau, where westward the gray-green range seemed like a vast ocean, waving away into purple distance. To the north and east it rose to dark red-banded mountains. Hettie loved the physical attributes of this bewildering Arizona, and so did Ina. But both of them were anxiously concerned about the wildness of the place, the aloofness of the few settlers, herders, riders whom they met, the fact that those mystic, forbidding mountains, seeming so close, were no other than the Mogollons, which Ben had been cautioned to avoid. Moreover, they were not so sure that he would make the wisest of business deals. Yet the buoyancy of his spirit, the change in him, and the undoubted improvement in Mrs. Ide’s health, who had not been so active and happy for years, influenced Hettie and Ina not to discourage Ben and to resolve to stand by him, come what might. Added to this was the actual romance and appeal of this wilderness.

In the middle of the day it was very hot. The sun blazed down, burning face and hands. Yet it seemed to cast a dry heat that was bearable, even at its worst. Then, no matter how hot the sun, the shade was always cool. That seemed a strange property of this Arizona atmosphere. Anywhere in the shade it was cool. The sunshine was golden, the sky azure blue, the desert changeful at every hour, yet always dreamy, mystic, dim, and wonderful. At night the dark velvet dome of heaven burned with great white stars.

The little town, Sunshine, was on the railroad line and trains passed the Ide camp every day, to little Blaine’s infinite delight. Hettie, too, found them a novelty and she never failed to watch them. Forty miles from Sunshine, down on a level bare reach of the desert, lay the town Winthrop. The Ides had stopped there a day. It was a stock-dealing and freighting town, with a main street on which saloons were remarkably numerous and prominent. Ben had preferred not to leave his family there, nor did he wish to advertise the fact that a rich Californian was looking for a ranch. They had stayed long enough in Winthrop, however, to ascertain that there were a number of good stores, two banks, a huge sawmill, workmen available, and a sprinkling of solid prosperous Westerners.

After an absence of three days Ben returned on the train late one afternoon, to descend upon his camp like a whirlwind.

Hettie, who first heard him, called out to Ina: “It’s Ben. And you can bet we’re settled now.”

“Listen to him,” replied Ina, in wondering gladness. “Well!”

They ran out to find him surrounded by his men, from whom, as Ina eagerly called, he broke away.

Whereupon she and Hettie and his mother were treated to bearish hugs, accompanied by various exclamations.

“Oh, gee! Oh, gee!” he continued, dragging them all to the camp table and benches under a cottonwood. “Give me a drink of water. I’m thirsty. And I’ve got to wash my hands and face. Hungrier than a wolf, too.”

They waited on him, after the manner of loving women, plying him all the while with questions. Presently he flopped down on the grass and leaned back against the tree.

“I’ve bought my ranch,” he said, with solemn finality, eying them.

Hettie and Ina regarded him in a momentous silence, but his mother spoke dryly: “Humph! we know that. I said you’d buy without even lettin’ us women see the place.”

“You’ll all be crazy about it,” he returned.

“Where?” asked Ina, slowly sinking on her knees in front of him.

“Sixty miles from Winthrop and about a hundred from here.”

“How much land?”

“A thousand acres. Fine grazing all around. No other ranches near. Ten thousand head of cattle. Forty thousand dollars! Isn’t that a bargain?”

“It remains to be seen. You’ve settled the deal, then?”

“I should smile,” he replied, suiting the action to the words.

“Weren’t you rather quick?”

“Yes. Had to be.”

“Did you see all those ten thousand cattle? Count them?”

“Gracious, no! Ina, do you think I’m chain lightning? I took their word for it. The lawyer I engaged in Winthrop found the title of property okay. So I bought.”

“Ben, I hope your ranch isn’t out there — toward those Mogollons,” said Hettie, breaking silence and pointing across the purple-hazed desert to the strange dark uplands.

“By George! Hettie, it is,” he declared, smacking a hand on his knee. “It’s right under the brakes of the Mogollons. But such a beautiful wild country. I couldn’t resist it.”

“Didn’t you remember what your friend the sheriff said about the Mogollons?”

“I did, honest I did, Hettie,” replied Ben, hastily. “But listen. I’ll tell you all about it. . . . Day before yesterday I rode back to Winthrop after a hard and disappointing trip to half a dozen ranches. I was pretty discouraged and was coming back here pronto. Some horsemen rode up to the hotel where I was sitting out in front. They got off and tied up to the hitching-rail. I’ve gotten used to seeing these Arizonians. They’re sure a rangy, hard-looking lot. But this outfit struck me as one to look at twice. Several of them packed two guns. They had fine horses and saddles. When they went in to drink I asked a cattleman sitting near me who and what they were. ‘Wal,’ he said, ‘it ain’t done in these parts — talkin’ aboot your neighbors. Sort of onhealthy.’ . . . Presently some one touched me on the shoulder. I turned round to see one of the riders, a tall fellow, blond and good-looking, not so young, but not old, either. He had eyes that looked right through you, but his manner was easy, friendly. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. ‘Are you the Californian who’s lookin’ for a ranch hereabouts?’”

“‘Yes, sir. My name’s Ide,’ I replied, ‘and I’m not having much luck.’”

“‘They tell me you’re hard to please. But I’m makin’ bold to ask you personally just what kind of a ranch you want to buy?’”

“So I up and told him, elaborately, just what I was looking for. Then he laughed, sort of amused and, pulling at his long mustache, he said: ‘My name’s Burridge. I’ve got exactly what you want. Somewheres around ten thousand head. Lots of unbranded calves an’ yearlin’s. Cabins an’ corrals not worth speakin’ of. But water, grass, timber, an’ range can’t be beat in Arizona. It suits me to sell for cash. That’s what they call me — Cash Burridge. Suppose you get a lawyer an’ come over to the city hall an’ see my title. Then if it strikes you right, I’ll take you out to my ranch.’

“Well,” went on Ben, reflectively, “Mr. Cash Burridge hit me about right. I liked his blunt way of putting the deal, and knew he didn’t care a rap whether he sold or not. I consulted a lawyer recommended by the hotel man, and we met Burridge at the town hall. The title was clear. So I told Burridge I’d like a look at his property. We started right out in a buckboard behind a team of fast horses, I’ll tell you. For thirty miles or more the road was good. Then we pitched off into what he called the brakes. Briefly, that part of the road was a terror. It was only a trail, up and down, narrow and rough. Burridge said there was a better way in, but longer. We reached his ranch before sunset. I’m only going to tell you that it was the most beautiful and wildest place I ever saw in my life. But the cabins were filthy, tumbledown huts. I slept out under the pines. This morning I was up before sunrise, and if I ever fell in love with anything, it is that place. It was on a high slope, with level benches reaching out, all covered with pines. I saw deer, wolves, bear, turkeys, antelope right from where I stood. Marvie will go crazy over the place. Also, everywhere I looked there were cattle. You can look out from the high pine benches down over the most beautiful valley of grass and sage and cedar, and then down into the red-and-gold desert, over a hundred miles away. Right there I asked Burridge how much he wanted. He said fifty thousand. On a venture I offered forty. He thought it over and took me up. We returned to Winthrop and closed the deal, at noon to-day. I had some hours to kill before train-time, so I strolled around into the stores and saloons. The last I saw of Cash Burridge was in a gambling hell, and from his look I gathered he was getting rid of some of his cash. I introduced myself to storekeepers as a prospective buyer and so gained their interest. But all of them were rather close-mouthed. They don’t talk here in Arizona. One man told me Burridge probably had ten thousand head of stock. Then another man said Burridge didn’t have so many, but it was hard to tell. The truth is I didn’t get much satisfaction. I called to see a Mr. Franklidge, the largest cattle-owner in these parts, and also president of the bank. But he wasn’t in. Now to wind up, I figured Burridge would be shy a lot of cattle on that number he gave — perhaps a thousand head or more. That is a wide margin for any kind of a cattle deal, and I’m more than satisfied. I’ll make that the finest ranch in Arizona. We’ll go out there at once and camp, and start the work of home building. If I don’t miss my guess, you’ll all fall in love with it as quickly as I did.”

“I have already, Ben,” was Ina’s reply. “What you love I love. Your home is my home.”

“Ben, am I in on this ranch deal with you?” asked Hettie, gravely.

“That’s for you to say, my dear sister,” replied Ben. “But I believe I’d rather you didn’t come in, for it is a risk.”

“Then if Ina has no objection, I’ll take the risk.”

“So will I. We’ll share the risk, and together make a grand success of it,” added Ina, happily.

Ben hired a guide from Winthrop to lead his horses and riders across country to the ranch. On the next day the wagons made Winthrop, where Ben expected to meet Burridge, as agreed. But Burridge failed to appear. Ben said this was strange, as Burridge was due to take his outfit over the better road and to make a count of the cattle, but it was not so strange, nor half so illuminating, as the glances Ben encountered when he mentioned Burridge casually to bystanders in Winthrop.

Whereupon Ben procured another guide, a Mexican sheepherder, who guaranteed to pilot the heavily-laden wagons safely to their destination.

The four horse teams made good time over the open desert road, reaching the brakes some thirty miles out by sundown.

Hettie was enthralled by the sunset over the yellow sloping land and the weird mountains to the west. A storm had been gathering all day in that direction. The atmosphere had been sultry. Toward late afternoon the clouds coalesced and hung over the black ranges, so that when the sun set, the reds and golds and purples, heightened by the exquisite light, were lovely beyond compare. At dusk sheet lightning flared low down across the sky, and faint rumblings of thunder rolled along the battlements of the desert.

Next morning the travelers rode into rough forest land, where the main grade was uphill, but the apology for a road plunged down so often into dry hot ravines that the general ascent had to be taken for granted.

The forest consisted of cedars, oaks, piñons, and scattered pines, all of which grew more abundant and larger, sturdier as the caravan progressed. Travel was exasperatingly slow. In some places the road was not safe, and the women had to get out and walk. Ridges like those of a washboard sloped irregularly down from the south; outcroppings of limestone showed on the gully banks, pools of water gleamed in the shady washes. Open sandy flats, where the horses labored, had to be crossed. At length the cedars and piñons gave place to a heavier growth of pines. Here the real forest began, and except for the difficulty of travel, it was vastly satisfying to Hettie. She had her first view of wild deer and wild turkeys. Marvie reacted to sight of this game as might have been expected. For that matter, Ben leaped off his wagon, gun in hand. The progress of the train had to be halted while the hunters stalked the game. Soon shots reverberated throughout the forest. Ben returned empty-handed, but Marvie, with face glowing, exhibited a fine gobbler.

Only fifteen miles were covered that day, and everybody was wearied and glad to make camp. Before sleep came to Hettie she heard a blood-curdling cry of a wild beast unknown to her. It seemed a deep far-away moan, so sad and uncanny that she shuddered. Next morning Ben told her the cry had come from a timber wolf, a beast the guide called a lofer and said was plentiful in those parts.

Tedious travel began into an ever-increasingly wild and wonderful woodland. The trees hid any possible view of the country beyond. The air grew clearer, less oppressive, and the heat no longer made the shade desirable. Massed foliage, like green lace, dark-brown seamed boles of pines, patches of sunlight on the white grass, the red of a tufted flower, like a stiff brush dipped in paint, and golden aisles of needles up and down the forest, held for Hettie a never-failing delight.

About the middle of the afternoon the travelers rode to the edge of open light forest.

“We’re here,” shouted Ben, leaping down. “California to Arizona! . . . Ina — mother — Blaine — Hettie, get down and come in, as these Arizonians say.”

“Gee! I see turkeys!” cried Marvie, leaping off his horse and tearing his rifle from the saddle sheath.

“Indian!” called Ben, after him.

Hettie sat under a great spreading pine on the edge of one of the level benches that sloped down into the open sage and cedar country.

She had tramped around until exhausted. A bubbling spring that gushed from under a mossy rock in a glen had held her only long enough to yield her a drink. She had passed by the long-unused and dilapidated corrals, and the ruined old log cabin which Ben had laughingly told the stricken Ina was to be their abode. The brook that came singing down from the dark forest slope above caused Hettie to linger and listen to its music. Across the brook on another bench stood another old log cabin, or in fact two small one-roomed cabins, with porch between, and all sheltered under one long sloping wide-eaved roof of rough moss-stained shingles. The picturesqueness of this woodland structure appealed to Hettie. Warily she peeped in, with vivid sense of the vacant speaking rooms and tumbled-down stone fireplaces, and the lofts that reached out over half the rooms. What had happened there? How dark, musty, woody!

“I’ll make this my abode and mother’s,” she decided, with a thrill at the prospect of home-building. “Repairs, windows, floors, sheathing! Oh! I can see it! I’ll not have a new house.”

And so at last she had found herself on the edge of the wide bench, back against the last pine, with fascinated gaze riveted upon the view that Ben had raved about.

“No wonder!” whispered Hettie. “If there were nothing else, that would be enough.”

Her position was on the edge of the irregular timber line, which stretched on each side of her, with fringes of the forest here running down to end in straggling lonesome pines, and there skirting the edge of the steep benches, as if the greatest of landscape gardeners had planted them there. And so he had, Hettie averred! What majestic pines! How the summer wind roared above and back of her, now low, now high, deepening upward with the denser growth of forest!

But it was the desert that enchanted Hettie. For she doubted not that the edge of the bench where she sat was the edge of the desert. Yet how soft, how marvelously purple and gray, how grandly the slope fell for league on league, widening, rolling, lengthening, descending, down to the blazing abyss of sand and rock and canyon.

Sage and grass in the foreground gave that vast valley its softest beauty, its infinite charms, its mistiness and brilliance, as if drenched with dew. How like troops of great beasts appeared the isolated green cedars and the lonely jutting rocks, some gray, others red. This valley was a portal down to the dim unknown. On each side it swelled to ranges of foothills, themselves like trains of colossal camels trooping down to drink. They were rounded, soft as clouds, gray and pink and faintly green, without a tree, a rock to mar their exquisite curve. From the dignity of low mountains these hills dwindled in size until they were mere mounds that at last flattened out into the desert.

Every time Hettie moved her absorbed gaze from one far point to another of the valley, the outlines, the colors, the distances, the lines of lonely cedars, the winding black threads of gullies — all seemed to change, to magnify in her sight, to draw upon her emotion, and to command her to set her eyes upon that sublime distance, that ethereal blending of hues and forms, that stunning mystery of the desert, of that magnificent arid zone which gave this country its name.

“I can only look — and learn to worship,” whispered Hettie, in a rapture. “It awakens me. What little have I seen and known! . . . Oh, lonely wild land — oh, Arizona! if you shelter him my prayer is answered, my cup is full!”

The Ides, imbued with Ben’s spirit, set earnestly to work to wrest a beautiful home from this wilderness.

Two gangs of Mexican laborers, lent by the railroad, in the charge of capable men, were put to work clearing and grading a road, felling and hauling timber. Teamsters from Winthrop made a trip out every other day, bringing lumber, shingles, windows and doors, bricks and cement, pipe and plumbing, which were housed in a temporary shelter. Carpenters began to erect Ben’s house, which was to be a long, one-story structure, with log walls, high peaked roofs, wide porches. Barns and corrals were planned, a reservoir from which the cold spring water could be piped into the houses and corrals, corn cribs and storehouses, and many other practical things Ben considered necessary.

Those were busy days. The work caused almost as much interest as a circus might have. There were many visitors, mostly sheepherders and cowmen from the surrounding range. Occasionally riders on high-gaited horses rode in, watched the work from a distance, looked long at Ben’s fine horses, and especially California Red, and rode away without any pretense of friendliness. Old Raidy shook his head dubiously at sight of these men. Apparently they caused no concern to Ben. Hettie imagined that she alone divined what was going on in her brother’s mind. She dared not voice it, but in her own secret thoughts she hugged it to her heart. She believed that Ben had deliberately chosen this wild spot in a wild range to develop a famous ranch, which would become a lodestone for cowboys, ranchers, cattlemen of all types, sheepmen, rustlers, outlaws, gunmen, through one of whom he might locate his lost friend Nevada. Hettie was convinced of this. It thrilled her very soul. What a reckless, yet grand thing for a man to do in search of his friend!

Hence, Hettie decided, Ben’s intense interest in all visitors did not spring wholly from his desire to be neighborly. Yet, despite the good words that at once spread abroad his generosity and kindliness, and the fact that his coming meant much for this section of Arizona, the ranchers along the three hundred miles of the Mogollon Plateau were slow to call.

Nor did Cash Burridge come to count the cattle he had sold Ben. This omission caused Raidy and the riders from California much concern. They began to make dark hints round the camp fire, and were not particular about who heard them. Ben looked serious, but only laughed. Manifestly he was working and waiting, without worrying.

One hot midday, during the noon rest hour, when Ben and his family were having lunch in the shade of the pines, a rider appeared on the road. He came on at a walk and he was looking everywhere with great interest. Finally he took to the slope, and at length, arriving at the camp quarters, he dismounted and hailed the riders in a booming voice.

“I’m Tom Day an’ I’m wantin’ to meet Mr. Ide.”

Raidy led him up to Ben, who rose expectantly, a smile on his sunburnt face.

“Howdy, sir!” said the visitor, extending a huge hand. “Are you Mr. Ide?”

“Yes, and I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Day,” replied Ben, who evidently had heard of this man.

“I’m your nearest neighbor,” said Day. “My ranch is over heah ten miles or so. Reckon I’m a little late in callin’. Shore we’re pretty slow folks in Arizona.”

“Better late than never,” returned Ben, with his frank smile. “Meet my family, Mr. Day. . . . This is Ina, my wife . . . and this is my mother. . . . Hettie, my sister. . . . And this is my son Blaine, who’s destined to be an Arizona rancher.”

“Wal now, I’m shore glad to meet you-all,” drawled the visitor, with an accent so surely Texan that it made Hettie’s heart leap. He greeted them with a quaint courtliness that became him well, despite his rough soiled rider’s garb. He made much of little Blaine, whom evidently he won at first sight.

Hettie, too, trusted him at first sight. This huge rancher was surely a Texan. He had a shock of fair hair, beginning to turn gray. His broad face was wrinkled like a brown parchment, recording the endurance, toil, and strife of a wonderful life. He had shrewd, penetrating, kindly eyes, light blue in color, and set under bushy brows.

“Reckon I’d like you to show me aboot,” said Day to Ben, waving his hand toward the benches.

“I’ll be glad to, and I’d like your opinion on some of my new-fangled ideas,” replied Ben. Then he turned to Hettie. “Sis, have Hank fix us up something to eat and drink presently.”

They strolled away in earnest conversation and did not return for an hour. Whereupon Hettie set lunch for them on the table under the fly; after which she repaired to her wagon-tent close by.

“Ide, the good looks of thet sister of yours has spread over the range,” said Day. “Shore, she’s a lovely lass.”

“Hettie? Thanks. Yes indeed, and she’s more than pretty,” replied Ben, evidently much pleased.

“Girls are scarce in Arizona. Is she married?”

“No. Why, Hettie’s only twenty!”

“Engaged to any lucky fellar?”

“No, I’m sure not.”

“Wal, she’ll shore have these long-legged punchers comin’ around moon-eyed.”

“If they don’t they’re not like my California riders,” laughed Ben.

“Wal, I’ll say if them riders of yours are as good at makin’ love as they are at gossipin’, our Arizona lads won’t have much chance.”

“I’m afraid my men do talk too much,” observed Ben, seriously. “They brag, and I don’t believe bragging will get very far in Arizona.”

“Wal, only so far as makin’ brag good,” drawled Day. “Ide, I reckon I’ve taken a shine to you. It ain’t Arizona ways, but somebody ought to give you some hunches. Reckon I never had such an idee when I rode over heah. I was downright curious, but reckon I expected to find you-all different.”

“Mr. Day, I take that as a compliment and an offer of friendship,” returned Ben heartily. “I was told in Winthrop to try to make friends with you. Lord knows I’m going to need a friend out here.”

“Wal, heah’s my hand,” said Day, “an’ I’m shore seein’ you’re not such a dam’ fool as is bein’ gossiped over the range.”

“Maybe I am a damn fool, Day,” returned Ben, grimly. “But at least I know what I’m going to do in the long run.”

“Shore then you figger you’re up ag’in a hell of a deal heah?” queried Day.

“You bet I know it. I expected it and I’m not going to be disappointed.”

“All right. Thet’s good talk to me. Fust off, are you goin’ in for big cattle-raisin’?”

“Yes. And horses, too.”

“Ahuh. You shore have some fine stock. Thet red hoss! Say, he’s grand! Reckon you’ll have to keep him close or he’ll be stolen. . . . Are you goin’ to keep your family heah all the year round?”

“No. I’ll take or send them back to California for the winter.”

“Thet’s good,” replied Day. “The winters are bad some seasons. Not so cold, but it snows deep an’ pens people up. Winter don’t come, though, till late December. Why, I’ve seen Christmas heah the finest kind of weather!”

“That’s splendid news. Now, Day, you encourage me to ask questions. Can you put me on to some crack Arizona cowboys? I’ll keep Raidy and perhaps another of my riders, and send the others home.”

“Shore I was goin’ to advise thet. You’ll have no trouble hirin’ the best men out heah, because you can pay better wages. Our riders only get forty dollars, an’ often not thet.”

“But how am I to know riders who are honest, not to mention other qualifications?”

“Son, you’re shore askin’ me a question thet even Franklidge, the boss rancher of this country, cain’t answer. I’m sorry to have to confess thet. But the honest Gawd’s truth is this — nobody heah knows who’s a rustler an’ who’s not.”

“Good Heavens! Day, you don’t mean that!” cried Ben, shocked.

“Wal, I shore do. I know for a fact I’m a square cattleman. I’ve branded calves in my day thet wasn’t mine an’ I knowed they wasn’t. Every rancher has done thet, an’ few there are in this neck of the woods who don’t do it now. But I don’t. Thet you can rely on, Ide, I swear. There are ranchers heah who suspect me, same as I suspect them. For this reason: Rustlin’ cattle is a mighty big business along the three hundred miles of Mogollon range. The country grazes hundreds of thousands of cattle. They reckon Franklidge alone has a hundred thousand haid. Wal, it’s great pickin’ fer the rustlers. There’s the Hash Knife gang, heah for many years. There’s the Pine Tree outfit, which is newer an’ wuss. An’ no honest rancher can name the leader of thet outfit. He’s shore some one of us ranchers, shore as hell. Then there’s a host of lesser rustlers clear down to the cowboy who’s startin’ a herd of his own. . . . Thet, Ide, is the country you’ve come to ranch in.”

“Well, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Ben.

“Shore you are. I wish I could have met you before you laid out so much money heah. How many cattle did Burridge sell you?”

“Ten thousand head,” replied Ben. “I took his word. But at the same time I figured if he was a thousand head or so shy I’d be satisfied.”

“Wal, you figgered good, but not good enough,” said Day, gruffly. “Never take no man’s word for a count of cattle. You want to see them brands. Burridge, now, had a half a dozen brands, but he never had no ten thousand, nor eight thousand, nor . . . Nobody could ever tell how many haid he ran. He was always sellin’ cattle.”

“What do you think of Burridge failing to make a count for me? He promised to do so at once.”

“Wal, I don’t like to say what I think. But if Burridge shows up soon an’ makes a count, it’ll be a good deal more than I have any idee he’ll do.”

“He’ll not come,” said Ben, decidedly. “Day, there’s no doubt in my mind. Burridge has cheated me.”

“Wal, don’t you say thet to anyone else around heah,” warned Day. “Be careful what you say, Ide. An’ make your men keep their mouths shut. I’ll let you have two of my boys, an’ I can get you another. For all I know they’re square, an’ they’re shore hard-ridin’ an’ hard-shootin’ punchers.”

“That’s good of you, Day,” responded Ben, with gratitude. “I sure appreciate it. I may be able to do you a favor now and then, since we’re neighbors.”

“I’m wonderin’ about somethin’, yet there ain’t any sense in me doin’ it.”

“What?” asked Ben.

“Shore, Burridge didn’t tell you thet I had a four-thousand-dollar lien on his cattle?”

“No, he sure didn’t,” returned Ben, shortly.

“Wal, I have. Soon after he come heah — let’s see, about four years ago, I lent him the money. He paid interest for a while, then he quit, an’ I was after him pretty hard when he sold out to you.”

“That’s bad news, Day,” said Ben, soberly.

“Wal, I reckon, but don’t let it worry you none, so far as I’m concerned. But there’s wuss. The Hatts also have a lien on Burridge’s stock.”

“Well, well! this is getting thick. Who are the Hatts?”

“Father an’ three sons. There’s a girl, too, pretty young lass, the only decent one of a bad lot.”

“Where do these Hatts live?”

“They’re backwoodsmen an’ live back in the brakes. Fact is all the rustlers an’ outlaws hole up in these brakes, which are rough canyons runnin’ down from the Mogollons. Rough they are, the hardest goin’ in Arizona. It used to be Apache country.”

“So Burridge palmed his debts off on me? Damn him! . . . What’s the law in such a case as this?”

“Wal, I’ve knowed it come up in court more’n once. An’ the buyer had to settle. You see, Burridge’s property wasn’t really his to sell.”

“I appreciate that. I should have taken time to inquire. But he struck me right.”

“Shore. He did the same to me, an’ I’m an old timer.”

“What the devil shall I do, Day? I don’t mean about the liens. I’ll have to settle them, soon as they are proven. But this deal shows up more complicated every day. How many cattle do I actually own? Where are they? How will I go about safe-guarding what I do own?”

“Son, the Lord himself couldn’t answer them questions,” replied the rancher, with his booming laugh. “But I reckon the case ain’t so bad thet we’ll have to take to drink about it. I’ll ride over with these boys I’m gettin’ you, say week today. Meanwhile I’ll do a lot of thinkin’. Probably by thet time Elam Hatt will have seen you. I heerd he was comin’, so look out fer him. We’ll get your men an’ we’ll all put our haids together.”

“Thank you very much, Day,” rejoined Ben, most gratefully. “It’s sure lucky for me that you came over.”

“Wal, mebbe it’s lucky fer me, too,” said Day. “One more hunch before I go, an’ I shore must be rustlin’ home. There’ll be other ranchers callin’ on you, an’ some of them will talk deals. Go slow. Don’t offend, but don’t go in anythin’ without consultin’ me.”

“By George! you needn’t caution me about that,” returned Ben. “I’m too scared. Why, my wife and sister will have a fit when they find out how Burridge fooled me!”

“Wal, my advice is don’t tell your wimmin-folks. What they don’t know shore won’t hurt them.”

“But I should tell you my sister Hettie is in on this deal with me. She wanted a half interest, but I let her have only one third. Thank goodness!”

“Thet big-eyed lass! She must have a lot of money.”

“Hettie is well off, yes. She’s clever, too. I wish I had listened to her.”

“Wal, wal! Thet lass — handsome an’ rich! Golly! Some cow-puncher is shore goin’ to fall into heaven. I wish I was a youngster. Reckon as it is I’ll have to pick out the best fellar heahaboots fer her.”

“I’m advising you now,” laughed Ben. “Don’t try that with Hettie, if you want her to like you.”

“Thanks fer the hunch, Ide. . . . Wal, I said before I must be goin’, an’ heah I am yet.”

“There’s one thing — I — nearly forgot,” said Ben, with hesitation and change of tone. “You must know everybody in Arizona?”

“Lord, no, son! Why, Arizona is most as big as the rest of the United States! But I’m pretty well acquainted all through heah.”

“Did you ever know or hear of a — a fellow who — who went by the name of Nevada?” Ben’s voice shook a little, and that tremor was communicated poignantly to Hettie, who sat listening in her tent.

“Nevada?” queried Day, thoughtfully.

“Yes, Nevada. It was a nickname, of course. I never knew his — this fellow’s other name.”

“Humph! Somebody who did you a bad turn?”

“No indeed. I — reckon it was the other way.”

“Wal, I’m sorry. Nevada? No, I never heerd thet handle on a fellar in my life. I’ve a good memory fer names. I’ve knowed a heap of Arizonie’s in my time, an’ Texas Jacks, an’ Colorado somethin’s or other. But no Nevada.”

CHAPTER TEN

SOME EIGHTEEN OR twenty miles from Tom Day’s ranch, Judge Franklidge maintained the last outpost of his extensive cattle range south of the railroad toward the Mogollons.

This property, called the Chevelon Ranch, as had many another, had come into his possession by the failure of a homesteader. At some time or other Franklidge had lent money or staked cattle to every poor settler in that part of Arizona. His kindness and generosity had for many years made him a mark. But though he had never been known to drive a hard bargain or force a payment, he had prospered through most all of his transactions. Chevelon Ranch, however, was a losing proposition so far as actual cattle-raising was concerned.

The hundred and sixty acres which comprised the ranch lay in a strip along the rim of Chevelon Canyon, one of the deep wild gorges that constituted part of the brakes of the Mogollons. Here the cedar piñon forest was at its thickest, and a little higher and farther south it merged into the belt of pines. Water was abundant, but it was down in the canyon and had to be pumped up. When the pump did not operate the water had to be packed up.

Cabins and corrals, built of logs, showed the weathering of years of storm and heat. The main cabin stood on the rim, and the wide porch ran to the edge of the gray rock wall. On this mid-August afternoon the porch was a shady and cool place to lounge and rest. The deep canyon was densely green with oak and cedar; a low roar of running water floated dreamily from the depths; the drowsy summer air was redolent with a sweet dry fragrance.

Judge Franklidge had just arrived on one of his rare visits to this margin of his vast cattle interests. The long hot dusty ride out from Winthrop had tired him, and with a great sigh of content he sank into one of the comfortable seats on the porch.

“Jack,” he said to the cowboy who had driven him out, “I’m to meet Day here. Put the horses up. I’ll stay all night. Then find Day if he’s arrived, and come back yourself.”

“Yes, sir. An’ how aboot Stewart?” replied the cowboy.

“Stewart? Tell him I’ll send word when I want him,” returned the judge, somewhat impatiently.

“All right, sir,” said Jack, and slapping the reins he drove away toward the barn.

“Humph! I’d forgotten about that foreman,” muttered Judge Franklidge. “Damn the cattle business, anyway. . . . I’d like to forget it and enjoy the peace of this place.”

This ranch was a favorite with Franklidge, owing to its wild beauty and solitude and the abundance of deer and turkey that ranged the forests. Every fall he came there for a few days of hunting.

“I’ll invite young Ide to hunt with me in October,” he soliloquized. “Fine chap that. Too bad about the rotten deal he fell into here. It sure doesn’t speak well for Arizona. And what a lovely girl that sister of his! . . . If I were younger now . . .”

The Judge fell into a daydream that amused as well as made him sigh. Presently a jangle of spurs and thud of footsteps interrupted his reverie, and he looked up to see Tom Day and the cowboy approaching. Day had his hand on the younger man’s shoulder and was talking earnestly. That reminded the judge of the strong friendship Day had always evinced for this young man the range called Texas Jack. How good to see two men he could swear by!

“Howdy, Judge! I’m shore glad to see you,” said Day, as he heavily mounted the porch with beaming smile and extended hand.

“How are you, Tom? Pull up that bench. We’re in for a good long talk.”

“Wal, it’s aboot time,” returned Day, as he deposited his huge bulk on a seat, with back to the porch rail. He threw his sombrero to the floor.

The judge laughed, and then glanced sharply at the cowboy waiting at the step.

“Jack, you’ve got something on your mind,” he said.

“Yes, sir, but it can wait. No hurry, sir,” replied the cowboy, hastily.

“Wal, Judge, if you’ll take a hunch from me you’ll not wait too long,” interposed Day.

“Come up and sit in with us, Jack,” was Franklidge’s reply.

The cowboy did as he was bidden, but he made no reply. He sat near the porch rail and leaned over to gaze down into the green canyon. The judge’s appraising eyes took stock of the lithe figure, the service-worn garb, the lean bearded face that was half hidden under the wide sombrero.

“Stewart was in town last night, drunk,” spoke Franklidge, casually. “Is he here to-day?”

“Yes, sir — an’ he’s all right now,” rejoined the cowboy.

“Judge, your foreman may be all right, as Texas Jack says, but I’ve my doubts,” put in Day. “I cain’t find anythin’ ag’in’ him, ‘cept the drinkin’. But I’ve just come to distrust the man. Mebbe I’m wrong. It shore is a distrustful time.”

“Mr. Franklidge, I hunted up Stewart, an’ found him an’ Dillon off under a cedar, talkin’ deep an’ quiet,” said Texas Jack.

“Dillon? Who’s he? That name’s familiar.”

“Dillon is young Ben Ide’s foreman,” replied Day, with interest. “He’s held jobs all over the range the last two years. Fine cowman. Engagin’ sort of chap. Everybody likes him. I shore do.”

“Which ought to be recommendation enough for Ide or even me, sore old cattleman that I am. . . . Well, Tom, have you considered the offer I made you some time ago?”

“Reckon I have, Judge, an’ I’m acceptin’ with thanks. I know I’m gettin’ the best of the deal,” returned Day, heartily.

“We’re not agreed on that. You’re counting only the relative value of your ranch compared with this one. But I count your friendship and help. . . . It’s a deal, then.”

“Heah’s my hand, Judge,” said Day, reaching out his huge paw.

“We’re partners, then,” replied Franklidge, as he shook the proffered hand. “We’ll throw these ranches and all the stock together, I’ll have papers made out when I get back to town. . . . Now get what’s troubling you off your chest.”

“Wal, boss, the situation heah has grown from bad to wuss,” returned Day, seriously.

“Where do you mean by here?” demanded Franklidge.

“All this range thet haids along the wild brakes of the Mogollons. Say, fifty miles in a straight line.”

“Yes?”

“Reckon it takes in a good many ranches, countin’ everybody, an’ mebbe two hundred thousand haid of cattle. But Ben Ide’s range an’ this one of yours an’ mine have come in fer the wust of the rustlin’ this last month.”

“We’ve always had rustlers to deal with. We always will have. What’s the difference between say a year or five years ago and now?”

“Wal, Judge, fer a big cattleman you’re shore poor informed.”

“Tom, you know most of my holdings lie along the railroad and north in the open country. I know next to nothing about what goes on in this backwoods. That’s why I wanted you for a partner.”

“The difference you asked aboot I’d calkilate offhand to stand you an’ me an’ Ben Ide around ten thousand haid.”

The Judge’s boots came down off the porch rail with a crash.

“What?” he demanded, incredulously.

“Boss, I said ten thousand, an’ mebbe thet’s conservative. Shore most of this rustled stock belongs to Ide. But we’ve lost a good deal, an’ stand to lose more or all unless somethin’ is done. You see, Ide proved an easy mark. He bought out Burridge, who had some stock, nobody knows how much. Wal, young Ide’s cow outfit was green an’ raw for Arizona. I gave him two of my best riders. One of them, Sam Tull, was found daid in the woods. Shot! We’ve never found out aboot it. The other cowboy, Rang Jones, had a quarrel with Dillon an’ quit. I cain’t see thet Dillon has changed matters fer the better. But I reckon no one man could at this stage of the game.”

“So they’ve hit young Ide hard,” muttered Franklidge, indignantly. “Funny he didn’t complain to me. I’ve seen something of him lately.”

“Ide’s not thet kind, Judge,” replied Day, warmly. “He’s as game as they come. An’ his sister — say, she’s a thoroughbred. She stands to lose ‘most as much as Ide.”

The two men, warming to the subject, might have been alone for all the notice they took of Texas Jack. He leaned far over the porch rail, his face hidden, his long lithe form strung like a whipcord. It was the strained position of a listening deer.

“Tom, I admire Miss Ide very much indeed, and her brother, too,” responded the judge. “I regret exceedingly the reception Arizona has given these two fine young people. I am ashamed. We all ought to be ashamed. We must end this damned wholesale cattle-stealing.”

“Ahuh! . . . Boss, I reckon I feel it more than you, as I’ve come to be friends with the Ides. Why, he paid Burridge’s debt to me. Four thousand! An’ then I’m a son-of-gun if he didn’t send for Elam Hatt an’ pay the lien he had on Burridge. Don’t know how much. But the Hatts were drunk fer a week.”

“Well!” ejaculated Franklidge.

“Every since then the rustlers have been bolder than I ever seen them yet in Arizonie.”

“Who are these rustlers, Tom?”

“Huh! If I said what I think it’d be old to you. But I reckon there is a new leader workin’ now. Shore they’re all workin’. But there’s some big chief who’s keen as a wolf.”

“Where are these stolen cattle driven?” asked the judge, wonderingly. “I’ve been twenty years in this business. Yet this beats me.”

“Reckon the stock gets drove everywhere,” replied Day.

“Not to the railroad?” queried Franklidge, aghast.

“Shore to the railroad. Not to Winthrop. But, man, there’s other stations along the line. Then I had a Mexican sheepherder tell me he’d seen herds of cattle drove over the Rim, down into the Tonto. Thet’s a wild country. Shore no cow outfits are followin’ rustlers down into the Tonto.”

“Tom, the Hatts are a bad outfit,” rejoined the Judge, thoughtfully. “Some years ago I had trouble with Elam Hatt. The Stillwells are another. Surely these backwoodsmen run with these rustler outfits.”

“Shore they do,” snorted Day. “But I reckon the Hatts ain’t the ringleaders. Cedar Hatt is the wust of thet bad lot. He’s dangerous. Bad hombre with guns! Ever’ once in a while I heah of some shootin’ scrape he’s been in out there, among his own kind. The Mexican herders are afraid of Cedar. But they’re close-mouthed. In the years I’ve lived heah I’ve known of several sheepherders bein’ murdered.”

“Cedar Hatt?” mused the Judge. “Yes, I know of him. Bad name; gun-fighter. . . . How many Hatts in the family?”

“I know the whole outfit,” replied Day. “Elam an’ me always got along pretty good. But I’ve no use fer Cedar. He’s the eldest son. Then there’s Henny an’ Tobe — packrats if I ever seen any in the woods. An’ last there’s a girl — Rose. Reckon she’ll be aboot sixteen. Pretty slip of a lass, whose mother died when she was a baby.”

“What a pity! No mother. No decent home. No schooling. There are many such unfortunate girls in this wild country, alas! Why don’t some cowboys take this Rose away and marry her? She might turn out a good woman.”

“Shore she might. An’ so I’ve said often. But I ain’t hit on any cowboy yet who cared to risk his skin down there in the brakes.”

“What has Ide done in regard to the raids on his stock?” asked the judge, curiously.

“Aboot all any man could,” replied Day, admiringly. “He has spent a lot of money hiring extra hands to trail stock. He took over this Dillon at a high salary. An’ I reckon he puts a good deal of confidence in Dillon. Funny about Ben Ide, though. He gets sore when the rustlers make a raid. But he really don’t care a damn aboot the cattle. He’s shore afraid fer his horses, though, specially thet California Red. There’s a grand hoss, Judge. I’ll bet if the rustlers got thet stallion Ben Ide would hit the trail himself. Strikes me he’s seen some wild life. He shore is a rider. Strange, wonderful sort of chap Ben Ide is. I’m just gettin’ acquainted with him. He always struck me as a rancher whose heart wasn’t in his ranch. There’s somethin’ he wants. But he worships his wife an’ kid an’ thet handsome sister. It ain’t thet. I cain’t explain what I don’t savvy. But I’ve a hunch young Ide has been hurt. Mebbe he killed some one over in California an’ had to get out. I’ve often wondered if thet could be it. Then it might be he’s lookin’ fer some man. Like a Texan, you know, who never forgot.”

Before the judge could reply to Day’s earnest statement the cowboy, Texas Jack, whirled round with a silent wrestling violence that indicated a suppressed and poignant passion. Under the shadow of his broad sombrero his eyes gleamed like clear coals of fire.

“I’m — heahin’ — all — you say!” he burst out, pantingly.

“Suppose you are, Jack?” queried the judge, in kindly surprise. “If I’d minded about being overheard I’d have sent you away.”

Tom Day stared, and it was evident he was not so surprised as expectant. He had lived with cowboys all his life.

“Wal, what the hell ails you, son?” he growled.

Jack whirled away in the same sudden violent action with which he had faced them, only now it seemed there was added a fierce struggle of mind over body. He bent over the rail. He sprang up erect and rigid. In a moment more he turned toward the men again, to present a remarkably transformed front.

“I’m shore beggin’ pardon, Mr. Franklidge, an’ of you too, Tom,” he drawled, in slow, cool, easy speech. “I couldn’t help heahin’ all you said, an’ — wal, it knocked me off my balance.”

“No offense, Jack,” replied the judge, kindly. “I think Tom’s talk sort of locoed me, too.”

“Wal, see heah, you long, lean, hungry-eyed Texan,” spoke up Day, forcefully, “jest why did I knock you off your balance?”

“Tom, I reckon I happened to hit on a way to fix the rustlers,” replied Jack, nonchalantly.

“The hell you did!” ejaculated Day. He accepted the statement without doubt or ridicule. He was pondering deeply. His sharp light-blue glance was riveted on the shadowy, half-concealed eyes of the cowboy.

Judge Franklidge sat up with a jerk, but his smile robbed his action of a convincing sincerity.

“Jack, we’d be grateful for any suggestions from one as well proven as you on the range.”

“Wal, what is this heah idee you hit on?” added Day, sharply.

“Shore it’s as simple as a-b-c,” rejoined the cowboy, blandly. “Somebody has got to ride down into the brakes an’ get thick with the rustlers.”

“Oh-ho! I see!” quoth Day, almost derisively.

The cowboy’s mild manner changed subtly, in a way to impress his listeners, though they could not have told how.

“Somebody has got to shoot up the Hatts an’ mebbe the Stillwells. An’ kill some of that Pine Tree outfit — in particular the hombre who’s at the haid of it.”

“Is thet all? My Gawd! Jack, I shore thought you’d hit on somethin’ hard to pull off,” returned Day, with infinite scorn.

“Shore it’d be hard enough,” admitted Texas Jack, who refused to see the ridicule.

“Hard! Fly, cowboy, you’re loco!” exploded the other. “Shore you hit on the way to fix the rustlers. Shore! But who’n hell’s goin’ to do it? Was you figurin’ on us hirin’ some fancy gun-slingers to do the little job? Kingfisher from Texas, huh? An’ Wess Hardin? Or mebbe you had in mind some new Billy the Kid or Pat Garrett? Or more like, perhaps, Jim Lacey, who they say has been hidin’ quiet in Arizonie for a long time!”

Texas Jack’s tan appeared to become a shade less brown. He grew tense, steely-eyed.

“Tom Day, how long have you known me?” he demanded, in a voice that rang.

“Two years an’ more, son,” replied Day, surrendering to something compelling.

“Would you trust me?”

“I shore would. With my stock, my money, my reputation . . . with my life — so help me Gawd!”

“Judge Franklidge, how long have I worked for you!” queried the cowboy, turning to the other.

“About a year and a half, as I remember.”

“An’ what is your opinion of me — as a man?” flashed the cowboy, growing more piercing of eye and voice.

“Jack, you’re the squarest and best man, the finest hand who ever worked for me!” responded the judge, feelingly.

“Thank you. Reckon you can have no idee what that means to me,” returned the cowboy. “An’ you’d trust me?”

“As well as I would my own flesh and blood.”

Texas Jack removed his sombrero and sailed it against the wall. His brow was broad and pale, his clear light eyes seemed to burn with a steady flame; there were white hairs in the long locks smoothed back above his ears; under the thin bronze beard, cheeks and lips set hard.

“Wal, then, it’s my job to fix the rustlers,” he said, deliberately.

“You! Nonsense!” declared the judge. “You wouldn’t tackle that alone?”

“It’s got to be done alone.”

“Nonsense! I say.”

“Judge,” interposed Tom Day, “it shore does look thet way. But wait. This cowboy has got somethin’ up his sleeve. I always knowed it. . . . Come heah, Texas Jack. Spring it.”

What shrewd, hard, comprehending yet wondering light flashed from the old rancher’s eyes!

“Listen,” went on Jack, bending to his hearers. “To serve Arizona an’ you an’ your good friends I’ve got to become a rustler. I may have to go a long way to find the leader of this heah Pine Tree outfit. I’ll have to drink an’ steal an’ kill. Shore I may lose my life finishin’ the job. An’ I want my secret kept till it’s ended. Then if I come back alive I want my name cleared.”

“Who’n hell are you?” asked Tom Day, in low and husky voice.

“Man, you’re forcing me against my will,” said the judge, rising to his feet. “I don’t want you to attempt this thing alone. It’s a wild cowboy idea. You’d only be killed. But I admire you, Jack.”

“Dead or alive, I want my name cleared!” exclaimed the cowboy.

“Of what?”

“Of the stealin’ an’ lyin’ I’ll have to do.”

“Man, I have power to make you a deputy sheriff right here and now. And I’d do it.”

“No. Shore I’ll never be an officer of the law. What I want is this. Your word of honor to keep my secret, an’, if I come back alive, to clear my name.”

“Jack, are you going to persist in this mad plan?” demanded the judge.

“Reckon I shore will, whether you stand by me or not,” returned the other, grimly. “It’s too late now. I’ve got a reason, Judge. But it’d only be fair for you to uphold me — to tell in court, if necessary, that you an’ Tom Day were parties to the job I undertook.”

“Jack you misunderstand,” replied Franklidge, hastily. “Don’t make me ashamed. I will give you any support and authority right here and now. In writing, if you want.”

“Only your word, Judge.”

“There! You have it. And here’s my hand.”

Texas Jack broke from the strong, earnest handclasp to make the same proffer to the other rancher.

“Tom, will you stand by me — when I come back?”

“Hell, yes,” boomed Day as he pumped the cowboy’s arm up and down.

Abruptly, then, with sharp husky expulsion of breath, Jack wrenched clear of the vigorous grasp and wheeled to a post of the porch, against which he leaned and clutched hard. Something long buried was being resurrected. Ignominy loomed out of the past to stain an honest name. There was sacrifice here, far greater than appeared plain to the two grave and expectant onlookers. Whatever the strife was, it passed as swiftly as it had come. Then the cowboy turned again, somehow different, so that the judge and Day had awe added to their surprise.

“Gentlemen, I shore hate to give myself away,” he drawled. A smile outshone the strange, steely light in his eyes. “But I reckon it’s got to be done.”

“Wal now, who’n hell are you, anyhow?” queried Day as the other paused.

“Tom Day, the starved cowboy you once took pity on, happens to be Jim Lacy!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS SUNDAY, and that hour of the afternoon when all the men off duty at the Franklidge Ranch would be anywhere except round the bunkhouse. The cowboy, Texas Jack, striding in, was relieved to find himself alone. He made for his bunk for the purpose of hurriedly packing his few belongings. An old pair of black chaps worn thin hung at the head of his bed, with a belt and gun. An instinct prompted him to throw out his hand. There, as if by magic, the gun whirled in the air.

“Reckon it was fate,” he muttered as he sheathed the gun. “Somethin’ never let me stop practicin’ that old draw. Wal, wal!”

In a few moments he had tied his belongings into a small roll to fit behind a saddle. His movements were swift, but made as if he were in a trance. He rose from his knees to gaze around; then strode out into the rude yet comfortable living room. Something prompted him to step before the mirror.

“Wal, so long, Texas Jack,” he said to the image reflected there. “Reckon I been almost happy with you. A shave an’ hair-cut will shore say adios to you forever. . . . An’ then there’ll be men who’ll recognize you as Jim Lacy.”

A quarter of an hour later he rode briskly down a trail that led into the cedars. He had taken his own saddle, but the horse he bestrode was one long discarded by the boys at the ranch. Once under cover of the cedars, the rider pulled his mount to a walk. It was nineteen miles to Sunshine, and he wanted to reach that station after dark and board a night train without being seen.

A melancholy resignation had no power to cramp the slow-mounting exaltation in Jim Lacy’s breast. Once free of the need to hurry, his mind reverted to the cause of this extraordinary adventure he had voluntarily accepted. Facts were cold, hard things. He had hidden his real identity; he had buried the past; he had risen on stepping-stones of his dead self to honest useful service; he had earned peace and victory, if not real happiness; and then, like a thunderbolt from heaven, an inevitable, irresistible fate had confronted him. What he had suffered during the moments when Tom Day had talked to Judge Franklidge about Ben and Hettie Ide! The old wound had not healed. The old love lived in his heart, stronger for the years of denial and repression. Jim Lacy rocked in his saddle. No eyes but those of hawks and prairie-dogs and perhaps a skulking coyote could see him surrender to his emotion. The old horse walked slowly down the trail; the west wind blew hot desert fragrance in the rider’s face; the dust arose and the heat beat down.

“Aw, I shore knew it — all these weeks I knew,” whispered Jim, huskily. “Ben come to Arizona to find me! . . . Didn’t he comb California — didn’t he send men to all the ranges in the West? . . . Didn’t Tom Day tell me no more’n a month ago — how Ben Ide wanted to know if he’d ever met a cowboy called Nevada? . . . That was it — the name Ben gave me — Nevada! . . . He never forgot. An’ at last he come to this wild land. He’s married an’ got a baby, they say. Old Amos Ide must have died an’ left Ben rich. Shore it was Ina he married. Yet all that didn’t hold him back.”

How terribly sweet and soul-satisfying that knowledge, and yet somehow bitter! In one tremendous moment of decision it had flung him back into the past, once more to own an infamous name. It had destroyed all he had built up. Only through the power of his dreaded name could he ever bring to successful issue the task he had set himself. What irony of fate that the fame he hated must be his open sesame to the rendezvous of the rustlers who were ruining Ben Ide!

“Like as not in the long-run I’ll stop a bullet,” he muttered, harsh in his agitation. “But hardly before I get the job ‘most done. . . . An’ shore that’d be better so. Ben would never know I am Jim Lacy. An’ Hettie — she would never know. . . . But I reckon that’s not my kind of luck. Like as not I’ll run plumb into Ben before it’s over. An’ Hettie, too! . . . O my God! How sweet an’ terrible!”

He rode on through the hot waning afternoon, absorbed with the strife of his soul. A storm, passing in gray-black pall at a distance, cooled and cleared the atmosphere. Sunset came, a glorious gold and purple pageant in the west, where it vied with the wonder of a rainbow, receding with the storm. But Jim Lacy scarcely took note of these physical manifestations around him.

When darkness fell he had reached the outskirts of Sunshine, and he halted under a clump of cottonwoods. Here, removing saddle and bridle from the horse, he turned it loose. That act seemed to sever the last thread which bound him to the ranching life he had followed for long. It had, too, a singular effect upon the emotions which had beset him. The hour had come when he must plan his return to the old life. Wherefore he sat down beside his saddle and pack, and with bowed head and rending of his spirit, he slipped, as into a long-unused garment, back into the old personality. And it seemed that the instant this transformation was consummated his plan for the perilous adventure at hand was simple and complete. He had only to be Jim Lacy.

The whistle of an approaching freight train inspired him with an idea more satisfactory than the one of waiting for the passenger train. He would steal a ride on the freight, thus obviating any risk of being recognized at the station. To this end he shouldered his pack and saddle and, hurrying to the railroad track, which was only a few hundred paces away, he waited beside the slowly halting train, peering through the gloom for an empty car. At length it reached him, just as the train stopped. Jim threw pack and saddle aboard and climbed in.

Daylight found him across the Territory line, in New Mexico. When the train stopped outside of a town at a water tank, he threw his baggage out, down over a grassy embankment, and got off. He had some money, beside the considerable sum Judge Franklidge had forced him to take. And it was with something of an old familiar zest that he strolled into the town.

Before encountering any riders or cattlemen Jim entered a barber shop, from which he emerged a changed man. Next he purchased a complete new outfit of rider’s apparel, the costliest he could find. Jim Lacy, he remembered, had once affected something near to dandyism. He retained only his gun and chaps, which were things more intimate than clothes and were not to be discarded.

His next move was to buy a good horse. This turned out to be easier than he had anticipated, and was accomplished without exciting any particular attention. Lastly he led the horse out of town, found his saddle and pack, and soon he was riding back across the line into Arizona.

Traveling leisurely, and stopping at ranches and stations convenient to the day’s travel, Jim Lacy in due time arrived in Winthrop.

The day was a Friday, toward the close of afternoon. He made his way to Beacham’s corrals, where over-night visitors to town usually left their horses to be cared for. The first corral appeared to be a little too crowded for Jim, so he led his animal out to another and smaller one. Several rangy, dusty-garbed riders had just ridden in, evidently behind a dilapidated old wagon drawn by a shaggy gaunt team. The driver, a lanky man, dark of face and bearded, clambered down with the cramped movements of one more at home in the saddle. Jim had seen him before, but could not place him. There was a young girl sitting on the driver’s seat, and she appeared quite pretty, in a wild-rose way. Jim’s quick eye also took in the stock of a rifle projecting from the side of the seat.

Jim led his horse somewhat closer to the wagon, and choosing one of the covered stalls adjoining the fence, he leisurely began to remove the saddle, while his eyes roved elsewhere. He noted presently, when the girl jumped down, that her slim brown legs were bare, that she wore beaded moccasins, and the rest of her apparel showed further indications of the backwoods. As she passed out of the corral with the bearded man, Jim had a closer scrutiny.

“Shore, I’ll bet that’ll be Elam Hatt an’ his daughter Rose,” muttered Jim. “An’ if so, those three riders are the other Hatts. . . . Reckon the ball is openin’ pronto.”

By the time Jim had turned his horse over to the Mexican stable-boy the Hatts had gone into town. Jim got out just in time to see them turn a corner. He followed very slowly, not reluctantly in any sense, but ponderingly. Familiar as he was with Winthrop, it did not seem the same town. Turning into the broad main street, he strolled along, seeing everything while not appearing to be interested in anything. He passed several persons whom he knew well. They did not give him a second glance. The restaurant-keeper, standing in a doorway, did not recognize Jim. A cowboy came along on his horse, evidently going home. It was Jerry Smith from Franklidge Ranch. He saw Jim, yet did not look twice.

“Jerry! An’ the son-of-a-gun didn’t know me,” soliloquized Jim, elated. “He owes me money I’ll never get now. Wal, could I surprise him?”

The later afternoon hours were the busy ones in the stores of Winthrop, owing to the heat of midday. The saloons were always busy, all day and all night. Jim had never entered a saloon in Winthrop. He would break that record presently, but not just yet.

At the next corner he came abreast of three cowboys sitting on a stone step of a saloon.

“Look, Bill, do you see the same as me — somethin’ awful pretty?” asked one.

“By josh! I do,” was the jocular reply.

“Boys, anybody’d know there was a dance on tonight — huh?” said the other.

“Hey, stranger, yore sure steppin’ high, wide, an’ handsome,” spoke up the third.

Jim wheeled round to face them, with amusement difficult to hide. These fine-spirited cowboys were far from being harmless, but it was only their way to extract fun out of every incident.

“Wal, are you boys lookin’ for a fight or a drink?” he asked, smiling.

“Since you ask us, stranger, it sure must have been a drink,” replied the first speaker.

Jim waved them into the saloon, followed them, threw money on the bar, and said: “On me, boys. Sorry I ain’t drinkin’ to-day. I just buried my grandma an’ feel bad.”

Loud guffaws greeted his sally, and as he walked out through the swinging doors one of the cowboys yelled, “You’re all right, stranger.”

Jim crossed the side street and went on down toward the center of the main block. He idled along, halting to gaze into windows, leaned against doorways here and there, watching the people. Presently he came to the entrance of a store and espied the girl he had taken for Rose Hatt standing in the door. She had a package under her arm and was evidently waiting for some one.

“Excuse me, miss,” said Jim, doffing his sombrero and stepping up to her. “Don’t I know you?”

She looked up at him with big hazel eyes that had not been long free of tears.

“You might, mister, but I sure don’t know you,” she replied.

Jim decided she was more than pretty and not such a child as he had first supposed. She had wavy brown hair, rather rebellious, red lips, and tanned rose-tinted cheeks.

“Aren’t you Rose Hatt?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Jim leaned easily against the doorpost, smiling down upon her. “Reckon I thought so. Shore that’s not many girls as pretty as you in these parts.”

“Put your hat back on, mister,” she replied, tartly. “Standin’ bareheaded don’t go with such taffy. Besides, I ain’t used to it.”

“All right,” returned Jim, good-humoredly. “Bad habit of mine. I’ll get sunstruck some day.”

“Say, you’ll ketch worse if my dad comes along,” she said, laughing, “Onless you tell me pronto who you are.”

“Wal, Rose, I might be Samuel Snoozegazzer,” drawled Jim.

“Only you ain’t,” she added, with interest, and she looked Jim over from boots to sombrero. She was not bold, but she certainly did not show embarrassment or shyness. Jim gathered that she was used to men.

“I’ll tell you my name if I drop in on the dance tonight,” he said.

“Mister, I knowed that was comin’,” she returned. “An’ I’ll bet you never met me before.”

“Wal, to be honest, I never did.”

“Reckon it ain’t no difference. But I’m afeared I can’t promise to dance with you.”

“Why not?”

“Dad says I can go, but Cedar — he’s my brother — he says no. An’ Cedar is boss of our outfit.”

“Wal, if your dad’s willin’, why, go ahaid. He’s your father.”

“Say, mister, I reckon you ain’t acquainted with Cedar Hatt,” declared the girl, almost with scorn. “You’re sure a stranger in these parts.”

“Yes, I am, sorry to say,” replied Jim, thoughtfully. “But what’s so bad aboot your brother?”

“Cedar’s just plain cactus an’ side-winder rattlesnake mixed up with hell.”

“Aw, that’s a terrible thing to call a brother,” rejoined Jim.

“He’s only a half brother, same as Henny an’ Tobe.”

“Oh, I see! Your dad was married twice an’ your ma was the second.”

The girl’s eyes grew somber and her red lips curled with bitterness.

“There’re some folks out in the brakes who say my dad wasn’t never married no second time.”

“Shore he was, lass. Don’t believe gossip of low-down people. An’ don’t be so hard on your brother Cedar.”

“I hate him,” she burst out, with passion.

“Wal! Why do you hate your own kin, little girl? Shore it’s not natural,” went on Jim, in his slow, persuasive drawl, so full of interest and sympathy.

“Reason enough,” she retorted. “It was his fault that Clan Dillon took to runnin’ after me.”

“Dillon!” flashed Jim, in an amaze too swift and deep to hide.

His tone, his look betrayed to the simple passionate girl that she had allowed her tongue too much freedom.

“Say, mister, here I am talkin’ like an old woman,” she cried, almost in affright. “I’m beggin’ you to keep mum that slip of my tongue. Cedar would half kill me.”

“Shore I will,” returned Jim, in his former kindly tone. “Rose, you just happened to run into a man you can trust.”

“You look it, mister. I like you,” she replied, with relief.

“Thanks. I’m shore the lucky hombre. But I reckon now you’re engaged to marry this Clan Dillon.”

“Marry, hell!” she exclaimed, suddenly almost fierce again. “I wouldn’t marry him to save his life, the handsome, smilin’-faced liar. Not even if he wanted to, which he sure don’t. I’d be only a sheepskin rug to Clan Dillon.”

Jim dropped his head, conscious of an inward shrinking of tingling nerves, to the coldness of ice. It had come again — that thing which had not frozen within his breast for years. How life tracked him down! Then he looked once more at the girl. She was recovering composure. Manifestly she was a primitive little girl, as much like a wildcat as a wild rose. Jim felt intuitively that she was good. The flame left her hazel eyes and the hardness around her lips softened. Jim did not need to be told more about her life.

“Rose, have you any friends?” he asked, earnestly. “Shore I mean women-folks who could advise a young girl like you.”

“Me? Why, mister, didn’t I tell you I lived down in the brakes?”

“Haven’t you a man friend, then, or even a boy — who’s good?”

“No. But I was makin’ one fast enough,” she replied, both with resentment and mischievousness in face and voice. “A boy from California! Say, he was nice. But Cedar caught me with him.”

“Too bad. What’d Cedar do, now?” queried Jim, much concerned.

“Not much, for Cedar,” replied the girl, demurely. “He drove my boy friend off into the woods, dodgin’ bullets! An’ he kicked me till I couldn’t set down for days.”

“Wal! . . . Look heah, girl, you’re old enough an’ you’ve sense enough to know a friend when you meet him. Aren’t you?”

“Mister, I think so. But I — I’m afraid to trust myself,” she faltered, swayed by his earnestness.

“Wal, you needn’t be in my case. I’m going to trust you.”

“How?” she asked, wonderingly. “I’ll tell you presently. I don’t want you to run off scared before I say all I want to. . . . Now who’s this California boy your brother caught you with?”

“Swear you’ll never tell?” she returned, impulsively, drawn by his potent sympathy.

“Rose, I’ll shore keep your secret, an’ more. I’ll help you to make a friend of him.”

“Oh, mister, if that could be!” she cried, rapturously.

“Hurry. I see your dad comin’ down the street.”

“His name is Marvie Blaine,” she whispered.

Jim Lacy drew a sharp swift breath that seemed to cut him like a knife as it swelled his breast. He leaned down to the girl.

“Listen,” he whispered. “I will be your friend — an’ this boy’s — if you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

“Lord, mister, you needn’t be afeared of me,” replied the girl. “I wouldn’t dare. Sure I don’t know why I ever talked to you. But you’re different. An’ oh! How I need some one to talk to!”

“Shore you’ve found some one. Me! I’ll be goin’ down into the brakes.”

“But who are you, mister?” she queried, aghast at his assertion.

“Did you ever heah of Jim Lacy?”

Her red lips parted to let out a little gasp and her brown face paled. “My Heavens — are you him?”

“Yes.”

“Hear of you, Mister Jim Lacy!” she ejaculated, her eyes dilating. “Ever since I can remember I’ve heerd of you. Many men ride to my Dad’s ranch, an’ none but they speak your name. Some of them had seen you, an’ two of them at least knowed you once.”

“Rose, I’ll tell you their names — Hardy Rue an’ Cash Burridge.”

“Yes — yes. Oh, you are Jim Lacy. An’ — an’ I’m not scared a bit,” she whispered. “Why, it ain’t so long ago that I heerd Cash Burridge tell of seein’ you call out an’ kill a man for beatin’ a girl. . . . Oh, Mister Lacy, no one ever taught me about God, but I’ve prayed — prayed night after night — for some one to come an’—”

“That your Dad right heah?” interrupted Jim.

“Oh yes. . . . What’ll I say?”

“Nothin’, lass. He hasn’t seen us. Don’t forget. Keep mum. Good-by.”

Jim strode out as if he were just leaving the store, and he passed Elam Hatt so close he might have touched him. Hatt was walking with a man as rough in garb and hard of face as he was himself. Neither appeared to notice him. After a few steps Jim glanced back. The girl had disappeared and the men were passing on.

“Good!” said Jim, to himself. “That lass is game, but she’s only a kid, an’ I reckon it’s better her dad didn’t see her with me. Wal, wal! The old luck of Jim Lacy! Half an hour in Winthrop an’ I’m on a hot trail.”

Marvie Blaine! Marvie — the boy who had worshipped him and Ben Ide in those wonderful Forlorn River days! Jim had found the boy way over here in Arizona. Marvie would be eighteen now — quite a man as cowboys were rated on the ranges. But then Ben and his family had only arrived at Cedar Springs in July.

“Tall, freckled-faced, tow-haided kid, Marvie was,” went on Jim. “Shore he’s straddlin’ mean hosses an’ packin’ a gun. . . . Reckon it’s not the best country for a boy like him. But Ben could hold him in. . . . By golly! I’m forgettin’ Rose Hatt. Shore as shootin’ Marvie has fallen in love with her. No wonder. Reckon I would, too, if my heart hadn’t been eaten up long ago. Wal, wal! A girl an’ a boy I hadn’t reckoned on. . . . How queer things come! Rose said it was Cedar’s fault that Clan Dillon . . . Poor kid! She shore called Dillon. Handsome, smilin’-faced liar! An’ she knows, if I ever saw truth. Wal now, I wonder, just what kind of a hombre is Ben Ide’s foreman. Tom Day liked him. So does everybody I’ve ever heard speak of him, except this Hatt girl. . . . It’s a hunch. I’ll be damned if I don’t back her against all of them.”

Jim strolled the length of the main street, and crossing, sauntered back again, talking to himself in an undertone, and with his apparent casual observance taking cognizance of all visible persons. He had the pleasure of meeting Judge Franklidge face to face in front of the hotel. The rancher saw Jim only as a passer-by. It would have been the opposite of pleasure, however, for Jim to have encountered Ben Ide face to face; and that was one reason Jim’s keen eyes sighted every man first. But accidents could happen. It would be well for Jim, while in Winthrop, to keep under cover of the saloons or places not likely to be frequented by Ben Ide. At most, Jim’s hours in town would be few and far between.

He went to a side-street restaurant to get his supper and engage lodgings for the night. As darkness came on he ventured into a store, where he made a few purchases, and then he returned to the corral for his pack. This he carried to his room.

“Reckon that’ll be aboot all,” he soliloquized, as he stood gazing around the dingy bare room.

He was thinking that he had walked the streets of Winthrop about the last time as an unknown man whom few people had noticed. Those swift moments — an hour or so at most — had seemed singularly sweet to Jim.

“Wal, I’m shore ready to pay all it’ll take.”

The small mirror showed his eyes piercing and light, like points of daggers gleaming out of shadow. He stood an instant longer, motionless in the chill lonely silence of the room. He knew that when he went forth again it must be into raw evil life of outlaws, gamblers, murderers — all that riffraff of the Southwest, which like a murky tide, had rolled into Arizona. He calculated coldly that he must be all he had ever been, all that his name had ever meant. He must add to these the intelligence which had sharpened in the years of peace. He seemed fitted for this task, and his motive had the strength of love and passion and the sanction of right.

“Reckon I ought to thank God,” he said, to his pale image in the mirror. “Shore I never had no chance to do somethin’ worth while. An’ now I can use my evil gifts to a good end. For Ben — an’ that means for her — an’ then Franklidge an’ all the honest people who’re tryin’ to civilize this wild country. Reckon, after all, they need such men as Jim Lacy. . . . I see clear now. Even if I’m killed, Ben an’ Hettie will know the truth some day. It’s got to come out, an’ I reckon I’m glad.”

Then before the mirror, with a grim smile on his face, he came at last to the practical business of the matter. Though the success of this enterprise depended upon his cunning and his knowledge of the outlawed men with whom he must throw his lot — and the more of such qualities he exercised the surer his chances — the cold hard fact was that all hung upon the deadliness of his skill with a gun. This job had to do with death. Such was the wildness of the time and the evil code of outlaws, that he could kill this one and that one, any number of them, and only add to his fame, only give himself greater standing among them. True, by so doing he must make bitter and relentless enemies; he must face the strange paradox that many an incipient gunman, or notoriety-seeking desperado, or drunken cowboy would seek to kill him just because he was Jim Lacy.

Whereupon, with deliberation he treated himself to a tense exhibition of his swiftness of eye and hand. In secret he had practiced all through these peaceful months while engaged in honest labor. An impelling force had exacted this of him. He understood it now. And with a dark satisfaction he realized that he had gained in speed, in sureness of hand. Beyond these he had in large measure the gift peculiar to all gunmen who survived long in the Southwest — and that gift was to read his opponent’s mind.

“Reckon I might have bit off more’n I can chew,” soliloquized Jim, as he sheathed his gun. “But from the minute I step out this heah door I shore won’t be makin’ many mistakes.”

The Lincoln County war in New Mexico had ended recently. It had been the blackest and bloodiest fight between rustlers and cattlemen and many others who had been drawn into the vortex, that had ever been recorded in the frontier history of the Southwest. As such it had possessed an absorbing, even a morbid, interest for Jim Lacy. He had never lost an opportunity to hear or read something about this war. And once he had ridden into New Mexico on a cattle mission for Franklidge, during which trip he had seen at first hand some of the places and men who were later to become notorious. That war had in its beginning something analogous to the present situation here in Arizona. Jim did not believe there could ever again be such a fight as the Lincoln County war. But there was no telling. Arizona had vaster ranges and more cattle. Some of the characters prominent in the Lincoln County war had not been killed. They had disappeared. It was not unreasonable to suppose that one or more of them had drifted into Arizona. “No two-bit of a rustler is headin’ that Pine Tree outfit!” ejaculated Jim, voicing aloud one of his thoughts. To be sure, Billy the Kid, the deadliest of all the real desperadoes of the Southwest, had fallen in the Lincoln fight, along with the worst of his gang. But they had not all bitten the bloody dust of New Mexico.

“Shore I’ll run into some one from over there,” muttered Jim. “When I do I’ll shoot first an’ ask questions after.”

With that he opened the door, to step out into the dark, oppressive August night.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WINTHROP, THE SAME as many other Western towns of the period, supported more saloons than all other kinds of business houses combined. It had a vast area of range land to draw from; and if there were a thousand cowboys and cattlemen in this section, there were probably an equal number of parasites who lived off them, from the diamond-shirted saloon-keeper and frock-coated gambler with all their motley associates, down to the rustler who hid in the brakes and the homesteader who branded as many calves not his own as he raised from his stock.

Once a month, if not oftener, the men of the range could be depended upon to visit town, “to paint it red” and “buck the tiger.” These customs were carried out as regularly as the work of punching cows.

During the early evening hours Jim Lacy visited some of the main-street saloons, steering clear of the Ace High and others of prominence. He lounged about the bars and tables, agreeable and friendly to anyone who wanted to talk, willing to buy cigars and drinks, while he made some excuse or other for not indulging at the time. Cowboys were all friendly folk, except now and then one whom drink made mean. Gamblers and hangers-on, Mexicans and Indians, attracted by Jim’s liberality and presence, added their little to the sum of information he was gathering.

“I’m lookin’ for a pard,” Jim would say to most everyone he met. “A cowboy who broke jail over in New Mexico.” And then he went on with more of such fabrication, always to conclude with questions. Cowboys under the influence of a few strong drinks soon acquainted him with range gossip he had not heard. Several habitués of these dives accepted Jim’s advances without telling him anything. These, of course, were the men who knew most and required cultivation. But they only eyed him covertly. Bartenders were mostly procurers for this or that gambling house, and from them he amassed much information. At length he left the last resort, intending to hunt up the dance hall.

“Shore, that wasn’t so bad for a start,” mused Jim as he summed up and sifted the bits of talk in which he found significance. “Cash Burridge, sold out an’ gamblin’ his fortune away, spends half his time heah in town. Thick with some Spanish girl. Same old Cash! . . . Clan Dillon one grand hombre, eh? Wal, wal! The Ides rich Californians who’re bein’ rustled an’ sheeped off their range. Tom Day just as liable to be boss of the Pine Tree outfit as any one. That’ll shore tickle Tom. The Hatt outfit, except Cedar, just no-good homesteaders, low-down enough for anythin’ not really big an’ dangerous. Cedar Hatt, though, is a plumb bad man. Not the even-break kind, but crafty as a redskin, treacherous as a Greaser. The Stillwells hardest nuts down in the brakes. Never come to town! Now that’s shore worth rememberin’. Last an’ perhaps meanin’ most to me — what that half-drunk sheepherder told me. Strange riders often seen by herders passin’ through the Mogollons. Wal, most of all this sounds familiar, as I think back. But now it comes close.”

Jim, by following in the footsteps of hurrying young people, soon found where the dance was being held. It was out a side street, almost at the edge of town, in a low wide adobe building, very picturesque now with its hanging colored lanterns, its trailing vines over archways. Outside there was a crowd of Mexicans, Indians, white men in rough garb, noisy boys, all looking in through the archways at the couples walking down the long patio and the dancers inside, swaying to and fro with the music. There was something of the spirit of a fiesta in the air.

Upon entering the place Jim was aware that he came under the scrutiny of men who evidently were conducting the dance, or at least overseeing those who entered. One of these individuals was Macklin, the sheriff of Winthrop, an officer who arrested cowboys sometimes, and Indians and Mexicans, but who never had been known to jail a gambler or one of the more dangerous characters. Jim, however, was not questioned. He strolled up the wide steps to watch the dancers, and then moving from one vantage point to another, amused and pleased with the scene, he at length found a place that suited him, where he sat down to watch and listen.

Jim Lacy, in the old Texas and Idaho, even the Nevada days, had enjoyed dancing, but since his advent in Arizona he had never attended a dance. This had been one of the peculiar things about Jim that had puzzled his cowboy associates of the Franklidge Ranch. Failing to persuade him, they called him a woman-hater.

It did not take Jim long to appreciate that this dance was conducted on proper lines. He understood now why he had been so closely scrutinized at the entrance. There was no drinking permitted on this occasion, nor any obstreperous behavior. The cowboys and other young men present did not show any evidence of the bottle. Among the dancers, and promenaders in the patio, there were a number of dark-haired, flower-decorated Mexican girls, very bright and pretty in their festal array. It was indeed a gala occasion, full of color and life, and soft laughter and Spanish music. Jim had to admit that his calculations had fallen awry in this case. Rose Hatt might be in attendance, but it was a safe wager that Cedar Hatt would not be admitted, nor any of the men Jim wanted to watch, unless it might be Dillon. He, surely, would not only be welcome, but very probably the lion of the dance.

Presently Jim believed he had caught a glimpse of little Rose Hatt at the far end of the patio. So he arose to walk in that direction, and found it rather a running of the gauntlet, for as the music started up couples began gayly to hasten to the dancing floor. More than one pretty girl bumped into Jim’s right side where his gun hung low. Finally another, dodging around a couple she evidently wanted to get ahead of, plumped into Jim’s arms.

“Oh, goodness! Excuse me,” she giggled, recovering her balance.

“See heah, lady, are you shore you didn’t mean that?” drawled Jim, with a smile.

She could not very well have grown redder of face, so Jim could not tell whether or not she blushed. There was, however, a hint of coquetry in her merry eyes. Then a tall cowboy, very young in years, loomed over her and glowered at Jim.

“Hey, you dressed-up quirt!” he said. “You say ‘lady,’ but you don’t know one when you see her. I’ve a notion to slap your smart-alec face.”

“I’d hate to be slapped, so I beg pardon, sonny,” replied Jim, and walked away.

The momentary halt had caused him to lose track of the dark curly head he had believed to be Rose Hatt’s. At the end of the patio he turned, to espy the girl just stepping out upon the floor. It was indeed Rose, and a transformed little girl, too. She had on a gaudy, cheap, flimsy dress, with shoes and stockings to match, but these did not detract from her prettiness. She was young and radiant. Her partner was a cowboy not much older than herself. They stood a moment, holding to each other, self-conscious and awkward, before they began to dance. Rose did not know how to waltz, but she made a valiant effort.

Jim watched the couple until they were lost in the whirl of dancers. This end of the patio opened into a garden or yard where a walk wound between clumps of shrubbery. There were benches here and there, and some of these were overshadowed by vines. Jim watched the dancers, hoping to see Rose again, and perhaps catch her eye. But he missed her in the whirling throng, and when the dance ended he retreated to a seat on the adobe wall. Then again the dancers tripped to and fro, hurrying for refreshments and seats, and the wide aisle was filled with murmuring voices.

This scene roused in Jim Lacy a strange regret. The pleasure and life manifested here were things he had missed. “I can’t see that it was my fault, either,” he muttered. Young couples passed near, excited and gay, thoughtless, enchanted with the moment. There were older people, some with gray hair, and they did not seem beyond the magic of the hour. Jim’s envy was short-lived. Happiness had eluded him. But it was not given to many men to serve as he could now.

Presently a couple approached out of the shadow. As they reached a point beyond, yet near where Jim sat, half concealed, the girl halted.

“Please — let’s go outside,” begged the man.

His voice prompted Jim to turn so that he could see better. The fellow had the build of a rider, lithe, tall, wide in the shoulders. He wore a dark suit and had a flower in the lapel of his coat. His face had a compelling attraction. But Jim, in his quick glance, could not decide whether it drew him because it was a handsome, unusual face, or for some other reason difficult to grasp at the moment.

“No, Mr. Dillon, I don’t care to go farther,” said the girl.

Jim started so violently that he almost fell off the low adobe wall. That voice! He would have known it among a thousand voices. His cool curiosity vanished in a rushing tide of emotion. His glance leaped from the man to his companion. She stood full in the soft rose light of one of the colored lanterns. Hettie Ide! His heart bounded, then seemed to become locked with a terrible pang. It was Hettie, grown into a woman. The face that had haunted Jim’s camp fires in the lonely watches of the nights! The same rippling fair hair, the deep earnest eyes, the rich clear complexion that spoke of contact with the open, the strong full lips, more hauntingly sweet than ever for the sadness which had come!

So rapt, so agonizing was Jim’s attention that he lost something of the words which passed between the two. It was the name Dillon that roused Jim from his trance.

“Mr. Dillon,” she was saying, “the reason I can’t marry you is that I don’t love you.”

“But, Hettie, you will — you must love me in time,” he returned, passionately, seizing her hand and trying to pull her into the shadow. She resisted, broke away from him.

“I never will,” she said, with eyes and cheeks flaming. “What kind of a man are you — that you persist so rudely? I liked you — even admired you until you forced such attentions as these on me. I’ve overlooked them because my brother Ben thinks so much of you. But no more, Mr. Dillon.”

Her dignified yet spirited reply might as well not have been spoken, for all the effect it had to restrain Dillon. He burst into low impassioned appeal, and he backed her under the overhanging vines against the wall. Dillon was no young cowboy, mad with love. He appeared to be a man, masterful, adept at making love, absolutely indifferent to anything but his own desires. The way he confronted her in her several attemps to pass him, and without laying a hand on her crowded her back to the wall, proved how he was thinking about what he was doing.

“I — I thought you were a gentleman,” she burst out.

“No man thinks of bein’ over-gentle when he’s in love,” retorted Dillon. “I tried that with you. And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t so natural then as I am now. I’ve plumb lost my head. I tell you I love you an’ I’m goin’ to have you. What do you say to that?”

“I say this, Mr. Dillon, we’ve all got you figured wrong,” she retorted.

“Sure you have,” he rejoined, with an exultant laugh. “An’ here’s how!” With that he attempted to seize her in his arms. But he had evidently cornered the wrong girl. Supple and strong, she wrestled free in an instant and wheeled away from the wall.

“What do you — think — Ben will do — when I tell him — you’ve insulted me?” she panted, backing into the aisle.

“If you’ve got any sense you won’t tell him,” replied Dillon, in a flash changing from an ardent lover to something almost menacing. “Ben Ide’s in bad here. Arizona isn’t California. There are rustlers here an’ you can bet some of them are the ranchers he thinks his friends. I know this cattle game. I know these men. He’s lost most of his stock. If he buys in more he’ll lose that too. Hettie, I’m the only cowman in Arizona who can save him from ruin.”

“Indeed! Are you aware that I have a share in the Ide ranch?” retorted Hettie, sarcastically.

“I’ve heard so, but I didn’t believe.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Ahuh! What do you mean by share?” he queried, curiously.

“I own one third of the land and the stock. Besides, I have my own house apart from Ben.”

“That’s news to me,” said Dillon. “But it sure makes my case stronger. What ruins Ben Ide will ruin you.”

“The loss of a few thousand cattle won’t hurt either my brother or me,” she returned, almost flippantly, studying his face with steady, penetrating eyes. She was seeing the man as if he had suddenly unmasked.

“You must be pretty rich to talk like that,” replied Dillon.

“Quite well off, thank you. I often wondered if that didn’t interest you, and now I know.”

He laughed in a way that would have been a revelation to an older woman, well versed in the life of the frontier. But Hettie did not grasp what seemed as plain as print to Jim Lacy, crouching like a tiger under the shadow.

“Thanks, you’re very smart,” he said. “But I’d be crazy about you if you were as poor as Rose Hatt. I tell you I love you — want you — need you so terribly that if I fail to get you it’ll make a devil out of me.”

“I’m beginning to imagine the process of making has progressed very far already.”

“You’ve got cat in you — same as other women,” he retorted. “Listen, we’re wastin’ talk. If you’ll marry me I’ll save Ben Ide. If you won’t I’ll quit him an’ use my influence all over the range. I’ll make ranchin’ impossible for him in this country. An’ I’ll get you in the bargain.”

Hettie Ide turned so pale that her eyes shone black.

“Mr. Clan Dillon! Popular fellow! Splendid cattleman! Best and squarest foreman in Arizona!” she exclaimed, with amazed and infinite scorn.

Dillon, whose back was now turned toward Jim, made a deprecatory gesture in reply.

“Mr. Dillon, weeks ago when you first came to us and began your — your attentions to me, I thought there was something queer about you,” went on Hettie, deliberately. “You were too good to be true, as old Raidy said. Well, I think you’re as bad as you seemed good. I think you’re a contemptible, conceited ass. I think you’re a deep, cunning scoundrel. . . . You need not return to Cedar Springs tomorrow. Marvie Blaine will drive me Home.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Dillon.

“You’ll not get a chance to quit Ben. Right here and now you’re discharged.”

“Me! What? Who’s dischargin’ me?”

“I am.”

“Bah! You’re loco, girl. Ben Ide wouldn’t listen to you. He can’t run that ranch without me. Haven’t you sense enough to see it?”

Hettie Ide abruptly turned her back upon Dillon and walked away, to disappear in the crowd of dancers returning to the floor.

“ — damn the luck!” muttered Dillon. He lighted a cigarette and stood thoughtfully inhaling and expelling smoke.

Jim Lacy strode out from under the vines and the shadow.

“Howdy, Dillon!” he said, as he confronted the foreman.

A lightning-swift glance took Jim in from head to feet and back again.

“Howdy, yourself. Reckon you’ve got the best of me,” returned Dillon, gruffly.

“Shore, I reckon I have,” drawled Jim, with cool significance.

“Who are you?” queried Dillon, sharply.

“I might be Peter Punkins — only I ain’t.”

“Pretty smart, aren’t you?” rejoined Dillon, feeling his way. He knew men; he knew the West. “Reckon you’re more Simple Simon than Peter Punkins. I don’t care. But I’m curious about where you just sprung from.”

“Wal, I hail from New Mexico,” returned Jim.

“The hell you do!” flashed Dillon. “That’s nothin’ to me. But where’d you come from just now?”

“Dillon, you’re figurin’ quick,” returned Jim, in slow deliberation. “Wal, I was settin’ right heah on the adobe wall.”

Jim pointed to the spot in the shadow, but he did not take his gaze off Dillon.

The man cursed under his breath and flung his cigarette down so hard that the sparks flew from the stone pavement.

“You set there watchin’ — listenin’?” he demanded, with sudden and powerful self-control.

“Shore did,” drawled Jim.

“Stranger, where I come from men got shot for such offense.”

“I reckon. That’s why I’m not apologizin’.”

Dillon seemed to accept this as confirmation of the suspicion which had evidently been growing with his thoughts. Abruptly his bullying manner changed. The swift retreat of his personality was almost as remarkable as the new one which took its place. He stood unmasked, as far as his pretense was concerned. Cautious, steady, cold, and hard he stood a moment, his strange green eyes trying to pierce Jim’s mind. He was searching more for Jim’s intent than for other knowledge of him.

As for Jim, he measured Dillon to be a Westerner vastly different from the character he enjoyed in the section of Arizona. He judged Dillon without recourse to the words of Rose Hatt. Jim did not recognize a kindred spirit, but he read in Dillon the depth, the courage, the desperate experience of a man used to the rawest and deadliest of frontier life.

“Ha! I see you pack a gun, stranger,” coolly remarked Dillon, as he lighted another cigarette.

“Yes. I got sort of used to it.”

“Reckon you see I don’t?”

“Shore. I seen first off you didn’t, an’ then just now I read it in your eyes.”

“Mind-reader, eh? Well, it’s a helpin’ trait for some men.”

“Are you meanin’ any particular breed?” queried Jim, dryly.

“Yes. Spies, gamblers, thieves, gun-throwers, an’ the like.”

“Thanks. I’m shore appreciatin’ the way you speak. An’ not wantin’ to be outdone in compliments, I’ll just repeat what Miss Hettie Ide called you — a conceited ass! A deep, cunnin’ scoundrel!”

“You heard all she said?” snarled Dillon. Deep and crafty as he was, he could not help the risk of passion, though he controlled it.

“Shore. An’ I never heard a low-down man called more proper. Tickled me more because only to-day some one called you a handsome, smilin’-faced liar.”

“Aho! You happened to hear a good deal, now didn’t you, stranger?” returned Dillon. “Well, I don’t care a damn.”

“Shore you don’t. A skunk stinks so bad that nothin’ but bullets can get to his hide.”

“You’re a brave man, stranger, shoutin’ that way above your gun. But I’m tired listenin’. Are you from New Mexico?”

“No. I was lyin’.”

“Ahuh? An’ you’ve got a hunch that’s where I come from?”

“I reckon.”

“You see I don’t deny it. What do I care what you know or think or do? You pose for a dandy cowboy. But you’re not ridin’ for any outfit around Winthrop. You excite a little suspicion yourself, mister, considerin’ this country is full of outlaws an’ rustlers.”

“It shore is. That’s why I come over,” returned Jim, meaningly.

For the first time the dark red showed in Dillon’s face.

“I’ll have you put out of here,” he said. “An’ I’ll tip Macklin off that you need watchin’.”

“Wal,” drawled Jim, with his glance cold and set, “go ahaid, but be sure to tip him off that I’m Jim Lacy.”

Dillon’s stalwart frame jerked with a perceptible tremor. A slow pale shade began to blot out the brown of his face.

“Jim Lacy, eh! Say, I’ve had that dodge worked on me before. Paradin’ under a dead man’s name! It’s an old trick of four-flushers.”

But Dillon was not so cocksure as his bluster was intended to indicate. His iron nerve had been pierced. Here was a name to conjure with. For a moment the revelation of it unmasked him as had nothing else. Honest men seldom had anything to fear from Jim Lacy or any other of his class. It was only a sudden, instinctive fear at that, a weakening at once controlled. Dillon might have been afraid of a name, but not of any man.

“You expect me to believe you’re Jim Lacy?” he demanded, hoarsely.

“Wal, I’m tellin’ you, but it’s nothin’ to me what you believe,” returned Jim, icily. This interview was about to conclude.

“All right,” went on Dillon, breathing hard. “But I still figure you a liar.”

Jim sprang forward and knocked Dillon down.

“Wal, shore it may take more’n that,” he said, in slow accents. “But I told you who I am. An’ that’s somethin’ you didn’t tell me.”

Dillon cautiously arose on his hand, lifting a dark face to his assailant. But he made no response.

Jim, wheeling away to go, found himself confronted by Rose Hatt. The girl had seen at least the last of Jim’s encounter with Dillon.

“Oh — mister!” she cried, in a comprehension bounded by fear.

The dancers were trooping off the floor. A tall youth, with features strangely familiar to Jim, appeared behind Rose. She clasped his arm, while she stared from Jim to Dillon, who had not attempted to get up. Without a word Jim hurried on.

“My — God! Who was that?” called out some one Jim took to be the youth with Rose. The voice added to the stirring of Jim Lacy’s memory. It also urged him faster through the throng of dancers and out into the street.

“That was Marvie Blaine, God bless him!” whispered Jim, as he gained the darkness. “Shore a close shave for me.”

It was eleven o’clock when Jim Lacy entered the Ace High Saloon, at the period one of the noted gambling hells of the southwest.

John Brennan, its proprietor, had two unique characteristics that stood in his favor. He had the reputation of being a square gambler and he would not have a woman about the place. Consequently he was not so prosperous as most men of his business and his house was without costly and gaudy fittings. He did not bar any man from his tables, so long as that man played fairly. More than one crooked gambler had been carried out of the Ace High, feet first. This fact was reported to have had its effect upon the intent-eyed, still-faced sharps who frequented the rooms.

Jim Lacy bolted into the barroom like a man who was being pursued. He was, indeed, though not by any visible thing.

“Cowboy, what you runnin’ from?” queried a tall man. He happened to be standing nearest to the door, his back to the bar, his high hat tipped back, to expose a weather-beaten face. A brass shield, with letters printed upon it, stood out prominently on his vest.

Jim recognized this individual almost instantly.

“Howdy, Macklin!” he said, nonchalantly. “I was just runnin’ from a sheriff.”

“Wal, you run right into another,” growled Macklin, surprised and annoyed. “Who air you?”

“I’m foreman of the Coffee Pot outfit,” drawled Jim.

“What’s your handle, smarty? It jest happens there ain’t any Coffee Pot outfit at this particular time. . . . I’ve a notion to clap you into the jug. You look kinda pale round the gills. What have you been up to an’ who air you?”

“None of your damn business,” returned Jim, with abrupt change of tone and manner. “But if you hang around I reckon somebody’ll tell you.”

“Hyar, you come right along with—”

“Lookout, Mack!” interrupted some one behind Jim. A glass went crash on the floor, and the rasp of heavy boots followed. Then a man strode in front of the sheriff, facing Jim. “Excuse me, stranger, but I believe I know you. If I’m wrong, say so.”

“Howdy, Cash!” returned Jim, extending his hand.

Cash Burridge looked a full ten years older than when Jim had last seen him. Drink and hard life and evil passion had broken the man. His lined dark visage lost its set expression of uncertainty, almost alarm, and worked convulsively into a broad smile.

“Jumpin’ steers!” he ejaculated, grasping Jim’s hand in both his and wagging it vigorously. His smile kept on expanding. His eyes lighted. “If it ain’t you!”

“Shore is, Cash. Just got in, an’ am lookin’ for trouble.”

“No! Who?” queried Burridge, with a sudden check to his almost boisterous welcome. He had bent forward and lowered his voice.

“Wal, nobody in particular, Cash. I just feel mean.”

“I’m a son-of-a-gun! It’s you — changed a lot. Most in disposition — if it’s true. You’re lookin’ for trouble.”

Here the sheriff interposed by placing an ungentle hand on Burridge’s shoulder and turning him somewhat.

“Friend of yours, hey? Thet’s no guarantee to keep him out of jail.”

“Hell!” exploded Burridge. “I’m tryin’ to keep you out of the boneyard. My Gawd! if I told you who this man is you’d sweat blood.”

Macklin’s jaw dropped and he swayed back against the bar, dominated by Burridge’s fierce sincerity. Then Burridge drew Jim aside from the gaping, grinning bystanders at the bar and the gamesters at the tables.

“It’s you — really you, Jim?” he whispered, huskily.

“Shore, Cash. Cain’t you see?”

“But we heard you were dead.”

“That was terrible exaggerated, Cash.”

“Dropped from the sky! Jim Lacy, just down from heaven, huh? Well, I’m damned! . . . An’ I never was so glad to see a man in my life. Honest, Jim.”

“Wal, I’m glad to see you, Cash, though we was never very thick.”

“Where you been, Jim, since you left Lineville? Lord! I never forgot that night you shot Link Cawthorne’s eye out.”

“Wal, Cash, never mind where I’ve been.”

“Sure, that doesn’t matter, only I always had my idea, an’ I was curious. I had a hunch you went to New Mexico an’ got mixed up in that Lincoln County war. Some of those hombres got out of that fight alive. I know one of them did. Close pard of Billy the Kid.”

“Who?” queried Jim.

“I’m not givin’ any man away, Jim. Sure wouldn’t have said as much as that to anyone else. When’d you drift in?”

“To-day.”

“You’ll be recognized here.”

“Shore. I expect to be an’ I’m not carin’.”

“Lord! Jim, have you grown reckless with the years? You look older, but fine, healthy, an’ prosperous.”

“Who’s goin’ to recognize me, Cash?”

“You remember Ace Black? He’s the gambler we knowed at the Gold Mine back in Lineville.”

“Shore I remember Black.”

“He’s upstairs playing faro. Reckon Black will know you, but he’d never give you away. Hardy Rue, though. He will. He never cottoned to you. Always had a hunch you’d killed Less Setter. Rue has dogged me all these years. An’ I’m layin’ it to him that I’m down on my luck now.”

“Wal, what come of your ranchin’ deal heah, Cash?”

“Jim, you had me figured. I couldn’t stand prosperity,” returned Burridge, heavily. “But I swear I went straight till I got in need of money. I’d made poor deals. I could steal cattle an’ make money, but not by tradin’ or ranchin’. I began to borrow. Then I had a chance to sell out to Ben Ide, a Californian. I did him dirt, an’ I’ve lived to be sorry. There’s a man, Jim. . . . Well, when I was flush again I began to drink an’ buck the tiger.”

“An’ now you’re aboot broke. Who got all that money, Cash?”

“Aw, everybody. Brennan some, but then I don’t begrudge it to him. Hardy Rue beat me out of most of it. I fell in love with a Spanish girl here. She an’ Rue double-crossed me. Got my pile!”

“Wal, why didn’t you kill him?”

“I couldn’t try an even break with Rue. An’ I never had a chance to shoot him in the back.”

“Is Rue heah now?” asked Jim.

“Reckon he’s with that black-eyed hussy. It’s a little early for him to drop in. Lord! it’ll tickle me to have him see you with me. Rue was afraid of you, Jim, an’ you need to watch him.”

“Where do you hang out, Cash?”

“I’ve been most here in town,” replied Burridge. “I’ve a cabin down in the brakes.”

“Are you acquainted down there?”

“Sure am, Jim. Know everybody except the newcomers. An’ I’m givin’ you a hunch there’s some hard customers driftin’ in. It’s a hell of a rough country an’ big as all outdoors. I sure learned to love Arizona.”

“Wal, Cash, when you was rich an’ high-handed I didn’t have much use for you,” said Jim, with a smile. “But now you’re broke an’ down on your luck, I reckon I’ll chip in with you.”

“Jim Lacy! You always was a queer one,” returned Burridge, feelingly. “Reckon, I know you’ve got somethin’ up your sleeve, an’ whatever it is, I’m sure with you.”

“All right, Cash. Suppose you tote me round to look ’em over.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HETTIE IDE HAD attended the dance at Winthrop as a guest of Alice Franklidge, a girl of nineteen, daughter of the judge’s second wife. She was a frank, breezy, Western girl to whom Hettie took a liking, and they were on the way to become real friends.

They left the dance before midnight, to be driven out to the Franklidge house by Alice’s escort. The night was cold and clear, with myriads of blinking stars overhead. Hettie removed her hat to let the cool wind blow her hair.

“Did you enjoy your first dance in Arizona?” asked the young rancher.

“Yes indeed I did, Mr. Van Horn — in spite of a — a rather unpleasant incident,” replied Hettie.

“Sure, we’re awful glad. Sorry, too, somethin’ annoyed you. But honest, the dances now are Sunday-school affairs to what they once was. Isn’t that so, Alice?”

“It is. I used to be afraid to go,” replied the girl. “Fights were common. One for each dance! They’re really nice now. Dad and some of the town men have seen to that. . . . Hettie, it mortifies me that you were annoyed by — by Clan Dillon. I know it was he. You danced with him — then came back to us all flushed and nervous.”

“Yes, it was Mr. Dillon. He — he insulted me.”

Van Horn cracked his whip over the horses in rather abrupt and forceful action.

“I’m not surprised,” returned Alice, thoughtfully. “Dillon is a handsome, fascinating man. Very agreeable, winning. But I always thought him a little common and bold.”

“Who was the pretty girl Marvie paid so much attention to?” asked Hettie.

“I didn’t notice her. But I saw he was having a grand time.”

“He had her with him just before we left,” went on Hettie. “She wore a white muslin dress, cotton stockings, cheap slippers too large for her feet. She hung back as Marvie came up to me. I think she was afraid to meet us. I thought her very pretty. Big staring dark eyes. Red lips. Curly brown hair.”

“That was Rose Hatt,” replied Van Horn.

“Rose Hatt? She couldn’t belong to that notorious Hatt family we hear about?” asked Alice.

“There’s only one family of Hatts, Alice, an’ Rose is the only girl,” explained the young rancher. “I’d seen her before. Charley Moss danced with her. Pretty kid. An’ she seemed modest an’ quiet. Young Blaine sure acted smitten with her.”

“Indeed he did,” corroborated Hettie, seriously. “Marvie is such a fine boy. But he’s going a little wild. I’ve remonstrated with Ben, who lets Marvie run around too freely.”

“Hettie, love affairs in Arizona go like fire in the dry desert grass,” said Alice, with a little laugh. “You want to watch out, doesn’t she, Frank?”

“Sure won’t do her any good to watch out,” returned Van Horn, gayly. “One of our Arizona lads is goin’ to get her.”

“Mr. Van Horn, that’s the second time to-night I’ve heard such prediction,” replied Hettie, pleasantly. “I’m sure I feel flattered.”

Soon they arrived at the Franklidge home, which stood on a bench of high ground, among stately pine trees. The girls went in to find Judge Franklidge smoking beside an open fireplace. He greeted Hettie warmly.

“Did you meet your brother?” he asked, as he placed a chair for her.

“No. Did he come in, after all?”

“Yes. He was here for an hour,” replied the judge. “Came in to talk over a cattle deal. I advised him not to buy more stock just now.”

“Was Ina with Ben?” asked Hettie.

“Sure was, and she looked powerful handsome. I wanted them to stay here overnight. But Ben said he’d rather go to the hotel, so he could be in town early. Left word if he didn’t see you at the dance that you were to meet him tomorrow at noon sharp. At Brydon’s.”

“Goodness! I’m glad we got away from the dance before Ben arrived,” exclaimed Hettie, with a rather unmirthful laugh.

“Well now, you don’t say?” queried the judge, lowering his head to gaze at her over his glasses.

“I’m afraid it’s going to be embarrassing for me when I see Ben. I’ll have to tell him I — I discharged Dillon.”

“Dillon! Clan Dillon? Did you fire him?” asked the judge, sitting up abruptly.

“I sure did,” rejoined Hettie.

“I’ll be darned. What for, lass?”

“I had reason enough, though I’m afraid Ben may not see it that way. He swears by Dillon. In fact he trusts Dillon implicitly and entertains a very high opinion of him. Well, Mr. Dillon has made it rather hard for me out at the ranch. He waylays me whenever I go outdoors. At first he didn’t do me the honor to offer marriage. But finally he got that far along, and despite my refusals he kept at it. I did not know he was to be at the dance to-night, or I wouldn’t have gone. But I danced with him, and walked with him, on the terrace — and — well, to make it short he insulted me.”

“Dad, I’m not surprised. I never liked Dillon,” interposed Alice.

At that juncture Frank Van Horn entered.

“Lass, now just how did Dillon insult you?” asked Judge Franklidge, with fire in his eye.

“He declared he was going to have me whether I wanted it or not, and I had to fight him!”

“You don’t mean he dared to lay a hand on you?” demanded the old rancher.

“Both hands, and arms, too,” laughed Hettie, though she blushed as she admitted it. “In fact, he was a ruffian. I imagine Dillon has had his way with a certain kind of women. I think he expected me to squeal, or beg — then flop into his arms. But I’m strong and I broke away from him.”

“Damned hound! Somebody ought to use a quirt on him,” ejaculated the judge, growing red in the face.

“I’d suggest a gun,” added Van Horn, with a compression of his lips.

Hettie held back a revelation of Dillon’s threat to ruin Ben and herself. Upon cool reflection she had not been sure of how Ben would react to her taking upon herself the authority to discharge Dillon. Unfortunately, Ben was used to Hettie’s complaints about the attentions his men bestowed upon her, and he had come to take them with a grain of salt.

“So I discharged Dillon,” concluded Hettie.

“You did right, lass, but how in the devil is Ben going to take that?” queried Franklidge, seriously. “He thinks a heap of this Dillon. Only to-night he was bragging about Dillon’s recovery of a bunch of cattle that’d just been rustled off into the brakes. . . . Still, come to squint at the offense, Ben can’t overlook it. He’s bound to stand by your dismissal of this foreman.”

“You don’t know my brother very well yet,” returned Hettie, shaking her head. “If he had seen Dillon insult me he’d have horsewhipped him. But Ben scouts my statements. He’s tired of hearing about these lovelorn cowboys who annoy me. He thinks I’m — well, a little too sensitive. Once he said, ‘If I was that cowboy I’d throw you on a horse and ride off with you.’ And another time when I went to him in distress he said: ‘Of course he tried to kiss you. Why shouldn’t he? You were made to be loved and kissed.’ . . . Sometimes I believe Ben is only in fun. He doesn’t mean that as it sounds. But he hasn’t so much patience with me as he used to have. I declare I don’t know how he will take this Dillon affair.”

“I’ll tell you, lass, now that you’ve expounded the situation,” replied the judge. “He’ll not uphold you. Dillon will get to him first and soften his offense, and Ben will keep him on.”

“That would be dreadful,” said Hettie. “I’ll actually be afraid of Dillon.”

“Well, the only solution to your problem, Hettie Ide, is to fall in love with some fine Arizona lad,” declared Judge Franklidge, with both kindly conviction and teasing good humor.

“Indeed!” returned Hettie, trying in vain to look haughty. Then she thought it might be just as well to drop a hint to these new friends. “I’d take your advice, Judge Franklidge — if it wasn’t for an insurmountable obstacle. . . . I can’t fall in love with a fine Arizona lad, because I’m already in love with a fine — Nevada lad!”

As the beloved name sounded off her lips Hettie felt the swift blood rise to tighten and heat her face.

The judge laughed heartily, but Alice, intuitively grasping the import beneath Hettie’s rather flippant speech, crossed over to Hettie and put an arm around her.

“Dad is as bad as Ben, dear. Come, it’s late. Let’s go to bed,” she said.

“Well, Hettie,” added the judge, in the same mirthful vein, “if I were forty years younger I’d contest this mysterious Nevadian’s right. Where is the confounded lucky jackass?”

Hettie looked back from the doorway, through which Alice was leading her.

“I do not know,” she replied, sadly.

When the door closed she heard the judge burst out: “Did you hear that, Van? It explains a lot. . . . Well, doggone me for a thick-headed fool! And I’ll gamble Ben Ide is the same.”

At breakfast next morning Judge Franklidge seemed to have undergone a subtle change. His interest in Hettie had increased, but he dispensed with the mischievous bantering. Hettie felt that in his estimation she had grown into a woman overnight, and that she had found a friend in him.

“Hettie, I’m going to be sort of a dad to you,” he said, at parting. “I’m ashamed of the way Arizona has treated you and Ben. But listen, lass. Have faith in us and this grand country. Have patience with your brother. Try to persuade him not to spend more money just now. We may have a year or two, or more, of hard times. But take the word of an old cattleman who has been through more than one rustler war. We will come out of it. These outlaws destroy themselves, I’ve a hunch some hard-shootin’ gunman will come along and do for the ringleaders. It’s happened here before. It happened lately in New Mexico. So do not lose your nerve and come to hate this beautiful country. We want you Ides to love it. We need such fine people. We are pioneers, Hettie. I’ve lost a million on cattle. But it’ll come back. And so will your losses. Likewise your happiness.”

“Judge Franklidge,” answered Hettie, smiling through her tears, “despite my weakness for Nevada — I reckon I’m Arizona’s for life.”

“Whoopee! That’s the game lass! . . . Come to see us often, Hettie. Adios.”

One of the Franklidge stable hands drove Hettie into town, so that she had time for thinking how best to approach Ben. It had not occurred to her that Ben might get a warped version of the affair from Dillon. She felt grateful to Judge Franklidge for his kindly counsel and advice. Indeed, she had felt, too, with a woman’s keenness, something in regard to the judge’s attitude toward Dillon — something he did not confide. Yet she sensed his friendship. He would very likely take her side, if the issue came to an argument. She decided to wait and see if Dillon had approached Ben.

Hettie, upon arriving in town, went about buying the supplies usually ordered twice a month. She and her mother had preferred to keep house in their own little cabin, a proceeding that Ina and Ben had opposed. But Mrs. Ide vowed she would never be a mother-in-law to anybody.

After she had finished her ordering, Hettie passed on down street, presently to encounter Ben. He did not look in a very good humor. There was a dark shade on his face which Hettie had learned to regret, long ago back at Tule Lake Ranch. Her heart sank a little, despite her fortitude. What if she had offended Ben?

“Ina is at the dressmaker’s,” he said, after greeting her. “Reckon it’s a good time for you to go to the bank with me.”

“Bank. What for?” she queried, as she yielded to his hand and turned back up the street.

“I’m having a certified check made out for your interest in the ranch.”

“Ben!” she cried, in amazed reproach.

“Yes, Ben,” he returned, a little testily. “Hettie, I can’t have you doing things without my knowledge. Besides, to be honest with you, I don’t want to see you lose that money. And I’m pretty certain I’ll lose all I put in cattle.”

“But, Ben, it was an investment. I played to win or lose with you,” she protested.

“I know, dear, an’ you sure are a thoroughbred. But this was a crazy deal of mine. I don’t regret it,” he added, hastily. “But I can’t feel right to have you in with me. Maybe some day, when these bad times are over.”

“Ben, something has happened since I saw you,” said Hettie, quickly.

“Reckon it has,” returned Ben, dropping his head so she could not meet his eyes. “California Red is gone!”

“Gone? Oh no, Ben!” she cried, poignantly.

He nodded disconsolately. She saw his lips quiver.

“Stolen?”

“We don’t know. He disappeared from the pasture. Raidy swears Red was stolen, that he couldn’t jump the fence. I know he could jump over the moon if he took a notion. Dillon agrees with me that Red just got away.”

“But you don’t know?” queried Hettie, sharply.

“That’s the rub, Hettie. We don’t. And there isn’t a man in my outfit who could track Red. Sure disgusted me. I tried to track him myself. Had to give up. . . . Reckon there never was but one horse hunter who could have done it.”

“Ben, you’ll get Red back,” replied Hettie, earnestly, and forthwith she launched into an eloquent speech, drawing upon the judge’s advice and optimism, and adding considerable of her own hopeful and persistent opinions as to their ultimate success and happiness in the future.

“You’re game, Hettie,” he returned, squeezing her arm. “With you and Ina and the kid I can an’ will beat this rotten deal. Reckon it’ll help some if you consent to withdraw from it.”

“I’ll consent to anything that will relieve or help you.”

They reached the bank, where presently Hettie received a certified check for her share in the transaction. She immediately deposited it to her account.

“For the time being I’ll leave it there,” she said.

“Yes, do. I might have to borrow from you,” he laughed, then with serious brow he drew her to a seat and said in a low voice, “Dillon just told me you’d discharged him.”

“Yes?” queried Hettie, lifting her chin, while the tingle and heat of battle ran along her nerves.

“Hettie, I had to countermand your order,” he went on, gravely. “Now we won’t argue about it. Dillon is the best man available. I can’t get along without him. He knows it, too. I had some trouble conciliatin’ him.”

“Oh, indeed!” retorted Hettie, biting her lips. “May I ask what Mr. Dillon told you.”

“Not much. He was sore, but he laughed, at that. Said he loved you an’ had been coaxin’ you to look upon him favorably. Then last night — at the dance — he asked you to marry him. Said you weren’t very encouragin’. Then he tried to kiss you, an’ you made a fuss an’ took it upon yourself to fire him.”

“If you believe him, Ben, why, there’s no need in my bothering you with my side of the story,” rejoined Hettie, finding her self-control.

“Reckon there’s no call to think Dillon’s a liar,” went on Ben. “The truth is, Hettie, you’re a little of a man-hater. Oh, I know — I remember, an’ I sure don’t blame you for bein’ true — to — to him. . . . But you’re hard on all these poor devils who fall in love with you. That’s the way I see it.”

“Ben Ide, I am not a man-hater,” protested Hettie.

“We won’t argue the question,” said Ben, wearily. “You an’ Ina always beat me. But please don’t misunderstand. I don’t want you to marry Dillon. He seems a fine fellow who’ll make a big man in Arizona some day. Just the same, I’d want to know him better before I’d let him have you.”

“Thank you, Ben. I can forgive you now,” murmured Hettie.

“I’d like to ask you somethin’,” went on Ben, with both concern and mirth in his look. “Did you strike Dillon last night — when he tried to kiss you?”

“Strike him? No, I certainly did not,” declared Hettie, vehemently. “I wouldn’t soil my hands on — But why do you ask that?”

“Well, he had a beautiful black eye,” replied Ben, ponderingly. “He told me he had stumbled in the dark — in his room — an’ hit a chair. Sure it could have happened. But it looked to me like a beautiful black eye that had come from a good swing an’ a hard fist. I’ve been wonderin’ if he lied to me.”

“Well, I’m wondering who gave him just what he deserved. But, Ben, if you have such faith in this Dillon, why did you wonder at all?”

“I happened to run into Dillon talkin’ to Stewart, who is Tom Day’s foreman,” replied Ben. “I heard Dillon say somethin’ about bumpin’ into a chair. Then Stewart, who’d been drinkin’, gave Dillon the horse laugh. Struck me funny, that’s all.”

“Brother dear, I hope you won’t be struck by anything funnier,” said Hettie, as she arose. “I’ve got more shopping to do, and time flies. You wished me to meet you at twelve?”

“You bet; pronto, too,” he returned. “It’s a long drive home, you know. I’ve got a lot of things to see to. But reckon I’ll make it.”

“How about Marvie?”

“He’ll be there. Marvie hunted me up an’ asked for money. I’d just given him some, before we left. The kid was intoxicated, all right.”

“Ben! You don’t mean he was drunk?” burst out Hettie, in horror.

“No. I was goin’ to tell you he was intoxicated over some girl. Wanted to buy her candy an’ presents. But, by George! I forgot I promised not to give him away. Don’t you dare give me away. . . . So long, till twelve. I’ll pick you up at Brydon’s store.”

“What a fright you gave me!” complained Hettie. “You should choose your words more carefully. As to Marvie — I think he’s in love. I saw the girl. Tell you more later.”

Hettie’s thoughts reverted to Marvie and lingered dreamily and anxiously around him until she reached the dry-goods store, where she forgot everything except the important shopping at hand.

It lacked five minutes to twelve when she labored to the front of the store, burdened by bundles, and vastly satisfied with herself that she had finished in time to meet Ben. He was punctuality itself and appreciated the same in anyone. Hettie deposited her bundles on a window seat beside the door, and looked out for Ben. He had not yet arrived.

Suddenly a man, hatless and coatless, dashed by, yelling, “Keep off the street!”

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Hettie, amused.

Several clerks came hurriedly to peep out.

“Looks like another fight,” said one of them, excitedly.

Shouting and trampling of feet followed. Across the street pedestrians hurriedly ran into the first open doorway they happened upon. The noise ceased. Then a man entered the door where Hettie stood transfixed and thrilling.

“Hello, Matt! What’s doin’?” queried the clerk.

“Darned if I know,” replied the man. “I seen people run off the street, so I ducked in here. Just before I heard Jim Lacy was in town.”

“Who?” shouted his questioner.

“Jim Lacy. Don’t know how true it is. But somebody’s in town, you can gamble on that.”

Faces appeared at all doors and windows. Some peeped down the street, then jerked back. How ridiculous it seemed to Hettie! Yet there she stood likewise, her heart throbbing, her whole being in a state of suspense.

A shot pealed out, deep and ringing. Then bang! Another followed, almost like an echo. Silence ensued, palpitating, stifling to Hettie. What had happened? A fight! Guns! A single shout came from far down the street.

The man beside Hettie peeped out.

“By Gawd!” he ejaculated, in husky accents.

The clerk, frightened as he was, also had to look. He jerked in his head, with pale face and eyes staring, and he began to jabber.

Hettie obeyed an irresistible instinct. She peeped out. The street appeared empty. No, there was a man lying face down, not fifty feet from the door. His arms were outstretched.

“It’s Jim Lacy. I never saw him, but I know them who has,” said the man beside Hettie.

“Oh — how dreadful! . . . the dead man — there in the road — Jim Lacy?” whispered Hettie, beginning to shake and grow sick.

“No. Jim Lacy is the one comin’ up the street. . . . See his gun. It’s smokin’!”

Then Hettie, looking farther, espied a man in rider’s garb, gun in hand, stalking toward his victim. He passed him, with only a downward glance. He sheathed the gun. He strode toward the sidewalk.

His walk! His shape! A terrible piercing sensation attacked Hettie. Had she been horrified out of her senses? Was she mad? What flashed so swiftly in memory? But this man — this Jim Lacy! He was coming. He would pass the door.

Hettie drew back with the last of failing strength. She reeled. Her mind had halted. The quivering of her body ceased as if paralysis had set in. Cold, numb, awful suspense held her upright, waiting, as if for death itself.

The man in rider’s garb passed the doorway, erect, stone-faced, with eyes of lightning set ahead.

Nevada! Hettie’s faculties leaped out of terror and stupefaction to recognize him. Nevada! Jim Lacy? . . . Nevada!

She had a sense of sinking down. All went blank — then slipped into black oblivion.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HETTIE RECOVERED CONSCIOUSNESS before she had strength enough to open her eyes. She was lying down, with some one supporting her head. Cold water had been dashed in her face. She felt it trickling down her neck.

“It’s Miss Ide,” said some one. “She fainted. . . . Fell right down!”

“No wonder!” returned another speaker, evidently a woman. “I’m sort of sickish an’ weak myself. Hadn’t you better call a doctor?”

Whereupon Hettie opened her eyes, to whisper weakly, “I’ll be — all right.”

She lay on the window seat, with her head supported by the young clerk. Several persons, one a woman, stood around sympathetically.

“There! She’s come to.”

A bewildering complexity and whirling of thought suddenly left Hettie with her mind clear.

“Is my brother here?” she asked, trying to sit up. With the aid of the young man she managed it, and slipped her feet to the floor.

“No,” was the reply.

“First time — in my life — I ever fainted,” said Hettie.

“Better set still a little, miss. You’re awful white yet,” said the woman kindly. “Let me help you put on your hat. It was here on the floor. You must have had a tumble.”

The clerk smiled and got up. “No. She just sank. Like a limp sack. So she couldn’t have hurt herself.”

“Indeed, I’m not hurt,” returned Hettie. “You’re all very kind. . . . It was silly of me to — to keel over like that.”

While she talked there seemed to be an awful question hammering at her consciousness. When Ben and, Marvie entered, at that moment, she understood what the question was. Neither of them knew what she knew. Her relief was so great that it overcame her, and when she tried to rise she only sank back again.

“Why, Hettie!” cried Ben, in sharp concern, as he sat down to grasp her. Then Marvie knelt on the seat at her other side. Hettie smiled wanly at them and closed her eyes. She felt dizzy, and then feared to look at them.

“It’s nothin’ serious, Mr. Ide,” spoke up the clerk, hastily. “She just fainted. It was the shootin’. She peeped out — an’ then when I seen her again, there she lay on the floor.”

“Whew, Hettie! You gave me a scare,” said Ben, as he hugged her and shook her a little. “But you’re all right. It was only you went flooy over a street duel. Why, I’m surprised at you. Anyone would think you’d never heard a gun back in California. . . . Come, brace up, Hettie.”

“Take me home,” replied Hettie, opening her eyes again. “I — I want to get out of this town.”

“Wal, I should smile! Me, too,” joined in Marvie, squeezing her hand. Hettie had never seen the lad look quite as he did then. The freckles stood out on his pale wet face. His eyes held a bright stare. She did not dare ask him if he had seen the participants of the street duel. She feared he had.

“Marvie, you fetch these bundles,” requested Ben, as he lifted Hettie to her feet. He had to support her, or she could not have walked just yet. He swore under his breath, then, scornfully, “This Arizona’s a nice place for women! . . . Never mind, honey; maybe we’ll get over it. I’m thankin’ my stars Ina didn’t see.”

Ben helped her into the back seat of the buckboard. “There, you’re all right. . . . Marvie, put the bundles under the seats. Then get in beside Hettie an’ hang on to her. I’ve got some drivin’ to do. Soon as I pick up Ina, I’ll sure leave this town in a cloud of dust.”

Hettie did not look to right or left, yet she saw and heard the excited people passing, talking down the street. Ben drove rapidly. Soon the center of town lay behind. The streets were quiet. Hettie lost the cold dread of seeing a lithe stone-faced man in rider’s garb. Ben halted the horses before a house set well back in a green yard, and as he leaped to the ground Ina appeared.

“Hello, you-all!” she called, merrily. “See, Ben, I’m right on the dot. Now, sir.” As she reached the buck-board she suddenly halted aghast. “Why, Hettie! . . . You look terrible. Are you ill? Oh, what has happened?”

“Ina, I’m a poor pioneer,” said Hettie, with rueful smile.

“Nothin’ to upset you, wife,” replied Ben. “Hettie had a scare. There was a shootin’ fray downtown, an’ she fainted. Climb up, an’ we’ll be off pronto. These ponies are sure rarin’ to go.”

As soon as Ina had climbed up she turned solicitously to Hettie and reached for her hand. “You poor dear! I never saw you look like this. Fainted! That’s strange. You never fainted in your life.”

“I did this time, all right,” returned Hettie.

“Why? What happened? Did you see a fight?” queried Ina, excitedly.

“No. I didn’t see — the fight,” replied Hettie, shutting her eyes tight. “But I heard it. . . . Then I peeped out — to see a — a dead man lying in the street.”

“How dreadful! Oh, this wild Arizona! It’s worse than Forlorn River when we were girls.”

“Worse?” laughed Ben, grimly. “Say, Ina, California in our day could never hold a candle to Arizona.”

“Did you see this fight?”

“No. I missed it.”

“Did you, Marvie? Oh, I hope you didn’t.”

“All I saw of it was the dead man. I walked by him. He had a bloody hole in the top—”

“Shut up, you infant gun-slinger,” interrupted Ben.

“Did you know the fighters, Ben?” went on Ina, curiously.

“No. Some one told me Jim Lacy had come to town, lookin’ for trouble. He gave a rustler named Hardy Rue choice of leavin’ town or throwin’ a gun. Rue chose to stick, an’ it cost him his life. Had no chance on earth, some one said. They met in the street. Even break, of course, as these Arizonians call a fair fight. But Rue was fallin’ when his gun went off.”

“Terrible,” said his wife, shuddering. “But a rustler cannot be a very great loss to the community.”

“Ina, I sure hope Mr. Jim Lacy sticks around for a while,” replied Ben, laconically. “Tom Day told me Hardy Rue might be the leader of the rustlers who’ve been pinchin’ me so hard. But Dillon scouted the idea.”

During this conversation Hettie was glad to have the support of Marvie’s arm and shoulder. She had not opened her eyes. But her ears rang acutely with the words she heard.

“Ben, I reckon you an’ sis might shut up, yourselves,” declared Marvie, significantly, “or talk about somethin’ else.”

“Sure, sonny,” agreed Ben. “It’s no pleasant subject.”

The spirited team drew the light buckboard at a rapid pace over the smooth, hard road. The breeze stirred by this pace was cool and pleasant to Hettie’s throbbing brow. After a long rest, she opened her eyes and sat up again. Already the dark line of cedars was in sight, and beyond them the uneven timbered ridges that ran up to the black frowning Mogollons. How vast and wild that range! Hettie’s heart seemed to come to life again. It had been locked, clamped, frozen. What was it that had stricken her, almost unto death? If she were only alone in her room, so that she could face the catastrophe, so that she could give way to her agony! But many miles and hours lay between her and seclusion. She essayed to make conversation with Marvie.

“Your girl is very pretty, Marvie,” she said, close to his ear.

Marvie actually blushed and squirmed in his seat, and gripped Hettie’s arm so hard under the robe that it hurt.

“You had met her before last night,” whispered Hettie.

“Ahuh!” he replied.

“Marvie, you are no longer a boy. You’re a young man with prospects. And she — forgive me — she belongs to that notorious Hatt family. I don’t blame you for — for admiring her; she’s like a wild rose. But say it’s not serious.”

“I wish I could,” whispered Marvie, swallowing hard.

“Marvie! Tell me.”

“Not now. I can’t, Hettie,” he said, huskily. “But I will when we get home.”

“I’m on your side, Marvie,” concluded Hettie, pressing his arm.

For a while she was able to concentrate her thoughts upon this lad and the girl, Rose Hatt, and the unhappiness that might accrue for both. Marvie was under probation. Yet it would not be long until he was of age and his own master. It seemed altogether unlikely that he would ever return to California. The rich acres of Hart Blaine had no hold upon Marvie.

Soon Hettie’s will succumbed to the tremendous pressure of recurring thoughts and emotion. She gave up. She had to let herself go. Then while her gaze strained out over the yellow and green prairieland, and the rolling ridges with their slopes of sage, and the miles of white grass where herds of cattle grazed, and on and on, and ever upward to the purple ranges lost in the rosy pearly clouds of hot afternoon, while she saw these beautiful characteristics of Arizona, she was confronting herself with the staggering truth.

She had seen Nevada. She could not torture herself with a thought of doubt — that she might have been mistaken. Sight and heart and mind, her whole being had recognized him in one terrible instant. He was in Winthrop. He was Jim Lacy. Jim Lacy, whom range rumor had long made mysterious, famous, ruthless. Jim Lacy was Nevada. Back in those Forlorn River days, when she and Ben and Ina and Marvie had loved him as Nevada, even then he had been Jim Lacy. Why was she stunned? Ever since Nevada had killed Setter and ridden away never to be heard of again Hettie had realized he had borne a name he could not endure for her or Ben to know. That was not so astounding. Nevada might have been any one of the noted desperadoes of the West. The overwhelming thing was that Nevada was here in Arizona, alive, virile, stone-faced as she had seen him but once, here in Winthrop, close to the home she and Ben had chosen almost solely in the hope that they might find him some day.

What if she had seen him? A sickening helpless impotence assailed her. All the longing of years wasted! All the hope and prayer and faith wasted! Vain oblations. Nevada had been false to her, false to the best she had helped to raise in him, false to the blessed conviction she had always entertained — that whoever he was and whatever he had done, out of love for her and assurance of her faith, he would go on to disappear from the evil roads of the West and turn to an honest life. Hettie would have gambled her soul on that. And now the soul she would have staked grew sick with horror and revulsion. Nevada was a consort of rustlers, a bloodthirsty killer, a terrible engine of destruction.

But perhaps he had only killed another man! A bad man — a thief — even as Less Setter had been! The insidious small voice beat at the gate of her consciousness of faithlessness. And she listened, she clutched at it with the hope of a drowning woman, she hugged it to that soul which seemed to be freezing. So with unseeing eyes on the rolling, darkening desert, she admitted more and keener anguish into this strife of love and faith. How could she be faithless in hope, in trust? Had she not sworn, with her lips close to his, that she would die before she ever failed him? What if he had used his deadly gun again? He had killed, as before, perhaps more than once in his life, a worthless wicked man, whose death must serve some good purpose. Nevada had once saved Ben and Ina and her, all of them, from grief and misery. Who could tell what the killing of Hardy Rue might be to some one? No! Nevada had not sunk to the companionship of evil men and women, to drinking, gambling, rustling, to the vile dregs of this wild West.

Over and over again this stream of consciousness eddied through Hettie’s mind, like conflicting tides, now rushing, again receding, now full and devastating.

Through the waning afternoon, sunset, twilight, dusk, on into the night Hettie acquired deeper insight into the gulf which yawned beneath her.

The swift horses had swung into the home stretch, over the short-cut road that had been one of Ben’s achievements. How the night wind moaned in the lofty pines! It seemed the moan of the world. The fragrance of sage filled the air. Down through the pale aisles of the forest moved shadows, unreal, grotesque, things as strange as shadows of the mind.

Marvie now leaned against Hettie’s shoulder, sound asleep. Ina had not spoken for hours. Ben, tireless and silent, kept the horses at a steady clip-clop, clip-clop. He always took pride in driving to town in eight hours and home in nine. A good road, a stanch fast team, a light vehicle, had conquered the one drawback to Ben’s wilderness ranch.

When at last they arrived Hettie crept exhausted to her room, and falling upon her bed, she lay quiet, wanting to rest and think before she undressed. But she fell asleep.

When she awakened the sun was shining gold in at her window, and the fresh sweet cool fragrance of the forest blew over her. Instead of being beautiful they seemed dreadful. She dreaded wakefulness, the daylight, the many duties to be met, the imperative need of action, the facing of her family and of life. But she could not keep them back. And with the truth there surged over her the catastrophe that had fallen.

“Maybe it’s not a catastrophe,” she whispered to the faithful, waiting silence of her room.

Hettie sensed then that her greatest trial was yet to come, and a faint intimation of what it might be appalled her. It roused her to battle. Dragging her aching body off the bed, she undressed, and bathed her hot face, and brushed out her tangled hair, and put on her outdoor clothes.

Then she slipped out without awakening her mother in the adjoining room. What was it that she must do? Find him, save him, or perish! All that she faced in the golden morning light seemed to mingle in one subtle whisper. There was no deceit, no blindness, no vacillation in the nature that spoke to her.

Only the birds and the wild game, and the calves in the pasture, the roosters in the barnyard, the burros out on the range shared with Hettie those perfect uplifting, clarifying moments of the sunrise.

Golden gleams of light crossed the brown boles of the stately pines; low down through the foliage shone patches of pink sky; to the north and west opened the vast slant down to the desert, illimitable and magnificent in the rosy, shadowy soft dawn. Deer and antelope grazed with the cows in the pasture. Squirrels barked from the trees, hawks sent down their shrill piercing cries, wild turkeys gobbled from over the ridge. Joy of life, radiance of creation, peace and solitude, wholesomeness and sweetness of nature, the exquisite beauty of woodland and wasteland at the break of day, and a marvelous, inscrutable, divine will pervaded that wilderness scene.

Hettie absorbed it. She lifted up her head to the one black dome of the Mogollons. The misery of the night faded away like a nightmare. She had been a coward. She had failed to be grateful for the very thing that had been the beginning and end of her prayers. Could she be so slight and shallow a woman as to succumb to heartbreak? A terrible ordeal faced her, the outcome of which she could not divine. She could only endure and fight whatever fate had in store.

“Oh, if I can cling to this blessed strength!” she cried. “To hold it fast when I’m distracted! To have it in hours of gloom!”

That day Hettie did not cross the picturesque log bridge that spanned the brook between her cabin and the beautiful rambling residence of her brother. She plunged into her work, which consisted of the housekeeping she shared with her mother, her dressmaking and other personal tasks, and all the bookkeeping necessary to the running of a large expensive ranch.

She did not see Ben all day. Late in the afternoon, when she went out to walk a little in the open air, she espied Marvie sitting on the porch, a most abject-looking lad.

“Hello, Marv, old pard! Come and walk with me,” she said, brightly.

“Aw, I want to die!” replied Marvie.

“Goodness gracious! Well, don’t do that on my porch. It’d be a perpetual reminder of you.”

She dragged him to his feet and locking an arm with his led him off into the woods, until they were out of sight of anyone at the house. Then Hettie bade him sit with her under an old pine where the fragrant brown needle mat looked so inviting.

“Now, Marv, I’m through teasing,” she said, with a gravity that suited his mood. “What’s the trouble?”

“I had a run-in with Ben,” replied the lad. “First one we ever had.”

“You did? Well, I’ve had a thousand. When Ben gets sulky and cross a good run-in clears him up, as a thunderstorm does a sultry day. Where did Ben go to-day?”

“He finally rode off to a deserted homestead over here, five miles or so. Some one found tracks of California Red, and that news upset Ben. Then he waited round hours for Dillon, who didn’t come. Raidy, who’s on the outs with Dillon, said some things that made Ben sorer. You know Raidy. Well, doggone it, Ben pretty soon pitched into me.”

“What for?” queried Hettie, practically.

“Nothin’. Not a darned thing. ‘Cept I moped along at a job he gave me. Fixin’ fence. If there’s any job I hate it’s that. He swore at me. Then I told him to go to the devil — I’d quit and go home.”

“What did Ben say?” asked Hettie.

“He said, ‘Go ahead, you bull-headed, lop-eared little jackass.’ . . . So I rode off home. And I reckon I’ll quit. I’m goin’ to be a rustler.”

“All right. You want to become a rustler,” returned Hettie, accepting the statement. “What for?”

Marvie did not reply for a long while, during which his head sank lower.

“Hettie, I’m turrible — in love,” he said at last, with an effort.

“Rose Hatt?”

“Yes. It couldn’t be nobody else.”

“Does Rose love you?” asked Hettie, softly, her hand going to Marvie’s.

“I thought she did, at first,” replied the boy, writhing. “She let me kiss her — kissed me back. But last night, when I asked her to meet me again, she said no. I got mad. But she stuck to it. When I accused her of flirtin’, and me dead in earnest, she said: ‘Marvie, I’ve a bad name. I belong to the Hatts. You’ve a lovely sister’ (she’d seen you) ‘and a proud family. I’m only a backwoods girl. It won’t do. I’ll not see you no more.’ She ran away from me then an’ I couldn’t find her. She’d hidden or left the dance. In the mornin’ I tried again. No luck.”

“Marvie, I admire Rose for that,” said Hettie, earnestly. “I think she’s a square girl, even if she is a Hatt.”

“Now, Hettie, don’t you go talkin’ like dad or mother,” burst out Marvie, warningly.

“Oh, Marvie, I won’t,” declared Hettie, ashamed of the fact that she had been about to do so. By Marvie’s warning she estimated his regard for her.

“I don’t care a damn about myself — even when I do love her turrible,” went on Marvie, passionately. “But what’s to become of Rose?”

In the sincerity and inevitableness of youth he had hit upon the thing that mattered most.

“I understand, Marvie,” said Hettie, gravely. “You make me ashamed. Rose is not to blame for her family, for her surroundings, for — anything.”

“Now you’re talkin’ like Hettie Ide,” returned Marvie, fervently. “And I’m givin’ you a hunch. If Rose really loves me I’ll stick to her. In spite of dad or Ben or anyone!”

Hettie dropped her head. Here was a problem. What should she say? Marvie’s confidence in her suddenly meant more than ever before. He needed something from her.

“What knocks me flat is — I’m afraid she doesn’t love me,” went on the lad. “I’m goin’ to find out, though, if I have to ride right under Cedar Hatt’s nose. . . . Last night I believed she didn’t. This mornin’ I thought she did. If not — if she was only a little hussy — why’d she say she had a bad name and wouldn’t meet me no more?”

Hettie had no quick reply to his passionate query. Owing to her own stress of emotion during the last twenty-four hours, she was far from being her old logical self. But she was fighting a conviction that Rose Hatt had shown nobility and sacrifice in her attitude toward Marvie’s advances. If those attributes did not spring from love, Hettie did not know what to call it.

“Tell me, Hettie,” begged Marvie, with soul-searching eyes that hurt her, “don’t you think Rose cared really? Wasn’t that good in her — givin’ me up? Wasn’t it because she — she liked me too well to go on with what she thought might disgrace me an’ you an’ Ben?”

“Marv, I can’t be sure, but I think so.”

“Thanks — Hettie,” choked the lad, sitting up straight and facing ahead. A light crossed his somber youthful face. “You hit me right here.” And he put his hand to his breast. “Sure I couldn’t tell nobody else but you. It’s helped a lot.”

“Marvie, how in the world did all this come about?” asked Hettie, in wondering sympathy.

“Like a story, Hettie. I met Rose over a month ago. Went huntin’ on a Sunday. Rode a long way, then walked. I got after some turkeys. They were awful wild. I followed them a long ways, down into a big grassy canyon where a stream ran. Most beautiful place. Deer, elk, beaver all along. But I wanted one of them big old gobblers. So I kept on. And I run plump into a girl. She was cryin’. I spoke to her — sat down with her. After a while she began to talk. First she was sore an’ hot at her brother, Cedar Hatt, who beat her. Showed me black-and-blue marks on her bare legs. I said somebody like Jim Lacy ought to come along and kill him. Funny, wasn’t it — me sayin’ that? Well, we got real friendly. She said she’d meet me again, but farther away. That place was too near home. So she told me where a trail ran and how I could find it. I never told her who I was that time. Forgot. Anyway, I kept the day she set, and sure enough she came. . . . It was different that day. I reckon I fell in love then — not the first day. And she — but never mind. . . . I met her three times more. And last time, night before last at the dance. That’s all.”

“It’s quite enough, isn’t it, Marvie?” said Hettie.

“It sure is. I forgot to tell you. At the dance, when she said first she wouldn’t meet me no more, I said I was goin’ to our place Wednesday at the same time as before. I’m goin’, too.”

“Marv, if what I know of girls holds true — if she really cares — she’ll come. Rose is too young to stick to a hard decision like that, if her heart’s involved.”

“Hettie, you’re a comfort,” cried Marvie, gratefully, almost hugging her. “I’ll hope she’ll come. I’ll believe it. Maybe that’ll let me eat and sleep.”

“You’ll tell me everything?” asked Hettie, earnestly.

“You bet I will. Now I’ll go and crawl to Ben.”

Several days passed. Hettie took to horseback-riding again, venturing perhaps farther away from the ranch than Ben would have allowed, had he known. But Hettie seemed driven. On Wednesday she rode with Marvie for five miles back into the forest toward the brakes, and that was the greatest ride she ever enjoyed. Ridge and canyon, the aspen thickets, the wonderful swales where the turkeys and elk lived, the beaver dams and bee trees, the first coloring of vines and sumach in the open spots, the deep dark thickets where the horses scented bear and reared to turn back, the roar of water over boulders and the wind through the pine tops — these things enchanted Hettie and won her more than ever to the wilderness of Arizona.

On the last stretch back home, where the trail was fairly level and open, she urged her horse to his best speed. That race satisfied, for the time being, a restlessness and need of violence. Her blood danced hot; wind and sun burned her cheeks; the tang of the woods acted like wine. Thus she rode down into the clearing and on to the barn and corrals. And she ran pell-mell into Ben, Raidy, Dillon, and Tom Day, scattering them like quail.

“Hey there, you Indian!” yelled Ben, and he climbed a corral fence, the better to tease her.

Hettie reined her mount and, wheeling him, trotted back, and slid from the saddle.

“He’s a — fine horse, Ben,” she declared, patting the wet neck.

“Wal, he suits you, lass,” said Tom Day, admiringly, as he took her in from boots to sombrero.

“Miss Hettie, strikes me this hyar Arizonie has got into your blood,” added old Raidy, shaking his head dubiously. “Reckon I don’t like it. Day says it ain’t safe for you to ride out alone. So does Dillon.”

“What do you say, Ben?” queried Hettie, archly.

“Not a darn thing. I quit long ago tryin’ to run you,” returned Ben.

Dillon leaned against the corral, in the background, without entering into the conversation. The discoloration round his eye had not wholly disappeared.

“Miss, can’t you be happy ridin’ on the ranch, without headin’ off into the woods?” asked Raidy.

“Do you think I’d ride inside a fence? Not much.”

“Wal, Hettie Ide, I sure know what you need,” declared Tom Day.

“To be spanked, I suppose,” laughed Hettie. “But seriously, what’s the danger?”

“Wal, lass, mebbe there ain’t any real danger,” replied Day, thoughtfully. “But we’re sort of locoed these days. Reckon it’s far-fetched to think hoss-thieves an’ rustlers might take a notion to steal you.”

“Kidnap me for ransom?” queried Hettie, incredulously.

“Wal, yes, an’ for other reasons, too,” rejoined the old cattleman, significantly. “You don’t ‘pear to know it, but you’re a mighty handsome girl.”

“Thank you, Uncle Tom. That’s a fine compliment. But it’s not scaring me.”

“Hettie, look here,” interposed Ben, gravely, stepping to her with a piece of paper in his hand. “Read this.”

Hettie took the coarse dirty paper and read:

Ben Ide

Sir.

Fire your foreman Dillon or dig a grave for him.

X.

Without a word Hettie returned the slip to her brother.

“We found that nailed on the bunkhouse door,” he said, angrily. “It’s a threat. Dillon recovered another bunch of my cattle yesterday. Only a few head, but enough to make these rustlers sore. To-day we found where they’d been camping in an old cabin, on my own land. Of all the nerve! I’ve been reasonable about this cattle-stealing. I expected it. But when these thieves grab my best horse and camp right under my nose — it’s time for me to get sore.”

“See, Miss Hettie,” added Raidy. “That’s why it ain’t safe for you to ride out so far.”

“I’ll be careful hereafter,” replied Hettie, soberly, handing her horse over to Raidy. “Mr. Day, won’t you stay for supper?”

“Sorry, lass, but I’ve got to be goin’ home.”

“Good-by then. Come soon again,” said Hettie, turning away. She was proceeding up the lane, revolving in mind that threatening note Ben had showed her, when he caught up with her and fell into her step.

“Hettie, on the square now — did you write this note and stick it up on the bunkhouse?” he asked.

“Ben Ide! Are you crazy?” Hettie cried, incredulously. Then she burst out laughing. “Of all things! . . . Brother, I fear the loss of your cattle and California Red has caused you to lose your head.”

“Forgive me, Hettie,” returned Ben, contritely. “I imagined you might have done that, just to plague me. And honest, I wish you had.”

“Ben, why in the world can you wish such a thing as that?”

“Because if you had I wouldn’t worry. I hoped you’d done it. Reckon I am loco, as these riders say. But, Hettie, I don’t like this situation I’m in.”

“Neither do I, Ben,” retorted Hettie. “But nobody can tell you anything.”

“Aw now, Hettie, that’s not nice of you,” said Ben, reproachfully. “I told Ina about your affair with Dillon — your side of it, mind you. She pitched into me like sixty. I can’t stand havin’ both of you against me.”

“We’re not against you, Ben,” returned Hettie, earnestly.

“Yes, you are,” he said, doggedly. “An’ I’m getting sore at everybody. I’m going against your advice and Ina’s, even Tom Day’s. I’ve offered a reward of one thousand dollars for the return of California Red. Posted notices along the trails. Tom didn’t like that. Said some one would bring the horse back, then steal him again.”

“What did Dillon say?” asked Hettie, curiously.

“He approved my offering the reward. You know Dillon said he could get Red back. And he was away two days, after he returned from Winthrop. I don’t know where he went. He’s worked with most of these outfits along the Mogollons. He knows them all, anyway, and no doubt some of them are clanny with the horse and cattle thieves. That’s the worst of this country. You really don’t know who is honest. Well, Dillon came back and said he couldn’t find out anything about Red. So I decided to offer a reward. And Dillon himself took the notices out on the range.”

“You’ll get Red back,” returned Hettie, hopefully.

“I’ve got another idea,” he went on. “I want to send for several well-known sheriffs and put them on the track of these rustlers. Pat Garrett, of New Mexico. If I could get him, and a couple from Phoenix, and hire a gang of hard-shooting cowboys, I’ll bet they’d clean out the rustlers. But Tom Day yelled murder at the very idea. And Dillon, he hit the roof. Swore they’d burn me out instead of just rustling a few cattle. Few? By George! I’d like to know what Dillon would call a lot of cattle.”

“Ben, you should listen to Tom Day, at least,” replied Hettie. “He knows the country.”

“I’m listening, Hettie. But I want some action,” he retorted. “If I don’t get Red back inside of ten days there’ll be hell to pay by somebody.”

Marvie did not return to the ranch till late. Hettie sat up waiting for him, trying to read, but mostly gazing into the wood fire with dreamy, sad eyes. She heard his swift step on the porch, and a jingle of spurs, then a quick knock.

“Come in, Marvie,” she called expectantly.

In he rushed, like the wind, but quietly, and he startled her with his pale face crossed by black smudges, and his piercing, radiant eyes. He carried a rifle and quirt and gloves in his hands; and altogether he appeared a striking, thrilling figure. Hettie knew before he spoke what had happened.

“She was there!” he whispered, dramatically.

“Marv, I knew that the instant you entered,” said Hettie, with a smile. There was a contagion in his spirit.

“Hettie, I’m sure the happiest an’ miserablest man in the world,” he added.

“Sit down, Marvie, and tell me all about it.”

“Not a great deal to tell, but what there is of it is tumble,” he returned, coming to the seat beside her. Then in a low voice, full of suppressed emotion, he went on: “Rose was there. She’d been there for hours, waitin’, cryin’, fearin’ I wouldn’t come. She said her heart broke. She’d found out she loved me. I was the only one who’d ever cared for her — been good to her. She said she could give me up — to save me disgrace — but she’d have to kill herself. I swore I’d stick to her — marry her. I talked an’ talked. An’ then I told her I’d fetch you down the trail next Wednesday. She was tumble scared at that. But I told her you’d help us. An’ finally she agreed. She’s to ride down a trail we know, till we meet her. . . . That’s all, Hettie. An’ for God’s sake—”

Marvie broke off huskily, his voice failing.

Hettie impulsively kissed him. “Marvie, I think you’re pretty much of a man,” she said. “I’ll go. And I’ll find some way to solve your problem.”

He mumbled something incoherent and rushed out of the room, neglecting to close the door. Hettie watched him stalk away in the moonlight, then shutting the door she drew her chair nearer the fire and fell into grave and sympathetic pondering over Marvie’s love affair.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HETTIE, EARLY RISER as she was, outdid herself on this Wednesday morning, which was the day on which she had agreed to ride down into the brakes with Marvie.

There were tasks to see to, some of which she performed before her mother called her to breakfast. Hettie was still at the table when whoops outside alarmed her. Then she recognized Marvie’s “Whoopee!”

“Gracious! Is the poor kid celebrating the arrival of this day?” ejaculated Hettie, mirthfully.

Nevertheless, she ran out on the porch, followed by her mother.

“For the land’s sake!” cried Mrs. Ide. “Has Marvie gone daffy!”

They saw him running wildly bareheaded, up the walk toward Ben’s house. Once up on the ridge, Marvie espied Hettie, and waving to her he yelled:

“Look down in the pasture!”

Hettie did so, at least toward the near pasture, but as her view was most obscured by pine trees she did not see anything unusual.

“Whoopee!” yelled Marvie again. “Hey, Ben!”

Hettie realized now that something was up, so she started to run across the log bridge. When she got halfway she saw Ben rush out on the porch, in his shirt sleeves, rifle in hand.

“What’s the matter, Marv?” he shouted.

“CALIFORNIA RED’S BACK!” bellowed Marvie, coming to a halt.

Hettie saw Ben start as if struck. Then he ran to meet Marvie. Hettie lost little time getting over the bridge and across the grassy bench. Breathless and excited she arrived in time to see Ben sink down on a log, as if overcome. Ina came running in her dressing-gown.

“Oh, Ben — who — what is it?” she cried, in alarm.

“Glory be! Ina, Red is back.”

“That all? I thought we were attacked by rustlers. Marvie, you can yell like a demon.”

“Ben, I’m — so glad,” panted Hettie.

“Boy, you’re not playin’ a trick on me — because I was sore on you?” implored Ben of Marvie.

“Nope, I saw him sure. An’ I was tickled to death.”

“Aw! . . . Reckon Dillon fetched him back,” sighed Ben, in unutterable gratitude.

“Dillon, hell!” exclaimed Marvie, evidently provoked out of his radiant pleasure of being the first to inform his boss about the return of his beloved favorite. “Dillon is in bed. There’s nobody up but me.”

“Ahuh! By George! Did you see anyone?”

“Not a soul.”

“Well! That beats me. Let’s go down. Ina, get some clothes on if you’re comin’. Tell the kid. This’ll sure tickle him.”

Ben and Marvie, with Hettie trying to keep beside them, stalked down off the ridge, into the lane, through the courtyard, and on to the corrals. Three times during that swift walk Ben asked the same question and three times Marvie made the same reply. Raidy appeared on the bunkhouse porch and he carried a rifle.

“Boss, what’s the bellarin’ about?” he queried, as he joined the trio. Marvie led the way through two corrals, and then across the wide square to a high pasture fence, up which he scrambled like a squirrel.

“There!” he shouted, pointing.

Ben surmounted the fence ahead of Hettie, and his wondering exultant cry prepared her.

California Red stood not far distant, down along the fence. Nervously he jerked up at Ben’s cry, and wheeled with head high, ears up, eyes wild. How sensitive, splendid he looked to Hettie!

Ben whistled and began to call: “Red — Red, old boy, come here, Red!”

The stallion lost his alarm, and laying down his ears he approached slowly, step by step. Ben kept calling. Red knew the voice and showed increasing gladness. He whinnied. Then he trotted straight to where Ben straddled the fence. He looked the worse for his absence. Ragged, scratched, muddy, somewhat thinner, he showed the effect of hard travel and probably harsh treatment.

“Ben, somebody’s been mean to him, else he wouldn’t come hankerin’ to you thet way,” declared Raidy.

“By Heaven! if that’s true!” cried Ben, fiercely, and reaching out his hand he called again. “Come, Red. Come, old boy. Don’t you know your boss?”

But Red would not come all the way. He halted uncertain, pawing the ground. His dark eyes shone softly. Again he whinnied. Ben guardedly got down off the fence, speaking all the time, and slowly went up to Red, finally encircling the noble neck with his arm. Then he buried his face in the red mane.

Hettie’s thoughts went back to the Forlorn River days when California Red had roamed the sage hills, free and proud, when Ben had been a lonely, outcast, wild-horse hunter, and when Nevada had come so mysteriously into their lives. Hettie’s eyes dimmed. She could not understand Ben’s great and passionate love for that grand horse, but she felt sympathy for him and rejoiced in his happiness.

Meanwhile the cowboys had arrived on the scene. Raidy had opened the pasture gate. Presently Ben led the stallion through to the square.

“Look him over, Raidy,” said Ben.

While the cowboys crowded around and Hettie still stayed on the fence, the better to see, the old horseman walked round Red, feeling him, examining him, lifting his hoofs one after the other.

“Wal, boss, he’s as sound as a bullet,” declared Raidy, gladly. “Ganted up a little an’ got a couple of bad cuts. An’ he’s lost a shoe. Nervous an’ skittish. But you can bet he’s glad to git home; an’ far as I can see he’s no wuss for bein’ stolen.”

“Raidy, do you still hang to that opinion?” inquired Ben.

“I sure do. They ain’t anything else to it. Why, man, don’t you know hosses? Can’t you see he’s been haltered an’ hobbled?”

“Aw, no!” said Ben.

“Sure. Look thar. Use your eyes, boss. You got him back an’ I reckon you’ll keep him this time. But don’t let your love for the hoss blind you to facts.”

Raidy kept running gentle, skillful hands over Red, ruffling up the silky hair, looking with the eyes of long experience to marks and signs by which he read something of what had happened to the horse.

“See for yourself,” went on Raidy, with vehemence. “Look hyar! . . . By Gawd! he’s been roped, too!”

At this point Hettie espied Dillon stalk around the corner of the high fence, which had obscured the men and horse. Abruptly he halted. Swift amaze and consternation leaped across his expression of curiosity, blotting it out. Then as swiftly his face changed, smoothing to a smile. What a handsome, pleasant man! Hettie marveled at his consummate control and acting. But he could not fool her again. The return of Red was actually as startling to Dillon as it had been to anyone else there.

The circle of cowboys opened to admit Dillon.

“Ha! So, boss, what’d I tell you?” he broke out, and vigorously shook Ben’s hand. It was strange for Hettie to see how much pleasure that gave Ben. But just then he was up in the skies. “The old red son-of-a-gun has come back. Jumped the pasture fence goin’ an’ comin’. . . . Red, I take off my hat to you. But you never had me guessin’!”

“Dillon, I had it figured the same,” declared Ben.

Raidy snorted his disgust. “An’ you once a wild-hoss hunter! Say, if Red had run off he’d never have come back. I asked you to take a peep at them marks on him. But you keep huggin’ the hoss an’ you won’t look.”

“Old-timer, I’m so happy to get him back that I don’t want to do anythin’ else. Besides, Raidy, on the square, I’d hate to have it proved he’d been stolen.”

“Stolen? That’s nonsense, I tell you,” interposed Dillon, testily. “Red took a little run an’ come home. I’ve had many a hoss do it.”

“Not wild hosses, Mister Dillon,” snapped Raidy.

“What do you know about hosses, Raidy?”

“Wal, I reckon I’ve forgot more’n you ever knew,” retorted the older man. “I ain’t doubtin’ you’ve had a lot of hosses, Dillon, but you didn’t raise them — you didn’t catch them — an’ you didn’t keep them long.”

This was pretty plain speaking, as was evinced by Ben’s stepping between the men, and the dark flash that wiped out Dillon’s geniality.

“What’re you hintin’ at?” he queried.

“I’m not hintin’. I’m tellin’ you, that’s all. An’ you can like it or lump it.”

Ben raised a hand to silence Raidy. “That’ll do. You’re both privileged to your opinions, but don’t get nasty.”

“All right, boss,” replied Raidy, in an aggrieved tone. “But my word is sort of ridiculed hyar. An’ I’m askin’ thet you look at these marks on Red. If you won’t I reckon I’ll take it as a slap at me, an’ I’ll quit you cold.”

“Raidy!” exclaimed Ben, astounded.

“You know me, boss,” returned the old horseman, sturdily.

Ben wavered. It was plain to Hettie that he hoped to keep peace between, the old and new hands, so valuable to him now. But Raidy had thrown down his gage and he looked formidable.

“Ben,” called Hettie, from the fence, “you’ve known Raidy all your life. He taught you how to ride. It’s only fair that you listen to him.”

“All right, Raidy, if you feel that bad about it,” replied Ben, resignedly.

Again the old horseman ran his gentle, skillful hands over Red’s supple body, down to the wonderfully muscled legs. “Look hyar,” said Raidy, as he stooped. “He’s been hobbled. See! He’s been gone ten days. Thet mark was made no more’n yesterday.”

“Reckon you’re right,” admitted Ben, as he slowly arose. “I apologize.”

“No apology wanted,” said Raidy. “All I want is for you to come out of your trance. . . . Now look hyar. Look at Red’s nose. He’s been roped.”

“By thunder! There’s been a hackamore on him,” ejaculated Ben.

Dillon was not to be outwitted, and he had swiftly followed Ben’s examination of the horse.

“Damn if Raidy isn’t right boss,” he exploded, evidently regretful. “I hadn’t even looked at Red. But there are the marks, plain as print. . . . I apologize, too, Raidy. My mistake.”

“Wal, Mister Dillon, I’m acceptin’ your apology,” drawled Raidy, his keen old hawk eyes on the handsome foreman.

Hettie was riding beside Marvie, across the western end of the sage flat, toward the fence which marked the limit of Ben Ide’s ranch land.

Marvie dismounted to open the gate for them, and when he vaulted to the saddle again he grinned. “Nobody but Raidy saw us, an’ he won’t tell. But Ben would stand for anythin’ to-day. Gee! how he loves that red horse!”

“He does indeed. Well, I love California Red, too.”

“Ben’s daffy over him. Gave me a hundred dollars, just for seein’ Red first!”

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a boy healthy, wealthy, and—”

“Gee! I do feel rich!” interrupted Marvie. “An’ I’d like to fly to town an’ back. But it’ll keep.”

“Marvie, were you looking at Dillon when he first came on us and saw Red?” inquired Hettie.

“No, I wasn’t. Why?” returned Marvie, turning to eye her.

“He struck me as being more amazed than any of us, and not so happy.”

“Ahuh!” replied Marvie. It was evident that he chose to be noncommittal. Hettie, however, did not fail to catch the glint in his eye.

“Raidy and Dillon are at odds,” she continued. “That’s plain.”

“Wasn’t Dillon the slick one, though, when he turned the tables on Raidy?” rejoined Marvie, as if impelled.

“Yes. He’s too clever for men. It takes a woman to see through him.”

“I’ll bet daylight will show through him — presently,” returned Marvie, in dark significance.

“Marv, you are absorbing a lot of Arizona.”

“Here’s where we turn off, Hettie,” said Marvie, as he left the road. “Narrow trail, but good. Look out for the brush an’ duck the branches. Ride now!”

He spurred his horse into a lope and Hettie did likewise. Soon they entered the forest, where the shade was welcome and no dust arose. Hettie had been on this trail several times, though not to go very far. It led west, toward the brakes and the frowning dark notches of the Mogollons, dim and purple in the distance. Soon they passed the limit of Hettie’s experience in that direction, a fact which gave her a thrill. She scarcely had a chance, however, to look at the scenery, for Marvie was making time, and she had to watch her horse and the low branches.

They rode perhaps five miles before the trail began to penetrate deeper into the forest and to ascend into rockier and rougher country. They climbed high, and Hettie had a glimpse now and then of the red desert far to the north, and the black slopes beneath her, falling away to the west. She soon gathered what the brakes of the Mogollons meant. The brakes were canyons, running like the ridges of a washboard, walled with brush and rock, choked with dense thickets, above which the lofty pines and spruces towered. Ridge after ridge Marvie climbed and descended, until coming to a deeper, clearer canyon he turned off to follow a willow-bordered stream.

As they progressed, again riding at a lope, the canyon widened and deepened, the walls grew rugged and unscalable, the fringe of pines on the rims lifted higher, and every aspect of the wilderness seemed likewise intensified. The time came when the horses had to walk again, down and down, under narrow gray shelves of stone, under the massed foliage of maple, oak, aspen, all beginning to show a tint of autumn, especially the fluttering aspens, just turning to gold. The stream grew larger, swifter, deeper, and its mellow roar filled the dreamy solitude.

At corners, where the trail turned, Marvie always exercised a caution which added more than romance to Hettie’s feelings. This adventure grew with the miles. How dark, still, lonely some of the constrictions in this brake of the Mogollons!

Turkeys ran fleetly from the open grass patches into the thickets; deer walked up the steep wooded slopes; elk stopped their browsing on the willows to gaze at the disturbers of their solitude; beaver slipped off their muddy dams to make swirls in the still green pools; squirrels chattered; jays squalled; ravens croaked; hawks sailed across the blue strip of sky overhead.

“Somewhere along here we’ll meet her,” whispered Marvie, fearfully. “It always scares me. That Cedar Hatt might be prowlin’ along the rim to spy us. Rose is cute, though. I’ve waited half a day before she came.”

They wound along the crooked trail, and if it were possible, Hettie imagined every vista wilder and more hauntingly beautiful than the last. The white bleached grass, the green willows, the amber rocks, the rushing foaming brook, the thickets of oak and aspen, russet and gold, the wonderful walls rising sheer, stained and mossy, gray and purple, up to the ragged fringed rims — all these aided the movement of leaves, the flash of birds, the fragrance of pine, the utter solitude, into working an enchantment upon Hettie’s senses. No wonder Marvie had fallen in love with his wild Rose.

“I see her horse,” whispered Marvie, as he halted. “She’ll be near. We’ll get off now. I’ll hide our horses in the aspen thicket.”

Hettie got off to hand her bridle to him, and waited while he led their mounts out of sight. How noiselessly he moved! Marvie had become a woodsman. Soon he returned and led her off the trail into the grass.

“Anyone ridin’ along behind us would sure see our tracks,” he whispered. “But that’s a slim chance. You see it’s an old unused trail here. The Hatts live over in the next canyon.”

“She’s a brave kid, to meet you this way. And you’re not such a coward, Marvie, boy,” returned Hettie.

He led her up a gradual grassy slope, into the protecting shelter of low pines and silver spruces. “Look at the elk beds,” he whispered, pointing to round places where grass and moss had been flattened.

Hettie espied a ragged red pony, without a saddle, haltered to a sapling. Then she saw a dark curly head rise above the tall grass. Next moment Marvie was speaking low: “Hettie, this is Rose Hatt. . . . Rose, I’ve fetched her. This’s Hettie Ide, my best friend an’ sort of sister.”

As Hettie sank down, smiling, with hands outstretched, the girl rose to her knees, her eyes dilating, her face without color.

“Rose, I’m glad — to meet you,” whispered Hettie, pantingly, and she kissed the girl.

“Oh, Miss Ide — you’re good to come,” faltered Rose. She was trembling all over. This child of the wilderness was nothing less than terrified at meeting one of Marvie’s kin.

Marvie knelt beside Rose, and it was evident this was a torturing moment for him, too. The romance and excitement had passed. Ben Ide’s sister was now face to face with the daughter of rustler and backwoodsman Elam Hatt, with the sister of notorious Cedar Hatt.

“Hettie, I reckon Rose won’t be so scared an’ shy if I leave you alone with her,” said Marvie. “So I’ll keep watch below. An’ don’t forget we haven’t lots of time.”

Then with a bright and reassuring look at Rose he slipped off under the low-spreading trees. Hettie turned to the girl, trying to think of words to put her at ease. How like a woodland wild flower! Rose wore a buckskin blouse fringed and beaded, a ragged brown skirt, and boots without stockings. She held a sprig of tiny aspen leaves, turning gold.

“Rose, since Marvie loves you, I must love you, too,” said Hettie, speaking not what she had intended, but the words that welled from her heart. She did not need to be told that Rose Hatt had never had love of mother, sister, or friend. The girl gave a little gasping cry of wonder and pain, then fell into Hettie’s arms, where she burst into tears.

This made the ordeal easier for Hettie, and she held the girl in silence until the paroxysms of weeping had subsided. Then she began to talk, kindly, soothingly, as if to a child, saying she hardly knew what, until the moment came when she felt she might venture a question. But before she could ask it Rose sat up, wiped her wet face, and smiled through her tears.

“Marvie was right,” she said. “It’s sure good to see you, hear you, now I’m over my scare. I’ll never forget you till my dyin’ day.”

“Rose, you love Marvie, very much?” said Hettie, venturing to open the serious interview.

“Yes,” replied the girl, simply. “I couldn’t help it. But I didn’t know at first. Not till the dance.”

“Then you two have pledged your troth?”

“If you mean told our love, yes — Miss Ide. But I didn’t promise to marry Marvie.”

“He asked you, of course?”

“He begged me to,” replied the girl, lifting her head with pride.

“Why did you refuse?”

“I love Marvie too well to hurt him with you an’ all his family.”

“Do you mean you think you’d disgrace him and us because you’re a Hatt?”

“Yes, an’ a good deal more I haven’t told Marvie,” she went on, steady of voice, though her round breast heaved. “Cedar would come down on Marvie an’ you an’ your brother Ben for money. An’ so would another man whose name I daren’t tell. He — this man — has got a hold on Cedar — an’ me. He’d ruin us all.”

“Rose, that’s a strong statement,” said Hettie. “But even if it isn’t exaggerated it doesn’t change the fact that you and Marvie ought to wait. You’re both very young.”

“I’m not exaggeratin’. I could tell you more. An’ about marryin’ — Marvie’s reason for hurry is to get me away from the life I live. It’s tumble, Miss Ide. I have to cook, wash, scrub for an outfit of rustlers an’ hoss-thieves. Look at my hands! Look at the black marks — here — an’ there. I get kicked an’ beat. Marvie knows an’ he can’t stand it any longer.”

“Could you not leave this home?” queried Hettie, earnestly.

“I’ve thought of that. Yes. I could. My dad wouldn’t care. But I’d have to be a servant — or worse.”

“No, indeed. Rose, you could come to my home.”

“Oh, how — wonderful!” gasped the girl, rapturously clasping her hands. “But that’d be ‘most the same as marryin’ Marvie, so far as Cedar an’ — that other man are concerned. . . . No, it’d never do. But thank you — bless you!”

“Rose, we mustn’t despair,” continued Hettie, touched to the heart by this girl’s sincerity. “Time will help us. If you could only escape this — this drudgery and shame.”

“That’s the hope which keeps me up, Miss Ide. If I could only tide over a little time! Cedar is goin’ to hell fast. He’s rustlin’, gamblin’, drinkin’ harder than ever. He’s under the thumb of — the man I daren’t squeal on.”

“But why daren’t you?”

“Because if he didn’t kill me, Cedar would. I’m the only one outside of this Pine Tree outfit who knows. An’ my life ain’t worth much.”

“Pine Tree outfit!” echoed Hettie, her eyes lighting. “That’s the mysterious gang of rustlers.”

“It sure is. I’m trustin’ you with my life, Miss Hettie. But I daren’t tell more. Nobody knows how secrets slip out. You might talk in your sleep.”

“Naturally. But I think you could risk it, considering I sleep alone,” said Hettie. “Rose, this is a plot. We’re all involved. Your people and mine. What a tangle! It must have been fate that brought you and Marvie together. Oh, if I only knew how best to advise you.”

“Reckon I wish so, too. But I’ve got a hunch. It’s my job to stick home — to fool my people — to learn all I can — to fight that devil off who — who . . . I must see Marvie very seldom an’ be sure we’re never ketched. Somethin’ will happen, Miss Ide. You’ve made me feel it. You made things different. Neither Cedar — nor him, can last long in this country. Not now. I heard my dad say so. . . . Oh, this is the second time my hopes have risen. Oh, I wish I could tell you of another friend I found lately. I forgot. . . . But he came to my house an’ there was hell. I listened at night through the chinks of the logs. Cedar was wild. Cash Burridge was there. ‘We’ve got a big deal on,’ says Cash. An’ that pleased all the gang except Cedar. They set to whisperin’ an’ I heard no more.”

“Rose — isn’t your friend — Jim Lacy?” whispered Hettie, haltingly, with dry lips.

The girl caught her breath and drew back sharply, wonder the most predominant of her varying emotions.

“There, you have betrayed it,” continued Hettie, forcefully, trying to command her voice. “Call Marvie now. We will plan another meeting, then hurry home. I’ve enough to think of — this time.”

Rose silently slipped away under the pines, and Hettie, staring at the green-walled foliage, seemed to see a ghost. “Oh, my God!” she whispered in agony. “Nevada belongs to this thieving, vile crew!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

FROST FELL EARLY in September on the high rims of the Mogollons. Soon after the sun set the rarefied air became cold and sharp, making a campfire something to draw the riders and hunters, and other men of the woodland.

A group of five dark-faced, dark-garbed campers sat around a beautiful opal-hearted cedar fire, at the wild edge of Black Butte, where it fell sheer into the brakes. Three of the men were playing cards, cross-legged in front of a saddle blanket, intensely intent on the greasy bits of colored pasteboard and the piles of gold coin and rolls of greenbacks. They were gambling — the absorbing pastime of all dyed-in-the-wool rustlers.

The other two men occupied a position on the opposite side of the fire. One had his back and his outspread palms to the blaze, while the other sat against a log.

“Hell, Jim,” swore the standing man, flicking a hand toward the gamblers, “they couldn’t hear the crack of doom. They’ll gamble there all night or till one of them has all the money. An’ what difference would it make now — if they did hear what you say?”

“Wal, Cash, the fact is I’m not used to crowds,” replied the other. “It takes long to get acquainted. An’ you know I can never be shore of any man.”

“That’s the price you pay for leadership. Reckon it’s the same among honest businessmen in the world as among rustlers an’ gunmen. But I didn’t mean to split hairs over it. I was just complainin’ because you’re so close-mouthed.”

“What of it, Burridge?” queried Jim, somewhat acidly. “I shore talk plenty to you, don’t I, when we’re alone?”

“Course you do, Jim,” answered Burridge. “All I want to get at is this. If you’d loosen up a little more, drink an’ gamble a little, especially when we run into other outfits, it’d facilitate our plans.”

“I reckon, Cash,” returned Jim, wearily. “But how can I have a quick eye an’ hand if I drink? I’ll agree, though, to be more friendly an’ set in a game now an’ then.”

“Good! Reckon that’ll do. Lord, Jim, don’t get me wrong! Ever since you called Hardy Rue out an’ killed him I’ve been ready to crawl an’ wear my fingernails off scratchin’ for you. I mayn’t have been your friend back in Lineville, but I sure love you now. You’ve put me on my feet again.”

“Wal, Cash, that’s plain talk,” replied Jim. “An’ I don’t mind sayin’ I like you better than I used to. But I can’t love any man or even be pards.”

“Sure, sure I understand,” returned Burridge, hastily. “An’ I’m damn glad for small favors. But you needn’t tell that to our gang or any of these outfits we meet. They all think you were my pard back in California an’ are yet. Burt Stillwell would have shot me, surer than the Lord made little apples. But he was afraid of you. He was undecided. He couldn’t be himself, an’ I’m tellin’ you he was a bad hombre.”

“Aw, bad, yes, in a sense of dirty yellow behind-your-back viciousness,” agreed Jim, flashing a quick eloquent hand. “I hate to throw a gun on such fodder. But he forced it. He kept still till he got a few drinks. Then he r’iled up aboot Ben Ide’s red horse, an’ he put in that ridiculous claim for his pard, Cedar Hatt. Wanted a share of the divvy for the cattle — for this Hatt fellow.”

“The hell he did! Well, I wondered what it was about. But I was so glad I didn’t feel no curiosity,” returned Burridge; he turned round to kick the fire-logs. Then again he faced his companion. “Maybe you don’t know it, Lacy, but you made a lot of friends by pluggin’ Stillwell, an’ one sure-enough enemy.”

“Who’s that? This Cedar Hatt?”

“He’s the bird. A red-tailed buzzard, an’ no mistake. He’s a backwoodsman, Jim, like an Indian, who knows the woods. Cedar wouldn’t ever try you out, unless, like Burt, he’d been lookin’ at the bottle. All the same you’ll be in more danger from Cedar than from all the gun-throwers in Arizona. He’s killed shepherds an’ cowboys enough, believe me. He’ll trail you — ambush you in the woods.”

“Much obliged, Cash,” drawled Jim, yawning. “Reckon I’d better look out for this heah Cedar Hatt.”

“I’m givin’ you a hunch of hunches,” declared Burridge. “I’m most damn honest an’ selfish about it, too. I’ve other reasons beside affection not to want Jim Lacy killed. Cedar Hatt will be sore enough when he hears you put Stillwell over, but, say, when he learns you got that red stallion an’ sent him back to Ide — my Gawd! brother, he’ll be hell’s fire!”

“How soon is he goin’ to find out?” queried Lacy, with more interest. “Stillwell cain’t very wal tell. An’ that pard of Stillwell’s — Babe Morgan, some one called him — he’ll be runnin’ yet.”

“Cedar’ll find out pronto,” declared Burridge. “If not from some one outside our outfit, then from some one inside. For you were playin’ a queer high hand, Jim, when you took the stallion away from Burt an’ Babe an’ sent it back to the Ide ranch. They’d stolen it. Your argument sounded good to me. Ben Ide would raise more hell over the loss of California Red than a hundred thousand head of stock.”

“Huh! I’ll bet he would,” declared Lacy, dropping his head. The twig he had been twirling in his fingers snapped sharply.

“Well, to go on, your argument looked good to me. Now I’ve got brains, an’ most of these rustlin’ hombres haven’t nothin’ but spruce gum in their heads. That deal looked queer to all our outfit. Still, only Hubrigg opened his trap to say so. Hubrigg likes you, though, an’ I think you can gamble on him.”

Here Burridge leaned over toward Jim to whisper: “If our gang seem a little standoffish yet, it’s only your reputation. Since you helped us to steal cattle an’ drive them an’ sell them, why, they’re sure you are one of us, even if you are Jim Lacy.”

“Reckon that ought to be aboot enough,” returned Lacy.

He turned his ear to the faint cold wind that breathed up out of the black void below.

“Hear anythin’?” queried Burridge.

“Rollin’ stones. Might be deer on the trail.”

“Might be Stagg, too, an’ I’ll gamble it is. For he’s overdue.”

“Listen,” rejoined Lacy, holding up a sensitive hand.

Both men turned their heads sidewise to the wind and waited. Fitfully the faint wind mourned through the forest. From far below floated up a soft murmur of tumbling stream. Solitude and silence seemed to be emphasized by these wilderness factors. The campfire cracked; the gamblers slapped their cards and clinked their gold.

“Heah anythin’?” asked Lacy, suddenly relaxing.

“Sure. A lot of night sounds, includin’ our gamblin’ pards here, but no hoss,” returned Burridge.

“Wal, I heah a hoss,” said Lacy.

“Good! That’ll be Stagg, unless it might be one of our hosses. I’ll take a look an’ then I’ll unroll my bed.”

Burridge stalked away in the gloom of the forest, while Lacy, left alone, attended to the campfire. Once or twice he glanced at the absorbed gamesters, with something curious, strange, and menacing in his eyes. Then he fell to contemplation of the opal heart of the campfire. He watched it, the glow and sparkle and white shade and pearly red. And the moment arrived when he forgot the wild environment, the gambling rustlers, to become like a statue, cold-faced, with haunted eyes. He must have seen a ghost in the radiant embers, for not till a thud of hoofs sounded close at hand did he rouse out of his trance.

Presently two dark forms entered the circle of light, and approached, talking low. Lacy got up to meet them.

“Howdy, Jim!” greeted the newcomer with Burridge. He was a swarthy-faced, beady-eyed white man with a strain of Indian or Mexican blood.

“Howdy, Stagg! Did you make a good job of it?” returned Lacy, with apparent carelessness.

“Wasn’t no job a-tall,” said Stagg, reaching bare grimy hands toward the fire. “Soon as you-all left, the red hoss quieted down, an’ I coaxed him out of thet measly leetle corral. He din’t like thet. An’ after he found out I was leadin’ him home he didn’t make no more fuss. An’ we made fast time. Reckon it was nigh on midnight when we got down on the sage. I tied up both hosses, pulled off my boots, put on my moccasins, an’ led the stallion five miles through grass an’ sage. When I run into Ide’s fence I kept goin’ along till I come to a gate. I opened it an’ let him in.”

“Much obliged, Stagg. I — reckon it was no fool move of mine — though some think different,” replied Lacy, turning his face away from the fire.

“Lacy, it was the slickest piece of headwork I ever seen on this range,” declared Stagg. “I hadn’t time to tell you I was at Burton’s ranch the next day after Stillwell stole the stallion. Ide’s cowmen came rarin’ over the country. Thet Raidy, he’s an old hand, an’ he was mad as a hornet. An’ to-day as I was climbin’ the Hogback I run into a sheepherder I know. Greaser named Juan somethin’. He said Ide had plastered the trees along the trails, offerin’ reward for Red.”

“There, Jim — you see, it was a wise move,” declared Burridge, with satisfaction. “Young Ide would have spent a fortune gettin’ back that stallion. Well, he sure was grand hoss-flesh. I only looked at him once. If I’d looked twice I’d been a hoss-thief, too.”

Lacy stared out into the gloom of the forest.

“Reckon you’re hungry?” asked Burridge of the arrival.

“Had a bite at Hatt’s to-day,” returned Stagg. “But a chuck of deer meat an’ a cup of coffee wouldn’t go bad.”

“We got roast turkey. Young gobbler that Jim shot the head off as we was ridin’ along.”

“Wal, friend Jim must pack a shotgun,” replied Stagg, with an attempt at facetiousness.

“Nope. Only that old six-shooter.”

Lacy turned from the darkness to the firelight. “Stagg, did you see any of the Hatts?”

“Sure. They was all home, an’ had company, too. Strangers to me.”

“Did you tell them about takin’ Red back to the Ide ranch?”

“Sure. Thought it a good idee. An’ I rubbed it in, too. Elam’s no hoss-thief. He said hoss-stealin’ was a low-down bizness. But Cedar swore there was somethin’ crooked about a gunman an’ rustler who returned stolen property. Also he swore he’d steal the red stallion again, jest to spite you.”

“Ahuh. Wal, what did Cedar say when he heahed I’d shot his pard, Burt Stillwell?” inquired Jim, in a dry, caustic tone.

“What?” queried Stagg, with a start.

“You heahed me, man.”

“Sure. But it — I . . . An’ you shot Burt?”

Lacy nodded coldly, eying the fire.

Stagg stiffened a little, and after a stultified pause glanced from Burridge to Lacy, and then out into the forest. A silence ensued, broken only by the gamblers.

“Burt’s dead — then — of course?” asked Stagg, presently, with an effort.

Cash Burridge broke the strange spell of the moment.

“Burt’s under the sod an’ the leaves, waitin’ the Judgment Day. An’ it was a damn good job, Stagg.”

“No arguin’ ag’in’ thet,” returned Stagg, recovering to grin. “Wal, Lacy, fact is Cedar Hatt hadn’t heerd no more’n me. But if you’re curious, I can sure tell you — Cedar will be hoppin’ mad.”

“I told Jim that,” said Burridge, impatiently. “What’s it amount to, anyhow? There’ll be a Hatt less pronto.”

“Wal, pards, the population of this hyar Arizonie is sure deterioratin’,” returned Stagg, with a guffaw.

One of the gamesters, disturbed by the loud laugh, looked up to say, “Bill, shet your loud mouth, an’ come set in this game. Hubrigg an’ Brann ain’t very much to stack up ag’in’.”

His bold face and rolling eyes expressed exceeding gratification while he clinked his pile of gold.

“I’m on,” replied Stagg, eagerly. “Wait till I swaller some grub.”

“How about you — Lacy?” inquired Brann, with marked hesitation. “We ain’t slightin’ you. It’s an open game.”

“Thanks, Brann,” drawled Lacy. “I’d hate to win your pile. You see, I’ve got uncommon good eyes, an’ it shore hurts my feelin’s to see you men slippin’ aces around. I’m a caird sharp. I’d break you. Like as not, then, you’d get sore an’ pull a gun — which would be bad for this outfit.”

Long and loud rolled the mirth of Burridge and Stagg down the aisles of the forest. Brann appeared a droll and good-humored rustler. He stared hard at Lacy, finally grinning.

“Jim, I’m recallin’ thet invite for you to set in,” he said, meaningly.

“Gamble your heads off,” spoke up Burridge. “We needn’t break camp till late to-morrow. But I’m turnin’ in.”

“Same for me,” said Lacy, and strode out of the lighted circle. Presently he had to feel his way to the black tent-like spruce tree under which he had spread his tarpaulin and blankets. Sitting down, he pulled off his boots. Then he sat motionless, peering back at the ruddy campfire. Presently he removed his coat and made a pillow of it. Next he unbuckled his gun belt, took it off, and laid the gun under the edge of his coat. After that he gazed a long time out into the spectral forest. The wind had risen, and sang through the pines. A deep wild bay of a wolf rang out. How lonely, hungry, mournful!

“Reckon that poor lofer is like me,” muttered Lacy, and rolled in his blankets.

The ring of a cold ax on hardwood awakened Jim Lacy from his slumbers.

There was a white frost on his tarpaulin and his boots and his sombrero, also his nose, from the feel of it. Hubrigg, who appeared to be an agreeable and helpful chap, was chopping wood for a campfire.

“Nifty mawnin’, Hub,” said Jim, by way of greeting. “I’ll pack some water.”

“Hullo! I reckon your conscious never lets you sleep,” said Hubrigg. “Look at them stiffs there. Dead to the world. Now watch.”

With that he snatched up a bucket, pounded it with the ax handle, then tossed it to Lacy. The rustlers, rudely disturbed, leaped out of their beds, wild-eyed, hair on end, every one of them holding a gun or reaching for one.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Hubrigg. “Wake up, you sour-dough eaters, an’ help at the chores.”

All of his roused hearers, except Burridge, cursed him roundly, and Burridge, when he realized what had happened, said, “Lord, I thought my day had come!”

Jim Lacy went down the trail for a pail of water.

Whenever such duty as this, or other opportunity, afforded, he always took advantage of it, seeking ever a moment away from the rustlers with whom he had cast his lot. That time, however short, was a blessed relief. He need not then be perpetually on the qui vive, watching, listening, reading the minds of his companions. In those stolen moments or hours he reverted to his old character, Nevada, lover of the open, of desert and forest, of the life and color and mystery of nature.

The sun had not yet arisen. To the east the sky, over the long arms of the Mogollons, reaching, sweeping down black and wild, had begun to flush rosily. The forest seemed awakening from its slumber with the bark of squirrels and screech of jays, the bugle of bull elk, and the sweet, plaintive twittering of canaries. Rocks and grass showed the hoary coating of frost. The air nipped, and the water at the spring felt like ice to his face. There was a thin edge of crystal ice along the margin of the little pool.

Upon climbing back to the rim he paused a moment to gaze down into that marvelous black basin called the brakes of the Mogollons. They were really not black, though black predominated over the rich gold of aspens, and the scarlet of maples, the russet of oaks, and the vivid cerise of vines for which he had no name. A ragged pine-speared slope fell almost perpendicularly to the ribbed and ridged lowland below, and here and there outcroppings of gray crags and yellow shafts added to the effect of an exceedingly broken country. His experienced eye wandered down to the brakes, over what from that height appeared undulating ridge and swale. Its vastness amazed Jim Lacy. Here was a wilderness country as large as the northern California he knew so well. And to increase the effect to one of staggering conception, there stretched the desert, grand and illimitable. He had a moment of silent ecstasy of appreciation, followed by a melancholy longing for a time when he might be free to love Arizona, to have a ranch of his own, a few horses and cattle, a home in the wilds where he could hunt and ride, free to live peacefully, dreaming of the past. Melancholy longing because he knew it could never come true!

Returning to the campfire, he arrived in time to hear Brann exclaim: “What’n hell Columbia for do we want to ring the Hatts in on this deal?”

“Say, man, there’s brains back of this deal,” replied Burridge, derisively.

“Meanin’ yours, eh? Wal, all right, but I’m from Missouri.”

They ceased the argument at the approach of Jim Lacy.

“Somebody rustle the hosses,” called out Burridge.

An hour later the six men, with as many pack horses, started over the rim on the trail down into the brakes. It was a trail that would cause even the most expert and daring rider to hesitate before attempting it on horseback. Moreover, it was seldom used. Lacy decided it must be a rear outlet from the rendezvous of desperate men. Many a time axes had to be brought into requisition to enable pack horses to pass down. Jumble of rocks, weathered slides, narrow slanting ledges, fallen trees and thick brush, made this Hatt trail one to remember.

But though very steep, it was not long. It let out into the head of a canyon where the stream gushed forth from under an amber-mossed cliff, and went singing down through a winding defile, surely the wildest and most beautiful that Jim Lacy’s eyes had ever beheld.

“Cash, tell me,” said Lacy, at an opportune time, when they rode abreast, “is Cedar Hatt the haid of this Pine Tree outfit?”

“Hell no!” ejaculated Burridge, in ridicule. Then as an afterthought he continued: “But, Jim, I don’t know he isn’t. I mean I’ve sense enough to figure he couldn’t be. There’s a real man at the reins of that gang.”

“You’re square now? You honestly don’t know?”

“So help me Heaven!” returned Burridge, raising his gloved right hand. “If I knew I’d tell you — even though the man was my pard. But I don’t know. I never met a man who did. Of course no one is goin’ to brag about that. The Pine Tree outfit is only three years old. It’s got a brand, but sure no one ever seen it on a steer or a calf. I never seen it on anythin’. I hear it’s cut on aspen trees. Sheepherders will tell you that.”

“Cedar Hatt might belong to it?” queried Lacy.

“Sure. But he’d be a bad hombre to trust, unless you had some hold on him. My idea of the Pine Tree outfit is this. Some slick rustler from other parts has ridden in here, either with a few choice men or picked them carefully after he got here, an’ he has the money an’ the brains to control a small outfit. Some cowboy found a stray steer on the range. It had its brand painted out. Painted! That’s new. But how the devil could they paint out the brands on a big bunch of wild steers?”

“Not very practical,” observed Jim, thoughtfully.

“It’s no trick to steal cattle in this country, an’ it’s a heap sight easier to sell them,” declared Burridge. “But to do it on a big scale an’ not be found out — I call that brains.”

“How far to the Hatt ranch?”

“Round this next bend. Wonderful place to hole up, don’t you think?”

“Shore is. Are all these canyons like this?”

“Like it? Yes, only rougher. Some of them are so thick you can’t get a hoss through.”

When they rode around a high green corner Jim gave vent to an exclamation of utmost pleasure. The brake opened into an oval valley surrounded by gray-cliffed, green-thicketed walls, rising high. A level meadow, where horses and cows grazed in deep grass, ended in a low bench of land, upon which huge isolated pines and spruces towered halfway to the rim. Two log cabins stood picturesquely at the edge of this rise of ground. In the background a corral and barn, with logs awry and roof caved in, showed half hidden in a blaze of golden aspens.

“Here’s where the Hatts hang out,” remarked Burridge. “It’s like a fox den, with two holes. The one we just came down, an’ a pass below where a couple of good shots could stave off all the cowboys in Arizona.”

“Beautiful!” ejaculated Jim, charmed out of his usual reserve.

“I’ve been here often. Once tried to buy the place from Hatt. Not much.”

“What do these Hatts live on?” queried Jim, gazing round.

“Meat an’ beans an’ corn meal. An’ they make their own whiskey. If you take a swill of that it’ll knock you flat.”

“How many women-folks?”

“Only the kid — Rose. There was a woman here, a while back, wife of one of the boys, I heard. But I never saw her. . . . Well, old sharp-eyed Elam sees us already. He’s comin’ out with a gun.”

The riders in advance drove the pack horses up on the bench, and followed to dismount. Burridge, arrived a little in advance of Jim. The old mountaineer, Hatt, stood shaggy-headed, with a smile of welcome on his craggy face.

“Howdy, Elam! Did you get word I was comin’?”

“Yep, but never expected you so soon.”

“Shake hands with Jim Lacy,” went on Burridge, laconically.

“Howdy, sir! Reckon you ain’t no stranger, by name,” responded Hatt, offering his hand.

Lacy leaned off his horse to accept Hatt’s advance. “Shore glad to meet you, Elam,” he drawled. “Reckon I fell in love with your homestead, heah. An’ I’ll hang around till you kick me out.”

“Welcome you air,” said Hatt, genially. “We keep open house fer our friends. Git down an’ come in.”

Burridge made no offer to introduce Jim to the other Hatts present, though he called them by name, Tobe and Henny. Cedar Hatt did not put in an appearance, nor did Lacy’s quick eye sight the girl — Rose.

“Throw yer packs back in the grove,” said Hatt. “Jest turn your hosses loose. Never yit had a hoss leave hyar.”

While pack and saddle horses were led back toward the aspen grove Elam Hatt walked with Burridge, while the two sons followed. Lacy did not need more than a casual glance at Elam to define his status. He was a rough, sturdy backwoodsman who had, no doubt, lived by hunting until an easier vocation had presented with the ranging of cattle along the Mogollons. The two sons, however, exhibited nothing to impress favorably. They were uncouth, unshaven louts with bad teeth and pale eyes, and faces that indicated very low mentality. Lacy’s advent manifestly did not cause them either apprehension or interest. Tobe was barefooted. Henny leaned on a short carbine, worn shiny from long service.

“Where’s Cedar?” inquired Burridge, casually.

“He’s hyarabouts somewhere,” replied Elam. “He seen you fust.”

“Hope Cedar won’t take exception to our comin’.”

“No tellin’ what Cedar’ll take,” replied Hatt, with a grin. “But I’m right glad to see you. I’m wantin’ news. Make yourself to home. I’ll go an’ see about grub. . . . Tobe, whar’s your sister?”

“I dunno,” replied the son.

“Find her, you terbaccer-chewin’ cub,” returned Hatt, and strode away toward the cabins.

Tobe Hatt might never have heard his father, for all the attention he paid to the order. Instead he gravitated toward Lacy.

“Got any smokin’?” he asked.

“Shore. Help yourself there in my saddlebag,” replied Lacy.

The other young Hatt, Henny, now moved out of his tracks, and dragging the rifle butt over the ground, he joined Tobe in a search of Lacy’s saddlebag. Finding the tobacco, they availed themselves of Lacy’s offer. They took it all.

“Cash, where you goin’ to bunk?” asked Lacy, presently.

“Right here in the aspens. Good a place as any. Elam will offer the loft of the big cabin, but I’d just as lief be out.”

“Wal, I’d a good deal rather,” drawled Jim. “Cabin lofts are full of dirt, spiders, centipedes an’ smoke. I’ll throw my outfit somewhere aboot.”

“Make it within call, Jim,” replied Burridge, not without significance.

Jim sat down, ostensibly to mend one of his stirrups, but as a matter of fact he did not care to pick out his bed site under the pale eyes of these degenerate Hatt boys. He could peer through the eyes of men to their minds. Either Tobe or Henny would commit murder for a sack of tobacco. Jim decided he would carry his bed to a secluded place in the brush and change that place every night. With covert glances he watched the Hatt boys and also kept a lookout for Rose.

“Wal, fellars, what about goin’ on with our little game?” inquired Hubrigg.

“Sure,” replied Brann.

“I should smile,” added Stagg, cheerfully.

Cash Burridge shook his head dubiously, but did not voice his opinion until the Hatt boys had ambled off out of hearing.

“Say, men, I don’t want to be a kill-joy, but honest I question the sense of showin’ all that money here.”

“Why not?” asked Hubrigg.

“It might not be safe. We don’t belong to this Hatt outfit. They could have this canyon ‘most full of backwoodsmen in no time. There’s only six of us.”

“Wal, listen to him!” ejaculated Brann. “You got it wrong, Cash. There’s five of us, an’ Jim Lacy!”

“I just don’t think it’s wise,” added Burridge, stubbornly, ignoring the sarcasm.

“We may have to hang around here for a week or more,” spoke up Stagg. “What’ll we do? If we can’t gamble we might as well not have any money.”

“Jim, what do you say?” asked Burridge, in perplexity.

“Wal, seein’ that money changes hands so often, I reckon nobody’d miss it if the Hatts did get it,” chuckled Jim.

“Haw! Haw!” roared Cash, slapping his knee.

“Miss it!” ejaculated Brann, evidently affronted with catastrophe. “Say, I look on thet pile as mine.”

“Jim, you seem a nice fellar, with fun in your talk, but I’m sort of doubtful about you,” said Hubrigg, dubiously.

“How so?” queried Jim, pleasantly.

“Wal, I can’t exactly explain. But when you talk lazy an’ easy, like all you darn Texans, an’ look some other way, I always feel queer.”

“Right you are. Our new member makes me feel like a fellar who’s runnin’ like hell an’ knows sure he’s goin’ to get the seat of his pants slung full of buckshot.”

This from Brann indicated the slow progress of the rustlers toward amity with Jim. They all laughed uproariously.

“Shore I must be a likable cuss to have round,” declared Jim, presently. “I’ve a notion to get sore.”

“Wal, for Gawd’s sake, don’t,” burst out Brann. “Be a good fellar an’ set in the game with us.”

“I’d like to, for pastime, anyhow. But suppose I catch one of you manipulatin’ the cairds?”

“Huh! Manip-oo-latin’? What’s thet?”

“Brann, our friend Jim means slippin’ aces off the bottom, holdin’ out, stackin’ the deck, an’ a few other tricks gamblers have.”

“Aw, I see. Wal, Jim has a right to holler when he ketches us, same as we when we ketch him doin’ the same.”

That sally elicited a yell from Brann’s comrades.

“Jest so he hollers only with his mouth,” shouted Stagg.

“All right, I’ll set in a few hands,” said Jim, good-naturedly. “Anyway, till I’m broke.”

“Jim, your credit is good in this outfit,” interposed Cash Burridge. “An’, anyway, you’ll have a gunny sack full of money before long.”

Whereupon the rustlers, in high spirits, owing to being well fed and flush with money, repaired to the shade of a pine in front of Elam’s cabin, and squatting round a blanket, emptied their pockets of coin and bills. Jim joined them, choosing a seat from which he could watch the cabins and the approach of anyone.

Bantering ceased abruptly the instant gambling began. And the cares of rustlers, if they had any, vanished as if by magic.

The game was draw-poker, the stakes any amount a player chose to wager, provided he produced it. Jim knew he could hold his own with these gamblers, but he preferred to lose the ill-gotten gains Burridge had forced upon him as his share of their first rustling deal together. So Jim played recklessly, making his losses more than discount the ridiculously lucky cards he held at times. His apparently casual glances at the cabin, however, were not few and far between.

The Hatt boys came to watch the game, soon growing equally absorbed with the gamblers; and it was noticeable to Jim that they gravitated round the circle of players, wherever the gold coin went. Old Elam came presently, and likewise fell to the attraction of the game, but it seemed the playing itself rather than the sums of money lost and won, that held charm for him.

Elam Hatt’s house was one of the picturesque double-cabined structures under one roof, with wide porch space between. The logs had been peeled. They were old and brown, rotting in places; the sloping roof of split shingles had a covering of green moss and pine needles; the rude stone chimney, built on the outside of the right-hand cabin, had been repaired many times with yellow clay and red adobe mud. The porch ran all along the front of both cabins, and one end was littered with saddles and packs. Deer and elk antlers on the walls supported rifles and bridles. A bearskin hide, not yet dried, hung nailed flesh side out, on the wall of the left cabin. This was smaller than the other, evidently consisting of only one room. The window, without glass or shutter, opened toward Jim, who had been quick to see a face peer from the darkness and draw back again.

When he caught sight of it again he knew at once that it belonged to Rose Hatt and that she had espied him. She stood far back in the gloom of the cabin, her face only a vague oval, but with staring eyes like black holes.

“Elam, do you know draw-poker?” asked Jim, presently.

“Tolerable. I wisht I hed stake enough to set in this hyar game. I’d bust somebody,” replied old Hatt, to the amusement of the gamesters.

“Play a few hands for me,” said Jim, rising. “Change my luck, maybe. I want a drink.”

“Whiskey?”

“No. Water. Where’ll I get it?”

“Thar inside the kitchen door at the end of the porch,” replied Hatt, rising with alacrity to take Jim’s place. “My girl jest fetched some fresh from the spring. Snow water, an’ thar’s none better.”

As Jim neared the porch, Rose came out of the cabin where he had seen her, and crossed to enter the other. She wore buckskin. He caught the flash of brown bare legs and feet. Jim went down the porch and entered the door mentioned by Hatt. As he expected, he encountered Rose. Despite excitement manifest in her face, he thought she looked clearer of eye and skin, somehow prettier.

“Howdy, Rose! You see I’ve come,” he said.

“I saw you first thing,” she replied.

“I want a drink, please.”

She filled a dipper from a pail and handed it to him. Facing her and standing in the door, Jim drank thirstily. It was good water.

“Will it be all right if I talk to you?” asked Jim.

“Sure. ‘Cept when Cedar’s around.”

“Where is he?”

“Reckon he’s hidin’ somewhere, watchin’ you-all. So we can’t talk now. . . . But, oh! I’ve so much to tell you!”

“Yes? Tell me a little — quick,” said Jim.

“Marvie’s to fetch Hettie Ide — to meet me,” whispered the girl, fearfully, yet with eyes full of glad light. “Oh, she must be an angel! He says she will give me a home — if I can ever get away from here.”

“Wal, now, that’s fine,” sympathized Jim, vibrating to this news. “Three friends now — Marvie an’ Hettie Ide an’ me. Lucky girl!”

“I can’t thank God enough,” she breathed from a full breast.

“Keep on thankin’, an’ fightin’,” said Jim, with ring of voice and meaning smile. Then he set down the dipper on the bench and backed out of the door, eyes still intent on Rose. She was flushed of face now, eager, hopeful, yet still fearful.

“I will. They can’t stop me now — unless they kill me,” she answered, resolutely, with a wonderful blaze in her eyes.

“Who’re they, Rose?”

“Cedar, for one. I told you,” she replied, haltingly. But there seemed to be tremendous impelling power working on her — greater, Jim sensed, than could come through him just then.

“Tell me the other man.”

“Oh, I daren’t — I daren’t,” she faltered, losing courage.

“If you love Marvie — an’ if she will stand by you — you can dare,” he shot at her, relentlessly.

She showed then a struggle over fear that had outlived childish years.

“Rose, that other man is Clan Dillon?”

“Yes — yes,” she whispered, in unutterable relief, as if she had been spared betraying him. “Are — are you to be here long?”

“Days, maybe weeks.”

“Keep watch,” begged the girl, finding courage. “Cedar will drag me off in the woods — to meet Dillon. If he does — follow us, for God’s sake.”

“I shore will, Rose. Don’t lose your nerve.”

“But be careful, Cedar’s an Indian in the woods.”

Jim Lacy leisurely turned, and with glance on the ground, apparently idle and lax, he strolled back to the gamesters.

“How comes the luck, Elam?” he asked.

“My Gord! Won three hands straight runnin’,” ejaculated Hatt. “An’ one a fat jack-pot.”

“Wal, shore reckoned you’d change my luck. Play ’em for all you’re worth, Elam, an’ if you break this outfit I’ll divvy with you.”

“Ha! he’s got no chanct on earth, Jim,” said Cash. “Better set back in before we break you.”

Old Elam held his own, however, evidently to his immense gratification. Jim watched for a while, much amused, until his ever-roving glance fastened upon a newcomer to the scene.

A man had come out of the aspen thicket. He carried a rifle, which he held by the barrel over his shoulder. His gait, his build, betrayed him to Jim Lacy. This was Cedar Hatt.

Jim had been kneeling on one knee behind Elam, and now, leisurely rising to his feet, he stood at ease. Upon nearer view Cedar Hatt turned out to possess only the walk and the shape of the Hatt family. He was darker than any of them, with beardless face of clear brown tan, small glittering eyes set close, black as coal, and of a strange intensity, sharp nose and sharp chin, with a slit between for a mouth. He wore his hair long and it curled dark from under an old slouch hat full of bullet holes. His garb was greasy buckskin, from head to toe. There was a knife in his belt, but no shells for the rifle.

Cedar Hatt stood across from the circle of gamblers, and dropping the muzzle of his rifle upon his moccasined foot he leaned on it, and gave his restless sloe-black eyes scope of all present. If the players saw him they gave no outward show of it. At length Cedar put the toe of his moccasin against his father.

Elam looked up with a start.

“Hullo! You back, Cedar?”

The son made an almost imperceptible movement with his right hand toward Lacy.

“Cedar, say howdy to Jim Lacy,” went on Hatt, a little hurriedly. Nevertheless, he was not greatly concerned. “Lacy, this hyar’s my son Cedar.”

Jim nodded civilly, without speaking, and he received even less in response. A look, like a streak of black lightning, flashed over him from head to toe — then Cedar Hatt deigned him no more attention.

It was a singular thing for Jim Lacy to meet men; and in a case like this, when he knew before he had seen Cedar Hatt that he was going to kill him, the incident seemed extraordinarily potent and strange. If there was an instinct to act almost involuntarily in such a meeting, there was also an intuitive searching that followed. Lacy needed only the slightest glimpse at Hatt’s eyes to know that he had not yet learned of the killing of Burt Stillwell. After that instant the meeting became only ordinary for Jim, inasmuch as Hatt could never again be formidable face to face. Jim knew him now. It was the unfamiliar that men of Lacy’s caliber always reckoned with.

The game progressed, with luck shifting from one player to another, and manifestly what seemed a long, tedious, irritating waste of time to Jim was only a fleeting of precious moments to the gamblers.

Finally Cedar Hatt, without ever having uttered a word, shouldered his rifle, and stalked away with the spring of a deer-hunter in his stride. He went up the canyon to disappear around the green bend.

Whereupon Lacy strolled away himself, into the golden shade of the aspen thicket, and on through darker shade to the lichened base of the cliff. He flung himself down here and leaned against the wall. Above him the quivering aspen leaves fluttered with the marvelous noiseless movement peculiar to them. All around in the brush the lizards rustled. Nature was alive and full of treasure for the watcher, the seeker. But Jim Lacy’s eyes were focused inward; his ears were attuned to a beating within. He had come there into the obscurity and loneliness of the thicket to think, to plan, to plot, to work out a course he could inevitably follow. But how useless that was! The slightest accident or incident might change the best of his plans. If he decided on a definite thing his mind would be set. His task demanded more than that; and it involved infinite patience and sacrifice, incredible command of geniality and good-fellowship with these rustlers, sight and sense that must grasp every little clue which might lead to the success of his venture. All this when his spirit revolted and his nature demanded quick, hard, fierce action!

After supper, which was served about sundown, on the porch between the two cabins, Elam Hatt scraped his rude seat back and arose.

“You-all who want to gamble air welcome, but I reckon some of you will want to set in to a confab with me.”

He went into his cabin, followed by Burridge and Lacy. The large room was dark, except where breaks in the chinks between the logs let in light. Hatt stirred the slumbering embers in the huge yellow stone fireplace and put on chips of wood.

“Reckon they’ll want the lamps, an’ we don’t need none,” said Elam.

The door opened to admit Cedar Hatt, who advanced with his sliding silent step, to seat himself on a bench in the shadow besides the stone chimney.

“Burridge, if thar’s a lead weight on your chest, shove it off,” invited Elam, bending down to lift a fiery ember with which to light his pipe.

“Are you open to a big deal?” queried the rustler, bluntly.

“Always open to anythin’. But I’m careful not to change the minds of ranchers about Elam Hatt,” replied the backwoodsman, shrewdly.

“Which means they think you do some two-bit brandin’ of mavericks, like any cowboy, but you never tackle a real rustlin’ job?”

“Reckon thet’s the size of it, Cash.”

“An’ that’s exactly why I’m goin’ to spring this deal on you. No one will ever lay it to you an’ everyone will lay it to the Pine Tree outfit. Savvy? The time’s just ripe. The trap’s set. We can’t do it half so well without you an’ your sons. We don’t know the country. Otherwise you bet we wouldn’t let you or anyone else in on it.”

“Sounds good. I’m listenin’.”

“Tom Day an’ Franklidge have throwed a big herd of stock together. Some of it’s workin’ with Ben Ide’s big herd, the last of his stock, in what the sheepherders call Silver Meadows. They’re high an’ won’t be comin’ down before the fall roundup. That’ll come anywhere along first of October. Now while them cattle are high up we plan to drive them — on up over the Rim — an’ down into the Basin, where we could sell a hundred times as many head, with never a question asked. I’ve already got the buyer. To do the job right an’ quick we need more riders, an’ particular some who know how to find fast travelin’ through them bad canyons up to the Rim. That’s all. I leave it to you to call the turn on that deal.”

“How do you know Ide’s stock air runnin’ on Silver Meadows? Thet’s Day’s range.”

“I know because I saw them an’ they used to be my cattle.”

“You’re calculatin’ thet if Ide does rare, he’ll lay it onto the Pine Tree outfit?”

“Exactly. The deal is ready-made for us.”

“How much stock thar now?”

“We can bunch three or four thousand head in half a day, an’ land them over the Rim in less’n two days.”

“An’ you’ve got a buyer?”

“Waitin’ an’ willin’. He’s drivin’ ten thousand head to Maricopa. How easy to run in a few more thousand!”

“Looks too powerful easy to me,” returned Hatt, as if sagging under an overpowering weight.

“Easy an’ safe. An’ listen, Elam. . . . Twenty dollars a head. In gold! One yellow old double-eagle for every steer!”

Elam Hatt paced the rough-hewn logs that constituted the floor of his cabin. He seemed to find strength in their solidity. His legs were the first part of him to weaken. His collapse came suddenly, with a crash to the bench before the fire.

“Cedar, what’d’ye say?” he asked, in a hoarse low voice.

“Burridge, swear them steers air in Silver Meadows,” said Cedar Hatt, his moccasined feet coming down with padded thuds as he leaped up and leaned out of the shadow.

“Sure I swear. Three days ago. An’ the grass an’ water are fine. They’ll work higher for several more days. . . . Ask Jim Lacy here. Reckon you’ll not be intimatin’ he’s a liar.”

“Talk up, Jim Lacy, if you’re a rustler,” called the younger Hatt.

“Wal, I was with Burridge. I saw the cattle,” replied Lacy.

Cedar Hatt glided into the light of the fire, to lean over his father and strike out with lean dark hand, like the claw of an eagle.

“Papa, with ten riders I can run them cattle over the Rim in one day,” he declared. How grotesque and striking the epithet he gave his father! He seemed the epitome of lawlessness, of the hardened rustler, yet acknowledged the endearing claim of blood.

“Thet settles it, then,” returned Elam Hatt, throwing up his hands as one whose price had been met.

“Hold on! Thar ain’t no Greaser herder in these brakes who’d lead thet drive. An’ I’m the only white man who kin.”

“Wal, what’s makin’ you yap so? It’s settled, ain’t it, ‘cept the workin’ out?”

“I want my pard, Burt Stillwell, in on this.”

“Reckon I see no kick to thet. But it ain’t my deal.”

Cedar Hatt faced round with the swift, sinister action peculiar to him.

“Anythin’ ag’in’ Stillwell?” he queried.

“Wal, not any more, Hatt,” drawled Jim. “I shore had a little grudge, but it’s gone. When I saw Burt last, I shore had a friendly feelin’ for him.”

“Burridge, you had no use for the Stillwells. How’re you standin’ on this hyar deal I want?”

“Cedar, all I say is, sure — ring your pard Burt in — if you can get him,” returned Burridge, with something unnatural in his tone. And it was noticeable that he stepped more into the shadow.

“Papa,” hissed Cedar Hatt, and that word inspired awe as well as mirth, “I’m double-crossin’ the Pine Tree outfit to make us all rich on this big job.”

“Air you drunk, son?” asked Hatt, slowly rising to his feet. “How’n tarnation can you double-cross them — onless you mean beatin’ them to the deal?”

“Me an’ Burt belong to the Pine Tree outfit.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A WEEK LATER to the day, about the middle of the afternoon, Jim Lacy stood with Cash Burridge on the Mogollon Rim, facing south over the magnificent wilderness of southern Arizona. The black timber of the basin merged in the grassy parks and flats, growing hazy in the distance, and all that wild lowland led to the bleak colored desert ranges.

“My Gord! listen to that!” ejaculated Burridge, with red sweaty face wrinkled ecstatically. “Grandest music on earth.”

“Cash, they’ll greet you in Hades some day with that music,” drawled Jim.

“Bawlin’ bulls an’ whoopin’ cowboys! I’ll be glad to hear it, providin’ it don’t come too soon,” returned Burridge.

Yellow dust palls hung over the steep Maricopa trail, where it jumped zigzag off the Rim and wound down into the green depths. A mighty roar of trampling hoofs, and bellowing cattle, and crashing brush, and whooping riders waved up from that hot slope. It seemed an avalanche of sound now softening and again swelling, wild and free, harmonious with the country which made it possible. From the look of the trail, trampled and dug and widened by thousands of hoofs, it appeared that a river of live beasts had poured over the Rim.

“Lacy, it’s all over but the fireworks,” said Cash exultantly.

“Quién sabe? It might fetch some fireworks you’re not figurin’ on,” admonished his companion, moving over from his heaving, foam-lashed horse to get in the shade of a pine.

“Not much. We’re shakin’ the dust of the brakes. Say, won’t Ben Ide an’ Tom Day bite nails? Biggest drive I ever had a hand in. An’ all so easy! All like clockwork! All in a couple of days despite that — yellow traitor, Cedar Hatt!”

“Shore we didn’t need him,” responded Lacy, thoughtfully.

“Jim, I’ve seen some mad hombres in my time, but that Cedar Hatt beats them all to hell,” declared Burridge, aghast at the memory.

“Shore he was mad. Didn’t I warn you to keep your outfit from givin’ it away aboot Stillwell?”

“Yes, you did, an’ I talked myself hoarse. But it couldn’t be kept. They hated Cedar, an’ the minute somebody got two drinks aboard he up an’ blows that Burt Stillwell was dead. It sure made a hydrophobia-coyote out of Cedar. But he didn’t know who shot Burt. When he spit questions at you, like a snake with a hunch, why didn’t you lie?”

“Wal, Cash, I reckon you don’t savvy me.”

“Why didn’t you kill him, then?” went on Burridge, sharper of tongue.

“I just aboot did,” returned Lacy, reflectively. “But I saw he didn’t have the nerve to draw — so I waited.”

“Ahuh! Waited? I get your hunch. Cedar knows somethin’ you’re keen to find out. Bet it’s that Pine Tree outfit.”

“Cash, you’re figurin’ fair. But on the daid square now — rememberin’ the favors I’ve done you — cain’t you tell me somethin’ about that outfit?”

“No more’n we all know, Jim.”

“Shore you have some suspicion aboot who leads them?”

“Honest to Gawd, Lacy, I haven’t even an idee!” returned Burridge, with truth in look and voice. “It might be Judge Franklidge himself.”

“Holy Moses! Cash, that’s a wild guess!” ejaculated Lacy.

“Sure. An’ it’s only a guess. But you can gamble all the coin you’re goin’ to get pronto that the Pine Tree boss is not hidin’ in the brakes, like the rest of us rustlers. He’s an honest member of range society. Ha! Ha! Yes he is! . . . Jim, there might be a combine of homesteaders an’ ranchers in cahoots with an outfit of great riders like Burt Stillwell an’ Cedar Hatt.”

“Reckon I’ve thought of that.”

“What’s it to you, anyway, Jim?” queried Burridge, curiously.

“Reckon I’ve got to put my brand on the boss of the Pine Trees,” said Lacy.

“Ah! Is that all? Hell! I thought you might have some interest in him,” retorted Cash sarcastically. “Jim, on the square, if you hadn’t done so much to straighten me out again, I’d have suspicions about you.”

“Wal, keep them in your haid.”

Burridge laughed, and gathering up his bridle swung into the saddle.

“Come on. I don’t want the outfit to get far ahead. You’ll be hearin’ the clink of gold before sundown.”

“Not me, Cash.”

“What?”

“I’m not goin’ any farther with you.”

The rustler exhibited profound concern and amaze.

“You’re not goin’ any farther — what — ?”

“Say, Cash, are you out of your haid?” queried Jim, testily.

“Sure I am, if you’re not.”

“Wal, I’m not, old-timer.”

Burridge studied his companion for a long moment, his face working. Regret began to erase the incredulity.

“What the hell are you goin’ to do?”

“That’s my concern now. I’m through.”

“Through! . . . But, Jim—”

“Didn’t I help you out of a bad hole — the worst you was ever in?”

“You sure did, Jim. An’ I—”

“Didn’t I rustle cattle with you?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t I come out in the open — so everybody on this range will know I helped steal Ben Ide’s cattle?”

“By Heaven! you did!” declared Burridge, with redder face. “An’ I hold that against you, Jim. I just can’t figure why you did that. We could sure have laid that onto the Pine Tree outfit.”

“Wal, neither Ben Ide nor any other honest rancher will know you had the high hand in this big cattle steal. But my name an’ my hand in it will be known. I saw to that. They’ll think I am the boss of the Pine Tree outfit.”

“I’m damned! . . . Jim Lacy, you’re too deep for me. But I’m gettin’ a hunch. . . . How about your share in the divvy for this deal?”

“You’re welcome to it. Take it an’ go out of this country. Try bein’ honest again. You might succeed next time. But don’t ever come back heah!”

“Why not, Jim?” queried Burridge, strong and hard.

“Because if you do I’ll kill you,” flashed Lacy, in a voice that cut like a whip.

The ruddy heat left Burridge’s face, and he began to nod his head, slowly, with increasing motion, while his eyes fixed in a startling comprehension.

“Jim — Lacy!” he said, huskily.

“I reckon,” replied Lacy, grimly, as he turned to his horse.

“You been a pard to me, whatever your reasons,” went on Burridge, with feeling. “I don’t care a damn what they were. . . . I’ll leave this country. Here’s my hand on it. . . . Good-by an’ good luck!”

“Same to you, Cash,” replied Jim, as they gripped hands.

Burridge wheeled his horse so violently that it reared and plunged, and then slid to its haunches in the soft ground where the trail broke over the Rim. Burridge hauled it up and used his spurs. The animal snorted and took the first descent on a jump, then steadied to a quick walk. At the first bend of the trail into the timber the rustler looked back up to the Rim.

“I’ll send my compliments to Cedar Hatt an’ his boss in hell!”

Lacy strode into the level shady forest, leading his horse. He had prepared for this separation from Burridge, and had tied a light pack behind his saddle. There was a spring in his step and a light on his face. The deep forest land, beginning almost at once to slope north from the Rim, seemed to receive and absorb Lacy as a transformed man. How sweet and enchanting the silence, the solitude! He listened for the last ebb of that tide of hoofs, roaring down into the Basin. Gone! The air had cleared of the dust, the heat, the din, the smell of a cattle drive.

It still wanted an hour to sunset, and the time was approaching the most wonderful of all hours on the Mogollons. Birds and game had roused from the midday Indian-summer heat; the long black shadows of the trees were slanting down across the open swales and dells, where the white grass furnished contrast to the reds and purples and golds of the autumn leaves. The tracks of man and horse showed dark through the thick covering of gold and green that carpeted the ground.

Lacy descended winding ravines and aspen hollows until one opened into the head of a canyon where the murmur of water invited him to camp.

“Reckon you’re plumb tired,” he said to his horse, laying swift hands on the ropes. “Wal, it was a day. But we’re through now — through with that kind of work. . . . An’ I’m hatin’ to hobble you, old boy.”

Jim kindled a little fire, and while he heated water in his one pot he gathered ferns for bedding. The frost had seared the long leaves, making them brittle and easy to break off. He piled a great bundle in his blanket and carried it to the edge of an aspen thicket, where, as was his habit, he made a bed under cover of the foliage.

“I’ll be cold as blazes along toward mawnin’, but I cain’t keep a fire goin’ . . . not with that Indian Cedar Hatt roamin’ the woods!”

The sordid atmosphere common to the rustler gang was lacking here. Lacy did not realize it until he grew conscious of his alacrity, of his zest with the old camp tasks, in the pause to see and feel and hear and smell the forest which seemed now his alone, in his habit of talking to himself.

“Wal, now, won’t there be hell around the Ide ranch some of these heah mawnin’s, when riders come in with the news? Last of the Ide cattle! . . . Jim Lacy takin’ to rustlin’. . . . It will be funny. I’d like to be hid an’ heah Ben cuss. This’ll be the last straw. He’ll get as many gun-toters as he can hire, an’ set out to land me in jail.”

Jim seemed immensely pleased with the thought. The hard, morose intentness of the past weeks did not inhibit his natural geniality.

“Ben is shore goin’ to get the shock of his life one of these heah days,” went on Jim. “The doggone old wild-hoss hunter! . . . What’s he goin’ to say to me first off — an’ then after? . . . Lordy! . . . An’ Hettie! . . . She’ll call me a low-down yellow faithless . . . Say, meetin’ her will be about as funny as dyin’. I can feel myself cavin’ in right heah!”

Jim Lacy, with his plans well in mind, had on the whole journey across country from Elam Hatt’s ranch to the head of the Maricopa trail, taken careful account of the lay of the land.

It served him now. His intention was to return to Hatt’s ranch, if possible without encountering even a sheepherder. Hatt had left his daughter Rose alone, unless the mysterious woman consort of Henny or Tobe Hatt, of whom Jim had heard vaguely, might be considered as company. Elam, of course, with his two sons, could be expected to get back home from the cattle drive in two days from the time Jim had left them, or even less. As for Cedar Hatt, who had deserted Burridge and Elam after the revelation of Stillwell’s death, no doubt he had rushed to the secret rendezvous of the Pine Tree men, wherever that was, there to betray to them news of the impending drive of the Ide stock. It was Cedar Hatt whom Lacy had greatest interest in, at the present stage of the game; and Cedar was most likely to be found at or near home.

There was reason, too, for Lacy to have an interview with Rose Hatt, from whom he expected to force more about the man who dominated her brother and whom she feared. Moreover, Rose was to be considered on her own behalf.

Jim Lacy did not think it wise to go near Silver Meadows, where the cattle had been collected for the great drive; and therefore he made a wide detour, hoping to strike the trail he and the rustler band had made coming from Hatt’s ranch. But he had to go into camp the second night of his journey without having come to this trail. The forest was exceedingly rough, he had only a general direction to go by, and often windfalls and impassable brakes threw him off. On the third morning, however, he struck the trail he was looking for, and he back-tracked it all day. On the following day it failed on high ridges, on hard ground, rocky flats, and pine-needle mats, over which Elam Hatt had led the rustlers for the express purpose of hiding their tracks.

Lacy wasted no time trying to recover them, though he believed he could eventually have done so. Sure of his direction now, he pressed on rapidly, and the next afternoon struck the deep canyon east of the one in which Hatt lived. During his sojourn with the Hatts, Lacy had hunted turkey and deer up and down these brakes, with the sport of the hunt not at all his prime motive.

Jim took the precaution to ride well back from the Rim, peeping over whenever opportunity offered from behind foliage or rock covert. He did not really expect to see anyone, but that did not influence his actions. Lacy was always cautious, watchful, alert; and in this instance he might have been on a scent, so instinctive was his progress along that Rim.

Presently, down in an open bend of the deep canyon Lacy caught a glimpse of a rider. He was riding slowly up the trail, leaning down from his saddle, evidently with eyes on the ground.

“Trackin’ somethin’,” muttered Jim. “Now I wonder who that is an’ what he’s trackin’.”

Lacy rode back away from the Rim, and urged his horse to a lope, careful to avoid rocks and brush. There were places where he had to go slowly, but in the main he covered a mile or more in short order, then again approached the Rim.

This time he dismounted and cautiously stole to a vantage-point, from which he could peer unseen. As luck would have it, there was an open grassy meadow, narrow and long, just beneath his position. The canyon was five hundred feet deep at this point, green-walled, precipitous, and unsurmountable.

Lacy watched so long without seeing the rider that he believed he had been too late to catch him crossing this open flat. But as Lacy had about decided to hurry on again, the man emerged from the lower end.

Horse and rider grew strangely familiar as they came nearer. Lacy’s iron nerves were not beyond a tiny burning thrill.

“Am I drunk or loco?” he muttered.

On the rider came, his horse at a trot, and still he bent over to one side, studying tracks in the trail. He would have had an ominous look to any experienced eye. This rider was not tracking a lost horse or deer or turkey. He was a manhunter.

“Cedar Hatt!” whispered Lacy, his head lowering with the motion of a striking eagle. “Talk about luck! I’m shore smothered with it. . . . Jim Lacy’s luck! . . . But bad for you, Cedar — you treacherous soul!”

Lacy watched the man with a strained, piercing gaze, as if it were possible to divine his motive.

“This might be the trail Marvie Blaine rides when he comes to meet Rose,” soliloquized Jim, ponderingly. “Shore it is. She said the brake east of where she lived.”

Cedar Hatt rode on, directly under Jim’s position, and once he halted his horse, to lean far down from his saddle. How like an Indian! Then he swung up again to peer ahead, as if calculating on something. He made a dark wild figure, suiting his ragged horse and the background of tangled brush and rugged wall. Then he rode on, more slowly.

“By God!” burst out Lacy. “That hombre is sure trackin’ Marvie Blaine!”

Lacy crawled back from the Rim, then rose to run for his horse. He would head off this rustler. Luckily, the lower part of the canyon was miles below the locality where Rose was in the habit of meeting young Blaine. Lacy had time to get ahead and find a place where he could descend to the floor of the canyon. Working still farther back from the Rim, he put his horse to a gallop and made a hard fast ride for several miles. Then he slowed down and headed for the Rim again. No break in sight where he might descend! The wall grew more precipitous and higher. Lacy rode on, close to the Rim now, risking detection in his search for a descent. But he had no concern that Cedar Hatt might be the one to espy him.

At length Lacy came upon an interesting canyon, a narrow crack which ran off into the woods. He rode back to where it headed in one of the thickest ravines, so common to the country. He descended as far as possible, then dismounting, he tied his horse and hurried on. This gorge deepened into a split between toppling walls, so rough that there was not even a deer trail. But Lacy, sparing no effort, traversed it, to reach the main canyon hot and bruised and out of breath.

Under cover of the oak thicket that lined the slope from the wall he rested a few moments, listening like a pursued deer. Only the distant murmur of a stream, a dreamy hum, and the moan of wind up on the timbered ruins came to his ears.

“Reckon I’ll slip down to the trail an’ hold Cedar up,” soliloquized Jim. “But I’d shore like to know what he’s aboot.”

The east side of the canyon was a gentle slope, covered with white grass, brown ferns, and low pines and oaks, affording perfect cover for anyone hiding. Lacy worked gradually down toward the level of the canyon. He did not snap twigs, or scrape brush, or make any sound. At each little opening he peered out before advancing. Often he stopped to listen. Once an elk bugled — wonderful piercing note of the wild.

It was through this extreme caution and the eye of a woodsman that Lacy came upon Marvie Blaine and Rose Hatt.

They were locked in each other’s arms, lost in the enchantment of their dream. But they had chosen a secluded nook, halfway up the grassy pine-dotted slope, from which they could see, by peering under the low-spreading branches, both up and down the trail. At this moment, however, they would not have become aware of the approach of an army.

Lacy seemed struck to the heart by their rapture and the poignant pang that rent his own breast. He understood. He had lived that. He knew the sweetness and glory of love. Lacy sank to his knees, feeling that he had no right to interrupt their sacred hour. Marvie bent over Rose, whose head lay back upon his breast, with her face upturned to his, eyes closed, heavy-lidded, rapt and dreamy. If they were whispering Lacy would not hear, though he was close. But he doubted that they were whispering. Both bliss and tragedy seemed to hover over these youthful lovers.

Suddenly Lacy heard a sound that cruelly disrupted both the pain and the joy he felt. In a flash he found his equilibrium. What was that sound? It had been faint, and therefore hard to locate. It could have come from either near or far. He listened, while his eyes roved everywhere. Marvie was deaf to sounds. No doubt there was a beautiful bell ringing in his soul. Rose lay entranced.

Again Jim heard a sound, which he calculated to be a swish from the tail of a horse. Of course Marvie and Rose had their horses tethered somewhere near. But the first noise had not been like the second. It was not a thud of hoof, nor a step of foot. It seemed to have been a slippery gliding sound, as of a soft substance in contact with one rough and hard. All at once an idea flashed to Jim — buckskin over rock! Cedar Hatt always wore buckskin. Close at hand there were corners of cliff, ledges, huge slabs of rock. The instant that thought stood clear in Lacy’s mind he grew stiff, intense in the grasp of a sensation for which he never found an adequate name. It mounted almost to a power of divination. It always brought the icy steadiness to his nerves.

Then from the dark shadow of pines behind Marvie a lithe figure glided. Silently Jim Lacy drew his gun. The situation was clarified, and a dread of something he could not see or control faded away.

Marvie never looked up from the beloved face until Cedar Hatt halted. It was clear to Jim that Cedar’s sudden violent check came from the surprise of seeing Rose in Marvie’s arms.

Marvie likewise started, so suddenly and rudely that Rose rolled off his shoulder into the grass. She screamed. She swayed up to her knees, and with hands out she backed until the pine tree stopped her.

“So hyar’s why you run off from me to-day?” he shouted, fiercely. The muscles of his neck swelled, his lean jaw protruded.

“Don’t — don’t hurt me — Cedar!” cried Rose in terror.

“I’ll beat you half to death. So hyar’s why you played sick to-day an’ then run off. You lyin’ hussy! Answer me!”

“Yes — yes, Cedar. I — I did,” replied Rose, sagging back against the tree. Her open hands fell to her sides. A paralysis of surprise began to leave her.

“This hyar ain’t no accident?” he demanded, with a forceful gesture toward the stricken Marvie.

“No. I come — on purpose.”

“How long’s it b’en goin’ on?”

“Weeks. I — I’ve come eight times.”

“Who’s this hyar young buck?”

“I’ll never tell,” flashed Rose.

Marvie stumbled to his feet and stepped forward, livid of face, but resolute.

“I’ll tell you,” he said.

“Don’t — don’t!” cried Rose. “Never tell him!”

“Who’n hell air you?” queried Cedar, in amaze, as if the factor of Marvie’s participation in this treachery of Rose’s had just dawned upon him.

“I’m Marvie Blaine,” answered the lad.

“Blaine! Huh! thet means nothin’ to me.”

“I live with Ben Ide. We’re related.”

“Ben Ide! . . . Oho! You belong to them rich Ide folks, huh, as wouldn’t wipe their feet on sich as us Hatts? Wal, damn your white skin, what you doin’ hyar with my sister?”

“I — I love her,” answered Marvie, manfully.

Cedar knocked him down.

“I’ll kick your guts out,” he snarled.

Marvie rolled out of reach, leaped to his feet, and came back, with fight struggling to master his consternation and distress for Rose.

“I seen you huggin’ an’ kissin’ Rose. An’ you got nerve to say you love her. Playin’ with my sister, huh? An’ you belong to them Ides!”

“Cedar, it’s not — what you think,” burst out Rose, with the scarlet dyeing her face.

“Git out, you lyin’ little devil. If you’ll lie about one thing you’ll lie about another. . . . All the time you been meetin’ this young buck. Layin’ hyar in his arms, huh?”

“You skunk!” retorted Rose, passionately. “He loves me honest. . . . You’re too low-down to understand what that means.”

“Didn’t I ketch you layin’ in his arms?” demanded Cedar, harshly, yet with a hint of wonder in his query.

“Yes, you did. An’ you might have ketched me there often,” cried the girl.

“Ed Richardson will kill you fer this!” hissed Cedar.

“Let him kill an’ be damned!” returned Rose, with an equal passion. “I don’t belong to him. I hate him. Did he ever talk honest love to me? Bah! But Marvie Blaine did. An’ he’s made a woman out of me.”

“Hatt, I’ve asked — Rose to marry — me,” interposed Marvie, beside himself with emotion.

“Yes, an’ Miss Ide is goin’ to give me a decent home till I’m old enough,” added Rose.

“Oho! Double-crossin’ Ed an’ all of us, hey? You black-eyed cat! . . . Git your hoss, an’ soon as I take the hide off this kid lover of yours, we’ll—”

“Cedar Hatt, you’ll have to pack me dead — if you take me one single step. . . . You’ll never drag me alive to your Pine Tree—”

“Shut up!” interrupted Cedar, and he struck her down.

Marvie, with furious imprecation, wildly swinging his arms, rushed at Hatt, only to be sent staggering against the tree.

“I’ll blow your insides out!” yelled Cedar, reaching for his gun.

But before he could draw, Marvie closed with him, and as Hatt dragged the gun out they began a swift struggle for possession of it. Here Jim bounded out of his covert and down the slope, his gun half leveled. Neither of the contestants was aware of his presence, but Rose saw him, and she shrieked.

Jim tried to get a bead on Cedar. But he had to be sure of his aim. He did not want to risk injuring Marvie. As they whirled and wrestled, Cedar pulled his arm over his head, his hand clutching the gun. Marvie clung desperately to that arm.

Jim took a snap shot at Cedar’s gun hand. Missed! He snapped another and the bullet almost tore Cedar’s hand off. The gun went flying, while Cedar, backing away from Marvie, cursing hideously, suddenly froze stiff at sight of Jim.

Marvie had not yet seen his savior. No doubt he thought the shots had been fired accidentally in the struggle, wounding Cedar. Quick as a flash he snatched up Cedar’s gun and, leveling it with both hands, he worked the trigger. Bang! Bang!

Cedar Hatt clutched at his breast. An awful blank surprise rendered his expression once more human. With gasps his mouth opened to emit blood. Then he reeled and fell at Marvie’s feet.

Marvie began to sag, changing his crouching position. The smoking gun dropped from his limp hands. Rose, on her knees, with a red stain on her lips, rocked to and fro, mute with terror.

“Wal, Marvie, that wasn’t so bad for a youngster,” said Jim, stepping forward. “I was just about to plug him myself.”

As if a giant arm was grinding him around the lad turned.

“Who’re — you?” he whispered, wildly, almost maudlinly.

“Reckon I’m your old pard, Nevada, of Forlorn River days,” replied Jim, and then he grasped Marvie as he collapsed. He embraced him and half carried him toward the trees, where Rose now clung, trying to get to her feet. “Brace up, boy. It’s all over. There. . . . An’ you, Rose, buck up. Why, you’re both showin’ yellow after as game a fight as two kids ever made! . . . That’s right. Let him lean against you. Wal, wal!”

Marvie, with eyes starting, cried out: “O my God — it’s you — Nevada!”

“Shore is, boy, an’ glad to meet you again.”

“Mister Lacy — do — you — know Marvie?” faltered Rose.

“Wal, I should smile. Me an’ Marvie are old pards.”

Marvie suddenly seemed to revert to a consciousness that recalled Cedar Hatt. He stared in terror at the prone rustler.

“Nevada, you — you shot him,” he said, huskily.

“Me? Nope. I only shot his hand off. You see, you was dancin’ around so I couldn’t bore him.”

“He — he’s dead?”

“Wal, I reckon so. Has that sort of limp look,” replied Jim. “But I’ll make shore.” And Jim rose from his kneeling posture to walk over to Hatt. “Daid as a door nail! Marvie, he was roarin’ a minute ago aboot blowin’ out your insides. An’, lo! — there he lays with his own insides blowed out. His own gun! Funny aboot things. . . . Don’t look so sick. Wasn’t he tryin’ to kill you? Wouldn’t he have murdered Rose — or worse?”

Marvie sat up, pallid and wet, with his lower lip quivering and his eyes losing their fixed horror.

“Nevada! You were here — somewhere?”

“Shore. I was watchin’ you an’ Rose make love when Cedar sneaked up. Reckon I ought to have shot him pronto, but I wanted to heah what he’d say.”

“Marvie, it’s turrible,” interposed Rose. “My own brother! But I don’t care. I’m glad. He was a devil. . . . Did he hurt you? Oh, there’s blood on your hands!”

“I’m not hurt. It come off the gun. I felt it — all wet an’ sliddery.”

Jim studied these two brave young people and thrilled to his heart. What had guided his steps on this eventful day?

“Rose, I reckon you can never be scared by Cedar again,” he said.

“No, Mister Lacy. I’m free — saved,” replied the girl, in agitation.

“Lacy?” cried Marvie, starting up incredulously. “But you’re Nevada!”

“Son, the Nevada you knew was Jim Lacy.”

“My Heaven! what will Ben say? . . . An’ Hettie,” exclaimed Marvie, overcome.

“Reckon they’ll say a lot — when they know. But promise me you won’t give me away.”

“Aw, Nevada, if you only knew how Ben—”

“Marvie, I’m not askin’ you to keep it secret forever,” interrupted Jim hastily. “But for a little while. Promise, old pard.”

“I — will,” replied Marvie, choking.

“An’ you, too, Rose?”

“I can keep secrets. An’ I mustn’t let slip that you’re Marvie’s old pard Nevada?”

“Shore. An’ now, Rose, let’s get this confab over. I reckon my hunch is correct. But I need to know more.”

“I’ll tell anything,” she replied, under her breath.

“You told me Dillon is haid of this Pine Tree outfit?” queried Nevada, bending down to the agitated face.

“Yes, sir,” replied Rose. “Some of his men called him Campbell. But he told Cedar his real name was Ed Richardson. He’s from New Mexico. He figgered in the Lincoln County war an’ was close to Billy the Kid. He fetched rustlers here with him. An’ he got hold of Cedar, an’ Burt Stillwell, an’ Stewart, an’ other Arizona riders whose names I never heard.”

“Rose, how’d you happen on this?” asked Nevada, seriously.

“Cedar fetched Clan Dillon to our ranch, an’ he tried to make up to me,” went on Rose. “I liked him first off. But I soon saw what he was up to an’ I had no use for him. Wal, one day Cedar threw me on a horse an’ rode me off to a cabin over here in Piñon Brake. Dillon was there. He tried makin’ more love to me. But I bit an’ kicked an’ clawed him. Then he manhandled me bad, with Cedar grinnin’ by. He’d have ruined me, too, but the men they was expectin’ rode up an’ I got thrown in the loft. Some of them were drunk. They all had money. An’ they gambled an’ stayed up all night. In the mornin’ they had a powwow. Then Cedar fetched me back home an’ swore he’d kill me if I squealed.”

“Clan Dillon, then, is Ed Richardson — haid of this Pine Tree outfit,” said Nevada, “an’ Ben Ide’s foreman.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Rose, bravely, with lips that trembled.

“Good Lord!” ejaculated Marvie. “Ben swears by Dillon. He’s gone against Raidy, his oldest hand. . . . Gee! I wouldn’t want to be in Dillon’s boots when Ben finds out!”

“Wal, Marvie, it’s likely that Dillon’s boots will be stickin’ out straight when Ben heahs the truth. . . . Rose, is there any particular reason why you’d like to go back home again? Clothes or anythin’ you care for?”

“All the duds I own are on my back,” replied Rose, ruefully. “Cedar burned my pretty dance dress — that I bought to look nice for Marvie. My pony’s all I have. An’ he’s here.”

“Marvie, get your horse an’ put Rose on hers an’ leave heah pronto for the Ide ranch. Look sharp an’ don’t run into any riders. When you reach home turn Rose over to Hettie, an’ both of you keep your mouth shut.”

His compelling force wrung mute promises from both Marvie and the girl.

“My horse is on top, an’ I cain’t get him down heah. Rustle now.”

Marvie started to lead Rose away, when he espied Cedar Hatt’s gun lying on the brown pine needles.

“Nevada — can I take it?” he queried, haltingly.

“What? Oh, Cedar’s gun? Shore you take it.”

The girl turned with lips parted. “Mister Jim — Nevada — we’ll see you again?”

“I reckon. Remember, I trust you to keep mum. Look sharp now, an’ hurry along.”

Nevada did not linger to watch them find and mount their horses; however, as he started up the slope he heard them, and felt that now all would be well with them. He climbed as one with wings. How strange that the rough gully presented no obstacles! Reaching his horse, he tightened the cinches, leaped astride, and rode up to the level, where he faced north with a grim smile.

The afternoon had not far advanced. At a steady lope he covered the miles of forested ridge, downhill and easy going until he descended into the brakes. Here his horse toiled for an hour, at last to crash out into the trail. One glance at the bare ground showed him that Marvie and Rose had not yet come so far. He preferred to reach the Ide ranch before they did. His mind clamped round one thing and set there, cold and sure.

Five miles of travel, now slow, now swift, and then a hard climb took Nevada out of the brakes into the beautiful stately forest, where the pines thinned and straggled to the desert sage. How sweet the fragrance! He had once viewed from afar the Ide ranch, with its slope of sage and cedar leading up to the black benches.

The trail grew broad and sandy, so that his speeding horse thudded almost noiselessly on. Clumps of spruce and low branches of pines obscured the bends.

Nevada rode around an abrupt green curve almost to run down a horse coming toward him. He pulled his mount to a sliding halt. He heard a cry. The rider was a woman. Hettie Ide!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“HETTIE,” SAID BEN Ide as he stood on the porch and spread his arms to the glorious beauty and color of the Arizona landscape, “I once thought Forlorn River in the fall was pretty close to heaven. But Cedar Springs Ranch has it beaten a mile.”

“Ben Ide! You going back on Forlorn River!” exclaimed Hettie, in surprise.

“Well, hasn’t it? Look around. What do you think, yourself?”

“Long ago, before this wonderful autumn came, I was faithless to California,” murmured Hettie, regretfully.

“Hettie, not faithless. I don’t love the old home country any the less because I’ve learned to love this more. Lord knows I’ve reason to hate Arizona. But I can’t. It grows on me. Here it’s way in September. Frost an’ ice every mornin’. Indian summer days. Look at the sage. It’s purple. Look at the foothills. Anyone would think they were painted. Look at the patches of gold an’ scarlet back up in the woods.”

“It’s very beautiful,” replied Hettie, more dreamily.

“Sister, we mustn’t forget that mother is to be taken to San Diego for the winter months.”

“I’ve not forgotten, Ben. But there’s no hurry. This weather is perfect. Mr. Day claims it’ll last till Christmas.”

“Well, if it does, I could ask no more,” said Ben. “Then I’ll send mother with you an’ Ina an’ the kid to San Diego till spring. But I’ll stay on here. I’d be afraid to leave.”

“It wouldn’t be wise, Ben. Things have grown from bad to worse. I fear you are in for more shocks.”

“Tom Day says they must grow worse before they get better. Heigho! . . . Well, I’m not lettin’ disappointment sour me, anyhow.”

“Disappointment? You mean — about ranching in Arizona?”

“Between you an’ me, Hettie, I wasn’t thinkin’ of cattle at all,” replied Ben, sadly.

Hettie suffered a contraction of her heart. If Ben knew what she knew! She prayed that he never would. And she gave no sign that she divined the undercurrent of his words.

Marvie Blaine sat on the porch step, morosely cleaning his rifle, which evidently he had used that day. The lad had grown taller, thinner, more of a man these last few weeks.

“Marv, you don’t ride far away when you hunt, do you?” queried Ben.

“Lots of turkey an’ deer right in our back yard,” answered Marvie, evasively.

“Humph! Much good that does you. I’ve yet to eat the venison you killed.”

“Ben, I’ve killed some turkeys,” insisted Marvie, stoutly. “An’ to-day I had a shot at a buck.”

“Seems to me you take a lot of time off,” went on Ben, “an’ I’m supposed to pay you a cowboy’s salary.”

“I do the work given me. Dillon sure slights me on every job he can.”

“Weren’t you pretty smart-alec?” asked Ben.

“I wasn’t until he got mean.”

“An’ when was that? Are you sure you don’t imagine things? Dillon is the kindest of foremen.”

Marvie looked up deliberately and fastened unfathomable eyes upon this friend of his boyhood.

“Dillon used to like me. But he changed after the cowboys told him how I’d made up to little Rose Hatt at the dance in Winthrop.”

“Rose Hatt! That child of Elam Hatt’s? I saw her once. What on earth could it be to Dillon if you did flirt with Rose? As a matter of fact, he was merely worried about you. Rose was no girl for you to get friendly with.”

“Say, did Dillon tell you that?” queried Marvie, flushing.

“Yes. An’ he advised me to put a stop to it. Said you might get in trouble.”

Marvie jumped up as if he had been stung by a hornet.

“Ha! Ha!” he burst out, striding away with his head back. “Ha! Ha! . . . Ha! Ha! Ha!”

He kept it up until he went out of sight around the house.

“Well, I’ll be doggoned,” ejaculated Ben, gazing at Hettie for confirmation of his fears. “Was that boy givin’ me the horse-laugh?”

“He was surely giving you some kind of a laugh,” replied Hettie, striving to hide her own amusement.

“Hettie, am I growin’ old, thick-headed, absent-minded?” inquired Ben, wistfully.

“No, Ben,” returned his sister, dropping her head. “You’ve only the worry of the ranch on your mind.”

“By George it is a worry,” he sighed. “But, old girl, you’ve not been so bright and happy as you were here at first. Neither is Ina. I’m afraid I’ve done bad by both of you.”

“Ben, it will all come right,” spoke up Hettie, forcing a smile. “We must take our medicine. It’s Arizona medicine, which your friend, Tom Day, says is powerful strong.”

“Hettie, do you still think of — of — him?” asked Ben, in lower tone.

“Always,” she replied, quaking inwardly. If only she had the courage and the wit to keep her secret hidden!

“I’m afraid I’ve given up hope,” went on Ben, somberly. “An’ it’s taken the sap out of me. Don’t tell Ina. But I’m fallin’ into the same rut as I was in last spring, over home on Tule Lake.”

“Given up hope of what?” murmured Hettie.

“Of ever findin’ Nevada,” he replied, simply, as if the name was not one he never mentioned. “That’s why I came to Arizona. Once at Forlorn River, when I asked Nevada what he’d do if anythin’ separated us, he said he’d go to Arizona an’ take to hard ridin’. I never forgot. . . . Well, I reckon every cowboy on these ranges has hit me for a job. But sure not one of them was Nevada, nor had they ever heard of him. I reckon he’s dead. Don’t you ever think that, Hettie?”

“Yes. . . . Dead to us, surely,” she returned, with dry lips.

“How could Nevada be dead to us if he were alive?” queried Ben, sharply. Then he lifted his head to some interruption of his thought. “I hear a horse . . . comin’ lickety cut! Hello! it’s Dillon! . . . Damn the luck! There’s somethin’ up!”

Hettie sustained a sharp quickening of her pulse. A horse and rider bobbed up over the bench. At the moment Ina came out of the house, to begin some speech to Ben, which did not materialize. Ben strode off the porch to meet Dillon, who rode up like a whirlwind, scattering gravel all over the porch; and he leaped out of the saddle with the lithe grace of one to whom such action was a habit.

“Mornin’, boss,” he said and tipped his sombrero to Hettie and Ina. “You’re late. So I rode up.”

“Bad news?” asked Ben.

“No, it ain’t bad, but it’s disturbin’. Cowboy just in from Tom Day’s range. Name’s Laskin. He rode a hoss to death gettin’ here. I gave him another hoss, an’ soon as he’d swallowed some drink an’ grub he rode off for Franklidge’s ranch.”

“Yes. Well, what was he ridin’ so hard for?” queried Ben, as if prepared.

“Yesterday he was in camp near Silver Meadows,” went on Dillon. “Another rider with him — whose name I didn’t get. Some men rode down on them. Laskin said they wasn’t drunk. Just keyed up over a big deal. They made no bones about the deal — at least their leader didn’t. An’ he was no other than Jim Lacy.”

“Jim Lacy bobbed up again!” ejaculated Ben, with irritation. “Go on, Dillon.”

“Lacy said he was goin’ to rustle the stock at Silver Meadows an’ sent you his compliments.”

“Well, I’m a — !” broke out Ben, choking down the last of his utterance.

“Pretty nervy, wasn’t it?” asked Dillon. He appeared excited, which was a striking exception to his usual genial and imperturbable mood. Hettie gazed spell-bound at him.

“Nervy? Yes, if it’s true,” retorted Ben. “But I don’t believe it.”

“It’s as straight as shootin’, boss,” rejoined Dillon. “I happen to know the rider who tipped us off.”

“But Jim Lacy or anybody else would be a fool to tell such a plan, before pullin’ it off,” said Ben, incredulously.

“Reckon that seems so,” replied the foreman, smoothly. “But sometimes these desperadoes like Lacy do queer things. It’s not braggin’. Such men don’t brag. It’s just sort of a cool defiance of law — an’ honest ranchin’. . . . Well, Lacy has twenty-four hours’ start. There was a big bunch of cattle at Silver, so Laskin said. The last of your stock, an’ some of Day’s an’ Franklidge’s. We were figgerin’ on a big roundup pronto. But we’re too late, boss.”

“Too late! Why, man, if it is true, we can stop that drive before it gets down to the road,” declared Ben.

“Stop nothin’. Lacy’s outfit won’t drive this way. They’ll drive up over the Rim, an’ I’ll gamble there’s a bunch of five thousand head on the way now.”

Ben sat down as if suddenly weighted.

“Boss, I’m sure kickin’ myself for not figgerin’ that very deal,” went on Dillon, and his smile was something to conjure with. Hettie caught it, but Ben saw nothing. “You see, the cattle were workin’ high up. An’ grass an’ water’s so good at Silver that they bunched thick. Laskin swears it’s only a half day’s drive up the canyon which opens into Silver. . . . An’ there you are.”

A hoarse intolerant resentment rang in Dillon’s voice. To Ben Ide he must have seemed a masterful and experienced foreman, angry at this coup of the latest recruit to Arizona rustlers.

“If it’s true I’ll — I’ll run down this Jim Lacy an’ jail him. I don’t care what it costs,” declared Ben. “But I reckon we’re gettin’ all r’iled up over cowboy guessin’.”

“Give me a couple of days off, boss?” asked Dillon, in strange eagerness. “I’ll find out.”

“You want to ride off alone?” queried Ben.

“Sure. That’s the best way.”

“No. Some of the rustlers will plug you, an’ then I would be out of luck,” replied Ben, decisively.

“But I want to go,” declared Dillon, with the blood rising under the tan of his handsome face.

“I appreciate the risk you’d take for me, Dillon. But, no, I’m gjvin’ you orders to take Raidy with six cowboys an’ go to Silver Meadows. Hurry back to report. Then we’ll see.”

Dillon had difficulty in repressing some kind of agitation that did not owe its source to respect and regard for Ben Ide. What an intent, almost derisive glance he gave Ben! Then without another word he mounted and rode furiously down toward the corrals.

“Girls, did you hear all he had to say?” asked Ben, appealing for sympathy.

“We couldn’t very well help it,” replied Ina, putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Dear, I — I haven’t confidence in this man Dillon.”

“Huh! Nor in me, either,” retorted Ben, shaking her hand off.

That action hurt Ina’s sensitive feelings and she drew away haughtily.

“Very well, Ben Ide,” she declared. “But when the crash comes, don’t you look to me for sympathy.”

With that she went back into the house. Ben gazed helplessly up at his sister.

“There! Can you beat that? My own wife gone against me!”

Hettie subdued her own impatience, not without effort, and then set herself the task of meeting her brother’s morbid irritation, and by agreeing with him and bidding him hope on and fight on forever, if need be, she made some little impression upon his mood.

Then Marvie appeared again, this time black in the face. Alas for Hettie! Her heart sank.

“Ben Ide, I’ve a bone to pick with you,” he burst out.

“Pick away, you young rooster,” returned Ben, wearily; but he was interested. Marvie had never before bearded the lion in his den.

“Did Dillon tell you a cowboy named Laskin rode in with news about a cattle drive?”

“Sure he did.”

“Ha! That’s what he told Raidy. He’s a damn liar!”

“Marvie, take care! You’re no longer a kid. Would you say that to Dillon’s face?”

“Would I? Huh! I did an’ I cussed him good,” rejoined Marvie, hotly.

“Why did you? Marv, I’m losin’ patience.”

“An, I’m losin’ patience with you, Ben Ide. Listen. I saw that cowboy. He wasn’t no rider named Laskin. He was Cedar Hatt!”

“What?”

“Cedar Hatt, I tell you. I know him.”

“Marvie, you’re not only loco, but you’re ravin’ sore at Dillon. You’ll go too far. Take care.”

“Care, hell!” shouted Marvie, beside himself with rage. “It’s you who’s loco.”

“Marvie Blaine, you’re fired,” replied Ben, curtly. “You can’t ride for me any more.”

Marvie underwent a sudden disastrous change of mood.

“Fired?” he said, poignantly.

“Yes, fired. Now get out of my house an’ go over to Hettie’s till I can decide what to do with you.”

“Aw — Ben!” gasped Marvie.

“Don’t aw — Ben me,” said Ben, furiously. “Get out of here now — you round-eyed, freckle-faced four-flush of a cowboy!”

Marvie started as if he had been lashed.

“Ben Ide, you’ll be sorry for that,” he declared, solemnly, and stamped away.

Ben stared at the erect retreating figure of the lad.

“Marvie, too!” he said, huskily.

Hettie felt something of a sneak herself as she stole away, back to her own cabin and the seclusion of her room. Was she not betraying Ben by withholding facts she alone knew? Yet how impossible to crush him utterly! Jim Lacy was Nevada! She would never have the courage to tell him.

As for herself, the last hope had fled, the last doubt, the last shred of stubborn faith. Nevada was a rustler. He had fallen so low that he could steal from the friend who had once succored him. The thing was so base that Hettie writhed under the shame of her seemingly indestructible love for this impostor Nevada — this fugitive horseman who had won her under another guise — this Jim Lacy, killer and thief. But though everything else seemed dead, hope, faith, interest in life, will to go on fighting, she knew her love survived. It was the very pulse of her heart.

A long hour she lay there on her bed, until collapse and tears came to her relief. And when she again rose to face herself in the mirror she shrank aghast. But there was her mother to live for, and poor blind Ben, who had loved this traitor Nevada, even as she.

Two days went by, with the Ide households under considerable strain of uncertainty.

Raidy and Dillon, with their riders, returned about noon of the third day. The news reached Hettie while she was in the kitchen, with her sleeves rolled up and flour to her elbows, but she did not lose time on account of that.

Ben was somber, nervous, silent, and he paced the living-room, oblivious to the importunities of little Blaine, who toddled here and there, as if he were playing a game.

Presently Raidy entered the open door, sombrero in hand, dusty and unshaven.

“Howdy, boss!” he said in greeting, and bowed quaintly to Hettie and Ina.

“Took you long enough. Where’s Dillon?” replied Ben, gruffly.

“Wal, you know Dillon always leaves the bad reports for me to make.”

“Did he return with you?”

“Not exactly. He left us at daybreak this mornin’ an’ beat us in.”

“Is he here now?”

“Sure. I told him he’d better come along with me. But he said he’d see you later. . . . Boss, Dillon is in purty bad humor. I never seen him like this. He’s another fellar.”

“Drinkin’?” queried Ben, sharply.

“No. He’s just black as thunder an’ sore as a kicked pup.”

“That’d be natural for anyone who had my interests at heart, as Dillon has. But it’s odd he didn’t come to report. . . . Well, out with your bad news.”

Ben squared himself as if for a blow and frowned upon his old foreman.

“I’m sorry, Ben. It couldn’t be no wuss.”

“Oh, Ben!” cried Ina, who had evidently worried more about her husband than the impending loss.

“Reckin you an’ Hettie better leave us alone,” returned Ben.

Neither of the women moved a step, though Ina subsided into a chair. Raidy appeared to have lost his usual taciturnity.

“Boss, you’re rustled off the range. The last of your stock, except some stragglin’ steers an’ yearlin’s, is gone — along with a thousand head of Tom Day’s.”

Ben Ide made a flashing violent gesture, as if to strike. He paled. His eyes shot fire.

“They’ve cleaned me?” he demanded, fiercely, as if still doubting.

“Yes, boss. I made sure, because I wasn’t trustin’ Dillon to give a full report.”

Hettie, standing back of Ina’s chair, felt both hot and cold; and she stared at her brother fearfully, expecting him to break into an ungovernable rage. For Ben had not been himself in weeks, and lately he had been hard to live with. She had reckoned without her host, however, for although Ben turned white to the lips he suddenly became calm and cool. With uncertainty gone he changed radically.

“Ahuh. So your hunch has come true,” he said, almost with sarcasm. “Wal, I reckon you’ll get a lot of satisfaction crowin’ over me an’ Dillon.”

“No, boss, I won’t even say I told you so,” returned Raidy.

“Give me the facts, short an’ sweet,” said Ben.

“Wal, Tom Day an’ his riders were at Silver Meadows when we arrived. A sheepherder had tipped them off to the drive. We split up an’ rode all around the Meadows. Only a few cattle left. Them rustlers made a slick job of it. Day an’ Franklidge lost over a thousand head, an’ you lost all you had left. A matter of three thousand head. We took the trail up the canyon. An’ say, it was a bowlavarde clear to the Rim. . . . I was for trailin’ the rustlers to finish a fight. But Day wouldn’t let any of us go down in that hole. We’d have been ambushed an’ some of us killed. Besides, he said we could never have recovered the cattle. Once turned loose in that jungle of scrub oak, manzanita, an’ cactus, them cattle would have vamoosed like ticks shook off a leaf. So we turned back.”

“You told Tom Day, of course, that Jim Lacy made this drive?” queried Ben.

“Tom knowed all about it from the sheepherder. Seems thet Lacy sent Tom word he was goin’ to make this big steal. Sent his respects to Tom an’ Judge Franklidge an’ said he’d drop in to Winthrop some day.”

“By Heaven! this Lacy is a cool one!” exclaimed Ben, as if admiration was wrenched from him.

“Cool? Wal, boss, you might call Lacy thet, but I reckon he’s a mixture of hell’s fire an’ chain lightnin’!”

“I’ll hang him,” said Ben, with deadly calm.

“No, Ben, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll say you’ll never put a rope around Jim Lacy’s neck. He couldn’t never be jailed, either. He’ll die in his boots, with a gun spoutin’, an’ Gawd help the men frontin’ him!”

“Bah! You talk like Marvie Blaine,” retorted Ben, curtly. “An’ you Raidy — a grown man!”

“Boss, it grieves me thet I’ve lived to disagree with you,” returned Raidy, with dignity.

“This Jim Lacy is the leader of the Pine Tree outfit,” asserted Ben, positively.

“Wal, me an’ Tom Day reckoned so. An’ for once Dillon agreed with us,” replied Raidy. “Tom said Lacy jest got tired of layin’ low an’ bein’ mysterious. So he comes out in the open. I’ll bet you he’ll ride right into Winthrop.”

“Raidy, I’m glad Lacy cleaned me out. I’m through waitin’ around to see what’s goin’ to happen next. I’ve sent for Sheriff Macklin an’ a posse. This mornin’ I got word from Struthers, the Phoenix sheriff who’s made it so hot for rustlers in southern Arizona. Struthers is in Winthrop at my request. They’ll arrive here not later than to-morrow. I’ll have Dillon get twenty-five of the hardest men he can gather. I’ll offer ten thousand dollars reward for Jim Lacy, dead or alive. I’ll spend every dollar I have to run down Lacy an’ his Pine Tree gang.”

“Wal, boss, you’re talkin’ high, wide, an’ handsome,” replied Raidy. “But it’s not for me to offer opinions. This ranch — an’ for that matter, this whole range — ain’t big enough for me an’ your man Dillon. I jest have to quit.”

“Very well, Raidy. I’m sorry you see it that way,” returned Ben, coldly, and with a wave of his hand terminated the interview.

Hettie fled. As she ran out she heard Ina deliver a stinging rebuke to her husband. Then a door slammed. Hettie hurried home in a state of mind bordering on a breakdown. She finished her work in a mechanical way, while slow torment consumed her.

“What’s all the row over at Ben’s?” her mother inquired, placidly, from her comfortable chair.

“Rustlers, cattle, foremen, sheriffs, and Heaven only knows what,” replied Hettie, distractedly.

“Well, daughter, don’t be upset. You know Ben.”

“I thought I did, mother. But I’m doubtful about it now. He fired Raidy.”

“No! Why, that’s dreadful! Raidy taught Ben how to ride a horse. Oh, this dreadful Arizona! . . . But I don’t mean that, Hettie. I love this quiet, sweet wild country. The men, though — they’re — they’re loco, as Marvie says. And Ben has got it, too?”

“Mother, have you seen Marvie to-day?” asked Hettie, suddenly remembering that she had not.

“Marvie went away yesterday and hasn’t come back. At least he didn’t sleep in his bed.”

“Oh dear! That wild boy! Here’s more to — to worry over. . . . Mother, I didn’t tell you that the reason Marvie came to us is because Ben discharged him — drove him out of the house.”

“Reckon we’ll have Ina next,” said her mother.

“I — I wouldn’t be surprised at anything,” returned Hettie, tearfully.

Hettie went to her room, with the motive of indulging her grief. But sight of her riding-boots acted powerfully upon her and she decided to take a ride. Not for days had she been on her horse. Perhaps a long hard gallop would be good for her; and moreover, she might meet Marvie on the trail. Could something have happened to him? It might very well have, Hettie concluded, with a tremor. He and Rose might have been discovered by that Cedar Hatt, of whom Rose had such great fear. The very air round the Ide ranch seemed congested, heavy, sultry, ominous with menace.

Hettie passed the quarters of the riders at some distance, not caring to be accosted by Dillon or Raidy. She saw some saddled horses, dusty and tired, that had evidently just come in. There were a number of men bunched in a circle, conversing so earnestly that none espied her. Gaining the stables, she found Pedro and had him saddle her horse. Soon she was riding fast with the wind in her face.

But neither a gallop nor a run sufficed to change Hettie’s mood. She rode into the woods, and let her horse walk at will down the shady trail in the direction from which Marvie always returned.

And here, alone, under the impelling influence of the forest, Hettie realized that she was a most miserable and heartbroken girl, with a terrible sword hanging over her head. How hopeless her situation! What use to think? There was not a thought nor an action that could help her in her extremity. Courage and intelligence had gone with the loss of hope.

A purple haze like smoke hung in the aisles of the forest; the only sound was the faintest of breezes murmuring in the pines; the thickets were on fire with golden and scarlet flame of autumn leaves; the westering sun caught the glint of falling leaf and pine needle.

Nature seemed so pitiless this day. It went on, calm, sweet, beautiful, inscrutable, unmindful of the poor little lives of human beings. Hettie could not derive any solace, any strength, from either forest or range or desert.

Arizona had killed her dream, as it had ruined her brother. And the horror of Hettie’s state seemed that the climax of this infernal paradox, the dénouement, the worst, had yet to come.

Suddenly she caught the rhythmic beat of swift hoofs ahead round a green curve of the trail. That must be Marvie’s horse. A rush of relief swept over her. The pine boughs spread. A big black horse was upon her before she could pull a rein. She cried out. But the rider hauled back to his haunches, and that rider was Nevada.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HETTIE CLUTCHED THE pommel of her saddle. An awful stunning shock suspended, for an instant, all her faculties, and every sensibility except the physical animal instinct of holding her equilibrium. Then emotion burst the dam.

When Nevada’s horse plunged up, his head came abreast Hettie’s horse.

“You!” Hettie felt the word leave her stiff lips, but she heard it only as a whisper.

Nevada swept off his sombrero and bowed low to the mane of his horse. And as he rose erect he remained bareheaded.

“Wal, shore it’s Hettie Ide,” he drawled, in the cool, leisurely, Southern accent that cut into her heart like blades.

Then they gazed at one another, as if sight was trying to reconcile the face of dreams with the reality. The face Hettie looked into had the same lean outline, the dark blue-black shade of beard against the clear brown tan, the intent light hazel-flecked eyes, like level piercing points. But it did not have the soul with which her imagination and memory had invested it.

“I — saw you — in Winthrop,” began Hettie, as if to find relief from oppression. Silence was impossible.

“Shore. I reckoned you might,” he replied. As he spoke he rolled a cigarette with steady fingers. No surprise, no emotion that Hettie could read, manifested itself in look or manner. “Too bad you had to run into me heah!”

“Too bad! . . . It’s terrible. But I’m glad,” exclaimed Hettie, quivering, shaking all over.

“Thank you, an’ I’m shore sorry I cain’t return the compliment,” he said, and bent his head to light the cigarette.

His cool nonchalance, that she remembered so poignantly, seemed now to inflame her.

“Jim Lacy!” she cried, in scornful, sad haste to acquaint him with her knowledge of his infamy.

He thrust his sombrero on, tilted back, and as he blew a thin column of smoke upward his penetrating, inscrutable eyes studied her face.

“Why didn’t you trust me? Oh, why?” she went on, slipping farther toward an emotional outbreak.

“Hettie, there was a time, long ago, when I’d rather have been daid than let you know I was Jim Lacy.”

“You were ashamed?”

“I shore was.”

“Long ago, you said. . . . Then you’re not ashamed now?”

“Wal, it cain’t matter now,” he rejoined, with a gleam of a smile.

“Why can’t it matter now?” she queried.

He made an expressive gesture, and then gazed down through the open forest to the colorful desert. His horse rubbed noses with Hettie’s, and gradually backed it across the trail.

“Ben doesn’t dream his — his old friend Nevada is you — the notorious Jim Lacy.”

“I reckon not. . . . Too bad he’s got to find out pretty soon!”

“Must Ben — find out?” asked Hettie, huskily. Thought of Ben augmented her weakness.

Nevada dropped his head. His horse, nosing Hettie’s, brought Nevada closer to her, so that she might have touched him. This proximity bore upon her with incalculable influence. She pulled her horse aside, to no avail, for the big black followed with eager whinny. His rider did not seem to be aware of this proceeding, or of the proximity that again ensued.

“How can you be so cool — so hatefully cool?” burst out Hettie, “Ben loved you. I — I . . . What did he care who you were? Why didn’t you always stay Nevada? . . . Ben left no stone unturned to locate you. Failing that, he came to Arizona because he hoped you might turn up. . . . You have turned up. But as Jim Lacy — as a rustler who stole from him. Stole from a friend you once saved and succored and loved! Did you know those cattle were Ben’s?”

“Shore — I did,” replied Nevada, showing a faint pallor.

“Oh, it was a terrible thing to do!” cried Hettie, covering her face with her hands. “Your pard? It will cut him to the quick — embitter him forever. . . . And it’ll kill me!”

His silence, his imperturbability in its unnaturalness roused her to a sudden furious passion that burned away her tears and waved her face scarlet.

“Wal, you’re a mighty healthy lady after so many years of dyin’,” he drawled, tossing away his half-smoked cigarette. “Hettie, you always was pretty, but you’ve grown into a plumb handsome woman. . . . Reckon the cowboys are sweeter’n ever on you.”

“That must have meant a lot to you,” she flashed, breathing hard.

“Dillon, now. He was.”

“Yes. He has made love to me. Begged me to marry him,” returned Hettie, in fiery flippancy, hoping with a woman’s strange coquetry to make him jealous.

“Wal, you don’t say. He’s shore a handsome hombre. Devil with the women, I heah. . . . Why don’t you marry him?”

“I — may yet,” replied Hettie, somberly. He baffled her. In his cool, inscrutable presence she felt like a child. And a deep unplumbed emotion seemed to swell at the gates of her self-control.

“Hettie, if you do you’ll be changin’ your mind considerable from what it was that night at the dance in Winthrop.”

“What do you know about that?” she queried, wonderingly.

“Wal, I happened to heah you tell Dillon a few things, an’ I seen him try to get you in his arms.”

“You! You were there?”

“Shore. An’ after you flounced off I introduced myself to Dillon an’ most polite invited him to draw. But he didn’t have the nerve, so I took a punch at his handsome face.”

“You struck Dillon on my behalf!” murmured Hettie softening.

“Wal, yes, partly. But I had it in for him before. . . . By the way, is he at the ranch?”

“Yes. I saw him at the corrals as I came out.”

“Good! I’m shore a lucky hombre — since I took up with Jim Lacy again.”

“You were going to our ranch?” queried Hettie, quickly.

“I am goin’, Miss Hettie Ide.”

“What — for?”

“Wal, reckon my prime reason is to shoot out one of Dillon’s handsome eyes. But I’ve another—”

“Oh! . . . You’ve something against Dillon?”

“Huh! I should rather smile I have, Hettie.”

“You’ll — you’ll kill him?”

Nevada’s flashing eye and sweeping gesture were the first indications of passion he had evinced.

“Reckon if you hadn’t held me up heah he’d be daid now. An’ that stands for me, too.”

“Ah! Then Dillon is — a — a dangerous man — as you—”

“Hettie, he’s a bad hombre. Come from New Mexico. Name is Ed Richardson, once with the Billy the Kid outfit. . . . I’ll kill him, shore, but he might return the compliment.”

“You — you bloody gunman!” returned Hettie, as if those few words expressed her infinite amaze and contempt for men who lived by such a creed.

“Hettie, if he does kill me you can tell Ben the truth, then come an’ smooth back my hair an’ wipe my bloody face. Ha! Ha!” he said, in bitter mockery.

“Hush!” Hettie reined her horse closer, so that her stirrup locked with Nevada’s. “Do not do this terrible deed. For Ben’s sake, if not mine. Be big enough to abandon your blood feud. Give up this outlaw, rustler, gunman life. . . . Take me away with you to some far country. I have money. You can start anew. I will cleave to you — live for you.”

“For Gawd’s sake, Hettie Ide, are you crazy?” he returned, stridently.

“Not yet. But I will be soon — if this — goes on,” she panted, and slipped her gloved hand to his shoulder. “Nevada, I — I still love you. I’ve always loved you. . . . I forgive all. I surrender all. I don’t care who you are — what you’ve been. All I ask is that you save Ben the horror so near — that you take me away and give up this life. . . . We can plan quickly. I will meet you at some point on the railroad. . . . Say you will.”

“No,” he said, hoarsely.

“Nevada! . . . Don’t you love me — still?” And she leaned to him, overcome, betraying all her woman’s soul of love, and hope for him, for Ben, for herself.

“Love you? Ha! Ha!”

“Don’t stare. Don’t laugh. This means life or death to me. Say you love me. Say you’ll take me.”

“Yes, I love you, mad woman. But I cain’t accept your sacrifice. I cain’t ruin you. . . . Good Gawd! Hettie, you forget I’m Jim Lacy!”

“It’s because you are Jim Lacy.”

“Heavens! This heah is awful! . . . Hettie, I cain’t — I won’t.”

“You lie, then. You do not love me. I am proving mine. But you — you are false. You have taken some — other woman. You don’t love me!”

Hettie, dim of eye, saw him loom over her. She felt herself seized in iron arms and dragged from her horse. Then she was lifted over the pommel and crushed to his breast, and bent backward, blind and breathless, a victim of terrible devouring lips. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, her brow, her hair, and then again her mouth.

Hettie’s senses reeled and almost failed her. When his violence ceased she felt herself held closely for a long moment, then let down from the horse until her feet touched the ground. She was falling when he leaped from the saddle. He set her on the grass with her back against a tree, and there, presently, her eyes opened.

Nevada knelt before her, his face convulsed. Slowly it smoothed out and a wild darkness faded from his eyes.

“There. You’ve come to. I reckon I must ask you to excuse me for bein’ rough. But I shore couldn’t stand that talk aboot not lovin’ you.”

“I will not believe — unless you prove it,” returned Hettie, unsteadily, as she reached for her sombrero.

Nevada rose to his feet. “I cain’t prove it your way,” he replied, and his features set stone-cold and gray.

“Oh, what have you done to me?” cried Hettie, wildly, as again passion rose strong and regained the ascendancy over her.

“Reckon nothin’ compared to what you’ve done to me,” he responded, with somber gaze upon her. “Dillon will just aboot beat me to a gun.”

Hettie stood up, holding to the tree trunk. “Nothing. . . . I’ve loved you since I first met you. I’ve been true. I trusted you. I cared not for your past. I believed in your future. I prayed for you. My faith in you was as great as my faith in God. I believed you loved me. That when you rode away from Forlorn River — to escape the consequences — when you killed Less Setter to save Ben — I believed you would be true to me, to the higher self you found through Ben’s love and mine. . . . But you were too little. You went back to the old life — to the old comrades. Rustlers, gamblers, gunmen! You killed just because you wanted to keep that name hated and feared. You are a bloody monster. . . . No doubt you sank to the embrace of vile women — the consorts of thieves! O my God! it would be my death if I could not kill my love. But I will. It will lie dead as my faith. . . . You are a liar, a failure, a weakling. Basest of all is your ingratitude. You stole from my brother — who loved you.”

Nevada’s eyes held a blaze like black lightning.

“Reckon that’ll be aboot all I want to heah,” he said, in tones she had never heard before.

“That is — all.”

He gathered up the reins and vaulted into the saddle, then turned to gaze down the trail.

“Horses comin’,” he said, briefly. “It’s Marvie with his girl, Rose Hatt.”

“Yes, I see,” returned Hettie, with a start. “Oh, I’m glad.”

“Wal, Miss Hettie Ide,” he said, “you might heah somethin’ from Marvie an’ Rose. Anyway, don’t rustle back home too quick.”

Her lips framed a query she could not speak.

“It’s aboot sunset,” he went on, with strange gaze upon the west. “Sunset for Dillon! An’ shore sunset for me!”

Then he spurred the big black, and clattering into the trail soon vanished from sight toward the ranch.

CHAPTER TWENTY

NEVADA APPROACHED THE Ide ranch from that side closest to the forest, where the pines and cedars trooped down the gentle slopes of the benches, clear to the most outwardly of the cattle sheds.

With his brain on fire and his heart like lead, his whole being crushed under the burning weight of Hettie’s outspoken love and terrible scorn, he halted under cover of the last clump of cedars, and dismounted, answering to an instinct, true even in that hour of utter catastrophe, to the instinct which had preserved him so long as Jim Lacy. Not now, however, was it an instinct of self-preservation, but one to meet and kill Ed Richardson, alias Campbell, alias Clan Dillon, late member of the few surviving Lincoln County war desperadoes.

Wedging this purpose into his stunned brain, Nevada kept driving it deeper, while he removed saddle and bridle from his horse and turned it free. He would have no more need of a horse. Then he crouched in the cedars, under tremendous strain, driving himself to the exclusion of all thought, of all emotion, of all faculties except those few cardinally important for the issue at hand.

When he emerged from under cover of the cedars he might have been an automaton, with guidance of some grim-strung spirit.

He glided behind brush to the sage and through this to the pole fence. It led to the back of log cabins, which he marked as the bunkhouses. The sunset hour was near. Silver-edged purple clouds hung over the soft rounded foothills. Soon the sun would sink from behind the broken mass of cloud and slide down into that golden space behind the ranges. Cowboys, riders, range hands, foreman, all would be waiting the call to supper. The day had been hot. Just now, with the first cool breeze breathing down from the hill, all the men would be outdoors.

There was a fate in many meetings of life, and singularly in all those that involved Jim Lacy.

He swept his magnified gaze to the left, over pasture and field, which were open to his sight. A few horses and colts, cows and calves, a burro, and some black pigs dotted the gray-green pastures and the brown fields. No rider in sight!

Nevada stole swiftly along the fence to the first high corral. It contained a number of horses, with saddles and packs stacked in a corner. He would have to cross this corral, and go through the others, to reach the rear of the bunkhouses. Climbing to the top log of the high fence, he peeped over. No man in sight! He climbed and ran and climbed and ran, quickly gaining the open gate of the last corral. The two small log cabins and the long one stood across the open space, with barns to the left and courtyard on the right, leading up to the Ide homes in the edge of the forest.

A Mexican boy appeared leading horses to a watering-trough; a rider came trotting down the long lane between the fields; some one was driving cows in from the pasture. From behind the cabins came the loud rollicking laughter of cowboys.

Nevada did not hesitate a moment. Leisurely he strode from the corral toward the long cabin, making for the nearest end, where cords of firewood were stacked high. That end, where blue smoke curled from a stone chimney, would be the kitchen. There would be a porch on the other side.

Nevada gained the woodpiles. They had been stacked, seemingly, to furnish him perfect passageway and perfect cover, for the fruition of this long-planned moment. It never crossed his mind that Dillon might not be there. Dillon would be there. For the men who had wronged Jim Lacy or incurred his enmity there existed a fatality which operated infallibly. Or else Lacy never made a mistake. It was something that he felt.

He glided between the high stacks of wood. Before he peeped out he saw horsemen riding down the dusty road which wound away to the north and Winthrop. Then Nevada put his eye to an aperture between two billets of cedar that protruded from the stack.

A dozen or more men lounged and sat and stood in plain sight. Cowboys in shirt sleeves, faces shiny and red, hair glossed and wet, sat on the ground, backs to the cabin. Nevada recognized Macklin, the Winthrop sheriff, leaning against the hitching rail, in conversation with two other men, not garbed as riders. Facing Nevada was a tall man in black and he had a bright badge on his vest. He was another sheriff, a stranger to Nevada.

“We sure want to get off by sunup,” he was saying to a man near him.

This man stood with his back toward Nevada. His powerful supple shoulders showed wonderfully through his white clean shirt. Nevada recognized that lithe stalwart build, the leonine neck, the handsome head, with its clustering fair hair.

Dillon! A slight cold thrill ran over Nevada. Following it came an instinct like that of a tiger to leap.

Nevada swiftly ran his glance over the other men, standing near and in the background. Ben Ide was not present!

Then Nevada drew back behind the woodpile, loosened his gun in its sheath, and stood there an instant while the waiting forces of brain and muscle vibrated into a tremendous unity.

“Come an’ get it,” sang out the cheery voice of the cook inside.

“Whoopee! Whoaboy,” shouted the cowboys, scrambling up.

At this instant Nevada bounded out swiftly and ran to a halt.

“HOLD ON!” he yelled, with all the power of his lungs. His piercing voice made statues of all, even the cowboys stiffening in half-erect postures.

In the instant of silence that ensued Dillon was the only man to move and he wheeled swift as a flash, so swiftly that the receding trace of mirth had not yet left his handsome face.

“Howdy, Dillon!” drawled Nevada, slow and cool.

Macklin shuffled erect in great alarm.

“That’s Jim Lacy,” he shouted, hoarsely.

“Shore is. Careful now, you outsiders!” warned Nevada, yet with eye only for Dillon.

Every man in line with Dillon plunged off the porch or darted into the cabin. The cowboys sank back to the ground, sagging against the log wall.

Dillon stood on the porch, facing Nevada, scarcely thirty feet distant. His reaction from careless mirth to recognition of peril was as swift as his sight. But there followed the instant when his faculties had to grasp what that peril was and how he should meet it.

Nevada had gambled on this instant. It was his advantage. He did not underrate Dillon. He read his mind in those dilating eyes.

“Wal, you know me,” cut out Nevada, icily. “An’ I know you — Dillon — Campbell! — ED RICHARDSON!”

That was the paralyzing challenge. The rustler turned a ghastly white. The frontier’s bloody creed, by which he had lived, called him to his death. His green eyes set balefully. He knew. He showed his training. He had no more fear of death than of the swallows flitting under the eaves above. But he had a magnificent and desperate courage to take his enemy with him.

Richardson never uttered a word. Almost imperceptibly his body lowered as if under instinct to crouch. His stiff bent right arm began to quiver.

Nevada saw the thought in Richardson’s eyes — the birth of the message to nerve and muscle. When his hand flashed down Nevada was drawing.

Crash! Nevada’s shot did not beat Richardson’s draw, but it broke his aim. Boom! The rustler’s gun went off half leveled. He lurched with terrible violence and his gun boomed again. The bullet scattered the gravel at Nevada’s feet and spanged away into the air.

A wide red spot appeared as if by magic on the middle of Richardson’s white shirt. How terrible to see him strain to raise his gun-arm!

At Nevada’s second shot one of Richardson’s awful eyes went blank. His gun clattered to the floor. He swayed. His arm hooked round the porch post. Then it sank limp, letting him fall with sodden thud.

Nevada was the first to withdraw his gaze from that twitching body. He flipped his gun into the air and caught it by the barrel.

“Heah, sir,” he said to the sheriff with the star on his vest, and extended the gun butt foremost. “I reckon that’ll be aboot all for Jim Lacy.”

The strain on the watchers relaxed. A murmur of wonder ran through them, growing louder. The sheriff came to a power of movement and speech.

“What? Lacy, are you handin’ — over your gun?” he queried, hoarsely.

“Wal, I’m not pointin’ the right end of it at you,” replied Nevada, and tossed the gun at the sheriff’s feet.

“What — the hell?” gasped a weather-beaten old rider, Raidy, staring hard at Nevada.

Here Macklin came rushing up, to get between Nevada and the other sheriff.

“Jim Lacy, you’re my prisoner,” yelled Macklin, beside himself with the strange opportunity presented and a terror of the enormity of his risk. He drew his gun. “Hands up.”

“Shoot an’ be damned, you four-flush officer of the law,” retorted Nevada, wearily, and turning his back to Macklin he strode to a seat on the porch steps.

“Run for the boss,” shouted Raidy to the cowboys. “Tell him there’s hell come off. Fetch him an’ Judge Franklidge.”

“Hyar comes Tom Day with his outfit,” yelled a cowboy, excitedly, pointing to the horsemen entering the square. “The whole range’s hyar. Haw! Haw!”

Nevada experienced a weariness of soul and body. It was over. He did not care what happened.

“Say, give me a smoke — one of you punchers,” he said, removing his sombrero to wipe his clammy brow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MARVIE BLAINE CAME swinging down the trail at a gallop, with Rose Hatt riding close behind.

Eager excitement lent Hettie the strength to mount her horse. Nevada’s strange eyes and words! What might not Marvie and Rose have to tell her?

“Hey there, Hettie!” shouted Marvie, when still some rods distant. “Look who’s comin’ behind.”

Hettie complied, with emotions changing, rising again in a flood, new, bewildering, looming darkly to threaten her with panic. Marvie rode right upon her before halting.

“Say, you look like the devil!” he ejaculated, with anxious concern.

“Marv, that’s the way I feel,” replied Hettie.

Rose joined them, to crowd her pony close, eager yet shy, with eyes alight and lips parted. “Oh, Miss Hettie!” she cried, rapturously. “Marvie’s brought me to you. I — I’ll never go back — to the brakes.”

“My dear, you’re welcome to my home,” returned Hettie, warmly, leaning to kiss the flushed face.

“Hettie, you’ve seen a ghost — the same ghost I seen,” declared Marvie, shrewdly.

“Oh, Marvie lad — a ghost indeed!” moaned Hettie. “Nevada! . . . He just left me — to — to kill Dillon!”

“No news to me,” shouted Marvie, fiercely. “I’ve got to see that. . . . Fetch Rose. But go round. Keep away from the corrals.”

The last he delivered over his shoulder as he urged his horse into the trail and beat him into a run. In a moment he passed out of sight among the pines. The swift patter of hoofs died away.

“Come, Rose — ride,” suddenly cried Hettie, with a start, striking her horse.

The spirited animal, unused to that, broke into a gallop, and then a run. Hettie looked back. The girl was close behind, her hair flying in the wind, her face flashing. Her pony was fast and she could ride. Hettie turned her attention to the trail and the low branches of pines and the obstructing brush. Soon she was flying at a tremendous gait through the forest. The speed, the violence added to her agitation.

Where the trail emerged from the pines, to drop down on the sage and cedar slope adjacent to the ranch land, Hettie turned her horse and kept to the top of the slope. Soon she passed Nevada’s big black horse grazing on the sage. Her heart took a great bursting leap. “An’ shore sunset for me!” Nevada’s words of resignation and sadness rang in her ears like bells of doom.

Suddenly she imagined she heard a shot. She turned her ear to the left. Another! A gun-shot — then two sharp cracks, clear on the breeze. She reeled in her saddle. Almost she put her horse at the ranch fence. But she kept on in wild flight, forgetting Rose, clutching with left hand at her breast, where uncertainty augmented to supreme agony.

Her fast horse, keen at the freedom afforded him, swept on as in a race, on by the corrals and gardens, up over the low bench, and through the woods to her cabin, where her mother stood waving frantically from the porch. Hettie rode on, over the swaying bridge, into the shady green glade before Ben’s house.

Here she pulled her iron-jawed horse to a snorting halt. She saw men running. She heard Rose’s pony come clattering over the bridge. Then Marvie’s horse appeared over the rise of ground toward the corral. What breakneck speed! How he thundered up the drive!

One sight of Marvie’s flashing face answered Hettie. She could have screamed in her frenzy. Marvie reached her at the moment Rose came up. His horse reared and pounded. Marvie jerked him down with powerful arm, and closed with Hettie.

“Nevada’s down there — handcuffed!” he whispered, pantingly. “Dillon’s dead! . . . Oh, there’ll be — hell now! . . . But not a word from — you an’ Rose!”

The boy’s heated face, the horses, Rose so white and rapt, the running riders, the houses and the pines — all blurred in Hettie’s sight. She had to fight fiercely to recover. She felt the girl’s strong hand on her, steadying her in the saddle. The deadly faintness passed. Her eyes cleared and her breast lifted to give rein to a tumult there.

Ben and Judge Franklidge were striding out to meet the running cowboys.

“Judge, I told you I heard shots,” Ben was saying. “Somethin’s happened!”

“Seems like. But don’t let it upset you,” replied the judge.

“There’s Marvie. . . . Has he gone loco?” exclaimed Ben, in amaze, as the boy, riding wildly, scattered the men coming up the slope.

“By thunder! Ben,” replied Franklidge, suddenly espying Hettie and Rose, as they rode in upon the lawn.

At that juncture the first cowboys reached Ben to blurt out:

“Boss, Jim Lacy’s here! He just killed Dillon.”

“Wha — at?” shouted Ben, incredulously.

As the cowboy repeated his news Raidy arrived at the head of three more of Ben’s hands, and all began to jabber pantingly.

“One at a time,” ordered Ben, harshly. “What the hell’s wrong? Raidy!”

The old foreman drew himself up steadily, though with heaving breast.

“Boss, I have to report — Dillon’s been killed — Jim Lacy!”

Ben Ide leaped straight up in sudden ungovernable fury. His face turned dusk red. He clenched his fists high above his head.

“On my own place?” he thundered.

“Yes, sir. Right on the cook-house porch.”

“Dillon dead?”

“He is indeed, sir,” replied Raidy. “Lacy shot him through the middle — then put out his right eye.”

“Murder!” gasped Ben.

“Not much! . . . It was an even break. Lacy dropped out of the clouds, seems like. Dillon was game, sir, an’ quick — but not quick enough.”

“Killed! My best man,” rasped out Ben, stridently. “Where’s this Jim Lacy?”

“He’s sittin’ on the cook-house porch,” replied Raidy. “Handcuffed, sir. . . . The sheriffs put him in irons.”

Ben cracked a hard fist into his palm. “They got him, then. . . . Judge Franklidge, I knew we’d land that gunman-rustler.”

“Ide, it’s a little embarrassing to know what to do with this — this Jim Lacy — now we’ve got him,” replied the judge, dryly.

“Damn him! I’ll show you.”

“An’, boss,” interrupted Raidy, “Tom Day has rid in with his outfit. They wanted to lynch Lacy. But Tom roared at them like a mad bull. Reckon you’d better hurry down.”

Ina came running from the house. “Ben, what — in the — world’s happened?” she asked, in alarm.

“Ina, it’s all over, so don’t get scared,” returned Ben. “Dillon has been shot by that bloody devil, Jim Lacy. Why, the man must be insane! Comin’ here to carry out his queer feud! Right at my back door!”

“Dillon? Is — is he dead?” asked Ina, fearfully.

“Yes, ma’am,” interposed Raidy, touching his sombrero.

“Oh, how dreadful!” Then Ina caught sight of Hettie and Rose. She ran to them. “Hettie, isn’t it awful? That Dillon! I wonder. . . . You look sort of wild, Hettie. Who’s this girl with you?”

“Rose Hatt. Marvie’s friend,” replied Hettie, bending down. “Oh, Ina, I’ve—”

Ben, striding away with his men, turned to call out, “Ina, stay back, an’ keep those girls with you!”

“But why can’t I come, too?” burst out Ina.

“No place for women,” he returned, curtly. “There’s one dead man now an’ soon there’ll be another.”

Ina halted with a revulsion of feeling too strong for curiosity.

“Hettie, we mustn’t go,” she said.

“Listen, old girl. Chucks for Ben Ide. There’s not enough men in Arizona to keep me away,” declared Hettie, wildly. Then she bent down over Ina to whisper. “Jim Lacy is Nevada!”

Ina put a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Then she gasped, “No!”

“Yes! I’ve known it for long. And I met him today. . . . O God! . . . But I — I can’t talk now. Come.”

Hettie, with Rose on her left, rode at the heels of the striding men. Ina ran beside Hettie, clinging to the stirrup, looking up now and then with dark bright eyes.

They traversed the short lane to enter the wide square, on the other side of which stood the quarters of the ranch hands. There were ten or more saddle horses standing bridles down. Hettie’s startled sight included a dark group of men massed in front of the cook-house. There! Nevada must be there — soon to be confronted by Ben. How terrible for Ben — for both of them! Hettie’s state became one of palpitating suspense, of nerve-racking torture. Yet an overwhelming, incomprehensible curiosity consumed her.

They reached the crowd of cowboys and men strange to Hettie, some of whom faced around.

“Open up here,” shouted Ben, in a loud hard voice. “Spread out. . . . Let me see this man.”

The crowd split in a hurry, leaving a wide V-shaped space, at the apex of which sat the prisoner on the edge of the porch. The dead man lay on the ground, covered with a blanket.

Hettie recognized Nevada, though his head was bowed and his sombrero hid his face. His hands, in irons, hung over his knees. What a strange, pathetic figure! Hettie’s sore heart failed her. What mystery was here? The moment seemed charged with indefinable and profound portent.

Macklin, the Winthrop sheriff, beaming and bristling with his importance, advanced a stride, with pompous gesture.

“Wal, Mr. Ide, here’s your man. I’ve got him in irons,” he boomed.

Ben advanced, his gaze passing from the dead man on the ground to the slumping prisoner.

“Jim Lacy,” he called, sternly.

There was no movement from Nevada, except that he seemed to contract. Nobody else stirred. The air was fraught with tragic suggestion, with inscrutable meaning that yet transfixed the onlookers.

“Lacy, I’m goin’ to hang you!” rang out Ben Ide.

Still no response from this notorious gunman, whose daring, whose cold nerve, had long been a subject for campfire gossip.

“Stand up. Let me look at you,” ordered Ben, suddenly.

With a violent wrench the prisoner jerked out of his dejected posture, to slip off the porch and stand erect. He ducked his head, removing the sombrero, which fell to the ground. Composed and pale then he faced his judge.

Ben Ide seemed struck by lightning.

“My God! . . . Who — is this — man?” he faltered, almost inaudibly.

There was no answer. The crowd of onlookers gazed spellbound.

“Who are you?”

“Wal, Ben, I’m shore sorry we met this heah way,” came the reply, in the old slow cool accents. “But I reckon it had to be.”

“NEVADA!”

With the hoarse wondering cry, Ben leaped forward to clasp his old friend in a close embrace and hold him so a long moment.

Hettie saw Ben’s face in convulsion, his eyes shut tight, his expression one to bewilder the staring bystanders. To her it was beautiful and somehow soul-satisfying. Her eyes were dim, her heart pounding.

“My old pard! Found at last! . . . Thank God! — I feared you were dead. . . . All these long years! But I hoped an’ prayed. . . . An’ here you are. It’s too good to be true. I reckon it’s a dream. Say somethin’ to me — you old wild-horse-huntin’ pard. Nevada!”

Ben held him back, hands on his shoulders, oblivious to all but that lean stone-gray face.

“Yes, Ben . . . Nevada to you — but to all the world — only Jim Lacy,” replied Nevada, sadly.

“What?” cried Ben, with a violent start. Then his nervous quick hands ran down to Nevada’s irons. “God Almighty! . . . You Jim Lacy?”

“Yes, to my shame — pard.”

Ben’s transition to reality was swift and passionate. Suddenly white, with blazing eyes, he tore at Nevada’s handcuffs. “I don’t care a damn who you were. You’re Nevada to me — my friend — my pard. An’ so you’ll be forever.”

“Wal, Ben — it’s shore good to heah you,” replied Nevada, his voice trailing off.

“Macklin, unlock these irons,” ordered Ben.

“What? . . . But, Mr. Ide — he’s my prisoner!” protested the sheriff, aghast. “He’s wanted for rustlin’. He killed your foreman. The law—”

“To hell with your law!” interrupted Ben, fiercely. “Unlock his irons!”

“You hired us to ketch this man!”

“Quick. Before I throw my gun on you!”

His hand went to his hip. The crowd stirred with restless feet and whispered exclamation. Tom Day stepped out to get between Macklin and Ben.

“Easy now, Ben. Let old Tom have a word,” he said, in his big voice, now full and resonant. “We’ve had enough gun-play for one day. . . . Macklin, give me the keys to these irons.”

The sheriff, red of face, flustered and intimidated, complied with poor grace. Day unlocked the irons, removed them, and somewhat with contempt cast them at Macklin’s feet.

Nevada rubbed his wrists and then looked up to smile at Day.

“Put her thar, Texas Jack,” boomed the old rancher, with a wonderful smile wreathing his rugged face. “We’re shore from the old Lone Star State. Let me be the first to shake the good right hand thet did for Dillon.”

“Wal, Tom, shore you needn’t rub it in,” drawled Nevada, as he yielded to the vigorous onslaught of the older man.

“Come heah, Franklidge,” called Day, beckoning to the judge. “I reckon it’s aboot time.”

Ben Ide stood motionless, his jaw dropping, his eyes expressive of an incredulous wonder that he could not voice. His feeling was surely shared by others there. As for Hettie, she seemed to feel her blood and brain whirl madly. Texas Jack! That warm, splendid smile of the old rancher! Judge Franklidge moving forward with dignified step and grave, kindly face!

But the other black-garbed sheriff intercepted him.

“Mr. Ide, these are sure most extraordinary proceedings,” he said, authoritatively.

“Hell, yes!” burst out Ben. “But it’s an extraordinary case.”

“The law must take its course. Even if this Jim Lacy was an old pard of yours, he’s now a criminal. Reckon his gun-play was always on the level. But he’s a cattle an’ hoss thief. We set out to hang the leader of this Pine Tree rustler outfit. Sure Lacy is him. His killin’ of Dillon proves that. If this is no hangin’ case, it sure is one for jail.”

“Struthers, I hired you to come up here,” returned Ben, deliberately. “I admit I wanted Jim Lacy shot or hanged. But I’ve changed my mind. He’s my friend. I owe my life, my fortune, my family, all to him. There’s some mystery — some mistake here. That’s for me to learn, an’ not for you.”

“All right. But I’ll take Lacy to Phoenix for trial,” replied Struthers.

“If you do, it’ll be over my dead body. Take care, Struthers. This isn’t Phoenix. You’re up in the brakes.”

Thus Ben Ide answered to his few months in Arizona. The situation looked grave again. But Judge Franklidge interposed to push Struthers back.

“You have no jurisdiction here unless I give it,” he said. Then he turned to Ben with courtly kindness. “My son, don’t distress yourself further. Just have a little patience.”

“Patience!” ejaculated Ben, as if he had not heard aright

Judge Franklidge advanced to place his left hand on Nevada’s shoulder and extended his right, which Nevada quickly met.

“Jack, you may be from Texas, as old Tom here brags, but you sure belong to Arizona,” he said, heartily.

“Wal, I should smile,” corroborated Day, heartily.

Judge Franklidge turned to indicate in slight gesture the dead man on the ground.

“Dillon, of course, was the leader of this Pine Tree rustler gang,” he asserted. “Otherwise you would not have risked revealing yourself here?”

“Wal, reckon I wouldn’t,” replied Nevada, with a smile that held no mirth.

“Dillon!” boomed Tom Day, his eyes rolling at the dead man. “Who was he, Jack?”

“Ed Richardson, late of New Mexico.”

“Richardson? I know aboot him. Lincoln County war hombre? Billy the Kid outfit?”

“That’s the man, Tom.”

“Wal, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated the old rancher. “I begin to see light. Dillon was thick with Stewart. An’ Stewart never worked the same for me after Dillon became foreman heah at Ben’s. This mawnin’ he was gone. An’ he knowed where we was bound for. . . . Jack, what you make of thet?”

“Stewart was one of the three Arizonians that Richardson took into his New Mexican outfit.”

“Ahuh! Who’s the other two?”

“Burt Stillwell an’ Cedar Hatt.”

“Stillwell! . . . Jack, didn’t you — meet thet hombre just lately?” queried Day, his eyes glinting.

“Yes. It was Stillwell who stole Ben’s horse, California Red. I made him send Red back. Reckon that r’iled Stillwell. . . . An’ Marvie Blaine shot Cedar Hatt to-day. So the Pine Tree outfit is shore broke.”

Ben Ide, in bewildered state, crowded closer to the speakers.

“Marvie Blaine shot Cedar Hatt?” ejaculated Judge Franklidge.

“Good Lord!” added Day in his booming voice. “What next? Ben, you listenin’ to all this?”

“Tom — I’m stumped,” replied Ben, hoarsely.

“Spill it, Jack. Tell us about Marvie. Heaven help us now!” went on Day.

“I happened on Cedar Hatt to-day,” replied Nevada. “He was ridin’ down in one of the brakes an’ I was on top. Wal, I soon saw he was trailin’ some one. So I worked ahaid an’ got down off the Rim. There I happened to run on Marvie an’ his girl, Rose Hatt. They were spoonin’ under the trees an’ never saw me. I was lookin’ for Cedar an’ I knew Cedar was lookin’ for them. So I kept quiet. Pretty soon Cedar slips up, right on to them. An’ he begins to rave. Rose talked back an’ shore Marvie showed spunk. Cedar knocked him down, an’ then Rose, too. That riled Marvie an’ he tore into Cedar. It looked bad, with Cedar pullin’ at his gun. He got it out, but Marvie fought him for it. . . . An’, wal, in the fight Cedar dropped the gun an’ Marvie quick as a cat snatched it up. Usin’ both hands, he throwed it on Cedar an’ shore bored him twice.”

“Whoop-ee!” yelled one of the cowboys at the back of the crowd.

“By thunder! I’d whoop myself if I had any voice left,” returned Tom Day. “Where’s Marvie? Come heah, you gunslingin’ kid!”

“Rose Hatt is heah, too,” said Nevada. “An’, Tom, it’d be wal for you an’ Judge Franklidge to talk to her. Rose is a good honest girl. Dillon was after her. An’ Cedar Hatt had dragged Rose away from home to meet Dillon. That was how Rose found out aboot the Pine Tree outfit. An’ she confessed to me.”

“Wal, I’ll be darned!” replied Day, feelingly. “The lass looks a little scared an’ white, Judge. I reckon we needn’t heah her say now, in this crowd. But that kid Marvie — he shore don’t look scared.”

“Come here, my lad,” called Judge Franklidge, beckoning.

Marvie slipped off his horse and stalked forward to confront the three men. Hettie thrilled at sight of him, yet she could have wept and screamed with mirth. Marvie, if he were any character at all, was surely Nevada. In look, in walk, in manner! He had a big black gun in his chaps pocket, and another smaller one in his belt. What a moment for Marvie Blaine!

“Son, what’s this we heah?” asked Day, bluntly. “Did you shoot Cedar Hatt?”

“Reckon I did,” replied Marvie. “Here’s his gun. It happened just about as Nevada told you.”

“Who’s Nevada?”

Marvie laid a hand on his friend.

“Oho! You mean Jim Lacy heah?”

“No, I mean Nevada,” replied the lad, stoutly. “That Jim Lacy handle doesn’t go with me.”

“Marvie, you speak for me,” interposed Judge Franklidge. “He may indeed be Nevada and Jim Lacy. But for me he will always be Texas Jack. He has worked for me for two years. And before that for Tom Day. We found him to be the best cowboy who ever threw a rope for us. And more — a splendid honest man whom it is my privilege to call friend — and whom I would be happy to take into my cattle business.”

“Hey, you sheriff rustlers,” boomed Tom Day, with loud satisfaction, “did you heah that? Wal, listen to some more. Texas Jack volunteered to clean up this Pine Tree outfit. He had my backin’. He had Judge Franklidge’s office behind him. He had free hand to become a rustler an’ thief, to drink an’ gamble an’ shoot his way into the secret of the Pine Tree outfit. Do you savvy? Or are you wearin’ your hair too long? There won’t be any arrest. There won’t be anyone danglin’ on a rope.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

HETTIE LAY UPON her bed, face to the open window, with the cool sweet sage-laden wind blowing in upon her. Dusk had fallen. The last rose and gold of the afterglow of sunset lingered in the west. She never knew how she had gotten from Ben’s courtyard to her room. Dimly she remembered faces and murmuring voices that had no meaning for her.

The door opened — closed. Ben knelt beside her bed — took her hands — kissed her face.

“Hettie, I came as quick as I could get away,” he said, with deep agitation. “I was knocked off my pins. But happy — oh, girl, never so happy before, except on the day Ina married me! . . . When I could think I remembered you. So here I am.”

“Oh — Ben!” she whispered, and clung to him, her slow overburdened heart lifting painfully.

“Hettie dear — joy never kills,” he replied, tenderly.

“If it were — only joy,” mourned Hettie.

“Child, there’s nothing but joy,” he rushed on. “It was a terrible shock. To find out old Nevada — was Jim Lacy. But we always knew he was somebody bad. No, not bad. But somebody wild an’ great. You knew — Hettie. . . . An’ now he’s turned up. The wonder of it is that he had hidden the old identity. He had given up the old wild life. He had found honest work an’ had lived clean an’ fine. As we knew him in those happy days at Forlorn River. So you see all your love an’ faith an’ hope were justified. He was worth it. Thank God I never lost—”

“Hush! You’re killing — me!” gasped Hettie, writhing from his embrace.

“Hettie! Why, sister, this isn’t like you,” he expostulated, in anxiety. “You’re overcome. It has been too much for you.”

“Not the joy — not the excitement,” she returned. “I’ve been a poor miserable creature! . . . A coward! A selfish, headstrong woman! Jealous, little! . . . Oh, so poor in love — in faith!”

It came out then, gradually, sometimes incoherently, the story of her meeting with Nevada; and Hettie, in her self-abasement, magnified all the shame and ignominy — all the bitter invective and scorn which she had flung into his face.

Ben drew her head back to his shoulder and smoothed her disheveled hair.

“Well! . . . I understand now. Too bad! But there are excuses for you. Didn’t you believe in him — love him — keep yourself for him all these years? Some things are too much for anybody.”

“He — will — never — forgive,” she sobbed, with the relief that came through his sympathy, his championship.

“Nevada? Why, that fellow would forgive anythin’.”

“I — can never — forgive myself.”

“Hettie, it will all come right. Don’t you remember how you harped on that? Beat it into my poor thick head! . . . An’, lo! it has come right. . . . Nevada could not hurt you.”

“I have — hurt myself. I’ve lost something. My ideal has failed me.”

“No — no. You’re just overwrought by this sudden crash. Please, Hettie. I don’t mean cheer up. But brace up an’ see it through. Where’s your Ide spunk?”

“Gone — gone.”

“Well, then, get it back. I swear to you Nevada will be just like I am now. On my knees to you!”

“Where is he?”

“I left him in the livin’-room, playin’ with Blaine. The kid took a shine to him pronto. An’ Nevada. Lord! no one would ever dream of him bein’ what we’ve learned to understand by the name Jim Lacy. . . . Hettie, there’s somethin’ so simple an’ great about Nevada. He’s just himself now as we remembered him. He’s Nevada, that’s all.”

Hettie lay awake many hours, with anguish slowly wearing away to a regurgitation of something quite as full of pangs. The night wind moved through the pines, sweeping, swelling, lulling. Coyotes added their lonesome chorus. White stars shone from the dark blue sky. When she fell asleep she dreamed vague, unreal, distorted dreams, in which she seemed the central shadow among shadows of Nevada, Marvie, Rose, Ben, and that mocking handsome Dillon. But she awoke to a new day — new as the bright morning, and with a dawning hope, like the gold and blue of the Arizona sky.

She had no time for her own thoughts. Marvie rushed in upon her, in the kitchen, to be followed by Rose, shy, sweet, modest as the wildflower for which she was named. Already they had been out in the woods and now they were as hungry as bears. Mrs. Ide looked upon them with wonder and favor. They wanted to go to Winthrop. Would Hettie go? Rose must have clothes and books and things. How Marvie’s face glowed under his freckles! And Rose was in a transport. Had she forgotten that sordid home down in the brakes?

“Not to-day,” replied Hettie, to their importunities. “To-morrow, maybe, if Ben consents.”

“What has that Ben Ide to do with my affairs?” demanded Marvie, loftily. “I’d like to have you know I can ride for Franklidge or Tom Day or any other big rancher in Arizona.”

Hettie sensed trouble for Ben when he came to attempt reconciliation with Marvie. Ben would surely need her aid.

“Marv, boy, of course I know,” she said. “But you must use some sense. Rose is to have a home with me. And I shall take her to San Diego for the winter. I should think you would want to be near her this fall, and also go to San Diego, at least for a while.”

Marvie wilted under that. What a master-stroke, thought Hettie.

“Well, if Ben crawls to me I’ll consider comin’ back,” replied Marvie, condescendingly.

After breakfast Tom Day came over to pay his respects to Hettie and her mother. How bluff and genial and substantial he was!

“Wal, lass,” he said at parting, “I reckon the Ides an’ the Days can go back to ranchin’ again, thanks to thet Texas Jack of ours. Shore, we’ll have rustlin’ bees again an’ mebbe for years to come. But there’ll be a spell now, like these Indian-summer days. Folks can sleep an’ be happy. An’ you youngsters can make love. Haw! Haw! . . . Hettie lass, I’ve been a-wonderin’ aboot you. I’m shore a keen old fox. Wal, adios, an’ God bless you.”

Later in the morning Ben came to her so utterly abject that he was funny.

“Now what?” queried Hettie. “You needn’t come to me for sympathy.”

“Aw, Hettie, that’s what Ina said, an’ she stuck to it,” said Ben. “But I’ve got to tell somebody. An’ Nevada is moonstruck or somethin’. He never heard me.”

“All right, Bennie,” smiled Hettie, relenting.

“You know I fired Raidy — well, of course I had to go to him an’ ask him to come back. Reckon the old fellow was hurt deep. He didn’t rub it in, but he was sure cold. For a long while I apologized, made excuses, swore, an’ did about everythin’ before he would take back the old job. But at that he was nothin’ compared to Marvie Blaine.”

“Indeed! Yes, I remember you fired Marvie, too,” said Hettie.

“You would have died laughin’ to see that kid,” went on Ben, ruefully. “I sent for him. Did he come? Not much. He sent word back by my messenger that if I wanted to talk to him I could hunt him up. So I had to. An’ I’m darned if I don’t believe he watched me an’ kept dodgin’ me. Well, anyway, I found him at last an’ asked him to forget our difference. Whew! . . . Say, he’s expanded in this Arizona air. He had an argument that floored me. It was logic, though I wouldn’t admit it. He made me crawl. By George! You know I love Marvie an’ I could never let him leave Ina an’ me till he’s grown up. He had more dignity than Judge Franklidge an’ more conceit than any cowboy I ever saw. He swelled up like that Sheriff Macklin. Well, after he got his job back at a higher salary he put on the screws some more. He actually hit me for the reward I offered for any clue leadin’ to the apprehension of the Pine Tree outfit. That reward was a thousand dollars. Marvie claimed Rose was his clue. The cheeky little rooster! But Nevada backed him up. An’ as a matter of fact, ‘most everythin’ came through Rose. So I promised it to him. . . . Now what do you say?”

Hettie leaped up gladly. “Good for Marv! Now, Ben, run over and crawl to Inaa. Then we — you all can be happy again!”

“Ahuh! I get the hunch that ‘you’ aren’t included. I’ll bet before this day ends you’ll be as crazy as Marv an’ as mum as his little wood mouse, Rose.”

Still Hettie was not to have any of the solitude she craved. No sooner had Ben gone than Judge Franklidge appeared.

“I’ve come over to bid you and Mrs. Ide good-by,” he said, in his kindly way. “It has been a rather staggering time. But we’re on our feet again, and ‘ridin’ pretty,’ as the cowboys say.”

Then leaning closer to Hettie he continued in lower tone: “You recall one day at my home — when you said somethin’ mysterious to me then, but pertinent now. It was about — Nevada.”

“I remember — Judge Franklidge,” murmured Hettie, trembling.

“Well, would I be correct if I — sort of put two and two together — or perhaps I should say one and one? . . . Nevada and Hettie, for instance?”

His persuasive voice, deep with understanding, and his linking together the two names, quite subdued her poor and rebellious resistance. She dropped her head, murmuring a faint affirmative.

“I’m glad I hit upon the truth,” he said, with eagerness. “I watched you yesterday and I believe I saw then something of your ordeal. And I see now in your face the havoc that tells of your pain. It is my earnest hope to soothe that pain, Hettie Ide, and I know I can do so. Listen. It has been a terrible shock for you to find in your Texas Jack — or Nevada, as you call him — no other than the infamous or famous Jim Lacy. This is natural, but it is all wrong. There need be no shame, no fear, no shrinking in your acceptance of this fact. I’ve met and trusted no finer man than this same Jim Lacy. But I did not come to eulogize him. . . . I want to make clear in your mind just what such men as Jim Lacy mean to me. I have lived most of my life on the frontier and I know what its wilderness has been, and still is. There are bad men and bad men. It is a distinction with a vast difference. I have met or seen many of the noted killers. Wild Bill, Wess Hardin, Kingfisher, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, an’ a host of others. These men are not bloody murderers. They are a product of the times. The West could never have been populated without them. They strike a balance between the hordes of ruffians, outlaws, strong evil characters like Dillon, and the wild life of a wild era. It is the West as any Westerner knows it now. And as such we could not be pioneers, we could not progress without this violence. Without the snuffing out of dissolute and desperate men such as Dillon, Cedar Hatt, Stillwell, and so on. The rub is that only hard iron-nerved youths like Billy the Kid, or Jim Lacy, can meet such men on their own ground. That is all I wanted you to know. And also, that if my daughter cared for Jim Lacy I would be proud to give her to him.”

“Thank you, Judge Franklidge,” replied Hettie, lifting her head to look straight into his eyes. “But you misunderstand my — my case. I do not mind — that Nevada has been Jim Lacy.”

“For Heaven’s sake! Then, why all this — this — I don’t know what?” burst out the judge, in smiling amaze.

Hettie glanced away, out into the green black-striped forest.

“I scorned him. I believed him lost to — to . . . I failed in faith. And I fear he will never forgive.”

“Hettie Ide,” returned Franklidge, with solemn finality, “this Texas Jack won’t even know he has anything to forgive.”

Before Hettie could recover from this ultimatum Marvie waylaid her. Full of importance and authority, added to something of mystery, he hauled Hettie off the porch and out under the trees.

“Hettie,” he whispered in her ear, “I fixed it for you.”

“Marvie! . . . Are you — Oh, if you—”

“Keep in the saddle,” he interrupted, shaking her. “Nevada just told me he was dyin’ of love for you. . . . There now, Hettie, don’t look like that. I’m dead serious. Honest to God! Cross my heart! . . . Didn’t you make my Rose happy? Why, I’d go to hell for you. An’ Nevada knows it. He’s sufferin’. He thinks you ought to send for him, if you can forgive him for bein’ Jim Lacy.”

Hettie could only cling mutely to this glad-eyed boy who was torturing her.

“So I fixed it. You run out there across the bench,” he went on, pointing with eager, trembling finger. “You know. There among the pines where I always find you. Go now. Nevada is watchin’. He’ll come. I swore I’d get you there if I had to pack you. An’ I will.”

Hettie kissed his brown lean cheek, then ran wildly into the shelter of the pines. First she meant only to escape Marvie and all of them. But an irresistible magnet drew her to the secluded nook where she went so often alone to gaze out under the low cover of green to the purple sage and the changing radiance of the desert.

Nevada was there — somehow the Nevada of old. Hettie ran into his arms.

“I — love — you! I love you!” she cried, imploringly. “Forgive me. It was my one failure. I was the weak one — not you.”

Hours passed and sunset again widened its golden effulgence down over the sage hills to the rolling slopes. Purple clouds like ships sailed in a sea of gold and rose.

Hettie and Nevada sat with their backs to the great pine tree, their cheeks together, their hands clinging.

“Ben sprung somethin’ on me,” Nevada was saying. “Why not all of us rustle down to San Diego! Shore, it floored me. . . . But I’d like you to get away from heah just now, for a little. . . . So, darlin’ Hettie, would I be askin’ too much if — if—”

“No. Ask me anything,” murmured Hettie.

“If I’d ask you to marry me?”

“If! . . . Do you?”

“Shore. I reckon I’m darin’ to.”

“No,” said Hettie.

He accepted that in startled silence.

“I mean no — you are not asking too much. . . . Oh, Nevada! Yes! Yes!”

The last golden flare of sunset burned from over the darkening range.

“Arizona is smilin’ at us,” said Nevada, gazing at the sunset glow upon her rapt face.

“Nevada is smiling down upon me,” she replied, dreamily.

THE END

Avalanche

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER I

NOT MANY YEARS after General Crook drove out the last wild remnant of the Apache Indian tribe, the old Apache trail from the Mogollons across the Tonto Basin to the Four Peaks country had become a wagon road for the pioneer cattlemen and sheepmen who were drifting into the country.

Jacob Dunton and his family made camp one day at the crossing of the Verde. The country began to have a captivating look for this Kansas farmer. From the rim top his keen eyes had sighted a brook meandering through grassy clearings in the dark green forest below. His wife Jane and Jake, their six-year-old boy, were tired from the long journey, and a few days rest would be good for them… While they recuperated in camp Jacob rode up toward the rim, finding the magnificent forest, the deep canyons and grassy swales, the abundance of game, much to his liking.

Upon his return one day he found Jake playing with a handsome, curly-haired lad, perhaps a year older than himself.

“Hullo, whose kid is thet?” he asked his pioneer wife, who was still young, buxom, and comely.

“I don’t know,” she replied anxiously. “There have been several wagon trains passing by today. They stopped, of course, for water.”

“Reckon this boy got lost an’ hasn’t been missed yet.” replied Dunton. “There’ll be someone ridin’ back for him.”

But no inquiring rider visited the Dunton camp that day, nor the next, nor the day following.

“Jake, what’s your new pard’s name?” Dunton had inquired of his son.

“I dunno. He won’t tell,” replied Jake. Name obviously did not matter to this youngster. He was too happy with his playmate to care about superficials.

Mrs. Dunton managed to elicit from the lost boy the name Dodge, but she could not be sure whether that was a family name or one belonging to a place. The lad was exceedingly shy and strange. A most singular thing appeared to be his fear of grown people.

Dunton had decided to homestead in a beautiful valley up the creek, yet he was in no hurry to move. By the wagon trains and travelers who passed his campground he sent on word of the lost boy, Dodge. No one, however, returned to claim him.

“Jane, I’ve a hunch his people, if he had any, don’t want him back,” said Dunton seriously to his wife one day.

“Oh, no! Not such a pretty, dear little boy!” she remonstrated.

“Wal, you can never tell. Mebbe he didn’t have no folks. I don’t know just what to do about it. I cain’t go travelin’ all over the country lookin’ for a lost boy’s people. It’s gettin time for me to locate an’ run up a cabin.”

“We can keep him until somebody does come after him,” said Jane. “He and Jake sure have cottoned to each other. An’ you know our Jake was always a stand-offish boy.”

“Suits me,” replied the pioneer, and forthwith he fashioned a rude sign upon which he cut the words LOST BOY, and an arrow pointing up the creek. This he nailed upon a tree close to where the creek crossed the road. With this duty accomplished he addressed himself to the arduous task of getting his family and outfit up to the site he had chosen for a homestead.

Little Jake called his new playmate Verde, and the name stuck. No anxious father came to claim Verde. In time, and for long after the rude sign had rotted away, the crossing by the road was known as Lost Boy Ford.

The years passed. Ranches began to dot the vast, timbered Tonto Basin, though relatively few in number, owing to the widely scattered bits of arable land with available water. A few settlements, even far more widely separated, sprang up in advantageous places. Wagon trains ceased to roll down over the purple rim and on down through the endless forest to the open country beyond the ranges. The pioneers from the Middle West came no more.

The Tonto remained almost as isolated as before its domain had been invaded. In one way it was as wild as ever it had been in the heyday of Geronimo and his fierce Apaches; and this was because of the rustler bands that found a rendezvous in the almost inaccessible canyons under the rim. They preyed upon the cattlemen and sheepmen, who would have waxed prosperous but for their depredations. Jacob Dunton was one of the ranchers who was kept poor by these cattle-stealing marauders. But despite his losses he could see that the day of the rustler was waning. In fact, the tragic Pleasant Valley War, which was heralded throughout the West as a battle between cattlemen and sheepmen, was really between the ranchers and the rustlers, and it forever broke the stranglehold of the livestock thieves. Slowly the Tonto began to recover, and it began to hold promise for the far future.

Jake and Verde were raised together in a log cabin that nestled under the towering gold and yellow craggy rim. The brook that passed their home roared in spring with the melting snows and sang musically all during the other seasons.

The boys grew up with the deer and the bear and the wild turkeys which ranged their pasture land with the calves and colts. They learned how to track animals as other boys learned to play games. It was to be part of their lives. They hunted and trapped before they even know how to read. In fact, the few summers’ schooling they managed to get did not come until they were between twelve and sixteen years old.

Both of them grew into the rangy, long-limbed type peculiar to the region. The Tonto type was a composite of rider and hunter, wood chopper and calf brander, with perhaps more of the backwoods stamp than that of the range.

Jake, at twenty-two, was a lithe, narrow-hipped, wide shouldered young giant, six feet tall, with as rugged and homely a face as the bark of one of the pines under which he had grown to manhood. He had a mat of coarse hair, beetling brows, a huge nose, and a wide mouth. But his eyes, if closely looked into, made up for his other possible defects. They were clear gray, intent and piercing, even beautiful in their latent light.

Verde, at twenty-three, was a couple of inches shorter than Jake, a little heavier, yet of the same supple, lithe build, fair and curly-haired, ruddy-cheeked, with eyes of flashing blue, handsome as a young woodland god.

And these two, from the day of their strange meeting at Lost Boy Ford to the years of their manhood, had been inseparable. No real blood brothers could have been closer.

Jake liked hunting best of all work or play, while Verde inclined to horses. Being a born horse-man, naturally he gravitated toward riding the range. Jake was the most proficient with rifle and six-shooter, as he was also with everything pertaining to trapping wild animals. Verde had no peer in the use of a lasso. He could rope and throw and tie a steer in record time. Jake’s father called Verde the champion “bulldogger” of the Tonto. Verde was not so good with an ax as Jake, but he could mow his way down a field of sorghum far ahead of Jake.

Thus the two of them, with their opposite tastes and abilities, made a team for Jacob Dunton that Thus the two of them, with their opposite tastes and abilities, made a team for Jacob Dunton that could not have been equaled in all of the Tonto Basin. Long ago Dunton had abandoned any hope of ever learning Verde’s parentage. In fact, he did not want to. Verde was as his own son. And Verde had all but forgotten the mystery behind his boyhood.

The Duntons had no other children; and the great herd of cattle they hoped to amass someday would belong equally to Jake and Verde.

In spring, after the roundup, which was a long arduous task, owing to the wild timberland and rough canyons where the cattle ranged, there would be the plowing and the planting, the clearing of more land, the building of fences. In the fall would come the harvesting, which time, of all seasons, these backwoods pioneers loved best. They had their husking bees and bean picking parties and sorghum-cutting rivalries — and their dances, which were the very heart of their lives. In late fall they killed pigs and beeves and deer for their winter meat; and from then on to spring again they chopped wood and toasted their shins before the open fireplace.

During the autumn the settler families on the upper slope of this Tonto Basin gathered once a week for a dance. Occasionally it was held at a ranch cabin, sometimes in the woodland school-house, but mostly in the little town of Tonto Flat.

The dance represented their main social life. They had no church, no county house, no place where old and young could meet. Therefore the dance constituted a most serious and important affair. It was here that the strapping young backwoodsmen met and won their sweethearts. In fact, that was perhaps the vital purpose of the dances. There was little other opportunity for courting.

And seldom did a dance occur without one or more fights, one of which, now and then, could be serious. Fighting was characteristic for the Tonto youths. Had not their fathers fought the rustlers for twenty years? And as these hardy pioneers had settled many feuds over cattle, sheep, land, and water with cold steel or hot lead, so their sons settled many rivalries with brawn and blood.

Jake and Verde went to all the dances. Even when off on a hunt up into the canyons or over the rim, they made sure to get back in time for the great events of the week. And Jake and Verde were very popular among the valley girls. Seldom did they take the same girl twice in one season, and every occasion was a gala one. Sometimes they exchanged girls — an event which was regarded with wonder and amusement by their young comrades, and always with concern by their elders. Jake and Verde were not responding satisfactorily to the real purpose of the dance. Neither youth evinced any abiding interest in any one girl. They were both capital catches for any young woman, and this, coupled with their debonair indifference and their boyish brotherly absorption in each other, was the cause of considerable pique.

“Wal,” said Jacob Dunton, “I reckon them thar boys of mine ain’t feelin’ thar oats yet.”

“I’m tellin’ you, Pa,” replied his wife, “it ain’t that. They’re both full of fire an’ go. It’s jist that Jake an’ Verde are too wrapped up in each other to see any of these steady home-makin’ lasses they meet. I love Jake an’ Verde jist as they are, but sometimes it worries me.”

“Reckon thar’s reason for consarn,” said Dunton, shaking his shaggy head. “Some hussy will split them like a wedge in dry pine someday.”

CHAPTER II

ONE NIGHT, AT Tonto Flat, an extra dance was given in honor of Miss Kitty Mains, a newcomer to the settlement.

Jake and Verde, learning the news late, arrived without partners when the dance was in full swing. They had ample time to see Miss Mains and watch her before there came any opportunity to meet her. And so even before this meeting took place the havoc had already been wrought.

They also had plenty of time to learn all about her; the information was voluntarily offered by swains as dazzled as they. Kitty was the daughter of a St. Louis horse dealer, who had come to Arizona for his health and who was going to buy out the Stillwell cattle interests and take up ranching on rather a large scale. He was reputed to be rich.

But this news would not have been necessary excite interest in Kitty Mains. She was strikingly beautiful and something quite new to the gallants of the Tonto Basin. She was small of stature, though graceful and well rounded of form. She had a face that struck men and women alike as pretty and pert, and then gradually grew on one. Her hair was brown, curly, luxuriant, and rebellious. Her small lips, usually curved in a smile, were of the color and sweetness of a ripe cherry. She had a complexion that made the tanned and ruddy skin of the Tonto girls look coarse by comparison. She had an additional advantage over them by being daintily and stylishly dressed, her Eastern gowns showing something of her pretty round arms and white neck. But Kitty’s superlative charm lay in her eyes — in the remarkable fact of their variance, for one was blue and the other hazel — and of their strangely contrasting beauty. As it was undoubtedly a fact that Kitty Mains could look at a youth with different kinds of eyes, so it seemed that she could look with two kinds of natures, one sweet, wistful, appealing, and the other a dancing devil.

There was not the slightest doubt that she had heard all about Jake and Verde before they were introduced to her; and very little doubt of her curious and divided interest. No good angel was hovering near these raw and impressionable young men to warn them that Kitty Mains was an unconscious and instinctive flirt, an insatiably greedy little soul who lived on love and had never yet returned it, whose nature would never allow her to brook such a beautiful bond of brotherly affection such as that which long had bound Jake and Verde so closely together. She had the animal instinct that either garners for herself or destroys.

Out of her multiplicity of partners she found several whom she could exchange or desert for Jake and Verde. So in time they got to dance with her. The other girls present already knew, if Jake and Verde did not know, what had happened.

Kitty was as different to each as were her two eyes and two natures. Verde she tormented with that dancing little demon, tantalizing him, courting him with a running challenge of talk wholly new to him and utterly irresistible, always escaping from his eager arm yet continually drawing him on. Jake she entwined as if she were a clinging vine. She had little to say to this quiet, lonely, backwoods boy. But she gave him that shy, sweet, wistful blue eye, and yielded her soft form to the dance, so that her fragrant hair brushed his lips.

Jake and Verde left the dance in the gray hours of the morning, only when there seemed no more hope to get another dance with Kitty. They rode out under the dark blue dome of sky with its mantle of white stars. They did not feel the nipping, frosty air. They raved and babbled like two silly lads over the charms of the new girl and always ended with praising the two different eyes — the blue and the hazel — that were so sweet, so strange, so beautiful.

They rode off the highway into the trail through the lonely forest, under the dark pines, and they still talked on, raving over the charms of the new girl from St. Louis, each trying to outdo the other in the extravagance of his praises. But at last they fell silent.

Deeper and higher into the forest land they rode, while the first flush of dawn changed the steely sky to rose over the dark fringed canyon rim under which they lived. The rose turned to gold, and burst into the rising glory of the sun.

It was like the thing that had as suddenly burst in their own hearts.

All this happened to Jake and Verde along about the end of September, just at the beginning of the golden autumn season.

At first they found time to ride into Tonto Flat together. Then Jake made an excuse to go alone one day, while Verde was off somewhere on the range. When the next dance came around, it was Jake who was the proud escort of Kitty Mains.

Verde did not know what to make of the matter, particularly of his conflicting emotions. It hurt that Jake had not confided in him for the first time in his life. He went to the dance alone, silent and troubled. Kitty gave him more dances than she had reserved for Jake. This was contrary to the custom of the backwoods, for the escort always looked after his partner’s dances, and took them all himself if he chose. Jake would have been generous, but he was not permitted to choose, and he found himself lucky to get the few she deigned to give him. Thus it was that Jake had the honor of escorting this captivating and willful damsel, but Verde received most of her dances and the most dazzling of her smiles.

The next week the first rift appeared in the perfect relationship that had existed so long between these more than brothers. They did not yet understand what was taking place. But they did not ride together, nor work, nor hunt together. Verde was gone from home for two days, and returned by way of Tonto Flat, obviously with good reason to be exultant. And it was he who took the bewildering Miss Kitty to the next dance, where his triumph was all short-lived, for he had to suffer the same treatment she had accorded Jake on the previous occasion.

This triangle affair had now become the talk of the Tonto Basin. Never had the dances been so largely attended; and a girl would have had to be vain indeed not to be satisfied with Kitty Main’s conquest of the Dunton boys.

They neglected their fall work to such an extent that Dunton took them to task. But his unfamiliar and rude criticism only acted like burning embers upon naked flesh. Mrs. Dunton was too wise to say anything, but she grew more troubled as the days passed. The young men of the Tonto awaited with keen zest and wild speculation the inevitable fight. The young women, aside from natural jealousy and resentment, did not enjoy the strained situation.

Two more dances, one of which Kitty did not attend at all, leaving it a total loss for the lovesick twain, and the other to which she went with young Stillwell, brought matters to a climax between Jake and Verde.

They grew estranged, a feeling which found expression in a desire to be alone rather than in an open break. Their very avoidance of each other’s company widened the spiritual gulf that grew wider between them. Because of their long and beautiful companionship, anyone might have imagined that they would talk the matter over in a frank, manly way and decided to go to Kitty together and make her choose between them. But the very intensity of their feelings precluded that. They were in the grip of something beyond their experience.

Everything in the Tonto, according to the old backwoodsmen, presaged one of the long, lingering, late falls. These Indian summer seasons were welcomed by the pioneers. They made preparation for winter less arduous and meant that the winter would be shorter. But sometimes a late fall would end with a terrific storm, and that was always bad. Severe storms up under the rim were liable to destroy much of the improvement accomplished during the summer, not to mention the loss of stock.

The hard frosts did not come; the rains held off; the leaves changed color so slowly that the wonderful golden and scarlet and purple blaze of the canyons did not arrive at its fullness of beauty and fire until toward the end of October. The wild denizens of the forest gave no signs of the approach of winter. Ordinarily the deer and turkeys would be down off the mountain; the acorns would be ripe, the trails would be colorful with fallen leaves; the bears would be fat and “located”, as old Dunton would call it. Over all the wilderness lay a drowsy, slumberous sense of waiting. A deep sighing breath soughed through the pine forest. The squirrels delayed their cutting of spruce cones, so that as yet that sure sign of early snows, the thud of dropping cones, did not disturb the peaceful solitude. The elk had not begun to bugle, the jays to squall, the wolves to mourn.

But passion, once awakened in Jake and Verde and at last realized, did not wait for the slow ripening of nature’s fruitful season.

No Tonto youths ever let the autumn leaves heap round their long-spurred riding boots in the affairs of heart. They stormed the citadel and were seldom gentle about it. Jake and Verde had magnified in them all the elements of this primitive rockbounded wilderness. They never rode to Tonto Flat together any more, but there was not one of the closing mellow days of October in which they did not ride to Kitty Mains’ door. She found herself caught in her own devious toils. This fierce rivalry between two savage men was something new even to her experience. It frightened her.

For weeks the dances had been held at Tonto Flat and Green Valley, which were more accessible to the majority of Tonto Basin natives than the big log schoolhouse in the forest at the foot of the mountain slope. Here, in the years gone by, had taken place the important dances which had made history for the Tonto; and always the last dance of each season.

November came, with its still, blue-hazed mornings, and its warm, lazy, golden afternoons. But there seemed to be something exciting in the air, a cool breath in the silent forest. The deer had begun to range down from the heights.

Jake and Verde each had long solicited the honor of escorting Kitty Mains to this last dance of the season. In this instance they had given Kitty the privilege of choosing between them. She kept them waiting for her reply. Perhaps it was hard for her to make a decision — to show the Tonto people her preference. Perhaps she could not make up her mind which man she wanted to make happy and which she must hurt. Then perhaps she was afraid of this situation which she herself had brought about. In the end, and late in the day, she refused them both. It was probably the only instance, since her arrival at Tonto Flat, that she showed any strength of character.

On the day of this dance Jake came in from the woods to find Verde sitting aimlessly in the sun out by the log barn.

“Verde,” he said, “Kitty sent me word late — she won’t go with me tonight.”

“Same here, Jake,” replied Verde dejectedly.

“She’s going with Ben Stillwell.”

“No!”

“Sure. I heard so this mawnin’.”

“Who told you?”

“I was down to the mesa an’ dropped in on the Browns. They had all the latest news. Tuck had just come home from town.”

“How do you take this snub of Kitty’s?”

“Me? I’m not takin’ it at all,” rejoined Jake darkly. “Reckon it’s sort of a double-jointed slight. Kitty’s too smart an’ good to hurt one of us.”

“I wonder.”

“Reckon you savvy how she’s upset you an’ me?” asked Jake with eyes averted.

“Sure. But she cain’t be blamed for that. We only got ourselves to blame.”

“Hell of a mess!” mumbled Jake, and stood silent awhile, as if there was much to say, only he did not know what or how. These boys had not thought of each other for weeks. They were almost strangers now.

The chill, melancholy twilight had settled down over the Tonto schoolhouse when the first riders and wagons arrived. The November wind moaned through the pines. It bore an ominous note. A low murmur of the swift creek rose from the dark ravine. Voices, a girl’s laugh, the crack of iron-shod hoofs on stone echoed through the forest.

Fires were built, one outside near the great pile of wood cut for this occasion, and another in the stove in one corner of the large, empty, barnlike schoolroom. The school benches had been arranged around the walls. Half a dozen lamps emitted an uncertain, dim yellow flare.

Rapidly then the Tonto folk began to arrive, mostly on horseback, but many in wagons, buggies, buckboards. Soon a score or more of riotous children were making merry in the schoolroom. By seven o’clock there were over a hundred folk present, standing, talking, waiting, with more coming all the time.

Every time some newcomers entered the building there would be a stir and a buzz followed by hearty greetings. But when young Stillwell arrived, spick and span in his dark suit, and pale with excitement, leading a slender young woman wrapped in a fur coat, there was sudden cessation of sound.

They were not greeted until they reached the stove, and then a marked restraint seemed to attend the elders at least.

Kitty was cold, and said so in her sweet high treble. Stillwell removed her coat, to disclose her all in white, dainty and alluring, a girl for the backwoodsmen to feast their eyes upon, and over whom the women shook their heads silent and dubious.

But soon the old fiddler arrived with his fiddle, and the dance that would last till daylight was under way. The screaming children, darting among the dancers, were all that kept this annual festivity from being a strange, solemn affair. The young people took their dancing most seriously. There was no shyness, no immodesty, no ranting around, no loud talking, no forwardness; yet a blind man could have sensed that this was a courting business. Round and round the couples swayed in a moving circle, not ungraceful, not without rhythm, the young men with intent look and changeless faces; the girls rapt, absorbed; while the older folk looked on complacently and contentedly and the children played till from sheer exhaustion they fell asleep in the corner behind the stove, where blankets had been laid for them.

Jake and Verde rode down to the harvest dance together, though as uncommunicative as if miles of trail separated them. It was late when they reached the clearing and heard the fiddle and the steady shuffle of many feet. They unsaddled and blanketed their horses. As they approached the big outdoor fire to hold cold hands out to the blaze, the music ceased, and the shuffle of sliding feet changed, and there followed a merry roar of voices. Couples by the dozen emerged from the school-house, some to pause by the fire, and others to wander off under the great solemn pines, close together, holding hands, whispering.

It was Jake who first confronted Kitty to ask her for a dance. She was flushed, lovely, nervous, yet sincerely glad to see him.

“I’ve saved three, Jake,” she replied, looking up to him with her strange eyes. “One for you and one for Verde — and another for you both to—”

‘To fight over, huh?” he drawled. “Well, mebbe it won’t come to that. An’ Kitty, I’m takin’ my dance out in talkin’.”

“Oh, no, Jake. That’ll spoil the whole evening for me,” she pouted.

“Hope not. Anyway it goes.”

In due time, when his dance came, Jake unceremoniously drew Kitty away from her admirers, and wrapping her in her coat, he led her out under the white cold stars, into the shadow of the pines. Here he took her little hands and drew her close.

“Kitty, this cain’t go on any longer,” he said.

“What?” she asked, trying to draw away.

“Why this fast an’ loose business... You’ve kissed me, haven’t you?”

“Well, no — not exactly,” she demurred.

“Yes, you have. Anyway it was enough to let me kiss you — which is a fact as sure as Gawd looks down out of those stars on us. An’ you swore you loved me.”

“Of course I love you, Jake,” she murmured, again her old capricious self, yet as if in earnest for once.

“That’s tellin’ me again, Kitty dear. That’s the fast of it. But on the other hand you’ve denied it, flouted me, hurt me. That’s the loose of it... Wal, it cain’t go on any longer.”

“But Jake, I can’t help being myself,” she replied rebelliously.

“Reckon I wouldn’t have you no different,” he went on. “But I love you somethin’ turrible, an’ if you play any more loose with me — there’ll be — I—”

He choked and was silent. Then recovering, he went on in simple, intense eloquence to tell her of his love. She leaned against him, gazing up into his dark face, unresisting, carried away by the intensity of his love, reveling in it, finding it in all that she had yearned for, uplifted and transformed by the urgency and simplicity of his passion.

“An’ now, Kitty, with it all told, I can come to somethin’ I’ve never said yet,” he ended, with his voice almost a whisper.

“Yes, Jake?” she whispered.

“Are you aimin’ to spend the rest of your life here in the Tonto?”

“Why, of course. Father has got back his health. Mother likes the quiet — the green. And I — I love it.”

“Then will you marry me?” he asked hoarsely.

“I will Jake, I — I think I always meant to.”

Later in the evening Verde presented himself for the dance that Kitty had promised him. Verde was so different from Jake. She trembled within. How handsome he was, and tonight how white his face and blazing his blue eyes!”

“Kit, I reckon I don’t care about dancin’ this one little dance you’ve given me.”

“Verde, you — you’re not very complimentary. I’d love it,” she replied, and it was the dancing devil eye that looked at him.

Verde did not ask her to go outdoors. He simply seized her arm and led the way. And when she demurred about going without her coat he said she would not need it.

“J-Jake and I had — a — an understanding,” faltered Kitty.

“Reckon I’m powerful glad,” he returned. “You an’ I are goin to have one too.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed as he led her, with firm arm under hers, out under the very pine tree where only a short time before she had betrothed herself to Jake. Kitty divined at last that she had been made a victim of her own indiscretion. How could she tell Verde about Jake? Regret and an unfamiliar pang knocked at her heart. She had meant well. These backwoods brothers, this Damon and Pythias twain, had needed a lesson. But something had backfired. Verde was not like Jake, yet how wonderful he was!

“Ver — Verde, I’ll freeze out here,” she whispered, suddenly aware of the cold and of a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

For answer, Verde caught her up off the ground and like a great bear hugged her close to his breast. She could see his white face, radiant and beautiful in the starlight, yet somehow stern. She felt her breast swell against his.

“Kit, darlin’, this is our understandin’,” he whispered. “I reckon I’ve always been too easy with you. I never touched you — like this — never kissed you before like I am—”

“Verde, you — you mustn’t,” she pleaded, trembling in his arms. He kissed her lips. She cried out in protest, yet with the realization of a tide that she could not, did not, want to resist. But she gazed up at him, wide-eyed, fascinated, struggling to remember something. Her lips were parting to speak when he closed them with kisses, and then her eyes.

“Kit — I love you so!” he said passionately, hoarsely, lifting his face from hers. “Say you love me... or I’ll pack you on a hoss — off into the woods.”

But Kitty could not speak.

“Say it!” he commanded, shaking her, and he kept it up until she slipped an arm around his neck.

Kitty was in a daze when once more she found herself among the dancers. Her partner, young Stillwell, claimed her, but the dance had become a nightmare. All the gaiety and excitement of the occasion were gone.

The evening wore on toward the inevitable retribution which she knew was in store for her. At midnight a hearty supper was served. It was a hilarious occasion. Kitty’s vague fears seemed lost, for the moment, and she was almost herself again. She dared not look at Jake or Verde, yet an almost irresistible longing to do so seized her as she sat on a school bench with young Stillwell.

At last the moment came when both Jake and Verde presented themselves for that third dance one of them was to get. Kitty seemed to sense that the hum of voices had ceased, to know that all the faces in the room were turned upon her, though a wave of terror was causing her to tremble as if from an ague.

“My dance, Kitty,” drawled Jake.

“Well, Kit, I reckon this dance is mine,” said Verde.

“I — I’ll divide it,” she faltered, not looking up.

“Not with me, you won’t,” retorted Verde, his blue eyes flashing fire.

“Kitty, I hate to say it — but I cain’t share this with Verde” said Jake.

“But I didn’t promise it to either of you,” she barely whispered.

“Not in so many words,” returned Jake, attempting to grab her hand.

That was the torch. Verde turned to Jake.

“Are you disputin’ my lady friend’s word?” he asked belligerently.

“Sure am,” replied Jake coolly.

Verde stepped forward and slapped his brother’s face, not violently, but with what seemed to be slow deliberation.

With the suddenness of a panther Jake lunged out to knock Verde down. Kitty screamed. The crowd gasped, then fell silent. Slowly Verde raised himself on his elbow. His face was changing quickly from red to white. He stretched up his free arm, and his extended fingers quivered.

“Jake!”

“Get up an’ ask the lady’s pardon,” demanded Jake wildly.

“You hit me!” exclaimed Verde unbelievingly.

“Nope. I just blowed a thistledown at you,” replied Jake.

In one single bound Verde was on his feet. Tearing off coat and tie, he confronted the man who had been almost a brother to him. “Come out!” he challenged, his voice hoarse with rage. The circle of startled onlookers parted.

In another moment they stood face to face in the light of the roaring bonfire. The crowd of men and boys, and a few of the girls, had poured out after them.

Then like two mad bulls Jake and Verde rushed at each other. They gave flailing blow for flailing blow. They danced around in the red firelight, seeking an opening to deliver damaging blows that were intended to hurt and to maim. Tonto fights were usually marked by hilarity among the spectators. But there was none here. This was strange, unnatural, hateful — to watch these friends and brothers so deadly, so cold and savage, with murder in their every action.

Their white faces and white shirts soon were bloody. They fought for a long time, erect and silent, knocking each other down, leaping up and rushing in again. Then they clinched, and wrestling, stumbling, they fell to roll over and over on the ground.

That battle between the Duntons was the worst that had ever been fought at the old schoolhouse. It lasted two hours, and ended with Jake lying unconscious and bedraggled in the mud, and Verde, hideously marked and bloody, staggering to his feet and out into the gloom of the forest.

CHAPTER III

JAKE HAD BEEN so badly beaten that he was in bed for a week, during which time he saw only his mother. In summer and fall he and Verde always slept in the loft over the porch. But Verde had not been there now for many days.

During this week of pain and shame, Jake’s mind had been a numbed thing, dark and set and sinister. He could not think beyond the fact that he had been terribly whipped and disgraced before a crowd of Tonto folk, one of whom had been Kitty Mains. She had seen him stretched in the mud, at the hands of Verde. His battered face burned with the disgrace of it. His scarred fists clenched and unclenched impatiently.

Jake always turned his bruised and beaten face to the wall when his mother climbed the ladder to the loft, bringing food and drink he did not want and which he had to force himself to take. She had ceased her importunities on behalf of Verde. They were useless.

At last Jake crawled down out of his hole, feeling as mean as he knew he looked. He wanted to get away into the woods quickly before anyone saw him! That was the only thought in his mind.

But while he was packing his outfit his father suddenly confronted him.

“Your ma said there ain’t no use of talkin’ to you,” he began gruffly.

“Reckon not,” replied Jake, turning away the face he was ashamed to reveal.

“Wal, I’ll have a word anyhow,” rejoined the father. “From now on is this heah Tonto Basin goin’ to be big enough for you an’ Verde?”

“Hell no!”

“Ahuh, I reckoned so, an’ it’s shore a pity,” said Dunton sadly.

“Where is Verde?” asked Jake.

“I don’t know. He never come home. But he sent word that if you wanted satisfaction you’d know where to find him.”

Jake made no reply. A smoldering fire of hatred within him would not let him speak to those who loved him. Old Dunton hung around, lending a hand at his son’s packing.

“Wal, I see you’re off to set a string of traps,” he finally forced himself to say. “It’s a plumb good idee. Work’s most all done for the fall, an’ I can spare you. Mebbe you’ll be better for a lonesome trip. Nothin’ like the woods to cure a feller of most anythin’. But, Jake, I don’t like the look an’ feel of the weather. If I don’t disremember, it was this way one fall fifteen years ago. No rain. Late frost. Winter holdin’ off. But, Lord when she broke!... Washed the cabin away, that storm!”

“It’s all one to me, Pa,” replied Jake dully. And leading his pack horse, Jake rode away from the ranch without thinking to bid his parents good-by.

The day fitted Jake’s mood. The sky was overcast, dull, leaden gray, gloomy and forbidding, with a dim sun showing red in the west. The fall wind mourned through the pines. It was cold and raw, whipping up into gusts at times, then subsiding again. The creek had run so low that now it scarcely made any sound on its way down to the valley. Jake rode out of the pines down into the cedars and oaks and sycamores. In the still pools of water the bronze and yellow leaves floated round and round.

At length, Jake reached the junction of the trail with the highway, and soon came to where it crossed the Verde Creek. Lost Boy Ford! He had never forgotten, until these last bitter weeks, the significance of this place. For a few moments a terrific strife warred within him. But he quelled it. Nothing could stand against his jealously and his shame. Kitty loved him dearest and best, but she must also have loved Verde, or he never would have acted as he had. The Tonto Valley was not large enough for both Verde and him. Who would have to go? That would have to be decided; and as Jake knew that neither he nor Verde would ever relinquish the field to the other, it seemed settled that death must step in for the decision. Jake realized now that he was no match for Verde in the rough and terrible Tonto method of fighting; on the other hand, he knew that in a battle with weapons such as must decide this bitter feud he would kill Verde. And such was the dark and fierce violence to which his passion had mounted that he brooded with savage anticipation over his power to rid himself forever of his rival.

Soon he headed off the road into the thickets of scrub oak and jack pine, manzanita and mescal, and began to climb an old unused trail. It led up over the slope to the mesa, into the cedars and piñons and junipers, and at last into the somber forest again.

Here it was like twilight, cool, still, and lonely. The peace of the wilderness tried to pierce Jake’s brooding, bitter thoughts, and for the first time in his life it failed. A monstrous wall of bitterness seemed to enclose him.

He climbed high, riding for miles, in a multitude of detours and zigzags, along a trail thousands of feet above the basin below. The slopes grew exceedingly steep and rough. In many places he dismounted to make his way on foot. How dry the brush and soil! The tufts of grass were sere and brown; the dead manzanita broke off like icicles.

At length he arrived at the base of the rim wall. It towered above, seemingly to the sky. A trail ran along the irregular stone cliff, and there were fresh hoof tracks in it. They had been made by Verde’s horse, and were a day or two old, perhaps a little more. If Jake had felt any uncertainty it ended right there. Verde had indeed known where to come to give him satisfaction.

Jake rode on to a corner of the wall. Here the trail plunged down. A mighty amphitheater opened in the rim. It was miles across and extended far back. All around it the capes and escarpments loomed out over the colorful abyss. It seemed to be a scene of dying fires. The ragged gold of the aspens showed dim against the scarlet maples, the red sumac, the bronze oaks, the magenta gums, and all the dark greens. Yellow crags leaned with their great slabs of rock over the void. Here and there gleamed cliffs of dull pink, with black eyelike caves. Far down in the middle of this gulf there was a dark canyon. Black Gorge!”

This was Jake’s objective. He gazed down with narrowed eyes, strangely magnifying. Ten years before he and Verde had discovered by accident a way to get down into this almost inaccessible fastness under the rim. They had named it Black Gorge. No other trappers or hunters or riders had ever penetrated it. As boys they had made it their rendezvous, Jake to trap and hunt, Verde to corral his wild horses. They went there several times each year, usually together, but sometimes alone. It grew to mean much to them, and they loved it.

“Verde is down there waitin’,” muttered Jake, and the somber shadow that had closed over his mind seemed to come between his eyes and the wonderful beauty of the scene.

A sudden rush of wind, wailing in the niches of the cliff overhead, turned Jake’s thoughts to the weather. The habit of observation was strong in him. He gazed down and across the basin. And he was suddenly amazed by the sight he saw.

He had seen all kinds of light and cloud effects over the vast valley below, but never before one of such weird, sinister aspect. The sun was westering over the Mazatzals, and through the dark riven pall of cloud it shed a gleam of angry red. From the south-west a lowering multitude of pale little clouds came scuddling toward the rim. They were the heralds of storm. But as yet, except for the moan of the wind along the cliff, there was no sound. The basin lay deep in shadow. The cold gray tones near at hand, the smoky sulphurous red of the sunset, the utter solitude of the scene, the vast saw toothed gap in the rim wall, the distant forbidding shadow of Black Gorge, the bleak November day that was to mark the end of the lingering autumn, the all-pervading spirit of nature’s inevitable and ruthless change from lull to storm, from peace to strife, from the saving and fruitful weeks of the past to the ominous promise of sudden storm and destruction — all these permeated Jake’s being, and possessed him utterly, and sent him down the trail deaf at last to a still small voice that had been whispering faintly, yet persistently at the closed door of his heart.

CHAPTER IV

THERE WAS ONLY one entrance to Black Gorge that Jake had ever been able to discover. He had found various slopes along its three-mile zigzag length where an Indian or an agile young man might by supreme pluck and exertion climb out. But for the most part it was as unscalable as it was inaccessible. A signal proof of the nature of Black Gorge was the fact that in the late fall only a few deer and no bear frequented it.

While it required hours to climb out by the only trail Jake knew, it took but a short time to make the descent. Without a horse Jake could get down in less than a quarter of an hour. That, however, was practically by sliding down. Now, with saddle and pack horse, Jake had all he could do to keep the three of them together. Finally his saddle horse got ahead. Several times the pack animal slipped; and it was difficult to adjust the ropes and bags on the almost perpendicular slope.

Black Gorge deserved its name. It would have been black even without the somber, fading twilight. The walls of stone were stained dark, and in places where ledges and steps and slopes broke the sheer, perpendicular line, brush and moss and vines mantled them so thickly that they looked black in the gloom. At the lower end of the gorge, where Jake had descended, the stream had no outlet. The creek was dry now, but when water flowed there it merely sank into the jumble of mighty mossy boulders. Once no doubt there had been an outlet, but it had been choked by the fall of a splintered cliff.

Jake mounted to ride up a narrow defile. He was concerned at the moment about the water. Black Gorge had never, to his knowledge, been completely dry. But far up the gorge he knew of a spring that ought still to be alive. Besides, he began to feel a cool misty rain on his face.

At this moment his mind reverted again to Verde. In the gathering gloom he could not see the trail, but he had no doubt about Verde’s tracks being there. He almost reined in his horse so he could wait and think what to do. But there was nothing more to be considered on that score. It was settled. When he faced Verde again, there would be need of but few words. The rest would be action. Even so, Jake felt a monstrous hand at the back of him, propelling him toward something that he had gladly and sternly willed, yet against which at odd moments his soul revolted.

The gorge widened, the walls ceased to tower and lean, the slopes slanted up out of sight, and the gray gloom lightened considerably. The trail climbed from the dry stream bed to a bench that soon grew level. Jake heard the clucking of wild turkeys and then the booming flap of heavy wings in the branches of a tree. Toward the upper end this bench held a fine open grove of pines and spruce. Jake saw the dark spearpointed spruce that towered above the little log cabin he and Verde had built there years ago. So long ago and far away those years seemed now!

Jake’s instinct was to dismount and draw a gun. Not to be ambushed or surprised! But he cursed the thought that was so unfamiliar to him.

His expectation was to see the light of a camp-fire, or a flickering gleam from the door of the cabin, as he had many and many a time beheld with glad eyes. But the familiar space was blank, the cabin dark. Jake dismounted, and throwing his bridle, with slow step went forward. The cabin was deserted. It smelled dry and musty. No fire had been kindled there for a long time. He heard the rustling of mice and felt the wind of bats flying close by his head.

Verde might have come, but he was not there now. Sudden, strange relief swept over Jake. He sank to a seat on the step on the edge of the little porch. His sombrero fell off unheeded, and the cold misty rain touched his face. His heart labored as though after a long strain. He sat there in the lonely, silent gorge, vaguely, dully conscious of any agony deep hidden somewhere under the weight of other emotions. It passed, and he addressed himself to the necessary tasks.

He unsaddled and unpacked, and turned the horses loose, with the thought that it was well for them a storm was brewing. Then he carried his packs and saddle inside the cabin, and set about building a fire in the rude stone fireplace. He appeared slow and awkward. Not only were his fingers all thumbs, but they also trembled in a way quite incomprehensible to him.

“Reckon I’m cold an’ hungry,” he thought.

Every few moments, while cooking supper, which he quite unconsciously planned for two, he would halt in his preparations and listen for the thud of hoofs or the jangle of spurs. But he heard only the melancholy wail of the rising wind.

Presently he stuck a dry fagot of pitchpine into the fire, and with a blazing torch he went outside the cabin to search in the dust for tracks. He found only his own and those made by his horses. Not satisfied, he made a more thorough search. But it was all in vain!

“Verde hasn’t been here,” he muttered at last, and pondered the situation. There was absolutely no doubt about the fact of Verde’s fresh tracks in the trail above the gorge. What had delayed him? And Jake reminded himself of Verde’s impetuosity and recklessness on bad trails.

Jake went back into the cabin, where, as many times before, he set some food and drink to keep hot in case Verde might arrive late. Then he unrolled his bed on the heavy mat of dry spruce boughs. This done, he stepped out again. The darkness was like pitch. High up there along the black rim the wind made a low, dismal roaring sound. He could see the leaden band of sky between the two black rims.

He returned presently to the warm fireside, to which he extended his nervous hands. He faced the fire awhile. That had always been one of his joys. But tonight it was not a joy. An arch face suddenly shone out of the glow — a girl’s face, roguish, with sweet red lips and strange, unmatched, inviting eyes. Jake had to turn his back to them.

It struck him singularly that Kitty Main’s face in the embers of this cabin fire was something he had never before beheld there. She was something new. She did not belong to that cabin. Thought of her seemed out of place there. He did not even want to think of her now.

When the fire died low Jake went to bed. He was tired and his eyes were heavy. Sleep at last overcame his mind.

In the night he awoke. A tiny pattering of rain sounded on the roof. The wind had lulled somewhat. The night was so black he could not see the door or window. He could tell that the hour was late, for he had rested. And gradually he grew wide awake. The pattering rain ceased, came again in little gusts, died away, only to return. It recalled to Jake that his father had once forbidden him and Verde to camp very late in the fall at this Black Gorge cabin. A blizzard such as sometimes set in after a late fall might snow them in for the whole winter. Jake had completely forgotten this. Likewise had Verde, or if he had not forgotten, he had come anyway. Black Gorge was the one hiding place where they could not be disturbed. His father knew of it, yet could never have found the way there.

The rain pattered again, slightly harder, and a wind sighed in the pines and spruces over the cabin. Suddenly a low, distant rumble startled Jake. Thunder! He sat up in bed, listening. A thunderclap late in the fall was rare and always preceded a terrible storm. Possibly he was mistaken. Sometimes rocks rolled down in distant canyons, making a sound like thunder.

Then the ebony darkness split. An appalling white light flashed through the open door. The cabin was illuminated with the brightness of noonday. Outside, the black pines stood up against the blue-white glare, the black jaws of the gorge seemed to be snapping at the angry sky. Then thunder crashed with a deafening blast. The cabin shook. The sharp explosion changed to boom and bellow, filling the narrow gorge with reverberating echoes, endlessly repeated until they rumbled away into utter silence.

Toward dawn, which he ascertained by a grayness superseding the pitch blackness, there came a gradual lessening of the deluge and lulls in the bellowing of the wind.

Day broke leaden, gusty, with signs of the inevitable change from rain to snow. Jake struck a fire and then went to look around.

Well indeed was it that the cabin had been erected on a bench high above the stream bed. Where last night had been a rough boulder and gravel-strewn gully, there was now a lake. What amazed Jake was the fact that he could not note any current. Perhaps it was because of the enormous volume of water that must be draining out of the gorge; and the underground exit was not large enough to take care of it. Nevertheless, that theory did not wholly satisfy Jake.

Thin yellow sheets of water were falling from the cliffs, and here and there narrow torrents rushed pell mell down the cracks and defiles of the slopes.

Jake gazed up at the dark, leaden sky. The storm clouds had lodged against the rim and hung there. Only in a few places could he see the ramparts, with the gray wall fringed by black pine. The air was still warm, but a gust of wind now and then brought a cold raw breath. During the day, or more likely when night fell, the rain would turn to snow.

Jake went into the cabin to cook breakfast. The situation was beyond him. By all the woodcraft of which he was master, he knew that the imperative need was to climb out of the gorge before the snow made it impossible. If it had not been for the certainty of Verde’s horse tracks on the trail Jake would have attempted to escape at once. But he well knew that Verde would not leave, even if he were able. Jake had no alternative. How futile now that a few hours of oblivion in sleep had brought his mind back toward normal! The die was cast. The catastrophe of a great storm could not make the situation any more desperate for him and Verde. But it made him think; and he had to deny the reason that began to dispel his passion of the past few weeks.

Methodically Jake went about his preparations for breakfast. He was a good cook and had always taken pride in the accomplishment. His keen sensibilities, however, were wholly absorbed in things outside the cabin — the moan of the wind rising again, the frequent rain squalls, the increasing roar of falling water. With some feeling that he could not understand he did not expect Verde, yet he listened for the sound of hoofs or the jangle of spurs.

He poured a second cup of coffee. Lifting the cup, he was about to drink when something happened wholly new in his experience. He wanted to drink, but could not.

Halfway to his lips the full cup poised.

Jake stared. The coffee was quivering.

“Gosh! Am I that nervous?” he exclaimed, and he set the cup down on a bench.

But the coffee continued to quiver. Indeed, the motion increased. There were queer little circles and waves inside the cup!

“Reckon I’m loco,” muttered Jake. Nevertheless, he strained his faculties. Something was wrong. In him, for a certainty, but also outside! He continued to stare at the coffee in the cup. Then he heard the rustling of the dry spruce boughs under his bed. Mice! He thought it rather an odd hour for mice to begin emerging. Next a faint rattling of the loft poles attracted his attention.

The whole cabin was shaking. Jake leaped to his feet, and rushed toward the door. The tremor increased. His cooking utensils began to clatter. The cans on the shelves took to dancing. The earth under the cabin was trembling.

A rumbling sound filled Jake’s ears. Thunder! The storm was about to break into its second and most fearful phase. It was a long, low, dull roar, gaining volume at the end instead of dying away! Was that thunder?

“Avalanche!” yelled Jake, and bounded wildly out of the cabin. In the open he halted. His terror had been absurd. The cabin was so situated that no earth slide or rolling rocks could reach it.

Uncertainty ceased for Jake Dunton. The long, late Indian summer, so colorful and mellow and fruitful, must be paid for in the harsh terms with which nature always audited her account in the Tonto. Jake forgot his mission there in the realization that fate had shut him in Black Gorge on the eve of a blizzard. At the moment the peril did not strike him. He reacted as he might have on any of the other numerous sojourns in this canyon. He thought of Verde out there somewhere in the blackness.

“Damn Verde anyhow,” complained Jake. “Why won’t he ever listen to me?”

The pattering rain commenced again, and this time did not cease. Nor did the wind lull. Both perceptibly augmented, but so slowly as to persuade the lonely listener against his better judgement. They bade him hope against hope.

Then the storm broke with savage and demoniac fury. There was no more thunder, or at least in the mighty roar of wind and water Jake could not distinguish any. It took all Jake’s strength to close the cabin door. He went back to bed, thankful for the impervious roof he and Verde had built on that cabin, and for the safe site they had chosen.

His ears became filled with an infernal din. The gorge might have become the battleground of all the elements from the beginning of time. Jake had never experienced such screaming of winds, such a torrential deluge of rain. He lay there, forgetting himself, fearful only for the lost Verde. Verde, the boy — lost again! And each terrible hour the storm gained in strength, changing, swelling, mounting to cataclysmic force.

Then his gaze fixed upon the stretch of gorge below. He could see to the narrow passage between the black walls through which he had come last night. Everywhere water was running off the cliffs. The canyon appeared to be wreathed in waterfalls, lacy, thin, yellow, with some like ragged ribbons of water.

The sound that had alarmed Jake did not cease. It grew in intensity. Slides of weathered rock on the slopes above! His keen eye sought the heights.

The skyline of the rim wall had changed. Could it be hidden in cloud? But the gray pall hung above and beyond. There seemed to be movement, either of a drifting veil of rain or a long section of slope. Jake wondered if his eyes were deceiving him. Had his love for Verde and Kitty, the jealousy and the fight and the hate, and the dreadful night of storm unhinged his mind? Was he going crazy?

No! His eagle eye had the truth at last. A section of the rim wall had slipped and was sliding down toward the lower end of Black Gorge.

Jake stood there, motionless and dumb with mingled terror and awe. The section of the rim, with its fringe of black pines erect, was moving downward with a gathering and ponderous momentum. The rumble increased to thunder.

A cloud of yellow dust began to lift against the background of stone wall and leaden sky, quickly blotting them out.

Jake’s straining sight recorded what seemed to be an illusion in his stunned mind. The line of erect pine trees turned at right angles, and the black spear-tipped trees pointed out over the gorge. Then they waved and dipped. The line broke, the trees leaned and whirled and fell, to be swallowed up by the clinging slope. Only the thundering, rending roar gave reality to what Jake saw. The section of rim wall, giving way, had started the whole slope below into a colossal avalanche. It was a brain-numbing spectacle: The vast green slope of cedar and piñon, of manzanita and oak, of yellow crag and red earth, had become a swelling, undulating cataract. It was beautiful, awe-inspiring. Only the cataclysmic sound rendered proof of its destructive force.

But in a few more seconds the grace and rhythmic movement gave place to upheaval, and then to a tremendous volleying of boulders flung ahead of the avalanche. Rocks as large as cabins hurdled the narrow split of Black Gorge. Large and small they began to crack like cannon balls against the far wall of the gorge.

Jake could see, at the instant when the green mass reached the verge, the width of canyon light streaked by multitudes of falling rocks. Then the avalanche, like a vast, tumbling waterfall of rocks and debris, slid over to fill the end of the gorge.

A terrific wind, propelled up the canyon, staggered Jake. The roar that had grown awful ceased to be sound. He heard no more.

The lower end of Black Gorge was buried by an avalanche that concealed its crushed and splintered mass of debris under a mantle of dust. The lake that had formed at the lower end of the gorge, and which had been displaced by the avalanche now, came swelling and rushing back like a flooded river breaking through its dikes, and the waters rose halfway up to where the cabin stood on the wide bench.

Jake’s first realization of a recovered sense of hearing came with this sound of the chafing flood waters. The contrast between the roar that had deafened him and the gentle lapping of the waves left his ears ringing.

The avalanche had come to rest under its sky-high dust cloud.

Jake ran down the trail and off the bench as far as he could go. Through the thinning dust curtain he saw the width of the gorge piled almost straight up with fresh red earth, skinned tree trunks, and rocks of every size. The avalanche had filled the gorge beyond the narrow defile. Its destructive force had extended to a point even beyond the limit of its wall. Jake had to find a new path between boulders higher than his head, and over logs and slides of shale.

Rocks were still rolling down under the veil of dust. And Jake thought it would be well to retreat to the cabin. Just as he turned back he heard a cry that froze his blood.

Breathless, with heart pounding in his breast, he listened. More than once in his life had he heard the shrill sound made by a horse in extreme terror or injured near to death. This was how Jake interpreted the sound. His heart jumped and he began to breathe again. Then the cry pealed out louder than before.

Jake began frantically climbing in the direction from which he thought the horse’s scream had come. The going was rough, over the loose debris flung off by the avalanche. He reached the line of trees and more level ground. It was wet and very slippery. Rain mixed with snow fell around him.

Then suddenly, close at hand, there rose a harsh, fierce shout. It seemed to Jake that he recognized Verde’s voice. He bounded through the wet brush and under the dripping trees.

A moment later he burst into a little glade, across which a good-sized pine had fallen. And on the side toward Jake, close to the wet earth, protruded a pair of boots equipped with long bright spurs. Jake recognized them. They did not move. The legs which wore them were pinned to the ground!

Like a panther, Jake leaped over the log. He found himself looking down into the ash-white, agonized face of Verde. The youth still was conscious. His eyes moved and fixed in an expression of disbelief on Jake’s face. Then recognition came and he murmured, “Jake.”

“My Gawd — Verde!” cried Jake, falling upon his knees to grasp Verde’s writhing hands.

“It got me — Jake,” whispered Verde. “Last night — my horse fell and me — broke my leg... I crawled — this far — then — the avalanche—”

“I’ll get you out, Verde,” declared Jake, and laying hold of the prostrate form, he started to pull.

Verde cursed and beat at his rescuer until he ceased his efforts to drag the fallen man from under the tree.

“Don’t,” whispered Verde, his face white and drawn, wet with big clammy drops of sweat, and jaw quivering. “Don’t touch me... I’m done for... But thank Gawd — you’ve come to — end my misery.”

Then Jake awoke to the horror of the facts. Verde lay crushed beneath the pine. It had caught him across the legs almost to his hips. Jake saw a white leg bone protruding through Verde’s overalls. The end of the bone was black with dirt.

If there were other bodily injuries, as no doubt there were, Jake could not see them. Verde’s arms were free, his chest was apparently sound. But there was a bloody cut on his head.

Again Verde screamed and the unearthly sound broke Jake’s nerve and strength. He let go, shaking in every nerve of his body. He had seen another leg bone come protruding out, bloody and white, through Verde’s overalls.

‘For Gawd’s sake, man,” panted Verde, “don’t let me die by slow torture this way!”

He lay there, transfixing Jake with eyes Jake found almost unendurable to meet.

“Jake — old boy — fer the love of Gawd, put me out of — of my misery!”

Jake could only shake his head slowly.

“Shoot me, Jake... I cain’t stand it... No use anyhow... I’m smashed... Kill me!”

“Verde!”

“Don’t waste time!” pleaded Verde, the blue fire of his eyes momentarily burning away the mist of anguish. “Every second is worse than hellfire!... If you have any mercy — kill me!”

“No!”

“But Jake — dear old brother — you don’t savvy,” went on the pleading husky voice. “I’ll bless you in the hereafter... I beg you... Jake, you saved me once — when we were — young ‘uns. You know — down at Lost Boy Ford! You were brother to me then — an’ always you’ve been... But now the great thing is — to spare me more of this... Cain’t you see? Why, old boy, I’d do it — fer you... I swear to Gawd I would... Jake — if you — love me — end my misery!”

Jake’s nerveless hand groped for his gun. He seemed numbed. All the sweetness of the years rushed into this one supreme moment — unbearable in its heartshocking agony.

Verde was praying now for deliverance. The deathly radiance of his face seemed to come already from that other world he sought. His face was almost unearthly beautiful then — and it seemed as if the power to command came from beyond life itself. For a moment he almost overcame Jake’s resistance. But now a strength almost as great as the avalanche that had caught them seized upon Jake’s heart and mind, and the spell was broken.

When Verde saw that he had failed, he snatched at Jake’s gun with a wild and tortured cry. Jake flung it far from him.

Then Verde sank back unconscious. And Jake, whipping out his knife, began to dig frantically at the soft earth under Verde’s imprisoned legs.

He scooped out a hole on one side, then on the other. Presently he reached under the tree and dug farther. In a few more moments he was able to drag Verde gently from under the log that had him imprisoned.

Then he knelt beside the still form, not daring to look at the white face. He placed a shaking, muddy hand on Verde’s breast. Verde’s heart was still beating faintly. Realization that his brother still lived made a giant out of Jake.

Sheathing the knife, he lifted the limp form in his arms and strode down to the trail.

The rain had let up a little. The dust was settling. And there came a brightening of the sky, one of the false hopes that such storms hold out in their early stages. As he reached the cabin he noted that the rain was changing to snow.

CHAPTER V

VERDE OPENED HIS eyes. He smelled smoke and heard the crackling of a fire. A roof of rough-hewn poles and split shingles slanted above him. He recognized the cabin, and then in a flash he recalled the chain of circumstances that had led to his presence there.

He lay on a couch of boughs in the corner of the cabin. A blanket covered him. Jake was not in the room. Verde felt that the lower parts of his limbs were dead. He had a locked, icy sensation in his breast. He found that he had free use of his hands, and could move his head without difficulty. Jake had removed his boots, one of which had been slit. A bloody ragged leg of his trousers hung over a bench.

The door of the cabin stood open. Verde saw whirling, thin-flaked snow. The ground bore a mantle of white, and the spruce trees looked spectral against the gray gloom. A sound of falling water filled the cabin.

Rapid footfalls struck his ear. The doorway darkened. Jake entered staggering under an enormous armload of fagots. He was wet, and brought in the dank odor of pine. Not until he had deposited the load of wood in a corner next to the huge stone fireplace did he observe that Verde was conscious.

“By glory — you’ve come to!” he exclaimed, and the haggard darkness of his face brightened in a homely grin.

“Reckon I have,” replied Verde. Speaking was difficult and his voice pitifully weak.

“It took so long,” said Jake, with immense relief. “I thought — I was afraid... Verde, are you sufferin’ — much?’

“Cain’t tell. Feel daid in my legs an’ sort of queer here,” rejoined Verde, indicating his breast.

“I’m thankful you’ve no orful pain like this mawnin’.”

“What time of day is it?”

“Late afternoon.”

“An’ I’ve been unconscious all day long?”

“You shore have.”

They looked long into each other’s face. Verde’s faculties were growing acute. He saw that Jake was laboring under an enormous strain. How strange! Jake was usually so cool, so easy, so sure.

“Jake, old boy, how bad am I hurt?”

“Turrible — bad — all right,” replied Jake, swallowing hard.

“Wal, just how and where?”

“There’s a cut on your head, clear to the bone. Your right leg is broke below the knee. One bone. I set thet — an’ got it in splints. But your — left leg—”

“Got you stumped, hey?” asked Verde as Jake shook his head and gulped.

“Smashed — an’ the bones splintered all to hell.”

“Ahuh! Must have bled a lot.”

“Bled? You shore bled like a stuck pig. But I got thet stopped.”

“Wal, is that all, Jake? Honest Injun now?”

“All I’m sure about. First off there was blood runnin’ from your mouth. That scared me. But you haven’t bled any more fer hours.”

“Ahuh!... An’ what else are we up against, old boy?”

Jake lifted his hands in a helpless, half-frantic gesture of despair.

“Verde! If the avalanche didn’t shut us in forever we’re shore snowed up for the winter.”

“I was figurin, somethin’ like,” replied Verde quietly, and closed his eyes. He could not endure to look at Jake any longer, just then. Jake was more than appalled by the tragedy. And Verde began to ponder over a meaning for it.

“Verde, you asked me to be honest,” went on Jake hesitantly. “An’ I’m tellin’ you — only a miracle can save us.”

Verde noted that Jake used the plural. Perhaps it was only a slip of speech in the seriousness of the moment. Still the implication of a prayer for that one saving miracle was strong. From under his half closed eyelids Verde watched Jake as he busied himself over the cooking utensils and the fire. Anyone who knew Jake could have told that he was not himself. He was restless, exceedingly nervous, now hurried and again abstracted. He would seem to forget the meal he was preparing and then he would suddenly remember it. He walked aimlessly about the room, took up tasks irrevelant to hour and left them abruptly, unfinished. He went outdoors and returned for no reason that was evident. Once he came in with an armload of wood, only to carry it out again. And always the only consistent action he seemed to be performing was to turn every little while tragic, deep-set, fearful eyes in the direction of Verde.

At last he managed to get supper ready.

“Verde, can you eat or drink?” he asked.

“I crave cold water. Thet’s all. Put some snow in it,” replied Verde.

Jake brought it and set it at Verde’s elbow.

The afternoon waned and soon night fell. The soft, seeping, sweeping, rustling sound of falling snow almost imperceptibly increased. Around the eaves of the cabin and in the spruces the wind sighed mournfully. From the heights came the faint roar of the storm.

Jake sat in the firelight and Verde watched him. It must have continued so far a long time. Often Jake would replenish the dying fire, which would crackle and flare up and again light up the cabin. It seemed to Verde that Jake was trying not to surrender to a situation that he knew was hopeless. First the natural shock following the desperate accident to Verde, and now the realization of their being shut in, surely lost together. Verde read it all in Jake’s dark face.

Jake had meant to kill him. He had wanted him dead! In the humiliation of being whipped before their friends and relatives, and in the jealousy of the hour, and in the subsequent recognition that Kitty Mains loved him no more than she loved Verde, Jake had succumbed to the lust to kill.

When Verde sent word to Jake that he knew where to find him if he wanted satisfaction, Verde had hoped nothing more would come of it. Nothing more except that Kitty should choose one of them! He had hoped, but he had doubted. And here they were, doomed by the avalanche to the same fate. And poor Jake had awakened too late from the horror of his hate for him. It was Jake’s fault they had come to Black Gorge at a season when they should have shunned it. His fault, too, the horror of Verde’s crushed legs and the lingering death to come!

In the dark lonely hours of that night, when the flickering firelight played upon Jake’s tortured face, Verde learned how awful it must be for Jake. For himself he did not care. Even if he could have been saved he would not have welcomed it. What good of life hobbling about on maimed legs? But for Jake’s sake he began to want to live. And as the hours dragged by this desire grew.

Toward morning Jake tiptoed over to peer down at Verde, and then, thinking him alseep, he lay down beside him, very quietly.

But Verde was far from asleep. The pangs of agony had reawakened in his numbed leg. The fire flickered, casting its fantastic shadows on the rude walls of the cabin, flickered, faded, and died. Then blackness reigned. Outside the snow seeped and whirled and, with silky rustle, beat against the cabin. Sometimes vagrant flakes blew through the little window and fell cool wet upon Verde’s face. The wind mourned. Once when it lulled Verde heard the wild, lonely cry of a wolf.

Verde’s body seemed weighted by lead. The desperate desire to move had to be yielded to. And the slightest movement of his lower muscles was equivalent to plunging ten thousand red-hot spikes into his quivering flesh. But he endured, and fought the strange indifference that stole over his mind.

He must live for Jake’s sake. Jake — who had wanted him dead! What a queer thing — that Jake could have imagined that he would be happier with his old friend out of the way!

CHAPTER VI

DAWN BROKE. VERDE was careful to look wide awake and more cheerful when Jake turned to him.

“How are you, Verde?”

“A rarin’ to go — if we only could,” replied Verde. “Pile out, Jake, an’ when you’ve had breakfast I want to talk to you.”

“Verde! You’re not sinkin’?”

“Would you expect me to be soarin’? I haven’t sprouted wings yet,” returned Verde.

Jake moved about with a synthetic haste that would have been ludicrous if it had not been so pathetic. Every one of his actions proved that he believed his earnestness futile.

“Open the door an’ let’s look out,” said Verde.

Black Gorge was now white, except for the lake which had risen nearly to the edge of the bench.

“Reckon it won’t snow heavy down heah,” rejoined Jake.

“Is the air cold? I don’t pear to feel it.”

“Nope. It’s warm yet, an’ that means more snow. But winter shore has set in.”

“Wal, Jake, let’s talk,” replied Verde. “Leave the door open so it’ll be light.”

Jake drew a bench to Verde’s bedside and looked down upon him with the miserable eyes of a dog that knows it has been beaten.

“All right, Verde, I’ll listen,” he said. But there was not the slightest indication of hope in look or tone.

“What’s to be done?” asked Verde brightly.

Jake spread wide his hands with an air of dejection.

“Jake, you’ve got it figgered this way,” went on Verde. “Nobody could get to us, even if they knew where we are. We cain’t climb out in the snow. An’ I’ve got to die pronto — an’ then you’ll starve to death?”

“Not starve, Verde,” returned Jake hoarsely. But he had acquiesced with Verde’s summary of the situation. He dropped his face in his big broad hands, and tears trickled between his fingers.

“Miracles do happen, Jake,” said Verde.

Jake made a sharp gesture of despair.

“Yes. Dad might find us. But even so — he couldn’t save you.”

“Old boy, is that what matters so much?” asked Verde softly.

“Reckon it’s all — that — matters,” replied Jake brokenly.

“Well, then, you must be up an’ doin’.”

“Verde, my mind’s stopped workin’.”

“Mine hasn’t, an’ don’t you forget it,” returned Verde. “Mine’s just begun... Jake, you know that my leg as it is — all smashed — will soon mortify. An’ it’d kill me pronto.”

“Hell man! You needn’t tell me that,” Jake replied.

“You’ve got to cut off my leg,” returned Verde slowly and evenly.

“My Gawd, Verde!... I — I couldn’t,” gasped Jake.

“Sure you could. Now think sense, Jake. It’s my only chance. You could cut it off — If I told you how — an’ if I’d stand it.”

Jake was pale and sweating. His big hands opened and shut. His homely, battered face was working.

“Yes. I might. It’s this idea that takes my nerve... You — you might die while I was doin’ it!”

“Of course I might. That’s the chance. But I think I wouldn’t. An’ it’s damn sure I’ll die if you don’t. Let’s take the chance — my only chance.”

“Lord, if I had the nerve!” cried Jake, and he leaped up to pace the room.

“Come back here... Now listen,” went on Verde, growing inspired with his plan. “I’ll tell you it’s a great idea. An’ you can do it!”

“How about the big arteries in your leg?” Jake boomed. “I had one hell of a time stoppin’ the bleedin’.”

“You mustn’t let me bleed any more.”

“How about — that splintered bone?”

“You’ll saw it off above the break were it’s smashed.”

“Saw! We haven’t anything’ but the big crosscut saw. It’d be impossible to use that.”

“There’s a three cornered file we brought to sharpen that saw. You’ll make a saw out of your big huntin’ knife.”

“How?” burst out Jake incredulously.

“File the back of it into sharp saw teeth.”

“Reckon I might,” muttered Jake doubtfully. Still the idea was sinking in. “But even if I... Verde, you forget the worst danger.”

“Boy, this is my leg an’ my life. You can gamble I’m not forgettin’ anything!”

“But blood poisonin!... That couldn’t be prevented. We’ve nothin’ to—”

“Wrong. We’ve got fire!” flashed Verde.

Jake stared at him, dominated by Verde’s tremendous force.

“Fire?” he echoed.

“Listen. You’re sure thick-headed. All we got to do is plan it right — then work fast. My job is to bear it — yours to make it a clean, quick one... You’ll sharpen both our huntin’ knives. Sharp as razors. You’ll file the back of the long blade into a saw. Then you’ll scour a pot an’ heat water to boilin’. You’ll put the knives in that. Then you’ll have your straight brandin’ iron in the fire. It must be red hot. Shore you know how slick you are with a brandin’ iron?... Wal, now. You’ll make sure where to cut my leg above the mashed place. You’ll bind it tight, so it cain’t bleed. Then when all’s ready you’ll cut the flesh all around, quick an’ clean, clear to the bone. Then you’ll saw through the bone. Then you’ll grab your red-hot brandin’ iron and burn the stub across. That’ll sear bone an’ arteries an’ flesh. You’ll loosen the cord, an’ wrap up my leg in a clean towel or shirt... An’ that’s all.”

“That’s all!” blazed Jake. “Good Gawd, Verde!... Can you stand it?”

“I can an’ will, old boy. I reckon it’ll not be as bad as we think. For there’s not much feelin’ left in that leg.

“When?” gasped Jake. The excitement of the idea had gripped him. The thought that there might still be a chance to save Verde’s life was all-consuming.

“Right now!” replied Verde. He had convinced Jake to undertake the terrible responsibility! Convinced him by persuasion, and in the end by falsehood, because during the excitement of this discussion the numbed leg had revived to exquisite pain. But Verde swore in his soul that he would endure and live.

Jake became actuated by supreme, uplifting, galvanizing hope. He was a changed man. Swiftly, quick and hard, he went at the preliminary tasks. He built a roaring fire. He scoured a big iron pot until it shone. He filled it with water and put it on to boil. He scraped all the rust off the branding iron, gave it a polish, and then thrust it in the heart of the red coals. Next he sharpened the knives, and filed the back of the blade of the long one. He was deft and sure, absorbed in each task. It took a long time to notch the blade into a saw and to sharpen the notches, but at last he was satisfied.

“Let me see it, Jake,” asked Verde.

It was a ten-inch blade, worn thin from use. Verde felt the sharp teeth.

“Wal, Jake, that’ll do the trick pronto,” said Verde as coolly as if it was the bone of a horse or steer they were talking about.

“Lucky I’ve some clean soft shirts,” returned Jake. “Ma put them in my bag.”

“Good. Tear one up into strips.”

“Now, what next?” asked Jake, rolling up his sleeves.

“You’ll want my leg on somethin’ solid. Knock off the top of the bench.”

Jake did so, and stripping off the blanket that covered Verde he slipped the board under his shattered leg.

“Verde, ought I to tie you?” asked Jake in solemn earnestness.

“No, Jake, I’ll not make a fuss. Don’t worry about me. Just you have everythin’ ready — then be quick. Make it a clean job. Savvy?”

“I’ll have it off quicker’n you can say Jack Robinson,” replied Jake.

The boyhood term, used so unconsciously, recalled to Verde the faraway past.

A ponderous blackness seemed to float slowly before Verde’s sight. The cabin was dim, vague, like the unreality of a dream.

He lay like a stone, with no power to move, yet his body seemed aquiver in a mighty convulsion of nerves — a million shocks of agony that ranged through him. A tremendous current swelled and burned in his marrow, like a boring worm of fire, up his spine, into his brain.

CHAPTER VII

IT WAS NIGHT, and outside the storm moaned and wailed and raged. The shadows cast by the fire flickered their last; the red glow of the dying embers faded.

Jake had fallen into the sleep of exhaustion.

But Verde was hovering on the verge of a great and eternal sleep. He knew that death for him was very close. He felt the cool sweet winds of oblivion; he saw the wide, vacant, naked hallway of the beyond, the dim, mystic spiritland; he had heard the strange alluring voices. He had only to let go. And every atom of his racked body clamored to be freed. But Verde held on.

It came a thousand times — that wraithlike presence, the specter that contended with Verde’s unquenchable will. And then it came no more.

CHAPTER VIII

ONE MORNING VERDE awoke from a deep slumber that had followed his night of agony.

The storm was over, a marble-white and glistening world of snow shone dazzlingly bright from the cabin doorway. Verde heard the sharp ringing of an ax. He saw that one end of the cabin was neatly stacked with firewood. A cheerful blaze crackled on the hearth.

Verde felt a surge of life within him. The crisis was past. The pangs of his poor maimed body were innumerable; but the great rending torture had ebbed and passed away.

Jake entered to greet him with a glad shout.

Another day Verde began to take nourishment that Jake most carefully prepared, and sparingly doled out.

“Shore you’re hungry,” he agreed, with his eager smile. “But I cain’t let you eat much yet. An’ for that matter we’re both goin’ to get good an’ damn hungry before the snow melts.”

“Reckon I forgot,” replied Verde in his weak voice. “How are we fixed for grub?”

“Pretty darn lucky,” said Jake fervently. “We always packed up more canned stuff than we ever used. An’ there’s a lot, some fruit an’ milk, but most vegetables. There’s a sack of flour an’ a couple sacks of beans. Coffee not a great deal, but lots of sugar. There’s a hundred pounds of salt that I packed up last spring to cure hides. Lucky that was! An’ I’ve hung up three deer I shot, an’ one of my horses. The meat’s froze solid. An’ I guess that’s all.”

“Pretty lucky, yes,” replied Verde. “But it’s a long way from enough. Let’s see — what’s the date?”

“I don’t know exactly. It’s well on in November. I’ll keep track of days.”

“We’re snowed up for five months.”

“Wal, Verde, it seemed terrible at furst, before I felt shore of you comin’ round, but it doesn’t faze me now.”

“All the same, old boy, it’s far the biggest job you ever tackled.” replied Verde.

“Recon so. But don’t you worry,” said Jake reassuringly. “We’ll go easy with our grub. I always was a meat eater, you know, an’ I can live on meat. I’ll find my other horse an’ kill him. Then I saw elk tracks up the canyon, but I didn’t want to take time to trail them. I’ll do it soon. No, I’m more worried about scarcity of wood than meat. You see there’s a couple of feet of snow on, an’ down timber is hard to locate.”

“The avalanche must have fetched down more wood than we’ll need.”

“Shore,” said Jake, slapping his leg. “I never thought of that. Reckon I sort of shunned the avalanche end of our prison. But with lots of wood I can beat this game.”

Verde noted that from this time on Jake was outdoors most of the daylight hours. To be sure, the days were short. But Verde soon became convinced that dry wood and fresh meat were harder to procure than Jake had acknowledged.

Jake ministered to Verde’s comfort and health with the care of a mother. Indeed, as days went by he grew more tender in his ministrations; and as Verde’s pains lessened and he showed signs of renewing strength, Jake’s unspoken worry lessened and he grew happy.

It dawned upon Verde, after a while, that Jake was happier than he had ever been, even before Kitty Mains had come into their lives. Verde guessed at the first flush of this discovery that Jake’s happiness came from having saved him, and from the daily service the situation made imperative. But after a while Verde altered this conviction, and arrived at the conclusion that it came from a revival of Jake’s earlier love for him. Anyway, Jake’s care of him was very sure and very beautiful. Verde never ceased to thank God that he had made the superhuman fight to hold on to life. It had been solely for Jake’s sake, but now he began to be glad for his own. He knew that he would manage somehow to ride a horse again.

CHAPTER IX

ONE NIGHT AFTER supper, with the cabin warm and cozy in the firelight and the snow pattering again against the walls, Jake sat a long time staring into the fire. Every once in a while he would throw on a few chips. Finally he turned a changed and softened face to Verde — a face that revealed a beautiful, strange smile and a warm light in his eyes.

“Verde, I reckon it’s no exaggeration to say you’re out of danger. Your leg has healed. You’re on the mend.”

“Yes, thanks to you, old boy,” returned Verde gratefully.

“Well, you can thank me all you like, but I’m thankin’ Gawd... An’, Verde, are you forgettin’ how you come to be here in this shape?”

“Reckon I am, now you make me think.”

Jake paused to moisten his lips, and his big hand smoothed his long hair.

“I hope you can forgive me, Verde.”

“There’s nothin’ to forgive. I’m as much to blame as you. An’ mebbe more.”

“Wal, we won’t argue that... Do you ever think of Kitty Mains?”

“Shore I do — a lot. When I cain’t help myself.”

“Verde, you loved Kitty somethin’ turrible, didn’t you?”

“I’m afraid I did.”

“But you do — yet?” demanded Jake intensely, as if any intimation otherwise could be sacrilege.

“All right. Yes, I do yet,” replied Verde, hastening to help Jake to his revelation, whatever it was to be.

“Shore, I’m glad. It wouldn’t seem fair to Kitty if our — our differences an’ this trouble made you love her less. Because, Verde — I know Kitty loved you more than me.”

“How do you know that?” asked Verde curiously.

“I reckon I found it out thinkin’. Somethin’ came to me lyin’ there awake so many nights. An’ it was this. Kitty has two natures same as she has eyes. Now I was always easy with girls. Guess I must have a little of girl nature in me. Anyway my coaxin’ an’ tender kind of love must have appealed to Kitty’s softer side. But that side wasn’t Kitty’s deepest an’ strongest. She’s more devil than angel, you can bet. She’d need to be tamed, an’ I never could do it. She’d soon tire of me... I always saw how Kitty flared up when you came around. If I’d have been honest with myself I’d of known what it meant. But I never knew until that night of the last dance. It nearly killed me then, but I’ve lived to be glad... Verde, I reckon mebbe Kitty isn’t all you an’ I dreamed she was. But she is what she is an’ we both love her. Now since we’ve been here alone I’ve reasoned it all out. Mebbe Kitty really does love you best. She ought to, you’re so handsome, Verde. So I’m givin’ up my share in her to you.”

“But Jake—” began Verde, feebly.

“There’s not any buts,” interrupted Jake. “I’ve settled it. I know I’m right. An’ I know this will help you to get well an’ strong quicker’n anything else in the world.”

Verde closed his eyes. He was troubled and shaken, and yet glad to have any expostulation on his part so summarily dismissed. But he knew in his heart that he had not accepted Jake’s ultimatum, and that a tremendous issue still loomed in the vague future. Just now he discovered how weak he was, both physically and spiritually. It was good to sink down — to realize that slumber would come.

Good old Jake!... Verde was a little boy again, wandering along the road. He came to a stream where the water ran swiftly and the leaves floated down. The white sycamore trees stood up like ghosts. He did not want to go back to the wagon, for his stepfather hated him and beat him... He was lost and he began to be afraid. Then a barefooted boy came out of the brush. “My name’s Jake,” the boy said. “What’s yours?” And craftily he would not tell because he wished to stay.

CHAPTER X

THE DEAD, COLD white winter shut down upon Black Gorge. The short days and the long nights passed. Verde slept most of the time. Jake labored at his tasks. Sometimes after supper he would play checkers with Verde on a rude board of his own construction. Or they held council over the all-important speculations of when and how they would dare attempt to get out of the gorge. Or more often they talked over the nearer and more serious problem of fighting the cold and starvation. They never mentioned Kitty Mains. Jake’s peace and serenity had somehow been communicated to Verde.

It was a wonderful occasion for both when Verde rose from his bed and hobbled about the cabin on the crutch Jake had made. From that day Verde’s progress grew more rapid. He looked forward to the supreme test that was to come — the climbing out of the canyon. He wanted to be able to help himself again. Jake had become a gaunt bearded giant, hardy as a pine.

It was true that he could thrive on a meat diet. But their meat was dwindling, and if Jake did not soon make a lucky stalk their supply would be exhausted and they must face starvation. Every day Jake hunted in the recesses of the winding gorge. Several times he had been on the eve of sighting elk, but the advent of night and fresh snow covering the tracks each time had frustrated his hopes.

CHAPTER XI

THE DAYS PASSED, and the hours of sunlight lengthened. The snow melted from the cabin roof and then disappeared from the south slope of the gorge. The icy clutch of winter loosened. Sometimes a warm, balmy breath of wind came wandering through the depths of the gorge.

With spring close at hand they came to the last pound of meat and the last hard biscuit each. Jake, giant that he was, had lately grown much gaunter. He had been sacrificing his food for Verde. When Verde discovered this he refused to eat at all unless Jake had an equal share. So they cooked the last pound of frozen meat.

Then Jake left with his rifle. Verde could now manage very well with his crutch. He did the chores while Jake hunted. There was a beautiful sky that afternoon. Verde gazed up wistfully over the pink-tinged snow ridges. Spring was coming. What a winter Jake and he had put in! Yet Verde would not have wanted it different, even to the recovery of his leg. Jake’s labors had been as great as his own sufferings. Together they had conquered something more fearful than death. Together they had climbed heights more beautiful than life itself.

Before the sunset flush had paled on the high ridges Jake came staggering in under a load of meat. With a heavy crash he threw down a haunch of elk. He was covered with snow and blood. A pungent animal odor and the scent of the woods emanated from him to fill the cabin.

“Killed a bull an’ a yearlin’,” he boomed, with his deep-set eyes beaming gladly upon Verde.

“They’ve been hidin’ from me all winter. But I found them... An’ Verde, soon I’ll be makin’ a sled to haul you home.”

“Say, you great big ragamuffin!” yelled Verde with a joy that matched Jake’s own. “I’ll walk home on one leg!”

Jake had impetuosity to make the start soon, but Verde had the wisdom and courage to wait awhile longer. The fresh meat would build up their strength and the longer they delayed the less snow they would have to combat.

During these last days Jake cut a zigzag trail in the snow up the slide of the avalanche. This side, being on the north, did not get the sun except for a brief while each day. The obstacle that imprisoned them, however, was the deep snow on top. Jake climbed high enough to see that the south slopes everywhere showed great patches of black where it had thawed. He was jubilant.

“Verde, I’m rarin’ to go. Once on top the rest will be easy!”

The night before the day they meant to undertake the climb upon which so much depended, Verde came out with something that had for so long obsessed his mind, and had been greatly contributary to the source of his own tranquility.

“Wal, Jake, now it’s time to get somethin’ off my own chest,” he said, with all the calmness he could muster.

“Ahuh?” asked Jake rather sharply. Evidently he did not like Verde’s look.

“I didn’t say so before, but I never agreed with you on that deal about Kitty Mains.”

“No... Say, ain’t it kinda late in the day to—”

“Late, but better than never... Jake, old boy, I cain’t accept what you wanted. I never agreed with you. An’ I simply won’t let you give up Kitty for me.”

Jake turned red under his matted beard. He left off the task in hand and stood up to confront Verde.

“Don’t you love Kitty same as I do?” he demanded.

Verde had his argument all planned, and the fact that in some degree it departed from strict veracity caused him no concern.

“Wal, I reckon I did once, but hardly now. This winter has knocked a lot out of me. Then I’m a cripple now, an’ I never saw thet women cared a heap for cripples, except with a sort of pity. I cain’t work as I used to, an’ I’ll be dependent upon your pa... Jake, he’s been a dad to me, same as you’ve been a brother. Gawd bless you! But after all my name’s not Dunton. I haven’t any real name to give a woman... Now all these things helped me to make up my mind. Fust an’ last though, the biggest reason is that no matter what you say against it, I believe Kitty loves you best.”

“Verde, you’re a doggone liar!” declared Jake huskily.

“Well, if she didn’t last fall, it’s a shore bet she will now. I’m only half a man, Jake… So let’s shake hands on it.”

“What if I won’t?”

“I’d hate to say, Jake. Fact is, I don’t know. Because my thinkin’ didn’t get so far. I might never leave this cabin with you... See it my way, Jake. You got to! We’ve come through hell, an’ we’re happy in spite of it — perhaps because of it. I don’t know. Only I’d never be happy again if you won’t take it my way.”

Jake wrung Verde’s hand, and turned away, mute and shaken, his head bowed.

CHAPTER XII

NEXT MORNING AT sunrise they started. Verde had only his crutch. Jake had a blanket strapped to his back, and he carried some strips of cooked meat in his pocket and a rope in his hand. He had carried the sled high up on the slope to use in case the snow was not gone from the ridge top and the south slope beyond.

The plan was to climb very slowly, foot by foot, to husband Verde’s strength. Two things became manifest during the early hours of the ascent — first, that the difficulties were greater than they had anticipated, and secondly that Verde had amazing strength and endurance.

But he gave out before they reached the top. Whereupon Jake took Verde over his shoulder, and carried him as he would a sack of meal. All winter Jake had packed heavy logs down to the cabin — packed them when he might have cut them into lesser lengths. But he had looked far ahead — to this terrible ascent out of Black Gorge. He was indeed a giant. Verde marveled at him. On the other hand, he was as slow and cautious as he was powerful and enduring. He carried Verde for only short distances, sometimes only a few yards. Then he would lower him to his foot and crutch on some high place. Thus, when he had caught his breath again, he would not have to bend down and lift Verde.

Up and up he toiled. The real Herculean labor began at the end of the trail Jake had cut in the snow. Verde almost despaired. But he could not flinch in the face of this magnificent and invincible courage. Jake had meant to kill him once and now he meant to save him. It was written. Verde felt it. And when his reason argued that Jake must soon fall broken and spent something told him no physical obstacle could conquer this man.

The afternoon waned. Sunset found them in deep snow. But before night came Jake had dragged Verde over the top of the ridge and down onto bare ground. There he fell, gasping and voiceless.

Verde set about gathering dead brush, which he piled in the lee of a large rock. Jake came presently, and helped him build a roaring fire. Then they heated the strips of meat and ate them. Jake cut spruce boughs and made a bed of them between the fire and the rock. Verde lay warm under the blanket, but he could not go to sleep immediately. Jake hunched close to the fire. His heart was too full for words, or sleep, or anything but a silent realization of deliverance and happiness.

The night wind moaned, but not with the moan of winter.

Sunrise found them on their way down the vast slope of brown and green which was dotted with patches of snow. The descent was easy, though slow. They had only to thread their way between the unthawed drifts and the thickets of brush. For a loadstone of hope they had their first sight of the Dunton ranch, a tiny green grass plot far in the distance, but coming ever closer.

Again sunset burned red and gold in the sky. Verde could now gaze back and up at the rim, bold and beautiful with its belt of bright colored cliffs and its fringed line of black pines.

With Jake’s arm upholding Verde, they staggered across the ranch field, to encounter Dunton coming out of the cabin. He dropped a bucket he had been carrying.

“Jane — wife — come quick!” he yelled.

Jake waved a tired hand.

“Dad, it’s me an’ Verde!”

“My Gawd! You infernal scarecrows!”

Then the mother came, white-faced, to scream a wondering, ecstatic welcome.

The warm, bright living room seemed like heaven to Verde. He could only look and feel, as he lay back, propped in a comfortable rocking chair. How good to be home! That wild, white mantled gorge retreated from his memory.

It was Jake who talked, who laughed when his mother wept.

Dunton cast eyes both happy and sad over his returned sons.

“So, thet’s your story,” he said. “Wal, the Tonto never heard its beat. I reckon I’m proud of you both... But, my Gawd, boys, the pity of it!... All fer nothin’! All for a slip of a popeyed girl who wasn’t worth your little finger, let alone a leg! Shore! Folks hadn’t even stopped talkin’ about your fight when she up an’ married young Stillwell.”

THE END

Fighting Caravans

First published in 1929, Fighting Caravans tells the story of Clint Belmet, a young frontier scout, who helps guide a freight wagon train, comprised of twenty-eight wagons packed with families and supplies, across the country, while fighting off Indians and evil traders.

The first edition

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

The 1931 film adaptation

The leading cast members of the 1931 film: Ernest Torrence, Gary Cooper, Lili Damita and Tully Marshall

CHAPTER 1

ONE BRIGHT JUNE day in 1856 the driver of a covered wagon halted on the outskirts of Independence, Missouri. All spring he had traveled with wife and child to reach this frontier post. They were tired and needed a rest before undertaking the long overland journey westward. So he chose for camp a shady spot in a grove where a brook ran deep and still under grassy banks.

This sturdy, middle-aged teamster answered to the name of Jim Belmet. He hailed from Illinois and, like many of his kind, came of pioneer stock. The West called irresistibly.

There were other camps along the stream. Columns of blue smoke curled upward. The ring of ax on hard wood resounded through the grove. Covered wagons lumbered along the dusty road toward the post.

“Mary, what’ll you need from town?” asked Jim, when he had finished the necessary labors around camp.

His wife was a robust, comely woman, just then active round the camp fire.

“Ham or bacon. Bread or flour. Coffee an’ sugar,” she replied.

“Hey, Clint!” he called to his son. “Want to go in town with me?”

“Naw,” refused the boy, a blond stripling of twelve years. He had a freckled face, clear, steady, gray eyes, and an intent and quiet manner beyond his age. He was barefooted, and on the moment appeared to be trimming a long slender willow pole.

“You’d rather fish, hey?” inquired the father. “Betcha I would,” returned Clint.

Jim turned to his wife with a gleam of humor on his weatherbeaten face. “Wal, what you make of that lad? Here we’ve been travelin’ for months an’ at last we’ve got to Independence. Why, this here town will be like a circus! An’ Clint would rather fish!”

“Reckon Clint takes after my father, who was a great hunter an’ fisher,” she said. “It’s just as well, considerin’ where we’re goin’.”

Clint thereupon was left to his own devices. Evidently he well knew what he was about, for he soon had his fishing rig ready. Next he spaded up the damp ground near the water, where he found worms for bait. “Mom, you’d like some fish for supper?” he called. “Reckon I would, sonny. But surely there’s no fish in that ditch.”

“Betcha. You’ll see.” Whereupon Clint glided under the shady trees along the banks of the still stream. He had not made a vain guess. Few indeed had been the campers who had not been of the same mind as his mother, for Clint found little indication that anyone had angled along this bank. From every hole he pulled out a fat golden sunfish or a wiggling catfish.

As he approached the next camp he espied a little girl sitting on the bank. She had pretty brown hair, rather curly. Her face was bent over her lap, which appeared to be full of clover. Clint was shy about girls. His first impulse was to go back the way he had come; however, the urge of fishing was stronger and he went on.

Now it chanced that the hole almost under the girl’s bare feet was the best Clint had found. Here he caught the biggest sunfish. Then, one after another, he captured seven more. Thereafter bites began to slacken. Looking ahead, he saw where horses had been in the water, spoiling it for further fishing. He strung the sunfish on his forked willow stick.

“How do!” spoke up the little girl, shyly.

Clint gave her a civil reply. She appeared to be younger than he, which fact mitigated his embarrassment.

“I never saw anyone who could catch fish like you,” she exclaimed, admiringly.

Clint did not realize it, but that was probably the only speech which could have detained him. More, it caused him to look at her. Her eyes were dark and bright, most disconcerting to look into. But something compelled him to.

“Me? Aw, I’m not so good,” he replied, and suddenly conscious that he was awkwardly twisting his body, he sat down upon the grass. Strangely, too, he felt loath to leave.

“Oh, you must be!” she went on, round-eyed and earnest. “I heard my daddy say there wasn’t any fish in this river.”

“Well, there are, only it ain’t a river.... Do you like fish?”

“To eat? Yes, I do. I’m so sick of greasy fat bacon.”

“All right. I’ll clean a couple of these sunfish for you,” offered Clint, and bounding down to the water he whipped out his knife, and made the very best job he could of dressing his largest two sunfish. These he impaled on a fork of willow and climbed back up the bank. She had leaned over on hands and knees to watch him, and her look stirred something unaccountable in him.

“There now. You tell your mother, or whoever’s your cook, to salt ‘em, an’ fry quick without any flour or meal.”

Clint did not catch her murmured thanks, and he was divided between a hope she would go and a fear that she might not stay. But she sat back and gazed at him in the friendliest way.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Clint Belmet.”

She repeated it and giggled. “Funny name, but it’s prettier ‘n mine.”

“What’s yourn?”

“May Bell.”

“Why, that’s an orful pretty name!”

“It’s so silly.... Have you a brother or sister?”

“No. There’s just me an’ paw an’ mom.”

“Just like me.... Isn’t it dreadful?... My mother says I’m spoiled. Are you?”

“I reckon paw thinks so. Where you from?”

“Ohio. We lived on a farm.”

“We did, too, back in Illinois. I didn’t like it. But I sure like this travelin’ west. Don’t you?”

May mused over that seriously. “Sometimes I get homesick.”

“Huh! What’d you do back home?”

“I went to school. Ever since I was five. I liked that.... Did you go to school?”

“Four years. Paw says he’ll betcha it’s all I’ll ever get. I’ll be darned glad.”

“Where’s your paw takin’ you?”

“West. He doesn’t know where.”

“My daddy says the same thing. Don’t you think they’re a — a little crazy?”

“Mom says paw is plumb out of his head.”

“I — I wish we was travelin’ west together,” said May, boldly.

“It’d be — nice,” replied Clint, confronted with the most amazing circumstance of his life.

Just at that moment Clint heard his mother calling, and as he arose, another call, evidently for May, came from the adjoining camp. She got up and gingerly lifted the fish on the willow branch. Clint wanted to say something, but he did not know what.

“I’ll tell my daddy if — if you’ll tell yours,” May said eagerly.

“Tell — what?” stammered Clint.

“That me an’ you we want to travel west together Ride on the front seat sometimes together. Won’t it t lovely?... Will you tell your daddy?”

“Sure,” gulped Clint, appalled at the strangeness of the truth this little girl had made him see. Then the separated, and she was not alone in looking back.

Clint found his father had returned from town, so excited about something that he scarcely noticed the fish Clint proudly exhibited. His mother listened seriously while she went on preparing supper. Clint took his fish down to the brook and cleaned them, pondering over what might have happened. He guessed it had only to do with the further journey west. And returning to the camp fire, where he quietly helped his mother, Clint soon learned that they were to join one of the great freighting caravans for which Independence was famous on the frontier.

“Reckon it’ll be safer in a big wagon-train than a little one,” was the only comment Clint’s mother made.

After supper Clint was both thrilled and mortified to espy the little girl, May, coming into camp with a tall man. It happened that Clint was helping his mother wash the cooking utensils; he did not, however, choose to desist just because of the company. May smiled brightly and nodded mysteriously while the man with her addressed Clint’s father.

“My name’s Bell — Sam Bell, from Ohio,” he announced.

“Howdy! Mine’s Jim Belmet. Hail from Illinois.”

“This’s my little girl, May. She met your boy today by the brook. An’ I’ve come over to have a confab with you.”

“Sure glad to meet you an’ the little lady,” responded Jim, warmly. “An’ here’s my wife an’ my boy Clint.”

After a few more exchanges Bell came out frankly with the object of his visit.

“Independence was about as far as my figgerin’ went,” he said. “Course I knew I was goin’ farther west.

But how an’ when I didn’t calculate much on. Now I’m here an’ I’ve got to decide.”

“Wal, I was just in your fix when I got here,” replied Belmet. “It didn’t take me long, though. I’m goin’ to haul freight over the Santa Fé trail.”

“Freight? You mean all kinds of supplies needed at the posts an’ forts overland?”

“Sure. I’m goin’ to haul for the Tillt Company. They have big warehouses here, where you can buy hosses, oxen, wagons, guns, tobacco, leather goods, all kinds of grub — in fact, everythin’ from a paper of pins to a bag of candy. Tillt has stores an’ agents all along the old trail from Independence to Santa Fé.”

“Freighter, eh? What kind of a business is it?”

“Good pay. I aim to take wages while I look for a place to settle down on out West.”

“Sensible idea, ‘pears to me,” returned Bell, thoughtfully. “How much capital does a man need?”

“Not much, considerin’. Tomorrow I’m buyin’ one of them big freight wagons an’ two teams. You can buy oxen cheaper.”

“What’ll you do with the outfit you came in?” asked Bell, pointing to the covered wagon.

“Wal, take it along, I reckon. Mary can drive, an’ Clint here is no slouch with hosses.”

“Belmet, I guess I’ll do the same thing,” returned Bell, with enthusiasm. “How many’s goin’?”

“Seventy-five so far, Tillt’s agent told me. The more the merrier — or safer, I should say. Injuns, you know, all the way across. Our caravan will be under Captain Couch. He’s a guide an’ scout. Reckon there’ll be twice seventy-five wagons when we start.... Bell, you don’t want to start across the plains alone. Better throw in with us.”

“Oh, daddy, please go with them!” implored little May.

“Well, daughter, if you feel that way, why don’t you ask, yourself?” queried Bell, curiously and kindly.

“May we — we go with you?” shyly asked the child of Belmet.

“Why, bless my heart! We’re only too glad. Clint, tell this young lady you’ll be delighted.”

But Clint was tongue-tied.

“It’s settled, then,” rejoined Bell, as if relieved. “Suppose you all come over to my camp an’ meet my wife.”

On the way across the grove Clint and May fell behind and gravitated toward each other. He felt her looking up at him.

“I like your daddy an’ mamma. An’ I hope you’ll like mine,” she said.

“Course I will — I do.”

“I forgot.... How old are you?”

“Goin’ on thirteen.”

“Oh, you’re so much older. I’m only ten. But you don’t mind, do you?”

“What — mind what?”

“Me bein’ so young an’ — an’ little?”

“Aw, that’s all right.”

“An’ you’ll let me set on the front seat with you — sometimes — when you’re drivin’?”

“Betcha I will.”

“Oh, lovely!” She clapped her hands in glee. “We’ll ride an’ ride. I won’t be lonesome no more. We’ll look an’ look way, way over the grass — so flat an’ far. Won’t we?”

“Reckon there won’t be nothin’ to do but look,” replied Clint, with a superior air.

“But, oh, when the Injuns come! They will, won’t they?”

“Paw laughs an’ says no. But mom shakes her head.... Yes, the Injuns will come.”

“Oooooo!... But I’ll not be afraid, ridin’ with you,” she said, and slipped a cool little hand in his.

CHAPTER 2

THE LONG WAGON-TRAIN wound like an endless white-barred snake across the undulating plain.

The ox-teams, with massive heads bowed, swayed ploddingly, hauling the canvas-covered prairie schooners; the heavy freight wagons with their four horses were held to the slower pace of the oxen. This caravan was two miles long, consisting of one hundred and thirty-four wagons. The road over the Santa Fé trail was yellow, winding and full of dust; on each side, as far as eye could reach, stretched the endless prairie, green and gray, waving like a sea.

In the slow, patient movement of this caravan there lay the suggestion of an irresistible tide of travel westward. It held an epic significance. Nothing could halt it permanently. Beyond the boundless purple horizon beckoned an empire in the making. Behind the practical thought of these teamsters, behind the courage, the jocularity, the endurance, and the reckless disregard of storm, thirst, prairie fire, and hostile savages, hid the dream of the pioneer, the builder.

They were on their third day out from Independence and already the prairieland had swallowed them. On all sides lay monotonous level. Red-tailed hawks sailed over the grass, peering down; from ridges came the piercing whistle of wild horses; barren spots showed little prairie dogs sitting up on their haunches, motionless, near their holes, watching the train go by; wolves skulked away to merge into the gray; and jack rabbits seemed as many as the tufts of grass.

Somewhere near the middle of that caravan Clint Belmet proudly sat on the seat of his father’s covered wagon, reins and whip in hand. His mother had relinquished the driving to him. She was not well and lay back under the shelter of the wagon cover. At twelve years of age, Clint had been given a man’s job. The first day out his father had kept close watch on him from behind, as had Sam Bell from in front. But their concern gradually lessened.

On this third day Clint knew happiness as never before. He had been trusted; he had justified the faith of his elders; he was a part of something which he felt was tremendous. A heavy rifle leaned beside him against the seat. The first time he had been instructed to shoot it in camp, he had been knocked flat on his back; the second time he had held fast, to Sam Belmet’s satisfaction. Clint would not be afraid to shoot it again. Young as he was, he divined the significance of a rifle in overland travel. Nights around the camp fires, listening to the freighters, the guides, the hunters, had propelled him far beyond his years.

Wonderful as had been these last days, this one surpassed all. The sun was gold; the breeze warm and dry and fragrant; the prairie grass waved and shadowed; a rich thick amber light lay like a mantle over the plain, in the distance growing darkly, deeply purple; the sky was a blue sea, crossed by the white billowing sails of clouds. The roll of the heavy wheels, the clip-clop of the steady hoofs, made music to Clint’s ears. But surely the sweetest thrill of all came from his companion, little May Bell, who sat close beside him on the driver seat.

Twice before she had shared this prominent place, but this time she and Clint were alone. She was under his protection. Jack, his dog, was curled at May’s feet.

“Look,” said May, for the thousandth time. “Isn’t it lovely?” And she pointed ahead to the long curve of the caravan, winding over the plain, the leaders already beyond an undulation.

“Sure is,” replied Clint, nonchalantly.

“Just think! Daddy said I could ride all day with you — if you’d let me.... Will you?”

“Reckon I will,” rejoined Clint, hiding his own satisfaction.

“You’re a regular driver now,” went on May, admiringly, peeping from under her sunbonnet.

“Ahhuh.”

“I’m glad. You’re so strong an’ smart an’ — an’ everythin’.... How far do we go today?”

“I heard a teamster tell paw it was nigh onto twenty-two miles to Fish Creek, our next camp. That’s a pretty big drive. We made only eighteen yesterday.”

“Oh, it seemed we came so far. But I love the ride. You can drive slower if you want to.... Clint, do you want it to end?”

“What?”

“This ride?”

“I ain’t in no particular hurry.”

“Mother says I’m too excited. I don’t eat to suit her. An’ I dream awful. Yell in my sleep.”

Clint laughed and flicked his whip. “Ha! betcha you have somethin’ to yell about before we get there.” That sobered her, though not for long. She was eager, curious, full of joy of she knew not what. Her childish mind was reveling in the adventure and beauty, while reaching out toward the dream of her elders, to the unknown future.

“It’s awful far to Fort Union?”

“Reckon so. Near a thousand miles.”

“Oh, then we’ll be weeks on the road?”

“You bet.”

“Daddy is goin’ to leave mother an’ me at the fort. Will you come there often?”

“Every trip out an’ back.”

“Oh, I’m glad. I won’t feel so awful — then.... Clint, what’s goin’ to become of us?”

“Become of us? What do you mean, May?”

“I don’t mean just now — or on this ride. But after.... Just look! It’s so awful, terrible big — so far across — this prairie. What’s on the other side?”

“Didn’t you study geography?”

“No.”

“Well, we come to the Rocky Mountains. An’ cross them, too!”

“Ooooo! how wonderful! But can we ever climb mountains?”

“There’s a pass — a place to go through.”

“I’m glad for the poor oxen. I saw one that had bloody shoulders.... But, Clint, what’ll we all do way out West?”

“Work.”

“How?”

“Well, I heard Captain Couch talkin’ to paw. My, he’s a man! He said we’d all fight Injuns first, then kill off the buffalo, before we’d go to farmin’.”

“But, Clint — women like me can’t fight Injuns an’ kill buffalo!” expostulated May, bewildered.

“Why not — when you grow up?”

“‘Cause it — it’s not ladylike.”

“Well, by golly! you’ll have to. The women have to help. Mom has a lot of spunk. She will. An’ kids like you—”

“I’m not a kid,” she interrupted, with indignation. “‘Scuse me. Anyway, you’re goin’ out West, ain’t you? It’ll not be like back home. You’ll have to pitch in — help your mother — learn what you can — work an’ grow up an’ get married. Every girl will have to do that much or the West won’t—”

Here Clint floundered while May stared up at him aghast.

“Married? Me!” she gasped.

“Why, sure! You’re no better ‘n anybody else.”

“I — I didn’t mean I was.”

“I should think you’d want to be a pioneer’s wife some day.”

“What’s a pioneer?” asked May, fascinated.

“Well, I reckon a pioneer is like what paw will be.

He’ll go ahead, out where there’s nobody. An’ more men like him will come. They’ll fight the Injuns an’ bears an’ buffaloes, cut down trees, build log cabins, plow an’ plant an’ reap. Make the land so more people will come. That’s a pioneer.”

“I like a pioneer.... Clint, will you be one?”

“Reckon I’m slated for a pioneer, sure enough. I’d like to raise horses.”

“Clint, I’ll grow up an’ be a pioneer’s wife,” burst out May.

“Ahhuh. You will if you’re worth your salt.”

May slipped a not altogether timid hand under Clint’s arm, and she peeped roguishly up from under her sunbonnet.

“Would you have me, Clint?”

“What for?”

“For your pioneer wife? Course, when I grow up. It won’t be long now. I’m ten years old.... Would you?”

“Reckon I would — come to think of it.”

“But you’d be glad to?”

“Sure,” replied Clint, hastily.

“We’d have to fall in love first, wouldn’t we?” mused May, with a dreamy smile.

“Well, it’d be more proper, but pioneers can’t wait for everythin’.”

“Then, Clint — I promise,” said May, very solemnly. “All right, May. I do, too.”

And so these children rode on the driver seat of the prairie schooner, across the grassy plain, gazing with the hopeful eyes of youth over the purple calling horizon, in their innocence and romance true to the great movement of which they were a part.

Sunset, a wide flare of gold, brought the caravan to a halt along a heavily timbered creek bottom. This was Fish Creek, an ideal place to camp. Grass was abundant and firewood for the cutting. Horses and oxen were unhitched, to be turned loose in charge of twenty guards. The scene was a bustling one of camp life on a huge scale. All along the line merry shouts and voices sounded, the axes rang out, the fires sent up blue smoke, and soon fifty groups of hungry travelers sat cross-legged on the ground.

Clint was as hungry as anybody, but he remembered to pick out some choice morsels of food for little May. After supper he and May, with Jack at their heels, walked along between the wagons and the creek. For all they could see they were the only two children in the caravan. And women were almost as scarce. The grizzled freighters, the long-haired scouts, the sturdy pioneers all had a keen and kindly eye for the youngsters, and some of them shook their heads gravely.

Darkness came on apace. The camp fires flickered down. Guards patrolled the line. Coyotes began their mournful chorus. Clint crawled into the tent he shared with his mother, and went to bed without disturbing her. His father slept in the canvas-covered wagon. Presently Clint’s dog came in and curled up at the foot of his bed. Soon all was quiet outside, and the flickering shadows on the tent faded.

Clint was up with the break of day. He had learned to love the early dawn. And to his disappointment he discovered that Fish Creek was not felicitously named. When he got back to camp empty-handed his father and Mr. Bell laughed at him. But little May gave him a smile that was recompense.

Soon the caravan moved out toward the west.

They made twenty miles that day, and almost as many the next. On the sixth day buffalo were sighted far to the south. All Clint’s yearning eyes could make out was a long, dim, dark line. That night the camp was pitched upon the level plain, some distance from a watercourse. Clint was quick to grasp why the wagons were drawn in a circle, close together, with openings at two ends. They formed a huge corral. The horses and oxen were put out under guard, and shortly after dark driven back and inside the corral. The men roped off the tents.

“Paw, what’s that for?” asked Clint, pointing to the mass of stock inside the circle.

“Injuns, sonny, the scouts say,” replied his father. “From now on we’ll always be on the lookout.”

Clint went soberly to bed and did not soon fall asleep. Jack seemed to act queerly, cuddling so close to him. Clint thought of his mother and little May. But nothing happened and soon he fell asleep.

Next morning, Captain Couch issued orders for drivers to stick close together, to keep on the move, and watch the head and tail of the caravan.

Clint knew mischief was afoot. When he climbed to his high seat and took up the reins his heart was in his throat. The caravan started briskly, each wagon close on the heels of the one in advance. The mounted scouts rode far ahead and the rear guard fell behind. Driving was no fun that morning for Clint Belmet. Once May Bell waved a little hand at Clint. How white her face looked! The strong pull on the reins prevented Clint from waving back, but he knew she understood that.

Nevertheless, the hours passed, the miles grew in number and nothing happened. Clint felt an easing of the strain. He drove as well as any of the teamsters, though his arms ached. Toward afternoon low clouds of dust moved across the prairie. Again Clint saw the dim black line, and did not need to be told it was a vast herd of buffalo. It moved, and therefore was not so far away. He was thrilled anew, and awed, and watched till his eyes were tired.

Much to his relief, halt was called long before sunset. His roving eye swept the prairie. A green fringe of cottonwood trees, down in a dip, showed where there were water and wood for camp use. The caravan, however, drove into a compact circle, high up on the level. Every team was turned in, so that the wagon-tongue just missed the rear of the wagon in front.

This camp was no jolly picnic party, but serious business. Horses and oxen were unhitched and taken under strong guard down to water, and allowed to graze until sunset. Clint saw horsemen silhouetted black against the skyline — the scouts of the caravan on watch. At supper his father and Mr. Bell and the other men looked worried, and did not invite questioning. Clint found no chance to talk to May.

Darkness settled down quickly that night. There was no afterglow. Thin clouds masked the wan stars. Camp fires were extinguished, and what little conversation the men indulged in was low. No bells on the horses this night!

Clint’s keen ears caught the speech of an old teamster: “Redskins somewhars, so Couch thinks. Pawnees or Arapahoes, likely. Wal, we kin stand it, jest so long as they’re not Comanches.”

The boy’s intent mind recorded that name —

Commanches. He crouched beside the red embers of the spread fire and listened. Men sat around, smoking and whispering, and finally were silent. The horses could be heard munching the grass.

“Sonny, better go to bed,” advised his father. “There’ll be fifty men on guard.”

But Clint lingered. He thought his dog Jack acted more strangely than the night before. Jack was a shepherd, and what he did not know Clint thought was scarcely worth knowing. The coyotes might have caused Jack’s fur to stand stiff. Yet he did not bark. Suddenly Clint caught a sharper, wilder sound from out in the blackness. It was a beast of some kind. Again it came — a deep full bay, like an unearthly hound might have rendered. The yelps of coyotes ceased.

“What was that?” whispered Clint to a man sitting near him.

“Prairie wolf, an’ he shore can sing,” was the reply. “We’re gittin’ out whar the wild begins, lad.”

Clint sustained his first fear of the night, the gloom, the loneliness, and the unknown. With Jack close at his heels he slipped back to his mother’s tent. It had been pitched between the two wagons, with the heavy freighter on the outside. If his mother was awake, she gave no sign. Inside the tent it was pitch black. Clint had a strange sensation — as if he had awakened with the cold of a nightmare upon him. Crawling to his blankets, he pulled off his boots and coat, and slipping in he covered up his head. He felt Jack settle down at his feet. Then all grew still except the throbbing in his breast.

After a while he uncovered his face so that he could breathe freer. All seemed silent as a grave. Clint tried to fall asleep, but in vain. The night bore some strange oppression. Jack felt it, for he was restless. He crawled close up to Clint and licked his hand. The horses were not moving.

Finally Clint dropped off to sleep. He was awakened by the dog. Jack was standing up, growling low. Clint heard him sniff. Then he went out of the tent. Clint lay awake. An owl hooted, far away and faint. Jack came running back into the tent, jumped on Clint’s bed, and growled louder.

Then steps outside preceded the voice of Clint’s father. “What ails that darn dog? Jack, come here.”

“Paw, Jack smells somethin’,” spoke up Clint.

“So you’re awake, son? Well, he’s sure actin’ queer. Jumped in the wagon on my bed,” replied Belmet.

Clint sat up. It was considerably lighter now. Evidently the moon had risen. He saw his father holding the flap of the tent open. Clint caught the gleam of a rifle.

“Jack acts like he wanted you to go with him,” said Clint.

“Come on, Jack. Good dog. Hunt ’em up,” called Belmet, and went away.

Right after that a shot cracked in camp, not far from where Clint lay. It awakened his mother, who cried out in alarm.

“Mom, I don’t know what it is, but I think Injuns,” replied Clint, crawling out of bed. “Paw was just here. He took Jack.”

Suddenly a rattling roar of rifle shots rang out right in camp. It appeared to string half round the circle. Clint dropped down, frightened out of his wits. Then came lighter shots, and a wild howling, the like of which Clint had never heard. His blood ran cold. A patter like hail on the tent! What could that be? More shots and hoarse shouts of men.

“My God! I’m shot!” cried Clint’s mother, in a strangled voice.

“Oh, mom — mom!” screamed Clint, springing up in a panic. He saw his mother, who was on her knees, double up and sink down.

“Run for daddy — run!” she whispered, hoarsely.

Clint ran out wildly. It was pale moonlight. Men were surrounding the frightened horses. Clint saw flashes of fire from under the wagons and his ears seemed split by heavy concussions. He ran here and there, calling for his father. In his fright he fled through the opening in the circle of wagons, out to a crowd of men.

“Paw! Paw! Mother’s shot,” he cried, frantically.

“Who’re you, boy?” queried a burly man, clutching Clint. “Who’s your pa?”

“Reckon it’s Jim Belmet’s youngster,” spoke up another man.

“Yes, he’s my father. Oh, I want him! My mom’s shot!”

“Hyar come the men now,” spoke up another man. “Jim was with them, chasin’ the sneakin’ devils.”

Clint saw dark forms of men stridin’ up, heard their low voices. Suddenly Jack bounded in sight and leaped upon Clint.

“How many did you kill?” queried the harshvoiced man, as the party came up.

“Two we’re sure of. They ran like deer. Got across the creek, where they had horses.”

Clint recognized his father’s voice. “Oh, paw! Mom’s shot! Hurry!”

Belmet uttered a cry of alarm and thudded rapidly into the circle of wagons. Jack ran after him. Then Clint followed. When he reached their tent he saw a man with a lantern hurrying in. Breathless and in a cold sweat Clint spread the flaps. His father was kneeling beside a still, dark form. The man flashed the lantern over it. Clint saw his mother’s face, strangely set and calm.

“Good God!” exclaimed Belmet, huskily, and bent down.

The other man lowered his lantern and placed a rough, kindly arm over Clint’s shoulders. At the same time Jack whined and licked Clint’s bare feet.

“Bear up, lad,” said the man, hoarsely. “We’re on the plains. An’ them cussed Comanches have killed your mother.”

CHAPTER 3

CLINT STAYED IN the tent, covered by his blankets. But they did not keep him warm. He seemed frozen inwardly. The dog kept close to him, trying to tell him something was wrong.

It was impossible to sleep. Every now and then Clint would raise himself to look at the still, blanketed form lying on the other side of the tent. His mother! He could not realize she was dead. When daylight broke once more this hideous nightmare would end. His father came in often.

None of the men went to bed any more that night. Clint heard their footfalls and low voices. They were not going to be surprised again by Indians.

The silver sheen on the canvas faded. There was darkness a while, then the slow paling to dawn. At daybreak the camp was astir. Clint pulled on his boots and went out. The morning was like any other fine morning, out a word he stalked away into the shade and covert of a grove of cottonwoods. He had not shown it, but his heart was bursting. Hiding in a secluded spot, he let himself go. His mother — and now little May! It was too much to be borne. He broke down and wept as never before in his life. That storm racked something out of him. When it was over, boyhood had left him and there was born in him the stern, grim hatred of the red men of the plains. Clint had somehow always felt that the white men were in the wrong. They had no right to usurp the hunting-grounds of the Indian tribes, to take their domain from them. For that was what this invasion amounted to. Up to the hour of his mother’s murder Clint had secretly felt sympathy for the savage tribes of the West, who must, no matter what was said to the contrary, some day be driven back into the waste lands to starve. But the loss of his mother, and now added to it that of little May Bell, stultified all fairness in Clint’s breast.

“I’ll be an Injun-killer like Kit Carson,” he vowed. but to Clint it was overcast by a sort of horror. He seemed stunned. He walked about. Outside the circle of wagons he saw two Indians lying stark, black-faced and terrible. Their almost naked bodies were bloody. One had a tuft of grass clenched in a tight fist.

Clint hurried back. Fires were burning, breakfast was being cooked, men were hitching up. Yet withal it was a silent camp. On all sides was the evidence of hurry.

When Clint got back to where he belonged, he saw his father and two men carrying a heavy blanketed object out of his tent. Jack came wagging his tail, but this morning he did not frolic. Clint watched the men.

Then he espied a pile of yellow earth, near a freshly dug hole. A grave! The men lowered the blanketed form. Two of them began to shovel the earth down upon it. His father knelt with clasped hands and closed eyes. Suddenly Clint realized they had buried his mother. He would never see her again. Those night devils had taken her away forever. He plunged into the tent and hid under his blankets, and it was as if he were crushed.

Presently his father called: “Come, son, we must eat an’ go on. We must try to bear it.... The freighters tell me there are graves at every camp along the trail.”

Clint got up, dried his eyes, and leaving the tent, he washed his face and brushed his hair. He espied his father at the Bell camp fire. Clint went over to sit down beside May. She looked white and scared. Mrs. Bell showed traces of tears on her face. None of them, however, mentioned the tragedy. They seemed to express the acceptance of something inevitable. Little May, seeing that Clint could eat, managed to eat something herself. The meal was brief.

One of the old scouts rode in and called: “Git up an’ git! Long drive today. An’ we might be entertained.”

“Clint, you can ride with me,” said his father. “I’ll find another driver for your wagon.”

“Paw, if it’s all the same to you I’d rather drive,” returned Clint, swallowing hard.

“All right. Don’t forget some grub an’ drinkin’ water.” His words were practical and unexpressive, but his look told volumes. As he turned away with the men one of them said, “Belmet, thet lad will make a plainsman.”

While Clint busied himself round the prairie schooner, the man who helped him hitch up proved quite loquacious.

“This hyar’s my third freightin’ trip,” he told Clint. “Reckon we got off easy in last night’s brush with the redskins — Comanches, too!”

“Did our men — kill many?” asked Clint, biting his lip.

“Nineteen. Reckon we’d not done so well but fer a dog—”

“Dog!” interrupted Clint. “That was my Jack.”

“Wal, he’s a smart dog, an’ you can lay to thet. We was all lined up with guns cocked when the varmints charged. We poured it into them hot an’ heavy. You ought to have seen them wilt. This mawnin’ we found nineteen bodies. I found six myself. One reddy was alive, an’ I busted him over the haid with my gun. Wal, we hauled them down to the crick an’ dug a big hole. Cap Couch an’ two of his scouts scalped every last Injun. Funny about thet. These old plainsmen shore

CHAPTER 4

TWO DAYS LATER Clint’s wagon-train rolled into Fort Larned, and Clint found himself meeting scouts and hunters who remembered him, one of whom was the buckskin-clad Dick Curtis.

“Wal, lad, you shore ‘pear to be growin’ husky — onless my eyes are pore,” said Curtis, approvingly. “Paw says I’m runnin’ up like a weed.”

“How old air you?”

“Nigh on to thirteen.”

“Say, is thet Injun talk?”

“Honest, Mr. Curtis. You ask paw.”

“All right, I’ll take your word fer it. But you shore look older.... An’ don’t call me Mister.”

Curtis seemed disposed to be friendly and he took Clint around with him while he made purchases. He informed Clint that he would accompany the wagon-train as far as Fort Union, where he turned off the trail to go up into the mountains of New Mexico.

“Is Mr. Carson goin’ with you?” asked Clint.

“No. Kit left some time ago. He lives at Taos, New Mexico. He’s married to a Spanish woman an’ he has a fine place. You be shore to go an’ see Kit. He’s the greatest man in these plains an’ he took a shine to you.”

Curtis introduced Clint to Jim Baker and John Smith, two famous frontier characters. They had been on the frontier for twenty-five years, which meant that these adventurers were among the first to cross the plains. Clint had never before seen such rough, dirty, greasy, disreputable-looking men. But for their beards and jolly talk, most of which was profane, he could not have distinguished them from Indians. Baker was married to a Cheyenne woman, Indian fashion, so Curtis said, and Smith had for wife a Comanche girl, who was handsome and could talk some English. The revulsion Clint had felt for everything pertaining to the Comanche tribe apparently did not extend to her. Clint thought her pleasant and more interesting than her renowned trapper husband. Smith had made a good deed of money buying furs from the Indians and selling them to the whites.

“Clint, there’re some short drives when the Old Trail starts uphill out yonder,” said Curtis, “which means we make camp early. Do you like to hunt?”

“Yes, but fishin’ comes first.”

“Me, too. But a feller has to get fresh meat. Have you got a rifle?”

“Yes. It’s an old buffalo gun.”

“Wal, thet’ll do fer buffs, but you need a lighter gun hate redskins, an’ raise the ha’r of every darn one they can. After thet we throwed the Injuns in the hole an’ covered them up. Cap Couch strung all the scalps on a buckskin thong an’ hung the bloodin’ things up on his wagon.”

“Did we lose any — men?” asked Clint, curiously thrilled despite his stunned condition.

“Nope. But two got hurt. Jim Thorn has a bullet in his laig, an’ Tom Allen has a bad cut on his arm. But thet’s all.”

Clint climbed to his seat and waited for the wagon ahead of him to pull out. The horses were skittish. Clint had all he could do to control them. Soon the caravan was in motion. Clint felt a rending in his breast. He was leaving his dear mother here on this lonely prairie. He sobbed aloud. As he drove past her grave, marked by a rude cross of wood, his eyes were dim. He fought the weakness that threatened to prostrate him. He had been trusted with all his father’s belongings and his best horses. The winding road shone in the sunrise like a yellow thread across the prairie.

It was well Clint had a hard team to drive that day.’ The effort sustained him. He had to attend to a job which was not a slight one even for a man. The road had bad places. The pace-makers had been ordered to move as fast as possible. Clint’s father was behind, and sometimes on down grades the big freight wagon rolled alarmingly close. When the caravan halted Clint was amazed to find they had reached Council Grove, the first stage-coach post on the line. The wounded men were left there to be taken back to Independence.

Next morning Clint was astonished to learn that the Bells were going to remain at Council Grove for the fer deer an’ turkey. An’ say, there shore are plenty of them when we begin climbin’ the divide. Fer thet matter you’ll see deer all the way now, an’ a mess of buffalo. How about buyin’ a rifle? An’ you’ll shore want a knife. What’d you scalp your first redskin with?”

“I — I won’t scalp him.”

“Haw! Haw! Wal, then, what’ll you skin your first buffalo with — or deer?”

“I’ve got a penknife.”

“Clint, you’re on the frontier now. You want a blade thet’ll go clean through a redskin’s gizzard an’ stick out far enough to hang your hat on. Come, we’ll go in Tillt’s store an’ I’ll pick out a gun, a knife, an’ I reckon a buckskin shirt.”

“But, Mr. Curtis, I — I haven’t any money,” replied Clint. “Paw’s got my wages.”

“Wal, you can get what I spend an’ give it to me. An’ I’ll shore tell yore paw somethin’.”

When Clint emerged from that crowded store he felt that it would take only a puff of wind to blow him sky high. He simply could not walk naturally. And when he and Curtis reached Clint’s camp it was no wonder that Jim Belmet stared a moment and then burst out, “For the land’s sake!”

“Paw, this is my — my friend Dick Curtis,” said Clint, loftily.

“Howdy, Belmet!” greeted the trapper, extending a brawny hand. “Reckon you be’n neglectin’ this youngster. He’s shore the Kit Carson stripe an’ there ain’t no sense in holdin’ him down.”

The caravan, still under escort of Captain Payne, took what was called the Dry Trail. It cut off about two present. He was too full of grief to feel the loss of little May, yet the way she cried at parting touched him.

“Don’t — forget — my — promise,” she whispered, and Clint assured her he would not, and indeed he believed he would always remember her tear-wet eyes.

The Couch caravan went on, strengthened by more wagons joining at Council Grove. That day passed. Again Clint slept the deep slumber of weariness. Then days and nights swept by as swiftly as the rolling of the wheels. He had his work and it was all but too much for him. Yet he held on, and while he grew stronger, more accustomed to his arduous task, the dread misery in his breast gradually softened to sorrow.

On the twenty-ninth of June the caravan reached Fort Lamed, where a stop of a week was to be made. Clint and his father camped with most of the freighters outside the fort. It was a wonderful place, quite different from Independence. Despite his sadness, Clint could not help the curiosity and interest of youth.

Fort Larned bustled with activity. There was one large store, where eight clerks had all they could do to wait on the many customers. Clint’s father told him there were nearly a hundred white hunters and trappers there to sell their winter catch of furs, and fully a thousand Indians of different tribes. Clint could see the different costumes of the Indians, but did not soon learn to distinguish one tribe from another. As for the hunters and trappers, they resembled one another closely. They wore buckskin, and Clint liked the look of them, strong, soft-stepping, lithe men, a few young, but mostly matured and grizzled, and never without their weapons.

“What’s up?” queried Clint.

“Buffalo, an’ if we hustle we’ll git a shot before any of these fellars.... No, don’t fetch the army rifle. Grab thet old buffalo gun.... Good! She’s loaded. Now follow me.”

Following Dick Curtis was easier said than done, Clint soon discovered. The plainsman started off at a lope, led down into a swale under a hill, and soon placed the camp out of sight and sound. When he slowed to a walk it was none too soon for the panting Clint. His breast was throbbing, hot and wet. The old buffalo gun weighed a hundred pounds. Presently Clint glanced up from the hunter’s heels to observe that he was making way up a grassy draw, warm and fragrant. They jumped rabbits, coyotes, and once a heavier beast which made a commotion in the grass.

Finally Curtis began to crawl, motioning Clint to do the same. The plainsman was not very communicative while on a stalk. Clint had to bite his tongue to keep from asking what it was all about. He would have preferred a little preparation. Curtis was too sudden. Clint had little confidence in his own marksmanship, and it seemed likely that he would be directed to shoot at something presently.

Curtis ceased crawling and looked back, his face shiny with sweat.

“Don’t blow so hard,” he whispered. “An’ you move as noisy as a cow.... Boy, we’re huntin’, an’ there’s some buffalo less ‘n a hundred feet.”

“Oh — no!” gasped Clint, suddenly limp.

“Shore are. Can’t you hear them nippin’ grass? Git your breath now. They haven’t winded us.”

Clint had more to get than his breath. Was not this The saloons did a thriving business, and every saloon was, as well, a gambling den. Clint’s father took him into them. From that time dated Clint’s aversion to gamblers. He preferred to walk the street, or go to the fort, where there were stationed four troops of dragoons and two companies of infantry, with Colonel Clark in command. Clint liked to mingle with them, and especially with the hunters and trappers. All the time he touched elbows with Indians. He avoided them as much as possible, hated them, yet always had an eye for their picturesque appearance in their tight-fitting deerskins and beaded moccasins. Some wore hats, some had eagle feathers in their black hair, some went bareheaded, and they all had buffalo robes.

Several days after Clint’s arrival at the fort he was accosted in front of the store by two scouts. These men he had noted before.

“Howdy, boy! What’s your name?” asked the more striking one of the two. He had wonderful piercing eyes that looked right through Clint, and he had long curling hair which fell on his broad buckskin-shirted shoulders.

“Clint Belmet,” replied Clint.

“You’re the lad we heard drove a freighter from Independence?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shake.... My name’s Carson,” said the scout, and he squeezed Clint’s hand, which was sore from driving, so hard he had to suppress a yell.

“Put her thar. I’m Dick Curtis,” said the other scout, and he repeated the hand-shaking performance.

“Lost your mother on the way?” asked Carson, his hand going to Clint’s shoulder.

“Yes — sir,” replied Clint, his lip trembling.

“Clint, I know how you feel,” went on the scout, and there was something very winning about him. “It’s hard.... The West needs such lads as you. Go on as you’ve begun. You’ve an eye in your head. Don’t ever take to drink an’ cards. An’ learn that the only good Injun is a dead one.”

The other scout, Curtis, patted Clint on the head, and then they passed on.

Belmet, standing at the entrance of the store with others, had been an interested spectator of this little incident. He put both hands on Clint’s shoulders and looked down at him.

“Son, what did those scouts say to you?”

Clint told him, whereupon he swayed back impressively.

“Have you any idea who they are?”

“They told me. The short man was Curtis — Dick Curtis, he said. The tall one with the sharp eyes — he called himself Carson.”

“Wal, I reckon. Carson.... Kit Carson! He is the greatest Indian fighter an’ plainsman in the West.”

“Kit Carson!” ejaculated Clint, incredulously. “I’ve read about him.... An’ to think he shook hands with me! Gee! he nearly broke my fingers!... Paw, I’m right proud of what he said.”

“So you should be. You see what this frontier life is like. Wal, a young man who takes to drink an’ cards doesn’t last long. So I hope you’ll pay some heed to Kit Carson’s advice. Reckon it was a great compliment to you.”

“I’ll take his advice, paw. I’ll never drink an’ gamble,” rejoined Clint. genial frontiersman taking too much for granted? Clint drew in deeper and deeper breaths, expanding his lungs until he thought he would burst; and he fought with all his might the threatened collapse of what seemed to be his whole interior being.

Curtis touched him and crawled on. Very softly Clint followed, keeping his rifle off the ground and his head beneath the crest of the tall grass — no slight tasks. But he had almost recaptured his breath. The hunter wormed his way flat, like a snake, and made no more noise than a snake. Clint believed he was doing better when suddenly he reached Curtis’s side.

“Look,” whispered his guide, parting the grass.

They had come out on the brow of the slope. Clint’s startled gaze took in what seemed a mountain of black woolly fur right before him. He shook like a leaf and his heart gave a great bound, then seemed to stop. The black thing was an enormous bull buffalo, standing almost broadside, with his huge head up. He had heard or scented them.

“Aim behind his shoulder,” whispered Curtis. “Low down... lower. There! Freeze on him.... Now!”

Clint knew he could hit the beast, but what would happen then? As one in a dream he leveled the heavy rifle, rested on his knee, strained with his last ounce of will to stiffen, covered the hairy space indicated — and pulled trigger. BOOM! The tremendous kick knocked Clint flat and the gun fell in front of him. He heard a rumbling. Then he scrambled up, ready to run. The scout was laughing uproariously.

“Aw! I missed him!” cried Clint, in despair.

“Nary miss,” replied Curtis, giving Clint a slap on “Son, shake hands on that,” said Belmet, with emotion.

They did not leave the fort until July 8th, when the freighters who had unloaded, of whom Belmet was one, joined a caravan returning across the plains to Missouri. It was a larger caravan, escorted by troops. Clint drove every day, and they arrived at Westport, later called Kansas City, on the 10th of August.

The largest commissary stores were located at Westport, and all incoming supplies had to be unloaded there. Belmet obtained a government contract, over which he was much elated. On August 20th he and Clint drove out with over seventy other freighters on the long eighteen-hundred-mile journey to Santa Fé. They were given an escort of ninety soldiers under Captain Payne. This government caravan had to haul supplies to every fort along the trail.

Belmet had disposed of the prairie schooner. He kept the horses, and purchased another freight wagon, a new one, painted green and red, which Clint drove. After a few days out, every man in the caravan had a cheery word for the boy and his dog, perched high on the seat, and even Captain Payne noticed him.

“Lad, I see you have a buffalo gun on the seat there,” he said, quizzically.

“Yes, sir, but it’s not there for buffalo,” replied Clint, significantly.

On the afternoon of the sixth day the freighters camped at Cow Creek. It was a pretty spot, in the big bend of the Arkansas River. The green grove of cottonwoods and the shining water appealed strongly to Clint, but he had no time to indulge in his favorite the shoulder. “You hit plumb center. He walked off a few steps, gave a heave an’ a groan, an’ keeled over. The rest of the bunch ran off the other way, which was dam lucky fer us.... But I thought you’d shot thet buffalo gun?”

“I had. Only now I forgot to hold it tight.... I’ll betcha I’ll never forget again.”

“Wal, lad, you didn’t disappoint me,” returned Curtis, with satisfaction. “An’ Kit Carson will shore be tickled when I tell him. Come now an’ take a look at your first buff.”

When he rose, Clint observed the bull lying prone scarcely a hundred feet distant. He had gone only a few steps. Other buffalo showed a quarter of a mile off, ambling away. Clint ran forward with a sensation of mingled awe, delight, and regret. The eyes of the buffalo were glazing over, his tongue stuck out, and blood was streaming into the dry ground. Round and round the dead beast Clint walked, looking again and again at the great black head with its short shiny dark horns, the shaggy shoulders and breast, the tufts of hair down the forelegs. It was far larger than any ox in the caravan. It had an unpleasant odor, somehow raw and wild, wholly unlike that of domestic animals. Clint stared with gaping mouth until the practical Curtis called him to action:

“Wal, you can break in your new knife. We’ll skin him. I’ll pack the hide back to camp an’ you can pack a hunk of rump beef. We’ll sure have rump steak fer supper. My mouth is waterin’ now.”

Clint was to learn the arduous difficulties of skinning a tough old buffalo bull. But the two of them accomplished it before sunset and, heavily burdened, they labored back to camp by a short cut over the ridge.

The two heavy guns and the generous cut of buffalo meat were about all Clint could carry, and Curtis staggered along under the roll of hide. Upon reaching the line of campers they were hailed vociferously. Before they got far there was a string of hungry freighters making a bee line in the direction of the dead buffalo. Clint received a strong impression of the savory nature of rump steak.

When they arrived at Clint’s camp Curtis threw the huge hide down with a thud.

“Thar! It shore was a ‘tarnal load!”

Belmet and his contingent crowded around, to stare at Clint and the scout, and to ask questions in unison.

“Nope. It was Clint who shot him. I only packed in the hide,” replied Curtis.

“Say! You mean to tell us that boy killed this buffalo?” demanded Belmet, incredulously.

“Shore he did. Made a slick job of it.”

“Aw, go wan,” retored an Irish teamster, derisively.

“Dick, we all know you’re given to tricks,” said another man.

“Why, thet lad might lift a buffalo gun to his shoulder, but if he shot it he’d be knocked into a cocked hat.”

“Well, I was,” laughed Clint, speaking for himself.

“Fellars, he made a clean shot — plugged the old bull right through the middle; but he forgot to freeze on the gun, an’, wal, I thought he was goin’ clear down the hill.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” they roared. sport. The wagons, as usual, were driven in a circle, the pole of one under the rear end of another, with three wagons left out to form a gateway for the stock to get in and out of the corral.

Horses and oxen were outside, feeding on the thick grass, under a heavy guard. Presently they were observed to be moving fast. The guards were hurrying the stock back to camp, and one rider came ahead shouting, “Indians! Indians!”

Captain Payne ordered his soldiers to mount, and the freighters to stand ready to repel attack. Then he climbed on top of a wagon with his field-glass. He took a long look.

“Nothin’ to worry us,” he announced, presently. “Pawnees an’ Comanches fightin’ each other.”

“Wal, we shore hope they assassinate each other,” remarked an old soldier.

“Johnny, come up an’ have a look,” called the captain to Clint. “It’s a sight worth seein’. An’ it doesn’t happen often.”

Clint climbed up with alacrity and eagerly accepted the field-glass. With naked eye he could see the running horses, the flying manes, the flash of color, of smoke and fire. But the distance was too great to hear guns. When he got the glass focused upon the battling tribes he stood transfixed, with nerves and veins tingling.

On a hillside over a mile away several hundred Indians were engaged in a terrific running fight. It was plain that a larger party was pursuing a smaller, in the direction away from the camp. Naked red bodies, plumes and spears, flames of red and puffs of white, the level racing of wild mustangs, the plunging of horses together, the rearing of two with their riders fiercely fighting, the falling of Indians to the grass and the galloping away of riderless ponies — all these the glass brought vividly to Clint’s rapt eyes, and held him trembling and unnerved until the warriors passed over the hill out of sight.

Clint handed the glass back to the smiling captain.

“So they fight — each other,” he said, rather low. He felt a little sick.

“Lucky for us. That saved us a fight.”

“I hope the Pawnees kill all those red-devil Comanches,” returned Clint, grimly, suddenly answering to what the West had roused in him.

On the following morning, bright and early, the cavalcade was on the way again, with orders to keep close together and watch sharply for Indians. Sometimes clever Indians ambushed a wagon-train and attacked in the center, causing loss of life and freight before the mounted riders and scouts, who usually rode in front and in the rear, could reach the scene of conflict. Comanches, particularly, were wonderful horsemen, attacked as swiftly as the rush of a cyclone, and then were gone. No sign of Indians, however, marred the drive.

To Clint’s disappointment, the caravan passed right through Council Grove, only a few of the freighters, and these the last in order on the line, halting for a few moments. The train drove on to Fort Zarah on the Walnut River, where two days were necessary to unload supplies for that place.

“Paw, did you see the Bells when we drove through Council Grove?” queried Clint, eagerly, on the first opportunity that offered.

“Clint, did you shoot him — honest?” asked Belmet, in a manner that showed he would believe the boy.

“Sure did, paw.”

“Belmet, I’m thinkin’ we’ll call him Buff,” said Curtis, with a broad grin, as he took his rifle from Clint.

Right there Clint Belmet received the nickname that was destined to become known on the plains.

“An’ I’m sure invitin’ myself to your camp fer supper,” continued Curtis. “There won’t be a grease spot left of our bull, an’ I can’t afford to miss my hunk of rump steak.”

“You’re welcome,” returned Belmet, heartily.

“Wal, Buff,” added one of the wags, addressing Clint, “next camp I’m askin’ you to take me huntin’.”

As the cavalcade drew well up on the slope toward the mountains, which began to show like dim vague clouds above the horizon, deer grew numerous. They traveled mostly in small herds and were quite tame. They would move away out of range, then stand to gaze at the wagons. Clint noted how the long ears stuck up. He saw several large groups, and once, as the caravan wound along a river on the edge of Colorado, a herd of at least two hundred trooped up out of the hollow. They made a spectacle Clint would never forget.

“Jest like pets,” remarked an old freighter. “Pity to shoot them. I never do onless I’m hungry.”

Clint’s opinion coincided with this. He reflected, though, that he had never heard anything approaching such sentiment spoken on behalf of the buffalo. Clint considered that strange, and after pondering over it he concluded the vast and countless numbers of buffalo “No, son, I didn’t,” replied his father, turning away. Clint was busy at the moment, but later he got to thinking this over, and it struck him that his father appeared unusually abrupt and noncommittal. So when time offered, Clint approached him.

“Did you speak to anyone at Council Grove?”

“Yes. I stopped for a few moments long enough to hear some sickenin’ bad news.... Clint, I wanted to tell you before, but I couldn’t. Hard as it is, though, you ought to be told.”

“Somethin’ happened to our friends, the Bells?”

“It sure did,” replied Belmet, gloomily, and he left the task upon which he had been occupied.

“Paw — was it bad?” asked Clint, his voice thickening.

“Couldn’t be no worse.... A week or so after we left Council Grove it ‘pears Sam Bell got sick of the frontier an’ wanted to go back home. There was a rumor that a gambler fleeced him out of all his cash. No one could talk him out of the idea. An’ he got on the first stage for Independence. Accordin’ to some the stage broke down an’ the dozen or more travelers had to make camp while the driver rode back for help. There was several mounted riders with the stage, good Injun-fighters, but durin’ the night the party was raided by a bunch of redskins. The grown-ups were killed, scalped, an’ left naked on the plain. The stage was burned an’ all valuables stolen. There was no sign of the little girl, May Bell. It ‘pears sure she was carried off into captivity.... The stage-driver never got back at all. It was buffalo-hunters comin’ the other way who fetched the news to Council Grove.”

Clint stood up unflinching to this shock, and with hundred and fifty miles, but was not safe for an unescorted train, and without scouts who knew where to go for water.

Several days out from Fort Larned the perceptible heave of the prairie land began in earnest. How vast the slow, endless rise of grass! It was no longer green, but gray and, in more barren spots, a bleached white. No better feed, however, could have been found. Clint did not grow accustomed to the boundless expanse. More and more it fascinated him. As he drove on he watched the plain, and his keen eye seldom went long without espying bird or beast of some kind. Travel was slow, because of the grade, and uphill driving was easier, at least for the drivers. The road appeared to wind more than formerly, owing to frequent washes and gullies that had to be headed. Clint believed he drove and watched for days without seeing a bush or a tree. When camp was reached nothing but buffalo chips could be found to burn. These made a first-rate fire. Clint was always ready to gather this fuel, for anything that led him away from camp had an attraction. Buffalo were sighted often, though so far off that Clint could scarcely believe his eyes.

He lost track of days. The endless prairie had engulfed Clint. Already he seemed to have traveled twice the eighteen hundred miles the guides claimed lay between the Missouri and Santa Fé.

One day they arrived at the Crossing of the Cimmaron a full two hours before sunset. Curtis suddenly confronted Clint, rifle in hand, and with a grin that electrified Clint.

“Chuck the work. Grab your gun an’ come with me,” said the scout. dwarfed any value they might have. He wondered if it would always be so.

Day after day the caravan plodded on. How short the days and what little progress the wagons made! Yet the miles counted. One camp, for the most part, resembled all the other camps, and their number seemed innumerable. They all had names, but Clint forgot those that did not associate themselves in his memory with some especial feature or incident.

The prairie seemed endless. Clint felt that he was crossing the whole world. Yet the level plain, and the rolling prairie, and the heaving upland, all everlastingly gray and lonely, never palled upon his senses. It was home to millions of buffalo, and deer, wolves, antelope, and myriads of smaller animals, and to the nomadic savage tribes who lived upon them. To look back down a gradual slope that dimmed to a purple haze fifty miles away always swelled Clint’s heart. Far back there somewhere was the grave of his mother. He never forgot that. Both the distance and the event of her death seemed remote.

One night when they reached camp late, Dick Curtis said to Clint, “Wal, Buff, if it’s clear tomorrow, about noon you’ll see the Rockies.”

All the next morning, which was sunny and bright, Clint’s keen eyes, as he drove along, sought to pierce the wall of haze that rose above the horizon. At midday dim shapes began to emerge. They darkened and lifted. Gradually they took form. Mountains tipped by white clouds! They roused an indefinable emotion in Clint. After a while he made the astonishing discovery that the white cloud crown was snow. The high peaks were snow-tipped. How tediously the horses and oxen moved on! Clint longed to fly to where he could see the Rockies clearly.

The approach, however, was so gradual that changes in the view came almost imperceptibly. Clint grew weary, watching and yearning. The prairie was wonderful, but the mountains! What could he call them?

On the third day, as the wagons topped a ridge they had been ascending all morning, Clint gazed over broken yellow and gray foothill country that led up to the grand bulk of the divide. It was Clint’s first sight of the real grandeur of the Rockies. Black bulk heaving to the white peaks that pierced the blue! Mountain after mountain, peak after peak, ranged away into the purple obscurity of the north. Southward a lofty butte hid the range. Somewhere between that butte and the mountains must lie the pass over which the caravan had to go. It looked impossible. Clint followed the winding yellow road, down and around and into the foothills. Who had been the first to travel it? Clint knew it had been an old buffalo trail, then an Indian trail, next the trail of the explorers, then of the trappers, then the gold-seekers, and now the freighters, of whom he was one. But the first white men who trod that old trail — how intrepid, how magnificent! Clint had a vague conception of their spirit and their greatness.

To Clint’s dismay, the mountains soon retreated and became lost to his view. That sunset he camped in the foothills. They were rocky, yellow, bare eminences, with but few trees and these scrubby. The air was cold and the night wind came keen down the draw. Clint enjoyed a wood fire once more.

Next day the uphill grind went on, and it was a wearing winding between yellow hills, hot when the sun shone down direct.

It took four days like this one to cross the pass into New Mexico, and the only interesting feature about the whole climb was its culmination.

But once out in the open again, in the high country that gave promise of rugged beauty and wildness, Clint once more thrilled to the journey. At last the caravan drove into Fort Union. This was a small but important post, commanded by Major Greer, with four companies of dragoons. It was the principal distributing point for all of New Mexico.

Dick Curtis took leave of Clint here.

“Wal, Buff, I’m packin’ up into the hills to trap all winter. Hope to see you along the old trail somewhere in the spring.”

“Good-by an’ good luck,” said Clint. “I wish I was goin’ with you.”

“Sometime, when you’re older, I’d like to have you. Friends part out here an’ don’t always see each other again.... When the time comes for you to draw a bead on a redskin, remember Dick Curtis.”

Half the load of the freighters was left at Fort Union, and when they resumed the journey the wagons were light. This made travel easier on men and animals. The trail from the fort wound along the course of the Colinas River, the first mountain stream in Clint’s experience. It was low and clear, and in some places there were deep pools where, according to one of the freighters, mountain trout abounded. Clint longed to have a try for them, but no opportunity afforded. Travel was fast and the soldiers were on the alert. Apache Pass was soon to confront them — one of the most dangerous points along the whole length of the overland trail. Many a massacre had been perpetrated there.

Clint had no curiosity to see it. The mere idea of an Indian attack had a twofold effect upon him — to prickle his skin tight and to form a burning knot within him. The sensations were antagonistic and diverse.

But he could not help seeing what lay open to view. The caravan halted some distance from Apache Pass, while scouts went forward to reconnoiter. Clint saw a narrow defile leading between high narrow cliffs of yellow stone. The stream led in there and so did the road. It did not take much acumen to grasp that it was a perilous place for wagon-trains and a perfect setting for an ambuscade. The hills on each side were rough and covered with brush. Concealment for a large body of Indians and their horses was possible on both sides of the Pass.

One of the teamsters was holding forth to a group of companions. The manner in which he pointed to the Pass and surroundings indicated familiarity. Clint joined the circle.

“Yep, I was in thet fight here over a year ago,” he was saying. “I guess I was. Look here — an’ here.” He showed scars on his head and arm. “There was a big train, a hundred wagons about, an’ some old Indian-fighters. We got split up by accident, an’ some of us drove into the Pass before the others showed up below here. Wal, I was among the bunch thet went in first. An’ soon we thought hell had busted loose. They’d let us get well in before startin’ the ball, an’ then they shot right down on us. Wal, the rest of our men heard the shootin’ an’ they came a-runnin’. The Indians — they was Apaches, the worst red men thet ever lived — were all on the right-hand side an’, as it proved, had their horses down in the draw there. When the shootin’ an’ yellin’ were at their highest naturally them Apaches didn’t see or hear our seventy-odd men who were comin’ up back. Thet is, they didn’t see them first off. Wal, they made a runnin’ fight for their horses an’ left twenty-seven dead an’ crippled Indians behind. The crippled ones didn’t stay crippled long!... We had nine dead an’ a lot hurt, some bad, tin’ I was one. We’d got off wuss if we hadn’t piled off at the first fire an’ hid under the wagons. We could have held them off, too.... Wal, since thet last fight there hasn’t been a big caravan go through without a company of soldiers.”

“An’ quite right thet is,” spoke up another freighter. “But one of these days a wagon outfit will risk it. Apache Pass hasn’t seen the last of its bloody massacres. Kit Carson himself told me thet.”

In due time the scouts returned, reporting the coast clear and that passage could be made without risk. Whereupon the caravan proceeded. Clint was all eyes. Apache Pass was a tortuous crack in the hills, dark and yellow, almost haunted. The shallow stream flowed over the roadbed. Clint pictured the scene of the massacre, and when he emerged once more into the open he was in a cold sweat.

Beyond the Pass the road climbed over beautiful slopes of gray grass, almost silver, that led up to isolated cedars and on to thick woods of pinon and at last the dark-green pines. Deer and antelope trotted in plain view. Huge rocks loomed up here and there; a flock of wild turkeys spotted the gray slope, oblivious of the passing cavalcade. From the heights a breeze blew down and ravens breasted it, swooping, sailing as if in play.

The days multiplied and passed swiftly, as if by magic. Such marvelous country inspired Clint more than the purple plains. New Mexico appeared white and black, though the grass that looked white at a distance was really gray, and the black of the timbered ridges and ranges was a dark green. It was a wild and fragrant country. The smell of cedars, pinons, pines, and sage was new and intoxicating to Clint.

Starvation Peak near Las Vegas struck Clint even more wonderfully than had the first sight of the Rockies. It was an isolated green peak, sheering to a steep butte of rock, scantily spotted with cedars, and level on top.

Clint asked an old freighter the reason for its name.

“Wal, it’s an interestin’ story, an’ true enough, I reckon,” replied the plainsman. “In the early days, I don’t know how fur back, but ‘most two hundred years, some Spaniards got in a fight with Injuns. Apaches, I suppose, though I ain’t sartin about that. Wal, the Spaniards took to the peak thar. Climbed it an’ fought from on top. They had grub an’ water for a spell, an’ no doubt they was expectin’ help from somewhar. But it never came. The Injuns surrounded the peaks, keepin’ such watch as only Injuns can. An’ they starved the Spaniards to death. Thet’s why it’s called Starvation Peak.”

“Spaniards? They’re white people, of course,” replied Clint, thoughtfully. “‘Pears to me the whites are payin’ dreadful high for this West.”

“Right you are, Buff. But any old plainsman like me will tell you the whites haven’t begun to pay what they’ll have to.”

Las Vegas was such a rough town that Clint’s father would not allow him much liberty, especially at night. Between Las Vegas and Santa Fé there were two stations, San José and Barrel Springs. The Spanish atmosphere and color of Santa Fé were delightful to Clint, and he appreciated the comparative quiet of this very old town.

The wagon-train unloaded here, and then drove out along the river several miles, to good feed, wood, and water, and there located camp for the winter.

“Six months an’ more, son,” announced Belmet. “We’ve work, of course, but I’m worryin’ about your schoolin’.”

“I fetched some school books, paw, an’ I’ll go through them. If I get stuck can’t you help me?”

“Wal, I ain’t so all-fired smart, myself. But mebbe there’s some one in the outfit who can.”

“How about huntin’?” queried Clint, anxiously. “Fine. I inquired of a trapper in town. Buffalo, an’ turkey right along the river here. An’ up in the hills bear an’ lion, also deer. We won’t want for fresh meat, anyway.”

“I saw a lot of Indians in town,” returned Clint, weighing the fact doubtfully.

“Yes, but there are six troops of dragoons at the fort. They’re out an’ around a good deal, I’m told, an’ the Injuns won’t bother us.”

“I’d never trust an Indian.”

“Good,” said Belmet, with satisfaction.

That very day numerous Indians visited the camp.

They were friendly. Couch, the train boss, gave orders for everybody to feed them and be otherwise kindly disposed. Clint was both repelled and attracted by the Apaches. He never would be able to abide the Comanches, no matter how friendly.

CHAPTER 5

TΗΕ ERECTION OF camping quarters was a matter of preference. Some of the freighters lived in their wagons, others pitched tents, and a few took advantage of the abundance of wood to build cabins. Clint and his father belonged to the last and smallest contingent.

They were new to log-cabin construction, as their neighbors most jocosely informed them.

“Buff, what is thet thar shed you’re puttin’ up?” queried the old plainsman who had taken a liking to Clint.

“Shed? It’s a log cabin,” replied Clint.

“Shore it ain’t to live in!”

“Hey, Belmet,” asked another friend, “air you a carpenter?”

“Them logs don’t gibe,” remarked a third.

Belmet took it all good-naturedly and turned to Clint: “Say somethin’ to them scallywags.”

Clint had a retort ready: “Are you goin’ to be freighters all your lives? Aren’t you ever goin’ to be pioneers?”

“Reckon thet’s the idee, of course,” replied one.

“That’s why we’re learnin’ to put up a log cabin.”

It was early October and beautiful weather, with a frosty nip at dawn, sunny mornings, warm hazy Indian-summer afternoons, and cold nights. The cottonwood leaves had begun to change from green to gold. Far up the dark slopes patches of yellow told of the frost at work on aspens. Down in the gulches and valleys there were touches of red and bronze.

Clint was longing to go hunting, but kept faithfully at work.

One afternoon about three o’clock a stranger appeared at the Belmet cabin. He did not have a prepossessing appearance and looked hot and hurried.

“Can I buy a hoss?” he asked.

“Reckon you can, an’ cheap, too. We’ve gone into winter camp,” replied Belmet, leaving his work.

It happened that Couch came up just then, accompanied by another man whom Clint knew only by sight. They might have been following this stranger; at least they were curious.

“What’s this fellow want?” asked Couch, abruptly, of Belmet.

“Says he wants to buy a hoss.”

Couch turned his sharp gaze upon the stranger.

“What’s your name?”

“Miller. Hank Miller,” was the reply.

“Where you from?”

“Santa Fé.”

“Why didn’t you buy a hoss there?” queried Couch, waxing suspicious.

“No time,” returned the other, nervously.

“Huh! Had trouble?”

“Reckon I had.”

“What about?”

“Wal, I was gamblin’ an’ got accused of cheatin’.”

“Any truth in thet?”

“No. I called them all liars.”

“Ahuh. An’ what happened?”

“They jest went for me — the three men I was playin’ with, an’ some outsiders. I had to throw my gun.”

“Hurt any of them?”

“Don’t know. Sure left town in a hurry.... But see here, you’re takin’ up my time. I want a hoss an’ saddle. I’ll pay. I’d had one but for your interference. Who’n hell are you, anyway?”

Couch pulled his gun.

“Hands up, right quick.”

The man who called himself Miller turned pale and was not slow to obey.

“Belmet, relieve Mr. Miller of them shootin’-irons. I notice he’s packin’ two,” went on Couch, briskly. Clint’s father took the two guns, and also a knife. “Sanderson, you stay here with Belmet an’ watch this man while I ride into Santa Fé. Don’t let him loose.” Couch got on his horse and rode away. As soon as he was out of sight Miller gave a lunge and broke free from Sanderson. He knocked Belmet down and started to run. Quick-witted Clint stuck out his foot. The man tripped and fell headlong. Whereupon two very angry freighters pounced on him, handled him severely, tied him securely, and roped him to a wagon wheel.

“Helluva way to — treat — a fellar,” panted Miller, balefully. “I tell you I’m honest. But I’m — afeared of — them gamblers.... Give you a hundred — dollars to let — me go.”

“Shut up or I’ll bust your head,” returned Belmet, darkly, feeling of the bruise on his chin. “Say, Sanderson, what happened after he biffed me?”

“Buff tripped him, an’ he shore went pilin’ to the dirt,” replied Sanderson, with an appraising eye on the youngster.

“Clint, you doggoned son-of-a-sea-cook,” ejaculated Belmet, in mingled wonder, pride, and concern, “I’m plumb worried about you! Always doin’ things!”

“But, Belmet, I’d bored the fellar but for Buff upsettin’ him,” interposed Sanderson, taking Belmet seriously.

Clint went back to work then, leaving the two guarding the prisoner. Couch arrived in quick time, with the sheriff and two deputies from Santa Fé.

“Reckon you’re wanted,” said the sheriff to Miller. “Thar’s a dead man in town thet somebody has to account for, an’ a crippled one who might identify you. Come along.... Cut him loose, men.”

They led Miller away, like a beast on a halter, and Belmet and Sanderson hurried to saddle horses to accompany them, as did other curious freighters. Clint had no wish to go. He thought the man might be dishonest, but felt sorry for him. Resuming work, Clint busied himself until sunset and then quit for the day. He never failed to watch the sunset. It was never twice the same. Today there were heavy broken clouds and much gold and rose, with wonderful shafts of light shooting down into the purple valley.

Before dark Belmet rode in, and after attending to his horse he joined Clint. His customary smile was wanting.

“Paw, I got supper ready to cook,” said Clint. “Sorry I’m late. Bet you’re hungry. But I’m not. I’m sick as a dog.”

“What happened, paw?” queried Clint, hurriedly. “The crowd in town hanged that fellow we caught here. An’ I saw it. My, I’m glad you didn’t come!”

“Hanged him? Aw! What for?”

“He was a gambler, a cheat, an ‘a bad egg. Killed one man an’ wounded another. He was identified. Then a bunch of men, reckon about twenty, took him away from the sheriff. An’, Clint, they strung him up in a jiffy, before I knew what was goin’ to come off. Hanged him right in the plaza! An’ he’s hangin’ there now.”

Clint visualized his father’s words. It was on the tip of his tongue to say he wished they had never come out West, but he checked himself. That would not have been honest. Despite the hardships and the shock of his mother’s murder, he could not say he hated this wild and terrible frontier. Something strong and strange was at work deep within him.

In a few more days the cabin was habitable and Clint and his father moved in their belongings. Then the envy of their neighbors afforded much satisfaction. If the weather remained normal there would be a month or more before the snows came, and longer before winter set in cold.

For days the valley and the hills had been resounding to the reports of the freighters’ rifles. They were killing game for the winter supply of meat. So that when Clint and his father started out to do their hunting they had to go farther afield. The buffalo and deer had been driven away. Indeed, it turned out that the buffalo had sought a lower altitude, and the hunters had orders not to go too far from camp.

Clint shot at a good many bucks before he hit one. Sight of a big blue deer, his long ears up, his white tail shining, acted so powerfully upon Clint that his gun wabbled, his eyes blurred, his hands trembled, and he simply could not shoot straight. Still he kept on trying. The hunters made fun of him and advised him to take out the heavy buffalo gun. The day came, however, when his bullet sped true, and a fine buck pitched high in the air and, plunging down, rolled over to dig his horns into the earth.

Wild-turkey hunting, however, appealed most to Clint. He could not quite determine why, but he imagined because it was the hardest work, the most fun, and turkey meat was the best to eat. Clint’s father, using a shotgun, had bagged several turkeys. They had roast turkey, which settled the matter for Clint. A “drumstick,” as he called the leg, or the breast of wild turkey, was food, Clint unblushingly averred, of which he could never get enough.

But hitting a running wild turkey with a rifle was a feat that required considerable skill. Somewhere Clint had heard that to shoot wild turkeys with a shotgun was pot-hunting and not sport. Clint aspired to be a real hunter, so he stood by the lighter of his two rifles and spent not a little of his money for ammunition.

High up on the mountain slope above camp Clint found wild turkeys. Deer did not seem to frequent this range to any extent. It was a hard climb, but not far from camp, and Clint’s father and Captain Couch permitted him to go, provided he would not stray over the ridge.

The early morning, before the sun was up, found Clint, crackling the frosty grass and breathing a cloud of steam, bound for his favorite spot. This was a wide level bench, grassy in spots, with clumps of pinon trees. It happened to be a good season for pinon nuts — a somewhat infrequent occurrence. And these nuts were beginning to fail from the trees, which fact attracted the turkeys. Two or three large flocks frequented this feeding-ground. Any early morning Clint could count on finding them. No matter how often he shot — which was a disgraceful number of times without bringing a feather — the turkeys would come back. This attested to the sweetness of pinon nuts.

Now Clint had it forced upon him that he knew little or nothing about hunting wild turkeys. One of his advisers in camp had said: “Find where they roost.” Another counseled: “Ketch ’em at their water hole.” A third averred: “You gotta learn to call turkeys. Make a caller out of the wing bone of a turk, an’ practice till you can gobble an’ cluck an’ put to beat the band. Then you can hide an’ call. The turkeys will come right up to you, an’ you can take your pick.” Clint’s father laughed at his importunities and said: “Take the shotgun loaded with buckshot an’ knock ’em over.”

Clint acted on all the advices except the last, and he began to have admiration for turkeys. They had so far always seen or scented or heard him before he got within range. The smallest of the three flocks consisted of about fifteen gobblers. They were huge, wary birds.

They were the most beautiful wild things that he had seen. Most were dark, purple-breasted, with a long beard, and a small cunning red head, dark in the back, flecked with brown, and they had a spread of reddish-white tail that dazzled Clint. A few were bronze, and one, conspicuous for his enormous size, was more white than bronze. Many times Clint had come within rifle-shot of this old flock, but when he espied them they were all on the run. And couldn’t they run! He would shoot and run and shoot and run, all to no avail.

The second flock was larger in number, and consisted of the sober-colored hens and yearlings; and the third, which must have contained a hundred, were all apparently young turkeys.

One day Clint made a lucky shot into this third flock and he killed a young gobbler of about fifteen pounds. With glee and pride Clint packed his first victim down to camp. He exhibited it proudly to his father and their immediate neighbors, then he picked and dressed it and hung it from the eaves of the cabin, where it would thoroughly cool. Next morning it was gone.

“Cat got it,” said his father, “or maybe a coyote.”

“Nothin’ with four feet ever stole my turkey,” stormed Clint, in a rage. “Look ahere!” And he pointed to the tracks of a man in the soft ground. “That’s not my track, paw.”

“By jiminy!” ejaculated Belmet, scratching his head. Evidently he wanted to laugh, but dared not.

“I’ll trail that cat, b’gosh!” declared Clint, and right there began his education as a tracker. It availed little, however, for although he followed those tracks across to an adjoining tent and made sure of the culprit, he did not recover his turkey.

The next day Clint killed another gobbler from the same flock, and that night at supper he and his father put it where there was no danger of having it stolen. In fact, Clint ate until he had made up for the one he had lost.

Having acquired the knack of surprising the younger turkeys, Clint brought one in on several occasions. Next he shot a fine big hen out of the second flock. Ambitious and determined then, he devoted his energies and cunning to the great gobblers.

For several days he was destined to defeat and considerable humiliation. Finally he managed to secure an easy shot, which he missed. He characterized this as a case of “turkey fever.” Then, the very first thing next morning, he had a snap shot, and knocked over one of the huge gobblers. The others roared away on the wing, a stirring and beautiful sight. The one he had hit began to thump and flop at a great rate. It made a tremendous racket. Clint dropped his gun and made for the tumbling monster. As he reached for it he received a buffet from a wing that almost caused him to lose his balance.

To his dismay the gobbler got up and ran. Clint darted after. He was fast on his feet, but the turkey was faster. By a desperate effort Clint bent low and grasped. He caught hold, but his hand came away full of beautiful tail feathers. This added to his eagerness and discomfiture. He chased that gobbler until he fell down from exhaustion.

On the descent to camp Clint was a sadder and wiser hunter. He decided to resort to strategy. Accordingly, he arose very early and climbed the slope before daybreak, and when the light came and the east burned red he was well concealed in the thickest and most likely pinon tree on the bench.

This morning he had gotten there first. From far up the slope, among the pines, came a gobble-gobble. With a start he sat up alert, watchful. The morning was still. He heard the swish of heavy wings, then the thud of a turkey alighting on the ground. These sounds were repeated. The birds were coming down from their roost. Would they go to drink or feed first? Clint was mighty curious, but he believed they would feed before going to water.

He waited, watching, listening with all his keenness. So long a time elapsed that he feared his plan would be futile. His legs grew cramped and he found it expedient to move. Suddenly he heard a scratching. There was no mistaking that sound. Craning his neck, he peered through the foliage and espied, not fifty yards away, the whole flock of gobblers. Clint nearly fell out of the tree, so rapturous was he. Then he sternly sought to control his excitement. What a magnificent sight! They were picking and scratching along right toward him. Never a moment was there when at least one gobbler did not have his head up, peering around. They looked as big as ostriches and as wild as anything Clint could imagine. But they had not the slightest suspicion that all was not well for their morning’s feed.

It so happened that Clint did not have to turn to bring his rifle into action. Slowly he raised it to his shoulder. With his heart pounding audibly against his ribs he aimed at the gobbler in best view. The bird at that short distance was as large as a barrel. Clint vowed he would not miss. But the gobbler did not stand still. Then when Clint again got a bead on him, another and a larger turkey obstructed his aim. It took a stifling moment for Clint to realize that this was even better. When he looked at the closer turkey his eyes popped.

This gobbler was the lordly white-and-bronze leader of the flock. Clint had a violent urge to yell his elation. But he had sense enough left to realize he must shoot first. As he lowered his gun a trifle he snapped a twig. The great gobbler jerked up. Put-put! Put-put! Clint saw his keen little black eye. He knew he had been discovered, but not soon enough, for he froze on that aim and pressed the trigger.

The gun banged. A tremendous flapping followed. Clint could not see for smoke. He listened. The whir of wings and crashing of branches ceased. His elation suffered a violent collapse. Then he dropped down out of the tree. There lay the huge white-and-bronze gobbler, his tail feathers spread and fluttering.

For once blood and death caused Clint no pangs. He gloated over his prize. “Ain’t he a whopper? Aw, what’ll paw say now?” And when he essayed to lift the immense bird he experienced a most profound surprise. He had to take two hands to the job, and then it was not easy.

Clint tied the gray, clawed feet together and twisted the string round a stout stick. Lifting the gobbler, he drew it over his back. But he found he could not hold the weight with one hand, so he stuck his rifle barrel between the legs of the turkey and tried, successfully this time, to lift it over his back. And then the red head dragged in the grass. Although the whole walk back was downhill, his burden grew so heavy that he had all he could do to reach camp. And when Clint laid that gorgeous wild turkey in front of his father and their camp associates, he enjoyed revenge for the many times they had poked fun at him.

“Wal, we’ll shore hev to call him Turk now,” remarked one.

Report of hostile Kiowa Indians along the eastern border of New Mexico put an end to Clint’s hunting. As to that, the approach of winter would very soon have had the same effect. Moreover, Clint had to abandon a cherished hope of riding to Taos to call on Kit Carson and of seeing the famous Maxwell Ranch, which was reported to be the most interesting and wonderful place on the frontier.

Presently Clint settled down to his books and labored over them hours on end. A majority of the camp chores fell to his hands, because little by little his father, along with many other freighters, found diversion in the gaming dives of Santa Fé. Belmet was not a drinking man, nor an inveterate gambler, but the loss of his wife had struck him deeply and the monotony of camp life palled on him. All of which worried Clint exceedingly. He fed the stock, chopped and hauled wood, built the fires. What with this work and his studies the days and weeks flew by.

When spring came and the roads dried up, Captain Couch and his followers took a contract to haul furs, buffalo robes, and pelts for Aull & Company. While the men were busy packing, which was no slight task, a caravan of seventy men happened along from Taos. These freighters were mostly old frontiersmen. The two caravans joined for the long and dangerous haul east, and in the aggregate there were one hundred and forty-four men. Such a company was practically immune from raids.

This long wagon-train left Santa Fé the last of May. They made slow progress at first, saving the oxen for the heavy part of the road.

They crossed the Pecos River and camped at Mora, the ranch of a Colonel St. Vrain, one of the oldest frontiersmen then living. He had come west in 1819, hunted and trapped for years, fought through the war with the Navajos in 1823, became major of a regiment in the Texas invasion of 1842, and a colonel in the American invasion of 1846, and had retired from the army in 1849, to reside on his ranch. Clint met the old frontiersman, who looked like a southern planter. He had a pronounced interest in boys, to which fact Clint could have attested.

Travel on to Fort Union was slow, uninterrupted, and uneventful. Some days were raw and chilly. Clint did not have any liking for the dust storms. At Fort Union a government caravan was making ready for the drive east to Fort Leavenworth. Captain Couch decided to wait for it. Clint had four more idle days to watch frontier life at the post. In one instance he saw considerably more than was good for him, as he had the bad luck to be witness to a knife fight between two men.

An entire troop of dragoons made ready at Fort Union to escort this unusually large caravan. The freighters were jolly. No fear of Indians this drive! The wagons rolled down upon the plains, and once more, for days on end, Clint gazed out over the prairie, with the vast circle of boundless horizon calling. Clint remembered the camps and many landmarks he had become familiar with on the way out.

When they reached Council Grove the government caravan took the road to Fort Leavenworth, while the remainder went on toward Westport Landing. Thus Clint did not pass the scene of his mother’s death and burial. But that place was not so very far, as distance counted on the prairie, and for several days Clint was prey to melancholy.

Captain Couch’s caravan unloaded at Westport, then proceeded out along the Missouri River to camp and rest and feed the stock. Always that was a paramount issue. The weeks of steady pulling wore out the animals.

While fishing one day in a creek that flowed into the Missouri, Clint was approached by a lad about his own age, who announced that his uncle had joined the freighters and was going to take him along. His great glee was manifest. Clint looked at the lanky, redheaded, freckle-faced boy with considerable disfavor, solely because he had apparently the most ridiculous misconception of this freighting across the plains. Far, indeed, was it from fun.

“My name’s Tom Sidel,” he confided, agreeably. “I know yours. It’s Clint Belmet.”

“Howdy! Who told you?” replied Clint, drawing in his fishing-line. No one could talk and fish at the same time.

“Your dad. He knows my uncle. An’ he said he was glad we were goin’ to freight goods, because I’d be company for you.”

Tom made this statement with a humility and a hopefulness not lost upon Clint. He was disposed to be friendly, though he had his doubts about this boy.

“Reckon it’d help some — if you are up to a man’s job,” replied Clint, with a matured air.

“I’m strong, but ‘course I couldn’t be a driver yet,” said Tom. “Not many boys of thirteen could.”

It appeared that the lad was approaching this connection more satisfactorily to Clint.

“Can you shoot?” queried Clint.

“No, nothin’ to brag of. But mebbe you could teach me. I heard about your huntin’ an’ the names you got — Buff an’ Turk. Think I like Buff better.”

“How are you with an ax?”

“Uncle says I’m just no good,” rejoined Tom, frankly.

“Will you be afraid when the Indians raid us?”

“D — do — do they? Is it a — a sure thing?” faltered Tom.

“Sure. Next drive out we’ll have a fight. You see, every night when we camp we drive the wagons in a circle, close together, except at one end, where we leave a hole for the stock. We couldn’t risk lettin’ the horses an’ oxen feed outside. An’ we keep twenty guards watchin’ all night. Sometimes even then the Indians slip up on us. They did once, an’ if it hadn’t been for Jack, my dog here, we’d have been killed an’ scalped.... I — I lost my mother.”

“Aw! She was killed?” burst out Tom, awed.

“Yes. Shot right through. She sent me runnin’ after paw, who was out fightin’. An’ she died after we got back.”

“I’m very sorry. I lost my mother, too. But not Indians. An’ I haven’t any dad, either.”

Clint was won now. This Tom Sidel seemed likable, and, after all, he did not seem to possess the conceited and bragging traits that Clint had imagined he might.

“Well, what you goin’ to do when we’re set on by Comanches or Kiowas?” went on Clint, dryly.

“Do? Golly! like as not I’ll crawl under the wagon, or suthin’.”

Whereupon Clint admitted Tom into the sanctity of his friendship.

“Where you from?” asked Clint.

“Lived in Chicago till last year, then went to my uncle’s in Iowa.”

“City boy, huh?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t my fault.”

“How about school?”

“I’ve passed the Fourth Reader.”

“Whew! You’re two years ahead of me.... Tom, I’ve got an idea. I’ll take you in hand on drivin’, shootin’, fightin’ Indians, work round camp. An’ you take me in hand on studies. I can do history, geography, grammar. But ‘rithmetic stumps me. An’ I ought to learn a little ‘rithmetic.”

“It’s a bargain, Buff,” replied Tom, gladly. “But the debt will be all on my side.”

Upon the return of the lads to camp, they happened on an important meeting between Couch and Major McLaughlin. The talk took place at Belmet’s tent, and the officer’s business was to arrange the hauling of government supplies to Fort Wise, Colorado.

“Glad to take the job, Major. But I haul only under escort,” replied Couch.

“I can’t spare soldiers just now.”

“Sorry, sir. I won’t tackle thet job these days without escort. The Comanches are raidin’ an’ the Kiowas on the warpath.”

“I could send a detachment to catch up with your train,” suggested McLaughlin.

“I’ll not accept the contract unless I have a whole troop to start out with.”

“All right, Couch. I’ll have to find soldiers. By the time you’re packed I’ll have them ready.”

But he did not have them, and Couch refused for three days to start out unescorted. The frontiersmen upheld him, but the new freighters, unexperienced and eager to earn the high wages, wanted to risk it. But Couch was obdurate. At length a detachment of soldiers rode in from Fort Leavenworth, and next morning the caravan started.

Clint had graduated now to a big freight wagon, and the prairie schooner was only a memory of the past. He discovered that he did not now think so often of his mother. The canvas-covered wagon was associated with her. On the high seat of the freighter Clint had as companion the only other boy in the caravan, Tom Sidel, and it was impossible for Clint not to share something of Tom’s wild excitement. The first day passed as had a single hour when he drove alone. Tom was full of possibilities. His looks were deceiving. And as the days multiplied Clint grew attached to this lad.

The caravan, consisting of eighty wagons, crossed the Little Arkansas River, and then the Walnut, went on for a stop at Fort Zarah, then Bent’s old fort. During this period two bands of Indians rode up within sight, wild, swift riding, sinister, and colorful, and espying the long line of mounted soldiers, they wheeled away. When Tom Sidel saw his first hostile Indians he gripped Clint with both hands, and the freckles stood out brown on a very white face. He greeted sight of the second band with more courage, and after a creditable performance received a lecture on Indians from Clint. It presently occurred to Clint that in the event the caravan was attacked he would personally have a great deal to live up to. When the thought clarified in his mind, Clint ceased his masterly harangue.

It took the caravan six weeks to reach Fort Wise. Here the soldiers at once departed on the return trip to Fort Leavenworth. This left Couch in a predicament. A wagon-train of supplies was ready for the trail, but no escort. He tarried there waiting, and trying to decide what to do.

Fort Wise appeared to Clint identical with all the other forts on the plains, with the exception of Fort Larned. But to Tom Sidel it was the heaven of a lad’s adventurous dreams. Clint boldly led Tom everywhere and had many a laugh at his expense.

That night Couch held a council with his men anent the disturbing predicament they were in. The feed around Fort Wise was scant and poor; the stock was getting gaunt. It was necessary to go somewhere, and Couch favored loading the heavy consignment of freight, much of it in valuable pelts, and starting back to Westport.

“Wal, it’s an even break,” said the most experienced of the plainsmen. “We may miss redskins an’ then ag’in we may not.”

“McLaughlin played me a dirty trick,” fumed Couch. “He must have ordered them soldiers to start back at once.... If we stay here much longer we’ll lose half our stock.”

“You’re the boss,” was the cool comment of each freighter. No one would take the responsibility of advising a move without soldiers.

Couch threw up his hands and swore roundly; “We’ll load an’ move!”

CHAPTER 6

GRAY PLAIN, WINDING yellow road, scouts far out in front, wagging oxen and fretting horses, so Clint saw four long anxious days drag by.

On the afternoon of the fifth day two dots appeared rising over the horizon. As it chanced, hawk-eyed Clint saw them first far to the south. They moved. Too high for buffalo! They were horses with riders coming fast. Clint shouted to the driver ahead and he shouted to the one before him; thus word quickly reached Couch and the scouts. No halt was ordered, but the wagons grew closer.

The riders proved to be two white men, arriving on wet and heaving horses.

“Whar’s your boss?” queried the spokesman of the two.

“I’m Couch,” returned the boss. “Who are you an’ what do you want?”

“My name’s Powell,” returned the other, hurriedly. “In charge of an emigrant train goin’ to Texas. There was fifty-six of us — thirty-four men, fourteen women, an’ eight children. Just at daybreak we was jumped by a bunch of Injuns. But we’d been lookin’ fer it. We’d spotted Injuns followin’ us fer days. We was ready, an’ we gave them such a hot fight thet they give it up. We seen your caravan an’ began pullin’ across country, an’ we rode out ahead to see if you’d go in camp an’ wait for our train to come up.”

“Shore we will. Reckon you’ve got some casualties?”

“Five dead an’ some hurt. I don’t know how many.”

“Too bad, but you’re damn lucky. You’d better throw your outfit in with ours.”

“Much obliged, boss. We’ll shore be glad to.”

“Pull a circle,” yelled Couch to the drivers, and soon the wagons were wheeling round in the protective formation.

While Clint was helping pitch their individual camp, Tom came running, his eyes wide, his red hair sticking up.

“Buff, is it true?” he asked, excitedly. “Is there a wagon train comin’ that’s been fightin’ Injuns?”

“Reckon it is, Tom. Our boss wouldn’t be campin’ for fun. An’ those two riders who come in an’ told us, they looked honest to me. But all the same you see the scouts out ridin’ on guard. We can’t be surprised.” Clint was not so excited as Tom, though just as anxious and curious. And he was among the first to see the Texas emigrant train come in sight on the rolling prairie. Then it took two hours for it to reach camp.

The band had twenty-eight wagons, all new, good horses, a few yokes of oxen, and some mighty formidable-looking Texans. It was no wonder, Clint thought, that they had routed the Indians. The more Clint saw of Texans, the better he liked them. He had heard it said they were a long-legged, sandy-haired, close-mouthed, gun-throwing breed of men that made the best friends and worst enemies.

Couch was ready for the wounded, with his chest of medicines, bandages, hot water, and the few instruments he used. He had a considerable skill for a layman, and as on other occasions he called on Clint to stand by.

“Wash your hands clean, you owl-eyed buffalo-hunter,” he ordered Clint, who was watching the men helping the wounded from a wagon.

Tom Sidel stood his ground, though the pale faces and bloody bandages manifestly affected him, but when they lifted out a little girl whose eyes were closed he fled.

The little girl had an arrow wound in her leg above the knee. Two men, one of them young, also suffered from arrow wounds, one in the arm, the other in the shoulder. They were not serious and both men were joking. A fourth man had a bullet hole in his middle, about over his stomach. He was unconscious. Couch turned him over to see where the bullet had emerged, then he shook his head as if he could do nothing.

The little girl opened her eyes and smiled wanly. She was not frightened.

“Does it hurt bad, little lady?” inquired Couch as with big deft hands he removed the bloody rags.

“Not now.... Am I goin’ to die — mister?” she whispered.

“Die! Goodness! child, you ain’t bad hurt!” replied Couch, heartily. “You’re just cut a little.”

“Honest Injun?” asked the child, hopefully.

“Reckon the redskin who done this to you was a very dishonest Injun. But I know what you mean. Just shut your eyes, lass, while I wash an’ bind your cut.”

“Boss, we couldn’t stop the bleedin’,” said the man who had lifted the girl down from the wagon. Evidently he was her father. The look in his eyes hurt Clint. What tortures these pioneers endured! Clint wondered if any of them realized, before starting out on the plains, what might be in store for them. Still, nothing could stop pioneers.

“Wal, it’s only a flesh wound,” replied Couch, with satisfaction. “No artery cut. She’s weak an’ sick, but in no danger at all.”

The father spoke grateful incoherent words. When the girl’s wound had been attended to she was laid aside on blankets. She opened her eyes, smiled at Clint, and said it had not hurt much. Somehow she reminded him of little May Bell. The old pang twinged in Clint’s breast. Where was May and what was happening to her?

When Couch had attended to the arrow wounds of the two men, the third, the one with the ugly bullet hole in his abdomen, had expired.

Clint saw the Texans bury their six dead, and cut down two cottonwoods to roll over the single grave.

Next day they joined Couch’s caravan and traveled with it as far as the Cimmaron Crossing. Then they asked for a map of the dry trail, so they could find water on their ninety mile cut-off, and despite Couch’s advice, continued their journey on to Texas. Clint waved to the children, with whom he had become friendly, until the wagons rolled over a ridge out of sight.

“Humph! Wonder will I ever see any of them again!” soliloquized Clint. Meetings and separations on the plains were sudden, strange, and violent, but the more poignant for that.

Tom Sidel had waved with Clint, affected in similar degree. “Buff,” he said, feelingly, “I don’t like the idee of you goin’ one way an’ me another.”

Couch’s caravan had further good luck on this eastward trip. At Fort Larned they fell in with another wagon train of sixty-five freighters bound from Fort Union to Westport. They proceeded together, completing the long journey at the end of summer. Couch’s freighters had done well and were satisfied to continue. Then they went into winter camp on the Missouri River, not far out of Westport.

Belmet and Tom’s uncle, John Sidel, joined forces on a deal for feed for horses and oxen. They bought two hundred acres of cornstalks from a man named Judson, and turned the stock in there. It became necessary, however, to guard the animals, and fetch them back to camp at night. There were twenty-five men in Belmet’s outfit. They built a large corral on the river bank, and by cautious guarding did not lose any stock to the thieves rampant in that section. Such labor, and the mending of wagons and some little hunting for meat in the brakes of the river bottom, kept the men busy all winter.

Clint and Tom went to school for five months. It was a happy interval for both boys. They had plenty to eat, warm clothes, and outside of school hours had a good time hunting rabbits with Jack. Nevertheless, Clint missed his mother more them when he was out on the trail. Perhaps the comfort, the leisure, and the school work brought her back closer.

He grew big and strong that winter.

Couch told Belmet, “Buff will be a buster some day.”

Card sharpers often visited the camp, where they were not welcomed, at least by the majority of the freighters. Clint painted a sign, Gamblers not Wanted, and nailed it up in a conspicuous place, after which the undesirables gave them a wide berth.

Clint’s favorite dish was rabbit cooked in a Dutch oven with potatoes and onions. He used to take a peep, lifting the iron lid so that he could see and smell the stew. This always irritated his father, who was a capital cook and who did not like to have the red coals of fire disturbed.

The months rolled around, like the rolling of the slow caravan wheels across the prairie in summer. By the middle of May Captain Couch had loaded up again for Aull & Company, with merchandise for all the trading stations across the plains. It was a large and important consignment. Reports drifted in that the Comanches and Kiowas were more troublesome than ever.

Couch secured a detachment of ninety-five soldiers under Captain Stevenson, and the long journey began. Commonplace as were these freighting departures, there was always a crowd of relatives, friends, and well-wishers gathered to see the caravan start out. It had such singular import.

Early in June they struck the old trail for Santa Fé. At Big Timbers they found evidence that a large encampment of Kiowas had wintered at this favorite spot. This was not conducive to good cheer. Those savages were somewhere on the rampage.

The mornings broke sunny and pleasant, the prairie waved away boundlessly, the long leagues rolled under the wheels, the sunsets burned gold on the grass, and the cool, clear, starry nights passed. Not an Indian was sighted on the long journey to Fort Larned.

Here the soldiers turned back for Fort Leavenworth, while Couch waited for a caravan, on the way from Fort Aubry to Santa Fé. Owing to the scarcity of soldiers and the increase of the many freighters and other wagon-trains, it was imperative that caravans depend upon one another as much as possible. Couch waited for the Aubry train, and, indeed, so long was it in arriving that ill rumor was rife.

It got in, however, the biggest and hardest crew of freighters Clint had ever seen — one hundred and five men, all experienced Indian-fighters. Their train boss had been a sergeant of artillery in the Texas invasion of 1842. His name was Jim Waters, and the long-haired old prairie-dog was a delight to Clint.

Waters had a cannon in his caravan. It had been used in many a fight with Indians, and the roar of its fame had spread from the Missouri to the Pecos. The first thing Clint and Tom did was to go have a look at that cannon. It shone like the back of a watch case. The boys both yearned and dreaded to see it shot.

Couch threw in with Waters. This made a caravan of one hundred and seventy-nine armed men, and, including the cannon, a most formidable body.

Jim Waters’ words to Couch passed from lip to lip: “Satock is out that layin’ fer us, so you all know what to expect.”

Satock was the notorious chief of the Kiowas who harassed the western border from 1855 to 1863. This year, late in 1856, had seen the rise of his activities. The country from Fort Union to Santa Fé and over the Vermigo River was crisscrossed by Satock’s bloody trail. There were records of attacks on escorted caravans and important wagon-trains, but many small bands of reckless pioneers had vanished and never were heard of again. During this period Satock’s Kiowas and the Apaches no doubt massacred many of these adventurers. Lucky was the caravan of any kind that crossed Satock’s range without a fight.

The third day out from Fort Union, at noon, a large band of mounted Kiowas appeared from over a ridge. They were not more than a mile away.

“Pull a half-circle,” yelled Waters, and that trenchant order was promptly executed.

Clint’s position was next to his father’s wagon near the center of the half-circle. Tom was with him on the seat. The horses and oxen were headed inward. The cannon was run out in front, loaded with slugs, ready for action. The gunner, Bill Hoyle, an ex-soldier, stood laconically beside it, fuse in hand, with Waters, Couch, and others behind. One hundred and seventy-nine rifles were in hand, and that did not count the two held by Clint and Tom.

“Wal, boys, it’s Satock all right,” announced Waters, grimly. “I shore know the old — !”

Clint estimated there were more than a hundred Indians, perhaps considerably more, because they rode in a compact mass, naked and red, feathers flying and weapons glinting, their savage faces gleaming in the sunlight.

“Boys, they’re wantin’ to parley,” said Waters. “Reckon it’s jest a trick to see how we’re loaded. But no fear of attack now.”

Clint heard that to his immense relief, and the explosion, almost the gasp, that Tom gave vent to was very eloquent. Clint stole a quick glance at Tom, and he was not so scared himself that he could not laugh.

The band of Kiowas halted at about sixty yards, just outside the limit Waters said he would allow them. Then four riders came on again. The leader was a lean, sinewy Indian, naked except for moccasins and breech-clout. He carried a rifle across his saddle. His horse was a ragged, fiery mustang, fittingly wild for such a master.

The four rode up within thirty paces, then halted. Clint saw the swarthy lineaments of the savage chieftain — a dark, crafty, evil visage, record of terrible deeds. If he had ever been a noble red man the time was far past. Hate of the whites breathed from every line of him. He raised a hand with superb gesture.

“Me Satock,” he announced.

“Shore. We saw you first,” replied Waters, with biting humor.

“We friends white men.”

“Wal, if you’re friends let us go on.”

“Want some eat.”

“Satock, we can’t stop now to feed you Injuns. We must go on,” returned Waters, testily.

Satock slipped off his mustang. He was as slippery as an eel. Again he held up his hand, and gave his rifle to one of his companions. He stepped forward without the slightest hesitation, his gleaming, burning, gloomy eyes taking in the cannon, the watching men.

“Me Satock. Me big chief. Me good friend. Me want sugar,” he said.

“Somebody give him some sugar,” ordered Waters.

Couch went to the nearest supply wagon, and after some tearing in packs, assisted by the teamster, he returned with a small bag of sugar, which he placed in the outstretched hand of the chief. Now Satock did not smile, nor accept the sugar with thanks. He simply snatched it.

“Me want coffee,” he said, in his deep guttural voice.

At Couch’s call the teamster fetched a sack of coffee, which was likewise turned over to the savage.

“Me want tobac,” said Satock, in precisely the same tone.

That, too, was given to the chief, who received it as if it was his due.

“Thet’s all, Satock,” rejoined Waters, no longer conciliatory. “Get on your hoss an’ go.”

Satock strode back to his horse. It was noticeable that he mounted in a single agile action, without letting go of the three bags. He received his rifle from his companion, and still kept possession of the sugar, coffee, and tobacco. This fact did not in the least detract from his savage dignity.

They rode back to their band, and then, keeping the same distance away they made a complete circle of the caravan.

Curses were not wanting from the angry Couch and others of the frontiersmen, but Waters kept silent until Satock, with his warriors, disappeared over the ridge of waving grass.

“Thet damn rascal is up to somethin’,” declared Waters. “We’ll go on to the Pecos. Look sharp, every man-jack of you.”

By four o’clock that afternoon the caravan was in camp on the Pecos River. As small a circle as possible, with the wagons drawn up close, was placed out in the open. Everybody worked. Firewood in large quantities was brought up from the river bottom. The stock was grazed under guard and driven into the circle before dark. The cannon was set pointing from the gap in the circle. A number of cooking fires blazed brightly, and after supper a big camp fire was built in the center, around which stood and sat and lay most of the men.

Clint heard Jim Waters say: “We haven’t seen the last of Satock. You can shore gamble on thet an’ be a winner. I’ve been on the frontier for twenty years. There’s a red devil in all these tribes, but I reckon Satock has got them skinned. He’s as mean as — !...

We’ll have to put on double guard. Now, Couch, how about your outfit?”

“You’re boss, Jim,” replied Couch. “I’ll answer for my outfit takin’ orders an’ doin’ their duty.”

“All right, Captain,” returned Waters, consulting his watch. “You take forty men for the first guard. Have Bill Hoyle relieve you in three hours. I’ll relieve Bill at two o’clock. An’ thet’ll fetch us to daylight.... Then, I’m no calamity howler, but I know these Kiowas, an’ we’ve got to be on guard every minute of our watch — or we’ll never reach Santa Fé with our scalps on.”

Belmet was one of the chosen for the first watch. Clint remained up with him, sitting by the bright fire, watching, listening, and keeping his dog Jack close beside him.

Hoyle and his men came on at midnight. Clint went to bed with his father. They were soon asleep. Some time later Clint awoke with a queer feeling. He reached over to put a hand on Jack. But Jack was gone. Clint sat up. As the bed had been made in the open and the night was clear, Clint could look all around. No Jack in sight!

Clint shook his father.

“Paw, I’m afraid somethin’s wrong,” whispered Clint.

“What makes you think that, Clint?” queried Belmet, anxiously.

“Jack is gone. I’ll look for him.”

“Don’t go outside the corral.”

Whereupon Clint searched around among the tents and beds, and then round the camp fire. None of the men on guard had seen Jack.

“Mr. Waters, my dog would not leave me,” said Clint, earnestly, to the frontiersman. “Somethin’s wrong. Jack could smell an Indian a mile.”

“Thet’s good. We’ll watch all the sharper,” replied Waters. “You go back to bed and try to get some sleep.”

Clint did not take this kindly advice. He wanted his dog. He knew that Jack had never left him unless something was wrong, and he felt certain that was the case now. Accordingly, he searched among the stock. Not finding Jack there, Clint returned to his wagon and crawled under it out into the prairie grass. A bright moon shone. Clint called his dog, and he whistled. Something moved in the tall grass. Clint dropped flat, suddenly stricken with terror. Then he heard a whine. Jack came searching for him. Clint sat up and patted the dog. His hair stood up and he growled.

As Clint crawled back under the wagon some one stuck a gun in his back.

“It’s the lad an’ his dog, boss,” said the man.

Waters reprimanded Clint sharply for the risk he had taken.

“But I was huntin’ Jack,” replied Clint. “He was out there growlin’. I tell you, Mr. Waters, Jack can smell an Indian.”

“Couch, damn if I don’t think there’s truth in the boy. Listen to thet dog!... Wal, we’ll play it for a hunch, anyway.”

Waters had all the men called. The fire was extinguished and every one of the caravan became a guard. Most of the men were armed with a Colt’s revolving rifle, a new weapon capable of firing seven shots in two minutes.

“Boys,” said Waters, “if you have to shoot, don’t waste ammunition. Make every shot count. If Satock an’ his redskins tackle us, it’s either them or us. An’ I’d a heap sight it’d be them. Now spread out an’ watch.”

Clint went with his father and lay down just inside their wagon. He tied Jack on a string. Presently Jack grew restless and pulled and growled.

“Paw, they’re comin’ sure. Jack knows,” whispered Clint.

Belmet got up and went to tell Waters. This caused Waters to stand up on the hub of a wagon wheel and search the prairie with his field-glass. The moonlight made the night almost as day.

“Injuns comin’ all right,” announced Waters. “Good fer thet dog!... Couch, step up an’ take a look.”

Couch replaced Waters on the wheel and held the glass for several moments of suspense.

“About two hundred, more or less,” he said, presently turning to Waters. “They’re comin’ low an’ easy, guessin’ to surprise us.”

“Wal, they’ll get the surprise,” returned Waters. “Couch, send a man along the wagon line thet way, an’ you go the other. Tell the men to expect an attack in short order, but to lie low an’ not shoot till they hear me yell.”

“How about the cannon?” asked Couch.

“Hoyle has charge of thet. He’ll not fire it unless the redskins break inside the circle.... I’ll have another look through the glass. Lucky it’s moonlight.”

Presently Clint, who raised his head to look, could not see a man, except his father beside him. They were all under the wagons, hiding, watching.

Not long after that several Indians appeared, cautiously approaching the caravan. Evidently they were reconnoitering to see if there was an opportunity to attack. Soon they vanished as silently as they had come.

After that every succeeding moment was fraught with greater suspense and fright for Clint. He had difficulty in keeping Jack quiet.

A long wait followed. The Kiowas were in no hurry. An owl hooted down in the river bottom. It might have been a signal. Next came the whistle of a night hawk. No doubt every listening man on guard heard that lonely, suspense-breaking cry. Following it, Clint saw a line of Indians rise out of the grass and come on in order, crouching and slow.

Clint lay stiff and cold against the wheel of the wagon, with his rifle at a rest on a spoke. The palms of his hands were slippery with sweat. He heard his father whisper, but could not distinguish what. Closer stole the Kiowas. They gleamed in the moonlight. Every second Clint expected to hear their hellish yell as they charged.

But instead of that the silence was split by Waters’ stentorian roar:

“Fire!”

The hundred and seventy-nine Colts roared as one gun. But Clint had forgotten to either aim or shoot his.

CHAPTER 7

TΗΕΝ THE WHITE men reversed the action of their rifles, making ready for another volley. No blood-curdling yell! No rush of agile plumed savages! When the smoke drifted away from before the waiting defenders of the caravan, fleet vanishing forms, like shadows, could be discerned in the moonlight. They disappeared without having fired a gun or shot an arrow.

Waters and his allies crawled out from under the wagons, and a large knot of them collected round him and Couch.

Clint Belmet, dazed, and with palpitating heart, followed his father.

“Haw! Haw! We shore didn’t need our cannon,” roared Waters.

“What you make of it, Jim?” asked Couch, more anxious than elated.

“Kiowas, all right. They got the surprise of their lives. Sneaked off like coyotes.”

“They might be hidin’ out there in the grass,” suggested an old frontiersman.

“Not much. Them as are out there now are good Injuns... Boys, spread along the line an’ search for bodies. But don’t go far.”

Careful search of a belt of grass all along the line and for a hundred paces out failed to discover one single dead Indian.

“Packed their dead an’ crippled with them. Injuns will always do thet,” averred Couch.

“Wal, I’ll be doggoned!” ejaculated Jim Waters. “I’d have gambled on layin’ out jest one hundred an’ seventy-nine.”

“You’d have lost your bet, boss,” interposed the old frontiersman. “Shootin’ by moonlight is turrible deceivin’. Things look close an’ clear, but they ain’t.”

“Shore. But all the same we must have plugged a few,” replied Waters, stubbornly. “Anyway, we’ll watch an’ wait till daylight. Build some fires, boys.”

Clint Belmet, shivering around the camp fire his father built, was a pretty sober boy. He realized that he was just recovering from a trance no less than panic. And shame swiftly followed his other feelings. Even Jack seemed to be looking at him askance. Clint was inordinately proud of his dog. Had not Waters just a few moments since passed the camp fire to say, “Clint, thet dog of yours saved our scalps.”

While Clint was sitting there toasting his shins, who should come up but Tom Sidel, gun in hand, stalking as Clint most certainly had never seen him stalk before.

“Hullo, Buff! I was looking for you all over. Wasn’t it great?” he burst out, dropping the butt of the rifle on the ground and standing as the hunters were wont to stand in leisure moments.

“Wasn’t what great?” queried Clint, bewildered. “Why, the Injuns slippin’ up on us.”

“Humph! Not so I noticed it.”

“The way we chased them first off! Say, I heard our boss say it was the best stand-off he’d ever been in.”

“We was only lucky,” responded Clint, pessimistically.

“Don’t say was when you should say were,” protested Tom. “Buff, it wasn’t all luck.”

“Tom Sidel, if it hadn’t been for my dog Jack, your gory scalp would be hangin’ on a Kiowa’s saddle right this minute.”

“I ain’t so damn sure,” replied Tom, who was slow to realize antagonism in the boy he revered.

“Don’t swear,” complained Clint, irritably. “That’s worse than bad grammar.”

But Tom was not to be talked or frowned down. “Buff, I’ll bet you plugged one,” he said, in a tense whisper, leaning down.

“Plugged one what?” demanded Clint.

“One of them d-dinged Kiowas. Mebbe old Satock himself. It’d just be your luck, an’ then you’d be more famous than ever.”

“Me famous?... Faugh!” exploded Clint. Nevertheless, Tom’s indestructible faith in his idol had begun to operate on Clint’s mood.

“I’ll bet you will be — if not tomorrow, then some day.... You shore knocked a Kiowa over, didn’t you, Buff?”

“Tom, I’m downright sure I didn’t.”

“Aw, I’ll bet you did! Uncle John says I hit one, an’ so does Jackson, the teamster who was next to me.”

“What?” gasped Clint.

“I guess I’ve downed my first redskin, Buff,” replied Tom, solemnly. “It was this way. There’s deep grass just out from our wagon, an’ a little step in the plain. I was restin’ my gun on the wheel, all ready, finger on trigger, when all of a sudden Injuns rose right up close, like ghosts. My gun was pointed right at one. Just then we heard Mr. Waters yell. An’ I pulled trigger before anyone else down our way. I couldn’t see what happened, but Uncle an’ Jackson positively saw my redskin go down like a fellar who’s knocked down.”

“Shake hands,” said Clint, with emotion. “An’ you wasn’t scared?”

“Who said so? Scared! Why, Buff, I was so scared my teeth clicked, my mouth watered, my throat choked up so I couldn’t swallow. I was colder’n ice all over. An’ deep inside was the most awful feelin’ I ever had in my life.”

That honest confession from Tom made a man out of Clint. All of a sudden he felt free of something sickening.

“Tom, you’ve said it. That’s exactly how I felt, only worse.... An’ I couldn’t shoot. I forgot I had a rifle.”

“Bah! Don’t come that on me, just to make me feel good,” returned the loyal Tom.

At daylight Jim Waters called for volunteers to trail the Indians. All the freighters wanted to go. He chose fifty men.

“Let me have your dog,” said Waters to Clint.

“Jack won’t trail anythin’ without me,” replied Clint, eagerly.

“All right. Come along an’ fetch him on a rope.” They trailed the Indians to the river, and found many tracks where they had crossed. Couch pointed to the marks in the sand where something heavy had been dragged. Next Waters found blood on the leaves. The men crossed the river, which was shallow, and taking the trail again, followed it up into a cottonwood grove. Here Jack got to trailing so fast that he dragged Clint with him ahead of the others. Whereupon Waters hurried to grasp the rope from Clint’s hands.

Presently they came to a glade where the Indians had left their horses while they went on to attack the caravan. Horse tracks and dung were all over the glade, and fresh marks on the saplings, where the bark had been eaten off. The trail of the horses led out of the river bottom, up on the plain, and headed north.

“Raton Pass,” declared Waters. “Wal, we’ll shore have the pleasure of meetin’ up with old Satock again.” The freighters hurried back to camp, where breakfast was ready, and after that the caravan was soon on the move. They drove until early afternoon. Waters chose the best available spot to stave off another raid, which manifestly he expected.

Forty men were sent out with the stock, and ten picked scouts rode out to look for Indians. About sundown the several scouts who had gone north came hurrying in with news everybody expected.

“Injuns comin,” they announced.

“Heigho! A freighter’s life is a merry one,” sang out a wag.

“Tolerable busy, too, if you want my idee,” contributed another.

“Roll the cannon out, boys,” yelled Waters. “Hoyle, have powder an’ slugs ready. Rest of you at your posts. If it’s a bunch of Kiowas, we’ll begin to shoot first, an’ give them terbaccor after.”

The approaching band, however, turned out to be cavalry, eighty-five men under Captain Graham, bound from Fort Wise, Colorado, to Santa Fé.

Clint was on hand to hear Waters and Couch greet the leader of the cavalrymen.

“Howdy, Jim!” said the captain, a ruddy-faced, square-jawed soldier of long service. “We took you for a bunch of Indians.”

“Wal Captain, we can shore return the compliment,” laughed Waters, and pointed to the ready cannon.

“Captain Graham, we were attacked by Kiowas last night, in the moonlight,” announced Couch. “We drove them off, an’ they never fired a shot. But we’ve been expectin’ another attack today, an’ sure one tonight.”

“So it was your caravan Satock jumped,” said Graham. “You were lucky. We passed Satock today. He had about one hundred an’ twenty Indians. They had a good many wounded and were a pretty sore bunch. Passed us and went north toward Raton. We knew, of course, they’d been up to some devilment, so we took their back trail. Found freshly dug ground covered with a lot of rock. They had buried a good many dead. So you must have given Satock a hard knock. It’s not likely they’ll tackle your caravan very soon again.”

“That’s good. Wal, Captain, get down, you an’ your soldiers, an’ have supper with us.”

“We’ll camp here and go on with you to Santa Fé,” returned Graham.

This good news, added to the remarkable luck attending the caravan of late, put the freighters in a happy frame of mind. They prepared a bountiful supper for Graham’s cavalry, after which soldiers and freighters squatted round camp fires for that most unusual circumstance — a pleasant evening while on the trail.

Captain Graham had been on the plains for many years, first in Indian campaigns, secondly in charge of numerous caravans of’Forty-niners on their way to the California gold strike; and later performing the same army service for the caravans of freighters.

“I don’t see that conditions on the plains are any better than years ago,” he remarked. “Lately they’re worse. The Indian tribes are growing bitter. Arapahoes, Pawnees, Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, all these southern tribes have grown steadily in hostility toward the whites. When you come to think of it, you can’t blame them. On the whole, the white invasion of the West is a deliberate steal. The time will come — not so far distant, in my estimation — when the Indians will grow to desperation. Some day the Sioux will be as bad as the Apaches. These old Indian chiefs, like White Wolf, are wise. They see the handwriting on the wall. They have trusted the white man, to their disillusionment. And if these wise old chieftains can band their tribes together, which they are trying to do, it will take a whole army to make the West safe. But some of these tribes have hated one another for hundreds of years. They will not easily be reconciled. That is hopeful for the whites.”

“Wed, Captain, I shore agree with you ‘cept not blamin’ the Injuns,” rejoined Waters, puffing his pipe. “You see, I’ve got a hunk of lead in my hip, shot there by a redskin, an’ it doesn’t improve my disposition. Injuns are just varmints to me.”

“That’s not a very broad attitude, Waters,” replied the cavalry officer. “If you had stayed home, where you owned your land, instead of riding out with guns across the red man’s country, you wouldn’t be carrying that bullet around, and also a cantankerous disposition. Most of your frontiersmen are like that. But take a man like Colonel Maxwell. He hasn’t an Indian enemy on the plains. He treats every redskin the same as he does a white man. He told me something interesting last time I was at his ranch. He said one of the chiefs told him that it was the future the Indians feared. They see these wagon-trains of furs, pelts, and buffalo hides go trailing back East, and to them the sight is prophetic of the future. Some day the white men will go in to kill the buffalo on a great scale. And that will bring war between red men and white men. The Indian lives on the buffalo. He knows it. That conflict will come, but not for twenty years or more.”

“Meanwhile, for us, haulin’ freight an’ fightin’ Injuns is about all we can look for,” replied Waters.

“It’s all in the day’s work,” added Couch.

“Well, men, you can hardly say it’s monotonous, even if it is the same old thing over and over again,” said Captain Graham, with a laugh. “Traveling and fighting! That is all there is to the Great Plains these days, and all there will be for some time to come.”

“Some day, Captain, these Great Plains will be great farms,” said Couch, thoughtfully. “It’s rich soil all the way across. Plenty of water. Wonderful pasture for stock. Shore millions of men could prosper.”

“Yes, and they will, but not until the Indian and the buffalo are gone,” concluded Graham. “Personally I shall be sorry to see both vanish, as they must, when the tide of progress moves westward. But long before that time comes there’s going to be war between the North and South.”

“Wal, we won’t argue aboot that,” replied Waters. “You’re a Northerner an’ I’m a Southerner, an’ I reckon we don’t think no more alike than the Pawnees an’ Comanches.”

“Jim, you an’ Captain Graham better talk Injun till we get to Santa Fé, anyway,” interposed Couch. And when the laugh subsided he continued. “It’s late an’ we better turn in.”

Clint Belmet, who had been sitting before the fire with eyes and ears open, went thoughtfully to bed, deciding that he admired and liked Captain Graham better than any one he had met on the frontier, unless it was Kit Carson.

“Paw, didn’t you cotton to that Cap Graham?” asked Clint.

“Sure did. I’m glad you saw an’ heard him. Try an’ remember what he said,” replied his father.

“No fear of me forgettin’. He talked just like a book.... An’, paw, I hear more an’ more about this Colonel Maxwell an’ his ranch. Will you let me go there some day? They say anybody is welcome to come an’ stay tis long as he likes!”

“Reckon you can, mebbe this trip out,” yawned Belmet, sleepily. “Go to sleep, you owl!”

* * *

The cavalry escorted Waters’ caravan on to Santa Fé, and then, without a day’s rest, hurried to the rescue of an emigrant train reported coming in from Texas.

The fur company in Santa Fé and Westport, for which Waters and Couch were hauling, had a huge consignment of stock to send back to the Missouri. Consequently Clint’s cherished hope of visiting Maxwell’s Ranch could not materialize. He had to work like a trooper during the few days’ stop at Santa Fé, and the rest and good time of former trips were wanting.

Waters, owing to the luck of the caravan with Satock, decided to risk a short cut to St. Calra Springs, which drive was accomplished in twelve days. The next was over an old trail seldom used any more, owing to the difficulty in finding water, and this led down Purgatory Valley to Bent’s Fort. The caravan made it in twenty-five days. Only three of these days required a very long drive from water to water; the first being twenty-one miles, the second twenty-four, and the last, the longest Clint ever drove, totaled twenty-seven miles. On this whole short cut they had no fuel but buffalo chips. They did not see an Indian.

At Bent’s Fort the leaders of the caravan were advised to wait and rest a few days, because White Wolf, the Apache war chief, was in the vicinity on the warpath. Two troops of dragoons were out trying to locate the Apaches and fetch them in. But Waters and Couch, trusting to their big caravan of experienced drivers and fighters, proceeded toward Council Grove.

While they were in camp on Cottonwood Creek, twenty Pawnees suddenly appeared, as if they had dropped out of the sky, and rode in.

“Wal, of all things! More Injuns!” ejaculated Waters, dryly.

“By thunder! they’ve got nerve!” added Couch. “Mebbe they’re just a scoutin’ party.”

The Pawnee chief, who looked as lean and dry as leather, ran an appraising eye over the wagons.

“Heap big train! Heap men?” he said. “Heap!”

“Yes, we got three hundred men an’ five cannon,” replied Waters, in cheerful tones that brought smiles to the faces of his men. “Here’s one of them. It will kill two hundred Injuns in one shot.... Look! I’ll cut down that tree in one shot.”

The Pawnees might not have understood Waters word for word, but they certainly got the gist of his meaning, and they looked skeptical, not to say scornful. Finally the Pawnee spokesman replied, “White man dam’ big liar!”

Waters simulated great anger.

“WHAT!... You call me liar?” he roared, in outraged dignity. “I’ll show you.... See that tree. I’ll cut it down in one shot. Then you take back callin’ me liar — or I’ll turn my cannon on you.”

He pointed to a tree nearly eighteen inches through. It was a young green cottonwood. Then he bade the men roll the cannon out. Hoyle brought the fuse and more ammunition. The freighters, not neglecting their rifles, crowded forward in suppressed glee. The Pawnees began to look impressed. Some of them edged away.

Waters carefully sighted the cannon and touched it off. BOOM! It made a terrible roar. The concussion appeared to shake everything near at hand, especially the Pawnees.

The cottonwood tree fell, not cut off cleanly, but effectually enough to make good Waters’ boast. Waters had been clever enough to run the cannon pretty close to the Indians, so that they would feel and hear a terrific shock. They did. And that no doubt had as much to do with their discomfiture as the felling of the tree. They rode away a good deal faster than they had come. Then the boisterous merriment of those grim freighters was a spectacle to behold.

Waters’ caravan continued its overland journey to the Missouri without seeing any more Indians. Thus another record was added to the list of the old brass cannon.

Aull & Company owned a large tract of pasture and cornfield in the river bottom, part of which was fenced. The freighters made a deal whereby they paid five hundred dollars for it, with the understanding that if they loaded for Aull the next spring they would get half of it back, and if they returned from Santa Fé with Aull’s pelts intact they would receive the other half.

All the members of the caravan regarded it as a very good deal, whether they hauled Aull’s freight or not. Feed for stock was at a premium on the Missouri. They spared every man available to work on repairing the fence, and in twelve days had it in such condition that they no longer needed to worry about the horses and oxen.

Belmet bought some lumber and a stove. He and Clint built a board frame, over which they stretched the tent. They laid buffalo robes on the floor and otherwise added to their comfort for the long winter months. Belmet also invested in books and magazines, and spent most of his time reading. Clint and Tom made a serious business of studying together, each teaching the other the subject in which he was most proficient. On pleasant days they took their guns and followed Jack through the thickets of the river bottom, a procedure that elicited great fun and also added materially to the larder.

So the winter passed, and when spring came Waters loaded freight for Santa Fé and Couch loaded for Fort Wise, Colorado. But the two caravans pulled out together, passed Wasarus Creek, went on to Diamond Springs, crossed the Little Arkansas, and then undertook the long drive to Cove Creek, where they ran right into a large band of Indians that evidently was lying in ambush under the creek bank. But frontiersmen like Waters and Couch were seldom trapped.

The savages, about three hundred strong, were painted and had on feather war bonnets. Seeing they were discovered, they leaped on their mustangs and charged like a tornado, yelling like a horde of demons.

The freighters had time to get half prepared, and Jim Waters stood beside his cannon, ready to spread destruction in their ranks, should they attack. Evidently the Indians were loath to close in, and instead they adopted one of their old tricks of galloping close, yelling hideously, and waving their buffalo robes and red blankets in an attempt to stampede the stock. It almost succeeded as far as the horses were concerned.

But on their second circle of the caravan, Waters selected a massed bunch of Indians and fired his cannon into it. The thunder of the report and the wide swath of destruction turned the tables on the Indians, and they were the ones to suffer a stampede.

Clint gasped at the mêlée and the wild chorus of yells and snorts. Mustangs by the dozens went down with their riders; others tore away, riderless; some kicked in frantic terror, dragging at the crippled Indians who still clung to them. Yet so wonderful and loyal were these savages, that those who were capable endeavored to save the wounded ones and to carry off their dead. The steady rifle fire from the freighters did not daunt them.

Then, BOOM! went Waters’ cannon again, this time more heavily charged with powder and slugs.

The discharge, ruthless as shrapnel, flung devastation into the middle of that plunging mêlée of Indians and mustangs. The freighters lowered their rifles, prone to pity. Even Jim Waters made no move to reload the cannon. And the able-bodied Indians, profiting by this restraint, got horses and cripples straightened out and beat a hasty retreat.

Search discovered the bodies of sixty dead Indians and eighty dead or crippled horses. It was the most complete rout Waters had ever engineered. He ordered the injured horses shot, but left them and the dead Indians unburied on the plain.

The men straightened out the teams and by brisk driving reached Fort Zarah at three that afternoon. Waters reported to Captain Selkirk the conduct of the Pawnees. A detachment of fifty dragoons was sent out on their trail.

Then the double caravan drove on to Pawnee Rock, to Ash Creek, and Pawnee Forks, and in six days more went into camp at the Cimmaron Crossing for the last time together. It was rather a sad encampment. A hundred and seventy freighters who had driven, camped, and fought together for months, and had made a success out of every trip, found the fact of parting something to deplore. They stayed up late that night. Next morning they arose at dawn, but, owing to more and yet more handshaking, the sun rose and still the caravans did not separate.

Waters crushed Clint’s hand and said: “Buff, this don’t seem right, you leavin’ us to get along as best we can without you an’ Jack.”

“But, Mr. Waters, you have the cannon,” replied Clint, significantly.

“Good luck, lad. You’ve a head on your shoulders. You’ll be a great frontiersman some day.”

And so at last the caravans parted, Waters taking the dry trail to Santa Fé and Couch pushing north to Fort Wise. For many miles and hours Clint’s keen eye marked the long winding wagon-train moving at a snail’s pace across the plains. He thought the one drawback to an overland freighter’s life was the ever-recurring farewell to beautiful and interesting places, to friends and comrades, and to loved ones.

Fort Wise, at this season, was full of Indians, trappers, and hunters, trading off their winter’s catch for provisions, clothing, ammunition, and tobacco. This was the undesirable time to visit the Colorado fort. Captain Couch moved out as soon as he had unloaded, and when the caravan reached good grazing-ground he made camp to rest and feed the stock and hunt buffalo.

That afternoon Belmet and John Sidel returned to camp in a wagon with three fine hides and almost half a ton of meat. Clint had a hand in preparing the hides. They were stretched on the ground, pegged down at the corners, and scraped until all the meat and fat were off. They used the brains of the buffalo to help in the tanning process, and if this was properly done over a period of four days, they could expect a hide that would not get hard or stiff.

At Timpas Creek, the next camp, an enormous herd of buffalo impeded and finally halted the progress of the caravan. As travel was impossible. Couch ordered another day there. Many buffalo were killed by the freighters, who shot from their wagons. Belmet and Sidel secured five. All day the herd rolled by, a mighty sea of shaggy beasts, far as eye could see on both sides. At sunset the last stragglers passed, followed by the wolves and coyotes that always attended a herd of buffalo.

CHAPTER 8

ONE NIGHT IN camp, at the end of an eight-day drive free from the sight of Indians, only four guards were stationed on duty.

“All peaceful,” announced Couch. “Let’s turn in.”

Late that night Clint was aroused by having his blankets pulled. He jerked up. Jack was doing it, and growling besides. When Clint spoke he awakened his father.

“What’s the matter, Clint?”

“Jack up to his old tricks. Look at him! Listen!” whispered Clint.

They watched the dog. He ceased both pulling and growling, but it would have been a dense fellow indeed who could not see that Jack wanted them to go outside.

“Injuns, I’ll bet,” muttered Belmet. “It never pays to play safe on this prairie. Grab your gun, Clint.”

They slipped out in their stocking feet, rifles in hand. It was bright starlight, very still, and the very air seemed charged with portent. They followed the dog.

The four guards were sound asleep beside the burned-out camp fire.

“Don’t wake them,” whispered Belmet, in a sore tone. “We’ll let Couch do that.”

Jack led them to the farthest corner of the corral formed by the wagons, fully a quarter of a mile from the fire. Then he wagged his tail as if to say, “Here it is.”

Belmet cautioned Clint to be still, and he knelt to hold the dog. Clint heard a faint noise on the outside of the wagon. It sounded like a ripping of canvas. Clint looked up at the white cover barely discernible in the darkness. It seemed to billow out slightly. Belmet evidently heard and saw the same, for he stealthily led Clint and Jack back a hundred steps or more. Then he put his lips to Clint’s ear: “Go wake Couch. Tell him. Wake the men an’ have them come here, but not to make any noise. Don’t tell Couch about the sleepin’ guards. He’d likely shoot them. Hurry now. I’ll watch.” Clint ran fleetly on his errand. A touch awakened the doughty Couch. Clint told him where to go to find his father, then he ran to awaken the guards. They were mighty sheepish and then alarmed. In less than ten minutes Clint had all the freighters around his father. They held a whispered colloquy. Couch did not believe there were Indians around, but he said they had better proceed as if there were. He sent out three scouting parties, of ten men each, in different directions. Couch, Belmet, Clint and the others lay down on the grass and waited.

It seemed to Clint that an age passed. Then he was transfixed to hear an owl hoot — who — who — whowho! right out of the wagon to which Jack had led him and his father. From the creek below came an answering call.

Couch hit Belmet on the back and cursed under his breath. “You men hear thet?”

“You bet,” replied Belmet. “What’ll we do? Wish we had a cannon.”

“Redskins again,” said another, resignedly.

“Nary redskin,” replied the old frontiersman. “No Injun is as crazy as thet.”

Couch advised his men to crawl under the wagons so they could command the prairie. Clint saw a tiny flare of flame like a lighted match down by the creek bank. Others saw it, too.

“Where in tarnation are them scoutin’ parties?” growled Couch. “We can’t move around much.”

“Listen!” burst out Clint, quivering. “I hear horses comin’... Must be Injuns. Jack smells somethin’.”

“Ahuh. I see the horses.... Men, too.... Don’t act like Injuns,” said Couch.

“They ain’t Injuns,” rejoined the old frontiersman. Next Clint heard heavy thuds up by the wagon that Jack had led them to investigate.

“Listen!” whispered Couch, hoarsely. “I’m a horned sinner if some gang ain’t robbin’ the wagon!”

A coyote wailed out a lonely cry, the genuineness of which Clint would have vouched for. The dark objects out on the plain worked closer, making to the right of the watching party. They halted perhaps fifty feet outside of the wagon in question. Severed men, like shadows, left the horses and moved in toward the wagon train.

Jack tore loose from Clint and dashed back under the wagon to the inside of the corral. Clint crawled after him. Just then on the outside of the caravan a man yelled, “HANDS UP!”

Immediately the sound of hard angry voices and a violent tussle rent the air. Then a rush of feet. Clint rose and ran after Jack, just discernible in the starlight. Before Clint reached him a man leaped down from the wagon. Jack jumped at the man and they went down together. Clint, rushing up, saw them sprawling on the ground. He caught the gleam of a blade. Whereupon Clint promptly hit the fellow on the head with the rifle butt. That stunned him. The dog let go. Then Belmet arrived, panting and excited, and grasping the situation he sat astride the fallen man and tied his hands and feet.

“Watch him, Clint, while I see what’s goin’ on outside.”

The robber did not come to, or else he feigned unconsciousness, for he never moved.

It developed presently that one of the three scouting parties had stolen up on the wagon which was being looted, and were lying in the grass when the other three robbers came up with eight horses. They were captured, not without a fight, but no shot was fired.

By this time day was not far distant. The east was light and the pale gray brightened. Fires were built, and preparations for breakfast begun.

As soon as it grew clear daylight Couch called, gruffly:

“Twenty volunteers to string up these robbers!”

Clint seemed irresistibly propelled to follow them down to the creek, where under a huge, spreading, black-walnut tree they halted with their prisoners.

“You fellars anythin’ to say?” queried Couch, surveying the four robbers.

“Nope. You ketched us,” replied one of them, laconically.

“Reckon I’d like a smoke,” spoke up another. Some one gave him a cigarette, which he lighted and puffed with satisfaction.

Clint was chained to the spot in horror. This summary justice was not only the law of the freighters; it was frontier law, from which there could be no appeal. The four robbers knew it; they accepted it, and for all Clint could tell they were not even disturbed. If such marvelous courage could only have been expended in a good cause! Clint had never seen such rough, ragged, iron-visaged men anywhere on the frontier. They looked their characters.

The executioners had thrown noosed ropes over a great branch of the walnut and stood waiting, silent, hard-eyed, looking neither at one another nor at the robbers.

One of the four cursed the one smoking. “ ——  — ! You’re holdin’ this up!”

The smoker flipped away the cigarette half smoked.

“Wal, Pickens, if you’re in such an all-fired hurry, let her rip!”

In the speech and the coarse laugh following spoke all the wild lawless and terrible spirit of the frontier of 1857.

The robbers were forced in line, the nooses dropped over their necks.

“Five men to a rope!” ordered Couch, sternly. “Haul!”

Up shot the four men, the smallest of them fully six feet off the ground, the others about half that distance. Their hands were tied behind their backs, but their legs were free. The instant they were in the air a horrible change in face and body manifested itself. The instinct of the flesh to survive was the last and strongest. Their mouths opened wide, their tongues stuck out, their eyes rolled hellishly, and their faces turned livid. They began to kick and twist, to double up and turn halfway round. They drew up their legs until their knees touched their bodies, then kicked out frightfully. Facial expression and contortions augmented terribly with each second.

Clint uttered a loud cry and covered his eyes with his hands to shut out the awful sight. He sat there, head bowed, and his abdomen quaking with a sickness within. When he looked again the robbers were limp and quiet, and he never would have recognized their black visages.

“Men, we’ll let ’em hang fer the good of the frontier,” said Couch, and forthwith he produced a piece of paper which he fastened to the leg of the one called Pickens. Upon it had been written:

FREIGHT ROBBERS. We HUNG THEM. Jim COUCH CARAVAN.

Upon the return to camp Clint heard Couch say to his men: “A good job thet. Pickens was a murderer. I’ve run into his outfit before.”

The caravan traveled on to Fort Bent, arriving there that day late. Couch reported the execution.

Twenty soldiers under a sergeant were dispatched to bury the robbers.

Before that memorable day ended Couch sent for Clint.

“Lad, you an’ Jack had a hand in savin’ us again,” he said, patting Clint’s shoulder. “Leastways you saved us from bein’ robbed.... Now here’s the outfit of the robbers. You can have first pick.”

“Aw, Captain, I — I don’t want anythin’,” replied Clint.

“Shore you do. It’s your right. Ask any of the men. Kit Carson will tell you thet. We’ll divide this outfit, an’ you get first whack.”

Thus importuned, Clint forced his attention upon the possessions left by Pickens and his allies. There were eight horses, several of them unusually fine animals, an equal number of riding saddles, pack saddles, bed rolls and saddle blankets, canteens, bags and bridles; also eight pistols, four rifles, a number of knives, lassoes, and other articles useful to frontiersmen.

“How much can I pick?” asked Clint, uncertain of himself.

“Haw! Haw!” roared the old frontiersman. “Take the boss up, Buff, an’ grab it all.”

“Wal, choose what you want best, but don’t be a hawg,” answered Couch.

Still Clint could not arrive at a quick decision; whereupon Tom stepped out and said:

“I know what Buff’d like best.”

“Now what?”

“A horse. He has always wanted one.”

“Well, thet’s fine. Come on, Buff. Pick a hoss, a saddle, a blanket, a bridle, an’ by gum, one of the pistols.” Clint came out of his trance and pointed out the horse that really had been the cause of his tongue-tied state — a thoroughbred dark-bay mare, clean-limbed and beautifully built.

“Thet one! Ahuh, you son-of-a-gun,” ejaculated Couch. “I guess mebbe you can’t pick the best hoss. I shore wanted thet mare myself.”

The laugh went round the circle, and Couch continued: “All right, she’s yours, Buff. What’ll you call her?”

Clint studied over this problem a minute, then with a catch in his breath he replied, “Maybell.”

“Fine an’ dandy. Thet’s a pretty handle. An’ now, Buff, the question is can you ride her? She looks like a real hoss, boy. Remember, robbers can’t afford to ride anythin’ but fast hosses. Hadn’t you better trade Maybell to me for one of the others?”

“Oh, I — I’ll ride her or bust,” replied Clint, hurriedly.

“Jim,” went on Couch to Clint’s father, “you pick his saddle an’ outfit. An’ I reckon you’d better straddle the mare first.”

Clint was no stranger to saddle horses, but he had never seen so spirited and racy an animal as Maybell, even at the country fairs back in Illinois. When saddle, bridle, blanket, rope were chosen and placed on the horse for his edification he was an exultant boy. Lastly Couch picked out a silver-mounted pistol and a bag of ammunition to go with it, and stuck them in the saddlebag.

“Buff, more power to you an’ Jack,” he said, heartily. “Hope I can have you with me long.”

The river bank opposite Chateau Island was chosen for the next camp. This was always a favorite place for travelers.

At sundown a troop of dragoons rode down the dry trail from Santa Fé, and reported a fight between Jim Waters’ caravan and a band of Comanches under Chief White Bear. The soldiers had happened along just in the nick of time. The Comanches had ambushed the trail in broad daylight, and rushed on the caravan before Waters could get the cannon into play. The ambush was at Apache Canyon, which spot Clint had shivered through often enough to remember.

When the dragoons, who were trailing the Comanches, rode upon the scene of the battle, Waters had five men dead and eight seriously wounded. Waters had a bad wound in his shoulder. His caravan halted at Fort Aubry to recuperate. Clint could not help wondering when Jim Waters’ turn would finally come. He was the boldest of freighters and took reckless chances.

Couch was glad of an escort for the remainder of the drive to Westport. He had expected a good long rest there, but did not get it. Colonel Danbury signed him to a contract to freight government supplies to all the forts west as far as Taos. If the freighters were delayed at any post longer than two days for unloading, the government agreed to supply hay for horse feed.

Couch’s freighters went the limit so far as loads were concerned, putting on all the wagons would carry. They were paid by the hundredweight. It was the heaviest and most valuable wagon-train Couch had ever started out with; and the whole troop of soldiers furnished by the government was most welcome.

Near Wagon Mound a band of Comanches rode down on the stock like a flock of screeching hawks and stampeded the animals, driving them three miles before the soldiers could overtake them. There was no fight.

At Apache Canyon a band of Indians was lying in hiding. But the scouts were not to be waylaid, and the Utes sneaked off like coyotes in the sage.

The caravan labored on to Lamy, Santa Fé, and ended the successful drive at Taos. This was an opportunity Clint had long anticipated, and to his delight he found Kit Carson at home. The scout welcomed him with surprise and open arms.

“Buff Belmet!” he exclaimed. “You great big husky plainsman! Growed up like a weed! — I sure am glad to see you.”

Carson insisted that Clint stay at his house, where he was introduced to two other famous scouts of the frontier — Jim Baker and John Hobbs. These frontiersmen had a wealth of experience to draw from and they liked to talk.

“Wal, thet reminds me,” said Jim Baker, reminiscently, nodding his shaggy head. “Reckon it was in ‘fifty-two, wasn’t it, Kit, when Hatcher was agent here? Taos was the best fort on the frontier then. Five companies of soldiers at the fort under Major Greer. My old pard Denver was there. Wal, Hatcher rode over to the fort an’ told Greer there was fifteen young warriors all painted up, trailin’ their war bonnets, an’ he was sure they was up to some devilment. Greer sent me an’ Denver out to find out.

“We packed five days’ grub, plenty of ammunition, an’ hit their trail. They was goin’ south at a pretty good clip, toward the only white settler near, an’ he lived fifty miles an’ more down on the Red River. Name was Lya Banks. You remember him, Kit. We used to call him Old Ly here at Taos. He was a squaw man, married Injun style to a Kiowa, but he was a good friend to all the whites in the valley. We rode fast on the trail of thet bunch, an’ when we got near to Banks’ place we saw smoke. We thought it was the Injuns’ camp. Howsomever, when we went close we saw it was too much smoke. Injuns don’t burn much wood.

“Wal, shore the fire was old Ly’s place. We hid our horses in the timber an’ stole up. The house an’ shed was all burned down. No Injuns in sight. So we went up. There was the burned remains of a couple of people, but we couldn’t identify them. Reckoned, though, thet one was poor Ly.

“We took the Injuns’ trail again, an’ late in the day saw smoke comin’ from a grove of cottonwoods. We did the sneak trick an’ soon was spyin’ on them red devils at supper. They had a big bunch of horses an’ some cattle. We counted them. Fifteen Kiowas. They was shore the bunch we was after. We watched them a while, then went back to our hosses.

“‘Denver, them redskins are raidin’,’ says I. ‘They’re goin’ on down the river to murder other settlers. What’ll we do about it?’

“‘Wed,’ says Denver, ‘they ain’t a-goin’ to murder no more settlers.’

“I says I agreed with him, but how did we know they wasn’t?

“‘We’ll kill every damn one of them,’ says Denver. ‘We can do it.’

“‘Shore,’ says I, ‘but how?’

“‘Wal, we’ll wait till midnight, then sneak into their camp. We each got two Colts thet’re good for twenty shots. We can both shoot right an’ left handed. An’ we can pick ’em off as fast as they jump up.’

“I agreed, an’ Denver says he reckoned he’d take a nap. I sat ag’in’ a tree an’ watched the trail. About midnight I woke Denver. We had a look at our Colts. Then we slipped down on thet Kiowa camp an’ crawled right among them. We made no more noise than a couple of mice. I touched Denver an’ we rose to our feet, a gun in each hand. It was full moon an’ we could see them Injuns lyin’ like a row of fence pickets.

“Wal, Denver raised a gun — the signal we’d agreed on — an’ then we let out a hell of a Comanche war whoop an’ began to shoot. We stood back to back an’ just stepped round as the Kiowas leaped straight up in the air. We didn’t give them a chance to tackle us.

“But one Injun on the ground kicked my feet out from under me. They went up where my head ought to have been, an’ I fell so hard on my back thet it jarred both guns out of my hands. I’d shot eight or nine times, anyway.... Thet redskin was like a cat. He jumped on me, swipin’ at me with a knife. I warded off thet blow an’ yelled for Denver. I heard him shootin’ an’ wrastlin’. Then he was suddenly quiet. The Injun swung his knife an’ hit me in the neck, a little too high to kill me outright. I grabbed his arm, twisted it, an’ broke the bone. The knife dropped. Then I got both hands round his windpipe an’ held on. When he sagged I rolled him off me, grabbed up his knife, an’ cut his throat in one slash.

“I jumped up, lookin’ for Denver. He was gone. All the redskins there seemed dead enough. I picked up one of my Colts. It was empty. An’ in the other I found one shot left. I fired it, hopin’ to get an answer from Denver. An’ I did from way down the river.

“Thet Injun had given me a bad cut. The blood was pourin’ down inside my buckskin. I bound it up tight an’ went down the river, huntin’ for Denver. After a little I called an’ he answered. I found him lyin’ across a log, below the bank of the river, an’ I knowed he was hurt. Reckoned he’d fell off the bank on the log.

“‘Which way did they go?’ I asked Denver.

“‘Right here,’ says Denver, pointing. ‘There was only two. An’ I think one is alive yet.... I heard a noise an’, makin’ a couple of jumps, I came on thet redskin on his knees, crawlin’ with a knife. I soaked him over the head with my gun an’ used his own knife on him.’

“‘Wal,’ I says, ‘I reckon thet’s about all. Get up, Denver.’

“‘I can’t,’ he says. ‘My leg’s broke.’

“‘How’d you break it?’ I asked, an’ Denver told me he’d fought the two Kiowas on the bank above, an’ they’d all fell off on the log.

“Wal, I was in a pretty fix. First I took them two Injuns’ scalps, then I picked Denver up an’ packed him back to the camp, where I laid him down. I found four Injuns alive yet, so I sent them off to the Happy Huntin’- grounds, an’ then I counted thirteen. These with the two down by the river made fifteen. We had them all.

“Denver had some bad cuts, one on his face bein’ deep. I started the fire goin’, heated some water, an’ washed an’ tied Denver’s wounds. The Injuns had coffee an’ grub, so after me an’ Denver had some we felt better. I went back after our hosses. An’ then I looked for the Injuns’ stock. Found them all bunched together, an’ I herded them down into the river bottom near the camp. Next I got Denver on his hoss, makin’ a sling for his broken leg to rest in. I took the other thirteen scalps, an’ strung them all on my belt. An’ what with my own cut I shore was a bloody mess.

“Wal, I drove them cattle an’ hosses very slow back to Banks’ place. Denver stuck it out all right. I put him in a dugout, with water an’ meat. Then I drove the stock into Banks’ pasture. Some of the stock had slipped away on me, but I counted forty-seven hosses an’ ninety-three cows, steers, an’ calves.

“What I had to do then was the wust of the job, an’ thet was get to the fort an’ report in time to save Denver’s life. I made it in fourteen hours. The major sent soldiers an’ a six-mule wagon post-haste to Banks’ place.

“Then he says: ‘Jim, what you been up to? You had orders to report on fifteen Indians.’

“Wal, I told him.

“‘See here, scout, air you drunk or crazy? You’re so cut up you’re out of your head. You an’ Denver never tackled fifteen Kiowas all by yourself.’

“I reached round my belt, untied the string with the fifteen scalps, an’ I says, ‘Major, count ’em yourself.’

“Greer took one look, an’ with a crooked face he says: ‘I’ll take your word, Jim. I jest wanted a report to send to Washington.’

“‘Wal, Major,’ I says, ‘I don’t care a damn what they think in Washington, but I want a doctor now.’... Next evenin’ the soldiers fetched Denver in, an’ we lay side by side in the hospital. I was up in a few weeks, but thet Kiowa left his work on me for life.” Here Baker swept aside his grizzled locks and exposed a red scar fully five inches long on his neck. “Denver lay in bed five months an’ all but croaked, an’ it was longer before he could fork a hoss. The quartermaster bought thet stock I saved, an’ me an’ Denver got fourteen hundred an’ eighty dollars each out of it.”

“Well, Buff, what did you think of Jim Baker’s story?” asked Kit Carson, with a smile, seeing Clint’s jaw had dropped.

“Aw! I — I don’t know,” replied Clint, expelling a deep breath.

“True as gospel, Buff. I happen to know,” said Carson. “Fact is, lad, truth is often stranger them fiction on this frontier.”

At this period Kit Carson was about forty-seven or eight years old, rather slightly built compared with scouts like Baker and Curtis, but the muscles rippled on him. He had a clean-shaven, fair face, keen light eyes that held a wonderful piercing quality, and altogether he looked what he was — the greatest frontiersman of the West.

Clint stayed several days at Carson’s house, a long, low, wide-porched, whitewashed adobe structure. Carson’s wife was a Spanish woman, dark-eyed and sweet-voiced, who took a strange liking to Clint and called him Senor Buff, much to Clint’s pleasure.

Kit Carson liked to talk, at least to Clint, of his wonderful exploring trips with Frémont, the Pathfinder, whose name was inseparably linked with the West. He mentioned the first trip he made with Frémont, in 1842, when they climbed to the Wind River Range. He remembered most vividly the capsizing of Frémont’s rubber boat in the rapids of the Platte River.

About the second of Frémont’s expeditions Carson had a great deal more to say. The purpose of the government was to explore the country beyond the Rockies just south of the Columbia River.

In 1843, Kit Carson joined this expedition, with his friend Maxwell, on the Arkansas River, and under Carson’s guidance they successfully consummated fourteen months of exploration that wholly changed the attitude of the government toward the West and opened the way for the settlers. Frémont’s ambition then was to acquaint the East, and the whole world with the wonders of California.

“Buff, what do you think?” asked Carson. “Frémont told me Daniel Webster did not approve of the takin’ of Texas into the Union, but had a strong leanin’ for Sim Francisco Bay an’ California. He said England would not agree to Mexico cedin’ California to the U.S. Boy, I shore could tell you a lot of history.... It was in August, 1845, that I met Frémont’s third expedition, one purpose of which was to explore California an’ keep England from gettin’ it away from Mexico. There were sixty men. I had my friends again.... Well, lad, you know, of course, how Frémont made conquest of California an’ how jealous army officers run him out of the army in disgrace. That’s history. They were little men an’ Frémont was big. Of till the men I’ve known an’ fought with he had the most unconquerable spirit.”

CHAPTER 9

CLINT, BACK AT Santa Fé, heard several times about mountain lions, or panthers and cougars, as some hunters called them, that had been prowling around where the stock was feeding. This was exciting news to him and Tom Sidel, but they were not permitted to go alone to hunt.

About four inches of snow had fallen, making the trailing of game easy and rapid. Belmet gathered a party of freighters to hunt the lions, and took Clint and Tom with them.

The hunting party crossed the Pecos, and before they saw any lion tracks they jumped a bunch of big gray-blue timber wolves. There were about fifteen of them, each as tall as a yearling calf, with heavy fur and bushy tails curling up over their backs. They stared at the hunters for a moment, then loped up a gulch. They had been eating from a cow which they had killed.

After trailing the wolves for five miles, one of the hunters advised a cut across to head them off, and he took a half dozen of the others, including Clint and Tom. They rounded a thick clump of cedars to run fairly into the pack. What yelling and shooting! Clint, as usual, had been on the alert out in front, and he got in his first shot a fraction of a second before the others. He downed one of the leaders, and had another shot besides. Seven wolves in all fell to the guns of the freighters. They skinned the beasts right on the spot. In Kansas City a wolf pelt brought fourteen dollars.

It might have been that the return of the hunters with seven fine wolf hides stimulated an idea in Captain Couch’s mind. At any rate, he called on Belmet and said, “Jim, how’d you an’ Buff like to risk a little money?”

“What on, Cap?” asked Belmet.

“Wal, I was over to the fort today, an’ learned a troop is ridin’ up to Raton Pass. There are some villages of Comanches an’ Utes. We might ride up an’ drop in friendly like on the Injuns. You see, all the fur hunters come in about May. Now if we’d offer them cash for pelts I think they’d like it better than tradin’ at the store for supplies. We’d just about get all their trade.”

“Good idea, Cap, but have we enough money? I’ve only twenty-five hundred odd. How much have you, Clint?”

“About a thousand dollars saved.”

“Thet’s fine. What with mine an’ yours an’ some of the other fellars we’ll let in on the deal, bet we make a haul.”

Two days later Couch, Belmet, and severed others rode away with the soldiers. Clint begged hard to be taken, but unavailingly. They returned in a couple of weeks, elated over promises from Chief Lone Wolf and Chief Black Kettle to fetch down all their furs and pelts and buffalo robes the latter part of April.

The Indians, as usual, kept their word, and a few of them at a time brought in their winter supply and sold to Couch. Presently the traders at the store discovered what was going on, and in high dudgeon they went to the colonel. He answered their complaint in succinct terms: “I can’t stop them. It’s none of my business. If they have the cash to buy furs, no one can prevent it.” Thereafter a great deal of money found its way into Couch’s hands. Where the money came from was a secret. The officers at the posts were not permitted to do any kind of trading with the Indians. But it was significant that when the caravan was loaded with a large and magnificent stock of furs, it was given an escort of ninety-eight soldiers under Captain Howland and Lieutenant Wilcox, clear through to Westport.

The fur company made a good many complaints and took the matter to Fort Leavenworth military headquarters of the Southwest. The general in command sent officers to investigate, but they could not learn anything from Couch or his freighters.

“How’d you come to have such a large escort?” Couch was asked.

“I never turn a wheel without a troop.”

“Whom did you ask?”

“I didn’t ask anybody.”

“You were hauling at your own risk?”

“Yes, sir. But half our freight was protected by Aull an’ Company.”

The officers had to depart without giving any satisfaction to the fur company. Captain Couch, Belmet, and the others regarded it as a perfectly honest transaction and a far fairer deal to the Indians.

Clint found himself in possession of ten thousand dollars where formerly he had owned only one. He felt rich. At this rate he would have money enough some day to go into ranching or own a trading store. That brought to mind May Bell, his little friend, who had been carried off by Indians. Clint seldom thought of her now. It seemed long ago. He could remember her eyes, dark, bright, following him, and he sighed with the sorrow of it.

Captain Couch, Belmet, and the other freighters who had profited by the fur deal traveled to St. Louis by boat to invest all their money in merchandise to trade to the Indians, white trappers, and hunters. Clint had money to invest, too, and so they took him along. St. Louis was a big place. Clint had so long been used to quiet and the open spaces that he was glad to get back on the river boat. He enjoyed the ride up the swift, muddy stream.

On the vessel Captain Couch ran into Maxwell, the frontiersman so widely known; and through this circumstance Clint met him.

“Are you the Maxwell who went with Kit Carson on Frémont’s explorin’ trips?” asked Clint, eagerly.

“I sure am, young fellar. How’d you know?” replied Maxwell, a splendid type of Westerner, who, though past fifty, stood erect and virile, his dark face a record of his adventurous life.

“Kit Carson told me himself,” replied Clint, with pride.

“Say, do you know Kit Carson?”

“I’m a friend of his.”

“Then you’re one of mine. You’ll be welcome at my ranch any time, to stay a day or all winter. I’ve got ten thousand head of horses. You can have your pick.”

When they arrived at Kansas City, Maxwell, who had bought a heavy supply of goods, engaged Couch to haul it for him. Early in August the caravan was loaded and ready. But an escort could not be secured. Couch, confident with his ninety-three tried and proven freighters, decided to start without one.

Couch had eighty-seven wagons loaded with his freight; Maxwell had forty-four, heavily packed. The caravan then consisted of one hundred and thirty-one wagons, four hundred and sixty-four oxen, forty horses, and six mules.

Across the Kansas River, near Smoky Hill, they sighted the first buffalo, and therefore encamped, while twenty hunters, followed by a wagon, went out after meat. They killed five, and then desisted because a scout had discovered a party of Indians near the head of the herd.

The stock was kept in close all night, but as the grass grew richly the animals fared well. Starting in good time the next morning, the freighters got away from that camp without sighting the Indians again.

Thereafter they drove along the old and familiar trail day by day, with the vast and sublime monotony of the plains on all sides, from rosy sunrise to golden sunset, on and on over the waving, gray and green, flower-dotted prairie. They came at last to the rising ground, to the Cimmaron Crossing, proceeded along the dry trail to Sand Creek, Willow Bar, McNess Spring, and so on to Round Mount, Rock Creek, and at last Point of Rocks.

The date was the 19th of November, and the camp site a favored one. Large rocks stood up twenty feet or more, from the center of which gushed a cold spring. Wood was abundant, but the grass near camp had been grazed off for a mile or more. The freighters did not like to send the stock so far, but there was no alternative. Twenty-five men, among them Belmet and John Sidel, were sent out to guard the animals and fetch them in before dark.

Broken clouds in the west obscured the setting sun, but through the rifts poured a golden effulgence that painted the prairie. There was still warmth in the air. Peace and quiet seemed to reign over the plains. Here and there, around their smoking camp fires, freighters sang and whistled at their tasks.

Clint was peeling potatoes, a job he appeared forever to have assigned him, and which he hated. “Reckon I’ve peeled nine million potatoes for this darn outfit!” he grumbled.

Presently Jack came running up to him, hair ruffled and bristling, eyes bright and knowing. He barked and bounded away, only to return.

“Now what ails you?” demanded Clint. Jack repeated the performance. Clint became uneasy at once. There was one thing he hated worse than peeling potatoes.

“Lie down, you scallywag,” ordered Clint, trying to hope against hope. But Jack would not settle down. Clint sat there tingling. Then he heard a rifle-shot, far off. Leaping up, he ran like a deer to Couch’s camp.

“Captain — my dog — smells Indians,” he panted. “An’ I heard a shot.”

Couch did not need to be told twice. He got up and shouted: “Ho, men! Be on the lookout.”

He climbed a wagon, stood on the seat, and leveled his glass. Almost instantly he uttered a loud curse and dropping the glass on the seat, leaped sheer off to the ground.

“COMANCHES!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “They’ve cut our guards off from camp! Grab your guns!”

Pandemonium broke loose inside the circle of wagons. Fifty and more men resembled a swarm of angry ants dashing here and there around an antheap. They made a rush for horses, only to realize that there were scarcely fifteen horses left in the inclosure. The guards had driven out almost all of the stock to feed. Couch’s mighty oath rolled away over the plain.

“Hell to pay, boys,” he shouted, gnashing his teeth, his face flashing dark. “We’re ketched bad.... Saddle up. Some of us will go.... Rest of you stick here.”

Clint had stood rooted to the spot. He saw the men running, he heard the hoarse shouts and orders. He watched two freighters trying to get on one horse. In a few moments fifteen riders were tearing out of the opening between the wagons, with Couch leading. They turned away out of sight.

Clint’s fear of his father’s peril had paralyzed him, but now he broke out of the clamping spell, and leaping on the wagon seat he scanned the plain. A mile or more out the waving golden grass showed a dark blot of horses, riders, oxen, in a confused moving mass, working to the northward. The Comanches must have been hidden down in the river bottom in the brush, and at an opportune time they had cut off Couch’s guards from the wagon-train, had surrounded them or were driving them farther away. Clint’s blood ran cold. The Comanches were in strong force. Disaster to Belmet, Sidel, and their comrades was imminent, inevitable. Couch and his fourteen riders were racing toward the scene of battle, but it seemed to Clint that they were not only too late, but in danger of losing their own lives.

Clint happened to step on the field-glass that Couch had left on the seat. As he stooped to take it up he saw Tom Sidel’s white face at the wheel.

“Buff! Buff! Do you see anythin’?” he faltered.

“Do I? Good Lord! Jump up here, Tom,” returned Clint.

Tom climbed to a place beside him. “I see! I see!” he cried. “Oh, Buff, it’s good-by to my uncle John an’ your dad!”

Clint got the range with the field-glass, and then it appeared that the scene of terrific struggle was only a few rods from the wagon-train. He heard Tom talking wildly and crying out, but did not distinguish what he said. There was a shouting clamor inside the circle as the freighters ran around in excitement, moving wagons, making barricades of boxes of freight, and then dashing for a look out across the plain.

Couch and his riders ran into the range of Clint’s glass. They soon came within rifle-shot of the wheeling, flashing circle of Comanches, and spreading out they halted to open fire. Clint’s cold, clammy horror broke to thrill on thrill as he saw the quick puffs of white smoke.

It appeared that the Comanches had the guards surrounded, but not the stock. Oxen were lumbering in every direction. Unsaddled horses were running wild.

Then Clint was rudely shaken from his fascinated gaze. A freighter had jerked Tom off the seat and was reaching for Clint.

“Get down. Go back to your own wagon. Load your guns. Be ready to fight,” he ordered, harshly.

Clint piled off the seat, glass in hand, and ran to his wagon. In a few swift moves he had both his rifles and his pistol and a bag of ammunition ready at hand. But where should he make his stand. The wagon wheels afforded but little protection, though better than none. If there had been time he might have built a platform of boxes high enough so that he would be protected by the wagon bed. He decided he would be better off inside the wagon. There was room enough under the seat for him to hide. Forthwith he deposited his arms in the wagon and climbed in. He still had Captain Couch’s field-glass.

Panting and sweating, Clint peeped over the side of the wagon. The wide, black, moving circle out there appeared to have condensed or gotten farther away. His hand shook and he had to rest the glass on the wagon to steady it. Then he found a dimness in his eyes, that hindered vision. There seemed both a knocking and a something locked tight within his breast.

Presently the powerful field-glass brought the battle right before Clint. And it was stunning. The swift circle of Comanche horses seemed riderless, but the occasional puffs of smoke, and a closer view proved those incomparable horsemen were hanging over the backs of their mustangs, shooting from under their necks. A streaming, smoking continuous whirl! All inside that circle was a blur. Yet plain it was the circle closed inward.

Somewhat to the right Couch’s men bobbed on their horses, shooting fast, moving back, it seemed. Where were the fifteen freighters who had dashed out to the rescue of the guards? Clint counted only nine.

Faster and smaller rode the wheel of Comanches. Smoke and dust and action! The gold of sunset flashed on bright moving objects. Mustangs leaped high to plunge down. The rattle of rifle-shots lessened. Suddenly all those wheeling horses appeared to have riders with upflung arms, plumes and feathers flying; the circling ceased. The movement was inward only. It was like the wave of prairie grass. Then from across the space pealed a low, wild, and hideous sound — the war whoop of the Comanches. It signaled victory. And the intricate mass seemed a lashing thicket of horses’ heads, manes, riders, arms, bonnets, guns, and bows, all upflung in terrible significance.

“ALL READY! They’re comin’!” sang out the stentorian voice of one of the freighters in the line.

Clint saw Couch and his men — only seven now — riding madly toward the caravan. Another glance showed the mass of Comanches spreading out into a line in swift pursuit.

Dropping behind the wagon-side, Clint shuddered there. The glass fell from his nerveless hand. His father was murdered. He sank under the blow. He had an impulse to hide his head, so as not to see the end. Convulsion of horror and agony clamped him inert, cold as ice, like wet dead flesh.

Yet his instinct was to listen. Silence! The freighters were under their wagons, grim and silent. A faint low trampling clatter of hoofs pierced Clint’s strained ears. It increased, breaking to the crack of rifles. Another sound struck fire into Clint. The swelling yell of the Comanches! Clint had heard old frontiersmen tell about the most terrifying of all human sounds — the war cry of the Comanche Indians. It swelled louder. The trampling clatter of hoofs likewise increased.

Clint’s hair rose stiff on his head. At the same instant a hot explosion of blood within him galvanized all his being. Grasping a rifle with hard hands, he thrust it over the wagon-side and looked over the barrel.

Couch and his riders were close, madly riding, their horses separated, stretching low on a dead run for the caravan. Behind raced the Comanches, scarcely a hundred yards distant, riding tis one horseman. They were shooting. Clint saw puffs of smoke but heard no shots. If the freighters were shooting, the reports were lost in the din. Clint dared not take aim, because Couch and riders were still between him and the Indians. But they were sweeping to the right toward the gate.

The last rider suddenly threw up his arms. His horse gave a wild plunge. Clint’s keen sight registered the man’s awful blank face and as he pitched off the saddle, a feathered arrow showed quivering between his shoulders. His riderless horse swept on.

Roar of heavy Colt’s rifles then mixed with the yell of the Comanches. Two hundred or more, they split into two lines and sheered to right and left, closing in to encircle the wagon-train. Clint had a grim realization of this familiar manoeuvre of all plains savages. He was in that circle now. And surely the fate of many wagon-trains was at hand for Couch’s freighters.

He tried to get a bead on an Indian, but he could not see any. They were riding on the far side of their horses. Then he caught glimpses of lean dark-red faces, of guns and bows, protruding from under the stretching necks of the mustangs. Also he saw puffs of smoke and flash of arrows.

Clint fired at a white mustang. Missed! How swiftly these horses flashed by! He aimed at another, tried to get a little ahead of it, and missed again. They were still quite far out, perhaps between eighty and a hundred yards. But Clint saw mustangs rear and fall. Others staggered away. The freighters were taking toll, though Clint did not see any Indians drop. They just disappeared in the grass.

He fired the Colt seven times, then dodged down to reload. He had his buffalo gun there, too, and his pistol. The din was growing deafening as the savages closed in.

Clint thrust his rifle over the wagon-side and peeped after it. They were close now, a string of racing ponies, with a red leg over each back. The white horse swept into Clint’s range. He led it — fired. And with a convulsive lunge the beautiful wild creature went down to roll with kicking hoofs in the air. Clint saw its rider fall like a sack.

“Got — the — hang of it — now,” muttered Clint to himself, hot and wet, his grimy hands reloading. Holding the rifle tight, he waited until a lean mustang head was aligned with his sight, then pulled trigger. Down went that beast. One after another, then, Clint shot five more horses, satisfied that he had disabled some of their riders. He had half reloaded when he felt the wagon shake under him.

The next instant a hideously painted face, with eyes of black fire, protruded over the side of the wagon. A naked body rose, barred with black and white paint. Swift as light a lean arm swung a tomahawk high. Clint had no time to raise the Colt. A terrible panic seized him.

At its highest point the tomahawk paused. It quivered as behind Clint boomed a heavy buffalo gun. Then it slipped from the lean dark hand that had swung it aloft. Clint gasped back to life. He shifted his gaze down. The Comanche’s visage had incalculably changed. Vacant, wild eyes set! His hand clutched at his breast. Then as he sank Clint saw a huge round bullet hole with blue edges in the center of his body.

One of the freighters, standing behind Clint’s wagon, had saved his life. Clint peeped out on that side. Tom Sidel stood there, half crouching, rifle thrust forward, his hair standing up like a mane, his face black with powder. His wild roving eyes caught sight of Clint. “I got him, Buff,” he yelled above the uproar.

If anything could have inspired Clint out of his panic at that awful moment, it was the sight of Tom and the fact that he had shot the Comanche with the tomahawk. Clint bent to the other side of the wagon, and completing the reloading of his rifle he peered out behind it again.

Smoke and dust overhung the prairie. Clint could not see the whole space in front. The steady reports of guns along the wagon-train grew distinct, which proved that the yelling of the savages had ceased. Mustangs were not flashing by as formerly. As the smoke lifted Clint discerned Comanches from each side riding together, farther out, to where others on foot were trying to get wounded and dead on their mustangs. They had been repulsed, apparently with great loss. And they were finding rescue of injured a losing game, for where one Indian was lifted on a horse two went down under the deadly fire of the freighters. They gave up the attempt, moved out of range, held a consultation which seemed plain as print to the freighters, and then rode off out of sight over the ridge.

Clint leaned his guns against the wagon seat and stood up. Outside the caravan, dead and crippled Indians and horses showed everywhere. Inside, groups of men around objects on the ground awoke Clint to another aspect of the situation. One of these groups — three men, all kneeling beside a prostrate form — was right next to Clint’s wagon. Then he saw Tom Sidel’s pale face.

With a sharp cry Clint leaped out, and plunged to his knees beside Tom. His eyes were closed; his slowly heaving breast was all dark and wet; a thin stream of blood ran from his mouth.

“Tom! Tom!” cried Clint, frantically. Then he gazed at the grim men. “Say he isn’t bad hurt.... He saved my life.... One of the Comanches got on my wagon.... He was about to tomahawk me.... I couldn’t move.... Tom shot him.”

“Buff, it’s tough lines. Tom is dyin’,” huskily replied one of the men.

“Oh, my God! How awful!.... Tom!”

The poignant cry reached Tom’s fading consciousness. He opened his eyes, strange, deep, unfathomable. He smiled.

“Good-by — Buff,” he whispered.

Then light and life fled. The men laid him back, covered his face, and rose and went away, leaving Clint kneeling there with Tom’s limp hand in his. Under this last blow Clint seemed to lose thought for a while. He heard dully, and could see the men moving around in a hurry. It was Maxwell who aroused him.

“Lad, brace up. It’s been hell, but it can be worse,” he said, a kind hand lifting Clint. “We must hurry on to Fort Union before the Comanches come back. They’ll come, an’ they’d get us all next time.”

Clint allowed himself to be led and presently could obey orders. During the next hour he learned the extent of the catastrophe.

The twenty-five guards, among whom were Belmet and John Sidel, had been massacred to a man, stripped, scalped and mutilated. Of the freighters left, less than fifty lived, and many of these were wounded.

Sixty-nine Comanches were found on the prairie outside the caravan, twenty-three of whom were still alive. But they did not live long after they were discovered. Dead horses lay everywhere.

The freighters, under command of Couch and Maxwell, loaded seven wagons with the most valuable supplies and personal belongings, and abandoned the rest. Fort Union was not quite two days’ travel. They had little hope of arriving there and sending the soldiers back in time to save the one hundred and twenty-four wagons of supplies.

Couch’s last act was to spike his brass cannon, which the freighters had not had time to get into action. And he did it viciously, as if he were driving the spike into the heads of the Comanches.

It happened that Clint’s wagon, which was a large and new one, was chosen one of the seven. The driver assigned to it, a man named Saunders, knew Clint and like him; and when he cracked his whip, ready to start, he called, “Rustle an’ jump in, Buff.”

“An’ leave Tom — here — to be — scalped — an’ eaten by coyotes?... No, I’ll stay an’ be — be scalped with him,” replied Clint, with a sob.

Saunders leaped off, and grasping a blanket off a pack he wrapped it round Tom and lifted him into the wagon.

“Thar, lad. We’ll take him along an’ give him decent burial,” said Saunders. “Jump up, now. They’re leavin’.”

One of the seven wagons held two hundred and fifty of the Colt rifles, with ten thousand rounds of ammunition. These the freighters had brought to sell to hunters and trappers. It would never have done to let this load fall into the hands of savages.

That shortened caravan halted only twice in thirty hours, and then to let the oxen and horses drink. At Mora Creek the condition of the wounded demanded attention, so a camp was risked there.

Clint helped bury his friend Tom high above the creek, back in the grove, under a giant cottonwood. Clint hid the grave with rocks and brush. He would know where to find it if he ever passed that way again.

Clint neither ate nor slept and the night was a horror. Next day, by noon, the depleted caravan had straggled into Fort Union, and all were objects of great interest and sympathy. Dragoons were dispatched to the scene of the carnage.

“Wal, Buff, how about you?” queried Captain Couch, kindly, the first chance he had to accost Clint.

“I don’t care about nothin’,” replied Clint, despondently.

“Reckon you don’t now. But hard as it seems, it’ll pass. This frontier is a hell of a place, Buff. You know thet. An’ we got to be men. Wal, here’s your father’s bag. We’d better open it.”

Belmet’s papers, two thousand dollars, a few keepsakes, and a letter written some years before composed the contents. Couch read the letter.

“Your dad leaves you in my charge till you’re twenty-one,” explained Couch, seriously. “Wal, I’ll do my best by you, Buff. You’re a born freighter an’ you can throw in with me. I’ll keep these papers an’ the money for you.”

Maxwell, too, sought Clint out, and was so kind that Clint felt a mitigation of his utter loneliness and hopelessness.

“Buff, you’ve got the same stuff in you that made Kit Carson an’ me an’ Frémont himself what we are,” said Maxwell. “We are all losers at this frontier game. Some more an’ some less. It’s hell for a boy to lose mother an’ father an’ then his pal.”

“I — I lost my — my sweetheart, too,” replied Clint, breaking down under this kindness.

“Well! Well!”... Maxwell was plainly baffled by the boy’s misfortunes, and at a loss for words. “I just don’t know what to say, Buff.... But I’ve been thirty years on this frontier, an’ it has taught me much. I’ve been friends with Indians from all tribes. Some of them are good Indians, though many of my friends cuss me for sayin’ that. So I can’t advise you to be an Indian-hater an’ killer.... Just stick it out for the sake of the West an’ for those who are to follow us.”

“All right, Mr. Maxwell,” replied Clint. “I — I’ll stick it out.”

“That’s the spirit, boy. I was not mistaken in you,” said Maxwell, warmly. “Now when we get to Santa Fé, I’d like you to go to my ranch for the winter. Will you come?”

“Yes, sir, thank you,” rejoined Clint, gratefully.

Upon the return of the dragoons from Point of Rocks, the sergeant in charge reported that all of Couch’s wagons had been burned, and piles of supplies were still burning; over a hundred dead horses lay on the plain, but not an ox, nor a dead Indian, was to be seen for miles around.

CHAPTER 10

CLINT BELMET WENT on with Maxwell to his ranch and spent the winter there. It was well that this good influence came to Clint at this critical period of his life. When spring returned Clint did not go out with Couch and the freighters. Maxwell advised against it. So it came about that Clint had the run of the ranch during the following spring, summer, and through winter again.

Maxwell’s Ranch in 1861 reached the zenith of its fame and prosperity. There was not then, and had never been, any place like it in all the West, and nothing ever approached it in later times.

Maxwell left Illinois for the West in 1822, and became almost as great a frontiersman as Kit Carson. He went through the war with the Navajo Indians and came out a captain. He fought through the Mexican War in 1842 and the Texas Invasion in 1846. Then he was a captain of Texas Rangers for four years. After these years of active service he retired to the great ranch he had acquired.

At that time he was the biggest landowner in America. His ranch was bounded on the north by Raton Pass for a distance of sixty-five miles; on the west by twenty-five miles of the Red River; on the east by the Cimmaron River, about fifteen miles, and south was the open prairie. Fort Union, twenty-two miles off, was the nearest settlement.

Usually Maxwell employed between four and five hundred Mexicans. He raised com, oats, wheat, and all kinds of vegetables in immense quantities. He operated a flour and grist mill, using horse power, and furnished white flour and meal to the forts and settlements.

In 1861 he had no accurate idea how much stock he owned, but the estimate was four hundred thousand sheep, fifty thousand cattle, and ten thousand horses. Mules and burros he never attempted to count.

One of his contracts with the government required that he furnish beef to the Indian reservations in New Mexico; and another, to render the same service to the forts. He owned the largest trading and supply store in the West. He was friend alike to whites, Indians, and Mexicans, and was not known to have a single enemy among them. The Indians called him Father Maxwell. At all seasons hundreds of red men were camping on his ranch, and in the spring, when the trading of pelts was on, there were thousands. And white trappers, hunters, freighters, plainsmen were as numerous as soldiers at the fort.

Colonel Maxwell was a very handsome man, standing six feet one inch in his moccasins. He never shaved his face. He had a habit of looking anyone straight in the eyes, and his own were singularly piercing. His rare smile relieved the sternness of his face.

Never had a white man been employed at Maxwell’s ranch. When a caravan camped there, which happened often, he was especially courteous to any women who happened to be with it. A vague rumor of an unhappy, love affair never had any substantiation, but the sadness of his face in repose and the shadow in his eagle eyes seemed to justify such a surmise.

The main ranch house appeared more like a white-walled fort than the home of one man. It was of Spanish design, long and low and picturesque, with a wide porch all along the front, from which one of the most magnificent views in the West always fascinated visitors. As to that, Maxwell and his guests, who were always numerous, lounged on the shady porch and gazed out across and down that gray, endless, purple-horizoned prairie, as if they could never tire of it.

His dining-room would seat a hundred, and it often did. The house and kitchen were run by old experienced Mexican women, whose quarters were wholly isolated from those of the men. No guest of Maxwell’s ever saw a woman! The tables were waited upon by Mexican boys, clean, efficient, who spoke English well.

Back of the main house a splendid grove of cottonwoods shaded buildings of infinite variety. A carpenter shop, a blacksmith shop, a weaver’s and a shoemaker’s, a harness-and saddle-maker’s, all attested to Maxwell’s self-sufficiency. Beyond were the barns, the corrals, the sheds, many in number, all white and neat. And behind these the pastures spread fifty miles to the mountains.

Like other men of his type, Maxwell, called Colonel by his friends, was an inveterate gambler. He did not care whether he won or lost, but if he did win he was inexorable in collecting his due, if it took the very last dollar of his opponent. But if that loser or anyone needed money and asked for it, Maxwell would answer, “When will you pay this back?” Upon receiving a reply, he would invariably hand over the sum requested. Singularly enough, no man ever cheated Maxwell.

Clint Belmet was present one night in the living room when Kit Carson lost all he had to Maxwell, a circumstance which gave that worthy great satisfaction.

“See here, Lew, you’ve done me for every peso,” protested Carson, “an’ I’ve got to go home to my wife. I can’t go broke.”

“Sorry, Kit, but you would gamble with me. An’ you know you can’t play cards,” replied the colonel.

“I couldn’t tonight, that’s sure,” retorted Carson. “An’ you’ve got to lend me five hundred.”

Maxwell produced the amount and gave it to Carson, asking, “Kit, when’ll you pay me back?”

“Doggone it! I don’t know,” returned Kit, somewhat nettled, as there were several officers from the fort present. Carson and Maxwell had been close friends for thirty years, had gone through the Mexican and Texas wars together. Both had been Texas Rangers, and they had guided Fremont on his marvelous exploring trips across the Rockies. Carson had, according to history, saved Maxwell’s life several times, and Maxwell had repaid the debt at least once. Yet the colonel insisted that he know when Kit would return this five hundred dollars.

“Confound you! The next time I win five hundred from you!” exclaimed Carson.

“Which will be never,” said the colonel, with one of his rare smiles, yet he seemed perfectly satisfied with Kit’s promise.

The spring of this year Colonel Maxwell was very busy putting in crops, something he had to superintend himself, as the Mexican farmers were satisfactory only under direction. The ground was all high, and not irrigated, so it was important to plant early to take advantage of the spring rains.

There were two thousand Indians down in the valley, encamped together despite the fact that they were not all friendly and at other seasons might be warring upon each other. This was spring, however, and the trading of pelts had begun. The big courtyard before the store was an endless and fascinating circus to Clint. He often worked in the store, but as he was only learning the Indian languages, and as this was the rush season, he did not go behind the counters.

At Maxwell’s dining-table there sat a score of trappers and forty chiefs of the various tribes, and a dozen or more officers from the garrison. Flying Cloud, a chief of the Utes, had the seat of honor on Maxwell’s right. Clint sat on the left, and it was known to all who visited there that the colonel treated him as a son. To gaze across the bounteous table at that great chief was a thrilling yet doubtful pleasure for Clint. Flying Cloud had a magnificent bearing, but he was not handsome. His head was shaped like a hawk’s. No proof had ever been fastened upon this Ute chieftain, but border rumor whispered that he had massacred more than one caravan. It was accepted fact, however, that he would never attack one of Maxwell’s caravans. It was something to sit at that table, Clint thought, as he gazed down the line of lean, dark, fierce faces.

During this busy trading time three companies of soldiers patrolled the San Fernando Valley, which lay between Maxwell’s ranch and Taos. Here lived, at least at that season, ten well-known squaw men. These renegade whites had taken Ute squaws, and Pawnee squaws and Arapahoe squaws to wife, in Indian fashion, and they made whisky to sell to the Indians. The soldiers were there to put a stop to this illicit practice, but were not very successful.

Another of Colonel Maxwell’s many virtues lay in the fact that he would never sell a drop of liquor to an Indian, or invite one to drink; and if a white man under the influence of the bottle showed himself anywhere on Maxwell’s land he was promptly escorted off.

It was after that very dinner at Maxwell’s, on the 16th of May, that the first caravan from the east arrived. Clint was present when Dagget, the leader, came up to report to Maxwell. He appeared a typical freighter, stalwart, bearded, bronzed and weatherbeaten, dusty and smelling of horses.

Naturally the arrival of the first freighter that spring excited unusual interest. The men crowded around Dagget. And presently he did all the talking, while the others listened with growing breathless attention.

The North and South were at war. What had seemed a certainty was now a reality — the Union was fighting for its very existence. Soldiers were at a premium, and none or next to none could be spared for the caravans crossing the plains. Freighters were going to be difficult to engage, and only through higher wages. The government was sending soldiers from Kansas and Nebraska to strengthen all the forts. The Union commander at Fort Leavenworth, General Hunter, had called on all loyal states and territories for volunteers.

“Well, by God!” ejaculated Maxwell, his eyes like lightning. “So Sumter was fired on an’ there’s war?... New Mexico will secede from the Union!... There’ll be hell to pay out here on the frontier. I must see Kit Carson.”

“Colonel, reckon the Mexicans out hyar won’t help the situation any?” queried Dagget, shrewdly.

“No, they won’t,” returned Maxwell, decisively. “I can answer for mine. But there are Mexicans in Taos an’ Fort Union who’ll furnish arms an’ ammunition to the Indians — promise them scalps an’ plunder.”

“Thet’ll slow up the freightin’,” returned Dagget. “An’ last year there was more freight than we could haul.”

“Dagget, it’ll be worse this year. I’ll have over a hundred wagonloads. What’d you fetch out?”

“Biggest train I ever drove. Hundred an’ forty-two.”

“Lose any?”

“No. Got across fine. At Cow Creek we was jumped by Pawnees. They didn’t stand our cannon. At Phantom Island we had a brush with some Comanches. They wasn’t lookin’ for us. After buffalo an’ gave us a run. Next day we got stopped by a herd of buffalo thet took all day to pass. Goin’ north early this year.”

“It’s an early spring. Any wagons besides freighters with you?”

“Yes. We fell in with a small caravan of schooners from Texas. They joined us at Timpas. They had women an’ children, which was worrisome.”

“Ha! No wonder. I’m glad you fetched them in safe. Where are they bound?”

“Santa Fé an’ Californy. I reckon we’ll rest an’ feed up the stock hyar fer a week or two. I’ve got fifty wagons of supplies for you.”

“Good. I’m needin’ them bad enough. When can you start unloadin’?”

“Tomorrow, I reckon. How’s feed on the range?”

“Never better.”

“Wal, I’m needin’ some oats an’ grub. We’re short. Plenty of fresh meat, though.”

“Come up for dinner tonight, an’ fetch anybody. I want to hear more about the war,” concluded Maxwell.

Everybody at Maxwell’s, for that matter, wanted to hear about the war. It was the absorbing topic. It meant incalculable changes in frontier travel and life. Gambling, selling, and trading of pelts, the business of Maxwell’s store, were all suspended for the time being.

Clint was vitally and peculiarly interested, with the difference that he asked no questions. He went from group to group and listened. The freighters, as a body, were inclined to be thrilled by prospects of the doubling of their earnings, and aghast at the probable necessity of freighting across the plains without the escort of soldiers.

Couch was jubilant. The tragedy of war between the Yankees and rebels did not seem to affect him.

“Wal, it means more an’ bigger business,” he said, rubbing his brawny hands. “We’ll double up our caravans, take two or three cannons, an’ blow hell out of the redskins.”

“But, boss,” queried one of the younger members of his clan, “haven’t some of us young fellars a pretty hard choice to make?”

“What, for instance?”

“Whether we’ll enlist in the army an’ which army?”

“No,” declared Couch, with startling suddenness that proved this question had been answered in his mind. “We freighters have got as big a duty an’ responsibility as the soldiers. If we all enlist what’s goin’ to become of the forts out here, an’ the settlers? Good many settlers comin’ west now. If the forts had to quit, these settlers wouldn’t have no protection. They’d be massacred by Injuns.... Don’t worry none about your duty, Bill. It’s sure to stick to our job.”

Maxwell stroked his silky beard and nodded his handsome head. “Boys, there’s a heap of sense in Couch’s talk. I believe I second it without reservation. Anyway, we’ll talk it out an’ look at it from till sides. That’s one reason I want to see Kit Carson.”

Later Jim Couch happened to espy Clint listening around a group in front of Maxwell’s store.

“Howdy, Buff! What’re you lookin’ so serious about now?” he inquired.

“Reckon everybody looks serious,” retorted Clint. “See here. I reckon I’ve got to recognize you as a grown-up,” declared Couch. “You’re shore a big husky hombre, but you’re not twenty-one yet by some years, an’ till then you’re under my charge. You savvy?”

“But you wouldn’t compel me to go against my strong feelin’s?” protested Clint.

“Wal, no, I wouldn’t. Your dad left you in my charge, but if you kicked over the traces I reckon I’d have to stand it. Only, I hope you will listen to us older heads. Maxwell backs me up. Buff, you ask him.”

“I heard him stand by you.”

“Buff, you can do a lot for the Union, an’ more for the West, by stickin’ to your freighter job,” went on Couch, earnestly. “I’ve got several thousand dollars of yours an’ next trip to Kansas City I’ll bank it for you. These next few years will be rich ones for us. An’ some day you can settle down on a ranch out here.... You stick to Jim Couch.”

“I’m pulled both ways, Uncle Jim, but I reckon I ought to stay with you because my father wanted that,” replied Clint, soberly, and walked away.

Nevertheless, he had not wholly made a choice. Clint had strong patriotic leanings toward the Union. His father had anticipated the struggle between the North and the South. Often he had spoken of it to Clint, and of their duty as Northerners. Clint did not quite agree with Couch and Maxwell that his service to the freighters was as responsible as it might be to the army. He meant to talk to Kit Carson.

He strolled out across the range to get away from the crowd. He wanted to be alone, and he did not feel alone until he got out of sight of the ranch house, the Indian encampment, and the caravan of the freighters. To which end he climbed a knoll and found a resting-place under a cedar that overlooked the wide gray stretch of Maxwell’s ranch and led to the white-and-black country — the wonderful New Mexico uplands.

The Rockies to the north were snowclad, and the marble fields sloped down to the timber belt, from which the forests and canyons in turn descended to the grassy open. The sunny May day was warm and pleasant, yet a breath of the cold, pure air of the heights came down to Clint. So far he had not had much experience of the mountains, except to watch them and revel in them from afar.

Out to the south and the east, over the ranges of cedar and pine and grass, there extended a blue-hazed void that was distance. It held the magic of the Great Plains. Whatever the Rockies might come to mean to Clint, they could never minimize the prairieland. Yet, though he sensed the strange, deep hold of the low open country, he could not bring himself to admit he loved it.

But at this time of his life, a critical one he scarcely realized, the vast spread of gray grass and purple ridge and winding lines of willow and cottonwood, the home of the buffalo and the savage, called to him with inexplicable and tremendous power. Still, he had it in him to give that up for the sake of his country, if it needed him to fight. He had no home, no relatives, except a few back in Illinois that had not been friendly or kind to his parents. He had no one to care for — to work for. If little May Bell had only never been lost!

Clint had to force himself out of sad and sweet reminiscence, but not before he had tried to picture May as she might have been at this time, a girl of sixteen, and probably the prettiest in the world.

Still, if he lived through the war he could return to the West and the life of a frontiersman. For that matter, he was hardly more likely to be killed by rebels in the East than by savages in the West. Clint considered the thing from both sides. It would be horrible to kill white men who had done him no injury. To kill Indians — the very thought sent a fiery thrill along his veins. Was it impossible for him to grow up and be like Maxwell, a friend to all red men? But the great rancher’s mother and father and little sweetheart had never been murdered by Comanches.

Clint grew dreamy in contemplation of the scene. Gradually he ceased to ponder the knotty question of war or freighting, the East or the West, the work he loved or that which he would hate. He listened to the sough of the wind in the cedar over his head, low and pleasant, a strange sound, never anything but music. And he watched the mountains awhile.

They changed with the movement of the sun and clouds. Now one of the snowy peaks split the blue sky, and again a cloud lodged against it, enveloping it down to the fringed edge of pines. Beautiful black shadow-ships crossed the vast slopes. It was an unknown and wild kingdom to him. But the trappers and the hunters and the Indians penetrated the fastnesses of gorge and canyon and timbered saddle whence they brought the furs to trade.

Clint ended as always, however, in giving his allegiance to the lowland. At his feet the gray bleached grass was blowing in the wind; down in the valley tumbleweeds were rolling along like balls; far out over the miles the yellow dust devils were rising. The gray knolls arose, some bare, others dotted with cedars, and round hills dark with pine broke the monotony; and beyond, a vast valley, bowl-shaped and speckled, lay in the hollows between the ranges; and over the center slept the blue phantom of the distant plains; and on each side sheered up the broken slopes, on and ever upward, black-belted, red-cragged, yellow and gray with open spots, and at last the purple-black that ended abruptly in the snowy domes.

Clint spent hours there, but he arrived nowhere in decision, except that the West had chained him for all of his life.

He returned to the ranch, arriving about the middle of the day, and therefore at the busiest hour, so far as a movement of the whites and Indians was concerned. The wide road leading from ranch house to store, the courtyard, the long porch, were colorful with Indians, Mexicans, and visitors from the caravans. Those from Dagget’s wagon-train were not difficult to pick out, especially the Texas contingent, among whom were women and children. They seemed to excite universal interest, especially among the Indians and the trappers.

At the store there appeared to be more business going on than during the earlier hours. Clint mingled among the customers. One blond Texan attracted his attention by reason of unusual height — he was seven feet tall, fair of hair and blue of eye, a wonderful specimen of pioneer from the Lone Star State. Clint was not short himself, but he felt small beside this giant.

Two curly-headed youngsters, boys of about five and seven, sat on some bales with hands and mouths full of candy, manifestly the first they had had for a long time. They were in a rapture that both amused and touched Clint. Far indeed from their thoughts were the hardship and the peril of the frontier.

“Howdy, Johnnie!” said Clint, by way of striking up acquaintance. The lad addressed had the friendliest kind of look and smile, but he could not talk with his mouth full and his cheeks puffed out round with candy.

Next Clint was taken with more than passing interest in two young women who were making purchases. He lingered to listen to their voices. They seemed excited and happy to be safe in this wonderful place, and the stern business of pioneering at that moment was far from their thoughts.

Presently others, undoubtedly of this Texan caravan, entered the store. In all Clint’s experience west of Kansas City he had not seen together so many women and girls. He counted them. Nine! It amused him somewhat to realize that he would have liked to talk to them. But Clint was shy. He could not take advantage of even the friendliest glances. Still he realized that he was an object of interest, and put it down to the credit of his buckskin garb, or perhaps the gun he wore in his belt.

Presently, however, one of the young women giggled and said to her companion in a quite audible voice: “One of those trappers. Isn’t he handsome?”

Clint blushed and moved away. It flattered him to be taken for a trapper, but the rest of the compliment embarrassed him and he concluded he had better leave the store.

Then he turned to go out and looked into a pair of beautiful, dark hazel eyes that gave him a shock.

A young girl had come in, accompanied by a middle-aged woman and a stalwart young man, another Texan.

The girl seemed startled, too, probably because Clint had almost collided with her.

“Say, trapper, look out aboot where you’re haidin’,” drawled the Texan, with the cool, slow, Southern accent Clint knew so well.

Clint murmured an apology and stepped aside. But he did not leave the store. He wandered around, and presently from the background he looked again at this latest acquisition to the Texas group. He did not quite realize that something unfamiliar possessed him.

Soon he espied the girl again. She wore a little bonnet that was tied under her chin, and a flowing blue gown, full and long, yet which appeared unable to hide her grace. She had lustrous brown hair. She did not concern herself with making purchases, and evidently was simply accompanying the others. The Texan hung rather close to her, with an evident air of proprietorship, which to Clint did not seem to be a matter of delight to the girl.

Her cheek was of a golden-tan hue with a hint of rose. Her profile was delicately drawn. Clint hoped she would turn so that he could see her eyes again. She was looking at the people all around, and in time she moved, giving Clint a full view of her face. It was not only very pretty, but somehow, in a vague and incredible way, strangely familiar, like that of a girl he might have seen in a dream.

After a moment Clint decided he was only silly and sentimental. He had not talked to a girl for years. He moved away again, but was conscious of a haunting power in that face. He desired powerfully to look at it again, and closer. That annoyed Clint, and in arguing with himself he became a little nettled. What was a pretty girl to him?

Still, he did not leave immediately, and when he stole another glance, quite instinctively, the intervening people had thinned and the young girl was staring at him. Her red lips were parted. Caught in the act, her cheeks took on the hue of her lips. Her glance wavered and fell. But swiftly it came up again. She was not smiling.

Clint lost, in some inexplicable manner, his eagerness to rush out of the store. His moccasins might have contained lead. His glance roved away casually, to fly back as if drawn by a magnet. She was still looking at him, differently now. Her color had fled. Her gaze had a strange, perplexed eagerness, wondering, wistful. Clint caught his breath. Something tugged at his heartstrings. This girl was not regarding him as had the other young women.

She seemed about to come toward Clint, when her companion checked her impulse. Clint saw then that the Texan was evidently talking rather forcefully to her, and his slight gesture seemed to indicate Clint. The girl did not take this submissively. Her head went up, her chin tilted; and whatever her reply was, Clint would have liked to hear it. He took an instant and unreasonable dislike to this Texan. Probably the girl was his sister.

Clint reacted to this situation in a way perfectly incomprehensible to him. He knew what he was doing when he stepped forward leisurely and approached the group, but he had not the slightest idea why. If this girl looked at him again it would be astounding, and Clint felt that he could not answer for the consequences.

She did look again. Clint was now close enough to catch the strained, piercing intensity of eyes that seemed to search him through.

Just then one of Couch’s freighters, Sam Black, swaggered by her on his way out of the store. Plainly the girl accosted him. Then the Texan grasped her arm.

“Let go,” she said, distinctly and with spirit. She freed herself and spoke to the freighter. Clint did not catch what she said, but he guessed it had to do with him, and all the unaccountable sensations in him coalesced to a tremendous uncertainty.

Black heard her, and turned with a grin, to look where she pointed.

“Miss, you mean thet young fellar in buckskin?” he queried, in a voice easily heard all around.

She nodded eagerly and the scarlet suffused her cheek.

“Shore I know him. Haw! Haw! Reckon I ought to, miss. He belongs to my outfit. Thet’s Buff Belmet.”

The girl uttered a little cry, her hand going up too late to stifle it. Her eyes widened, darkened, and seemed fixed on Clint with a gaze he could not understand, yet which made his heart quake.

She glided toward Clint. She came close, closer, to peer up at him with lustrous eyes soft under which shone hope and rapture and terror.

“Buff — Belmet!... Who are you?” she asked in a whisper.

“Buff’s a — nickname,” stammered Clint. “My name’s — Clint.”

She put out a trembling little hand as if to touch him, to feel if he were flesh and blood, but it hovered back to her breast. The flush receded from her face, leaving it as white as pearl.

“Clint — don’t you — know me?” she whispered, tremulously.

“Your eyes! Your voice!” gasped Clint, incredulously.

“Oh, you do remember!” she cried, and a rush of tears dimmed the rapture in her eyes.

“Miss — you’re like some one—” burst out Clint, hoarsely, “but, oh, my God! — you couldn’t be—”

“Yes, I could,” she flashed. “I am May Bell!”

CHAPTER 11

CLINT NEVER KNEW how it came that May was in his arms. But when he felt her there he hugged her close and his heart pounded against hers as he bent his face over her. It touched her hair and then her tear-wet cheek.

There was something wrong with his sight, but he felt her clinging to him, straining at his shoulders.

“Clint! Clint! Oh, thank God! I knew you were alive!” she cried out.

“An’ I thought you dead!” murmured Clint, as if in a trance.

“I’m the livest girl you ever saw,” she whispered against his cheek, and then her lips pressed softly, warm and quivering, in a kiss.

Clint’s bliss was short-lived. A hard hand clutched his shoulders, and tore him so violently from the girl that but for a stack of boxes he would have fallen. That instant saw the end of his blurred sight. It was burned clear.

The Texan had thrust him back. Clint caught a blaze of blue-flashing eyes. Then that hard hand, open-palmed, smote him across the mouth, staggering him again. Clint leaned against the boxes, in need of their support. Pain, suddenly added to these other bewildering sensations, hindered his faculties.

A man’s burly form stalked in front of him, facing the Texan.

“Hyar! What’d you hit thet boy for?” he shouted, his voice loud in anger.

Clint recognized Couch. And following Couch the tall form of Maxwell interposed itself into the scene.

“I am Maxwell,” he said, in cold, cutting accents. “This lad is my guest. Explain why you struck him.”

The Texan was neither intimidated nor impressed. He eyed the men in cool disdain.

“If it’s any of your business, I slapped his pretty face—”

But Couch interrupted him by knocking him down. It was then that Couch evidently saw the girl for the first time. Pale, with dilating eyes, she gazed from him to Clint, and at the fallen Texan, and then back to Clint. The big store had grown silent, except for footsteps crowding closer.

Couch stared at the girl and bent lower to peer closely.

“Lass, was it ‘cause of you?” he queried, with gesture indicating Clint.

“Yes — sir,” she faltered.

“Say, don’t I know you?” he asked, suddenly excited.

“Perhaps you do, sir,” she returned. “I know you. Mister Jim Couch.”

“For the land’s sake!” exploded Couch as he took the hands she held out. “I know you.... Your voice goes with your eyes. I never forget people.... You’re thet little big-eyed kid who left my train at Council Grove. Years ago.... Jim Bell’s little girl.”

“Yes. I am May Bell,” she replied, with smile half sad.

“Little May Bell come to life again — after we thought you was dead or worse. Growed to be a young woman an’ a mighty pretty one.... Wal, I never was so glad in my life.”

Meanwhile the Texan had gotten rather groggily to his feet, and it was evident that he had no liking for the turn of events.

Maxwell accosted him again: “Stranger, you haven’t explained your action.”

The Texan’s handsome face was marred by an expression of extreme malignity, most of which appeared centered upon Clint. But he shouldered his way through the circle of curious onlookers and left without a word.

“Maxwell, here’s one of the few an’ glorious surprises of the West,” announced Couch, drawing May toward the rancher. “This girl’s father joined my outfit at Independence years ago. The same year Buff an’ his father started with me.... Bell left us at Council Grove, an’ later started back east. His outfit was massacred to a man an’ we heard his daughter was taken captive.... But here she is, little May Bell thet was.” Maxwell made the girl a courtly bow and warmly pressed her hand in both of his. “Miss Bell, I sure am happy to meet you. Indeed, it isn’t often the frontier gives us as sweet an’ glorious surprises as this.”

“Thank you, sir,” returned the girl, shyly.

“Buff, come out of it,” interposed Couch, heartily. And as Clint shuffled forward, white and red by turns, the freighter went on. “Boy, I take it you an’ May seen each other an’ just sort of — of—”

Couch failed of adequate words. Clint stood tongue-tied, shifting from one foot to the other. Maxwell laughed as if he understood, and he placed his arm round Clint’s shoulders. Then May Bell came to his rescue.

“I — I first saw Clint outside,” she began to explain, eagerly, blushing rosily, yet brave in her anxiety to place him right before his friends. “I wondered.... Then I saw him here — in the store. I recognized him — yet I didn’t dare believe my eyes. I — I kept looking. And I think he was curious about me. Then I asked a freighter — if he knew him. He did — he called him ‘Buff Belmet.’... Then I ran to Clint.... I — I don’t know just what happened — but Lee separated us — and struck Clint.”

“Ahuh. Wal, now, thet begins to straighten things out. I’m sorry I hit this Lee fellar. But considerin’ — an’ anyway I never saw you. If I had, I reckon I’d had better — Wal, no! he hit Buff an’ Buff is like a son to me.” Couch was plainly at a loss. Clint’s embarrassment amounted almost to shame. The girl had paled again, as if at the mute query in Clint’s eyes. Maxwell saw the crux of the situation and he bent to May, asking low: “It was natural for you an’ Buff to be glad to see each other. But had this man Lee any right to — to separate you — an’ strike Buff?”

“No!” she returned, and the single clear word had a ring. On the instant then she averted her gaze from Clint while a wave of scarlet obliterated the pale earnestness of her face.

“Wal, now,” breathed Couch, in deep-chested relief. “Seein’ thet’s settled, tell us who you’re with.”

“Dear good friends. They have been — everything to me,” replied May, turning to look for them.

The crowd stirred and broke its interested calm. A buxom motherly woman, ruddy and smiling of face, evidently was waiting for this moment.

“Heah we are, May,” she said in a hearty voice, and with a plump elbow she nudged the tall man beside her.

May slipped away from the freighter to the unmistakable embrace of this kindly-faced woman.

“This is Mister Couch,” began May, radiantly, “and his friend Mister Maxwell, I think... and this is Clint.”

“Gentlemen, I’m Sarah Clement, an’ shore am glad to meet you all.... Jim Couch, I’ve heard your name these many years. An’ Lew Maxwell, I know you.... An’ so this boy was May’s playmate across the plains?... Clint Belmet.” She gave her hand to Clint and searched his features with the shrewd, penetrating gaze of a woman who had known men. “You’re not the boy she has talked aboot all these years. You’re a man. But I like your face.”

Clint mumbled he knew not what.

Maxwell ejaculated: “Sarah Clement!... Could you by any chance be related to Hall Clement, who served with me in the Mexican War an’ later was a Texas Ranger?”

The tall Texan stepped out and tilted back his huge black sombrero, to expose a remarkable visage that no one could ever have forgotten.

“Howdy, Cap!” he said, laconically, and leisurely extended a long arm.

“By all that’s holy! — Hall Clement!... The Lord is good,” broke out Maxwell, sonorously, and he fell upon Clement with an onslaught unusual in so cool a Westerner. The meeting was one that well might have made the onlookers wonder.

“Jim — Buff,” said Maxwell, turning to the others, his eyes alight. “Shake hands with my old pard, Hall Clement. An’ Kit Carson’s pard, too, in those old Texas days. Them was the days!... Well, folks, it’s almost too good to be true. You’ll all come to dinner with me. Ask your friends. We’ll make it a party.”

“Wal, we won’t have to be axed twice,” boomed Couch, and again he possessed himself of May’s yielding hand. “Forgive me, lass, but I’m oncommon keen to know what happened to you.”

“It’s not much of a story,” replied May, her eyes shadowing. “When the Indians attacked us it was night. I ran over the bank — hid under brush.... They never found me.... When day came I crawled out. The camp was silent — all dead — the wagons burned.... I wandered away, half crazy. A caravan came along. They took me to Texas.... And there people were good to me. Mrs. Clement gave me a home — became a mother to me.... I went to school — grew up — and here I am.”

“Ahuh! If it ain’t a fairy story old Jim Couch never heard one,” replied the freighter. “An’ now, lass, one more question. Who’s this feller Lee?”

“His name is Murdock,” said May. “I did not know him in Texas.”

Mrs. Clement manifestly considered it her duty to interfere. “Couch, this man Murdock joined us in the Pan Handle. He’s not a freighter. He claimed he was goin’ West to buy pelts. Like every other man you meet on the trail, he didn’t tell much aboot himself. An’ we didn’t ask. He was good company an’ attentive to us women. I liked him. An’ I reckon May did too. But Hall didn’t. You can talk to him.... Murdock got sweet on May, which was only what every one of the young bucks did, an’ he was all-fired jealous of her. Thet shore accounts for his actions here.”

Clint found himself walking beside May, behind the older folk, who were being led by Maxwell to the house. Once out of the store, free of the curious crowd, Clint began to recover from his shame and humiliation, though the creeping paralysis of his tongue loosened its grip only slowly.

May walked beside Clint, her head reaching to his shoulder. That seemed the most astounding thing. She had been so little, and the picture of her in his memory was far removed from May Bell in the flesh today. He stole a glance at her, to find that she held her gaze straight ahead. Her color was high. As they walked along she spoke of the weather, the Indians passing, the ranch, the West. And Clint replied without in the least knowing what she said.

They were, in fact, strangers to each other, and though in the poignant emotion of reunion the link of childhood held, now they were beginning to realize.

Clint, having stolen one glance at her, ventured another. She averted her eyes and the quick blood darkened the rich golden tan of her cheek. This somehow mitigated Clint’s shyness and he began to do battle with the chaos of his mind. He had been making a stupid ass out of himself, when he should have been proving that he was a freighter now, a plainsman. Nevertheless, this argument did not at once restore his equilibrium.

May had started out to talk with wild enthusiasm, but that or her stock of expressions wore out. Clint floundered in vain; he could not make conversation. They were saved from something disastrous by their arrival at the ranch house.

“Let’s set out on the porch till it gets cool,” suggested Maxwell.

That, for the time being, ended the constraint between Clint and May. She, with Hall Clement, and his august wife, became the center of attention. Maxwell beamed upon them. It was evident that his meeting with an old ranger comrade had recalled associations which must have been pleasant, thrilling, perhaps filled, too, with regret. He introduced the Clement party to army officers, scouts, hunters and trappers, and even to several Indian chiefs.

One of these, Lone Wolf, of the Utes, a superb warrior, always friendly to the whites, took most dignified note of May. Maxwell spoke to him in Indian language. The chief raised a slow deprecatory hand in expressive gesture that did not need words. It signified: Alas for the injustice done to the red man and the injury to the white man.

Lone Wolf offered his hand to May, who hesitatingly placed hers in it.

“How do,” he said, in a deep, not unpleasant voice.

He was very tall and bent his feathered head. The minute wary lines of his face indicated his age. He had fine eyes.

May acknowledged his greeting. Evidently it was an ordeal, yet she saw that this Ute was a friend of Maxwell’s, and no doubt worthy of respect.

“Father — mother — gone?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied May.

“How old you?”

“Sixteen.”

“You married?”

“Oh no,” returned May, surprised out of her reserve.

“White man slow,” said the chief. “You like marry big chief?”

Maxwell led the shout of laughter. Lone Wolf’s serious visage did not change, yet it seemed plain that he had a sense of humor.

“Are you proposing to me, Lone Wolf?” asked May, smiling in her confusion.

“Me like white squaw.”

“Thank you. I — I must — say no.”

The chieftain let go her hand and spoke to Maxwell in his own tongue, and then passed on with slow moccasined tread.

“There, May, you’ve had an offer at last,” said Mrs. Clement, gayly.

“Mr. Maxwell, of course he wasn’t in earnest?” queried May, bright-eyed and laughing.

“Lone Wolf was in fun, but he meant it, too,” replied Maxwell. “That old Indian is the salt of the earth. If only they were till like him.... He paid you a compliment, lass. Said you were a pretty young woman an’ that the white boys would be fightin’ for you.”

“Indeed, he flatters me,” said May.

“Well, I reckon Buff will have somethin’ to say about thet,” put in Couch, calling the gay attention to his young charge.

Clint responded to this with so deep and inward a thrill that his confusion seemed checked.

“Speak up, lad,” called Maxwell, with kindly interest as well as teasing spirit.

“I reckon I will,” replied Clint. He got it out deliberately and even managed to look at May, who sat wide-eyed, with parted lips. But the instant afterward he wanted the ground to open and swallow him. That instant spared him, however, for May Bell then got the brunt of the attack, which caused her face to turn rosy red.

Clint’s fright had a chance to recede. Presently it occurred to him that he had asserted himself in a marvelous manner. He remembered that May Bell had not only been his childish sweetheart, but also his promised wife. She had been forced to remember. Her sweet face was a record of that. No flashing retort! No laughing denial! She was as true as steel. She endured the teasing and joined in the laugh at her expense. But never for an instant did she lift her shy veiled eyes to Clint.

His mounting confidence, his vain assurance, his strange exultation, suffered an eclipse. Two army officers joined the group, and Maxwell presented them to the party. One was a young lieutenant, Clayborn by name, handsome, debonair, a West Pointer, and very plainly an eager admirer of the fair sex. He had many qualities which Clint envied, especially his grace, his ease, and the charming affability of manner that no plainsman ever attained. May Bell was undoubtedly pleased with him. She gave him her undivided attention, smiled up at him, listened to his low conversation — compliments, perhaps love-making, and she cast down her eyes and blushed even more rosily than she had for Clint.

Whereupon Clint became prey to an absolutely new and insupportable variety of feelings. At first he was struck by a subtle shock of realization. May Bell did not belong to him. It was possible for her to admire — like — love some other person them himself. The thought seemed a sacrilege. Disloyal to May! But there was the evidence before his own eyes. How beautiful she looked! Clint’s new emotion gave birth to a terrible yearning. After all, he had only been a boy playmate. She was far above him.

Suddenly he struck the descent of his vain imaginings, his hopes, and he shot down over the precipice. From the heights he plunged to the depths. He moved away from the group, no longer able to endure May’s absorption in this fascinating young soldier. He walked to the far end of the porch. A deep inward burning sickness assailed his breast. What ailed him? The old familiar trouble — the black despair of the past returned tenfold, augmented by this fierce, wild pain.

Clint gazed out on the wild gray range, far over the speckled flat to the cedared ridge, rising and undulating, across the black pass between the mountains, to the purple nothingness of distance beyond. Out there, months had been multiplied into years. And the beauty, the solitude, the majesty and monotony of the plains, the travail that had come to him out of them, told him now that the greatest sorrow and sublimest joy of man had come to him — love of a woman. He had loved little May Bell from the hour of that meeting beside the brook; and in proportion to the labor and suffering and struggle that the years had magnified, his love had grown.

Sunset found Clint still gazing through the gray distance to the heart of his woe. Couch discovered him then and dragged him into the dining-room.

Clint shrank from the ordeal, but there seemed to be protection in the comparative darkness, and the hum of many voices, and the largest number of guests he had ever seen assembled there. He hated to look for May, because she would be under the spell of that captivating soldier, but as it seemed useless to resist, he let his eyes rove round the room. The chiefs, scouts, trappers, and hunters, already seated, occupied two-thirds of the long table. The freighters came next and there were a score or more. A number of military men had seats together, and that brought Clint’s glance to the head of the table and Maxwell’s especial guests for the evening. The several ladies of Dagget’s caravan, including Mrs. Clement, were on the left. May Bell had the place of honor at Maxwell’s right. She had removed her bonnet and looked bewitching.

To Clint’s startled amaze the seat next to May was vacant. Undoubtedly that had been reserved for Lieutenant Clayborn. Clint longed to flee like the coward he was, but all the time Couch had been forcing his reluctant steps closer.

“You blockhead! Thet empty place is for you,” declared Couch, and he gave Clint a shove. Its momentum carried him several steps farther. Then Maxwell, who was standing, espied him and motioned him to the seat beside May. As Clint had not quite taken leave of his senses, he managed to do as he was bidden, without excessive awkwardness. Then he squeezed his trembling hands between his knees and riveted his eyes upon his plate.

Nevertheless, he was most torturingly aware of May’s presence. The seats were benches, and owing to the large number of guests they were closer together than ordinarily. Clint felt May’s elbow touching his and the contact set him thrilling. He thought wildly that he must rush away and do something desperate.

The acuteness of his pangs was not soothed by May’s attention to him. She had spoken when he first sat down beside her. The tone was gay, but the content escaped Clint. Out of the tail of his eye he could see her looking at him, casually, then with interest, and in a moment with more concern. No doubt his fool face betrayed him. It always had.

“Clint, isn’t it won-der-ful?” she whispered, leaning a little closer.

He nodded and muttered something incoherent.

“Why — you’re pale!”

Clint could just catch her voice. Everybody appeared to be talking at once.

“Clint, you don’t look natural,” she went on, and the sweet solicitude only increased his despair. He could not pull out now. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m sick,” he muttered.

“Oh, Clint!... Was that why you went away?”

“Yes — I reckon.”

“Where are you sick, Clint?” she importuned him.

“You’re all doubled up.... Your hands! — Where do you feel bad?”

Clint loosened one of his hands long enough to indicate that his malady was situated rather high for the common ills of mankind.

“It’s here — an’ I’m tur-rible sick.”

At this point Maxwell rapped loudly on the table and stilled the many voices. He looked the genial host, happy to give pleasure, yet he had that air of dignity and impressiveness which presupposed that gatherings of this nature at his table had their niche in frontier history.

“Folks,” began Maxwell, in his resonant voice, “there are a hundred and twenty of us at table tonight, an’ that’s a record for Maxwell’s Ranch. It makes me glad an’ proud to welcome you all. To prove to you newcomers the hospitality of the West, an’ that all Indians are not scalp-hunters. I welcome you more because of the meanin’ of your presence here... the vanguard of the settlers who will populate the West!... Our beautiful, rich, an’ savage West. Some day, despite the hard trials, you will love it as I do.”

Maxwell paused a moment as if to let that sink in, or to gain force for his next utterance. Certain it was that a benevolence beamed from his face; and those seated near might have caught a deeper something — the phantom of a ceaseless sorrow under his benign exterior.

“Our guest of honor is Miss May Bell here at my right,” he went on. “She was originally from Ohio, an’ when she was ten years old came with her parents to join Jim Couch’s caravan, at Independence, in the spring of 1854. They left that caravan at Council Grove, an’ turned back, discouraged, no doubt, by the perils an’ terrors of the frontier. Small wonder!... Well, on the return little May lost her parents. The old, old frontier story, bloody an’ terrible — a massacre. But May hid in the brush under the river bank, an’ escaped. Next day emigrants bound for Texas picked her up an’ took her along to the great Lone Star State. There she had the good fortune to fall under the notice of Hall Clement — long my partner on the plains — good soldier — great Ranger — an’ all that is typified in the word frontiersman.... Sometimes it seems God forgets us, but I reckon that is not so. Anyway, God did not forget little May Bell. An’ she has come West to throw in her lot with us. Mrs. Clement, who has been mother to her, has come also, an’ other women of that grand Texas breed. It might be exaggeration to say that the West never could be settled without Texans. Sure it would never have belonged to the Union but for Texans. An’ in this connection I grieve to say, no doubt with all of you, that war between South an’ North has come. That will pass, we pray soon. An’ the great West will feel the impetus of new travel an’ progress. The West needs women — pioneer women. No hunger on earth is as terrible an’ destroyin’ as man’s hunger for a woman.”

Maxwell paused again, and stroked his thin fine beard, while his eyes glowed upon his guests from the last chief at the foot of the table up to the radiant young girl by his side. He smiled down upon her, and the past, far away and long ago, sweet and full of pathos, shone in that smile.

“I said before — the West needs women,” he resumed. “Women who can be true.” How his deep Voice rang the poignancy of the word! “Women who can endure an’ fight an’ stick.... I think little May Bell will turn out one. When she was ten years old — on that caravan trip I told about — she met a lad an’ plighted her troth to him, as she sat beside him on the seat of a prairie schooner.... Our lucky young friend here — Buff Belmet, who was known to the frontier before he reached fourteen.... These youthful lovers were torn asunder, but though she believed he was dead, she lived on true to him.... An’ now they have found each other again. What could be more beautiful an’ hopeful than that?... Ladies, gentlemen, chiefs, we do not drink at table in Maxwell’s house. Yet I propose in place of a toast a right hearty cheer for little May Bell.”

The assembled company rose and gave vent to a mighty cheer, that was the stronger for the wild, piercing staccato note of Indian whoop.

Clint, blind and stricken, had yet been aware of May’s tug at his arm, and he had arisen in order, but he was mute. And it took a more urgent tug to drag him down again.

“Friends,” went on Maxwell, who had remained standing, “we have tonight a privilege an’ honor seldom accorded here on the frontier — a man of God amongst us.... Preacher Smith, will you say grace?”

As the minister rose he appeared as sturdy and virile as any of his company. All heads bowed.

“Bless this food to our use, O Lord!... Bless this gathering of pioneers, frontiersmen, soldiers, and red men. Bless the young people who have chosen to carve out homes in the West.... Bless little May Bell and the lad she chose years ago. Bless them and guide them further in faithfulness, in hope, in the glory and dream of love, in the hard trials of the frontier land. Amen!”

During this prayer Clint was uplifted and exalted out of the conflicting emotions that in the end had dulled and stunned him. Under cover of the table May took his clenched hand, and pressed it open, and softly clasped it, her palm to his, warm, pulsing, in a tenderness that even his stupidity could not misjudge.

Maxwell clapped his hands, the door banged open, and a stream of Mexican lads poured in, to spread a savory and bounteous feast before the guests. Appetite did not wait upon gaiety. Both were indulged to the fullest. And Maxwell at the head of the table watched and listened as a man whose heart was enriched by this occasion.

CHAPTER 12

TΗΕΥ LAGGED A little more and more behind the older folk. The grass slope shone silver in the moonlight. Below, the camp fires of the caravan flickered, and the long line of wagons gleamed pale against the dark cottonwoods. A hound bayed, and from the hill a coyote answered in wild defiance. Jack, trotting at Clint’s heels, growled his disapproved.

At a rough place in the road Clint took May’s hand. Then, when it was the last thing he wanted to do, he let go. They had not exchanged two sentences since leaving Maxwell’s table. At times Clint could scarcely keep up with May without running; at others he had to wait for her.

There was enchantment in the cool sweet air. Down in the creek the spring frogs were peeping. The smell of wood smoke mingled with the fragrance of sage. The cottonwood leaves, small and young, rustled faintly in the soft wind. The moon had just topped the black rim that looked so close, yet was far away; and the range lay blanched and lonely and beautiful under the sky.

At last Clint reached the end of the stubborn complexity that had stultified him. He felt dammed up, with an accumulation of emotions, thoughts, and words that must find freedom. But he could not free them.

They passed wagon after wagon. Somewhere a Mexican twanged a guitar and sang a languorous Spanish song. Then, to Clint’s dismay, they reached the camp, where the Clements and their party waited.

“Wal, it’s been good to meet you-all,” Couch was saying. “I’m powerful glad you’re to hang up here awhile. Good night.”

Then the freighter, espying Clint, added, genially, “Buff, I reckon you needn’t hurry back.”

The girl trilled sweet laughter, as if she caught his import and found it pleasant. “Good night, Mister Jim Couch.”

“Good night, lass,” replied Couch, his voice deeper with a rich note.

“You young folks needn’t hurry,” said Mrs. Clement.

“Shore you must have a lot to say,” drawled Hall Clement. “Climb up on the wagon seat heah. Didn’t Couch tell us how you used to drive an’ ride an’ talk all day long?... Mebbe then you can find your tongues an’ talk the old moon down.”

Beyond the tents a little way, under a giant cottonwood, stood the wagon Clement had designated.

“May, will you come?” asked Clint, eagerly inspired.

“Come! Do you imagine I’m going to bed?”

She tripped lightly ahead of him to the wagon, and was climbing up the wheel, with her bonnet hanging over her shoulders, when Clint got there to lend her a helping hand. He leaped up beside her to the seat. It was high and the low-spreading foliage cast a shadow pierced by rays of moonlight.

Clint bent to look at her. Her dark head was bare, her hair rebellious, her eyes radiant and unfathomable in the moonlight. How terribly afraid he was of her! “Well, Buff?” she asked, roguishly.

“Aw — you can’t like that nickname,” he expostulated.

“I do, though.”

“Better than Clint?”

“It means a lot. Mister Couch told me Kit Carson gave it to you.”

“No. It was Dick Curtis, another scout — a pardner of Kit’s.”

“You’ve made a name on the frontier,” she said, regarding him gravely.

“Aw, I only drove a wagon.”

“I shall call you Buff — always.”

“Always?”

“Don’t you want me to — always?”

“May!” he whispered, with a shock. “You told him!”

“Him? Who? Told what?”

“You told Maxwell about — about us... on the wagon seat, like this together, years ago.... No one else knew. I never even told my own father.”

“Oh, then you hadn’t forgotten?” she asked, archly.

“Never! Never the littlest word you ever said.”

His sincerity swayed her. “Yes, I told Mr. Maxwell,” she returned, gravely.

“But how — why?” Clint burst out.

“That Mr. Maxwell doesn’t miss much. When the handsome soldier with the dainty moustache sat down beside me — well, Buff, you changed.”

“Did I? No wonder.”

“I’ve met a good many soldiers like him. They are all the same. They make love to every girl.... You were so queer. You didn’t try to make love to me. So I — well, I didn’t snub Lieutenant Clayborn.... Presently you rushed off — and I was sorry. Mr. Maxwell had been watching you — saw you go. He politely took me away from the lieutenant. And he said, ‘Little lady, our lad Buff is hurt.’ And I told him I knew it and was sorry. Then it seemed I was drawn so strangely to him. I talked — and talked.... I — I — told him about the time on the wagon seat — that we — we were engaged. He seemed so glad. He squeezed my hand till it hurt. Oh, Clint — I mean Buff — it’ll take me long to get used to this new name. Ever since we were parted it has been Clint — Clint — Clint.... Mr. Maxwell likes you dearly. He didn’t say so, but I knew. And, Buff, he got some strange happiness out of my faithfulness to you. Oh, I felt it.”

“I near died when he said that — about us, right out.”

“Yes, I remember you had a terrible pain.” She let out a little peal of laughter. “And I — silly goose — thought you had colic.”

“May, it was no joke,” said Clint, shaking his head.

“I’ve had Indian arrows shot into me, but they weren’t a marker to what I had then.”

“What was it, Buff?” she asked, edging a little closer to him.

“Reckon I didn’t know then, but I do now,” he returned, ruefully. “I was jealous of that handsome soldier. I had a burnin’ hell inside me.”

“Oh, you mustn’t swear,” she whispered, and slipped her hand through his arm.

“May, dear, it’s a swearin’ matter. I read in the Bible about jealousy. ‘Who can stand before jealousy?’”

“Buff Belmet, don’t you ever make me jealous,” she threatened. “Oh, I’m beginning to feel that I know you. At first you seemed a stranger. But you haven’t changed. You’re older, of course, and quiet — and sad.... Dear boy Clint!”

She leaned her face against his shoulder. Clint felt tears fall upon his hand.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered, wanting to cry himself.

“It’s been hard — but now we — we—”

“Have each other,” she finished when he broke off haltingly.

Clint reached over with his left hand and clasped hers. The instant response, warm, clinging, strengthened him to overcome his backwardness.

“We’re engaged — you said?”

“Don’t you say so?”

“Huh! I reckon.... But, May, be serious. Engaged people get married, don’t they?”

“It’s customary,” she replied, with a little low laugh, nestling closer to him. “Unless — the man proves faithless!”

“Aw!”

“Go on, Buff,” she whispered, thrillingly. “I think you were about to propose to me.”

“Will you make fun?... I’m tryin’ to — to—”

“Oh, I know. Buff, darling, I always knew. You were so full of things you almost burst, yet you couldn’t say them.”

“Reckon I’ll say somethin’ now — or die,” he replied, huskily, moistening his lips.

“Don’t die.”

“May — you called me darlin’!” he ejaculated, in awe and bliss.

“It slipped out. But to be honest, I’ve called you that — in my mind — since — well, since I read a book full of the word, and I liked it.”

“Then I call you — darlin’,” he said, in hushed accents at his temerity. “There!... An’ I must tell you somethin’ else that I never said before. I should of, though, long ago. For I did. But, honest, May, I never knew it till this afternoon.... Bless that handsome West Pointer!”

“Buff, you are talking riddles,” she rejoined, happily.

“Are you any good at riddles?” he queried, slipping his arm around her slim waist.

“No good at all,” she murmured.

“I wish I could tell it the way I felt it.... I was lookin’ away out over the blue open that’s the Great Plains. An’ it seemed all the work an’ longin’ an’ fear, an’ the hurt of sun an’ blister an’ cold, an’ the bite of Indian arrows — an’ the agony of my loss — all these just burst with the truth of what idled me.... Little May, it was then I found out I loved you.”

“Oh, Clint!... Oh, Buff!” she whispered, lifting her face from his shoulder. The moonlight showed it rapt and lovely, with eyes like night.

“Yes, I love you, May, an’ the feelin’ isn’t much different from that turrible pain I had at supper.”

With his left hand he drew a cord from round his neck. Something bright dangled at the end.

“Oh! — a ring!” she said, thrillingly.

“It’s all I have of my mother’s. Paw gave it to her when she was a girl.... It was too small for her in later life. But it’ll fit you. Let’s see.”

She held out a little hand that shook, and he essayed to slip it on her finger.

“Not that one.... The third.... Oh, it fits!... Clint, I’ll treasure it all my life.”

They were silent for a while. She was lying on his breast now, her head in the hollow of his neck, her hair brushing his lips.

The moon soared, and silent night reigned. The camp fires had died. The last late freighters had sought their blankets. The coyotes had ceased their yelp and wail. Bells on the hobbled horses no longer jangled.

“May, wasn’t it awful — when we met in the store?” he asked, presently.

“Awful sweet.”

“Weren’t you petrified with — with shame?”

“Me! I gloried in it!... Oh, it was all so — so good, until that Lee Murdock pulled me away — and struck you.”

“Aw! He did. I’d forgotten,” replied Clint, broodingly.

“Buff, I liked him at first. Less after he — he tried to take liberties with me. And now I hate him.”

“What liberties?” queried Clint, violently.

“Oh, never mind. He only tried. And I slapped his face till my hand burned for hours.... Clint, you keep out of his way. He’d stop at nothing. Mr. Clement knows something he won’t tell his wife or me. I’ll be glad to see the last of Murdock.”

“But will you?” demanded Clint.

“We understand he leaves the caravan here. He had plenty of money to buy pelts.”

“Aw, I’m glad. Let’s forget him.... But not our meetin’. May, dearest, do you know just what you did then?”

“When?”

“At the store — just after the freighter told you I was Buff Belmet.”

“Oh!... I guess I ran to you, didn’t I?”

“Ran? You flew.... That was the most turrible glorious moment I’d ever lived — up to then.”

“And then I suppose I flew right into your arms?”

“You did!”

“Well, you had them wide open. What was a poor distracted girl to do?”

“I don’t know how it happened, but all at once you were there.”

“And then did you hug me — or did I hug you? One of us did, for my ribs ached.”

“I reckon, maybe, I’m most to blame for that. Uncle Jim says I don’t know my strength.”

“I knocked your hat off, didn’t I?”

“You sure did.”

“And tousled your hair?”

“Yes.”

“And then — before all that gaping crowd — I shamelessly kissed you, didn’t I?”

“Not shamelessly, darlin’, though you were as red as fire.”

“It was shamelessly. Not that I’d have cared the littlest bit — if you had only kissed me back.... But, Buff Belmet, you didn’t. You didn’t!... And I shall never kiss you again.”

“Aw, May, that’s what I was gettin’ at.”

“Oh, I see.... Clint, I spoiled you back on the plains, when I was ten years old. I did all the lovemaking. Now if you want anything of the kind you will have to make up for lost—”

Clint closed her saucy lips with his own. When he rose from that contact she lay in his arms, wistful and surrendering, awakened to the fire and glory of love, and too honest to deny it.

“Buff, I reckon I’ll have to take that back,” she whispered, and lifted her arms.

At a late hour, when Clint wended his slow way back to the ranch house it seemed that the moon, the night, the earth, the universe had been created for him. He could only accept, humbly, wondering, reverent. All that he had endured lost its utter cruelty in the light of the love he felt and the love bestowed upon him.

He lingered, sitting on the doorstep of the adobe shack behind the range house. Even the dogs at the corrals were quiet, like their wild brothers out on the range. Over Maxwell’s ranch hung the pale moon-mantle, mysterious and beautiful. But Clint could not think. He only dreamed over May’s sweet willing kisses. Tomorrow, perhaps, he could face the realities of his new responsibilities. And he found, too, that sleep was something he did not require for a long while. As a consequence he was late at breakfast next morning, to the amusement of Maxwell.

“Buff, if you stay up late at night playin’ with the ladies, you’ll never make a good scout,” he teased.

“I’d hate not to make a good scout,” returned Clint, “but last night was worth it.”

“I reckon,” laughed the rancher. “Well, Buff, come to my office this mornin’. I want a little talk with you.” Clint knew that meant something private and he was puzzled, and so interested he took early advantage of the invitation. Maxwell was busy with freighters. Upon concluding his business with them he pushed a chair toward Clint, and also a box of cigars, which he immediately withdrew. “Buff, I forgot you didn’t smoke.... Well, lad, I don’t need to ask you if you fixed it up with May.”

“No, sir. But it was May an’ you who fixed it,” rejoined Clint, gratefully.

“All’s well, then, lad?”

“I never dreamed I could be so happy,” said Clint, simply.

“Couch told me your age, but I’ve forgotten.”

“Near eighteen now, Mr. Maxwell.”

“Well, out here on the frontier years don’t matter. An’ May is sixteen. Pioneer girls marry young, which is a good thing.”

“What — what you — you aimin’ at, sir?” stammered Clint, red in the face.

“I’ve a hunch you an’ May ought to get married,” replied the rancher, earnestly.

“Oh!... W-w-when?”

“Just as quick as the Clements will let you. They adopted the girl an’ they love her as their own. But I might persuade Hall. I don’t savvy about the misses, though.”

“Uncle Jim Couch might have somethin’ to say. He has charge of me till I’m twenty-one.”

“Ahuh. Jim Couch is all right, among train bosses. But he gets sore now an’ then, at delays an’ on important drives. Then he takes chances. An’, Buff, take a hunch from me. Couch’s bones will bleach on the prairie, the same as those of so many good frontiersmen.... An’ the point is I don’t want you to break that little girl’s heart.”

“But, Mr. Maxwell — I — I wouldn’t!” expostulated Clint.

“You couldn’t help it if you got killed.”

“Killed!”

“That’s what I said. Buff, I’m not goin’ to advise the freighters to quit, because my business depends on them. If the caravans stop I’m ruined.... Now take this confidentially. The war is goin’ to play hell on the frontier. Freightin’ supplies is goin’ to be ten times as dangerous as ever before. The time is comin’ pronto when a small caravan will have no chance. In a year, maybe this summer, all the Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, an’ Pawnees will be on the warpath. An’ bad white outfits are growin’, Buff.”

“An’ you’re just about advisin’ me to quit freightin’ overland?” queried Clint, aghast.

“Yes. For the little girl’s sake,” said Maxwell, and leaned his head on his hand, shading his eyes. “I’ll tell you a secret, Buff.... Once I loved a girl like May. I stayed away too long.... She thought me dead, or swore she did! She married another, an’ life has never been the same to me since. I don’t want you to risk so much with your sweetheart.”

“But May would be true,” replied Clint, passionately, as if a doubt of her was preposterous.

“She was, an’ she might be for a while yet — when she’s so young. But a beautiful girl like May can’t stay unmarried or at least unpossessed. Not out here very long!”

“That’s turrible, Mr. Maxwell,” ejaculated Clint, aghast.

“Man’s hunger for woman is too strong. Look at the white men who marry Indian girls an’ become squawmen. Kit Carson married a half-Mexican woman. Very estimable indeed. But I’m illustratin’ a point.... Buff, you an’ May are orphans. You haven’t any relations. You’re just alone. You’ve been long unhappy. You love each other, an’ you ought to get married.”

“Yes, sir. But — but when?” asked Clint, feebly. He had no will to fight this glorious prospect.

“Right away. Before Preacher Smith leaves. He’s on his way to California. An’ I’m tellin’ you, lad, preachers are scarce, an’ they’ll be scarcer for some years.”

“Who’ll I ask first?” whispered Clint.

“May, of course. An’ then if she’s willin’, you can go to Couch. He’ll consent all right, but I believe he’ll kick on your quittin’ the freightin’ game. An’, Buff, if you marry May you’ll sure have to take care of her. If you wait you’ll have to trust that to God, an’ somebody else. I’ve never had a white woman on my ranch. I made that rule. But I’d have May, only for one reason. I may be ruined here, by the war. Or I might sell out.

Keep this under your hat, lad. It’s for you I’m thinkin’ an’ talkin’.”

“Thank you, sir. I realize that. An’ I — I’m sort of knocked flat.”

“Of course you are, Buff. But I know this frontier. An’ so does Kit Carson. He’ll be here today or tomorrow. I’ll bet he’ll advise you to marry May an’ go on to California.”

“California?... But I love the Great Plains!” burst out Clint.

“Ah!” Maxwell threw up his hands. “More than May Bell?”

“No! No!”

“Well then go to her, an’ if you can persuade her, an’ the rest of them — marry her before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Ever to do it. A few more years of caravans an’ you’ll be a plainsman. Then it’ll be too late. The life will claim you. Kit Carson had to quit. An’ just in time. Curtis, Glade, Rockwell — they all saw what was comin’. Jim Couch, Dagget, Grace — they’ve stuck at it too long. They’ll never quit. An’ their scalps will ornament some redskin’s lodge.”

“Were you ever a plainsman, Mr. Maxwell?” queried Clint.

“No. I crossed enough, though, to feel the strange fascination of the Great Plains. To understand it. Most men never find out why. It’s the tremendous barrenness, the ever-callin’, never-endin’ land, the eternal monotony of the prairie, the strange loneliness — an’ then the drive, the camp, the watch, the fight — these change a boy’s very soul an’ grip him as a man.”

Clint rose, trembling in the presence of this wise and good man. “Mr. Maxwell,” he said, standing straight, “as far as I can I’ll take your advice. I’m grateful for such a friend as you — an’ Kit Carson. But until I’m twenty-one I must obey Uncle Jim.”

“An’ that’s right. I’ll admit Couch is our hard proposition here. But he’ll have you an’ May an’ me to reckon with. A pretty good combination! Now run along, Buff, an’ tackle May.”

“I’ll go, but I’m plumb scared.”

“What? Of that sweet, soft-eyed little thing?”

“Maybe it’s because she’s so — so wonderful.... I’m afraid I’d have to beg her, sir. Not make her do anythin’.”

Maxwell laid down his cigar and regarded Clint almost hopelessly.

“You made a name for yourself when you were a boy. The boy freighter, they called you once. I heard of you long before I ever saw you. An’ now you’re a big husky lad, near six feet tall, an’ they tell me you’ve stopped your share of Indians. You’re a man! Well, get out of here pronto an’ show May Bell you’re man enough in love, too.”

“Yes, sir — but — but what shall I do?” faltered Clint, feeling caught between contending tides.

“Catch her alone, if you have to wait till night,” said Maxwell, seriously, with a dreamy light of the past in his dark eyes. “Then grab her in your arms — yank her off her feet — hug an’ kiss her till she hasn’t sense or desire or breath left to say no.... Can you try that, Buff? How does it strike you?”

“Makes me turrible weak, sir.... But ought I try such an awful trick when I know she’d say yes to anythin’ I’d ask her?”

“Don’t you believe it, Buff. Women are funny. You can never tell what a girl will do. Changes her mind with the wind. Like as not you’ll find her makin’ eyes at Lieutenant Clayborn or that Murdock fellow. He’s too old an’ keen for her, Buff. You keep her away from him. Mind what I say!... Now run. I’ve got men waitin’ to see me. I can’t spend till day on your love affair.”

Clint ran all right. And Maxwell called after him. “Buff, I wish I were you.... Come back an’ tell me what happens.”

Clint raced out, half beside himself, and then bent hurried steps across the courtyard, which was crowded with idle trappers, hunters, Indians, and freighters, waiting for something to turn up.

Presently he almost bumped into Couch, who evidently had come up the slope from the camp.

“Hello, Uncle Jim!... What you lookin’ so glum about?”

“Buff, I just had a run-in with Buell — new agent for Aull an’ Company,” replied Couch, fuming. “He’s got ninety wagon-loads of pelt that have got to be in Westport before end of August. An’ he swears if I don’t take the contract an’ pack at once I’ll never get another with his company.”

“What are you goin’ to do?” asked Clint, anxiously. “I don’t know. I’m stumped.”

“What do the men think?”

“They haven’t heard it yet.”

“But, uncle, you know you oughtn’t start out now unless you have a troop of soldiers. You’ll have to wait for another caravan to join you.”

“Sure I know. But Dagget says he can’t get along from Santa Fé for weeks. Maybe six.... Buff, the worst of it is Buell offered me more money per hundred weight, an’ a bonus of five hundred dollars if I landed the freight in Westport by August fifteenth.”

“Uncle, that’s a temptin’ offer, but I hope you don’t accept it,” rejoined Clint, seriously.

“Hey, you don’t say we!” ejaculated Couch, testily. “That means you don’t want to go.”

“No, I don’t, Uncle,” replied Clint, quietly.

“Wal, I reckon you’ll do as I say,” said Couch, harshly. “I’m more than your train boss. I’m your guardian.”

Couch, usually the kindest and most genial of men, could be most stubborn when crossed. And when he drank he became sullen and taciturn. Clint feared that he was somewhat under the influence of liquor. “Uncle, I’ll not disobey you.”

“Wal, I’m glad to hear that. You never did.... Buff, it’s a rotten deal. You’ve just found your sweetheart again, an’ God knows I’d hate to separate you from her.... Damn the luck, anyhow.”

Without another word Couch strode on toward Maxwell’s store, leaving Clint in a worse quandary than ever. He decided he had better not be in a hurry to see May, at least until he had pondered over Uncle Jim’s predicament. Freighters were going to be scarce, in spite of high pay. Couch would need all the drivers he could muster.

But the momentary setback to Clint’s buoyant hopes and enchanting dreams did not persist. It would take more than predicaments, caravans, and Indians to subdue the joy in him that day. Suddenly he conceived the fine idea of going to the store to purchase May a box of the fresh candy that had come with Dagget’s train. So he recrossed the courtyard.

When he glanced up, what were his amaze and consternation to be confronted by May Bell and Lieutenant Clayborn coming out of the store. She did not at once see Clint because she was looking up at the soldier. Her bright eyes, her parted red lips, her smile, lifted to this West Point officer, gave Clint a stab. She carried one of the boxes of candy Clint had imagined he was going to buy for her.

Then she saw him, and the bright eyes, the parted lips, the smile that had been for Clayborn suddenly augmented their beauty and sweetness tenfold.

Clint observed that, realized in a flash his utter foolishness, felt the rush of ecstasy at the beautiful light on her face, which was for him; but not that nor anything kept him from bowing stiffly as he doffed his hat and bolted into the store.

CHAPTER 13

CLINT STALKED THROUGH the store, blind to customers and clerks alike; and he fell over sacks and bales, and out the back door, in a boiling rage with himself, with May, with that lady-killing lieutenant and the whole world.

He went by Mexican quarters, barns, corrals, only to rush back to the courtyard. His rage melted into self-pity and mortification, and they lasted through another nameless stalk, at the end of which remorse edged into his conflicting emotions. But it was too late to bank the fires of jealousy. He walked, he sat on a box, he leaned on a hitching-rail, watching like an Indian from a hill.

Presently his sore heart gave a great jump. He espied May coming out of Maxwell’s house, accompanied only by Mrs. Clement. The fascinating lieutenant did not appear anywhere on the horizon, for which reason Clint decided he would allow him one more chance for his life. For Clint had whispered darkly in his soul that he would kill that soldier some day.

May and Mrs. Clement entered the store. Clint lost no time in following. And he encountered the object of his search standing somewhat apart from Mrs. Clement, who was making purchases. Clint essayed a superior air, not without misgivings, and approached the young lady.

“Good morning, Mr. Belmet,” she said, distantly, when he reached her.

“Mornin’,” replied Clint, gruffly, more than ever unsure of himself. He had seen this young lady only a part of one day and one evening, during which she had certainly not exhibited the character that shone from her dark eyes now.

“Didn’t I see you before?” she asked.

“I’m not so sure. Anyways, not when I first saw you. Reckon you couldn’t have seen me with a spyglass.”

“Oh, you did look rather small.... Are you buying anything? Don’t let me detain you.”

“I run in here lookin’ for you,” rejoined Clint, doggedly.

“That makes twice you ran in here, doesn’t it? You’re rushed this morning.”

Clint glared at her, quite unable to meet her on common ground, though conscious that he was very much out of favor. This added to his resentment.

“Have some candy?” she asked, sweetly, offering the open box.

Clint repeated his assertion as to his reason for entering the store. And she replied, with a hint of the drawling Southern accent she had acquired, that she was there, and what did he intend to do about it.

“Did that pink-cheeked West Pointer buy you candy?” queried Clint.

“Yes. It was nice of him. I had another box left at my tent. By Mr. Murdock. It was most thoughtful,” she replied, in tone and look which completely mystified Clint. A red spot showed in each cheek.

“I won’t have you—” burst out Clint. The sudden flash of her eyes checked him.

“Clint, did you come in here to apologize — or bully me?” she asked, with spirit.

“Apologize! Me? What for?” exclaimed Clint.

“You were ungentlemanly, to say the least.”

“What’d I do?” demanded Clint.

“You met me face to face,” she retorted, hotly. “You glared at me as if — as if you’d caught me at something disgraceful. You never spoke. You never even looked at Lieutenant Clayborn. And when I called you — why you never even looked back.... You were rude to me and insulting to him.”

“Reckon I don’t agree. An’ I caught you flirtin’.”

“Flirting! How dare you?” she blazed.

She appeared lovely to Clint then, most marvelously desirable and unattainable, her face as pale as a pearl, her eyes black and passionate with fire. He saw what his cantankerous mood had led him into, and it rendered him both soul-sick and miserably wrathful.

“Well, wasn’t you?” he demanded.

“If you think so I wouldn’t deign to deny,” she returned, her chin up.

“Weren’t you lookin’ up sweet in his face, all one lovely smile, as if you were dyin’ to have him see you thought he—”

“I certainly was not,” she interrupted, when he floundered to an inglorious break.

“I saw you,” reiterated Clint.

“Clint Belmet, do you mean you honestly believe I was flirting with that soldier?” she asked, hurriedly, a blush staining her pale face.

“I reckon I do,” he rejoined, stubborn even in his fright.

“Very well, I shall tell you the facts,” she said, scornfully. “I met Lieutenant Clayborn here in the store. He was kind enough to buy me a box of candy. He put it in my hands. Could I drop it on the floor? I didn’t ask it and I didn’t want it from him. But I’ve lived with a fine family since you knew me. I’ve had training. And I hope I’m a lady. So I had to take the candy and thank him.... And if I was smiling up sweet at him — that was because he congratulated me on my engagement to you. He’d heard Mr. Maxwell announce it. And he said you had made a name for yourself on the frontier and were a fine chap.... There! That’s why I smiled so sweetly — you wild buffalo-hunter!”

“Aw, May!” cried Clint, in poignant shame and grief.

But it did not affect her. Turning her back, she started to leave him. Clint caught her, and in low voice begged her forgiveness.

“Why, certainly,” she replied, in an icy tone which implied she did not grant anything of the kind.

“Listen,” he began, hurriedly, plucking at her sleeve, which she withdrew. “Maxwell got me all excited — crazy for joy over somethin’ I — I can’t tell you now. Then I run into Uncle Jim an’ he had bad news. Besides, I’m afraid he’d been drinkin’.... So when I saw you I was upset an’ I — I thought—”

“You told me,” she interrupted. “You thought I was flirting. Well, Mr. Buff Belmet, no girl in this world was ever farther from being untrue than I.... But the next time you see me with him or — or Lee Murdock, you look out!”

“Oh my Lord!... May, don’t say that,” implored Clint.

“I shall flirt most outrageously with — with anyone.”

“It’ll kill me,” whispered Clint, doubling up as if he had again been pierced by the blade of jealousy.

“Pooh! I’d like to see just what you would do,” she retorted, doubtful eyes dark on him.

“Do! I’ll do somebody harm,” flashed Clint, anger again rising out of the chaos of his feelings.

“You would?” she queried, with the subtlety of woman in her gaze.

“Yes, I would. We’re on the frontier now. An’ you’re my girl.”

“I was,” she said, almost sadly.

“My God! May, you — you won’t go back on me?” She softened at his importunity, though her spirit still ran high.

“No, I wouldn’t jilt you,” she replied, slowly. “But you need a lesson.”

“I’ve had enough.”

“You need a real one. You called me a flirt — absolutely without the slightest reason.... And I’ve l — loved you so dearly. If you knew how the young men in Texas ran after me, you’d be ashamed.”

“I don’t want to know. I’m ashamed enough right now.”

“Ashamed! You just look big and flustered — and want your own way,” she replied, with disdain. “I’m disappointed in you. And hurt. It may be a good while until we — we can be married.... Every time any young man looks at me — are you going to act like you did, and then rave?”

“I reckon I am,” returned Clint, frankly.

“Oh, we’ll have a lovely engagement!” she laughed. “Lovely or not, it’ll be only one kind,” said Clint. “I suppose I can’t keep other fellows from lookin’ at you — you’re so turrible pretty.”

“Am I?” she cried, with the delight of a child. “You never said so before.”

“Give me a chance, will you? I’ve had only a few hours with you.... But you’re my girl an’ I’m sure not goin’ to have you makin’ eyes at any man.”

“Indeed?... Just what do you mean by making eyes?”

“Well, the way you was lookin’ up at that West Pointer.”

“Clint, can’t you distinguish between the natural function of a girl’s eyes — and deliberate coquetry?”

“Reckon I can’t, when they’re both natural.”

“Meaning I’m a coquette?” she asked, demurely.

“I don’t mean just that,” replied Clint, hastily. “Truth is, I hardly know what I do mean. You’re the first an’ only girl I ever had... an’ my friend Maxwell said, ‘You can never tell what a woman will do.’”

“Buff, you take that to heart,” replied May, and certain it was she seemed to be trying to suppress merriment.

“But what can I believe?” protested Clint, in despair.

“Believe what you like,” she returned, in proud finality, and left him.

Clint simply could not bring himself to answer further impulse, which was to follow her at any cost. If he did, it would only incur her added displeasure. He had already made her the target for gossip of freighters and soldiers, and perhaps even the Indians like Lone Wolf ridiculed him.

While his will was strong he went to his shack and threw himself in a corner on his blankets. He let himself go then, and it was a sorry hour. He might be nearly six feet tall and look like a man, but he knew where a girl and love were concerned he was the merest boy in experience.

When he had beaten himself into some semblance of humility and sense he faced the thing squarely. All in a day he had discovered himself. He loved this brighteyed girl with all his heart and soul. But she seemed quite a stranger. For that matter, he did not know any girls, and had not exchanged even ordinary conversation with one for years. And May was the only one he had ever really liked since childhood. She had not only changed. She had grown bewilderingly in charm, education, wit, and character. Very far above him she seemed. “You wild buffalo-hunter!” She had called him that, partly in fun and exasperation, perhaps, yet she had struck deeply. Never before had he been ashamed of the nickname Buff; never had he felt the overland freighter to be common, vulgar, on a par with the greasy trapper and the squawman hunter. He had imagined the overland freighter to be a big-hearted, strong, and enduring trail-maker for the pioneer. These Southern people May had lived and associated with came from the best blood of the South. She had been a bright little girl at ten years, and six years of school and association had made her a young lady of quality. He wondered if she would do for this crude raw West. But his loyalty gave him assurance she would. Not, however, for the like of him! It crucified him to confess that bitter fact.

And yet he knew she cared for him, or for the boy she had met by the brook that day long ago and to whom she had affianced herself on a prairie schooner crossing the Great Plains. Perhaps the romance of it had lingered with her, grown with her as she changed and developed, had reached its fruition in the wonder and joy of meeting him again, only to collapse when he failed to measure up to her girlish ideal. She had expected too much of a boy, whose parents were dead, who had no schooling, no home except the camp fire.

Clint thought it all out. He had been a jealous boor. She was a lovely, adorable little lady, whom he had treated shabbily. She had given him her kisses — the memory of which made him rock to and fro, weak and blind, with tumultuous heart — and for that he should have gone down on his knees in gratitude and worship. Instead, he had doubted her, insulted her. Well for her, indeed, that his true colors had come out under stress. Alas for him that he was no fit mate for her!

In his simplicity Clint could see only that she had built a dream around him, which upon reality had burst like a bubble. He took solemn though immature cognizance of her love, and believed it no slight thing. But he was not worthy of it and would only fail to keep it. His pride, a trait he had not known he possessed, had bled to death.

There came a shuffling of heavy boots outside his door, then a knock. He got up to open it. Couch stood there, gloomy and haggard, fire in his eye, but sober. “Buff, I been huntin’ everywhere for you,” he said. “Uncle Jim, I — I felt bad, an’ thought I’d lay down a bit.”

“Hope you ain’t sick?”

“Yes, I was.... Had a row with my girl.”

“Wal, it ain’t surprisin’. I seen her awhile ago with that lootenant, an’ just now with Murdock. She’s a dainty lass, an’ you can’t blame the fellars. Buff, that girl will raise the very hell on the frontier.”

“Ahuh! She’s raised a little for me already,” replied Clint, grimly.

“Wal, don’t take it too serious. She’s young an’ she’s excited. I’d bet on her bein’ good, Buff.”

“Thanks, uncle,” said Clint, huskily.

“While I’m thinkin’ about it I want to tell you this fellar Murdock sticks in my craw somehow. I’ve run across him somewheres, or heard about him. An’ it ain’t to his credit. But I swear I can’t place him. I’ve been worried an’ thick. It’ll come to me, though.”

“It’s nothin’ to me. Hope that isn’t what you hunted me up for?”

“Lord! I wish it was. Buff, I just didn’t dare lose out on the Aull contract. I’ve signed. The men are packin’ like mad. We leave tomorrow before sunup.”

“Without a troop escort?”

“Hell, yes! There ain’t a soldier to be had.”

“How many wagons?”

“Hundred an’ eight, so far. Mebbe there’ll be more.

But at best only a small caravan. Kit Carson is here. He swore an’ said, ‘Don’t go!’ An’ I told him I had to. An’ then he said, ‘Wal, you’re not goin’ to take that boy Buff.’”

“‘Pears Carson an’ Maxwell are a lot concerned about me, uncle.”

“Wal, they cottoned to you, Buff. You’re a likable lad. Maxwell never had no children. Carson has a half-breed son.”

“They’re both wonderful men. I look up to them. But I’m afraid it’s only a dream — my wantin’ to be like them.”

“Buff, you’d make a great plainsman. An’ that reminds me what I was huntin’ you for. Reckon I was cross an’ short with you today. I’m sorry. I’ve come now to say you can stay here with Maxwell an’ give up the overland freightin’. Maxwell will give you a job. I’ll turn over your money to him. You can marry the little girl. She’s a high-steppin’ filly an’ thoroughbred, but maybe you can manage her. You’d have to get over your softness, though, an’ be pretty much of a man. Wal, you can do it.... God knows, Clint, I’ll miss you, aside from needin’ you powerful bad. I never had no son of my own. An’ you’d grown like one.... An’ I’m too fond of you to stand in the way of your happiness.... An’ that’s all, Buff.”

“Uncle Jim, I’ll go — with you,” replied Clint, his voice breaking, and he turned away.

“What!” ejaculated Couch.

“I’ll be there, ready to drive out, at daybreak.”

“Buff, you’re not goin’ back on the old man?”

“I should say not.”

“But the little girl, Buff. Are you playin’ fair with her?”

“Uncle, May is too high-class for me — an’ highsteppin’, as you said,” rejoined Clint.

“See here now, you Buff—”

Clint interrupted him hotly and for the first time in their years of intimacy swore roundly at him. Couch expelled a hard breath, as if he had been struck, then beat a hasty retreat.

The die seemed cast for Clint and there could be no backsliding. His heart beat like a muffled drum, as if compressed by pangs within. A lofty exaltation vied with a grim resignation. Black despair haunted the fringe of his mind. But that was only his softness. He would show Uncle Jim. And again mocking words returned, “You wild buffalo-hunter!”

Hurriedly packing his belongings, he carried them round back of the ranch house, and by a cut across the pasture he reached Couch’s camp, where he deposited them. The men were packing like beavers, too busy and excited to take note of him. Indians watched the proceedings with interest and speculation. The camp fires were burning. Clint was amazed to see sunset at hand.

No time like the present! He would call at the Clements’ camp to say good-by. And as he hurried through the cottonwoods he decided he would send word to Maxwell, thanking him for his hospitality and bidding him farewell. What would that kindly rancher think of him? And the great Kit Carson! He dared not risk seeing them. Perhaps in years to come, if he escaped the fate of most plainsmen, he would tell them how and why he had failed to live up to their hopes.

Dagget’s camp was on the other side of the narrow valley, at the upper end, and nearer Maxwell’s ranch house. Camps were scattered picturesquely under the cottonwoods. Wagons were standing everywhere. A freighter directed Clint to Clement’s camp. He had seen it only by moonlight, but presently he remembered the site, more by its isolation than anything else.

The sun was setting gold in the pass between the ranges, and to the east the gray obscurity hung like a pall over the void where the overland trail wound down into the Great Plains.

Sight of the high freight wagon under the huge cottonwood, where May and he had spent such ecstatic hours — was it only last night? — thrilled and cut Clint alternately.

He saw and smelled wood smoke. The several tents and wagons were grouped among willows and young cottonwoods. Clint strode round a thicket to encounter Clement and his wife at the camp fire. Clint had interrupted a colloquy, to judge by their sudden start, but he was quick to observe that he was more than welcome.

“Where’ve you been all day?” asked Clement, offering his hand and giving Clint a close scrutiny.

“Lad, it’s about time you got here,” declared Mrs. Clement, nodding her head significantly.

“I’ve had a — a bad day,” replied Clint, coming to the point at once, hard though it was. “Uncle Jim Couch is packin’ to leave at daybreak.... An’ I’m goin’ with him.”

“Oh no!” cried Mrs. Clement, and then she too searched his face, which, as always, betrayed him.

“I saw Maxwell today. He had a good deal to say aboot you,” said Clement, quietly. “Shore he had no idea you were leavin’ us heah.... Somethin’ has happened.”

“Yes, it has. I’m sorry,” replied Clint, helplessly responding to their concern and regret, and he smiled as if that might help them to divine his trouble.

“It’s May. The little vixen!” declared Mrs. Clement, turning to her husband. “Hall, I told you something was amiss. Gallivanting around all day with Tom, Dick, and Harry — when only last night her engagement was announced!”

“Please don’t blame her, Mrs. Clement,” begged Clint, hastily. “I — I offended her — insulted her — fell far short of her — her expectations.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs. Clement.

“Where is May?” queried Clint, nervously.”’I just want to tell her I’m sorry an’ say — good-by.”

“Son, I’d wait a little while,” returned Clement, easy and cool, after the manner of Texans. “Sit down and let’s talk.”

“No, I’ve got to get it over.”

“Clint, she has been parading up and down here with Murdock for an hour or more,” said Clement. “And I had a hunch she was expecting you. But you came down this way. It’s just aboot a bad time for you to run into her, for any reason. She has been on the rampage today. I never knew her to be this way. I don’t like Lee Murdock. And I told her, as her engagement to you was known, she should not spend any more time with Murdock. She nearly took my head off. Whew!”

“Reckon that makes it easier,” replied Clint. “I’m thankin’ you both for your good feelin’ toward me.... Good-by. I won’t be seein’ you again.”

He left them standing dismayed and aghast, and hurried away toward a gleam of white and gold that shone through a break in the willows. When he cleared the edge of thicket he saw that the white was May’s dress, and the gold the last glow of the setting sun.

She sat on the wagon tongue of the big freighter, and beside her stood Murdock, leaning attentively over her. Clint instantly divined that May had seen him all the time. The very lines of her graceful form seemed instinct with combat. The spot was well screened from the other camps by a circle of trees and thickets.

Some emotion deep and hot mocked the black, sickening despair with which Clint strode toward May. What a hideous falsehood somewhere! Was it in him? How unreal the picture of her sitting there! She had done precisely what she had threatened. Perhaps she had rather liked being driven to teach him a lesson.

Clint halted before her, bareheaded, without confusion or embarrassment. Before he spoke she read that in his bearing and face which she had not expected. It afforded Clint a melancholy gratification.

He looked straight down into her dark eyes, that mirrored the gold glamour of the glade, that changed, widened, dilated under his.

“Beg pardon, Miss Bell,” he began, as cool and drawling as any Texan she had ever met. “I’ve no wish to interrupt your flirtin’, but I’m leavin’ on the overland trail at dawn, an’ want to say good-by.”

She arose, suddenly, her face white as her dress.

“OH, CLINT!... NO! NO!”

How the divining love and repentance of her appeal might have softened Clint never transpired, for Murdock gave him a stinging slap in the face.

Clint did not flinch. That second blow from this source was welcome.

“You shore are a wild buffalo-hunter, callin’ a lady a flirt,” Murdock boomed, with sudden robust voice that indicated his pleasure in this opportunity. He expressed as much satisfaction as disgust. Nevertheless, Texan though he was, he underrated Clint.

“Murdock, do you happen to have a gun on you?” queried Clint, fiercely.

“No,” replied Murdock, sharply surprised, and as May screamed he drew himself up.

Swiftly Clint swung a sledge-hammer fist. The sodden blow was accompanied by the rattling of Murdock’s teeth. He did not fall. He was propelled down as if by a mace, and he must have been senseless before he thudded to the ground. He never moved. The freighter who had claimed Clint did not know his own strength could hardly vouchsafe so much now.

Clint held the big tight fist before May’s distended eyes.

“Maxwell gave me a hunch you thought I was a softy. An’ I reckon your friend here thought so too.”

She made mute denial. She stood shaking, deathly white, shocked at the effect of her willful guilt, too frightened at the astounding suddenness of catastrophe to speak what was clear — her grief, her love, her panic. It was clear even to Clint, with the first rage of manhood upon him.

“Did — you — kill — him?” she faltered, faintly, her quivering hand indicating the fallen man, though her wide eyes seemed transfixed on Clint.

He had no answer for her. To bid good-by to this dainty white creature seemed insupportable. Her white arms and neck were bare. Their loveliness shocked and tortured him. Never had he seen a gown like that. And she had worn it for Murdock! “You can never tell what a woman will do!”

“You can never tell what a woman will do!” How the words seared Clint! He hated Maxwell then, because of what he now believed a bitter mocking truth. Yet to look at May Bell then was to court doubt of his own soul.

Suddenly he snatched her in his arms, unmindful of her little cry, ignorant of his brutal strength, infinitely removed from the intention Maxwell had inspired in him. May Bell was not for him, but he would possess her for one wild, terrible, fleeting moment. Was he mad to imagine he felt a quivering response when he kissed her? Ruthlessly he pressed his lips to her mouth, to cheek, to eyes, and then to mouth again, aware of the torturing sweetness that he tried in vain to take and keep, conscious that this was farewell to beauty, to love, to woman, to the dream of wild hopeful youth.

His madness was as brief as violent. Spent and shaking, he released her, saw her sink to her knees, great wide eyes fixed on his. She swayed back with an inarticulate cry and stretched her white length on the grass.

Clint rushed away through the willows, under the cottonwoods, across the valley, beyond the wagon-train to solitude and night.

In the melancholy dawn, Clint Belmet, armed like all the grim freighters, drove down the winding overland trail toward the Great Plains.

CHAPTER 14

IT WAS JUNE on the prairie, high on the Colorado slope, with the purple bulk of mountains dimming behind, and the vast open to the fore. Spring flowers bloomed in the waving grass. The caravan was safely out of the passes and gullies, on the down grade. Even the horses seemed to know. And the lethargic oxen at least made better time.

Couch’s caravan encountered many soldiers moving in that part of the country. The war was responsible for this unprecedented condition. The governor of Colorado sent a whole regiment to New Mexico to fight against the Confederacy. At Ford Larned the caravan pulled out quickly, owing to congestion there and lack of feed for the stock. Several days out, two companies of soldiers from Nebraska, bound for Fort Union, camped with the caravan. They were unfamiliar with the country, but had several scouts, one of them a famous character on the plains, known only by the cognomen “Old Bill.” He was a story-teller, under favorable circumstances, which meant leisure from scouting duty and the acquisition of a drink or two.

Clint Belmet seldom absented himself from the camp-fire circles these evenings. He was grave and silent, but he listened to the stories and songs, to the talk of soldiers and freighters. The long, lonely ten-hour drive each day always left him in need of the sound of human voices and laughter.

“Wal, onct way back in ‘fifty-four — or was it ‘fifty-two? — I was killin’ meat for an outfit an’ I had a pardner named Frenshy,” began Old Bill, when they had gotten him primed. “It was on the Cimmaron, an’ game was plumb scarce. We rode near all day without seein’ any buffs. An’ long about midafternoon we headed back for camp, an’ Frenshy fell into his old habit of wastin’ ammunition. He sure liked to shoot. An’ he was pretty good, too, but I always beat him. In them days I could hit a runnin’ jack rabbit. Wal, we got to jokin’ an’ then bettin’, an’ used up till our ammunition but three loads. We was close to camp then. An’ darned if an old bull buffalo didn’t raise up out of a holler. We shot them three loads quicker’n you could say Jack Robinson.

“‘By gosh! you missed him,’ said Frenshy, an’ I swore I didn’t. Anyway, the bull stood there, an’ when we rode up close we seen he was bleedin’ bad. But the son-of-a-gun wouldn’t drop. Frenshy got off his hoss an’ pulled his knife.

“i’ll hamstring the critter,’ says Frenshy.

“Wal, the bull laid down accommodatin’ like, an’ then Frenshy stooped over to cut its throat. But when he just pricked him thar was hell to pay. Thet old bull got up surprisin’ quick. Now I’m tellin’ you a bull buffalo as big as a hill can move like a streak when he wants to. This one sure wanted to an’ he made fer Frenshy. An’ in three jumps he was almost on top of Frenshy.

“‘Shoot! Shoot!’ bawls Frenshy, an’ I yells back I couldn’t shoot ‘cause my gun was empty. Frenshy dodged, an’ to save hisself he grabbed the bull’s tail an’ held on fer dear life, yellin’ like hell.

“‘Kill him!’ roars Frenshy, mad an’ scared. But I couldn’t do nothin’ but laff. The bull got goin’ round an’ round, faster an’ faster, till Frenshy was ‘most flyin’ through the air. Presently he slung Frenshy about forty foot. Lucky then fer my pard, the old bull had shot his bolt. He slowed up an’ keeled over. Frenshy went over powerful cautious an’ finally cut the bull’s throat. Then wavin’ the bloody knife at me yelled: ‘You —

— ! You’d laugh over my daid body.’

“‘Frenshy, I couldn’t do nothin’. You was so scairt an’ funny.’

“‘Scairt?’ he yells. ‘Say, I was scairt only of his tail pullin’ out.’”

When the laugh had subsided one of the freighters gave Old Bill another nip from a bottle, and started the narrator off on another tangent.

“Wal, in ‘fifty-eight I was in a queer deal. A band of Comanches went on a raid. You all know Cow Creek. Wal, along the rich bottomland of thet creek some settlers had taken up farms. Sure is strange what chances these fool settlers take. The Comanches murdered every last one of them settlers, wimmen an’ kids, too — I don’t remember how many, though I did see their scalps. One was from a kid girl’s head — long purty gold hair, a pity to see.... Wal, somebody reported thet job to Captain Howard at Fort Zarah. An’ he ordered Lieutenant Stevens an’ sixty troopers to take up the trail of the Comanches. I was ordered along, fer I knowed every foot of thet country. Wal, I figgered I could make a short cut on them redskins. An’ I hit their trail about twenty miles on, crossed the big bend of the Arkansas, followed up Cove Creek about twenty miles, an’ finally from a ridge top we seen thirty lodges. Stevens sent me alone to find a way to slip up on thet camp. Thar was heavy timber between, an’ I had to crawl on my hands an’ knees. I went back an’ reported I could lead the soldiers right up near the Comanches’ lodges. Wal, we tied our hosses, leavin’ ten men to guard them, an’ slipped easy an’ quiet up to thet camp. It was then I seen a string of scalps hangin’ on a lodge, an’ one of them was thet with the long shiny gold hair. So we knowed fer sure these Comanches had murdered the settlers.

“As the Injuns was all in their lodges we crawled closer tin’ whooped. Then as fast as a Comanche come runnin’ out we plugged him. They all had guns an’ shot a lot of times, but hurt only two of us, an’ thet not bad. We killed twenty-two before they surrendered. An’ we got fourteen prisoners, whose hands we tied. Lieutenant let them say good-by to their families, then he ordered us to drag them out of camp, line them up, an’ when he gave the word we all fired. Thet was the last of them Comanche braves. It seemed tough to us, but we had to think of them poor settlers. Thet was the only law. We got back all the settlers’ stock — eighty-nine hosses, over three hundred head of cattle.”

“Wholesale murder on both sides,” commented Couch, shaking his head doubtfully.

“Bill, reckon you never did no good in all your years on the frontier,” added another of the pessimistic freighters.

Old Bill was highly indignant and more than one nip from the black bottle was necessary to start him off again, and this time he was manifestly inspired to a Homeric recital.

“In ‘fifty-four I trapped some on the Medicine Bow, up north. Thar was eight of us, an’ I reckon we was ‘most as good as a regiment of soldiers. Wal, thet winter we got a big trap of otter, beaver, an’ mink hides, an’ we knowed they was wuth a lot of money. So we lit out fer the south an’ the Arkansas River, packin’ our pelts on our hosses an’ footin’ it ourselves. By July we had hoofed it over seven hundred miles. An’, fellars, I ain’t lyin’ when I say we seen ten million buffalo thet trip. We seen herds fifty miles long, an’ I don’t know how wide. We calkilated by the time it took them to pass us. Wal, by an’ bye we come into the land of the Pawnees, who to my mind was in them days the meanest redskins on the plains. One day early we camped at Point of Rocks. We had early supper an’ was sittin’ round smokin’ when we heard a shot. You bet we grabbed our guns an’ skedaddled out pronto.

“We soon seen a small caravan tryin’ to corral their wagons with about sixty howlin’ Pawnees circlin’ round. They kept shootin’ arrows into the oxen to stampede them so they could get at the men easier. We run up fast an’ got eight of them Pawnees fust crack. Then we ducked in behind the wagons to load up again. Had only muzzle-loadin’ guns them days, but most of us had two revolvers, an’ in about ten minnits or so we had twenty-nine savages down. The rest gave up an’ rode away.

“Wal, it was a caravan of Mexicans haulin’ supplies to Mora, the ranch of Kurnel St. Vrain. We’d saved them from bein’ massacred. We went among them fallen Pawnees an’ scalped them, findin’ three still alive. We knocked two on the head, an’ then we seen the Pawnees racin’ back. I yelled to run fer the wagons. But I picked up thet third live Injun an’ packed him back to the wagon. I never knowed jest why I did thet. Funny! Wal, the Pawnees fooled around us some, seen we’d taken all the scalps, an’ they rode away for good.

“The Injun I had picked up was a fine-lookin’ young buck, about eighteen years old. He held out his hand with palm up, which means friend.

“‘Hey, Reddy,’ I says, ‘so you’re a friend. Wal, you have a hell of a nice way showin’ it.’

“He motioned me to come close. An’ I did, as he had no weapon. He said: ‘Me want go home — mother, father,’ an’ he spoke tolerable good English. Then he fainted. He was shot clear through the neck, but the bullet hadn’t hit an artery. My men come up watchin’ me, an’ Hawkins said: ‘You ain’t in no hurry to knock thet reddy on the head.’ An’ I said I wasn’t an’ I’d like to have him as my private property. They all laughed, an’ agreed. I washed his wound, had a Mexican get me some balsam weed, an’ I put a bandage on. Next mornin’ my patient was better, an’ I loaded him on one of the wagons goin’ to Fort Bent. We got there in seven days. My patient was doin’ pretty good. He was thankful fer what I did fer him. He didn’t have thet starin’, sneakin’ look common to mean redskins. I was curious about him, an’ when we got to the fort I asked him some questions.

“‘What’s your name?’

“‘Jim Whitefish,’ he said.

“‘Whar you live?’

“‘Big Walnut.’

“‘Are you a Pawnee?’

“He shook his head, but didn’t tell me what tribe he belonged to. Then I asked him if he had been on the warpath with them Pawnees. He told me he had been to see his gurl near an’ run into them Pawnees. They made him come along. They kicked him an’ beat him. He had no gun. He wouldn’t fight the Mexicans. An’ they called him squaw. — Wal, I believed the lad, an’ I paid a doctor at the fort to look after him. When I said good-by an’ good luck he grabbed my hand.

“‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

“I said, ‘Old Bill.’ He pressed my hand against his breast an’ told me he’d know Old Bill. Wal, we sold our pelts an’ went back fer more. Along about thet time I did a lot of trappin’. Four years after thet, in the spring of ‘fifty-nine, I was with three other trappers workin’ down out of the mountains to Raton Pass. We camped at Timpas Creek; had four mules, loaded heavy. Thet night we was attacked by a bunch of redskins. We had to run fer it. I was shot in the leg, but managed to go on till I got another arrow in the back of my neck. Thet tumbled me, an’ when I come to I was in a dark place hard to see. I was as weak as a cat. Couldn’t life my hand. Somebody shoved back a blanket an’ thet let light in. I seen two Injuns, one a squaw. They held up their hands palms out, an’ then I knowed I was with friends. The squaw gave me a drink of somethin’ orful. I dropped off again. When I woke up I felt better. An’ I recognized the man as the young Injun I’d saved.

“‘You know me? Jim Whitefish.’

“I let him see I did. His mother came with somethin’ to eat an’ drink. They took care of me fer five weeks. I picked up orful slow. Thet old squaw sure saved my life. Jim told me he was camped on Little Coon Creek, about twenty miles from Fort Larned.

“‘Jim,’ I says, ‘go to the fort an’ tell them to come after me.’

“‘No,’ he says, serious like. ‘My people no trust me. You wait. When you strong I take you.’

“Wal, I was three weeks longer in thet teepee before I could walk. An’ I had Jim’s word fer it thet not another Injun beside his mother knew I was there. One night he led me out, an’ next day we got to Fort Larned. Jim most carried me the last few miles. He said: ‘Me remember — Old Bill’.... I never saw him again.”

“Bill, I’m wonderin’ if you’re not the biggest liar on these hyar plains,” said a freighter.

“Boys, thet’s the honest God’s truth,” protested Old Bill. “An’ believe me or not, I haven’t shot straight at an Injun since.’

At the Cimmaron Crossing one of Couch’s scouts espied mules back in a canyon, and suspected an ambush by savages who had stolen the stock. A reconnoiter proved that the mules were in charge of twenty-one troopers, who had pitched camp for the night. Naturally, Couch’s men took them for Union soldiers. But when investigation proceeded as far as a visit, these troopers turned out to be rebels.

Couch argued with some of his men, who favored merely surrounding the rebels and killing them.

“No, that’d be too much redskin to suit me,” concluded the train boss. “Everyone of you pack a gun hid in your pocket, an’ we’ll drift over there an’ hold them up.”

His men visited the other camp in groups, and at an opportune moment, with most of the rebels round the camp fire, Couch gave the order, and the surprised rebels were soon prisoners.

“You got us where the fur is short,” fumed the rebel leader.

Couch’s plan was to drive the rebel caravan along with his own, not by any means a task to facilitate his journey toward Westport. As luck would have it a troop of Union soldiers came along, to whom the rebels were turned over.

Some days later, while in camp on Ash Creek, at three o’clock in the morning, Clint awakened and missed Jack. Such a rare occurrence was always prolific of alarm. Clint hurried out in his bare feet to tell Couch, who was on guard with ten men. They awoke all the men and prepared to repel attack. But nothing happened. At dawn, when Jack had not returned, Clint wanted to search for him, but the boss forbade. At breakfast-time Jack came wagging his tail, leading a strange man into camp, evidently a teamster. He carried a gun.

Couch fastened keen, suspicious eyes on the stranger. A man on foot in that country was either a desperado or an unfortunate traveler.

“Howdy, stranger! Have a bite with us,” was Couch’s gruff greeting. “An’ who may you happen to be?”

“My name’s Asher,” he said, wiping a clammy forehead. “Teamster on the way to Baruth. I was in a camp about eight miles above you. Fifty-one in the caravan.... This mornin’ I got up in the moonlight an’ went huntin’ jack rabbits. When I worked back to camp I heard shootin’ an’ yellin’. I sneaked close so I could see across the creek.... Soon the shootin’ stopped, but the yellin’ kept up. The wagons began to burn, makin’ a bright light. Then I seen a big bunch of Indians. They set fire to all the wagons. I lay low in the brush, knowin’ for sure all my outfit was dead an’ scalped right then.... They rode off, an’ I set down the creek. I met this dog. He was sure trailin’ them Indians. He fetched me here.”

It was the same old story of the plains. But its variations were endless as was its power to blanch the cheek of the stoutest-hearted freighter.

“How many men did you say?” queried Couch, the first to break that stunned silence.

“Fifty-one, all told.... If it hadn’t been for me bein’ wakeful an’ goin’ huntin’ there wouldn’t have been anybody to tell the tale.”

“Any women an’ kids?”

“No, thank God for that.”

“Same here. Wal, Asher, reckon you don’t feel none like eatin’, but since you have to go on — same as all of us — set down an’ pitch in.”

Next day Couch’s caravan drove on to Pawnee Rock, one of Clint’s favorite camps along the great trail.

The Arkansas River made a big bend there, which held a million and more acres as level as a floor, where buffalo were always seen grazing. It was a favorite hunting-ground for all the tribes of the plains, and a good deal of the fighting among them took place at this point.

A tribe of Cheyennes came into view of the caravan. They were moving their village, a procedure Clint had observed before and which was very interesting.

When an Indian encampment moved the squaws did all the work. They dismantled the teepees, packed them on the ponies, and tied the poles on either side. When they were ready to move, they turned the bell mare loose.

This bell mare, an adjunct of every traveling band of Indians, was not only the meanest animal among the mustangs, but also chosen, and in fact trained, to run into a caravan, stampede the stock, and lead them away down the rivers or over the ridges, where the Indians waited for them.

When the horses of an Indian tribe had pretty well cropped off the grass round a village the Indians broke camp and moved to a better location. They were therefore nomadic in habit and followed the buffalo.

This day Couch’s men noticed that the bell mare had evidently been steered away from the caravan. The ponies followed with teepee poles tied to their sides, and baskets in which were Indian children, sometimes two or three to a basket. This collection of Cheyennes had numerous dogs, some of which were packing small articles, after the manner of the ponies. Clint thought these dogs had a strain of gray wolf in them.

The Cheyennes came on to a point opposite Couch’s camp, where they halted in plain sight. The bell mare, true to her training, splashed across the shallow creek, but when Couch ordered his men in a half circle with rifles ready, some of the Cheyennes rode out and headed her back. Then the braves dismounted and sat down, cross-legged to smoke, while the squaws put up the teepees, laid down robes and blankets, gathered wood and started a fire, cooked the meat, and called their lords to eat it. And this all happened in plain sight, not a stone’ throw from where Clint sat and watched them.

But Couch’s caravan was not molested, and traveled on to the Little Arkansas, and unfortunately had to halt for the night at a place notorious for ambushes. Pawnees, Cheyennes, Comanches, Arapahoes, and Apaches had attacked many caravans there; and one or the other of these tribes never let a small caravan get by without a fight.

Couch took unusual precautions here, driving a very close corral, placing the six-pound cannon in the most favorable position, and thirty men on guard, stationed all around the circle.

Clint, with his dog Jack, stood the watch with Couch, which was always the worst one — that hour before dawn just at the faintest sign of light in the east. They had a station close to the cannon. Here Clint and Couch, with another guard, walked up and down their beat, with the dog at their heels. The night was cloudy, and warm, threatening rain.

Presently Jack began to whine and lift his nose to sniff the air — a pretty good sign there were Indians somewhere near.

“Wal, we been gettin’ off lucky this trip,” growled Couch. “Reckon we’re in for hell now.”

He tied the dog to a wagon wheel, but Jack grew so restless and suspicious that the boss went around, waking all the men. By the time he got back to the cannon, which faced the opening left between the wagons, Jack began to growl fiercely.

“Look sharp everybody,” yelled Couch, lighting the fuse.

“HYAR THEY COME!” bawled a scout from a wagon seat.

Suddenly pandemonium broke loose. Couch had at last been surprised. His men were awake, but not all in line, and when a horrid medley of Indian screeches rent the air, only one third of the caravan opened fire.

Clint dove under a wagon, gun thrust forward, his hair stiff, and his skin tight and cold, while the blood gushed back to his heart. The mêlée of yells and shots was deafening. Red flashes lit up the dark night, through which swift wild forms sped by. Clint felt wind — a splitting shock — then blankness!

When he opened his eyes he lay on a bed in a strange room. He could see out of a window. Thin snow whitened a roof. Winter! He must be dreaming. His head felt queer, his body like lead. Nothing in sight was familiar. But he reasoned that none of the forts on the plains had a house with a room like this one. He lifted a hand to rap on the wall.

Presently he heard footfalls. A door opened to let in a woman who gave him a look from quick sharp eyes.

“Where am — I?” he asked, and his voice sounded far away.

“Kansas City,” she replied, cheerfully, as she bent over him, felt his head, and gazed into his eyes. “Who might you be?”

“I’m Clint Belmet.... All that’s left of me.”

“Good boy! You’ve come to your senses,” she exclaimed happily. “I never believed it. But the doctor stuck to it — your mind would clear.”

“Clear?” echoed Clint, dazedly.

“You’ve been out of your mind for months,” replied the woman, hovering over him. “They fetched you to the hospital in August. And Mr. Couch had you fetched here to my house in late September. It’s past Christmas now.”

“‘Christmas?... Where am I? Westport?”

“Westport it was. Kansas City now. We’re growin’.”

“Where’s Uncle Jim?”

“You mean Mr. Couch? He left in six days after arrivin’. Led a big caravan out, they said. Over two hundred wagons.”

“What — ails me?” went on Clint, fainter.

“Feel that, young man.” She took his hand and ran his fingers under his hair, above his temple, where he felt a long deep groove, healed yet still sensitive to touch.

“Bullet hole.”

“No. It was an arrow, an’ all but scalped you. The bullet hole was in your shoulder an’ pretty bad. But it’s healed too. You’re on the road to recovery.”

“Where’s — my dog — Jack?”

“Mr. Couch told me about him,” she replied. “He must have been a wonderful dog. When they found you, as I recall it, an Indian was draggin’ you out from under a wagon. An’ your dog was fightin’ him. Stabbed him with a knife, which no doubt he had intended to use on your scalp. They killed the Indian. Mr. Couch said the dog sure saved your scalp.”

“My dog — Jack,” murmured Clint, dreamily. He did not feel anything but a dreary recognition of facts.

In February Clint was able to get out of bed and move around the room, and put a stick of wood in the stove now and then. The weather was cold. Mrs. Mellon had placed a comfortable armchair in front of the stove, where Clint passed hours. He would read and sleep. He took his meals in that chair, with a board across his lap. His thin hands had long fascinated him, and like a baby he had a habit of holding them up to look at. Day by day they seemed to fill out, to grow less transparent. Uncle Jim had once said Clint’s hand was like a ham.

It was in March that Clint began to show marked improvement. The doctor claimed he had at last beaten the blood-poisoning from the bullet wound in his shoulder. Clint’s appetite improved slowly, and then by leaps and bounds.

April brought sunny days, green grass, budding leaves, and lilac blossoms on the hedge outside his open window. The birds sang. Spring! But Clint Belmet’s blood did not leap with joy. He was no longer a boy and all of life worth living lay in the past.

When he grew able to go outdoors his favorite place was the dock, where he would sit for hours watching the muddy swirling river, the stern-wheelers go sloshing by, belching smoke, or the stevedores at work loading or unloading. Then he would walk along the river bank under the trees, and as he became stronger, out beyond the edge of town, where he would find a lonely place, and rest and watch.

His mind was not active. Something had stultified it. Yet he felt sensitiveness about being the hero of the small boys in Westport. He avoided them when possible. They all knew his story. Buff Belmet! If Clint had killed as many Indians and had as many narrow escapes as these lads credited to his fame he would have been a hundred times Kit Carson.

Summer began to slip by. And Clint took to fishing again, though without the old keen zest. Still it was pleasant to sit on the bank, with his back against a tree, and watch his fishing-line for the bite that never came. Not that it mattered!

Along the end of May the first caravan had started west. In June there were several, all large in number, for the Indians had grown fiercer and more persistent in attack, and the war permitted of no escorts. It was hard for Clint to escape from the influence of the terrific struggle between the North and South. Westport seethed with war talk. Soldiers were always moving. It seemed to Clint there were more people in Westport whose sympathies were with the South than with the North. Sometimes he listened covertly to the guarded talk of negro laborers.

In July more caravans headed out across the plains. Clint never failed to be on hand at the starting hour, and never did he see the oxen wag and heave, the great wagons start to roll, without a yearning to go. Something called him out there to the West. The feeling grew on him. He saw the long winding wagon-train stretching out for miles across the prairie, the vast open on all sides, the waving grass, like a blossoming sea, the birds, the rabbits, the antelope, the deer, the huge horizon-wide herds of buffalo, the long, long gray stretches, monotonous, lonely, and grand. In his mind’s eye he was eternally watching the barren levels, the ridges of high ground, for the sudden rise, as if by magic, of the wild, plumed, naked riders of the prairie. He thought of the graves of his loved ones out there, and the grave of his hopes.

For days the first caravan from the west had been expected by Aull & Company. Stage-coaches from Council Grove and soldiers on the move east from the forts brought rumors of caravans that never arrived. They were going to start, but perhaps they had not done so on time — or perhaps they had been halted.

This spring of 1863 was the most anxious the freighting business had ever experienced. If Aull & Company lost out on their expected caravans of pelts they would crash, and smaller companies were no less in a precarious condition. All business that had no direct connection with the war was bad.

On the morning of July 16th an advance rider galloped into Kansas City and reported to Aull & Company that Nelson’s caravan would reach the river some time during the day — one hundred and sixty-nine heavily laden wagons intact, freighters and stock in good shape, and a number of emigrant families that had been rescued at Point of Rocks.

The rejoicing was not confined to Aull & Company. There were a general relief, and a renewal of hope for those who had interest in other caravans.

Clint Belmet had been sure Couch would beat any other caravan in. Nelson must have had a fine early spring, of which he had taken exceptional advantage, and then he had undoubtedly been fortunate on the drive.

No doubt the first person in Kansas City to espy Nelson’s caravan coming was hawk-eyed Clint Belmet. Sight of it seemed to thrill out the strange deadness that had for months held Clint’s emotions. He shook like a leaf. The past seemed to unfold before his eyes — that first drive out from Independence — the brook — little May Bell — the prairie-schooner seat she shared with him — the Indians — the death of mother and father, and all the poignant pictures of the past.

Clint was on hand, foremost in the crowd that welcomed Nelson’s caravan. The train of wagons filled all of the open square next to the storehouse of Aull & Company. Clint mingled with the merry, sweating freighters, and exchanged words with one here and there. He spoke a language they understood. Nelson’s outfit had been attacked twice. No loss! At Point of Rocks fifty mounted freighters had drive off a band of Pawnees who were harassing the remnant of an emigrant train. Pawnees, Comanches, Apaches had come out of winter quarters on the warpath, fiercer, stronger than ever. And a new menace had arisen on the Western plains. Desperadoes, deserters from the armies, bandits and Mexican robbers, were now as much to be guarded against as the Indians. A small caravan might slip across, but the chance was only one in a hundred. If both these foes to travel worked east as far as Council Grove the stage-coach lines would be compelled to cease their runs.

That night in Aull & Company’s store Clint, who was known there, met the blond giant Nelson, boss of this first caravan.

“Howdy! So you’re Buff Belmet? Heard of you, an’ shore glad to shake your hand.”

“Do you know my uncle Jim Couch?” asked Clint, eagerly.

“I shore do. Now I place you, Buff. It was Jim who told me about your gettin’ shot in thet bad brush Couch had with Comanches.... Wal, so you pulled out?”

“Yes, I’m about well again.”

“I’m tarnation glad. Let’s see. It was near a year ago. Time shore flies. Wal, I reckon you’ll be sittin’ tight pretty soon, lookin’ out over the gray, huh?”

“I don’t know, Nelson. Maybe. It depends on Uncle Jim. Can you give me any word of him?”

“Shore. Seen him at Fort Larned last October. He was drivin’ to Santa Fé an’ Vegas. Expected to winter there.”

“Oughtn’t he be pullin’ into Kansas City soon?”

“He ought an’ he shore will be. Don’t you worry, Buff, about thet old hombre. He takes risks, but he gets there. He’s head of the hardest outfit of Injun-fighters on the Old Trail. I shore wish I had them. Fact is, if he comes in while I’m loadin’ I’ll wait an’ join caravans with him.... Tough freightin’ these days, Buff. The strain on men is bad. Watchin’ all day, sleepin’ with one eyes open all night, is as hard as actual fightin’. It breaks a fellar down.”

“Did you get — up Maxwell’s Ranch — way?” queried Clint, haltingly.

“No. I wintered at Fort Union. Fine open winter an’ early spring. Heerd talk, though, about Maxwell. He’s not doin’ so well. Last fall he lost forty-seven freight wagons. Burned at Cow Creek. Pawnees. An’ I understand he was short supplies an’ was dependin’ on thet train. It never rains but it pours.... Wal, the rumor is that Maxwell won’t last out the war. He’s rich in land an’ stock. But if he can’t trade — why, he’ll have to sell out.”

“But wouldn’t whoever bought him out be in the same fix?”

“Reckon he would,” laughed Nelson.

“Do you know anythin’ about Dagget, who drove a caravan into Maxwell’s last May a year ago?”

“Yes. He was shot in a gamblin’ dive in Vegas last winter. I don’t recall who told me. His caravan disbanded, freighters goin’ here an’ there. Couch got a lot of them.”

Clint found speech difficult, his tongue feeling thick and his mouth dry.

“I — I had some friends in Dagget’s outfit,” went on Clint. “Texans. Name was Clement. Hall Clement was the name. An’—”

“No, Buff, I’m shore sorry,” spoke up Nelson, when Clint trailed off. “I didn’t hear no word of anybody by thet name.”

“There was a fellow in Dagget’s outfit, who — who was a Texan, too, but no friend of mine. Name was Lee Murdock.... Did you happen to hear his name out there — this winter?”

“Murdock?’Pears to me I did, Buff,” replied Nelson, scratching his head. “I got it. Shore.... His name was Murdock, anyhow. I can’t vouch for the front handle. Gambler. Pretty handy with guns an’ had a bad record. Hailed from Texas. An’ if I recollect right he was in Larned last winter.”

“Thanks. He might be the fellow I — I mean.”

“Wal, I wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t said this Murdock was no friend of yours.... Buff, soon as we unload we’re goin’ into camp just out of town. Jone’s pasture. Come out an’ see me. You’ll shore be welcome to dinner. I’ve still got a rump steak of buffalo meat left. Haw! Haw! See him grin. I’ll bet ten dollars your mouth’s waterin’ right now.”

“I’m afraid it is,” admitted Clint.

“Wal, when a man eats rump steak for a while he never wants no more beef. It’s like the hold the Old Trail gets on a fellar.”

Clint wandered around awhile, absorbed in thoughts and feelings that seemed like vaguely remembered dreams. He had been waiting for more news than that which concerned Uncle Jim Couch. But he did not voice it to his consciousness. He went back to his room, and paced the floor, and threw himself on his bed. The way it sagged and creaked under him attested to the return of his weight. He spread his right hand before his intent gaze. It was no longer spare — a long thin wide skeleton of a hand. The color was white, but the bulk had returned. He could drive a team tomorrow. The two small scars on his knuckles stood out lividly, permanent brands cut there by Lee Murdock’s teeth. Slow stir of blood, slow turgid heat, attended memory of the blow he had given the Texan. The past that had seemed dim, pale, began to gain color and life.

CHAPTER 15

JIM COUCH, WITH half a caravan, arrived at Kansas City, late at night on the 2nd of August. Clint did not know of it until morning, when his land-lady informed him that Couch had sent word. Clint left without any breakfast and ran all the way to Aull’s freight-yard.

It was a sorry-looking caravan, but Joe Anderson, after a glad hello to Clint, assured him that they had some wounded men, but no dead, and they had brought in all the valuable freight.

Clint found Couch a fit-looking leader for such a caravan. He was grimy and bearded, dirty as a trapper, and he had a bandage caked with blood round his head. He yelled when he saw Clint.

“Buff! By all that’s holy!” he exclaimed, seizing him with horny hands. “My God, it makes me glad!... You’re pale — you’re older, but you’re well an’ fit again.”

Clint choked over his warm greeting, then blurted out, “Uncle, have you a — a letter for me?”

“Nope — sorry to say I haven’t,” replied Couch, suddenly thoughtful.

“Any — news?”

“Lots of news, Buff. Reckon I know what you want to hear first. Last fall when I got back to Maxwell’s, your gurl May Bell was gone. The Clements went on to Taos. Maxwell told me when he last seen May she was well. But she took your runnin’ away turrible hard. Wal, I went on to Santa Fé, an’ sent a letter over to Clement, tellin’ about you bein’ shot an’ that I’d left you in a hospital here. I never got no answer. We wintered at Santa Fé, an’ didn’t get over to Taos. Before we pulled out in the spring, though, I heard the Clements had gone to California.”

“Is — that all?” queried Clint, in the grip of crushed hopes, which until that moment he had not realized.

“All about your gurl, an’ I reckon it’s good news. May Bell took your leavin’ hard. She’ll be waitin’ for you out there some place.”

“But — California!”

“It was a damn good idea for Clement to take her out to the Coast. Leastways till this war is over. You ought to be glad, Buff. Why, the Old Trail is a red road through hell!”

“I hadn’t thought of that.... Did that Murdock go to California?”

“No. He’s a gambler, Buff, if nothin’ worse. He was at Santa Fé for a while. Thick with Jim Blackstone an’ his outfit. Blackstone ‘peared to have a heap of money to drink an’ gamble with. An’ you can bet no rich dad left it to him. I heard a lot of rumors about him. Murdock is in bad company.”

“That’s a relief,” replied Clint, with a forced laugh. “I was horrible jealous of him.”

“Wal, you’re a darn fool. That little gurl, accordin’ to Maxwell, was so crazy in love with you that she couldn’t stand one little word of your disapproval.”

“Did Maxwell — say that?” asked Clint, inwardly quaking.

“He sure did. I was at the ranch two days, an’ whenever I seen him all he could talk about was you an’ May. Sort of hipped on it, I reckon.... By the way, Buff, Maxwell is in financial straits an’ wants to sell out. But everybody on the frontier is at odds an’ ends. An’ it’s bound to grow wuss before it can get better.”

“Anderson told me you had some wounded men.”

“Yes, there’s nine, not countin’ me. We was jumped three times comin’ across. The last time at Point of Rocks, where I got my head in front of an ounce chunk of lead from a muzzle-loader. An inch lower would have put your uncle Jim in the Happy Huntin’-grounds. Wal, we’d have got licked there if it hadn’t been for our six-pounder. Ben Davis took the cannon after I was down. An’ two shots sent them Comanches runnin’ like skeered jack rabbits. We had to leave some wagons, which was individual loss to the freighters who owned them.”

“Point of Rocks? Uncle, that’s an unlucky camp for us,” observed Clint, his memory active.

“Wal, I should smile. Buff, every time Point of Rocks peeps at me over the horizon I get the creeps.... As if somethin’ bad was goin’ to happen to me there! This was the second time.”

“Beware of a third, uncle.”

“Ahuh. I’ve had that hunch myself. Wal, we can’t help fate, any more them our queer feelin’s.... Buff, I put your money in the bank here. Did anyone notify you?”

“Yes, an’ I’ve paid all my debts. Got about two thousand left.”

“Wal, you leave it there, an’ add to it every dollar you get.”

“I’m not much of a spender. When are you loadin’ again, uncle?”

“Right away. Have a big contract. I’ll load all the wagons I fetched in an’ fifty-odd more. Wal have to put up with some tenderfoot drivers. But my luck holds. There’s an army train here, loadin’ for Fort Larned. We’ll travel together.”

“I’m wonderin’ if you could use an old overland freighter,” drawled Clint, his gaze fixed strangely on the West.

“Haw! Haw! Wal, I might.... Buff, get your pack an’ guns, an’ come out to camp. You want to get some tan before we hit the Injun country. You might get took for a albino.”

With a caravan of one hundred and sixty-nine men, not including a troop of soldiers with a supply train, Jim Couch had little to fear from savages on that westward trip.

Seven bands of Indians, some of them large, watched this long caravan pass their lookout points, with never a hostile move. Their silent watchfulness, however, was ominous. Woe betide a small caravan!

Clint Belmet dropped into his old groove, and in a month of driving, hitching up, and chopping wood he was brown and hard again. Not even Couch, however, would have guessed the ever-growing state of his suspense and hopefulness. A thousand times while driving, with eyes on the beckoning purple horizon and at night when the coyotes mourned he went over in mind what Couch and Maxwell had said about May Bell.

He could never persuade himself that they were right. But had he been hasty, ruthless, over-jealous, too much, alas! of a wild buffalo-hunter? Had he been unjust to May Bell? Had he done the wrong thing instead of what he had imagined was the best? His doubts increased. Yet in his heart still rankled memory of the scornful flouting she had given him in Maxwell’s store, and later, and more bitter, the golden sunset hour when he had discovered her with Lee Murdock. If he could only have had more time! If he had only been wise and self-restrained! Useless as regrets were, they multiplied with the miles. But his hope kindled and burned to a steady fire.

It was November when Couch’s caravan arrived at Santa Fé, and snow was falling. The freighters unloaded and went into camp for the winter.

Clint abandoned the idea cherished all during the long trip out — that he would go to Maxwell’s Ranch the first opportunity which afforded — for the reason that the colonel was absent in the East. Gold had been discovered on his ranch and rumor had it he was trying to sell out or raise capital.

Next day Clint rode to town to make inquiry about the Clements. He was patient and persistent. At last he was directed to interview a trader from Taos who had recently arrived in Santa Fé. This man’s name was Wright.

“I shore did know Hall Clement,” he replied, instantly, at Clint’s first query. “Fine Texan, and they don’t make any better.... I’m damn sorry, Belmet, to have to tell you I helped bury him.”

“He’s dead!” exclaimed Clint.

“Yes. Shot by a gambler named Murdock.”

“Murdock! Lee Murdock?” flashed Clint, now with a gasp.

“Never heard his first name. But he was a Texan an’ knew the Clements. Was sweet on their adopted daughter.... I didn’t hear much, but what I did was to the point. Hall Clement went to California last year, leavin’ his wife an’ daughter at Taos. The girl had some reason for not wantin’ to go to California. Well, durin’ Clement’s absence this Murdock nagged the girl till she was ill. When Clement came back he met Murdock an’ beat him severely. Later they met in Turner’s saloon an’ Murdock killed Clement. This Murdock is a dead shot, they say.... That was in the summer. In August Mrs. Clement an’ the girl left Taos to come here, where they joined a caravan bound for Kansas City.”

“August!... What caravan? Who was the train boss?”

“Bill Kelly, I’m sure. He left Taos in July — had some of my goods. An’ I didn’t hear of any other caravan leavin’ around that time.”

“Oh! We missed that train!” cried Clint, in sickening realization. “We took the Dry Trail — the short cut Uncle Jim knows so well. Kelly was on the old road.”

Clint rushed out of the hotel and furiously rode his horse back to camp. He had missed May Bell by a few days, for he remembered Couch saying, when they arrived at the fork of the trail, that the tracks of Kelly’s caravan were fairly fresh. The freighters took account of such things.

The shock and disappointment seemed unbearable to Clint until it occurred to him that at least May Bell had escaped the importunities of Murdock. There was a nucleus of comfort in this. Kelly had a large caravan and could stand off all save a concerted attack of several tribes. May Bell would most assuredly be safe in Kansas City. It occurred to Clint that she might have received word of his injury and had taken the first caravan east. If that were true! His heart swelled. It would mean she did love him, in spite of everything. The hope would not down.

“If it’s so she’ll stay there this winter an’ wait till I get back next summer,” soliloquized Clint, persuading himself that it was not altogether unlikely. “But, oh, the long winter for me — the wait!... An’ that drive in the spring!”

How could he pass the time — the endless hours of waiting, with nothing to do but remember and yearn, when he could not be certain of anything?

Suddenly thought of Murdock flashed across him, and with it the stirring recollection of the two insulting slaps Murdock had given him, and the blow he had returned. Swift on that followed recollection of the several reports about this Murdock, and lastly what the trader Wright had added to them. Clint could imagine just about how Murdock, having failed by permission to win May, had harassed the girl. He would not stop at anything to gain his ends, whether it was marriage or something else. Hall Clement did not beat Murdock for nothing.

“I’ll kill Murdock,” muttered Clint, suddenly. And then there came a regurgitation of the strange cold ferocity Clint had felt the moment before he struck Murdock.

The deadly resolve furnished Clint food for reflection. He must prepare himself for the inevitable meeting with this Texan; and to that end he began to practice with his revolver. He was already the best pistol-shot among Couch’s freighters. With the rifle he was not above the average, but he had the quick eye, the sensitive finger, the knack that made for accuracy. While the weather stayed good Clint went hunting, more with the intent to practice with his revolver than to kill game. Later he would plod out in the snow — into the cottonwood grove — and shoot at targets.

He bought all the ammunition in the store at Santa Fé, and altogether it cost several hundred dollars. The freighters ceased teasing him about this game he was playing. Couch looked serious, shook his shaggy head, but said nothing. When Clint could hit a small tin can every shot at fifty feet he began to think he was getting somewhere. When he could throw one up into the air, and put a bullet through it, three times out of five, he gained confidence in himself.

With this practice there was also included the swiftness of the draw. Kit Carson, who had killed more Indians and men than any other frontiersman of that period, once gave Clint a talk on shooting which he would put to infinite test. So Clint Belmet spent the daylight hours of that winter in keeping a fire burning, cooking, and chopping wood, reading and studying, and lastly perfecting himself in the use of a revolver. Long before spring came he hoped Murdock would return to Santa Fé. But the gambler was working the army camps.

The winter dragged along and spring came late, which fact did not operate cheerfully on the dispositions of the freighters. Some seasons they were able to make two trips each way, but this was exceptional.

Couch did not get started until after the first of June; however, he had command of two hundred and sixty-three wagons, his largest caravan, and that afforded everyone some consolation and lessened the risk.

On the trip across, which was number thirty-eight for Jim Couch, the caravan was circled by four different bands of Indians, the first Kiowas, and the last Pawnees. Couch fired his cannon upon two occasions, causing no casualties, but a decided rout. “Haw! Haw! Run, you red devils!” he would yell, and once he said: “All the same, I’m glad none of them was Comanches. Those varmints have rid up on me more than once — too quick to get the cannon in action.”

Clint arrived in Kansas City late in August, happy at last in the certainty of getting track of May Bell. He made so sure of this that he bought a new suit, shoes, hat, shirt, and tie, and arrayed himself as he had never before in his life. In fact, he passed right by Couch and Anderson, who did not give him even a second glance. This pleased Clint exceedingly. He began to have hopes of a decided impression upon May. Yet his old backwardness and doubt assailed him. He resolved, however, if — or when he found her, that if she would only forgive him he would never offend her again, so long as he lived.

At once he got upon the trail of May Bell and Mrs. Clement. They had been at the Hotel Western in the late fall of last year, and upon their return from Texas, where they had traveled by boat, they had spent some weeks in Kansas City. He was informed that Mrs. Clement had relatives there. But Clint’s persistent search proved fruitless. It set him, however, upon another track. Mrs. Clement and May had gone by stage to Council Grove.

This upset Clint. His hopes were dashed, and in their place consternation and misgivings began to beset him.

Clint knew something about the stage lines, though he had never actually traveled on one of them. There had been a long route from Fort Union to Santa Fé, and another from Fort Larned to Fort Lyon, three hundred and ten miles, and the same mules had made the whole trip. This line had been discontinued of late, and Clint remembered it only because he had known a man named Clegg at Fort Larned. He had been a stagecoach driver and he told Clint about the trip. “My passengers had to sleep in the coach an’ cook their own meals. Shore was tough on them. But when they got to kickin’ too blame hard I jest yelled, injuns!’ an’ thet quieted them down.”

The stage line to Council Grove, one hundred and fifty miles, was running intermittently. Clint engaged passage upon the first stage west, a procedure which did not meet with the approval of Jim Couch. Then he had to wait tedious days. It happened, however, that an east-bound stage came in with a driver who had spent several days in Council Grove, owing to a disabled wagon. This man was intelligent and obliging, and he informed Clint that he had met and talked to every person in Council Grove. Mrs. Clement and May Bell were certainly not there. Therefore Clint gave up his plan. It would not be long until Couch’s caravan passed Council Grove again, when Clint could inquire for himself.

Meanwhile he resumed his search in Kansas City. At the post office he scraped acquaintance with a clerk who remembered May Bell.

“Reckon I do,” he avowed. “She asked for mail here a year ago, about, an’ then lately she came several times. She shore wanted a letter bad. She had great big beautiful eyes like dark velvet. I got so I hated to run over the letters, pretendin’ to look for one when I knew it wasn’t there. She had a pale face, with sad lips. They were red as cherries, though. I reckon she was about eighteen or nineteen years old.”

Clint thanked the loquacious clerk and left the post office. May Bell had recently been in Kansas City, hoping for a letter from him, and she had gone. No doubt about that! But where? It seemed reasonable she would not turn right around and start on the overland trip again. Still Clint feared she had done exactly that. There had been a July caravan and also one in early August, both large and well armed. The only information Aull & Company could give him was that the last caravan, which hauled government supplies for them, had five or six families who had gone along for protection. In fact, all emigrants were persuaded to join either the freight or army caravans.

Clint’s next trip overland was the longest he had ever driven. Toward the end of it he would have welcomed a brush with Indians, and for once Point of Rocks failed to cause him apprehension, and he drove through Apache Pass in grim defiance.

Along the main road from Fort Union, just below its juncture with the cut-off called the Dry Trail, Clint saw a short wagon-train, scarcely half a mile long, working down to the eastward. Such a sight was not unusual, except that in these latter months of the war a short caravan was seldom or never seen.

At camp that night Clint approached Couch with a query: “Uncle, did you see that caravan goin’ east on the Dry Trail, about noon today?”

“I shore did, Buff, an’ whoever its boss was I shore cussed him proper,” replied Couch, with fire in his eye. “Thirty-eight wagons! I counted ‘em. Wal, they’re plumb ravin’ crazy.”

Days had to pass, however, before any information about this caravan would reach them.

Upon Couch’s arrival at Santa Fé the whole populace, from Aull’s agent to the Mexican sheepherder, turned out to welcome a caravan that had been reported mostly all massacred. Such rumor traveled like fire in prairie grass, often by mysterious channels. Seldom, however, as in this case, were there no grounds whatever for a reported attack by Indians. The freighters on the trail and the residents stationed along the line were inclined to take seriously any news at all that was bad. They were skeptical about the good.

“An’ where’n hell was we supposed to have been scalped?” demanded Couch, in supreme disgust.

“Point of Rocks,” replied Buell. “The greaser didn’t talk English very well, but I got that place, positive.”

“Point of Rocks? Wal, I’ll be damned! They shore got my Jonah. What greaser fetched that report?”

“He rode in here over two weeks ago.”

“Alone?”

“No. There were other Mexicans an’ several white men in the party. Travelin’ light with pack mules.”

“Ahuh! Where’d this news about us come from?”

“Fort Union.”

“Wal, it was shore tolerable exaggerated,” replied Couch, gruffly. “We’re here an’ we haven’t lost a scalp or a sack of beans.... Buell, I reckon I don’t like that kind of rumor. It might be honest, but then again it mightn’t.”

“Jim, you an’ Belmet come in the office,” returned Buell, with sober significance. And presently when the three of them were alone he went on: “I had the same sort of hunch. But now you’re here all right, I know damn well it smells fishy.”

“How do you know?” demanded Couch.

“Wal, when the news got circulated round, Mrs.

Clement an’ her daughter come rushin’ in here—”

“Are they here?” interrupted Clint, with a violent start.

“They’ve gone.”

“Gone!”

“Yes.”

“With that little caravan we seen out on the Dry Trail? Must have left here about ten-eleven days ago.”

“Eleven? That’s correct. They left on October twenty-third.”

“Heavens! Was they tacklin’ the trip east that late?”

“No. Fort Larned, where what was left of your caravan was supposed to be.”

“Wal! This is somethin’ strange.”

“It begins to look that way to me, Couch,” returned Buell, anxiously, with a worried look. “I tried to persuade Mrs. Clement not to leave. She didn’t want to go. But the daughter was terribly upset. Said she would go alone!... An’ she offered a thousand dollars to anyone who’d take her to Fort Larned. There were some freighters waitin’ for a chance to roll out, instead of winterin’ here. Then Jim Blackstone was here with his outfit. Ten or a dozen wagons. He took up thet offer of a thousand dollars, an’ said he’d be train boss. Mrs. Clement wouldn’t let her daughter go alone. They’d practically just got here. Came with Simpson’s caravan, thet went on to Taos an’ Vegas. So they loaded up thet very day an’ left.”

“Jim Blackstone! Haven’t I heard some talk about him an’ his outfit?”

“He’s not a freighter, thet’s shore.”

“Wal, what is he?”

“Been ‘most everythin’. Buys some pelts now, tradin’ whisky to the Utes. He’s reported to be thick with Kiowas, too.”

“How many freighters, did you say?”

“Must have been around thirty. Some blamed good men, Couch... Davis an’ Hennesy, an’ Black, an’ Tode Williams, all freighters.”

“Wal, I know Tode. I reckon he’d be a match for Blackstone any day.”

“Buell, has Lee Murdock been here this summer?” blurted out Clint, finding his voice.

“Yes, on an’ off. Not since he shot a gambler named Weedon. Murdock hangs out at Fort Larned.”

“He’ll be there now?”

“Most likely. Larned’s a lively place in winter, an’ all the gamblers aim to be there, especially for early spring, when the trappers an’ hunters come down out of the hills.”

Clint turned to Couch. “Uncle, I’m goin’ to Fort Larned.”

“What! But, Buff, that’s out of the question! It’s a sure bet no more freighters, or anybody, will start this late.”

“I’ll go alone.”

“Now see here, Buff, you—”

“I’m goin’. I don’t care if you’ve been my guardian. I’m of age. I’ve got to go.... I’ll ride at night an’ hide durin’ the day.”

“Wal, if the snow holds off, you might make it,” replied Couch, resignedly.

“I’ll make it, snow or no snow.”

“Buff, you could miss the trail at night, if it snowed. I couldn’t keep to it myself.”

“I’ll go light an’ fast. I’ll beat the snow,” replied Clint, with a steely ring in his voice.

Sunset found him leaving Santa Fé on a big raw-boned horse, with blankets and small pack tied behind. He had dispensed with a pack-horse. He could live on meat and parched corn and dried fruits. He carried two canteens, a Colt’s rifle and two revolvers.

Clint had only one thought and that was unwavering — to find May Bell. He had, at last, assurance of her whereabouts, her love, her fidelity, her anguish, and he would find her or die in the attempt.

The night soon encompassed him, cold, starry, and silent. The broad trail was as easy for his keen eyes as if the sun were shining. He ran little risk of encountering Indians after dark. On the soft ground, pulverized by countless wheels and hoofs, his horse made no sound. And with his passion released and augmented by the encouragement of May Bell’s faithfulness, with all his senses alert, the hours were nothing. He knew the water holes and towards morning he stopped at one and let the horse drink sparingly. At dawn he halted in a clump of cedars, unpacked and unsaddled the animal and tied him on a long halter where grass was thick. Then, without fire, he ate his meager meal, after which he hid in a thicket and went to sleep.

The sun had westered far when he awoke. He ate and drank again, then crept out of the thicket. The horse had fared well. Clint crawled to a vantage-point, and swept the country to the fore along the trail. Buffalo, antelope, deer, rabbits, wolves, wild horses crossed his roving sight, but no Indians. He had to fight the temptation to ride out and risk the last hour of daylight, but he resisted it. He had made his plan and would adhere to it. The farther he traveled along this trail the greater must be his caution. The Dry Trail, so seldom traveled late in the summer, on account of the drought, would be less risky. In the still cold twilight he rode out.

CHAPTER 16

SOME TIME DURING the fourth night Clint, coming into the Dry Trail, rode upon wheel and hoof tracks that obliterated most of those that had been made by Blackstone’s caravan.

But Clint did not know this until daylight, when he could see them plainly. He studied these tracks and pondered deeply over them, but did not risk himself out on the trail after the day broke. This morning he sat up long to puzzle about this unexpected and decidedly favorable circumstance. Another caravan, and of fairly good size, to judge by the tracks, had turned into the Dry Trail, and not many hours behind Blackstone.

The night of that day a crescent moon shone gold over the black ridge. Clint was making fast time. The tireless animal scarcely needed to be kept to a trot. About midnight in a gloomy spot, overshadowed by low bluff on one side, the horse shied violently and snorted in fright. The instant Clint stopped he smelled putrefying flesh. He knew that odor. Dismounting, and peering keenly ahead, he advanced very cautiously.

Scent of burned hides next assailed his nostrils and sent a shudder down his spine. Indians had attacked either Blackstone’s caravan or the one following it and had left death and fire in their wake. Soon Clint came upon the charred skeletons of freight wagons and smoking piles of baled hides. Twenty-two freight wagons in a half circle! That told the story. But which caravan? The cold sweat wet Clint’s face and chest.

He searched off the road, guided by his sense of smell, and presently stumbled upon a hideous ghastly row of dead savages, so torn by buzzards and coyotes that it was only with difficulty he identified them as Kiowas. They had not been scalped or stripped. He counted twenty-nine bodies, that had evidently been dragged off the road. The freighters had not buried them, which seemed proof of hurry. Dead horses, too, lay about.

Clint could not find a dead white man, nor any evidence of a grave. This encouraged him, though he knew, of course, that if the freighters had time they would bury their dead. He searched everywhere within a reasonable radius.

Then mounting, he rode on, this time putting the horse to alternate lope and trot. By the first streak of gray dawn in the east he calculated that he had covered thirty miles since the midnight halt.

In the gray gloom he went far off the trail, and found a satisfactory covert, where grass was fair, but water lacking. When he lay down his chest seemed weighted and the clouded condition of mind persisted in sleep. That afternoon, after a survey of the open country, wild and lonely and gray, he built a little fire and roasted strips of buffalo meat, which, with salt and a hard biscuit, satisfied his hunger.

Twilight had fallen when he ventured back to the trail, but he could see distinctly. From long habit his eyes swept the open country ahead, then all around and back. And lastly the trail, the look of which caused him to fall abruptly on his knees. He scrutinized the tracks, he crawled ahead, across, back; and then he arose, shaking in every limb under the realization that the second caravan — the one following on Blackstone’s tracks — had turned off. Somewhere and at some hour the night preceding, in the dark, Clint had passed by a fork in the trail, where emigrants bound for Texas turned off. That second caravan could absolutely not have done anything else. The fact increased Clint’s perplexities and augmented his fears. He was not an expert tracker, but years of watching the road had taught him much. Ten or a dozen wagons, drawn by horses, and a number of mounted men had proceeded toward Fort Larned.

Clint had undisputable proof now that the loss of wagons had been from Blackstone’s caravan. Perhaps the second party had never overtaken the first. And dread gnawed like a wolf at Clint’s vitals. He dared not go back, even if that would have been of any avail. He could only speculate on what had happened. As he knew travel along the trail and Indian attacks, the chances favored Blackstone’s men having fought and driven off the Kiowas, with more or less loss. No doubt they had abandoned the greater number of their wagons, which the Indians had burned. If any dead white people had been left along the trail, they would have been stripped, scalped, and mutilated.

After that point the nights for Clint were endless and torturing. The snow caught him, squall after squall, but he beat the winter into Fort Larned.

Sunrise of the last day overtook him less than ten miles from the fort, and he rode on in, hungry, weary, haggard, hard, and grim, with infinite respect for the great horse that had carried him through.

Clint rode to Aull’s corral, and gave a Mexican lad a dollar to care for his horse. Then he hurried into the store, where he was well known. Beckett, the agent, threw up his hands.

“Buff Belmet!... O Lord! — Jim Couch has got it at last!”

“No. I’ve come alone from Santa Fé,” replied Clint.

“Alone!”

Customers and clerks came at Beckett’s call.

“Yes. I rode at night — slept by day,” went on Clint, hurriedly.

“You wasn’t with Blackstone? He sure never told it, if you was.”

“No. I left Santa Fé ten days an’ more after Blackstone. I was on his trail. On the Dry Trail I found where another caravan had come in. You see, I rode in on the short cut after night an’ never found out about the second caravan until twenty-four hours later. Then I rode on, an’ came to burned wagons an’ hides an’ dead Indians — Kiowas. Twenty-nine of them!... Again at night I passed by where the second caravan turned off on the Texas trail.”

“Reckon Blackstone never had any idea there was a caravan close behind him. He sure never reported it if he did.... An’ whyinhell was you trailin’ after them alone?”

His query strangled the voice in Clint’s throat. If all had been well with Mrs. Clement and May Bell — if they had been brought safely on to the fort — this agent would not have been perplexed by Clint’s arrival.

“I was — on Blackstone’s trail,” broke out Clint, hoarsely. “My — sweetheart — May Bell tin’ her — an’ Mrs. Clement — were in that caravan.”

“My God! Man, you must be mistaken!” ejaculated Beckett.

“No!” cried Clint, passionately.

“But they didn’t come! They’re not here.... An’ Blackstone never said one word about havin’ women with him. This is damn strange, Buff. Come with me to the colonel.”

“Not yet. Is this Jim Blackstone here at Larned?”

“You bet he is. With his outfit goin’ to stay all winter.”

“An’ Murdock — Lee Murdock?”

“Sure. He was in here half an hour ago.”

“Where’ll I find them?”

“Ten to one it’ll be at Horner’s gamblin’. Or loafin’ at the hotel, waitin’ for dinner. But say, Buff—”

Clint stalked out, leaving his rifle where he had leaned it inside the door. The weariness from the long ride, the anxieties, fears, and hopes, the succession of shocks burned into ashes in the tremendous passion which consumed Clint. Yet his mind reverted to the mood inculcated by those winter months in camp at Santa Fé, where he had trained himself for the meeting with Murdock that was now at hand.

Across the square from Aull’s store stood Horner’s saloon, a red adobe structure, crumbling and old, with rafters exposed. The letters of a once white sign were half obliterated.

Clint split the double door and strode in. He had been in Horner’s many a time. The usual loungers at the bar, the stoical Indians standing like statues, the gamblers at the tables — Clint took these in with one sweeping flash.

His appearance must have been striking, for it seemed the silence began at the head of the bar and communicated itself like a wave to the end of the long room. A freighter’s heavy boots crashed down from the stove.

“Buff Belmet!” he shouted.

Ordinarily Clint was a figure to attract attention, but now, white with dust, unwashed and unkempt, black and forbidding of face, he might well have arrested the attention of the wildest of frontier saloons.

“I’m lookin’ for Jim Blackstone an’ Lee Murdock,” he announced in a loud voice.

His challenging speech filled the room, except for a whisper here and shuffle of foot there, and a nervous cough. Only one possible construction could be put upon Clint’s presence and his trenchant announcement.

Many faces turned toward a table close to the stove, around which four men sat and three stood. The game of cards had been interrupted. Slowly Clint stepped toward these men, guided by the turning of faces in that direction. Then he espied Murdock, sitting, with restless hands manipulating cards, cleanshaven, handsome face growing set and pale eyes shining. He whispered something, evidently to the man next him, a bearded giant in a buckskin shirt. This individual moved only his eyes. Behind this particular table, in a line with Clint, all the loungers and gangsters stealthily slipped to either side. The reason was manifest, as was the stiffening of Murdock and Blackstone in their chairs.

“I’m Blackstone. What you want?” replied the giant, slow and cool.

“Where are the two women who hired you to drive them to Fort Larned?” demanded Clint, stepping so that he had all the seven men directly in front of him.

“Reckon they were killed or carried off by the Kiowas.”

Clint read falsehood in the man’s steady, somber eyes. It only confirmed his dreadful suspicious. But few men could lie unbetrayingly in the face of death.

“Blackstone, there’s a lie about you somewhere. Why didn’t you report the loss of Mrs. Clement an’ — Miss May Bell, who paid you a thousand dollars to bring her to Larned?”

“Wal, Belmet, when a man fails bad he hates to give himself away,” returned Blackstone, deprecatingly. Under his beard the tan had begun to pale. His eyes quivered with the watchfulness of a man used to crises on the frontier.

“Ahuh! Why didn’t you report to headquarters here that another caravan, bound for Texas, caught up with you on the Dry Trail?” queried Clint, piercingly. This was a random shot on Clint’s part, but it struck home.

“Who the hell are you to bullyrag me?” shouted Blackstone, suddenly flaring with passion.

“Boss,” interposed one of the standing men, low and quick, “he’s Jim Couch’s driver an’ bad medicine.”

“That girl was engaged to me,” hissed Clint. “An’ you haven’t got a hell of a long time to tell me where she is.”

“So help me Gawd, man, I can’t tell you!” rejoined Blackstone, hoarsely, and there might have been truth in that. “The Kiowas jumped us. We had to fight an’ run, leavin’ most of the outfit an’ men behind.”

“Blackstone, you’re known to be thick with Kiowas — an’ you, Lee Murdock — you’re known to have hounded May Bell from one place to another.”

On the frontier of this day, very much less than that accusation was a gauntlet thrown in the face of men. When Blackstone lurched for his gun Clint’s had leaped out in his hand. But the third man of the three standing, who must have unobtrusively drawn his weapon, discharged the first shot, which knocked Clint down.

He raised himself on his left hand, and fired. He downed the man in front of the one who had shot first, and as he staggered to fall over the table Clint’s second bullet brought a yell of agony from the coward who had used his comrade for a buffer.

Then Blackstone’s gun boomed, and Murdock leaped up, firing rapidly. Clint felt the hot tearing of lead. But his quick aim was true. Murdock threw up his gun and fell backward. Blackstone slid out of his chair, shooting over the table. But he had a large body, and Clint’s second shot at him, under the table, found its mark. Blackstone slumped down.

Then, to Clint’s deadening ears the rush and yell of excited men grew quiet, and in his dim eyes the fallen men faded, the long room blurred, and grew black.

Before Clint opened his eyes he heard the crackling of a wood fire and he smelled alcohol or some other strong medicine. Then he recalled the fight and at the same instant grew conscious of pain. It took effort to lift his heavy eyelids.

A cheerful blaze leaped in an open stone fireplace. The room was the single one of an adobe cabin, with one window and two doors, the smaller of which led into a kitchen, where some man was bustling about, whistling. The walls of this cabin were covered with pelts, hanging in bundles, and the earth floor bore a number of buffalo robes, the fur side up. Apparently the quarters belonged to a trapper.

It hurt Clint to move his arm even slightly. One arm appeared stiff and useless, but the other was free. His body was like a log.

The whistling man entered, no other than Dick Curtis, the long-haired, buckskinned hunter who had taken Clint on his first buffalo hunt.

“Howdy, Dick!” said Clint, weakly.

“You son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Curtis, in glad eagerness. “Buff, you’ve been ravin’ like a scalped Chinaman.”

“Have I? What about?”

“Ohell! About your girl thet was captured by redskins. Buff, I’ve had half a dozen girls stolen from me. They were squaws. It’s nothin’ to go crazy over. Are you comin’ to your senses?”

“I hope so, Dick.... How am I?”

“Fair to middlin’ for a hombre who was riddled with lead. Buff, old Doc Culbertson said the Lord must be savin’ you for Injun arrows because bullets couldn’t kill you.”

“I stopped a lot — then?”

“Hellno! Most of them bullets went clear on through, which was lucky. But the one they bounced off your head knocked you silly. Funny how thet bullet hit thet old scar on your head.”

“Am I goin’ to pull through?”

“Nobody ‘cept me an’ Doc ever had any idee you would. It was a close shave, Buff. Three weeks ago the fever left you. An’ then you began to mend, ‘cept your ravin’. I’m darn glad. It sort of gave me the willeys to listen to you at night. I never in my life seen a man so crazy about a girl.... Buff, no one would ever suspect it was in you.”

“Maybe I don’t know it myself. Where am I, Dick?”

“In my cabin, nice an’ cozy for the winter. It’s December, somewheres near Christmas or New Year’s I forget which. My pards an’ me got run out of the hills. I been gone near two years, Buff. But we saved our ketch.... Are you hungry, Buff?”

“I don’t feel it if I am.”

“Wal, I have been feedin’ you best I can. Shore is surprisin’ what little a fellar lives on when he has to. Wal, I reckon you’d like to know what you did to Blackstone’s outfit?”

“I’m not over-keen about it,” returned Clint.

“Wal, by gosh! you’re goin’ to hear, anyhow. Buff, we was all wonderin’ one night — talkin’ thet fight over — how in the hell you ever got to handle a gun like you do. An’ there was a freighter here who wintered with Couch over at Santa Fé. An’ he told us. You bought all the ammunition in the town. Said you could throw tin cans up an’ plug them. Said he’d seen you do it!”

“Reckon I did practice some.”

“Haw! Haw! Lucky you did.... I shore hated missin’ thet fight. But my pard, Sandy McClellan, seen it, an’ he told me. Buff, there’s been a lot bloodier fights than thet. I seen one at Bent’s Fort. Two ag’in’ nine, an’ by gosh! thet was lively. Bullets like bees hummin’.” Clint’s memory, probed and stimulated in this way, urged him to sharp yet shrinking curiosity, which he seemed reluctant to voice.

“Sandy seen your fight an’ he said it was shore nifty,” went on Curtis, in satisfaction, as he straddled a bench and sat down. “When you accused Blackstone of bein’ thick with the Kiowas an’ Murdock of houndin’ your girl, everybody knowed thet you was tellin’ them to draw. But McGill had drawed from behind Red Hawkins an’ floored you with a bullet. We figgered thet one took you in the shoulder. Wal, from the floor you bored Red, an’ when he sunk, you took McGill same place — an’ if you want to know thet was right over the top vest pocket on the left side. Meanwhile Murdock leaped up with his gun out, an’ Blackstone was shootin’ with his hand restin’ on the table. Your shot at Murdock was true, Buff, same as the others, but your bullet hit his gun an’ glanced up, takin’ Murdock on the cheek bone, an’ believe me, it left a groove as deep as the Old Trail. Thet put Murdock out, an’ Blackstone, the yellow sucker, ducked under the table. Your two shots laid him out, but the bullets went through the board legs of thet table an’ didn’t do Blackstone much damage. He was around next day.”

“How about — Murdock?” asked Clint, with a queer thrill that was quivering pain.

“Close shave there. The bullet took the top of his cheek bone. He was up in a week, but will be disfigured for life. Shore you’ll know him when you see him again.”

“Did they leave Larned?”

“Did they? Haw! Haw! They was told perlite to get out, an’ they got. Blackstone, an’ fifteen of his outfit, an’ Murdock. I never seen a sorer bunch of hombres. Blackstone went to the colonel, an’ from what I’m told he had to listen to some pert questions which he couldn’t answer. They packed an’ went south. Thet was three weeks or so ago. Naturally, we all figgered a lot, an’ tried to put two an’ two together. Blackstone had a bad name, but nobody knew anythin’ ag’in’ him till you accused him of bein’ thick with the Kiowas. Murdock was just a dandy gambler, keen about women, white or red, an’ some hasty with his gun. But Blackstone might be one of these caravan bandits thet have developed durin’ the war. Wal, anyway, last week Billy Weed, a trapper, came by a Kiowa village over on the Purgatory an’ he swears he seen Blackstone there. An’ he shore seen other white men. Billy was snoopin’ from top of a ridge an’ not takin’ any chances. Billy has been scout an’ plainsman. He’s reliable. So whatever Blackstone an’ his bunch figgered on the frontier before this caravan job from Santa Fé, they are now outlaws.”

“Has any word ever come in about thet Texas caravan?” asked Clint.

“Nary a word. But thet’s to be expected. No redskin is goin’ to fetch us word, you can bet on thet.”

“Aw — an’ what’s the opinion about Mrs. Clement an’ May Bell?” asked Clint, struggling to be coherent. “They left Santa Fé with Blackstone. Buell an’ others told me they saw them leave.”

“Wal, it ain’t hard to take Blackstone’s word fer what happened,” replied Curtis, thoughtfully. “Shore he’s a liar, an’ we don’t know how low down. But you seen the burned wagons — the dead Kiowas. An’ we know Blackstone rode in here with crippled men.”

“Dick — you don’t get the point. Somebody drove the Kiowas off. They’d never leave their dead. Blackstone sure didn’t do the drivin’. He ran for his life.... I’ve a hunch that second caravan came up in time to drive the Kiowas off, perhaps while they were firin’ the wagons, or even while the twenty-two freighters from Santa Fé were fightin’.... If Blackstone is in with the Kiowas, you can gamble he led that caravan into an ambush. An’ the second caravan did the fightin’.”

“Buff, there’s shore a heap in what you say. No one else ‘pears to have thought it out like thet.... Where are the twenty-two freighters who didn’t come in with Blackstone?”

“Dead an’ buried or else gone on with the second caravan. Because, Dick, it was a white man who ordered the dead Kiowas dragged back out of sight from the trail. Uncle Jim always did that. He’d stop the train to have a carcass moved out of sight, or buried if he had time.”

“Ahuh! You ain’t bad at figgerin’, Buff.... An’ it’s your hunch there’s a chance thet Mrs. Clement an’ your sweetheart got away with the Texas caravan?”

“I — I wouldn’t call it a hunch — only a hope.”

“But such a damn slim one, Buff. You know this here frontier. You better give up right now, else you’ll only suffer an’ live in hopes, an’ die in despair when you do find out. Reckon thet’ll be next summer. Somebody will give us a line on thet second caravan.”

In due time Clint recovered and divided the long hours between the hotel, Aull’s store, and Curtis’ cabin. Life was slow in winter, except for the gambling fraternity. Clint at times felt the urge to drink and gamble, solely to put his mind off its haunted track. He played checkers, sat beside a stove or before the open fire, read and reread all the reading matter available, and walked out in the open when weather permitted. As winter waned he grew strong again, and heavier than he had ever been. He had no work, not even wood to chop. Curtis had bought firewood already cut. Nevertheless, the days went by tediously in the passing, yet swiftly in retrospect.

In early April the Indians and trappers and hunters began to come down out of the hills with their pelts to trade and sell. Clint obtained credit for the money he had banked at Kansas City, and he bought and traded for a wagonload of very choice furs, which, if he ever got them to a city, would earn quadruple what they had cost.

From that time on the days were not so unbearable, and they gradually grew easier. By May the weather was pleasant, spring was at hand, and soon the first caravan would arrive from the west. Clint knew whose that would be.

Jim Couch was indeed the first, but he did not arrive until June. It so happened that the loquacious Dick Curtis, who had always regarded Clint as his protégé, got to Jim Couch before Clint.

Nevertheless, Clint had to repeat his version of his long lonely ride and the fight in Horner’s saloon. The old caravan leader appeared to take it all as a matter of course. Upon meeting Clint, he had hugged him like a grizzly bear, but he wasted no words of praise, as was his wont before Clint had become a man.

“Wal, it’s hard to believe any white man would lead his fellow-men into an ambush for the redskins to murder,” he said. “Blackstone sure was a hard nut. But let’s give him the benefit of a doubt. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Couch stayed at Fort Larned for two days, adding fifty-odd wagons of pelts to a caravan that was already large. Dr. Culbertson, the army physician at the fort, advised Couch to persuade Clint to rest a few more months. One of Clint’s lungs had been nicked by a bullet. The wound had healed, yet it might be wise to give it more time. Clint accepted this advice without any comment. It suited him to remain at Fort Larned until Couch’s return trip in October. Clint wanted to interview freighters and soldiers, even Indians, who arrived at Fort Larned from the south and west.

Couch had noted the remains of the burned wagons on the Dry Trail, and the skeletons of horses, but there was nothing to show him that Indians had been killed in this fight. The Kiowas had come back to carry away their dead.

For once Clint saw Couch ride away without suffering any yearnings to go with him. Thereafter every single day dawned welcome to Clint because it might be one that would bring news of some kind. About the end of June, and high time for the first caravan to arrive from the east, a company of soldiers who had been down on the Pecos River arrived at Fort Larned. About a hundred miles south of the Dry Trail they had come upon evidence of the massacre of a medium-sized caravan. Only the iron rims of the wagon wheels remained, with black piles of embers. Thirty ghastly skeletons of what had been white men lay scattered about, some of the bones dismembered by the jackals of the plains. There was nothing to prove the exact time of this massacre, but Captain King’s old plainsman said it had been less than a year before, because he had been over that trail with soldiers from Fort Union.

Clint’s last tenacious hope died. Bitter as gall — yet a relief! He believed that had been the caravan the movements of which had been of such vital importance to him. The frontier had only taken its toll of two more women. Clint could count hundreds he had known of, and these not rumors. His mother had been the first in his experience. How long ago! He was now a man. The last was May Bell. Mother and sweetheart! May and Mrs. Clement were no better than the many other brave pioneer women who had found lonely graves on the prairie. The difference was to Clint.

Shortly after these soldiers from New Mexico left the fort the first eastern caravan straggled in. It did not take an experienced eye like Clint’s more than one glance to see what that caravan had encountered. The feathered shaft of an arrow, imbedded in a wagon, sent a fiery thrill down Clint’s spine. And that was the first wagon to roll in. Clint looked no more, but repaired to the store to wait for Eastern newspapers.

Presently Dick Curtis came along with a Kansas City Daily Times and a St. Louis Globe Democrat.

“Come on home, pard,” said Dick, gaily. “‘Cause if we don’t go we’ll be drunk pronto. Papers full of war news. The rebels are licked, an’ you bet thet’ll go hard with some of the hombres here.”

Clint did not require a second invitation. Possessing himself of one of the journals, he read as he walked along. Curtis, who deciphered with difficulty, but was proud to show his education, kept reading aloud. Once back in their cabin, they became absorbed in news two months old.

“My Gawd! Buff, the war must be over!” ejaculated Dick for the tenth time.

“You should say, ‘Thank God!’” retorted Clint. “An’ shut up, will you? I can read.”

It took hours, but these two frontiersmen read every word in both papers. Clint, profoundly stirred by the news of the approaching end of the war that had practically ruined the South and broken the North, maintained silence, as was usual with him when deeply roused. Curtis, however, had to talk, and seeing he could make no impression on Clint he went out.

Clint heard some one ask Curtis:

“Say, does Clint Belmet stay here?”

“Sure. But no one knows him by that handle. His name is Buff. He’s inside.”

This visitor approached and knocked at the open door. Clint rose and guardedly stepped into view. He did not risk chances with strangers. Outside stood a sturdy freighter, ruddy of face and red of beard, with frank blue eyes which took quick stock of Clint.

“Howdy! I’m Clint Belmet. What do you want me for?”

“Glad to meet you, Belmet,” replied the freighter. “I’ve fetched a letter for you. The clerk in the P.O. give it to me. An’ he said if I didn’t find you on the way out to leave it with Buell at Santa Fé. I’m darned glad I can get rid of it. We had two brushes with Injuns on the drive out, an’ I worried like hell wonderin’ what’d become of the letter if I got shot.”

“Thanks — stranger,” said Clint, huskily, stretching out a big hand that shook. A letter for him!

“My name’s Paul Davis. I used to drive for Jim Waters.... There you are.”

He unwrapped soiled ragged paper from a letter and handed it over to Clint with a flourish. He spoke again cheerily, but Clint did not hear what he said nor see when he departed. A thick dirty envelope lay in his hand. A letter — from whom? The handwriting, level and clear, stared at him from the faded soiled paper. The postmark had been obliterated. Whipping out his knife, he slit the envelope. Inside was another, fitting tightly, and this was clean and white. A faint sweet perfume assailed Clint’s nostrils. It gave him a shock so that for a moment he was helpless. But his senses were deceiving him. How often had little things hurt terribly! Quickly he opened the second envelope, bent on killing the illusion that mocked him. A sheaf of small thin pages covered with small writing in ink! Wildly he shuffled them to the last, and there, halfway down the page, in a wavering handwriting that denoted spent strength, he read, “Yours faithfully and always — May.”

“So help me God!” groaned Clint, staggering into the cabin. He fell into the rude armchair and stared dazedly at the dead gray ashes in the fireplace. He was shot through and through with terror. This letter was old — months old — years old. And he divined that it would all but mean death to him. He stared in fascinated horror at the outside envelope. It gave mute but indisputable evidence of having been across the Great Plains time and time again. Sickening to realize — it might have crossed even with his own caravan! Then, in desperation, he drove himself to read.

MAXWELL’S RANCH

DEAREST CLINT:

Oh, why did you run away without giving me a chance to explain! As soon as I could get up I ran after you — in the dark — calling. They found me lost out there.

This morning before the sun rose you were gone. Gone with the caravan! How could I know you would go without seeing me? I thought you a wild jealous boy. I thought you would come back and beg my forgiveness. But you did not — you did not! And my heart is breaking. We go on to Santa Fé, and it will be months before I can see you. But I will send this letter, which I am assured will follow a month behind you. I pray that you may stay long enough in Kansas City to receive it.

Clint, it’s nothing now, but I must explain that you hurt my feelings at Maxwell’s store. How could you be so rude, so harsh! Even if you were jealous! That thrilled me — the proof you cared so much. But I am not a flirt. I have loved you since I was ten years old, more and more every day of my life. I never went to bed without praying for you, or awoke at dawn without thinking of you first. You did not know that, but I did.... Then, yesterday, you roused the very devil in me — a devil I didn’t even know I possessed. I would teach you a lesson if I had to demean myself to do it.

I planned to have you see me with Lee Murdock. I was mad to do it, for I had no idea of your mood. I meant to make you utterly miserable and then — when you were sufficiently punished, I would make up to you — even more loving than that last night on the wagon seat. Oh, Clint!... But the instant you came toward me I realized my mistake. I had not taken you for a man. And when you said you had come to say good-by, my poor heart froze. And — when you asked Lee Murdock if he had his gun I almost fainted. I realized then. But what could I do? I was paralyzed. You looked so stern — so white and terrible. If I had been able to move I would have fallen at your feet.... Then you struck him! He lay there on the grass — bloody and still. I didn’t care. That didn’t hurt me. I think I had a strange hot gladness, something new and wild in me — satisfaction.

I don’t know what I did or said. Then you seized me like a savage.... Oh, my darling! What I am writing now could never have been written now, if you had not done that. You frightened me — you took my strength. I did return your first kiss. I did, Clint. But it had nothing of the love you awakened in me after that. I will cherish those terrible moments through all my life. I love you — I love you! The childish worship — the girlish affection are gone — burned up in a woman’s love. It grows as I write. I can stand this agony if only you know.

Sweetheart, I don’t blame you now, but you misjudged me. You listened to our kind friend, Mr. Maxwell, who thinks he understands women. You did not wait to find out the truth. Lieutenant Clayborn was nice and amusing. I liked him, even though he was a little sure of conquest. But, Clint, my heart was yours. It is yours. As for Murdock, I had grown to fear him, despise him. I never permitted myself to be alone with him, unless someone was near. These natural actions of a young woman are Greek to you. I have already confided in Mr. Clement, this day, and have besought him to have a care of me while Murdock is with us. The moment you read this letter you will know what I would have told you, last night, with my arms round your neck — if you had not been such a wild buffalo-hunter! But Murdock’s insult revealed to me that I was proud of my wild buffalo-hunter. I love this glorious West, though it appalls me. I will be true to it and to you. I will not shirk the labor, the loneliness, the peril. Only I must be with you or I cannot endure it.

Mr. Maxwell told me that you were a born plainsman, like Kit Carson. But for such men there would never be any settling of the West. It is a noble, heroic calling. I would not ask you yet to sacrifice that for me. But I am waiting your plainsman’s pleasure.

Clint, at the deep of my heart there is assurance of your love and forgiveness. The boy I knew could never have grown into a man too hard and cruel to love and forget. Yet I have been ill since you left — cold with torture and dread — sick with the longing that was dammed up and which you didn’t wait for.

Hurry back to me. Remember every mile of the long, long road, of the waving gray prairie we gazed across together, hand in hand — remember I love you with all the heart of a girl who is alone.

Yours faithfully and always

MAY.

CHAPTER 17

THE HOPES OF the overland freighters that the end of the war would better their condition and lessen their terrible risks proved utterly futile. By 1866 the riffraff from both armies had spread over the frontier, becoming desperadoes of the worst type, as bad as the very worst of the savages.

Charley Bent became the leader of one of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty bands that ever harassed the Old Trail.

Clint Belmet had heard of Charley Bent many times. His name was a camp word on the frontier, and after the government offered a large reward for him alive or dead his story became known.

He was the son of a pioneer named Bent, who lived on the frontier, and who was married Indian fashion to a Cheyenne squaw. He had sent his half-breed son to St. Louis, to be cared for, and later put in school and educated as a white man. Charley Bent, when twenty-one years old, returned to his father. Meanwhile his mother had died. Bent kept a trading store, which he put in charge of his son. The old pioneer was getting on and wanted to retire. One spring day at the end of a good selling season Charley ran off with all the money.

Bent never saw his son again. Charley spoke the Indian languages fluently. He traveled all over. He returned from a long trip to Texas under the name of Lee Murdock, by which he was known until after the fight with Clint Belmet at Horner’s saloon in Fort Larned. This turned the keen eyes of the frontier upon him and outlawed him.

He had been playing a double game. He gambled among the whites during the winters; in the summers he developed a gang of from sixty to one hundred Indians and whites. Rumor affiliated Blackstone and his followers with Bent, or Murdock, but up to 1868 no actual proof of this conjecture was available.

This cold-blooded band of mixed villains attacked only stage-coaches and small caravans, murdered all, except young women who were so unfortunate as to be caught in one of these raids, and who were carried off into the mountains, never to be seen or heard of again. The stock and supplies of these caravans were traded to the Indians for pelts.

In the late summer of 1865 information reached Fort Larned that the caravan which had routed a Kiowa attack on a wagon-train on the Dry Trail had later, on the way south, been set upon by Charley Bent’s band and massacred, all except the two women, who were carried away into captivity.

A friendly Ute told this story to a trapper, who brought it to Fort Larned. As the Utes and Kiowas were on good terms, the information gained credence; and in the heart of Clint Belmet ever burned a steady white fire of unquenchable hate.

In 1866 after the reported discovery of gold on Maxwell’s Ranch an Eastern syndicate bought all Colonel Maxwell’s holding at a fabulous price. The colonel went East and Clint never saw him again. Rumors reached the freighters that the gold on the ranch had been a flash in the pan; it had failed, leaving the syndicate with a huge ranch which they did not know how to run.

Fatality certainly cast its shadow before it. Point of Rocks, where Jim Couch had suffered two attacks on his caravans, and which the old freighter dreaded more and more, saw a third onset by Comanches. It was a surprise attack, and before the famous cannon could be brought into requisition Couch had been killed. In fact, he fell over the cannon, in the act of firing it. Clint Belmet grasped the fuse from his clutching hand, and fired the charge which turned the tide of battle. Couch, Sanderson, and Hoyle were buried in the shadow of Point of Rocks, along with other freighters of their intrepid breed.

Buff Belmet took charge of Couch’s caravan. The best of the old frontiersmen and freighters wanted to drive under him. A fearless leader and a powerful force were imperative now.

In the fall of 1867 Belmet’s caravan, working west toward Fort Larned, came upon General Custer’s command, and traveled with it to Fort Larned.

This band of Custer’s was the most impressive spectacle Belmet had ever seen. There were fully five hundred army wagons and four thousand soldiers. It was a sight Clint never forgot.

At the fort the reason for the big force became manifest. General Custer was getting ready for his winter campaign of 1867 and 1868 against the allied tribes from Fort Larned to Fort Riley, and down the Wichita River in the Indian Territory.

No part of the Great Plains had been free from raids, and consternation had spread into the government camps and thence to Washington. The commanders of the different posts had been warned by their scouts; they knew what the Indians were doing, but were powerless. Without soldiers and supplies they could not even leave their forts. And but for the overland freighters, whom the savages could not daunt, they would have fared worse. The sending of General Custer was the first move by the government against these tribes.

At the fort General Custer sent for Clint Belmet. He was in the prime of life then, a yellow-haired, blue-eyed man of great force and most engaging personality.

“Belmet, you have been recommended to me,” said Custer. “I will need scouts in this campaign. Would you care to join my command?”

“Thanks, General. But I don’t see how I can,” replied Clint. “It’ll take me a month and more to get my caravan to Santa Fé. Winter will be on us then. I can’t get away from Santa Fé till spring.”

“You will get back here along in May?”

“I reckon, if it’s good weather. By June, anyway.”

“Please consider my proposal. It will not be too late in the spring.”

“I’ll do so. An’ I might accept if I can get a boss to handle my men.”

“I’d be greatly indebted to you,” returned the general, cordially. “I need men who know the country and the Indians, and these renegade rebels who are leading the savages to murder and pillage. I have my reports from post commanders, but very little direct information from scouts like yourself — men who are in constant contact with the conditions out here. Would you be good enough to give me your angle on what I am up against?”

“For the present nothin’ of any great moment,” rejoined Clint, thoughtfully. “There hasn’t yet been any considerable bandin’ of the tribes together. I would advise breakin’ their strength before that consolidation can be effected. Renegade leaders like Murdock — his real name is Charley Bent — are like torches in dry prairie grass.”

“Bent? I have a report on him. Do you know where he hangs out?”

“Up the Cimmaron somewhere.”

“Belmet, can any of these Indian chieftains be placated — be persuaded to sign treaties?”

“They have been in the past. But they are growin’ bitter an’ doubtful. They have reason. I’ve no use for Indians. I lost my mother — my father — my friends — my uncle, all by Indians. But I don’t blame them. This is a harsh statement.... Let me tell you the kind of thing that makes Indians bitter. Last spring a small caravan of twenty-two wagons went along the trail out here, got to Sand Creek, an’ expected to be at the Crossin’ of the Cimmaron in three days. Some Kiowas rode into camp — sixteen in all — an’ they were hungry. These travelers — they weren’t freighters — refused to feed them. The Kiowas started away an’ a teamster shot one of them in the back. Killed him. The Kiowas stopped, picked their dead comrade up, an’ went on without ever a word. That night a big force of them swooped down on the camp, killed the teamsters, burned the wagons, drove off the stock.... Six days later some trappers came down from the hills, found the chain, wagon rims, an’ finally twenty-two scalped an’ mutilated men. They hurried on here to Larned an’ reported the massacre. The colonel sent out a detachment of soldiers, but the Kiowas were never rounded up.”

“Well, Belmet, that’s the other side of the story, and it is black,” replied Custer, sadly.

“General, in my opinion — an’ this I got from my uncle Jim Couch, an’ Kit Carson — the great danger is that the northern an’ southern tribes of the Great Plains will join forces. The Sioux are powerful and we hear rumors. Indian rumors, perhaps, but the more to be reckoned with for that.”

Clint went on to Santa Fé with his caravan, spent the winter there, and in the spring started back. Custer was still out on his campaign, which, according to gossip at the fort, had not yet been markedly successful.

When Clint reached Kansas City he learned something that reminded him of his talk with General Custer. The government had made a treaty with the Nez Percé Indians of the Northwest, granting them the Walla Walla Valley forever for their home. The Indians lived up to their agreement. But the whites forced themselves into the valley, and the government ignored their incursions. The Nez Percés went on the warpath, causing a great loss of life and property. And in the end the white men gained possession of the valley under military protection.

Belmet realized that there was no sense in dodging the truth. Government and army, gold-seekers and pioneers, even the freighters in some degree, had been unscrupulous and unkind in their treatment of the red man.

And that very winter, though Clint did not know of it until spring, the government made an appropriation of four hundred thousand dollars to treat with three of the Indian tribes — the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Kiowas. Congress failed to live up to the agreement. What became of the money no one on the frontier ever knew. These three tribes, after waiting months and making appeal after appeal to the government through army posts and agents, went on the warpath and spread death and destruction for five hundred miles around.

Clint Belmet saw the worst of 1868 and 1869 on the Old Trail. During these years the government strengthened all the forts in and around New Mexico. The freighting trade quadrupled, heavy caravans traveling both ways. Belmet became one of the famous train bosses, and the name “Buff” was familiar all along the line.

He had accumulated a considerable amount of money, for with his own and Jim Couch’s, which fell to him, he invested in pelts and thus made the freighting business pay him in two ways.

Couch’s cannon had belched its slugs many and many a time after its owner’s death. Belmet owed his caravan credit for being a magnificent fighting unit, but the cannon backed them up, surely helped them out of many a tight place. None of the Indians but the Comanches could stand a cannon charge. The roar seemed to dispel their courage as much as the slugs. Belmet’s band had secured the services of a soldier who had been a gunner in the army. He was a little red-headed Irishman named Benny Ireland. He had no fear of death or devil, and he loved a fight. His one great failing was impatience, which manifested itself in his habit of singing out to the Indians, when the freighters were lying low awaiting a surprise attack, “Cum on, ye red devils, an’ I’ll blow ye to smithereens!”

The leading factors in Belmet’s success in freighting heavy and valuable loads were the hardened and experienced frontiersmen he drew to him, and the fact that he would not handle anything but a large caravan. Then he had grown to be almost as keen on the scent of Indians as the dog Jack, whom he never forgot. It was that he was ready for attacks from the Indians and did not run to avoid them.

Nevertheless, there were other good reasons why Buff Belmet was molested less than other caravan leaders. He invariably remembered the advice of Kit Carson and the methods of Colonel Maxwell with Indians. Belmet never picked a fight; he never turned Indians away hungry; he never dealt in any way but strict honesty with them.

It was indisputable that some of the caravans invited disaster. Kelly’s band of two hundred and forty men — a very large caravan — left Taos in the late summer of 1869. At Lower Springs, about five days south of Fort Larned, a small band of Comanches rode into camp and asked for sugar and coffee. There were not more than forty Indians and some of these were in poor condition. The freighters showed the hungry Indians not only sugar and coffee and other appetizing food, but also made faces at them and refused to feed them. Moreover, they drew their rifles and ordered the Comanches to get out.

The Indians moved on. And this large caravan of freighters, secure in numbers, paid little heed to the incident. Before daylight a large band of Comanches stampeded their stock. All the freighters rode out to fight and drive their animals back. They recovered horses and oxen, but they left eight dead comrades and brought in seventeen more wounded. From that time on they had to fight these Comanches day and night for one hundred and fifteen miles. They had one hundred and three oxen killed, and thirty horses. Twenty-seven wagons had to be abandoned. And their casualty list totaled eighty-three dead and seventy-six wounded.

On Buff Belmet’s western trip in the fall of that year he fell in with John Hatcher, whose caravan contained forty wagons and about fifty men. Hatcher had been raised in the Shawnee Nation in Kansas. Probably he was the best Indian-fighter on the plains, according to the frontiersmen. Jim Barlow, who had thrown in with Belmet at Kansas City, had sixty-eight wagons and seventy-two men. These caravans added to Belmet’s of seventy-four wagons and eighty-one men, and Couch’s famous six-pound cannon, constituted a most formidable force.

Beyond Fort Larned they expected an attack every mile of the road. It was due. While making camp early the third day out they saw a band of white men ride by, leading and driving extra horses without packs. Belmet and Hatcher bent hawk eyes on these riders.

“Wal, I see two sick an’ crippled men among them,” said Hatcher. “What’s your idee, Buff?”

“Road agents,” declared Belmet. “Jim, I think I’ll stop that gang.”

“No, siree. Don’t do it,” returned the older frontiersman. “We can’t court trouble. Shore they looked like bad eggs. Them six hosses they’re leadin’ are stage hosses, if I ever seen any. But we haven’t any actual right to stop these men. Suppose they wasn’t crooked? I’d gamble on thet, but we can’t take the risk.”

Next morning Hatcher’s caravan, which was in the lead, halted to wait for Belmet’s to catch up.

An abandoned stage-coach stood on one side of the road. Eight dead men were lying about. The strong box had been broken open and contents taken, as had also the mail sacks. All the bodies had been riddled with bullets; the driver had nine holes in him.

“Wal, Buff, I’m sorry I didn’t let you stop them road agents yesterday,” said Hatcher. “All we can do now is bury these poor fellows an’ report the murder at the fort.”

Belmet reported the disaster to the army officials, who at once sent out troops in pursuit of the robbers. They returned the third day, while Belmet was still at the fort. They brought three prisoners. At the rendezvous of the gang the soldiers had killed ten, recovered forty-five stolen horses and eighteen thousand seven hundred and forty dollars in gold, silver, and paper.

Clint Belmet got permission to interview the road agents, and came very near being too late, for when he reached them they had nooses around their necks. Three more hardened wretches would have been difficult to find. The first laughed at Clint’s query, the second cursed him, but the third, a young man in his early twenties, replied: “Shore I know Lee Murdock. But thet ain’t his right name. Get me out of this necktie an’ I’ll tell you where he is.”

Captain Duncan, the veteran soldier in charge, spoke curtly to Clint:

“Sorry, Belmet. It’s impossible.... Swing ’em up, men!”

The three robbers were jerked off their feet almost before Clint could turn his back. He returned to his caravan, his head bent, his mind darkly on the past. Some day he would run across Lee Murdock. That seemed written in his fate on the plains. Clint had vowed he would never stop freighting until he encountered Murdock and Blackstone, or he knew for sure that they had met their just deserts.

On the way to Santa Fé the caravans were delayed by washouts, due to heavy summer storms. At length Clint and Hatcher decided to take the road to Maxwell’s Ranch and avoid all this rough travel. Such a détour meant many more miles, but in the end they would reach Santa Fé as soon as by the main trail.

The road had not been used for years. Weeds and grass had grown up in it, and all the miles along this road Clint knew so well, his mind brooded over the melancholy past.

At length the caravans reached the ranch, to pitch camp in the beautiful grove of cottonwoods. The leaves were turning gold.

Maxwell’s Ranch had reverted to the wild. In place of grazing horses and cattle, only buffalo and deer dotted the wide gray pastures. Clint climbed the slope, recalling what he had heard about the operations of the St. Louis Company that had purchased the ranch from Maxwell. They had taken over all the stock, but the object of buying was to work the placer mines. Half a million dollars had been spent there. A forty-mile canal had been dug, to fetch a two-foot stream down to the diggings. But the company found no gold and were ruined.

Clint surveyed the ranch house. What a change! Only a few years, yet the fences were all down, the windows were vacant holes, the doors gone, the walls crumbling. Not a living creature to be seen. The rooms were bare, cold, gloomy. Indians had scratched characters on the faded whitewash of the adobe walls. The dining-hall that had once been the Mecca for all frontiersmen, hunters, trappers, soldiers, and travelers, and the Indians, was now a den for wolves. Bones and piles of wolf dung! For Clint Belmet the hall of Maxwell’s banquets was haunted.

After supper he walked along the edge of the cottonwood grove to the spot where Couch’s camp had been located. He could have gone to it blindfolded. The grove at this point was comparatively lonely, as his freighters had not driven up so far. Beyond the clump of willows, precisely the same, stood the spreading cottonwood under which Couch’s wagon had stood. The leaves aloft were sighing. A golden glow from the reflection of the setting sun mellowed the glade.

Clint’s forehead was damp and his hands clammy. He plunged to the grass and lay back against the trunk of the cottonwood. The wagon had stood there. He remembered that the high seat, where he had rested with May Bell, was just under the spreading branch. He had held her in his arms there, had kissed her sweet lips and been kissed in return. Just here the tongue of the wagon had lain upon the ground. May Bell had sat about there — with a roguish devil in her dark eye. But he had not understood. He had been only a tortured youth.... Here Murdock had stood, sneering and cool, and there, close to Clint’s hand, he had lain, bloody-mouthed and senseless.

But that flashing heat of memory did not survive. Clint sat alone in the place of his dream. And his eyes grew dim. The hard years since that unforgettable hour had not killed the sweetness of memory. Never, though, since he had read May Bell’s crucifying letter had he permitted himself this weakness. He had not lived solely for revenge, but his search for Murdock and Blackstone had given the color and vitality to his trips to and fro on the Old Trail.

But now it was as if only a night had intervened. He had become a stern, ruthless frontiersman, surviving by wit and nerve and fierce resistance. Yet in this spot his heart seemed to burst, and slow salt tears burned his eyes. Regret, remorse, prayer were unavailing. The iron of the plains had cut deeply into his soul. Yet love lived there still, hidden, unquenchable as the fires of the sun.

The golden glow paled and faded. Lonely, silent twilight settled down. Far up on the ridge a wolf bayed, as if in resentment at the white man’s return. The grass was green, the leaves were beautiful, the willows gleamed, the stream babbled behind. But something was gone from the earth. The old cottonwood showed the wear and tear of storms. It had lost something.

Clint knew too much of the horror of frontier life to cavil at his fate, to bemoan it as something more bitter than had been the lot of other frontiersmen. That assumption would have been ignorance and folly. He did believe no man had ever been blessed by such love as May Bell had bestowed upon him, or had known such a sweet and lovely and willful girl. And no fortunate youth had ever been so stupid, so blundering, so jealous, so beset to destroy himself and the girl who worshiped him. But the brutal blows dealt him by the frontier had been no worse than had befallen thousands of men, far more deserving than he. Had not every rod of the Old Trail groaned with the travail of the freighter? How many lonely graves under the waving grass!

Fifteen years now had Buff Belmet held the reins across the prairie land. Few plainsmen had survived so many. The dream that he had treasured once, of giving up the overland toiling and of homesteading a little valley, safe near fort or town, had long been a mocking chimera, to return only in troubled slumbers, gall and wormwood.

Upon arriving at Santa Fé, to Clint’s surprise he was greeted as if he were a ghost.

“Buff Belmet?” exclaimed Buell, the agent, who could not believe his eyes.

“Why, of course I’m Buff Belmet!” replied Clint, testily.

“But you were dead!”

“Not quite.”

Buell was so astounded that he forgot to shake hands, but there seemed ample proof of gladness that equaled his astonishment.

“Buff, you haven’t been in Santa Fé for years. An’ you’ve shore been mourned as dead. I talked with a man who’d seen you dead in Kansas City, an’ another who’d seen your grave at some rocky point in the Old Trail.”

“Reckon he seen Uncle Jim Couch’s. No, my grave hasn’t been dug yet that I know of,” remarked Clint, dryly, and then an old query forged ahead in his thought.

“Have you seen Murdock an’ Blackstone since I left here?”

“Often. They ride in now an’ then, when there’s no caravan or soldiers around. The Indians keep them posted.”

“Ahuh! They must have a hidin’-place in these hills.”

“In summer. But they never show up in winter no more.”

CHAPTER 18

CLINT BELMET’S FIFTEEN winters on the frontier had been passed in study, reading, hunting, practicing with guns, manual labor, curing hides, and various other less important pursuits.

This winter he spent before the open fireplace, watching the flames, the opal glow, the red embers, thinking, mourning. After the visit to Maxwell’s Ranch he felt that he would never be his old self again.

But though sorrow made the days long, it could not hold them back. The winter ended. And spring came with its activities of preparation, its imminence of peril. Scouts and trappers predicted the bloodiest summer ever known on the frontier.

Barlow’s caravan departed first, on the way to Fort Lyon. Belmet and Hatcher again joined forces, this trip totaling one hundred and forty-three wagons. Heavily loaded and scarce of ammunition they started out, with their leaders full of apprehension. Tracks of Indian ponies filled the trail, but no other sign of the red men was noted.

“Reckon we’ll pay up for this later on,” remarked Hatcher, grimly.

“Looks too good to me,” replied Clint.

They rolled into Fort Larned without having experienced a single untoward happening, except the tiring of the oxen. Here, before undertaking the long overland journey across the plains, a rest was imperative, and the lightening of loads also. Fort Larned appeared unusually full of spring sellers of pelts and buyers and the hangers-on. Added to these the regular population of soldiers, Mexicans, Indians, and whites made of the town a busy, colorful place.

The first caravan from the east limped in, the freighters of which threw up their hands when questioned about the fun on the Old Trail.

Clint observed a pale youth of about sixteen, who came with the caravan. He carried a box under his arm and did not seem greatly impressed by the excitement at the fort. The freighters were washing up for dinner, but this pale lad sat down on a water-keg, opened his box and, taking out an accordion, he began to play. He played well and seemed to lose himself in the music. Finally Clint spoke to him:

“You get a pretty smart tune out of that. Did you play much comin’ across?”

“I played all the time so I wouldn’t hear the howling redskins,” replied the musician.

Clint wished Hatcher had been present to hear that remark.

“I’m Buff Belmet,” said Clint, kindly interested. “What’s your name?”

“George,” was the mild reply.

What a queer young fellow to journey west, among savage tribes and hardened men!

“Where you from, George?”

“La Crosse, Wisconsin.”

“Come west alone?”

“I’m alone now.”

“Ahuh! Where’s your father an’ mother?”

“Buried — back on the trail,” replied the youth, in strange calm.

Clint sustained a shock. The new freighters, pioneers, travelers, adventurers kept coming in endless stream across the plains. He sat down beside the young fellow, deeply moved. How long ago it seemed since he was like this! But then he reflected that at twelve he was a teamster, and at the age of this boy a full-fledged Indian-fighter.

“I’m sorry, George. The frontier is a bad place. I know how you feel. Tell me about it,” said Clint.

“We had several neighbors who wanted to move to Kansas. My folks didn’t care so much to go. We were doing pretty well on the farm. But father gave in, and persuaded mother to. We loaded wagons and started. It was cold and my mother took sick. The Mississippi River was frozen over. We had to cross on the ice. I walked over, sat down on a log, and played ‘Yankee Doodle.’ The six teams started across. Ours was the last and heaviest. One of the wheels broke through the ice, and then our horses, struggling and frightened, went through too, throwing mother and father into the cold water. The other men pulled them out. Their clothes froze stiff before they got ashore where I was. We built a fire and camped there. We lost everything we owned. I had this accordion.... Mother died that night. They buried her up on the high bank.... My father took it bad — lay in the wagon — I heard him moan.... And he died the third day. The neighbors who had coaxed us to come left me to shift for myself at Kansas City. I did not have a cent. I played my accordion to get a bite to eat. And the freighters fetched me along.”

“Well! Well! that’s a story,” ejaculated Clint, nonplused and stirred. “Come with me to dinner, George.”

Later Clint got the lad a job in Aull’s store and tried to give him some advice, such as he had once received from Kit Carson. But George did not seem to grasp the significance of the frontier.

That night Clint sat toasting his shins before a little red camp fire. Most of the freighters were at the fort, playing, drinking, talking. The early summer night was quite cool at that altitude. Out in the dark the coyotes were yelping. A wind fanned the red embers. Clint spread his big hands to the heat. Tomorrow at sunrise he would start the caravans on the move. Why did he feel a strange portent?

A moccasined footfall broke his reverie. An Indian, wrapped in a blanket, stepped out of the shadow and squatted beside the fire. Clint greeted him with a “howdy,” and then gave him a smoke. As he leaned over he recognized the Indian as a Kiowa, called Jim Whitefish, an outcast from his tribe because of his friendship toward the whites. He it was, indeed, who in 1854 had saved the life of the noted scout and trapper, Jim Baker. Clint had heard Baker tell that story. He had saved the Indian from his companions. Jim Whitefish lived in a shack on the edge of the settlement. And Clint had never yet passed through Fort Larned without remembering Jim. Probably this trip he would not have done so, as his mind was clouded. No doubt Jim Whitefish had called to remind him of this omission. Finally Clint went to his packs and got out sugar, coffee, tobacco, and a piece of buffalo meat — something not to be obtained every day now — and set them beside the Indian.

“There you are, Jim,” he said, cheerily.

The Kiowa made an impressive gesture which indicated more than any speech that he had not called on his white friend to beg. Then Jim finished his smoke. Presently he glanced stealthily all around, his inscrutable black orbs piercing as a blade in the moonlight. His lean, sinewy hand gripped Clint’s arm.

“White friend take soldiers,” he said, in low, guttural, but coherent English, and his other lean hand pointed eastward on the trail. “Blackstone come,” and here his hand described a meeting at some place he had in mind. “Charley Bent come,” and his flexible fingers drew an imaginary line from another direction. “Heap Kiowas. All meet place of rocks.”

Whereupon the Indian rose to stalk away into the gloom.

“Jim!” called Clint, as soon as he could catch his breath. But no answer came. “By thunder!”

It was a most extraordinary proceeding. Clint was so roused over its import that he denied for the moment the wolfish leap of his blood. He had not the slightest doubt but that in those few words Jim Whitefish had saved the Belmet and Hatcher caravans from massacre. The bloody frontier held an Indian here and there who could not let a debt go unpaid. It contained thousands who would give blow for blow. But such Indians as Jim Whitefish made it hard for Clint Belmet to think of killing any Indian, except in the heat of battle, and then that was the instinct of self-preservation.

After a moment of swift thought Clint got up, and in the action his boot kicked over the sacks of sugar and coffee that Jim Whitefish had deigned not to accept. If Clint had required any more significance to impress him it was here. He hurried away toward the fort to find Hatcher. At length some freighter told him the other train boss was playing cards in Horner’s saloon. Clint went there and found him.

“Jim, come out of that,” he said, and at his tone Hatcher leaped up, and the other three gangsters sat stiff in their seats.

“What the hell?” demanded Hatcher.

“Come out of here.”

When they were outside in the dark Clint gripped the brawny arm of his comrade and whispered: “Hatcher, we’re to be ambushed at Point of Rocks. Jim Blackstone comin’ one way. Charley Bent comin’ with Kiowas from another.”

“Wal, I’m damned! Shore wondered why the fort was so full of Kiowas. Did you notice thet?”

“Yes. But they were tradin’. I bought out one Indian myself.... Come to think of it, though, there are lots of them.”

“Buff, you can see white cunnin’ behind this. Who tipped you off?”

“Never mind who. We’ve got the hunch. What’ll we do?”

“Go on! We can’t stop. Not for the whole damn caboodle of redskins an’ rebels.”

“I didn’t think of holdin’ up. But we might plan somethin’.”

“Let’s ask the colonel for an escort. By Gad! he’ll drop dead, but let’s do it.”

“All right. But let me do the talkin’.”

Very soon they had audience with the commandant — a Colonel Bailey — fairly new to the extreme Western frontier. He listened coolly to Clint, his cigar tipped, and then he laughed.

“What’s come over you old scouts?” he returned, with derision. “It’d be more fitting for you to escort some of my soldiers.”

“Wal, Colonel, come to think aboot it, mebbe it would,” drawled Hatcher, as he withdrew.

Outside he cursed roundly. Clint was silent. Some of the army officers were dead wheels in a caravan.

“What’ll we do?” demanded Hatcher. “Take no notice of your hunch? I’ve had one now an’ then thet was no good.”

“It’s no hunch, Jim. It’s a tip an’ you can gamble on that.... Let’s figure what they’re up to.... Point of Rocks again! Jim, you know it’s the meanest hole on the whole trail. Indian scouts can sight us from the hills when we’re a day’s travel away. They can fire-signal or smoke-signal to their outfit below.”

“Wal, forewarned is forearmed. We’ve got a tried an’ true outfit. Let’s hang over another day — ring in more men — load up with more guns an’ ammunition.”

“No. That’d give us away. We won’t tell the men till we get out to Sand Creek, first camp. Then we’ll plan to wag along as usual, till we get to Cottonwood Flat, which is the last water this side of Point of Rocks. But instead of campin’ we’ll make an all-night drive — slip up to Point of Rocks in the night instead of daylight.”

“Huh! You mean surprise them yellow hombres an’ their redskins instead of lettin’ them surprise us?”

“Yes. It’ll be a thirty-mile drive altogether, but we can do it.”

“Hard on the stock. But, Buff, I lean your way. Let’s sleep on it.”

For all Clint could tell, sleeping did not help matters any. In the light of day, however, no venture had the same sinister aspect imparted by the blackness and mystery of night.

At sunrise the caravans rolled out of Fort Larned precisely as upon any ordinary trip. They made eighteen miles, a fair day, during which Clint often stood up on the wagon seat to sweep the plains, especially to the rear, with Jim Couch’s field-glass, which Clint always carried. He saw buffalo, but no Indians.

After supper Clint collected his men in a single group, and without betraying the source of his information, acquainted them with the extraordinary menace attached to this particular trip.

“You all know,” he concluded, “about the wagonload of rifles an’ ammunition I fetched from Kansas City to trade to the trappers an’ hunters at Fort Larned. That was last fall. Well, I picked up what was left — about seventy-five rifles an’ five thousand rounds. These are packed in the white wagon just behind mine. I want you all to get an extra rifle an’ ammunition, an’ keep them at your hand, day an’ night.”

“Buff, we may have hell, but they can’t lick us,” spoke up Henry Wells, the oldest frontiersman among them. Several more of the freighters of long experience expressed confidence in their number and equipment. And the gunner, Ireland, swore his cannon was equal to a hundred men.

“I’ve a plan to work out regardin’ the Point of Rocks ambush,” added Clint. “Meanwhile we’ll travel slow. Save the stock. An’ let every one of you be a scout an’ guard.”

Hatcher joined Clint later and expressed satisfaction with the way his men took the menacing news.

“Buff, we’re haulin’ the most valuable load of furs thet ever left Fort Larned,” said Hatcher. “Do you reckon Blackstone an’ Charley Bent got wind of thet?”

“You can just bet on it.”

“But how?”

“Some slick Indian, or more likely one of the many white men hangin’ round the fort. I saw a score I didn’t know. Mean-faced adventurers who couldn’t look you in the eye.... I’m also carryin’ important mail, an’ sixty thousand dollars for Aull an’ Co.”

“Whew!” whistled Hatcher. “If this road-agent outfit had ketched us with our pants down, as they’re plannin’, they’d shore give us a spankin’. I reckon we’ll owe a lot to your informant before this trip’s over.... Buff, the pace is gettin’ too hot. I don’t mind redskins by themselves so much. But when they’re set on by men of our own color an’ inflamed by rum, wal, excuse me. If we get through safe I’ll let it be my last caravan.”

“Jim, you don’t say!” ejaculated Clint, in surprise. “Cleanin’ out these robber gangs is a job for the army, not for freighters. General Custer is havin’ his hands full with these southern tribes. If he tackles the Sioux he’ll get a damn good lickin’. An’ who’s goin’ to do for these desperadoes like Blackstone, an’ Bent, an’ Broom Field, an’ Clanger, an’ Lord knows how many others thet are comin’ on strong. It’s new, this road-agent game. An’ it’s profitable.”

“You’re right, Jim,” said Clint, ponderingly. “Buell told me Blackstone had stacks of gold. Where’d he get it?”

“Buff, I’ve a hunch some of these train bosses pick up some extra money by packin’ stolen furs to Kansas City. I know one I wouldn’t trust. For thet metter, Jim Blackstone was a freighter. He drove for me in ‘fifty-eight. In the early ‘sixties he was a train boss.”

“I know him. Uncle Jim Couch never had any use for Blackstone.”

“Wal, neither have I. An’ I’ll gamble there’s not a man in our outfit who wouldn’t grin to see a noose go round his neck. Fact is, Buff, the men have taken this news damn serious. They see what we freighters are up against. Injuns is bad enough. If we should happen to have a little fight or two before we get to Point of Rocks, the outfit will be sore as rattlesnakes.”

Fifteen miles out of camp next morning a small detachment of soldiers waited for the big caravan to come up. Clint rode at the head of the mile half-circle of wagons — the road took a bend there — and Hatcher brought up the rear.

Clint recognized the sergeant who rode up to his wagon. His name was McMillan.

“Hello, Belmet!” he said. “We’ve had a bad go with some Pawnees. I split my men up the river, sent them one way while we went another. We’ve had a scrimmage. I’m worried about Nelson and the ten soldiers who went with him.... Get down and come over here to the river with me.”

Clint took his glass and strode beside the sergeant. Hatcher came galloping across the level from the road. A few hundred yards on, a line of brush and scrubby trees marked the crest of a considerable declivity. McMillan and Hatcher dismounted. A big basin opened out, with a stream meandering through bottomlands of willow and cottonwood.

“Belmet, take a squint through your glass at that bunch of horses,” directed the sergeant, pointing. “Lost my glass.”

Far down along the river, perhaps a mile or more distant, a troop of horses were being driven by mounted Indians. Clint leveled his glass and almost instantly exclaimed:

“Pawnees drivin’ a bunch of U.S. Army horses. I see the brand.”

Sergeant McMillan cursed vehemently. “ — !

Let me look!... Yes, U.S. brand, all right, and they’re our horses.... Belmet, will you help me round up that bunch of Pawnees?”

“I reckon. What do you say, Jim?” replied Clint, turning to Hatcher.

“Say? Why, I shore say yes. How many men do you need, Sergeant?”

“Each of you get me ten picked men, mounted, and we’ll soon corral them.”

They returned to the wagon-train, where it was difficult to decide on the men, because they all wanted to go. Finally Jim Hatcher selected his ten men, and said he would stay behind with the caravan. Clint picked ten, and in a very few minutes all the detachments were on the brink of the hill, peeping through the foliage at the Pawnees.

“Belmet, you go down here and follow them,” directed McMillan. “I’ll ride around with my men and cut in ahead of them. When they see us they’ll fight or turn back. In case of a fight you ride up quick. But if they turn back you head them off. Don’t let any of them get away. We’ve been after this bunch for weeks. They’ve been murdering settlers up the valley.”

“How much time do you need to get in front of them?” asked Clint.

“You go right ahead and never mind us.”

Clint led his men back along the river to a trail which went down. It was extremely steep, but of soft earth, where the horses slid along without danger, dust, or noise. Once down in the valley, Clint soon struck the heavy trail of the Pawnees and followed it. In less than an hour the pursuers sighted the Indians. And it grew evident that the stolen horses were hard to manage. McMillan and his soldiers appeared on the high bank in front, half a mile ahead of the Pawnees. The Indians halted, undecided what to do, but when the soldiers descended the bank and splashed into the river they turned back.

Almost at once their sharp eyes detected the freighters galloping up. They broke for the river, leaving the stolen horses. But the bank there appeared too steep, and they abandoned any idea of going over. At that juncture the soldiers appeared behind them. Then the Pawnees charged with a wild war whoop.

“Scatter, men, an’ shoot low!” yelled Clint.

The Pawnees had rifles and they came thudding on, shooting over the heads of their horses. It was a beautiful sight for the freighters, but not conducive to fine marksmanship. At the first volley only a few Pawnees pitched off their horses.

Clint felt the shock and burn of a bullet in his upper right arm. It dropped weakly and his rifle fell. Halting his horse, he leaped off and pulled his revolver with his left hand. He killed two Pawnees and wounded a third before they wheeled to the left, hoping to make into the heavy brush. But the soldiers were upon them, and the freighters also swerving on their flank. Clint saw a short sharp engagement — a running one, yet at close range; and it ended as suddenly as it had begun.

He examined his wound, and finding it nothing to concern him, except that it bled profusely, he bound it with his scarf, and then led his horse over to his men.

“Buff, I see you’re bleedin’,” observed Henry Wells. “Any bones broke?”

“No. I’m not hurt. How about you all?... Where’s the soldiers?”

“Gone after their horses. There’s thirty dead redskins an’ nine took prisoner. Sergeant McMillan left orders to line them up an’ shoot them.”

“Let his own men do that,” replied Clint, sharply. “How many of you men hurt?”

“Six, an’ none bad, except Heddon, who got a nasty crack in the hip. But I ain’t shore the bone is broke.”

Clint observed the nine stoical Pawnees standing stripped of weapons, under guard. They were silent, somber. All these plains savages were mystics. They had fought; they had been vanquished; they were ready to receive the fate they would have meted out to their white foes.

Clint put his arm in a sling, then he examined Heddon’s wound, which was painful but not dangerous. Some of the freighters, with ropes fastened to their pommels, were hauling the dead Indians to the river bank, where men on foot slid them over to splash sullenly and sink out of sight. Clint’s sharp eye surely detected life in more than one of them.

When this unpleasant task was ended Sergeant McMillan returned with the recovered horses. Three of his soldiers had been wounded. The comparatively little injury done the white men attested to the advantage of surprise attack.

“Say, didn’t I leave orders to shoot them nine prisoners?” demanded McMillan.

“Reckon some one said so, sergeant, but I’m not takin’ orders from you,” replied Clint, quietly. “We just helped you out.”

“You sure did, and I’m much obliged. Thought maybe I could shove the dirty job on some of your men. You all got the reputation of being a bloody lot. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“It might be deserved, Sergeant. But I reckon we shirk this job.”

“Line them Indians up!” yelled McMillan to his soldiers.

The doomed Pawnees did not need to be dragged to the edge of the river bank. And they faced the firing squad. Clint bent lowering gaze on them. He had seen this sort of thing often; he had participated in such justice. But it always seemed so pitiful. What magnificent courage these Pawnees showed!

“Ready! Aim! FIRE!”

Some fell backward, dark blank faces terrible to see, and the rest sank down, to be shoved over by the swift soldiers.

The tension of soldiers and freighters relaxed. Some sat down; others looked to their wounds and asked for assistance; still others tended to weapons and saddles. McMillan consulted one of his men about the recovered horses.

Clint’s keen eye caught sight of three Pawnees crawling out of the shallow water across the river. One was crippled, because he had to be helped. The other two had very probably feigned death and had been thrown into the river unhurt. Clint did not betray them.

But suddenly one of the soldiers espied them and yelled: “Look! — Three redskins come to life!” And he began to shoot. Plainly his bullets went wide of their mark.

“Sam, you couldn’t hit a flock of barns,” shouted another soldier, and he opened fire. Several others did likewise. They might have been playing a game. The foremost Pawnee let go his hold upon his injured comrade, and bounding across the sand bar into the willows, he escaped. But the other Indian refused to leave him. Bullets splashed on the water and kicked up the sand. This valiant Pawnee had dragged his brother half out of the water when suddenly he let go. Erect a moment, he swayed back, his dark face gleaming across the river at his foes. He was killed but not conquered. He fell on the sand. The crippled Pawnee too had been hit again. His head sank on his breast; his shoulders stuck to the bank a moment; then gradually he slid down into the water out of sight.

The freighters had been held up three hours. “Good-by, Sergeant,” said Hatcher. “It’s all in the game.” And the caravan again headed eastward, making ten more miles that day, mostly down grade to Branch Creek, a spot hardly ever used by caravans. The water was bad.

Outside of that, however, the camp proved comfortable. Next morning at sunrise, Henry Wells reported to Clint.

“Smoke signals to the south, boss,” he said.

Clint took a long look with his glass, then sent for Hatcher.

“Wal, shore enough,” drawled that worthy. “Let’s have breakfast an’ skedaddle along.”

Before noon one of the scouts, who had been riding a mile or more to the fore, came galloping back. “Injuns ridin’ up, boss,” he said.

“Where?”

“Right down the road.”

“How many?”

“Big bunch — five hundred, mebbe.”

“Comanches?”

“I couldn’t tell for sure.”

Clint turned and yelled in stentorian voice to the freighters close behind: “Indians! Runnin’ fight! Keep comin’! Pass the word back!”

Then he addressed the scout: “Ride back to Ben Ireland. Tell him an’ Copsy to have the cannon ready an’ to fire a couple of times quick, at any chance. An’ after that pick out a good bunch to shoot into.”

Clint laid his revolver on the seat beside him, lifted his two rifles to the same level, then called to his horses:

“Giddap!”

He drove on, hawk eyes on the horizon line, where the yellow road divided it. Hennesy, the driver behind him, was singing at the top of his voice. Clint peered back a moment. The gaps were closing up, horses accommodating themselves to the slower gait of the oxen. But all were moving briskly.

A long bobbing fringed line rose before the prairie. Clint had never seen the like of that and he experienced a grim thrill. Presently the level line of horsemen topped the grass to come on like the wind. Clint did not remember ever being charged by such numbers, but to his relief they were not Comanches. It appeared to be a mixed band of Arapahoes and Cheyennes. They raced forward, a beautiful shining line, and when within three hundred yards they split on each side of the trail and sheered, to come abreast of the caravan just out of accurate rifle range. Yet they began to fire on the caravan.

Presently Clint had to look back to see them. In a running fight the Indians always kept parallel with a caravan, the more daring riders cutting in here and there, and where they stopped a wagon they were likely to concentrate. Clint saw this very thing happen. Freighters began to shoot, which indicated that Indians somewhere were within range. A group of savages had cut in. Two wagons had been stopped. Clint saw one teamster fall over the seat, and the other huddle up. The next wagon behind came on, going round the two halted ones, and the rest of the caravan kept in order. There was no confusion. The freighters moved briskly; and all along the line desultory firing began, directed on both sides.

BOOM! The six-pounder! Clint liked to hear that, as did all the freighters. The cannon had been mounted on a wagon, with Ireland in charge, Copsy as assistant, and two teamsters, driving four horses. Clint did not see whether the first charge from the cannon had been effective. Probably it had not been, except to lower the courage of the wild assailants. In exactly two minutes Ireland had reloaded, as Clint well knew by a second BOOM.

The firing swept back along the caravan to Hatcher’s end. And this old frontiersman sent up the white puffs of smoke, one for each wagon. This kind of fight was less perilous for the freighters, except when the attackers grew bolder in a massed charge.

Clint had covered a mile by the time the Indians turned to charge back, closer, riding harder and faster, firing oftener, with more audacious braves darting in. The toll of falling Indians began to mount up. These freighters did not waste many shots. Sitting on their reins, they fired while their teams were moving. A yoke of oxen went down. Clint saw the teamster leap off, fire his rifle, and dash back to the next wagon, which came on around and back to the road with but little loss of time.

BOOM! Benny Ireland’s cannon roared. A knot of Indians, closing in on the halted wagon, wavered as if struck by heavy wind, and then disintegrated. Riderless mustangs with flying manes ran wild out across the prairie.

The screeching, terrific din of Indian yells, which drowned all save the report of the cannon, gained on the head of the caravan. Clint drove while peering back. Suddenly he thrust the knotted reins under his leg and jerked up one of the rifles. The eighth team behind him was down, a yoke of oxen, and the teamster had disappeared. Then the ninth wagon, trying to clear the eighth, halted, with dead horses and running drivers. The Indians concentrated here, whirled their mounts, rode to and fro.

Clint pulled his team to a stop. Then he began to shoot, now on one side, then on the other. His action halted the head of the caravan. The seven drivers between him and the two teams down followed his example with deadly rifle-fire. The dozen or more teamsters beyond likewise poured a heavy volley into the collecting riders. On each side of the train now the Indians grew bolder and fiercer, insane in their blood lust, daring to the point of destruction. A few more teams down and they would have the caravan order broken.

Clint downed a horse or an Indian for every one of his seven shots, and that with his arm in a sling. He reloaded, although he had the other rifle beside him. He would keep one ready for close quarters. When he looked up again, the Indians had bunched on each side opposite the breach in the caravan. The cannon wagon was off the road, coming at a gallop, the four horses extended, one teamster driving, the other shooting, Copsy also shooting, and Benny Ireland holding on to the cannon. The Indians, frantic at their opportunity, swelled in number at that point. They were about to risk riding through the breach to surround Clint and the other seven wagons.

Fifty yards from the larger group, on the right side of the caravan, Ireland’s wagon halted. Clint saw a red belching flame, a leaping tongue of smoke. BOOM! the cannon thundered, and like grain before a reaper Indians and horses went down. Clint whooped, as no doubt all the freighters were whooping. All the savages remaining on the right side of the caravan fled as if from a prairie fire. Those on the left side sheered off, but kept riding and shooting. Their golden chance was gone. The freighters behind came up fast, driving two abreast, expecting the order to form a circle. But Clint did not give it, and by the time Hatcher arrived the Indians had circled around to join their fleeing comrades. Far out on the prairie they halted in a dark mass, wild and savage, evidently to consult. But they did not renew the attack.

Swift grimy hands cut out the dead teams and hitched their wagons to the rear of others. The dead freighters were lifted up and covered. Six killed and four wounded. Benny Ireland had a hole through his forearm.

“Hey, boss, shure wasn’t thet last shot a hummer?” he shouted.

Fifty-three Indians and almost as many mustangs had gone down to that terrific charge of slugs.

“Irish, you’re shore thar with your pepper-pot,” shouted a bloody-armed teamster as he took up the reins. Many were the calls vented upon Ireland.

“Drive on!” yelled Belmet.

Once more the caravan leaders moved, and the wagons behind fell in line, and soon the whole cavalcade was in action, stretching along the yellow road. The wheels rolled, the harness creaked, the oxen wagged, the horses settled down, and the freighters drove on toward the vacant, purple, beckoning horizon.

CHAPTER 19

BUFFALO IMPEDED PROGRESS. The straggling ribbons of the immense herd moving north blocked by the caravan, cut it into several sections, surrounded it, and at last brought it to a standstill.

The freighters were not slow to take advantage of their opportunity. Rump steak, their favorite meat, would be the order of the supper that evening, if they were able to move on to camp. By the middle of the afternoon the herd thinned out.

Clint Belmet never tired of watching buffalo. The breath-taking sight of his first buffalo bull, the freezing of his very marrow when Dick Curtis whispered to him to shoot the monster, the tremendous kick that knocked him flat, and then the thrill when he saw the huge black woolly beast down — these youthful impressions had not deadened through the years, and they recurred whenever he saw buffalo. The rumble of thundering hoofs! The prairie-wide pall of dust! Buffalo now as numerous as the grasses of the plains, would some day be only a memory. Clint saw that.

Travel along the Old Trail had lesser problems than Indian attacks, but for all that they were important. Water for man and stock absolutely could not be packed. And after a long pull in the dust, under the sun, the stock needed drink. So that whenever obstacles like the intruding buffalo herd caused delay it was a serious matter.

That night the caravan was eight hours behind and had to camp at another of the unfrequented water holes. In this particular instance, however, the delay was fortunate, because next morning, when they were well under way, they met Pawnees, who after one shot from Ireland’s cannon gave them a wide berth. At the regular camp, some miles farther on, the scouts found unmistakable signs that the Pawnees had waited in ambush for them.

When Hatcher was told this he threw up his hands with a curse. “Looks like every band of redskins on the plains was layin’ for this caravan.”

Clint inclined to the same opinion. The mood of the men grew more grimly laconic and defiant as their dangers and troubles increased. For years they had boasted of what might be expected on the Old Trail some day. And in their own particular case the dawn of that day was not remote.

Next morning they were getting well down into the heave and bulge of the last rolling country before the vast level of the prairie land proper. Creeks bisected the region, and from the timbered bottoms thin blue columns of smoke rose against the pale green. They did not sight any Indians, but Hatcher voiced Belmet’s conclusion that many a pair of dark savage eyes had watched the caravan from the ridge tops.

This portion of the Great Plains had always been singularly stirring for Clint Belmet. It was the most beautiful and wildest section between the Rockies and the Missouri. Clint was nearing the lonely graves of his father and mother, of Uncle Jim Couch, and of Tom Sidel, the one close friend of his youthful freighting days — the boy who had saved his life.

Afternoon of the day following, so far significant in that no Indians had been sighted when they were known to be in the neighborhood, brought to the far-gazing eyes of Clint Belmet the purple and gray mass that was Point of Rocks. Its peculiar shape made it a landmark to those familiar with the country.

Southward from the position of the rolling caravan the plain ran off into escarpments, some of them rugged, dark with brush, others winding down in gray wavering lines to the blue prairie. Every mile or two a gully opened out of this vast slope, and a green line of willows and cottonwoods wound out to vanish in the level. Northward the last shelf of the mountains sloped endlessly, its grays and purples merging into the distance, which was like a desert or sea.

From the present position of the caravan it was a day and a half of easy travel to Point of Rocks. Sharp Indian eyes must already have sighted the caravan and concluded that the next camp would be at Alder Creek.

Belmet’s glass at last located what he had long searched for. From a high ridge dark round puffs of smoke floated from behind the brush. They had a singular regularity. Belmet’s teeth set. He knew a crafty Indian was standing over a fire, covering it with a blanket, which he raised at regular intervals to let out a puff of smoke. Somewhere miles away other Indian eyes, sharp as those of a prairie buzzard, saw these signals, and knew that the caravan was passing a certain point.

“Jim Whitefish told the truth,” muttered Clint, in gratitude to that outcast friend of the whites. “We’re supposed to go in camp at Point of Rocks tomorrow night. An’ before mornin’!... Well, we’ll do a little ambushin’ on our own hook.”

Belmet sent a scout back along the line to tell every freighter of the signals and that the order was to drive slowly until dark, then briskly on to Point of Rocks. Hatcher sent word forward to Belmet that he had seen an Indian lookout ride across a brow of hill, sit his horse and watch. And the conclusion of Hatcher’s message was: “There’ll shore be hell to pay an’ we want to make Point of Rocks before daylight!” Toward sunset a marvelous clear light shone over the plains, a beautiful transparent colorless medium, strangely magnifying, and gradually tinging to gold. It still wanted an hour till the setting of the sun. The sturdy horses plodded on, bobbing their heads; the patient oxen wagged their yokes from side to side; the wheels rolled round and round.

Eastward above the gently undulating prairie, where the grass waved in shining ripples, rose the low mound that was Point of Rocks. Clint saw his long shadow moving ahead of him, grotesque and sinister. Away to the south the escarpments ran down dimly into the golden obscurity.

No sign of life! The birds and beasts of the prairie were not in evidence. Over the plains brooded solitude and melancholy, and peace that was an illusion. The sun set behind the caravan, and to the east sky and horizon met, gold and rosy, then paling to gray, and at last dark along the immensity of the level land.

But death lurked out there, like the empty barren distance, so palely gray now, with edges of twilight creeping up from the hollows. The Great Plains! Never had Clint Belmet seen them so vast, so clear, so incredibly old. Long reach after reach, up over the rising bulge toward the ranges, gray and cold as clay, their eternal monotony inescapable and tremendous.

For fifteen years Belmet had watched this phenomenon of changing prairie land — the gold turning gray, the gray to stone, and at last the clear mystery of night over the sea of grass. But this time it seemed more than potent of the purpose of nature and the futilities of man.

At three in the morning Belmet and Hatcher drove their caravans under the dark lea of Point of Rocks, completing the longest drive either of them had ever made. The oxen stood the long haul, but the horses were exhausted. A double circle of wagons, with narrow gateways, at two sides, left only a few acres of grass inside. The horses were fed grain, something always reserved for emergency. The oxen were unyoked and turned loose inside the corral. Scouts were dispatched out on all sides, and Clint Belmet went with Henry Wells to take a look at the bottomlands. All was dark over the wide expanse of timber where the two streams joined, and likewise up the forks. But neither Belmet nor Wells trusted that darkness. They waited, turning strained ears to the low country, listening for Indian dog or horse. A lonesome wolf mourned and a plains owl hooted dismally; the wind rustled the leaves of the cottonwoods, and the soft murmur of water floated by.

Dawn broke. Deer trooped down off the prairie to enter the thickets. Buffalo waded across the shallow streams to climb out on the level.

Wells returned to where Belmet sat. “Buff, if there were any reddys hidin’ in the thickets them deer would act different. So would the buffalo. An’ we could hear horses a mile. An’ by this hour Injuns would be up.”

“Henry, we’ve beat them here,” declared Clint.

“Shore have. Let’s go back an’ get a bite to eat.”

Fires had not been lighted. The men had cold buffalo meat, biscuits, and coffee, which had been cooked and brought on for this contingency.

Hatcher came down off the high part of Point of Rocks.

“I left Moore up there with the glass. We can spot them comin’ down both creeks, miles away. But nothin’ yet.”

The last scout rode in late. He had been ten miles to the north.

“Seen suthin’ movin’ out on the prairie, but couldn’t say whether it was Injuns or buffalo,” he reported.

“Wal, if the stock wasn’t dead on its feet we could pull out of this,” remarked Hatcher.

“Boss, we’d never get far,” protested Wells.

“Hell! shure we ain’t goin’ to pass up a foight?” demanded Benny Ireland.

“Buff, I’m goin’ round an’ ask every man what he thinks about tryin’ to travel,” said Hatcher.

“But it’s poor sense, Jim,” declared Belmet, earnestly. “The horses are ail in. They’ve got to have rest. If we started out now they’d drop, one an’ two at a time. We couldn’t go far before the Indians would catch up. Then we’d be worse off than we possibly can be here.”

“Hatcher, he’s dead right,” declared Wells, and the opinion of this old plainsman carried weight.

“Wal, I’ll make a canvass, anyhow,” replied Hatcher, gloomily.

Henry Wells showed a surprise he did not speak. Jim Hatcher had never before leaned to a decision like this. Nor did Clint Belmet speak his mind, which he felt at that moment was weighted with catastrophe. In his judgment they absolutely could not go on for at least twenty-four hours.

“Wal, I’ll tell you, Buff,” spoke up Henry Wells. “It’s no shore thing thet we’ll be jumped hyar.”

“I hope we won’t, but I’m afraid we will.”

“But we can’t be surprised an’ thet gives us such an advantage we’ll drive ’em off fust charge.”

“Henry, if Blackstone an’ Murdock are leadin’ Kiowas to attack us we’ve got to surprise them or be massacred.”

“Blackstone an’ Murdock? — Charley Bent, you mean? Who’n hell said they was headin’ this deal? An’ Kiowas, too! — Buff, have you an inside tip on this?”

“Yes. Jim Whitefish told me. You know him. Keep your mouth shut about him. But tell the men whom to expect.”

“Gawd Almighty! — Buff, them road agents never tackled a caravan yet they didn’t get. Thet’s why we never had no proof on them. They haul wagons away an’ the white men they kill. An’ bury them far off the trails.”

“Yes, Henry. Caravans just disappear. It used to be only Indian attacks, wagons burned, an’ white men left naked, scalped an’ cut.... If Blackstone an’ Bent lick us here nobody will ever know what became of us. An’ the most valuable load we ever hauled!”

“Wal, by Gawd! Blackstone an’ Bent will never lick us!”

“So say I. Go among the men an’ tell them who we suspect is after us.”

In a very few moments that camp hummed like a hive of angry bees.

Clint soon climbed to the top of the rocky eminence, where he relieved the man on watch.

“Plenty of deer, buffs, an’ coyotes, but no redskins,” he reported, relinquishing the field-glass.

“Reckon they have all day to get here if they’re comin’,” said Clint, half to himself. He sat down to study the lay of the land across the junction of the two streams, and the shallow meandering valleys which wound to south and east. With his glass he could command fully five miles of the trail that came from the south and perhaps three up the other to the east. It was logical to conclude that Indians bent on ambushing Point of Rocks would come down by one or both of these trails, because if they traveled on the road they risked detection, and to the north there was no water to camp near. Moreover, the escarpments with their rugged gullies lay to the southward.

“Well, if we see them first they are gone goslins,” muttered Belmet.

There would be ample time to formulate a plan and carry it out, after the Indians showed up in one or both of the winding valleys. No doubt they had camped at the head of these creeks and were on the march now. The possibility of their not coming stood very remote in Clint’s mind. He would have wagered anything on Jim Whitefish’s veracity and accuracy. The Kiowa knew. One of his relatives in the tribe or a Pawnee who had drunk firewater with the crafty outcast had revealed the secret of a long-planned raid, the genius of which had its inception in the subtle heads of renegades. Then the presence of Indians all along the trail, the time and the place, seemed to foreshadow fatality.

Blackstone and Murdock must run their bloody race sooner or later. No desperado of their ilk could long survive the frontier at this period. During the war the stage of the Great Plains had been set for a monstrous drama which was now being enacted. Clint reflected that more caravans had been destroyed in the last two years than in ten before. He tried to recall the number massacred or broken up or vanished or reported lost, but when he got to thirty-three he gave up, appalled. Would this be the last caravan Buff Belmet ever led across the plains? Courage and defiance and reasoning united in a negative, but there was a strange vague presagement set against these, and it intimated that Point of Rocks was to be the end of his overland freighting trail. He endeavored to cast off the shadow, but it continually returned. Like Hatcher, he divined events that cast somber shadows before.

Every moment or so he would lift the glass to his eyes and scan the whole visible length of the south fork of the river, then that of the east. A hundred times or more he scrutinized the valleys, then on the hundred and first his whole frame leaped with a vibrating rush of blood. A thick dark moving band of mounted warriors had turned into the gray valley on the right.

In leaps and bounds he clattered down the rocks to the camp of waiting freighters.

“Men, they’re comin’ — a big force!” he said, sharply. “Down the right-hand creek, five miles or so up.... Hatcher, take seventy-five men an’ the cannon. Wade across. Plant the cannon just this side of the cottonwoods an’ hide your men all around in the willows. They’ll stop there to wait for us an’ night. But don’t you wait! When they all get bunched in the grove, shoot! Keep to your hidin’ places an’ shoot.... Ireland, you an’ Copsy stand by the cannon, with another man to back you up. Pick your first shot. Make it count heavy. Then load like hell and keep shootin’.”

“Wal, thet suits me, Buff,” replied Hatcher, with a gleam of pale fire in his eyes. “What’ll you do?”

“I’ll take twenty-five men an’ go up the left draw. For if Blackstone is to meet Bent an’ his Kiowas here he’ll come down that draw. If he’s late comin’ an’ we hear you shootin’, we’ll run back.”

“Good! But keep under the bank a little an’ come up behind us,” said Hatcher. “Wal, thet will leave forty-odd men here to guard the wagons. Suppose another bunch of Injuns would sneak in from this other side?”

“They could come, sure, but sneakin’ wouldn’t help much. They’d be seen long before they got near. An’ I reckon our fight over across the creek will be short an’ sweet.”

Hatcher got his men moving promptly, and twenty or more of them handled the brass six-pounder as if it were a plaything.

“Wells, you take charge of the men left here,” went on Clint. “Have a scout on top, but hidin’ mighty low an’ careful.”

Hatcher, with two revolvers in his heavy belt, which was full of shells, and carrying a Colt’s rifle in each hand, approached Clint for a final word.

“Buff, if anythin’ happens to me you’re to have the money on me,” he said.

“Same in my case — if you come out an’ I don’t,” replied Clint.

“It’s jest as well we haven’t any folks. I often wondered what I was savin’ up money for. To quit the plains an ‘take a rest! But, by Gawd! I’ve a hunch I waited too long!”

What tremendous import of tragedy in Hatcher’s simple words! And Clint felt that his own mental state had some similarity to the old freighter’s. These early plainsmen were wont to make light of toil, fight, bloodshed, and death. They had undertaken a task well-nigh impossible, and that was to transport across the Great Plains supplies to the forts and trading posts, and return with the valuable pelts and furs. In the beginning of this business the Indians were more disposed to trade than to fight. But injustice, cheating, broken treaties, murder for nothing, and the slaughter of their buffalo, and at last an army of soldiers sent against them, had made them bitter, ruthless fiends. The white man, of course, owing to numbers and improved weapons, and the spirit characteristic of the pioneer, would conquer in the end. But before that day came there would be many a caravan burned on the prairie, many a brave man dig his toes in the dust.

Clint Belmet’s deadly wrath seemed centered more on the renegade desperadoes like Blackstone and Charley Bent. Indeed, the latter was the Simon Girty of the plains. Indians were simple-minded, easily roused, and more easily led. Whatever the crime of the pioneer against them — and it was great — that of the renegade was heinous and unforgivable. Bent had often led his red demons to the destruction of a caravan without risk to himself. Clint believed that this time Bent — or Lee Murdock, as he always thought of him — had overreached himself, and if he were on the way to Point of Rocks he was riding to his doom. Seventy-five freighters, under command of an old frontiersman, each armed with two seven-shot rifles and two six-shot revolvers, and also loaded down with extra ammunition, and lastly the murderous slug-shooting cannon, all ambushed in thick cover, would deal destruction to any force of Indians.

Hatcher’s men had disappeared in the willow thicket bordering the right-hand fork of the stream. Clint’s men waited for him on the bank. He dared not hold back much longer, but he wanted the last moment possible, in case the scout up on the rock sighted Indians or Blackstone’s band, coming from the east fork. And Belmet was tightening his belt when Stevens came sliding down the slope. Rocks rattled ahead of him. With one hand he held aloft Clint’s field-glass, and with the other he retarded his descent by clinging to the brush. When he thumped to the ground and looked at Clint with glinting eyes there was hardly need of words.

“White men — comin’ down the — left draw,” he panted. “Eighteen of them, ridin’ two abreast!”

“How far?”

“Less’n two miles.”

“Good work, Stevens. Go back up an’ lay low. Don’t forget to keep an eye peeled all around.”

Clint, with a rifle in each hand, ran back to join his men.

“White men comin’ down this left-hand creek,” he said. “Eighteen of them, ridin’ two abreast. Must be Blackstone’s outfit. Come.”

The twenty-five freighters waded behind Clint across the shallow stream and followed him along the sand-bar under the bank for a quarter of a mile. Then Clint mounted the low bank and headed into the willow thicket. It was dense and tangled. At high water this sand-flat, which came to an apex where the two streams joined, was inundated. It sloped up, however, to more open ground where the cottonwoods began. Coming to a well-trodden trail Clint halted, waiting for his men to cluster round him.

“We’ll go on to the first open spot an’ then hide along the trail,” said Clint. “If I’m calculatin’ right, this white outfit will get here before the Indians. What we want to do is to capture them without a shot. Wal tie them up an’ then hustle across to help Hatcher.”

“Boss, Jim Blackstone will be hard to hold up. Capture means only a rope!” said one of the freighters.

“I’m gamblin’ on surprise. An’ the worst of these bandits will hesitate with a rifle close to his belly. We won’t give them time.”

Some little distance farther on an oval glade, through the center of which the trail ran, captured Clint’s eye as the ideal place to ambush the bandits. All around the glade brush grew high and deep.

“Here!” ordered Clint, halting. “Scatter along, twelve men on each side, about the length of a horse apart. Hide an’ don’t move till I yell. Then jump up with one rifle.... Shoot if any man of them makes a move. Otherwise obey orders.”

Silently the men melted into the green cover. It afforded perfect protection. Clint, the last to move, backed into the willows at the head of this glade. He could peep through the foliage and see straight up to where the trail entered. And he set his teeth hard. One way or another Jim Blackstone would get his just deserts there. Clint realized that if Lee Murdock accompanied Blackstone it would give a different color to the affair. Murdock would never throw up his hands. He was now about thirty years old and had been a renegade for six or seven years and the wildest and most iron-nerved of the frontier desperadoes. In case that Murdock accompanied Blackstone, which circumstance Clint doubted, the only thing to do was to kill him first and yell afterward. A dead man falling off his horse would not be instantly conducive to his companions drawing weapons. Clint relied upon shock.

He knelt on one knee, careful to note that he was well concealed. He leaned a rifle against the crotch of a willow and held the other well forward with both hands so that he would have but a single move to make. He was breathing with difficulty and was hot with sweat. There was more in this stern hour than just the self-preservation of a freighter. He had often in grim moments held on to life just in the hope of meeting Lee Murdock face to face.

Suddenly Clint heard the thud of hoofs on soft sand. A slight vibration of his body ended in a rigidity that was like ice. Far down the trail, beyond the glade, he saw black hats and indistinct faces of white men, then brawny shoulders, and then the bobbing ears of horses. They came down the trail two abreast. The riders were bunched pretty close, horse to horse, which was a most fortunate circumstance. The leader on the right was a huge man, heavily bearded, and before he rode into the glade Clint recognized him. Uncertainty ceased then for Clint, and even in the dark setting of his mind he remembered the Indian, Jim Whitefish, with passionate gratitude.

They came on, horses walking. They were in no hurry. They talked unreservedly, and one of them let out a hard coarse laugh. They wore buckskin and were armed to the teeth. Not in all Clint’s experience had he seen as hard, forbidding, and relentless-looking an outfit. They represented the epitome of wild frontier life of the period. Their indistinct voices grew clearer and finally distinct: “ — hyar ahaid of time,” said one of them.

“Wal, Charley aimed to beat the Comanches heah.”

Blackstone’s deep voice, carrying well, smote Clint’s heart with a deadlier import than that indicated by his presence.

“How’nil did they all git wise to this rich caravan?”

“Aull’s been gatherin’ ten thousand mink, otter, an’ fox hides fer Buff Belmet’s caravan.”

“Haw! Haw!”

“Wal, you might haw on the other side of your jaw if them Comanches don’t get heah, too.”

“What’s two hundred miles to them ridin’ louses?”

When the foremost horses reached to within twenty feet of Clint he rose swiftly, rifle extended.

“HANDS UP!”

The cavalcade froze as one man. The hoofs of the horses beat a nervous tattoo and likewise stilled. Blackstone’s face turned a dirty white under his beard.

“Hands up! Hands up!” roared down the glade as the freighters, like grim specters, rose out of the green.

An instant of paralyzed realization — then the hands of every man shot up. It was an instinct. The complete surprise blocked reason. Suggestion was all-powerful.

Clint seized upon the moment with the passion of genius.

“Andy, grab all guns on your side,” yelled Clint. “Sam, you on your side!”

The two freighters leaped into action, throwing rifles and revolvers to the ground. The stiff upheld hands began to quiver and jerk. Blackstone drew his halfway down.

Clint took two swift strides.

“Up with them!... I’ll bore you!”

For an instant Blackstone’s life hung on a quivering balance. His big pale eyes showed sudden fury. His rifle and revolver, jerked from him, lay on the sand. He had decided too late. Black hell then burned in his gaze.

“Keep ’em up!... Don’t move! — Damn you, stiff thar! — If you wink I’ll blow your guts out!” So the freighters flashed swift and terrible menace, and many of their rifle barrels were thrust close to the bandits.

“GET DOWN!” bellowed Clint, and he ran up close to Blackstone, prodded him in the abdomen with his cocked rifle. The miracle was that the violence did not discharge the weapon. The bandit leader slid out of the saddle mighty quickly.

Others of his band followed suit. Some, too slow to suit the intense freighters, were summarily jerked out of the saddle. One, clubbed on the head, fell off.

“Punch ’em in line!” yelled Clint, and he gave Blackstone another prod. “Line ’em up!... Turn your back, damn you!... Now, men, ropes. Two of you cut ropes. Off the saddles! Quick!”

Twenty grim assailants with cocked rifles pushed and beat the band into a line, then stood guard behind them. The other five freighters, inspired and savage, tied the bandits hand and foot, and toppled them to the ground.

“Hey, Belmet, what’s your game?” demanded Blackstone, harshly.

“Looks like Fort Larned for you, Blackstone.”

Muttered curses rumbled from the prostrate bandits. They were just recovering from a stunning surprise.

“Fort Larned like hell!” burst out a sweaty freighter.

BOOM!

The heavy report of the cannon tore through the cottonwoods. It rolled, and banged back in echo.

“Thar she goes!” yelled a lusty-lunged freighter. “Boys, come—”

A thundering crash of rifles drowned his voice. The forest resounded. Then the wild, hoarse yells of fighting men. Crash! A shrill strange note pierced it. Yells and cries mingled. Crash!

Clint snatched up his rifle and led his men in mad flight down the trail, into the willows. Crash! The din became tremendous as he neared the scene of conflict. He shouted to his followers to keep to the right, so they would come up behind Hatcher’s men. Crash! They understood, though they could hardly have heard. In a few moments Clint reached the trail that Hatcher had made and he headed up it. The rifle-fire now had become continuous, yet above it rose the thudding of many hoofs, the crashing of many horses through the brush, the hoarse bawls of furious men, the piercing shriek of Indians.

Clint felt the zip of a bullet. And he dropped down to crawl. His men were quick to imitate.

BOOM!

Clint yelled with his men. That was music to his ears. The fusillade of slugs tore through the cottonwood grove. Smoke rose in thick clouds ahead. On the far side the heavy firing materially lessened, but to Clint’s right it increased. He was working too far to the left. He ran the risk of leading his men in front of Hatcher’s fire. A trampling and shrieking of frightened and wounded horses filled the valley with hideous noise. They were close now. Clint sheered to the right, crawling fast, a rifle in each hand. The labor was prodigious. Freighters were not used to running or crawling in such strenuous action as this.

BOOM!

Benny Ireland was keeping to his pace — a cannon shot every two minutes. The roar appeared hollow and thunderous. A blast of iron went tearing through the trees and brush.

Then Clint found himself up to Hatcher’s men, on their knees, behind trees, shooting, yelling, crawling forward. Sweat so filled and smarted his eyes that he could not see any Indians. He lay flat, to release his guns and wipe his hot eyes. Presently he got up on one knee. His men came crowding along. The uproar perceptibly diminished. Firing ceased close at hand, grew desultory up the draw and stopped. Hoarse shouts took the place of prolonged yells. The men began to stand up, their hair bristling, their actions daring, nervous, eager, like those of bloodhounds about to be let loose on a trail.

“Hold on!” yelled Hatcher from somewhere. “Wait till that smoke lifts.”

Rapidly the smoke wafted aloft and floated away. Horses lay everywhere in the grove, some of them kicking. The ground under the cottonwoods resembled a battlefield. Indians were down everywhere in rows, piles, groups, and singles and many were alive.

“Did Buff Belmet get here?” shouted Hatcher, approaching.

“Reckon we did, but too late to help you,” replied Clint.

“Hell! we didn’t need help. Reckon you went up the other fork an’, hearin’ us shoot, you run back?”

“Yes. But before that we held up Blackstone’s outfit.”

“Holy jumpin’ cats!” shouted Hatcher. “We didn’t hear no shootin’.”

“Jim, we never shot once. Stevens saw Blackstone’s gang from the rock. We hurried up an’ ambushed the trail. Got Blackstone an’ seventeen men. All hawg-tied!”

“Wal, by all thet’s wonderful!” ejaculated Hatcher. “Buff, send some men over to guard them bandits. You can never tell what’ll happen.”

“Andy, take some men an’ hurry over there where we left Blackstone,” ordered Clint.

Andy yelled, and it appeared that the whole twenty-five men who had executed the coup under Clint’s management rushed away through the woods.

“Guard that bunch till I come,” shouted Clint after them. But if Andy heard he gave no sign of it.

“Buff, you’ll be surprised an’ worried. These Injuns are Comanches!”

“Comanches!” echoed Clint.

“Shore are. Look for yourself.... Buff, you never seen anythin’ like this. Must have been three hundred of them. As you figgered, they rode into this open grove. An’ they was bunched pretty thick when Benny let go the cannon. My Gawd!... I’ll bet he put a hundred reddys an’ hosses down. Then we blazed away, an’ it was like mowin’ hay. We was all hid an’ they didn’t know where to turn. Every last man of us got in seven shots before Ben got loaded again. Then, bang! Thet settled it. Hell had busted loose, an’ of all the mix-ups I ever seen thet one beat them a thousand times. Them thet wasn’t hit thought only of escape. An’ they run over each other tryin’ to get into thet trail. All the time we was pourin’ lead into them. An’ a big bunch got stuck, tangled, stampeded. Then Ireland let go again!... Buff, I’ll bet we killed more’n half of them.”

“Comanches! — But we were to expect Kiowas?”

“Thet’s what I’m aworryin’ aboot. Mebbe we ought to expect them yet.”

“Listen!” suddenly exclaimed Clint. “As Blackstone came ridin’ up I heard one of his men say, ‘hyar ahead of time.’... An’ then Blackstone said, ‘Wal, Charley aimed to beat the Comanches here.’”

“My Gawd! mebbe we ain’t so lucky yet! We better be aboot our bizness.... Hey, men, send all these crippled Injuns to the Happy Huntin’-grounds. An’ some of you haul the cannon back across the river.” Dozens of freighters ran forward, swinging their heavy rifles by the barrels and whooping. Ireland with his attendants took up the ropes of the cannon.

“Come on, Buff,” said Hatcher. “We might find some Kiowas, an’ if we do we’ll shore look fer Charley Bent.”

That stirred a strong urge in Clint, stronger than the repugnance he felt. He became witness to a harrowing scene, dwarfing all others of like nature to which he had been party. All through the glade lay Comanches. Every third or fourth one showed signs of life.

“Smash ’em all,” yelled a freighter, clubbing his rifle.

“Haw! Haw! — Zam!”

“Playin’ possum, huh? Take thet!”

Dull thuds and the cracking of skulls resounded through the grove. And every freighter appeared sinisterly mirthful over the gruesome task. Comanches, of all the savages of the Great Plains, they hated and feared most.

“Look fer Kiowas,” shouted Hatcher. “An’ fer a white man painted.”

“Put these horses out of misery,” ordered Clint.

“Yes, an’ make a count while you’re doin’ it,” added Hatcher.

Crippled horses had to be shot. This was a feature of the finishing process that did not appeal to the freighters. Some of them shirked it, but there were others who grinned while cracking an Indian on the skull, and straightway afterward ending the tortures of a mustang. The Comanches, being the finest horsemen of the plains, owned the best horses.

“Ketch all sound ponies,” ordered Hatcher.

Few, however, of those still in the grove were unwounded, and they could not be caught. Clint gazed at so many dark bronze visages without recognizing a Kiowa that at length he gave up. Lee Murdock had not led this band of Indians against the caravan. Therefore he was to be expected. But not from south or east of Point of Rocks! The fleeing Comanches would betray that the caravan had arrived ahead of schedule and had taken the initiative. Chances of Kiowas coming from the north or west along the road were possible, but remote.

In the space of a couple of acres the freighters counted over a hundred dead Comanches. This carnage had been the result of Ireland’s first cannon charge, and the rifle-fire following at once. Hardly any force could have rallied after such a frightful first blow. Perhaps many horses received injuries here, yet were able to get away. Several dozen carcasses, however, lay in this zone. Six pounds of iron slugs made almost a bucketful of bullets, and the heavy charge of powder had propelled them terrifically. Trees and brush were riddled. And the savages who had fallen before this murderous instrument presented ghastly spectacles.

Mangled bodies and blood reddened almost the whole of that space.

Hatcher met Clint here.

“Shore was a mess.... Reckon we’d better clear out an’ get back to the wagons.”

“Yes. But we’ve Blackstone’s outfit over here.”

“Wal, if I know freighters, Blackstone an’ his gang won’t worry you much by now.”

Clint made no reply, but hurried away by a short cut across the flat. He heard Hatcher call his men to follow. When Clint reached the other trail he saw where the freighters had left the cannon on the bank, but had disappeared themselves. Whereupon Clint took to a trot and soon rounded a green corner to reach the long glade. A horrible sight met his gaze. From all the lower branches of the cottonwoods there hung one or two bandits. Some appeared like limp sacks, others were in convulsions, and a few, evidently just hanged, were going through appalling contortions. All this Clint took in at a glance, and at the same instant he heard the loud voices of his men, at his left.

“Andy, cut his feet loose, too, so we can see him kick like the rest of his dirty outfit,” called a hoarse voice, in callous mirth.

Then Clint saw Blackstone standing under a spreading cottonwood, with a rope round his neck. It reached up over a branch and down into the outstretched hands of a dozen hard-faced freighters. They had reserved Blackstone for the last.

Clint yelled and rushed over.

“Hold on. Hyar’s the boss,” shouted Andy.

The stretched rope slackened and all faces turned toward Clint, and toward Hatcher who was approaching rapidly with the crowd of freighters behind.

“Ho, men!” called Clint, before he reached them. “Who ordered these men hanged?”

“Hellsfire! Who needed thet?” declared Andy, suddenly red and fierce. In him spoke the will, the ruthlessness, and all the law that existed on the frontier. Clint realized how superfluous had been his question.

He strode up to confront Blackstone. The bearded giant, ashen under his hair, gloomy-eyed, clammy with sweat, had accepted his fate. Long years of indifferent realization of what awaited him and his kind had steeled his nerve.

“Blackstone, do you know me?” demanded Clint.

“Shore. I’ve had the pleasure of meetin’ you before. I cain’t very well offer to shake, Buff.”

His voice was husky but steady, and not without humor.

“You were to meet Murdock — Charley Bent here today?”

“So I heerd from your necktie outfit.”

“Here, you know damned well you were,” replied Clint.

“Belmet, if you know so damn much what do you ask me fer?”

“You gave it away. I heard you. Just before I jumped out of the brush, you said, ‘Charley aimed to beat the Comanches here.’”

“Wal, if thet’s so he played hell doin’ it,” returned Blackstone, bitterly.

“Blackstone, I’m not sure I can save your life,” went on Clint, hurriedly. “But I’ll try — if you tell me the truth about some things.”

The bandit leader knew the frontier as well as Clint. Nothing could save his life. The commander of any fort would order him hanged. Evil as he was, he gave out the impression that even if Clint had power to save his life he would not betray a comrade.

“No, I won’t answer no questions,” he retorted, in dark passion, and his eyes lighted with sinister divination. “But I’ll tell you somethin’ on my own hook.... A few years back me an’ Lee Murdock took thet little Bell girl up in the hills where we hid out. We had her one whole winter... had her turn aboot! — An’ when—”

Clint leaped to brain him, and at the same instant a freighter called, piercingly:

“Up he goes!”

A score of sturdy arms pulled on the lasso. Blackstone’s burly form shot up right before Clint’s face; in fact he just escaped a violent kick from the bandit’s heavy boot. Clint staggered back.

“Swing your pardner, Blackstone,” yelled a leather-lunged freighter. “Turn the lady, turn.”

Then they held him six feet off the ground, and all faces were turned upward — grim, leering, sweaty, bloody faces, hard as the frontier, yet laconic also in the contemplation of a just retribution.

“Damn your black-stone soul!” called one, breathing hoarsely.

“Now kick.”

Blackstone’s legs had been untied, as had those of all the other bandits, and there could have been only one interpretation to such action — the freighters wanted to see him kick. And they watched him kick. He was a very large, heavy man, exceedingly powerful, in the prime of life; and no matter what iron will and nerve he had when the spiritual man dominated, his muscular reaction was extraordinarily violent, grotesque, and hideous.

His bearded face, up to the sky, could not be seen, but it must have been too awful for even these avengers to behold. He kicked out with both legs at right angles, just the automatic kick of a jumping-jack. Then all ways, so monstrously that the branch of the tree bent and swung and his body swayed to and fro.

“Ho, men!” yelled Hatcher, from the trail, and his voice had a stirring ring. “Get out of this! Stevens is wavin’ from the rock! Shore as Gawd made little apples the Kiowas are comin’!”

Hatcher thudded down the trail, with the watching freighters suddenly breaking into action. The executioners tied the end of the lasso to a sapling, and leaping to their weapons, grunting and cursing, they stampeded out of the glade.

Clint laid a shaking hand on the lasso. It was tied securely and it would not break. Then he hurried to the trail. But he looked back. Blackstone’s writhing had lost energy. It was now a swelling ripple of body. His knees were drawn up. Beyond him hung seventeen dark, limp figures, long-necked and loose, suggestive in their horridness.

Wheeling, Clint ran down the trail after the men. When he got into the open he espied Stevens frantically waving from the top of the rock. The scout pointed to the north and his gesture inspired terror.

“Murdock — an’ his — Kiowas!” gasped Clint, and flew over the sandy flat.

Half the hundred men were already across, shouting and calling. About a score were bringing the cannon. They ran with it, splashing, cursing, falling to their knees, plunging on. The men behind carried the rifles of those who were handling the cannon. And four rifles to one man made a burden. Those with the ammunition staggered along, yet made fast time.

Clint plunged into the shallow stream, making long bounds. Suddenly he halted, at the end of a jump. Hatcher, bareheaded, his white locks flying, stood on the bank, cupping his hands round his mouth.

“Come on, boys! Stick to thet cannon!”

CHAPTER 20

HATCHER HELD UP all until the men with the cannon and ammunition reached the bank.

“Get your wind,” he ordered.

“What’s up?” queried Belmet.

“Reckon Bent an’ his Kiowas. — Buff, have you any plan?”

“That depends. If we don’t know an’ haven’t time, how can we plan? — Any shootin’ yet?”

“Haven’t heerd none. I reckon hostilities ain’t begun yet.”

“Ireland, is the cannon loaded?” asked Clint.

“Shure.”

“Lay hold, men — thirty to a rope,” ordered Clint. “Rest of you hang close.”

He led the way, and the straining freighters followed with the rumbling cannon. When they broke clear of the box-alder brush the going was easier. Clint headed round the left of the bluff, where the way was shorter and less rocky. He thought he heard shouting.

In a few moments Clint rounded the corner. Wagon-train and freighters seemed to burst into view. Three hundred yards out on the plain a strong force of Kiowas paraded to and fro. They were naked and painted, lean, wild young warriors, magnificently mounted and armed. Clint’s hawk eye roved to fasten on to a knot of riders gathered round a central figure, strikingly different from the others, even at that distance. The sunlight did not shine off his naked body, which was dark instead of red. His head was not shaven like that of the others.

“Wal, we got hyar first,” said Hatcher. “Mean-lookin’ outfit, Buff. An’ they ain’t actin’ like Indians. White brains runnin’ them Kiowas.”

“Charley Bent — or Lee Murdock, as I know him.”

“Ahuh, so I reckoned. Wal, shore as this evil day dawned it’ll see the end of thet half-breed,” returned Hatcher, in terrible passion.

The forty-odd freighters who had been left to guard the wagon-train whooped their welcome.

“Buff, take command,” said Hatcher, darkly. How gloomy and strange the old frontiersman! “An’ don’t forget our agreement.”

“Jim, put fifty men up above the wagons among the rocks,” replied Clint. “Wait; maybe that’s too many. Say thirty. There’s cover enough for them.”

The freighters did not wait to be selected by Hatcher. With rifles in each hand a score or more rushed for the brushy, rocky slope. Those left free of the cannon dashed to the gate between the wagons.

The sixty men at the cannon ropes came trampling after.

The double half-circle of wagons arched from the first rise of the rocky bluff on the west and extended to the sheer cliff wall on the other side, a little north of east. It appeared to be an impregnable defense against the ordinary tactics of plains Indians. Belmet stationed the cannon at the most commanding spot, which was just inside the gate. It could be moved, of course, from place to place. The freighters spread along the inside of the circle of wagons like a flock of quail, and in a few moments not one could be seen.

Ireland and Copsy stood beside their cannon, nonchalant and eager. Stevens mounted to the wheel of the nearest wagon and leveled the field-glass on the Kiowas. Hatcher, Henry Wells, Andy Morgan, and a negro, Jackson, surrounded Clint. Half of the big oval corral had been roped off for the animals, and they were crowded, restless, and hungry.

“Boss, we’re outnumbered two to one,” said Stevens, in reply to Clint’s query.

“Wal, we’re good for it,” remarked Wells.

“Buff, I don’t like the way this Bent outfit looks,” complained Hatcher.

“Come down, Stevens, an’ let me take a look,” said Clint.

“Men, we’re shore goin’ to learn how Charley Bent works a caravan,” rejoined Andy Morgan, wagging his sandy head.

“Wal, we’ll shore learn, but we may never tell,” growled Jim Hatcher, somberly.

They were the last words he was ever heard to utter.

Meanwhile Clint was watching through the glass. He could not make an accurate estimate of the restless Kiowas, but their number far exceeded two hundred. Clint tried to get the glass on the leader, but he was surrounded by his red lieutenants and somewhat hidden. The glass, however, enabled Clint to make a discovery Stevens had missed. These Kiowas were under the influence of rum. Kiowas were wicked enough when normal. But stimulated and maddened by rum — Clint felt his very marrow freeze.

“Men, these Kiowas are half drunk,” he announced, tragically.

The absolute silence with which this statement was received attested to its staggering purport. These fiends would have to become sober before they could be beaten.

It struck Clint presently that the Kiowas were riding farther to left and to right. The foremost ones did not wheel and prance their mustangs back. The whole band was spreading out in a long line. This did not mean the familiar circling of plains savages round a caravan. Clint grew anxiously puzzled. The riders spread until the line on the east passed out of Clint’s sight. Those going to the left rode in twos and threes, close together, until the line on that side reached clear round to the river, at a point almost even with the bluff.

“Wal, Buff, say somethin’,” burst out Henry Wells, who well knew that silence here was ominous.

“By Heaven!” muttered Clint, grinding his teeth. “So that’s your game, Lee Murdock!”

Then Clint leaped down.

“Jackson, run along between the wagons,” he ordered. “Tell all our men that the Kiowas have been fired by drink. Bent’s game is to rush us.”

“The lousy half-breed!” ejaculated Andy Morgan.

The negro bounded away to dart between the wagons, from behind which his deep voice sounded.

“Bent has outfigured us,” said Clint. “In a close fight we can’t use the cannon. But he doesn’t know we have two rifles to a man an’ a wagon-load of ammunition.”

“Reckon we’d better hang by thet wagon,” suggested Wells.

“An’ the cannon. Because it’ll have to be hauled round,” added Morgan.

“Listen!” suddenly whispered Clint, bending low.

“They’re comin’!”

“By Gawd!”

“It’s the half-white in Charley Bent thet’ll do for us!”

A low, trampling, encircling roar of many hoofs augmented the excited shouts of freighters from the bluff. And suddenly it was drowned by an ear-splitting concatenated war whoop, pointed and sharp, yet prolonged and swelling to hideous proportions.

A band of painted savages riding mustangs as wild as themselves closed in on the caravan. The cannon boomed; the rifles barked. But the sudden gap in the stream of riding demons closed as if by magic, and on they came, pouring in at the gate. Clint and his several companions met that onslaught with deadly fire. Then they dove under the wagons to keep from being run down.

Clint kept firing from behind the heavy wagon wheel, and he saw grimly to it that he did not miss. His keen eye sought among the supple, flitting, painted bodies one that was dark and not red. And at last he got a fleeting glimpse of Charley Bent — the center of a knot of riders, wonderfully swift and wild. Clint’s aim was like his superhuman leap of lightning passion. Then through the smoke the demons raced by. They trooped in at the gate, glued to the necks of running mustangs. The roar of conflict spread around the caravan, proving that the Kiowas had not only entered the gate, but were coming over and under the wagons.

An endless smoky hell engulfed Clint Belmet. The battle had been hand to hand for what seemed a bloody age. But it might have been only moments. The milling of terrified horses and oxen, stampeding round and round the corral, unable to get out in any numbers, gave the battle a terrible confusion, and probably saved the freighters from utter annihilation. On foot the nimble daring savages bounded here, there, everywhere; and when a freighter clubbed one down he succumbed to the tomahawk of another. Rifle shots were few and far between, or else unheard in the deafening din. The cannon had never bellowed but once. Wagons were burning. At the far end of the oval the savages pulled out wagons, opening the corral for the bellowing, shrieking stock to pour forth like a dark flood.

Clint plunged through smoke, swinging a broken rifle, trying in the terrific maze to find comrades and keep with them. Smoke blew from the wagons, denser and denser. A circle of fire surrounded the freighters. Here and there in the dim blue haze groups of freighters and savages were contending, shooting, beating, struggling, mad beasts in the grip of blood lust. Clint rushed up to brain a Kiowa that was scalping a white man. He beat down two screeching devils that had set fire to the ammunition wagon.

A score and more of freighters, bloody and unconquerable, with Belmet at their head, gathered for a last stand in the center of the corral. The tide of terrific battle had set in their favor. They stood back to back, shooting the last few of their shells. The smoke was lifting, black and yellow above the roaring flames. A stench of burning hides filled the air. No more shots came from the rocky bluff. The squad of freighters had left it or had been killed.

Near the gate only one wagon was burning and that held the kegs of powder for the cannon and the boxes of ammunition for the rifles. A remnant of Kiowas collected there, fascinated by the chance to fire the last considerable number of wagons. A number lighted torches at the cracking fire which was consuming the ammunition wagon. They danced in a mad circle, torches aloft, in the light of the burning wagon.

A terrific red burst of flame! Crashing thunder! The wagon blew up and a black canopy flew out over the corral.

When the pall of smoke from that blast lifted the remaining Kiowas were fleeing out over the plain to their horses.

Belmet had twenty-two men left, including himself, all of them wounded, but none admitting their wounds serious.

“Stick together an’ we’ll make a round of the corral,” ordered Clint, huskily.

They found Copsy dead under the cannon, and Ireland lying across the breech, fuse clenched in his stiff hand. Henry Wells and two other freighters lay lifeless inside a circle of dead Kiowas. Jim Hatcher was half under a wagon, stiff and cold. He had been one of the first to go. Clint covered the staring eyes, and then kept his promise to the old caravan leader. The money belt Hatcher had asked Clint to take was thick and heavy. Years of saving — for what!

The dead and wounded were thick on all sides, and significantly, the wounded were always Indians. Once discovered alive, their last moment was brief.

Andy Morgan and Stevens, a little in advance, pulled an Indian from under a wagon. He had called out hoarsely.

“My turn, Steve,” said the ironical Andy, with slow deliberation swinging his gory rifle stock aloft.

The Indian had a dark body. Not red! Only red where a bloody stream welled from a bullet hole in his breast! His eyes were terrible in piercing quality, but they were not black. His face bore a ghastly scar!

“Hold on, Andy!” yelled Clint, springing forward just in time to check that battering rifle.

“Belmet!” said the man, weakly, in English.

“Yes, I’m Belmet,” replied Clint, and dropped to one knee.

“You know me?”

“I do — Lee Murdock.”

“That’s not — my real name,” came the eager reply, tragic to see in a man mortally wounded. “I’m Charley Bent.”

Andy knelt to lift the man’s head.

“Have a drink?” he said, offering a black flask.

The renegade with slight gesture waved it aside. He had done with drink.

“Belmet, if you’ll do me — a favor — I’ll tell you — something.”

“I will, if I can,” replied Clint, and the awful strife of the last hours seemed to break, leaving him human again.

“My old father is alive — still,” whispered the dying man. “Henry Bent. He’s in Kansas City.... I heard from him a year ago. He believed I had quit — this life. I don’t want him ever to know — I hadn’t.... Will you tell him — or send word—”

“But it’d be a black lie!” exclaimed Clint.

“He’s very old — he won’t live long,” implored the renegade. “He cared — for me!”

“All right, I’ll do it,” returned Clint.

Intensity flashed out of the man. The tight hold he had on his breast fell limp and the blood welled out.

“May Bell — is in Las Cruces — well — the same.... She — believes — you — dead.”

Night fell duskily red and lonely. The coyotes began their hue and cry. Slowly the fires died down to smoldering heaps.

The freighters bound up their wounds. Several of them, searching among the rocks, found three wounded comrades, one of whom soon died. A few of the wagons under the bluff had escaped being fired. With food and blankets the last of the freighters repaired to the river bottom, where they ate and rested.

Clint and Andy Morgan, with two other men, went out to find horses. By midnight they rounded up thirty, most of them the saddled animals that had been left by Blackstone’s band. Blankets were tied on some, and several were packed with food.

Clint led this silent remnant of a great caravan westward on the trail to Fort Larned. He and Hatcher had failed to deliver the most valuable caravan ever dispatched toward the east. They rode until dawn, hid in a creek bottom by day, and when night came they went on again. Stoical and indomitable they upheld the spirit of the frontier; and with two comrades lost on the way and two dying, they toiled at last into Fort Larned.

CHAPTER 21

NEXT DAY CLINT Belmet joined an army caravan headed for Santa Fé, but as a guest. He lay in an army wagon. He had been shot, stabbed, tomahawked and clubbed. But these injuries were as nothing. His mind could almost have performed a miracle.

The crossing of the Pecos was a circumstance which gave him supreme joy. Somewhere, way down in New Mexico, west of the Pecos, was the little town of Las Cruces.

In Santa Fé he heard that his old friend and advisor, Kit Carson, was dying at Taos. Hardened as Clint had become to the simplicity and inevitableness of death on the frontier this news struck him deeply.

He rode over to Taos, to learn that Carson had been taken to the nearby army post. Clint made all the haste his condition would permit to go there. It had been many years since he had visited Fort Lyon, but he remembered the country, the post and even the army doctor who had charge of Carson.

“I met Kit Carson when I was a boy many years ago,” explained Clint. “He took a shine to me, and advised me how to meet the frontier. I’d not be alive today but for his kindly influence. I’d like to see him — tell him.”

“Sure, Belmet,” replied the doctor. “Kit will be glad to see you. Everybody who comes along the old trail runs over to see Kit. He’s finding out how he is loved by all the West. It’s reward enough, he thinks, for his service. But I’m one who thinks otherwise. Come in.”

Clint was ushered into a house where Kit Carson lay on a bed of buffalo hides. What a vast change in a man once so virile, so strong! He looked slight, shrunken, and the havoc of the approaching end showed in his haggard face. But not in those eagle eyes!

Carson ceased talking. He sat up. His eyes flashed. The Indian chief beside his bed gazed somberly from him to Clint. The army officers present turned to see who had entered.

“Kit, here’s an old friend,” said the doctor. “Do you know him?”

“Buff Belmet!” he ejaculated. “Put her thar!”

It needed no more to show Carson’s keen remembrance and Clint Belmet’s status on the frontier.

Perhaps that warm greeting, as well as the tragedy so surely felt here, had much to do with Clint’s deep-set emotions. At any rate, seldom, if ever, had he responded to questions as he did to Carson’s. Clint told him much of his later experience, and especially of the terrible fight at Pawnee Rock, of Jim Blackstone’s doom.

“Wal, you’ve sure been down the Old Trail, Buff,” replied Carson. “The Trail of Lost Wagons!... An’ now whar you bound?”

Then Clint told of the revelation made by Charley Bent before his death. This communication had a profound effect upon Kit Carson. He seemed to fade away. It was then Clint remembered how dearly Carson had loved his Mexican wife.

“So your sweetheart is alive?” he said, at length, with a beautiful light coming to his eyes. “I remember her.... Bell — little May Bell. I was at Maxwell’s Ranch when you damn near killed Charley Bent.... Buff, all’s well that ends well. Don’t lose any time gettin’ to little May.”

It was late when Clint got back to Taos, his mind full of the great frontiersman whose days were surely numbered. And he thought that perhaps only the West of his day would ever give Kit Carson the glory due him. For all the old plainsmen, the frontiersmen, knew full well that Kit Carson was the Pathfinder.

At Taos Clint fell in with a wagon-train bound for Las Vegas. When he arrived there he felt almost himself again. He outfitted with pack and saddle horses; and in company with Texans and Mexicans who were on the way south he set out on the last leg of his momentous journey. They were west of the Rockies, far out of the zone of desperadoes who preyed on the caravans, and the savages who rode and fought and burned.

All day long Clint sat his horse and watched the varying aspects of scenery — green and flowery, or rugged and drear, according to the presence or absence of water.

On that ride he seemed to grow both old and young, but toward the end youth resurged and held. He lived over all the long-past precious hours he had spent with May Bell. How few, considering the fifteen years since he had met her beside the brook!

Summer had come to the valley of Las Cruces. It was far south and close to El Paso, at that period a rapidly growing town. White and red adobe houses shone brightly from the green. Level farms, well watered, spread out to the dark hills. Far from Indian trails!

A Mexican kept a store and a tavern. There Clint removed the stains of travel and the beard that had made him so dark and fierce. Would she know him? Could he not relax that stern, intent face?

The first thing he had ascertained was that May Bell really lived in Las Cruces with Mrs. Clement, on a ranch they owned, just out of town. They were rich, the tavern-keeper avowed, and blessed of the saints, for they helped the poor and employed the Mexicans.

Clint walked out, and that was the saddest and happiest walk of all his life.

If May still loved him — had lived and waited for him, despite all — then the future might almost make up for the past.

The white adobe house was set down from the road in a grove of cottonwood trees. There were evidences of Southern influence everywhere. No doubt Mrs. Clement had not forgotten Texas.

With his heart in his throat Clint knocked at the open door. A gray-haired, pleasant-faced, sad-eyed woman appeared. She gasped.

“Mrs. Clement, don’t you remember me?” asked Clint.

“Oh, I do — I do!” she cried. “You are Clint Belmet.”

“Yes, I’m Clint.... Is she here?”

“Thank God, she is — well and still faithful to you. But she believes you dead. I always thought you might come to life. I have seen so many strange things on the frontier.”

“Where is she?” asked Clint, strangely calm.

“Out in the garden. She loves to dig around and plant.”

“You say she is — well?”

“Yes, very well, now. For a long time after our terrible experience in that caravan she was ill. In fact, the whole year we lived with the settler Bennet.”

“You left Santa Fé in a caravan under Jim Blackstone.”

“Yes, the monster! We were no sooner out on the Dry Trail when Indians appeared and attacked the freighters who had joined us. Blackstone’s gang took sides with the Indians. We would have been lost but for a caravan of emigrants on the way to Texas. They drove the Indians off. Blackstone fled, leaving his wagons. The emigrants took us along with them. Baxter, the boss, was an old scout. He knew we were followed. One night he took us down into a valley where a settler named Bennet lived. He was friendly with all Indians. Well, Bennet took us in, and he hid us there for a year. We seldom went out except at night. Then when a big caravan came along we got out. We trailed you to Kansas City and back to Santa Fé. And again we passed you on the way. That nearly killed poor May. Then your death was reported the second time. We saw it in the Kansas City papers. We went back to Texas. I had some property there. I sold it and we went to El Paso, and finally here. May loves the West, but not the plains.”

“So she passed me again on the Old Trail!” sighed Clint. “Life seems cruel sometimes.... You said she was out in the garden?”

“Come,” replied Mrs. Clement, softly.

She led him round the white house to the rear, where cottonwoods were shedding their fluffy cottonlike seeds, and green grass shone, and water gurgled somewhere unseen, and blackbirds sang in the trees.

“There she is. But hadn’t I better go first — prepare her?” asked Mrs. Clement, anxiously.

Clint saw something blue out in the garden. It moved. It was a woman of slight form, bending over. Then she stood erect. A sunbonnet hung over her shoulders. Clint recognized that bonny dark head, and all the agony of the years was as if it had never been.

“Mrs. Clement, you say she has — has not forgotten me?” he asked, hesitatingly.

“She believes you dead. But no living man could be more wonderfully loved.”

“Aw!... It’ll not — hurt her — then. I — I want to see her face — when she sees me!”

Mrs. Clement pressed his hand and mutely turned back to the house.

Clint moved out from under the cottonwoods to the edge of the garden. There he halted, not because he wanted to, but because May had turned round toward him. She came walking between the rows, looking down. Her sleeves were rolled up. She held a trowel in her hand.

She grew closer, humming a little tune. When she looked up, twenty short paces did not separate them. A shock caught her in a step, making her a statue. Wide dark staring eyes shook Clint to his depths. He tried to call out.

She dropped the trowel. Her hands flashed to her breast. She swayed a little, her eyes shutting tight and opening wide. Will was stronger than terror. She uttered a wild and rapturous cry and broke toward him, flinging out her arms, running while yet she was stumbling, with glorious light of recognition. “Clint! — Clint! CLINT!”

Sunset! They sat under a cottonwood, strangely like the spreading giant in the valley below Maxwell’s Ranch, and watched the western sky. Her head lay on his shoulder and her hand in his.

“God is good. I had almost lost faith in Him and life,” she said.

“When will you marry me?” he asked, for the tenth time.

“You will never cross the plains again?” she entreated. “I could not bear that.”

“Darlin’, I will never go back.”

She kissed him gratefully. “Oh, I know how you feel! I shall never forget the prairie land. Endless gray — oh, so far, so lonely, so monotonous — gray and terribly beautiful. Oh, how I loved and hated it!”

“I have had enough, May. I’ve done my share.... Will you marry me?”

“Si, senor,” she replied, shyly.

“When?”

“Sometime. It’s very sudden.”

“But my longin’ for you is as old as the ages.”

“Oh, Clint, and mine for you. Promise me you’ll never leave me again for a single minute so long as we both shall live.”

“I promise, little May.”

“You will stay away from trading-posts and forts and trails and Indians and desperadoes?”

“I shall indeed,” he laughed.

“Oh, you can laugh!... Clint, I’m so happy I shall die. Squeeze me!... Kiss me! — You great, calm, cold frontiersman! — And, oh, forgive me again for that one damnable wickedness of my life — when I drove you away at Maxwell’s Ranch?”

“I will — when you marry me.”

She was silent for a long moment, surrendering. “There’s a padre here at Las Cruces.... He will do — yes?”

“Is that last a question — or a consent?”

“Both.... Well, Buff, if the padre is good enough for you — you may have me—”

“When?” he gasped.

“Tomorrow — at the very latest,” she concluded, merrily.

Clint gathered her into his arms as if he never meant to let her go again. Presently she freed herself with a gasp. “Heavens! Did — I call you — a great, calm, cold frontiersman?... But I should have told you sooner.... Listen, Clint dear. Let me be serious one moment. I shall marry you tomorrow and all will be well. Ours has been a strange, sad story. But we are both young still. We love the West. We are pioneers and we will be true to that. Let us settle here in this beautiful valley and make our home with Mrs. Clement. She has been a mother to me.”

“Anythin’ you say, little May,” he replied, in quiet joy. “I have money to buy a ranch an’ stock it. My own, Uncle Jim’s, an’ poor old Hatcher’s. I’m quite rich, May, an’ can give you every comfort.”

“Why, you wonderful man! I shall coax you to take me to San Antonio — some day,” she cried, gaily.

“You won’t need to coax. Just one kiss.”

“There!” she flashed. “It’s paid.” And she lay quiet in his arms. Twilight fell. The bees ceased humming. The tinkle of a cow bell lingered musically on the quiet air. A coyote yelped wildly from the hill. And the golden afterglow faded in the west.

THE END

The Shepherd of Guadaloupe

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

THE SEA OUT there, dark and heaving, somehow reminded Forrest of the rolling rangeland of his beloved West, which he prayed to see once more, before he succumbed to havoc the war had done his body and soul.

He leaned propped against the rail of the great ship, in an obscure place aft, shadowed by the life-boats. It was the second night out of Cherbourg and the first time for him to be on deck. The ridged and waved Atlantic, but for its turbulence, looked like the desert undulating away to the uneven horizon. The roar of the wind in the rigging bore faint resemblance to the wind in the cottonwoods at home — a sound that had haunted him for all the long years of his absence. There was the same mystery in the black hollows of the sea as from boyhood he had seen and feared in the gloomy gulches of the foothills.

But he hated this restless, unstable, treacherous sea which seemed a part of the maelstrom in which he had been involved. He yearned for the mountains, the desert, the valley of cottonwoods, home and mother, far across this waste of waters, those dear remembered ties of the past that still survived. The emotion had only come strong during those moments when, ignoring his weakness and pain, he had clung to the rail, gazing into the pale obscurity of the night, out over the boundless ocean, with the consciousness that the dream that had mocked him during nine months on a hospital cot had become a reality. He was on the way home — home to Cottonwoods!

He visualized the winding valley between the silver hills beautiful with the green-gold trees that gave their name to the place; the rocky stream that wound leisurely down, bordered by sage and willow, bringing the blue-tinted snow water from the mountains; the old rambling Spanish ranch house, white-walled, with the vines climbing up to the red tiles.

This retrospect seemed to release him from the vise of the war horrors that had clamped him. It would be best, now he was going home, to live in thought of the brief future allotted him; and his mind clutched at the revivifying memories.

There had been changes at home, his mother’s recent letter had intimated — a strange letter coming many months after a long silence, full of thanksgiving and joy that the report of his being among the missing had been erroneous, and evidently stultified over ills she had not the courage to confide. Thinking back, Forrest recalled a letter here, another there, widely separated, the content of which had not augured well for the prosperity of the Forrests. But he had dismissed them with a bitter laugh of recollection at the absurd idea of Clay Forrest, his father, ever losing land or stock enough to matter.

How would he find things at home? The query gave him a pang, for that thought had been seldom in his mind. He hoped now to find his parents well, and surely, in view of his service to his country and the supreme sacrifice he was soon to make, they would forgive the disgrace he had brought upon them. How long ago that expulsion from college! It seemed so trivial now, the cards, the drunkenness, the fight which had ended his school career. He had tramped and worked, now a rolling stone, and again a young man in whom hope could not wholly die. Then 1914 and the war! And now, broken in body and mind, victim of an appalling chaos, like thousands of other young men who had sustained a brutal and terrible affront to faith, honor, patriotism, love, he was voyaging across the ocean, battling the gray specter that hung grimly on his trail, longing for the land of his birth, the wide sweep of the Western ranges, the sage, the cottonwoods — there gladly to lay down the burden.

The huge black ship plowed on through the sullen sea, spreading the inky billows into white, seething, crashing foam, that raced by with spectral glow and phosphorescent gleam, to pale and fade in the darkness. The funnels roared and emitted bulging clouds of smoke that hid the stars. The mighty iron mass drove on masterfully, as if to fling defiance at nature. Forward along the wide deck bright lights shone on women scantily and beautifully gowned, and men in conventional black, not one of whom, it seemed to Forrest, had a thought of the greedy, mystic sea, or the perilously rushing ship, or the precious life so prodigally theirs.

Forrest left his post and walked along the deck, hiding his limp, and the pangs in his wounded side, and the burn in his breast. He walked erect. These were Americans returning home, and many of them were young. He felt no kinship with them. What was a crippled soldier to these idle, luxurious travelers? But once in his stateroom he sagged, and the face he saw in his mirror dropped its mask. Crawling into his berth, he lay in the dark, listening to the rhythmic pulse of the engines, deep in the bowels of the ship. Alone there with his phantoms in attendance he wooed slumber until at last it mercifully came.

On the following day Forrest vacated his stuffy stateroom late in the morning, and sought relief in the open air. The sea had gone down. There was no side roll, only a slow stately pitch, as the ship headed into a moderate southeast swell. Spring was in the air, coming almost balmy on the soft breeze. Passengers were out in force, in sport clothes, making the most of the fine weather. The sea shone bright green without any white crests. Smoke on the horizon attested to the passing of a ship.

Forrest found a steamer chair and made himself as comfortable as his stiff leg would permit. His position was near the wide space on deck where quoits and other games were adding to the amusement of passengers. In the chair next him sat a man whose friendly overtures could not without open rudeness be avoided. So Forrest agreed about the weather and that the halfway point on the journey had been passed and that the passengers were showing themselves this morning.

“I see you’ve been in the service,” remarked the man, after an interval.

Forrest nodded. If his civility invited curiosity, he would have to move, though he was reluctant to do this, because it required effort that was painful.

“My wife and I have been in France,” went on the stranger. “We had a boy in the service. Over a year ago he was reported missing. We thought perhaps we might find his grave or get some trace of him.”

“Did you?” queried Forrest, in quick sympathy.

“Nothing. — He was just gone.”

Forrest turned to eye this father who spoke so calmly of a tragedy. He looked like a small-town merchant, or a farmer who was lost without his overalls and boots. His geniality did not hide the furrows in his face nor did the kindly interest of his eyes conceal their sad depths.

Forrest expressed regret and inquired about the missing son’s regiment, thinking that he might have heard something. But the father knew little except the bare facts, and did not seem inclined to talk further about his loss. Forrest liked this plain, simple man, and was quick to feel that such contact was good for him, despite his sensitiveness.

“I was among the ‘missing’ for over a year,” he vouchsafed. “At least that was the belief in my home. I turned up in the hospital, but no report of that was ever sent — and, well, I wasn’t in any condition to know what was happening.”

“But your people know now?” queried the man, eagerly.

“Yes. They know.”

“How good that is!...Strange I should meet you...I suppose I’ll never cease to hope my boy will turn up alive.”

“It might happen.”

“I’d like my wife to meet you if she happens along. Would you mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Where is your home?”

“New Mexico.”

“Way out West! Well, you have a trip ahead of you...And you don’t look very strong yet.”

“I think I’ll make it,” replied Forrest, smiling wanly.

“You must! Think of your dad — and your mother,” rejoined the man, feelingly. “Maybe I can lend you a hand when we dock?”

“No, thanks. I’ll manage. Fact is I feel better this morning than for months.”

The little man did not press the point and tactfully changed the subject for a hazard on the ship’s run. Then after a desultory conversation peculiar to ocean travel he excused himself and withdrew.

Forrest was left the better for that meeting, though how, he could not define. But he realized that he must not build a wall round himself for everyone. His own father and this kindly stranger would have had much in common a twelvemonth ago.

The sun climbed overhead, making the day pleasant for the passengers at their games or promenading the decks. Forrest, however, felt the slight chill in the air, even under his rug; nevertheless, he was conscious of something that might have been an exhilarating movement of his blood. Not improbably this accounted for a languid interest in the stream of promenaders.

Presently he made the surprising discovery that he was an object of some interest to the feminine contingent. It annoyed him and his first impulse was to retire to the seclusion of his stateroom. Still, it was pleasant there and he was resting more comfortably. What did these women see in him, anyway? To be sure, a half-blind person could read his story from his telltale face. The fact that the interest he roused was sympathetic rather than curious did not allay his irritation. It had rather a contrary effect.

Forrest tried lying back with his eyes closed. This worked fairly well, but as he could not sleep and quite forgot the reason for the pretense, he soon opened them. He found himself staring straight up into the beautiful face of a girl he had noticed before, though not closely enough to observe how really attractive she was. Detected in her scrutiny of his features, she blushed. Then she swiftly averted her face and went on with her companion, a girl of slighter build and less striking appearance.

He stared after them, noting in the taller a supple strong figure and a head of bright chestnut hair, the curls of which tossed in the breeze. Forrest imagined her face perhaps, at least her dark, wide blue eyes, familiar to him. They had been bent upon him with a wondering, penetrating look, for which he was at loss to account.

The incident had about faded from his unquiet mind when he espied the two girls coming back along the deck, arm in arm, rosy with their brisk exercise, walking more swiftly than the other passengers. He watched them approach and pass, which they did this time without apparent notice of him. Both girls were Americans, clad obviously in the latest Parisian styles, of which the short skirts rather jarred upon Forrest. The one with the chestnut hair had the build of a Western girl and the step of a mountaineer. It had been long since Forrest had seen her like, but he had never forgotten.

Upon their next circle of the decks they took up the quoits just abandoned by others, and began to play, with the taller girl at the end nearer Forrest. How gracefully she bent, with long sweep of arm to pitch the quoit! She was an open-air girl, and she had a wrist and hand that could hold a horse. Presently at the conclusion of the game she changed sides with her opponent, and then Forrest had full view of her face. Reluctantly he surrendered to its charm, somehow strangely familiar, as if it were that of a girl of his dreams or of some one he might have known in a far-off happy past.

She was gay, full of fun, and keenly desirous of beating her opponent, who evidently had a shade the more skill. Despite attention to the game, however, while her rival was pitching, she glanced at Forrest. And finally he grasped that it was neither casual nor flirtatious, but an augmentation of her former puzzled and wondering look.

Something of a thrill stirred in Forrest’s sad and lonely heart. For six years girls had meant little or nothing to him. Before that he had been sentimental enough, and even up to the age of twenty-two he had suffered divers attachments. In France he had known two girls, both of whom he would have loved if he could have been capable of love. But the war had been hell. He could not become callous. He had not been built to function like a machine. His emotions had destroyed his soul as bullets had his body. Still this young American Diana recalled Christine, a little French girl whom the war had made a waif. She had been petite, with glossy, fine, black hair and eyes to match, that peered roguishly from her pale, pretty face. She had no parents, no home, no friends except chance soldiers; she was a little derelict, yet she somehow embodied the spirit of France, and was unforgettable. Forrest did not quite understand what connection there could be in his mind between her and this girl of his native land. Certainly, there was no physical resemblance.

Again these merry quoit-players changed positions, and presently one of the quoits slid under Forrest’s deck chair.

The chestnut-haired girl tripped over, flushed and shy.

“That was a wild pitch. I’m sorry,” she apologized.

Forrest suddenly realized what was expected of a gentleman, and he forgot the need of guarding against abrupt movements. As he jerked out of his lounging position, to reach for the quoit, he sustained a tearing agony in his side. But he secured the quoit, and his shaking hand touched hers in awkward contact. No one could have mistaken the caution with which he leaned back in his chair.

“Oh, you hurt yourself?” she asked, in hurried compassion.

“A little. It’s nothing,” replied Forrest, faintly. Her wide startled eyes denied his assertion.

“You should have let me pick it up,” she went on.

“I don’t often forget, but you made me,” he said, gazing up at her, with a wry smile.

“Ah! You’re an American soldier, going home?” she asked.

“All that’s left of me.”

She did not voice the pity and regret which her face expressed. Evidently confused, if not agitated, by the little incident, she turned to her game, which she rather abruptly terminated.

Forrest lay back in his chair, resenting the angry palpitations of his injured side. How impossible to grow insensible to pain! The tear, the rend, the fiery shock shooting back to the heart, then the quivering raw nerves, and the slow icy sickening settling to normal! He disliked the intrusion of this beautiful, healthy, care-free girl upon his misery; and he overcame some deep unfamiliar warmth within to resent her pity.

Late in the day, when he ventured on deck at the hour most passengers were dressing for dinner, he essayed to walk up and down a little, as he had been instructed to do, at whatever cost to his sensibilities. He really managed very well for a cripple, and in spite of sundry qualms the exercise was good for him.

The sunset lacked warmth and color, yet its pale yellow and turquoise blue, hemmed in by russet clouds, was worth watching, if only to remind him of the West, where the setting sun was a ritual for the Indian, and the best of the day for the hunter, the range man, the rider on his trail, and the rancher on his porch.

Forrest at length had recourse to his chair, and he found pinned to his steamer rug a little packet wrapped in tissue paper. Violets! Who could have placed them there? Only one reply seemed possible. The act touched Forrest deeply, for he took it as an expression which could not have been made in words. He carried them to his stateroom and placed them on his pillow. One of his many tribulations was the fact that he was not permitted to eat more than once a day, and then sparingly. And as he shunned the saloons and was too nervous to read by artificial light, there appeared nothing to do but go to bed.

Soon, in the darkness of his stateroom, he lay with his cheek touching the tiny bunch of fragrant violets, and it was certain that his tears fell upon them. It had been a sweet and compassionate action of the chestnut-haired girl, but it hurt even in its aloof tenderness. For the moment it pierced his bitter armor. In the silence and blackness of the night, with only the faint throb of the engines and the roar of the sea in his ears, he felt what he had missed during these wasted years and now could never have. He held that his sacrifice had been futile. The magnificent glow and inspired fighting fervor with which he had volunteered for the war, had died in the ghastly reality of the truth. Even his belief in God had succumbed.

How strange to feel that there still abided in him depths that stirred to the look in a girl’s eyes and the meaning in a gift of violets. She had not known that he should have been beyond the pale of such human sentiments. The worst of it was that he was not. Long indeed were the hours before slumber claimed him.

Next day the donor of the kindly gift might as well not have been on the ship, for all Forrest saw of her. On the ensuing morning he thought he caught a glimpse of wavy chestnut hair disappearing behind a corner of deck, but it did not reappear. And gradually the persuasive force of the incident faded; the fleeting interest that had kept him from morbid retrospection lost its healthy tone, and he drifted back. The little affair, perhaps only a kind thought for her, yet of such incalculable good for him, had been ended. Chestnut-haired girls were not for him.

When in the early rose and gold of sunrise the ship steamed up the Narrows and on past the Statue of Liberty, the hour was one of tremendous moment to Clifton Forrest. His own, his native land! One of his prayers at least had been answered. There was only one left, and he renewed that with a faith incurred by this beautiful answer.

At the docking his ordeal of transfer began. But he kept out of the press of the crowd, and watched the gay fluttering of handkerchiefs, the upturned faces, eager and intent, the hurry of passengers down the gangplank. And looking among them, suddenly he espied her. Had he forgotten? She was clad in white and those around her dimmed in his sight. Yet he saw her welcomed by young men and women, who whisked her away, leaving a blankness over the noisy crowd, the incessant movement and changing color.

After complying with the wearying customs regulations, Forrest sat resting upon his luggage until he could engage a steward who would take him to a taxi. Soon, then, he was dodging the traffic of the streets of New York, the peril of which he thought equal to tank warfare in France.

Uptown, the great canyon streets, with their endless stream of humanity, and in the center the four rows of continuous motors, brought stunningly to him the bewildering fact that he was in New York City. To be sure, a thousand leagues still separated him from his destination, yet this was home. It roused him to a high pitch of gratitude, and of an inexplicable emotion that had long been dormant in his breast.

The stimulus of this grew as he turned into Fifth Avenue, where the wild taxi-driver had to join the right-hand procession and slow up at frequent intervals. Thus Forrest had opportunity to revel in the sidewalks packed with his countrymen. The bitterness of neglect had no place in his full heart then, and the hour was too big for the tragedy of his life to prevail. He had not dreamed it would be like this. Perhaps there was something his misery had blunted or which his intelligence had never divined. Among the thousands of pedestrians he saw women of all degrees, from the elegant lithe-stepping patrician to the overdressed little shopgirl. And it was these his hungry heart seemed to seize. Had he not seen enough men to last ten lifetimes?

At the Grand Central Station he expended about the last of his strength reaching a bench in the waiting-room. The huge domed vault, which he could see through the doorway, seemed dim, and the hurrying people vague in his sight. He leaned back with his coat under his head, and slowly watched the arch clear of dim gloom, of spectral cubistic shapes, like the things of a nightmare; and rays of colored sunlight shine upon the splendor of sculptured walls and the painted dome.

Oddly it struck him then that the clearing of the vast space above might be a symbol of his homecoming. Out of chaos, out of turgid gloom, the beautiful lights on the storied painted windows! But if it were true it must mean out of travail into ease, out of insupportable life to dreamless death.

It took hours sometimes for Forrest to recover from undue exertion. This appeared to be a time when he would just about be rested and free from torture, then be compelled to rouse the fiends of flesh and bone again. It was well that he had to wait for one of the slow trains, upon which no extra fare was charged.

Eventually he once more got pleasure and excitement from the hurrying throngs. Wherever did so many people come from? Whither were they going? Indeed, their paths seemed the pleasanter lanes of life, for few indeed belonged to the lower classes. All well dressed, intent on thought or merry with companions, bright-faced and eager for whatever lay ahead, they impressed Forrest with the singular and monstrous fact of their immeasurable distance from him, from the past that had ruined him, from the bleak ash-strewn shore of the future.

He had given his all for them and they passed him by, blind to his extremity. But for the moment he soared above bitterness and he had clearness of vision. Surely one or more of these handsome girls had a brother under the poppies in the fields of France. Perhaps some of these business-like young men had shared with him the battlefield, but had escaped his misfortunes.

So the hours passed, not tediously for the latter half, until the porter who had carried his bags and purchased his ticket arrived to put him on his train.

“Come, buddy,” said the porter, with a grin; “hang on to me and we’ll go over the top.”

Anyone who ran could read, thought Forrest with resignation. Still his pride would never succumb. Without a falter he followed his guide to Pullman, and once sunk in his seat he sighed and wiped the cold dew from his brow. Only one more like ordeal — the bus ride in Chicago from station to station — and then the Santa Fé Limited! How often from the hills outside Las Vegas had he reined his horse to watch the famous Western train wind like a snake across the desert!

The Palisades above the Hudson, with the sinking sun behind them, appeared to have a faint bursting tinge of spring. At home the cottonwoods would be in leaf, full-foliaged, and green as emerald. He watched the reflection of cliff and hill in the broad river until dusk. Then he ventured boldly for the dining-car. It brought poignant memories. How different his first experience in a diner six years before on his way to college at Lawrence, Kansas!

That night he did not sleep very well, though he rested comfortably. The rushing of the train through the darkness, fearful as it was, seemed welcome because of the miles so swiftly annihilated.

Morning came, and finally Chicago, dark under its cloud of smoke. Forrest naturally was slow in disembarking from the train. All was bustle and confusion. Porters were scarce. And as the connection for the Santa Fé was close he could not risk missing the bus. So he carried his luggage. As a result he had to be helped into the bus, and at Dearborn Street put in a wheel chair and taken out to his Pullman. He was staggering and groping like one in the dark, while the porter led him to his berth and deposited his luggage. When Forrest sagged into the seat he felt that it was not any too soon. He was glad indeed to lay his head on a pillow the porter brought. Outside, the conductor called all aboard. The train gave a slight jar and started to glide. Forrest heard a passenger exclaim that the Twentieth Century Limited had just made the connection and that was all. Then the train emerged from the shaded station out into the sunlight.

Forrest knew that he had overshot his strength, but if it did not kill him outright, he did not care. He was on the last lap home. And the ecstasy of it counter-balanced the riotous protest of his broken body. Had he not endured as much without any help at all save the brute instinct to survive? He opened his heavy eyelids, and the first person he saw was the chestnut-haired girl he had met on the ship.

Chapter Two

“RECKON HE’S FAINTED, Miss.” The voice probably came from the porter.

“He is very white.” This was evidently from a girl. “Are you sure it’s the same fellow, Ginia?”

“I know it is.” That voice had a rich note that Forrest recognized. It had power to raise him from his lethargy, but he decided he would like staying unconscious a little while longer.

“Miss, he was fetched in a wheel chair,” said the porter. “Sho I had all I could do with his luggage, an’ I reckoned whoever fetched him would help him aboard. But he got on alone, an’ I seen him saggin’ here too late.”

“Mother,” interposed the first girl, “Ginia declares she saw this young man on the Berengaria.”

“Indeed! Who is he?” queried the mother.

“I don’t know,” answered the girl Forrest knew. “But I do know he’s a wounded soldier.”

“Who told you that, my dear?”

“Anyone could have seen. Besides, he told me so...He was alone on the ship...Porter, is there anyone with him now?”

“No, Miss, I’s sho there ain’t. It was a red-cap who fetched him in.”

“Bring me a towel wet with cold water,” returned the girl called Ginia. “Ethel, get your mother’s smelling-salts, in case I need something stronger.”

Forrest felt some one brush his knees and evidently sit down opposite him. Then a soft warm hand touched his cheek, and that gentle contact shot all through him.

“Like ice,” she whispered.

“Poor fellow! Wouldn’t it be awful if he were dead?” exclaimed the girl who was probably Ethel.

“Hush! Suppose he heard you!...Ethel, don’t stand there like a ninny. Go back to your mother...Thanks, porter. You might get another pillow.”

Then Forrest felt the gentle pressure of a cold wet cloth upon his brow and temples, and the touch of light fingers smoothing back his hair. A most unaccountable sensation assailed him. This was the girl who had given him the tiny bouquet of violets, which he had still in his possession. What chance had brought them together again and now on a train going west?

“He doesn’t come to,” whispered the girl to some one near. “I wonder if there’s a doctor aboard.”

Forrest thought it was quite time he was recovering consciousness. Therefore to the best of his ability he imitated a motion-picture actress coming out of a trance, and then opened his eyes. Some one gasped, but it was not the girl bending toward him. She drew back, a little startled. Then the gravity of her face relaxed.

“There! You’ve come to. We — I had begun to fear you never would...You fainted, you know.”

“Very good of you to trouble — about me,” he replied, and his unsteadiness was not feigned.

“You must have hurried too fast.”

“Yes. You see, I didn’t want to miss this train...Another whole day.”

A blond head popped up from behind the seat, where manifestly it had been very close indeed. And a pretty girl asked, solicitously:

“Ginia, is he all right?”

“He has recovered, at any rate.”

“Thank you. I think the fact that I’m on this train will make me all right — presently,” replied Forrest.

“I am very glad,” said the girl, soberly, and sat down opposite him.

The porter brought another pillow and slipped it under Forrest’s shoulders.

“Anythin’ mo’ I can get you, boss?”

Forrest shook his head. The girl handed the towel to the porter, and moved as if to rise. But she did not carry out her impulse. Forrest was gazing into her eyes, which evidently confused her, yet held her there for the moment. Her eyes were deep dark violet, wide apart, and somehow they struck a memory chord in Forrest’s uncertain mind. Just now they were troubled.

“Was it on the ship — I saw you?” he asked, uncertainly.

“Yes.”

“Anywhere else?”

“Not that I know of.”

Slipping his hand inside his breast pocket, he drew forth the faded violets and exposed them in his palm.

“I found these pinned to my steamer rug. Did you put them there?”

She blushed rosy red. “I!...Why do you imagine I did it?”

“There was only one other person who could have been kind enough. He was an old man and never would have thought of it...Did you?”

“But why do you want to know?”

“I’d like to know truly that you did it, instead of some stranger.”

“I am a stranger, too.”

“You are, yes. But then you are not. I can’t explain. I believe, though, I’ve seen you somewhere...I’d been nine months in a hospital. Missing months before that. God only knows where...The first time my frozen heart seemed to soften was when I saw those violets...I laid them on my pillow — and cried myself to sleep on them...Absurd for a soldier! But the iron in me is gone...Now will you tell me?”

“Something prompted me,” she answered, swiftly. “I don’t know what. I resisted the impulse...But then I did it. And now I’m very, very glad.”

She arose, somewhat confusedly, and backed into the aisle. Forrest felt the intensity of his gaze and that it fascinated her. There seemed nothing more to be said in words.

“I hope you rest and soon feel stronger,” she said, and left him.

Forrest thought it would be well to do just that thing, if he were ever to reach Las Vegas. Yet an inner conviction, more stable and determined today, assured him that such hope was no longer vain. He relaxed the tension which had upheld him, and closing his eyes, went back to the old ghastly strife with his pangs. Always he paid for exertion, and that meant of emotion as well as of muscle.

But outworn nature took a hand, and his surrender to reality was only a preamble to sleep. When he awoke the sun was on the other side of the car. Aware at once of relief, Forrest sat up. The flat green country and the wide farms, with their straight fences, told him Illinois was fast passing by.

The blond girl came down the aisle with an elderly woman, presumably her mother, and she smiled at Forrest.

“You had a long nap. I hope you feel better.”

“I do, thank you.”

“The porter was going to wake you — for lunch, he said — but we drove him off.”

“Thank you. I don’t need much to eat and it’s easy to get. But sleep is difficult. I guess I was just about all in.”

“You don’t look so — so bad now,” she concluded, with naïve encouragement.

The other girl was not in evidence. Forrest leaned on the window-sill and watched the flying landscape, scarcely believing that at last he was on the way home. There had come a break in his bitterness. The broad brown and green acres thrilled him. He had never appreciated his country. If he only could have had everything to do over again! There were horses in the meadows, flocks of blackbirds flying in clouds over the wooded creek bottoms. The lanes, recently muddy, stretched for leagues across the land, empty of vehicles clear to the horizon. How different in France! But America was endless and boundless. Wait till he crossed the Mississippi — then France could have been set down anywhere and lost!

Some one addressed him. Turning, he looked up into the bright face of the girl who had been so kind to him.

“You are better?” she asked, gladly.

“Yes, indeed,” he replied, and thanked her for her solicitude.

“Oh, but you had me scared!” she exclaimed. “Are you really as — as ill as you made me believe?”

“How ill was that?” asked Forrest, smiling up at her. The wholesomeness and artlessness of her drew him out of himself.

“When I first asked if you were a wounded soldier you said— ‘all that’s left of me.’”

“Well, isn’t it true?”

“I — I can’t tell,” she returned, the glad light fading. “You don’t look ill or weak now — only pale.” Here she sat down opposite him and clasped her hands over her knees. She had changed her dark traveling dress to one of lighter hue, and the effect was magical. “Truly, I hoped you were just spoofing — that day on the ship. This morning, indeed, I noticed you were a very sick boy...Still, when I saw you sitting up just now, I hoped again — —”

“Boy! — I am twenty-eight,” he interrupted, in pain that her kindness made acute. He faced again to the window, biting his lip. “And my doctors give me perhaps a month — to live.”

There ensued what Forrest felt to be a very long silence. He could not control remorse. But her youth, her abounding health, stung him into a revolt at he knew not what.

“How dreadful!” she answered, in a hushed voice.

“Only for the thoughtless — and selfish,” he returned. “Death is nothing. I have seen a hundred thousand young men like me meet death in every conceivable manner.”

“Yes, we are thoughtless — selfish, and worse. But how little we know! It takes actual contact.”

“Did you have a brother, a friend, or anyone dear — over there?”

“No. Only acquaintances, and I thought that hard to bear...Mr. Soldier, it is courteous of you to confide in me. I can imagine how you hate it...But one question more. You are going home to your mother?”

“Home to mother, thank God!” he whispered, dropping his head. “And dad! — I disgraced them. But this, I feel, has made it up. All I ask is to see them again, to learn all is well with them — and then it can’t come too soon for me.”

“I say, thank God, too,” she murmured. “Quíen sabe? Home might make you well.”

When Forrest recovered from this lapse into agitation, a most irritating and increasing habit that had grown upon him, the girl had gone back to her berth, which was across the aisle and the second down. She faced him, however, and thereafter, whether reading, or talking to the several members of her party, her glance came back frequently to his, as if unaccountably drawn.

The sight of her somehow gladdened him, in a way long foreign to him. Curiosity became added to the attraction he did not try to resist. Who was she? Where was she going? She certainly did not appear related to the pretty blond girl and her mother, nor to several young men who appeared very attentive. One of these, presently, noted her interest in Forrest, and did not take kindly to it. This byplay assured Forrest that he was not quite yet a disembodied spirit. He was still a flesh-and-blood individual over whom another could show jealousy.

He got out his magazines and a book and pretended to read, when in truth he merely wanted to watch the girl unobtrusively. She was quick to grasp his subterfuge, and adopted it herself, giving him a look and a smile that made his heart beat faster.

Gradually the exchange assumed the proportions of a flirtation, but not the frivolity of one. Her look answered to his, until a consciousness of it perhaps, made her shy. Not for a good while then did she reciprocate, but eventually he won her glance again. This time she laid the magazine in her lap and stared at him with wonderful eyes of sadness, of understanding, and more which Forrest could not define. But it seemed as if she were sending him a message — one which Forrest did not in the least know how to interpret. But as it seemed incumbent upon him to answer her challenge, he turned in his book to a favorite poem, which had in it the elements of his tragedy, and rising he walked down the aisle and handed it to her.

“I’d like you to read that,” he said, and went on to hold a little colloquy with the porter about dinner, which he ordered brought to him.

Upon his return one of the young men sat beside her, quite protectively, and he glared at Forrest, as he held out the book.

“Did you like the poem?” asked Forrest of the girl, while he took the book from her companion.

“Thank you. I — I didn’t read it,” she replied, with what he construed as coldness, and she averted a troubled face.

Forrest resumed his seat more shaken by the incident than he would admit, even to himself. But he was at the mercy of his emotions. Ruefully he opened the book and read the poem he had indicated. Surely there could not be anything in it to offend the most fastidious taste. Perhaps his intimation that her graciousness permitted him to grow sentimental and personal was accountable for the change. He withdrew into his shell and the strange radiancy which had opposed his realistic moods slowly turned to dead ashes. He had made a blunder, for which, however, he did not see the necessity of asking pardon. He did not probe into the nature of his error. Of what avail? How bitter to receive such a lesson amid such new and uplifting thoughts as she had aroused! He had been relegated to his lonely place.

He wondered if the sleek handsome young man beside her — surely an Easterner — had been in any way responsible for the snub. It was quite possible, considering his air of proprietorship. Also he wondered if that languid, prosperous-looking chap had been in the war. A little keen observation convinced Forrest that this fellow had never helped dig a trench.

Nor did Forrest require further observation to insure the fact that the girl with the chestnut hair studiously avoided looking in his direction. His resentment, however, did not augment to the point where he was oblivious to the absence of pride or vanity in her demeanor. Merely she had lost her warmth. Something had blunted her receptiveness. Well, what did it matter? What was one hurt more or less? He had no time to sentimentalize over a woman, however bewilderingly charming she chose to be. He closed the book upon the page where long ago he had written his name. Had she seen that? But the unfortunate circumstance was closed.

The sun set red over the level land; dusk fell to shroud the flying farms and wooded lowlands. He watched the shadows over the fields, the pale gleams of light on ponds and streams, the bright windows of farmhouses that flashed by. Then the waiter brought in Forrest’s dinner.

The next event was one of momentous importance — crossing the Mississippi.

Forrest could only faintly see the rolling waters of the great river. But he knew from the sound of the train when it passed off the bridge on to Missouri land. West of the Mississippi!

Forrest lay awake that night while the train passed through Lawrence, Kansas, where five years before his brief college career had ended so ignominiously. What sleep he got was fitful. Next morning when he raised his head to look out of the window he saw the long gray gradual slopes of the plains.

Propping himself on pillows, he lay there watching. The brown ploughed fields, the gray bleached pasture-lands, the ranches few and far between, the dry washes, the gradual heave and break of continuity, the absence of trees or green growths, the tumbleweeds before the wind, the dust-devils rising in yellow funnels, the scampering long-legged, long-eared jack rabbits — all these were incense to Forrest’s lifting spirit.

The porter roused him. He got up, to find the morning half spent. While he was in the dressing-room, slow and careful about his ablutions, the train crossed into Colorado. The day then went like a dream. Twice that he noted, though he never raised his eyes, the girl across the aisle passed him. She was still on the train. What was it that had happened? But nothing could intrude into his obsession with the mountains. And all the rest of that day he watched the multitudinous aspects of the approach to and the ascent of the great Continental Divide. Such a sunset he had not seen since he had left the West. There was a rare blue sky, deep azure, cut by the white notched peaks, and above, some clouds of amber, purple, and rose, rich as the hearts of flowers and intense with the transparency of smokeless dustless skies.

His dinner he enjoyed. That night he slept and dreamed of his mother. Next morning the sage benches, the boulder-strewn arroyos, the bleached gramma-grassed open slopes rising to cedars and piñons, the black-fringed ranges of New Mexico!

For hours he pored tenderly over the infinite variety of landscape, which yet always held the same elements of rock and grass and timber and range. New Mexico in the spring was somberly gray, monotonously gray over the lowlands, black and white, wild, broken, and grand over the battlements of the heights. He had forgotten all except the color, the loneliness, the far-flung wandering lines, the solitude of the steely peaks. Raton! Lamy! Wagonmound!

There was Old Baldy, the mountain god of his boyhood, lofty, bleak as of old, white-streaked in its high canyons, capped with a crown of black timber, frowning down, unchangeable to the transient present. Forrest trembled and his heart contracted. Almost the little for which he had prayed had been granted. When the train pulled into Las Vegas, stopping before the Castaneda, Forrest sat stockstill, unmindful of the bustling important porter, not even surprised or interested to see that this also was where the girl with the chestnut hair disembarked.

He had to moisten his lips to thank the porter, and then he was almost wordless. There was a dry constriction in his throat. As he stepped down, the last passenger to leave the train, he gazed wildly about, as if he expected to see persons he knew. But there was no one familiar among the many Indians, Mexicans, railroad men, and others present. Forrest stood beside his luggage, seeing, hearing, feeling, though not believing. Almost he wished he had telegraphed his parents to meet him at the station. But he had clung to a reluctance to let them see the wreck of him until the very last unavoidable moment.

A chauffeur accosted him: “Car for hire, sir?”

“Do you know where Cottonwoods is?” asked Forrest, coming to himself eagerly.

“You mean the big ranch out heah?”

“Yes. On the road to Old Baldy, twelve miles out.”

“Shore do. Can I take you out?”

“Grab my bags.” Forrest followed the driver out to a line of cars. “Put them in the back seat. I’ll ride in front.”

“Reckon you ain’t keen on bumps,” returned the chauffeur, with a grin. “Wal, out a ways the road ain’t any too good.”

“It used to be plumb bad, before the days of autos,” said Forrest, as he got in. He had quite forgotten his condition. Indeed, he had no sense of incapacity whatever. He seemed full of pleasant whirling thoughts.

“You ain’t no stranger, then?”

“Not exactly. But I don’t remember you.”

“Wal, I’m new in these parts.”

So far as Forrest could see there was not one single change in the business section of Las Vegas. On the outskirts, however, he observed unfamiliar buildings and cottages.

“How’s the cattle business?” asked Forrest.

“Ain’t any. Thet’s why I’m punchin’ this heah car.”

Forrest concluded he would not ask any more questions. Besides, he wanted to see with all his faculties and all his strength.

The road began to climb. Out there, in front, the gray benches rose. Behind them frowned the mountains, steel-black, forbidding.

Away to the west stretched the magnificent desert, sweeping in noble lines down from the mountains, range after range of ridges that disappeared in the purple distance. Southward, far away, a gate opened in the wall of rock, and well Forrest knew how that led out to the wild country of sage and sand. Straight ahead the mountain blunted the view. It was too close, yet as Forrest remembered, began its foothill rise over forty miles away.

The higher the car got, and it was climbing fairly fast and steeply, the better could Forrest gaze out over that Western land of alternate waste and range. Here began the change of monotonous New Mexican gray to a hint of red and cream and mauve, that gathered strength over the leagues until it burst into the blaze of colorful Arizona.

Forrest could not get his fill of gazing. The car sped on, and soon it entered a zone which gripped Forrest’s heart and brought a dimness to his eyes that he had to rub away, and that continually returned. He saw a wide valley, triangular in shape, with the apex closing far ahead, where grand gnarled cottonwood trees, centuries old, brightly glistening in their first green spring dress, stood far apart, as if there were not enough water and sunlight for a closer communion. There were hundreds of them, and it seemed Forrest knew every one. The road wound along a beautiful stream that slid between green and flowered banks on its way to the famous Pecos, historic river of the West. Quail and doves, hawks and ravens, cottontails and jack rabbits, deer and coyotes, gladdened Forrest’s absorbing gaze. No change here! Wild and beautiful still! No fences, no fires, no ranches, no progressive improvements! Cottonwood Valley belonged to his father, who held on to the old West.

At last Forrest espied the white-walled, vine-covered, red-roofed rambling house. It had the same beauty against the green and bronze background. Forrest clenched his moist palms. This was home. The unreal and impossible had become a fact. He would soon be in his mother’s arms and be gripped by the hand of that great Westerner, his father, whom he had feared and loved, and looked up to with all a boy’s admiration for the pioneer, the fighter of early days. Surely they would be home, well, perhaps expecting him some time. For his mother’s letter was scarcely more than a month old.

Thus he eased the doubts of a straining heart, and gave himself over again to the joy of physical sight in beloved things. There, across the valley, where a branch creek ran down, nestled the adobe house that added another sweet thrill to his home-coming. Lundeen lived there, an enemy of his father, a nester who of all those who had squatted on the Forrest broad acres could not be dislodged. Forrest recalled Lundeen’s lass, a girl of fourteen, red-haired and pretty, whom he might once have liked but for the enmity of the families. She would be grown now. He wondered. Married to a cow-puncher, probably, and not interested in crippled soldiers!

Forrest lost sight of the picturesque little house, that disappeared behind trees, and likewise the stately home on the knoll which guarded the apex of the triangular valley. It was high, and the driver now swung his car under the blunt, rocky, vine-covered face of the knoll. On the far side, the knoll sloped easily back to the level, and here, spread out across the neck of the valley, where the stream came tearing white and noisy over a rocky bed, were situated barns, sheds, corrals, bunk houses, lime kiln, blacksmith shop, store, and quarters of the Mexicans.

Forrest stared. The picturesque confusion in his memory did not include all of these landmarks. Some were new. Where, too, was the old leisurely atmosphere? What had come over his father, always a stickler for old things and ways? But Forrest scarcely caught a glimpse of the improvements, for the driver whirled him up the gray-walled road, under the flowered arches, out upon the sunlit level, and up to the house, with its many-arched veranda.

What the driver said Forrest did not catch. The moment was insupportably full. He got out, shaking in every limb. A big white automobile was backing down the courtyard. Forrest heard the murmur of gay voices, laughter. His heart lifted, ready to burst. He stepped forward.

Then a girl appeared in the arched doorway. She wore a long coat, and had her arms lifted to remove her hat. As she freed it from her hair she espied Forrest, and suddenly the hat dropped from her hand. Voice and smile froze on her lips. Dark red flooded neck, cheek, temple.

For Clifton Forrest a vague unreality cleared to a sense of calamity. Removing his hat, he bowed and strove to speak. But the whitening face of this girl — her eyes, that were telling him something too stunning to grasp — made his speech difficult and incoherent.

“What — are you — doing here?”

“This is my home,” she replied, and horror gathered dark in her eyes.

“Who — are — you?” he went on, hoarsely, and his hand groped for support.

“My God! Is it possible you cannot know?” she cried.

“Know — what?”

“That this is no longer your home.”

“But it is — my home,” he persisted, in bewilderment.

“Oh, why were you not told!” she burst out, in growing distress. Her face had grown a pearly dead white. “I hate — hate to have to tell you...But this is not your home.”

“I’ve come all the way from France,” he said, faintly.

“Clifton Forrest, it is a pitiful homecoming for you,” she wailed, wringing her hands.

Forrest no longer saw her distinctly. The murmur of voices had ceased. Another girl came quickly out of the shadow, with startled face.

“You know — my name?” queried Forrest, astounded.

“I saw it in your book. I thought I knew you on the ship, but I couldn’t place you...Oh, if I could only spare you!”

“Spare me?...My mother! — My father!” gasped Forrest.

“I know nothing of them. I’ve been away two years...But before I left they lived — where I used to live.”

“Who — are — you?”

“I am Virginia Lundeen.”

“Lundeen? — Lundeen!...Not that red-headed kid I used to tease?”

“Yes, the same.”

“You!...Have I lost my mind?...But she had red hair!”

“You remember, indeed. Well, it changed color with my changed fortunes.”

“Then — my father — has lost — our old home?”

“Clifton, it is true, I regret to say.”

Her face faded then, and her shape dimmed in the archway. A black tide swept away sight and thought.

Chapter Three

VIRGINIA, WITH SUDDEN distress added to her agitation, was not quick-witted enough to keep the young man from falling. He sank at her feet; his hat slipped out of a nerveless hand. For a moment his white face struck her dumb.

“Oh, poor fellow!” cried Ethel. “Ginia, what can we do?”

Virginia’s father stepped out from the doorway, followed by others. He was a stalwart man past middle age, whose handsome lined face showed the vicissitudes of a hard life in the open.

“Hello! Who’s this?” he queried, in astonishment, espying the prostrate form at Virginia’s feet.

“Father!” she replied, recovering with a gasp. “Something dreadful has happened.”

“Is he drunk or what? Who is it?...Strikes me I’ve seen him before.”

“No, he’s not drunk,” rejoined Virginia, hurriedly. “Dad, it’s Clifton Forrest, who used to live here. I saw him on the Berengaria, but didn’t recognize him then. He was returning from France. He must have been badly wounded in the war. He did not know me...He didn’t know I lived here...that this was not his home...When I told him — he fainted.”

Lundeen’s features clouded and set. “Young Forrest! — Home from the war! Shore he looks it!”

“Father, let us take him in — and do what we can,” suggested Virginia, faltering.

“What? Take a Forrest in my house? I reckon not,” returned Lundeen, harshly. He made a sharp gesture, beckoning the chauffeur who had just deposited Forrest’s luggage on the flagstones. “Take those bags back to your car, an’ pack this fellow out of heah.”

“All right, sir, but where’ll I pack him?” returned the chauffeur.

“He’s a son of Clay Forrest, who lives down the west road. ‘Dobe shack. You can’t miss it,” replied Lundeen, and stamped back upon the porch.

“Ethel, we must think of his mother, too,” said Virginia, in a low voice. “Some one must prepare her. Will you go with me?”

The chauffeur laid hold of Forrest, to be checked by Virginia’s swift hand.

“Careful! He has been badly wounded,” she warned.

“Shore, Miss...Gee! he ain’t very heavy.”

Virginia did not release her hold on Forrest’s arm, as the driver carried him. Ethel ran to open the door of the car.

“You get in first, Ethel...We must avoid any jar...I remember — Oh, driver, be careful! Don’t let him slip!...There. Now hold him, Ethel, until — —”

“You girls needn’t bother,” spoke up the young man who had followed them from the porch.

“We will bother, thank you, Richard...Driver, is there room for his bags in front?”

“I’ll take care of them.”

Lundeen appeared again, striding out with manner unmistakable. Virginia saw her mother trying to detain him.

“Virginia, what are you aboot?”

“Dad, I’m going to prepare his mother for — for this.”

“You stay out of thet car,” he ordered, furiously.

“Why, dad,” she protested, keeping her temper, “I must go. It’s the very least we can do.”

“No. Let Dick go.”

“But he might be awkward breaking it to his mother — shock her.”

“Wal, I won’t have you goin’, an’ thet’s all.”

“Dad, I’ve been away two years, and now I’m over twenty-one. I knew I’d have to tell you, but I didn’t think it’d come during the very first ten minutes of my return.”

Whereupon Virginia, her ears tingling at her father’s profanity, stepped into the car. Ethel was holding Forrest, whose head swayed to and fro. Virginia slipped her arm round his neck.

“Let go, Ethel,” she said, and gently drew Forrest to her until his head rested upon her breast. “Now, driver, we’re ready. But don’t hurry. And stop at the brook.”

Virginia did not look out as they entered the driveway, so she did not know or care about what consternation she had left behind. At the moment she was concerned with the strangest sensation she had ever experienced. Had it to do with the pressure of this young man’s head upon her bosom? Ethel’s eyes were wide as they encountered hers.

“Ginia, isn’t it dreadful? Oh, your father was black as a thundercloud...But I’m glad you didn’t give in. It just wouldn’t have been decent.”

“Ethel, my father always hated the Forrests. I remember that all my life.”

“But, Ginia, forgive me if I say it’s not fair — at least the hate isn’t. You have all the Forrests ever had.”

“Dear, I know it’s not fair. Ever since dad took over this property it has been a thorn in my flesh...But I didn’t say I hated the Forrests.”

“I’m glad. Poor boy!...He’s very handsome, Ginia...What will come of it?” And her blue eyes quickened and dilated with all a young girl’s mystic sense of romance.

“He’s not a boy, Ethel. He’s twenty-eight...Even when I was a girl of ten and twelve he seemed a grown-up man.”

At the turn below the knoll the chauffeur halted the car where the brook ran clear and swift over gravel bars.

“Wet my handkerchief,” said Virginia, handing it to the driver, who leaped out of the car and, complying with her request, hurriedly returned. “Ethel, you bathe his face...Now, driver, take the left-hand road at the forks and go slowly.”

Virginia watched Ethel as gently, with trembling hand, she applied the wet handkerchief. She was very serious and grew almost solemn as her efforts of resuscitation appeared fruitless.

“Ginia, when people faint they don’t usually stay under so — so terribly long, do they?” she queried, anxiously.

“I don’t know a lot about it, Ethel. But I’d think not. You remember on the train, when he was unconscious so long. That was bad...but this is worse.”

“Ginia, he — he might be — be dead!” faltered Ethel. “His face is so — so cold.”

“Oh, that would be too awful!” cried Virginia, shuddering. Then with right hand, which shook like a leaf, she unbuttoned his vest and felt for his heart. As she found no beat, a slow horror, cold and sickening, consumed her.

“Put your hand up higher,” whispered Ethel, equally clamped in dread.

Complying, Virginia felt slow weak heartbeats. “There! — Yes, he’s alive, Ethel...Thank Heaven! If he had died — at my feet — I’d never, never have gotten over it.”

“Neither would I,” murmured Ethel, resuming her task more vigorously.

Virginia leaned her head back and shut her eyes, seeking to free herself from that inward clutch.

“His eyelids fluttered,” whispered Ethel, excitedly. “Ginia — he’s coming to.”

Virginia could not discern any manifestation of this, except through Ethel, who suddenly ceased her task and drew back, with startled eyes riveted upon Forrest.

“Oh, Mr. Forrest, you’re all right again!” she said, eager like a pleased and relieved child.

“What happened?” asked Forrest, in a voice which seemed far away, yet pierced through Virginia.

“You fainted. And it took longer to revive you than that time on the train.”

“I see...I’m back in the car...Where are you taking me?”

“To your mother. It’s not far. We’ll be there soon.”

“My mother!...I thought — I was afraid — when that girl said she knew nothing of...where is she?”

“I just told you. Your mother lives down the road a ways.”

“I mean that Lundeen girl.”

“Oh! She’s not very far,” replied Ethel, shyly.

Then probably Forrest became aware of the position of his head, and the arm that encircled him.

“Yes,” said Ethel, as if answering a mute interrogation. The thing so dear to a woman’s heart — the romance inseparable from this situation — shone tenderly and subtly in Ethel’s eyes. “It is Virginia who is holding you. She insisted that she should be the one to take you to your mother.”

In his slight movement Virginia divined that his position in her arms was vastly distasteful to him, but he had not the strength even to lift his head from her breast. Whatever vague and dreamy sensations of pleasure and pathos had stirred within her were suddenly dispelled. He knew her now as a Lundeen.

At this juncture the driver brought his car to a stop at the vine-covered gateway of a red adobe wall, a wall pregnant with memory for Virginia. She recalled the time when she had sat on that wall, a roguish little girl of twelve, dangling her bare legs, to watch with worshipful eyes Clifton Forrest riding by, calling out: “Hello, little red-head!” — And now, how strange and terrible, after what seemed a changing span of a lifetime, to be bringing him there to his mother, ruined, broken, dying.

“Ethel, you hold him now. Let me go in first.”

“I think I can manage, if you steady me,” said Forrest to Ethel.

Virginia stifled her own emotions, thinking of the mother to whom this event would at best be staggering, and leaving the car she hurried through the gate and down the shady path she remembered as well as if she had trod it only yesterday. But it was an ordeal. The giant cottonwoods seemed to shadow her in reproach. Almost she wished the red-walled house, picturesquely showing through the trees, was home again, and that magnificent Spanish mansion up on the knoll belonged to the Forrests. How would Clifton’s mother receive her? Courteously and kindly as always, she thought, but perhaps with the same fear of Clay Forrest that ever had obstructed friendship. A flower-skirted irrigation ditch, full of murmuring water, further burdened Virginia with poignant associations of childhood and girlhood. The adobe house showed its age, especially in the size of the great vines that climbed its cracked walls, to shade its adobe-tiled roof with spring foliage. The fragrance here was sweet, dry, pregnant with the atmosphere of unhurried time and solitude. Birds sang in the trees and bees hummed in the flowers. Virginia went round to the back of the house from which a trellis, with heavily vined roof, served as a porch. In trepidation Virginia prayed that Clay Forrest would not be in. If she remembered correctly, he was as impossible as her own father. But to her relief it was Clifton’s mother who came out, not by any means as aged or changed as Virginia had anticipated.

“Mrs. Forrest, do you remember me?” asked Virginia, earnestly gazing up into the motherly face.

“For the land’s sake! Virginia come home!” she ejaculated, mildly, without trace of astonishment, and she leaned off the step to kiss Virginia. “Come in, lass. Well, an’ lackaday, it’s a woman you are now. Did you fetch home a husband?”

The big living-room smiled at Virginia and seemed to intimate her place was there. Still there were treasures of color and beauty that had not graced it during the Lundeen occupation. Clay Forrest had saved fine rugs and paintings and furniture from the wreck of his fortunes — family belongings too splendid for this adobe house.

“No, indeed, Mrs. Forrest,” replied Virginia, “not a husband. But I did bring you some good news of Clifton.”

A spasm convulsed the lined face and a quivering hand went to the heart, indications that justified Virginia’s decision to break to Mrs. Forrest the news of her soldier son’s return.

“Clifton!...Oh, my dear, you saw him in France! — How good of you!” The darkening, hungry eyes almost made Virginia falter.

“No, hardly France. We were a whole day out,” hurried on Virginia, brightly. “Do you know, Mrs. Forrest, I saw Clifton on the ship several times, and never recognized him. Isn’t that just funny?”

“Ship! — He was on his way home?”

“Surely. Then by the strangest and duckiest chance he was on my train. Still I didn’t know him. I’m so sorry now, because I could have spared him pain.”

Mrs. Forrest sat down shakily, but Virginia’s wise, kind words had checked the shock of surprise, and now joy was fortifying the revelation that was to come.

“Pain. You mean — he never knew — —”

“Poor fellow! Naturally, not knowing, he went direct to his old home. I had to tell him it — it was no longer his. How I hated that!...Then I came — down with him — to show him where you lived.”

“And he’s out there now?” whispered the mother, a glory in her face that struck deep to Virginia’s soul.

“Yes, out in the car. You see, the long journey — he must have come right out of a hospital — it weakened him. He’s not very strong. He looks pretty thin and — and ill. I wanted to see you first — tell you, so you’d not be frightened.”

“Frightened? I am only happy,” replied Mrs. Forrest. “Lass, your heart was never that of a Lundeen...Bring my boy in.”

“You stay — right there,” said Virginia, chokingly. “Else it might be — you’ll frighten Clifton — instead of the other way — round.”

“You needn’t fear. I’m perfectly calm. But hurry, lass.”

Virginia ran out with bursting heart, and at the corner of the house she encountered Clifton, one arm over the chauffeur’s shoulder and the other over Ethel’s.

“Is mother — all right?” he shot at her with a gasp. His eyes seemed to bore into her.

“Yes, she is.”

“You prepared her?”

“Clifton, she doesn’t dream you — you’re so badly off. I didn’t dare tell her. But she knows you’re sick, weak, all worn out...Now please play up to that. If you do, all will be well. Then, gradually she — it’ll be safe to tell her — —”

“Where is she?”

“In the living-room, waiting...Oh, Clifton, try to be natural!”

He lifted his arms from his supporters and stood erect, with a light of eye and face which blazed out the havoc that was there. “Virginia Lundeen, I have this to thank you for...I’ll go in alone.”

Unfaltering, with no hint of his slight stoop and halting step, he went round the house. Virginia kept pace with him, saying she knew not what, while Ethel retained a timid hold on his sleeve, until they crossed the porch. Then he opened the door, as the girls drew back.

“Mother!”

“Cliff!...Oh, my son! — my son!”

The door closed on him. Virginia, wiping her blurred eyes, saw that Ethel was crying.

“Wasn’t he wonderful? I could just — love him!” sobbed Ethel.

“I’m afraid it might be hard not to — just now, at any rate,” replied Virginia, trying to smile at her friend.

“Ginia, I’ll wait out in front,” went on Ethel. “If I saw his mother — I’d bawl like a baby.”

“I’m not so sure of myself. But I’d better stay a few moments...Tell the driver to bring his luggage back.”

Virginia was left alone, prey to mingled sorrow and gladness, and a remorse that did not seem as right and natural as the other emotions. She was strong of will, and sternly fought them, as much for Mrs. Forrest’s sake as her own. She waited. The driver brought Clifton’s several bags and left them. Only silence from within the house! The relaxing of a tension left Virginia nervous. She wanted to get home, to hide in her room, to cry without restraint. And the thought of home roused feelings that were enlightening and dismaying. This adobe house was more her home than that palace above. Virginia had been born in Georgia, her father having been a planter when a young man, but she had only dim recollections of her Southern home. Here, under these spreading cottonwoods, she had slept and played for twelve years. Then she had gone to school in Las Vegas, spent a year in Denver, staying with relatives, and later, when she had reached eighteen, had been sent to a fashionable school in New York City. The Spanish mansion on the knoll had known her for only few and short intervals. Now she had come back to stay, only to find the romance and joy of it ruined perhaps forever.

Here, on this very porch, she used to peel potatoes, and bend to other chores she hated, when she longed to run and ride, and paddle in the ditch, and play with the Indian children. So marvelous was memory that instinctively she searched for the place in the lattice-work where she used to stick the paring-knife. Then, as memorable and more poignant, was the later time when Cliff Forrest rode across her trail to become her hero. She had never had another.

Her sad misgivings were interrupted by the opening of the door.

“Come in, Virginia,” called Mrs. Forrest, who stood there with traces of tears on her flushed face.

Virginia slipped in with the weight of other years upon her shoulders. Clifton was lying on the couch under the window.

“Mother wants to thank you,” he said, clearly, with eyes that would haunt her.

“Please don’t,” implored Virginia.

“Lass you made it easy for me,” said Mrs. Forrest, quaveringly. “Bless you!”

“Mother, not so long ago this tall dignified young woman was a red-headed tomboy with bare legs,” said Clifton.

“Laws — a — me, Cliff, she was indeed,” replied his mother, with a sigh. “She’s changed like everything.”

“My heart hasn’t changed,” returned Virginia, her cheeks hot.

“Virginia Lundeen, come closer,” commanded Clifton, “so I can see in your eyes...Do you know what your father did to my father?”

His query, sharp though it was, had nothing of the confounding quality of his accusing, soul-searching gaze.

“Clifton, I know nothing — nothing at all about what happened between my dad and yours,” she protested, wildly conscious of her inability to maintain composure. “I’ve been away most of the time since it happened.”

Forrest did not answer for several moments. He appeared to be lost in some mood of introspection. Then he said, quietly, almost matter-of-factly, “We’re ruined — penniless — and I’ve come home to die.”

“Oh, don’t say that last — don’t!” cried Virginia, entreatingly. “Say you will live! — You must not — you cannot give up now — and leave them alone, when they most need you...Clifton, you lived to get home!”

“My son, prayer and hope and will are mighty,” added his mother, fervently.

“Oh, Clifton, that is the spirit!” went on Virginia, eloquently. “You stood it all to get home. Now stand it all and more — to get well...And let me help you. I — I have more money than I know what to do with. If you will only let me make it easy for you — till you’re strong again!”

“Do you imagine I could take money from a girl whose father robbed mine?” demanded Forrest.

“Robbed! — Oh, that’s not true,” she returned, hotly. “You are unstrung. You speak wildly. My father might have been hard, unforgiving to your father, who was hard, too. But dishonest — no. I couldn’t believe it — and — and you must apologize.”

Heavy footfalls on the porch outside stopped Virginia’s lips. The door jarred — opened wide to disclose a tall man with upstanding, grizzled hair like the mane of a lion. Virginia knew him, though four years had passed since her last glimpse of this rugged face, gray like a stone, with eyes of burning jet that transfixed her.

“Mr. Forrest,” said Virginia, brave at the sight of him, “I’m Virginia Lundeen...Clifton came up to my — to Cottonwoods by mistake. And as he needed assistance, I — I brought him down.”

Forrest inclined his head, as if in forced acknowledgment, and his hand swept toward the open door, dismissing her from a roof that could not harbor a Lundeen.

Virginia fled. And as she reached the porch she heard his booming voice:

“Howdy, prodigal son! So the war drove you home to dad?”

Chapter Four

PERHAPS SOME OF Virginia’s breathlessness, when she reached the car, was due to haste; however, a little hurry could hardly have been responsible for her scarlet face.

“Ginia, what’d the old devil do?” demanded Ethel, bridling.

“He deigned me — a grand gesture of dismissal,” panted Virginia as she flounced into the car. “Take us back, driver.”

“Didn’t he say anything?”

“Not a word. I was dirt — in his house — and his hand swept me out.”

“After all your kindness? Mean of him! — Ginia, he was as nice as pie at first. Regular old beau. Not so old, either, and he’s sure handsome. I didn’t know what to say. But I jollied him along till he asked who was calling. Then I got fussed. I was afraid you’d come out. I spilled the beans all right. He turned as white as a sheet. It was good I wasn’t the one to tell Clifton’s mother. I felt sorry for him. Then when I got to Clifton’s mistake, going to your house, and your bringing him down here — whew! Oh, my!...Come to think it over, I don’t really believe he meant to curse us. Probably it was the rotten luck of it.”

“I wouldn’t put him above it.”

“But if he loves Clifton?...Pretty tough on Clifton, don’t you think?”

“Sickening to me. What must it have been to him?...But, oh, Ethel, he’s game! You should have seen him!”

“Tell me.”

“There’s not much to tell, really. But what there was of it will do this little lady for a spell...I must have been some time waiting. Ethel, I used to peel potatoes on that very porch. Hated it. And there I stood — and inside there he...Well, his mother asked me in presently. She looked beautiful. And Clifton lay on the couch. His face was wet with tears. I had an insane desire to kiss them away.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Ethel!...Well, Clifton said they were ruined, penniless, and he’d come home to die. That broke me all up. I — I don’t know just what I said, Ethel, but I told him that he had to live. And his mother spoke the same way. And by the expression in his face, I guessed the idea was taking hold...I wish I had come away then. But I didn’t, and he asked me to come close and he looked through me as if I’d been an inch of crystal water. And he asked me if I knew my father had robbed his. That upset me more, in a different way. I was raving when his father came in. Then my courage went to my boots. He left the door open, bowed to me as if I were a rich duchess and he a poor peasant, with the pride all on his side. And you bet I beat it.”

Ethel laid her head on Virginia’s shoulder in an eloquent silence. The car was now rolling down into the valley, which spread out fan-shaped, a green, triangularly cut gem in a bold bronze setting. The silver sunlight glanced dazzlingly off the stream. The freshness and beauty of spring took hold of Virginia’s senses, but she was conscious of a stultifying change in her reception of them. Something, like a black cloud spreading over a blue sky, had come between her and the joy of her return, the pride in her beautiful home.

“Ginia,” murmured Ethel, dreamily, “you’ll fall in love with Clifton Forrest.”

“I would if it’d help him get well,” flashed Virginia, unreckoning. Then she was appalled at a reply which had not emanated from her thoughtful self.

“You’ve fallen already,” went on Ethel, bent on completing her case.

“Ethel, you’re a sentimental little idiot,” declared Virginia, impatiently.

“Well, darling, if you don’t fall in love with Clifton, I will.”

“Ethel Wayne! I’ll pack you back home to Denver, and never ask you here again.”

“You’ve asked me for two months. You can’t go back on that. And, honey, you’ve likely forgotten how much I can do in little time.”

“Do be serious, Ethel. This — this thing has made me unhappy.”

“I am serious. And I wouldn’t give a hoot for you if you weren’t unhappy. But, Ginia, you’re as cold as a fish. All our Western boy friends say as much, anyhow. Who’d ever think you were born in the South? You slip into a Southern accent once in a while — just enough to make me want more, but as for Southern love and passion, why, you’re simply not there.”

“Ethel, it strikes me you’re not paying the Southern girls much of a compliment. And your own mother came from Louisiana.”

“I sure am. Love, anyway, is the only thing in the world.”

“You speak from a wide experience — that is, deario, if by flirtation you mean love.”

“Is that so? You’ve got a pair of eyes yourself. Don’t be a prune, Virginia. Be a good sport, as you always used to be. You’ve toddled home from the East for good, so you say. You’ve certainly been away long enough. And you’ve sure skidded into a rotten mess. Well, there’s only one thing you can do, if you’re a thoroughbred. And Heaven knows that’s your middle name.”

“Very good, wise little monitor. What is the only thing I can do?”

“Help this poor almost destroyed Clifton. Love him back to hope and strength. Give him yourself, for all he’s lost.”

“Ethel, you sound like a book. But all the same you hurt...If Clifton doesn’t despise me now, his father’s hate of all Lundeens will soon make him.”

“Fiddlesticks! You talk like a ninny! It needs only one to start a love-affair, especially if it’s the girl.”

“You shameless child!” retorted Virginia, driven to heat. “Would you have me throw myself into Clifton’s arms?”

“Sure Mike,” coolly replied this tantalizing friend. “Soon as he is strong enough to hold you.”

The car stopped, and Virginia looked up to see they had arrived at Cottonwoods. She gave Ethel a significant little push.

“I’m glad that’s over — and your mushy talk, too,” she declared. “Here we are home. And I’m reminded I have a house party, worse luck.”

Ethel let out a little peal of silvery laughter. “It’s coming to you, Ginia, old girl. I always said so. You’re too darned pretty and fascinating and good and rich and lucky.”

Virginia’s mother met the girls as they entered the house. No one else was in evidence, which fact afforded Virginia some ease. She certainly did not want to meet her father just then.

“Dear, you shouldn’t have disobeyed your father,” said Mrs. Lundeen, reprovingly. She was a woman whose handsome, stately presence failed to hide the travail of earlier years.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t,” rejoined Virginia, with resignation. “But, mother, I don’t always do what I should...Has the baggage come from the station?”

“Yes. And your guests are all settled in their rooms. Ethel is to share yours.”

“I’ll need a maid.”

“You may have Juanita. She speaks English, and is the best of the lot. All our help is Mexican. It doesn’t please me any too well. But Malpass runs the ranch.”

“Malpass?” echoed Virginia, puzzled.

“Augustine Malpass. You remember him, don’t you?’

“The name, but not the man.”

“He is your father’s partner, formerly superintendent. But he still superintends, as you will see. I advise you to remember him.”

There seemed more in her mother’s words than a hint not to displease her father. But Virginia made no reply, and led Ethel through the magnificent patio, shaded by the single great cottonwood around which the house had been built. Tinkle of flowing water and fragrance of flowers attested to the luxuriance of this walled-in garden. Virginia’s rooms were located in the west wing, overlooking the beautiful valley of cottonwoods and the vast sloping stretches of desert and range, and the purple mountains dim and far away.

Ethel threw off her hat and coat, then flung her arms round Virginia’s neck.

“You know I love you, Ginia?” she asked, in manner far removed from the recent tormenting one.

“Why, of course, you goose!” replied Virginia, heartily returning embrace and kiss.

“I’m not serious often, but I am now,” went on Ethel. “Ginia, I’m something of a mystic in spells.”

“You certainly are mysterious on occasions. Now what’s troubling you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s this tremendous overshadowing Spanish house. But it makes me say I’m no ordinary friend of yours. I don’t care a hang for your riches or your favors. I do care, though, for you, very, very much. And if you fell upon evil days — then you’d know me best.”

“Evil days? For me!”

Ethel nodded her blond head, like a bright-eyed bird: “I’ve got a queer feeling you might. And it’s not in my little toe, either.”

Virginia gave her a hug. “You adorable wretch! Don’t come any more of your psychic stuff on me...But, Ethel dear, you are my best friend — my only intimate friend. I shall never forget your loyalty. But let me — help me to forget this — this that happened today. Oh, it goes so deep and so far back. I’m afraid — —”

“So am I, but don’t forget. Not — —”

Virginia stopped her lips with a kiss. “Come, we must unpack. Look at the trunks — and the bags!...And here’s more in this room. While we unpack, honey, we’ll talk. We have a houseful for a week, then, thank goodness, I’ll have you alone for a time — till June, when the mob comes. Then we will eat and drink and smoke and dance and flirt — and ride, ride, ride. Dad has the finest horses in the West, and he loves to show off and spend money.”

“Drink and smoke and flirt?” queried Ethel, with thoughtful softness. “Since when have you acquired these habits?”

“I haven’t yet, but I shall. Then we’ll ride, ride, ride right into a couple of husbands,” replied Virginia, recklessly, and she threw her hat aloft.

“Thanks. But I’ll choose mine,” said Ethel, demurely. “I’ve just about picked him. He’s pretty young yet and callow. Needs training, which he’s getting unknown to himself.”

“Ethel Wayne! — You’ve never told me.”

“Well, we never got thick enough until today.”

“Tell me who he is. I’ll telegraph him to come on,” said Virginia, eagerly.

“Indeed not! Do you think I’ll risk that precious lad with you? Not now, you lovely, rich, mad creature. Some day, maybe, when I have him corralled. Meanwhile, this riding for husbands, as you so elegantly put it, narrows down to you and — —”

“Shut up!” screamed Virginia, “or I will be a mad creature.”

The entrance of a maid put an end to possible hostilities.

“Señorita, I come. It is Juanita.”

Luncheon brought Virginia’s guests together, a merry half dozen, all Western people, among whom was Ethel’s mother. Some of these had assembled at the station to welcome Virginia home, and she had whisked them off to Cottonwoods for a week-end.

Virginia noted the absence of her father, and of his partner, Mr. Malpass, who, she understood, shared the hospitality of the house more as one of the family than as a guest. She had tried several times to place this individual in memory, and to establish clearly in her mind why his name had significance.

“If you all don’t mind, let’s go out to see the horses,” suggested Virginia, at the conclusion of luncheon.

A yelp of delight went up from the young people. The Lundeen horses were famous, and Virginia assured her friends that as horseback-riding was a passion with her, they were all invited to choose any mount they liked, and keep up with her, or ride when and where they chose.

“Ha! Ha! Catch her on a horse!” laughed Richard Fenton. “I’d like to see any of you try it. She’s a vaquero.”

“Virginia, don’t, for mercy’s sake, lead us after the staghounds,” implored Ethel. “That last jack rabbit chase was a nightmare.”

“Fine Westerners you two are! I dare say I’ll have to rely on the cow-punchers for company. But you forget. I haven’t been in a saddle for over two years. Do you think I’d be leaving you in the dust?”

“I’ll bet two bits you would.”

On the way down to the stables Fenton contrived by strategy and a little force to draw Virginia behind the others, and he proposed to her.

“Dick Fenton! I’ve been home just half a day and you begin that again!” exclaimed Virginia, in plaintive consternation.

“Sure,” he said, with complacence. “I want to get my bid in first.”

“Why the rush?”

“Virginia, your father recently made a crack in the Castaneda that has gone the rounds. He bragged he intended to marry you off quick.”

“He did? Well, how funny!” returned Virginia, merrily. But the gossip was more thought-provoking than humorous.

“It’s not funny to me. I’ve found out a number of things. Your father’s big money comes from his phosphate mines in the South. Well, August Malpass is in on every deal Lundeen makes. They’re as thick as hops. Now, Virginia, you’ve been away, on and off, since you were sixteen. You don’t know things. And I want to tip you off pronto. Malpass was never well thought of. My father knows something shady about him. It’s common gossip that Malpass engineered the deals for Lundeen which ruined Clay Forrest. And to come to the point, everybody believes — indeed, I have a jealous lover’s certainty of it — that Lundeen intends Malpass to be the lucky man.”

“Ridiculous!” burst out Virginia, but her lips were tight. What kind of an intrigue had she come home to? This linked up with her mother’s vague intimation. And suddenly she was realizing that since she had come to call Cottonwoods home, for nearly five years she had been packed off here and there to schools, and finally abroad. During that period her father had come to be almost the stranger he now seemed. She had attributed that to success, money, and the power these controlled, which he had always worshiped.

“Virginia, I am most darned glad to hear that,” Fenton was saying, fervently. “What’s your answer to my offer?”

“No, you wild and sudden Westerner,” answered Virginia. “But if you’re so serious, I’ll be serious...Thank you, Dick, for the honor you do me. I appreciate it, but I must decline. And I have only the same old excuse.”

“Reckon I expected it,” he said, cheerfully. “But I’ve started again and I’ll soon get in the habit...Hold on now! Just one more word. Suppose it’s true. You can’t marry Malpass. He calls himself part Spanish, but he’s sure half greaser.”

“Suppose what’s true, Dick?”

“That Lundeen would want you to marry Malpass.”

“Why do you always call my father Lundeen?”

“Pardon. Everybody calls him that.”

“Well, Dick, in that case, if I couldn’t outwit them, I might have to flee to you for protection,” she replied, archly.

“Devil!”

Virginia ran on ahead to escape him. “Ethel, hang on to me,” she begged with a laugh.

“Heavens!” rejoined Ethel, locking arms with hers. “Dick has gone and done it already. Poor simp!”

They entered the zone of barns and corrals, all new to Virginia, and the place appeared to be overrun by Mexicans.

“Isn’t there a cowboy on the place?” queried Virginia, impatiently.

“Virginia I used to be a plumb good one,” spoke up Mark Ashbridge, who was escorting Ethel’s mother. “Want to hire me?”

“What wages?”

“Let me see. This is pretty swift. Suppose we say sixty a month — and you.”

When the laugh subsided Fenton said: “Virginia, I can beat that. Never mind the sixty.”

The main barn was a low-roofed enormous structure, with a wide lane running through from one open end to the other. Virginia recognized this as the original barn repaired and greatly improved. It contained twenty stalls on each side, and all but several held horses. What a spirited, glossy-haired, well-groomed lot of thoroughbreds! Not one, however, did Virginia recognize as a favorite of hers. The Mexican vaquero who tended them could not make himself perfectly clear to Virginia. She gathered, however, that there were horses in the pastures. The Mexican said something about Waltrous, which recalled the fine grazing ranch her father owned there.

“Friends, I don’t know a thing about these horses,” vouchsafed Virginia. “Never rode one of them. I’ll find out where mine are. Tomorrow we’ll surely ride.”

“Gee! but it’s funny to visit the most wonderful ranch in the West and not see a single bow-legged, red-faced, winking cowboy,” observed Ethel.

“Can’t say I love these sloe-eyed vaqueros,” added Gwen Barclay. “But they’re sure picturesque.”

They all finally wound up, even Mrs. Wayne, by sitting on the top rail of a high corral fence, gayly edified over an impromptu rodeo.

After two hours and more of this kind of entertainment, Virginia’s guests, at least the feminine contingent, were glad to bend their steps houseward. And it was when they got back that Virginia met Augustine Malpass. Instantly her memory bridged the gap between the moment and the day some years back when this sleek, dark individual had dared to make bold if not questionable advances toward her. That was before the Lundeen régime at Cottonwoods. Evidently his fortunes, along with Lundeen’s, were in the ascendant. Fine riding-garb made fine-looking riders. From his long cruel Mexican spurs and shiny high-top boots to his olive-tan face and magnetic eyes and sleek, black hair he personified the modern Western dandy. He scarcely showed the Spanish-descent rumor attributed to him. But his eyes were black and piercing as the points of daggers. In his speech there was no hint of the foreigner; in fact, he gave the impression of a keen and successful American between thirty and forty.

“August, I’ll bet you don’t remember Virginia as the kid who used to sit on the counter down at the old tradin’-post,” had been Lundeen’s introduction of his daughter, with a prideful arm around her.

“Who would?” rejoined Malpass, showing his handsome, white teeth. “If I remember the barelegged kids of those hard days, it’s inconceivable that your beautiful daughter could have been one of them.”

“Wal, she shore is...Virgie, do you remember August?”

“I didn’t by name, but the instant I saw Mr. Malpass I remembered him very well indeed. I’m quite surprised — if he has forgotten me.”

By his reaction to that cool speech Virginia gauged him as a man of depth and resource. These qualities he might always have possessed; however, along with his immaculate riding-garb he had acquired considerable polish. If he had been a little less impenetrable she might have given him the benefit of a doubt. But he masked himself. He was aloof from the man she remembered.

“Father, where are my horses?” asked Virginia. “I took my friends out to the barns, boasting about my neglected pets, and I couldn’t find one I knew.”

“Shore I supposed they were heah,” replied her father. “How aboot it, August?”

“I keep them at the Waltrous ranch. Better grazing pasture there.”

“Drive Virginia over tomorrow an’ let her see them.”

“I want my horses here,” declared Virginia, with spirit. “You certainly knew I was coming home. It really isn’t like home without my horses.”

“I’ll take you over tomorrow and you can pick out what you want to ride,” said Malpass.

“I want them all. By the way, I suppose my boys, Jake and Con, are in charge?”

“No. I discharged them.”

“You discharged them!” rejoined Virginia, with undisguised amaze. “By whose authority?”

“Virginia,” interposed Lundeen, uneasily, “Malpass has the run of the ranches. My mining interests take all my attention.”

“Oh, I see! Very well. But now that I’m home, I shall look after them myself,” returned Virginia. These men, if they had considered her at all, had not calculated on possible development. Not improbably they had been so engrossed in their business deals that they had not given her a serious thought. Virginia sensed more than she heard or saw. Her faculties had been shamed and stung acutely by Clifton Forrest’s accusation, and later sharpened by Dick Fenton’s gossip. Right here, at the outset, she distrusted the situation, and at the risk of being impulsively precipitous she declared herself.

“Mr. Malpass, you need not trouble yourself about my horses — or anything else, for that matter. I have my own allowance and can entertain my friends without drawing more upon father or charging any bills to the ranch.”

Malpass bowed politely enough, but the blood thickened under his olive tan. Furthermore, Virginia’s keen eyes caught her father biting his cigar. Without more ado she excused herself and went to her rooms.

Ethel was in the bedroom, half undressed, and curled up, fast asleep. Virginia closed the door softly and left her there. She put on her dressing-gown and making herself comfortable on the cushions of the wide window seat, she gazed out over the valley of cottonwoods.

In a vague, easily dismissed way there had always seemed something irregular about the Lundeen household. She could no longer lay it to her father’s irresponsible habit of shoving things upon other people’s shoulders. Fitting together the few instances that popped out of the past, and what she had heard and seen since her arrival home, she imagined a situation that was very disagreeable, if not worse. Her father had never inspired confidence, let alone love. Her mother was but his echo. It would surely be bad enough for her, even if she did not exaggerate the situation.

She watched the sunset, the first one over a New Mexican landscape, for two years; and the gorgeousness and riot of intense gold, pink, silver, and blue over that far-flung expanse of desert made her ache with the glory of the West. She had had enough of the crowded, sordid, noisy, war-beset East. This was home, and she did not mean the splendid mansion built by the Dons and named Cottonwoods by the Forrests. Home was the open there, the lonely range, and the grand bronze walls from which it sloped, and the ruggedness of the gray-barked cottonwoods, their strength, color, music, and their shade.

Some one tapped on the door. Startled out of her reverie, Virginia called, “Come in.” The door opened to admit her father.

“Are you alone?” he asked, coming to the window.

“Ethel is asleep in the bedroom,” replied Virginia, studying her father’s face.

“May I smoke?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t. I hate cigarette smoke in my rooms. There’s enough of it outside.”

“Shore you’re a queer girl,” he rejoined, as he sat down, to look at her with amusement and curiosity. “You love money, travel, friends, excitement, horses, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid so, especially the last.”

“Ethel’s mother has been telling me aboot you,” went on Lundeen. “She has a high opinion of you. Thinks you ought to get married.”

“Yes, she’s told me — the old match-maker.”

“I’d like to talk to you aboot that presently...We’re not very well acquainted, Virginia — that is, like we used to be when we were poor an’ you were a kid.”

“How could we be? You sent me away to school while I was growing up, and to travel afterward.”

“Shore. It’s my fault. But there were reasons why I didn’t want you heah, outside of my wish to give you a good education.”

Virginia did not encourage him to explain those reasons. She feared his candor. He was too cool, too sure of himself, and now, as often in her youth, she divined that she was not a great factor in his life. Still, he did not seem lacking in affection, nor in a complacent pride in her.

“Mrs. Wayne tells me you’re home for good. No more rustlin’ aboot.”

“Did you read my last letter?”

“Wal, if I did I’ve forgotten.”

“Father, you want me to stay home now, don’t you?”

“Why, I shore do, Virginia, providin’ you’re — wal, like your mother. It’d please me to see the ranch overrun by young people. I’m away a good deal. An’ the place ought to be kept up.”

“I can’t be like my mother. I’ve a mind of my own.”

“Wal, that was plain today when you told Malpass where to get off. I wish you hadn’t done it, Virginia. He hasn’t spoken to me yet, but he shore was riled.”

“That is nothing to me. I was annoyed because my horses were not here, and he discharged Jake and Con. The nerve of him! I shall get them back. Why are there nothing but Mexicans on the ranch?”

“He prefers them. Cheaper an’ easier to manage. I’m bound to admit he’s right. Cowboys, when you haven’t any cattle, are a blamed nuisance.”

“Aren’t you running any cattle?” asked Virginia, in surprise.

“No. Cattle went to nothin’. Ruined a lot of ranchers. Clay Forrest, for instance. All he had was in cattle. He was cattle poor.”

“How did you come into possession of Cottonwoods?” inquired Virginia, casually, but under veiled eyes she watched him keenly.

“Wal, at the beginnin’ of the war I sold out, an’ for the first time in my life had money. Malpass was the brains of my luck. He advised it. He went in with me an’ we lent Forrest money. Malpass saw the break comin’ an’ knew we’d catch Forrest. Wal, the crux of it came when Malpass struck rich silver in an old mine of Forrest’s land. Up in the foothills. Padres in the early days had worked it, an’ Malpass had a map. Got it in Mexico. On the strength of that we lent Forrest all the money we had an’ could raise. Forrest owed it. He was in a bad fix then, an’ it went from bad to worse. Yet the fool had faith in cattle goin’ up, so he bought more an’ more. But cattle dropped to nothin’. That ruined Forrest. Our deal went into the courts, an’ we got Forrest’s land an’ stock. By land I mean this ranch, which was a Spanish grant. The property below, where Forrest lives now an’ which was our home for so long, was not on the grant. It always was Forrest’s, an’ that was all he saved out of the wreck.”

“Father, did you consider that an honest deal?” queried Virginia.

“Wal, it was business, an’ that’s pretty sharp these days. Clay Forrest an’ I clinched from the time we came heah from Georgia. I laid many a hard knock to him. So it didn’t grieve me to take over his property. Ha! Ha!”

“But the old mine where Malpass found the silver. How about that?”

“Made our fortune. We got money out of it to develop the phosphate mines in the South. An’ there’s where our big money comes from.”

“Are you and Malpass partners?”

“Yes, in our minin’ deals. But this ranch is mine.”

“Father, it was crooked,” declared Virginia, feelingly.

“Wal, it always was dog eat dog with me an’ Forrest. An’ I won’t split hairs over it, arguin’ with you.”

“Such a deal might not show Forrest’s rights in court, because naturally you’d claim you discovered the silver after you got the land. But morally it is dishonest.”

“No, not in this heah day an’ age. You’re a woman, an’ you always were sentimental aboot the Forrests.”

“But at least you will split the proceeds from the silver mine?”

“I wouldn’t give Clay Forrest a dollar to save his life,” declared Lundeen, with hate swelling in every word.

“Then I shall,” replied Virginia, calmly and coldly.

“Wal, you won’t do anythin’ of the kind. You haven’t it to give. That two hundred thousand I put on interest for you isn’t available.”

“Where is it?” asked Virginia, aghast.

“Malpass took the principal, or most of it, an’ invested it down South. We needed some money quick. Of course you’ll gain in the long run. But you can’t get hold of it now.”

“Then I have no — no income?”

“We’ll fix that up, Virginia. I reckon there’s ten thousand or so to your credit in bank. By the time you spend it we’ll arrange the other.”

“Mr. Augustine Malpass!...He seems — ahem — quite important in the affairs of the Lundeens.”

“Wal, I reckon,” returned her father with a short laugh, ignoring her scorn. “An’ that brings me to the point. You rode me off the trail...Virginia, as far back as three years ago me an’ August talked over a marriage between you an’ him, when the proper time came.”

“Indeed! How interesting!”

“You needn’t be so cuttin’. You shore owe it to August that you got your education an’ travel, an’ that you’re heah at Cottonwoods now. It was his brains.”

“I have much to thank Mr. Malpass for,” returned Virginia, in bitter passion.

“Virginia, I hope you’re not mixed up in any love-affair.”

“No, I’m not, if that will relieve your extreme anxiety about me.”

“Wal, I’m glad. For my heart is set on this. I don’t want to rush you, daughter, but in good time, I hope — —”

He rose, evidently disconcerted by the sudden turn of her head, to face him with her contempt and shame.

“You are proposing marriage for me — with Mr. Malpass?”

“It amounts to that,” he answered, regaining his assurance.

“Thank you. I feel immensely flattered that you’d like to see me the wife of a crook.”

“Virginia, he’s no more that than I am,” protested Lundeen, impatiently.

“Assuredly not. You’re both crooks. The meanest of crooks — the kind that can’t be apprehended.”

“Wal, I’ll allow you’ve reason to be upset,” he added, moving toward the door. “Reckon you’ll get over that an’ think aboot it.”

“Father, I don’t understand you. I don’t know you,” she ended, passionately. “I refuse — once and for all!”

Chapter Five

MANY A TIME, years ago it seemed to him, Clifton Forrest had ridden down the shady road along the edge of the Cottonwood valley, to the little town of San Luis, which was populated by Indians and Mexicans. The trading-store there had finally been taken from Lundeen by Clifton’s father, who had then run it more to help his many employees than to exact profit from them. The few bits of silver that it now brought in constituted the extent of the Forrest income. Toward San Luis Clifton walked now, and when he fell down, which he did often, he got up and went on.

“Cliff,” his mother had said the day of his arrival home, “your father tried to stick in that store. But he couldn’t. I hired one Mexican after another. If one was lazy, another was dishonest, and our only income is from that store. Think of that, my son! It used to be one of your father’s charities. — What sad pass we have come to!”

“Mother, I’ll run the store,” Clifton had replied, with cheer and smile that hid his earnestness. And this was why he was trudging along the road, not, despite his mental and physical ills, insensible to the glory of the May morning.

The white snowy cotton seed was floating in the amber air and falling like thistledown on the green grass. Quail ran across the road, leaving tiny tracks in the dust. Birds and colts and calves showed their delight in the balmy air and golden sunshine of spring. Clifton felt the renewal of nature in his own heart and along his veins. He could not help being glad that he had to live instead of die. How he had longed to give up the struggle! Who but one like himself could understand the torture of body, the destruction of faith, the end of hope, the unutterably soothing thought of rest and oblivion?

He could not walk many rods without resting; and he chose the spots where he had halted the day before, and the first day. Some of these he thought he never would reach, yet he did; and there, wet with cold sweat, his internal organs in hideous turmoil, his wounds as cruel as burning hell, he sat awhile, beaten, but unconquerable. Already a marvelous thing had happened to his mind. It had direction and immutability. He had been on his last legs, but now he laughed at the idea. He became conscious of something unquenchable at work within him. So he scouted weakness, misery.

The little adobe store, once a trading-post, was situated off the road, on a bank above the irrigation ditch that supplied water to the natives, whose homes were scattered along the gentle slope above the valley.

The natives had small farms, and a few head of cattle, upon which they subsisted when not working in some capacity on the range. The decline of the cattle business had made them poor and unable to buy much. Therefore the store was fairly well stocked with canned goods, merchandise, tobacco, and all the necessary requirements of horsemen. In addition, there were many blankets and baskets which Forrest had purchased from the Indians.

Clifton had cut the price of everything in the store, but the natives were slow to respond. Outside, by the door, stood an old rustic chair with sheepskin lining, and to Clifton it was the most comfortable one he had ever rested in. Here he passed most of the day, a good deal of which he slept away from sheer exhaustion. The natives, except the wild ragged youngsters, did not pass by often, and they seldom lingered. On the first day Clifton found out that the natives had never overcome the distrust engendered in them during the Lundeen régime of high prices and sharp dealing. Clifton made a present to his informant, and that was his initial act through which he meant to regain confidence.

The view from the old rustic chair could not have been surpassed anywhere in the low country. The whole valley lay in sight, some of it showing between the trees; high on the knoll shone the white-and-red house of Lundeen, rising out of the green like a castle. Across the road and the valley, shallow winding canyons with ridges between sloped up to the mountains, that from this distant vantage-point rose massively in alternate climbing areas of beauty and desolation, forests of green and gold all the more verdant for the contrast of the colossal wrinkled cliffs and crags of rock, and walls of bronze like iron, and peaks of porphyry.

When the Lundeen cars raced down the valley road, raising long trails of dust, Clifton saw them with unconsciously growing hate, like fire that ate slowly under the surface. When he saw the clean-limbed, long-maned horses come leisurely into view with their riders in gay colors, he would hastily turn away from a sight bitter as gall. His precious energy, so meager and so weak, frittered away in agitations he should have restrained. But how impossible to help it yet! These instances began to stir intimations of a driving force that was not wholly due to devotion to his father and mother. But he made no attempt to analyze it.

The day passed like a dream half remembered. Then began the toiling homeward. He told himself this was nothing — nothing. To get his broken bones and lacerated muscles to function!

Dusk caught him stalled at the niche in the adobe wall from which he took a short cut. When his father loomed under the trees, Clifton had survived the worst of his collapse.

“Wal, son, Ma was anxious an’ sent me to meet you,” he said, and helped Clifton to his feet. He never alluded to Clifton’s condition. If it caused him distress, he gave no sign. Clay Forrest had always been a man who considered physical defects things to conceal. But he did not lack gentleness.

“I was stuck here last night.”

“Cliff, somethin’ happened today,” returned Forrest, with perturbation.

“What?”

“I got back early, an’ there talkin’ to Ma was that Lundeen girl.” He made the announcement with suppressed feeling. “I’d showed her the door the other time, an’ I did it again. But she wouldn’t leave. Shore I couldn’t throw her out. An’ there I was.”

“Well!” ejaculated Clifton. This intelligence made his exhaustion as if it were not.

“Ma said, ‘Virginia wants a word with you,’ an’ it was plain Ma was shore wantin’ her to get it. But I swore I’d listen to no Lundeen. She was white an’ her eyes were big. I couldn’t help thinkin’ what a handsome lass! An’ brave — she wasn’t a darn bit afraid. She said, ‘I’ve come heah to ask you somethin’, an’ I’m goin’ to do it.’ Wal, seein’ I was out of luck an’ couldn’t get rid of her quick, I told her to fire away. An’ she shore did it, short an’ sweet.”

“Dad, you could never tell anything. Hurry.”

“Cliff, she told me before she went away two years ago she had a couple of hundred thousand dollars in bank. She found, on gettin’ home, she had only ten thousand left. Malpass had persuaded her father to let him have the rest...An’ by Heaven! Cliff — that girl begged me to take the ten thousand!”

Clifton halted, and even in the dusk he could see his father’s ox-like eyes rolling. “She did! What for?”

“I asked her, an’ she said she believed we had been wronged, an’ she wanted to help right it in what little way she could. Begged me to take the last of her money, an’ when I replied I couldn’t do it, she tried to persuade me to take half. Then I said we Forrests would starve to death before we’d accept a dollar of Lundeen money...Cliff, she cried out it wasn’t Lundeen money, but Forrest money. I was sort of stumped at that. She was actually testifyin’ against her father. I could use that when the deal goes to court again, as it shore will.”

“You could, but you won’t,” declared Clifton.

“Cliff, I’m not ashamed to admit she made me soft for a minute, but I soon got over it. I’d use anythin’ against Jed Lundeen.”

“Dad, you’d never sacrifice the girl, even if she is a Lundeen,” protested Clifton.

“Wal, now, why wouldn’t I?” demanded Forrest, letting go his hold on Clifton.

“If for no other reason, because I wouldn’t let you.”

“Hell! Are you in love with that girl?”

“No. I — I hate her, I guess...But I’ve sense enough to see she’s good.”

“Wal, Cliff, you shore are. An’ so is Ma. Reckon it’s aboot the last straw...My stock, my land, my home — an’ now my family — gone over to these cursed Lundeens!”

Forrest stalked away under the gloom of the cottonwoods.

“Dad!” cried Clifton, seeing that his father was leaving him. No answer came. The heavy footfalls died away, and not in the direction of the house. Clifton went on, muttering to himself: “Oh, this is getting worse. I’m afraid altogether it’s more than I can bear...What a thing for Virginia Lundeen to do! — Wonderful!...I knew she was good. It wasn’t all pity. She knows her father is a thief. I wish she hadn’t given dad that hunch. And this Malpass. I wonder if he can be that greaser-like rider who used to hang round the post, when Lundeen ran it.”

Excitement carried him on, and he arrived at the house, breathless, but unconscious of fatigue. The living-room was cheerfully bright and supper ready. Clifton related to his mother the conversation between him and his father.

“He’s implacable, Cliff,” she said, with a calmness that soothed him. “But for me he’d have shot Lundeen an’ Malpass long ago. We have our task, my son.”

“Mother, it plumb riled me when he said I — I was in love with Virginia. It sure floored me. And when I denied it he came out more bitter. He even said you loved her, too.”

“I do, an’ I’m afraid he’s guessed.”

“Mother!”

“Go on with your supper, son,” she returned. “As for Virginia — I used to love her when she was a ragged, wild child. An’ I reckon it’s come back. She’s grown beautiful, Cliff, an’ spite of it all she’s unspoiled. She might spend money like wastin’ water, but it means little to her. I think it noble of her to offer what they’d left her.”

“Noble, yes. But it’s an admission of her father’s guilt. I wish she hadn’t done that. Dad swears he’ll use it in court. We must keep him from it.”

“My son, we must keep him from a good deal more,” she replied, gravely.

“No one, unless you, could ever turn dad back from anything he wanted to do.”

“You can help, Cliff. Your return an’ the way you’ve been have struck him deep. It takes time for a change to work out in Clay. You must be patient. You must persuade. An’ if Virginia is anythin’ to you — hide it.”

“Virginia is nothing to me, mother,” he said, after a moment of astonishment at her speech.

“Cliff, I reckon it takes all the heart you have to keep to the task you’ve set yourself.”

“All — and more, I’m afraid, mother dear.”

“My son, both your father an’ I have taken a new lease on life since you came home. He doesn’t know, but I do.”

“Then you’ll never hear me say anything like that again.”

“I must tell you something that ought to be just as helpful,” she went on, now in sweet seriousness. “It’s about Virginia.”

“But, mother, I don’t want to hear any more,” returned Clifton, dreading he knew not what. It was as if he stood with blinded eyes on the verge of a precipice, which when he saw it would draw him down.

“I reckon it’s because you don’t want me to that I will. Trust your mother, Cliff...Do you remember Virginia as a little girl?”

“Not very little. She must have been ten or twelve, anyway. She was a red-headed imp always in sight somewhere. On the wall out here, with her bare legs dangling. She had pretty brown legs...But I remember her best hanging round the post. She was then beginning to be good-looking. But no one would have guessed she’d grow into what she did. I never recognized her on the ship or train.”

“As a child she worshiped you. No one but I ever saw it. Then as she grew up, an’ her father an’ yours became bitter enemies, she visited us less, an’ finally never came. Now she’s back, an’ I think that child worship of you is not dead. Only she’s a woman now. Today she told me she had just ridden by the store. You sat outside, asleep. You didn’t wake an’ she stopped, meaning to speak with you. But she didn’t have the courage — you looked so white — so frail — so sad. Then she said to me: ‘Oh, Mrs. Forrest, my heart broke. Tell me he is not going to die!’ An’ I told her I knew you were goin’ to live. After that she perked up an’ asked me if she an’ I could not be good friends. But your father came, interrupting us.”

“She is only sorry for me, mother,” he replied, with difficulty. “And I’d rather have her hate me, so that I could hate her.”

“But hate is terrible, my son. It has ruined your father. If you let anyone hate you, or if you hate anyone, it will poison your blood.”

“Mother dear, you are close to the angels.” It touched Clifton deeply that his mother should champion Virginia Lundeen, and in her blindness of affection and goodness attach undue sentiment to Virginia’s words and actions. Clifton did not dare accept his mother’s interpretation.

His father came in, weary and dark, and ate his supper in silence. Soon afterward Clifton went to the little room that had been turned over to him and which once had been Virginia Lundeen’s. The very bed upon which he sat in the darkness to undress had been hers, so his mother had assured him, as if there could have been sweetness in the knowledge. There was one window, now open to the gentle wind that was coming down cool off the mountain. Through the great gnarled branches of a cottonwood shone white blinking stars that seemed to have a secret they wanted to share with him. Some fact — true, inevitable, passionless, immutable! He did not want to know it. The frogs were trilling. How this lonesome, solitary melody haunted him! His hands fell idle and he sat there to listen. The wonder of nature, the mystery of life, the sweetness of love, could not be denied. He heard them, felt them out there in the night. What had made him determine to live when all he had longed for was to rest? Assuredly it was the clinging to old ties — love of mother, father. God had failed him, he thought. But there were whispers on the wind, not earthly or physical.

At last, only half undressed, he stretched out on the bed, thankful that he need move no more for hours. The internal strife of blood and nerve, of the very cells of his bones, gradually quieted. In the blackness and solitude, alone with his soul, he could not adhere to doubt, to hate, to mocking bitterness. And the face of Virginia Lundeen with the lovely troubled eyes hung over his pillow. He saw her standing in the archway of the home that had been his, crying out, “My God! is it possible you don’t know!” And he pictured her from his mother’s words, watching him asleep, helpless, unguarded, with his secret for anyone to read. Clifton repudiated that heart-moving vision of her. It was an illusion. It was his mother’s imagining. It was only Virginia’s pity. Nevertheless, whatever it might be, out of it welled a melancholy happiness that warred with reason, and survived into his dreams.

Next morning as he plodded out to endure the long walk to his work he espied his father plying a spade in the garden. And the sight was a cheerful one for the beginning of another interminable day. All his father had done was to sit and brood, or walk endlessly under the cottonwoods, unable to shake off the calamity that had befallen him. That, to Clifton and his mother, was more saddening than the calamity itself.

Clifton slipped along, careful not to be seen, and the walk to the store was not so much of a hateful ordeal. A waiting customer furnished another surprise. What a little thing could revive hope and keep it alive a moment! His chair did not see him fall asleep that day. And somehow he got home without fear that he might drop, never to get up again.

Days followed then, slowly dragging, not inspired, and each one sapping his little vitality, which seemed mostly of spirit. And then there came one of the nightmare nights which he had been mercifully free from since his start for home. He did not know what had induced it. But mental depression seized upon him and tightened its grip. He could not get to sleep. The past weighed upon him, phantoms and furies raged, and when he did fall asleep it was to be plunged in a horrible dream, as violent to his physical being as had been the thing it pictured. So when the day came he was already exhausted.

Yet he went to work, and it took all day to recover from the exertion. He remained late, hoping his father would come, as he had several times. But at length he started out alone...and by sunset he was crawling on hands and knees, as once he had crawled on the battlefield, badly wounded, yet with less agony.

The sun shone blood red through the cottonwoods. He could see the adobe wall and the break in the corner where the trail went through. Only a little farther on! He believed now that his end was near, and strangled, spent with his effort, and frenzied with the petrifying fear that he might not reach his mother in time, he kept on.

Then he heard the hoofbeats of a horse close behind him in the road. He would be seen. It goaded him to the last remnant of his strength. Inside the break he failed, and sank face down.

Swift, light footsteps pattered in the trail. He heard the swish of brush — a poignant cry. Some one knelt beside him.

“Clifton! — Clifton!” He knew the voice and wished indeed that death had overtaken him. What fate was this? Strong arms lifted him, drew him to a sitting posture. He had one glimpse of Virginia Lundeen’s face, terror-stricken, then his head fell upon her breast.

“Oh, Clifton — Clifton!” she cried, holding him tight. “What’s happened?”

“I — gave — out,” he panted.

“Is it only that? You were dragging yourself along. I thought you an animal. It scared my horse...Oh, you must be terribly ill. You look so — so — —”

“I thought I — was dying.”

“What shall I do? — What can I do?” she moaned. Clifton felt himself rocked to and fro in her arms. She was kneeling and holding him up. He saw her pull a gauntlet off with her teeth. Then a trembling hand touched his wet forehead, smoothed back his hair, moved warm across his cheek and lips.

“Don’t take on so,” he whispered. “Maybe I’m — just all in.”

“But something should be done,” she implored. “I’ll run for help — then ride home, get a car, and fetch the doctor.”

“Wait until — we see...Maybe it’s nothing...I’m such a coward.”

“Coward!” she cried, her voice deep and eloquent with scornful denial. He felt his head rise softly with the heave of her breast, and her heart sounded like a muffled drum. She hung over him. Her hair touched his face. She was bareheaded, her sombrero lying where evidently she had flung it. She was bending over him. Hot tears fell upon his cheek. Her touch, that even a half-dead man could not mistake, sharply affected him to the point of uplift. He had not the desire, even if the strength had been granted him, to move out of her arms.

Not for moments did he remember his physical state, and then he guessed it was just the old revolt of outraged nature, driven to the limit this time. As he realized gradual recovery, he dismissed a vague, dreamy thought of how sweet it would be to die in her arms.

“Help me to a seat — there,” he said, indicating a low section of the broken wall.

“I am — quite beside myself,” she replied, with a confused laugh that told she had at least become conscious of her aberration. She lifted him with ease.

“You’re strong,” returned Clifton, marveling at her, and he found that with her arm locked in his he could sit up steadily. Her lovely, tear-wet, flushed face would have dispelled all hate. And for the moment her tenderness, her astounding grief at his plight, had dissipated hate, resentment, doubt, all that he had imagined he had ever felt toward her.

“There. You’re better. I’m so glad...Oh, Clifton, I was frightened!”

“Why?” he asked, fascinated.

“Even if you’d been a stranger I would have been frightened. But you!...On the ship, on the train, up at the house tha dreadful day you came — and down here, I was frightened for you. But not like this...Oh, my heart is pounding now.”

“Even for a stranger? And of course I’m that. I’m glad you said it.”

“Yes indeed, Clifton Forrest, you are a stranger. For once you liked me — years ago when I was a happy kid — long before the shame of this day to me, and the sorrow to you.”

“Virginia, I hardly knew you,” he protested.

“You’ve forgotten...You used to wave to me as you rode by. Then you made eyes at me. And once in the old post you caught me alone — you kissed me.”

Clifton awoke to realities, to the void absence and war had made in his memory, to the hot blood that tinged his cheek.

“Did I? — I had indeed forgotten. So much of the past is dark in my mind.”

“There! You’ve made that strange move with your hand,” she burst out, impulsively. “You did it on the ship — on the train. And that day up at the house. Now you have done it again. Four times. Clifton, why do you do that?”

“What move? What do you mean?”

“You pass your open hand before your eyes. It’s a slow, strange action. You do not touch your eyes. You seem to brush something away. As if a shadow dimmed them and you could remove it.”

“It’s unconscious. I never knew I did that. It must be to brush away pictures that never fade.”

“Of what you’ve seen and suffered?” she asked, softly.

“Yes, of what I’ve seen, surely.”

“Clifton, you’re doing the most wonderful thing I ever knew a man to do. You were a knight of my childish dreams. Now you are a hero. You had made your sacrifice. You came home beaten and broken. You found all changed — your father crushed — your mother sorrowing — both without even the comforts of life. Cheated out of their home — to grow old, poor and miserable!...And instead of succumbing you rise like a giant to conquer fate, catastrophe, death itself. Oh, how I honor you for this courage!”

“Virginia, you — you are making strong statements,” he faltered. “I can only believe — you’re overcome by my — our troubles — and the excitement of finding me on all fours, like a crippled dog.”

“Overcome, yes, and I have been overcome ever since you fell at my feet...Clifton, do you hate me because I’m a Lundeen?”

“I’m only human.”

“But I had nothing to do with the ruin of your family. If I owned Cottonwoods right now I’d give it back. And if I ever own it I will.”

“Dad wouldn’t take it.”

“Would you?”

“Never from you.”

“But why? If my father will not right a wrong, why should I be deprived of the happiness of doing it?”

“It would be too late then.”

“You wouldn’t take anything from me?”

“No.”

“Clifton Forrest, your nobility does not extend to helping others besides your own people,” she said, showing a bitter hurt.

“Don’t talk sentimental nonsense,” he returned, with passion. “How could I ever help you? My God!...You — a young, beautiful woman! Healthy, strong, supple, clean-boned, who can ride like the wind! Rich! With home, doting parents, friends by the hundreds. You talk like a fool.”

“I do not,” she flashed, spiritedly. “I may have good looks. That’s a matter of opinion. I am well and strong, thank Heaven, and if I have to work, you bet I can do it. But I haven’t any home — any real home. I’d rather be here, where I lived so long. My mother does not side with me in anything. She lives in mortal fear of father. I despise his greedy soul. It’s dreadful to confess. But I think I do. And if he keeps on trying to make me marry Malpass I shall hate him...You’re not the only one in terrible trouble, Clifton Forrest.”

Tears of anger and shame fell unrestrainedly, and reproach darkened her eyes.

“Well, of all things! — Virginia, I’m sorry. I apologize,” returned Forrest, aghast. “Malpass! Isn’t he the fellow who used to hire the vaqueros at San Luis? Dark, slick, fire-eyed Mexican?”

“You know him, Clifton. He is now my father’s partner. He’s a crook. It is he who hatched the plot that ruined your people. He absolutely dominates father. And he will ruin him, too, if he does not get his way.”

“Which means if he does not get you?”

“Precisely. Malpass is too smooth to hint that. But I know it.”

“Is he in love with you?” asked Clifton, with an inexplicable curiosity he could not resist.

“He has been for years, since I was sixteen. I didn’t believe all father’s rant about it. But lately I have found it out. The more I repulse him the madder he gets. I think opposition has fanned his desire. He wants to take me to Mexico City, to Havana, then to Spain. Raves about how he’d show me off in courts — exquisite gowns, diamonds, pearls. Oh, you should hear him!”

“Thanks,” returned Clifton, dryly, “but I don’t care to...Virginia, how are you going to beat that combination?”

“I don’t know. It’s maddening. But if he got the best of me I — I’d kill him.”

“No. That’d never do for you. I’ll tell you, Virginia. Marry some one else pronto.”

“Marvelous idea. I’ve had it myself. But whom?” she returned, with unreadable, dark eyes on his.

“Haven’t you lots of — of admirers, among whom there’s a fine chap whom you could care for?”

“You ask me that!”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“Very well, suppose you choose for me.”

“But, you child, I don’t know your friends,” he expostulated.

“You know the one I most want for a friend or — or — —”

“Virginia!” he gasped. “Am I crazy or are you?”

“I’m quite sane,” she replied. Her rounded cheek was no longer rosy. It shone pearly in the afterglow of sunset. “Suppose I ride down to San Luis tomorrow. Fetch a padre over to your store...We’ll keep it secret till the storm breaks. Then I’ll laugh in that smiling devil’s face!”

“I — I don’t quite know how to take you,” replied Clifton. “If you’re serious — you’re out of your head.”

“Clifton, I am proposing to you — that you save me from their machinations.”

“But, my God! — you can’t — you mustn’t throw yourself away on a shell of a man like me.”

“I fail to see the sacrifice. It would save me and might right a cruel wrong some day. And I could help you get well even though we kept our secret. Do I understand you to refuse?”

“Yes. What else could — I do?” he replied, faintly.

“Oh, because your father hates the very ground a Lundeen treads on. But I can’t help my name. I am asking you to change it for me.”

“No, Virginia, not because dad hates your father. But because this would not be right or fair to you. He’d disinherit you. And I would only be a burden.”

“You say that for an excuse. You must share your father’s hate...Oh, Clifton Forrest! you will never know.”

“I tell you — I don’t hate you,” he cried, desperately.

“And I tell you I don’t believe you...But this is cruel of me. You’ve had an awful day. And I, selfish woman, have made it worse for you...Come, let me help you to the house.”

“I can go alone. Dad might see you — insult you.”

He arose, and she did likewise, still with firm hand on his arm.

“Are you sure you can make it?”

“Yes. I’ve rested. I’m all right.”

“Let me see you walk.”

He started off steadily enough.

“Good-by — Clifton,” she called, low. The gloom swallowed her before he could muster voice to answer. As he walked on under the whispering cottonwoods he stopped beside one to lean a moment. Then he heard the rapid hoof-beats of a running horse.

Chapter Six

BY JUNE THE hideous ordeals Clifton had to invite and endure daily, began appreciably to change. He discovered that by imperceptible degrees he had passed the climax of his trial for life.

June brought summer to Cottonwood Valley, and that meant it was hot in the sun, cool in the shade. He was alone one Sunday in the corner by the wall where Virginia had found him that unforgettable day, when he reached the definite conclusion that he would recover. He slipped away from the open, into a shady nook, where vines and brush grew thick under a giant cottonwood, and here he lay down hidden even from the eyes of birds. The sunny drowsy hours of that golden summer day passed by unnoticed. Like an Indian he communed with the visible things about him. There were intervals when the stream of his consciousness seemed suspended and he had no thought at all. He felt, he heard, he saw, he smelled the physical objects of nature about him. The warm brown earth throbbed against his palms; the wind sang softly in the cottonwoods, the white clouds sailed across the azure sky, tipping the gray peaks; the sweet breath of sage filled the air.

That was the spell of enchantment which had transfixed him when intelligence, and not spirit, told him that he had not to bid farewell to the earth. The ghastly cold, mocking thing that had haunted him sleeping and waking folded its gray mantle and stole away. He was not to give up the sweetness of life, the beauty of nature, the strife with obstacles. The joy of nesting birds, the return of the swallows, the swoop of the eagle, the looming, calling mountains, the wind-swept open range were still to be part of his experience.

But that night, in the dark little room, when the ecstasy of his soul became subdued by thought and reason, he confessed that he had thrown off his burden only to take on another. Virginia Lundeen had won him to hate hate and love love. It had not been joy or hope, but an unabatable fuel that had kept burning the fire of his wasted spirit.

One by one returned the Indians and Mexicans who had visited Clifton’s store during the past weeks to get the fair sale for some commodity and the small gift he never failed to hand out. There was no profit in the low price, to say nothing of an additional gift, but Clifton was gaining the confidence of the natives. He would never make a success as a trader, from the point of view of business. They had been cheated long enough. His generosity was not unmixed with the desire to prove the difference between a Forrest and a Lundeen. Every native on the range hated Lundeen for the tight rein he had held on them. Malpass, though he was employing many, was earning a harder repute. Little by little Clifton won his way into the hearts of these simple people.

It was from a vaquero who rode for Malpass that Clifton learned of the arrival of Virginia Lundeen’s guests from the East. A fiesta was held to welcome them, and lights burned at Cottonwoods half the night, and strains of music floated down the valley on the soft night wind.

Clifton, thereafter going to and from his work, now happily without resting every few rods, did not want to see, yet could not help seeing the visitors who regaled themselves upon Virginia’s bounty.

The huge cars hummed by across the valley, down the road to Las Vegas, or back again, swiftly running from the dust they raised. Horseback-riding appeared to be the chief delight, which was no wonder, considering the magnificent mounts of the Lundeen stables, and the beautiful beckoning range with endless levels and vistas.

Several times each day a party of riders, never less than three couples, passed by Clifton’s store, to peer curiously from their saddles. He always contrived to be inside and busy when they rode by. Once he saw Ethel, who waved a gay hand at him; and again he caught a glimpse of Virginia, superb on her shining black. And she looked straight ahead, with clear-cut, cold profile, as if the trading-post of San Luis had ceased to exist.

Clifton knew intuitively that these merry visitors, keen to absorb all the West possible, would call at his store some day.

But he was wholly unprepared one morning to hear the blowing of bugles and to look out to see a tallyho rolling down the road. It appeared to be loaded with a crowd sportive in both dress and spirit.

“I’m in for it,” muttered Clifton, soberly. “But if they want to buy I’ll slap the old prices on the goods. I’m no good Samaritan for that outfit.”

He hoped the coach would pass by, but it halted opposite the store and a gay company of young people poured out.

The first to enter was Ethel Wayne, very pleasing to the eye in her gay and colorful costume. She tripped in hurriedly, with anxious look, which changed to a bright smile of glad recognition.

“Clifton, I’m just delighted,” she said. “You look, oh, so much better.”

“Howdy Ethel!” drawled Clifton as he took her proffered hand. “I’d sure been glad to see you — if you’d come alone.”

She giggled and squeezed his hand, whispering: “Don’t mind. Virginia and I framed this on our Eastern friends. So stick them good. They’ve got money to burn.”

Then the little store became flooded with pretty girls in the latest of sport clothes, and clean-faced young men in golf suits or white flannels. One of the latter said to Clifton, “We want a lot of souvenirs and a wagon load of truck to take on a camping trip.”

“Help yourselves,” replied Clifton, spreading his hands.

It was pleasant to watch them. Gayly they quarreled over Indian baskets, blankets, beadwork, and silver ornaments. There were eight young women, not including Ethel and Virginia, who, if she had come with them, was still outside. Ethel was the only girl to notice Clifton, much to his relief; and every little while she would give him a bright look and a wink. It became manifest to Clifton that these Easterners had not been informed about him. The young men, except one, paid no attention to him; and presently this one, a rather pale blond fellow of twenty-five, approached Clifton, to offer a hand.

“How are you, Clifton Forrest?” he said. “Miss Lundeen told me to introduce myself. My name is Andrews.”

Clifton did not need to be told that this man had been in the service, to his great detriment. Clifton greeted him. With a look and a handclasp they understood one another.

“I’m here on a visit for a few weeks,” continued Andrews. “Then I’m going to Tucson. I’m not so well. The doctors want me to try dry warm climate.”

“Gassed?” queried Clifton.

“Influenza. Then I had blood-poisoning from shrapnel.”

“You’ll come around all right out here,” said Clifton, reassuringly. “The climate is wonderful.”

“Do you know Arizona?”

“I used to. Same as here, only more so...Suppose you ride down alone some day and we’ll have a chat.”

“Thanks. I’d like to.”

“Is Miss Lundeen with you?”

“Yes. She drove us down. Maybe she can’t handle the reins!...Say, Forrest, do you know this man Malpass?”

“Sure I know Malpass. He used to be a vaquero here in San Luis.”

“Vaquero? What’s that?”

“He was a Mexican cowboy.”

“Is he part Mexican?” asked Andrews, quite surprised.

“It has always been rumored.”

“Well! And now he’s Mr. Lundeen’s partner and a very evident choice for Virginia’s hand...I’ll tell you, Forrest, that’s a funny situation up there. I don’t want to gossip about my hostess. But I don’t know her, except as a charming, beautiful girl who went to school with my sister. By the way, I must introduce you to Helen. She’s the tall blond there, squabbling over that junk.”

“She’s sure stunning,” returned Forrest, admiringly.

“Virginia didn’t say so, but I gathered somehow she and you were good friends.”

“That was nice of her.”

“But evidently Malpass does not share her friendship for you. I heard him objecting to our tallyho trip down here, and Mr. Lundeen sided with him. They had quite a little argument, aside, and to be frank, Virginia just about told them to go where it was hot.”

Clifton laughed. “I wouldn’t put it beyond her.”

Andrews, evidently having caught his sister’s eye, beckoned to her, and as she detached herself from the crowd and came forward expectantly, he said to Clifton in lower tone, “Don’t spoil this now.”

“Helen,” he said, as she reached them, a warm-faced, blue-eyed, young goddess, “I want you to meet a buddy of mine in France. Clifton Forrest! — Forrest, allow me to present my sister. You will observe she is one of the reasons we went ‘over there.’”

“Oh, Jack — how perfectly lovely! You didn’t tell me. Virginia didn’t, either...Mr. Forrest, I am most happy to meet you.”

No doubt of the open sesame to her regard! Clifton could not restrain embarrassment, but it was certain he thrilled under the clasp of her hand. And just then Virginia entered to approach them, and slipped a gloved hand inside Miss Andrews’ arm.

“Howdy, Cliff!” she drawled at Clifton, with the self-possession of intimacy.

“Howdy, Virginia!” returned Clifton, forced to play up to this subterfuge, or whatever was her bent. She seemed unfamiliar, though not in person. It was not the Virginia who had found him exhausted and helpless inside the wall that day. Bright color milled in her cheeks and her eyes burned, which indications of anger were at strange variance with her cool speech.

“Cliff, I thought I’d come in and give you a hunch,” she said. “I might have known Helen would try to annex you. Beware of this blond creature, Cliff. She is sure death to convalescent soldiers.”

“Virginia, what a thing to say!” expostulated Helen, blushing and reproachful. “Mr. Forrest, pray don’t believe her. The truth is that soldiers, especially those who returned ill or injured, have been sure death to me.”

Clifton laughed and said, “You look like beautiful life itself.”

“Virginia, I’ve a notion that at the bottom of your wise crack there’s a desire to annex Mr. Forrest yourself,” returned Helen, with loving, shrewd, arch eyes keen on Virginia.

“Sure. I’m brazen about it.”

“Well, you’ve got in ahead of me, but I’ll give you a race, anyway,” challenged Miss Andrews, with sweet, speculative glance on Clifton. “You see, he was my brother’s buddy in France.”

“Helen! You don’t say!” exclaimed Virginia, suddenly her sincere self again. “Clifton, is it true? You were friends — over there?...Why, how splendid to meet out here!”

“Virginia, I — I don’t quite remember Jack,” replied Clifton, trying to lie to save Andrews. “But he says so. You know I lost my memory for nine months. And I guess it’s not all come back yet.”

“You didn’t remember me on the ship. Or on the train,” said Virginia, in a tone that might have meant anything.

“Then perhaps Jack is right. I had a lot of buddies — and some never came back,” returned Clifton, dropping his head.

“Girls, you’re getting in bad with me, too,” interposed Andrews.

“Jack, it might be idle chatter, and then again it mightn’t,” replied Virginia, enigmatically. “But to be serious, I’d like you to see something of Clifton while you’re visiting me. Will you?”

“Delighted. We’ve already spoken of it.”

“And you too, Helen. But it’s only square to warn you. In spite of college and — France, Clifton is Western. You remember what you said when you saw my mountains and desert — my cottonwoods?”

“Assuredly I remember. I said ‘I love them.’”

“Very well. That is some evidence that you still possess a heart.”

“And you don’t want me to lose it?” queried Helen.

“On the contrary, I wish you would — to me, to my horses and cottonwoods — to everything Western, especially Clifton...He and I, too, some day may need your friendship.”

“Virginia, your devout wish is almost consummated,” replied Helen, with a bewildering smile that included Clifton.

They were interrupted by a small whirlwind in the shape of Ethel Wayne.

“Help! Help! These Monday bargain-shoppers are robbing me!” she cried. “I had a lot of stuff laid out, and they’re swiping it. Clifton, have you got a big Indian policeman round here?”

“No, but if you can’t get your stuff back I’ve got some more under the counter,” rejoined Clifton.

“I had some laid out, too,” added Helen. “Come, Jack, help me rescue it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Calamity Jane and Deadwood Dick here would like to be alone a little.”

The laughing trio moved away toward the mêlée.

“Clifton, is this offensive to you?” asked Virginia, almost timidly, resting a gauntleted hand on his knee, as he sat upon the counter, looking down at her.

“Hardly, Virginia, I’m not exactly a — a boob,” protested Clifton.

“But it’s so easy to hurt you. Ethel and I put up this job. We’re going to clean out your old store. But I didn’t intend to come in. Not until I saw Helen Andrews beaming upon you. That wasn’t in my program.”

“I guess I’m far from being hurt. You’re very kind. And they — —”

“Clifton, isn’t she just lovely?” interrupted Virginia. “Pure blond. You don’t see one often that is natural. Men fall for her like — like a lot of tenpins.”

“Small wonder.”

“Would you?” she flashed, jealously.

“Gee! I did, pronto!”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” rejoined Virginia, sharply. “Suppose she fell in love with you...Cliff, she’s modern, but clean, fine, unspoiled. I’m crazy about her. And rich! Why, her father could buy mine out and call it street-car fare! Besides, some relative left her millions...Suppose she were to fall in love with you?”

“Virginia, sure it’s you talking nonsense,” said Clifton, amazed at her. “You say the queerest things.”

“They wouldn’t be queer to anyone but a — a — blockhead.”

“Humph! I dare say. Well, since you insist on such a ridiculous presumption — if Miss Andrews were to fall in love with me, I’d return the compliment most darned pronto. I’ve been most gratefully content just to live. But in that event I’d pray to grow well and strong again, and handsome, if it were possible, and able to ride a horse like I used to, and everything.”

“Clifton Forrest, pretty soon you will tumble off my pedestal,” she warned, dubiously.

“Virginia, please don’t torment me with your childishness,” he said, sadly. “There’s no girl like her or you for Clifton Forrest.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” she retorted, subtly relaxing. “But — how glad I am you’re better! Why, you’ve gained, Clifton! Those pale hollows in your cheeks are gone. You’ve a little color, too. And your shoulders don’t sag...And do you know, only once since I’ve been watching you here have you made that strange move with your hand across your eyes. Only once! Oh, Clifton, you are going to get well.”

Just then Malpass entered, carefully groomed and immaculate as a riding-master. Clifton guessed that he had been watching through the door. He had sloe-black, glittering eyes, a thin lined face expressive of restrained power.

“Virginia, we are wasting time here,” he said.

“You might be. We are not,” replied Virginia.

“But if we are to go in to town we can’t spend hours in this dump.”

Apparently Clifton’s presence was included in this comprehensive statement; certainly his gesture with his riding-whip was all embracing.

“I informed you one of the objects of this ride was to buy souvenirs and provisions,” said Virginia, curtly, with the red spots dancing back in her cheeks.

“You did. I inform you in turn that better souvenirs can be found at Watrous or Las Vegas. As for provisions — I’ll order them in town.”

“We prefer to buy them here.”

“We? You mean you. And your object is merely to help this poor beggar of a Forrest.”

“Whatever my object, it’s none of your business,” retorted Virginia, and now the red spots faded.

“Anything you want to do is my business,” he replied, showing his white teeth.

“That’s what you think. My father has got you walking in your sleep. You’ll wake up presently.”

Whereupon Virginia, with light pressure of her hand that still rested on Clifton’s knee, vaulted up on the counter, and flipped her skirts comfortably if not modestly. The action, if not her words, penetrated Malpass’ courteous impatience, and black lightning leaped from his eyes. But he had control over tremendous passions.

“Virginia, it will be better for you if I continue to slumber,” he said, and even his mockery was menace. “But about the provisions. As you persist, and time is precious, I’ll buy this rather dingy stock and have it hauled up to the house. What is not fit we can throw to the chickens.”

He surveyed the shelves, that indeed were not inspiring to a would-be purchaser. Then he fastened those glittering eyes upon Clifton.

“How much for this stock?”

Clifton stared coolly at Malpass. Dealing with men was something that held no confusion of mind for him.

“Well, señor — —”

“Don’t call me that,” interrupted Malpass, with a flash of passion that showed where he was vulnerable. “You address me as Mr. Malpass.”

“Is that so? I’m likely to call you something else pronto.”

Clifton felt a slight pressure of Virginia’s arm against his, and it had the effect for which it was probably intended.

“How much?” demanded Malpass, his olive skin turning ruddy.

“One thousand dollars — to you,” returned Clifton, cool and quick.

Malpass produced new bills, that had seen but little handling, and counting out a number he laid them on the counter. “I’ll have this stuff hauled away at once...Virginia, drag your friends out of here before I insult them.”

“You couldn’t insult my friends,” rejoined Virginia with incredible softness.

Malpass strode out.

“Cliff, isn’t he the limit?” queried Virginia, turning.

“He’s sure a high-class greaser,” responded Clifton, in disgust. “Maybe not so high, at that.”

“But — I’m tickled pink. We put it over on Mr. Señor Malpass...Say, didn’t he flare up at that señor?...Clifton, we made him pay for the camp grub. That’s just fine. Don’t you dare say you won’t take it.”

“Take it? I should smile I will. Why, it’s a Godsend. We’re getting poorer — —” Here he hastily checked himself to go on: “But I’m afraid I cheated him. This supply isn’t worth half that much.”

Ethel presented herself before them, packing an armful of beaded ornaments and a basketful of belts, buckles, silver buttons.

“How much, Mr. Storekeeper?” she asked, pretending to be a child.

“Nothing to you, Ethel.”

“But see here. I want to pay for these.”

“Very well. They will cost you a kiss.”

“I’ll throw that in, after I pay for them,” she retorted.

“It’s a bargain,” replied Clifton, in excitement that was not feigned. He produced a pencil and began to enumerate on a paper bag the prices of the different articles.

“Ethel, did you see Malpass bullying me?” asked Virginia.

“You bet I did. But for once he didn’t seem to crush you.”

“It was because I sat up here beside Clifton. I could have boxed his sleek ears...Ethel, don’t you think it horrid and — and cowardly of Clifton to let me be thrown away upon that man?”

“It’s a crime...Clifton, you won’t stand for that, will you? When you’re Ginia’s only friend?”

“You girls upset my figuring,” replied Clifton, imperturbably.

“Isn’t he the cold-blooded brute?” queried Ethel, in good-humored awe. “But I think I see through him.”

“Thirty-six dollars — and two bits,” summed up Clifton, at last.

“Oh, so cheap? But what’s the two bits?”

“Twenty-five cents.”

“Here you are,” counted out the girl, blithely.

Clifton did not speak of what she had agreed to throw in.

“Help me up. Ginia’s so long-legged she could step right up on this awful counter...Aren’t we having a jolly time? My kid sister and brother will be tickled with these presents, if I can part with them.”

“Ethel, we’ve bought Clifton’s stock of provisions. Never had to pay a dollar!”

“How come? I hope you didn’t let him give it to us.”

“Malpass bought it. I drove him to it.”

“Perfectly grand,” trilled Ethel, in ecstasy.

“Ethel, I dare you to call him Señor Malpass, when he comes back.”

“You’re on. Never took a dare in my life. And that reminds me.” She peered round in front of Clifton, mischievous and daring, to see if the others were watching. They were engrossed in selection and rejection of souvenirs. “Coast’s clear.” And she raised herself swiftly to kiss Clifton plump on the cheek. “There, my debt is paid...You needn’t blush. I don’t do that as a general thing.”

Virginia bent a little to peer up into Clifton’s face.

“Cliff, if I pick out a lot of these souvenirs will you let me pay you all in Ethel’s good measure?” she asked, alluringly. “You see, I’m about broke, and it would enable me to get a lot of things I really can’t afford in cash.”

“I will not,” declared Clifton, dubiously.

Whereupon Virginia and Ethel left him, with intimate laughter and mysterious backward glances.

The upshot of this visit from Virginia and her friends was that Clifton was cleaned out of all his stores except tobacco and a few odd utensils and harness. In exchange he had a sum approaching two thousand dollars, a really staggering amount, considering that of late he had been grateful even for Mexican pennies. His mother would regard it as manna from heaven, and love Virginia Lundeen as the angel giver. Clifton wished they would hurry away so he could collect his wits.

They filled the tallyho with their purchases and the air with their happy chatter and laughter. Virginia was the only one who did not seem happy. In the confusion attending the transfer of the blankets, baskets, and other articles to the coach she shot Clifton more than one glance, the meaning of which he could not for the life of him interpret.

At last they had everything carried out, and were vacating to give room to the several Mexican laborers who had arrived. Malpass’ familiarity with Spanish became evident. Miss Andrews, her lovely face flushed with the excitement and fun, tripped in, evidently to say good-by. Virginia’s impulse to follow manifestly had been prompted by her friend’s action.

“Good-by, Mr. Forrest,” said Helen, offering her hand. “It has been a pleasure to meet a comrade of Jack’s — a real Westerner. He has promised that we shall see more of you.”

“It would please me,” replied Clifton, heartily.

“We have played havoc with your store. You must load up again for another raid...Good-by.”

“Good-by, Helen of Troy. I hope you come back,” replied Clifton, as much moved by Virginia’s disturbing presence as Helen’s graciousness.

“How’d you know I come from Troy?” asked Helen, over her shoulder. “Jack told you, I’ll bet. And I wanted you to think me a New Yorker.”

“I didn’t know. I sure didn’t mean Troy, New York.”

Helen went out glowing.

“Cliff,” spoke up Virginia, just as if she had not had a chance before, “you’d never see me if that girl was around.”

“Of course I would, Virginia. I did.”

“I believe you learned to flirt in France.”

The advent of Malpass saved Clifton a rather tantalizing retort, which was just as well not expressed. He saw at a glance that Malpass’ suavity and coolness were only skin deep so far as anything relative to Virginia Lundeen was concerned.

“Go on out, Virginia. Your friends are in the coach, ready to leave. I’ll follow, after I’ve made sure this storekeeper hands over all the goods I paid for.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” asked Clifton.

“Take it any way you like,” snapped Malpass.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not quite up to lifting down that heavy canned fruit,” returned Forrest, slowly feeling his way.

“You’re thick-headed, Forrest,” sneered Malpass. “You heard what I said. But if you take it that way, why get a move on and help down with the goods.”

“I’m not a peon,” retorted Clifton, hotly.

“You’re a clerk, and a poor one at that.”

“Señor, we understand each other. You think I’m a peon and I know you’re a greaser.”

“Clifton! — Mr. Malpass!” cried Virginia, stepping between them.

Malpass swung a riding whip over her shoulder, staggering Clifton with a smart cut across the face, which brought blood. Then thrusting Virginia aside, he struck Clifton, and following up an advantage so surprisingly easy, he knocked Clifton down.

Virginia, in a swift frenzy that was partly fright, gave Malpass a stinging slap across the mouth.

“You yellow dog! To strike a crippled soldier! My God! I despise you!”

Clifton got up, though it was all he could do. “Malpass,” he almost whispered, “beat it before I go for my gun.”

The threat had the desired effect. Malpass, recovering from ungovernable rage, leaped the counter and went out the back way.

“Go, Virginia, before somebody — comes back after you,” whispered Clifton.

“He hurt — you,” she returned, with quivering lips, and wiped the blood from the welt on his cheek.

“Not much. I’m all right — only excited and mad. Please go before — —”

“Do you suppose I care what they see or think?...You’re lying to me, Cliff. You’re white — you’re shaking.”

“Well, I reckon that’s natural,” replied Forrest, pulling himself together. He had been laboring under half a fear that Malpass might return with a gun. More than one shooting scrape had been attributed to this fortune-elevated vaquero.

“Cliff, I’ll go, but I must see you soon.”

She was clinging to him.

“Virginia, you’ve lost your head. They’ll see you!...There, Miss Andrews is at the door.”

“I’m glad she saw, anyhow,” replied Virginia, releasing her hold on him and stepping back. “Cliff, you’re a wonderful fellow — but the biggest dunce I ever knew.”

Chapter Seven

VIRGINIA WAS IN camp with her friends, high up in a sylvan glade under the dome of Old Baldy, and for the first time in weeks dared to approach happiness.

It was along toward the end of June, and for that high altitude rather early in the season. The cold nights and frosty mornings, however, made the time ideal for camping.

Climbing up there had been a severe ordeal for most of the Eastern visitors, who, outdoor people though they were, had been unused to strenuous work, let alone miles of perilous, rocky trails where horses had to be led. But once arrived at the beautiful mountain meadow, they said they would not have missed the trip for worlds.

Two green mountains sloped down from the heights, forming at the base a little open valley containing a gem of a lake surrounded by a forest of pines, a fringe of grand monarchs gradually thickening with the rise of ground into the impenetrable timber belt. At the upper end of the oval lake a small peninsula jutted out. Among the scattered pines the tents had been pitched, within sight and hearing of the white cascade that slid down from the green notch above.

At the lower end of the lake the outlet glided swiftly between brown banks, to glance over a fall and tumble with a roar into a purple gorge. Here the mountain slopes sheered away, showing the desert five thousand feet below on the other side of the range.

Of all Western views that Virginia treasured, here was her favorite. To attain it one had to climb to a ledge above the gorge. There were shady nooks under a dwarf pine, mats of brown pine needles and silver-flowered amber moss; and a scene from which no lover of the solitude and beauty and grandeur of nature could turn without regret.

Selfishly Virginia went there alone, desiring humbly to renew her allegiance. This was, she recalled, her sixth trip to this isolated fastness; and the last one, three years in the past, seemed long ago and far away. No longer was she a schoolgirl, but a woman, now, wildly in love, with an abandon that could not have been possible in her romantic teens. Yet the hero of those dreamy, girlish years was still the hero of her womanhood.

She had slipped away from Ethel and Helen, who were the only friends close enough to think of her intimately. Ethel knew her secret and Helen suspected it. Virginia loved them dearly, but she wanted to be alone, here, of all places. For the rest of her friends she was not particularly concerned. Some were exhausted from the arduous climb, and the others were in ecstasies over this ideal spot. Jake and Con, her own cowboys, were in charge, and they had efficient help. Malpass had been left behind. Virginia had not spoken to him since his attack upon Clifton. She absolutely would not consider him in any capacity. A furious quarrel between her and her father, with Malpass present, had ended in the establishment of an armistice until such time as Virginia’s guests, all except Ethel, would leave. So this camping trip, planned as a climax in the entertainment of Eastern friends she probably would never see again, bade fair to be a great success.

Virginia was tired, not so much physically as mentally. She threw herself down in the old, comfortable, mossy spot, that had not changed, and invited the spell of loneliness, of murmuring melodious stream, of the purple depths, and lastly the vast silent and illimitable desert far below.

How she had ached to be alone! And here she was far from camp, the white tents only specks above the shining lake, under the spread of the blue heavens, in the sight of marvelously-visioned eagles, perhaps, surely of the birds and squirrels that abounded among the crags and trees. It was not only being out of sight of human kind that constituted solitude, it was the fullness of realizing that none of them knew where she was nor how much alone. The fragrant air, the gray crags, the inclines of tufted green, the bold, lofty dome of the bald mountain above, and through the wide gateway below the ribbed sweep, the endless reach, the vanishing of the desert into the dim haze of distance — these things which in that moment she shared with no one, flooded her being, pervaded her spirit, soothed her troubled soul with the ultimate essence of loneliness.

Close at hand, under her, the tips of lacy spruce trees, the downward steps of lichened blocks of granite, led into a purple glen crossed by bars of golden sunlight, by shadows of pines, whence floated upward the muffled murmur of a slow stream, reluctant to take the downward plunges. It glided brown and shallow over the flat ledge, to spread into a white foamy fan that closed again, and took a narrow leap, disappearing in rainbow-chased spray.

These sights and sounds were intimate. But it was the desert, on which at last she spent her reluctant gaze, that forced her into slow-realizing reverence. For she had grown in mind since she had watched there. She had seen great cities, states of endless farms, the gloomy, restless Atlantic, and the plains and mountains of foreign lands. Nothing like this! All so pale in comparison! What was it to see a few miles of tossing green salt waters? Here the desert air was clear, and there wandered two hundred and more miles of rock and sand, of canyon and range, of the dim, red Arizona walls that vanished in haze.

She had come home — home, and she did not see where education and travel had been worth the labor, unless to prepare her the better for appreciation of the West.

It was not then that her favorite Western scene had changed, but that she, bringing incalculably more to it after years of absence, seemed changed herself, a throbbing, aching, dreaming, loving, fighting woman who must find herein the strength and endurance of nature, or perish in all that she held sacred to womanhood.

Virginia knew her father had sunk to the level of a common thief, in her eyes as culpable as the rustlers who used to be hanged on the cottonwoods. Silver mines and lands and mansions did not absolve a thief from the baseness accorded the cattle-stealer. But money had power and it sanctioned crime. Jed Lundeen had more than ruined the Forrests; he had debased their fair repute. Not only had he stolen their property, but also their good name!

Virginia’s early training had been one of simple religion. For perhaps ten years back her mother had leaned more and more to her father’s path, which, as he prospered by means that would not bear the white light of day, had been away from the church. Virginia’s years at school had not been prolific of religious stabilizing, but on the other hand, she had not been greatly influenced by the modern atheism so prevalent in college. What faith she had went into abeyance, through disuse, and now in her extremity she felt the need of it.

So, through the purple depths and the colorful desert, and the infinite nothing of distance, she peered into her own soul. Long she gazed, with wide eyes, and then with eyes tight shut. She saw the same with both. She was now a woman of twenty-two, older really than her exact age in years. She wanted to live her own life, not because of selfishness or egotism, but because of what she regarded as right. She wanted love and children, and if these meant happiness, as well as the nobler state for a woman, she wanted that, too. She could not become the wife of August Malpass, not because she could not sacrifice herself for her father, to save him from the net in which he had entrapped himself, but because such marriage would be a sin. Likewise it would be dishonest, if not actually sinful, for her to shield her father and Malpass, should tangible evidences of their guilt accrue. Lastly, with all her heart and soul, with a growth from childhood, she loved Clifton Forrest, and only through him could the fulfillment of life come to her.

“He doesn’t see it,” she mused, feeling a satisfaction in breathing her secret to the solitude. “He wouldn’t believe it...yet how true it is!”

She had the illusion that her brooding, passionate gaze magnified all in its scope. And she saw the desert through her love, her strife with her father, the ordeal of her spirit, all inextricably involved in the single and paramount necessity of finding and adhering to the truth — which was the good, the right, and the faithful.

Space seemed illimitable. Through half-closed eyes Virginia swept in the sheer depths, the expanse of naked earth, the cloud-banked horizon. Again and again she feasted her sight, from the crag and pine-tipped descent to the naked riven earth, and the chaos where desert vanished.

In the end it was out there that her vision lingered. For out there glistened an ineffable and illusive beauty — the plains of silver sand, the beaches of gold bordering seas that were delusions, the islets of red rock ringed around by turbulent surf, the waved dunes ever curving, the dots of sage and cedar areas of acres, yet mere specks on the landscape, the arid washes and flats, proof of the anno seco of the Mexicans, the rock country, ribbed and rutted, riven into gorge and ravine, running wild, multiplying its ragged mounds into black buttes, its hollows into canyons, its lines into great walls, and at last to heave and roll and bite at the sky, ebony and beryl and porphyry thrusting into the blue, to end in the nothingness of infinitude.

It was afternoon when Virginia descended the trail, to skirt the lake and made her way back through the pines to camp.

She found Ethel lolling in a hammock, wrapped in a blanket.

“Oh!” she gasped, starting up at sight of Virginia, her pretty eyes expanding, “You look strange, you’re ripping!...You’re the loveliest creature on earth...You’ve got Helen beat there and back!”

“Why this extravagant mess of words?” inquired Virginia, smiling down upon this volatile bit of femininity.

“Ginia, there’s a light on your face — what does the poet say? — never seen on land or sea.”

“I’ve been over to a shrine. Tomorrow I shall take you there. Then you will not wonder...Ethel, I have recovered something that I lost long ago.”

“Now — you want to make me sad,” responded Ethel, plaintively. “But you can’t. I just swear I’ll revel in this lovely place. Didn’t I use to rave about Colorado? But never again. This beats anything I ever saw, and mind you, honey, I’m no tenderfoot from Noo Yawk. This is heaven. Paradise!...If Jack Andrews, or one of his friends — if any man made love to me here — or Indian or Mexican — I’d fall like a chunk of lead and be false to the nicest little sweetie in Denver.”

“Well, I’m ashamed to hear you confess it. What’s happened to you, anyway...Why, you’re bare-footed! No stockings!...Ethel, what would your nice Denver sweetie say to this?”

“He’d be tickled pink,” replied Ethel, with a giggle. Then she grew suddenly grave. “What happened to me? I’ll tell you, old girl, I darn near drowned. I fell in the lake. Wow! Over my head! And I just froze! Cold? That water was like the way you treat Malpass. Con heard me yell and fished me out. In the nick of time, believe me! My clothes are drying over there by the camp fire...Oh, you needn’t look so horrified! I’ve got on my dressing-gown. And I think you should show some distress.”

“Well,” ejaculated Virginia, sitting down, “I really want to laugh. You, Ethel Wayne, whom I boasted as an old stager on the trail. What’s become of my other tenderfeet?”

“The men are fishing, sure Mike — a lot we’ll see of them! — but the girls are lolling around, just too happy for words. Virginia, the consensus of opinion, as I’ve snookily got it, is that you’re the last thing in peaches. Sure I always knew it, but I’m tipping off the Eastern angle. This is a swell outfit you’ve sprung on me, honey, but I must say they’ve got something on us Westerners. I like that Jack Andrews and if I wasn’t —— There I go. Unstable as water, thou shalt not be true!...And I just love Helen Andrews.”

“So I have observed.”

“Goodness! Ginia, you’re not jealous?”

“A little, on your account. A lot on Clifton’s...I’m a jealous cat, Ethel.”

“Say, why this humility all of a sudden? To stop kidding, I’ll say you need never be jealous on my account. I adore you. I’m yours forever...But in the case of Cliff I’m not so darn sure. You’re carrying that Lundeen handicap. And believe me, it’s something to stagger under.”

“Miss Wayne, I am quite aware of that,” replied Virginia, in mock hauteur.

“Helen Andrews likes Cliff,” returned Ethel, seriously, her brows knitted. “We oughtn’t wonder at that. He’s the most lovable chap, the handsomest, the greatest hero the war sent back to us. You know they’ve got his number in town now. They’ve found out what he did...Well, it’s quite natural for this rich and lovely lady to be interested in Cliff. I’m glad, even if I am scared. But — if she happened to fall in love with him — good night!”

“Ethel, you mean I wouldn’t have a show on earth?” asked Virginia, tragically.

“No, nor in heaven, either,” sighed Ethel, sacrilegiously.

“I hope I’m not so — so little that I couldn’t be — glad for Cliff’s sake,” replied Virginia, a little tremulously. This matter-of-fact, down-to-earth talk of Ethel’s was rather disconcerting, coming so suddenly after Virginia’s vigil at her shrine on the heights.

“Maybe we’re borrowing trouble,” said Ethel. “Lord knows that’s the way of lovers. Don’t I know?...Helen has seen Cliff three times I know of since we bought out his store.”

“Three times? I thought only two.”

“Reckon you missed the last, and I sure didn’t have the nerve to tell you then. What with your father and that white-toothed Spanish galoot who’s crazy about you I thought you had enough to worry along on...Virginia, our fair Helen of Troy rode off alone Sunday afternoon. Down the valley! You can bet she went to see Cliff. They had a date. She didn’t stay long, though it was sunset when she came back...Now, sister, what you’ve got to grasp to your poor shuddering heart is this. Any man, much less our unfortunate soldier friend, would soon fall in love with Helen Andrews. Furthermore, she’s just as likely to fall in love with him. The woods are full of such pretty happenings.”

“Ethel darling, I — I could bear it, because I want Clifton to have some reward for his sacrifices.”

“Sure you could. And you’re a game sport. But that is only if it comes to the worst. Helen is no flirt. She is earnest, fine. There’s the danger, though. And Clifton is slow to like anybody. I’m sure we’re safe yet. They’re all leaving on July first. So it’d be just as well not to break camp here till June twenty-ninth. Perfectly skunky trick, but all’s fair — you know...And while we’re up here we’d better plan how to throw a monkey-wrench into that Malpass threshing machine.”

“Ethel, you’re a conscienceless, unscrupulous, terrible young woman, but, oh, what would I do without you?”

Virginia spent seven idle dreaming days at Emerald Lake. Her friends, for the most part, were exceedingly active, appearing never to get enough of the wonderful sport the camp afforded. So for them the time fled by.

For Virginia, however, the days spread out long. Yet she was grateful for it. Affairs at Cottonwoods were so near a crisis that she was loath to return. Ethel’s spirit and determination to find some loophole for Virginia was hopeful in itself, but so far nothing had come of it.

The 29th of June arrived all too soon for Virginia’s guests. Many and wild were their encomiums. “I’ll own this place if I have to buy the whole National Forest,” declared Helen Andrews, magnificently. Somehow this remark gave Virginia food for reflection.

The return trip down the winding trail was delight, compared with the toil of the ascent. But few places could not be ridden, though many of the steep steps and the weathered slopes of loose shale brought squeals from the girls. With a happy hour at noon for lunch and rest it took all day to do the eighteen miles down to Cottonwoods.

To Virginia’s great satisfaction, and also surprise, both her father and Malpass were absent; where, Mrs. Lundeen did not know. The two men were at loggerheads over mining interests in the south, she said, as if weary of the subject.

Next day Virginia’s guests gave far less time to packing than to the outdoor pursuits which had so endeared Cottonwoods to them. It did not surprise Virginia to see Helen and her brother go riding down the valley road toward San Luis. Womanlike, Virginia had to inform Ethel, and from that young lady she got the startling reply, “Sure, you should have beat Helen to it!”

Virginia went about her affairs, which naturally were numerous just then, trying to take refuge in them, when all the time her heart ached.

It was still early in the afternoon when Virginia, opening her door in response to a tap, found herself confronted by Helen in riding-habit, manifestly just from the saddle. A flush like an opal glow showed under her golden tan. Virginia caught her breath at the girl’s blond loveliness.

“Hello, old dear! May I come in? I’ve something to tell you,” said Helen.

“Of course...Helen, you look serious.”

“It is serious, though not for us. Are you alone? Where’s Ethel?”

“She’s in the library.”

“Virginia, I’ve some bad news. It has really distressed me,” went on Helen, as Virginia led her to the window seat. “Jack and I rode down to see your friend Clifton. We found his store burned down. The interior was gutted, and only a few crumbling walls left standing. We couldn’t learn anything at San Luis, so we hurried back to Clifton’s home. We went in and found him on the porch with his mother. She’s a charming, gracious old lady...Well, Clifton told us that he had restocked his store, spending nearly two thousand dollars, I think it was, for the supplies. That very night some one set fire to the building from the inside. Everything was destroyed.”

“Oh, how unfortunate, and worse if some one did it!” burst out Virginia.

“Clifton is sure it could not have been accident. There was nothing to catch fire inside...Virginia, hasn’t he enemies here?”

“I’m afraid he has,” replied Virginia, bitterly.

“You’ll forgive me, old dear, won’t you, for appearing inquisitive? I like this Clifton Forrest. Naturally, when I thought he’d been a buddy of Jack’s in France, I was interested to get acquainted with him. But now I must confess that even though he and Jack have had no previous acquaintance I’m still keen about him. Surely I don’t need to eulogize Clifton to you, but I want you to know that I think him one of the finest chaps I’ve ever met...Jack offered to lend him money enough to rebuild and restock the little store, which we’ve learned the Forrests depend on for a living. But Clifton thanked Jack and said he couldn’t accept it, because he could never pay it back. Then I made a suggestion. I asked Clifton if he would run the Payne ranch for me if I bought it. He — —”

“The Payne ranch! At Watrous?” interposed Virginia. “That enormous place! Why, Helen, the banks hold it at one hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”

“I didn’t inquire about that,” returned the other, “but I was taken with the place and I had a notion to buy it. Of course it’d be a white elephant, like other places I’ve burdened myself with. But this is really a worthy idea. And I believe I’ll go through with it, unless you block the deal.”

“I! Why, Helen, I’d be happy to have you out here! It’d be great! And if you were to help Clifton, I — I think I’d like you better than I do, which is a lot.”

“Virginia, we’ve got to do something for that soldier boy.”

“Oh, I’ve tried. He’s proud. He won’t accept charity. I was afraid he’d be offended when we bought him out that day. It was so barefaced...Hasn’t Clifton told you about the Lundeen-Forrest feud?”

“Not a word. But lately, before we left on our camping trip, I picked up things here and there, and put two and two together. Your father and Forrest are deadly enemies. Your Brazilian cavalier, or whatever he is, struck me as a snake in the grass. I know men. He is after your money, Virginia. He made a play for me, which I squelched quick. Imagine that — when it’s plain even to strangers he’s trying to marry you. He hasn’t a chance in the world, has he?”

Virginia laughed her scorn. “Helen, my father is under the thumb of this Malpass. He was led or forced to cheat the Forrests out of this property. He now is trying to persuade me to marry Malpass. Or he was, ten days ago. I imagine when he returns he’ll use stronger argument. But I’d die before I’d give in.”

“Here’s hoping you won’t have to go to such extremes!...Let’s get back to Clifton. You like him, don’t you, Virginia? Oh, hang it! why look at me that way? I mean you’re fond of him, aren’t you?”

“Why do you ask?” queried Virginia, constrainedly.

Helen got up and put her arms round Virginia and kissed her — demonstrative actions very unusual for the Eastern girl. “Old dear, you can’t bluff me. And I won’t let you be upstage, either...I ask that because Ethel — sly little fox! — put it into my head...Confess, now.”

Virginia hung her head, as much from unresisting weakness as shame.

“Confess what — you triumphant goddess, I can’t help loving you, that’s sure.”

“You’re fond of Clifton?”

“Fond?...Good God! Use a Western word!” burst out Virginia, finally won.

Helen’s answering embrace and kiss were very warm and sweet.

“So that’s it,” she whispered. “I’m glad. You’ll help Clifton to get well and on his feet...That was what worried me. You jealous child!...Virginia, I will return your confidence. My love — my heart are buried in a grave in France!”

Chapter Eight

VIRGINIA’S FATHER CAME home drunk, the day after the departure of her guests, and Malpass showed a dark sullenness that boded no good.

She felt like an animal at bay, and she paced her room, waiting for the approach that she sensed. Nevertheless, it did not come, and she ate her dinner as silent as her mother, a prey to growing apprehension. She regretted that Ethel had been called back home to Denver. A fugitive desire to see Clifton became a real and persistent one.

The night seemed far removed from the peaceful and restful ones she had enjoyed up in the mountains. Morning, however, brought defiance, if not courage.

Malpass presented himself at the breakfast table as immaculate as usual, and more than unusually self-contained. He inquired politely about the camping trip, the departure of her guests, and even expressed regret not to have seen the beautiful Miss Andrews again. The Mexican servant informed her that her father was having breakfast in his room, where he awaited her convenience.

“Before you see him you may as well listen to me,” said Malpass.

“Very well, the sooner the better. What can you have to say to me?”

“Have you reconsidered my proposal?”

“No. I gave it no further thought.”

“Then I regret to say I must split with your father.”

“That will be most acceptable to me.”

“It may not be so when you hear the conditions.”

“Mr. Malpass, pray save yourself the trouble of more talk,” replied Virginia. “I am weary of the whole business. I don’t care anything about conditions.”

“But I can take this property away from him as he took it from Forrest.”

“Do it and welcome,” retorted Virginia, coldly. “Ill-gotten wealth never made any man happy. My father was wicked, but I consider you mostly to blame. I will be glad when he is free of you.”

“He’s not going to be free of me unless — —”

“Unless I become your wife?” put in Virginia, as he hesitated, and her derision broke his studied calm.

“Unless you do he will go to jail for a long term.”

“I think you are a liar and a bluff.”

“My dealings with Lundeen do not and never did include this Forrest property,” went on Malpass, ignoring her words. “Nor did I have any share in the silver mine he stole. We used money from that to gain possession of extensive phosphate mines in the south. The controlling interest was mine. I increased my holdings, raising equal capital for him to do the same. We are now deeply involved and he owes me a sum greater than this ranch could bring. If we settle it out of court, well and good, for all of us. But if I take it to court, I will prove he deliberately stole Forrest’s land, fully cognizant of the value of the silver mine. I can prove it because I discovered the mineral.”

“Yes, and you were the brains of the dishonest deal,” rejoined Virginia, hotly.

“To be sure. But at Lundeen’s instigation. Never on paper! There’s not a word to that effect. If you will pardon my saying it, your father is a sapheaded, greedy old cattleman with a tremendous weakness — his hatred of Clay Forrest. Now if you know your West you will certainly realize what would happen to your father if I betrayed him in court — which means betraying him to Clay Forrest.”

“What would happen?” queried Virginia, unable to repress alarm.

“Forrest will kill him!”

“Oh, you are trying to work on my feelings!” cried Virginia. “I don’t believe it. You’ve made this all up to frighten me...Even if it were true, Forrest would kill you, too.”

“That would not be so easy. And the motive would not be so great.”

Virginia veiled her eyes and her own barbed shaft. “Suppose I told Clifton Forrest you burned down his store?”

No guilty man’s effrontery and flinty nerve could mask the truth from a woman’s love and intuition. The instant Virginia’s swift query had passed her lips she divined Malpass had been responsible for the latest misfortune to the Forrests.

“Burned down! — I have been away, you know, and had not heard...Your ridiculous accusation requires no answer.”

Virginia laughed in his face.

“If Clifton Forrest found out what I know he would kill you.”

Malpass arose to push back his chair. “You drift away from the main issue. I warn you to leave young Forrest out of this. I am aware of your interest in him. It has not enhanced his fortunes.”

Virginia sprang up so passionately that her chair fell backward.

“August Malpass, those words betray you, though I never needed words to find out what you are. Do your evilest, señor! This is not old Mexico.”

The hard immobility of Malpass’ olive face changed swiftly to passion. His eyes became flames. With the spring of a panther he was on her, clasping her in his arms. Crushing her to him he kissed her naked throat, then her face, failing of her lips only when Virginia, overcoming a horror of paralysis, tore clear of him with infuriated strength.

“Señorita, you have — invited violence,” he panted, making her an elaborate bow which he had not learned on that range. “I prefer it. Let us be natural. I love a she-cat from hell...Spit! Scratch! Bite!...You will be all the sweeter!”

“If you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you.”

Virginia ran to her room, and locking the door she fell on her bed in an access of rage and hate and fear. When these had worked their will and passed away she rose with a stupendous surprise, and shame the like of which she had never known. Her limbs tottered under her, and the window seat appeared none too close. Could she ever erase the burn and blot of this half-breed’s kisses? That she had kept her lips inviolate helped her but little.

In the ensuing hour she learned the appalling gravity of her predicament.

Her father came to her, a changed and broken man, at first neither commanding nor supplicating. He had always been in Malpass’ power, though ignorant of it till now. With what fiendish dexterity the weaver had enmeshed him!

Malpass had the proofs to convict, the money to ease his own irregularities, the baseness to betray unless he gained the object he so passionately sought.

“Father, I can’t — I can’t!” sobbed Virginia. “How can you ask?...I’d sooner kill myself.”

“It means prison for me — disgrace for you and mother — poverty...Virginia, marry him to save us. You can divorce him later. Give me time to retrieve. Then with money I can fight. Find some way to beat him.”

“Not to save even our lives!” flamed Virginia.

“But wait, daughter. You’re riled now. Take time. Think. You’re not in love with any man. It’d not be so hard. You can leave him — and soon. You can be free.”

“What of my soul?...I’d feel myself debauched. No! No!”

“Virginia, he’ll make you give in, sooner or later. He has the very devil’s power. It’ll be better to have it over. Then we can plan. I swear to God I’ve realized my crime, an’ seek now only to save you an’ mother. Daughter, we’ve gained standin’ as a family these last years. We are somebody. If this comes out I’m done — an’ you an’ mother will hang your heads in shame.”

“You beg what is worse than shame,” retorted Virginia. “My blood boils and revolts. Not an hour ago Malpass insulted me vilely — beyond forgiveness. He taunted me with the power you think he has.”

“I know he has it. You resisted him. Like as not you scorned him. He’ll make you suffer more...Daughter, shore the best way — the only way is to give in — fool him. Fool him! If he has to make you marry him — God help you! For he’s vain, an’ I tell you a half-breed.”

“He can’t force me. This is not old Mexico. I’ll find a way — not only to escape him but to — —”

“Drive him to ruin me — or stain my hands with blood,” harshly interrupted her father. “Daughter, you’ve a duty to me an’ your mother. We begot you, an’ I’ve sinned to give you comforts, luxuries. Horses! I’ve spent thousands on your horses...Think before it’s too late. I can hold Malpass off. Once he thinks there’s a hope of your love he’ll melt. Cheat him! — Cheat him! Make him the poor weak fool he’s made me!”

After her father had tottered out, spent with passion, Virginia saw the abyss that yawned at her feet. For had she not listened to him? Poor man, he was lost indeed. Yet she, too, was weak, uncertain, torn by love one way, and by self-preservation in another.

At length, out of the chaos of her mind resolved a first and imperative necessity — to insure at least her legal freedom from Malpass. So far as physical freedom was concerned, was she not in peril every hour she lived in that house? In her present state of mind she feared it.

If she married some other man, it would not be possible for her father and Malpass to persuade or drive or hypnotize her into a marriage that would mean moral and spiritual death. And the world might as well have contained only one man — Clifton Forrest.

She might — she must induce him to marry her. But how? Once before she had broached the subject, only to be repulsed. Still, his reason had been sound, generous, plausible. She could only respect him for it. Why not formulate a plan on the strength of the very reason he gave — that he was a mere shell of a man, probably doomed to a brief and inactive life? Virginia scouted that idea, though it made her shudder inwardly. Clifton would get well and strong again. She was sure of it. But she must pretend she believed him, and that under such circumstances he would be rendering her the great service of giving her his name, secretly, so she would have that moral anchor when the storm broke.

Pride alone was sufficient to conceal her love. Still, would she always be proud? Might not her spirit break? When Malpass hounded her into a corner, and her father thundered her out of his house for marrying a Forrest, would she not creep to Clifton’s feet and betray herself? There would be a strange ecstasy in that. But Virginia Lundeen could not quite see herself so prostrate.

Once having made the momentous decision, she would admit no doubts. She would simply have to be strong enough to persuade him. Suddenly she reproached herself. Clifton, learning of her extremity, would offer himself. He had given all for nothing. Never would he begrudge her the stronghold of wifehood.

At her desk, then, she wrote a note urgently requesting Clifton to meet her that evening by the broken corner of wall in his garden. She did not ask for an answer. Sallying forth, singularly strengthened, she strolled down to the barns to get some one to deliver the note.

It would not do to trust one of the Mexicans. Con, the Irish cowboy, would be absolutely reliable.

She found Con and Jake together. In fact, they were always together — a sort of union to combat the horde of Mexicans on the ranch. Jake was a lean, dark, bow-legged cowboy who had been born on the range. Con had been only several years in the West. He was a strong fellow, sandy-haired and freckled. He had big, wide-open, astonished eyes, a light gray in color.

“Mawnin’, boys,” she drawled. “How are you-all?”

“Tolerable, Miss Lundeen,” replied Jake, doffing his sombrero.

“I’m foine, Miss, but when I’m out of worrk I’m out of sorts,” said Con, standing bareheaded and respectful.

“There ought to be loads of work,” returned Virginia, in surprise.

“Shure was, but the horses are gone.”

“Gone! Where?” ejaculated Virginia, with a pang of dismay.

“Back to Watrous.”

“Who ordered my horses there?”

“Malpass,” replied Jake, shortly. “An’ he said we’d not be wanted.”

“Well! — Are all my horses gone?”

“Every last hoof, Miss Virginia.”

“I was not consulted. Wait till I speak to my father. Meanwhile remember that I hire you and I pay you.”

“Shore we know thet. But we’re afeared Malpass is gettin’ high-handed round here,” returned Jake, in worried tones.

“I quite agree with you,” laughed Virginia, without mirth. “Jake, if my car is still here, see that it’s all right for me to run into town this afternoon. And, Con, I’ve an errand for you.”

When Jake slouched away with jingling spurs Virginia asked Con if he had heard about the fire at San Luis which had burned the Forrest store during their trip up in the mountains.

“Yes, Miss, I’ve been down an’ seen it. Shure tough on young Forrest. He had his all in that store.”

“It was too bad. Did you hear any gossip about it?”

“Nuthin’. Mexicans shure ain’t sayin’ a word. Looks funny to me.”

“Well, you take this note down to Mr. Clifton Forrest. Be sure you deliver it today...I’ll see you boys tomorrow and we’ll talk things over — after I see father.”

Upon Virginia’s return to the house she encountered her father moodily pacing the porch. After greeting him she asked him why her horses had been ordered away.

“Daughter, it’s news to me,” he replied, spreading his palms.

“What I’d like to know is this. Are those horses my property?”

“Reckon they are. You’re of age. I gave them to you.”

“I shall go to Watrous and fetch them back.”

“Wal, no one could prevent you. But it’ll only make Malpass sorer. An’ it’s a fact the horses are better off over there. More feed. It costs like sixty heah. An’, daughter, money is scarce.”

“But my allowance, father?”

“I’ll have to cut that off, for the present.”

“Oh! — Well, I can go to work at something.”

“You! At what?” he snapped.

“I might be a waitress or a clerk — if no better offered,” replied Virginia, lightly.

“Nonsense!...Reckon you ought to have some money in the bank. Hope you haven’t overdrawn your account?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea and don’t care in the least. You informed me, upon my return from the East, there was ten thousand left out of my — well, what I thought was mine. I paid my New York bills, which were pretty heavy. And it surely cost enough to entertain my friends. I suppose I’m as — as poor as Clifton Forrest.”

“Then you’re a beggar.”

“What a fall for Virginia Lundeen!...The humiliation of it has not increased my respect and — affection for you, father mine...Where is mother? I haven’t seen her.”

“She’s sick in bed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. What ails her?”

“Reckon it’s this damned mess that’s knockin’ me,” he growled.

“I’ll go to mother,” said Virginia, soberly, entering the house.

She found Mrs. Lundeen sitting up, quite pale and sick, but evidently not so badly off as her husband had intimated. Nevertheless, Virginia suffered remorse for her neglect of her mother since that first quarrel following her arrival home. It pleased Virginia to grasp that her mother seemed no longer unapproachable.

“Father told me you’d worried yourself sick over this mess here,” said Virginia, presently.

“Perhaps. But I wasn’t so well before it came to a head,” replied Mrs. Lundeen. “I’d like to go to California, if I don’t feel better before winter sets in. Your father laughed. Said by that time we couldn’t afford to go even to Las Vegas. I can’t understand it at all.”

“I do, mother. The nigger in the woodpile is Malpass. He has worked father into some kind of a trap. He absolutely runs the place. Father can’t call his soul his own. I haven’t the least doubt that we’ll lose Cottonwoods.”

“For my part, I’d not care,” returned her mother, wearily. “I’d exchange with the Forrests any day. Down there I had work to do. This is no home. If I were you, Virginia, I’d go away.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Virginia. “Only a little while ago you were urging me to marry Malpass.”

“Yes, I know. Then I thought you might like the man, and it seemed a solution to our troubles. But I’m convinced now you couldn’t save us even if you married Malpass.”

“I’m of the same opinion,” returned Virginia, in grateful gladness at this unexpected attitude of her mother. “Have you told father that?”

“I have, and got called an old fool for my pains. It’s made me think, Virginia, that both Jed and Malpass have gone too far. They think they’re a law unto themselves. I do not count. You are only a means to an end, for your father. Malpass seems to want you the more you deny him. Some men are built that way. Usually they are the kind who tire after they get what they want.”

“Mother, I’m awfully glad to hear you say these things. It helps a good deal, believe me,” responded Virginia, warmly. “I can take care of myself. So don’t worry about me — or anything, for that matter. We’ll get along. And we must think of your health. I’m going in to town today and will ask the doctor about you...I’m happy, mother, that this trouble has brought us closer together.”

“So am I, dear. But don’t make too much of it before your father.”

Virginia drove to Las Vegas in a frame of mind somewhat similar to the one she had experienced the first day up at Emerald Lake. This, however, would have as its culmination the rendezvous with Clifton. The nearer Virginia got to that, the less she dared think of it. Could she play the part and deceive him? They would meet in the dark, though, she reflected; there would be a new moon, and he would not be able to see her plainly.

She reached the Las Vegas bank, her first objective, after closing hours, but upon being recognized she was admitted. To her relief she found there was a little money left to her credit, and she cashed a check for this balance. Then she sought audience with Mr. Halstead, who had been connected with the church she used to attend. Once he had been a cattleman, as was evinced by his rugged, weathered countenance. Virginia asked him point-blank what was the condition of her father’s finances.

“He is overdrawn here,” replied the banker. “That has occurred before, though never to this present extent. I’m sorry to inform you we refused his last request for a loan. Of course his credit is good here, to a reasonable extent. But we couldn’t see our way to a loan of a hundred thousand. His Southern holdings are worth a million. But they appear to be involved rather deeply with his partner’s.”

“Has Mr. Malpass any dealings with your bank?”

“No. He has not even a checking account.”

“Where does he bank?”

“Albuquerque, so I’ve been informed, but only in small amounts. He must have extensive bank dealings elsewhere.”

“Who pays my father’s Mexican help?”

“No checks have been presented here since Malpass’ connection with your father. The presumption is that they are paid in cash.”

“Will you tell me frankly, Mr. Halstead, what you think of Malpass’ connection with my father?”

“Well, the connection has not inspired greater confidence in your father,” replied Halstead, evasively. “May I ask, Miss Lundeen, if there is any truth in the rumor that you are to marry Malpass?”

“None whatever,” returned Virginia, decisively. “My father wished it, but I refused absolutely.”

“No doubt your many Las Vegas friends will be glad to hear that.”

“You are at liberty to tell them...Thank you, Mr. Halstead, and good afternoon.”

Virginia deduced from this interview that Malpass had little if any reputable standing with Las Vegas men of affairs, and she was equally certain that her father was fast losing their confidence, if not more.

From the bank she went to the family physician, whom she had known as a little girl. He had been called to attend her mother during Virginia’s absence in the mountains. Like most doctors, he would not speak openly. Virginia left his office convinced that her mother had some organic ailment, which, though not serious at present, might eventually become so.

Virginia invented excuses to call at the county clerk’s office and upon the new minister, a Western man with a charming wife. In both cases she extended herself to be gracious and winning. Upon leaving, she thought of Ethel, and giggled in imitation of that young lady bent upon some deep scheme. Virginia had a plot of her own, which she believed transcended any Ethel had ever concocted.

Following these errands she shopped for an hour, then went to the Castaneda for dinner, a procedure that evidently invited conjecture from a party of townspeople present.

Dusk was gathering when she drove out of Las Vegas, taking a road that skirted the lower spread of Cottonwood Valley, and then turned north under the bank to San Luis. A few pin-points of light flickered out of the lonesome darkness of the little town. From this point she drove slowly, and in due time arrived at a level spot near the Forrest garden. How much more familiar were these surroundings than those where she lived! Driving off the road against a thicket of young cottonwoods, she extinguished the car lights and got out.

The night was warm and sultry, with a slow wind off the desert. Frogs trilled and crickets chirped out of the deep low hum of insects. Thousands of bright stars seemed to watch her, winking out of a deep blue sky. A thin crescent moon shone weirdly, low down through the cottonwoods.

She glided silently along the trail, knowing her way in the gloom under the trees. A small animal rustled away into the brush. Coming to a fallen tree, she sat down, conscious of suspense and dammed emotion. Whatever her motive or deceit, she knew in her heart that the truth which made this tryst unutterably sweet and fearful was her love for Clifton Forrest. And listening to the merciless voice that was her conscience, she confessed her motive was not only to save herself from Malpass. Somehow she justified it. Yet what a monstrous thing she had to pretend! If his actual presence did not still her mounting agitation she would be lost. Then she put a hand to her breast. How it swelled! How her heart beat, beat, beat! Her blood was throbbing and thrilling through her veins.

The giant cottonwood that she knew so well stood near the corner of the wall. She had hidden in its capacious hollow as a child. Its dark spreading foliage gave forth a low rustle of many leaves. Beyond, other cottonwoods stood spectrally.

It seemed simple and inevitable that the crowning adventure of her life should begin here, in the familiar solitude of this old home and in the lonely gloaming hour. The wind off the desert fanned her moist brow. Black and bold loomed the great mountains. This was her West. No arch plotter could drive her from it or kill her joy in it. Riches were superficial and, if ill-gotten, wholly destructive to such happiness as appealed to her.

Presently she moved on, though reluctantly. The little wait had only accelerated her thrills and starts. She gained the break in the old wall. Again she paused, and leaned against the corner, to peer into the vague shadows. She quivered as if she had expected to meet a lover and leap into his arms. She was mad. Quíen sabe? In making her his wife, Clifton might be getting back the fortunes of the Forrests.

She went on, feeling her way. How black the garden corner! She peered on all sides. Nothing moved except the gentle leaves. The section of wall where she had talked with Clifton was vacant. She whispered his name. No answer! Suddenly she sank down on the wall. He had not come.

Chapter Nine

“CLIFF, I’M DAMN good an’ glad they burned you out,” Clay Forrest averred to his son as they sat in the shade of the cottonwoods. It was a day in July, hot and still. The cicadas were in shrill blast.

“Dad, you make me tired,” returned Clifton, with good-humored patience. “Why do you always say that? I think the store just caught on fire. Spontaneous combustion, or something.”

“Huh! Somethin’. You bet. An’ that somethin’ was a greaser in the pay of Jed Lundeen.”

“Oh no, dad! You’re hipped on the Lundeen stuff. You lay everything to the Lundeens. If it were anyone it might have been Malpass. I didn’t tell you before. He was in my store the day that Eastern crowd of young folks bought me out. And, well, we had some sharp words.”

“What’d it lead to?”

“Nothing on my part. He struck me. Knocked me over...It was just as well I didn’t have a gun handy. I’ve got sort of used to one.”

“Cliff Forrest! You never told me...I’ll beat that Malpass half to death.”

“Dad, I’d rather you waited till I get strong enough to do it myself,” replied Clifton, grimly.

“Humph! An’ how soon will that be?”

“Not so very long. I’m gaining pretty fast now. Mother says I’ll eat her out of house and home. Besides, it wouldn’t take much of a man to lick Malpass.”

“That greaser will have a knife about him somewhere. Wal, I’ll tell you, son. You an’ Ma have kept my hands off that Lundeen outfit too long. An’ the longer I wait the harder it’ll go with them.”

“Revenge is natural, dad. But is it anything to give in to here? Suppose you went to horsewhip Lundeen and Malpass? You know how hate works if you give in to it. You might end in killing one or both of them. You’d go to prison. Then what of mother?”

“Hell, son, your arguments are unanswerable. Long ago I seen that...A fight would end in blood-spillin’. All the same I don’t believe any court in New Mexico would convict me.”

“Don’t you fool yourself,” retorted Clifton. “What did that Las Vegas court do to you? It was fixed, no doubt. Well, Lundeen could fix it again.”

“He couldn’t hang any jury if he was dead. An’ neither could Malpass,” returned Forrest, thoughtfully.

“On the level now, dad, you’ve had it in your mind to do these two men?”

“Why, son, I was brought up in the West!” replied his father, as if apologizing for Clifton.

“You’ve been brooding over this wrong for years. That’s why you’ve quit. You could have begun life all over again. You’re only fifty-odd. But you putter around the garden. You idle and feed that hate in your heart. You’re breaking mother’s heart. She never minded the loss of Cottonwoods. That’s all you think of. You are making yourself old. Worse, you’re not helping me very much to take care of mother.”

Forrest dropped his head a moment. “Wal, it does seem that way, son,” he replied, resignedly. “An’ that’s the hell of it. I know just as well as you if I keep on mullin’ over this trouble much longer I’m done for.”

“Dad, if you do keep it up I’m done for, too.”

“What you mean?”

“I mean a lot...I’ve had more of a fight here than I had in France. To fight the hate you’ve given in to! And to fight my tired, tortured body into carrying on! I’ve got an even break now. If I can keep it up I’ll get well. But I’d just as lief chuck the chance and beat you to Lundeen and Malpass.”

“You’d forestall me! Kill that outfit!” burst out Forrest, dreadfully.

“If you don’t give up that idea right now, for good and all, I’ll go after them,” declared Clifton, in cold ruthlessness. This was not a bluff, though he actually hoped he could intimidate his father. In his dark hours that ghastly desire had often abided with him.

“But, my Gawd! son, think of your mother!” ejaculated Forrest, appealing with his huge outstretched hands. “It nearly killed her when you were over there. An’ now that she’s got you back...Aw, Cliff, it’s not to be thought of for you!”

“Sure it isn’t,” rejoined Clifton, eagerly seizing upon victory. “That’s why I say you can’t think of it, either. One or the other of us — it’s all the same to mother.”

“All right, son, I crawl,” said Forrest, huskily, and covered his face with his hands.

A step on the leaves and a clink of spurs arrested Clifton’s thankful response to his father’s surrender. It was a victorious, happy moment. Clifton turned to see the red-faced cowboy from Cottonwoods.

“Howdy!” he said, genially, and handed Clifton a note. It was a square white envelope upon which was inscribed his name in a clear handwriting Clifton had never seen. But instantly he recognized the faint fragrance that came with the missive. Clifton felt the hot blood leap to his face. He did not want to open the letter, but as the cowboy stood expectantly he had to do so. And he read it.

Clifton’s head seemed to swim. He tried to appear unconcerned, but if his confusion showed outwardly he must be making a sorry mess of it.

“All right. No answer,” he said to the cowboy. “How are things up on the hill?”

“Shure slow now with the hosses gone an’ no worrk.”

“Gone?”

“Shure. Malpass was afther sindin’ thim over to Watrous.”

Whereupon Clifton’s father evinced signs not wholly lost upon the cowboy.

“I sympathize with you,” said Clifton, with an understanding laugh. “I’m looking for a job myself.”

“Shure they’re scarce. Good day, sor,” replied the other, and strode away.

“Cliff, who was that?” queried Forrest, a peculiar glint coming to his big eyes.

“Con something or other. He used to come into the store for cigarettes.”

“But he’s employed by Malpass!” exclaimed the father.

“I think not, dad. It runs in my mind the young lady up there is his boss.”

“Lundeen’s girl! Was that letter from her?” asked Forrest, in a tragic voice.

“Yes, dad.”

“Hand it over. Let me read it.”

“See here, dad, it’s not polite to ask. And sure I wouldn’t let anyone read a private note. At that it doesn’t amount to much.”

“Cliff, you’re carryin’ on with Lundeen’s girl.”

“I am not.”

“You’re a liar! I can see it in your face. You got red as a beet. You acted queer. Now you’re white...By Gawd! if this ain’t the last straw!”

“Father!...I’m not a liar,” retorted Clifton, both hurt and angered. “There’s nothing between Virginia Lundeen and me. I can’t help it — if she asks me to do something for her. Believe me, that girl has her troubles.”

Forrest lumbered to his feet, his face blotched, his eyes like burned holes in a blanket.

“Wal, if all you came back home for was to get sweet on Lundeen’s girl — I wish you’d never come.”

He stalked away under the cottonwoods. Clifton was so stricken with mortification and fury that he could not call his father back. Little good that would have done! What a bull-headed old fool he was, anyhow! The mere mention of the name Lundeen made him see red.

Clifton reread the note and that was sufficient to relegate his father, and everybody else except Virginia, to oblivion. He guessed her trouble. But what could she want of him? Clifton felt suddenly weak. If she broached again the persecution to which Malpass and her father had subjected her, Clifton would ask her to marry him. Never could he resist that insidious, beautiful, terrible temptation again. To know that Virginia Lundeen was his wife! Even the conviction that she would only be using him as a checkmate against an unscrupulous wooer could not deprive the idea of its allurement.

The afternoon passed with Clifton in a trance. Every now and then, when a practical flash illumined his dreamy mind, he was amused at the romantic trend of his thoughts. He built a little drama in which he was the central figure. But he soon discovered that Virginia Lundeen played no small part in his imagined destiny. What a foolish dreamer he was!

When darkness came he went to his room, apparently to go to bed. He did not trust his father’s surly observance. Then he had to climb out of his window, no slight task for him, as the casement was narrow, and the distance to the ground considerable. But with the aid of a vine, and by careful labored work he accomplished it.

The hum of a motor car down the road had ceased. It had not occurred to Clifton that Virginia would come any other way than on horseback. He had forgotten about her horses being taken away. Another of Malpass’ scurvy tricks! Clifton hurried noiselessly under the cottonwoods. It was some distance to the corner of the wall.

Clifton did not want to be discovered by his father, for Virginia’s sake as well as his own. So he stopped to listen and look back. All was dark and still in the direction of the house. But he waited a moment longer to insure safety. What a wonderful summer night! The stars blazed, the breeze sighed, the insects hummed, the frogs sent high trills tremulously out into the drowsy air.

Hurrying on again, Clifton soon began to draw close to the corner. His footsteps made no sound. Under the cottonwoods the shadow was impenetrable, but in the open a new moon and the starlight painted a pale silver against the black background. When he reached the spot he was out of breath, but his exertion was not responsible for the throbbing of his heart in his throat.

“Virginia,” he called, very low, trying to pierce the strange shadows.

“Oh — Cliff!” she cried, in almost a gasp. “I was afraid — you weren’t coming.”

He could almost have touched her, and in two more steps his groping hand found her.

“Sorry I’m late,” he whispered. “But I was afraid of dad. He was with me when the cowboy brought your note...I had to climb out of my window like a girl sneaking to meet her lover.”

“You did? How funny! Yet it’s great,” she replied, thrillingly, and she squeezed his hand. “Which room is yours? Oh, maybe I don’t remember that old house!”

“I sleep in the little room you used to have.”

“Oh, Cliff — how strange!” she murmured, after a pause. “But how did you ever get out of that little window and down?”

“I managed somehow, but it was a squeeze.”

“You might have hurt yourself!”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“How many, many times I stole out of that little room!”

“Not to meet boys, I hope?”

“No, never that. But just to get out — to be free and wild in the moonlight under the cottonwoods.”

“Virginia, let’s get away from this trail,” he said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than to have my dad catch us.”

“Except to have my dad do it,” she returned. Her laugh was rich and deep, with a note of defiance.

Clifton led her away from the corner, under the giant hollow cottonwood to the wall, where he had to feel his way to a seat he well knew.

“Here we’re safe, at least from our dads,” he said, responding to her mood. “Sit down, Virginia. It’s dry and soft. You can lean against the wall.”

She complied, but she was significantly slow about letting go of his hand; and after that she was silent so long that he wondered. But he had no desire to break the silence.

“Cliff, how would it be if our fathers did not hate each other?”

“How would what be?”

“You are surely unromantic, Cliff Forrest,” she retorted.

“I dare say. I had it knocked out of me. But if you mean our — our queer friendship — I’d say it wouldn’t have any kick.”

“Has this a kick for you?” she asked, challengingly.

“It will have, darn pronto, if dad catches us,” he laughed.

“No! Would that great hulking brute dare kick you?”

“I should smile...Virginia, would your nice, loving, angel dad dare — well, let us say, spank you?”

“He would not,” she retorted, and there the levity ended.

Clifton’s eyes had become used to the darkness and could see her clearly, though mystically softened and paled by the moonlight. She removed her hat.

“Were you surprised to get my note?” she added, presently.

“I’d have been surprised in any case, but with dad there watching me read it I was sure flabbergasted.”

“First, Cliff, I want to tell you that I know Malpass burned your store, or had it done.”

“How do you know?”

“I accused him — sprung it on him by surprise. And he might just as well have confessed it.”

“You don’t say! Virginia, you don’t lack nerve...Well, I had a hunch myself that Malpass put some greaser at that job.”

“Was your loss considerable?” asked Virginia, sympathetically.

“For me, it surely was. Do you know, Virginia, I’d have made good in that store. Of course the big sale I made to your friends and Malpass would have been responsible. I invested all the money in new stock; filled the store, and had a lot of grub left over, which fortunately I stored here in the house. I’ll bet it’ll come handy this winter.”

“Cliff, I’m broke, except for a few dollars, and at the end of my rope,” announced Virginia.

“Good Lord! You broke? Why, I heard in town that you spent barrels of money.”

“I did, and now I wish I’d hid some of it in a barrel...Cliff, father and Malpass together have made away with my fortune. They’ve taken my horses back to Watrous. I learned only recently that the ranch over there belongs to Malpass. It wouldn’t surprise me to find I couldn’t recover my horses.”

“Well, the dirty crooks!” replied Clifton, coolly. “I reckon they’re trying to break you to Malpass’ harness.”

“Indeed they are. Father is desperate. Swears he’ll have to kill Malpass unless I give in. And Malpass — well, he has insulted me outrageously.”

“How?” queried Clifton, feeling the hot blood rush to his head.

“We were alone at breakfast. This was after his return with dad from town. Malpass must have put on the screws during this absence. Anyway, when I cut him short he showed the cloven hoof. He could throw dad in jail and would do it. I think among other things I called him a greaser...It ended in his seizing me. Oh, he was a beast. I was paralyzed with disgust and surprise. He kissed me a number of times before I could break loose.”

“My God! Virginia, that’s terrible! Somebody ought to kill him. Your father should — —”

“Father has lost every semblance to manhood.”

“Virginia, what are you going to do?” queried Clifton, anxiously.

“I don’t know. I told you I’d reached the end of my rope.”

“Well, suppose you marry me?” broke out Cliff, almost involuntarily. “If he touches you again I’ll horsewhip him. And if that doesn’t stop his greaser tricks I’ll kill him.”

After a penetrating quiet, Virginia asked, in changed tone, “Cliff, do you really mean it?”

“Of course I do, Virginia. Reckon I’d have done it before if I’d known you were in such straits...That’ll give me the right to protect you...If you can keep it secret from your father the — the marriage need not be anything but a safeguard. Knowing it — that you can block their schemes any minute — will help you through it. At least you won’t be in such fear of being dragged into a hateful marriage...Something will happen sooner or later. All you need is time. Malpass will hang himself sure. He’s not the kind of a man who can play a game long...Then, you have only to get your freedom. As to that, Virginia, I may not last very long — —”

“Hush!” she whispered, putting a soft palm to his lips. Presently she sank back against the wall, and even in the deceiving light Clifton could see her suppressed emotion.

“Virginia, I dare say there are weak spots in my argument. But I make the offer.”

“You are my dearest — my only friend,” she said. “I accept — Clifton.”

“You will marry me?”

“Yes.”

Clifton tried to fill aching lungs that appeared empty. “Very well. How can we arrange it?”

She seemed buried in deep thought that he could feel.

“I have it,” she cried, suddenly, with an exultant note in her excited voice. “I’ll drive to town tomorrow. I’ll get the marriage license from the county clerk. I know I can persuade him to keep our secret. Then I’ll go to the new minister. I can persuade him, too. You meet me here tomorrow night at about this time. Perhaps a little earlier. And perhaps you’d better walk down the road from the corner. I’ll drive back to town with you...We’ll be married. And I’ll get you home without anyone being the wiser...What do you think of that plan?”

“Fine, if you can pull it off,” he replied, trying in vain to speak lightly.

“Then it’s — settled.” She rose rather hurriedly. “I’d better go now...Tomorrow night it won’t matter if I am late. — Nothing will matter.”

“Virginia,” he replied, gravely, as he stood up, “I’m bound to advise you that if we’re caught it will matter.”

“We won’t be caught — and if we were I’d laugh.”

“I wouldn’t...How far is your car?”

“Just a step. I’ll go alone.”

“No, I’d rather you didn’t.”

He followed her out through the break in the wall and up the dark trail until she halted in the gloom of a thicket along the road. Then he saw the car. She looked up and down the road, listened a moment, then stepped into the automobile.

“Good night, Cliff. Tomorrow!” she said, turning on the lights.

“Yes, tomorrow,” he replied, thickly. How abruptly she had ended the interview! It seemed to him she avoided his outstretched hand. Then the engine whizzed, the car lurched, and he stood alone, watching a swiftly vanishing red light. He faced about to enter the trail and plod homeward, now aware of the dark melancholy Western night.

Chapter Ten

CLIFTON SECURED WORK at Watrous, in the Landis General Merchandise store, which, during the heydey of the cattle industry, had done a large business, but now had fallen into the hands of a creditor who was hard put to it to make ends meet.

His job as accountant was a trying one for Clifton. He did not shine at figures and to be chained to a desk indoors seemed no less than purgatory. But he had to work and was grateful for anything.

Watrous lay out on the range at some distance from San Luis. Clifton, however, preferred to go and come each day. To this purpose he had bargained with a Mexican for a rickety Ford, which he had genius and persistence enough to make reach its destination twice daily.

The very first day at Watrous, at the noon hour of which Clifton took advantage to get out into the open air, he saw Virginia and her cowboys driving a bunch of beautiful horses through town on the way to Cottonwoods. Virginia certainly did her share of the driving. She looked the part of a cowgirl and rode it. Clifton watched her out of sight, and deep within him his secret glowed like the heart of an opal. She was his wife and he wanted to cry it out to the range.

No doubt that secret was the spring of the resistance with which he kept at his task. In his store at San Luis he could rest and sleep and dream the hours away, and thereby he had very gradually gained strength. But this was a different kind of a job. The books were behind and in a state that engaged his energy to the limit. At the end of a week he was on the down grade, and knew it. He was not, however, in the least discouraged. He would stick it out as long as he could.

August passed. He did not see Virginia again nor hear from her, both of which circumstances apparently indicated a favorable condition. At first Clifton had feared that the fact of their marriage would leak out; and he both dreaded it and gloried in it. But no hint of its being suspected ever came to him. The condition of his father and mother had gradually improved; and though happiness held aloof, it did not seem that this would be so forever. Clay Forrest brooded less and harvested the garden he had planted. And he stayed away from Las Vegas. This was a most welcome fact to Clifton. In town Forrest drank and harangued with other old cattlemen who had seen better days, and when he came home he was dark, moody.

Clifton feared he would not be able to carry on much longer. In the mornings he would feel fresh and equal to several hours’ work, but by noon he was working on his will-power, and by night he was “shot to pieces,” as he called it. Still he refused to give up, and began his second month at Watrous.

One morning, as Clifton bent over his desk, he heard Mr. Hartwell, his employer, enter the office with some one whom he very volubly made welcome. They passed close to Clifton, who, without raising his eyes, caught a glimpse of shiny high-top boots and tight, immaculate riding-breeches that gave him a sharp start. It was not necessary to look up to recognize Malpass, even before the suave voice, a moment later, told him doubly who this visitor was.

“It’s a particular job, Hartwell,” Malpass was saying, and he slapped his boot-tops with his whip. “Expect to be married to my partner’s daughter soon, and spend the winter in the South. I’d want to start building here upon my return in early spring. You will have ample time to get all the materials here. I’m giving you this large order because, as I expect to live in Watrous, I want to patronize men who’ll be my neighbors.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Malpass,” replied Hartwell, deferentially, almost with gratitude. “I’ll go over these orders very carefully, an’ guarantee delivery in time, at lower figures than you could get in Las Vegas.”

“Later I’ll mail you orders for lumber to build barns, corrals, and — —”

Malpass ceased abruptly, and Clifton awakened to the fact that his ears were tingling.

“Who is that?” spoke up Malpass, in a lower, changed voice.

“Where?”

“There — at the desk.”

“That’s my bookkeeper,” replied Hartwell, also in lower tone. “Fine young man. Shot up bad in France. Name’s Forrest.”

“Aha! I thought so. Used to live at Cottonwoods.”

“I don’t know. You see, I’m a newcomer here. His father’s name is Clay Forrest.”

“Well, you can fire him right now, or consider my order canceled,” returned Malpass, peremptorily.

“Why — Mr. Malpass! Do you know anything to his discredit?”

“I do.”

“Indeed! I’m very sorry. We got along fine. But, of course, I’ll discharge him. I wish to serve you, an’ I wouldn’t keep any help you disapproved of.”

“If Lundeen should happen to come in here to see you employed a Forrest he’d walk out and never enter your place again. He’s in town, too. Rode over with me. You’d better get rid of this wounded soldier here.”

“Reckon I will, at once,” replied Hartwell, hurriedly.

Clifton leaped up with a bursting gush of hot blood.

“Save your breath, Mr. Hartwell. I quit,” he declared, passionately.

“I’m sorry, Forrest. I’d have had to let you go. Mr. Malpass assures me he knows somethin’ to your discredit, an’ I — —”

“He’s a damned liar,” interrupted Clifton, stalking to the rack for his hat and coat. “And you will live to regret the day you listened to him.”

Malpass carried off his part exceedingly well. Manifestly his last encounter with Clifton was uppermost in his mind, and he looked cool, contemptuous. There shone, however, a deep hot gleam in his sloe-black eyes.

“Forrest, if you weren’t a poor empty sack of a soldier I’d slap your face,” he said, and he spoke loudly, not averse to being heard by listening clerks and customers.

But for this, Clifton might have controlled his fury in time and gotten out.

“It’d be a sorry slap for you, Señor Malpass...Of all the rotten tricks I ever heard of, this is the rottenest. To have me thrown out of a two-bit job! It wasn’t enough for you to hire one of your greasers to burn up my store at San Luis. You’ve got to hound me here and put Hartwell against me.”

“Ha! — Hartwell, you can easily see what the war did to Forrest,” laughed Malpass. “He’s gone mentally, too.”

Hartwell came slowly forward, plainly perturbed. Clifton had gotten outside of the office rail, into the store proper.

“Young man, you’re making a plumb wild statement,” said Hartwell.

“Not so wild, when you know Señor Malpass. He’s a liar and I’m not. That’s all, and I’ll live to prove it.”

Then Clifton realized he was in for battle. Remembering Malpass’ reaction in their former encounter, he saw that he did not intend to let this pass, unless Clifton fled. That indeed was the last thing Clifton would think of. He backed against a counter littered with leather accouterments for horsemen, and his quick eye caught sight of a long black whip, the kind used by teamsters. Clifton would far rather have had a gun within reach, but this weapon would serve.

“You take that back, you white-faced beggar!” ordered Malpass. He snarled, but he did not yet give way to undue anger. His play was to impress the bystanders, and whatever he intended to do, he showed confidence.

“Make me take it back, you yellow-faced greaser millionaire,” retorted Clifton, feeling the surge of released restraint. “You burned up my little store — all I had to make a living. Now you bully Hartwell to fire me! You’d like to see me and my poor old robbed father and mother starve. I said robbed. Do you get that? I said it and you know it. What’s more, Virginia Lundeen — —”

“Shut up!” hissed Malpass, and he struck Clifton across the mouth. “I beat you once...I’ll do it again, if you dare speak my sweetheart’s name.”

The blow made Clifton cold and steady with a realization that something terrible was about to happen.

“Sweetheart?” he laughed, jeeringly. “You poor conceited ass! Money has gone to your head...Virginia Lundeen despises you. How could she be your sweetheart — you damned half-breed?...How, I say — when she’s my wife?”

Malpass was lunging when the word, more astonishing and stunning than a blow, halted him almost off his balance.

“Wife!” he choked out.

“Yes, my wife.”

“You’re crazy.”

Clifton, appalled at what passion had led him to, realized he was driven to prove his statement. With a sense of fatality — a feeling that he was betraying Virginia — he whipped out his marriage certificate and shoved it under Malpass’ nose.

“Forgery!” gasped Malpass, his lips white.

“Who wrote that?...Don’t you recognize the handwriting?...Virginia Lundeen!”

Malpass indeed read his defeat in that quivering paper. He seemed staggered by an incredible, insupportable catastrophe. His eyes of black fire followed the certificate as Clifton folded it and replaced it in his pocket. Then they blazed at Clifton, comprehending that a gigantic hoax had been perpetrated upon him. And suddenly the rest of his features kept pace with the hell in his eyes. Calling Virginia a vile name, he cut Clifton across the face with his riding-crop.

Clifton had his right hand behind him gripping the handle of the teamster’s whip. With all his might he swung it. Like a pistol report it cracked and like a black snake it curled round Malpass’ neck. The man let out a strangled yell. Clifton jerked so hard on the whip that he threw Malpass to his knees. Up he sprang nimbly, to ply his crop upon Clifton’s head, in short, hard strokes, the last of which knocked Clifton flat and also broke the bone handle of the crop.

Panting and malignant, Malpass put his right hand to his hip pocket. Hartwell shouted in affright. The other onlookers, exclaiming incoherently, scattered from behind Clifton, who again swung the whip viciously. It streaked out, snakelike, to crack across Malpass’ face. As if by magic a red stripe leaped out. Malpass screamed, true to the stronger half of his blood.

“Shoot, you greaser!” yelled Clifton. There was a fierce joy in this encounter. It liberated passion that must slowly have dammed up. He began to dance around Malpass, suddenly to attack with his whip.

Malpass drew a small automatic gun and hurriedly shot. Clifton ducked at the flash. The bullet hit a man behind, who fell, yelling: “My God! I’m shot!...Help! Help!”

Instead of going to his assistance, the others broke pellmell and ran. Hartwell dodged behind a counter. None of them could escape from the store because at the moment Clifton was dodging back and forth across the doorway that led into the street. The place was in an uproar. Men came running from outside.

Clifton spoiled Malpass’ aim by swift blows with his whip. But Malpass kept on shooting, breaking windows, scattering bullets into the wall. His eyes protruded, horrible with murderous intent. Then another slash of the whip appeared to obliterate those eyes, as if a purple band had crossed them. Malpass was momentarily blinded. He screamed maledictions in Spanish, and shot again. Clifton felt a light shock, as from a puff of air. The long blacksnake whip darted out and the end curled round Malpass’ extended hand that held the gun. It held fast as if it had been knotted. Malpass was shooting at random. Clifton pulled with both hands on the whip, swinging Malpass helplessly, to stumble over an obstruction and fall heavily. The gun flew out of his grip. Clifton got the whip loose, and swung it aloft with both hands, and brought it down hissing hot. Malpass shrieked, and flopped over on his face, to huddle against the floor.

Clifton beat him until the whip dropped from his spent hands. Then he staggered out of the store to the sidewalk. Men and boys, whom he saw but indistinctly, spread before him. Some one, whose voice he recognized, took his arm and steadied him along the street a few rods to where his car was parked. Clifton stumbled in and hung over the wheel.

But he did not lose consciousness, though his sight was dim and his hearing imperfect. Still it became obvious to him that a crowd was collecting, and this goaded his fainting spirit. With shuddering, desperate effort he wiped away the blood that flowed from a cut on his forehead into his eyes, and then started the car. Soon he had left Watrous behind, and once out in the open country he ran off the road into a clump of cedars, to rest and recover.

He came near to collapse, yet the effort had carried him over that point, and gradually he approached something like physical normality. Then he became aware of painful welts upon his face, and his right hand and wrist, where Malpass’ crop had fallen. His shirt was wet and at first he thought it came from sweat. But it was blood. Malpass had shot him, after all.

A bullet wound meant little to Forrest. He did not even search for this one, nor care whether or not it might be fatal. He was not conscious of any pain. At length he felt blood trickling down inside his shirt, both front and back, on his right side. As it did not appear to be a copious flow, he concluded the wound was high up on his shoulder, cutting through the fleshy part on top. Already his handkerchief was soaked, so he did not have anything to serve as a pad over the hole.

He rested over his wheel, and by degrees thought impinged upon his sensorial perceptions. He knew he had been in a fight, but what was the cause and what had happened? Virginia had wanted to keep their marriage a secret until she could use the fact of it as a last resource. Clifton had promised not to reveal it under any circumstances. He had failed utterly. He had not counted on unbearable provocation nor the unknown quantity of jealousy. Almost he wished Malpass’ bullet had finished him at once.

What would come of this, he wondered, as his mind quickened. He had accused Malpass of burning his store. He had flaunted the fact of his marriage. He had passionately resented the vile name the mad Malpass had called Virginia, and he had beaten him into unconsciousness. If that whip had been a gun Malpass would never wake in this world.

Clifton plodded on in his deductions. Hartwell and others besides Malpass had heard his assertion about Virginia being his wife. Likewise they had seen the marriage certificate. He had betrayed Virginia. That fight would become range gossip before the day had passed. And if Malpass had killed a man with the random shot there would be court proceedings. Alas! to what a pass his passions had brought him!

Presently he raised his head, and starting the Ford, he drove out of the cedars, back onto the road. It was about all he could do to hang to the wheel. But for its support he would have fallen over. The few miles to San Luis seemed vast and hateful distance, never to be surmounted.

Upon reaching the village he stopped at the hut of an old Indian whom he knew, and who was a medicine-man of local note.

Clifton’s wound was a deep furrow in the shoulder muscle, and not serious. When bandaged with a soothing ointment he forgot it. The stripes on his face, however, were brands that could not be concealed. Nevertheless, with the blood washed off, and his coat well buttoned over his shirt, he did not, at least, present a frightful appearance.

He wanted to get home, if possible, without encountering his father, and to get in without distressing his mother. And luck was with him, so far as those two were concerned, for he reached the house and got in unobserved. He was lying down in the shaded living-room when his mother came in. Her anxiety was easy to allay. But his father presented a different proposition, and Clifton welcomed the fact that delayed a meeting between them. He rested until the betraying faintness of his voice had gone.

Toward sundown, when his mother went out to prepare supper, his father came in, evidently having been informed that Clifton was home early and that all was not so well with him as it might have been.

“Howdy, son! an’ what ails you?” queried Forrest, gruffly, as his big eyes ran curiously over Clifton lying quietly on the couch.

“Why do you ask that?” returned Clifton, to try out his voice. It was pretty weak.

“Wal, you’re pale, except for them long marks, an’ I reckon I can smell blood,” replied his father, drawing a chair close up to Clifton. He was troubled and suspicious, but cool. There seemed to be little use trying to deceive him, especially as the gossip of his encounter would spread like wildfire in dry prairie grass.

“Dad, let’s keep all we can from mother?”

“Shore.”

“Well, to begin with, I’ve lost my job.”

Forrest nodded his shaggy head.

“Hartwell fired me.”

“What for?”

“Because my name happened to be Forrest...Malpass dropped in the store. He talked over orders for lumber, etc., for building he expects to do in the spring. Big job. All of a sudden he saw me, and he hit the roof.”

Forrest bent over Clifton with sudden intensity, his great eyes beginning to flare.

“He told Hartwell to fire me or he’d cancel the order.”

“Wal, if that wasn’t low-down! — An’ Hartwell did?”

“No. When he showed yellow I just quit...I made a couple of remarks to Malpass, but at that, dad, I meant to get out of the store to avoid trouble. I started out, backing out, in fact, and of course I kept shooting off my chin. Malpass backed me up against a harness counter...Well, he hit me first, with one of those bone-handled crops. I grabbed up a blacksnake whip and took after him. He pulled a gun. His first shot hit somebody who went down with a yell. Might have killed him, for all I know. Then I kept dodging and cracking him with the whip. And he kept shooting. Finally I whipped the gun out of his hand. He fell, and I beat him till I gave out...Somebody helped me to my car.”

“An’ how often an’ where did he shoot you?” asked Forrest, without emotion.

“One bullet nicked my shoulder. It’s nothing. But I’d rather mother doesn’t know.”

Forrest let out a rolling curse. “Hasn’t this Malpass got it in for you?”

“Sort of looks that way.”

“Why? He’s no Lundeen, an’ he’s never made any target of me. What’s he pick on you for?”

That happened to be the very thing Clifton dared not explain to his father, wherefore he lied.

“Looks damn queer to me,” replied Forrest, dubiously, with his ox-eyes piercing his son. “Reckon you didn’t kill him?”

“No. But I’ll bet he’ll have a little dose of what I’ve had so much.”

“Wal, if he killed somebody it sure strengthens our side. In any case it will stew up the Lundeen-Forrest deal good an’ hot. I’ll go to law.”

“I wouldn’t, dad. We haven’t any money, and we’d only get the worst of it,” advised Clifton.

“Wal, I don’t need any money. There’s a new lawyer come to Albuquerque. He’s young an’ he’s keen. Came out West for his health. I’ve had two conferences with him. An’ he said if I was tellin’ facts he could get my property back.”

“But, dad, how can you prove these facts?” expostulated Clifton.

“Wal, that’s the rub. But this last trick of Malpass’ will help. I’ll go to law.”

“I don’t think you’ve a ghost of a show. Suppose Lundeen did cheat? You were in deals with him. An’ you owed him money. Even a gambling debt is a debt. He got your property. And afterwards they struck silver. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

Forrest shook his head with dogged stubbornness. “Reckon you’ll never see it from my side of the fence. An’ I ain’t doubtin’ the reason.”

“What reason, dad? I’ve got a mind of my own.”

“Yes, an’ so has Virginia Lundeen,” returned Forrest, enigmatically. “I’ll bet I live to see the day somethin’ hatches between you two. But I hope I die before.”

“Dad, I’ve done the best I could do in a rotten situation,” said Clifton, resignedly.

The hum of a swift-running motor car came in at the open window, and what made Clifton note it was that it ceased abruptly. It had stopped outside. He groaned inwardly, sensing calamity. His father got up uneasily, and began to pace the room.

Soon quick footsteps struck Clifton’s ears. Then they sounded heavily on the porch. A powerful hand assailed the door. It swung in, as if irresistibly impelled.

Jed Lundeen stood on the threshold, his dark face and somber eyes indicative of mighty passions all but spent. Stamping in, he closed the door, and seemed to fill the room with his presence.

Clifton sat up. He knew what was coming. His father paled with more than amaze.

“Forrest, there’s shore hell to pay,” he announced, stridently.

“Wal, I’m lookin’ at you,” returned Forrest, in cold, sullen expectation. The mere sight of his old enemy had unleashed his passions.

“Forrest, I didn’t come heah to fight. But I’m packin’ somethin’ that’ll hit you harder’n any bullet.”

“Is Malpass dead?”

“No. But shore he’s darn near it. That war-crazy son of yours jumped him with a bull-whacker’s whip.”

“Lundeen, it was a plumb good job. An’ I wish it’d been better. Reckon you ain’t acquainted with facts. Malpass started the fight, an’ when it got too hot he throwed a gun. Shot Cliff, as you can see for yourself.”

Obviously that was astounding to Lundeen, and he required the confirmation of his own penetrating eyes. His regard, however, was one of icy indifference to the established fact. He had no word for Clifton.

“I’m inquirin’ if the other man Malpass shot is dead?” continued Forrest.

“Did he shoot some one else?” demanded Lundeen, hotly.

“Yes, by accident,” interposed Clifton. “He was aiming at me.”

“Fine chance that half-breed would have if a Westerner threw a gun on him instead of a whip,” added the older Forrest, scornfully.

“Malpass was aboot out of his haid. Maybe that accounts for his omissions. He raved an’ cursed.”

“Wal, Lundeen, if that’s all you’ve butted in here to say — —”

“I came sayin’ there was hell to pay, didn’t I?” interrupted Lundeen, harshly. “An’ there shore is. This slick son of yours, with his crippled-soldier sympathy bluff, is goin’ to pay it, too.”

“Leave out what you think my son is. It ain’t safe...What more has he done?”

“He married my girl, by God! That’s what!”

Forrest turned a dead white. “Say, you’re drunk, or crazier’n your crooked pardner. No son of mine would give the name Forrest to a Lundeen.”

“Ha! But he did, an’ though my Virginia takes the blame, the disgrace of it is just that. My lass has become a Forrest.”

“It’s a lie. Another of your plots,” shouted Forrest, his neck bulging purple. “An’ if it was so I’d swear the disgrace was suffered by the Forrests. But it’s an infernal lie.”

“Ask him.”

Forrest whirled a distorted face toward his son. “You hear him. Why don’t you nail his lyin’ talk?”

“Dad, it’s true,” replied Clifton.

Sudden death could scarcely have caused a ghastlier change in a strong man’s features and body. This was the last straw. The end of pride! The conclusive stab to bleeding vanity. Forrest fell into a chair, so abject, so beaten, that Clifton could look no more at him.

“Forrest, that’s why I’m heah,” said Lundeen, acidly. “Because it’s true, an’ I can’t change it. My daughter is of age. It couldn’t be kept secret an’ Virginia refused to hear of a divorce. She took the blame. She led your son on. Marriage with him was an escape from Malpass. I wanted a match between him an’ her. But she’d have none of him, an’ to keep out of it she aboot asked your son to marry. She knew he wasn’t long for this world, but long enough, maybe, to serve her turn...He’s dirt under her feet! She cared nothin’ on earth for him! You understand?”

“Lundeen, I reckon I do,” returned Forrest, hoarsely. “But I wouldn’t believe your oath on your knees before God...Clifton, is that last true?”

“Is what true?” echoed Clifton, his voice failing huskily.

“That this Lundeen woman thinks you’re dirt under her feet.”

“Dad, I don’t believe that. She’s too big for hate. She’s kind. But I think she cared nothing for me.”

“You think!” returned Lundeen, dark in passion. “You need to be damn shore you know, young man. I’m tellin’ you. I choked it out of her. If she’d confessed to love of you I’d have killed her with my own hands.”

Clifton slowly sank back against the wall. And the brutal speech that crushed his tired heart had an opposite effect upon his father, who rose in a single upheaval, and towered erect.

“Tell this man Lundeen you had no use for his daughter! You did a manly act to save her from a schemin’ half-breed! No more. Tell him quick!”

Clifton had seen his mother open the door part way, to disclose a terrified face. It steadied him. He must prevent bloodshed here, and if the quarrel between these blinded foes went farther it would end in tragedy. He would have perjured his soul to save his mother any more agony.

“Dad is right, Mr. Lundeen, I just wanted — to help Virginia.”

“That’s good, then, on both sides, if any good could come out of an impossible relation,” replied Lundeen, a visible break in his relentlessness. “Forrest, I gave my daughter a choice: either to divorce your son or get out of my house.”

“Ahuh,” muttered Forrest.

“She chose to get out,” concluded Lundeen, thickly.

“Wal, they never fooled me,” rejoined Forrest, in an acrid melancholy tone. “An’ I’m not givin’ my son any choice.”

“Shore you’re not,” retorted his enemy, with strong sarcasm. “You’re bankin’ on him gettin’ money through Virginia. An’ you’ll die hopin’.”

“Lundeen, you always was low-down white trash from the South. You couldn’t savvy a Westerner. My son gets no choice. He gets out.”

Both fathers, gray with passion, implacable, clutched in the vise of their hate, turned a haggard gaze upon Clifton.

He rose to take his father’s pronouncement.

“Young man, you’re no more son of mine. Get out!” thundered Forrest, and the gray shaded black.

“Dad!” cried Clifton.

But the outcry was involuntary. And an instant afterward Clifton had a revulsion of emotion. His sluggish blood regurgitated to his cold veins.

“You’re a couple of fine fathers,” he lashed out, pitilessly on fire. “If you had any guts you’d play the game like men. You fight, and impose your hate upon two innocent young people who have the misfortune to be of your blood...Lundeen, it’s no wonder Virginia sought the protection of even a poor, crippled, and now homeless man. You’re no father. You’re no better than the greaser dog you’d give her to. For money and greed!...Now I’ve one more word. You and Malpass stay clear of me.”

Then Clifton vented the climax of his accumulated wrath upon his ashen-faced parent.

“I’ll get out. And I’ll never come back. You’re not only wicked, but a doddering old idiot. Locked in your insane hate of anything Lundeen! If you ever were a Forrest you’ve lost the thing that made you one. You, not I, have brought the name down.”

Clifton stalked to the door of the hall leading to his room, and stepped up. But the white heat of his anger demanded more. He faced them again.

“I lied to you. I love Virginia with all my heart and soul. And it’d be retribution for you both if she came to love me the same way. I pray to God she will...I’ll not die! I’ll live so that she may!...Now, you cowards, go out and kill yourselves!”

Chapter Eleven

THE FORTIFICATION OF secret marriage far exceeded Virginia’s vacillating hopes. For while making up her mind to this grave and uncertain step, she had been both inspired and frightened. It turned out, however, that in her most sanguine moments she had not realized its true portent. She was saved from the peril of a despicable alliance. She had only to safeguard herself from being shamed again by physical violence.

Therefore she gained a tranquillity of mind she had not experienced since her arrival home. She laid clever plans to avoid Malpass and adhered to them, while waiting for the end of August, at which time she was to visit Ethel in Denver. She took her meals to suit the convenience of her mother. When she went to Watrous to get her horses, and on rides thereafter, she made sure to be accompanied by Con and Jake. She avoided the living-room and the porch except when her father or mother was present. She was always careful to lock herself in her rooms.

Thus, when Malpass approached, she had him at a disadvantage. He knew it was intentional and chafed under the restrictions. Sometimes, even before her father, he would attempt to further his suit, but Virginia found countering these advances interesting if not stimulating. She mystified the vain courtier, whose Latin blood boiled at restraint. On several occasions she amused her father, who gradually grew less hearty in his championship of Malpass. She deceived both men, in that she did not seem to be absolutely unattainable. Evidently Lundeen had wearily retrenched to a wearing down process. But Malpass labored under not only the hot impatience of a lover, but also the growing doubts of a man whose intelligence had begun to operate against his vanity. Now and then Virginia caught a veiled gleam in his eyes that caused her to bless Clifton Forrest and to renew her unending vigilance. Malpass was capable of resorting to anything.

Several weeks went by. Mrs. Lundeen’s health did not improve, and plans were effected to send her to Atlanta for the winter, to visit her old home and relatives. Virginia approved of this, but it meant that she must prolong her own absence from Cottonwoods. Still, the immediate present was all that she could meet adroitly. The future would take care of itself.

Her attitude of mind toward Clifton was something over which she had no control. The meeting with him that night, her monstrous deceit, the calm, barefaced carrying-out of an apparent marriage of convenience when she loved him more every moment — these thrilling things could not be barred from consciousness, never by day and seldom by night. She resisted numberless temptations to drive here or there in the hope of accidentally seeing him. Her woman’s heart told her that he was big and fine and good, that he would win his battle against any odds of health or fortune, that when the differences of the Lundeens and Forrests were settled — as some day they must be — she might find his love.

One morning Virginia, with her cowboy escorts, started out to see the silver mine which had played such an important and mystifying part in the affairs of Forrest, Lundeen, and Malpass.

Virginia had ridden up there often, especially in early years when it was merely an abandoned mine, picturesquely located and romantically significant with Spanish legend. Con had seen it. But Jake, range-rider though he was, had never been there since the rediscovery of silver.

Now it chanced that Jake, according to his own version, was something of an authority on minerals. He had prospected, on and off, while riding the range, all over that section of the country. This information had come in answer to Virginia’s queries, which had been instigated by a thought-provoking remark of Jake’s. “Wal, I’m from Missouri an’ I gotta be showed. Never took much stock in thet Padre Mine.”

Added to this was the significance of the fact that Malpass had lately ceased to have the Padre worked. Once more it had become an abandoned mine. Any move whatever of Malpass’ roused distrust in Virginia. Her father had been considerably upset by the assurance that the mine had “petered out,” as Malpass called it. After the first large profit, the several others had been considerably smaller, and dwindling. Virginia was interested to get the keen range-rider’s opinion of the late operations at Padre.

The morning was glorious. Early fall on the slope of New Mexico was a time to conjure with. High up, the frost had tinted the vines in the hollows, the brush along the gray rocky defiles, the aspens at timber line above. Against these, and the bleached white of the old grass, the cedars and piñons stood out in their straggling isolation. Above it all loomed the great black-belted bulk of rock, raggedly sharp against the sky.

Virginia, as she rode up the trail, did not look back. Time enough for that heart-stirring risk on the return trip! Cottonwood Valley must already be exposed from this height, a glowing, multi-colored level set down amid the range slopes; and the rambling Spanish house, with its white and red, its trellises and arches, must be looking up at her, reminding her that she dare not love it more; and then, far down to the west, along the fringed line where the yellowing cottonwoods met the gray sage rise of ground, her old adobe home which now sheltered one grown strangely precious.

She was riding Dusk, not one of her spirited racers, but treasured because of his easy gait and sure foot and gentle disposition. Virginia was not running wildly over the range these days. Getting thrown upon her head might have meant a swift and merciful termination of her troubles, but for reasons she did not confess to herself life had become suddenly unfamiliarly sweet, full, marvelous, all-pervading.

In due time they arrived at Padre Mine, to find, to Virginia’s disappointment, that its former picturesque charm had given place to sordid ugliness. A hideous slash had been cut in the beautiful grove of juniper, piñon, and cedar. High up the slope the brook had been choked into a rough chute, now broken and down in places. The willows that once had graced the little pool, where legend recorded the padres were wont to drink, were gone along with the glancing water. Flowers and sage were not. Tracks and trestles, dumps of clay and rock, seepings of russet-colored water from denuded banks, bleak sheds with galvanized iron roofs, and rusting machinery littered around, and piles of tar-coated pipe attested to the approach and desertion of destructive men.

“Wal, wouldn’t the old padres turn over in their graves?” asked Jake, with a mirthless grin, as he surveyed the scene.

“They surely would,” returned Virginia, ruefully. “Now, Jake, we’ll play that I am a prospective buyer with very little cash and you are an expert adviser.”

“Shure it looks loike a dump outside of Noo Yoark,” put in Con.

“Miss Virginia, I reckon you’d better find a shady place an’ wait,” advised Jake.

“But I want to poke around,” she replied, dismounting. “You boys needn’t bother about me. I’ll not crawl in any holes or walk out on a trestle.”

“Con, bring your flashlight,” directed Jake. “It’ll be dark in the tunnel.”

“If you don’t moind, I’ll sthay out,” returned Con as he clambered down after the business-like Jake.

Virginia was left to her own resources. On previous occasions she had ridden up by the trail, merely casting curious and disgusted glances at the jumble of wood, iron, and earth, trying to piece them together into the idea of silver production. This time she followed an intuitive prompting which seemed at once both strong and illusive. She was on a tour of inspection. Her father had informed her lately that the failure of this mine had killed extravagant hopes. Her own large income had formerly come from this source. Virginia’s opinion was that Lundeen, after running cattle all his life, was no judge of mining ventures.

She inspected every place she could get at, and did not mind exertion or rust or dirt. And after she had thoroughly tired herself she concluded this mine, once famous in legend if never in productiveness, was nothing but a conglomeration of clapboards, old iron, tracks and trestles, and various shades of drab naked earth. She repaired to the only shade tree on the bench, and there sat down to rest. From here the valley below was not in sight, but the distant range spread out to the dim mountains, compelling and beautiful.

Her reverie and gaze might have been more pleasant if she had been far removed from this spot desecrated and despoiled by Malpass. She could not quite forget it and that an insistent and insatiable distrust of the man had led her there. She was glad when she espied the cowboys emerge from under the brow of a slanting bank of clay and climb back to the horses. Their faces were hot and their clothes, especially their knees, had come in contact with something like chalk, and their boots were splashed with red mud. Seeing Virginia under the tree, they led the horses up to her.

“Wal, Miss Virginia, shore an Irishman is scared more of the dark than a nigger,” observed Jake, complacently, as he dropped the bridles and sat down to remove his sombrero.

“Oi’m sayin’ no nigger would ever have follered you where I went,” responded Con.

“You both look spooky,” laughed Virginia.

“Miss, I’m plumb curious,” went on Jake, now serious. “Did Mr. Lundeen ever employ any white men on this minin’ job?”

“Father never employed anybody. Malpass did all that. I remember there used to be complaints on father’s part. Malpass hired none but Mexicans. And as I understood it, the work suffered for this reason. Inefficient boys running engines, and — oh, I can’t recall much. I do remember that no consistent work was carried on, much to father’s annoyance.”

“Wal, between you an’ me an’ Con here I don’t believe there ever was any work carried on.”

“What!” ejaculated Virginia, sitting up with a jerk. “Why, Jake, it appears to me endless work went on here! Look! At the sheds, the tracks, the old cars, the trestles, the piles of pipe, the flumes, and hills after hills of rock, gravel, clay, all dug out of the ground.”

“Shore it took work to do thet, an’ a mighty sight of it, but what I’m alludin’ to is miners’ work. All this packin’ an’ buildin’ an’ diggin’ was done for nothin’.”

“But, Jake, many thousands of dollars came out of that hole,” asserted Virginia, emphatically.

“Then, by gosh! it was shore planted there beforehand,” returned Jake, bluntly.

“What an extraordinary statement!” ejaculated Virginia, her receptive mind whirling with conjectures and imaginings.

“It is — sort of,” admitted Jake, scratching his close-cropped head. “But doggone me — thet’s my idee...Miss Virginia, I’ve seen a heap of mines. I spent some years over around Silver City. An’ I’ve been in Colorado. I know how mines are worked. I’d bet a million there was never an ounce of silver came out of this hole.”

“Jake, on what do you base that positive opinion?”

“Because I couldn’t find a single trace of silver. But look here!”

He opened his huge palm, in which had been crumpled a bit of paper. When he carefully unfolded and smoothed it out Virginia’s astonished sight recorded a number of grains and specks of gold.

“Gold! — Where on earth did they come from?” demanded Virginia, much mystified.

“Where! Haw! Haw! Wal, they came out of the earth an’ not from on it.”

“Jake, I know I’m stupid, but please explain.”

“Wal, back in the mine there are holes thet were made by blasts. Some heavy ones shore. I’ll bet no miners were inside when they shot them. Must have clogged up the shaft. I ought to have told you how a number of shafts run off from the main tunnel. No sense or reason in them, accordin’ to my figgerin’, except to make more shafts...Wal, I thought of somethin’, an’ I crawled into one of the biggest blast holes, higher’n my head an’ wide as a room. I filled an old pan I found with loose earth an’ shale. Fetchin’ it out to the light, I shook an’ blew the heavy parts away. We used to call this dry pannin’. When I got out of wind Con took a turn, an’ shore he’s windy enough to be a glass-blower. Result was we got down to these few grains of gold.”

“And what does all this prove?” queried Virginia, in breathless interest.

“Wal, when all’s said it proves nothin’ thet I can prove,” returned Jake, in perplexity. “I know what I think. We shore found this little trace of loose gold. There it is in your hand. But I’d bet a lot nature never put this gold in thet hillside.”

“You mean you believe gold like this — in large quantity, perhaps, was taken into the mine from outside?” asked Virginia, her mind quickening with many scintillating thoughts.

“Planted in there, Miss Virginia,” said Jake, very soberly. “Thousands of dollars in gold, mebbe. An’ then blasted! That would blow the gold fragments into the dirt an’ gravel an’ shale. It’s an old trick. But I never heerd of it in these parts.”

“An old trick!...To deceive? To raise greedy hopes? To blind? To give false and tremendous value to a worthless hole in the ground?”

“Miss Virginia, you’ve hit it plumb center...But I’m bound to tell you I may be wrong. Thet’s the hell — pardon, Miss, I’m some excited — but thet’s the wurst of it. The gold might have been there of its own an’ nature’s accord. I don’t believe so. It looks fishy to me. But I might be wrong.”

“Jake, could a mining expert prove positively whether this gold was planted there to defraud, or belonged there along with the other natural deposits?”

“He shore could,” asserted Jake, emphatically nodding his head. “But I’m weak on mineraloogy. Thet’s the weak point in most prospectors. They don’t know enough about the earth — geooloogy, they call it. They don’t know what to look for, or what they’ve found, unless they pick into the real shiny yellow stuff.”

“Boys, this is a very singular thing,” concluded Virginia, gravely. “It may mean nothing and then again it may mean a great deal...I’m asking you both on your word of honor to keep this secret with me?”

They solemnly promised in unison, and Virginia felt that she could trust them. With trembling fingers she carefully tied up the telltale grains of gold in a corner of her handkerchief and stowed it safely away, thinking the while of the strange result of a chance remark. But then, how alertly distrustful she was to anything pertaining to Malpass’ activities!

With this disturbance in her mind, she was ill prepared to face the downward journey, where all she loved eloquently intrigued her, from the green-gold blaze of the cottonwoods, from the white-walled, black-arched ranch house, from the little red adobe place she had always called home.

She feared Dusk found her loath to let him choose his leisurely way. And once down on the long bench above the ranch she put him to his best speed, making the delighted cowboys ride to keep up with her. There was something poignant in the cut of the cool, sweet wind.

Her habit of late had been to ride up the road, under the arched gates and through the court, to dismount at the porch, and turn her horse over to one of the cowboys.

This day she trotted Dusk in abruptly upon a scene of disorder and confusion. The court appeared full of strange cars and strange people. Virginia spurred Dusk clattering over the stones, and she leaped off at the porch landing. Jake, with a warning call, had just caught up to her and reached for her bridle.

Her father and a young man and Mr. Hartwell were lifting some one out of the car.

“Father, what has happened?” she cried out.

But no one heard her. They were all talking excitedly, and the Mexicans crowding about were exclaiming to their saints. Then Virginia saw Malpass’ boots, his white riding-breeches, and lastly his face — that she did not recognize. It appeared webbed with bloody stripes.

She clapped a hand to her lips too late to stifle a scream. Then, “My God! — is he dead?”

“Go into the house,” shouted her father.

Virginia had no idea of obeying, even had she been capable of moving. Her feet might as well have been cased in lead boots. A horrible chill attacked her within and froze pulse and vein. Her mind had flashed upon one appalling thought and there had congealed.

“Lundeen — drive them — away!” shrieked Malpass, and then he cursed and raved in Spanish.

Virginia nearly dropped with the instant release of her faculties from an icy compress. Suddenly she had a sensation not unlike the worst of seasickness.

Lundeen bellowed at the gaping employees of the house, at the drivers and occupants of the other cars.

“Hell’s fire! Get me — inside!” Malpass could not stand without the aid of the men who locked arms under his. He could not walk at all. They slid and dragged him. His thin coat and shirt were cut into ribbons. The olive ve tan of his neck showed a broad welt like a band of red velvet.

Following them, quaking and thrilling alternately, Virginia entered the wide hall, and then the living-room, where they laid Malpass back in an armchair. He called faintly for whisky. The chauffeur ran out. Lundeen rushed to the cabinet where he kept liquors. Hartwell endeavored to ease the stiff posture of the recumbent man. Virginia stood fascinated and horrified.

“Oh, father! What happened?”

“How the hell — do I know?” he quavered, his jaw wabbling.

“Miss Lundeen, there’s been a terrible fight,” said Hartwell.

“Between whom?” queried Virginia, her hand on her bursting heart. She did not need to ask. That heart told her what her fears wanted confirmed.

“Leave the room,” ordered Lundeen, hurrying with a glass full of red liquor that spilled over his shaking hand.

“No! She stays to hear this — by God!” hissed Malpass.

When he had gulped the whisky his head fell back, his eyes closed. And Virginia engaged all her forces in an effort to look clearly at him.

He presented a spectacle like a beaten beast. His stripped shirt was red with blood, whether from cuts on face and neck, or a wound not visible. The sleeves of coat and shirt were ripped back to the elbow, showing a wrist that looked as if it had been burned to the bone.

“Hartwell, who’n’ll’s to blame?” burst out Lundeen, throwing the empty glass back to crash on the cabinet.

“Cliff Forrest,” returned Hartwell, explosively.

“So help me Heaven! I reckoned so...How’d he do it?”

“Beat him with a bull-whacker’s whip. Beat him unconscious, Lundeen, an’ if Forrest hadn’t give out he’d have beat him to death.”

“For Gawd’s sake, why?”

Malpass stirred as if he had been pricked. His eyes opened. Under the swollen lids and the brand across his forehead they gleamed with most baleful luster.

“Hartwell, get out of here,” he ordered, in a stronger voice. “And keep your mouth shut — if you want my favors.”

“But if Mason dies, sir, they’ll make me talk. An’ he’s bad hurt,” replied Hartwell, nervously wringing his hands. “Besides, there were others present.”

“Wait then. Keep me posted.”

Hartwell mumbled a few incoherent words and beat a hasty retreat.

“August, hadn’t I better send to town for a doctor?” queried Lundeen, anxiously.

“No...I’m in agony, but only beaten, burned...It was a whip. Forrest jumped me with a whip.”

“He’ll go to jail,” boomed Lundeen.

“ ——  —— ! I’ll cut his heart out!”

Weakly, with strength infinitely less than his passion, he stretched the lacerated arm, and pointed a bloody hand and quivering finger at Virginia.

“You brazen hussy!”

Not the frenzied insult of his words but their connotation left Virginia stricken and mute.

“Heah!” shouted Lundeen, his paleness vanishing. “Have a care. You’ve shore cause to rave, but not — —”

“Lundeen, you’ll — kill her!” panted Malpass, his breast alternately lifting and sinking.

“Me! You’re wild, man. She’s my own flesh an’ blood.”

“That’s why...If you don’t kill her — you’ll curse her — throw her out...Then, by God! I’ll drag her down!”

Virginia flamed out of her petrifaction.

“Mr. Malpass, I make allowance for your condition. But you’re not quite insane. I tell you nothing you have done, or can do or say, will move me in the slightest.”

“I’ll drag you through mud!” he hissed, with a fiendish malignity.

Lundeen intervened, at least with semblance of self-control.

“Shut up, Virginia!” he ordered. “An’ you, Malpass, do the same or talk sense. What’s this all aboot?”

“Your loyal daughter is the wife of young Forrest.”

“What!” yelled Lundeen, leaping up as if at the sting of a lash.

“She’s married to Clifton Forrest. I saw the marriage certificate. He stuck it before my eyes!...Laughed in my face, the ——  —— !”

Lundeen sagged under the blow, though mind and body seemed to repudiate it. Slowly he turned to Virginia, his dry lips failing, his eyes strained in terrible question.

“Yes, I am Clifton’s wife,” answered Virginia, her voice ringing, her head lifting erect. The dénouement had been staggering, but she could recover to glory in it.

“Wife!...Lundeen-Forrest!...Married!...All the — time — you’ve been — married?”

“All the time lately — yes. All the time Mr. Malpass has been courting me so assiduously.”

“You she-devil!” Malpass screamed it, but his voice did not carry beyond the room.

Lundeen lifted a nerveless hand. His face was bloodless.

“Malpass, you fought Forrest aboot this — this marriage?”

In his agitation Malpass leaned forward, and though he spoke for Lundeen his snaky eyes scorched Virginia.

“It happened at Watrous. I went in to see Hartwell. Talked over building supplies. Mentioned my coming marriage with your daughter. Ha! Ha!...Then I espied young Forrest at a desk. Hartwell said he worked there. I asked to have him fired...Forrest got up and addressed me in a way no man can talk to me. If he hadn’t been a crippled soldier, I’d have shot him. But I tried to get past him. Then he shoved his marriage certificate under my nose — bragged of Virginia being his wife. She could never marry a half-breed!...I accused him of forgery. He made me read. I saw — recognized Virginia’s handwriting. Then I knew we’d been tricked...Damn you, Lundeen, for a doting old fool! You’re to blame for this...Forrest was red in the face. He swelled up like a toad before the clerks in the store — and others who came in. He wasn’t missing a chance to spread the news that Virginia Lundeen was his wife. That he would some day lord it over Cottonwoods!”

Lundeen made an implacable gesture of denial, more significant than any words.

“I struck Forrest — with my crop,” went on Malpass, hurriedly, now breaking from faintness, or fury. “He snatched a whip — off the counter — and — and beat me down.”

“Ahuh. An’ how aboot Mason, who’s bad hurt,” Hartwell said. “Where’d he come in?”

“I forgot. Before I went under — thinking Forrest would beat me to death — I pulled my gun. But I couldn’t shoot straight. He kept — slashing me with that infernal whip...I missed him — shot some other man — I saw him drop. It must — have been Mason.”

Malpass, clammy and haggard, sank limply back in the chair. Lundeen moved laboriously, as one under too great a strain for swift action, and lunging at Virginia he seized her with ruthless hands.

“Girl, you’ve ruined me.”

“Oh no, father. Don’t rave. Don’t be guided longer by this snake.”

“You’re the snake. I reckon I’ll kill you.” His big hands slipped up to her neck, and choking her convulsively he forced her to her knees. Limp and terror-stricken, unable to struggle, Virginia thought this must be the end. But he loosed his grip.

“She’s no Lundeen!” he snarled, evidently fighting some restraining voice.

“For God’s sake — father — don’t murder me!” entreated Virginia, gasping for breath. “You are beside yourself. Think of mother!”

“What’d you marry that hellion for?” he demanded, pierced by her supplication.

“To protect myself. Malpass and you — somehow would have forced me to marry him. I’d rather have died...It wasn’t a regular elopement...I was to blame. I almost begged Clifton to save me. He didn’t — he doesn’t care for me. He believes he’ll not live long...I thought — it seemed — oh, father, it was a mad thing to do. But I was desperate.”

He let her get up, and breathing like an ox, lowering at her, he stood there freed at least from murderous instincts. Virginia drew away on uncertain feet. With deliverance from terror her wits returned.

“Choose. Divorce this heah Forrest or leave my house,” said Lundeen, with dark and gloomy finality.

“In any case, I’ll leave,” she replied, and with that ultimatum, and safe distance between her and this ruffian parent, the hot blood of courage and insupportable outrage flooded over her. “You are no father. You’re a brute and a coward. You’re the tool of this thief — this low hounder of a woman...I rejoice to see him thus — a beaten dog!”

“No more. Get out!” roared Lundeen, black in the face, goaded past endurance.

“May I pack some things — and say good-by to mother?”

“Take your belongings. But you’re through with the Lundeens. Go!”

Virginia fled.

Chapter Twelve

THE ONLY UNHAPPINESS and mortification affecting Virginia on the moment shuddered round the fact that Clifton Forrest had broken faith with her. To be sure, Malpass was an atrocious liar. But from Clifton alone could have come the knowledge of her marriage. That was enough to condemn him. No other part of Malpass’ raving story need be considered. She was bitterly shocked and alienated.

Freed now from the ever-present fear of being waylaid by Malpass in and around every corner of the house, Virginia hurried first down to the barns. Jake and Con espied her coming and hastened to meet her.

“Boys, I want you to take all my horses away from Cottonwoods,” she informed them, abruptly, without wasting time or explanations. “Do you know where you can take care of them for the winter?”

“Shore do,” replied Jake, cheerfully. “I was thinking about winter range. Used to ride for Jeff Sneed. His ranch is south. Good water an’ feed. An’ Jeff will be glad to have us.”

“That relieves me. Here’s some money, all I can spare. But don’t worry. The horses are worth ten thousand.”

“Wal, you needn’t worry, either,” responded Jake, with a loyal smile.

“Where shall I write you?”

“Las Vegas, I reckon. Course we couldn’t never get in town, but mail would come out now an’ then.”

“Very well. Pack up, and start as quickly as possible. Don’t excite suspicion of your intentions. But don’t let anybody stop you. These horses are my property.”

“Reckon there ain’t anybody round who could stop us, Miss,” replied Jake, nonchalantly.

“Good-by then. I’m very happy to have you boys to rely on.”

They bade her good-by, haltingly, full of wonder, and sympathy they dared not speak.

Virginia rushed back up to the house. Before she reached her rooms she had decided upon a plan of action. She would pack her belongings, drive to Las Vegas with her bags and send a truck back for her trunks. Then she would wire to Ethel and take the night train for Denver.

Whereupon she plunged into the packing — no slight task — and before very long she discovered that ever and anon she would stop a moment to do nothing but stare at the wall. When she realized this and divined why, she was angered with herself. Her natural instinct was to fly to Clifton. How wonderful if only she could have yielded to it! But he had failed her — he would not welcome her; and besides, that would aggravate a situation already grave. She must dismiss Clifton from mind for the present. The effort seemed to rend her. Poor boy! The war had ruined him, and his home-coming had been forlorn, miserable, unbearable. Small wonder if he had transgressed loyalty! Still, she could not conceive of him boasting about her being his wife. Some day she would get at the bottom of what really had been said and done. A thrilling idea began to form and would not be denied — Clifton had beaten Malpass for her sake. She simply had to be cold and unreceptive to that incalculably far-reaching possibility. By Malpass’ own lips — swollen and discolored — she had learned that he had been beaten by Forrest, and it was enough.

As luck would have it, Virginia’s mother came in to see her, unsuspecting, and quite surprised to find her in the midst of packing.

“Mother, I’m going to Denver a little ahead of my invitation,” she explained, relieved that Mrs. Lundeen manifestly did not yet know of the upheaval.

“Dear me! Always on the go! Will you never settle down?” she complained, mildly.

“I guess I’m about settled now, mother,” said Virginia, “if you only knew it.”

“It would please me to see you married.”

“To the same individual father picked out for me?”

“No. I wouldn’t want you to tell it, but I don’t believe Malpass could make you happy.”

“You’re an angel to say that, mother. I promise you I’ll get a husband — pretty quick,” returned Virginia, gleefully.

“I wish you would be serious...Virginia, I came in to tell you I’d like to go to Atlanta soon. And if you are leaving I think I’ll go.”

“Mother, I approve of that. And I might run down to Atlanta to see you this winter.”

This delighted Mrs. Lundeen, and finally Virginia made the visit a certainty, providing her mother kept it a secret, and furthermore would not be distressed or influenced by any circumstance that might arise on Virginia’s account in the meantime.

“You’re mysterious, dear,” smiled her mother. “But I’m so glad you will come that I’ll agree to anything.”

Virginia experienced a rush of unusual tenderness for her mother. She was tempted to tell her everything, but decided that there might be the chance that her mother would get away to Atlanta without being the wiser, and would therefore have a quieter mind. Mrs. Lundeen lingered talking for some time, and bade her good-by without being any the wiser as to the catastrophe of the day.

Spurred on and cheered, Virginia finished her packing. Then hurriedly dressing, she was soon ready for departure, and as she had seen her mother, she felt that she could leave without overpowering regrets. But a perverse devil of self tempted her to drive down on the Forrest side of the valley. She was proof against weakness. Nevertheless, as she passed a point opposite the little red adobe house, she could not refrain from looking across. “Well, Cliff, my soldier man,” she soliloquized, “wonder what your dad said about your marrying a Lundeen?”

Arriving in town, she left her luggage at the station, and sent the car back, and also a truck with express order to fetch her trunks speedily. Then, after securing her railroad accommodations and telegraphing Ethel, she decided she would wait in the station, as at that hour some of her town acquaintances would probably be at the Castaneda. She wanted to think.

Three hours later Virginia was aboard the train. While in the dining-car she had a last glimpse of the slope above Cottonwoods, and the dark spot that was the Padre Mine.

Strange now to consider the events of the day. Not the gratifying downfall of Malpass, not her father’s rage and her expulsion from home, not the crystallizing sense of melancholy in Clifton’s disloyalty, but the astounding developments at Padre Mine dominated her thought.

Virginia went back to her Pullman, and leaning at her window she watched the end of that eventful day darken over the ranges.

The more she pondered over Jake’s discovery at the mine, the stronger grew her conviction that deception and dishonesty on a large scale had been perpetrated there. Padre Mine bore the earmarks of having been the keystone of some gigantic plot of Malpass’, through which he had made a fortune. Virginia was interested only in the deception. The question hammered at her — if she could prove Jake’s contention would she not have power to break the hold of Malpass upon her father?

Doubts and misgivings faded like misty clouds before the sun. The matter clarified with analysis. Once upon coming back home from school, four years and more ago, she had been elated by the wonderful development of the mine. Her father was soaring to the clouds. She rode up to the mine, to find there hordes of Mexican laborers, dust, noise, and confusion, every indication of a marvelous strike. Money appeared to be as abundant as the sage. This was the period when her father had bought her all the fine horses available.

Two years later, upon another of her infrequent visits home, she was astounded to hear that the Padre Mine had failed. It was a subject about which no one risked speaking to her father. Virginia knew him well enough to be sure that he had suffered poignant disappointment, the more as he had allowed himself to become obsessed and confident. His reaction had not been to questionable dealing. Jed Lundeen might be deceived once by one man, but never again. No matter what his subjection to a shrewder intellect, and notwithstanding the fact that he had driven hard bargains himself, he would never stand to be cheated.

Hope of reinstating herself in her father’s regard came as an afterthought, following the first and passionate desire to circumvent Malpass, and then it was more for her mother’s than her own sake.

Presently the porter brought her a telegram, which he informed her had been given the conductor as the train pulled out of Las Vegas. It was from Ethel. She said she would be “piflicated with joy” to see Virginia, that she should have her baggage put off at Colorado Springs, and meet her at the station there. This appeared to be more good fortune for Virginia. The quiet of the resort would be preferable to Denver. Virginia had her berth made up, and went to bed dreaming before she fell asleep.

Next day the hours grew tedious. Virginia had to change trains at La Junta, and at length arrived at Colorado Springs. As the train pulled in, Virginia espied Ethel through the window. How the bright eager little face warmed her! True friends were rare. She had come to a juncture of her life when she could appreciate their value.

Then presently the porter was handing her down the step to the platform. Ethel let out a squeal of rapture and rushed to embrace her. Certain it was that Virginia returned it in full measure.

“You darling — lovely, gorgeous thing!” cried Ethel, between kisses.

“Oh, Ethel — I never was so glad to see you,” returned Virginia, fervently. She was released at last, and Ethel condescended to remember baggage, trunk checks, cars, and other practical necessities. And soon they were speeding to the hotel where Ethel explained she had brought her mother for a rest.

“Ginia dearest, you look strange — now I can see you,” said Ethel.

“Do I? How so? I surely feel strange,” laughed Virginia.

Ethel studied her face with the keenness of loving, remembering eyes from which nothing could escape. “You’ve lost your bloom and your round schoolgirl cheeks. You’re pale, honey. There’s something dark in your eyes. It’s not my old roguish Virginia...Yes, you’re older. You’ve changed, and oh, how it becomes you!...You used to be handsome. But good night! Now you’re a sweet, sad, lovely woman.”

“I shore reckon I needed you,” murmured Virginia, fighting a perfectly silly and almost irresistible longing to cry.

But before she dared yield to the luxury and wholesomeness of such relaxation there was the hotel to reach, and the gauntlet to run of idle guests to whom a newcomer was an event, and the gracious Mrs. Wayne and her friends to meet, and moment after moment to endure.

Ethel’s room at last! Cozy, comfortable, light, and colorful, looking out upon the green-sloped, gray-cliffed, white-peaked Rockies, it seemed haven for Virginia.

“Lock the door — savior,” cried Virginia, her voice rich and full and breaking. She threw her gloves, her coat, she tossed her hat, and all the while she avoided the wondering, dreading eyes of her friend.

“Virginia! You scare me stiff. What has happened?”

“I am — an outcast,” sobbed Virginia, but with Ethel’s arm around her.

At length the paroxysm was over, and Virginia felt the better for it.

“When have I cried like that?” she asked, raising her flushed and wet face from Ethel’s shoulder.

“Never since I knew you,” replied Ethel, still awed and shaken. “It broke my heart, Virginia. But how happy it makes me to know you’ve come to me in your trouble!...Now, tell it, darling. I’m a punk fair-weather friend, but try me in storm.”

“I’m an outcast,” replied Virginia, mournfully, and wiping her tear-splashed eyes she faced Ethel bravely and yet with shame.

“Outcast!” ejaculated her friend, bewildered.

“Yes. My father turned me out. I have no home and very little money. I sent my horses away to try to save them. I’ve got my clothes and jewels. And here I am, Ethel.”

“Tell me — a little at a time,” rejoined Ethel, gasping. “Turned you out! — The damned old hard-shelled crab! — Because you wouldn’t marry Malpass?”

“No. Because I — I married some one else,” whispered Virginia, hanging her head. It was not easy to confess, even to gentle, worshipful Ethel.

“Virginia!” And Ethel plumped down to her knees, rapt and wild, her eyes starting, her hands clasping Virginia’s, her whole being shot through and through with vitalizing current.

“Married! — Married to whom?...I’d die if it were anyone but Clifton!”

“It was Clifton, dear.”

“Oh, thank Heaven! I liked that boy as if — as if he were ten brothers of mine all in one...Dear old sad-eyed, silent suffering Cliff! He was a hero...And to think you’ve been and gone and done what I prayed for! It’s just marvelous. You’re the most satisfactory girl in all the world. You keep romance alive. What’s all this bunk about modern girls and money, luxury, jazz, and loveless marriage?...And that old buzzard father of yours threw you out?”

“Almost. He said the Lundeens were through with me.”

“Humph! And what did Mr. Slick-haired, goofy-eyed Malpass say to your marrying Cliff? I’ll bet he threw a fit.”

“It was he who told father. He raved. He foamed at the mouth. Oh, he was not human!...Ethel, he had to be brought home — carried in. Cliff had beaten him with a whip. His clothes were slashed to ribbons. Bloody! Black and blue! Ugh! — Cliff beat him nearly to death.”

“Virginia Lundeen! You tell me!” screamed Ethel, frantically.

Thus inspired and impelled, Virginia, without realizing it in the least, fell to a Homeric recital of her story. She was to learn quickly, however, that her powers of narrative were supreme. Ethel quivered and shivered and wept over that rendezvous with Clifton in the garden; she went into ecstasies over the secret marriage; and when the sordid sequel ended — the passionate, vivid description of Malpass’ denunciation — he would drag her through the mud! and her father’s brutal hands at her throat, to prove which Virginia had but to show the discolorations on her neck, Ethel became a clenching-fisted, blazing-eyed little fury.

She launched out into an incoherent tirade that did not lose force until she lost her breath. And then she burst into tears. Virginia in turn ministered gentle consolation.

“And now what?” queried Ethel, recovering belligerently.

“Well, as I said before, here I am,” replied Virginia, smiling.

“Of course, for the present. And it’s great for me. But what are you going to do?”

“Ethel, I haven’t any idea. Except I intend to investigate the Padre Mine failure,” rejoined Virginia, and she gave Ethel minute details of her trip to the mine with the cowboys, and Jake’s discovery.

“You bet!” exclaimed Ethel, her eyes wide and shining. “When we get to Denver you must consult a mining engineer. And if he gives you any encouragement, take him back to Las Vegas. I’ll come with you. We’ll put it over on Mr. Malpass. Gee! wouldn’t it be great if we could prove he’s crooked? In court, I mean. Wouldn’t we make your father crawl?”

“I don’t care about that, though it would be a satisfaction,” continued Virginia. “I just want to free him from Malpass.”

“Strikes me one’s as bad as the other,” said Ethel, bluntly. “What you want is to see justice done. To yourself and your mother — and the Forrests.”

“Father has been led or forced into dishonest dealing. But even if he gets out of the clutches of Malpass, I doubt that he would ever square up with the Forrests.”

“That’ll be left for you, Virginia. And I should think you’d get much joy out of it.”

“I would indeed. But you know Clifton refused assistance from me.”

“That’s different. He couldn’t refuse now.”

“Couldn’t he? Much you know Cliff!”

“But you’re his wife.”

“Yes,” mused Virginia.

“Don’t you love him?” went on this indefatigable and relentless romancer.

“Terribly.”

“Well then, it’s perfect. Cottonwoods will belong to both of you. And I shall spend half my time there.”

“Ethel, come down to earth...Clifton doesn’t care for me.”

“Bunk!”

“But I tell you he doesn’t. He sympathized with me. Was sorry. Wanted to help me out of my plight. I’m sure he doesn’t believe he’ll live long. It didn’t matter to him. So he asked me to marry him.”

“Listen to her!...So he was very kind and practical. No sentiment. Just made himself convenient for a damsel in distress. Jollied you a little about dying soon, huh?...And you let him get away with it?”

Virginia stared at her volatile friend, on the verge of both shock and anger.

Ethel laughed at her. “Couldn’t you see poor, proud Cliff was madly in love with you?”

“No, you incorrigible little match-maker, I couldn’t.”

“You were as blind as a bat. Cliff didn’t want you to know. Why, I’ll bet right now he’s hugging you to his breast — figuratively speaking.”

“Ethel! You’re a crazy, lovesick schoolgirl!” cried Virginia, in desperation.

“You bet your life I am. That’s why I know things...Didn’t I see Clifton Forrest looking at you when you didn’t know it?”

“I don’t dare believe you,” protested Virginia.

“Suit yourself. But I could save you a lot of agony.”

“You’ll only make agony for me. Suppose I listened to you — believed you, and then it turned out you were mistaken?”

“You’d never be. I’m sure death on these affairs of the heart. Have seen so many, then had one of my own. But for the sake of argument, to salve your wounded feelings, we’ll assume I am wrong. We’ll assume a lot of rot. Clifton home, broken in body and spirit. Haunted by the war. Penniless and unable to do a man’s work. Occupied with his pangs and his lonely soul. Turgid ebb and flow of misery stuff. Too sick to be lovesick!...Do you follow me, darling?”

“I — I think so, though it is a bewildering process.”

“Very well. The rest is simple. You’ll stay with me in Colorado for a while, until that scandal blows over. Then go back home and waylay Cliff at every turn.”

“Waylay him? But I couldn’t...Even if I could what use would it be?”

“O Lord!...Well, maybe that’s why I love you so. — Virginia, you don’t have to do anything to make people love you. All that is necessary is for you to happen across their horizon. Once ought to be enough. If not once, then twice. Three times would be an avalanche. And after that we’d only have burials.”

“You might help me if you could be serious,” returned Virginia, plaintively.

“I may be slangy, honey, but I’m in dead earnest.”

“You’re very blind and loyal, Ethel. It’s well for me that I can keep my head...Now let’s forget my troubles and plan to have a good time.”

Virginia spent three weeks with Ethel at Colorado Springs and did not know where the days fled.

There were few social exactions. They passed most of the daylight hours outdoors, hiking, motoring, climbing the foothills, playing golf. Saddle horses were to be had for the asking, but Virginia could not be induced to ride.

She enjoyed most an afternoon in the Garden of the Gods. A motor car was not available at the hour, so the girls, bent on a lark, hired an old relic of a Westerner, a driver of a dilapidated open vehicle with a horse that matched both man and hack. He took them for tourists and proceeded to acquaint them with himself.

“My name air Josh Smith an’ I hail from Indianer. Fust come West in ‘sixty-eight. Was a lad then an’ the redskins made me an orphan. Reckon thet everythin’ the West could give I got— ‘cept six feet of ground, an’ I near got thet a hundred times. I be’n teamster on the plains, helped to build the Santa Fé, freighter, scout, cowboy, miner, gambler, an’ ‘most everythin’.”

“My, Mr. Smith, but you’ve seen a lot!” said Ethel, with a mischievous wink at Virginia.

“Right smart, though I’ve knowed fellars who’d seen more.”

“And how old are you?”

“Reckon I don’t know. But I’m over eighty.”

“Were you ever married?”

“Haw! Haw! Lots of times, on an’ off,” he replied, plying his whip to the almost motionless horse.

“Well, that’s fine. Then you didn’t find marriage a failure, like so many people of today?”

“No, indeedee. Marriage is all right, if you kin change often enough.”

“That’s an original idea,” went on Ethel, unmindful of a dig from Virginia’s elbow.

“Air you married?”

“Oh dear, yes! At least I was. And I’ve four children. My husband deserted us, and now I have to — to travel around and write for newspapers to make a living.”

“You’re purty young-lookin’. No one would guess thet...An’ your quiet friend hyar — is she married, too?”

“Oh dear, no! She’s deaf and dumb and doesn’t care much for men. She’s very rich. I’m her traveling companion. She pays me for it.”

“Wal, by golly! Deaf an’ dumb? I’ll never grow too old to get a stumper. Who’d have thunk it?”

“Isn’t she handsome?” went on this incorrigible little devil, despite sundry covert kicks and cuffs. “Oh, you can say what you like about her. She can’t hear and I won’t tell.”

“Handsomest gal I’ve seen this summer, an’ thar’s some peaches hyar durin’ July an’ August. I ain’t seen one, though, with the shape your friend’s got. Te-he, te-he, te-he! She’d drive any young buck to drink. I shore wish I was young again.”

Ethel by this time was bursting with glee, and Virginia, too, could scarcely contain herself; but their arrival in the Garden of the Gods changed the direction of the old Westerner’s mind to the natural spectacles of the wondrous rock formation out of which he made his living.

“See thet rock?” he queried, becoming professional. “Thet’s the Elephant. Thar’s the bulk of the body, haid an’ ears, an’ the trunk. One tusk missin’.”

“Oh, it’s a perfect elephant!” declared Ethel, clapping her hands. As a matter of fact it did not resemble an elephant more than any other of the many rocks near at hand.

Next came the Tomcat, and close to him the Mud Turtle. Following them in succession was a remarkable assortment of animals, evidently, to this old man, admirable stone statues of the creatures he named.

“An’ thar’s Apollonaris Belvedeerie,” he announced, grandly, waving his whip at a huge red crag, fluted and draped, and, without a distorting name, a beautiful thing to gaze upon.

“But last summer you told me that one was Ajax defying the Lightning,” rejoined Ethel, in demure amaze.

“What? Was you out hyar with me last summer?” he queried, sharply.

“To be sure I was. I’d never forget you.”

“Wal, mebbe ’tis Ajax. I see these doggone gods so doggone much.”

They rode on, and he seemed a little less declamatory about the significance of cliffs and stones. Nevertheless, he had a label for each and every one. Virginia had been there before, and of course the Garden was like an old book to Ethel.

“Now looka thar,” suddenly spoke up their guide, once more animated. “Thar’s the Wild Stallion. Thet one fetches all my patrons. It’s shore the beautifulest picture of a great wild hoss turned into a stone god. See his noble haid an’ his flyin’ mane, an’ thet wind hole which is his eye.”

This was too much for Virginia. The rock designated resembled nothing alive, let alone the wondrous beauty of a wild horse.

“That?” she burst out. “It’s a dumpy red rock. No more.”

In his amazement the imaginative guide dropped his whip. His lean jaw dropped, too.

“Hey, wasn’t you deaf an’ dumb?” he ejaculated.

Ethel vented a silvery peal of laughter and leaped gaily out to the ground. Virginia followed, though less actively.

“No, I wasn’t deaf and dumb,” she retorted. “And I’m no tourist, either. I live on a ranch so big you could lose your old Garden in it...Aren’t you ashamed, trying to fool people about these rocks?”

“Wal, by gum!”

“Wait for us, driver,” said Ethel. “And think up some more fakes. You sure are the bunk.”

“Reckon I be’n buncoed, too,” he returned, grinning. “I’ll bet four bits them four kids of yours is bunk...Haw! Haw!”

Ethel mumbled something, what Virginia was unable to distinguish.

“Come, you kid,” she called to Virginia. “I’ll beat you to the top of the slide.”

Next day they went to Denver. And Virginia was once again in contact with the theater, the motion-picture, the department stores and restaurants of a city. While there she ascertained the name of a well-known mining engineer and contractor, with whom she made an appointment.

She found Mr. Jarvis a middle-aged man, a Westerner, shrewd and plain, and one inclined to inspire confidence.

“My errand may be absurd,” she explained, “but then again it may be important. That is for you to say.”

“I’m at your service, Miss Lundeen,” he replied, with interest.

Thereupon Virginia related as briefly as possible the circumstances connected with her last visit to Padre Mine.

“Now what I want to know,” she concluded, “is whether or not you suspect there might have been something queer about that mine.”

“Queer indeed,” he returned, almost with amusement. “If the facts you have told so clearly can be substantiated, it will lay bare something more than queer.”

“And what may that be?”

“Nothing more nor less than a plain crooked mining deal.”

“As I suspected,” returned Virginia, breathing quickly. “The gold was brought to the mine — planted there — and then blown up, so that it’d be scattered everywhere. All to deceive my father into believing it was a rich mine.”

“Exactly. May I ask, did he sell the mine?”

“No.”

“Then he invested money in the operating of it?”

“Yes. I have no idea how much. But altogether I imagine several hundred thousand went into that mine.”

The engineer lifted his brows in surprise. “So much! Well, this is worth digging into. Of course the mine is abandoned now?”

“Yes, for two years and more. Now, Mr. Jarvis, if you will give me reasonable assurance that you can prove whether or not this was a crooked deal, I will engage you to investigate.”

“If the mine is as accessible to me as to your cowboy prospector, I can absolutely give you proof.”

“Can it be done quickly?”

“How far from town is this mine?”

“I can take you there in less than two hours from Las Vegas.”

“Then half a day will be ample.”

“Very well. Consider it settled,” rejoined Virginia, rising. “I’ll be going home soon. I’ll choose an opportune time — for I want it to be secret, so we are not intercepted — wire you to come on, meet you upon your arrival and take you directly to the mine.”

Chapter Thirteen

THE SHEEP WERE grazing south. Every day they made a few leisurely miles, keeping to the grass and sage benches, never straying far from the water-courses.

November heralded the beginning of winter in that latitude, but only toward the high slopes was the weather severe. Old Baldy had put on his white cap, and there were patches of snow along the black-fringed rims of the battlements. The wind whipped down from the heights, bitter cold and mournful at night, keen across the bright steely desert at dawn, and lulling and tempering through the noon hours.

The sheep route, over which the Mexicans had driven their herds for a hundred years and more, gradually drew down and away from the mountains, southward toward the vast open, with dim purple ranges in the distance.

At sunset the shepherds with their dogs rounded the flocks into a natural corral, a protective corner of canyon, or under the lee of a ledge, and there passed the night, to leisurely move on again at sunrise. Since the failure of cattle on the range there was grazing in abundance, but the sheep had to be worked down into lower and warmer country. This old custom had worn a rut in the commerce of the state, as it had worn broad trails up and down the desert.

The last of these widely separated bands of sheep to leave the uplands of San Luis halted late one afternoon at Gray Rocks, far out on the windy plain.

The shepherd was a white man, and he had a Mexican lad as assistant, and four dogs. He moved with extreme weariness, this man, as he unpacked the two burros and turned them loose. The lad was active, and with the dogs drove the pattering, baaing flock into the wide notch of a low gray broken cliff.

A few scraggy cedars marked this camp site, old trees devoid of sheaths of gray bark and gnarled dead branches so characteristic of the species. This stripping attested to past camp fires, and yet to the regard with which the lonely shepherds held trees on the desert.

The shepherd threw the rope of his little peak tent over a limb and pulled it up, and tied the rope to the trunk. Then he rested a moment, dark face lowered, a hand on his breast. Next he unrolled his bed, consisting of some sheepskins and a blanket, which he spread inside the tent. After that he opened the other pack and spread its contents of utensils and bags upon a canvas.

Meanwhile the Mexican lad returned with an armload of bits of dead sage, and weed roots, and sticks of cottonwood. He whistled while he lighted a fire, but he did not talk. Next he picked up a little black bucket and pot, and went off down the slope for water, with one of the dogs at his heels. Soon he returned, whistling the few notes of a Spanish tune.

It was evident that the white shepherd was about at the end of his tether, for that day at least. The lad saw it and was quick to help prepare the meal, where he was permitted. Presently the coffee-pot steamed and the sheep meat sizzled in the pan. There were also dried fruit heated in water, and hard biscuits which were warmed on a rock beside the fire. Soon, then, the shepherds sat to their frugal meal, generous only in supply of meat. And they ate hungrily and drank thirstily, while the lean shaggy dogs stood around with shining eyes to beg for bones. They were not neglected. When the meal ended the man washed the utensils and the boy wiped them dry.

Meanwhile the sun had set stormily amid dusky and dull red clouds far down in the west. The weird lights of the desert began to darken, and far behind, the mountain range stood up black as ebony, sharp and bold against the cold sky. One by one pale stars shone out, blinking, obscure, aloof. The sheep bleated, and the cold wind tore through the cedars.

The lad spread his sheepskins under the tree, and rolled in his blanket upon them. One of the dogs, evidently young, curled close to him. The others had gone out to guard the flock.

The white shepherd sat by the fire and fed bits of sage and dead sticks to the glowing bed of coals. His hands were dark and lean like his face, that a month’s growth of beard did not hide. The flickering blaze lighted somber hollow eyes that found ghosts in the opal embers, and ever and anon gazed out over the melancholy desert to see nothing there. He had a racking cough and it appeared he could not warm his palms enough.

Night fell, growing colder, and the desert lay black under the hazy sky and wan stars. Coyotes raised their hue and cry, and the wary dogs yelped their menace. A lonesome owl hooted from the recesses of the rocks; faint rustlings came from the sage; a rush of wings overhead attested to the passage of an invisible bird of the night.

These sounds mitigated the pressure of the solitude, which lay like a thick mantle over the earth. They made it bearable to the man who was scarcely conscious of any save physical agonies. At last all the sticks were burned. The fire died down. Still he lingered over the ruddy embers, from which sparks flew away on the wind, to die out in the blackness.

When the red faded out of the fire he crawled into the little tent, and wearily stretched his aching body upon the sheepskins, and covered himself with the blanket. He did not remove even his hat, which perhaps he had forgotten. And he groaned: “O God — O God!”

The sleep of exhaustion ended his tortures. And inside his tent the desert night increased its somber mystery, its weird voice on the wind, its staccato alarms of prowling coyotes, its bleak and ruthless solitude.

Clifton Forrest had been a month on the desert. Sunset of that day in which he had horsewhipped Malpass, and had been made an outcast by his father, found him at the hacienda of Don Lopez, a rancher outside of San Luis. There he spent the night, grateful for succor he felt would be denied him by people of his own color. And the next day he became the shepherd of a Mexican’s flock, at a wage of a few cents a day.

The world had about come to an end for Clifton. But the beating he had given Malpass had no place in his remorse. His heart was weighed down because his natural and unfortunate subjection to passion had been a betrayal of the woman he loved, who owed to him the loss of parents and home. She had trusted him — she had appealed to him alone of all her friends — she might one day, if he had proved worthy, have reciprocated in some degree his love. And he had failed her. What avail to blame endlessly that cursed Malpass and his own hot jealousy? He had been weak. His manhood was gone. And, perhaps as reprehensible, he had added to his mother’s burden of sorrow.

So he had taken to the lonely reaches of the desert, as a winter shepherd. The constant movement and the labor of this job were beyond his strength. Three days after leaving San Luis his remorse and grief had been overshadowed by the horror of old bodily pangs, which soon augmented into agonies. Cottonwoods and Virginia Lundeen and his mother became dim phantoms back in a past that was gone. Before him stretched the naked shingles of the desert, the brutal destroying ruthlessness of which he welcomed, but which brought back the rend of nerve, the ache of bone, the torture of muscle, the hell of physical suffering without making an end of him. He would lie for half the night in misery, but at dawn he would get up and go on. He fell in the trails, but he rose and stumbled on. Then at the worst of his collapse he lay for days on his back, tended by the faithful Mexican lad. But he did not die and he could not surrender. He crawled out to plod on behind the sheep for a half day, and the next he went farther, until as the days passed he reached a full one in travel again — ten terrible hours that brought him to Gray Rocks, a resting and grazing point for the sheep on the southern drive.

November dawn on the desert came reluctantly, gray and slowly brightening, to diffuse a pale rose along the eastern skyline, and turn to the yellow flare of sunrise.

Clifton saw it through the open flap of his tent. Another day! He had never moved during the night and his feet were like clods of cold lead. To start to arise was a horrible wrench — on one elbow, then his hand, a lift of back that had to be accomplished with gritted teeth, a turn of body which was the worst, then on hands and knees, and at last up, though bowed like an old man.

Yet this morning he proved something that had haunted him with mocking insistence — there had come an appreciable difference in the length of time, the terror of effort, the reflux of pain that it cost him to arise.

He had not prayed for that. He had hardly wanted it. But as he faced the cold gray monotonous waste, stretching and rolling and breaking away, lonely, barren, lifeless, magnificent in its isolation, appalling in its desolation, stupendous in its distances and beautiful with all the strange somber mystery of the desert, he felt the link between his unquenchable instinct to survive and a spiritual consciousness stronger than anything in primal nature. While there was life there was hope, good, truth, joy, and God. It came to him. He could not deny it. His bitterness was of no avail. The pagan specter that had hovered like a shadow on his trail faded away.

Clifton began the tasks of the day, lighter here by reason of the fact that there was to be a break in the drive south, a two-day stop at Gray Rocks.

“Buenos días, señor,” said the Mexican lad, in his soft liquid accents, as he came with his arms full of firewood.

Clifton discarded his limited Spanish and spoke to the boy in his own tongue. A subtle change affected him. Nevertheless, he went at his camp tasks with slow guarded movements. The lean dogs came down to sit on their haunches and watch him. They were ragged, thin mongrel canines, bred by the Indians and trained by Mexicans, antagonistic to white men. It had been the province of Julio to govern these shepherd dogs, so that Clifton had made no attempt to lessen their animosity. Julio was a son of Don Lopez, and had been brought up with the dogs and the sheep.

Clifton saw them all less aloofly this morning. They had accepted him. Why had he not accepted them? He spoke to the dogs. How clear-eyed, watchful, knowing! Were they only hungry beasts?

The camp fire was a comfort. It sent up a thin column of fragrant smoke — the scent of burning sage. It crackled and blazed, and burned red. It warmed Clifton’s cold feet and took the sting out of his fingers. The water left in the pan had become solid ice. All around, the sage and brittle-bush and creeping vines glistened with silvery frost. What would the desert have been without fire? The earliest man-creatures must have developed in a tropic clime.

After breakfast the bleating, restless sheep were released. With a tiny trampling roar they poured in a woolly stream down out of the rocky fastness, to spread out over the shallow wash. They nipped the grass, the weeds, the brush, and the sage.

In number the flock approached three thousand, a very large one, especially to belong to a Mexican. But as food and water were abundant, two shepherds with trained dogs could easily care for the flock, their main duty being vigilance. Straggling sheep sometimes got lost in the brush, to become prey for coyotes, and wildcats and cougars that occasionally stole down from the cliffs, and a wolf now and then that came from out the desert.

Julio carried a light rifle and always ranged out at the fore of the grazing flock, accompanied by the young dog. Clifton, with a heavier rifle, which had been a burden, followed in the rear, keeping to high places, always watchful, true to the trust imposed in him. The other three dogs, older, marvelously trained, did not require to be ordered about. They knew their work. Seldom could a sheep straggle away from the main flock into the sage. When one did it was promptly chased back.

Grazing of sheep was slow, as far as travel was concerned. Clifton had to walk and stand and sit to suit their convenience. Over barren ground they were driven consistently until good grazing was again encountered.

On cold mornings like this one Clifton was hard put to it to keep from freezing. His blood was thin and apparently there was not much of it. The necessity of keeping continually in action was what had made it so desperately hard to stand up under this job. During the middle of sunny days, however, he could rest often. But back beneath the forbidding mountains there had been much cloudy and windy weather, which had been the greatest factor in breaking him down.

Around Gray Rocks there was ample feed. Clifton chose a high point and patrolled it, his eye ever alert for prowling beasts. Sometimes, despite the vigilance of the shepherds, a lamb would be snatched by a coyote and carried off. Usually, however, in daylight the dogs kept the flock condensed and safe from depredations.

He had a bitter few hours before the sun offered him a respite. Still he watched even while he rested, for at this season cottontail rabbits were wholesome eating and furnished welcome change from sheep meat. In fact a shepherd on that range developed into something of a hunter.

An hour’s scanning of this apparently barren desert would have surprised an inexperienced traveler. Clifton espied a gray fox stepping through the sage, and several hungry, sneaking coyotes afar, jack rabbits in plenty, several cottontails, one of which he shot, packrats and gophers, and some skulking animal which he could not name. Hawks sailed by, and ravens croaked from the rocks. A flock of blackbirds winged irregular flight down the wash; a lonely gray speckled bird flitted through the sage.

These living creatures, and the various aspects of the desert, had begun to interest Clifton. It was an indication of release from himself, fragmentary at first, then more and more frequent.

At high noon he drew from his pocket a hard biscuit and some chops, well cooked and salted. These constituted his midday meal. He gnawed the bones with a relish, suddenly to be struck with the fact that he was nearly always hungry, and particularly so this day. In the past he had not cared for mutton. The tastes of a man varied according to his needs.

The sheep, however, did not linger in one place. They nibbled and nipped while passing on. Soon Clifton had to follow. He caught up with the flock, found a rock to sit on, and basked in the warm sun for a few moments. Many times he repeated this. As the afternoon began to wane Julio led back in a circle, and at sundown they were approaching camp. And by dark Clifton was through with work for the day, warming his palms over the coals, weary and dark-faced again, prone to the dejection that accompanied fatigue. Yet this night he did not crawl to bed.

Every desert day was a whole by itself; and the next was bleak, raw, windy, with flurries of snow. The sheep favored sheltered slopes and banks, and the beds of arroyos and the leeward of rocks. Clifton huddled in sheltered nooks to build little fires of dried sage and warm his numb hands and feet. It was a profitable day for the coyotes. More than once Clifton started up at an uproar from the dogs; and one well-aimed shot laid a coyote low. Julio skinned the dead beast and stretched the skin on a frame.

As the afternoon waned a lowering black cloud swooped across the desert, trailing a gray whirling pall of snow that whitened sage and ground, and quickly vanished. The squall passed away and the sun burst out, flushing the desert gold and red, with the promise of a better morrow.

The flock was laggard and difficult to drive back to camp in the face of wind. But for the faithful dogs it never could have been accomplished. Then for the shepherds the blessing of fire and food and rest!

The following morning while Clifton cooked breakfast Julio brought in the burros. The shepherds ate, packed, and with their flock headed south on the long trail. The morning was glorious. No wind! A bright sun tempered the nipping air. The cool fragrance of dry sage floated over the desert. The ridges were diamond white in frost, that quickly melted on the south slopes. Endless soft gray stretches led down to the purple landmarks above the horizon. Wild mustangs trooped to a rise of ground, there to stand and whistle, and then race away with manes and tails flying.

They had traveled six miles by sunset, and Clifton was not down at the finish. On warm days he lasted longer. They were now well over a hundred miles south of their own range.

One forenoon, several days later, the sheep crossed the last road which transversed that section of the desert. Clifton, following slowly, reached the road just as an automobile came by. He would have passed on, but the occupants of the car hailed him and stopped. He guessed the muddy old car belonged to a rancher and that the three were Westerners.

“Hey, Pedro, come over an’ say hello!” called one. Then as Clifton approached closer he added: “Excuse me. I took you for a greaser.”

“Howdy!” replied Clifton as he looked to see if he knew one or more of them.

“Fine bunch of sheep. Whose are they?” queried the eldest of the three.

“They belong to Don Lopez.”

“Ahuh. I thought so. Lopez’ last flock workin’ south. You must be young Forrest — Clay Forrest’s son?”

“Yes, I am.”

They appeared kindly, curious, and interested. “We heerd you got in a muss at Watrous some while back.”

“I’m afraid I did,” returned Clifton, reluctantly. “But as I left San Luis next day, I’ve never heard how bad the muss was...I thought you might be a sheriff.”

“Not much,” laughed one, “we’re glad to say. I reckon, though, you’re worryin’ fer nothin’. Mason wasn’t bad hurt in thet scrap an’ anyways you didn’t shoot him.”

“Wal, Forrest, there’s not many people who’re against you fer thet little cowhidin’ stunt,” added another of the three.

“I’m glad to hear it,” rejoined Clifton.

“Whar you drivin’?”

“Guadaloupe Springs.”

“Say, that’s an all-winter job! Shore, you’re goin’ back?”

“No. I have only a boy with me. Lopez gave me the job and I’ll stick. I’ll drive back in the spring.”

“Wal, excuse me, Forrest,” said the elder man, feelingly. “It’s shore your own bizness. But I want to give you a hunch. If you’re hidin’ out — it’s all fer nothin’. There ain’t any sheriff lookin’ fer you.”

“Thank you. That’s a relief.”

“But if I was you I’d chuck this herdin’ job. Somebody in Watrous told me the other day thet Malpass was tryin’ to buy Lopez out. Reckon it’s only a rumor, but I wouldn’t risk it.”

“I’ve got to. Work is necessary, and jobs I can fill are few. Lopez trusted me. I’ll trust him. I don’t think he’d sell without sending me word.”

“Wal, Don Lopez is white, you can lay to thet. But Malpass has a hold over these greasers. Better throw your pack in the car hyar an’ come with us.”

“No. You’re very good. But I’ll go on.”

“Are you well, Forrest? You look pretty worked out.”

“I’m all right. It was hard at first — for a man in my shape. But I’ll pull through.”

“Ahuh. — Wal, good luck to you. Any message we can take back? We’re goin’ on to Kelsey’s Ranch, then right back to town.”

“If you meet anyone I know — tell them I’m all right,” replied Clifton, haltingly. This was too sudden for him. He would have liked to be prepared for such a meeting.

“Shore will, an’ go out of my way...How’re you off fer smokes?”

“I’ve quit. But my boy Julio — a pack of cigarettes would be most welcome.”

“Hyar you are...Bill, fork out. An’ you too, Pedlar.”

Three packages came flipping to Clifton’s feet.

“Thanks. But I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“So long, Forrest. Don’t forgit. You’re solid back thar.”

“Wait!” called Clifton, as they were about to start. He stepped closer, suddenly gripped by awakening realization. “What’s the talk — about me?”

“Not bad at all, Forrest,” heartily returned the one who had been the most loquacious. “Most died out now. But it was some talk, believe me. An’ the sum of it was thet you an’ Miss Lundeen fell in love — which was quite proper — an’ because of your parents hatin’ each other you had to marry secret. Wal, Malpass, who was always sweet on Lundeen’s gal, found it out an’ had Hartwell fire you — insultin’ your wife to boot. You jest beat hell out of Malpass, in accordance with Western ways. An’ the dirty half-breed throwed his gun, near killin’ poor old Jim Mason. Everybody is sorry you didn’t use a gun yourself, instead of a whip...Wal, then your respective fathers, sore as hell because you’d married, throwed you out...I reckon thet’s about all.”

“Do you know — did you hear what became of — of Miss Lundeen?” queried Clifton, hoarsely.

“I’m sorry, Forrest, but I never heerd.”

“Wal, I know,” added the man called Bill, and he grinned happily. “I seen her get on the train thet very night. It was Number Four, goin’ East, an’ I was thar. She was dressed like one of them girls in the pictures, an’ she shore looked white an’ proud.”

“Thar! She beat it, Forrest,” declared the eldest man, with satisfaction. “Didn’t you worry none about your wife!...So long now. Good luck.”

They left Clifton standing beside the road, staring after the speeding car. It was long before he remembered the sheep, and longer before he could see to follow them.

Guadaloupe Springs lay four weeks’ sheep travel from Gray Rocks. It was three thousand feet lower, and the winter climate was the perfect one of early autumn in high altitude, marred on rare occasions by a storm.

A vast bowl of uneven land held Guadaloupe Springs in its center, where many groves of cottonwoods and long wandering lines of willows marked the presence of the water that gave life to the desert. The trees lately touched by frost shone in a wondrous variety of greens and golds, strong contrast to the monotonous gray of wasteland.

From the height of the bowl, far over the broken red walls that rimmed it, could be seen the beginning of the arid zone of sand and stone and cactus, of that glimmering delusive region of the Journado del Muerte, which led on and on over the bad lands of the south and the border to Mexico.

From the beautiful valley, like an oasis, where Lopez’ flock was to spend the winter months, no ghastly stretch or black butte of the southern desert could be seen. Only the slow-rising gray slopes, and the mounds of red rock, and the enclosing yellow walls, and the blue phantoms of peaks that resembled inverted cloud mountains in the sky, greeted the keen eyes of the sheep-herders.

Clifton was nine weeks out of San Luis. It seemed nine years. It was Julio who kept track of days. For the will that had upheld Clifton, the scorn of weakness and agony and death, the toil which dwarfed the trenches, the effort he owed himself, and the desert with its boundless horizons, its cruelty, its solitude, its lonely nights and solemn days, its piercing wind and cold and storm, its tormenting demand to be conquered — all these had worked upon Clifton’s body and mind, to begin a transformation which, if completed, would be a miracle.

They pitched camp under a cottonwood that stormed Clifton’s heart, so like was it to the one in the valley at home — the gnarled, low-branched old monarch which Virginia Lundeen had climbed as a bare-legged girl, and under which as a woman she had tempted him to make her his wife. No hope ever to forget her here!

A little clear stream babbled over rocks and left faint traces of white alkali along the sand. Rabbits and quail darted away into the green brush. Robins and larks and swamp blackbirds, on the way south, still lingered here, and a killdee sounded his piercing melancholy note.

At the head of the stream was a natural corral in a triangle of the rocks, where the bare ground, packed hard by countless thousands of tiny hoofs, attested to the shepherds’ flocks of the past. Here Clifton and Julio drove their flock, shouting their gladness to be there, answering the barks of the dogs. The down journey was ended. In the spring the sheep would be fat and strong, and the return trip a reward of the months.

“Julio, your Virgin Saint spoke true. All is well,” said Clifton.

“Eet es well, señor,” replied the lad.

Clifton surveyed the fallen cottonwoods and willows, the driftwood that had come down the stream in flood, and smiled at the thought of luxurious camp fires during the winter. What had he ever known of cold? As the worth of a fire! It took the desert to teach a man.

Then, with trepidation of heart, he swung an ax. It strained him. It made him pant and sweat and labor. But he could swing it! A terrible, incomprehensible ecstasy assailed him. No man could ever tell what might happen. Life was sweet. Just to see and feel and smell! To be able to stand up like a man and work! Love was not necessary. The affection and understanding of a father could be dispensed with. The thought of mother must always be sad. No compensation for her! Friends were nothing. It was just enough to feel life flowing back through the veins, hot, throbbing, thrilling. To conquer physical obstacles — to be able to chop a log! In place of the God he imagined had failed him, he thanked Julio’s Virgin Saint.

This vast shut-in basin was a desert paradise. There would be Indians and other sheep-herders, but they would not spoil the solitude, the long, long nights with the wind in the cottonwoods, the long, long days, solemn and still, empty of the hate and greed of men.

Julio came and stood in amaze to see him swing the ax, to watch with his soft dark eyes, and to cry out, “Ah, señor ez grande again!”

Clifton saw it through, and fell with the ax in his hands. He was weak. But how infinitely stronger than he had ever hoped to be! And as he lay there, panting, there was born in him an unutterable and ineffably passionate love for the raw, ruthless, flinty desert that had saved him.

Chapter Fourteen

SUNRISES OF PALE rose with fan rays, ice on the still pools that soon melted, lonesome full hours with the bleating sheep, sunsets of gold and red over the purple walls — so the days sped.

In January, one morning, Julio discovered a loss of sheep. At first Clifton believed they had strayed, but Julio shook his head, and soon he pointed to moccasin tracks in the sand. The sheep had been stolen.

“I will go fetch them back,” said Clifton, with heat.

“No, señor. Mucho malo,” returned the lad, and with impressive gesture indicated a flight far over the Guadaloupe walls, across the border into Mexico.

“But the sheep can’t travel fast. I’ll catch up with the thieves,” protested Clifton.

“Mebbe no. Injuns shoot.” Plain it was that Julio did not think the loss of a few sheep worth the risk. But Clifton did. The Mexican lad seemed to be trying to tell him that little thefts like this one were always happening at Guadaloupe, but he did not implicate the herders and Indians in the valley. The raiders came from far and were never trailed.

“I’ll go,” decided Clifton, with a zest. “They can’t steal my sheep without a run for it.”

He must travel light, and he sifted the necessities down to his rifle, with a box of shells, and a bag containing hard biscuits, meat and salt, and some parched corn. It would not be necessary to pack a canteen, because the Indians dared not go far from water on account of the sheep. He took matches, a small hand-ax, which he stuck in his belt, and set out.

The trail of the sheep was easy to follow, for their sharp little hoofs cut into even the baked adobe soil, but it took discerning eyes to find imprints of moccasins. He had never had experience enough on the range to become an expert tracker, which fortunately was not required in this instance.

The trail led east, toward the shortest way out of the basin. No doubt the raiders would turn south when they got through the walls. It took Clifton three hours of steady tramping to reach the walls. They loomed like mountains of smooth red walls, straight up, with rims weathered, broken, splintered into crags, turrets, crumbled ruins of rock, where green growths found lodgment in the niches.

Clifton had seen these irregular escarpments from a distance of twelve or fifteen miles, and therefore had underestimated their size. He passed through the break where the sheep tracks led, and found himself in an astounding world of walls, monuments, shafts, and rocks, all rising sheer out of level red ground, with aisles and lanes between, with hollows, caves, and caverns under the gigantic cliffs, water-worn perhaps, in an age when this region had been inundated. It was the most weird, colorful, and fascinating place he had ever visited. Guadaloupe Springs had not been an unknown name to Clifton, years before, but nothing had ever been told of these marvelous rock formations. They were scarcely three hundred miles from Las Vegas, south by west. It thrilled him to realize that many wonders and beauties of the desert were still unknown to all save a few wanderers.

A glamour of color and silence seemed to enfold the regions of these upstanding ledges of rock. The sunlight appeared to be a reflection of the dark red, almost purple hue of the walls, and the gold-green of the desert floor. There was no sound except the silken rustle of swallows, so swift in flight that Clifton could not see them until they had darted by.

He traveled cautiously, expecting to come in sight of the Indians around any corner. Between the great walls he sometimes had a glimpse of the open desert beyond, and the sight made him catch his breath. From the heights the land sloped away into a measureless and ghastly void of white and gray that seemed to have no end, that was lost in sky.

At last he got through the labyrinthine maze. Then far down the gradual incline he caught sight of moving dots. They were miles away, but he doubted not that they were his quarry. Clifton followed, moving out of a direct line toward a slight eminence, from which he hoped to sight the stolen sheep.

When he surmounted this vantage-point he made out a line of white specks that he instantly recognized as sheep, perhaps to the number of fifty. Behind moved the larger dots, dark in color. These were the Indians on foot, and they were heading down and toward the west.

Clifton sat down to eat, and to ponder over the situation. He wanted only to recover the sheep, and that might not be easy unless he surprised the thieves. They were heading surely toward a dark green fringe, which probably marked a waterhole. If he could stalk them into camp, and fire a few shots to frighten them, the recovery of the sheep would present no great difficulty. On the other hand, however, if they sighted him in pursuit they might kill, or surely scatter the sheep, and probably ambush him.

Therefore he waited until they had passed on out of sight, and then completing his simple repast, he headed to the west, aiming to get back under the protection of the walls. In this manner he lost ground in the pursuit, but still did not sheer far from the general direction of the raiders.

By the middle of the afternoon Clifton had begun to tire. He had traveled far, at a rather brisk walk. Still he kept on, until he arrived at a point opposite the green patch that he believed the Indians were making for. Here he rested again and watched sharply for reappearance of the drivers and the sheep. They did not come in sight. Therefore, much concerned that he might have miscalculated, he pressed on straight down the slope.

At sundown he was within five miles of the patch of green, that proved to be trees, among which something pale caught the last light of the sun. It was water or sand.

A bulge of ground to Clifton’s left had long concealed any extensive view of the lay of the desert in that direction. He devoted all his searching gaze there, and as the shadows thickened he grew bolder and trusted more to the sparse growths for cover. Suddenly he heard a sharp sound that brought him startled and crouching to his knees behind a bush. He listened. Presently it rang out again — the bark of a dog.

The Indians were probably just below the dip of ground ahead. He crawled noiselessly a few yards, then again listened. He thought he heard faint voices, but could not be certain. Presently he stole on farther, soon to attain a position where he could command the level below. And half a mile out he espied four Indians driving two score and more of sheep. He watched them. Just as the dusk was about to swallow them they entered the grove.

Clifton pressed on then, under cover of the gathering darkness, and in half an hour the line of trees showed black against the horizon, and low down flickered a camp fire. This afforded him much satisfaction, but the further problem was what to do, now that he had caught up with the thieves.

He had not noticed that they carried guns. But on the other hand this was probably their encampment, and there might be others. He circled, and entered the grove at its upper end, where trees stood far apart, yet the underbrush was thick. He slipped down into a dry wash, with sandy floor, and following it to a point he judged somewhat in proximity to the camp, he crawled up on the bank and under the bushes to reconnoiter.

He came abruptly upon a huge jumble of rocks, where he halted to listen. He heard running water, but no other sound. Even the leaves were still.

Whereupon he considered the situation. If he could not light a fire he was in for an uncomfortable night. The four Indians he had seen did not present any great obstacle, and if they had not joined others at this camp, he thought it just as well to rout them at once, instead of waiting for daylight. He wanted to be certain, however, before he alarmed the dogs. He had heard one and there would certainly be more. So with extreme caution he set out to circle the rocks.

It struck him presently, however, that he could not have been any cooler. He remembered the excitement caused by disturbances with the Indians years before, when he was a boy. A situation approaching this would have stopped his heart. But he had done this sort of thing under cannon fire that was like terrific thunder. He had done it alone, and in company with hundreds of men.

This was vaguely amusing, but at length it roused him. The night, the desert loneliness, the presence of unseen Indians, the stalking as of big game, contributed to a quickening of pulse and a tightening of his skin. It was action that created excitement.

A break in the bank of rock afforded him a place to enter and climb up to where he could see a glow of fire. But there was brush or cover on the flat top, so he slipped down on the right side, and worked around that way.

Presently he saw the firelight; and moving dark figures, more, he was sure, than those of the Indians he had tracked. Carefully picking the best covert from which to watch them, he stole stealthily on, sank to his hands and knees, and halted in shadow.

With the first clear look his grimness turned to amazement. There were a dozen figures, perhaps, before him, but not one of them was an Indian. They were Mexicans, and indeed a poor, ragged, starved lot. One woman held a baby to her breast, and it did not look many days old. They were cooking a sheep, which task was manifestly of profound importance. They jabbered gaily, and some of them performed antics not unlike dancing. The idea of pursuit was the remotest from their minds. Half a dozen gaunt dogs crouched before the fire. No doubt the only scent they could catch then was that of roast sheep.

They had no horses, Clifton could see, and only the most meager of camp equipment. If there was a gun in the party, Clifton could not spy it out. The dark lean faces, the wild eyes, and straggling black hair, the brown bodies showing through rents in their clothes, the mouths opening and shutting, the tiny baby and the tender mother who looked hungry as a wolf herself — these stirred Clifton to pity.

A few rifle-shots would have scattered that group like a fox running among a covey of quail. They were going to have a feast. Clifton felt that he would not lift a hand to prevent it. Silently he crawled back, and rising behind the brush to shoulder his rifle he strode away across the desert.

“Poor peons!” muttered Clifton. “I wonder if God knows how full the world is of misery...Old Don Lopez can afford to lose those sheep. If he can’t, I’ll pay for them.”

He headed for the dark walls that appeared to shed luster from the stars. Weary though he was, he did not slacken his pace until he was several miles up the slope, and then he chose a secluded spot rich in sage and hemmed round by outcropping rocks.

It amused Clifton to consider this protected nook, which would insure him comfort for part of the night at least, as a reward for his generous act. There was abundance of dead sage all around, which, broken into bits, would burn like coals. He collected a goodly supply, then built a little fire against a rock. He roasted pieces of meat on a sharpened stick, and did not fare ill. He fancied, though, that he would be thirsty on the morrow, before he found water.

With his hand-ax he cut enough live sage brush to make a soft bed. That done, he sat cross-legged before the little white-and-gold fire, and divided his gaze between that and the stars. Both were intimate tonight. He was no longer alone. He, who had been so utterly wretched a few months earlier, now experienced sweet sensations in extreme fatigue. He did not desire to be anywhere else. College, the war, government, friends, and family had all repudiated him, cast him out, like the mother fox the black cub in her litter. Bitterness had gone from his heart. There were things on the earth no one had ever dreamed of. What man needed was silence, loneliness, to be helpless in agony, to accept death while fighting for life, to be in contact with the earth and the elements. There was something infinite in the stars. Here the stars that once had been pitiless now spoke to him.

He put more fuel on the fire. How it sparkled, crackled, burst into tiny flames! He recalled a fire he had once sat over in a trench, with a stinking dead man lying on the ice a yard away. Fire, man, and ice had left him unmoved. Here, however, he was thankful in his soul. He had erected a temple.

The desert wind sprang up. It moaned over the tops of the rocks and the tips of the sage. He was snug there. He toasted his palms and heated the soles of his boots. Fire-worshiper by night, sun-worshiper by day! They gave birth to such beautiful thoughts. He marveled no more at Julio, who could sit all day and look, and be happy; nor at the range-rider who never forsook the range, nor the lonely prospector his hunt for gold. They could never lose. Because it was the seeing, the searching, that brought joy.

He lay down, and his heavy eyelids refused to open again. He fell asleep. When he awoke stars and sky had changed, dimmed, grayed over. His fire was dead ashes. He rebuilt it, and warmed himself again. The night was ghostly now, strange, with a wailing wind, and the coyotes seemed like lost spirits.

Once he nodded and fell asleep over the fire, and awakening with a start he stacked on all his store of wood, and stretched himself upon the sage.

In February the cottonwoods shed their leaves, carpeting the ground with gold. Clifton and Julio were returning from a visit to other shepherds in the valley. Some of these got supplies from the border, and readily shared them. Clifton carried two sacks, and Julio one. Clifton laughed when he reached camp. What was a heavy burden to him? Daily for two months he had packed logs of firewood to camp. He was stronger than ever before in his life. He gazed at his brown arms and hands as if they belonged to a stranger. He felt his powerful legs, hard as iron. The wounds he had sustained were as if they had never been.

What little winter Guadaloupe Springs ever knew in the run of the seasons had passed. The dawns were cold, crisp, but no longer did ice film over the still pools. Day by day the frost lessened, until that morning came when there was no glistening white on the logs.

It was getting time to think of the long return trip back to San Luis. The sheep were full and fat and lazy. Lambing season was near at hand, a little while after which, when the lambs were able to travel, the journey north would begin. Clifton was jubilant over prospects of a large number of lambs. How pleased old Don Lopez would be! He had predicted a poor season for reasons quite beyond Clifton.

More than once Clifton recalled the news given him by the three sheepmen who had told him Malpass was negotiating with Lopez for this flock of sheep. Whenever Clifton thought of this, it rankled. But somehow he had a conviction that he would never again clash with Malpass. Still many of his instincts had faded here in this red-walled solitude. Where was the crippled, embittered, hopeless, and atheistic soldier of last year? Clifton was confronted with the surety of a future, but he shirked the thought of it. He loved this nomad life. And upon his return to civilization, if he found the same things that he had contended with before his recovery, he would come back to life in the open. It was impossible now and then not to wonder about his mother, but he did not waste any feeling upon his other parent. Virginia had become a sad and beautiful memory, seldom recalled now. It had hurt to think of her, and gradually he had overcome the habit. By this time she would have divorced him.

Lambing season was late, but Clifton had the satisfaction of counting a thousand new sheep. What good business it would have been if he could have purchased this flock from Lopez.

“Grande! grande!” cried Julio, clapping his hands.

Clifton shared his enthusiasm, and he enjoyed the sight of the little lambs. It seemed absurd, but no two lambs looked alike. At least Julio claimed they did not. Clifton, however, would not have cared for the responsibility of the mothers in this regard. The lambs were some variety of white and brown and black. Wholly black ones were rare indeed in this family. A few days after birth they were as lively as crickets. Clifton never tired of playing with them. One evening in camp he had a number he had picked out. There was a black one, with only the tail white. There was a white one with a brown and a black ear, a brown one with white face, and another with black feet. Some of them looked as if they were painted, especially one with a brown leg, a white leg, a black leg, and all the rest of him a combination of the three colors.

Clifton lingered at Guadaloupe because he was loath to leave the beautiful lonely place, and because the longer he stayed the stronger the lambs would be. Fortunately, he did not need to worry about grass and water. At first he would travel a day and then camp a day.

This planning somehow seemed to break his tranquillity, for when he once turned his steps northward, every step would bring him nearer to San Luis, to home, and to Virginia Lundeen.

But soon now he must return. The long two-month journey would seem short. Clifton pondered whether or not to give up this sheep-herding for Lopez. He did not like the thought of driving sheep near San Luis and Cottonwoods. On the other hand, however, he had grown to love both the flock and the free life in the open. At some future day he might accumulate a flock of his own.

The sheep range back of San Luis was open to automobilists and horsemen. He would always run the chance of meeting them, and that was not a pleasant anticipation. Clifton Forrest — returned soldier! One of the principals of the Lundeen-Forrest secret marriage! Cast off by his father! A herder of sheep! Divorced by Virginia Lundeen! He hated the idea of being the butt of such scandal. Especially the last! But for that certainty he might find the return bearable. Yet it was so utterly ridiculous for him to resent a divorce. What wild dreams he had entertained!

It was not conceivable that he could stay away permanently from his mother. Not during her lifetime! That was the strongest magnet to draw him back. So there was no use to deceive himself with false hopes of avoiding the embarrassment which would result. Sooner or later he would meet Malpass again; and he did not trust himself. He was now physically twice the man he had been when he went to war. He felt like flint charged with latent fire.

He had no illusions about Virginia’s being permanently forbidden her father’s house. As soon as Lundeen came to his senses and found out Virginia was her own mistress, then he would implore her to return to Cottonwoods. Nothing else was conceivable. To be sure, he would insist that Virginia divorce her undesirable husband. And Virginia could purchase freedom from persecution by breaking this marriage. Clifton could not think these thoughts without discovering that the ghost of his old self hung upon his steps like a shadow.

As he and Julio had been the last shepherds to come to Guadaloupe, so they were the last to leave. Julio became anxious and alarmed. “Mucho malo!” he would say, pointing to the sheep and the north.

“Mañana,” always replied Clifton, and at last realized he must start on the morrow.

That night there happened to be a full moon. The air was almost balmy, like spring at home. The valley was flooded with silver light. Clifton could only force himself to leave by promising himself that he would come back. He walked under the cottonwoods, listening to the soft ba-ba of the lambs and the tinkle of the bells, and the music of water flowing over the stones.

He tried to gauge the change, the growth in himself, the transformation that had been wrought. But it was impossible. He recalled the war with only pity for those who had caused it and for those who had endured it. His late ordeal of physical agony seemed like a hideous nightmare, gradually fading. He conceived that he might one day think of it without horror. He confessed to himself that it was love of Virginia Lundeen as much as the magic medicine of the desert that had worked a miracle. They were inseparable.

He seemed to feel himself more than human as he walked there in the lonely solitude. The earth, with its rocks, trees, sages, water, its strange leaven and strength, had gone into him. Moreover, there were also the beauty, the spirit, the nameless fulfillment of nature that forever forbade him mockery or revolt.

The moon soared white, and fleecy clouds crossed it, to make moving shadows on the valley. The sheep quieted down, and only the stream gave sound to the wilderness. How infinite and incomprehensible the heavens! How sweet, all-satisfying the sense of his presence completing that lonely scene! He asked no more of man or God.

Chapter Fifteen

EARLY IN NOVEMBER Virginia returned to Las Vegas and took up her abode at the Castaneda. She had been so engrossed in her project to investigate the Padre Mine that she quite forgot circumstances likely to accrue when she arrived. It was a small town, and in half an hour everybody apparently had heard of her return. When she had answered the telephone a dozen or more times she realized that she had achieved a popularity that was almost notorious.

“Well, this is the limit,” she said, resignedly, as she sat down by the window. “I ought to have let Ethel come with me. Where was my head, anyhow?”

When she answered the telephone the next time she heard a familiar gruff voice that made her jump with surprise.

“Hello! Is this you, Virginia?”

“Yes. Who’s speaking, please?”

“Lundeen,” came the answer.

“Who?”

“Your father...Don’t you know my voice?”

“Oh — father! Excuse me. I didn’t credit my ears. How are you?”

“Not any too damn good,” he growled.

“I always knew you weren’t...How is mother? Have you heard from mother lately?”

“Yes. An’ I heah she’s some better.”

“That’s good. I’m very glad. She was always in better health in Atlanta.”

“An’ how’re you, Virginia?”

This was an amazing prelude to something, Virginia reasoned, and it sent a tingle over her.

“Me? Oh, I’m fine! Thank you for inquiring.”

“Reckon I’ll run down to see you,” he replied.

“You needn’t. I wouldn’t see you if I bumped into you on the street.”

“Ahuh! Wal, I sort of had a hunch you wouldn’t. So I called you up.”

“Pray, why should I?” inquired Virginia, with faint sarcasm.

“Virginia, I’m shore sorry aboot it all.”

“Indeed! What a pity! But it’s too late.”

“Lass, I’m not gettin’ any younger. An’ mother’s gone. She’ll never come back. I’ve a hunch I’ll never see her again. An’ I’m sort of lonely.”

“But you have your slick Señor Malpass,” returned Virginia, cruelly.

She heard him curse under his breath.

“Virginia, I’ll take you back if you’ll divorce Forrest.”

“Divorce Clifton!” she cried, as if in great amaze. “I couldn’t think of that. How can you ask?”

“But you don’t care for him!” expostulated Lundeen.

“Why, daddy darling, I just worship Clifton!” rejoined Virginia, tantalizingly.

“My Gawd! An’ I’ve lived to heah a Lundeen say that!”

After a long pause Virginia continued: “Well, is there any more I can tell you? I’m very busy.”

“Hold on...Virginia, aren’t you hard up for money?”

“Indeed I am! But don’t let it worry you.”

“Wal, it does worry me. You never knew the value of money. You’ll be borrowing from the hotel, or the taxi-drivers — anybody.”

“Oh, so you think anybody would lend me money?”

“Shore. I reckon you’d be good at the bank for what you wanted. But I don’t like the idea, Virginia.”

“So you want to save your face by sending me some?”

“Wal, if you put it that way.”

“Dad, I’d starve before I’d take two bits from you. Presently I’ll get a job here. Oh, I can do ‘most anything from stenography to millinery. I might borrow some money and start a millinery store. But, if I’m not so much as I think I am, I could at least be a waitress. Reckon I’d be an attraction at the Harvey lunch-room here. Or — —”

“Shut up! I’d buy the place an’ close it. Do you think I’d stand for a Lundeen — —”

“Listen, papa,” interrupted Virginia, sweetly. “You forget I’m no longer a Lundeen...I’m registered here at the hotel as Mrs. Clifton Forrest.”

Crash! He had slammed up the receiver. Virginia fell away from her end of the line breathless, excited, and exultant.

“That’ll do him for a spell...Poor dad! — ready to crawl! If I can get anything on Malpass —— Oh! what can’t I hope for?”

Virginia’s task of unpacking suffered intervals of inaction when she stood idly gazing out of the window at the distant white-tipped range. Her father’s appeal had given the situation an unexpected turn. Anything might be possible now. The overthrow of Malpass, which she was planning and which was all she hoped for, now seemed but the beginning of the crucial step in her career.

She caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror and stared aghast. There was a glow in her cheeks, a half smile on her lips, a radiant light in her eyes long a stranger there. And these persisted when later she went out. She had no particular errand in mind, but she wanted to walk. The November air was cold; the leaves were gone from the trees; she saw the range bare and yellow, and snow on the peaks. Before she reached the park she encountered Gwen Barclay, one of her friends. Gwen’s greeting brought a blush to Virginia’s cheek and further augmented her high spirits. They talked a moment, and then parted with agreement to meet later. Virginia continued her walk, and returning to the business section of town, she met another of her old friends, Richard Fenton, who happened to be coming out of the bank.

“Howdy, Dick!” she said, brightly.

“Virginia! — Well, of all people!” he exclaimed, in delight. “Wherever did you come from?”

“Denver. I got in this morning. Hadn’t you heard? I might as well have had a brass band.”

“No, I hadn’t. But I’m sure glad. Say, Virginia, you just look wonderful.”

“Thanks. It’s the air. I looked like the devil in Denver.”

“Impossible. You’ve been with Ethel. How is she?”

“Fine. Announced her engagement. Nice little chap.”

“You don’t say. Ethel! Well, that accounts. She certainly had something up her sleeve...Where are you bound for, may I ask?”

“Back to the hotel.”

“Suppose you have lunch with me there?”

“Thanks. It’ll be jolly. You can tell me all the news...But, Dick, hold on. I forgot. I’m a respectable married woman.”

“By gosh! I forgot, too. Mrs. Clifton Forrest...That lucky son-of-a-gun! But do you know, Virginia, as I couldn’t have you myself, I was glad Clifton was the man? None of us could stomach Malpass. And believe me we were all scared stiff. We were afraid if Malpass didn’t get you, some one of those Eastern galoots would. Clifton is Western and the real goods.”

“Dick, I like you for that speech,” returned Virginia, warmly. “Come, I’ll take you to lunch.”

It was only a step round the corner to the Castaneda, where Virginia presently found herself in the well-filled dining-room, sitting with Richard, and not unaware of the interest she roused.

“So you didn’t go to Reno?” queried Fenton, with good humor, though he was curious.

“Reno! Why there, for goodness sake? Denver is bad enough.”

“It was rumored you went to Reno to divorce Clifton. Pretty generally believed, Virginia.”

“Well, there’s absolutely no truth in it. I suppose I have father and Malpass to thank for that gossip. As if there weren’t scandal enough!”

“Personally I didn’t believe it,” went on Fenton, after he had given the waitress an order. “Your friends were ready to gamble that if you married Clifton, even to get rid of Malpass, you’d stick to him.”

“Dick, did they roast me for it?”

“I don’t think so. Sure no one ever did to your friends. You’ve had us guessing, though. Spoiled the romance by leaving Clifton behind.”

“Did I?...Dick, I’m ashamed to ask you. — Do you know anything about Clifton? Where he is — how he is?”

“Virginia, don’t you know?” queried Fenton in surprise.

“I — I — haven’t the least idea,” replied Virginia, her voice trembling a little.

“By George! The story went that Clifton got fired out of his home the same day you got yours. He disappeared. Naturally we all thought you had it planned to meet somewhere.”

“No. I didn’t see Clifton that day.”

“Then there was neither an elopement nor a divorce...Virginia, I fear the tongues will begin to wag again.”

“Let them wag. I’ll give them some more to wag about, presently...Dick, do you think I’ll be able to borrow some money?”

“From me? I should smile. How much do you want?”

“Child, not from you. But the bank. You’re supposed to work there.”

“Well, I imagine you could knock down any reasonable sum.”

“I haven’t any security. Of course I have my jewelry, Dick. I had to pawn some diamonds in Denver. Ethel was furious. But I couldn’t touch her.”

“You can touch father all right, even if he is a hard-headed banker. He always had a soft spot for you. Shall I ask him, Virginia?”

“Yes, if you’ll be so good. I don’t need any money right now, but I will soon...Dick, I’m afraid I never valued my friends.”

“Better late than never,” he rejoined, lightly; and then, after a more general conversation, they finished lunch and parted.

She entered the lobby and a bell-boy accosted her.

“Call for you, madam.”

“Telephone?”

“No. There’s a man here who says his business is too important to be phoned or told to bell-boys.”

“Indeed! Where is he?”

“He’s waitin’ inside. I’ll call him.”

In a moment he returned, escorting an awkward rough-garbed man who bowed to her, embarrassed but earnest, and said:

“Are you Mrs. Clifton Forrest?”

“Yes,” replied Virginia, annoyed that she blushed.

“My name is Smith. I’m a sheepman. Today I was in San Luis an’ I had a talk with Don Lopez. An’ jest now I happened to hear you was in the hotel, so I made bold to ask for you. I reckon I’ve somethin’ interestin’ to tell you, if you can spare me a minute.”

“Certainly. Let us go inside where we can sit down.”

She scanned his weatherbeaten face with the scrutiny of an eager and hopeful, yet fearful interrogator. He was middle-aged, and his coarse garments reeked of tobacco and sheep. His boots were muddy. He had great hairy hands, that rimmed his sombrero nervously. His strong chin had not come in contact with a razor for some time. He had keen blue eyes that met her gaze steadily.

“Malpass is dickerin’ with Don Lopez to buy his big flock of sheep,” said Smith, as if the matter was one of vital interest to her.

“Yes?” returned Virginia, encouragingly, though she had no glimmering how this circumstance could affect her.

“I heerd of this a month ago, an’ when I got back I went over to see Lopez. He an’ me have had lots in common, an’ I was shore he’d tell me. Yes, he says, ever since young Forrest went south with the big flock, Malpass had been dickerin’ to buy it. An’ Lopez wouldn’t sell because the offer was low. Malpass is a low bidder on my stock. He drives the Mexicans, but he could make it a go with Lopez. Wal, considerin’ the market jest now, Lopez will sell, but not too low. Now my errand here is a tip to you. I’m advisin’ you to forestall Malpass an’ buy thet flock from Lopez pronto.”

“And why do you advise me to do this?” inquired Virginia, too interested to be aloof.

“Wal, I was the last to see them sheep,” resumed Smith. “It was some four weeks an’ more ago, when I was goin’ out to a ranch. We run across your husband an’ a Mexican lad drivin’ this flock south. I had a good look at the sheep, an’ sheep is my business. I’m tellin’ you thet flock will come back mebbe a third more in number. If you buy from Lopez now you’ll not only beat Malpass to it, but make a big profit. It’s a pretty big deal for me to swing, as I’m aboot as deep in as I want to get, but if you don’t jump at it I’m goin’ to see what I can do.”

“You say — you saw my husband?” queried Virginia, trying to appear calm when she was very far from it.

“Yes, an’ I talked with him. He looked pretty sick, an’ I advised him to give up thet long drive to Guadaloupe Springs. I told him what Malpass was up to.”

“What is that?”

“Wal, I had the idee when I first heerd Malpass was dickerin’ for the sheep. An’ today I shore nailed it. Malpass never overlooks a deal to make money, but you can bet his prime motive in buyin’ them sheep is to send a couple of herders down there an’ fire Forrest. Like as not turn him loose without grub or tent! An’ as I was sayin’, Forrest didn’t look so well to me. I reckoned he took this job sheep-herdin’ on account of his health, an’ it was a blamed good idee. For if he doesn’t kill himself on the way he’d shore get cured at Guadaloupe. It’s jest the finest medicine in the world...So, findin’ you was here, I jest made bold to give you this hunch. It jest shot through me, strange-like an’ I hope you see it my way.”

“I do. You are very good and I thank you. How many sheep in this flock and what are they worth?”

“I watched them cross the road, an’ me an’ my pardners gambled on the count, as we always do. We didn’t agree, natural-like. But there’s around three thousand head. An’ ten thousand dollars will buy them. They’re worth a good deal more right now. In the spring after lambin’ there’ll be — wal, I won’t risk a figger, but I’ll say it’s a big buy. An’ Malpass will grab it pronto.”

“We will beat him to it, as you say,” declared Virginia, emphatically, and held out her hand. “I shall lose no time. And I’d like you to call on me again — to tell me more about my — my husband.”

“Wal, I’d be most proud, Mrs. Forrest,” he returned. “But I’m leavin’ today, an’ I don’t know no more than I’ve told you. I’ll gamble, though, if you block Malpass’ deal, Forrest will come home in the spring as husky an’ strong as any young fellar around. Why thet’s the perfectest place in the world! The water an’ the air — they’d fetch a dead man back to life, almost.”

“Good-by, then, and don’t forget you’re a friend of the Cliff Forrests’,” returned Virginia, earnestly.

Ten minutes later she sat facing Richard Fenton’s father, president of the Las Vegas Bank.

“I want to borrow ten thousand dollars,” she announced, after greetings had been exchanged.

“So Dick was telling me,” replied the elder Fenton, smiling.

“But when I mentioned borrowing to him I had no idea I would come so soon or ask for so much.”

“He guessed it, then. For he sure said ten thousand. May I ask, Virginia, what you want with so much money?”

Virginia told him briefly.

“That’s different. You must forgive me, Virginia. I imagined you wanted it for your usual luxuries. This is good sound business, outside of your desire to help Clifton. I’ll lend you the money. The sheep will be ample security. I’d like to make that buy for myself.”

“Give me something to sign, then, and a certified check. And if you’ll be so kind — a little advice about the purchase of these sheep.”

“Take Dick with you. He’s our attorney, and he’ll draw up a bill of sale to protect you.”

Fenton pressed a button on his desk, while looking kindly and thoughtfully at Virginia.

“There! The color has come back to your cheeks,” he said. “You were white when you came in. I like the roses best, lass. Long ago, when you were a ragged school kid, I took a liking to you. Used to watch you and Dick and your kid schoolmates. And not so long ago I hoped you might make Dick the lucky boy. But life teaches we can’t have all we want. Like Dick, I’m glad it was Clifton...I hope and believe all will turn out happily for you.”

That night Virginia was so fatigued by the rough ride to San Luis and so stirred by the success of her venture that she could not enjoy her dinner. And afterward she was beset by her friends. She was dead spent when she crawled into bed, almost asleep before she stretched out.

Next morning she awakened rested, cheerful, eager. At breakfast she found an item in the morning paper, on the front page, anent the return to Las Vegas of Mrs. Clifton Forrest, who aside from seeing many welcoming friends, had found time to run over to San Luis and buy from Don Lopez one of the largest flocks of sheep on the range.

It was not the news that caused Virginia’s face to burn, but the name in print — Mrs. Clifton Forrest! It gave her the most unaccountable sensation of mingled shame, pride, and ache. Yet she had to confess she liked the look of it in print.

Not so long after breakfast the hotel clerk rang her room, and said: “Your father calling. Shall I send him up?”

“No. I’ll come down,” hastily replied Virginia, surprised into that much of an armistice. She had wit enough, even though flustered, to think that her father could not very well bully her in the hotel parlor. As she went downstairs, however, she decided if he did try that, or if he had Malpass with him, she would promptly beat a retreat. And with that in mind, and a freezing dignity, she swept into the parlor.

Lundeen was alone and rose at her entrance. Pity had been farthest from Virginia’s emotions, but the instant she saw his altered face and manner she felt it. His greeting seemed less stilted than hers. Perhaps he was less aware that others were present.

“I thought I’d better run down an’ see you,” he said, motioning Virginia to be seated.

“Yes?” answered Virginia, interrogatively. She looked penetratingly to see what purpose hid behind this unfamiliar front. There was none. He seemed strange, but as composed as she forced herself to be.

“I’ll come to that presently,” he replied, with dark unfathomable eyes on her. “I reckon I never seen you look better. Like your mother when I met her. Only handsomer.” He sighed, and then tapped the newspaper he held. “I see you’re goin’ in the sheep business.”

“Yes. But I was as surprised as anyone to see that in print.”

He scanned the page. “Mrs. Clifton Forrest! — Where’d you get the money, Virginia?”

“I borrowed it.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand.”

“You’re no fool, that’s shore. But I reckon you weren’t lookin’ to make money. Why’d you buy them?”

Virginia told him bluntly. His astonishment was not feigned. Then his expression changed and she could not gauge him so well, but she divined something of resentment, either at her or Malpass. Next his troubled gaze sought the floor, and he twisted the newspaper in vise-like hands.

“Virginia, I can take a beatin’,” he said.

“Can you? First I ever knew of it,” she returned, with a laugh.

“Wal, I shore can. An’ I reckon you’ve beat me aboot this young Forrest. Will you tell me a few things — honest?”

“Yes, dad, since you make such amazing statement as that last,” returned Virginia, thawing in spite of herself.

“You didn’t marry Forrest only just to fool me an’ Malpass?’

“Indeed, no. But I couldn’t truthfully say that wasn’t included in my motive.”

“You care real genuine for him?”

“Yes, dad.”

“You love him like — like your mother did me?”

“I hope it’s that well. Mother has loved you wondrously, dad. Infinitely more than you ever deserved.”

“I reckon it makes a difference,” he rejoined, ponderingly. “You see, I never had any idea you really loved Forrest. Not till yesterday. Somethin’ you said on the phone. It got me. An’ it struck me that I hated young Forrest only because of his father...So I’ve come down to surrender. If you’ll make up with me I’ll take back my demand aboot the divorce.”

“Oh, dad — you surprise me!” she exclaimed, gladly. “That’s good of you. It’s big. It makes me think better of you.”

“Wal, it’s not easy to come to. But that’s my stand. Will you forgive me an’ come home? This means for him, too.”

She touched his hand, almost overcome. “I do forgive you, dad. And I will come home on one condition — that you break with Malpass.”

He jerked as if he had been struck by a stinging whip.

“Reckon I feared just aboot that,” he returned, his voice breaking a little. “Virginia, I can’t do it.”

“Why not? Even if you had to sacrifice money it would be better for you in the end.”

“It’s not money, lass, though I’d hate to let Malpass get any more of mine. But I’d sacrifice if that was enough...Virginia, he hasn’t ever given up expectin’ to get you.”

“The conceited jackass!” ejaculated Virginia, in angry amaze.

“So he’d hang on to me like grim death.”

“But, father, he’s crooked.”

“Shore. An’ there’s the rub. He has made me crooked, too. I was easy to lead, though, an’ can’t brag. But if I’d break with him it’d be my ruin.”

“Father, has it ever occurred to you that Malpass might have been crooked with you?”

“What you mean, girl?” he demanded, gruffly.

“Might he not have cheated you?”

“No. That never occurred to me. I’d swear by him.”

“But suppose he had. Would that make any difference? Would you break with him then?”

“Ha! I’d not only break with him, but — —” he growled, and rumbled the rest in his cavernous breast.

Virginia shivered, but she had committed herself to this supposition and would not heed a warning. He rose to glare sadly down at her.

“Wal, then we split on Malpass again, an’ for good?”

“Dad, we don’t split at all,” she replied, rising to face him and to speak eloquently and low. “I can’t come back to you yet, but I’ll live in hopes. You’ve given me back something of respect for you — perhaps more. That means a great deal to me. I thank you for it...Let’s not split. Don’t be angry with me any more. I’m sure I can help you. Oh, dad, I know it...Let’s be friends — until — —”

“Wal, I’ll think aboot it,” he returned, and strode away.

Chapter Sixteen

NEXT DAY AT an early hour Virginia telegraphed Jarvis, the mining expert, to come on at once. That done she anticipated calm, but she was in a fever of impatience, hope, and dread. What a step to take! But the plan had been conceived in cold, stern reasoning. She would abide by it, come what might. Her return home, all the news about Clifton Forrest, and her father’s incredible capitulation had stormed her emotions.

It helped somewhat to write to Ethel — a letter she dared not read over for fear she would never sanction such raving. This act, however, was keeping faith with her staunch friend; and the mere expression of the facts, fancies, and fears occasioned by her return mitigated in some degree their dismaying power.

In the afternoon she went to see a motion picture. It happened to be a Western melodrama of ancient vintage, and in spite of a cherub-faced hero and a doll of a heroine, a plot that had no semblance to any possible life on the range, a villain who was a perfect counterfeit of Malpass, miraculous hairbreadth escapes from flood, fire, avalanche and the glass-eyed pursuer, it diverted her mind, amused, disgusted, and thrilled her.

Dinner was an ordeal, and to woo sleep seemed futile. Yet at length she dropped away and dreamed Clifton returned well and strong and handsome, but would have none of her. Helen Andrews, after the manner of dreams, appeared from nowhere, ravishingly lovely and mad about Clifton. Dispensing with the formality of marriage, they were building a marble palace above Cottonwoods when Virginia awakened to the blast of a factory whistle. “Whew!” she breathed, grateful for rationality. Her face was damp and her body cold. What fiendish power some dreams had! Weird, grotesque, impossible life seen through an opaque distorting veil, it was yet appallingly real.

Virginia was out before breakfast to meet the train from the east, and to her great satisfaction, Mr. Jarvis alighted from it.

She was not insensitive to the fact that every move of hers in Las Vegas was sure to be seen by somebody. She had become public property, and though she believed the populace championed her, it did not seem politic to invite speculation about this delicate venture.

The quiet-eyed Jarvis might have been a detective who saw all yet gave no sign. Virginia was spared the necessity of speaking to him obtrusively. He carried a grip which he set down before the newsstand. And presently Virginia found opportunity to address him.

“I’ve had breakfast,” he said. “Can I change clothes out at the mine?”

“Yes. Meet me in ten minutes back of the station. I’ll be in a car.”

Those were all the words exchanged and these swiftly in passing. Virginia walked up town to a garage and engaged a car, in which she rode back to the station. When she opened the door, Jarvis appeared as if by magic and stepped in. With that, Virginia’s tension relaxed. She was practically certain no possible observer would have reason to telephone out to Cottonwoods, and that contingency was all she feared. At her order the chauffeur speedily drove away. Jarvis gave her a knowing look, accompanied by a slight motion toward the driver.

“No fear now,” she replied, in relief that was pleasant. “I was afraid some one might phone out home.”

“How far is the place?” he asked.

“About twelve miles. The old road up the last hill has washed away in spots. We shall leave the car and walk up.”

Outside of town the chauffeur slowed up where the road forked. “Which one?” he asked.

“Left hand. Then about five miles out take the road to the right. It’s up hill and rough. Go slow.”

Jarvis leaned toward her casually and whispered that it might be wise to talk about the range, or ranches, or anything but the Padre Mine. “It’s just possible I’d require another day,” he concluded.

Wherefore Virginia made conversation which, if the chauffeur overheard, would not be significant. And all the while she gazed out at the autumn hills and the fading cottonwoods, and southward over the range toward far-off Guadaloupe, with her heart in her eyes, with fists tight in her coat pockets and slow-rising excitement. Jarvis asked questions about ranches, sheep, Mexicans, water, everything about which an ordinary visitor might be interested.

The car was really traveling slowly, but to Virginia it seemed fast. All too soon they reached the old road that led up to the mine. And when the car had ascended the first hill to start across a wide, bare bench, Cottonwoods was in plain sight. Virginia had not counted on this and she was startled. Anyone at the ranch happening to look up would certainly espy the car. Soon, however, she was relieved of this worry, for the road cut into rough ground.

Then followed a bumpy, uncomfortable, uphill ride for several miles until further progress for the car was halted by washouts in the road.

“We’ll have to walk,” said Virginia. “It’s not very far...Driver, you back down the road till you can turn the car, then wait.”

Jarvis looked up the slope with the appraising eye of long experience.

“I’m afraid you’re not a judge of distance,” he said, dryly. “It’s both far and steep. But you look good for it. I’m glad you wore sensible outdoor clothes.”

Presently the ascent prohibited conversation. It did not appear possible to Virginia that tracks and cars had ascended this road. It would have been a hard haul for horses. At length they came out on the west bank of a great ravine, at the head of which and on the opposite side lay the Padre Mine. Jarvis remarked that a good deal of earth had been dug out and dumped on the ugly slope.

A long gradual ascent led to a short steep one which, when surmounted, landed them on the bench before the unsightly, weathered structures. What a hideous blot on that mountain slope! Approached from above it had not been so stark and tremendous, for the reason that a good deal of it was hidden.

“Oh, what — a climb!” panted Virginia, looking back at her companion.

“You’re a Western girl all right,” he returned. “Now let’s step out a little way on that trestle.”

From this vantage-point, which did not appear wholly safe, the slash in the mountain-side could be seen in its entirety.

“I don’t know how many tunnels and shafts have been dug,” said Virginia, when she had caught her breath. “But the big hole there, with the track coming out, is where my cowboy, Jake, went in and found the gold.”

“That’s our objective, then,” replied Jarvis, his keen eyes snapping. “Most interesting place. There’s been a tremendous lot of labor here...I wonder what that big shaft was sunk for.” He pointed to a black brush-lined hole. “Queer sort of mining. But there probably was silver here.”

He surveyed the several apertures that led into the hillside, particularly the one Virginia designated, and the endless dump-heaps of clay and gravel and shale, the rotting trestles and the rusty pipes, the dilapidated smelter below, half buried in deposits that had washed down from above, the shacks with their brown galvanized iron roofs.

“Mistakes are easy to make in anything that pertains to mines,” he said, seriously. “But all this does not have a legitimate look.”

“You raise my hopes,” rejoined Virginia, with an anxious smile. “Please hurry. I must know.”

“You won’t have to wait long. I suppose I can get in one of these shacks to put on my overalls.”

“We’ll try the office. It’s up here a little way — the last house. When I was last here the door was open...Seems to me not a soul has been here since.”

“Desolated and decaying — the story of so many mines!” he returned. “Money is not the only thing sunk in mines.”

They found the office building as Virginia had expected, the door half broken from rusted hinges, and her little boot-tracks still visible in the dust on the floor. After a curious peep inside Virginia withdrew to stroll up and down the hard gravel bench between the rude structures. What a desolate place! She peeped through cracks in boarded windows and doors. Usually all too easy was it for her to weave romance, but she could not here. Even the indefatigable Ethel would have failed. All concerning this ghastly place, in the past and now, was grim nude realism. Greed had fostered it. No wonder it had brought misfortune to her father. What would it bring to Malpass? Retribution and justice had prompted Virginia to this course, but now there loomed the possibility of somber tragedy which she could not dispel. Padre Mine seemed under its spell.

Jarvis came out to interrupt her meditations. He had on blue jeans much the worse for wear. He carried a small pick, a lantern, and other instruments which gave him a formidable look.

“Better go inside and wait for me,” he advised. “There’s a chair. You can’t be seen by a chance rider above. I don’t believe I’ll be long.”

“Take all the time needful. Don’t hurry. It means so much to me.”

“If I were a gambler I’d say you’d win this deal,” he returned, a bright gleam in his eye. “But I’m a professional mining engineer and jealous of my reputation. So I can’t make rash promises. Nevertheless, be patient and hopeful.”

“Thank you, I will,” responded Virginia, calmed by his kindly words. He was sure, but he wanted physical proofs. She watched him disappear down the bank and then she crossed to the office building and went in.

It was a single, large, bare room, well lighted by the open door and a broken window. The floor was thick with dust and dirt, and in one place where rain had entered there was caked mud. An old iron stove leaned crazily on its legs. Sections of stove pipe were missing, but one piece projected down from the ceiling. There were an old chair, which obviously Jarvis had cleaned off for her, and some rocks in a corner, pieces of wood scattered here and there, a closet, empty except for Jarvis’ coat, a rude board table in the farthest corner, and lying on it a rusty iron poker, considerably bent.

Virginia walked round and round the room, trying to still her nervousness and to find occupation for her mind. But she was not very successful. Here in this interior stalked the same skeleton which haunted the rest of the Padre Mine.

As the moments passed she grew more nervous, and scarcely could resist the desire to look at her watch. Yet every moment surely was helping to prove her contention. She sat down for a while, but only to rise and peep out, and begin again her restless pace to and fro. At last in desperation she surrendered to the one state of consciousness that could always annihilate the hours — dreaming of Clifton. It was a dangerous luxury which she seldom allowed herself, and then never for long. This case, however, seemed justifiable. If she did not yield to it, presently she would be tagging after Jarvis, to dirty her clothes, to risk being seen or hurting herself.

Where was Clifton this bleak November day? Tramping along behind his flock, a shepherd of the range. There seemed to be something uplifting and beautiful about all he undertook. Surely he was again torturing his poor maimed limbs. But how blessed the sheep-herder Smith, who claimed the desert would cure Clifton! Soon, surely, the period of pain would be past and he would begin to mend. She prayed for it. Then he would grow straight and strong again, with body in harmony with his fine mind and soul. How often did he think of her? She was his wife. Could he remember that and be indifferent? Would he always be so modest and blind as to believe she had not cared? Would he not be sorry she too had been turned from home, like him? Perhaps he had never heard of it. If the desert had magical properties to make him well, would it not also teach him love? Virginia trembled inwardly with that longing. Sooner or later they were bound to meet. Then what! Could she conceal her love — would she want to? If he did not take her in his arms and kiss her as she yearned to be kissed, she would fall at his feet.

Suddenly Virginia’s sweet trance had a rude awakening. She had heard something in the direction of the slope. Jarvis had not gone that way. She listened — heard the thumping of her heart. Then thud of hoofs!

Violently she started up, to sink back in the chair, cold as ice, quivering in every muscle. Some one was coming on a horse. She tried to still her heart. A rider or a hunter presented no obstacle to her enterprise. Perhaps he would ride by. She could not be seen through the door, unless the horseman dismounted. She grew perfectly rigid in her fear — recognizing a fatality in the moment.

But the hoof thuds passed on by. Virginia breathed again, and relaxed. Then the thuds slowed — stopped. Every function within her except that of listening ears seemed deadlocked.

The horse started back toward the house. Virginia heard a low exclamation, then the solid footfalls of a man dismounting hurriedly. Her vital being surged with the rush of blood back to her heart, to leave her body dry and frozen like ice.

Quick sharp footsteps on the porch. A shadow entered. Following it a man crossed the threshold. Malpass! She could have shrieked at her infernal luck. When he saw her sitting there he halted dead short with a half step, one foot in the air. It dropped, to scrape on the floor. Upon entering, he looked for an instant as she had seen him a thousand times. The moment he espied her the transformation was immense and indescribable.

“For God’s — sake!...Virginia!”

She kept her seat because she did not have strength to rise. But with certainty upon her, the icy inward clamp was released and she burned.

“What are you doing here?” he shouted, almost incoherent in a staggering amaze.

“That’s no — concern of yours,” she found voice to reply. Her mind grasped at straws.

“You’re on my land. What do you mean?...You’re up to something.”

“Your land! That’s another of your lies,” she returned, and with scorn and rising battle she strengthened. He must be deceived and, if not that, held off as long as possible. Jarvis would return, perhaps was on his way now.

“Have you made up with your father?” he demanded, as if suddenly accounting for her presence and her apparent assurance.

“Yes. And this property is as good as mine.”

It was a falsehood, but served its purpose. Malpass turned from red to white, and cursed Lundeen in impotent fury. Virginia gathered that all had not been so well between her father and this usurper. It gave her more nerve and cunning. Anything to blind him!

“So that’s the trick? I’ve been double-crossed, eh?” he burst out, at the conclusion of his profane tirade.

“We are the ones who have been double-crossed, Señor Malpass.”

“We?” he snarled, but he was again struck to astonishment.

“Yes. My father and I — and others interested in Cottonwoods.”

“Your sheep-herder husband included. To hell with him!...I want to know what you’re doing here.”

“I told you — none of your business,” retorted Virginia.

“I’ll make it mine.”

“You can’t do it, Señor Malpass.”

“Cut that señor stuff,” he flashed, his black eyes hellish. “I told you once before. If you call me that again I’ll slap your impudent face.”

“Evidently it fits you well — señor,” she returned, contemptuously.

He fairly bounded at her, and cuffed her sharply across the lips. Virginia realized her blunder. She had overdone her part. She realized, also, that the blow roused the Lundeen in her.

“That will cost you something,” she said, rising with her handkerchief to her lips, which were stained with blood.

“This deal is liable to cost you something,” he rejoined, with a menacing glance at her that no woman could mistake. “Are you alone?”

“Certainly not. Do you imagine I’d come here without protection?”

His glance was one of doubt and suspicion. “Who’s with you?”

“I advise you not to wait and see.”

“You came in that car I saw below?”

“Did you see only one?” she countered.

He was no match for her in finesse and he gave that up in disgust. He peered out of the window, surveying all the ground possible. Then he went to the door to do likewise. Following this he began to scrutinize the dust on the floor of the porch, and like a hound he trailed Jarvis’ footprints into the room. When he raised his eyes Virginia recoiled.

“Liar! You’ve got only one man with you.”

“I have two men. But one would be enough,” retorted Virginia.

“Some Las Vegas masher. He’d better steer clear of me. Are you going to tell me what you’re up to?”

“Padre Mine has always had romance for me. Don’t you think it natural I’d like to see it again?”

“Anything would be natural to you,” he growled, his gimlet eyes boring into her. Manifestly he could not satisfy himself either with her speech or her look. Suddenly his roving gaze caught sight of the coat hanging in the closet. Leaping forward, he pounced upon it, shook it, and searched the pockets, pulling out letters and a notebook. Avidly he scrutinized them.

“George Jarvis, Mining Engineer, Denver, Colorado,” he read aloud. “Mining engineer!”

When he wheeled to Virginia he was livid green. “You — you...Is that the man you fetched here?”

“I didn’t say so,” returned Virginia, coolly. His reaction to this name seemed damning evidence of his guilt.

“You meddling hussy! Talk, or I’ll choke it out of you.”

“Stand back!” cried Virginia. “If you dare to lay your vile hands on me — —”

“You proud white trash!” he hissed, and the half-breed in him showed, as he backed her across the room until the table stopped her. “I’ll do more than lay my hand on you. Tell me your business here.”

“If I had any I wouldn’t tell it.”

She saw that he could hardly restrain himself from seizing her. And primitive fear mounted in her, equaling her anger. All of a sudden he snatched at her, over her raised arms, and catching her with iron clutch he let out a savage cry. Virginia screamed for help. Wrestling with him, she saw Jarvis run into the room. He halted stockstill to stare in utter consternation. Then he seemed to comprehend.

“Let go that woman,” he shouted, and ran at them.

Malpass whirled like a wolf at bay, releasing Virginia and reaching a hand for his hip pocket. Virginia in a flash caught his arm. Then Jarvis was upon him, punched him in the face, tore him free, and swung him against the wall. Malpass’ body, but not his head, struck so solidly that the jar floored him. Not to stun him, however, for he scrambled erect, facing Jarvis, his eyes deadly with the evil of a snake.

“Oh — Mr. Jarvis — look out!” panted Virginia, noting that Malpass sidled round between them and the door. “It’s Malpass.”

“Malpass, eh? I thought as much,” replied Jarvis, wrathfully. “Explain your attack on this girl.”

“So you’re Jarvis?” rejoined Malpass, low and harsh.

“Yes, I am,” flashed Jarvis, slowly edging toward him. Then as Malpass stood like a sullen statue he half turned to Virginia. “If he meant ill by you I’ll beat him to a pulp. Tell me.”

“He wanted — to know — why I came here,” returned Virginia. “Swore he’d choke it out of me.”

“That’s what,” snapped Malpass, curtly. He had made up his mind. “You tell it, Mr. Mining Engineer.”

“You know damn well why she fetched me here,” retorted Jarvis, not in the least influenced by Malpass’ subtle change. “It was to have a look at your crooked work in this mine. And you can bet I found it. Of all the clumsy fool jobs of planting a mine this is the worst.”

“The hell you say!” exclaimed Malpass, with the insolence of one who knew he commanded the situation. The look of him made Virginia’s blood run cold, but it only the more angered Jarvis.

“Malpass, I’ve got the goods on you. You or your tools planted this mine with every grain of gold that has been taken out. The silver mining was a bluff. There was silver ore here once, but it played out long ago...You’re a cheat, a thief — if you’re not worse, and I can prove it.”

“You could, but you won’t,” replied Malpass, bitingly cold, and pulling an automatic gun he deliberately leveled it at Jarvis.

He shot three times in quick succession. Virginia heard the bullets strike something, the last with a soft sickening spat.

“My God! he’s shot me!” huskily whispered Jarvis, in immense surprise. His hand fell away from his breast dripping with blood. His face changed, and then he crumpled in a heap on the floor.

Terror-stricken and mute, Virginia wrenched her starting gaze from Jarvis to Malpass. He was in the act of pocketing the smoking gun. Striding to the door, he guardedly looked out, to left and right. He stood there a moment, and nodded, as if to convince himself that Jarvis was the only man about the mine; then like a cat in his movements, he made again at Virginia.

“Murderer!” What her voice lacked in strength it made up in horror. She extended shaking hands at full length to ward him off.

“Do you want me to kill you, too?” he demanded, halting before her, his face pasty white, his eyes inhuman.

“Merciful God!...Would you — murder me, too?”

“I’ll do worse unless you swear you’ll hide what’s happened here.”

“Worse!” she echoed, and live fire seemed to touch her every raw nerve.

“You know what I mean,” he rejoined, thick with passion, as he tore his tight collar loose from a black bulging neck.

Virginia understood him. The man stood revealed in all his monstrous baseness. The very hideousness of him probably was the one thing alone which could have shocked her from horror into savage and hot hate, into the spirit of self-preservation that was the most powerful instinct in her.

“Malpass, you’ll have to kill me!” she cried, her voice rising.

“No, by God!” he shot at her. “I’ll treat you like a peon slave!...You’ll never lift your face again!...Then I’ll make your father believe this Jarvis did it — and I killed him — because of that!”

“Insane monster!” flamed Virginia, and then she screamed with all the power of her lungs — a piercing sound that rent the air.

As Malpass lunged she darted away from the table, but too late to escape him, for he caught the sleeve of her coat. Whirling out of the coat, she left it in his grasp and ran for the door. She reached it, too, and the porch before he pounced upon her and dragged her back.

Virginia saved her breath. No use to scream again! If no one had heard the last, she could not hope another would bring succor. She had to fight for life and more than life. His intent and his soiling hands had made a frenzied woman of her, a tigress who would rend and tear.

But she eluded him. She got the stove between him and her. She preferred flight to fight, for she believed if she got out she could run away from him, at least down the road far enough to alarm the chauffeur.

Malpass kicked the stove down and leaped over it. He got her, but could not keep his hold. She left part of her waist in his grasp. She ran, with him close after her, always between her and the door.

His reaching hand clutched her shoulder, checking her, dragging her off her balance. Then like a beast he had her again. A terrific struggle ensued. She was as strong as he, and actuated by a passion as great. She came out of that struggle with her upper clothing torn to shreds, her bare arms bleeding from scratches, her white shoulders blackened by his sweating, dust-begrimed hands.

“You — hellcat!” he hissed. “The more you fight — the more joy I’ll get — out of you.”

Virginia was past words. She was in the grip of something terrible. No fear of this beast! No more flight! She awaited his next attack, panting, disheveled, crouching, like a cornered tigress.

He came on, and as ever, his intent was to hold, to weaken, to master her. And she beat and clawed at his face, and kicked. But Malpass broke through this rain and closed with her. His arms folded her back on the table and his weight augmented his advantage.

Virginia did not surrender or lose her wits. She was momentarily at a disadvantage. She ceased her struggles. Then her assailant, with a hoarse utterance, fell to kissing her face. He thought she was beaten.

She took that vile unguarded moment to fasten both hands in his hair, and dragged with all the strength left her. Like a dog he howled. Her right hand, the stronger, came away full of hair.

Then the table collapsed, letting them down and breaking his hold. Virginia rolled out of his reach. She had heard the ring of the iron poker on the floor. If she could get her hand on that!

But as she bounded up Malpass grasped her leg, tripped her, pulled her down into his arms. It had been his weight, however, that had handicapped her. Without that he simply could not master her. The whistle of his breath told that he was more winded than she. Not for nothing had Virginia taken those long climbs in Colorado! She fought more fiercely, and while her arms were free, with tight pounding fists. Then when he got her head down under his arm, pressing her helpless, choking her, she opened her mouth and like a wolf at bay she fastened her teeth in it.

Cursing horribly, he released her and she dropped to the floor. She rolled away. She felt the poker. Swift as light she snatched it. Leaped up! Malpass was on his knees. Bloody, bedraggled, dirty, holding the arm she had bitten, with distorted face expressing a fiend’s defeat, with basilisk eyes betraying murder now, where before they had burned only with lust, he roused all that was virile and primal in Virginia.

She swung the poker. He ducked, but she hit him a glancing blow that rang off his skull. He toppled over with a thump that jarred the house.

Virginia heard other thumps. Heavy boots on the porch! In vain she tried to scream, but only a dry, thin sound issued from her lips.

A huge frame hurled itself into the room.

Lundeen! Like a black-maned lion he glared. Virginia staggered back. The wall stopped her. And with legs buckling she slid to the floor. Her sight almost failed.

“God Almighty!” thundered her father.

Chapter Seventeen

VIRGINIA BY SUPREME effort fought off faintness.

Lundeen stamped into the middle of the room. It appeared to the girl then that the squirming, groaning Jarvis halted her father. Jarvis was not dead.

“Who’s this man?” boomed Lundeen, his great eyes popping half out of his head. “Virginia!...Malpass!...What the hell?”

Slowly Virginia gathered what force was left her. Deliverance had come, but the reaction of it gave her a deathly sickness, a sense that her flesh wanted to succumb and a consciousness that her spirit refused.

Malpass rose to his feet, a spectacle to make any observer blink. But he was not in as bad bodily shape as he looked. He moved easily, warily. He was thinking hard. Trapped, he still seemed to have latent power. His eyes narrowed to black daggers.

“Answer me,” commanded Lundeen. “What’s come off? Who shot this man?”

“I did,” replied Malpass.

“He’s dyin’. Why’d you do it?”

“I caught him trying to outrage Virginia.”

“Huh?” ejaculated Lundeen, in blank stupidity.

Malpass repeated his assertion in stronger terms. Lundeen’s jaw dropped as he stared at his partner, and then at Virginia.

“How come?” he asked, hoarsely.

Virginia bided her time. She would let Malpass have his say and then destroy him.

Malpass swallowed hard, and that part of his face not bloody or black showed ghastly white. He was at the end of his rope.

“I saw a car from town crossing the bench below,” he said, hurriedly. “I jumped my horse and rode up here...found Virginia wrestling this man. Think he’d got the best of her!...He — he beat me up before I could pull my gun, but finally I shot him.”

Suddenly Jarvis sat up quickly as if propelled, like a corpse revived to life, his eyes awful to behold.

“He lies!” The gasping voice was just distinguishable. “I caught him — assaulting her.” He fell back and seemed to expire.

“Crazed by a bullet,” said Malpass through ashen lips. “I’ve seen men act like that.”

“More’n one crazy heah,” muttered Lundeen, gropingly. The fact that he stepped so as to place his bulk before the door attested to the gradual trend of his thought.

“I tell you that’s what happened,” went on Malpass, sharply. “I’m all bunged up...I want to get out of here — to a doctor.”

He made as if to pass Lundeen, but was thrust violently backward.

“Stand back!” roared Lundeen. “Are you shore it’s a doctor you need?”

“Lundeen, you’ll cross me for the last time,” returned Malpass, with threat in tone and mien.

“If I do, you can bet it will be the last time! Malpass, this heah deal looks queer. Keep your loud mouth shut or I’ll knock your white teeth down your throat.”

Malpass sank against the wall, quivering all over.

“Daughter, come heah,” went on Lundeen.

“Dad, I can’t. I’m too weak. And I’m torn to pieces.”

“Ahuh. So I see. Wal, you’re able to talk...Are you hurt — the way he said?”

“No. He lied. I’m beaten and bruised, but I’m all right otherwise.”

“Who stripped you half naked — an’ blackened an’ bloodied you up this heah way?”

“Señor Malpass,” declared Virginia, ringingly. She saw her father’s huge form swell, but he kept himself well in hand.

“How come?”

“Dad, last summer my cowboy, Jake, found signs of a salted mine here,” replied Virginia, swiftly flowing to this denunciation she had prayed for. “When I went to Denver I consulted a mining engineer, an expert. Mr. Jarvis...Oh, I fear I’ve been his death!...Upon my return I wired for him. This morning he arrived. We drove out at once. Left the car below. We — —”

“All a damned lie,” interrupted Malpass, wildly.

Lundeen made a threatening gesture. “If you don’t shut up I’ll fix you so you won’t heah nothin’. Didn’t you have your say? Let her have hers.”

Virginia rushed on. “We climbed up here. Mr. Jarvis went to investigate the mine while I waited...Presently Malpass rode up. He came in. He was astonished and scared. He had reason to be. I refused to answer his questions. He grew furious — tried to choke me into explaining...Then Mr. Jarvis came back — caught Malpass mauling me — knocked him down...He told Malpass the mine had been planted. That every grain of gold coming out of there had been planted before! The clumsiest cheat Jarvis had ever seen...Then Malpass shot him!...After that he tried to frighten me into lying to protect him. Then, dad, on my honor, Malpass swore he’d degrade me — blame it on to Jarvis — give that as an excuse for shooting him...Then we fought. Oh, I fought him. I wasn’t afraid of him. He would have had to kill me...But, dad, he couldn’t master me...He gave up that...he meant more murder...I hit — him with — the poker!...And then — you came.”

Lundeen gradually crouched, as a huge bat that meant to spring. His bushy hair rose upon his head. His arms lifted and bowed — his large hands crooked like claws.

“You — planted — THAT — =MINE!=“ he bellowed in slow-swelling, awful voice. “You manhandled my daughter!”

“Yes, and I’ll plant you!” Malpass thrust out the gun. It was steady. He had accepted the issue. There was only one way out. And the little gun began to crack — crack — crack spitefully.

But the bullets, though staggering Lundeen, did not stop him. Like a bull, lowering and blood-lustful, he plunged on. Malpass shot again, missing for the very reason that he aimed at Lundeen’s head. One sweep of Lundeen’s giant arm sent him spinning. But up he sprang, cat-like, to fire again. This bullet rang off Lundeen’s skull to thud into the ceiling.

Virginia’s ears filled with her father’s mad roar. She saw him sway, beating the air, and fall with a crash. Malpass stepped over his body toward the door. Then Lundeen kicked with terrific force, knocking Malpass’ legs from under him, and when he struck the floor the gun went flying across the room. Lundeen hunched himself with spasmodic full-length hops toward the gun, but Malpass beat him to it. And he shot again as Lundeen half rose to clutch his arm. There came a snapping of bones — an awful cry of agony.

Consciousness gradually faded from Virginia. But though her sight was dark, that horror filled her ears and beat upon her brain, until she fainted.

When she came to, the combatants were gone from the room. Jarvis lay with suggestive limpness. What had happened? She was too weak to rise. Had it all been a fearful nightmare? No — there was the man who had befriended her, prone on the floor.

From outside came sounds of scuffling — then again her father’s roar, hoarser now, strangling in his throat.

Virginia crawled across the room and out on the porch, and fell flat as if she had been deprived of movement. Yet she could still see what had paralyzed her.

They were out on the trestle. Malpass’ right arm hung broken. In his left hand he held a short club which he was swinging ineffectually on Lundeen’s head, shouting maledictions in Spanish. Lundeen was not only being dragged, but he held on to Malpass like the grim death he meant and would not relinquish.

There was a branch trestle leading across the ravine. Not improbably Malpass had sought to escape by this. His struggles indicated that. When he reached it, however, he could not shake Lundeen off. He beat frantically, weakly with the club, until it bounced off Lundeen’s head and flew out of his hand.

Then they wrestled and fought all the way to the tottering end of the trestle. It was broken there. The floor consisted of a few beams on rickety poles. It shook and rattled under them.

Malpass’ fighting ceased, all his efforts bent to escape. His shrill wild cries attested to the doom he realized. Lundeen dragged him down, like a wolf at a crippled deer, on the swaying verge of the trestle. He knelt on him, and bent his head back over a beam — farther — until there came sudden, horrible break in that stiff strain.

Then Lundeen let go. Malpass slipped off the rafters and turned over to fall a hundred feet and thud soddenly on the rocks below.

Lundeen peered down. His shaggy head bowed, his broad shoulders sagged and sank, and his legs flopped over the beam that sustained them. He slipped and it appeared he would follow his adversary. But the weight of his upper body held him there.

Virginia got to her knees — then to her feet. Yes — he still hung there. How long had she watched? She held desperately to the porch post. They had destroyed one another. Awful retribution! She must keep on her feet — think of something to do. A gray cloud filmed her eyes — cleared away. There was an icy gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She could not unrivet her gaze from that still form on the trestle, hanging limp. What was the thin, shiny, dark stream dropping, wavering at the will of the wind?

A groan freed her — quickened her. Jarvis must still be alive. She staggered back into the house — to the prostrate form — knelt beside it. He was living — conscious. He knew her. His lips moved, but no sound came. She thought he wanted water. His life might yet be saved. That thought lifted Virginia out of the abyss that had weighted her down.

She picked up her coat, and putting it on, started out, needing the support of wall and door and the porch posts. Leaving them for the open road, she fell, but got up again. Action responded to her spirit. She could make it down to the car. And she dragged herself on.

She was crawling again, dragging herself round a bend in the road, when the chauffeur’s cry roused her failing senses.

“My Heavens, Miss, what’s happened?”

“Murder! — But I’m all right,” she whispered. “Go quick...Up the road...Take water — whisky if you have it...The last — house — door open — one man — still alive — —”

Then she slipped into darkness.

Chapter Eighteen

IT WAS A rare and remarkable phenomenon of nature that definitely decided Clifton Forrest to spend his life on the desert.

At least this singular experience had clinched the matter. The process by which he had developed to such decision had been a long and gradual one, covering an extraordinary range of consciousness, from supreme agony of body to supreme ecstasy of soul. But it was sight of a comet or bursting falling star that at last won him forever to the desert and the lonely, free life of a shepherd.

The incident happened on the night of the thirty-sixth day — according to Julio’s count — of their return trip from Guadaloupe Valley. Spring had come to the higher range, for this was in late April. They had reached the one dangerous stretch for sheep on all the long trail — a twelve-mile arid belt of lava, rock, and cactus, with only one waterhole, and that situated about halfway.

Clifton and Julio had arrived there at sundown, after a continuous drive on a day as hot as any in summer. If it had been a wind-blowing, sand-and-dust-storm day, many sheep would have perished. But it chanced to be still.

There had been no grazing that day, and for this reason the sheep were difficult to move. They strayed in search of something to nibble, and in that desolate region seldom found anything green which was not either poisonous or sharp. They bleated incessantly. The lambs also slowed the day’s journey. They tired early. Through all the hot hours Clifton and Julio had packed a lamb, and often two lambs, to give them a little rest. Some puny and exhausted ones they had to kill. It was hard, but the lambs could not be left behind alive, nor could the flock wait. The shepherds would carry this one, then that one, put it down to take up one weaker. So that when they reached the end of this most trying link of the whole long chain of days it was not a moment too soon.

The thirsty, parched sheep baa-baaed and drank; the lambs tumbled into the water. Then many rested while the others went to grazing. The place was a wide hollow in black lava, through which a stream ran during the rains, and in dry weather clear pools remained in the deeper holes. There were grass and weeds enough for the sheep, but they had to be ranged for far and wide. The region was infested with coyotes, foxes, wildcats, which collected around a waterhole because of easy prey. There would be no sleep for the shepherds and their dogs that night.

After supper Clifton had taken one side of the wide wash and Julio the other. The dogs were down among the sheep. Well those shepherd dogs knew their responsibility! The larger danger would be during the early hours of the evening, when beasts of prey were prowling about and sheep were ravenous. Ever and anon there would come a tiny bleat, wild and sharp on the air, suddenly quenched. That told a tragic story. One or the other of the shepherds always fired his rifle on these occasions.

Clifton’s beat was a high wall of black lava, broken in many sections, resembling huge blocks of granite, mostly rough and difficult to walk over. He had to keep going all the time and maintain a vigilant lookout. A mile or more to the eastward this hollow closed, and here under the cliff there was always water, even during the anno seco of the Mexicans. Feed, however, did not flourish hereabout, because there was very little soil. The sheep would work up as far as this, and turn back, one bunch after another. Westward the hollow spread out into the bleak bare desert. Here was the greatest danger of losing sheep at night, because the opening was wide and rough.

On the whole the shepherds were very fortunate, for the reason that the bad hours passed with little loss, and toward midnight the sheep, weary and sleepy, and fairly well fed, massed in an open spot.

Clifton perched on a high section of the broken wall, in a seat he had occupied on the trip down. It resembled an armchair, and the only drawback was that it induced slumber. Julio was down among the flock with his dogs. Clifton could see the slight dark figure moving to and fro, seldom resting. Clifton had learned to love Julio. The taint of peon blood did not signify anything to Clifton. The lad was honest, simple, true; he loved the sheep and he loved the life. Many and many a time Clifton had caught him absorbed in contemplation of the heavens.

Clifton had long ago learned to study them himself. But seldom indeed did he have opportunity at midnight.

The night or the hour seemed portentous. There was no wind, yet Clifton heard a faint moan out of any direction to which he turned a keen ear. The rocks and blocks of lava still held the heat of the day’s sun. For some occult reason the desert coolness had not set in. Clifton’s brow was moist; he did not wear his sombrero, and he sat on his coat. The metal of his rifle was hot to the touch.

It seemed to him that the air was drying up. League-long strips of black cloud, strangely weird, lined the sky; and between them wan, pale stars shone. All objects near at hand looked opaque. There was an invisible mantle over the desert, and upon it pressed the sultry atmosphere.

The season was early for heat lightning, yet far to the north, where the range heaved, fitful flares lighted the bold black horizon, and faded away, leaving an impression of the vastness of the desert and the infinity beyond.

Suddenly Clifton became aware that the darkness was lessening. It amazed him. There was no moon. The clouds had not moved away across the sky to leave it open. Yet there was light all around. He heard Julio cry out to his saints.

Then came a sound like the low rush of wind in high grass. It increased. So did the light. Clifton whirled to see the approach of a cornet or a falling star. He sat transfixed, with all functions but that of sight in abeyance.

How inconceivably swift its flight, its brightening radiance, its strange increasing roar! All in a second the desert became whiter than a noon of the clearest day. The rushing body crackled like particles of dry splintering ice. It passed by, a blue-white streak like the air-blown molten iron in a blast furnace, leaving a diminishing tail as long as the distance it had come. Suddenly it exploded into immense blue-white stars that fell, faded, vanished. The long tail, like that left by a rocket, lived for a moment, paled and died.

It was when Clifton recovered from this spectacle that his decision to remain on the desert crystallized.

After the decision came his brooding, pondering thought. The desert had made him a thinker. Solitude and loneliness inspired the mind. Cities, people, noise were inimical to the harvest of quiet thinking.

From midnight to dawn Clifton thought — of his boyhood, his early family life, his school days, his brief college career with its misadventure, the war. Of his travail, his love of mother, father, Virginia and his fight for their sake, of catastrophe — and then the desert!

What he might be at this moment, of course, he owed to all that had happened; nevertheless, the desert and its thousandfold mysteries had been his salvation. He could never become a normal useful member of society as the thing was taught in school and business, and harangued from pulpits, from benches and editors’ chairs.

He needed to sit down alone with the elements. What he had gone through had left no bitterness now, no hate, no unrest, no scorn for the selfish, the ignorant, the brutal. He had seen behind a veil, caught just a glimpse of the infinite from which man had come and where he must go.

Clifton watched the gray dawn lighten. A rose bloomed over the eastern ramparts of the desert. Wisps of clouds grew shell-pink and burned to silver. Then a glory of red and gold stole over the lifeless reaches of the naked earth. He had eyes to see and a mind to think; and there the sheep bleated and the wide trail wound away. When he slid down from his perch he was whistling. It was good to be grateful, to have chosen irrevocably.

On the march northward that day he saw Old Baldy stick a white, round dome up over the rim of the world. It had the unreality of a mirage — the illusion that it seemed soon attainable. But for days the strange blue medium between Clifton and the peak that loomed over his home remained the same. It was distance on the desert, and it had never deceived him.

The closer Clifton came to San Luis the more proof he had of his tranquillity. Far back along the sheep-herders’ trail he had left that phantom of himself — the frail, suffering, tormented past. He had rebuilt his soul on the rocks of the desert.

About the 1st of May the shepherds reached their permanent camp on the range behind Don Lopez’ ranch, a few miles back of San Luis.

Julio had missed count of days, so that Clifton could only guess at the date. However, the cottonwoods said it was spring on the uplands and summer below. Clifton found cactus blooming and bunches of daisies. The sage appeared gray and forlorn after the long winter and needed rain that would come soon.

The summer range for Lopez’ sheep consisted of valleys and ridges as far from Sycamore as the herders could graze the flock and get back the same day. Since the decline and almost total failure of cattle this range had been a boon to sheepmen. There had been snow during the winter, and the grass was coming out fresh and green.

Sycamore was the name of the camp at the head of one of the large bottle-necked valleys characteristic of this region. Water flowed from a narrow gorge. A few distorted old sycamore trees, pale white and brown, with many dead branches, and green leaves just starting, gave the spot its name.

The sheep knew they were home. Almost they rolled in the green grass. But they avoided the corrals and long chutes that led to the dipping-troughs. All except the lambs, and they had yet to learn of sheep-dip.

Clifton liked the place well. Years before, with boys from town, he had come here to shoot rabbits. Cottontails were more plentiful now than then, which was owing to the depletion of foxes and coyotes.

It was in Clifton’s mind to start a flock of his own, however small it might be. Lopez, after the manner of sheepmen, would sell that fall. Clifton had seven months’ pay coming, which, little as it was, would purchase a few sheep. He laughed at his wardrobe, which was on his back, a patchwork of his own mending. He would require a new outfit, for Sycamore was far removed from Guadaloupe. It would be fun, however, to let his mother — and anyone else, for that matter — see him in his present shepherd’s garb.

Julio went singing away across the valley, taking the trail to San Luis. He was to stop at the ranch and report to Lopez, then go on to San Luis to see his people and return with supplies.

Clifton remained with the sheep. They had made Sycamore early in the afternoon, and Clifton, meaning this camp to be his home during the summer, pitched his tent with an idea of permanence. Up the gorge there was abundance of cedar brush, some of which he cut for his bed. He built a fireplace, and packed down a quantity of wood. His tasks this day, however, were broken by desultory spells, in which he gazed raptly over the hill. Three miles from San Luis — five from home — six from Cottonwoods! Incredible! He could not keep from wondering, longing, hoping. These were emotions which must abide with him the rest of his life. He wondered about those he loved, he longed to see them, he hoped for their well-being and happiness.

All afternoon he alternated between long periods of labor and short ones of idle speculation. But the sum of his work resulted in a most comfortable, picturesque camp.

Sunset and evening star! Always different, always the same! He ate supper beside his lonely camp fire. Always the sheep-herder would be lonely, no matter where. The lambs were bleating, but the dogs were quiet. All was well with the flock. And with him.

He went to bed early. The cedar fragrance in his tent was sweet, and he thought how pleasant it was to stretch out and lie still. He was not haunted by the proximity of kith and kin. And when, with the closing of his eyes, he dropped to sleep, it was not to be untroubled by dreams. Nor did the sheep-herder who walked all day in the open, in sun and wind, wake before the dawn.

While Clifton ate breakfast, which was an apology for a meal, and later than usual that morning, the dogs set up a clamorous barking, so unusual that it startled him.

He espied Don Lopez riding across the green flat toward his camp. Then a rush of blood throbbed to Clifton’s temples, which, slowly receding, left him cold. He had been absent seven months. A long time in the life of elderly people! Fateful and mutable lapse of days for a girl in her twenties!

“Don Lopez!” he murmured, gladly, yet with reluctance. “He will tell me everything — if only I can understand him!”

Chapter Nineteen

THE SELFSAME HOUR that Clifton Forrest arrived at Sycamore that golden early May day, Virginia rushed out of the house, possessed by she knew not what. Indeed, she had been possessed ever since she had taken up her abode in the old home where as a girl she had played and wept and dreamed her girlhood away.

She could not stay indoors, despite the work that had fallen to her hands. The day was gorgeous, lovely, like one of the amber-tinted, white-clouded, pageanted June days in the East. The cottonwoods, fresh and thinly green with their new leaves, called to her in an unknown potent tongue. There was something in the air, beyond her ken.

Virginia had been distraught for long, waiting for him she called her shepherd to come home. But it had been a wholesome counter-irritant. Only lately had the aftermath of the tragedy of her father’s end left her to take up the threads of the future she prayed for and dreamed of. Sorrow would always abide with her, and remorse. For though her father had been the tool of an unscrupulous villain, he had at the last been true to the blood of the Lundeens.

Every day had been a little easier to bear. Summer was coming. It would not be long now until —— And she would try to still her aching, throbbing heart. Ethel would be coming soon — after what seemed ages of separation.

She wandered restlessly under the cottonwoods, catching at the white thistledown cotton that floated from above, as if it bore hopes to clasp to her bosom. She kept out of sight of Jake and Con, who were working round the barn. She did not even glance out into the green valley where the last and best of her horses grazed. She sat by the irrigation ditch and trailed her hand in the cool clay-colored water that came sliding and gurgling along under the grassy banks. A few violets lifted wistful purple faces out of the green. She could not linger there long; the music of the water and the melody of birds grew unbearable. She dared not venture back into the garden, to that secluded corner by the broken wall where she had lured Clifton to ask her to marry him. She had gone there only once since coming to live here.

She strolled away. She stood watching the white sails in the sky. Her hands drooped idly. She saw nothing — heard nothing. Then the cloud-rimmed mountain peaks gave her a pang. She must go up to her shrine at Emerald Lake. There would be strength in the solitude and sublimity of the heights. But she could not go until ——

The beauty and mystery of the day stung her. Of what avail to live, to be young, healthy, handsome, longing — to look back at sadness, and fear a gray uncertainty of future?

It had been only of late, though, Virginia reflected, that she could find no peace, no occupation. There had been incalculable happiness, upon her return from Georgia, in deeding Cottonwoods to its rightful owners — the Forrests. That had been no easy task — not for her to surrender, but for Clay Forrest to accept. In the end she had won him. “You girl — you Lundeen,” he had said, brokenly. “First my son — then his mother! An’ now I, too, must love you!”

With hatred overcome, and the recovery of his beloved Cottonwoods, Forrest became a transformed man. The years of his exile were as if they had never been. To do him full justice, though, Virginia had been compelled, and gladly, to admit she could never have won him to accept her sacrifice had she not told him that the estate in the south left by Lundeen had enriched her far beyond and outside Cottonwoods. It had been her whim to bind Forrest to secrecy for the present.

She had gone back to the old adobe home in the cottonwood grove, and asked no more than for Clifton to seek her out there. But would he? How endlessly long these last weeks! Was he dead? Her prophetic and loving heart could not abide that possibility. She knew, and the torture was only fear that he might not want her. Where had gone the old vain coquetries and audacities?

Virginia dragged herself back into the house, to try to take interest in the work of creating beauty and comfort there. For a while she shared the efforts of her two Mexican women servants, but soon she grew listless again. Her little room claimed her for hours by day as well as by night. It had been Clifton’s room, too. The few things he had left there had never been moved, or touched, except with reverence, for they were relics of his boyhood, his brief days at college, and of the war. She had made no change in this room. She trembled whenever she lay down on that old bed. The hard hair mattress had the same sag in the middle as when she was a girl. It used to hurt her back. As long as she could remember it had been there. And Clifton had lain there night after night, his mother had told her, sleepless and racked with pain, staring into the blackness, listening to the patter of the leaves outside and the murmuring water.

“I’ll be all right when he’s back, even if he doesn’t come to see me,” she sighed, and clenched her hands, and gazed up at the blank, dark wall.

And next day, Jake, returning from an errand to San Luis, informed Virginia that Clifton Forrest had come back with her sheep.

“My sheep!” cried Virginia, in rapture, and silent gratitude to God. But she was thinking of her shepherd.

“Eight hundred lambs, ole Lopez said,” went on Jake, grinning. “He shore was sore for sellin’. Thet was a plumb good buy of yours, lady. An’ with sheep jumpin’ on the market you’re settin’ pretty.”

“Did — did Lopez say how — how Clifton was?” asked Virginia, tremulously.

“Never nuthin’. Lopez is a talky ole cuss, too, but he was shore stumped about them eight hundred lambs.”

Virginia rushed away to the green covert of the cottonwoods, where she felt unseen even by the eyes of birds. And there she wept for joy, and raged at her weakness, and paced the walled aisle, and whispered to herself, and at the sound of her voice betrayed herself utterly.

“Oh, he’s back — he’s back! Thank God!...It was time. I’d soon have died...He must be well again. Seven months on the desert! Alone! Ill and weak when he left! O God! Poor brave boy! And I could not help him! — Oh, how I love him! He must know!...But if he doesn’t know — if he doesn’t want me — his wife! — what can I do? I can’t crawl to him, like a dog to lick his feet. But I want to — I want to.”

She felt the better for her outburst, for the facing of her soul. That he was alive — strong enough to toil as a sheep-herder for over half a year — that he had come home — was near her — only a few short miles across the hills! — these facts mastered her selfish longings and stilled the troubled depths of her.

Virginia decided there was no understanding human nature. First she had prayed that if only Clifton would live, she would be forever grateful and satisfied. Then it was for his return. And now that he was home, she yearned irresistibly to see him. How little she divined the complexities of love! What would she want — nay, more terrifying, what would she do when she met him?

The following morning she drove to Las Vegas to meet Ethel, who was coming on the early train, and timed her arrival so that she would have but few moments to wait at the station. Since her return from Atlanta, and the change in her fortunes, she had avoided town and people as much as possible. There had been many a nine days’ wonder over the Lundeen-Forrest feud, but her relinquishing of Cottonwoods had made her the subject of endless gossip. She did not care to run the gauntlet of acquaintances just yet.

When the train pulled in, Virginia scanned the Pullman vestibules with eager eyes. Soon she saw Ethel appear on the step, trim, dainty, like a butterfly in her spring finery. She looked anxiously up and down the platform, and did not espy Virginia coming toward her from the parking place. There were other passengers, trainmen, and loungers present. Ethel pointed out her several pieces of baggage to the porter, which momentary lapse enabled Virginia to slip up behind her and put both hands over her eyes. She felt Ethel shake and whirl. Otherwise the meeting was the only solemn one they had ever had.

After the porter lifted the baggage into the back of the car Ethel, still holding to Virginia and piercing her with hungry eyes, opened the dammed gateway of her speech.

“Oh!...you perfectly stunning Virginia!” she burst out. “You lovely marble thing!...Where’s your old tan — and the red of your cheeks? You’re pale. You’ve thinned out. And that’s all you needed to beat Helen Andrews two ways for Sunday...But your sad, sad eyes! Poor darling! if you haven’t had the rottenest deal!...Oh, Virginia, I’m so glad to see you, I’ll cry my eyes out.”

“So will I, honey, but let’s wait till we get out home,” replied Virginia, conscious of a sudden sweet and wonderful warmth. It had not occurred to her that Ethel would be the best medicine in the world. Now she knew it. She took her seat in at the wheel, and Ethel got in beside her.

“Just one word, darling, and a question,” said Ethel, “after that it’s all you.”

“I think I can guess,” replied Virginia.

“But you’re not smiling...Virginia, I’m to be married in June.”

“Marvelous! I congratulate you. I’ll be happy with you.”

“Will you come to my wedding?”

“I surely will. How could you be married without me?”

“I couldn’t. That’s why you’ve had me guessing. Virginia, do you know I’ve had only two letters and one telegram from you in seven months?...Seven months!”

“But, honey, how could I write, even to you?” implored Virginia.

“It would have been better for you. But you always were a strange, close-mouthed creature. I think I understand and I forgive you.”

Virginia drove out of town on the San Luis road, which was far from being a thoroughfare.

“I’ll make up for my neglect,” returned Virginia, humbly. “I’ll talk you deaf and dumb and blind.”

“I had your letters, as I said, and of course I read what was in the papers. You need not rake up that horrible — —”

“But I shall,” interrupted Virginia as her friend hesitated. “It will do me good to talk.”

“I met Mr. Jarvis yesterday. He asked all about you. I told him I didn’t know much, but I would soon.”

“How is he now?”

“Oh, he’s completely recovered.”

“I am very glad,” said Virginia.

“Virginia, were you hurt in — in that fight?” asked Ethel, anxiously.

“I should say I was. Scratched — beaten black and blue! He even bit me! Uggh!...I’ll tell you all about it some day.”

Virginia could see that her faithful friend was repressing all kinds of explosives in consideration for her feelings. But Virginia would not have minded anything now. The ice was broken. She had been too long choked by her own inhibitions.

“Say, this is a swell road, if you don’t know it. Where are we going?” remarked Ethel.

“Home.”

“But this isn’t the way to Cottonwoods.”

“I don’t live at Cottonwoods any longer.”

“Oh, I see!” rejoined Ethel, bursting with curiosity. “Is your mother with you?”

“No. I left her in Atlanta.”

“How is she?”

“Pretty well. I spent three months with her. I don’t think she will ever come back to the West. She likes her old home best and has better health there. My grandfather and grandmother have a fine plantation just out of Atlanta. I like it there, too — for a visit. But give me the desert.”

“Well, dearie, it’s better news than I expected. I was afraid your mother would sink under that calamity.”

“No, she didn’t. Of course she never heard any but the barest details.”

When they crossed the lower end of the valley below San Luis the whole wonderful triangle of green led up beautifully to the impressive white-and-red mansion on the bluff. Cottonwoods shone clear and stately in the sunlight. Virginia saw it without a pang. She had never been happy there.

“It’s so lovely — everything, I mean,” murmured Ethel. “I don’t blame you, though, for not living at Cottonwoods just yet.”

“I gave Cottonwoods back to the Forrests,” said Virginia, quite casually.

“Virginia!” cried Ethel, and with a flop sank back in her seat. She had been prepared for revelations, but this was too much. For the time being she was crushed by the catastrophe.

They drove out of the valley, through the sleepy little town of San Luis, past the spot where the blackened walls of Clifton’s store still stood, and up the shaded, dusty country road where nothing had changed. And at length under the old weatherbeaten Spanish gate and into the green-gold grove where the vine-covered adobe house stood, surely in Ethel’s eyes memorable of Clifton Forrest and inseparable from his story. Virginia’s heart was full. It was strangely sweet to bring her dearest friend here. Ethel was pale, her eyes were wide and brimming with tears.

“You live here?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Alone?”

“I have two servants. Jake and Con have a cabin below.”

“It is — lovely,” concluded Ethel, with trembling lips.

“I like it better than Cottonwoods. Come. We can carry your bags in. You take the lighter ones.”

The room into which Virginia led Ethel had once been her mother’s and later Mrs. Forrest’s. It was light and fairly large. Virginia had furnished it most comfortably, in harmony with the old-fashioned walls and beams, the open fireplace and the Spanish windows.

“One wouldn’t think it was so nice — from the outside,” murmured Ethel, as she divested herself of gloves and hat, and fussed with her pretty blond hair before the mirror, significantly keeping her back to Virginia. Presently she turned a convulsed little face and eyes streaming with tears.

“Gin — ia, I’m going — to bawl.”

“So am — I,” choked Virginia, and spread wide her arms.

A little while later, after donning comfortable clothes, in fact the same in which they had run and romped and climbed in Colorado, they went outdoors.

“I’m from Missouri,” said Ethel, slangily. “You gotta show me. How big is this jungle?”

“About ten acres of grove, some valley meadowland, and fifty acres running up over the range.”

“Not so poor, for Bertha, the Sewing-machine Girl.”

Eventually they wound up tired and hot and happy on a shady knoll under a giant cottonwood that spread its wide branches on the edge of the valley. The view was open and the mountains stood out splendidly and close. But Cottonwoods could not be seen for trees. The irrigation ditch flowed down here, and by reason of the little slope, made swift gurgling sound. There were innumerable bees humming over the stream, among the blossoms of a flowery vine.

Ethel gazed out over the meadow at the graceful, glistening horses. “Oh, what horses! You must take me riding every day. I miss riding so much at home in Denver. Sure we’re Western, but a horse is rare these days...There’s Calliope and Moses and Calamity...Oh, I see your grand black Sirius. Some horse! If only I could straddle that stallion!...And there’s Dumpy — the little pinto that threw me, darn his dusty hide!...Virginia, you can’t be so awful poor, or you couldn’t take care of those horses.”

“I’m not so very poor that I can’t give you a ride occasionally — and a wedding present in June,” returned Virginia.

“You darling! Now if you go blow yourself on me I’ll never forgive you. But it seems strange for you to be poor at all.” Ethel fell back with a sigh, her head in Virginia’s lap. “Tell me your story backward.”

“You mean from present to past?...Well, to begin with — Clifton is back,” rejoined Virginia, averting her face.

“Back? Where’d he go?”

“When his father turned him out he became a sheep-herder.”

“What! Cliff Forrest a sheep-herder? You mean a shepherd?”

“Yes,” replied Virginia, dreamily.

“But isn’t that a poor job for a white man — a college man — a soldier?”

“Poor, yes, in a matter of wages. But Cliff had no choice, and besides I think he went for his health.”

“Say, angel-face, turn round here and look at me,” said Ethel.

Virginia complied.

“Oh,” cried Ethel, “then all is not well between you and Cliff?”

“It is — for my part. But I’ve never seen him since that time — nor heard from him. He drove the sheep south...Upon my return from visiting you, I heard that Malpass was dickering with Don Lopez to buy the flock Clifton was driving. Malpass’ motive was not solely a business one. He wanted to acquire possession of Lopez’s flock so he could send a herder out to Guadaloupe and throw Cliff out of his job. Leave him all that distance to come back alone and without supplies.”

Ethel swore. “I’m sure going to get a kick out of your story of how your dad killed that hombre.”

“It was horrible!” said Virginia, her flesh creeping and tears coming into her eyes. “Malpass shot father I don’t recall how many times. Five bullet holes, I think, the inquest reported...But father broke Malpass’ arm — nearly tore it off — and then cracked his neck...dropped him off the high trestle.”

“Served him right,” replied Ethel, fiercely. “But never mind that now. Tell me more about Cliff.”

“There’s very little more. I borrowed money and bought the sheep from Lopez. And Cliff drove on to Guadaloupe never knowing.”

“You amazing girl! — All the time, then — for it was early last fall when you left me — Cliff has been working for you?”

“Yes. It’s funny.”

“Funny! It’s great. Shepherd of his wife’s flock! And never knowing. Say, if that isn’t a romance, I don’t know the real thing...Say, darling, sure you raised his wages?”

“Don’t giggle,” entreated Virginia. “I’m scared to death...You see, Clifton has just come back. He must know now that all the winter — seven months — he has worked for me...Sheep-herders are poor. He’ll need his wages. And if he doesn’t come for them — what on earth shall I do?”

“Goose! Take them to him.”

“Ethel, I absolutely couldn’t do that,” expostulated Virginia. Then she felt a tender hand stealing up her arm, along her neck to her cheek.

“Look down at me, dearest,” said Ethel, softly.

Virginia surrendered then and betrayed herself to the wide, shrewd, loving eyes of her friend.

“You love Cliff still?”

“Still! What do you think I am?”

“I think you’re an angel...Then you love him more?”

“I don’t know how much it was, but it’s killing me now.”

“Virginia! — Why, for Heaven’s sake? You ought to be tickled pink! It’s something to be able to love a man these modern days. Ask me...Dear, are you concealing more from me?”

“I don’t think so. Anyway, if I am it’ll come out soon. You’d get blood out of a stone...I’m just scared, Ethel...It has been a long agony for me, since last fall. I’m all right now, except — I — he — oh, well, I want him, I want him — and if he doesn’t want me — I — I’ll drown myself in the ditch here.”

“It’s a cinch,” yelped Ethel, ecstatically.

Virginia wiped the dimness from her eyes and stared down at this galvanizing scion of modern feminism.

“Cinch?” she echoed, stupidly.

“That’s what I said, Desdemona. You’re so modest you make me sick. Good Heavens! Girl, I’ll bet he went off on that sheep-herder job just to think and dream about you. Of course you never had the nerve to give him a hint you loved him.”

“I was so afraid I would — it made me queer, cold...But I led him on. And he asked me to marry him because he thought I wanted to use him as a convenience. To save me from father’s machinations with Malpass...No, poor fellow, he never dreamed I was crazy to be his wife.”

Ethel let out a peal of silvery, happy laughter.

“Oh, it’s rich! I’d love to be in your boots. Think of how glorious it’ll be to tell him! I’d have had it done by now.”

“Oh, you — you callous girl! How can I tell him?” cried Virginia.

“You’ve got eyes, arms, hands — and lips, everything, all about as perfect as nature bestows upon a woman.”

“That’s nonsense. But suppose I have?”

“Use them. You darned fool! Didn’t you fight Malpass? — Well, fight Cliff in another way. It’s a woman’s prerogative. We’re no longer vassals of men. We don’t have to wait. But since we’re so soft — since we have to love a man — since we must be mothers, it’s self-preservation or destruction.”

“Ethel, I sent for you to help me — not drive me mad,” replied Virginia, piteously.

“Now, dearest Virginia, I am in dead earnest,” returned Ethel, suddenly starting up. “I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world. I’m just taking an extreme view of your trouble. I don’t really believe it’s bad at all. I honestly think Cliff is as much in love with you as you are with him. And you bet I’ll know after I see him.”

“See him? Are you going to?”

“I am. Or I should say we are.”

Virginia covered her face with her hands. “Let us wait a little. He might come — to me. That would help so...Ethel, you don’t know all about it.”

“Ahuh! I thought so. — How can I help you when I don’t know anything?”

“I am disgustingly rich,” confessed Virginia. “Father’s holdings in the south brought a great deal of money. And there’s more to come. No one here except Mr. Forrest knows it. I made him swear not to give me away. I took this place in exchange for Cottonwoods. I kept a few horses, a car, and some help just so I wouldn’t look too awfully poor. But that Payne ranch at Watrous is mine. All the rest of my horses are there. And there’s other property in the estate. I simply can’t conceal it for long. That’s another thing that scares me.”

“Mrs. Clifton Forrest, may I inquire why in the name of Heaven that should scare you?”

“Clifton once said he could never take anything from me. And when he finds out I’m not poor — that I’ve barrels of money, he’ll not want me.”

“Then he’ll be a darned queer genus homo.”

“But, Ethel, you don’t know Cliff.”

“He belongs to the male species of our generation. You’re his wife. You’re a lovely thing — perfectly dippy about him. Considering these facts, I hardly think he’ll cast you off when he finds you’ve got barrels of coin. Men are not that way. Do you want to know what my sweetie would do in such a case?”

“What?” asked Virginia, dubiously.

“He’d proceed to blow some of it pronto.”

“Cliff won’t,” replied Virginia, dejectedly. “I’d be in the seventh heaven if he would.”

“Very well, Melancholy Mag,” said Ethel, with wise resignation. “We’ll proceed from your angle. We’ll get good and serious. We’ll plan to win Clifton. But we’ll go slow. Consider the whole matter from Clifton’s point of view. You can rely on little sister to dig that up. If he doesn’t come to see us soon, then I’ll plan to see him — quite by accident. After all, it’s a matter of love. We’re not trying to put over any crooked stuff. We’ll think always of his pride, his sensitiveness, his suffering. Now, old Owl-eyes, how does that suit you?”

“It’s better,” said Virginia, coming out of her trance.

“Thanks, Pollyanna. Meanwhile we must do things. We’ll ride and climb and drive. Have a perfectly spiffy time.”

“But suppose I — we would be absent if — if Cliff came,” faltered Virginia.

“Help! Help!...Virginia Lundeen Forrest, I tell you I’ve got to pull this off my own way or have a lunatic on my hands.”

Chapter Twenty

A STEP ON the dry cottonwood leaves startled Virginia, and even before she moved a familiar voice thrilled her:

“Howdy, daughter!”

Leaping up, blushing scarlet, she saw Clifton’s father right upon them.

“Oh, Mr. Forrest, you — you gave me a scare.”

“Wal, I’m sorry. The cowboys steered me down here. I sort of hated buttin’ up your pretty little party, but it’s kind of important.”

“Ethel, this is Clifton’s father...my friend, Miss Wayne, from Denver.”

“Think I once met you before, Miss, but I’m shore glad to meet you again,” replied the rancher. “Suppose we — all set down. It’s nice here.”

“Virginia, if you’ll excuse me — —” began Ethel.

“Don’t run off, young lady. I reckon, judgin’ by your looks, you’d make a handy helpmeet. An’ I’m shore goin’ to need one.”

“Very well. You’re a good judge of character, Mr. Forrest,” said Virginia, with a laugh. “Ethel, you’re elected to stay.”

Forrest sat down with his broad back to the tree, and he laid his hat aside. Virginia had never seen him look so well. He was ten years younger. The somber shade had gone from the dark hazel eyes that were so poignantly like Clifton’s. He was clean-shaven and neatly garbed.

“Wal, it shore ain’t easy to begin this confab,” he said, with a smile that made him winning. “But I reckon I’ve got to.”

“I am all curiosity, Mr. Forrest,” returned Virginia, who was thrilling all over. “Not to say sympathetic.”

“Lass, I’ve been out to see Cliff,” he announced, tragically.

Virginia’s hand flashed to her breast, and her eyes and lips must have added to that gesture.

“Aw, don’t look scared. Cliff’s all right,” he added, hastily. “Fact is I had the jar of my life. I never was so surprised. He’s well! — He’s a strappin’ big fellow, dark as an Indian. I just couldn’t get over it...Now, Virginia, for that good news you shore ought to call me dad, shouldn’t you?”

“I — surely should — dad,” replied Virginia, huskily. She could have kissed him, and probably would have but for the tight hold Ethel had on her.

“Good! That will tickle mother. Do you know, Virginia, I’m like to grow jealous of you...Wal, Cliff wasn’t surprised at all to see me. He was as nice an’ kind as if I’d — as if nothin’ had never happened between us. Asked all about mother, an’ shore wanted to see her bad. But he can’t leave the sheep just now. An’ I reckon mother will have to go over to Sycamore.”

“Oh, I hope she goes soon,” burst out Virginia.

“Huh! Trust that little lady. Wal, I was pretty gingerly about tacklin’ Cliff. You see, he had me buffaloed. There’s sure been a vast change in that boy. So I beat around the bush, talkin’ a lot, to get my wind.”

“Did you speak — of me?” queried Virginia, breathlessly.

“I should smile. You were my best bet. First I told him you owned the sheep he’d been drivin’. He said Lopez had told him. An’ then Cliff said it wasn’t so good for him, as he needed his wages an’ shore couldn’t take money from you.”

“Oh!” cried Virginia, poignantly, clinging to Ethel’s comforting hand.

“An’ I told him that was just as well, ‘cause you was now a poor girl. He looked blank. Then he laughed. But I knocked him open-mouthed by tellin’ him you had deeded Cottonwoods back to me. He cussed me, an’ wanted to know how that could be. He’d never heard of your father killin’ Malpass, an’ then dyin’ from gun-shots. That made him sober. He whispered, ‘Poor Virginia!’ An’ then he wanted to know what had become of you. I told him how you’d gone to live where we used to. That you had a few horses, an old car, an’ not much money. You’d have to sell the sheep presently. I could see he was sick about it, an’ shore mad at me, but he didn’t cuss me again. He set there on the stump an’ thought. Finally he looked up with the saddest eyes I ever seen an’ said...What do you think he said?”

“I can’t imagine. Hurry!” whispered Virginia. In the excitement of the story Ethel had arisen from her elbows to get an arm around her, to hold her tight, a support she surely needed.

“‘When did she divorce me?’ he asked. I told him you hadn’t divorced him at all...’My Gawd!’ he said, an’ showed me a letter some months old that he hadn’t got till his shepherd lad fetched it out from San Luis. It was not signed, but I recognized Malpass’ handwritin’. The letter told of Virginia divorcin’ you an’ marryin’ Malpass...What a skunk an’ greaser he was!”

“Oh, despicable! That’s — the worst!” panted Virginia.

“Wal, it was good Cliff didn’t get that letter way out on the desert, months ago. ‘Cause it shore would have killed him.”

“You — you think — Cliff cared?” asked Virginia, as if strangling to force utterance.

“Cared? My Heaven! Lass, the boy worshiped you. I saw that long ago, right after he first came back. Mother put me on to it...I hated you because of that very thing. I accused him of it. All the time I could see his heart in his eyes...Wal, it shore hurts me to think of that now — for Cliff’s love for you saved his life.”

“Oh, it couldn’t be!” cried Virginia, wildly.

“Don’t take on so, lass. Shore you must let me tell you. Most of all, let me ask help of you.”

“But you mustn’t make such rash statements. I can’t believe them. But I — I might. And then how could I bear — —”

“Child, I’m tellin’ you the truth,” expostulated Forrest.

“Oh, how can you say that?”

“Cliff told me. Told me right out, just as cool an’ calm as could be. He said: ‘You needn’t tell her, dad. No use to distress her further. Her heart is big, an’ I don’t want her sorry for me.’...Wal, then I — —”

“You — you — —” gasped Virginia, who divined what was coming.

“Shore. I told him plumb straight that it wasn’t all to get free of Malpass you married him.”

Virginia, in default of vocal powers, squeezed Ethel into asking, “And then what did Cliff say?”

“‘Wal, dad,’ he said, cool an’ easy, ‘you never was very strong in the head. An’ I’ll thank you not to talk that way. Especially to anyone else.’ It shore flabbergasted me, so I shut up. But I was deep stirred an’ I asked him to forgive me for disgracin’ him an’ turnin’ him out when he was ill an’ crippled...My Gawd! it hurt me to ask. That was damnin’ me black. But once I got it out I felt better.”

“Did he forgive you?” asked Virginia.

Forrest showed emotion. “Never a harsh word, lass. He told me, yes, an’ that it made him happy to have everything straightened out. But he added that he expected me to forgive you, too. An’ I said I had done that long ago. Wal, that nerved me for the last, an’ I begged him to come home to Cottonwoods!”

“He refused,” divined Virginia.

“‘No, dad,’ he said, simply, ‘I can’t do that. I’ll see mother often when I’m here, an’ you too, if you want, but my home is the desert henceforth.’ I wanted to rave an’ swear. A sheep-herder! My son Clifton! A sheep-herder like those peons!...But somethin’ about him nailed my lips. You’ll feel it when you see him.”

“See Clifton! — I’ll never have the courage now,” moaned Virginia.

Forrest’s face fell. “Lass, you love him, don’t you?”

She made a hopeless, helpless gesture, more eloquent than any affirmation.

“You’re my last card, Virginia,” he went on. “If you can’t persuade Cliff to come back to us — mother an’ you an’ me, I’m ruined, an’ it’ll finish mother.”

“I would persuade with the last drop of my heart’s blood,” flashed Virginia, passionately, “if it would be of use. But I know Clifton Forrest. He is beyond us.”

“Lass, I felt that, too. But you ain’t takin’ into account the one big factor. If he learns you love him — from your own lips — he will come back to us. But at that, I think he’ll stick to the sheep an’ the desert. I’ll never forget him when he said, ‘I’m a sheep-herder.’ You’d think he thought he was President...Wal, lass, I’ve laid my cards on the table, an’ you’ve got the ace. Will you play it for us?”

“I’ll do anything,” answered Virginia, feeling herself abandoned to the fates, now aloft on the pinnacle of hope and again lost in the depths of despair.

Forrest kissed her hand with quaint old courtesy.

“A man ought to be grateful an’ humble. Quíen sabe? Who knows, as the Mexicans have it? I once showed you my door — insulted you — to my endless shame an’ regret. Today nothin’ could do me more honor — make me happier — than to have you cross my threshold again as the wife of my son.”

Barely had he disappeared among the trees when Ethel hugged Virginia within an inch of her life. Her rapture was infectious.

“Oh, I want to yell — to sing — to dance — to pray!” cried Virginia. “He loves me — he loves me!...Years ago, Ethel, I used to pull the petals off the daisies and say, ‘Clifton loves me — he loves me not.’...Oh, indeed, who knows what may happen? Only God! Surely way out there on the desert He heard Clifton’s cry.”

“Say, come down out of the clouds,” quoth the practical Ethel, quickly recovering. “We gotta get our heads together. I’m not quite so stuck on myself as I was. For that ‘I’m a sheep-herder’ stuff of Cliff’s has got my goat.”

But Virginia was hopeless for the balance of that day, and Ethel had to do all the intriguing herself. Virginia soared back to the zenith; she could not hear, she did not talk, she was not hungry, and she would not sleep for hours.

Next morning she felt herself to have some semblance to a rational being, and reinstated herself in Ethel’s intellectual regard. Both of them, however, were disrupted out of a possible even tenor by a message from Helen Andrews, which was brought in by Jake. Helen, on the way to Phoenix to visit her brother, had stopped off at Las Vegas to see Virginia. She had sent the message to Cottonwoods, whence it had been relayed to Virginia.

“Isn’t that perfectly dear of her?” exclaimed Ethel.

“Indeed it is!...I forgot to write her.”

“Virginia, you were a jealous cat. But that girl was true blue.”

“I really loved her. Only, Ethel, in my trouble I forgot everybody save you...Hurry and dress. We’ll drive in to town.”

And this was how it came about that Virginia, late in the day of friendship, though not too late, found another loving and steadfast heart.

The following morning Helen motored out in her riding-clothes, as planned, and the three had a glorious run on the horses. After luncheon Virginia’s guests mysteriously disappeared.

It set Virginia to pondering. When they did not come back soon she went out to look for them. Nowhere in the grove! She fled to the barn, to confront Jake and Con at work on the horses that had been ridden.

“Jake, have the girls been here?” she queried.

Now to Virginia’s knowledge no cowboy was a good liar. She saw through Jake in a second, and as for honest Con, he could not lie.

“What horses did you saddle?”

“Wal, Mrs. Forrest — —”

“Don’t call me that,” flashed Virginia, not because she did not love the name, but for the reason that when she heard it she became a scarlet-faced schoolgirl.

“Tell me,” she commanded.

“Shore, Miss Virginia, I reckoned somethin’ was wrong,” explained Jake, very contritely. “But not quick enough. Why, those girls could do anythin’ with a man. I shore let them have Dumpy an’ Calamity Jane without your orders. Honest to Gawd, though, I thought you was goin’ to. Not till they rode off like mad did I take a tumble.”

“Which — way did they — go?” asked Virginia, very weakly.

He pointed. “First they asked how to find Sycamore, an’ I told them. They rode out the lane an’ up the hill.”

After the first shock had passed, Virginia realized that it was due only to her supercharged emotional capacity these trying days. Before she got back to the welcome shade trees she was divided between elation and gloom. Trust that sharp-eyed little Wayne lady! That was the terror of the thing, because after Ethel had seen Clifton there would never again be any doubts as to his status as a lover and husband.

If she had been on a rack of the Spaniards she could have held herself quieter than on this interminable fiendish afternoon. She had been warped out of her orbit. She fluttered like a leaf of an aspen tree. But at last they came.

Virginia had not been able to breathe inside the house. She had carried blanket and pillow out under the cottonwood where Clifton’s father had told his story. But never until she espied the girls coming through the grove from the barn had she sat down, and then her legs gave way under her.

How slowly they came! Guilty wretches! But Ethel was radiant and Helen resembled the glorious Helen of ancient romance. The panic of dread, at least, stilled in Virginia’s breast. They could not be so callous as to look so marvelously mysterious and angelic if they had bad news. Nevertheless, Virginia fixed on them terrible accusing eyes.

Helen threw sombrero, gloves, and whip to the turf, and she dropped on her knees before Virginia. Never had she looked so beautiful. Her face had the tint of a golden pearl and her eyes the sweetness of violets. Virginia had not before seen this Eastern woman under the influence of powerful emotion. Her classic beauty had never lacked soul, but now it bore the glow of grave wonder and joy, of a woman’s divine understanding of what life or death meant to her friend.

“He loves you, Virginia. You have been blessed by the gods,” she said, softly.

Virginia had not fortified herself for such a statement from Helen. Anything from the dynamic Ethel! But Helen Andrews was patrician. In such an hour rash or false words would have been impossible. Virginia lost her fierce strain of body and her consciousness succumbed to this attack. There was nothing she could say. Ethel plumped down on her knees beside Helen, sweetly serious for once. These two were leagued against Virginia. She surrendered and never before had she loved them as in that moment.

“We found Clifton a wondrously changed man,” said Helen, speaking with the solemn gladness of one who had been exalted by deeper insight into human life, or confounded by a spiritual transformation. “I pray that your desert can do as much for my brother Jack. I have faith that it can. But far more than recovery of health and strength has come to Clifton. He has seen through death, Virginia. I felt so slight before him. No one could ever tell what he has gone through. But you know he has conquered self, cast out evil, seen the pitiful frailty of men and women, of our fleeting time here, of the unknown future. He is like the Shepherd we read of in our childhood...I felt ashamed to be deceitful before him — to probe at his heart, as this merciless Ethel wanted me to do and did herself...Just the mention of your name — Virginia — betrayed him to me. How you have wronged him not to know! All women are loved some time or other, or often, or once, anyway. But this soldier — this sheep-herder — has surrounded you with his soul...I think I understand men. My sweetheart went to war, the same as Clifton. He went a rollicking happy-go-lucky chap. But the war changed him. His letters over a period of months told of tremendous cataclysm of mind and heart, of spirit and faith. These letters have sustained me to bear his loss...I felt in Clifton something of what Richard wrote me. These men stand apart. We can never understand them wholly. But the war built or it destroyed. Mostly the latter, alas!...I don’t understand the desert. But so long as I live I shall never forget Clifton Forrest.”

Virginia, almost blinded, clasped Helen in an unutterably grateful embrace, passionate and eloquent.

“You, too, Ethel,” she said, presently, when she could speak. And it was reproachful acceptance of more just crucifixion.

But Ethel, despite the gravity of the occasion, in her excitement reverted to type.

“That heavy stuff of Helen’s is beautiful, but it is bunk,” she began. “Just listen to me a minute, will you? Clifton could cut out my fellow in two winks of a cat’s eye. Do you get that, Virginia, old dear?”

“Yes, I get it, Ethel. I know how you’d exaggerate and lie and swear false witness to heaven itself to spare me. But don’t spare me. I am dizzy with the ecstasy Helen inspired in me. But tell me honestly what you thought.”

Ethel showed plainly that she was touched deeply, though not deflected from her natural trend. Or else she was deep as the sea!

“That Sycamore is sure a swell place,” she went on. “How come you never took us riding out there? It’s not far. Clifton has the prettiest camp, as you’ll agree. He has an eye for things. Camp all spick and span. Pots and pans clean. Everything orderly. I peeped into his tent. Gee! but I had a thrill. No girl ever had a room so sweet and comfortable as the inside of that tent. Soft woolly sheepskin rugs. Cedar boughs under his bed. Pure white sand. Indian paint-brush in a — —”

“Child, tell me of him!” burst out Virginia.

“I didn’t know him when he came up out of the gorge,” returned Ethel, swiftly. “I didn’t, yet I did. He appeared tall, but maybe that was because he walked erect. His color was a shiny dark gold. Face, arms, neck all bare. He might as well not have had a shirt at all, it was so ragged. And his trousers had a thousand patches, all kinds and shapes, some of them sheepskin. He wore a belt with a knife, and he carried a long stick, a shepherd’s crook...Well, he knew us both. Wasn’t surprised even a little. ‘Howdy, girls!’ as glad and kind as you’d want to see. I let out a whoop and made for him — and well — dare I tell her, Helen?”

“I think it will be safe,” replied Helen, with a smile that would have mitigated much.

“I just had to kiss him. Afterward I had the queerest feeling I ever had when I’d —— Ahem! Well, I did. But Clifton took it fine. Made it easy for me in his gentle understanding way. All the same I won’t be so fresh again, Virginia dear...He asked why you didn’t come, just as cool and natural-like. I wonder how much his father salved it on us in his story. Anyway, Cliff was just like your brother who hadn’t seen you for a long time.”

“So he asked for me!” murmured Virginia, and closed her eyes for a moment.

“Don’t faint, honey. You know I can’t stand indifference or aloofness from any man. And for you I was not standing it, either. Cliff was exactly that. He was just different. And I went after him...Virginia, he has the purest, clearest eyes, the most eagle-like look, the finest face I ever saw on a man. Almost he is beautiful. But the cold flint is there — the desert...I told him about your sufferings since that tragedy which freed you from tyranny. Of your sacrifice to his father. I lied like a trooper about your poverty. But, however he may have satisfied our Helen here, he sure didn’t me till I told him — well, never mind what I told him, but he came across with what I wanted.”

“And that?” whispered Virginia.

“I had to see where we stood in this deal...Virginia, if you look at that fellow once now — and touch him with your little finger — he’ll grab you in his arms and eat you up and — —”

“Oh, hush!” cried Virginia, faintly. “Dear friends, don’t tell me any more. I believe. I will do what you tell me...And if you’re wrong you can drape me like Elaine and lay me to rest here under this old cottonwood.”

Ethel screamed her glee and hugged them both singly and together. “You glum darlings. Oh, how you make me laugh! All the time I knew. Leave it to me. There’ll be nothing to it. Poor Cliff hasn’t a show on earth, or on the desert, either. War is hell, and the desert may be a lot I don’t savvy, but I’m telling you the little feminine genders rule the world.”

“Then it is settled,” returned Helen, rising, flushed and happy. “I shall leave for Phoenix in the morning. Let us all plan to forgather next June in Denver, when this precocious madcap gives her promise for better or worse — to learn men have always been the masters and ever will be. I shall fetch my brother. Find him a Western girl half as good and true as either of you, and I shall have further reason to love you.”

“That’s a cinch,” laughed Ethel. “And, oh, Helen Andrews, how I’d love to land you for the West!”

“Thank you! That’s a compliment I shall cherish...Perhaps you can find me another sheep-herder!”

So in the golden sunset light under the cottonwoods they passed on arm in arm to the house.

Like one in a dream Virginia rode out on the range, captive of Ethel, blind and tumultuous in her faith. Sirius was not a horse to ride with her mind steeped in enchantment. He required an iron hand which he did not feel in this hour. But the trail led uphill and wore off his restive edge.

Many a day had Virginia ridden this range, but today was a stranger to all the past. She could look up to the notch between the mountains and see the gray flat crag with its pines — her shrine above Emerald Lake. It was best to look up. She was humble and longing. Introspection and philosophy and resolve were mere thoughts. She was motivated now by the simplest and sublimest of emotions.

How the range shone under the westering sun! Far away sloped the gray desert, dim and obscure, retreating toward the west. Northward heaved the bronze mountain barrier. But both range and mountain lost to their rival — this strange empty colorful desolate void called desert. It had saved her lover. She must learn how and why, and forever reverence it as a manifestation of God. Some day she might ride far across it, down and down toward that purple haze, to Guadaloupe.

“We will ride up under cover of the cedars there,” said Ethel, bringing Virginia back to reality. “Then we can peek down into Sycamore and see the sheep grazing. Some class of a picture, old dear.”

Presently, then, Virginia was gazing down into a wide beautiful valley, mostly green, but ribbed with amber bars, and rendered pastoral by a long straggling white flock of sheep. Her flock! But where was her shepherd?

“Come. I’ve called you twice,” said Ethel. “We must go back of the hill and round to the head of that draw. There we can hide our horses. The sheep are working up to the camp. We’ve no time to lose, if we’re to beat Cliff to it. Come, you old white-faced coward.”

It seemed an age, though it was scarcely a quarter of an hour, when Virginia followed on Ethel’s swift heels, through fragrant sage and among gray boulders, into a narrow defile, and through that to an open high bench graced by old sycamores, under one of which a white teepee tent gleamed red-gold in the sunset glow.

“Good!” whispered Ethel, in high exultation. How her eyes shone! “The coast is clear. I’ll hide here and watch. Go now.”

“Where to?” queried Virginia, abjectly.

“Anywhere to surprise Cliff,” retorted Ethel. “Haven’t I coached you a hundred times. Pop out of the earth. Drop out of the sky. Anything to get the first blow in. Personally, if it were I, I’d hide in his tent — pretend to be asleep — let him find me there. And I’d sure — —”

“I haven’t the nerve.”

“Beat it!” went on Ethel, sternly. “I hear the dogs. They’ll eat you up if they see you. Hurry to get in his tent...Virginia, you’re his wife...Beat it now.”

She gave Virginia a hasty hug and warm kiss and then a shove.

Virginia looked around to find she was alone. She ran, her heart in her throat. The action lent wings to a thousand thrills. From somewhere deep in her came courage, too. She must hide from Clifton, and for the moment it was not the thought of surprising him that dominated. Still Ethel’s suggestion landed her at the door of the little tent. She slipped in, panting.

She had a picture in her mind of this interior, precisely as she found it. Only the reality had the fragrance of fresh sage and cedar and the potency of intimacy. There was his bed, neatly made, though it consisted only of sheepskins on boughs, with a blanket folded back. She touched them, and it was as if she had been caressed.

Dogs barked outside. She heard the bleating of sheep, the pattering of many tiny feet. But she could not see either dogs or sheep.

Suddenly a tall form hove in sight, coming up over the bench. The sunset light shone brightly on the man — a shepherd, stalking bareheaded, with a staff in his hand. He had a ragged, wild look. Virginia’s eyes devoured him. How lithe and dark! How queer the patched trousers of many hues. He strode nearer — up to the camp, to lean his crooked staff against a tree. Then he turned so the light fell upon his face. Clifton! But transformed, as he had seemed in her dreams. She fell upon his bed, but not from pretense.

Suddenly the quivering of her body ceased. Too late! His step sounded close. Blood and nerve and muscle became inert. The canvas whipped.

“Santa Maria!” he exclaimed, aghast.

A silence ensued. Virginia lay on her side, face to the tent wall, and she did not breathe.

“Are you ill, lady, that you...Who are you?”

The voice was Clifton’s and it unlocked her petrified functions. His hand fell upon her shoulder. With the contact every nerve and vein in her leaped to stinging, pulsing life. As he rolled her over her hands flew instinctively to hide her face.

“Who are you?”

“It’s your — wife!” She had been coached and driven to that infantile speech. How idiotic! She longed for a hole to open in the ground to swallow her.

Strong hands exposed her face, lifted her to her knees — and she saw Clifton perilously close, the radiant sunset light upon him. For a moment the mother in her dominated, and her hand tenderly touched his cheek, that appeared dusky yet strangely pale, and then slipped to his clustering hair.

“It is you! Changed beyond belief. But I know you...Clifton, well and strong! Oh, thank God!”

His arm slipped round her waist and clasped tight to draw her close, while his free hand, under her chin, tilted up her head.

How stern his eyes! Clear, hazel, eagle-keen, with a blaze in their depths. She could only stare at him, fascinated, fearing it could not be true, shamed yet thrilled in the embrace of a man who was Clifton and a stranger.

“Virginia?” he asked, hoarsely.

“Yes. Don’t you know me?”

“What does this mean? — My father comes to prate of you...Then these friends of yours. And now you!”

“Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“My God, woman! Would you play with fire?”

“Oh, Clifton, indeed I would, if — —”

“You never freed yourself?”

“Never — and never will.”

“Virginia Lundeen!”

“No. My last name is Forrest.”

“Still my wife!”

“Yes, Cliff.”

“I am in a maze...Virginia, you married me to escape that half-breed Malpass.”

“Yes, but that was not my main reason.”

“What was?” he asked, incredulously.

“I just wanted to — to belong to you.”

“You — you —— Oh, I cannot say it!” he cried, huskily.

“Yes, Cliff, all my life, mostly. Since I was a girl...At least since you kissed me that time.”

He uttered a cry of commingled rapture and incredulity and fear.

“On the ship? On the train? That day in the store? And that night on the trail when you found me crawling, almost dead?”

“Yes, yes. Then, and the night I led you to propose to me — and the night you married me. Yes, and every day and every night since then I’ve loved you with all my mind and soul and heart and body.”

“You glorious girl!...O God! I have fought and lived for this!” It was then Ethel’s prediction was verified. He seemed fire and ice, savage and man all at once. The breath was crushed out of her body, and every mad longing she had ever had for his kisses was satisfied. They left her limp and numb. But she felt that he had spent himself, though he held her still. Gradually she sank with him to a seat on the bed, and when she recovered sufficiently to see and understand it seemed that Clifton was staring at the setting sun as a man to whom heaven had opened.

“But you’ve not told me,” she whispered.

“Virginia, I love you,” he replied, divining her hunger.

“Oh, Cliff! Oh, Cliff!...You don’t have to propose to me — do you?”

“No? Why don’t I?”

“Because I’m your wife.”

“So you are,” he replied, marveling, while his arm tightened. “I can’t realize.”

“Dearest, it is true. And at last I am happy...Clifton, do not look so dazed. I will be guided by you. I am a woman who will obey. I do not ask you to give up your desert and your sheep. They are yours because they are mine, and all I have is yours. I shall love what you love. Your life and religion shall be mine.”

“You will let me divide my time between the desert and home?”

“Let you? I implore you to. Your father and mother need you. They are growing old. So little will make them happy now.”

“Virginia, don’t shame me. I will do it.”

She kissed his cheek. “You must teach me to love the desert. I understand a little the terror life has been to you. And how the naked earth, the elements, solitude and privation, have worked this miracle. Perhaps these things are God. Anyway, I reverence them.”

She got to her knees again and slipped her arms round his neck and kissed him again and again.

“Ethel’s way, darling,” she whispered, with a shaky laugh. “She is wise. She sent me here. God bless her!...Cliff, I’ve a confession.”

“Don’t make it. Let me dream on. I am at Guadaloupe and you are with me.”

“Will you take me there some day?”

“Child, you could never walk that long, long trail.”

“But I could ride. Promise me.” And she bent to his lips again, and would not desist until he promised.

“Cliff, I’m an impostor.”

“Are you? Explain.”

“You believe me poor white trash now?”

“Virginia, such a question!”

“Well, at least they told you I was poor, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a lie. I am rich. I returned Cottonwoods and more to your father. Then I went to live in your — our old home. I love it there. I meant to pretend to be poor. But I can’t lie to you. Father’s estate was cleared and came to me. It was in father’s will. I paid every claim I could find, and some that were surely questionable. Yet still there was a fortune left...What do you think about it?”

“I hardly know,” he returned in perplexity.

“Do you love me any the less because I’m not the poor ragged bare-legged Virginia Lundeen who used to waylay you?”

“I couldn’t love you less because of anything.”

“You’ll let me keep it, then?” she queried, gravely.

“Let you, child? I’m very glad you have it. Could I support you in luxury on a few cents a day? Buy you exquisite clothes? Take care of your horses?”

“No, indeed, you couldn’t. Then that is settled. Oh, how it worried me!”

From outside the tent rose a high sweet trilling laughter, wild and gay and exultant on the night air.

“Ethel — the little devil!” ejaculated Virginia, aghast. “She was with me. She’s slipped up and listened.”

“Let her,” he replied, happily, and he spoke louder. “She was at considerable pains to let me know how poor you were...That laugh now!...Well, Virginia Lundeen Forrest, you can buy me all the flocks on the range and I’ll glory in driving them for you.”

Virginia’s modesty went into eclipse and she leaned to him, murmuring, “My shepherd!”

THE END

Raiders of Spanish Peaks

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER I

LARAMIE’S HORSE WENT lame, and as Wingfoot was the only living creature he had to care for, he halted at midday, without thought of his own needs.

That long journey of yesterday, calculated to put a hundred miles between Laramie and a certain Kansas ranch where his old habit of gun-play on little provocation had rendered him unpopular, had aggravated a sprained tendon Wingfoot favored. Laramie slid out of the saddle.

“Heah, let me see, yu uncomplainin’ deceivin’ hawse,” said the rider. “How was I to know about it?”

Wingfoot might have traveled miles farther without serious result, but Laramie chose not to take the risk. He liked the pleasant prospect at hand — a widening valley bright with the spring green of cottonwoods and willows, and a gleam of water. He would camp there until the following day. It was nothing for Laramie to go hungry.

“Wal, Wingfoot, heah we stop,” he drawled as he removed the saddle. “Plenty grass an’ water for yu. If I see a cottontail I’ll shore make up for thet pore shootin’. . . . I’ve a pinch of salt left. . . . Now yu be around heah in the mawnin’.”

Wingfoot was not so lame that he could not roll. After thus indulging himself he made for the running stream and the patch of green on the bank. Laramie packed the burdened saddle beyond the edge of the grove to a willow thicket. Another of his range habits was that of caution. He needed sleep about as much as Wingfoot needed rest, but he decided to exhaust the meat possibilities of this valley before lying down. To that end he spread his saddle blankets to dry in the sun, and cut an armload of willows for a bed, after which he went hunting.

This particular section of southern central Kansas was unknown to him. It was a cattle country, a vast sweeping prairie-land, rolling and grassy, where a steer appeared to be as hard to find as a needle in a haystack. Few indeed had been the hoof tracks he had crossed that day. A long tramp down this winding lonesome swale earned Laramie no more than an appreciation of the ranch possibilities of the place. How many beautiful, fertile, lonely bits of rangeland had inspired the same desire for a farm, a few horses and cattle, a home! That hope never died, though Laramie was well on, as years counted at that time. Still, as many riders of twenty-five died with their boots on as lived to herd cattle.

Somewhere to the northwest lay the railroad and Dodge, for which Laramie was headed. Cattlemen and riders were as thick there as flies on a freshly skinned cowhide. He would get another job and try again, knowing that sooner or later he would straddle Wingfoot again for a grub-line ride. Thinking of meat made him more than usually keen-eyed, with the result that soon he espied a rabbit. It ran off a few rods, and then made the mistake to stop and squat down, after the manner of cottontails. Laramie shot the top of its head off.

“Wal, dog-gone!” he ejaculated, very pleased. “I reckoned I couldn’t hit nothin’ no more. Now if thet had happened to be Luke Arlidge . . .”

Laramie did not end his speculation. He skinned and dressed the cottontail, and returning to camp built a little fire over which he broiled the rabbit to a nice brown. The addition of some salt made it so toothsome that Laramie wanted to devour it all. But he saved half for the morrow.

The heat of the day was passing. Wingfoot grazed contentedly down the valley. Laramie left his fire to look around. There was not even a bird to see. He had come from the north and had a curiosity to see what it looked like to the west, up over the low slope. But with the thought that there was no sense looking for trouble he went back to the willows and was soon asleep.

Upon being rudely awakened by some noise, Laramie thought he had scarcely closed his eyes. He heard a thud of hoofbeats on soft ground and then a harsh voice:

“We’re goin’ to string yu up to this heah cottonwood, thet’s what.”

“Fer no more’n yu’ve done yourself, Price,” came the reply in a young, bitter voice.

“If I done so, nobody ever ketched me. Haw! Haw!”

Laramie considered himself a judge of men through their voices. He sat up silently, a cold little thrill stiffening his spine, and peeped out between the willow leaves.

Four horsemen had ridden under the great spreading cottonwood, three of whom were in the act of halting. The foremost, a boy of about twenty, was short and sturdy, his figure bearing the hallmarks of a rider. His homely face might have been red ordinarily, but now it was tense and pale. He had singularly fine eyes, neither dark nor light, and on the moment an expression of scorn appeared stronger than a somber horror. He was too young to face hanging with a spirit which no doubt would have been his in later years. Price was a typical cattleman of the period, no longer young, and characterized by a lean hard face of bluish cast under his short beard, and slits of fire for eyes. He looked more at home in the saddle than on the ground, and packed a blue Colt gun in the hip pocket of his jeans. The position of that gun told Laramie much. The other two riders were mere boys, even more youthful than the one they were about to hang. They did not look formidable, wherefore Laramie wasted no second glance on them.

“Price, yu ain’t goin’ through with it?” asked the doomed rider, hoarsely.

“Didn’t I ketch yu dead to rights?”

“Yes, an’ it wasn’t the first time I done the same. But yu hadn’t paid me a dollar fer six months. . . . An’ the boss was away. . . . An’ I had to have some money.”

“Say, Mulhall, air yu tryin’ to make excuses for rustlin’?” queried Price, loosening out a small deadly-looking noose in his lasso.

“Show me a rider who never stole a head of stock — if yu split hairs on it!” ejaculated Mulhall, passionately.

“I ain’t splittin’ hairs. Yu’re a rustler.”

“Yu’re a liar. If yu wasn’t every damn rider on this range would be a rustler. Yu would an’ yu know it.”

Price gave the noose a little careless toss and it fell perfectly over Mulhall’s head. He flinched in his saddle. And Laramie, watching with intent eyes, felt that shock communicated to him. Such brutal justice had become the law of the range. In this case it might have been deserved and on the other hand it might not. Laramie thought it no business of his. But could he sit there and see them go through with it?

“Thet’s my answer, Mulhall,” replied Price, curtly. “I’ll tell somebody yu took yore medicine yellow.”

“ —— !” burst out the bound rider, furiously. “I knowed it. Yu’re hangin’ me ‘cause she has no use fer yu. . . . Go ahead an’ string me up yu —— ! . . . She’ll be onto yu. Hank or Bill will give yu away some day. An’ she’ll hate yu — —”

“Shet up,” snapped Price, jerking the lasso so tight round Mulhall’s neck as to cut short his speech and sway him in the saddle.

“Aw — Price!” interposed the older of the other two riders. He was pale and it was plain he wanted to intercede. “Let Mulhall off — this time.”

Whereupon Price cursed him roundly, and then flinging his end of the rope over the branch just above Mulhall’s head he leisurely dismounted to pick it up.

“I’ve seen more’n one of yore brand dangle from this cottonwood,” he said, with a coarse grim humor that failed to hide passion.

This inflection of tone decided Laramie, who had been wavering. Silently he arose, and strode out from behind his covert. Price appeared about to haul the lasso taut and tie it to a sapling. The ashen-faced Mulhall saw Laramie first and gave expression to a more violent start.

“Bill, get set to kick his hoss out from under him,” ordered Price.

When Bill failed to move and, moreover, betrayed his alarm, Price wheeled. Laramie had advanced half of the distance from the willows. He halted, standing slightly sidewise. His posture, as well as his appearance, would have given any Westerner pause. Laramie had counted on this many a time, though in this instance it was more habit than design.

“Hullo!” cut out Price, suddenly springing erect. He was genuinely astounded.

“Howdy yoreself,” returned Laramie, in slow, cool speech. “See yu’re aimin’ at a necktie party.”

“Yu ain’t blind, stranger,” replied Price, sharply, as his gaze roved over Laramie, to grasp the significance of his stand. “Where’d yu come from?”

“Down the draw heah with my outfit. Been huntin’ rabbits an’ happened to see hawses.”

“Rabbits, huh?” rejoined Price, slowly. “Wal, go on with yore huntin’.”

“Shore, when it suits me.”

“This ain’t no bizness of yourn.”

“I’m makin’ it mine.”

“Hell yu say! . . . Who might yu be, stranger?”

“No matter. I’m just ridin’ through.”

“Wal, go back to yore outfit an’ ride on. Mixin’ in heah might not be healthy.”

“Wal, somehow I’ve thrived on unhealthy soil.”

Price threw down the end of the lasso and reddened in angry amaze: “What yu up to?”

“I cain’t fool about heah an’ see yu hang thet boy,” drawled Laramie.

“He’s a rustler. We ketched him brandin’ calves fer an outfit who’s been payin’ him.”

“Shore. I heahed yu talkin’.”

“Hell then, man! Don’t yu know this country?” fumed the cattleman.

“Wal, yes, if yu reckon Texas, Abilene, Dodge, an’ the Pan Handle.”

“Ahuh. Texas rider. One of them Chisholm Trail drivers?”

“Shore. If thet means anythin’ to yu, Mister Price.”

It meant considerable, as was plain by the man’s visible vacillation in the face of a doubtful issue. Laramie had gauged him shrewdly.

“But what fur, damn yu? Mulhall ain’t nothin’ to yu. He’s admitted his guilt.”

“Yes, an’ the way he did it is why I’m callin’ yore bluff.”

“Bluff! . . . There ain’t no bluff in a rope.”

“Yu’d swung him shore if I hadn’t come along. But I did — an’ now yu won’t.”

That was the gauntlet flung in this matured rider’s face. It flamed. He was the kind whom rage gave rein to impulses, but obviously there was something about Laramie’s front that restrained him.

“Yu’d fight fer this calf-stealin’ boy?” burst out Price, incredulously.

“Shore. Reckon I’ve fought fer less. But if yu want to know, Price, I just don’t like yore face an’ yore talk.”

“No? I ain’t takin’ a hell of a fancy to yourn,” retorted Price, sarcastically.

“Wal, I’m a better judge of men than yu are,” retorted Laramie, with even more sarcasm.

“Like hell yu air! Willin’ to take chances an’ fight fer a cow-puncher who admits he stole! Yu must be hard up fer a fight, stranger. As fer me — I pass. Mulhall ain’t even wuth gettin’ scratched fer.”

Price’s spurs jangled a discord as he stamped to his horse and flung himself in the saddle.

“Hold up a minute,” replied Laramie, dryly, as he walked around Price to see if he had a rifle on his saddle. The saddles of the other two riders were likewise minus a long-range gun. “Price, I size yu up to be some punkin on talkin’, an’ thet’s aboot all. Mozy along.”

The chagrined rider complied, while his two companions reined their horses in beside his.

“Take him an’ be damned!” shouted Price, over his shoulder. “He’ll thank yu by stealin’ yore shirt.”

“Hey, Price, all I ever stole from yu was yore gurl,” Mulhall shouted after him, in fiendish glee.

The rider called Bill looked back and his young face gleamed.

“Good-bye, Mull. I’m glad we — —”

Price swung a vicious hand on Bill’s lips, nearly unseating him. Then the riders rode on, breaking from trot to canter, and disappeared under the cottonwoods.

Laramie drew a knife with which he carefully cut the cord around Mulhall’s wrists. The boy swiftly lifted his hands to tear the noose off his neck so violently as to dislodge his sombrero. It went flying with the rope.

“My God, stranger!” he burst out, in terrible relief. “Price’d hung me — but fer yu!”

“I reckon. There’s many a slip, though,” responded Laramie as he bent to recover both lasso and sombrero. The latter he handed up to Mulhall, then began to coil the lasso. “It’d be bad luck, boy, not to keep this. . . . Any chance of Price fetchin’ back an outfit?”

“Aw, hell! He wouldn’t have the nerve if he had any more outfit,” replied the rider, contemptuously, as he rubbed his red wrists.

“Wal, in thet case we needn’t be in such a hurry,” replied Laramie. “I’m alone. Was ridin’ through, an’ my hawse went lame. An’ while restin’ him I was takin’ a nap heah in the willows. Yu waked me up.”

“It was sure a good wakin’ fer me, stranger,” rejoined Mulhall, fervently, and swinging a leg over the pommel he began to roll a cigarette. His fingers trembled slightly. Then he met Laramie’s upward glance. Their eyes locked — the one shamed, grateful, curious, the other grave, searching, kindly. Naturally such an exchange of looks could not have been ordinary, but this developed into something unusually strong and potent.

“What’s yore name?” queried Mulhall.

“Yu can call me Laramie.”

“Mine’s Mulhall. Yu can call me Lonesome.”

“Funny handle for yu. Bet yu’re not the lone-prairie kind . . . Mulhall. . . . Any kin to thet big stockman, Silas Mulhall?”

“No kin to nobody,” replied Lonesome, hurriedly, with evident distaste or a habit of evasiveness. “I’m alone in the wurr-ld.”

“Wal, yu came dog-gone near takin’ a trip alone,” concluded Laramie, dryly. “Let’s move out of this heah neck of the woods.”

Laramie dragged his saddle and things out of the willows, and dividing these with the rider made his way down the valley, keeping to the thick plots of grass.

“Reckon it’d take a good tracker some time workin’ our trail out,” remarked Laramie, thoughtfully, as he picked his way.

“Sure. But say, Laramie, I had a pard once thet could track a bird,” returned Mulhall, enthusiastically. “Honest to Gawd, he was the grandest boy on a trail! His name was Ted Williams, an’ I called him Tracks. Stuck to him, too. . . . Heigho! — dear old Ted! Wonder where’n hell he is now. . . . We was pards two years.”

“What became of him? Stop some lead?”

“No! He made the other fellow do thet. Ted was slick with a gun — leanin’ toward bein’ a gunman, they said.”

“I see. But yu’re not tellin’ me about him.”

“It happened over in Nebraskie. We was ridin’ for a cattleman — what was his name? . . . Spencer or somethin’. Anyway, he ran an X-Bar outfit, an’ he had a daughter. I was only sixteen an’ she was twenty. Red-headed girl! — Gosh, she was peaches an’ cream. About to marry a stock-buyer, a mean cuss, with lots of money. I didn’t want to get sweet on her — dog-gone it! She was to blame. Stockman’s name was Cheesbrough. Never will forget thet, because it was my callin’ him a big cheese thet led to the fight. He beat me somethin’ awful. Ted rode in, found me all bunged up. An’ he called Cheesbrough out an’ shot him. . . . I’ve never seen Ted since then. Thet’s what made me a roamin’, lonesome, grub-line rider.”

“Wal, yu must be hell on girls,” drawled Laramie, as he walked on, looking under the trees for his horse.

“I can’t help it if they like me,” declared Lonesome, stoutly. “An’ I couldn’t help lovin’ any girl to save my life. . . . This deal of Price’s yu mussed up — thet was all on account of a girl. Annie Lakin. She couldn’t read or write, but she was sure there on looks. Rancher up the draw three or four miles. Bruce Allson, a fine man to ride for when he was flush. But he’s been broke ever since thet big raid some rustlers worked awhile back. Annie is the daughter of Allson’s sister, who’d come to be housekeeper for him. Natural she upset the Triangle outfit. Price is foreman, an’ was loony over Annie. He had a chance, the boys said, till I rode along a few weeks ago. Thet fellow sure hated me. He’d done for me, too! Hung me! . . .”

“But how aboot Annie?” interposed Laramie.

“Thet girl! . . . I was sure sweet on her. Cross-eyed little skunk! Laramie, I don’t know if yu’ve had experience with girls, but I’m tellin’ yu they’re no good, as a rule. But I had one onct thet. . . . This Annie was crookeder than any rail fence yu ever seen in yore life, an’ just as sweet. She had all the boys on Allson’s ranch an’ everywhere daft about her. When I come — well, I was new an’ somethin’ to egg the other fellows along with. An’ all the time she was lettin’ Price make up to her! On the sly, thet was. But I queered his game if I didn’t do nothin’ else. . . . My Gawd! how thet kid could hug an’ kiss. An’ dance — say, I’ve seen her dance the whole outfit so done they couldn’t get their boots off.”

“Wal, then it’s not breakin’ yore heart much to leave heah?” went on Laramie.

“Not so terrible much, now I think of it. But I’d liked to have had a little money from Allson. I’m clean busted.”

“Yu’re welcome to some of mine. . . . Heah’s my hawse. I’d begun to worry thet he’d strayed up the draw.”

Laramie secured Wingfoot, and throwing blankets and saddle loosely over him, and the bridle round his neck, led off down the widening valley, with Mulhall beside him. Cottonwoods grew thickly here, and the stream was lined with green willows.

“Yore hoss is a little lame, Laramie,” observed Mulhall.

“Yes, thet’s what kept yu from havin’ a new hemp necktie. But he’s not so lame as he was. A night’s rest will make him fit again.”

“Travelin’ light, I see,” went on Lonesome.

“Light an’ hungry.”

“No grub atall?”

“Half a rabbit an’ some salt.”

Mulhall appeared frankly curious, and not without misgivings concerning this new-found friend; nevertheless he restrained his feelings.

“Let’s camp here,” he said, halting. “We’d have to come back up this draw, an’ it’s travel for nothin’. We can kill a couple of rabbits anywheres. Where yu headin’ for?”

“Just haidin’ away, Lonesome,” drawled Laramie.

“Ahuh! — I sure had a curl up my spine when I seen yu step out of them willows. . . . It’s a funny world. . . . By ridin’ forty miles tomorrow we can strike a cattle-camp. Next day Dodge.”

“Suits me. Haven’t hit Dodge for a couple of years,” rejoined Laramie, reminiscently.

“She’s a hummer these days.”

“If Dodge is any livelier than Abilene or Hays City, excuse me. . . . Pile off, Lonesome. We’ll camp heah an’ have some hot biscuits, applesauce, a lamb chop, an’ some coffee with cream.”

“Say, I’d kinda like you even if you hadn’t saved my neck,” observed Lonesome, thoughtfully. “An’ for me to like a man is sure a compliment.”

They found a thicket with a little grass plot inside where they made beds.

“Reckon we better hunt some more meat,” said Laramie, when their tasks were done.

“I’ll go with you, Laramie. There ain’t a damn bit of use in my huntin’ alone. I can’t hit a flock of barns. An’ if I happened on to one of Price’s calves I’d run it down.”

So they set out together, stepping quietly and watching sharply. Lonesome sighted the first rabbit and as he drew Laramie closer to where it was squatting it hopped away. Laramie killed it on the move. Lonesome gasped his amazement, and thudding across the open space he picked up the kicking quarry.

“Top of his head gone!”

“Wal, shore thet was a lucky shot,” drawled Laramie, looking to his gun.

“I’m reservin’ opinions till I see you shoot again. But I’ve the same hunch Price must have had.”

“An’ what’s thet, Lonesome?”

“It ain’t wise to try to throw a gun on some men,” returned Mulhall, his eyes bright and keen.

“Thet’s so,” admitted Laramie. “I’ve met a few I’d hate to have tried it on.”

“Humph. Who, for instance?” asked Lonesome, as he took out a knife to skin the rabbit.

“Buck Duane, Wess Harkin’, King Fisher — to mention three.”

“All Texans. Ain’t there any other Westerners quick on the draw?”

“Heaps of them, if yu can believe range talk. Wild Bill Hickok shore is one. I seen him kill five men all in a row. Thet was at Hays City.”

“He’s sheriff over at Hays. We won’t go . . . Look! Another rabbit. He’s stoppin’ under thet bushy cottonwood. By the little bush. . . . Laramie, if you hit him from here I’ll — —”

Laramie espied the rabbit and interrupted Mulhall with a quick shot. This one flopped over without a kick.

“Dog-gone! I’m shootin’ lucky today. Reckon it’s because I’m so hungry,” said Laramie, in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Ahuh. So I see,” rejoined Lonesome, sagely.

They went back to camp, where Lonesome busied himself in the task of dressing the rabbits for broiling. He declared frankly that he was a first rate camp cook. He built a hot fire and let it burn down to a bed of red coals. Then, having spitted the rabbits on clean whittled willow sticks, he broiled them close to the coals, by turning them over and over.

Laramie watched him covertly. How many boys like Lonesome had he seen enter and exit on the hard stage of the range! Lonesome had the qualities to make him liked around a cow-camp, but scarely those that might insure his survival. He was easy, careless, amiable, probably a drifter and perhaps not above the evils of the outdoor life. Still, he did not show any signs of being addicted to liquor — that bane of riders. Laramie felt a strange pleasure in having saved his neck and in his presence now. Long years had Laramie been a lone wolf. By this experience he was brought face to face with the fact of his loneliness.

“Come an’ get it, Laramie,” called Lonesome. “An’ dig up your bag of salt. We could fare worse.”

“Done to a brown,” declared Laramie as he took the spitted rabbit tendered him. It had a most persuasive scent.

Whereupon the two sat cross-legged on the grass and enjoyed their meal. Lonesome, however, showed his improvident character by eating all of his rabbit while Laramie again saved half of his.

Meanwhile sunset had come and the grove of cottonwoods was a place of color and beauty. A tiny brook tinkled by under a grassy bank; mockingbirds were singing off somewhere in the distance; a raven croaked overhead. The grass shone like black-barred gold and there was a redness in the west. Tranquil, lonely, and sad, the end of day roused feelings in Laramie that had rendered his breast heavy many a time before.

“Nice place for a little ranch,” he said, presently.

“Ain’t it, though? I was just thinkin’ thet. A bunch of cattle, some good hosses, plenty of wood, water, an’ grass — a home. . . . Heigho! . . . It’s a hell of a life if you don’t weaken.”

Laramie had touched on a sensitive chord in his companion’s heart. Somehow this simple fact seemed to draw them closer together, in a community of longing, if no more.

“Wal, when yu said home yu said a heap, boy. . . . Home! Thet means a woman — a wife.”

“Sure. But I never got so far in reckonin’ as thet,” replied Lonesome, thoughtfully.

“Lonesome, why don’t yu marry one of these girls yu swear bob up heah an’ there?”

“My Gawd! What an idear! . . . Thet’s one thing thet never struck me before,” ejaculated Mulhall, profoundly stirred, and his homely young face was good to see on the moment.

“Wal, since it has struck yu now, how about it?” went on Laramie.

Lonesome threw his rabbit bones away in a violence of contention, with alluring but impossible ideas.

“Marry some girl? On this range — this lone prairee where the wind howls down the wolves? Where there ain’t any girls or any cabins for the takin’. When a poor rider can’t hold a steady job. . . . When — Aw, hell, Laramie, what’s the use talkin’.”

“Wal, I wasn’t puttin’ the difficulties before yu, but just the idee.”

“Ahuh. I wisht you hadn’t. I’ve got a weak place in me. Never knowed what it was. But thet’s it.”

“Like to have a corner to work on — a homestead where every turn of a spade was for yoreself — where every calf an’ colt added to yore ranch? Thet how it strikes yu?”

“Sure. I’ve got pioneer blood. Most of us riders have. But only a few of us beat red liquor, gamblin’-hells, loose wimmin, ropes an’ guns.”

“Yu said somethin’ to think about,” mused Laramie.

“Laramie, have you beat them things?”

“I reckon, except mebbe guns — an’ I’ve done tolerable well about them.”

“I take it you’re ridin’ a grub-line, same as I have to now?”

“Shore. But more, Lonesome. I’m ridin’ out of this country. Colorado for me, or New Mexico — mebbe even Arizona.”

“Laramie, if I ain’t too personal — air you on the dodge?”

“Nope. I’ve a clean slate,” retorted Laramie, with the curtness of the Southerner.

“I’m thunderin’ glad to hear thet,” burst out Lonesome, as if relieved. “I wisht to Gawd I had the nerve to ask you — Aw! never mind. My feelin’s run away with me at times.”

“Ask me what, Lonesome?” queried Laramie. “I’ll lend yu some money, if yu want it.”

“Money, hell! You’re good to offer, knowin’ it’d never be paid back. . . . I meant to let me ride with you out of this flat Kansas prairie — away off some place where you can get on a hill.”

“Wal, why not? If yu’ll take a chance on me I will on yu.”

Lonesome strangled a wild eagerness. The light in his eyes then decided Laramie upon the real deeper possibility of this lad.

“But I’m no good, Laramie, no good atall,” he burst out. “I can ride, I like cattle, I ain’t lazy, an’ I’m a good camp cook. But thet lets me out.”

“How about whisky?”

“Haven’t had a drink for six months an’ don’t care a damn if I never have another. I’m a pore gambler, too, an’ a wuss shot. Reckon I’m some punkins with the girls. But where’d thet ever get a fellow?”

“Lonesome, all yu say ‘pears a pretty good reference, if I needed any.”

“But you heard Price accuse me of rustlin’. . . . It’s true. . . . An’ thet wasn’t the first time by a darn sight.” Lonesome evidently found this confession a shameful thing to make. No doubt Laramie had roused a respect which drove him to be loyal to the best in himself.

“Boy, it’s only the last couple of years thet cattlemen have counted haids. An’ it’s no crime to kill a beef to eat,” rejoined Laramie.

“But, Laramie, it ain’t only cattle,” rushed on Lonesome, hoarsely. “I — I got an itch to — to approperate any damn thing thet ain’t tied down.”

Laramie laughed at the boy’s distress, not at the content of his confession.

“Wal, then, all the more reason for somebody to look after yu,” he replied.

“By thunder! I told you, an’ thet’s more’n I ever did before,” declared Mulhall, in the righteousness of sacrifice. “But I ain’t guaranteein’ no more. . . . I’m afraid I’m just no good atall.”

“Yu make me sick,” replied Laramie, with severity. “Hidin’ facts about yore people — talkin’ about wantin’ a girl, a ranch, a home, an’ all thet. Then in yore next breath tryin’ to make yoreself out a low-down thief! I cain’t believe both, an’ I choose to believe the first.”

“Gawd only knows what a pard like you might do for me! . . . But I’ve told you, Laramie, I’ve told you.”

“Shore. An’ as likeable a boy as yu must turn out a straight shooter. Yu’ll have to if yu trail with me. Let’s go to bed, Lonesome.”

Long after dark, and after his companion had fallen asleep Laramie lay awake, vaguely pleased with himself and more than usually given to hopeful speculations as to the future.

CHAPTER II

LATE IN THE afternoon of the second day Laramie and Lonesome rode into Dodge, the wide-open cattle town of the frontier.

They had gotten only far enough down the wide main street to see through the clouds of dust the vehicles, horses, and throng of men that showed Dodge was having one of its big days — the arrival of trail drivers with their herds from Texas.

A voice called: “Lonesome! Lonesome Mulhall!”

The owner of that name stiffened in his saddle while he reined his horse. “Laramie, did you hear some one call my name?” queried Lonesome, incredulously.

“I shore did,” replied Laramie, halting beside Lonesome to gaze up and down and across the street.

“Gosh! I reckoned I had the willies. . . . Somebody knows me, Laramie, sure as I’m the onluckiest — —”

“Lonesome! For Gawd’s sake — is it you?” called the voice, husky of accent.

Laramie located whence it came. “Come, Lonesome, an’ don’t make a yell. . . . Looks like a jail to me. Shore wasn’t heah on my last visit to Dodge. The town’s growin’.”

On the nearer side of the street a solid-looking squat structure had a small window with iron bars across it. Between those bars peered out a pale face from which piercing black eyes fastened upon Lonesome. It required no more than that to acquaint Laramie with the likelihood of their having found the much-talked-of Tracks Williams, Lonesome’s one-time partner.

They rode up to the window, which was about on a level with their heads as they sat mounted. Lonesome had not let out the yelp Laramie had anticipated, a fact that attested to deeper emotion than Laramie had given him credit for. But his face had paled, and his chin wabbled.

“Don’t you know me, pard?” came from the window.

“You, Tracks! . . . Alive? . . . Aw, I’m thankin’ the good Lord! I reckoned you was dead.”

“I’m damn near dead and I will be soon if you don’t get me out of here,” replied the other, bitterly. Laramie saw a handsome thin white face, lighted by eyes black as night and sharp as daggers. Black locks hung dishevelled over a fine brow and a thin downy beard bespoke youthful years.

“You locked in?” queried Lonesome, swiftly.

“Yes, with a lot of lousy greasers and drunken cow-punchers.”

“It’s a jail, huh?”

“Do you think it’s a ballroom? . . . Who’s your riding pardner?”

“He hails from the Handle, Tracks,” answered Lonesome, as he turned to his friend. “Laramie, stick your hand in there an’ shake with my old pard, Tracks Williams.”

Laramie did as bidden. “Hod do. I cain’t say I’m glad to meet yu in heah, but I would be if yu was out.”

“Are you Mulhall’s friend?” came the eager query.

Laramie was about to admit this when Lonesome burst out, vehemently: “Tracks, he saved my neck. I was about to be swung up. We’re ridin’ away from Kansas.”

“Don’t ride away without me,” implored Williams.

“Huh! Did you have any idee we would?” grunted Lonesome, fiercely. “Not if we have to wipe this here Dodge off the map.”

“Lonesome, don’t waste time. Let me talk,” replied Laramie, who could see through the window that other inmates were listening. “What’re yu in for?”

“Not a damn thing,” declared Williams, with passion. “Wasn’t in any shooting fray, nor drunk, nor anything. It’s an outrage. Sheriff and his deputies made a raid to lock up a lot of newcomers. And I happened to be one.”

“Wal, we’ll get yu out one way or another,” declared Laramie.

“Come back after dark with a pick or crowbar. You can dig a hole through this wall in ten minutes.”

“What’d be the best time?”

“Any time after night. The guard leaves us here and goes into the saloon. We’d broke out long ago if we had anything.”

“Look for us about middle of supper time,” whispered Laramie, his sharp ears and eyes vigilant. A moment later a heavily armed man appeared around the corner.

“What you doin’ at thet winder?” he demanded.

“Howdy, officer. We was ridin’ by an’ some one begged for a cigarette. I was about to pass some makin’s in,” replied Laramie, his hand on his breast pocket, where the little bag of tobacco lay.

“So long’s you let me see you do it,” returned the guard.

Whereupon Laramie passed his tobacco-pouch in with the words: “There yu are, cow-puncher. Hope yu get out soon. Good luck an’ so long.”

He and Lonesome rode on up the street, and when they had reached a safe distance Lonesome breathed low: “Say, Laramie, but you are a quick-witted cuss. I was about to throw a gun on thet guard.”

“Think twice before yu do anythin’, now yu’re with me,” replied Laramie, sharply. “Let’s get our haids together. We’ll need another hawse, saddle, bridle, an’ such. Some grub an’ water, for we’ll have to rustle out of heah pronto. Also somethin’ to break a hole in thet wall.”

Before they reached the busy section of Dodge, inquiry led them up a side street to a stable and corral maintained for incoming riders. Bargaining for an extra horse with equipment took but a few moments. While Laramie paid for this and feed for the horses, Lonesome went sauntering around. Upon his return Laramie gathered from his bright wink that he had hit upon something interesting or useful.

“Leave the hawses heah in the corral. We’ll be rustlin’ out before sunup,” said Laramie.

“Ain’t youse a-goin’ to paint the town?” queried the stableman, with a grin.

“Shore. But thet takes us only one night. . . . Come on, pard, let’s rustle some fodder for ourselves.”

They made for the main street, boots scraping and spurs jangling, after the manner of riders unused to walking.

“Wal, do we hunt up a hardware store?” drawled Laramie.

“Nix. I spotted tools under thet open shed. We’ll approperate a couple of them,” replied Lonesome, grinning.

“Lonesome, this heah approperatin’ habit of yorn worries me,” declared Laramie, humorously.

“It ain’t no habit. It’s a disease.”

“Wal, whatever it is yu must curb it. Thet cowman at the camp last night — he was shore decent. An’ right under his nose yu stole his tobacco-pouch.”

“Aw, not stole.”

“Dog-gone-yu. Thet’s what he’d say. If we ever fall into respectable company yu’ll disgrace us.”

“No fear then. . . . Gosh! you can’t see the town for the dust. Regular roarin’ place, this Dodge. No wonder Tracks got run in.”

“Let’s buy a canvas bag to pack grub in, an’ a couple of water-bottles,” suggested Laramie.

They sallied into a merchandise store, where they made more purchases than Laramie had bargained for. Manifestly being in town went to Lonesome’s head. It was dusk when they arrived back at the corral with their supplies. The stableman evidently had locked up his stable for the night. While Laramie filled the canvas water-bottles at the watering-trough, Lonesome went to secure some tools. He came jingling back almost immediately.

“Got a pick an’ a crowbar,” he announced, highly elated. “We can bust thet jail wide open in a jiffy.”

“Hide ’em along the corral fence,” replied Laramie. “I shore hope this heah job doesn’t land us in jail.”

“Now I’ve found Tracks, I’d rather be with him, in jail or out.”

“Wal, I can appreciate thet,” rejoined Laramie, dryly. “But if it’s all the same to yu we’ll stay out.”

They returned to the main street and approached the center of the great stock town. Lights shone yellow through the dust. Wagons and riders were on the move. Lonesome wanted to walk on forever, but Laramie dragged him into a restaurant. Only a few customers were there, which was fortunate for the two riders, as by the time their meal was served to them the place had filled up with a noisy throng of teamsters, cow-punchers, trail drivers and ranch hands, with a sprinkling of hard-looking individuals whose calling Laramie had his doubts about. Their conversation was loud, punctuated by guffaws, and the content was movement and sale of cattle, and the excitement of Dodge.

Laramie had to drag Lonesome out of the eating-hall. By now the dust had settled and the main street was no longer obscured. Not so many pedestrians passed to and fro. But the saloons, restaurants, and dance-halls were already roaring.

“Wal, Dodge is a sight tamer than she used to be,” was Laramie’s comment.

“She’s wild enough for me,” declared Lonesome, halting in front of a wide-open palace of iniquity. “Gosh! it’s sure good we can’t linger in this burg. . . . Look at them pale-faced black-coated gamblin’ gents. They wouldn’t fleece us, not atall. An’ look — —”

“Come on, yu tenderfoot,” interrupted Laramie, dragging him on.

“Tenderfoot! Me? — Say, thet’s a good one.”

Lonesome chuckled over that, very sincere in his own opinion that it went wide of the mark. They came abreast of an open lighted door whence issued strains of music. A young woman, bare-necked and bare-armed, with a pretty painted face and eyes of a hawk, about to enter the hall, gaily hailed Lonesome:

“Hello, sweetheart!”

A yoke of oxen could not have checked Lonesome more effectively. There was a dash of gallantry in the manner with which he doffed his sombrero.

“Howdy. Where’d I ever meet you?” he replied.

“It was on the boat from Kansas City to New Orleans. Come in and dance.”

Laramie felt the urge in the lad and held on to him.

“Sorry. I — I got an important job on hand,” floundered Lonesome.

“Who’s your gun-packing pard?” queried the girl as she backed into the doorway, with her hawk eyes on Laramie. “I’ve seen him somewhere.”

“I’m his dad an’ he’s a bad boy,” drawled Laramie.

She trilled a mirthless laugh. “I thought his mother didn’t know he was out.”

Lonesome flounced out of Laramie’s grip and lunged on down the street.

“Smart Alec of a girl! I never rode on no boat to New Orleans.”

“Reckon yu don’t know her kind, Lonesome. Boy, yu’d be a lamb among wolves in this heah town. Let’s rustle to dig Williams out an’ then hit the road.”

As they strode off the lighted street into the dark one Laramie decided the best plan would be to saddle the three horses and lead them out to a clump of cottonwoods at the edge of town, then return with their implements to free Williams. All was dark and quiet in the vicinity of the corral. They lost no time saddling up. Then they set out, with Laramie leading the horses and Lonesome following with the tools. They proceeded cautiously and kept to the back road which soon led out into the open country.

Laramie halted. “Lonesome, this heah is haidin’ east. We want to strike west.”

“Sure we do. An’ we’ll ride straight back through this here Dodge town,” asserted Lonesome.

“Suits me, unless we get surprised breakin’ open the jail. Now let’s work down to the main road an’ find thet bunch of cottonwoods.”

Soon these were located and the horses haltered. Whereupon the rescuers hurried into town again. Lonesome was excited, hard to hold back and keep still. Fortunately there was not a light in one of the several houses they passed before reaching the jail. It too was dark. Laramie had forgotten that the small window was high off the ground. After peering through the darkness up and down the road, listening the while, Laramie lifted Lonesome up to a level of the window. The inmates were not by any means silent, but Lonesome’s sibilant whisper brought instant results.

“All right, pard. Coast’s clear. Got any tools?”

“Sure. Crowbar an’ pick,” replied Lonesome, in his shrill whisper.

“Pass the bar in. Then you keep watch outside. Tap on the wall if any one comes.”

Laramie had to let Lonesome down to get the crowbar, then hoist him aloft again. The implement was easy to hand in, but not so with the pick. Dull thuds sounded on the inside of the wall. Crumbling sounds were soon deadened by rough jolly songs of the cow-camps. Williams had coached his accomplices in this jail-breaking. Laramie could not have heard any approaching footsteps. It was all a matter of luck. Suddenly the crowbar split through the outside planking. Lonesome then attacked the place with his pick, and in less than two minutes there was a hole as large as the mouth of a barrel.

“Pile out, yu jailbirds,” called Laramie, low-voiced and grim. If they were discovered it meant gun-play.

A dark form crawled out to leap erect. In the starlight Laramie recognized the pale face and black head of Williams. The next instant Lonesome was hugging him.

“Pard! — My Gawd — I’m glad!”

“Dear old Lonesome! To think it had to be you!”

Other forms crawled out of the hole, like rats out of a broken trap. Laramie lingered as Lonesome hurried Williams down the road. Nine men emerged, all of whom except the last, scuttled away in the darkness. This fellow was burly of shoulder, bushy of head and beard. He loomed over Laramie, peering with big gleaming eyes.

“I don’t forgit a good turn. Who air you, stranger?” he said, gruffly.

“Laramie, for short.”

“Steve Elkins is mine. Put her thar.”

They shook hands.

“Anyone left inside?”

“Hell yes. Some drunk an’ some asleep. Don’t risk wakin’ them. Thet new Dodge sheriff shore goes off half-cocked.”

Laramie stole away in the gloom and presently broke into a light trot. Soon he espied two dark forms in the middle of the road.

“Thet you, Laramie?” called Lonesome, eagerly.

“Shore. All safe,” panted Laramie.

“Meet my pard, Ted Williams. . . . Tracks, this is my new pard. Calls himself Laramie. Salt of the earth! An’ by Gawd! I’m a lucky an’ a reformed man.”

That ceremony over, the three hurried down the road to the clump of cottonwoods, to find all well with their horses.

“Lonesome, I’ve changed my mind about ridin’ through town,” said Laramie. “We’ll circle an’ hit the road somewhere west.”

“Dog-gone! I’d liked to have had a peep at thet girl who called me sweetheart,” complained Lonesome.

They mounted and rode out into the starlight, where each instinctively halted. It was a fresh start — new and different life for each. Laramie heard Lonesome choke up. But it was Williams who broke the pregnant silence.

“Two’s company. Three’s a crowd. Hadn’t I better go my own way?”

Laramie sensed loyalty to others in Williams’ terse query. He belonged to the best of that fire-spirited breed who rode the ranges of the West, though perhaps, like so many others, had a name or a deed to hide.

“Not on my account,” replied Laramie.

“Ted, it’d kill me to lose you now — an’ Laramie — how could I ever split from you?” cried Lonesome, poignantly.

“Wal, I reckon three’s as good a combination as two,” rejoined Laramie.

“Thanks for putting it up to me,” said Williams, his voice ringing. “We’ll stick together. . . . Three for one and one for three!”

Months afterward a rancher over on the Platte wanting to keep Laramie and Tracks, but to discharge Lonesome, called them The Three Range Riders. And that name, augmented by gossip from cow-camp to cow-camp, traveled over the prairie ranges. Laramie’s fame with a gun, Williams’ as a tracker, Lonesome’s irresistible attraction and weakness for women, preceded them in many instances, and in all soon discovered them. Cattle thronged the immense area of western Kansas and jobs were easy to be had. Keeping them, however, was a different matter. Trouble gravitated to the three range-riders. If it was not one thing it was another. If a cattleman wanted one of them he had to hire all: if he wished to get rid of one he lost the three. They rode a grub-line from camp to camp, from range to range; and they got on at this ranch and then at that. At Tellson’s Diamond Bar an irate and jealous cow-puncher made an illuminating remark: “Them three flash range-riders never spend a dollar!”

This was almost true and Laramie was the genius. He bound his two comrades to an oath agreement that they turn over their earnings for him to save. Lonesome and Tracks kept their word, but not without wailings and implorings. Laramie was inexorable. The three wore clothes so ragged that they resembled the scarecrows of eastern Kansas fields, and they made a pouch of tobacco go a very long way. No drinks! No candy! No new gloves or other accoutrements! Laramie had become obsessed with a great idea and was relentless in its fulfillment. When the three had earned enough money they would find a good lonely range over in Colorado or New Mexico and buy cattle enough to start ranching on their own account. All three were heart and soul in the hope, but it was Laramie’s will that might make it possible.

In the little town of Pecord, upon which they happened one hot summer day, they halted long enough to eat a much-needed meal. Tracks begged for ice cream and Lonesome begged for apple pie. But Laramie was obdurate.

“Yu galoots can starve for dainties,” declared their chief, scornfully. “Do yu heah me shoutin’ for blackberry jam when I love it better than my life?”

Tracks restrained his longings, but when, once more riding along the road, Lonesome produced a sadly mashed piece of apple pie from inside his open shirt, then Tracks exploded, “Where in hell did you get that pie?”

“Um-yum-yum,” was all the satisfaction he got from the ravenous rider.

“Wal, yu ugly little bow-legged toad!” exploded Laramie, when he saw the pie. “Yu approperated thet!”

“Give me a bite, you hawg!” importuned Tracks.

All to no avail were his importunities. Lonesome gobbled all the pie and even went to lengths of picking bits of crust off his chaps to devour them also.

“Tracks, he stole thet pie,” declared Laramie, in an awful voice. “Shore as the Lord made little apples, Lonesome will ruin us yet.”

“Beat hell out of him first!” quoth the fiery Williams.

So they rode on to the next cow-camp, where they worked for three weeks and were elated, feeling that their luck had changed. Yet not so! Vast as the Great Plains were, they constituted only a small world. Who should ride in with a herd of steers but Herb Price, two hundred miles and more from the range where he had aimed to hang Lonesome! Laramie was for calling Price out, saying he would be sure to bob up again. But Lonesome would not hear of that. “Fork yore hosses, pards. We’re on our way,” he said, and without word to the kindly rancher and with wages due they rode away into the melancholy autumn night.

They drifted west and at the approach of winter were glad to accept poor pay from a trail-driver boss on the way back to Texas to fetch up another herd. Down the Pecos to the Braseda they rode, and on to the gulf part where the big cattle herds formed. They lost that job to find a better, and drove stock with vaqueros during the winter months, to start north in the spring over the old Chisholm Trail. That was a tough trip, and when they ended up at Abilene they were a tough trio, though still motivated by their cherished dream. And their savings had mounted to almost incredible proportions.

Out of Abilene one night the three rangers made camp on the river, where they were joined by several self-styled cowmen riding home. They were jovial fellows. That night, despite the fact that Laramie slept on his precious wallet, it was stolen from him. In the morning the home-riding strangers were gone. But they could not shake a tracker like Tracks Williams. A hound on a trail, he tracked them to Hays City. Laramie cornered them in a gambling-hall, killed the leader, crippled the second, and held up the third, who confessed and swore that the money had been gambled away.

It proved a terrible blow to the three range-riders. They let down. Lonesome got drunk and Tracks picked a fight. Laramie, almost too discouraged to begin all over again, looked upon red liquor himself. Yet when destruction threatened he pulled out, got his partners away, and faced the long trail once more.

* * * * *

Vicissitudes common to range-riders of the period dogged their tracks for a year, at the end of which they were as badly off as ever. What they did not experience in life on the ranges was certainly inconsequential. All the mean and hard jobs around cow-camps fell to their lot. Beggars could not be choosers. Laramie recaptured his spirit and clung to it unquenchably because he realized Lonesome and Tracks were slipping down the broad and easy trail. They had come to be more than brothers to him. He fought them with subtle cunning, with brawn and actual threat. But the frontier was changing from the bloody Indian wars and buffalo massacres a few years back to the cattle regime and the development of the rustler. For young men the life grew harder, for not only did the peril to existence increase, but also the peril of moral ruin. The gambler, the prostitute, the rustler, the desperado, the notoriety-seeking, as well as the real gunman, followed hard on the advent of the stock-raising.

Laramie had his work cut out for him to save his young fire-brands from going the way of the many. And the worst of it was he realized that another backset or two would break his shattered hopes. Something extraordinary had to happen soon or he would flunk the job and that would be the end of Lonesome and Tracks. Laramie prayed for a miracle.

* * * * *

One weary day in the spring the inseparable three rode into a growing prosperous town. Laramie did not know it or that it was on the railroad. Both Lonesome and Tracks balked when they discovered it.

“I’m gun-shy,” said the aloof Williams, growing harder and harder to reach.

“An’ I’m girl-shy,” added Lonesome, doggedly.

“Wal, I’ve done my best for yu both,” replied Laramie, with bitter finality. “If yu don’t brace an’ come on I’ll be drunk in half an hour.”

That dire threat fetched them. The idea of Laramie getting drunk was insupportable.

“Tracks, we got to stick to Laramie,” swore Lonesome.

“We’re a couple of measly quitters,” replied Tracks, with remorse. “But, Laramie, old man, it’s not that we don’t love you and swear by you. It’s that we’re hopeless, hungry, ragged, and sick. We’re for holding up a stagecoach.”

“Wal, let’s try once more,” entreated Laramie, for the hundredth time in less than that many days. They rode into the town and dismounted at a livery stable.

“Boy, what place is this heah?” asked Laramie, of the lad who came to take their horses.

“Garden City.”

Laramie turned to his comrades. “Shore it’s a new town for us. Heah our luck will change.”

“Ahuh. What’s the idee?” queried the glum Lonesome.

“We’re three ragamuffins,” declared Tracks, hopelessly. “We’ll be taken for rustlers on the run.”

“Let’s go eat. I’ve got some money left. Then we’ll feel better to tackle this heah place.”

“You son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Lonesome, admiringly.

“He’s a magician,” declared Tracks. “How many times has he had a little money left!”

With a square meal in sight the down-hearted trio brightened, and they forgot their tattered garments, their worn-out boots. Laramie would not enter the first eating-shop, nor the second, though his friends dragged at him.

“Not good enough for us,” he asserted.

“Hell, we’ll get throwed out,” replied Lonesome, giving up.

It was about the noon hour and the broad street did not present numerous pedestrians, though sidewalks on each side were lined with vehicles and horses. Laramie strode on until he came to a pretentious hotel, and was entering the lobby, followed by his reluctant and grumbling partners, when suddenly he was halted by a man.

“Look out, Lonesome! Duck!” called Tracks, who was ahead.

But the Westerner with the broad-brimmed sombrero let out a whoop.

“Laramie! . . . By the Lord Harry, where’d you come from?”

Quick as a flash Laramie recognized the lean, lined, tanned face with its gray eyes of piercing quality.

“Buffalo Jones or I’m a daid sinner! I shore am glad to meet yu heah.”

Their hands met in a grip that bespoke a period in the past which had tried men’s souls.

“You’re older, Laramie, a little peeked an’ drawn, but I wouldn’t have known Old Nigger Horse any better, if he’d come along,” said Jones, heartily.

“Wal, Buff, yu haven’t changed a whit,” declared Laramie.

“I’m fit as a fiddle. . . . You look like we did after that Comanche campaign. . . . Say, man, come to take you in you’re a sight. . . . An’ your pards here — they’re about as tough. What you been fightin’? Wild cats in a thorn thicket?”

“Nope. Greaser hawse-thieves down in the river bottom,” replied Laramie, lying glibly. “Boys, meet Colonel Buffalo Jones. Yu’ve often heahed me speak of him. . . . Buff, meet my pards, Mulhall an’ Williams.”

The plainsman’s greeting defined Laramie’s status and the regard in which any friends of his must be held. Then Jones turned to a pale, rather handsome man, with whom he had been talking before the interruption and who had stepped back.

“Lindsay, you must meet these boys,” said Jones, drawing the man toward Laramie. “This is Laramie Nelson. He was with me when I had the campaign against Old Nigger Horse, the Comanche chief. You heard me tell the story to your daughters only last night. Laramie was a boy then.”

Laramie quickly responded to the Easterner’s genuine interest and pleasure. Then he introduced Lonesome and Tracks. To do them credit, they acquitted themselves with modest restraint. Laramie was not now afraid of their appearance. That was a recommendation. This meeting augured well.

“Laramie, it’ll interest you to learn Mr. Lindsay is from Ohio,” went on Jones, “and has come West for his health. With his wife, three daughters, and a son! Isn’t that just fine? The West needs Eastern stock, good blood with the pioneer spirit.”

“We’re shore glad to welcome yu,” said Laramie, warmly, and Tracks and Lonesome seconded him.

“Laramie, you know this country like a book. Lindsay has bought a ranch and a big herd of cattle over in Colorado. Pretty high up on the plains. Lester Allen sold out to him. I’m curious about the deal. Maybe you know Allen?”

By the merest chance Laramie was able to connect the name of Lester Allen with Spanish Peaks Ranch, and he said so casually.

“Lindsay, you’re in luck,” declared Jones, with a flash of his wonderful eyes. “You’re an Easterner, a tenderfoot, if you’ll excuse me. You’ve bought a strange ranch from a stranger, without seeing either. It’s an irregular transaction. You must have a man you can trust. Here he is, Laramie Nelson. I vouch for him, stand back of him. He knows the West from Texas up. He knows cattle, and what’s more to the point — the ways of cattlemen, honest and dishonest. Last he had few equals with a gun — and that was years ago.”

“Mr. Nelson, you’re spoken so highly of that I’d want you even if I didn’t need you, and indeed I do,” said Lindsay, earnestly. “My family and I are up a tree, so to speak. Can I persuade you to come along and help us run Spanish Peaks Ranch?”

“Thanks. I’ll be glad to talk about it,” replied Laramie, biting his tongue to restrain it within bounds, and he had all he could do to keep from kicking Lonesome and Tracks, who kept edging in, eyes wide, mouths agape. “We’re pretty tuckered out an’ need a rest. But I might take yu up, provided, of course, I could bring my riders, Mulhall an’ Williams. I don’t want to brag about them, but I never saw a rider as good with a hawse an’ rope as Mulhall, or a tracker in Williams’ class.”

“To be sure I’d want them. By all means,” replied Lindsay, hastily. Then he turned to Jones. “The wife is waiting for me. Suppose you excuse me now and meet me here in an hour, say?”

“We’ll be here, Lindsay. Meanwhile I’ll try to talk Laramie into going with you,” said Jones.

Whereupon Lindsay bowed and left them, to join two ladies who were waiting at the corner. It discomfited Laramie to become aware that the younger of this couple bent grave, fascinated eyes upon him. As he wheeled he was in time to see Lonesome come out of a trance, apparently, and turn a radiant face to him. Sometimes that homely, dirty, bearded face could shine with beauty. It did so now.

“My Gawd, Tracks, did you see what I seen?” he whispered.

“No. What was it?”

“A girl — a slip of a girl — inside the lobby here. She had the wonderfulest eyes. . . . But she’s gone!” he ended, tragically.

“So are you gone,” retorted Tracks.

Laramie heard all this while Jones was questioning him further.

“Boys, go in the lunchroom an’ order some grub. I’ll be along pronto.” And after they had rushed in Laramie turned to Jones.

“No, I’m not acquainted with Lester Allen, but if Luke Arlidge is his foreman there’s shore a nigger in the woodpile.”

Buffalo Jones cracked a huge fist in a horny palm, and his eagle eyes flashed as Laramie had seen them years before.

“Laramie, that deal had a queer look,” he declared, forcibly. “It had been settled — money paid — papers signed — before I met this merchant from Ohio. And Allen had gone. Allen is not well known here. No one would say good or bad of him. And that’s bad. If you know Luke Arlidge is off color — —”

“Shore I know thet,” interposed Laramie, as the plainsman hesitated.

“Then another trusting Easterner has been bilked. It’s a damn shame. Fine man. And the nicest family. The boy, though, he’ll blow up out here. . . . Do you want my advice?”

“Shoot, old timer, an’ yu bet yore life I’ll take it.”

“Chance of your life to help a worthy family and get — —”

“Thet’s enough for me. Never mind what I’ll get. But, Jones, I was throwin’ a bluff. We’re daid broke. We haven’t had work for weeks. We hadn’t any in sight. An’ we just cain’t go along with this Lindsay outfit half naked.”

“I’ll fix that, Laramie,” replied the plainsman. “Lindsay has plenty of money. I’ll get you an advance. . . . No. It might be better to lend you some. I’ll do it. But don’t you be in a hurry sprucing up. Let this Eastern outfit see you in real Wild West rags. Savvy? Go and eat now. Meet me here in an hour.”

CHAPTER III

THE LINDSAY FAMILY, late from Ohio, were assembled in the upstairs parlor of the Elk Hotel, Garden City, Kansas. They had arrived that morning, and now, intensely interested though bewildered, they gazed out upon this new country with many and varied feelings.

It was a raw day in early spring, with puffs of dust rising down the wide street and the windmills in the distance whirling industriously. Evidently Saturday morning was an important one to that community. Old wagons with hoops covered with canvas, and laden with all kinds of farm produce lumbered by the windows; light high-seated four-wheeled vehicles, drawn by fast trotting horses, rolled down the street toward the center of town, some few blocks westward; a string of cattle passed, driven by queer-garbed big-hatted riders; knots of men stood on every visible corner; women were conspicuous for their absence.

John Lindsay, head of the family, an iron-gray-haired man of fifty years, and of fine appearance except for an extreme pallor which indicated a tubercular condition, stood with his back to a window, surveying his children, and especially his wife, with rueful and almost disapproving eyes.

“It’s too late. I’m committed to the deal with this cattleman, Allen. And I couldn’t get out of it if I wanted to,” he said.

His wife’s red eyes were significant, without her expression of misery.

“Upper Sandusky was good enough for me,” interposed Neale, the eighteen-year-old son of the Lindsays, a rather foppish youth, whom the three sisters eyed in some disgust. Harriet, the oldest, was thinking of the embarrassing incidents they had had to suffer already through this spoiled only son.

“Neale, you were hardly good enough for Upper Sandusky,” retorted the father, curtly. “This raw West may improve you.”

“Improve Neale! It couldn’t be done,” declared Lenta, the youngest, who was sixteen. She was little, auburn-haired, with innocent baby-blue eyes that could conceal anything.

“Aw, shut up! You could stand a lot of improvement yourself,” replied Neale as he snatched his hat and arose.

“Dear, don’t go,” implored the mother, with words and looks that betrayed her weakness. “We were to hold a conference.”

“What I think or say doesn’t go far with this Lindsay bunch,” he growled, and strode out.

“The Lord be thanked!” cried Lenta, after him.

“Mother, you must give up coddling Neale,” said her husband, earnestly. “We’re out West now. Start in right. He must take his medicine.”

“But such rough-looking men!”

“Yes, the men we meet will be plain and rough, and the West will be hard,” went on Lindsay. “Once and for all, let me have my say. I begged you all to stay home at Upper Sandusky. But none of you, except Neale, would consider that. The doctors held out hope for my health, if I came to live in a high dry country. I wanted to come alone. That was not easy to face. You had plenty of time to decide. And come West you would. So I sold out — and here we are. Let’s make the best of it. Let’s not expect too much and fortify ourselves against jars. Naturally we feel lost. But other families have become pioneers before us. Honestly, I lean to it. I always had a secret longing to do this very thing. It certainly will be the saving of me if you all pitch in, take what comes, and work out our destinies and happiness here.”

“Father, it will all come out right,” rejoined Harriet. “Mother is tired out and blue. You go down and look around. Meet people. Inquire about this Lester Allen, to whom you have committed yourself. We’ll cheer mother up and tackle our problem.”

“Thanks, Hallie, you’re a comfort,” replied Lindsay, with feeling, and went out like a man burdened.

As soon as he had gone Mrs. Lindsay began to weep again.

“Mother — —”

“Hal, let her cry,” interrupted Lenta. “You know ma.”

Florence, the second daughter, sat looking out of the window, at once dreamy and thoughtful. She was nineteen and the beauty of the family, a dazzlingly pretty blond with dark eyes. Harriet had her fears about Florence. Vain, coquettish, now amiable and again perverse, her possibilities in this new country were uncertain. Lenta crossed to the window. “Flo, I’ll bet you see a man,” she said.

“Lots of outlandish gawks going by, all hats and boots,” observed Florence.

“Girls, wouldn’t it be more sensible of you to help me with mother and our immediate problem?” asked Harriet. “Just think! In a few days we will be traveling in canvas-covered wagons across the plains to this new home. We have endless things to buy, to plan for, as well as screwing up our courage. And here you are curious about men!”

“Who’s curious?” queried Lenta.

“Both of you. Weren’t you all eyes at the station? You never looked out across the prairie. But that prairie is important for us to get used to. It’s no matter what kind of men there are here, at least not yet.”

“But — there is,” burst out Mrs. Lindsay, in a fresh outburst. “That terrible little greasy, hairy man who called me sweetheart. Me! . . . He had the most devilish eyes. He carried my bags to the bus and when I offered to pay he grinned and said, ‘Lady, your money’s counterfeit.’ I protested it was not and insisted he accept pay. Then he called me sweetheart. I believe if you hadn’t come he would have chucked me under the chin. . . . Oh! Outrageous!”

“Mother, I’d take that as a compliment,” said Harriet. “He took you for our sister instead of mother.”

“Ma, you should be tickled to death,” added Lenta, teasingly. “That proves you still have some of the beauty grandma raves about.”

“Oh, be serious!” cried the mother, distracted. “What in heaven’s name — will my daughters do — for husbands!”

Lenta shrieked with delight. “Flo, can you beat that?”

Harriet was for once so taken aback that she had no ready reply. Florence took their mother’s wail in a grave, superior, smiling sort of way which intimated a confidence in the future. Harriet got her mother’s point of view. Their father’s health and the making of a new home were matters of importance, but in the long run nothing could equal the need of husbands.

“Mother, there seem to be plenty of men to pick from,” finally replied Harriet, her sense of humor dominant.

“Such men!”

“But, mother, you are unreasonable. They may be fine, big-hearted, honest, splendid fellows.”

“Listen to our man-hater!” exclaimed Lenta, impishly.

By that Harriet realized that in her earnestness she had broken her usual reserve. Lenta was an adorable girl, but she could say things that stung. Years before, it seemed long ago, Harriet had formed an attachment for a handsome clerk in her father’s store. It had been Harriet’s only romance, and an unhappy one. Her father’s estimate of Tom Emery was justified and Harriet, heart-broken, withdrew in secret sorrow and felt that she was done with men.

“Hallie, do you really believe so?” queried Mrs. Lindsay, hopefully.

“Certainly I do. Appearances are nothing. Out here men must work hard. They have no time to think of clothes and looks. Then what have we seen? Only a few dozen horsemen, farmers, and whatever they were. Let’s give the Western men a chance.”

“Flo, what’s got into Hal?” inquired Lenta.

“Lord only knows, Lent, unless we may expect a rival in her,” replied Florence, complacently.

These younger sisters had infinite capacity for rousing Harriet’s tried spirit and the present was no exception. Only Harriet reacted differently this time.

“My darling sisters, you put it rather vulgarly, but you may expect just that,” replied Harriet, with a cool audacity somewhat discounted by a furious blush.

“Hal Lindsay!” ejaculated Florence, confronted by an incredible and disturbing idea.

“Look at her! Handsome, shameless thing! She ought to blush,” cried Lenta, trillingly.

“What’s that your sisters may expect?” interposed the mother, quite mystified.

“Mother dear, for some years past Flo has appropriated every young man who happened around. And lately Lent has more than followed in Flo’s footsteps. I was just warning them that now we have arrived out in this wild West I shall contest the field with them.”

Harriet had spoken on the spur of the moment, out of need to hide her hurt, and she had gone farther than she had intended.

“Thank God you’ve come to your senses,” declared Mrs. Lindsay bluntly.

“Hal, you know darn well we wouldn’t look at one of these louts,” asserted Florence, spiritedly.

“Humph! I’d like to see the masculine gender you wouldn’t look at — twice, and then some,” returned Harriet, dryly.

“This is great. Gosh! but we love each other! I’m going to have the time of my life,” said Lenta, with immense satisfaction. “I hated school, and the idea of spending all my life in that hole Upper Sandusky was sickening. Out here something will happen. We can do things.”

“Yes, you can work,” rejoined the mother, with equal satisfaction. “I declare. Harriet has bucked me up. If she can talk that way, coming West is the best move we ever made in our lives. . . . I can think again. Here we are. And some miles out on that gray flat is our new home. There’s a ranch-house, an old Spanish affair, almost a fort. So this Mr. Allen wrote father. I suppose it’s a barn. I hope it’s empty. What we need to know most is what’s in it. Thank goodness we’re not poor. We can buy things for our comfort.”

“There! All mother needs to buck her up is a chance to spend money on a house,” said Harriet, pleased with her diplomacy.

“We’ll have to buy a thousand things we know are not in that ranch-house. Suppose we go out to look in the stores?” suggested Mrs. Lindsay.

“I’ll go,” declared Florence, with vivacity.

“Ma, I must write to Bill and Jack and—” said Lenta, tragically.

“We’ll come later, mother, or go with you after lunch,” interrupted Harriet.

“Good. It would never do to leave Lenta alone,” replied the mother, practically, and followed Florence out.

Lenta’s baby-blue eyes held an expression no precocious infant’s ever held.

“Hal, I’ll bust out some day,” she said, as if overburdened.

“What for?”

“Just because mother expects me to.”

“Nonsense! You know mother is the best ever. She has been distressed over father and us. If we can only get her started right!”

Lenta left the window and came to sit on the arm of Harriet’s chair. Long and earnestly she gazed at this elder sister. When Lenta was sweet and serious like this no one could resist her, not even Harriet.

“You did start her right. Hal, you’re the kindest, most thoughtful, helpful person. I do love you. I do appreciate you; and I want you to start me right,” said Lenta, with emotion.

“Why, child!” returned Harriet, deeply touched. Praise and affection from this younger sister had never been too abundant. But back in Ohio Lenta had been absorbed in her school, friends, affairs. Here in the West it would be different, and Lenta recognized it. Harriet hugged and kissed her warmly, as she had not for long. “And I adore you, Lenta. Nothing could have made me any happier. I will help you. I’ll be more of a sister to you. Something tells me we have a tremendous experience ahead of us. It thrills while it frightens me.”

“I’m thrilled to death. . . . Hal, I hope you weren’t deceiving us — just to help buck mother up.”

“Oh, that — about contesting the masculine field with you and Flo?” queried Harriet, embarrassed. But she did not need to fear the light in Lenta’s eyes now.

“Yes. It’d be great, if you meant what you said.”

“Well, honey, it was sort of forced out of me. Self-preservation. I didn’t know I had it.”

“Hallie dear, are you all over that — that old love-affair?” asked Lenta, softly.

“No, not quite all. . . . But I shall get entirely over it out here.”

“Oh, I’m glad! . . . I remember Tom Emery, though I was only ten. You couldn’t help but like him. . . . Bosh! We’ve got to say good-by to old friends and find new ones. No wonder Ma went under!”

“The idea grows on me, Lent. I feel sort of giddy — like I used to feel. Young again!”

“Why, you dear old goose!” ejaculated Lenta, fondly. “You’re not old. Only twenty-five and you don’t look that. And you’re darned handsome, Hallie. Your brown hair and white skin and gray eyes are just the most fetching combination. And what a figure you have, Hallie! I’m a slip of a thing and Flo is a slim willow stem. But you’d take the eyes of real men. If you weren’t so aloof — so reserved!”

“You flatter me, dear,” murmured Harriet. “But, oh, how good it sounds! I think you have helped me to face this thing.”

“Well, I’ll need a lot of help by and by,” said the girl, returning to her roguishness. “Sufficient unto the day! . . . I’ll write my letters, Hal. Then we’ll paint the town.”

“And I’ll unpack a bag or two.”

“Do. That gray one of mine. We’ll dress up and knock their eyes out.”

To Harriet’s amazement they found stores far more pretentious and better equipped with important supplies and necessities of life than they had left in their home town. And as far as wearing apparel was concerned, Harriet thought they had brought enough to last forever, judging from the backwardness in styles of this Western metropolis of Kansas.

They found the clerks polite but cold, the other customers too busy with their own purchases to concern themselves with strangers. Lenta put the situation precisely when she giggled and said: “Hal, when we raved how we’d turn this burg inside out with curiosity we were barking up the wrong tree. Nobody but a few bold red-faced freebooters, or whatever they were, ever saw us at all. And I heard one of them say, ‘Tenderfeet!’”

“You’re right, Lent. I feel taken down a peg or two. Wonder what Flo will report. But then she’s so pretty she’d stop a parade.”

They were to learn presently that Florence’s beauty had not set the town into a furor.

“Had some peace once in my life,” declared that little lady, calmly. “Funny lot, these Western men. The women, though — you should have seen them stare at me — particularly my shoes and bonnet.”

It was Mrs. Lindsay, however, who had been most susceptible to the peculiar aloofness of Western folk. “Never saw such a town. Most uncivil people. You can’t spend your money in these stores unless you raise a fuss with the proprietor. I declare we might be a family of hicks.”

“You hit it, Ma! That’s just what we are. Ohio hicks!” shouted Lenta, in glee. “I’ve had the darndest good time ever. This West is going to win me. Who cares who we are? I’ll bet it’s what you do that goes out here.”

They changed dresses for dinner, and it was Harriet’s opinion that Florence overdid the privilege, which was not usually one of her faults. Still she looked too stunning for the other Lindsays to be anything but proud.

Mr. Lindsay had not been seen by a member of the family since early morning, nor had Neale put in an appearance. This latter circumstance caused Mrs. Lindsay much concern, and she was finally silenced by a caustic remark from Lenta to the effect that Neale did not have nerve enough to get into real trouble. Finally Mr. Lindsay returned, tired out and pale, but quite excited. He bade them go into dinner and he would follow promptly.

This they did, and to Harriet’s satisfaction they did not go unnoticed, especially Florence. Then the father joined them to announce that “he had been and gone and done it.”

A contrast to Harriet’s consternation was Mrs. Lindsay’s inquiry about Neale.

“Last I saw of that nincompoop he was playing pool,” replied Lindsay, shortly.

“John, you should have looked after him,” said the mother, reprovingly.

“Neale will look after himself and I hope he gets his eye-teeth cut.” He was impatient with his wife and turned to Harriet and her sisters. “Eat your dinners. I’m too excited to eat. Besides, I had three or four stiff drinks. I’ll talk.”

And he did, with the effect of shocking his wife and taking Harriet’s breath. He had met Allen and his foreman, as agreed, and had gone over maps and papers and figures, to consummate and settle the Spanish Peaks Ranch deal then and there. Before giving them time to ask questions he explained that he had really committed himself to the deal by correspondence, and as long as he was satisfied with representation, had decided to close the thing at once.

“John, you should have seen what you bargained for before paying,” reproved Mrs. Lindsay, severely.

“Well, after I heard the ranch described I knew you womenfolk wouldn’t let me buy it if we saw it, so I took the bull by the horns. Allen is a bluff Westerner. Selling ranches and cattle is common with him. He introduced me to Garden City business men who evidently regarded the deal one of mutual advantage. The location is extremely healthful and beautiful, which I made clear was the main issue. Allen sold approximately ten thousand head of stock, including horses, mules, steers, cows. His foreman Arlidge — Luke Arlidge, who by the way, will catch the eye of you girls — could not give an exact estimate of the number, but it was around ten thousand. Finally I told Allen the price was a little high. He said he did not care to sell to anyone who was not perfectly satisfied, and asked me what I’d pay. I told him. He accepted. We went to a bank where the transfer was made. . . . We now have a ranch, a home to build up. So don’t look so sober. It’s done, and I won’t squeal if I do get a little the worst of it in a business way. I can afford it. The big thing is I feel a new man already. Instead of being cooped up over a desk all day I’ll be out in the open — in the sun.”

“Father, you have trusted men before to your sorrow,” was all Harriet ventured to say. What more could be said? He had been set on the Western ranch idea from the very beginning, and now he had had his way. No doubt his feeling of gain and hope should be taken into consideration.

“Both Allen and Arlidge will drop in at the hotel later,” went on Lindsay. “I asked them to dinner, but they begged off on that, having come in their ranch togs. They are driving out tomorrow, so it is just as well you meet them when the chance offers. I couldn’t remember the things you wanted to know about.”

Mrs. Lindsay joined in the discussion then, relative to the property and its prospective needs. The dinner ended without Neale having joined them, but the girls encountered him on the stairs. He was in no mood to be questioned and rushed on to his room.

“He had a black eye,” asserted Florence, certainly more speculative than sympathetic. “Did you see that, Lent?”

“I should smile,” retorted Lenta, highly diverted. “Some Westerner has punched our darling.”

“Oh dear! Oh dear!” cried Mrs. Lindsay, who had seen and heard. At the head of the stairs she left them, presumably to console her afflicted favorite. The girls went into the parlor while Mr. Lindsay waited downstairs for his callers.

“Flo, old girl, we’re stuck. Pa’s done it,” remarked Lenta. Florence’s silent acceptance was not conducive to hopefulness. Nevertheless, Harriet did her best to bring up pictures of prospective work, fun and home-making, and of the undoubted fact that they were committed to the wild and lonely West for good.

Presently their father entered the parlor accompanied by two tall men, of striking enough appearance to have interested any Easterner. They were introduced to Harriet and her sisters. The rancher, Lester Allen, was no longer young and had a face like a hawk. He wore a dark suit, the trousers of which were tucked in high top boots. He carried a huge tan sombrero and a whip. It did not take a moment to prove him shy and awkward in the presence of women.

The other man, Luke Arlidge, did not suffer from his marked contrast. He manifested a bold and admiring ease. He made a superb figure of a man, still young, scarcely thirty, though his bronzed hard, lean face, his eagle eyes, indicated long years of experience. His garb was what Harriet took for that of the plains rider. He was spurred, booted, belted over rough dusty apparel, and most conspicuous was the ivory-handled gun that swung from his hip, and the absence of any coat.

Mrs. Lindsay came in, and presently all were seated in a half-circle.

“Now, Allen, you must allow yourself to be questioned,” said Lindsay, happily. “This is my family, except my only boy, and they want to know things.”

“Fire away,” replied Allen.

Lenta was not in the least embarrassed in the presence of these impressive Westerners.

“Is it lonesome?” she asked.

“Wal, I’d say shore, if you mean the ranch-house. The coyotes and wolves howl at night an’ the wind moans. Only three ranches inside of fifty miles. Two days by hossback to La Junta an’ six by buckboard to Denver.”

“Heavens!” was Lenta’s reply, but undaunted she ventured one more query.

“Any young people?”

“Wal, if you call my cow-punchers people, there’s shore a heap of them. Ten all told, isn’t it, Luke?”

“No. Only nine. I let Happy go,” replied the foreman.

“Only nine!” murmured Lenta.

“Thet’s all now. But your father will need three or four more.”

“No girls?” queried Florence, thoughtfully.

“Let’s see. There’s one — two — at the nearest ranches. No more closer than La Junta.”

That seemed to exhaust the interest of the two younger members of the Lindsay family, whereupon their mother had her opportunity. The upshot of her swift and numerous queries brought out that Spanish Peaks Ranch consisted of weather, landscape, a stone-and-clay house with two wings, porches, doors, and patio on the inside, facing east.

“It used to be an old fort. Built by trappers who traded with the Utes an’ Kiowas. There’s a fine spring comes right up inside the patio an’ some big cottonwoods. It’s shore pleasant summer or winter.”

“And the house itself is practically empty?” concluded Mrs. Lindsay.

“Wal, it will be. I’m movin’ some wagons of furniture, beddin’, an’ sich, which you wouldn’t want. My other ranch is about two days’ ride north. I’ve a cabin there an’ some stock. How many haid of cattle there now, Luke?”

“I don’t know, boss. Mebbe two thousand, mebbe four,” replied Arlidge.

“We must figure on hauling in everything to make a home?” asked Lindsay, rubbing his hands as if the prospect was alluring.

“Wal, I reckon so, if you want comfort,” drawled the rancher.

“How far to drive loaded wagons?”

“Four days, with good luck.”

“And La Junta is only two?”

“No. It’d be more fer wagons. We figured Garden City was your best startin’-point, because of the good stores where you can buy, an’ then mostly level road out to the ranch.”

“How about wagons and horses? Did you fetch some in for me?”

“No. We’ve been bad off for wagons an’ teams. I’m leavin’ you the chuck-wagon. You’ll have to buy wagons an’ teams here. Luke has made a deal for you. Man named Hazelit will call on you here. Wagons, though, you’ll get at the Harvester Company store. There’s saddle hosses aplenty.”

So the practical questioning went on, with Harriet listening silently and her two younger sisters losing interest. Harriet’s deductions during that half-hour were not reassuring. Allen did not inspire her with great confidence, though he seemed frank enough. She had dealt with thousands of men while bookkeeper in her father’s ship-chandler and general merchandise business, and her intuition never went wrong if her perspicuity sometimes was amiss. As for Arlidge, he was quickly gauged as a strong, subtle personality, bold and crafty under a pleasing exterior. It was not only a blush that mantled Harriet’s neck, which her gown had left modestly bare: she felt burned by a lightning glance from Arlidge’s piercing eyes. But it had been so swift that she could not be sure some of her reaction was not due to her habitual reserve. Later, however, this glance leaped upon Florence, as she sat there in her young fair beauty. Only then did Harriet yield to distrust of her father’s venture. Toward the end of that interview Harriet chose to break silence.

“Mr. Arlidge, I understand a foreman’s duty is to manage the ranch. Am I correct?” queried Harriet, looking him in the eyes.

“Yes. An’ managin’ a ranch is most handlin’ the riders an’ stock,” replied Arlidge, pleased to be questioned by her.

“What’s the number of horses and cattle my father has purchased?”

“She’ll pin you down, Arlidge,” laughed Lindsay. “She was my foreman for years.”

This manifestly was not so pleasant. Arlidge kept his smile, but he shifted a little uneasily.

“I don’t know, Miss Lindsay. We sold in a lump. Somewhere around ten thousand haid.”

“Don’t you count the heads when you sell?”

“Sometimes, in small bunches.”

“Oh, I see. You mean then in this case a number a little more or less than ten thousand?”

“Not more. An’ mebbe a good deal less. Your father was satisfied with a rough estimate. But I’ll have a count when you come out, if thet will please you.”

“Yes, do. But it’s a matter of business. I shall continue to keep my father’s books, and will take immediate steps to learn the ropes — or lassoes, I suppose I should say,” returned Harriet, with a laugh.

“A bookkeeper on a big ranch is somethin’ new, especially when it’s a handsome young woman,” said Arlidge, sincere in his dubiousness.

“Thank you. I dare say it’s a much-needed innovation in your slipshod method of cattle-selling,” returned Harriet, lightly. “Mr. Arlidge, are you going to remain at Spanish Peaks Ranch as my father’s foreman?”

“He shore is, Miss. I sold him along with the stock. Nobody but Luke could ever handle thet fire-eatin’ outfit of riders,” interposed Allen as he rose, sombrero in hand.

Arlidge likewise got up, lithe and graceful, a forceful, doubtful character. He fastened eyes of admiration upon Harriet.

“No, Miss Lindsay, I wasn’t shore I’d stay on at Spanish Peaks until I met you — an’ all,” he replied, gallantly.

Then the Westerners bade the company good-night and left, with Lindsay accompanying them to the door, where he was heard planning to see them early next day, before they left. He hurried back to confront his family. It thrilled Harriet to see him so keen and enthusiastic.

“Tell me, one by one, what do you think,” he beamed.

“Well, John, there is one good thing about this deal. It’ll take plenty of work and money to make your old fort livable,” replied his wife, complacently, and that from her was assuredly favorable.

“Well, Lent?”

“Pa, I’ll shore upset thet outfit of cow-punchers,” returned the youngest of the Lindsays. Already she was imitating the drawl and words of the Westerners.

“You Flo?”

“Like it fine. Why didn’t you tell us the place was Spanish? That porch all around the patio — the big cottonwoods and the spring! I must have a Spanish hammock, embroidered shawl, lace mantilla, castanets — and the rest of the duds. If they can’t be bought here, I surely will find them in that La Junta town.”

This was a long speech for the beauty of the family and it had telling effect.

Lindsay turned to Harriet: “My bookkeeper lass, what is your say?”

She smiled tenderly upon him, and suddenly kissed his cheek. When had she seen a little color in them?

“Father darling, you have been tricked — robbed so far as the cattle deal is concerned. But if you are happy and are sure you’ll get well and strong — I am heart and soul for our Spanish Peaks Ranch.”

CHAPTER IV

ON SUNDAY GARDEN City appeared to become a deserted village, as far as the main street was concerned. The short walk that Harriet took with her mother discovered but few people and these were on the side streets. Outside of this interval the whole of that day was devoted to planning of purchases for their newly acquired home. Fortunately they were not limited as to means; otherwise they would have faced a sorry prospect.

Naturally there were several squabbles in the family, precipitated by the younger Lindsays. Mrs. Lindsay gave Harriet the duty of censorship over each individual list. To Florence she said: “Substitute these articles I checked with things that will make your room livable.” To Lenta: “Child, you’ve done pretty well, but if you ate all the candy listed here we’d need a doctor.” And to Neale: “I’ll talk to father about the saddles, chaps, guns, on yours. I should think one of each would be sufficient to start on, if you are to be permitted freedom with such.”

What this trio said to Harriet was vastly more forceful than elegant. Neale left in high dudgeon to take his case to his court of appeal — his mother.

After dinner Mr. Lindsay summoned them to meet a remarkable Westerner. This was the famous plainsman, Buffalo Jones. Upon first sight Jones struck Harriet singularly and not favorably. He was a rugged man in the prime of life, tall, erect, broad-shouldered, with a physiognomy that baffled her. Like so many of these Westerners he had a hard cast of face, and eyes narrowed by years of exposure to the open. They were light-blue eyes and looked right through Harriet. His smile, however, seemed to change the ruthless, craggy set of mouth and chin. After all the Lindsays had been introduced Jones won Harriet over in a single speech.

“Wal, I shore am glad to meet you-all. It’s a lucky day for the West. Lindsay, you’re still a young man an’ in a few months you’ll be strong as an ox, ridin’ all day. Mrs. Lindsay, you will soon accustom yourself to the plains an’ be a pioneer’s wife. It’s a hard but wonderful life. . . . An’ what shall I say to these handsome, healthy girls? Wal, I wish I were a young man again. Three strappin’ riders somewhere out there don’t know the great good luck in store for them. . . . Young man, you’ve got good eyes — at least one of them is — an’ a good chin. But you’re kind of pale round the gills an’ your hands are soft. Look out for the cow-punchers, keep quiet an’ work — that’s Buffalo Jones’ hunch.”

Jones appeared to strike them all, except possibly Neale, to be the Westerner they needed to meet. Lenta did not show the least awe and her first wide-eyed query, accompanied by her irresistible smile, evidently pleased him: “Why do they call you Buffalo Jones? Are you another Buffalo Bill?”

“Yes, in a way. Bill an’ I are friends and we both were buffalo-hunters, but now I’m putting my energies to savin’ buffalo. I lassoed an’ captured most of the live buffalo left today, of course when they were calves.”

“How thrilling! Oh, tell us about it,” burst out Lenta.

“Hold on, Lent,” spoke up her father, gaily. “I lassoed and captured Buffalo Jones. I’d like to hear wild stories as well as you. But let’s not wear him out. What we need to get straight is the thing we’re up against. This West — our lately acquired ranch — what we must expect — and do — in fact all a family of blessed tenderfeet needs to know.”

Jones presented a contrast to most of the aloof Westerners they had seen and met. Harriet was quick to grasp that it was because he loved the country, had been and no doubt still was a factor in its development, and that he delighted in the acquisition of new pioneer blood.

They led him upstairs to the parlor, which was empty, and all of them seemed inspired by his presence. It was Jones, however, who took the initiative by plying Mr. Lindsay with questions. In a few moments he was in possession of all the facts about Lindsay’s deal with Allen.

“Wal, wal, you are a fast stepper. I hope it’s all right. I’ll look into it. . . . Spanish Peaks Ranch? It’s over in Colorado. Beautiful country, fine range, ideal for cattle. A high dry climate.”

Then he asked further questions as to distances from towns, railroad, market, water, and lastly the ranch-house.

“Big place, stone and mortar, built round some cottonwood trees and a spring — —”

“O Lord! Is that your ranch-house? Wal! — I’ve been there. You needn’t fear that it’ll blow down or that you can’t keep the wolves and cold out in winter.”

“Dear me!” sighed Mrs. Lindsay. Harriet hid what the two younger girls expressed. But Neale was eager to know more about the wolves, the hunting, the wildness. Jones rather endeavored to retrieve the dismaying impression he had conveyed, despite the fact that if he was not dismayed for them he certainly was concerned.

“May I ask if you are prepared to spend considerable more money to make this place possible for your women folk?”

“Oh yes. I expected that. I can afford it.”

“Wal now, that puts a different light on the matter,” said Jones, with satisfaction. “You can make that old fort one of the show places of the West. Like Maxwell’s Ranch over in New Mexico. . . . Will you arrange for me to meet this Lester Allen and his foreman?”

“I’m sorry. They left town at daybreak. I had planned to meet them here at the hotel. But they had breakfast before I was up.”

“Wal, you don’t say!” ejaculated Jones, plainly surprised. “An’ the deal was only settled yesterday?”

“We kept the bank open after regular hours to settle it.”

“What was their hurry?”

“They didn’t say. I confess I was a little put out.”

“Humph! . . . Of course Allen will send his foreman back to help you buy your outfit an’ pack it to the ranch.”

“No. Nothing was said about that. Arlidge did not seem keen to take charge for me. But he finally agreed. I think my daughters decided him.”

“Arlidge. Who’s he?”

“Allen’s foreman.”

“Not Luke Arlidge?” queried the old plainsman, quickly.

“Luke Arlidge. That’s the name.”

“Wal, Lindsay,” went on Jones, constrainedly, “we’ll talk that all over later. It’d bore the ladies.”

“Now tell us why you’re called Buffalo Jones?” begged Lenta.

“Wal, for a number of reasons, all to do with buffalo. But I like to feel that I deserve it most because I did preserve the American bison,” replied the plainsman. “The fact is, though, that the name never stuck till after the massacre of the last great herd of buffalo an’ the bloody Indian fight it raised.

“In the late ‘seventies the buffalo hide-hunters chased the buffalo to their last stand. This was in Texas, south of the Pan Handle. Thousands of hide-hunters were scattered all along the range an’ millions of buffalo were butchered for their hides alone. The Indian tribes saw their meat going, their buffalo robes, and that if they did not stop the white hunters they would starve. The Comanches were the fiercest tribe, though the Kiowas, Arapahoes an’ Cheyennes were bad enough. If they had joined forces the West never would have been settled. As it was the buffalo-hunters banded together an’ broke the power of the redmen forever.

“It was in 1877 that the big fight came off — also the end of the buffalo. But the hunters had to quit killin’ buffalo to kill Indians. I was in the thick of that campaign. Comanches under a fierce chief named Nigger Horse made repeated raids on hunters’ camps, murderin’ an’ scalpin’. I organized a band of hunters an’ we tracked Nigger Horse to his hidin’-place up on the Staked Plains. I had Indian and Mexican scouts who tracked the wily old devil over rock an’ sand. I surrounded Nigger Horse’s force in a deep rocky gulch an’ planted part of my men to block the escape of the Comanches. That was about the bloodiest fight I was ever in. We surprised them at dawn an’ all day the battle waged. Then when Nigger Horse saw he was beaten an’ was in danger of bein’ wiped out completely, he sent his son at the head of the hardest-ridin’ bucks straight for the mouth of the gully. That was a magnificent sight. The Comanches were the grandest horsemen the West ever developed. An’ the war-cry of the Comanches was the most blood-curdling of all Indian yells. We all saw what was comin’. The Indian riders collected at a point below out of rifle-shot. Comanches were vain, proud, fierce warriors, an’ this was a race their hearts reveled in. Our men yelled along the line. The son of Nigger Horse — I forget that buck’s name — pranced his horse at the head of the band. It was somethin’ that made even us hardened old buffalo-hunters thrill. Then with him in the lead an’ with such a yell as never was heard before they charged. What ridin’. But Nigger Horse’s son, swift an’ darin’ as he was, never got halfway. He fell at a long shot from one of my sharp-shooters. That broke the back of the charge an’ Nigger Horse’s last defense. Only a few of those riders got away. An’ the rest of the great Comanche band that escaped climbed out on foot. I reckon no other single fight had so much to do with breakin’ the redmen as that one. Certainly not with the Comanches.”

“Oh — terrible!” cried Lenta, breathlessly, her eyes shining. “But I don’t see how — why they called you Buffalo Jones, just for that.”

“Wal, I don’t see, either,” laughed the plainsman. “It’s true, though. That night in camp it turned out the sharp-shooter who killed Nigger Horse’s son was a young North Carolinian named Nelson. Laramie Nelson. He got the front handle here on the plains. I never knew his right name. Wal, he stood up among us as we sat round the camp fire, a crippled dead-beat outfit, an’ liftin’ his cup high he yelled, ‘Heah’s to Buffalo Jones!’ The men roared an’ they drank. An’ from that night they called me Buffalo Jones.”

“So that was it? Oh, how I’d liked to be there!” cried Lenta.

“Was it coffee they drank your health in?” asked Lindsay, quizzically.

“Wal, no.”

Harriet felt an unfamiliar impulse, that seemed to come from a thrilling heat along her veins.

“And what became of the young man?” she asked.

“Nelson, you mean? Wal, he made other great shots after that,” replied the plainsman, reminiscently. “He belonged to that Southern breed of wild youngsters who spread over Texas an’ the West. Laramie was one of the finest boys I ever knew. But those were hard days, an’ if a man survived, it was through his quickness with a gun. He shore earned a name for himself. For years now I haven’t heard of him. Gone, I reckon. An unmarked grave somewhere, out there on the ‘lone prairie,’ as his kind called the plains.”

An unaccountable pang assailed Harriet’s breast. Poor brave wild boy! The West took its first strange hold upon her. There were things she had never dreamed of. History, story, legend, were somehow unreal. But here she was listening to a man who had seen and lived great events of the frontier, whose face was a record of those unparalleled adventures about which Easterners could not help but be skeptical and cold.

Soon after that narrative Jones left with her father, and Harriet went back to her room and the growing puzzle of plans and lists, of what to discard and what to retain. Bedtime came with Lenta’s yawning entrance. The young lady, while undressing, delivered herself of a last humorous remark:

“Dog-goneit, Hallie, I’m a-goin’ to like this West!”

Bright and early next morning, all the Lindsays, except Neale, assembled for breakfast and with visible and voluble anticipation of an exciting day.

“Oh yes, I nearly forgot,” said Lindsay, in the midst of the meal. “Jones bade me be sure that you womenfolk bought heavy coats and woolen shirts, rubber buskins, slickers, and warm gloves. He said it wasn’t summer yet by a long chalk and we might hit into a storm.”

This interested all except Florence, who leaned more to decorative than useful purchases. Harriet saw that she added these new articles to her list. After breakfast they sallied forth, with Harriet, for one, realizing that they were furnishing covert amusement to employees of the hotel.

That was a day. Harriet found herself so tired when evening came that she scarcely had appetite for dinner. Her father appealed to her for help in making out a list of food supplies to purchase on the morrow.

“I don’t believe I’m equal to that — at least not tonight,” replied Harriet, dubiously.

“Jones was right about the foreman, Arlidge. He should have stayed to advise me. What do I know about supplies in this country?”

“Or I? But we know what we have been accustomed to and can easily buy that, so far as it is supplied here. I discovered one fine big grocery, I dare say they keep everything.”

Another day saw their personal wants wonderfully and fearfully attended to. Mrs. Lindsay had bought furniture, kitchen ware, bedding, linen, and in fact, Harriet’s father said, enough truck to fill several of the six big wagons he had obtained.

“What we can’t take we’ll send back for,” he concluded, ending that mooted question.

Buffalo Jones had dinner with them that evening and his keen interest and sympathy were nothing if not thrilling. He laughed over some of their purchases.

“Wal, you’re a lucky outfit!” he drawled. “Just suppose you hadn’t any money. That you had to tackle the plains with your bare hands, so to say! . . . I wish my family was here. I’ve got two girls. I’d like you-all to meet them.”

Harriet was drawn away to her father’s room, where he and Jones desired a little privacy. To Lindsay’s explanation that Harriet was his right-hand man and would handle the financial end of the new enterprise, Jones gave hearty approbation.

“She looks level-headed,” he went on, “an’ I reckon will stand up under the knocks you’ll get. . . . Now, Lindsay, for the first one. You’ve gone into an irregular deal, an’ some way or other are bound to be cheated.”

Lindsay never batted an eye.

“Father, I told you,” said Harriet.

“You’ve to learn that Westerners are close-mouthed. They almost never talk to strangers about other Westerners. It’s not conducive to long life. But no matter — I’m goin’ to waive that. . . . Your man Allen has not the best of reputations. An’ Arlidge has been in several shady deals, over the last of which he killed a man. In fact, he has several killin’s to his credit, an’ at that he has not been many years in western Kansas. You’ve bought a ranch, all right, an’ if my memory is good it’s one that will make a wonderful place. But you’ll find probably less than half ten thousand head of stock, maybe only a third. There’s where the trick came in. It always does in deals where tenderfeet buy Western stock. Couldn’t be otherwise. Can you swallow that?”

“I have, already. I’m no fool. The gleam in Allen’s eye and Arlidge’s glib tongue were not lost on me. I’ve swallowed this and can stand more.”

“Good. Now brace yourself for a harder jolt. The worst is yet to come. It’s a safe bet that Allen, with another so-called ranch thirty miles from Spanish Peaks Ranch, an’ his foreman Arlidge workin’ for you, will clean out most if not all the stock they sold to you.”

“Clean out! Steal it?” ejaculated Lindsay, his jaw dropping.

“They’ll rustle it off. Let me explain. We are now in the midst of what I might call the third great movement of early frontier history — the cattle movement. First came the freighters, wagon-trains, gold-seekers, fur-trappers, an’ the Indian fights. Next the era of the buffalo an’ the settler. This is the cattle movement. For years now vast herds of cattle have been driven up out of Texas to Abilene an’ Dodge, the cattle terminus. From these points cattle have been driven north an’ west, an’ shipped East on cattle-trains. The cattle business is well on an’ fortunes are bein’ made. With endless range, fine grass an’ water, nothin’ else could be expected. I sold out my own ranch a year back. Reason was I saw the handwritin’ on the wall. Cattle-stealin’! There had always been some stock stole. Every rancher will tell you that. But rustlin’ now is a business. The rustler has come into his own. He steals herds of cattle in a raid. Or he will be your neighbor rancher, brandin’ all your calves. The demand for cattle is big. Ready money always. An’ this rustlin’ is goin’ to grow an’ have its way for I don’t know how long. Years, anyway. You’ll be in the thick of it an’ I want to start you right.”

“You’re most kind, Jones,” replied Harriet’s father, feelingly. “I appreciate your — your breaking a Western rule for me. However I’m not dismayed. I’ll see it through. Only tell me what to do.”

“That’s the stumper,” rejoined the plainsman, with a dry laugh. “You’ve got to live it. But the very first thing you must do is to get a man — a Westerner — who will be smart enough for Allen an’ Arlidge. They sold nine range-riders with the range. It’s a foregone conclusion that most of these riders, if not all, will remain on Allen’s side of the fence. You won’t be able to tell who they are until they prove themselves. I must find you a hard-shootin’ range-rider who knows the game.”

“Hard-shooting?” echoed Lindsay, in consternation.

“That’s what I said, my friend. The harder an’ quicker he is the better. I reckon there’ll be some powder burned at Spanish Peaks Ranch this summer.”

“O Lord! What will the wife say? Hallie, look what I’ve got you all into.”

“Father, it makes my stomach feel sickish,” declared Harriet. “But we can’t back out now.”

“Back out! I should say not. Damn those two slick cattlemen! . . . Jones, where’ll I get the range-rider I’m going to need?”

“Stumps me some. I can’t put my hand on anyone just now. But I’ll look around. An’ if no one can be found I’ll go myself back to Dodge an’ fetch one. I like your spirit, Lindsay. I like your family. An’ I’m goin’ to do what I can to help you.”

The plainsman’s gray-blue eyes gave forth a narrow piercing gleam, hard to meet, but wonderful to feel.

“I reckon you’d better keep all this to yourselves,” he advised. “An’ don’t be in a hurry to leave.”

With that he departed, leaving Harriet deeply perturbed and her father downcast. As in the past, Harriet endeavored to cheer and inspirit him. And they managed to hide their feelings and fears from the rest of the family. Neale, however, threw a bombshell into the midst of their breakfast the next morning by blurting out: “They’re talking about us in this hayseed town. Say we’re a family of rich tenderfeet and that we got properly fleeced.”

“Where’d you hear such gossip?” queried Lindsay, red in the face.

“In a saloon. But it’s common talk all over.”

“Well, if it’s true, that’ll give you a fine opportunity to help support this tenderfoot family.”

“Neale couldn’t support a baby if he had a cradle and a flock of cows,” retorted Lenta, sententiously. “Never mind, Dad. We came out here for you to get well. And we can stand anything.”

The girls were in and out of the hotel all morning, so that Harriet lost track of them. About noon they came in, giggling, and left packages strewn from one room to another.

“Hal, you missed something,” said Lenta, mysteriously.

“Did I? Thank goodness. I’ve sure missed a good deal of money I had figured up.”

“Ha! Ha! You will. But honest, sis, this was rich. Flo came staggering into the hall downstairs, and as she could hardly see from behind her pile of bundles, she ran plump into the handsomest strangest-looking Westerner we’ve seen. I nearly burst myself laughing, but I kept out of it. Flo knocked him galley-west and of course the packages went flying. She was flabbergasted — and you know to flabbergast Flo isn’t easy. This handsome ragamuffin laughed, doffed his old sombrero, and apologized with the grace of a courtier. His manners and speech were hardly what you’d expect from such a tramp. His dusty clothes hung in rags. He had a big gun in a belt and that belt had a shiny row of brass shells. He was young, thin, tanned almost gold, and his eyes — oh! they were wonderful! Black and sharp as daggers. His hair was black, too, and all long and mussed. I saw all this, of course, while he went to picking up Flo’s packages. Then, will you believe it? he said: ‘Permit me to carry these for you, miss.’ Flo blushed like a rose. Fancy that. And she stammered something. They went upstairs. I hope she was not so rattled she forgot to thank him.”

“Well, that was an adventure,” replied Harriet, with interest.

“It wasn’t a marker to what happened to me,” retorted Lenta, her eyes shining. “I had stepped aside into the doorway of that storeroom. I didn’t want to meet that black-eyed cavalier on the stairway. I heard his spurs clicking on the steps. He passed without seeing me and he said to another fellow who had come in, and whom I hadn’t seen yet. ‘My Gawd! Lonesome, did you see her? She was a dream.’

“This other fellow let out a yelp. ‘Did I? Lordy! Lock the gate!’

“Well, they went out and I ventured forth,” continued Lenta. “But I tripped on the rug. Honest I did, Hallie! One of my bundles dropped. Then, lo and behold! this second fellow appeared as if by magic. He was young, rosy, ugly, bow-legged. He wore the awfulest hairy pants. His shirt was in tatters. He smelled like — like the outdoors. He picked up my bundle and laid it on top of the others in my arms. And he said:

“‘Sweetheart, look out for Western range-riders. Even my pard is a devil with the women.’

“His eyes fairly danced, they were so full of fun. If his pard was a devil, I’d like to know what he is. . . . I know I got as red as a beet and I rushed away without giving him a piece of my mind.”

“God help us from now on! It has begun,” exclaimed Harriet, solemnly.

“What has begun?” asked Lenta, innocently.

“I don’t know what to call it. Slaughter of the Westerners might do.”

“All right, old girl,” retorted Lenta, half offended, for in her excitement evidently she had been sincere. “But you look out for yourself. Everything will happen to you!”

That occasioned Harriet some uneasiness. It seemed to be in the nature of a prophecy. But she passed it by and went on with her work until called to lunch. Her father was waiting at the head of the stairs. All the shadow of worry and uncertainty had disappeared from his face. He was bright, smiling, more than his old self again. Somehow he had gained.

“Now, father?” queried Harriet, in wondering gladness.

“What do you think, Hallie? I’ve had a stroke of fortune. At least Buffalo Jones swore it was. He ran across one of his scouts of buffalo days — in fact that very young fellow who killed Nigger Horse’s son in the Indian fight, you remember. Nelson — Laramie Nelson. He it was who was responsible for Jones being called Buffalo Jones. Well, Nelson just happened to ride into Garden City with two other range-riders. Jones said he whooped when he saw them. No wonder! Talk about Westerners! Wait until you see these.”

“Three — range — riders,” returned Harriet, almost falteringly. Could two of them be the young men Florence and Lenta had encountered? Could they! There was absolutely no doubt of it, and Harriet could not account for her feelings. Suppose the third one happened to be this Laramie Nelson, already picturesquely limned against the difficult background of Harriet’s fancy!

“Well, after introducing me,” went on Lindsay, “Jones went off with Nelson. I met them later in the saloon where Nelson’s partners were playing pool. It seems the three had just returned from some hard expedition after horse-thieves, or something, and that accounted for their bedraggled appearance. Jones had made a proposition to Nelson about joining up with me. Evidently it wasn’t so promising to him. But Jones and I importuned him until he said he reckoned he’d go if I hired his friends. I agreed. So the two young men were called from their game and introduced to me. Their names were Lonesome Mulhall and Tracks Williams. Had been with Nelson for years. In fact, they were inseparable. Strange to me both these young Westerners demurred. They did not want to come. Mulhall said: ‘Laramie, I don’t mind work, as you well know, but I kick against a lot of tenderfoot girls in the outfit.’ And Williams backed him up. Whereupon Nelson swore at them. ‘Yu’re a couple of contrary jackasses. Heah’s yore chance to help a family that’ll shore need it. Lonesome, only awhile back yu were lamentin’ yore lack of feminine inspiration — I reckon yu called it. An’ Tracks, heah, he was sore at me ‘cause ridin’ with me left him nothin’ to be chivalrous about.’

“‘Pard, mebbe we’d better reconsider,’ said Mulhall to Williams. ‘‘Cause it’s a shore bet Laramie is goin’ to line up with this Peak Dot outfit.’

“‘Ump-umm,’ replied Williams.

“‘Wal, if yu haven’t got stuff in yu to want to help a fine family, maybe yu’ll go for my sake,’ snorted Nelson, with fire in his eye.

“‘How come, pard?’ asked Lonesome, curiously.

“‘Wal, the foreman Allen turned over to Mr. Lindsay happens to be Luke Arlidge. Now will yu stick to me?’

“‘Hell yes!’ yelled Mulhall.

“‘How about yu, Tracks?’ asked Nelson of his other partner.

“‘Laramie, I hate to give in, but I wouldn’t miss seeing you kill Arlidge for a million dollars!’”

Mr. Lindsay had recited all this in a thrilling whisper. He waited to see if it had made any impression on Harriet. Manifestly he was more than satisfied. Then he concluded:

“That ended the argument. And I engaged Nelson and his friends on the spot. I feel pretty good about it, as much for you girls’ sake as my own. Jones declared Colorado wasn’t big enough for both Nelson and Arlidge. And sooner or later Nelson would take charge of our ranch. The best of it is that the expectations Jones had roused in me, regarding this Laramie Nelson, were more than fulfilled. What a quaint soft-voiced fellow! You’d never believe he had killed men.”

“Mercy, father!” burst out Harriet, with a revulsion of feeling. “Don’t say he’s a — a murderer!”

“Hallie, these Western folk have got me up a tree,” declared Lindsay. “They talk of shooting and killing as we do of — of plowing corn. Jones said Nelson had killed men — he didn’t know how many — that he was a marked character in the West. I gathered in spite of a gun record, Jones regarded Nelson as the salt of the earth.”

“Oh, these bloody frontiersmen!” exclaimed Harriet, aghast. “How can we have a man like that around?”

“Well, I’m getting — what do they call it? — a hunch that before long we may be damned good and glad to have him,” declared Lindsay, bluntly. And when her father swore he was most genuinely in earnest. They went to lunch, at which time Lindsay casually announced that it was possible they might start for their ranch in a very few days. This upset his hearers in one way or another. Lenta was in raptures; Florence had some secret reason for wanting to linger in Garden City.

“Say, Dad, are you going to give me a job?” demanded Neale.

“Yes. You drive one of the wagons,” returned the father, concisely. To which the remainder of the family took instant exception.

After lunch the Lindsays scattered on their various errands. Harriet, coming in alone, encountered her father in the lobby in company with the most striking man she had ever seen.

“Harriet, come here,” called Lindsay, dragging his tall companion forward. “This is my new man, Laramie Nelson. . . . Meet my eldest girl, Nelson. You must get acquainted. She will be my mainstay out on the ranch.”

Harriet bowed and greeted Mr. Nelson with all outward pleasantry. Inwardly she was shrinking, and wondering why that was so.

“Wal, Lady, I shore am glad to meet yu,” drawled Nelson, removing his old sombrero. His low voice and quaint manner were markedly Southern.

Before more could be said Lenta and Florence bounced and floated in, to be presented to Nelson. This gave Harriet opportunity to look at him. He was tall, slim, sandy-haired, slightly freckled, and his eyes, gray and intent, shone with something which reminded her of those of Buffalo Jones and Luke Arlidge. His lean face wore a sad cast. He did not smile, even at the irrepressible Lenta, who was nothing if not fascinated with him. His garb was travel-stained and rent. His shiny leather overalls, full of holes, flounced down over muddy boots. Great long spurs bright as silver dragged their rowels on the floor. His right side stood toward Harriet, and low down, hanging from a worn belt and sheath, shone the dark deadly handle of a gun. All about him suggested long use, hard service. So this was the killer Laramie Nelson — this strange soft-spoken, singularly fascinating Westerner? Harriet was as amazed as she was repelled. He did not look it.

Suddenly attention was directed upon Harriet again and she almost betrayed herself in confusion. The girls made demands for money.

“She’s our treasurer, Mr. Nelson,” declared Lenta, gaily. “Dad never handles money. . . . Look out for your wages!”

“Oh, Lenta, that’s unkind!” exclaimed Harriet, flushing. “Indeed, Mr. Nelson, I am not that bad.”

And it was an indication of Harriet’s unusual preoccupation that she handed her purse to Lenta, who whooped and ran out, to be pursued by Florence.

“There, do you wonder I need to be careful of father’s money?” queried Harriet, with a laugh.

“Wal, miss, I’m wonderin’ a lot,” replied Nelson, with his first smile, a slow dawning change that made him younger. “Most of all I’m wonderin’ how yore paw will ever run cattle an’ range-riders with three such lovely daughters around. It cain’t be done.”

CHAPTER V

LARAMIE SURVEYED HIS two arch conspirators in mingled disgust and apprehension. Wonderful to realize the three of them occupied a real room in a real hotel. Not only did they have a roof over their heads, but also each possessed a complete new outfit of wearing-apparel. Their fortunes had changed. Laramie felt a sick emptiness at the thought that the perverseness of these beloved comrades might prevent him from grasping straws.

“You borrowed money to buy all this?” Lonesome was saying, with a sweep of his hand to indicate the beds littered with shirts, scarfs, suits, sombreros, chaps, boots.

“Do yu reckon I robbed a store?” countered Laramie, testily.

“From Lindsay?”

“No. From Buffalo Jones. An’ I can pay it back any time. These Eastern folks won’t know. But at thet I shore ought to tell . . . or — at least — Miss Lindsay.”

“Which one?” asked Lonesome, sarcastically.

Tracks turned from the mirror, where he had been shaving a week’s growth of beard from his dark face.

“Lonesome, you’ve coppered the trick,” he said. “You didn’t need to ask which one. Laramie has gone down before the oldest — Hallie, I think they called her. I don’t blame him. A sweet, serious, level-headed girl!”

“Ugh-huh. The volluptuss one,” agreed Lonesome. “I can’t say I blame him, either. Didn’t I go bloomin’ loony over thet sassy baby-faced, red-lipped kid? It ain’t that. What I want to know is this? Why in hell didn’t Laramie tell us these girls belonged to the Lindsay rancher we was goin’ to ride for?”

“Are goin’ to ride for, pard,” corrected Laramie.

“How in hell did Laramie know?” queried Tracks, in defense of their leader. “I should think you’d be loonier than ever. I am. Go! Well, I guess I’ll go. Range-riding for the Peak Dot outfit looks like heaven for me. Even if it didn’t I’d never desert Laramie when he’s bound to buck into that Arlidge galoot. Lonesome, I want to be around when they meet.”

“Me too. I’m not so thick-skinned as that,” rejoined Lonesome, gloomily. “But you’ve gotta bid me good-by, pards. I ain’t goin’.”

“Cheese and skippers!” ejaculated Tracks, ironically. “If you want to cut off your nose to spite your face, that’s not our lookout. God knows you’re ugly enough now.”

“Every fellar can’t be handsome like you an’ fascinatin’ like Laramie,” replied Lonesome, sadly. Then his spirit roused. “Just the same, I never noticed you two corrallin’ all the girls.”

“Lonesome, yu’re forgettin’ how I broke up thet little necktie party some years back,” said Laramie, reproachfully. “Why won’t yu go?”

Lonesome appeared driven into a corner. He sat down weakly upon the bed and his homely face took on a woe-begone expression.

“‘Cause I called that kid ‘Sweetheart,’ an’ snitched this from her when I handed back the pack she dropped,” admitted Lonesome, producing a small leather case, quite suggestively plump.

Laramie was dumbfounded. Lonesome at his old bad habit again — his besetting sin — his one weakness!

“What’s in it?” demanded Tracks, curiously.

“Darn if I know. Didn’t dare open it. Reckon I just wanted somethin’ of hers, a keepsake to remind me of her when I got out on the lone prairee again.”

Tracks snatched it out of Lonesome’s caressing hands.

“It’s a pocket-book . . . full of greenbacks!” exclaimed Tracks as he opened the case. “Tens and twenties. . . . There’s a fifty. . . . Oh, a century plant! First one of them I’ve seen since I hit the range.”

“My Gawd!” groaned Lonesome. “I didn’t know there was money in it. S’pose she felt me take it! — Pards, I gotta vamoose out of this Garden City, an’ pronto!”

Laramie strode across the room, and taking the pocket-book from Tracks he shook it in Lonesome’s face.

“Yu ——  —— bow-legged little —— !” he drawled. “Yu’re shore goin’ to ruin us yet. Yu set there till I get back.”

“Where you goin’?” asked the rider, in impotent alarm.

“I’ll return this money. Let on it was accident — —”

“Laramie, it was an accident. I swear to Gawd! . . . An’ good-by, old pard — —”

“Go on, Laramie. I’ll keep him here,” interposed Tracks, “if I have to bust him a couple on his red snoot.”

“I can lick you any day,” Lonesome was retorting, belligerently, as Laramie went out into the hall.

He felt that this lapse of Lonesome’s had roused an inspiration. By frightening him it had made distinct the clear soft voice of conscience. He would make haste to profit by the opportunity, and meet the situation coolly, no matter how he might be affected inwardly. When Laramie approached Miss Lindsay’s door some way down the hall he heard the delightful laughter of her younger sister.

Laramie knocked. A contralto voice called, “Come in.”

He hesitated long enough for the door to be opened by the oldest sister, the one called Hallie.

“Oh — it’s Mister Laramie!” she cried, and surprised deep-gray eyes met his. Laramie had looked over his gun at many pairs of challenging eyes, but never at two which so made chaos of his faculties. But as he had prepared himself, it was possible to overcome all that was outwardly betrayed, and to inquire with his usual slow drawl:

“Anybody about heah lose a pocket-book?”

Before Miss Lindsay had time to reply there came a shriek of joy and a rush of steps. The youngest sister confronted him.

“I should smile somebody did,” she cried, joyously, expectantly, her pretty face distracting in its youth and freshness.

Laramie kept the pocket-book behind his back.

“Wal, what was the one somebody lost like?” he asked, smiling down on her.

“It was yellow leather, with a gold clasp. . . . Please let me see.”

“An’ what was inside?”

“Money. Stacks of bills! Mostly mother’s, and she has been wild since I lost it.”

“I’m shore glad. Yu must have dropped it in the hall,” replied Laramie. “Heah yu air.”

The girl received it gratefully. “Oh, I thank you, Mr. Nelson. Mother will be so — so relieved. She hadn’t told dad. Now he needn’t know. . . . I could just hug you. . . . Maybe I will some day!”

With a gay and mischievous laugh she ran down the corridor, evidently to acquaint her mother with the good news.

“How lucky you found it, Mr. Laramie!” said Miss Lindsay. “Buffalo Jones insisted that your association with us would be fortunate. And here you live up to his extravagant praise at once!”

“So Jones spoke high of me, Miss Lindsay?” asked Laramie.

“Indeed he did.”

“Wal, I reckon it’s more’n I’m wuth. An’ I’d shore like to straighten it out in yore mind. An’ I’m askin’ yu to tell yore father.”

“Certainly. Any message you care to give. He pleases to call me his right-hand man.”

“Wal, he’ll shore need yu,” went on Laramie, bluntly. “Mis Lindsay, what I cain’t stand about this deal is Jones givin’ yu-all false idees about me an’ my two pards. Don’t misunderstand. I’m downright shore yore father couldn’t get nowhere three better men for this queer range deal. But all thet talk about us — thet was pure taffy. The fact is we are only three tramp grub-line range-riders. We cain’t hold a job nowheres. I’m the wust, I reckon. I cain’t keep out of trouble. My gunman record follows me. I swear it’s not my fault. The way of the West is hard on my breed. Now, for my pards, Williams is a strange rider, a true pard, but I know next to nothin’ about him. He shore comes of a good family, as I do myself. But what’s thet in this wild country? Tracks is just another fine boy gone to the devil — run off from home, I expect, a rollin’ stone. An’ Lonesome, thet little son-of-a-gun, is wuss. He has a heart of gold, but thet’s about all, ‘cept he cain’t be beat at ridin’ an’ ropin’. But he drinks, fights, gambles, swears, an’ long ago would shore have been daid — but — for me.”

Laramie gulped over the last. What relief to his breast! He could look straight into the clear, earnest, grave eyes without a qualm.

“Why — Mr. Laramie — you — you surprise me!” she ejaculated, in embarrassment. A rich color mantled her cheeks. “Are you deliberately repudiating Buffalo Jones’ tribute?”

“I reckon, ‘cept about us bein’ as good range-riders as yu could get for this heah tough job.”

“You want me to tell father all that you said?”

“I shore do. I’d feel a heap better. I do already, tellin’ yu. It shore went against the grain to pretend I wasn’t out of a job — thet I had to be bargained with an’ coaxed. But Jones is to blame. He lent me money, so we could look decent again. I never rode under false colors. He swore yore father needed us plumb bad, an’ thet it’d be better to make up a little story about us. Eastern tenderfoot family — some romancin’ girls, yu know, an’ we oughtn’t disappoint yu. But I got to thinkin’ better about it an’ so I’ve told yu.”

“I see, Mr. Laramie. I must say I — I respect you for this admission. But you — you almost distress me. I am afraid I had already begun to rely on you — somehow.”

“Wal, what I’ve told yu is shore no reason why yu cain’t,” drawled Laramie.

“This West flabbergasts me!” She flushed, averted her darkening eyes, and then, turning quite pale, she looked at him searchingly.

“Is there any reason why you could not come to us honestly?”

“Not now. There was. I’ve told yu. Easterners air bound to see the West strange an’ hard an’ wild. It is. An’ we men air thet way. But I can face my mother an’ sister just as I am facin’ yu now.”

“Thank you. I think that — relieves me. And can you vouch for Williams?”

“Yes, so far as I know him.”

“And Mulhall?”

“All I can promise, Lady, is thet I’ll answer for Lonesome. I’ll be responsible for him.”

“What will father say?” she mused, soberly.

“Wal, I hope he doesn’t take it to heart. Thet foreman Arlidge is a man who wants a Westerner to figure him.”

“Buffalo Jones said Westerners never speak ill of other Westerners.”

“They don’t, if they air afraid for their health. What I’m hintin’ about Arlidge yu’ll heah me say to his face — thet is, if yore father takes me. Yu must put it up to him, Miss Lindsay.”

“I — I could almost answer for him,” she returned, nervously. “But we’ll see. . . . Thanks for your — your frankness. . . . Oh, I almost forgot. Father commissioned me to ask you three to have dinner with us tonight — at six. He said not to accept a refusal.”

“Wal, I reckon I cain’t refuse,” responded Laramie. “It’s shore been long since I set at table with nice folks. Mebbe I’ll never get a chance again. Good-day, Lady.”

As Laramie bowed himself away from the door she stood gazing in perplexity, as if she had more to say. But she did not speak and he passed on down the hall, conscious of an inward commotion. He could not withhold a slight swagger as he burst in upon the boys.

“Say, you was gone a hell of a long time,” accused Lonesome, with awful eyes.

“I shore fixed it, pard,” replied Laramie, loftily. “Give the pocket-book into the kid’s hands. Said I found it in the hall. She was plumb glad. Swore she’d like to hug me an’ would some day.”

“Aw!” breathed Lonesome.

“Laramie, did it take you all that time to return a lost article?” queried Tracks, suspiciously.

“No. Fact is I was talkin’ to Miss Hallie,” drawled Laramie, casually.

“What about?”

“Myself, most of all. Did yu reckon I’d rave about yu an’ Lonesome? . . . An’ I shore got us all invited to dinner tonight.”

“No!” exclaimed Tracks, incredulously radiant.

“Shore did.”

“Laramie, forgive me. I was afraid you might have told her that we’re a rummy outfit, instead of The Three Musketeers, as Buff Jones made us out.”

Lonesome rose off the bed in such profound consternation and awe that he appeared tall.

“Din — ner!” he blurted out, weakly.

“Shore. An’ I reckon I’m slick enough to set yu close to thet pretty kid or leastways across from her.”

“Aw, my Gawd! — Tracks, where’s my gun? I’m gonna blow out my brains! . . . Aw, aw! What a chance I missed! If I only hadn’t spoke out that vulgar! . . . Called her sweetheart! Took her for a common Western street girl!”

In his abject misery Lonesome crawled under the bed and his bare calloused heels showed through his worn boots. There he moaned to himself.

“Yu ought to be thankin’ Gawd an’ me for keepin’ yu out of jail,” declared Laramie, resentfully.

“What do I care about snitchin’ that pocket-book? I’m thinkin’ about her!” replied Lonesome, furiously.

“Come out from under, Lonesome,” chirped in Tracks, cheerfully. “Don’t show yellow. Take a bath and shave, get your hair cut. Then spruce up to beat the band and make that pretty kid think you’re the greatest range-rider the West ever knew.”

This sally fetched Lonesome out. “Dog-gone-it, I’ll do that or die!”

* * * * *

Laramie did not slight preparations for the occasion, but long before the boys returned from a visit to the barber’s he had made himself look a vastly different man and took some slight melancholy pride in the fact. Not that it made a difference one way or another, but he happened to think of his sister Marigold and would have liked her to see him thus. “Long time now since I wrote Marigold,” soliloquized Laramie. “I’ll shore make up for thet before we leave this heah hotel.”

Lonesome and Tracks came rushing in, their faces shining pinkly, their hair trimmed, and in Lonesome’s case at least, pasted down flat.

“Boys, yu look almost human,” remarked Laramie. “But I don’t know about yu. This heah dinner may be too much.”

Tracks was whistling. Laramie went back to his newspaper, an old one from Kansas City, and let the parade go on. He read every line in the paper, including the advertisements, and when again he looked up Tracks and Lonesome were still primping.

“Wal, if fine feathers don’t make fine birds I’m shore a barnyard owl,” declared Laramie.

“Laramie, it ain’t easy to stack up against such an Apollo as Tracks or such a wonderful Southern-lookin’ planter’s son gent as you,” complained Lonesome. “Gawd A’mighty didn’t do a fair job on me. I’m short an’ dumpy, like a duck. No girl could look at me standin’ without seein’ how you can ride a cayuse between my laigs. An’ my face would stop a clock. Dog-gone-it, I ain’t bootiful. No use deceivin’ myself! I’ve gotta work my wiles on women. Tell ’em how lovely they are. Tell ’em wild yarns of battle an’ blood. An’ when you make love lay it on thick.”

“Lonesome, may the good Lord warn me in time — before yu cut any of yore shines with this Lindsay family!” ejaculated Laramie, fervently.

“Right you are, pard,” agreed Tracks. “But when you’re aiming to win a girl of class, like this Lenta Lindsay, don’t eat with your knife.”

“Aw, you joy-killer!” cried Lonesome, aghast at the truth. “How’n hell will I know how to eat?”

“Watch me and do and say exactly the same as I do,” declared Tracks, earnestly.

“Ugh-huh. It’s a bitter pill to swaller, but I’ll take your hunch.”

“An’ Lonesome, don’t eat like a hawg,” put in Laramie, “a grub-line rider starvin’ to death.”

“But I am starvin’ to death,” protested Lonesome.

“You can eat heartily without giving yourself away,” said Tracks.

“Can I ask for another helpin’, if somethin’s particular good?”

“Shore yu can. But not for three,” replied Laramie.

Between them they coached Lonesome until Tracks appeared satisfied. But Laramie felt dubious about the irrepressible boy, and had some qualms about himself. At last they were ready, and with only a half hour to wait for dinner they went down to the lobby, where Laramie made the gratifying observation that not even the clerk recognized them. Lindsay himself, entering with the expectation of meeting them, had to look twice. And Laramie, studying his pale mobile face, expressive of good will and kindness, breathed a great sigh of relief. No doubt Lindsay had been told by his daughter the truth about these three range-riders, and he was big and fine enough to waive the delinquencies. Right here Laramie added gratitude and loyalty to his former interest.

The other Lindsays were waiting just inside the dining-room, which had not yet begun to fill up with guests. Before they drew close Laramie had a long look at Hallie Lindsay. An unfamiliar commotion within his breast must have had to do with her appearance in white. She greeted him and introduced him to her mother, a bright and vigorous woman whose face held traces of former beauty. Then Lindsay attended briefly to the rest of the introductions. On the moment two incidents struck Laramie forcibly. Lenta bowed to Lonesome and said: “How do you do, Mr. Mulhall. . . . Dad, I’ve had — the pleasure of meeting the gentleman before.”

“That so. You didn’t say.”

“It was in the hall, I think,” replied Lenta, her wide baby-blue eyes apparently so innocent and guileless.

Lonesome arose to the occasion like a cavalier.

“Yes, Mr. Lindsay, it was in the hall,” he said, blandly. “Miss Lenta came in so packed with bundles that I couldn’t see she was a grown-up young lady. An’ when she dropped one I picked it up for her, an’ made a pleasant remark, I forget what, such as any lonesome rider in from the plains might make to a pretty child. That was the meetin’ she meant.”

The Lindsays laughed their agreeable acceptance of this explanation, even Lenta showing a mirthful surprise. Laramie marveled at Lonesome. He also noticed the interchange of glances between Florence Lindsay and Tracks Williams. Not only was she amazed to recognize in Tracks the gallant though uncouth person who had carried her load of parcels upstairs, but also to see the transformation of a ragged tramp rider to a strikingly handsome young man. She murmured her acknowledgment of the introduction.

Then they were escorted to a table arranged for eight, where Mrs. Lindsay seated herself at the foot and her husband took the head. Laramie was given the seat at Lindsay’s right, Hallie the next, and Tracks the third on that side. Lenta sat across the table from Laramie, Lonesome next between her and Florence. Thus the astounding thing had come off without any hitch or awkwardness. Laramie felt easier to be off his feet, and glad to have Miss Lindsay beside him instead of where he might have to meet her glance. Yet her nearness had a perturbing effect.

“Well, boys, I’ve dispensed with the formalities and had my wife order the dinner,” said Lindsay. “How’ll turkey, cranberry sauce, bread, gravy, ice cream and so forth strike you?”

Lonesome uttered a boyish laugh of sheer content.

“If my pards will let me eat all I want, that dinner will strike me terrible good.”

This pleased and rather flattered Mrs. Lindsay, who took interest in Lonesome at once.

“Wal, I tired of wild turkey an’ buffalo rump once, but thet was years ago,” added Laramie.

Tracks looked across the table at Florence and said, feelingly; “Turkey! It will make me think of home.”

“And where’s that?” asked Florence, languidly.

“Boston. I’m a down-easter.”

Her gaze came up to study him. Laramie thought he had never seen so fair a girl, and in truth her white skin and golden hair, in striking contrast to her proud dark eyes, gave her a dazzling beauty. Alas for Spanish Peaks Ranch! There could never be any riders faithful to their range duties so long as that girl remained unwon.

“Indeed,” interposed Lindsay, “I’m a Yankee myself. How long have you been West?”

“Seems a lifetime. Only eight years. I’m twenty-four now. I was sixteen when I ran away from school.”

Laramie flashed a glance across at Lonesome and that young man intercepted it swiftly. Nevertheless, he did not so much as wink. Laramie knew that he and Lonesome were of one mind in regard to their mysterious and aloof partner. Silent all these years, yet when a dark-eyed girl watched him, with all of romance in her gaze, he would give up his secret!

“So you ran off to seek your fortune out West?” asked Florence, tremendously impressed.

“Yes, but I never have found it — yet.”

“And your folk at home?”

“I’m ashamed to confess I’ve never written them, in all these years,” went on Tracks, sadly. “But it was a bad mix-up. I hated school. Dad intended me for law. I was preparing to enter Yale. We quarreled. I told him I never could be a lawyer. He vowed he would disinherit me if I did not go on. So I ran away. Some day he’ll find me. I’m sorry now, because I’ve wasted my life, perhaps broken mother’s heart. I’d like to see her.”

Florence was intrigued. For that matter, Tracks held the stage. Although no doubt he had meant only to excite Florence’s interest, he had gained that of the others. What if that story were untrue? But Laramie had no reason to doubt Tracks. Never had he spoken of himself until now. There had been a ring of truth in his voice, a sadness and a self-reproach probably not lost upon any of the Lindsays. It was, however, decidedly lost upon Lonesome. Was he to see himself outdone by this scion of a rich Boston family? Not much! The instant Laramie laid eyes upon him after Tracks had concluded he fortified himself against what was coming.

“My pard stirs my memory,” began Lonesome, addressing the wide-eyed Mrs. Lindsay — a most strategic approach. “Sure the range-riders had to come from somewhere, ‘cause there ain’t been years enough of cattle-raising yet for him to be born out here. They come from all over, though I reckon the South furnished the most — an’ sure the best riders.” Here Lonesome bowed flatteringly to Laramie. “Texas an’ the Carolinas made the West. That’s an old sayin’ out here. I’ve ridden for an outfit that had a nigger, a greaser, an Indian, a Rebel, a Yankee, an Englishman an’ Dutchman all together. For all I knew the Englisher might have been a dook an’ the nigger a runaway slave an’ the Rebel a rich planter’s son. This range-riding is a pictooresque profession.”

Lonesome paused for effect, casually including everybody in his slow glance, and winding up on Lenta, whose face wore an expression that would have inspired a cigar-sign post.

“I’m from Mizzourie, myself. My dad was one of Quantrell’s Guerillas, a Rebel, an’ my mother came from blue-blooded Yankee stock. She had an uncle or somethin’ who came over in the Mayflower an’ kicked redskins off the ship in that Tea Party you read about in school books. Reckon I never thought it much of a party. . . . We was turrible poor an’ I had to do odd jobs while I was gettin’ my education an’ when my ma was takin’ in washin’. When I was ten I had a chance to come West on a cattle-train. Naturally I took to hosses like a duck to water, an’ I was singin’ “Lone Prairee” before I was fifteen. Gosh! but that’s a long time ago — an’ I’m younger’n Tracks here, in years. I’ve rode from Montana to the Gulf, an’ been in everythin’. There was a rope around my neck when Laramie met me first, an’ but for him I’d kicked the air. All ‘cause a measly foreman named Price was jealous of my way — er, of me — where a lady was concerned. Since then Wild Bill hasn’t anythin’ on me — —”

Lonesome was getting in deep. Talking liberated something in him, which mounted while being set free. But suddenly his remarkable fabrication suffered a break. Laramie knew from Lenta’s eyes that she knew Lonesome was lying. If she did not repress a giggle, Laramie missed his guess. Mrs. Lindsay, however, was deceived and enthralled, and perhaps that was Lonesome’s main objective. His abrupt pause manifestly had to do with the arrival of two waiters carrying huge trays, conspicuously on one of which lay a huge turkey, nicely browned. It was not clear to Laramie whether the sight of the wonderful bird or a rush of saliva had checked Lonesome’s outburst. Anyway he could not go on.

“Oh, what wonderful lives you boys have lived!” exclaimed Mrs. Lindsay. “It scares me for my son Neale. . . . John, please carve the turkey. . . . Mr. Nelson, I suppose you too have had a great career?”

“Me? . . . Wal, no. I reckon I was born on a hawse an’ growed up with a bridle in one hand an’ a gun in the other,” drawled Laramie.

This speech established in Laramie’s mind a fact that he had once before favored his imagination or over-sensitiveness in one particular. And it had come from an almost imperceptible shrinking or revulsion in Miss Lindsay. The table was small, necessitating the chairs being close, and a propinquity to her charming person that had played havoc with Laramie. He had not realized that until after he had felt her slight shudder. What else could he have expected? A young Eastern woman of education and refinement, suddenly thrown into the company of a range-rider who had killed men, must have felt horror at such contact. Others soon would add to Buffalo Jones’ characterization of him, and then he would stand out clearly as the notorious Laramie Nelson. Somehow it hurt Laramie deeply. It was unjust. He could not change the West or help what had gravitated to him. He did not imagine he had been such a fool as to grow sentimental over the eldest Lindsay girl, yet he had dreamily felt something vague and sweet, unutterably new to him, that would have to die a violent death. Romance surely would be Tracks’ portion and even the almost hopeless Lonesome’s — if he could be reformed. But for Laramie Nelson it must be a secret thing and never bear fruition.

From the moment the turkey and other savory victuals were served to the three range-riders the conversation became limited to the Lindsays, of whom Lenta was the liveliest. Laramie, in his supreme obtuseness, did not wake up to her demure and subtle wit, exercised at Lonesome’s expense, until the little minx winked at him. Laramie had a shock. What that tenderfoot girl of sixteen would do to Lonesome seemed appalling. Yet Laramie reveled in the thought. The Lone Prairie gallant had at last found more than his match.

To do Lonesome full credit, he did not disgrace himself as to the consumption of food, and the dinner ended a huge success for the riders and to their hosts.

Several times Miss Lindsay had addressed a casual or polite remark to Laramie. He divined she had felt something different and aloof arise in him. But that did not matter. He replied as he would have to his employer.

“Nelson, how soon can we get away?” asked Lindsay.

“That’s the very question I had on my lips,” said Miss Lindsay, eagerly.

“Oh, when do we start?” burst out Lenta. Florence looked dreamy, silent words across the table at Tracks.

“Wal, we’re ready for sunup in the mawnin’,” drawled Laramie.

“What! It’ll take a week yet,” declared Lindsay.

“Tomorrow? How bewildering! It’s not possible,” added Miss Lindsay, but plainly she was excited.

“What’s the sense of hangin’ around heah any longer, spendin’ more money for hotel bills?” queried Laramie, shortly.

“Nelson, you hit me plumb center, as you Westerners say. What is the sense of it?” replied Lindsay.

“Air yu ladies through yore buyin’?” asked Laramie.

“We can’t think of another single thing,” rejoined Harriet.

“How about packin’?”

“A good deal of that is done, too.”

“Wal, how about day after tomorrow, early mawnin’?”

“Mr. Nelson, you take our breath,” ejaculated Mrs. Lindsay, and Lenta gasped in rapture.

“By Jove!” burst out Lindsay, slapping the table with an emphatic hand. “Nelson, you take charge.”

“Very wal, sir. Let me have yore lists to go over.”

“Mother, you and the girls excuse us,” said Lindsay, rising. “Better pack tonight, so tomorrow will be free to pick up odds and ends.”

Excitement and delight prevailed among the feminine contingent. Laramie added to these by advising Mrs. Lindsay and the girls to leave unpacked warm clothes, heavy coats, slickers, buskins or riding-boots, gloves, which they should don on the morning of the journey.

“An’ excoose me, Mrs. Lindsay,” interposed Lonesome. “Laramie never stops at midday for nothin’. Better pack a big basket of grub for lunches. An’ the other half of this turkey we couldn’t eat — it’d be a shame to waste that.”

“You’re a bright and thoughtful boy,” declared Mrs. Lindsay. “Come, girls. We’ve had a pleasant hour. Let’s get to our packing.”

“Hallie, fetch down all your lists, so we can go over them,” said Lindsay, as they went out. “We’ll be in the lobby. Come, boys, and have a cigar.”

Smoking was not one of Laramie’s habits. There were reasons why his nerves should never be unsteadied by tobacco or liquor. It amused him deeply to see Lonesome tilted back in a lobby chair, puffing a huge and expensive cigar. Tracks, however, betrayed signs of having smoked one before.

“Nelson, it’s certainly good to have you on the job,” declared Lindsay. “I was up a stump.”

“Wal, I reckon I’m glad yu decided to take us on, after all,” returned Laramie.

“Eh? — Oh, I see — why, of course,” said Lindsay, somewhat disconcerted. Then Harriet arrived with a batch of papers.

“Shall I stay to go over these with you?” she asked.

“Heavens, yes!” answered her father. “Begin this ranch business right now.”

“Wal, it’s not a bad idee, if Miss Lindsay is yore bookkeeper an’ is goin’ to handle money,” rejoined Laramie.

Tracks brought a chair for her, and they formed a little circle of five around a small table.

“You may smoke, gentlemen. . . . Here are my lists. Which will you see first?”

“Wal, all of them, if yu don’t mind,” replied Laramie.

“But our — our personal lists — they’re of no — no interest to you?” inquired Harriet, blushing.

“Powerful interestin’ to me, lady, but not really necessary,” drawled Laramie. “Give me your supply list first.”

Harriet gave him four pages full of a neat and legible handwriting.

“Is this heah yore writin’, miss?” inquired Laramie.

“Yes. Why?”

“Wal, it’s so nice I’d shore like to get a letter from yu. . . . Enough grub heah to feed an army for years. Too rich for range-riders! They’d get lazy an’ fat. An’ Lonesome would die of his indigestion.”

“What’s eatin’ you? I ain’t got any such ailin’,” retorted Lonesome.

“Tracks, write down on yore paper there two wagons to pack food supplies. . . . How many wagons did yu buy, Mr. Lindsay?”

“Six. There were no more new ones in town. But I can obtain two second-hand, in good condition.”

“Put thet down, Tracks. . . . Now, Miss Lindsay, let me have the furniture, beddin’, hardware, household goods list?”

Laramie scanned two more pages. “Tracks, this stuff will take four wagons. We’ll have to cut down an’ take only what’s needed first off. Then send back for the rest. Say two wagons first trip. . . . Thet leaves us four wagons. . . . There are no tents on this list.”

“We never thought of tents,” rejoined Miss Lindsay.

“Yu’ll need four. Put thet down, Tracks. Also canvas an’ hoops for the wagons.”

“Oh, we’ll be traveling in prairie-schooners. A regular caravan!” exclaimed Miss Lindsay, evidently thrilled.

Laramie held out his hand for another list.

“Here’s one made out for us by Buffalo Jones.”

“It ought to do. But Jones is stingy. . . . Let’s see. Harness, tools, farm implements, saddles, blankets, bridles, salt, grain, camp utensils, seeds, oil. . . . Ah-huh. Pretty good for the old plainsman. . . . It’ll take four wagons to pack this. Tracks, put down two wagons for first trip out. . . . Thet makes six wagons, with two left. An’ we come down to the personal lists of the ladies.”

“We have trunks and bags galore, besides all the endless things we bought here,” Miss Lindsay informed him.

“How many trunks?”

“Sixteen. And twenty-eight bags and boxes.”

Laramie threw up his hands. “We’ll pack what we can an’ leave the rest for the second trip out. Got thet, Tracks? . . . Now, Mr. Lindsay, I’ll make out a list of things yu couldn’t be expected to know of. An’ Jones is a buffalo-hunter, not a cattleman. . . . How about teamsters an’ hawses?”

“Brown, the storekeeper, has engaged six drivers with teams for me.”

“We’ll need two more an’ a cook.”

Lindsay scratched his head dubiously. “My wife and the girls are good housekeepers. I — we thought they might take care of the cooking on the ride out.”

“Why, man, yu’re plumb loco,” drawled Laramie.

“I don’t know what that is, but I agree. I am.”

Harriet laughed, the first time in Laramie’s hearing. “I know. It means you’re crazy.”

“No offense, sir. Thet’s just a range word. But we cain’t have the ladies cookin’.”

“We are not afraid of work,” retorted Harriet, spirited almost to resentment.

“I reckon not, an’ I’ll bet my sombrero yu-all can cook up a delicious meal. But this will be tough sleddin’, Miss Lindsay. Not a picnic. We’ll have rain, wind, maybe snow on the way out. An’ cookin’ for ten, eleven, twelve hands like Lonesome heah, an’ yoreselves — why it’ll be one hell of a job. I object.”

“Your objection is sustained,” replied Harriet, won over in spite of herself. She gave Laramie a penetrating look that he found strange and sweet to meet.

“Anything you say, Nelson,” added Lindsay, spreading wide his hands.

“Wal, I’ll rustle up a cook. Hope he won’t be like the last one I hired. Had to shoot him.”

Miss Lindsay was wordlessly shocked.

“Only his laig off. I caught him stealin’ an’ he drew on me. . . . Wal, everythin’ looks easy. We could get away tomorrow if we were rushed,” returned Laramie, amused at the girl’s struggle to recover. “I’ll keep these lists to consult again. That’s all, Mr. Lindsay. We’ll leave day after tomorrow, early mawnin’, shore.”

“Mr. Laramie, you are either what you called father or else a magician,” said Miss Lindsay, with what seemed forced admiration.

“Wal, I’m loco, all right.”

“But what is loco?”

“It’s a weed the hawses eat an’ go right off their haids.”

Miss Lindsay arose suddenly: “Father, here’s Neale,” she said, and if there was not a warning note in her voice Laramie guessed wrong.

A young man, rather flashily dressed, good-looking, but with his pale face marred by a darkly swollen eye, came hurriedly up to Lindsay, and clutching his shoulder with one hand he extended the other with shaking finger at Lonesome.

“There — there he is,” he burst out, accusingly. “That’s the little rooster of a bow-legged, pool-room loafer who punched me in the eye!”

CHAPTER VI

LONESOME RELUCTANTLY REMOVED the cigar from his month and retorted: “Yes an’ I’ll black your other pop-eye if you’ll come outdoors. I’m too much the gennelman to hit even a rummy tenderfoot like you in front of a lady.”

Consternation was written large in the faces of Mr. Lindsay and his daughter. Laramie shared it. Could a day pass without Lonesome falling from grace? This newcomer was undoubtedly the Lindsay youth and therefore Harriet’s brother. He appeared upon the verge of apoplexy.

“I’ll — have — you horsewhipped!” he flamed.

“Nope. Not me. I ain’t packin’ my hardware, but nix on that hosswhippin’ game. It’s been tried on me. An’ there was a funeral.”

“Oh, this is dreadful,” cried Miss Lindsay, in mortification. “Neale, you should not air your grievances here. We are in an important discussion.”

“I — don’t care,” panted Neale. “Something’s got to be done with this fellow.”

“Neale, what’s ailing you now?” inquired Lindsay, and his patient and resigned expression conveyed much.

“He punched me in the eye.”

“The result is evident, if he’s the culprit. But what for? How do I know you didn’t deserve it?”

Here Lonesome got to his feet and his small stature expanded. To be sure, Laramie had been fooled before, but as a rule Lonesome betrayed it when he was guilty. In this instance he appeared righteously incensed.

“Mr. Lindsay, excoose me, but this here young fellow cain’t be with you folks?”

“I regret to say he is, Mulhall.”

“Dog-gone! . . . Laramie, can you beat my luck? Why’d he have to pick on me?” After which plaintive speech Lonesome went on: “But, Mr. Lindsay, he just cain’t be no relation to you?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot deny the existing blood-tie,” replied Lindsay, with a dry humor that tickled Laramie. “He’s my only son.”

“Aw, my Gawd, no!” wailed Lonesome. “Not this cocky cub tenderfoot in a boiled shirt?”

Neale moved as if to assault Lonesome, but was prevented by his father. “I’ll whip you myself!” he fumed.

But Lonesome was beyond reach of such challenge. He sensed dire disaster. Turning to Harriet, he appealed in desperation: “They’re foolin’ me. You an’ him couldn’t be related?”

“He’s my brother, Mr. Mulhall,” replied Harriet, and it was not patent to Laramie that she had any pride in the fact.

“Aw, no! Such a lovely lady as you — to have that — that — —”

Miss Lindsay nodded with a smile that rather hinted that she was fearful of being victim to mirth.

“See here, Mulhall, let’s hear your side of it?” demanded Lindsay.

“No help for me, Laramie. I’m a doomed man an’ you better let me slide,” said Lonesome, pathetically. Then with a dignity, that might have been assumed, but which was vastly convincing, he addressed the father. “It happened the day we rode in. Not an hour after! Me an’ Tracks was playin’ pool as peaceful as a couple of kittens. We was playin’ for the drinks an’ could afford only one game. I seen this — your son stalkin’ around the table. An’ he says, ‘Lemme in the game.’ I thanked him an’ declined the honor. He comes back, ‘I could spot you ten balls.’ That riled me, but I kept my mouth shut. Tracks was beatin’ me, but I made some nifty shots an’ was catchin’ up. I come to a decidin’ shot, an’ if I made it that beat Tracks. It was a particular easy one for me, too, but I wanted to make sure, so I was slow. Up speaks your young Mr. Lindsay. ‘That’s the wrong way. Lemme show you.’ An’ I swear I never batted an eye. But as I was about to shoot he directed my cue from behind, an’ I missed. Tracks offered to let me do it over, but I was too mad. An’ I says to your boy, ‘I’ll spot you one on the eye.’ Which I did pronto. . . . An’ that’s the honest Gawd’s truth.”

“Served him right,” declared Lindsay, with finality. “Neale, I know your weakness of meddling in other people’s business. But for your own sake — and your skin — mend your ways. You’re out West now.”

“But, dad, that’s the blamedest lie I ever heard,” declared Neale, astounded, outraged, defeated. “I wasn’t in any pool-room. It happened on the street. I — I met a girl. We were talking. Along came this little runt in his woolly pants. He winked at the girl. I — I resented it. . . .”

Suddenly Laramie had an inspiration and he judged it was high time, if he were to save Lonesome.

“Listen to me, young man,” he drawled. “We’re about to undertake pioneer work on the range. We cain’t afford to fight over little things or with each other. There’ll shore be guns an’ blood out at Spanish Peaks Ranch.”

Neale’s flushed face lost its heat. He had been impressed.

“Can yu ride a hawse?” went on Laramie.

“Yes — of course.”

“Can yu drive a team?”

“I’ve driven a pair of fast steppers many a time,” replied Neale, eagerly.

“Wal, yu’re on. I’m shy a couple of teamsters. Yu’ll drive one of the wagons. So dig up yore warm togs an’ heavy boots an’ gloves. We’re leavin’ early day after tomorrow mawnin’.”

“Dad, is it true?” cried Neale, wild despite uncertainty. “Am I to get a man’s job?”

“Nelson has charge. You’ve my permission. Get your mother’s.”

“Yours is enough, dad. I’ve been tied to mother’s apronstrings long enough. Thanks, Nelson. You seem to understand me. Dad, you must let me have money to buy a teamster’s outfit.”

“Ask Hallie. She has the purse-strings,” replied Lindsay, evidently much relieved at the turn of the situation. Neale took Harriet’s arm and dragged her away.

“Dog-gone, Laramie, you struck fire from him,” said Lonesome. “Mebbe he’s got stuff in him, after all.”

“Shore. Thet young chap will have tough sleddin’ out heah. It’ll make him or break him.”

“Let us hope it will make a man of him,” responded Lindsay, fervently. “You’ve started him well, Nelson. I’m indebted to you. I look to you for much. See you tomorrow. Good-night.”

Lonesome talked a blue streak on the way upstairs, disturbing Laramie’s reflections. They shared the same room. It would never have done for Laramie to leave Lonesome alone. Tracks came along with them. Once the door closed upon them, they gazed at each other with rapt eyes.

“Wal, pards, I’ve landed yu good,” drawled Laramie.

“Too good to be true!” mused Tracks, dreamily.

“Laramie, I just love you,” declared Lonesome, which remark had all the sincerity of truth.

Laramie was about to suggest that they sit down and plan tomorrow’s labors when he espied Lonesome smoothing out something on the bureau.

“What’s thet? What yu doin’?”

“Aw nothin’.”

Tracks, however, snatched it away from Lonesome and held it up — a small white handkerchief with a lace border. Laramie caught a faint scent of perfume.

“Gimme that back,” said Lonesome, snatching it in turn. “Belongs to Miss Lenta. She dropped it, an’ I forgot to give it to her.”

“Like the old lady who kept tavern out West,” scoffed Tracks.

Laramie gave his erring and irrepressible friend one reproachful look. “God help me!” he sighed.

* * * * *

Lindsay’s caravan, as Buffalo Jones christened it when he bade the party good-by, got away a little after sunrise on the morning scheduled. They had, however, to take the sunrise for granted, because the sky was dull and overcast.

Jones’ last word, meant only for Laramie, matched the gleam in the old plainsman’s eye: “Hangin’ rustlers has come in strong on the range these last few years!”

“Shore has. I hope none of my outfit takes to rustlin’. Good-by, Buff, an’ look for me in town some day.”

There were eight wagons and they were loaded. Laramie prayed that the impending storm would hold off. But he would not delay an hour for anything. Let the Lindsays take what came. They were Westerners now, and rain, wind, snow, hail, heat, drought, grasshoppers, work, loneliness, horse and cattle thieves, and all the other gifts of the Great Plains were to be their portion. Laramie had his doubts about Lindsay’s strength holding out and of Neale’s backbone being sufficiently stiff, but for the rest of them he had sincere hopes.

After all, not only did Neale have to drive a team, but also Lonesome and Tracks. And as Mrs. Lindsay and Lenta rode on Lonesome’s wagon, and Harriet and Florence on Tracks’, these two proud and unrestrained range-riders were suddenly as mild as lambs. Laramie chuckled to himself over this. “If this heah trip don’t beat trailin’ Injuns for excitement I’ll shore swaller my sombrero.”

It had chanced that he had been fortunate to engage a cook who had worked for some of the greatest outfits of the cattle country. Jud Lawrence was a marvel of industry, good humor, and culinary skill, but as so often happened in case of such treasures he had a weakness for the flowing bowl. He had passed his sobering-up period in the Garden City jail, a fact he begged Laramie to conceal from the Lindsays: “An’ I swear to Gawd, Nelson, I’ll keep sober so long my friends’ll figger I’ve got religion.”

“Yu’re on, Jud, with this provision. Thet if yu break yore word to me, I’ll beat the everlastin’ stuffin’s out of yu.”

Lawrence would have agreed to more than that to get out of town, and Laramie calculated on the fact that he had seen some fellows keep sober a long time. He gritted his teeth over a resolve that Lonesome and Tracks would stay in a like condition indefinitely.

Laramie felt good to bestride Wingfoot once more on a real journey with real work at the end. And the horse seemed to respond to its rider’s feeling. Laramie was the only horseman in the party. Lonesome’s and Tracks’ horses, together with several new mounts the boys had picked up cheap, trotted behind the last wagon, where Laramie brought up the rear. Young Neale Lindsay drove this last wagon and Laramie wanted to keep an eye on him when they came to bad places. This unfledged young man had taken a sudden liking to Laramie that might be put to good use. “He’ll shore be a damn nuisance if no wuss, but his sister is wuth standin’ it for — an’ mebbe makin’ somethin’ of him,” soliloquized Laramie, quite unconscious that he had omitted the fact that the lad had two other sisters, to say nothing of a mother and father.

The cavalcade passed the last ranch, out over a rolling hill, upon the open gray prairie sloping by leagues up to the vague and dark horizon. The wind cut down raw from the north, and bore ill tidings. Tomorrow it would rain or snow, and Laramie decided he would be sure to tie on some firewood at the first camp, which would be Cottonwood Creek, thirty miles to the northwest.

Spring was backward. The ridges still held to their gray bleached hue, but down in the swales green showed. Willows and cottonwoods had begun to leaf. It was just as well that the Lindsays saw the prairie in its gray monotony, because they would have that to contrast with summer’s rich and purple bloom. Then when the bleak north winds brought the snow they might be better prepared. The only good word Buffalo Jones had had for the Spanish Peaks Ranch was: “Wal, anyway, they won’t freeze to death in winter. Thet stone house will shore be warm.”

Like a scout on duty, Laramie kept his eye on all the wagons, particularly the last. And he settled back into the pleasant idle, dreamy state of the range-rider once more out in the open, with the winding road ahead and the wild country somewhere lost in the haze. He liked the Lindsays and refused to answer his accusing questioning conscience as to which one he liked best. If Lindsay survived this long cold ride in the raw spring, he would probably be cured of his lung weakness. The Colorado slope down from the Rockies was high, clear, dry, with wonderful curative properties in the sun and air. Solitude and simple living would be good for a sick man, however hard it might be upon his family. Eastern Colorado, however, had growing towns, to which an occasional visit might save the girls from too great loneliness. If they took hold of the work! That eldest girl, Hallie, she would win over all the hardships. Laramie wondered about her. What had given her the sad far-away look of eyes, the firm grave sweet lips? No doubt she had left a lover back there in Ohio. Laramie soliloquized that if he had been that luckiest of fellows he would have pulled up stakes and taken the ride with her. For he had been given to understand that the Lindsays had burned bridges behind them; they had threshed it all out together; they would stick to their ailing father and to this chosen new home, come what might.

They made fast time all morning, considering the loads, and by noon were twenty miles out. And Laramie’s practiced eye began to note the lessening numbers of black dots on the prairie. Cattle were thinning out. But it was a vast country, with enough swales and draws and river bottoms to hide a million cattle. A pale sun shone after a while, making the ride less raw and giving the landscape something of brightness. Coyotes and deer and antelope fell under Laramie’s keen eye for distance, and once he espied a group of dark riders, far off, topping a ridge against the sky. Such sights always led to speculation. He had made inquiries about the road, the water, the grass, the wood, and the settlers. But of the last he had not observed much sign, and none during the last two hours.

About mid-afternoon, from the top of a hill which had taken an hour to climb, Laramie espied a wooded stream-bed some few miles on and downgrade. He rode ahead.

“How yu makin’ it, Neale?” he asked, as he rode by.

“Fine. But my arms are most pulled out,” shouted the lad, gaily.

“Hang on. We’re most in camp.”

Passing Lonesome’s wagon, he was accosted by Lenta: “Hey, cow-puncher, where you been all day?”

“Taggin’ along, lass. How yu ridin’?”

“I’ve been driving the team.”

“Wal! . . . An’ yu, Miss Hallie — how about yu?”

“Me? Oh, I’m scared, happy, weary, hungry — altogether enchanted,” replied Harriet.

Lindsay could not be seen. No doubt he was lying down under the canvas of his wagon. Tracks looked as if he had driven a chariot all day. Florence had a flushed face and bright eyes. Mrs. Lindsay was asleep on the seat.

“Step out, Wing, old boy,” called Laramie, and loped down the winding road to the river bottom. It was a wide valley, grassy and thicketed, with groves of trees here and there, and running water. He required far more time than usual to select a camp site, and at length, up toward the head of the stream, where the valley notched, he found a most desirable spot, yet still close to the road. He sat his horse a while, meditatively, until he remembered where he was, and then dismounting, he soon had Wingfoot free to roll and drink and graze. Then he went out to the road to wait for the caravan. They soon reached him, all in a bunch, horses as glad as the travelers for the prospective halt.

“Turn off heah under the trees,” he shouted, waving a hand, and when the drivers reached the desired spot and halted, Laramie gave his further orders.

“Unhitch, water the hawses an’ hobble them. Jud, get busy an’ send two men to cut firewood. Lonesome, yu an’ Tracks haul out the tents an’ beddin’. Neale, lend a hand if yu ain’t daid. Rest of yu get off an’ come in.”

Laramie swung an ax with avidity that afternoon, pausing now and then to attend amusedly to the several Lindsays limping around. Presently Lenta ran to him.

“Oh, Laramie,” she called, before she got to him. “Come. I’m afraid Lonesome an’ Tracks will kill each other.”

“What about?” asked Laramie, mildly.

“About how to put up our tent.”

“Wal, I’ll come along. Lug thet chunk of firewood, lass. Yu may as wal begin now.”

“You bet,” declared the girl, and little as she was she lifted the heavy block with ease. “I’m having the time of my life.”

When Laramie gazed down upon his two partners he realized that their heated faces were not proof of his suspicions that they were showing off before the girls, but really because they disagreed about how the tent should be put up. It was a new-fangled complicated affair.

“Wal, I shore don’t see how yu boys have gall enough to figger on ranches, wives, children, an’ all such when yu cain’t put up a simple tent,” drawled Laramie.

This effectually squelched them, with the result that they soon got the tangled canvas straightened out. Laramie built a sparkling fire against a cottonwood stump near at hand, and went to fetch a bucket of water and basins. Also he appropriated a stewpot from Jud’s kit to heat water in. Then he helped the boys put up two more tents.

“Dig up the beddin’, Lonesome, while I fetch a bundle of grass or ferns. Thet ground is damp an’ hard.”

“There’s a dozen or more tarps,” interposed Tracks.

“Thet’s so. Ted, yu do have an idee once in a while,” drawled Laramie, and in lower voice. “Shore surprises me, seein’ yu so bad in love.”

“You stone-hearted gun-thrower!” flashed Williams. “I hope and bet you get it so bad you’ll nearly die.”

“What! Me? . . . Wal, if I got it atall I’d die shore enough.”

When these three tents were ready and the particular bags the girls needed were unpacked, Laramie went on down the line of wagons. Neale, to do him credit, had elected to sleep under a cottonwood and had unrolled his tarpaulin there. Mr. Lindsay and his wife were to occupy one of the covered wagons. Jud Lawrence, with his helpers, were busy about two fires. And about dusk the cook yelled out in lusty voice, “Come an’ get it before I throw it out!”

“What on earth does he mean by that?” asked Mrs. Lindsay, in amaze. The younger girls made laughing conjectures, while Harriet asked Laramie if it had not something to do with supper.

“Wal, yu can take thet literal, Miss Hallie,” replied Laramie.

Whereupon the girls ran merrily to the chuck-wagon, near where Jud had spread a tarpaulin, with packs, boxes and bags for seats. They made a merry and a hearty meal, and were loud in the praises of the cook. No doubt Jud had planned to establish a reputation with this first meal.

Laramie, with his riders, and the other men, were served next, and ate standing or squatting after the manner of range-riders. And as usual they were too hungry to be very talkative.

“Wal, fellows, we’re in for weather by mawnin’, I reckon,” said Laramie.

“Feels like snow. But mebbe it’ll hold off. Hope so. Wood powerful scarce tomorrow an’ next day.”

“Tie up some bundles heah while we can get it dry.”

Lonesome and Tracks evinced a desire to linger about the camp fire of the Lindsays, leaving Laramie to have a look at their horses. This first night, at least, Laramie was glad to see, was a comfortable and absorbing one for the Easterners.

“Hey, yu-all,” he called, when he had returned from his tasks. “Better roll in. Yu won’t feel so powerful awake about five in the mawnin’.”

But he did not impress either the Lindsays or his two bewitched partners. Laramie unrolled his bed under a wagon and crawled into it, conscious of both familiar and disturbing sensations. He was glad to be out on the range again, and particularly with a prospect of a permanent job. Sleep did not come as readily as usual. Soon his old wild comrades of many a lonely night encompassed the camp — the coyotes — and began their hue and cry. He heard Lenta Lindsay call out: “Listen to those awful yelping dogs. I didn’t see any dogs with us. Where’d they come from?”

“Wild dogs of the plains, miss,” replied Lonesome.

“Wild! . . . Are they dangerous?”

“Not so very much. But in winter they eat you alive.”

Mrs. Lindsay screamed at that, and the girls uttered dismayed exclamations.

“Coyotes is what they’re called,” said Ted Williams. “Perfectly harmless except in case one happens to have hydrophobia.”

“Oh, what have we come to!” ejaculated Mrs. Lindsay, in distress. “Uggh! They curdle my blood. How can we sleep?”

“Upper Sandusky wouldn’t be so bad just now,” admitted Lenta. “Might not those beasts crawl in our tents?”

“They might. But we’ll make our beds in front, so they’ll have to go over our dead bodies — —”

At this point Laramie fell asleep. He did not awaken until he heard the ring of Jud’s ax on hard wood. Dawn was pale gray in the east. Thick gloom hung over the camp. Laramie pulled on his boots. His first move was to stalk over to where Lonesome and Tracks lay wrapped in slumber. Tracks was always easy to awaken, but Lonesome slept hard and he hated to be roused, and if that was done rudely he roared like a mad bull. Laramie pretended to stumble over him and did fall upon him. Lonesome, of course, awoke bewildered and forgot where he was. He yelled murder, stampede, redskins, and then launched upon a volley of range profanity. Tracks, careful to keep out of reach, leaned down to whisper hoarsely: “Cheese it. The girls will hear you.”

“Huh!”

Laramie beat a retreat. The girls had heard something, for as he passed their tent he heard whispers and titters. Laramie could not resist the temptation to stoop behind the nearest tent and scratch upon it.

“Mercy! Hallie, listen! — What’s that?”

“Sounds like a beast of some kind. I suspect it’s a two-legged one. . . . Let’s get up.”

“In this pitch dark? Not much.”

Laramie stole away silently and from a safe distance called out: “Breakfast in half an hour. Pile out. It’s mawnin’.”

Daylight came pale and cold, with a raw wind. Laramie did not need to hurry the men, as everybody wanted to be on the move before the rain began. But the storm held off and the journey began under a dark lowering sky. Driving or riding was no fun that day. Young Neale lagged behind most of the time thus keeping Laramie in the rear. When they came to a hill Laramie got off.

“Yu walk a bit an’ lead my hawse,” he suggested to Neale. “Thet’ll warm yu up. But don’t get gay an’ try to ride him.”

* * * * *

That slope was long. From the next summit Laramie saw the country was getting more rugged, and during a brighter interval, when the clouds broke, he noticed dim mountains to the west. Grass was good only in spots. Laramie decided that the cavalcade would not make the camp he had wanted to reach, and that he would do well to find any place possible. Late in the afternoon the leading teamster waited for the others to come up, anticipating Laramie’s judgment. A rather deep swale furnished shelter from wind, fairly good water, but scant grass and no wood. So camp was made. The wood hauled on the wagons had to be conserved for Jud’s cook fire, around which the Lindsays huddled, rather silent and subdued. Lenta kept up her spirits. It was significant that they all went to bed before darkness really set in.

Sometime in the night Laramie was awakened by cold rain on his face. “Wal, too bad! We’re shore in for it. Why couldn’t we have had fine sparklin’ weather?”

Morning came cold and wet under a gray-blanketed sky. The teamsters and riders tramped around with pancakes of gray mud on their feet. It was funny to see the Lindsays troop to breakfast, bundled up in heavy coats and slickers. Mr. Lindsay, however, did not leave the shelter of his canvas wagon. “He caught cold yesterday,” explained his wife, “and I think he’d better not come out. I’ll take him some breakfast.”

“Keep him warm, ma’am,” advised Jud, solicitously. “An’ if yu need anythin’ hotter’n coffee come right heah.”

The rest of the Lindsays ate standing in the drizzling rain, trying to keep warm by the bed of sizzling coals.

“Rustle, everybody,” ordered Laramie. “We want to get along. If we cain’t pass these bottom-lands before it starts rainin’ hard we’ll lose two days an’ more. Ten miles ahaid we climb out on good road.”

Laramie had his tasks cut out for him that morning. After the first wagon bogged down in a creek-bed, Laramie took Neale’s team and the lead. They had four hours of wet, slippery, muddy, tedious travel before getting up on hard ground again. After that he had no concern, except for the welfare of the Lindsays, about whom he felt some misgivings. Mr. Lindsay was ill, Neale had given out, and the girls, according to Lonesome, were a lot of bedraggled mud-hens. Getting on and off the wagons at intervals during the morning, wading through creeks and across bottom-lands, impeded by boots and long slickers, they had but a sorry time of it. In the afternoon as the horses made fair progress on the almost imperceptible slope, wind and rain grew colder. Laramie drove on long after dark, making Laclade Grove, completing thirty miles of travel for the day. This was, according to his information, a fine camp site, from which the road to Spanish Peaks Ranch forked to the left. Three wagons rolled in close upon Laramie, the last of which was Jud’s chuck-wagon. So far as Jud was concerned, an abundance of firewood and water supplied his most urgent needs. The other wagons straggled in one by one, the occupants of which were loud in acclaim of the blazing fires. Lenta expressed the significance of the case for tenderfeet when she naively said, “I never knew how good a fire could feel.”

The rain had turned partly to snow. Laramie remarked to Jud, “Wal, if it changes into a real storm we’ll hang right heah.”

“Too late fer a blizzard, Nelson.”

“Shore, but a right pert May storm would be tough enough for these Eastern folks.”

The girls were game, but in the way of becoming pretty miserable. Laramie had a word with Lindsay. He was sick, but cheerful. That night all the Lindsays slept in the wagons, and Laramie doubted not that they had a cold and dreary time of it.

Next day Laramie’s salutation was: “Cheer up, yu-all. We’re in Colorado an’ tonight we’ll make the Peak Dot.”

“And what’s that?” asked Lenta.

“Wal, didn’t yu know? That’s the brand on yore cattle.”

“If it gets any colder I’ll be branded myself.”

“The wust is yet to come. Hang around the fire till yu’re dry an’ warm. It’ll be a tough day.”

So it proved. Laramie did not care for sleet and snow and bitter winds although he was used to them. Lonesome hated anything approaching winter. Ted did not suffer from cold. But by this time apparently he had been rendered impervious to everything save a pair of dark proud eyes.

Laramie got the outfit started early and he kept everlastingly at it. After a few hours the snow changed to rain again, and that held, with lulls at intervals. Cattle huddled in the lea of ridges. Laramie calculated that the last fifty miles of this journey had taken them up out of the plains. The road wound around the heads of deep wooded draws. For the most part, however, even at midday Laramie could not see a mile out on the range. He passed several landmarks he had been told to look out for, the last of which, gray roofless walls of an old fort, gave him the satisfaction of knowing the distance to Spanish Peaks Ranch was now a matter of only a few more miles.

But they were long ones, and piercingly cold in the driving rain. Laramie felt the lighter quality of a higher altitude and he seemed to smell the mountains. Poor Lindsays! He hoped this Allen range-outfit would be expecting them and have fires going at least, but a second thought dismissed that hope. As darkness came on he looked for lights. But there were none. And he had almost begun to fear that he had gotten off on a wrong road when a big square rough-ramparted structure loomed up before him.

Laramie halted the team. “Wal, Neale, we’re heah, I reckon,” he said, to the youth lying back of the seat.

“Here! Where? . . . That’s a wall of rock,” replied the weary Neale.

The restiveness of the horses excited Laramie’s attention. Wingfoot, tied behind the wagon, snorted in a way to acquaint Laramie with the presence of water. Then above the gusty wind he heard the flow of water somewhere close in the darkness. Laramie clambered off the seat, stiff from the long cold drive. Jud, who had been next to him, must be coming close. The grating sound of wheels attested to this surmise.

“Hi thar, Laramie,” called the cook. “Yu turned off the road.”

“Mebbe I did, but anyway we’re heah,” shouted Laramie, and he moved forward toward the gloomy structure. Its close proximity had been an illusion: he had to walk some paces to get to it. Rough stone met his groping hand. He felt his way along the wall toward the sound of running water, and at length reached the end of the wall. Between where he stood and the dim continuation of the wall opposite ran a brook, which soon leaped off in the darkness downhill. Laramie knew he had arrived at Spanish Peaks Ranch. But this stone fortress-like house appeared deserted. He went back.

Meanwhile Jud had driven down and the grind of more wheels and pound of hoofs sounded.

“Laramie, didn’t you know you turned off the road?” asked Jud, as he fumbled under the seat of his wagon.

“I shore didn’t. Case of luck. Wal, it’s about time we had some.”

“Aw, this is fine. We might had to lay out another night. Heah, I’ll have a light in a jiffy.”

When the lantern was lighted Jud swung it to signal the coming drivers. “Laramie, this heah is all right. Fine windbreak. Line the wagons close to the wall. I’ll take a look inside. Where’n hell is the outfit that was supposed to be heah?”

Laramie wondered about that, too. He walked out to meet the incoming wagons and directed the drivers where to go. Indeed, he had turned off the main road. Six wagons had passed him, leaving one more, the driver of which was Tracks Williams. As he could not yet be heard Laramie hurried back to the wagons. The drivers were unhitching the horses.

“Howdy, pard,” called out Lonesome, cheerily. “It was a rummy drive, huh? Gosh! you gotta hand it to these girls! But they’re about all in, countin’ spunk. I seen a light off to our right. It looked downhill. There’s a jump-off here, where that water tumbles down.”

“So there is. I forgot. A big draw opens heah. Barns, corrals, pastures down below, accordin’ to Buff Jones.”

“Reckon that Allen outfit must be bunked in the draw. It’s a safe bet they ain’t up here in this wind.”

Jud came back with his lantern. The yellow light showed dripping horses and wagons, the wet drivers, and the falling rain, mixed with snow.

“Snug an’ dry inside, Laramie. Stack of cut firewood big as a hill. I’ll lead the chuck-wagon in. Send after the lantern soon as I start a fire.”

“Give me yore light, an’ yu drive in,” replied Laramie, encouraged by Jud’s satisfaction.

When Laramie turned the corner of the wall he was surprised at the size of the gloomy enclosure. The brook ran under stone slabs through the gateway; a group of huge old cottonwoods stood up spectrally in the center. Wild animals of some species scurried out into the open. He halted for Jud to catch up. And as he lifted the lantern high above his head he discerned a huge courtyard, stone-flagged, with a mound of mossy boulders in the center, around which the gnarled old cottonwoods spread mighty branches. The spring evidently flowed from under these boulders. On this left side ran a long porch-like succession of rooms, resembling stalls, opening to the outside. Laramie surmised that this tier ran all around the inside of the walls. His instant impression was most favorable. Gloom and wet, dank odors and gaunt beasts, empty leaking rooms and rotting porch timbers, the feel of having walked into a huge old barn, long vacant — these could not keep Laramie from recognizing a haven with wonderful possibilities. He knew what high stone walls meant. He knew the rigors of summer and winter, and he had vision. He experienced an intense relief.

Jud drove his chuck-wagon clear to the far corner, where Laramie saw an enormous pile of firewood stacked under the roof.

“Darn place was full of varmints,” declared Jud. “But I ain’t smelled any skunks yet. Have you?”

“Not yet.”

“Nifty dug-out this,” went on Jud. “There’s a stone fireplace in heah thet was built by a mason who was a cook.” He leaped off the seat. “Come in heah with the lantern, Laramie. . . . Dry as punk. I call this nifty. . . . Cedar an’ pinon wood — oak, too, Laramie, dry as a bone. You can bet there are foothills somewheres near. . . . There. I got her started. You can show the other fellars in, Laramie. Room for a regiment.”

Laramie went out. “Heah, men. Follow me in an’ unhitch. Better grain the hawses, then turn ’em loose.” As he showed the way for the wagons and turned into the gateway, Jud’s fire, already blazing brightly, brought more than one word of satisfaction from the teamsters. Then Laramie started out to look for the eighth and remaining wagon. Lonesome followed him.

“Gosh, pard, the kid’s cryin’,” he whispered. “An’ Miss Hallie is plumb saggin’. I ain’t got the heart to stay there an’ see them wake up to thet hawg-pen. . . . Tell you what I’ll do, pard. I’ll yell up the Allen outfit. What say?”

“Good idee. I’ll look for Tracks. How fur was he behind?”

“Aw, he lagged along. Tracks can drive four hosses without battin’ an eye. It’s the gurl.”

“Ahuh. I savvied that. Wal, if he keeps her cheered up it’s somethin’.”

“Hope he has more luck than me. I talked myself black in the face about the bootiful country an’ this old Spanish ranch. What’d I get?”

While Laramie strode out to the main road Lonesome found a position below the ranch, from which he yelled in stentorian voice: “HEY, DOWN THERE! . . . HEY, YOU ALLEN OUTFIT. . . . WHERE’N HELL ARE YOU?”

Lonesome waited a couple of moments and then repeated his calls, with variations. This time there came a reply from far down in the black void.

“Go to hell an’ find out!”

There followed a moment’s silence. “Laramie, you hear that?”

“I shore did.”

“What you make of it?”

“No more’n I expected.”

“The low-down lousy — ! . . . Pard, shall I call again?”

“Shore. An’ say somethin’ this time,” replied Laramie, and strode on.

“HEY, COW-PUNCHER!” bawled Lonesome.

“HEY YOURSELF!” came the reply.

“YOU’RE TOO WINDY.”

“Aw, shut up, you grub-line rider!”

“I’M THE RIGHT-HAND MAN OF YOUR BOSS, YOU COYOTE!”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“YOU’LL GET THE WIND PUNCHED OUT OF YOU FOR THAT!”

“Who’ll do it?”

“I WILL. COME UP, YOU ——  ——  —— !”

“Heah’s rarin’ to meet ya!”

By this time Laramie heard grating wheels round a dark thicket. He stepped off the road to wait, as well as to listen. Lonesome was making the welkin ring. Laramie sensed a fight before his outfit even got unhitched, and he sighed. What was the use? Lonesome could no more avoid trouble than could he keep his mouth shut.

The last wagon came rolling round the bend. Laramie picked up his lantern, which he had set down in the grass, and as he lifted it the light flashed full on the wagon-seat. Laramie gasped. Either he was dreaming or else he saw Florence Lindsay’s beautiful face, white and rapt, pressed close to the dark one of Tracks. Swiftly he moved the lantern, throwing the wagon into shadow again.

“Thet yu, Ted?” he called.

“Whoa! . . . What’s this, a hold-up?” shouted Tracks, sharply.

“Nope. It’s only me. I was some worried. We’ve got heah. Follow the light down.”

So there was a reason why Tracks, usually the most prompt of riders, had been delayed along the road. What did he care for rain, cold, dark road, or worried partner? Laramie would not soon forget that girl’s white rapt face, her dark eyes staring out into the night. Not until he had reached the house did he halt to wait. Tracks was not long in arriving. A broad belt of light flared out of the gateway. Laramie went on. A big fire, halfway down the courtyard, lit up the interior of the stone structure, giving it giant proportions and a most weird and dismal aspect. Snow and rain were swirling down. Smoke floated aloft, to be blown away beyond the ramparts. The teamsters were bustling at their tasks; the horses were munching grain; Jud whistled over his cook-fire under the shed, and rattled his pans. Laramie surveyed the scene with satisfaction. He had brought the outfit through in four days without an accident, which was little short of marvelous. He saw Ted leap down off his seat to help Florence, and heard her call, “How perfectly wonderful!”

“Not so bad,” replied Tracks, with a queer little ring in his voice. “Go up by the fire. I’ll fetch your bags.”

Laramie wended a thoughtful way around on the right side of the courtyard, realizing that enthusiasm and happiness depended on the point of view. This right side presented a more dilapidated and forlorn aspect than the left. In places the wooden roof had caved in. Some of the rooms had been used for stalls. But all this in no wise detracted from Laramie’s picture of what might be made of the old fort. The spring itself was worth the money Lindsay had paid for the property, and the gnarled old cottonwoods were beyond price.

Laramie continued on around the square. The western wall was not so wide as the northern and southern. A black aperture opened through it and had evidently been a door. A blank space flanked it, from which on the north side led stone steps up to the ramparts. No doubt all around these ramparts, on the inside, ran a walk from which soldiers had once stood on guard.

Presently Laramie became aware of a pathetic and disturbing spectacle. He halted in the shadow.

“Oh — my — God! What — a hideous place!” sobbed Mrs. Lindsay. She sat upon the stone step in the flare of the courtyard fire. Her appearance was pitiful. Wet, cold, miserable, she sat there, bareheaded, her iron-gray hair straggling down, glistening with raindrops, her bonnet fallen to the ground, every line of her face and person indicative of abject disillusion, hopelessness, and panic.

Laramie looked from the mother to the son, Neale, who sprawled upon the porch, a lax, spent figure significant of despair. Florence sat somewhat apart, leaning elbows on her knees, also bareheaded, her fair locks shiny, wet, and disheveled, her white face expressive of extreme fatigue, her wonderful dark proud eyes fixed upon the fire with piercing intensity. But she did not see the blaze, nor the opalescent heart of the burning cedar sticks. She was not conscious of the weariness and havoc her looks and posture suggested. She gave no indication of having heard her mother’s disheartening speech. Lenta stood out in the rain, a ludicrous little figure. She had been too tired to lift the yellow slicker off the ground, and she had dragged and trampled it into the mud. She held her red little hands and wet gloves out to the heat. Her hat was on awry and from under it strands of hair hung down. Her pale pretty face was woebegone, and she, too, was weeping unrestrainedly.

“I’m so tired — and cold — and sick. I — I want to die,” she faltered. “I just — don’t care.”

Harriet had thrown aside the burdening slicker, and she too was trying to warm benumbed hands. Raindrops dripped from the narrow brim of her hat. Her face was ghastly in its pallor and there were big dark circles under her eyes. She was biting her lips. It was not only raindrops that rolled down her cheeks. Her breast heaved as if laboring under an oppressive burden.

“Mother — don’t cry,” she said. “Don’t give up. . . . To be sure it’s a — a horrid place. . . . After all we — we dreamed! . . . And father is flat on his back. But the ride’s over. We’re here. For mercy’s sakes don’t let him see how — how terrible we feel!”

“But he — he’ll die out in this desolate frigid place,” moaned Mrs. Lindsay.

“Oh no, he won’t, mother. . . . Let’s not give up. It might not be so — so bad.”

The strain under which Harriet labored betrayed her struggle, as her face and speech made clear that she was the sanity and strength of this family. Suddenly Laramie saw the situation from their point of view, and he suffered a poignant pang. He had forgotten that they were Easterners unused to privation and loneliness. Harriet no doubt was appalled at what they had come to. But she fought to conceal her dismay, her fears. She probably saw the worst of it more clearly than any of them.

Whatever Laramie’s state of mind had been before, he felt staggered under a rushing tide of feeling for this girl. That was the moment when he fell in love with her. It affected him with a strange, fierce spirit to protect and help her, and through her these other unfortunate Lindsays.

“Wal, folks,” he drawled, genially, as he stepped out of the shadow, “I see yu’re all heah an’ enjoyin’ the fire. Shore’s nothin’ like a hot blazin’ bunch of cedar.”

Then stepping over to the wagon that contained Mr. Lindsay, he called out: “Hey, boss, we’re heah, an’ darned lucky. How’d yu ride it?”

“He’s very ill,” cried Mrs. Lindsay. “Please don’t excite him.”

“Not so good, Nelson,” replied Lindsay, in a weak voice.

“Wal, I’m shore glad yu’re not daid,” drawled Laramie. “Shows yu’re pretty husky yet, Lindsay. Thet was a hell of a cold, mean, rough ride. I’ll fix yu up a drink of hot whisky. Pile out an’ walk about a bit. This heah house shore hits me plumb center.”

“Oh no! No! John, you mustn’t get up,” cried Mrs. Lindsay, in affright, as she ran over. “This hor — —”

Laramie put a gentle yet firm hand over her lips, effectually stifling her speech.

“Shore he’ll get up, Lady,” said Laramie, with a different note in his voice. Harriet came running in alarm, but if she meant to expostulate, Laramie silenced her with a look.

“Yu’re out West now, Lindsay,” went on Laramie, as if that mere fact itself was a marvelous difference. “Colorado weather never hurt nobody. Shore it’s hard. But, man, in a week yu’ll be jumpin’ up an’ kickin’ yore heels together.”

“By gum!” muttered Lindsay. “Mom, where’d you hide my boots?”

Mrs. Lindsay clambered up into the wagon. “John, darling, you mustn’t think of going out in the wet. That terrible Nelson is crazy. You would catch your death.”

“Stop mollycoddling me!” declared Lindsay, testily. “Nelson may be terrible, but he’s not crazy. Strikes me. . . . Where’s my boots and heavy coat?”

Laramie turned to face Harriet. She seemed frightened and uncertain. Lenta came slushing her slicker over the wet stones to join them. Thereupon Laramie took their arms and drew them back to the fire.

“Girls, listen,” he said, without his usual drawl, and he still held to Lenta’s arm while he looked down into Harriet’s pale face. “I could almost laugh at yu. This heah ain’t nothin’ atall what yu reckon it is. Yu air seein’ it with an Easterner’s eyes. Yore feelin’s air those of a tenderfoot. But yu want to see this heah old house an’ this night with my eyes.”

“But — Mr. Nelson,” faltered Harriet, as Florence, finally aroused from her reverie, joined them. “Aren’t you asking the impossible?”

“Shore. But yu’re plumb extraordinary girls. The way yu stuck out that hard ride shows me. Why I’m so proud of yu-all thet I could bust. An’ Lonesome an’ Ted — they feel the same. . . . This place ain’t what it ‘pears to yu. It’ll make the wonderfulest ranch-house in all the West. An’ the country round about is grand. Yu couldn’t ever get lonesome or tired, lookin’ up at the Rockies, all snow-capped an’ beautiful, or down across the Great Plains, thet Lone Prairie Lonesome sings about, all so purple an’ lovely. This heah Colorado will change yore hearts. Yu’ll never want to leave it. So much for yore surroundin’s. An’ as for makin’ this a home — why it’ll be the most satisfactory work of all yore lives. In a week or so we’ll have the wagons back with more lumber an’ whatever we’ll need. Just s’pose yu didn’t have any money atall or any of these wagon-loads. Then yu might feel blue. But yu’re the luckiest girls who ever rode out to make the West a better country. Cain’t yu see it? Close yore eyes.”

It was significant that Laramie’s suggestion acted so powerfully upon them that they did as bidden. Laramie stretched his imagination and invoked all the gods of fortune to sustain his claims.

“Cain’t yu see this ranch-house as I see it? Work makes a home, after yu find the place. There’s one of the wonderfulest springs this side the mountains. To drink that water is to become Western. An’ I’ll get a dipper from Jud an’ prove what I say. In the mawnin’ this storm will break. The sun will shine. Yu’ll fall in love with these old cottonwoods under which Spanish padres have told their beads an’ trappers have traded with the Indians an’ soldiers have tramped on guard. Cattlemen before Allen have hanged rustlers from these wide-spreadin’ branches. This court will grow green an’ beautiful in yore hands. We’ll clear out this old corral of stone walls. Then we’ll repair an’ build an’ whitewash. We’ll cut windows. . . . It’ll be like as if the fairies of yore kid story-books had visited heah with their magic wands. An’ all yore own work! Yu’ll look back at that terrible ride an’ at this miserable night an’ be glad yu had them. Yu’ll be glad for all thet’s hard out heah. . . . Wal, then, cain’t yu see ahaid a little?”

Harriet gazed up at Laramie fascinated, unconscious of her surrender to something so splendid, so unexpected. But Lenta burst out impulsively: “Mr. Laramie, I’ll be dog-goned if I don’t see somethin’. . . . Oh, Hallie, he has made it endurable.”

At this juncture a trampling of many boots on the stone flags and a jingling of many spurs gave Laramie a start. Dark forms of men showed down the court.

“Whar’nhell is that loud-mouthed puncher?” called out a ringing, raucous voice.

Laramie spread wide his arms and forced the three startled girls back under the shadow of the porch. “Stay heah,” he said.

“Nels, who’s that yelpin’?” queried Jud, sharply.

“Don’t know, Jud,” replied Laramie, as he strode out and set the lantern down. “Throw on some more wood an’ keep folks back up heah.”

“Show yourself, puncher, if yore gall’s as strong as yore yellin’,” bawled the leader of the approaching squad.

CHAPTER VII

NELSON’S IRON ARM across Harriet’s breast gave her a vague and unaccountable sensation dominant despite the sudden alarm occasioned by this leather-lunged intruder. Nelson, looking backward over his shoulder down the court, was not aware of any physical contact.

“What is it?” whispered Harriet. There seemed to be a menace about him, a transformation. His face in the fire-glow looked somber, the brows knit, the eyes like sparks. Lenta grasped her convulsively as Nelson left them, and gasped: “Hallie, something’s — up!” Florence sat down on a box as if her legs had buckled under her. Neale struggled up to a sitting posture, muttering in concerned accents. And Mr. Lindsay put his head out between the canvas covers of his wagon to ejaculate: “What’s this? . . . Girls, who’s yelling?”

Meanwhile the group of visitors trooped up into the firelit circle, headed by a lanky red-faced youth of motley garb and most sinister aspect. He might have come farther but for Nelson’s significant move, which placed him just out of the bright light, away from the porch. Harriet did not miss the fact that Nelson stood erect, sidewise, like a statue.

“Heah, applejack, better be less noisy an’ more civil,” advised one of the teamsters, roughly.

“Whar’s thet brayin’ jackass?” demanded the red-faced individual, glaring all around. None of the Lindsays, except possibly Neale, could have been visible to him. Tawny hair stood up like a mane; his gimlet eyes roamed back to Nelson. Harriet felt her heart pound up out of normal position to hamper her breast.

“Air you alludin’ to me?” queried a cool voice. And Lonesome emerged from behind a wagon to confront the irate visitor.

“Shore am, if you’re the galoot who was hollerin’.”

“I’m that same gennelman.”

“Haw! Haw! You sure look it — you banty-legged little rooster,” declared the other, derisively, and he took a couple of long strides, which fetched him close to Lonesome. “What you mean bellarin’ like a bull, to wake riders up? You got outfit enough to take care of yourselves.”

“Say, if your outfit is all as hospitable as you we got it figgered,” retorted Lonesome.

Muttered ejaculations sounded back in the group of dark restless figures. An authoritative voice and ringing boot-thuds came from the entrance to the courtyard. Two more men were approaching. Meanwhile the teamsters had lined along in front of their wagons and Jud stepped down off the porch.

“Puncher, you’re talkin’ to Slim Red,” announced the instigator of this disturbance, and he was more than arrogant.

“Which don’t mean nothin’ atall to me,” sneered Lonesome. At this juncture Tracks Williams stalked out: “Lonesome, what—” he panted, as if from hurried effort.

“Stay back, pard,” replied Lonesome, waving his friend aside, without even turning. “Look ’em over from — —”

“You bellyachin’ little geezer,” snorted the self-introduced Slim Red. “I’m gonna bounce on you an’ jam your square head down into your gizzard so you’ll look like a smashed toad. I’m the rarinest wrastlinest wildcat on this range — —”

“Save your wind. An’ look out what you say,” warned Lonesome. “Mebbe you don’t savvy this outfit. We’ve got ladies in camp.”

“Aw, to hell with your emigrants! What’d you bust in on us for with your lousy petticoats — —”

“Shut up, Slim!” called the ringing voice from behind. “This is Lindsay’s wagon-train.”

Bam! A sound like a bass-drum appeared to come simultaneously with Lonesome’s sudden lurch and swing. Slim Red uttered a hoarse gasp. He doubled up like a jackknife, and opening back again he began to sink down to the ground, his hands on his abdomen, his face distorted hideously, his mouth agape, from which issued a whistling expulsion of breath. He sank to his knees, sagged and flopped down.

“Mebbe that’ll shut off your wind,” declared Lonesome.

Then a bareheaded man leaped by the group. He held a coat over his shoulders, as if he had hastily thrown it there to keep off the rain. This lithe, bronzed, eagle-eyed newcomer was Luke Arlidge. With a start Harriet recognized him. And what had been amazed perturbation for her suddenly augmented to fright. A chill shot over her, and she trembled. She clutched Lenta who had appeared to freeze against her. Nelson had not moved. What was the meaning of his strange immobility? Hints about Arlidge flashed confusedly through Harriet’s mind. Something dire impended. Was this the —— ?

“Did you hit him?” demanded Arlidge, harshly, of Lonesome.

“Me? Naw, I didn’t hit him. I just caressed his windbag.”

“Luke, that’s nobody but Lonesome Mulhall,” declared a short, thick-set individual who had followed Arlidge.

“Hullo, Price! . . . Well, I wouldn’t be surprised now at anythin’,” said Lonesome, in a low tone.

“Luke, I had a rope round the neck of thet bow-legged little rustle — —”

“Cut any talk about rustlers heah!” broke in Nelson, his voice remarkably piercing and arresting.

Arlidge whirled with a violent start. He espied Nelson. He peered, he crouched as if to see under a shadow. Then with slow rigidity he straightened up, his face full in the fire-flare. The bronze had changed to ashen hue.

“What’d you — say?” Arlidge queried, with a husky break in his voice.

“Yu heahed me.”

“Luke, so help me Gawd it’s that Texas rider who beat me out of hangin’ Mulhall!” rasped Price. “I told you. It happened three — four years ago.”

Lonesome shook a burly fist in Price’s agitated face. “You bet your sweet life it’s that Texas rider who saved my neck. An’ what was you hangin’ me for? I’m a-roarin’ it at you, Price. I want my outfit to heah. I cut you out with a girl an’ to get rid of me you tried to hang me as a rustler.”

“Didn’t I ketch you brandin’ a steer?” shouted Price, furiously.

“Mebbe you did. I forget that. But I wasn’t no rustler.”

“Yes, you are. A two-bit cow-punchin’ rustler!”

“Price, take thet back or go for yore gun,” interposed Nelson, coldly and slowly.

The stocky pallid-faced man gulped. “All right, if you’re so testy about it. I crawl.”

“Riders who live in glass houses shore oughtn’t throw stones about,” returned Nelson, with a hint of his habitual drawl.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded Arlidge, in fierce uncertainty.

“Wal, yu ought to remember an old Nebraskie rider who shore remembers yu.”

“Laramie Nelson!” exclaimed Arlidge in a hoarse whisper. His fingers snapped audibly and his hand moved as if to flash in sudden violent gesture. But it froze to the sleeve of his coat, which had begun to slip from his shoulders.

Suddenly the seven or eight spectators behind Arlidge split and leaped frantically to each side. Price too made a flying leap to get out from line with Arlidge. A teamster sang out: “Fellars, hell’ll be poppin’ heah pronto!” And he dove under a wagon.

Harriet, though a thorough tenderfoot, did not fail to grasp the significance of the moment. She had been half prepared. There would be shooting — blood spilled — men murdered. Perhaps Nelson! And she sickened with revulsion while some other unknown and violent sensation attacked her.

“What you — doing — out here?” asked Arlidge, haltingly.

“Wal, I might ask yu the same.”

“I was foreman for Allen. He sold out to Lindsay. . . . I went with the deal.”

“Shore. I heahed thet. But my idee is — if yu do any more ridin’ it won’t be with Lindsay’s outfit.”

“Hell — you say,” panted Arlidge. Sweat stood out on his face. He gave an impression of intense preoccupation, of an uncertainty which he needed to have time to meet.

“And why won’t I?”

“Wal, I’m ridin’ for Lindsay an’ this ranch won’t be big enough for both of us, seein’ yu won’t live up to yore brag.”

Arlidge tossed his coat to Price, who stood aside. He appeared violent, furious, yet singularly relieved.

“I’m not toting my gun, which I reckon you seen,” he retorted.

“Ahuh. I see thet now. Wal, I reckon it’s good luck for yu an’ bad for the range.”

Arlidge made a passionate gesture. He seemed torn within. His roving gaze sighted Lindsay’s white face peering out of the wagon-tent.

“Lindsay, is it true? Have you hired this Laramie Nelson?”

“I have. And he was highly recommended by no less than Buffalo Jones,” replied Lindsay, emphatically.

“Then I quit. I wouldn’t have Nelson in my outfit,” snapped Arlidge. “You’ll be left flat. My riders will stick to me — —”

“Don’t speak for all of us,” interrupted one of the bystanders. “You’ve kept me an’ Dakota an’ Clay slavin’ for months without pay, all on the chance of this Lindsay deal goin’ through. An’ since it ‘pears to have done so we’ll have a talk with him.”

“Split my outfit, will you?” shouted Arlidge, further enraged. “Look to yourself, Mayhew.”

“Aw, you can’t bluff me,” returned the rider called Mayhew. “I just heerd you called to your face. An’ I ain’t denyin’ I’m damned curious. . . . Come on, pards. Let’s mosey.” Then as he and his two comrades turned away Mayhew wheeled to say: “Mr. Lindsay, we three ain’t tied to Arlidge an’ we’d like to talk to you.”

“Certainly. Glad you’ll stand by me,” replied Lindsay, spiritedly. “And as for you, Arlidge — I’m pretty curious myself, and bet I’ll be better off without you.”

“Tenderfeet have stopped lead for less than that,” rejoined Arlidge, contemptuously. “You’ll have a fine time ranchin’ it here, with less than half an outfit. Rustlers made off with four thousand head of your cattle just three days ago. Let’s see your gun-slingin’ Nelson drive them back. Ha! Ha!”

“You insolent fellow!” ejaculated Lindsay.

“Out of this, Price, an’ you gapin’ fools. Get up, Slim, before you show yellow like Mayhew an’ his cronies.”

Whereupon Arlidge stalked away down the courtyard with the remainder of his men. Lonesome was the first of those watching to break silence.

“Dog-gone, Laramie, it couldn’t have come off no better,” he declared. “An’ all without upsettin’ our lady folks.”

“Oh no, we’re not upset atall!” cried Lenta, hysterically.

“No one woulda guessed it,” said Jud, approvingly, as he moved away. “Thunder an’ blazes! Smell my burnin’ biscuits!”

“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” declared Lindsay, feelingly. “Our first experience with the enemy, girls. . . . Nelson, come help me down.”

“It might have been bad, Lindsay,” replied Nelson, as he complied. “But even if it had it’d only been an incident of range life. I’m shore pleased at the way yu-all took it. . . . There yu air on yure feet. Walk about a bit, sir.”

Harriet felt further repulsion toward this strange, soft-voiced man, yet could not resist the desire to confront him.

“Only an incident of range life?” she asked, endeavoring to be flippant.

“Thet’s all, Miss Hallie.”

“I may be a tenderfoot, but I’m not without sense. Have not you and Arlidge clashed before?”

“Wal, I reckon.”

“Bad blood between you?”

“There is some, now yu tax me about it.”

“He appeared stunned upon recognizing you. He went white in the face. He was a man possessed of devils.”

“I reckon Luke did feel riled. Wal, don’t worry, Miss Hallie. His bark is wuss than his bite.”

Jud sang out: “Somebody spread a tarp to eat on an’ pile on some wood so we can see.”

Lonesome appeared to help Lenta out of the burdensome slicker.

“I sure was sorry I had to be so rude before you girls,” he said, gallantly. “But that Slim Red fellar was too windy.”

“Lonesome, I could have shrieked when you slugged him,” cried Lenta, ecstatically.

“Dog-gone!” murmured Lonesome, astounded at this amazing speech. Even Harriet could not reprove her young and impulsive sister. Things were happening, multiplying. The rain had ceased. A few white stars shone through a rift in swiftly moving clouds. The air had grown lighter and colder.

Fragrance of fried ham, hot coffee, and bread acquainted Harriet with the meaning of one of her queer sensations. She had never felt half starved before. It also acquainted her with the fact that the rest of the Lindsays were in the same condition. Lame and stiff, still wet and bedraggled, they flopped down round the tarpaulin with a heartiness that was a crowning surprise of the day. They had been crushed by disappointment, overcome with fatigue and cold, frightened by the rude visitors. Yet they could eat.

Laramie Nelson loomed out of the shades to gaze down on them with his penetrating eye.

“Wal, yu see how good a fire is when yu’re froze an’ grub when yu’re hungry,” he drawled. “I reckon none of yu ever knowed before.”

“Nelson, there’s something in what you say,” replied Lindsay.

“Ahuh. Yu’re shore a turrible sick man — the way yu’re pitchin’ into Jud’s grub,” returned Nelson, humorously. “But the best after this killin’ ride will be when yu stretch out in warm soft blankets with a hot stone at yore feet. The boys air spreadin’ yore beds now. Miss Hallie, I’m advisin’ yu girls to sleep three in a bed. Leastways we’re makin’ only one bed for yu. I reckon Miss Lenta, bein’ the kid of the family, should have the middle. But we’ll fix bags an’ things all about so the bugs, rats, mice, bats, snakes, centipedes, tarantulas an’ such cain’t find yu. Ha! Ha!”

“Oh, mercy!” cried Lenta. “Once in my life I accept being the kid of this family. I’ll sleep between Flo and Hallie.”

“Mr. Nelson, why not tell us the very worst, so we can die promptly?” said Mrs. Lindsay, resignedly.

“You can’t — faze me — Nelson,” retorted Lindsay, his mouth full of victuals.

“Boss, I knowed yu was a real pioneer at heart. What I come particular to tell yu is this. I’ve found three dry storerooms at the gate end of the house. Two of ’em full of wood. Wal, we’ll move that wood an’ clean ’em out an’ pack the supplies from the wagons in there temporary. Then I’ll send five or six of the wagons back for the rest of our loads, an’ more lumber. We want glass, putty, paint, an’ a lot of things we forgot. It’d be better to pay cash, for when yu run up accounts these storekeepers charge more. Besides, after this we’ll do our buyin’ at La Junta, which’s only half as far. I reckon thet’s about all. I’ll call around later.”

When Nelson had gone, the head of the family remarked: “Buffalo Jones vowed I’d find this Nelson fellow a veritable mountain of strength. I’ve begun to believe it.”

“Dad, I knew that the instant I clapped eyes on him,” observed Neale, with a superior air.

“He’s the most wonderful man I ever met in my whole life,” declared Lenta.

Harriet felt it would be justice to add her little to the encomiums being distributed, but somehow she could not. Nelson inhibited her, alienated her. To be sure, besides being a fighting-man — which antagonized her — he must be a jack-of-all-trades. For that matter all these Westerners appeared to be singularly efficient when it came to necessary physical things. Harriet had observing eyes, and she gave due credit. She would not have admitted just then that the trait she approved of most in Nelson was his thoughtful economy on behalf of her father.

The girls ate prodigiously, but did not remain long away from the fire. “Hallie, let’s toast ourselves brown and then run to our triple bed,” suggested Lenta.

“Where is it?” queried Hallie.

“Must be on the other side.”

Just then Lonesome came ambling along from across the court.

“Clearin’ off fine an’ cold, gurls,” he said, cheerily.

“Where’s our boudoir?” asked Lenta.

“Say, was that somethin’ we packed at Garden City?” he asked, scratching his head.

“I mean our bed,” replied Lenta, with a giggle.

“Right across there. We built a fire in front. An’ we wrapped hot rocks in clean burlap sacks, so your dainty tootsies won’t get soiled. You’ll be as snug as three little bugs in a sheepskin rug. It’ll be rippin’ cold in the mornin’, though. Better sleep late, till the sun gets goin’.”

“I won’t get up atall,” sallied Lenta, as the rider went on.

“Let’s walk up and down,” suggested Florence, her eager dark eyes roaming everywhere, to linger on dark forms round Jud’s fire. Harriet calculated that Florence had a severe case. She had cases periodically, but never had her eyes shone with such an intent, hungry, uncertain light.

“All right, let’s walk,” agreed Harriet. So arm in arm the three limped and dragged themselves across the court, found their bed most carefully made and protected, and went on to the dark gateway, beyond which they were afraid to venture. But Hallie said: “We’re three tenderfeet, all right. Suppose we were thrown upon our own resources?”

“Ridiculous, Hallie!” ejaculated Flo.

“It’d be great fun — if we could survive,” responded Lenta, dreamily.

“For shame. Are you both going to be dependent upon men? Well I’m not,” declared Harriet, and to prove it she ventured boldly out into the darkness. Her sisters, not to be shamed or else too scared to stay alone, joined her and they walked out beyond the protection of the walls.

A few stars were showing, by the light of which black clouds could be seen scudding across the sky. The air stung Harriet’s cheeks and ears; the wind swept by strong and pure, redolent of great spaces; somewhere off in the darkness there was a roar like the sound of trees in a storm. But for that bleak, black, stone house the place seemed empty, a vast windy hall of the night.

“Let’s go back. We might bump into that Slim Red. Wasn’t he a devil?” said Lenta.

“Listen,” replied Flo, nervously.

Off at a distance short wild barks sounded. “Coyotes,” affirmed Hallie. “We’ve heard them every night. I almost like them.”

“No. This was different. You know how a hound bays in the dead of night when death has come to some one?” whispered Florence. “It was a little like that — only infinitely more. . . . Oh! there!”

Hallie’s ears were smote by a clear, cold, long-withdrawing mournful wail, like nothing she had ever heard. It curdled her blood.

“That can’t be a dog. It’s a wild animal,” she whispered.

“Sounded far away, thank goodness. Let’s sneak in like the tenderfeet we are. . . . But oh, it’s strange and wonderful!”

“What is? That mournful beast? Ughh!”

“Just everything. But how glad I am my sisters are with me.”

Lenta at rare intervals expressed a note of the child that still survived in her. They groped their way back to where the light shone from the gateway and went in. Mr. Lindsay was still up, talking and coughing, to his wife’s despair. He scarcely had time to answer the girls’ good-night. He seemed tremendously excited, which rather augmented the impression of frailty which clung to him.

“If he goes into pneumonia!” whispered Lenta, her big eyes dark with fear. “What Doctor Hurd always fought against!”

“Don’t say such things, Lent,” responded Florence, shudderingly. “It would be dreadful! . . . Way out here in this wilderness. After all we’ve given up!”

“Girls, I really don’t understand how we ever got here,” said Harriet, solemnly. “But we are here — in the hands of God and these Westerners.”

They crawled over the ramparts of bags which surrounded their bed, and with whispers and laughs and starts they removed their heavy buskins and stiff clothes. Harriet’s stockings were still wet, her feet still cold. Heroically she crawled under the blankets on her side and wearily stretched out, with the feeling that she would never move again. Suddenly her cold wet feet came in contact with something hot. Then she remembered.

“Oh — heavenly!” she murmured.

“Isn’t it just?” returned Lenta, snuggling close and lovingly. “Do you know, Hallie, I’m just finding you out. You’re a deep old darling. Isn’t she, Flo?”

“Who’s a darling?” asked Florence dreamily.

“Well, I don’t mean that black-haired, gimlet-eyed Adonis,” burst out Lenta, giggling, and she gave Hallie a significant hug.

“Shut up and go to sleep, Lent Lindsay,” rejoined Flo, languorously.

“Sleep! Not for hours. . . . Oh, Hallie, hasn’t it been an adventure? I’m just daffy. . . . I like these Western fellows, Hallie. They can do things. They’re so easy, slow, cool, and somehow . . . I don’t trust that Lonesome. He’s just what that Slim Red called him. I was sorry for Slim. Didn’t he get an awful wollop in the tummy? It actually hurt me. Mr. Mulhall may be little, but he’s mighty. I’ll bet he’s a lot of things. . . . But Laramie — he’s the wonderful man! I could certainly love him.”

“Child, don’t talk such nonsense,” remonstrated Harriet.

“I’m talking sense, Hallie. But if you want me to be sentimental and weave a fairy story, here goes. . . . Dad will get well and strong, like I remember when I was a kid. He’ll wax rich and powerful on this range and Spanish Peaks Ranch will grow famous far and wide. For the hospitality of its hostess — dear old mom, who always had a weakness to entertain, to show off, to play the grand lady. And famous for the beauty and charm of its three fair daughters, ahem! . . . Flo will elope with Ted Williams and they’ll come back like turtle-doves. Then his wealthy family will find him out and will be reconciled to him, and adore his lovely Flo, and beseech them to go East to live on Ted’s inheritance. Ted will take the inheritance for Flo’s sake, but will only go back home on visits. . . . And I — I will play the merry devil with these gawky range-riders, until retribution overtakes me and I am scared stiff or stung by remorse for my heartbreaking ways, or worse — I fall really in love with some homely bow-legged vociferous little giant. . . . And as for you, Hallie — oh, you’re the cream of this outfit. They will find you out, these long-legged, still-eyed nice cattlemen and will come a-riding and a-wooing. But you will not be easily won. You will break more hearts than your wicked little sister. And you will inflame such men as Arlidge and rustlers, bandits — until our own Laramie, our desperado, wades through blood to — to — —”

Lenta’s voice trailed off and she dropped into the land of her dreams.

Harriet lay awake, gratefully aware of Lenta’s warm cheek and trustful hand in hers, and of the fitful firelight on the walls, the cold stars blinking, the moving clouds, the moaning wind, and the wild voices of the beasts of the night.

She wanted to think over the last day of their never-to-be-forgotten ride, and especially of their arrival at the monstrous place that had to be made home, and of what had already transpired. But physical sensations dominated her. No longer were her feet dead weights of ice, but living, glowing, tingling members of her anatomy! She felt a drowsy fullness of the well-fed animal. The cold wind that whipped in rather invigorated than otherwise. The fire crackled, blazed up, died down, and always there was that steady musical murmuring of flowing water in her ears. Voices, too, came dully, and an occasional rasp or bump, and the grate of wheels. After a while all these sensations went blank.

* * * * *

When Harriet opened her eyes she saw azure-blue sky behind a great rounded thin mass of cottonwood foliage, still tiny leafed and delicately green. Wonderingly she asked herself where she was? And instantly she knew, though all appeared different.

Lenta lay wrapped in deep slumber, purring like a kitten, her cheeks rosy, her hair tousled. Florence likewise was asleep, and more beautiful even than in wakeful hours. Her opal-hued face was turned toward Lenta, and she had a hand under her cheek. Her long black lashes hid her dreams and contrasted wonderfully with her golden hair. Never had Hallie been so stirred by Lenta’s dependency or Florence’s beauty. Soon these beloved sisters would awaken to this new life in the West and they were going to need their elder sister. Hallie prayed that she would not fail them.

The sun was high in the heavens and dazzlingly bright. There appeared to be a bustling activity around the courtyard, punctuated by a sing-song rollicking voice and the sound of hammers. Hallie felt ashamed that she had not been up to help initiate the home-building. But as she essayed to move she got a twinge like the stab of a blade. That roused her combativeness and she manfully struggled out of bed, careful not to awaken her sisters. With boots and coat in hand she crawled over the bags to get outside. There she espied a nice little fire of red coals, boiling water in a queer black iron pot, shiny tin basins on a slab of rock, and a bucket of water.

“Thoughtful of somebody,” soliloquized Hallie, and she gazed around the strange courtyard, at the upheaved mound of boulders in the center, at the magnificent old cottonwoods, and the gray walls of stone above the slanting remains of wooden roofs. She heard Jud whistling over in his cook-shack, and she smelled things that instantly made her hungry. She had forgotten the bag that contained her toilet articles, so she crawled back to get it, this time disturbing Lenta, who murmured, “Don’t leave me, Hallie.”

In a few moments Hallie had put on her skirt, stockings, boots, had washed her face and brushed her hair, after which she made haste to warm her hands over the fire. She had neglected to use the hot water. At this juncture Lonesome came along. Without his woolly chaps he appeared smaller and his bow-legs were less prominent. His smile positively eliminated his homeliness.

“Mornin’, Miss Hallie. I sure am glad to see you up. Near on to ten o’clock! You should see the work we’ve done. Wagons on the way back to town, wood all stacked outside, stores packed, an’ now we’re stowin’ away furniture an’ such. That Laramie Nelson is a wonder, once he gets goin’. An’ I never seen him goin’ so good.”

“Good-morning, Lonesome. I think you all must be wonders. Thanks awfully for the fire and water. You are very thoughtful.”

Lonesome scratched his head dubiously, so that his sombrero tilted.

“Dog-gone-it, I wisht I’d been that thoughtful. But no use lyin’. You got Laramie to thank. . . . How’re your sisters ridin’ this mornin’ — I mean, feelin’? Sure they’re awake? It’s powerful late, an’ I want to give you a hunch. Jud is the best ever, but he hates to keep meals hot.”

“I’ll look,” replied Hallie, and took a peep over the rampart of bags. Flo was indeed wrapped in slumber, but Hallie had a suspicion that Lenta was only pretending. Her flushed face bore too innocent a cast.

“They’re asleep, lazy girls,” replied Hallie. “Take a peek, Lonesome. Aren’t they the babes in the woods?”

Lonesome rested his hands on the bags and slowly, as if impelled beyond his bashful fears, peered over. It certainly was a picture that greeted his eyes — Florence in her exquisite beauty and Lenta so young, so fresh, so rosy and innocent. Lonesome drew back as if his gaze were sacrilege.

“My Gawd! To think the West is goin’ to have two such girls! . . . An’ you, too, Miss Hallie. . . . It just ought to make honest men out of a lot of no-good range-riders!” And wagging his head he slouched back across the court, a queer, funny, sturdy, somehow impressive little figure. Hallie found herself liking him, hoping for him, with a birth of what must have been maternal interest.

“Lent. Wake up,” she called.

“Ah-huh. . . . Wh-e-re — am I? — Ooooo!”

“The world has changed overnight. . . . Florence. Wake up.”

“Oh-h! — Is that you, Hallie?” replied Flo, in her lazy contralto.

“Yes. Get up. Your night of dreams is over.”

“Lord! Did I talk in my sleep?”

“Did you? — Well, you had better be good. . . . Nice little fire out here, and hot water.” Hallie found her mother stirring, vastly a different being from the preceding night. “Morning, daughter,” she said, brightly. “Isn’t the sun gorgeous. How thankful I am! What do you think? Father is still sleeping like a baby. And he did not cough one single time!”

“Oh, I’m glad,” cried Harriet, and stepped up on the porch to take a peep at him. How pale and drawn he looked — how quiet!

“Last night after you went to bed that Nelson man came over and said: “Boss, heah’s a drink me an’ Jud fixed up for yu. We’ll have yu understand we don’t do this for everybody. Drink this firewater, go to bed, an’ in the mawnin’ yu’ll have hair on yore chest!”

All Harriet could ejaculate was, “Well!”

“They didn’t happen to see me, as I was in the wagon. Father grinned, and taking the thing — it was a good-sized dipper — he said, ‘Here’s to my foreman and cook!’ And he drank it down, quick, as if he had an idea it would be unpleasant. It must have been some kind of explosive; you never heard such sputterings. Father gasped: ‘My God! what was that?’ And Mr. Nelson replied: ‘Just a little dose Jud an’ I brewed. No man never needs but one.’”

“Mother, do you suppose it could have been a trick?” queried Harriet, in shocked voice. “These Westerners are not to be trusted.”

“I don’t care what it was,” declared Mrs. Lindsay. “The blessed truth is John never coughed a single time last night. Think of that! . . . Hallie, come out of your old shell. These Westerners may be sudden and rough. But they’ve won me.”

“Mother, I — I’m glad of that, too,” faltered Harriet, in her surprise.

“Look at your brother. Neale Lindsay! Up with the sun! Breakfast long ago! Working for hours, crippled as he is!”

“Indeed! Miracles are happening. What, forsooth, induced all this astounding transformation?”

“I don’t know, unless it was that Nelson man, who gave Neale a dig, waking him. ‘Pile out, son. The day’s busted. I’m countin’ on yu a lot. Yu see there’s only yu, me, Ted an’ Lonesome, beside Jud, an’ we got a man’s job on hand, mebbe includin’ a fight with this Arlidge outfit. So buckle on yore gun an’ line up with us.’”

“Mercy!” gasped Harriet.

“Hallie, that was my first thought,” replied Mrs. Lindsay. “I had to choke back a scream. I’ve always babied Neale. And I vowed, after that lecture John gave me in Garden City, I’d never baby him again. It almost kills me to think of — Neale sweating, swearing, fighting maybe, drinking and smoking, with these Wild Westerners. But I’ve had an illumination of mind. This Nelson is not what he looks. You can’t fool me on men. He’s a Godsend. He’ll cure your father and make a man of your brother.”

“God bless him, then,” murmured Harriet, with emotion, not all of which was surprise and gratitude.

Her sense of fairness, as well as an eagerness to pass on anything hopeful, prompted her to go back to the girls and tell them, word for word, what her mother had said.

“How perfectly splendid!” exclaimed Florence, her eyes flashing magnificently.

“What did I tell you, Hal Lindsay?” burst out Lenta.

But Harriet fled down the court, laughingly calling back that she would meet them at breakfast presently. She crossed to the mound of boulders. Old flagstones, worn hollow in the center by years of footsteps, led winding up to an open space, at the back of which from under great mossy rocks flowed the most marvelous spring Hallie had ever seen. It was a fountain. What a tremendous volume of sparkling water! Where it flowed from the well to a deep pool, before it took its first leap, there was a faint bluish, cloudy cast to the water. She wondered what caused that. An aged green drinking-cup, iron, she thought, hung on a chain. Hallie dipped it in the spring and lifted it to drink. Cold as ice! Tasteless, pure as the rain from heaven! She gazed around. Flagstones and moss, boulders and the spreading cottonwoods all betokened age. Straightway she fell in love with that place, and Laramie’s extravagant hyperbole came back to her. But was it hyperbole? She followed the little brook by the stepping-stones that kept pace with the miniature waterfalls, down to the courtyard, and out to the gateway. There she became aware of the labor going on at that end of the court. But she did not pause to look. The open called her. What would greet her outside that wide portal?

She expected to see a bleak barren gray waste of land. She forgot that a fog of rain and snow had obscured the landscape for the whole of the two days’ journey into Colorado. Wherefore she was not prepared for grass and green growths which escorted the brook in its evident leap down a hill. Harriet paused. How brilliant the sunlight! How cold, sweet, intoxicating the air! Frost glistened like diamonds on rocks near by, on the long grass. Just to the right of the gateway a road led out toward a brushy ridge, beyond which she could not see. Directly in front of her there appeared to be a gulf that ran on into the blue of sky. She gazed mystified. Was she standing upon a mountain top? Below the blue the dim gray shapes and streaks took form, until it dawned upon her that the streaked gray must be land — distant range on range.

Whereupon Harriet strode out along the brook to the verge where it leaped down with murmur and splash. There was unconscious defiance in her action. By some strange circumstances she had not yet seen any extensive or formidable section of the West. Only monotonous Kansas prairie lands from the window of a railroad coach!

Suddenly the ground fell away from her feet. A V-shaped gully, all grass-benched and thicket-sloped, opened before her, to widen and descend to a colorful valley that spread out to merge into purple range. Pastures full of cattle, and log-fenced bare spots of land, and cabins nestling among the cottonwoods, and a silver stream winding parallel with a yellow road, arrested her gaze while seeming to lead it onward to an immensity of space out there. But Harriet attended to what lay close at hand and intimate enough to grasp. This valley constituted part of the ranch. Harriet had to concede its astounding fertility, beauty, and tranquillity. Cows were mooing, calves were bawling, horses were neighing, and above all sounded a raucous bray. A rollicking masculine voice, young and strong, floated up from the green. She saw a mounted rider cross an open patch. Beyond the valley spread the range, rolling and purple, ridged and swaled, dotted with cattle in the foreground and gradually merging into boundless expanse. League upon league stretched down to what she realized was the descent to the Great Plains. She was confounded. No landscape had ever approached this. It dwarfed Lake Erie from the highest hill. She began dimly to grasp its meaning.

To south and north stretched infinitude, the same purple sea of rolling verdure, on and on to uneven horizon. Her view of the west was obstructed by the wide stone structure. So she walked back to the gateway, crossed the brook, and went on to the opposite corner.

Gray-sloped, twin-peaked, snow-capped mountains apparently loomed right over her. These must be the Spanish Peaks from which the ranch derived its name. They were her first sight of high mountains and the effect seemed stunning. But they were only a beginning. Beyond rose a wall of black and white which she had imagined was cloud. Suddenly she realized that she was gazing at the magnificent eastern front of the Rocky Mountains. Pure and white, remote and insurmountable, rose the glistening peaks high into the blue sky, and then extended, like the teeth of a saw, beyond her range of vision.

Harriet stared. Greater than amaze and ecstasy something had birth in her. The thing she had waited for all her life seemed to be coming — the awakening of a deeper elementary self. A vague, sweet, intangible feeling of familiarity smote her. But where and when could she ever have seen such a glorious spectacle? Perhaps pictures haunted her. This scene, however, was vivid, real, marvelous, elevating. Lonely and wild and grand — this Colorado!

She put a hand to her breast. And on the moment, startling to her, she remembered Emery and the blighted romance of her early twenties. Strange that she thought of it then, and stranger that she was not loth to do so! How long ago and far away! The millions of wheel-turnings that had fetched her here and seemed to have lengthened the past, as well as the distance back to the old home. In that moment Harriet realized poignantly how the old home and all which pertained to it belonged to the past. Here began a new life. Deep in her heart a sore and hidden knot swelled and seemed to burst with a pang. That pain was release. It had come to her from these far-off glooming mountains, so vast, so apparently eternal. The strength she had prayed for flowed to her mysteriously. Her ailing father, her mother, the dreamy Florence and the coquettish Lenta, and Neale, callow, vain, overindulged but still with good in him — how they all would need her, and how desperately she would need strength! It was there. She sensed it in the purple beckoning range and in this up-flung white-capped world. Her heart went out to meet them. Something before unknown welled up in her.

Tears dimmed Harriet’s eyes and shrouded the scene, and she walked out into the open lest some one passed to notice her. Stunted little trees that looked as if they had endured hardships to survive grew there, and grass, and a fragrant gray bush pleasant to the eye, and tiny pink-blossomed flowers, and everywhere gray stones large and small. Harriet sat down. When her sight cleared she was further surprised to see that the whole panorama had subtly changed and was, if anything, more arresting and beautiful. The magnitude of the West thus unfolded to her gaze, the tremendous sense of solitude, distance, wildness, and loneliness all grew with every moment of watching. And all of a sudden she felt glad that they had come, for their own sakes now, as well as her father’s.

From where she sat the house appeared a rough-walled portholed fort, as indeed it must have been during the Indian days. It could never be made a thing of beauty on the outside, but within there were limitless possibilities. She returned to the courtyard, with courage now to look about the inside and to speculate upon what could be made of it. Before she got far, however, Lonesome Mulhall hailed her:

“Lady, everybody’s been callin’ you. Jud’s roarin’ how he’ll throw the ham an’ eggs out if you don’t come.”

Harriet replied gaily that she would run, and she did, not, however, without becoming aware of muscle-bound and stiff legs. The girls did not greet her, for the reason that they were too gastronomically busy. Her father sat up, attended by her mother, and he asked: “Hallie, where have you been?”

“Good-morning, father,” she replied. “I have been seeing Colorado for the first time. And once was enough!”

“What for? I’d hoped against hope you — —”

“Enough to fall in love with it,” she interrupted. The girls laughed incredulously, to the peril of choking over their food. Her father brightened perceptibly. He looked worn to exhaustion.

“Hallie, Jud left your breakfast on the fire. He’s a funny little fellow. Fussed and fumed because you girls didn’t get up early. Says Nelson was a slave-driver and that it was tough to be blacksmith, carpenter, mason, wagon-builder, and I don’t remember what else, besides being cook. I’m bound to admit he can cook. And clean as any housekeeper!”

While Harriet was verifying her mother’s praise, and agreeing with it, Nelson came up to them with some kind of a tool in hand. He was in his shirt sleeves and he still wore that ugly gun bumping his thigh. What a lithe, virile man he looked, young too, in the morning light, and Hallie had to acknowledge, singularly attractive! She hardly recognized in this genial, smiling man the sinister one of last night.

“Mawnin’, girls. It shore is good to see yu up again. I was afraid maybe yu was daid,” he drawled. “An’ how yu ridin’, boss?” he inquired of Lindsay.

“Not so good, Nelson. Sit down and talk a little,” replied the other. “I slept like a log, though. Never coughed once. But this morning my breast hurts and my ears ring. And my legs feel dead.”

“Nothin’ but the altitude. Yu see it’s plumb high heah. Thet’ll pass, boss.”

Mrs. Lindsay intercepted her husband as he was about to reply: “Nelson, I’ll tell you if he won’t. It’s worry as much as ill health that’s pulled him down.”

“I reckon,” replied the rider, solicitously. “Wal, there’s nothin’ to worry about now, Lindsay. Yu’re heah, an’ in pretty good shape, considerin’.”

“I believe I am, by jingo!” rejoined Lindsay, who manifestly could not resist Nelson’s persuasive speeches. “I ought to have croaked, if all Doc Hurd and our friends prophesied had come true. Honest, Mom, I’d feel free — if I wasn’t scared, or worried. It’s just wonderful to be here.”

“Mr. Laramie, why isn’t there anything for father — or me — to worry about?” asked Harriet, seriously.

“Wal, I’m not so shore about yu, Miss Hallie,” he drawled. “‘Cause yu’re a young an’ handsome tenderfoot of the opposite sex from all the punchers, riders, an’ rustlers who infest this country. They’re shore not goin’ to let grass grow under their hawses’ feet, makin’ up to yu. An’ I just cain’t guess how yu’ll stand under thet.”

The merry laugh rang out at Harriet’s expense, and her absurd blush made it worse.

“Don’t let that worry you, Mr. Laramie,” retorted Harriet. “I can look after myself. I was thinking of father, his health and the business end of ranching.”

“If yu please I cain’t abide bein’ called Mister,” rejoined Nelson. “Wal, heah’s what Lonesome just said to me. An’ I shore can recommend it. ‘Dog-gone, Laramie,’ says Lonesome, ‘if our Lindsay outfit can only see this deal yore way, why, it’ll come out fine.’”

“Very well, Laramie, I am almost convinced myself,” replied Lindsay. “Explain what this way is that Lonesome places such store upon.”

Instantly the rider sobered a little and his eyes took on their usual piercing light. Harriet divined that his spirit leaped at an opportunity, for them as well as for himself and comrades.

“About yu first, sir. Yu air not so sick a man as yu think. I’ve seen many a man twice as bad off as yu come out cured an’ strong. Thet was in Nebraskie, which is shore not so wonderful as Colorado to put men back on their feet. . . . Now listen, boss. Forget trouble, loss, health, but take an interest. Rest a lot, but keep goin’. Sleep outdoors. Breathin’ this sage an’ mountain air all the time, livin’ out in the sun — why, it’ll cure yu. There’s a Mexican down in the valley. He raises all kinds of fruit an’ vegetables. He raises chickens, geese, turkeys, pigs. An’ cows, say, there’s a hundred milk cows. Shore he’s in yore employ an’ yu will live on the fat of the land.”

“Laramie, I feel a well man already. I’ll follow your advice absolutely,” declared Lindsay, earnestly.

“Wal, thet’s fine. Now about the business of ranchin’. Take an interest, shore, but don’t worry. If Miss Hallie has been yore manager an’ bookkeeper back in Ohio, she shore can fill the job heah. Anyone can see thet she’s smarter’n a man. It’d take more than Allen an’ Arlidge to cheat her. An’ they shore cheated yu, Mr. Lindsay, how bad I cain’t reckon yet. But pretty bad. Let me handle the men an’ the stock. Miss Hallie can handle the money. I’ll guarantee we could make this ranch pay if we started now without a dollar, an’ with only half the cattle I see out there on pasture. I know cattle. I know riders an’ rustlers. I can handle both. This ain’t no blowin’ my horn. Once for all I want yu to know thet. All my life I’ve wanted a chance like this. It’s the finest range I ever saw. We can run a hundred thousand haid of cattle heah despite the rustlers. Course I’m allowin’ for the usual run an’ work of thet breed. This mawnin’ I went below, after the wagons left, an’ I looked about. Allen’s outfit of nine riders were there, but Arlidge had gone. I reckon he did some tall thinkin’ last night. Anyway, I figgered he’d do just thet. Shore he could have taken these riders away, most of them, at least, but he thought better of thet, an’ for reasons I’ve got a hunch about. Some of these nine riders air no good, we can gamble on thet. An’ some others, maybe four or five of them, air or can be made faithful cowmen. It won’t take long for me to do thet. Then we’ll be ridin’ pretty.”

“Laramie, I feel tremendously encouraged — after being way down,” replied Lindsay, heartily. “Hallie, don’t you feel the same?”

“I think Nelson has a gift to inspire,” responded Harriet, gravely. It was impossible not to trust this Westerner, to feel his fire and force.

“If my daughter agrees, it is settled,” concluded Lindsay.

Laramie’s lean bronze face took on a dusky red. Probably it was a tremendous issue for him to have his chance hang upon a woman’s judgment. Harriet felt keenly for him, but all that she had of intuition and judgment were exercised in behalf of her father. As she met Laramie’s eyes they lost something of their piercing intensity, that eagle-look of pride, in a softening appeal which she trusted. He might be a blood-spiller, this cool, easy, drawling Southerner, but he was honest and he had her father’s interest at heart. Harriet felt a reluctance to association, even in the most impersonal business way, with a man notorious for his skill with a gun, for his killings. She struggled for the common sense she prided herself upon. She could not foster Eastern ideals upon this crude wild West. It might well be that only such a man as Laramie Nelson could bring success out of disaster. She had a glimmering that, out of gratefulness to him already, would rise something even stranger, perhaps respect. She endeavored to face the West with open mind.

“I agree, father,” she said, with finality. “I will work with Nelson.”

“Thanks, miss,” returned Nelson, somewhat huskily. “I hope I can live up to yore trust.”

“I hope and pray I do not make a mess of ranching,” said Harriet, fervently. “Now — where do we begin?”

“With the house heah,” answered Nelson. “There’s shore a lot of work. My idee is to have Fork Mayhew, who was the rider thet spoke up for himself an’ pards last night — I’ll have them herd the cattle pretty close in, while I put the rest of the outfit to work heah with us. Then I’ll take a ride out occasionally or send Lonesome an’ Tracks. An’ thet reminds me, boss. Do you happen to have a spyglass?”

“I brought both a telescope and field glass. Both presents to me. Didn’t know what to do with the darned things, so I packed them.”

“Good!” The rider rubbed his strong brown hands together. “We can sweep the whole range from the wall, an’ also see a lot of what’s goin’ on below, without anyone seein’ us. Shore I’m suspicious. Don’t overlook thet. . . . The place I’ve picked out for yore office, Miss Hallie, couldn’t be beat. It’s next to the gate on the left side. All stone walls, with heavy log door thet’d have to be chopped or burned. It’s got a large porthole front an’ back, which cut out some will do fine for windows. We’ve cleaned this all up spick an’ span. Nice stone floor. We’ll whitewash the walls, build in shelves, a desk, table, an’ whatever else yu want. In another day or two yu can move all yore papers, valuables, money, an’ such in there an’ lock the door with a feelin’ yu cain’t be robbed.”

“How you anticipate my wants!” exclaimed Harriet, warmly. The man was perplexing her with his practical suggestions.

“Shore, an’ thet ain’t nothin’,” returned Nelson, visibly pleased. “Lonesome has got some wonderful idees, but he won’t tell me. Says he wants the credit himself. . . . Wal, it’s work now. Yu folks camp out right heah till we get the rooms done, one by one. Girls, any bags or trunks yu need just point out to us an’ we’ll lug them over to yore camp.”

“But we’d better not unpack much until we have rooms all fixed up, new and clean,” replied Harriet, dubiously.

“Shore not. An’ yu-all better go the rounds with me to pick out just which of these stalls yu want for rooms. There air four big stone fireplaces with chimneys goin’ up through the walls, an’ thet is shore one grand thing for this ranch-house. It’ll get cold as blue blazes, but with plenty of wood yu’ll never know it’s winter. . . . Now, folks, I’d like to make a suggestion.”

“Nelson, you can’t make too many suggestions to suit us,” declared Lindsay.

“Wal, unfortunately, these heah stone fireplaces are not close together. I didn’t count this one Jud is usin’. Come to look about, this would make a first-rate kitchen. Wal, suppose we fix up the next stall with fireplace as a sittin’-room for yu, Lindsay an’ Mrs. Lindsay, with a door leadin’ into the next stall, which can be made into a bedroom. If yu want we can haul in a wood stove for thet, an’ for all bedrooms. Yore son Neale has already picked his on this side. Those stalls — or rooms, I reckon I should call them, for they shore were rooms before cattlemen run hosses in heah — across on the other wing are bigger than these. Fifteen by about thirty feet. Thet’s a big room. It’ll take a lot of lumber, paint, an’ such to make them comfortable for all yore furniture, rugs, an’ nice things. It’s good I bought chisels an’ mauls. Else we’d had he — hail Columbia cuttin’ the portholes into windows.”

“Come on, Laramie,” cried Lenta, breaking her long rapt silence. “Help me pick a big room for Hallie and me, with a sitting-room next, where we’ll have a fireplace.”

“Shore. An’ where will yore other sister be?” rejoined Nelson, smiling.

“I’d like to be next to them. But I’m not afraid to be alone,” replied Florence.

“Strikes me funny,” laughed Mrs. Lindsay. “Here we are cooped in an old fort and planning offices, bedrooms, sitting-rooms. It’s just rich. I’ll have you all know that I want a parlor, a reception-room, a library.”

“Ha! Ha! Where you can entertain our numerous neighbors,” exclaimed Harriet, gaily. “Wait, mother dear, till you have a long look at our neighborhood.”

“Wal, thet’s about all, I reckon. No, I forgot somethin’,” went on Nelson, turning to Lindsay once more. “Where would yu want me an’ Lonesome an’ Tracks to bunk, sir?”

“Not far away, that’s certain,” declared Lindsay, bluntly.

“Wal, so we figgered, leastways till yu-all get broke in to the West.”

“Laramie, I would like you boys to camp right in that gate, at nighttime, anyhow,” asserted Lenta, vigorously.

“Wal, it’d never do to tell Lonesome thet,” drawled Nelson, with a grin. “He’d be unrollin’ his tarp under yore front door. Come on, girls. Pick out yore room an’ then I’ll go back to work.”

CHAPTER VIII

HARRIET PONDERED OVER her ledger and her diary, and she could have wept at the entries there. But the fact that kept back her tears, that made her rejoice in spite of all, was the truth about her father. After spending a week flat upon his back, during which he appeared to sink toward the verge, he had gotten up and stayed up, to the despair of his family. Then had come what Harriet believed one of his short improved spells that, like the others, would soon end, leaving him worse than ever. But this last time there was no relapse. And now six weeks had gone by! She could doubt no longer. He was on the mend. The high cool dry air of Colorado, with its wonderful quality to restore, had saved him. And that was enough. That was what they had all come West for, worked and endured and prayed for. Harriet wondered why she could not be unutterably happy and humbly grateful. But she was. She might not be able to show it like her mother, who cared for nothing except her husband’s recovery; or Florence, whose dreams had magnified in this benign environment; or Lenta, who adored everything and everybody, particularly the riders, around their new home; or Neale, who rode bucking broncos, or tried to ride them, and otherwise gravitated toward the life of the range. Nevertheless, Harriet knew that in her heart she was as deeply thankful as any of them. Only somebody had to run the ranch, and that devolving upon her, was a nightmare.

It was mid-June. She could look through the open iron-barred window of her cool stone-walled office down upon the green ranch and out upon the purple range. The air was full of dry sweet fragrance; flowers waved in the prairie grass; flocks of blackbirds swirled in clouds over the tilled fields and verdant pastures; the brook that had its source in the cottonwoods of the courtyard sang by her open door and crashed musically over the rocks down into the valley. If she chose she could step out and climb the stone steps to the ramparts of the old fort, and from there see a panorama of ever-changing mountains, ever-growing in magnificence, ever strengthening in her trials.

A month of such labor as Harriet had never seen equaled had transformed the interior of the old fort to a unique, spacious, comfortable and even luxurious home, and the courtyard, with its great cottonwoods, its mossy boulders and welling spring, into a shady, beautiful bower, which inspired rest and happiness.

Laramie Nelson had been the genius of this work. Early and late he had slaved at it, driving his faithful partners to their limit, and somehow extracting service out of Arlidge’s uncertain outfit. The debt of the Lindsays to Laramie Nelson could never be paid, yet it kept growing in what seemed to Harriet leaps and bounds.

Wherefore, then, had she any cause to be unhappy? Was this longing, half-bitter, frustrating burden a real or an imagined unhappiness? No shadow of the old heart-sickness had returned. That was past. But some new ill, secret and persistent, pervaded Harriet’s soul.

For one thing, the affairs of the ranch, so far as cattle were concerned, were disheartening. According to Nelson’s account, which he would not absolutely vouch for, Allen had left seven or eight thousand head of cattle, out of the ten thousand he received payment for, on the Peak Dot range. Of these more than four thousand head had been driven off by rustlers a few days before the Lindsays had arrived, and since then straggling bands, of a few head each, had disappeared. So that not many more than two thousand cattle remained, mostly cows and calves. All pertaining to this ranching business was amazing to Harriet; however, the fact that Nelson claimed he could find out where the stolen cattle had gone, but he could not recover them, surely had a good deal to do with Harriet’s seeing her ledger all red. She concealed her gathering wrath. It had grown upon Harriet that Nelson, though unquestionably honest, concealed the worst from her. She could not tell, however, whether this had to do with the impossibility of raising cattle in that country without fighting rustlers, or of some complexity in the situation Allen had left behind, the smoothing out of which she herself unconsciously combated. She had given Nelson to understand once for all, if he was to stay on at Spanish Peaks Ranch, that he must not resort to bloodshed. Had she tied his hands? Something Lonesome had been overheard to say had disquieted Harriet. And it had begun to dawn upon her that she must be poorly equipped for the task imposed upon her.

Harriet’s sense of duty and responsibility, as much as her pride, fired her to an ambition to succeed at ranching. She had been no small factor in her father’s success as a ship-chandler back on Lake Erie. He had still considerable means, but Harriet looked forward to the time when they could live on their ranching income. At the present day, however, that desirable contingency seemed far remote. According to Nelson the herd needed to be added to, built up, and guarded before it could command an income, but there was no sense in that until the rustlers moved away from Colorado or died of old age.

“They shore never will die with their boots on,” Nelson had concluded, with a hint of sarcasm.

That was the grave situation in regard to the main issue — cattle-raising. For the rest there were a number of perturbing developments for Harriet to cope with.

Nelson had been able to hold the Allen outfit of riders together until one and all of them had caught a glimpse of Lenta on a horse — then, according to the disgruntled Lonesome, “the dinged sons-of-guns couldn’t be druv off.”

Lenta’s reaction to the wild West was not wholly unexpected, although not even Harriet had seen the abandon with which the girl threw herself into everything around the ranch, from work to play. No one could accuse Lenta of shirking her share of the manifold tasks of home-making. Florence had confined herself to the things that concerned her own comfort, pleasure, and appeal. It was Lenta’s play, however, that lay open to criticism, and which vastly concerned Harriet. Her mother could not see it and her father only laughed. Neale took exception to Lenta’s carrying-on, as he termed it, which only added fuel to the flame. When Harriet was not worrying herself frantic for fear Lenta would be killed by a horse — the girl had already been thrown four times — or kidnapped, or worse, Harriet was rendered almost as desperate by her sister’s flirtations.

Neale, too, presented a problem. He had amazed them all by his hitherto undeveloped ability to stick to hard work, as he had outraged them all, especially his mother, by his drinking and fighting. To be sure, Harriet guessed that Neale was not solely to blame for this. All these riders, even Nelson, had an itch to play tricks on tenderfeet, and Lonesome was the worst of the lot. That boy was as incorrigible as he was likable; moreover, it appeared that Neale and Lonesome did not hit it off well together.

Like wildfire the fame of Florence’s beauty and Lenta’s charm had spread over the range. For three Sundays now riders from all over had called at the ranch. Lindsay made them welcome and his wife indulged her passion to entertain. What a picturesque group these range-riders made! They had come to see and to be seen. Lean, youthful, intent faces, some of them clean and fine, many of them hard, a few of them sinister — how Harriet reveled in a study of them! So far as the beauty of the Lindsay family was concerned, however, these riders might better have stayed away, for Florence could not see anyone except Ted Williams. That fact had become patent, accepted by all about the ranch.

“Where do they all come from?” asked Harriet, in amaze. “This lonely wilderness! So many young men!”

“Wal, I reckon they come from all over,” Nelson had replied. “An’ some of them air rustlers an’ hawse-thieves, Miss Hallie.”

“Oh no! . . . Nelson, how can you say such things?” exclaimed Harriet, almost indignant. “They seem not at all different from our own riders.”

“Wal, yu hit it plumb center. They shore ain’t any different atall from ours,” drawled Nelson, his light eyes, with their unfathomable clearness, making Harriet uneasy. “An’ I suppose yu even have a good word for Luke Arlidge?”

Nelson’s dry tone had added to Harriet’s embarrassment. She blushed, and that always annoyed her. No one else at the ranch had the power to bring the blood to her cheeks. It infuriated Harriet, and like a woman she sought to wound in return.

“Oh, Mr. Arlidge? Yes, I can say a good word for him. It seems he has parted with that disagreeableness he showed when we arrived. He’s entertaining. Father likes him. And you know he doesn’t want either Arlidge or Allen to be our enemies. And — we girls think Mr. Arlidge quite handsome — in a sort of bold and flashy way.”

“Shore. Luke has a bold, flashy look all right. He’d look fine danglin’ from a rope.” And after that cool, inscrutable, almost insolent reply Nelson had turned on his heel, leaving Harriet repulsed and angry.

No one had to tell Harriet — as her sisters persisted in doing — that Arlidge visited Spanish Peaks Ranch to see her. He made that plain enough. And it annoyed rather than pleased Harriet. How silly that she should give Nelson a contrary impression! Women were complex and unfair. It troubled her a little that she might hurt Nelson’s feelings — he to whom they owed so much. But she could not help it. On the two occasions of Arlidge’s visits, however, Harriet saw to it that he never got a moment alone with her.

Then there were many other lesser grievances or annoyances that helped to swell the total. One was a real dismay over Lonesome Mulhall’s abject worship of Lenta. Harriet liked the boy. He was far from good, she supposed, but he was so many other contrasting things that it was impossible not to love him, almost. Lenta did not love him, that was certain, though she led him a dance no poor range-rider had ever endured before. Lonesome had constituted himself a champion of the Lindsays, even of Neale, who rubbed him the wrong way. His loyalty was beautiful, and in that way he resembled Nelson. But he was an unhappy wretch and persisted in confiding his woes to Harriet.

Another matter, inconsiderable yet perplexing, was the disappearance of innumerable articles of no particular value to anyone except the girls, that had been noted increasingly during the last few weeks. Some of these had been lost, of course, in transit, and some, no doubt, had been mislaid, but Harriet began to suspect others had been pilfered. She did not know whom to suspect, however, unless one of the several Mexican lads who lived below and were always hanging about the ranch.

A slow step and a tinkle of spurs interrupted Harriet’s pondering. She recognized them with a little start and stir of lethargic nerves. Following a tap on the open door, she called, vaguely ashamed of her deceit: “Who is it? Come in.”

Nelson entered. She had not seen him for three days, the lack of which now occurred blankly to her. Dust trailed off his riding-garb. He brought the dry odors of the range with him.

“Wal, howdy, Miss Hallie. Did yu reckon I was daid?” he said.

“No, hardly that,” she replied, laughing. “Sit down, Nelson. You look tired.”

“Shore am. Rode in from Castle Haid this mawnin’.”

“Castle Head? I remember Arlidge speaking of that place. Far off our range, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s on what Arlidge an’ Allen call their range. Right about heah,” replied Nelson, and reached over to put a finger on the crudely drawn map above Harriet’s desk.

“What were you doing way over there?”

“Wal, Ted lost his favorite hawse an’ was trackin’ him.”

“That fiery little pinto. Did you find him?”

“Shore, we found him all right.”

“Strayed?”

“Wal, we didn’t notice much strayin’,” drawled Nelson, which reply seemed to be one of his evasive ones.

“I suppose Ted is pleased,” went on Harriet. “He lets Florence ride that pony. She has been complaining. It appears there are not many horses she can ride.”

“Sorry to say Ted ain’t pleased atall,” corrected Nelson. “Yu see we found the hawse in a corral belongin’ to a man named Snook. Found it with yore field-glass from the top of Castle Haid.”

“Nelson, what are you driving at?” queried Harriet, suddenly.

“Miss Hallie, the hawse had been stolen,” said Nelson, mildly. “An’ I wouldn’t let Tracks go down after him, ‘cause he’d have shore shot Snook.”

Here it came again — that relentless and insistent feature of the dual nature of the range. She could not escape it, nor the heat suddenly engendered in her veins.

“What will you do about it?” she demanded.

“What would you?”

“I’d go get the horse, without violence.”

“How’d yu go about thet?”

“I’d ask Snook for it, assuming that he had kindly put the lost horse in his corral.”

“Wal, thet might work if it was backed up by a gun. But I reckon we’d better not let Tracks go after his hawse.”

“Will you go?”

“Yes, but not very soon. Yu see I’d rather wait until Snook gets rid of some of the brand-burnt cattle we seen over there.”

“Brand burnt? You explained that to me once, Nelson. What brand has been burnt?”

“Looked to me like the Peak Dot had been burned to a Triangle Cross. . . . Lend me yore pencil, Miss Hallie. . . . Like thet.”

“Ah, I see. Very simple. So that is another way a rustler works?”

“Yes. We know it, but we cain’t prove it, an’ even if we could prove it we couldn’t do nothin’ about it.”

“What a damnable outrage!” ejaculated Harriet. “We’re to be robbed of our cattle without any redress whatever?”

“Law will be some time comin’ to this range. I reckon yu’d better give up cattle-raisin’, except what few yu could run in the valley. Yu could let most of us riders go, an’ farm it for some years. Course thet would be losin’ money. But as losin’ stock is losin’ money just the same, I reckon it’d be better.”

“Let most of you riders go!” echoed Harriet, and by that she meant him.

“Shore. What else can yu do? I reckon it’d be foolish to waste money on riders when there’s no ridin’ for them to do. I’m shore I wouldn’t want to stay myself.”

“Laramie!”

The consternation in that word told Harriet vastly more than it told him. Nelson sat somber and downcast of eye.

“You would not leave me — us?” she floundered.

“Wal no, if yu put any store on my stayin’, Miss Hallie. But I’m plumb discouraged.”

“You! . . . I didn’t think that possible.”

“Wal, I’m only human, an’ it is so. I cain’t make my brag good cause yu won’t let me run the ranch the way I want to.”

“I — I will reconsider,” replied Harriet, hurriedly. “What else have you to report?”

“Nothin’ much. Lonesome picked up a couple of suspicious riders with the glass. Thet was yesterday mawnin’. He rode out an’ caught them meetin’ two of our own riders. But they seen him an’ all got off down the draw before he could recognize them.”

“Our own riders! — That has a bad look, on the face of it. Could it be possible some of our men are in league with these rustlers?”

“Wal, Miss Hallie, it’s so possible thet it’s a fact. I’ve had a hunch for some time. Don’t let it fret you. Common thing on the range.”

“Oh, those fine gay boys! How could anyone suspect them of being thieves?”

“Wal, I reckon stealin’ in the East is different from what it is out heah. Most Westerners have done it, from a beef to a herd. It’s keepin’ on an’ bein’ found out that’s bad.”

“Laramie Nelson! — Did you ever steal cattle?” cried Harriet, shocked.

“Shore. A beef heah an’ there, when I was hungry, but I’m glad to say never no more.”

“Oh, what am I going to do?” burst out Harriet. “Father is getting better. He’s so happy. He trusts you and me. He believes we are doing well. . . . It makes me sick. What will he say — how will it affect him — when he finds out we’re ruined?”

“I’ve a hunch the old man will never bat an eye,” returned Nelson, and Harriet realized no greater compliment could be paid her father.

“But what shall I do?” repeated Harriet, at her wit’s end. “What will become of us?”

“Wal, thet ain’t so hard to see, if yu go on like yu’ve begun,” replied Nelson, not without bitterness. “Neale will go the way of common clay on the range. Florence will coax Ted to make up with his rich folks an’ they’ll leave yu heah. Lenta will go on drivin’ the cow-punchers mad until one of them throws her on a hawse, an’ thet’ll be the end of her. Yore dad an’ maw will settle down to disillusion an’ sorrow. . . . An’ as for yu, Miss Hallie, wal, I reckon, considerin’ the queer nature of women, thet yu’ll marry the boldest an’ handsomest of the range-riders, Luke Arlidge.”

“Don’t insult me,” flashed Harriet, furiously. “All the rest you predicted is horrid enough — without making me out such a — a shallow creature. . . . I wouldn’t marry Arlidge if he was the only man on earth. I — I wouldn’t give your little finger for the whole of him.”

Harriet had not calculated upon the betraying power of temper. She had not meant to say so much; she had not really known she had felt that. But she could not be sorry when she saw his transfigured face.

“I’m glad I riled yu, Miss Hallie,” he said, rising. “Shore I didn’t mean all thet — though I reckon I was scared yu might do the last. Please overlook it. I’ve been plumb down-hearted lately. Lonesome an’ Tracks have been ridin’ me about everythin’. An’ — wal, never mind. Thanks for bracin’ me up. I’ll go back to my job an’ make it the best one in this heah country.”

Nelson went out. Harriet heard his soft jangling step cross the court entrance, toward the room he shared with his two rider comrades. She stared after him, all her feelings held in abeyance. “Good heavens!” she whispered, with his radiant face, his suddenly intense and vibrant change, confronting her. “Is he in love with me?” Then she was shot through and through with a wholly new and tumultuous emotion that assumed instant domination over her consternation, regret, and revulsion.

Harriet was in the throes of this onslaught when Lonesome shuffled up the steps to rap. When she bade him enter he laid his chaps, gloves, and sombrero on the doorstep.

“Howdy, boss,” he said, with a gallant bow. “Did you hear the turrible racket as I come in?”

“No, Lonesome, I didn’t hear a thing.”

“Dog-gone! That’s queer. For she sure was noisy. But honest I don’t know whether it was hystericks or temper or just plain laughin’.”

“She? Who?”

“No one but your sweet little sister. I laid for her, Miss Hallie. You know you forbid her ridin’ with Chess Gaines. I know, ‘cause Lenta told me. An’ I also know he’s not the kind for her to trifle with. I hate to talk against a rival. But Chess is no good. Laramie is goin’ to fire him soon as he finds somethin’ out. But Lenta! Do you think she cares — what Laramie thinks, or you, or me? Not much. That gurl don’t care a d — darn. . . . Chess bragged about goin’ to meet her out an’ I watched her an’ laid for them. I caught them, too. If you never seen a mad gurl you want to see Lenta. Gaines was ugly. But he didn’t have guts enough to throw his gun an’ that left the fight between me an’ her. I had to chase her a mile before I could grab her out of her saddle. Ride? Say, if she ever was a tenderfoot she’s got over it plumb. She screamed, scratched, bit, screeched, kicked, bawled, an’ finally tried bein’ sweet. But no good. A burnt child dreads the fire! I packed her back, roundabout, so none of the punchers would see us, an’ I never let her down till we got here. Then I wouldn’t let her have her hoss. . . . I’ve done my duty, boss, an’ that’s my report.”

“I don’t know what to say,” admitted Harriet, blankly, when Lonesome’s rushing story ended.

“Course I ruined any chance I ever had of winnin’ Lenta, if I ever had one,” went on Lonesome.

“My poor boy! Certainly you never had one,” ejaculated Harriet, sorrowfully. This was almost too much.

“I found that out, Miss Hallie, when I up an’ asked her to marry me, like a man, an’ not one of them huggin’, kissin’, dancin’, an’ so forth cow-punchers. Would you like to know what she said?”

“Lonesome, I believe I would,” risked Harriet.

“She was mad at somethin’ I did before. She called me a bow-legged little Lothario, whoever he is. ‘Marry you?’ she says, proud-like as a princess. ‘My Gawd! but you flatter yourself!’ . . . Then I says, ‘Lenta, I may be bow-legged from honest ridin’, an’ that name you called me, an’ a lot more, but I do love you true, an’ only you can save me from death on the lone prairee.’ An’ then she shrieked — —”

“Lonesome, my deluded boy, that is about all I can bear this time,” interrupted Harriet, yearning to burst into both tears and mirth.

“It sure is hard, lady, but don’t give up,” rejoined Lonesome, soothingly. “I’ll stick to you an’ so will Tracks — an’ Laramie, why, that cool, lazy, fire-eatin’ gun-slinger, who’s gone out to meet the worst of men an’ come back — why, he trembles at your step an’ he sees your face in the clouds an’ hears your voice in the wind. Don’t ever miss that, lady.”

He left her and went whistling across the court.

“Bless him!” murmured Harriet. Could that be true he dared to say of Laramie? Verily this Lonesome was Greatheart, Valiant, and Ananias all in one.

Harriet reached for her little gold-mounted pencil which she had laid on the face of the ledger just before Lonesome had come in. It was gone. She looked everywhere, when she knew she had neither dropped nor mislaid the favorite little gift, of which she had always been duly careful. It had neither flown away nor grown legs. It had been moved. Suddenly she uttered an exclamation of dismay, self-reproach, and certainty, and a light dawned upon her. “Lonesome! — That nice lovable boy! — Oh!”

Shocks were multiplying for Harriet, so she concluded that she might as well annex another. Wherefore she went out to search for Lenta, and came upon her lolling in her home-made hammock. The youngest of the Lindsays looked a tanned, freckled tomboy, with a vividly feminine color and outline. Harriet made the cool mental reservation that Laramie was not far from being right when he had claimed range-riders would not be any good until she was settled. Evidently this much-to-be-desired consummation was still far off.

“Hello, Hal. I had a ripping ride,” said Lenta, lazily, with her wide-open baby eyes innocently penetrating.

“So I heard. Lonesome told me,” replied Harriet.

“Oh — that’s where he went, then. What did he say, Hallie?”

“He talked a blue streak. I can’t recall the half of it. But — he rather intimated you preferred the society of other cow-punchers when it would be far better for you to confine yourself to him.”

“Squealer! Darn him, anyhow. I’ll bet he made it worse without giving himself away.” Whereupon Lenta frankly launched into a story that held fairly close to Lonesome’s up to the time that he snatched her off her horse.

“It was the chance he wanted, Hal, don’t you overlook that,” declared Lenta, resentfully. “He got me in his arms over the front of his saddle. I fought like the dickens, but he’s a giant. Finally he slid his left arm round my neck and under my left arm, which he held. As I was pressed tight against him I couldn’t do anything but kick. That scared his horse, and me too, so I quit. Then he began to kiss me, square on the mouth. I screamed, I raved, I swore. I called him every name I could think of — that is, when he didn’t have my lips shut with his. After a while I wilted. He took darn good care to ride me away around out of sight in the draws. He said some day he’d pack me off that way and make love to me scandalously. Finally I bluffed him by pretending hysterics. At that he didn’t stop kissing me right off — too good a chance, whether I went mad or not! but after a while he quit and let me off. That was just below the house.”

“What became of your horse?” asked Harriet.

“He tagged after us. He’s out there now with Lonesome’s. I was just working up spunk enough to ride back to the stables, so the darned thing wouldn’t look so bad.”

“It does look bad,” replied Harriet, seriously.

“I know it, dearest, just as well as you. But what’s a poor girl going to do? Let these rough-necked conceited jackass Westerners get the best of me, just because I’m a tenderfoot? Not by a darn sight!”

“It looks to me that Lonesome, at least, did get the best of you.”

“He did not! I certainly didn’t let him kiss me. . . . But, Hallie, I’d hate to give myself away to Lonesome — I do like him. Heaps. There’s something so droll about him. You never can tell whether he’s lying or not. He swears he loves me horribly. Asks me to marry him every day. That’s something in his favor, anyway. I notice not one of the others have done that. But Lonesome Mulhall thinks he’s a lady-killer. And I’ll fool him or die in the attempt.”

“Lent, I believe he’s madly in love with you. That’s what worries me.”

“Well, that wouldn’t worry me, if it were true, I’d be tickled to death. I’d drive him crazy.”

“But, my dear, it seems to me that these young Westerners are not to be trifled with. Laramie Nelson hinted as much. And I feel it. I don’t want to scold you, Lenta, or find fault, but I do think you are making too free with them — you are going too far. What would mother say?”

“She’d say enough. Worse, she’d tell dad, so for Heaven’s sake don’t give me away. I’m having the time of my life. I know it’s not going to last, and that’s what drives me. I’m so jealous of Flo! Not that I’m in love with Ted or want him, goodness knows. But he’s such a handsome, fine, devoted boy. It makes me envious to see them together. Mark my words, Hallie, there’s a sure-fire case.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“We ought to be darned glad. Laramie is. He told me so.”

“What does Laramie think of Lonesome’s case on you?”

“Not much. He says Lonesome is no good and that if I don’t let him alone, I’ll be sorry.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say Lonesome is no good. There are some lovable and splendid traits in him. He respects women, I think. He’s really gallant.”

“You’re right, Hallie. I feel safe with Lonesome, despite his love-making and threats. I wouldn’t be scared if he did pack me off on a horse.”

“Mercy! Don’t let him. Think of your mother and me. . . . All this distresses me, Lent. You see I just can’t imagine Lonesome as a husband for you.”

“Lord, who can?” retorted Lenta, savagely. “I see red when I think of a husband among these swearing, drinking, fighting riders. There never will be another like Ted Williams. The ranchers I’ve seen are old, dusty, tobacco-chewing codgers. It’s good I don’t want to be married, but if I did — if I ever do — what then?”

“You might send for Lane Griffith or Eddie Howe,” suggested Harriet, demurely.

“My old schoolmate beaus!” And Lenta let out a peal of laughter. “No, I wouldn’t wish this awful West on Lane or Eddie, even if I hadn’t changed.”

“Awful West? . . . I guess you are right. It does have some awful aspects.”

“But Hallie, just think! I wouldn’t go back for worlds. Would you?”

That was a query Harriet did not desire to confront. Surely something insidious and profound was imperceptibly coming between her and the old humdrum Upper Sandusky. She could only detect it by looking back.

“Lenta, there’s no chance of our ever going back now,” went on Harriet, soberly. “We have to earn a living here. And now that father is out of danger we must go to work earnestly, with hope and enthusiasm.”

“I’d like to know what the deuce we’ve been doing. Look at my hands, Hal Lindsay. Look at them! — Baby hands you used to pat and kiss. They look like a washerwoman’s. But I’m darned if I’m ashamed of them.”

“No indeed. Did you notice the hands of those Lilley girls, who called on us last Sunday? Their father is a big rancher halfway between here and La Junta. They must do real work. . . . But to come back to our own troubles. We started out with the idea of making this ranch pay, at least a reasonable income on investment. But we haven’t made any start. We are poorer by some thousand cattle than when we arrived.”

“Hal, I know more about the ranch than you and dad put together,” spoke up Lenta, spiritedly. “I’m glad you cared enough to broach the subject to me. I’ve learned a lot this last month. You seldom go down to the corrals and then only with Nelson. That shuts up the riders like mouse-traps. But I’ve hung around with Neale and alone, sitting on the high corral fences, watching and listening. And I’ve ridden ten thousand miles, it seems, with Lonesome, Chess Gaines, Slim Red, and others. I may be a madcap, as dad calls me, but I’m no fool. And I’ve seen a lot and heard a good deal more and made deductions of my own.”

“Suppose you give me the benefit of all this, Lenta Lindsay,” suggested Harriet, not without humor.

“Well, you can gamble on this. The Peak Dot outfit is a house divided against itself. Laramie, Lonesome and Ted line up here with us. That has caused no end of jealousy. But Laramie is liked by most of the riders and feared by all. Such tales they tell of Laramie’s fights! Why, Hallie, I hate to shock you, but Laramie Nelson has shot no end of men. Killed them! . . . To be sure maybe most of it is talk. Anyway Laramie’s respected. I’d like to hint to him that it’s struck me Luke Arlidge still runs this Peak Dot outfit. Only I wouldn’t dare. . . . Chess Gaines is riding for us, but he hates Laramie and he’s thick with Arlidge. Rides over there at night! Oh, I put two and two together. One reason I’ve flirted with Chess was to find out. But he’s deep and he’s cute. That made me want all the more to lead him along. Slim Red was a pard of Gaines’, but he has switched. Laramie did that. And Gaines is sore. This Slim Red — the one that was such a devil our first night here — he’s not a bad fellow at all. He’s the most bashful person I ever saw. He’ll run, hide, ride over a precipice to escape me. But I’ll have him coming around soon. Then Fork Mayhew, Clay Lee, and Dakota have also come over to Laramie. But the others, in my opinion, are taking wages from you, Hallie, and all the time in cahoots with Arlidge. This Luke Arlidge is a villain, Hallie. Lonesome told me, but I felt it that first Sunday he called here. The way he watched you! That man has terrible eyes, like those of some cruel bird of prey. Laramie’s eyes you just can’t look into, but not for the same reason. You feel when Laramie looks at you that he’s uncovering your soul. Look out for Mr. Arlidge, my handsome sister! . . . I like Wind River Charlie. He’s a big wonderful looking fellow, simple as a, b, c, but governed by Gaines. Same with Juan Mendez, the Mexican, and Nig Jackson, the Negro. That leaves Archie Hill, and I don’t know what to say about him. He’s got me buffaloed, as Lonesome says. You can’t keep your eyes off him. How that fellow can ride! Lonesome can’t hold a candle to him.”

“Lenta, I’m downright surprised,” declared Harriet, humbly. “You’ve made use of your eyes other than making eyes, anyway. If what you claim is true, Nelson is not so badly off for riders who’ll stand by him. Counting Lonesome and Ted, he’d have six, and of course Neale, who swears by Laramie.”

“Yes, Laramie has enough men, according to Lonesome, to beat the rustlers and run the ranch, if only you’d let him.”

“I! What do you mean?” exclaimed Harriet, weakly. It was common gossip then — her hampering Laramie in his hard task.

“Hallie, to me and to all of us you are the best ever,” declared Lenta, warmly. “But to these Westerners you are a joke. You can’t ride worth a cent. You’re afraid of a horse or a steer or even a cow. You wouldn’t watch the boys rope and hog-tie that mean old outlaw stallion. You wouldn’t watch the branding of calves. Smell made you sick, you said. Sight of blood makes you faint. The idea of a fist fight to you is horrible. You should have seen your face that night Lonesome hit Slim Red. You have the funniest frozen look when Laramie happens to bump into you with his gun. You won’t let him go after the rustlers, because you fear he might shoot or hang some of these nice, sweet, gentle, Christian robbers who are ruining us.”

“Oh! . . . I am a tenderfoot, a poor soft-hearted female tenderfoot!” exclaimed Harriet, flayed by Lenta’s candor.

“Hal, old girl! Why don’t you get your dander up?” went on Lenta, with affectionate persuasion. “Don’t you remember when the Curtis and Gibbons kids used to maltreat me — how you’d chase them and smack the stuffings out of them? . . . Why don’t you get mad now? We’re out West now and we’re stuck here for good. Dad will be raring to fight soon. I see signs of that. You’re the only Lindsay who’ll turn the other cheek when you get one slapped. That won’t do out here.”

“I — I see it won’t,” replied Harriet, faintly.

“What’d we do if Laramie happened to leave us?” queried Lenta.

“Oh!” cried Harriet, aghast at the mere idea.

“Or if he got shot!”

Harriet stared mutely at her executioner.

“There! That digs you,” flashed Lenta, passing from eloquent appeal to devilish glee. “Darned if I don’t believe you’re in love with Laramie!”

“Lenta, you can — go — too far.”

“Never mind, honey,” laughed Lenta. “But it’d shore be great for this heah outfit if you were.”

CHAPTER IX

IT WAS A night in late June, and Laramie, with his now inseparable comrades, sought an interview with their employer.

All the members of the Lindsay family were assembled in Mrs. Lindsay’s sitting-room, the most spacious and pleasant in the house.

“Laramie, I’m beset by wife, son, daughters to take them to La Junta for the Fourth of July races, cow-puncher contests, dance, and what not,” declared Lindsay.

“John, we have not been out of this house since we moved in,” complained Mrs. Lindsay. “I want to see some people, if there are any in this blooming West.”

“Tell you, dad, it’d be a sort of a family jubilee to celebrate your recovery,” said Neale, sagely.

That statement was accepted by his sisters in marked contrast to the way most of his sallies were regarded.

“I’d love to go, papa,” pleaded Florence, who never used that endearing filial term except in extreme situations.

“And I tell you, dad, that I am going,” added Lenta, decisively. Then as an afterthought: “If I have to elope!”

“Father, we are not getting acquainted very fast with our neighbors,” said Harriet. “And this will be an opportunity. All the countryside will be there, so I hear.”

“Laramie, what do you think about it?” queried Lindsay, as he faced about to the three riders, standing, sombreros in hand, just inside the open door.

“July Fourth cain’t be no wuss than any other day an’ it might be better,” drawled Laramie, his eye twinkling at the girls. “First-rate day for peanuts, pink lemonade, elopin’, an’ such. We shore don’t risk nothin’ leavin’ the ranch to the Mexicans. There ain’t much stock left to steal. Rustlers waitin’ for us to buy a few thousand more haid. All the cattlemen, riders, rustlers, gamblers, outlaws will be there. I reckon we-all better go.”

“Whoopee!” yelled Neale, and tried to stand on his head.

“Laramie, you dear!” screamed Lenta, and she hugged him.

“Miss Lenta, I got him to say that,” declared Lonesome, boldly.

“Dad, can Ted and I have one of the buckboards?” begged Florence.

“Yes, to everything,” replied Lindsay, affected with the general rejoicing. “Laramie, you can drive Hallie and Lent, and Lonesome can drive me and Mom.”

“Aw!” groaned Lonesome, sagging. “Boss, I’m the poorest driver in the outfit. Remember when I broke a wheel on the wagon comin’ out. The other boys will all go in — or throw up their jobs. An’ any one of them can beat me drivin’.”

“Very well, Lonesome. I will relieve you of all responsibility. . . . It’s settled. We’re going. So, mom, plan what you’ll all need to ride in and dress in after we get there.”

“It’s a day an’ a half drive,” said Laramie. “So yu better figger to leave early on the mawnin’ of July second, an’ drive till dark, stoppin’ at some ranch.”

“Now there, I hope you’re satisfied,” declared Lindsay, to his beaming womenfolk. “I have a presentiment this trip will bring dire results. But go we will. . . . Now, Laramie, I’m ready for any serious confabs. Let’s get out where we can smoke.”

Laramie conducted him, with the two boys following, to their quarters at the end of the court, but did not go inside.

“Wal, boss, it’s serious, but it’ll be short,” announced Laramie. “I’m askin’ yu, whether yu consent or not to give me a free hand, to keep this confab under yore hat.”

“Certainly, Laramie. I shall respect all you say as confidence,” replied Lindsay.

“Wal, we’ve been heah nigh two months, an’ all the range knows we’re an easy outfit. Arlidge, who knows me, an’ Price, who knows Lonesome, were leary at first. But for thet we’d been cleaned oot long ago. As it stands we’ve got aboot five hundred haid of cows an’ calves left.”

To Laramie’s satisfaction this statement fetched some good round profanity.

“An’, wuss, from a rider’s standpoint, about all our hawses air gone. I’ve got Wingfoot yet, an’ reckon I can keep him, ‘cause nobody is damn fool enough to steal him. But Tracks’ two hawses air gone an’ Lonesome’s bay. An’ all told there ain’t a dozen hawses grazin’ about, outside of the bunch in the pastures. They air yore hawses, of course, but thet outfit Arlidge left heah looks on them as theirs. We had more’n two hundred haid of range hawses.”

“Allen claimed there were five hundred, and that he threw these in with the bargain,” declared Lindsay.

“Wal, Allen said a lot we’re findin’ out ain’t so. . . . Now, Lindsay, so far as me an’ my pards heah air concerned, rustlin’ is one thing an’ hawse-stealin’ is another. We cain’t abide a hawse-thief.”

“I don’t blame you. I’m seeing red myself.”

“Thet’s good. Now what I want is a free hand to go about this business as I should have done in the first place. But right off I seen Miss Hallie was daid set against any violence. An’ to be honest, up to now I just couldn’t hurt her feelin’s.”

Lindsay swallowed hard, and in the dusk his face could be seen to shade gray.

“We needn’t waste words, Laramie. I think the more of you for your forbearance. And so would she. But we don’t know how to run a ranch. I’ll agree to any course you want to take and back you up. I feel a new man now. Perhaps I’ve shirked my duty too long, but it’s been so good just to loaf around getting well.”

“Wal, boss, thets more’n enough from yu. It’s straight talk, plumb from the shoulder. An’ I’m shore obliged for yore trust in me.”

“Then we start over right here?”

“Thet’s it. Right heah.”

“What’s the exact case, Laramie?”

“Wal, we had it figgered for some time. But out heah in the West yu got to ketch a man red-handed. It ain’t enough to suspect. Yu’ve got to know, an’ then yu have to act quick. . . . Yu remember what Buff Jones told yu about the range, how rustlin’ had come in strong, an’ these bands of slick men rode from one range to another. Some of them ranch it, some of them buy cattle an’ sell, an’ the rest ride for somebody. But they air all in cahoots, thet is, a particular outfit. Arlidge is the crookedest, slickest kind of a cattleman. I ran into him over on the K Bar in Nebraskie. I should have shot him long ago. Allen is no doubt one of these shady cattlemen who never stay long in one place. He got this ranch from the Seward Company, an’ he never did a lick of improvin’. He’s now ranchin’ over heah forty miles on Sandstone Creek. We rode over to see what his place looked like. Fine range, but no ranch. A log cabin an’ some log corrals. Arlidge is purportin’ to be ranchin’ it at Castle Haid, with a man named Snook as foreman. All a lot of slick lyin’ work. Between them all they’ve sold half of yore cattle, after sellin’ it to yu, an’ presently they’ll do away with the rest. Then, if they see yu’re not goin’ to stock up soon they’ll hit the dust for other diggin’s some thirty thousand dollars, more or less ahaid.”

“Good God! — Laramie, how is it done?”

“Easy. There’s always some honest ranchers on every range, an’ they make the way easy for the crooked ones. ‘Cause nobody can tell a crooked cattleman right off. Some of them work for years withoot bein’ trailed. An’ some never get found out. But I happened to know Arlidge. Thet put the shady brand on Allen, an’ this heah outfit of riders.”

“But you’re not telling me how all this robbery is done,” fumed Lindsay, impatiently.

“Wal, boss, give me time,” drawled Laramie. “In the first place before we got heah Arlidge drove half yore herd way across the Sandstone, an’ sold it from there. Some of the riders yu’re payin’ now were in thet drive. An’ since then, at picked times, these crooked riders operated to run off more stock when the honest riders were asleep or somewhere else on the range. Yore brand was blotted into another brand on considerable stock. An’ a lot of it wasn’t branded atall. We couldn’t brand calves when we were buildin’ this house over. But we did do some little ridin’ about. Tracks heah tracked his first stolen hawse to thet Castle Haid corral. An’ I rode over with him another time. An’ I seen things. Then Lonesome has had his eye peeled on this Chess Gaines, an’ thet greaser Juan an’ the nigger rider Johnson. All this counted up, but didn’t amount to such proofs as yu got to have in this country. An’ these, I’m tickled to say, Lindsay, we got from no one else than yore lass, Miss Lenta.”

“NO!” cried the rancher, apparently thrilled.

“It’s true, Mr. Lindsay,” spoke up Ted, quietly. “We’ve all been making fun of Lenta or worrying ourselves about her escapades. But all the same these escapades of hers have made clear what all the three of us could not see.”

“And what’s that?” demanded Lindsay, eagerly.

Both Tracks and Lonesome tried to reply in unison, but Laramie checked them.

“Let me talk, Lonesome, so it cain’t be held against yu. . . . Boss, I hate to double-cross yore daughter. It shore seems mean to me. But I’ve thought it all out. She’s takin’ too many long chances with these riders. She’s only a kid, an’ Colorado has gone to her haid. Lenta is flirtin’ too outrageous, if no wuss, an’ yu’ve got to stop her if yu have to lock her up.”

“My Gawd, pard, if you’re lyin’ I’ll kill you for that,” burst out Lonesome, huskily.

“Shet up!” ordered Laramie, tersely. “Yore feelin’s run away with yore haid, too.”

“Nelson! You astonish me,” declared Lindsay, stiffly. “I was aware Lenta had taken rather — er — wildly to horses and riders, but I had no idea. . . . Hallie has been worried, and so has Mrs. Lindsay. . . . Lenta has been well brought up. Are you sure you’re not . . .”

“Lindsay, I’m always shore before I shoot,” interrupted Laramie. “Lenta has got three riders, Gaines, Slim Red, Wind River Charlie, all of them, even my pard Lonesome heah, standin’ on their haids. Soon they’ll be hatin’ each other’s guts, an’ out heah thet means gun-play. I’m not so damn shore it’s not too late.”

“That’s strong talk, Nelson,” replied Lindsay, certainly affronted. “You understand, of course, if you do my daughter an injustice — —”

“Aw, hell!” ejaculated Laramie, shortly, losing his patience. He did not like this job. “I saw her spoonin’ with Chess Gaines, an’ he’s shore the least attractive of the lot. It just knocked me plumb west! An’ wuss, from my side the fence, I heahed some of these boys talkin’ damn free an’ plain about Lenta.”

“I’ll fire the whole caboodle,” replied Lindsay, angrily.

“Shore yu can, an’ me too,” went on Laramie, coolly. “But thet won’t help yu any. It’ll be jumpin’ out of the fryin’-pan into the fire. Maybe the next outfit yu hired wouldn’t have one single honest man in it. How’d yu know? An’ where’d yu be?”

“I apologize, Nelson,” returned Lindsay, hurriedly. “It’s upset me.”

“Wal, thet’s natural. Yu’ve been concerned about gettin’ wal. But it’s time now yu began showin’ yore hand. An’ to come back to this outfit of ours, just try to savvy thet yore daughter is more to blame than the riders. What could yu expect? A sweet, pretty, fresh wild-rose of a girl throwin’ herself into their arms! The boys on these ranges air as women hungry as the men. Yu’ll see thet in La Junta next week.”

“All right, Nelson, I swallow it, and come up smiling,” rejoined the rancher, and he did smile, though at the cost of effort.

“Now yu’re talkin’,” flashed Laramie, as swift to change. Lindsay was aggravating, but he had the making of a solid Westerner. “Thet’s all about Lenta, except what she told me. It ‘pears Gaines was waitin’ for her to ride out to their meetin’-place, an’ Lenta forgot about it, or said so. I’ve a hunch she didn’t forget atall. Wal, she rode out with Slim Red. Thet’s the way these riders have been attendin’ to my orders. Shore riles me. Wal, they run plumb into Gaines, an’ when he an’ Red locked horns over the girl up comes two strange riders. An’ heah’s where Lenta showed how smart she is. Gaines didn’t seem to care a damn about them meetin’ him with the girl. It was Slim Red thet stuck in his craw. The two strange riders made no bones of the fact thet Gaines had agreed to meet them, an’ pay up. Thet led to a hot wrangle. Lenta got the hunch thet these strangers figgered Slim Red was still one of their outfit. She heahed Gaines cuss them an’ swear they’d have to kill him. Which they tried to do, Lindsay! But Slim smelled a rat an’ was on the go when they pulled guns. Slim told me he shore heahed bullets all about his haid. . . . Wal, Gaines sent the riders off, an’ fetched Lenta home. She was cute enough to act stupid an’ pretend not to savvy. Gaines hesitated in a moody an’ thoughtful way, she said. It scared her, an’ so she played up to the idee thet she hadn’t heahed much of the argument an’ reckoned Gaines took this opportunity to vent his jealousy of Red. She was cute enough to play it off sentimental, an’ so fooled him. When she got home she come straight to me.”

“So help me Jehoshaphat!” ejaculated Lindsay. “My youngest child mixed up in shooting scrapes!”

“Wal, it’s a bad mess. But we can thank our lucky stars yore youngest child has a haid on her shoulders. Now, what to do with Gaines. Any orders, boss?”

“I’m all at sea. How — what to do?”

“Wal, we can let Gaines go. An’ Mendez an’ Johnson will stick to him. Thet’d help, I reckon. If we wait till we ketch Gaines one of two things will happen. Either we’ll shoot him or hang him. Thet depends on how an’ where he’s ketched. Unless we surprise him, hold him up, he’ll shore show fight. Gaines is not so young, either, in range life or years. He’s a bad hombre. An’ if we’re to believe his brag an’ thet of his pards he’s been in a lot of shootin’ frays.”

“Nelson, what’d you rather do about this?” queried Lindsay, nervously.

“Wal, I’d like to go down, call Gaines out, an’ have it over with,” replied Laramie, tersely.

“No — no! — That would scare my wife and distress Hallie. . . . Let’s discharge him. I suppose that other thing — that strange ruthless range law — will come, sooner or later. Sufficient to the day, Nelson. Anyway I’ll be better prepared.”

“All right, boss. But from thet on I’ll have to act on my own judgment, ‘cept in cases where I’ve time to come to yu. One thing more. I’ve an idee of havin’ Lonesome do some slick work. An’ it’s got to look like he’s drinkin’ hard. But he’ll only be pretendin’. I want yu to know so yu can clear him with Mrs. Lindsay an’ the girls, in case they heahed of it.”

“Very well, Nelson,” replied Lindsay, as he arose wearily. “Anything you say. I’ll do my damndest to bear up under all this.”

Whereupon he walked slowly away as if burdened, and it was noticeable that he went out of the gateway, instead of back into the court. Ted Williams stood up.

“Fine and dandy, Laramie. You are a wonder,” he cried. “The old boy is sagging, but he’s game. I feel sorry for the kid. Only she’s got to be hauled up. I have my doubts, pard. Never saw a girl like Lenta.”

“Tracks, if you say one word — Aw hell!” burst out Lonesome, miserably. “I’ll be losin’ my pards soon — all for a — a — sassy little tenderfoot of a hussy. Only the hell of it is I can’t believe it.”

“What’s eating you?” demanded Tracks, giving the prostrate Lonesome a kick. “If she is a little hussy — which I don’t believe — she has given you the inside track. Run the race out, you love-sick rider, if you want the girl. She’s going to need her friends.”

Williams stalked away across the courtyard. His quick steps were drowned in the soft flow of running water. The night was still, with a smell of burning brush wafting up from the valley.

“Pard, did you hear what Tracks said?” asked Lonesome, presently.

“Shore I heahed. An’ I put a lot of store in him. He’s got more brains than you an’ me put together. I reckon he about sized up the deal for yu.”

“Pard, I don’t see how. Thet you told Lindsay was the last straw. I wouldn’t see myself. An’ it’ll kill me, Laramie, sure as the Lord made little apples.”

Laramie was silent for several minutes. All these things had slowly worked toward a climax. He sensed events. That old cold mood was hovering near again. Just what should he say to this lovable but rudderless boy, who long ago would have gone on the rocks but for him?

“Pard, my — heart is — broke,” gasped Lonesome, almost with a sob.

“Wal, if it is, maybe thet’ll make a man of yu.”

“I just don’t care about nothin’. You won’t need to have me pretend to drink. I’m gonna swim in red likker an’ get drunk an’ stay drunk.”

“Yu air like hell! Lonesome, some day I’m goin’ to beat the livin’ daylights out of yu. What’ve I loved yu for all these years?”

“I never could savvy that, pard, ‘cause I’m no good on earth,” replied Lonesome, in a terrible despondency.

“Shore yu air,” retorted Laramie, grasping that this was the crucial moment. “Yu heahed what Tracks said about Lenta shore needin’ her friends?”

“Course I heerd him.”

“Wal, she’s only got three, me an’ him an’ yu. We’re goin’ to save her, Lonesome.”

“Bah! You cain’t save a rotten egg. If she let’s Gaines an’ Slim — Aw — faugh! Makes me sick.”

“She let yu, didn’t she?”

“What? Hug an’ kiss her? . . . No, I’ll be damned if she did. . . . Anyway, not till I wore her out. But that was different, pard.”

“How was it? Yu never were no good. Yu were a rotten egg yoreself. Yu made a grab for every girl yu ever seen. Yu’re no better’n Lenta, if yu’re half as good.”

“Hell, man!” exclaimed Lonesome, writhing and breathing hard. “Whatever I’d done this time I was different an’ that made it different. I asked her to marry me before I ever laid a hand on her.”

“Wal, air yu goin’ back on thet now?” drawled Laramie, settling to the old task of compelling Lonesome.

“Yes, I am.”

“No, yu’re not. Lonesome, old pard, I’ve a hunch this heah is the time I’ve hoped an’ prayed for.”

“What? To see me down in the dirt?”

“Yes, an’ confessin’ it. . . . Boy, did Lenta say no when yu asked her to marry yu?”

“She didn’t need to. But she didn’t. That always got me, somehow. Lord! how sweet she can be! . . . An’ to think — —”

“So yu love her terrible?”

“Pard, I do — honest. I love her so I’m — Oh! I can’t tell you.”

“Then this triflin’ of hers won’t make no change in yu.”

“Triflin’. What would you call serious, Laramie?”

“She’s a child. She’s out of her haid. Shore she’ll go to the bad pronto if we don’t save her.”

“Aw, who’d ever took Laramie Nelson for an old fool?”

“Lonesome, yu’re disappointin’ me plumb deep. Yu’re hurt an’ yu’re thinkin’ only of yoreself. Come out of thet. It’s now or never. Whether yu make a real man of yoreself!”

“Rave on, pard; you’re lickin’ me. You always do lick me. What you want? How’n’hell can I ever make a real man of myself?”

“Just tell me yu’ll love Lenta the same — no! more, if she does go to the bad?”

Lonesome’s tense frame jerked with the shock of that. He sat up. His face was gray in the gathering darkness.

“Pard, why do you torture me this way?” he asked, hoarsely.

“Pard, yu say? Wal, show me yu’re worthy of such a pard as I’ve been.”

“All right, Laramie. You win. . . . The wuss Lenta gets the more I’ll love her. . . . It’s tearin’ me inside, but you’ve dug it out.”

“Wal, now I’ll tell yu somethin’,” whispered Laramie. “Yu’re wuth confidin’ in. . . . I’m in a far more turrible fix than yu. Lenta’s only a child an’ I’ve a hunch she likes yu best. I feel it, Lonesome. . . . But my case is hopeless. If I ever had a lovesickness it was far back when I was sixteen. I don’t remember clear. There were two or three girls. But they’re ghosts. An’ this woman I love is the sun. It’s Lenta’s sister, Hallie. I reckon yu never guessed. But I’ve just lived an’ breathed thet girl since I found it out. Thet’s one reason why I’ve been such a failure runnin’ this ranch. Not thet I had any hope of her ever carin’ for me. God — no! But I couldn’t bear to sicken her with a sight of me. I just went on from day to day, with only one feelin’ — to see her — to be near her. It’s shore hell, Lonesome. But I wouldn’t have missed thet for anythin’ in the world. I never lived before. . . . I’ll go out now an’ clean up this ranch an’ call myself lucky.”

“For Gawd’s sake!” gasped Lonesome, overcome. “Why didn’t you ever tell me before, pard? . . . So that’s what’s been wrong? . . . This Lindsay outfit of girls hasn’t done anythin’ to us atall? First Ted, then me, an’ now you! — Jumpin’ grasshoppers! . . . It’s set me wonderin’.”

“Wal, keep yore wonderin’ to yoreself, Lonesome. I reckon I’ll go to bed,” replied Laramie, and he rose to go in, leaving his friend out there whispering to himself.

Lonesome came in, however, before Laramie fell asleep.

“Pard Laramie, I’ve a powerful good idee,” he announced.

“Cain’t yu hold it till mawnin’?”

“Nix. I’m makin’ a deal with you,” rejoined Lonesome, eagerly. “First off, pard, this pretendin’ to be on a drunk trick of yours didn’t tickle me to death. Lenta hates fellars who smell of the bottle an’ she made me swear I’d quit. An’ I have. But your plan is all right. We gotta find things out. An’ I’ll do it proper on one condition.”

“Ahuh,” growled Laramie.

“You gotta make Lenta believe you told me what you seen her do, an’ that I went to the bad pronto. All for her sake! Broke my heart — ruined my life — goin’ plumb to hell! . . . Will you promise to do it, pard?”

“Shore. I reckon thet’s not such a pore idee — to come from yore haid, anyhow. If the girl’s got a conscience it may fetch her up short.”

“Dog-gone, I must be dotty,” concluded Lonesome, ruefully.

* * * * *

Laramie awakened next morning with a zest he had not felt for long. Resolutely he set his thoughts on the details he had planned, and smothered the dreaming melancholy under which he had labored for weeks.

“He’s not such a rotten actor,” remarked Tracks, as Lonesome slouched ahead of him and Laramie, on their way down to the ranch. Lonesome had stuck a black bottle in his hip pocket, some of the contents of which he had spilled on his shirt, and he had otherwise assisted nature in the simulation of a cow-puncher under the influence of rum.

“Shore is a hard-lookin’ customer,” agreed Laramie. “I’m ‘most feared he’ll make the best of this job.”

“Watch him! Laramie, when you told him to pick a fight with everybody, I saw an unholy glitter in his eye.”

“Wal, we’re shore in for a spell of natural range happenin’s. An’ I’m glad, ‘cause I want to be my old self once more.”

Laramie hardly believed that could ever be. He lagged behind his friends a little. The yellow road wound down to the green level valley floor, that owed its fertility and color to the never-failing brook. Part of his task had been to add to the natural beauty of the place. Riders with little riding to do had been set to cleaning up, planting, building fences, and other such tasks that they hated. Barns, sheds, corrals, cabins, all, in fact, of the valley adjuncts to the ranch, had been built and used by the cattle company preceding Allen. They were picturesquely located in a grove of cottonwoods, through the middle of which ran the brook. Beyond were the big pastures leading out to the open range. It was indeed a ranch to delight the heart of riders, wholly aside from the house above, with its fascinating Lindsay sisters.

Half a dozen saddled horses stood bridles down under the big cottonwood tree in front of the yellow stable. Mexican boys were cleaning out the stalls. Neale Lindsay appeared, leading the bay horse Lonesome had taken a fancy to, after his own had been stolen. A group of riders lounged around in the shade, waiting. Laramie promised himself that they had not waited in vain this morning.

Lonesome halted some paces in front of Tracks, who apparently remonstrated with him.

“Hey, Lindsay, wot’n’hell you doin’ with my hawse?” yelled Lonesome.

“Your horse? Say, cow-puncher, this horse is mine, I’ll have you know,” replied Neale, getting red through his sunburn. Two months of range life had toned him down considerably, but he was still a tenderfoot, still vain and pompous enough to be a thorn in the flesh of the riders. Innumerable tricks perpetrated upon him, and sundry hard falls and knocks, and a couple of minor scuffles, had not cured Neale to the extent desired by Laramie.

“Ump-umm! Fade away, tenderfoot, before I blow on you.”

Lonesome slouched over to snatch the bridle from Neale, whose face turned as red as a beet.

“Mulhall, you’re drunk!” he burst out, angrily.

“Who’s drunk?” roared Lonesome.

“You are. If you weren’t I — I’d crack your ugly mug. . . . Laramie — —”

He was interrupted by Lonesome slapping his face.

“We can’t all be handsome — like you Lindsays,” snarled Lonesome. “Look out, young fellar. I’m easy riled. An’ I’m about through this with outfit.”

“You bet you are! I’ll have you fired,” raged Neale, and he ran at Lonesome. That worthy stepped aside, to stick out his foot, over which the Easterner tripped and fell. But he leaped up, thoroughly aroused now, and plunged at the little rider, swinging his fists wildly. Lonesome had dropped the bridle of the horse, which moved away.

“You won’t be so bootiful after I get a couple whacks at you,” said Lonesome, and forthwith met the boy’s onslaught with a blow on his nose. Neale staggered back as blood spouted from the rather prominent member.

“Damn bow-leg rooster! I’ll kill you!” yelled Neale, and he rushed at Lonesome, raining blows upon the doughty little rider. Lonesome took a good many before he returned one, and that was a fairly rough tap in the region of Neale’s abdomen. It sent young Lindsay to his knees, gasping for breath, his face convulsed with pain and rage.

“How you like ’em on your biscuit-basket, Neale?” shouted Lonesome, gleefully. He had forgotten the ugly contrariness of the part he was supposed to play. “Come on. I’ll give you the sneezel jab next on your kisser. Then I’ll give you the raspitas — —”

“Nelson,” interrupted a sharp voice, “stop that puncher’s pickin’ on Neale, or I will.”

Whereupon Chess Gaines strode down out of the stable, his light eyes full of fiery, ugly gleam, his full handsome lips curling. His heated face suggested a late intimacy with strong drink.

“Wal, Gaines, suppose yu stop it,” drawled Laramie, tossing gloves and chaps aside.

“You bet I will,” declared the rider, forcefully, as he stepped in front of the heaving Neale. “Stay out of this, kid, an’ you’ll see who your real friends are.”

Like a flash Lonesome was transformed from his grinning self to the half-drunken leering rider.

“Hell you shay, Gaines?”

“You leave Neale alone or I’ll batter your face into a mud pie,” replied Gaines.

“Say, Gaines, you’re terrible keen on Neale all sudden-like,” sneered Lonesome. “When you’ve been meaner’n any of us to him. Aw, I’m onto you. Makin’ a bid to stand in with his sisters, huh?”

Gaines let out a furious imprecation and swung a violent side blow at Lonesome, as if to slap his leering face. But Lonesome ducked with a surprising quickness.

“You’re a little late all around, Chess,” snapped Lonesome, viciously. Then as Gaines made at him, Lonesome danced from side to side and backwards, suddenly to charge at his antagonist like a bull. Lonesome’s stature had always led to deception. Laramie expected to see here a repetition of many former encounters. For Lonesome was a master at this game. His body blows sounded solidly. Under their impact Gaines staggered, lost his balance, when Lonesome came up with a tremendous swing to thump him on the jaw. The rider went toppling back to collide with the barn, where he sank to his knees. But he had been only upset, not stunned. His eyes flamed livid murder as he snatched at his gun.

“Heah!” thundered Laramie, leaping in front of Lonesome, with his gun out. If Gaines’ hand had vibrated so much as the breath of a hair it would have been his last move.

“No go — Nelson,” he rasped, as if half strangled. His face had turned a dirty white. “I savvy. . . . You put up a job — —”

“Drop yore hand! . . . Now get up. . . . Stiff, damn yu! . . . Turn about. Now get yore pack an’ fork yore hawse. Yu’re shore through with the Peak Dot.”

“Don’t be too — sure, Nelson,” hoarsely replied Gaines as he brushed the dust and dirt off his clothes.

“Wal, I am shore. An’ I advise ya to shet up, unless yu have somethin’ to say to yore pards.”

“Nig, you an’ Juan fetch your hawses an’ mine over to the cabin. We’re packin’ to leave this ——  ——  —— flathead tenderfoot outfit,” ordered Gaines. “Do we get robbed out of our wages?”

“Wal, yu were paid Saturday,” drawled Laramie. “An’ considerin’ everythin’ I reckon yu’ll still be ahaid.”

Gaines gave Laramie a piercing glance, as if recognizing in him now a character he had mistaken or had repudiated.

“You bet your sweet life I will,” he hissed, with a passionate gesture.

“Ride off the range, then, before yu dangle at the end of a rope,” said Laramie, in his soft cool voice, as if he were advising a thoughtless young man.

Here the rider’s face blanched to the very lips. The tone as much as the content of Laramie’s drawling speech rang the iron creed of the range. Although his brazen effrontery upheld him that shot went home. He stalked away with his two comrades, and the horses.

Lonesome bawled after them. “Three of a kind! I’ll bet I see you-all stretch hemp!”

“Like you damn near did, you measly two-bit rustler,” yelled Gaines, with a harsh haw-haw.

Lonesome whipped out his gun, but before he could level it Laramie seized his arm.

“Leggo!” bawled Lonesome. “You’re breakin’ my arm.” He relinquished the weapon to his friend, and cupping both hands around his mouth he yelled in stentorian voice.

“Sure, Chess, I was a two-bit rustler once. But you’re the real sneakin’ breed — the two-faced breed! An’ ——  ——  —— , if you don’t get off this range you’ll swing.”

“Thet’ll do, Lonesome,” said Laramie, dragging him around. “Yu’re shore drunk. Where’d yu get yore likker?”

Here Neale Lindsay made himself manifest again.

“We didn’t fight it out,” he cried, resentfully. “You hit me below the belt.”

“Whoop! Lemme at him, Laramie!” shouted Lonesome.

“See heah. If yu two don’t shake hands pronto I’ll fire the both of yu,” declared Laramie. “Think it over.”

Whereupon Laramie turned to a tall light-haired young man, Wind River Charlie, who stood staring after the discharged riders.

“Charlie, where yu standin’?”

“On one foot, boss,” replied Charlie, with a grin. He had clear yellow eyes, the direct gaze of which did not waver, and under the fine fuzzy beard his tanned face appeared to struggle with a smile.

“Wal, hadn’t yu better get down both feet — on this heah side of the fence?”

“I reckon I’d better, if it ain’t too late, Nelson,” slowly replied Charlie.

“It’s never too late — when a man’s honest. Declare yoreself right heah before what’s left of the outfit.”

Wind River Charlie spent an undecided moment with his yellow eyes sweeping over the silent riders. Then they came back to Laramie.

“Nelson, I ain’t double-crossin’ nobody when I say thet I never had any idee what the deal was here. I was ridin’ a grub-line an’ pretty low-down.”

“Wal, yu found out pronto what Arlidge was, didn’t yu?”

“I had a hunch, but never knowed for sure. He kept me doin’ odd jobs. I never made no long drives.”

“Ahuh. Thet ain’t declarin’ yoreself as free as I’d like, Charlie.”

“Sorry. Best I can do, ‘cept I’d be sure glad to stay on if you’ll keep me.”

“Wal, we’ll talk about it again. Where’s Archie Hill an’ Slim?”

“Archie’s doin’ cook chores this week. An’ Slim has been keepin’ mighty scarce.”

“Fork yore hawses, boys,” concluded Laramie. “Tracks, saddle Wingfoot for me. I’ll want a word with Archie. Then we’ll ride out an’ count what calves air left.”

“Boss, look!” suddenly ejaculated Lonesome, pointing. “Chess an’ his pards slopin’. . . . There, he’s lookin’ back. Shakin’ his fist! I reckon you let him off too easy.”

“I reckon so, Lonesome, but it shore was a close shave,” replied Laramie, watching the three dark, sinister riders vanish down under the trees. “He’s in company thet fits him — a nigger an’ a greaser.”

* * * * *

Three hours later Laramie wended a thoughtful way alone up to the ranch-house. His interview with Archie Hill had been favorable, but failure of Lonesome and Tracks to return with Slim Red occasioned him uneasiness. It was not impossible that Gaines had paid his parting respects to Slim, and that that was what had detained the boys.

One thing, however, cheered Laramie on his slow ride up the winding road. He espied Lindsay working in the garden below. The movements of the Easterner betrayed both energy and satisfaction. Laramie rejoiced. In something like three months Lindsay had become a new man. Laramie soliloquized that Colorado might be infested with rustlers, horse-thieves, skunks, coyotes, and other vermin, but it was good for something.

When about to dismount before the wide gateway Laramie was halted by hearing his name called in low, trilling accents. Then he espied halfway down the stone wall a little hand waving from one of the small iron-barred windows. Laramie rode down even with this window, from which the hand had protruded, and peered in.

Lenta’s pretty, tearful, woebegone face greeted him.

“Laramie, I’m locked in,” cried Lenta, resentfully.

“Wal, wal!” ejaculated the rider. “Dog-gone! This is too bad. How come?”

“Dad! He’s shut me in like I was a kid! And I had a date with Slim. . . . Oh, I am wild.”

“So I see. But to be honest, lass, I’m shore relieved.”

“Laramie dear, sneak around into the court and let me out,” pleaded Lenta.

“But, child, we put locks on all the doors. An’ shore yore dad kept the key.”

“Oh yes. . . . Then get a pole or pick-handle and bend this iron-bar. I’ve busted two chairs on it. I can almost squeeze out now.”

“Ump-umm. I wouldn’t dare do it, Lenta.”

“Laramie, don’t you love me any more?” she asked, reproachfully.

“Wal, I reckon I do. An’ thet’s why I’m shore glad yu’re locked in.”

“Laramie, I’ll be awfully nice to you, if you’ll let me out,” returned the girl, seductively, with both little brown hands held out between the bars.

“I cain’t do it, Lenta,” replied Laramie.

“Please. Dear old Laramie! I — I’ll kiss you as often as you want.”

“Wal, thet’s shore a temptin’ prospect, lass. But I don’t care to lose my job an’ yore sister’s trust.”

“Laramie, it won’t take much more to make Hallie fall into your arms,” whispered this provocative and bewildering little lady. “She’s leaning to you now. Only she doesn’t know it. She’d be lost without you. And I can make her see it!”

Laramie was mute for the moment. Never had he encountered such a minx as Lenta Lindsay. The alluring thing she hinted rendered him weak. No wonder she had the riders out of their heads! How bewitching the pleading face!

“Come, Laramie. Be a good fellow. I’ll do something terrible if I don’t get out.”

“No. I reckon yu will if yu do get out.”

“Then send Lonesome. He’ll help me.”

“Lenta, I’m sorry to inform yu thet Lonesome is drunk.”

“Drunk!” cried Lenta, aghast.

“Shore. An’ fightin’, too.”

“The bow-legged little liar! He swore he’d never drink again. For my sake!”

“Wal, it’s all on yore account thet he’s drunk. An’ rarin’ to kill some one. I had to tell him how I saw yu carryin’ on. An’ thet was the last straw for Lonesome. Yu see, lass, he believed in yu.”

“Laramie! You gave me away?” flashed Lenta, in passionate amaze.

“I reckon I did. Lonesome’s like a brother to me. An’ I — —”

“You squealed! About how you sneaked up on me — and — Slim? . . .” Lenta choked with emotion.

Laramie began to be sorry he had made promises to Lonesome.

“Yes, I squealed, Lenta. I reckon I’d never have done it if I’d any idee how crazy Lonesome is about yu. For now he’s goin’ plumb to hell.”

“Oh!”

“An’ I fear he’s not the only one.”

“I don’t care a — a — damn,” returned Lenta, in a voice that denied the content of her words. “But for you to be a squealer! You — Laramie Nelson — whom Hallie and I thought the most wonderful man! . . . Oh, you — you four-flusher — you two-bit range-rider — you big calf-brander — you bluff of a Southern gentleman. . . . I hate you! . . . I’ll make Hallie hate you. . . . Run — you coward — run from a girl and the truth — —”

Laramie did not run exactly, but he surely spurred his horse out of earshot of that choked, furious voice. He dismounted before the gate and wiped his hot face. His ears tingled, his cheeks burned. There was a riot within his breast.

“My Gawd! what a little wildcat!” he ejaculated. “Whew! . . . who’d a thought it of thet little baby-eyed lass?”

Then through his chaotic mind whirled the thunderbolts of her words. Truth! He was all that she had called him. But until this very moment he had never realized that he had been idiot enough to believe he might win Hallie Lindsay. What jackasses men were! The moment they met a woman, regardless of her class or position, they immediately surrendered to a monstrous egoism and believed they could get her. It must have been some kind of instinct. He was glad Lenta had flayed him back to his senses. Perhaps he had better ride away from Spanish Peaks Ranch before ——

“Laramie, what’s the matter?” called a voice that made him jump. Hallie Lindsay stood in the door of her office, watching him. The day was hot and she was dressed in some flimsy white stuff that revealed her beautiful form. A rich color tinged with gold had displaced the former pearly paleness of her face. Her wonderful gray eyes, intent and grave, regarded him thoughtfully, almost with a sweet doubtfulness.

“Aw — nothin’, Miss Hallie,” replied Laramie, suddenly beset by a totally different army of emotions. He dropped Wingfoot’s bridle and slowly plodded through the gate.

“Don’t call me Miss Hallie,” she said, with a surprising petulance.

“Wal, what shall I call yu?” demanded Laramie, helplessly. She had used his first name for the first time. Laramie! Verily he was on a downhill grade.

“My name is Harriet.”

“But I cain’t pronounce thet.”

“It certainly is a very difficult name,” she rejoined, dryly. “I hate it, myself. . . . Everybody calls me Hallie.”

Laramie stared up at her. “Do yu reckon yu’re givin’ me permission to call yu thet?”

“I reckon I am,” she laughed, and averted her eyes momentarily while a spot of red appeared in her cheeks.

“Thanks. I’m shore proud,” replied Laramie, somewhat recovering his dignity. There was less of aloofness about her.

“I heard Lenta call you,” went on Harriet.

“Wal! . . . An’ yu heahed how she ended up?”

“Yes. Isn’t she a perfect little devil?”

“Yu heahed it all?”

“I think so. My window is open. It’s a still day. And she certainly spoke clearly.”

“Aw!” expelled Laramie, heavily. He could no longer look up at her.

“I am glad you are loyal, Laramie. Lenta would turn the heads of most men. She is a distracting, terrible child.”

“Wal, she’s no child. . . . An’ I reckon my haid was already turned.”

“Oh, I see,” she returned, hastily. “Laramie, come in and make your report. I know something has happened.”

Laramie felt that he dared not enter that office — to be alone with Hallie until he had gotten hold of himself.

“Nothin’ much come off about the ranch,” he mumbled.

“Don’t lie to me,” she retorted, impatiently. “Of late I have suspected you of deliberately deceiving me. To spare my feelings, father acknowledged. Because I’m a tenderfoot! You and your riders treat me with less — less respect and confidence that you show Lenta.”

This was the truth. Laramie could not deny it. He stood there like a fool, bareheaded, running a hand round his sombrero.

“Yu cain’t always tell the truth to a — a lady.”

“Laramie, until father gets fully well and capable, I am boss of this ranch.”

“Shore I know thet. . . . An’ I wish yu’d discharge me.”

“Nonsense! I wouldn’t do that,” she replied, disconcerted and startled. Laramie conceived an idea that he had a certain hold on her. “You are — wholly satisfactory. What would I — we do without you? . . . But I insist that I won’t be treated as if I were a little girl.”

“Wal, yu are a little girl so far as innocence an’ softness are concerned,” drawled Laramie, finding himself once more.

“But I — I mean business,” she insisted, blushing in confusion or anger. “What has happened to upset you?”

“Wal, if I’m upset yu can gamble it’s not the ranch business thet’s to blame,” he said, coolly.

“Very well.”

“Lonesome is drunk.”

“Drunk!”

“But thet didn’t upset me. . . . An’ he picked a fight with Neale. Then Chess Gaines busted into it. Lonesome lammed him one an’ Gaines pulled a gun. I had to interfere. . . . Wal, I discharged Gaines. An’ his pards Nigger Johnson an’ Juan Mendez went with him. I reckon I can swear by the rest of the outfit.”

“Well! — And you declared you had nothing to report.”

“Reckon it’s not much compared to what’s goin’ to happen about this heah ranch,” he returned, pessimistically.

They fell silent a moment. Laramie felt her eyes upon him and he shifted uneasily on his feet.

“There’s a rider coming,” suddenly broke out Harriet, descending the steps.

Laramie jerked out of his trance to espy Lonesome astride a sweaty horse, riding up the last stretch of the road. A mere look at Lonesome told Laramie some untoward event had made him forget the role he was playing. Even at a distance he appeared stern and grim.

“Oh, it’s Lonesome,” ejaculated Harriet.

“Shore is, an’ I’ll bet a double-eagle Lenta will waylay him.”

As the rider reached a level and turned toward the ranch-house a sweet, high-pitched, excited voice pierced the warm air.

“Lonesome! Oh, Lonesome — here — here!”

Harriet whispered hurriedly to Laramie: “If he’s drunk he’ll let her out.”

“Not much,” replied Laramie.

Lonesome halted, and appeared to be collecting his wits. Laramie saw him grow wary.

“Here I am, Lonesome,” cried Lenta.

At last Lonesome located the imprisoned girl, but it was a long moment before he replied.

“Whash masser?”

“I’m locked up. Dad locked me up,” wailed Lenta.

“Aw! Show you’re in callaboos?”

“Ride over here to the window.”

“Me. Ump-umm.”

“Lonesome dear.”

“Not much. Not atall. No, b’gosh!”

“Won’t you let me out?”

“I should smile not.”

“Lonesome! . . . Do you want me locked up?” begged Lenta, appealingly.

“Shore do. Great idee. You auch be behind bars forever. Dangerous female.”

“Lonesome, I do think heaps of you. I’ll promise — —”

“You won’t promise me nothin’,” interrupted Lonesome.

“You bet I won’t, you drunken cow-puncher!” flashed Lenta, surrendering to rage. “What are your promises worth? You swore you’d quit drinking for me.”

“Shore. An’ you swored you’d never kiss nobody but me. . . . Haw! Haw!”

“I would have kept it. Now I’ll kiss every damn rider on the ranch.”

“Nope. Not me or Slim Red.”

“Yes, Slim Red! I’m going to meet him right now if I have to tear this wall down,” shrieked Lenta.

“Tear away, Mish Lindshay,” taunted Lonesome, riding on.

“You faithless hombre!”

“You flirtin’ jade!”

Lonesome came riding on, reeling in his saddle. Lenta’s final cry peeled out on deaf ears. Then the rider espied Laramie, and a moment later, when he reached the gateway, Harriet came into his view. Lonesome rode in and tumbled out of the saddle. An observer of experience would have noted that he was far from being drunk. Still he deceived Miss Lindsay, who fixed him with grave, disapproving eyes.

“Mish Hallie, gotta report Slim Red — bad hurt,” said Lonesome.

“Hurt! — How? When? What has happened?” exclaimed Harriet, startled.

“Hawse piled him up.”

“Oh! — Is it — serious?”

“Reckon. He’s gotta have doctor pronto.”

“I’m sorry. . . . Laramie, will you take charge of this,” replied Miss Lindsay, soberly, and hurried back into her office.

Lonesome dropped his bridle, and with a significant jerk of head for Laramie to follow he tramped into the court. A moment later Laramie entered their room behind him and closed the door. Lonesome tore off his chaps and then began to divest himself of a wet and grimy shirt.

“So they got the kid locked in?” he queried, coolly.

“Shore have. She nailed me same as she did you,” replied Laramie, eyeing his friend thoughtfully.

“Sort of tickles me. She’s locoed the outfit.”

“Me too. But thet youngster will do somethin’ bad yet.”

“Yet! Say, pard, she’s done it already.”

“Aw, Lonesome — not bad.”

“Wal, bad fer me, anyhow. Laramie, this bluff I’m throwin’ ain’t so good. I may hang on till we get back from La Junta.”

“Ahuh. What’s on yore mind, boy?” drawled Laramie.

“We found Slim out on the trail. He’s all shot up. Said he run plumb into Gaines with his pards. They throwed on him. Killed his hawse under him, or he’d got away. Gaines shot him three times while he lay on the ground. Left him fer dead. He was damn near croaked when Tracks found him. But he come to an’ I reckon he’s got a chance for his life. The boys air hitchin’ up the old buckboard. I’ll take Charlie with me an’ we’ll drive Slim straight through to La Junta. Suits me better’n drivin’ over with you-all, tryin’ to keep up this drunken bluff.”

“Ahuh. Yore idee is to keep the Lindsays from knowin’ Slim was shot?”

“If we can. But Neale seen him. That boy has stuff. You should have heard him cuss Gaines.”

“I’ll speak to him about it.”

“Laramie, we oughtn’t go to this La Junta circus.”

“I reckon not. But to get out of it we’d have to lie wuss than we’re lyin’ now.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if some of thet outfit showed up in La Junta. An’ if they do, pard, what’s the deal?”

“Wal, so far as Gaines is concerned yu needn’t ask me,” replied Laramie, darkly. “We’re about at the end of our rope.”

“Now you’re talkin’. . . . Gaines would look good at the end of a rope, not to say Price. Huh?”

Laramie sat down on the bunk and eyed the stone floor. He could not understand why he had hoped and believed he could spare the Lindsays the ruthless reactions of range life. It would have been better not to allow troubles to accumulate.

“Shore. An’ Arlidge, too,” returned Laramie, slowly.

“No such luck. You’ll have to beat him to a gun, Laramie. . . . I’m glad Lindsay an’ the girls are goin’ to meet up with a lot of Western folks. They’ll get an earful. Then when we come back — —”

Lonesome ground his teeth over an unfinished statement. Laramie nodded his head gloomily.

“Pard, don’t take it so hard,” spoke up Lonesome, brightening as he watched his friend. “Shore the brunt of this will fall on you, as it always does. But don’t fool yourself about Hallie Lindsay. In the end she’ll be game.”

CHAPTER X

“CAN IT BE only nine days?” murmured Harriet, as she dropped her bags and packages on the floor of her room and flung herself upon the bed, where Lenta already sprawled in an abandoned posture of exhaustion.

“Nine wonderful days!” exclaimed Lenta, dreamily. “They’d been perfect but for that Lonesome Mulhall.”

“Don’t be so hard on the poor boy,” replied Harriet, wearily.

Lenta growled something which sounded like profanity.

“You treated Lonesome outrageously,” went on Harriet. “And but for him we. . . . Oh, well, what is the use?”

“No use, my locoed sister. Lonesome may have been the whole show, but for me he was a beastly jealous, drunken little bow-legged duffer.”

“All your fault. Lonesome was growing to be a nice dependable boy. Now look at him!”

“Don’t worry, Hallie. I won’t look at him,” retorted Lenta.

“Nonsense! You like him.”

“Me? Ump-umm! I did, but nix no more.”

“How can you change so suddenly?”

“A woman’s privilege, my dear.”

“Woman! You are a spoiled baby. . . . Lenta, I’ll tell you this. As soon as I’ve recovered from this trip you’re in for a lecture from me,” declared Harriet.

“Oh, you make me sick. Hallie, you used to be a good fellow. But since we came out West and you got moonstruck over that handsome dumb Laramie Nelson you’ve become a pill.”

Harriet wanted to sit up and roundly slap this impudent sister, but she did not have the energy.

“I hate to tell you what you’ve become — a shallow conscienceless flirt,” she substituted instead.

“I am not,” snapped Lenta. “Self-preservation is the first law of life. Catch me letting these range-riders get the best of me.”

“If you keep on, one of them will get the best of you,” rejoined Harriet, bitterly.

“Hal Lindsay!” exclaimed Lenta. But she did not deceive Harriet. She might be petulant and peevish, but there was no genuine ring of sincerity in her voice. Harriet had to face the apparent fact that her sister had become incorrigibly wild.

“I suppose you are sore because I coaxed that rider Stuart to come back with us?”

“No, not sore. Laramie said he would give Stuart a job. But I’m sorry for him.”

“You waste your pity, Hal. You don’t savvy these cow-punchers.”

“Yes I do. That’s just it. I do. And I know you can’t play fast and loose with them.”

“You’re worse than mother.”

“Lenta, somebody must beat sense into your head before it’s too late.”

“Reckon it is too late,” said Lenta with a giggle. “But, gosh! I’ve had a good time.”

“You carried on outrageously in La Junta. Especially at the dance.”

“All the same I didn’t elope with one of them, as our darling, proud sister did,” declared Lenta, scornfully.

“Ted Williams is different. He comes — —”

“Oh, pumpkin-seed sunfish! Ted is like all the rest of the riders. He’s got you all fooled, especially Flo. I’ve had six of them ask me to elope. And that’s not counting Mulhall.”

“Ted and Flo didn’t elope,” replied Harriet, weakly. “They were just afraid to ask father. But they did ask me.”

“Oh-ho! So that’s why you’ve championed them? Does dad know?”

“Yes. I told him.”

“Gee! so everybody but me knows everything? How’d dad take it?”

“He was hurt and furious. Said he had a couple of fine dutiful daughters.”

“Couple! He’s liable to have three — if I don’t miss my guess. God help us, as ma prays, when you break out, Hal.”

“There is not much danger of me disgracing the family, sister dear,” rejoined Harriet.

“As I have disgraced it. And Flo, too. . . . Oh, fiddlesticks! — No! I don’t mean that. I mean — oh, well. . . . Laramie says I’ve saved the Lindsays from poverty, murder, and what not.”

“Laramie was humoring you. Even he is not impervious to your blandishments.”

“Jealous cat!” ejaculated Lenta, sweetly. “I shall certainly throw myself at Laramie.”

This dire threat was unanswerable, because Harriet knew that Lenta was capable of doing it.

“I’m sorry, Lent. I guess I’m — just all broken up,” faltered Harriet.

“Shore, we’re all broken up. I heard dad tell ma that the West had done for the Lindsay outfit. I had gone to the bad. You had turned out a mollycoddle. Neale had taken to the bottle. Flo had run off. And ma had become a fussy old fool.”

“Lenta, you are making that up,” replied Harriet, with all the vehemence she had left.

“Nope. I wasn’t. Dad had had a few drinks himself.”

“Mercy! What will become of us?”

“We’d turn out all right yet if only you would get acclimated,” drawled Lenta.

“I!” That was the most unkindest cut of all. Harriet succumbed under it. She got up, and dragging herself into the sitting-room she went to bed on the couch, only half undressed.

Still, tired as she was, her mind kept active and she lay thinking. Presently her resentment and consternation were swallowed up in memory of the past nine days that seemed packed full of nine weeks of experience. She could only dwell on the outstanding events: the myriad of lesser ones were kaleidoscopic. Although their effect had been tremendous. And out of the whole she deduced astounding facts. She liked Western people. She loved the West and surrendered to the bewildering assurance that it had claimed her. She would have fought against going back to Ohio, even if all her family were in favor of that. She had met other pioneer families and found them kindred spirits. The Colorado range was endless, the distances frightful obstacles, but there were neighbors, nice folk, kindly people, wholesome and attractive girls, splendid men, scattered all over the purple land. To realize this was a vast comfort. They were all in one category, most of them comparatively new to the range, dependent upon the boundless acres of grass, the streams, and the cattle. And likewise at the mercy of the rustlers as every cattleman realized! Harriet had gained more understanding of the complex situation. The striking thing about it was the fact that only few rustlers were known. Any cattleman, even her father, according to the mystery of the range, might be one of them. Harriet had been forced to accept the need of drastic treatment of these parasites of the country. She had tried, and failed, to make Laramie see a change in her. But that was his fault — the droll, aloof, incomprehensible and fascinating man! She felt that she was about to succumb to something appalling. And every time the conviction forced itself upon her she drove it away. Mollycoddle! So that was what they all thought her, and probably Laramie, too? She would show them presently.

But these weightier matters had to be given time. When they flooded back in memory Harriet laboriously put them aside for other things — the sudden passion she had conceived for horses and her resolve to learn to ride and manage them; her thrilling interest in the races and the tricks of the riders; the disturbing presence again of the bold Arlidge, who had hounded her at the dance; the shyness of Laramie in such strange contrast; the perplexing problem of the cattle and her failure to solve it; the undoubted confusion and let-down of all the Lindsays in this new environment; and lastly the perilous conquests of Lenta and the elopement of Florence.

They were sufficient to keep Harriet awake for a long time, without listening to the insistent call of her heart. At length she heard Lenta moving around in their bedroom, yawning and mumbling to herself. Then the light went out. Harriet was left in total darkness. It made a difference. Besides, she discovered that she was cold. Presently she slipped back into the other room and stealthily got into bed. Lenta was already locked in slumber. But half disturbed, she unconsciously reverted to her old childish habit of snuggling close to Harriet. Harriet, deeply grieved with Lenta, had the instinct of repulsion, but there came an intervention of an older, stronger feeling. It was not long thereafter that her pillow was wet with her tears.

* * * * *

When Harriet awoke the sun had long climbed above the wall of the opposite wing of the ranch-house and she wanted to leap out of bed in the excitement of a dawn that was new and strange. But she restrained herself. Lenta’s tanned and rosy face showed on the far pillow. How arresting in its sweetness! Harriet marveled that the girl could possess such a guileless sweet face and be such a devil. But Harriet did not gaze long at her sister. She had troubles of her own. She owned to a rebellious heart and she knew she had awaked another Harriet Lindsay. It thrilled her. The old self ventured feeble protests that were cried down. No longer would she be an obstacle to the success of Spanish Peaks Ranch. And that last triumphant decision landed her on her feet in the middle of the room.

Harriet donned riding garb that she had tried on only once, to her intense embarrassment. Her cheeks burned as she vowed she did not care. The summer days were growing hot and thin clothes were desirable. What would Laramie Nelson think of a young woman, twenty-five years old, in such a rig? It gave her a panicky feeling, which incensed her only the more. Then, snatching gloves and sombrero, she sallied forth in full possession of the realization that she was going out to meet disaster of one kind or another. Nevertheless, she would meet it and hide her feelings or die in the attempt.

At breakfast, Jud, who was devoted to Harriet and liked to talk, divulged much information. Mrs. Lindsay had had her breakfast in bed. Lindsay, glad to get back to the ranch, had whistled himself off early. Neale’s drinking and failure to return from La Junta, Florence’s elopement, and Lenta’s incorrigibleness, Laramie’s dark face that boded trouble, Lonesome’s bottle, and the news of another cattle raid during their absence — all these had rested lightly on the head of John Lindsay.

“So dad’s done with worry!” ejaculated Harriet. “Thank goodness! But, Jud, how do you account for it?”

“Wal, Laramie said the old boy was feelin’ his oats,” replied Jud, with a grin. “An’ I say thet trip to La Junta done him good. He found out half a dozen stiff drinks of red likker couldn’t phase him. He’s goin’ to be a well man. Thet’s my hunch.”

“I believe you are right, Jud,” said Harriet, earnestly. “In the light of the blessed truth of returned health and growing strength all these troubles are nothing.”

“Wal, I reckon myself they ain’t much.”

Harriet deferred seeing her mother for the present, and hurried out into the court to tarry a moment under the great green cottonwoods. How cool and shady under their spreading canopy! The brook went sparkling and singing down the stone steps. Blackbirds and mockingbirds, catbirds and swallows, were melodiously in evidence. This was a restful, beautiful, strength-giving spot, so old and thought-provoking. She would never tire of it, nor of the strip of purple rangeland visible through the wide portal between the walls.

On her walk down to the valley below she espied Lenta’s latest acquisition, the younger rider, Stuart, approaching up the cottonwood-lined road. He was leading two saddle horses. Harriet stepped aside into the cover of the brush so as to avoid meeting him. If she had encountered him she would either have had to greet him civilly or have advised him to return to La Junta; and she felt that she did not know which she ought to do. So she let him pass. He certainly was a handsome young stripling. Besides Stuart, poor Lonesome would have resembled a little banty rooster. It was too bad that Lonesome appeared to be the only ugly, insignificant boy in Laramie’s outfit. They were all absurdly attractive, young, red-cheeked, fire-eyed, lithe, and graceful chaps. Harriet thought she would like to have liked this newcomer Stuart. He was whistling gaily. He had not a care in the world. Probably he had not a dollar, nor anything but a horse. It pleased Harriet to observe that Stuart did not pack a gun. And this reminded her of Laramie. She both desired and feared to see him. Stuart passed on up the road, no doubt to keep an engagement with Lenta made the day before. And Lenta was in bed sound asleep.

Harriet resumed her walk toward the stables and likewise her thought of Laramie. She had not laid eyes on him since the dance at La Junta. That, however, had been the last event of the several days’ entertainment, and they had all driven away next morning early. But the hours seemed long. Laramie had reason to avoid her. Had he not transgressed? Once could have been forgiven. But a second and unpardonable offense! Harriet felt her veins swell with heat that ran along them tinglingly to culminate in a hot wave on neck and face. She was ashamed and furious that she had unwittingly yielded to memory, yet once admitted, the incident augmented in her mind. Indeed there was no use to deny her pleasure at that dance. She had actually held her own with Lenta. Florence, probably, would have eclipsed them both, but Florence had eloped with Ted. Most of the riders had been atrociously poor dancers; not so Laramie Nelson. Early in the evening he had asked for a dance with her and had waited for it. So had she, with a pleasurable expectancy. She might be his boss, but all such distinctions were leveled this night. Laramie had not talked while he danced. And after Harriet had made a few attempts at conversation she had desisted. This was no ordinary dance. Laramie was no ordinary partner. Not until the dance began had she thought of being held in a man’s embrace. And then after two turns around the thronged hall she had discovered why. Laramie was holding her close. She had hoped it might be merely accident. But presently she realized it was not. Then she protested: “Laramie, you’re holding me — too tight!” His reply had been a cool drawling: “Aw, excuse me, lady. I shore haven’t danced for years.” And he had loosened the coil of his powerful arm. Again Harriet had fallen under the spell of the dreamy waltz. She did not remember how soon, but presently she felt that almost imperceptible drawing of the muscle-corded arm around her. The incomprehensible thing was that she had wanted to surrender to it. And she had done so for a moment, long enough to feel her throbbing breast flatten against his. Then: “Laramie — you — you’re — hugging me!” she panted, and halting she drew away. “Aw, no! I wasn’t atall, Hallie,” he expostulated. “Don’t yu reckon I’d know?” Harriet gazed up at him, feeling that a woman’s eyes, intuition, intelligence must go far with this man. “Well, if you didn’t know it—” Then the music stopped, saving her from she knew not what. Laramie had begged for another dance and she had promised it. But that second dance had never transpired. Harriet, in her excitement and pleasure at being so importuned by Westerners of all ages, had lost her head a little. This, with an intense added embarrassment when Luke Arlidge had accosted her, had resulted in a dance she did not actually desire or accept. In truth, Arlidge had simply swept her away from another partner. The enormity of her offense had not dawned upon Harriet until the dance was over, when she met Laramie’s glance. Never had he looked that way at her. Recollection of the enmity between these two Westerners flooded over her then and she anathematized her stupidity. It chilled her, too. She had waited for Laramie to come to claim her, but she had not seen him again.

“Laramie was surprised — disgusted with me — and cold. . . . Uggh!” mused Harriet, as she walked on. “But what could the darned Southerner expect? I couldn’t make a scene.” She felt contrition, but she was not greatly concerned that Laramie might not come around. Still she did not really know him. She caught her breath and then she laughed. Always she could resort to what Lenta called a woman’s prerogative. If she said to him, “Laramie, I’ll go with you to the next dance and dance a lot with you — no matter how you hold me,” he would fall all over himself accepting, as these young riders did for Lenta. Here Harriet caught her unbridled imagination and concluded her reverie with, “I’m getting what they call loco.”

She espied several of the riders in the distance, but caught no glimpse of either her father or Laramie. That afforded her relief. At the stables a Mexican lad, Pedro, saddled a gentle horse she had ridden before. Harriet took the bridle and led the animal away across the green valley to a secluded sandy spot shaded by cottonwoods and surrounded by brush, where she felt safe from prying eyes. Here she took the initial step in a procedure she had resolved upon — to overcome her fear of a horse, to learn to mount and to ride. First she led the horse to a high rock from which she could easily get into the saddle, and rode around the enclosure a number of times. She trotted Moze, cantered him, galloped him, and finally rode him running. It was a goodly space, so she had ample room. There were thrills and fun, and also fright in this speed. But she stuck on, and finally established a permanent relation between her and the saddle. It was not impossible, where no critical eyes were seeing her. Once warmed up, she got the swing of it. So far as Moze was concerned, all she needed now was practice.

Then she reined him in and slid off in one step as she had seen the riders do. That was easy. She felt elated. Presently she meant to boss this ranch from the back of a horse instead of an office chair.

Harriet’s next attempt was at the mount. There were two ways to get upon a horse — any old way and the right way. She scorned any but the latter. Moze was about medium height and so was she. By stretching she could just get her left foot in the stirrup, while she gripped the pommel. First she tried with both hands. It was a failure. She fell flat and hard enough to hurt. Reasoning that she had not sprung quick or hard enough from her right foot, she essayed again, and this time got astride. Whereupon she performed that action until out of breath. After resting, she attempted what she desired to emulate in Laramie and Lonesome. If she ever learned that, how she would astound the rest of the Lindsays!

The idea was to grasp the reins in the left hand, pull the horse around a little so he could see what she was doing, slip her left toe in the stirrup, and then seize the pommel with her right hand and spring up. On her first attempt her toe slipped all right, but out of the stirrup, with the result that she bumped her nose on the saddle and then fell ignominiously. This roused Harriet to battle. She tried again. She kept on trying. She succeeded. Then patiently for hours she stuck at the job until she had mastered it.

“Dog-gone-them!” she panted. “I’ll show — them. . . . Him! The girls rave — about my shape. . . . But if anyone asks me — I’m too darned fat. . . . I ought to be skinny — and I’ll get skinny.”

Nevertheless, her earnestness did not extend to the limits of meeting Lenta and Stuart face to face, when on the return to the stables she espied them lolling in their saddles, horses close together, in the shade of the cottonwoods. Very lover-like for such short acquaintance, thought Harriet! She rode back and around the other way to avoid them. This time she ran right into Wind River Charlie and Dakota, who appeared as if by magic directly in her path. They doffed their sombreros. Dakota was bold and Charlie shy.

“You-all been workin’ Moze out,” declared Dakota, much pleased. “An’ I reckon he piled you, miss?”

“No, I was learning to leap astride, as you boys do, and I fell in the dirt about nine hundred times,” replied Harriet, with a laugh. “Please don’t give me away.”

Their astonishment and delight with the formerly dignified Miss Lindsay shone in their honest faces.

“Wal, I’ll shore keep mum, lady. An’ if Windy Charlie heah blows on you I’ll half kill him,” sang out Dakota.

“Never fear, Miss Lindsay,” spoke up Charlie for himself. “I’ll keep yore secret till h — h — er — always.”

“Thanks, boys,” she rejoined, and dismounted brazenly, she imagined. But it was not so bad. “Turn Moze over to Pedro.”

“Shore you ain’t a-gonna walk all the way up?” queried Dakota, aghast.

“I need the exercise.”

“Wal, if you knowed what we know I’ll bet you’ll ride and run,” grinned the rider, with a side glance at Charlie for corroboration.

“Yes? What do you know?” inquired Harriet, coolly. She had restrained a start. And she was proud of this dearly bought new demeanor. In time she would rival Laramie himself.

“Wal, Tracks Williams is back,” announced Dakota, importantly. “He an’ your sister drove right by us an’ never seen us atall. They looked plumb scrumptious, but shore scared.”

“Is that all you know?” accomplished Harriet, easily, as she brushed the sand off her suit.

“Nope. Lonesome rode in, too, drunker’n a lord.”

“What else? I thought you had some news.”

Dakota tore at his tawny hair. “You win, lady. There ain’t nothin’ else, ‘cept something about Laramie. It shore was funny to us. But I reckon you’d not be interested.”

“Now, Dakota, yes, I would,” flashed Harriet, forgetting her role.

“Ump-umm,” rejoined the rider, his keen hazel eyes intent on her.

“Very well, then. As your boss I demand,” she continued, with a smile. She saw that the smile, not the threat, gained her point.

“Aw, course I was foolin’. . . . You see Larry must have had orders, didn’t he?”

“Not from me.”

“Wal, from yore dad, then, fer he chased Lin Stuart an’ yore other sister all over the valley. They dodged Larry, we reckon, till he run bang into them heah. He was red in the face. Shore thet was new work fer him. ‘Stuart,’ he says, ‘yu get off the ranch.’ — An’ Stuart laughed. ‘All right, Laramie, but I ain’t hurryin’ none.’ Then Laramie yelled: ‘Lenta, yu go home an’ I’ll deal with this gazabo.’ Thet little gurl came back at Laramie: “‘Don’t you insult my friend.’ . . . Haw! Haw! It was shore good as a circus.”

“Well, what more?” queried Harriet, keeping her face straight.

“‘Lenta, you go home!’ busted out Laramie.

“‘Larry, you go to hell!’ replied Lenta, cool as a cucumber.

“‘By thunder! thet’s jest what I’ll do!’ roared Laramie, an’ he rode off like mad up toward the ranch-house.”

“Indeed! Had Laramie been drinking, too?” inquired Harriet, innocently.

“No. He ain’t took to drink yet, but we reckon it won’t be long now.”

Harriet had to turn away to keep from betraying herself to these boys. She could not blame Lenta for liking to be with them, for a fiendish glee in tormenting them, in giving them back as good as they sent. Harriet suddenly felt a weakness to do that herself. Thoughtfully she walked up the road, but once out of sight she sat down on a rock to rest and ponder. So Florence had returned. Harriet was glad and sorry at once. Flo and Ted would not exactly meet with a parental blessing. Father Lindsay would rage. He was capable of turning them out. Harriet thought that she would let the guilty couple receive a sound scare before she intervened in their behalf. And Lonesome Mulhall, too, had returned, drunk again, or still drunk. That was serious. Harriet found that she had a tender spot in her heart for this wild, harum-scarum, thieving, lovable range-rider. But what could be done? Lenta had goaded the sentimental boy to madness. Worse would surely come of this. Laramie’s ridiculous attempt to compel Lenta to anything and his equally ridiculous threat to go to hell proved how impotent and enraged he was. Harriet wondered if this last affair of Lenta’s, or any order given by her father regarding the willful youngster, could so completely warp that cool, strong, quiet man out of his orbit. Harriet just wondered and pondered. Laramie, however, might well be upset on behalf of his beloved Lonesome.

Harriet slowly resumed her homeward walk. She lingered in likely spots. There would be pandemonium up at the house, when she arrived, and she was in no hurry to run into it. Nevertheless, in the course of another hour or more she reached the ranch-house and the gate. There she halted to fortify herself against the inevitable.

Before Harriet had steeled herself in the least, however, she heard angry voices, not loud, yet certainly trenchant. She recognized Laramie’s. To her amaze she espied that the door of her office, which was on the side of the entrance nearest her, stood open. She recalled having given her father the key last night. Had he forgotten to lock it or was he in there with Laramie? She took a step, another, and presently stood on the stone porch behind the door. This thick door swung outward and hid Harriet. She had no conscious intent to play eavesdropper. But there she was and Laramie’s next speech froze her in her tracks:

“Sneaked in heah reckonin’ Hallie would save yore hide, didn’t yu — yu gol-durned exasperatin’ liar!”

“Aw cheese it, can’t yu, Laramie?” That growl and appeal in one were certainly couched in Lonesome’s plaintive voice.

“Cheese nothin’. Yu run in heah, hopin’ Hallie would save yu.”

“Wal, wot if I did?”

“It shore wouldn’t save yu if she was right heah.”

“Bah!”

“Lonesome, I found this red scarf in yore chaps pocket,” went on Laramie, relentlessly. “Yu stole it from Lenta thet first day of the races. The kid was ravin’ about it. She swore some bull-haided puncher stole it. An’ she was right.”

“Naw. I didn’t stole it,” rasped Lonesome.

“Yu’re a durned liar, boy.”

“All right, then, I am. What you gonna do about it?”

“Wal, the last time I ketched yu, which wasn’t so long ago, I swore I’d beat the stuffin’s out of yu.”

“Aw, you ain’t man enough,” blustered Lonesome, shuffling his feet.

“Lonesome, I could rope one hand behind my back an’ lick yu all hollow,” declared Laramie, in a slow voice.

“You jest try it, Laramie Nelson, an’ see what happens. I’ll give you away to Hallie.”

“How give me away?”

“Thet you’re loco about her. Thet you’re wuss off than I am about the kid. Thet you cain’t eat or sleep — or fight, either, by Gawd, ‘cause of her!”

“Lonesome, if yu double-cross me thet far, I’m through with yu forever,” drawled Laramie, solemnly.

“Wal, mebbe I won’t do that. But I ain’t agonna play off this drunk gag of yours any more. It makes me madder’n hell. I’ve queered myself with Lent an’ the old lady, an’ I’m afraid with Hallie, too. All for nothin’.”

“I don’t agree, an’ neither does Ted or Jud. It shore worked an’ I could square yu with Hallie an’ her ma in a jiffy. But whether yu keep on pretendin’ to drink or not, yu’re shore goin’ to get licked aplenty.”

“Hold on, Laramie! or I’ll start in real drinkin’ an’ you know what a hell’s rattler I am,” threatened Lonesome, fearfully. His steps gave evidence that he was backing to the wall.

“Yu won’t do nothin’. An’ shore yu won’t steal no more. Why, yu’ve disgraced Ted an’ me. Scared us sick! Yu’ll ruin us yet. Shore as God made little apples yu’ll ruin us heah with this nice old couple an’ their lovely daughters!”

“Hell! Ain’t we ruined already?” A dull thump answered this violent exclamation. A gasp of pain followed, then sundry thuds, rasping of boots, a wrestling of bodies in violent strain, and at length a sodden crash on the floor.

“La — re! Quit or I’ll — draw on you,” choked Lonesome, in a fury.

“Shet up, yu bow-legged bluffer. . . . I’m gonna straddle yu an’ beat the damn thievin’ stuffin’s out of yu!” There followed sliddery sounds, and then a bam that attested to Laramie’s sincerity.

“Aw! — Larry, don’t — don’t. . . . that’s my weak spot. . . . Aw! . . . for Gawd’s sake! . . . Aw! . . . kill me — an’ be done! Somebody’ll ketch us heah. Dear old Larry, let me up. I’ll be good. I’ll promise. . . . Aw! You ——  ——  ——  ——  ——  —— !”

“Shet yore profane mouth, son,” rejoined Laramie, grimly. Bang! . . . “Take thet on yore kisser!” Wham! Bam! “There’s a couple on yore nose!” Biff! “How yu like thet, Lonesome? I see yu’ve got some real red blood, after all.” Smash! “There’s another for yore gizzard. Aha! Thet’s the place. Thet’s where yu live!” Bummm! . . . “Now, ketch yore breath, an’ tell me if yu’ll stop this low-down stealin’?”

All sounds except a gasping intake and expulsion of heavy breaths ceased to fill Harriet’s distraught ears.

“Who’d athunk — you’d treat me — this way!” panted Lonesome.

“Say, I’m only warmin’ up. But I’ll give yu a chance. Will yu stop this heah stealin’ forever?” returned Laramie.

“Hellno!” burst out Lonesome, still consumed by rage, but significantly weak of voice. “I’ll steal every ——  ——  —— I see! I’ll steal the cussed kid’s clothes — so she’ll have to go naked. I’ll steal jewlry — money . . . an’ cattle an’ hawses! — Thet’ll make you sick. I’ll be a hawse-thief an’ get strung up by the neck.”

“Very wal. Now I am good an’ mad. Shore I was only foolin’ before,” declared Laramie, sternly. “Heah’s for yore breadbasket.” Wham! . . . “Heah’s for yore yellow gizzard.” Bam! . . . “Heah’s for yore white liver.” Bum! “Now I’ll treat yu to the raspatas with both fists.” A succession of rapid terrific blows ensued. Then a pause. “Dog-gone,” panted Laramie. “I just wonder where this disease of yores is located. It cain’t be in yore haid. So it must be in yore belly.” Bum dum — bum BUM BUM!

Harriet could not endure this situation any longer. She had to fight to keep from screaming in mingled mirth and fear. What manner of human beings were these range-riders? Or were they human at all? She checked her impulse long enough to decide upon a course of procedure.

“What’s this? Who’s in my office?” she cried, in pretended amaze. Then she mounted the steps and rushed into the room.

Laramie straddled Lonesome’s hips, and on the moment he had a red fist aloft. It remained aloft while his head jerked up and his piercing eyes appeared to pop. Laramie’s visage expressed a righteous anger. It slowly changed. His fist fell.

Harriet’s gaze traveled to the prostrate Lonesome. He lay limp as a sack and almost as flat. His face was a bloody mess.

“Laramie! — For heaven’s sake! What are you doing?” screamed Harriet, dropping quirt, gloves and sombrero. “Are you drunk, too?”

“No — I’m not — drunk,” mumbled Laramie.

“You’ve murdered this poor boy!” went on Harriet, wildly, thrilling to her part. “Get up, you monster!”

“I was only — lickin’ him,” replied Laramie, rising to his feet and backing away from Harriet’s flaming eyes.

“You great big stiff!” went on Harriet, trying to recall some choice rider’s slang. She might go to the extent of a little profanity. “To pick on this boy!”

“Pick on Lonesome? It couldn’t be did. Look heah. See thet?”

Harriet had noted the swelling on Laramie’s chin and another over his eye, but she gave no heed to Laramie’s appeal. She had her cue.

“You brute!” she replied.

“He hit me terrible hard — in a place I cain’t show you. He may be little, but he’s a bull.”

Harriet dropped upon her knees beside Lonesome. “Oh, you poor dear!” she cried, tenderly wiping his bloody face with her handkerchief. “Lonesome, are you dead? Has he killed you?”

“I was most dead, Hallie, till you come,” murmured Lonesome. Verily he would have had to be almost wholly in that state not to take advantage of this golden opportunity.

“What’d he beat you for?” she queried, trying to keep her voice steady.

“It’s his vicious nature. You’d never think Laramie could be so inhuman,” said Lonesome, earnestly.

“Did you quarrel?” asked Harriet.

“Not eggszackly.”

“How did you come to be here?”

“Wal, I run in heah for protection. I seen the door open an’ I thought you’d save me from him.”

“Poor boy! I surely will,” replied Harriet, with all the tender solicitude she could muster.

Suddenly Laramie started as if he had been struck with a whip.

“Lonesome, how can yu lie to her?” he rang out.

Lonesome lay still a moment with one eye open and the other half closed gazing from Harriet to Laramie. Then he moved to take the stained handkerchief from her and struggled to a sitting posture.

“Help me up. I’m licked, all right,” he said, and appeared to be a different Lonesome.

Harriet rose to assist him and it was her conviction that he needed more than her arm. Laramie stood like a statue. Lonesome flopped into a chair, where he pulled out his scarf and with trembling grimy hand wiped the blood out of his eyes. With his other hand he put Harriet’s handkerchief in his pocket.

“Keep yore mouth shet,” ordered Laramie. “Yu’re out of yore haid. I’ll tell Miss Lindsay about it.”

“Too late, pard. You beat all the deceit out of me,” returned Lonesome.

“What are you saying — both of you?” asked Harriet.

“Hallie, I’m a thief,” replied Lonesome, looking up at her. There was a light in his eyes that rendered even that homely battered face beautiful.

“Why — why, Lonesome! How you talk! You must be flighty,” cried Harriet, in great concern.

“Listen, Hallie,” went on Lonesome, while Laramie threw up his hands and strode to the window. “I’m a low-down thief. Not to make myself any richer, but jest because I couldn’t help appropriatin’ things I liked. I’ve stole for years. An’ since I come heah it’s got wuss. I’ve stole from you. Thet little gold pencil on your desk! Don’t you remember? Wal, I stole thet. An’ all the things Lenta lost I stole. . . . An’ I stole Miss Florence’s nightgown!”

“Lonesome Mulhall!” ejaculated Harriet.

“Laramie has stood fer my stealin’ fer years,” continued Lonesome, frankly. “An’ so has Ted. But lately they both got sore on me. I let on it was a disease. But it was jest plain low-down cussed stealin’. I had a hankerin’ fer pretty things— ‘specially what wimmen wore or owned. Laramie kept swearin’ he’d beat me half to death if I didn’t quit. An’ today when he found Lent’s red scarf in my chaps he went after me. He chased me in heah — an’ I reckon he did a good job of it.”

“Lonesome! Of all things! . . . I am simply stunned,” murmured Harriet. “You — whom we all thought so fine a boy!”

“Don’t rub it in,” he begged, hoarsely, a little bitter. “I’ve come clean. An’ I’m cured. Course you’ll fire me now. But thet’s not what matters. I won’t have you layin’ this on to my pard, Laramie. He done jest right. I deserved all I got.”

“You say you’re cured?” queried Harriet.

“I wouldn’t steal even a hunk of beef off’n a lost steer if I was starvin’ to death,” declared Lonesome.

“Then if you’ll promise not to drink so — so terribly, I will not discharge you,” replied Harriet, sweetly.

“Lord, Miss Hallie, you’re good,” said Lonesome, feelingly. “But even if I could promise you an’ keep it, I’d not want to hang around heah with everybody knowin’.”

“I will keep your secret, Lonesome, the same as Laramie and Ted have done.”

“But I — I can’t promise — —”

“Shore yu can,” spoke up Laramie, turning from the window. “Miss Lindsay, all this heah drinkin’ of Lonesome’s lately has been a trick.”

“Trick! It’s no trick to fool us,” retorted Harriet, feigning heat.

“Wal, I wanted Lonesome to let on he was drunk so’s to find out more about Gaines an’ his hombres. An’ Lonesome agreed, providin’ I’d let on he was goin’ to hell for Lenta.”

Harriet did not know what to say. The tall rider was quite pale and his wonderful eyes pierced her. Up to this moment she had been mistress of the situation, but her composure was breaking and she could not trust herself longer. Laramie’s presence seemed to pull her like a magnet.

“Miss Hallie, I don’t want Lenta never to know the truth,” added Lonesome, earnestly. “‘Cause if it hadn’t been for Laramie I’d done plumb wuss than I pretended.”

“I will keep that secret, too,” returned Harriet. “You have lied to me. I’m not such a tenderfoot as you imagine. I mean about things pertaining to the ranch. May I be assured that you will tell me the truth from now on?”

“I swear I will,” replied Lonesome.

“Wal, so far as personal matters air concerned, I promise,” drawled Laramie, somehow retreating to his old cool self.

“Thank you,” returned Harriet, hastily. “I advise you to take Lonesome to your quarters and look to him before anyone else sees. He surely is a sight.”

Laramie laid powerful hold of his disfigured friend. “Come on, pard.”

“Dog-gone, I’m knocked out,” replied Lonesome, ruefully, as Laramie dragged him up and half carried him out. Then right before them appeared Lenta in the courtyard. She had just come in hurriedly on foot and she halted stockstill to gape at Lonesome.

“Say!” she cried.

Harriet, who peered out over Lonesome’s shoulder, detected an inflection of Lenta’s voice that gave food for reflection. Nor did the girl wholly conceal a flash and start.

“Pass on, Lenta,” drawled Laramie, “or yu may feel bad.”

“Lonesome! — somebody throw you in a threshing-machine?” queried Lenta.

“It’s nothin’ to you, girl.”

“Lenta, my pard heah suffered this cripplin’ in yore behalf,” added Laramie, coldly.

“Mine!” Lenta’s face flamed scarlet, and then slowly paled till her tan appeared obliterated. Instinctively she moved as if to step toward them, but something inhibited a natural impulse, and turning she fled up the court.

“Laramie, old pard, thet wasn’t so bad!” exclaimed Lonesome, thrillingly.

Harriet watched them out of sight. Then ponderingly she picked up her gauntlets, which suddenly she slammed against the wall. “Damn it!” she whispered. “I love that boy Lonesome, and it’s beautiful. . . . I’m going to love that cold, blood-curdling Laramie — and — it’s — terrible!”

Presently Harriet remembered Florence and Ted, which thought instantly switched the direction of pondering and emotion. She found herself in a Homeric mood that augured well for her erring sisters. Fearing she might lose this exalting excitement and sense of power, she ran out to find them.

CHAPTER XI

THE PORCH IN front of Florence’s open door was littered with parcels and bundles and grips, evidently left where they had been thrown from the buckboard. This was an indication of the eloping bride’s mental state, for Florence was usually the neatest and most fastidious person with her possessions. Harriet burst in upon the young couple.

“Congratulations, you prodigals!” she cried, gaily. She saw Ted first. He looked exceedingly well in a new dark suit. His handsome weathered face showed no sign of worry, concern, or remorse. It broke into a warm smile at sight of Harriet.

“Oh — Hallie!” cried Florence, poignantly. On the moment she did not look a happy bride. Her lovely face was pale and tear-stained. She was most becomingly gowned. Harriet’s surmise proved correct, for Florence rushed into her arms to laugh and cry and kiss her with a warmth seldom expressed by the beauty of the Lindsays.

“Well, Flo, you’ve been and gone and done it,” murmured Harriet, holding the girl close.

“Hallie, don’t I come in for a kiss, too?” queried Ted, brazenly, as he rose from the bed. “I was there when it happened.”

“Two, if you want them,” laughed Harriet, as she extended a hand. Ted was not slow to kiss her. “Boy, you don’t look sorry over your deportment.”

“Me? I’m the happiest man in the world,” he declared.

“So you should be.”

“Oh, Hallie, I was happy too, till we got home,” wailed Florence. “Dad wouldn’t even see us. He wouldn’t let us go in to mother. And when we tried, he yelled, ‘Get the hell out of here!’”

“Did he!” ejaculated Harriet. “That’s a lot for father. I’m afraid he is angry. You should have asked him. I told you. What’d you run off that way for?”

“Oh, it was Ted’s fault. He coaxed — so — he made me. . . . And I — I guess I wanted to. . . . But, Hal, darling, what on earth will we do? We spent every dollar we both had. Where could we go? But I won’t be separated from you all. It’d be dreadful. I didn’t elope for that. I just didn’t think.”

“Don’t cry, honey,” replied Harriet. “Maybe it wasn’t such a fool thing, after all. We’re out West now. What was the sense of waiting? Still, it’d been better if you’d asked father.”

“I wanted to, Hal. Honest I did. But Ted wouldn’t let me. . . . Won’t you persuade dad to forgive us?”

“I’ll try, dear. I guess I’m not much scared,” returned Harriet as she released her sister. “He’s not in a good humor. You see, Lenta broke out again.”

“Again! She has stayed broken out. I hope she didn’t fetch that Stuart fellow home with her.”

“That’s just what she did,” said Harriet.

“Oh, Lordy!” cried Flo, aghast, and looked to see how Ted took the news.

“Did Laramie know it?” queried Ted.

“Not until we got here, I’m sure.”

“Hallie, young Stuart is a bad hombre,” rejoined Ted, seriously. “We heard all about him. Reckon he’s not a rustler like Gaines, but he’s just plain no good. Married, for one thing. Ran off with Alice Webster. She worked in a restaurant at La Junta. And she had to go back. Lenta has barked up the wrong tree this time.”

“Whew! So he’s married? That’s one thing we mustn’t tell father.”

“I’ll tell Lent at once. Where is she?” interposed Florence.

“Laramie is the one to tell,” added Ted.

“One thing at a time. Wait till I see if I can persuade father not to cast you off forever,” said Harriet, gravely.

“Oh, Hallie, I — I couldn’t bear it,” cried Florence.

Harriet hurried over to her father’s quarters and knocked without any misgivings. His bark was worse than his bite. And even if he was furious, Harriet knew she could coax him around.

“Go away,” called a rough voice.

“But it’s Hallie.”

“Oh. . . . ma, it’s Hallie. Let her in.”

Harriet was admitted by her sleepy mother, who did not appear otherwise upset by the misfortunes of the family. Lindsay sat at the window, with his back to Harriet. She was careful to stay behind him, but finally leaned over his chair.

“How are you, daddy?”

“Humph! You must want a lot — callin’ me that. Out with it?”

Harriet gathered all her forces of eloquence and launched forth: “Flo is scared and heart-broken. Poor kid! She’s so deeply in love that she didn’t know what she was doing. And Ted is penitent. They both realize now that they should have asked you. They did tell me and made me swear not to betray them. Ted’s a fine young fellow. We need him here. Besides, if you sent him away Laramie and Lonesome would go too. Then where would we be? Flo could not be separated from us all. Daddy, darling, we’ve got this infernal cattle business to conquer, and from what I’ve gathered it’ll be no fun. For goodness’ sake, let’s keep the riders we know are honest, no matter how queer they are!”

“Fine talk. Can you keep that hombre Laramie here?” returned Lindsay.

“Why — why father!” exclaimed Harriet, utterly routed.

“Don’t why me. Can you do it?”

“Can I! . . . How on earth — What — —”

“Daughter, you understand me. Will you keep Laramie here? We’re ruined if you won’t.”

“I — I will,” faltered Harriet, in a tumult.

“Very good. That relieves me,” declared Lindsay, heartily. “Now you can call Flo and Ted over. I was only bluffing about them, anyhow. But you needn’t tell that.”

Harriet shakily opened the door and called, hurriedly. “Oh, Flo . . . Ted. Come!” She waited to receive them. Florence came running, but her husband was slower. Meanwhile Lindsay told Mrs. Lindsay to present herself in the sitting-room.

Florence stared with appealing question at Harriet. The proud dark eyes were not proud now. She went in. “Dad — p-please forgive me.” Ted strode up on the porch, and tossing away his cigarette he winked at Harriet and went in. Harriet followed. She would have been frightened if she had not been aware of her father’s duplicity. He had arisen. He apparently did not see the trembling bride, but fixed stern gaze upon the groom.

“Well, young man, what have you got to say for yourself?” he bellowed. Before Ted could reply Laramie strode jinglingly in at the door.

“Aw, ‘scuse me,” he drawled.

“Stay, Laramie, I may require your assistance,” said Lindsay.

“Mr. Lindsay, I haven’t got so much to say,” replied Ted, frankly. “Fact is, I’ve deceived you all.”

“Deceived us?” demanded Lindsay.

“Oh, Ted!” moaned Flo.

“See heah, Tracks,” interposed Laramie. “I’ve had a couple of shocks today. Go easy now.”

“Yes, I’ve deceived you,” resumed Ted, coolly. “It looked all right at first thought. But now I’m afraid it’s pretty low down, especially to my wife. . . . But anyway, here goes. About six weeks ago I wrote home to my parents — first time for years. And I told them what a wild life I’d led — and how falling in with a fine family and the sweetest girl in the world had changed me. That she’d promised to marry me. . . . Well, the answer didn’t reach me until two days before we went to La Junta. It came with the mail that Manuel brought on the freight-wagon. . . . The governor, mother, and my sister Edna — she was a kid when I left home — are coming out to set me up in the cattle business. It sort of knocked me. I was sure locoed. It means a big ranch for me or I could throw in with you here and we could run a hundred thousand head of stock. But the funny thing is I didn’t want to tell you. I guess I was crazy to see if Flo would marry me just as I was — a wild range-rider without any future. That, sir, is my excuse.”

Ted’s listeners were all stricken, Flo most of all. Rapt, fascinated, she gazed at him. Lindsay scratched his grizzled beard in bewilderment. The tables had been turned on him. Laramie appeared to be the only one not at a loss, and astounded.

“Yu double-crossin’ son-of-a-gun,” he drawled. “Don’t yu ever reckon yu could boss me.”

“Laramie, we’ve shared blankets and crusts — good and bad all these years. And we’re not going to change now. When the governor comes out to set me up this fall you and Lonesome will be my pards as always,” declared Ted, warmly.

“Oh Ted! you wonderful wretch! Not to tell me!” cried Flo, and flung her arms around his neck.

“I reckon I cain’t wait to tell Lonesome about thet,” beamed Laramie, and plunged out of the door to clink rapidly down the courtyard.

“Looks like I’ve gained a partner as well as a son-in-law,” declared Lindsay. “Hallie — ma, it sure takes the tickle out of my surprise. They’ll never believe me now.”

“Indeed they will,” cried Harriet, joyfully.

“Flo — Ted, the ‘tarnal truth is that I wasn’t mad at you. I was tickled to death. I just wanted to throw a bluff.”

Florence screamed and ran from her husband to her father, to envelop him ecstatically. Ted followed her and gripped the hand that clasped round Flo’s shoulder.

“See here, pop, you’ve played a low-down trick on me. You’ve not only got well but you’ve got Western. You’ve made a tenderfoot out of me. I was scared stiff.”

* * * * *

But it soon developed that joy in the Lindsay household was not unmitigated. Presently Lenta appeared upon the scene, distractingly pretty and as baby-eyed as ever.

“So you’ve come back pronto?” she asked coolly, without any preliminary greeting to Florence. “I’ll stay away awhile and have some fun when I elope.”

“Lent, aren’t you going to congratulate us?” rejoined Florence, reproachfully.

“Well, I congratulate you all right, but I’m not so sure about Ted.”

Then Mr. Lindsay fixed his youngest daughter with an icy stare and was evidently about to address her when Laramie came in, carrying a saddle-bag. His eyes were twinkling. Harriet felt a sudden rush of liking for him. How seldom did he show humor!

“Folks, reckon heah’s Christmas come middle of July,” he drawled, and emptied a bright mass of articles upon the table. “There! Lonesome’s respects an’ he said he’d got a lot of fun out of his joke.”

“Joke!” echoed Ted, fiercely.

Lenta let out a scream, and leaping at the table she snatched a red scarf out of the tangle. “My darling scarf! I knew I never lost it. . . . Lonesome, the darned little thief! . . . Look! here’s more I thought I’d lost. My locket with my picture! My glove! My bracelet! Well, I’ll be jiggered! . . . I’ll bet two-bits I’ll find my garter here — —”

“Oh, Lent, there’s my gold pencil,” cried Harriet. “The rascal! But I’d forgive him anything — I’m so glad to get it back.”

“For the land’s sake — my nightie!” ejaculated Flo.

Ted made a lunge. “What? Your nightgown? How’n’h — the deuce did he get this?”

“Not off me, darling,” laughed Flo, recovering the lacy garment.

“Lonesome snooped thet off the clothes-line,” drawled Laramie. “Fact is, he took aboot everythin’ thet wasn’t tied down. Heah’s a double-eagle I’ve packed with me for years. I wouldn’t have spent it for worlds. An’ many’s the time we was near starvin’. It saved my life once.”

“How?” queried Lenta, eyeing the gold piece in Laramie’s extended palm.

“Wal, it was in my vest pocket an’ it stopped a bullet thet would shore have done for me. There’s the mark where the lead hit.”

“Let me see,” spoke up Harriet, answering to irresistible impulse. Laramie handed the coin to her. It was a twenty dollar gold piece, worn smooth, and it had a very perceptible dent in the middle. What a little thing to save a man’s life! Harriet shuddered. There seemed to be a raw, sinister violence in that very dent. Suppose Laramie had not been carrying this coin in his vest pocket! An unaccountable speculation as to what difference that might have made to Harriet whirled through her mind.

“No wonder you cherish it,” she murmured, her hand trembling visibly as she returned the coin. “If it stopped a bullet — some one must have shot at you.”

“Wal, if I recollect, some one did,” drawled Laramie.

“May I ask what happened to him?” queried Harriet, curiously. She was to see the twinkle die out of Laramie’s eyes and an almost imperceptible shade pass over his face. He made no reply, but flipped the coin and turned aside.

“Hallie, why don’t you ask me?” queried Ted, with a laugh.

Lenta and Florence were recovering more lost articles, and were squealing in glee.

“Dad, here’s your cigarette-holder,” chirped Lenta, suddenly, and she tossed it to him.

“So ’tis,” replied Lindsay, pleased as a child.

“Mother, if I don’t miss my guess here are your little scissors, the pair you raved about disappearing from your work-basket,” added Flo.

“It is. . . . Well, if this doesn’t beat the Dutch!” returned Mrs. Lindsay, receiving the coveted instrument.

“Folks, don’t be mad at Lonesome,” spoke up Laramie. “He’s jest a boy at heart. An’ thet was his way of havin’ fun. I took him to task about it an’ I reckon he won’t steal no more.”

“Mad? Why, we couldn’t be mad at Lonesome,” said Harriet, and as there was no disputing this, evidently she spoke for all. Laramie went his way then, and presently Flo and Ted, sensing trouble brewing for Lenta, beat a hasty retreat. Mrs. Lindsay retired to her bedroom, and that left the refractory Lenta alone with her father and Harriet.

“Lenta, I forbade you to leave your room today,” began Lindsay, severely.

“I’m young, dad, and full of go. I can’t stay indoors,” replied the girl, petulantly.

“Where’d you go?”

“Out.”

“Riding?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alone?”

“It’s not safe to ride alone, Laramie says. So I always ride with some one.”

“In this case no doubt your companion was the rider you annexed at La Junta. What’s his name?”

“Stuart.”

“Did you persuade him to come here?”

“Well, dad, I can’t say I discouraged him. I told him we needed riders. And he’s wonderful on a horse.”

“That’s not the point, my daughter. I don’t approve of you meeting one of these strange Westerners today and fetching him dangling after you tomorrow.”

“I can’t help it if they dangle after me,” said Lenta, resentfully.

“Lenta, I don’t blame these boys for liking you. And I don’t blame you. But you are nearly seventeen. You must use some sense — or trouble will come of it.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You could back East. But not out here,” protested her father. “This is the unsettled West, you headstrong child. Any one of these riders may be a rustler, a horse-thief, or worse. Laramie Nelson is authority for that. My objection is you are too free — too reckless. You will not wait till we know this or that young fellow is all right. And I propose to stop you one way or another.”

Lenta tossed a rebellious head.

“How do you know this Stuart is a fit companion for you?” went on Lindsay.

“Anyone could see he’s a perfectly wonderful fellow,” retorted Lenta.

“He might be that and all the same be a desperado,” returned her father, dryly.

“Lenta, dear, you are quite mistaken in young Stuart,” interposed Harriet.

“Hallie! Do you know anything about him?” asked Lindsay.

“Yes, I regret to say.”

“Keep it to yourself, sister, for I sure won’t believe it,” snapped Lenta, suspiciously. She had been rubbed the wrong way.

“Hallie, tell me,” ordered her father, peremptorily.

“Stuart is a bad hombre, according to Ted. He is married to a girl named Webster in La Junta. She left him or he deserted her, for she went back to work in a restaurant there. Laramie must know, for he ordered Stuart off the ranch this morning. You heard him, Lenta.”

“It’s a — lie!” gasped Lenta, passionately. “You’re all picking on me.”

“Nonsense! We are trying to keep you from making a fool of yourself,” replied Lindsay, impatiently.

“Lenta, what has gotten into you?” asked Harriet, in amaze.

“Laramie said he reckoned it was the devil, Hallie. Eastern girls run wild out here sometimes,” said Lindsay.

“Aw, that for Laramie!” burst out Lenta furiously snapping her fingers. “He’s only sore at me because of Lonesome.”

“Lenta, are you going to stop riding around alone with these fellows?” demanded Lindsay, gravely. “Are you going to stop carrying on with anyone? Are you going to stay at home and help your mother?”

“No I’m not,” flamed out Lenta.

“Very well. I’ll lock you in your room until you change your mind,” replied her father, and taking Lenta’s arm he dragged her out. Lenta looked back at Harriet with eyes vastly different from a baby’s.

“I’ll get even with you, Hal Lindsay,” she cried.

Most certainly this was not the hour for Harriet to have the long heart-to-heart talk with Lenta that she had determined upon. She sighed heavily. Lenta might be going to turn out the black sheep of the family. For that matter Neale was not so white a sheep. At La Junta he had caroused with the cow-punchers, so it had been reported, until they laid him away under a table. He had not yet returned from La Junta. One grain of comfort Harriet extracted from all this trouble was the way her father took it. He had evinced a most surprising imperviousness. She remembered when even little things used to infuriate him. But now he was out West. Out in the open! It was magical. She had changed herself, and as she strolled through the courtyard toward her office she drew a full deep breath of that sweet, dry, hot, sage-laden air. It expanded her breast.

As she passed the lodgings of her three range-riders she heard sounds of merriment. Lonesome laughing after he had been beaten to a pulp! Then Ted’s low, less coarse laugh rang out. Harriet distinctly heard from the half-open door: “Who’s gonna tell her?” And the answer in Laramie’s drawl: “Reckon Tracks better do thet. I shore don’t stand ace high no more.” To this Lonesome replied: “Hell, you got four aces up with her sister.” And again Ted laughed and spoke: “Girls hate jealous, glum blokes. Listen to me. Larry, if instead of being afraid to look at Hallie you grab her and kiss her dumb, and Lonesome if you brace up and do the same with Lent we’ll all be happy. My governor will stake us — —”

Harriet drew out of earshot. Her ears certainly tingled and her cheeks glowed. She ran up into her office and shut the door. “Oh, the brazen wretches! To parcel us girls out that way!” she whispered, hot and cold by turns. “Ted is the cunning one. So that’s how he won Flo? . . . To advise Laramie to — to grab me — oh-h! . . . if he did—” Harriet hid her burning face in her arms as she leaned over her desk, and shook from head to foot. What had outraged pride and reserve to do with the tremendous tumult in her breast? She had been waylaid and surprised by an unknown self. One self seemed shamed and horrified: another thrilled and throbbed, and cried out in demanding voice for the very thing that had stricken her.

* * * * *

Harriet kept to herself the remainder of that day, and when night came, owing to the fact of Lenta’s confinement in another room, she was alone. She felt relieved. She bore a secret in her bosom and she could not everlastingly hide it. Her mirror told her many tales, as well as forced her to gaze at this flush-faced, wild-eyed stranger. Nevertheless she slept deeply and long.

Next morning she again dressed to ride, and discovered that she had awakened in a sublime and heroic mood. She had no fear of a horse. She would ride the little beast of a mustang that had thrown her or break her neck trying.

She had breakfast with Ted and Flo. They were a delightful couple, when Harriet could forget Ted’s duplicity.

“I want to ride, too, darling,” said Flo, coaxingly. “You promised to teach me. I’ve got such a gorgeous riding-habit.”

“Listen, sweetheart. You’ll ride in overalls,” quoth Ted, masterfully. “Pants — my stylish wife!”

“Well, anyway, just so you take me. I never thought Hallie would come to it. Look at her. Getting Western.”

“Sure. She looks great. I’ll take you this afternoon, honey. Laramie has a job for me this morning.”

“Job? Do you have to work?”

“I should smile I do. I’ve got you to support now — you wonderful girl. . . . It’s a job finding horse tracks. Lonesome is in bed — done up — and I’ve — —”

They went out with their arms around each other. Somehow Harriet suffered a queer pang. How happy she was for Flo! That boy might be a gun-throwing cowboy, but he worshiped her and she was safe. If only Lenta had — ! Her father came in, dusty and warm, a cheerful presence.

“Hello, Hal. I’ve been up with the boys,” he announced, gaily. “Hungry as a bear! . . . Hey Jud. Ham and eggs. Coffee — and a couple of your sour-doughs. . . . Neale rode in late last night, Hallie, I’m glad to say.”

“That’s good. How — was he?”

“Didn’t see him till this morning. He was all right. Looked rocky. Laramie routed him out early and put him to work.”

“At what?”

“Digging fence-post holes. Gosh! how the riders hate that sort of work. I used to like it. They sure rode Neale. That Wind River Charlie — he’s a dandy chap — I heard him say for Neale’s benefit, ‘Laramie, dog-gone if the boss’s son ain’t the plumb best hole-digger I even seen.’ And Laramie said: ‘Shore. I seen thet right off. I’ll put him on thet mile stretch we want fenced down the valley.’”

“And what did Neale say?” queried Harriet, keenly interested.

“I couldn’t tell it to a lady,” laughed her father. “But at that, it tickled me. He’s game, Hallie. And that counts out here. Laramie said: ‘Don’t worry no more about Neale, boss.’”

“Well, let’s stop worrying — then,” replied Harriet, her voice breaking a little.

“I shall. But Lent’s a different proposition,” returned Lindsay, gravely shaking his head. “As I came up the road just now she saw me. She’s so little she can sit up in that window. What do you think she called me?”

“Lord only knows.”

“Guess I’d better not tell you. . . . Aggh! Thanks, Jud. That ham sure smells good.”

Harriet wondered if Lenta would espy her as she passed on the road, which turned somewhat along that side of the ranch-house before going down. Before she had reached the head of the descent Lenta hailed her.

“Mawnin’, dear sister,” called the girl in her sweetest most dangerous voice.

“Why, good-morning, Lenta dear. I should think you’d decide to obey father,” replied Harriet, feeling like a hypocrite.

“If you don’t get me out of this I’ll queer you with Laramie,” threatened Lenta, viciously.

“Nonsense. You couldn’t queer me — even if — —”

“Oh, couldn’t I? Laramie believes you’re a saint. But you’re not, old girl. I’ll squeal about your affair with Emery and you bet your life I’ll make it something to drive even Laramie to drink.”

Affronted and stung, Harriet retorted: “Child, how you talk! There’s nothing between Laramie and me.”

“Sure. You’re too cold-blooded to love anybody, even your own sister. But that big stiff of a rider would adore you if you’d — —”

“Hush!” commanded Harriet. “How dare you speak so — so insultingly — to me?” With that Harriet wheeled to hurry down the road. Presently a shrill voice pealed after her, and suddenly its content forced Harriet to clasp her hands over her ears and run. This encounter and the violence of action were not conducive to composure, or a reasonable judgment for the issue at hand.

Harriet had a little bay mustang saddled instead of the gentle Moze, and such was her state of mind that she mounted him right in front of the Mexicans, and also Dakota, who gaped at her. True, Pedro was holding him.

“Miss, he ain’t been worked out lately, an’ he might pitch. Better let me go with you,” advised the rider, anxiously.

“Thanks, Dakota. I could ride an outlaw this morning,” she replied. Nevertheless, after she was out of sight, she concluded discretion would be the better part of valor, and she would be wise to put the mustang through his paces over in the secluded sandy plot she had utilized the day before.

Presently she became aware of sundry sore spots on her anatomy. She had not felt at all spry, still she had not known she had sore muscles and aching bones. The mustang wanted to run, yet he appeared tractable, and Harriet believed she could manage him. Suddenly he bolted and tore off at breakneck speed. Harriet had all she could do to stick on. But instead of getting panic-stricken she grew angry. She did not care whether she fell off or not, only it would never be from any lack of her trying to stay on. The wind tore at her hair; branches of trees stung her face. When he leaped a log she shot sky-high to come down in the saddle with such a jolt that she thought her head would fly off her shoulders. If he had needed any guiding, it would have been a desperate predicament. But the mustang was not running away; he was just racing for fun. He tore out of the cottonwoods, down the pasture road, all around that pasture, across the valley and up on the other side into the woods again. Harriet stayed on him until he slowed down.

“Son-of-a-gun!” she panted, in true Western expression. Hot, wet, her sombrero gone, her quirt lost, her hair flying, she made the astounding discovery that this strenuous action or her extreme agitation had done away with her pains, at least for the moment. Suddenly her anger gave way to elation. She was still in the saddle. “You darned little wild nag! I’m on you yet!” she cried.

Before she realized it she was back in the neighborhood of the sequestered natural corral which she had started out to find. She headed the mustang there, and soon felt safe from curious eyes, at least. The mustang grew cranky. He certainly was a self-willed animal. Still he did not appear to want to leave the oval, so she let him have his own way. He pranced around, side-stepped, champed his bit, half-reared, and all of a sudden bolted again. But just as he got going faster he made a terrific leap, and landing stiff-legged he threw Harriet in a parabolic curve far over his head. She fell in the sand and scooted along on her face, her hands out, until she dug in so deep that she stopped. Breathless, stunned, she lay still. Am I dead — she thought? Her consciousness seemed real, though all outside was dark. The smell of sand roused her to the fact that she had her face buried. She was smothering. To her amaze she sat up easily. She was not hurt, apparently, but she surely presented an undignified spectacle for Harriet Lindsay. The mustang stood there meekly, as if waiting. A mere sight of him inflamed Harriet to a degree she had hitherto never dreamed of.

“You ornery little Western mule!” she ejaculated. “You’re like all the rest of this darned West. You’re laughing at me. You’ve got the soul of these tricky cow-punchers in you. But I’ll get the best of you. I’ll ride you if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Whereupon she got up and essayed to mount him, forgetting that Pedro had held him for her at the stable, and that he was one of the horses trained for a flying mount. As she leaped up he leaped forward and spilled her. Harriet spun around on her head and went down to roll over. Strangely she was not hurt, only enraged. When she shook the sand out of her hair she strode over to the mustang and kicked him in the belly as she had seen Lonesome do to a mean horse. Still it was not a brutal kick, but just something to show him her spirit. Then all set, careful, nerved, she slipped her toe in the stirrup and sprang off her right. She appeared to be swung up into the saddle with marvelous ease. If Harriet had not been so furious she would have whooped at this feat. But the mustang was in action, headed around the inclosure. From gallop he changed to run, and after a couple of times around the corral he turned toward the center. Harriet was ready for him, so that when he executed the tricky stop she stuck like a burr.

“Fooled you, didn’t I?” she taunted.

He might have understood her, for he did something new. He bounced up and came down on stiff legs. Harriet thought every bone in her body was broken and her teeth jarred loose. She could not keep her head up. He bent double and pitched her high. He was bucking with her. While high off the saddle Harriet realized that, and instead of frightening her it only made her furious. She lit in the saddle and desperately clutched the pommel. He pitched again — up — down — up — down — up — down. Next time Harriet missed the saddle and slid off his back like oil. She sat right down in the sand. It was ignominious but no more. It did not hurt. If that was all she had to stand from pitching she could do it all day. The mustang led her a long walk around the corral before she could catch and mount him again. Whereupon he promptly began to pitch again. On the third buck he threw her ten feet aside, to alight on her shoulder and head. The soft sand saved her from injury. She got up and went at him again.

In the succeeding hour or two, or whatever period it took, Harriet was thrown often after sticking on longer each successive time. She knew she was going to ride him eventually and the mustang knew it too. That made him worse.

“Tomorrow I’ll wear — spurs,” panted Harriet. “Then I’ll rake you over. . . . You won’t throw me — either — you ornery — white-eyed little Western horse!”

No doubt the truth of this was assimilated by the mustang, for in a last and valiant effort of pitching he gave her the worst of her falls.

Harriet lay on her back where she had struck just outside the wall of brush. She was stunned, helpless, but conscious. She realized she was conscious, for she saw the blue sky, the white clouds, the green cottonwoods, and she heard a jingling musical step. Then the brush rustled and parted right close to her. A tall form loomed over her.

“Wal, this last spill wasn’t so funny,” drawled Laramie’s familiar voice.

His face blurred in her sight. She tried to speak, but no sound came. A tight bound sensation encompassed her chest. But she was aware of his kneeling beside her, straightening her legs and arms.

“Aw, nothin’ cain’t be broke,” he muttered. “She lit square — an’ this heah soft sand—” Then he lifted her head. “Hallie, air yu hurt?”

As she gazed up her sight cleared. The dark piercing apprehension in his eyes seemed the sweetest thing she had ever realized.

“Laramie — I’m — killed,” she got out, in a husky whisper.

“Killed yore eye! Air yu hurt — an’ where?”

“My spine! — I feel — paralysis — stealing over me!” This was not such an arrant falsehood, because some paralyzing affection was attacking her modesty and dignity.

“For Gawd’s sake, girl, don’t tell me yu broke yore back?” entreated Laramie.

Whatever she had yearned for had its fulfillment in his tone, his look, in the big hands she felt tremble.

“Perhaps not so — so bad as that,” she whispered, weakening. “Help me sit up.”

He did so, very gently, though with strong clasp. Harriet got all the way to her feet. “I’m all right — I guess. . . . Dizzy. I—” she swayed, and instinctively clutched him.

“Yu’re hurt. Yu cain’t stand up,” he declared, as he held her.

“Oh no. I don’t feel any pain — yet. I can stand.”

But Laramie did not give her a chance to prove it, for promptly taking her up in his arms, as if she were a child, he strode off up the valley.

“I can pack yu home. Yu’re more of a load than Lenta, but yu don’t weigh much at thet,” he said, coolly.

“I do — so,” replied Harriet, confused and startled. “I weighed one hundred and twenty-six at La Junta.”

“Is thet all? Gosh! I reckoned yu was a big girl.”

Harriet closed her eyes and tried to think. There was something terribly wrong. If it was not an internal injury it was most assuredly an internal commotion. But what could she do? For the sheer, feminine, inexplicable glee of it she had practiced an innocent deceit just to see what he would betray. She would have to keep it up. What if Lenta was still at the window? Nothing would escape her eagle eyes. The thought of Lenta seeing her in Laramie’s arms was unendurable.

“Laramie, let me down now,” she said.

He did not pay the slightest attention to her. How silly of her to ask that when she had her eyes closed and looked as if she had fainted! Harriet opened them, to her sudden discomfiture. Laramie was carrying her through the willows. Her head was quite high upon his shoulder, with her face turned partly inward. He had one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. How powerful he was! She might have been as light as a feather for all the sign he gave. She turned her face farther inward so that he could not see it. Then she made the disturbing discovery that her right side and breast were pressed tight against him. Her left hand had instinctively grasped his vest above his pocket. She saw it. All of a sudden an absurd and incredible impulse assailed her — to slip that hand and arm up around his neck. She even let go her hold on his vest before the enormity of such an act swept over her. That shattered what nerve she had left.

“Let me d-down, Laramie. I can walk now,” she entreated.

“Say, Lady, I’d do this for any girl,” was his astounding reply. “I’m not crazy about packin’ yu — if thet’s what ails yu.”

“But you are holding me too — too tight,” objected Harriet, in a smothered voice.

“Shore. I heahed yu say thet when we danced together. An’ there was no cause for it atall.”

“You are a liar, Laramie Nelson,” retorted Harriet, anger coming to her rescue. “I know when I’m hugged.”

“Wal, Lonesome said he’d bet yu’d been hugged a lot. But I kinda reckoned — —”

“Put me down this instant,” commanded Harriet, who realized that if he did not she would give up abjectly.

“Aw now, Lady.”

“I’ll yell,” she threatened.

“Wal, so yu take me for the Luke Arlidge brand?” drawled Laramie, coolly setting her upon her feet. “I’m tellin’ yu flat thet yu can crawl home for all I care.”

By this time they had reached the foot of the zigzag trail at the head of the valley. Harriet found that she would not have to crawl. She was unsteady on her feet and had to stop to catch her breath, but she climbed to the fringe of sage and oak-brush just under the rim without any assistance. At the last step or so, however, Laramie’s iron hand detained her.

“Wal, look there, Lady,” he whispered, and his icy tone like his clutch on her arm sent a cold stiffness all though her.

Harriet gazed out between two sections of brush in the direction indicated by Laramie’s leveled hand. She saw a horse close under a window of the ranch-house, then a rider leaning away from the saddle, his sleek dark head halfway inside the bars. She gazed spellbound. That was Lenta’s window. Stuart! Then she espied two little brown hands clasped around the rider’s neck. Lenta was kissing Stuart through the bars.

“What shall I do, Lady?” whispered Laramie.

“Send him — away,” choked Harriet.

“Wal, yu step down the road a little, for this hombre may throw a gun on me,” advised Laramie.

A hot bursting gush of blood raced over Harriet, liberating she did not know what.

“If he does—” she flashed, and then broke off. But it was not fright. Strangely she realized that it was not fear that gripped her. Stepping out she hurried down the road — hesitated — stopped. Lenta and her latest admirer were oblivious to their surroundings. Suddenly a voice with a cold ringing drawl broke the silence.

“Hey, Stuart.”

The rider jerked as if he had been lashed, and breaking the clasp of the girl’s arms he whirled and straightened up with face flashing pale.

“Don’t draw, boy,” called Laramie, sharp and quick. “If yu’re half decent yu won’t force me to kill yu before her eyes.”

“Aw, I — ain’t drawin’, Nelson,” cried the rider, hoarsely.

“Wal then, rustle pronto. An’ if I meet yu again around heah yu’ll have to draw.”

Stuart let out a mirthless laugh, and spurring his horse rode around the ranch house out of sight.

“Lent, I reckon yu’re no good,” declared Laramie, in profound regret.

“Howdy, Romeo and Juliet,” replied the girl, flippantly. But her face was distinctly red, with either anger or shame. “I’ll bet you’ve been spooning yourselves. . . . Hallie, you shore look mauled.”

Harriet ran to get into the courtyard. If she had been furious at sight of Lenta’s action, what was she after such an insinuation? Never in her life had she been so possessed with wrath. She feared to trust herself on the moment. Repairing to her room, she removed her garments and washed the dust and dirt from her person. Then she discovered some bruises, a skinned elbow and sprained wrist. All the while what mental force she was capable of had been directed to the restoration of calm. She could not attain it. Nevertheless, she refused to wait longer. As soon as she had dressed she hurried across to obtain the key of Lenta’s room from her father. But he was out and her mother said she thought he had the key in his pocket. Harriet went to Lenta’s door, anyway, and pounded upon it with no gentle hand.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Harriet. I’ve a word to say to you, young lady,” replied Harriet.

“You don’t say? Well, I can’t let you in and I wouldn’t if I could,” drawled the girl, insolently.

“Lenta, I really don’t care to see you,” returned Harriet, striving for steady deliberate scorn. “You can hear me. . . . I think your conduct disgraceful. I think you are a shameless little hussy. . . . Laramie had it right. You are no good. You have turned out bad. . . . My hopes for you, my prayers are ended. I don’t want anything more to do with you.”

Harriet stopped. She expected a tirade of abuse. But all was significantly silent. She hurried away to the seclusion of her room. And she did not present herself at the supper table this day.

* * * * *

Her sleep was restless and troubled. She dreamed or imagined she heard horses in the night. As gray dawn approached she sank to deeper slumber. And she awoke late. Somebody was knocking upon her door.

“Yes. Who is it?” cried Harriet, sitting up. The sun shone bright in her window.

“It’s me, Hallie,” replied her father, and his voice heralded calamity. “You needn’t let me in. But — listen. . . .” His speech broke, gathered strength. “Lent ran off last night. Some rider — Stuart we think — broke the bars of her window — got her out. . . . Laramie says it happened before dawn. He took Ted — Lonesome, and I don’t know who else. . . . He said to tell you and ma that the girl was only playing a joke. But he didn’t look like it was a joke. . . . They’ll trail them . . . and I’ve an idea we’re in for — some real West at last.”

CHAPTER XII

TOWARD DAWN LARAMIE awoke with a start. A gray space marked the open door. Some noise had aroused him, or it might have been a dream. Lonesome lay on his side, breathing quietly and regularly. Tracks, of course, no longer shared their quarters. Then a clip-clop of shod hoofs sounded from the far side of the ranch-house.

The sound died away. It had not been unusual for Laramie to hear hoofbeats outside the walls, especially on his side of the old fort. There were always loose horses and strayed horses. These, however, were never shod, and they were always grazing around. But this horse had been shod and he was not grazing. A rider had gone by.

Laramie rolled over to go to sleep. But sleep did not come. He realized after a little while that there had been a regurgitation of one of his old trail habits. Men of his calling slept lightly. Always they heard steps on their trails. Any slight noise around camp brought him instantly wide awake and listening. He had an intuition, an inward ear for unusual steps, as well as untoward events.

Wherefore Laramie sat up in his bunk. The darkest hour had passed some time ago, and the gray light that he had noticed upon awakening had perceptibly increased. Laramie felt for his clothes on the floor, thinking the while that there was no sense in his not responding to this feeling. Since living with the Lindsays he had scarcely been his real self. Old instincts had been gladly lulled. And Hallie Lindsay had made him forget who he was.

Slowly he dressed and pulled on his boots, very quietly, for Lonesome likewise slept with one eye open. Laramie buckled on his gun-belt and slipped out of the room into the courtyard. The brook murmured softly; off on the range a solitary coyote yelped. He walked to the gateway and out on the road.

Daylight was spreading from the eastern horizon, a wonderful soft brightness coming up from the undulating prairie. A faint tinge of rose lighted the sky. He listened. The range still slept. The valley was steeped in gray. Laramie stood a moment, inhaling the fresh cool sage-breath of the morning, running his appreciative gaze far out and down, along the battlements of the distant ranges, and the obscure patches and streaks that meant leagues and leagues of open country. Cattle out there, herds and mavericks, horses and squatters, riders and rustlers, life of the West! But it was to the north that his gaze swept and held. The ruggeder gray north, swelling to the foothills, with the dim Rockies beyond! Months ago Laramie had located menace to the Lindsays there.

He searched the road for fresh hoof tracks and that slow action seemed to still a restlessness. By that Laramie judged how dissatisfied he was with himself. Finding none, he stood a moment ponderingly, then made his way back toward the gate. As he reached a point even with the wall that ran north he thought he saw something dark projecting from one of the windows. He did see something. That was Lenta’s window. Laramie leaped along the wall.

Before he reached the window he espied one of the iron bars projecting out. It had been bent and broken. On the ground lay pieces of stone and mortar, and a pick. Laramie recognized the tool. Only yesterday he had seen it leaning somewhere down by the stables. Fresh tracks of a shod horse cut up the ground directly under the window.

“Wal, heah we air,” soliloquized Laramie. “Thet awful kid has eloped. All the time I reckoned somethin’ was goin’ to happen. Now what’ll I do?”

Laramie made sure that Lenta could have squeezed out of the window and then of the direction the horse had taken. After which he strode back to awaken Lonesome. He hated to tell his friend of this last proof of Lenta’s waywardness. But it had to be done. Lindsay would send them out on the trail to fetch her back. For that matter, coming to think of it, Lonesome would go of his own accord, and Laramie would not let him go alone. Stuart, besides having a bad repute, was married. Somehow the handsome rider had intrigued the susceptible madcap Lenta and had made off with her. Lonesome would kill him.

Laramie went in and put a reluctant hand upon Lonesome.

“Wake up, pard,” he called, grimly.

“Ahuh.” Lonesome stirred and groaned. His face was swollen and blackened in spots, but he could open his eyes. “What’s the idee, wakin’ me early? I’m gonna stay in bed. My Gawd! ain’t you been mean enough — —”

“Hell to pay, Lonesome,” interrupted Laramie.

His words, his tone fetched Lonesome up in a trice.

“Excoose me, pard. What’s up?”

“Lenta is gone. Run off . . . eloped, I reckon.”

“Aw!” Lonesome let out a great breath. His disfigured face underwent a nameless change.

“I heahed a hawse some time before daylight. I sat up an’ listened. Struck me queer. Yu know what I mean. Wal, after a while I went out. It’d come daylight. I fooled around an’ found Lent’s window bars busted out, a pick on the ground an’ fresh hoof tracks. Reckon I didn’t need to call to see if she was gone.”

“Who with?” queried Lonesome, coolly.

“Stuart, I reckon. He was foolin’ around heah yesterday. Hallie an’ I were comin’ up the trail. . . . An’ we seen him, Lonesome.”

“What doin’?”

“Wal, he was straddlin’ his hawse under the kid’s window. In fact he had his haid in between the bars.”

Lonesome got out of his bunk. “Go tell Lindsay thet Lent broke out last night,” he said, cold and hard. “Say she’s jest playin’ a joke on them an’ thet we’ll fetch her back. Then call Tracks. Rustle now.”

Laramie lost no time striding to the rancher’s door where he rapped softly.

“Who’s there?” called a voice.

“Lindsay, come to the door. Yu needn’t dress. It’s Nelson.”

To do him credit Lindsay complied without undue noise.

“Why, Laramie!” he ejaculated, when he saw the rider.

“Lenta has broken out of her room,” announced Laramie, bluntly. “Somebody helped her. Used a pick on the window. Reckon it was Stuart. The crazy kid was just playin’ a joke on yu. Gettin’ even ‘cause yu locked her in. . . . Tell Miss Hallie — an’ don’t worry, boss. We’ll fetch her back.”

Without waiting for a reply or to look Laramie made haste across the patio to arouse Williams. His knock brought instant response.

“Tracks, get up an’ dress for ridin’,” he called. “Yore honeymoon is over.”

“Nix pard, but I’ll be with you pronto,” replied Ted, with his footfalls thudding on the floor.

“Tell Florence thet Lent has eloped an’ we’re to fetch her back,” concluded Laramie, as he passed on.

“Ho! Ho! Flo, wake up. What you think?”

Laramie heard no more, except a startled sleepy cry from Florence. He found Lonesome putting on his chaps. That worthy appeared unusually quiet.

“Tracks will be heah pronto,” said Laramie, and sat down on his bunk to wait. In a few moments Ted came in, ready to ride, with black fire in his eyes. “Come out, boys, an’ have a look.”

On the way around the wall Ted was the only one to vouchsafe any remark and this was that he had always expected Lenta to do something crazy. Soon they stood under the broken-barred window, where Laramie left them to make their own deductions. He back-trailed the hoof tracks to where Stuart, or whoever had ridden the horse, had come up out of the valley. When Laramie turned to retrace his steps Ted was far out on the level, evidently seeing where the hoof tracks went, and Lonesome had climbed up the wall to look in the window.

Presently they met again.

“He hit straight north,” declared Ted, snorting his disgust. “He aims to get a horse from some of those lousy outfits and then travel west. Denver, likely.”

“Wal, I reckon it makes no bones with us,” added Laramie. “Our job is to ketch him an’ save Lent before he has the damn little fool all night. Thet’ll be easy unless he finds a hawse pronto.”

“Laramie, if it wasn’t for her family I’d say let her go,” replied Ted, bitterly. “We may save her this time. But what good will thet do?”

“Shore I savvy. All the same if we taught a lesson to one of these gay gazabos thet Lent’s drove wild mebbe it’d stop the rest of them.”

“Stop that kid? Hell no,” replied Ted, snorting again.

“Wal, I been givin’ up about Lent for some time now,” said Laramie, resignedly. “An’ if yu want to know I lost my hopes when Miss Hallie lost hers. Thet was only yesterday.”

Lonesome did not even sag under these combined scornful estimates of his inamorata. “Lent didn’t elope,” he ground out. “She’s jest showin’ her folks they can’t keep her locked up. An’ I don’t blame her. Mebbe after they get a good scare they’ll treat her decent.”

“Pard, yu die hard,” rejoined Laramie, admiringly, ashamed of his opinions.

“Heavens, Mull, do you need any more proof than this?” ejaculated Ted.

“Than what?”

“That she’s gone — run off — eloped with a strange rider.”

“Reckon I do. I wouldn’t go back on Lent any more’n I would on you fellows.”

“Oh, hell! — Would you risk laying off their trail?”

Lonesome pondered that a moment. “I would, yes, if we had only the kid to figger on. She’d come back an’ laugh in our faces. But this fellar Stuart has a bad rep. Lent must trust him, but we can’t.”

“All right. Let’s get going,” replied Ted, impatiently.

“You an’ Laramie light out on their trail. I’ll go down an’ fetch the hawses.”

Lonesome strode off at a rapid pace and quickly disappeared down the road. Ted and Laramie turned away from watching him.

“This will ruin him,” declared Ted. “ ——  —— that pretty little imp!”

“Nope. It’ll make a man of Lonesome — if thet’s in him. . . . Come on, Ted. Trackin’ is an old game of ours. We used to bet on it. What’ll we gamble on now?”

“Not on Lent Lindsay, that’s a cinch. It would be throwing money to the winds. . . . Trail is plain enough. . . . He walked his horse.”

At the end of a few hundred yards the tracks turned east to follow the rim of the valley, zigzagging among the patches of brush. This was a surprise to both of the riders. In two distinct spots, not far apart, the horse had been halted long enough to leave a number of extra tracks; and these places appeared significant in that they were screened by trees from the ranch-house. But there were no signs of any one dismounting.

“What yu make of thet, Tracks?” inquired Laramie, in perplexity.

“Damn funny! Looks like they were undecided. . . . Maybe they stopped to hug and kiss.”

“Wal, if they was set on thet they could do it ridin’.”

Presently the tracks left the rim and took out on the hard gravel floor of the ridge where they could not be followed rapidly. The riders worked across, however, to the head of another intersecting draw, out of which led one of the range trails. Meanwhile the sun had come up hot. Here they waited for Lonesome, pretty sure that he would count on heading them off. They did not have long to wait. Before Ted and Laramie had arrived at a satisfactory opinion as to why the trail did not abruptly leave the valley, Lonesome appeared mounted and leading two saddle horses. He did not evince any surprise at finding them there.

“Huh. Thought you said their trail headed north,” he growled, sarcastically.

“It did. Now it’s haidin’ east,” returned Laramie.

“Heah’s some biscuits an’ meat. An’ I slung on a water-bag.”

Ted led off along the trail, eating as he rode, and bending a little to the left, following the tracks. Progress was slow because the dusty trail showed other horse tracks, and sometimes it was difficult to distinguish the fresher ones. Soon, however, the hunt swerved from the well-trodden path to the grassy upland where it proved no longer easy to follow. Ted had to walk his horse. High ground rose some miles off to the northeast, and cedared ridge-tops showed dark against the sky. This certainly was no direction for a couple to elope. It headed directly away from La Junta or any other settlement. Laramie confessed he was puzzled. He surely remembered that Lenta invariably rode out this way, and had often spoken of the wonderful view to be had from the high ridge-tops.

The morning was far advanced and waxing hot when the three riders ascended the lower slope of a ridge that ended in a wooded escarpment, looking down on the gray gulf of the prairie-land. Laramie, whose gaze kept to the fore, sighted a flock of buzzards soaring low over the end of the escarpment.

“Look. Somethin’ daid up there.”

“Buzzards. . . . Well, what of it? We always see them. Dead cow or calf, likely.”

Lonesome did not express an opinion, but it was noticeable that he paid less attention to the tracks they were following, and also he took the lead up the ridge. Ted, however, stuck to his task of trailing, though neither he nor Laramie fell far behind.

On top they met a pleasant breeze. Cedar trees straggled along the ridge, thickening to a grove toward where the escarpment ended. The height afforded a magnificent view of the vast prairie, the leagues of range east of Spanish Peaks, the old fort like a black dot on the gray, and the rich green valley. Small wonder that Lenta had loved to ride there! Laramie had a premonition that she had ridden this way once too often.

At this juncture Lonesome reined his mount to wait for his friends. They joined him. And he pointed off into the cedars.

“Dead hawse,” he said, coolly. “What color was Stuart’s?”

“Black. Coal black, with some white. Shore was pretty. . . . Where?”

“Heah . . . to the right of thet spreadin’ cedar. . . . Black hawse with white spots — all right.”

“Yes, thet’s Stuart’s hawse,” declared Laramie, grimly. “Saddle’s on yet.”

The riders galloped an intervening fifty rods. Buzzards took wing from the cedars to join the soaring ones aloft. Laramie’s comrades were out of their saddles in a twinkling, but he swept wary glances all around. Over under a cedar he espied the blue-shirted form of a man lying prone, in a terrible laxity that he well understood. All at once Lenta’s so-called elopement assumed tragic proportions. He leaped to the ground and joined his companions.

The black horse was dead, though not yet stiff. It had been shot in several places, according to the visible wounds. Blood had clotted and dried around them. The bridle was gone, and the saddle had been stripped.

“Shot in his tracks. He wasn’t runnin’,” asserted Laramie, his eyes scrutinizing the ground.

“Mouth full of grass,” said Ted.

“Wal, come over heah, an’ yu’ll see Stuart, I reckon,” called Laramie, sharply turning away.

In another moment they were gazing down upon a dead rider, a young man whose handsome features wore a tortured ghastly fixity. He lay in a pool of blood. Evidently he had been riddled with bullets. One hole showed in his brown wrist; another in his neck near the shoulder. All his pockets had been turned inside out. Sombrero, belt, spurs were gone.

“Pard, is it Stuart?” queried Lonesome, thickly.

“Yes. No doubt of thet,” replied Laramie, cold and sharp. “Spread out an’ let’s figger this heah deal.”

They separated. Laramie stalked to the clump of cedars on the rim. This was one of the famous lookout points on the range. Indians had once spied upon the fort from here. Laramie found unmistakable evidence that this shady vantage had been occupied for some time by a man or men who had reason to watch the ranch, even as Indians had watched soldiers and settlers, and the caravans before them. But there were no signs of a camp. Some one had rested there, lounged on mats of cedar, smoked innumerable cigarettes, read tatters of an old newspaper, and whittled sticks.

“No more’n I expected,” muttered Laramie. “Who now? Rustlers watchin’ cattle, shore, but what else?”

Laramie hunted to and fro along the rim, then circled back to where Stuart lay, a sickening sight with the flies buzzing around him. Ted was coming from down the slope of cedars, and before he reached the corpse, Lonesome hove in sight from along the ridge. He waved something white, and appeared propelled by a singular force.

“Ted, what’s thet Lonesome’s wavin’?” queried Laramie, as the rider arrived, breathing hard.

“Looks like a girl’s handkerchief — Lent’s I’ll bet,” replied Ted, after a moment. “And it’s not any whiter than Lonesome’s face.”

“Pard, the fire’s out! I never saw him look like thet — even when Price had a rope round his neck.”

They waited. Lonesome stamped into their presence and exhibited a small linen handkerchief.

“Smell it,” he said, huskily, and waved it in front of Ted’s face, then Laramie’s. The faint perfume was indeed memorable of the girl. “Reckon it’s Lenta’s.”

“What else yu find?” queried Laramie.

“Hoss tracks. Five or six hawses sloped out of heah this mornin’. An’ Lent Lindsay was on the back of one of them.”

“Wal! — Ted, what’d yu find?”

“There’s a camp down the slope,” replied Ted, quickly. “Hid in a thick clump of cedars. Place has been used on and off for months. Dry camp, but there’s water down below somewhere. Three riders have been staying there for days. They had a couple of pack animals, one of them a mule. These men rustled in a hurry a couple of hours ago — maybe longer. . . . And, pards, the lead rider’s horse belonged to Chess Gaines.”

Neither Lonesome nor Laramie showed any surprise.

“Wal, I saw where scouts have been layin’ on the rim, watchin’ for days,” added the latter.

Lonesome folded the precious handkerchief and carefully stowed it in his breast pocket, after which his hard and glinting eyes searched the faces of his friends.

“Plain as print now, Lonesome,” spoke up Laramie. “I reckon Tracks an’ I were sore an’ judged Lenta pretty bad. When mebbe she’s not bad atall. I’m beggin’ yore pardon.”

“Me, too,” chimed in Ted. “But hurry.”

“Ahuh. S’pose you bright fellars read all this for me,” retorted Lonesome, in no wise softened.

“Wal, Lenta must have persuaded Stuart to get her out,” went on Laramie. “Thet must have been before Hallie an’ I saw them. Anyway he got her out. Lent’s idee, as I see it now, was to stay away all day, so’s to scare hell out of her folks. She had Stuart ride her up heah. An’ they run plumb into Gaines an’ his cronies, waitin’ heah for thet very thing. Thet’s all.”

“It’s as plain as the nose on your face, Lonesome,” corroborated Ted.

“An’ thet elopin’ idee?” queried Lonesome, in passionate sarcasm.

“Our mistake. We’re sorry. But what’s it matter now?” rejoined Ted, impatiently.

“You always had it in for Lent. Both of you,” declared Lonesome. “An’ now I’m makin’ you eat small. You’re gonna clear her with Hallie an’ the rest of them.”

“She shore wasn’t elopin’, pard,” agreed Laramie.

“Yes, an’ she shore wasn’t doin’ anythin’ bad,” went on Lonesome, fiercely. “I know, because I was jealous an’ suspicious of her. . . . An’ I tried it, by Gawd! Thet’s what queered me with Lent. An’ all the time I knowed she was good — I knowed it! But jealousy is hell. . . . She was only turnin’ the tables on her dad. Stuart must have been square, after all. There he lays dead. You fellars didn’t see the five shells on the ground. I found them after you left. Stuart fought for the girl. But Gaines an’ his outfit killed him, robbed him, shot his hawse, an’ then made off with her. Gaines has been layin’ up heah for thet — reason — to get Lent.”

“Wal, he’s got her,” agreed Laramie.

“Pards, you both know what thet means,” went on Lonesome, hoarsely. “Chess Gaines won’t hold her for ransom. An’ he won’t risk takin’ her to some town where he could marry her. Reckon he was as turrible in love with her as any of us. But he’s black-hearted. He’ll maul her — violate her — first chance he gets. It ain’t reasonable for us to reckon we can save Lent thet. But we can save her life an’ kill him. Thet’s what we’ve got to figger on. . . . It’ll be awful for the poor kid. But it won’t make no change in my love for her. I tormented Lent. . . . Mebbe if I hadn’t she’d give me more chance to protect her. . . . Now, Laramie, pard, thet’s all.”

Laramie did not need to ponder. “Yu an’ Tracks hit their trail,” he flashed. “Make it easy for me to follow at a trot from heah. I’ll ride hell for leather back to the ranch. Have Dakota an’ Charlie pack grub, grain, water, rifles, while I make up some story to tell Hallie an’ her folks. It cain’t be the truth. Some day mebbe — if we save Lent. I’ll send two of the boys up here to bury Stuart an’ hide his saddle. Charlie, Dakota and I’ll light out on yore trail. If it comes dark before we catch up with yu we’ll camp right there till daybreak.”

Lonesome swung into his saddle. “Pard, you’ve got the head. I’m thankin’ — —”

“Yes, but it’s not working,” ripped out Ted, as he mounted. “He’s thinking about Hallie — the big stiff. . . . Laramie, don’t waste time telling anybody anything. Let ’em stand it. Think of that poor kid. You hear me!”

“Shore, I heah yu,” replied Laramie, as he made for his horse. “Reckon I am loose in my haid. . . . I’ll ketch up with yu before sundown. Look out for Gaines. Mebbe he saw us. He might lay for yu.”

“Hope to Gawd he does,” sang out Lonesome. “Ride now, pard!”

CHAPTER XIII

LARAMIE RODE THE short cut down to the ranch in fast time, less than an hour, but he bade fair to lose some in locating Wind River Charlie and Dakota. These boys, as well as the others, were not to be found at the respective jobs Laramie had assigned them. That morning the droll and angelic humor for which the Lindsay girls had given him credit had gone into eclipse. Laramie had reverted to the cool hard ranger of Panhandle days. At length finding four of his riders playing cards on the cool runway of the big barn he laid into them:

“Heah yu air. Yu ——  ——  ——  ——  —— ! Whaddyu mean loafin’ on me?” Laramie broke out.

To Laramie’s amaze they were not in the least concerned. Dakota mildly asked Laramie what was eating him? Clay Lee smiled in a mysterious way. Archie Hill never looked up at all: “I’ll see you, Windy, an’ go you one better,” he said, while the rider he addressed nonchalantly fingered his cards and gave Laramie a tranquil fleeting glance.

“Say, come out of yore trance,” added Laramie, with biting scorn. “Do yu call yoreselves a bunch of range-riders?”

“Laramie, old scout, our boss took us off them jobs you gave us,” explained Wind River Charlie.

“Yore boss!”

“Sure, Miss Hallie. She said she wouldn’t have us gettin’ sunstroke.” The tremendous sustained glee of these riders might have at any other time been entertaining to Laramie.

“Wal, I resign. I’m no foreman for this heah outfit,” declared Laramie, coldly.

This was different and serious. The four boys responded as one, each expostulating in his way.

“Save yore breath,” interrupted Laramie. “Yu reckon I rode in on a picnic or to play poker? Look at my hawse out there! . . . Listen, an’ keep yore traps shut. . . . We’ve been trackin’ Stuart an’ Lent Lindsay. This mawnin’ he broke open her window an’ got her away. Tracks an’ I reckoned it they was elopin’. Lonesome had it figgered Lent was just havin’ fun. But it didn’t turn out funny. Up on Cedar Haid they run plumb into Chess Gaines an’ his pards. We found Stuart daid. All shot up. An’ Gaines kidnapped the kid!”

“My Gawd!” ejaculated Wind River Charlie, his face going gray. He rose as if on springs, and the others leaped up.

“Thet — Gaines!” rasped Dakota. “Stuart wasn’t nothin’ to us. But Slim Red was, an’ Slim’s lyin’ over there at La Junta all shot up. . . . Laramie, I reckoned you looked different. Excuse us.”

“We’ve got to rustle,” returned Laramie. “Archie, yu fetch fresh hawses. Charlie, yu an’ Dakota air goin’ with me. Pack saddlebags. Meat, biscuits, dried apples, salt, sugar, coffee. Stick in a little pot. Don’t forget some grain an’ water-bags. Clay, yu fetch me two or three forty-four Winchesters with shells an’ saddle-sheaths. Pronto now while I snatch a bite to eat.”

Like startled turkeys the riders scurried away. Charlie, exiting toward the front, was intercepted by Harriet Lindsay.

“What’s all the loud talk?” she inquired, curiously.

“Aw — it’s only Laramie. He’s loco or somethin’,” stammered Charlie, confusedly. This was not a situation where he could readily lie. He rushed away.

“Laramie!” she cried, in surprise, and wheeling she espied him, and came in almost running.

There was no help for Laramie. She wore that same riding-garb which lent her such irresistible charm, and robbed her of years and dignity. She was just a girl, sweet as a rose.

“Laramie, why are you here?” she asked, swiftly, as she reached him.

“Mawnin’, Lady. I had to have a fresh hawse. . . . Yu’ve seen yore father?”

“Yes, before mother or Flo. And he didn’t tell them what he told me.”

“What was thet?”

“You said Lent’s breaking out was only a joke. But you didn’t look as if it were,” returned Hallie, excitedly.

“Aw, wal, I reckon, it was thet — this mawnin’.”

“You found her?”

“Not yet. Ted an’ Lonesome air on her trail. I’ll ketch up pronto.”

“Lenta was not close by? She has gone far?”

Laramie felt that he might have parried her queries, but he could not be cool and collected when she drew close to him like this, to drop her gauntlets and quirt, and catch at his vest, and look up at him with wonderful darkening eyes.

“Wal, she might be hidin’ out on one of the ridge-tops, laughin’ at us.”

“Laramie, you are a clever liar, but you can’t lie to me,” she cried.

“Who says I’m lyin’?”

“I do.”

“All right, I cain’t help what yu say. Reckon if I told yu how awful sweet yu look this mawnin’ — —”

“No compliments, Laramie Nelson. You are hiding something,” she retorted, and actually shook him.

“Wal, I’m not hidin’ how powerful dangerous yu air to look at,” he drawled, with a cool and easy boldness not characteristic of him at all.

Hallie scarcely appeared to hear this significant speech. She was becoming visibly affected by some strong compelling emotion.

“I tell you Lent did not play a joke. She did not elope. She has run off! . . . I know because I drove her to it.”

“Aw now — Hallie! Yu’re jest upset,” replied Laramie, failing to be convincing. Indeed he was astounded at this new angle, at her agitated face.

“Upset? I’m nearly crazy. I tell you I drove her to it. You remember yesterday — when we saw her at her window — both hands tight around this Stuart’s neck? . . . After that I went to her door. Oh, I was furious. I don’t know what I called her, but it was so terrible she never answered. . . . Not a word from Lent Lindsay! By that you can estimate what I must have heaped upon her head. . . . I’m scared. I’m sick. And meeting you makes it worse. . . . You know something. You lie to me. . . . Oh, Laramie, don’t think me a coward. I love Lenta. It’d kill me if she — she threw herself away.”

Her beauty at that moment, her abandonment to remorse and fear, her unconscious clinging to him, was about all Laramie could stand. He did not want to tell her — to horrify her — to give her days and nights of anguish over some possibility that might not come to pass. On the other hand he was not an adept at falsehoods with anyone, much less Hallie Lindsay. If he did not do something very quickly he would be blurting out all about the murder of Stuart and the abduction of Lenta by desperate and ruthless range-riders.

Hallie was leaning upon him, on the verge of weeping, if not hysteria. Her look, if not her intent, was one of exceeding appeal. As if he could help her! Suddenly he divined a way out of his predicament. Born of her nearness and sweetness, it struck him as a remedy for two evils.

“Come heah,” he said, and with powerful arm half lifted, half dragged her out of the wide aisle of the barn into one of the stalls partly full of baled hay.

“Why — Laramie!” she faltered, completely surprised.

He did not release her. If anything he held her closer.

“Yu laid off my boys today?” he queried.

“What if I did? Sunday is the same to a — a heathen like you as any other day. . . . But it’s not to me. Is it necessary to hold me — —”

“This heah job is too much for me. Those boys made game of my orders. An’ I quit. They crawfished then. But all the same, I’m through.”

“But, Laramie,” she cried, wildly, “I promised father — I — you — Oh! . . . What of Lenta?”

“I’ll fetch her back.”

She strove to get out of his half-encircling arm, then suddenly desisted, either from lack of strength or resignation. Nevertheless her spirit revived.

“I insist you are deceiving me. I feel it. . . . And this grip you have on me. . . . Why, it’s outrageous. Let go!”

Anger perceptibly acquired dominance over her other feelings, but she could not control the trembling of her lips. Laramie gazed down at them instead of into her eyes. What he intended to do was madness, still it seemed a release for him, and it would infuriate her so that she could not divine the truth about Lenta. How sweet the curved lips, drooping a little at the corners, tremulous! As he bent swiftly to them he just closed his eyes and kissed her. He seemed to whirl and float away. He felt her string tight as a stretched cord under his embrace. And he drew back frightened. What had he done?

“Lar-amie Nel-son!” she gasped.

“What’d yu think of thet?” he drawled, brazenly.

Her eyes glazed like those of a female panther. “You insult me!”

“Wal, I didn’t mean it thet way, but if yu reckon — —”

“This is what I think,” she flashed, and swinging her free arm she struck him across the mouth with stinging force.

That broke Laramie’s hold. It also awakened in him the truth of his folly and the bitterness of the lover who was relinquishing hope. His hand came away from his lips stained with blood. She saw it. Her eyes dilated.

“After all — you — another Luke Arlidge!” she panted. “You range-riders are all alike.”

That capped the climax for Laramie’s riotous feelings. The comparison to Arlidge roused all the savageness in him. Snatching her fiercely to him he slid his left arm clear around her to clutch her left wrist. Thus he had her powerless. Then he bent her back.

“Laramie! You are mad. I — I take that back about Arlidge. I’ll forgive the once if — if — —”

He closed her lips with a terrible kiss that made her sink limp and unleashed all the primitive hunger in him.

“Shore we’re all alike,” he said, passionately, as he drew back to look at her. But where was the fury, the hate, the battle in her eyes? Even in his chaotic mind that query lodged. Yet he was too far gone. It was like falling over a precipice. “There!” he whispered, kissing her again. “Reckon Arlidge — did thet.”

“Mercy! — Oh — Laramie — do I de-serve this — at your hands? Arlidge did not! I swear to you.”

“Aw yu women! Yu proud white trash, as the niggers say! Yu Eastern tenderfeet — queenin’ it over us pore devils!”

And he kissed her with a slowly lessening passion, with a sense of returning manhood. The moment came when, spent and shaking, he relinquished her lips. In the struggle she had sunk down upon the bales and he was on one knee, lifting his head. Her heavy eyelids were shut tight. The pearl-whiteness of her face a moment before had undergone a transformation. Even as he gazed a scarlet wave spread upward from her pulsing neck. He found that in his passion he had let go of her arms, and if he was not demented one was round his neck. He saw her left hand feeling a shaky way up his shoulder.

“My — Gawd! . . . Hallie — forgive me! I didn’t know — what I was doin’.” The savage intent to insult and hurt her had wrought havoc — an incredible, insupportable transformation. He could not meet it. He could not realize. All he knew was that he must flee from something like an avalanche. As he released her it became plain that she did have hold of him. The action of rising lifted her with him. Then her hold broke, her arm came sliding down from his neck. That ended uncertainty for Laramie. She sank back upon the bales and her opening eyes, soft, strange, like midnight pools, fixed upon him accusingly. He leaped up and ran out of the barn.

Half an hour later he rode up the draw ahead of Dakota and Charlie. Armed to the teeth, grim and cold and silent, he deceived these riders. But he knew himself to be distraught, to be haunted. He knew the tumult under his wet and panting breast. He knew that only tremendous exertion and bloody fight could restore his equilibrium, and he rode hard to meet him.

Once out on the range, Laramie led at a brisk trot, keeping to the low country and making for a point east of Cedar Head. By this he hoped to avoid any upgrade until he rounded the promontory. This short cut took him out on the grassy range where cattle wearing the Peak Dot brand should have been abundant. But in the eight-mile ride he saw only a few lone steers, a small bunch of yearlings, some cows and calves. The rustlers had made a clean sweep of Lindsay’s stock. What easy picking, no doubt, for cattle-thieves like Gaines and Price! Arlidge and his rancher associate would never have been so unwise as to steal all a cattleman’s stock. They were big operators, and engaged in many legitimate deals to one that might look shady. No continued association could have existed between them and common rustlers, and cow-punchers gone crooked, such as Gaines and Price. Just so long as Lindsay ran any stock, this kind of rustling would continue until some drastic check had been administered. “About time we was rarin’,” muttered Laramie.

Under White Bluff, Laramie and his two followers, working up a deep brushy draw, came across a waterhole the existence of which they had not known. It was fed by a spring which showed signs of having been visited often of late. This water, of course, was what made it possible for Gaines and his outfit to camp indefinitely up on the promontory.

Laramie did not climb the ridge, but kept on up the slowly ascending draw to emerge several miles east and north of the cedars where he had left Lonesome and Ted. At this point he began to scrutinize the ground in search of their trail. Three — four miles or so he covered, with Dakota and Charlie spread out one on each side, without a sign of the trail he was hunting. They had turned north beyond the head of the draw toward the ridged and heaved-up range-land in that direction. Finally, Laramie halted to confer with his comrades.

“We cain’t have crossed it,” he said. “But I’m plumb worried. Right heah we’re almost turnin’ toward the ranch.”

“Boss, I’d say from the lay of the land an’ what’s ahead, any riders wantin’ to get away an’ hide would work north,” said Wind River Charlie.

“Shore I figger the same,” replied Laramie, quick to appreciate that this Wyoming rider was one to listen to.

“Lemme have your glass. I believe I see somethin’ red,” added Charlie, pointing. Upon receiving the field-glass he leveled it and adjusted it to his eyes. “Yep, there’s a bit of red scarf wavin’ from a bush.”

“Ahuh. I see thet now. Wal, let’s rustle.”

In a few moments they were passing from hand to hand a piece of handkerchief, taken from a high sage-brush, which Laramie identified as belonging to Lonesome.

“An’ heah’s their trail, plain as print.”

It was about mid-afternoon, and Laramie began to have misgivings about catching up with Lonesome and Tracks that day. Still, the trail was now easy to follow at a canter for long distances, and always at a trot. They covered ten miles in less than two hours. After that the roughening of the country into which the trail entered slowed travel to a walk.

By sunset they entered a long oval swale through which a deep cut meandered. The slopes on each side were heavily brushed. Antelope were plentiful, and jack-rabbits scurried through the sage. At the upper reach of this long swale they found water running over the shallow sandy bed.

“Wal, I reckon we’d better camp heah,” said Laramie, thoughtfully. “It’s about dark. An’ we might not find grass an’ water ahaid.”

“We’ll do all the better tomorrow. I’d say we was around three hours behind Mulhall an’ Williams,” rejoined Wind River Charlie.

“In thet case we’ll shore ketch up with them before tomorrow night. The thing is — will they ketch up with Gaines?”

“I’d gamble on it.”

“So’ll I. . . . Gawd! though, I wish it was tonight! To think of thet kid. . . .

“It’s tough, boss. But she’s a game an’ smart kid. Mebbe she’ll soft-soap Gaines, playin’ for time.”

“Smart? Wal, I reckon. But Gaines mightn’t be easy to fool. Funny I didn’t savvy him sooner. Aw, I was loco myself. I ought to have shot him thet day.”

“No use cryin’ over spilled milk, Laramie,” replied Charlie. “I’ve a hunch how you feel. But I think, with Mulhall out ahead of us, fightin’ mad, an’ with Williams trackin’ thet bunch, we’re goin’ to save the girl.”

“Alive — yes. But. . . . Dakota, water an’ grain the hawses. Then hobble them. Charlie, you fix a snack of grub. I’ll pack in some firewood.”

Darkness fell upon the riders eating their meager meal around a ruddy fire of red coals. The heat of the day was gone. A cool night breeze rustled the cedars. Coyotes had begun their yelping quest. A lonesome owl hooted, and frogs were trilling from the watercourse.

Soon Laramie left his smoking comrades, and repairing to a near-by cedar he spread his saddle blankets wet side down, and with his saddle for a pillow stretched himself for rest, if not slumber.

He should have fallen asleep at once. But Laramie Nelson had departed from the way of peace and serenity. Even with Indians on his trail or a brush with rustlers at hand he had never been so disturbed. He strained to find the old cool, easy, all-solving mind. The conditions of the hour were familiar, and it felt so good to realize that. The stars blinked white overhead; the cedars whispered to him; his old friends the coyotes were wailing their wild music; the dry sweet night breath of the lonely range blew over him; the thump of hobbled horses came reassuringly to his ears. Once more he was out on the trail. He had not even removed his spurs. Tomorrow, surely, he would gain freedom from this oppressed heart, from whirling thoughts, from sweet and agonizing memories.

But just now he was helpless, at the mercy of the solitude and loneliness he loved so well and knew he needed so much. The action of the day was past. And ruthless memory, with remorse and exultation, with misery and ecstasy, worked its will.

If he had to die right there, or at longest in the morrow’s fight, he could not have been sorry that he had kissed Hallie Lindsay. At the worst those kisses would not cost her more than a moment’s disgust, an hour’s fury. But for him there had been something all-satisfying, a fulfillment of he knew not what. He had yielded to longing, surely, but still he had done the thing with eyes open and with a purpose other than selfish. He had felt it a duty to swerve that clear-eyed, keen-minded young woman away from the appalling facts of her sister’s peril. That had not given rise to his regret. It had come from a dismaying, unbelievable, unforgettable fact that Hallie had struck him across his violating lips, and then presently, precisely for the same offense multiplied, she had put her arm around his neck. The thing was incredible. Had she? Was that not his bewildered fancy? It did not seem logical, reasonable, possible that any girl, much less Hallie, could hit a man with all her might for kissing her and then embrace him for doing it again. But there it was. Her left arm had been clear up around his neck, and her right hand had been creeping up. He had seen it. He had felt her cool quivering fingers on his hot neck. Well, what then?

There was absolutely no doubt as to his mental aberration. But had she been crazy, too? If such an act were possible it could mean only one thing — that his violence had overcome her on the moment, and not only had she surrendered to him, but had been about to respond with a woman’s love.

Laramie had his bitter battle here. He could not believe the evidences of his own senses. He had been mistaken. If she had caught hold of him it must have been in the frenzy of repulse. “But I’ll never — never know!” he whispered, poignantly, to himself. “My Gawd! why didn’t I wait to see? . . . Then, if it’d been true . . .”

Thus he tortured himself. But in the long run, when the night was far advanced, he persuaded himself that his perceptions had been as faulty as his reasoning. There was left then only the certainty that the sweetness of her lips had been his — that he had spent his honest passionate only love upon them — that in his heart he knew he had offered her no insult, and as time passed she might come to realize it. Here ensued the break between his wretchedness and the still small voice of renunciation. With that over, Laramie Nelson began to come to himself. In the future he might dream over his only love-affair and pity himself and wallow in sentiment. But now he had to call on all that the ranges had made him, to take Lenta home at least alive, and to weave a bloody trail around Spanish Peaks Ranch, so that these fine good Lindsays could settle down to the happiness they deserved. Then he would ride away as he had often ridden before. When all that had worked itself out inevitably in Laramie’s mind, he found himself again. And he went to sleep.

Wind River Charlie awakened him in the gray dawn. A fire was crackling. Dakota appeared riding bareback, driving in the horses. Jays were squalling in the cedars. Laramie arose as if many nights had elapsed since he had lain down. There was very little talk, and that was only commonplace. They ate, saddled, mounted, and rode out in a silence that boded ill to the objects of their pursuit.

An hour later, at sunrise, they climbed high to see the foothills of the Rockies scarce two days’ ride to the west. Laramie calculated they were forty-odd miles from Spanish Peaks Ranch, and therefore east of the range used by Allen and Arlidge. It was new country to Laramie. Dakota claimed to have been in there once, and knew they were not far, as a crow flies, from the squatter’s cabin where Williams and Laramie had trailed the stolen horses, and had stumbled upon, as well, some of Lindsay’s stock.

The plain trail led on to the north, and kept to the levels. High ridges and narrow valleys alternated here, and gradually augmented their characteristics. Cattle began to show in impressive numbers, but they were so wild that Laramie, without departing from the trail, could not read their brands. They passed an old log cabin. The hill tops here showed a sparse growth of pines. The white flags of deer moved up every slope. Grass and water grew abundant. At length the riders crossed a wide cattle road running east and west. The fresh tracks pointed west, proving that the last herd had been driven toward the uplands.

“What yu make of thet?” asked Laramie of Wind River Charlie, remembering the rider’s questionable standing with Arlidge.

“It’s a big country, boss,” replied Charlie, evasively. “There’s a hundred thousand odd head of stock range in here, not countin’ what’s movin’.”

“Ahuh. But rustlers wouldn’t be drivin’ big herds to Denver. I’d reckon all stock in any quantity would be sent east, down on the Kansas an’ Nebraskie ranges.”

“Boss, it’s my hunch you’ll clear up some of them knotty questions this hunt,” was all the rider would vouchsafe. But it was enough for Laramie.

Noonday brought the pursuers to a puzzling halt. The trail split at the juncture of two valleys, where a low pass between high hills afforded a magnificent view of wild country, marked by cattle dotting the gray-green levels, and patches of black timber, and threads of shining water. Laramie was quick to discover that additional horse tracks had been added to the trail. Gaines had met some more of his outfit here or certainly had encountered three, possibly more riders. At any rate, the trail split. The pursuers were puzzled until Laramie’s roving eye caught sight of another strip of Lonesome’s red scarf. It waved high from a cedar branch, where it had been tied by a rider standing on his saddle. That appeared to be the reason they had not espied it at once. Again Wind River Charlie proved his worth, as well as his experience in trailing fugitive riders.

“Look, boss. Two sticks fresh cut, one pointin’ down thet draw an’ the other down this one.”

“Shore do. Thet’s old cowman makin’ Injun sign. Wal, one outfit went this way an’ the other thet way. Reckon Lonesome an’ Tracks split heah. So will we. I’ll take the left trail. Yu boys take thet to the right. It’s a stumper to see which outfit had the girl. We jest cain’t. But same as Lonesome an’ Ted — we’ll take no chances.

“It weakens us, boss, same as it does them. But we can’t do nothin’ else.”

“Wal, we’re losin’ time an’ this trail is gettin’ hot. Mebbe yu will meet Ted or Lonesome back-trailin’. Mebbe I will. We’re trackin’ them an’ they’re trackin’ Gaines. This other outfit has throwed them off. But they’ll nose it out. Rustle now, an’ for Gawd’s sake use yore haids an’ yore guns if yu come on Gaines’ outfit with the girl.”

Laramie had not proceeded far when Charlie hailed him.

“Boss, here’s a juniper bush broke off fresh at the top.”

Waving an encouraging hand, Laramie turned to his task. Soon his way led into a narrow aisle of grassy descent between wooded slopes. He could follow the trail by the different shading and shape of the grass that had been parted and trod upon. Presently he espied the top of an oak shrub leaning over distorted and striking. It had been rudely wrenched, and not so long ago. Either Lonesome or Ted had passed that point.

Laramie searched the long gray valley below for dust clouds made by riders. Cattle appeared numerous, but there were no moving knots of riders or tell-tale streaks of dust rising. To his amaze he found he had over-ridden any signs. He wheeled to return and sighted another mutilated bush before he reached an abrupt sheering of the trail up the slope. He followed, pondering this change. It looked queer. But he was not surprised. The tracks of rustlers and outlaws left crooked, wandering trails.

This slope was easy of ascent, open in places, thicketed in others, with scrub oak and jack pines growing at intervals. The trail doubled back in a long slant over the ridge toward the other valley. Laramie made a deduction. The outfit that had turned back here surely had done so to spy upon the other which had taken the valley to the right. Laramie grew certain of this, and once on top he absolutely knew it. Mounted horses had been halted time and again under trees on the verge of the slope. Laramie could read the minds of men of the open in the signs they left on the ground. Gaines and his men with the girl had not been accountable for this trail. It belonged to an outfit that had reason to spy upon Gaines, to follow him, or more likely to head him off for purposes of ambush.

This valley below was a whole range in itself. It must have been thirty miles long to where the hills converged again. The floor was narrow just beneath and covered with a scattered growth of cedar, but miles farther on it opened to wide gray space. Cattle were far less numerous than in the valley behind Laramie.

A well-defined, hard-packed trail led on the crest of the ridge to the north. Riders who had reason to watch must frequent it. And the tracks Laramie was hot on worked below along the edge where the slope began. Presently they ploughed off the rim in great fresh furrows and went straight down.

“Wal, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Laramie. “I wonder how long it took Ted or Lonesome to figger this. Not much longer, I’m gamblin’. He’d make pronto for thet other trail. . . . But if this heah outfit is aimin’ to haid off Gaines, why shouldn’t I beat them to it?”

Laramie tried to shake the idea. It would not shake. Weight strengthened it with the evidences of former inspirations. He gazed up at the sun. Already westering! Could he afford to trust to any old instinct? This deal was not his, but Lonesome’s. And the abducted girl was Hallie’s sister. Nevertheless, a strong impulse, cold and inscrutable, took possession of him. It quickened and directed his calculations. Four hours at the most would see Gaines come to a halt for the night. The outfit that had turned to trail him knew this and where he would make camp.

Suddenly Laramie bethought himself of the field-glass tied to the horn of his saddle. Securing this, he leaped off to steady himself against a tree and search the valley. He began at the right. The distance was far for a naked eye, but with the glass he could command all of it. Cattle, deer, antelope passed under his range of magnified vision. And the last band of antelope was on the move. But Laramie could not make out any other moving objects directly under him.

Whereupon he took a comprehensive sweep of the valley where it widened to the north. Grassy barrens merged into alkali flats. Out there no live object showed. The far side of the valley yielded nothing. Then beginning far to the left, and along the line where the timber met the sage, Laramie studied the land minutely. Eight or ten miles down he sighted a log cabin close to the wall of green, or a square rock that closely resembled a cabin. From there toward him for several miles the green and gray level appeared lonely.

Suddenly a string of horses slipped as if by magic into the magnified circle. Laramie sustained a shock. He nearly dropped the glass. What havoc Hallie Lindsay and her sister had worked on his nerves! Stealing himself to recognize the certainty he expected, he found the group again. Six horses, four riders, two packs! That would fit Gaines’ outfit, according to Ted’s calculation. They were traveling slowly. The horses were tired. Laramie’s eyes fixed upon the second rider, small, a mere bright dot in the saddle. That would be Lenta.

Laramie wasted not another second. “My hunch!” he soliloquized. “Funny about thet. . . . I can get ahaid of Gaines.” With swift decision he led his horse back to the trail, and tying on the glass he leaped astride. The big rangy sorrel answered to spur and in a moment Laramie was speeding along the ridge. The trail appeared open and hard. No dust would puff aloft to betray him, and he could not be seen from either valley. The ridge top widened to a big country and the trail kept to the middle of it. Laramie ran the sorrel over the long level reaches and otherwise governed his gait according to the ground. He calculated that a quarter of an hour’s rapid travel had brought him to a point where he should cut across to the slope again. This he did, finding it long but good going.

He came out upon a beautiful prospect. A timbered bench below reached out to the sage, and as luck would have it, there stood the cabin that he thought he might have mistaken for a rock. He did not look for the string of horses. They would be five miles at least down the valley. And at the pace they were moving it would take an hour and a half for them to reach the cabin. That was Gaines’ objective. Laramie meant to be there to meet him.

Without more ado he dismounted and gave his attention to the task of descending from the ridge. He found a place and started down, leading the sorrel. It was steep but passable, and did not concern him. Below, however, he might find difficulties, though he had to take that chance. Zigzagging down through brush and over benches, he came to a slant which bothered him for the reason that, though the sliding down would be easy, he could not retrace his steps. His range of vision here was restricted. He tried to see below. Finally he undertook the descent and made it without mishap. Soon after that he got into rough ground and had to puzzle and toil a way out, up and down, along the shelves and back again. He lost valuable time. Fortunately he had marked his direction by a crag across the valley. The sinking sun had long gone down behind the ridge he had descended. Shadows were thick. He had not miscalculated, but he had encountered bad luck — that factor always impending. Finally he crashed down over the last wooded barrier to a level.

A stream flowed out from under the bluff. Laramie let the sorrel drink. And as there was fresh grass for the taking, he decided to let the horse graze, and push out to the open on foot.

The main timber was spruce, thin and spear-pointed, interspersed with oak and brush. He could see the gold and purple of the valley beyond. The cabin stood out a little from the timber, marked by low-branching oak trees. Laramie was about to leave the woods when he espied the string of horses half a mile below. Turning back, he strode under cover until he had the cabin between him and the approaching riders. Then he ran across the open. When he reached the cabin door he drew his gun in case there were any inmates. He stood panting and peering. Then he rapped. No answer! Like many cabins, it contained one large room and a loft of poles halfway across under the roof. A leaning ladder with steps missing led up to it.

Laramie entered. He would shoot Gaines on sight, then hold up the negro and the Mexican, unless they showed fight. It was Laramie’s idea that he could make the negro talk. With his plan made, he awaited their arrival.

CHAPTER XIV

THROUGH A CHINK between the logs Laramie discerned a flash of white and the next instant heard a thud of hoofs. Gaines’ outfit had no white horse!

The situation demanded quick thinking. If a fight with these other trailers was unavoidable, Laramie felt ready for it, but as he was after Gaines he preferred to meet Gaines first. It might facilitate developments for him to hide up in the loft. He had to be quick, for the horses were close. Gruff voices sounded plainly. Laramie’s hand tightened on his gun. Almost he waited, but that sixth sense of his operated at last.

He ran to the ladder, ascended it, and stealthily lay down, facing the opening. The loft was not dark. Light came through a square hole at the back. This afforded Laramie satisfaction, despite the fact that it rendered detection easier than if the loft had been shrouded. On the other hand, he could not be cornered. If he were discovered he could shoot, then leap through the window and meet anyone on the outside. Plainly the advantage was all his.

Horses thudded up to the cabin. Instead, however, of stopping at the door they went behind, and halted with leathery creaks. Rattling spurs attested to the dismounting of riders. Laramie perceived then that the roof of the cabin extended out on this side, probably over some stalls for horses. He observed also a closed door near the corner on that side, and crude shelves extending from the corner to the rough stone chimney.

Low voices, their content indistinguishable, preceded the flop of saddles on the ground. The door opened to disclose a man in the act of entering. He half turned, looking back.

“Water the hawses, Jude, but don’t turn them loose,” he said, then he stepped high, with spur jangling on the door sill, to come in. His voice was familiar and Laramie knew the coarse dark thin-bearded face. Price! But he had changed markedly in visage, and his once portly form appeared lank. His garb did not lend him a look of prosperity. Close at his heels followed a short man, no longer young, with round, dull, blotched face and leaden eyes.

“I ain’t hankerin’ for this deal,” declared this worthy, in gruff impatience. “What’s your idee, anyway?”

“You never was bright, Beady,” returned Price. “I’ll agree the deal wasn’t so good or safe when we fust doubled back on Gaines’ trail. But we seen thet fellar on a black hawse trackin’ Gaines. An’ thet makes our deal. I’ll tell Gaines we seen he was bein’ trailed an’ thet we rustled over to put him on.”

“Ahuh. Thet’ll go, mebbe. An’ then what?”

“We’ll see what comes off.”

“Price, you want thet girl.”

“I ain’t denyin’ it, Beady.”

“Wal, what fer?”

“Lindsay will pay handsome for thet little lady,” declared Price, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. “Arlidge has left us only some two-bit cattle-rustlin’. Let’s make a stake an’ leave the country.”

“So far your reasonin’ is good,” replied Beady. “But you underrate Gaines an’ ain’t takin’ any stock atall of Nelson an’ his outfit. I’ll bet, by Gawd! thet’s it’s one of his riders trackin’ Gaines right now.”

“I am wonderin’ myself,” said Price, seriously. “I’d as lief meet Nelson himself as thet little cuss Mulhall. Bad blood between us, Beady.”

“Wal, thet won’t help. But if the rider we seen is one of Nelson’s outfit he won’t tackle Gaines alone. He’ll have to go back to the ranch. Thet’ll make a delay, sure, an’ you might pull a trick with Gaines an’ git the girl. But it won’t change the end. Thet gun-throwin’ Texan will trail you till hell freezes over. So if you don’t want the girl jest fer herself, I advise you to pass the deal up.”

“Beady, I swear I don’t want thet kid for herself. It’d be robbin’ the cradle,” protested Price. “But you’re givin’ me a better idee. You sure are. Let’s get the girl if we have to kill Gaines, an’ take her home to her father. He’d sure reward us.”

“Thet’s a better idee. But it ain’t so good, either. Suppose we run plumb into Nelson an’ Mulhall, an’ thet hawk-eyed Williams who tracked us when we stole his hawse?”

“Thet wouldn’t make no difference, if we was on the way home with her.”

“Haw! Haw! Mebbe it wouldn’t,” snorted Beady.

“Wal, enough of this. Are you on — —”

Their colloquy was interrupted by a lanky individual with a sallow face and long drooping mustache. A wide-brimmed sombrero hid his eyes.

“They’re comin’,” he announced.

“Where?” queried Price, swiftly, moving toward the door.

“Around thet point of timber. About a quarter, I reckon.”

Price took off his sombrero and guardedly peered out. When he withdrew his head he had the eyes of a ghoul.

“He hasn’t seen us an’ he doesn’t know he’s bein’ trailed. . . . Now, men, let me do the talkin’ an’ if I start anythin’ come in pronto.”

Laramie, listening to this man, contemptuously relegated him to the fifth class of border outlaws. The little man called Beady would bear watching, and the other, Jude, did not look cool and unconcerned enough to be dangerous. He sat down on the side bench beside the table and bounced up to take a seat again; Beady leaned against the chimney, while Price, pulling himself together, went to stand with one spurred boot on the high door sill.

“Like as not this is what’ll happen,” spoke up Beady. “Gaines an’ his outfit will roll in heah. An’ then Nelson’s. It’ll be lovely.”

“How soon?” queried Price, sharply.

“Couldn’t say. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Thet gives us time.”

“Fer what?”

“There’s only three of them. I’ll shoot Gaines when he’s asleep an’ hold up the greaser an’ nigger. It’ll be easy.”

“In his sleep, huh? . . . Price, how’n hell have you lived this long out heah?”

“Shut up. They’re comin’.”

Soon then Laramie’s strained ears caught a soft pound of hoofs. The sound increased until it reached the cabin, where it slowed and ended. Then followed a creak of leather, a metallic clink, and quick thud of boots hitting the ground.

“Price, I reckoned it was you comin’ off the ridge. What you mean, bracin’ me again this way?”

That ringing, dry voice, with its note of disgust, belonged to Chess Gaines. For Laramie suspense ended. The chance he had taken had been justified. And the worry and doubt it had engendered passed away.

“Chess, I was aimin’ to do you a favor,” replied Price, coolly.

“You call it a favor aggravatin’ me to bore you?”

“Somethin’ aggravated you, sure. Mebbe them bloody scratches on your face. . . . I done you a good turn an’ see what I get for it.”

“Say, you can’t trick me. You never did any man a good turn in your life. An’ damn me if I wouldn’t bore you for two bits. . . . What’d you head me off here for?”

“I seen a rider on a black hawse trailin’ you,” declared Price.

“You’re a damn liar!”

“No, I’m not. Ask Jude an’ Beady in there,” protested Price, sullenly.

“Jude would swear to anythin’ you said. But I don’t know your Beady. Call ’em out.”

Price stepped across the threshold and called his men to follow. Laramie appreciated that these two would be subjected to the gaze of a Westerner who realized he had crossed the pale. After the three men went out there ensued a moment’s silence.

“So you’re Beady, huh?” queried Gaines. “Beady what?”

“Jest Beady,” came the laconic reply.

“Did you see a rider trailin’ me?”

“Nope. Sorry I can’t say so. But I was behind. I’ll say, though, thet I took Price’s word.”

Suddenly a shrill high voice pealed out: “Chess Gaines, you can bet your life that rider was Lonesome Mulhall!”

Laramie thrilled back into his intensity. That was Lenta. It surely did not sound as if her spirit was broken. All Laramie needed more was a peep at her.

“Come off thet hawse, you little spit-fire,” growled Gaines.

“Keep your dirty claws to yourself,” cried the girl. “I told you. . . . I’ll get off myself.”

“An’ I tell you, for the benefit of these grinnin’ apes, thet not so long ago you didn’t mind my dirty claws,” retorted Gaines.

“Let go!” shrieked Lenta. A moment later Laramie saw her clutched in Gaines’ arms, kicking like a little mule. He threw her into the cabin, where she alighted sitting up, to slide until her back came against the corner of the chimney. She had no hat. Her hair was a bright dishevelled mass, her face sunburnt and dust-begrimed, with tear-streaks down her cheeks. No humiliated and shamed maiden could ever have possessed such blazing eyes. Laramie actually jerked in the release of his fear. All Lenta’s shortcomings were as if they had never been, and he revelled in the courage that had sustained her. Tenderfoot? She had all of the West in her heart.

“Nig, throw the packs,” went on Gaines, wearily. “Juan, you look after the hawses. We’re gonna stay here tonight, no matter what comes off.”

Lenta sat still, watching the men through the doorway. She wore overalls, top boots, and a short red coat over a blouse. The coat was soiled, and rent in many places. She looked like a boy, except for her slender shapeliness. Eyes and lips began to lose their fury. Then her face showed the havoc of fright and fatigue. Laramie thought he could estimate what she had endured.

Meanwhile, Laramie ascertained, twilight was falling. This caused him concern for a moment, until he calculated that it was almost a certainty Lonesome and Tracks had either sighted both of these outfits or had been close enough on their trails to be out there now, waiting for night. Moreover, they had, no doubt, been reinforced by Wind River Charlie and Dakota.

“Price, have you fellows got any decent grub?” Gaines was asking.

“Sure, an’ I’m some punkins of a cook myself,” came the reply.

“Throw in with us tonight. We’re out of grub thet dainty tenderfoot will eat.”

“Haw! Haw! I’ll make her pretty mouth water.”

“Rustle some firewood.”

“Plenty stacked inside, Gaines,” spoke up Beady. “Dry pine knots and split oak.”

“Jude, help me with the packs,” added Price.

Dark forms entered the cabin, and presently a sputter of fire followed. Soon a blaze lightened the interior of the cabin, showing Lenta sitting with her back to the wide fireplace, Price and Jude kneeling on the other side, busily preparing supper, and Beady and Gaines on the bench by the stationary table of boughs. Beady’s back was turned to the lynx-eyed Laramie, but Gaines sat full-face to the light. He appeared to be a disgruntled, defeated cow-puncher whose ambitions had mounted beyond his years and discretion. He stood out to Laramie then as a thoroughly evil man, capable of anything desperate, but not great enough to carry this issue to success. If he had been older he would not have been risking so much. But he had a touch of egotism and for some reason he was angry. Looking for that reason, Laramie imagined he detected it in the distinct scratches on his face, and in the smoldering gaze that now and then reverted to the girl. She had fought him like a wildcat. It did not seem impossible to Laramie that Gaines had waylaid Lenta with the old idea of elopement dominating him. Perhaps even with the murder of Stuart on his hands he had still attempted love-making with Lenta. At this hour he entertained dark and sinister motives.

“Gaines, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to ask somethin’,” spoke up Beady.

“Fire away,” rejoined Gaines, wearily. His fiery eyes studied the older man, to that individual’s favor.

“Ain’t it reasonable to expect riders on your trail?”

“Why, yes, but I’m not worryin’ none yet.”

“Wal, you’ll please excuse us fer not bunkin’ with you tonight.”

“Sure I’ll excuse you, an’ my outfit, too. I’m bunkin’ here tonight with my lady friend.”

“Only by force, you yellow cur!” spoke up Lenta, witheringly. “Any big stiff of a hombre like you could manhandle a slip of a girl. I’m worn out now.”

“What’s the idee, Gaines?” queried Beady, coldly. “Price said your deal was ransom. But her talk don’t argue thet.”

“None of your damn business. An’ Price better keep his trap shut,” snapped Gaines.

Lenta stood up, back to the wall. She made a brave little figure. Only the most hardened of men could have resisted it.

“Say, you they call Beady,” she burst out. “This cow-puncher rode for my Dad. I lost my head over him, same as the other riders. And I flirted with him. I let him kiss me. Then when I suspected he was a cattle-thief, one of Arlidge’s outfit, stealing from the man who hired him, I led him on till I found out sure. Nelson discharged him. Then he hid on the range, laying for me. Yesterday I rode to my old place with a boy named Stuart. They shot him — Gaines and his pards. Murdered him! — Oh, it was ter — rible. . . . Then the idiot tried to talk marriage to me — to run away with him. He’s crazy. He kept wrestling me till I tried to scratch his eyes out. . . . Now, you — any man could see — what he means, the dog! . . . I’m only a tenderfoot, but I’m not afraid of him — or any of you. Lend me your gun — and I’ll show you. . . . You all must be a lot of white-livered brutes — to let — him — —”

“Shet up, or I’ll smack your face,” interrupted Gaines. “You’re sure layin’ hell for yourself, young lady.”

“Gaines, your deal is none of my business, but I’m surprised if you’re ridin’ for Arlidge,” said Beady.

“I’m ridin’ for nobody,” declared Gaines, darkly.

“But you were Arlidge’s right-hand man,” flashed Lenta, pointing an accusing finger at him. “I coaxed that out of Slim Red and Wind River Charlie. You were trying to make them crooked, too. You’re a low-down rustler, Chess Gaines. And if it hadn’t been for my sister, Laramie Nelson would have shot you. And you can bet your sweet life now that Lonesome Mulhall WILL shoot you!”

“My Gawd! how a woman can rave!” He got up, and reaching out a long arm he clutched her coat and blouse at the throat. With one pull he swung her clear off her feet against him. Bending his tawny head, he stuck it close to her face. “You brag a lot about this puncher Mulhall. You must like him.”

“I wish to Heaven I’d liked him more, instead of wasting my feelings on a lousy dog like you,” replied Lenta, in deliberate passion. He could neither intimidate nor frighten her. Fiercely he gave her a fling, sending her back to the wall, where she slowly slid down to sit as before.

“Wal, you’re game an’ you got a sharp tongue,” he rasped. “I’ve wasted words on you. There’s only one way to tame you, Lent, an’ by Gawd! I’m goin’ to do it.”

He ended with a malignant passion that rang through the cabin. Laramie quivered in his tension. Why did not the boys come to hold up this careless bunch? Pretty soon he would lose his patience to kill Gaines, and that might start an uncertain fight. Laramie got himself in hand. It was only the girl’s presence that disturbed him. Reason argued him to wait the limit.

“So Nelson fired you an’ then Arlidge did the same?” queried Price. “You’re gettin’ in my class, Chess.”

Gaines straddled the bench and almost tore his tawny hair out by the roots. He wrenched force from his desperation. It struck Laramie that Gaines could have coped with this situation if he kept cool. Truly the girl’s presence was like a red flag to a bull.

“Price, you can’t deal me in your class,” he returned, icily. “The fact thet you double-cross Arlidge an’ me before this rancher’s daughter proves your class.”

“Have it your own way. But I’ll gamble I couldn’t tell thet kid much she doesn’t know,” said Price, with a mildness which did not deceive Laramie. He turned to address Lenta. “Say, kid, sure you know Arlidge rustled your dad’s cattle?”

“I sure do,” retorted Lenta.

“An’ thet he burns your Peak Dot brand into the Triangle Bar brand?”

Lenta regarded the speaker with quickening eyes.

“An’ thet the rancher Lester Allen sells this brand in Denver an’ Nebraskie?”

“There! That’s what I’ve wanted to find out,” shrilled the girl, clapping her hands. “Thanks, Rustler Price. I’ll bet Laramie Nelson will be tickled to hear that.”

Gaines whipped out his gun and held it low on Price.

“I reckon I’ll bore you for thet.”

The offender’s face turned as white as his flour-covered hands. He had overstepped himself. Laramie could not gauge what the fool was driving at, unless for some incredible reason he wished to betray Arlidge and Allen to the daughter of Lindsay. The news was welcome to Laramie and verified his suspicions. As for the issue at hand, let Gaines make it one less for him to contend with — or two — or three.

“Wal, all I’ll say more, Chess — is you’re sure achin’ to bore — somebody,” gulped Price.

“Hold on, Gaines,” interrupted Beady, markedly the only cool one present. “Is thet a matter for throwin’ your gun? Price is windy, sure, an’ plumb irritatin’. But you’ve no call to kill him for tellin’ what we all knowed.”

“Thet jack-rabbit-eared kid didn’t know,” rang out Gaines.

“No, I see she didn’t. But what difference does thet make when she’ll never get a chance to tell it?” returned the imperturbable Beady.

Laramie, watching and listening like a ferret, divined that he had gauged this stranger well. Neither Price nor Gaines knew what Laramie saw — that if Gaines pulled the trigger it would mean death for himself as well.

“Huh?” croaked the rider.

“Gaines, you know you’ll never let thet girl go now,” concluded Beady. “So what’s the sense of shootin’ him? We’ll all be in the same box an’ have to ride out of the country.”

Gaines’ face turned a flaming red and he flipped the gun up to catch it by the handle, and sheath it.

“You’re —— right I’ll never let her go!” he flared, passionately.

At that Lenta got to her feet in an action which appeared to be a drawing taut of every muscle. “Chess Gaines, to — to think I — I once liked you! . . . You dirty monster!” she screamed at him, the very embodiment of horror and scorn. “Were you born of a woman? Hadn’t you a sister?”

“So help me Gawd, I’m goin’ to have you, Lent Lindsay!” he shouted, stridently.

“Never alive!” she cried, and leaped for the door. As quick as a cat she would have made it, too, but for something that checked her with a smothered scream.

Then Gaines in a leap was on her like a tiger. He tossed her up and caught her kicking in the air. “Alive you bet!” he ground out in fierce exultance. She beat at him with flying fists, and supple and strong, she twisted out of his arms to thud against the wall. Here he pinned her and was crushing her tight in a mingled anger and passion when suddenly he stretched high as if galvanized by a burning current.

“Aggh!” he bawled out, and with a spasmodic wrench he tore loose to wheel in the firelight. Blood squeezed out between the fingers with which he clutched his breast. She had bitten him.

Laramie had his gun almost leveled. Another move of Gaines’ toward the girl would be his last. With visage distorted by pain and frenzy Gaines lifted high a quivering open hand.

“You she-cat! Bite me — will you?” he hissed.

“Howdy, Chess!” sang out a voice through the door. Its mirth had a deadly note.

The hand Gaines held aloft froze in the air. Only his eyes moved — to stare — to pop wildly.

“Hell’s fire, but I hate to kill you quick!” pealed that outside voice, terrible now in its certainty.

Laramie’s blood leaped. A fraction more of pressure on his trigger was diverted. Lonesome! A red flame shot through the door — a puff of smoke. Then the cabin filled to bellowing thunder. Chess Gaines’ brains spattered the chimney and he went hurtling down as if propelled by a catapult.

CHAPTER XV

LARAMIE RAISED HIMSELF silently on his left arm, his gaze switching to Beady. Hardly had that booming report died away when Beady drew his gun and leaped off the bench in a single action. Another leap carried him to the cabin wall where in the shadow near the door he shoved out the gun to kill Lonesome when he entered. That was a signal for Laramie to shoot.

Beady fell forward in a heap as the cabin reverberated to the heavy shot.

“Hands up — yu men. Quick!” ordered Laramie, getting to his knees.

“Reckon thet’ll be Laramie,” sang out a grim voice, and Lonesome entered over the dark huddled form inside the door. Then the opposite door crashed inward to admit Williams with rifle forward, and Wind River Charlie, who jumped to a position beside him.

Three gun-barrels glinted darkly in the dimming firelight. Jude and Price knelt among the packs and utensils, hands rigidly aloft, their pallid faces gleaming. Lenta had collapsed apparently in the chimney corner.

“Laramie!” called Lonesome.

“Heah I am,” replied Laramie.

“Where?”

“Up in the loft.”

“You been there all the time,” asserted Lonesome. “I might have knowed thet. . . . Come down an’ make a light.”

Laramie descended the ladder, face to the fore, but after a glance at the stupefied prisoners he sheathed his gun, and threw pine needles and pine cones on the fire. It blazed up brightly.

“Where’s Dakota?” demanded Laramie, sharply. “Johnson an’ Mendez air out there.”

“I hear Dakota comin’,” replied Wind River Charlie.

“Git in there with you, nigger,” ordered Dakota, from outside.

“I’se a-gittin’, boss. Yu needn’t jab me n-n-no mo’ wid dat gun,” came the reply.

“Stand aside, Ted. Let them in,” called Laramie.

A yellow-faced rolling-eyed negro shambled in, trying to bend away from a rifle barrel shoved against his back by Dakota.

“Heah’s Johnson,” announced the rider. “The greaser must have heard us an’ sneaked away.”

“Where is he, nigger?” demanded Lonesome.

“I dunno, sah. I was jus’ talkin’ to him out dere wid de hawses. He never sed nuffin’, an’ when I looked fer him sho he was gone.”

“Saves us the trouble of hangin’ him,” went on Lonesome, who seemed to assume leadership here. “Charlie, get ropes somewhere.”

“Saddles jest outside, Charlie,” added Laramie.

The rider disappeared out in the darkness and presently could be heard tearing at saddles in the stalls. Soon he reappeared, carrying coiled lassoes.

“Charlie, you an’ Dakota cut one of them in three pieces an’ tie these hombres’ hands behind their backs,” went on Lonesome.

This order was soon complied with, whereupon Lonesome sheathed his gun and sat down upon the bench to throw his sombrero on the table. His face resembled an ashen mask.

“Now drag these dead hombres back in the corner, so sight of them won’t spoil our supper.”

Meanwhile Laramie knelt beside Lenta. She lay half propped between some firewood and the chimney. Her small face shone white and it wore an expression of torture. Her eyes were now vastly far from resembling those of a baby.

“Wal, I shore reckoned yu was daid to the world, Lenta,” said Laramie, and it seemed that with sight of the pathetic torn little figure and her eyes all his affection for the wayward girl rushed back. She had what Laramie respected most — courage. He lifted her to a more comfortable posture and tried to smooth out her disheveled hair.

“I — I didn’t faint,” she whispered, clinging to Laramie. “When I ran — I saw Lonesome out there. I knew then — I was saved. . . . But I’ve seen — heard it all. I’m sick, but glad. . . . Oh, Laramie, he hasn’t looked once — at me. What does he — think? . . . Tell him — I — I’m all right — that — —”

“Shore yu’re all right,” interrupted Laramie, softly. “I heahed yu, Lent, an’ was plumb happy. Yu’re the gamest kid I ever met, an’ some day I shore got to beg yore forgiveness. Brace up now. Yore troubles air past.”

“Maybe they are. . . . But tell him, Laramie — please,” whispered the girl.

“Pard,” called Laramie, addressing Lonesome, who sat dark and grim at the table. “Lent’s all right. Weak an’ sick, shore, but unhurt. . . . An’ not harmed atall!”

“Yeah? . . . Thank Gawd then fer her an’ Hallie,” responded Lonesome, without emotion, and without a glance in that direction.

Lenta pulled Laramie down to whisper: “See! He doesn’t believe — or care. . . . And I — Oh — Laramie — —”

“Hush, child. Yu’re upset. Don’t try to figger out anythin’ now. Keep on fightin’ off hysterics. Think of the facts. Yu’re neither hurt nor harmed. In the mawnin’ we’ll take yu back home — to Hallie an’ yore mother. That’s enough to think of now.”

It was not easy to unclasp Lenta’s twining little hands or to turn from her big beseeching eyes.

“Come heah, Laramie. You ain’t no nurse, an’ if the girl’s all right, why, let’s tend to the deal,” said Lonesome.

“Reckon the rest can wait till mawnin’,” rejoined Laramie, crossing to Lonesome and speaking in a low tone of voice.

“No. An’ I reckon you’d better let me boss the party.”

“Shore, if yu want. But why?”

“On account of Hallie,” returned Lonesome, speaking low. “In case the story of what happens ever leaks out. Savvy, pard?”

“Wal, I don’t know as I do,” drawled Laramie. “This heah’s a funny time for yu to be dreamin’.”

“Aw, hell! . . . Heah, I’ll take the responsibility an’ I’ll lie to Hallie. Only, you must coax Lent to keep quiet about this bloody mess.”

“Shore. I reckon I can guarantee thet.”

“Good. Now have you any suggestion?”

“Only one. Daid men’s evidence isn’t so shore as thet of livin’ ones. I’ve heahed the truth about Arlidge an’ Allen. It’s what we reckoned, Lonesome, but couldn’t prove. I say scare the nigger half to death. Then agree to set him free if he squeals.”

“Ahuh. Anythin’ you say, Laramie, though it galls me not to see him stretch hemp with the rest of them.”

“Shore I reckon I feel thet way, too,” rejoined Laramie, ponderingly, not so certain of himself.

Price watching the dialogue between Lonesome and Laramie, but unable to hear them, burst into shaky speech: “Mulhall, we had — nothin’ to do — with Gaines’ kidnappin’ thet kid.”

Lonesome gave no sign that he had heard the appeal of his old enemy. He rolled a cigarette with steady fingers. His impassiveness struck even Laramie, and his stony visage might have been the mask of doom itself. Certain it was that Price realized this, for a second attempt at speech failed in his throat.

“Aw, keep it out of your neck!” interrupted Jude, in harsh bitterness. “You got us into this. Now take your medicine.”

“Dakota, we’ll want a blazin’ fire outside, so we can see,” spoke up Lonesome.

“No, we won’t,” interposed Laramie. “Throw some more wood on heah. . . . I’ll pack the girl out.” Wherewith he stepped to Lenta’s side and bent to lift her.

“What you want, Laramie?” she asked.

“Wal, the fact is, lass, yu’ll be — it’s nicer outside — more air, an’ later I’ll fix yu a bed,” replied Laramie.

“I can walk,” she said, and rose to prove her contention. Laramie led her out.

“Set heah, Lent, where I can see yu,” concluded Laramie, and gently forced her to a sitting posture against the wall. Then he turned back and sat down in the door, facing those inside.

“Laramie, what is Lonesome going to do — with them?” whispered the girl, fearfully.

“Wal, yu never mind. It won’t be much, I reckon.”

“But he won’t let that Price go scot-free, will he?” protested Lenta, with decided force. Laramie began to feel ashamed to deceive her, so did not have a ready answer. Whereupon the girl got up and peered into the cabin, her hands on Laramie’s shoulders. The renewed fire brightly lighted the forward end of the cabin.

“Lonesome!” cried Lenta, shrilly. Every face inside turned toward her, gleaming darkly. The pine cones cracked. “That man Price is worse than Gaines. Today when he met us — he kept eyeing me. . . . Oh, I read his mind. And he waylaid us here to kill Gaines. He meant to get me.”

“Yeah?” responded Lonesome, with a composure that sat so strangely upon him. “Much obliged, Miss Lindsay. We’re right glad to have our suspicions confirmed.”

Lenta stared at him and then slowly turned away, muttering. Laramie told her to move along the wall, away from the door, out of hearing.

Lonesome’s sharp order rang out:

“Charlie, throw a noose over thet high rafter.”

The lanky rider strode to the center of the cabin, rope in hand. This left the open door on that side unguarded. Quick as a flash Jude leaped toward it. “By Gawd! you’ll never hang me!” His leap carried him through but the crash of Dakota’s gun ended his flight. The rider went out, to return and close the door.

“Reckon we’ll never have to,” he said, grimly.

Wind River Charlie swung the coil of lasso dexterously through the small triangle between the rafter and the roof. The noose streaked down and dangled with a sinister action like the head of a snake.

“Ted, keep yore gun on Price, an’ if he as much as winks, shoot him in the belly,” said Lonesome, in a low voice. “Charlie, gimme the rope an’ you an’ Dakota drag the nigger heah.”

They did so and threw the noose over the negro’s head. Lonesome hauled on the lasso, stretching Johnson to his toes and held him there a moment.

“How you like thet, nigger?” he whispered, slacking on the lasso.

Johnson came down flat-footed, choking and writhing. Charlie loosened the noose. The negro gasped, his yellow face worked hideously, his eyes rolled with the whites startlingly prominent.

“Yuse oughtto — kills me — decent,” he said, in a strangled whisper.

“Thet all you gotta say, Johnson?” queried the imperturbable Mulhall.

“Fer de Lud’s sake — don’ hang me. . . . I’se done nuthin’.”

“You’re a hawse-thief.”

“No, sah, I ain’t. Nebber.”

“But you’re a cattle-thief.”

“Yas, I is. But I nebber — wuz — till dat Arlidge man — made me,” protested the negro.

“Wal, thet’s too bad, ‘cause we gotta string you up.”

The negro presented a pathetic figure. But he was not without courage.

“Nelson, yuse boss heah. . . . Cain’t yuse make him shoot me? . . . I sho hates — to have my neck — wrung.”

“Sam, I reckon I might if — —”

Lonesome slowly threw his weight on the lasso and pulled. “Heah, give me a hand, Charlie. . . . Easy now. Don’t break nothin’.” Together they slowly drew the negro up until his head and neck appeared to be those of a turtle. One foot left the ground, then the other. He swung free. His knees drew up spasmodically while a horrid sucking sound issued from his mouth. Suddenly he was dropped back to solid earth. This time he swayed and would have fallen but for the rope.

Laramie took a glance at the livid face of Price. The rustler’s eyes were shut tight.

Again Charlie loosened the noose. Johnson appeared almost strangled. He coughed, and the intake of breath was a wheeze.

“How you like thet, nigger?” asked Lonesome.

“I done — reckon — I’se gone — den.”

“Sam, then you love life, huh?”

“Lud, I nebber — knowed — how much.”

“Wal, what’d you do to save yore life? Would you talk?”

“Yas, sir. I’d tell — all — I knows,” replied the negro, in hoarse accents of hope.

Here Laramie intervened: “Sam, tomorrow we’ll ride down to see Allen. Will yu talk in front of him?”

“Yas, sah, I shore will.”

“Is Allen a cattle-thief?”

“I nebber seen him — rustle no stock, sah. But he sells burned brands — sah — he shore does.”

“How about Arlidge?”

“He’s a ridin’ rustler, sah. He led de outfit dat fust drive — before you-all come wid Lindsay. I heerd him tell Gaines dat Lindsay had bought Allen out.”

“Wal, jest who rode in thet drive, Sam?” went on Laramie.

“Dar wuz Gaines an’ Juan an’ me, an’ Arlidge — an’ dats all I remembers, sah.”

“Don’t lie, Sam. Heah’s the time to save yore neck. Try to remember.”

“Wal, sah, dere was Fork Mayhew, an’ — an’ — —”

“Me!” chimed in Wind River Charlie, with passion. “But, Laramie, I swear I didn’t know thet drive was rustlin’. Not till after. Me an’ Fork an’ Red wasn’t in the secret. We didn’t like the deal, but we didn’t pry into it. Afterward Gaines told us Lindsay had bought Allen out an’ we was really rustlin’.”

“Ahuh. Thet was Arlidge’s hold on yu, Charlie?”

“Yes, boss, an’ no more.”

Laramie lifted a hand to signify he was through with the proceedings. Lonesome whipped the rope so that the noose jumped from round Johnson’s neck.

“Make way, Sam. . . . Ted, will you prod thet gent over heah?”

But no amount of prodding with a rifle could move Price. His dead weight clung to the wall. Whereupon Lonesome grasped the noose, and pulling the lasso over the rafter to sufficient length he took three long strides and cracked the loop over Price’s head.

“Price, you remember when you did thet same trick to me once,” he said, cold as steel. More than border justice rang in that terse statement. Price appeared far gone, at the mercy of primal instincts, but even so he saw the uselessness of supplication.

Lonesome strode back to leap high and drag down the end of the lasso. “Ted, Dakota, come lend me an’ Charlie a hand.”

The four hauled in unison, dragging Price away from the wall, over the bench, and upsetting the table, and then with a concerted heave swung the rustler into the air.

“Hold — there,” panted Lonesome, and while the three sustained the straining Price at that height Lonesome tied the end of the rope to one of the loft supports. “Leggo. Reckon thet’ll do.” As they complied the lasso strung and stretched, letting Price down a foot, but it held. Then Lonesome, hands on his hips, his short stature and sturdy bow-legs singularly expressive, stood at gaze, watching the strangling man.

Laramie sat in the doorway, likewise watching. He had been present at numerous lynching bees, first of that most hated of border outlaws — the horse-thief, and then of late years the rustler. It was a common practice, inaugurated, he remembered, in order to intimidate cow-punchers going wrong. Not greatly had it succeeded.

This crude justice brought home to Laramie now its hideousness as well as its futility. He seemed to be sitting in judgment upon Price and his kind, and his executioners, of whom surely he was one. Had he not hauled on many a rope? But he seemed also to be sitting there and seeing this appalling spectacle with Hallie Lindsay’s eyes. She had changed him. The law of the West was what it was, and he could not alter it. But he divined here that the advent of women on the frontier would alter it. Price in his contortions kicked so violently that he got to swinging to and fro across the center of the cabin space. Once a jumping-jack kick nearly reached the statue-like Mulhall. That indeed jerked the avenging rider out of his rigidity. He wheeled away, his face gray and dripping with sweat.

“Pack this grub outside, boys,” he said, huskily, “I’ll fetch some fire.”

That broke the suspense. They all leaped into action. Laramie, diverted as well, was about to rise and step forward when he heard a gasp behind him. Swiftly he wheeled in time to see Lenta sink to the ground beside the door. The incorrigible girl had watched from behind his back, had been a witness to this gruesome spectacle, and at last had succumbed to what indeed would have been sickening and devastating to the hardiest of pioneer girls.

Laramie turned to pick her up in his arms. She was a dead weight. This time she had fainted. “Dog-gone,” he muttered, as he carried her out under the spreading tree. “But I never thought. She shore beats hell, this kid.”

He laid her down on the grass, deciding that it would be well not to help her return to consciousness. Then he lent a hand to his comrades. They carried out the packs and the camp utensils with the food. They built a new fire for light, as well as shoveling out the red coals to cook upon. Johnson was brought out to be sat by the wall. Then Laramie went to find his horse. It was dark under the trees, but in the open places the starlight enabled him to find his way, and eventually the horse. He removed saddle and bridle. These he carried back to the cabin, plainly visible in the camp-fire glow. The riders moved to and fro, dark suggestive forms, fitting the scene. Lenta lay as he had left her. Laramie dropped his burdens and went back into the woods to cut some pine or cedar brush for her bed. Securing a bundle, he retraced his steps, to find Lenta sitting up.

“Wal, heah yu air all right again,” said Laramie, cheerfully, as he dumped the fragrant mass. “We’re shore goin’ to have a soft bed for yu so yu can sleep some.”

“Sleep. Will I ever again?” she asked, huskily.

“Nature is wonderful, lass. . . . Now see heah. I spread the pine nice an’ thick. An’ a saddle blanket on top with another to go over yu. An’ a chunk of wood for a pillow. There!”

“Laramie, will you stay right close — by me — all night?” she queried, falteringly. “Now that it — it’s over I’m losing my nerve.”

“Shore. I’ll set right heah an’ hold yore hand all night. Reckon I ain’t sleepy. But I can sleep settin’ up jest the same.”

“Some one doused me with water. Do you think it was — Lonesome?”

“Like as not. He’s most unconsiderin’ when he’s riled.”

“Riled? Uggh! If he only was mad!”

“Wal, don’t pay no more attention to him, Lent.”

But she evinced an inability to keep her dark haunted eyes from following the little rider everywhere. He kept busy around the camp fire, lending a hand to Charlie, who was cooking supper. Finally Ted came over.

“How are you, Lent? This has been the toughest deal I ever saw a girl stack up against. Flo would have croaked.”

“Ted, I’m sorta sunk. Feel like a poisoned pup.”

“Some nice hot potato soup will be good for you.”

“Come an’ get it,” sang out Charlie.

“I’ll fetch yu some,” said Laramie, suiting action to his words.

“Laramie, you flatter me. I haven’t had a mouthful since yesterday. But I can’t eat,” replied the girl.

Lonesome pricked up his ears in a manner that suggested they were keenly sensitive in a certain quarter. He was kneeling with a heaping pan in his hands.

“Say, young woman, do you want to give us pore devils more trouble?” he asked. “We got two hard days ridin’ an’ one fight sure before we can get you home. An’ if you won’t eat you’ll give out an’ delay us.”

“I — I’ll eat,” hurriedly whispered Lenta, receiving the pan from Laramie. And she did eat, though she forced every swallow. Laramie felt sorry for her and angry with Lonesome. Certainly it was no time for sentiment, yet Laramie saw no reason for Lonesome to be as hard as flint. The only break in the silence after that was when Lonesome told Dakota to untie the negro and let him eat.

“I’m so stiff and sore,” said Lenta, presently, and got up. “I’ll walk a little.”

“Thet’s a good kid,” rejoined Laramie. “Dog-gone-yu, lass, I’m beginnin’ to like yu again.”

“Thanks, Laramie. I’m suffering a change of heart, too.”

Laramie arranged his saddle and a blanket on the other side of Lenta’s bed, so that she would be between him and the tree.

“Pard, do yu reckon there’s any chance of thet greaser prowlin’ round to take a pot shot at us from the dark?” queried Laramie.

“Not if I know greasers,” replied Lonesome.

“One saddle-hawse missin’,” added Dakota. “I reckon Juan got it. He’s pushin’ leather now.”

“All the same, we’ll keep guard,” said Lonesome. “An’ I’ll be first on.”

“There won’t be a hell of a lot of sleepin’, I reckon,” added Laramie.

Lenta came stealing back to plump down on her bed and stretch out. Her eyes appeared unnaturally large and bright in her pale face.

“It’ll be cold towards mawnin’,” said Laramie as he covered her partly. “Then I’ll pull this up over yu.”

“You’ll stay close all night?”

“Shore, lass.”

“I never was afraid of the dark and I never had nightmares. But . . . let me hold your hand, Laramie.”

She held his hand in both hers, and then her heavy eyelids fell. Laramie expected her to go to sleep, and she did, almost immediately, when she unconsciously released her hold on him. Laramie sat gazing down upon the disheveled head, the pale face, the gently heaving breast, with mingled feelings. If this experience would be a lesson to her, all would yet end well. He decided it would be — even for such a madcap as Lenta Lindsay. And he rejoiced. After a while he softly arose to approach the squatting riders.

“Wal, you old wiz, how’d you come to be in thet cabin, waitin’ fer us?” queried Lonesome.

“Wal, after I left yu pretty soon the trail forked back an’ up over the hill. I got leary an’ reckoned there was more’n yu hard after Gaines. When thet trail took off the ridge I searched the valley with my glass. Soon saw Gaines an’ his outfit with the kid. I figgered I might haid him off by ridin’ fast an’ gettin’ down. I did. I found this cabin an’ I seen hawses comin’. But one was white an’ then I was shore some one else had haided off Gaines, too. Thet was Price. So I took to the loft.”

“You old wolf!” ejaculated Ted, warmly. “It was Lonesome who split off after Price. I rode slow, and soon Charlie and Dakota caught up with me. We saw Price’s outfit pile down the hill and sneak after Gaines. So we waited for Lonesome. When he come we expected you soon afterward. But you didn’t come pronto, so we knew you were up to your old tricks.”

“Wal, we shore had luck,” drawled Laramie. “If I hadn’t been in the loft some of us would have got plugged. Thet stranger, Beady somebody, who was with Price — he sized up dangerous to me. He was playin’ Price against Gaines. An’ when Lonesome opened the ball I had an eye on Beady.”

“Wonder who he was. What’d he do, pard?” returned Lonesome, in gruff curiosity.

“Wal, Gaines hadn’t stopped fallin’ when thet Beady leaped behind the door, his gun throwed. . . . I hope yu wasn’t about to step in, then.”

“I was, you bet. I had my foot up when your gun bellared. You see our plan was like this. Dakota was to take care of the two hawse wranglers, Charlie an’ Ted was to be ready at thet back door, while I’d plant myself by the front door. Course it was on the cairds thet I’d pay my compliments to Gaines. Then the idee was for us to bust in quick, not givin’ them a chance to hide, an’ hold’em all up.”

“Well, it’d sure been all day with you, an’ me, too, and maybe Charlie if Laramie hadn’t been here,” broke in Ted, gravely.

A sober little silence ensued. Lonesome poked the red embers with a stick. “Another time — huh?” he queried, with an odd break in his voice. “Wal, I own up to recklessness— ‘cause of the girl. . . . But you was there, pard.”

CHAPTER XVI

HALLIE SANK BACK upon the soft hay, blinded by tears, so shaken and overcome with emotion that her mind seemed a whirling chaos. But the burn of Laramie’s rude kisses upon her cheeks and neck, the sting of them on her lips, suddenly realized, cleared her consciousness at least of uncertainty.

She struggled up wildly, wiping her wet eyes. Gone! She heard trampling, jingling steps wearing away. She peered out of the stall. No other rider in sight! That catastrophe had had no witness. “Oh-h!” she whispered, thickly, as she gazed at her disheveled blouse and felt of her hair. One sleeve was up above her elbow. A fine dust of hayseed covered her habit. “The — savage! . . . He nearly — tore me to pieces. . . . And I — I — Oh-h — —”

This poignant expression, dying in her throat, had not to do with the furious blow she had dealt Laramie. That sprang from a panic-stricken shame — at a fearful realization. Laramie’s volley of kisses had reacted terribly upon her — to her undoing. She could not comprehend, but she knew. They had seemed to burn some cold strange barrier from around her heart and set it free to leap up against his. First she had been shocked, inflamed, then carried away on a rising flood of strong, sweet, irresistible madness.

There it was! Tragically she whispered the inevitableness of it. What a wreck she felt — what a wreck she must look! She brushed off her clothes and buttoned her sleeve. There was a red stain on the wristband. Blood! Whose? Then she remembered his bleeding lips. And he had kissed her with them! Frantically she found her handkerchief and wiped her face. Yes — more red — more — ! She tried to stop her stream of consciousness — as if to dam a torrent. She picked up sombrero, gauntlets, quirt, and fled out at the back of the barn like a guilty thing. No rider in sight! She ran under the cottonwoods into the trail and far from the corrals; in a shady green covert she fell spent and breathless, to lie there staring up at the blue sky.

At last she agonized it out. Laramie had sickened of the Lindsays — of their milk-sop idea of ranching. And like other riders, in a reckless and perhaps poignant moment, he had responded to such an opportunity as they all answered. He had kissed her. Then, at her blow, enraged, he had — what had he not done — the brute? But the fierce, hard, brazen primitiveness of him had transformed her into his mate. One more moment of his strangling embrace — nay, one more rough kiss — would have seen her arms close around his neck. That was the terror of her realization. Oh, she knew! She could not delude herself. One hand had gone around his neck and the other was on the way to meet it when he had torn free. He did not know — he had not dreamed of her wild response. What had this West done to her? It had made a wife of Florence before she was out of her teens, it had ruined Lenta, it had torn her asunder, her — Harriet, who had been through with love — it had found in her depths another woman like a savage, a tigress, free, defiant, who loved with blood, flesh, mind, in a passion that relegated her old attachment to the strength of a candle-flame.

* * * * *

A grind of wheels rolling down the gravel road brought Hallie’s long vigil to a close. Peeping out through the foliage, she espied two buckboards going by down to the barns. Horses, vehicles, drivers were all strange to her. Company! She was startled. What a time to be visited by some of the friendly ranchers whom the Lindsays had met at La Junta!

This event changed the current of Hallie’s thought. She hurried up the valley trail and reached her room without meeting anyone. Here she proceeded to remove the stained and wrinkled riding-garb, which she vowed with a queer passion she would never put on again. Then she dressed hurriedly and endeavored to look as if the world had not come to an end. She essayed a smile, and her mirror told her that that would do much to eliminate the havoc from her face.

Jud scowled at her as she passed his open quarters. “I don’t want any lunch, Jud,” and he replied that she did not eat enough to keep a jack-rabbit alive. Laughter and voices from the living-room confirmed Hallie’s suspicions about company. Presenting herself at the open door, she looked in.

Flo, looking unusually excited and therefore lovely, sat holding the hand of a striking brunette girl of about nineteen, who was certainly a sister of Ted Williams. Then Hallie, suddenly breathless, espied her mother, radiant as always when she had company. A handsome gray-haired woman of distinction sat with Mrs. Lindsay, and beyond were two men talking to Hallie’s father.

“Here she is,” said Flo, leaping up.

Lindsay called, gaily. “Come in, daughter. Mrs. Williams, this is my eldest girl, Harriet. . . . Mr. Williams, you and Strickland meet the boss of Spanish Peaks Ranch. . . . Hallie, of all the good luck! Ted’s mother, father, and sister have come west to find Ted. . . . And this gentleman is Mr. Strickland, whom you met at La Junta. He is the largest cattle-dealer in eastern Colorado.”

“I’m happy to meet you, Harriet,” responded Mrs. Williams, graciously, as she extended her hand. “I’m glad there’s one of the Lindsays who hasn’t eloped yet.”

Ted’s sister, Kitty, had a shy greeting for Harriet. Mr. Williams was gay and flattering in his acknowledgment of the introduction, and Mr. Strickland, a tall, eagle-eyed tanned Westerner past middle age held Hallie’s hand gallantly. “Miss Landsay, I shore am glad to meet you again. An’ if you’re the boss of the Peak Dot Ranch I’m confident of the success of my call.”

“Mr. Strickland, are you like all the rest of the young Westerners?” queried Hallie.

“Wal, if I was twenty years younger, you’d see about that,” declared the rancher, with a hearty laugh.

“It is too bad you-all did not come a day sooner,” said Hallie, to the visitors generally. “We are upset. Lenta has — run off, and Ted, with the other riders, has gone to fetch her back.”

“Married or no?” asked Mrs. Williams, with a smile.

“In any case.”

“Do you approve of the young man?” queried Mr. Williams, jocularly.

“Hardly. He is handsome, and wild enough, surely, even for my wild little sister. But he has — scarcely any more to recommend him.”

“And how do you feel about our son running off with your other sister?” added the smiling mother.

“I’m very happy about that.”

“Oh, so am I,” murmured Kitty. “And just crazy to see Ted.”

“I knew you at once to be his sister. . . . Ted is very handsome.”

“Thank you. Handsome riders must be plentiful out here. Can’t you find me one? I’ve heard enough about this Laramie Nelson to make me eager to see him.”

“Oh, Laramie—” replied Harriet, constrainedly, conscious of a queer sinking sensation within her breast. “Yes, he is quite good-looking, too. . . . Perhaps with all their talk they have not told you, he’s a gun-fighter. It was he who led the riders after Lenta. I dare say Laramie has killed some one already.”

“Gun-fighter? — Killed some one! . . . Oh, how dreadful!” exclaimed the Eastern girl.

“And Ted has been a — what do you call a rider — a range-rider, all these years?” queried Mrs. Williams, aghast.

“Ten years, I think he said. And the last four he has been closely associated with Laramie Nelson, and another of our riders, Lonesome, they call him. They are like brothers.”

“Lonesome? How cute!” cried Kitty.

Mrs. Williams gazed in apprehension at her husband. “Father, I fear Ted is going to give us a shock.”

“I’m prepared for anything,” replied Williams, happily. “But I’m not worried any more. I’ll take the West as I find it. And right here I find it most satisfactory. For years I’ve feared Ted had become a disgrace to us — an idle, drunken cow-puncher. But I’m sure I’ll have to apologize.”

Florence gave him a proud little smile.

“Indeed you will. Ted is the farthest removed from that. He is just the finest boy in all the world.”

“All’s well that ends well,” returned Mr. Williams, feelingly.

“Mrs. Williams, of course, you will stay?” asked Harriet. “We can make you comfortable and will be most happy to have you.”

“Thank you, we will stay — unless one of your wild riders makes up to Kitty.”

“One of them! They’ll all make up to her. . . . And I warn you, Kitty, they make love like — like cyclones.”

“It’ll be just great,” replied that demure young lady, her eyes shining.

Here Strickland interposed: “Lindsay, now that your range boss is here suppose we get our little confab over. I’ll have to leave at daybreak tomorrow. An’ as my business with you is important, I’d like to get it off my chest.”

“Range boss?” echoed Hallie, wonderingly. “Am I he?”

“So your father gives me to understand,” replied Strickland.

“Oh, I — I’ve made a mess of it. All I’ll ever do after this is handle the money.”

“Wal, that includes about everythin’.”

“Ma, you folks please excuse us a while,” said Lindsay, rising. “Come, Hallie, we’ll go to the office. . . . Mr. Williams, didn’t you say you might back Ted in some cattle deal or other?”

“Yes, I said I might, if he was half decent and it would help him,” replied Williams, genially. “Now after hearing what you say about Ted, and meeting his lovely wife, I’m inclined to buy them a corner of Colorado for a wedding present.”

“Fine. Then you sit in with us on this little game. Come.”

He led the way with Hallie, while Strickland and Williams followed.

“Mr. Williams, are you really serious about settin’ your boy up in the cattle business?” Strickland was saying.

“I am indeed — if the boy will only forgive me. I guess I wasn’t — —”

“Shucks! That’ll be all right. Dads will be Dads. I had a boy who disappointed me turrible. He went to the bad an’ — never come back.”

“Ah! That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

“But I have two other sons, both doin’ wal, one out here, an’ the other in Kansas City, at the receivin’ end of our cattle business. . . . It’s not a bad idee your backin’ the boy now. This particular range is due for a boom, an’ it’ll run half a million haid of stock.”

“Half a million!” echoed Mr. Williams.

Harriet led them into her cool and tidy office with a conscious pride.

“Wal, this looks like business to me,” declared Williams.

“She was my right-hand man back in Ohio,” replied Lindsay.

“What’ll you do when one of these buckaroos rides off with her?” queried the Eastern, bluntly.

“That isn’t — likely,” stammered Harriet, with a furious blush.

“Isn’t it?” dryly added Strickland. “Wal, sufficient unto the day. . . . Now, Lindsay to get down to talk, I want you an’ Miss Harriet to glance over these papers.”

“What are they?” asked Harriet, as the rancher slapped a bundle of long envelopes upon the desk.

“Wal, I calculate they prove my status. Letters from bankers, stockmen, an’ so forth. One from a Denver judge, an’ executive of the Santa Fe, an’ others, all well-known men.”

“I see,” replied Lindsay, fingering the letters, which Strickland had opened. “What’s the idea? Your status?”

“These are references, I take it?” inquired Harriet.

“Exactly, an’ to your evident kindly objection to see any reason for them I have this to say,” returned Strickland. “I am an old cattleman an’ you are a newcomer. This cattle business has grown so complicated, as it has prospered, that no rancher knows whether his neighbor is stealin’ his cattle or not. That’s the gist of the matter.”

“Ridiculous, in your case, Mr. Strickland,” replied Harriet, warmly.

“Thanks, miss. That’s nice from you. But do me the favor, you an’ your father an’ Mr. Williams, too, to run over them.”

The request was acceded to, at the conclusion of which Mr. Williams said to Lindsay: “These are unquestionably and legally a guarantee of Mr. Strickland’s position. I should say leading position.”

“Agree with you, Williams,” replied Lindsay.

“An’ you, Miss Hallie,” queried the cattleman.

“I read them to please you, Mr. Strickland, but I did not need to.”

“You can see through men?”

“Hardly that, Mr. Strickland. But I have a woman’s instinct. I think I know whom I can trust.”

“Did you trust Lester Allen?” queried Strickland, bluntly.

“I did not,” retorted Harriet. “I told father Allen had cheated him.”

“How about Arlidge? I remember you were — evidently interested in him at La Junta. Pardon me. This is business. Would you trust him?”

“Mr. Strickland, you must make allowances for an Eastern tenderfoot,” replied Harriet, blushing as usual, to her annoyance. “I was interested in Arlidge, perhaps somewhat fascinated — but as surely repelled. I would not trust him in any way.”

“Thank you. That is straight talk. I like it an’ I like your eyes, aside from their beauty,” rejoined Strickland, and then he turned to Lindsay. “You are fortunate in your right-hand man. May I ask if you have relied wholly upon this — this woman’s instinct she called it?”

“No, I haven’t, and I’ve lived to regret it,” rejoined Lindsay, frankly.

“Wal, I’ve taken the trouble to find out all the range knows about you an’ your family an’ your riders. It’d surprise you. Westerners take stock of any newcomers, but they’re slow aboot it. Sometimes it’s unhealthy.”

“You’re very kind to be so — so interested, Strickland.”

“Not at all. But I’ve become sort of a leader in eastern Colorado. Now, for the reason. You’ll see in this list of names — here — all the reputable cattlemen in this section, an’ that runs over into Kansas an’ Nebraska. I’ll be frank with you. There may be cattlemen listed there who are crooked, and we may have left out some honest ones. But we’ve done our best. Bain, Stockwell, Halscomb, an’ myself are responsible for this organization I’m representin’. We call it The Spanish Peaks Cattlemen’s Protective Association. Our object is to band together for protection against rustlers. There always has been rustlin’ in the West, an’ so long as cattle are raised there will continue to be rustlin’. . . . You have lost considerable yourself, I understand?”

Lindsay nodded and spread wide his hands. “I came West to recover my health. I did. And I’m so glad about it that I’m not kicking over my losses.”

“How much stock have you lost?”

Hallie replied for him: “We are cleaned out. Father bought ten thousand head from Allen. The actual number here upon our arrival was much less than that. Now they are all gone.”

Mr. Williams leaned forward in genuine amaze. “Is it possible? Ten thousand head of cattle! I am shocked. Why, this rustling must be a business.”

“Bane of the cattlemen, Mr. Williams,” replied Strickland, tersely. “Wal, naturally you have suffered most, Lindsay. But some of the rest of us are losin’ stock, more an’ more all the time. There’s a wave of rustlers swellin’ on us, about to swamp us. It’s a big range, with thousands of cattle spread all over, easy pickin’ for thieves. There must be a number of gangs, perhaps none of them large. An’ when mixed brands can be driven an’ sold to one of half a dozen markets — wal, it’s somethin’ for us to stack up against. . . . Lindsay, we want you in our organization. We want your son also, an’ young Williams, too, if he is becomin’ a rancher.”

“I accept, and thanks to you, Mr. Strickland,” replied Lindsay.

“Gentlemen, I can’t answer for my son yet, but I’m strong to see him go in with you and fight these robbers,” spoke up Williams, forcibly.

“So far so good,” declared Strickland, with gratification. “But the rub has been, an’ still is, how to operate against these rustlers. Every growin’ range sees somethin’ of the same trouble. But ours is particularly lax, mainly because we have only one or two men capable of controllin’ riders an’ wipin’ out the rustlers. My foreman, Stevens, was one. Unfortunately, Stevens was shot a week ago. Not fatally, I’m glad to say, but he’ll be out of harness for a while. We must get the other man to lead our forces, or else import some one. That I don’t approve of, because it’d be hard to get the right one. We might hire a man who would fall in with the rustlers. That has been done often.”

“Who is this — other man you speak of?” asked Hallie, with a sudden sense of catastrophe.

“Your foreman, Laramie Nelson,” answered Strickland. “I don’t know Nelson, but I have heard of him. I dare say, Miss Lindsay, that neither you nor your father have any idea who this Nelson is.”

“Buffalo Jones got Nelson for me — told us a lot about him,” replied Lindsay.

“Yes. I met Jones in Denver recently an’ I told him about our troubles. An’ he growled about what’d come over Laramie Nelson. That acquainted me with the fact of Jones’ interest in you. Wal, he told me that though he recommended Nelson highly to you, he did not tell you altogether who an’ what Nelson was.”

“I see. All right, it’s not pertinent right now to waste time on who and what Nelson was or is, jest so long as he’s the man you need.”

“He is. An’ now I must get — wal, sort of personal, Miss Lindsay. I hope you’ll forgive me. We’re all deeply concerned. . . . The talk of the range is that Nelson has laid down on his job.”

“What?” demanded Lindsay.

“Mr. Strickland, you mean La — Nelson has — has not lived up to his reputation — that he has not done anything to — to end this rustling?” queried Harriet, hurriedly.

“Exactly. He has not.”

“I — I am to blame. I have kept him from — from violence. It made me sick to think of his — spilling blood. . . . Oh, indeed, I have been — I am the most chicken-hearted of tenderfoots.”

“No one would suspect that,” returned Strickland. “But I think I understand you. We all wondered about Nelson. . . . May I presume to ask — are you engaged to him?”

“Oh! . . . No, indeed,” murmured Hallie, and this time her skin blanched cold and tight instead of burning.

“Wal, that’s too bad, for us an’ Laramie, too,” went on Strickland, wholly unconscious of flaying Hallie. “The range gossip has it that Nelson is so sweet on you he can’t run the riders, much less go out an’ hang a rustler.”

“Such gossip is a — a great injustice to him,” replied Hallie, lifting her head.

“Wal,” drawled Strickland, his eagle-eyes piercing and warm upon her, “such things always right themselves. That gossip won’t hurt Nelson so long as he corrects it, particularly the report that he intends to quit your father.”

“Quit me!” ejaculated Lindsay, astounded. “No, Strickland, he’ll stick to me.”

“Father, I must confess to you,” said Hallie, fighting for composure, “that Laramie quit this morning. He assured me he would fetch Lenta back to us — then he was through.”

The significant glances of the three men were not lost upon Harriet. At the moment she was more concerned with concealing her secret than with anything else.

“Lindsay, I’ll gamble Nelson quit so he’d have a free hand. I know Westerners of his stripe. With all due respect to Miss Hallie’s feelin’s, I’m glad he quit. There’ll be hell out there on the range. Don’t worry, he’ll fetch the little girl back safe an’ unharmed. . . . But, his quittin’ is serious now. He might take a shot at some one, then ride away. The thing is — he must be got back — he must be the man to lead our protective organization.”

“Maybe a good big offer of money would help,” suggested Williams.

“No,” replied Strickland, decidedly, and he shifted his gaze back to Hallie.

“Strickland, I had a hunch Nelson was going to leave us. And I asked Hallie to persuade him to stay. . . . Hallie, you must have failed.”

“Father, I — I did not try,” responded Harriet, and she walked to the window to look out. Then ensued a silence that enabled Hallie to find herself. She turned. “Dad,” she began, and the fact that she called him that was revealing, “And Mr. Strickland, if Laramie Nelson is so — so vital to our interests I promise you I will do my utmost to keep him here — and no longer influence or hinder his actions.”

* * * * *

Hallie shirked facing what she actually meant and how she should proceed in such a crucial situation. She had an inkling that if she shunted aside her too sensitive delicacy and reacted in a wholesome and unrestrained way she might be better off. Moreover she was resisting a suspicion that she was being false to this new character. Sufficient unto the day! She did not dare think of meeting Laramie again, while she knew that she must. Would that meeting give her the shock she needed?

With congenial company to entertain, Hallie seemed to put off the inevitable for the time being. When it came to dinner, Jud did the ranch proud. Then the evening passed swiftly until the tired visitors reluctantly retired. Hallie said good-night to Strickland with a feeling that he would indeed be the friend and adviser her father needed.

Strong as was her longing to see Lenta home safely, and to beg her forgiveness, Harriet felt relief when the hour of eleven arrived without the return of Laramie and his riders. They had been detained. Had they succeeded in trailing and catching Lenta and her companion? Hallie felt no divination of that in her heart, but she knew Laramie would fetch her back. And when she reflected that here she relied upon his Western force — the bold and relentless violence which had repelled her, then she realized she was nearing an eclipse of old standards.

She shared Flo’s room and bed that night, to her benefit, for the excited girl, so full of delight with Ted’s people, did not give her a chance to think of herself. And at last sleep brought oblivion.

The next day, given over to walking and riding with the Williamses, passed swiftly, though punctuated by recurrent and increasing concern about Lenta. Neale, too, had been absent for two days. By dinner time, which arrived with no riders in sight, Hallie gave way to dread. Something had happened. It could not be that Stuart had been able to elude Laramie. Absurd! Nevertheless, the unexpected could always happen. Hallie passed a miserable night.

If another, a third day, passed without sign or word of her sister, Hallie felt that she would be frantic. The hours wore on. There was now no attempt to entertain the guests. Indeed, they shared the suspense. Hallie had to get away from everybody, to pace her room alone, in an agony of accusation. Had she not driven Lenta to such a rash act?

A clatter of hoofs out on the hard court brought Hallie up short. She rushed to open the door. Clay Lee was in the act of reining a wet and panting horse.

“Lee,” she called, hurriedly. “Are the riders coming? — Have they got Lenta?”

“No, I’m sorry to say,” he shouted.

Lindsay strode out upon the porch.

“What’s that?”

Hallie, in her hurry across the court, did not catch Lee’s reply. But it was bad news, judging by her father’s paling face when she reached the porch.

“Father!”

“Neale has been shot,” said Lindsay, with stunned blank look.

“Oh, my God! . . . Don’t — don’t say he’s — —”

“He’s not dead or even hurt fatal, Miss Lindsay,” interrupted Lee. “A rider jest went through. Didn’t know him. He said there was a cattle drive over here at Meadow Wash. Thet’s half way to Allen’s ranch. Neale was there. It seems he took offense at a remark an’ went for his gun an’ got shot.”

“A — remark?” faltered Hallie.

“Yes, ma’am. It was about your sister — about her runnin’ off.”

“Oh! . . . Is he — badly hurt?”

“This rider said not. Bad gun-shot through his arm, but no bones broke. Arlidge jest shot to cripple the boy.”

“Arlidge!”

“Yes, Miss Lindsay. Arlidge made the remark an’ did the shootin’. I reckon thet was a bad job for him. Hadn’t I better ride over?”

“Please go — hurry,” whispered Hallie. Then as Lee wheeled his horse to gallop away Hallie did battle with the hottest gust of fury that had ever taken possession of her. Arlidge had maligned Lenta and then crippled her brother. But Hallie suppressed this strange new heat for the moment, and thought of her mother. “Father, let me break it.”

“Sure, Hallie,” he replied, hoarsely. “But I’m going to break something myself and that pronto.”

CHAPTER XVII

THE DAY WITH its sustained suspense and final tragedy had worked its deadly havoc among the riders. Laramie felt the steely, ruthless clutch, though he showed it least. The creed of the range kept such men justified in their own minds; nevertheless, the dealing of death visited upon each its icy touch.

During the night Laramie dozed at intervals. He tried to woo sleep. The morrow would bring even a sterner encounter for him — one he had to seek deliberately. His comrades expected it of him. Though he had contempt for Arlidge, still he wanted steady nerves and clear eyes, and brain swift as lightning. For years he had trained himself to have these. And even during these lax months, when he had smothered old instincts, the habit of self-preservation, exceedingly tenacious in him, had forced him to continue his old secret practice of throwing his gun. Not even subjugation to the charm and command of Harriet Lindsay had been able to eradicate that. And in the wakeful lonely hours of night he felt that it was well.

The negro, Johnson, and the girl were the only ones who slept the night through. Ted, Dakota, Wind River Charlie, and Lonesome, beside doing guard duty, were awake and up at intervals. Alone, and sometimes in couples, they patrolled a beat before the cabin. Lonesome was the most restless. Laramie, in the shadow of the tree, watched his friend understandingly. Often Lonesome gazed at the spot where Lenta lay asleep. Often he halted at the door of the cabin to peer in. Once he entered. What had that been for? The interior of the cabin could have received only faint starlight. It was ghastly, still, reeking.

As the long night wore on Laramie sensed a gradual fixing of his own mood. Lenta’s slight prone form, her sad wan face, her clasped hands, held this mood off less and less, and at length failed. But so powerful was his will that presently he forced himself to a sleep that lasted until gray dawn.

Lonesome was raking the ashes of the fire over fresh dry cones and chips. “Howdy pard,” he said, deep in his throat. “It’s different the mornin’ after. . . . Kick ’em in the slats. . . . We gotta rustle.”

Laramie did not exercise such roughness as that. It was noticeable that each of the remaining riders sat up quickly, instantly awake, silent as the gray dawn.

“Help me wrangle the hawses.”

By the time the riders had found and caught their own mounts, and the other horses necessary, day had broken clear and beautiful. Laramie saw it without feeling. The rosy east, the long ragged ridge-top, the alternate patches of black timber and grassy slope, the sage-gray valley, soft and misty, awakening from sleep, the antelope grazing with the cattle and the coyotes slipping away with last yelps — these were merely details of a morning which Laramie wished had never dawned.

Lonesome and Charlie had breakfast ready. The girl slept on. Laramie roused her, brought her food and drink, but was not responsive to her overtures this morning.

“Laramie, I’m buckin’ you from heah on,” said Lonesome, tossing away his empty cup.

“Ahuh. . . . Boys, pack a little grub an’ water for tonight,” replied Laramie. “Leave everythin’ else — jest as it is. An’ saddle pronto.”

Presently he addressed Johnson.

“Nig, how far to Allen’s?”

“I don’t know zactly, sah. But I sho knows de way.”

“Half a day’s ride?”

“More, sah, onless we rustles.”

“Climb yore hawse an’ lead. . . . Ted, look after the girl an’ stop us if she weakens.”

* * * * *

Early in the afternoon Johnson led out of a winding wooded gulch down upon the open range. The scene was grand. Laramie recognized it, though he had never sat his horse to see it from that point.

A mile or so down the gray-green slope of sage stood a picturesque squat cabin, half ringed by trees. This was the ranch where Allen and Arlidge held forth. It had belonged to the settler Snook and no doubt was now being exploited and offered for sale as had been the old fort Lindsay had bought. Strings and herds of cattle afforded marked contrast to the vacant range around Spanish Peaks Ranch. Ten miles to the east, down the winding line of green willows, nestled the gray cabin and corral to which Ted had tracked his horse.

Westward rolled the range, swelling, billowy, dotted by cattle, bright in the afternoon sun. It rose to the low foothills, which in turn mounted step by step to the purple-sloped, white-peaked Rockies.

Laramie studied the Allen ranch cabin with his glass. Evidences of occupation were manifest, but he did not make out a single rider. He remembered that the wide porch of this cabin fronted toward the west and he could not see it from this angle.

Laramie led the riders at a brisk canter down the slope, keeping the line of willows and cottonwoods between them and the cabin. Behind the last clump of trees he halted.

“Wal, who wants to ride up an’ tip me off about what to expect?” he queried.

They all volunteered, and Ted, particularly, wanted to go.

“I told yu to look after Lent,” rejoined Laramie. “Anyway, it wouldn’t do for yu to brace this outfit. Yu’ve been heah before with fire in yore eyes. . . . Charlie, yu go.”

“Fine, boss. What’ll I do?” replied Charlie.

“Ride up to the porch,” went on Laramie, swiftly. “Halt jest outside thet hitchin’-rail. Make some excuse for callin’. If you don’t see Arlidge, ask for him. An’ if he’s there take off yore sombrero careless like. Savvy?

“Shore. An’ how’ll I signal if there’s some of Arlidge’s riders?”

“Nig, how many in Arlidge’s outfit?”

“Four on steady job, sah, not countin’ me an’ Juan an’ Gaines.”

“Only four. Who drove those big herds?”

“Allen had riders come from other ranges.”

“Ahuh. Wal, Charlie, never mind about the outfit. Jest — —”

“Pard, what’s your idee?” interposed Lonesome.

“I won’t make up my mind until Charlie tips me off,” responded Laramie, tensely, and waved Charlie away. Both Ted and Lonesome questioned him then, but he gave no heed. It was hard to sit there watching, waiting. Charlie rode the hundred paces at a trot, and halted before the cabin, just as any lonesome and travel-worn rider would. Through the web of foliage Laramie could make out patches of figures on the porch, but he did not care to risk clearer view. Plain it was, though, that Wind River Charlie engaged somebody in conversation. Tight and cold, with the faculty of action in abeyance, Laramie bestrode his horse. Charlie did not remove his sombrero. Laramie waited a moment longer. He knew then that if the rider used the signal he would wheel his horse and gallop swiftly around to the back of the cabin. But Charlie’s head remained covered. Laramie expelled an oppressive breath. The time seemed not yet.

“Wal, come on, boys. Ted, yu hang heah a little with Lent.”

Ted consented, but not until he had vigorously protested. Laramie heard the girl cry out as he led the riders away. “Let’s go anyhow, Ted,” she said. And Ted replied: “Whoa, Calamity Jane! Laramie’s mad enough now.”

“Now, boys ride, but not too fast,” ordered Laramie, In a moment they were cantering toward the cabin. Laramie’s hawk-eyes swept the scene. Charlie sat side-wise in his saddle, rolling a cigarette. Two bareheaded riders dangled chaps down over the edge of the porch. Two men in shirt sleeves lolled at a table next the cabin wall. Quickly the horses covered the intervening distance. Looking back, Laramie saw the girl riding out of the grove and Ted trying to catch her bridle.

Next moment Laramie faced frontward and dismounted. Dakota, Lonesome, and the negro joined Charlie, opposite the two seated riders. Laramie’s long stride took him around the hitching-rail.

“Howdy, gentlemen,” he drawled, as he stepped upon the porch. Both men appeared aware that this encounter was unusual. The one standing, a tall Westerner with an eagle eye, Laramie had seen before somewhere. The man sitting at the table did not strike Laramie favorably. A pallor showed under his coarse tan. He had hard, bright blue eyes and rugged features that fitted them.

“Howdy,” replied the man standing.

“Didn’t I see you at La Junta?” queried Laramie, slowly. He stood so that he could see the slightest movement of both men at once.

“You may have.”

“What’s yore name?”

“Strickland.”

“Ahuh. Yu’re John Strickland?”

“At your service, mister — —”

“Wal, I’m sorry to meet yu heah. What yu doin’?”

“I have been tryin’ to persuade Mr. Allen here to join a cattlemen’s protective association I’m organizin’,” returned the rancher, impressively. Laramie was swift to catch an inflection of voice, a glint of eye that he did not read to Allen’s favor.

“Humph. I’ll bet two-bits Mister Allen ain’t keen about it,” drawled Laramie, with cool sarcasm.

“Strange to say he — —”

Allen interrupted by bursting out of his amaze to pound the table and bark:

“You impudent cow-puncher! What-d’ye mean, bracin’ in here this way?”

“I’ve a little business with yu,” replied Laramie, softly.

“Then you can get out. I want none of it. . . . The nerve of these punchers, Strickland! He must be one of that insolent Peak Dot outfit.”

“Shore. I happen to be Laramie Nelson.”

Allen leaned back, his face livid, and he eyed Nelson with dark speculation. “I don’t care who in hell you are. Get off my land!”

“Say, for a Westerner yu air sort of testy. Had yore own way a lot, I reckon. Wal, yu’re at the end of yore rope, Allen.”

“Is this deal a hold-up?” demanded the other, hoarsely.

“It shore is, an’ about time. . . . Strickland, step to one side.”

“What you want — Nelson?” yelped Allen.

“Wal, I reckon I want a lot. . . . First, I’ll acquaint yu with the fact thet Beady is daid — Jude is daid. . . . An’ we hanged Price.”

“What’s that to me? I don’t know these rustlers.”

“No. How about Gaines? He’s daid, too. Arlidge’s greaser got away. But we have the nigger heah.”

“No — matter,” shouted Allen, stridently, beginning to fail of nerve.

“Nig, come up heah,” ordered Laramie. In another moment Johnson stood on the porch, rolling his eyes at Allen, and evidently not perturbed.

“Nig, yu know this man?”

“Yas sah, I knows him.”

“Who is he?”

“Calls hisself Lester Allen.”

“Have yu rode for him?”

“No, sah. But I don ride for his pardner, Arlidge.”

“Do yu know what became of the cattle Allen sold Lindsay?”

“I sho do, sah. They was rustled. Tree big drives an’ some littles ones. I was in them all.”

“Did Arlidge lead one of these drives?”

“Yas, sah. The first one.”

“What’d yu do with the cattle?”

“Druv it over heah. Allen sent thet herd out an’ nebber burned a brand. But all the rest ob de stock we put de iron on, sah.”

“Can yu prove Allen took these cattle an’ sold them?”

“No sah. But we all knows dam’ wal thet he did.”

Allen leaped up with blanched face and staring eyes. He jerked at his hip for the gun that was not there, and which Laramie had noted was not there.

“You lyin’ nigger!” he yelled. “Arlidge will kill you for this.”

“No, Arlidge won’t,” retorted Laramie, deliberately. “Allen, yore bluff is no good. Anyone could see through yu. . . . How about thet, Strickland?”

“Nelson, this substantiates what I suspected before I came here to interview Allen,” replied the rancher, gravely.

“Ahuh. Thet’s interestin’. I wondered about yu. Jest happened along right. Wal, it works out thet way sometimes.”

Allen made as if to go into the cabin, but was deterred by a sharp call from Lonesome.

“Riders comin’, pard. . . . Arlidge!”

Allen dropped heavily upon the bench, his face pallid and clammy, his eyes suddenly gleaming. “Hah! — you tell all that to Arlidge. He’s been achin’ to meet you, Nelson. Old grudge, he said. But I kept him back. Now, by Heaven, you’ll get your bluff called! . . . An’ you Strickland — you’ll have to answer to him for your — suspicions!”

Laramie’s three riders peered beyond the cabin, their necks craned, then quietly slipped out of their saddles to stand behind their horses. Laramie could not see what had actuated them, but he heard a rhythmic beat of hoofs, coming fast. Strickland answered to the suspense by striding across the porch to stand back to the wall. Allen sat staring with distended eyes.

Laramie recognized the moment that would be his, as if fatefully ordered long ago. He did not need to gamble on the element of surprise which decided so many encounters, but he welcomed it. He too backed against the cabin wall. Then all the iron of muscle and steel of mind gathered as if to leap.

Ringing hoofbeats pounded closer. Gravel and dust flew ahead of a furious horse, pulled on its haunches. Arlidge leaped to land with a thudding clink of spurs. As he strode for that end of the long porch two other riders dashed into sight.

Lithe and erect, intense in action, his face darkly passionate, his eyes like daggers, Arlidge stepped upon the porch.

“Bad news, Lester, cuss my luck!” he pealed out. “Had to shoot young Lindsay — —”

Then his piercing gaze took in the strange horses, the riders stepping out, Allen plumped on the bench with extended shaking hand, and Strickland flattened against the wall.

“What the—” he hissed.

At that Laramie stepped out.

Arlidge saw him. With one foot forward he turned to stone. Then his visage underwent a marvelous transformation. Perception, surprise, hate, motive, and realization swept with kaleidoscopic swiftness across his countenance. And the last gripped him horribly. As clearly as if he had spoken he expressed wild fear and certainty of death.

With audible intake of breath he crouched slightly, desperate as a wolf at bay, his eyes like points of fire. As he lurched for his gun, Laramie’s boomed in its outward leap. Arlidge died in the act of his draw, falling backward off the porch almost under the plunging horses.

One of the riders fired off a rearing horse. Laramie heard the bullet sping off the gravel beyond him. Lonesome shot — then Charlie. The rearing horse plunged away with rider sliding off to be dragged by a heel.

“Up with ’em, Hennesy,” called Charlie.

“Up they air,” returned the other rider, sweeping his hands aloft. His horse pivoted to a trembling stand.

“Whoa, Sandy — whoa, boy,” called Dakota. The other horses stood restlessly. Still there came a pounding of hoofs. Laramie wheeled. Ted and Lenta sat prancing horses, out beyond the others.

“Lonesome, grab yore rope,” ordered Laramie, turning to the stricken Allen.

Mulhall sheathed his gun and leaped in a single action. Tearing the lasso off his saddle he thumped around his horse, ducked under the hitching-rail, and came up with a sinister snarl of lips.

“Toss a loop about Allen’s neck,” went on Laramie.

Like a snake the noose glided out to circle Allen’s neck. Lonesome gave the rope a whip. Then Allen leaped up, fumbling at the noose. “God Almighty! Would you — hang me?”

“I should smile we would,” replied Lonesome.

“Hold — hold! Nelson,” ejaculated Strickland, in agitation. “I don’t want to interfere . . . but will you give me a word?”

“Go ahaid,” replied Laramie.

“Nelson — you riders — I question the wisdom an’ justice of such a proceedin’. You are hot now — blood-set on this. But wait a moment. Think! Let me — —”

“Wal, do you need any more’n to look at him?” queried Lonesome.

“Any man about to hang would look like that.”

“Ump-umm!” declared Lonesome. “I didn’t. This heah gazaboo is a big thief. The wust kind, ‘cause he hires pore riders to steal for him.”

“Strickland, we know Allen’s crooked,” put in Laramie.

“But can you prove it?”

“Wal, I reckon we cain’t,” replied Laramie. “All the same. . . . See heah, Allen. Take yore choice. Hang or leave Colorado.”

“I’ll — leave,” panted Allen, tearing off the noose.

“All right. Jest as yu air. Fork Arlidge’s hawse an’ rustle. If we ever see yu again on this range neither Strickland nor anyone else can save yore neck.”

In another moment Allen was on his way, heading west.

Laramie voiced a query that had hammered at him. “Heah, rider, what about Arlidge shootin’ young Lindsay?”

“Thet’s right. He did.”

“Kill him?”

“No. Only winged him.”

“Where’d this happen?”

“Over at the Meadows. Snook was roundin’ up stock with two of his punchers. I seen Lindsay throw a gun on Arlidge. Don’t know what for. An’ I seen Arlidge shoot him in the arm. Lindsay is layin’ over there bleedin’ like a stuck pig. Snook sed, ‘Let him bleed.’”

“Lonesome, yu an’ Charlie an’ Dakota pile over there,” ordered Laramie. “Strickland, where yu headin’ now?”

“I’ve a buckboard behind the cabin,” replied the rancher. “I’ll drive with you an’ take young Lindsay over. . . . Hello, who’s the girl?”

“That’s Lindsay’s lass — the one we went after. Take her with yu, Strickland. . . . Ted, beat the dust after Lonesome.”

Scarcely had Laramie given this order when Ted, with a word to Lenta, spurred away.

“Get yore hawse from Snook,” yelled Laramie, after him. Then Laramie spoke to the two riders who had slid off the porch to the ground. “Get up an’ move. Thet goes for yu, too, Hennesy. Remember yu’re marked riders on this range from now on. Better go honest.’

“Nelson, we ain’t liable to fergit,” returned Hennesy, turning his horse down the lane, with the two riders hurrying after him. Strickland appeared in the buckboard he had mentioned, driving a spirited team.

“Get off an’ climb in, Miss Lindsay,” called Strickland. The girl complied, showing in her actions that her strength was almost spent. Strickland drove away, calling for Laramie to follow.

“Be right along,” replied Laramie. Then he turned to Johnson, who sat on the bench.

“Nig, yu squared yoreself with me. What yu want to do?”

“I doan know, boss. Dere’s no sense in rustlin’. I’s long hed cold feet, sah. Ebberybody’s daid. . . . I doan know where to go.”

“Get on an’ lead the girl’s hawse. We’ll follow the buckboard.”

Laramie sheathed his gun, and plodded over to his horse, to kick the stirrup straight and step into the saddle. Then he surveyed the scene. Arlidge lay flat on his back, one arm flung wide. His right arm lay across his body and his hand clutched the half-drawn gun. The years rolled back. Always Laramie had known this thing would come. What had held it back these last incomprehensible months? Once again thought impinged upon that gloomy mood.

* * * * *

It was ten miles and more to Snook’s ranch. Laramie and Nig did not catch up with Strickland, though they kept him in sight. The sun was setting when Laramie halted before the Snook cabin. He espied the buckboard, unhitched, and a number of horses in the corral. Ted and Strickland emerged from the cabin, and the latter advanced to meet Laramie. Wind River Charlie appeared with an armload of firewood. Again Laramie felt the easing of that cold, sick oppression.

“Nelson, we’ll spend the night here, if you don’t object,” said the rancher. “The girl has about collapsed an’ it won’t hurt young Neale to be kept on his back.”

“Wal, mebbe it’s as wal all around,” pondered Laramie. “It’s a good thirty miles for the buckboard. An’ our hawses air all in.”

“Boss, one of Snook’s riders said Jerky sloped off,” called Dakota. “He’ll stop at Lindsay’s.”

“Wal, I reckon a little sooner or later won’t matter,” muttered Laramie as he slid off. He would be glad to lie down in the darkness and quiet and spend the endless hours of a long night wearing out of this vise-clutched grip upon his senses. “Nig, look after these hawses.”

It struck him that Ted had no more desire to be approached than had Laramie to approach him. But Lonesome came whistling out. The vicissitude lay behind this rider.

“Hullo, pard. You look seedy,” he said. “Ted got both his hawses back.”

“Thet’s good. What’d Snook say about it?”

“Aw, not much.”

“Wal. What yu mean?”

“Snook got plumb ugly, so Ted jest eased a forty-five slug through him.”

CHAPTER XVIII

WIND RIVER CHARLIE’S call to supper had no allurement for Laramie. Finally Lonesome brought him a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

“Pard, reckonin’ from your looks, you an’ me will be ridin’ away after this,” he said, sagely.

“Wal, thet hadn’t struck me yet. But I reckon so,” returned Laramie, gloomily.

“Ted is on. He jest taxed me about you. It’ll go tough with him, Larry.”

“Shore. But he’s married now an’ he’ll have to stick. An’ we haven’t got anybody to care.” Lonesome sighed. “Out on the lone prairee for us, pard.”

“Dodge an’ Abilene for us, Lonesome, an’ the flowin’ bowl,” rejoined Laramie.

“Aw, hell! . . . Dreams don’t amount to nothin’. . . . Say, Larry, this rancher Strickland has been pumpin’ me about you. Like him all right, but I couldn’t be civil jest now. I reckon he’s afraid to brace you. I see him lookin’ hard.”

“Wal, I don’t want to talk.”

“Let’s say hello to Neale. He’s been askin’ for you.”

“Go ahaid in. I’ll come.”

The cabin was comfortably furnished, and well lighted by lamp and open fire. Strickland stood with his back to the grate. Lenta lay locked in the deep slumber of exhaustion. Ted sat beside Neale who lay on the floor, his head upon a folded blanket. His face was deathly white and his eyes burned black.

“Wal, son, how yu makin’ out?” inquired Laramie, kneeling beside the lad.

“Laramie! — I’m all right now. My arm hurts like hell, but I can stand it. Ted fixed it up.”

“Any bones broke?”

“No. I can move it, anyway. But there’s a big hole and I bled terrible.”

“Son, how’d yu happen way over heah? This ain’t our territory.”

“I tracked a rider. Thought it was Stuart.”

“Ahuh. An’ yu was plumb sore?”

“Yes, but I kept my head. I sure didn’t get any welcome from this outfit. When I saw Ted’s horse and a lot of Peak Dot yearlings I just up and asked Arlidge how they got here. He told me to run along home. Then I cussed him and told him about Stuart eloping with Lent. He haw-hawed and made a dirty remark about her and said he’d be eloping with Hallie next.”

“What’d yu do then, son?” queried Laramie.

“I kicked him good and hard. He knocked me flat. I tried to throw my gun while I was on the ground. Then he crippled me. It wasn’t an even break when I was down. . . . Oh, it was decent of him not to kill me, I know. All the same, I’ll lay for him and get even.”

Laramie was silent, pondering what seemed best to say to this lad too suddenly thrust among hard characters of the West.

“Neale, old man,” spoke up Lonesome, “you won’t never need to get even with Arlidge.”

“What! . . . Why not?”

“Arlidge finally run into the wrong man.”

“Laramie!”

Lonesome nodded, and giving Neale a kindly pat he rose to his feet and went out.

“Son, I feel sort of responsible for this,” went on Laramie. “I shore didn’t spend time enough with yu to get yu started right out heah. But there’s been so many things. . . . An’ I let yu run amuck. I’m shore sorry.”

“Laramie, it was all my fault. I’ve been bull-headed. But I’ll do better after this.”

“Thet’s straight talk. Don’t get into any more jams, an’ don’t throw yore gun unless in self-defense. This little gun-shot hurt ain’t nothin’. But let it be a lesson to yu. Lay off the bottle an’ cairds, an’ keep yore haid with the riders.”

“Laramie, I promise,” replied Neale, eagerly.

Long hours Laramie paced and sat under the cold white stars. Somewhere in that vigil peace came back to him. Then he slept, and when morning broke there seemed to be far distance and time between this rosy dawn and that fading dark yesterday. He had done well, even if almost too late. And no matter where and how the future trail led, he had memory to sustain him.

Soon the riders were up and doing. Clay Lee had gotten in late the preceding night, having been advised of the fight by Jerky. By sunrise Strickland drove off with Lenta and Neale in the buckboard. If a night had calmed Laramie, what had it done for Lenta Lindsay? Her pretty face bore the pallor and strain of fatigue and fright, yet appeared all the more bewitching for that. Laramie observed that Lonesome had avoided her, though he could not escape her haunting eyes. Laramie made the startling reservation that no doubt he would be riding away from Spanish Peaks Ranch alone.

The riders wanted to take the trail across country, as it was shorter, but Laramie held them to the road and Strickland’s buckboard. Of all the rides Laramie had ever made, this one was the strangest, the most endless. He imagined he grew old upon it. There were hours like years. But they passed, and the miles fell behind. Finally from the last rise of rangeland they viewed the magnificent scene dominated by the old fort. The westering sun sent gold rays across the peaks to glorify the rolling sea of grass and sage, the green spreading valley, and the ribbon of shining stream.

When Strickland reined his team inside the court Laramie dismounted to approach the occupants and say: “Strickland, let Lonesome or me do the talkin’. We reckon it’d be kinder to sort of hold back the truth, yu know. . . . Neale, can I depend on yu?”

“Mum’s the word, Laramie.”

“An’ yu, lass?”

But either Lenta did not hear or care. She was staring at a dark-eyed girl who had come out of the living-room, followed by a man and a woman, also strangers. Lindsay next appeared, his face working. Then the riders arrived.

“Ted!” screamed the strange girl.

“Holy Mackeli!” yelped Ted, falling off his horse.

“Laramie, help me — or I’ll keel over,” cried Lenta, and as Laramie wheeled she half leaped and fell into his arms. Then Hallie appeared running across the court. Laramie met her.

“Oh, Laramie — you brought her home! . . . Bless you! I can never — never repay you for. . . . My Heaven! Is she . . .”

“Fainted, I reckon. She was all right when we got heah.”

“Thank God! — I — I was terrified. Bring her to my room, Laramie. . . . Hurry!”

Laramie strode across the court with his light burden, and entering Hallie’s room behind her, laid Lenta upon the white bed. Her eyes were open.

“Sister! — Lenta dear, you’re home,” cried Hallie, softly, leaning over. “My prayer has been answered. . . . Are you — all right?”

“Sure I’m all right. When I stood up — I went dizzy. . . . Hallie, old honey, I’ve had a hell of a time — but I’m home, safe — a sadder and wiser girl.”

“Do you forgive me?” whispered Hallie, poignantly.

“Yes. You and everybody — even that damn Lonesome,” replied Lenta, and wrapping her arms around Hallie’s neck she hugged and kissed her.

“Honey, I too am — sadder and wiser,” said Hallie, brokenly. “I never knew how dear — you were to me.”

“Same here, Hal. Maybe it was a good thing. But we can talk about that some other time. . . . Hal, I’ll bet the girl who yelled to Ted is his sister.”

“Yes indeed. Ted’s family is here, and they’re the nicest people you ever met.”

“Dog-gone. I’m sure glad. Do they like Flo?”

“Love her.”

“Gee! the luck of some girls!”

“Lenta, I’ll call mother — dad — all of them.”

“Wait a minute,” cried Lenta, sitting up. “I’d rather see Lonesome first. . . . Laramie, call him — make him come.”

Laramie stepped to the door and yelled. “Mulhall, where air yu?”

An answering shout came out of the babble of voices across the courtyard.

“Come heah pronto!” added Laramie, in a voice no rider would have failed to obey.

Lonesome came, but he did not run. He had removed his chaps, coat, and sombrero. A hint of some apprehension gleamed in his eyes.

“What you want?” he growled.

Laramie met him at the edge of the porch and laid a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Come in heah.”

In another moment Lonesome stood before Lenta, in mingled consternation and resentment.

“What’s the — idee?” he queried. At that moment Lenta Lindsay was not a girl to retreat from.

“Lonesome Mulhall, you’ve been perfectly rotten to me,” she said, accusingly. Tears in her eyes did not hide their soft, eager, mysterious light.

“Aw! . . . When?”

“Ever since you saved me from that devil Gaines. . . . What’d you shoot him for — if you hated me afterwards? I’d just — as lief — he’d . . .”

“I didn’t hate you, Lent,” interrupted Lonesome, evidently stung into self-defense. “But you can’t expect men engaged in a bloody business to go cuttin’ didos around to — to please a cantankerous kid of a girl.”

“Oh! — So you don’t hate me?”

“No, I don’t,” retorted Lonesome, as flippantly as she. But Laramie saw that he was lost.

“You know I — I’m all right, don’t you? . . . That Gaines — that I suffered no harm? . . . You believed it? . . . Lonesome!”

“I wouldn’t have to be told — after I seen you,” returned Lonesome, loftily.

“Well, then, why have you been so — so indifferent? Even since you blew the brains out of that dog; I couldn’t help it if he had evil designs on me. . . . You’ve never spoken to me. You’ve never done one single little thing for me.”

“Lent, I reckon I didn’t savvy I was thet mean. But what’s it matter now? You’re home safe with yore family. I’m ridin’ away tomorrow with Laramie. We’ve done our best, an’ lookin’ at it from range-riders’ point of view, thet hasn’t been so bad. You’ll realize it some day.”

“I realize it now,” she cried, reproachfully. “Do you think I’ve no good in me at all?”

“Wal, I haven’t jest been overwhelmed with thet,” drawled Lonesome, essaying a hint of his old self.

“Lonesome, you shan’t go away. . . . Laramie, would you let him leave us now? Would you leave Hallie in the lurch? When we know now you’re the wonderfulest man?”

“Lass, I reckon the kind of work — Lonesome an’ me air good fer is about — done,” rejoined Laramie, haltingly. He did not dare to face Hallie with that. Out of the tail of his eye he had seen her start and pale.

“Well, I won’t let you go,” declared Lenta, passionately.

“Aw now — who won’t?” asked Lonesome.

“I won’t.”

“Miss Lindsay, with all doo respect to you — jest why won’t I go on my lonesome way one more, ridin’ the lone prairee?”

“Because! . . . I didn’t like you much before—” whispered Lenta, radiantly, and held out her arms. “But I — I love you now.”

Lonesome uttered a gasp and fell on his knees beside the bed, to be clasped by those eager arms. As Laramie turned to the door he felt Hallie join him, slipping her arm through his.

“Wasn’t that — sweet? Oh, I’m so — happy,” she murmured.

Her touch effectually obviated what little reply Laramie might have been capable of.

“Look! Everybody coming,” cried Hallie. “This will never do. Let’s go out — hold them up.”

She stepped out and Laramie closed the door behind him.

“Dad — mother — Flo — and friends,” began Hallie, eloquently, “please wait a few moments.”

“Hallie, I want to see my dear child,” cried Mrs. Lindsay.

“What’s happened? Ted said she was all right,” added Lindsay, anxiously.

“What’s she doing in there — alone?” queried Flo, giggling.

“She’s not alone. It’s a very serious occasion,” returned Hallie, gravely. “If I am not deluded our dear child is about to make it impossible for her to play any more wild pranks. . . . Laramie, is not that your opinion?”

“Wal, if I was Lonesome I’d shore be ridin’ the clouds,” drawled Laramie.

* * * * *

Some hours later, after supper, when they all assembled in the living-room, the story could no longer be withheld.

“Folks, I’m shore no good at tellin’ stories,” drawled Laramie, in answer to their insistent demands. “If yu must heah all about it I reckon Lonesome is yore man.”

“Me? Aw, I’m turrible shy in company, an’ I hate to talk, anyhow,” replied Lonesome, in voice and manner calculated to insure more importunity. He received it in full measure. “All right. You-all set down now like we was round the camp fire. When was it Lenta got kidnapped? Seems a long time. But fact is it was only three days. . . . Laramie got me up thet mornin’ early. He had heard a hawse. We found tracks under her window an’ the bars broke an’ Lenta gone. By the way thet hawse went we figgered Lent an’ her — her friend were jest playin’ a joke on her dad because he’d locked her up. Wal, we got our hawses an’ trailed them tracks up to Cedar Point. There we found a camp. An’ soon spied Stuart — that was Lent’s friend, ridin’ fer dear life across the range. Gaines an’ his pards had been hidin’ there to kidnap Lent. They chased Stuart off an’ throwed Lent on a hawse. Tied her hand an’ foot, an’ gagged her too ‘cause Lent shore can holler.”

Lonesome coolly surveyed his audience, nonchalantly unaware of Lenta’s wide eyes and open lips. Laramie prepared himself to hear the greatest liar he had ever known, now at the supreme hour of his rider’s career. Strickland edged back, a slight smile on his fine face. Hallie wore an expression of extreme bewilderment. The rest of the listeners, especially the Williamses, were enthralled.

“We hung to thet trail all day an’ made camp late,” went on Lonesome. “Thet was, Ted an’ me, ‘cause Laramie had gone home to get grub an’ fetch Wind River Charlie an’ Dakota. Next day about noon we came to a place where Gaines had run into another outfit. They split an’ so Ted an’ me had to do the same, one on each trail. Now the trail I took soon doubled back an’ I figgered thet outfit had evil designs on the other. So it proved. I found where they went down off the mountain to head off the other bunch. Presently Ted come along an’ between us we figgered it. The other outfit was after Gaines, so we trailed ’em to a lonely cabin, an’ as we hung around waitin’ for dark who should slip up but Dakota an’ Wind River Charlie. They had come on with Laramie, an’ had split same as we. They didn’t know where Laramie was. But I’d been with thet Suthern gennelman so long I could figger him. An’ I bet the boys a month’s pay thet Laramie was in the cabin with them two outfits. When it come on dark we sneaked up to the cabin. Would you believe it, folks, there sat Lent on the floor gamblin’ with them desperadoes. They had a bright fire. No sign of Laramie! I seen thet the second outfit was bossed by a rustler named Price. I met him onct under pecooliar circumstances, an’ never forgot him. Wal, you could see easy thet he was mad in love with Lent already. They was playin’ poker. Lent won all their money. I’ve got thet roll in my saddle-bag, Laramie. You could choke an elephant with it. I didn’t know Lent was such a good caird sharp, but then I hadn’t figgered a lot about her. After she won the money Price proposed to Gaines thet they gamble for the girl or fight. Gaines didn’t like the idee. But Price had a gun-slinger in his outfit, a bad hombre named Beady. So he wilted an’ they played one hand of draw-poker. Gaines won. He was so dog-gone tickled thet he imagined winnin’ the game was winnin’ Lenta’s heart. So he got obstrupurous with her. Lent slapped him an’ cussed him, an’ finally scratched his face. Thet made Gaines ugly.”

Lonesome, warming to his narrative and wiping his sweaty face, paused for breath and to see if he was holding his audience. Satisfied, he resumed.

“I hate to tell you-all this. So I’ll hurry it along. . . . Gaines began to wrestle Lent an’ was tearin’ her clothes off right there. I stuck my gun in the door about to bore him when Price blew his brains out. I seen Lent crawl under a shelf, as hell busted loose in there. Wal, when it was over we found three or four dead men, one gone, an’ the nigger, Johnson, sittin’ there turned clean white. We got Lent outside. She’d never turned a feather. An’ she laced it into me like this. ‘Fine slow outfit you are! You dam’ near got heah too late.’ I didn’t say nuthin’. We was havin’ supper outside when Laramie rode in an’ asked what all the shootin’ was about. We went to bed then, an’ next mornin’ the nigger led us down to Lester Allen’s ranch. Mr. Strickland was there, an’ we seen he was tolerable suspicious of Allen. Laramie had Nig face Allen an’ expose his guilt as a pardner of Arlidge an’ a buyer an’ seller of stolen stock. Allen roared like a bull an’ raved about what Arlidge would do to Laramie when he got back. Just then I seen Arlidge ridin’ up, hell-bent for election. Two riders behind him! We-all slipped off an’ got out our hardware. But Laramie stood there rollin’ a cigarette, sort of careless like. Seein’ him thet way I went cold to my gizzard an’ I wouldn’t of been in Arlidge’s boots for a million. Arlidge rared off his hawse, so mad he couldn’t see quick, an’ he yelled to Allen: ‘Hell to pay — hadda shoot young Lindsay!’ . . . Then all of a sudden he seen Laramie. They was old enemies. Years ago Arlidge had killed a pard of Laramie’s. . . . We all froze an’ nobody breathed. All the same I wasn’t worried none. Arlidge showed he knowed he was a goner. But for a low-down river-bullyin’ range thief he was game. . . . Folks, there’s no law on the range but this kind of law. An’ Laramie gave this rustler his chance. As I seen it Arlidge moved first . . . but . . . wal, these things have to happen on the range or no nice people like you-all are would ever be safe. . . . After thet Laramie offered Allen his choice — to hang or leave Colorado forever. Allen left right then, without his coat or hat. . . . We rode over to the Meadows, where we learned Neale had been in a little scrap. He can tell you about thet better’n I can. We made camp, started early this mornin’, an’ heah we are, with the little lady who upset us as lively as a cricket.”

Not long after this amazing recital, when Laramie stood at his open door, gazing out into the moon-blanched patio, he heard quick steps on the flagstones. Hallie appeared, the moonlight shining on her hair.

“Laramie, come walk with me or sit under the cottonwoods. I want to talk to you.”

He joined her hesitatingly and thrilled anew as she slid a soft hand inside his arm.

“What did you think of Lonesome’s story?” she inquired.

“Wal, I reckoned it’d do.”

“Such an atrocious falsehood! . . . Laramie, my sister told me every detail of that terrible experience.”

“Dog-gone the kid!”

“Why did you sanction Lonesome’s lie?”

“Wal, we reckoned the truth would horrify yu.”

“It did. But the truth is always best. I know now. And I can adjust myself to the — the violence and bloodshed Mr. Strickland explained to me must prevail on the frontier for a while. I have been mawkish, chicken-hearted. But I will overcome it, because I love the West.”

“I’m shore glad to heah yu say thet last, Hallie,” Laramie said, feelingly.

She had led him down the courtyard, across the entrance, up the other side, and now they were mounting the stone steps under the cottonwoods. Laramie experienced a sinking of his heart. How impossible to understand this composed young woman!

“You know what Mr. Strickland proposes organizing, do you not?” she went on.

“Yes, an’ it’s a splendid idee. Yore father can retrieve his losses now. There won’t be any more wholesale rustlin’ on this range.”

“Still, he claims there will be need of such protective measures. . . . Are you aware that you have been chosen to lead this cattlemen’s association?”

“Me! — No. Strickland never hinted thet to me,” ejaculated Laramie, in vague alarm.

“Well. I’m glad to be the one to tell you.”

“Wal, of all things! I reckon I’m shore proud, Hallie. . . . But it’s out of the question. I cain’t accept.”

“Why not? It seems to me to be an exceptionally fine opportunity. You have been a rolling stone, so to speak. Surely some day you will settle down to — to one place. I asked Mr. Strickland if your life had been such that you could not ever be happy to accept something tame and colorless. He laughed and said it’d never be tame here for many years.”

“Wal, yu told me the truth was best — an’ the truth is I reckon I cain’t stand it heah no longer.”

“I divined that. But why?”

He did not have an answer ready. Meanwhile they had reached the oval surrounded by the boulders. Gleams of silver played in the murmuring pool below the spring. A soft rustle of leaves mingled with music of running water. She came quite close to him and looked up, her face clear in the moonlight, her eyes dark, inscrutable, strange. He saw her throat swell. He seemed forced to gaze at her, to impress her lovely face upon his memory forever.

She threw her scarf on the stone seat and stepped a little nearer to him. It was then Laramie caught his breath with a realization that he knew little of a woman, and that there was catastrophe in the presence of this one.

“You are going away from Spanish Peaks Ranch?” she asked.

“I told yu.”

“From me?”

“Wal, as yu’re heah — of course from yu.”

“Laramie, you have not apologized for your conduct the other day, down at the barn. Will you do so now?”

“No!”

“But, be reasonable. We can’t get anywhere — until you do.”

“I’m shore sorry, but I cain’t.”

“Where is all that Southern chivalry with which Lonesome and Ted always credited you? . . . You treated me rudely — brutally. Aren’t you sorry?”

“Shore, in a way, but not the way yu mean.”

“Not sorry you treated me as Mr. Arlidge once tried to — and failed? Not sorry you dragged me into that stall as if I were an Indian squaw — and crushed me in your arms — and kissed me blind — and deaf — and dumb? . . . Laramie Nelson, not sorry for that outrage?”

“So — help me Heaven — I’m not,” he choked out, driven mad by the sweet, strange, soft voice, the challenging, accusing eyes, the hand that went to his shoulder. “But I swear to yu it was no outrage.”

“Then explain why?”

“God help me, I was out of my haid. . . . I meant to kiss yu good-by. . . . But yu struck me. . . . An’ then I had to — to satisfy somethin’ queer an’ savage in me. But, Hallie, it was no insult — not in my heart. No matter what I said.”

“Still, Laramie, you have not explained your motive.”

“Wal, it was jest such love as no man ever before had for a woman,” he replied, simply, strength coming with his betrayal.

“Oh, so that was it? . . . Love? For me!” How wonderful she appeared then! He backed away from her until the stone seat stopped him. That pressing hand stole higher on his shoulder. Were his senses leaving him? Her face shone white as marble — her lips were parted — her eyelids fell heavily to lift again over gulfs of wondrous depths. “Larry — do you — did you ever know what I did?”

“When?” he whispered, his voice low.

“Why, that time. . . . You must indeed — have been blind, at least. . . . Suppose you — do the same — all over again . . . right here — now. . . . Then I will show you!”

Sunset Pass

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

The first edition

CHAPTER 1

THE DUSTY OVERLAND train pulled into Wagontongue about noon of a sultry June day.

Trueman Rock slowly stepped down from the coach, grip in hand, with an eager and curious expression upon his lean dark face. He wore a plain check suit, rather wrinkled, and a big grey sombrero that had seen service. His step, his lithe shape, proclaimed him to be a rider. A sharp eye might have detected the bulge of a gun worn under his coat, high over his left hip and far back.

He had the look of a man who expected to see someone he knew. There was an easy, careless, yet guarded air about him. He walked down the platform without meeting anyone who took more than a casual glance at him.

At the end of the flagstone walk Rock hesitated and halted, as if surprised, even startled. Across the wide street stood a block of frame and brick buildings, with high weatherbeaten signs. It was a lazy scene. A group of cowboys occupied the corner; saddled horses were hitched to a rail; buckboards and wagons showed farther down the street; Mexicans in colourful garb sat in front of a saloon.

Memory stirred to the sight of the familiar corner. He had been in several bad gun fights in this town. The scene of one of them lay before him and a subtle change began to affect his pleasure in returning to Wagontongue. He left the station.

But he had not walked half a block before he came to another saloon, the familiar look of which and the barely decipherable name — Happy Days — acted like a blow in his face. He quickened his step, then, reacting to his characteristic spirit, he deliberately turned back to enter the saloon. The same place, the same bar, and the faded paintings; the same pool tables. Except for a barkeeper, the room was deserted. Rock asked for a drink.

“Stranger hereabouts, eh?” inquired the bartender.

“Yes, but I used to know Wagon-tongue,” replied Rock. “You been here long?”

“Goin’ on two years.”

“How’s the cattle business?”

“Good, off an’ on. It’s slack now, but there’s some trade in beef.”

“Beef? You mean on the hoof?”

“No. Butcherin’. Gage Preston’s outfit do a big business.”

“Well, that’s new,” replied Rock, thoughtfully. “Gage Preston? Heard his name somewhere.”

He went to the Range House, a hotel on another corner. He registered, gave the clerk his baggage checks, and went to the room assigned him, where he further resisted the mood encroaching upon him by shaving and making himself look presentable to his exacting eyes.

“Sure would like to run into Amy Wund,” he said, falling into reminiscence. “Or Polly Ackers. Or Kit Rand. All married long ago, I’ll bet.”

He went downstairs to the lobby, where he encountered a ruddy-faced man, Clark, the proprietor, whom he well remembered.

“Howdy, Rock! Glad to see you,” greeted that worthy, cordially if not heartily, extending a hand.

“Howdy, Bill!” returned Rock, as they gripped hands.

“Wal, you haven’t changed any, if I remember. Fact is you look fit, an’ prosperous, I may say. How long since you left Wagontongue?”

“Six years.”

“Wal, so long as that? Time shore flies. We’ve growed some, Rock. A good many cattlemen, have come in. All the range pretty well stocked now. We have two lumber mills, some big stores, a school, an’ a town hall.”

“Well, you sure are comin’ on. I’m right glad, Bill. Always liked Wagontongue.”

“Did yon jest drop in to say hello to old friends, or do you aim to stay?” inquired Clark, his speculative eyes lighting.

Rock mused over that query, while Clark studied him. After a moment he flipped aside Rock’s coat. “Ahuh! Excuse me, Rock, for bein’ familiar. I see you’re packin’ hardware, as usual. But I hope you ain’t lookin’ for someone.”

“Reckon not, Bill. But there might be someone lookin’ for me. How’s my old friend, Cass Seward?”

“Ha! Wal, you needn’t be curious aboot Cass lookin’ for you. He’s been daid these two years. He was a real sheriff, Rock, an’ a good friend of yours.”

“Well, I’m not so sure of that last, but Cass was a good fellow all right. Dead! I’m sure sorry. What ailed him, Bill?”

“Nothin’. He cashed with his boots on.”

“Who killed him?”

“Wal, that was never cleared up for shore. It happened out here at Sandro. Cass got in a row an’ was shot. The talk has always been that Ash Preston killed Seward. But nobody, least of all our new sheriff, ever tried to prove it.”

“Who’s Ash Preston?”

“He’s the oldest son of Gage Preston, a new cattleman to these parts since you rode here. An’ Ash is as bad a hombre as ever forked a horse. I ain’t sayin’ any an’ please regard that as confidence.”

“Certainly, Bill,” replied, Rock, hastily. After some casual conversation about the range, they parted in the hotel lobby.

Sitting there, he recalled friends and enemies of the old days. One of his best friends had been Sol Winter. Whenever Rock got into a scrape, provided it was not a shooting one, Sol was the one who helped him out of it. And as for money, Sol had always been his bank. Rock, remembering many things — one of which was that he had left Wagontongue hastily and penniless — thought he recalled a debt still unpaid. With that he sallied out to find Winter’s store.

It should have been a couple if blocks down the street. Some of the buildings were new, however, and Rock could not be sure. Finally he located the corner where Sol’s place of business had been. A large and pretentious store now occupied this site. Rock experienced keen pleasure at the evidence of his old friend’s prosperity, and he stalked gayly in, only to learn that Sol Winter did not occupy this store.

Through inquiry, he located Winter’s store at the end of the street. It was by no means a small or cheap place, but it was not what it had once been. Rock entered. Sol was waiting upon a woman, looked, older, thinner, greyer, and there were deep lines in his face. Six years was a long time. Rock gazed round him. It was a large store room crowded with merchandise — hardware, groceries, saddles and harness and farm implements.

“Well, sir, what can I do for you?” inquired Winter.

“Howdy, Sol, old-timer!” said Rock with a warm leap of his pulse. “Don’t you know me?”

Winter leaned and crouched a little, his eyes piercing. Suddenly the tightness of his face loosened into a convulsive smile.

“True Rock!” he shouted incredulously. “If it ain’t really you! Why, you old ridin’, drinkin’, shootin’, love-makin’ son of a gun!”

“Glad to see me, Sol?” returned Rock, tingling under Winter’s grip.

“Glad? Lordy, there ain’t words to tell you. Why, True, you were always like my own boy. An’ since I lost him—”

“Lost him! Who? You never had any boy but Nick.”

“Didn’t you ever hear aboot Nick? Nick was shot off his hoss out near Sunset Pass.”

“Aw — no! Sol! That fine sweet lad! My God! I’m sorry,” exclaimed Rock, huskily. “But it was an accident?”

“So they say, but I never believed it. There’s still bad blood on the range, True. You must remember. In fact there’s some new bad blood come in since you left.”

Here a customer entered, and Rock seated himself on the counter and put aside his sombrero, to find his brow clammy and cold. Nick Winter dead! Shot by rustlers, probably, or perhaps by this new bad element hinted at by Clark and Winter. The last thing Rock would have expected was that anyone could do violence to gentle, kindly, crippled Nick Winter. Here was something to keep Rock around Wagontongue, if nothing else offered.

“True, it’s good to see you sittin’ there,” said Winter, returning to place a hand on Rock’s shoulder. “I never saw you look so well, so clean an’ fine. I don’t need to be told you’ve worked hard.”

“Yes, Sol. I’ve been five years on a cattle job in Texas. Cleaned up ten thousand, all honest and square. I’ve got a roll that would choke a cow.”

“No! Ten thousand? Why, True, that’s a small fortune! It’ll make you. If only you don’t get drunk an’ begin to gamble.”

“Well, Sol, maybe I won’t. But I’ve gone straight so long I’m worried. How much do I owe you?”

“Owe me? Nothin’.”

“Look over your books before I hand you one,” ordered Rock fiercely. Whereupon he helped Winter find the old account, and forced him to accept payment with interest.

“Say, Rock, to be honest, this little windfall will help a lot,” declared Winter. “I got in a cattle deal some time past an’ lost out pretty much in debt. Then the new store — Dabb’s — ate into my trade. I had to move. Lately, though, my business has picked up. I think I can pull out.”

“That’s good. Who’d you go in cattle deals with?” rejoined Rock.

“Dabb.”

“Dabb? Not John Dabb who ran things here years ago? Sol, you ought to have known better.”

“Sure. But it seemed such a promisin’ deal; an’ it was for Nick’s sake — but I’m out of cattle deals for good.”

“Go on. Tell me some more bad news,” said Rock gloomily. “What’s become of my old girl, Kit Rand?”

“Kit. Let me see. I know she married Chess Watkins—”

“What! That drunken loafer?”

“Yes, an’ she couldn’t change him either. Kitty had to go to work in a restaurant here, an’ finally they left Wagontongue.”

“Kitty-Rand? That dainty, clever little girl a waitress! Good Lord! How about Polly Ackers?”

“Polly went to the bad,” returned Sol, gravely. “Some flash gambler got around her. She’s been gone for years.”

Rock groaned. “I’m Sorry I ever came back to this darned Wagontongue. One more question. How about my best girl, Amy Wund?”

“Worse an’ more of it, True,” rejoined Winter. “After you left, Amy played fast an’ loose with many a puncher, There are some who say she never got over your runnin’ away.”

“Thunder! They’re crazy!” burst out Rock. “She played fast an’ loose with me. She never cared two snaps for me.”

“Yes, she did, if there’s anythin’ in gossip. Mebbe she never found it out till you were gone. Amy was a highstrung lass. An’ yon know, Rock, you were sweet on Polly at the same time.”

“Lord forgive me, I was.”

Trueman dropped his head.

“Son, it’s the way of life,” went on Winter.

“Sol, will you keep my money till I come askin’ for it?” queried Rock, with his hand inside his waistcoat.

“Now what’re you up to?”

“I’m’ goin’ out and get awful, terrible drunk,” declared Rock.

Winter laughed, though he looked serious enough. “Don’t do it, True. It’ll only fetch back the old habit. You look so fine, I’d hate to see you, do it.”

“I’m goin’ to drown my grief, Sol,” declared Rock, solemnly.

“Well, wait till I come back,” returned Winter. “I’ve got to go to the station. My clerk is off today. Keep store for me — like you used to.”

“All right. I’ll keep store. But you rustle back here pronto.”

Winter hurried out, leaving Rock sitting on the counter, a prey to symptoms he well knew. If Sol did not hurry back —

A light quick step arrested the current of Trueman’s thoughts. He looked up. A girl had entered the store. His first swift sight of her caused him to slip off the counter. She looked around expectantly, and seeing Rock she hesitated, then came forward. Rock suddenly realised that to get terribly drunk was the very remotest thing that he wanted or intended to do.

“Is Mr. Winter in?” asked the girt, pausing before the counter.

“No. He had to go to the station. Reckon he’ll be there quite some time. Can I do anythin’ for you?” Rock was cool, easy; respectful.

“Are you the new clerk, Mr. Winter was expecting?” she queried.

“Yes, miss, at your service.”

“I’ve quite a list of things to get,” she said, opening a handbag.

“I’ll do my best, miss. But I’m a little new to the business.”

“That’s all right. I’ll help you,” she returned, graciously. “Now where is that paper?”

The delay, gave Trueman opportunity to look at her covertly. She was thoroughbred Western, about 21 or 22, blonde, with fair hair more silver than gold. She was not robust of build, yet scarcely slender. She wore a faded little blue bonnet not of the latest style, and her plain white dress, though clean and neat, had seen long service.

“Here it is,” she said, producing a slip of paper and looking up somewhat flushed. Her eyes were large, wide apart, grey in colour. Rock looked into them. Something happened to him then that had never happened before and which could never happen again.

“Now, shall I read the list off one at a time or altogether?”

“Well, miss, it really doesn’t — make any difference,” replied Trueman, vaguely, gazing at her lips. They were sweet and full and red, and just now curved into a little questioning smile. But, as he watched, it fled and then they seemed sad. Indeed her whole face seemed sad, particularly the deep grey eyes that had begun to regard him somewhat doubtfully.

“Very well — the groceries first,” she said, consulting her list. “Five of sugar, five of rice, five—”

“Five what?” interrupted Trueman, with alacrity. Everything was in plain sight. It ought to be easy, if he could keep his eyes off her.

“Five what!” she echoed, in surprise. “Did you think I meant barrels? Five pounds.”

“Sure. That’s what I thought,” replied Trueman, hastily. “But some people buy this stuff in bulk.”

Rock began to grasp that he was bungling the greatest opportunity of his life. He found the sugar and had almost filled a large sack when she checked him: “Not brown sugar. White, please.”

There was something in her tone that made Rock wonder if she were laughing at him. It stirred him to dexterity rather than clumsiness. He filled a large paper bag with white sugar.

“But you didn’t weigh it,” she said.

“I never weigh out small amounts,” he returned blandly. “I can guess very accurately.”

“There’s more than five pounds of sugar in that bag,” she protested.

“Probably, a little. Sure I never guess underweight. What next? Oh, the rice.”

“Can you guess the weight of rice, too?”

“Sure can. Even better. It’s not near so heavy as sugar.” And he filled a larger bag. In attempting to pass this to her he accidentally touched her bare hand with his. The soft contact shot a thrilling current through him. He dropped the bag. It burst, and the rice poured all over her, and like a white stream to the floor.

“There — you’ve done’ it,” she said, aghast.

“Excuse me, miss. I’m sure awkward this day. But rice is lucky. That might be a good omen. I’m superstitious. Spillin’ rice might mean a wedding.”

She blushed, but spoke up with spirit. “It couldn’t, so far as I’m concerned,” she said. “Of course I don’t know your affairs. But you are wasting my time. I must hurry. They’ll be waiting.”

Rock humbly apologized and proceeded to fill another bag with rice. Then he went on with the order, and for several moments, in which he kept his eyes averted, he performed very well as a clerk. He certainly prayed that Sol would not come back soon.

“That’s all the groceries,” she said. “Now I want buttons, thread, calico, dress goods, linen and—”

At the dry-goods counter Rock could not find anything.

The young lady calmly walked behind the counter. “Can’t you read?” she inquired, pointing at some boxes.

“Read!” exclaimed Trueman, in an injured tone. “Sure I can read. I went to school for eight years. That’s about four more than any cowpuncher I ever met.”

“Indeed! No one would suspect it,” she returned demurely. “If you’re a cowboy — what’re you doing in here?”

“I just lately went to clerking.”

“Show me the buttons. There — in the white boxes. Thank you.”

While she bent over them, looking and assorting, Trueman feasted his eyes on the little stray locks of fair hair that peeped from under her bonnet, on the small well-shaped ear, on the nape of her neck; beautiful and white, and upon the contour of cheek.

“It isn’t pearl?” she inquired holding a button in her palm.

“Sure is,” he replied dreamily, meaning her cheek, suddenly terribly aware of its nearness and sweetness.

“That pearl! Don’t you know bone when you see it?”

“I’m sorry,” spoke up Rock, contritely. “I’m not usually so dumb. But you see I never before waited on such a — a girl as you.”

She shot him a grey glance not wholly doubtful or unforgiving. And meeting his eyes caused her to look down again with a tinge of colour staining her cheeks.

“I’m not a clerk. Good heavens! If the gangs I’ve ridden with would drop in here to see me — doin’ this. Whew! My name is Trueman Rock. I’m an old friend of Sol Winter’s.”

“Trueman Rock?” she repeated, almost with a start, as she swiftly lifted big, surprised eyes.

“Yes. I used to ride this range years ago. I’ve been gone six years — five of which I’ve spent in Texas, workin’ hard and — well,’ I’d like you to know, because maybe you’ve heard talk here. Workin’ hard and goin’ straight. I sold out. Somethin’ drew me back to Wagontongue. Got here today, and when I ran in to see Sol he left me here in charge of the store. I’m sorry I’ve annoyed you — kept you waitin’. But it was Sol’s fault. Only, I should have told you first off.”

“You needn’t apologize, Mr. Rock,” she replied shyly. “Please wrap these for me. Charge to Thiry Preston.”

He found a pencil near at hand, and bending over a piece of wrapping paper, very business-like, he inquired, “Miss Thiry Preston?”

“Yes, Miss,” she replied.

“What place?” he went on.

“Sunset Pass.”

“Way out there?” He glanced up in surprise. “Sixty miles. I know that country — every water-hole, stone, and jack-rabbit.”

She smiled fully for the first time, and that further fascinated Rock. “You were well acquainted, weren’t you?”

“I expect to renew old acquaintances out there. And I may be lucky enough to make new ones.”

Miss Preston did not meet his glance.

“What instructions about these parcels?”

“None. I’ll carry them.”

“Carry them! All this heavy load? Thirty pounds or more!”

“Surely. I’m quite strong. I’ve carried far more.”

“Where to?”

“Out to the corral. Our buckboard is there. They’ll be waiting and I’m late. I must hurry.” In rather nervous haste she took up the several light packages and moved toward the other counter.

Rock got there first and intercepted her. “I’ll carry these.”

“But you shouldn’t leave the store,” she protested.

Fortunately, at this juncture Sol Winter hurriedly entered. “Well, now, what’s this?” he queried, with a broad smile. “Thiry, to think you’d happen in just the wrong minute.”

“Oh, Mr. Winter, I didn’t miss you at all,” returned Thiry, gayly. “Your new clerk was most obliging and — and capable — after I found the thing I needed.”

“Haw! Haw! He’s shore a fine clerk. Thiry, meet True Rock, old rider an’ pard Of mine.”

“Ah — I remember now,” she flashed. “Is Mr. Rock the rider who once saved your son, Nick?”

“Yes, Thiry,” he replied, and turning, to Rock he added, “Son, this lass is Miss Thiry Preston, who’s helped to make some hard times easier for me.”

“Happy to meet you, Miss Preston,” beamed Rock.

“How do you do, Mr. Rock,” returned Thiry, with just a hint of mischief in her grey eyes.

They went out together and Trueman felt that he was soaring to the blue sky. Outside in the sunshine he could see her better and it was as if some magic had transformed her.

They soon reached the end of the street and started across an open flat toward the corrals.

“You’re in an awful hurry,” finally complained Trueman.

“Yes, I am. I’m late, and you don’t know—” She did not complete the sentence, but nevertheless it told Rock much.

By this time they had reached the first corral. The big gate swung ajar. The fence was planked and too high to see over. Thiry led the way in. Rock espied some saddle-horses, a wagon, and then a double-seated buckboard hitched to a fine-looking team of roans.

“Here we, are,” said the girl, with evident relief. “No one come yet! I’m glad. Put the bundles under the back seat, Mr. Rock.”

He did as directed, and then faced her, not knowing what to say, fearing the mingled feelings that swept over him and bewildered by them.

“After all, you’ve been very kind — even if—”

“Don’t say if,” he broke in, entreatingly. “Don’t spoil it by a single if. It’s been the greatest adventure of my life.”

“Of many like adventures, no doubt,” she replied, her clear grey eyes on him.

“I’ve met many girls in many ways, but there has never been anything like this,” he returned.

“Mr. Rock!” she protested, lifting a hand to her cheek, where a wave of scarlet burned.

Then a clink of spins, slow steps, and thuds of hoofs sounded behind Rock. He saw the girl’s colour fade and her face turn white.

“Hyah she ish, Range,” called out a coarse voice, somehow vibrant, despite a thick hint of liquor. “With ‘nother galoot, b’gosh! Schecond one terday.”

Slowly Rock turned on his heel, and in the turning went back to the original self that had been in abeyance for a while. When it came to dealing with men he was not a clerk.

Two riders had entered the coral, and the foremost was dismounting. He was partly drunk, but that was not the striking thing about him. He looked and breathed the very spirit of the range at its wildest. He was tall, lean, lithe, with a handsome red face, eyes hot as blue flame and yellow hair that curled scraggily from under a dusty-black sombrero. Drops of sweat stood out like beads on his lean jowls and his curved lips. A gun swung below his hip.

The other rider, called Range, was a cowboy, young in years, with still grey eyes like Miss Preston’s, and intent, expressionless face. Rock gathered from the resemblance that this boy was Thiry’s brother. But who was the other?

“Thiry, who’s thish?” queried the rider, striding forward.

“I can introduce myself,” struck in Rock coolly. “I’m Trueman Rock, late of Texas.”

“Hell, you shay!” returned the other ponderingly, as if trying to fit the name to something in memory. “Whash you doin’ hyar?”

“Well, if it’s any of your business, I was in Winter’s store and packed over Miss Preston’s bundles,” replied Rock.

“Haw! Haw!” guffawed the rider derisively. Who was he? Surely not a lover! The thought seemed to cut fiercely into Rock’s inner flesh.

“Wal,” went on the tall rider presently, swaggering closer to Rock, “run along, Big Hat, ‘fore I reach you with a boot.”

“Ash! You’re drunk!” burst out the girl.

The disgust and scorn and fear, and something else in her outbreak, instantly gave Rock tight rein on his own feelings. This rider, then, was Ash Preston. Her brother! The relief Rock experienced out-stressed anything else for the moment.

“Whosh drunk?” queried Preston. “Your mistake, Thiry.”

“Yes, you are drunk,” she returned with heat. “You’ve insulted Mr. Rock, who was kind enough to help me carry things from the store.”

“Wal, I’ll help Mishter Rock on his way,” replied Preston leering.

Range, the other rider, like a flash leaped out of his saddle and jerked Preston’s gun from its sheath. “Ash, you look out,” he called sharply. “You don’t know this fellar.”

CHAPTER 2

“WHASH THE HELL I care? He’s Big Hat, an’ I’m a-goin’ to chase him pronto.”

Thiry Preston stepped out as if impelled, yet she was evidently clamped with fear. “Please, Ash, be decent if you can’t be a gentleman,” begged Thiry.

For answer Preston lurched by Thiry and swept out a long slow arm, with open hand, aimed at Rock’s face. But Rock dodged, and at the sane time stuck out his foot dexterously. The rider, his momentum unchecked, tripped and lost his balance. He fell slowly, helplessly, and striking on his shoulder he rolled over in the dirt. He sat up, ludicrously, and wiping the dust off his cheek he extended a long arm, with shaking hand, up at Rock. “Shay, you hit me, fellar.”

“Preston you’re quite wrong. I didn’t,” replied Rock.

“Whash you hit me with?”

“I didn’t hit you with anythin’.”

“Range, is thish hyar Big Hat lyin’ to ‘me?”

“Nope. You jest fell over him,” returned the younger rider.

“Ash, you’re so drunk you can’t stand up,” interposed. Thiry.

“Wal, stranger, I’m ‘ceptin’ your apology.”

“Thanks. You’re sure considerate,” returned Rock with sarcasm. He was not used to total restraint and he could not remember when any man had jarred him so. Turning to the girl, he said: “I’ll go. Goodbye, Miss Preston.”

With his back to the brothers Trueman made his eyes speak a great deal more than his words. The dullest of girls would have grasped that he did not mean goodbye forever. Thiry’s response to his gaze was a silent one of regret, of confusion.

Rock stepped up on the corral fence, reached the top rail, and vaulted over. “Ash Preston! Bad medicine! And he’s her brother!” muttered Rock, aloud. “Sure as fate we’re goin’ to clash.”

He strode back to Sol Winter’s store.

“Now, son, what’s happened?” queried Sol, with concern.

“Lord knows. I — don’t,” panted Rock, spilling off his sombrero and wiping his face. “But it’s — a lot.”

“True, you took a shine to Thiry Preston, I seen that. No wonder. She’s the sweetest lass who ever struck these parts.”

“So, we’ll investigate my state of mind last,” replied Rock, ruefully. “Listen. I ran into the Preston outfit. At least, two of them.” And he related all that had occurred at the corral.

“Same old Rock,” mused Winter. “No, not the same, either. There’s a difference I can’t name yet. Wal, this Preston outfit is sure prominent in these parts. They call them ‘The Thirteen Prestons of Sunset Pass.’ Nobody seems to know where they come from. Anyway, they drove a herd of cattle in here some time after you left. An’ ‘ceptin’ Ash Preston, they’re just about the most likeable outfit you ever seen. Fact is, they’re like Thiry. They located in Sunset Pass, right on the Divide. You know the place. An’ it wasn’t long until they’ were known all over the range. Wonderful outfit with horses and ropes.”

“Go on, Sol. What was the trouble you had?”

“They ran up a big bill in my store. The old store. I taxed the boys about it. Well, it was Ash Preston who raised the hell. He wasn’t drunk then. An’, son, you need to be told that Ash is wild when he’s drunk. When sober he’s — well, he’s different. Nick was alone in the store. Nick was a spunky lad, you know, an’ he razzed Ash somethin’ fierce. Result was Ash piled the lad in a corner an’ always hated him afterward. Fact is the range talk says Ash Preston hates everybody except Thiry. She’s the only one who can do anythin’ with him.”

“She didn’t do a whole lot, today. The drunken — ! And Nick was shot off his horse out there in Sunset Pass?”

“Yes. I think Ash Preston must have killed Nick. They must have met an’ fought it out. There were four empty shells, fresh shot, in Nick’s gun.”

“The boy had nerve and he was no slouch with a six-shooter. I wonder—”

“Well, Gage paid the bill. Then for a while he didn’t buy from me. But one day Thiry came in, an’ ever since I’ve sold goods to the Prestons. But none of them save Thiry have ever been in my store since.”

“Ahuh. Any range talk among the punchers about these Prestons?”

“Well, son, there used to be no more than concerned the Culvers, or Tolls, or Smiths, an’ not so much as used to be about the little outfits down in the woods. You know the range. All the outfits eat one another’s cattle. It was a kind of unwritten code. But lately, the last two years, conditions have gone on the same, in that way, an’ some different in another. I hear a good deal of complaint about the rustlin’ of cattle. An’ a few dark hints about the Prestons.

“Darn few, mind you, son, an’ sure vague an untrailable. It might be owin’ to the slow gettin’ rich of Gage Preston. It’s a fact. He’s growin’ rich. Not so much in cattle, but in land an’ money in bank. I happen to know he has a bank account in Las Vegas. That’s pretty far off, an’ it looks queer to me. Found it out by accident. I buy from a wholesale grocer in Las Vegas. He happened here, an’ in a talk dropped that bit of information. It’s sure not known here in Wagontongue.”

“Is Gage Preston one of these lone cattlemen?” queried Rock.

“Not now, but he sure was once.”

“Who’s he in with now?”

“John Dabb. They own the Bar X outfit. It’s not so much. Dabb has the big end of it. Then Dabb runs a butcher shop. Fact is he undersold me an’ put me out of that kind of business. He buys mostly from Preston. An’ he ships a good many beeves.”

“Ships? Out of town?”

“I should smile. They have worked into a considerable business. I saw this opportunity years ago. But didn’t have the capital.”

Rock pondered over his friend’s disclosures, and Thiry Preston’s sad face returned to haunt him.

“Sol, what do you think about Ash Preston?” asked Rock.

“Well, son, I’m sure curious to ask you that same question,” replied Winter. “How did this fellow strike you?”

“Like a hard fist, right in the eye,” acknowledged Rock.

“Ahuh. Rock, the Prestons are all out of the ordinary. Take Thiry, for instance. How did she, strike you?”

Trueman placed a slow heavy hand on the region of his heart, as if words were useless.

“Well, I wouldn’t give two bits for you if she hadn’t. Son, I’ve a hunch your comin’ back means a lot. Wal, to go on — these Prestons are a mighty strikin’ outfit. An’ Ash Preston stands out even among them. He’s a great rider of the range in all pertainin’ to that, hard game. He can drink more, fight harder, shoot quicker than any man in these parts. He’s sure the meanest, coldest, nerviest, deadliest proposition you’re likely to stack up against in your life. I just want to give you a hunch, seein’ you went sweet on Thiry.”

“Sweet on that girl! No! I’ve been sweet on a hundred girls. This is different, somethin’ terrible. Ten thousand times sweet!”

“Trueman, your trail will sure be rough.”

“Listen, old friend. There’s only one thing that could stump me. Tell me. Do you know Thiry real well?”

“Yes, son, an’ I can answer that question so plain in your eyes. Thiry is not in love with anybody. I know, because she told me herself, not so long ago.”

“That’ll — help,” replied Rock, swallowing hard. “Now, Sol, I’ll sneak off alone somewhere and try to find out what’s the matter with me — and what to de about it.”

Trueman sallied forth into the sunlight like a man possessed. He did not notice the heat while he was striding out of town, but, when he got to the cedars and mounted a slope to a lonely spot he was grateful for the cool shade. He threw aside coat and sombrero, and lay down on the fragrant mat of cedar needles. How good to be there!

Only one thing had stood in the way of a happy return to Wagontongue, and that had been possibility of a clash with Cass Seward, the sheriff. This now no longer perturbed him. It had been reckless, perhaps foolish, for him to come back, when he had known that the probabilities were that Cass would try to make him show yellow and clap him in jail, because of a shooting affray which Rock had not started. But it had been Rock’s way to come, not knowing; and that hazard was past. Rock gladly welcomed the fact that he had a clean slate before him.

That grey-eyed girl, Thiry Preston! Here he did surrender. He had been struck through the heart. And all the fight there was seemed directed against himself — a wavering, lessening doubt that he could be as marvelously transformed as he thought. And then, one by one, in solemn procession, there passed before his memory’s eye the other girls he had known, trifled with, liked, or loved. He watched them pass by, out of the shade, it seemed, into the past forever.

Thiry Preston had made them vanish, as if by magic. She was the girl. All his life he had been dreaming of her. To realize she actually lived!

At length Rock started to retrace his steps toward town. A young woman coming out of Dabb’s large establishment, almost ran into him.

“True Rock. — aren’t you going to speak to me?” she burst out.

He knew the voice, the face, too, the sparkling, astonished eyes.

“True — don’t you know me? It’s Amy.”

“Why, Mrs. Dabb, this is a surprise!” he said, doffing his sombrero. “I’m sure glad to see you.”

“Mrs. Dabb? Not Amy?” she replied with captivating smile and look Rock found strangely familiar.

“Someone told me you were married to my old boss, John Dabb,” said Rock easily. “You sure look fine. And prosperous, too.”

She did not like his slow, cool speech.

“True, I can return the compliment. You are handsomer than ever.”

“Thanks.”

“True, you’re not glad to see me,” she rejoined petulantly.

“Why, sure I am! Glad you’re settled and happy and—”

“Happy! Do I look that?” she interrupted bitterly.

“If my memory’s any good you look as gay and happy as ever.”

“Your memory is bad — about that — and other things. Trueman, have you come back on a visit?”

“No; I aim to stay. I always was comin’ back.”

“If you only had come!” She sighed. “I’m glad — terribly glad you’re going to stay, We must be good friends again, True, You’ll come to, see me — ride with — me — like you used to. Won’t you?”

“I’m afraid Mr. Dabb wouldn’t like that. He never had any use for me.”

“It doesn’t matter what he likes. Say you will, Trueman. I’m horribly lonesome.”

Rock remembered that Amy had always been a flirt. Evidently she had not changed. He was sorry for her and wished to spare her discomfiture.

“I’ll call on you and John sometime,” he replied.

“Me and — John! Well, your long absence in Texas hasn’t made you, any brighter. I dare say it hasn’t changed you any — about girls, either. I saw you with Thiry Preston. At your old tricks, cowboy!”

“Did you? I don’t call it old tricks to carry a few bundles for a girl,” replied Rock stiffly. It annoyed him to feel the blood heat in his face.

“Bundles, rot!” she retorted. “I know you, True Rock, inside and out. You’ve lost your head pronto over Thiry Preston.”

“I’m not denyin’ it, am I?”

She would be his enemy, unless he allowed himself once more to be attached to her train. The idea was preposterous. In a few short hours — no, they were hours incalculably, long in their power — he, had grown past flirting with any woman.

Rock returned to Winter and proceeded to unburden himself.

“So you ran into Amy,” meditated Sol, with a thoughtful twinkle. “Wal, son, take my advice and keep shy of Amy, She’s got old Dabb so jealous he can’t attend to his business. She always has some buckaroo runnin’ after her. That won’t do for you. The Dabbs about own Wagontongue, not to say a lot of the range outfits. Then I always see Thiry with Amy, when she comes to town. If you aim to snub your old girl for this new one — wal, son, you’ll have a tough row to hoe.”

“Sol, I’ll not snub Amy, but I can’t, go playin’ round with her. Sol, how much money do you owe?”

“Couple of thousand, an’ when that’s paid off I’ll be on the road to prosperity again.”

“Old-timer, you’re on it right now. I’ll take that much stock in your business,” went on Rock, as he took out his pocketbook.

“Son, I don’t want you to do that,” protested Winter.

“But I want to. I think it’s a good investment. Now here’s your two thousand. And here’s five more, which I want you to put in your bank, on interest. Reckon we’d better add another thousand to that five. I only need enough money to buy a spankin’ outfit.

“I’m goin’ to be a plain cowpuncher and start in where I left off here six years ago. I want a jim-dandy outfit; two saddle-horses — the best on the range, if money can buy them.”

“We can find one of them pronto,” replied Winter with satisfaction. “After supper we’ll walk out to Leslie’s. He’s sellin’ out an’ he has some good stock, One horse in particular. I never saw his beat, Dabb has been hagglin’ with Leslie over the price. It’s high, but the horse is worth it.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred.”

“All right, Sol. We’ll buy. But I reckon one saddle-horse will do. Then I’ll need a pack-horse and outfit. In the mornin’ we’ll pick out a tarp and blankets, grub and campin’ outfit. I’ve got saddle, bridle, spurs, riata — all Mexican, Sol, and if they don’t knock the punchers on this range, I’ll eat them. And last, I reckon I’ll require some more hardware.”

“Ahuh! An’ with all this outfit you’re headin’ for Sunset Pass.”

“Yeah. I’m goin’ to Gage Preston’s and strike him for a job.”

“Son, it’s a bold move, if it’s all on account of Thiry. Gage can’t hardly refuse you a job. He needs riders. He has hired about every cowpuncher on the range. But they don’t last. Ash gets rid of them, sooner or later. Reckon about as soon as they Shine up to Thiry.”

“How does he do that?”

“Wal, he scares most of them. Some he has bumped up with his fists. An’ several punchers he’s driven to throw guns.”

“Kill them?”

“Nope. They say he just crippled them. Ash shoots quick an where he wants.”

“Most interestin’ cuss — Ash Preston,” said Rock lightly.

“Son, this is what worries me,” went on Winter with gravity. “It’ll be some different when Ash Preston butts into you. No matter how easy and cool you start — no matter how clever you are — it’s bound to wind up a deadly business.”

“Thanks, old-timer. I get your hunch. I’m takin’ it serious and strong. Don’t worry unreasonable about me, I’ve got to go.”

CHAPTER 3

TRUEMAN ROCK WAS not one of the cowboy breed who cared only for pitching, biting, kicking horses. He could ride them when exigency demanded, but he never loved a horse for other than thoroughbred qualities. And sitting on the corral fence watching Leslie’s white favourite, he was bound to confess that he felt emotions of his earliest days on the range.

“Wal, True, did you ever see the beat of that boss?” asked Sol Winter for the twentieth time.

Rock shook his head silently. Then, “I’ll take him, Leslie, and consider the deal a lastin’ favour.”

“Mrs. Dabb has been wantin’ this hoss, didn’t you tell me, Jim,” asked Winter.

“Wal, I reckon so. She has been out here often. But I don’t think Mrs. Dabb really cared about the horse so much. She just wanted to show off with him. But today there was a girl here who loved him.”

“Who was she, Jim?”

“Thiry Preston. She passed here today with her dad an’ some of the boys. She just petted the hoss while the other Prestons walked around talkin’. Never said a word. But I seen her heart in her eyes.”

“Speaks well for her,” replied Rock, as he slid off the fence and approached the animal. If this beautiful white horse had appeared desirable in his eyes upon first sight, what was he now? Rock smoothed the silky mane, thrilling at the thought that Thiry’s gentle hand had rested there. “Leslie, I’ll come out in the mornin’. I want a packhorse or a mule. Here’s your money. Shake on it.”

“I’ll throw the pack-horse in to boot,” replied Leslie.

“Sol,” Said Rock, thoughtfully, as they retraced their steps toward town, “do the Prestons come in often?”

“Some of them every Saturday, Thiry about twice a month.”

“Pretty long ride in from Sunset. Sixty miles by trail. Reckon the Prestons make a one-night stop at some ranch?”

“No, They camp it, makin’ Cedar Creek, where they turn off into a flat. There’s an old cabin — belonged to a homesteader. Preston owns it now. Thiry was tellin’ me they’d fixed it up.”

“Queer how all about these Prestons interests me so,” said Rock.

“Not so queer. Leavin’ Thiry aside, they’re a mighty interestin’ outfit,” returned Winter. “It’s wild, perhaps, to let yourself go over this girl all in a minute. But then, wild or no it might turn out good for Thiry Preston.”

“Sol, why is her face so sad?”

“I don’t know. I’ve asked her why she looks sad — which you can see when she’s not speakin’, but she always makes herself smile an’ laugh then.”

“It’s for me to find out,” said. Rock.

It was nearly noon the following day when Rock had his pack outfit ready for travel. Leslie came up presently with the white horse.

“Black leather an’ silver trimmings,” said, the rancher, admiringly. “Never seen him so dressed up. An’ the son-of-a-gun is smart enough to know he looks grand.”

“He’s smart, all right,” agreed Rock, with shining eyes. “Now we’ll see if he’ll hang me on the fence.”

The white horse took Rock’s mount easily, pranced and champed a little, and tossed his head.

“Good day and good luck, rancher,” said Rock, lifting the halter of the pack animal off a post. With that he headed down the road which the Prestons had taken the preceding day.

Several hours’ ride out of the town, Rock reached the top of a long slope and there halted the horses.

A 30-mile gulf yawned wide and shallow, a yellow-green sea of desert grass and sage, which sloped into ridge on ridge of cedar and white grass. The length of the valley both east and west extended beyond the limit of vision, and here began the vast, cattle range that made Wagontongue possible. Lonely land! Rock’s heart swelled. He, was coming back to the valleys and hills that he now discovered he had loved.

An hour’s ride down the slow incline brought Rock into a verdant swale of 50 acres surrounding a pretty ranch-house. Here Adam Pringle had lived.

The barn and corrals were closer to the road than the house. Rock saw a man at work under an open shed. The big gate leading in was shut. Rock halloed, whereupon the farmer started out leisurely, then quickened his steps. It was Adam — stalwart, middle-aged, weather-beaten settler.

“True Rock, or I’m a born sinner,” shouted Pringle.

“Howdy, Adam! How’s the old-timer?” returned; Rock.

“I knowed that hoss. An’ I shore knowed you jest from the way you straddled him. How air you? This is plumb a surprise. Get down an’ come in.”

“Haven’t time, Adam. I’m rustlin’ along to make camp below. Adam, you’re lookin’ good. I see you’ve made this homestead go.”

“Never seen you look any better, if I remember. Whar you been?”

“Texas.”

“Whar you goin’?”

“Sunset Pass.”

“Cowboy, if you want work, pile right off heah.”

“Thanks, Adam, but I’ve got a hankerin’ for wilder country. I’ll try Preston. Think he’ll take me?”

“Shore. But don’t ask him.”

“Why not?”

“I’m advisin’ you — not talkin’,” returned the rancher, with a sharp gleam in his eye. “Stay away from Sunset, Pass.”

“Adam, I just never could take advice,” drawled Rock. “Much obliged, though. How you doin’?”

“Been on my feet these two years,” returned Pringle, with, satisfaction. “Been raisin’ turnips an potatoes an’ some corn. Got three thousand haid of stock. An’ sellin’ eight-’ hundred haid this fall.”

“Losin’ much stock?”

“Some. But not enough to rare aboot. Though there’s more rustlin’ than for some years past. Queer rustlin’, too. You lose a few haid of steers, an’ then you never hear of anyone seein’ hide nor hair of them again.”

“How’s Jess Slagle? I used to ride for Jess, and want to see him.”

“Humph! Slagle couldn’t make it go in Sunset Pass after the Prestons come.”

“Why not? It’s sure big enough country for ten outfits.”

“Wal there’s only one left, an’ thet’s Preston’s. Ask Slagle.”

“I sure will. Is he still located in the Pass?”

“No. He’s ten miles this side. Stone cabin. You’ll remember it.”

“If I do, that’s no ranch for Jess Slagle. Marshland, what there was of it fit to graze cattle, salty water, mostly rocks and cedars.”

“Your memory’s good. Drop in to see Slagle. An’ don’t miss callin’ heah when you come out.”

“Which you’re thinkin’ won’t be so very long. Huh, Adam?”

“Wal, if it was anyone else I’d give him three days — aboot,” replied Pringle, with a guffaw.

Toward sundown Rock reached the south slope of the valley and entered the zone of the cedars. He halted for camp near a rugged little creek.

He was on his way before sunrise the next morning, and about noon he halted before the cabin that he knew must belong to his old friend and employer, Jess Slagle. Rock rode into what was a sorry excuse for a yard, where fences were down and dilapidated wagons, long out of use, stood around amid a litter of stones and wood.

Dismounting, Rock went to the door and knocked. The door opened half a foot to disclose a red-haired, homely woman in dirty garb, more like a sack than a dress.

“Does Jess Slagle live here?” asked Rock.

“Yes. He’s out round the barn somewheres,” she replied.

As Rock thanked her he sew that she was barefooted. So Jess Slagle had come to squalor, and poverty. Who was the woman? Presently Rock heard the sound of hammer or axe blows on wood, and he came upon Slagle at work on a pen beside the barn.

“Howdy, Rock! I knew you were in town. Range Preston rode by this mornin’ an’ passed the news.”

This gaunt man was Slagle, changed vastly, no doubt like his fortunes. The grasp of his hand was rough, hard, but lacked warmth or response.

“Jess, I’m sure surprised and plumb sorry to find you — your condition so — so different,” began Rock, a little uncertain. “What happened? How’d you lose out?”

“Well, Rock, I had hard luck. Two bad years for water and grass. Then Dabb shut down on me. Next I sold some cattle, put the money in a bank, an’ it busted. Then Preston moved into the country — an’ here I am.”

“How in the devil did you get here?” demanded Rock bluntly.

“Right off I made a mistake,” returned Slagle. “Preston was keen about my ranch in the Pass. He made me a good offer. I refused. He kept after me. I had some hard words with his son, Ash, an’ it all lead to a breach. They kept edgin’ my stock down out of the Pass an’ that way, then, an’ in others, I fell more in debt. I had finally to sell for about nothin’.”

“To Preston?”

“Sure, No one on the lower range would take it as a gift. It was a poor location, if any other outfit rode the Pass.”

“Ahuh! Then as it stands, Preston about ruined you?”

“No, Rock, I couldn’t claim that. Gage Preston never did me any dirt that I actually know. When I went to him an’ told him his outfit was drivin’ my stock off grass an’ water he raised the very old Ned with his sons, in particular Ash Preston, who’s sure rotten enough to taint the whole other twelve Prestons.”

“So this Ash Preston is rotten?” queried Rock deliberately, glad to find one man not afraid to voice his convictions. “Then what happened?”

“Well, the old man stalled off a shootin’ match, I reckon.”

“Have you ever met since?”

“Lots of times. But I’ve never had the nerve to draw on Ash. I know he’d kill me. He knows it, too.”

“What do you mean by rotten?”

“Mebbe it’s a poor word. But did you ever see a slick, cold, shiny rattlesnake, just after sheddin’ his skin, come slippin’ out, no more afraid of you than hell, sure of himself, an’ ready to sting you deep? Well, that’s Ash Preston.”

“Ahuh! I see,” rejoined Rock, studying the other’s face. “Glad to get your angle. I’m goin’ to ask Preston for a job.”

“I had a hunch you were. I’m wishin’ you luck.”

“Do you aim to hang on here?”

“Thank God, I don’t,” replied Slagle, with feeling. “My wife — she’s my second wife, by the way — has had a little money an’ a farm left her in Missouri. Were leavin’ before winter sets in.”

“Glad, to hear you’ve had a windfall Jess.”

Rock kid been two hours leisurely climbing the imperceptible slope up to the mouth of Sunset Pass. It was mid-afternoon. At last he entered the wide portal of the Pass, and had clear view of its magnificent reach and bold wild beauty. The winding Sunset Creek came down like a broken ribbon, bright here and dark there, to crawl at last into a gorge on Rock’s left. The sentinel pines seemed to greet him.

They stood, first, one, isolated and stately, then, another, and next two, and again one, and so on that way until at the height of the Pass they grew in numbers, yet apart, lording it over the few cedars on the level bench, and the log cabins strange to Rock, that he knew must be the home of the Prestons.

Slowly he rode up and entered the beautiful open park. The road cut through the centre and went down the outer side. Rock had a glimpse of gardens, corrals, fields, and then the purple pass threaded with winding white. Some of the cabins were weathered and grey, with moss green on the split shingles. Other cabins were new.

Just then a hound bayed, announcing the advent of a stranger in the Pass. Rock, having come abreast of the first cabin, halted his horse.

The door of this cabin opened. A tall, lithe, belted and booted man stalked out, leisurely, his eagle-like head bare, his yellow hair waving in the wind — Ash Preston.

CHAPTER 4

“HOWDY, STRANGER! OFF the trail?”

The omission of the invariable Western “Get down and come in,” was not lost on Rock.

“Howdy to you!” he returned. “Is this Gage Preston’s ranch?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m on the right track. I want to see him.”

“Who’re you, stranger?”

“I’m Trueman Rock, late of Texas.”

“Rock — are you the Rock who used to ride here before we came?”

“Reckon I am.”

Ash Preston measured Rock, a long penetrating look that was neither insolent nor curious. “You can tell me what you want with Preston. I’m his son, Ash.”

“Glad to meet you,” said Rock pleasantly. “Do you run Preston’s business?”

“I’m foreman here.”

“Reckon my call’s nothin’ important,” returned Rock easily. “But when I do call on a cattle man I want to see him.”

“Are you shore it’s my father you want to see most?” asked Ash.

“Well, I’m callin’ one Miss Thiry, too, for that matter,” rejoined Rock. “But I’d like to see your father first.”

“Miss Thiry ain’t seein’ every rider who comes along,” said Preston. “An’ dad ain’t home.”

“You mean you say he isn’t home to me?” queried Rock deliberately.

“Wal, I didn’t expect you to take it that way, but since you do we’ll let it go at that.”

“Excuse me, Preston, if I can’t let it go at that,” he returned coolly. “Would you mind tellin’ me if any of the other ten Prestons are home?”

There the gauntlet went in the face of Ash Preston. Still he did not show surprise. Whatever he might be when drunk, when sober as now, he was slow, cold, complex, cunning. He was flint, singularly charged with fire.

“Wal, Rock, all the Prestons home, if you’re so set on knowin’,” returned Ash. “But there’s one of the thirteen who’s advisin’ you to dust down the road.”

“Reckon that must be you, Mister Ash?”

“An’ that’s shore me.”

“Well, I’m sorry. But I’m not takin’ your hunch, Ash Preston. I’ll stay long enough, anyhow, to see if the rest of your family is as rude to a stranger as you are.”

In one sliding step Rock reached the ground. And at that instant heavy boots crunched the gravel.

“Hey, Ash, who’re you palaverin’ with?” called a deep, hearty voice.

Ash wheeled on his heel, and without answer strode back into the cabin, to slam the door. Then Rock turned to see a man of massive build, in the plain garb of an everyday cattleman. Rock perceived at once that he was father to Thiry and Range Preston, but there seemed no resemblance to Ash. He might have been 50 years old. Handsome in a bold way, he had a smooth hard face, bulging chin, well-formed large lips, and great deep grey eyes.

“Stranger, I reckon Ash wasn’t welcomin’ you with open arms,” he said.

“Not exactly. You’re Gage Preston?”

“Shore am, young man. Did you want to see me?”

“Yes. He said you weren’t home.”

“Doggone Ash, anyhow,” replied the rancher, with impatient good humour. “Whenever a cowpuncher rides in hyar, Ash tells him we’ve got smallpox or such like. He’s not sociable. But you mustn’t judge us other Prestons by him.”

“I was tryin’ to argue with him on that very chance,” said Rock, smilingly.

“Hyar, Tom,” Preston called, turning toward a lanky youth in the background, “take these hosses. Throw saddle an’ pack on the porch of the empty cabin. Wal, stranger, you’re down, so come in.”

Rock had not noticed that the next cabin, some distance away under the pines, was a double one of the picturesque kind, long, with wide eaves, a porch all around, and ample space between the two log structures. Evidently the second cabin was a kitchen.

“Reckon it’ll he pleasanter sittin’ outside,” said Preston, and invited Rock to a rustic seat. “What’d you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say — yet,” laughed Rock. He liked Preston.

“Thiry didn’t tell me either,” went on the rancher. “But I know you’re the young fellar who was polite to her an’ made Ash huffy.”

“Yes, I am. It wasn’t much, certainly nothin’ to offend Miss Thiry’s brother.”

“Aw, Ash was drunk. An’ he shore ain’t no credit to us then. Young man, say you didn’t lose any time trailin’ Thiry up,” went on Preston quizzically, with a twinkle in his big grey eyes.

“Mr. Preston, you — I — I—” began Rock, somewhat disconcerted.

“You needn’t lie about it. Lord knows this hyar has happened a hundred times. An’ don’t call me mister. Make it plain Preston, an’ Gage when you feel acquainted enough. You’re not trying to tell me you didn’t foller Thiry out hyar.”

“No — not exactly. I came to ask you for a job.”

“Good. What’ll you work fer?”

“Reckon the same as you pay any other rider. I’m an old hand with ropes, horses, cattle — anything about the range.”

“Wal, you’re hired. I’m shore in need of a man who can handle the boys. I run two outfits. Ash bosses the older riders. If you fit in with the youngsters it’ll shore be a load off my mind. But I gotta tell you thet no young man I ever hired struck Ash right. An’ none of them ever lasted.”

“Preston, if I turn out to be of value to you, will you want me to last?” queried Rock, and this was the straight language of one Westerner to another.

“Wal, I like your talk an’ I like your looks. An’ if you can handle my boys an’ stick it out in the face of Ash, I’ll be some in your debt.”

“I don’t know Ash, but I can take a hunch, if you’ll give it.”

“Wal, Ash sees red whenever any puncher looks at Thiry. He cares fer nothin’ on earth but thet girl. An’ she’s awful fond of him, She’s never had a beau. An’ Thiry’s near twenty-two.”

“Good heavens! Is her brother so jealous he won’t let any man look at her?”

“Wal, he wouldn’t if he could prevent it — thet’s daid shore. An’ far as the ranch hyar is concerned he does prevent. But when Thiry goes to town accidents happen, like you meetin’ up with her. Thet riles Ash.”

“In that case, Preston, I’m afraid Ash will get riled out here. For I reckon the same kind of accident may happen.”

“Hum! Hum! You’re a cool hand to draw to. What’d you say your name was?”

“I haven’t told you yet. It’s Trueman Rock, late of Texas. But I used to ride here.”

“Truman Rock! — Are you thet there True Rock who figgered in gun-play hyar years ago?”

“Sorry I can’t deny it, Preston.”

“You rode fer Slagle — when he had his ranch down hyar below in the Pass? It was you who run down thet Hartwell rustlin’ outfit?”

“I can’t take all the credit. But I was there when it happened.”

“Say, man, I’ve heerd aboot you all these years. Damn funny I didn’t savvy who you were.”

“It’s been six years since I left here — and perhaps you heard some things not quite fair to me.”

“Never heerd a word thet I’d hold against you. Come now, an’ meet these hyar eleven other Prestons.”

Mrs. Preston appeared a worthy mate for this virile cattleman. She was buxom and comely, fair like all of them.

“Ma, this is Trueman Rock, who’s come to ride fer me,” announced Preston. Then be presented Rock to Alice, a girl of 16, not by any means lacking the good looks that appeared to run in the family. Rock took instantly to the ragged, bare-footed, big-eyed children, Lucy and Burr; and signs were not wholly wanting that they were going to like him.

“Where’s Thiry?” asked the rancher.

“She’s ironin’,” replied Alice.

“Wal, didn’t she hyar me call?”

“Reckon she did, Pa, for you’d almost woke the daid,” replied his wife, and going to the door of the second cabin she called, “Thiry, we’ve company, an Pa wants you.”

Whereupon Thiry appeared in the door in a long blue apron that scarcely hid her graceful symmetry. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow of shapely arms. She came out reluctantly, with troubled eyes and a little frown. She had seen him through the window.

“Good afternoon, Miss Preston,” greeted Trueman.

“Oh, it’s Mr. Rock, our new grocery clerk,” she responded. “How do you do! And aren’t you lost way out here?”

“Hey Rock, what’s thet about you bein’ a grocery clerk? I reckoned I was hirin’ a cowboy.”

Whereupon Rock had to explain that he had been keening store for Sol Winter when Thiry happened in. Thiry did not share in the laughter.

“Thiry, he’s goin’ to handle the boys.” said Preston.

“You are a — a cowboy, then,” she said to Rock, struggling to hide confusion or concern. “You don’t know the job you’ve undertaken. What did my brother Ash say? I saw you talking with him.”

“He was telling me your dad would sure give me a job — and that you’d be glad,” replied Trueman, with disarming assurance.

“Yes, he was,” retorted Thiry, blushing at the general laugh.

“You’re right, Miss Preston,” returned Rock ruefully. “Your brother was not — well, quite taken with my visit. He told me you didn’t see every rider who came along. And that your father was not home. And that—”

“We apologize for Ash’s rudeness,” interposed Thiry hurriedly. She had not been able to meet Rock’s gaze.

“Never mind, Rock. It’s nothin’ to be hurt about,” added Preston. “Ash is a queer, unsociable fellar. But you’re shore welcome to the rest of us. Thiry, if you never heard of True Rock, I want to tell you he’s been one of the greatest riders of this range. An’ I need him bad, in more ways than one.”

“Oh, Dad, I — I didn’t mean — I — of course I’m glad if you are,” she returned hurriedly. “Please excuse me now. I’ve so much work.”

Somehow Trueman divined that she was not glad; or if she were, it was owing to her father’s need, and then it was not whole-hearted. But the youngsters saved him. They sidled over to him and began to ply him with questions about the white horse.

“What do you call him?” asked Burr.

“Well, the fact is I haven’t named him yet,” replied Rock.

“Can you think of a good one? What do you say, Lucy?”

“I like what Thiry calls him,” she said, shyly. “Egypt. Isn’t that just grand?”

“Egypt? — Oh, I see. Because he’s like one of the white stallions of the Arabians. I think it’s pretty good. Well call him Egypt.”

“That’ll tickle Thiry,” cried the child joyously.

“Come; Rock, let me show you the ranch,” called Preston, drawing Rock away. “When we first come hyar, aboot five years ago, Slagle, as you know, lived down below. He wouldn’t sell, an’ he swore this divide was on his land. But it wasn’t, because he’d homesteaded a hundred an’ sixty acres, an’ his land didn’t come half-way up. Wal, we throwed up a big cabin, an’ we all lived in it for a while. ‘Next I tore thet cabin down an’ built the double one, an’ this one hyar, which Ash has to himself. He won’t sleep with nobody. Lately we throwed up four more, an’ now we’re shore comfortable.”

The little cabin over by the creek under the largest of the pines was occupied by Alice and Thiry.

The grassy divide sloped gradually to the west, and down below the level were the corrals and barns and open sheds, substantial and well built. Rock found his white horse in one of the corrals, surrounded by three lanky youths from 16 to 20 years old. Preston introduced them as the inseparable three, Tom, Albert, and Harry. They had the Preston fairness, and Torn and Harry were twins.

“Rock, if you can tell which is Tom an’ which is Harry, you’ll do more’n anyone outside the family.”

“Son-of-a-gun if I can tell now, lookin’ right at them,” ejaculated Rock.

The barns were stuffed full of hay and fodder. A huge bin showed a reserve of last year’s corn. Wagons and harnesses were new; a row of saddles hung opposite a dozen stalls, where the Prestons no doubt kept their best horses. But these were empty now.

“Preston, if I owned this ranch I’d never leave it a single day,” was Rock’s eloquent encomium.

“Wal, I’d shore hate to leave it myself,” returned the other tersely.

“How many cattle have you?”

“Don’t have much idee. Ten thousand haid, Ash says. We run three herds, the small one down on the Flats, another hyar in the Pass, an’ the third an’ big herd up in the Foothills.”

“Naturally the third means the big job,” said Rock.

“Shore will be Tor you boys. Thar’s a lot of cattle over there thet ain’t mine. Ash said eighty thousand haid all told in the Foothills. But thet’s his exaggerated figurin’.”

“Gee! So many? Who’s in on that range beside you?”

“Wal, thar’s several heavy owners, like Dabb, Lincoln, Hesbitt, an’ then a slew of others, from homesteaders like Slagle an’ Pringle to two-bit cowpuncher rustlers. It’s sort of a bad mess over thar. An’ some of the outfits haven’t no use fer mine.”

“Ha! That’s old cowboy breed. You can’t ever change it. I know Lincoln. But Hesbitt is a new one on me.”

“Yes, he came in soon after me,” replied Preston shortly.

“Sol Winter told me you’d worked a new wrinkle on the range,” went on Rock matter-of-factly. “Wholesale butcherin’.”

“Yes. Hyar in this country I first set in killin’ an’ sellin’ to local butchers. Then I got to shippin’ beef to other towns not far along the railroad. An’ all told I’ve made it pay a little better than sellin’ on the hoof.”

“Reckon it’s a heap harder work.”

“We Prestons ain’t afraid of work,” said the rancher. “But it takes some managin’ as well. I made a slaughter-house out of Slagle’s place, an’ then we do some butcherin’ out on the range.”

“What stumps me, Preston, is how you get beef to town in any quantity,” responded Rock.

“Easy for Missourians on these hard roads. We got big wagons an’ four-hoss teams. In hot summer we drive at night. Wal, you’ll want to unpack an’ wash up fer supper.”

It was just sunset when Rock came out of the cabin assigned him. Sitting down on the stone steps of the porch, he found there was an open place between the trees permitting unbroken view of the Pass.

A bell called Rock to supper. When he reached the cabin, to find the Preston boys straddling the benches, it was to be accosted by the rancher.

“Reckon we can eat now,” added Preston. “Set down Rock, an’ pitch in.”

The long table was bountifully spread, steaming, savoury. Mrs. Preston sat at the foot. Alice’s place was next to Rock, and she most solicitously served him.

When supper ended, dusk had just fallen. Rock sat on the edge of the porch, attended by the children. The older sons stalked away while the younger lingered, evidently accepting the newcomer.

Before the hour passed Mrs. Preston and Alice came out, and Thiry, too, and they all sat around on the porch and grass enjoying the cool breeze coming up the Pass. The moon shone bright.

Preston retired within his cabin, and soon after the boys slouched away. Trueman rose to say good night.

Thiry had been standing some moments, in the shadow of the cabin.

“Mr Rock, would you like to walk with me to my cabin?” she asked.

“Why — pleased, I’m sure,” replied Rock, haltingly, scarce able to conceal his joy. Good nights were exchanged, and Rock found himself walking away in the shadowed moonlight, with Thiry beside him.

CHAPTER 5

THE GIRL CONFRONTED Trueman, and her face had the sheen of the moonlight, her eyes the darkness and mystery of the shade.

“Mr. Rock, I want to talk to you,” she said, very quietly.

“Yes?” rejoined Trueman.

“Have you been — wholly honest in coming out here to Sunset Pass?”

“Honest! What do you mean?” flashed Rock, his pride cut.

“What did you tell father?”

“I asked fora job.”

“Did you let him believe the job was your sole reason for coming?”

“No. He said I hadn’t been long in trailin’ you up. I didn’t deny it. I laughed and agreed with him.

“Oh — you did!” she exclaimed, somehow shaken out of her reserve. “That’s different. I apologize. I thought you’d deceived Dad — the same as so many riders have done.

“Mr. Rock, please don’t misunderstand,” she said, looking up.

“I was far from being offended that day in the store and at the corral. At the last, there, you meant you’d see me again. And you’ve done it. Now we’re concerned with that.”

“Reckon I might have waited a decent little while,” responded Rock. “But I never met a girl like you. I wanted to see you again — soon. Where’s the harm?”

“Indeed there isn’t any halm in it, Mr. Rock, but harm can come from it.”

“How?”

“Through my brother, Ash.”

“Well, that’s not hard to believe,” rejoined Rock, with sharpness. “The other day he was a drunken, vulgar lout. Today, when he was sober, he was cold, mean, vicious. He had no hospitality of the West — no idea what was due a tired and hungry stranger. In my day on the range I’ve met some—”

Trueman bit his tongue. The girl had suddenly covered her face with her hands.

“Aw, Miss Preston, forgive me,” he burst out. “I spoke out quick, without thinkin’—”

She drew her hands away and lifted her head. “You’re quite right — Mr. Rock,” she said unsteadily. “Ash is — all that you say. To my shame I confess it. All my life I’ve made excuses for him. It’s no use. I — I cannot do it any more. But that’s not the point.”

Rock sat down beside her, his anger flown. “I know. The point was the harm that might come through Ash. Please be frank with me. If I’ve brought this distress upon you I’m entitled to know why.”

“I’ve always been very — very fond of Ash,” she said tremulously, struggling for composure. “Partly because he was always so bad — and I seemed the only one who could influence him for good. Ash cares for nothing but me. He hates men — he hates horses — he hates cattle. I — I’ve stuck to him until now. I — I — Mr. Rock, I can’t tell you.”

“Spare yourself, Miss Preston,” returned Rock impulsively. “It’s wonderful — beautiful of you. I admire and respect you for it. But I can’t understand.”

“I would dare tell you, but would only make this unfortunate situation worse. I only hint of it because it’s not fair to let You think we — or I — dislike you.”

“Oh, then you don’t?”

“No. I — I think I really like you, though it’s such short notice. And Mr. Rock, if I had my way, I’d like to be friends with you.”

“Thank you, Miss Thiry,” he returned gratefully, swayed by her unexpected avowal. “Honest, I didn’t hope for so much. All I wanted was a chance to prove I could deserve you — your friendship.”

“I — I dare say you could,” she returned, looking away. “But the thing is I can’t be friends with you.”

“Because of Ash?”

“Yes. He will not let any boy or man be friends with me — at least out here at Sunset. Cowboys have called on me here and many have come to ride for Dad. Ash soon got rid of them.”

“I wonder how he did all that. I know cowboys well, where a pretty girl is concerned.. And I’m just curious.”

“I’ll tell you. He’s lied. He’d coolly invite them to leave. He’d bluff. He’d threaten. He’d cripple and shoot their horses. Oh, that was the vilest thing! He’d get them drunk while on guard — which Dad couldn’t forgive. He’d ridicule any sensitive cowboy before the outfit — so terribly that the poor fellow would leave. He’d concoct devilish schemes to make a cowboy seem negligent or crooked. And as a last resource he’d pick fights. Then worst of all — he has thrown his gun on more than one.”

“How very interestin’! Yet you love him!” ejaculated Rock bitterly.

“I do — more because I seem the only one. But it’s not so much that. I’ve kept him from going to the bad.”.

“How could he be any worse?”

“Oh, he could be. You can’t understand. But I do.”

“Miss Thiry, have you been so vastly concerned for the good health of all these poor lovesick cowboys as you seem about mine?” asked Rock.

“You are sarcastic again. Yes, I was concerned — worried about these boys. But I’ve never been so — so scared as I am over your coming.”

“Scared for me?”

“Yes. I can’t lie to you. I’m scared because of the — the harm that may come — if you stay.”

“What is the reason you want me to run off like a coward?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” she replied. “But I don’t want you to be a coward. I’d think it brave, generous to help me. I told you and I tell you again, harm, terrible harm, might come of this, if you stay. Ash will not try any of his tricks on you. For you are different. Why, my Dad said to me, not an hour ago: ‘There, lass, is a cowboy whose face Ash won’t rub in the dirt. An’ he won’t be throwin’ guns around so careless. True Rock is a different kind of a hombre from all those Ash has stacked up against.’ I was thunderstruck. It seemed almost as if Dad was glad. I never heard him speak like that.”

She was in the grip of some strong emotion now, beautiful and soul moving to Rock. “You wouldn’t stay here — with — us — and — and leave me alone?” she asked, with a simplicity wholly free of vanity.

“Yes, I might — if you cut me cold or slammed the door in my face.”

“That I couldn’t do. If you stay on, living here and eating at our table, I could not help but talk to you, be with you some. I think it would be nice — if Ash wasn’t around. I — I’m afraid I might like you. Now, if you stayed — you’d — you’d—”

“Yes, Miss Thiry, I would,” he returned swiftly. “I would be a very great, deal worse than any cowboy you ever knew.”

“So — you see,” she said, entreatingly. “Then you and Ash would fight over me. First with fists, probably like, a couple of beasts. Then with guns! Oh, that’s the horror of it — there would be blood spilled. He might kill you. But most likely you would kill him.”

“I’ll just make up my mind I won’t fight. I’ll keep out of his way. I’ll do anythin’ for you.”

“But you’ve only seen me once!”

“I’m not committin’ myself yet. But I’m afraid, if seein’ you the other day wasn’t enough, this time is.”

“Oh, please go away to-morrow — before it’s too late,” she implored. “You’re so sharp — so keen. You’ll-” Suddenly in her agitation, she jerked a hand to her lips, as if to silence them. Her eyes dilated. She stared up at Rock like a child who had almost betrayed herself.

Rock had intuition enough to grasp that part of Thiry’s fear, perhaps the greater, was not due to the inevitable clash between him and Ash. She was afraid he would find out something.

“Afraid of me,” he ejaculated hurriedly. “Why, Thiry — Miss Thiry, that’s absurd! Right this minute I’m the best friend you have in the world.”

“Then prove it,” she said, bending closer. “Go away tomorrow.”

“And never see you again?”

“It would be best,” she returned, and, looked away. “But perhaps I — we might meet in town. I’m going in over the Fourth. Mrs. Dabb is to give a dance. I could see you there. I — I’ll go with you — if you ask me.”

“Don’t bribe me to run off from Sunset Pass,” he said. “But thank you for sayin’ you’d go with me. I’d like to. I’d almost give my head to take you to a dance.”

“Please, Mr. Rock, go away tomorrow before trouble comes. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. It’s the only chance you have to be my — my friend.”

“You’re a queer, wonderful girl,” he replied, puzzled and sad.

“I will come to town oftener — then,” she almost whispered.

“You’d meet me in town and hope to deceive Ash?”

“Yes. I — I’ll try,” she faltered.

“But he’d find it out. Then he would have a real case against me. He’d hunt me down, force me to meet him.”

“Oh!”

“If I give in to you and leave Sunset Pass, I’d never willingly see you again,” he went on, with more bitterness.

“Mr. Rock, that wouldn’t be such a — a loss to you as you imagine now,” she answered.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I hate to refuse you anythin’. Listen. There’s two sides to this deal, and here’s mine.” He leaned close so that he could see her better in the pale shadow. “I want you to know about me. For sixteen years I’ve lived the life of a wanderin’, ridin’, drinkin’, fightin’ cowboy. I stuck here on this range longest of all. I don’t say I was bad, but I wasn’t much good. I was always gettin’ in trouble for other people. That’s how I came to shoot Pickins. It was a good riddance. But the sheriff then — Cass Seward — was a friend of Picking’s. I didn’t want to kill Seward, so I left Wagontongue. I stayed away six years, then had to come back. I got there the day I met you. Found out Seward was gone. Found out a lot of other things. I wanted to know about my old girls.

“I had always been crazy over pretty girls. Sol Winter told me a lot of bad news about the girls — and about his son Nick. So I lost my happy mood. I wanted to go out and get drunk. Sol asked me to keep store for him. And I sat there sinkin’ into one of the old black spells that had kept me from makin’ someone out of myself. Then you walked into that store. And somethin’ happened. I don’t know yet what it was. But it was wonderful. It’s been such a tearin’, changin’ somethin’ that I don’t know myself. I’m findin’ out little by little. Seein’ you this second time has helped a lot. I’ll make a clean breast of all — soon as I know. But right now I know — if you don’t turn your back on me — I’ll never drink again. Or hunt for a fight! Or waste my time and money!”

“Mr. — Rock!” she exclaimed, low-voiced and trembling. “Are you telling me you — you love me?”

“No, I’m not tellin’ you that,” he returned doggedly. “But I’m sure afraid somethin’s terrible wrong. Miss Thiry, please — please don’t make me go away.”

“Could I make you do anything? How silly! But if you’re manly enough to save me misery, you will go.”

“That’s hittin’ hard. Suppose I get it into my mind that by stayin’ I can save you more misery?”

“Mr. Rock!” she cried, shocked.

His sudden query had been a random shot, but it struck home.

Rock’s heart leaped. He had to stifle a wild impulse. “Quien Sabe! I might,” he returned, almost coldly. “Give me a day to think over whether I’ll go or stay. I’ll meet you tomorrow night and tell you.”

“Tomorrow night. Here at this hour?” she returned, rising.

“Yes. Good night, Miss Preston.”

“I’m very, very sorry — Good night.”

Rock gave her one long look as she stood now in the moonlight. He would carry that picture in his heart of hearts all his days. Then he strode away, and when he turned she was still standing like a white statue.

CHAPTER 6

A BELL AWAKENED Rock from late slumbers. The sun was up, and as he peeped out over his blanket covering he saw the grass shine gold under the cedars.

Rock made short work of his breakfast, and hurried away down toward the corrals. At the barn-yard Rock found Al Preston leading in some horses; and one of his brothers was jacking up a hind wheel of a green wagon.

“Mornin’ boss,” drawled Al.

The other boy nodded at Rock.

“Are you Tom or Harry?” asked Rock, reminded of the twins.

“I’m Harry.”

“All right, Harry, I’ll know you tomorrow or bust. Where’s Tom?”

“He left us to grease the wagon and went off after a horse for you.”

“For my horse, Egypt?”

“No — I’m — sorry to say. Ash saddled him and rode of on him.”

Rock for the moment succumbed to a silent fury. But seeing the grey-eyed brothers watching him curiously, he thought he had better explode naturally and wholesomely as might any cowboy. “ ——  —— !” he yelled lustily. “He took my new white horse! And my saddle that I wouldn’t lend to the King of England! Doggone! Boys, was it supposed to be a joke?”

“Take it as a joke. Or better be nice about it,” added Harry. “That always stumps Ash. If he can’t make you mad he lets up — for a while, anyway.”

“Thanks, boys. I’ll think it over,” rejoined Rock.

While Rock and Al greased the wagon wheels, Harry hitched up, and by the time this task was done Tom rode in, leading a horse. It was a bay that instantly took Rock’s eye.

“You boys rustle along. I’ll catch up.” When Rock rode around the barn he espied the wagon far ahead down the gentle slope. He moved on at a trot, his mind busy. He came to the forks of the road, and taking the left one he entered the cedars, climbed the ridge, and descended to a grassy open meadow, only, to mount another cedared ridge. It was not long until the sweet sage-wind became tainted. Rock rode up a sparsely cedared slope to a level bench, and soon came upon the site that had once been Slagle’s ranch. The boys were halting before the several cabins. As Rock rode up, the stench unmistakably heralded a slaughter-house. Skins of cattle hung everywhere.

The horses were turned loose to graze, and Rock, with the three boys, set to work. It was no easy task for one man, or even two men, to fold a stiff hide and compress it into small space. But that was what they had to do.

Nevertheless, during this labour, and while joking with the brothers, Rock was bending all his keen faculties toward the end that he had determined upon. Nothing escaped his sharp eye. Toward late afternoon he happened to kick a piece of white substance, not stone, and of a colour markedly contrasting with the red earth, smelled it — tasted it. Quicklime! Rock put it in his pocket.

In due time Tom mounted the loaded wagon to drive home, while the other brothers rode off toward the woods, and Rock was left alone.

He took out the piece of quick, lime. It did not appear to be very old. After diligent search he found a smaller piece. Quicklime in any quantity there might be used to deaden the stench of decaying offal, blood and bones. Rock searched the cabins, sheds, bins without finding any more. None had ever been used upon the horrible pile that had accumulated in the hollow below the slaughter-house.

Manifestly the Prestons left the entrails and skeletons of their cattle there on the ground to rot. But they might have left something here that they wanted to destroy quickly. Hides! Cow hides they could not sell because they did not bear their brands!

All of a sudden, into Rock’s searching mind there flashed memory of a deep well he had once helped to dig on these premises. Slagle wanted to get water close at hand. But they never struck water, and at 80 feet abandoned the effort.

Since that time brush had grown heavily all around the ranch-houses, but after some search Rock located the well. The edges had weathered, widening the mouth. He could not get right to the brink at this point. On the opposite side, however, opened a break in the brush. He was about to crash his way through the bushes, around to this opening, when his caution urged him not to leave a trail. Carefully he retracted his steps, worked around into a narrow path, in which he saw boot tracks.

Reaching the well, Rock peered down. He saw only the gravel sides and the black hole. He dropped a stone into it. No sound! Selecting a larger one he leaned over and let it fall. The hole certainly was deep. A low soft thud came to his taut ears.

“By gum! That well had a rock bottom.” Rock cautiously stretched himself on the ground, and putting his head over the brink of the well he sniffed like a tracking hound. He caught a faint scent of something that was not earth or brush and certainly not rotting hides, and it was rotting cattle hides which he expected to smell.

Resting a moment, he tried again. This time he caught the scent strongly enough to recognize it. Quicklime! Rock sat up, suddenly sweating, though he felt a cold chill. He felt no doubt that down this well hundreds, perhaps thousands of cattle hides had been dropped — not one of which bore the Preston brand.

Rock crawled on hands and knees back along the edge of the path, making certain not to leave the slightest mark. He found another piece of quicklime, and several smaller pieces. When he got to the boot tracks he scrutinized them with the photographing eyes of a trailer of long experience. He cut twigs from the under side of a bush, and with minute care measured the length and breadth of the most clearly defined print. These twigs he stored in his pocket.

He retraced his steps back to the open, mounted, and rode quickly away.

Rock shaved and changed his clothes. He made sure, this evening, to be on hand before the first supper bell rang.

The moon appeared long in rising, and Rock both longingly and fearfully watched for the silver radiance over the rim. It came at last and found him unprepared. How could he bear to terrorize Thiry Preston by confessing his determination to stay?

At length he could no longer procrastinate. Skirting the edge of the pines, he circled the slope and soon found the great pine under which he had talked with Thiry the night before.

He heard her cabin door open. A broad light flared out into the gloom. Then Thiry appeared in the doorway, clearly defined. She wore white. Trueman’s heart gave a leap and then seemed to stand still while she stood peering out into the night. She closed the door behind her — vanished. But Rock heard quick light footfalls. She was coming.

Presently her pale form grew more distinct. Rock saw her put out her hands, feeling for the tree or the bench. He reached up to take them.

“Oh!” she cried, evidently startled. “It’s you, Mr. Rock. You’re — late. I — I’ve been here twice,” she said.

“I’m sorry, but it took courage to come at all,” returned Rock.

“Didn’t it, though? Mr. Rock, you — you are holding my hands. Please let go so I may sit down.”

Rock, his own features in shadow, watched her and waited. The hour seemed to be the most momentous of his life.

“Ash stole your horse?” she began tentatively.

“Reckon I wouldn’t say stole. But he sure borrowed Egypt.”

“I asked Al what you did when you found out Ash took your horse,” went on Thiry.

“What did Al say?”

“He said you were thunderstruck. And you swore something terrible. Mr. Rock, you see, then — how impossible Ash is!”

“Nobody or nothin’ is impossible.”

“Dad says the man doesn’t live who can stand Ash’s meanness.”

“Well, I’m livin’ and maybe I can. You saw him this mornin’?”

“Yes. I was up early, helping Ma get breakfast. When the horses came up it wasn’t light yet. I heard Dad jawing somebody. Then Range came in and told us. At the table I asked Ash why he’d stolen your horse and — what he meant — to do with him.”

Here Thiry’s speech grew husky. “Luce told me he’d called the boss Egypt, which was your pet name,” said Ash. “That’s why I took him an why I’m goin’ to break a leg for him.”

Only Rock’s powerful hold upon himself, fortified by hours of preparation for anything, kept his anger within bounds. “All because I gave him your pretty name! Tough on the horse — and you were afraid to open your mouth! Much you love Egypt!”

“Wait a minute, will you;” she answered, not without anger. “I pitched into Ash Preston as never before in our lives. I — I don’t know what all I called him. He took it — and, oh, he looked dreadful. But he never said a word. He got up, nearly overturning the table, jumped on the horse and was gone like a white streak.”

“I stand corrected,” replied Rock thickly. “I talk too quick I’m sure glad you had the nerve to call him. If you hadn’t — Well, Thiry, I suppose you want to know what I’m goin’ to do about this horse deal?”

“Worry over that has made me sick all day.”

“When Ash gets back, I’ll go up to him nice and pleasant. I’ll say ‘Look here, cowboy, if you want to borrow my horse, ask me for him.’”

“Suppose he comes back without Egypt?”

“Then I think I’d better pass it off as if nothin’ had happened. I’d ask your’ father. And if Egypt was crippled I’d go find him and end his misery.”

Then followed a long silence.

“Mr. Rock, you — you were to tell me something tonight?” she began nervously.

“Thiry,” said Rock, with deep feeling, “last night I almost gave in to you. It was terribly hard not to. But tonight I have hold of myself. You can’t persuade me. I shall stay. I’ve thought all night and all day. Out of this torture has come two facts, which I believe as I do my own soul.”

“What are they?” she asked.

“I believe I can serve you best by stayin’ at Sunset Pass.”

“And the other?”

“I love you.”

She flung out her hands, protestingly, imploringly, and as if to ward off some incomprehensible peril. “Mr. — Rock!” she gasped. “You dare make love to me — when we’ve never been together an hour — when I’m insisting you leave my home!”

“I’d dare that, yes, under any circumstances,” he retorted, coolly. “But as it happens, I’m not makin’ love to you. I’m tellin’ you a simple fact. I’m not likely to annoy you with it soon again. But I sort ‘of welcome this chance to prove somethin’ to myself. You’ll hear gossip about me and my love affairs, which you can believe if you like. But I know now I never had a real one before.

“I shall leave you blissfully alone. I shall hardly be even polite if I see you at mealtime. Your brother Ash will soon see that there’s one rider who’s not mushy over you.”

“To what end?” she went on sharply. “Is that to deceive Ash, so you can stay here?”

“Partly. But I’m bound to confess that it’s to spare you.”

“Oh, you’re not going to spare me,” she cried. “You’ll not leave me alone. And even if you did Ash would believe it only a blind — that you were with me during his absence. It’s a poor plan. Please give it up.”

“No.”

She began to twist her hands in her white gown. The idea that he had decided to stay at Sunset Pass held some singular dread for her. And while he weighed this in mind he watched her with penetrating gaze, steeling his heart against the tenderness that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Trueman Rock, I want you to leave Sunset Pass,” she said, leaning to him. “Let’s risk being discovered meeting at Wagontongue. You can get work anywhere. We’ll take Mr. Winter into our confidence. We can meet in his office. Then I’ll arrange to stay with Mrs. Winter all night when I come to town. You can meet me there, too. I will go to Wagontongue every week.”

“Thiry, I ask you again — why do you want me to leave?”

“To keep you and Ash apart.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“It’s the — the big one,” she replied with both voice and glance unsteady.

“But that won’t keep Ask and me apart. He will come to town when you do. He’ll watch you.”

“I’ll choose the time when he is away with Dad on the range.”

“You would risk so much for me?”

“It’s not for you, though I know I — I — will like you, if you let me. It’s for Ash and Dad all of us.”

“It’s very sweet of you, Thiry,” he said, with just enough satire to belie the portent of his words, “but very little to risk my life, for.”

“No, Trueman, it may save your life.”

“Hove long would you expect this sort of thing to go on? We couldn’t keep it up forever, could we? And when it came to an end — and I worshipped you — what then?”

“I’d run the same risk as you.”

“What of? Being killed?”

“No! No! No! You’re tantalizing me. You know what I mean.”

“Indeed I don’t. Reckon some locoed cowboys would think you meant that you risked the danger of love.”

“I mean just that, Mr. Trueman Rock,” she blazed. “I’m human. And surely it is not beyond the bound of possibility for me to — to love someone. Especially if he sacrificed for me — proved himself a man.

“Thiry, are you offerin’ such a hope to me?” he asked huskily.

“It’s not hope, but a chance — only a chance — and all I can offer.”

“But a chance — that means a lot,” he went on, without remorse. “I could be with you alone?”

“Yes, as long as you wished.”

“Could I make love to you?”

“How could I keep you — from it?”

“Would you let me kiss you?”

“Yes,” she replied, calm.

“Would you kiss me — now — to seal the compact?” he went on, as mad in the ecstasy of the moment, as stern to convict her.

“You drive a hard bargain,” she murmured bitterly. “I’ve never kissed any man save Ash and Dad — but I will kiss you.” She stood up, took brave, but hesitating steps, until her knees pressed against his, and as she bent over, instinctively her hands went out. Rock saw them trembling. She was going through with it.

Rock seized her hands, and bending his head, he kissed, one and then the other. “Thiry,” he whispered, “I would give almost my very life to have you kiss me. But not for this — I led you on. I wanted to see how far you would go. You poor, loving, blinded girl! What would you not sacrifice for this damned Ash Preston? I will stay here. You have no idea what a horrible temptation you gave me. To meet you often — to have you alone — to be able to kiss you! Thiry! I could make you love me — but so help me God, I wouldn’t have your love at such sacrifice. I’ll win it square and fair — or never. Now, I’ll go, and I’ll nor speak to you soon again. Trust me, Thiry. Good night.”

He kissed her hands again and rushed away into the shadows.

CHAPTER 7

FOUR DAYS PASSED, days full of hard labour for Rock, and pondering thought, and slow absorbing adaptation to the most difficult and strangest situation he had ever encountered. Early at breakfast and late at supper he saw Thiry and then only to exchange a greeting. He did not look to see if she looked at him, though curiosity and longing consumed him.

By doing most of the fence work he made himself more than solid with the three brothers. He let them ride off up into the timber to cut pine saplings and snake them down to the pasture, while he dug the post holes and built the fence.

On the fifth morning Al remarked, laconically: “We sure gotta hustle today, for Pa will be home.”

“Why the particular hustle today, Al?” queried Rock.

“Pa has a way of slippin’ up on us, an’ it’d sure never do to be ketched loafin’. He wouldn’t let us go to the rodeo and dance on the Fourth.”

“I’d forgotten about that. Are all the folks goin’?”

“Pa and Ma ain’t goin’, but sure the rest of us Prestons are.”

“Includin’ Ash?” asked Rock.

“He never missed one yet that Thiry went to — leastways a dance. Allie and the kids will stop at Leslie’s. Thiry said she was goin’ to Winter’s. Reckon you’ll ride in with us?”

“I’ll ask your dad,” returned Rock, thoughtfully. It would be very much better, perhaps, for him to remain on the ranch. Yet the urge laid hold of him. He could take just a peep in at the dance to see Thiry in a party dress.

“Reckon, on second thought, I will go,” he said to Al.

Late in the afternoon the brothers left off work and rode home. Rock went with them. While he was cleaning up for supper he heard the clip-clop of trotting horses, then rattle of wheels. With a start he went to the door. Scoot Preston was driving up on the seat of a big empty wagon. Two more wagons had topped the slope. Rock waited for riders to appear, and he was not disappointed. The burly form of the older Preston hove in sight, riding a roan and leading two saddle-horses. A little afterwards, sight of Ash on Egypt shot a quick stab through Rock. The next instant he relaxed. The white horse appeared tired, but none the worse for the absence.

“Aw!” exclaimed Trueman with relief. “Reckon I might as well go out and get it over.”

But first he went inside. While pondering over how bests to meet this situation, he had buckled on his gun belt. Whereupon he strolled out leisurely. As he came in sight of the arriving Prestons, halfway between the cabins, Gage spied him, and with a start he wheeled about from the family, who were welcoming him to dismount like any cowboy, and hurried to intercept Rock. As he drew near, his deep grey eyes betrayed considerable anxiety. “Wal, Rock, how are you?” was his greeting, accompanied by extended, hand. “The boys say you all got on, fine. I’m sure glad.”

“Howdy, boss!” returned Rock cordially. “We got the fence job ‘most done.”

Preston fell in step with, Rock, and they approached the double cabin, where on the wide porch were collected the women and children. Ash was the only one of the returning brothers who got down on the ground.

“Cowboy, I shore hope you won’t rile Ash — leastways hyar before the women,” said Preston hurriedly.

“Don’t worry, boss,” returned Rock with a genial laugh. He had caught a glimpse of Thiry, who kept somewhat in the background.

Egypt was standing, bridle down, halfway between Ash and the porch. One glance told Rock that he was gaunt, dirty, and rough, but apparently as sound as ever.

“Howdy, boys!” said Rock, nodding to the drivers on the wagons. Then, halting beside Egypt, he turned to face Ash Preston. Despite his iron control a slight quiver strung his frame. How cool, intent, potential of evil menace this man! He stood at ease, hands on his hips, his black sombrero slouched back, his blue-flame eyes piercing Rock, as if to read his mind. Rock had met penetrating glances before, and this one shot little cold sparks along his marrow.

“Howdy, Ash! Did you like my horse?”

“He’s got any outlaw beat I ever rode.”

“Dog-gone! Leslie swore this horse never pitched in his life.”

“Reckon thet was no lie, Rock. But I nagged him. He threw me, an’ I couldn’t get near him again thet day.”

“Served you right,” responded Rock naturally. “It doesn’t pay to be mean to horses. And see here, Ash, don’t go borrowin’ a horse from a rider without askin’ him.”

The tension relaxed, the charged atmosphere lost its fullness and suspense. Ash eyed Rock with slow, cool smile, and slouched with clinking steps to the porch.

Rock spent so much time caring for Egypt, cleaning and brushing him, and making him a comfortable bed of grass in a stall, that it was dark when he got back to his cabin. The supper bell rang. He hurried out, and arrived as the Prestons were just seating themselves at table.

Afterward, Preston called him into his cabin. “Have a drink with me, Rock,” invited Preston.

“Sorry, boss, but I’ve quit.”

“Have a cigar, then.”

“Thanks,” replied Rock. “Did you have a successful trip?”

“Best ever, but thet won’t interest you,” returned Preston briefly. “I’ll say, though, thet when the trip ended hyar I was some worried. An’ when I seen you packin’ a gun, I was scared stiff.”

“Sorry, boss. It’s just habit.”

“Ahuh!” returned Preston giving Rock a dubious look. “But it was hard to figger you. Ash shore wasn’t able to. An’ you clean knocked the pins from under him. He didn’t an’ neither did any of us, expect you to take thet dirty deal so nice an’ friendly.”

“What else could I do?” demanded Rock, spreading wide his hands. “I came out here to make friends, not enemies.”

“Wal, I’m shore thankin’ you. You’ve got Ash stumped. I heard him ask Lucy if you’d been runnin’ after Thiry.”

“Humph! What did Lucy say?”

“Lucy said you hadn’t — thet you were seldom hyar, an’ then never paid no attention to Thiry. Is thet so, Rock?”

“Reckon it is, since you left.”

“You an’ Thiry quarrelled, I take it,” went on Preston. “She has a way of makin’ the boys leave her alone. I didn’t think you’d be so easy. Just before supper Thiry told me you’d acted wonderful with Ash — thet she’d misjudged you. The truth is, Rock, I think she likes you. You’ve shore begun right, if you’re in earnest about her.”

Rock could scarcely believe his ears. “In earnest? Good Lord! I wish I knew how to tell you how earnest I am.”

“Wal, I reckon now I savvy why you met Ash that way. Rock, you’re an upstandin fine, chap an’ I like you. So don’t be backward tellin’ me just how you feet about Thiry.”

“Preston, the minute I laid eyes on Thiry I fell in love with her. It’s changed my whole life. I used to be a free, careless hombre, runnin’ after girls, drinkin’, gamblin’, fightin’. But that’s past.”

“Thanks fer talkin out,” rejoined Preston, bending deep, inscrutable eyes upon Rock. “Course you mean marriage, cowboy?”

Rock jerked in his chair; his face reddened. “Preston — I never let myself have such hope,” he burst out.

“But you’d like to marry her?” queried this astounding ranchman.

Rock stared a moment. “I’d be the happiest and luckiest fellow on earth.”

“Wal, thet’s talkin’,” returned Preston gruffly. “Do you want my advice?”

“Preston, I — I’d be most grateful for anythin’.”

“Thiry ought to be told.”

“Aw, no! So soon? It’d only distress her — do my cause harm.”

“Cowboy, you don’t know women,” said Preston. “The very fact thet you came to me an’ declared yourself, straight like your name, will go far with Thiry, an’ all of us ‘ceptin’ Ash. An’ even Ash couldn’t help but see thet was right. Wal, I’m appreciatin’ your fine feelin’s, Rock, so I’ll tell her myself,” replied the rancher, and turning to the open door he called, “Thiry!”

“Preston!” gasped Rock, rising. Standing as if paralyzed, he heard light quick footfalls. Immediately the dark doorway framed a slender form in white, with wistful, expectant face and great, doubtful eyes.

“Come in, lass, an’ shut the door,” said her father.

She complied hesitatingly, her glance going from her father to Rock.

“Thiry,” he went on, and when she drew close he put an arm around her. “Do you see thet big cowpuncher standin’ over there?”

“Yes, Dad — I couldn’t very well help it,” she replied.

“Sort of pale round the gills, ain’t he?”

“Dad, I — I’m afraid he looks a little guilty.”

“Wal, it’s not exactly guilt,” laughed Preston. “Lass, Rock has asked your hand in marriage — an’ I’ve given it.”

“Father!” cried Thiry incredulously, almost with horror.

In that exclamation of protest, of unbelief, of consternation, Rock delved further into this Preston mystery. It seemed to betray Preston’s guilt along with that of his son, and Thiry’s knowledge of it.

“Wal, lass, will you answer Rock now or do you want some time to think it over?” asked Preston coolly, unabashed or unconcerned by her agitation.

“Mr. Rock, I thank you,” said Thiry, through trembling pale lips, “for the honour you do me. I’m sorry I cannot accept.”

Rock bowed, with what little dignity he could assume.

“Thiry, wait a minute,” said her father, as she made for the door. He caught her and held her. “I’m sorry to upset you. Don’t think your dad wants to get rid of you. I’m powerful fond of you, Thiry. It’s only thet lately — wal, I don’t want to worry you about what might happen to me. I might not always be hyar to take care of you. I’d like to have your future settled before — before long. An’ Rock struck me about right. Aw, there you’re cryin’. Wal, run along. I shore cain’t stand a cryin’ woman, not even you. An’ it’s no great compliment to Rock.”

Thiry held her head high as she walked by Rock without giving him another word or glance; and he saw that she was weeping.

“Preston, I ought to knock the daylights out of you,” declared Rock wrathfully, when Thiry was gone. “If I ever had any hope to win Thiry, it’s sure gone now.”

“Much you know about women,” said Preston. “I had a hunch Thiry took a shine to you; now I know it.”

“Preston, I can’t be mad at you, but I sure want to be,” returned Rock, resigning himself.

“Set down,” said the rancher. “You’ll shore be goin’ in to town with the rest of the outfit. They’re leavin’ day after tomorrow. Thet reminds me. I run into thet pretty Mrs. Dabb, an’ she said to tell you to be shore an’ come to her dance. She’s havin’ the new town hall decorated.”

“Boss, you must have been a devil amongst the women, in your day,” said Rock slyly. “How would you handle this particular case of mine, regardin the dance?”

“Wal, as you’re a handsome cuss, you want to make the most of your chance. It’s to be a masquerade, you know.”

“Masquerade? I sure didn’t know.”

“You get yourself up in some dandy outfit. Then first off be cold to Thiry an’ sweeter’n pie to your old girl. But you want to be slick, cowboy. Don’t overdo it.”

“Old-timer, I’m afraid I couldn’t do it,” replied Rock with a grimace. “It’d be funny; it’d be great, if I dared. But I think I’ll rustle now, before you get me locoed. Good night.”

As he opened the door abruptly he almost bumped into Ash Preston. Rock could not help wondering if Ash had been eavesdropping.

Rock awakened at dawn with an idea which must have generated in his subconscious mind while asleep. It was that he should start toward Wagontongue ahead of the Prestons. He wanted to stop long enough with Slagle to dig through the husk of that rancher’s provocative reticence. Likewise, he wanted to ride over that part of the range which had been the scene of Preston’s latest labours. With Preston at home and his family on the road, there would be opportunity for Rock to confirm or disprove his suspicions.

At breakfast Rock asked permission to leave that day, and it was readily given. Saddling Egypt, and leading the rested and mettlesome horse up to the cabin, Rock tied a couple of blankets behind the cantle, and rode away under the pines, without being noticed, so far as he could tell, by any of the family.

He found where the wagon had left the road to halt in the first clump of cedars, and then had gone on again, back to the road. A mile or more this side of Slagle’s ranch, which was hidden in the rough hilly country west of the Flats, the wagon tracks and hoof tracks of saddle-horses turned off the road. Rock did not care to follow them until the Prestons had passed, and even then he would be extremely careful how he did follow.

To Rock’s disappointment, he found that Slagle was not at home, and he could do nothing but ride on. A couple of miles down the road Rock met the wagon tracks again, coming from across the Flats. C

CHAPTER 8

AFTER PONDERING AWHILE, Rock decided he might safely risk some careful scouting around, provided he left no traces and kept keen survey of the several miles of road. With this in mind he tied Egypt on hard ground, and taking to the thickest part of the cedars he mounted the hill, then went on to the summit of the ridge.

The wind carried more than heat, and as he gained his objective point he both smelled and saw dust in the air. Then something raw — an odour that was tainted!

Eagerly Rock came up behind a cedar, and from this cover he peered out and down. The slope on that side sheered steep and rough down to an open draw which appeared pale green, with a dry winding wash in the centre. It led up to a wide pocket, where yellow water gleamed. Cows were bawling. White objects flashed in the sunlight. Rock discerned a cabin and corral, covered with white spots, also men on horses and on foot. Rock slipped to his knees, and crawling to a low thick cedar bush he half buried himself in it, and peered out. The white objects were cowhides; thrown over the corral fence, and nailed on the cabin, hair side down. There were seven riders, several still sitting their saddles, the others walking around.

One of the cowboys, a tall fellow wearing a red scarf, turned same of the cowhides over to look at the under sides. Presently he and the others on foot collected in a group round their mounted comrades, and talked. Watching like a hawk, Rock convinced himself that these riders were curious about Preston’s butchering business.

Presently the mounted riders galloped off, and those on foot took to their horses and followed. They rode up the ridge, westward from the cabin. The fellow with the red scarf, following last, halted on the brink of that pocket and took final survey of the scene. Then he followed after his comrades.

“Dog-gone!” muttered Rock, rolling out of his uncomfortable covert and wiping his perspiring face. “What to make of that? Maybe means nothin an then again—”

No doubt at all was there that the cowhides in plain sight over in the draw bore one of several of Preston’s brands. If other stock betides Preston’s had been butchered, which Rock did not doubt in the least, the hides with their tell-tale brands had of course been well hidden.

Straddling Egypt once more Rock rode down the hill toward Wagontongue. Cedars and brush grew densely at the foot of this slope, where the road crossed a culvert ever a deep wash. Rock’s eyes, bent on the ground, suddenly spied the heel imprint of a rider’s boot. It stopped Rock. He had seen that heel track before. Slipping out of the saddle, Rock bent to scrutinize it. And he experienced a queer little cold chill.

The impression of the heel was well defined, but the toe part was dim. It pointed off the road. Rock found another, like it, though not so plain. But for his trained eyes the trail might as well have been made in snow: It led into the coarse white grass, down over the bank, to the edge of the culvert, where it vanished.

The culvert was not the handiwork of masons. The aperture was large. Crude walls of heavy stone had been laid about ten feet high and the same distance apart. Logs and brush had been placed across the top. Above this a heavy layer of earth formed the road.

When Rock stepped into the mouth of the culvert he saw a lumpy floor, which at first glance he thought consisted of rocks lying on dried mud. A foot track, the one he was trailing, brought a low exclamation from his lips. Bending quickly with his little sticks he tried them. They fitted perfectly. Moreover, this one had been made recently.

When Rock rose from that track he knew what he was going to find. The tunnel appeared about a hundred feet long, with light shining in at both ends, and the middle dark. The numerous stones on the floor were of uniform size and shape. Rock kicked one. It was soft. Bending to feel it and to look at it more closely, he ascertained that it was a burlap sack tied ‘round something. He laughed sardonically.

“Cowhides,” he said. These stonelike objects were all hides tied up in burlap sacks. They were old. Some of them were rotting. Then toward the middle of the culvert, where the bags were thickest, he found that those in sight were lying on a bed of bags, flat, decomposed. Altogether, hundreds, perhaps thousands of hides had been destroyed there.

Rock went back to the point where he had found the boot track. If fresh cowhides had lately been deposited in this hiding-place where were they? Rock searched the ground more carefully. Back from the opening it was difficult to see well. Nevertheless, he trailed the heel track a third of the length of the culvert, toward its centre.

Naturally then he reached up to feel where he could not see. He had to put his toes in crevices between the stones to climb up and reach over the top of the wall. The thick logs placed across from wall to wall, and far apart, left considerable room along the top.

When Rock’s groping hand came in contact with a sack he felt no surprise. This one was not soft. It appeared to hold heat. Grasping it firmly, Rock dropped to the ground and hurried with it to the light. He ripped it open. Quicklime, hot and moist! A fresh cow-hide, wrapped with hair inside! With hands hands that actually shook, Rock unfolded the hide. No slight thing was this proof of somebody’s guilt — about to be disclosed! The brand was clear — a half moon. Rock had never heard of it.

He rolled up the hide, stuffed it in the sack, with the little quicklime he had spilled, and put it back where he had found it. Then he struck a match. By the dim light he saw rows of burlap sacks, neatly stowed away. Rock sneaked out of that culvert and up to his horse as if indeed he were the guilty one himself. Not until he was riding away, positive that he had been unseen, did he recover his equanimity.

That boot track had been made by Ash Preston. Rock knew it. Gage Preston was growing rich by butchering other ranchers’ cattle. The very least implication Rock accorded to Thiry Preston was that she shared the secret, and therefore indirectly, the guilt.

And Rock loved her — loved her terribly now, in view of her extremity. When he got to that confession he seemed unable to escape from the tumult and terror it roused in his mind.

Rock had no idea how far this extraordinary dealing of the Prestons had gone. It would take considerable time to find that out, if it were possible at all. But it had proceeded far enough to be extremely hazardous for them, and in fact for any riders connected with them. The situation would certainly become a delicate one for Rock unless he betrayed Preston at once. This was unthinkable. Rock knew his own reputation had always been above reproach, as far as honesty was concerned. It would still hold good with the old cattlemen who knew him. But that could scarcely apply to new ranchers, new outfits, who had come into the Wagontongue range of late years.

Rock believed that before another year was out, if the Prestons kept up this amazing and foolhardy stealing, they would be found out.

It was long past dark when Rock arrived at Wagontongue. He found a stable where Egypt would be well looked after. Next he hunted up a restaurant to appease his own hunger, and then he went to the hotel and to bed.

The sawmill whistle disrupted his deep dumber at six o’clock, but he enjoyed the luxury of the soft bed, and linen sheets awhile before rising. After breakfast he went round to see Sol Winter.

Winter was sweeping out the store. “My, you look good! All browned up. Dog-gone. I’m glad to see you!”

“Same here, old-timer,” replied Rock heartily. “Any news, Sol?”

“Not much. Everybody comin’ in for the Fourth. Amy Dabb’s givin’ the biggest dance ever held in these parts. How’re things generally out Sunset Pass way?”

“Preston drove in here a couple of day’s ago,” went on Rock, lowering his voice. “In the outfit were three wagons I know of. One was full of hides, which I helped pack. The other two were loaded with meat. Beeves! Now I want to find out how many beeves there were and where they went. But I don’t want this information unless we can get it absolutely without rousin’ the slightest curiosity or questions. Savvy, old partner?”

“Wal, i’ll be darned if that ain’t funny, for I shore can tell you right now what you’re so keen about knowin’. Heard it quite by accident. Jackson, who runs Dabb’s butcher shop, once worked for me. Wal, I went in last night to buy some beef-steak to take home. An’ I seen a lot of fresh meat hangin up. Shore I always was curious, but I never let on I was. All I said was: ‘See you’re stocked up plenty an’ fresh. How’re you ever goin’ to sell all that meat before it spoils?”

“‘It won’t last over the Fourth,’ he said. ‘Long as I got plenty an’ can sell cheap to the Mexicans an’ lumbermen, it shore goes fast. Wagontongue will soon stand another butcher shop, Sol, an’ any time you want to talk business with me I’m ready.’

“‘I’ll think it over, Jackson,’ I said. ‘But where’ll we get the meat? Reckon we couldn’t cut in on Dabb’s supply?’

“‘No, we can’t,’ he told me, ‘but Preston is killin’ now altogether instead of sellin’ any more on the hoof. He’s gettin’ thirty dollars more by killin, on each head of stock. He’ll sell to anybody. Today he shipped thirty-six beeves. Driscoll told me. Shipped them to Marigold.’”

“Thirty-six!” muttered Rock, with unreadable face and voice.

“Yep. An’ I counted ten beeves hangin’ up on Jackson’s hooks. All fresh. So that makes forty-six. What you want to know all this for?”

“Gee Sol, you’re a gabby old lady!” returned Rock. “I was just askin’, because you and I might go into the meat business. And say, who runs the Half Moon brand?”

“New cattleman named Hesbitt,” replied Winter. “He’s been on the range over two years. They say he hails from Wyomin’, has got lots of money, an’ runs a hard outfit. Clink Peeples is foreman. You ought to know him, Rock.”

“Clink Peeples. By gum! that sounds familiar. What does he look like, Sol?”

“Unusual tall puncher. Sandy-complected. Eyes sharp like a hawk’s, but tawny. Somethin’ of a dandy, leastways in town. Always wears a red scarf. An’ he’s one of the gun-packin’ fraternity. Clink will be in town shore over the Fourth.”

“Red scarf? Ahum!” said Rock. “Well, Sol, I’ll run along, and drop in again.”

Reaching Dabb’s new store, Rock hunted up the suit department. It chanced that there was in stock a black broadcloth suit, with frock coat, which might have been made for him, so well did it fit. Rock purchased it and an embroidered vest of fancy design, a white shirt with ruffles in the bosom, a wide white collar and a black flowing bow tie to go with it. Lastly he bought shiny leather shoes, rather light and soft, which augured well for dancing. Not forgetting a mask, he asked for a plain black one. None of any kind was available.

Rock carried his possessions back to the hotel. While in his room he cut a pattern of a mask out of paper, and taking this back to the store he bought a piece of black cloth and fashioned it after the pattern he had cut.

After supper the hotel man, Clark, got hold of him and in a genial way tried to pump him about the Prestons. Rock did not commit himself. Then who but Jess Slagle stamped into the hotel lobby, in his rough range garb.

Slagle had been trifling with the bottle, but he was not by any means drunk. He was, however, under the influence of rum, and his happened to be a disposition adversely affected by it. “Howdy, than Sunset Pass puncher!” he said, loud and leering.

“Hello, Jess! How are you? I called on the way in.”

“Left home yesterday. Stayin’ till after the fireworks. Are you goin’ back to Preston?”

“Why, certainly! Like my new job fine,” responded Rock. “I’m sort of a foreman over the younger Prestons.”

“Rock, it was a hell of a good bet that Gage Preston would never put you to butcherin’. Want a drink with me?”

“No, thanks. I’ve sworn off,” replied Rock shortly, and he went out to walk in the darkness. Slagle’s remarks were trenchant with meaning. Slagle, of course, hated Preston, and naturally would be prone to cast slurs. But would he make two-sided remarks like that, just out of rancour? It would go severely with him if one of them ever came to Preston’s ears. And rattlesnake Ash Preston would strike at less than that.

Rock strolled to and fro between the hotel lights and those on the corner.

As he came into the yellow flare of light, a hand, small, eager and strong, seized his arm, and a feminine voice he knew rang under his ear. “True Rock, I’ve been on your trail all afternoon.”

Rock stared down into the piquant flushed face of his old sweetheart, Amy Wund.

“Now I’ve got you and I’m going to hang on to you,” she said, with a roguishness that did not conceal a firm determination.

“Why — how do — Mrs. Dabb? You sure—”

“Oh, Mrs. Dabb,” she interrupted, flashing dark passionate eyes at him. “Call me Amy, can’t you? What’s the sense of being so formal? You used to call me ‘darling Amy.’”

There was no gainsaying that. “Well, good evenin’, Amy,” he drawled. “I’ve forgotten what I used to call you. Reckon it’s not just good taste for you to remind me.”

“Perhaps not, True. But you make me furious. Let’s get out of the light. I’ve got to talk to you.” Pressing his arm tight she hurried him down the dark street.

“Amy, listen to sense. Oughtn’t you be home?” asked Rock gravely.

“Sense from True Rock? Ye gods! When I was sixteen you made me meet you out, at night, because my father wouldn’t let you come to our house,” she retorted.

“That’s so, Amy. I guess I was no good. But I’ve learned a little in all these years — at least enough to consider a woman’s name.”

“Thank you. I believe you have. And it’s not true you were no good. Now about my being at home. I suppose I ought to be there. But it’s an empty home, Trueman. I am alone most of the time. John has men come there to drink and play cards and talk business. He objects to my friends. He is as jealous as the devil. Just a selfish rich old man!”

“Aw, too bad, Amy,” replied Rock, deeply touched: “You never should have married Dabb.”

“Father was in debt to John and I had to foot that bill, True,” she returned bitterly. “But I didn’t waylay you to talk about myself. Did you get the invitation to my dance?”

“I did. Many thanks, Amy. It was good of you.”

“Trueman, I’d like you to come for several reasons. First for old times’ sake. Then because certain of my friends say you won’t come. Next because — well, True, I’ve been a darned fool. I’ve gone — a — little too far with a certain cowboy. And I’m afraid of him. He’s coming to my dance. And I thought — if you were there — I’d not be afraid, anyhow.”

“Who is he, Amy?”

“I don’t know his real first name, His last is Peeples. Clink they call him.”

“Clink Peeples. I’ve sure heard of him. Rides for this new rancher, Hesbitt.”

“Yes. And Hesbitt—”

“One thing at a time, Amy. Is this the last reason you have for wanting me at that dance?”

“No, Trueman, there’s another. A woman’s reason, and therefore the most important.”

“What is it?”

“I won’t tell you.”

“Very well, I reckon your third reason is enough to fetch me. I’ll come.”

“Oh, thank you, Trueman,” she replied in delight, squeezing his hand. “You always were the dearest, kindest fellow when anyone was in trouble. Trueman, you could steady me. God knows I need it.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” he returned sharply. “Amy, will you consent to my callin’ on your husband?”

“You want to see John?” she queried, astounded, her eyes opening wide. “What on earth for? All right, go ahead. You have my consent. Tell him anything you want, except I was once in love with you and that it’s not utterly impossible for me to be so foolish again.”

“I’ll take good care you don’t do that,” he laughed.

“Truman, I have something more to say,” she said, hesitatingly. “I think you’d better quit riding for the Prestons.”

“Why?” he inquired, freezing a little.

“I’m afraid I can’t explain what may be only my intuition. But I believe the Prestons are going to get more than the ill will of the range.”

“That’s a strong statement, Amy. On what do you base it?”

“True, I can’t trace it down. But it must come from many little bits of gossip I’ve heard. Some of it, by the way, from Peeples. Everyone knows, of course, that you took the job to be near Thiry Preston. It’s a joke already. That’s your side of it. Trueman, you have a reputation. Oh, I don’t mean as a gunslinger. That’s old. Nor do I mean as a great rider, roper, and all such cowboy qualities. It’s that you’re true blue, honest, a man of your word. I could tell you a lot of things, if I could remember. One is — Clink Peeples said he reckoned Gage Preston would profit by your honest name. Isn’t that a queer remark, Trueman?”

“It is — a little,” Rock admitted.

“And here’s another — more of a stumper,” went on Amy. “Last night John had some men out to the house. They talked and smoked. When I heard your name I listened. Someone, I think Mr. Hesbitt, answered whoever had used your name first. ‘I don’t know this great cowboy Rock,’ he said. But if he stays on ridin’ for Preston, I’ll not share the opinion you men have of him.’ Trueman, there’s something wrong about this Preston outfit. There’s an undercurrent of feeling against them. It’ll spread, if there’s any reason for it. And then you’d be dragged in. True, will you leave Preston? Please! You can get three times the money.”

“No. I’ll stick, Amy. If there’s anythin’ in these hints I reckon the Prestons need me all the more.”

She did not speak again for several blocks. She held his arm closely. Rock did not have anything to say.

“True, I like you better than I used to,” she said softly. “What will you wear at my masquerade?”

“Look here, little lady, that’s not fair. I won’t tell you.”

“You must. I’ll never be able to recognize you. I remember how clever you used to be. The unmasking will not take place until dinner. That’ll be late, Trueman. And I’ll want to know you, in case I need you. You may have to throw Clink Peeples out.”

“So the honour of protectin’ you falls to me,” laughed Rock. “I’ve half a mind you’re lyin’. But I’ll stifle my suspicions. Amy, I’ve bought a dandy broadcloth frock suit, black. Also a fancy vest, shirt with ruffles, flowin’ black tie and black mask I’ll come as a flash gambler.”

“You’ll look grand. Bet you make more than one heart ache,” she returned, with a glance of mischief and regret.

Next morning about eleven o’clock, Rack strolled out of the hotel on his way to see John Dabb. He was shown into that individual’s private office, and walked into a richly furnished room, where two men sat smoking.

“Howdy, Mr. Dabb!” said Rock, easily. “Reckon you know me.”

“Trueman Rock!” exclaimed Dabb in great surprise. “Hesbitt, this is True Rock, one of the real riders we used to have. Rock, shake hands with Hesbitt, one of our new ranchers.”

Hesbitt bowed stiffly and spoke without offering his hand.

Rock looked squarely at him. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Hesbitt.”

“Well, Rock, to what am I indebted for this call?” queried Dabb.

“Remains to be seen whether you’ll be indebted to me or not. Reckon that’s up to you,” replied Rock. “Mr. Hesbitt, I heard this mornin’ that your foreman Peeples was in town wantin’ to see me.

“Yes, he got in early, and I believe does want to look you up.”

“Reckon he can’t be particular eager,” drawled Rock. “I’ve been up and down street, and in and out of the hotel all mornin’ — lookin’ for Mr. Peeples.”

“Ah! I see. I dare say he’s very busy buyin’ supplies,” replied Hesbitt, nervously. “May I inquire — er — what you want of my foreman?”

“Nothin’ so important — that is, to me,” said Rock. “I just wanted to give Peeples opportunity to meet me. And to tell him somethin’.”

“What?” asked Hesbitt, whose sallow face slightly paled.

“Reckon I’d sure like you to know as well. I just want to give you a hunch. Not till two days ago did I ever hear of the Half Moon brand. And not till yesterday did I learn what outfit ran it.”

Manifestly Rock’s cold, biting speech impressed Hesbitt, but scarcely to the acceptance of its content. He picked up his hat from the desk. “Dabb, your former cowboy’s talk is queer, if true,” he said curtly. “I’ll leave you to renew old acquaintance. Good day.”

“Hesbitt, you’re new to this range,” rejoined Dabb, a little caustic. “I’ve told you! before. And your Wyoming cowboy foreman needs to be told — or he’ll get into trouble. This is not Wyoming. I’m bound to tell you that Rock’s talk is not queer. I’ll gamble it’s true. I never knew him to lie. And no old rider or cattleman on this range would say it, even if he thought it.”

Hesbitt bowed and went out, jarring the door.

Dabb bit viciously at his cigar. “Some of these new cowmen make me sick. Rock, help yourself to a smoke and sit down.”

“Dabb, I sure appreciate what you said to him about me,” replied Rock. “Fact is I’m surprised, too. I’d been told you had no use for me.”

“Rock, that’s not the point,” returned Dabb quickly. “When I knew you were honest, I was bound to say so. Your connection with Preston has started rumours. Hesbitt has been losing more stock than any of us. His outfit is a hard-nut bunch from Wyoming. They think you’re — well. I don’t want to repeat gossip. But whether or not I have any use for you I’d sure need to see proof of your dishonesty.”

“That’s straight talk. I like it and thank you. Dabb, did I ever do you any dirt?”

“You quit me, left me in the lurch,” replied Dabb testily.

“But be fair, at least,” responded Rock earnestly. “I had to leave quick — or kill another man, and one generally liked here, Cass Seward.”

“You may have thought so. Cass told me once you didn’t need to run off. He could have fixed it up. Arrested you — and let you off. It was an even break, you knew. Anyway, I know everybody was glad you bumped that fellow off.”

“Ahuh! I’m sorry I didn’t know that,” said Rock. Then he shook off dark thoughts. “Dabb, did you have anythin’ else against me?”

The rancher thrummed on ins desk while revolving this query.

“Look me straight in the eye,” went on Rock. “Man to man, Dabb. If you have cards on me lay them down. I’m comin’ clean honest — and a lot might depend on you doin’ the same.”

“All right, Rock, I’ll meet you,” replied Dabb, flushing darkly. “Straight out then. I’ve sort of held against you — that old affair of yours and Amy’s.”

“Good!” exclaimed Rock, cracking a fist in his palm. “That’s just what I wanted you to admit. The old women gossips gave Amy the worst of that affair. She was pretty and vain — and had a way with the boys. But she was good and if they ever said otherwise they lied. I was in love with Amy. Perhaps a little more so than I was with two other girls. But what I want to make clear to you Dabb, is that Amy was never serious about me. I mean never in love as it was in her to be. And I’m satisfied that she never has been yet. Even with you — her husband. You’ll excuse me, Dabb, but this is blunt straight talk.”

“It is, by God! And to what end, Rock?”

“Amy’s happiness,” flashed Rock “I met Amy the day I arrived in Wagontongue and again yesterday. Dabb, she’d scalp me alive if she ever found out I told you this. She’s lonesome and unhappy. I don’t believe Amy ever would have married you if she hadn’t cared somethin’ for you. But you’ve failed to win the best in her. Dabb, I don’t suppose anyone ever dared to hit you this way. I don’t care a damn how angry you get, if I can only make you see.”

“You’re makin’ me see red, cowboy,” replied Dabb hoarsely. “But go ahead. I’ve not the nerve to pull a gun on you.”

“Dabb, I always had a hunch you weren’t a bad fellow, under your skin. The range claimed you drove hard bargains, and the cowboys didn’t exactly like you. Maybe that was justified. All the same as ranchers go, you sure were white. You’re rich now. You don’t have to eat, sleep, drink and smoke business. Pay some attention to your young and pretty wife! Take the girl away occasionally, to Kansas City or Denver. California in winter. And before long, old-timer, you’ll be glad. If you don’t do this, sure as I’m sittin’ here, Amy is goin’ to the bad. That’s what I came to say and that’s all.” Rock ended abruptly.

Dabb writhed in his chair, fury and shame contested with the sense of fairness that seemed dragged out of his depths. “You are a — queer one — Rock,” he stammered. “You’ve hit me where I live, and it hurts like sixty. But you talk like a man. And I’m not yet so set in my mind that I can’t learn from any man. If the truth turns out as straight as your talk — well, young man, you’re on parole till I find out. Now since you’ve presumed to advise me on a delicate matter, I’ll retaliate. Quit Preston!”

“Why?” snapped Rock.

“You know the range, Rock. Some things just can’t be said.”

“Because they can’t be proved.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Ill stick to Preston until these damned underhand rumours are proved — or until somebody suffers for startin’ them.”

“That may work out too late for you. I think I ought to tell you I’ve broken business relations with Preston last Friday.”

“May I ask what were the business relations?”

“Preston had the small end of a cattle deal with me. I bought him out. And then I cancelled all beef orders.”

“How did Preston take that?”

“Kicked about the cattle deal. But I took it he was relieved to get out of selling me more beef.”

“Relieved — what you mean?”

“He just struck me that way. Didn’t ask me why. I was glad. My reason was good, but I could scarcely divulge it to him.”

“Mind tellin’ me?”

“Yes. I’d mind. It would necessitate violating someone’s confidence. You’ll have to find out for yourself, Rock.”

“Reckon so. By the way, Dabb, are you still head of the Territory Cattle Association?”

“No, I resigned. Nesbitt was recently elected.”

“Gee! Sorry to hear it,” returned Rock. “Good day, Dabb. Reckon I’ll meet up with you at the rodeo and the dance.”

In the afternoon, rather late, Rock walked round to see Winter.

“Hey, you been drinkin’?” expostulated Rock, holding his friend at arm’s length.

“Nope. That is, not red liquor. But I shore been drinkin’ in Thiry’s sweet smiles an’ words.”

“Dog-gone! I didn’t expect her till tomorrow.”

“True, she has been in half a dozen times,” went on Winter. “Asked for you every time!”

“Sol, you lyin’ old geezer! My heart might stand her askin’ once. But six times!”

“Son, mebbe it’s not all gospel truth. When she first run in she was her old nice sweet cool self. Kissed me. Said she an’ Alice were out at my house. She asked if I’d seen you. An’ I told her I hadn’t yet today, but thet you’d be in. An hour later she came in again, somehow different. She bought buntin’. She was helpin’ Amy Dabb decorate the dance hall. Asked had I seen you yet, an’ I said no. She went out an’ pretty soon came back, a little more different She had a red spot in each cheek. An’ so she came an’ went, till the last time, a little while ago, when she was with Amy. Then you bet she didn’t ask about you. True, shore as you’re born, Amy had been fillin’ poor Thiry full of guff about how wild you was over her, an’ mebbe was yet.”

Rock heard Winter, but only vaguely, for he was rushing out to the door, where through the window he had espied Thiry Preston. “Why, hello!” he said, forcing a pleasant surprise to hide his rapture, as he doffed his sombrero. “Heard you were here. Really didn’t expect you till tomorrow.”

“We started at daybreak yesterday morning,” she was saying. “The boys were no good at all, and the youngsters simply mad to come — so Dad sent us off a day ahead. Ash stayed home.”

Rock felt in with her short quick steps and made careful remarks about the weather, and the town being full of people, until they reached the baker’s, where she was to order things for Mrs. Winter.

“I’ll wait for you,” said Rock.

“Are you afraid to walk into a bakeshop with a girl?” she asked, and the bonnet-brim tilted just far enough and long enough for him to catch a flash of grey eyes. “From what I’ve heard — recently — you could march into a lion’s den — for a — for certain people.”

“Ahuh, reckon I could — for — for a certain person,” replied Rock. That brought the blue bonnet-brim down to hide most of her face. Rock, however, thought he caught a glimpse of a colouring cheek. He escorted her into the store, stood beside her while she gave her orders, and accompanied her out.

“I’m to wait here for Allie,” said Thiry, stopping outside.

“Hope she’ll be late,” returned Rock, trying vainly to find himself.

Presently she lifted her head and Rock devoured her lovely face before he realized it had never worn such an expression for him: doubt, disdain, petulance!

“You’re going to the dance,” she said. It was not a question.

“Reckon I’ll drop in for a peep.”

“Would you tell me what you’ll wear?”

“Thiry, that’d spoil the fun. I sure want to fool you,” he said.

“Have you not already fooled me?”

“I have not!” he shot at her, swift to speak his sudden passion.

“Trueman Rock, you have a great deal to disprove and more to prove,” she said, wide strange eyes on his.

“You would not tell me what you were going to wear — so I’d recognize you first.”

“Of course I’ll tell you,” he burst out.

“I don’t care to know now. You would not see me, anyhow.”

He could only stare mutely.

“Mr. Rock,” she went on, without the scorn, “I had better explain my rather bold words. This dance was to be the first gay happy time for me since I grew up. Dad somehow prevented Ash from coming to town. He filled me with — with beliefs about how you would make it wonderful for me. I have no one but my brothers, and they all have their girls. I — I dreamed myself into — no matter what. Then I come to town to have my ears filled to burning — all day long. The dance was to be given for you! You wouldn’t even dance with any other woman but her! You were an old lover renewing his vows! You—”

“Thiry, hush!” interposed Trueman in rage, despair, and exaltation, all bewilderingly mingled. “I told you I didn’t care what anyone said to you about my old affairs. But if you care, then I hate the very thought of them.”

“Trueman, I trusted you and that woman has killed it.”

“Oh no, Thiry, don’t say that,” he implored.

“But there’s a secret understanding between you and her — for this dance.”

“Yes, there is. But it’s sure not sentiment on my part,” he replied humbly. “Thiry, if you won’t trust me, I shall have to give her away. And I never did that to a girl in my life.”

“How could I trust a man who would betray any woman — much less her?”

“You couldn’t. And I deserve that rebuke. But, Thiry, please be reasonable. Why, I was going to get my happy time just spying upon you from some corner. I never dared hope to get to dance with you. Good Heavens!”

“Trueman, I meant to dance only with my brothers, and perhaps one or two of the boys I know — and all the rest with you.”

“Thiry Preston, you tell me this — this—”

“Yes, I tell you,” she retorted. “I couldn’t do it at home, because I didn’t know. But that’s no difference.”

“Of course it isn’t. I should have made some wild dream come true. But, Thiry, it’s not too late.”

“Oh. it is,” she said disconsolately, yet she seemed to hunger to be persuaded. “She has spoiled—”

“Listen,” he broke in. “I meant to befriend Amy Dabb. She needs it, heaven knows, as you will see for yourself to-morrow night. But if you let her jealous tongue spoil anythin’ for you, I’m through.”

“Trueman, I could forgive a great deal, but no bold lie.”

“Thiry, did she destroy what little there might have been?” asked Rock.

She averted her face. “I don’t know. I’m all excited. But, oh, I — I want to have this dance! You’ll understand me, Trueman, won’t you? That’s one thing I do trust.”

The arrival of Alice Preston checked Rock’s impassioned reply that otherwise he could not have resisted. The girls, laughing and talking, started for home, and Rock accompanied them to the corner.

Just before they arrived there, a man and a woman hove in sight. Evidently she was trying to hurry away from him.

“I tell you no — no!” she cried, in a rage. Then Rock recognized Amy Dabb! The man was a tall rider. He wore a red scarf, and his face was almost as red.

“See heah, sweetheart, you cain’t come thet with me.” he drawled, blocking her way.

“Shut up, you crazy fool! Someone might hear you,” she cried.

Rock with a stride and a leap was upon them. “Somebody did hear you, Amy. Rustle now, with, the girls,” said Rock, sharply, as he gave the rider a hard thrust backward and then confronted him. “Howdy, Mister Red Scarf!”

CHAPTER 10

THE RED-SCARFED RIDER had evidently had a drink or two, but he appeared level-headed. His tawny gaze swept Rock from head to foot, and back again.

“Howdy, Mister Big Hat!” he replied.

“My name is Rock. You’re Hesbitt’s foreman, Peeples,” went on Rock curtly. “He told me you were lookin’ for me.”

“I shore was.”

“You’re not drunk,” replied Rock. “How’s it you insult a married woman on the street?”

“Is thet any of your bizness?”

“It shore is. I’m an old friend of Amy Dabb’s. Rode for her husband. Reckon it’s not exaggeratin’ to claim I’m his friend, too.”

“All right, Rock, I apologize,” returned the foreman readily, though resentfully.

“All right, Peeples. We’re gettin’ somewhere. Now tell me why you were lookin’ for me?”

“I kept hearin’ aboot you out on the range. Then lately you come back an’ went to ride for Preston. Thet made me curious, an’ I reckon I jest wanted to meet up with you an’ see for myself.”

“See what?”

“Wal, Rock, do you know one of them queer range shadows is creep-in’ over the Prestons?”

“Peeples, I like Gage Preston. Do you know him?”

“Shore. Like him fine, too.”

“I didn’t take to Hesbitt,” mused Rock, as if making comparisons.

“Shore I never did, either,” admitted Peeples. “But — wal, I’m responsible for his stock. An’ you can bet your bottom dollar I’d never be responsible for Preston’s. Now about your connection with Preston. Speaks high for him to have you in his outfit. True Rock, clean an’ square range-rider! Old hand at the game! Sounds awful good when some new cattleman like Nesbitt or some wonderin’ puncher gets to talkin’. Rock, if Preston keeps you out there it’s a safe bet he is rustlin’ an’ will ring you in with him, by hook or crook.”

* * *

The new town hall was the finest structure in Wagontongue. It was of Spanish design, low, rambling, many arched and aisled, painted white, with red tiled roof. The outside had been draped with flags and bunting in celebration of the national holiday. Two aisles with arched walls formed the outside of a large patio, Here and everywhere gay many-coloured Chinese lanterns hung. Flowers and desert shrubbery lined the walks and circled the fountain where water tinkled musically.

Rock ran the gauntlet of merry jests, admiring glances from dusky eyes, laughter and query, to the entrance at the main corridor of the hall. Inside the door was a gate, guarded by men, one of whom was the town sheriff, very important and pompous, with his silver badge conspicuous. Two placards struck Rock’s eye. One read: No ADMITTANCE TO ANYONE NOT IN MASQUERADE. And the other sign, larger, read: CHECK YOUR HARDWARE AND BOTTLE.

“Howdy, gambler!” greeted the sheriff. “‘Scuse me while I search you. Mrs. Dabb’s orders.”

His second slap at Rock located the gun under the long frock coat. “Ha! Not on the hip! Hangin’ low, eh? Wal, cowboy, unbuckle an’ pass.”

A girl, slight of stature, passed Rock to peer at him with challenging eyes, disguised if not hidden by a red mask. Her costume was Spanish, gold and black, very graceful and pretty. A masker in cowboy attire accosted her, to be gayly repulsed. She passed on, and Rock forgot her in his growing, searching gaze for someone he would know the instant she appeared.

Someone took his arm lightly, “Buenas tardes, senor,” said a low voice at his elbow.

Rock bowed gallantly to the slim creature on his arm. He saw that she was the Spanish girl in gold and black.

“Buenas tardes, senorita,” replied Rock, peering into the black holes in the red mask.

She averted her face and walked with him, surely aware of the attention they roused. Rock grasped suddenly that there appeared to be a little pressure on his arm, a gradual but sure guidance of his steps. He was to find that they were entering the dance-hall, where many masqueraders had assembled.

The orchestra burst into music, a languorous Spanish waltz, once Rock’s great favourite.

The girl who had led him there swayed to the rhythm toward him, slowly lifting her hand to his shoulder. “You handsome gambler!”

“You don’t know me!” she cried in arch reproach.

“Amy!” exclaimed Rock incredulously. “You sure are a Spanish girl. Fooled me plumb good.

“Not a soul recognised me,” she said, in delight. “I’ll tell no one but you. Come, this is your old favourite waltz.”

Before Rock knew what was happening she was in his arms, light as thistle-down, and they were whirling, gliding to dreamy strains that found the old chord deep in his memory.

“Trueman, hold me tighter,” she whispered, and leaned back against his arm, to look up at him.

“Behave yourself, Mrs. Dabb,” he returned warningly, with a laugh. “Reckon I don t know quite all due my hostess, but sure not that.”

“Well, if you won’t, I’ll have to hug you,” she went on. “Oh, I could hug you and kiss you before everybody! Trueman, what did you do to my husband?”

“Did I do anythin’?” asked Rock, helpless in the unexpectedness of this attack.

“Did you? Trueman, he came home the other day, at noon — something unheard of,” she went on swiftly. “He told me you’d been in to see him. That you had raked him over the coals. That you had cleared up something about you and me! Then he told me he had been sore and jealous for a long time. He admitted being mean, selfish, suspicious. He’d neglected me shamefully. He would turn over a new leaf. He would try to be young again. Oh, he knocked me cold! Since then he has been like he was when he courted me. And most amazing of all, he’s to drop in here to-night — in masquerade. He wouldn’t even tell what he’d wear.”

“Good Lord!” said Rock.

“You should say thank the good Lord, Trueman. I’m happy to-night — as I haven’t been in years.” Then, leaning her head forward to his shoulder she grew silent. Rock was reminded that the better side of Amy had always come uppermost when she was dreamily, happily excited. When she was jealously excited she was about as tractable as a wildcat. Round and round they swung amid the colourful murmuring throng. The scrape and thud of cowboy boots drowned the patter and slide of lighter-footed dancers. Then suddenly the music eased.

Amy must have had certain duties as a hostess, for she slipped away from Rock and mingled with the assemblage. He made no effort to follow, but haunted the long corridor, studying the new arrivals. He was at the entrance of the patio, standing close to the wall, when a small party entered the corridor.

“Look!” spoke up a woman to her neighbour. “That girl in white. Colonial wedding-gown! Isn’t she just lovely? Who can she be?”

This remark caused Rock to take a second glance at the entering petty. It struck him that the girl in the wedding-gown was certainly worth looking at.

Her hair was done up in some amazing style and as colourless as snow. Arms and neck, of exquisite contour, likewise were of a dazzling whiteness. The gown, a hoop-skirted, many ruffled affair, took up the space of three ordinary dressed women.

Trueman flattened himself against the wall. Nevertheless, the young lady so marvellously gowned was forced to sweep her skirts aside to avoid contact. The momentary halting of the party, evidently to choose a direction, brought this Colonial masquerader so close to Rock that he meant to step forward and allow her more room. But she seemed to be looking at him and he felt suddenly rooted to the spot.

As the soft, fluffy, perfumed gown swept him, Rock felt a hand touch his — slip a folded paper into his palm with quick pressure. Then she passed and he leaned there staring.

Rock’s trembling fingers tightened on the paper. It was a note. That girl had been Thiry. In one glance she had pierced his disguise. Rock peered into his palm at the note, then rushed off to find a light by which he could read it. Finally he found one, and here, after a keen glance around, he opened the note.

Dear Trueman,

I am in terrible fear, but I will come to the dance, cost what it may.

Ash is in town, hiding. I do not know what he means. Allie and I will go to the Farrell’s to dress, and come with their crowd.

Ash never saw my great-grandmother’s wedding-dress. He won’t recognise me, when he comes. For he will come! You must keep close watch over me, else I would not dare take the risk. He is capable of stripping’ me before the crowd. I will dance with the Farrell boys a little — the rest with you. I shall not stay till they unmask. I want to go before he knows me. You must take me away before that.

It may be madness. But I let my heart become set on this one dance. I grow furious at the thought of giving it up. I don’t know myself of late. I will come — if only to —

Thiry.

Rock placed the note inside his vest and strode back toward the corridor. As he entered it, Thiry came toward him. Rock, removing his hat, made her an elaborate bow.

“Lady from Virginia, I salute you,” he said gallantly.

“Sir knight of the Card Table,” she replied, and offered her hand.

Rock clasped it and kissed it with the old-fashioned courtesy due the character she personified. But they acted no more. She seemed silently confused as he led her to the patio. There in the subdued glow of the lanterns they were comparatively alone.

“Thiry! You paralysed me,” he said. “I didn’t know you. I didn’t know you. And, oh, how lovely you look!”

She murmured her thanks. They stood under an archway beside the fountain.

“How ever did you know me?” he asked.

“It was the way you stood.”

“Reckon that makes me awful happy — an’ fearful, too, Thiry.”

“You! You have little to be fearful about. But I—”

“Never mind. If I ever had eyes I’ll use them tonight. I’ll let no insult, no humiliation touch you.”

The music ceased and the gay dancers poured out of the hall to promenade in couples and quartets and crowds.

“My brothers — the twins and Al — and the Farrell boys know me, of course,” said Thiry, as if remembering where she was. “We must find them. Then after a few dances I’ll be free — if — if you—”

“Thiry, there’s no if — now or ever,” he replied unsteadily.

“Will you dance while I dance?”

“No. I’ll watch you — and see if anyone else is watchin’ you.”

“Oh, but surely you must want to dance some?” she queried.

“Only with you.”

“Not Amy Dabb?” she flashed.

“Not Amy Dabb,” he said, turning to find, her face averted.

“But, Trueman, she is your hostess. If I remember correctly, she meant to embody the duty of all her masculine guests in your attendance.”

“Did she?” replied Rock, a little nettled at her satire. “You mean she gave you a hunch I’d dance all my dances with her?”

“Something or other like that,” murmured Thiry.

“Reckon she was just talkin’.”

“Then I was wrong to believe her. Forgive me. But I didn’t see how you could be so — so — such a liar.”

“Thiry, I couldn’t lie to you,” he returned, with low voice ringing. “Save me agony by believing that now. For some day you’ll know.”

“But you must dance with, your hostess — at least once.”

“Once. Would you stand for it once? — I mean, straight out — do you want me to dance with you instead of Amy Dabb?”

“Yes, I do,” she returned hotly. “She hurt me. She said catty things all in a nice way. She offered to lend me a dress. She made me feel a — a country bumpkin. I told you before, what she hinted about you. It’s selfish, little, miserable of me to want to show her. But she made me almost hate her.”

“Thiry, my obligation is paid,” replied Rock. “I have had that one dance with Mrs. Dabb. I didn’t recognise her until she made herself known. It’s over. So there.”

“I’d like you to dance with Allie,” returned Thiry shyly. “She won’t tell on you. For that matter, it’d be fun, if we can fool her.”

“Fine. Let’s find her and your friends.”

CHAPTER 11

THIRY HAD INTRODUCED Rock to her sister Alice as Senor del Toro of Las Vegas. And Rock felt that so far as dancing was concerned he had acquitted himself creditably.

The dance was soon over, and Rock surrendered Allie to her next partner. He became all eyes then. He was no longer a masquerader. He shifted in one moment to the cool, searching cowboy on a trail. His searching gaze was concerned with the masculine element of that gay crowd.

He lounged around the door of the hall during two dances before he convinced himself that Ash was not among the cowboys dancing. Then he strolled down one long aisle and up the other, peering at every man and into every shadow. Likewise he searched the patio. Returning to his post just inside the dance-hall door, he took up his vigil there.

Another dance had just started. The big hall was a wonderful spectacle of movement, colour, youth, beauty, and humour.

Then Rock espied Thiry. “Senor del Toro, you look lonesome,” she said gayly. “Are there no charming senoritas here?”

“I can see only one.

“Come. The rest is yours,” she said, and took his arm.

“Has anyone discovered you?”

“Only one I know of, Amy Dabb. She was quick to see through it.”

“Well. Did she say anythin’?”

“I rather think so. She said: ‘Hello, Thiry! You look great. But wedding-gowns don’t always mean wedding-bells.”

Again they strolled under the magic rose and purple of the dimming lanterns, and on to the secluded bower in the patio. Here the stars shone white and watchful through the foliage.

“It’s very — warm,” murmured Thiry, as Rock leaned over her in the shadow.

“Take off your mask,” he suggested.

“No, senor.”

Trueman took her hand in his. It was an almost instinctive action on his part. She made no attempt to withdraw it, greatly to his surprise and joy.

“Trueman you must take me home soon,” she said, as if coming out of a spell.

“Oh no, not now. Just one more dance,” pleaded Rock. “You said the rest were mine.”

“But I’d forgotten. Ash will come any moment. I feel it — here,” she whispered, her hand on her breast.

“Thiry, he is not here now. I’ve looked clear through every man in the outfit. Please risk it.”

“Well, then — one more.”

But at the end of this dance she forgot again or could not resist the joy of the hour. Once more Rock led her to their shadowed corner.

“Take off your mask,” he begged again.

“Can you put it back on — right?” she asked a little tremulously.

“Sure I can.”

Then she was unmasked under his worshipping eyes, under the dim rose light of the lantern above and the far, white, and knowing stars. Once she lifted her eyes to him — eyes that betrayed the spell of the moment — then no more.

Rock won her to stay one more dance, revelled in his power to persuade her, though his conscience flayed him. What risk’ he might incur for her! But he gambled with his happiness.

“Trueman, we must go now,” she said nervously.

“Yes. But don’t you hate to?”

“No. I’m too thankful for — for all it’s been.”

They reached the patio. Something had happened, as Rock guessed from excited voices. A girl cried out in dismay.

“Hey, look out there!” called someone, unmistakably a cowboy.

“He snatched at my mask,” replied a girl, angrily.

“He got mine,” added another.

Rock drew Thiry out of the press. “Some cowboy snatchin’ masks,” he said hurriedly.

Suddenly into the open space before him leaped a lithe figure of a cowboy, wearing a red handkerchief as a mask. He was as quick as light — so quick that Rock scarcely guessed his purpose in time to thwart it. One sweep of hand tore Thiry’s mask from her white face! She cried out and spasmodically clutched Rock’s arm.

The cowboy appeared to leap up. He snatched off the red handkerchief that masked him, to disclose the livid face of Ash Preston. His evil eyes, like coals of blue fire, flashed over her face, her bare neck and arms, her ruffled gown.

“Ash,” gasped Thiry, clutching Rock’s arm tighter, “meet Senor del Toro — my masquerade partner!”

“Senor Hell!” Like a snake’s head his hand shot out, to fasten in Thiry’s bodice and tear with fiendish swiftness.

In one single action Rock freed himself from Thiry and struck Preston on the side of the face. He went down with a thud. Women screamed; men shouted excitedly. Up bounded Preston, with catlike quickness, his hand flashing back for his gun. But it was not there. He had passed the sheriff and had forgotten. His wolfish face gleamed fiercer. His tawny hair stood up.

“Greaser, I’ll kill you for thet!” he groaned out.

“Caramba!” replied Rock, and made at Preston with terrific fury. His onslaught was like a battering-ram. He cared nothing for Preston’s sudden blows. He broke through them, beat him back, and knocked him against the wall. Ash fell, but got up cursing, to come back wilder than ever, his face the redder for blood. There vaas a swift interchange of blows, then one from Rock staggered Preston. Another, swift and hard, sent Preston in a long fall.

Before he could rise Rock plunged upon him, beat him with right, left, right, left — tremendous blows that made Ash sink limp. Rock seized him by the neck, choked and shook him as a terrier with a rat, and rising, dragged him to the fountain and threw him bodily into the shallow water. Ash lay on his back, his head just above the surface.

Rock, remembering his mask, felt for it and found it intact. Thiry’s white mask lay where Preston had dropped it. Snatching it up, Rock whirled to see some woman in the act of covering Thiry’s naked shoulders and bosom with a shawl.

“Come — we’ll get out — of here,” he panted hoarsely, and placing a firm hand under her arm he led her away from the gaping crowd, down the corridor toward the outlet. The voices of excited people grew fainter. Rock halted long enough to produce his check and get his gun belt, which he threw over his left arm.

Thiry was weak. She leaned on his arm. Still she kept up with his rapid steps. Not for three blocks did Rock speak, nor did she.

“He — didn’t know you,” she burst out, then, “Called you greaser!”

“Yes, that’s the only good thing about it,” returned Rock.

Her grief tortured Rock, but he did not have it in him to retract his words. They hurried on to Winter’s house. Rock saw a light. He wanted to say good night to Thiry at the gate, but could not. She still clung to him. At the porch he halted, and helped her up.

It was shaded there by trees, but he could still see her pale face and the great eyes, strange and dark in the night. Before he knew what he was doing he clasped his arms round her, as she stood a little above him. She did not repulse him, but she pressed her hands, against his shoulders. Thus they looked at each other in the shadow.

“Forgive me, Thiry,” he implored “I’ll go to my room before anyone sees me. Ash didn’t know me. He never will.”

“She will tell,” said Thiry hopelessly.

“Amy Dabb!” exclaimed Rock, with a start. “She did know. But she’ll have no chance tonight. They’ll pack him out of there pronto. Tomorrow I’ll find some way to shut her mouth.”

“Yes, you will,” said Thiry, with sad derision. “Don’t waste your breath, Trueman. Perhaps it will not occur to her that Ash didn’t know you.”

“Then let’s hope for the best,” Rock tightened his arms a little, drew her closer. “Thiry, kiss me good night,” he whispered.

“No!” Yet she seemed weakening. He felt her quiver in his arms.

“Then let me kiss you? It might be the first and last time. For if Ash finds me out I’ll have to leave this country. Else I’d have to kill him!”

“You’d go away for me?” she flashed, suddenly quickened.

“I promise you.”

“You love me so much?”

“Thiry girl, I love you more than I can prove.”

Blindly, with unreckoning pulse, she bent and met his upturned lips with her own. Quickly, with a gasp, she broke away to stare a moment, as if some realization had stricken her, then she fled into the house.

* * *

Ash Preston did not return to Sunset Pass for a week. Rumour drifted down by a rider that Preston was hunting for the Mexican who had beaten him at the dance.

It was an anxious and brooding time for Trueman. Rock, more, perhaps, because of Thiry’s unconcealed dread than for his own sake. Nevertheless, he never drew an easy breath until Ash returned, sober yet showing the effects of a prolonged debauch.

One moment Rock stood on the porch, his hand quivering, while Ash strode over from his cabin. Sullen, his face black and blue, still swollen, he presented no encouraging aspect. But manifestly that moment proved he did not know or suspect Rock had been his assailant. Then the suspense of this meeting for Rock ended when Thiry almost fainted in Ash’s arms.

“Aw, Thiry, I’m sorry,” rasped out Ash.

Rock did not tarry with the family after supper that night. He carried away with him a look from Thiry’s eyes — the first since that unforgettable last moment on Winter’s porch — and it drove him to pace under the pines to cast exultant defiance up at the silent, passionless white stars.

He paced a beat from the open back to the gloom of the thick-spreading trees. Against the black shadow of the slope his figure could not be seen. But his own sharp eye caught a dark form crossing in front of a cabin light. He heard a voice low but clear — Gage Preston’s. “Ash, come hyar.”

Suddenly he made them out, perilously close upon him. Silently he sank behind a log.

“What do you want?” growled Ash.

“Sit there,” ordered Preston.

Rock felt the jar of the log where evidently Preston had pushed Ash. Noiselessly craning his neck, Rock saw the dim figure of the father bending over. Then Rock espied Ash sitting not ten feet from where he lay.

“What the hell’s got into you?” demanded Ash.

“What the hell’s got into you — thet you hang on in town, lookin’ for trouble, makin’ more fer me?” countered the father sternly. “I needed you hyar. There’s work no one else can do.”

“But, Pa, I wanted to kill thet Senor del Toro,” protested Ash.

“Bah! Senor del Toro? Why, you lunkhead, thet make-believe Spaniard was Truman Rock!”

“Hell, no!” snapped Ash, hotly. “I had thet hunch. Next mornin’ I went to Thiry. I told her thet black-masked pardner of hers was Rock an’ I was a-goin’ to kill him. She fell on her knees. An’ she wrapper her arms around me. An’ she swore to God it wasn’t Rock. Pa, I had to believe her. Thiry never lied in her life.”

“Mebbe I’m wrong,” choked Preston. “But whoever he was he gave you plumb what I’d have given you. You disgraced Thiry. You shamed her. You hurt her so she’s been ill. She — who’s loved you all her life.”

“Shet up, Pa,” wailed Ash, writhing. “I can stand anythin’ but thet.”

“Wal, you shore have a queer streak in you. Yellow clear through when it comes to Thiry. But fer her you’d be a man. An’ we could go on with our work that’s callin’ for all a man’s brains. You can’t be relied upon, as you used to be. Now listen, somethin’s up out there on the range. I’ve done some scoutin’ around lately. Too many riders snoopin’ around Sunset Pass! To-day I seen some of Hesbitt’s outfit. An’ Slagle asked me sarcastic like why Clink Peeples was over hyar so much. Ash, there’s a nigger in the wood-pile. I shore don’t like the smell.”

“Clink Peeples had better keep away from the Pass.”

“There you go again. What good will it do to throw a gun on Peeples? If they’re suspicious, thet’d only make them worse. What’d you do with them last Half Moon hides?”

“I hid them.”

“Where? Didn’t you take them to Tutestone Cave, as I ordered you?”

“I packled some there. It was too far, an’ I was tuckered out. I hid the rest under the culvert.”

“But I told you not to hide any more there. I always was scared of thet culvert. Once a big rain washed some out. It could happen again.”

“Wal, it ain’t too late. I’ll take Boots tomorrow night, an well pack the fresh ones over to Limestone.”

“No. The ground’s soft since it rained. You’d leave tracks. An’ thet’s too risky. Better leave them. An’ we’ll lay off butcherin’ fer a spell.”

“Lay off nothin’. With all them orders fer beef? I guess not. Pa, there’s room fer a thousand hides down in the old well.”

“Ash, I tell you we’ll lay off killin’ till this suspicion dies down.”

“Wal, I won’t lay off, an’ I reckon I can boss the boys,” replied Ash.

Then Preston cursed him, cursed him with every hard word known to the range, and some besides.

“This hyar rider, Rock,” spoke up Ash, as if he had never heard the storm of profanity, “when yon goin’ to fire him?”

“Rock? Not at all.”

“Wal, then, I will. He’s been around too long, watchin’ Thiry, an’ mebbe us, too.”

“Ash, haven’t you sense enough to see thet Rock’s bein’ hyar is good fer us?” asked Preston, girding himself afresh. “Never was a rider hyar so trusted as Rock. Thet diverts suspicion from us.”

“But he might find us out.”

“It ain’t likely. Shore he doesn’t want to.”

“He might stumble on to it by accident. Or get around Thiry an’ scare it out of her.”

“Wal, if he did, thet wouldn’t be so bad. He loves her well enough to come in with us.”

“An’ if she did win him over, what would he want?” hissed Ash.

“Huh! Reckon thet’s easy to answer. An’ I’m tellin’ you, Ash, Thiry would like Rock if she had half a chance.”

A knife plunged into Ash’s vitals could scarcely have made him bend double and rock to and fro, like that thrust of Preston’s.

“She’d like him, huh? So thet’s why she made me promise not to pick a fight with him—”

“Wal, Ash, if circumstances come up we can’t help or beat, what’n hell can we do? I told you ages ago thet Thiry is bound some day to love some lucky rider. It can’t be helped. An’ it might be Rock. Which’d be most infernal lucky fer us.”

“Lucky fer him! Haw! Haw! — I’d shoot his heart out.”

Preston rose to loom menacingly over his son. “You can’t murder him in his sleep or shoot him in the back. Thet’d look bad in Wagontongue. It’d just about ruin us. An’ if you call him out to an even break — why, Ash, he’ll kill you! Savvy? Rock is cold as ice, as quick as lightnin’. He has a hawk eye. I’m warnin’ you, Ash.”

CHAPTER 12

IN THE MORNING Rock watched from his window until Ash left, then went out to breakfast. Thiry did not appear.

Preston came out while Rock was eating and said, “Rock, I’ve a job for you, that’ll take you away some time. The boys are gettin’ a pack outfit ready. I want five hundred head of two-year-old steers in the flat down there by Slagle’s ranch. By August.”

“You’re the boss, Preston. But are you sure you won’t need me more right here?”

Preston lowered his voice. “It ain’t what I’d like or need. I had no idee last night thet I’d send you off this mornin’. But it popped into my head.”

“Ahuh! Who popped it?”

“Thiry. She asked me to. Ash is wuss than ever before. An’ fer once Thiry seemed to be’ thinkin’ of somebody else but him.”

Rock repaired to his cabin and rolled his bed and packed the things he would need. He wavered between two strong desires — to see Thiry before he left and write to her. The better course would be to write. Therefore, with pencil and paper he sat down at his little table and began, with hand that he could not keep steady and heart which accelerated a beat for every word.

Thiry Darling,

Your Dad has ordered me away for several weeks, maybe more. I am glad to go, though not to see your sweet face for so long will be terrible. But I shall work like a beaver, and content myself with thinking of you by day and dreaming of you by night — with praying for your happiness and welfare.

Don’t worry, Thiry dear, about Ash, or me, or whatever it is that is wrong. You can’t help it, it will not turn out so bad as you think. I believe that if you were to fall into some really dreadful trouble I could save you. Of course by trouble, I mean something concerning Ash. I must not deceive you, dearest, your brother is the kind of range man that comes to a bad end. You must face this with courage. You must realize that he might involve your father, you, and all of your people in something through which you could suffer.

It is no use to try to change Ash. You waste your strength. I think you can only pray and hope for the best.

I shall think of you every sunset, and see you come out to watch the pass.

Ever, Trueman.

Returning to the Preston cabin, Rock looked for Alice to deliver his note, but as she was not there he ventured of his own accord. Slipping it under the door of Thiry’s cabin, he beat a rather precipitate retreat.

In half an hour he sat astride Egypt, bound down the Pass. This trip would be a welcome respite, and from every angle favourable for him. Two hours later he was climbing the benches into the black timber, and late that afternoon he halted with the boys in a sylvan spot to make a permanent camp.

“Boys, your dad has stuck us with a job he thinks we can’t do,” observed Rock at the campfire. “Five hundred head of two-year-olds by August.”

“Can’t be did,” replied Tom.

“Let’s fool him once,” added Al, with spirit. “There’s another dance in town along early in August. An’ if you all want a hunch — there’s somebody who says I gotta be on hand.”

“That’s the talk, Al,” said Rock. “If we can find a canyon or draw somewhere close we’ll drive what we round up each day, and fence them in.”

Before they went to bed Rock had imbued the brothers with something of his own will to do or die. Next morning they were up in the dark and on the drive when the first tinges of rose coloured the rims of the Pass.

One night Al got in latest of all, weary and sullen. Rock knew something untoward had happened.

“What did you run up on today, cowboy?” queried Rock, at length.

“I was up under the Notch,” replied Al, “an’ first thing I seen a couple of riders high up, watchin’ me. Reckon they never lost sight of me all day.”

Three days later, miles east of the Notch, Rock’s alert eye caught sight of riders above him on a slope, keeping behind the trees, and no doubt spying upon him with a glass.

Then, a couple of days before the full 500 head had been herded into the canyon-corral, the thing Rock expected came to pass. Early in the morning a group of riders, five in number, rode down upon the camp.

“Boys, reckon I don’t like this,” said Rock gruffly. “But you take it natural-like, and I’ll do the talkin’.”

As the riders entered camp Rock rose to to greet the visitors. They were seasoned range-riders, a hard-looking quintet, not one of whom Rock had ever seen.

“Howdy! just in time for grub,” he said heartily.

“Much obliged, but we had ourn,” replied the leader, a bronzed, rugged cowman with bright bold eyes that roved everywhere. “Gage Preston outfit?”

“Part of it,” replied Rock.

“Round-up or drivin’ a herd?” went on the interlocutor.

“We’re drivin’ 500 head of two-years-olds down the Pass. Reckon another day or so will make the full Count.”

“Big job for so few punchers. Where you got the herd bunched?”

“We fenced a canyon across the creek,” returned Rock, pointing eastward.

“Don’t know the lay of the land,” went on the leader. “Haven’t rid long on this range.”

“Shore you didn’t have to tell me that,” replied Rock bluntly. “You’re from Wyomin’, an ridin’ for Nesbitt.”

“How’d you know thee?”

“Reckon nobody else would brace me this way.”

“You? Which one of the Prestons might you be? I’ve seen Ash Preston, an’ you’re shore not him.”

“I might be any one of the other six Prestons,” rejoined Rock with dry sarcasm. “Hadn’t you better hand over your callin’ card before askin’ me to introduce thyself?”

“I’m Jim Dunne, foreman for Hesbitt,” replied the rider.

“All right. How do, Mr. Dunne? A blind cowboy could see your call isn’t friendly. Now what do you want?”

“Wal, we’ve come over to have a look at your herd.”

“Ahuh!” Rock strode halfway across the camp space to confront Dunne. “Just to see if by accident we didn’t round up a couple of Half Moon steers? Dunne, you bet your life you’re goin’ to look over our herd. Then I’ll call you plumb straight.”

One of Dunne’s men whispered to him, with visible effect.

“Say, are you this fellar Rock?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, I’m Rock. Reckon that doesn’t mean apythin’ to you. But maybe it will later.”

“Wal, I can’t see as there’s any reason to be riled,” returned Dunne, evidently now’ wanting to conciliate Rock.

“That’s because you don’t know the range,” said Rock curtly and then turned to the Preston brothers. “Boys, we’ll drive the steers out of the canyon for inspection. We’ll head them down into the Pass. Then we’ll pack and go on in.”

Rock relentlessly held the Half Moon outfit on both sides of the corral gate while the cowboys drove the steers out. It was Rock’s task to head them down toward the Pass, which was easy after the leaders got started.

Dunne made several weak attempts to call off the inspection but Rock rigorously held him and his men to a count of every steer that passed the gateway. It was a long tedious job.

“Dunne, between you all you’ve seen every head of stork we’ve driven,” said Rock, when he has dismounted to face the men. “You didn’t see one Half Moon, brand did you?”

“Can’t say I did.”

“And you punchers? Did you?”

“No, Rock, we didn’t,” replied the one who had whispered to Dunne. “An’ if we’d had our way this deal wouldn’t hev come off.”

“All right. Dunne, go for your gun!” commanded Rock.

“What!” ejaculated Dunne hoarsely, his face turning yellow.

“Can’t you hear? ‘Any man who thinks me a rustler, has got to back it with his gun.”

“Rock, I — I — we — throwin’ guns wasn’t in my orders.”

“Dunne, you don’t fit on this range,” replied Rock, in bitter scorn. “Keep out of my way hereafter.” Then he turned to the other riders. “Reckon you’re not willin’ parties to this raw deal Dunne gave me. Any self-respectin’ cowboy, if he calls another a rustler, knows it’s true and is ready to fight. Tell Hesbitt exactly what happened here. Tell him rotten gossip on the range isn’t proof of an outfit’s guilt.”

“All right, Rock, we’ll shore give Hesbitt the straight of this.”

The four mounted men rode away, and Dunne made haste to get astride and follow.

On the third day following, Rock and his cowboys left the herd of steers in the meadowland below Slagle’s ranch, and rode on home, a weary and silent four.

Rock asked the brothers to keep their mouths shut about the advent of the Half Moon outfit, but strict observance of their promises was not likely. Indeed, by the time he had shaved and changed his clothes, there came a thump on his cabin door.

Rock slid back the bar, whereupon Preston stamped in, with Ash close behind him.

“Howdy, boss!” said Rock cheerfully, and nodded to Ash.

“Al busted in with a wild story,” broke out Preston. “Said Hesbitt’s outfit spied on you, then rode into your camp. Five of them. Feller named Dunne in charge. He was mean as a skunk an’ said he’d look your herd over. But when you called him an’ he found out who you was he tried to hedge. Al says you made him inspect every steer you had — an’ after that dared him to throw a gun. Al was terrible excited. Darn fool blurted thet all out in front of the folks. Rock, was he just loco, or he is exaggeratin’ a little run-in you had with one of Hesbitt’s outfits?”

“Boss, Al told the truth, and put it mild at that,” replied Rock, and turned to tie his scarf before the mirror. In the glass he saw Preston’s eyes roll and fix with terrible accusation upon his son. “Sit down, both of you,” went on Rock.

Ash was coolly rolling a cigarette, his face a mask. Preston had been drinking of late, but appeared sober, and now, though grim and angry, met Rock’s glance steadily. “Wal, thet’s short an’ sweet,” he said. “Rock, suppose you tell us everythin’ thet come off.”

Thus adjured, Rock began a minute narrative of the situation.

“Rock, suppose Dunne couldn’t have been bluffed? What then?”

“I’d have bored him,” answered Rock. “And I told Dunne to keep out of my way. If I meet him—”

“Wal, Rock,” interposed Ash in a voice that made Rock’s flesh creep, “I’ll see to it I’ll meet him first.”

“Cowboy, I never expected you’d stand up fer me thet way,” burst out Preston, genuinely moved. “It means more’n I can tell you, havin’ my youngsters be with you then. I just can’t thank you.”

Preston paced the room, gazing down at the floor. “Reckon this hyar deal wouldn’t be particular bad fer me if it wasn’t fer our butcherin’ bizness,” he remarked, as if thoughtfully to himself.

Rock, however divined that was a calculating speech. “Yon hit it, Gage. There’s’ the rub. My hunch is you must quit the butcherin’,” said Rock deliberately.

“I will by thunder!” replied, the rancher, wheeling to face his son.

Ash rose out of the cloud of smoke. At that moment, for Trueman Rock, nothing in the world could have been so desirable as to smash that face. Ash took no notice of his father’s decision. He flipped his cigarette butt almost at Rock. “I’m butcherin’ to-morrow, Mister Rock,” he asserted.

“Butcher and be darned,” retorted Rock, absolutely mimicking the other’s tone.

“You’re gettin’ too thick out here,” said Ash, backing to the door. “I told you once to clear out. This’s the second time. There won’t never be no third.” He backed out the door, his blue eyes like fire under ice.

“Gage, that bullheaded son of yours will be the ruin of you,” said Rock, turning to the rancher.

“Lord! don’t I know it!” groaned Preston from under his huge hands.

Rock remained away from supper. He found in his pack enough to satisfy him. It was a trying hour as he watched from his window.

Presently Rock saw Preston, accompanied by Thiry, come out of his cabin and cross over to enter Ash’s. Rock decided to go down through the grove and come up between Ash’s cabin and Thiry’s, and wait for her.

It must have been long after midnight when Rock heard a door close. He waited, straining eyes and ears. How pitch black it was at a little distance! Then out of the blackness a slender vague shape glided, like a spectre.

Rock let her get right upon him, so close he could have touched her, and his heart suddenly contracted violently. “Thiry! Thiry!” he whispered.

He heard her gasp. Like a statue she stood. “Thiry! Don’t be frightened, I waited. It’s Truman,” he whispered.

“You!” she cried and seemed to loom on him out of the shadows. Her arms swept wide and that extraordinary action paralyzed Rock. The next instant they closed round his neck.

CHAPTER 13

ROCK STOOD STIFF and immovable as the pine tree by kis side, but his mind, his heart received the fact of that embrace with tumultuous violence.

Scarcely had Thiry clasped him when she uttered a cry and released the convulsive hold. “Oh — I’m beside myself!” she whispered.

Taking her hand, Rock led her to the bench under the pine, where she sank almost in collapse, her head bowed.

“Thiry, why did you — do that?”

“I — I don’t know. What must you think of me?”

“Reckon I think all that’s wonderful and beautiful. But I think also I’m entitled to an explanation.”

“Trueman how can I explain what I scarcely realize?” she said with pathos. “I’ve been hours with Dad and Ash. Oh, it was sickening. We begged — we prayed Ash to give up — plans he has. He was a fiend. But I kept trying till I was exhausted. As I came across to my cabin I was thinking of how you met that Half Moon outfit. How you resented suspicion against Dad. I was wondering how I should thank you — to-morrow. Then you rose right out the black ground. What a fright you gave me! And when you spoke I — I just—”

Rock’s compassion overcame his more powerful emotions. He grasped her arm, and pulled her closer to him, and he held her. “You stay here. Reckon I might remind you that Ash is not the only bad hombre on the range.”

To Judge from her shrinking, and the trembling of her arm, his speech both frightened and angered her. “Very well, if you detain me by force,” Thiry said coldly. “Why were you waiting for me at this unheard-of hour?”

“I saw you go into Ash’s cabin, and I thought I’d wait till you came out.”

“Then you were spying on me, on us?”

“Reckon so, if you want to use hard words. But sure my strongest motive was just to see you, talk to you a minute.”

“Well, since you’ve done that, please let me go.”

“Thiry, you upset everythin’ when you put your arms round my neck,” he said. “I love you. Tell me what weighs so upon you. Tell me your secret.”

“I — I have no secret.”

“Don’t you trust my love?”

“Oh, I would if I dared.”

Rock had wrenched that truth from her. Therein lay her weakness, the vulnerable spot upon which he must remorselessly make his attack. He must play upon her weakness, force her to confession, betray his knowledge of her guilty sharing of Preston’s secret.

“Thiry, you might dare anything on my love,” he began.

“Oh no — no! If it were only myself!”

“Thiry, there are only two people in all the world — you and me.”

“How silly, Trueman. You are selfish.”

“Well, if it’s selfish to love you, worship you, to want your burdens on my shoulders, to save you from trouble, disgrace — to make you happy — then indeed I am sure selfish.”

Through her wrist, which he held, he felt at the word ‘disgrace’ a distinct shock. Hurriedly she rose.

“Do you speak of love and — disgrace in one breath?”

“Yes. And you understand,” he replied sharply. “Thiry darling, I can forgive your falsehood to all except me.”

It did not take much of a pull to get her into his arms, and in another moment he had her helpless, lifting her from the ground, her fate close under his.

“Thiry, don’t you love me a very little?” he asked, deep tenderness thrilling in his voice.

“No! Oh, let me go!” she implored.

“Thiry, I love you so wonderfully. Ever since that minute you stepped in Winter’s store, Didn’t you like me then — or afterwards?”

“I suppose I did. But what’s the use to talk of it? You’re holding me in a — a most shameless manner. Let me go.”

“Reckon I’ll hold you this way a long time. Till you say you love me a little. I must make sure. Reckon first off kiss you a couple of thousand times and see if I can tell by that.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Wouldn’t I, though? Sure I’m a reckless cowboy. Now watch. And he bent to kiss her hair again and again and again, and then her ear, and last het cheek that changed its coolness under his lips.

“There!” he whispered, and drew her head back, on his shoulder. “Sure they were only worshipful kisses — do you hate me for them?”

“I couldn’t hate you. Please let me go — before it’s too—”

“It is too late, Thiry, for both of us,” he Whispered passionately, and he kissed her lips — and then again, with all the longing that consumed him.

“Now will you confess you love me — a little?” he asked huskily.

“O God help me — I do — I do!”

“More than a little? Thiry, I didn’t expect much. Sure I don’t deserve it — but tell me.”

“Yes, more.” And she twisted to hide her face, while her left arm slowly crept up his shoulder, and went half ‘round his neck.

“Thiry, bless you! If this’s not a one-sided affair, kiss me.”

“No — no — if I give up — we’re ruined,” she whispered tragically.

“Sure we’re ruined if you don’t. So let’s have the kisses anyhow.”

“Truman, since I never can — marry you — I — I mustn’t kiss you.”

“Darling, one thing at a time. By and by well tackle the marryin’ problem. I’d go loco if I thought you’d be my wife some day. But just now make this dream come true. I want your kisses, Thiry. I’ll compromise. I’ll be generous. Just one — but not like that fairy kiss you gave me on Winter’s porch.”

“Trueman, if give one — it means all,” she said tremulously.

Lifting her head he turned her face to his.

“You are wrong to — to master me this way,” she said, mournfully. “If you knew — you might not want it.”

“Master nothin’! I am your slave. But kiss me. Settle it forever.”

How slowly she lifted her pale face, with eyes like black stars! In the sweet fire of her lips Rock gained his heart’s desire.

Then she lay in his arms, her face hidden, while he gazed out into the stormy night, across the black Pass to the dim flares along the battlements of the range.

“Now Trueman, explain what you meant by my — falsehood to all?” she asked presently.

“Are you quite prepared?” he returned gravely “Sure it’s not easy to rush from joy to trouble.”

She sat up, startled.

“Thiry, you are keepin’ Ash’s and your father’s secret from all. They are cattle thieves. Beef thieves. So are your brothers Range, Scoot and Boots, along with them.”

“O my God! You know!” she almost screamed, and slipped to her knees before him.

“Hush! Not so loud! You’ll wake someone,” he said sternly, placing a firm hand over her mouth. “Get up off your knees.”

But she only leaned forward, clutching him, peering up into his face. “Trueman, how do — you know?”

“I suspected it when I first came. I found signs. Quicklime! That made me suspicious. Slagle’s well is half full of hides. Sure those hides have not the Preston brand. Then over near where they butchered last I came on the same boot track that I’d seen down near the slaughterhouse. It led under a culvert. There I found hundreds of hides, tied up in burlap sacks. I opened one. That hide had a Half Moon brand! Down here at your barn I measured Ash’s boot track. It was the same as that one I’d trailed. But for real proof, I heard your Dad and Ash talkin’ together. They gave it all away.”

“I knew — it would come. It will — kill me,” she wailed brokenly. “Oh, to make love to me — while you were spying on my brother — my father!”

“Little girl, I told you to speak low. Reckon it does look pretty bad to you. But it’s not so bad as it looks — so far as I’m concerned. But, Thiry, you’re in this secret and you would be held guilty in some degree in court, if your part in it was found out. And let me tell you Ash would hold no secret. And there’s the danger for you.”

“Court! Danger? You mean they’ll be arrested — and I will be dragged in with them?”

“Reckon that is liable to happen,” he replied.

“You’d betray us!” Swift as a striking snake her hand darted out and snatched his gun. Leaning back, she extended it with both hands. “I’ll kill you!”

“Thiry, if you believe I — could betray you or them — shoot!”

“You will not tell?” she flushed.

“Never. You sure got me wrong.”

She gave vent to a suddering sound. The gun fell from her hands. She swayed. Then she sank forward, her face on his knees, and clinging to him she broke into low sobs, every one of which was like a knife thrust to Rock.

He let her have it out, and stroked her hair. She did not recover soon, though presently the sobs gave way to soft weeping. Then he held her closer, scarcely seeing her or the black pine-streaked gloom. He was seeing something blacker than the night, more sinister than the shadows. As a last resource, to save her and her father, he could kill Ash Preston. But for Ash, this blundering, thieving work could be halted in time to prevent discovery.

At this brooding juncture of Rock’s meditations he became aware that Thiry was stirring. She rose from her knees while still clinging to him, and she sank beside him on the bench, to lean against him, face uplifted. “Can you forgive me?” she whispered. “I was out of my head. I should have known you would never betray us. Oh, Trueman, can anything be done to save us?”

“It must be done, Thiry. Sure I don’t know what.”

“I dare not breathe a word of this. They would kill you:”

“Never give Ash a hunch that I know. Don’t tell your father anythin’. There’s no great hurry. We’ve got time. I’ll find some way.”

“Oh. Trueman, you are my one hope. To think I’ve tried to drive you away! That I nearly shot you! How little I know myself. But I do know this — if you stop this selling of stolen beef — if you prevent it before they’re arrested — I’ll — I’ll love you with h all my heart and soul.”

“Darling, I will do it somehow.”

“I’ll go now,” she said, rising and swaying unsteadily.

He lifted her in his arms and walked toward her cabin. At the door of the cabin he set her gently upon her feet.

“I’m glad now you came to Sunset Pass,” she whispered.

* * *

Forty-eight hours later Rock rode into Wagontongue, the old-True Rock of earlier and wilder range days. Yet no day of his life had ever seen the passion, the will to invent and achieve, that one single moment now embodied.

When Rock dropped in to see Winter it was not with any definite purpose; but that night he and his old friend locked themselves in a room at the hotel.

“Sol, old-timer, I’m in deep,” said Rock, and he opened his palms expressively. “Thiry loves me!”

“Shore,” replied Winter, sagely wagging his head. “But you wouldn’t take her an’ leave the country?”

“Reckon I couldn’t yet.”

“Do you know anythin’ thet makes Preston’s guilt shore?”

“Yes, but I promised Thiry not to tell it.”

“But you can go to Preston an tell him you know. Scare him to sense.”

“Yes, I can. More — I know I can stop him. Sol, Gage Preston can’t call his soul his own. I reckon Ash led him into this, and nothin’ on earth or in heaven can stop Ash Preston.”

“Nothin’?” echoed Winter. “Nothing but lead!”

“Ahuh! Wal, I never yet seen thet kind of a hombre miss meetin it. Leave him out. Now, Rock, I’ve an idee. If Dabb an’ Lincoln know what I know, they will tell you. Thet obviates any broken promise on your part. An’ they rule the Cattle Association. Hesbitt is only president. What Dabb an’ Lincoln say is law. Now you go to them.”

“But, Sol, what for?”

“Son, you are so deep in love thet you ain’t practical. If you can get Dabb and Lincoln to sympathize with you an’ Thiry, thet’ll be sympathizin’ with Preston. Ten years ago there was a case somethin’ like this. Wal, his friends got him to make good what he’d stole, an’ saved him from jail, if no worse. I’ve been raised with these ranchers, know them. If you’ve got the nerve an’ the wit you can keep Preston from ruin an’ Thiry from a broken heart.”

Rock leaped up, inspired, suddenly on fire with the vision Winter’s sagacity had conjured up. He hugged his startled friend. “Old-timer, I’ve sure got the nerve and you’ve supplied the wit.”

Rock presented himself at Dabb’s office the next morning.

“Hello. Rock! You sure look rocky,” replied Dabb, in answer to his greeting. “Have a chair and a cigar. What’s the trouble, Rock? Things goin’ bad out there?”

“They’ve gone from bad to worse. John, I told you I was in love with Thiry. Well, that wasn’t so bad. But now she’s in love with me.”

“Humph!” said Dabb, chewing at his cigar. “You goin’ to stick out there? And go under with Preston?”

“Reckon I must — if he goes under.”

“Naturally you have your hopes. Rock, some of us cattlemen know you haven’t looked for anythin shady about Preston.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, that question came up the other night at our Association meeting. Hesbitt gave you a hard rub. Over this Preston scandal. Tom Lincoln an’ I an’ one or two others took exception to Hesbitt. We claimed you not only weren’t in with Preston on anythin’ crooked, but you hadn’t trailed around lookin for it. The reason, of course, was you were sweet on Thiry Preston.”

“John, that was damned good of you,” returned Rock warmly. “You an’ Lincoln figured that if I had looked for shady work I’d have found it?”

“Sure. We knew that. No outfit could fool you. Now, tell me what’s worryin’ you, Rock?”

“Hesbitt’s outfits are after Preston,” replied Rock, and he gave Dabb a detailed account of Dunne’s manoeuvre at the Notch camp, and what had come of it.

“Rock, that was a bold move an’ a wise one. But suppose you meet this Dunne again, in more favourable circumstances for him, an’ he shows fight?”

“I’d hate it, but I’ll sure go through with my call. No cowman can insult me like that. He’ll either crawl again, as he did then, or shoot.”

“Rock, I’m darn glad you told me this. In the first place it vindicates Lincoln an’ me in our stand for you. An’ it will stump Hesbitt.”

“Ahuh! Then this new rancher is dead set against Preston?”

“Is he? Well, I guess! An’ he has his outfits r’arin’. Rock, the strange thing is, Hesbitt has been losin’ a good deal of stock — most Half Moon brand — an’ his men can’t locate them. Hide nor hair! But other men have!”

“Dabb, what’re you tellin’ me?”

“Don’t yell, cowboy,” admonished Dabb. “Rock, now listen. You once rode for Jess Slagle. Preston ruined Slagle. An Slagle has hung around out there to get even. Reckon he’s in a fair way to do it. For he has tracked the Prestons down. But he wants to get his money back, or some of it. Sure he knows if he threatens Preston with exposure he’ll only get shot for his pains. So he came to me.”

“Aw, this’s awful!” groaned Rock. “Jess Slagle has tracked Preston down? What to, John?”

“Fresh Half Moon hides hidden close to where Preston last butchered. I called Tom Lincoln in to talk it over. We advised Slagle to keep mum an’ wait.”

“What was the idea in that?”

“Well, we’re all ranchers, you know,” replied Dabb meditatively. “In a little way, more or less, we ve all appropriated cattle not our own. Reckon we hate to make a move. The stolen cattle were not ours, you see. It’ll mean a fight. An’ we’ve passed the buck to Hesbitt.”

“No, John; by heavens! you’ve passed it to me!” returned Rock.

“Now, Rock, you don’t want to take this deal on your shoulders,” protested Dabb.

“Would you? I put it up to you straight,” demanded Rock eloquently. “Suppose you loved Thiry. Suppose she loved you, and you’d found out what a sweet girl she is — that if her father went to jail it’d break her heart — or kill her. Now what would you do?”

“Rock, I’m damned if I know,” replied Dabb, red in the face.

“Dabb, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll buy Slagle’s silence. I’ve five thousand dollars in the bank. I’ll stop Gage Preston’s stealin’ before it’s too late. And if I have to, I’ll call Ash Preston out!”

“No! No!” exclaimed Dabb violently. “Not that last, anyway. Rock, will you never settle down to peaceful ranchin’? You might be a credit to this range. Suppose you come to my house for dinner tonight. I’ll have Tom Lincoln. We’ll talk it over.”

It was dusk when Rock walked out to the mansion that was John Dabb’s home, and was admitted to a cheerful library and the presence of Dabb and Lincoln.

“Howdy, Rock!” was Dabb’s greeting. “Tom, you remember True Rock, don’t you?”

Lincoln was a little grey withered cattleman, bright of eye, lean of face. He looked like a Texas Ranger, and had been one in his day.

“I shore do,” replied Lincoln, extending a hand. “Howdy, Rock!”

“Sit down, friends,” said Dabb. “Now, Rock, I’ve talked your trouble over with Tom, an’ here’s his angle. I’m bound to say I think it a solution to a nasty problem. At that it hinges most on you. Go back to Preston an’ tell him the truth. That he’s found out by some cattlemen, an’ he must quit his butcherin’ stolen cattle before Hesbitt gets on to him.

“Tell him he’s to come before the Cattle Association. We’ll keep the deal out of Court an’ Preston out of jail, provided he pays Slagle off, an’ squares Nesbitt for the stock he has lost. Then Preston an’ his four sons, especially this Ash Preston, who’s the ringleader, no doubt, must leave the country.”

“Wonderful fair and fine of you gentlemen,” returned Rock. “Reckon I couldn’t find words to thank you. I won’t try.”

“Wal, Rock, it’s about this heah way,” put in Lincoln, with his slow Southern accent. “We don’t want the range slandered by such a raw case. Who’d ever think the Prestons would stoop to that? Mrs. Preston is a nice woman and the girls are ladies. Shore they cain’t be in on the secret. We’d like to keep Preston out of jail for their sake.”

“All right, Rock. What do you say?” queried Dabb. “Will you settle it?”

“Yes, with one reservation,” replied Rock grimly. “I can manage Preston. But when Ash finds out, he’ll fight. He can’t be persuaded and he can’t be frightened.”

“Shore. An’ your reservation is you’ll have to kill him,” interposed the imperturbable Texan, his bright eyes on Rock.

Rock did not make any reply.

“Darn tough on the girl. My wife says she loves this particular brother,” added Dabb regretfully.

“Reckon it’s tougher on Rock, but quien sabe? You shore cain’t ever tell aboot a woman,” rejoined Lincoln.

CHAPTER 14

ROCK REINED HIS horse in front of Slagle’s cabin, and dismounted to approach that individual.

“Slagle, I want to talk Dutch to you,” said Rock. “Dabb told me you’d come to him with proof of Preston’s guilt.”

“The devil he did!”

“Yes, and my business with you is to buy your silence.”

Slagle listened intensely to Rocks story. “Say cowboy, air you makin’ this offer on your own hook?” he queried.

“Sure. I told only Sol Winter, who had my money banked.”

“What on earth fer? Rock, excuse me, but it looks darn queer.”

“Jess, I’m not in on the Preston steal, and you sure know that. I’m tryin’ to stall the thing off. Now I figure you as pretty sore, and I don’t blame you. What’ll you take to keep mum?”

“Rock, Lord knows I need money, but I ain’t so low down I’d take a cowboy’s savin’s. What’s your idee? You shore can’t care thet much about Preston.”

“Jess, I love Thiry Preston and I’m goin’ to save her dad because of that.”

“I savvy. Shore call it decent of you. Makes me want to act square with you. An’ the fact is, Rock, I couldn’t prove anythin’ on Preston now. The Half Moon hides have been moved from where I found them.”

“Well, no matter. My offer stands. What’ll you take? Cash! Five thousand.”

“Wal, I hate to take you up, Rock. Say I take half of what you got — twenty-five hundred. Preston will have to pay you. An’ Rock, I’ll pack an’ rustle out of hyar pronto.”

“That’s fine. Here’s your money, Jess. I’m askin’ two promises. Keep Preston’s secret, and don’t get drunk before you leave.”

“Reckon thet’s easy. Rock, I’m much obliged to you. I’ve got another chance in life.”

“I hope you’ll be successful,” returned Rock, stepping over to his horse and mounting.

Slagle followed him, and laid a red-haired hand on Rock’s chaps. “Rock, I’d be willin’ to bet all this hyar money, five to one, thet if you save Gage Preston, you’ll hev to kill Ash.”

Spurring Egypt sharply, Rock swore lustily at the vindictive homesteader and galloped away.

Though Rock put the white horse to a finish that concluded a wonderful day’s travel, it was well after dark when they reached the Pass. Lights were burning in all the Preston cabins. At the barn Rock encountered one of the Mexican lads, and turned Egypt over to him. With that he stalked back through the grove. Peering into the kitchen door, he espied Mrs. Preston and Alice and Lucy at their evening chores.

“Howdy, folks! Is it too late for a bite and a cup of coffee? I’ve had nothin’ since yesterday, Starved isn’t the word!”

“Cowboy, it’s never too late in this chuck-house,” returned Mrs. Preston. “Come in and sit down.”

Heavy boot thuds out on the porch attested to the approach of men.

“Who come in, Ma?” queried Preston outside.

“A poor starved cowpuncher,” replied his wife.

“Dad, it’s only Mr. Rock,” added Alice quickly.

Outside someone violently slapped what sounded like a pair of gloves on the table.

“Pa, didn’t I tell ye?” growled Ash Preston’s unmistakable voice. “Thet hombre can’t keep away from Thiry!”

Footfalls, sharp and quick, rang off the porch to thud on the ground. Then Preston’s dragging steps approached. The doorway framed his burly form.

“Howdy, boss!” greeted Rock.

“Back so soon? Reckoned you’d stay out your leave,” replied the rancher.

“I rustled back,” said Rock meaningly.

“Bad news?”

“Reckon all I got is good.”

“Ahuh. Wal, come in, soon as you want to,” concluded Preston.

Soon afterwards Rock strode out to seek Preston.

“Rock, you didn’t break any legs gettin’ hyar with thet good news,” growled Preston as Rock entered.

“Reckon you won’t be r’arin’ for me to hurry, after I start,” replied Rock closing the door and facing the rancher. “Preston, not a whisper of what I say must be heard by anyone but you.”

“Come close then, an’ talk low.” Whereupon Rock drew a chair up to Preston’s, and eyeing him squarely, whispered, “Preston, the jig’s up!”

“What you mean?” hoarsely rejoined the rancher.

“You’re found out. Your butcherin’ stolen cattle. Slagle found Half Moon hides under that culvert above his place. He told John Dabb. Dabb told Tom Lincoln. Then me.”

“My Gawd!” Preston covered his face with nerveless hands.

Rock’s first thrill came with the rancher’s reception of this news. It augured well. But he let the revelation sink deep. He waited. At length Preston lifted his haggard countenance, “How can Slagle prove thet — on me?”

“He can’t. The hides ‘ve been moved.”

“Ahuh. Wal, then, I’ll deny everythin’ and fight them.”

“Gage, I can prove you guilty,” whispered Rock.

“You can? How?”

“Ash’s tracks. I trailed them. I measured them. I got his boot track here in the corral. I saw that same track leadin’ down to the culvert and under it. I compared them, ripped open one of those burlap sacks. The Half Moon brand!”

The big hands opened wide. “Rock, you wouldn’t ruin me?”

“No.”

“An’ you shore couldn’t break Thiry’s heart?”

“Do you need to ask?”

“Does anyone else have the proofs on me — like you?”

“No, not yet. But I’m not the only trailer on this range. Somebody will trail your sons, as I did Ash. If you don’t stop them?”

“Does anybody else suspect — beside the four you named?”

“Hesbitt’s outfits suspect. But they don’t know. Reckon sooner or later they’ll hit on somethin’. Old sign. It might not convict, but it’d ruin you just the same. And any fresh sign — Preston, you’ll all go to jail!”

“Rock, are you comin’ in with me — an’ Ash — an’ Thiry?” asked Preston.

“I’m in with you and Thiry now, not Ash. But clean and honest. Preston, I’ve laid my cards before Dabb and Lincoln. They know me. I couldn’t be crooked now — not to save your life and Thiry’s happiness.”

“Ahuh! What’s the deal?”

“Listen,” whispered Rock bursting with his message. “I’ve shut Slagle’s mouth. I’ve bought his silence. He’s leavin’ the range.”

“Lord Almighty! How’d you do it. What’d you give him?”

“Twenty-five hundred dollars.”

Preston whistled low. “Of all the fellars I ever seen, you — Rock, I’m goin’ to square thet with you.”

“Sure you are. You’re goin to square it all. Listen. Come up town with me. Dabb will call a meetin’ of the Cattle Association council. That means him, Lincoln, and Hesbitt. To keep this out of court you will agree to pay Hesbitt for his Half Moon stock. Dabb and Lincoln have promised me they’ll handle Hesbitt. It will all be done in secret. Then you and your sons who were in this deal must leave the country. We all believe Ash roped you into this butcherin’ stolen cattle.”

“He shore did. He was killin’ stolen steers long before I ever knew. Then it was too late to stop him. An’ I drifted in myself. All so easy! An’ now — Rock, I’d almost as lief croak as face thet council. They might let me off, but they’d tell. It’d leak out.”

“Preston, you’re not thinkin’ clear. If you don’t take this chance, for the sake of your womenfolk, you’ll ruin them. And you’ll be as bad as Ash. By heaven, Preston, I can’t let you ruin Thiry!”

“Wal, I’ll think your idee over good and hard, Rock. My not acceptin’ it pronto doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your wonderful offer an’ all thet prompts you. I shore do. It may be the best way to save them. But the wife — Thiry, Allie, Lucy — they’d have to know, an’ I’d almost shore rather die in my boots than tell them.”

“Man, we don’t have to tell. No one but Thiry will ever know.”

“All right I’ll think it over.”

Meanwhile, I’ll stop Ash if I have to hawg-tie him. An’ you better take the boys an’ go off in the woods somewhere. But no goin’ in to town. Take then huntin’. It’s most turkey season. An’ let me know where you go.”

Well as Trueman Rock knew that country, it was his fortune to be taken by the Preston boys to high hunting-grounds which he had never visited.

It was up in the mountains back of the Pass, about a day’s climb on horseback, 8,000 feet above the low country. Up there early fall had set in and the foliage was one gorgeous array of colour. The camp lay in a mountain meadow, at the edge of a magnificent grove of quaking aspens. Behind on a gentler slope stood scattered silver spruces and yellow pines, growing larger as they climbed, until on the ridge above they massed in the deep timber line, which like a green-black belt circled the mountain under the grey, grisly, weathered and splintered peaks.

The days passed until Rock had no idea how long he had been absent from the Pass. Nearly a fortnight, he guessed. Then came Indian summer, that enchanting brief period of smoky, warm, still days, and floating amber and purple haze in the air.

Al Preston left to go down home for supplies. This threw Rock into a fever of uncertainty. What news would he fetch back? What message from Preston? Would Thiry write? The day was long, the night interminable, the second day unbearable. Rock wandered in the open forest across from camp, wanting always to be in sight of the trail that came up from below.

Then a grey-laden pack-horse emerged from the green wall across the meadow. Next came a dark horse holding a slight rider that could not be Al Preston. Who could it be? Another pack-horse cleft the dark green gap, where the trail emerged. And after it Al on his big bay. The foremost rider waved to the boys in camp. How they yelled! Rock watched with eyes starting. What was there strangely familiar about that rider? Yet he knew he had never seen him before. Rock never forgot a mounted rider. Suddenly he leaped up madly: Thiry!

He ran. He leaped the brook. He made the camp in bounds.

“Howdy, Trueman!” Her smile was strained, and she scarcely met his eager gaze. He had never seen her in rider garb. Could that make such difference? She wore a tan blouse, with blue scarf, fringed gauntlets, overalls, and high boots. She looked like a boy, until she dismounted. Rock had a wild desire to snatch her in his arms.

“Boys, throw my pack and unroll, my bed,” she said. And while the boys obeyed with alacrity she led the stunned, Rock away from camp into the forest.

“Glad to see me?” she asked.

“Glad!” he echoed. “Thiry! I’m loco.”

She still held his hand, that she had taken openly before her brothers. She halted beside a great fallen spruce with rugged seamed bark. “Lift me up,” she said. And when he had complied she held him with strange hands, and looked in to his eyes as she had never before.

“Kiss me,” this unknown Thiry said not shyly, nor yet boldly, but somehow unnaturally for her. When Rock obeyed, restraining himself in his bewilderment, she put her arms around him and her face against his neck.

“Bad news, Trueman dear,” she said. “Ash made a killing of Half Moon steers and shipped the beef from Wagontongue.”

Rock’s frame jerked with the hot gush of blood through his veins, but he did not voice his anger and dismay.

“Dad wants you to come in with us — share our fortunes; our troubles — our sins — help us fight these enemy outfits. If we—”

“We?” he interrupted.

“Yes, we. Ash and Dad and I — and my brothers — and you.”

“I! And what do I get for spillin’ blood for thieves? Ah, that is Preston’s game. He wants me to kill — to spread terror among those Wyomin’ outfits. And my reward will be—”

“Me,” she said.

“With Ash Preston’s consent?” demanded Rock.

“Dad claims when you become one of us Ash will have to consent.”

“Thiry Preston! You ask me to do this thing? You ask me to be a thief — a killer — to save your rotten brother, your weak and crooked father?”

“I — ask — you.”

Almost with brutal force, Rock shook her, as if to awaken her out of a torpor. “No! No, you poor driven girl!” he cried. “I would die for you, but I’ll never let you ruin your soul by such dishonour. They have blinded you — preyed on your love. Your brother is mad. Your father desperate. They would sacrifice you. Ash would agree to this, meanin’ to shoot me in the back. No, Thiry!”

“You — will not? she sobbed.

“Never. Not even to have you.”

Suddenly then he had a wild weeping creature in his arms, whose beating hands and shaking body wrought havoc to the iron of his mood.

“Oh, thank God — you won’t!” she wept, lifting streaming eyes. “I prayed you’d — refuse. I told, Dad you’d never, never do it. I told Ash he lied — he’d never let you have me. But they made me — they drove me — all night they nagged me — until I gave in. Trueman darling, say you forgive. I was weak. I loved him so — and I’m almost broken. But you lift me from the depths. I love you more — a thousand times. Let come what will I can face it now.”

Hours later Rock kept vigil over a sleeping camp, where near him lay Thiry, in deep slumber, her fair sweet face, sad in repose, upturned to the watching stars. Beyond, her brothers were stretched in a row.

In the rose light of dawn, Rock and Thiry again wandered under the silver spruces, the golden aspens, the scarlet maples, back to that bit of primal forestland.

“Don’t go back to the Pass,” Thiry was pleading.

“I must. I’ll go alone.”

“But I’m afraid. If you meet him — Oh — you will! Trueman, don’t go!” She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him with all her might.

“Take me away — far away across the mountains,” she begged, her lips parting from his to implore mercy, and then seeking them again. “It’s the only way. I am yours body and soul. I ask nothing more of life but that you spare him — and take me. We can cross the mountains. Then somewhere we two will live for each other. I will forget, him and all this horror. And you — will never — kill another man.”

“Thiry girl, hush, you are breakin’ me,” he cried, spent with the might of agonized will that denied her kisses. “That would be the worst for us both. It would brand me with their guilt and drag you down. No. I shall go alone — make one last stand to save your father.”

Rock rode the zigzag descending trail down to the Pass in four hours. There did not appear to be any untoward condition at the ranch. Preston had ridden off early that morning to a general round-up out on the range, at a place called Clay Hill, Ash Preston and his three brothers were off somewhere, probably also at the round-up, on their return from Wagontongue. No, they had not driven the beef wagons to town this time.

“Reckon I’ll ride over to Clay Hill,” muttered Rock.

Rock’s keen eye snapped at the old-time scene. Dust and colour and action! Herds of cattle, fields of horses! Not until he rounded the southern corner of Clay Hill, where the trail ran, and came abruptly upon the first cabin, horses, wagons, men, did he grasp that something was amiss. What could check a general round-up in the middle of the afternoon? No cowboy’s’ on guard! No cutting or branding! No movement, except a gradual straggling of the herds! The men he saw were in groups, and their postures were not expressive of the lazy, lounging, careless leisure attendant upon meal hours or cessation of work.

Rock was off, throwing bridle, gloves, and in two swift jerks, he got out of his chaps. “What’s up?” he demanded of the six or eight cowmen who backed away.

“Fight busted the round-up,” replied a lean-jawed rider.

“Jimmy Dunne shot,” replied an older man warily.

“Who did it?”

“Ash Preston.”

“Where is Dunne?’

“Layin’ in the cabin thar.”

Rock brushed the men aside, and forcing entrance to the cabin, he surveyed the interior. A line of dusty, sweaty cowboys fell back, to disclose a man lying on the floor, with another kneeling in attendance. Rock saw a face of deathly-pallor, clammy and leaden, and eyes black with pain. He stepped in and knelt, to take up Dunne’s inert wrist and felt for his pulse.

At that the other man looked up quickly. It was Clink Peeples. “Howdy, Rock. I’m afeared Jim is — still I’m no good hand at judgin’ bullet holes.”

“Let me see.”

The angry wound was situated high up on the left side, and it was bleeding freely, though not dangerously. Rock saw that Preston had missed the heart by several inches. The bullet had no doubt nicked the lung. But there was no sign of internal hemorrhage.

“Did the bullet come out?”

“It went clean through, clean as a whistle.”

“Good!” exclaimed Rock. “Dunne, can you hear me?”

“Why, sure,” replied Dunne, faintly. A bloody froth showed on his lips. “Rock, reckon Preston — beat you — to this job.”

“Reckon I’d never have done it. Listen Dunne. This is a bad gun-shot, but not necessarily fatal. If you do what you’re told you’ll live.”

“You — think so, Rock? I’ve got — a wife — an’ kid.

“I know it,” returned Rock forcefully. “Understand? I know.”

“Rock, thet’s shore — good news,” panted Peeples, wiping his face. “Tell us what to do.”

“Make a bed for him here,” replied Rock, rising. “But don’t move him till he’s bandaged tight. Heat water boilin’ hot. Put salt in it. Wash your hands clean. Get clean bandages, clean shirt if there’s nothin’ else. Fold a pad and wet it. Bind it tight. Then to town for a doctor.”

“Thet’s tellin’ us,” returned Peeples gratefully. “Frank, you heard. Rustle some boys now.”

“Peeples, was it an even break?” inquired Rock coolly.

“Wal, I’m bound to admit it was. So we’ve nothin’ on Preston thet way.”

Dunne spoke up for himself in stronger voice: “Rock, I had the — proofs on him — much as I didn’t — have on you.”

“Ahuh! Don’t talk any more, Dunne,” replied Rock, and turned to Peeples. “Did he accuse Ash?”

“He shore did. Beaded him soon as he got here. I didn’t see the fight. But thar’s a dozen fellers who did. You talk to them.”

“Where are the Prestons?” asked Rock, stalking out.

“Over at the third cabin,” replied someone. “Ash is stalkin’ to an’ fro over thar like a hyena behind bars.”

Rock elbowed his way out of the crowd. Soon his glance fell upon those he sought, and in him surged the instinct of the lion that hated the hyena.

Ash, espying Rock, halted in his tracks. The two brothers rose in single action, as if actuated by the same spring. Range stepped outside to join his brothers. Gage Preston did not see, nor look up, until Rock, hailed them. Then, with a spasmodic start he staggered erect.

“Rock, I’m done,” rasped Gage Preston. “So double-crossin’ you like I did means nothin’ to me.’

“Preston, have you been in any of these last butcherin’ deals?” queried Rock.

“No. An’ so help me heaven, I couldn’t stop Ash.”

“Why did you send Thiry — perauadin’ me to come in with you?”

“Thet was why. I wasn’t beat then. I figgered I could fight it out an’ I wanted you. So I drove Thiry to it. But now! You had it figgered, Rock. I’m sorry — sorry most fer Thiry, an’ Ma, an’ the girls. If I had it to do over again, I’d—”

“Do it now,” interrupted Rook ringingly. “Come with me to Wagontongue. Come, Preston, be quick. There’ll be hell poppin’ here in a minute. Will you give up — go with me?”

“Rock by heaven! I will — if you—”

“Yell that to Ash!” hissed Rock.

Preston, with face purpling, shouted to his son, “Hey Ash! I’m goin’ to town with Rock.”

“What fer?” yelled Ash.

“Wal, just off, I’m gettin’ a marriage licence for Thiry! Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“I say what fer?” yelled Ash.

“To pay your thievin’ debts, you—”

“Preston, get to one side. Quick!” warned Rock, risking one long stride forward, when he froze in his tracks, his right side toward Ash, his quivering hand low.

Ash Preston spat one curse at his father — then saw him no more. Again he began a strange sidelong stalk, only now he sheered a little, out toward Rock, forward a few strides, then backward the same, never turning that slim left side away from Rock.

Rock learned something then he never had known — Ash Preston was left-handed. He approached no closer than 30 paces. Then he did not or could not keep still. “Howdy spy!” he called.

“Glad to meet you, beef rustler,” returned Rock.

“Am givin’ you my card pronto,” called Ash, louder.

“Gave you mine at the dance. But I got six left! Caramba!”

That stopped the restless crouching steps, but not the singular activity of body. Ash’s muscles seemed to ripple. He crouched yet a little more. Rock could catch gleams of blue fire under the wide black brim of Ash’s hat. “Senor del Toro!”

“Yes. And here’s thiry’s mask — where she put it herself,” flashed Rock, striking his breast. “See if you can hit it!”

At the last he had the wit to throw Ash off a cool and deadly balance — so precious to men who live by the gun. When Ash jerked to his fatal move Rock was the quicker. His shot cracked a fraction of a second before his adversary’s. Both took effect. Ash almost turned a somersault.

Rock felt a shock, but no pain. He did not know where he was hit until his right leg gave way under him. He fell, but caught himself with his left hand, and went no farther than his knees, the right of which buckled under him.

Ash bounded up as he had gone down, with convulsive tremendous power, the left side of his head shot away. Blood poured down. As he swept up his gun Rock shot him through the middle. The bullet struck up dust beyond and whined away. But Ash, sustaining the shock, fired again, and knocked Rock flat. The bullet struck high on his left shoulder. He heard two more heavy booms of Ash’s gun, felt the sting of gravel on his face. Half rising, braced on his left hand, Rock fired again. He heard the bullet strike. Ash’s fifth shot spanged off Rock’s extended gun, knocked it flying, beyond reach.

Preston was sagging. Bloody, mortally stricken, he had no will except to kill. He saw his enemy prostrate, weaponless. He got his gun up, but could not align it, and his last bullet struck far behind Rock, to whine away. He swayed, all instinctive action ceasing, and with his ruthless eyes on his fallen foe, changing, glazing over, setting blank, he fell.

CHAPTER 15

ROCK WAS LYING in the pleasant sitting-room, of the Winters’ home where a couch had been improvised for him.

The little doctor was cheerful that day. “You’re like an Indian,” he said, rubbing his hands in satisfaction. “Another week will see you up. Then pretty soon you can fork a hoss.”

“How is your other patient’?” asked Rock.

“Dunne is out of danger, I’m glad to say.”

Sol Winter came bustling in, with an armful of firewood. “Mornin’, son! You shore look fitter to me. How about him, Doc? Can we throw off the restrictions on grub an’ talk?”

“I reckon,” replied the physician, taking up his hat and satchel. “Now, Rock, brighten up. You’ve been so gloomy. Good day.”

“Trueman, there’s news,” said Winter. “Might as well, get it over, huh?”

“I reckon so,” rejoined Rock.

“Gage Preston paid me the money you gave Slagle. Yesterday, before he left.”

“Left?” echoed` Rock.

“Yep, he left on Number Ten for Colorado,” replied Winter, evidently gratified over the news he had to impart. “Rock, it ail turned out better ‘n’ we dared hope. They tell me Hesbitt was stubborn as a mule, but Dabb an Lincoln together flattened him out soft. Wal with the steer market jumpin’ to seventy-five, even Hesbitt couldn’t stay sore long. They fixed it up out of court. Dabb an’ Lincoln made it easy for Preston. They bought him out, ranch, stock, an’ all. Cost Preston somethin’ big to square up, but at thet he went away heeled. I seen him at the station.”

“Did he go — alone? asked Rock.

“No. His three grown sons were with him. The rest of the Prestons are in town, but I haven’t seen them. Funny Thiry doesn’t run in to see me. I met Sam Whipple’s wife. She saw Thiry an’ Alice, who are stayin’ at Farrell’s. She said she couldn’t see much sign of Thiry’s takin’ Ash’s death very hard. Thet shore stumped me. But Thiry is game.”

He went out, leaving Rock prey to rediscovered emotions. He had sacrificed his love to save Thiry’s father and therefore her, from ignominy. The thing could not have been helped. It had from the very first, that day in the corral here at Wagontongue, been fixed, and as fateful as the beautiful passion Thiry had roused in him. He had no regret.

But with the accepted catastrophe faced now, there came pangs that dwarfed those of gunshot wounds. His heart would not break, because he had wonderful assurance of her love, of the sacrifice she had tried to make for him. She would go away with her family, and in some other State recover from this disaster, forget, and touch happiness, perhaps with some fortunate man who might win her regard. But she owed that to him. And he realized that he would find melancholy, cconsolation in the memory of the service he had rendered her.

“Son, lady to see you,” announced Winter.

“Who?” asked Rock, with a start.

“No one but Amy.”

“Tell her I’m sleepin’ or — or somethin’,” implored Rock.

“Like hob he will,” replied a gay voice from behind the door. And Amy entered, pretty and stylish, just a little fearful and pale, despite her nerve.

“Trueman, are you all right?” she asked timidly. “Oh, Trueman, I’ve been in a horrible state ever since I came home.”

“Well! I’m sorry, Amy. How so?”

“I hate to tell you, but I’ve got to,” ‘she replied. “For it was my last miserable, horrible trick! Trueman, the day I got back I met Ash Preston on the street. I told him you — you were Senor del Toro. You cannot imagine what I felt when they fetched you here — all shot up. Trueman, I don’t want to abase myself utterly in your sight, but — well I am a chastened woman. It opened my eyes. I told my husband, and since then we’ve grown closer than we ever were.”

“Then Amy, I forgive you.” Quick as a bird she pecked at his cheek, to lift a flushing, radiant face. “There! The first sisterly one I ever gave you. Trueman, I am the bearer of good news. You are a big man now: Yes, sir, in spite of — or perhaps because of — that awful gun of yours. But your honesty has gone farther with John and Tom Lincoln. I have the pleasure of telling you that you’ve been chosen to run the Sunset Pass Ranch for them. On shares.”

“Never, Amy, never!” cried Rock, shivering. “I shall leave Wagontongue again — soon as I can walk.”

“Not if we know it,” she retorted as she rose. “You’ve got more friends than you think. Now I’ll go. I’ve excited you enough to day. But I’ll come again soon. Goodbye.”

Amy had hardly gone when a squeak of the door and a deep expulsion of breath from someone entering aroused Rock.

“Thiry! — how good — of you!”

Haltingly she approached. “Trueman, are you — all right?” she asked, apparently awed at the helpless length of him there on the bed. She sat down beside him.

“Reckon I’m ‘most all right — now,” he replied.

“Mr. Winter told me everything,” she went on, “but seeing you is so strange. Can you move?”

“Sure. All but my left leg.”

“Was that broken?”

“No, I’m glad to tell you.”

“And the other hurt — was that here?” she asked, pale, almost reverent, as she laid a soft hand high upon his left shoulder.

“Lower down — Thiry.”

Fascinated, she gently slipped her hand down. Then she felt the throbbing of his heart. “But, Trueman — it couldn’t be there.”

“You bet it is.”

“What?”

“The hurt you asked about.”

“I was speaking of your latest wounds,” she replied. Then she looked him squarely in the face. “I had to fight myself to come,” she said. “There was a cold, dead, horrible something inside me — but it’s leaving! Trueman, you’re so white and thin. So helpless lying there! I — I want to nurse you. I should have come. Have you suffered?”

“A little — I reckon,” he replied unsteadily. “But it’s — gone now.”

“Has Amy Dabb been here?”

“Yes. Today. She was very nice.”

“Nice! Because she wheedled John Dabb to offer you the running of Sunset Pass Ranch?”

“Oh no — I mean, just kind,” returned Rock uncertainly.

“Trueman, you will accept that offer?” she queried earnestly. “I don’t care what Amy says. I know it was my father’s advice to Dabb.”

“Me ever go to — Sunset Pass — again? Never in this world.”

“Trueman, you would not leave this country?” she asked in alarm.

“Soon as I can walk.”

“But I do not want to leave Sunset Pass,” she returned with spirit.

“I’m glad you don’t, Thiry. Perhaps, somehow, it can be arranged for you. Someone of course will take the place. Is your mother leavin’ soon?”

“She is terribly angry with Dad,” replied Thiry seriously. “But I think some day she’ll get over it and go back to him.”

She edged a little closer, grave and sweet, and suddenly bent over to kiss his knee where the bandage made a lump, and then she moved up to lay her cheek over his heart, with a long low sigh. “Trueman, did you think I’d — hate you for killing Ash?” she whispered.

He could not speak.

“I thought I would. And it was a sickening, terrible blow. But before that same night was over knew I couldn’t hate you. And I believe, even if I hadn’t learned what changed it all, I would have forgiven you — some day.

“What changed, all?”

“What Dad told me.”

“Thiry — have mercy!”

“Ash was not my brother,” she said in a smothered voice.

Rising, Thiry slipped to the floor on her knees, and leaned upon her elbows, clasping his hands, regarding him with remorseful tenderness. “My brother Range beat the others home that night, with the news of the fight. I had my terrible black hours. I knew we were ruined — that Ash in some way had brought it about. Perhaps my love for him turned then. But I want you to know that even then believing Ash my brother I’d have forgiven you in time. I know it. After the agony was spent I was learning how deathlessly I loved you. Sometime in the night, late, Dad came to me. He told me not to take it too hard — not to visit the sins of others upon your head. You had been driven to kill Ash. Someone had to do it, for the good of all, and no one but you could.

“Then came the story, torn from his most secret heart. Ash was not his son, but the illegitimate son of a girl he had loved long ago, who abandoned and dying, gave him her child. Dad said he was what his father had been. Next day I went to mother, and she corroborated dad’s story. It seemed I was delivered from hellish bonds.”

“Thiry, darlin’ — there must be somethin’ in prayer,” cried Rock.

“I was to learn how you had bought Slagle’s silence — how you persuaded Dabb and Lincoln to force Hesbitt to settle out of court — oh, how from the very beginning you had meant good by all of us! Yet I could not drag myself to you. It took time. I had such dreadful fear of seeing you lying in danger of death, bloody, pale with awful eyes that would have accused me. Oh, I suffered! But now I’m here — on my knees.”

“Please get up,” said Rock, lifting her to a seat beside him.

“Now will you accept Dabb’s offer and take me back to Sunset Pass?” she asked.

“Yes, Thiry, if you will have it so,” he replied. “If you love me that well.”

She gave him passionate proof of that “Dear, Dad told me you were one of the marked men of the ranges. Our West is in the making. Such men as Ash — and those others you—”

Sol Winter came in. He beamed down upon them. “Son an’ lass, I’m glad to see you holden’ each other thet way — as if now you’d never let go. For I’ve grown old on the frontier, an’ I’ve seen but little of the love you have for each other. We Westerners are a hard pioneering outfit. I see in you, an Allie, an’ some more of our young friends, a leanin’ more to finer, better things.”

THE END

Arizona Ames

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER I

IT WAS NOVEMBER in the Tonto Basin.

From Mescal Ridge the jagged white teeth of the ranges pierced the blue sky on three horizons — to the west the wild ragged Mazatzals; to the south the lofty symmetrical Four Peaks; and far away to the east the dim blue-white Sierra Ancas. Behind and above Mescal Ridge — forbiddingly close the rarefied atmosphere made it — towered the black-fringed, snow-belted rim of the Mogallan Mesa, blocking the whole north with its three hundred miles of bold promontories and purple canyons.

But though it was winter on the heights, down on the innumerable ridges of the Basin, which slanted like the ribs of a colossal washboard, late fall lingered. In sheltered nooks, deep down where the sun could reach through gaps, sycamores shone with green-gold leaves, and oaks smoldered in rich bronze, standing out vividly from the steel-gray shaggy slopes. Tonto Creek wound down between them, a shining strip of water, here white in rushing rapids and there circling in green eddies or long leaf-spotted pools. The ridge tops waved away from Mescal Ridge, a sea of evergreen, pine and spruce and cedar and piñon, a thick dark mantle in the distance, but close at hand showing bare spots, gray rocks and red cliffs, patches of brown pine needles, scarlet sumac and blue juniper.

Mescal Ridge was high and long and winding and rough, yet its crest curved gracefully, open and bare, covered by many acres of silver grass, where flourished abundantly the short, spiked, pale-green clusters of cactus — mescal, which gave the ridge its name. The tips of mescal leaves narrowed to hard black thorns, much dreaded by cattle and horses. Like the thorns of the cholla cactus, these mescal points broke off in flesh and worked in. Mescal, both in its deadly thorns and the liquor distilled from its heart, typified the hard and acrid nature of the Tonto.

* * * * *

Old Cappy Tanner, trapper, had driven his seven burros in from the south this year; and this time he was later than on any other of the many autumns he had returned to the Tonto. His last two trapping seasons had been prosperous ones, which accounted partly for his late arrival. He had tarried in Prescott and Maricopa to buy presents for his good friends, the Ames family. For Tanner that had been a labor of love, but nevertheless a most perplexing one.

Three miles west of Tonto Creek the trail to Mescal Ridge left the road. Cappy turned into it, glad to reach the last leg of his long tramp. Every giant pine seemed to greet him. He knew them all, and the logs, and the checker-barked junipers, and even the manzanita bushes, bare this year of their yellow berries. No cattle or horse tracks showed in the grass-grown trail. That surprised him. There had been no rain along there for weeks, and if any hoofs had stepped on this trail lately the tracks would have shown.

Cappy sat down against a huge pine to rest and to eat a little bread and meat. The sun shone hot and the shade was pleasant. His burros began to graze on the long grass. It occurred to him that he had rested often on the six weeks’ walk north. He seemed to realize he was a little slower than last year.

The old familiar sough of the wind in the pines was music to him, and the sweet, dry, pungent odor of the evergreens was medicine. What soothing relief and rest after the desert! Cappy watched the burros, the slow shadows of the pine boughs, the squalling blue jays. He had been six months away from the Tonto, and the preceding night, at the tavern in Shelby, he had listened to disturbing gossip that involved his friends and their neighbors, the Tates.

It had occupied his mind all during the eighteen-mile journey from Shelby; to such significance that he had not stopped at Spring Valley to pay his respects to the Tates, an omission they would be sure to note.

“Reckon thet Pleasant Valley war left bitter feelin’ which never will die out,” soliloquized Tanner, wagging his head sadly. He had been in the Tonto during the climax of the terrible feud among cattlemen, sheepmen, and rustlers; and he had seen it end in extermination of every faction. But the heritage of bad blood had descended on the few families left in that wild north section of the Tonto Basin.

Having finished his lunch and rested, Tanner resumed his journey, growing more at ease as he drew farther from the road, deeper into the forest. When he began to catch glimpses of deer and flocks of wild turkeys, and to see where bears had broken the branches of the junipers to feed off the berries, he knew he was getting near home.

At length the trail led out of the deep shade of the forest into open sunlight, that shone on rough oak ridges, with dense thickets in the gulches between. The trail headed many draws all sloping down in the same direction. Here and there glimpses of the rough canyon country framed themselves in notches of the ridges — wild dark purple canyon, powerfully suggestive of the haunts of bear and panther.

He turned abruptly round an oak-thicketed corner to emerge on the high slope of Tonto Canyon. The scene was magnificent, lonely and wild and rugged in the extreme. A melodious murmur of running water made memory active. How would he find the Ameses — Nesta and Rich and the younger twins?

The deep canyon yawned narrow and blue, with rough rock slopes and patches of spruce and oak on the opposite side; and it deepened and constricted to dark bronze walls leading into the gloomy and inaccessible chasm called Hell Gate. When the hounds pursued a bear down that canyon the chase ended. Bears would take to the deep pools and rapids where no dogs could follow.

The whole length of Mescal Ridge stretched away before Tanner’s eager gaze. Silver and black and green, a mighty hog-back among all those Tonto ridges, it lay somewhat below Tanner, open to his gaze. Cattle and deer dotted the gray patches of grass. This was the range where the Ames family ran the few cattle they owned, and it struck Tanner that their stock had increased, if all he saw belonged to them.

He strode on down, then, and for some time lost the beautiful panorama. When again he came out upon a jutting point of the trail he was halfway down, and could see the colorful flat nestling under the beetling brow of Mescal Ridge. The log cabin shone brown and tiny beside the three great spruce trees; patches of the garden, like green and gray squares, led to the cornfield, where horses browsed on the stalks; the rail fences, which Tanner had helped Rich Ames to build, were now overgrown with wine-colored vines.

The old trapper showed the same eagerness that animated his burros, and strode swiftly down the remaining zigzag stretches of the trail, out across the sandy, oak-shaded flat to the creek. The water was low and sycamore leaves floated with the swift current. Cappy went above the ford where his burros were drinking, and throwing aside his hat he stretched himself on a flat rock and drank his fill.

“Augh!” he exclaimed, as he got up, wiping his wet beard. Tonto Creek! Snow water that flowed through granite! It took a desert man, or a trapper long away from the rocky hills, to appreciate fully that pure, cold, clear water.

Beyond the ford the trail led along the bank which sloped up to the flat and around to the three spruce trees and the moss-greened cabin. Dogs heralded Tanner’s arrival, not by any means in a welcoming manner. But upon recognizing the trapper they quieted down and the big red leader condescended to wag his tail. Then shrill girlish shrieks attested further to Tanner’s arrival. Two young girls came tearing out, their bright hair flying.

“Oh, Uncle Cappy!” they screamed in unison, and made at him, breathless, wild with the delight of lonesome souls at the advent of a beloved friend.

“Wal! Wal! — Mescal an’ Manzanita! — I shore am glad to see you. . . . How you have growed!”

“It’s been so — so long,” panted the one he took for Mescal, as she clung to him.

“We — we was afraid you wasn’t never comin’,” added Manzanita.

The twins were six years old, if Cappy’s memory served him well. It had been one of Cappy’s proud boasts that he could distinguish which was Mescal and which was Manzanita, but he did not dare risk it yet. How the warmth of their flashing blue eyes thrilled him, and the rose bloom in the brown cheeks and the parted red lips! Cappy feared his eyes were not so good as they used to be, or maybe they had dimmed for the moment.

“Wal, now, girls, you knowed I’d come back,” replied Tanner, reprovingly.

“Mother always said you would,” replied one of the twins.

“An’ Rich he’d always laugh an’ tell as you couldn’t stay away from Mescal Ridge,” added the other.

“Rich is shore right. Wal, how are you-all?”

“Mother is well. We’re all fine. But Nesta is away visitin’. She’ll be back today, an’ won’t she be glad? . . . Rich is out huntin’ with Sam.”

“Sam who?” queried Cappy, remembering that Rich seldom hunted with anyone.

“Sam Playford. He’s been here since last spring. Homesteaded up the creek near Doubtful. Rich is with him a lot. We all like him fine, Uncle Cappy. He’s terrible sweet on Nesta.”

“Ahuh! Small wonder. An’ is Nesta sweet on him?”

“Mother says she is an’ Rich says she isn’t,” laughed Mescal.

“Humph! What does Nesta say?” asked Cappy, conscious of misgivings.

“Nesta! You know her. She tosses her head,” replied Manzanita.

“But she did like Sam,” protested Mescal, seriously. “We saw her let Sam kiss her.”

“That was ages ago, Manzi.” When she spoke this name, Cappy realized he had taken Mescal for Manzanita. “Lee Tate is runnin’ her hard now, uncle.”

“No! — Lee Tate?” returned the old trapper, incredulously.

“Yes. It was a secret,” said Mescal, most seriously. “But Rich found Nesta out. . . . An’ say, didn’t he lay into her! It didn’t do no good. Nesta is as crazy as a young hen-turkey, so mother says.”

“Wal, wal, this is news,” rejoined Tanner, thoughtfully, as he kept looking toward the cabin. “Where’s Tommy? I reckoned I’d see him first off.”

Mescal’s blue eyes darkened and dimmed with tears. Manzanita averted her face. And then something struck cold at the old trapper’s heart.

“Tommy’s dead,” whispered Mescal.

“Aw, no!” burst out Cappy, poignantly.

“Yes. It was in June. He fell off the rocks. Hurt himself. Rich an’ Nesta weren’t home. We couldn’t get a doctor. An’ he died.”

“Lord! I’m sorry!” exclaimed the trapper.

“It hurt us all — an’ near broke Rich’s heart.”

At this juncture the mother of the girls appeared on the cabin porch, wiping flour from her strong brown arms. She was under forty and still handsome, fair-haired, tall and strong, a pioneer woman whom the recent Tonto war had made a widow.

“If it ain’t Uncle Cappy!” she ejaculated, warmly. “I wondered what-all the twins was yelling at. Then I seen the burros. . . . Old timer, you’re welcome as mayflowers.”

“Thanks, an’ you’re shore lookin’ fine, Mrs. Ames,” replied Cappy, shaking her hand. “I’m awful glad to get back to Mescal Ridge. It’s about the only home I ever had — of late years, anyhow. . . . Thet about Tommy digs me deep. . . . I — I’m shore surprised an’ sorry.”

“It wouldn’t have been so hard for us if he’d been killed outright,” she rejoined, sadly. “But the hell of it was he might have been saved if we could have got him out.”

“Wal — wal! . . . I reckon I’d better move along. I’ve fetched some things for you-all. I’ll drop them off here, then go on to my cabin, an’ soon as I unpack I’ll come back.”

“An’ have supper. Rich will be back an’ mebbe Nesta.”

“You bet I’ll have supper,” returned Cappy. Then he loosened a pack from one of the burros, and carrying it to the porch he deposited it there. The twins, radiantly expectant, hung mutely upon his movements.

“See hyar, Mescal Ames,” declared Cappy, shaking a horny finger at one of the glowing faces, “if you — —”

“But I’m Manzi, Uncle Cappy,” interrupted the girl, archly.

“Aw — so you are,” went on Cappy, discomfited.

“You’ve forgotten the way to tell us,” interposed Mescal, gayly.

“Wal, I reckon so. . . . But no matter, I’ll remember soon. . . . An’ see hyar, Manzi, an’ Mescal — don’t you dare open this pack.”

“But, uncle, you’ll be so long!” wailed the twins together.

“No I won’t, either. Not an hour. Promise you’ll wait. Why, girls, I wouldn’t miss seein’ your faces when I undo thet pack — not for a whole winter’s trappin’.”

“We’ll promise — if you’ll hurry back.”

Mrs. Ames vowed she would have to fight temptation herself and besought him to make haste.

“I’ll not be long,” called Tanner, and slapping the tired burros out of the shade he headed them into the trail.

At the end of the clearing, the level narrowed to a strip of land, high above the creek, and the trail led under huge pines and cone-shaped spruces and birches to a shady leaf-strewn opening in the rocky bluff, from which a tiny stream flowed in cascades and deep brown pools. This was a gateway to a high-walled canyon, into which the sun shone only part of the day. It opened out above the break in the bluff into a miniature valley, isolated and lonely, rich in evergreens, and shadowed by stained cliffs and mossy ledges.

Cappy arrived at his little log cabin with a sense of profound gratitude.

“By gum! I’m glad to be home,” he said, as if the picturesque little abode had ears. He had built this house three years before, aided now and then by Rich Ames. Before that time he had lived up at the head of Doubtful Canyon, where that “rough Jasper,” as Rich called it, yawned black and doubtful under the great wall of the mesa.

Throwing packs, he strapped bells on the burros, and giving them a slap he called cheerily: “Get out an’ rustle, you tin-can-label-eatin’ flop-ears! You’ve got a long rest, an’ if you’ve sense you’ll stay in the canyon.”

The door of the cabin was half ajar. Cappy pushed it all the way open. An odor of bear assailed his nostrils. Had he left a bearskin there, or had Rich Ames, in his absence? No, the cabin walls and floor were uncovered. But his trained eyes quickly detected a round depression in the thick mat of pine needles that covered his bough couch. A good-sized bear must have used it for a bed. In the dust of the floor bear tracks showed distinctly, and the left hind foot was minus a toe. Cappy recognized that track. The bear that had made it had once blundered into one of Cappy’s fox traps, had broken the trap and left part of his foot in it.

“Wal, the son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated the old trapper. “Addin’ insult to injury. I’ll jest bet he knowed this was my cabin. . . . Wonder why Rich didn’t shoot him.”

Cappy swept out, carried his packs inside, and opening one of them he took out his lantern and fuel, cooking utensils, and camp tools, which he put in their places. Then he unrolled his bed of blankets and spread it on the couch. “Reckon I won’t light no fire tonight, but I’ll fix one ready, anyhow,” he decided, and repairing to his woodpile he discovered very little left of the dry hardwood that he had cut the winter before. Rich Ames, the lonely fire-gazer, had been burning it! Presently Cappy was ready to go back to the Ames’ cabin. But he bethought himself of his unkempt appearance. That was because he remembered Nesta Ames. So he tarried to remedy the defect. He shaved, washed, and put on a new flannel shirt of gorgeous hue, which he had purchased solely to dazzle the color-loving Nesta. Then he sallied forth.

A thick amber light hung under the trees, heavy as if it had substance. A strong exhilaration possessed Tanner. He was growing old, but the effect of the Tonto seemed to renew his youth. The solitude of the slopes and valleys, the signs of wild game in the dust of the trail, the babble of the brook, the penetrating fragrance of pine and spruce, the brush, the dead leaves, the fallen cones, the mat of needles, the lichened rocks — these were physical proofs that he had come home to the environment he loved best.

“Reckon I’ll not go away no more,” he muttered as he trudged through the gap in the cliff, up and down over the gray stones. “Onless, of course, the Ameses go,” he added as an afterthought. “Shore was a good idee thet I planned to send my winter’s catch out by stage.”

The valley of the Tonto was full of golden light. The sun had just set behind the bold brow of Mescal Ridge, and a wonderful flare of gold, thrown up against a dark bank of purple cloud, seemed to be reflected down into the valley. Cappy sat down on a log above the creek, where many a time he had rested before, and watched the magic glow on field and slope and water. Already the air had begun to cool. The gold swept by as if it had been the transparent shadow of a cloud, swift and evanescent, like a dream, or a fleeting happiness. Wild ducks went whirring down the creek, the white bars on their wings twinkling. A big buck, his coat the gray-blue of fall, crossed an opening in the brush. Up high somewhere an old gobbler was calling his flock to roost.

Tanner’s watch and reverie were interrupted by the cracking of hoofs on the rocks of the trail up the creek. Soon two riders emerged from the green, and the first was Rich Ames. He waved a glad hand, then came on at a trot. Cappy stood up, conscious of how good it was to see this Tonto lad again. Rich Ames on horseback was surely pleasant to gaze upon, but when he slid out of his saddle, in one long lithe step, he sent a thrill to the old trapper’s heart.

“Wal, lad, hyar I am, an’ damn glad to see you,” said Tanner, as he swung on the extended hand and gripped it hard.

“Same heah, old timer,” drawled Rich Ames, his cool, lazy voice in strong contrast to the smile that was like a warm flash.

The second rider trotted up and dismounted. He was as tall as Ames, only heavier, and evidently several years the senior. His features were homely, especially his enormous nose. He had a winning smile and clear gray eyes. He wore the plain jeans of the homesteader, which looked dull and drab beside Rich Ames’ gray fringed buckskin.

“Sam, it’s shore old Cappy Tanner, my trapper pard,” said Rich. “Cap, meet my friend, Sam Playford.”

“How do!” greeted Playford, with an honest grin. “What I haven’t heard about you ain’t worth hearin’.”

“Wal, any friend of Rich’s is mine,” replied Cappy, cordially. “You’re new hyarabouts?”

“Yes. I come in last April.”

“Homesteadin’?”

“I been tryin’ to. But between these two Ames twins I have a plumb job of it.”

“Twins? — Which ones?”

The boys laughed uproariously, and Rich jabbed a thumb into Sam’s side.

“Cappy, it shore’s not Manzi an’ Mescal,” he drawled.

“Ahuh! Must be Nesta an’ you, then? I’m always forgettin’ you’re twins, too. Though, Lord knows, you look like two peas in a pod.”

“Yep, Cap, only I take a back seat to Nesta.”

“Where is thet lass? My pore eyes are achin’ for a sight of her,” returned Tanner.

“You’ll have them cured pronto, then,” said Rich. “For she’s comin’ along the trail somewheres behind. Mad as a wet hen!”

“Mad! What’s the matter?”

“Nothin’. She’s been stayin’ at Snells’, over at Turkey Flat. She an’ Lil Snell have got thick since last winter. I like Lil an’ I reckon she’s all right. But all the same I don’t want Nesta stayin’ long over there. So I went after her.”

Sam turned down the trail. “She’s comin’ now, an’ I reckon it’ll be safer for me to run along till you cheer her up,” he said.

“Take my horse with you, Sam, an’ turn him loose in the pasture,” rejoined Rich.

Cappy strained his eyes up the leafy trail.

“Wal, I see something,” he said at last. “But if it’s Nesta she’s comin’ awful slow.”

“Cap, she’s got an eye like a hawk. She sees me, an’ she’ll hang back till I go. . . . Old timer, I’d begun to fear you’d died or somethin’. Dog-gone, but I’m glad you’ve come!”

In these words and the wistfulness of his glance Rich Ames betrayed not only what he said but the fact that a half year had made him older and graver.

“You’ve had some trouble, Rich?”

“Shore have.”

“Somethin’ beside — Tommy’s death?”

“Reckon so.”

“Wal, what is it?”

“It’s aboot Nesta. An’ it’s got me plumb up a tree . . . . But, Cap, I want more time to tell you. So I’ll run along home while you meet Nesta.”

A bay pony emerged from the wall of green down the trail. Its rider was a bareheaded girl whose bonnet hung over her shoulders. She sat her saddle sideways. But when she neared the pine log where the trapper leaned watching, she partly turned. Then she sat up, startled. The petulant droop of her vanished and her red lips curled in a smile of surprise and delight. She slid off the saddle to confront him.

“Cappy Tanner! . . . So it was you Rich was talkin’ to?” she cried.

“Wal, Nesta, if it’s really you, I’m sayin’ howdy,” rejoined the trapper.

“It’s me, Cappy. . . . Have I changed so — so much?”

The beautiful blue-flashing eyes, so characteristic of the Ameses, met his only for a moment. It was the change in her and not the constraint that inhibited Tanner. Hardly more than six months ago she had been a slender, pale-faced girl, pretty with all the fairness of the family. And now she seemed a woman, strange to him, grown tall, full-bosomed, beautiful as one of the golden flowers of the valley. Cappy passed a reluctant gaze from her head to her feet, and back again. He had never seen her dressed becomingly like this. Her thick rich hair, so fair that it was almost silver, was parted in the middle above a low forehead just now marred by a little frown. Under level fine brows her eyes, sky-blue, yet full of fire, roved everywhere, refusing to concentrate upon her old friend. Any stranger who had ever seen Rich Ames would have recognized her as his twin sister, yet the softness of her face, its sweetness, its femininity were features singularly her own.

“Changed? Wal, lass, you are,” replied the old trapper, slowly, as he took her hands. “Growed into a woman! . . . Nesta, you’re the purtiest thing in all the Tonto.”

“Ah, Cappy, you haven’t changed,” she replied, suddenly gay and glad. And she kissed him, not with the old innocent freedom, but shyly, in a restraint that did not lack warmth. “Oh, I’m so happy you’re here! I’ve thought of you every day for a month. Did you come today? You must have, for Rich didn’t know.”

“Jest got in, lass, an’ I never knowed what home seemed like before.”

She slipped an arm under his, and then, with her horse following, she led him toward the cabin.

“Cappy, I’m more in need of a true friend than ever before in all my life,” she said, soberly.

“Why, lass, you talk as if you hadn’t any!” returned Tanner, reprovingly.

“I haven’t. Not one single friend — unless it’s you.”

“Wal, Nesta, I don’t savvy thet, but you can depend on me.”

“Cappy, I don’t mean no one cares for me. . . . Rich, and Sam Playford — and — and others — care for me, far beyond my deserts. But they boss and want and force me. . . . They don’t help. They can’t see my side. . . . Cappy, I’m in the most terrible fix any girl was ever in. I’m caught in a trap. Do you remember the day you took me on a round of your traps? And we came upon a poor little beaver caught by the foot? . . . Well, I’m like that.”

“Nesta, I’m awful interested, but I reckon not much scared,” replied Cappy, with a laugh that did not quite ring true.

They reached the three huge spruces overspreading the cabin, and Nesta turned to unsaddle her pony. Sam Playford, who evidently had been waiting, approached from the porch.

“I’ll tend to him, Nesta,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. Playford,” she returned, with sarcasm. “I can manage as well here as I had to at Snells’.”

Mescal and Manzanita ran out to overwhelm Tanner, shouting gleefully, “Here comes Santa Claus!”

“Wal, mebbe, when Christmas comes, but not now,” retorted the trapper, resolutely. He had once before encountered a predicament similar to this.

“Uncle, when will you open the pack?” begged Manzi.

“Wal, some time after supper.”

“I can’t eat till you do open it,” declared Mescal, tragically.

“If I do open it before supper, then you won’t eat nothin’ but candy,” declared Tanner.

“Candy!” screamed Manzanita. “Who wants to eat deer meat and beans if there’s candy?”

“Ooooummm!” cried her sister, ecstatically.

“Wal, let’s have a vote on it,” said the trapper, as if inspired. “Mescal an’ Manzi have declared for openin’ the pack before supper. . . . What do you say, Mrs. Ames?”

“Supper ain’t ready yet,” she rejoined, significantly.

“How about you, Nesta?”

“Me! How about what?” she returned, as she deposited her saddle on the porch, apparently unaware of Sam Playford’s disapproval.

“Why, about openin’ my pack. I fetched you-all a lot of presents.”

“Cappy! — Open it now!” she flashed, suddenly radiant.

“An’ what do you say, Mr. Playford?”

“Cappy, if you don’t mind,” replied that worthy, “if you’re includin’ me, I’ll say if you got anythin’ to give anybody, do it quick.”

“Hey, Rich, you’re in on this,” went on the trapper.

“Cap, suppose you leave it to me?” responded Rich, with tantalizing coolness.

“Wal, I’m willin’. You ‘pear to be the only level-headed one hyar.”

“Open the pack after Nesta an’ the twins have gone to bed.”

The feminine triangle thus arraigned burst out with a vociferous, incoherent, yet unanimous decision that they never would go to bed.

“Wal, reckon I’ll compromise,” decided Tanner. “Right after supper, then, I’ll open the show.”

“Come in, Cap,” said Rich. “This November air gets cold once the sun goes down.”

The living-room extended the width of the cabin, and perhaps half the length. With a fire burning in the stone fireplace it presented a cheery, comfortable aspect. It also served as dining-room, and two beds, one in each corner, indicated that some of the family slept there. A door near the chimney opened into the kitchen, a small and recent addition. Two other rooms completed the cabin, neither of which opened into this large apartment. Rich Ames, like all the Tontonians, liked open fires, to which the three yellow stone chimneys rising above the cabin gave ample testimony.

“Manzi, you an’ Mescal wash up, an’ brush your hair,” observed Mrs. Ames from the kitchen. Nesta had vanished.

“How’s tracks, Rich?” queried Tanner, with interest.

“Cap, I never saw so much game sign since I can remember,” replied Ames, with reflective satisfaction. “Dad once told me aboot a fall like this. Reckon ten year ago, long before the Pleasant Valley war.”

“Wal, thet’s good news. What kind of tracks?”

“All kinds. Beaver, mink, marten, fox — why, old timer, if you catch all of the varmints in Doubtful you can buy out the fur companies. How are prices likely to be?”

“Top notch. An’ ain’t it lucky to come when fur is plentiful? Reckon it’s a late fall, too.”

“Shore is. Hardly any snow heah at all. An’ only lately on top. Bear, deer, turkey so thick up Tonto that you can kick them out of the trails. An’ lots of lions, too.”

“I reckon feed is plentiful, or all this game would be somewhere else?”

“Just wonderful, Cap. Acorns on the ground thick as hops. Berries aplenty, a good few wild grapes, an’ the first big crop of piñon nuts for years. The game is high up yet, an’ shore won’t work down till the weather gets bad. We had lots of rain at the right season, an’ the winter snows will be late. I’ll bet I know of a hundred bee trees. We been waitin’ for you, rememberin’ your weakness for honey.”

“Haw! Haw! As if you didn’t have the same? — How about you, Playford, on Tonto honey?”

“Me? I’ve as sweet a tooth as one of these Tonto bears.”

“Wal, thet’s all fine for me,” declared the trapper, with gratification. “I reckon you boys will throw in with me, this winter anyway?”

“We shore will, Cap,” replied Rich.

“I’m darn glad of the chance,” added Playford. “My place is all tidy for the winter, even to firewood cut.”

“Jest luck thet I fetched a sack of new traps,” said Tanner.

“Hey, Rich,” called his mother from the kitchen, “come pack in the supper before I throw it out.”

Rich responded with alacrity, and every time he emerged from the kitchen, laden with steaming pans he winked mysteriously at Cappy Tanner, subtly implicating Nesta, who had come in dressed in white, very sweet and aloof, and Sam Playford, who could not keep his humble worshipful eyes off her.

“Cappy, you set in your old seat,” directed Mrs. Ames, beaming upon him. Then the twins came rushing in like whirlwinds, and they fought over who should have the place next to Tanner. Nesta was the last to seat herself, with an air of faint disapproval at the close proximity to Playford.

This byplay amused the trapper, yet began to arouse curiosity and concern in him. Nesta had never before had an admirer who had been accepted by her family, if not by her. In the Tonto, girls of sixteen were usually married or about to be; and here was Nesta Ames, past eighteen, still single, and for all Cappy could tell, fancy free. He could be sure of little, except her charm and the change in her, the mystery of which only made her more attractive. Conversation lagged, and the interest of everybody, even the trapper, appeared to center on getting the meal over. The clearing off of the table was accomplished with miraculous brevity, and the kitchen lamp was brought in to add more light. Rich threw a couple of billets on the fire.

“Wal, you all set around the table an’ I’ll play Santa Claus,” directed Tanner, and to the twins’ screams of delight he repaired to the porch, leaving the door open.

This was an hour for which he had long planned. In order to make a magnificent impression he decided to carry all the bundles and parcels in at once, and thereby overwhelm the Ameses at one fell swoop. But he had not calculated on the difficulty of handling the mass when it was not snugly bound in a canvas. Not only did he stagger under the load, but he stumbled on the rude threshold and lost his balance.

“Whoopee!” roared Rich Ames, in enormous glee.

Cappy went down with his burdens, jarring the cabin.

CHAPTER II

A FEW MOMENTS later Cappy Tanner gazed around the living-room, utterly happy to contemplate the joy he had brought to the Ames family. Not for nothing had he, in the past, made note of what they needed and what they had longed for.

For once Mescal and Manzanita were confounded and mute. Mrs. Ames was not ashamed of her tears, if she were aware of them, and she regarded Tanner as if he were beyond comprehension. Nesta had been most blessed by the trapper’s generosity. As she opened parcel after parcel she gasped. The last was a large flat box, somewhat crushed from the many packings on the back of a burro, but the contents were uninjured. The old trapper had engaged the good offices of a clever girl in Prescott to help him make these particular purchases of finery, but he did not betray that. He had the smiling nonchalant air of a man to whom such remarkable knowledge was nothing unusual. At first Nesta seemed rapt and spellbound. Then she hugged him. Cappy felt rewarded beyond his deserts, for the radiance and eloquence of her face had more than repaid him. At last she wept, and fled with her possessions to her room.

Rich Ames sat on a bench, gazing down on the floor, where he had laid side by side, a new .44 Winchester, a Colt of the latest pattern, row after row of boxes of shells, a hunting-knife and a hand ax, a pair of wonderful silver-mounted Mexican spurs, a cartridge-belt of black carved leather with silver buckle and a gun-sheath ornamented by a large letter A in silver.

“You son-of-a-gun!” burst out Rich, gulping. “Spent all last winter’s catch on us!”

“No. I bought a new outfit for myself, two more burros, some pack saddles, an’ a lot of good grub,” replied Tanner, complacently.

“Cap, if you had to do this heah job, why didn’t you wait till Christmas?” asked Ames, spreading wide his hands.

Tanner bit his wayward tongue in time to keep secret the second pack which was full of Christmas presents.

“Wal, Rich, if I have anythin’ good to tell a fellar or give him, I do it quick.”

“You’ve ruined this Ames outfit. Sam, what do you say aboot it?”

“If I had a million I’d give it to see Nesta look like she did,” replied Playford, fervently.

“So would I. Wasn’t she wild? — Poor Nesta! . . . She’s a girl an’ she’s had so little.”

“Wal, folks, I’ll mosey back to my cabin,” said Tanner. “I’m pretty tired an’ now thet I’ve had my little party I’ll say good night.”

“You goin’ an’ we haven’t thanked you?” queried Ames, aghast at a fact that seemed irremedial.

“Rich, I’m thanked enough,” laughed Tanner. “It’s something to knock the pins out of you Arizona twins. I’ve been layin’ to do it.”

“Ahuh, I see. . . . All right, Cap. What I’ll do aboot it I can’t say now.”

Tanner bade his friends good night and went out. He thought Nesta might be waiting to waylay him outside, but she was not. No doubt she had been struck even deeper than Rich. How strange that she had burst out crying! She seemed quite beyond his understanding, but this did not mitigate his gladness at having given her things her heart desired. Nesta’s lot had not been an easy one, nor had that of any of the Ameses, though for Rich no life could anywhere have been preferable to this wild Tonto. Their father came of fine Southern stock, probably Texan, and once he had been better off. Tanner had always inclined to the conviction that Ames had been involved in some feud in the South and had left to escape it. But he had only prolonged fatality. Though he had not been an active participant in the notorious Pleasant Valley war, he had been a victim to it. The Tonto had linked the name of Tate with the murder of Ames, but like many another of the legends of this wild lonely basin, it had never been verified.

The old trapper wended a thoughtful way along the trail under the bold black slope. The night was now cold. A keen wind made him draw his coat tight. The stars shone white out of a dark-blue sky; the creek ran with low murmur under the rocky banks; a pack of wolves were running prey over the top of Dead Horse Hill.

He had brought happiness to the Ameses and thereby to himself. But was all well with them? One of the things about the Ameses that had so appealed to Tanner was their devotion to one another. Could the loss of little Tommy and the advent of suitors for Nesta account for something the old trapper sensed yet could not define?

The trail through the break in the cliff lay in deep darkness, and Tanner, after half a year’s absence, had to go slowly over the boulders. He gained the valley presently and soon reached his cabin, and without making a light he went to bed.

Then he did not at once fall asleep, as was usual with him. The branches of spruce and maple that overgrew the cabin brushed against the roof and the leaves rustled. The wind under the eaves had a wailing note. It brought to Tanner more than the meaning of November.

* * * * *

He awoke late for him, and when he went out to the spring with his pail the gray frost on the grass sparkled in the clear light, and far above, on the west rim of the valley, the fringed line of pine burned gold in the sun. A thin film of ice covered the still pool below where the spring gushed out. He saw fresh deer tracks. While he was retracing his steps to the cabin he heard faint but sharp rifle-shots from the flat below. Rich Ames was out testing the new Winchester. He expected Rich to come stalking along any moment now, but he had cooked and eaten his breakfast, had cleared his utensils away, and was unpacking supplies when a familiar soft footfall thrilled him.

Rich entered the cabin, seeming to fill it with a potential force. He radiated youth, vitality, and that flashing fire characteristic of the Ameses, but this morning he was not gay.

“Howdy, Cap! Look at that,” he said, holding up his old sombrero.

Tanner espied three bullet holes through the crown of it. “Pretty good, if you wasn’t close.”

“Cap, I was close — fifty feet or so.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Tanner, and laying the hat on the table he flattened the crown, and put a silver dollar over the three holes. It hid them.

“If thet’d been at a hundred steps, I’d say tip-top.”

“Cap, I couldn’t hit a barn door with the rifle,” replied Rich, grinning. “I shot at rocks an’ things all aboot, but either I’m no good or the Winchester shoots high. I reckon it does. I put those holes in my hat with the Colt. — First three shots! Just throwed the gun — you know — an’ I was thinkin’ aboot Lee Tate.”

“Rich! — What kind of talk is thet?” rejoined Tanner, with reproof. “Reckon your shootin’ was wonderful, but your talk is crazy.”

“Shore it is, Cap. But don’t mind. I just was in fun. He’s been a lot on my mind lately.”

“Ahuh! Wal, forget him, an’ all the rest of the Tates. . . . Throw a stick on the fire and set down.”

Rich laid aside the rifle and replenished the fire, after which he settled himself in his favorite seat.

“I had a fight with Nesta this mawnin’,” he announced.

“Fight! What you talkin’ about, boy?”

“Twice I caught her slippin’ out. She wanted to get to you first.”

“Wal, I reckon I’m between the devil an’ the deep sea,” returned Tanner, ruefully.

“Meanin’ me as the devil, an’ Nesta as the deep sea! — It’s shore aboot right. I’m gettin’ mean an’ Nesta is deep. But she wouldn’t lie to me. I know that. . . . My Gawd, Cap — how I love her! — We Ameses are a queer outfit. Reckon it’s because so many of us are twins. My father had a twin brother. An’ there were twins among his people before. But never brother an’ sister. Nesta an’ I are the first. . . . If anythin’ bad happened to her it’d be like cuttin’ part of me out. . . . Nature plays some tricks, Cap. An’ she shore hasn’t any respect for anybody. There was a family over heah named Hines. They had twins — an’ they were fastened to each other in a way that if they’d lived would have been shore horrible. We had a cow once that gave birth to two calves fastened together. We had to kill them. I reckon it doesn’t make no difference to nature whether it’s cattle or people. Anyway, Nesta an’ I are awful close together. It scares hell out of me lately. I feel so much the way she feels that it’s hard to be myself.”

“Ahuh. — Wal, Rich, what’s on your mind?” returned Tanner, straddling a bench.

“There’s shore a lot. But Nesta first an’ most. . . . Cap, it was darn good of you to fetch us all those presents. Only if you had to give all that pretty stuff to Nesta I wish you’d waited. Till Christmas, anyway.”

“Why so, lad?”

“Nesta’s been strange this summer an’ fall. Now she’ll be plumb out of her haid.”

“Rich, are you afraid the pretty clothes will hurry her into marryin’?”

“Lord! I wish they would!” ejaculated Ames. “Cap, the truth’ll sound sort of silly, I reckon. But I cain’t help my feelin’s. . . . Lil Snell is goin’ to be married this month at Shelby. Hall Barnes is the fellow. I reckon you don’t know him. I do — a little, an’ I’m not crazy aboot him. Nesta went to school with him. You know father sent Nesta back to Texas before an’ through the cattle war heah. Well, she knows Hall an’ says he’s not such a bad sort. Maybe it’s true. But he’s related to the Tates, an’ he’s thick with Lee. . . . Well, Nesta wasn’t goin’ to this weddin’ because she hadn’t no dress. An’ I was plumb glad. Now you’ve gone an’ fetched her one! — Cap, last night after you left she came runnin’ in on us, dressed all in white. My Gawd! You should have seen her! Well, she raved aboot goin’ to the weddin’. An’ mother raved with her.”

“Wal, lad, there’s nothin’ hardly worrisome in thet,” rejoined the trapper. “I think it’s fine. An’ I’m goin’ to show up in Shelby, jest to see Nesta in thet white outfit.”

“Cap, Nesta has got you the same way she’s got Sam,” expostulated Rich.

“Humph! An’ how’s thet?”

“Plumb out of your haid.”

“Haw! Haw! Is thet why she wanted so much to see me before you?”

“Shore, so far as I know. But Nesta has got me guessin’. — Now, listen, old timer, an’ bear in mind I wouldn’t lie to you. . . . When Sam Playford came heah last April he fell in love with Nesta just like that. Head over heels! An’ Nesta fell in love with him. She told me. Up till lately she never had any secrets from me. Reckon I sort of took father’s place. Well, she told me, an’ as I thought a heap of Sam myself, it was all right. Mother, too, was pleased, an’ relieved, I reckon. Pretty soon Sam went down in the dumps an’ Nesta got her haid in the air. They quarreled. Sam wouldn’t tell me what aboot. An’ for the first time in her life Nesta kept things from me. She’d been goin’ to Shelby to dances — stayin’ overnight with Lil Snell, at her home. Sam didn’t go to some of these latest dances. He roamed around like a lost dawg. . . . Well, I took up the trail. An’, Cap, so help me Heaven, I found out Nesta was carryin’ on with Lee Tate.”

“No!” repudiated Tanner, passionately, jerking up with fire in his eye.

“Yes! — It’s damn hard to believe, Cap, but it’s true.”

“Aw! . . . Then she’d broke off with Playford?”

“Not a bit of it. They stayed engaged, an’ they’re still engaged. Now what do you think aboot it?”

“You said Nesta was carryin’ on with Tate. Jest how do you mean? Carryin’ on?”

Rich Ames shrank from the query. He writhed with his strong brown hands clenched between his knees, and the blue flash of his eyes centered with piteous doubt and entreaty upon the fire.

“If it was any girl but Nesta, I’d say she’d been more’n foolish,” he went on, slowly. “Nesta isn’t like any other girl. An’ I don’t mean headstrong an’ proud an’ moonstruck. Most girls are that way. I don’t know just what I mean. But Nesta is different. She might be mad at Sam. She shore hates to be bossed. All the same, lettin’ Lee Tate make up to her was daid wrong.”

“It was,” agreed Tanner, soberly. “Tate is a handsome fellar.”

“Shore. An’ he’s slick with girls. On an’ off he’s had most of the girls in the Tonto crazy aboot him. Nesta may be innocent of goin’ that far, but she shore has the name of it. Well, I didn’t believe much of the gossip. But when I watched Nesta an’ Tate one night at a dance, an’ later found out she met him at Snell’s, I got pretty sick. Then if I’d gone at Nesta sort of kind an’ understandin’ it’d been better. But I didn’t understand, an’ I was shore sore. So I made it worse.”

“Ahuh. Natural enough. Looks like a bad mess, Rich. But I’ll withhold my judgment till Nesta tells me her side.”

“Shore. You cain’t do no less. Lord! I’m glad you’re heah, Cap. Nesta is fond of you an’ she’ll listen to you. But, just now, if this goes on it’ll get beyond you an’ me. An’ poor Sam — why, he’s the laughin’-stock of Shelby! He knows it, too, an’ he doesn’t go there. I must say he has been fine. Never a word against Nesta! But it’s hurtin’ him.”

“Wal, I shouldn’t wonder. It hurts me deep, Rich. I don’t quite savvy. Thet’s not like Nesta. What’s got into the girl?”

“Cap, there’s bad blood in the Ameses. I’ve got it, an’ I’m scared. Maybe it’s comin’ out in Nesta. Mother now — she took Nesta’s part. You’d think she was proud of the girl’s conquests. Mother must get somethin’ out of it herself. I shore couldn’t talk more aboot it.”

“Ahuh. I see your side, Rich. You not only feel bad about Sam, but you’re worried for Nesta. An’ if Lee Tate bragged, you know — —”

“Cap, he has already bragged,” interrupted Rich, darkly. “That’s Lee’s way. Girls are easy for him. So far his talk hasn’t been — well, any shame to Nesta. But it’s most damned irritatin’.”

“Wal, Rich, his talk an’ Nesta’s odd behavior have got to be stopped.”

“Right, old timer,” returned Ames, quickly. “I reckon if we can fetch Nesta to her senses we won’t have to go further.”

“Don’t say ‘if,’ Rich. We’ll do it. An’ is thet all you’ve been worryin’ over?”

“Shore. Everythin’ else concernin’ us couldn’t be better. We’ve got over two hundred haid of cattle now. In another year Sam an’ I will need help. This heah is a fine range. In dry seasons the cattle browse up high while those down in the basin starve. No rustlin’ to speak of on this side. I can see how in a few years we shore will be rich. We live off the farm. An’ Sam is doin’ mighty fine. If Nesta will only settle down now we’ll all be happy, with the brightest prospects. Next year we’ll send the twins to school.”

“Wal, wal! — Thet’s good news. But it’d be sad if thet big-eyed lass spoiled it all. . . . I don’t believe she will, even allowin’ for the freaks of life. I know Nesta an’ I trust her. I’ll bet when her side of the story comes out we’ll see the thing different.”

“Cap, you cheer me up,” replied Ames, rising with brighter face. “I’ll chase myself now. An’ if Nesta doesn’t come heah, you find her. An’ if you cain’t talk her out of goin’ to Lil Snell’s weddin’ we’ll all go.”

“It’ll be better to do our talkin’ afterward,” said Tanner, sagely.

Tanner busied himself in and around his cabin, an expectant eye on the trail for Nesta. Some of the Ameses’ hounds came over to make friends with the trapper again. But Nesta did not put in an appearance. Tanner’s optimism began to fail and he grew troubled. Whereupon he sallied forth to find the girl.

The noonday sun poured warmly down into the valley. The heights looked clear and cold. There was a tang in the air, and the oak slopes gleamed steely gray. Deer and turkey watched the trapper as he plodded down the trail. He halted in the shady gulch to rest and ponder, then went on, to repeat the performance out in the flat, and he sat a long time on the old log. When he finally arrived at the Ames cabin the afternoon was well advanced.

Cappy found Mescal and Manzanita very much the worse for a prodigious consumption of candy. “Little pigs!” averred Mrs. Ames. “I had to take the candy away from them.” Mescal was sick in bed with colic, and Manzanita gave a capital imitation of a torpid lizard motionless in the sun.

“Cappy, you shore gave us a wonderful evenin’,” said Mrs. Ames. “But I’m afraid you’ve spoilt us.”

“Aw, what’s a little spoilin’?” laughed the trapper. “Once or twice a year won’t hurt nobody. Where’s Nesta?”

“She was flittin’ around like a butterfly all mawnin’,” rejoined Mrs. Ames. “Singin’ like a lark one minute, then mopin’ the next. She’s outdoors now. You’ll find her somewhere dreamin’ under a tree.”

“Mrs. Ames, what ails the lass?”

“Ails Nesta! — Nothin’ in the world. You men just cain’t understand us women.”

“Wal, perhaps not. But I’m tryin’ hard. An’ I reckon Rich an’ this Sam Playford are wuss off than me.”

“Rich been talkin’ to you?” queried the mother, sharply.

“Yes, a little. The lad is worried about Nesta. An’ I reckon he has cause.”

“I’m not gainsayin’ that, Cappy. He an’ Sam worship Nesta. An’ they haven’t sense enough to let the poor girl alone. Nesta is goin’ through a bad time. Her first love affairs. She was late startin’. Before I was sixteen I had half a dozen.”

“Aw, I see,” said Cappy, but he did not see at all. “So it’s love affairs.”

“Shore. She’s in love with two young men I know of. There might be another. This heah Sam Playford is a mighty fine boy. He’s good an’ gentle, an’ he’s powerful ugly. Now this Lee Tate is a handsome devil. He’s no good, an’ I’ll vouch he has a rough hand with girls. I’ve been tryin’ to make Rich an’ Sam see that they must let her alone. Sam is beginnin’ to. But Rich is like all the Ameses.”

“But, Mrs. Ames,” expostulated Cappy, “if they or all of us let Nesta alone, she — she’ll get a bit between her teeth an’ — an’ I don’t know what.”

“Cappy, she has done that already. An’ if we nag her she’ll ride off wild. I know girls. I was one once. An’ Nesta is an Ames clear through. My advice to you is to let her alone, agree with her, pet her. An’ if you have to talk, why, praise Lee Tate to her.”

“Good Lord, woman!” ejaculated Tanner, in bewildered disapproval.

“Cappy, take my word for it. If there’s any harm done it’s done. You cain’t help it. Nesta is genuinely fond of Sam Playford. But she’s also fascinated by this young Tate. That’s natural. Sam will get her, though, if he doesn’t make a jackass out of himself. He’s not worryin’ me much. Sam is a reasonable fellow. He rings true. But Rich will give me gray hairs. He’s his father over again. An’ more — Cappy. He’s the livin’ likeness of his father’s twin brother, Jess Ames. An’ if ever there was a fightin’ Texan it was Jess Ames. Their father was Caleb Ames, who fought in the Texas invasion in the ‘forties. He was a Texas Ranger. Rich is a grandson of that old warrior. You see what kind of blood he has. An’ he hasn’t any reason to love the Tates, has he?”

“I reckon not,” rejoined Tanner, gloomily, yet he thrilled in his gloom.

“It’s Rich I’m afraid of, an’ not Nesta.”

“Wal, it’s the other way round with me,” returned Tanner, and he went out to look for the girl.

He sought her at the barn and the corral, along the trail, up the gulch at his own cabin, and farther on, without success. Mescal Ridge could easily have hidden a thousand girls. Then returning to the creek valley he went farther, and at last espied Nesta’s fair head shining in the sun. She was sitting above the Rock Pool. This was a deep dark eddy at the head of the valley, a lonesome spot, where the slopes met in a V-shaped notch. Only from one place could Tanner have espied the girl, and it had been just accident that he had done so. He descended the bank and clambered over the boulders, and eventually gained the huge flat rock upon which she sat.

Tanner was old in years, yet at close sight of Nesta Ames he grew young again. She personified youth, beauty, love, tragedy. The environment seemed in harmony with all these. It was a wild, romantic spot. The leafless sycamore branches spread out over the rocks and the dark pool. A low roar of falling water came from up the creek. Opposite the yellow cliff bulged out, with its niches of green and its red-leafed vines. Downstream the whole of the gorge opened clear to the sight, to where it turned into the shadowy Hell Gate.

Under Nesta Ames’ blue eyes were dark circles. Her fair face showed the stains of recent tears. At sight of Cappy she seemed divided between gladness and resentment, neither of which she could control.

“Howdy, lass!” said Cappy, mildly.

A curved arm of the great sycamore reached out low over the rock. Nesta leaned against it. Manifestly this was a favorite retreat. A layer of pine needles made a comfortable seat. Cappy sat down close to her and leaned against the branch.

“So you tracked me?” she queried, flippantly and aloofly.

“Awful nice hyar,” replied Cappy, with a sigh. “Reckon I found you hyar once — long ago, before you growed up. Protected from thet north wind an’ open to the sun from the south.”

He laid aside his sombrero, and feeling Nesta’s gaze he thought it just as well that Mrs. Ames had given him some advice.

“What do you want?” asked Nesta, presently, and the tone was not propitious.

“Wal, seein’ you didn’t come to me, I reckon I had to come to you.”

“What for?”

“Nothin’, except the joy of seein’ you, lass. Course I’m not forgettin’ what you said yesterday about needin’ a friend.”

“Honest?”

“Cross my heart,” replied Cappy, and he suited the act to the words.

“But you saw Rich,” she flashed.

“Yes, he was over a little while.”

“He talked aboot me?”

“Reckon he did, some.”

“Good or bad?”

“Wal, a little of one an’ a lot of the other. You can take your choice.”

“Bad!” she retorted, with passion.

“Lass, I didn’t say so. An’ what Rich said ain’t botherin’ me none. Poor boy! He had to talk to me. I’ve always listened an’ kept my mouth shut.”

“It’s a pity he cain’t keep his mouth shut,” she returned, hotly. “This mawnin’ he called me a spoiled kid. Then when I spoke my mind he swore an’ boxed my ears.”

“No! You don’t say! — Wal, wal! I’m afraid Rich doesn’t savvy you’re growed up.”

“Do you?”

“Wal, I reckon. I seen thet yesterday.”

“You didn’t track me heah to scold and nag? To find fault with me? To worry me into being bossed by Rich?”

“Nesta, where’d you get such an idee as thet?” queried Cappy, as if surprised. Nevertheless, he did not trust himself to meet the wonderful blue eyes. After a moment she slipped a hand under his arm and moved almost imperceptibly closer.

“Forgive me, Cappy,” she murmured, contritely. “I guess Rich is right. I’m a cat sometimes.”

“Rich is all right, lass. He’s only weak where we’re all weak.”

“And where’s that, Cappy?”

“Where a certain Tonto lass is concerned.”

Nesta trilled a little gay laugh that yet had a note of sadness.

“Cappy, are you weak there?”

“Yes, lass. In the last stages.”

At that she slipped her hand farther under his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. Cappy could have blessed the girl’s mother. He felt more in that moment than he could have explained in an hour of pondering thought. She seemed a wistful, lovable, willful girl merging into womanhood, uncertain and doubtful of herself, passionately sensitive to criticism, intolerant of restraint.

“Cappy, last night I was gloriously happy,” she said. “I loved you for your generous gifts — more for the affection that prompted them. . . . But this mawnin’ I — I — oh, I’m sad. I’m crazy to wear that white gown — the stockings — the slippers. Oh, how did you ever — ever choose so beautifully? Why, they fit to perfection! . . . I cain’t resist them. I must go to Lil Snell’s wedding. I ought not to go, but I shall go.”

“Wal, why not, lass? I’m sure goin’. I wouldn’t miss seein’ you for a hundred beaver skins.”

“Why, Cappy?” she murmured, dreamily.

“Because you’ll look lovely an’ make them Tonto girls sick.”

“Ah! . . . You’ve hit it, Cappy. That’s my weakness. . . . There are several girls who have rubbed it into me. Laughed at my old shabby clothes. And there’s one girl I — I hate. . . . Oh yes, I’ve been jealous of her. I am jealous. . . . But neither she nor any other Tonto girl ever saw as beautiful a dress as mine. But for that I could stay home and obey Rich — and — and not hurt Sam any more.”

“Sam? — Aw, a little hurtin’ won’t hurt him. Let him see you with thet handsome Tate lad. You two will make a team. Sam is an ugly, slow fellar, an’ — —”

“Cappy, don’t say anything against Sam Playford,” interrupted Nesta, with surprising spirit.

“Excuse me, Nesta,” replied Cappy, guilty in his realization. “I sort of got the idee you didn’t give a rap for Sam.”

“But — I do,” said Nesta, with a catch in her breath. “I do! — That’s what makes it so hard. I’ve got to break with Sam and I — I cain’t.”

Cappy let well enough alone, though he was consumed with curiosity. In all good time Nesta would betray herself. There was deeper trouble here than Rich had guessed, though the lad’s misgivings were poignant.

“Cappy, you’ve pushed me over the fence,” went on Nesta. “I was heah fighting my vanity. And when you said I’d look lovely — and make these Tonto girls sick — I — I just fell over.”

“Wal, I’m glad I happened along,” lied Cappy. “Because it’s true an’ I want to see it.”

“You old dear! How comforting you are! . . . Cappy, I’ll do it. I’ll go — cost what it will.”

“Wal, lass, the cost is paid,” replied Cappy, with a laugh. “I’d hate to have to tell you what thet outfit cost.”

“I didn’t mean cost in money,” she said, with remorse.

“What then, lass?”

“I don’t know, but it might be terrible,” she rejoined, gravely. “These Tonto girls say I’m a stuck-up Texan. To outshine them won’t make them friendlier. Then that Madge Low hates me already. She has spread the — the talk aboot Lee Tate and me. She will be poison now. She is mad aboot Lee. He — he only trifled with her. . . . Then Rich will be really angry with me. He has never been yet. And Sam — he’ll be more hurt. But he didn’t ask me not to go. He’s never said an unkind word. That shore makes me ashamed. . . . But, if I stay away from Shelby afterward, maybe it won’t be so terrible. . . . If I stay away from Lee Tate afterward — —”

Nesta broke off, evidently realizing she was thinking aloud. Cappy needed no more to divine that she would not stay away from Shelby or from Lee Tate, and therein lay the menace to the future. Nesta must have divined it also, for her head dropped lower and heavier upon the trapper. He put a comforting, sympathizing arm around her, and gritted his teeth to keep silent. She was not proof against both, and the seething emotion within. She burst out crying.

“Oh, Cappy, I wish I were daid!” she sobbed. Her grief grew uncontrollable then. She wept with a wild abandon, as if such passion had been long dammed within her. It frightened the old trapper. When had he seen a woman weep? Nesta clung to him with the grip of one who feared she was slipping into an abyss. Little used as he was to feminine moods, he felt that something dreadful lay behind this unabatable grief. He sensed something he could not explain — that he was the only one to whom she could have betrayed herself.

CHAPTER III

CAPPY TANNER ROAMED the woods next day from dawn till dark, studying the game trails, the beaver dams, the piñon ridges, to find the run of fur-bearing animals so that he could plan a line-up for his traps. He found signs so plentiful that he assured himself of a bountiful season.

Next day he tramped up-country, through Doubtful Canyon, an all-day trip for even a hardy mountaineer like himself. So far as Cappy was concerned, Doubtful was going to have an unfelicitous name this winter. It was a certainty. The magnificent gorge had six beaver dams, one of them backing up a long lake acres in extent, and it seemed alive with beaver. A colony of bears had located high up on the east slope, which was covered with oak thickets. Deer and turkey had descended from the rim in numbers exceeding any he remembered. Round the springs were game tracks so thick that only the big bear sign could be distinguished.

But the beaver alone assured Tanner of a rich harvest. Evidently beaver had migrated from all over the country to this deep black gorge. The cuttings of aspen saplings far outnumbered the sum of all those in the years he had trapped there. It was unprecedented, and the opportunity to make him independent for life. He planned to devote himself solely to beaver-trapping, and to direct Rich Ames and Sam Playford in operations on fox, mink, martin, and other valuable fur-bearing species.

Cappy, in his way, was practical and thorough, so far as trapping was concerned. But always he had been a romancer and a dreamer over plans for the future. Unquestionably this winter’s catch would net him thousands of dollars, and also be a very profitable venture for Rich and Sam. He decided he would locate in the Tonto, somewhere between Doubtful and Mescal Ridge, and go into the cattle business with the boys. The idea grew on him. It was great. Thus indirectly he could bring prosperity to the Ames family, and possibly happiness to Nesta.

Sunset gilded the Mazatzals when he stalked through the grand outlet of Doubtful. First he looked back, and when he saw the lofty walls, cragged and ledged and turreted, shining in the golden light, and the yawning black gulf of timber with which the canyon was choked, he had a sudden stirring inspiration. He would homestead the gateway leading into Doubtful. No hunter or incipient rancher had yet despoiled Doubtful. It was too rough, too wild, too hard to clear and make into a paying proposition. But Cappy saw how he could do it; and right then and there he built a pyramid of rocks to identify his location. At last he had found a home. Only three miles from Mescal Ridge! And in the event that Nesta married Sam — a consummation to which Tanner pledged himself — he would be only a short walk over the ridge, to their homestead.

He sat there on a rock dreaming while the golden flare in the west grew dusky red and died. He was hungry and tired, and a long walk from his cabin. All at once his supreme loneliness struck him. Except for the Ames family he had no friends in all the world. Relatives were long gone and forgotten. He was dependent upon the Ames couplet of twins for what happiness there might be left. He realized then how and why his wandering life could no longer be sufficient.

In the gathering dusk he trudged down the Tonto trail, fighting his doubts, standing loyally by what he hoped and believed, despite the encroachment of sadness. Darkness overtook him on the trail, but he knew it as well as a horse familiar with the country. When he reached the valley under Mescal Ridge a light shone out of the darkness of the flat, and it was the lamp Mrs. Ames always burned, so long as any of her brood were absent. It cheered Tanner. The hounds scented him and bayed till the welkin rang. He stood a moment listening and watching.

“Wal, it’s settled I’ll stick hyar my remainin’ years,” he soliloquized, and there was content in the prospect.

* * * * *

Next morning while Cappy applied himself briskly to his chores Rich Ames appeared, hatless, gunless, with a blue flame in his eyes.

“Mornin’, son,” said the trapper, innocently, but he was perturbed.

“Mawnin’ — hell!” returned Ames, hotly. “Where you been for two weeks?”

“Why, Rich, it’s only been two days!” rejoined Tanner, suddenly conscious that even two days could brew disaster. “I’ve been plannin’ some lines for my winter trappin’.”

“Yes, you have. . . . You double-crossed me with Nesta an’ then run off an’ hid.”

“Double-crossed you!” ejaculated Tanner, facing about, red under his beard. “No, lad . . . at least not on purpose.”

“You backed her up aboot goin’ to the weddin’.”

“Wal — I saw thet she intended to go an’ I jest agreed. I figgered Nesta was in a queer state of mind. She can’t be drove any more, Rich. If you try thet any more, you’ll lose her.”

“Cap, it’s not a question of losin’ her any more. She’s lost.”

“Aw, Rich, you talk like a boy. What’s up?”

“Nesta’s gone.”

“Where?”

“Lil Snell rode in heah yesterday. She’s rushin’ her weddin’ an’ she said she needed Nesta bad. I wasn’t home an’ mother let Nesta go. When I got back I lit out on their trail, an’ over across the creek a couple of miles I found where they met up with two more horses. Then I was in a hell of a fix. If I’d caught up with them an’ Nesta had met Lee Tate again — Lord only knows what I’d have done. So I came home.”

“You did right. Nesta is not a child like Mescal or Manzi. She’s eighteen years old. If she chooses to meet Lee Tate or any other fellar, what can you do about it?”

“If it’s Tate I can do a hell of a lot,” declared Rich.

“Wal, mebbe it wasn’t. Mebbe it wasn’t nothin’ at all. A weddin’ is sure excuse for girls to be excited. . . . When is Lil Snell’s weddin’ comin’ off?”

“Day after tomorrow at her uncle’s in Shelby. A weddin’, dinner, an’ dance! Shelby will shore be roarin’.”

“Wal, we can go an’ roar a little ourselves, if we want to.”

“Cap, I’ll be there, but I wouldn’t take a drink for anythin’.”

“When’d you see Nesta last?”

“Day before yesterday. In the mawnin’ she went singin’ round the cabin, her cheeks like roses, an’ her eyes went right through you. I was sore an’ let her alone. Then Sam came down. Poor faithful jackass that he is! . . . I had to get away from them, though secretly I was glad she seemed kind to him again. But she wouldn’t let me alone, either. I’m as easy as Sam, only I can hide it. Well, she was full of honey an’ lightnin’. My insides just sort of curled up hot an’ tight. You cain’t help lovin’ Nesta. You cain’t!”

“Agree with you,” replied Tanner, bluntly, “so we’ll love her an’ let it go at thet. How’d you know she’d made a softy out of me?”

“I guessed that much. All Nesta said was you tracked her to Rock Pool. She gave me just one mysterious look an’ she held her chin up, in the way she has that makes you want to slap her pretty face. She didn’t need to tell me any more. You were her good friend if I wasn’t. You would back her against me or anybody. Then I reckoned you had double-crossed me.”

“Rich, you don’t believe that now?”

“I shore do. I know it. You crawled like a yellow dawg. You’re like mother. Just cain’t bear Nesta bein’ angry with you. Anythin’ but losin’ her. It’s always been that way. I’m the only one who has ever opposed her.”

“Wal, wal! I wonder,” rejoined Tanner, helplessly. “Rich, you’re only a lad. Only eighteen, an’ Nesta is heaps older. You may be wrong. Your mother seems wise about girls.”

“Mother makes me furious,” flashed Rich, heatedly. “She cain’t do a damn thing with Nesta. She likes to have the girl spoiled by men. She even gets somethin’ out of Lee Tate’s case on Nesta. Lee Tate! Who comes of the Tates that made away with father! . . . In her day mother was a flirt. I’ve heard father say so — an’ he didn’t mean to be funny, either.”

“But Nesta isn’t a flirt,” declared Cappy.

“No, I cain’t say that. At least not in a raw sense like Lil Snell an’ some more of these Tonto females. I reckon I know Nesta better than anyone, even our own mother. Nesta is half me. . . . An’ I’m tellin’ you, Cap, that if harm hasn’t already come to her through this Lee Tate-Lil Snell mixup it will come now, shore as Gawd made little apples.”

“Ahuh. — This Lil Snell used to be a bold one, didn’t she?”

“Ha! Used to be? She is yet, when the chance offers. Lil was one of Lee Tate’s girls an’ they were thick. I know. Well, she was always jealous of Nesta. Liked her, shore, because nobody can help that. But underneath all this late friendship between Nesta an’ Lil is somethin’ deeper. I felt it the first time I ever saw Nesta an’ Lil together. Lil has been playin’ Lee Tate’s game. That’s all. No one can tell me. An’ I’ve just had hell with Nesta an’ mother.”

“Son, if you’re figgerin’ correct, it’s too late,” replied Tanner, grimly, as he looked straight into the troubled eyes of Ames.

“Then I hope to Gawd I’m wrong,” burst out Rich. “But right or wrong, I’m goin’ to break up this case between Nesta an’ Tate. One way or another! Before he took after Nesta she was the sweetest, gayest, happiest girl in the world. She loved Sam an’ was contented at the prospect of helpin’ him with his homestead. But Tate flattered her, excited her, upset her — an’ I don’t know what else. Nesta used to like pretty clothes, but she wasn’t crazy over them. She could bake an’ sew — why, she was most as good a worker as mother. Lately she’s idle. She moons around. She has somethin’ on her mind. . . . Now, Cap, you can look me square in the eye an’ declare yourself.”

“Wal, son, you’re callin’ my hand,” replied the old trapper, not without dignity. “I’m bound to admit you’ve got this situation figgered. I didn’t have. An’ if your mother did, she either ain’t carin’ much or else she sees it’s no use. Mebbe she knows more of life than both of us together. I’m mighty fond of Nesta. I couldn’t be more so if she was my own. But now you put it up to me, I’d sacrifice her love for me to do her good. Reckon thet’s what you mean an’ what you’ll have to do. If we lose her we’ll still have Mescal an’ Manzi. . . . I agree. We’ve got to break Tate’s hold on Nesta. One way or another. I reckon the best way would be to marry her to Playford. Onless she doesn’t care for him any more.”

“She does. An’ that’s shore my first plan.”

“How about Playford? Nesta said he was fine. Never nagged her. But will he stand any more?”

“Sam is true as steel. Yesterday we talked aboot it. An’ he said: ‘Rich, if you cain’t bust up this moonshine of Tate’s, I’ll have to. Nesta will never marry me then, even if I came out of it free. But it’s got to be done.’ . . . An’ I swore I’d do it.”

“Wal, let Nesta have her fling for this weddin’. Watch her close, without her knowin’. Then the three of us will go after her, one at a time, or all together, an’ persuade her to marry Sam. . . . But, Ames, she told me she just had to break off with Sam, only she couldn’t.”

“Did she say that?” queried Rich, in consternation. “Lord! but we’re up against a tough knot! If she still cares for Sam, an’ she swears she does — why must she break it off?”

Tanner shook his grizzled head. He did not have the courage to voice his fears. When had he ever seen agony and terror in the lad’s once fearless blue eyes? It struck the old trapper that Rich Ames had been forced into manhood.

“Cap, she’s ashamed of somethin’,” went on Ames, hoarsely.

“Reckon she is. But if she still loves Sam an’ he’ll stand for — for anythin’ — why, it’ll all come out. All’s well thet ends well.”

“Damn you, Tanner!” bit out Ames, his lips suddenly drawn. “You know more’n you’ll tell.” Then he covered his face with his hands and sobbed: “Nesta! — Nesta! — Oh, little — sister!”

This was an ordeal for Tanner. He cursed.

“Hyar! what the hell kind of talk an’ goin’s-on is this?” he demanded, struck to the heart by Rich’s grief. “Nesta ain’t no little sister. She’s a big one. A grown woman, hot-headed an’ provokin’ the more for thet. Her beauty an’ sweetness only make her wuss. . . . Women hurt men. You can lay to thet. We’ll save her an’ I reckon she’ll turn out good as gold. But for Gawd’s sake get over the idee she’s still a baby.”

Rich Ames uncovered his face, now haggard and wet, and stood unashamed, as if not conscious of his weakness.

“Thanks, Cap. I reckon you hit the nail on the haid,” he declared, and with a strange smile and violent wrestle he seemed to recover his equanimity. “Sam an’ I are ridin’ in to Shelby today. Shall I saddle a horse for you?”

“Might as well. I hate ridin’, but I reckon I won’t have to keep up with you young bucks.”

“Sam will be heah by now. So come along,” said Ames, turning on his heel.

“I’ll be there pronto,” replied Cappy, watching the lithe figure glide away down the trail. Suddenly he had a queer premonition or a wondering thought that he would never again see Rich Ames like that.

Cappy hurried to change his soiled garb for the best he owned, and sallied forth to meet the boys. They were waiting with the horses under the spruces, talking earnestly. Cappy saw Rich make a gesture of fierce repudiation, as if he were thrusting back the thing that opposed him.

“Mother an’ the kids have gone,” announced Rich, when Cappy joined them. “They rode up to Lows’, who’re goin’ to town in their wagon.”

“Howdy, Cap! You’re all spruced up,” said Playford.

“Wal, I don’t see as you boys are wearin’ your wust. . . . Ride along now, an’ never mind about me.”

It took a few moments for Tanner to adjust the stirrups for his short legs, during which time Ames and Playford rode on ahead. When Cappy mounted they were fording the creek. The day was perfect. Indian summer still lingered in these deep canyons of the Tonto. A smoky haze filled the air. Mescal Ridge shone silver and green under the mounting sun.

Up on top, however, the air was cool, and the wind whipped at the pine thickets. Cappy did not see Rich and Sam again. He let his horse walk and found the miles and hours too short for the problem on his mind. The Tate ranch at Spring Valley appeared to have been vacated by its human inhabitants, of whom there were many. The wide green pastures were dotted with horses and colts. Wild ducks on the way south had descended to sport in the pond. Well-cared-for acres and fences, the numerous corrals and barns, and the big rambling house surrounded by cabins attested to the prosperity of the Tates. The whole range south of Spring Valley was under their dominance, if it did not actually belong to them. Possessions, however, were not the sole attributes that rendered the Tates formidable. Slink Tate, a nephew of the rancher, bore a bad repute and had taken the initiative in several fatal shooting affrays. Veiled Tonto rumor linked his name with the ambush of Rich Ames’ father. Most of the younger Tates were hard riders, hard drinkers, and not slow with guns. Lee Tate, however, did not shine with horses, ropes, or guns; but as a damsel-killer he stood supreme in the Tonto.

Cappy Tanner rode by Spring Valley with these reflections gradually rousing rancor in his usually mild breast. He had a lonely ride and ample time for cogitation. Darkness fell before he reached Shelby, and it was something more than an hour later when he rode down the wide dark street, with its dim yellow lights, its high board fronts. Cappy had anticipated that the tavern would be full, so he went to the house of a blacksmith, Henry, by name, a friend who did a little trapping, who welcomed him heartily. The blacksmith’s genial wife filled Cappy’s ears with the current gossip, and the last of it, anent the supposed jilting of Sam Playford by Nesta Ames, in the interest of a wild infatuation for devil-may-care Lee Tate, augured ill for the hopes and plans of Rich Ames.

Cappy went out, ostensibly to do the same as all visitors, stroll from tavern to store and from store to saloon, to chat or drink with acquaintances, to watch the gambling games; but in reality he was anxious to find Rich Ames. Presently he encountered Sam Playford, who, even in the dim light, appeared pale and gloomy.

“Where’s Rich?” queried Tanner, brusquely, without even a greeting.

“Just put him to bed an’ locked him in,” replied Playford.

“Bed! — Aw, don’t say Rich went an’ got drunk?”

“We had a couple of drinks,” admitted the other, seriously. “But they never phased me. Went to Rich’s head or somethin’. You know he drinks very little, an’ can’t stand much. We heard some talk right off. Must have upset Rich. He sure had a chip on his shoulder. Was goin’ to punch some fellow with Jim Tate. But I blocked that. Then this damn sheriff, Stringer, threatened to arrest Rich. His meanness sure came out, an’ his friendship for the Tates. . . . My God, but Rich scared me! He said: ‘Go ahaid, Stringer, an’ try it!’ — Stringer laughed it off, but he was scared, too. So I dragged Rich off to bed an’ I’ll go back to our room pronto. He might climb out of the window.”

“What talk did you hear?” queried Tanner, gruffly.

“It’s all over town that Nesta has jilted me for Lee Tate. An’ worse, they say it won’t do her any good. Tate is only playin’ with her. They say his father wouldn’t hear of him marryin’ into the Ames family.”

“Ahuh. Is there any ground for this jilt talk?”

“Nesta has never even hinted it to me. Yesterday she was somethin’ like her old self. Lately, though, she has been queer an’ cold when we met, then little by little she’d grow more natural. Yesterday she even thawed out. I’m afraid I cain’t understand it all.”

“Wal, I reckon I can,” responded Cappy. “You don’t need to. But stick to thet girl till hell freezes over.”

“You bet,” replied Sam, with emotion. “But just now it’s Rich who worries me most.”

“Huh! Rich ain’t worryin’ me none,” declared Tanner. “I’ve a hunch lately he’s on the right trail to clear up this mess. He’s got blood in him, Playford. An’ it’s workin’. But Rich has sense. Even if he got drunk he’d never lose his head. If he breaks loose you can gamble there’s reason. All we want to do is stand by an’ back him, if it comes to a fight. Are you packin’ a gun?”

“I reckon I am,” replied Sam, tersely. “But for Nesta’s sake — her good name — I hope we dodge a fight.”

“Dodge nothin’. So far as this two-bit of a town is concerned, gossip has already done for Nesta’s good name. An’ a healthy fight would help more’n hurt her. But let’s keep Rich from drinkin’. You go back to your room an’ stick with him. I’ll mosey around an’ listen. See you early in the mornin’.”

They parted. Tanner went the rounds of all the places in town where men congregated, and while pretending to be a little loquacious from liquor, he had a keen ear for all the talk. Late at night he returned to his lodgings, stirred to deep resentment, sorry for the loyal Sam Playford, bitter at Lee Tate, thrillingly conscious that he was not alone in his estimate of the latent potentialities of Rich Ames.

Tanner awoke to the onslaught of the merry blacksmith on his door. Late hours and sleeping indoors were not conducive to early awakening. Tanner had breakfast with his friend, accompanied him to the forge, and presently went on into town. The wide street, by day, presented an interesting spectacle. Normally, and even on Saturdays, a few saddle-horses were hitched to the rails, a wagon or two and a buckboard standing in front of the buildings. But today there was not a space left in the main block. The whole population of the Tonto, at least the northern half of the basin, had turned out to see Lil Snell married. For that matter, they turned out for any wedding. Such events were rare in this isolated community.

Troops of children romped up and down the street, unmindful of their Sunday garb; groups of brightly clad women and girls in gaudy colors paraded from store to tavern, with tremendous interest in the big house of James Snell, where the bride and her contingent were supposed to be mysteriously ensconced.

Cappy had neglected to find out from Sam Playford where he and Rich were located, but he expected to see them at one of the few centers of intercourse. He failed, however, and it took him some little while to find their room. At his knock the door was opened by Sam, whose greeting certainly did not lack relief.

“Howdy, boys!” said Tanner, with good cheer, as he entered.

Rich sat on the bed, clean-shaven, his hair wet and plastered down. If Cappy had expected to find him sullen or thick he was vastly mistaken. Never had Rich appeared so handsome, so cool and self-contained. Again Cappy sustained a nervous shock at the subtle possibilities emanating from the scion of old Texas fighting-stock.

“Hello, Cap!” drawled Rich. “We was just debatin’ whether to get outside a gallon of red liquor an’ take some shots at Jeff Stringer’s boots, or keep sober, lay low, an’ watch the whole show. What say you?”

“Wal, I incline to the first, but common sense an’ regard for Nesta decide me on the last,” replied the old trapper, sententiously.

“Shore you’d fetch Nesta in,” declared Rich, almost mockingly. “Damn her lovely face! . . . All right, Cap, we’ll stick to your hunch an’ stand a hell of a lot from these hombres. But my Gawd! I’d like to start somethin’! Sam heah is rarin’ to. First time he’s showed any spunk, Cap. He came boltin’ in heah, fire in his eye, a chip on his shoulder. An’ then he won’t tell me nothin’.”

“Anythin’ rile you, Sam?” queried Cappy, bending speculative eyes upon the young homesteader.

“Hell yes!” retorted Sam. “But no matter. It’s not what I’d like to do. Rich an’ me are in bad here with all these Tate followers. But for Nesta’s sake I think we ought to see nothin’, hear nothin’, do nothin’. . . . An’ rustle home quick — tonight before all these hombres are drunk.”

“Thet’s sense, an’ we’ll act on it,” replied Tanner, decisively. “Not one single snack of liquor! Hear that, Rich Ames, you Arizona gopher?”

“Shore I heah you,” said Rich, nonchalantly. “The two drinks I had yesterday will last me a spell. Gee! I thought I’d been kicked by a mule.”

“Wal, come on, an’ act like a couple of moony youngsters with their pa,” said Tanner, in conclusion.

Whereupon they went out, a quiet, amiable-appearing trio, vastly deceiving, according to Cappy’s thought. His admiration for Rich Ames grew in leaps and bounds. Any other young buck of the Tonto would get drunk and start trouble. Rich had developed depth and was the more dangerous for it. They made the round of the saloons, lounged in and out of the tavern, made odd purchases in the store, and rubbed elbows with a hundred or more of the male element. They rather avoided the women, more conspicuous and almost as numerous. Playford seemed aloof. In fact, he could not see any women. Rich was cool, careless, easy-going, almost smiling as he passed the girls, many a one of whom cast shy glances at his handsome face.

It was in Turner’s hall that Cappy’s sharp gaze set upon young men of the Tate faction, whom he had expected to encounter sooner or later. He did not need to be told that Rich had espied them first.

Turner’s hall was the largest place of its kind in Shelby. It had been decorated for the ball that night, and feminine hands had assuredly superintended the arrangement of flags, bunting, autumn leaves, and other gay accessories. This hall was used for all public gatherings. Today it served, as on most days, for the gambling prevalent in the Tonto. Turner’s bar was in the adjoining room, into which it opened by swinging doors, now concealed by curtains.

Perhaps two dozen were in the hall, most of them gambling, and others looking on. Lee Tate, with a companion Tanner did not recognize, was watching a table at which sat Jeff Stringer, the sheriff, Slink Tate, and two cowboys whom Cappy knew but could not place.

Cappy would have passed on, had it not been that Rich halted by the table, with Sam following suit.

“Howdy, everybody!” drawled Rich, in his lazy way.

Lee Tate sneered a voiceless response. He was tall, with olive-skinned face scarcely tanned, dark-eyed and dark-haired, and he looked his reputation with the Tonto women. He appeared older than his twenty-two years, and though dissipation stamped his features it had not yet marred their perfection. He wore dark clothes, high-top glossy boots, and spurs.

Slink Tate might not have been a relative of Lee’s, he was so different. He had the face of a surly hound. He lifted sunken, gloomy eyes to Ames, and accorded him a curt nod.

“Hullo, Ames!” spoke up Stringer, in dry, caustic tone. “Sober again, hey?”

“Shore am,” drawled Ames. “Reckon I want to see awful clear today.”

Cappy plucked at Rich’s sleeve and attempted gently to start him on the move. This was atmosphere charged with menace. But Rich did not take the hint.

“Powerful interested in weddin’s, hey?” queried Stringer, as he slapped down a card.

“Shore am. My sister Nesta is marryin’ Sam heah next week an’ we want to get some pointers.”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed the sheriff, interested out of his gruffness. “Wal, I’m darn glad you’ve sobered up. Was afraid I’d have to jail you.”

“Say, Jeff, there were a dozen cowpunchers roarin’ around last night,” declared Rich, sarcastically. “Why didn’t you arrest them?”

“Wal, thet’s my business. But they wasn’t no pertickler menace to the community.”

“An’ I am? Ahuh. I see the point,” returned Ames. “You shore got me figgered correct.”

Cappy had taken a swift glance at Lee Tate the instant Ames made his startling statement about Nesta. Whatever had prompted Ames to launch this retort, it certainly reached home. Lee Tate’s face turned a burning red of surprise and rage. During the byplay between Ames and Stringer he stared at Playford, slowly paling.

“Say, Playford,” he queried, sharply, in the pause that followed Ames’ caustic reply to Stringer, “are you really gettin’ married next week?”

Sam rose to the occasion. “Sure am,” he said, with innocent importance. “Didn’t Nesta tell you? — She hasn’t set the day, though. I wanted it on Monday an’ Rich compromised on Wednesday. But Nesta will likely put it off till Saturday. Worse luck. . . . Are you congratulatin’ me, Tate?”

“Not so you’d notice it,” returned Tate, sourly, and distortion of passion disfigured his beauty. “No later than last night Nesta Ames swore to me she was breakin’ with you.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Playford, and there was a ring of more than mirth in his voice. “Do you reckon you can make a monkey out of Nesta, like you have so many Tonto girls? Ho! Ho! . . . Tate, she was only givin’ you a little of your own palaver. Why, Nesta told me she was goin’ to.”

“The hell you say!” ejaculated Tate, growing purple.

“Yes, the hell I say,” repeated Sam, hotly.

“Well, by God! there are some things she can’t tell you!” burst out Tate, with dark and malignant significance.

Suddenly Ames leaped like a panther to confront Tate.

“There are?” he rang out. “But she’ll tell me, Lee Tate. An’ if you’ve wronged her in word or deed — God have mercy on you.”

Tate’s expression changed swiftly. Yet his intensity of amaze and rage had scarcely flashed into a gulping recognition of sinister menace when Ames struck him a terrific blow. The blood flew from his smashed nose. He fell over a table, and it, with bottles and chairs, went to the floor with a crash.

Ames backed to the door, his right hand low at his side, his blue eyes magnificently bold and bright with disdain, scorn, hate. First they transfixed Slink Tate, and seeing that he did not intend to accept the challenge they included the gaping sheriff.

“Jeffries, I’ll be waitin’ for you over by the jail,” he drawled, with the coolest of sarcasm. And the accompanying thin-lipped smile seemed assurance that the sheriff would not be there.

CHAPTER IV

LIL SNELL’S MARRIAGE took place late in the afternoon, hours after the time set. Cappy Tanner heard a woman, who had access to the Snell household, announce to eager listeners that the delay was occasioned by the bride-to-be’s jealous frenzy over Nesta Ames’ lovely gown. Lil had consumed part of this period in beseeching Nesta to sell or loan her the gown, and the rest in raging at Nesta, who was flint to the appeal.

This dramatic interlude, following the assault of Rich Ames upon Lee Tate, had Shelby by the ears.

Cappy could not get a peep into the crowded house during the ceremony, but he did ascertain that Lee Tate was not present. His overweening vanity, no doubt, would not permit him to show his disfigured face.

“He’s hidin’ or he’s gone home,” declared Playford, with great satisfaction. “Say, Rich, but that was an awful sock you gave him.”

“Wal, Tate’ll never show up to no dance this hyar night,” added Cappy.

But Ames made no comment. He was hard to keep track of, and his friends, after following him around long enough to make sure that he did not intend to drink, lost apprehension on this score. Ames, however, left them plenty to be concerned about. He had spent an hour stalking up and down in front of the stone-walled jail, where crowds watched from a respectful distance. But Jeff Stringer did not approach to make the arrest. Cappy’s keen ears registered the fact that the majority of Tontonians approved of Rich Ames. He was liked by all except his enemies. The Tates were hated. Jeff Stringer had many things against him, and that day he lost prestige enough to ruin his future aspirations as a sheriff.

Ames could not keep still for long. Naturally he was nervous, watchful, strained. He alone of the three friends forced his way into Snell’s residence, not to be a witness of the ceremony, but to see his sister in the now famous gown. And he came out to Cappy and Sam with a soft, beautiful light on his face.

“O Lord! She’s ruined us!” he exclaimed. “Sam, you must see her in that dress if you have to kill somebody. . . . An’ you, Cappy Tanner — damn your old wooden haid! the mess aboot Nesta was bad enough before you throwed this gauntlet. But, by Heaven; it’s worth it!”

The wedding feast and dance began simultaneously, but neither the dance-hall nor the dining-room could accommodate all the guests at one time.

The hour was late when Cappy Tanner saw Nesta Ames in all her glory. Cappy knew her and yet she seemed a stranger. How queer that a mere dress could make such difference! But it did. Nesta was the despair of all the girls present and the object of adoration to the young men. No such beautiful, radiant being had ever before graced a Tonto ball. Lil Snell had been made a bride, but she did not look a happy one. She looked dowdy and dim beside the lovely Nesta. And Nesta utterly outshone Madge Low, a dark, handsome girl reported the sweetheart of Lee Tate.

Cappy’s shrewd old eyes saw through the flimsy disguise of these few girls who hated Nesta, just as they had penetrated to the shallow, evil heart of Lee Tate. Their machinations to undo Nesta, for this great occasion at least, had rebounded upon their own heads. Nesta had her revenge. The young men of Shelby and of all the Tonto mobbed her in their demand for dances.

After a dance she led her partner to Rich, Sam, and Cappy, where they watched from the side. Close at hand she appeared to Cappy the old Nesta, only more mature, lovelier, sweeter of smile. She had forgotten every unhappy moment of her life. This ball and her triumph were enough for all the future. Her face shone like a pearl in a glowing light; her eyes seemed to have turned to dark midnight hue made strangely brilliant by stars.

“Sam, you haven’t asked me to dance,” she said, with bewildering sweetness. “Nor you, either, Rich Ames.”

“Listen to her!” gasped Sam.

“Nesta, you might just as well be in Doubtful Canyon,” drawled Rich, but his eyes held a blue worshiping flash.

“Look at ’em comin’,” burst out Sam, indicating the tall young men rushing like wind through the cornstalks.

“I’ve saved two dances,” trilled Nesta, gayly, “the next for you, Sam, and then one for Rich.”

Under the glamour upon her, and the obsession of passion or love or revenge, whatever it was that radiated from her, Tanner’s piercing affection discerned tragedy. He watched her dance with Sam, the cynosure of all eyes, and then with Rich. Since childhood these twins had danced together. They moved as one, Rich the personification of lithe masculine grace, and Nesta, her heavy-lidded eyes dreaming, dark, seeing nothing, lost in the music and rhythm of the dance.

Cappy Tanner left the hall and wended a sorrowful way to his lodgings. He saw through the hour to unknown calamity. Next morning, an hour after the cold gray dawn broke, he was riding alone back to Mescal Ridge.

Nesta, too, returned late that day, with Sam and Rich, and her mother accompanied by the twins, all weary and spent. Cappy saw them for only a few moments. But next day the serene, even tenor of life at Mescal Ridge seemed to have reinstated itself. Cappy welcomed it, though he sensed it as a lull before a storm.

“Cap, shore I’m drunk or dreamin’,” said Rich, when Cappy presented himself at the cabin.

“Wal, you do look wild, but you ain’t drunk,” rejoined Tanner.

“Nesta came home like a lamb. She’s promised to marry Sam, if we’ll give her a little time. She’s queer. The fire an’ glory of her seem daid. It clean stumps me.”

“Wal, thet weddin’ an’ dance would have taken the starch out of most girls — if they’d been Nesta. . . . I’m plumb curious. Did she find out you punched Lee Tate’s nose into a sausage?”

“Did she? Shore! . . . The dance lasted all night. Nesta asked Sam an’ me to stay. In the mawnin’ she cut the Snell outfit. An’ as she came out with her things, who should bob up but Lee Tate. He shore tried to detain her, talkin’ low. She looked at his busted face an’ laughed. By thunder! my blood run cold, then hot. She pulled her sleeve away from him as if he was dirt. An’ she swept by, her eyes ablaze, her haid up. . . . An’ I reckon that’s aboot all, Cappy.”

“Wal, wal! Thet clean stumps me!” ejaculated Tanner, stroking his beard. “Who’n’ll can savvy a woman? — But I say, watch her close.”

An astounding thing to Tanner was the way Playford’s boast to Lee Tate bade fair to turn into reality. Nesta actually did consent to be married that week.

Tanner went several times to the Ames cabin, but only once did he see Nesta. Then he was shocked. She seemed infinitely removed from the glorious Nesta of the dance at Shelby. She was too apathetic, too yielding, too haunted. Tanner imagined she had resigned herself to a situation which her heart sanctioned, but her conscience opposed.

Sam Playford hung around the cabin apparently in a trance. Mrs. Ames’ cheerful and practical preparations for Nesta’s marriage augured well for her subtle waiving of a possible slip between the cup and the lip. But she might have known more about Nesta than anyone else. Rich showed increasing strain. He too hung around in sight of the cabin. About the only work Tanner saw him apply himself to was chopping wood, which he did desultorily.

Tanner kept to himself for a couple of days forcing himself to necessary labor, if he intended to spend a winter trapping. He would be glad when this marriage business was over. Mescal and Manzanita sought him out the second day, eager to impart the latest news. Nesta did not want to go to Shelby to be married and Sam had ridden in to have the parson come to Mescal Ridge on Saturday.

* * * * *

Indian summer lingered, though it was past the middle of November. The old trapper could not help being aware of the still, smoky blue days, the warmth of sun, the late-blooming asters, the lonesome caw of crow and the melancholy note of thrush, the slumberous waiting solitude.

Saturday — Nesta Ames’ wedding day — dawned at last, the warmest, purplest, and most beautiful of those waning summer days. Cappy had vaguely imagined that it never would come. Even now, as he donned his best garb to see Nesta married, he could not drive away a strange presentiment. He had seen a shadow in Nesta’s eyes and it had spread to his consciousness.

When Cappy emerged from the gulch into the Mescal Ridge trail he espied half a dozen horses hitched under the three spruces beside the Ames cabin.

A clip-clop of hoofs at a trot sounded up the trail. Sam Playford emerged from the wall of green, and his garb shone bright against that background.

Cappy essayed a merry halloo to Sam, but a piercing scream cut it short.

“What the hell?” ejaculated the trapper. Could that have been Mescal’s high-pitched shrill laughter? Playford had checked his horse. He had heard. Suddenly with a shout he leaped out of his saddle and plunged down over the rocky bank.

Then Cappy, thus directed, saw a moving object along the shore of Rock Pool, coming around the huge boulder. Cappy stared, while all his senses save sight seemed held in abeyance. Something flashed silvery in the sunlight. He made out Rich Ames carrying a heavy burden up from the creek. Then he saw Playford crashing through the willows, thumping over the rocks. Cappy’s heart gave a great leap, then sank like lead. In a panic he rushed at the declivity below the trail. But as he could not get down there he ran up to where Playford had gone over. His frantic haste caused him to stumble and fall headlong. Jarring contact with rocks, furious threshing into brush, caused no pain he was conscious of. Scrambling up, he hurried across the rough bench, arriving at the sycamores panting, so spent he could not speak.

Nesta Ames leaned back against a tree trunk, disheveled, limp as a sack, wet from her waist down. A terrible dark blaze burned in her eyes. Playford knelt beside her, wringing his hands, his face ashen.

Rich’s back, as he stood bowed as if under a tremendous burden, made Tanner not want to see his face.

“I saw the parson,” Nesta was saying. “I lost my nerve. . . . I couldn’t go on with the wedding.”

Tanner’s relief to see her alive, hear her voice, realize she was unhurt, was so great that it seemed the shame and tragedy of her avowal were as nothing. He went forward, to drop on one knee on the other side of Nesta, and take her limp cold hand.

“Lass — lass — —” he began huskily, in broken accents.

“Shore that’s plain. But why?” demanded the brother, grim and hard. Tanner felt the urge to look at him, but had not the courage yet.

Nesta looked at him with unfathomable eyes. She might have lost her courage when it came to the marriage, but she had no fear of Rich, no shame in facing him! She seemed beyond both. Her hand shook, her full bosom rose and fell. Her red lips set in a bitter resolute line.

“Didn’t you try to drown yourself?” queried Rich, harshly.

“Do you think I was trying to baptize myself?” she countered, scornfully, her voice gathering strength.

“Answer me!” he ordered. “You slipped out. I saw you. I ran over heah. . . . An’ I caught you tryin’ to make away with yourself. Didn’t I?”

“You shore did,” she replied, with steely ring of voice. “But you might have saved yourself the trouble — and me more than you can guess.”

“Tell me why,” went on Rich, hoarsely.

“I couldn’t go through with it. I wanted to. I hoped to make Sam happy. I loved him. . . . But I couldn’t marry him.”

“Why?”

“I wronged Sam. I was untrue to him. . . . Mother wanted me to marry him and keep it secret. But I intended to tell him — soon as I — was his wife.”

“How’d you wrong him?”

“I got — mixed up with Lee Tate.”

“Mixed up! . . . Ahuh. You shore talk queer. . . . Nesta Ames, what you mean — mixed up?”

“It couldn’t have been worse,” she returned, mournfully.

Rich violently shook his whole supple frame, as if to throw off an enmeshing net. He plumped down on both knees at Nesta’s feet and plucked at them with nerveless hands. His face was convulsed in agony.

“I thought I could go on with it,” continued Nesta, simply. “I really do love Sam. . . . More a hundred times than that devil. I didn’t mean to be a false wife. I’d have told Sam. And I knew he’d forgive. . . . But I wilted — when I found out I was going to have a baby.”

“O my Gawd!” cried Rich, and he fell forward on his face, to dig his brown hands deep into the moss, to beat the ground with his feet.

Playford flung an arm over his twitching face. Nesta gazed from him to Rich, and then to Tanner.

“Cappy, it’s — horrible!” she whispered. “If he’d only let me — drown myself.”

“Lass, thet wouldn’t help none,” said the trapper, huskily. “It’s hell on the boys — but I reckon — all right with me.”

Rich Ames shuddered. He then seemed to freeze. When he arose Tanner could not bear to look at his face.

“Nesta, I reckon I can kill you,” he said, in a singularly cold and bitter voice.

“I wish you would, Rich,” she burst out, with a first show of passion. “Then I’d not have it — on my soul. . . . For I cain’t live. I wouldn’t make way with the baby — I cain’t live through it, Rich!”

“By Gawd! you won’t, if you were to blame!”

“Of course I was. How could any girl be such — such an idiot — unless she were to blame? But I swear to you, Rich, and to Heaven — that I never knew it would go so far.”

“You loved this skunk Tate?” demanded Ames, stridently, as he leaned over her, his jaw protruding.

“No! — No!” she cried, wildly. “That’s the horror of it. . . . But I was fascinated . . . then — afterward — he had some power over me. I never broke it till the mawnin’ after the dance. . . . Oh, too late — too late!”

Tanner found his voice and besought Ames to hear Nesta’s story. “Boy,” he concluded, “you’re pronouncin’ judgment too soon.”

“Nesta, tell us,” begged Playford. “I can’t think of you — as bad. . . . But no matter. Tell the truth. We three will find a way out for you.”

“Poor Sam!” she whispered, lifting her hand to touch him. “I must be bad. I am bad. And there’s no way out for me.”

Rich knelt again, this time closer to her.

“Tate won’t marry you?” he asked, huskily.

“I don’t know. But even if he would, I’d never — never have him.”

“Well, you stump me, Nesta Ames,” said Rich, throwing up his hands. “Do as Sam wants. Tell us the truth.”

“Oh, it’s miserable enough,” began Nesta, her eyes brooding and somber. “I never loved Lee Tate. But I always felt queer when he looked at me — talked to me — which he came to do this last year. . . . It all must be because of Madge Low and Lil Snell. Madge is his girl now and Lil used to be. I didn’t know till lately how thick he was with them. Madge was a cat, and Lil was jealous of me. They made me so furious I could have killed them. I swore I’d show them I was not a gawky country jake. They said Lee was playing with me. But they fixed it many times when he could see me. I know now they put the job up on me. . . . Well, it began then. I flirted with him. But I — I didn’t give in to him — let him touch me — or kiss me . . . until one day Lil double-crossed me — rode off and left me with him alone. . . . He dragged me off my horse — threw me into a pine thicket — and — and had his way. . . . After that I hated him — but still I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t want to see him — I avoided him — but when he found me I — I couldn’t help myself. . . . He was like a snake. . . . That night at the dance I woke up. All I had ever wanted was to show that nasty, dirty Madge Low I wouldn’t wipe my boots on her. And Lil Snell — too! They helped Lee Tate ruin me. I saw it. I won Lee from them and their other beaus. I had Lil’s husband running after me as hard as any of them. . . . That was enough. I saw my mistake — the awful cost. Before I left Shelby I laughed in Lee Tate’s face — I told him I despised him — would never look at him again. But I lied. I knew his power over me — that he could drag me down again. Still I came home to Sam — to hope and fight. . . . Then I found out aboot the baby coming. It was all too — late. . . . When I — saw the parson coming — I ran to — drown myself.”

Playford reached long arms for Nesta, and kneeling still, he lifted her against him.

“Nesta, it’s not too late,” he said, poignantly. “You poor mad little girl! — All for vanity! I’ll stick to you. We’ll never let anyone know.”

“Sam! . . . You’d marry me — now?” she wailed, all defiance and bitterness gone from her.

“Yes. We’ll go over to the cabin, an’ have the weddin’ — same as we planned.”

“No, no,” she implored, suddenly bereft of the hopeless resignation that had been her anchor.

“But, Nesta, you said you loved me? went on Sam, tenderly.

“Oh, I do — I do! . . . I never stopped loving you. . . . But I cain’t risk this! — O my God if I only dared!”

Rich Ames reached a long arm, to catch her quivering shoulder and turn her face from Playford’s breast.

“Why don’t you dare?” he flung at her, sharply. “Sam’s big an’ fine. He’s got real love. No one will ever know. Me an’ Cappy will keep your secret. The baby will be an Ames. — Why don’t you dare?”

Tanner never before gazed upon such woe as wrung his heart then. Nesta could not meet her brother’s flaming eyes; she turned from the staunch Playford. And it was to Tanner that she whispered piteously:

“Cappy — he’d hound me — catch me alone some day — —”

Tanner choked with misery. He heard Playford sob. But Ames bent over his sister:

“Never in this world, Nesta dear,” he drawled, with his old slow, cool speech.

“Rich!”

“You heahed me. — Come, brace up. Help her on her feet, Sam. . . . You’ll go back home. An’ listen. Nesta fell in the creek. An’, Sam, you an’ Cappy happened along. Nesta was scared. She’s pretty shaky. But you’ll go on with the weddin’.”

“Rich!” cried Nesta.

“You heah me, Sam?”

“I ain’t deaf, pard,” replied Playford, his voice gruff with emotion.

“You heah me, Cap?” went on Ames, inexorably.

“Shore do, lad, an’ I’m obeyin’ pronto,” replied the trapper, as he helped Sam support the trembling girl.

“Nesta, I won’t be heah to see you married,” went on Ames. There were finality and farewell in his words, a strange note, scarcely tenderness. He made no move to kiss her, touch her, though her fluttering hands were outstretched. “But I wish you happiness with Sam — an’ shore, if you’re good to him, it’ll come some day.”

“Rich!” she screamed, but it might as well have been to the empty air.

* * * * *

News arrived post haste next day at Mescal Ridge. The rider, a stranger to Tanner, dashed in on a froth-lathered horse, and slid off.

“Howdy!” he said. “Come ‘way from the cabin. I got a word for you.”

Mrs. Ames, who had been talking to the trapper, after one look at the grave-faced visitor, hurried into the living-room, drawing the wide-eyed twins with her.

“Reckon you’re Tanner?” the man interrogated, when they had reached the spruces.

“Reckon I am,” replied Cappy, gloomily, in a tone that signified that he wished he could deny his name.

“Where’s young Playford?”

“Gone up to his homestead with his wife. They was married yesterday.”

“Glad to hear it. I didn’t cotton to this job. An’ you’ll have to tell them.”

“Ahuh. . . . What’ll I tell?”

“Ames killed Lee Tate last evenin’ an’ Jeff Stringer. Shot Slink Tate up bad, too, but he’ll recover.”

“Tate — an’ Stringer — eh?” queried Tanner, with a hoarse little catch of breath between the words. “Wal, thet’s awful bad news. . . . How’d it happen?”

“Nobody knows jest how, but they seen it,” replied the rider, wiping his sweaty face.

“Did you?”

“I should smile I did.”

“Even break?”

“Shore. Couldn’t hev been no evener.”

“Wal, thet’s good, anyhow. . . . How’d the town take it?”

“Most folks kept their mouths shet, as is a wise habit in the Tonto. But it was easy to get the general opinion. Shelby needed a new sheriff, anyhow. Lee Tate wasn’t worth killin’, so he was no great loss. There’s not many, though, prayin’ fer Slink Tate to get well.”

“Ahuh. But you said he would?”

“Shore. He won’t be no good for a while, mebbe never, but he’ll come out of thet shootin’ scrape.”

“How about — young Ames?” asked Tanner, finding the query most difficult to enunciate.

“Never touched him. He fooled them aplenty an’ throwed the slickest gun I’ve seen these many moons.”

“Wal, suppose you tell me all about it, an’ then we’ll go up to my cabin an’ have a drink.”

“Aw, don’t care if I do. An’ let’s stroll along right now. . . . I happened to run into Ames last evenin’ before dark. He was sober as a judge. After the shootin’ there was some figgerin’. No one seen Ames take a drink. Shore he might hev had a bottle on him. But most of us old heads doubt thet. He had dinner at the tavern an’ loafed around. Unsociable, though. Jed Lane seen him not five minutes before the fight an’ he was sober then, too. . . . Wal, I was in Turner’s an’ the hall was jammed. But I didn’t happen to be gamblin’. I was talkin’ to old Scotty about my prospect when Ames blew in. Funny thing. I noticed fust off thet though he looked staggerin’ drunk his face was white. An’ I’d swear no man full of liquor ever had eyes like his. He spotted the two Tates an’ Stringer playin’ cairds with two men from Globe. It was a stiff game an’ there was a crowd watchin’ the play. It struck me after thet Ames knowed these men were in there. He swaggered around, lurched ag’in’ their table, an’ made them sorer’n hell. But nothin’ come of thet. Then he wanted to set in the game. They didn’t want him an’ thet riled him. Plain to me Ames wasn’t drunk, though he fooled them fellars, an’ he aimed to start a fight.

“‘Git out of hyar or I’ll run you in!’ yelled Stringer, who was a loser in the game, an’ pretty testy.

“‘Run me in, you —— four-flush sheriff. Jes’ try it,’ said Ames. But Stringer kept his seat, fumin’. He didn’t want no mix with Ames.

“Wal, he stood around watchin’, an’ damn me if he didn’t ketch Lee Tate tryin’ to cheat. Quick as lightnin’ he nailed his hand — an’ showed Tate’s trick. Clumsy holdin’ out of aces! — Tate jumped up, roarin’. He figgered Ames was too drunk to fight, anyway, an’ he was hot-tempered. He called Ames a lot of hard names, which were shore sent back, with some added. . . . Wal, the crowd got interested, an’ quiet all around. Reckon nobody figgered anythin’ but mebbe a little fist fight.

“Slink Tate kept pullin’ Lee down in his seat an’ Lee kept jumpin’ up, gettin’ madder all the time. They got to swingin’ at each other, an’ it’s a notion of mine thet Ames didn’t punch Stringer by accident. Stringer got up, an’ pullin’ his gun he swung it by the barrel.

“‘Ames, I’ll knock you cold an’ throw you in jail — if you don’t get out.’

“Wal, Ames was leanin’ over, leerin’ at Stringer, callin’ him a yellow crooked sheriff, when Lee Tate soaked him on the side of the head. Ames wasn’t actin’ when he fell. The crowd roared.

“Then Tate, bold as a lion now, went after his gun. . . . My Gawd! but it happened quick. Right from the floor! Ames drawed. But I seen only the flashes of his gun. Three shots, quicker’n lightnin’. Slink Tate’s gun went off in the air as he was saggin’. Lee screamed an’ grabbed his belly. Stringer dropped like a log. . . . You ought to have seen thet crowd split an’ rush, after the danger was over.

“Ames jumped up like a cat. Drunk? I should say not. With his smokin’ gun out he lifted a foot an’ shoved Lee Tate off the table, where he hung, bellerin’. Tate flopped to the floor on his back. His hands, drippin’ red, flung up. Ames looked to see if he was done fer. Anyone could have seen thet.

“‘Tate, heah’s to your Arizona,’ says Ames.

“Next he had a look at the other two. Slink ‘peared a goner, an’ Stringer had been shot through the heart. Lee Tate half sat up, a sickenin’ sight. Then Ames, shovin’ him down with a slow deliberate boot, sheathed his gun an’ went out.”

CHAPTER V

SPRING HAD COME to the Wyoming valley where the Wind River wound its shining way between the soaring ranges of snow-crowned peaks.

The eagle from his lonely crag could gaze down upon thousands of cattle, and if he flew across the wide valley, or soared above the center of its long length, from end to end, he could have seen the rolling grassy ridges, the green bottom lands and the vast levels, all dotted with straggling herds.

It was the heyday of the rancher, and therefore that of the rustler, the horse-thief, and the cowboy. Up in the wild notch where the Gros Ventre River crossed from the head of the Wind River Range, or where the Snake River cut through the Teton Range, the Wind River gang had their rendezvous. Down in Utah, in the canyon fastnesses of the Green River, hid the outlaws of Robbers Roost and the Hole in the Wall. These desperadoes sometimes rode far north along the winding Green River, across the Union Pacific Railroad, to the rich ranch lands of the Wind River Valley. These gangs engaged in conflict with one another more often than with the cowboy posses.

The leagues of this vast area were many, the grass and water abundant, the cattle numberless. But the small homesteader was not welcomed; the stranger without a horse as good as damned. The grub-line riding cowboy was received, but never trusted till he had proved his worth. No good rider ever wanted for a job in that country.

The ranches lay far apart, a day’s journey sometimes from one another, yet this was too close. There was not a drift fence in all the Wind River Valley.

The range of Crow Grieve had no northern boundary short of the mountains, but its southern lines were sharply defined by the East Fork of the Green on one side and Wind River on the other. They merged where the rivers joined.

Here, perhaps, was the most beautiful location for a ranch in all that country. Kit Carson, guide for Fremont on his exploring expedition, made camp there in the early days when the buffalo blackened the valley.

The ranch house stood on a high point above the shining rivers where they met. Here the ubiquitous cottonwood trees had been superseded by pines. The green-and-yellow range rolled downhill to the south, and to the north waved by endless slope and swale up and ever upward toward the black Wind River Mountains. Westward, across the dim blue void, the grand Tetons rose white-toothed against the sky.

One day in May the cowboy outfit of Crow Grieve straggled back to the ranch, in twos and threes, some ahead of the chuck-wagon, and others behind. They were returning from Granger, a shipping point on the railroad, where, following the spring round-up — Grieve had driven three thousand head of cattle. It had been a hard drive, ending in a carouse and the fights, under such circumstances, as common to cowboys as any of their habits. They had departed twenty-one strong, and had returned minus several comrades. No contingent of range hands, after a big drive and the accumulation of a winter’s wages, ever reached the home ranch intact. Two of Grieve’s boys would never ride again. Others had drifted. They veered like the wind, these fire-spirited striplings of the ranges. In this case, after being drunk for a week and then on horseback for another, the main body reached what they called home, sober, broke, several of them crippled, many of them bruised, all of them weary, yet gay as larks. Nothing mattered to the cowboy of that period, except his status with his fellows.

Grieve’s quarters for cowboys were famous throughout Wyoming and farther still. The mess cabin had a fine location, far from the ranch house, adjacent to scattered pines, and from it extended a line of small bunk-houses, tiny cabins, each with fireplace, two bunks, and running water. Beyond spread the corrals, the barns, the grain-sheds, the blacksmith shop, and other accessories to a great ranch. Grieve controlled, if he did not own outright, a hundred thousand acres.

Lany Price, cowboy of nineteen, tanned and tawny, comely of face, rode in far ahead of Grieve’s outfit. He had reason to hurry. Absence from the ranch had not been to his liking. His wild comrades had gotten him drunk for the first time. There was some one at the ranch he wanted to tell about that, to make excuses for himself.

The door of his bunk-house stood open. A heavy silver-mounted saddle and a neatly folded saddle-blanket lay against the wall. A tall rider in high boots appeared in the doorway.

“Howdy!” he said, pleasantly. “There wasn’t anybody heah, so I made myself at home.”

“Howdy, stranger!” returned Lany, inclined to be irritated, not that he felt anything but welcome for a visitor, but because he had a reason for wanting to be alone, and an errand he preferred no one to see him perform. But after a second look at the stranger the irritation left him.

“Reckon your outfit is comin’ in?” he asked in a slow drawl that made Lany take him for a Texan.

“Yep. Strung out for miles. Our chuck-wagon will beat most of them in. I rustled along. Are you hungry?”

“Tolerable.”

“Just ridin’ by or aimin’ to stop?”

“Reckon I’ll stay if I can get a job.”

“Spread out, then. Crow takes every rider on, which ain’t sayin’ he’ll last long.”

“Ahuh. I heah Crow Grieve is a hard boss. Never hires a foreman. Is that correct?”

“You bet it is. He’s bad medicine any time, but after bein’ drunk for a week he’s hell on stilts.”

“Drinkin’ rancher, eh? Just sociable-like, or does he like red liquor?”

“Stranger, you’re new in these parts,” returned Price as he dismounted and unbuckled the saddle cinch.

“Shore am. Wyomin’ is aboot the only range I haven’t ridden these last six years.”

“Where you from?”

“Where’d you say?”

“Texas.”

“I was born in Texas, but left when I was a boy.”

“My handle’s Lany Price. What’d you say yours was?”

“Reckon I didn’t say yet,” drawled the other.

“So I noticed. Excuse my curiosity,” rejoined Lany, with a keen cowboy’s appreciative glance at his visitor. He liked his looks, yet had reason to resent this newcomer. “Maybe you happen to be related to Grieve’s wife? She’s from the South.”

“No. So he’s married?”

“Yep,” said Price, with unconscious relief. “Been married a couple of years. Amy — er — Mrs. Grieve,” he corrected, hastily, “is much younger. She’s just my age. Nineteen. . . . They have a baby.”

“How old is Crow Grieve?”

“Between thirty an’ forty somewhere. . . . Well, stranger, I’m seein’ after my horse. If you don’t want to look around, just make yourself at home.”

The stranger contented himself with sitting on a bench against the wall while he looked across the river at the far-flung vista, with eyes that seemed to see far beyond. Presently young Price returned, evidently in a hurry.

“Say, is that your horse in the first corral there?” he queried.

“Yes. Like him?”

“You better ride on, stranger, if you love that horse. What with this outfit of cowpunchers an’ the Wind River gang you’ll sure lose him.”

The rider smiled as if pleased at the covert compliment, but he did not reply. Price went into the bunk-house, to emerge rather hurriedly, carrying a packet under his coat, something he evidently wished to conceal.

“Some of the outfit comin’ now,” he said, pointing down the wide lane past the corral. “Take them as they come, stranger, an’ be mild. Savvy?” Then he strode off toward the ranch house, shining white through the green of trees.

The stranger lounged on the bench, watching the riders straggle in. Apparently to his casual interest these cowboys presented nothing striking. Soon the two-team chuck-wagon rolled by, to be brought to a halt in front of the mess-cabin. More riders put in an appearance down the lane, and by the time Price returned there was a line of saddle-horses, pack-horses, and noisy cowboys all along the front of the bunk-houses.

“Hey, Lany,” called a lanky red-faced fellow, pausing with rope in his hands, “is thet thar your sister’s sweetheart come visitin’?”

“Hey, Red, you better not get funny,” replied Lany, in cheerful banter.

That broke the ice and other sallies intended to be witty were forthcoming from each side of Price’s bunk-house.

“Ho, cowboy, who’s the white-headed gent?”

“There’s a wild cowpuncher a-lookin’ fer me.”

“This hyar is Wyomin’, stranger, an’ we don’t see your hoss.”

“I am a wanderin’ cowboy,” sang out a lusty-lunged rider. “From ranch to ranch I roam. At every ranch when welcome, I make myself at home.”

Another cowboy intoned in answer:

“My parents reared me ten-der-lee;

They had no child but me,

But I was bent on ramblin’

An’ lit out for the U Bar E.”

Price sat down beside his guest and laughed as he named his comrades. “Some pretty decent boys, an’ some hell’s rattlers, too. Did you ever hear of Slim Blue?”

“Reckon I have,” replied the other, with a quiet smile.

“He’ll make it hot for you, an’ if he keeps on makin’ it hotter you can swear he likes you. But don’t let on. An’ there’s Blab McKinney. He’s bad stuff any time, but just now he’s mean. Got burned in a gun-fight at Granger.”

“I know Mac. But you needn’t let on. Did he hurt some hombre?”

“Hurt? He damn near killed two fellars. — So you know Blab? That’s interestin’.”

The line of cowboys below Price’s bunk-house led their horses off toward the corrals but those above had to pass it, and they were nothing if not curious about the newcomer. Each one emitted some characteristic remark, which brought only a slight pleasant smile to the stranger’s keen tanned face. The last cowboy stalked up, bow-legged, dusty, with jangling spurs. He had a lithe slim figure, striking because it gave the impression of strength and suppleness not usual in a man so thin.

“Here’s Slim Blue,” whispered Lany Price. “He always wears a blue shirt. Whatever you do now, don’t dodge!”

Blue possessed a remarkable face. It resembled a desert that had been scoured by fire, avalanche, lightning, rain, and wind. He was so burdened with rider’s paraphernalia that he had only a thumb free to indicate the quiet figure sitting next to Price.

“Lany, has your paw come to see you?” he queried.

“No. Stranger blowed in,” replied Price.

“Good day, Mister Blue,” spoke up this stranger, pleasantly.

“Who’n hell told you to call me Mister Blue?” demanded the cowboy, belligerently.

“Nobody. It’s your shirt. I saw you comin’ four miles away.”

“Is thet so?” queried Blue, sarcastically. “So you’re thet sharp-sighted, huh? — Wal, now, how good can you see with one eye swelled shut?”

The stranger leaned back with his sinewy brown hands clasping one knee. His wonderful eyes, a flashing blue, seemed to bear out his assertion.

“Cowboy, see heah,” he drawled, in a lazy, cool way, most deceptive. “You’ve had a long drill, an’ I reckon you’re weak in more’n your mind. Better get some nourishin’ food under your belt an’ a night’s rest before you talk that way to me.”

Blue’s jaw dropped. His face could not have grown any redder, so it was impossible to tell whether this remark had infuriated or confused him.

“Much obliged, stranger,” he replied, curtly. “You’re orful considerate. But I jest can’t take all thet advice. I’ll be back to ask you suthin’.”

The cowboy ahead of Blue had halted to listen to this colloquy. Facing ahead, he yelled: “Whoopee! Nuthin’ goin’ to happen atall! Aw no!”

They hobbled along to the corrals. Lany Price turned speculative eyes upon the stranger.

“Excuse me if I got you wrong, stranger,” he said, apologetically.

“Shore. Reckon I’ve made mistakes,” was the smiling reply.

“It’d be great if Slim Blue has made one an’ I’m darned if it don’t look like he has,” replied Price.

“Mebbe he has. It happens now an’ then. How aboot this Slim Blue? He struck me all right.”

“As good a fellar as you’d meet in a week’s ridin’. Slim’s just cantankerous. He got licked in Granger. An’ he’s always cross when we get home. Always jumps every new rider.”

“Ahuh. I’ve met up with a heap of his kind. Do you want to risk this heah courtesy you’re showin’ me? You needn’t, you know. It’s shore decent of you. I know this game. An’ if I didn’t get a place with Grieve you’d come in for some cussin’.”

Young Price regarded his interrogator with keener interest, and after a moment’s study he replied: “I’m not any too — too well liked. You see, the boss an’ — an’ his wife have been pretty nice to me, an’ that’s made some of the outfit sore. But I’ll risk makin’ them sorer.”

“No, you won’t, La —— What’d you say your name was?”

“Lany. Lany Price.”

“Well, Lany, you leave me to my fate,” replied the stranger, ruefully. “But so far as Slim Blue is concerned, you shore want to be around when he comes back.”

“I’m goin’ to. An’ I reckon, if you’ll let me, I’ll take a chance on standin’ by you.”

“Thanks, Lany. But you just wait.”

* * * * *

Some time later the strange rider, having patrolled a beat in front of the corrals for a reasonable time, approached the mess-house, where on the wide comfortable porch a dozen or more cowboys lounged. They quickened as he stalked up, nonchalant, with that pensive little smile. He made a singularly striking figure.

“Do you-all reckon I’ll get thrown out askin’ for a meal heah?” he queried, drawling the words.

The cowboys stared. That question might be taken for insolence.

“See hyar, Texan, air you insultin’ Wyomin’?” asked a stalwart rider.

“No offense. But course I cain’t tell. I was just hopin’ you’re not all like Slim Blue.”

“Haw! Haw! An’ why’re you hopin’ thet?”

“Well, I never met no riders like him. Asked me if I could see to shoot with one eye swelled shut. . . . He scared me terrible.”

“Huh, you look it, stranger,” replied the big cowboy, shortly.

The stranger approached the open door and called:

“Hey, cook, can a poor rider who’s starved an’ broke get a feed heah?”

“You bet. When I yell just knock over some of them hawgs an’ come a-runnin’,” replied the cook.

“Hyar comes Slim now,” remarked one of the loungers. “Gee! ain’t he sassy-lookin’?”

The stranger went forward to the front of the porch, stepped off, and as he sat down his gun bumped heavily upon the wood. Far down the road behind Blue limped another cowboy, coming slowly.

Slim Blue, espying the stranger, swerved out and came round the porch to confront him. Then the loungers on the porch sat up with interest.

“Stranger, I reckoned you’d be gone,” announced Blue.

“Nope. I’m powerful hungry, an’ the cook told me I could get a feed heah if I’d knock over a couple of the hawgs.”

“Wal, I’m orful sorry, ‘cause you won’t be able to eat very good — with two eyes swelled shet,” said Blue.

“You won’t take any advice?” drawled the stranger as he stood up.

“Not from any tidy, clean, pretty strangers. Jest goes ag’in’ the grain.”

“Too bad. But I reckon a fellow ridin’ into Wyomin’ ought to expect worse. I’m shore appreciatin’ that you left off your gun,” replied the stranger as he unbuckled his belt, heavy with gun and shells. He laid this on the porch, and the gun-sheath, old and black, bore a letter A in silver.

“Slim,” said one of the cowboys, “your personal dislikes ain’t nobody’s bizness, but it riles us to have you give Wyomin’ a black eye.”

The stranger stepped out from the porch and throwing aside his sombrero, thus disclosing a handsome head of light shiny hair, he said: “Blue, I’ve heard of you.”

“Is thet so? Wal, you’re actin’ damn queer, then,” growled Slim.

“Shore is one of the happiest moments of my life,” drawled the rider.

Blue, swinging his fists, rushed in. The rider suddenly moved with incredible swiftness to one side. His left arm shot out and his fist took Blue over the eye in a solid thump that all but upset him. Then the rider, swinging round with his right, took the cowboy squarely in the abdomen with a blow that sounded like a loud bamm.

Blue, his face swiftly changed into one of awful contortion, began to sink down, his hands pressed to his body, his wide-open mouth issuing his expelled breath in one loud explosion.

The cowboys yelled in glee. Blue sank to his knees. Lany Price, standing on the edge of the porch, called low: “Look out! Here comes MacKinney. He’s Slim’s pard.”

Just then the last cowboy arrived on the scene. His Irish name suited the forceful step, the honest ugly face, the gray eyes wide and sharp upon his friend Blue. Manifestly he had hardly taken a look at the stranger.

“Slim, air yez laffin’ or croyin’?” he demanded, plainly perplexed. Blue evidently heard, but could not get breath enough to reply.

“Blab, he’s prayin’,” spoke up the big cowboy from the porch. “Prayin’ the Lord to forgive his oncivil tongue.”

“Wot’s happened?” flashed MacKinney, plainly nettled by the remark and the laugh following.

“Nuthin’. The strange gent jest slugged Slim in the gizzard.”

Then MacKinney fastened those flaring gray eyes upon the stranger. They opened wider. They stared. They popped. His whole expression suddenly changed to one of incredulous joyous recognition.

“Howdy, Mac!” drawled the stranger.

“Fer the luv of Heaven!” burst out MacKinney. “It ain’t you?”

“Shore is, Mac. An’ plumb glad to see you.”

“Arizona Ames!” ejaculated MacKinney, verifying a recognition that did not seem credible. And he rushed to embrace the stranger in a manner that harmonized with his speech. “Of all the surprises, this shure is the best. Why, mon, I thot you was dead.”

“No, Mac. I’m still tolerable alive.”

MacKinney, with his arm round Ames’ shoulder, addressed the amazed group on the porch. “Fellars, meet my old pard, Arizona Ames. Shure you all rimimber me tellin’ about him? When I rode fer Rankin — with the toughest outfit that ever stretched leather.”

“Arizona Ames!” ejaculated a cowboy.

“Wal, Blab, we sure do.”

“Howdy, Ames! I reckon you ain’t sich a stranger as Slim took you fer.”

That latter remark caused MacKinney to wheel. There knelt Blue, still ludicrous, but recovering.

“Wot the hell, Slim? I forgot you.”

Slim shook his fist at Ames. “Y-you k-kicked me — in — the belly,” he gasped.

“No, Slim,” replied Ames. “Shore I only gave you a little tap on the knob. An’ then a punch where you’re weak. Didn’t I say you needed some nourishment?”

Lany Price called out, “Here comes the boss.”

Little attention did any one else give the approaching buckboard.

“Y’u — did,” replied Blue. “But lickin’ me — ain’t no satisfaction. — Blab, I’m requirin’ yore gun.”

“My Gawd! Slim, you’re crazy,” broke out MacKinney, suddenly recovering. “You don’t want to try to throw a gun on this fellar!”

“The hell you say. I reckon I do.”

“But, mon, this is an old pard of mine,” protested MacKinney.

“Orful sorry,” returned Blue, stubbornly, though he seemed impressed. And he got up. “You’ve double-crossed me, fer you swore I was yore only pard.”

“Shure I did. But, Slim, this was years ago. I thought he was dead.”

“Wal, it’s orful sad, when two old pards gits reunited like thet. But you jest won’t only think it about him this time. You’ll know.”

“But, Slim, did you hear who this fellar is?”

“No. An’ I don’t care a damn. He said my mind was weak — —”

“It shore is.”

“Wal, if it’ll gall you so to lose this ole pard, make him apologize,” rejoined Blue, blusteringly.

Ames, with a winning smile, held out his hand. “Shore I apologize. I was only foolin’. I had to say somethin’, didn’t I?”

“You must hev felt thet way,” said Blue, reluctantly shaking hands. “But I’ll overlook it. . . . So you’re an old pard of Mac’s?”

“Glad to say I am.”

“Wal, Mac never had but one pard, besides me, thet was wuth a damn, an’ he got shot. So I reckon I ain’t jealous. What’s yore name?”

“Ames,” drawled the rider.

“Ames? . . . Not thet Arizonie pard?”

“Shore am, Slim.”

Whereupon Slim Blue turned to MacKinney and roundly cursed him. “ —— , you’d let me commit suicide!”

The buckboard with its two occupants halted opposite the cowboys, and a man of fine physique jumped out. He was under forty, dark-skinned, with hair and eyes as black as the wing of a crow. His face showed the blotches of recent dissipation. He had a bold, virile presence.

“What’s goin’ on here?” he demanded, in a loud, authoritative voice.

Only then did the three cowboys become aware of his advent on the scene.

“Howdy, boss!” said Blue, in a tone that Ames did not miss.

“You been fightin’?”

“Nope, not me, boss. I only got hit.”

“A blind man could see that. Your eye’s all swelled up. — Who hit you?”

“Wal, boss, as I was in the wrong an’ got my just deserts, I reckon thet doesn’t make any difference, does it?”

Ames took a forward step. “You’re the rancher, Grieve?” he asked.

“Yes. I don’t recollect seein’ you before.”

“Hardly. I’m a stranger in Wyomin’,” returned Ames, quietly. “I rode in today, an’ was waitin’ around when your outfit came. Blue, heah, wanted a couple of punches at me — cowboy-like — you know. I accommodated him. That’s all, sir. No hard feelin’s.”

“I’m glad somebody rode in with the nerve to punch him. . . . Were you waitin’ round to see the range boss?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, that’s me. I don’t run a foreman. What you want — a job ridin’?”

“Shore do, if you have one.”

“You’re hired. Report to me for orders,” rejoined Grieve, brusquely, turning on his heel.

“Hould on, boss,” broke in MacKinney. “Shure you’ll loike to hear this is an ould pard of mine?”

“Mac, I suppose that’d be a reference, if I needed one. But I never care what a cowpuncher has done or been, or whose friend he is. All that counts with me is how he works for me.”

“All the same, boss, you shure ought to know this pard of mine is Arizona Ames,” continued MacKinney, stubbornly.

“What?” exclaimed Grieve, his single query coming like a bullet. His crow-black eyes set upon Ames as if back of them a singular and inexplicable instinct was working.

“My pard is Arizona Ames.”

Crow Grieve took a step back toward them, with that black penetrating gaze fastened upon Ames.

“Cowboys give each other handles that fit,” he said. “I’ve had Montanas ride for me an’ Nebraskies an’ once a gun-slinger who called himself Nevada. But no Arizonas. An’ I happen to have heard of one. Do you call yourself Arizona?”

“No, I don’t,” returned Ames, almost coldly. “But I cain’t help what others call me. An’ I’m bound to admit that name is hard to shake.”

“Why’d you want to shake it?” queried Grieve, suspiciously.

“Well, it’s not because I’ve anythin’ against Arizona or Arizona has anythin’ against me. I don’t like bein’ reminded of Arizona — that’s all.”

“You rode for Rankin once?” asked Grieve.

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Reckon all of two years.”

“Up till his death?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him shot?” inquired Grieve, coming closer, his eyes like black coals.

“I reckon I did.”

“Then you know who did it?”

“Well, Mr. Grieve,” drawled Ames, with a sort of cool, disdainful ring in his voice, “naturally if I saw him shot I saw who drew on him.”

“It doesn’t always follow. Men on that range got shot from cover. If I remember correct, no one was ever supposed to have seen Rankin shot.”

“You may remember correct, but you have it wrong. One man shore saw the job done.”

Grieve drew back with sudden slight violence and his black eyes rolled.

“Excuse me,” he said hastily. “I’m gettin’ personal. But Rankin was a rustler an’ once he cleaned me out of every hoof I owned. Whoever shot him did me a good turn.”

Whereupon he whirled as on a pivot, and jumping into the buckboard, called to the driver to go on, leaving a variety of expressions on the faces of the cowboys.

MacKinney bent piercing gray eyes upon Ames, as if the recent exchange of words had opened up thought-provoking vistas.

“My Gawd!” blurted out Slim Blue. “Did I hear Crow Grieve apologizin’?”

“Blab,” called a comrade from the porch, “I reckon we all figgered you the damndest liar on the range. But — —”

“Hey, stranger, are you ready?” yelled the cook from the door.

“Shore am,” shouted Ames.

“Knock ’em over now. Ready. One! two! three! — Come an’ get it before I throw it out!”

Arizona Ames led the stampede into the cabin, where the whoops and yells and laughs, the pound of boots and jangle of spurs, suddenly ceased.

CHAPTER VI

ARIZONA AMES WAS a typical character of his period. Every range from the Pan Handle to the Black Hills, and as far west as the Pecos, had its Ames.

The cowboy was a product of Texas and an evolution from the Mexican vaquero. When cattle in great herds began to be driven north over the Chisholm Trail, to Abilene, to Dodge, and thence north, west, east the cowboy was introduced to the world. He multiplied with the rapid growth of the cattle industry. He came from the four corners of the United States, and beyond. At most he was a boy not yet out of his teens; but the life of the range, the toil and endurance demanded by cattle-raising, the border saloon, the gambling-hell, the rustler, developed him at once into a man, and one that eventually made the West habitable.

Wild and free, untamable, a jolly and reckless individual was the average cowboy. Naturally the times developed the vicious, hard-drinking, gun-throwing cowboy, but he was in the minority. All of them, however, shared a singular quality which must have been a result of their picturesque, strenuous, and perilous lives, and this was an unquenchable spirit. Cowboys, as a rule, were fire-eaters. They were simple, natural, elemental, and therefore heroic. They performed the most tremendous tasks as a matter of the day’s work, without ever dreaming that they had essentials of greatness.

And here and there, on every range, there rode a cowboy like Arizona Ames, in whom there united all these qualities except viciousness and drunkenness, and to which was added the individual trait that made him stand out from his fellows. Seen truly, they were all remarkable. But that one added trait seemed to exaggerate the others; and in Arizona Ames it was a magnification of the spirit, that made the lives of all cowboys significant.

He was quiet, but he could be gay. He would take a drink with his fellows, but he had never been known to get drunk. He would lend his last dollar and then borrow from a comrade to help the one who sought him. He always took the hardest, darkest, coldest watch; and most of the jobs hated by cowboys fell to him. His horsemanship and skill with a lasso, and other tricks of the trade, left no room for the ridicule and banter so common to cowboys. Then his swift and unerring use of a Colt added the last notch to the admiration of whatever outfit he rode with. Gunmen on the frontier usually were avoided to a greater or less extent, especially those who bore the name of killers. But seldom did these remain cowboys. Nevertheless, there were many bad cowboys who would shoot at the drop of a hat, and these did not long survive.

The reputation of Arizona Ames either preceded him wherever he roamed or arrived with him. And it was such that any honest cowboy liked him; and any dishonest cowboy, or, for that matter, any man known to the range as shady or notorious or mean, felt instant antagonism to him. MacKinney told the vague range rumors about the fights attributed to Arizona Ames. Rankin had been shot and presumably by Ames, but nobody had seen the deed, except Ames himself, and he never admitted that he had killed the rustler. Tales had drifted from all over the West, one particularly bloody one from Arizona, which had given him his name, but none of them could be verified by any of these Wyoming riders. The more mystery about Ames, however, the more these cowboys gave him credit for.

Ames had not ridden out the month of May before almost every cowboy of Grieve’s outfit had bullet holes in his sombrero, physical proofs of Ames’ prowess with a gun. One by one they pestered him in every way to induce him to shoot at a hat tossed into the air. He was good-natured and he liked to bet.

“Dog-gone yu, Arizonie,” complained Slim Blue, one day. “I jest don’t believe yu’re so good with a gun.”

“Say, you blue-shirted Jasper!” Ames had retorted, “shore I don’t care what you believe.”

“Wal, I reckon not. But s’pose for instance some purty gurl rides into our outfit — say as purty as Grieve’s wife. An’ you an’ me lock horns over her! I’m darned if I’m a-goin’ to throw a gun on you if you can shoot like Mac says you can.”

“Slim, if the pretty girl comes you can shore have her,” replied Ames, patiently.

“Hell, cowboy! Air you a woman-hater?”

“Not altogether exactly.”

“Dog-gone! — One of these heartbroken cowpunchers, huh? — Wal, I might want to fight you fer some other reason. So I’ll bet you ten dollars to five that you can’t hit my hat in the air.”

“Slim, I hate to take your money.”

“Wal, you needn’t.”

“All right, then, Slim. I’ll take your bet,” Ames had replied, tossing aside his cigarette and rising. “How many shots will you give me?”

“Reckon as many as you kin shoot while my hat is in the air.”

“Sail it up. Straight now,” said Ames, backing away.

Blue had tossed it straight and high, enabling the marksman to get three shots. Upon examination three bullet holes were found in it, two in the crown and one in the rim.

“Hell, cowboy!” ejaculated Slim, in disgust. “One would have been enough. An’ hyar you spoil my hat. You put only one in some of the other fellars.”

“Slim, shore you need a lot of convincin’,” laughed Ames.

“Wal, you shootin’ hombre from Arizonie,” replied Blue, reluctant with his admiration. “I jest ain’t a-goin’ to pick no fight with you.”

* * * * *

Ames had taken up his quarters in the bunk-house occupied by Lany Price. This occasioned the first friendly row. Blab MacKinney insisted that Sam Perkins get out of his bunk-house and let his own partner, Ames, come in. Sam told him that with all due deference to the genteel and beautiful Ames, they could go where it was hot. Then Slim Blue tried to oust Lany out of his own house and install himself there. Ames decided each argument as fast as he came to it. And he remained with Lany.

It seemed that the more Ames tried to avoid circumstances with latent possibilities the more they gravitated to him. He had not long shared the cabin with Lany before he divined there was something on the mind of that young cowboy. Like many boys Ames had worked with, Lany was the son of a poor rancher, a capable rider, a wholesome character, with an ambition to get on in the cattle business.

Work, for the present, on the Grieve ranch was rather light, owing to several causes, chief of which was that the rancher had just sold out most of his stock and was awaiting a consignment of cattle from Texas. This was expected to arrive at the latest in June or July. The outfit, therefore, had only odd jobs to do, and not any night work at all. They got thoroughly rested and in good humor again. In leisure hours they played poker, lolled around smoking and joking, and for cowboys had a mighty good time.

Crow Grieve was the most unlikable cattleman Ames had ever met, let alone ridden for. He drove hard bargains with smaller cattlemen, an unpardonable crime in the eyes of cowboys. He paid less wages than most ranchers, though this was obviated to some extent by the comfortable quarters he provided. Obviously he put no trust whatever in cowboys, which condition might have arisen partly because he had never been one himself.

The second day after Ames’ arrival MacKinney had delivered an illuminating remark.

“Arizonie, let me give you a hunch,” he had said. “You’re a handsome cuss. Reckon they don’t come handsomer, among cowmen, anyway. An’ you’ve got somethin’ more. Wal, don’t look at the boss’ wife.”

“Why not? I’m not blind. I heah she’s a beauty. An’ shore I cain’t hurt myself lookin’.”

“Wal, you damn idjit, I know you’re all right. But if you want to stay on hyar with me don’t go fallin’ off your hoss in front of Mrs. Grieve’s. Savvy?”

“No, Blab, I’m darned if I do.”

“Arizonie, you shure always used to rile me, an’ now you’re beginnin’ again. Listen. . . . Amy Grieve is a beauty an’ if you ever seen a hungry-eyed gurl, she’s one. Why, them big eyes of hers will haunt you. — Two years ago Grieve went south. Louisiana, I reckon. Anyway, he came back with this girl. His wife an’ not more’n seventeen! If I ever had a peep at an unhappy gurl — wal, it was then. We boys had our idees. Along comes a puncher from Texas. He told us enough to get us figgerin’. Shure Grieve had got hold of this gurl through her family or relatives owin’ him money, or somethin’ loike. Wal, afther a toime she perked up. Then came a baby. She seemed to bloom up. An’ lately she’s foine. I seen her the other day.”

“Mac, isn’t life hell?” ejaculated Ames, poignantly.

“Shure it is, you dom fool. But it could be wuss. An’ thet’s why I’m givin’ you a hunch to avoid Amy Grieve. Shure as sheep come home to roost she’d fall in love with you. She likes cowboys. Aw, I can tell. Any fellar could. An’ you can bet your bottom dollar she doesn’t love thet black buzzard, Grieve.”

“Blab, you’re shore blabbin’ a lot,” returned Ames, seriously.

“Wal, if it was anyone else I swear I’d keep still. But you know dom well, Arizonie, how things sort of lodge against you an’ stick.”

“Now you’re talkin’.”

The story had peculiar interest for Ames, such as would have actuated most cowboys, to see Amy Grieve. Romance and tragedy not his own had kept step on his trail. The oftener he saw Crow Grieve the sorrier he felt for the young wife.

Not long after that, while he was rummaging around in the drawer of a rude table in the bunk-house, a small photograph came to light under some of Lany Price’s letters. It bore the likeness of a young girl not more than sixteen — a sweet rather weak face, with most audacious eyes. A name in ink stared up at Ames. Amy! The photograph had been taken in New Orleans.

Ames regretted the incident, for which he certainly could not blame himself. What was Lany Price doing with a picture of the boss’ young wife? Ames decided to give the youngster the benefit of a doubt. Cowboys were sentimental. Lany might be merely dreaming. On the other hand, he might be seriously involved in an affair that would have grave consequences for him. Ames put this later thought out of his mind.

He had taken a liking to Lany Price. The young fellow was virile enough, but not exactly a rough, raw cowboy. On that account he came in for considerable of the teasing. However, they all liked Lany.

The day came when Ames had to blind himself to certain indications, doubtful though insistent. Lany had spells of depression. He would mope around, gloomy and cross. Then all of a sudden he became radiant. This last manifestation, coincident with Crow Grieve’s departure for South Pass, seemed too significant for Ames to overlook. It was another of those cases where fatality seemed thrown upon him.

“Heah good news from home, Lany?” inquired Ames, genially, after supper.

“No. Come to think of it, haven’t heard for ages. Darn Visa, anyhow!”

“Who’s Visa?”

“My sister. She’s the dandiest girl. I’d like you to meet her, Arizona. She’s a dandy-lookin’ kid, full of fun, an’ good as gold.”

“Shore would like to,” replied Ames.

“Arizona, you’ve got a sweetheart?”

Ames shook his head, smiling a little.

“But you’ve had one?”

“No, I cain’t say I ever had — what you’d call a regular sweetheart.”

“Funny! A wonderful-lookin’ fellow like you! — You must be lyin’. — Have you a sister?”

“Yes,” said Ames, dropping his head.

“Does she write you?”

“Shore. Once in a long time. But then she writes a long wonderful letter.”

“That makes up. Visa likes me, but she’s not much good as a letter-writer. What’s your sister’s name?”

“Nesta.”

“Nesta? Sounds nice to me. Is she young?”

“I reckon so. I feel awful old, but I’m not really. Nesta is just my age. We’re twins.”

“You don’t say! — Then she must look like you?”

“Shore. They used to say they couldn’t tell us apart, when we were little, anyway.”

“Gosh! She must be a looker! You’re the finest-lookin’ person I ever saw — unless it’s Am — Mrs. Grieve.”

“Thanks, Lany,” rejoined Ames. “I’ll show you a picture of Nesta.” Whereupon he lifted his bag to the table, and searching therein he found an old wallet, from which he extracted a carefully wrapped photograph.

“She was sixteen then,” said Ames as he handed the picture to Lany.

That worthy ejaculated, “Lord!” His eyes shone with pleasure. “Arizona, course she’s married?”

“Yes, an’ happy, thank God,” returned Ames, his sudden emotion contrasting strangely with his former casual mood. “Sam, her husband, is doin’ fine. He’ll be a big rancher before long now. But I was broke four years, sendin’ them money. . . . They’ve got two kids. Twins! — An’ the boy is named Rich after me. That’s my right name.”

Lany handed back the photograph. His eyes held a dark, far-seeing shadow. “My Gawd! it’d be great to — to be married — an’ happy, like that,” he said, speaking as if to himself.

“I reckon it would,” agreed Ames.

From that hour circumstances and thoughts multiplied for Ames. He could not obviate them. Lany Price stayed out late that night, and apparently no one but Ames was any the wiser. Ames heard him slip in noiselessly, in his stocking feet. Long sighs attested to something more than a need of slumber. Lany sat on his bunk, half undressed, absorbed in thought that made him oblivious to his surroundings. A bright moon outside cast light into the cabin. Ames could see Lany sitting there — saw him step to the window to look up at the moon, rapt and sad.

All this repeated itself the next night, with the details augmented, if anything. Ames deliberated. If young Price was in love with Amy Grieve, which assumption seemed incontestable, he simply invited death. Crow Grieve was the kind of a man who could horsewhip a cowboy for looking at his wife and kill him for but little more. Now Ames did not know the youthful wife, and though he sympathized with her, he could not be sure she was not to blame. On the other hand, Lany Price was too fine a young man to be merely a target for a fierce and jealous brute like Grieve. It occurred to Ames that this rancher rubbed him the wrong way — a thought which, once crystallized, made Ames restless. He sought to cast it aside. Finally he made up his mind to ascertain, solely in the interest of this foolish boy, if he were actually meeting Amy Grieve.

Therefore he did not return to the bunk-house after supper, but took a stroll among the pines. Darkness settled down soon after. The moon would not rise till late. From the gloom of the pines he watched both the road and the walk leading to the ranch house. His vigilance, not to mention the woodsman’s instinct developed during his hunting years, enabled him to catch Price stealing through the pines. At a safe distance Ames followed, just keeping the dark figure in sight. Price went round to the side of the ranch grounds, through the orchard, where he disappeared. Ames cautiously moved forward, and presently in the starlight he espied a slight form in white pass through an opening. It was that of a girl, swift and eloquent of motion, bound for a rendezvous. The only other woman in Grieve’s employ, Ames knew, was the housekeeper, who was old and heavy.

Soberly Ames retraced his steps, reluctantly accepting his misgivings and vastly concerned about Price. But he persuaded himself this was none of his business, and then had to do battle with his conscience. Still, he had not yet actually caught the cowboy with the young wife. Suppose he took Lany to task, only to discover he had blundered! But though he tried to convince himself, Ames knew he had not made a mistake. He went back to the bunk-house and fell asleep before Price came in.

Next morning Ames seized upon a favorable opportunity to say: “Mawnin’, Lany. It runs in my haid somehow that you keep late hours.”

Lany protested that he did nothing of the kind.

“Excuse me, cowboy. I’m a funny kind of a sleeper. Always dreamin’ an’ heahin’ things. I shore thought you came in late every night — since the boss has been away.”

Ames drawled this casually, careful to have his back to Price. Evidently the cowboy was so startled, so confused, that he scarcely knew what he was saying. He made too many explanations. He lied clumsily, and he betrayed himself to Ames.

On the following day Grieve came back from South Fork, not yet sober, and rancorous over some real or supposed wrong done him by a rival cattleman.

He led the cowboys a miserable life. Two of them quit, one of them after being knocked down by the rancher. MacKinney interfered to prevent gun-play.

“Boss, I shure ain’t presumin’ to criticize you,” said MacKinney, “but if you’re keen on rakin’ the outfit loike this you won’t have none left. An’ you’ve got a bunch of Texas steers comin’.”

For a wonder, Grieve did not resent this speech and made himself scarce. That night the cowboys congregated at the mess-cabin, for the most part a disgruntled outfit.

“Wal, he’s a ——  —— nigger!” exclaimed Jake Mendal, dourly.

“I hit him fer my wages an’ when I git them you watch me hit the trail,” said Boots Cameron. “I’ll starve to death before I’ll ride fer this two-bit of a rancher.”

“Fellars, the wust about Grieve is thet he keeps owin’ you back pay. An’ if you quit you don’t git your money. I’ve a mind to do somethin’ so he’ll fire me,” added Sam Black, the eldest of the outfit.

One by one the other old hands aired their grievances. Ames had been six years on the ranges, riding with many outfits, and never had he heard a cattleman arraigned as was Crow Grieve.

“Shure he’s a hawg!” spat out MacKinney. “Some puncher will bust his black jaw one of these hyar days.”

“Huh! An’ git bored fer thet. Crow Grieve has throwed a gun on more than one cowboy,” replied Jem Gutline.

“Wal, he might throw a gun on the wrong fellar,” said Slim Blue, darkly. “Fer instance, suppose he tried it on Arizonie?”

“I wisht to Gawd he would,” said some one.

“Arizonie, why in the hell don’t you say somethin’?” railed Blue.

“You boys are shore sayin’ a lot. My two-bit talk wouldn’t count much,” returned Ames, calmly.

“Thet’s so. Talk is cheap. But if you chipped in with a word or two I reckon we’d all feel you was with us,” added Blue, pointedly.

“If I hadn’t made friends heah I’d shore ride away, money or not.”

“Pards, thet’s shure talk from Arizona Ames,” said MacKinney.

Then the Irishman fastened his narrow slits of blue eyes upon the working face of Lany Price.

“Cowboy, you’re shure mum as a clam. An’ I’ll bet you hate Grieve wusser than any of us.”

“That so? Reckon I’ve no more reason than any of you,” returned Price, with annoyance.

“Haw! Haw!” roared MacKinney, derisively.

“You damn Irish Mick! What do you mean — givin’ me a horse laugh like that?”

“Shure I don’t mean nuthin’, Lany,” rejoined the Irishman, with sarcasm.

Price, red in the face, flounced out of the cabin, and he did not come back for the meal.

Later that week cattlemen drove in to confer with Grieve. They received scant courtesy, and one of them, a rancher who had started as a cowboy, delivered some pertinent remarks in the hearing of Slim Blue. Then another of the cowboys, who happened to be in the confidence of the housekeeper, informed the outfit that Grieve was having hell with his wife. She wanted to go home.

Shortly after this incident Grieve left, driving the buckboard himself. That he would depart without leaving many and stringent orders was unprecedented. It gave rise to wild speculation on the part of the cowboys. They joyfully took advantage of this omission and did very little work.

Ames took a lonely ride, simply to get away from the ranch, up high somewhere in the timber. He saw the gradual disintegration of Grieve’s outfit. Hard drinking eventually ruined any rancher, irrespective of domestic troubles. Ames felt stir in him the familiar longing to ride away from this ranch, as he had ridden from so many others. But he did not want to desert Lany Price. That young cowboy was due for disaster. Often Ames had been prompted to broach Lany’s secret. Still, he had never done so. On this ride Ames resolved not to let it go longer. There would be opportunity soon, for in Grieve’s absence Lany would probably grow bolder, if he did not run wholly true to the habit of lovers in a distracted situation.

“Shore it’s aboot time for me to have some bad luck,” soliloquized Ames, meaning that in the nature of events he would likely be involved soon. He rode down the trail. Early summer had brought out the aspens in full foliage. How the green leaves fluttered! He never saw aspen leaves that he did not think of Nesta. Was this Amy Grieve another love-torn girl, frail and fluttering as one of these leaves of aspen?

Down through the pines his quick eye caught a glimpse of a white horse. If he were not mistaken, that horse belonged to Lany Price.

“By Heaven!” muttered Ames. “Shore I felt it this very mawnin’. Now will I turn tail or go face them?”

The beautiful bench below was not a long ride from the ranch. Two trails led up to it, by different routes. Ames had several times seen Amy Grieve riding, but never close at hand. Her horse was certainly not white. Lany’s was. Ames would have wagered anything he owned that the two had met up here on this lonely bench. It roused his ire. They were out of their heads, and perhaps they were guilty of more than he had heretofore suspected.

Ames dismounted and, leading his horse over the soft trail, which gave forth no sound, he went on under the pines and through the aspen thickets.

Presently in a glade he espied two horses, both saddled, but riderless, bridles down, nipping at the grass. He dropped his own bridle and went round a corner of green, almost to bump into a huge log.

Not ten steps farther, on the other side of this log, leaned Lany Price, his back to Ames. He was talking low, disconnectedly, earnestly. He had a girl clasped in his arms. Hers were wrapped tight round his neck, her face pressed close to his cheek, his hair dark against her chestnut curls. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks stained with tears.

Ames had a wild impulse to run before those eyes unclosed to see him. But just that first look at her changed his preconceived ideas.

Under his boot a twig snapped. The girl’s long dark lashes flew up. Velvety humid eyes, large and beautiful, stared uncomprehendingly, widened to startled amaze, then dilated in sudden realization and fear.

CHAPTER VII

SHE CRIED OUT, and unclasping her arms from round Lany’s neck, she violently broke from his embrace.

“O my God!” she exclaimed, and the shaking hand that pointed at Ames swept on to her parted lips.

Lany stood a second as if turned to stone. Then he sagged and lunged, to whirl with gun extended, his face fierce, his hair up like a mane.

“Howdy, Price!” said Ames, coolly, suddenly stiff at sight of that gun.

“Arizona!” gasped the cowboy, distress edging into his wild expression.

“Shore is. An’ I’m tellin’ you this heah is an accident. I just happened along.”

“Damn you! Accident? You expect me — to believe that?” demanded Price, hoarsely.

“Lany, if it wasn’t an accident you’d never have seen me. Use your haid now.”

“No matter. Anyway, I’ve got to kill you!”

“Think quick, boy,” flashed Ames, sharply, “before you make it worse. Shore you’ve no call to kill me. I’m your friend.”

“Friend? . . . Gawd! — if I could only — believe you!” panted the distracted youth.

“Lany — who — is he?” faltered the girl.

“He’s the new rider I told you about. Arizona Ames.”

“Arizona Ames?” she echoed, and her halted consciousness seemed to be laboring over the name.

“Yes, miss. I’m Ames,” interposed Ames, moving up so only the log separated them.

“Don’t you — know me?” she asked.

“I’ve a hunch, but I cain’t be shore.”

“I am — Mrs. Grieve.”

“Glad to meet you,” returned Ames, doffing his sombrero. “Sorry it’s not under — happier circumstances.”

“Arizona, it’s no use,” burst out Price, passionately. “Hard as it is — I’ve got to kill you. . . . No man can see what you did — an’ live!”

“Shore is pretty tough, Lany,” said Ames, forcibly. “But look me in the eye, boy. An’ if you cain’t trust me — why, you can throw your gun. Only, I warn you, Lany, I’m shore liable to beat you to a trigger.”

The cowboy shook with the violence of his emotions as he endeavored to meet the piercing gaze Ames bent upon him. He had manliness, yet he seemed pitifully weak.

“Arizona, I don’t care — about myself,” he said, breathing hard.

“Shore I know that. You’re thinkin’ aboot Mrs. Grieve’s honor. Well, Lany, it’s as safe with me as if I were you.”

Price’s gun arm lost its rigidity. His face worked.

“Lany, you mustn’t kill him,” spoke up the girl. “It’d be murder.”

“What’s a murder to me? I’d shoot the whole outfit to save you from ruin.”

“Dear, I told you I’m ruined already,” she returned. “For I’ll not live a lie any longer. I hate Crow Grieve. I mean to tell him the truth.”

“O Gawd — no!” cried Price. “He’d choke the life out of you.”

She reached for Price’s nerveless arm and dragged it down so that the gun dropped out of sight. Then, tottering a little, she put both hands on the log to steady herself, and leaned to gaze seekingly into Ames’ eyes. If she was gaining assurance, Ames was certainly readjusting wrong impressions. In an ordinary moment she would have been more than pretty. Here, white as marble, with great dark velvet eyes of tragedy, with red tremulous lips parted, with throbbing throat and breast, she was wonderful to look at.

“Lany, I trust him,” she said, quietly.

The moment of ended strain was poignant for Ames. To have to kill or disable this love-maddened boy would have been a terrible thing. Ames slid his legs over the log and sat between Lany and the girl, his hand going to the boy’s shoulder and his gaze to her.

“Thanks. I reckon I’m glad,” he said, feelingly. “Now, listen, folks. I’ve known for weeks aboot you two bein’ in love. An’ I’m afraid some of the outfit suspect you. MacKinney is on, I’m shore, but there are some things Mac doesn’t blab. I can keep him from it, anyhow.”

“You knew — Lany and I were — in — in love?” queried the girl, with a slow blush.

“Well, I wasn’t so shore aboot you lovin’ him. He was out of his haid. But I knew you were meetin’ him, an’ I confess I had some pretty queer notions aboot you. A young woman — still in her teens — with a baby! It shore looked bad. Reckon it looks bad yet, only somehow, seein’ you with Lany, an’ heahin’ you, makes it different.”

“You are Lany’s friend?”

“Shore. An’ I’ve been layin awake at night, tryin’ to find a way to help him.”

“Arizona, I — I love Lany terribly,” she confessed. “But I — I have not really been untrue to my husband.”

“Shore you haven’t,” replied Ames, loyally. “Reckon Lany had me plumb scared. When a man’s horrible in love you cain’t just tell whether he’s good or bad. But, Amy, since I’ve seen an’ heahed you, I’ve aboot made up my mind you’re good, all right, but terrible young an’ wild an’ unhappy.”

Faith and kindness worked upon her to the havoc of composure.

“Oh — Lany!” she sobbed. “He gives me — strength and hope. . . . My self-respect was bleeding to death. . . . He will help us.”

“I shore will,” declared Ames, binding himself to he knew not what. He drew the weeping girl to him until her drooping head rested on his shoulder. “Now, Lany, you tell me.”

Price heaved his gun back into its sheath, and when he lifted his face it showed drawn and wet with tears.

“Arizona, it’ll look so — so foolish to you,” he began. “I saw Amy the very first day she got to Wyomin’. It was at Granger, where I took the rig to drive Grieve home. She looked at me — an’ life hasn’t ever been the same since. I fell in love with her — just like I’d fallen off a cliff. I didn’t dream of it then, but she fell in love with me, too. . . . I swallowed it — took my medicine. I kept out of her way. If I’d been half a man I’d have gone away. But I wasn’t big enough for that. Luck was against me. Twice we were thrown together — alone. One whole afternoon I drove her back from Stillman’s ranch. We talked for hours. I could tell she was unhappy an’ she — she liked me. . . . Then one day, up the river, I found her sittin’ on a rock. She had fallen off her horse an’ she couldn’t walk. Her horse went off somewhere. I couldn’t find him; I — I didn’t try hard. I tried to help her on my horse. She fell into my arms. That was too much.”

Lany wiped his wet face with unsteady hands.

“I carried her home — an’ on the way it — it all came out. I told her I was crazy over her an’ I’d have to leave Wind River. She wouldn’t hear of it. She was in love with me. . . . My Gawd! . . . Since then we’ve met. Not often at first an’ most at night. But lately we had to see each other more. . . . Then today Amy frightened me out of my wits, as well as put murder in my heart. Grieve is a drunken beast. He beats her. He loves to hurt her! . . . She’s a slave girl. An’ she swore she’d not stand it any longer. She swore she’d tell him the truth an’ leave him. She would have done that long ago but for the baby. . . . When you came I was tryin’ to persuade her to keep our secret, to stick for the baby’s sake. I’d go way off an’ never see her again.”

Ames kept silent a moment after Lany’s disclosure ended. What he felt most was great relief. Then a sadness pervaded his spirit. Everywhere he roamed life seemed like this, and love a glorious and awful thing. The only love he had ever known — that for Nesta — had brought agony, and a sleepless regret, but it was nothing to what overwhelmed these lovers. In the face of it he quailed. How could he help them? What was right and what was wrong? Then he felt the girl’s head stir. And in her movement and the face she raised Ames sensed a blind and unreasoning trust in him — that shackled and bound him. Her eyes were as different from Nesta’s as eyes could well be, but they burned with the same beauty, the same brooding tragedy through which hope shone.

“Well, well,” he began, somehow finding the old cool drawl, “that’s not such a terrible story. Why, I reckoned it’d be worse. You just fell in love. God Almighty is most to blame. . . . But, come to remember, you two were pretty close when I come up an’ caught you.”

“You caught us, all right, Arizona,” admitted Lany, hanging his head.

“Amy, you were huggin’ Lany somethin’ scandalous,” went on Ames, just talking for time and perhaps to tease a little.

“Yes, I was, and I’m not ashamed,” she retorted, bravely. “I’ve kissed him a — a million times. . . . What would you expect, Arizona Ames?”

“Lord! I shore don’t know,” returned Ames, pensively. “I never had no wonderful girl love me. An’ I’m afraid I’ve missed a lot.”

“You must have run away from girls,” she said.

“Shore I did. Runnin’ away from girls — an’ everythin’ — is aboot all I’ve done for six years. . . . Well, to come back to your story. It’s not so terrible, except aboot Grieve bein’ a brute. Is that so, Amy?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I could tell he’s a hard drinker. But I’ve known men who drank a lot an’ yet were not so bad.”

“Grieve drinks all the time,” she declared, scornfully. “It’s his life. Whisky is his very breath. There is never a half hour, except when he’s asleep, that he doesn’t leave off what he’s doin’ — to go out or in — to come back with that queer little cough. Very often he gets dead drunk. That’s the best part of it, for then I can put him to bed. But when he’s half drunk, then he’s — he’s — oh, what can I call him?” she burst out, in ringing passion. “A beast who paws me — tears my clothes off! Beats me! A dog! A nigger!”

The last epithet had in it all the contempt, the hate, the inevitableness of the Southerner’s point of view.

Ames felt the leap of his blood. He did not dare look down at her, but gazed off through the pines, at the gathering of golden clouds over the mountains. He heard Lany’s heavy breathing.

“Amy, are you shore you’re not exaggeratin’ some?” he queried, at length.

She broke away from his gentle hold.

“Look, Arizona Ames!” Swiftly she opened her sleeve to roll it up, exposing a round white arm the beauty of which was marred by black and blue fingerprints. “Look!” she went on, tearing her silk blouse open at the neck, and pulling it aside to reveal a dark bruise on the rounded swell of shoulder. “Is that exaggeration? Shall I take off my boots and show the marks of his kicks?”

Ames cursed under his breath.

Lany shook himself out of his amaze and horror.

“Amy, you never told me that!” he raved.

“I’m telling you now,” she retorted, defiantly.

“You were afraid — I’d kill him?” panted Lany.

“I was. And now I hope you do.” Then all of a sudden she was in his arms.

Ames had to sit there and endure their crying over each other, their forgetfulness of him, their scoldings and tender reproaches, their evidences of heartbreak.

“Don’t mind me, folks,” he said, finally. “Only, time’s shore a-flyin’.”

Lany, still holding the girl in his arms, turned with a face which thrilled and awed Ames.

“Arizona, for her sake, tell me what to do!”

“I reckon nothin’ right pronto,” replied Ames, bluntly. “An’ shore keep away from Amy till we figure what you can do.”

“I can’t keep away. When I try she — she sends for me,” said Lany, despairingly. “This mornin’, for instance. Mac gave me a job to tend to, an’ Amy sends me a note by the housekeeper’s boy, askin’ me to meet her up here.”

Ames threw up both hands.

“Mrs. Grieve, you shore take risks — —”

“Don’t call me Mrs.,” flashed the girl, in petulant passion.

“Very well, then, Amy. You oughtn’t have done that.”

“But I’m a human being,” she protested.

“I reckon you are. Terrible human. All the same you don’t use any haid.”

“I can’t live — I won’t live without seeing him.”

To Ames she seemed subtly dangerous then, beautiful and irresistible, a strange creature that any man would have risked his life for.

“But you’re courtin’ death,” said Ames, gravely. “If you’re found out — an’ it’s reasonable shore you will be — Crow Grieve will kill Lany. An’ if he didn’t kill you, too — well, you’d be worse off than daid.”

Her face blanched at this and her eyes sought Lany’s face. “I — I don’t care what he’d do to me. But if he killed Lany I — I’d murder him with my own hands.”

“Ahuh. I believe you’ve got the nerve to do it. . . . Amy, you’re forgettin’ your child. You’re not fair to him. Or is it a boy?”

“A girl, Arizona. Golden curls, blue eyes — you’d never believe it was Grieve’s child.”

“O Lord! A girl! An’ she’ll grow up to be like Nesta an’ you!”

“Who’s Nesta?” asked Amy, curiously.

“A twin sister of mine. . . . Sweet as a flower, wild as a doe!”

“Arizona, we’re gettin’ nowhere,” interposed Lany, desperately.

“Lany, shore there are only two places you can get with a woman. One’s heaven, where I reckon you’ve been lately. An’ the other is a place you’re goin’ if you’re not damn careful.”

“You mean he’s goin’ to hell?” asked the girl, sorrowfully.

“I shore do, Amy.”

“He won’t go alone,” she said, simply.

Ames had long realized that he was dealing with fire and powder in these two young people. He dropped off the log and began to pace to and fro. Presently the girl came to him, slipped a hand under his arm.

“You’re distressed, Arizona. I’m sorry. Perhaps you’d better keep our secret and let us fight it out alone.”

“You poor kids! I reckon I cain’t do that.”

“Oh, you are good!” she exclaimed. “I never had a brother. Your Nesta must have loved you. . . . Arizona, you know I can’t stand Grieve much longer. I couldn’t even if Lany was not in it at all. Don’t you see that?”

“Shore I see it.”

“I must take baby and go away where he can’t find me.”

“How old are you, Amy?”

“Not yet twenty. But I feel a hundred.”

“You’re not of age. You’re not your own boss, especially if your folks gave Grieve a guardianship over you.”

“Father did just that. He sold me to Grieve. He owed him money. But I’ve never believed father could have done it if he’d known what Grieve really is.”

“Ahuh. Then Grieve could drag you an’ the child back. If you’d stick it out till you’re of age an’ then leave, you’d have the best of him.”

“More than a year!” she shuddered. “When now I know what love is? — It’s impossible, Arizona.”

“Ahuh. I reckoned as much,” rejoined Ames, with a grim little laugh. “Let’s sit down. I’m gettin’ weak in the laigs. . . . Come heah, Lany.”

They sat down together under a pine tree, Ames strangely brooding, Lany miserable and hopeless, the girl white with resolve.

“I think I’ll run off,” she declared, solemnly. “If he catches me — I’ll end it all for baby and me.”

“Arizona, you see?” burst out Lany. “See what I’m up against? She’d have done it before but for me.”

“You’re shore up against a lot, cowboy,” agreed Ames as he let the yellow pine needles sift through his fingers. “But we shore won’t let Amy go that far.”

“Arizona, you don’t savvy my lady love,” said Lany, making a sad attempt at humor. “You couldn’t stop her with a team of mules.”

“How aboot that, Amy?”

“If I once got started you never could,” she asserted.

“Well, young folks, as I see it — aboot the only hope for you is to wait until Crow Grieve is daid.”

“But he is still young and healthy. He’ll live many years,” protested Amy, taking him literally.

On the other hand, Lany Price turned a deathly white.

“How long is he goin’ to be away?” queried Ames, ignoring her protest.

“I never can tell. When he says a week he comes back before. When he says a day or two he stays longer.”

“Amy, is he suspicious you might be — —”

“Suspicious — jealous, oh, he’s hatefully both!” she cried. “Of any cowboy.”

“Not particularly of Lany, then?”

“I don’t know it, if he is. But he’s cunning. I’m in a perpetual state of fear, both when he’s home and away.”

“Well, for a girl who’s scared to death all the time, strikes me you’ve got nerve,” drawled Ames.

“Nerve! I’ve no more nerve than a rabbit. And I’m an awful liar, too, Arizona.”

“Aw no. Shore I cain’t believe that.”

“I’m a liar, anyway.”

“Amy,” spoke up Lany, with loyal repudiation, “you might have had to lie to Grieve, but you never have to me.”

She let out a little peal of silvery mocking laughter. She was bewildering to Ames.

“Haven’t I, though? I’m all lie. . . . Why, Lany, I brought about those accidents when you were with me alone. I fell in love with you and I swore I’d make you love me or die. . . . That time you carried me home in your arms! — I found out where you were going. I followed you. I drove my horse away and waylaid you. I pretended to be hurt when I wasn’t at all. When you tried to put me up in your saddle I fell into your arms. On purpose! And then when you thought you had to carry me and you did carry me! And before you knew it you were kissing me!”

“Oh, Amy,” returned Lany, at once wretched and happy.

Ames rose to his feet. “I reckon that’s not the kind of lies men count. If the lyin’ is done for them! . . . Now do as I tell you. Say you won’t tell Grieve nothin’. You’ll be awful careful aboot meetin’ Lany now while your husband is away. An’ when he comes back you won’t meet Lany at all or send him notes.”

“Till when?” she asked, rising with her hands on her hips, her eyes singularly bright on him.

“Say as long as Grieve is away an’ while he’s home next time.”

“Arizona, I promise. Cross my heart,” she replied, smiling, and after she had suited the action to the words she proffered her hand. “And during this time you’ll find some place where I can hide or you’ll take me yourself — or hit upon a way to help me and Lany out of this terrible mess?”

“That’s my promise, Amy,” he replied.

“How aboot you, Lany?” he asked, turning to the cowboy. “Shore you’ll help Amy to keep this heah promise?”

“Arizona, I swear — I will,” rejoined Lany. His lips were pale and he swallowed hard.

“All right, children, I shore feel better,” drawled Ames. “I’ll leave you now. An’ I advise you don’t stay up heah till mawnin’. It’s comin’ on sunset now. It oughtn’t take you long to say good-by. Fact is, I don’t know nothin’ aboot kisses, but allowin’ a second or so for each one, an’ reckonin’ on four or five hundred — they wouldn’t take so long.”

Lany laughed to hide his embarrassment.

“Arizona, I didn’t think you could be sarcastic,” said Amy, disappointed, and she swayed toward him, a dangerous little gleam in her big eyes.

“Gosh! Now I’ve played hob!” ejaculated Ames, realizing his effort at naïveté had fallen somewhat flat.

“You think we’re young fools?” she queried.

“Aw no, Amy, not quite that.”

“You ridicule kisses. Arizona Ames, I’ve a notion to kiss you,” she averred, backing him against the log.

“Do it, Amy,” said Lany. “Show him. The darned cowboy never has been kissed.”

“Have you, Arizona?”

“I reckon, years ago at parties an’ dances. An’ the sister I told you aboot — Nesta, she used to kiss me. But, Amy, I never had a sweetheart.”

“Arizona, I think that the most amazing thing,” said Amy. “And I believe you.” She took hold of the lapels of his vest and looked up sweetly, half in fun, half in earnest, with a woman’s gratitude for his sympathy and championship, and also with a woman’s subtle instinct to defend her sex. “I’m going to kiss you, Arizona.”

“Please don’t, Amy,” he returned, hastily, in tremendous embarrassment, trying gently to get away.

“Shut your eyes, coward,” she commanded.

“Lord! if you’re goin’ to — I — I reckon I got to see you,” he exploded.

“Arizona, I’m deadly in earnest. I’ll pretend to be the sweetheart you’ll win some day. Oh, you will! Lany and I hope you’ll feel what we feel now.”

With heightened color she stretched herself, then had to jump to reach his lips, which she kissed full and soundly.

“There, Arizona Ames!” she exclaimed, sliding back to the ground, a little scared, but still audacious.

“Now you’ve done it,” said Arizona, and vaulting the log he hurried away round the thicket to his horse. Mounting, he cut off the trail to avoid meeting his young friends again, and was soon beyond the glade, headed down into the thinning forest.

Through openings between the pines he could see the green slope, the shining river below, the wide range, and the black mountains rising to the peaks crowned in gold and white, and above, the flaming sunset clouds.

“Poor kids!” soliloquized Ames, shaking his head sadly. “No more to blame than two chipmunks! . . . Lord, what a girl! Just like Nesta — only so different in looks. An’ she kissed me. I wish she hadn’t. . . . No, I shore don’t. If I ever meet a girl like her my name will be mud. . . . Heigho! . . . I’m always huntin’ trouble. My feelin’s run away with my haid. . . . An’ it’s a shore bet I’ll have to draw on that black bastard, Crow Grieve.”

CHAPTER VIII

WHEN AMES RODE into the ranch that evening his line of future conduct seemed to have been arbitrarily arranged, as if by the fates.

During supper, at which Lany arrived late, subdued by spent emotion, Ames was preoccupied. Later he avoided his friend, and passed hours with the cowboys, evincing a sudden and unusual curiosity about Crow Grieve, prompting innumerable stories of the rancher’s hard-fistedness, his niggardly doling out of wages, his peculiar habit of always holding back the balance due a range-hand, his distrustful nature, and lastly, his cruelty to horses. These were Grieve’s common and well-known traits, such as, especially the last, were unforgivable by cowboys.

“Dog-gone it,” said Slim Blue, as Ames stalked out. “What’s eatin’ Arizonie? It’s not like him atall.”

“How do we know what Arizonie’s like? He ain’t been hyar long,” returned a comrade.

“But Mac’s told us.”

“Aw, Mac blabs too much. I reckon Arizonie is jest goin’ sour on the boss. We all got thet way, sooner or later, didn’t we?”

“We plumb sure did. But somehow it ‘pears kinda different in Arizonie.”

Next morning Ames called upon the housekeeper, Mrs. Terrill, a buxom widow of forty, who was not averse to mild flirtations with cowboys.

“Mrs. Terrill, I shore been stayin’ away from heah,” drawled Ames, in his nicest way. “The boys been tellin’ me aboot you. Handsome widows are my especial dish.”

“You cowboy cannibal,” she replied, gayly. “You’re a handsome devil yourself. I’ll bet you only want cake or pie out of me.”

“Shore I’ll take a piece. But I just ran up to say howdy, an’ ask if you know when the boss is comin’ back.”

“Laws a-mercy! Are you sweet on the young missis, too?”

“Me? Naw! I like ’em all broken in. High-steppin’ fillies are shore too hard for me to ride.”

“You’re the first cowpuncher I ever heard say anythin’ like that. . . . No, I ain’t sure when the boss will be home. I’m hopin’ it won’t be soon.”

Mrs. Terrill liked to talk and Ames was an inspiring listener. He was to hear much about the sweet and patient Amy Grieve and her adorable baby. And from that it was but easy to lead the woman to talk about Grieve. “Sure you’ll get your money,” she had answered to Ames’ query, “but only when he’s good an’ ready to pay.”

Ames worked upon her feelings then, and her evident devotion to Amy. The housekeeper, growing confidential to this earnest-eyed and soft-voiced cowboy, waxed eloquent. As her tongue loosened, she imparted many things, among them a hint that there was one cowboy to whom young Mrs. Grieve was not indifferent.

“How does Grieve treat this girl?” asked Ames, with great sympathy. But here the woman’s volubility ceased, and from her sudden restraint Ames gathered more significance than if she had actually given instances of Grieve’s brutality. Ames left the housekeeper, darkly satisfied with his interview. Amy Grieve had not exaggerated. The testimony of disinterested people, however, was what Ames required in the stern court-martial going on in his mind.

Ames encountered MacKinney on the road near the bunk-house.

“Shure was lookin’ for you, Arizonie,” he said, genially.

“Haven’t got a dollar,” replied Ames, surlily. “I’ll have to borrow, myself, if Grieve won’t shell out.”

“Borrow! Who’s hollerin’ about money? I ain’t. But I’ll lend you some.”

“Thanks, I’ll wait till I see the boss.”

“Shure you’ll wait longer till you get all thet’s comin’. . . . Arizonie, some of the outfit’s gotta work a little. There’s a corral fence to fix up, an’ some shinglin’ to do. Wanta help me?”

“Me blister my hands an’ pound my fingers?” queried Ames, in magnificent scorn. “I should shore hope to smile not!”

“Say, you Arizonie Injun,” expostulated MacKinney, in surprise, “since when did you begin shyin’ at work?”

“I reckon aboot this heah minute,” rejoined Ames, moodily, and passed on to leave his old friend standing in the road, scratching his head in perplexity.

That night Ames slumped in late to supper, minus his habitual cool and pleasant amiability. He swore at the cook, who appeared too surprised to retaliate, a lack exceedingly rare with that individual. Ames’ keen ears caught a drift of conversation outside on the porch.

“Lany, what’s ailin’ Arizonie?” asked one of the boys.

“Haven’t seen him for ‘most two days,” returned Price, in surprise and concern. “Anythin’ the matter?”

“Wal, he ain’t like himself, lately.”

“Somethin’ workin’ on Ames,” vouchsafed one.

“I jest guess yes. But I’ve no idee what.”

“Aw, he’s gettin’ sore at the boss.”

“Mac, is this old pard of yours one of these punchers who has quiet drinkin’ spells, when he ain’t sociable?”

“My Gawd, no!” declared MacKinney. “Soberest pard I ever had.”

“Wal, if you ask me,” spoke up Slim Blue, “I’ll tell you Arizonie has got somethin’ on his mind.”

“Mebbe it’s Amy Grieve,” said another, so low Ames all but failed to catch it.

“Nope. So far as I know he’s never even seen her.”

“Say, Lany, has Arizonie seen the boss’ wife?”

“I guess so. Once, anyway,” replied Price, awkwardly.

“Once is enough.”

“Boys, when I looked into them bootiful eyes of hers I felt a turrible wrench. An’ I’ve had an ache under my breast-bone ever since.”

“Wal, Saunders, thet ain’t no compliment to her. Anythin’ wot wore skirts would give you aches.”

“Bill, your hunch is wrong. It takes a gurl without skirts to give Saunders the aches. Last time we was in South Fork there was a show in town. An’ a gurl with a shape like peeled corral poles did a trapeze act. You’d ‘a’ thunk Saunders had collera morbis.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared the cowboys in unison.

Ames finished his meal and stalked out on the porch.

“Say, have any of you suckers an idea how soon that ——  ——  ——  —— of a Grieve will be back?” asked Ames, curtly, as he bent his head to light his cigarette.

No one replied promptly. This was strong raw talk, even for a tough cowboy. But coming from a rider of Ames’ repute, it fell with a shock.

MacKinney stirred the uneasy silence, his boots coming down from the porch rail with a thump.

“Pard, we shure ain’t,” he said. “Figgerin’ past performances, I’d say he’d drive in tomorrow. An’ shure no fellar to brace. If you’ll excoose the loikes of me — Arizonie — I’d advise — —”

“Aw, blab away, Mac,” said Ames, as the other hesitated.

“Shure this ain’t no blabbin’ matter,” returned MacKinney, testily. “You ain’t in no humor lately to tackle the boss.”

“An’ why not?” demanded Ames, coolly. “If you an’ the rest of your yellow outfit haven’t the guts to call this man, Crow Grieve, it shore doesn’t follow that I haven’t.”

MacKinney lapsed into amazed silence, his jaw dropping, and manifestly his memory active.

“Listen to me, Arizonie,” spoke up Blue, with cool and deliberate force. “I reckon to you we are a purty yellow bunch an’ mebbe thet crack is desarved. But the way Mac and I figger, an’ thet holds fer most of us — Grieve is a nasty, aggravatin’ fellar to rile. Wot’s the sense in it? We’ve got purty good jobs. An’ if you crawl to him you get along an’ you can always draw a little money. Mac was tryin’ to tell you this, an’ thet the wust of callin’ Grieve would be y’u’d jest have to back it up.”

“Bah! That black hombre is white-livered inside.”

“Wal, Arizonie, we-all jest hope you’ll go slow. Not thet any of us care a damn fer Grieve!”

“Much obliged, Slim. I shore appreciate that,” replied Ames, with sincere warmth. “I’m askin’ you to overlook that mean crack. Reckon my nerves are on edge.”

As Ames left the porch to stroll away down the dark road Slim Blue’s voice trailed to him, but not its content. Ames had deliberately planted a germ among his fellows. Lany was the only one who might suspect Ames of deceit, and he was so absorbed with the enchanted hours that he could not cease his dreaming.

Next day Ames rode out on the range to call upon the “nester,” or squatter, who was the only individual of that nature remaining on Grieve’s holdings. He was a stolid Norwegian named Nielsen. He had homesteaded a little valley of fifty acres on a creek that flowed into the river. There were a hundred such places on the range under Grieve’s control, all more or less fertile, suitable for farms. In fact, some of them had been put under cultivation by the squatter type of pioneer, poor men who had to start with an ax, a plough and a horse. Grieve had run all of them off except Nielsen; and because he could not intimidate the Norwegian he had grown bitter toward him. Ames merely wanted to substantiate range rumor.

He found Nielsen to be the kind of pioneer who would in the long run do more for the West and cowboys than Grieve would. Nielsen had a pretty homestead, a comely wife, and several sturdy youngsters. He could live off the little farm and the meat he packed down from the foothills, but he was standing still. He could not get ahead at ranching. If Grieve had been a square man he would have permitted Nielsen to run his few head of stock on the range near by. But the Norwegian had to drive his cattle up into the foothills, where wolves killed the calves, and rustlers took every two-year-old steer he raised. Nielsen admitted he could not hold on much longer. His simple statement of facts put Grieve in no good light.

Ames respected the Norwegian, and liked the patient-faced wife, and the merry children, with whom he made friends.

“So Grieve fenced you off his range, eh?” mused Ames, thoughtfully. “Who built that fence?”

“It ain’t much of a fence,” replied the squatter. “Grieve an’ two of his boys put it up in a day. But it cuts me off, except from the river.”

“Do you remember who those boys were?”

“Yes. Tall fellar they called Carpenter. He was killed in South Fork a year or two ago. The other is Brick Jones. He’s still ridin’ for Grieve, but I don’t know if he is in your outfit. Brick rode out here a couple of times after that an’ annoyed my wife.”

“I know Jones. He’s workin’ at the ranch. Kind of a hand Grieve likes. . . . How aboot him annoyin’ your wife? What’d he do?”

“Not much. Tried to get sweet with the wife. Next time he’d loaded on a little rum an’ he was in a wrastlin’ mood.”

“What’d you do, Mrs. Nielsen?” asked Ames, of the wife, who stood by, listening.

“I ran in and barred the door,” she replied, smiling. “I like cowboys, but not that red-head.”

“Nielsen, you’ve a fine little farm heah an’ I advise you to hang on,” drawled Ames, and patting the bright head of the youngest child he rose to go.

“You do?” inquired the homesteader, his face lightening. “That’s kind of you. We’re mighty discouraged. I’ve some little money banked. Been savin’ it to buy stock. But I’m afraid. An’ yet we hate to pull up an’ leave here.”

“Hang on, then. But don’t buy yet awhile. Wait,” said Ames, and then he gave Nielsen a steady gaze. “Shore I reckon somethin’ might happen to Crow Grieve.”

“Happen!” exclaimed Nielsen, staring.

“Shore. Life is awful uncertain for men like Grieve. He might fall daid any minute.”

“Cowboy, you’re talkin’ queer for one of Grieve’s riders,” said the squatter.

“I don’t ride for Grieve. I used to, but no more.”

“We hope you ain’t leavin’ without tellin’ us your name.”

“Well, I am forgetful. My name is Ames. They call me Arizona . . . Good-by, folks. Stick to the range an’ send these dandy kids to school some day.”

Ames rode away, feeling a warmth of satisfaction at the hopes he had evidently kindled in the breasts of these toiling pioneers. Kind words were easy to find, but he reflected grimly, sometimes they pledged him to things difficult of accomplishment.

Soon his mind reverted to his problem at the ranch, and he realized that it had ceased to be a problem. During his visit with Nielsen he had severed his connection with Grieve. For Ames, decisions often came through events as well as long cogitation. Crow Grieve was a stumbling-block to the progress and happiness of worthy people. Many men were like that — stones in the path, weeds to tangle weary feet — thorns that lacerated and poisoned.

“Shore I just cain’t savvy Grieve,” mused Ames, as he rode along.

Dust clouds down on the range set him to wondering if the advance guard of Grieve’s expected herds had arrived. Soon he espied a long string of cattle moving up toward the corrals.

Ames put his horse, Cappy, to a lope, and in half an hour reached the ranch. When he rode round the barns to enter the wide open square between them and the bunk-houses his quick eye noted many things. Grieve had returned; dust and noise emanated from the corrals; cowboys were crossing the open toward the mess-house; several buckboards stood with teams hitched to the rail; a group of men in plain garb were conferring on the porch. And lastly Ames observed with surprise that Mrs. Grieve was sitting alone in the farthest buckboard. She held the reins and appeared to be waiting.

If adventure gravitated to Ames, and circumstances revolved around him, it was equally certain that situations seemed to be set for him by fate.

Ames rode up, dismounted, and throwing his bridle he took off his sombrero to make Mrs. Grieve a bow, a little prolonged and over-graceful.

“Good mawnin’,” he said, with a reassuring smile. “Shore there’s a lot goin’ on around heah an’ me missin’ it.”

“Good morning to you, Mr. Ames,” she replied, brightly, and she blushed becomingly. “But it’s really afternoon. You’re not the only one late for lunch.”

He put a gloved hand upon the dashboard, deliberately placing his back to the men on the porch. Ames needed only one glance at Mrs. Grieve to reassure himself. She was thoroughbred, a little puzzled and obviously excited at his approaching her, and withal pleased. No doubt she wore a mask of pride and smiling composure for the world, and it was hard for Ames to pierce to the tragedy and terror of the girl who had only a few days ago besought him so wildly.

“Reckon Grieve is back?” he asked, in lower tone.

“Yes. Surprised me no end,” she replied, likewise in low voice. “He’s sober. Brought friends to stay over Sunday.”

“Fine if it only lasts,” he drawled. “Shore fetched some cattle, too, didn’t he?”

“No. The first herd of Texas longhorns got here,” she said. “Oh, they’re such wonderful cattle. I drove down to look them over. And when I got back Mr. Grieve had arrived.”

“Where is he now, Amy?”

“On the porch, glaring like a black-eyed owl. But you stay here by me!”

“Shore. An’ while I’m heah I want to ask somethin’ of you. There’s a squatter family up the river. Name is Nielsen. He located before Grieve got control of the range an’ he won’t be driven out. Grieve has fenced him in, an’ has just aboot ruined him. There are three dandy kids an’ the mother is a nice woman. They’re awful poor. Now, Amy, I want you to promise you’ll go up there — some day when you’re boss heah — an’ help them — be their friend.”

“Boss heah!” Amy seemed so strangely struck that she even imitated Ames’ accent.

“Don’t stare at me like that, you big-eyed child. I asked you to promise.”

“Promise? — Certainly I — I will,” she returned, hurriedly. “What’s this squatter’s name?”

“Nielsen. He’s a Norwegian an’ so’s his wife. But I reckon they’ve been heah in this country pretty long. They’re Americans, shore, an’ the West needs that kind.”

“Arizona, I can feel trouble in the air,” she said, still lower, her casual glance on the men behind Ames. “But don’t you dare move.”

“Me move? — See heah, Amy, I been ‘most dyin’ to tell you somethin’.”

“What?” she inquired, with misgivings.

“Do you remember what you did to me the other afternoon?” he queried, mischievously.

“I’m not likely to forget, Mr. Ames,” she returned, with mock aloofness.

“Are you shore? I mean aboot what you swore you was goin’ to do — an’ Lany told you to show me — an’ what I reckoned I didn’t want?”

“I am perfectly sure,” she rejoined, blushing.

“Funny aboot that. I was shore wrong, Amy. I did want it. An’ when I leave heah I’m goin’ to ride all over the West till I find a girl like you. An’ then I’ll get a million — same as you gave Lany.”

“What a wonderful compliment to me!” she exclaimed. “I hope you mean it, Arizona. . . . But — when you leave here! What do you mean?”

The gravel crunched under vicious footfalls. Ames leisurely turned. Grieve stalked over, a tinge of red under his dark skin, his large black eyes bright with amazed suspicion and anger.

“Howdy, Grieve!” said Ames, lazily.

“I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with my wife,” he declared.

“Shore I’m not. Course I know her by sight. I was just askin’ her to be good to some friends of mine up the river. Squatter family by the name of Nielsen.”

“You’re damned impertinent.”

Ames had his cue in that. As if he had been stung he jumped clear of the buckboard.

“Who’s impertinent?” he flashed, in hot loud tone. The sudden anger he meant to simulate actually became real with the explosion of his words. His deliberate intent to attract attention to Grieve more than succeeded.

“You are,” replied Grieve, fuming, though plainly Ames’ swift change was a surprise.

“I’d like to know why?” shot out Ames, still louder. “I shore see no call for you to insult me before your wife an’ guests, not to say these gapin’ cowpunchers. I was only askin’ Mrs. Grieve to be good to some friends of mine. You ask her if I wasn’t.”

“Amy, is that so?” demanded Grieve, turning to her.

“Certainly. What did you think?” returned Amy, coldly. And with the paling of her face her eyes grew larger and darker.

“Do you know this cowboy, Ames?” went on her husband, jealously. “Who introduced him to you?”

“No one,” she retorted.

“See heah, Grieve, you cain’t bullyrag her on my account,” interposed Ames. “I never was introduced to her. I just saw my opportunity to help some friends of mine. Mrs. Grieve has got a reputation for bein’ good to poor people.”

“Suppose she has. It’s none of your business. The nerve of you — bracin’ her here!”

“He was very courteous and polite,” interposed Amy, solicitously.

“You shut up,” snapped Grieve. Every word edged him in deeper, which fact augmented his temper. He failed to gauge Ames’ motive, though he sensed some undercurrent here.

“Thank you, Mrs. Grieve,” said Ames, gratefully. “But I reckon you needn’t apologize for me.”

“Ames, if you address her again I’ll — I’ll bust your gabby jaw,” declared Grieve, stridently.

Ames regarded the irate rancher in silent disdain. There was a restless movement of feet upon the porch, and husky whispers among the cowboys. Grieve’s temper had precipitated a situation extremely exasperating to him and which, despite a looming portent, could not be obviated by one of his intolerant nature. Certainly he had no fear of Ames, but there seemed to be something he could not understand. The steady eyes of the cowboy, with their blue gimlet-like flash, only inflamed him the more.

“Ames, I don’t hire you to ride around huntin’ up poor squatters,” he went on. “You just made that up for an excuse, so you could speak to my wife.”

Ames calmly and irritatingly lighted a cigarette.

“An’ you’re fired,” exploded Grieve, with what he thought was finality.

“Shore I’m not fired,” returned Ames, quickly.

“What?” The rancher’s voice grew thick. “I say you’re fired.”

“You cain’t fire me, Crow Grieve.”

“The hell you say!”

“Shore. I beat you to it. I quit.”

“When did you quit?”

“Reckon it was this mawnin’.”

“Bah! You’re just braggin’. You windy cowpuncher.”

“I shore can prove it, Grieve. I told Nielsen this mawnin’.”

“All right. I’m damn glad to be rid of you.”

“Well, that’s a question. You’re not rid of me yet. Not till I get my money. An’ if what I heah is correct I’ll get that aboot Christmas after next.”

“I won’t listen to you,” shouted Grieve.

“You shore will.”

“Get off the ranch!” yelled Grieve, hoarse with rage, and he started to pass.

Ames struck him a quick light blow in the breast, not violent, but sharp enough to halt him in his tracks. Then Ames shoved him out of line with the buckboard, where Amy sat rigid and white.

“Listen, Grieve, an’ when I get through tellin’ you why I quit — you can go for your gun.”

The ringing voice, with its thin icy edge, left utter silence. Some of the older cowboys, notably Slim Blue and MacKinney, had sensed this climax. Grieve certainly had not, and his black face turned livid. His guests, whom Ames now also faced, hastened to get from behind.

“Ames, you’re plumb sure — I’m not packin’ a gun,” blustered Grieve. His shaken nerve was recovering.

“No, I’m not shore,” snapped Ames, curtly. “I didn’t look. I hoped you were. An’ if you’re not — well, you can borrow one, or go home after your own.”

The bitter raw challenge shot into Grieve’s teeth. The lawless and inevitable West spoke through Ames.

“I quit this mawnin’ because I wanted to tell you just what a skunk of a rancher you are, Crow Grieve,” went on Ames, in a derision that gained rather than lost from its cool biting drawl. “Shore suits me fine that your beautiful young wife is heah — an’ your guests — an’ your cowpunchers. For once in your life, Crow Grieve, you’re goin’ to get called. I’m only sorry for one thing an’ that is I cain’t cuss you — call you every low-down name known on the range. Reckon I cain’t cuss before a lady.”

Ames threw down the cigarette which a moment before he had taken from his lips.

“Grieve, it’s been my bad luck to meet a lot of rotten cowmen,” went on Ames. “But I never run into your beat. You’re a cheap, two-bit, stingy buyer of cattle an’ hirer of cowboys out of jobs. You’re no rancher. If you had any guts you’d be a rustler. I reckon you steal a calf now an’ then from poor devils like Nielsen. An’ your fencin’ him in, so he couldn’t range his few haid of stock — of all the dirty jobs I’ve seen that’s the dirtiest. Nielsen’s kids looked starved. An’ heah you throw out money for whisky like a drunken millionaire. . . . An’ ‘most as bad is the way you hold on to the wages of decent hard-ridin’ cowboys. I’ve learned how many a cowhand has ridden away from heah without the money he’d earned an’ that you owed. Forty miserable dollars for a month of work, day an’ night! . . . Grieve, you’re a drunkard — a sot! — You’re a black-faced buzzard! . . . You’re shore a nigger! An’ you’ve got the soul of a nigger!”

As the breath-arresting denunciation ceased at last, Grieve, swaying with passion, lunged round the buckboard toward the porch. He stumbled in the convulsive violence of his step and nearly fell. When he got on the porch he turned a hideous blotched face.

“Get out!” he hissed.

“Shore. When you pay me my wages,” taunted Ames.

“You’ll rot before you get a —— dollar from me,” panted Grieve, and like a bull he plunged back on the porch, toward the door of the mess-room.

“Hey, somebody slip him a gun,” yelled Ames, in high-pitched voice.

All the movement there was among the few men still left on the porch was not forward, but backward. Grieve headed into the open door.

“Come on, you nigger prince of the range!”

The rancher slammed the door behind him.

Ames stood motionless, strained for a moment, then he relaxed. Presently Grieve appeared, stalking away under the pines. He had gone through the cabin. Then Ames walked over to his horse, and as he took up the dragging bridle he shot a flashing glance at the girl huddled down in the buckboard, her face as gray as ashes.

* * * * *

A little while later, when Ames sat in his quarters smoking and thinking, Lany Price arrived.

“Hello, Arizona! Where you-all been?” he inquired, cheerfully. Manifestly he had neither seen nor heard about the exciting incident that had just been concluded.

“Me? Aw, I’ve been foolin’ around,” drawled Ames. “Rode up to call on that nester, Nielsen. An’ when I got back heah seems like there was a heap goin’ on.”

“I guess. Boss back, sober for a wonder, with some cattlemen. One of them is Mr. Blair. I’ve worked for him. An’ that bunch of Texas longhorns — they sure got my eye. I’d just give my left leg to own them.”

“Lany, you’ll shore need your laig. An’ I reckon you’ll own that herd or one like it before long.”

“Arizona, are you drunk?” ejaculated his friend.

“I’m as sober as an owl. Feelin’ fine, though. Just had a nice talk with Amy Grieve.”

“If you’re not drunk, you’re crazy,” cried Lany, jumping up.

“Well, I’m shore not drunk. An’ I didn’t dream it aboot Amy. My, she looked sweet an’ pretty! She’s got class, Lany. I reckon she’s too good for you.”

“You talked to Amy!”

“Shore, just a few minutes ago.”

“Where?”

“Right out in front of the mess-house, before Grieve, his visitors, an’ the whole durned outfit.”

“No!”

“You bet. She was in her buckboard alone, an’ I waltzed up, tipped my hat, an’ braced her. Talk aboot your thoroughbreds! She was tickled to death to have Grieve see me there. Well, I made her blush, an’ among other things I told her I was daid wrong aboot not wantin’ that kiss she gave me, an’ I was shore goin’ to hunt for a girl like her an’ get a million kisses, same as she gave you. Oh, boy, but you should have seen her face!”

“Arizona, you’re a perfect devil!” ejaculated Lany divided between ecstasy and horror.

“Gosh! I’m jealous of you, Lany!” drawled Ames. “But, fact is, my main reason for speakin’ to Amy was to ask her to befriend these poor Nielsens up the river.”

“Arizona, she can’t befriend a poor sick horse any more,” declared Lany. “She always was doin’ some kind thing. But Grieve found out an’ shut down on her.”

“Shore I made a point of Amy helpin’ the Nielsens when she’s boss heah.”

“Boss — heah!” whispered Lany, incredulously, his eyes suddenly fixed.

Thump of boots and jangle of spurs outside interrupted the conversation.

“Hey, pard, air you home?” called a rather husky voice.

“I reckon, if you come careful,” returned Ames.

Slim Blue entered with his hands up, and behind him came MacKinney, pale of face, if he showed no other sign of perturbation.

“Put your hands down, you damn fool,” ordered Ames, sharply.

“Wal, you said come careful,” replied Blue.

“Set down on the bed, boys. I reckon I want to watch the door.”

“Natural, but it ain’t necessary. Grieve won’t come out to meet you an’ he hasn’t one single man hyar who’d do it for him, even if he had nerve enough to face you.”

Lany crashed down off the table. “My Gawd! fellars, what happened?”

“Boy, you go back in the corner an’ listen to men talk.”

MacKinney leaned against the bunk and gazed sorrowfully down on Ames.

“Shure now you’ve played hell.”

“How so, pard?” drawled Ames.

“Same old story. You mosey into camp, make all the fellars loike you, an’ then you throw a jolt into us — an’ ride away.”

“Mac, I’m heah yet, an’ if I’ve got Grieve figured correct you-all won’t be lonesome for my society very pronto.”

“Slim an’ me shore didn’t bust in hyar to argy with you, Arizonie,” replied MacKinney. “We jest wanted to tell our stand. Every hand on the ranch knows how you called Grieve. An’ every darn one of thim is scared an’ tickled stiff. The Texas punchers have heerd, too, but as they’re strangers they ain’t takin’ sides. Grieve’s guests rustled away, plumb disgusted, if nuthin’ more. Blair’s an old cattleman. I heerd him say to one of thim other visitors, ‘Wal, one way or another it’s the end of Grieve on this range.’ — An’ they left. By tomorrow it’ll be all over the country, fast as hosses can trot.”

“Ahuh. Reckon it’d have been better if Grieve hadn’t showed yellow,” remarked Ames.

“Wal, the suspense would have been over,” laughed MacKinney, grimly.

“Arizonie, you’re a cool joker,” put in Slim, admiringly. “Don’t you jest give a damn?”

“What aboot, Slim?”

“Wal, I don’t jest exactly mean about Crow Grieve,” rejoined Blue, sarcastically.

“One way or the other you’ll have to leave us, Arizonie, an’ thet’s what Slim is beefin’ about,” went on MacKinney.

“Friends always have to part, some time or other,” said Ames.

“Arizonie, I’m quittin’, an’ Mac is, too, an’ I’ll bet most of the outfit is. We’ll never ride for Grieve again.”

“How aboot your money?”

“Aw, to hell with thet. We don’t need no money.”

“Shore sorry to bust up the outfit, boys. I don’t see no call for that.”

“Niver mind us,” interposed MacKinney. “But listen, pard. I’m shure advisin’ you to ride in to South Fork an’ wait fer Grieve there. Sooner or later he’ll come, fer he has to have his licker. Then he can’t avoid you. But hyar in his own back yard. . . . It shure ain’t safe, Arizonie. Grieve is a hunter, you know. The rifle is his long suit. Shure he’ll plug you from a distance.”

“Reckon I was figurin’ aboot that,” replied Ames. “Wal, I’ll hang around a couple of days, anyhow, so he cain’t say he chased me away.”

“Wal, so much fer thet, Arizonie,” concluded Slim. “You want to watch like a hawk. An’ it’s a safe bet some one of us will have an eye on Grieve, whenever he comes out of the house.”

The cowboys lounged out, leaving Ames sitting there, watching through the door. Then Lany Price, white and shaken, accosted Ames.

“You — you done this for Amy an’ me!”

“Done what?” growled Ames.

“Picked — this — fight,” faltered Lany.

“Me! What’s wrong with your haid, boy? I didn’t pick nothin’.”

“Yes, you did. I see it all now. Your ridin’ up to Nielsen’s. I know Nielsen an’ his wife. She’s a strappin’-big handsome woman. . . . I never told anyone, Arizona. Not even Amy! But Grieve tried to make up to Nielsen’s wife. An’ when he got flouted he shut down on Nielsen. . . . Then your bracin’ Amy before Grieve an’ all of them. Oh, you’re a cute one. You knew Grieve would see red — yell at you — or hit you. An’ that’d give you a chance to call him . . . . An’ you made him crawl before the crowd! An’ Amy! — Gawd! I’d like to have seen it! But she’ll tell me.”

“Lany, since you’re such a darn smart boy an’ have such a weakness for me — suppose you take a hunch from what Slim Blue said, an’ keep your eye peeled. Shore I haven’t got eyes in the back of my haid.”

“I will, by Heaven!” declared Lany, desperately, and stalked out of the bunk-house.

Thereafter when Ames left his quarters he did it guardedly. Pine trees and thickets, sheds and corrals, fences and rocks, all came in for careful scrutiny. Careless men with enemies sooner or later suffered for it. Ames was not careless. He changed his seat at the mess-table, so that he could watch both doors. He had a preoccupied air, but a keen observer would have noted his intent, unobtrusive watchfulness.

The following day, just before supper time, while most of the outfit were lounging at the mess-house, Ames sauntered up the middle of the road, from the direction of the corrals.

When he reached the porch he encountered Brick Jones, a red-headed, lean-faced cowboy, lanky in form and lackadaisical in manner.

“Jones, I shore been lookin’ for you,” drawled Ames.

“Have ye? Wal, I ain’t quite been returnin’ the compliment,” grinned the cowboy, though it was plain that surprise and anxiety possessed him.

“Reckon if I punched you in the nose, good an’ hard, you’d go for your gun, now, wouldn’t you?”

“Wal — I — guess I would — if ye didn’t knock me — cold,” replied Jones, his lean face losing its red. “What ye sore at me fer?”

“You helped build that fence shuttin’ in Nielsen, didn’t you?”

“I did an’ I hated the job, Ames. But a puncher can’t pick his work.”

“He shore cain’t, if he works heah. . . . All right, you’re talkin’. Now how aboot Nielsen’s wife? You treated her pretty low-down.”

“Aw, hell, I didn’t nuther,” hurriedly retorted Jones, growing red as a lobster. “Thet ain’t so, Ames. You got it wrong. She’s a big nice-lookin’ woman, an’ she smiled so pleasant — wal, I reckoned she was plumb took with me. An’ I made a little love to her. I might have been sort of loony, for I’d been drinkin’, but I thought the lovemakin’ went with her. So I rode up again, an’ thet time — wal, if grabbin’ a woman an’ wrastlin’ her some is low-down, I’m shure guilty. But she smacked the stuffin’s out of me an’ barred me out.”

While the listening cowboys guffawed their delight Ames looked long at Jones, evidently satisfying himself as to his status.

“Ahuh. Well, Brick, I reckon you’re more loony than low-down,” concluded Ames. “An’ if you want to shy at a fight with me you’ll go up there, knock down that fence, an’ apologize to Mrs. Nielsen. Savvy, cowboy?”

“I ain’t deef, what else I am,” returned Jones, surlily. “Ames, I ain’t achin’ fer a fight, but you’re givin’ me a hard choice. I’ve got to throw up my job.”

“Shore. Most all the boys have quit. So you won’t be lonesome.”

“Mac, is thet so?” queried Jones, plainly impressed and bewildered.

“It shure is,” replied MacKinney, blandly. “Arizonie quit, an’ then Slim an’ me an’ all the fellars who sat in on the little show yestidday. You missed it, Brick. We’re loafin’ around now, waitin’ fer a new boss.”

“Grieve sold out or suthin’, huh? By golly! I sort of felt there was a mystery.”

“Haw! Haw!”

“Brick, you hit it plumb center,” put in Slim Blue. “Grieve is sold out!”

“I’m gettin’ a hunch an’ I reckon I need to be gettin’ in out of the wet. . . . Hyar, Arizonie, if you’ll shake on it, I’ll ride up to Nielsen’s tomorrer, lay thet damn fence flat, an’ tell Mrs. Nielsen I was a low-down conceited jackass of a cowpuncher.”

* * * * *

That night Ames went to bed early. The day had been warm and fine, and the cool wind from the heights had not yet blown down to waft away the sultry air and silence the melodious trilling of the frogs.

The window was open. Little did Crow Grieve dream the use to which windows in bunk-houses might be put when he amazed the range by their installation. Ames’ ear, developed in the backwoods, caught a faint swish of grass on a woman’s skirt. Then a soft footfall outside. He was slipping off the bed when a light tap-tap sounded on the window frame. He knelt and whispered, “Who’s there?”

The night under a clouded sky was dark, but he made out a darker form moving from one side.

“It’s Amy,” came a low whisper.

“Good Lord! — What is it?”

Cold hands caught his as they rested on the sill. But they did not tremble.

“I’ve been barred — in my room, all — day,” she whispered, catching her breath twice, “or I’d have — got you word. Grieve went out before daylight — this morning. I didn’t think till late today — to look for his rifle. It was gone. Then I realized he was out hiding somewhere, waiting for you. He just came in. I heard him stamping — and swearing in the kitchen. He was hungry. So I slipped out of my window — —”

“Amy, you’re shore a brave kid,” he whispered, fervently, squeezing her hands. “But you shouldn’t have taken such a risk. Run back now.”

“Is Lany here?” she asked, in eager, thrilling whisper.

“No. He hasn’t come in yet.”

“Give him this.” She loosened one hand and drew a letter from her bosom.

“Arizona, for God’s sake — watch out!” she ended, in an eloquent, broken whisper. Then like a noiseless shadow she stole away in the gloom to vanish.

Ames gazed at the letter to assure himself of reality. “Shore she’s a game kid!” he muttered. “Takin’ a chance with that black devil — to warn me! An’ to fetch a love letter to Lany.”

Ames laid the letter on Lany’s pillow, and unbarring the door he went out, and bent slow steps up and down the lane. Presently he reëntered and carried out his pack and saddle, which he deposited just round the corner of the cabin. Then leisurely he proceeded in the direction of the pasture where he kept his horse.

* * * * *

The gray gloomy hour before dawn found Ames stealing under the pines toward the ranch house. At the first streak of daylight he was in the shadow of the trees, opposite the wide gate of the courtyard. Imperceptibly the light brightened. A faint rose color appeared in the east, out beyond the misty sleeping range.

A door shut somewhere. Ames bent like a watching, listening deer. Then slowly he straightened and stiffened, as if to spring.

The bulky form of Grieve appeared in the gateway. Under his arm he carried a rifle. He moved cautiously, without noise, like a hunter. He looked up and down the lane, waited a moment. Then swiftly he started across for the shelter of the pines.

Ames stepped out, his gun leaping up.

“Mawnin’, Grieve!” he drawled.

Grieve jerked in terrific shock. An instant he froze. Then as the mad blaze of his eyes set on Ames he shrieked a curse of terror and hate. Up he swept the rifle. Ames’ shot broke the action. The rifle burst red and boomed, then appeared to spin in the air, while the heavy bullet spanged among the branches.

Grieve took short steps, falling all the time, to plunge like a stricken bull. He struck the ground hard, and such was his tremendous muscular energy that his bent body stretched with the rapidity of a released spring. His black hat bounced and rolled. He flopped to his back with a loud expulsion of breath.

Ames stooped over the ghastly face. In a last black flash of consciousness Grieve’s eyes rolled on his foe, changed their appalling frenzy, grew blank and set.

* * * * *

A few minutes later Ames rode down the lane, past the silent bunk-houses, out toward the range, which was awakening to rosy beauty in the morning light. He did not look back. At the turn in the road he dropped his bridle over the pommel and bent his head to light a cigarette.

“Well, Cappy,” he drawled to the horse, that shot up his ears, “reckon this ought to feel familiar to you. So go along. We’ll shake the dust of Wyomin’. . . . I shore hope Nesta never hears aboot it.”

CHAPTER IX

IT WAS SUMMER down under the glaring red cliffs — that strangest of desert formations, Hurricane Ledge. Hot, windy, dusty, it seemed hell to the lonely lost rider who faced it.

From the Grand Canyon this irregular and lofty upheaval of rocks, yellow and gray and red, with its black specks of timber, extended north across the Arizona line into Utah.

In all Ames’ long ten years of wandering from range to range he had never seen the like of this sublime and desolate Utah. And he was glad that circumstances had driven him to ride into it. How strangely and tremendously a contrast to his beloved Tonto Basin! In his mind’s eye he could see the pine-black ridges, the rushing amber brooks deep down between, the sycamores shining in the sun, the floating golden maple leaves, the purple-berried junipers, the craggy slopes rising to the Rim, gold and black against the blue. He could see the deep Rock Pool of Tonto Creek, that eddying dark hole from which he had rescued Nesta — now so long ago, yet so vividly remembered. Dear old sweet Nesta, with her hair like sunlight and the twin blue-star eyes! It would have been worth a great deal to see her again — this last had been the third attempt in ten years — but there were men still living who waited and watched for his return. It would have been sheer wild joy to give them satisfaction, but such a move would not have been for her happiness. She was happy, the last letter had said — two years and more ago — and Sam was prosperous, and the twins well. Little Rich was big and sturdy and took after his uncle, loving the forest trails and the brown brooks.

“Shore I’d like to see that lad,” mused Ames, and he wondered if he ever would. At every turn it seemed that risks and hardships multiplied for him. He had entered Arizona again from New Mexico by way of the White Mountains, and at last, when he reached the Cibeque a camp-fire chat with a chance rider had turned him north again on the long trail.

He stopped at Williams, a lumber camp, where he bought supplies and traded one of his horses for a pack-mule. Venturing into a saloon, something he seldom had done of late years, he had been recognized by one of four gambling men. “Arizona Ames!”

Ames did not know the fellow, who was evidently a rider, and neither an enemy nor a friend. Ames said, “Howdy!” and passed on. At the corral Ames addressed the lad who had taken care of his horse. “Hey, sonny, where’n the devil would you go if you wanted to lose yourself?”

“‘Crost the canyon,” replied the lad, with bright shrewd glance. “Utah an’ the Mormons. You’ll never be found or knowed there.”

“I’ll take your hunch an’ you take this,” said Ames, flipping his last dollar.

The ride down Havasupi Trail into the great gorge, the swimming of the Rio Colorado, river of red silt, the climb up the perilous Shinumo, and out through the wilderness of the Siwash — two weeks of tremendous effort found Ames without pack-horse or supplies, hungry and worn, lost somewhere over the Utah line.

It did not worry Ames to be lost. Nothing mattered very much. Everything save death had happened to him — death and love, the former of which had been ever a step back upon his trail, and the latter something which had strangely escaped him. But he felt always that Nesta had filled this need, ever since he could remember the little bright-haired twin sister.

Nowhere in all the West that he knew or had heard of could he have ridden with such growing pleasure as here in this stark region of purple depths, of hot barren wastes, of bold-colored windy heights. If the Mormons prospered here they were indeed wonderful people. One sweeping glance over a vast sage-dotted level, or down into a wild rock-and-brush-choked canyon, or up an endless yellow slope that climbed to the bleak heights of red dome and ragged peak, was sufficient to acquaint Ames with the meager nature of this country.

He rode on, hoping to run across a sheep trail, a cattle trail, or a horse track, that might lead to camp or ranch or hamlet. He had salt and deer meat in his saddle-bags, and he had been nearer starvation than now, but he felt a continual gnawing in his stomach.

The spotted sage plain glared under the noonday sun; yellow whirling dust-devils spread aloft like colossal funnels riding inverted across the desert; sheets of sand sifted along the ground, rustling at the brush; low down on level glaring flats deceitful mirages appeared as if by magic, only to vanish; and the wide distance showed isolated mesas and long promontories running out from the hazy horizon, and walls of pale red rock and saw-toothed pink cliffs rising against the copper sky.

Hurricane Ledge blocked the west from Ames’ searching view. Far down at its southern end showed the dim zigzag line of the canyon, dark and somber and mystic.

Ames rode on. There was nothing else to do. He headed north as nearly as he could judge by the sun, and this direction would take him across the brow of Hurricane Ledge. It would, he grimly muttered, unless the gale blew him and his horse off their course. The hot blast appeared to be rushing up from the canyon, and obstructed by the Ledge, it whined and moaned harder and fiercer over the desert of sand and sage. He did not see enough grass to nourish a goat. And the hour came when he let his intelligent horse choose the way, while he protected his eyes from dust and his face from stinging sand. No doubt this hurricane wind rose with the sun, increased all day, and died out in the evening. It was incumbent upon him to let the horse seek shelter.

Toward the middle of the afternoon the horse left the sand for rocks. Ames ascertained that he had crossed a trail and turning into it was going down. Soon low walls shut off the wind and dust — a welcome change. Ames wiped his wet face and smarting eyes. Another relief followed closely — he rode down into shade.

He had entered a narrow rough gulch that rapidly grew deeper and wider. Ames discovered that his horse was following fresh tracks in the trail. Ames dismounted to see what he could make of these tracks, soon calculating that four shod horses had passed by, some hours before.

Whereupon he mounted again, to ride on with growing interest in this canyon. Ames believed he had descended some thousands of canyons, never one of which resembled this. A mile from where he had entered it the walls were a thousand feet high, and in another like distance they had doubled their height. Moreover, they were insurmountable. Broken in places, splintered, caverned, grandly sculptured, with blank vacant spaces, and again overhanging ledges, nowhere did they offer opportunity for man or horse to climb out. The floor was level, except where slopes of talus and ruins of avalanche reached out from the walls. A dry wash, with low banks, wound down the center of this gorge. What little grass there was appeared to have been scorched by the sun. The sage had suffered the same blight. The only green that enlivened this glaring rent in the rocks came from a cactus here and there.

It was the nature of canyons, even in the desert, to slope gradually down to where water ran and grass grew. Ames would have been satisfied to take this chance, irrespective of the horse tracks he was following.

Time and again his quick eye had caught sight of striking marks on the cliffs, mostly in the shadow of ledges. Presently the trail passed close by a cavern, on the yellow walls of which showed vividly a number of blood-red hands. Ames stopped.

“Dog-gone my hide!” he said, plaintively. “Am I seein’ things?”

He got off to investigate. The blood-red hands were of paint, perhaps deposited there in centuries past by aborigines or cliff-dwellers. They were small in size, perfect in shape, the fingers spread wide. These hands had been dipped in red paint and pressed against the wall. Who placed them there? What did they signify?

“Funny old world,” he soliloquized. “‘Most as bad now as it was then, I reckon. Shore any darn fool would savvy what they meant then. But I’m just wonderin’. Maybe this is a hunch for me to back-trail. . . . Tough on me to have a lot of bloody hands stuck in my face. But my conscience is clear.”

Ames rode on, and from that cavern every few rods of this remarkable gorge gave evidence of prehistoric habitation. Hieroglyphics in black and yellow, crude figures of birds, snakes, animals, of which Ames recognized deer and bear, spotted level walls in every protected place. But no more in red!

Likewise the gorge gave evidence that it had been used as a burial-ground. Small graves low down along the base of the walls consisted of stones cemented by some red substance harder than rock. These graves were short and narrow, and all of them had been broken into. After a while, however, Ames noted that there were many sealed graves, like mud-wasp nests, high up above his head. And these had not been despoiled. That excited his speculation, and presently he concluded that during the years or centuries since the upper graves had been cemented, the canyon floor had eroded down to the level upon which he now rode. They had once been at the base of the wall.

Sunset and then twilight put an end to Ames’ diversion. It was about time for him to find a place to camp. Patches of grass had begun to show along the walls, and thickets of scrub-oak, and in rocky recesses of the stream-bed gleamed pools of water. A little farther down, Ames concluded, there would be a good place for him and his horse to spend the night.

He did not, however, get much farther. The canyon made a turn, opened wide, with a break in the right wall, where under the bulge of rock a camp fire flickered out of the shadow. Presently it disappeared behind huge sections of cliff that had tumbled down. The trail led round them. Ames expected to be hailed, yet kept his horse at a natural trot.

“Hands up!” rang out a harsh command.

With one action Ames reined his horse and elevated his hands.

“Shore. Up they are,” he replied, peering behind an obstructing rock.

A tall man, bareheaded, in his shirt sleeves, stepped out with gun leveled.

“Who air you?” he demanded.

“I’m nobody to hold up, you can shore bet on that,” answered Ames, with a dry laugh.

“What you want?”

“Well, most particular I yearn for a cup of hot coffee an’ a hot biscuit.”

His drawling cool speech in the face of the extended gun had evident effect.

“An’ then what?”

“Bed, by gosh! if it’s only hard rock,” declared Ames, fervently.

“Face round . . . now get off,” ordered the man, curtly.

Ames was extremely careful to comply with this command.

“Keep your hands up an’ go on ahead.”

“Which way? Reckon I see two trails,” said Ames.

“To the right.”

Ames complied, and after a few steps passed an obstructing rock to be greeted by a bright camp fire. The dark forms of three men stood expectantly. Packs and saddles were scattered around under a projecting ledge of rock, the smoke-blackened roof of which afforded evidence of many camp fires. As Ames drew closer, he caught sight of unrolled beds, from which he deduced that this was a camp of some permanence.

“Heady, look this fellar over,” spoke up Ames’ captor.

Ames halted at a significant touch from behind. He stood in the firelight. A lanky man in ragged garb stepped up, and aside, so as not to block the light. Ames looked into cadaverous face and gray hawk eyes.

“Steele, I never seen him in my life,” said this man, called Heady. “He ain’t no Mormon.”

Whereupon Ames’ captor stepped round in front, to disclose to Ames a swarthy crafty face, eyes like bright beads, and the tight-lipped mouth and hard jaw of a man who kept his own secrets.

“Wal, so much fer thet,” he said, slowly, and he lowered the gun. “Amos, what you an’ Noggin make of him?”

The other two of the quartet half circled Ames, the first a ruddy giant, bearded and unkempt, and the second a lean little man, past middle age, with a face like a ferret.

“Steele, he’s a Gentile cowpuncher,” said Amos, “an’ you scared the hell out of us fer nuthin’. Haw! Haw!”

Whatever the ferret-faced individual thought he kept to himself.

“Wal, give an account of yourself,” continued Steele.

Ames realized that he had, as often before, fallen into bad company. Slowly and easily he lowered his hands, and replied with manner that suited his movement.

“Shore. Short an’ sweet. For reasons of my own I haided across the canyon, down Havasupi. Lost my pack-mule an’ supplies swimmin’ the river. Climbed out by the Shinumo Trail. Then I got lost. Natural enough, for this heah’s bran’-new country to me. I kept haidin’ north. When I hit this gulch the dust was blowin’ fierce, an’ I started down. Never saw your tracks till I got to the bottom. That’s all. . . . Quit raggin’ me an’ give me somethin’ to eat an’ drink.”

“Wal, we all have reason of our own fer things. I ain’t over-inquisitive. But what’s your name?”

“Ames, if that’s any good to you.”

“Ames? I don’t know. Sounds queer.”

“Reckon that’s because it’s my right name. They call me Arizona Ames.”

“Arizona Ames? Sounds still queerer. I’m good on faces, but pore on names. . . . Wal, set down, Ames, an’ pitch in. We got plenty of grub, an’ Amos sure can hash it up.”

“Thanks. Will you let me tend to my horse?”

“Wal, I’ll throw your saddle an’ turn the hoss loose. Plenty of grass an’ water below.”

“He’ll shore be as glad as I am heah,” responded Ames, and espying a wash-basin and a bucket of water he gave his hands much needed attention. “Oh, my, but the Lord can be good to a fellow when he just aboot give up!”

“What you ridin’ into Mormon country fer?” asked Heady, curiously. “Know any Mormons?”

“Only Mormon I ever knew was a wild-horse wrangler,” replied Ames, as he bent his stiff, sore legs to sit down before the spread. “Finest chap in the world. But he stole a girl I was aboot to fall in love with.”

“Haw! Haw! Sure Mormons are hell on stealin’ gurls, if nothin’ else,” averred Heady.

Then Ames paid strict attention only to eating, though he was aware of Steele’s return. He ate prodigiously, to the delight of the big cook and the amusement of the loquacious Heady. Steele did not have a small appetite himself, and the ferret-faced Noggin munched his food, listened, and watched without comment.

“Any smokin’?” asked Steele, at the end of the meal.

“Got the makin’s,” replied Ames.

Presently all save the cook had comfortable seats round the fire.

“Arizona Ames?” Steele questioned himself again, with puzzled beady eyes on Ames. “Wal, I don’t reckon I ever seen you, because you’re the kind of a lookin’ fellar easy to remember.”

“Shore I forked a horse everywhere, except in Utah,” replied Ames.

“Thet’s a fine hoss of yours,” said Steele, with a zest of appreciation not lost upon Ames. “What you call him?”

“Captain. Cappy for short. Named after an old friend, a trapper I used to know.”

“Not sich a bad name. How long you had him?”

“Aboot seven years. He’s mine.”

“Would you sell him?”

“Say, man, did you ever love a horse?” queried Ames.

“Only weakness I ever had — lovin’ hosses,” rejoined Steele, and this sally fetched guffaws from Heady and Amos. Noggin watched the fire with half-lowered, ferret eyes.

Ames casually dropped his own eyes, to hide the leap of his thought. He let the remark pass, and he decided to act and talk as best he could the part of a rider not too keen and of ordinary experience.

“Lookin’ fer a job?” asked Heady, during a lull in Steele’s monopolization of the conversation.

“Yes an’ no,” answered Ames, and he knew that was a clever remark.

“Mormons need good riders, but they pay poor wages,” said Steele.

“Reckon if you were a Mormon you’d shore not say that,” laughed Ames.

“Me an’ Amos an’ Noggin hyar are genuine Christians. But Heady is a Mormon. So be careful how you sling your gab around. Haw! Haw!”

Heady dropped his gaze. The remark did not go well with him. Ames, used to watching the play of men’s features and the light and shade in their eyes, saw that Heady betrayed regret or remorse for something that had passed.

“I’m flat broke an’ I’ll have to take a job with a Mormon — or anybody who’s not too damn particular aboot references.”

“You can sell your hoss. I’ll give you a hundred, an’ my hoss to boot,” said Steele, with the persuasiveness of the born horse-trader. Also it bore a note that jarred on Ames.

“Thanks, Steele. I’ll consider it,” returned Ames, thoughtfully. He knew how to handle this situation, and he made a quick jump at conclusions.

“We’re from Nevada,” vouchsafed Steele, confidentially. “Me an’ Noggin are pardners, an’ Amos is our cook. We lost a string of hosses over on the Virgin. They’ve been druv down in this canyon country. An’ we hired Heady to guide us around. But, Gawd! you might as well hunt fer a needle in a haystack.”

“Wild stallion lead your horses off?” asked Ames, innocently, when he knew perfectly well that Steele was lying.

“Hoss thieves,” replied Steele, shortly. “Are you one of them trackers thet can foller unshod hosses over rocks?”

“Nope. Shore wish I was,” lied Ames, coolly. “My horses are always fat.”

“Haw! Haw! Which means you spend most your time trackin’ an’ you’d rather see their ribs?”

“You shore hit it on the haid,” replied Ames, stretching and yawning. “Steele, I’m so tired an’ sleepy I cain’t stay awake. Will you mind if I turn in heah?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Where’d you throw my saddle an’ blankets?”

“Right thar,” returned Steele, pointing. “I can spare you a blanket. You won’t need none over you in this hole. Hotter’n hell.”

Ames made his bed just out of ordinary earshot and he lay down with a loud groan. As a matter of fact, he was weary and heavy-eyed, but not so much so as he desired it to appear. Presently he gave a capital imitation of an exhausted man snoring. But really he was listening with all the power of remarkably sensitive and trained ears.

“Arizona Ames? Where’n hell did I ever hear thet name?” Steele muttered, in a considerably lower tone.

“Wal, you must have heard it somewheres onusual or you wouldn’t put sich store on it,” replied Amos.

“I’d say in Salt Lake City jail — if this fellow wasn’t an honest cowboy,” said Noggin, in a voice suited to his face.

“Honest? Why, Noggin, thet puncher is as crooked as your nose,” averred Steele.

“Fine judge of men you are!” ejaculated the other, loud in contempt. “If you was otherwise, would we be hidin’ here?”

“Not so damn loud!” flashed Steele, irritably, and with the authority of a leader. “You might wake him up.”

“Small matter. What’re you goin’ to do about him, anyhow?”

“Wal, for one thing, I want thet hoss,” returned Steele. “I ain’t seen his beat in a month of Sundays.”

“He talked like a man who cared for his horse. You’ll have to steal him and that might not be so easy. Unless — —”

“He’ll trade all right, with a little urgin’,” interrupted the leader, complacently.

“You want things so bad you fool yourself,” rejoined Noggin, in his thin-edged voice. “You’ll have to do some strong urgin’ or I’ll miss my guess. What’s more, this stranger who calls himself Arizona Ames may be otherwise than he pretends.”

“Arizona Ames! — Dammit! thet name rings in my ears like a bell. I must be gettin’ old. . . . What you mean, otherwise?”

“When you marched him up to this camp fire, with his hands high, he was too damn cool and sharp-eyed to tickle my fancy.”

“Ahuh! — Wal, he was a cool one, at thet. But what if he is?”

“He changed so gradual that I never noticed till after supper. And it’s made me think.”

“So much the better if he’s on the dodge. We’ll find out, an’ if he is, let’s take him in with us.”

“Advise against that strong,” replied Noggin, vehemently.

“Why? We could use a couple of slick hombres.”

“You’re the boss. And my last word is be careful he’s not too slick.”

“Noggy, you’d throw cold water on your grandmother’s coffin,” said Steele, in disgust.

“I’m goin’ to bed,” rejoined the other, and his hobnailed boots scraped on the rocks.

A silence ensued. The camp fire crackled. Some one of the men threw on a stick of wood and the sparks flew upward. Down the canyon an owl hooted dismally.

Then Steele changed his seat for one closer to Heady, and a good deal of their low conversation was indistinguishable. Ames caught some of Steele’s phrases such as, “To hell with Noggin.”— “I’m runnin’ this outfit.”— “Morgan’s hosses.”— “Too big a bunch.”— “Lund or Nevada.”— “Figgerin’ hard.”— “Get across Canyon.”

Heady had little to say in reply. Soon the two men followed the others to bed. Ames lay thinking, and watching the flickering shadows of the firelight. There did not appear to be any doubt that he had fallen in with a band of horse-thieves. Steele was easily gauged as a crooked Westerner of long experience. Ames regarded Noggin as the more dangerous. Just where Heady, the Mormon, fitted into this band Ames could not see, but he was inclined to the opinion that Heady was being persuaded or intimidated. For the rest, Ames thought they were planning to rob a Mormon rancher, probably named Morgan. The drove they might corral would probably be too large to drive off to Lund or Nevada, and they wondered if they could get them across the Canyon. Ames, remembering the trails he had traversed and that boiling red river, and the awful roar of the falls below where he had swum his horse, grimly believed the thieves would find just retribution if they attempted it. Here Ames shifted to the references made to his horse, and that set in motion another train of thought not favorable to Steele’s chances for longevity. Lastly Ames pondered over what he should do on the morrow. Finally he gave it up. So much had to be left to the hour itself. Then he fell asleep.

Ames awakened early, but he was the last to get up. Sleeping in his clothes and boots, nights on end, was not conducive to a comfortable feeling in the mornings.

“Wal, if you feel like you look, I reckon you didn’t lie about thet trip across the Canyon,” was Steele’s greeting.

“Trip wasn’t bad,” replied Ames. “It was hustlin’ so fast an’ then losin’ my bed an’ grub that knocked me up. I’d like to rest heah today, if you don’t mind.”

“Glad to have you. I’d like to know how to cross the Canyon. You’re pretty damn good or else orful lucky. But, come to think, you had a real hoss.”

Ames grasped the drift of the horse-thief’s thought, but he offered no reply to that speech. Hot water and a shave, neither of which he had had for weeks, helped considerably toward comfort, not to say appearance. Steele gave him an appraising glance.

“Humph! Damn queer I don’t remember you, if I ever seen you.”

“Thanks. I’m takin’ that for a compliment.”

“Wal, you can, an’ no mistake.”

“Mawnin’, men,” said Ames, cheerfully, to the others.

Noggin was the only one who did not reply in like vein. Daylight seemed to accentuate this little man’s crafty face, as it did the swarthy evil of Steele’s. The cook was a jovial blond giant, likable even if he was a horse-thief. Heady appeared to be a broken man, one who might have seen better days.

“Amos, I’m shore gamblin’ you never learned to cook in cow camps,” said Ames, at the conclusion of a hearty breakfast.

“Not much. I learned in a hotel in Missouri, if you want to know.”

“That so! — Well, I’m not bein’ inquisitive, but I’m shore wonderin’ how you ever came to be shootin’ biscuits heah.”

All of them, except Noggin, enjoyed a hearty laugh.

“It’s a sad story, Ames,” replied the cook.

“Don’t tell me,” said Ames. “I might be moved to inflict mine on you.”

Without being asked, Ames set to help at the camp tasks, which he had observed appeared to be left to Amos. It was after he had chopped and split a spruce log that Steele remarked:

“You was raised in a timber country.”

“How’d you figure that?”

“Plain as print. Seen it in the way you swung an ax.”

“Steele, I can tell you where you was raised.”

“Bet you can’t.”

“Shore won’t take your money, but I’ll bet you.”

“Wal, where now?”

“Kentucky.”

“How’n hell did you guess thet?” queried Steele, astounded.

“It was the way you said, ‘hoss.’”

“Wal, you could have won my last dollar. . . . You’re an interestin’ sort of fellar, Arizona Ames. I notice you pack thet gun pretty low. An’ it ‘pears to kind of grow on you.”

“Habit, I reckon. I’ve had to sleep with a gun so long.”

“Ahuh. Air you as handy with one as you air with an ax?”

“Lots handier,” replied Ames, smiling. He saw that he had Steele frankly curious and Noggin openly suspicious.

“Can you put six shots in the ace of spades, at twenty feet?”

“Steele, I can split the ace of spades, edgeways, three shots out of six.”

“Air you braggin’ or foolin’?”

“Neither.”

“Wal, I pass. Hittin’ the ace face up is my best, an’ I always thought I was good.”

“That’s fair shootin’.”

At this juncture Noggin entered the argument, and not with the agreeable badinage which characterized Steele and Ames.

“I’ll bet you fifty you can’t,” he interposed. Whatever his motive was, cunning prompted it.

“Fifty what?” queried Ames, in a different tone of voice.

“Dollars.”

“I haven’t got even one dollar. But I’ll bet you my gun to a cigarette, if you’ll throw up your hat I can put two bullet holes in it before it comes down.”

Before Noggin could reply Steele cracked a hard fist in his palm.

“Arizona Ames, I’ve placed you!” he shouted, in loud acclaim.

“Have you? Just where, now?” rejoined Ames, with no appreciable interest.

“Thet brag about shootin’ holes in Noggin’s hat gave you away. I got you, Arizona Ames,” said Steele, forcefully, with leering grin. “I remembered your name, but I knowed sure I’d never seen you.”

“Well, you’re talkin’ a lot aboot placin’ me,” drawled Ames, coolly. “But you’re shore not sayin’ much.”

“Wal, give me breathin’-room. . . . It was four years ago, this very month. I remember because they had a big Fourth of July time in Laramie. I was hittin’ south an’ stopped at a little cow town on the border of Wyomin’. What was thet name?”

“Reckon I can help you to remember,” returned Ames, dryly. He saw that Steele had a line on him, not creditable, and it served his purpose to help out with the identification. “How aboot Keystone, at the haid of the Medicine Bow Range?”

“Aha! — Keystone? Thet sure was it. An’ I remember them Medicine Bow hills, fer I got chased into them.”

“Shore, Steele, it’s a small world, for me, anyhow. What’d you heah about me at Keystone?”

“Wal, there was a young cowpuncher about to marry a gurl, daughter of a rancher. I ought to remember them names, but I don’t. Anyway, the very mornin’ of the weddin’ day, which was when I rode into Keystone, this cowpuncher was arrested by some sheriff’s deputies fer rustlin’ steers or sellin’ rustled steers, I forget which. He swore he hadn’t done it — thet another fellar had, an’ rung him in. Wal, I heerd the story, they was takin’ him along when a rider on a grand buckskin hoss. . . . By Gawd! Ames, this hoss you rode in hyar last night is thet very hoss. . . .”

“Go on with your story. Your pards are listenin’ fine, an’ I’m pretty keen to heah the rest myself.”

“Wal,” went on Steele, “this rider, who was you, Ames, held up the deputies, an’ proved they had the wrong fellar because he was the right one. Would they mind lettin’ this cowpuncher loose, so he could go an’ git married? An’ if they wanted to risk tryin’ to arrest him, come on. . . . Haw! Haw! — Ames, you shot your way out of town an’ escaped.”

“But how do you connect that job up with me?” queried Ames.

“Simple as a-b-c. There was heaps of talk in town. If thet rider was Arizona Ames — an’ there were some who swore he was — how’n hell did it come he only crippled two or three of them sheriff deputies? Fer thet hombre, Arizona Ames, could shoot. He could shoot holes in a sombrero — thrown up in the air!”

“Steele, it shore is a small West,” drawled Ames. “I’d like to know if that cowboy got married. His name was Riggy Turner.”

“Thet’s it. I remember now. He sure did git hitched up. The town might hev had a circus.”

Like a ghost of the past this almost forgotten episode in Ames’ eventful career now rose to confront him. It was what he considered the only black mark attached to his name on all the ranges. But Riggy Turner really had been the guilty one and Ames had been innocent. Turner’s first offense, so easy to drift into those days! How many cowboys fell simply because it was so easy to do and to conceal! Ames had found it out too late. But he had given this boy Turner a cursing he could never forget and had extracted a solemn pledge, for the sake of the girl who loved Turner, that he would never transgress again. They had hoped to avoid arrest for Turner, but had made no attempt to dodge it. Then Ames had ridden down upon the deputies and the stricken cowboy with the result Steele had narrated.

“Steele, your memory isn’t so poor,” remarked Ames. “But are you shore aboot one thing? Did the folks in Keystone think it was just accident the range officers got off only crippled?”

“Why, course they figgered it thet way,” rejoined Steele, surprised.

Ames edged a half-burned stick into the fire with the toe of his boot. He had no more to say. It had amused him, yet made him a little wistful to recall the incident.

Steele stroked the scant dark hair on his lean chin. “Wal, Arizona Ames, you might do wuss than throwin’ in with us.”

CHAPTER X

AMES HAD EXPECTED such a proposal and was prepared for it. Steele had accepted him at the valuation of the gossip of Keystone, augmented by the vague hints Ames had seen fit to let slip.

Noggin, however, saw through Ames, or at least powerfully distrusted him, or more remotely a possibility, he actually knew Ames by repute. Ames realized he must be wary, yet seem natural.

“Steele, I told you I didn’t have a dollar,” presently replied Ames.

“Wal, you don’t need none.”

“What’s your deal?” asked Ames, pointedly.

“Hosses.”

“How many?”

“Two hundred head or thereabouts. Fine-blooded stock. All broke. Just about ready to be druv to Salt Lake, fer sale.”

“Where are they?”

“Over hyar on a Mormon ranch, on the Santa Clara. They belong to a Mormon named Morgan. He lives in St. George. Heady hyar used to ride fer him.”

“What’s your idea?” coolly went on Ames, lighting a cigarette.

Noggin made a nervous movement that caused a quiver to run down Ames’ arm. This thief with the eyes of a ferret needed to be watched.

“Steele, are you goin’ to give up your insides to a stranger?” he demanded.

“No, I ain’t,” replied Steele, testily. “But I’d like Ames to throw in with us.”

“I object. I’ll not have that.”

“An’ why not?”

“I’ve got several reasons. First one is we don’t know this man.”

“Wal, I know him, enough to suit me.”

“Do you intend to tell him who we are?”

“Hell! We’re no better than he is. Fer thet matter, mebbe we’re not as good.”

“Steele, you’ve the mind of a child,” returned Noggin, fuming. “I mean, are you tellin’ him our business?”

The leader turned to Ames.

“Arizona, what’d you take us fer? Now come out with it pronto an’ straight. This Noggin is so damn smart, I’d like some one to take him down a peg or two,” replied Steele, his swarthy face heating up. “I took you fer a cowboy on the dodge fer killin’ or stealin’. An’ I had you figgered correct as you’ve not denied it.”

Ames surveyed the four men, while he withdrew his cigarette. He was keen enough to see that Noggin made note that he used his left hand for this purpose.

“Steele, I reckon I didn’t do much figurin’ till just the last half hour or so,” replied Ames. “But since you tax me I’ll come clean. I take Heady heah to be a Mormon wrangler out of luck an’ willin’ to be roped into any sort of a deal. Amos there is a good fellow gone wrong long ago, who doesn’t care one way or the other. . . . An’, Steele, I figure you as a boss horse-thief, like as not Brandeth himself. I’ve long heahed of that Nevada outlaw chief.”

“Wal, I am Steele Brandeth,” replied the other. “An’ I’m powerful curious to know what you thought of Noggin.”

“Reckon not much,” replied Ames, his eyes on that worthy. The response to this terse remark would establish in Ames’ mind what he had to expect. Partly he looked for gun-play, and thought it would be better now than later. All he ascertained, however, was that Noggin knew him and would never risk an even break with him. Brandeth saw as much, too, for a derisive smile wreathed his coarse lips.

“Wal, you’ve tagged us, Arizona, an’ now let’s git back to hosses,” he said. “If you’ll help me on this deal I’ll give you one-fifth of the hosses. The way we do, when we git a bunch, is to cut the deck, ace high, fer first pick, second pick, an’ so on. Then each of us picks the hoss he thinks most of. Layin’ aside a little luck fer first pick, a fellar’s hoss-sense is what tells.”

“You’re shore a gamblin’ horse-trader,” observed Ames.

“Steele, you can’t split this deal up any more,” declared Noggin, aggressively. “You owe me nine hundred dollars on our last deal, an’ you’re makin’ it up on our next.”

“Noggy, you’re not goin’ to git thet all back on this deal.”

“I am, or there won’t be any deal,” retorted Noggin, his eyes like glints of flint.

“There won’t? . . . How so?”

“I’ll block it.”

“How in thunder would you do thet?” shouted Brandelh.

“I’ll think it over.”

“Wal, you’d better,” said Brandeth, soberly.

The little man left the camp fire and disappeared among the huge boulders.

“We’re stuck hyar, anyhow, so Noggin has time to cool off,” went on the leader. “This time I ain’t a-goin’ to give in to him.”

“Looks like a stubborn fellow,” remarked Ames.

“Stubborn as a mule, an’ some other ways, too. . . . Ames, if you hadn’t been Arizona Ames — he’d have drawn on you.”

“I was a little worried,” admitted Ames.

“Haw! Haw! You looked it. . . . He’s shot a number of men. I’m sorry he took a dislike to you. An’ I’m not double-crossin’ him when I advise you to —— Aw, hell! I’m wastin’ my breath tellin’ you sich things. But you know what I mean?”

“Boss, we’re most out of meat,” put in Amos.

“Say, we’re a bunch of hawgs. I’ll go fetch the hosses, an’ we’ll ride up on top.”

“Reckon you can let my horse alone. He needs rest an’ so do I,” said Ames.

Presently Ames found himself in camp with only the Mormon. Ames was quick to grasp that his reputation had made him an object of great interest, to say the least, to Heady. Ames talked agreeably and with friendliness, aiming to draw the fellow out. That achievement did not necessitate any wit or subtlety. Ames’ first impression strengthened, and it was not long before his feeling changed from contempt to pity for the apparently outcast Mormon.

“Who’s Morgan?” asked Ames, at length.

“He’s a rancher up St. George way. Raises hosses on the Santa Clara an’ cattle on the Virgin.”

“Rich Mormon?”

“Laws, no! Jim Morgan used to be pretty well off. But he’s given away so much an’ been robbed so often thet he’s no longer rich. When he loses them hosses he’s goin’ to be poor.”

“Given away so much? What you mean? I had an idea a Mormon never gave up anythin’?”

“You Gentiles get a lot of ideas thet are wrong. Mormons are generous, for the most part. Jim is a kind old man. If you’d rode into his place, same as you did here last night, he’d have taken you in, just the same as if you was a Mormon.”

“Well, I like that. Shore it’s a dirty trick to rob such a man. Don’t you think so?”

“You needn’t tell these men, but I sure hate to see it done,” returned Heady, lowering his voice.

“Why are you goin’ to help — or do you intend to?”

“Thet’s the plan. I met Steele Brandeth over in Nevada, an’ he talked me into it.”

“Ahuh! — Well, you needn’t tell these men, but I think you’re a damn fool,” said Ames, with his most impelling smile.

“But I’ve got to eat.”

“Shore. So do I. . . . Have you any family?”

“Yes. Wife an’ two kids,” replied the Mormon, haltingly. “But I haven’t been home in a year. I did a bit of rustlin’, an’ got scared, though nobody seems to know.”

“Nice wife an’ kids?”

“Too nice fer me.”

“Are they poor?”

“They couldn’t be nothin’ else.”

“An’ you once rode for this Jim Morgan?”

“I did. An’ I could get my job back, I’ll bet. . . . An’ now I’m guidin’ a gang of thieves to the canyon where he keeps his hosses hid. — Hell of a note, ain’t it?”

“Do you want to know what I think aboot you?”

“Yes, I’m tolerable anxious.”

Ames took a long pull at the cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke, and then suddenly fastened eyes of fire upon the Mormon.

“A man who has a nice wife an’ two kids, an’ who will go out an’ help rob his employer, an’ I reckon his friend, is a —— ! . . . —— ! —— ! —— !”

When the string of profane range epithets had scathingly passed Ames’ lips the Mormon had a sort of shriveled appearance.

“Well, you asked me,” went on Ames, in ordinary tone. “Is this heah Jim Morgan a Mormon with more than one wife?”

“No. Jim never had but one, an’ only three children. They’re all livin’. But the son left home an’ never come back. He’s heerd of occasionally — not much good. Reckon thet hurt the old man. One daughter is married an’ the other lives with him. She won’t leave him, though they say she’s had many chances to marry. She refused a bishop of her church an’ thet made trouble fer her father. But he couldn’t change her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lespeth.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-one or so. Big lass, an’ good fer sore eyes. She can do a man’s work, an’ handle a hoss — say!”

“Mormon cowgirl?” mused Ames, with interest. “That’s a new one on me. Does she like horses?”

“Like ain’t no word. She loves hosses. It’s goin’ to be hard on her, when we steal thet bunch. Her own hosses run with them, an’ when we drive thet canyon we’ll clean them all out.”

“Reckon you an’ I know how she’ll feel,” concluded Ames, rising. “I’m goin’ to take a look at my own horse. Have you seen him?”

“Yes. When I was packin’ water up. He took my eye. You seldom see his like in Utah. . . . An’ he’s sure took Brandeth’s eye!”

“Say, Mormon, are you just talkin’ or givin’ me a hunch?” queried Ames, sharply.

“I — er — jest talkin’,” replied the other, hastily, averting his glance.

* * * * *

Half a mile down the canyon Ames found his horse grazing on fairly good grass. Cappy appeared less gaunt, which fact afforded Ames satisfaction. There were other horses in the wide park, though none near at hand.

Ames repaired to the shade of the wall, and finding a grassy nook between two boulders and screened by sage, he sat down to rest and think, and perhaps take a nap.

He had been in worse predicaments than this of falling in with horse-thieves and being taken for something as bad. Nevertheless, he could conceive that the situation might give rise to unpleasant complications.

“Dog-gone!” complained Ames. “If I’d stayed at the bottom of the canyon, shore some kind of a mess would have bobbed up. Reckon I don’t know what to do with this heah one.”

A solution easily arrived at was to decide to wait a day or so longer, and then, seizing an opportunity such as this hour, to saddle Cappy and ride away. That, he frankly told himself, would be the wisest course. If he lingered with Brandeth, sooner or later there would be some kind of fight. He pondered wearily over the disturbing fact that almost any combination of men gave rise to friction and strife. He had never seen a cow outfit or heard of one that was free of trouble. How much less chance of peace among rustlers, horse-thieves, outlaws!

“Either I stay or go,” he said, aloud, and was a little disgusted with himself that he did not immediately decide upon the latter. Whereupon he asked himself why.

Sometimes these lucid intervals of self-penetration were illuminating to Ames. Nevertheless, here he was irritated. Had not ten years of wild life satiated him with antagonism and conflict? Evidently he resented Brandeth’s conviction that he was a self-confessed cattle-thief. This ferret-eyed Noggin, more gambler than anything, rubbed him the wrong way. Noggin had heard more about him than Brandeth; he might even have seen him somewhere, on one of the numerous occasions when trouble had thrown him into prominence.

Ames felt sorry for the weak Heady, who had easily been dominated by the forceful Brandeth. And he gritted his teeth at the thought of Brandeth and Noggin stealing the last stock of a rancher who had been rich and who through generosity and adversity had fallen to low estate. Then the Mormon girl who loved horses and who would not desert her old father — how this thrilled Ames! Some one had to do these things — to be the buffer and the anchor, to serve and sacrifice.

It was the thought of this girl, Lespeth, that decided Ames to linger with the horse-thieves and in some way or other circumvent them. The least he could do would be to ride over to see this Mormon breeder of fine horses and to tell him of the plot to rob him. But that did not satisfy Ames.

He pondered over the problem for a long time. Meanwhile the drowsy heat and silence of the canyon began to lull his senses. Lizards ran out of the niches of the cliff to peer at him with jewel eyes. A scaly dusty rattlesnake glided into the covert of the sage. Now and then he heard the silky metallic rustle of the wings of a rushing canyon swift — strange bird of the rock walls. White clouds crossed the blue stream between the rims above. Then color and movement and sound gradually faded into slumber.

When he awoke his face was moist and his hair damp. He had slept through the heat of the day, and the shadow on the opposite wall of the canyon showed that the sun had slanted far on its westering journey.

Ames arose and leisurely made his way back to camp. Some moments before he reached it he espied the four men, and had not progressed all the way when he grew aware of a changed atmosphere. Noggin paced up and down at the back of the shaded cavern like a ghoul. Amos did not wear his cheery smile. Heady looked blank. And Brandeth seemed to be chewing the end of bitter chagrin.

“Where you been?” he growled at Ames.

“Right down heah. Slept my haid off.”

“Noggin swore you rode off to double-cross us with Morgan.”

“Ahuh. Didn’t you see my horse?”

“Reckon I was oneasy till I went out an’ seen him. I knowed damn wal you’d never leave him.”

“I shore wouldn’t be separated from Cappy,” drawled Ames.

“Many a fellar has felt thet way about life, too,” responded Brandeth. “There’s many things oncertain, Ames.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that. An’ one of them is the dispositions of men.”

“Haw! Haw! — Air you always so cool an’ smooth?”

“Me? Gosh, no! I get terrible upset. An’ over nothin’ sometimes.”

“Wal, me an’ Noggin have split,” announced Brandeth, spreading his hands.

“You don’t say? Hope it’s not on my account. If so I can mosey along. I’m fair rested an’ my horse will do.”

“Wal, you was the snag we struck fust. But it turns out you haven’t got much to do with it. Noggin used you as an excuse.”

The individual mentioned heard this reference to himself, for he wheeled in his pace.

“Brandeth, if you tell that cowboy any more you’re a locoed damn fool.”

“Wal, I’ll talk if I like, an’ you can go to hell,” returned the leader, sullenly.

“I’ll bet you a hundred that when I arrive you will be there ahead of me.”

“Wal, then, as I ain’t got long to live, I’ll shoot off my chin,” retorted Brandeth, sarcastically. “No, Ames, you ain’t the bone of contention. It all came out today. Noggin made this plan. He’s a hoss-dealer, an’ buys up hosses, where he ain’t recognized. Reckon St. George an’ south Utah air yet to make his acquaintance as a hoss-thief. Fer Noggin’s long suit is to sell a bunch of hosses to some rancher, an’ then steal them back. Me an’ him haven’t worked long together. He had a gang over in Nevada an’ they fought among themselves. Wal, Noggin jumped on me with a wild idee. He once bought some hosses from Morgan, couple of years ago. Paid high fer them. But whatever his trick was, it fell through. Morgan knows Noggin under another name. Now Noggin wants to take Heady with him an’ ride over to Morgan, an’ make him an offer fer the pick of his hosses. This is only a trick to git the gurl, Lespeth — —”

“Who’s she?” interrupted Ames, in apparent surprise.

“Morgan’s daughter. They say when a Mormon gurl is purty an’ handy she sure is both. Wal, Noggin has seen this gurl a couple of times, an’ he’s stuck on her. She was extraordinary sweet to him, he says. Heady, hyar, who knows the Morgans, says Lespeth is thet way with any man. Reckon thet makes no real difference to Noggin. His plan is to git the gurl an’ her dad to take him to see the hosses. The rest of us air to meet them down in thet canyon, wherever it is. We’ll take all the hosses.”

“Oh, I see. An’ what aboot Morgan an’ Lis — what’d you call her? — Lespeth?” drawled Ames, knocking a cigarette on end. Apparently for him such plots were commonplace.

“Wal, thet’s where I hedged,” went on Brandeth. “Noggin says likely the one hoss-wrangler Heady seen on Morgan’s ranch would go with them. He’d have to be shot. Then Noggin plans to knock the old man on the head — pretend not to kill him on account of the gurl — an’ take her off with the hosses. — Ames, what’s your idee of this deal?”

“Reckon just what I’d expect of Noggin,” replied Ames, with strange timber in his voice. That was the instant wherein his consciousness fixed upon a determination to kill Noggin.

“Wal, thet ain’t answerin’ me. You’re purty deep, Arizona,” went on Brandeth. “Anyway, I’d have agreed to the deal if Noggin would call off the debt I owe him, instead of grabbin’ my share of the hosses. But, no, the damn weasel-eyed little hawg! He wants the gurl, his half of Morgan’s stock, an’ enough of mine to square the debt. So I bucked. An’ we split.”

“Too bad. Reckon Noggin is not very reasonable. Cain’t you talk him out of it?”

“Haw! Haw! You try.”

“Hey, Noggin, come out in the sunlight,” called Ames. “Your eyes may be sharp in holes, but mine are poor.”

“What do you want?” returned Noggin, and it was certain that Ames had struck him differently from Brandeth.

“Well, I reckon that depends on you,” said Ames, enigmatically.

Noggin came out of the shade, guardedly, his eyes like pin-points, his nervous hands low.

That short walk defined his nerve and his ability to Ames, neither of which was extraordinary. Still he could be taunted or driven to draw, if Ames wished to force the issue then. This, however, was only in the background of Ames’ thought.

“Brandeth has told me aboot the deal you want to work on Morgan,” began Ames, as a preliminary.

“I heard him,” snapped Noggin.

“Reckon I figure you’re some unreasonable.”

“I don’t care what you think. You’re not in it.”

“Well, I haven’t refused yet.”

“No. An’ I notice you haven’t jumped at the chance, either.”

“Noggin, I never jump at chances. I’m considerin’ Brandeth’s offer, an’ if I do accept, your wantin’ the earth may stick in my craw.”

Nothing was any more certain than that this man seemed trying to pierce through Ames’ armor to the truth.

“All right, Ames. When you accept I’ll lay my cards on the table,” replied Noggin, and turned his back.

CHAPTER XI

BRANDETH EVIDENTLY TOOK Noggin’s statement as favorable to a reconciliation, or if not that, to a split that would present a new phase of the complicated situation.

“Wal, take your time, Arizona, but don’t you be onreasonable, too,” he said. “I ain’t pushin’ nobody.”

“I’m thinkin’ a lot, Steele,” replied Ames, agreeably, and that was true.

“My pore head is near busted,” confessed the robber, plaintively. “I never could stand much worryin. An’ I’m sure glad it’s over. . . . Heady, you rustle some firewood, an’, Amos, you throw some grub together.”

The shadows lengthened and deepened. The gold slipped up over the rim wall. Twilight gathered quickly, unusually thick. Low long rumble of thunder broke the oppressive silence.

“Say, was thet rock slippin’ somewheres or thunder?” queried Brandeth.

“We’re in for a storm,” replied Heady.

“Good. It’ll cool the air, fill up the water holes — an hide our tracks.”

Ames deducted from these words that Brandeth had decided upon action. Presently the cook called them to supper. Meanwhile darkness set in, black as pitch between the walls of the Canyon. Thunder threatened and muttered and rumbled far in the distance. Noggin did not speak during the meal, nor afterward. Brandeth made a civil remark to him, which he ignored, and presently he thumped out of camp, to disappear in the gloom. This procedure drew a doubtful wag of Brandeth’s head.

“Ames, can you always back-trail yourself?” he queried.

“If I cain’t I’ll eat my chaps,” laughed Ames.

“Wal, could four men drive a bunch of hosses down into the Canyon, an’ swim them acrost the river, an’ out up on the other side?”

“Four men?” asked Ames.

“I said four. Me an’ you an’ Heady an’ Amos.”

“Shore we could, if the horses were not wild.”

“Swimmin’ the river now. Is thet some hell of a job?”

“It’s no fun. But with plenty of time, an’ workin’ up the bank to take advantage of the current — which I didn’t do — it could be done.”

“Was the Colorado high?”

“No. An’ it was failin’.”

“How about grass an’ water?”

“Poor for a couple of days. Then once in the brakes the finest any horseman would want to see.”

“Ahuh. — Wal, Ames, I reckon the Providence thet protects hoss-thieves sent you to me. Heady knows all this country from Hurricane Ledge north. But we couldn’t figger on south because he’d never been over it. . . . Could we sell hosses across the Canyon?”

“In Arizona? Mormon horses? Say, man, you could sell a thousand, an’ no questions asked.”

“Amos, have we got two weeks’ grub?” called Brandeth to the cook.

“With some meat we can stretch it to three weeks, boss.”

“Heady, see hyar,” said Brandeth, to the wide-eyed Mormon. “This camp you say is our base, an’ only a day’s ride to Morgan’s canyon corral?”

“Yes, it’s the best hidin’ hole I know,” replied the Mormon. “It ain’t often any riders happen in here.”

“If we decide to drive south instead of north, would it be out of our way to come back hyar?”

“No. It’d be safer,” returned Heady, with an eagerness which betrayed his fear of the north. “I know a trail below where we can climb out. Wild-hoss hunters used to work in an’ out there. They had a narrow place fenced in. We could drive the stock down there, an’ out by here the next day. After thet Ames would have to guide you.”

“Ahuh. Wal, we’ll crawl out before daylight tomorrer, an’ do the job — Noggin or no Noggin,” concluded the chief, in stubborn relief.

“Reckon we’re in fer a storm.”

“Won’t thet be all the better? What you think, Arizona?”

“Whenever I steal any livestock I always like failin’ weather,” replied Ames, nonchalantly. “I shore aim to hide my tracks.”

“Ames, why in the darnation cats couldn’t you say thet in front of Noggin?”

“Noggin? Huh! I’d prefer he keeps on thinkin’ whatever he thinks.”

“Wal, thet is, you’re a two-faced hombre. You’re not on the dodge. You’re one of these wanderin’, line-ridin’, adventure-huntin’, gurl-lovin’, gun-throwin’ cowboys!”

“Gosh! but he shore flatters me. I’m glad, ‘cause I was afraid he thought worse.”

“Arizona, I don’t mind tellin’ you I ain’t over well-acquainted with Noggin. He owns up thet ain’t his real name. I’ve a hunch he’s Bill Ackers. You’ve sure heerd of him?”

“Name doesn’t sound as if I just heahed it first. An’ who’s Bill Ackers?”

“Wal, he’s all of Nevada thet’s no good. A secret, long-armed, high-hat gambler who don’t stay nowhere long. Who gambles while he makes deals. They say he has a slick gang. But I never seen Ackers. Noggin claims he has.”

“Why don’t you spring it on him, sudden-like — an’ watch his face?” asked Ames.

“Never thought of thet. It’s not a bad idee.”

The return of the individual whom they were discussing precluded more talk. Ames went off to his bed, with the intention of lying there a while to listen. But he preferred to sleep somewhere in a safer place, which he had been careful to pick out that day.

Contrary to usual custom, Brandeth maintained silence. The cook and Heady conversed in low tones while packing supplies.

“Packin’ up, eh?” snarled Noggin, at length, as if goaded.

“You’ve got sharp eyes when you want to see,” replied the chief. An edge of aloofness hinted of alienation.

“When are you leavin’?”

“Before daylight.”

“Where are you goin’?”

“Wal, I was talkin’ it over with Ames. An’ we’re goin’ over hyar in the Siwash to gather wild flowers.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Noggin, with brutal suggestion. “I’ll tell you, Brandeth, if you had this Arizona galoot sized up correct you’d think gatherin’ flowers was most damn appropriate.”

“Thet so. An’ why?” rejoined the other, gruffly.

“Figure it out. You’ve no more imagination than sense.”

“Wal, I never laid no claim to be extra bright.”

“I asked you where you’re goin’?”

“I heerd you.”

“Heady, what’re you packin’ that grub up for?”

“Boss’ orders. We’re goin’ to hide these packs up in the cracks of the rocks.”

“What for?”

“Somebody might ride along tomorrer. It happens once in a blue moon. An’ we’ll need the grub if we drive out across the Canyon.”

Noggin hopped like a huge ant upon a hot griddle.

“Brandeth, you’re double-crossin’ me!” he shouted.

“Wal, seems to me it’s t’other way round. But I’m goin’ after Morgan’s hosses, an’ if I have luck I’ll drive them acrost the river.”

“You are like hell!” shrieked Noggin.

“I am like hell!”

“Who made this deal? Who outfitted this gang?”

“Reckon you did. But you never told me the straight of it. I ain’t squeamish, an’ dead men don’t take no trails. Reckon, though, I shy at the gurl end of it. So I’m goin’ to do my own way.”

“What am I goin’ to do?”

“Don’t ask me riddles. Haw! Haw!”

“Brandeth, that Arizona tricker put you up to this.”

“Hell, no. Can’t I have an idee of my own? You shan’t blame Ames. You’ve only yourself to blame.”

“Is Ames goin’ to guide you across the river?”

“He says he can an’ I reckon he will. But he hain’t promised yet.”

“I can go plumb to hell?”

“You can go plumb to hell.”

“Ho! Ho! If that isn’t rich? Suppose I tip Morgan off?”

“Thet wouldn’t be healthy if I ever found out,” replied Brandeth, darkly. “But you can’t block us. It’s half a day longer to Morgan’s ranch than to the Canyon where he hides them hosses.”

Noggin cursed impotently, eloquent of his realization of the fact Brandeth sardonically imparted. That ended the quarrel, and in Ames’ estimation any further possible friendship between the two men. This afforded Ames immense gratification. If he knew such men they would destroy themselves. Neither of them had exhibited any marked quality of greatness. In such a situation as this, Rankin would long ago, and at the first sign of antagonism, have shot his way out of the difficulty.

Both Noggin and Brandeth went to bed, and soon afterward the other two followed suit. The dying camp fire sent ghostly shadows upon the cavern walls. Soon the last flickering light died. Ames waited until he was sure the others had fallen asleep and then noiselessly he gathered up his blankets and felt his way to the place he had selected. There he composed himself to safety, and the comfort of sleeping without keeping one eye open.

Lightning flared across the purple sky and a wind moaned through the Canyon. Raindrops blew in under the shelving rock to wet his face. The sultry air had cooled and the sage gave forth a damp fresh fragrance.

Ames, owing to his long nap during the day, and the thought-provoking climax these robbers were precipitating, was wakeful part of the time. He slept on and off till the dark hour before dawn. The ring of an ax assured him some one was up. He lay yet awhile, thinking. The brooding desert storm still hung over the Canyon. It had not broken.

With his mind refreshed by rest Ames went briefly over the contingencies most likely to arise. It was altogether possible that Brandeth and Noggin would come to a deadlock, and obligingly erase themselves from an ugly scene, of which Ames had already wearied. If they did not — ! Ames left it sufficient to that moment.

The thud of hoofs attested to the bringing in of the horses. That roused Ames with a jump. With the blankets under his arm he worked his way along the cliff and soon saw a bright camp fire. When he reached it he found that neither Noggin nor Brandeth were up yet. Amos had a cheery word for Ames. Soon the horses were pounding the ground just outside the cavern and could be seen dimly in the edge of the flare of light.

Ames hurried to find his horse. Cappy whinnied before Ames espied him. Whereupon Ames led him to one side, and returning for saddle and bridle soon had him ready for travel. Then Ames sought the cook.

“How aboot some grub to pack?” he asked, and straightway had hard biscuits, salt, meat, dried apples, and a canteen thrust upon him. This genial cook had taken a liking to him. Ames made a mental reservation that he would remember it.

Brandeth appeared at the camp fire, grim and silent, brushing his long unkempt hair. He spoke once, to order Heady to saddle his horse. Noggin arrived from a direction opposite that from which Ames had looked for him, a circumstance which Ames vowed would not happen again. How almost impossible to exercise eternal vigilance! Habit was more powerful, in the long run, than the most implacable of wills.

The cook yelled lustily, and was instantly cursed by Brandeth, who had not begun this day amiably. Then the men ate standing, hurriedly, and with never a word.

“Let’s git out of this,” ordered Brandeth.

Ames, standing back, caught the expression of both Brandeth and Noggin, in the firelight. His lips tightened and a current quickened down his frame. What fools they were! How blindly set on their selfish ends! One and probably both of them would not be blindly set upon anything at the close of that day.

“Air you goin’ with us?” demanded Brandeth of Noggin.

“You know ——  ——  —— I am,” came the terse reply.

“How far?”

“That’s my business.”

“Ahuh. Wal, you can keep company with our Mormon guide,” concluded Brandeth, sarcastically.

The dark hour before dawn had passed. A dim pale opaque gloom possessed the canyon. Ames mounted and rode out behind Brandeth, who had followed his guide and Noggin. Amos brought up the rear.

Ames, once in the saddle, behind the man he desired to watch, relaxed from tense strain. The hour had not yet struck. But he divined that he was not riding forth on a horse-stealing expedition, but a stark tragedy, in which he was exceedingly likely to become involved.

A smell of rum assailed his nostrils. It bore witness to a custom of such men, to fortify their courage and augment their passion by a false stimulation. Ames’ dark meditation elicited the cold fact that if he were about to force an enemy he could ask no more of fortune than for him to drink.

Compared with those of many wild cowboys, gun-fighters, rustlers, and other notorious characters Ames had met in his ten years of wandering, his own experience, his actual encounters had been few and far between. But they had been dominated by a clear sight, a clear head, and a nerve as keen as wrought steel.

“Else I wouldn’t be heah,” he muttered to himself.

They rode at a trot down the canyon, over a good trail that followed the meanderings of the wash. The day broke gloomy, drab, under clouds that hung low over the ramparts. Soon the wide chasm narrowed to sheer perpendicular walls, where darkness was loath to surrender. The grass was thick and heavy; water babbled over rocks; deer went crashing through the sage. When the riders came to a fence of poles Ames remembered its significance, and understood why Brandeth called back to Amos, “Shet thet gate.”

Once again the canyon opened to grand proportions. Clouds hid the tips of magnificent towers. Heady got off his horse to lead him up a rocky slide. Noggin looked upward, then slowly followed suit.

“Git off an’ climb,” said Brandeth.

Ames had no hatred of slopes, as Brandeth’s tone made clear he had. Soon they were toiling up a zigzag trail, seldom used, full of stones and ruts; and it was noticeable that Brandeth kept at the heels of Noggin. When Heady halted, which was often, they all had to do the same. The horses heaved; the men panted. No one spoke again during that long strenuous hour to the top.

But once up, they all more or less exploded; and Ames’ contribution was an irresistible encomium to the astounding and magnificent scene which burst upon his gaze.

He faced the east, out of which weird and wonderful red rays shone from broken massed clouds. The desert floor heaved away, divided by a ruddy track of light, in shape if not in hue resembling a moon track on waters. The sun had not yet cleared the horizon, and the strange effulgence it spread seemed not of earth. Hurricane Ledge towered into the storm clouds, which apparently gave it a false height, and a peculiar effect that Ames could liken only to the approach of a hurricane. A sinister pale red sheen enveloped the distant mesas and buttes, a veil that was unreal and beautiful.

Thunder rolled out of the east, heavy, detonating; and wicked, forked lightning zigzagged across the purple cloud. There was no breeze to fan the hot faces of the panting men. The early morning had a sultry, muggy weight, oppressive in the extreme.

It seemed unnatural that no word was exchanged on the rim of the canyon before the riders mounted. Ames gazed back into the hole. The strange lights affected even it, magnifying the depth and its stark nudity. They rode on, and all the phenomena of storm and desert gathered strength. Ames tried to assure himself of what was true — that he only faced sunrise during a storm in a bleak and terrible region of the earth.

They came soon to where the level desert bulged into the base of Hurricane Ledge, that had loomed, yet seemed far away. By the time they had rounded its northern point the sun had risen to burn through the clouds. West of the Ledge, opened up the gulf of the canyon country, vast and awful at that moment. North sloped and spread and rolled and upflung that barren splendor of the earth called Utah. Far away black peaks and pink walls stood up, and endless lines of desert wandered away from them.

Suddenly Ames became aware that the guide had halted.

“Trail splits here,” he said, pointing. “This one leads to the hoss canyon, a good four hours’ ride, downhill. An’ thet fork leads to Morgan’s ranch, twice as far, but better goin’.”

“Ahuh. So I see,” replied Brandeth. “Partin’ of the ways!”

The undercurrent of his tone, caustic as vitriol, rather than the content of his words, directed all eyes upon Noggin. Ames suddenly reverted to the deadly issue that had hung in the balance. In a flash the moment had arrived. Brandeth had flung the gauntlet in his partner’s teeth.

Noggin baffled Ames. If he had worn a mask, which was now off, he presented on the moment a more impenetrable man than before. Unfortunately, the brim of his hat shaded the wonderful eyes which Ames had never trusted.

Brandeth slipped out of his saddle and in one stride stood clear. Yet Ames felt that he was too close to him. Those ferret-eyes of Noggin’s could command his movements as well as Brandeth’s.

“Steele, will you compromise on the deal?” asked Noggin.

“Wal, I ain’t much on compromisin’, but what’s your idee?”

Noggin’s horse was mettlesome, but any cowboy could have seen that it was not only his spirit that kept him on the move. Did Noggin want to line up those four men? The idea seemed preposterous to Ames, but he grew acutely curious. From something that emanated from Noggin’s manner or appearance, Ames conceived an impression which operated upon him as subtly as actual menace. Indeed, the place, the hour were menacing.

“I’ll go with you for half your share as well as one-fourth for me,” said Noggin.

“No. . . . And one-fourth! — Say, can’t you count? There’s five of us.”

“Only four. Ames will change his mind when he finds out that I’m . . . Bill Ackers.”

“Bill Ackers?”

“I am.”

“Ha! I’ll bet you Ames won’t care a hoot if you are Ackers. No more than me!”

“Ask him if he’s goin’ with us.”

Ames recognized craft here utterly beyond the ruffled Brandeth. And he had an inspiration. Noggin’s game was not yet clear, but most certainly it was inimical to the leader of that quartet. Noggin had read Ames’ mind, or else he knew absolutely that Arizona Ames would not lend himself to horse-stealing. Brandeth should never have matched wits with any one, most certainly not Noggin.

“Ames, tell the beady-eyed little skinflint you care no more’n me fer Bill Ackers, an’ thet you’re goin’ with me,” said Brandeth, irately.

“Sorry. Noggin’s coppered the trick. I’m not goin’,” drawled Ames.

“Not goin’! . . . When’d you change your mind?”

“I never intended to go.”

“ ——  —— ! Git off thet hoss!” Brandeth screeched, reaching a swift hand toward Ames’ bridle.

Noggin’s gun crashed. Ames saw Brandeth’s fierce expression set. Go blank! Ames pitched sheer out of his saddle. Scarcely had he moved when Noggin’s gun crashed again. Ames struck the ground hard on both hands. That enabled him to spring over even as he flopped on his side. On the instant he saw Brandeth fall. Cappy plunged away to disclose Noggin, his gun high, hauling on his frightened horse. In a flash Ames drew and shot. He hit Noggin’s horse. It screamed and bounded convulsively, to fall and throw its rider.

Noggin plowed in the dust. With marvelous, terrible agility he waved up with the momentum of his fall. Half up — half turned! Then Ames’ leveled gun spurted flame and boomed. Noggin whirled clear round, flinging arms high. His gun spun up — fell — and went off while yet he seemed stiffening in grotesque position, without support. Then he slumped down.

Ames leaped up and watched Noggin a moment. One of the horses snorted and there came a pounding of hoofs on rock. Then Ames strode over close to Noggin — looked down to see him twitch and lie still. His gun lay some paces away. Amos had evidently ridden some rods off and stopped. Heady was riding back toward where Brandeth lay prone on the ground.

Ames sheathed his weapon and beckoned for the men to approach. Amos came slowly. Heady rode up to dismount beside Brandeth. When Ames reached them he saw that the robber had been shot through the temple.

“Bill Ackers! He shore fooled me,” said Ames, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t pitched quick off that horse . . .”

“He’s dead,” said Heady, hoarsely.

“Reckon he is, an’ so’s his pard.”

“Ames, you come awful close to bein’ in the same fix,” rejoined the Mormon. “My Gawd! but it all happened sudden! . . . Were you lookin’ fer it?”

“I had a hunch.”

Amos rode up within fifty paces and called out, “Ames, I hope you’ve nothin’ ag’in’ me?”

“Shore haven’t, Amos. Come heah,” replied Ames. “I didn’t start this. . . . Heady, step over an’ see what Noggin’s got on him.”

Amos approached and got off. He was livid, and his eyes rolled, then fixed on the ghastly features of his employer.

“Search him,” said Ames.

Brandeth had some gold and currency upon his person, a watch and knife, besides his gun.

“Amos, I reckon you’d better keep them.”

Heady returned with Noggin’s gun, watch, a leather wallet, a money-belt, a silver-mounted pipe. The Mormon’s eyes glistened, as if he had a premonition of fortune.

“He was well heeled.”

“So it looks. Let’s see,” returned Ames, and he opened the heavy money-belt. At each end of a long roll of double eagles lay a packet of greenbacks.

“Reckon it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” said Ames, handing the belt back to the gaping Mormon.

The wallet contained papers, which Ames placed in his pocket for future examination.

“Heady, keep that stuff, an’ whatever else he’s got.”

“There ain’t any more ‘cept his saddle. I sure want that,” returned Heady.

“Amos, the little expedition has been busted up. What’re you goin’ to do?”

“If it’s all the same to you, Ames, I’ll take Brandeth’s hoss an’ go back to camp. I’ll pack the outfit an’ make a break fer Nevada.”

“It’s shore all the same to me,” replied Ames. “Only I’d like to think you’ll throw in with a straight outfit next time.”

“So long, Ames,” replied the cook, with one short, steady glance, then mounting his horse he rode across the space to gather up the bridle of Brandeth’s horse, which he led at a brisk trot up the trail toward the canyon.

“Heady, I’m goin’ to ride over to Morgan an’ tell him aboot this,” said Ames. “Do you want to go?”

“Yes, if you won’t give me away.”

“Will you go back to that nice wife an’ two kids?”

“You bet I will.”

“You’ll be honest an’ decent?” added Ames, sharply.

“Ames, I swear by the Prophets I will!” exclaimed the Mormon. He was sweating hard and extremely agitated. “All I ever needed was a little money. To get out of debt an’ start over! . . . An’ there must be thousands in this money-belt.”

“Shore is. An’ you can keep it, I reckon, without any bad qualms. Money isn’t much to me any more.”

“My Gawd! . . . I’ll never forget you — Arizona Ames!”

CHAPTER XII

THE SUMMER STORM broke while Ames and the Mormon gave the best burial available to the two robbers. And that was to deposit them in a deep crevice and cover them with heavy rocks. The Mormon went further and added enough rocks to form a monument.

“It ain’t likely,” he said, “but somebody livin’ might want to see their graves.”

Thunder burst with tremendous boom and crash, to roll over the desert, and rumble away weirdly into the canyons. Streaks of white lightning blazed out of the purple clouds. Veils of down-dropping rain streaked a belt of rosy sky in the east. They coalesced to form a gray pall that marched across the desert. Then it appeared the hot air that hung round Hurricane Ledge, as if lodged there, began to move and gather strength, to whip up the dust, to shriek down from the crags, to rage into a gale.

Before it Ames and the Mormon sped northward on the trail, their horses blown from trot to lope. The pall of rain never caught up with them. Soon the full fury of the freakish gale roared at their backs, and they were lost in a yellow cloud of dust.

They halted in the lee of a huge rock, and waited till the hurricane passed. It roared and whirled away. Mounting once more, the riders went on, and Ames looked back. Hurricane Ledge was draped in the gray pall; all to the south was dim and dark, whorled low clouds, dipping into the canyons; eastward gold and silver hues had displaced the angry reds, and through bright rimmed clouds the sun shone with the glory of dawn, illumining the livid and ridged desert, clearing away the deceitful shadows and revealing distance and sublimity.

For Ames the hours of that ride were short and the miles more and more replete with the wonder of Utah. It staggered him by its canyoned and clipped and walled vastness. Spots of green were rare and stood out like gems in boundless gray.

Late in the afternoon the Mormon led Ames through a rocky break into a valley that afforded soothing relief to his seared eyes. It was a triangular oasis walled in by red bluffs. Squares of rich green alfalfa seemed to leap up alive into the quivering air; orchards and vineyards bloomed; and a grove of stately cottonwoods surrounded a stone house.

They rode on into the shade. The grounds round the house were bare and clean except where grass and willow lined the irrigation ditch. The leaves of the cottonwoods rustled; birds sang sweetly; burros and turkeys and calves had the run of the place. The stone walks, the fences, the sheds, the gray old porch, all seemed as aged as the cottonwoods.

Heady came out with a striking gray-haired man who stood erect and whose gray eyes still held fire.

“Ames, this is Mr. Morgan,” announced Heady.

“Shore glad to meet you, sir,” said Ames, extending his hand.

“It seems I have reason to be glad to welcome you,” replied Mr. Morgan, meeting Ames’ grip. “Come have a seat on the porch.” He led Ames up the stone steps, still holding his hand, and bending those kind, searching gray eyes upon his countenance. “My daughter will welcome you, too. . . . Don’t be backward, lass. Come out. He’s a very mild-looking Gentile.”

Ames turned at the sound of a light step. A tall girl came out into the light, a wholesome, blooming, rosy-cheeked young woman, whose large gray eyes met Ames’ with fearless interest.

“Lespeth, this is the gentleman who has served us well. Ames, a rider from Arizona. . . . This is my daughter Lespeth.”

“I’m happy to meet Mr. Ames,” she said, and gave him her hand.

“Miss, the pleasure’s shore mine,” replied Ames, somewhat embarrassed. Morgan slid forward an old rocking-chair, which he placed for Ames.

“Sit down, and you, too, Heady,” he invited, as he seated himself on a bench. “Lespeth, fetch out a chair. Tell Mrs. Clegg we’ll have company for supper. . . . Ames, you look dusty and worn. Let me have the straight of this extraordinary claim Heady made. Then you can clean up and make yourself comfortable.”

“What did Heady tell you?” queried Ames, laying his sombrero and gloves on the floor.

The girl came out with a chair, which she placed before Ames. Then she stood a moment, hands on the back of it, with unconscious smile as she gazed down upon him. Ames became aware that she was a magnificent creature.

“That he’d fallen in with thieves, who had forced him to act as guide for them, and but for your timely intervention I would have been robbed again, and perhaps killed, while Lespeth would have been at the mercy of a lecherous villain.”

Ames briefly related, with little reference to Heady, the circumstances of his meeting with Brandeth and Noggin, his suspicion as to their character and how that was verified by what he heard, the plot as defined by Brandeth, and then the disagreement between the two men, the ride up out of the canyon, and lastly the fight.

“Dead! — They’re dead?” asked the Mormon, aghast. Manifestly Heady had not revealed that.

“Shore they’re dead,” replied Ames, grimly. “You gather, of course, that I led Brandeth to believe I’d throw in with him an’ help rob you. But Noggin saw through me — knew I was lyin’. — Well, when it came to the pinch I had to do some tall figurin’. Noggin swore I wouldn’t go with them an’ I admitted it. Brandeth was so surprised an’ sore that he made a grab for my bridle. He’d been keen to get my horse, an’ when he told me to get off, that was what he was up to. But Noggin shot him. I threw myself off my horse just as Noggin shot at me. When I hit the ground I was behind my horse. That saved me. For when Cappy jumped I took a shot at Noggin. His horse threw him. But he bounced up like a rooster an’ was just as swift with his gun — when I got him. . . . That’s all. It shore was a close shave for me. Noggin fooled me. He was all cold nerve an’ swift on the draw. — Whew! If it had been an even break, I believe he might have killed me.”

“Thank God he didn’t!” exclaimed the Mormon, fervently. “The unrighteous villain! . . . Ames, you are a brave, resourceful young man. I am grateful. You are not the first Gentile who has befriended me, and therefore I have reverence for your creed.”

Ames took this coolly enough, but when he glanced up at Lespeth his serenity went into eclipse. The rosy face had become pale; the great gray eyes dark with horror; her red lips parted, and her body shook in a tide of emotion.

“Noggin had this wallet on him,” went on Ames, producing it. “I haven’t looked at his papers yet. But, by the way, it seems his real name was Bill Ackers.”

“Bill Ackers? Oh no, impossible!” ejaculated Morgan, with uplifted hands of protest. “I know Ackers. Have sold stock to him. He had paid court to Lespeth. Isn’t it true, Lespeth?”

“Yes, but not with my consent,” she replied, low-voiced.

“Ames, I looked with favor on his suit once,” explained Morgan. “He was well off and wanted to go in business with me. And Lespeth seemed not to want to marry any of the many Mormons who have ridden here. . . . But this Noggin could not have been Bill Ackers.”

“Describe him,” said Lespeth.

“Well, he was not a big man an’ near forty, I’d say,” replied Ames, reflectively. “He had a thin smooth face, not bad-lookin’, except for his eyes, which were small an’ sharp, like a ferret’s.”

Morgan gazed incredulously at his daughter.

“Father, he has described Ackers perfectly,” Lespeth cried. “Ferret eyes! They used to look through me. . . . But could this blood-thirsty Noggin be Bill Ackers?”

“I can’t believe it, lass,” replied her father, sadly.

“Well, I’ve run across stranger things,” said Ames. “Let’s look at his papers.”

Indisputable evidence was forthcoming that Noggin had not lied when he had assured Brandeth that he was Bill Ackers. His papers contained only the name which he had claimed was his.

“Heah we are,” continued Ames, with an air of finality. “Reckon he sailed under many handles, but this must be his right name. Bill Ackers.”

“I never trusted him,” broke out the girl, with intense relief.

“Hope you wasn’t sweet on him,” Ames teased her. “I’d shore hate to make you unhappy.”

“Sweet on him? — I was not,” she declared, in a tone that matched her face. Perhaps Ames’ glance, more than his words, had been responsible for her blush.

“Mr. Morgan, did he owe you any money?” asked Ames.

“No. But I owed him. Soon I would have paid it — though that would have left me poor.”

“Ahuh. Well, the debt is canceled,” rejoined Ames, rising. “An’ now if you good folks will excuse me I’d like to wash up.”

“Yes, indeed,” responded Morgan, heartily. “You must excuse our neglect in forgetting that. Heady, you take care of Mr. Ames. You may use the log cabin there. We always keep it ready. I will have your horses looked after.”

As Heady led Ames away toward a snug little cabin under the cottonwoods he whispered:

“Did you see them big hungry eyes?”

“Hungry eyes! Whose, man?” asked Ames, in surprise.

“Lespeth’s. They just ate you up.”

“See heah, Heady. You’re shore named appropriate,” reproved Ames, though he felt himself tingle. “All that money has gone to your haid.”

“No. I’m as cool as a cucumber. I’ve knowed Lespeth for years. An’ I’ve seen them hungry eyes look at a good many men, but you’re the first one they ever swallared.”

“Gosh! Who’d ever take you for a sentimental cuss?” retorted Ames.

“But don’t you think she’s beautiful?”

“Hardly. Nor pretty, either. . . . She’s more than both. She’s a goddess, if I know what one is.”

The extravagant compliment brought a glow to the Mormon’s sallow face. He seemed a changed man. His grimy hands shook as he opened the door of the little cabin. Ames peeped into a clean, tidy room, with two beds on which lay white spreads. Chair, table, bureau, all homemade furniture, as well as an open fireplace, reminded Ames of home.

“I forgot my saddle-bag,” he said, and when Heady ran back to fetch it he sat down on a rustic bench in the shade of a giant cottonwood. An arm of the irrigation ditch ran by the cabin, making soft, restful music. What sweetness and peace here! Ames had not felt surrounded by such atmosphere for many years. Then the Mormon came trudging back with Ames’ bag.

The next half hour the men spent in making themselves fit to sit at table with white folk, as Heady put it. When Ames resumed his seat outside the sun was setting gold over the western wall. All about him the golden light merged with the green. The water murmured, the bees buzzed. A burro brayed off in the background. Ames heaved a great sigh of relief at the thought that he had played some part in preserving the sweetness and tranquillity of this place for these good Mormons.

Heady came out, beaming and shining, though there were sundry signs of his awkwardness with a razor.

“Ames, I’ll rest here today, an’ tomorrer ride home hell-bent fer election. I want to go down on my knees to my wife an’ tell her about the cowboy who got me out of the worst fix of my life.”

“Fine. But don’t lay it on too thick aboot me,” said Ames.

“Say, Ames, if you’ll excuse me — are you really a cowboy?”

“Shore. Just a grub-line-ridin’ cowpuncher who cain’t hold a job.”

“Arizona Ames, I’ll take your word fer it. But if you ain’t a son-of-a-gun in spurs I miss my guess. . . . I swore to you I’d go straight. An’ thet’s somethin’. I’ll make up with the wife, pay my debts an’ tithes, an’ go back to honest ranchin’. I’ll be rich, Ames. I jest took another peek at this money. I’ll be rich. But I’ll take a drink damn good an’ seldom, an’ I’ll be savin’ an’ careful. You can bet your life no use of Noggin’s money could be better’n what it’ll do fer me an’ mine.”

“Now you’re talkin’,” drawled Ames.

“So much fer me. What’ll you do?”

“I’ll stay heah a day or so, an’ then ride on. Shore will look you up in St. George, to see the wife an’ kids.”

“I’d like thet heaps. Then she’ll believe I haven’t robbed a bank or somethin’. But, Ames, I’d hang here fer a spell. It’s pretty. No doubt you could give the old man some hunches about hosses. He’ll want to give you a job. An’ you could do worse, if it’s true you’re a grub-line-ridin’ cowpuncher.”

“True as gospel, Heady.”

“Then stay awhile, Ames — if only to give Lespeth what she needs.”

Ames’ leisurely composure vanished in a quick start and a sharp glance at his companion.

“What?” he shot at Heady.

“Don’t bite my head off. I don’t mean nothin’ bad. Lespeth is a good girl, clean an’ fine, more dutiful than most Mormon girls still unmarried. An’ she’s not too religious. Mebbe thet’s why she ain’t married. Mormon cowboys, wranglers, ranchers, preachers, an’ elders, an’ one bishop I know of, have come here after her. All solemn an’ slow an’ full of church in their wooin’. There’s been some Gentiles, too, like Noggin, an’ wanderin’ fellars. But none of them ever struck Lespeth right. A few times the old man has tried to get her married — like in Noggin’s case — but it always fell through.”

“Ahuh. — Well, if she’s so wonderful as you say, what’s this she needs?”

“Lespeth needs to be made love to.”

Ames stared at the man as if he had not heard aright.

“Mormon girls like Lespeth don’t get any lovemakin’ before they’re married. An’ a lot of it after. Well, I’m a Mormon. . . . But there’s a girl who’s jest dyin’ to be made up to. Talked soft an’ sweet to an’ patted an’ kissed an’ hugged!”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Ames, red in the face, as much from consciousness of his own sudden thrilling rush of blood, as shame at the brazen Mormon who could propose such a thing.

“You’re a queer cowboy, if you are a Gentile,” went on Heady. “Can’t you see what I’m tellin’ you is so?”

“Reckon I cain’t. But, by gosh! I can see you’re a mushy cuss who hasn’t any respect for good women.”

“Aw, go ‘long,” laughed the Mormon. “Even if you did get tolerable thick with Lespeth you’d be doin’ her a favor. But all I mean is, if you don’t want to stay here an’ make a go of it — an’ you could do worse, my friend — why, stay long enough to love her a little.”

“Lord! . . . You take my breath.”

“Not me. It’s thought of Lespeth thet does thet.”

“Heady, if I’d ever been a fellow to make up to girls — an’ I never had a chance — I reckon I couldn’t make up to Lespeth unless I meant it serious.”

“All the better. Then be serious. Marry her! — I’ll let you in on this much of the secret, because I trust you, Ames. . . . Lespeth’s mother was a Gentile. But she doesn’t know it.”

“Say, man, you’re figurin’ me in deep. An’ it’s all nonsense. That girl couldn’t see me with a spyglass. I’m no more than another wanderin’ cowboy.”

“All right. Have it your way,” replied the Mormon, resignedly. “I was only givin’ you a hunch. You could rest right here, my wanderin’ cowboy, all your life, an’ with thet girl it’s sure a soft place to light.”

“Too good for me, Heady. Thanks all the same.”

“Arizona, I figger from your talk thet you never had a sweetheart. But didn’t you never love no one? No woman?”

“Shore. My twin sister. Her name was Nesta. She looked like a gold columbine as much as this Lespeth looks like a rose,” replied Ames, and he gazed away over the green fields, out over the desert and the darkening walls, without seeing them.

“Twin sister? She must have been a beauty. . . . An’ I reckon you ruined yourself fer her! . . . All right, take it or leave it. But I’m wonderin’ at you. How any fellar who could have Lespeth in his arms an’ wouldn’t take her — I jest can’t understand.”

Ames sustained what seemed a strange, vague knocking at his heart, as if life were clamoring at a closed door he had never known was there.

A mellow bell rang. Then a voice that seemed as sweet gayly called, “Come to supper, Arizona Ames!”

Heady laughed cheerfully. “See, she doesn’t even think of me. Come on, you Arizona Gentile, an’ take your medicine.”

Ames felt like a lamb being led to slaughter, which was something he certainly attributed to this loquacious Mormon. As they neared the house he saw that the supper table had been set upon the porch, and that Lespeth had changed her plain linsey dress to a white one, which even at a distance, transformed her incredibly.

“Crawl, you Arizona iceberg,” whispered Heady, as they reached the steps.

Morgan met them, courteous and dignified, with the air of one who considered hospitality a matter of the spirit. Lespeth stood by his side. Her golden head reached to his shoulder. Little trace of shock lingered on her face; she now seemed shy, fascinated, eager, yet unable to meet Ames’ look.

Ames remembered to hold a chair for her, but when they were all seated it took a kick from Heady to acquaint him with the fact that the venerable head of Lespeth’s father was bent. He asked a blessing that sounded beautiful to Ames. And while he supplicated for this stranger within his gates, Ames watched the girl, whose face was lowered. It seemed to have more than mere beauty — fair, strong, resolute, with a suggestion of austerity that required the fire of eyes and smile of lips to hide its loneliness.

“I would not have recognized you, Arizona Ames,” she said, looking up.

He had not been aware that the blessing had been concluded. And no doubt she had been prepared with that pretty speech before she raised her head, but certainly not prepared for Ames’ absorbed gaze. Her confusion added to her simplicity and charm.

“Shore you’re wonderful changed yourself,” he replied.

A pleasant-faced woman brought in the food.

The ordeal of the meal began, and it was almost beyond Ames. Here he sat a starved beggar at a feast, and he desired to watch Lespeth and at the same time appear well to her.

“Ames, is this your first visit to Utah?” asked Morgan.

“Yes, an’ I happened to come by accident.”

“Indeed it was a fortunate one for Lespeth and me. How did it come about?”

“Well, I cain’t stick at one job any length of time. I’m always ridin’ on. An’ I was in Williams, where some boy told me to cross the Canyon.”

“Our Lord works in strange ways. To think of a boy’s chance remark directing you to us! To think of the terrible Colorado River! I have always believed things happen for some definite reason. Back of all is the Divine Mind.”

“Mr. Ames, you swam your horse across the Colorado?” asked Lespeth, her eyes wide.

“He swam an’ I held to his tail.”

“Oh, how wonderful! — Father, you remember the Stuart boys crossed at the Shinumo. Jack told me about it once.”

“I reckon the danger wasn’t really as great as it looked. An’ I shore have a horse.”

“He’s splendid. I love horses, Mr. Ames. . . . Would you let me ride him?”

“Shore I’d be delighted — that is, if you can ride him.”

“If I can! — Mr. Ames, I can ride any horse in Utah,” she retorted, with spirit.

“Wild or broke?” drawled Ames.

“Well, I draw the line at wild horses.”

“Ames, I’ve been a horse raiser and dealer all my life,” said Morgan. “I knew Bostil, of Bostil’s Ford, probably the greatest of Utah horse-breeders. He was wont to say his daughter Lucy had been born on a horse. I can almost claim that for Lespeth.”

“Bostil’s Ford. Where’d I heah that name?”

“Some old horseman likely spoke of it. The ford is gone these many years. . . . You like horses, Ames?”

“Reckon I do. Much better than cattle.”

“How would you like to see how long you can hold a job with me?” queried Morgan, directly.

“I — well — thank you, Mr. Morgan. I — I’ll think it over,” replied Ames, in embarrassment. “But shore I’m likely a hard proposition. I cain’t keep out of fights.”

“Ames, I know men. You don’t strike me as a drinkin’, quarrelsome rider.”

“Shore I’m not either,” said Ames, quickly, and he looked straight at Lespeth. “But I’m always gettin’ mixed up in other fellows’ troubles. I just cain’t keep out of things.”

“Mr. Morgan,” interposed Heady, “Ames should have said takin’ up other peoples’ burdens.”

“You see. Heady would make you a Christian whether you will have it or not. . . . Ames, I’d like to ask a blunt question, if you will permit me?”

“Shore you can ask me anythin’,” replied Ames, with a smile. But inwardly he quaked.

“Are you a fugitive from justice?” asked the Mormon, gravely.

Ames met that kind, penetrating regard with a level glance and a clean conscience.

“No, I’m not. Years ago I shot a man to save my sister. He had relatives. An’ this I should tell you happened in the Tonto Basin, where feuds are the rule. Then, not so long ago, I took a cowboy’s petty thievin’ upon my shoulders. He was to marry the daughter of a rancher he stole from. She loved him, an’ I thought she might make a man of him. So I rode away. . . . That is the black mark on my name, Mr. Morgan.”

Ames had never told so much to any man, but he wanted this fine old Mormon to know he had a clear conscience. How much the girl influenced him in this confession he found it hard to define. He had not meant to make of himself a hero, but he instantly feared that in Lespeth’s case he had done so. Solid ground seemed slipping from under his feet.

“Thank you, Ames,” returned the Mormon. “Please recall that I offered you a job before I asked you the personal question. And what you have told me only adds to my interest in you and my desire to have you work for me. . . . Come, let us go out before the light fades. I want to show you my alfalfa-fields.”

They walked through the orchards and along the fields with the afterglow of sunset reflected from the lofty eastern wall of the valley. The ranch was a rich fertile spot in the desert. Morgan’s likening it to a “milk-and-honey land” seemed felicitous.

In the twilight on the return, Ames found himself delivered to Lespeth. It was like a dream, that walk in the gathering dusk, under the shadow of the towering walls, with drowsy summer evening trilling to the melody of innumerable frogs. They walked under the cottonwoods, and it was the girl who talked — of how she loved the ranch, the horses, life in this lonely southern Utah; then of years when her father had been prosperous and she had attended school in Salt Lake City; and lastly of her father’s friendship and business relations with Gentiles.

Night fell and the round golden moon soared above the wall, silvering the dark desert. An overwhelming sense of the peace and beauty of this lonely valley flooded Ames. What a haven of rest for a tired and unhappy cowboy! But he did not deserve that, or at least the bewildering possibility which did not now seem remote. All the numberless nights of his watching and riding on the ranges plunged back upon him, as if to crowd upon him the difference between them and moonlit nights like this with the wide-eyed Lespeth.

They were left alone on the porch and Ames realized he was too silent, too unresponsive to this glorious night. And this girl of Utah.

“You spoke of a sister,” said Lespeth, softly. “What was her name?”

“Nesta. We were twins.”

“What a sweet name! Nesta. Tell me about her.”

In that hour, after the strenuous day for body and mind, Ames seemed impelled to tell that story as it lived in his heart. The girl’s interest tugged at the gates of his reserve.

Brooding mystery lay like a mantle over the valley. The fragrance of verdant fields, the music of murmuring stream, the dreaming trill of frogs, the splendor of moon-blanched walls — these were not new to Ames, but this responsive girl was, this Mormon who could ride like a cowboy, to whom hard work was natural and right. He found himself telling Nesta’s story. Lespeth’s eyes turned dark in the moonlight, her strong hands grasped Ames’, her breast rose and fell.

“You will go back some day — to see Nesta — and that boy named after you? Oh, you will go back?” she pleaded.

“Yes, some day, an’ seein’ you makes me wish it could be soon.”

“Am I like Nesta?”

“You shore are, somehow.”

Ames suddenly realized that he had a tremendous longing to take Lespeth in his arms. All at once there seemed a great aching void that she could fill. The temptation was almost overwhelming with its astoundingly fierce sweetness, its shame and its regret. What would she do? Struggle, protest, and then perhaps she would cease resisting and she would. . . . He dared not listen to his insidious imagination.

“Father likes you,” Lespeth was saying.

“Shore seems so. I’m glad. I know I like him,” returned Ames.

“Will you stay and work for him?”

“It’d be fine, but it’d hardly be fair. I shore cain’t stay long anywhere, an’ — —”

“But you might stay long — here?” she went on.

“Shore I might — at that,” said Ames, helplessly.

“We have several boys, but no rider now. Father needs one.”

“So I reckoned. I — I’d like to, but — —”

“Arizona, I will ride with you.”

He stared at her in the light of the moon. He felt as if the very fiber of his being dissolved in water.

“We shall race. I on your horse. You on mine. . . . Oh, what a race that will be!”

“Girl, you — don’t know what you ask,” he replied, almost roughly.

“I do know — and I do ask.”

“But I am only a wanderin’ cowboy,” he protested. “I have nothin’ except a horse — an’ this blood-stained gun. You’re a Mormon. Shore I’ve no religion, but your people would never accept me.”

“You are a man. Father and I will accept you.”

Ames looked sadly down upon the dreamy face. He could never hide the truth.

“Shore I’d only fetch you more trouble.”

“Stay, Arizona!” she whispered.

That seemed the moment for which all the terrible journey across the canyon had been undertaken, and the fatal crisis under Hurricane Ledge. Something rose up in him, out of the long past, it seemed, to prop his failing manhood.

“Lespeth, I’m only human. An’ I’d fall in love with you.”

“Would that be so terrible?”

“For me, an’ shore for you. Because you’ve a longin’ for you know not what. Even if you overlooked the Mormon barrier it would yet be bad. . . . Like as not one of the enemies I’ve made would cross my trail again. . . . Always that step on my trail, Lespeth! It would be disgrace for one of your creed. . . . No, lass, I’d better leave in the mawnin’.”

“But — if I am like Nesta?”

* * * * *

That sweet, almost insurmountable appeal rang in Ames’ sleepless ears all night, mingling with the tinkle of the running water and the rustle of the leaves, rang still in the soft dark dawn when he rode away like a guilty man, torn by doubts, sustained only by the conviction that he was doing what was right.

CHAPTER XIII

AUTUMN BURNED CRIMSON and gold and purple in the valley of the Troublesome.

The noisy, quarrelsome stream might have had a quiet birth somewhere up in the Flat Tops of Colorado, but when it emerged from the rocks to wind its swift course down between the great grassy timberless hills, it fretted here and roared there, tarried surlily in a bend only to rush on, jealous of time, and pour its amber current over a succession of low falls, step by step, petulant and reluctant, at last to race in a long frothy incline by the only habitation of the valley — Halstead’s ranch — and thunder its wrath into the dark green gorge below.

Forest fire in bygone years had denuded these numberless slopes, some of which rolled up to the dignity of mountains. No green trees were left on the heights, but in patches branchless bare poles, sharp as masts, some charred black and others bleached white, stood silent, ghastly, mute monuments to the archenemy of the woodland. Everywhere, on all the slopes, fallen timber lay in windrows, thick as fence pickets, up to the scattered groves of aspens, saplings grown since the fire, and now shining exquisitely gold and white in the sunlight. Of late years grass had sprung between the fallen trees.

And since Esther Halstead had left school in Denver, to take her mother’s place in Halstead’s household, each succeeding year had added more grass to the burned slopes; and amber moss and scarlet vines, and the beautiful blue lupine, and such amazing and glorious beds of purple asters and Indian paint-brush and columbines that never bloomed so profusely anywhere else on earth.

So Esther thought, as she feasted her eyes upon the autumn hills. Winter was a long, cold, shut-in season at that altitude, and though Esther thrilled to see the lines of elk troop down the snowy white slopes and the mountain sheep come to the garden with the deer, she did not love the Colorado winter. Spring was raw, wet, windy, muddy — a trying time for new ranchers in a new country. Summer was wonderful, but fall a time of enchantment.

Esther needed some compensations for the trials and hardships of this lonely life. She had been born and brought up in Missouri, had attended school there from six years of age until twelve, when, owing to the failing health of her mother, she had journeyed with her family across the plains to Denver, where they lived awhile and she went to school again. Then John Halstead had adventured into the wild northwest corner of Colorado, first lured by the gold-fields at Yampa. Later he had wisely settled down to learn the less glamorous but more stable value of the soil.

At fifteen Esther had come to Troublesome to take charge of the children and otherwise, as best she could, to make up to them and her father for their mutual loss. She was now nineteen, and not the eldest, for Fred was two years her senior. He scarcely counted, however, as far as the manifold tasks were concerned, though when he was at home he did keep the household supplied with fresh meat. Fred had reacted disappointingly to ranch life, which had been his father’s hope for him. He had fallen into questionable habits with young men of Yampa, the mining town a day’s round journey from Troublesome. Then there were Ronald, aged six, and Brown, a year older, and their sister Gertrude, who was nine, all of whom Esther had to try to control and teach. Her great difficulty lay in restraining them from running wild, a task which required a never-ceasing vigilance and restraint. These children were doing their best to revert to the wild, something Fred had already succumbed to, and to which Esther herself had strange secret leanings.

In winter-time she managed to make them study and learn. But the other seasons were blank so far as education was concerned, unless contact with wild nature held some elements of education. Ronald was a born hunter, Brown had a passion to fish, and Gertrude loved the wild flowers, of which there were a hundred varieties at Troublesome.

The circumstances of the Halsteads were still comfortable, though of late Esther had reason to be concerned. They had a camp cook, Joe Cabel, a most excellent cook, a man with the kindest of hearts, the most amiable of dispositions, and a vast sense of humor. But he had one glaring fault. He could not distinguish between profanity and the ordinary use of words. From him the children were beginning to learn the most terrible language, which was Esther’s despair. At present Halstead employed a teamster, a farmer, and two riders; and he was wont to say that he accomplished more work than all of them.

The ranch house stood on a bench above Troublesome Creek, and consisted of repaired and enlarged log cabins which had been erected by trappers, and which Halstead had ingeniously connected. The unit provided simple and crude quarters, but ample for all, and comfortable without any luxuries, unless clear ice-cold water running through the house could be so designated.

Early September had brought frost, at least high up on the slopes, which always appeared so close to Esther until she attempted to climb them. When she half closed her eyes these hills were marvelously colored. She had to peer with wide searching eyes to see the ghastliness of them any more. Some day, when all the bare spear-like poles were down, and the aspens thickened, they would begin to revert to their original beauty. Esther had learned that nothing in nature was originally ugly, and after it had been despoiled by man, would soon go back to beauty.

From Esther’s stand on the grassy bench, somewhat below the house, and from which perch she could keep track of the children, she had a never-palling view of miles up Troublesome Valley. At this season it resembled a marvelous painting. The troubled creek came babbling down between rocky, willowy banks that ranged off level across the valley floor, and then sloped up, to swell, to lift in vast mounds of gray, of green, of blue and red and lavender, marred ever by the black fallen timber, and on the crests fringed by the ghastly poles, that stood like naked masts of naked ships up into the sky. In the far distance these hills were mountains, yet appeared only foothills to the dark ragged peaks higher up.

Downstream there was only a half mile of V-shaped valley, which terminated in the black gorge whence, even at this distance, the Troublesome growled and rumbled in angry thunder at its confinement.

Ronald was running around with the dogs, chasing an unlucky rabbit, while Brown was fishing. Troublesome Creek was full of big trout, many of which Brown had hooked, only to lose. His father occasionally hooked one for him and did battle with it until Brown could manage to land it, and often Joe Cabel would render like assistance. But Brown had no love for this kind of fishing. He had ambition to cut his pole, rig his line and hook, find his bait, raise his trout, hook and catch him all alone without any help. This ambition, like most ambitions, had wrought havoc. Brown had always a goodly supply of fishing-poles, but he could not keep himself supplied with lines and hooks.

This morning, however, he had fished for hours without any luck. Up to a certain limit he was amazingly patient for a lad of seven. Lunch meant nothing in his young life, wherefore Esther feared to bring wrath down upon her head by calling him.

Presently he looked up at Esther, a freckled-faced, dirty, wet, tousled imp if there ever was one.

“Aw, hell, Ess, there ain’t no trout,” he yelled.

Esther saw no sense in screeching at Brown, but she made motions which signified that he was again sullying his lips. Brown grinned back in honest contrition. And just at this instant, unfortunately for Esther, Brown had a terrific strike from a trout, which, catching him unawares, jerked him off the slippery stone. Valiantly Brown bent the pole and floundered to recover his equilibrium, but he went down with a great splash.

Esther suffered no alarm on the score of danger. Her small brother was a second cousin to a fish. But her heart leaped to her throat for fear she might in some way be held responsible for this catastrophe. Brown waded out, a bedraggled figure, and as he came up the bank, Esther, in dismay, discovered that his fishing-line was gone. It had broken off at the tip.

Water dripped off Brown. Besides the wet blotches on his face, and the freckles, there was a green slime from the brook. His hazel eyes were beautifully full of fire.

“ ——  ——  ——  ——  —— luck, anyhow, Ess. You made me lose thet fish. I wouldn’t ‘a’ cared, but he took my hook, sinker, line!”

Esther was horrified in several degrees, particularly at this newer and more stunning explosion of profanity. What on earth could she do with such a child? He must be punished. And Joe Cabel must be discharged. Then Esther despaired at the futility of the first exigency and the impossibility of the second.

“Say, Ess, look! Who’s comin’?” asked Brown, pointing up the creek. “Gee! Is he drunk or suthin’?”

Esther espied a tall man leading a horse. He appeared to be staggering along very slowly. Her first impulse was to run into the house and call Joe, for rough characters were not infrequent in that country. Her father never permitted her to ride far alone. But on second glance Esther decided the stranger was not drunk, but lame and almost exhausted. The horse, too, showed signs of extreme fatigue.

She thought better of another impulse — to go forward to meet him, though the longer she watched him the more restraint she needed. He approached so slowly that she had ample time for impressions, that gradually grew from curiosity and surprise, to wonder and concern, and at last to thrilling interest. He was the finest-looking man she had ever seen, obviously a cowboy, or most certainly a rider. Tall, lithe, booted, spurred, belted, with gun swinging low, gray-clad, his head drooping, with face hidden under a wide sombrero that had once been white, he certainly excited Esther Halstead.

Evidently he had espied her, because when he drew near he took off his sombrero before he raised his head. When he looked up Esther sustained a shock. Fair hair, almost silver in color, lay dishevelled and wet on a high, white brow, lined with pain, and from under which piercing blue eyes flashed upon Esther. The lower part of his face was bearded, drawn, haggard, and begrimed by sweat and dust.

“Howdy, miss! Have I — made — Halstead’s ranch?” he asked, in low, husky tones.

“Yes, sir,” replied Esther.

“I reckoned so. But — any ranch — would have — done me.” Dropping the bridle, he moved to a big flat stone and sat down as if he could stand no longer. “I don’t care — so much aboot myself — but Cappy heah — I was shore sorry for him.”

The horse he indicated, a magnificent chestnut, no longer young, stood motionless, his noble head bent, his gaunt lathered sides moving in slow heaves.

“You have come far,” said Esther, hurriedly. “Are you crippled or ill?”

“No, miss; we’re just — tuckered out,” he replied, with a long breath, and he leaned his face upon his hands. His sombrero lay on the ground. Esther’s eyes made inventory of the long silver spurs, of old Spanish design, the black leather gun-sheath upon which shone a worn letter A in silver, and then a bone-handled gun, which, though she was accustomed to armed men, gave her a shiver. The man’s broad shoulders heaved slowly and painfully.

“Miss, excuse me — a minute. Shore I’ve not — forgotten my manners. . . . I’m just all in,” he gasped.

“I need to be excused, not you,” replied Esther, quickly. “I’m forgetting to ask you in — and if anything ails you — —”

“Thanks, miss. I’m not hurt — an’ nothin’ ails me — except I’m worn out. — Starved, too, I reckon, though I shore don’t feel hungry.”

“Have you come far without food?” asked Esther.

“Well, I don’t know just how long — or how far,” he replied. “But it was across the Flat Tops.”

“Oh, how dreadful! Why, that is a great mountain range.”

“It shore is. Up on top I met a trapper — stayed with him one night,” returned the stranger. “He told me how to hit the Troublesome — an’ follow down to Halstead’s ranch. But I got on the wrong trail.”

At this juncture Esther’s little brother appeared, and curiosity getting the better of his shyness, he moved round in front of the man to ask, “Mister, are you hurted?”

“Hello, there, youngster! I didn’t see you. . . . No, I’m not hurted.”

“Gee! you look orful tired,” went on Brown, sympathetically.

“I shore am.”

“Did you come down the crick?”

“Yes, all the way, from the very haid.”

“Did you see any big trout?”

“You bet I did, sonny. Far up, though, in the deep still pools.”

“How big?”

“Long as my arm. You must be a fisherman. Say, did you fall in?”

“Nope. I was fishin’ — an’ Ess, here — she’s my sister — she called me — an’ I was lookin’ up when a whale of a trout hooked himself an’ pulled me in — the ——  ——  ——  ——  —— !”

“Brown!” burst out Esther. “You’re a disgrace.”

The man lifted his haggard face, stared, and then laughed heartily.

“Sonny, shore that’s strong talk.”

“It’s unpardonable,” interposed Esther, ashamed and angry. “We have a cook whose every word is profane. And my little brothers, especially Brown here, have been utterly ruined.”

“Well, I reckon it won’t hurt them bad,” replied the stranger, with a drawl pleasant to Esther’s ears. “So you have a cook who cusses?”

“Terribly. We have had many cooks. It’s hard to keep one here on the Troublesome. This one is fine — the jolliest, nicest man! But he can’t keep from cursing every time he opens his mouth. But father won’t let him go and I have to put up with him.”

“An’ he cain’t keep from cussin’? Now I shore wonder. — Is this heah cook’s name Joe Cabel?”

“It is. Do you know Joe?” burst out Esther, amazed and somehow glad.

“I reckon — a little,” he said, with a smile that softened the piercing blue fire of his eyes. “Miss, will you be so kind as to ask Joe — to come heah.”

“Indeed I will!” replied Esther, cordially. “But come in now with me. Joe would surely fetch you in.”

“I’m sorry. — I cain’t make it. My legs are daid.”

“I will help you. Come, lean on me,” rejoined Esther, impulsively. “I’m strong as a horse, father says.”

He regarded her attentively, as if he had scarcely seen her before.

“You’re shore kind, miss. But — —”

“I’ll call Joe,” interrupted Esther, hastily. “Who shall I tell him you are?”

The stranger studied over that query a moment, as if it had awakened latent considerations. Presently he replied, “Tell him an old friend — Arizona Ames.”

“Arizona Ames?” echoed Esther, blankly.

“Yes, Arizona Ames, miss, I’m tolerable sorry to have to tell you,” he replied. And as Esther turned away she heard him go on to himself, “This heah West used to be big, but shore no more!”

She hurried to the house, and running round the long corner of the kitchen extension she called: “Joe! — Joe!”

Esther rushed into the clean light kitchen, which had taken on these desirable qualities only since Joe’s advent, but he was not there. She heard him whistling, however, in the store cabin, which was adjacent, and she ran to the door.

“Joe, don’t you hear me yelling?”

The cook was a little man, past middle age, with a cadaverous solemn face, huge nose, and eyes like the faithful brown ones of a dog. He wore a white cap with a black rim, and an apron.

“Wal, now, Miss Esther, what the hell you-all so flushed an’ rarin’ about?” he queried, with a smile that engulfed her.

“Joe, there’s a stranger just come — down the Troublesome,” said Esther, breathlessly. “He’s worn out — had to sit down. Oh, he must have had — an awful ride. Over the Flat Tops! — His horse, too, poor thing, is ready to drop. Come out, Joe. He says he knows you.”

“Wal, thet’s nothin’ much fer you to get such red cheeks about,” replied Joe, calmly. “There’s a hell of a lot of fellars know me. I’ve fed about a million.”

“But this man’s different. Come, Joe. Hurry!”

“Wal, now, Esther Halstead! When did I ever see you hurry on any man’s account? Different, is he?” queried the cook, as he sat there with his lap full of cans. He was not in the least curious about the visitor, that was most irritatingly evident to Esther.

“He’s weak. He can’t walk. You must help him in.”

“Miss Esther, is this galoot who’s upset you a young fellar?” demanded Joe.

“No, not very. — Joe, he’s an old friend of yours. Arizona Ames.”

“Who?”

“Arizona Ames. He’s a rider — a wonderful-looking — —”

“Arizona Ames!” Joe leaped up, scattering the cans with a metallic clatter all over the storeroom.

“Joe, do you know him?” asked Esther, eagerly.

“Know Arizona Ames? ——  ——  —— ! I’d have been bone dust long ago but for that ——  ——  ——  —— !”

Then he darted out, his apron flying, and sped round the cabin. Esther started to run, but presently reminded herself that it did not seem imperative for her to use indecorous haste. Nevertheless, her intense interest could not be thus checked. Presently she came upon Brown leading the visitor’s horse, and Joe half supporting him down the path. What struck Esther most vividly then was the expression on Joe Cabel’s face. It halted Esther. The ugliest man in the world had suddenly become beautiful. But his language! She was about to clap her hands over her ears when the cook changed to rationality.

“Miss Esther, I’ll take him to my cabin. An’ Brown’s leading his hoss to the barn.”

“All right, Joe. If you need anything, tell me. Perhaps I had better go with Brown to the barn.”

They passed on, with Ames leaning heavily upon Joe, who was roaring: “My Gawd! to think it’s really you, Arizona Ames! You long-legged, iron-jawed, fire-eatin’, cow-punchin’ ——  ——  ——  ——  —— ! What you need is a —— drink an’ I’ll have one with you, by the ——  ——  ——  —— ! Aw, the old cow camp in the Superstitions! Cactus, rattlesnakes, an’ whisky! Them was the days!”

Esther was relieved when the verbose cook had gone out of earshot. Then she followed, and when they cut off to go to Joe’s cabin she hurried on to join Brown. The lad would not relinquish the bridle to her, but at the barn he had perforce to turn the horse over to her. The teamster, Jed, would of course be absent, as he had driven her father to Yampa. But Smith, who looked after the farming on the ranch, might be available, and she sent her brother to call him.

Meanwhile she patted the horse and rubbed his nose and talked to him, discovering in the performance that he was neither shy nor mean. His eyes were tired.

Brown came running back: “Ess, that ——  ——  —— farmer ain’t anywhere!”

“If you dare to swear once more in my presence I — I’ll lick you!” burst out Esther, goaded to desperation.

“Aw, Ess, I don’t know when I swear — honest to Gawd.”

“Get some hay down. We’ll take care of Cappy. . . . He called him that. Anyone could see he loves the horse.”

Esther knew how to go about this sort of work because she often took care of her own horse. She led Cappy into a stall, gave him water sparingly, and likewise grain, and then she combed and brushed him, finding infinite satisfaction in the task. Finally she spread hay for a soft bed and barred him in.

“Come, Brown. You must change to dry clothes. And wash, too, you dirty boy.”

“Ess, you ain’t so orful clean yourself this minnit. Funny you rubbin’ down thet horse. Fred would have a fit. You’d see him in —— . Aw, you’d die before you’d do it for him.”

“Don’t you dare tell Fred,” warned Esther.

“All right, Ess, if you give me two bits. You owe it to me, anyhow, fer losing my hook an’ line. . . . Gee! I wish dad would get home today. He promised to fetch some.”

Upon their return to the ranch house, they discovered Ronald carrying a rabbit by the ears.

“Look what I ketched,” he cried, in glee, holding up his prize.

Ronald was dark and small, a quiet, solitary boy, easier than Brown to control, but as much of a responsibility because of his habit of staying away. Several half-grown, long-eared hounds hung at his heels. He and Brown fell into one of their endless arguments.

Esther entered the living-room, which was the newest and most comfortable of the many apartments of the divided ranch house. Her own room, which she shared with her sister Gertrude, opened from the living-room, and had been a small cabin in itself, into which two windows had been built. It had a rude fireplace, upon the yellow stones of which a trapper had once kept count of his beaver hides. Esther had played carpenter, mason, decorator, and what not in her never-ending efforts to make this room livable.

Gertrude, a dark, pretty child, growing like a weed, bent over the sewing she had been commissioned to do. Seldom, indeed, did Esther and her sister ever have any clothes save those they themselves made. They also manufactured garments for the boys. Gertrude hated to sew, and that was why she scornfully ignored Esther, who told about the strange visitor. So Esther, while removing dust and stains, communed with herself. Something very much out of the ordinary had happened, most unaccountably accelerating her pulse.

It was not because she did not want to, that she did not see Joe until dinner time. Then he presented quite a puzzle to Esther. Joe was nothing if not loquacious, and he had a reputation for story-telling. But he vouchsafed not a word about this stranger, Arizona Ames.

“How’s your friend, Joe?” she asked, finally.

“He’s dead to the world,” replied the cook. “I made him a hot toddy an’ almost before I could get his boots off he was asleep. I just peeped in on him. Like a stone! Reckon he’ll sleep all day an’ all night, an’ mebbe then some. Last thing he said was to ask about his hoss. Reckon you turned the hoss over to Smith.”

“No. We couldn’t find him. But I took care of Mr. Ames’ horse. Brown helped me.”

“Wal, why didn’t you wait an’ tell me,” protested Joe, perturbed. “Thet was imposin’ on you.”

“Not at all. I can take care of a horse, Joe. Goodness! don’t I do it often enough? . . . Who is this man, Joe?”

“Wal, you heard his name, didn’t you?” returned the cook, rather evasively, Esther thought. “He’s a range-rider.”

“Where is he from? Arizona?”

“They call him Arizona, but he’s from all over.”

“An old friend of yours?”

“Wal, I knowed him in New Mexico. We worked for the same cow outfit. Reckon thet’s five years ago, almost. Time sure flies.”

“You told me you’d have been bone dust but for Arizona Ames,” declared Esther, bluntly, vaguely disappointed in Joe.

“Wal, I sure was excited, Miss Esther,” returned Joe, coolly. “Mebbe I was makin’ too much of a little service Ames wouldn’t like remembered.”

Esther realized, to her disappointment, that Cabel was not going to tell her one of his fascinating stories, in which this rider Ames was to figure largely. A subtle change, which Esther felt rather than saw, had come over Joe. She had not known him like this. Esther took one intuitive glance at his impassive face and then went on with her dinner, without asking another question. But his reticence had only augmented her curiosity. The children, squabbling over the rabbit, which the cook had served for dinner, bothered Esther so that she could not think connectedly.

But afterward when she was alone she returned to the subject and went over the few details singly and ponderingly.

She did not need to be told that this Arizona Ames was somebody out of the ordinary. She had seen him, heard him. Recalling Joe’s indifference to a visitor, even though in need of assistance, and then the remarkable change a mere name could produce, Esther reasoned that she had been perfectly justified in conceiving some extraordinary past relation between the cook and this rider. What a light had illumined Joe’s face! Then his rushing out, and his loud wild talk as he helped Ames toward the cabin! Superstitions! That must have been a name for mountains of which Esther had vaguely heard. Cactus, rattlesnakes, and whisky! Them was the days! . . . Esther made a reservation that probably these remembered days had not been very respectable. Lastly, all of a sudden, Joe had intrenched himself behind a reserve that he had endeavored to make casual. But Esther was not deceived.

Joe Cabel had been a source of comfort and help, and Esther’s regard for him had steadily grown since his arrival at Troublesome. Thinking of that, she recalled with surprise how his coming had not been greatly dissimilar to that of this Arizona Ames. No one at Troublesome had ever heard of Joe Cabel. And after two years no one knew any more about him than he had chosen to tell, which, despite his innumerable yarns of adventure and humor, was next to nothing. But he had been a tower of strength for Esther to lean upon. She dated the beginning of her reconciliation to Troublesome to this man’s coming. It was astonishing to realize. What had he not done for her? Halstead, her father, was always away, either out on the range to return dead tired, or on a trip to Yampa or Craig or Denver. Fred had gradually drifted to the shiftless ways of the backwoods men, if not worse. The several riders Halstead employed on and off had been eager, willing, capable, in many ways, but Esther had soon learned she dare not be alone with any one of them. It was Joe Cabel who had taken the cooking burden off her hands, and who had made easy or bearable the thousand and one other duties. Particularly when accidents happened to the children, and when they fell ill, more or less regular occurrences, Cabel had saved Esther from going frantic.

“How silly of me — to be hurt — or angry with Joe!” she mused. “I don’t believe I ever appreciated him until — this — this Arizona Ames dropped out of the sky. . . . What’s the matter with me, anyhow?”

CHAPTER XIV

THE BOYS, RONALD and Brown, slept in a loft, to which they had access by way of a ladder on the back porch. This airy chamber was isolated from the rest of the house, but it looked down upon the right-hand window of Esther’s room. The last thing the boys did was to call to Esther, who always left her window open at night. Ronald and Brown were wonderfully brave in the daylight, but when darkness came their courage oozed somewhat. The Halsteads, like all mountain folk, went to bed early. But on this night the two boys were later than usual.

While Esther sat trying to read, aware that the air had a decided touch of fall, she heard a noise outside. Perhaps the stranger, Ames, had made her nervous. At any rate, she could not get her mind off him.

She peeped out of the window, to do which she had to stand on tiptoe. The night was starry, but there was gloom under the roof of the back porch. She heard a rustling sound. In that wild country it was nothing for foxes, skunks, coyotes, bears, and lions to visit the ranch at night. Usually the dogs gave the alarm.

“Aw, it’s a —— ole skunk!” burst out a voice unmistakably Brown’s.

“ ——  ——  ——  —— !” was Ronald’s reply.

Esther, as always, instinctively clapped her hands to her ears. Then she removed them. Presently, as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she made out one of the boys halfway up the ladder. Evidently the other was already in the loft.

“Cummon down an’ help me chase the ——  ——  ——  —— ,” said Brown.

“Ha! Like the old lady who keeps tavern out West I will,” replied Ronald.

“‘Fraid cat!”

“ ——  ——  —— !”

“Tomorrer I’ll lick you fer thet, you ——  ——  ——  —— !”

“You can sleep down there, you ——  ——  ——  —— .”

“I’m a-comin’ up — soon as I pulverize this —— animal.”

Brown dropped down to the porch and disappeared. Esther heard him calling names and throwing rocks. Suddenly he let out a half-suppressed yell and came bounding back to the ladder.

“Ronnie, she’s a-chasin’ me! Lemme up!”

“By gum! I can’t see her but I can smell her,” declared Ronald.

“If I only had a gun! The ——  ——  ——  —— !”

Esther had a forced knowledge of profanity, owing to close contact with her father and Fred, and especially Joe Cabel, and she knew that the language the boys were using had no significance whatever to them. But she could not stand any more.

“Boys, stop cursing this minute,” she burst out, in a terrible voice.

A silence ensued. The boys were as quiet as mice.

“Oh, I saw you and heard you,” continued Esther.

“Ess, you better pull your nose in thet winder if you don’t want it all skunked up,” advised Brown, while Ronald tittered gleefully.

Esther availed herself somewhat hastily of this advice. Past experience had educated her.

“Where have you boys been so late?” she demanded.

“Where’d you s’pose?”

“Course we been in bed, Ess.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Aw, we ain’t lyin’. The ole skunk woke us up.”

“Boys, I shall tell father,” warned Esther, reverting to the last resource. This threat invariably moved the boys.

“Aw, Ess, please don’t,” begged Brown.

“It wasn’t me, Esther. It was Brown,” said Ronald.

“Don’t blame things on each other. Tell me,” added Esther, more forcibly, knowing now that something unusual indeed was afoot.

“You won’t give us away?”

“Cross your heart you won’t tell, Ess?”

“I’ll make no promises till I know. You rascals. What have you been up to?”

“We been stealin’ grub fer Fred.”

“Fred! — Stealing grub! — What for? And where’s Fred?”

“Ess, it wasn’t fer Fred. Two men fetched Fred home. An’ they made us steal some grub.”

“Where are they?”

“Down at the barn.”

“Fred was drunk?”

“I don’t know, Ess. It was ‘most dark. Fred didn’t say nothin’. He just fell down on the hay. Then the two fellars made us slip into the kitchen.”

“Well, go to bed now. I promise not to tell on you,” replied Esther. She partly closed the window, barring it on the inside, and extinguished the lamp. Not until she was snug under the blankets beside Gertrude did she feel at ease, and then she had no great liking for the fact that there were unknown men down at the barn with Fred.

This was the second time that had happened. If their father should discover it! Fred was becoming a serious problem. Esther had lost patience with him and now began to suffer apprehensions. She had refused to give credence to various rumors about the company Fred kept. Evidently these would have to be faced, as well as other matters that seemed working to a climax for the Halsteads. When Esther at last dropped off to sleep her pillow was wet with tears.

* * * * *

Esther awoke with a feeling new to her and one pretty disheartening. She was sorry another day had dawned. How ridiculous and little of her! But she could not deny it. And she lay there a long while, thinking.

She heard the boys talking and snickering, and then their noisy descent of the ladder. Gertrude crawled over her, got out of bed and dressed, making fun of her laziness. Still she lay there, reluctant to get up and meet the unknown that seemed to portend catastrophe this day.

It drove her presently, and she arose conscious that her fighting spirit was not in the ascendant. It struck Esther suddenly, while dressing, that she was paying some attention to her appearance. She knew she was pretty and on occasion she took pride in her rippling brown hair with its streaks of chestnut, her large brown eyes and red lips. But what occasion was this? She gravely contemplated herself in the mirror. She was pleased with the image she saw, but displeased that her hair did not suit her this morning, nor the bit of red ribbon, nor the blouse, that was certainly not an everyday one. Esther was nothing if not honest. Each time a young man, stranger or otherwise, happened to drop in at Troublesome the event had affected her singularly. What was that eager, haunting light in her eyes? She was looking, hoping, hunting for something. Still, it had never been quite so pronounced as this time, and when she realized it an angry blush suffused her cheeks.

She arrived late at breakfast. The children had eaten and gone. To her surprise Fred was there, and he greeted her with more than his usual warmth. Esther’s heart governed her head now as always. Fred had shaved himself that morning and he wore a new shirt and tie. His tanned face appeared a little thin and strained. Fred’s good looks had always militated against his demerits.

Joe came in with Esther’s breakfast.

“Mornin’, Miss Esther. You’re a lady of leisure, I see, an’ like Fred here, all shiny an’ pretty,” he said.

“Good morning, Joe,” replied Esther, shortly, and began to eat, wondering at Joe’s tone and what Fred was going to say.

“Joe tells me a stranger rode in yesterday,” began Fred, when the cook had gone out. “Some fellow he used to work with. Arizona somethin’ or other.”

“Yes. Arizona Ames.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. Ask Joe?”

“Sure I did. But he’s grumpy. Hasn’t cussed once this mornin’. . . . What’s this Ames like?”

“He’s a rider — no longer a boy. He could hardly walk. And he was so — so travel worn, so grimy and bearded, that I couldn’t tell what he might look like.”

“Queer. Don’t like it. I was tellin’ Joe that he’d better have this rider go on ridin’.”

“Why, Fred!” retorted Esther, indignantly. “Have you no more sense of hospitality than that? The man was crippled. And he looked starved.”

“Sure. You’d take any rider in,” returned Fred, with sarcasm. “But I don’t know this Arizona Ames.”

“You haven’t much to say about what goes on at Halstead ranch,” said Esther, likewise sarcastically. And when the cook came in at that juncture she addressed him. “Joe, please do not allow Fred’s attitude toward strangers to influence you. Please treat Mr. Ames the same as if this was your house.”

“Thanks, Miss Esther. It’d sure gone against the grain to have hurt the feelin’s of my friend,” replied Cabel, simply. But the glance he gave Fred furnished Esther more food for reflection.

Evidently Fred struggled against feelings of which he was ashamed. For one thing, he certainly bit his lip to hold in a quick retort.

“Fred, where are the riders who fetched you home?” asked Esther.

“Who told you?” he demanded.

“Never mind. I know.”

“I’ll skin those kids alive.”

“If you lay a hand on them I’ll give you away to father. They fetched you home drunk. . . . This is the second time!”

“Aw, hell!” ejaculated her brother, hotly, as he arose with the manner of one who saw the uselessness of subterfuge. “Come outside where that owl-eyed cook can’t hear.” And he stalked out, leaving Esther convinced that one of her premonitions had been correct.

Esther called after her brother that he could wait until she finished her breakfast, which she certainly did not hurry. Meanwhile Joe returned, this time with the old fond smile for her, and anxious solicitude added, “Miss Esther, I sure never was a squealer, but I reckon I’ve got to tell you somethin’ or bust.”

“Joe, maybe I can spare you. Listen,” replied Esther, hurriedly. “Fred came home drunk last night. Two men fetched him back. He couldn’t walk. Is that what you mean?”

“Wal, no. Thet ain’t so bad. It’s who them fellars was,” returned Joe, seriously. “I was down the trail and seen them ride in. Didn’t come by the road. They were holdin’ Fred on his hoss. I ducked into the brush an’ let them pass.”

“Well, who were they?” queried Esther, sharply, as he halted, loth to continue.

“One was Barsh Hensler. I’ve seen the other fellar in Yampa, but don’t know his name.”

“Barsh Hensler! Why, Joe, hasn’t his name been connected with those cattle-thieves whom father hates so?”

“Sure has. Hensler lives in Yampa. He’s got a bad name, an’ it’s hinted he belongs to Clive Bannard’s outfit.”

“And Fred is associating with them — or at least some of them? — How dreadful!”

“Wal, don’t be upset, Miss Esther,” went on Cabel, calmly. “Fred ain’t bad at heart. He’s easy-goin’ an’ when he drinks his brain gets addled. He sure can’t stand liquor. Wal, he likes to play cards an’ strut around Bosomer’s saloon in Yampa. Naturally he falls in bad company. I’m afraid your dad hasn’t handled him proper. Anyway, I reckon it’s through this thet Barsh Hensler has got hold of Fred.”

“Oh, Joe, what shall we do?” asked Esther, almost in distress.

“Wal, I’ll talk it over with Ames. Queer thet he should drop in on Troublesome jest now,” replied Cabel, his deep, cavernous eyes gleaming.

“I don’t know that I like the idea of your talking it over with a stranger. . . . But why does it seem queer to you — that Mr. Ames should drop in on Troublesome just now?”

“Things are comin’ to a sad pass here, Miss Esther,” said Joe. “An’ it’s queer because Arizona Ames is the man to straighten them out.”

“Oh, indeed! Why is he — particularly?” queried Esther, her curiosity augmenting.

“Wal, no use to tell you unless I can get him to stay. An’ I’m afraid thet jest ain’t possible.”

“Why impossible? — Perhaps father might give this — this rider a job,” rejoined Esther, and marveled at the thrill the thought gave her.

“You bet he would — if I tell him who Ames is. I’ll do it, too, if Ames will let me.”

“Joe, you excite me! — Tell father anyhow, without asking Mr. Ames.”

“Wal, thet’s not a bad idee,” said Cabel, pleased with Esther. “But it’s jest a hundred to one Ames will ride away soon as he is fit to travel.”

“What would be his hurry?” asked Esther, resentfully. “Are we such — terrible people?”

“Wal, if you must know, the only thing Arizona Ames ever run from was a pretty girl.”

“Joe! — Meaning I’m the pretty girl?” exclaimed Esther, with a merry laugh. Nevertheless her cheeks grew hot.

“I sure do.”

“But I am not so pretty,” retorted Esther.

“Lord! girl, you sure are, all the time an’ any time. An’ when you’re dressed up in white, like thet night here once, my —— ! Beg pardon, I’m forgettin’ my tongue.”

“Yes, Joe, you are, rather,” she rejoined, demurely. “So this wonderful Arizona Ames is likely to run away from me? What’s the matter with him, Joe? Is he a woman-hater?”

“No, I reckon Arizona wouldn’t hate anyone, much less a nice girl.”

“He didn’t strike me as a bashful rider. How old is he, Joe?”

“Ames? Wal, I don’t know. But he’s young, compared to me.”

“I saw his hair was silver, over his temples. He looked old, Joe.”

“Wal, he’s sure old in the life of the ranges, Miss Esther. But Arizona can’t be much over thirty, if he’s thet.”

“Oh, come now, Joe. Be reasonable.”

“I’m tellin’ you straight, Miss Esther,” replied Joe. “An’ I’m talkin’ too much.”

“Joe! — See here. You’re not going to run from me like that,” cried Esther, seizing Joe’s sleeve as he started to leave. She rose from the table. “Please don’t go. . . . Joe, you’ve been my very good friend. I’d never have stood it all but for your help and kindness.”

“Is thet so, Miss Esther?” he queried, amazed and delighted.

“It is, indeed. I’ve never realized how much I appreciate you, until lately.”

“Wal, now, I reckon no one could make me no happier than tellin’ me thet.”

“Then don’t freeze up again, like you did last night and just now. No matter what the reason is! Shake hands on it, Joe. I’ve a hunch I’m going to need you more than ever.”

Joe was so overcome that even his profane tongue failed him, but he squeezed Esther’s hand so hard it was numb. She smiled ruefully, holding it up, then she ran out to find Fred.

He was waiting, his brow like a thundercloud.

“‘Pears to me you talk a lot to that cook,” he growled.

“Yes, I do. He’s more of a big brother than you are, Fred Halstead.”

That made him wince, and then flush. “Sister, you sure have a knife-edge tongue.”

“Fred, I’m in no mood for you, if you’re in a temper. I’m too disgusted.”

“The kids told you about me bein’ fetched home drunk?” he queried.

“Yes. But they didn’t know you were drunk.”

“Well, the fact is, I wasn’t. But I had been an’ I was tuckered out. — Esther, I’ve got to have some money.”

Esther laughed at him. “You don’t say.”

“Have you got any? I mean of your own.”

“Yes, a little, and I’m going to keep it, Fred Halstead. You’ll never get another dollar from me to drink and gamble with.”

“I need this to pay a debt. I owe money, Esther, an’ I’ve got to pay it.”

“To those men who fetched you here last night?”

“Yes, to one of them.”

“What’s his name?”

“Never mind who he is. But he’s waitin’ out there.”

“You’re ashamed to tell me, Fred Halstead.”

“What’s the difference to you?” he demanded, dragging a shaking hand through his hair.

“Will you trust me with his name?”

“No, I won’t. You’d tell dad.”

“Fred, if you ever had a chance to get the money, it’s gone now. How many times have I helped you and kept your secrets. You’re ungrateful. . . . But you needn’t confess. I don’t blame you for being ashamed. I know whom you’ve lost money to.”

“Shut up, then, if you do,” he flashed.

“Barsh Hen — !” Suddenly Fred clapped a hand over Esther’s mouth and dragged her into the living-room. Amazed and furious, Esther freed herself.

“How dare you, Fred Halstead!” she cried, hotly.

“There was a man — right behind you,” panted her brother.

“What! Right behind me?” ejaculated Esther.

“Yes, a stranger, a tall fellow with eyes like daggers. I didn’t see him. He must have come up close — or he’d been there all the time. He heard you, Esther. I know it. I could tell by his look. Damn the luck! I told you to shut up.”

“It serves you right,” replied Esther, thoughtfully.

“He must have been that stranger Joe took in,” fumed Fred. “What was his name? Ames somethin’?”

“I didn’t see him,” replied Esther, coolly. “Go out and satisfy yourself.”

“But, Esther, you’ll give me the money?” he implored.

“How much?” she asked.

“Three hundred dollars.”

“Good heavens! . . . I wouldn’t if I had it,” replied Esther, and retreating into her room she closed the door. There she sat down on her bed in a brown study, which was as much of an effort to analyze her own feelings as to forget Fred and his troubles. After a while she returned to the living-room to find Gertrude there alone.

“Gertie, did you see Fred?”

“Yes, a little while ago. He was sittin’ out there with his head in his hands. I asked him if he was still in love with Biny Wood. He roared at me an’ stamped off.”

“Good for you! I didn’t think of that,” replied Esther, unable to resist a giggle. “Sis, did you see anyone else?”

“Ahuh. A tall fellow in cowboy boots. He’s gone down to the creek with Brown. Joe went down, too, right after.”

“He has,” cried Esther, eagerly, and she ran to look out of the window. From there only a bit of the creek was visible, so she went out on the porch. She caught no glimpse of the stranger, but as she turned to look down the lane she was amazed and delighted to see her father’s familiar stalwart figure striding up. She ran to meet him, but at closer sight of his face her delight changed to concern. Once only had she ever seen his fine dark face and eyes betray such trouble, and that time had been at her mother’s death.

“Father! Back in the morning? Oh, I’m glad!” she cried.

“Hello, daughter!” he replied, heartily kissing her, and relinquished to her one of the armloads of packages he was carrying. “For you and the kids. . . . Well, bless you! It’s good to see you, anyway.”

His emphasis on the pronoun did not fail to arrest Esther, who mutely followed him in. Fred had been her father’s favorite, and this could mean nothing but that Fred had hurt him again and no doubt gravely.

“Hello, Gertie!” Halstead greeted his younger daughter, as he spilled his other armload and took Gertrude in its place. He gave her a great hug, lifting her from the floor, stifling her gleeful cries and queries. “Yes, I fetched the candy. Esther has it. . . . Where are the boys?”

“I think down at the creek,” replied Esther. “Shall I go call them?”

“No hurry. My, what rosy cheeks you have! Well, I hate to chase them away.”

“Father, you’ve bad news?”

“What’d you expect?” he queried, with mock jocularity. “We live on Troublesome, don’t we? . . . Never mind, Esther. We’ll lick it yet.”

“But tell me, Father,” said Esther, earnestly. “Surely I’m old enough now to hear all your troubles and share them.”

“Well! Listen to my nineteen-year-old!” he returned, gayly. “Put these parcels away. They’re marked, Gertie. Hide your own and don’t dig into the boys’. I declare, I bought all the fishing hooks and lines in Yampa. — Tell Joe the wagon is full of supplies. Jed will help him up with them. Have the cowboys been in?”

“No. Not since you left.”

“Well, that’s one comfort. Did Fred come home?”

“Yes, last night.”

“Was he drunk?” asked the father, bitterly.

“He said he — had been,” replied Esther, reluctantly. Then she added, loyally, “He was all right this morning.”

Without more comment her father opened the door of his room, which was to the left of the fireplace, and went in. Esther assorted the numerous parcels, some of which she opened, and carried their precious contents to her room. Her father never had been close, but when had he ever, since they had lived in the West, bought so generously? It worried Esther. She carried other parcels to the kitchen, where she encountered the teamster, Jed, packing in supplies.

“Whar’s thet air cook?” queried Jed.

“He went off up the creek with the boys. Get Smith to help you, Jed.”

“Don’t need none, miss. I was just wantin’ to give Joe his terbaccer. I’m leavin’ it hyar, with you as my witness.”

“I’ll guarantee its delivery, Jed,” replied Esther, laughing. “How were things in Yampa?”

“Not slow fer onct,” said Jed, with a guffaw. “Too swift fer this gennelman.”

“Swift. You mean fights?”

“A couple, fair to middlin’. But I was meanin’ the play at Bosomer’s. I like to have a little fly. But I didn’t set in nothin’. Clive Bannard an’ his gang was in town, flush with money.”

“Lucky for you then, Jed,” replied Esther. She went back to her room, and assiduously applied herself to sewing that had waited for necessities from Yampa. But her mind was as active as her fingers, and she had a sensitive ear for what went on in the living-room. She heard Gertrude say to the boys: “Here’s your candy. An’, Ronnie, dad’s got a little gun for you when you stop swearin’.”

“Aw, hell! thet’s wuss than no gun atall!” wailed Ronnie.

“An’, Brown, here’s a grand lot of trash.”

“Trash! Wot is it?”

“It says, ‘Brown’s fishin’ hooks an’ lines.’”

“Trash! ——  ——  —— ! Whoopee! Gimme thet, woman! . . . Cummon, Ronnie, grab your oufit an’ let’s go show Arizonie.”

“But, Brown, wot’s candy? I got my gun, only I ain’t got it. An’ there you are with a million dollars’ wuth of fishin’ stuff.”

“Cummon. You’re showin’ a streak of yaller. Arizonie will get thet gun fer you. Can’t you tell? He’ll get it. I hope to die if he doesn’t.”

They ran out to the shrill laughter of the little sister, who then communed with herself, “Gee! this Arizonie must be a fairy!”

Esther whispered to herself: “Gee! Arizonie? — Well, I declare!” And there followed a slow swelling beat of her heart. He might be the rider she had dreamed of. But, no, he was too old. — And that vague hint of Joe’s! Yet the fascination grew. It was revealed to Esther that she had been fascinated by every rider of the last few years — for a few dreamy moments, before she saw them. She had seen Arizona Ames, a weary, bent, ashen-faced man of uncertain age, yet the illusion still persisted. She must go out presently to meet him, and have it dispelled.

Other things happened that long morning. Esther heard Halstead’s riders go by, following which a long colloquy took place in her father’s office. She heard their voices, sometimes loud and again low, but the words never distinguishable. She did not need to catch the content, however, for her father’s tones were fraught with trouble. Esther sighed. Did not they live on the Troublesome? At the moment she almost hated it. But never long could she feel resentment for the rushing stream and the colorful hills.

At length Gertrude ran in to tell her they had rung the dinner bell twice. Then Esther hastily put her work upon the bed, and tarried a moment before the mirror, at once abandoning whatever vain impulse had actuated her. When she went out through the living-room and down the porch toward the dining-room she had a flitting wild idea that she was walking to her doom. But she strolled in, cool, casual, humming a tune. Only the family sat at the table, and there was a sudden drop of her unaccountable sense of buoyancy and expectation.

“Where is Mr. Ames?” asked Esther, seating herself as Joe entered.

“Wal, Miss Esther, he excused himself this time, sayin’ he’d wait for me an’ the riders,” replied Cabel, and he gave Esther a deliberate knowing wink. A hot tingle shot up into Esther’s cheeks. What did the fool mean?

“Father, have you met Mr. Ames?” she inquired, presently.

“No, daughter. I had a set-to with your brother. After that Stevens and Mecklin.”

“Cheer up, Daddy,” replied Esther, incomprehensibly gay all of a sudden. Seldom, indeed, did she ever revert to the more childish epithet. “If things have to get worse to turn better, maybe this is the day.”

“Well!” ejaculated Halstead, giving her a surprised and grateful look.

Presently he finished his dinner, and rising called to Joe, “Fetch your friend in to see me when you’re through.”

During the meal, at least while Esther had sat with them, Fred had not spoken a word or lifted his eyes from his plate, even though the excited boys had plied him to give attention to their gifts. Finally Esther was left alone with Fred and she took advantage of the opportunity to ask, “What’s up between you and father?”

“Same old thing,” he replied, gloomily.

“No, it isn’t. You can’t fool me. Does he know about your debt to — —”

Fred made a warning sign toward the open door of the kitchen. Then he got up and slouched out. Esther followed.

“If dad does know, he never let on. But he sure gave me a rakin’ over the coals,” continued her brother.

“Did you see this Barsh Hensler this morning?” asked Esther.

“Yes. Down the creek trail. He raised hell with me. Threatened to. . . . Well, never mind that.”

“It’s a gambling debt?”

“Sure. What else? And the worst of it is he’s a crooked gambler. I knew it. But when I get a few drinks, I think I’m the slickest fellow in the world.”

“Fred, you show a faint glimmering of intelligence,” replied Esther, dryly.

“I know what you think of me, Esther,” he rejoined, thickly, and left her.

Somehow from that Esther extracted a grain of comfort, if not actual hope. Fred had not grown wholly callous. He might be reclaimed, but she had not the slightest idea how to go about it.

Esther went to her room, and quite without intent left the door slightly open. Presently she heard her father and Fred come in.

“But, Dad, it was rotten of you to — to rake me before the cowboys, and especially that stranger, Ames,” Fred was expostulating, poignantly.

“What do I care for them?” rejoined Halstead, coldly. “You don’t care for my feelings, let alone other and more important things.”

“My word! I never had a man look through me like he did. I felt like — like a toad.”

“No wonder. You’ve quite a little reason,” said his father, with sarcasm.

“Dad, will you let me stay while you’re having this talk?” queried Fred.

“It wouldn’t interest you.”

“But I heard Joe tell that man Ames you were facing ruin.”

“That’s why it wouldn’t interest you. There won’t be any cards or drinks or saloon gossip or shady stories.”

“Dad!” cried Fred, miserably.

“Get out.”

“But I — I might be of some — use. I — I know — I’ve heard things — —”

“Fred, it’s too late for you to help me. Please oblige me by leaving me to talk over my misfortunes with men.”

Fred’s dragging steps from the living-room were eloquent testimony of the state of his mind. Esther’s heart ached for him. There seemed some little extenuating circumstance in Fred’s favor. He had been brought young and raw into this wild country, and had not been able to resist its bad elements.

While Esther was cogitating over the perplexing questions, Joe came hurriedly into the living-room.

“Boss, I just run in ahead of time to ask you somethin’,” he said.

“Fire away, Joe,” returned Halstead.

“I sure don’t want to make any mistakes in a delicate family matter like this,” went on Cabel, earnestly. “The thing is now — do you trust me well enough to want me in on it?”

“Why, yes, I do, Joe. You’ve been a help. If I’d listened to you — —”

He did not conclude the sentence.

“Much obliged, boss. Wal, then, if you trust me you’ll take my word for Arizona Ames.”

“I would take your word for him or anyone.”

“Fine. Then I’ll fetch Ames in. That’s what I wanted to ask. I’m sure relieved an’ glad. For Ames is goin’ to hurt. He’ll cut right to the roots of this sore spot at Troublesome.”

“Well! Who is this Arizona Ames, Joe?” queried Halstead, gruffly.

“Sure it’d take too long to tell. But he’s the damndest fellow I ever knew on the ranges. An’ thet’s sayin’ a great deal, boss.”

“What do you mean? Damndest fellow — that’s no recommendation,” returned Halstead, irritably.

“Halstead, if you was a born Westerner or had lived long enough out here you’d know what I mean. But, to put it blunt — if you can get Ames to stay here your troubles will be over pronto.”

“Impossible! How could any one man do that?”

“I’m tellin’ you. I know.”

“But, Joe, I’m poor, almost ruined. Even if there were such a man, I couldn’t pay him.”

“Hell! Who’s talkin’ about pay?” retorted Cabel, in a tone Esther had never heard. “I reckon Ames wouldn’t even take a rider’s wages from you, at least now.”

“Joe, you’ve made me see many times how little I know about the West and Western men. I certainly can’t — what do you call it? — savvy? — savvy such a man as Ames. I don’t savvy you, either.”

“Listen. You don’t need to, this minute. Take my word for Ames. He’s clean an’ fine as gold. He’s ridden the ranges now for thirteen or fourteen years, an’ he’s forgotten more about cattle than these Colorado two-bit ranchers ever knew. Years ago he was one of the greatest cowboys thet I ever seen fork a hoss. But his qualifications to straighten your troubles are more than these. You are bein’ robbed by low-down cattle-thieves who wouldn’t dare show their tracks on a real range. An’ my friend Arizona Ames is sure the man to fix them hombres.”

“Why is he? What’ll he do?” asked Halstead, sharply.

“Boss, if you tell Ames what you’re up against here on the Troublesome he’ll stay. An’, my Gawd! I wish I could convince you what thet’ll mean. Why, it’s no less than an act of Providence thet he got lost up on the Flat Tops an’, wanderin’ round, struck the Troublesome an’ ended up here. — He loves kids an’ has taken a shine to Ronnie an’ Brown already. I’m bound to admit, though, thet Miss Esther is a stumblin’-block — in fact, the only one. Ames is a shy, queer man where women are concerned. An’ if there ever was a prettier an’ sweeter girl than Miss Esther I never seen her. But, boss, if you make your story strong enough, sayin’ your son has gone to the bad, an’ thet you’re afraid you might get shot an’ leave Miss Esther alone to fight this Troublesome hell — why, I reckon Ames just won’t be able to ride away.”

“Joe, you’re not so shy, but you’re a queer man yourself,” remarked Halstead, with a laugh. “But I like your talk — your interest in me and my family. I’ll take your advice this time. My story will be strong enough. I don’t need to enlarge on the truth, as you’ll see.”

“Good! Then Ames will stay. Then, boss, if Clive Bannard an’ thet Barsh Hensler steal as much as an unbranded calf — wal, it’ll be all day with them.”

“It will. And how?”

“Ames will kill them. He sure is bad medicine. But I don’t want you to get a wrong impression of my friend. Any day you might meet a traveler in Yampa or a line-ridin’ cowpuncher who’d tell you Arizona Ames is one of these notorious gun-men. It’s not true. He’s a little handy with a gun — I reckon, an’ he’s killed a half dozen fellars thet I know of. But don’t get any wrong idee of him.”

“Cabel, you astonish me!” ejaculated Halstead.

“Wal, I’ve only begun, then. Now listen. This mornin’ Ames went down the creek with the kids. An’ while they fished he walked around a bit to stretch his sore legs. He seen two riders on the trail, an’ your son Fred meet them. Wal, things don’t strike Ames queer unless they are queer. Fred sure didn’t want anyone to see him with these riders. An’ for thet reason Ames slipped up close to get a peek at them. An’ he described them to me. . . . Boss, one of them was Barsh Hensler.”

“I guessed it before you told me. Go on,” replied Halstead, harshly.

“Wal, thet’s all of thet. But I reckon Ames had some kind of a hunch about Fred. Anyway, I seen him lookin’ the boy over most damn sharp. Next, when your riders, Stevens an’ Mecklin, came in the kitchen Ames was there with me. They’re eatin’ dinner now, but this was earlier, I reckon, just after they’d had the row with you. They were excited, an’ sure they talked. I never had any use for Mecklin. He couldn’t look you in the eye. An’ I’ll gamble now there was reason for it. Wal, to them Ames was only another rider goin’ through an’ one who’d talk, to you perhaps, an’ sure in town, an’ they had some things they wanted spread. After they’d gone Ames said: ‘Joe, this cowboy, Mecklin, is crooked. Didn’t you know it?’ An’ I said I’d just about come to thet conclusion.”

“Mecklin! Is it possible? Yet he was always evasive — never satisfactory. . . . And what about Stevens?”

“Wal, he’s a harder proposition. Ames thought he was either deep or honest. . . . Now, boss, I’ll run back, an’ fetch them all over soon. Reckon for the present it’d be better for you to keep mum about what I’ve told you.”

“All right, Joe. Mum’s the word. But hurry back.”

Cabel hurried out, and Halstead, after a moment, stamped into his room. Esther closed her door and lay down on her bed in a tumult. It took stern effort of will to subdue her emotion so that she could think instead of feel, and then at intervals she lapsed back again. Her interest in this Arizona Ames had been rudely shocked into something she could not define. But her sentimentality, or whatever it had been, most surely had received a violent reverse. He had killed men. Esther shuddered. Had she ever before come in contact with any man who had shed blood? If so she had not been cognizant of it. Another of the vague little dreams dispelled! Regret mingled with relief. Her pondering fell solely upon the problem that concerned Fred and her father’s dubious circumstances. But when Joe’s strange and eloquent championing of this Arizona Ames returned to mind Esther grew bewildered. Yet this time a strong vibrating thrill, rather than shudder, coursed through her. Was Joe drunk or over-excited or dishonest? Esther scouted each disloyal thought. She was discovering Joe. She believed his assertions, preposterous as they seemed.

“If this Arizona Ames stays, father’s troubles will be over,” whispered Esther to herself, as if that would aid conviction. She divined then that these troubles were not insurmountable to such men as Cabel and Ames. But they were Western. They knew how to deal with the hard knots of the range. Still, on reflection, it seemed no less marvelous, and dreadful, too, when she recalled Joe’s terse explanation. Obviously, then, the wise course was to keep Ames at Troublesome, at any cost.

Esther found herself dealing with a possible side of the situation. Suppose this remarkable Ames, who was shy of women, did not think favorably of her father’s proposition? That would be where she must come in. If Mr. Ames was afraid of a pretty girl, it might be because he feared he would fall in love with her. Very well! It would be a shame to sacrifice so wonderful a man on the altar of exigency. But would he sacrifice himself? She realized in the stark honesty of her heart that she was a firebrand ready for the spark. Pretty soon she knew she would fall in love with a clod, a dolt, anybody; and she ought to thank the Providence that Joe had spoken of, for dropping this range-riding Nemesis down into Troublesome Valley.

Esther’s slumbering spirit roused into passion, and when she slipped off the bed to look at herself in the mirror she saw a woman with inscrutably dark and eloquent eyes.

“If dad fails, I’ll make him stay!” she whisperingly promised the image she faced. “Then, oh dear! my troubles will begin.”

She bathed her hot cheeks and brushed and rearranged her hair. Then she put on her most attractive dress, waiving the fact that it was not altogether suitable for afternoon wear.

CHAPTER XV

IT WAS JUST as well, Esther thought, that she had not a moment for reflection. She had scarcely satisfied herself as to her appearance, when she heard the men enter the living-room.

Her father was greeting them when Esther opened her door and stepped in. He halted in the midst of a word.

“Wal, now, Miss Esther!” exclaimed Joe, suddenly beaming upon her.

“Howdy, Joe!” replied Esther, coming forward with a smile. “Don’t introduce your friend. We’ve already met.”

Then she looked up as she extended her hand to Ames.

“How do you do, Mr. Ames?” she said, cordially, wholly at ease on the surface. “I don’t recognize you, but I’m sure you’re Mr. Arizona Ames.”

Indeed she did not recognize in this man the gray, dust-caked, and bearded rider of yesterday. His grip was firm and strong. She saw and felt the compelling power of singularly blue eyes, that only her late mounting spirit would have enabled her to meet.

“Shore glad to meet you proper, Miss Halstead,” he drawled in the cool, lazy accents of the Southerner. “An’ if it’s a compliment you’re payin’ me, I am returnin’ it.”

Shy! Whatever had Joe Cabel been dreaming of? This man seemed the serenest, the most unconscious of self of anyone Esther had ever met. Still, Joe had said that it was pretty women of whom Mr. Ames stood in awe and fear. Evidently he had not found her listed in this category.

“I must thank you, Mr. Ames, for I think I meant to be complimentary,” continued Esther, with a smile. Then she went up to her father, who stood with an air of pride mixed with surprise and perplexity.

“Daughter, you look awful good, but this isn’t a party,” he said.

“I would go to a council of war just the same,” she replied, enigmatically, and then she kissed him. “Father, from now on, when the little game of trouble comes up at Troublesome, I’m going to sit in.”

“I savvy. Joe has been talking to you,” said her father, resignedly.

“Joe has answered a few questions. Don’t blame him. I’d soon have arrived at this decision without any help.”

“You remind me of your mother,” he rejoined. “You’re grown up, Esther. . . . Well, well! — Joe, are those cowboys coming?”

“No. I sure insisted. But Mecklin wasn’t keen about comin’. Said he’d made his report an’ couldn’t say no more an’ no less. Stevens looked worried, but he stuck with him.”

“Let’s go in my room,” said Halstead, and still holding Esther’s hand he led the way into a large apartment that had been the interior of a whole cabin. It was plain, rude, yet livable. The chinks between the logs had been newly plastered up with clay; a smoldering fire burned on the wide yellow hearth.

“Have a seat, Ames,” he went on. “And you, too, Joe, though I don’t recollect ever seeing you sit down.” He slid an old armchair round for Esther. “This was your grandmother’s, as you know. It’s about all I have left of the old home. She was a shrewd business woman and I never saw the trouble that phased her. So it’s most appropriate, daughter, that you have her chair while we initiate you as a lady director in the affairs of Troublesome Ranch. Too late, I fear!”

Halstead turned to his desk. “I can’t talk unless I smoke. — Ames, have a cigar?”

“Reckon I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” drawled the rider. “Sometimes, though, when I’m hungry or thirsty out on the range I’ll smoke a cigarette, if I’m lucky enough to have one. Which I shore wasn’t, comin’ across the Flat Tops.”

He stood to one side of the fireplace and he was so tall that he leaned his elbow on the stone mantle. Esther had a momentary glimpse of his clean-cut profile, his tanned cheek, his lean square jaw. Then, as he turned, she quickly glanced down.

“Joe told me you rode in by way of the Troublesome,” began Halstead, and with lighted cigar in hand he leaned back in his chair to look up with undisguised curiosity and interest at the rider.

“Reckon I walked most of the way down heah,” replied Ames.

“Then you had more time and better chance to see my range. What do you think of it?”

“Is all this heah Troublesome Valley your range?”

“Yes, these burned-over slopes and the meadows along the creek. I own a thousand acres outright, and my territorial range-right takes in all this open valley.”

“It’s a big range in a big country. Are there any other ranchers near?”

“None. The closest is Jim Wood, over the ridge, ten miles and more. We’ve never seen a cow or steer of his on my side. Rough forest between.”

“I reckon I never saw a finer range,” said Ames, as if weighing his words.

“For what? Deer and elk — for hunters and fishermen like my kids are growing into; for Esther, who loves wild flowers.”

“I reckon it’s pretty fine for them,” replied the rider, with a slow understanding smile at Esther. “But I was speakin’ for cattle.”

“How do you make that out?” demanded Halstead, who evidently had expected Ames to share his opinion and damn the valley.

“It burned over four or five years ago an’ — —”

“Five,” interrupted the rancher. “A year before I bought the ranch. Man named Bligh, who tried both sheep and cattle. Before that only trappers and prospectors ranged in here. Bligh was going to do well, but the fire ruined his chances. So I bought him out cheap.”

“You were shore lucky. Bligh would have done well if he had only known enough. The fire made the range. I reckon the grass just came up good this year. It’ll be many years before any timber growth gets hold again. An’ you can check that.”

“Humph! So I’ve got a good range instead of a poor one?”

“Shore fine. This heah Troublesome range will make you rich short of five years. An’ in ten it’ll double.”

“Ames, if I wasn’t looking at you and taking Cabel’s word for your — your judgment, I’d laugh,” burst out Halstead. “I’d laugh!”

“Shore. You can laugh, anyhow. I won’t mind.”

“I’ll swear instead. . . . See here, Ames, I’ve lost two hundred head of cattle since the snow melted. They ate some poison weed, swelled up and died. Last year almost that many.”

“Larkspur. You don’t know how to handle it, an’ you shore have hired some wise cowboys.”

“Larkspur! What’s that?”

“Father, I know,” spoke up Esther, quickly. “It’s one of the wild flowers I love so well.”

“Correct, Miss Halstead,” said Ames. “But it’s shore bad medicine for cattle. . . . The fact is, Halstead, that larkspur is no longer any great menace to cattlemen. It used to be. But now we know what to do. Cattle eat this plant, which forms a gas inside them. Indigestion, I reckon. Anyway, they swell up an’ if you don’t stick them pronto an’ relieve the gas pressure, they die.”

“Stick them!” ejaculated Halstead, weakly.

“Shore. You take a long thin round instrument an’ stick them. If they haven’t gone too far they all recover. Then a few good riders could get rid the larkspur in a season or so.”

“Larkspur! Ha! Ha! Ha!” roared Halstead. His face grew red. “Excuse me, Esther, while I go Joe one better.” But he did not curse aloud, though it was evident that he indulged himself thoroughly. Then reaching for another cigar he added, “I’m a hell of a rancher!”

“Halstead, don’t feel too bad aboot it,” said Ames. “It’s sort of new at that. An’ this high Colorado country is long on larkspur an’ short on cattlemen.”

“Ames, you hit me right where Joe swore you would,” went on Halstead, chewing at his cigar. “Maybe you can floor me again. . . . I’ve lost at least half my cattle through thieves. Five hundred head this season. Over a hundred lately — the last week in fact, according to Mecklin. I can’t stand that. Another raid will break me.”

“I heahed your rider talkin’ aboot it,” drawled Ames, without the slightest trace of feeling, which lack marked such a contrast to Halstead’s speech. “An’ I gathered it wasn’t work of rustlers.”

“Rustlers! — Say, what’s the difference between rustlers and cattle-thieves?”

“Reckon there’s a lot. If it was the work of a rustler you might not find out soon who he was or how he operated. An’ when you did corner him — well, you’d shore know it. But in the case of a low-down cattle-thief, why like as not he drinks aboot town with your cowpunchers — —”

“Yes, and my own son!” interrupted Halstead, ringingly. “This thief’s name is Clive Bannard, who hails from Eastern ranges, he says. And he has a right-hand man, Barsh Hensler, who lives in Yampa. How far they have actually corrupted Fred — that’s my son — I don’t know. But I’ve heard enough to distract me.”

Esther leaned forward in her chair, laboring under excitement that made it almost impossible for her to keep silent. Ames moved his brown hand in slow deprecatory gesture.

“Halstead, I saw the boy this mawnin’ talkin’ to Hensler down by the trail. I told Joe aboot the one your son was arguin’ with. An’ shore that was Hensler. Then earlier this mawnin’ I was out on the porch, sittin’ in that little offset. I was watchin’ Fred pacin’ up an’ down. He shore was a troubled lad. Miss Halstead came out, an’ I shore heahed a lot not intended for my ears. That sort of thing happens to me often. Now I reckon heah’s two an’ two put together. Fred is a wild youngster, new to the West. He’s been havin’ a fling. An’ he’s overstepped himself. He’s been gamblin’ — it was money he wanted from his sister — an’ no doubt through that he’s been led into some shady deal. I’ve seen the like many an’ many a time. But Fred is honest at heart. He might go bad, if you all went back on him, but at that I doubt it. Boys with a background like his — such a mother as he must have had — an’ a sister like Miss Halstead heah — they seldom go to hell. All Fred needs is to have this raw tenderfoot stuff scared out of him. It’s a good bet Joe heah will side with me. How aboot it, Joe?”

“I’m sidin’ with you, Arizona, all ways for Sunday,” returned Cabel, and though he addressed Ames he looked at Esther.

“By Heaven! Ames, you’re dragging me out of the depths by the hair!” exclaimed Halstead, fervently.

Esther arose impetuously. “Mr. Ames, you — you do the same for me. . . . But, oh, don’t raise me up — only to let me sink back again!”

In her earnestness she forgot both the natural tumult within her breast and the resolve to which her extremity had driven her. How sad his face — lined under its dark smoothness! She felt herself being drawn into the unfathomable blue gulfs of his gaze.

“Shore you folks are new to these heah little matters of the range,” he replied, simply. “But I just cain’t see anythin’ troublesome heah. Shore Joe has taught those wonderful kids a lot of cuss words — —”

“Arizona, I didn’t teach them,” protested Cabel.

“But if you strangle him I reckon they’ll soon forget,” went on Ames, as if he had not been interrupted. “Ronnie doesn’t swear so bad at that. An’ he’d get over it pronto if Brown would quit.”

“Will you stay and help us with them, Mr. Ames?” asked Esther, with a sweet directness that was absolutely involuntary, and foreign to the deceitful allurement she had planned.

“Ho! Ho!” boomed Halstead, banging his desk with a huge fist. His hair stood up. “Ames, next thing you’ll be waving aside this cattle-thief burden of mine!”

“Shore; it’s less than the larkspur,” returned Ames, with his inimitable drawl.

Halstead leaped up, his hand in a snatching gesture, as if here was hope and life to be caught if he were quick enough. He approached Ames, faced him impressively.

“Ames, I said once you hit me deep. I say so again. I’m failing here at Troublesome. Failing where there is big opportunity. I just didn’t know. Lately I’ve been sick about it all. My son was no good, it seemed. And I might die or be shot by some of this riff-raff. What would become of Esther and Gertie — and the kids? They’ve come to love it here. They’d lose all and have to go — God only knows where. But if I had a man like you — who might straighten Fred up and look after the girls and the youngsters — why, if the worst should happen to me, I’d not turn over in my grave. . . . Suppose you stay on at Troublesome!”

“Shore you’re makin’ out the worst. I’ll be only too glad to stop at Yampa on my way — an’ pay my respects to Bannard an’ Hensler. . . . But then, an’ now you’re haided right, why you don’t need me. Joe heah — —”

“Pard,” interposed Cabel, who had also left his seat, “it looks like a hunch to me. Not for nothin’ did you get lost on the Flat Tops an’ then wander down here to the Troublesome. I just told Miss Esther thet it was an act of Providence. An’ before thet I told Halstead if he could get you to stay his troubles were over.”

“Joe, you’re shore double-crossin’ an old friend who you owe somethin’,” said Ames, darkly.

“Sure, Arizona, I know I am,” went on Joe, swallowing hard. Esther wondered in her tensity why it was so difficult and reprehensible for him to ask Ames that. “But there’s another side to this. Troublesome needs you. I reckon you just dropped down for a purpose. I’m stayin’ with the Halsteads all the rest of my life. The girls — the kids mean a lot to me. . . . An’, Arizona, you’ve roamed the ranges for years — fourteen years. Aren’t you tired of — wal, you know what I mean?”

“Tired? My God! man, if I could only see the Tonto once more — an’ Nesta, an’ that boy she named after me — I could lie down for good!”

He wheeled away to lean against the window. Joe had penetrated the armor of this cool, exasperating Southerner. Esther had seen a dark agony blur the blue fire of his eyes. Nesta! A woman who had named a child after him! Therein must lie his secret. Esther grew conscious of a nameless burning in the depths of her.

Suddenly she became aware that Joe was nudging her, and was quick to grasp his meaning. Crossing to the window she put an unsteady hand upon Ames’ arm.

“I am asking you, too. Will you stay?”

He faced her, and that blight of pain had vanished.

“Stay heah on the Troublesome?” he asked, smiling down on her. It was then, when emotion gave her courage, that she really looked at him.

“You may change its name,” she said, smiling up at him. “Have you any — any ties to which you’d be disloyal — if you stayed?”

“None, Miss Halstead.”

“But this — this Nesta?” faltered Esther, unconsciously driven to know. “You spoke strangely.”

“Nesta is my twin sister. I have not seen her for thirteen years. But when last I heahed from her — two years an’ more ago — she was well, happy an’ prosperous.”

“Your twin sister? Nesta! I’m glad. . . . Is there any — other?”

“No.”

“Then stay with us.”

“You ask me — that way — Miss Halstead?” he queried, and bent a little to study her face.

“Yes. I’ve only known you an hour. But what’s time? I just feel — and trust you.”

“See heah, child, I shore don’t deserve such — such — —”

“I’m no child,” interrupted Esther, and indeed she was realizing then something of the wonder and mystery of a woman.

“No, I reckon you’re not. I shore wish you were aboot Ronnie’s age. . . . What did this heah dog-gone Joe tell you aboot me?”

“Not much, though I coaxed him,” replied Esther, and she divined, if ever in her life she should tell the truth, it must be now. “He said you were shy of pretty girls and ran from them. So I made myself look as pretty as ever I could — which wasn’t very, I guess — and came out to see.”

“I reckon you’re wrong aboot how you made yourself look. Well, an’ what did you see?”

“You didn’t run from me, that’s certain. So I must be quite homely. And so far as your weakness is concerned you can risk staying.”

“The son-of-a-gun! To tell you that!” ejaculated Ames. “Reckon I haven’t one laig to stand on. . . . But there shore is a risk, Miss Halstead.”

“You mean of the cattle-thieves?” she queried, quickly.

“Shore I’d forgot aboot them.” He turned, releasing her from the blue enthrallment that had seemed to engulf and hold her, and he looked out over the Troublesome and the colorful hills. “Miss Halstead, if there’s any risk it’s not for you. That was just half fun. I used to play at words, like any other cowboy. But I reckon I meant to stay.”

“You — will!”

“Shore. An’ I’m the lucky one. Only I wish you didn’t have to know me as Arizona Ames.”

“Oh, you are —— I — I can’t thank you!” Esther felt overwhelmed by she knew not what commingling of emotions. She became aware, too, that she was clinging to his sleeve. Then her hand loosened, and she turned to her father, nodding, smiling through her tears.

* * * * *

Mid-September had come, ushering in the still, smoky, blazing days of Indian summer.

Esther had climbed higher up the slopes of Troublesome than ever before, a feat commensurate with the elevation of her spirit. It marked more than one change in the affairs of Halstead’s ranch; in the instance, particularly, the fact that she did not fear to ride or climb about alone.

From the crest of the last bench she had surmounted she gazed regretfully at her trail leading down to the next below. Her trail seemed cruelly vivid — a ragged zigzag dark lane through a solid blooming mass of asters, lilac in hue, and of breath-arresting beauty. Esther gazed as one in a dream. She had waded up through a deep snow of wild flowers. In one hand she held a bunch of asters, specimens especially exquisite and of four different shades — purple, lilac, heliotrope and lavender; and in the other hand she grasped five stalks of Indian paint-brush, scarlet, cerise, pink, magenta, and the fifth so varied, so lovely with its dominating white, that she could not give it an adequate name.

These flowers did not flourish so marvelously on the lower slopes, though indeed their normal colors prevailed along the creek.

Esther had long aimed at the aspen grove which she had now attained. From her window at the ranch she had watched it glow daily more golden, luring her to adventure to the heights. Close at hand it was a little spot of enchanted land, a level bench upon which grew a few dozen white-barked quaking asps now in the full glory of autumnal gold. They stood several feet apart, but mingled their foliage in a canopy that quivered and quaked, as if each leaf was shuddering because many of them were releasing their hold on life, and soon all must fall to add to the golden carpet on the grass. And from out this golden carpet, here and there and everywhere, stood up stately, lovely columbines, white and blue.

Esther found a grassy seat under an aspen on the verge, and here she laid aside her flowers and hat, and the field-glass that had been slung round her shoulders. She leaned back against the tree to gaze and gaze, at the columbines nodding to her, at the whispering canopy above which almost blotted out the blue sky, at the slope of lilac snow leading down to the next bench, at the hazed slumbering valley and the ranch far below, at the opposite slopes, waving in color, rising bench by bench, up to the region of thin black standing poles, desolate against the forest background, and at the magnificent mountain domes beyond.

There was no hurry; the afternoon hour seemed suspended, sweet, silent, infinitely momentous, so beautiful that it made her heart ache. She was alone. One such hour as this on the slopes above Troublesome not only made up for past pangs and doubts and worries, but also wedded her to Colorado for all her life. She could not explain why, but she felt it poignantly. She could now even love Troublesome in the dead of winter because of what it must always promise for summer, and this flowering season.

Esther had never underrated her capacity for love, but of late she could not but be astounded at its appalling development. Her father, the boys, Gertrude, and even Fred, had come in for a magnifying of her affections, yet strange and marvelous indeed was it that this seemed little compared with the might of another love. A lithe rider, lean of jaw, dark of face, piercing of eye, had won her worship.

She had never denied the varying degrees of this irresistible thing — that had multiplied hours into weeks — but she had not until lately realized its might. Her shame, her fear, her secret selfish hope had gone with its realization. She did not see why she should live in perpetual conflict with her unknown self just because she loved a man. She had always known she was going to love some one, desperately perhaps, but now that the time had come she wanted to be happy, instead of miserable, because of it. And she did realize an exalting happiness, at least up here, absorbing the bigness and freedom of this solitude. Yet could she hold that lofty emotion, keep it with her always, to down the instincts and longings seemingly damning within to cause her misery?

The cattle were lowing across the valley. She could see the numerous dots of red and white blurred against the hazy background. They had been herded down from up the Troublesome, out of the zone of the poison larkspur. Esther took up her field-glass and swept the slopes, a little guiltily conscious of what and whom she longed to see. But there were no riders with the cattle, which accounted for the fact that a herd of elk were grazing with them. Esther watched the lordly monarch of that herd. He kept somewhat aloof and often he stopped grazing to look about and down. His magnificent antlers resembled the roots of an upturned stump. He was shaggy, black and gray. How freely, how wildly he lifted his noble head! Once a whistling ringing bugle pealed across the valley.

And from watching and listening, reveling in this elemental wilderness, thinking and dreaming, and thinking again, Esther arrived at the bewildering question of how and why and when she had come to love Arizona Ames.

The how and the why resolved themselves into the joint deduction that she was merely a woman creature and could not help herself.

But the when — that was the mystery which fascinated her, made her at once humble and furious, impotent and grateful. What good would it do her to know, since the stark and staring fact was enough? But it was her unconscious way of eulogizing Ames, which she could not resist.

Perhaps when he appeared before her that day — could it be only three weeks past? — a spent and haggard rider, yet the picturesque figure of her dreams. Or possibly when she sat rigid and breathless in her room the next morning, her ears strained to catch Joe Cabel’s earnest words to her father, her heart shocked with the consciousness that this rider, Ames, was inevitable and wonderful to his old range friend, yet to her terrible. Or perhaps, almost surely, when she had had the temerity to look up into his eyes — those blue daggers that pierced her — and had asked him, appealed to him, importuned him to stay at Troublesome.

Something incalculable and far-reaching had happened then to her, but the naked searching of it did not leave her sure this was the moment when she had fallen in love with Ames. She remembered the stab she had encountered with the name of Nesta. That had been his sister. Jealousy! He had ruined his life for this Nesta, so Joe had said. Esther must hear that story some day before she could judge truly and vanquish ignoble jealousy. What a strange, hot, vicious incredible thing — this jealousy!

Or perhaps it had come insidiously, through the gradual brightening of her father, to the recovery of his cheerful spirits and his old energetic hopeful self. Realization of this truth had been a mark in Esther’s life. How she had wept, alone in the dark! Then there was the unforgettable day when Brown stalked into the living-room, carrying a trout as long as his arm — the most bedraggled and rapturously astounded lad in all the world, “Ess, look ahere,” he had cried, with eyes of light. “Arizona showed me how to ketch him. An’ I gotta quit cussin’.” The added wonder was that he had stopped.

Then Fred’s taking Mecklin’s place in the herding of the cattle — that had been an event. Esther recalled the very hour, on the morning her father, in few pointed words, had discharged Mecklin.

“See heah, Fred,” Ames had drawled, in his cool way that might mean humor or kindness or menace, “get your horse an’ gun. You’re shore goin’ to ride with me.”

Fred had showed the first gladness in many a day. And like a duck to water, according to Ames, he had taken to the cattle game. What Halstead had never been able to drive his son to do, Ames had accomplished with a few words. How to explain it? There was something compelling about Arizona Ames. Then the glamour of his name! Esther thought she hated that, but it never failed to thrill her. Again she had played eavesdropper, to hear Joe relate to her father and Fred the story of Ames killing the infamous rancher-hustler, Rankin.

Had that been the hour of her undoing? If so, what had the West done to her? She, who never had as a child been permitted to read novels and romances, who at fourteen had taught a Sunday-school class! But people never knew what hid deep in them.

She could not arrive at any definite conclusion. The catastrophe had to do with all these incidents and the moods they engendered. The overwhelming fact remained that she loved Ames more than she had dreamed of, and that had been quite enough.

Every moment in his presence she seemed to live a lie. She had to hide her feelings when she yearned to be honest. Any chance word or action might rise up like a traitor to betray her. And the worst of it was she wanted to be betrayed. She had no shame, she thought, with a most passionate shame. There were moments when she bewailed her state, and others, like these spent in the grassy slopes, that she gloried in her abasement.

But what to do? “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” sighed Esther. Up here she seemed wonderously happy. But down at the ranch there were times — And suddenly with hot cheeks she recalled an incident of the other day. She had saddled and mounted her horse, for a little ride, and was about to be off when Fred and Ames appeared on foot.

“Whoopee! Isn’t she a handsome thing, Arizona?” Fred had called out, gayly.

Esther had taken the compliment gracefully when Ames had spoiled it.

“Tolerable. But that rig she’s wearin’ is shore ondecorous,” Ames had replied.

Then without noting Esther’s hot blush he had laid a strong hand over hers, that clutched the pommel. He gave the saddle a shake.

“Tenderfoot! Cain’t you remember what I told you aboot cinchin’ a saddle?”

“No, I can’t,” Esther had weakly though defiantly imitated. Then while he drew the cinch properly secure, Esther had to sit there, quivering at the slight contact of his swift hands, horrified at a sudden wild impulse to throw her arms round his neck. Surely that could not have been the illusive moment, for she must have loved him before she could have sunk to such ignominious mental aberration.

* * * * *

Late in the afternoon Esther wended a careful and loving way down through the asters, vowing, as she went, not to pull another single flower, but when she reached the creek she had her arms full. Her heart, too, seemed full, if not of flowers, then of their essence and beauty. More significant of this eventful walk was the fact that the noisy, quarrelsome Troublesome seemed now singing happily down the valley.

CHAPTER XVI

ESTHER MET JOE coming up the creek trail, some distance from the ranch house. In the afternoon he usually had some leisure hours, which he spent outdoors, mostly with the boys. Always, when Esther had been riding or walking, he would meet her. It occurred to her that of late his watchfulness had grown.

“Wal, I’d hate to have to say which was the prettiest — you or the flowers,” he remarked.

“You old flatterer!” exclaimed Esther, gayly. “I’ll bet you were a devil with the girls, once.”

“No, I was a very mild boy.”

“Catch me believing that. How many sweethearts, Joe?”

“Only one. I married her when she was eighteen, an’ me not much older. We never had no children, but we was happy — till she died. I never got over thet. But I’m the better for it all.”

“Oh, Joe! I’m sorry I was flippant,” returned Esther, regretfully.

“Wal, you must have had a dandy climb. Them paint-brushes don’t grow down low.”

“It was lovely. I went higher than ever before. Found such a lovely little grove where I could see everywhere and be unseen.”

“Unseen? Not from a couple of pairs of hawk eyes I know of.”

“Yours for one pair. And whose else?” she rejoined, knowing full well.

“Wal, you can guess.”

“Dad’s?”

“Nope.”

“Fred’s? — Gertie’s? — The boys’?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, well, I’m a poor guesser, anyhow.”

“Lass, them other hawk eyes belong to the locoedest, love-sickenest fellar I ever seen.”

“Indeed? Poor man!” exclaimed Esther, solicitously.

“Let’s set down on this big rock,” said Joe, serious where Esther had expected humor.

“But it’s late, Joe. And I’m all mussy and flower-stained. I’ll have to change for supper,” she protested, suddenly a little in fear of his gravity.

“Wal, you needn’t change tonight. For there’ll be only the children an’ your dad at table.”

“Fred said he’d be home today?” questioned Esther, quickly sensing something unusual.

“He didn’t come home. You know Fred left Saturday to spend a day or so at Wood’s. He’s getting sweet on Biny again. Wal, young Jim rode over today an’ he said Fred stayed only a little bit at Wood’s. But he was seen on the road with Hensler.”

“Oh, Joe, don’t tell me that!” implored Esther.

“Sorry, but I reckon you might better hear all this bad news from me.”

“Bad — news! More?” faltered Esther. The transition from her late dream to present reality hurt in proportion to its surprise and inevitability. Too good to last!

“More an’ then some. So grit your teeth, lass. Your dad took it fine. Why, a month ago he’d have sunk under this.”

“Tell me!”

“Wal, there was a cattle raid on us today. Up back of the ranch on High Ridge. Stevens got back shot — —”

“Shot!” cried Esther, wildly. “And Ames?”

“No. Arizona wasn’t there. Stevens was alone. He got shot up pretty bad, but he’ll pull through. Jed drove off with him in the wagon an’ Arizona followed on horseback. If they can fetch a doctor over from Craig or some place Stevens will be all right.”

“Poor fellow! Oh, I hope and pray he’s not in danger. . . . Cattle-thieves again! — Joe, that surely upset father?”

“Not so anyone would notice it,” responded Joe. “The old gent tickled me. I tell you, lass, havin’ Arizona around makes a he — aw — a shore lot of difference. I’m darned if I don’t believe your dad sort of welcomed this raid. We all knowed them two-bit thieves would sooner or later try Arizona out. Wal, they have, an’ d — dog-gone me! If it wasn’t for you, lass, I’d be tickled, too.”

“Never mind me,” whispered Esther, trying to brace herself for what she knew was coming.

“Stevens didn’t talk much,” went on Joe. “But we got enough out of him to piece up the deal. Mecklin an’ Barsh Hensler, with some fellars Stevens didn’t know, tackled — —”

“Barsh Hensler! — Oh, you say Fred was seen with him?” cried Esther, in distress.

“Yes, I’m d — darn sorry to say. But Ames said to your dad, ‘Wait, Halstead; wait till I find out.’ . . . An’ I say the same to you, lass. Don’t judge Fred in your heart till all the evidence is before you. Mebbe it ain’t so bad as it looks. . . . Wal, Mecklin told Stevens they was callin’ the bluff Arizona Ames made in Yampa. An’ they was drivin’ off this bunch of cattle, which luckily for us was smaller’n they had figgered on. Stevens showed fight, accordin’ to his story. He’s got a couple of bullet holes to back it up. He fell off his hoss back up the slope. But sharp-eyed Ronnie seen him an’ told us. Your dad an’ me packed him down an’ was dressin’ his wounds when Arizona came in.”

“Then — what?” asked Esther, trembling.

“Wal, then, Arizona took charge. He sent Jed off in the wagon with Stevens, an’ he cussed your dad, who was a-rarin’ to go along. An’ while he was saddlin’ up his hoss he talked fast. ‘Joe,’ he says, ‘go out an’ hunt up Esther. Suppose she had been up on this heah side of the valley!’ An’ he swore turrible. ‘Find her an’ tell her straight without any frills thet it looks bad. But if Fred isn’t really mixed up in it, why, it wouldn’t amount to as much as two duces in a jackpot, an’ — —’”

“Good heavens, Joe! How could he say that — and what did he mean?”

“Wal, I reckon somethin’ like this. If Fred wasn’t somehow implicated it’d be nothing for Ames to shoot the leader of this outfit an’ scare the rest so bad they’d never show up in Yampa again. But if Fred is in it, why, it’ll be serious. Take what Arizona said: “Tell Esther if Fred’s got drunk or otherwise been dragged into this dirty deal thet I’ll clear his name, one way or another.”

“My God! How could he? What else did — he say?” gasped Esther.

“That was all. He jest rode off,” responded Joe, with a cool finality.

“Did you tell dad?”

“Wal, I jest did. He wasn’t bothered much, though. He’s come to be somethin’ like a real Westerner lately. . . . An’ thet reminds me, Miss Esther. Did you know your dad offered to make Arizona his pardner in this ranch?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Wal, he did. An’ thet g — er — thet dog-goned, white-headed cowboy refused.”

“Refused!” echoed Esther.

“It ain’t believable, but he did. I was there. Halstead got mad an’ used some language thet’d do Joe Cabel credit. Ha! Ha! . . . Wal, Arizona admitted he thought it was a fair bargin — thet he was worth it — an’ thet the two of them could make two fortunes here on the Troublesome. But he says, ‘I jest cain’t.’

“Why in the hell can’t you — if you see it as I do?’ roared Halstead.

“Arizona got sort of pale round the gills. ‘See heah, Halstead,’ he says, slow an’ cool — you know how he talks— ‘I love this heah girl of yours an’ I cain’t stand it much longer. I’ll stay heah till I’ve got you out of this mess an’ fixed to make it a big success — then I’ll ride away. I’ve had a pretty sad, lonely life. An’ if I hang round heah much longer the rest of my life won’t be worth livin’. For I’m afraid I’d love Esther more’n I loved Nesta — my twin sister, an’ I’ll tell you, boss, thet was a whole lot. . . . I’m thirty-two years old an’ I’ve got a gun record. Esther couldn’t care for me, even if you sanctioned it, which shore you cain’t. So let’s have no more of this pardner talk.’”

Esther seemed to have merged into the stone upon which she was sitting. But inside her stormed whirlwind and lightning and heartbeats that pounded thunderously in her ears. The flowers fell off her lap, unnoticed. If outward feeling came to her it was with Joe’s gentle touch.

“Aw! I told you too sudden!” ejaculated Joe, remorsefully. “I done it on purpose, Esther. But forgive me.”

“Oh, Joe! — I’m so — silly! There’s nothing — to forgive.”

“Wal, there jest is. I’ve found out your secret an’ it was a dirty trick.”

“Secret?”

“Yes. But I reckon I knowed before you gave yourself away. Joe Cabel is a pretty smart fellar. . . . Esther, you like Arizona a little now, don’t you?”

“I — I’m afraid — I do.”

“Wal, don’t you, quite a little?”

“I — maybe — perhaps I do.” She was leaning against Joe’s rough-garbed shoulder with drooping head.

“Now, lass, your secret is safe with me. Don’t you savvy thet? Sure I could double-cross Arizona any day for you. An’ I’m doin’ it now. But never you, Esther.”

“What secret? Oh, Joe — don’t make me talk,” she whispered.

“Wal, now, I won’t. . . . But don’t you love Arizona a little? Poor devil thet he is! Driven from range to range, not because he was bad but good. No home — none but men like me to see an’ care. Never a sweetheart! True to thet sister for whom he rode out on his long bloody trail! . . . Don’t you love him a little, Esther?”

Her head fell on his shoulder.

“I — I’m afraid I — —”

“Wal, now, thet’s jest wonderful. It sure fetches my prayer home. You see, I’m a lonely old codger an’ I got as fond of you as if you’d been my own lass. Then I always had a weakness for Arizona. — Esther, this West breeds men. I’ve knowed more than I could remember. It makes them wild an’ wicked an’ then jest the opposite, too. Men like your dad could never find homes here but for men like Arizona. . . . I reckon now you love him — more’n a little?”

“I reckon I do,” confessed Esther, and hid her face.

“How much, lass?”

“Swear you’ll never tell?”

“I’d swear thet on a stack of Bibles.”

Esther lifted her face and opened blurred eyes. This kind and crafty Joe had been her undoing, yet through him she had found herself. She bent to gather up the fallen flowers. Then she stood before her friend unabashed, to give her answer some semblance of dignity.

“So much, Joe — that if you hadn’t told me what you have — I couldn’t have borne the fear for Fred — and him.”

* * * * *

On the third sunset after that, Jed returned, driving the buckboard up to the ranch house. When he halloed, Esther went out to see her father and Joe helping Stevens to get down. He could not stand alone. His right arm was in a sling.

Then Esther espied Fred, his face almost as white as the wide bandage that passed round his head under his chin.

“Boss, we’re back the wuss for wear,” Jed was saying, “an’ Ames is down at the barn.”

For once the children were not clamoring at the return of anyone from town. They stood owl-eyed and mute.

“Halstead, me an’ Jed will take care of Stevens,” said Joe.

The rancher had not found his voice.

“Dad, come in the house,” said Fred. “And you, too, Esther. I’ve a good deal to tell.”

They went in, and Esther closed the door.

“Fred! You’ve been injured?” she cried, when she could find her voice.

“Yes. But it’s nothing to what — it might have been. — Only a hole through my ear!”

“Hole!” ejaculated Halstead, blankly.

Fred fell into a chair, which limp action and his shaking hands attested to spent strength.

“Bullet hole! I’ve been shot,” he said, with a weak smile.

“Who shot you?”

“Ames.”

Esther, feeling turned to stone, could not utter a sound.

“My God! boy, what’re you saying?” demanded his father, incredulously.

“It’s the truth. The bloody devil!” replied Fred, hoarsely. “Oh, he was terrible! . . . But, dad, he didn’t know me. He thought I was — just one of Bannard’s men. The only accident about it was — when he missed me. His bullet tore off my hat — went through my ear. — I’m marked for life. When he saw my face he recognized me and he said, ‘Hellsfire!’”

“Augh! — What’s this all about?” queried Halstead, thickly.

Esther, finding the seat next to the fireplace behind her, slowly sank and slipped into it. If some kind of transformation had not come over Fred Halstead she was indeed mad.

“Listen, Dad. I’ll make a clean breast of the whole thing,” began Fred, shaken by deep agitation. “Saturday I went over to see Biny Wood. I found Jess Thuber there. It made me sore, though I knew Biny didn’t care particular about him. But it just struck me bad. Hadn’t seen her for weeks — was crazy to — and I had some fool notion of asking her to believe in me and stick to me.”

“Son, that wasn’t no fool notion,” said Halstead, as Fred paused for breath.

“Well, when I left her I happened to fall in with Barsh Hensler, Mecklin, and Jim Coates. It was unlucky for me. They had a bottle. I knew I shouldn’t drink. I fought it. If I hadn’t been so hurt, so sore at Biny, I’d not weakened. Anyway, I did — and that set me on fire. I got drunk. It was on Saturday afternoon. I didn’t get sober enough to know anything till they stole your cattle from Stevens. I remember riding. I remember Stevens was yelling when Mecklin shot him . . . I had to help drive the cattle down. They took a lot of driving. It was late at night when we got them in a corral. There was a cabin. Next morning I was sober and sick enough to die. It was that old homestead off the road, ten miles beyond Wood’s.”

Fred covered his pale face a moment as if to hide it as well as shut out the picture in mind. “I realized then Mecklin could make me out a thief. I was ruined. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to shoot myself, but didn’t have the nerve. Then I swore I’d shoot Mecklin. . . . We stayed there waiting. Mecklin went down the road to meet Bannard and the rest of the outfit. . . . But he ran into Ames — who beat him half to death and made him confess the whole rotten deal. But I didn’t know that until later. . . . Bannard came with only two men. He was mad. And when he saw we’d only half a hundred head of cattle he cursed and raved. . . . It got late in the day and we went outside on the porch to go on with our gambling. Four of us. Hensler half drunk. Bannard mean. All of a sudden Ames came round the cabin, pushing Mecklin ahead of him with a gun. I said, ‘My God! — it’s—’ and I choked on his name. I pulled my hat low over my face and sunk down. Aw, I was scared. Mecklin was all bloody and so weak he could hardly walk. Ames knocked him down with the gun. Then he looked us over and picked out Hensler. ‘The game’s up, Hensler. Your two-bit cattle-thievin’ ends right heah. Mecklin has squealed on you.’

“‘Who in hell are you?’ yelled back Bannard.

“‘My name is Ames.’

“‘You this Arizona fellar?’ asked Bannard, and he turned green.

“‘No matter. I take it you’re Clive Bannard?’

“But Bannard went so yellow he couldn’t even tell his own name. Then Barsh Hensler, the damn fool, got up and bawled: ‘Ban, it’s this here Arizona Ames. Haw! Haw! Watch me bore him!’ . . . And the idiot grabbed his gun.”

Fred writhed in his seat; his eyes shut; his tight skin blanched.

“Then it happened. I can’t tell just how. But when that clumsy drunken madman pulled out his gun there came an awful crack. I saw a little hole show up right in the middle of Hensler’s forehead. He looked queer. His gun banged. And he knocked the box over. I was paralyzed. But I heard the shooting . . . the last shot got me — knocked me flat. ‘Hellsfire!’ yelled Ames and dragged me up and shoved me against the wall. If he hadn’t held me up I’d dropped, for I thought he meant to kill me. He was terrible. But he’d recognized me. . . . Then I saw those men — Hensler dead on the box — Bannard dead, too, I thought then — one crawling away screaming in agony — another flopping off like a crippled chicken — an’ Mecklin groaning on the porch. . . . . Ames had been hit once, a cut in the shoulder that he made me tie up. And while I did it he said some things to me I — I’ll never forget till I’m dead or even after. . . . We went out to the road, and when Jed came along with the wagon Ames had him go back to the cabin. Mecklin had sneaked away. Bannard wasn’t dead, but near so. They loaded him in the wagon. We went on to Yampa, where Ames told that Hensler and Bannard had forced me to help steal my father’s cattle. Then he said there’d been a little fight back at Harris’ cabin. . . . That’s all, Dad. It turned out Bannard didn’t die, but he’ll never be any good again. When he’s well enough they’ll take him away to jail.”

“So, my lad, Arizona Ames saved your name?” thundered Halstead.

“He did — Dad — he did,” replied Fred, huskily. “But I wasn’t a thief — never! Please — for God’s sake, don’t believe that.”

“I didn’t. . . . Fred, is this lesson going to make a man out of you?”

Fred gulped and put a hand to his bandaged ear. “It will, Dad, unless Arizona scared all the man out of me forever.”

Esther dragged herself away and hid in her room, her mind at a standstill, her emotions chaotic; and she did not venture out until dusk. Then, watching her chance from the porch, she waylaid Ames, unmindful of the fact that Joe was with him.

Back somewhere in the hazy murk of the past awful hours she had pondered a thought of how impossible it would ever be to touch this bloody-handed monster. But when she confronted him, when she spoke she knew not what, and he gazed down upon her with eyes that always had and always would have power to stop her heart, she took hold of him.

“There’s only one thing I want to know,” she whispered, hurriedly and low.

“An’ I can just aboot guess what that is,” he drawled in the old unforgetable accent. How could he speak so casually? “Shore I knew Fred when I saw him. I let on I took him for one of the gang. It was a good chance to scare some sense into his haid. Don’t you ever give me away.”

* * * * *

October brought cold nights, frosty mornings, and the falling of the aspen leaves and the fading of the flowers.

Esther had gone feverishly at the work of sewing, and helping Joe put up fruit for the winter, and other tasks of the season. The Sunday that Fred fetched saucy little Biny Wood home, and imitated the cool, easy speech of an important member of Halstead’s household while announcing their engagement, was a decisive one for Esther. It broke the spell of days, and happiness trembled like a wraith on the threshold.

Perhaps a contagious spirit of good worked its will that day in other quarters. Halstead calmly announced at dinner that Ames had accepted a partnership in Troublesome Ranch.

“Whoopee!” screeched Brown, brandishing his fork. “Now I’ll ketch every ——  ——  —— trout in — —”

“Brown, leave the table at once!” ordered Esther, sternly.

“Aw, Ess!” he importuned.

“You broke your word. You promised never to swear again.”

“But, Ess, this here is different. It oughtn’t count. Arizona is goin’ to live with us. I’ll bet dad wouldn’t mind if you swore, too.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” burst out Halstead, who had turned purple in the face. “I sure wouldn’t. . . . But, lad, obey your sister and try harder next time.”

“Aw, I shore can take my medicine,” drawled Brown, sturdily. “I reckon it’s worth it.”

* * * * *

Esther felt herself the last to capitulate to this scion of the range and she surrendered royally. She had known, even before Joe had informed her, that Arizona Ames could never of his own mind imagine she loved him.

For a time after the tragedy he had kept aloof, eating with Joe in the kitchen, seldom visible; and when he was, stern, silent, unapproachable. Then had come a sudden change, which, it turned out, had been caused by a letter Jed had brought from Craig. Ames seemed transformed, and Esther had vast curiosity about that letter, and that old hateful recurrent fire along her veins. Nesta! Yet Esther was happy for him. She waited days longer than she had ever thought she could wait. Then on a Sunday afternoon while her father snored in his room and the children played outside, and Joe, with a knowing wink to her, basely deserted his friend, Esther found herself alone with this Arizona Ames, late stranger on the Troublesome, who had now become imperatively necessary to their happiness. She would drive that sadness from his face, that haunting thought or memory of she knew not what, if it lay in a woman’s power. But she could not face him just yet.

Presently from behind, she glided upon him and before he could move she encircled his drooping head with her arms, and pressing her hands over his eyes, she held him closely. It had taken all the courage she could muster. But when she felt him shake, all through that lithe strong form, something flashed up out of her, imperious and exultant.

“Arizona, are you a good guesser?” she asked.

“Me! Poorest guesser you ever saw,” he replied, suddenly relieved. “What kind of a game is this heah?”

“It’s a game of — Pretend.”

“Ahuh. An’ I got to be blind?”

“Oh, this holding my hands over your eyes is just pretense. You are blind.”

He was silent at that, relaxing ever so little.

“Well, then,” she continued, with forced animation, “In this game you are to pretend — as a matter of fact you’ll not have to act very much — to pretend you are a shy, bashful, innocent cowboy — —”

“Say, there shore never was such an animal,” broke out Ames, uneasily.

“I said pretend, didn’t I? . . . A very shy cowboy — who had never had a — a sweetheart. He’d had a hard, lonely life, riding here and there, among those awful range people who think nothing of battle, blood, murder, and sudden death. . . . So he’d never had time to find a sweetheart and win her.”

She drew his head backward ever so gently until it rested upon her unquiet breast.

“Arizona, are you listening very closely, so you’ll understand how to play this game?”

“I’m shore listenin’, you witch,” he replied, in growing perturbation. “Esther, is this heah a square game? Aren’t you stackin’ the cairds on me?”

“Oh, you’ll see. It’s a perfectly honest game,” she replied, hurriedly. His head against her breast threatened to disrupt her audacity. But she resumed, thrilling to the consciousness of her power, turning a deaf ear to a still small voice. “Now, my part in this game of Pretend is very, very difficult — much more so than yours. I have to play being a bold brazen girl, ter — terribly in love with the shy cowboy. Secretly, horribly, shamefully in love with him! . . . Shall I go on with instructions?”

“Shore, go on, Miss Halstead, anyway, until I’m daid,” he said, in a strangled voice.

“Oh, I don’t believe it will quite kill you,” she resumed, demurely. “Now the game is that this girl, this brazen creature, will slip behind the cowboy, like this, and hide his eyes like this . . . and pretty soon, according to the game, she must take one hand from one of his eyes, so that he can see it’s not exactly a dream — and caress his cheek — like this — and smooth his hair — like this — and then kiss the tip of his ear . . . l — like that! . . . and then — whi — whisper . . .”

“What?” he rang out, in a terror of incredulity.

Esther wavered on the brink. Her heart was pounding in her throat. No way back, and she had to go on! But if it had not hurt her so to torture him — what delicious fun! What surprise for him and bliss for her!

Suddenly an iron hand seized hers and began to draw her.

“Then she has to whisper,” went on Esther, now scarcely coherent— “to whisper — in his ear — like this. . . . Arizona Ames, guess!”

He seized her other hand and drew it down, so that presently her arms were round his neck, and he was trying to bend his head back to see her face.

“Esther, if this an’ this an’ this is a game it’s bitter cruel,” he said, huskily. “I’m no boy to play with. I’m a man that life has cheated. An’ all the hungry heartache of the years has centered on you.”

“Ah!” she cried, softly, and spent her torture in that. “Let me go on, Arizona, as if it were a game. . . . This unworthy girl will kiss his hair — like this — here where it’s silver — and whisper — I love you, for all you are! . . . Then he will treat this heartless girl — who has lived a lie so long — this false-faced girl — as she deserves. He will tear her to pieces, break her bones — hug her to — —”

Then it was not that Esther’s love and voice failed her, but that what she had begged for seemed literally to happen. The dim world whirled away, and she was rudely torn from enchantment — which was Ames’ devouring arms and lips — by a shrill piping screech from the doorway.

“My Gawd! Brownie, come hyar! Arizonie is huggin’ sis to death!”

Ronnie’s wild alarm brought a swift thud of feet.

“ ——  ——  ——  —— !” shouted Brownie, in fiendish glee. Then with wild shouts the imps ran off.

* * * * *

That night, when the rest of the household slept and the October moon soared white above the Troublesome, Esther lay in Ames’ arms and heard the story of Nesta.

“This heah letter of Nesta’s an’ your game of Pretend, Esther, have aboot paid me back for all,” concluded Arizona. “If you’ll marry me soon, we’ll go pay Nesta a visit. The Tonto is best in October.”

“Soon? How soon, Arizona?”

“Shore it’d have to be terrible soon,” he said, fearfully, as if he were proposing sacrilege.

Esther kissed his cheek. “Wal, Arizonie, it shore cain’t be too soon for this heah cowgirl,” she drawled.

* * * * *

Then he told her about the Tonto Basin, that ragged country of his youth, from which he had ridden away on the long range-trail. How different from Troublesome Valley! Esther saw the grand zigzag golden rim with its black fringe, and the black ridges and the blue canyons between, and the amber Tonto Creek and the dark Rock Pool where poor Nesta had tried to drown herself. She saw the silver spruces of his boyhood, and the wild turkeys that clucked down the leafy trails, and the brown pine-matted aisles of the forest, where his bare feet had trod. How he had loved this country and his people — and sweet Nesta, who had been a part of him!

West of the Pecos

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER I

WHEN TEMPLETON LAMBETH’S wife informed him that if God was good they might in due time expect the heir he had so passionately longed for, he grasped at this with the joy of a man whose fortunes were failing, and who believed that a son might revive his once cherished dream of a new and adventurous life on the wild Texas ranges west of the Pecos River.

That very momentous day he named the expected boy Terrill Lambeth, for a beloved brother. Their father had bequeathed to each a plantation; one in Louisiana, and the other in eastern Texas. Terrill had done well with his talents, while Templeton had failed.

The baby came and it was a girl. This disappointment was the second of Lambeth’s life, and the greater. Lambeth never reconciled himself to what he considered a scurvy trick of fate. He decided to regard the child as he would a son, and to bring her up accordingly. He never changed the name Terrill. And though he could not help loving Terrill as a daughter, he exulted in her tomboy tendencies and her apparently natural preferences for the rougher and more virile pleasures and occupations. Of these he took full advantage.

Lambeth saw that Terrill had teachers and schooling beginning with her fifth year, but when she reached the age of ten he was proudest of the boyish accomplishments he had fostered, especially her skill in horsemanship. Terrill could ride any four-footed animal on the plantation.

Then came the Civil War. Lambeth, at that time in his middle thirties, obtained an officer’s commission, and his brother, Terrill, enlisted as a private.

During this period of slow disintegration of the South’s prosperity Mrs. Lambeth had her innings with Terrill. Always she had been under the dominance of her husband, and could not stress the things she desired to see inculcated in her daughter. She belonged to one of the old Southern families of French extraction, and after her marriage she had learned she had not been Lambeth’s first love. Pride and melancholy, coupled with her gentle and retiring virtues, operated against her opposing Lambeth in his peculiar way of being happy by making Terrill’s play as well as work those of a boy. But during the long and devastating war the mother made up greatly for those things she feared Terrill had lacked. Before the end of the war, when Terrill was fifteen, she died, leaving her a heritage that not all the girl’s passionate thirst for adventure nor her father’s influence could ever wholly eradicate. Lambeth returned home a Colonel, destined to suffer less grief at finding himself ruined as a planter, than at the certainty of his brother’s early demise. Terrill had fallen victim to an incurable disease during the war, and had been invalided home long before Lee’s surrender.

His wife’s death and his ruin did not further embitter Lambeth, inasmuch as these misfortunes left the way unobstructed for tearing up root and setting out for the western frontier of Texas, where vast and unknown rangelands offered fortune to a man still young enough to work and fight.

Texas was a world in itself. Before the war Lambeth had hunted north as far as the Panhandle and west over the buffalo plains between the Arkansas and the Red Rivers. He had ideas about the future of the country. He was tired of cotton raising. Farther west he would roam to the land beyond the vague and wild Pecos, about which country alluring rumors had reached his ears.

Colonel Lambeth’s first move upon arriving home was to free those slaves who still remained on his plantation despite the freedom for which the war had been waged. And the next, after selecting several favorite horses, a wagon and equipment, and a few possessions that would have been hard to part with, he put the plantation and everything on it under the hammer. Little indeed did he realize from this sale.

Then came news of his brother’s death and with it a legacy sufficient to enable him to carry on. But Lambeth had had enough of a planter’s ups and downs. The soil was poor and he had neither the desire nor the ability to try again. The West called. Texans impoverished by the war, and the riff-raff left over from the army, were spreading far and wide to the north and west, lured on by something magnetic and compelling.

Lambeth journeyed across the Mississippi, to return with sad and imperishable memories of his brother, and with the means to fulfill his old forlorn hope — to find and stock a ranch in the West.

Two of Lambeth’s younger generation of slaves, out of the many who wanted to cleave to him, he listened to, appreciative of what their help would mean on such a hazardous enterprise as he was undertaking.

“But, Sambo, you’re a free man now,” argued Lambeth.

“Yes, suh, I sho knows I’se emancipated. But, Kuhnel, I don’ know what to do with it.”

This was a problem Sambo shared with the other slaves. He had been sold to the Lambeth plantation from the Texas plains, and was a stalwart, sober negro. Lambeth had taken Sambo on his latest buffalo hunts, finding in him a most willing and capable hand. Moreover he was one of the few really good negro vaqueros. It was Sambo who had taught Terrill to stick like a burr on a horse and to throw a lasso. And he had always been devoted to the girl. This last fact decided Lambeth.

“Very well, Sambo, I’ll take you. But what about Mauree?” And Lambeth indicated the handsome negress who accompanied Sambo.

“Well, Kuhnel, we done got married when you was away. Mauree’s a-devilin’ me to go along wid you. There ain’t no better cook than Mauree, suh.” Sambo’s tone was wheedling.

Lambeth settled with this couple, but turned a deaf ear to the other loyal negroes.

The morning of their departure, Terrill walked along the old road between the canal and the grove of stately moss-curtained oaks that surrounded the worn and weathered Colonial mansion.

It was early spring. The air was full of the sweet, fragrant languor of the South; mockingbirds were singing, full-throated and melodious; meadow larks and swamp blackbirds sang their farewell to the South for that season; the sky was blue and the sun shone warm; dewdrops like diamonds sparkled on the grass.

Beyond the great lawn a line of dilapidated old cottages faced the road, vacant-eyed and melancholy. From only a few rose the thin columns of blue smoke that denoted habitation. The happy, dancing, singing slaves were gone, and their whitewashed homes were falling to ruin. Terrill had known them all her life. It made her sad to say good-by to them, yet she was deeply glad that it was so and that slaves were no longer slaves. Four years of war had been unintelligible to Terrill. She wanted to forget that and all of the suffering and the bitterness.

When she returned from this, her last walk along the beloved old canal with its water-lily pads floating on the still surface, she found the horses in the yard, and Sambo carrying out her little brass-bound French trunk.

“Missy Rill, I done my best,” said Sambo, as he shoved the trunk into the heavily laden canvas-covered wagon.

“Sambo, what’re you sneakin’ in on me heah?” demanded Lambeth, his sharp dark eyes taking in the situation.

“Missy’s trunk, suh.”

“Rill, what’s in it?” queried her father.

“All my little treasures. So few, Dad! My jewelry, laces, pictures, books — and my clothes.”

“Dresses, you mean? Rill, you’ll not need them out where we’re goin’,” he replied, his gaze approving of her as she stood there in boy’s garb, her trousers in her boots, her curls hidden under the wide-brimmed, soft hat.

“Never?” she asked, wistfully.

“I reckon never,” he returned, gruffly. “After we leave heah you’re the same as a real son to me.... Rill, a girl would be a handicap, not to speak of risk to herself. Beyond Santone it’s wild country.”

“Dad, I’d shore rather be a boy, and I will be. But it troubles me, now I face it, for really I — I’m a girl.”

“You can go to your Aunt Lambeth,” responded her father, sternly.

“Oh, Dad! ... You know I love only you — and I’m crazy to go West.... To ride and ride! To see the buffalo, the plains, and that lonely Pecos country you tell me aboot! That will be glorious.... But this mawnin’, Dad, I’m sorrowful at leavin’ home.”

“Rill, I am, too,” replied Lambeth, with tears in his eyes. “Daughter, if we stayed heah we’d always be sad. And poor, too! — But there we’ll take fresh root in new soil. We’ll forget the past. We’ll work. Everything will be new, strange, wonderful.... Why, Rill, if what I heah is true we’ll have to fight Mexican hoss thieves and Comanche Indians!”

“Oh, it thrills me, Dad,” cried Terrill. “Frightens me! Makes cold chills creep up my back! But I’d not have it otherwise.”

And so they rode away from the gray, dim mansion, out under the huge live oaks with their long streamers of Spanish moss swaying in the breeze, and into the yellow road that stretched away along the green canal.

Sambo headed the six free horses in the right direction and rode after them; Mauree drove the big wagon with its strong team of speckled whites. Terrill came on behind, mounted on her black thoroughbred, Dixie. Her father was long in catching up. But Terrill did not look back.

When, however, a mile down the road they reached the outskirts of the hamlet where Terrill’s mother was buried, she looked back until her tear-blurred eyes could no longer distinguish objects. The day before she had taken her leave of her mother’s grave, a rending experience which she could not endure twice.

All that endless day memories of the happy and grievous past possessed Terrill as she rode.

CHAPTER II

LAMBETH TRAVELED LEISURELY. He meant to make this long-wished-for journey an education. Most of his life he had lived in that small part of Texas which adjoined Louisiana, and partook of its physical and traditional aspects. Now he wanted to find the real Texas — the Texas that had fallen at the Alamo and that in the end had conquered Santa Ana, and was now reaching north and west, an empire in the making.

To that end he traveled leisurely, halting at the occasional hamlets, making acquaintances on the way. Sometimes when sunset overtook his little cavalcade on the march he would camp where they were, usually near grass and water. Terrill grew to love this. Sambo made her bed in the wagon under the canvas, where she felt snug, and safe from prying eyes. To wear boy’s clothes had once been fun for Terrill; now it augmented a consciousness that she was not what she pretended to be, and that sooner or later she would be found out. Otherwise as days and leagues lengthened between her and the old home she began keenly to live this adventure.

They stayed only one night in Austin, arriving after nightfall and departing at dawn. Terrill did not have much opportunity to see the city, but she did not like it. New Orleans had been the only large place she had visited, and it, with its quaint streets and houses, its French atmosphere, had been very attractive to her.

From Austin to San Antonio the road was a highway, a stage line, and a thoroughfare for travelers going south and west, and Terrill found it tremendously interesting. So long as she could be astride Dixie and her contact with people confined to the rôle of a looker-on, she was happy. To ride through the long days and at night to creep into her snug bed in the wagon brought her an ever-growing joy. She could have gone on this way forever.

When they arrived at San Antonio, however, Terrill seemed plunged into a bewildering, bustling world, noisy, raw, strange, repellent to her, and yet strangely stirring. If only she really were a boy! How anyone could take her for a boy seemed incredible. Her masculine garb concealed the feminine contours of her form, almost to her satisfaction, but her face discouraged her terribly. At the hotel where they stayed Terrill regarded herself in the mirror with great disapproval. Her sunny curls, her violet eyes, above all her smooth girlish skin — these features that had been the joy of her mother, and which somehow in the past had not been distasteful to Terrill — now accorded her increasing embarrassment, not to say alarm. She must do something about it. Nevertheless, reflection relieved her, inasmuch as it made clear there could be no particular annoyance while they were traveling. She would never see the same people twice.

She had to remain in her room, next to her father’s, unless she was accompanied by him or Sambo. Lambeth was tremendously keen on the track of something, and he went everywhere; but he took Terrill along with him whenever she wanted to go. Or he would send her to a store with Sambo. This pleased Terrill, for she had money to spend, and that was a luxury vastly pleasant. Only Sambo was disconcerting. Boy’s boots and pants did not change his adored young mistress to him.

“Sambo, stop callin’ me Miss Rill,” protested Terrill. “Call me Master Rill.”

“I sho will, Missy Rill, when I thinks aboot it. But you is what you is an’ you can’t nebber be what you ain’t.”

One morning, accompanied by Sambo, she went farther down the main street than usual. The horsemen and wagons and the stage- coaches accorded Terrill an increasing delight. They smacked of the wild, vast open Texas land, about which she had heard so much.

A little store attracted her, but she did not go in the first time she passed it because it stood next to a noisy saloon, in front of which shaggy, dusty saddled horses gave evidence of riders within. But finally Terrill yielded to temptation and entered the store, very soon to forget all about Sambo. When she had indulged her fancy to the extent of compunction, and had started out, she suddenly remembered him. He was nowhere to be seen. Then loud voices outside augmented anxiety to alarm. She ran out. Sambo was not waiting for her.

Terrill started hurriedly down the street, aware that several men were moving violently just ahead of her. As she got even with the door of the saloon it swung open and a man, backing out, collided with her, sending her sprawling. Her packages flew out of her hands. Terrill indignantly gathered herself together, and recovering her belongings, stood up, more resentful than alarmed. But suddenly she froze in her tracks.

The man had a gun in each hand, which he held low down, pointing into the wide open door. All the noise had ceased. Terrill saw men inside, one of whom was squirming on the floor.

“Reckon thet’ll be aboot all,” announced the man with the guns, in a cold voice. “Next time you deal crooked cairds it shore won’t be to Pecos Smith.”

He backed by Terrill. “Kid, untie my hoss.... Thet bay. An’ lead him heah,” he ordered.

Terrill obeyed clumsily. Sheathing one of the guns the man retreated until he bumped into his horse. He had a young clear- cut cold profile, set and ruthless. From the high curb he mounted his horse in a single step.

“Smith, we’ll know next time you happen along,” called a rough voice from the saloon. Then the door swung shut.

“What you shakin’ aboot, boy?” queried Smith, in a cool, drawling voice, suggestive of humor.

“I — I don’t know, sir,” faltered Terrill, letting go the bridle. This was her closest contact with one of these tawny stalwart Texans. And this one had eyes too terrible for her to look into. A smile softened the set of his lean hard face, but did not change those light piercing eyes.

“Wal, I only shot his ear off,” drawled Smith. “It stuck out like a jack rabbit’s.... Much obliged, sonny. I reckon I’ll be goin’.”

Whereupon he rode off at a canter. Terrill watched the lithe erect figure with mingled sensations. Then she stepped back upon the pavement. At this juncture Sambo appeared. Terrill ran to meet him.

“Oh, Sambo! — I was so frightened,” she cried, in relief. “Let’s hurry.... Where did you go?”

“I’se done scared myself,” replied the negro. “I was waitin’ by dat do when one of dese wild Texans rode up an’ got off. He seen me an’ he sed, ‘Niggah, move away from mah vecinnity.’ An’ I sho moved. He got into a fight in here, an’ when he come backin’ out wid dem big guns I was scared wuss.”

“Santone,” which was what its inhabitants called San Antonio, appeared crowded with Texans and hordes of other men. Terrill took the Texans to be the rangy, dusty-booted youths, tight- lipped, still-faced, gray-eyed young giants, and the older men of loftier stature who surely were the fathers of the boys. Terrill was suddenly crestfallen when she became aware that she had several times been interested at sight of handsome young men. And this Pecos Smith had strangely thrilled her. Despite the terror and revulsion he had roused, his memory haunted her.

The Mexicans, the teamsters, the soldiers, the endless hurrying, colorful throng of men, gave Terrill a vague and wonderful impression. These were men of the open, and according to her father they had come from everywhere. Buffalo-hunters on their way out to the plains to catch the buffalo herds on their spring migration north; horse-dealers and cattlemen in from the ranches; idle, picturesque Mexicans with their serapes, their tight-legged flared-bottom trousers, their high-peaked sombreros; here and there a hard-eyed, watching man whom Lambeth designated as a Texas Ranger; riders on lean, shaggy, wild horses; tall men with guns in their belts; black-coated, black- hatted gamblers, cold-faced and usually handsome; and last, though by far not least, a stream of ragged, broken, often drunken men, long-haired, unshaven, hard and wretched, whose wolfish eyes Terrill did not want to meet. These, according to Lambeth, were the riff-raff left of the army, sacrificed to a lost cause. He also remarked emphatically that he desired to put such men and such reminders far behind him.

“Rill, I’ve an hour now,” said her father, on their third day at San Antonio. “Reckon I won’t let you miss the Alamo. As long as Texas exists the Alamo will be sacred. Every boy should stand once on that bloody altar of heroism and country.”

Terrill knew the story as well as any Texas boy. She tripped along beside her father, whose strides covered a good deal of ground. And soon they were on the threshold of the historic edifice. Lambeth had been there before. A distant relative of his had fallen in that battle. He took Terrill around and showed her where and how the besiegers had been repelled so long and with such deadly loss.

“Santa Ana had four thousand Mexican soldiers under him,” explained Lambeth. “They surprised the Americans by charging before daylight. But twice they were repulsed with terrific loss, and it looked as if the greasers would retreat. But Santa Ana drove them to another attack. They scaled the walls, and finally gained the top, from which they poured down a murderous fire. Then the Alamo doors were forced and a breach opened in the south wall. Hell broke loose.... In this room heah Bowie, who was ill, was murdered on his bed.... Over heah Travis died on his cannon.... And heah Davy Crockett went down with a ring of daid aboot him.... Rill, I could ask no more glory than that for my son.... The Texans perished to a man. One hundred and eighty-two of them. They killed sixteen hundred of Santa Ana’s soldiers. Such were Texans of that day.”

“Oh, how splendid!” cried Terrill. “But it horrifies me. I can see them fighting.... It must be in our blood, Dad.”

“Yeah.... Never forget the Alamo, Rill. Never forget this heritage to Texans. We Southerners lost the Civil War, but we can never lose the glory of freein’ Texas from Spanish rule.”

Pensive and roused by turns, Terrill went back up-town with her father. Later that day she experienced a different kind of stimulation — something intimate and exciting. Lambeth took her to the large outfitting store, where he purchased a black Mexican saddle with tapadores, a silver-mounted bridle and spurs, riata, gauntlets, bandanas, and a sombrero so huge that when Terrill donned it she felt under a heavy cloud.

“Now you will be a vaquero,” said Lambeth, proudly.

Terrill observed that he bought guns and ammunition, though he had brought along his English arms; also knives, belts, axes, a derringer for her, and in fact so many things that Terrill had her doubts that the wagon would carry them all. But she was to learn, presently, that he had acquired another and larger wagon which Sambo was to drive with two teams.

“Rill, I may as well tell you now,” announced her father, “that I’ve given up the plan of followin’ the stage road. Too many travelers, not healthy to meet west of Santone! We’ll start out with some buffalo-hunters I’ve met and travel with them for a while. You’ll get to hunt buffalo with me. We’ll see the country.”

Two days later Terrill rode out with a fair-sized cavalcade, there being six wagons besides her father’s, and eight men, none of whom, however, were mounted. They were experienced buffalo- hunters, knew the country, and hunted buffalo for meat and hides. Much to Terrill’s relief, there was not a young man in the party.

They traveled in a northwesterly direction, along a stream where beautiful pecan trees lined the banks. These Texans were hard drivers. When sunset came the first day they must have made thirty miles. Sambo with his heavy wagon did not get in until after dark, a fact that had worried Lambeth.

The hunters took good-natured notice of Terrill, but she was sure none of them suspected her secret. This night she had courage to sit back at the edge of the camp-fire circle, and listen. They were a merry lot, mostly ranchers and horse-raisers. One of them had been a Texas Ranger, and he told bloody tales which made Terrill’s flesh creep. Another of the group, a stockman from the Brazos River, talked a good deal about the L’lano Estacado and the Comanche Indians. On a former hunt he, with comrade hunters, had been camping along the Red River, and had narrowly missed losing their scalps.

“Them Comanches air shore gettin’ bad,” he said, shaking a shaggy head. “An’ it’s this heah buffalo-huntin’ thet’s rilin’ them. Some day Texas will have to whip off not only the Comanches, but the Arapahoes, the Kiowas, the Cheyennes, mebbe all the Plains Injuns.”

“Wal, I reckon we’re too early an’ too fer south fer the Comanches at this time of year,” remarked another. “Buffalo herds comin’ up from the Rio Grande won’t be as far as the Red River.”

“We’ll strike them this side of Colorado,” replied the red- faced hunter. “Which is a darn good thing, fer thet river ain’t no slouch to cross. Our friend Lambeth heah would have hell.”

“No, he could haid the Colorado. Fair to middlin’ road. But I don’t know the country west.”

Terrill might indeed have been a boy, considering the sensations aroused in her by this casual talk of hostile Indians, the Staked Plains, dangerous rivers, stampeding buffalo, and the like. But sometimes the lamentable fact that she was a girl forced itself upon her when she lay in bed unable to sleep, prey to feminine emotions that she could never dispel, yet all the while tingling with the wonder and zest of her existence.

Several days later, Terrill, riding with Sambo, somewhat behind the other wagons, imagined she heard something unusual.

“Listen, Sambo,” she whispered, turning her ear to the south. Had she only imagined that she heard something?

“I doan heah nuffin’,” replied the black.

“Maybe I was wrong.... No! There it comes again.”

“Lud, Massa Rill, I sho hopes yo doan heah somethin’ like thunder.”

“That’s just it, Sambo.... Rumble of low thunder. Listen!”

“I doan heah it yet. Mebbe storm down dat way.”

“Sambo, it cain’t be ordinary thunder,” cried Terrill, excitedly. “It doesn’t stop. It keeps right on.... It’s getting louder.”

“By gar! I heahs it now, Massa Rill,” returned the negro. “I knows what dat is. Dar’s de buffalo! Dat’s de main herd, sho as I’se born.”

“Main herd! — Oh, that hunter Hudkins was wrong, then. He said the main herd was not due yet.”

“Deys comin’ an’ dey’s runnin’, Massa Rill.”

The rumble had grown appreciably louder, more consistent and deeper, with a menacing note. Lambeth and the saddle-horses had vanished in a dusty haze. Terrill thought she noted a quickening in the lope of the buffalo passing, closer pressing together of the lines, a gradual narrowing of the space around the wagons.

“Oh, Sambo, is it a stampede?” cried Terrill, suddenly seized by fright. “What has become of Dad? What will we do?”

“I dunno, Missy. I’se heahed a stampede, but I nebber was in one. Dis is gittin’ bad. It sho is. We’se gotta be movin’.”

Sambo ran and turned Mauree’s team in the direction the buffalo were moving. Then he yelled for Terrill to get off her horse and climb into Mauree’s wagon.

“What’ll I do with Dixie?” screamed Terrill, as she dismounted.

“Lead him so long’s yu can,” yelled Sambo, and ran for his wagon.

Terrill thought she would have to mount Dixie again to catch up with Mauree. But she made the wagon, and vaulting high she got on, still hanging to the bridle. Fortunately it was long. Dixie loped behind, coming close so that Terrill could almost reach him. Then she saw Sambo’s team gaining at a gallop. He did not pull them to accommodate Mauree’s gait until at the heels of Dixie.

Then fearfully Terrill gazed from one side to the other. The streams of buffalo had closed in solid and were now scarcely a hundred yards from the wagons. The black and tawny beasts appeared to bob up and down in unison. Dust rolled up yellow and thick, obscuring farther view. Behind, the gap was filling up with a sea of lifting hoofs and shaggy heads. It was thrilling to Terrill, though her heart came up in her throat. The rumble had become a trampling roar. She saw that Sambo’s idea was to keep his big wagon behind Mauree’s smaller one, and try to run with the beasts, hoping they would continue to split behind it. But how long could the horses keep that gait up, even if they did not bolt and leave the wagons to be crushed? Terrill had heard of whole caravans being flattened out and trodden into the plain. Dixie’s ears were up, his eyes wild. But for Terrill’s presence right close, holding his bridle, he would have run away.

Soon Terrill became aware that the teams were no longer keeping up with the buffalo. That lumbering lope had increased to a gallop, and the space between the closing lines of buffalo had narrowed to half what it had been. Terrill saw with distended eyes those shaggy walls converging. There was no gap behind Sambo’s wagon — only a dense, gaining, hairy mass. Sambo’s eyes rolled till the whites stood out. He was yelling to his horses, but Terrill could not hear a word.

The trampling roar seemed engulfed in deafening thunder. The black bobbing sea of backs swallowed up the open ground till Terrill could have tossed her sombrero upon the shaggy humps. She saw no more flying legs and hoofs. When she realized that the increased pace, the change from a tame lope to a wild gallop, the hurtling of the blind horde, meant a stampede and that she and the two negroes were in the midst of it, she grew cold and sick with terror. They would be lost, smashed to a pulp. She shut her eyes to pray, but she could not keep them shut.

Next she discovered that Mauree’s team had bolted. The wagon kept abreast of the beasts. It swayed and jolted, almost throwing Terrill out. Dixie had to run to keep up. Sambo’s team came on grandly, tongues out, eyes like fire, still under control. Then Terrill saw the negro turn to shoot back at the charging buffalo. The red flame of the gun appeared to burst right in the faces of the maddened beasts. They thundered forward, apparently about to swarm over the wagon.

Clamped with horror, hanging on to the jolting wagon, Terrill saw the buffalo close in alongside the very wheels. A shroud of dust lifted, choking and half blinding her. Sambo blurred in her sight, though she saw the red spurt of his gun. She heard no more. Her eyes seemed stopped. She was an atom in a maelstrom. The stench of the beasts clogged her nostrils. A terrible sense of being carried along in a flood possessed her. The horses, the wagons, were keeping pace with the stampede. Dixie leaped frantically, sometimes narrowly missing the wagon. Just outside the wheels, rubbing them, swept huge, hairy, horned monsters that surely kept him running straight.

The agony of suspense was insupportable. Terrill knew she soon would leap out under the rolling hoofs. It could not last much longer. The horses would fall or fail, and then — . Sambo’s gun burned red through the dust. Again the wall on each side moved ahead, faster, and appeared to draw away. Little by little the space widened. Terrill turned to gaze ahead. The herd had split. Dimly she saw an X-shaped space splitting, widening away from a high gray object.

Terrill lost the clearness of her faculties then and seemed clutched between appalling despair and hope. But surely the wagon slowed, careened, almost upset. Then it stopped and Terrill closed her eyes on the verge of collapse.

But nothing happened. There was no crash — no pounding of her flesh. And again she could hear. Her ears registered once more the fearful trampling roar. She felt the wagon shaking under her. Then she opened her eyes. The wagon stood on a slant. Mauree had driven into the lea of a rocky knoll. Sambo’s team, in a lather of froth and dust, heaved beside her, while Sambo, on foot, was holding Dixie. To Terrill’s left the black woolly mass swept on. To the right she could not see for the knoll. But she sensed that the obstruction had split the herd and saved them. Terrill fell back spent and blind in her overwhelming reaction.

The roar rolled on, diminishing to thunder, then gradually lessening. The ground ceased to shake. In an hour the stampede was again a low rumble in the distance.

“De good Lawd was wif us, Missy Rill,” said Sambo, leading Dixie to her. Then he mounted to the seat of his wagon and calling to Mauree he drove back through the settling dust along the great trail. It was long, however, before Terrill got into the saddle again. At last the dust all blew away, to disclose Lambeth far ahead with the horses.

CHAPTER III

THE COLORADO RIVER from the far eastern ridge top resembled a green snake with a shining line down the center of its back, crawling over rolling, yellow plains. In this terrain ragged black streaks and spots, and great patches stood out clearly in the morning sunlight. Only a few were visible on the north side of the river; southward from the very banks these significant and striking contrasts to the yellow and gray of plain extended as far as the eye could see, dimming in the purple obscurity of the horizon.

These black patches were buffalo. There were thousands in the scattered head of the herd, and in that plain-wide mass far to the south there were millions. The annual spring migration north was well on its way.

The hunters yelled lustily. Lambeth rode back to speak to Terrill, his black eyes shining. He seemed a changed man. Already sun and wind and action had begun to warm out the havoc in his face.

“Rill, they’re heah,” he called, exultantly. “What do you think of that sight?”

“Glorious!” replied Terrill, under her breath. She was riding beside Sambo on the wagon seat. Dixie had fallen lame, and Terrill, after riding two of the harder-gaited horses, had been glad of a reprieve from the daily saddle.

“Missy Rill, yo sho will kill yo’ first buffalo today,” declared the negro.

“Sambo, I’m not crazy aboot firing that Henry rifle again,” laughed Terrill.

“Yo didn’t hold it tight,” explained Sambo. “Mighty nigh kick yo flat.”

Despite a downhill pull the wagons did not reach the Colorado until late in the afternoon. Hudkins, the leader of the expedition, chose a wooded bend in the river for a camp site, where a cleared spot and pole uprights showed that it had been used before. The leaves on the trees were half grown, the grass was green, flowers on long stems nodded gracefully, and under the bank the river murmured softly.

“Wal, you fellars fix camp while I go after a buffalo rump,” ordered Hudkins, and strode off with what Terrill had heard him call his needle gun. She wondered what that meant, because the gun was almost as big as a cannon.

Terrill sat on the wagon seat and watched the men. This arriving at a new camp and getting settled had a growing attraction for her. Even if this life in the open had held no appeal for her, she would still gladly have accepted it because of the change it wrought in her father’s health and spirits. How resolutely had he turned his back upon ruin and grief! He was not rugged, yet he did his share of the work. Sambo, however, was the one who had changed most. On the plantation he had not seemed different from the other negroes, except when on horseback. Here he appeared to be in his element and the laziness of a cotton- picker had departed. He wore boots and overalls. There was a gun belted around his lean hips. When he swung an ax and carried the heavy picks his splendid physique showed to advantage. He whistled as he worked, and like Mauree had fallen happily into this new way of life.

Presently Terrill’s father came to her, carrying the Henry rifle.

“Rill, from now on you pack this on your hoss, in the wagon, by your bed, and everywhere.”

“But, Dad, I’m afraid of the darned thing,” expostulated Terrill.

Colonel Lambeth laughed, but he was inexorable. “Rill, farther west we’ll hit the badlands. Indians, outlaws, bandits, Mexicans! And we may have to fight for our lives. Red Turner has been across the Pecos. He told me today what a wild country it was. Cattle by the thousand and just beginnin’ to be worth somethin’.... So come out and practice a little. Stuff a towel inside your shirt aboot where the gun kicks your shoulder.”

Terrill accompanied Lambeth down to the river bank, where he directed Terrill how to load, hold, aim, and fire the big Henry. Terrill had to grit her teeth, nevertheless there was a zest in the thing her father insisted upon — that she fill the boots of a son for him. Five shots from a rest she fired, squeezing the rifle with all her might. The first shot was not so terrible, after all, but the bullet flew wide of the target. She did better on the second and third. And the last two she hit the black across the river, to her father’s sober satisfaction. How seriously he took all this! It was no game to him.

“Sambo will clean the rifle for you,” he said. “But that you should learn also. Familiarize yourself with the gun. Get used to handlin’ it. Aim often at things without shootin’. You can learn to shoot as well that way without wastin’ too many bullets.”

Hudkins returned with the hump of a buffalo, from which were cut the steaks these hunters praised so much. Lambeth appeared as greedy as any of them. They made merry. Some one produced a jug of liquor which went the rounds. For a moment Terrill’s heart stood still. She feared her father might ask her to take a drink. But he did not overstep the bounds of reason in his obsession to see in Terrill a son.

“Sonny, how you like rump steak?” asked Hudkins, merrily, of Terrill.

“It’s got a kind of wild flavor,” replied Terrill. “But I certainly like it.”

She went to bed early, tired out from the jolting she had undergone on the high wagon seat. There were sundry places on her anatomy sore to the touch. And soon slumber claimed her. Some time in the night she awoke, an unusual thing for her. A noise had disturbed her rest. But the camp was dark and silent. A low rustle of leaves and a tinkle of water could scarcely have been guilty. Then from across the river a howl that curdled her blood. She sat up quivering in every muscle, and her first thought was that the dreaded Comanches were upon them. The howl rose again, somehow different. It seemed like the bay of a hound, only infinitely deeper, wilder, stranger, with a fierce, mournful note. Answers came from above camp, and then a chorus of chirping, shrieking barks. These sounds she at once associated with the wolves and coyotes that the hunters said followed the buffalo in packs. So Terrill lay back in relief and listened. It was long, however, before she stopped shivering and fell asleep again.

* * * * *

After all, Sambo and not her father took Terrill out to see the buffalo and perhaps shoot one. Lambeth had gone with the hunters.

“Missy Rill — —”

“Say Master Rill, you pestifercatin’ nigger,” interrupted Terrill, only half in fun.

“Sho I done forgot,” replied Sambo, contritely. “Wal, Massa Rill, tain’t goin’ be no trick atall fo’ yo’ to kill a buffalo. An’ it’ll sho tickle the Kuhnel.”

No boy could have been any more eager than Terrill, nor half so scared. She trotted along beside the striding negro, packing the heavy rifle, all eyes and ears. She saw birds and rabbits, and presently had her first view of wild turkeys and deer. The surprise to Terrill was their exceeding tameness. Then she heard the boom of guns far over the ridge of grassy ground. Sambo said the hunters were at it and that Terrill would soon see buffalo at close range.

Suddenly Sambo dragged her into the cover of the trees and along the edge of the woods to a log. This appeared to be at a bend of the river from where Terrill could discern a slope rising gradually to the high bank.

“Bunch a-comin’, Massa Rill,” said Sambo, examining his rifle.

“I heah slopping in the water,” replied Terrill, excitedly.

“Sho. Det’s some buffs. Dey’se wadin’ across an’ll come out on det sandbar.”

Suddenly a shaggy, elephantine beast hove in sight directly in front of Terrill. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. It was an enormous bull. Another climbed out of the shallow water, and then dozens of woolly, hump-backed buffalo swarmed over the dry sandbar. Some were black, some were tawny. Terrill thought she saw little ones in behind the others. Terrill heard them pant. She heard them rub together. She smelled them.

“Rest yo’ gun heah, Miss Rill,” whispered Sambo. “Hol’ tight an’ aim low.”

“But — but it’s like murdering cows,” protested Terrill.

“Sho is. But it’ll please yo’ Dad.”

“Won’t they r-run o-over us?”

“Naw, Missy, dey won’t run atall. Don’t be afeared. We kin hide heah.... ‘Member how. Hol’ tight an’ aim low.”

Terrill seemed monstrously divided between two emotions. The stronger forced her down over her rifle, made her squeeze it tight, squint along the barrel, and align the sight generally on that wide, shaggy, moving mass, and pull the trigger. The recoil threw her to her knees and the smoke blinded her. Then Sambo’s gun boomed.

“Oh, I hope I missed!” cried Terrill.

“Yo’ sho didn’t, Miss Rill.... Look! Dat bull tryin’ climb. He’s shooted through.... Dar he goes down, Missy Rill ... he’s sho a-rollin’.... Now he’s kickin’. Ain’t yo’ gonna look, gal?”

Terrill wanted to look, but she could not. She let her rifle balance on the log on which she sank down, rubbing her shoulder, fighting her fears.

“Daid! ... ’Em both daid. We sho is de hunters, Massa Rill, we sho is! Dat tickle yo’ Dad ‘most to death.”

“Where are — the others?” gasped Terrill, fearfully.

“Dey’s mozied round de bend. Look Massa Rill.... Dat big bull closest to us is yo’s. Ain’t he sho black an’ shiny? Dar’s yo’ buffalo robe, Missy, an’ we is gonna skin it off right now.”

“We is — not,” retorted Terrill, still shakily, though now she had the courage to peep over the log. There, scarcely a hundred steps away, lay a huge, black buffalo flat on the sand, motionless. Beyond and to the left was another. Terrill experienced a wild thrill, instantly checked by a pang.

“Yo’ gonna help me skin off dat buffalo robe of yo’s?” queried the negro.

“Skin the — poor creature!” cried Terrill. “No, indeedee, I’m not. It was awful enough to — kill it.”

“Please yo’self, Missy. But I done tell yo’ whar yo’s gwine yo’ll soon git over squackishness at daid things an’ hair an’ blood,” replied Sambo, philosophically. Then bidding Terrill wait there, he made for the buffalo. She watched long enough to see him draw a bright blade and drop to his knees. Then she backed out of sight of that sandbar.

The grove seemed dreamy and silent. Presently Terrill found a grassy seat, and reclining there in the sun-flecked shade, with sweet fragrance all around and pale-blue flowers peeping up at her from the green, she felt the slow receding of excitement and fear and nausea. That buffalo was the first creature she had ever wittingly killed in all her life. She sensed the truth in Sambo’s practical words, but not yet could she bear to dwell upon it. After all, she was not a man and she never would be a man.

Birds and squirrels and rabbits soon trusted her. Finding in her nothing to fear, they came close and pleased her with their soft-hued beauty and saucy barking and nibbling at the grass. She was distracted from these, however, by a rustling of brush, a queer sound like put-put, put, put, put. Then she heard a gobble. Wild turkeys near! This would be an event. And presently she espied a huge gobbler, bronzed and flecked, with a purple beard and red comb. How stately he strutted! Then he stopped under a tree to scratch in the leaves and grass. Other turkeys appeared, some smaller, sleeker, with subdued colors and wild bearing. These were the hens. They came close to Terrill, eyed her with curiosity, and passed on, put-put, put, put, put. Terrill went back to lesser attractions, vaguely content. She was sorry when Sambo disrupted the spell, as he crashed along the edge of the brush, bowed under a heavy burden.

“Massa Rill, whar yo’ is?” he called.

Terrill hurried up, and securing her rifle ran out to join him.

“Aw, dar yo’ is. I done feared the Comanches had got yo’.... Heah’s yo’ robe, Missy. Look dar.”

The heavy, black mass thumped on the ground. Sambo laid aside his rifle and spread the magnificent buffalo hide out on the grass. Terrill could not believe her eyes.

“Dey don’t come any finer,” he declared. “Now, Missy, yo’ take my gun, so I kin pack dis dog-gone heavy hide to camp. Den I’ll fetch in de meat.”

Soon they reached camp, having been gone only a few hours. Mauree was still alone. When Sambo exhibited the hide and extolled Terrill’s prowess the negress rolled the whites of her handsome eyes.

“Fer de land’s sake! Yo’ done dat, Rill? I sho is s’prised. I sho is! An’ I sho is sorry — dat no-good niggah husband of mind done make a killer out of yo’.”

About mid-afternoon several of the hunters returned to hitch up the wagons and drive back to fetch the proceeds of the hunt. At sunset Lambeth rode in, covered with dust and lather. His horse was spent. Hands and face were begrimed. He yelled for water. Presently, after he had washed, he espied the great buffalo hide which Sambo had carefully stretched where it must command instant attention.

“You hoss-ridin’ nigger!” he exclaimed. “Been huntin’ yourself.”

“Yas, suh. Yas, Kuhnel, I ben. Ain’ dat a mighty fine hide?”

“Best I ever saw,” declared Lambeth, smoothing the glossy fur. “Biggest I ever saw, too.... Sambo, see heah. You give it to me.”

“I’se powerful sorry, Kuhnel,” replied Sambo, shaking his kinky head. “But I done cain’t do it.”

“Reckon you gave it to Rill?”

Sambo shook his head solemnly.

“No, sah. I didn’t. Missy Rill killed de buffalo dat wore dat hide. Jest one shot, Kuhnel. Plumped over de biggest bull in de herd.”

“Terrill!”

“Yes, Dad,” replied Terrill, coming out from her hiding- place.

“Is this heah nigger lyin’ to me? Did you shoot a buffalo?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she returned, nonchalantly. “Aboot like murderin’ a cow, I’d say. I don’t think much of buffalo- huntin’.”

Lambeth whooped and gave Terrill a tremendous hug. When the other hunters returned he proudly acclaimed Rill’s achievement, which indeed immediately took precedence over many and eventful deeds of the day. Nineteen buffalo, selected for their hides, had been killed by the party, all, in fact, that could be skinned and cut up and hauled in that day. They could not leave the meat out on the prairie for the wolves to haggle. Lambeth had accounted for three of the slain beasts, and appeared elated. He loved the chase and had never indulged it as now appeared possible. If the camp had been a merry one before, it was this night a circus for Terrill. The hunters had too many drinks from the jug, perhaps, but they were funny. They stretched and pegged buffalo hides until midnight.

“A hunter’s life for me!” sang Hudkins. “Too bad one more day will load us up. They shore come too easy.”

* * * * *

On the morning of the third day after this successful start the hunters were packed and ready to return to San Antonio. Lambeth’s horses were headed west from the Colorado. Here was the parting of the ways for the hunters and the pioneers. For Lambeth the real journey began from this camp.

“Stick to your direction an’ don’t git off. Four days ... eighty miles to San Saba River,” advised Red Turner. “Then haid west an’ keep yore eye peeled.”

Many were the gay and kindly good-bys directed at Terrill, one of which, from the old Texan, Hudkins, she thought she would never forget.

“Good-by, sonny. Hang on to thet rifle an’ yore curly hair.”

CHAPTER IV

THOUGH LAMBETH HAD struck away from the Colorado River he did not get rid of the buffalo.

During that day the caravan was frequently held up by strings of the great, shaggy beasts. They grazed as they traveled. When the horses and wagons approached a bunch they would swerve ahead or behind, at a lope, and then drop back to feeding again. But when a large number barred the way there was nothing to do save halt and wait until they had passed.

A hundred times buffalo were within easy rifle range and showed less concern at sight of the travelers than the travelers did of them. They were not wild. The inroads of desultory hunting showed no effect whatever.

The horses grew accustomed to the great beasts and ceased to shy or balk. Dixie was the only one that stuck up his ears at every new straggling line. Sambo almost went to sleep over the reins. Lambeth rode out in front, ever watchful, at last a scout in reality. Terrill rode Dixie for some hours, then returned to the wagon seat beside Sambo.

It was while she was on the wagon that the largest contingent of buffalo met them. “We’se a-gwine to get corralled,” observed Sambo. “An’ if dat Kuhnel doan’ be keerful he’ll lose us.”

“Sambo, is there still danger?” asked Terrill, anxiously, as she surveyed the straggling lines, with a black mass behind. “They are so tame now.”

“Wal, I reckon we doan’ need to worry. De main herd is back an’ south.”

“Golly! If this isn’t the main herd, what must that be like?”

“Black as fur as eye kin see.... Dar! Dat is jes’ what I sed. Yo’ Dad is bein’ cut off.”

Lambeth, with the saddle horses, was far in the lead, and a line of buffalo intervened between him and the wagons. Then another line swerved back of the wagons, and presently Terrill saw they were surrounded. The belt of black, bobbing backs between her and Lambeth broadened until it was half a mile across. Sambo got off to step back and assure Mauree that there was no danger. Terrill, however, could scarcely accept that. Still her fears gradually subsided as nothing happened except a continual passing of buffalo to the fore and rear. The herd split a couple of hundred paces below the wagons and the two streams flowed by. Terrill could not help shuddering at the prospect of a stampede. But the gentle trampling roar went on uneventfully. Dust filled the air and a strong odor prevailed.

It took an hour for this branch of the herd to pass. Sambo drove on. When the dust blew away Lambeth was seen waiting with the horses, and the plain ahead appeared clear. Behind and to the south rolled the slow dust cloud, soon settling so that the stringy, black horde once more showed distinct against the gray.

Thereafter only occasional lines of buffalo were crossed, until at last, toward sunset, the herd appeared to have been passed. The undulating prairie appeared the same in every direction, except that there was a gradual uplift to the west. Lambeth disappeared over a ridge, and when the wagon topped it Terrill saw a willow-bordered swale where he had elected to make camp that night.

Twilight was stealing over the land when Sambo hauled up beside the willows where Lambeth was hobbling the horses. Terrill sat a moment longer on the seat. The perils of the day were past. Coyotes were barking at the far end of the swale. A melancholy solitude enfolded the place. Behind Terrill the weeks seemed years. They were dimming old associations. She sighed for them, yet she welcomed the future eagerly. What work and life lay ahead for her! Terrill leaped off the wagon, conscious of a subtle break as of something that had come between her and the old house. It was time she set brain and hand to help her father in the great task he had undertaken.

* * * * *

The ring of Sambo’s ax in the gray dawn was Terrill’s signal to arise and begin the momentous day. Sambo rolled his ox eyes at her. “Now what fur is yo’ up so early, Miss Rill?”

“To work, Sambo. To help my Dad be a pioneer. To become a vaquero.... Nigger, never you Missy Rill me again. I’m a man!”

“Yo’ is! Wal, dat am funny. How is yo’ come aboot bein’ a man?”

Terrill was abashed at the approach of her father, who had heard. His eyes took on a dark flash, burning out a sadness that had gloomed there. The kiss he gave Terrill then seemed singular in that it held an element of finality. He never kissed her again.

The rosy sunrise found them on their way, headed toward the purple horizon. There was no road. Lambeth led a zigzag course across the prairie, keeping to the best levels, heading ravines and creek bottoms.

Summer had come to the range. The bleached grama grass rose out of a carpet of green. Flowers bloomed in sheltered places. Deer trooped in the creek bottoms, and there was a varied life everywhere in the vicinity of water.

That day the vastness of Texas and the meaning of loneliness grew fixed in Terrill’s heart forever. On all sides waved the prairie, on and on, in an endless solitude. The wild animals, the hawks and ravens, the black clouds of passenger pigeons that coursed by, the faint, dark lines behind in the Colorado valley, — all these only accentuated the solitude.

Hour after hour the wagon wheels left tracks in the rich soil, and the purple beckoning distance seemed ever the same. Terrill rode Dixie, drove Sambo’s wagon, and she even walked, but nothing changed the eternal monotony of the Texas plains. She forgot the Comanches and other perils about which she had heard. And at times she caught a stealing vacancy of mind that had entranced her, for how long she could not tell. It was a strange and beautiful thing. But for the most part she watched and listened and felt.

The next day was like the one before, and then Terrill lost track of days. She could recall only events such as a rain that drenched her to the skin, and what fun it was to dry in the sun, and a hard wind which blew in their faces all one day, and the doubtful crossing of a sand-barred river that Lambeth was sure was the Llano, which Red Turner had claimed was a tributary to the Colorado, not many days south of the San Saba.

On the north side of the Llano they had crossed a road that ran east and west. Lambeth vacillated long here. It troubled him. A road led somewhere. But he had at length pushed on toward the San Saba.

Dry camps alternated with those at which water and grass were abundant. At night, round the camp fire, Lambeth and Sambo would discuss the growing problem. As they climbed out of the vast valley the springs and creeks grew scarcer. It would soon be imperative to follow rivers and roads, and that meant a greater risk than they had been incurring. The Comanches lived up on the Staked Plains, and the Kiowas farther north, and the Jicarillo Apaches west.

“Yas, suh,” agreed Sambo, in relation to an unavoidable peril. “‘Mos’ a matter of luck, Kuhnel. But Texas done be as big as de whole Yankeeland.”

It was July when they struck the San Saba, a fine river watering a beautiful country Lambeth did not want to leave. Pressing on on the left bank, they came to a crossing. This was the road Red Turner had informed Lambeth he would find. There were wheel tracks in it. He followed that road for days, and at last, where the forking of creeks with the San Saba indicated the headwaters, he sighted cattle on the plain.

They camped near a ranch that sunset. Lambeth made the acquaintance of the settler before night. His name was Hetcoff and he hailed from Missouri. He had neighbors, but they were few and far between. Their cattle had been unmolested, but it was hard to hide horses from the marauding Comanches. Lambeth was advised to pick his range somewhere along the San Saba. It had possibilities. At Menardsville, a day’s ride west, there was a junction of roads and that point would be thickly settled some day. The Staked Plains to the north was a barren plateau, known only to the savages, and decidedly to be avoided by white men. A road staked out by the Spaniards across its sandy wastes had been the death of many a settler. Hetcoff knew little of the Pecos country, but the name Pecos itself had a sinister significance.

Terrill was excited at the prospect of entering a town again. But Menardsville was disappointing, as it consisted of but a few adobe houses surrounded by ranges. A Texan named Bartlett maintained a post there, freighting supplies at infrequent intervals. He was also in the cattle business, which at that time had only a prospective future. Cattle were plentiful and cheap.

Lambeth camped at Menardsville for a week, resting, buying supplies, mending harnesses, gaining information. When he left there he had both wagons loaded to capacity — a fine haul for Comanches, Bartlett averred.

Terrill still occupied the smaller canvas-covered wagon, but she had less room and comfort. She had ceased to suffer from sun and wind, and had become hard and strong. She did not lose weight because she was growing all the time. Increased height and a widening of her frame favored her disguise. Often she gazed in rueful wonder at her hands, still shapely, but hardening from work, growing callous of palm and a deep gold tan on the back. At intervals she cut her rebellious curly locks, though never very short. And she was troubled at the thinning of her cheeks and coarsening of her skin, which she had once desired; at the look in the dark blue eyes which watched her gravely from the little mirror.

West of Menardsville the road Lambeth chose to travel headed northwest over an increasingly difficult country, barren and fertile in patches. Settlers had drifted into this region, and a few ranches established before the war were accumulating more cattle than they took the trouble to brand.

Lambeth decided to buy cattle enough to make the nucleus of a herd. Wakefield, a rancher who did not know how many long-horn cattle he owned, sold Lambeth what he wanted at his own price, and to boot lent him a couple of vaqueros. He advised against the Pecos country. “Best of cattle ranges,” he said; “but wild, hard, an’ lonely, shore to be a hotbed of rustlers some day.”

Terrill sustained a peculiar feeling at her first close sight of a Texas long-horn steer. The enormously wide-spreading, bow- shaped horns had inspired the name of this Mexican breed, and they quite dwarfed the other characteristics of the animal. Terrill was destined to learn the true nature of this famous Texas stock. All in a single day she became a vaquero.

At every ranch Lambeth added to his herd; and after every night stand some of them eluded the guards and departed for home. Nevertheless, the herd grew, and the labors of driving a number of long-horns increased in proportion. Necessarily this slowed down their daily travel to less than a fourth of what it had been.

* * * * *

The end of August found Lambeth’s wagon train and cattle drive encroaching upon the bad lands of west Texas. They rimmed the southern edge of L’lano Estacado, a treeless, waterless, sandy region faintly and fascinatingly indicative of its impassable and destructive nature.

They encountered a wandering, prospective settler and saved his life. He had come across the arid plateau from the Panhandle, how or where he could not explain. He was glad to throw in with Lambeth and help drive that growing herd. For now Lambeth’s steers, leisurely driven and as carefully looked after as was possible, had begun to pick up cattle along the way. Lambeth could not prevent this. He had no brand of his own. He could not pick out from his herd all stock he had paid for and all that had joined it of their own accord. So he became an innocent rustler, something which Wakefield had seriously warned him against; and had then removed the sting of his words by a laughing statement that all ranchers, at some stage or other of their careers, appropriated cattle not their own.

The two borrowed vaqueros had to work so hard that Terrill seldom came in direct contact with them. The Mexican was a sloe- eyed, swarthy rider no longer young, silent and taciturn, with whom conversation, let alone friendliness, was difficult. The white vaquero was a typical Texan who had been reared on the plains. He was rough and uncouth, yet likable and admirable to Terrill. She learned much from watching these two men. At the last ranch Lambeth had added a boy to the caravan, whose duty it was to drive the large wagon while Sambo helped with the herd. There was never a day dawned that Terrill did not expect to see the last of the herd. But they drove on and on into the west, always finding grass at the end of a day’s travel, and seldom missing water. The frequent rains, summer storms they were, favored travel over this increasingly arid land.

September came. At least that was how Terrill calculated. And with it cooler nights and dawn with a nip in the air. Terrill often stood hours of the night guarding the herd with her father. These were wonderful hours. The Mexican vaquero sometimes sang to the herd, strange, wild Spanish songs of the range. While the cattle rested and slept, the guards took their turns of four hours on and four off, Sambo and Steve, the white vaquero alternating with Lambeth and the Mexican. Terrill did her share, which, however, had so far been only guarding. As luck would have it, nothing stampeded the long-horns.

For days on end dim blue hills had led Terrill’s gaze on to dimmer and bluer mountains, like ghosts above the hazy horizon. Steve said those mountains lay across the Pecos, that they must be the Guadaloupes. The blue hills, however, were the brakes of the Pecos.

The white-and-yellow plain undulated on to meet these rising uplands. And the naked slope of the Staked Plains imperceptibly receded. Lambeth had been most fortunate in finding stream beds to follow. He grazed the herd along only a dozen miles a day, gradually slowing up as the harder country intervened.

* * * * *

October! Lambeth’s caravan was lost in a forlorn and desolate country. They had no landmarks to travel by — no direction except west. And half the time that was impossible to follow, owing to the character of the country.

The blue hills they had sighted from a distance were the rock- and-ridge region through which the Pecos cut its solitary way. Lambeth had been told to strike the river wherever he could and then to travel west to Horsehead Crossing, a ford that had been used by the Spaniards a hundred years before.

When the situation began to be very serious they stumbled upon the Flat Rock Water Holes, and were thus accorded another reprieve. Two dry camps brought them to Wild China Water Holes. From there the dim road faded among the rocks. But the Mexican vaquero, upon whom had evolved the responsibility of getting them through, had his direction, and led on with confidence.

Grass grew plentifully over the scaly ridges, but so scattered in little patches that stock had to range far to get enough. That further slowed the caravan. Nevertheless, Lambeth pushed on with relentless optimism. He had a vision and it could not be clouded. He cheered on his hands by promise of reward, and performed miracles of labor for a man who had been a Southern planter. The adventure could not recall his youth, for that was irretrievably past, but it rehabilitated his strength and energy.

As for Terrill, the seven months in the open had transformed her physically. She was at home in the saddle or on the wagon seat. The long days under the blazing sun, or facing the whipping wind with its dust and sand, rain and chill, the lonely night watch when the wolves mourned and the coyotes wailed, the hard rides over stony ridges to head refractory old long- horns — these all grew to be part of the day to Terrill Lambeth.

Again the Mexican lost his way. Washes to cross, sandy and dragging, cattle that must graze, ravines deepening to gorges, which had to be headed, all these confused the guide. Lambeth preferred to corral the stock at night in one of the gorges or a bowl between two ridges. Ridge tops were less favorable places.

They drove two days without water, except enough for the horses. The cattle began to suffer. They grew harder to hold. The riders had little rest and no sleep. Next day they dropped down over a ridge into a well-defined trail coming up from the south. Rain had almost obliterated hoof tracks which might have been so very old.

Lambeth wanted to turn south. The vaquero shook his head. “Mucho bad, Señor. Ver seco. Water mañana. Rio Pecos,” he said, and pointed north.

But the following night found them in a precarious predicament. Two canteens of water left! The horses were in bad shape. Cattle had fallen along the wayside. Another hot day without rain or water would spell the doom of the stock. And that meant horrible toil and suffering, probably death, for the travelers.

Terrill remembered her prayers that night and her mother’s face came to her in a dream.

Lambeth had the caravan on the move at break of day, hoping to find water before the sun got high.

The road penetrated deeper into this wilderness of stone and cactus, greasewood and gray earth. Still there was always grass. The stock now, however, no longer grazed.

Notwithstanding the dangerous situation, Lambeth’s luck seemed not wholly to have departed. Before the sun grew hot, clouds rolled up to obscure it. The riders, grasping at straws, mercilessly drove the cattle on.

A gloomy canopy overhead fitted the strange, wild country, which every mile appeared to take on more of its peculiar characteristics.

Terrill, driving the smaller wagon, noticed a developing uneasiness in the long column of cattle. They had been plodding along wearily, heads down, tongues out, almost spent. Suddenly a spirit seemed to run through the whole herd. Here and there a cow bawled. They quickened from a crawl to a trot. The Mexican and the other vaquero, far in front, were not succeeding in holding them back. Apparently they were not trying. They waved wildly back to Sambo and Lambeth, who had the rear positions. Something had gone wrong, Terrill feared. How would this terrible drive end?

Then the cattle, as if actuated by a single spirit, stampeded in a cloud of dust and disappeared. Lambeth rode on with drooping head. Sambo approached him as if to offer consolation for the loss.

It was a downgrade there. Terrill had to hold in the team, that had also become imbued with some quickening sense. Ahead where the dust cloud hung, a rugged line of rocks and ridges met the gloomy sky. Terrill could not see far. Where had the cattle gone? What had frightened them? They were gone, and hope was, too. It was over, the suspense of the endless weeks of driving longhorns. A sterner task now confronted her father — to save the horses and their own lives.

Terrill was plunged into an abyss of despair. Somehow she had kept up, believing her prayers would be answered. But now she succumbed. Theirs would be the fate of so many who had wandered off into that God-forsaken wilderness, lured on by the dream of the pioneer. It would have been better to meet a quick and fighting death at the hands of Comanches.

Terrill had caught up with her father and Sambo when she saw the Mexican turn in his saddle to cup his hands and yell. But she could not understand. She did not need to understand his words, however, to realize that some new peril impended. Then several strange riders appeared out of an arroyo. At first Terrill feared they were Indians, so dark, lean, wild were their horses.

It was only when the leader advanced alone that Terrill made out they were white men. But how sinister! The leader was suspicious. He had no rifle over his pommel. The vaquero, riding beside Lambeth, halted his horse.

“Massa, dat’s a rustler, if I ebber seen one,” said Sambo. “We’se held up, we sho is.”

The rider approached to halt some paces from the wagons. Suddenly, with a violent start, Terrill recognized him. Pecos Smith! The young Texan who had backed out of the saloon in San Antonio with a gun in each hand!

“Who air you an’ what you doin’ heah?” he queried, curtly, his piercing eyes taking in all of the travelers, to go back to Lambeth.

“My name’s Lambeth. We’re lost. An’ my cattle have stampeded,” replied Lambeth.

“Where was you goin’ when you got lost?”

“Horsehaid Crossin’ of the Pecos.”

“Wal, you’re way off yore direction. Horsehaid is east from heah.”

“We were told to travel north whether we lost the road or not.”

Evidently the rider had his doubts about this outfit. Finally he called to Sambo: “Niggah, you get down an’ come heah.”

Sambo obeyed precipitately.

“Where’d I ever see you?”

“I dunno, sir, but I’se sho seen you,” replied Sambo.

“Santone, wasn’t it?”

“Yas, sir. I was standin’ in front of a saloon an’ you told me to move along.”

“Reckon I remember you,” returned the rider, and then directed his attention to Lambeth. “But thet don’t prove nothin’. Lambeth, you may be all right. But this vaquero is not. I know him. How’d you come by him?”

Lambeth explained how the Mexican had been lent to him for the trip across the Pecos. And he added, stiffly: “I’m Colonel Templeton Lambeth. What are you takin’ me for?”

“Howdy, Pecos Smith!” spoke up Terrill, feeling at this moment that she might well ease the situation.

“Wal! ... An’ who’re you?” exclaimed the rider, amazed, as he bent eyes that bored upon her.

“He is my father.”

“Ahuh. An’ how’d you know me?”

“I was the — the kid you knocked over that day in Santone — when you came out of the saloon.... You made me fetch your horse.... And you said you’d only shot the man’s ear off — that it stuck out like a jack rabbit’s.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated the rider. “I remember, but you’re shore changed a lot, boy.” Then he turned to Lambeth. “We’ve been trailin’ a rustler outfit up from the Rio Grande. Reckoned mebbe they’d run across somebody with wagons. Sorry to annoy you, Colonel. Turn yore wagons an’ I’ll lead you to the crossin’.”

“Is it far?” asked Lambeth, anxiously.

“Wal, it’s far enough, considerin’ yore hosses. I reckon you’ll just aboot make it.”

The ensuing drive, short though it might have been, proved to Terrill that if they had not been led out of this maze of hot draws and ridges they would have been irrevocably lost. As it was, the weary horses were barely goaded to the gap in a summit of gray bluff. The rider sat his horse, waiting for the caravan to come up.

“Rio Pecos!” he called, and pointed down.

The riders galloped forward at his call. Terrill, with a wild start and a sob of thanksgiving, urged the team ahead. Sambo dismounted and turned back to wave at Terrill. She had all she could do to pull the horses up beside the riders.

“De good Lawd am delibbered us,” said Sambo, and hurried back to meet Mauree.

“Rill — he has led us — to the river!” exclaimed Lambeth, with deep emotion. “Look! Heah is Horsehaid Crossin’ — of the Pecos. And look there — the cattle!”

Terrill gazed down from a height. Just on the moment pale sunlight filtered through the drab clouds, to shine upon a winding silver river that formed a bend like the shape of a horse’s head. It flowed out of gray and green wilderness, and probably came through a gap in the distant stone bluff.

The foremost cattle had reached the water. It had been the scent of water that had stampeded them. Sand bars gleamed white.

Terrill caught her breath. The joy of deliverance had momentarily blinded her to something that struck her like a blow, but which she could not yet grasp. She stared at her father, at the other riders. Pecos Smith was riding by. “Adios an’ good luck!” he called, and galloped away. Sambo’s deep voice pealed from behind, where he was rejoicing with his wife.

All along this trail, surely once a traveled road, lay skulls and bones of animals. Horses, cattle — a line of bones! From a rock stuck up the ghastly skull and weirdly long horns of a Texas steer — fit guidepost for that crossing. The place was desolate, gray, and lonely, an utter solitude, uninhabited even by beasts of the hills or fowls of the air. It stretched away to infinitude. In the east rose a pale streak — possibly the slope of L’lano Estacado.

But it was to the west that Terrill forced her gaze. West of the Pecos! How, for what seemed a lifetime, had she lived on those words, with an added word — home! Could home have any place in this strange and terrific prospect?

The river changed its course with Horsehead Crossing, but soon veered back to its main trend southward. It dominated that savagely monotonous and magnificent scene. Miles were nothing in this endless expanse. The green and the gray along the river were but delusions. Back to the west and south mounted the naked ridges, noble and austere by reason of their tremendous size and reach, and between them gloomed the purple gorges, mysterious, forlorn, seemingly inaccessible for beast or man. No grassy pasturelands such as had existed in Terrill’s hopeful dreams! All that was not gray stone, gray earth, were mere specks of cactus, of greasewood on the boundless slopes.

Terrill’s heart sank. After all, she thought bitterly, she was only a girl. She had loved the open rangeland of Texas, over which she had ridden nearly a thousand miles, but could she ever do aught but hate this deceitful desert? She had loved the river bottoms of the Red, the Sabine, the Brazos, the Colorado, and the San Saba. They had openness, color, life, beauty. But this Rio Pecos, for all its pale silver gleam, its borders of white and green, seemed cold, treacherous, aloof, winding its desolate way down into the desolate unknown.

“Oh, Dad!” cried Terrill, voicing her first surrender. “Take me back! ... This dreadful Pecos can never be home!”

CHAPTER V

TO THE COWHANDS at Healds’ ranch he called himself Pecos Smith. They were not long in discovering that he was the best horseman, the best shot, the best roper that had ever ridden up out of Southwest Texas. But that was about all they ever learned about his past.

Pecos had come up the river with a trail driver named McKeever, who had a contract to deliver cattle at Santa Fé, New Mexico. The Spanish towns of Santa Fé, Taos, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque furnished a growing market for beef. The Government forts added largely to this demand. Cattlemen, believing in future protection against the marauding bands of Indians, had followed the more adventurous settlers into southern New Mexico and western Texas. Most of the cattle at this period came from the Rio Grande.

McKeever, on his return, stopped at Healds’ minus one of his rangy vaqueros, and it was observed that that rider was Smith.

“We left Smith behind at Santa Fé,” explained the trail driver. “He pecosed another man an’, like he always does after a shootin’, he got drunk. We couldn’t wait fer him. But I reckon he’ll be along soon.”

“Quarrelsome cowhand, this Smith?” asked Bill Heald, one of the brother ranchers.

“Not atall. He’s aboot the best-natured boy you’d want to meet,” returned McKeever. “But he gets picked at, seems like, or else he’s everlastin’ bustin’ into somebody’s trouble. An’ he’s shore hell with a gun.”

That was Smith’s introduction to the Healds. Several days after that he dropped in at the ranch, a clean-cut, smiling, devil-may-care Texas boy of the old stock. Bill Heald took a fancy to him, and being in need of riders offered him a job.

“Wal, I’ll shore take ye up,” drawled Smith. “Mac won’t like it. But he was ornery up there at Santa Fé. Cussed me powerful.”

“McKeever told me you shot a man,” rejoined Heald, slowly, watching the rider. “In fact, he said another man.”

“Damn Mac’s pictures, anyhow,” complained the rider, annoyed. “He’s always talkin’ aboot me.”

Heald decided it would be wiser to waive personal inquiries, despite the curiosity Smith aroused. Heald’s experienced eye, however, took in certain details about this rider that prompted one more query. “Ever work for a Mexican?”

“Yeah. Don Felipe Gonzales,” admitted Smith, readily. “My father was killed in the war an’ my family busted up. Don Felipe was an old acquaintance of ours. So I went across the Rio Grande an’ rode his range four or five years. I’m not shore how many. Anyway, till I got chased back over the river.”

Further than that Smith never vouchsafed information about himself, to the Healds or any of the hands.

Upon close scrutiny of Pecos Smith, Heald decided that his appearance belied the boyishness that seemed to be born of his careless, free insouciance. His age must have been between twenty and twenty-five years, which was not very young for a range rider in Texas. He was just above medium height, not so lean and rangy as most horsemen, having wide shoulders and muscular round limbs. He struck Heald as a remarkably able horseman, which opinion was soon more than verified. All the leather trappings about Smith and his horse were ragged and shiny from use, particularly the gun holster which hung low on his left thigh and the saddle sheath. The ivory handle of his gun was yellow with age. What metal showed, and this was also true of his rifle, shone with the bright, almost white luster of worn, polished steel. His saddle, bridle, and spurs, also his black sombrero, were of Spanish make, decorated with silver; and if they had not been so old might have made a thief out of many a vaquero.

“Smith, you’re on,” declared Bill Heald, finally, having been unaccountably slow in decision, for him. “Thet’s a grand hoss you’re forkin’. If he ain’t Arabian I’ll eat him. Have a care for him. What with this outfit an’ the Comanches you’ll have hell keepin’ him.”

“Wal, Cinco cain’t be caught in a race, anyhow,” drawled the rider, patting the tired and dusty horse. “Heald, I’m shore thankin’ you for the job.”

“Not atall. We’re short-handed. An’ you strike me right. But, Smith, if you’ve got thet queer hand-itch fer a gun, won’t you doctor it with axle grease or somethin’?”

“Never no more, boss. I’m a sick hombre. Red likker an’ me air on the oots,” drawled the rider, his flashing smile answering the other’s levity.

“Then you’re set heah,” concluded Bill Heald.

It chanced that Heald’s sister, Mary, had watched this interview from the door, unobserved. She was only sixteen, and with the brothers had been made an orphan not so long ago. She was the pride of their eyes as well as the disturber of their peace.

“Oh, Billy!” she exclaimed, her black eyes shining roguishly. “That’s the handsomest rider I’ve seen since I came West.”

“Thunder an’ blazes!” ejaculated Heald. “If I’d seen thet I’d never hev hired him.... Mary, if you make eyes at him ranchin’ will shore stop heah.”

The next time Heald saw Smith he remembered Mary’s tribute and took keener note of the stranger. Smith was not an unusual type for a Texan, though he appeared to have Texas characteristics magnified. Many Texans were sandy-haired or tow-headed, and possessed either blue or gray eyes. This rider had flaxen hair and he wore it so long that it curled from under his sombrero. His face was like a bronze mask, except when he talked or smiled, and then it lightened. In profile it was sharply cut, cold as stone, singularly more handsome than the full face. His eyes assumed dominance over all other features, being a strange- flecked, pale gray, of exceeding power of penetration. His lips, in repose, were sternly chiseled, almost bitter, but as they were mostly open in gay, careless talk or flashing a smile over white teeth, this last feature was seldom noticed.

The remudo filed in that night, enlivening the ranch again, and next day Bill Heald asked his brother what he thought of the new cowhand.

“Strikes me fine. Likable cuss, I’ll gamble,” replied John Heald. “Real Texas stuff in thet fellar.”

“Mary has fallen in love with him already.”

“O Lord! What’ll we do, Bill? Send her back to Auntie Heald?”

“Hell no! She stays if she puts the outfit up a tree. Mebbe this Pecos hombre can win her.”

“I don’t know aboot thet,” replied John, soberly. “Mary’s tryin’ an’ thet’s no joke. I want her to settle out heah an’ marry some good fellar. But this Pecos has a gun record, Bill. Did you know thet?”

“McKeever told me Smith had killed another man,” admitted the elder brother, thoughtfully.

“Sandy told me more than thet,” went on John, impressively. “Sandy says he sneaked a peep at this Pecos fellar’s gun. It had six notches on the handle an’ one of them was cut fresh.”

“Six.... I reckoned it might be more. Let’s not borrow trouble, John. Anyway, it’s a shootin’ country an’ we might be most damn glad to have thet kind of a Texan among us.”

“Shore. An’ it ain’t likely Mary will capitulate to a blood- spiller. She’s squeamish for a Heald. But she might flirt with the fellar. Mary’s the dod-blastedest flirt I ever seen.”

“Flirtin’ might be as bad as a real case,” rejoined Bill. “What concerns me is the effect thet’d have on our outfit. You know, John, every last man Jack of them thinks he’s goin’ to wed with Mary.”

Pecos Smith gave opportunity for various discussion among the brothers and their cowhands. It was a lonesome country, and strangers, that were not to be avoided, were few and far between. Their opinions, however, fell far wide of the mark, except as they had to do with Smith as a vaquero. The horse Cinco lived up to his looks and his rider’s pride. Pecos was a whole outfit in himself. He never knew when work was done. His riding and roping might have been that of the famous vaquero, Rodiriquez. Every cowhand in the outfit had his sombrero full of bullet holes, proofs of Pecos’ marksmanship. Pecos was most obliging and he could not resist any kind of a bet. He seldom missed a sombrero tossed into the air, and as often as not he put two bullets through it before it dropped. He would never let anyone handle his gun, which shared with Cinco in his affections. Pecos proved to be a round peg fitting snugly into a round hole. Riders were scarce, cattle growing plentiful, likewise rustlers, and always the horse-stealing Comanches.

Long before McKeever drove north again with a herd of steers Pecos had won the regard of the X Bar outfit, which was run by an adjoining rancher, as well as that of the H H outfit, belonging to the Healds.

The singular thing about Pecos, remarkable in view of the universal esteem in which he was held, was that he avoided contact with people, save the riders with whom he worked or those of the neighboring ranch. Mary Heald gave a party one night to which all the people in that part of the country were invited. Somebody had to be out with the cattle on that particular night, and Pecos took the job for another rider. Mary Heald was furious with him, and snubbed him on the following day when he happened to run into her at the corrals.

“Wal, I just cain’t please the ladies, nohow,” he drawled to Sandy McClain.

“Huh! Say, you mysterious cuss — you could have ’em eatin’ out of your hand if you’d give ’em a chance.”

“Sandy, yore what them Colorado chaps call loco.”

“Am I? What’s thet?”

“Wal, it’s a kind of weed thet hosses eat an’ go off their haids.”

“Pecos, air you hitched to some gurl? — Married, I mean?”

“Me? — Santa Maria!”

“Air you a woman-hater then? Had yore heart broke? ... Honest, Pecos, yore laughin’ an’ whistlin’ an’ makin’ fun don’t fool this heah chicken none. You’re a sad hombre.”

“No, Sandy, my heart’s shore not broke yet, but dog-gone me, it wouldn’t take much.”

Bill Heald and his brother satisfied themselves finally as to Pecos’ peculiar aloofness.

“First off I figured Pecos was one of them Texas-Ranger- dodgin’ hombres,” said Bill. “But I’ve changed my mind. Thet fellar never did a shady thing in his life. He comes of a good family, you can tell thet, an’ he’s had trouble.”

“Bill, I agree with you. More’n thet I’d say if there was a sheriff or a ranger huntin’ Pecos he’d never dodge him. I’d shore hate to be the sheriff that tried to arrest him, provided it was an even break.”

“He fooled us aboot Mary, didn’t he? Darn good lesson fer thet little lady. Only I hope she doesn’t fall daid in love with Pecos.”

“Wal, if she did it wouldn’t last.... No, Pecos is just one of them driftin’, fascinatin’ vaqueros. I’ve met as many as I have fingers. Texas is the only country thet could produce such a breed.”

McKeever, on his return from Santa Fé spent a night at the Heald ranch and not only inquired about his lost vaquero, but wanted to see him. Pecos was not to be located.

“Reckon he likes it hyar an’ wants to hang aboot,” concluded the trail driver, with a sly look at Mary, which made her blush flamingly.

“I’m shore nobody hyar wants him hangin’ aboot,” she retorted, her chin tilting.

“My loss is your gain, folks,” returned McKeever, resignedly. “They don’t come any finer than Smith.”

If there were any doubts at the H H ranch as to the status of Pecos Smith, that recommendation definitely dispersed them.

* * * * *

The time came when Pecos Smith justified the prefix to his name, if he had not already done so. Like an Indian, it was second nature for him to remember any trail, any thicket, any creek bottom, or canyon that he had ever seen. His brain instinctively photographed places.

The Rio Pecos from Castle Gap Canyon to the New Mexico border became his intimate possession. The Healds did not know whether they were running twenty thousand head of stock or thirty thousand. Pecos Smith had a more accurate estimate of their cattle than anyone, and his reports of unbranded calves and yearlings and steers hiding in the thickets of the creek bottoms or the brakes of the Pecos ran into the thousands.

Bill Heald took this with a grain of salt, while his brother pondered over it seriously. Like all ranchers of the period, they were careless branders. That was to say they did not have the hands nor the time to comb the range for unbranded stock. Cattle had begun to demand a price and the future looked promising. But money was scarce. Texas was in her first stage of recovery after the ruin left by the war. The Healds were doing about all that was possible for them.

Rustlers appeared on the Pecos range. The long-horns had come originally from south of the Rio Grande; so had the cattle thieves. Nowhere had there ever been such wholesale and tremendous thefts of cattle as along the Mexican border. That was one reason why Texans like the Healds had moved to isolated ranges.

But up to this period the X Bar, the H H, and other outfits had not suffered much from rustling. At least they had not been aware of it. Every rancher lost stock, the same as he appropriated a little that really did not belong to him. There had not been, however, any appreciable inroads upon the herds.

It was through the trail driver, McKeever, that the Healds found the opportunity they had planned and waited for, and this was a considerable market for their product. McKeever bought cattle from them in large numbers and drove them to the Spanish settlements in New Mexico and the Government headquarters. Extensive military operations against the Indians were already under way. Rumors of railroads through New Mexico and Texas were rife. Altogether the Healds looked forward to huge markets, to advancing prices, and trail herds of their own.

To this end Pecos Smith was promoted to be their outside man. He accepted the job with reluctance, and upon being asked why he was not keen about it he replied rather evasively that it held too much responsibility. His duty was to ride all over the country, to the farthest outlying ranges, not only to keep track of the Heald cattle, but to gauge general conditions, study the methods of other ranchers, and watch their round-ups. Thus Pecos Smith added to his already wide knowledge of the country.

Upon his return from one of these trips, in the autumn of his second year’s service to the Healds, he ran into the inevitable trouble that had always hounded his trail.

Pecos had ridden into the ranch early in the morning, and after cleaning up was enjoying a much-needed rest and a smoke when Sandy McClain came hurrying over from the ranch-house. Pecos divined there was something up before Sandy drew near enough to distinguish his features. He could tell by that hurried yet suspensive stride. So that when Sandy arrived at the porch of the cabin, his hazel eyes full of fire and his lips hard, Pecos cursed under his breath.

“Pecos, thar’s shore — hell to pay,” declared Sandy.

“Who’s payin’ it?” queried Pecos, in his cool, lazy drawl.

“Nobody yit, but you’ll have to. An’ I’m gittin’ this off my chest first. If it comes to a fight I’m with you.”

“Thanks, Sandy, I shore appreciate thet. But usually I can tend to my own fights. Suppose you tell me aboot what’s up?”

“You know thet Sawtell, foreman fer Beckman?” rushed on Sandy.

“Shore. I was at Marber’s Crossin’ not two months ago,” replied Pecos, his boots coming down from a bench. “They had a round-up. I was there, you bet, an’ I stayed, in spite of the cold shoulder from Sawtell.”

“Pecos, it ain’t so good. Sawtell is hyar, with three of his outfit. An’ he’s been hittin’ the bottle, Pecos. He’s loud an’ nasty.”

“What’s it all aboot?”

“I didn’t heah. But I can guess. Bill is all upset, an’ madder’n hell under his hat, as I could see. He sent me to fetch you.”

Pecos sat silent a moment with slowly contracting brows. His eyes were downcast. Presently he drew his gun, and flipping it open he extracted an extra cartridge from his vest pocket and inserted it in the one empty chamber. Then he arose to his feet, sheathing the gun. Without another word he strode off toward the ranch-house, with Sandy beside him, talking wildly.

Presently Pecos espied four saddled horses standing, bridles down, across the open space in front of the house. He sheered a little to the left so that he would not go abruptly around the corner.

“Keep out of this, Sandy,” he ordered.

“But they’re four to one, Pecos,” expostulated Sandy. “An’ thet red-faced Sawtell doesn’t talk like he savvied you. I’ve got a hunch, Pecos. It won’t do no harm to let them see you got a pard.”

Pecos answered with a gesture that needed no speech. Sandy sheered widely to the right. Pecos heard a loud voice. Next moment he came into the open, where he had a clear view. Mary Heald was the first person he saw.

“Go in the house,” Bill Heald ordered her.

“Oh, your grandmother!” retorted Mary. She was flushed and excited, and upon espying Pecos gave a violent start.

“Bill! ... Hyar he is,” she called.

Pecos took in the prospect. Sawtell, a tall cattleman wearing a bandana as red as his face, stood out before three cowhands whose posture was not easy. Bill Heald, turning from Mary, called to his brother: “This ain’t no mix fer her. Drag her inside.”

“Let her stay. Mebbe she’ll hyar somethin’,” declared John.

“I did hyar somethin’ and it’s a confounded lie,” flashed Mary, hotly.

Upon seeing Pecos approaching, Bill Heald showed a subtle change of manner.

“Sawtell, hyar’s Pecos now, to speak fer himself. We think you’re on a wrong track. An’ if you’ll listen to reason, you’ll go mighty slow.”

“Hell! — Air you threatenin’ me, Bill Heald?” returned the visitor, harshly.

“Not atall. I’m just advisin’ you.”

“Wal, I don’t need any advice. I was ridin’ these ranges long before you.”

“Shore. But you don’t know Pecos Smith.”

“Pecos! Whar’d he git thet handle?”

“I don’t know. He had it when he come.”

Pecos halted some paces out.

“Boss, what’s up heah?”

“I’m ashamed to tell you, Pecos, an’ I swear I’d never done it if I could have persuaded Sawtell to ride off.”

“Thanks, Heald.... Get back an’ leave this to me.”

Bill promptly acted upon that suggestion, and it was equally noticeable that the three cowhands behind Sawtell moved out of line with him.

Pecos eyed the cattleman and read him through. There would be no equivocation here. The matter had been settled in Sawtell’s mind before he arrived at Healds’ ranch, and he had fortified it with drink.

“You know me, Smith?” demanded Sawtell. He was loud, authoritative, but not of the braggart breed.

“I haven’t the honor, Señor,” replied Pecos, coldly. “When I called on you at Marber’s Crossin’ not long since you didn’t give me the chance. An’ I reckoned I didn’t miss much.”

“Wal, you might have missed hyarin’ aboot the maverick- brandin’ thet’s goin’ on.”

“No. I didn’t have to heah thet.”

Bill Heald could not keep out of the colloquy.

“Pecos reported to me. The H H is losin’ a dribble of mavericks.”

“Is thet so?” sneered Sawtell. He was ugly and could not be conciliated.

“See hyar, Sawtell,” retorted Heald, sharply, at last out of patience. “You come shore set to make trouble. An’ by Gawd, you’re liable to run into more’n you bargained fer.”

“Air you defendin’ maverick-brandin’?” demanded Sawtell, sarcastically.

“Boss, would you mind leavin’ this deal to me?” interposed Pecos.

“All right, Sawtell. You’re makin’ your own bed. I’ve no more to say,” concluded Heald, and he backed away.

Pecos made two strides which brought him within ten feet of the irate cattleman. Everyone present except Sawtell must have sensed the singular, cold menace of the vaquero. Only the false stimulus of whisky could have blinded a matured Texan to imminent peril. And at that Sawtell seemed confronted with an obstructing thought.

“Sawtell, you gave me a cold shoulder up at Marber’s Crossin’.”

“You bet I did.”

“If it hadn’t been fer my boss, I’d have called you then, in yore own back yard. I took thet as an insult.”

“Wal, you took it proper. An’ if it hadn’t been fer the Healds hyar I’d run you off my ranch.”

That was definite and it settled all but the conclusion of this meeting, which the cattleman was evidently too obtuse or bull-headed to sense. One of his men made a movement as if to intercede, but was restrained by a second. They edged nervously to one side, as if wary to get out of line with Pecos’ piercing eyes. But they would have had to dissolve in thin air to accomplish that.

Pecos’ silence, his strained intensity, the suspense of the moment penetrated Sawtell’s befogged brain. But it was too late.

“Mr. Pecos Smith,” Sawtell blustered, “you know them X Bar cowhands, Curt Williams an’ Wess Adams?”

“Reckon I do.”

“They rode fer thet greaser Felipe, down on the Big Bend.”

“So did I.”

“Wal, thet ain’t any recommend fer them or you.”

“Beggars cain’t be choosers. I had to ride to live.... Yore beatin’ aboot the bush. Come on!”

“I had Williams an’ Adams fired off the X Bar.”

“No news to me.”

“They was seen brandin’ mavericks on my range.”

“Sawtell, it’s not beyond the bounds of reason thet them mavericks wasn’t yore’n,” replied Pecos, coldly.

“No, it ain’t. But I’m choosin’ to claim them.”

“Thet’s yore affair. Tolerable unhealthy, I’d say — on the Pecos.”

Sawtell’s hurried speech apparently augmented his anger, but did not relieve the cramping effect of Pecos’ front.

“I’m down hyar to have you fired off the H H,” shouted the cattleman.

“Cain’t be done. I quit.”

“Ahuh. When?”

“Aboot two minutes ago.”

“You’re a slick hombre, Mr. Smith,” retorted Sawtell, exasperated to derision. “Wal, then, I’ll drive you off the Pecos range.”

Pecos made a singular movement, too swift to discern, though it left him as if in the act of leaping. From his whole being suddenly emanated terrible suspense.

“You —— idiot! Drive me off the Pecos? ... What’s all yore gab aboot?”

Sawtell had again gone too far. There was no retreat. The red of his face receded in a marked line, leaving it a leaden gray.

“You was thick with them maverick-branders.”

“Who accuses me?” cried Pecos, piercingly.

Sawtell let out an incoherent roar — rage at himself as well as at Pecos — at the realization that he had misjudged his man. His arm moved stiffly. His hand jerked at his gun.

The single, whipping throw of Pecos’ gun discharged it. Sawtell’s body lost its vibrant tension. It slumped. His head dropped forward. Then he swayed.

Pecos leaped like a tiger past the falling man to face the cowhands, his gun high, quivering to flash down with the force that would fire it.

“Any of you back him up?” he yelled, stridently.

“Smith, it weren’t our mistake,” hoarsely replied the one who would have importuned Sawtell. “Honest to Gawd — we wanted him — to go slow.”

Pecos waved them off, and watched them go hurriedly toward their horses. When he turned, Bill Heald was kneeling beside Sawtell. Sandy was running over and John Heald was trying to drag the white-faced girl away.

“Daid! ... Shot through the heart! ... Pecos, this is shore bad bizness,” ejaculated Bill.

“You heah him!” Pecos’ voice cracked like steel on ice.

“Shore. But my Gawd, man, I didn’t expect you to kill him,” returned Heald, suddenly rising.

“You believe — —”

“No, Pecos! Not fer a second,” protested Heald, hastily, lifting a hand. “An’ thet’s straight. John an’ I think you’re as clean an’ fine as they come. McKeever swore by you. This damn fool Sawtell must have been drunk. I told him.... Pecos, don’t hold any of it against the H H.”

Pecos lowered the gun, but he kept up his pacing to and fro, his strange eyes pivoting like the oscillations of a compass needle. All his cold poise was gone. He had the lunge, the standing hair, the savageness of a wild animal. Sandy approached him, to halt in hesitation.

“Pecos, you had to bore him,” he ejaculated. “You jest had to. We’ll all stick up fer you. Sawtell brought it on himself.”

One of the retreating cowhands, now mounted on their horses, called to Heald: “We’ll send a wagon back fer him.”

“All right. Make it pronto,” Heald replied.

Pecos sheathed his gun, and with that motion appeared to sag. He ceased his cat-like stride. Freckles no one had ever seen stood out on his clammy face. His hair was wet. He stooped to pick up his sombrero, which had fallen when he leaped to confront Sawtell’s men.

“Bill, didn’t I tell you not to give me thet outside job?” he queried.

“You shore did, Pecos. I’m sorry. But I don’t see what difference thet could have made.”

“I seen too much, Bill. An’ I tried to — wal, never mind aboot thet.... I’m shore thankin’ you an’ John fer keepin’ me heah so long an’ fer defendin’ me to thet white-livered liar.”

His implication must have been clear to Heald. At least he looked as if he had grasped at the truth — Pecos had come upon these roistering cowhands at some shady deal. He had tried to show them the error of their ways and had kept his mouth shut about it.

“Pecos, listen hyar. Sawtell must have had a showdown on Williams an’ Adams. He was aimin’ to bluff you into squealin’ — shore he didn’t know you.”

“You heah somethin’ aboot Curt an’ Wess?”

“Yes. More’n once, an’ I have my doubts, Pecos.”

The vaquero threw up his hands. “ —— the fools!”

At this juncture Mary Heald broke away from her brother and ran out to confront Pecos. She was still white, sick, trembling, but she was brave.

“Pecos, I know you’re not a thief,” she burst out.

His somber face lightened beautifully.

“Wal, Miss Mary, thet’s shore good fer me to heah.... I’ve no home, no family, no friends, an’ when I go out on the long trail again, it’ll be good to remember you an’ yore brothers believed in me.”

“We do, Pecos. Oh, we do,” she replied, brokenly. “Don’t say you’ve no friends — no home.... Do not leave us, Pecos.”

“I cain’t stay. It might do yore brothers harm. Those cowhands will tell how Bill stuck up fer me. An’ they’ll add to it. If I stayed on — —”

“Mary, he’s right,” interposed Bill. “Much as I regret it, Pecos will have to leave the H H.”

“Shore. An’ I may as wal have the game as the blame,” added Pecos, bitterly.

“Don’t say thet, boy,” entreated Heald who heard in this resignation the spirit and the hopelessness that had sent so many fine Texas boys down the wrong trail. It was cruel, because in that great state, depleted by wars and overrun with ruined boys and men, there seemed so slight a line of demarcation between the right trail and the wrong.

“Oh, you wild vaquero!” burst out Mary, passionately. “That is wrong — to yourself — to us.... to me! ... Pecos, you’re such a — a wonderful boy. Don’t let the horror of — of killin’ another man drive you to — to ... He deserved it. He was mean. I — I could have shot him myself.... Bill — John — say somethin’ — —”

The girl failed of utterance there. She had much excuse for agitation, but neither her youth nor the shock of seeing a man killed could wholly account for all she betrayed.

“Pecos, I reckon you’d better stay on,” said Bill, huskily. “I’ll ride up to Marber’s an’ prove your innocence — explain how Sawtell was drunk an’ forced this shootin’.”

“No. Bill, you cain’t do thet,” returned Pecos. “I’ve riled up bad blood before an’ I shore don’t want to do it heah.”

“Pecos!” whispered the girl.

The vaquero turned to her in a realizing amazement that almost hid his gratitude. “Miss Mary, I shore thank you.... An’ I promise you — thet if anythin’ can make me go straight from now on — it’ll be you — yore faith — yore goodness. Adios.”

He reached as if to take her hand, drew back, and wheeled away. Sandy McClain ran to stride beside him.

“Adios, Pecos!” called the girl. “Go straight — an’ come — back — some — day.”

CHAPTER VI

BUT IT DEVELOPED quickly that neither the sweet memory of Mary Heald, nor the scorn Pecos Smith had for rustlers, nor the promise he had given could keep him straight.

Branding mavericks was not a crime in Texas at that early stage of cattle-raising. All ranchers did it more or less, without being absolutely sure that the calves belonged to them. There could be no positive identification, unless the calf accompanied a branded cow. And if a calf or a yearling or a two- year-old did not get the mark of one outfit, it would eventually find that of another.

But in his heart Pecos Smith knew that he had slipped, for the first time in his range life. Bitterly he regarded it as being shoved, rather than having slipped. Nevertheless, what could he do? The X Bar made the excuse that they did not require an extra hand; so did another outfit below the New Mexico line. Pecos’ good sense urged him to work south and take up with McKeever again, or some other cattleman west of the Pecos, or even Don Felipe. But his pride and his bitter conviction that there was a step on his trail set his face the other way. He made up his mind to throw in with Curt Williams and Wess Adams, who were indeed trafficking in unbranded mavericks. There was no law against it. There was no obstacle, except that of a gun; and bold maneuvers like Sawtell’s were the exception rather than the rule. Pecos argued that if he stuck to the branding of mavericks, and collected a herd of his own, or saved his share of the money he would not long need to do questionable work that was offensive to him.

Williams and Adams had not vouchsafed any information as to their market, except that it was unfailing. Pecos did not care to know. There were ranchers in New Mexico buying stock and asking no questions. There were Government buyers dealing directly with rustlers. The stage was almost set for a great cattle business in the Southwest. Pecos sensed it so well that he thought it a pity he had not already a sizable herd of his own to start with.

Wherefore he trailed the two X Bar cowhands down into the Pecos brakes and joined them.

This couple had a string of horses and a pack outfit. Strengthened by Pecos, they made a formidable band. Pecos knew where to locate more unbranded stock than any cowhand in Texas. The thicketed canyons were full of cattle, many of them that had never felt an iron. The operations of Williams and Adams were too loose to satisfy Pecos. He tightened them. These two riders were on their way to becoming rustlers very shortly. Pecos did not think he could afford to train with them very long. Still, he had to take risks.

“Listen, you footloose hombres,” he said. “I can round up thousands of unbranded stock south of hyar. Hard work an’ lots of time, but shore an’ we cain’t get in trouble.”

“We’ll take ’em as they come,” replied Wess Adams, a craggy faced young rider, dissolute and forceful.

“Pecos has some good idees, Wess,” interposed Williams, who was more amenable and less reckless. “So we gotta compromise.”

“If you must work out these brakes — which is shore pore judgment — it’d be best to throw together a bunch of say a hundred haid or less, an’ drive them to yore buyers once a month.”

“A hundred haid an’ once a month? Bah!” blurted Adams.

“I’m sidin’ with Pecos,” said Williams, thoughtfully. “An’ then it ain’t so damn safe.”

“Wal, when it gits hot for us we’ll change tactics,” rejoined Pecos. “We’ll clap on another brand thet nobody ever saw, an’ throw the stock out on the range. None of the ranchers will know thet brand is ours. Later when the brands are old we can round up an’ drive a big herd without much risk.”

“Wess, it’s a good idee,” ventured Williams. Adams at length gave in with bad grace.

The trio set to work. They did their roping and branding alone; at least Pecos did, and he accounted for as many as both his comrades. In a few days they had a mixed herd of over five score. Williams and Adams started north with this bunch, expecting to drive twenty-five miles a day, which would get them to their market in less than a week. Pecos remained in camp and went on with his riding, roping and branding. He regretted that he had not been able to go into this game alone. However, that required horses and outfit and especially a market, unless he could afford to wait and watch his herd grow. He liked the lonely life and came to love the Rio Pecos. It was now a refuge.

His comrades returned in due course, and Pecos found himself the richer for something in excess of two hundred dollars, more money than he had ever possessed at one time in his life. His exuberance was short-lived; this money had been earned, but not by honest toil and sweat.

In far less than a month Wess Adams had prevailed upon Williams to make another drive north, with all the stock they and Pecos had burned brands on. Pecos entered strong objection, but in vain. He deliberated just which of two courses to pursue — the first, to pick a quarrel with Adams and shoot him, the second, to let his partners go on their perilous way without further resistance. Pecos found the latter more to his liking. He needed to resist this strange tendency to resort to his gun, and if he could keep strict watch in their absence, prepared for anything, so that if they were trailed back, as seemed most likely, he need not be caught. On the other hand, he reasoned that if they never returned, well and good; he would take the outfit and move to a wilder country farther south on the Pecos.

But Adams and Williams came back. They were hard riders, cunning and resourceful, driving mostly at night, and they must have had allies somewhere along the trail. Thus for Pecos the situation remained the same, except that he had another and a larger roll of greenbacks.

From late summer, through autumn and winter, those two indefatigable riders made ten drives to their market in New Mexico. Towards spring they grew bolder, as was inevitable for such characters and as a result of such success. Moreover, Adams returned smelling of strong drink. Therefore, when sometime in April, the two did not return from their drive on time, Pecos was not surprised. Nor was he worried or grieved. He had decided this drive was to be the last for him, under any circumstances.

Pecos had so much money that he did not dare count it; assuredly enough to start him with a ranch of his own somewhere. The Pecos near its junction with the Rio Grande took his fancy, but that had long been the seat of Mexican depredations, and he had had enough to do with Mexicans. He indulged in long cogitations about this future venture. He had been clever to allow Williams and Adams to make the cattle drives to their market — which, after all, was their own wish; nevertheless Pecos felt that he might be implicated, too, when these two riders had gone to the end of their tether. In that case he had only to lie low in hiding for a year or so to be forgotten. Texas was too enormous, too wild, too swiftly changing on its course to empire, for a few unbranded mavericks to be remembered. There were a thousand real rustlers to be contended with before considering that. Sometimes Pecos had his doubts as to the latest status of his comrades. What a slight step it was from branding mavericks to burning brands! Yet therein lay the actual dishonesty. When mavericks grew scarce, as they certainly were decreasing in number down the river as far as Pecos had ridden, Williams and Adams might be expected to resort to burning out of brands.

A week or more beyond the date Pecos had set as the latest for the return of his two partners, he became certain some untoward circumstance had befallen them. They might have been caught; they might have sold this last bunch of stock and departed for other fields, without the formality of returning to give Pecos his share of the proceeds. Adams would have done it, but Williams seemed hardly that kind of a man.

Anyway Pecos moved his camp, choosing a wild and almost inaccessible retreat some miles below. He packed most of the fast diminishing supplies, and he left the pack-horses there with Cinco. A dense thicket choked the mouth of the little side canyon, where it opened on the Pecos, and back of it there were water and grass in abundance. It could not be entered from the mouth, owing to the matted underbrush, and as there were no cattle or horse tracks leading into it there was little danger of pursuers bothering with the place. Pecos had no concern about its being discovered from above.

From here he went forth every day, carrying his rifle and a pocket full of ammunition, to make a slow, cautious way back to the old camp. When his comrades returned it would be time enough to explain his action to them.

On the fourth morning after Pecos had left the old camp, and the eleventh since his partners had been overdue, he sighted a bunch of Indians on the east bank of the river. He had only a glimpse of lean wild forms and ragged mustangs crossing a brake back from the high bank, but that was enough for Pecos Smith. His persistent and unerring watchfulness had at last earned its reward. With the arrival of spring Kiowas or Comanches might be expected to ride down off the Staked Plains to make a raid anywhere in West Texas.

Pecos deliberated awhile. These savages might be on their way upriver, returning from a raid. There was an Indian trail across on that side. The camp that the three maverick hunters had chosen was in a low-walled canyon, well hidden from the west side of the Pecos, but exposed to the other. If Williams and Adams had returned it would almost surely have been the night before, in which case their horses and camp-fire smoke would betray them to the Indians.

Keeping well out of sight, Pecos made his way toward the old camp. He had traveled more than two miles when his sharp eye detected movement and color at the mouth of a ravine on the eastern bank. A band of mounted Indians, that he made sure were Comanches, rode out of the ravine and into the river. A lone string of half naked savages! He counted eighteen. The river was shallow there and could be forded at this stage of the water. Pecos watched them with hard eyes. More than once he had nearly lost his scalp to these painted devils. They crossed without difficulty and disappeared.

Half a mile up the river opened the canyon in which lay the camp Pecos was approaching. He knew that horses could not be ridden up that far. There was a brake, however, between the impassable bank and where the Indians had crossed. Perhaps they would pass up that. At any rate, they were bent upon mischief.

Pecos retraced his steps to a brake where he could get up out of the river bottom. Once out of the ravine, he took to the rocks and brush, making fast time until he got into the vicinity of the gorge he expected the Comanches to work up, when he proceeded very warily. But they had not passed that way. This meant that their procedure must almost certainly be directed against the old camp.

This point was not now far distant, and it appeared certain that Pecos could arrive there ahead of the Comanches, if he chose to risk traversing rather open ground. His first impulse was to risk anything to warn his comrades, provided they had arrived. Sober reason, however, gave him pause. He could warn them as well from the rim of the canyon wall, and be in a much more advantageous position to help them ward off the impending attack.

Nevertheless the moments became fraught with uncertainty. Pecos hoped his comrades had not returned, but he had a queer intuitive conviction that they had. Adams would be sleeping off the effects of liquor and a long ride; Williams was certainly not a wary man around camp, at least this camp in the brakes of the Pecos.

Something not only held Pecos from hurried action, but forced him to make slow detours under cover. Once near the south wall of the canyon he would be secure, as it was exceedingly broken.

As he neared its vicinity he thought he heard a distant neigh of a horse. He waited in suspense. The morning was quite advanced, clear and bright, not a cloud in the sky, with the sun burning the herald of summer near at hand. Buzzards sailed high above the camp. These uncanny birds always annoyed Pecos. A sarcastic enemy had once told Pecos that he would be food for buzzards some day. The enemy had verified that presagement for himself, but Pecos had never forgotten. Buzzards had a strange prescience of death and carrion soon to be visited upon a certain locality. Bees hummed by Pecos as he crouched among the rocks, listening. Presently he went on, eyes and ears strained.

But it was his nose that gave first and sure proof of his sagacity. Smoke! “I shore smell smoke,” he whispered.

That meant Williams and Adams were back. The fact shot a cold sense of tragedy through Pecos, which he could not explain on the score of imminent peril. He could not understand it, but it felt so. No more could he have explained his feeling about the buzzards. Three men under cover could stand off a larger force of Indians than this one Pecos had seen crossing the river.

At last Pecos gained the canyon, but some distance above camp, and round a bend. He had to work down along the broken rim among thick thorned bushes and gray sage, the treacherous dagger-spiked lechuguilla and the maze of broken rocks.

He soon got out of breath, not being accustomed to long climbs out of his saddle, and this going was very rough. Panting and sweating, he thought it best to rest a little. He imagined he might need the clearest of faculties and all his breath before so very long.

Still back and down from the ragged rim-wall he made his way, not at all sure of where he should peep over in to the canyon. Presently he espied a column of blue smoke lazily rising. He had passed the camp. That was all right, for it placed him between his comrades and the sneaking Comanches.

Pecos got down on his knees and one hand, to crawl toward the rim. He had not proceeded far when he was brought stockstill by a horrid scream abruptly cut off. Cold sweat now broke out over the hot sweat.

“What’n hell? Was thet a hoss or a man?” he whispered low. Then his sensitive ear caught loud angry voices. Whatever was going on down below, the Comanches had not yet made their presence known. Wherefore Pecos made short work of the remaining distance to the rim, coming out in a niche of the wall, covered by brush. He could not be seen; he could get away swiftly; and pursuit was impossible within a reasonable time.

Pecos raised himself to peep down, the voices guiding him. His eyes nearly popped out at sight of four men holding Adams on a horse. He was cursing, bellowing, entreating. They had a lasso round his neck, with an end thrown up over the branch of a tree.

This led Pecos’ startled gaze to something dark and moving. It jerked. A man hung by his neck. Williams! He was kicking in a horribly grotesque manner. His distorted face, eyes distended, mouth wide, tongue out, was in plain sight across the canyon.

An instant of paralyzed staring was long enough for Pecos, Adams and Williams had been surprised by cattlemen, who were meting out the law to rustlers. They were hanging them. Pecos had heard of that summary justice coming to the Texas range. His blood froze, only to gush again in a bursting fire. No cattlemen would ever put a noose over his head.

All five men were shouting, but Adams’ voice could be heard above the others. Pecos grasped that the coward was trying to beg off or buy his freedom. What a fool! He did not know Texans!

Suddenly Pecos had a lightning-swift realization of his complicity in this tragedy. He was an ally of Adams, though he had never liked or trusted the man. But he had thrown in with them, he had helped them brand mavericks; he had shared their ill-gotten spoils. He did not consider himself a rustler. But it was monstrously evident that these cowmen regarded Adams and Williams as rustlers.

This, then, was the inevitable climax Pecos had dreaded. He had killed Sawtell because he had been unjustly accused. But if he killed here, in defense of the comrades who had been outlawed by the range, he would be an outlaw himself.

Pecos made his choice instantly. His code left him no alternative. He cocked and raised his rifle, deadly sure of saving Adams’ life.

“Stretch hemp!” yelled the leader, in a stentorian voice. And he heaved on the rope, while two of his men wheeled from the victim to assist.

Even as Pecos swerved the rifle to align its sights with this leader, Adams was jerked half out of the saddle.

Then from below Pecos, and to his right, boomed a buffalo gun. The leader of that hanging squad uttered a hoarse cry. Dropping the rope, he staggered, arms spread wide to fall into the grass.

Before Adams had sunk back into the saddle a roar of heavy rifles followed the first report, accompanied by the hideous war cry of Comanches.

Pecos went stiff in every muscle. He lowered his rifle, his gaze riveted on the terrible scene opposite. Another cattleman fell. The horse leaped up, throwing Adams off. It plunged down, to kick with all four hoofs in the air, suddenly to sag quiet. Adams had been crippled. Still with the noose around his neck he tried to crawl. The rope, which had been over a branch, caught up in the tree. While Adams frantically pulled to free it he received more bullets and slid face forward. The third cattleman leaped behind the tree. And the fourth was brought down before he could reach shelter behind the rocks. But he was not killed. With a broken leg at least, he flopped behind the fallen horse.

Puffs of blue smoke rose from behind the tree. Pecos saw the man behind the horse slide a rifle out of its saddle-sheath to level it and fire.

Pecos crawled out of the niche to a point where he could see below. Fortune favored him, as it ruled disaster to the Comanches. Pecos watched them slipping, sliding, gliding, down among the rocks, into the thicket that fringed that side of the canyon. They filled the air with their wild cries of hate and exultance. Emboldened by the success of their surprise attack, they were charging. Still they kept shooting as fast as they could reload, and the din of the heavy rifles was so loud that Pecos could scarcely hear the rapid fire from the two cattlemen.

At this juncture Pecos grimly entered the engagement. He could not be seen and his lighter calibre rifle scarcely heard. The last line of the gliding Comanches appeared scarcely fifty feet below him. When Pecos drew a quick bead on a naked red back he pulled the trigger, then looked for another Indian. He fired seven shots in less than two minutes.

While he reloaded he saw the front line of savages spread to left and right. At least six of these, in their thirst for blood charged out of the thicket. Pecos discerned arrows flying like glints of light through the air, some to stick in the carcass of the horse, others in the tree.

Suddenly the cattleman who had been firing from behind the tree lunged into sight with an arrow through his middle. Evidently a cunning redskin far to the right had been able to hit him. One after another, he killed the three foremost charging Comanches. The others turned tail to flee.

Here Pecos got into action again, killing the Indian nearest him. But it was a blunder, for the other two, out in the open, discovered him, and fled along the edge of the thicket, screeching like demons. The remaining four or five flashed here and there among the rocks, in open patches in the brush. Pecos connected with another, but he was sure not fatally.

Suddenly the yelling ceased. Pecos saw that the attack had been turned into a rout. No doubt the Comanches supposed reinforcements had arrived. No sign, no sound! The canyon had become appallingly silent. Looking across, Pecos was in time to see the cattleman who had come out from behind the tree sink to his knees. His smoking gun dropped, and his hands pressed round the arrowshaft in his abdomen. He fell forward, which action could only have driven the arrow deeper. Pecos veered his searching gaze to the crippled man behind the horse. He could not be seen. But the rifle had slid over on this side of the horse — a significant and ominous sign. Then on the instant, proving the brevity of that fatal fight, Williams kicked his last in the hanging noose.

CHAPTER VII

THERE WAS NO fear that the remaining few Comanches would return. Nevertheless, Pecos got back up on the level rim and ran down to the wall that dropped off into the river. Several hundred yards below he espied them in great haste driving their ponies into the water. Presently Pecos made out five riders, one of whom was holding a sixth Indian, badly crippled, on his mount.

The range was too far for accurate shooting, nevertheless Pecos thought that while hurrying their retreat he might hit one. So from behind his covert he fired seven more shots. The bullets all fell short of a few feet, sending up white splashes, but they were almost as effective as if they had found their mark. The Comanches raced madly across the river, to disappear in a brake in the bank.

Reloading, Pecos retraced his steps to a point above camp where he could get down over the wall. He had satisfied himself fully that there were no crippled Indians, so he hurried to the scene of the hanging.

It was ghastlier than any Pecos had ever heard of, tragic and common as were fights in Texas. The swinging Williams, black in the face; the dead horse full of arrows; the cattleman lying on his face, with a bloody barb protruding far from his back — these were the details which lent most sinister and grisly aspect.

“All daid!” muttered Pecos. Then the choking rattle of blood in a man’s throat informed Pecos that he was wrong. Not Adams, not the brained man behind the horse — it was the fellow with the arrow through his middle.

Pecos made haste to turn him over on his side. He was a stranger to Pecos, a man of middle age, apparently not a Texan, and he was alive, conscious, but dying. He called incoherently for water. Pecos rushed to the packs that he had stowed away under the wall, and seizing a vessel he dashed to fill it at the spring.

A moment later while Pecos held the man’s head so he could drink it became more pitifully evident that he was mortally hurt.

“They’re gone,” he said, huskily.

“Shore. I saw the last of them crossin’ the river.”

“Comanche hell-hounds.... How many’d we do fer?”

“Eleven, I reckon, an’ one crippled.”

“You all alone?”

“Yes. I had the drop on them, as I was back up on the rocks.”

“Wal, they spoiled our necktie party — an’ you spoiled their game.... Reckon it — was fair.... Air my outfit all daid?”

“Yes, an’ I’m afraid yore a gonner, too.”

“Thet’s a safe bet.... Gimme another drink?”

“Any message you want sent?” queried Pecos, presently.

“None, onless you happen to — meet this Pecos Smith,” replied the other, his pale blue eyes steady on Pecos.

“Wal, thet’s likely, as I happen to be Smith.”

“I reckoned so.... But was you burnin’ brands with Williams an’ Adams?”

“No! ... So thet’s what you was hangin’ them fer.... They double-crossed me. The deal I made with them was maverick- brandin’.”

“Wal, they shore been cheatin’ you. The Heald boys spoke well of you, Smith. It’s Breen Sawtell, brother of Beckman’s foreman who you shot at Healds’ — he’s the fellar who’s got it in fer you.”

“Breen Sawtell? ... Shore don’t know him. What’s he look like?”

“Daid ringer fer his brother.... An’ see hyar, Pecos Smith, as I’m aboot to cash, it won’t hurt me none to tell you some thin’. As I got it Breen Sawtell was stealin’ his own brother’s stock. Thet’s why he put him on your trail, as he has — of others.... Want another — drink.”

“Ahuh. An’ why’d he pick on me?” returned Pecos, after he had given the failing man the last of the water.

“Wal, they do say Breen had a look in at Healds’ — fer the gurl, you know — until you rode along.”

“Bill never told me thet,” exclaimed Pecos, aghast.

“Wal, it’s true.... Smith, things air — gettin’ sort of dark — an’ I’m cold.”

“It’s kinda tough — to croak hyar, with an Indian arrow in yore gizzard,” declared Pecos, feelingly.

“All in — the day’s — ride,” panted the dying man. “Gawd — I’m glad — thet burnin’s over.”

“Yeah, it’s aboot all over.”

“Smith, you strike me — as bein’ too — good a fellar — fer rustlers like them — X Bar cowhands.”

“If I’m a rustler, they made me one,” declared Pecos, with passion.

“Wal, they’re daid — an’ nobody can hyar aboot this.... Chuck the game — Smith,” gasped the other.

Pecos had a poignant cry on his lips, but it never left them. The cattleman’s last conscious look was unforgettable, in that it changed from one of kindness to the stranger he had pursued, to a somber divination of his own lonely end. Then his senses failed, and a moment later he quivered with a cough and lay still. He had ceased to breathe.

Pecos got up to contemplate the scene. And his mind worked fast. These four cattlemen would eventually be trailed. The thing for Pecos to do was to leave everything precisely as he saw it then. Shrewd trackers might suspect the presence of an outside hand in this massacre, especially if they were keen enough to figure on the Comanches shot from the canyon wall; nevertheless Pecos considered it wisest to leave all the bodies as they lay.

There was nothing on them that he wanted, except the money he knew he would find on Adams and Williams. This he secured, in the latter’s case by untying the rope and letting him down. On second thought, however, Pecos took Adams’ gun, a box of ammunition, and a sack of fresh food supplies, all of which, with his rifle, made a pretty heavy burden to carry down to his own camp.

By resting frequently he made the three miles in somewhat less than two hours, which time brought the day to about noon.

Pecos decided to pack at once and strike south. A hundred miles down the Pecos would put him in another world, so far as Breen Sawtell and his ilk were concerned. He thought of Don Felipe, of McKeever, both of whom he wished to avoid, for very different reasons. Still, if he happened to encounter the trail driver it would be of no great moment, except that Pecos preferred to be unseen by anyone who knew him for a long time.

There was not a single settlement until Eagle’s Nest, just above where the Pecos River joined the Rio Grande. That probably would have grown, in the years since Pecos had ridden north.

Saddling Cinco and packing the other horse were soon accomplished. What to do with all the money he had Pecos was at a loss to decide. He could not carry it all on his person, as it made too much bulk and would certainly be observed if he encountered any riders. Finally he selected out of the dozen rolls of bills all those of large denomination, and these he stowed away in deep pockets. The rest he secreted in the lining of his heavy coat, which he tied back of his saddle. Handling this money made Pecos sweat from sheer excitement. He could not persuade himself that he came by it in strict honesty, though he certainly had not stolen it. The facts narrowed down to this — some Texas ranchers had collectively lost a good many head of stock and he had amassed a small fortune.

Never had Pecos set out on a long ride with faculties more keenly alert. As soon as he had placed a score of miles between him and the camp of dead men he would breathe freer and look only ahead.

That night he camped across from Alkali Lake, a place on the east bank which he knew less well than the west side of the Pecos.

Adobe Wells, to which another day’s travel brought him, was also on the opposite side of the river. Likewise Frazier’s Crossing, which he was careful to pass at night, and Dapper’s Bend and Red Bluffs, were to be feared more from the eastern shore. Another ten-hour ride gained Castle Gap Canyon, within striking distance of the most notable, dangerous, yet solitary point on the Rio Pecos, no less than the old ford of the Spaniards — Horsehead Crossing.

Much as Pecos loved lonesome places, he could not abide this haunted ford. He would not even camp there, but pushed on into the wilderness of twisted, swelling, greasewood-spotted ridges and the shallow ravines that ran between. Canyons were few along this somber reach of the Pecos, there being only at long intervals a break in the lofty walls. At times Pecos could see the opposite side of the canyon, with its high rim wall, and part of the shaggy-brushed and rock-ribbed slope; at other times the road curved far west of the river.

“Tough country on hosses an’ cattle, Cinco,” said Pecos. “But the grass is heah, an’ the water is there. Nothin’ on earth to keep a rancher from gettin’ rich, ‘cept hard work, greasers, an’ redskins.”

These were handicaps which Pecos discovered, two days later, had not deterred a rancher or ranchers from throwing cattle onto that rocky range. He did not see many cows or steers at one given point, but in the aggregate, after a day’s ride, they amounted to a surprisingly large number. Not so surprising, but certainly more significant to Pecos was the fact that he saw few calves.

Of ranchers, however, there was no sign. Cowhands probably had to ride fifty miles or more to round up these cattle. Pecos did not envy them the job on that desolate range. But the farther he rode south, finding, if anything, an increase in cattle tracks, the more it was driven home to him that somewhere along these reaches of the Pecos, there was an ideal location for his own cherished plan to materialize. Still, he was not far enough south, though he calculated he had come somewhere near a hundred miles. The trails and roads, however, had been devious. Pecos pushed on. He must not forget another thing, that he should lie low for months before starting in the ranching game. And in the ensuing days he was to recognize that the road on which he traveled south was not the trail on which he had come north.

* * * * *

Therefore when he rode out of a great depression to higher ground to espy the red adobe and gray stone shacks of Eagle’s Nest, half hidden by green trees, and the gigantic bluff of the Rio Grande beyond, he was neither surprised nor sorry. Perhaps it was just as well, or better: something unforeseen always guided his solitary steps.

There did not appear, at a moment’s glance, any appreciable change in Eagle’s Nest; still, as he drew near he made out a number of adobe houses that he did not remember, and lastly a new gray structure, apparently a frame one, alongside the low flat stone and adobe post run by Dale Shevlin.

It was not an hour for the inhabitants, especially the Mexicans, to be stirring. Pecos espied a wagon far down the wide street, and there were half a dozen sleepy horses distributed from the corner of Shevlin’s place past the new gray house.

Pecos got off in the shade of some trees, and tying his horses looked around for some one to question. Shevlin would scarcely remember him, and he was not likely to encounter Felipe there. Nevertheless, Pecos did not want to be recognized. There were difficulties, however, that stood in the way of his desires. He had about run out of food supplies and he was hungry; moreover, he could not avoid towns and people forever. It was here that his temper had to be encountered.

Finally he sat down in the shade. To all outward appearance Eagle’s Nest was having a siesta. Presently Pecos espied a Mexican far down the street toward the Rio Grande, which flowed under the big bluff just back of the town. Then he became aware of voices in Shevlin’s place. There were two doors, one opening into the post, the other into the saloon but Pecos could not tell from which the voices came. Several men were talking, evidently all at once. Pecos was amused. Men were a queer lot, always squabbling, particularly in the neighborhood of red liquor.

A moment later several persons emerged from the post, the foremost of whom was a barefooted boy who ran out into the street, gazing back over his shoulder. He did not appear exactly scared, but he certainly was excited.

Pecos accosted him. “Say, sonny, what’s goin’ on aboot heah?”

This did scare the youngster, as he had not observed the vaquero. He was about to bolt when Pecos’ friendly smile disarmed him.

“Aw, I — never seen you.”

“No wonder, son. You shore was lookin’ hard back there. What’s goin’ on in Dale Shevlin’ place?”

“He ain’t there no more.”

“Wal, you don’t say? What’s become of Dale?”

“Somebody knifed him in the back.”

“Too bad. Dale was a white man. Did he have any family?”

“Yes, but Don Felipe drove them off. He runs both store an’ saloon now.”

“Aho. He does? Wal, thet’s news.... Is Don Felipe heah now?”

“No, sir. He stays a good deal in Rockfort, where they say he sells cattle to Chisholm trail drivers.”

“Who runs these places?”

“Man from New Orleans. Frenchy, we call him. His name is Conrad Brasee. He has two Mexicans workin’ for him, an’ a white bartender. Don’t know his name. He just got to Eagle’s Nest.”

“Come heah, Johnny,” said Pecos, persuasively. “I’m a rider, a Texan, an’ shore yore friend. Fact is I’ve got a dollar thet’s burnin’ a hole in my vest pocket. You want it?”

“Betcha,” retorted the lad, with wide-open eyes, approaching with diminishing reluctance.

“There. Now tell me some more. I’m restin’ an’ darned lonesome. It’s good to listen to some news,” went on Pecos. “So Don Felipe’s doin’ things around Eagle’s Nest? He must be a greaser, or a Mexican shore.”

“He’s more white than Mex. But he’s a greaser, all right,” replied the boy, his shrewd gray eyes, belonging unmistakably to the breed of Texans who hated anything Mexican, seeking Pecos’ with subtle meaning.

“How’s the Don stand in Eagle’s Nest?”

“Mister, he ‘most runs it. But nobody likes him. Why, he’s killed seven men, three of them white.”

“Holy smoke! He’s a bad hombre,” declared Pecos, in assumed wonder. As a matter of fact he was surprised, because Felipe, when Pecos left him, had a record of only four killings, just one of whom had been reputed to be a white man, and that a foreigner. “So Don Felipe is sellin’ cattle to Chisholm trail drivers. What’s become of McKeever? He used to drive up heah.”

“He made his last trip ‘most a year ago. My dad says McKeever is drivin’ up the Chisholm trail now.”

“Ah, I see. Cattle driftin’ south from heah.... Don Felipe’s ranch is down the Pecos, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. Devil’s River. But his vaqueros are rakin’ the brakes farther up than Eagle’s Nest.”

“Does yore dad say whether Felipe’s vaqueros are brandin’ mavericks — or burnin’ brands?” inquired Pecos, casually.

The lad hesitated at that, which was significant enough for Pecos.

“I — I — He never said,” at length the lad faltered. “For goodness’ sake, Mister, don’t get the idee — —”

“Son, I was just thinkin’ out loud. Forget thet.... Any other cattleman workin’ the river near heah?”

“Yes, sir. Hails from New Mexico. Calls himself Sawtell. Funny name.”

A slight vibration, like a shooting spark, ran along Pecos’ nerves. Sawtell! He had once had a presentiment that he was not through with that name. Certainly his questioning of the lad had not been idle, but it had scarcely been more than curiosity. He desired to avoid Don Felipe rather than be thrown across his path again. His queries, however, had led somewhere. Pecos grew soundly interested, and delved in his mind.

“Who’s the big darky over there?” he asked, to keep the lad talking. “Is he drunk?”

“Oh no, sir! Thet’s Sambo, a good nigger if there ever was one. He came hyar as vaquero to Kurnel Lambeth, who was killed a year or so ago.”

“Lambeth. Wal! ... I’ve heahed of him.... Wal, what’s the nigger look so down aboot, if he isn’t drunk?”

“It’s because Brasee shet Terrill up— ‘cause he didn’t have no money to pay what was owin’. That was yestiddy. Sambo got hyar this mawnin’. He cain’t do nothin’. He wasn’t packin’ no gun. They throwed him oot fer makin’ such a fuss aboot Terrill.”

“Who’s Terrill?”

“This Terrill is the finest young feller who ever come to Eagle’s Nest. But he ain’t hyar often. Once a month, mebbe. He’s the son of thet Kurnel Lambeth, an’ now boss of the nigger. They have a ranch somewhere up the Pecos; Dad says Lambeth was rich in cattle a couple of years ago. But he wouldn’t sell at six dollars a haid. An’ now most of his cattle are gone. An’ they’re so poor they cain’t pay fer grub.”

“Cattle gone. Seems like I’ve heahed such words before. Gone where, son?”

The boy laughed. “You’re west of the Pecos, Señor.”

“So I am! I shore ‘most forgot,” drawled Pecos. “Wal, heah’s another peso.”

“Oh sir, thank you. I — I never had so much money. You must be orful rich.... Oh, if you are — pay Terrill’s bill an’ get him oot!”

“Out of where? There’s no jail heah.”

“Yes there is — or what Brasee calls his jail. It’s a red ‘dobe back of the post. The bartender throws drunken greasers in there, too. Terrill is shet in with one now.”

“Wal, this is gettin’ warm, boy. Is this Brasee a sheriff, too?”

“Naw, sheriff nothin’. He plays at it. There ain’t no law west of the Pecos, Señor. You jest bet Brasee never fools with a Texan.”

“Ahuh. I savvy. Wal, I’ll go over an’ get your friend Terrill out,” drawled Pecos, as he arose.

The lad gave him a wondering, grateful look, and bounded away, proving in his flight that whatever the issue might have been before, it was not something to lend wings to his feet.

Pecos sauntered across toward the downcast negro. Things happened to Pecos in every conceivable way. He never learned a lesson. At every turn he encountered selfishness, crookedness, greed, brutality, bloodshed, and murder. Wherever one of these attributes flourished there was some boy or man or woman suffering loss or pain or bereavement.

Pecos Smith had known negro slaves as worthy as any white man, though he had the Southerner’s contempt for most of the black trash. This man, Sambo, had the build of a vaquero, and Pecos remembered him. His boots and spurs gave further proof to Pecos. Negro vaqueros were so rare that they were remarkable. If Pecos needed anything more than recognition to heighten his ever-ready sympathy, here it was.

“Howdy, Sambo! What’s it all aboot?” he queried, kindly.

The negro started violently out of his dull misery and rolled his dark eyes at Pecos from head to foot, lingering a moment at the gun sheath so prominent and low on Pecos’s left thigh.

“Yas, suh. I’se Sambo, suh. What yo say, suh?”

“A lad told me you were in trouble.”

“Gawd, suh, I is, I is. Turrible trubble.... But ‘scuse me, Mister, who yo’ is? Don’ I know yo’?”

“Wal, Sambo, I might be a friend in need,” replied Pecos, putting a hand on the negro’s shoulder. As he did so the Mexican and white man whom he had observed emerging from the post went back in rather precipitately.

“Man, yo’ lend me dat gun an’ I’ll believe yose a friend,” declared the negro, suddenly flaring.

“What’ll you do, Sambo?”

“I’ll kill dat cussed Brasee, sho as yore borned.”

“But thet’ll get you into more trouble, Sambo.... Come over away from thet door.... Now don’t be afraid to talk. Tell me your story, quick an’ straight.”

Thus admonished, the negro seemed to collect his wits. “You ought to remember me, suh. I’se Sambo, vaquero fo’ Kuhnel Lambeth, dat yo’ found lost up on the Crossin’. We’re from east Texas an’ we come out heah ‘mos’ five years ago. We druv in a herd of cattle an’ two years ago we had ‘mos’ ten thousand haid.... Marse Lambeth no sell when he ought. De rustlers done found us, suh, an’ dey — or sumbody killed him. Now we’s pore.... Marse Lambeth’s b-boy, Massa Terrill, rid ovah heah yes’day alone. We never knowed till dis mawnin’. I rid my hawse ‘mos’ to deff. But Brasee hit me over de haid wid something. He got Massa Rill shet up in thet ‘dobe shack wid a greaser.... Lemme dat gun, man, an’ I show yo’.”

“Hold yore hosses, Sambo.... What’d Brasee shet up young Terrill for?”

“He swears fo’ money det Kuhnel Lambeth owes. But dat’s only a ‘scuse, stranger. Det ——  —— Don Felipe an’ his pardner, Breen Sawtell, air behin’ it. Dey was upriver — dey was gonna drive Marse Lambeth out. But dey couldn’, an’ Ah sho suspec’s dat outfit made way wif de Kuhnel. My woman Mauree knows, suh. It come to her in a dream.... Dey stole mos’ of our stock, suh, an’ now it’s Massa Rill they’se after.”

“Wal, Sambo, come with me,” replied Pecos, quietly, as he wheeled back toward the door of the post. In any case he had meant to buy young Lambeth’s freedom, and he had asked for the negro’s story just for verification. All at once the thing had assumed proportions, and that complex spirit of his had extracted stern purpose out of what had seemed trivial.

Pecos entered the store. It had been enlarged since his last visit to Eagle’s Nest. A more complete stock of merchandise filled shelves and cluttered up the place so that there was scarcely room to move about. A Mexican made pretense of work, but the side slant of his beady black eyes told Pecos what he was interested in. Behind a counter stood a man in his shirt sleeves. He was fat and pale, and his dark thin hair fell over his brow, almost to his large, ghoulish eyes. For the rest he had a long, sharp nose, a small mouth, and a peaked chin with a dimple in the middle.

For years one of Pecos Smith’s essential habits had been to look at men, to gauge them in one lightning-swift glance. The fact that he had been able to do so in some instances accounted for the fact that he was still alive.

“Howdy. Air you Brasee?” drawled Pecos.

CHAPTER VIII

THIS NEW KEEPER of Eagle’s Nest’s only store looked to Pecos more like a New Orleans creole gambler than anything else.

“Yes, I’m Brasee. What you want?” he returned, in a voice with a slight accent, which, however, did not hint of negro taint.

“Wal, I’m sort of close to the Lambeth family,” announced Pecos, coldly. “Not exactly a blood relation. Just come from east Texas. An’ I’m some concerned to hear the Colonel is daid an’ young Terrill is shet up in a shed of yourn. How aboot thet last, Brasee?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Shore it is, Mister Brasee,” went on Pecos, softly. This man no more knew Texans of Pecos’ stripe than he would have been able to contend with them. Pecos’ careless, easy manner misled him. “I come a long way to see young Terrill. He must be growed to quite a boy by now. An’ I want to see him.”

“You can’t see him.”

“What right had you to shet him up in a shed with a drunken greaser?”

Brasee gazed hard at Pecos, unable to meet him on common ground. There was something about Pecos that obstructed his will, but he did not know it. He had not long been west of the Pecos.

“Matter of owin’ yu money, Sambo heah says,” went on Pecos, indicating the glaring negro.

“Yes, Lambeth owes for the winter’s supplies.”

“How much?”

“No matter, Señor.”

“It matters a hell of a lot,” retorted Pecos, subtly changing. “If yore a sheriff or a Texas Ranger, show yore badge.”

This Brasee did not attempt to do, as Pecos had known very well he would not.

“Ahuh. Playin’ the law, eh? I’ve seen thet done before in Texas. But it shore doesn’t make for long life.... How much does this boy owe?”

“Two hundred — ten dollars,” replied Brasee, swallowing hard.

Pecos counted out that amount from a generous roll of bills and pitched it to Brasee. He had not failed to catch the greedy glitter in this man’s hungry eyes; nor had Pecos missed other significant things. Dale Shevlin’s place had degenerated into a questionable den. There was another man listening, perhaps watching, just inside the half-closed door that opened into the saloon.

“Write out a receipt,” said Pecos as he reached behind to grasp the first thing available to throw. It happened to be a sack of salt, at least ten pounds in weight. Quick as a flash Pecos flung it at the door. Then followed three distinct sounds — the bang of the bag striking the door, then a solid thump of the violently moved door colliding with something soft, and lastly a sodden slump of that something on the floor. The door, having swung wide, disclosed a man straggling to a sitting posture, one hand fumbling at his bloody, flattened nose.

“Say, yu,” demanded Pecos. “How’n hell do I know what yu was listenin’ for behind thet door? ... What kind of a den air yu runnin’, Brasee?”

Brasee rolled up the scattered bills with hands not perfectly steady. Then, using a pencil, he scribbled something on a piece of paper.

“There’s your receipt, Señor. But I’m holding young Lambeth till Felipe comes.”

“Yu jest think yu air. Say, how do yu know I’m not a Texas Ranger?”

“Rangers don’t come west of the Pecos,” snapped Brasee, but he was wholly uncomfortable and uncertain.

“Wal, anythin’ can happen west of the Pecos. An’ thet’s a hunch,” flashed the vaquero. “Sambo, grab thet ax an’ come with me.”

Pecos backed out of the store. Contempt for such men as Felipe gathered around him did not make Pecos careless. Sambo had preceded him.

“I knowed it, boss, I sho knowed it,” declared the negro, rolling his eyes.

“What’d you know, Sambo?”

“Dat Brasee wus yaller clean to his gizzard. But I sho kept my eye on de greaser. I’d ‘a’ busted him.”

“Wal, I was watchin’ him, too. Thet’s a low-down outfit, Sambo. They cain’t last hyar.... Show me this calaboose where they stuck yore young Lambeth.”

Some little distance back of the store stood a new adobe hut, small and square, with a wooden door fastened by a chain and padlock. Pecos walked around the structure, wondering where any air could get in. Sambo banged on the door.

“Massa Rill, is yo’ dar?” he called, his voice thick and rich.

“Oh, Sambo! ... If you don’t — get me out — I’ll soon be daid,” came a plaintive reply.

“Tell him to stand aside from the door. We’ve got to break it in,” directed Pecos.

“Git away f’om dat do’, honey, ‘cause I’se a-gwine to busticate it.”

Pecos rather expected some interference from Brasee, possibly a shot from the back of the store. But there was no sign from that direction that anyone was interested in Sambo’s lusty blows with the ax. The powerful negro soon sent the door crashing in.

“Whar yo’ is, Massa Rill?” he shouted, breathing like a huge bellows.

Pecos expected to recognize a boy he tried to remember, but he saw a slender, well-formed youth stagger out into the sunlight. He wore a ragged gray coat and overalls and top boots, all of which were covered with dirt and grass. His battered black sombrero was pulled well down, shading big, deep eyes of a hue Pecos could not discern, and a tanned, clean-cut face. The sombrero, however, showed a tuft of glossy hair through a hole in its crown, and also straggling locks from under the brim. Pecos thought Sambo could be excused for his anxiety over this fine- looking youth.

“Sambo, I almost — smothered,” gasped young Lambeth.

“Whar’s det greaser dey done throwed in wid yo’?”

“He was let out this mawnin’, still drunk.”

Then Lambeth espied Pecos and gave a slight start. Pecos felt those strange, big eyes sweep over him, back again to his face, to fasten there a moment, and then revert to Sambo.

“Massa Rill, yo’ have to thank dis heah gennelman fo’ gettin’ yo’ out,” said the negro, warmly.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” said the boy, staring strangely at Pecos. There was deep gratitude in his voice, although his demeanor was shy.

“Massa Rill, it was dis way. I nebber discubbered yo’ had left home till dis mawnin’,” spoke up Sambo. “Den I rid some. I sho did. But dat Brasee banged me ovah my haid an’ throwed me out. I wus plannin’ to kill him when dis old friend of ours come up. ‘Pears yo’ little friend Bobby tole him ‘boot us. An’ he sed he’d get yo’ out, Massa Rill. So we goes in. An’ det yaller Brasee sho tuk water. Yo’ bill is paid at de sto’ an’ you see how we busticated dis do’ heah.”

“Paid! ... Sambo, did you pay it?”

“Me? laws amassy! No, Massa Rill, it was him.”

Pecos stood listening and watching with an amused smile at the eloquent Sambo and the excited youth. How little it took sometimes to make people happy! But when Lambeth wheeled suddenly with face flushed and eyes alight, Pecos quite lost his sense of the casualness of the moment. Somehow there was a significance in the occasion for which Pecos was unable to account.

“Pecos Smith! ... I remember you. How very — good of you — sir!” exclaimed young Lambeth, extending his hand. It felt small and nervous to Pecos’, but it nevertheless was hard and strong. “I am Terrill Lambeth.... You remember me?”

“Wal, I reckon I do — now,” replied Pecos.

“Please tell me where you are staying — where I can find you. Else how can I ever repay the debt?”

“Wal, I reckon you needn’t worry none aboot thet.”

“But I shall.... You have befriended us both. Please tell me your address?”

“‘Most the same, Lambeth.... Pecos Smith, Texas, west of the Pecos,” he drawled.

“Oh, you’re not serious,” laughed Lambeth.

“Massa Rill, he sho looks Texas an’ talks Pecos,” interposed Sambo, with a huge grin.

“Indeed yes,” replied Terrill. “Sambo, I rode my pinto pony in here yesterday. Left him in front of the store. Bobby might have him.”

They walked across the wide street, with Pecos in advance. Presently, emerging from behind the post, he espied his horses as he had left them.

“Lambeth, I’d like to talk somethin’ over with yu,” said Pecos, presently. “We can set down over heah in the shade. How aboot it?”

“I’ll be glad to,” replied the youth. “Sambo, you run over to Bobby’s. See if he’s got my pony.... I’m starved and very thirsty.”

An idea had taken root in Pecos’ mind — one that refused several attempts to dislodge it. The boy Bobby, the negro Sambo, and recognition of young Lambeth had each in succession given it impetus. An opportunity knocked at Pecos’ door.

“Wal, it’s shore nice heah,” began Pecos, when they had found shady seats on the grass not far from Pecos’ horses. “Thet boy yu call Bobby told me things an’ so did yore nigger. I’m plumb curious, Lambeth, an’ I’d like to ask yu a few questions.”

“Fire away. People do get curious aboot me. I don’t wonder. Only I’m mum as an oyster. But you’re shore different — and I’ll tell you anything I — I can.”

“Yu from eastern Texas?”

“Yes. We lived on a plantation near the Louisiana line. The war ruined my dad.... Mother died before he came home. There was nothing left. Dad decided to go west. When we were aboot ready to start my uncle died — he had been in the war, too — and left Dad some money. But we started west, anyhow. Dad had freed our slaves. Sambo and his wife, Mauree, refused to leave us.... We had a canvas-covered wagon and eight horses. I rode and I drove and I rode for eight months — all the way across Texas. Toward the end of that journey Dad picked up cattle. Texas longhorns! — You found us lost up the Pecos. After you guided us to Horsehead Crossing we drove the Pecos and worked down this side of the river, heading the brakes until Dad found a place that suited him.... There we started ranching. Two years ago we had around ten thousand haid. We were rich. But Dad wouldn’t sell. Aboot that time we began to see our stock fade away. There were riders in the brakes. Dad made an enemy of a half-breed cattleman named Don Felipe. Sambo was shot at twice.... Then... then ... Oh, it hurts so — to bring it back.”

“Yore dad was killed,” interposed Pecos, gently, as the youth averted his face.

“Yes.... He was — murdered,” went on Lambeth. “Found with an arrow through his body. Felipe and his vaqueros said it was the work of Comanches. But I know better. Many times the Indians rode out on the river bluff across from my home. They watched us. They shot guns and arrows into the river. But bullets and arrows could not reach halfway. The Indians could not get across for miles above and below. They never tried. So I know Comanches never killed my dad.... From that time our fortunes fell. Felipe took on a partner named Sawtell — a villain who had hounded me. Sambo and I could not keep track of stock. You see our range went twenty miles up river and more down. And in low water our cattle crossed the river. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of longhorns under the east wall of the Pecos. They are mine. But how can I ever get them? No doubt Felipe and Sawtell will get them eventually.... Oh, Mister Smith, I’ve been cautioned not to say that. Because I can prove nothing.... But I’ve seen Felipe’s vaqueros steal our cattle. Brand-blotters! ... Well, it’s grown harder lately. We had to have supplies. Dad had gone in debt for them. And this last winter I had to. Brasee would not take cattle in payment.... Last and worse — they’ve waylaid me — tried to catch me alone.... Oh, I can’t tell you the half.... But yesterday this Brasee dragged me — forced me into that stinking dungeon — locked me in.... There, Mister Smith, have I anticipated all your questions?”

“Yu can call me Pecos,” responded the vaquero, thoughtfully. “Wal, wal, it’s a tough story, Terrill, ‘most as tough as mine. But dog-gone! What I cain’t understand is why, yu bein’ shore old Texas stock, yu didn’t kill this half-breed greaser an’ his partner. Yu must be all of fifteen years old, ain’t you?”

“Si, Señor,” replied Terrill, with a little laugh. “I’m all of fifteen.”

“Wal, thet’s old enough to handle a gun.”

“I can. I’ve shot buffalo, deer, wolves, panthers, javelin, mean old mossy-horns. But never a — a man. I might have, lately, if all our guns hadn’t been stolen.”

“Wal, Terrill, I’ll shore have to kill Don Felipe an’ Breen Sawtell fer yu,” mused Pecos, softly, marveling that he had not long ago decided that this deed was decreed for him.

“Mister Smith! ... Pecos, you can’t be serious!” cried the youth.

“Never was so serious before.... Would yu want to heah somethin’ aboot me?” drawled Pecos.

“Yes,” whispered Lambeth, evidently overcome.

“An’ will yu swear yu’ll never tell what I tell yu?”

“I — I swear, Pecos,” said Terrill, excitedly.

“Wal, yore not the only orphan in Texas.... I come of one of the old families, Terrill. But I never had much schoolin’ or home influence. An’ so I just growed up a vaquero. The years I spent in Mexico were good an’ bad fer me.... Wal, I rode through heah first a few years ago, with thet trail driver, McKeever. An’ last time, up at Santa Fé, I got reckless with my trigger finger again. Dog-gone it, there was always some hombre thet needed shootin’.... My last job was on the H H outfit up the river. An’ I was almost happy. There was a girl I liked awful well, but never had the nerve to say so. An’ the day I had to go... Wal, thet’s not goin’ to interest yu, an’ maybe I was wrong.... Anyway, I got accused of rustlin’ by one Sawtell, brother of this same Breen Sawtell thet’s been houndin’ yu. Course I had to kill him. Thet made me so sore I got to feelin’ I might as well have the game as the blame. So I throwed in with two shady cowhands an’ took to rustlin’.”

Terrill gasped at that. The boy in his excitement pulled off the old sombrero to crumple it in his hands. Whereupon Pecos had his first clear view of the lad. He was surprisingly young and his clean, tanned cheeks bore not a vestige of downy beard. Indeed, he looked like a very pretty girl, notwithstanding the strong chin, the sad, almost stern lips. His eyes were large and a very dark blue, almost purple.

“Wal, it’s my conscience that accuses me of rustlin’,” went on Pecos, presently. “But as a matter of fact, Terrill, I wasn’t no rustler. My game was brandin’ mavericks, an’ yu know thet’s not crooked. Every cowman in Texas has done it. Only the drawback was thet I knowed damn well thet not one of those calves could be mine. There’s the difference. A cowhand with a small herd grazin’ aboot can brand a maverick with a kind of satisfaction. But shore I couldn’t.... Wal, thet went on all last winter. My pardners drove stock to their market in New Mexico while I stayed in camp. The last time they were trailed to our camp. Shore I wasn’t there. I happened to be watchin’ a bunch of redskins thet were crossin’ the river. To make it short, when I sneaked back to camp, there was four cattlemen very busy with my pards. They’d already hanged one an’ had a rope on the other. They were haulin’ him up when hell busted loose right under me. The Comanches had sneaked up on the camp. There was a pretty lively fight in which I took part from the hillside. When what was left of the Indians had run off I found only one white man alive an’ he was dyin’. He told me my pards had been burnin’ brands. Yu see, they double- crossed me, for I never saw a haid of stock they drove, except my mavericks. Thet deal made me a rustler when I’m really not one atall. Do yu reckon I am?”

“No, you’re not a rustler — at heart,” replied Terrill, soberly. “Dad used to put our brand on mavericks. He thought that was honest. So do I.”

“Much obliged, boy. Thet shore makes me feel better, now it’s off my conscience. An’ I reckon I can hit yu for a job.”

“Job!” echoed Lambeth.

“Shore. I hate to brag. But there’s nothin’ I cain’t do with a rope. I’ll bet I could find a thousand calves thet yu never dreamed of in those brakes.”

“You mean ride for me? Be my — my vaquero?”

“Yeah. I’m reckonin’ yu need one,” drawled Pecos, pleased with the effect of his story and proposition.

“It would be — wonderful.... But I have no money.”

“Wal, I’d trust yu.”

“You’d trust me?”

“Shore, I would, if yu believed in me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Thet I’m no thief. Thet I want to find a home in some lonely brake along the river, an’ work, an’ ferget a lot.”

“I could believe that. If you tell me there will be no more cattlemen trailing you to hang you — I will believe you.”

“Wal, Terrill, I’m not so dinged shore aboot thet. There’s one man, an’ he’s this Breen Sawtell. The dyin’ rancher told me Sawtell was stealin’ his own brother’s cattle. What aboot thet? An’ it was he who sent thet brother down to have me fired an’ run off the range.... So then this Breen Sawtell may turn up heah, like his brother did there. All of which doesn’t mean anythin’ to me, since I’m shore to kill him anyhow.”

Pecos had been somewhat puzzled and nonplused over this Texas youth, and kept hoping he would overcome what seemed unusual agitations. Probably the soft-spoken lad had not recovered from the shock of his father’s murder. Motherless, too — and he had lived alone with only a couple of negroes, harried by vaqueros and hounded by these crooked cattlemen. There was excuse for much. Besides, young Lambeth had not been brought up in the south and west of the wild Lone Star State.

“I hope you do kill Sawtell — and shore that Don Felipe,” suddenly burst out Terrill, after a long pause. His face turned pearl gray, and such a blaze of purple fire flashed upon Pecos that he was surprised out of the very change he had wished for.

“Then I get the job with yu?” retorted Pecos, responding to the other’s fire.

“You shore do. I think I’ve found a — a friend as well as a vaquero. Heah’s my hand.”

It was minus the glove this time, and the little calloused palm, the supple fingers that closed like steel on Pecos’, shot a warm and stirring current through his veins.

“So far as friend is concerned, I hope it works the other way round,” replied Pecos. “An’ if we get along good an’ I build up yore herd of cattle an’ buy a half interest in yore ranch — do yu think yu’d take me on as yore pardner?”

“Pecos, I think God ... Well, never mind what I think,” replied Lambeth, beginning with eloquent heat, and suddenly faltering. “But, yes, yes, I will take you.”

Sambo’s arrival, leading a pony with the lad Bobby astride, put an end to this most earnest colloquy.

“Heah yo is, Massa Rill,” called out Sambo, happily. “Our luck has done changed.”

“Take all this grub so I can git down,” piped up Bobby.

* * * * *

The advent of the lively Bobby and the exuberant Sambo, together with the generous supply of food and drink they brought, effectually silenced Terrill and brought back the singular aloofness Pecos had sensed. Still the lad could not be expected to be gay and voluble when he was half starved, with the means at hand to allay hunger and thirst. But there was something more.

Pecos shared a little of the food. He was thoughtful during this picnic and realized that he had made a profound and amazing decision. He could see no drawbacks. His mounting zeal had burned them away. He had not been caught burning brands. Williams and Adams were dead, as were all of the posse that had tracked them. He was free. What did a brawling cheat or two like Breen Sawtell matter to him? He was forewarned and forearmed. As for Don Felipe — the half-breed was dangerous like a snake in the grass was dangerous. Both of these men failed to raise the tiniest clouds on Pecos’ horizon.

For ten years Pecos had lived more or less in an atmosphere of strife. That was Texas. It had to grow worse before it ever could grow better. And this range west of the Pecos was bound to see stirring life as the cattle herds augmented. Ranchers and settlers would trail grass and water like wolves on a scent. Vaqueros would throng to the Pecos. And likewise the parasites of rangeland. Pecos had a vision of the future. He had had his one brief fling at outlaw life. No more! Let accusers flock in. No sheriff could put handcuffs on him, nor would any court in Texas uphold a sheriff who tried. A wonderful gladness flushed his veins. What a little incident could transform a career! He owed much to Bobby, to Sambo, and most to this strange orphaned lad, out of place there on the wild range. But for his plight Pecos might have gone on drifting. Somehow Terrill seemed a lovable lad. He needed a protector, a trainer, some one who could bring out the latent Texas qualities that must be in him. And Pecos felt eminently qualified for the position.

“Yo sho wuz starved,” declared Sambo. “Whar yo put all dat grub?”

“I was hungry,” admitted Terrill. “But I shore didn’t eat it all, Sambo. Bobby was around. And so was Pecos, heah.”

“Pecos? Thet’s a funny handle fer a man,” quoth Bobby. “Pecos means ‘most anythin’. Hell an’ killin’ a man an’ everythin’ orful.”

“Shore does, Bobby,” drawled Pecos, fishing out another dollar. “Hyar’s another peso.”

“Aw! ... I’m rich, Terrill, I’m rich! What’s this one fer?” exulted Bobby.

“Wal, to keep mum aboot me bein’ Pecos anythin’ fer a while. Savvy?”

“Betcha I do,” replied Bobby, his shrewd eyes bright. “I jest think you’re wonderful.”

“Folks, let’s shake the dust of Eagle’s Nest,” suggested Pecos. “While we’ve been sittin’ heah I’ve counted a dozen greasers snoopin’ at us, along with Brasee an’ his bartender. An’ some white people down the street.”

“Sambo, where’s yore horse?” queried Lambeth.

“I dunno. Reckon he’s eatin’ his haid off out a ways.”

“Wal, I ought to stock up on my supplies,” said Pecos. “But I’m not crazy aboot buyin’ from Brasee.”

“We’ll never deal with him again,” spoke up Terrill, decidedly. “There’s an army post upriver, aboot twenty miles from my home. Camp Lancaster. We seldom go there, because it’s across the river and there were always Indians hanging around. But now it’s preferable to Eagle’s Nest.”

“An’ how far to yore ranch, Terrill?”

“Four hours, if we rustle along.”

Pecos untied the halters of his horses and mounted. “Adios, Bobby. I won’t forget yu.”

“Aw, I’m sorry you’re all goin’, but gladder, too. Terrill, I’m ‘most big enough to ride fer you.”

“Some day, Bobby. Good-by.”

Terrill got on the pony and led the way out of town, with the whistling negro following and Pecos bringing up the rear. Just before the road turned Pecos quickly glanced back. A crowd of people were standing before the store, with Brasee conspicuous among them.

CHAPTER IX

NOT MANY MILES out of Eagle’s Nest an unfrequented trail branched off the road toward the river. Here Sambo, who had found his horse and taken the lead, turned off into the brakes. And from that moment Pecos was lost.

No wheel had ever rolled along that trail, nor had a herd of cattle ever tramped its rocky, cactus-bordered course. At infrequent intervals cattle tracks crossed it, but no other trail for miles. Then a dim road intersected it from the west. Lambeth said this led down to Mortimer Spring.

For the most part Pecos rode down in washes and gulches, but occasionally he was up one of the snake-like, wandering ridges from which he could see afar. All the same was this wild Pecos country, bare grass spots alternating with scaly patches, greasewood and cactus contrasting with the gray of rocks, winding ridge and winding canyon all so monotonous and lonely, rolling endlessly down from the west to the river, rolling endlessly up toward the east, on and on, a vast wasteland apparently extending to infinitude. The course of the Pecos appeared only as a dark meandering line, its walls hidden, its presence sometimes mysteriously vanished.

Pecos was glad to have companions once again, though he little availed himself of the opportunity to talk. Young Lambeth rode a fast-gaited mustang and was hard to keep up with. Most of the time he and Sambo were out of sight, hidden by rock corners or a descent into a gorge. And Pecos’ pack-horse was tired.

About mid-afternoon Pecos espied the first bunch of cattle, wilder than deer — an old mossy-horn, a cow, two yearlings and a calf, for all he could tell unbranded. This encounter was in a shallow rock-bottomed gorge where clear water ran. From that point on cattle tracks increased markedly, and mixed stock showed on the ridges. At length Pecos made out a brand T L, and concluded that must belong to Lambeth. Thereafter he kept sharp lookout for cattle and brands, the latter of which, to his growing surprise, he saw but few.

No doubt Colonel Lambeth had been one of the loosest of branders. But how could any cattleman, even an old stager, with only one vaquero and a boy, expect to brand one tenth of the calves and yearlings that belonged to him? Conditions were changing and such ranching as that was of the past. With cattle demanding a price, with markets increasing, this vast range west of the Pecos would in time produce a million head. Pecos saw fortune in the future for this Lambeth lad and himself. Pecos possessed the money to buy, to replenish what had been left of Lambeth’s stock; he knew how to raise cattle; he had the will, and particularly the nerve to stop extensive rustling. Wherefore he rode this trail more nearly happy than he could recall.

At length, toward sunset, Sambo waited for Pecos in one of the shallow, rock-walled, rock-bedded draws. Evidently Lambeth had gone on. But Pecos failed to see where. There was no water, no sand or earth to mark tracks.

“Heah’s whar we turns off,” announced the negro. “Mos’ deceivin’ place.”

“Wal, Sambo, I might have passed on heah myself,” replied Pecos. “How far to the river?”

“Reckon not so fur as a crow flies. But we go round an’ round aboot an’ pilin’ down an’ down till yo sho t’ink it’s miles.”

The draw wound lazily down, turning back upon itself, keeping its narrow width, but heightening its rock walls. From an appreciable descent it fell off to jumps where the men had to dismount and lead the horses. It remained a gorge, however, never widening to the dignity of a canyon. Nevertheless, Pecos expected it to do so, for that was the nature of the brakes of the river. Down and down he went until the sky above appeared like a winding, blue stream. Water certainly poured down here in floods at certain seasons, but the bed of the gorge continued dry as a bleached bone in the sun. Gradually its dry fragrance failed, which fact came to Pecos’ attention through the actions of the horses. They scented water. And presently Pecos smelled it, too, and felt in his face a warm, drowsy breath of air, moving, laden with sweet essence of greens and blossoms.

But Pecos was not prepared to turn a last corner suddenly and be confronted by a burst of golden sunlight and a blaze of open canyon.

“Heah yo is, boss,” announced Sambo, with pride. “Dis is Massa Rill’s ranch. An’ it’s sho de only purty place on dis ole Pecos ribber.”

“Dog-gone!” ejaculated Pecos, and halted to revel.

The sun was setting behind him, far up over those rolling ranges, and it cast long rays of gold down across this canyon, to paint the gliding river and the huge, many-stepped wall of rock above. That wall appeared higher than any in view on this side of the river. It frowned forbiddingly, notwithstanding its front of glancing sunset hues.

“Up dar’s whar de Comanches ride oot an’ yell an’ shoot at us,” exclaimed Sambo, in his deep voice, pointing to the low center of the great cliff opposite. “But dey cain’t reach us an’ dey cain’t git down.”

“Dog-gone!” repeated Pecos, as he mopped his wet face.

From where Pecos stood the walls spread and curved on each side, lofty and perpendicular, craggy and impassable along the rims, rock-splintered and densely-thicketed at the bases, perhaps half a mile apart at the extreme width of the curve, and thereafter gradually closing to the mouth, which, however, was large enough to permit a lengthy view of the Pecos and the rugged wall opposite.

It was an oval canyon twice its breadth in length, remarkable in many ways, and strikingly so for a luxuriance of green. This charmed Pecos’ eye, for he had never seen anything like it along this lonely, gray-walled river.

The center was an oval pasture inside an oval fringe of trees and cliffs. Horses dotted the green, and many cattle. The sunset had changed its gold for red, so that the eastern walls took on a rosy flush, while those nearer Pecos deepened their purple. In between, shafts of light slanted down across the canyon, rendering it ethereally lovely — a garden of fertile beauty lost in all that wilderness of gloomy, dismal, barren land.

“Dar’s one big spring dat nebber goes dry,” concluded Sambo, with importance. “It’s so big it’s a little ribber all by itself. So when de Pecos is low an’ so full ob alkali dat de cattle cain’t drink, why, dis water is pure as de good Lawd makes.”

Sambo mounted again and rode down through the sections of broken cliff toward the canyon floor. And Pecos followed him, presently to emerge from the groves of willow and mesquite and blossoming brush to a trail that led on through the grass. A murmuring of many bees, buzzing and humming in the foliage mingled with a soft sound of an unseen, falling stream.

Here indeed Pecos rode by mossy-horns that were not wild. There were hundreds of cattle toward the lower end of the oval. This canyon alone, without the boundless ranges above, would support a rancher who was not ambitious to grow rich.

Meanwhile the sun set and with the fire and color changed to darkening gray, this isolated retreat returned to its true aspect as part of the hard Pecos country.

At length, just as twilight began to creep out of the larger canyon, gleaming cold on the steely Pecos, a cabin appeared on the edge of the fringe of trees that faced the river. It was fairly high on the bank and commanded a view across the river and down. A smaller cabin sat back and to one side.

“Heah we air an’ I’se sho glad,” sang out Sambo. “Mauree, yo unwelcomin’, no-good woman, whar yo is?”

A negress, large of frame, comely of face, with a red bandana tied round her head, appeared in the doorway.

“So yo’s back, yo lazy niggah,” she ejaculated, rolling her eyes till the whites showed. “Yo sabed yo’ life, man, fetchin’ our Terrill home.”

“Yas, I’se home, honey, thanks to dis gennelman,” replied Sambo, happily. “Mauree, meet a real Texan, Mistah Pecos Smith.”

“Wal, Mistah Smith, I’se sho happy to welcome yo,” replied the negress. “Git down an’ come in. Der’s ham an’ eggs an’ milk — aplenty fo hungry men.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Sambo,” rejoined Pecos as he slid off his saddle. With swift, sure hands he untied his bulky coat from the cantle and slipped his rifle, to lay them upon the stone steps of the porch. Then he unsaddled Cinco while Sambo performed a like office for the pack-animal.

The cabin was long, with three doors opening out on the porch, and it had been crudely though strongly constructed of logs and poles, with sun-baked mud filling the chinks between. The several windows served equally for portholes. In the center it had a low- peaked roof, which shelved down to cover the porch. It did not, however, touch the side wall, thus leaving a considerable air space for the attic. When Pecos had deposited his saddle and pack on the porch he espied a bench upon which stood a wooden pail and an iron dipper, also a basin and soap, and above, hanging on pegs, clean, white towels. He laughed. When had he seen anything like this? The bucket was full of crystal water which proved to be as cold as ice and singularly free of taste. Pecos drank twice, verifying Sambo’s claim for the water. Then he washed his hands and face, to feel a refreshment that equaled his enthusiasm. When he turned, Terrill stood bareheaded in the doorway.

“Pecos Smith,” he said, shyly, “welcome to Lambeth Ranch.”

“Terrill — our fortune’s made!” he flashed, to express his appreciation of this welcome, and the opportunity a chance meeting had thrown to him.

“You think so? You like my lonely canyon?”

“Paradise! No man could have made me believe such a place could be found along the Pecos.”

“Come in. Supper is ready. You wouldn’t expect me to be hungry, after that lunch Bobby gave us. But I am.”

“Wal, I wasn’t particular hungry till Mrs. Sambo mentioned ham an’ eggs. I shore fergot there were such things.”

The interior was dark, like all log cabins, except in the neighborhood of the open fire. Evidently this large apartment was living-room and kitchen combined. A door at the end led into another room. Pecos sat down to a homemade table, upon which were a spotless white tablecloth, old silverware, and a supper the savory fragrance of which attested that it was good enough for a king.

Terrill had breeding, though he had not been used to company. If the situation was novel for Pecos, what must it have been for the lad? Here, more than at any other time since Terrill had been freed, that strange, rather aloof awkwardness, if not actual shyness, seemed noticeable to Pecos. It would not have been difficult for Pecos to burst into a hearty laugh and to slap the lad on the shoulder and ridicule him for such diffidence out on the west bank of the wildest river in Texas. But something inhibited Pecos. Lambeth must have had a sheltered childhood, a sad boyhood, and now he certainly was an orphaned youth. It would take time to get acquainted with him, and Pecos decided it would be worth some pains to keep much to himself and give familiarity time to grow. Vaqueros of his type were not usually rough and ready fellows, and Pecos was nothing if not quiet.

They did not exchange half a dozen words throughout the meal, to which Pecos did justice that assuredly flattered the cook.

“Wal, a few more suppers like thet an’ I’ll be spoiled,” was Pecos’ encomium.

“We have plenty to eat, even if we are poor,” replied Terrill. “Raise ‘most everything, I reckon....”

“Wal, this has shore been an excitin’ day, an’ I’m sleepy. If yo don’t mind I’d like to bunk up in thet hole under the roof. I’ll get plenty of air there, and it’s a good place for a lookout.”

“That will be all right,” the lad replied, quickly. “Sambo has been sleeping there since Dad was killed, so I wouldn’t be afraid at night. Now he can go back to his cabin.”

“Yeah. I shore hope my comin’ will make things better all around.”

“Oh, I know it will, Pecos,” returned Lambeth. “I shore had some luck today, if never before.”

“Thet reminds me. Yu ‘pear far from starvin’ hyar, yet yu had to take chances ridin’ into Eagle’s Nest for supplies. How aboot it?”

“Pecos, it wasn’t food supplies that I went after, or I would have taken a pack-horse.”

“I see. Wal, I’ll turn in. Good-night.”

“Wait. You said our fortune was made.... I cain’t go to sleep if you don’t explain.”

Pecos laughed. “Yore a funny kid. Let me figure for yu.... This range is the best on the Pecos. What yu an’ yore dad needed was a man who could ride this range. Sambo is a good nigger. But yu want a handy man with guns. He happens to have dropped in. Now takin’ a ridiculous estimate, say yu have a thousand cows left. Thet number with the brandin’ of mavericks will more than double this year. Thet means, say, twenty-five hundred haid. Followin’ year five thousand haid. Third year ten thousand haid. Mind yu, we’re allowin’ for the brandin’ of mavericks along this river as far up an’ down as we can ride. Fourth year easy twenty thousand. An’ so on. Wal, two-year-olds are sellin’ now for six dollars a haid. Any Texan can see thet cattle-raisin’ is goin’ to save Texas. Prices will go up an’ up. But suppose, for sake of bein’ conservative, say prices go no higher. In four years we’ll be worth way over a hundred thousand dollars. But I’d gamble it’ll be double thet.”

“Pecos!” cried Lambeth, his voice ringing high.

“Wal, don’t Pecos me. Yu know thet Pecos means ‘most anythin’. I’m tellin’ yu straight, Terrill. For ten years I’ve been layin’ for this chance.”

“Oh, thank God you — came in time!” exclaimed the lad, poignantly.

“See heah, lad, yore still upset. Let’s talk no more tonight,” replied Pecos, surprised into keen solicitude. Terrill stood against the stone chimney just out of the light of the freshly blazing sticks Sambo had put on. The shadow somehow heightened the effect of large dark eyes.

“I’m not upset. It’s — it’s just — I cain’t tell you.... But I can tell you — that if Brasee had kept me shut up much longer — I’d have hanged myself.”

“Aw, son, yore exaggeratin’,” ejaculated Pecos. “Why, he wouldn’t have dared. He was tryin’ to scare you into borrowin’ money.”

“That’s all you know,” retorted the lad, with passion. “Brasee is only one of Don Felipe’s hands. But he does terrible things. Not so long ago he held a girl prisoner in that ‘dobe shack.”

“A girl! ... What the hell is wrong with the white men in Eagle’s Nest?”

“She was — a — Mexican,” replied Terrill, haltingly, and ended as if biting his tongue.

“Makes no difference,” growled Pecos. “Reckon I’ll have to inquire into thet.”

Pecos went out and called: “Hey, Sambo, you big molasses. Come heah an’ help me.”

Sambo appeared, so promptly as to give rise to a suspicion that he had been listening. It certainly seemed natural under the circumstances.

“Yo climb up de ladder an’ I’ll fro up yore bed,” suggested Sambo.

“Hand up my coat an’ rifle first,” replied Pecos as he ascended to the roof and knelt on the uneven pole floor. It was so dark Pecos could not see back into the loft.

“Yo fro my quilts down, Pecos.”

Pecos felt around until he found a bed, which consisted of no more than several heavy quilts. He gave these a pitch into space. Sambo let out a smothered ejaculation and was evidently thrown off his balance. Pecos, peering down, found that this was the case. Sambo floundered around to extricate himself. His language and the commotion that he had created brought Mauree to the scene.

“Fo’ de land’s sake! Yo crazy black man, what yo doin’?”

“Go long wid yo, woman.”

“Ex-cuse me, Sambo,” called Pecos. “I reckoned yu was lookin’.”

“Sho I wuz lookin’, but it done no good. Yo is a real vaquero, Mars Pecos, yo sho is.”

Presently Pecos had his bed spread in that dark loft and his preciously laden coat folded for a pillow. Before stretching his frame at length he gazed out in the direction of the river. He could not see well, though the pale, wide, winding bar under the black wall must be it. Above the bold rim blinked white stars, cold and austere in their message to him. By listening intently he caught a faint murmur of water chafing by reedy shore. An owl hooted on the canyon side of the river, to be answered from a distance. Cattle and horses were silent.

Pecos felt of the bundles of money in his coat. His conscience discovered a still small voice. Had he been wholly honest with young Lambeth? Angrily he cast the query aside. He had fought that out. He could look any man in the eye, with a hand on his gun, and swear that he was not a thief. Nevertheless, if he had so long lived the free, wild lawless life of a vaquero that his sense of right and wrong had suffered, now was the time to correct it. Whereupon he lay down and slept, an indication that his conscience was not too burdened.

Pecos did not awaken until rather late for him, which perhaps was owing to a sense of security. The sun was crossing the gap far down the river and the Rio Pecos appeared a path of glory.

Sambo came into sight below, his arms full of split fagots.

“Fine mawnin’,” called out Pecos, pulling on his boots.

“Sho is. An’ once more I’se glad to be alibe.”

“Me too.... Where’s our boss, Sambo?”

“Sho he’s in de land ob Nod. Mauree she call him twice. But mos’ always he’s up early.”

Pecos lay flat on the floor, with his head over the edge. The open door of the cabin was a little to his right. “Hey, Terrill!” he yelled.

“Yes — yes,” came a quick, bewildered cry from the distant room.

“Pile out. The mawnin’s broke. We gotta hang today on a peg an’ all the days thet come after.... Ridin’ the brakes, boy! Who could ask a happier lot?”

Pecos descended the ladder to begin the day himself, surprised at something that made him want to sing. He washed his face and hands, and brushed his tangled hair, and felt of his stubby beard. Some day he might shave, if only for the comfort of a clean, smooth chin. There were gold and red ripples on the river, under a gentle wind. Ducks were winging flight upstream. Cattle spotted the green banks. Terrill’s pinto mustang had come almost to the porch. Chickens were numerously manifest.

“Sambo, is there any other way in an’ out of this canyon?” queried Pecos.

“They sho is. Yo can drive a wagon to the rim. It done ain’t no shucks of a road, suh, but we’ve druv it many a time.”

“Then we’ve got a wagon?”

“Sho — up thar on top. Harness, too, all nice hid in de brush. Kuhnel Lambeth done bought dat wagon t’ree years ago.”

“Did you ever drive it to Eagle’s Nest?”

“Yas, suh. But dat’s a long pull around. We can get to de fort in two days.”

“Wal, we’re shore startin’ pronto.”

A jingling step caused Pecos to turn. Terrill had come out in clothes much the worse for wear.

“Mawnin’, Pecos. You scared me stiff.”

“So yore up, lad? Wal, I was gettin’ worried. If yore gonna trail with me, Terrill Lambeth, yore shore gonna rustle.... Do yu sleep in thet old sombrero?”

“Sometimes,” replied Terrill, with a laugh.

“You-all come an’ eat,” called Mauree, from within.

Pecos followed him in. The living-room was full of sunlight now. Pecos, sitting at table, gazed from the flushed Terrill around upon the walls, at Mauree’s crude cupboard, at the pots and pans on the coals, at the homemade furniture, the skins and horns over the rude mantel, at the old Henry rifles — and his mental reservation was that the Lambeths had the spirit of the pioneer, but not the resourcefulness.

“Pecos, I heahed you tell Sambo you were startin’ pronto somewhere,” said Terrill, his deep eyes glancing up fleetingly.

“What you think aboot it? We’ll ride hossback, an’ Sambo — an’ his wife, too — —”

“Mauree has a pickaninny.”

“Ump-um! Wal, she can shore take it, if she wants. We’ll drive to thet fort — what’d yu call it — campin’ along easy, an’ load yore wagon till it sags.”

“Pecos, you’re the — the most amazing vaquero I ever heahed of. You filled my head with dreams last night. But this mawnin’ I’m awake.”

“Dog-gone, boy, yu do seem brighter. Not so pale.... Wal, what’s wrong with my idee?”

“Nothing. It’s just inspiring. Only I have no credit at Camp Lancaster, even if I — I dared go in debt again.”

“Wal, yore pardner’s got some money,” drawled Pecos.

“You would lend it to me?”

“No. I’m investin’ in yore ranch. I’ll buy supplies, tools, guns, shells, cattle, hosses, any darn thing we need thet can be bought in this heah Gawd-forsaken country.”

Terrill dropped his head, though not so quickly but that Pecos caught a glimpse of flaming cheeks.

“Terrill, don’t take offense an’ don’t be uppish,” added Pecos, in change of tone. “I want to help yu an’ I know I cain’t lose nothin’. Yu said yu trusted me, though I don’t see how yu can on such short notice. Not west of the Pecos!”

“I do — trust you. But I — it’s only that I’m overcome. It’s too good to be true. Don’t think me uppish or — or ungrateful.... I — I could scream. I could swear!”

“Wal, thet’s fine. Come out with a good old Texas cuss- word.”

“ ——  —— !” swore Terrill, valiantly. But the profanity did not ring true, so far as familiarity was concerned.

Sambo burst into a roar. “Haw! Haw! Haw! ... My Lawd! — Wife, did yo heah dat?”

“I sho did an’ I’se scandalized,” declared Mauree, resentfully. “Terrill never wuz a cusser an’ he ain’t a-gonna begin now.”

“Wal, I’m sorry, Mrs. Sambo,” said Pecos. “But it shore did me good to heah him.... Now, son, yu get a pencil an’ paper. Say, can yu write?”

“I’m not quite so ignorant as I look and sound,” protested Terrill.

“Boy, listen to me. Yu gotta know when I’m in fun, which is shore most of the time, an’ when I’m mad, which ain’t often. I wasn’t mad atall yesterday.... Now if yu’ve lived out heah five years an’ yore fifteen altogether, how’n the devil did yu get much schoolin’?”

“Who said I was fifteen?”

“Reckon I did. Yu shore cain’t be older?”

“I reckon I am, a little,” returned Terrill, dryly. “But never mind my age.... Only, Señor Pecos Smith, I’m no child to tease.... Now I’ll get pencil and paper.”

“Wal, if yu balk at teasin’ we’ll dissolve partnership right heah an’ now. What yu say?”

“I’m not a bit balky.”

“Dog-gone! I’ll bet yu are.”

When it came to enumerating supplies and necessities for the ranch, Terrill showed a long-formed habit of economy. After he set his list down Pecos said: “Put an X an’ a four after thet.”

“X and a four?”

“Shore. Thet means multiply by four.... Heah, Sambo, yu ought to know what yu’ve got an’ what yu haven’t. Answer my questions, an’ yu, Terrill, write down what I say.”

At the conclusion of this exercise, Sambo was jubilant and Terrill was awed. Pecos heard Sambo say to his wife: “Mauree, dat man take my bref. If he ain’t crazy we’ze lookin’ at hebben right dis minute.”

Mauree elected to stay home with her pickaninny. “But yu, niggah, yu fetch me some stockin’s an’ shoes an’ some clothes — an’ if yu forgit my smokin’ yu needn’t come honeyin’ around heah no mo.”

What with climbing the gulch trail with saddle horses and team, and clambering over rocks and greasing the wagon and mending the harness, Sambo and Pecos were not ready to start until midday. Then Sambo drove off over rough ground where no sign of wheel tracks was visible. Terrill did not know the way, so he and Pecos followed behind the wagon.

“Boy, yu gotta pack a gun an’ learn how to shoot it,” advised Pecos.

“I told you I could shoot.”

“Wal, take this an’ show me,” replied Pecos, handing over his gun — an action he had never done since that gun had become part of him. “Be careful. Yu have to thumb the hammer.”

“Shoot from the horse?”

“Why, shore! If yu run into a bandit would yu git off polite an’ plug him from the ground?”

“I did meet two bandits — and I ran for all I was worth.”

“Wal, yore education is beginnin’. Hold the gun high with yore thumb on the hammer. Then throw it hard with a downward jerk. The motion will flip the hammer just as the gun reaches a level, an’ it’ll go off, yu bet. Yu gotta sort of guess instead of aimin’. Thet is at a man close to yu, but at some distance yu want to aim.”

“Heah goes. If Spot hangs me in a tree it’ll be on yore head,” replied Terrill, and he threw the gun as directed, pointing it at a big rock. Bang! The mustang leaped straight up, almost unseating his rider. It took a moment to quiet him.

“Take your old gun,” declared Terrill, returning it to Pecos. “It nearly kicked my arm off.”

“Wal, yu hit the rock, anyhow, an’ thet’s fine. I’ll let thet do till we git home.”

Pecos was not long in discovering that Sambo kept to the ridge-tops, seldom crossing a wash. And the direction was away from the river. Once up on top, the horses made better time. They camped at the head of a ravine where water was to be had, having made, according to Sambo, more than fifteen miles. Soon after supper Terrill unrolled his bed in the wagon and crawled into it. Pecos talked to the negro for an hour, with the object of learning what Sambo knew about the country, cattle, rustlers, and all pertaining to the range.

Next day they struck into a road, well defined and lately used. It wound along the ridges, for the most part downhill, and late that evening they made camp on the west bank of the river. Pecos was relieved to hear a ripple of shallow water, denoting an easy ford on the morrow. Before the sky grew red next morning they were across and headed down a good road toward the military camp.

CHAPTER X

PECOS LEARNED FROM an old army sergeant that Camp Lancaster was the post of the U.S.A. Fourth Cavalry, who were operating against hostile Indians along the river; and at the present time were up somewhere on the Staked Plains.

It was an old post. Lieutenant N. F. Smith had camped there as early as 1849; and Lieutenant Michler in 1863, had traced out the road which Pecos had struck west of the river. There was a trading-post besides an army supply-store inside the old stone walls. The high chimneys made visible landmarks for miles around.

While Pecos helped Terrill and Sambo buy their extensive list, he did not let anything escape him. Indians lounged around on the stone steps and inside the stores, sullen, greasy, painted savages supposed to be peaceful. They were not Comanches, but all the same Pecos would not have trusted some of them out on the range.

According to the sergeant, the Comanches seldom raided below Horsehead Crossing. That ford, owing to the more frequent passing of the trail drivers, had become a favorite spot for the Indians to waylay and attack cattlemen driving herds up from lower Texas.

“Only last month a bunch of Comanches massacred some cowhands at Horsehead,” said the army man. “Tolerable big bunch of cattle scattered all down the river. The Pecos is treacherous an’ many head of stock mire down in quicksand or drown in floods. But there’s thousands of cattle in the brakes that no one will ever claim.”

Pecos did not linger at the fort after their purchases had been packed in the wagon. He did not ask for an escort back to the ford, but the sergeant sent three troopers with him, jolly fellows who imparted much information. They saw him and his companion safely across the river, just before sunset. This was the last water for a long stretch, but Pecos pushed on west far into the night before halting for camp. Then he staked the horses close, he and Sambo keeping alternate guard. Their next camp was somewhere down on the rocky slopes. And afternoon of the third day saw them arriving safely on the rim above Lambeth Ranch. The following day Pecos conceived the idea of letting the supplies down over the cliff on lassos, a method which saved much time and labor.

* * * * *

South of Lambeth Ranch was a range claimed by Don Felipe before his association with Sawtell, after which time they openly challenged any claim clear down to Devil River. Several other cattlemen, according to Sambo, ran stock on both sides of the river. And as cattle strayed far up and down the Pecos there was a considerable mixing of brands, and always, for the persistent vaqueros, an unfailing number of mavericks.

Pecos said cheerfully to Terrill and Sambo: “Every time yu put a red-hot iron on a maverick we are six dollars richer right then.”

They left the north brakes alone because even Felipe’s vaqueros had not penetrated them, and confined their efforts to riding the river canyon, the intersecting brakes, and up these as far as the heads, where dense thickets never failed to yield calves and yearlings that had never smelled burned hair.

They rode together, or at least Pecos never allowed Terrill to get out of his sight, with the result that the average of brandings a day was small, in the neighborhood of six. This number, however, was eminently satisfactory to Pecos, and it elated Terrill so that the lad daily lost something of his reserve. Pecos, reviewing the situation, seemed to gather that Terrill apparently lost some kind of a fear of him. Pecos did not concern himself much about anything now except the amassing of a herd. He knew where to find mavericks, and many there were that Felipe’s outfit had not sweat hard enough to find.

* * * * *

Summer came, hot and drowsy, with its storms. As a consequence work became harder on the men and easier on the horses. Lambeth owned less than a dozen horses, and these, with the two of Pecos’, were not half enough to stand the grind.

Therefore a day here and there was given the horses to rest, during which time Pecos and his two followers worked on the ranch. There was no end of repairs, and when these were attended to, Pecos began improvements. He was indefatigable, and he made Sambo’s red tongue hang out like that of a driven calf in the brakes.

Terrill turned out to be less hardy and enduring than he looked. Still, for a youth who had not reached his full growth and who had never experienced the grueling drill common to vaqueros, he won praise from Pecos. Terrill lost a little of the fullness of his cheeks and the graceful roundness of form that even the loose and ill-fitting clothes he wore failed to hide.

One still, scorching noon in August, after a hard morning’s toil in pursuit of some wild three-year-old steers, they flung themselves down in a shady place on the banks of the river. Pecos was hot, and Sambo heaved and sweat like a horse, but it was Terrill who had suffered most from the exertion and heat. He had become expert with the rope under Pecos’ tutelage and was mightily proud of it. He could run down, lasso, throw, and tie a calf in short order. But either Sambo or Pecos had to apply the branding-iron. Pecos often took the lad to task for his squeamishness, and finally Terrill, who was easy to exasperate, made a surprising and unanswerable retort. “Aw, burning hair and flesh stink!”

Pecos had gaped at the lad.

This particular day Terrill’s face was as red as fire and as wet as if it had been plunged under water.

“You darned little fool!” ejaculated Pecos. “Why don’t yu ride in yore shirt sleeves?”

“I haven’t any heavy shirts like yours. Mine are thin stuff. Mauree made them for me. If I rode through the brush without my coat I’d be torn to pieces.”

The coat Terrill referred to and which Pecos had complained of was a short jacket much too full for Terrill.

There was a flat rock along the bank and the current of the river swirled green and cool beside it. Terrill lay down to drink. Suddenly Pecos, possessed of one of his teasing moods, leaped down noiselessly, and with a quick action plunged Terrill’s head clear under. Terrill nearly lunged into the river; then bounding erect, he burst out furiously: “Damn fool! ... Pushing me in when I can’t swim!”

“By gosh! Thet’s an idee. Swim! We’ll go in,” shouted Pecos. “I was too durned lazy to think of it.”

“No we won’t,” declared Terrill.

“Don’t yu ever bathe, yu dirty boy?”

“Yes, but I’m not doing it today,” retorted Terrill, resentfully.

“Come on, Terrill. I promise not to duck yu,” rejoined Pecos, beginning to strip. By the time he had gotten his shirt off Terrill had disappeared under the trees. Pecos laughed, thinking he had offended the sensitive lad. He removed the rest of his clothes and had his swim.

“Sambo, why don’t you come in? It’s shore nice an’ cool,” called Pecos.

“Too much work. An’ I’se had one baf dis summer. I fell in a hole.”

When Pecos emerged to dress Terrill was not in sight, and did not return until fully half an hour later.

“Terrill, old pard, I’m sorry I ducked yu. Cain’t yu take a little fun? My Gawd! but yore a queer kind. Not wantin’ to go in swimmin’ on a day like this!”

“I’d like it well enough, but I — I couldn’t strip before yu and Sambo.”

“Ahuh. So thet’s it.... Terrill, I didn’t savvy yu was so modest. Heahafter Sambo an’ I will go off an’ let yu take a swim.”

This incident recalled certain things about Terrill that had seemed peculiar to Pecos. Of late weeks, however, the boy had grown less aloof, and had become so zealous in work, so evidently glad to be with Pecos, so thoroughly promising in every way, that Pecos had grown greatly attached to him. It was like bringing up a boy who stayed boyish. There appeared to be limits, however, that Pecos could not exceed; and an altogether hopeless task to make a rough vaquero out of Terrill.

Nevertheless, these convictions of Pecos’ rather endeared Terrill the more to him, because of a sense of guardianship, almost parental, that Terrill inspired. The lad had lost his fear of being alone, and at times he seemed almost happy. Naturally this drew Pecos closer to him. And as the days slipped by, always full of work in the open, these two grew insensibly the closer.

Terrill could stand considerable teasing of certain kinds. But one day, during a rest hour, Pecos had come upon him lying flat on his stomach, so absorbed in contemplation of some flowers — a habit of Terrill’s — that he did not hear Pecos’ step. So that he was wholly unprepared for Pecos’ swoop down upon him, to straddle his back and tickle him in the ribs with steel-like fingers. At first Pecos took the noise Terrill made and the amazing struggle he put up to be the natural outcome of extreme ticklishness. But presently it dawned upon Pecos that the boy was not laughing, or struggling in a sense of response to Pecos’ fingers dug into his ribs. When Pecos got off, Terrill leaped up in a rage.

“If you ever do that again — I’ll fire you!” cried Terrill.

“Fire me?” echoed Pecos, aghast.

“Yes, fire you! Have you no respect for a — a fellow’s person? I told you once before it drives me crazy to be tickled.”

“Shore I remember now, Dog-gone it, Terrill, cain’t I treat yu as I would any other boy?”

“You bet you can’t.”

“An’ yu’d fire me — honest to Gawd?”

“I — I’ve got to do something to — to protect myself,” replied Terrill, choking up.

“It’s got to be home to me — this hyar Lambeth Ranch, an’ I’m shore powerful fond of yu.”

“Shut up! That was a lie. I — I couldn’t get along without you,” flashed Terrill, with another kind of temper, and he ran away to the house, leaving Pecos relieved and glad, and uncomprehensibly moved. From that hour, nevertheless, Pecos realized he and Terrill were going to clash sooner or later. It only waited for the time and the place and the cause; and there was no use for Pecos to attempt to fend it off.

Terrill was subject to moods. He really was astounding in that way, but most of them did not interfere with the work, which, after all, was Pecos’ heartfelt aim. Sometimes when Terrill thought he was alone on the rocks or the banks of the river he would sing at the top of his lungs. Pecos never got close enough to him on these occasions to hear distinctly, but he caught a sweet rising and falling contralto voice. Then again Terrill would be wildly gay, and if opportunity offered where he was safe from attack, he would torment Pecos unmercifully. At times he would be profoundly melancholy and unapproachable, so sad-lipped and somber-eyed that Pecos was glad to let him alone. Again, and this was unusual and rare, happening in the dusk or in shadow, when his face was not visible, he would be provokingly curious about Pecos’ love-affairs.

“Dog-gone yu, boy, I told yu I hadn’t had any,” Pecos would reply, in good-humored impatience.

“Aw, you lie. A wonderful handsome vaquero like you! Pecos Smith, you cain’t make me believe you haven’t had — —”

“Wal, what? Yore so damn curious. Now just what?”

“A wife, maybe. Sweethearts, shore lots of them — and, like as not — more than one of those black-eyed, bewitching little Mexican hussies.”

“Wal, I’ll be jiggered! Thet last’s fine talk for a clean- minded boy who cain’t undress to go swimmin’ in front of men! ... You got me wrong, Terrill Lambeth. I never had no Mexican hussy, nor any other kind. Nor a wife. Gawd! thet’s kinda funny.... An’ the nearest I ever come to a sweetheart was up heah at the H H Ranch.... Mary Heald. I was a little sweet on her, but I never told her. Course she might have liked me — the boys swore she did — an’ I knew I’d shoot some fellar sooner or later an’ have to go on down the long trail. An’ thet’s just what happened.”

“Forgive me, Pecos. I — I was just curious.... I suppose then — I — we’ve only to look forward to the day when you shoot Breen Sawtell or Don Felipe — and ride away from Lambeth Ranch?”

Pecos was not so dense but he caught a faint bitterness in the lad’s words, and it touched him. In the shade of the trees — it was twilight under the canyon wall and they were riding home. Pecos reached out a hand to clasp Lambeth’s shoulder.

“Terrill, didn’t I say I’d never leave yu? Would it have been honest of me to go in partnership with yu when I might have to go on the drift? But it cain’t happen now. An’ if I shoot Sawtell an’ Felipe — which I’m damn liable to do if they come foolin’ in heah — it’ll be for yu.”

Terrill made no response to that unless riding on ahead could be construed as one.

Terrill had a sulky mood now and then, the only kind that Pecos found it trying to put up with. Without any reason whatever, that he could grasp, Terrill would get as sulky as a spoiled pup. It chanced one day that such a state of temper encroached upon an occasion when Pecos was as exasperated as he could well be. Things had gone wrong all day, even to the burning of his thumb with a branding-iron. This was serious. It was his trigger thumb! To be sure, he could shoot fairly well with his left hand, but if he ran into some of the vaqueros he suspected of brand-burning T L stock, he would be in a pretty pickle.

An argument arose over the matter of driving again to Camp Lancaster. Pecos wanted to put it off, and he was reasonable about it, though he did not mention the particular objection, which was his sore thumb. Terrill tossed his tawny head — happening for once to be without the omnipresent battered sombrero — and said he would be damned if he would not take Sambo and go alone.

“Yu will not,” replied Pecos, shortly.

“I will!”

“Ump-umm.”

“Who’ll stop me?”

“Wal, if yore such a dumbhaid, this heah little old Pecos Smith.”

“Dumbhaid! ... I shall go. I’d like to know who’s boss around Lambeth Ranch.”

“I reckon yore the owner of the ranch, Terrill, ‘cause I have only a half share in the stock. But yu cain’t boss me.”

“I am your boss.”

“Say, go away an’ leave me be. Yore pesterin’ me. Cain’t yu see this is a particular job.”

Terrill snatched the article Pecos was working on — no less than a wide leather belt he meant to carry money in — and threw it far down the bank.

“Wal, yu little devil!” ejaculated Pecos, nettled.

“Don’t call me names and don’t think you can work when I’m talking business,” declared Terrill, hotly.

“Call yu names? Shore I will. Heah’s a couple more. When yu air like yu air this minnit yu air a dod-blasted mean little kickin’ jackass. Yu heah me? ... Yore cranky, too, an’ turrible conceited aboot bein’ a boss. Why, yu couldn’t boss a lot of mavericks. Yu make me tired, Terrill, an’ I’ve a mind to spank you.”

“Spank me!” shrilled Terrill. “How dare you?” And he gave Pecos a stinging slap in the face.

That settled it. Out flashed Pecos’ long arms. He seized Terrill by the shoulders, heartily disposed to carry out the spanking threat. But sudden pangs in his sore thumb changed his mind. Instead he gave Terrill a flip that spun him around like a top. Then he swung his boot in a lusty kick to Terrill’s rear. In any case a vaquero’s kick was no trivial thing. This one lifted Terrill a little off the grass and dropped him sprawling. With astounding celerity Terrill sprang erect. Then Pecos met blazing eyes that took his breath. Many as had been the wonderful eyes of different-hued fury that had flashed into his, Terrill’s were the most magical.

“I’ll kill you!”

“Run along, yu little bull-haid,” drawled Pecos.

Terrill did run off, screaming incoherently, and that was the last Pecos saw of him until dusk. Pecos was watching the last ruddy glow of sunset down on the river when Terrill came out to edge closer to him.

“Pecos.” It was an entreating voice.

“Yeah.”

“I — I apologize.... You treated me just — just as I deserved. It was temper. I used to lose my haid at Dad. I’m sorry.”

* * * * *

Pecos and his two helpers rode the brakes of the river for twenty miles below Lambeth Ranch, and out on the slopes of the range for as many miles west. And Pecos’ hopes were more than fulfilled. They had burned the T L brand on more than seven hundred mavericks. What a grievous blow this would be to Don Felipe and his new partner, not to include several other ranchers who lived in Eagle’s Nest and ran their stock up and down the river! Soon the vaqueros of all those cattlemen would be riding out on full round-ups. Then Pecos expected some burned-out brands, if nothing worse.

In these three hot months of summer Pecos’ vigilant eye had not been rewarded by a single sight of Indians, or any tracks in the brakes or up on the ranges. Men who knew that country were partial to spring and fall for their operations. Before long now anything might be expected.

Toward the end of August the drought was broken by occasional rainstorms, most welcome to Lambeth Ranch. Even the well-watered canyon had begun to grow dusty and gray. But the rains worked magic.

When Pecos rode down from the desolate ranges or up the lonely, silent river with its drab walls, its never-changing monotony, back into the one green canyon within his range it was like entering another world. Months of riding the Pecos brakes could not but have its effect upon any man. The contrast of Lambeth’s Canyon counteracted this, and the vaquero would gain by night what he lost by day. Sambo was not affected by seasons, by heat or cold, by loneliness, by anything. “So long’s I’se got my chewin’-terbaccer I’se all right,” the negro was wont to say. Terrill was a difficult proposition to figure, and Pecos gave it up. Nevertheless, the lad never made one complaint about the hard work, the loneliness, and the confinement of the brakes.

Before undertaking a long siege of upriver riding, from which Pecos expected so much, he advised a week’s rest for the horses. During this interval Pecos and his helpers dammed the stream up near the canyon head, and formed a fine little lake, from which they dug an irrigation ditch, with branches almost the whole length of the ranch. This was something Terrill claimed his father had always wanted to do.

The change from the everlasting seat in a saddle, riding the rough, ragged, dreary brakes, to work on foot with clear running water while eyes were rested and soothed by soft greens, and the lines of goldenrod, and the autumn coloring of vines and willows, turned out to be something so beneficial that Pecos saw the wisdom of frequently resorting to it.

The white clouds sailed up back of the rims to fill the blue vault above, and to thicken and change and darken, until a heavy black one would come trailing veils of rain across the ranch. At the same time the sun would be shining through somewhere, and lakes of azure showed amidst both the white and the black clouds, and rainbows arched down from the ranges above to bend a gorgeous curve over the river, or drop a fading end far down the canyon.

“Shore the lovely time heah is coming,” said Terrill. “Makes up for the rest.”

“Pity we have to miss it,” replied Pecos. “But I’ve an idee, if it isn’t too ambitious. Let’s pack grub an’ beds an’ work out two or three of them upriver brakes at a time, then come home to rest up a bit.”

That met with Terrill’s approval.

“Sho yo’s gonna find det upribber tough sleddin’,” predicted Sambo.

* * * * *

Pecos was destined to learn vastly more about the river from which he had been named.

The country with which he had grown familiar while trail driving for McKeever did not take in the brakes of the river, but mostly the rolling ridges that led up to the vast sweeping ranges.

From Heald’s range, up and down the Pecos for miles, the strange river had worn a deep channel through dull red soil, and the places where cattle could get down to drink were not many.

The part of the river Pecos was now to explore proved to be the wildest and most dangerous reaches along its whole length. Nothing marked the course of the river. The cedar trees that grew sparsely were all down in the narrow deep-walled winding canyon. Cattle tracks led to the few breaks where it was possible to get down to water.

From time to time Sambo had told Pecos what he had learned personally about the river below Horsehead Crossing, and what had come to him through other riders. Whole herds of cattle had been drowned in the Pecos, and thousands had perished singly and doubly, and in small bunches. Fords were so few and far between that cowhands had often attempted a crossing at a bad place and a bad time, only to be carried down the swift current beyond a rocky wall to death.

The savages, lying in ambush at Horsehead Crossing, which was the most important and the most dreaded ford on the river, had often massacred an outfit of trail drivers and chased their cattle into the breaks. Even a repulsed attack seldom failed of a stampede, which added to the number of unknown strays.

Pecos was of the opinion that most of these lost cattle — for that matter all the cattle in this region were lost and not only had to be found, but caught — grazed gradually to the southward.

Three weeks of riding this hard country, allowing for weekend rests at home, did not account for many branded mavericks for Pecos’ outfit, but the labor was most valuable in acquainting Pecos with the haunts of a surprising number of cattle, and in what could not be done and what could. There was enough unbranded stock along Independence Creek alone to make Pecos and Terrill rich ranchers, and that stream lay between Lambeth Ranch and Camp Lancaster. Pecos’ visions of wealth and dreams of the future were not inconsistent with possibilities. At night, round the little camp fire, he would dwell on this and that aspect of the business, finding in Terrill a rapt listener.

“Listen pard,” said Pecos once, voicing a growing belief. “I shore don’t want to set up yore hopes way sky-high an’ then see them take a tumble. But, dog-gone it, I just cain’t see anythin’ ‘cept big money for us.”

“Pecos, you’ve got my hopes so high now I’m riding the clouds instead of my saddle,” replied Terrill.

“Wal, I’ll stick by my guns,” went on Pecos, doggedly. “By spring we’ll have twenty five hundred haid wearin’ the T L. We’ve got the ranch, the water, the range. This country will always run cattle, an’ a hundred times more’n what’s grazin’ heah now. It’s so darn big an’ so wild. Why, there’s no cattle range in Texas thet can come up to our West of the Pecos range. Grass doesn’t fail heah. Thet damned gray-green-yellow alkali-bitten river never went dry in its life.... We’re heah, boy, we’re heah!”

“But, Pecos, you’ve forgotten Don Felipe and Sawtell. It’s so easy to forget anything here. I cain’t keep track of days. It’s you, Pecos, with all your talk of riches, that makes me remember poor Dad and his hopes. And then I come back to these slick devils who not only stole my stock but tried to steal me.... It cain’t last, Pecos. Before October comes and goes these happy days will get a jolt.”

Pecos was silent a long time. The lad spoke sense, but then he had no idea who his partner was. And naturally Pecos was brought face to face with dire possibilities. He pondered over them, one by one, and added others as far-fetched and unlikely as he could conceive. Not one presented any great obstacle to him! Still, he could get shot in the back. If he would only sternly get down to the somber vigilance that had been natural to him in the past. But that was the opposite to being happy! He owed it to this orphaned lad, so lovable and fine, and so full of promise, to see that no tragedy ruined him.

“Terrill, yu handsome son-of-a-gun, listen,” began Pecos, deliberately. “Yu don’t know what I know. An’ I’ve gotta brag some to convince yu.... Wal, I once rode for Don Felipe.”

“Pecos! You did?” Terrill queried, in amaze, and he threw up his head so that the ruddy firelight played upon his tanned face.

“Shore did. An’ when thet greaser sees me an’ recognizes me, his black-peaked face will turn green, an’ his little pig’s eyes will pop out of his haid, an’ them pigtails — shore yu seen how he braids his hair? — they’ll stand up stiff.... Yu savvy, son?”

“Yes, I savvy,” replied Terrill, soberly.

“Wal, to resoom. Don has got the same vaqueros he always had, ‘cept two or three thet ain’t ridin’ for nobody no more. Ha! Ha! ... An’ do they know me? Wal, yu’ll see some day, an’ yu shore won’t worry no more.... An’ thet fetches us down to Breen Sawtell.... Terrill, thet man cain’t cause me to lose the tiniest wink of sleep. Now do yu savvy thet, too?”

“No, I cain’t.... Who are you, Pecos?”

“Wal, I’m yore partner, an’ thet’s enough.... Now listen to this new idee of mine. Next spring or fall, at the latest, provided we’re free of worry aboot the Felipe-Sawtell outfit, we’ll go south to the Rio Grande. We’ll pick up some honest-to-Gawd vaqueros thet I know how to find, an’ we’ll buy some fine hosses an’ cows, an’ particular some bulls, an’ turn trail drivers ourselves long enough to get them heah.”

“Oh, Pecos, there yu go again,” declared Terrill, in despair. “Do you mean we’ll drive and sell what cattle we have?”

“Not a darned hoof.”

“But that would cost a lot of money.”

“Shore it would, the way yu figure money. But I’ve got it, Terrill.”

“Where?” gasped the lad, incredulously.

“Wal, I reckon yu ought to know,” drawled Pecos. “‘Cause somethin’ might happen to me, an’ in thet case I’d want yu to have the money. I hid all my small bills in a tin can back in the corner of thet loft where I sleep when we’re home. The rest — the big bills — I pack around with me. Heah.”

Pecos opened his shirt, and unlacing the wide leather belt he had made he handed it over to his partner.

“I reckon you remember this belt. It’s to blame for my nearly kickin’ the pants off yu thet day.”

“I’m not — likely to forget that — Pecos Smith,” returned the lad, in a low voice. “What’ll I do with this?”

“Take a peep inside.”

With eager trembling fingers Terrill complied; and then, utterly astounded, he fixed large dark dilated eyes upon Pecos.

“Fifty dollar bills! Hundred dollar bills! ... I dare look no farther.... A fortune!”

“Not so bad, for a couple of young Texas vaqueros,” replied Pecos, complacently, as he replaced the belt round his waist, and tucked in his shirt. “Yu ‘pear more shocked than tickled.”

“Pecos, if — if you turned out to — to be a — a thief — it’d kill me!”

“For Gawd’s sake! I’m no bank-robber or rustler. I told yu,” sharply returned Pecos, too keenly stung to weigh the strange significance of Terrill’s words.

* * * * *

October waned. The sunny days were still hot, but no longer hot in comparison with those of midsummer. Lambeth Ranch presented a beautiful spectacle for that arid and rocky region.

The gray rock walls never changed. They were immutable in their drab insulation, though the sunrise and sunset took fleeting colorful liberties with them. But at their base a yellow-and-gold hue vied with the green, and circled the whole oval canyon, a warm fringe that had no regularity. In the notch of the walls, where the gulch opened, there were clinging vines with hints of cerise among the brown and bronze leaves. Across the green canyon floor shone lines and patches of goldenrod.

It was the season when birds and ducks had halted there on their southern migration; and there were splashes upon the blue lake and in the silver river, and flashes of myriads of wings, and music of many songsters.

Pecos was working the river canyon, with results that delighted Terrill and brought the rolling white to Sambo’s ox eyes.

“I done tole yo,” he averred, time and again. “I’se de darky dat knowed all aboot dem cattle. Dey libes on dem ribber banks, up an’ down so furs dey can git. An’ dat’s furder den we can go.”

Nevertheless, keen as Sambo was about most things, he was wrong in regard to Pecos, for that vaquero could take a horse where any steer could go. And so at the low stage of water, and wading or even swimming their mounts around sharp corners of wall the three maverick-branders found places no white man had ever tried, and unbranded cattle by the score, and old mossy-horns that took a good deal of hard chasing. Pecos had a knack of running them into the river, and if they did not venture to cross, which happened frequently, he roped them, dragged them ashore, and with Sambo’s assistance, burned the T L on their wet flanks. Terrill built the fires and heated the iron.

With few exceptions all these cattle were driven downriver toward the ranch. Pecos had far-seeing plans. There were twenty miles of brakes below Lambeth Canyon, and a vastly wider range west of the river, which would one day run thousands of T L stock. Every time Pecos threw a lasso, and every several times Sambo did likewise, and once in half a dozen throws for Terrill, meant an added six dollars for the Smith-Lambeth combination. It was amazing how the thing grew. And likewise their appetite for work, and daring to encompass it grew in proportion to their reward.

“Wal, in the mawnin’ we’ll ride up this heah side, an’ Sambo an’ I’ll cross the river while yu stay behind,” said Pecos, at supper one evening.

“Like hob I will,” drawled Terrill.

Pecos deliberated a moment. Often difficulties arose in the way of keeping Terrill from sharing real perils. To hint of danger a little too risky for his strength or horsemanship was to invite failure. And it struck Pecos rather strangely that now he should seek to deter the lad from ordeals that months past he had thrust upon him. There had been several narrow escapes for Terrill.

“S’pose yu tackle thet little brake just below where we’ll cross?” suggested Pecos. “It hasn’t been ridden yet an’ there’ll shore be a maverick or two. See what yu can do alone.”

“Ump-umm,” replied Terrill, imitating his vaquero’s laconic expression.

“Gosh! I wish I could make yu mind,” said Pecos, impatiently.

“Make me mind? Mr. Smith, you’re desiring the impossible. You should obey me, and you never do.”

“But, damn it, Terrill, I’m an old hand an’ yu’re a kid. I gotta confess yu’re shore gettin’ good.”

“Who’s a kid?”

“Yu are.”

“I’m — well, you never mind how old I am. You wouldn’t believe it, anyhow. But I’m going wherever you go. Savvy?”

Pecos saw the hopelessness of that tack. So he adopted another.

“Very wal. Course yu’re my boss,” he replied, sadly. “I’ll just give up brandin’ them mavericks across the river. ‘Cause I care too much for yu, Terrill, to let yu try things thet might give me an’ Sambo our everlastin’.”

That was tremendously effective. Terrill looked queer and averted his face, as always when embarrassed. Pecos saw a constriction of the round throat.

“Then you do — care something for me, Pecos,” he asked.

“Wal, I should smile I do — when yu’re good.”

“Don’t spoil it by whens and ifs.... I’ll do as you want me to.”

* * * * *

They were stirring long before the red burst of sun glorified the eastern wall. Sambo had the horses up before Mauree called them to breakfast. Soon they rode down to the river, in the flush of dawn, and headed up the shore, where they had worn a trail.

Flocks of ducks got up with a splashing start and winged swift flight up the canyon; the salt-cedar trees were full of singing birds; buzzards soared overhead; and cattle made a great bustle to climb out of sight or disappear in one of the brakes.

At last they arrived at the place Pecos had marked as an easy one to ford the river.

“Wal, bub, heah’s the partin’ of the ways,” announced Pecos, jovially. “Yu can shore keep busy all day. An’ meet us heah aboot sundown.”

“Bub!” ejaculated Terrill, scornfully.

“Huh? ... Aw, excuse me, Terrill. I shore do forget.”

“Wal, you shore do forget,” drawled Terrill, tantalizingly. “For instance, you forget Don Felipe and Sawtell are due any day now. Suppose while you’re way across there, chasing mavericks, they trailed me up heah — and nailed me.”

“No, I didn’t forget thet,” denied Pecos, vigorously. “They couldn’t come up this river any distance without me seein’ them.”

“They might. And if they did and caught me — neither you nor anyone else would ever see me again.”

“See heah, boy, what the hell kind of talk’s thet?” demanded Pecos, roused by the singular look and tone of the lad. Terrill knew something that he did not know.

“Have yu been honest with me — about those calf thieves?” went on Terrill.

“Shore. As far as I went. Are yu tryin’ to scare me so’s you can go along with us?”

“No. But I’m scared myself. I’ve become used to being with you, Pecos. It’s so — so comfortable.”

“All right. Stay comfortable an’ come on,” rejoined Pecos, tersely. But he was not satisfied with himself or with Terrill. “Grab yore rifles if it gets deep over there.”

Without more ado Pecos headed Cinco into the river, taking a diagonal course downstream toward the opposite shore. Cinco was a big and powerful horse; moreover he had enjoyed a rest of several days. And he liked water. He crossed without swimming. Pecos got only his feet wet. Sambo dismounted halfway over and waded, to ease his own horse and lead Terrill’s. The pony was small. He broke away from Sambo and lunged back.

“Rake him good!” yelled Pecos. “Yu’re goin’ too low down! ... It’s deeper! ... Dig him — come on!”

Sambo had to wade up to his neck to make it, and Terrill’s pony had to swim. He was a poor swimmer. There was one moment when Pecos thought he would have to spur Cinco in to go to Terrill’s assistance. But the pony floundered to a foothold and soon gained the bank, with Terrill in high glee.

Pecos had observed in crossing that the water was a little roily. And he thought this had been caused by the disturbance his horse had made in the stream; however, the water was flowing toward him, and a second glance discovered to him that it was slightly discolored as far as he could see. He did not like it, though perhaps cattle had been wading in above.

This side of the Pecos, at least as far up as he could see, differed considerably from the west shore. Rough wooded steps and benches rose to the rim wall, which was insurmountable though only one-tenth the height of the sheer cliff in other places.

They rode up along the edge of the water until halted by the usual barrier. This point was surely a couple of miles above where they had crossed. Pecos did not need to thresh out the brushy terraces to flush mavericks, as had been necessary in the thickets of the brakes below. Here it was possible to see calves, yearlings, two-year steers, and old mossy-horns.

“Build yore fire, boy, an’ red up the irons,” shouted Pecos, almost excited at the prospect. “Million mavericks along these benches. Looks hard to ride an’ rope, but they’ll be easy to corner.”

The work began fast and furiously. Terrill had to run from one spot to another with the red-hot branding-iron. Soon the air grew rank with the odor of burnt hair and hide. Pecos cornered a miscellaneous bunch on a bench where they could not get by him. They were stupid or tame; they had never been chased by a vaquero. Only the old wide-horned steers made any trouble. Pecos branded them all in time and number that was record for him.

“Seventy-eight pesos in less than thet many minutes,” he yelled. “Aw, I don’t know.... Yippy-yip! ... Yore fire’s not hot enough, Terrill. If yu wasn’t so slow we’d shore get rich faster.”

Sambo likewise did the best work Pecos had ever seen him do. Terrill was not only supposed to heat and run with the irons, but also keep track of numbers. This he soon failed on. Pecos and Sambo came to the point of dragging calves down off the upper benches, thus saving time. To keep one iron heating all the time and dash hither and yon with the others was about the toughest job Pecos had ever seen Terrill attempt. They not only lost track of numbers, but likewise of time.

“All de whole day long,” sang Sambo. “All de whole day lo-on- ng.”

“Pecos, I’m about ready to drop,” cried Terrill, and he looked it. “Let’s rest and eat.”

“Nope. We shore gonna be hawgs today. ‘Cause we don’t want to cross over hyar again till next summer,” replied Pecos. “Stay with us, Terrill, old pard.”

Thus stimulated, Terrill saved his breath and went his limit. They worked downriver, and to Pecos, absorbed and thrilled at this unparalleled day, the hours were as minutes. Most of the time he was back of the trees and brash, out of sight of the river.

The first indication that time was flying appeared to be a darkening of the light. Indeed, the sun had gone behind the western wall, and the day three-fourths spent. Pecos wiped his grimy, sweaty face so that he could see. Terrill was staggering back down off the wide bench with his smoking irons. He had built a score of fires this lucky day.

The river appeared black-streaked gold instead of green. But it struck Pecos that the sinking of the sun over the rim could scarcely account for the changed color. Suddenly his heart leaped, as his quick eye registered the muddy hue of the water, and his ear caught a low, sullen, chafing murmur. A flood had come down. That explained the roily water in the early morning. Pecos cursed as he spurred Cinco along the brushy bench.

“Jump on an’ ride!” he yelled, piercingly, to Terrill.

Terrill dropped everything to run for his mustang. Leaping astride, he hurried to meet Pecos coming down.

“What’s up?”

“The river, by Gawd! Look at it! ... Ride now an’ don’t break yore hoss’s leg.”

Sambo had seen and heard from above. He was dragging a calf by his rope. He got off to release it.

“Rustle, Sambo! If thet river’s up a foot we’re shore stuck.”

Pecos could not tell how much the water had risen. But he was scared. Besides, he had to guide Cinco over the roughest kind of going. They had half a mile to travel to reach the place where they had come over. Cinco sensed danger and his blood was up. He was hard to hold. He crashed through the brush and sent the rocks rolling. In a few minutes of perilous riding Pecos got off the lowest bench to the sandy shore. Already the water had half covered it. Looking back, he saw that Terrill was behind, and that Sambo was in sight. Pecos rode at a gallop the rest of the way to the ford.

When he halted to look at the river his excitement was augmented by dismay. The channel had wholly changed. It had been fairly swift when low, but now it was swollen and fast, with swirls and eddies, and ridges of current. Logs and sticks and patches of debris were floating down. Close at hand the low sullen roar had a growing ominous sound. It reflected a strange black-and-gold sky, where broken clouds were taking on stormy colors of sunset. The whole scene, river, sky, walls, seemed strangely unreal and full of menace.

“Damn yore greaser soul!” yelled Pecos, shaking a fist at the treacherous river.

He deliberated a moment, while Terrill was splashing toward him. To be cut off from the ranch was a serious matter. With meat and water they would scarcely starve, but the prospect of being marooned there for months, probably, was something Pecos could not entertain for a moment. At that season when the river got high it stayed high. Pecos saw the theft of their cattle and the ruin of their hopes, if they were barred from the west side of this river.

Terrill came galloping down to halt the mustang beside Pecos.

“Don’t wait — Pecos!” he panted, pale with excitement.

“Boy, can yu make it?”

“Shore I can — if we start quick.... She’s rising fast — Pecos.”

“ ——  —— luck! ... A foot rise, maybe, wouldn’t been so bad,” ejaculated Pecos. “Keep above me.”

Pecos eyed the river again, to get his bearing, then with a word made Cinco take to the water. Terrill spurred the mustang to a point a few yards above Pecos. Soon they were off the shallow bar. Terrill’s horse had to swim before Pecos’ lost his footing. They breasted that deep channel. But Terrill got behind. Pecos could not hold the iron-jawed Cinco, but as it happened, the horse soon found bottom again. Another plunge took him to shallow water, on the edge of the big bar. Here Pecos held Cinco.

Terrill was in difficulties, and Pecos made about to go to his assistance when the mustang touched the bar. But the water was swift and there appeared a chance of his being swept below the bar. Pecos spurred Cinco, to snatch at Terrill’s bridle just in time to drag the mustang out of danger.

“I’d have — made it, Pecos,” shrilled Terrill.

“Maybe yu would. But thet’s the worst place, unless the damn river’s changed.... Work above me now, so if he founders I can grab yu.”

Pecos turned to see that Sambo had arrived at the point to take to the river. “Haid upstream, Sambo!” he yelled. “Allow for current. Haid upstream!”

To Pecos’ further dismay and increasing alarm he found that the water was fully two feet higher than normal and so swift and thick that the horses could not be kept to the line.

Halfway across the mustang slipped and rolled, dumping Terrill out of the saddle. There was a terrific floundering and splashing before the lad reappeared. Then he floated face up and inactive on the surface. In the struggle, the mustang had bumped or kicked him.

It took tremendous effort of arms and legs to turn Cinco in that current. But Pecos accomplished it in time to stretch a long arm and catch Terrill before he drifted out of reach. The ensuing wrench almost jerked Pecos out of his saddle. Cinco, up to his haunches in the dragging current, kept his feet. He appeared more thoroughly angered than frightened, and once headed right again he made a magnificent struggle to keep to the line Pecos wanted. But that was only possible where he could wade.

Pecos had not attempted to drag Terrill across the saddle, fearing to burden Cinco too greatly. With a powerful grip on Terrill’s coat under his chin Pecos kept the pale face above water.

Then suddenly Cinco plunging into deeper water, went under, and was swept downstream. The water came up to Pecos’ waist. Cinco came up, swimming vigorously.

“Stay with it, old boy!” rasped Pecos, hard as iron, as he pulled the horse a little to the right. “Steady! Nothin’ for yu, Cinco!”

But it was increasingly manifest that the ordeal was a great one, almost too much for the wonderful horse. They were off the bar in deep water sweeping like a mill-race. If Cinco could keep from being carried out of line before they passed a shallow point Pecos was heading for they would be saved.

There was no use to beat him. Seeing that he would probably fail, Pecos slipped out of the saddle and with right hand holding Terrill up he dropped back to seize the tail of the horse with his left. That move relieved Cinco of the weight which had handicapped him. It did not impede him to drag Pecos behind.

Pecos had extreme difficulty in keeping Terrill above water. Already the lad’s head had been under too often and too long.

Suddenly something jarred Cinco. He snorted and lunged. The yellow current roared in seething foam around him. He had struck the rocky shore. He lunged again, sending the water in flying sheets. Then his black shoulders heaved up. At this juncture, Pecos let go to find he was about waist-deep. As he gathered Terrill up in his arms he looked back to see that Sambo had fared better. He had started farther upstream and had kept to the bar.

Pecos carried Terrill up on the bank and laid him on the grass. Bareheaded, white, motionless, with eyes closed, the lad looked dead.

Pecos tore at the loose coat buttoned up to the neck.

“Damn this heah coat!” flashed Pecos, passionately. “No wonder you cain’t swim.... Terrill! ... Oh, lad, yore not daid!”

Frantically Pecos ripped open the wet shirt to feel for Terrill’s heart. It beat. Terrill was still alive. A cold, sick horror left Pecos. But what was this?

With shaking hands he spread wide the lad’s shirt, suddenly to be transfixed. His staring gaze fell upon round marble-white swelling breasts.

“My Gawd! ... A woman!”

At that instant Terrill’s beautiful breast heaved. There followed a gasping intake of breath. Consciousness was returning. Then Pecos awoke from his stupefaction. Emotion such as he had never known flooded over him. With wildly swift hands he closed and buttoned the shirt over that betraying breast, and likewise the coat.

Then he waited, on his knees, calling on all his faculties to keep Terrill’s secret inviolate. He could meet that, as he had met so many desperate situations. But what of this strange and tumultuous rapture of his heart?

Terrill stirred. The long eyelashes quivered on the pale wet cheeks. Pecos fortified himself to look into eyes that must somehow be different. They opened. But he was scarcely prepared for the dark humid mystery of the reviving mind and soul — for the purple depths of beauty and of passion.

“Pecos,” Terrill whispered, faintly.

“Heah,” drawled the vaquero.

“The river — the flood! ... I went under.... There was a gurgling roar.... All went black.... Oh, where are we?”

“Wal, Terrill, yu ‘pear to be lyin’ heah on the goldenrod, an’ comin’ out of yore faint,” drawled Pecos. “But I ain’t so damn shore whether I’m in heaven or not.”

“Sambo!”

Pecos had forgotten the negro. But Sambo appeared, wading, his horse ashore some distance above.

“Good! Sambo made it fine, Terrill.... An’ shore there’s yore pony climbin’ the bank below.”

Terrill sat up dizzily, with an instinctive hand going to her breast, where her fingers fastened between the lapels.

“Pecos, I shore owe yu heaps,” murmured Terrill, dreamily. “First at Eagle’s Nest, from I — I don’t know what.... Then at home — the black nights — the terrible loneliness ... and now from this awful river.... I — I don’t know how to — —”

“Wal, what’s a pardner for?” interrupted Pecos, once more his cool drawling self. “I’ll fetch yore hoss an’ we’ll meander home.... All in the day’s ride, lad, it’s all in the day’s ride.”

CHAPTER XI

IT WAS MID-NOVEMBER. Early frost had severed yellow willow leaves from the branches, and seared the goldenrod and killed the scarlet of the vines on the rocks. The melancholy days had come. Birds and ducks had long bade farewell to Lambeth Canyon; and the coyotes were sneaking down off the bleak range. Wary of the watchful Sambo, they kept to the thickets and rocks until night, when they pierced the solitude with their wild barks.

A norther was blowing, the first of the season, and the wind moaned up on the rims. Drab clouds scudded low toward the south and scattering rain pattered on the cabin roof.

Terrill stood in the doorway, watching as always when she was alone, for Pecos. He was in the canyon somewhere. Sambo often rode or hunted out of reach of call, but Pecos, since the flooded river had ended branding operations for the season, worked around the ranch. It was time for vaqueros to ride in from Eagle’s Nest or the several ranches below. And so long as Terrill could remember they had made use of the trail down the gulch. Her father had complied with the hospitable custom of the Southwest, even in case of vaqueros whom he suspected of stealing from him. It was safer not to appear suspicious.

But Pecos Smith would not be hospitable to Don Felipe’s outfit, or any other questionable one. And long had Terrill dreaded the day.

Somewhere around this time came her birthday. She knew that it fell upon a Wednesday and that she would be nineteen years old, incredible as it seemed. But she did not know which day Wednesday was. Or was it her twentieth birthday? She had difficulty persuading herself that she was only nineteen, and over and over again she calculated events of the fleeting past. How swift the years! Yet what ages she had lived since the day she rode away from the old Southern home! Whenever she saw moss on a tree she suffered an exquisite pang.

“Mauree, how old am I?” she asked as the negress came by from her cabin.

“Honey, yo is eighteen.”

“No. I’m more than that. Nineteen at least.”

“How come yo tink ob dat, after all dese years?”

“I don’t know. But I feel terribly old.”

“Shucks, Rill, yo ain’t old,” replied Mauree, and then, after a careful glance around, to see if the coast was clear, she whispered, “Honey, is yo gonna keep on forebber bein’ a — a boy when yo’s a gurl?”

Terrill knew she had prompted this broaching of a long- forbidden subject. She could not scold Mauree and be honest, though the mere mention of her secret terrified her. But she had failed herself. After her father was gone she had accepted the deceit as the only defense possible to her. It had become endurable to live perpetually in fear of discovery — until that fateful day when she burst through the broken door of Brasee’s abode prison to look into the face of Pecos Smith. What had she not lived through since then?

“Oh, Mauree! Don’t whisper it! I’d fall dead in my tracks if — if heever found me out.”

“But, chile, fer de good Lawd’s sake, it ain’t natchell. It ain’t right. Why yo’s a woman! How yo gonna hide dat bosom any longer? It’s heavin’ right dis minnit like a plate of jelly.”

Terrill pressed her hands to her tumultuous breast. Without and within that cried her sex. And it seemed to cry more than a physical secret, more than the lie she had lived — the strange emotion that had insidiously, imperceptibly grown upon her, until all-powerful, it had flung at her the terrifying truth of love.

“Mauree, I must hide it — I must,” she cried, and she meant this consuming torture, this thing that made her hot and cold by turns, that toyed with her peace, that ambushed her every mood, that awakened in her longings she had never dreamed of.

“But, yo fool chile, yo cain’t hide it,” ejaculated Mauree. “Yo nebber growed up in mind, but yo sho is a woman in body. I sew till I’se mos blind makin’ yo clothes to hide yo real self. But I can’t do it much mo. Why, if dis Pecos wuzn’t blind himself — a simple-minded boy who nebber knowed woman, he’d ‘a’ guessed it long ago.”

“Oh, do — do you think he will — find me out?” faltered Terrill, in despair.

“He sho will, sooner or later.”

“What on earth can I — I do?”

“I dunno. Why yo so scared he’ll find you out?”

“It would be — terrible.”

“Chile, yo lub dis Pecos. Dat’s what ail yo so. De doomsday ob woman has done fell on yo.”

“Hush!” whispered Terrill, and she fled.

In the darkness of her room Terrill suffered an anguish of fact that had been but a dream. Mauree had called her child. If that were true, she grew out of childhood in this hour of realization. And when the wild shame and the nameless pang had eased, Terrill tried to face the crisis of her life. If she confessed to Pecos that her claim of masculinity had been a hoax, that for years she had worn the garb of a boy, first to please her father, and later to protect herself in that wild country — if she confronted him with the truth, would he not be so disgusted and alienated that he would leave her? It seemed to her that he would. And anything would be better than to be abandoned to the old fears, the lonely nights, the dreaded days — and now to this incomprehensible longing to see Pecos, to hear him, to know he was near, to shiver at a chance contact and to burn for more. No — she could not bear to lose him.

She must keep her miserable secret as long as she could, and when the unforseen betrayed her, if Pecos despised her unmaidenly conduct and left her — then there would be nothing to live for.

Terrill went back in retrospect to the last years of the war when her mother had trained her to meet the very part her father had forced her to play. Her mother had divined it. Hence the lessons and the talks and the prayers that had shaped Terrill’s spiritual life, that had kept her a child. Terrill’s sharpened intelligence told her that if she had not hidden her sex in the guise of a boy she never could have lived up to those aloof and noble teachings. To be a boy had earned the solitude she imagined she had hated. Her mother had the wise vision of the dying. Terrill would not have had it different.

But she was a woman now and this love had come upon her. What could she do to avert calamity? She had suffered through love of mother, love of father, and suffered still. This thing, however, was different. And she realized that now, with the scales dropped from her eyes, she would be uplifted to heaven one moment and plunged into hell the next. Still, if she were a woman she could find strength and cunning to hide that. Else what was it to grow into a woman? If she were clever Pecos might never find her out and never leave her.

Then came another startling thought, like a lightning flash in the night, and it was that she wanted him to find out she was a woman. Longed for it almost as terribly as she feared he might! Between these two agonies she must live and fight for what she knew not. A woman’s intuition of hitherto unknown powers of subtlety or reserve, of incalculable possibilities, paralleled in her mind this sense of a tragic suspension between two states.

Outside on the porch a step sounded — a step that had never failed to thrill or shake her, and now set her stiff on her bed, with a heart that seemed to still its beats to listen.

“Mauree, where’s thet darned Terrill?” drawled Pecos, at the door.

“I dunno,” lied the negress, nonchalantly.

“Dog-goneit! Nobody knows nothin’ aboot this hyar shack,” complained Pecos. “Hyar I slave myself damn near daid while Sambo goes gunnin’ around, an’ thet boy sleeps or loafs on me. I’m gonna bust up the outfit.”

Of late Pecos had talked in that strain, something unprecedented. Yet his solicitude, his unfailing watchfulness, and a something indefinable that was so sweet to Terrill — these belied his complaints. Terrill trembled there in the darkness on her little bed.

“Yo is?”

“Yas, I is,” snorted Pecos.

“Pecos, yo done pretty good hyar wid us. Yo be a damnation idgit to throw us away lak rags now.”

“Say, who said thet?”

“Not Mars Rill. No, suh. It was dat no-good yaller niggah of mine. He sed it.”

“Ahuh. Wal, Mauree, it’s true. An’ I’m a liar. Why, I couldn’t no more leave Terrill than go back to thet old life of driftin’, drinkin’, shootin’.”

“Mars Pecos, I’se sho glad. For why yo talk dat way, den?”

“Wal, I gotta talk to somebody or I’ll bust. Sambo runs off huntin’ like a canebrake nigger. An’ Terrill lays down on me, all day long.”

“Nobody to lub yo, huh? Mars Pecos, what yo need is a woman.”

“Ha! Ha! Thet’s a good one.... Lord! who’d ever have me, Mauree?”

“Yo’s a blame handsome vaquero, Pecos.”

“Wal, if I am, it never did me any good. Mauree, I never really had a — a woman, in my life.”

“Lawd amercy! Yo is a liar.”

“Honest, Mauree.”

“I believes no man, Pecos, white or black.”

“Yu wouldn’t believe this, either. I’d give my half of our T L cattle to have a decent pretty girl to love me. One yu know thet hadn’t been pawed familiar by some man. I reckon I’d hug an’ kiss her ‘most to death.”

“Pecos, I’se sho yo could git some black-eyed greaser wench fer less’n dat.”

“Hullo, heah’s Sambo,” said Pecos, at the sound of heavy steps on the porch.

“Whar yo been, niggah?”

“I’se been huntin’, woman.”

“What fo’ yo hunt when yo cain’t hit nothin’?”

“Pecos, I’se hung up a fine fat deer.”

“Good. I’m tired of beef. How’s supper comin’?”

“‘Mos’ ready. Yo kin call Rill.”

“Sambo, put on some wood so we can see to eat.... Hey, Terrill! ... Are you shore he’s in?”

“Yas, Mars Pecos.”

Pecos called again, louder this time. But Terrill, secure in some delicious late-mounting sense of power, lay perfectly silent.

“Terrill!”

Ordinarily such a stentorian yell from Pecos would have scared Terrill out of her boots. All it did now was to send the blood rushing back to her heart.

“Ughh-huh,” replied Terrill, drowsily.

“Yu come out heah.”

Terrill got up, and slipping on a new blouse Mauree had given her that day, she stepped from the darkness of her room into the fire-lit living-room.

“What’s all the hollering aboot, Pecos?” inquired Terrill, demurely, and with a yawn she stretched her arms high, and looked him straight in the eyes, with her new-found duplicity.

But a glance was all he gave her. “I’ve been worried aboot you. An’ supper is ready.”

No meal had ever been so enjoyable as this one to Terrill, so fraught with the delicious peril of her situation, so monstrously intriguing with a consciousness of her falsehood.

“Boy, you don’t eat much. What ails yu?” said Pecos, before they had finished.

“Can’t I fall a little off my feed without worrying you?” demanded Terrill, petulantly.

“I reckon yu cain’t do anythin’ off color without worryin’ me.”

They got up presently. Terrill pulled a rustic armchair closer to the fire, while Pecos filled his pipe. Sambo and Mauree sat down to eat their meal. Pecos took a long look out into the black night, then closed the door.

“Yu hyar thet wind, boy?” queried Pecos, as he drew the other chair up. “Blowin’ the real del norte tonight. Heah thet rain! — Dog-gone if it ain’t nice an’ homey hyar! Fire feels so good.... Terrill, if it wasn’t for them damn rustlers I’m lookin’ for I’d come darn near bein’ happy heah with yu.”

“Same heah,” murmured Terrill, trusting her gaze on the fire. “But I’d ‘most forgot Don Felipe’s outfit.... Pecos, will those vaqueros of his dare to steal our stock now?”

“Shore. Even if they did know Pecos Smith was on the job they’d take watchin’. Yu see we’ve a string of old cattle and new branded mavericks for twenty miles an’ more down the river. We’ve put our brand on aboot every maverick in the brakes. Thet’s goin’ to rile Felipe’s outfit. They’ll take to brand-burnin’.”

“But we could recognize any burning out of our brand,” protested Terrill.

“Shore we could — if we ever see it. There’s the rub. Thet outfit won’t burn a strange brand on our cattle an’ turn them out, as has been the custom of brand-burners. They’ll throw a herd together an’ drive it pronto.”

“Oughtn’t we ride down the river and see? They don’t have to come through our place to get down into the brakes.”

“Shore we’ll go, soon as this norther blows out.... Come to think of it, I’d better work some on yore rifle. I saved it from rustin’, but thet darned sand is shore hard to get out.”

“Say, I filled myself full of water and sand that day,” retorted Terrill.

“Pretty close shave, son,” responded Pecos, shaking his head.

Sambo fetched the rifle to Pecos, who worked the action. There was still a grating sound of sand inside.

“I reckon some boilin’ water will do the trick.”

“Pecos, can’t you get me a smaller rifle? This one almost kicks the daylights out of me. Bad as that old Sharps of Dad’s.”

“Shore, when we take thet trip next spring with our herd of cattle.”

“Oh, it’s so terribly long. Let’s go now.”

“An’ leave our stock for those outfits to clean up? Not much. We’ll go next spring after we’ve done some cleanin’ up ourselves.”

When Pecos drawled one of his cool assumptions like that, Terrill had no reply ready. She could not repress a shudder. This vaquero spoke of a fight as carelessly as of a ride. That dampened Terrill’s spontaneity for the time being, and rather than have Pecos see that she was downcast she went to bed. But sleep was not to be soon wooed. She had done nothing to make her tired physically, and her emotions seemed to have transformed her into another creature. Wherefore she lay snug in her warm blankets, wide eyes staring into the blackness, thinking, wondering about the future and Pecos. He filled her whole life now. There was no one else; there was nothing else.

Meanwhile her senses were alive to the del norte. The norther was a familiar thing to Terrill and she hated it, especially at night, when the conformation of the canyon and the structure of the cabin made sounding-boards for the gale. It moaned and shrieked and roared by turns. During these lulls Pecos could be heard talking to Sambo. After a while, however, this sound ceased and the cabin was silent. Then the monstrous loneliness of Lambeth Canyon assailed Terrill as never before, even in the far past, when she had first come there. She was not a man. It was solemn black night, full of weird voices of the storm, fraught with the menace of the wild range, and she had been forced into womanhood, with a woman’s love and hunger, which she must cruelly hide, flooding her wakeful hours with the inexorable and inscrutable demands of life.

Next day the norther blew out of a clear sky, and the sheltered sunny spots in the canyon were the desirable ones.

Terrill got around to work again with Pecos, and no task frightened her. Moods were of no use. It had done her no good to brood, to sulk, or dream, unless to incur Pecos’ solicitude, which was at once a torture and a delight to her. When he came searching for her, patient, kind, somehow different, she had to fight a wild desire to throw herself into his arms. She would do that some day; she knew she would. Then — the deluge!

She could do justice to any boy’s labor for a day. And since she had discovered that what little peace of mind she achieved was when she was working with Pecos, she embraced it. She never did anything in moderation. And toward the close of this day she got scolded for overdoing.

“Say, I can pack a log with any boy,” she retorted, secretly pleased at his observation, yet becoming conscious again of a slight difference in him. Perhaps she imagined it. Whereupon she reverted to a former character, just to see if she could rouse him as she used to. But Pecos did not lose his temper; he did not chase her, or slap her on the back, or make any objection to her omissions.

The norther passed and the warm days came again. Then it was delightful weather. Working about the ranch was pleasant. Terrill marveled at the improvements and wished her father had lived to see them. Pecos could turn his hand to anything.

“When are we going to ride down the river?” Terrill asked more than once. But Pecos was evasive about this. And she observed that though he had always been watchful, he seemed to grow more so these late November days.

Time slipped by. And every night Terrill said her prayers — as she had never ceased to do — and wept, and hugged her secret, and dreamed wild and whirling dreams. And every morning when she awakened she made new resolves not to be such a little fool this day and to avoid the crazy incomprehensible things she had done in the past. Only to find that she grew worse!

She could not leave Pecos alone. She was unhappy when he was out of her sight. She was unhappier when she was with him because the sweetness of it, the havoc that threatened, were harder to bear than loneliness. Lastly Terrill detected a new mood in Pecos, or one she had never noticed before. Either he was worried or melancholy, or both, but neither of these states of mind was evinced by him while Terrill was present. It was only when he thought he was alone that he betrayed them. Terrill got into the habit of peeping through a chink between the logs of her partition, when she was supposed to have gone to bed and when Pecos sat before the fire. Something was wrong with him. Was he growing sick of this tame life around Lambeth Ranch? Terrill grew cold all over, and longed for something to happen, for rustlers to raid their stock, for that horrid Breen Sawtell to come, and even Don Felipe. Everything, however, served only to add fuel to the fire of her love, until she felt that it was consuming her.

For a long while Terrill had kept faith in the belief that it was enough just to have Pecos there. But this grew to be a fallacy. One of her particularly impish moods betrayed this to her. A weakness of Pecos’ had been hard to find but he had one. He simply could not bear to be tickled. Terrill had found it out by accident, and upon divers occasions had exercised the prerogative of a boy to surprise Pecos and dig strong little fingers into his ribs. The effect had been galvanizing; moreover, it proved to be something she could not resist.

Pecos was husking corn and did not know Terrill had stealthily stolen up behind him. He was sitting on a sack back of the corral. Sambo was packing the cornstalks up from the field and depositing them in front of Pecos. Both of them were tremendously proud of the little patch of corn they had raised. It was a fine warm day and Pecos sat in his shirt sleeves, husking the sheaths off the ears and tossing the latter into a golden pile.

Terrill’s step was that of a mouse. She got right behind Pecos before he had the slightest inkling of her presence. Then, extending two brown hands with fingers spread like the claws of an eagle, she shot them out to rake his ribs with a fiendish glee.

Pecos let out a yelp. He fell off the sack in a spasmodic wrestling, with Terrill on top of him.

“You little devil!” he rasped, snatching at her.

Terrill would have been frightened if she had not been in the throes of other sensations. But her usual nimbleness failed her, although she got clear of Pecos. However, before she ran twenty feet she fell upon her face in the grass. Pecos pounced upon her. He knelt astride of her and dug his long steel-like fingers into her ribs. Terrill passed from one paroxysm to another. Even if she had not been exquisitely ticklish, such contact from Pecos’ hands would have driven her well-nigh crazy. He was yelling at her all the time, but she could not distinguish what the words were. Then, letting up on her ribs, Pecos boxed her ears and got up.

Terrill lay there on her face until she had recovered. The wonder of it was that she was not furious, not outraged, not frightened, not anything but blissfully happy. Presently when she arose to flee she took good care that he did not see her face. She ran to the cabin and hid; then it was that she learned Pecos’ mere presence no longer sufficed. Such a subterfuge as the tickling episode had been a shameless excuse to get her hands on him. In her heart, however, she knew she had not anticipated such a devastating response, and suddenly she found herself weeping violently.

Presently voices disturbed Terrill. She raised her head from a tear-wet pillow. Could Pecos have returned so early from that important task of corn-husking? She heard Sambo, then a strange voice, and finally Pecos. Terrill lost no time in getting to the living-room door.

Sambo was helping a rider off his horse. Evidently he was wounded or at least injured, for Terrill espied blood. She had seen the man somewhere, probably in Eagle’s Nest. He must be one of the cattlemen who shared the range. Sight of Pecos then startled Terrill more than had the stranger. It had come, then — war over cattle that Pecos expected.

“Yu bad hurt?” queried Pecos.

“I reckon not,” replied the man, rather weakly. “But I had to ride — bleedin’ like a stuck pig.... Guess it’s loss of blood.”

“Help him to the bench, Sambo,” directed Pecos. “Terrill, yu fetch some blankets, then yore dad’s kit.... Mauree, we’ll have to have water an’ clean rags.”

Terrill, having rushed to fulfill Pecos’ order, did not stay out on the porch to look on, but stepped inside and listened. Despite what the man said, she was afraid he would die. She leaned against the door, quaking. That might happen to Pecos any day. What a coward she was!

“Wal,” said Pecos, cheerfully, after a few moments, “yore pretty bloody for a gunshot no worse than thet. Shore there’s nothin’ else?”

“No.”

“Yu bled a heap an’ thet’s what put yu off yore pins. I’m glad to say yu’ll be all right in a few days. We’ll take care of yu heah.”

“Lucky I made it. Course I knowed where Lambeth’s Ranch was, but it ‘peared a damn long ways.”

“Ahuh. How aboot some questions?”

“Okay. Gimme another drink.”

“Water or whisky?” drawled Pecos.

“I’ll take whisky, this time ... thanks. My name’s Watson. Hal Watson. Hail from the Gulf. Rockport. I’ve been runnin’ stock out of Eagle’s Nest fer a couple of years. Thet’s how I come to get pinked.”

“Hal Watson? Heahed the name somewheres?” replied Pecos.

“I reckon you’re the fellar who got young Lambeth away from Brasee last spring?”

“Shore was. Smith’s my name.”

“You haven’t dropped into Eagle’s Nest since?”

“No. But never mind aboot me. Yu runnin’ cattle below heah on the river?”

“Yes. I started in with a thousand head.”

“What’s yore mark?”

“It was a diamond, but it looks like a star now,” replied Watson, meaningly.

“Diamond, eh? Wal, I shore saw a lot of yore stock last spring. Some close as five miles below heah. Reckon we might have branded a few of yore mavericks. Ha! Ha! But I didn’t see any diamond brands burned into stars.”

“All fresh done, Smith. I reckon thet outfit hasn’t been operatin’ long.”

“What outfit?”

“I don’t know. Some white cowhands an’ greaser vaqueros. They come across the Pecos from the east.”

“Wal.... Did yu see anythin’ of Don Felipe’s outfit?”

“They’s workin’ upriver, so I was told at Eagle’s Nest. They’re worryin’ Stafford a lot. He sold out his Y stock an’s runnin’ only one brand, the old Double X X.”

“Thet brand is mixed up with ours, too.”

“Smith, there are some new brands that will make you think. But let me tell you how I happen to be here.... I left home a week or so ago with two of my boys, a Mexican an’ a cowhand I recently hired. Said his name was Charley Stine. I’m satisfied now he was in with thet new outfit. We had two pack-hosses, an’ we dropped off into the brakes above Stafford’s. I hadn’t ridden in there for months an’ I was plumb surprised. More stock than I ever seen, but my brand was as scarce as hens’ teeth. We found about fifty head fenced in a brake an’ then my eyes were opened. My small diamond brand had been burned into a clumsy big star. You can bet I was red-headed. Stine advised goin’ back, an’ then’s when I got leary about him. You know thet big brake down ten miles or more below here? It has two branches, shape of a Y. Well, we run plumb into runnin’ hosses, bawlin’ calves, flyin’ ropes, an’ burnin’ hair. When I rode out of the brush into sight an’ yelled that outfit was shore surprised.”

“Man alive! Yu should have kept out of sight an’ let yore gun do the yellin’,” declared Pecos, severely.

“I quit packin’ a gun for fear I’d kill some one. An’ if I’d had one I’d shore done it then. Well, they didn’t wait to see whether I had one or not, but began to shoot. Stine disappeared an’ the Mexican was shot off his hoss. I had to ride for it, an’ as they had me cut off from below I lit out for upriver. Two of them, both white cowhands, chased me a mile or more, shootin’ to beat hell. They shore meant to kill me.”

“Wal, yu don’t say so,” drawled Pecos, dryly. “It shore takes a lot to convince some men. I don’t need to ask if yu’re a Texan.”

“No, that ain’t hard to guess. I’ve been only about five years in Texas.... Well, I outrode those men an’ got away by the skin of my teeth. Never knew I was shot till I grew wet an’ felt all wet an’ slippery. That’s all.... Gimme another drink.”

Pecos took to pacing the porch, his hands behind his back, his brow knitted in thought. Terrill was almost repelled. He was no longer her smiling, cool, and kindly Pecos. She stared as if fascinated. Vague recollection of the story he had related about himself now recurred. Either she had not believed it or had forgotten the bloody details. Then she did recall her first sight of him at Eagle’s Nest, and somehow that picture faintly resembled this somber Pecos.

“Honey, yo is sho pale round de gills,” remarked Mauree, drawing Terrill away from the door. “Now yo lissen to yo’ Mauree. They ain’t nothin’ bad gonna happen. I’se got second sight, chile, an’ yo can gamble on it.”

Sambo came in at that juncture, apparently as unconcerned as usual.

“Yo lazy perdiculous wench! Whar’s dat supper? We is hungry men.”

“Sambo, I done had it ‘mos’ hot when dis Watson fellar come.”

The early twilight soon fell. Sambo revived the smoldering fire and then helped Mauree hurry the evening meal. Terrill kept away from the door, but still she saw Pecos pass to and fro. Presently Sambo called him.

“Boss, is dat fellar able to eat?”

“I reckon, Sambo,” replied Pecos, seating himself. “Terrill, I’m shore sorry I cain’t lie to you.”

“Don’t ever lie to me, Pecos,” she entreated.

“Wal, we’re due to lose some stock.”

“I heard every word he said to you,” went on Terrill, hurriedly. “Pecos, if we don’t lose anything but stock — I won’t care. We’re no better than other ranchers.”

“Terrill, thet’s shore sensible talk from yu. Maybe yu’ll grow up yet.”

Pecos spoke no more, ate sparingly, and soon went outside again.

“How yu feelin’, Watson?” he queried.

“Not so bad when I lay still.”

“Wal, yu’ll be settin’ up in the mawnin’. An’ as I’m goin’ to ride out early, I’d like to ask you some more questions.”

“Where you goin’, Smith?”

“I’m takin’ the back trail, an’ when the sun rises I’ll be peepin’ over my rifle down into thet Y Canyon.”

“From the rim?”

“Shore. I can ride there in less than two hours.”

“By Gawd! I’d like to go with you!”

“Nope. You need some rest. I’ll be back before noon. Tell me where thet cow outfit is camped.”

“Right in the middle below the forks.”

“Ahuh. Thet’s a long shot from the north rim, but I reckon I can burn some of them. I’ll take two rifles an’ scare ’em to jump in the river, if no more. Did yu see whether they had rifles or not?”

“Come to think of it, they wasn’t usin’ rifles, else I wouldn’t be here.”

“Ahuh.... Now what was yu aboot to tell me aboot Brasee?”

“He’s dead. Killed by Jade, the barkeeper.”

“I reckoned he’d not last long. Was it the same bartender I slammed the door on last spring?”

“No. Brasee or one of his greasers did for him. Place changed hands again. You wouldn’t know Eagle’s Nest.”

“You don’t say? What’s happened? Somebody strike gold?”

“Stafford told me it was Texas gettin’ a move on. Cattle have gone to ten dollars a head. Maybe it won’t last, but Stafford thinks it will. Beginnin’ of a new era, he says. You know when cattle were thick an’ cheap there wasn’t much movement, especially of rustlers. But this late summer an’ fall all that changed. Trail herds drivin’ north now, by Horsehead Crossin’ in West Texas, an’ the Chisholm Trail is a procession these days. Comanches on the war-path. Texans buyin’ more stock than ever from Mexico, an’ a hell of a lot of it is gettin’ stolen right back again. Rustlers, gamblers, hoss thieves, gun-fighters, outlaws, loose women, all flockin’ in with settlers, cattlemen, soldiers. It’s one hell of a movement, Smith.”

“Humph. I’m shore surprised. But yu cain’t mean thet all this is affectin’ it out hyar west of the Pecos?”

“Shore I do. Course nothin’ like rumor has it for all the rest of cattle Texas. The Pecos has a hard name an’ it’s a far country. But if Texas is goin’ to be a cattle empire — which Stafford swears is as shore as the sun shines — why, West Texas will soon be runnin’ a hundred thousand head where now it’s runnin’ a thousand.”

“Ten dollars a haid!” Pecos whistled long and low. “More’n ever damn good reason to hang onto yore cattle. I told my young partner, Lambeth, dog-gone near thet very thing.”

“Smith, if you can hang on to half your stock, or one- third — you’re rich.”

“I’m not countin’ any calves before they’re branded, but this heah news shore ... But, say, what’s this done to Eagle’s Nest?”

“Woke it up, Smith. There’s twenty-odd families now, not countin’ greasers. Another store. Freighters every week. An’ last but not least there’s law come in.”

“Law! What you mean — law?” queried Pecos, sharply.

“Thet’s all. Law.”

“Rangers?”

“No.”

“Sheriff?”

“No. There’s a little fat old duffer come to Eagle’s Nest. Calls himself Judge Roy Bean. He built a home aboot a block from the corner Brasee had, you remember. An’ this newcomer put up a sign — a good big one you can see — an’ it says on it: ‘Judge Roy Bean — Law West of the Pecos.’”

“Law West of the Pecos,” echoed Pecos, incredulously. “For Gawd’s sake! ... Is this hyar Bean out of his haid?”

“Smith, it shore ‘pears so. He’s constituted himself sheriff, judge, court, law. Nobody knows if he has any papers from the government. He’s been asked to show ’em an’ he showed that fellar a big six-shooter. Thet ain’t the best. He runs a saloon an’ he’s his own bartender. He stops holdin’ court to sell a drink an’ he stops bartendin’ to hold court. He runs a card game, an’ he’ll bust into that to arrest a fellar for cheatin’. An’, by thunder, I ‘most forgot. He marries people.”

“A parson, too?” whooped Pecos.

“No, he hardly claims to be a parson. A judicial right, an’ moral for the community, he calls it.”

“Judge Roy Bean! ... I’ll shore call on thet hombre.... An’ he marries people? — Dog-gone! — I reckon I could get a wife now — if thet Mary Heald would have me!”

CHAPTER XII

TERRILL HAD TO clap her hand over her mouth to keep from shrieking. It might have been hysterical laughter, but only she would have known how mirthless it would be. Flying to her room, nearly knocking her brains out in the dark, she barred her door, and awoke to more astounding proclivities of a woman.

“Find a wife!” she whispered fiercely to herself as she tore at the bed covers in the dark and kicked at nothing. “That Heald girl? — Merciful God! I thought he’d forgotten her.... The cold-hearted faithless wretch! He’s what my mother told me to beware of.... But I’m his boss. He’s working for me. What’s partnership? This is my land, my cattle. He can’t marry anyone but ... Oh! Oh!”

Terrill slipped to her knees and buried her head in the pillows. Pecos had no idea she was a girl — that she could be his wife. But how could he love her if he never knew she was a girl? Who was there to tell him that she, Terrill Lambeth, loved him, adored him, worshiped him more than any woman ever had or ever could worship him? And the old torment rushed over her again, augmented a thousandfold by a new instrument of this terrible thing, love — jealousy.

She was in the midst of the worst hour she had ever endured when a knock on her door sent her stiff and thrilling.

“Terrill, air yu in bed?” asked Pecos, in an anxious voice.

“I — I — Yes,” choked Terrill.

“What’s wrong with yore voice? Sounds sort of hoarse.”

Terrill made a magnificent effort. “Must have had my haid under the blanket,” she managed to enunciate clearly. “What do you want, Pecos?”

“Nothin’ much. Only to talk a little. This man Watson upset me.”

“Pecos, I’ll get up and — and dress,” returned Terrill, brazenly, anathematizing her silly falsehood.

“No. I’ll come in,” he replied, and to Terrill’s horror and transfixing gush of blood, the bar of the door, which had evidently not slipped into place, dropped at Pecos’ push and let him in.

“Shore dark as hell in this heah little cubbyhole of yores,” he drawled. “First time I ever was in heah, come to think aboot it. Yu used to be such a queer lad.”

Terrill never knew how she had accomplished the phenomenon, but when Pecos stumbled to her bed and sat down upon it she was lying on the far side with a blanket over her.

“Wal, son, I just wanted to tell yu thet I’m ridin’ off before daylight an’ won’t see yu till I get back,” said Pecos.

“But, Pecos — don’t — you oughtn’t go,” cried Terrill.

“Listen, pard. We’ve struck some bad times. I reckoned we would. An’ the thing for me to do is meet them. What’s the use of us runnin’ cattle if we cain’t fight for them? If I needed yu or thought there was any risk leavin’ yu behind I’d shore take yu along. But I’ll be ridin’ like hell in the dark. An’ yu know Cinco. It’s a thousand to one I’ll get back pronto, but — an’ see heah, Rill, I — I’m hatin’ to give yu this hunch — if I lost out at such odds an’ didn’t come back, yu wait a reasonable time, then leave for Eagle’s Nest with Watson an’ the niggers. Savvy?”

Terrill’s lips were mute. It was her arms she had to contend with — for they had a mad impulse to go up round his neck. To keep him home! She wondered if they would.

“Reckoned I’d jar yu,” he went on. “Heah’s my money belt. Hide it under yore bed. In case I don’t show up, thet’s yores. I’d advise yu to leave this Pecos country.”

“Leave my — home!” gasped Terrill.

“Shore. Terrill, yu dunce, I’m only sayin’ all this because somethin’ might happen.... An’ I’ve — I — I’ve been powerful fond of yu, lad.... Thet’s all. Now adios, an’ sleep tight.”

His hand groped for her head, and finding it, fastened his fingers in her hair, as he had been wont to do, and gave it a tug. Then he was gone, leaving Terrill prey to such sensations that she made sure she would die with them. But they did not kill her then, and she concluded that she must be pretty tough.

The heavy money belt lay over her like a caressing arm. Terrill felt of it. How thick and soft! It was full of bills. Where had Pecos gotten all that money? She remembered Pecos’ story of the two cowhands with whom he had gone to maverick- branding, and who had betrayed him by burning brands. There was all the difference in the world. A maverick belonged to anybody, at least anyone who owned cattle on the range. But these brand- burners and brand-blotters knew they were guilty.

Terrill undressed and went to bed, with the leather belt around her. The weight of it, or the consciousness that it belonged to Pecos, disturbed her, so she finally put it under her pillow. Then it gave rise to a fearful dream, in which Pecos was about to be hanged for rustling, and she rode up on thundering Cinco to snatch him out of the very noose. They escaped very romantically and satisfactorily, but when Terrill awakened the dream haunted her.

She was dropping off to sleep again when she heard a thud of soft feet outside on the porch. Pecos had jumped down from his loft. Her little window was a mere gray patch in the black wall. She got up on her knees to peep out. The stars were wan. It was a couple of hours before dawn. Pecos’ steps sounded faintly, and after a considerable interval she heard a rapid beat of hoofs on the trail. Pecos had ridden away on his deadly errand. It gave her panic, yet in spite of that there came to her a sense of disaster for those thieving riders of the brakes. Neither her father, nor Sambo, nor any of the other cattlemen between Horsehead Crossing and the Rio Grande had ever presented any obstacle to rustlers. But Pecos seemed of another stripe.

She crawled back into bed, and lay awake until dawn, after which she fell into a doze. Mauree awakened her. “Rill, air yo daid or jest gettin’ like them lazy white trash in the towns?”

Terrill would have been out promptly after that call, had it not been for the need to hide Pecos’ money belt. How heavy it was! And in the light it looked fat and bulky. She wished Pecos was going to marry her and take her to Rockport on a honeymoon. Just at that moment Terrill did not care where Pecos had gotten the money.

After breakfast Terrill went out on the porch to see how their wounded guest had fared during the night. He was sitting up, drinking a cup of coffee.

“Mawnin’, Mister Watson. How are you?”

“Hullo, lad!” replied the cattleman. “I’m pretty good, considerin’. Little dizzy, but that’s passin’.”

“I’m glad you got off so easy.”

“Wal, luck shore was with me. But I was on a fast hoss. Reckon he could run away from any thin’ on four laigs.”

“Ump-umm! I saw your horse. He’s fine. But he could never run away from Cinco.”

“Cinco. Is he your hoss?”

“Oh no. Wish he were. Cinco belongs to Pecos.”

“Who’s Pecos?” queried Watson, with more interest.

“Why, Pecos Smith, my partner.”

“Smith! Oh, I see. He never mentioned his front handle. Wal, wal!”

“Had you ever heard of Pecos?”

“Reckon I have. I’m tryin’ to recollect. But my haid’s sort of buzzy this mawnin’.... So you’re young Lambeth, eh? I knew your father. We had some dealin’ together. He was a fine man — too upright an’ trustin’ for this country. Is it true that he was killed by Indians?”

“No, Mister Watson,” replied Terrill, sadly. “It was a Comanche arrow that killed Dad, but it was never shot by a Comanche.”

“Indeed! That’s news. Some more of this Pecos deviltry. Wal, we’ve a lot to go through before we can have peaceful ranchin’. It’s got to get worse before it can get better.”

“We ought to band together.”

“Lambeth, that’s not a bad idee. But we’re not ready for it here yet. Country too sparsely settled. Only a few cattlemen an’ riders. Range too big. Distances too long. An’ we’re all too poor to hire enough help. It ‘pears to me we got all we can do to keep from bein’ shot, for a while yet.”

Terrill sighed. Perhaps this rancher was right. “Until you came yesterday we hadn’t seen a single rider for months, and not an Indian all summer. I’d almost forgotten we lived on the wild Pecos.”

“Wal, it never rains but it pours, lad,” laughed Watson. “I hope I’m not a bird of ill omen, but I’m shore afraid.... Hullo, what’s the matter with your nigger?”

Sambo appeared, running up from the direction of the corral. The instant Terrill saw him she knew something was amiss. Her first thought was of Pecos. But he would be returning at noonday, or later. Sambo lumbered up to the porch.

“Mars Rill — dar’s riders — comin’,” he panted, and pointed up the canyon toward the gorge trail.

Terrill stepped to the edge of the porch. She saw horses, riders. She counted four — five riders and several pack- horses. They had turned the curve of the canyon and were coming down the trail half a mile distant. It was a sight Terrill’s father had always greeted with dread, a dread which had been transmitted to her. This time, however, after the first start of dismay, Terrill reacted differently. It would not help Pecos for her to be panic-stricken. She belonged to Texas, too, and she was his partner. As she watched the riders leisurely approach, speculating upon their character and purpose, she determined they should not get the best of her. To the outside world she was still young Terrill Lambeth, son of Colonel Lambeth, and she could act the part.

“Dey’s no vaqueros,” said Sambo, finally.

“I reckon there’s nothin’ to do but receive them,” suggested Watson.

“I dunno, suh, I dunno. Sho it hed to happen jest when dat Pecos Smith rid off.”

“They’re shore not backward aboot ridin’ up here,” replied Terrill, thoughtfully. “Maybe they are some of the new cattlemen you told Pecos aboot.”

“Wal, either they’re honest or plumb nervy.”

When the trees and the barn hid the approaching horsemen from sight Terrill ran to her room. She threw off the light blouse, and donning her loose coat she buttoned it up. Then she stuck her gun in her hip pocket. The long barrel protruded from a hole and showed below the edge of her coat. But that was just as well, perhaps. Then before going back she paused to consider. Sambo and Pecos, and she, too, had always been expecting unwelcome visitors. Well, let them come. Whatever their errand, Terrill’s first care was to conceal her sex, and after that meet the exigencies of the case as Pecos’ partner.

“Where are they?” she asked when she got outside.

“Must be havin’ a parley or leavin’ their hosses,” returned Watson.

“Heah dey come on foot. An’ dey’s walkin’ arsenals,” said Sambo, who stood out from the porch. He returned to sit down on the step. “Mars Rill, dis is no friendly call.”

Presently the men came into Terrill’s range of vision. “I shore know that tall one,” she flashed. “Breen Sawtell.”

“So do I,” rejoined Watson, not without excitement. “Met him at Eagle’s Nest last summer. Talks big cattle deals.... Can’t say I liked him, Lambeth.”

Terrill uttered a little laugh, which got rid of the last of her nervousness. “I can’t say I’m in love with him, myself.”

“Has he been here before?”

“Twice. Last time I took to the brush till he left. He’s a new partner of Don Felipe’s.”

Watson whistled significantly, and no more was said. Terrill watched her visitors approach. Well she remembered the tall Sawtell, even to his shirt sleeves, his black vest and sombrero, his long mustache and deep-set black eyes. On his right stalked a short thick individual, ruddy of face and pompous of bearing. The other three men were cowhands, young, unshaven, hard-faced, not markedly different from any other cowhands of West Texas. They were all heavily armed, except Sawtell, who showed only a gun strapped to his hip. He halted some dozen or so steps from the porch and swept its occupants with his deep-set basilisk eyes.

“Howdy, folks.”

Watson replied, but neither Terrill nor Sambo offered any greeting. Sawtell, after a moment, appeared most interested in Watson. He took a few more steps forward, while the stout man followed rather hesitatingly. Terrill had eyes for everything. She noted that only Sawtell looked over-eager.

“Don’t I know you?” queried Sawtell, fixing Watson with his greedy eyes.

“Met you at Eagle’s Nest last summer. My name’s Watson,” replied Watson, shortly.

“Sure. I remember. Talked cattle sale with you, but you wanted cash.... Say, sort of pale an’ sickish, aren’t you?”

“I ought to be. Got shot yesterday. Lookin’ my stock over an’ run plumb into some brand-blotters. They darn near did for me.”

Sawtell’s change of expression was not marked, but it was perceptible to Terrill.

“Shot! Brand-blotters! ... Where aboot, Watson?”

“Downriver aboot ten miles. I outrode them an’ got here, pretty much all in.”

“So I see. All alone, eh?”

“No. I had two cowhands. A Mex an’ fellow named Stine. I didn’t see them after the first shots.”

Sawtell seemed to proceed gropingly in thought. Terrill divined his next query.

“Downriver outfit?”

“I reckon not. There were several white cowhands mixed in with vaqueros. New outfit from across the Pecos.”

“Like as not. They’re driftin’ in from all over.” Then Sawtell turned abruptly to Terrill. “Howdy, Lambeth. I hear you lately went in partnership with one Hod Smith.”

“Not Hod Smith. My partner’s name is Pecos,” rejoined Terrill.

“Where is he?”

“Out,” replied Terrill, laconically.

“When’ll he be back?”

“No telling. In aboot a week, maybe.”

“Bill,” said Sawtell to the stout man, “I reckon Smith is the hombre we want. Them cowhands at Heald’s called him Pecos. But we never heard of it.”

“‘Pears to me there’s a Hod Smith an’ a Pecos Smith,” replied the other, ponderingly. “We don’t want to get our brands mixed. The man we’re after is the Smith who shot your brother an’ went to burnin’ brands with Williams an’ Adams.”

“Shore. An’ we’re on the right track,” replied Sawtell, confidently.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, but if you ask me I say you’re shore on the wrong track,” spoke up Watson.

“How so?” retorted Sawtell.

“Wal, that’s aboot all from me.”

“It’s enough. Are you a friend of Hod Smith’s?”

“I don’t know any Hod Smith.”

“Fellers, we might have known we’d get up against a stall like this,” said Sawtell, spreading his hands to his men. “So just drape yourselves around an’ be comfortable.... Get up, nigger,” he went on, addressing Sambo, and giving him a kick. “You can feed us after a bit.”

“Thet’s up to Mars Lambeth,” replied Sambo, sullenly.

“Boy, order your niggers to cook up a feed for us.”

“You go to hell,” drawled Terrill, from where she leaned in the doorway.

“No Southern hospitality here, huh?”

“Not to you.”

“Wal, we’ll help ourselves.”

“Bill, meet young Terrill Lambeth. This is Bill Haines, sheriff from up New Mexico way.”

Terrill eyed the stout man. He would not have been unprepossessing if he had been minus the odious prefix. Terrill was playing a boy’s part, but she was looking out with a woman’s intuitive gaze, with the penetration of love. Haines had a smug, bold front; he had a bluff laugh; but his shifty gray eyes did not meet Terrill’s gazing ones for more than a fleeting instant.

“Glad to meet you, young feller,” he said, in a hearty voice.

“Are you a Ranger?” queried Terrill.

“Used to be, sonny,” was the reply. “I’m now an officer for private interests.”

“Have you come heah to arrest Pecos Smith?”

“Wal, yes, if this Pecos Smith is Hod Smith.”

“Then you might as well leave before you get into trouble, because Pecos Smith is shore Pecos Smith.”

“Breen, this young jackanapes has got plenty of chin,” growled Haines.

“Wal, you can arrest him, too,” declared Sawtell, with a guffaw. “He’s in with Smith.”

“Arrest me! — You just try it,” flashed Terrill.

“Listen to the kid!”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” spoke up Watson, evidently prompted by Terrill’s spirit. “Is this a legal proceedin’? I never heard of a sheriff west of the Pecos. It’s none of my business. I’m as much a stranger to Lambeth an’ Smith as I am to you. But I’ve a hunch you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree.”

“Wal, for your edification, Mister Watson,” sneered Breen Sawtell, “an’ as you’re a Pecos River cattleman, I’ll tell you.... This cowhand Smith rode for the Healds. He was implicated in shady deals with two riders named Williams an’ Adams. My brother rode down to the H H an’ asked the Healds to fire Smith. An’ he got shot for his pains. Shot when he wasn’t lookin’, so it runs up on the Pecos. Wal, then Smith lit out for the brakes. His pards drove small herds of stock to a certain New Mexico market. They were fetchin’ out herds of a hundred haid or so, part mavericks just branded, and the rest yearlin’s an’ steers thet had burned brands. Beckman, a cattleman I was foreman for a little while back, was the biggest loser. An’ after six months or more of this thievin’ he took three good riders an’ trailed Williams an’ Adams down in the thickets of the Pecos. This was in the Alkali Lake country across from Tayah Creek.... Wal, they never came back an’ nothin’ was ever heard of them. Then Haines an’ I, with our men, took up the trail. We found the decomposed bodies of six men. One had a lariat round his neck. That one we figgered was Williams. Adams we identified by his front teeth. He had been shot. Beckman we recognized from his clothes. He had an arrow stickin’ through his ribs. But, hell! no Comanche killed him. There was a dried-up hoss carcass with some arrows stickin’ in it.... Now here’s how we figger it. This man Smith was campin’ alone. He never went anywhere with his pards. An’ expectin’ them back from a drive, he come in time to see Williams hangin’ to a tree, an’ no doubt Adams aboot ready for his. There was a fight, an’ Smith was the only one left. He shot a lot of Comanche arrows around to make it look like the work of Indians. Then he searched all the dead men for money, took it, an’ rode away. We kept on down the river trail to Eagle’s Nest. There we learned a rider answerin’ the description of Smith rode into town early last spring, broke open Brasee’s jail, where this young Lambeth was locked up for somethin’, an’ left with him an’ the nigger for this ranch. In this case it’s shore easy to put two an’ two together.”

“Sawtell, take this from me,” ejaculated Watson, feelingly. “This Pecos Smith is not your man.”

“An’ why not?”

“There’s some mistake.”

“Hell! didn’t we find out thet he’d paid a big bill for young Lambeth? Two hundred dollars. Lambeth had been locked up for debt. The greaser said Smith had a roll of bills as big as his laig.”

“That may very well be. But this Pecos Smith is some one else. He’s not the kind of a Texan who’d burn brands an’ murder for it.”

“Say, how’n hell do you know this Pecos Smith ain’t our Hod Smith?” demanded Sawtell, angrily.

“Wal, I can’t prove it. But I’d gamble on it. An’ what’s more, I wouldn’t be one of the outfit to accuse him of all this — not for a million dollars.”

“Aw, you wouldn’t? Watson, your talk ain’t so convincin’. How do we know you ain’t in cahoots with Smith?”

“Sawtell, you’re a damned fool, among other things,” declared Watson, in amazed heat. “I’m a respectable rancher, as everybody on this river knows.”

“Ahuh. So you say. But we don’t know — —”

“Breen, you’re goin’ a little too fast,” interrupted Haines, sourly. “I told you we might be on a wild-goose chase. An’ if we are we want to know it before makin’ any moves.”

Sawtell fell into a rage at this and stamped up and down, cursing. He was a passionate and headstrong man, evidently determined upon a certain line of conduct, and he meant to stick to it.

Terrill had suffered a horrifying conviction. Pecos really was the man they were after. He really was a rustler. All that money, surely thousands of dollars, part of which Terrill had in her possession — had been the combined profits of the three brand-burners. Pecos’ story had omitted a few little details, but it dove-tailed with that told by Sawtell. Terrill could easily supply the discrepancies. She had a rending, sickening agony in her heart. Was it possible that the man she loved was a cow thief? Terrill’s impulse was to run and hide to conceal her hurt, but she dared not act upon it, because any moment Pecos might ride in sight, and she had to see him meet these men. She shook at the very thought, and was hard put to it to stand there.

“Haines, are you afraid to go through with this job?” demanded Sawtell, after his tirade.

“No. But I’m not arrestin’ any unknown vaqueros. You can lay coin on that,” replied the sheriff, testily.

Sawtell plainly was handicapped by the presence of others. He fumed, and chewed his long mustache, and glared at his ally as if he suspected hitherto unconsidered possibilities.

“After all, the money is the main thing we’re after,” he burst out, as if unmasking. “Agree to thet?”

“Yes. There’s some sense in makin’ the money our issue. Why didn’t you come to that long ago?”

“No matter.... Wal, I’ve a hunch this money is hid right in this cabin,” went on Sawtell, with passion. “An’ if we find it you can bet your life I’ll have the truth of Hod Smith’s identity.”

“Yes? You’re a positive man, Sawtell, but that ain’t enough for me. How will you have it?”

“I was the market for Williams an’ Adams. I paid them for all their stock. I know every greenback of thet money. Haw! Haw! — Now what do you say?”

Haines appeared not only thunderstruck, but slowly growing enraged.

“I’ll say a hell of a lot if thet’s a fact.”

“Wal, it is, an’ you can just swaller it, hook, line, an’ sinker. I bought thet stolen stock cheap, you bet, knowin’ I could realize on it. An’ of course I meant to trail Williams an’ Adams an’ get all my money back. I kept advisin’ them to stay out of towns, to rustle all the stock possible, to save all their money, an’ they cottoned to thet. My plans would have worked out fine. But while I was away, one of Beckman’s cowhands rid plumb on to Williams an’ Adams with another bunch of cattle. They shot him. Thet put Beckman on their trail, with the result I told you.”

“Sawtell, that deal doesn’t hold water,” protested Haines, red in the face.

“Wasn’t I dealin’ with rustlers?”

“Shore. An’ buyin’ in stolen stock once for evidence was all right. But keepin’ it up! What’ll the cattlemen whose stock you bought say to this?”

“Wal, to hell with them! If it came to a showdown I’d let them pick out their burned brands.... You got any more kicks to make?”

“Little good it’d do me if I had.”

“We come down here to find that money an’ hang thet Hod Smith, an’, by Gawd, we’re goin’ to do it!” declared Sawtell, black in the face.

“Sawtell, I’d say there was little chance of either, with you holdin’ the reins,” returned Haines, with sarcastic finality.

Suddenly Sawtell whipped out his gun and presented it at Sambo. “Nigger, do you want to be shot?”

“No, suh. I’se not hankerin’ fer dat,” replied Sambo, rolling his eyes.

“Turn round an’ stick your black snout against thet post,” ordered Sawtell.... “Hey, Sam, fetch a rope. Rustle.... There’s one on thet saddle. Take it.... Now a couple of you hawg-tie this nigger to thet post. Make a good job of it.”

In a few moments Sambo was securely bound, after which Sawtell confronted Watson, as he sat pale and composed on the porch bed. He flinched as the gun was carelessly waved in his direction.

“Tie this feller hands an’ feet.”

“See here, Sawtell, that’s goin’ too far. I’m a crippled man. Besides, I’m absolutely neutral in this fight.”

“Neutral be damned! ... Tie him up!”

His further protestations were of no avail. The three cowhands roped him fast to the bed he sat upon.

“Now then,” went on the leader. “Sam, you an’ Jack go down by the river. There’s a trail under thet far wall. Hide in the brush an’ hold up any man who might ride alone.... You, Acker, hop your hoss an’ ride up the canyon to thet thicket below where the trail comes out of the gorge. Hide your hoss an’ yourself, an’ you be damn shore to stop any rider comin’ down. You all savvy?”

“Ahuh. But I reckon we all better have our hosses,” replied Sam.

“Wal, yes, if it suits you. Now rustle,” finished Sawtell, and sheathed his gun. “An’ now, Bill, it’s for you an’ me to go through this cabin with a currycomb.”

CHAPTER XIII

TERRILL HEARD THIS byplay between the two men and watched them with clouded eyes, while almost sinking in the throes of stupefying misery at the renewed doubt of Pecos. But when Sawtell announced his intention of ransacking the cabin she conquered the blinding weakness. Whatever Pecos had been in the past, he was honest and fine now; he had saved her and he was her partner; but even if some of these things were true, she loved him so wonderfully that she would fight for him and share his fortune.

“Come on, Bill,” sang out Sawtell, his heavy boots creaking the porch boards.

“Not me. Search the shack yourself,” replied Haines, ill- temperedly. He did not like the situation. Terrill’s hopes leaped at the chance of dissension between them.

“Wal, by thunder! if you ain’t cross-grained all of a sudden,” snorted Sawtell, in disgust.

“I hired out to arrest a criminal, an’ not to risk pokin’ around in his shack. Like as not, if there wasn’t anybody here with sense enough to keep a lookout, you’d turn around presently to have a gun poked in your belly.”

“But, you thick-headed —— ! The boys are guardin’ the only two trails into this canyon. We cain’t be surprised.”

“That’s what you say. My idee of your judgment has changed.”

“Ha! It’s your nerve thet’s changed. A few words from this peak-faced cowman an’ you show your white liver.”

“Sawtell, your remarks ain’t calculated to help this deal,” rejoined Haines.

“I shore see thet. Wal, in a pinch I can do the job myself.”

“Haw! Haw!”

That sardonic ridicule widened the breach. Terrill made sure now that these two men would clash.

“Haines, this man has fooled you all the way and means to double-cross you in the end,” interposed Terrill.

The sheriff’s frame vibrated as if it had been surcharged with a powerful current.

“Kid, you don’t say much, but when you chirp it’s somethin’ worth thinkin’ about,” returned Haines, with a harsh laugh.

“That’ll do from you, Lambeth, or I’ll slap the tar out of you,” growled Sawtell. “Haines, I’ll give you one more chance. Are you goin’ help hunt for thet money?”

“Bah! You’re loco, Sawtell. If this Hod Smith ever had any money it’s gone by now. Why, it’s ‘most six months since that last cattle drive was made.”

“Wal, it’s a forlorn hope, I’ll admit, but if I do find thet money you shore won’t get a dollar of it.”

“The hell I won’t. Find it an’ I’ll show you.”

Sawtell gave him a long gaze. “You may be surprised pronto,” he said, in another tone. Then he wheeled to stamp toward the door.

“Get out of my way, Lambeth,” he ordered.

For reply Terrill extended the gun, which she had drawn and cocked. Sawtell recoiled away from it.

“By Gawd! ... Look here, Bill.... This kid has throwed a gun on me.”

The sheriff showed a disposition to get out from behind Sawtell.

“You can’t come in heah,” rang out Terrill. The man’s close, raw presence, his blood-red eyes, the hard amaze he showed, added a last force to her will. She meant to kill him if he tried to enter. And on the instant Terrill was thinking that the hammer of her gun would fall on an empty chamber.

“Ahuh. So, Lambeth, you’re givin’ yourself away. Cub partner of a rustler an’ murderer, huh?”

“Breen Sawtell, you bet I’m Pecos’ partner,” flashed Terrill, and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a sharp metallic click. Sawtell flinched. Terrill cocked the gun again. “Look out for the next one. I’ll kill you.... You can’t — —”

Sawtell’s hand flashed out to throw up the gun. Terrill screamed and pulled the trigger. The gun went off in the air, but it was a narrow escape for him. Holding her arm up, he wrenched the gun loose, and tossing it back he knocked Terrill into the cabin. As she went down her head struck hard.

When Terrill came to she found that she had been bound to a chair. Sawtell had taken down a jug of liquor that had stood on the shelf for years, and after smelling it he took a long gulp.

“Aggh! ... Bill Haines don’t know what he’s missin’.”

Whereupon Sawtell began a search of the room. This did not take many moments, for there were such few places to hide anything. Meanwhile Terrill had fully recovered her wits. She had been hastily tied with some soft rope hobbles that had hung just inside the door. She could twist one small and capable hand so as to reach the knot, which she believed she could loosen. There were two rifles in the living-room, of which hers was loaded. If she could get hold of that! Then she grasped the fact that her feet were bound to the legs of the chair. Even if she did free her hands she could not get up. Then she espied Sambo’s hunting- knife on the table, within reach. After that she watched the ransacking ruffian while she redoubled her efforts to free her hands. She wondered what had become of Mauree. Probably the negress had run off in fright to her cabin and baby.

Sawtell got through searching the living-room. Then he gave the pole partition a vigorous shake. Terrill’s door flew open and Sawtell entered her little room. No one was ever permitted to go in there. Any thorough search must discover that there was something strange about Terrill Lambeth. But on the moment Terrill had no qualms about this. It was the money Pecos had intrusted to her. Why had she not hid the belt in the barn or a crevice in the cliff. For Sawtell would most surely find it.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared in husky accents from Terrill’s room. Then Sawtell appeared with the money belt clutched in his hands. There was a radiance about him, but it appeared far from beautiful. His eyes emitted a wolfish hunger. “By Gawd! ... I’ve got it,” he crowed as he laid the belt on the table. His big shaking hand, with its tobacco-stained fingers, tore out sheafs of greenbacks that had been neatly and compactly folded. “Oho! I guess I didn’t have a hunch.... All the big bills — fifties — hundreds! ... Mister Hod Smith, you shore are a savin’ hombre.”

The doorway darkened to the wide frame of Haines, who suddenly halted, pop-eyed, at sight of Sawtell and what he was doing. As if by magic, then, astonishment appeared swept away.

“Breen, so help me Gawd, you found it!” he exclaimed.

“I shore did,” replied the other, in grim exultance. “There’s twenty thousand, anyway. An’ that was worth comin’ for.” Whereupon he moved the belt and piles of bills back to his left on the table, interposing his body between it and Haines. Then he poured out a cupful of red liquor from the jug. “Here’s to your bad luck, Haines, an’ poor judgment!”

He tossed off the drink with a flourish. “Aggh! — That’s stuff for you. Have a drink, Bill. It’s as old as the hills.”

Neither of the men seemed aware of Terrill. Haines took a stiff drink, though his gray eyes, now with a blaze in them, never left the belt and money for an instant.

“Good likker, all right,” he coughed, and edged along the table. “Breen, I was wrong. You shore had a hunch. But I was only sore, an’ worried aboot this Hod Smith mebbe bein’ Pecos Smith.... Do you recognize the money?”

“Yes, if it’s anythin’ to you,” responded Sawtell, dryly, and he began stowing the flat packets of bills back into the belt.

“Shore it’s a lot to me. I’m as tickled as can be. If you know your own money we’re justified in takin’ it. An’ I say let’s let well enough alone an’ rustle out of here before this Smith person gets back.”

“An’ why for, Bill?”

“He might be Pecos Smith?”

“Hell! S’pose he is? What do we care? Wouldn’t he look as fine danglin’ from a rope as anyone else?”

“You don’t seem to savvy somethin’,” retorted Haines. “If he is Pecos Smith he won’t be easy to string up.”

“Haw! Haw!”

“Man, you’ve lost your head completely.”

“Nope. Thet applies to you, Bill. I’m figgerin’ shore close. There’s only two trails into this canyon, an’ I’ve got two men hid on the river trail an’ one man hid on the gulch trail. Smith will be held up either way.”

“Then we ought to help guard. There’s many a slip, you know.... Give up your crazy notion to hang Smith an’ let’s go.”

“He shot my brother.”

“What’n’hell if he did?” shouted Haines, stridently. “There’s some who say that wasn’t such a loss. You make me sick with your braggin’ loyalty, when all the time you was double-crossin’ him yourself.”

“You’re a —— liar!” returned Sawtell, ominously.

“Now, Breen, don’t bluster that way an’ go back on what you know.”

“What I know is my business,” returned Sawtell, doggedly. “What you think you know concerns me when you get to gabbin’ in front of strangers. You forget that nigger tied up out there. An’ this cattleman who calls himself Watson. You talk too much. You haven’t one damned proof that I double-crossed my brother.”

“No. It’s just my hunch. But you can bet your pile this Smith vaquero knows. An’ that’s why you’re so keen to hang him.”

“Air you goin’ to shet up?” demanded Sawtell, threateningly.

“Wal, there’s no use in arguin’ any more since we’ve got the money.”

“We?” shouted Sawtell, derisively.

“You heard me correct, Breen. I consented to take up my old Kansas job as sheriff to serve your ends. I rode down in this Gawd-forsaken Pecos country with you. I’m riskin’ my skin right this minute, an’ you bet I’m in on everythin’.”

“Haines, you’re in on nothin’. I told you thet a while back. You shot your chin off once too often.”

“You mean you’re not goin’ to divide that money?” yelled Haines, hoarsely, his ruddy face changing color.

“Get out! Your fat greedy face hurts my sensitive feelin’s,” retorted Sawtell, and he shoved Haines out of the cabin. For a moment his tall form obstructed the light. Terrill espied Sawtell’s hand creeping down toward his gun. Her heart nearly burst. The fight was coming. These ghouls would destroy one another. Terrill’s right hand came free. If she could only get up! She tore at the knots. The men had forgotten her. Her rifle leaned against the wall. Sawtell had left the money belt on the table.

“Breen Sawtell, you’re as crooked as a rail fence,” replied Haines. “But crooked or not, I want my share of that cattle money. You agreed to divide it.”

Sawtell stepped out on the porch, so that all Terrill could see was his left side. His left hand was stiff, with the long fingers quivering.

“Shore. But you lost your nerve an’ you wouldn’t help me. So I’m justified in not makin’ a divide.”

“ —— ! I’ll show you up all over New Mexico,” hissed Haines.

“No you won’t, Bill.”

“Of all the thick-skulled men I ever seen! Do you think you can soft-soap me out of this deal?”

“All I’m thinkin’ now, Bill, is that you won’t be goin’ back.”

“He-l — !” A shot cut short Haines’ yelp of fury. The thundering report appeared to clamp Terrill’s eyes tight shut. Then her ears vibrated to the crash — crash — crash of guns. Both men must have emptied their weapons. As Terrill opened her eyes she heard a groan that appeared to come from the left side of the door. Sambo or Watson had been hit. Then a boot grated, the porch boards creaked — and there followed another bursting report.

Terrill’s strung faculties broke to sight of Sawtell stepping before the door. He was sheathing a smoking gun. Terrill had wit enough to grasp that Sawtell had not had time to reload the gun. His face was black and terrible. He felt of his left arm where blood showed near the shoulder.

“Barked me, huh,” he soliloquized, and pulled a bandana from his pocket. Then as he stepped to the threshold he espied Terrill. “Ha! ‘most forgot you, Lambeth.”

“Is — he — dead?” gasped Terrill.

“Who? Bill? ... I reckon so, for all intents an’ purposes.... Tie this arm up for me.” And taking the hunting-knife off the table, he cut the hobble that bound Terrill’s hands, not noticing that one of them was already free. “What you shakin’ aboot, youngster? A little while ago you was steady enough. I thought my day had come.”

Terrill at last succeeded in knotting the bandana securely. Sawtell stuck the knife upright in the table and made no move to retie Terrill’s hands. “Now what? — Aha! Another little drink for my nerves.”

When he threw back his head and tipped the jug to his lips, Terrill snatched the knife, and quick as a flash freed her feet. He saw her out of the corner of his eyes. Down the jug thumped. Terrill flashed her hand for the money belt, and securing it she whirled to flee.

But as she leaped through the door Sawtell’s hand fastened on the back of her coat. He gave such a tremendous jerk that not only did he drag Terrill back across the threshold, but he ripped both coat and shirt almost off her body.

“You —— little devil! Must I kill you, too?” And with his free hand he twisted the belt out of her now nerveless hands and tossed it back on the table.

Terrill sank to her knees, almost fainting. To be suddenly snatched almost nude paralyzed her. Sawtell pulled at the split garments, which divided and slipped off Terrill’s white shoulders.

“Fer Gawd’s sake!” he rolled out, in breathless amaze, his bold eyes feasting on the curved white breast Terrill could not hide. “A girl!”

He let go the half of Terrill’s garments, and dropping heavily into the chair he placed a hand on each of her shoulders. He shook her. Terrill’s head wabbled back and forth. She was almost swooning.

“Come out of it! — You ain’t hurt.... Let me look at you.... Terrill Lambeth, heh? ... Wal, I’ll be ...! I reckoned you was damned pretty for a boy.”

“Let me — go!” wailed Terrill. The end had come. She would rather have died. This man’s horny hands! His hot eyes! Her faintness left her. There was more horror than shame. She tried to get up. He held her down with hands like lead.

“All the time you’ve been a girl?” he ejaculated. “When I was here — twice before — you was a girl?”

“Yes — yes. I’ve always been.... It was Dad’s fault. He — he hated girls. He would dress me as a boy — when I was little.... And so — out heah — I kept to boy’s clothes.... For pity’s sake — let me — cover myself!”

“That —— half-breed Felipe — he knows you’re a girl,” declared Sawtell. “I savvy now. That’s why he wanted me to stay away from here.... Wal, if this ain’t my lucky day!”

Terrill, with returning strength, plucked at her rent garments, so obviously agonized by her nudity that Sawtell let go and flung some of them in her face.

“Why, you damned little hussy!” he rasped in sudden passion. “Awful ashamed, ain’t you, half undressed before a strange man? Puttin’ it on thick, huh? ... You damned lyin’ cat. Livin’ here with this rustler, Smith. Pretendin’ to be a boy! — Why I ought to strip you an’ drive you up an’ down this canyon.”

Something about this remarkable revelation, no doubt the sight of the girl, had inflamed Sawtell into a frenzy. He jerked the torn coat out of her hands and flung it aside. He pulled at the shirt, but she clung desperately to this.

“Kill me — and be — done!” she whispered.

“Kill nothin’. You’re too pretty to kill. But I’ll beat hell out of you if you try any more tricks with me.”

Terrill would have sagged to the floor but for his pressing knees.

“You’ve been livin’ here with this man Smith?”

She thought she understood him.

“Answer me,” he went on, and cuffed her sharply over the head. “You’re livin’ with this man Smith?”

“Yes — I — I’m living — heah.”

“You’re not married to him? ... An’ you’re in love with him? ... Haw! Haw! — You bet you air.... An’ you know he’s a rustler — a cattle thief? He told you where all this money come from?”

“Yes. But he wasn’t brand-burning.... He was only — branding mavericks.”

“Aw, hell! You’re not an idiot. You didn’t swaller that old guff?”

“I did — I did. I believed him.”

“Wal, I furnished thet money to him an’ his pards. I paid it into his hands.”

“But you — you said Pecos wasn’t — with those men?”

“I lied to fool Haines. It served my turn.... Yes, you been livin’ with a low-down rustler. Shore you’re no lady to be proud. Sooner or later you’d seen him hanged. An’ it’s just as well that I come along when I did. You’re young yet. You’ll get over it.... Now when this Smith feller comes back we’ll swing him up. An’ I’m goin’ to stay here all night — with you. An’ tomorrow I’ll be takin’ you away with me.”

Terrill was past speech and almost power of vision.

“Wal, if you ain’t pretty — —”

He broke off suddenly. He seemed to listen, and his fondling hands dropped from her person.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

Terrill’s ears — that had been strained to breaking all these interminable hours — caught a low swift rhythmic patter of hoofs.

“A hoss comin’.... Must be Sam.”

When he got up Terrill slid forward, her head toward the door. Sawtell strode over her.

“Sam’s shore tearin’.... What’s he runnin’ his hoss like thet for?”

Terrill tried to rise, rose to one elbow, slid back again. She recognized that horse. Cinco! And shuddering death seemed to run along her reviving nerves out of her body.

Sawtell leaped out of the door, off the porch, to face up the canyon. His legs stood wide and bowed. His hair bristled.

Terrill whispered: “It’s — Pecos!” And she got up on one hand. Suddenly her stunned faculties reasserted themselves. But she was still so weak that she could scarcely slip into the two halves of the split shirt, and hold the front together.

That swift clatter had become a thrumming roar.

“My Gawd, it ain’t Sam!” yelled Sawtell.

Terrill’s sight caught the black Cinco against the gold of the sunset sky. He scattered dirt and gravel against the cabin. Then Pecos leaped out of the very air, his spurs jangling, his boots thudding, as he hit the ground to confront the stricken Sawtell.

Pecos was hatless. A white band spotted with blood bound his head. He was also coatless, vestless, and there were other stains of blood visible. His face was stone gray, except the leaping terrible eyes.

“Who’n hell are yu?” queried Pecos, piercingly.

“Sawtell. Breen Sawtell,” replied the other hoarsely. He licked his lips.

“What are yu doin’ heah?”

“We come down to arrest one Hod Smith.”

“Ahuh. Who’s we?”

“Haines there, an’ my men. Maybe you met Sam — up at the gulch trail.”

“Mebbe I did. Who shot these men?”

“There was a hell of a fight. Young Lambeth was in it.”

“Terrill!”

“Oh, Pecos — I’m — all right,” replied Terrill to that devastating call.

“Sambo, you daid?”

“No, boss. I ain’t daid atall. But I’se damn near daid.”

“Watson! ... Who killed him?” flashed Pecos.

“Must have stopped a stray bullet,” replied Sawtell, his voice huskier.

“Haines, yu called him.... Shot to pieces. Who did thet?”

“Wal, me an’ Bill had a little duel.”

“If yu came down heah to arrest me, why’d yu fight?”

“We come to arrest Hod Smith.”

“There’s no Hod heah. I am Pecos Smith.”

“Pecos — Smith!”

“I said so. Are you hard of heahin’?”

“Did you shoot my brother — at Healds’ Ranch?”

“I beat him to a gun. He forced me to draw.”

“Was you a partner to Williams an’ Adams?”

“Yes. I’m the man.”

“Then — Pecos Smith, you’re the man I’m after.”

“So I reckon. What’re yu goin’ to do aboot it?”

“Pecos, he swore he’d hang you,” rolled out Sambo, passionately.

“Wal, Sambo, I’m wastin’ a lot of time in gab, but I’m shore curious.”

“Boss, dis white trash sho treated our Rill turrible low down.”

“Terrill! — Yu said yu were all right?”

“I am, Pecos ... only scared — and weak. He tore me — to pieces ... and he found out I — I’m ... Oh, Pecos, I can’t tell you.”

Sawtell quailed. His eyes had been locked with Pecos’. At last he sensed what Watson had hinted at and Haines had warned him of.

“Can’t tell me what?” called Pecos.

Terrill was mute. If she had not been frozen there, leaning on her hand, she would have flopped down. But Pecos did not see her. His dancing gold-flecked eyes never oscillated a fraction from Sawtell.

“Smith, I’m on to your dodge,” spoke up Sawtell. It was the brazen voice of desperation. “This Terrill Lambeth is a girl. You been livin’ with her — pretendin’ she was a boy. Don Felipe had a hunch.... If any more comes of this meetin’ — you’ll be spotted all over the Pecos country.... But you ought to marry the girl. She must have been a decent little thing once.”

“Are yu — talkin’ yet?” queried Pecos, in a strange, almost inaudible voice. And perhaps that weakness spurred the desperate Sawtell on. Perhaps his mind grasped at straws. If he infuriated this Pecos Smith beyond control he might gain an instant’s advantage.

“But whatever she was — she’s shore a hussy now,” rasped on Sawtell, his body flexing.

“Ahuh.”

“She knows you’re a rustler — a brand-burnin’ cow thief. She admitted that.”

“Terrill — believed — thet?”

“Shore. She’s on to you. That money now.”

“Ahuh!” There might have been, to the strained sight of a madman, an indefinable break in Pecos.

“That money! By — Gawd!” Then Sawtell bawled and lunged.

There was a red flash, a burst, a boom. A cloud of smoke. Sawtell’s gun went flipping high. He staggered back to fall upon the porch, a great spurt of blood squirting from his heart.

CHAPTER XIV

PECOS LEAPED OUT of his set posture. He glared around, particularly toward the mouth of the canyon. And on the instant he espied two men running along the thicket under the west wall. Their clumsy gait betrayed cowhands unused to such locomotion. They tallied with the number of saddle horses Pecos had counted.

“Ahuh. Thet’s aboot all,” he muttered, and slowly sheathed his gun, to turn to Sambo.

“Boss, if yo ain’t speculatin’ on nuthin’ particular, jest cut me loose,” spoke up that worthy, turning his head as far as possible.

Pecos drew a knife, and cutting the hard knot of the lasso he unwound it from Sambo’s long frame. There appeared to be considerable blood from a gunshot high up on Sambo’s shoulder.

“Hit any other place?” queried Pecos, sharply. “This heah is only an open cut.”

“Boss, if I hadn’t played ‘possum I’d shore got more hits dan dat,” replied the negro as he stepped free. “‘Cause dat black mustached gennelman was sho out to kill eberybody.”

“How many in the bunch, Sambo?”

“Five was all I seen.”

“There’s the last two — across under the cracked wall.” Pecos pointed until Sambo had located them. “We don’t want them hangin’ around. Take my rifle, Sambo. Go down an’ drive thet outfit of hosses up the trail. Let those men see you doin’ it. Then take a few shots at them just for luck. — Rustle now an’ get back pronto.”

Cinco had edged back from the cabin and now had his head up as he nervously pawed the ground.

“Whoa dar, Cinco — whoa, old hoss,” called Sambo, as he approached. The horse stood, allowing Sambo to unsheath the rifle. Whereupon Sambo lumbered away out of sight.

Pecos surveyed the ghastly scene, then he strode over Sawtell’s body into the cabin.

Terrill sat on the floor, holding to a chair. With her other hand she was holding rent garments together over her breast.

“Pe-cos!” she whispered.

“Yu all right?” he demanded, sharply, as he knelt to take her by the shoulders and force her head up to the light. There was absolutely no color in her face. He gazed piercingly into her eyes. Stark horror was fading. A rapture of deliverance shone upon Pecos. After that one swift scrutiny his tight breast expanded in passionate relief. For the rest, he could not trust himself to gaze longer into those exquisite betraying depths.

Terrill let go of the chair and clung to him wildly. Her head dropped against him.

“Pecos! Pecos!” she whispered.

“Shore it’s Pecos. What yu think? I reckon yu mean I didn’t get back any too soon.... There’s a bruise on yore temple.”

“He — hit me.”

“Ahuh. Hurt yu anywhere else?”

“My arm’s wrenched.”

“Yu fought him?”

“I threw my gun — on him,” replied Terrill, growing stronger. “Meant to kill him.... But he knocked it — up ... grabbed me.... I didn’t quite faint. I felt him tying me — to the chair.... Later I worked my hands loose — and when he was drinking — I cut my legs free — snatched your belt and ran.... But he caught me.... It was then he tore my — my coat and — shirt off ... found me — out.... Oh, Pecos!”

Mauree interrupted this scene. Her eyes were rolling.

“Mars Pecos, dem debils sho turned our home into a slotterhouse.... Rill honey, say yo ain’t hurted.”

“I’m all right, Mauree.”

“Yu take charge of Terrill,” said Pecos, rising.

“Oh, Pecos — don’t go!” implored Terrill, hanging to his knees.

He could hardly look into the sweet havoc-shadowed face.

“Child, I won’t go far,” he said, hurriedly. “Thet mess out heah — an’ Sambo’s chasin’ what’s left of thet outfit.”

He disengaged his knees from clinging arms and got outside, feeling shaken and dizzy. It took strong will to counteract the softer mood, to face stern issues still, to fortify himself against the sickening reaction sure to follow.

Pecos scanned the opposite side of the canyon. Cattle and horses were running in fright. Then he heard Sambo shooting. It would be just as well, he thought, to have a look. Cinco came whinnying to him, whereupon Pecos remembered to scan him for a possible wound. There was a welt on his flank, sensitive to the touch.

“Wal, it’s darn good fer yu, old hoss, thet yu can run fast.”

When Pecos got beyond the trees where he could look up the canyon he espied Sambo trudging back down the trail. Apparently the negro had driven the horses clear out of sight. Pecos waited for him, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the last of Sawtell’s riders.

Sambo arrived presently, puffing hard.

“Boss — I — sho — winged — one of dem.”

“Thet’ll help, Sambo. But I reckon those cowhands wouldn’t hang around heah now. I shore peppered thet one who was layin’ fer me up the trail.”

“Pecos, I wuz worried aboot dat. How yo see him? Sam, dat Sawtell skunk call him.”

“I ran into fresh hoss tracks before I got within miles of our trail down the gulch. Those fellers had been to Eagle’s Nest. When they turned off down our gulch I got leery. An’ when I rose into the canyon Cinco either seen or smelled a hoss. So I cut off the trail by thet thorn-bush thicket. It’s good I did, fer there was one of them hidin’ in it, an’ he shot at me. Wal, I shot back, you bet, an’ plenty fer good measure. Then I loaded up an’ sent Cinco down the trail hell-bent fer heah.”

“All de time I prayed yo’d come. An’ den when I’d gone back on de good Lawd den yo come, yo sho come, Pecos.”

“Wal, I’ll heah yore story after a bit,” replied Pecos, thoughtfully. “I reckon we’ve gotta begin a graveyard on Lambeth Ranch. Some graves with haid-stones, Sambo. Damn good idee — Up there on thet level bench. Shallow holes, Sambo, ‘cause we shore ain’t goin’ to sweat more’n we have to to cover them stiffs.”

While conversing thus they had once more approached the cabin.

“Search ’em, Sambo. Take papers, guns, watches, money, anythin’ worth keepin’ an’ put them all in a sack. Relatives an’ friends of theirs might ride in heah some day. An’ if they don’t come a rarin’ fer trouble we’ll turn the stuff over.... Too bad aboot this cattleman Watson.”

“Boss, I’se a hunch dat was sho no accident,” spoke up Sambo.

“What?”

“Dis killin’ of Watson. ‘Cause after all dat bunch shootin’ when I got my shoulder barked I seen Watson was alive. Den come anudder shot an’ he sagged in dat rope.”

“Wal! Wal! ... Sawtell figgered this Watson had heahed an’ seen too much. Shot him an’ laid it to accident.”

“‘Zackly. Dat Sawtell was a hell of a man, Pecos.”

“I reckon — among his kind.... But save yore story, Sambo, till our work’s done.”

“You some shot up yo’self, boss?” queried the negro.

“I stuck my haid up over thet Y Canyon rim, an’ one of them vaqueros grooved me. This other cut heah is from a snag ridin’ the brush. They won’t interfere with my appetite none.... Sambo, yu’ll want a pack-hoss, also an old canvas yu can cut up. I’ll take pick an’ shovel, an’ go dig the graves.”

“Yas, suh. Heah’s yo’ rifle, boss. Don’ leave dat behind. Yo can nebber tell.... ‘Kin sabby,’ as the greasers say.”

“Ahuh.... An’, Sambo, after yu move these men, have Mauree scrub away all thet blood.”

Pecos did not think he would need the rifle, nevertheless he took it, and burdened with this and the heavy tools he approached the bench he had chosen for the graveyard. It chanced to be situated where ambush from the rim above was out of the question.

Pecos applied himself vigorously and in an hour or more had three shallow graves dug. The labor had caused him to sweat and pant. Moreover, it had begun to operate upon the dark grimness of mind and the sick icy sensation in the pit of his stomach, reactions which always succeeded deadly passion. He kept on working even after the job was sufficiently done. Indeed, he would have welcomed much toil. There must be other ordeals after this mood had passed.

Presently he was interrupted by the arrival of Sambo, leading a horse over the back of which bent the body of a man roped up in canvas.

“Which is this heah one?” asked Pecos.

“Dis is Sawtell,” replied Sambo, unceremoniously tumbling the corpse off the horse. “Pecos, yo sho hit him whar he libbed.... An’ what yo tink! He wored a money belt chuck full.”

“Did he? — Thet reminds me of mine. Where is it, Sambo?”

“Terrill got dat.... Boss, yo sho should hab seen — —”

“Rustle back after another daid man,” interrupted Pecos. Still he had not arrived at the state of mind where he could listen.

“Wal, Sawtell,” said Pecos, after Sambo had ridden away, “yu’ll rot heah because you had no good in yore heart nor sense in yore haid.”

Pecos had made a clean, swift job of killing the man, and he duplicated it in the burial. Then he searched about until he found an oblong stone, one end of which he imbedded at the head of the grave. Later he would cut a name in the stone.

Sambo made two more trips with gruesome burdens, and after the last one remained to help Pecos until the duty was accomplished.

It was mid-afternoon when Pecos wended a weary way back to the cabin. The shock had passed, as often it had before; the sickness lingered only faintly. Pecos had weathered another stern vicissitude of the wild Texas borderland. These things had to be. He counted himself a pioneer. He knew what had to be stood and done before a man could have peace along the length and breadth of that Pecos wilderness.

He must face another ordeal, a more difficult one for him, and he shirked it. He could not think how to meet the coming issue between him and Terrill. He could let only the exigencies of the hour decide for him. Only one certainty stood out clearly in his troubled mind, and it sustained him where otherwise he might have had no anchor at all. A wonderful affection for Terrill Lambeth as a boy had been transformed into a tremendous love for Terrill Lambeth as a girl. Pecos would far rather have had the inevitable revelation postponed indefinitely. He had grown happy with his secret. Terrill’s sex, no longer hidden, might make a difference — he had no idea what. Certainly as a boy she had looked to him, trusted him, relied upon him, cared for him in a way, but as a girl ——

The first stranger who had wrung from Terrill the truth of her sex had likewise instilled in her a belief in Pecos’ guilt. That was a blow. It stung, it flayed. It was bitter. It raked over the old sore. Perhaps his reasoning was vain, illogical, invalid, and he was indeed a rustler. That issue must be met, with himself and with Terrill; and he might as well face both at once.

To approach that cabin was now harder for Pecos than if it had contained ten men of Sawtell’s ilk. Pecos made a stupendous effort, and he did not really know exactly what the effort was for. But he had to go on; he had to go back to that cabin, to work there, to eat and sleep there, to face Terrill a hundred times a day. And the prospect filled him with breathless tumult.

Sambo and Mauree had cleared and cleaned away every vestige of the fight. The old cabin looked as sleepy and lonely as always. Sambo had removed the rude bough couch that had been on the porch.

While Pecos lingered outside Sambo called from the door:

“Boss, what is I gwine do wif all dese waluables?”

Whereupon Pecos forced himself to enter. One end of the table was littered with guns, belts full of shells, watches, knives, wallets, and last a wide black money belt.

“Sawtell an’ dat no-good sheriff ‘peared to be well heeled,” said Sambo. “But Watson had no money or nuthin’.”

“Sambo, do yu think thet fat feller was a sheriff?” queried Pecos as he weighed the money belt.

“Wal, I tuk it he might have been once. I heahed them say somethin’ aboot Kansas. But he sho wuz no mo’ sheriff dan me. Dey gabe demselves away, boss. Dat was a trick.”

“Ahuh. Wal, put all this stuff out of sight so we can forget the deal.”

“Boss, I sho don’t want to be ‘sponsible fer dis money.”

“All right. I’ll hide it. Let’s see.” Pecos gazed about the room.

“Dere’s a loose stone in de chimley low down,” said Sambo, and kneeling he worked a large stone free.

“Just the place. Dig out behind it, Sambo,” replied Pecos. Between them they soon disposed of the belt, and the other articles Pecos stowed upon a triangular shelf in a corner. That done, Pecos breathed still more freely. Mauree had begun to prepare for the evening meal: there were iron pots and tin pots on the fire.

“Mauree, is that water hot?” called a voice, somehow Terrill’s voice, yet not the same.

“Yas, honey, it’s sho hot. An’ de salve yo ast fo is on de table. Yo better hurry, chile, an’ fix Mars Pecos up ‘cause supper ‘mos’ ready.”

There happened to be a chair close to Pecos, which he backed into weakly. He heard a step.

“Pecos, will you let me dress your wounds?” asked the soft changed voice.

“Wounds! — Aw, why shore, if they’re worth botherin’ with.”

“But you look so awful in that bloody bandage and shirt,” protested Terrill.

“So I must. Reckon I forgot.”

Terrill appeared coming around the table, upon which she deposited some articles. Pecos did not look up, yet he saw her. It was Terrill and still not Terrill. The same small boots with the worn trousers carelessly tucked in the tops! But instead of the omnipresent loose coat or shirt she wore something white. He caught that without really looking.

“Pecos, have you another shirt?” she asked, standing thrillingly close beside him, with a hand on his arm.

“Yes, it’s up in the loft. I’ll put it on after.”

“This one is gone. Today has shore been rough on our shirts.” She uttered a wonderful little low laugh, deep and rich, that tingled Pecos clear to his toes. What could have made all this difference in a boy he had known so well?

Terrill cut his ragged bloody sleeve off just below his shoulder.

“This can’t be a bullet hole,” she said.

“Cut myself on a snag.”

With deft capable hands Terrill washed the wound, anointed it with salve, and bound it securely.

“This one on your haid! — I’m almost afraid to look at it.”

“Wal, never mind, Terrill, if it’ll sicken yu. Sambo’ll do all right.”

“I shall dress it.” She wet a towel in hot water and soaked the stiff bandage off and bathed the wound, which Pecos was sure consisted only of a shallow groove. “O my God!” she whispered, very low, as if to her inmost soul. “One inch lower — and life would have been over for me!”

“But, Terrill, it’s my haid,” said Pecos, rather blankly. That speech of hers would require long cogitation.

Terrill appeared slow over this task. Her touch was not so sure, so steady. Pecos felt her fingers tremble upon his brow. She hovered over him, from one side to the other. There was a slight soft contact to which his over-sensitive nerves reacted outrageously. He never raised his half-closed eyes. He saw the white garments as a blur, too close for clear vision. But her round arms were bare to the elbows, golden brown at the wrists, then white as milk. Once, as she leaned over him, to work with the difficult bandaging on the far side of his head, she had only to drop her arms a trifle and they would be round his neck. Pecos longed for this so dreamily, so poignantly, that when he awoke to it he thought he was crazy.

“There! If you don’t roll in your sleep it will stay,” she was saying.

“Sleep! — I’ll never sleep no more around heah.... Thanks, Terrill. I reckon yore a fair doctor.”

Pecos stalked out upon the grass without any definite aim. If he had kept on he would have stalked over the bank into the river. But he stopped. The sun was setting in wondrous hues; the river gloomed, a winding purple band with silver edges; the great wall stood up, receiving the golden blast of sunset; and the canyon lay under a canopy of spreading rays and dropping veils.

Where had it gone — the menace, the peril, the raw wild life that hid behind the beauty, the solitude of the Pecos? A vision came to him, not unlike the dreams of the pioneer, of a time when the hard lives of vaqueros and cattlemen, the brutality of the range, the mingled blood of rustler and avenger, the raid of the Comanche, all would vanish in a sense of security in neighbors up and down the roads, in the tranquillity of homes, in the prosperity of endless herds of cattle. That was the promise of the glory of the sunset. Otherwise all hope and strife toward such an end would be futile.

But the vast Pecos range must ever be lonely, gray, brooding, hot as a furnace in the summers, cold in winters, when the bitter northers blew, a barren land of scaly ridges for leagues and leagues, a grazing wilderness for numberless cattle, from which the coyote and the buzzard would never disappear. It was what this country was that chained Pecos to it. But for men like Watson and women like Terrill, whose destinies had set them there, Pecos could have foregone the dream of the pioneer to write a bloodier name across that frontier. Better men than he had done no less. Texas had been a battleground, and was blood- soaked from river to river. No Texans but had been born to fight — no Texans ever survived who did not fight! But the best of manhood survived in the longing for homes. This era of guns and nooses, of the burned brand and the hard-eyed outlaw, would pass some day.

In that moment of exultation Pecos divined he had always been on the right trail. If he had lost the letter of it at times and had veered from it in spirit, yet he had always come back to plant his feet right. His past tracks had had to be bitterly reckoned with; there might be more and worse before the years covered them with dust, but he would never again make a false step.

A voice called him to supper and it was that same changed voice. As he turned to go back to the cabin he espied a gleam of white moving away from the door. Terrill had been watching him.

Pecos went in resolved to be natural. If he had been wise and great enough to forestall events, there would never have been any reason to blot out this tragic day. Sambo had put mesquite knots on the fire, as the bright ruddy light and sweet fragrance testified. Terrill sat at the other end of the table, as she had always done. But nothing else could ever have been so different.

Her hair was parted in the middle. It rippled and shone like the ripples of the river when the sunset fell upon them. Her face was as white as if it had never worn any golden tan. Her eyes were large, dark, luminous, windows of myriads of emotions. And under them shadows as deep and mysterious enhanced their havoc. But her features alone could not have accounted for the disturbing transformation from boy to girl. That white waist! It was old-fashioned — as compared with those Mary Heald had worn — and it fitted Terrill poorly. It had been a girl’s waist and now it graced a budding woman. It was open a little at the top, no doubt because Terrill could not close it, and slightly exposed the graceful swell of her neck. For the rest there was the contour of breast that thrilled Pecos while it stabbed him with the memory of his unintentional sacrilege.

His prolonged stare, or something in his look, brought the vivid blood to Terrill’s face. She appeared nervous, timid, shy, yet her eyes hung upon him hauntingly. What had she to fear in him? He knew now, and she must never know that he had long been aware of her secret. Then he remembered what Sawtell had said, and there came a break in his feeling.

“I can’t eat,” she said, after she had tried. “I — I can’t be natural, either.... Pecos, are you shocked — angry?”

“Don’t think aboot things,” he answered, rather gruffly. He was thinking about things himself. What could he do if she looked at him like that, with such strangely hungry eyes?

“But, Pecos — if I — if we don’t talk — it’ll be harder,” she rejoined, with singular pathos.

Sambo, who sat before the fire, came to their rescue. “Boss, I’se powerful curious ‘boot whar yo got dat bump on yo’ haid.”

“Wal, I’ll tell yu,” replied Pecos, never before so willing to talk.

“Please, Pecos, tell us,” added Terrill, eagerly.

“Wait till I drink this coffee,” he replied, and presently got up to light a Mexican cigarette, one of the few he had smoked since the trip to Camp Lancaster. “I got down to the Y Canyon aboot sunrise. An’ I found thet outfit camped where Watson said they was. Wal, my idee was to scare them out, if I couldn’t do more. An’ I figgered the way to work it. If you remember it’s a queer-shaped canyon. I shot seven times into thet bunch havin’ breakfast. Long range, but I hit one greaser, anyhow. He squealed like a jack rabbit. Yu should have seen them pilin’ over one another. Then I run back, hopped my hoss, an’ rode like hell as far as I could along the rim. Thet was when I got snagged. Wal, I jumped off with the other rifle an’ made for the rim. Heah, if anythin’, I was even closer than where I first seen them. An’ I began to shoot again, as fast as I could load the old rifle. My idee shore worked. Thet outfit reckoned they’d been set on by men surroundin’ the canyon. Their hosses were ready for the day, an’ they mounted an’ made off through the thicket for the river. An’ they kept shootin’ steady. It was when I was climbin’ along the rim thet one of them hit me. Wal, they shore rustled down the river, an’ I reckon they won’t come back very soon.”

“Sambo, is yo’ appetite done gone whar Rill’s an’ Pecos’ is?” asked Mauree. “‘Cause if it is dis supper am wasted.”

“Doan trubble, woman, doan trubble,” replied Sambo. “Dar won’t be no grub left. I’se so happy I could eat a hoss.”

A fugitive happiness seemed to hover over Terrill. One moment she radiated eager young life, and the next she grew blank, as if suspended between hope and fear. Pecos became guiltily aware of her unconscious appeal to him. While he told his story she sat wide-eyed and open-lipped, absorbing every word, betraying her fears and her thrills.

Presently Pecos, driven by wonder and cruel longing, went out on the porch to sit in the dusk. How serene the canyon! The river moaned low out of the shadow. A coyote wailed from the heights. If avarice and lust and death had stalked there this day, there were no ghosts of them abroad now. He wondered if Terrill would follow him out. What did her actions, her brave and wistful glances, betray? She realized she had failed in faith. Her conscience tortured her. Or was it something else? He might make a pretense of hardening his heart, of holding aloof, but it was sham. How many interminable hours since morning! His head throbbed from the bullet wound. At intervals a slight sigh, almost a gasp, escaped his lips, involuntary regurgitation of that hideous inward clamp on his vitals. Could he listen to the solitude, could he think of the tranquil dusk settling down, could he dwell upon this beautiful girl delivered into his keeping when he had ridden red death that very day? But that was hours, endless hours, past. Life seemed surging on, piling up, swelling to engulf him.

A light footfall creaked on the porch board. Terrill came out and sat beside him, close to where Sawtell had fallen that day.

“Pecos.” She spoke low.

“Yeah.”

“I — I’m nervous — that old fear of the dark.... Let me sit by you?”

“Yeah.” He drawled it, but that was a lie, too. She sat down close beside him and gazed out into the gathering dusk. If she had any terrors of the place, of what she had escaped, these were not manifest. Her profile against the black cliff appeared chiseled out of marble, cold, pure, singularly noble, and as sad as her life had been. Pecos could not convince himself of the facts. His wandering rides, his ruthless hand, his unfailing service to the weak and unfortunate — these had landed him there in that lonely canyon, at the side of a girl as lovely as an angel — and as good.

“Terrill, go to bed,” he broke out, abruptly.

He startled her. “Must I?” she asked, and the willfulness of the boy Terrill seemed gone forever. There was a suggestion of his word as law, never to be disobeyed.

“Suit yourself. But yu look so white — so spent. If yu’d sleep — —”

“Pecos, I cain’t sleep this night unless you — unless I’m near you.”

He could not reply. It was as hard for him to think clearly as to speak clearly. His nerves were on edge. His heart seemed thawing to an immense pity, and that meant a liberation of his love — which, surrendered to, while she sat so close, so tense and alive, meant only chaos.

“May I stay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

A bright line tipped the opposite canyon rim. The moon was rising behind them. Terrill edged a little closer to him. Once a timid hand slipped under his arm, to be quickly withdrawn. He caught her glancing up at his face, which he kept rigidly to the fore.

“Pecos, I’m all tight inside — on fire.... But feel my hands.”

She put them in his and they were like ice. One lingered in his, and as no nerve or muscle of his responded, it slowly fell.

“Fever, I reckon,” he said. “Terrill, it’s been a tough day for a — a g — youngster.”

“Horrible! ... And just to think! If I’d had one more shell in my gun I’d have killed him! ... I wish to God I had.”

“Wal, Terrill, thet’s queer. Why do you?”

“Then he couldn’t have told.”

“Ahuh.” Pecos believed she meant that Sawtell could not have betrayed her sex. That seemed natural. Terrill over-exaggerated some kind of shame in this dual character she had lived.

She sat silent awhile and the warmth of her contact with him seemed strange in view of her ice-cold hands.

Across the canyon the moonlit line had grown to a broad white band creeping down, imperceptibly diminishing the darkness below. An owl hooted in the gloom and the insects kept up their low mournful hum. Sambo and Mauree came out, evidently having finished their work. Mauree bade Terrill good-night while Sambo tarried a moment.

“Folks, I sho gotta tell yo,” he rolled out. “Yo know mah wife has second sight. An’ she say good is comin’ out of dis turrible day.”

“Bless her, Sambo,” cried Terrill.

“Shore there is, Sambo,” drawled Pecos. “‘Cause there was a lot of bad went under the ground.”

“Dey sho did, Pecos. Dey sho did.... An’ now good-night Mars Pecos.... An’ Gawd bless an’ keep yo, Missy Rill.”

Sambo moved away toward his cabin and the moonlight tipped his black head.

“Oh ... he has not called me Missy Rill since I was a child,” murmured Terrill, in mingled joy and pain. Perhaps that chord of the past vibrated in her frozen and inhibited emotions, for suddenly she clutched his arm, she slipped to her knees and crept close and lifted her face. Pecos’ heart leaped up in his breast.

“Pecos, my only friend — you are angry — cold — you freeze me when I want — I need so much to — —”

“Yeah, I reckon,” blurted out Pecos. How long could he resist snatching her to him? What would she do? Was he only blind, mad, a blundering vaquero who had never learned to know women?

“But I can’t endure that,” she wailed, and clung to him. “Is it be-because that beast tore my clothes off — saw that I wasn’t a — a boy?”

“Yeah,” replied Pecos, dully, as if by rote.

“But I couldn’t help that, Pecos, any more than I can help being a girl. I was fighting for you — to save your money. I got it, too, and ran. But he caught me by my coat and shirt — and they tore off.”

“You mebbe wasn’t to blame. But why yu was there an’ he seen yu half-naked. A girl! ... Yu cain’t deny he meant to make a hussy of yu then,” declared Pecos, knowing full well how wild and unreasonable his statements were.

“No, dear Pecos,” she replied, gravely. “I saw too late it would have been far better to let him take the money. But I didn’t.... And you came in time to — to save me.”

In all Pecos’ life there had never been anything a millionth part so sweet as this moment. What was she pleading for? It must come out. Could he deny her whatever she seemed entreating for, so as to prolong this growing suspicion of her love? Prolong it only to keep back the inevitable truth of her affection for a brother, a protector? After the whirling heights of his hopes, could he bear that? But he must goad her on.

“What if I hadn’t come in time?”

“Then, when you did come you would have found me — daid.”

“Wal, we’re wastin’ breath on thet. I did come an’ yu ain’t daid.... But I’d rather have seen yu daid than to live to believe me a low-down rustler.”

“Oh, Pecos!” She wailed.

That was the mark. He had struck home. The thing which flayed him likewise flayed her. Almost rudely he shoved her back. Yet that was of no avail. She swayed again to catch at his hands.

“Terrill Lambeth, you believed me a thief?” he queried, sternly, and he laid rude hold of her.

“Yes — yes. I cain’t lie aboot anything so terrible. I did.... But he was so shore. He seemed to know all. He recognized that money — the very bills you had.... He’d paid you, he swore. And God forgive me! I thought it the truth.”

“Aw!” breathed Pecos, huskily.

“There! It’s out. It was killing me.... But, Pecos — Pecos, dear Pecos, don’t look so black and fearful. Listen. The minute I saw you again — the very instant — I knew Sawtell was the criminal and not you. I felt it. I saw it in your eyes.... Let that plead for me.”

“But you believed!” he flashed, harshly.

“I did, but I don’t. Cain’t you be human?”

“I’m human enough to be powerful hurt.”

“But what is a hurt?”

“You went back on me.”

“Pecos!”

“You betrayed yore pard.”

“Not truly.”

“You double-crosser.”

“No — no. I deny that. If — if it had been true, I would still have stuck to you.”

Pecos gazed at her spellbound. The moon had long since topped the rim and had just then come out from behind the corner of the cabin, to shine in its silver radiance upon her face. Something sustained her in spite of the monstrous barrier Pecos had cruelly raised. There was no bottom to the tragic abyss of her eyes, as there was no limit to her loyalty. She belonged to him. She was a leaf in the storm. But her strength consisted in the bough from which she would not be separated. She clung.

“Yu failed me, Terrill Lambeth,” he went on, hoarsely, and his true pain was easing out forever in these accusations. “In my hour of need yu failed me.”

“In faith, but never in heart.”

“I’m a Texan. An’ I hate a cow thief as bad as a hoss thief. I’ve helped to hang both. An’ yu believed I was one.”

“But I confessed it to you. I could have lied,” she cried, driven desperate.

“Yu never cared.”

“O God — hear him! ... Pecos Smith, I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“As a big brother, mebbe.”

“As a girl hungry for she knew not what. As a girl who must hide her longing and her sex. As a girl driven into womanhood. Oh, I could never have learned to love you so well but for my secret.”

“Terrill, yu’ve been a bogus boy. Yu’ve lived so long untrue thet you cain’t be true.”

“Pecos, I love — you — now,” she cried, brokenly, her spirit following her spent strength.

“Yu beautiful fraud!”

She made one last effort to clasp him in failing arms. “If you — do not — love me — there’s nothing left — but the river.”

“Liar!”

“Pecos, this flint man cain’t be you. My Pecos — —”

“Yu double-crossed me.”

“No — no!”

“Yu failed me.”

“Have mercy, then!”

“Yu believed me a thief.”

“Forgive me. My heart — is breaking. I have only you — in all this world.”

Pecos could hold out no longer. He drew her to his breast and lifted her lax arms round his neck.

“Wal, I reckon thet’ll be aboot all,” he said, in a voice so vastly changed that it seemed a stranger had spoken. She lay still in his arms, but he knew she had not fainted. He could see those great dark eyes. He felt the slow-stealing warmth of her breast on his, and the quickening pound of her heart.

“Pecos,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“You forgive?”

“I reckon I was only punishin’ yu for lack of faith. You poor kid.”

“Oh, wait! Pecos. This will kill me. Don’t tell me too quickly — you didn’t mean all — those — horrible names.”

“Wal, I meant them for the moment. I shore was mad. But I saved another for the last.”

“Oh, Pecos — what?” she implored.

“Terrill darlin’.”

“Then — you — love — me?”

He spent his answer on her cool sweet lips. It was then that his reward came unasked, unexpected as had been the treasure of her love. For all that had been innate in Terrill Lambeth, the femininity that had been suppressed, the emotion that had been denied so long, and the fostering of the lonely years of that wild country, where she had been kept as secluded as a cloistered nun, and the hunger which such a life must only magnify, now burst all bounds in an abandonment as pure as her thoughts had ever been, and which blindly sought his lips in kisses and his arms in embraces that broke off only to be renewed.

At last her lovely face fell back in the hollow of his arm and it was no longer white or tragically convulsed.

“Pecos, how can you love me so — so much as that, if only these few hours you’ve known me to be a girl?”

“Wal, it shore seems a whole lot of love on such short notice,” he drawled. “But the fact is, honey, thet I’ve loved you more an’ more all the time ever since I — I found you out.”

Startled, she leaped up in his arms.

“Pecos Smith! ... You deceitful wretch! ... O Heaven — since when?”

“Darlin’ Rill — since the day you nearly drowned.”

“That day — that day!” She hid her hot face on his breast and hugged him tight. “But since you love me — —”

CHAPTER XV

AS FAR AS Pecos was concerned Rockport or any town would have been good for a visit, but the Gulf cattle town in its heyday was no place for Terrill.

Pecos had not seen its like. It appeared to be surrounded on three sides by bawling cattle and on the other by the noisy Gulf. There was a main street upon which to ride or drive or walk at any hour of the day and far into the night, but to do so was a most strenuous and uncomfortable undertaking.

The Gulf Hotel, where Pecos engaged rooms at an exorbitant figure hummed like a beehive. Its patrons appeared to be the same as the surging crowds in the street — settlers, cattlemen, cowhands, buffalo-hunters, soldiers, nondescript travelers, desperadoes, and the motley horde of parasites who lived off them. It was hot and dusty on this December day. What would it have been in mid-August?

The spirit of the throng, the movement and meaning of it, permeated Pecos’ blood. He had been only a riding vaquero, a gun- throwing adventurer. He had now become a part of this very thing. There were settlers’ wives and daughters in that crowd, all of whom had embarked upon the great adventure Terrill was already living.

“Dog-gone it, Terrill,” he drawled to her, “this heah is grand. Turrible for us to watch ‘cause we shore know what those young men an’ women are goin’ up against. But we feel somethin’ big an’ wonderful with them. They’ll do it, Terrill. Yu cain’t fool me when I can see people’s eyes. Thet’s why I’m alive, ‘cause I can see what men think.”

“Pecos, it makes my heart come up in my throat. I’d like to go with them. Oh, I hope these young men can fight.”

“I shore see a lot of Texans among them.”

“But who are the white-faced men in black, an’ the ghastly women all decked in flowery dresses?”

“Dog-gone if I know them, honey,” replied Pecos, evasively. “But I reckon they ain’t so good. Now, Terrill, don’t yu leave me for a single minute. An’ if I have to leave yu it’ll be heah where yu can lock yoreself in yore room.”

“Pecos Smith, you won’t leave me even there for a single minute,” she retorted. “Do you imagine I’d let a dashing, handsome vaquero, loaded down with money, go out in that crowd alone? Not much!”

“Say, thet ain’t so turrible flatterin’,” replied Pecos, dubiously. “You look like a kid, but yu got the mind of a woman.”

“Pecos, I’m dependent upon you,” she said, sweetly. “And aren’t you dependent upon me?”

“My Gawd, yes! If I didn’t have yu I’d be drinkin’, gamblin’, mebbe shootin’, an’ I don’t reckon what else. But all thet’s past an’ I’m so happy I’m loco.”

“I’m so happy I’m frightened.”

“I shore wish thet Judge Roy Bean had been home. Then I wouldn’t be so frightened, myself. Haw! Haw!”

“What do you mean, Pecos?” she asked, blushing scarlet. “We came here to buy cattle.”

“Aw, I didn’t mean nothin’.... Wal, come on. There are stores heah an’ mebbe we can find some of those women’s clothes you’re cravin’.”

But a breathless scramble through the crowd from one store to another failed to reveal any ready-made female attire that Terrill wanted. There was an abundance of material, some of it good, but it had to be made into dresses. So they had to resort to boys’ apparel. After a mirthful foray they returned to the hotel with new fancy-topped Mexican boots, silver spurs, a buff sombrero in which Terrill looked so fetching that Pecos whooped, corduroys, shirts of various hues, a jacket, and other articles. While Terrill raved over these purchases like a boy, Pecos told her to change while he went downstairs to the office.

Pecos was perturbed because he had discovered that he was being followed by two men. This was no unusual thing in any crowded frontier post. But these men looked like Texas rangers to Pecos. And he could not take any chances with such men. Why were they following him? Pecos decided his right move was to find out.

Wherefor he approached the hotel desk and asked if there were any Texas Rangers in town.

“Captain McKinney is here with some of his Rangers,” replied the clerk. “They’re working on that Big Brewster cattle- steal.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He’s stopping here. Saw him here a moment ago.”

The lobby was crowded with men. Presently Captain McKinney was pointed out to Pecos. He appeared to be about medium height, of the usual Texan complexion, had a fine stern face and piercing eyes. Pecos approached and stood respectfully waiting a break in the Captain’s conversation with two men, evidently ranchers.

“Well, sir?” queried McKinney.

“Are you Captain McKinney?” replied Pecos.

It was characteristic of Texas and particularly of the Rangers that such a query invited a guarded reply.

Finally Captain McKinney replied.

“Yes.”

“Wal, Captain, I reckon a couple of yore Rangers have been trailin’ me all aboot town.”

“Who are you?”

“Pecos Smith.”

Well Pecos knew then that he had been wise to approach this Ranger Captain. Also he had further appreciation of the significance of his name.

“Come to my room,” said McKinney, abruptly.

Pecos had the keenest of susceptibilities in his meetings with men. No matter what the issue, this meeting had been favorable, or most certainly a Captain of the Texas Rangers would not walk down a corridor in front of a suspected man.

Pecos was ushered into a well-lighted corner room.

“I’m glad you looked me up,” said McKinney, inviting Pecos to a chair.

“What’s the idee, Captain — Rangers trailin’ me?” drawled Pecos, sitting back.

Then the two Texans locked glances. Pecos liked this man, saw in him the clean-fighting Ranger. He saw, too, that he was the object of such scrutiny as seldom fell upon him.

“Mind letting me see your gun?”

“Captain, thet’s somethin’ I don’t do. But in yore case — —”

Pecos handed the gun over, butt foremost. McKinney received it with the thoughtful air of a man who knew what guns meant to Texans. He examined the butt.

“Seven notches — all old,” he observed.

“Wal, Captain, reckon I could have added three more lately, but I had reason to quit.”

The Ranger Captain returned the gun, also butt foremost.

“Smith, I’ve heard good and bad aboot you.”

“I reckon. I’ve lived sort of a reckless vaquero life.”

“Smith, could you by any chance be related to Bradington Smith? He was on the Ranger force before the war.”

“Yes. Brad was my uncle.”

“You don’t say. That’s interesting. You come of an old Texas family.... Smith, I have a letter here somewhere aboot you,” said McKinney, searching among a pile of papers. “Here it is. From a cattleman who ranges over the New Mexico line. Sawtell — Breen Sawtell. Do you know him?”

“Wal, I reckon I did,” replied Pecos, coolly. In spite of his earnestness and his unforgettable relation and duty to Terrill, he reacted subtly and coldly to this approach.

“Like to read the letter?”

“No. I can tell yu just what’s in it, Captain.”

“Well, do so. Give me your angle. I don’t mind telling you that it’s through this letter you were shadowed by my men.”

“I reckoned thet. How’d they know me?”

“Slinger knows you. Jeff Slinger. I’m glad to add that he swears he doesn’t believe one word of this letter.”

“Jeff Slinger! — Is he a Ranger?”

“He certainly is. Ten years’ service.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned. He never said so. I helped him in a scrape with some greaser hoss thieves some years ago. Just happened to run into him. We camped some days on the Rio Grande.”

“It may stand you in good stead. What’s your angle on this Sawtell letter?”

“He was tryin’ to hide his tracks, Captain,” replied Pecos, and briefly related Sawtell’s relations to Williams and Adams, and how he operated.

“That fits in perfectly with some information I got not long ago from a trail driver. We’d better look this Sawtell up.”

“Wal, Captain, if yu do yu’ll have to dig him up,” replied Pecos, with a grim laugh.

“How so?” queried the Ranger, though he understood perfectly well.

“Sawtell’s daid.”

“You shot him!”

“Captain, I’d like to deny the doubtful honor, but I cain’t.”

“Perhaps you better tell me aboot that — if you will.”

Pecos necessarily had to make this a longer narrative and he slighted nothing, though he did not go into detail about the Lambeth Ranch nor did he care to give any impression of a large amount of money.

“There were witnesses to this visit of Sawtell’s?”

“Yes. Before I arrived an’ after.”

“The negroes and this young Lambeth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That is well for you, in case there ever is a comeback. But that does not seem likely to happen.... Smith, is the boy my Rangers saw with you this young Lambeth?”

“It’s young Lambeth, all right. I’d shore like to fetch him in, Captain.”

“Do so, by all means.”

In his relief and exuberance Pecos ran up to Terrill’s room to bang upon the door.

“Who’s there?”

“Pecos. Rustle.”

Evidently Terrill had been sitting on the floor. She opened the door with a boot in one hand. All the rest of the new things she had on. And if she did not look bewitching, Pecos knew he had some magnifying ailment of his eyes.

“How do I look?” she beamed, eagerly.

“Wal, girl, I’d hate to say,” he replied. “‘Cause it might go to yore haid.... Heah, let me pull on thet boot.”

“It’s new — and a little tight.... Ouch! ... Pecos, are you shore I’m — —”

“Heah. Don’t climb all over me. You’ll muss yoreself. Leave the jacket off.... There. Now you’re a girl in spite of them pants.... Come to look at them, though, any man with eyes could see — —”

“I won’t wear them,” flashed Terrill.

“Honey, yu got to, or we cain’t go on.”

“Then don’t hint and don’t look,” she pouted. “Here — where are you taking me?”

“Terrill, I’ve had some more good luck. There’s a Ranger Captain heah. I went in to see him. Reckoned it a good idee to tell aboot Sawtell. Wal, he was fine. An’ he asked to see young Lambeth.”

“Young Lambeth!”

“Some of his Rangers saw you with me. Took you for a boy. An’ I didn’t give it away. Oh, this will be fun. Now, Terrill, you be just as sweet an’ nice as you know how. Put on a lot of — of swank. Savvy? It won’t do me no harm.”

Terrill seemed quick to divine that there had been something amiss and her spirit rose to meet it.

At Pecos’ knock he was bidden to come in. The Ranger sat at his table.

“Captain McKinney, heah’s my pard, young Lambeth,” announced Pecos, and he certainly reveled in McKinney’s stare.

“How do you do, Captain McKinney?” said Terrill, with just the right tone of deference.

Hastily the Ranger stood up, as if his eyes were poor while sitting. He certainly used them. “Young Lambeth! — Ah! ... Er. How do you do? ... Say Smith, this is no boy!”

“Captain, I didn’t say young Lambeth was a boy,” drawled Pecos. “She’s a girl, all right. Terrill Lambeth.”

“Oh! — My mistake. Well, I — I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Lambeth,” he replied, making Terrill a gallant bow. His eyes shone with pleasure succeeding amaze. “Do you ride rodeo today?”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Captain McKinney,” replied Terrill, shyly. “You see, I’ve been a boy for a long time, and we couldn’t find any women’s clothes to fit, so I kept right on.”

McKinney was plainly mystified as well as captivated.

“Terrill Lambeth? ... Well, I remember that name Lambeth. Are you any kin to Colonel Templeton Lambeth?”

“His daughter,” replied Terrill.

“Well, of all things!” exclaimed the Captain, profoundly stirred. “His daughter! ... Templeton Lambeth and I were friends. We went through the war together. I never heard of him afterward. Where is he?”

“He is daid, Captain,” returned Terrill, gazing away through the window. “He was murdered.... After the war, my mother being daid, and Dad ruined, we drove to West Texas, and settled on the Pecos River below Horsehead Crossing. I was nearly fifteen then.... It was a lonely place, our ranch. But wonderful for cattle-raising, until the rustlers came.... Nearly two years ago they murdered Dad. Made it look like the work of Comanches. Of course I have no proof, but I believe Breen Sawtell and his partner, Don Felipe, were behind it. They tried to steal me, as they did my cattle, and they would have done so but for Pecos here.”

“I am shocked, saddened,” declared McKinney. “Yet so glad to get news of Temple.... What a story! Oh, that is Texas of these hard years.... And you lived on alone there in that wild Pecos country? It’s almost incredible for a girl of your class.”

“Alone except for my negroes, Sambo and Mauree, until Pecos came last spring. And you must remember, no one knew I was a girl.”

Pecos drawlingly interposed: “Captain, young Lambeth is goin’ to be Mrs. James Pecos Smith.”

“I wondered. I had a hunch.... Of all the romances! ... Terrill, I congratulate you. I wish you happiness. But — but is this Pecos fellow — —”

The Captain halted in grave embarrassment.

“Captain McKinney, if he had not been Pecos Smith he never could have saved me,” replied Terrill, lifting her head with pride. Love and faith did not need to be spoken.

“Terrill, I am glad he is Pecos Smith,” returned McKinney, with strong feeling. “I believe my old friend would be glad, too.”

Then he turned to Pecos to extend a hand.

“You will marry the best blood of Texas.... You will get one of the most lovely girls I ever saw.... I swear she is as good and fine as she is beautiful.... Do you realize your wonderful fortune? ... You gun-throwing vaquero — come of an old Texas family, too! ... What luck! What duty! Pecos, I hope to God you rise to your opportunity.”

“Captain, I’m shore prayin’ for thet myself,” responded Pecos, slowly and with emotion.

* * * * *

Later Pecos went out to purchase guns, rifles, shells, knives, all of the newest designs, and sadly needed wearing apparel for himself, two new saddles and various other articles.

And Pecos met settlers, trail drivers, cattlemen, ranchers from whom he learned many things. The settlers, perhaps, profited as much from the meeting as Pecos. He encountered Jeff Slinger again and they became friends. Captain McKinney devoted himself to their service, and was especially kind to Terrill. When he went away, having ended his duties there, he left Slinger and another Ranger, an experienced Indian-fighter named Johnson, to go back with Pecos on the long drive with the cattle.

Slinger knew of a cattleman named Hudson who ran stock out on the Frio River, and could be bought out. He was a bachelor, getting well along in years, and wanted a little peace and freedom from rustlers. Slinger had happened to encounter this cattleman in Rockport during Pecos’ stay. The result was a meeting. Hudson appeared to be a hawk-eyed old plainsman from Brazos country and at once inspired confidence.

“Wal, I got aboot two thousand haid left — the finest breed of long-horns I ever had,” Hudson said.

“Would yu sell?” asked Pecos.

“Reckon I would long ago if I’d known what to do with the boys. I’ve got two nephews who’ve been brought up on hosses, an’ ridin’ cattle is their especial dish.”

“Ahuh. How many cowhands besides these boys?”

“Two. They ben with me long an’ I shore hate to see them go up the trail with the drivers. Dodge an’ Abilene are bad medicine.”

“Would these four hands fit in with the kind of outfit I want?”

“An’ what’s thet?”

“A young, sober, hard-ridin’, straight-shootin’ outfit to run cattle with me West of the Pecos.”

“West of the Pecos! ... Wal, Smith, I don’t believe you could beat these four boys in all Texas.”

“If I take them will yu sell?”

“Reckon I will. I can get ten dollars a haid at Dodge.”

“Shore, but thet’s there.”

“Wal, to get down to bed-rock.... Eight dollars, Smith.”

A deal was made. Slinger promised to find two more cowhands that he could absolutely guarantee. These were to go home with Hudson, and the herd was to be rounded up, and made ready for Pecos’ arrival, when he would pay his debt and go on.

“Course thet means Horsehaid Crossin’,” he pondered.

“Smith, it’s your best bet. The west trail is not so good. Grazed off in places. Water little an’ far between. My range is way at the haid of the Frio. You have a good road an’ fine conditions this season all the way to the old Spanish trail thet takes off west for the Pecos. With eight good men beside yourself, all well armed, you needn’t worry none aboot Indians. An’ you won’t lose a steer.”

“Done. I’m much obliged, Hudson.”

It took vastly more time to consider what else to buy and take back to Lambeth Ranch. Pecos wanted a home for Terrill and all the comforts possible to pack into the wilderness. For two days he had Terrill’s pretty head buzzing. Yet in spite of her glee and enthusiasm, when it came down to selections she rendered a vast and sensible help.

Pecos bought three wagons, one new and the others second-hand, and twelve horses, all of which were acquired at a low figure. But when these three larger vehicles were loaded to the seats they represented several thousand dollars in value, not including Terrill’s precious treasures. What with Pecos’ armament, and food supplies for a year, furniture, tools, bedding, lumber, leather goods, boots, clothing, utensils, lamps, oil, and so many other needful articles that Pecos could not remember them all, the wagons were heavily laden.

“Gosh! My hair shore raises when I think of crossin’ the river with these loads,” ejaculated Pecos, in mingled concern and hope.

“Wal, yore hair might be raised afore we git thar,” remarked Johnson, dryly.

At last they left Rockport early one morning with Slinger and Johnson each driving a wagon, and Pecos the third, with Cinco haltered behind. Terrill, back in her old blue jeans and jacket, and a battered old sombrero she had picked up somewhere, astride her buckskin mustang, rode beside Pecos for all the world, to his glad eyes, a boy again.

CHAPTER XVI

HUDSON’S RANGE TOOK in the headwaters of the Rio Frio, and it was a rugged beautiful country that captivated Pecos’ eye.

The very day Pecos arrived with his three wagons buffalo were sighted in the wonderful sheltered valley where Pecos’ two thousand long-horns had been grazing. Buffalo seldom traveled west so far as the Rio Pecos, but according to Hudson isolated herds, probably separated by the hunters from the main body, often wandered up the Frio. Even before Pecos had arrived a buffalo hunt had been planned for him.

Hudson’s ranch-house betrayed the bachelor and one who was used to the elemental life. It was located up in a pass, between two round-top hills, where the wind blew eternally. Terrill vowed it would have driven her crazy.

“Why wind!” ejaculated the old Texan, in surprise. “It wouldn’t be home without wind.”

“Lord! what’d a norther do heah?” replied Pecos. “Hudson, we live down in a canyon where it seldom blows. No dust. Never very cold, even when the northers blow.”

“Wal, no one man can hope to know the whole of Texas,” returned the rancher.

On first sight Pecos formed a most satisfying estimate of the outfit he had hired through Jeff Slinger and Hudson. The brothers, John and Abe Slaughter, were typical Texans, born on the range, stalwart six-footers, almost like twins. Texas Jack was a bullet-headed, jolly-featured, bow-legged cowhand who appeared to be one it might be well to have as a friend, and never as an enemy. Lovelace Hall was an extremely tall Texan, red-headed, and dark-eyed, an unusual type in Pecos’ experience, and said to be “hell on hosses, cows an’ other ornery things.” These two had been trail drivers and had been secured by Slinger. Hudson’s other two cowmen were strikingly different, as one was a Mexican vaquero and the other a negro. Lano, the former, was a slim lizard-like rider, darker than an Indian, stamped all over with incomparable horsemanship. The negro answered to the name Louisiana. In fact, Hudson had no other for him. He was medium- sized, but magnificently muscled, and had a pleasing, handsome face. These completed the sextette, and Pecos, seldom at a loss to gauge men, was greatly pleased.

“Fellers,” he said, intimately, “before we come to terms I have this to say. Accordin’ to Hudson, none of yu know Texas West of the Pecos. I wouldn’t be square with yu if I didn’t say it’s a hell of a tough nut to crack. Hard all the time, harder in winter, an’ turrible in summer. Lonesome as no other part of Texas. Even L’lano Estacado ain’t so lonesome. Gray, rocky, scaly ridges runnin’ forever down to the Pecos an’ away on the other side. A buzzard now an’ then, or a coyote, an’ rarer a deer. Wild hosses on the lower reaches, but few along the fifty miles of my ranges. Comanches always, Kiowas an’ Apaches occasionally. Soldiers few and far between. Rustlers bad an’ comin’ thicker. We’ll have to fight. No law except an old geezer named Judge Bean at Eagle’s Nest, an’ he’s a highway robber.”

Pecos rested a moment to catch his breath and to let all that sink in.

“But West of the Pecos it’s the grandest cow-country on the face of the earth. I am aimin’ big. I know the game. I have the grass, the water, the start in cattle. What I need is a fightin’, hell-rattlin’, hard-shelled outfit. I’d be grateful alone for yu drivin’ this new herd out there for me. But I want yu all to stick. There is a future out there for the right kind of men. If I make out big — as I shore could do with yu fellers all keen an’ hot on the prod — I will give yu an interest, or help you to make a start yoreselves. An’ for the present I’ll pay yu more than yu’re earnin’ heah. Thet’s all. Think it over while we’re gettin’ acquainted.”

Later Hudson told Pecos that he had overheard Lovelace Hall say to his comrades: “Fellers, we’ve nothin’ to lose an’ everythin’ to gain. Thet talk of Pecos Smith’s was as straight as Slinger says he can shoot.”

Next day they hunted buffalo as shy as wild mules, which were the wildest animals Pecos had ever hunted. Six bulls were killed, two by the Ranger Johnson, who knew the game. The cowhands accounted for three, and the other fell to Pecos and Terrill.

Pecos disclaimed the credit and Terrill did likewise.

“Wal, if I didn’t see Terrill stagger thet bull my eyes are pore,” remarked Hudson, with a twinkle in those members. “An’ it shore fell before it got near enough to Smith for a last shot.”

“Terrill, yu get that robe,” drawled Pecos.

“What aboot all the robes an’ the meat? I cain’t use any more. Besides, I’m leavin’ for Santone.”

“Dog-gone! I never thought of packin’ hides an’ meat,” declared Pecos. “We just haven’t got the room. Hudson, will yu sell me a wagon an’ team?”

“No. But I’ll throw them in the bargain.”

Half of the next day was taken up in skinning and cutting up the buffalo. And on the following day, at sunrise, Pecos’ caravan of wagons, riders, and cattle set out on the long slow drive.

It was a leisurely procedure for the wagons, at least. Pecos drove one of the teams and Terrill sat on the wagon with him. They talked and planned, and made love, and dreamed of the future, and marveled at the long string of cattle grazing ahead, not so wild a bunch as was usual with that breed. The slow pace made Terrill drowsy, and finally, when Pecos rested the horses at the foot of a hill, she went to sleep. When she awoke the first thing she did was to make sure that her precious trunk was still on the wagon, carefully hidden and protected.

“Pecos Smith, if we run into Comanches and they get my trunk — you lose me,” she averred.

“If they go thet far you bet yore sweet life we’ll all be daid.”

“We’re going to be raided. I feel it in my bones.”

“Terrill darlin’, Comanches ride usually in bunches of thirty or forty. What chance would such a bunch have with this outfit, heeled like we are?”

Long before sunset the day’s drive ended. The camp site was ideal; Pecos could look afar to the west and see the dim ghosts of the mountains, somewhere beyond the lower brakes of the river. The cowhands, eating supper in relays of three, were happy, which augured well for the state of the herd. With this the case, with grass and water abundant, and wood for fire and Terrill singing, Pecos gazed at the evening star and thought it was rising for him.

The next day, as far as action and result were concerned, seemed like the first. And so, one after another the slow days accumulated with only minor mishaps that occasioned no delay. The weather stayed fine, cold at night, stinging at dawn, warm at midday.

“Pecos, do you ever stop to think how — how strange and natural a long drive gets to be?” queried Terrill, dreamily.

“Don’t I? Ha! It’s life, Terrill, an’ with yu it’s heaven.”

“Pecos Smith, I don’t believe I could bake biscuits without you getting sentimental,” she retorted.

“Wal, yu’ll have to show me aboot the biscuits.”

But he understood her. There grew to be something beautiful in such a long ride into wild country. The anticipation and labor of preparation, the endless gossip of accident, weather, scant grass and water, savages, the worries about what might happen and never did happen, the gradual fading away of the influence of towns and people — these things ceased magically to loom and were eventually forgotten. Storms and floods, stampedes and Indians, certainly could and did disrupt the peaceful tenor of such days as these. Terrill ceased to mention them; she even forgot her trunkful of delights that revived the memories of her old home. And Pecos dreamed while he watched the horizon.

He would have preferred to dream in his saddle, because the wagon seat was hard and uncomfortable and he was a poor teamster. Nevertheless, no journeying of his down into the wilderness had ever been comparable to this. The sun rose red, shone pale at noon, gold at eventide, and that was another day. That long-horn herd might have been especially trained for him. What little trouble they gave! How few had strayed! He had to award all praise to his riders.

Day by day the landscape imperceptibly changed. A mile was an atom on that vast western upheaval of Texas, yet to keen eyes each mile told of the approach toward the more barren regions that sheered north to the Staked Plains, and west to the brakes of the Pecos. Yet still there was good water to be had, and fair grazing. Pecos’ herd gained weight. Now and then a bleached skull of a steer, ghastly reminder of less fortunate drives, gleamed under the pale sun.

A day came, however, that stood out like a landmark. The caravan cut off from old Fort McKavett toward the military road that stretched west toward the Horsehead Crossing of the Pecos. This sheering off was, of itself, a stirring change. But when Terrill came radiant of eye to cry out: “Oh, Pecos, I know this road! I remember the hills. I came by here .... I will show you the old camps .... It seems so long ago .... Oh, Pecos!”

Downgrade all day they drove, with the cattle moving faster, owing to a thinning of the grass. And that night they made dry camp, the first of the long drive. Next day they crossed water, and on the third made Dove Creek. A thicketed bottomland, with a clear stream, held the stock.

Terrill showed Pecos where she had slept in the wagon. She remembered a tree where she had sat at twilight, melancholy and sad, longing for home yet never wanting to go back, pondering doubtfully over the future, fearful of the ever-growing wildness of this dark-gray stone ledged land.

“Oh, I cried so hard,” said Terrill, her eyes picturing that past hour. “It was a day when all had gone wrong. Dear old Dad — so seldom discouraged! But this day he was down, and I went down too. I could not see any hope in the future — anything but dreadful pain and loneliness.... Oh, Pecos, how terribly wrong I was! What a child! ... Oh, if I had ever dreamed then that I was to meet you, love you, be loved by you — I would not have cried myself sick that day.”

“Terrill, what do yu suppose I would have done in the past, if I’d ever dreamed I was to meet yu, love yu, be loved by yu?” returned Pecos, in a passion of regret. “I never dreamed of a yu, darlin’, yet somethin’ kept me from goin’ plumb to hell.”

Another day set Pecos’ caravan on the old military road.

The sun hazed over. There was a chill in the air and a wind rustled the brush. No living creature of the wild crossed Pecos’ vision. The coyotes had ceased following the herd. Something, perhaps an instinct, encroached the leisurely travel. Pecos felt a slight restlessness. Despite the weeks and leagues behind, the way still was long. The horses lagged less; the cattle plodded on sometimes without looking for grazing. That night at Kinway Creek, after the best and longest day’s journey of the trip, the cowmen did not sing on guard or joke around the camp fire.

Johnson had picked up Indian mustang tracks not many days old.

Pecos decided to put Louisiana on the wagon and take to the saddle next day. He talked with Jeff and Johnson.

“Wal, it ain’t anythin’ to see Indian signs,” said Slinger. “Not up heah, anyway. The land is shore heavin’ an’ grayin’ for the Staked Plains.”

Johnson was not sanguine. He did not appear to be a talkative man. Pecos decided the chances were ever that they would have a brush with the Indians. The Slaughter boys and Lovelace Hall were out on night guard. Texas Jack lay asleep in his blanket, his head on his saddle. Lano and Louisiana stood beside the fire, toasting one side, then the other.

Pecos walked away from camp toward where the herd rested and slept. In the main the steers were quiet. Calves born on the way bawled drearily. Travel was hard on them. The guards sat their horses, or rode to and fro, to edge in a stray. All seemed well. It was only the silent night, the cold wind, the encroaching monotony, the long, long way.

Terrill was still awake. She called to Pecos as he was passing. The little tent was just barely large enough for her bed and duffle.

“Lady, one bad thing aboot you, anyhow, is yu cain’t sleep with yore boots on,” said Pecos, reflectively, as he sat on the bed. Terrill had felt for his hand and found it.

“Pecos, you are worried,” she whispered.

“Not atall, dear. But I’m just thoughtful.”

“Well, the men are. I heard Johnson talking to Slinger. But how much easier we are than Dad’s outfit when it camped here years ago. Pecos, I think the country grows on you.”

“Ahuh. Wish we could drill right on instead of waitin’ for the cattle.”

“But we cain’t. All our hopes are in that herd. Pecos, I feel like Mauree when she has ‘second sight,’ as Sambo calls it. We are going to get across.”

“Shore we are, honey. Dog-gone, but yore a game kid. I don’t mind admittin’ thet it’s yu I buckle on. But for yu, this drive would be apple pie. Last day or so it’s come home to me. Yu’re the real stuff, Terrill. But yu’re a woman, an’ no man ought to risk yu on this cussed Hosshaid Trail.”

“Dad risked me. All the settlers risk their wives and daughters. We can’t be left behind. Besides, Pecos dear, don’t you exaggerate this woman idea? I can ride and I can shoot. I’m not the least bit afraid. I will not be in the way. And I’ll bet I can keep my haid under better than you.”

Pecos rose with a fervent: “Thet’s just it, Terrill. Yore nerve, yore spirit, yore faith. Yu beat me all hollow. ‘Cause yu have other an’ finer feelin’s. More courage. Thet’s what kills me.... I’m prayin’ Gawd to see yu through safe.... Good- night!”

Dead Man’s Water Hole was the next camp, reached late in the evening of a dark and dismal day. If a norther threatened, it did not materialize. That night Pecos stood hours on guard at camp, giving way to Slinger after midnight. Wolves mourned from the ridges above the restless herd. There were four cowhands on duty. Terrill was awake when Pecos noiselessly crept past the little tent. She called a good-night to him. Then he sought his own bed under a tree.

One more day to Wild China Water Holes, then a long drive to Horsehead Crossing. That second day would be the rub. Again the signs of Indian mustangs had perturbed Pecos. And in the morning Johnson informed him that a score or more of Kiowas or Comanches had camped right on that spot two, or at the most, three, days ago.

“Take charge, Johnson,” replied Pecos, curtly.

Lano was fetching in the saddle horses; it was Texas Jack’s day with the cooking chores; Slinger was greasing the wagon wheels; Johnson strode off to a high point with his field-glass; the cattle grazed down the road.

A wintry sun shone fitfully through the dreary clouds and lighted the winding road down toward the Pecos. Out of the gray blur showed dark-spotted hills and blank spaces and white streaks, all forbidding, all the menace of the Pecos.

At breakfast Johnson unfolded his first surprise. “Men, we’ll stay heah today, rest an’ graze the stock. Everybody sleep some. We’ll make the long drive into Hosshaid tonight.”

It was a wise move, no doubt, but it enhanced suspense and wore upon all. Pecos had to find what work offered to counteract his restlessness. He was no trail driver, and he marveled at those doughty Texans who had endured the waits, the stampedes, the toils and fights of the Chisholm Trail.

Terrill, however, slept at least half the day. When she was about camp she seemed quiet, a little strained, but always that ready, beautiful smile flashed for Pecos.

At sunset the caravan was on the move, with the cattle far in the lead. Terrill rode her mustang and kept close to Pecos. Lano returned on a scout far back along the road. The sun came out dully red before setting and the barren world grew ruddy. Then it faded under a steely twilight and black night.

No stars showed. The black hills stood up against a dark sky. The wagon wheels rolled downgrade and sometimes the brakes creaked startlingly. The herd walked and trotted three miles an hour, never being allowed to graze. The dumb brutes were silent, as if they knew of the stampedes and massacres that had occurred on this lonely road.

Terrill sat her mustang for ten dark hours, without complaint, and when the gray dawn began to lighten she had a reassuring smile for the anxious Pecos.

Word came back to halt the wagons.

“Hosshaid Crossin’, Terrill,” exclaimed Pecos, huskily. “Now, if we can only cross I’ll ask no more.”

It was almost daylight when Johnson rode back alone. Pecos needed only one glance at the Ranger, even in the gloom.

“We cain’t hold the herd,” he said. “They smell water. They’ll go down an’ drink, scatter shore, an’ mebbe stampede.”

“What’s the deal?” asked Pecos.

“Drive the wagons off the road, down behind thet bank of brush. Take Terrill, Louisiana, Jack, an’ Lovelace, an’ climb thet bluff there. Take water, grub, plenty of shells. An’ hide in the rocks till we come back.”

* * * * *

A few minutes later when the gray gloom began to show objects dimly at a distance, Pecos had his several followers upon the low bluff to which he had been directed.

The flat summit with its rim of broken rock and fringe of brush was just about large enough to afford protection to a party of six. Pecos was swift to appreciate it as a natural defense. A few good shots with an abundance of ammunition could hold it against a considerable force without undue risk. It stood somewhat above the road and about two hundred yards or more distant. Behind was a deep ravine. To the west the land dropped off to the gray thicket-patched valley of the Pecos. On the left sheered down the brushy ravine in which the wagons had been fairly well concealed. At least they would have to be searched for, and considering that they were close under the bluff, it would go rather hard for the discoverers.

“Terrill, yu lay low behind this rock,” ordered Pecos. “An’ if yu get careless I’ll bang yu on the haid.”

“Don’t worry, Pecos,” she retorted.

“Wal, I’m worried already. Cain’t yu see this means a scrap? ... Jack, yu watch the river side.”

“Si Señor,” replied Texas Jack, crawling toward his stand.

“Lovelace, yu an’ Louisiana face the road. An’ now let’s all get set for whatever Johnson has a hunch aboot.”

Day had broken, meanwhile, a morning with good visibility, but no indication of sunshine. It was still too early for sunrise, though by this time there should have been a ruddy glow on the horizon. But the east was black.

Pecos felt a reluctance to look at the river. If he had ever felt love for this God-forsaken secret river that feeling was in abeyance now. Nevertheless, he raised himself to peep over the rock, quite aware of Terrill’s tugging remonstrance. There! The well-remembered river-sweep in the shape of a horse’s head. It gleamed dark in the cold morning light. It meandered out of gray obscurity into the wide open break of the valley and meandered on into the gray confines. That river had a treacherous soul. It seemed to know that this ford was the only sure one for hundreds of miles, that in itself and the few fountains it drained out of the stony earth, there hid the only allaying of thirst for beast and man in all that aloof and inscrutable country.

It was this soul, this sublime arrogance in its power, that lay like a mantle over the endless banks of sand, its gray ridges, its patches of green. For that dominated.

Up from the river thin pale lines, broken here and there, paralleled the road. Bleached bones. Skulls of cattle. For three hundred years, ever since the Spaniards had staked off the stark and deadly L’lano Estacado, cattle had perished there. They had dropped within sight of the river they had killed themselves to reach. It was a place where death stalked. No Indian teepee, no herder’s tent, no cowman’s stone shack, no habitation had ever marked Horsehead Crossing. Men had to cross the Pecos there, but they shunned it as a pestilence. As it had been, so would it always be, used but hated, a dire necessity. On the sunniest of days this place could not but repel. And on this drear dawn the dominance of loneliness and solitude, with its attributes of ghastly gray, prevailed to weigh down the heart of man, to warn him that nature respected only survival; to appall his sight with desolation, to flaunt the invisible shadow of the Pecos over all.

“Look, boss,” whispered Texas Jack.

There was that in the vaquero’s voice which caused Pecos to start and duck down to roll over to the watcher’s side, a matter of six feet.

“Kiowas,” whispered Jack.

Through a crack in the rock they could see into a ravine that paralleled the road. It curved round the mound from behind and had a high fringe of brush on the left bank. In fact the narrow gully could not be seen from the road. Jack’s finger indicated this place, which was no doubt one of the coverts the Indians used to ambush travelers.

“Bunch sneakin’ up the gully,” whispered Jack. “Leadin’ their hosses. They’re behind the brush now.”

Pecos beckoned Lovelace and Louisiana to crawl over on this side of the narrow space. And he had to make a fierce gesture to keep Terrill from following suit.

“Where’n hell did Johnson an’ his outfit go?” queried Pecos, impatiently.

“Boss, you can bet they’re watchin’ them Injuns,” replied Texas Jack. “Johnson was a buffalo-hunter an’ Injun-fighter before he became a Ranger. He’s had fights with Comanches right heah, an’ he’s up to their tricks.”

“Last night’s drive put us right, boss,” interposed Lovelace. “Shore as shootin’ these redskins never expected us till tonight. An’ they’ve just heerd an’ seen our cattle. So they’re sneakin’ up to see what it’s all aboot.”

“Boss, I see color again,” whispered Texas Jack, pointing. “Hey, keep your noodle low.”

Pecos had been searching the lower end of the gully, which part was within rifle range of their position. But it was toward the farther end that Texas Jack pointed.

Suddenly Pecos’ burning eyes caught a movement of something through the bushy bend of the gully.

“I see ’em, boss,” whispered Lovelace, as cool as if he had just espied some deer they were hunting.

“How aboot you, Louisiana?”

“I’se sho waitin’ fer orders, boss,” replied the negro vaquero.

It increased Pecos’ excitement and impatience to realize that all his men had gotten a line on these skulking savages before he had. Yet their positions behind the rocks were not markedly different. Pecos had kept his gaze glued to that brushy bend, behind which the movement and color had disappeared. Then so easily did a bunch of lean redskinned forms creep into view that Pecos had to stifle a yelp.

“Kiowas, all right,” said Texas Jack, in a low voice. “Wasn’t shore, but now I am. I know them birds. Suits me they ain’t Comanches.”

“Hold on, boys. Thet’s a long shot for these rifles,” warned Pecos. “We might spoil Johnson’s idee, whatever thet is.”

“There ain’t so many in thet bunch,” whispered Lovelace.

“Aboot a dozen, but shore there’s more around thet bend,” rejoined Jack. “Looks to me like it’s taps fer these reddys.”

“Taps. What’s thet, Jack?” asked Pecos.

“Boss, I served three years in the army.”

“Ahuh. An’ thet’s where yu had yore Injun-fightin’?”

“Most of it. But I rode with — Say, look, boss. Look!”

“Yes, I see. Somethin’ scared ’em. They was leary enough before.”

“More comin’ along. Must be twenty.... Wal, if Johnson has draped his outfit where I reckon he has the boot will shore be on the other foot.”

Pecos watched the dark line of Kiowas with mingled emotions.

“I see them, Pecos,” whispered Terrill, tremulously.

“Be careful, yu little devil,” ordered Pecos. He did not see how she could be any more careful, as she was lying flat and peeping low down between brush-screened rocks. She should have been thoroughly frightened, but she was not. She had her new rifle and did not look averse to breaking it in.

Then Pecos sheered his gaze back to the Kiowas. From some source they had become acquainted with imminent peril. Their first movements had indicated that they were bent on ambushing the drivers of the cattle herd now spilling over the banks of the river. But now there had come a great difference. First Pecos had noted the arrival of a lean tall Kiowa, evidently a leader, for as he glided round the bend the others wheeled to him. What violent, eloquent, significant gestures! They might have been surrounded, to judge from this chief’s expressive arms and hand. From the ambushers they might have become ambushed. Still it was evident that they still believed that they were unseen. They were particularly apprehensive of the winding sweep of the ravine below. But to Pecos’ position they paid scant attention. For one thing, it was too far distant to be a menace, and secondly it was from the river that they sensed danger.

“Funny deal, ain’t it?” queried Texas Jack, amused. “The reds are goin’ to get a dose of their own medicine, an’ I’d say it was aboot time.”

“If Johnson drives them down thet gully or up on the road this way it’s — —”

“Boss,” interrupted Louisiana, “I sho seen somethin’ black bob up ober de bank. Sho’s I libe it wuz one of dem Slaughter boys’ noggins.”

“Where?” queried Pecos. What was the matter with his eyes, anyway, that he could discover nothing? One distraction was caused by the slender Terrill lying prone behind him. His attention was divided.

“Way down de gully, boss,” replied Louisiana.

“Look out yu don’t take one of our outfit for a redskin,” warned Pecos. “There! ... My gosh! it’s Abe Slaughter. He’s wavin’ his hat at us.”

“So he is. Thet’s to post us to his whereaboots. Wal, Abe, we’re wise, but yu gotta guess it ‘cause we cain’t get up heah an’ dance for yu.”

“Two fellers thar, boss. Both the Slaughter boys,” said Lovelace.

“Thet leaves Johnson, Slinger, an’ Lano somewhere else,” mused Pecos. Then he glanced back at Terrill. She gave him a bright look from her darkly purple eyes. “Terrill, somebody shore will open the ball soon, but we want to keep out of the dance at first.”

“Thet’s a good idee, boss,” agreed Texas Jack. “‘Cause if them Kiowas come pilin’ either down the gully or the road under us it’ll be most damn bad for them.”

“They won’t go down the gully,” averred Lovelace. “They’ll be quick to get lines on where the shootin’ is comin’ from. An’ they’ll break away in the other direction.”

“Darn if Johnson didn’t figger this nice,” ejaculated Pecos, gratefully.

“Boss, them Kiowas has given up ambushin’ us,” rejoined Jack, gleefully. “If it just ain’t too slick for anythin’!”

Pecos entertained something of the same enthusiastic acclaim of Johnson’s coup. It was easy to see through the situation now.

The Kiowas had gotten wind of Pecos’ caravan or some other, and had proceeded on to Horsehead Crossing, where the facilities for ambush were particularly favorable. All day long they would have had lookouts on the watch for cattle in the distance. But Johnson’s night drive had been an innovation. These savages had been in camp somewhere back from the river and had been surprised by a vanguard of cattle at daybreak. Whereupon they had made haste for their ambush, only to meet with uncertain and puzzling circumstances which now had augmented to either hearing or sight of white men who were hunting instead of hunted men.

Obviously the three avenues of escape were up and down the gully, both of which the Kiowas showed a decided reluctance to approach, and the high brushy bank to the road, which they likewise feared because it might bring them into sight of enemies located behind the high bare bank toward the river.

Pecos’ sharp eyes caught stealthy movement of one Kiowa scout working under the lea of the bank down the gully. No doubt the same reconnoitering was being done in the other direction.

“Ah — h!” came from Texas Jack.

Pecos saw a puff of bluish-white smoke spout from behind the bank at the head of the gully. Next instant, crack! went a rifle.

“She’s opened, boys,” said Pecos, grimly.

“Pick your partner,” added Lovelace.

“No. Hold your fire. Wow! Listen to thet!”

Five or six heavy rifle-shots spread along the bank, and instantly pandemonium broke loose down in the gully. The horrid screams and snorts of wounded and frightened mustangs, the threshing, hideous war-cries and gunshots. Pecos saw Indians stagger and fall into the brush before a dust cloud obscured that bend of the gully behind which the Kiowas had concentrated.

“They’ll break an’ run, fellers,” said Texas Jack, disgustedly, “an’ we won’t git a chance.”

“Sho will. They’re gonna come by heah,” replied Louisiana.

“Let’s pile down an’ bust ’em comin’ up,” suggested Lovelace.

“Say, yu roosters, listen to the boss,” declared Pecos. Indian-fighting had been out of his line. What a fire-eating outfit he had collected! It added mightily to the thrill of the moment.

“Pecos, come here,” piped up Terrill, just as coolly as either of the three who had spoken. “I see horses breaking the brush down there.”

He lost no time crawling to Terrill’s side. After that first heavy volley the shooting from the gully had become desultory. Smoke and dust hid the bend. Johnson’s men were pouring as rapid fire as possible into that cloud.

“Look out, Abe, old boy, or you’ll git it,” said Texas Jack, from his side.

“Damn fool! What’s he want to show himself thet way for?” ejaculated Lovelace.

“I doan see no more arrers,” added Louisiana.

Pecos had marked the flight of arrows, like swallows streaking up from the gully, but in the excitement he had not made note of when this defense ceased. From beside Terrill he could not see down into all the gully. She had a perfectly steady finger pointing toward the heavy thicket of brush that lined the road. It was not altogether Terrill’s finger that directed Pecos’ attention to the important spot, but a shaking of brush, and then lean, dark, wild heads of mustangs.

“Heah, boys, quick,” called Pecos, sharply. “They’re shore goin’ to make a dash.” The three men crawled swiftly to his side. “Now look. See thet yellow rock with the cow skull stickin’ on top? — Look beyond it a hundred steps, mebbe, on this side of the road where — —”

“Whoopee! I got ’em,” shouted Jack, under his breath.

“Me too! — Gosh, if they was only closer!”

“Dey’s close enuff fer dis nigger,” remarked Louisiana, dryly. “I sho doan lub dem red debbils.”

“Terrill, yu shore did a good piece of scout work,” said Pecos, with great pride. “Heah I been thinkin’ aboot yore blueblooded grandmother an’ the delicate feelin’s yu inherited! An’ all the time yu’re one of them greatest of women — a Texas pioneer’s wife-to-be!”

“Haw! Haw! She’s shore Texas, all right, boss,” declared Jack.

“I reckon from this heah day she’ll be Texas Terrill,” drawled Lovelace.

“She doan gib me no creeps,” added the negro vaquero. And thus the status of Terrill seemed established by practical hard men during a time of stress, at the wildest place along the wild Pecos.

The shooting ceased. No doubt Johnson’s men were expecting the Kiowa band to burst out somewhere from under that pall of dust.

All of a sudden the dark, lean mustangs leaped out of the brush into the road.

“They’re comin’,” called Pecos, stridently. “Wait! — It’s a long shot. Wait till they’re even with us!”

Shots pealed from across the gully.

“Fellers, there’s ridin’!” ejaculated Texas Jack, admiration wrung from him.

“Move boys! To the left! Don’t shoot over Terrill!” ordered Pecos.

“ — seven — nine — eleven,” Terrill was counting. “Heavens Pecos, look at them come! — Poor naked, skinny things!”

The Kiowas strung up the road with mustangs stretching low. No painted, feathered, colorful riders these! ... They fitted the wildness of the place. The spirit of that ghastly country pervaded them. They strung out in single file, dark, gleaming faces glancing back, rifles and bows aloft, their lean figures erect with that incomparable horsemanship of the plains Indians.

“My Gawd! cain’t they ride!” exclaimed Pecos. “Wal, boys, it’ll be short an’ sweet.... Get ready! ... Let drive!”

With the heavy boom of guns the erect forms on the mustangs appeared to go over like tenpins. The Kiowas at the flash and bang from that quarter slid down on the off side of their mustangs and rode by magnificently, with only an arm and a foot visible over the backs of their racing steeds. In a few seconds they had passed the zone of danger. Bullets kicked up dust beyond. Then the string of Kiowas, as if by magic, flashed behind a projecting bank and were gone.

“Wal, the boss had it figgered,” said Lovelace, who was the first to get up. “Short an’ sweet.”

“I never was no good at wing shootin’,” declared Texas Jack. Pecos rose from his kneeling posture, to wipe the perspiration from his face.

“Didn’t even skin one!” he ejaculated.

“Boss, it’d been a tolerable good shot to hit one of them reddys standin’ still from heah. An’ these was goin’ like greased lightnin’.”

“I never got a bead on nuthin’.”

Pecos looked at Terrill, who had not moved. She lay with her rifle to her shoulder, pointing over the bank. “Get up, Terrill. It’s all over. No scalps for us! — How many times did yu shoot?”

Terrill sat up. She was quite pale, but her eyes were dancing darkly.

“Pecos, couldn’t they ride? — Oh, it was wonderful! — I guess I was too — too fascinated to shoot.”

“Wal! — Say, young woman, just suppose they’d rode right up heah an’ one of them was aboot to lift my hair! ... What then?”

“You shore have beautiful hair, Pecos, and I wouldn’t want you bald-haided.... Oh, my legs are weak!”

“Fellers, Johnson is yellin’ fer us. An’ there go the Slaughter boys down into the gully,” said Texas Jack.

Pecos stood up to survey the scene.

“Yes, an’ he means for us to rustle. Pile down to the wagons, men.... Terrill, give me yore hand. We’ll make a run down for our horses.”

In quick time Pecos and Terrill were in the saddle again. The horses were hard to hold. And the extra saddle horses, once unhaltered, broke and ran down the road. But the other men were appearing down there.

Presently the two factions of Pecos’ party were reunited. Johnson, sweaty and dust-begrimed, talked while he tightened his saddle cinch.

“It worked jest as I’d planned. Must have been aboot twenty of them. We ain’t hangin’ around to see. Now drive the wagons right across. Tie them three saddle hosses behind the wagons. Leave the wagons over there an’ come back to help us cross the stock.... Let’s all work fast while our luck holds. I don’t never feel good on this side of the river.”

The wagons rolled downhill at a brisk trot. Pecos saw that the cattle had spread up and down the river, but none appeared to have strayed more than a quarter of a mile. They had drunk their fill and were now grazing. Watching the wagons splash into the water, Johnson said the river might be a little high, but would not give them any trouble. This was a wide, shallow, gravelly ford. The wheels scarcely sank over their hubs. In short order the wagons were across and up on the bank off the road.

“Come on, Texas Terrill; we gotta ride now,” shouted Pecos, gayly, though anxiety vied with his hope. They joined the riders rounding up the herd. It proved to be far less trouble than Pecos had anticipated. They crowded the cattle gradually to the ford, then with ten riders in a half circle the wedge-shaped start was at last effected. Once the leaders had been forced into the water the greatest difficulty was passed. The river ran a little high and swift, with water slightly roiled.

“Look, Terrill, thet’s the color of the water the day we got trapped. Remember?” called Pecos, as they splashed along in the rear of the herd.

“I reckon I’ve cause to remember, Pecos Smith,” declared Terrill, dark meaning eyes on his.

Pecos had the satisfaction of crossing his herd in less than half an hour from the start.

“Say, Smith, do you know we picked up a couple hundred haid of stock over there?” queried Johnson, with a broad smile.

“No!”

“Wal, we shore did. There was a bunch on the downriver side. All wearin’ an XS brand. I reckon some trail driver had a stampede here an’ mebbe got wiped out. I seen burned wagons an’ not so old.”

Soon the long caravan was strung out on the west side of the river. From the highest point Pecos gazed back. The scene appeared the same as from the other side. Horsehead Crossing gleamed pale and steely under the wintry sun. There was no evidence of life. The white skulls of steers stood out distinctly, striking the deadly note of the place. It brooded there in its loneliness. Nature was inhospitable. It had allowed Pecos’ caravan to pass; perhaps the next would be added to the tragedy of the past.

CHAPTER XVII

ALL THE WAY from Independence Creek to the head of the Gulch Trail that led down to the ranch Pecos distributed his stock. When the last batch of weary cattle were turned loose Pecos and his cowhands rode back towards the river to join the wagons.

Eight days’ drive from Horsehead Crossing! Pecos had to recall the camps to make sure of the number. How the days had flown! The long, long drive was over. Before sunset the wagons would be on the rim above Lambeth Ranch.

“It shore makes one think — all this good luck,” soliloquized Pecos, solemnly. “Ever since I met thet boy Terrill — who was a girl.... Gawd bless her an’ make me keep her safe an’ happy.... No more of some things for me, an’ one of them is Hosshaid Crossin’!”

* * * * *

From a high point on a ridge Pecos came out where he could see down the river. The scene gave him both shock and thrill. He seemed to have been long absent, and all at once to be plunged into the old, wild atmosphere of the brakes. The wide, bone-dry jaws of the canyon yawned beneath him, and stretched away with the green river showing. There was a white rapid close enough for Pecos to hear its low roar. The river bottom held wide green bands of mesquite, salt cedar and arrow- weed, and from these the gray brush-spotted slopes rose gradually to the ragged cliffs. Above spread the land for leagues and leagues, with grass and stone prevailing far as the eye could see.

As always, Pecos tried to find a way to climb out of the brake. It was a habit which operated instinctively. On either slope there was no place to which he would have put Cinco. Trapped there, he would have to go up or down the river. He gazed again at the boundless rolling range, with its gray monotony, its endless physical manifestations of solitude. West of the Pecos for him! It filled every need of his adventurous soul. And down there, ahead of the wagons, rode the little woman who had taught him self-reverence, self-control. Life loomed so sweet, so great that it stung him to humility.

* * * * *

The sun was still above the range when the wagons reached the rim above Lambeth Ranch. But it was sunset down in the canyon.

Terrill had dismounted to run wildly to the rim, where suddenly she stood entranced. Pecos followed. He hoped to look down upon the old tranquil place unchanged. How his gaze swept the opposite rim, the golden cliff, the purple caves and thickets, and finally the green meadows dotted with cattle and horses, the brook that was a ruddy streak of sunset fire, and lastly the old green-roofed cabin with its column of blue smoke winding upward.

“Looks like all was well, Terrill,” said Pecos, feelingly.

Terrill squeezed his arm, but she was mute. One by one the other members of Pecos’ caravan lined up on the rim. And just at that moment a flare of gold deepened on the bold face of wall across the river, to reflect its wondrous warmth back into the canyon. Low down the purple veils appeared to intensify and show caverns and gilded foliage through their magic transparency. From the cracked and cragged rim of the opposite canyon wall down over the seamed face and the green-choked crevices shone the mystic light, down the grassy, boulder-strewn slope to the second wall, and then sheer down this cracked and creviced form to the shining foliage, and the gold-fired flags and rushes that fringed the blazing brook.

This ephemeral moment held the watchers entranced. Then the glory and the beauty began to fade. And with that the practical Texans turned to necessary tasks.

“Smith, you never could have convinced me there was such a pretty brake along this gray old Pecos,” observed Johnson.

“More’n pretty. It’s a gold mine,” vowed Slinger.

“Skins the brakes of the Rio Grande all holler, boss,” added Texas Jack. “We’ll shore stay with you heah till the old mossy- horns come home.”

“Thanks, boys,” replied Pecos, finding speech difficult. “Unhitch an’ spread around. We’ll camp on top heah tonight.”

“How’n hell are we ever goin’ to git the wagons down?” asked Lovelace.

“We’ll take the old one apart an’ let it down piece by piece,” replied Pecos. “The others we’ll leave up heah. Reckon we’ll build a shed for them.... Cut a long pole, somebody, a good strong one thet we can fasten the pulley an’ rope to. I fetched them along so we can lower our outfit easy.”

“Mauree-ee! Sambo-oo!” Terrill was screaming in wild sweet peal down into the canyon.

Pecos ran to the rim. The echoes pealed back, magnified in all their sweet wildness, to mourn away in the distance.

“Sambo!” yelled Pecos, with all his might. Sam-m- mbooo! cracked back the echo, wonderful and stirring, to bang across to the great wall, and roll on, on, on down the river.

“Mauree-ee!” cried Terrill, in ecstasy.

“There they are!” exclaimed Pecos, in great satisfaction.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” screamed Terrill, beside herself.

“Boss, dat yo come back?” rolled up Sambo’s deep bass.

“Yes, Sambo, we’re heah.”

“Ah, Missy Rill, is yo all right?” called Mauree.

“All safe and well, Mauree.”

“Is yo done married to dat Pecos man?”

“No-o! Not yet, Mauree!”

“How’s everythin’, Sambo?” shouted Pecos, gladly.

“Boss, I’se done hab trubble. New calves an’ colts an’ pickaninnies — —”

Pecos let out a roar, but it did not drown Terrill’s shrill cry of surprise and delight.

“What yo sayin’, Sambo?”

Mauree had disappeared around the corner of her little cabin, and when she hove in sight again with a black mite of humanity in each arm Sambo awoke the slumbering echoes once more:

“Dar yo is, boss. Two mo’ black cowhands!”

“Whoopee!” bawled Pecos, giving vent to all that was dammed up in him.

Louisiana, like the other cowhands, had come to the rim again, drawn by curiosity. When the echoes of Pecos’ stentorian climax had died away the vaquero yelled down:

“Hey dar, niggah.”

“Hey yo’self,” replied Sambo, belligerently.

“Seems lak I know yo. Is yo’ name Sambo Jackson?”

“Yas, it am.”

“I sho yo how glad I is when I come down dar.”

* * * * *

In the dusk Pecos and Terrill sat on the rim above the canyon. Lano was singing a Spanish love song, the men were joking around the camp fire, a cow was lowing in the dark meadow.

Terrill had her head on Pecos’ shoulder and at last she was weeping.

“Wal, darlin’, what yu cryin’ for now?” he asked, softly, stroking her hair. “We’re home.”

“Oh — Pecos — I’m — so — so happy.... If only — Dad knows!”

* * * * *

The last gleam of the afterglow faded off the river. Shadowy rifts of blackness marked the brakes of the Pecos, in their successive and disappearing notches. Night fell upon the lonely land. A low murmur of running water soared upward. The air grew chill. Wind rustled the brush. And a crescent moon peeped over the dark bold canyon rim. The Pecos flowed on, melancholy and austere, true to its task, unmindful of the little lives and loves of men.

CHAPTER XVIII

PECOS MOVED THE supplies down into the canyon the next day, a strenuous job that left no time for the sentiment that might have overcome him upon returning to the ranch. Another day dawned with him in the saddle, guiding this merry and bold outfit into the brakes of the river. And that evening, finding Terrill rested, he yielded to his yearning and faced the tremendous issue at hand. But he did not tell her then.

After Terrill had gone to bed, Pecos strolled up and down, listening to the wild night sounds, watching the moon slide down to the opposite wall, peering into the river gap, slowly surrendering to the emotion that had dammed up within him. He marveled why God had been so good to him. Forgotten prayers learned at his mother’s knee came back to him. His happiness and his responsibility, realized so stupendously now in these lonely moon-blanched hours, magnified all the forces of his mind. On his lips still lingered the sweet fire of Terrill’s kisses, and he gazed up at the watching stars with a breathless sense of his ecstasy, while all the time he had the eye and the ear of a hunted wolf. He had been trained in the open. He did not trust the dreaming solitude. If some raw wild spirit had spurred him to a tenacious grip on his life, when he had nothing but the bold, reckless pride of the vaquero, what now must transport him, make him invulnerable, to protect the beautiful and innocent life dependent upon him? He felt a mighty passion that swept him up and up, like a great storm wind, and rent asunder the veil of the mystery of love. He seemed to be illumined by the meaning of love, home, children, life, and death. He who had dealt death so ruthlessly!

In the gray dawn Pecos had met and solved his problem. He was a Texan. He was one of the moving atoms of the great empire he envisaged. He realized the chances; he knew the cost of success on that frontier. All could be met and vanquished, but only through an eternal vigilance, a lion heart and iron hand.

“Queer idees for a vaquero,” he soliloquized, possessed with a sense of power.

The day broke beautifully to the melody of a mockingbird in the mesquite. The river slid on like a ribbon of red and gold. Pecos called the negroes and his riders to their tasks, while he went for the horses. Cinco came at a whistle, but the little buckskin mustang, as always, obeyed only a rope. It was when Pecos was on the back of one of these bewhiskered little beasts that his respect was roused. The mustang never tired, he lived on little grass and water, and he could climb or go down where even Cinco balked.

Pecos turned the horses in at the corral and strode on to the cabin. He smelled wood smoke and savory meat. Was Terrill really a girl? Had she been spirited away in the night? What queer pranks his imagination played him? He went in eagerly. After all, his eyes never deceived him.

“Terrill up?” he queried of Mauree.

“I done call her. Breakfast on de table.”

There came a thumping of little hard boot-heels on the floor. Pecos wheeled from the fire. All was well with his world! Here was the glorious embodiment of all the night had brought in dreams, hopes, plans, beliefs.

“Mawnin’ Pecos.” The rich sweet voice had been the magic almost of a day.

“Sleepy-haid!” was all he said.

“Oh, I slept a thousand hours away.”

“Thet’s good. It takes yu a long way from yesterday.... Let’s eat. We’ve shore got lots to do.” And he placed a chair for her.

“Do? — I cain’t do anything but run after you — all the livelong day.”

“Thet’ll be enough.”

Where was the havoc wrought by the long trip? His keen eyes had to search for a little pallor, a little thinness in her cheeks. But youth had returned triumphant. Happiness shone in opal glow of skin and luminous eyes. She was hungry, she was gay, she was inquisitive. But Pecos gave her no satisfaction until the meal was finished, when with a serious air he led her out of the cabin, across the open grassy plot to his favorite seat under a tree. Here, surrendering momentarily to her charm, he drew her close.

“Pe-cos, some one might — see,” she said, with what little breath he left her.

“See us? Heah?” He laughed and released her.

“Not that I object,” she laughed. “But, you know, Comanches ride out on that rim sometimes.... If you want to — to hug me, let’s go in.”

“Terrill, we must rope an’ tie up our problem,” he said, earnestly.

“Problem? Why, we settled that all, didn’t we?”

“It seems long ago an’ I’m glad,” agreed Pecos. “I stayed up all night. An’ I thought, Terrill, I thought as never before in my life.... Come, sit heah by me, an’ we’ll talk aboot everythin’.”

“Pecos dear — you’re very — serious,” she replied, almost faltering.

“Wal, don’t yu reckon I’ve enough to be serious over? ... When will yu marry me?”

She gave a sudden guilty start and red blushes waved from neck to cheek and brow. But he struck fire from her.

“Soon as we can ride to Eagle’s Nest. Three hours if we push the horses, Pecos Smith,” she flashed.

“Darlin’, thet sounds like yu were callin’ my bluff. But I’m in daid earnest. Yu will be my wife?”

“Si, Señor! ... Oh, Pecos.... Yes — yes — yes.”

“Wal, we won’t run the hosses haids off, but we’ll go today.”

“Today!” she whispered, awed.

“Shore. Thet’s the first step on our problem. Accordin’ to thet — to what we heahed, this Judge Roy Bean can marry us.... By the way, Terrill, just how old air yu?”

“Guess.”

“Wal, I said fifteen when I met yu an’ I reckon I stick to thet yet.”

“Way wrong, Pecos. I’m nineteen.”

“No!”

“I am. Ask Mauree. I’m certainly my own boss, if that worries you.”

“I’m yore boss, child.... So you’re a grown-up girl, after all. Dog-gone! Thet accounts. I’m shore glad. Wal, thet’s the second step on our problem. We’re shore gettin’ along fine. But the next’s a sticker.”

“Pooh!”

“Thet damned money. We’ve got a lot left. I’ve had a notion to burn it up. But thet’s nonsense. Now Terrill Lambeth, use yore woman’s haid an’ decide for me.... I held it honest then an’ I hold it honest now to brand mavericks. What brandin’ I did with Williams an’ Adams was straight. I never knew till it was all over thet they’d been burnin’ brands. Then all the money fell to me. What could I do with thet any better than buildin’ up a ranch for us? It all came from Sawtell. He was crookeder than Williams an’ Adams. Made rustlers out of them. Led them on, meanin’ to track them down, hang them, an’ get his money back.”

“Pecos, we shall keep what’s left of that money and forget where it came from,” replied Terrill, deliberately, almost without pause. “I know Dad would have done so.”

“Honey, yu shore are a comfort,” replied Pecos, huskily. “My conscience is clear on the moral side. There ain’t any other.... So thet third step on our problem wasn’t such a sticker, after all.”

“Go on. We’ll build a whole stairway, right to the sky.”

“Terrill, we’ll spend some of thet money.”

“Spend it!” gasped Terrill.

“Shore. Squander a lot of it, if yu like,” he drawled, watching her closely.

“Where?”

“Wal, say San Antonio.”

She squealed in a frenzy of glee, mauled him with strong brown little fists, kissed him in a transport, all the while babbling wildly. Pecos could not keep track of the breathless enumeration of things to buy and do, but he gained a startling idea of what she had been used to back on the old plantation home. That gave him more insight into the family she had sprung from. He realized it had been one of blood and wealth.

“Say, sweetheart, if thet means so turrible much to you, we’d better hang on to most of this money, so we can go to town occasionally while we’re gettin’ rich.”

“Oh, Pecos. I was just carried away. I would come to my senses and not buy everything. But I must have a woman’s clothes.”

“Shore. I savvy. Yu shall have all the damn linens, silks, laces, ribbons, all the flimsy stuff an’ fine dresses yu want, a pack-saddle full of toothbrushes, hair combs, powders, an’ all the jimcracks yu raved aboot.”

“Oh, Pecos! ... And to think I’ll start off on my honeymoon in boy’s pants!”

“Shore. An’ yu’ll come back in them, too.”

“San Antonio!”

“Listen, honey, the seriousness is this, I reckon. We’re goin’ to stay heah always?”

“Why, Pecos!” she ejaculated, suddenly down to the earth of practical things.

“Yu love this place?”

“I love my Pecos River and my Pecos Vaquero. — Listen. I’ll be serious, too. I suffered here. But I came to love the loneliness — all that makes this Pecos country. I have lived outdoors. I could never be happy in a city. I don’t want to live among people. I couldn’t think or be myself.... If it’s for me to say, then this shall be our home — always.”

“Terrill, yu’ve all to say aboot thet,” returned Pecos, with strong feeling. “An’ yu’ve settled it as I hoped yu would.... Now, little girl, let’s face it as I see it.... As a cattle- raisin’ proposition this range of ours cain’t be beat in all Texas. The grass is scant, but the range is wide. We have pure water heah, an’ a fine spring in Y Canyon. Halfway between an’ back up on the rollin’ ridges there’s Blue Lake, a cold spring- fed waterhole where thousands of cattle drink. If cattle have pure water they don’t need a lot of grass. When the river runs so salty the stock cain’t drink, we have our other water, always steady an’ pure. Thet means we can run fifty thousand haid of cattle in heah. It means what I so often joked you aboot when yu was a boy. Our fortune’s made!”

“I believe you, Pecos. But, oh! the obstacles!”

“There’s only one obstacle, honey, an’ thet’s the rustler,” went on Pecos, thoughtfully. “He’s heah an’ he’ll come more an’ more. For years yet rustlin’ will increase as the number of cattle an’ prices increase. I could hold my own, mebbe, but as yu’ve consented to be my wife — bless yore brave heart! — I’m not goin’ to take the risks I’ve taken in the past.... We’ll go get married.... Gosh! it’s sweet to see yu blush like thet! ... We’ll have our honeymoon an’ our little squanderin’ fit. I shore have an outfit of cowhands who are the real Texas breed. I’ll drill them into the hardest-ridin’, hardest-shootin’ bunch thet ever forked hosses. We’ll ride these Pecos brakes together an’, by Gawd! we’ll make it tough for rustlers.”

“Oh, Pecos! All Dad’s life that was his dream. Wouldn’t it be strange if he realized it through me? ... And I shall be your right-hand vaquero.”

“Terrill, yu’re goin’ to be a wife,” he replied, forcibly.

“Shore. But I want to ride, too,” she said, spiritedly. “If I cain’t, well, I won’t be your wife. So there!”

“Yu can ride yore pretty little bull-haid off! ... But, Terrill dear, yu’re such a kid. Yu don’t know what bein’ married means. We — things come aboot, yu know — happen to married people.”

“I — I dare say,” she replied, dubiously, leaning away to look at him.

“Yu cain’t go on bein’ a vaquero for-forever,” he protested.

“No-o?”

“We’d want — yu know, yu cain’t never tell — I shore love the idee — we — yu might — —”

“What under the sun are you talking aboot?”

Pecos knew he was not much on beating about the bush.

“Terrill, shore yu’d want a — a little Pecos — —”

She uttered a smothered shriek, and rolling away she bounded up to run like a deer. Halfway to the cabin she stopped to turn a crimson face.

“Pecos Smith, I’ll be ready in a half-hour for anything.”

By midday Pecos and Terrill rode into Eagle’s Nest.

Pecos had scarcely stepped off his horse when he realized that this hamlet had changed in the interval since he had been there. Half a dozen Texas faces turned to him right in front of the new store, and one of them he recognized just the instant it broke its still repose to a warm smile. The owner of that face stepped out, a Texan of about Pecos’ age, sunburnt, tow-headed, blue- eyed, a fine strapping fellow who yelped:

“Pecos Smith or I’m shore loco!” he ejaculated, and Pecos laughed to think what the Heald outfit would have thought of that.

“Howdy, Jerry Brice. I’m shore glad to see yore darned old skinny snoot.”

“Been hidin’ oot, you rascal,” returned Brice, hanging on to Pecos’ hand. “Heahed somethin’ aboot you, though. Whar you goin’? What you doin’? Who’s this heah boy with the big eyes?”

“Boy? Huh! Thet’s no boy, Jerry. Thet’s my girl, Terrill Lambeth. We’re goin’ to be married, an’ by golly yu’ve got to see me through it.... Terrill, hop off an’ meet a real shore Texas pard, one I’d be scared to have yu meet if it wasn’t our weddin’- day.”

Terrill came sliding off to slip to his side. Pecos ran his arm through hers and felt it tremble.

“Pecos, you amazin’ dod-blasted lucky cuss!” ejaculated Brice.

“Terrill, this heah is Jerry Brice, an old friend.... An’ Jerry, meet the sweetheart I was always gonna find some day — Terrill Lambeth.”

“Wal, Miss Lambeth, this is more than a pleasure,” said Brice, bareheaded before her, making her a stately bow. “I shore am happy to meet you.”

“Thank you. I — I’m very glad to meet you,” replied Terrill, flushed and shy.

Brice gave their horses into the charge of some one he knew and dragged them into a restaurant, where he divided his pleasure between compliments to Terrill and wonder at Pecos. They had dinner together, during which Brice told him of a new ranching venture he and his brother had undertaken in New Mexico, and which was going to be slow but sure. After that there followed an abundance of news. Pecos expressed surprise at the way sleepy little Eagle’s Nest had come to life. At which Brice laughed and bade him wait till he saw something. Texas steers were on the move north. Dodge City and Abilene, the two ends of the great Chisholm Trail, were roaring towns. Rockport, the southern terminus, was full of trail drivers, cattlemen, ranchers, traveling settlers, gamblers, desperadoes, which was no news to Pecos. Stock prices were on the rise. Pecos asked innumerable questions, and finally got down to the most important thing for Terrill and him.

“How aboot this Judge Roy Bean?”

“Funny old codger. Shore is a law unto himself. Justice of peace, magistrate, judge, saloon-keeper — he’s shore the whole show.”

“Can he marry us?”

“Course he can. Good an’ fast, too, so Miss Terrill cain’t get away from you.”

“Thet’s fine,” retorted Pecos, with satisfaction. “But all the same, Jerry, just to make shore I’ll have the weddin’ service done over again when we get to San Antonio.”

They made merry over that while Terrill tried to hide her blushes.

“Come on. Let’s go an’ get it over,” drawled Pecos, and so they went out together.

Pecos did not need to see all the new houses to realize that Eagle’s Nest had indeed grown. Even during the warm noon hour the streets were lined with vehicles, saddle horses hitched, riders, trail drivers, cattlemen, and idle sloe-eyed Mexicans. There were ten Mexicans to every white man, so that altogether there must have been a daily population at Eagle’s Nest in excess of two hundred. Pecos saw a couple of familiar faces, the last of which dodged out of sight. It would be natural, he thought, to gravitate toward some incident calculated to be embarrassing on this wedding-day.

Terrill did not have a lagging step. Her face glowed and her eyes sparkled. When not directly drawn into conversation or especially noticed she was beginning to enjoy herself. She did not attract particular attention, though she clung to Pecos’ arm.

“Say, Jerry, yu remember Don Felipe,” said Pecos, suddenly reminded of his former employer. “Heah anythin’ aboot him?”

“Shore. He got run oot of Rockport. Down on his luck, Pecos. I reckon he’s run his rope.”

“Thet so. It ain’t such awful bad news,” returned Pecos, ponderingly.

“I met a trail driver named Lindsay. He has a ranch on the San Saba. Told me Felipe had an outfit half white an’ half greaser, workin’ the east brakes of the Pecos. Lindsay also said Felipe had a mix-up with Rangers in the Braseda last summer.”

“Ahuh. Dog-gone! Things do happen.” But straight-away the momentary ominous regurgitation passed as they reached the court- house of Judge Roy Bean. Evidently something was going on, for there were a number of Mexicans on foot, and several mounted on burros.

“This is the back of his place,” said Brice. “We’ll have to go round in front, where I reckon he’s holdin’ court or servin’ drinks.”

The structure Bean called his court-house had been built of clapboards, and stood on posts high off the ground. A stove-pipe protruded from the roof. Presently the front of the building stood revealed — a rather wide porch upon which court was apparently in session.

“Thet’s the judge settin’ on the box at the table,” said Brice, pointing. “The rest are greasers.”

Pecos bent most interested eyes upon the judge. He appeared to be a short stout man, well along in years, with a long gray beard, cut round in a half circle. He was in his shirt sleeves, wore a huge light sombrero, and packed a gun at his hip. A Mexican peon stood bareheaded before him. There were three other Mexicans, all sitting in the background. A rifle leaned against the post nearest the judge. Behind him on the corner post was a board sign upon which had been painted one word — Saloon. Above the wide steps, at the edge of the porch roof, was another and much larger one bearing the legend in large letters — Law West of the Pecos. Above that hung a third shingle with the judge’s name. Although Pecos and his companions were on the edge of the front yard, they could not distinguish what was said.

At this juncture two cowhands rode into the yard and dismounted at the steps. Red and lean of face, gun-belted and wearing shaggy chaparejos, they fetched a drawling remark from Pecos. “Folks, this heah is better’n a show.”

“Howdy, Judge,” called out the foremost rider as he doffed his sombrero. “Will you adjurn court long enough to save two hombres’ lives a-dyin’ of thirst?”

“Step right up, boys,” boomed the judge, kicking his box seat back as he rose. “There ain’t no law heah but me, an’ we adjurn.”

He waved the two tall cowmen into the court-house, and stamped after them. The peon on trial stood there and waited. The other Mexicans peered in as if they would not have minded being invited to drink.

“Dog-gone me!” ejaculated Pecos. “If thet doesn’t beat the Dutch!”

“Isn’t he a funny old fellow?” whispered Terrill. “Fancy our being married by him! Pecos, it’s all so like a story.”

Presently the thirsty couple came out, followed by the judge, who was certainly wiping his lips. The cowhands strode down to their horses, led them aside a few steps, and proceeded to light cigarettes.

When the judge had reseated himself on his box he banged the table with a force and finality that presupposed he had imbibed instant decision while in the barroom.

“Cinco pesos!” he shouted.

One of the Mexicans jingled silver upon the table. Then all of them left the porch. The Judge closed his big book.

“Now’s our chance,” whispered Pecos, squeezing Terrill’s arm. “Jerry, be shore to stick to us.”

Terrill giggled, though laboring under suppressed excitement. Pecos whispered to her. “Honey, this shore is aboot all.”

Pecos strode up on the porch, holding Terrill to his side. She dragged a little the last few steps. Brice hung back a trifle. Judge Bean looked up. He had hard, shrewd blue eyes and a good- natured, smug face. Pecos’ instant angle was that this gentleman who constituted within himself all the law west of the Pecos might be eccentric, but he was no fool.

“Howdy, Judge,” drawled Pecos.

“Howdy yourself. Who might you happen to be?” he replied, sharply, his gaze growing speculative.

“I shore got a lot of names, Judge, but my right one is James Smith.”

“All right, James Smith. What you want heah in court?”

“Can you marry me?”

“Can I? Say, young feller, I can marry you, divorce you, an’ hang you.”

“Wal, I only want the first.”

“Where’s your woman? I’m tolerable busy today. Why you come bellyachin’ aboot gettin’ married, takin’ up my time when you’ve no woman?”

“Heah she is, Judge,” replied Pecos, who, despite his cool audacity and the poignancy of his errand, wanted to howl his mirth.

“Where?”

“Heah.” And Pecos had to indicate the drooping Terrill.

“Hell! Are you drunk, man? This heah’s a boy.”

“Nope. Yu’re mistaken, Judge,” returned Pecos as he removed Terrill’s broad-brimmed hat. “Hold up your haid, Terrill.”

She did so, struggling with mingled emotions. And her face resembled a red poppy.

Judge Bean stared. He slammed both hands on the table. He was astounded. Suddenly his smug face beamed.

“Wal, I should smile you are a girl. Prettiest who ever stepped into this court.... What’s your name?”

“Terrill Lambeth.”

“Lambeth? I’ve heard that name somewhere.”

“My father was Colonel Templeton Lambeth.”

“How old are you, Terrill?”

“Nineteen.”

Then the Judge turned to Pecos. “I’ll marry you, Smith. What’s it worth to get spliced to this pretty girl? It cain’t be done nowhere else in this country.”

Pecos saw through this old robber. “Wal, it’s shore worth aboot a million dollars to me,” he drawled. “But I cain’t afford much — no more’n say twenty.”

“Fork it over,” retorted the Judge, swiftly, extending one hand toward Pecos while with the other he felt for something in his desk.

Pecos was in an embarrassing position. He had forgotten to segregate a twenty dollar bill from the roll he had inside his vest. There was no help for it. When the Judge’s eyes came up from a search for the little Bible in his hand and espied Pecos stripping a bill off that fat roll of greenbacks, they popped right out.

“Say, have you held up a bank?” he growled, snatching the bill Pecos dropped on the table.

“No. I been savin’ up a long time for this heah occasion.”

“I forgot to charge you for the certificate. That’ll be ten more.”

“Yeah. Make it twenty, Judge.”

“All right, it’s twenty,” retorted Bean, and he took the second bill with alacrity. Then he opened the book and began to read a marriage service. He skipped some unimportant parts, but when he came to the vital points he was less hurried. The questions he put were loud and emphatic. But Pecos realized what was happening so fleetingly, and he choked over his “Yes,” and heard Terrill’s low reply.

“I pronounce you man and wife,” finished the Judge. “Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder!”

Then he sat down at his desk to fumble in his drawer for the certificate which he soon filled out.

“Sign your names.”

Pecos’ hand was as steady as a rock, but Terrill’s shook. Brice leaned over them and said, gayly: “Pecos, old boy, good luck an’ long life! ... Mrs. Smith, I wish you joy an’ all — —”

A loud voice, slightly foreign, interrupted Brice.

“Señor Judge, stop da marriage!”

Brice exclaimed violently and wheeled to mark the intruder, a tall thin man in black sombrero. Pecos, who stood on the inside behind Terrill and his friend, froze in his tracks.

“What’s eatin’ you, Felipe?” boomed Bean, angrily. “A-rarin’ into my court this way.”

“I stop da marriage. Da Lambeth señorita — —”

“Hell, man! You’ll stop nothin’ heah, unless it’s breathin’.... I’ve pronounced this young couple man an’ wife.”

“Oh, Pecos, it’s Don Felipe,” whispered Terrill.

“Jerry, take her aside,” hissed Pecos, straightening up to push them toward the judge. Then in a single leap he landed in front of the steps.

His enemy, stalking swiftly, had reached the lower steps. His trim, small, decorated boot halted in mid-air, stiffened, slowly sank.

“Howdy, Don. The bridegroom happens to be Pecos Smith.”

“Santa Maria!”

The half-breed’s lean, small face, black almost as his stiff sombrero, underwent a hideous change that ended in a fixed yellow distortion. Fangs protruded from under his stretched lips. His slim frame vibrated under the thin black garments. And that vibration culminated in a spasmodic jerk for his gun. As it left the sheath Pecos fired to break his arm, but the heavy bullet struck the gun, spinning it away to the feet of the cowhands. Then a swifter and a different change transfixed the half-breed. He appeared to shrink, all except his beadlike eyes.

“Ump-umm, Don. Yu’ve got a bad memory,” said Pecos, cold and sarcastic. “It’s damn lucky for yu this is my weddin’-day.”

Pecos aligned his gun a little higher, where it froze on a level, spurted red, and thundered. The bullet tore Felipe’s stiff sombrero from his head and never touched a hair. Then Pecos aimed at the flowery silver-spurred boots.

“Dance, yu — —”

And he threw the gun down to fire again. This bullet cut more than leather. “Dance on my weddin’-day or I’ll bore yore laig!”

Felipe made grotesque, almost pitiful dance steps until his will or flesh ceased to function.

“Wal, yu’re as rotten a dancer as yu are a shot.... Stand still now —— ! And heah me. I’m callin’ yu before Judge Bean an’ these cowmen, an’ the rest of this outfit.... Yu’re a low-down greaser-hirin’ rustler. Yu hire pore ignorant vaqueros an’ kill them to get out of payin’ their wages. I rode for yu. I learned yore Braseda tricks. I know yu stole most of Colonel Lambeth’s stock an’ tried to steal his daughter. I chased yore new outfit across the river just a day or so ago. Brand-burnin’ my stock. Watson caught yu an’ got away, only to be shot by yore pard Breen Sawtell. An’ before I killed Sawtell I got yore case from him.”

Pecos spat as if to rid himself of the bitter restraint he must hold this day. “An’ now yu yellow-faced greaser dog! Get out! Get across the river! Hide in the brakes! ... ‘Cause if I ever lay eyes on yu again I’ll — kill yu!”

Amid a stunned silence the half-breed lunged around, head down like a blinded bull, and spreading the crowd, he disappeared. Pecos stood motionless a moment, until suddenly he relaxed. He flipped his gun. It turned over in the air to alight in his palm. Sheathing it, he turned to face the fuming judge.

“Not on our marriage program, Judge,” he said, with the old drawl edging into the ring of his voice.

“Hell, no! Not on my court proceedin’s at all.... Pecos Smith, whoever yu are, yu have a high-handed way.”

“Yes, an’ yu better savvy this,” retorted Pecos. “I’ve done yore little community a good turn. Thet man has been the bane of Eagle’s Nest. Yu heahed why I couldn’t kill him.”

“Smith, I’m not rarin’ aboot yore drivin’ Felipe off. But it’d been a better job if yu’d bored him instead of shootin’ fancy didos around him.”

“Ahuh. Wal, what’s eatin’ yu, then?”

“It’s agin the law, shootin’ heah. Contempt of court. An’ I’m compelled to fine yu, suh.”

“What?” ejaculated Pecos, completely floored.

Terrill came hurriedly from the door to catch his arm and press it. “Oh — Pecos!” was all she could falter.

“I said ‘contempt of court,’” repeated the judge, imperturbably. “I’m compelled to fine you.”

“Leapin’ bullfrogs! ... How much, Judge Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos, Justice of the Peace, Saloon-keeper, Bartender, an’ Parson, an’ Gawd only knows what else? How much?”

“I was aboot to say fifty dollars. But it’s seventy-five.”

“What’d it cost me if I’d plugged the breed?” inquired Pecos, sarcastically.

“I reckon my law on the case now reads one hundred dollars.”

“Yu got Don Felipe skinned to death!” yelled Pecos.

“Upon reflection the fine imposed for more contempt of court will be one hundred twenty-five dollars — not pesos.”

“Robber! Road agent!”

“One hundred fifty!” shouted Judge Bean, purple in the face.

Terrill gave Pecos a wrench that fetched his face round to hers.

“Pay him before he ruins us!” cried Terrill, and Pecos did not know whether she was bursting with mirth or alarm or both.

“Hullo, honey. Dog-gone! I forgot aboot yu.... Shore I’ll pay it,” he declared, whipping out the roll with magnificent gesture, and peeling off bills galore.... “Reckon I’m never goin’ to be married again.... Heah, Judge, buy yoreself some lawbooks an’ paint another big signboard in big letters: ‘Shell out, stranger, or yu cain’t get west of the Pecos!’”

Wyoming

OR, THE YOUNG RUNAWAY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER I

WHEN MARTHA ANN Dixon found herself on the open Nebraska road she realized with a shock that at last her innate propensity for running away from home had definitely materialized. She pinched herself...It was true. She was here, and her face was turned to the West!

Her first yielding to this strange wanderlust had occurred at the age of five when she ran off from her aunt’s home on the shore of Lake Michigan and was found strolling about in the woods as naked and unashamed as any little savage. The second excursion, a flight from school, had come somewhat later; and then there had followed other occasions not so vividly remembered.

But this one, in the last year of her teens, was vastly different. This adventure was the result of long planning and deliberation to make a dream come true, a dream of lovely roads and bright-colored hills, of dim horizons and purple ranges, and at last the longed-for goal — the West.

The rattle of a slowing Ford swerved Martha Ann off the road.

“Hello, kid. Want a lift?” called out a cheery voice. A red-headed, freckle-faced youth accommodated the speed of his car to her brisk stop.

“No, thanks,” she replied, “I’d rather walk.”

“Cripes! If youse ain’t a girl! ‘Scuse me,” the driver ejaculated with a grin. “Come on. It ain’t every day a dame gets a chance to ride with me.”

“I’ll leave that golden opportunity for someone more appreciative.”

“Aw — awright. I jest thought mebbe you was tired. What you doin’?”

“Hitchhiking.”

“Say, you ain’t hitchin’ on very well this mornin’.”

“I’ll hike every day till I’m tired.”

“Where you goin’?”

“Wyoming!” exclaimed Martha Ann, belligerently. It was the first time she had spoken that magic word aloud.

“Whew!...Well, I’ll be dogged!” the redhead exclaimed. Then with an incredulous glance at the diminutive figure on the highway he started up his ancient car and was soon lost in clouds of dust.

Martha Ann giggled softly to herself. So she finally had nerve enough to speak it! “Wyoming!” How sweet it sounded! What untold promise the word held! What did it matter that her destination was some unknown town in Wyoming — what difference did it make that she had only fifty dollars in her pocket which would have to last indefinitely?

She walked on happily. Spring was in the air. The fields were golden and the trees and fence rows showed freshly green; swamp blackbirds and meadowlarks sang melodiously from the roadside; a fragrance of burning leaves was carried on the soft breeze. From beyond where the white road disappeared over the horizon something beckoned imperiously.

To the girl it still seemed like a miracle that she should be here. Again she reviewed the events that had led her to this open road which she hoped would take her to Wyoming.

There had been sufficient money to put Martha Ann through high school. That had satisfied her mother, but Martha wanted to go on. Mrs. Dixon was making too many references to Martha Ann’s chances of marriage. She argued that Martha at eighteen had grown into an attractive girl who could marry well. But Martha Ann had ideas of her own which had nothing at all to do with marriage.

She wanted to go to the university for a while, and then work, and above all to see something of the world. The world to her meant the West. A twofold reason accounted for Martha’s obsession. As a child she had heard all about her grandmother’s only brother, who had run away from home to seek his fortune in the West. And it had helped to make her a rabid reader of Western romances.

For thirty years Uncle Nick Bligh had not been heard from. But when Martha Ann was seventeen, her grandmother had received a letter from the missing brother, explaining that as he had failed to make his fortune he had never troubled himself to write. But age and poor health, together with a realization of the false pride that had motivated his silence, had prompted him at last to write for news of his family. The letter bore a postmark of Randall, Wyoming.

This communication from the long-lost uncle had fixed in Martha Ann’s mind a secret and daring idea. She would go west to find Uncle Nick. That was incentive and excuse enough to crystallize what had been only a vague purpose.

Ways and means to attend the university and at the same time save money enough to start her trip kept Martha Ann wide-eyed for many long hours at night, as well as pensive by day. But she had solved the problem. She obtained work as an assistant in a dentist’s office, and in addition to after classes she worked on Saturdays, Sunday mornings, and during all vacations.

More than a year and a half of this intensive strain had told upon Martha Ann’s mental and physical wellbeing. But nothing daunted her. As time went on her secret purpose grew more and more alluring. It satisfied her longing for happiness. But strange to discover, the busier she became the greater grew the masculine demands upon her leisure. To their persistent requests for dates she remained indifferent.

Martha Ann had long wondered about her attitude toward men. Perhaps, as her mother and some of her friends claimed, she was abnormal. But she could not willingly admit this charge, and from distress she passed to impatience and finally to disgust. Yet she liked boys. She admired young men who were making good in life. She could at times have great fun with them — in the earlier stages of friendship — and could by intense inward pressure wring some sort of romantic emotion out of her heart for them. But to her dismay, almost every friendship led to one of two sad conclusions — a proposal of marriage or a fumbling pass which disgusted her. Why couldn’t they just be friends? As for those few bolder young men who attempted to be free with their hands — Martha Ann despised them.

The time came when the strain of study and outside work, the importunities of her admirers and the constant nagging of her mother had changed Martha Ann, even in her own eyes. She wanted to get far away from the dirty, noisy, crowded city. Open spaces beckoned her. Into her dreams came more and more lovely green places, where flowers and birds abounded. From feeling stiffed and weary she gradually sank into a state of real melancholy. The terrific burden on the slender shoulders had at last become too heavy; her flesh was not the equal of her spirit. Also, her mother, anxiously regarding Martha’s future, was now urging her marry young Bob Worth; “who can take care of you nicely so you won’t have to worry about a little money or a new dress.” But worry had become part of Martha’s very existence — worry about school credits, about making her little earnings go a long way, about the dissatisfaction and nagging at home, about the pressing fact of the increasing demands of the young men. The proms, the formals, the movies, all had become stale and unprofitable to her. She longed for something to happen — something unforseen and tremendous.

Finally, the pressure had become too great. Even though she had not finished her semester at college she realized with the coming of spring that the time to leave had come. Martha Ann caught her breath as she recalled the day of her decision.

Deceiving her father had not hurt her conscience. He had never appeared to care whether Martha came or went, and outwardly at least he had evinced little interest in her pursuit of happiness. But to deceive her mother! That had hurt. Suddenly faced with the enormity of what she was about to do, she was filled with the remorse. Never in all her life had she told her mother a deliberate lie. She now thought to excuse herself on the basis that the glorious end justified almost any means. But a still, accusing voice kept calling at the gate of her consciousness. Lie to mother — who had always been so good, so faithful, so forgiving! It gave Martha Ann a painful twinge. But she had launched her canoe on the current of this great adventure. She could not turn back.

And yet, how simple and easy it all had been to accomplish! Martha Ann had calmly announced at dinner one evening that a girl friend at the university had asked her to drive with her to Omaha, and she wanted to go. Her father and brother made the usual perfunctory murmurs. Her mother, however, had anxiously asked how long she would be gone. Martha could give only a vague answer.

“Dear, you’re sure you are going to Omaha?” asked Mrs. Dixon.

“Mother!...Yes, of course,” she had replied hastily. At least that was no out-and-out falsehood!

“I was afraid you might be remembering your old madness to go out West,” concluded Mrs. Dixon.

But Martha had been impatient, too, even with her mother. Why could she not understand how wonderful it would be to go out West? If Mrs. Dixon had ever had any adventurous desires of her own they had long ago become atrophied.

Every moment that Martha had had to herself in the apartment, she had spent getting her belongings into readiness. What to take and what to leave? How impossible to remember that she had to carry everything, and therefore the less she took the easier would be her burden! Finally she had decided on her brother’s packsack! She was agreeably surprised to find that it held so much. Still she wondered how she could ever manage with anything so small.

As the day of departure had drawn nearer, her feeling of anticipation had become mixed with other emotions. What might not happen to her on the way! She elevated her chin and smiled oftener to reassure herself. Nevertheless there lurked the shadow of panic in her consciousness. Once while kneeling in the middle of her bedroom, trying to find a place in her pack for a precious book, she had found herself murmuring aloud: “Oh dear Lord — I want to go so terribly. I must go...please don’t let anything happen!” and the very next moment her hoydenish nature had asserted itself, and cried with Topsy-like simplicity: “Can’t you heah me, God?”

At length Martha Ann had her packsack ready. It could hold no more. Besides a few infinitesimal underthings, it contained one pair of pajamas, two toothbrushes, soap, towel and wash cloth, comb and brush, two pairs of heavy woolen hose, three pairs of cotton socks, an emergency kit containing tape, mercurochrome, bandages, cotton, a bottle of disinfectant, a few threaded needles, a tiny pair of scissors, a fountain pen and some sheets of paper and stamped envelopes, and three clean shirts. She had pondered a long while on the possibility of ever having an occasion to dress up, and at last had put in her navy blue crepe with the flat pleats. This would fold easily and flat. In the end she had found room for her patent leather slippers and two pairs of silk stockings. Her short suede jacket, her hiking boots, and corduroy breeches she would carry in a box, ready to don when she started on the road.

Then had come, finally, the day of parting, the tears, the incoherent farewell, the precipitate flight to meet the mythical girl friend, the station and the train. She could scarcely clamber to the Pullman platform. Her eyes were so dim that she could not see the steps. A voice had whispered: “Running away!...Leaving home, mother, brother, Bob — all of them — forever!” It was the “forever” that had appalled Martha Ann.

And now, after a night on the sleeper, Martha Ann was on the road outside of Omaha, hitchhiking toward the next town.

She still felt self-conscious and queer in the soft corduroy riding breeches and high-topped boots that she had donned in the dressing room of the station. She had rolled her heavy woolen socks down over her hiking boots; and the sleeves of her white shirt over slim round arms that she hoped would soon get tanned.

As Martha Ann swung along the road her mind seemed both busy and absent. How good it was just to be alive and free on a morning like this! She had a heavenly sense of having been newly born. Would it not be wonderful to walk on like this forever? There was no need of hurry. Even the goal of Wyoming failed to seem so far away and unattainable.

For a while Martha Ann strode rhythmically along, her feet light, her heart dancing, her thoughts at peace. She stopped at the first gas station she came to on the road, where she was favored with amused glances and deluged with maps. A few cars passed her, and as one of them seemed about to stop, she waved it on. Martha wanted to prolong the enchantment of these first hours of freedom.

The sun rose high in the sky. It was beginning to get hot. After a time the road began to slope uphill, necessitating a change in her gait. Near the summit, a Ford coupé came puffing up behind her and stopped. A sandy-haired young man put his head out of the window.

“Hey, pigeon, where do you think you’re flyin’?” he called, in a good-natured voice.

Long had Martha Ann schooled herself in the replies that would have to be made. Always it would be diplomatic to name the nearest town as her destination, which subterfuge would enable her to take her leave of any undesirable who might offer her a lift. Accordingly she named the first village she had read on the road map.

“Hop in. I’m going within half a mile of there.”

Martha slid off the packsack, the weight of which she had not fully appreciated until relieved of it, and climbed into the car.

“Got relatives there?” inquired the driver, as he put the Ford into motion.

“Yes,” replied Martha, warily.

“Where you from?”

“Chicago.”

He whistled his surprise. “Hike all the way from there?”

“No. I came as far as Omaha by train.” she replied, feeling that she liked this not overly curious driver. He glanced at her packsack.

“Nice army pack. That leather bottom keeps your stuff dry.”

“Yes, Colonel Brinkerhoff gave it to my brother.”

“That so,” he said, and flashed a keen glance at her. Then he attended to the road ahead. The car was speeding between fields of winter grain and pastureland. Farmhouses stood among groves of trees rapidly turning green.

Suddenly he launched a query: “Do your folks know you’re out here alone like this?”

“No,” rejoined Martha Ann, caught unawares.

“Ahuh. Well, why don’t they?”

“Why?...I — I suppose — because if I’d told them — I wouldn’t be here,” she replied, haltingly. It annoyed her to be quizzed but his directness had momentarily confused her.

“Does anyone know you’re hitchhiking?”

“Yes, our family lawyer. I bound him to secrecy. He promised, provided I’d keep in touch with him. If I didn’t he threatened to have the police on my trail.”

“Not a bad idea. How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Humph! You look more like fifteen.”

Martha Ann glared at him.

“Listen, kid,” he said, ignoring her look of disdain, “you can’t lie worth a hoot! Some girls are like that. Just where are you headed for?”

“I’m going to Randall, Wyoming, but I can’t see where it’s any concern of yours,” retorted Martha.

“Good Lord!...Say, do you know how far that is? To hitchhike?”

“I’ve a pretty good idea.”

“And do you know you’ll have to go through the Black Hills?”

“N — no-o, I didn’t...Are they as awful as they sound?”

“You’ll never come out alive. A few tourists motor through the Hills. But for the most part they’re darned lonely and deserted. A refuge for fugitives and criminals. Believe me, kid, you’ll get yours!”

“Gracious!...Oh, you’re just trying to scare me.”

“Not a chance! Look here. I belong to the armory. I know Colonel Brinkerhoff, whose packsack you’re carrying. I’m going to take you to the armory with me while I wire the Colonel to find out if he really approves of this crazy hike you’re on.”

Martha Ann sat back stunned. What if this assertive young man were to make good his threat? What would her mother say? And do! Martha could see what a disgrace it would be to be sent home just when she had such a fine start. But she simply must not let this terrible thing happen.

“Wiring Colonel Brinkerhoff won’t be any use now,” she spoke up, her wit reasserting itself.

“Why won’t it?”

“Because he isn’t in Chicago now.”

“Where is he?”

“Fishing in northern Canada.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he went with a friend of my uncle.”

Plainly the sandy-haired young man was at a loss as far as proceeding along the line he had adopted was concerned.

“I’ll bet you haven’t any money?”

“Indeed I have.”

“Enough to get home to Chicago?” he queried doubtfully.

“Yes. And then some.”

“What on earth put this crazy idea in your head?”

That for Martha was waving a red flag of battle.

“Crazy! Sure I’m crazy. But it’s to see the West. Why, I’ve never been away from home in my life. I’ve never seen any places but Chicago and Lake Michigan. This is my chance. I must go on...Besides, I’ve never seen my uncle. I wrote him...He — he’s expecting me.”

This last was far from the truth, but Martha Ann had become desperate.

“Uncle, uh? That’s different. Still my duty to Brinkerhoff is to hold you till some of your people are communicated with.”

“Hold me! How?” burst out Martha. If she ever got away from this armory person she would never accept another ride.

“Well, you can’t jump out while we’re going forty-five,” he declared, grimly. “I’ll drive straight to the armory and hold you till Captain Stevens can be notified.”

“Hold me — by force?” faltered Martha. She realized that he was in the right and it gave her a sense of guilt. What could she do? She must fall back upon feminine wiles, a procedure she usually scorned. Whereupon she made a frantic pretense of escaping from the car.

“Hold you? I should smile I will,” he said, suiting his action to the word. “If necessary, I’ll hold on to you with one arm. But, heck, I’ll bet you wouldn’t make too much fuss.”

Martha Ann resorted to tears, which were so near the surface that weeping was hardly any dissimulation.

“Say, I give up, young lady. I can’t stand for bawling,” he said irritably. “I’ll let you go if you promise to watch your step. Don’t get in cars where there’s more than one man, and be sure you’re never in any car after dark.”

Martha promised eagerly.

“And look each driver over before you accept a ride?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Martha, demurely.

“I’ve got a kid sister. And I’d have a fit if I caught her hitchhiking alone. But she has queer ideas, too. Girls are sure beyond understanding these days...Well, here’s where I turn off. And there’s the village.”

Martha got out and thanked him.

“Would you mind dropping me a post card — if you get by the Black Hills? I’ll be sort of worried. My name’s Arthur Anderson. And I live here.”

“Mine’s Martha Ann Dixon. I’ll send you a card. Thank you — and good-by!”

She started down the road, and after a little turned to look back. The car was still there at the turn-off. And the young man was waving his cap. Martha went on, a considerably sobered and thoughtful girl.

In the village she stopped at a little hot-dog stand to rest and eat lunch. From there a farmer and two small boys gave her a lift that took her thirty-five miles to another crossroad settlement, where she decided to call it a day. And upon being directed to a tourist home, she found pleasant accommodations for the night.

The twittering and fluttering of birds in the vines outside Martha’s window aroused her at five-thirty. She bounded up, eager and refreshed. Another day — the second! What would the day bring forth? How beautiful the rosy sunrise over the rolling eastern Nebraska hills! At breakfast she was informed that if she did not mind riding in a truck, she could accompany her host as far as the next town.

“Oh, fine! That will be fun,” she exclaimed.

But that anticipated lift turned out to be all too short, and therefore not such fun after all. Halfway up a steep hill the engine stalled. The driver had to begin tinkering with obstinate machinery. Martha got out and began to walk.

The truck never caught up with her. After several cars had passed she accepted a ride with a merry family of five, who cheerfully made room for her, and welcomed her without curiosity. Martha liked this plain man and his fat spouse, and the dirty, bright-eyed children. It was noon when their village was reached. Martha had lunch and once more went on her way.

It occurred to her that she was now traveling through the Nebraska plains and that towns would be few and far between. Farms seemed to spread out. Anyway, there were fewer farmhouses. Cars passed her. She had learned by now that her solitary, unusual, little figure would not escape notice on the road. The afternoon sun grew hot. She rested, and hoped an acceptable lift soon would happen along. Then she started hiking again. She walked on and on, and in two hours’ time not a single automobile passed in her direction. Then came a string of cars, so close together that Martha could not get a good look at their occupants. She found, presently, that when she was tired and impatient, as she grew to be by late afternoon, she was likely to forget the good advice she had been given, and to accept any ride that was offered. She began to wonder — was she being erratic, irresponsible? Was this unheard-of adventure for a girl of nineteen who looked fifteen a proof of an unstable character? She defended herself stoutly, but somehow the buoyant spirit of the morning had vanished.

A lengthy hill invited a long rest. When she resumed her hike and had surmounted the grade the sun was setting red and glorious in the west. The rolling plains began to disappear in the purple haze of the horizon. In this scene, still dominated by the habitations of man, Martha imagined she saw a semblance to the western range. And this thought so thrilled and delighted her that she forgot her hot tired feet and aching limbs, and trudged on, almost her old self once more.

From the height she looked down upon lonelier country, which the road bisected to the next town, now visible in the clear evening light some few miles ahead. Martha thought that she could still make it before it became pitch dark. Downhill was easy and the air had cooled. At the foot of the incline the road turned abruptly. A brook gleamed under a dark patch of woods that shaded the road and there was a bridge to cross. Below the bridge Martha saw a little fire and two rough-looking men, sitting beside it. Could they be tramps?

Martha realized that she had to pass them. With bated breath she quickened her steps. Twilight was stealing out of the woods. She might get by without attracting notice. But when one of the men called out, her heart leaped wildly.

“Bill, stop thet boy, an’ see what he’s got in thet bag.”

Then Martha, who had been watching the two men beside the fire, was astounded to be confronted by a dark form that appeared to rise out of the earth. It belonged to a third man who evidently had been invisible against the background of the bridge.

“Hyar, sonny, what you totin’ there?” he queried, in brisk good humor.

Martha Ann, suddenly rendered weak by terror, made an ineffectual attempt to elude the man. He caught her with so violent a jerk that she would have fallen but for his hold. She dropped the small parcel she carried in her hand.

“Oh! — let me — go!” she cried out, fearfully.

The man swung her around to the westering light and peered closely down upon her. Martha got an impression of a hard, coarse face and a pair of wolfish eyes. She tried to wrench free from the iron grip which was hurting her wrist.

“Hey, fellars, it ain’t no boy. It’s a girl. Purtier’n a pitcher,” called the man to his associates.

“Haw! Haw! Wal, Bill, you know your weakness. But throw us the baggage,” came the hoarse reply.

“Come hyar, little one, an’ set—”

Martha struggled with what little strength she had left. A kind of paralysis had taken possession of her. It was a new and devastating numbness of will and flesh. All in a flash peril had leaped out of the dusk, and wit, nerve, energy deserted her to be replaced by a horrible sickening faintness.

“Hey, Bill, hyar’s a car!” hurriedly called one of the men beside the fire.

Martha Ann heard the puff and then the vibration of a car. Its presence revived her, and she jerked herself free, calling loudly at the same time.

“Let that boy go,” came a commanding voice from the car. Then the occupant stepped out to loom big and wide of shoulder before them. “What’s the idea?”

“Aw, nuthin’. Jest havin’ fun with the kid,” returned the tramp surlily, as he backed away.

“Oh — n-no sir,” quavered Martha Ann. “He meant to rob — me — and I don’t know what — when he saw I was a girl!”

“Girl!” The newcomer moved like a swift shadow. Martha heard a sudden crash. The tramp appeared lifted as by a catapult to go tottering against the bank with a sickening impact.

“Beat it, you hoboes, or I’ll come down there and mess you up,” called Martha’s rescuer. Then he turned to her.

“Are you really a girl?”

“Yes, sir...And sometimes I wish — I wasn’t,” replied Martha, picking up her parcel.

“Of course, you live along here somewhere?”

“No-o. My home’s — far away.”

“How’d you come to be caught on this lonely road?” he queried.

“I’m hitchhiking out West.”

“Hitchhiking?” he exclaimed.

“It’s a — a kind of sport. Sometimes I accept lifts — when I can — and hike between.”

“Sport! I admire your nerve,” he laughed. His voice had a pleasant depth, with an intonation that told Martha that he was quite different from the others she had met on this jaunt. She looked up. There was still light enough for her to discern the features of a young man in his early twenties. His eyes were intently on her face. They appeared to have a mocking look. Martha saw that again she was under suspicion, and the realization almost canceled the sweet warm sensation of gratitude and relief flooding over her.

“Thank you for saving me from I — I don’t know what,” she murmured, shyly. The strain of her struggle with the tramp, and the manner in which the stranger had accepted her explanation, or perhaps both together, had reacted strangely upon Martha Ann Dixon.

“Girls of today pay a price for the kick they try to get out of everything,” he replied, enigmatically. “You look faint. Get in. I’ll take you as far as Norfolk.”

CHAPTER II

NOT FOR MANY minutes did the effect of panic wear off Martha Ann. It all had been so totally unexpected. She had never before realized what real fright was like. The rickety old car crept slowly along! She relaxed back in the seat, spent and nerveless, scarcely able to hold the packsack upon her lap.

But presently her usual buoyant spirit returned, and Martha Ann became acutely aware of the driver beside her. She realized that she must summon her wits to meet another quizzing. This young man, however, appeared completely oblivious of her presence. His silence condemned her. And before they had gone very far Martha began to find it unendurable.

“You don’t live — in these parts?” she began, haltingly.

“How’d you guess that?”

Martha Ann, analyzing her sensations, could not very well tell him that he did not smell of horses, gas stations or harness oil.

“Where are you from?” she substituted.

His hesitation in replying to her question hinted to Martha that he might have considered her query unduly curious.

“I’m a hick from Missouri,” he finally replied, with a light laugh tinged with bitterness.

“Yes, you are!” she exclaimed accusingly. “And I suppose your name is Hiram Perkins?”

“My name is Andrew Bonning,” he returned, soberly, as if the admission had been forcibly extracted from him.

Martha Ann’s best overtures failed to stimulate the conversation and at length she subsided into silence. She peered at him, however, out of the corner of her eye. He wore overalls that had seen very little service. She could make out a clean-cut profile. He was bareheaded and had dark hair, somewhat long and wavy. Martha Ann reluctantly had to admit that this strange rescuer who obviously disapproved of her was good-looking even in the dusk.

“Where are you going?”

“Wyoming.”

“Humph...Well, here’s your next town,” he spoke up, presently. “See the lights?”

“Oh, it must be a pretty big town,” said Martha Ann, excitedly.

“You’ll get another kick here.”

“Kick?” she echoed, doubtfully.

“Yes, kick. Isn’t that what you’re after? Isn’t that what all girls think of nowadays?”

Martha Ann had no reply, for his query edged with bitterness had thrown her back upon introspection. All at once she felt vexed, and because it seemed to be only with herself, she promptly chose to foist her feeling of annoyance upon this disturbing young man. After all, what did she care what he thought about her? Just the same that reflection did not wholly satisfy. The excitement of entering a new and larger town, however, precluded any hope of Martha’s to deliver a telling retort. The main street was wide, paved, lined with automobiles, and bright with lights. Martha chose a modest-appearing hotel, and asked to be dropped at its entrance. The fact that he got out first to help her, and to lift out her packsack, struck Martha as significant. He moved with a careless grace which her sensitive observations scarcely associated with overalls.

“Thank you, Mr. Bonning, for — for everything,” murmured Martha.

“You’re welcome. I wish you better luck on the next lap of your hitchhike...You forgot to tell me your name.”

“I didn’t forget. I was—”

As he lifted out her packsack he noticed the lettering Martha Ann had so carefully printed in indelible ink on the side of the pack. She had neglected to use punctuation.

“Mad!” he exclaimed. Then suddenly he smiled down upon her in a way that made Martha feet like a wayward little girl. Under the electric light she could now see him distinctly, and somehow, someway, that pale handsome face with its sad and piercing eyes seemed incomprehensibly to be her undoing. “Wyoming Mad? It suits you better than any real name. And as you are an unforgettable kid I’ll remember you by that. I hope we don’t meet again. Good-by.”

He got into the car and drove off, leaving Martha Ann standing on the sidewalk, bag in hand, staring up the crowded street. Unforgettable kid? But not because she was pretty or sweet or nice — only because she was mad! Insulted and crestfallen, Martha Ann went into the hotel, engaged a room, and wearily proceeded to unpack and remove the stains of travel. Her left arm pained, and she discovered a bruise where the tramp had gripped her wrist. These were the only tangible proofs of her adventure with the bad men. What if Andrew Bonning had not happened to arrive at such an opportune moment? Martha Ann shivered. They might have murdered her and cast her into the dark stream. Then what of mother! Martha’s spirit quailed for a little and her heart warmed again toward her rescuer. How wide-shouldered and powerful — what a blow he had struck for her! Then the next moment, remembering his veiled distrust of her, his spiteful designation of her as “Wyoming Mad,” all of Martha Ann’s more charitable feelings were forgotten. They would never meet again and she was gladder of that than he could possibly be.

Next morning bright and early Martha was on her way once more. Yesterday’s events lay as far behind her as the distance over which she had come. The yellow road entranced her, ever new, ever offering the unknown adventures that were to come. In the broad daylight, so clear and fresh, between the green fields with their singing birds — how could she feel afraid? She stepped out with eager stride, with glad eyes toward the beckoning miles.

During the day that followed automobiles were plentiful. She could take her pick, and she had lifts aggregating a hundred miles or more before midafternoon. She likened this passing from car to car to the reading of a huge book which devoted just so much space to each individual. All rides were fascinating to Martha Ann, whether short or long, but she still preferred walking. During the afternoon there seemed to be a scarcity of cars on the road. She walked until she was glad to hear the hum of another motor.

A Cadillac roadster sped past. The occupant, a young man, looked back at her. As Martha continued walking, presently she saw the big car slow down and stop. When she caught up with it, the driver leaned out to say: “Hello, my beauty, wilt thou ride on my trusty steed?”

“Is it safe?” she queried.

“Is it safe! Lady, you appall me. I’m the original Sir Galahad. My middle name is Saint. Mothers leave their puling infants with me. Old ladies phone days ahead just to have me escort them to the village—”

“I believe I’ve read about you,” interrupted Martha Ann. “You’re too good to be true. I’d better walk.”

“Aw, have a heart! I’ve got to drive all the way to Sidonia. Please don’t mind my kidding. Really I’m mild under my bold exterior.”

“All right,” laughed Martha. “I’m only going a short distance and I’ll take a chance on you.”

“Get in. My name’s George Proctor.”

“Mine’s Martha Ann Dixon.”

They rode along in the warm sunshine, just two young people thrown idly together, and George’s fluent talk of the lore of the Nebraska countryside found Martha a rapt listener. At length George explained that his business was insurance, and proceeded to quote numerous statistics for Martha’s edification and profit.

“Whoever heard of a hitchhiker being killed?” she queried.

“Say, you’re only one of a pioneer game. You might be the very first to get killed.”

“If I had known you’d be saying such pessimistic things to me I wouldn’t have accepted this ride.”

“Hold everything, Beautiful. I’ll make this an enjoyable ride for you.”

“Well, speaking of hazards, if you’re tired driving let me try.”

“Do you drive? Great! I’m sure fed up with driving. It’s all I ever do.”

Whereupon Martha changed her seat for the one behind the wheel, and drove on, evidently to young Proctor’s pleasure. It did not take long for Martha Ann to decide that his intentions were strictly honorable, and since Sidonia was on her way she would continue that far with him. At six o’clock they were within sight of Sidonia.

“My uncle runs the hotel here,” said George. “I’ll introduce you. And — would you think me awfully cheeky if I ask you to have dinner with us?”

“N-no-o...But I’ve just one dress — and it’ll be fearfully wrinkled.”

“Pshaw! Nobody dresses up for dinner in Sidonia.”

It so happened that Martha did not think to relinquish the wheel, and as she drove up to an unpretentious hotel she was astounded to recognize a bystander as Andrew Bonning. Yielding to a swift warm impulse she was about to nod gaily when a look in the young man’s keen dark eyes sent a hot blush coursing over her cheeks. He inclined his head in recognition, a courtesy Martha did not answer, and which young Proctor did not see. He took her baggage and helped her out, talking gaily all the while. Anyone would have noticed his rapture, which all of a sudden seemed to incense Martha Ann. She knew for a certainty that Bonning had seen Proctor escort her into the hotel, where she confusedly prayed that the uncle-proprietor would be in charge. But he was out. George got her a room, carried her baggage up, and said at the door: “Doll up now, Beautiful, and knock Uncle’s eye out at dinner!”

This young fellow was certainly courteous and wholesome. But something had cast a shadow over Martha Ann’s spirit. She locked the door and slammed things around, taking out her vague feeling of uncertainty upon a completely innocent bystander.

“Andrew Bonning!” she soliloquized, wrathfully. “Didn’t want to meet me again?...Doesn’t approve of me?...What does he think I am, anyway?”

Her wrath and her pride, however, in no wise soothed the little ache this second unexpected meeting had engendered. Martha Ann bathed, pressed her one dress, and gazing in the mirror at the proud amber eyes and the golden hair, knew that she need not be ashamed of her looks. Would Bonning see her? Was he staying at this hotel? She went downstairs all a-quiver and still furious with herself. George met her, to introduce a kindly old man, whose twinkling blue eyes made much of Martha Ann. She knew at once that George had told him about her hitchhiking.

“Wal, Miss Marthy, young George tells me you’re goin’ to stop over with us for a night.”

“Yes, I am.”

“We’ll take good care of you tonight, but you’re liable to be scalped by Indians when you get to the Black Hills.”

“O dear! Those dreadful Black Hills again!”

“Wal, mabbe you’ll slip through. But you oughtn’t to walk it...Go right in to dinner, George. I’ll be along pronto.”

Fate was against Martha Ann. As they entered the dining room with George hanging on to her arm, whom should Martha see but Bonning at one of the tables. He wore the same rough garb, but it did not make him look like a laborer. As they passed he glanced up, and Martha knew as well as if he had spoken in that he thought she had flirted with this young Nebraskan and was getting her kick out of it. Martha Ann could have boxed his ears. She determined that she would make him notice her.

“Howdy, Hiram Perkins,” she drawled, as she passed him. “Hope you heered from Mizzourie.”

“Good evening, Wyoming Mad,” he replied, rising with a bow.

Young Proctor wheeled in surprise, but did not speak until he had placed Martha Ann at a table and found a seat for himself.

“You spoke to that fellow. He called you ‘Wyoming’ something!”

“Yes. We met back at Norfolk. Just a little camaraderie of the road.”

“Oh, I see. Gosh, it sort of took the starch out of me...Well, I can sure recommend our fried chicken.”

Martha Ann sat where she faced Bonning and had to meet his eyes. Suddenly the hot blood stole along her veins. If she did not read disappointment, as well as scorn in his dark gaze, then her reckoning was all wrong. At any rate, it had the same unaccountable effect that his first look had had upon her. Martha deigned not to notice him again and audaciously plied young Proctor with all the feminine wiles she could muster. She was actually flirting with eyes, lips, smiles and arch words when Bonning suddenly left his table and went out. The entrance of George’s uncle saved Martha Ann at that blank juncture.

Nevertheless, she enjoyed her dinner, and later, when the old Nebraskan began to tell stories of his life on the frontier, Martha forgot all about Bonning. Once again in her room, however, packing the pretty dress, she remembered him, and she found herself thinking of that evening when a young man’s strength had stood between her and a terrible fate. She divined that she would meet him tomorrow, or sometime on the road west, and the thought was both bitter and sweet. Before she went to sleep she had almost forgotten the young man’s obvious disapproval in the anticipation of meeting him again on the open road.

At six next morning she bade good-by to the Proctors and started out again on her way northward. If her heart beat faster whenever she heard the hum of approaching cars she did not permit herself to turn around to identify the driver. But as car after car caught up with her and passed she confessed to herself that she had hoped Andrew Bonning might be driving one of them, and would give her another lift. Could he pass her by?

The freshness and fragrance of pastures, the green folds of the lonely hills, the lure of the road, and the warming sun — all seemed to have lost some of their delight for the runaway. Martha Ann marveled at this and wondered why the beautiful morning had not the zest of other days. She walked steadily along until nine o’clock. As the sun rose higher and higher she found the road narrowing and the farm houses growing more scattered.

She heard the sounds of wagon wheels and hoof beats behind her. As they drew nearer Martha looked back and observed an ancient wagon with a man perched on a high seat, and five small boys leaning over the side of the wagon box.

“Wal, sis, kin we give you a lift?” called the driver, as he halted the vehicle beside her.

“You surely can,” replied Martha, gladly.

“Scramble up. Boys, make room thar for sis...Air you goin’ fur?”

“Wyoming.”

“Ain’t thinkin’ of walkin’ all thet way?”

“No indeed, not when I can meet such accommodating people as you.”

“Wal, this ain’t no gas wagon, but you’re welcome. Hep yourself to some apples an’ make yourself comfortable for three miles.”

Munching juicy red apples and talking to these five lively farm boys was the most enjoyable experience Martha Ann had had so far on her journey. But it ended all too soon. Once more she was reduced to shank’s mare.

In the ensuing hour only one car caught up with her. It was full and did not stop. The sun was beating down now with tropical intensity and her clothes were soaked with perspiration. She had not seen a farm house for hours. Worry followed soon upon fatigue and she began to wonder about how far it was to the next town. Fields after fields! They must run on forever. But after a time the fields gave way to rocky wasteland harboring only tall weeds.

Four o’clock found Martha Ann still trudging along the highway. A lump seemed fixed in her throat and often the landscape was blurred by the tears in her weary eyes. She kept saying that she did not mind the walk, endless though it seemed. Before she had started this wild-goose venture she had realized that there would be many, many miles of walking. It was the uncertainty of where she might find shelter and the approach of night that weighed her down with anxiety.

Martha Ann stumbled on over the mud-caked road and more than once came near falling. Both her heart and her feet seemed leaden. Suddenly the sound of a laboring motor caught her ear. She stood still and listened. She heard the sound again — the straining clatter of a car traversing the uncertain road. Soon it came in sight. Should she flag it? How could she stay on the road all night? Coyotes, snakes — probably more tramps! She waved frantically. The car halted, and Martha, running hurriedly to meet it, called out: “Please can you take me to the next town.”

The occupants, a man and a woman, were Negroes. Martha swallowed her surprise. They evidently were as surprised as she. Martha studied the couple with penetrating eyes, but they looked honest and kind.

“Missy, if yo-all don’t mind ridin’ with us yo’s sho welcome,” replied the woman, in a soft drawl.

“Thank you. I’m glad to come with you,” said Martha, as she climbed in. “I didn’t know it was so far to the next town.”

“We are lost, too. I nevah did see so much land in all mah life with nuthin’ on it.”

“I didn’t either,” agreed Martha.

While the man drove his buxom spouse talked. They were from St. Louis, on the way west to find work and a home. Sundown found them still on the road, but by seven o’clock they had reached the outskirts of a town. At the town square Martha got out and thanked them, and bade them good luck and good-by. She stopped at a small restaurant for a light supper, and was directed to the only hotel in the valley. She went immediately to bed. To be tired out was the usual thing, but this night she felt forlorn and homesick for the first time. She could no longer keep home and mother out of her consciousness, because she had not sent either telegrams or letter, and she absolutely must not delay another day.

In the morning she was so stiff and sore that she could hardly get up. What would this new day bring forth? Always this was her waking thought. But this morning her sense of humor and the call of adventure did not come to the rescue of her drooping spirits. For the first time she was experiencing the pangs of the guilty conscience of a runaway.

Therefore the first thing she did upon going downstairs was to begin a letter to her mother. She discovered that the decision to write was one thing. What to write was something else again. In the end she found that she would have to continue with the falsehood with which she had started her journey. She wrote with tears blotting the page that when she and Alice McGinnis had arrived in Omaha, Alice’s uncle had invited them to drive to the Black Hills with them. Of course she and Alice were wild to go. “And you know, mother darling, how I’ve always yearned to see the West, so don’t scold — and forgive me for disobeying.”

Posting that letter was a relief, yet it did not still her accusing conscience. How could she ever make amends for this untruth to her family, especially her mother? Her first innocent falsehood had enmeshed her in a situation which would require more and more lies and deception. Where would it all end?

Martha Ann had not been on the road ten minutes that morning before a touring car bearing an Illinois license plate passed with two middle-aged men in the front seat. They slowed down, smiled an invitation, then waved and went on. Soon after that a truck ground up a grade behind Martha and stopped at the crest of the hill.

“Whoa,” sang out a deep booming voice. A little boy on the seat beside the driver reached down and with tiny hands made what Martha thought was a pretense of helping to stop the car.

“Hey, traveler, want a ride with my pardner an’ me?” called the same deep voice.

Martha glanced up at a strange pair — the man in a blue shirt open at a bronzed throat, with ruddy frank face and his left arm off at the elbow — the lad in diminutive overalls, looking like a wistful little elf.

“I’d like to ride very much if I won’t crowd you,” replied Martha.

“Plenty room,” he boomed.

She hopped up onto the high seat beside the boy. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Then for a while they rattled along the road in silence. Martha thought of a hundred questions she wanted to ask.

After some time the driver started to talk. He came originally from Detroit and had lost his arm in the war. Upon arriving home from France he had learned from the doctors that he had lung trouble and would not live long unless he went west. He had come to Nebraska and in eight months he was a well man. Then he had gone in for farming and had been successful. Much of this good fortune, he said, was owing to the wonderful wife he had found out west.

“I’ve an older boy, too,” he concluded with pardonable pride. “But I just couldn’t get along without this young fellow here. He’s my left-hand man.”

At this sally both father and son laughed happily. Martha at last had run across one returned and disabled veteran of the war who had found himself. This broad open land seemed hospitable to strangers. Martha added to her growing list another reason to love the West.

They drove along chattering gaily until they let her off at a road that branched off to the south. Martha waved farewell to a gallant soldier and a lovable youngster.

“Well,” soliloquized Martha Ann, “there’s nothing to this hitchhiking but walking and riding, and meeting a lot of people I like...and a few I don’t.”

She thought of Andrew Bonning. He seemed to be fading into the past, the truth of which she recognized with a pang. How could she ever forget his gallant service in her behalf? But he had taken her for a common flirt. “Oh! it’s just as well if I never meet him again,” she sighed.

The country was growing more rugged. It swept away in series of desolate ridges where signs of civilization were becoming scarce. The trees were now taller and more numerous; the air had a finer, keener edge. It was invigorating. Martha Ann felt that she could walk on forever. Gradually with the exercise she found her stiffness was wearing away. She hoped to reach the next town late in the afternoon. If these towns were only not so far apart she would not have to be so much afraid of not getting a ride. As she swung along, her mind skipping from one thought to another, from home to the imagined ranch of her uncle, a Ford coupé came rolling up behind her and with a screeching of brakes stopped a few feet beyond her.

“How’s chances, baby?” queried a young fellow from the driver’s seat. He was alone and he had a sunburned, impudent face.

“Not so good,” replied Martha Ann, shortly. He kept his car moving alongside of her as she walked.

“Long way to Barton,” he said significantly, and stopped the Ford.

Nothing else in the way of words could have made such an impression on the weary wayfarer. She had found very little traffic on this road and she wanted so very much to get along with her journey. She stopped. He smiled at her in a knowing way, as if he were accustomed to being indulgent to a willful girl who was bound to capitulate in the end. When he opened the door her old confidence reasserted itself and she stepped in. She had done so despite an instant instinctive dislike for this overconfident young man. Perhaps her feeling derived mostly from the way he called her “baby.” He started the car with one hand and passed his cigarette case with the other.

“Have one?”

“No, thanks.”

“Don’t you really smoke or are you being snooty?” His eyes were a little too close together and emitted curious glints as they ran over her slim person.

“I really don’t like cigarettes...How far are you going on this road?”

“A few miles more. Have to turn off to see a farmer...Where are you bound for, babe?”

“Wyoming,” she returned, curtly, hating the epithet he used so freely. She began to fear that she had made a blunder in accepting this young man’s lift.

“Gee! That’s too far for a dame to be going alone. Not in a hurry, are you, babe?”

“Indeed I am. In a very big hurry,” declared Martha Ann sharply. Whether or not her reply penetrated his mind Martha could not tell. Certainly he seemed not to resent it.

“Ever been to an Indian pow-wow?”

“No-o.”

“We’re having a pow-wow and dance in Lagrange tonight. Why doncha come on and go with me. You’ll have a swell time.”

“I’ve relatives expecting me at Barton tonight.”

“Tell that to your grandmother,” he retorted with a grin. “You’re one of these hitchhikers. They’re all sports. I know.”

“Well, this one isn’t.”

“C’mon, babe. Be a sport. You can phone from Lagrange. Say you got in late. I’ll give you a real time.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t think of it,” rejoined Martha. She felt his eyes on her, as she watched the speedometer mounting higher.

“‘Smatter, babe? Afraid to speed a little?”

“I’m not afraid,” she said scornfully. “I was just wondering if you were driving to a fire.”

He laughed and laid a freckled hand upon Martha’s knee. “Maybe you’re afraid of me, babe?”

“Humph! Hardly,” she returned. Then decisively, and very deliberately and firmly she removed his hand.

“You know, baby, I could go for you in a big way,” he said, persuasively.

“I dare say. But it’s not necessary. If you’ll slow down I’ll get out and walk.”

“Aw, don’t be like that. You just came. Am I such a bad guy?”

“Skip it!” ejaculated Martha Ann, in disgust. “I’m not your type.”

“You’re just trying to high-hat me.”

“Stop this car and let me out!”

“But, gee whiz, girlie, we’re nearly there.”

By this time the Ford was careening along the road at the rate of a mile a minute. Martha grew frightened with the speed of the car, if not with the lout who was driving it. To be killed in a wreck — what a futile and tragic end to her dream! Why had she ever yielded to this mad escapade? She called sharply to be let out.

He lifted his foot from the accelerator and made a quick turn to the right down a grassy lane lined with trees that brushed against the car. The swerve of the car had thrown Martha off her balance and over against the driver. He let go of the wheel with one hand and seized her around the waist. Then he slowed down the car so that he would not drive off the rough lane into the brush. He tried to pull the girl to him.

“How dare you! Let me go — you rowdy!” cried Martha Ann, drawing back with all her might.

“Too late, babe!” He had the car barely moving now. “C’mon. Be nice to me. What’re you afraid of?”

“Not a thing! Least of all — you!” panted Martha, struggling. “Let me go — let me out of this car — or I’ll have you arrested.”

“Say, cutie, where do you think you are? There’s no sheriff near here.”

“I have — relatives near enough — to see that plenty is done to you...Let me out!”

He gave a derisive laugh. “Say, listen, dame, you’re so far from a sheriff, or anybody, that it isn’t even funny. No one will hear you if you do scream. But have a heart. Cut the upstage stuff. Am I as bad as all that?”

“Our tastes differ. I just don’t happen to care for your type.”

“Hell you say! I’ll just have to change your mind. Anyway, I like my women wild.”

With that he let go of the wheel and caught her to him. Martha had succeeded in wrenching almost free. For an instant she was fascinated by his small, scalloped, tobacco-stained teeth. She recognized for the first time in her life contact with a raw, bold elemental force. Then his thick mouth was moving toward her. All the other features faded before this animal ugliness. A terrible rage flashed hot and overpowering through her. What a miserable rotten bully! She sensed that there was no use to scream. She had better save her breath. She was utterly dependent upon her own resourcefulness and strength. The car bumped against a stump, and lurched along the bank side of the lane. She feared for a moment that it might overturn. He had been trying to get farther and farther off the main road. Martha knew that she could not afford to get any further away from the highway.

With one arm tight and contracting around her shoulder he suddenly pressed his other grimy hand over Martha’s breast. She kicked out with all her might. One of her heavy hiking boots struck him on the shin. He let out a yell of pain, but continued to hold her tighter than ever with one arm while again he endeavored to steer with the other. He wanted to get her far along this lonely lane, out of sight and sound of the highway.

The savage kick Martha had administered to the driver of the Ford awakened her to her one chance. She knew her greatest strength was in her legs, so she lashed out again with both feet. At length she kicked herself free, and then doubling up, she shot both boots into the pit of his stomach. Yelling hoarsely he let go of the wheel. Swiftly Martha reached down, locked the ignition, and flung the key far out into the tall grass.

“You damn she-devil!” he screamed, his face contorted by anger and pain.

Then Martha’s rage knew no bounds. If she had felt any fear before, it now vanished. With her back braced in the corner of the coupé and her feet up she continued to batter him — all over the front of his body — with swift, hard, savage kicks from her heavy boots. Twice he seized her flying feet, but could not hold them. He was not strong enough — Martha saw, savagely exultant. He could not force her. She could whip him any day. And she kicked him with a hard left to the stomach and a harder right in the nose. Blood spattered the interior of the car. But that only augmented her determination to maim him and even to kill him.

“Let up — you infernal wildcat,” he bawled.

Martha Ann dropped her boots with a thump, and sat up to snatch at her bag. Then, opening the door, she plunged out. He had his hands to his nose. Blood was pouring through his fingers down his wrists, staining his shirt sleeves.

“Next time you — get fresh—” she panted, “pick some girl — your class and size — you big bully!”

She marched breathlessly back down the lane to the road — an outraged but a triumphant young woman. This elation lasted only for a few moments; then a reaction set in, and she began to tremble violently and to sob. She could no longer stand up. Staggering against a culvert she sat down, trying to dip her handkerchief into the water to wipe her face and hands with it. A car hummed close by. Could that bully be after her again? Oh, God, she could not find the strength for another battle. But the hum did not come from down the lane. A car hove in sight. She recognized it as the Illinois Buick that had passed her with the two pleasant-faced men. They bore down upon the culvert, and seeing her, halted.

“Hello — you again,” called one.

“What’s wrong, little girl?” queried the other quickly and got out.

The sound of a kindly voice in that terrible loneliness upset Martha still more. Her sobs increased. She could not answer the queries they put to her. They got a canteen and offered her water. At length she recovered enough to be coherent. “I accepted a lift — from a young man — in a Ford...He drove — over sixty...Turned off down — that lane there and attacked me...Oh, he was beastly!...But I fought him off — left him there.”

“Damned scoundrel!” rasped one of the men. “Biston, you look after her while I find this fellow.”

He strode off and was gone for some time, during which the other gentleman tried to calm Martha, and to assure her that he and his companion, Mr. Madison, would be glad to have her ride with them to the next town.

Martha was in the car, in the back seat, and somewhat composed when Mr. Madison came striding back.

“Well, Miss — ,” he began cheerfully.

“Dixon,” Martha supplied.

“I found your assailant and from his appearance I’m inclined to believe that the question Biston and I were pondering a while back — can that kid take care of herself — is very amply answered. But I gave him a little more punishment just for good measure.”

CHAPTER III

ANDREW BONNING DECIDED that there must be something amiss when James, the butler, disturbed his leisurely perusal of the Sunday New York Times, and informed him that his father wished to see him in the library.

“Well, it can’t come any too soon for me,” muttered Andrew, sensing a long-threatened ultimatum, no doubt brought to a climax by his brother Raymond’s latest escapade. Thoughtfully he descended the stairway to the second floor, feeling the oppressive atmosphere of that house as never before.

As he expected, Raymond was already there, standing with the elegant nonchalance his handsome person never failed to radiate. His blond head was bent slightly as he scrutinized a bit of paper he held before him. Mr. Bonning sat at his desk, looking up with a cool air of finality.

“That’s the last, Raymond,” he was saying. “You are on your own now.”

“Okay, Pater,” replied Raymond, looking up from the check. “Thanks, of course. It’s more than I’d hoped for...And I’m to clear out.”

“Your sister and I will take an apartment — where there will not be any room for you boys.”

“Morning, Andy,” said Raymond. “We’re in for a ride...So long to both of you.” He strode out fluttering the check in a white hand.

“Dad, I guess I don’t need to ask what you want,” spoke up Andrew, with a short laugh.

“Will you sit down?” queried his father, courteously. “No, thanks. And please make it short and sweet.”

“It can’t be anything else,” rejoined the senior Bonning. “You doubtless are aware of how hard the latest Wall Street crash has hit me. I hoped to retrieve. But...well, I need not go into details...Here is a check for you.”

Andrew received it without glancing at the figures it bore. “Dad, I’m sorry,” he said, haltingly. “At your age — it’s tough...With neither of us boys any help — and Gloria—”

“Your sister has her income,” interrupted Mr. Bonning. “Fortunately she has not squandered the principal of the money your mother left her. And she will marry well. I can take care of myself in a modest way. But Raymond and you must now fare for yourselves.”

“I gathered as much, Dad,” returned Andrew, thoughtfully. He was still fond of his father, which fact seemed suddenly to erase all the misunderstandings and aloofness of the past few years.

“Andrew, I didn’t trouble to bore Raymond with my opinions,” went on Mr. Bonning, “but if you will permit me, I’d like to express my bitter disappointment in you.”

“Dad, I’ve been under the impression that you had expressed that — more than once,” rejoined Andrew, sadly. “But if it will relieve you — go ahead.”

“You quit college before you were half through your sophomore year.”

“Why not? I wasn’t learning a damn thing,” said Andrew impatiently.

“You couldn’t make good even in football — where you had every requirement except guts,” replied his father contemptuously. “Big, heavy, fast on your feet you could have made a name for yourself!”

“Yeah! Like hell I could,” retorted Andrew hotly. “Didn’t I go out for the freshman team and scrub team for two years and rip the varsity line to ribbons? The coaches were hot for me, but Captain Higgins and the athletic directors played their favorites. I lost heart and finally lay down on the job.”

“Yes, you sure did. But if you had stuck it out!”

“Dad, would it surprise you to learn that I regarded college as too much football, too many fast cars and too much money, instead of a place to study?”

“No, that wouldn’t surprise me. You’re an adept at excuses...The fact is you failed to get a college training. Either physical or cultural. And lastly, you have failed in business.”

“Dad, that last I admit,” replied Andrew regretfully. “I’ve been a flop at each job you’ve got me. I tried hard. Honest to God, I tried! It wasn’t that I’m exactly a dumbbell. I’m poor at figures. I can’t stand a desk. Confinement strangles me somehow...And, Dad, to come clean — I hate modern business methods.”

“Thank you for being frank, at last,” declared Mr. Bonning. “You might have saved us both considerable friction, not to say grief.”

Andrew slowly tore the check in two pieces and laid them before his father.

“Dad, you need have no further concern about me.”

“What! — you won’t take it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll need it more than I...And you’ve awakened me — to my shame. All the same I don’t feel wholly to blame for my failure. The world is out of joint or maybe I just don’t fit in. I haven’t found anything I want to and can do. That’s all...Good-by, father.”

Andrew stalked out of the library with head erect and resolute step, deaf to Mr. Bonning’s call. On the landing above he encountered his sister, Gloria, leaning over the rail. She wore a blue dressing gown.

“Andy!”

“Morning, Gloria! Why so intense and dramatic? You always were a tragedienne, but just now you’ve got Duse tied to the mast...Say, what an idea! Why don’t you go into the movies, Gloria. What’d be better than—”

“I heard,” she whispered, and drawing him into her room, closed the door. Then she asked gravely: “Dad has refused you the parental roof any longer?”

“It amounts to that, Sis, though I gathered this particular parental roof was lost to all of us.”

“Andy, I’m not a damn bit sorry,” she said fervently. “Ray is a rotter. And this break will make a man of you.”

“Thanks, old thing. You give me hope. In fact, Gloria, you’ve been the only one who ever held out the slightest hope for me. I’ll not forget that. Even Constance always thought me a flop.”

“Yes, and she’ll give you the gate when she hears this,” declared Gloria significantly. “Andy, it gets my goat the way she strings you along.”

“We’re not engaged, Sis — and honestly, I don’t think I care any more about her than she does about me. We’ve just been together since before I went to college.”

“What’ll you do, Andy?” she queried, her dark eyes studying him.

“Beat it!” he burst out, as if a sudden thought had possessed him.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Far away, though...where there’s room — great open spaces — no business.”

“West?” she flashed.

“Darling, you can’t imagine me going abroad!”

“Andy, you should have taken Dad’s check.”

“Not me!”

“I’ll stake you to five grand.”

“You will not!...Thanks, old girl. I’ve still about twelve thousand of what mother left me. It’s more than enough.”

“Far West,” mused the sister, with wondering eyes. “I’ve been to Yellowstone, Andy. Oh, Wyoming was marvelous! Go there...Andy, you know I have queer inspirations at long intervals.”

“Okay, it’s Wyoming,” replied Andrew, relieved that something had been decided for him.

“It’ll be the making of you,” she went on. “Somehow, Andy, you never could have made the grade here. New York has lost its kick for you.”

“Kick! I hate that word,” he declared irritably. “It seems to be the sole aim of everybody nowadays.”

“It is — for all of us anyway,” she replied, somberly. “I suppose we can’t escape the present. It simply is...I’ve tried every last thing under the sun — except marriage — and I’d try that if I believed it’d be interesting enough.”

Andrew bit his lip to restrain a sharp retort. Whatever Gloria’s shortcomings, in his opinion she was a thoroughbred and she had been loyal to him, and loyalty loomed big in this hour.

“Draw the line somewhere, darling,” he said lightly. “Marrying Ellerton, or even Blackstone, for their money might not give you much of a kick, but it would be safe.”

“Andy, you’re old-fashioned. And that’s where you are wrong. The idea of a twentieth-century girl marrying to be safe — settled — taken care of! Bunk! Who wants to be safe?”

“Sis, I think you can take care of yourself at that,” rejoined Andrew with a laugh. “Well, I’ll go pack up a few things before I change my mind.”

“Do. If you weaken now you’re sunk forever. Only don’t beat it without saying good-by to me.”

Andrew plodded on upstairs to his room, obsessed with the resolve he had impulsively made, conscious of sensations he had not experienced since boyhood. He was twenty-four years old. And the thought that struck him so forcibly at the moment was — why had this idea never come to him before? He flung himself down on his bed to face the realization that the turning point in his life had arrived. He had reached an indifferent stage in a futile existence where he imagined nothing worth while could happen to him. But he realized now this was because he had not made anything happen. Until the last six months he had accepted his inability to do so with good nature and resignation. He was just a misfit. Later had come discontent and chafing, leading to his present genuine unhappiness. A few words from his sophisticated yet wise sister had changed all this in a twinkling — had shaken him out of his doldrums. He found himself suddenly facing a future that offered a chance and a challenge.

Yet in his heart he realized that he had not given the old life a fair break. The great modern city was all right, for young people who had kept pace with the times.

Andrew was not speed-mad, drink-mad, pleasure-mad, money-mad, but there was something lacking. He had not been willing to give the old life what it took to make the grade.

“But I can raise wheat,” he replied to his accusations, “or be a garage mechanic, or a forest ranger...or something, by golly!”

What should be his first move? A definite, irrevocable one! First he’d telephone Constance. Sure of her reaction, and eager to have it over, he called her number. And while he waited he visualized her blonde head on her white pillow.

“Hello,” came the answer presently, in the sleepy, rich, contented voice he knew so well.

“Good morning, Connie. This is Andy,” he replied. “Oh, it’s you, big boy? What’s the idea — calling me at this ungodly hour?” she pouted.

“News, Connie,” he plunged in. “Dad has shot the works. I’ve been disinherited — turned out — on my own!”

“Andy! Don’t be so dramatic! Are you kidding me?”

He assured her solemnly that it was only too true and that somehow he felt strangely glad. “You know, Connie, I’ve been a total loss in this burg.”

Then followed a silence so long that Andrew had to restrain himself not to break it.

“Oh, Andy — what a rotten break! I’m so sorry, dear,” she said finally, and that reply gave him the relief he sought.

“Sure you’re sorry, Connie. But your heart isn’t going to break?”

“My heart break? Andy, be yourself!”

“Darling, I’m being myself...What I mean is that if you — if you considered our — our friendship...Oh, hang it, Connie, if you want to hold me—”

“Dear old Andy! What a child you are!” came the answer accompanied by Constance’s mellow laugh. “Listen. I never would have married you, and I thought you knew it. We were just good pals.”

“I think I remember you telling me that before. But I wanted to play the game straight.”

“Andy, darling, you’re too fine, too simple, too square for this crazy town...What will you do?”

“Beat it out West.”

“Where?”

“Wild and woolly Wyoming.”

“Wyoming? For the love of Mike! Wouldn’t St. Louis be far enough?”

“Nix on the madding crowd, Connie.”

“Darling, you’re being a little mad yourself. That’s what I always liked about you.”

“Me for the tall timbers and the open range!”

“How you do rave!...At least you’ll get a kick out of it. I’m envious!”

“Can that stuff, will you?” retorted Andrew. “And just get this straight. It’s something Gloria sprung on me a moment ago.” And Andrew told her exactly what Gloria had said. He heard Connie’s low lazy laugh. Then she added: “Tell Gloria it’s not so hot.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her...Well, Connie, old dear, good-by.”

“Good-by, Andy — and good luck!”

Slowly Andrew hung up the receiver, conscious of immeasurable relief and at the same time a vague sadness. His thoughts turned back to the many gay times he and Connie and Gloria had had together. He was turning his back upon those irresponsible times, but there would be no feeling of irreparable loss.

Andrew stood at the window for a moment, in a pensive mood. The street was empty, with that stillness which always meant the Sabbath. Beyond the corner house he could see Central Park, with the maples, the beeches and oaks beginning to show freshly green. Spring had come again. And suddenly the realization that soon he would be out where he could breathe, where he could see the sky and face the free wind, and feel the hot sun on his back and smell the earth, rushed over him with almost a suffocating necessity. By that fleeting sensation Andrew knew for almost the first time that what he was about to do was right for him.

Packing was the last act of severance, difficult and a little sad because he had to choose little out of abundance. He packed two large grips and a traveling bag. Only his favorite possessions were included. And to his amazement, when all the selections had been made and the job finished, that Sabbath day had almost come to an end. He changed to a light traveling suit and, calling a taxi, left the house without seeing his father or Gloria again. He would have said farewell to her if she had not been out.

Andrew went to the Manhattan Hotel, took a room, had dinner, and then crossed to Grand Central Station to engage a berth on the Twentieth-Century Limited for Monday morning. That done, he swung down Forty-second Street toward the theater district, conscious of a deep tranquil excitement in his breast. It was done. And he chose a Western movie as his swan song to life in New York.

The picture was a thriller, full of color and action, raucous with sound, and melodramatic in plot. The hero turned his profile too often to the camera and the heroine heaved her obvious breast too consciously. Andrew could not piece together any thread of story. Yet he sat there in the dark, reveling in the sweep of rangeland, the white-tipped peaks, and the racing of horses, the gun-throwing cowboys, the lean Indian riders. He had always experienced a secret pleasure in such pictures, and had kept his habit of going to see them to himself. Now he reveled in it. It happened that the location of this motion picture was near the Tetons of Wyoming. Andrew remained for the second showing of it, and left the theater as keen as any boy who had ever read of Deadwood Dick and Calamity Jane. Such pictures were made for his kind. Strutting actors had to be endured and the pretty stars tolerated because they had youth and charm, but their great undeniable fascination was in the picture quality, the action of horses and the violence of man, thrown upon a wild and picturesque background.

The next morning Andrew Bonning transferred his securities into cash, nine-tenths in bills of large denomination, which he placed in a little leather sack to wear under his shirt. That money had to go a long way. His ticket read second tourist to Omaha, Nebraska. He, who had never considered the value of a dollar before, now meant to make the most of a dime.

“See here, bozo. Thirty-five bucks is highway robbery for this antediluvian Ford,” declared Bonning, as he shook the rattling old car with one powerful grasp of his hand.

The scene was a vacant lot far from the business center of Omaha. Andrew Bonning felt that he had put on a new character with the outfit of blue jeans he had purchased. Certainly it must have had some powerful transforming power, for never before that he could remember had he haggled over the price of any commodity.

“Cheapest Ford here, boss,” replied the open-lot car distributor. “What you lookin’ fer?”

“I want an old car that nobody can run. Something to tinker with,” replied Andrew.

“I’ll be doggoned!” ejaculated the garage man with a grin. “Reckon we ain’t comin’ to a deal. All my cars run slick as a whistle.”

“Let’s hear this Ford purr.”

The eager salesman jumped in with alacrity, turned on the ignition and tried to start the car. But nothing happened. He rasped and pumped and pulled to no purpose. Red in the face he looked down at Andrew somewhat sheepishly.

“Stranger, did you jimmy the works?”

“How could I? You haven’t turned your back on me...Can’t you start it?”

“‘Pears not. Cold, I reckon. But I’ll make her shoot in a minute.”

Several minutes elapsed and the salesman had lost much of his confidence. In the dealer’s chagrin Andrew recognized the psychological moment.

“If you throw in that old lap robe there I’ll buy this pile of junk.”

“How much?” queried the car owner, resignedly.

“Fifteen dollars.”

“Take it,” snorted the other, throwing up his hands. “But you’re worse than Jesse James.”

Andrew found himself in possession of a car. Leisurely he set about determining what was wrong with the engine. He had a knack for machinery. In less than ten minutes he discovered that the carburetor intake tube was choked with dirt.

“Hey, I found out what ailed her,” he called to the car merchant.

“Ahuh? An’ what was thet?”

“The locomotive ingredient failed to coincide with the perihelion,” replied Andrew cheerfully.

“Aw, go-wan, you can’t kid me,” returned the other. “Bet you don’t belong in them overalls.”

“Nope. And you belong in Wall Street. Funny old world!...So long!”

On the way to the lodginghouse where Andrew had left his bags he stopped at a grocery store to buy some fruit and provisions. Soon he was on his way out of Omaha, his last stop being at a filling station on the outskirts of the city. Here he procured gas, oil and road maps. Then driving north on the highway, he realized that his new life had begun at last.

Something like a gray curtain had dropped in his consciousness to hide all of his past failures. He was alone, perfectly free, speeding along an open road into an unknown country. Fields, grazing cows, apple trees in bloom, flights of blackbirds, long strings of swallows on the telegraph wires were realities with which he came in close contact for the first time. Rush-lined ponds by the wayside where ducks paddled, wandering willow-bordered brooks, groves of oaks and elms, with other trees unfamiliar to him, met his eager eyes and brought back long-past summer visits in New England, and vague memories of an even remoter period.

Andrew’s mood was one of quiet exultation. As he did not rush at the miles, neither did he inquire too avidly into this unfamiliar mood. He felt, however, as he visualized the ranges of the West, that he was undergoing a transformation. It was a transformation which he welcomed. He had pulled his stakes from the East and must transplant them somewhere in the West. But just how the change would take place did not concern Andrew greatly at this time: he was fascinated none the less by the initiation into the process through which he would be made over.

Toward noon he passed through a village that boasted flaring signs of gas stations at both entrance and exit. Somewhere, Andrew promised himself with satisfaction, he would be traveling beyond the smell of gasoline.

Andrew drove along at about twenty-five miles an hour. This snail’s pace caused him to be hooted to the side of the road by other cars impatient to pass. One big flashy touring car honked at him impatiently, and as it got by a florid-faced driver in shirt sleeves, evidently a tourist, yelled something about junking a tin can.

“Drive on, mister,” said Andrew, aloud. “You represent what I have turned my back on — speed, luxury, restlessness, idleness, high blood pressure — fleshpots of Egypt.”

The hours passed by all too quickly for Andrew Bonning. Sunset caught him at the top of a hill, where he stopped to admire the scene. He drove on, presently, coasting down a winding hilly road, and at the bottom turned a curve under a wooded bank that accentuated the twilight.

Andrew caught sight of a camp fire, whose blaze disclosed two slouchy dark forms moving about it. His lights were not working so he moved slowly along the soft road. When about opposite the fire Andrew’s sharp ears heard a cry. Then against the evening sky he saw a man and a boy silhouetted in violent action. Andrew stopped the car. He had come upon his first adventure.

“Let that boy go,” shouted Andrew and jumped out of his car. Advancing upon the two he asked what the idea was. The man retreated, with a reply about only having fun.

“Oh — n-no sir,” cried the youngster, in a voice that startled Andrew. “He meant to rob — me — and I don’t know what — when he saw I was a girl!”

Andrew’s exclamation of amazement was followed by a swift leap, a lunge and a blow, the power of which he had not calculated. Like a flung sack the man went over the bank out of sight. Andrew yelled for the tramp’s comrades to make themselves scarce.

“Are you really a girl?” he queried, turning to the little figure in the middle of the road. Indeed, after peering down into a white oval face and great staring dark eyes he found that he need not have asked that question.

The girl admitted it and said she sometimes wished she were not. Andrew asked her a couple of pertinent questions, to learn that she did not belong thereabouts, and that she was a hitchhiker. As she stood there, looking up at him, Andrew Bonning found himself divided between two impressions — one of admiration and solicitation for a pretty slip of a girl who had been caught in a perilous predicament; the other a sudden bitter reminder of modern woman’s wiles and the fact that even on a lovely Nebraska road at night he might expect to meet a girl who was only looking for a thrill. The second impression won out over the former. Andrew offered the girl a lift as far as Norfolk, and helping her in, resumed his seat at the wheel and went on.

He could see her dimly in the paling afterglow without appearing to notice her, and it was not easy to subdue his curiosity. She had slim brown hands, beautifully shaped, that clung nervously to the pack she held on her lap. He could feel that she wanted to speak to him, and finally she did, hazarding a remark that he evidently did not live in this section. Then, in the short interchange of conversation that followed, which he did not encourage because he resented his interest in a girl hiker, he was led to reveal his name. But she did not give hers, an omission Andrew added to her discredit.

At last they arrived at Norfolk. He called her attention to the fact and remarked her enthusiasm over the bright lights.

“You’ll get another kick here,” he replied, slowing down preparatory to a stop.

“Kick?” she echoed, turning those strange, luminous eyes upon him in doubt, not of the word, but of his intimation. Andrew could have sworn not only to her innocence, but to the fact that in the bright light he was gazing at the very prettiest girl he had ever seen in his life.

“Yes, kick,” he replied curtly, annoyed with himself. Then he laughed. “Isn’t that what you’re after? Isn’t that about all girls think of nowadays?”

She did not reply and seemed to have been affronted by his accusation.

“Please let me out here,” she requested, pointing toward a modest looking hotel.

They stopped, and he stepped out to assist her. Then she said, hesitatingly: “Thank you, Mr. Bonning, for — for everything.”

He replied that she was welcome and that he hoped she would have better luck on the next lap of her hike...

“You forgot to tell me your name.”

“I didn’t forget. I was—”

No doubt her faltering was due to Andrew’s exposure of the letters M A D on the pack he lifted from the car, and at which he stared.

“Mad!” he spelled out, “Wyoming Mad?” with a laugh. “It suits you better than any name. And as you are an unforgettable kid I’ll remember you by that...I hope we don’t meet again. Good-by.”

She stood there at the curb, holding her bag, her sweet face uplifted, puzzled, shy, slowly awakening to his rudeness. Andrew flung himself into the car and drove away, conscious of several conflicting feelings. He halted on the next corner at a gas station to fill up. Then he continued on to another hotel further down the street, where he put up for the night.

Andrew ate a dinner less frugal than had been his intention. But he gave very little thought to his plan of travel. He was in a curious state of mind. After dinner he walked twice past the hotel where the hiking girl had stopped, and nearly succumbed to a desire to go in to inquire for her. Then he went to a motion picture theater and stood in front of it for a while hoping like a fool that she might come along. He went in but soon left. After that he walked to and fro in the town’s little park, and at length returned to his hotel and room.

“Well, my first adventure is a puzzler,” soliloquized Andrew while he undressed. He had to own up to having received a thrill from his rescue of the little hiker with the big eyes. He had been shocked to meet a girl, hardly sixteen years old, he calculated, alone on a country road after dark, confessedly engaged upon what he considered to be a mad prank. He had been alienated by a recurrent bitterness which fostered the thought that she could not be anything else but a wayward girl, on adventure bent. It was this thought that had accounted for his sudden rudeness.

“Unforgettable kid? Nuts!” he concluded, turning out the light. “The world was full of alluring, seductive, irresistible females. What chance had a man? Wyoming Mad?...If this isn’t the queerest deal I ever had. Suppose I meet that girl again? It’ll be funny. Ha! Ha!...I don’t think!...That kid’s just no good!” Then Andrew was amazed to hear an inward voice damn him for a sophisticated, suspicious and embittered Easterner who could not recognize innocence when he met it.

“My God!” muttered Andrew aghast. “What would Connie or Gloria say to that? That I’m ‘Wyoming Mad’ myself.” But his derision was not convincing. In this new voice there appeared to be the nucleus of a revolt.

At daylight Andrew was behind the wheel of his Ford, and he started with a speed which indicated that he wanted to leave something far behind. Twenty-five or thirty miles an hour, however, was about the limit his old battered car could produce and soon cars began to pass him. To save his life he could not resist trying to get a look at their occupants. But that was seldom possible, unless he deliberately stared as the cars sped by. All day long, he reflected, a trim little figure, between lifts, was probably hiking along that road. Her eyes haunted him, not because of their size, he imagined, or their strange glow, or their color — because he had no idea of their color — but because of the wistful look they held. Had he misjudged her? Had he placed her in a class with all the neckers, flirts and thrill seekers, just because he had found her on a lonely road, waylaid by tramps? It did seem unjust, he had to admit. There was some unquenchable chivalry in Andrew Bonning which had often been the jest of his sportive acquaintances.

Andrew made no stop that day, except at a crossroad refueling station. Toward evening he had dinner at a little wayside hamlet, and then he drove on a few miles to camp in his car. All the next day engine trouble occupied his attention, and gave him enough tinkering to satisfy a long-felt want. It halted him, too, at Sidonia for a minor repair.

He was standing in front of the one hotel, watching the traffic and awaiting the dinner hour, when a car gingerly approached the curb.

The driver was the girl who had been causing him so much speculation. Her companion appeared to be a young local chap to whom this was an auspicious occasion. As Andrew recognized the hitchhiker, she simultaneously looked up to meet his gaze. Then a sudden light, a half-break of a smile, was blotted out in a crimson blush.

Andrew strode into the hotel, somehow glad that she had had the grace to blush. Caught with the goods, he thought scornfully! She had picked up this country bumpkin on the road and had ended a short or long, probably long, ride by driving his car, no doubt to allow him freer use of his arms. It made Andrew slightly sick, because that queer streak of chivalry in him had almost won a battle in her behalf. He wished she would appear in the dining room before he left. He wanted just one more look at her.

Andrew, however, had given up hope and had almost finished his meal when she did come in, escorted by the young fellow who was very overceremonious and obviously self-conscious. Andrew, considerably surprised at her appearance, could only stare.

She had changed the masculine hiking garb for a pretty blue dress that was exceedingly feminine. She had trim shapely legs and little feet on which were patent-leather slippers. Her dainty head, carried high, was bare. The wavy, golden hair caught and held the light. All this Andrew saw in a glance before her face transfixed him. Its opal hue, just hinting of tan, took on a little warmth and color. As she passed she spoke, impudently he thought.

“Howdy, Hiram Perkins. Hope you heerd from Mizzourie.”

“Good evening, Wyoming Mad,” he returned, rising and bowing.

Her escort seated her at a nearby table, and evidently was concerned by the exchange of greetings between her and Andrew. She made some casual explanation, with a deprecatory motion of her hand that seemed to satisfy her escort.

“Knows her stuff,” muttered Andrew to himself, and then, drawing a deep breath, as a man about to undergo an ordeal, he looked deliberately at her. It was to find that she was already gazing fixedly at him. For a long moment their eyes held their gaze. Andrew had an odd thought — if those wonderful eyes had expressed the least softness, the least hint of yielding, he would not have been accountable for himself. All Andrew could detect, however, was pride and disdain. And he caught these impressions only as she averted her face.

Then he had his opportunity and he made the most of it. Pretty? Beautiful? Such terms did not do her justice. She was lovely. Engrossed with his scrutiny Andrew had not at once grasped one dismaying fact. She was flirting outrageously with her escort. She never deigned to give Andrew another glance. Again his vision of her became distorted, though her actions were merely those of a gay young girl having an enjoyable dinner with a newly made acquaintance. Andrew knew that, but his biased mind would not accept it. He imagined them in the shadowy park — nay — riding along a country road in the moonlight to some lonesome spot. He shook his head angrily. Suddenly Andrew found himself hating the girl.

Abruptly he arose, leaving his dessert untasted, and stalked out. “One born every minute!” he muttered, and then in bitter conflict with his skepticism: “Connie, old girl, I guess you ruined the makings of a square fellow!” He got his car, and after driving half the night, he stopped to watch the moon go down over the western horizon.

CHAPTER IV

A WEEK LATER Andrew Bonning made camp outside a little Wyoming town called Split Rock. This was on the Old Oregon Trail, which he had followed all the way from Torrington, on the Nebraska line.

Many places along the famous old trail of the trappers, explorers, Indian fighters and pioneers had interested him and almost persuaded him to stop for a spell. But satisfying as had been the rolling sagebrush prairie, Andrew had continued on his way in answer to a call he could not define. On clear mornings he could see the mountains white-toothed in the blue. And they lured him. The Platte River saw three of his camps before he left it at Alcova. He passed over the Rattlesnake Range, and as he drove into Split Rock one golden sunset he saw the Granite Mountains on his right and the Green Mountains on his left. And westward, a hundred miles more or less, stood the Continental Divide, dim yet rosy-white in the sunset, the great wall of the Rockies.

Andrew left his car in a thicket not far off the road, deciding to walk the half mile into Split Rock for the exercise. Satisfying himself that it could not readily be detected by passersby, he proceeded into the town to make some much needed purchases.

By this time Andrew had become accustomed to the Wyoming villages along the trail. Casper had been a fairly large place. The other towns from central to western Wyoming held little of interest for the wayfarer. Some of them appeared to be no more than the old wide streeted, board fronted frontier towns modernized principally by the gasoline stations of the present. He found that Split Rock leaned a little more toward the past.

Indeed, his observing eyes detected more cowboys than truck drivers or garage attendants. He listened to snatches of their conversation satisfying for the hundredth time his avid pleasure in things western. Deciding to make inquiries on the morrow about the range country hereabouts he returned to his car.

By this time it was quite dark. A wonderful light still glowed in the west, whence came a cold breeze, keen and penetrating, sweet with a tang of the mountain and the range. Andrew breathed deeply of it, and reveled in the lonesomeness of his surroundings. Every camp of late had been visited by coyotes to his growing delight. These wild prairie dogs could not bark and yelp and mourn and ki-yi too much for him. He even threw scraps of his meals to the stealthy prowlers.

He had collected a bundle of dry sticks and bits of sagebrush when a clip-clop of hoofs drew his attention. A rider was passing on the road. He halted opposite Andrew, lighted a cigarette, then rode on a little further, only to come back. It was evident that he was waiting for someone. Andrew had no mind to disclose his hiding place, so he sat down to watch and listen.

The rider appeared to be impatient. Andrew heard his spurs clinking. Evidently he smoked his cigarette half through, then lit another. His spirited horse would not stand still. And the night was so still, the air so clear that this rider’s voice carried to Andrew’s vibrant ears.

“You dawggone ornery hawse — cain’t you stand on yore fo’ feet?” drawled the rider. After another cigarette he appeared to start, to crouch and then to stare up the road toward the town. Andrew heard rapid footsteps approaching from that direction.

“Thet you, McCall?” queried the rider, in a sharp tone which carried far.

“Yes, it’s me,” came the answer.

“Git off the road over heah,” commanded the rider, heading his horse toward the thicket that screened Andrew’s car.

Rider and pedestrian met half way and continued as far as a large rock scarcely thirty feet from where Andrew crouched behind a clump of low sagebrush. There the two halted, and the unmounted one hunched himself up on the rock.

“Tex, I been lookin’ fer you at my ranch,” he said. “Jest happened to be in town today an’ got your word.”

“Wal, I shore would have rid down on you pronto, if you hadn’t showed up tonight,” retorted the rider, curtly. “Mac, I want some money.”

“Hyar’s all I got,” returned the other hastily, and passed his hand up to the horseman. “You’ll have to wait till I ship some more cattle.”

“Ahuh! Always waitin’,” growled the younger man. “I cain’t see. How much you got heah?”

“Two-hundred-odd.”

“Wal, I’ll let you off on thet. But only fer a while. I reckon I’m not long fer this range. I got to pull oot, Mac, an’ it’s mostly yore cattle deals thet’s chasin’ me.”

“Aw, Texas, thet ain’t so. You was talked of before you ever forked a hoss fer me.”

“Shore I was. But fer makin’ love an’ throwin’ a gun — not fer burnin’ yore brand on calves,” snapped the cowboy, in a voice so cold and strange to Andrew that it sent shivers up his spine.

“Have it your own way, Tex. I don’t want to argue with you. But I heerd Sheriff Slade hang suspicion on you. Right before half a dozen cattlemen, one of which was Jeff Little, who you rode fer once.”

“Ahuh. An’ what did Jeff say?”

“He got a little het up at Slade. Said you was a wild one all right, but straight as a string, an’ thet Slade hadn’t savvied thet you was from the old Texas breed.”

“Damn thet four-flush of a sheriff!” cursed the cowboy. “He’s not so above a slick deal himself. I know...Reckon I’m liable to take a shot at him one of these heah nights.”

“Tex, you’ll kill somebody yet,” declared McCall, anxiously.

“Shouldn’t wonder. All you gotta do, Mac, is to make damn good an’ shore it ain’t you...When do I git the rest of the dough?”

“Reckon pronto...Tex, I got a new deal on.”

“Ahuh. Wal, spring it on me.”

“There’s an old geezer named Nick Bligh just drove in a thousand head of cows, a sprinklin’ of yearlings, an’ a lot of calves. Hails from Randall, somewhere near the Montana line. This rancher hasn’t no outfit at all — jest a middle-aged man to help him handle thet stock. Why, before the snow flies there’ll be a couple hundred unbranded calves bawlin’ around.”

“Humph. How come this Nick Bligh hasn’t got no punchers?”

“There can be only one reason fer thet, if he’s a Westerner. No money.”

“Wal, thet’s no reason why a cowboy worth a damn wouldn’t ride fer him. I’ve done it. All depends on the rancher.”

“Tex, thet gives me an idee. Suppose you go ride fer this Bligh—”

“Ump-umm, Mac. I don’t mind brandin’ a few mavericks. Thet’s legitimate. An’ even when a cattleman knows the mavericks ain’t his — he brands them anyhow. All ranchers have done thet — gettin’ their start. But what you propose would be stealin’ .”

“If you’re set on splittin’ hairs over it — hell, yes!” replied McCall, testily.

“I’ll go in on the deal — burnin’ your brand on stray calves.”

“But, Tex, there ain’t much money in thet for me or you,” continued the other persuasively. “On the other hand, two hundred calves would fetch between forty an’ fifty dollars a head next year.”

“Mac, thet’s most like old-time rustlin’,” expostulated the cowboy.

“Look hyar, puncher. You oughta know thet there’s plenty of rustlin’ goin’ on on Wyomin’ ranges right now.”

“Shore. But what’s a few haid of stock to a cattleman who owns ten thousand? Mac, safety lies in small numbers. You aim to hire me to be crooked. An’ I’ll be damned if I’ll fall for it.”

Silence ensued after the puncher’s forceful speech. Andrew scarcely breathed in the intensity of his interest and the peril he risked in being discovered. The cowboy struck a match for his cigarette. By its light Andrew saw a youthful reckless face, singularly handsome, almost as red as his flaming hair.

“Tex, I don’t trust Smoky Reed over much,” at length replied McCall.

“Wal, Smoky is on the level. If you want him to snake oot all the calves thet poor devil owns he’ll do it. Smoky told me he’d lost out with the K-Bar ootfit an’ was goin’ to ride fer the Three Flags. I reckon he won’t last much longer heah, no more’n me.”

“Will you make Smoky an offer fer me?”

“Wal, I’ll carry any word you say. But get this, McCall, I won’t have nothin’ to do with Smoky’s work.”

“Thet’s all right, Tex. Don’t get het up.”

“This Bligh deal ain’t so good. I’m advisin’ you, Mac. If you go whale bang at it you may lose oot. Shore, I’ve got you figgered. If it come to a showdown you’d lay it on to a coupla range-marked punchers.”

“Tex, I wouldn’t give no one away.”

“Aw, the hell’s fire you wouldn’t,” retorted the cowboy shortly. “To save yore own skin you’d do thet an’ more. But so far as I’m concerned I can look oot fer myself. I was thinkin’ of Smoky.”

“Safest way,” continued McCall as if he had not heard Texas, “is to drive cow an’ calf into rough brush or timber, or a rocky draw — kill the cow, then brand the calf an’ fetch it out. Coyotes an’ buzzards would make short work of the carcass. An’ there ain’t one chance in a thousand of Bligh missin’ his cows until the job’s all done.”

“Aw, it’s safe enough, but it just sticks in my craw, McCall,” rejoined the cowboy in disgust.

“Thet ain’t the point. Will you put Smoky wise to this deal?”

“Shore, I’ll do thet. An’ I’ll do my part. But before you bust into this, Mac, listen to me. I never heahed of this Nick Bligh. Most likely he’s a pore cattleman, drove west, an’ makin’ a stand. But s’pose this all happened. S’pose aboot the time you got yore deal half done, say, thet a pardner with money enough to buy more stock an’ hire some real cowboys — s’pose he’d show up?”

“Ha! Tex, miracles like thet don’t happen in these cattle times.”

“Hell they don’t! Anythin’ can happen, man. Where’s yore sense? I ain’t carin’ a damn, ‘cept for the old geezer Bligh. But I’m jest tellin’ you.”

“Reckon you’re losin’ your nerve, Tex, or figgerin’ overcareful.”

“Shore, if thet’s the way you get me...Where’s this Bligh feller located?”

“Down across the Sweetwater River,” replied McCall eagerly. “He’s bought or leased the old Boseman ranch, on the south bank of the river, halfway between the Antelope Hills an’ the Green Mountains. Damn fine range, when the grass is good. An’ this spring it’s comin’ strong.”

“Ahuh. I know thet ranch,” mused Texas. “Looked at it with a longin’ eye myself, more’n once. But it’d take some dough to make good there.”

“Thet’s not our concern. For your an’ Smoky’s information put this under your hat. There are three outfits on thet big range south of the Sweetwater. The Cross Bar, owned by Cheney Brothers, the Triangle X, run by Hale Smith, an’ the Wyomin’ Cattle Association, runnin’ the W.C. They all work up into the foothills of the Green Mountains, an’ anyone ridin’ in there must have sharp eyes. Savvy?”

“Shore, I savvy. Slade is in thet Wyomin’ Cattle Association,” returned Texas, thoughtfully.

“Yes, but not very deep. Slade’s in more’n one deal jest for a blind.” McCall slid down off the rock. “Reckon thet’s about all fer tonight.”

“Wal, it’ll last me a spell, Mac,” drawled the cowboy.

“Don’t overlook my hunch. So long.”

With a wave of his hand the cowboy loped his horse over to the road, and taking the direction away from town, soon disappeared in the darkness. McCall watched him out of sight and stood listening to the dying clip-clop of hoofs.

“By Gawd, thet Texas puncher will spill the beans fer me yet — if I don’t fix him,” he muttered, and then with a snap of his fingers strode away toward the town.

When he, too, had gone Andrew arose to stretch his cramped legs. His face was wet with sweat and his heart was thumping. He had to laugh at his first introduction to a western drama that was not in any sense fictitious.

“Well, Andy, what do you know about this?” he asked himself. “By golly, I like that redheaded cowpuncher. I’ll bet he’s the goods. But McCall is that same little old proposition one meets the world around, I guess. And Bligh, just the old fall guy who’s to be fleeced. Now I wonder where do I come in?”

Andrew almost forgot that he was cold and hungry. After some deliberation he built a fire, deciding that if the cowboy or McCall should happen back there — which was wholly unlikely — he could allay suspicion by claiming he had just arrived. To be thrown upon his own resources had become an increasing joy to Andrew, but so far he did not exactly shine as a cook. He burned both the ham and the potatoes, and let the coffee boil over. Nevertheless he ate what he had cooked with a relish.

This night he decided not to sleep in the car. He had added a couple of blankets to the old lap robe, and he made his bed on the ground beside the fire. Then he gathered all the available firewood in the near vicinity, and removing only his shoes he prepared to make a night of it.

All the same, slumber soon gripped Andrew and held him tight for half the night. Awakening stiff with cold, he got up to renew the fire. Despite his discomfort, the traveler decided that life in the open had its good points. Andrew had known camp life, but only in a luxurious way. As he sat beside the little fire warming his hands and feet, he knew that he had become a part of this land of the purple sage.

The sky was a deep dark blue, studded with innumerable stars. Black rocks stood up bold and sharp above the brush. There was not a sound except the faint rustling of leaves in the night wind.

On and off, he was up like this during the remainder of the night, until the blackness yielded to gray, when he fell soundly asleep for a couple of hours. He drove into town with the sunrise. While eating breakfast at a lunch counter frequented by dusty-booted men, refueling his car at the service station, stocking a goodly supply of food at a grocery, buying a very fine secondhand cowboy outfit at a merchandise store, Andrew asked the cheerful and casual questions of the tenderfoot. Having thus acquired a lot of general information, he was about to leave town when he happened to think that he had not inquired the way to the Sweetwater River and Nick Bligh’s ranch.

He leaned out of his car to accost a Westerner who happened along at that moment. He was a man of about sixty years of age, gray and weather-beaten. His boots and garb gave ample evidence of considerable contact with the soil.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Andrew. “Can you direct me to the Sweetwater River?”

“Good morning, young man,” the Westerner replied, as he halted. “Straight ahead about thirty miles out.”

“Thanks. And how to get to Nick Bligh’s ranch?”

Andrew became aware of keen blue eyes fixed upon him.

“You know Nick?”

“Sorry to say I don’t, but I’d like to,” replied Andrew heartily.

“Selling hardware, life insurance, lightning rods — or bootleg whiskey?” queried the old man dryly.

“No. Just trying to sell myself.”

“Job, eh?”

“Yes, I want a job.”

“Who told you to hit Nick Bligh?”

“I happened to hear that he’d lately come to this range with cattle and no cowboys. So I thought he might want one.”

“Wal, son, I happen to know Nick wants cowboys. But he’s hard up at present. Looking for big wages?”

“I’ll work for my board,” declared Andrew eagerly. “Where you from?”

“East.”

“Reckoned that. But East means anywhere from the Missouri to the Atlantic.”

“All right, call it Missouri. I don’t want to advertise I’m a dude.”

“I reckon Nick will be glad to talk to you...Don’t cross the river. Take the road left and drive onto his place. You can’t miss it, as there’s only one. If Nick’s not home, wait.”

“Much obliged. I’ll do that,” rejoined Andrew heartily.

The Westerner turned to resume his walk, almost bumping into a tall man wearing a wide sombrero. “Morning, Slade,” he said shortly and passed on.

“Howdy, Nick,” drawled the other. Then he approached Andrew and gave him a searching look from keen yellow eyes. Andrew was quick to see the glint of a silver shield half concealed under the man’s vest. He was without a coat. His face was sallow and he wore a long drooping mustache. Andrew’s pulse quickened a few beats when he realized that he was facing Sheriff Slade.

“Stranger hereabouts?” he queried.

“You bet I am,” responded Andrew pleasantly enough.

“Salesman?”

“Nope, Just a tin-Lizzie tramp looking for a job.”

“Was that what you was askin’ Nick Bligh?”

“Who?”

“Wal, the man you was jest talkin’ to,” returned the sheriff tersely.

“Oh — him! Was that Nick Bligh?”

“Air you shore you didn’t know thet?”

“Say, mister, I just arrived here this A.M. I was merely asking the gentleman about work on ranches.”

“I see you’re loaded up with a cowpuncher’s junk. Wonder what you got hid under all this...Get out!”

“Sheriff, eh?” rejoined Andrew lightly as he slid out of the seat. “Delighted to meet you.”

Slade searched the car thoroughly, during which performance a little crowd collected. Andrew pretended a show of resentment.

“I’m a stranger, out of work, driving west — and get held up for doing nothing,” he complained to the bystanders resentfully.

Slade continued his search in silence. Finally he closed the car door and spoke: “Quien Sabe? You can never tell who’s packin’ liquor.”

“No offense,” returned Andrew cheerily. “I appreciate what the West is up against...Why, Officer Slade, even you might be a bootlegger!” And Andrew gave the sheriff a cool stare, mitigated by a smile.

“Don’t get fresh, young feller,” replied Slade gruffly, annoyed by the laughter among the bystanders. “Be on your way an’ keep goin’.”

Andrew got back into his car. “Most western towns welcome travelers and prospective settlers. What’s the matter with this burg?”

“Wal, we Wyomin’ folks air partic’lar about our brands,” drawled the sheriff.

“But not so particular about whose calf you slap them on,” retorted Andrew, and stepped on the throttle. “Gosh!” he ejaculated. “This will never do. I must learn to keep my mouth shut and my temper down. But wouldn’t I have liked to sock that yellow-eyed hypocrite!”

Once out of town he slowed to the speed he liked best, which was in fact merely crawling along. All the way across Wyoming he had feasted his eyes upon the increasingly fascinating vistas. What he could not get enough of was the far-flung leagues of open rangeland. Along here, however, he was shut in by low mountains to the north, and some few miles to the south by a higher, rougher range.

For the time being Andrew shelved some of the aspects of his latest adventure, content to return to them again after he had reached the ranch on the Sweetwater. Why, he wondered, had Nick Bligh not revealed his identity?

At the end of two hours of somewhat rough going, he passed the limits of the Granite Range. From there the rolling plains to the north appeared endless. He saw a winding line of trees which probably marked the river course. Cattle in considerable number in the aggregate, but scattered so far and wide over the rangeland that they seemed very few could be seen grazing. Once he spied a lone horseman topping a ridge, and the sight gave Andrew an inexplicable thrill.

The black patches on the green, so few and far between, he had come to recognize as ranch houses. By his uncertain calculation a dozen miles or more separated the closest of the ranches. And gradually these distances widened, as the ranches decreased in number, until the hour came when he could not see a single house.

At length he approached the river on a long gradual down grade. When he arrived at the point where the highway crossed a bridge, and an apology for a road branched to the south, it was the big moment in that day’s drive.

The Sweetwater River was a delight to the eye, as it must have been a boon to the immense range that it traversed. It wound away between wooded banks, now flowing in shallow ripples over gravel bars, and now in long deep reaches, and again spread into several channels around willow-bordered islands. Coyotes stood on the opposite bank to watch Andrew; jack rabbits abounded, and wild ducks skittered off the shoals to wing in rapid flight up the river.

Andrew’s view to the south was obstructed owing to the foothills of the Green Mountains which encroached upon the river bottom lands.

After gazing long at the superb view, the traveler turned into the branch road, with the feeling that he was leaving his bridges behind him, if not burning them. The road kept to the river bank, and was of such a nature that he had to attend to careful driving instead of indulging his desire for enjoying the scenery. In due time he arrived at the point where the foothills trooped to the stream. He drove along their base until he had passed the last one. Here two scenic spots met his delighted gaze — the first, a grove of cottonwoods just bursting into bright green, and the other, a high, isolated knoll from which he was certain one could get a commanding view of the country. Andrew did not make any choice. He would possess them both; and he drove down into the grove of cottonwoods.

A wide-spreading giant of a tree invited rest. Grassy plots and sandy places alternated through the grove down to the high weeds and yellow daisies, and the wall of willows.

“Immense!” ejaculated Andrew with a tremendous sigh. He did not know exactly what he meant by immense, but the feeling was profound. Lifting out the boxes of food, Andrew selected crackers and sardines and a can of peaches for his lunch. This was faring sumptuously. He had a canteen full of fresh water, but he decided to go down to the river. Finding a cattle track he followed it out of the grove, through the breast-high sunflowers and the willows, down to where the river murmured and gurgled over a gravelly bar. Andrew waded in, and scooped up water with his cupped hands. It was sweet and cold. He wondered where it came from and tried to picture its rocky source.

He retraced his steps, stripping leaves and a few of the yellow daisies on the way. Andrew put the boxes back in the car and then headed for the knoll.

As he had been deceived before by distance and elevation, so he was again in this instance. The knoll proved not very close to the road and considerably higher than he had imagined it to be. As he climbed, the necessity for taking the easiest way worked him round to the north slope, so that when he surmounted the knoll he faced the range keenly expectant but completely unprepared for what greeted his view.

“My Lord!” he gasped, amazed at the vivid coloring and infinite grandeur of the view.

The vast panorama spreading fan-shaped before him, with the green-bordered shining river turning to the right, and the rugged slopes of the mountain range on the left, formed a gateway to what appeared to be a purple abyss, and leading to a blue-based, white-peaked barrier in the far distance.

“Aw, have a heart, Wyoming!” cried Andrew. “What are you giving me?...Are you real — or is this just one of my dreams?”

He stood there gazing his fill. This was his first unlimited view. The sweep of prairie land, hills and valleys, mountain ranges in the distance — these had become scenes of growing frequency and increasing impressiveness during the last few days of travel. But the scene unfolding before him here dwarfed anything that he had yet seen.

“No, this is no mirage. This is real...And oh, boy, this is the one spot in all the world I’ve been looking for,” he exclaimed.

Westward he followed the black and green river bottom and the shining water to the north of a low range of symmetrical knolls, marked Antelope Hills on his map. Then miles or more beyond he sighted the ranch that must be Nick Bligh’s. Indeed, there was no other ranch visible south of the Sweetwater. Its location seemed all satisfying to the traveler. The river went on and on, growing dimmer, becoming a mere thread, to vanish in a blue haze out of which the Rocky Mountains rose, first obscure and like low masses of clouds, and then clear blue, to rise up and up in magnificent reaches to pierce the sky with their snow-white peaks. That was the Continental Divide, the backbone of the West, the end of the Great Plains, the wall of iron, set so formidably on the earth with its jagged teeth in the heavens.

The Antelope Hills blocked the center of the gateway to the south. They shone white and gray and pink in the sunlight. Some were crowned with a fringe of black; others showed black clefts deep down between the domes; still others appeared craggy and rough, with belts of timber at their bases.

But it was the spreading of the fanlike range southward that drew and held Andrew Bonning’s gaze. He felt dwarfed. How cramped he had been all his life! New York City would hardly have been a visible dot down in the center of that purple immensity. Poor, struggling, plodding, suffocating millions of men — of toilers — if they could only have found themselves there! Andrew felt a singular uplift of spirits. His instinct had been true. Its source and its meaning still remained inscrutable, but he realized that in following it he had found an unknown heritage.

So engrossed had Andrew been that he had forgotten the field glasses he had carried up the hill with him. These he now remembered and focused upon that mysterious gulf of purple.

What had been wavy lines and pale spots and dim shadows and blank reaches, veiled in differing degrees of the purple hue of distance, resolved themselves into endless rolling ridges like atolls in a smooth sea, and vast areas of flat land, bare and desolate, and wide green valleys, with here and there the tiny dots of ranches leagues apart.

The Easterner descended the knoll with giant strides. He had never, that he could remember, heard the singing of his heart as at that moment. Whatever had brought about the accident of his arrival here, he would bless all his life long. His failures now seemed like successive steps to a new life. He divined that any labors he undertook on this range would be labors of love, and they could not fail. He was profoundly grateful now to his own past inability to fit into an office or to sell bonds or to play the market; to the criticism, the misunderstanding, the bitter defeats and his father’s financial fall that had sent him to Wyoming.

Andrew Bonning drove up to Bligh’s ranch in this almost reverent mood, which perhaps cast a sort of glamour over the low-walled, mud-roofed rambling cabin, and especially to a large structure on the river bank — a cabin, deserted, with gaping windows, bleached gray logs and crumbling, yellow chimney. He had no time for more than this first glance because the old man whom he had interviewed in town suddenly appeared from behind the nearer cabin.

“You beat me here, Mr. Bligh,” said Andrew smilingly.

“Yes, I saw your car as I passed the cottonwoods. How’d you know me?” His blue eyes were twinkling and kindly. Andrew read in them liking for his fellow man. Yet the bronzed thin face, wrinkled like withered parchment, attested to a life of struggle and trial.

“I heard that Sheriff Slade call your name...What do you know? He held me up, searched my car for contraband — the yellow-eyed goofer! I didn’t take much to him, Mr. Bligh.”

“Did he find any?” inquired the rancher. Andrew saw more in the penetrating eyes than the casual query testified.

“He did not. It made me sore — that digging into my gear. And I made a crack that I’m afraid was pretty foolish. It made the crowd laugh, anyway.”

“Yeah? What’d you say to Slade?”

“I told him he might be a bootlegger himself, for all I knew.”

“Wal! You said that to Slade? Young man, you should bridle your tongue...But get down and come in.”

“Say, that’s a new one on me,” declared Andrew. “‘Get down and come in!’ Range greeting, eh?”

“Yes. Motors will never take the place of horses on the range.”

“Thanks, Mr. Bligh. But before I get out — or down — please give me some hope that I can land a job with you. I climbed a hill back there to get a look at the country. I’m just plain crazy about it. I’ll simply have to get a job here. I can do any kind of work...And, well, Mr. Bligh, I’m the man you need.”

“I like your enthusiasm. What’s your name?”

“Andrew Bonning.”

“Where from?”

“I told you — the East. Some day I’ll tell you more about myself. It ought to be enough now to say I come to you clean and straight.” And Andrew met the keen scrutiny of those usually mild blue eyes with a level open glance.

“Bonning, we cattlemen often hire men without names or homes or pasts. What counts here is, what you are — what you can do.”

“Well, in that case all a fellow can do is to ask for a chance to prove himself.”

“It amounts to that.”

“Will you give me a chance, Mr. Bligh?”

“I reckon I will, on conditions.”

“What are they?”

“You offered to work for your keep, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be glad to. You see, I bought a secondhand cowboy outfit.”

“No cattleman could miss seein’ all them trappin’s, son...My condition is this — that you work for your board until I can afford to pay you real wages — provided we get along together.”

“Okay. Suits me and I’m much obliged. I’ll do my level best to please you — and I’m darned sure I can help you.”

“Can you ride?”

“Yes.”

“Throw a rope?”

“No.”

“Or a gun?”

“No, but I’m a good rifle shot.”

“Cook?”

“No, I thought I could. But eating my own cooking for two weeks has changed my mind.”

“Good at figures?”

“Lord, no! I couldn’t add up a column of figures ten times and get less than ten different sums.”

“Neither can I. But we won’t have much figuring to do...Bonning, I like your looks and I like your talk. One more question and it’s a deal.”

“Okay. Spring that one on me.”

“Have you got guts?”

“Guts!” echoed Andrew.

“Nerve, in an Easterner’s way of puttin’ it. I got robbed of most of my cattle up north. Had a ranch on the Belle Fourche River, near Aladdin. Made up my mind to pull up stakes an’ try a new range. Like this one fine. But today I learned there’s some cattle stealing here, same as everywhere on the Wyomin’ ranges.”

“Who told you, Mr. Bligh?”

“Cattleman named McCall. Agreeable chap. Went out of his way to scrape acquaintance with me. An’ I verified that news. Got laughed at for my pains. One old rancher said to me, ‘Rustlin’? Hell, yes, enough left to make the cattle business healthy. When rustlin’ peters out in Wyomin’ thet’ll be the end of the cattleman!’”

“Well, that’s a point of view to make one think!”

“Wal, it needn’t worry you. But when I put it up to you I’m makin’ it plain. If you’re white-livered or softhearted, not to say yellow, you just won’t do. I’ve only one man on the ranch. Happened to run across him on the Belle Fourche. He’s from Arizona, has seen a lot of range life, crippled — which is why he finds it hard to get jobs — but he’s a real man. Married, by the way, to a nice little woman who sure can keep house. I never had a woman about my ranch before. An’ eatin’ my own sourdough biscuits nearly killed me...Wal, his name is Jim Fenner, an’ if you make a good runnin’ mate for him, I reckon my stock will increase.”

“I’m only a tenderfoot,” replied Andrew, discouraged in spite of his ardor. Bligh had a set, hard look around his mouth.

“I don’t need to be told that. In a way it’s in your favor. The thing is — will you learn this hard game of the range — fight for my interests — an’ stick to me? It might lead to your good fortune. An’ I’m puttin’ it strong because I want you to declare yourself strong.”

“I do, Mr. Bligh,” replied Andrew ringingly, as he took the proffered hand. “I see it as tough, steady work — and no lark. It’s a chance that will make a man of me. I’ll do my damnedest!”

CHAPTER V

MARTHA ANN RESPONDED quickly to the cheery and kindly interest of the two travelers who had come upon her in the road, just after the ugly episode with the bully in the Ford. They were on a fishing trip to northern Nebraska.

They did not again refer to the distressing incident, and their keen sense of humor and lively knack of relating their own experiences soon restored Martha Ann to her old self.

They drove at a steady pace all the rest of the day, stopping only for a light supper, and at half past eight they arrived at the small town of Colfax. The men were camping along the way, so they left Martha at the inn, promising to call for her in the morning.

Soon after daylight the three were off again. At Benton, where they arrived in time for lunch, the gentlemen had to take a branch road, leading north. They were sorry that Martha Ann could not proceed further with them. She bade them good-by regretfully, promising to send them a post card when she had safely reached her destination.

Martha Ann faced the road alone once more, on foot, and somewhat forlornly. It seemed a long time since she had hiked even a short distance. All the old apprehensions trooped back into her mind. But when she saw great dark ridges rising above the horizon, and apparently not so very far away, she began to recapture her old adventurous spirit. These were the Black Hills. They thrilled her and also frightened her. Had she not been warned that she would never get through these lonesome hills alive?

A man and woman in a Packard stopped alongside the runaway girl, and the latter asked her if she would like a ride. Martha Ann smiled gratefully, and as the driver reached back and opened the door, she got into the back seat. They introduced themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Corbett of Chicago. In replying Martha gave her name, but neglected to add her address.

“Bet you are headed for Hollywood,” chuckled Mr. Corbett.

When she told them that Wyoming, not Hollywood, was her destination, the man said: “If I really thought you were a moviestruck kid, I’d turn you over to the authorities and have you sent home.”

Martha Ann realized that this very thing could easily be done. She could not prove that she was over eighteen. She earnestly explained that she was on her way to visit an uncle in Wyoming, and that she was hiking for the fun of it and to save money.

“All right, young lady, I’ll take your word for it,” replied Mr. Corbett. “I’m in the show business myself, but I am glad you’re not another girl who wants to be a star.”

They reached the next town in time for an early dinner, and then Martha accompanied them to a movie. It featured Tom Mix and his horse, Tony, in a Western. It was a romantic story which left the Chicago girl a trifle sad. How utterly impossible for anything like this picture to happen to her! The only romance so far on this long, long journey had been Andrew Bonning’s rescue of her from the clutches of a tramp. The memory of that occasion still warmed her heart. But his rude relegation of her to the ranks of a type of girl she despised had removed any possibility of romance from the episode. Where could he be now? Long ago he had passed by her on the road, perhaps too indifferent even to offer her a lift.

Since the Corbetts were remaining in this town to have extensive repairs made on the car, Martha left next morning on foot.

The air was cold, with a decided sharpness which the young traveler attributed to the altitude. Before noon she had received three uneventful rides, which brought her up into the wooded hills. Passing the beautiful hotel at the Springs, Martha Ann longed to spend a few days there. The tourists lounging around on the verandas seemed so carefree and happy. She wondered if any of them had to work for a living or had ever worried about anything in life.

She walked on to a roadside inn, where she had lunch, and then took again to the white ribbon of road through the black forest of firs. The fragrance of these trees made her short of breath and lightheaded with exhilaration. Except for an occasional car, the road was deserted. No hikers! No campers! Suddenly Martha heard a rustling in the brush, and saw a deer walk into an open glade to stand with long ears erect and watch her warily. How wild and beautiful appeared this creature of the forests — the only one she had ever seen in her whole life. She had a great desire to wander off the road, to mount up the steep slope where the tall dark fir trees shot up straight and spear pointed. She sat down on a rock to watch the trout in a clear pool. Shafts of golden sunlight pierced through the foliage, and a breeze sighed through the trees above her head. As she sat there in the sweet silence the hum of a motor broke in upon her meditations. She heard it almost with regret. And as she rose to resume her hike she determined that some day, far out in the wilds of Wyoming, she would find perfect loneliness where neither motor nor man would interrupt her thoughts.

A huge touring car caught up with her and stopped. She heard a terrier dog barking furiously and childish voices crying out: “Ride with us. Daddy says to ask you.”

Martha turned to face a welcoming family, father and mother in the front seat, and a boy, a girl and a dog in the back.

They were so friendly, so eager to have her join them, that Martha could not refuse. When she got in between the children, however, she found them suddenly shy.

“How do you like the Black Hills?” inquired the smiling lady in front.

“Oh, I love them!” exclaimed Martha. “And I had been so scared. People back along the road predicted all sorts of terrible things.”

“Nonsense, there’s no one to hurt you. We come here often...Tell us, where are you from and where are you going? We arrived at the inn just as you were leaving. A girl hitchhiker! We are dying of curiosity.”

“My name is Martha Ann Dixon. I live in Chicago, and am on my way to Wyoming to visit an uncle.”

“What part of Wyoming?”

“Randall.”

“Don’t know it. Must be far...Have you hiked all this way from Chicago?”

“Oh, no. I took a train to Omaha.”

“I see. Why didn’t you hike all the way?”

“Guess I didn’t want to meet anyone who might know me!”

“Naughty child!” interposed the lady. “Do you go to school?”

“Yes, to the university.”

“Wonder what your professors would say — to see their star student wandering through the Black Hills?” queried the man, with a smile to his wife, as if they both were familiar with the college and its teachers.

The car climbed higher. The air grew thin and cold. Martha experienced a faint giddiness. When she caught sight of patches of snow along the road, she found herself agreeing with the children when they clamored to get out of the car. They climbed still higher, until they could look out and down over the green slopes to the variegated mosaic of farmlands far below. The driver halted the car by the side of a huge snowdrift, announcing that the radiator was boiling and that they had better stop to let it cool.

Martha marveled at the lovely white snow bank on one side of the road and on the other, wild flowers and green things growing down to a wall of fir trees. From where she sat the eye was led down to the gray and green earth far below.

“No wonder you come here often,” sighed Martha.

Shortly afterward the family had to go off the road to a camp where their children were going later in the summer. They told Martha to proceed up to the lodge, where they advised her to take the bus to Rapid City.

She walked the all too short mile up to the lodge, which she expected to find on a mountaintop, but it stood near the edge of a beautiful little lake, under a lofty tower of gray, snow-patched rock. After a short wait on the cool porch of the lodge she found the bus was ready to start. By the time the bus had reached Rapid City night had fallen, and Martha was glad to find a comfortable hotel where she had supper and went promptly to bed.

Before starting out the next morning, she went into the office of the Chamber of Commerce, and of the three smiling occupants she asked collectively: “What is the best and quickest way to get to Belle Fourche?”

“Straight from here to Deadwood and then to Spearfish,” replied one of the attendants, spreading a map on the counter. “Where you hail from?”

“Chicago.”

Many questions followed which Martha answered good-naturedly and frankly. And when they learned that she actually was on her way to Wyoming, they had several sound suggestions to offer.

“Young lady,” said one of the men, “let me fix your packsack so it will be easier for you. I am an old-timer with packsacks. And yours is on wrong.”

“I’ll be eternally grateful,” replied Martha slipping off her pack.

He went into an adjoining room and returned with straps, buckles and tools. Then he proceeded to alter the straps on the packsack, and to add more. The other two men kept offering suggestions, and between them all they managed to get it to suit them, whereupon they tried it on their visitor.

“I’ll choke. Straps all too high,” protested Martha. “No, you just imagine that. Doesn’t it feel easier — lighter?”

“I believe it does, at that.”

“Are you going to try to make Deadwood tonight?”

“I’ll try, you can bet. I’m falling behind my schedule.”

“Perhaps I can help you out. There’s a gentleman I know, and will vouch for, who intends driving to Deadwood today. May I call him up?”

Martha consented gratefully, and was promised her lift over the phone. She sat down to wait, thinking how many kind and nice people there really were. Presently two men came in, and Martha recognized them as people she had seen up at the lodge the day before. They greeted her in the manner friendly which she had come to expect as typical of the West. After being introduced one of the strangers said, “Well, Miss, let’s go.” They carried Martha’s baggage out, and making her comfortable in the back seat, alone, they drove off.

“I’d like to ask a couple of questions, Miss,” said the one who was not driving.

“A couple? That’ll be easy. I usually have to answer a hundred. And I have a lot of stock answers.”

“Did your parents give you permission to take this long trip alone?”

“No, indeed,” Martha confessed.

“You don’t need to answer this one: Have you a gun with you?”

“Oh, n-no.”

“Or any kind of weapon?”

“I guess I haven’t anything you could call a weapon. Except my little embroidery scissors.”

Martha’s questioner gave his companion a dig in the ribs. “Hear that, Jim Dawson?”

“Sure, I heard...We’re a couple of daffy brave firemen, believe you me.”

Then they both laughed loud and long. Finally the first speaker turned to Martha again: “Miss, this probably doesn’t seem funny to you. But it struck us as funny. We’re on a little trip in the hills. We bought two shotguns, a revolver, a hatchet, a billy, and two ferocious butcher knives. Each of us weighs around one hundred and eighty pounds...And here we meet up with a wisp of a girl, pretty enough to be a movie queen, hiking the highways alone, her only weapon of defense a pair of embroidery scissors!...Can you beat it?”

“Oh, I forgot to mention my hiking boots,” said Martha demurely.

The general laugh made them all good friends and that ride seemed to Martha to be one of the best of the whole trip. At Deadwood they insisted on taking her to dinner and letting the hotel people see that she had friends. Moreover next morning early they sent up word to her room that they had engaged a ride for her with a nice old couple driving on into Wyoming. The welcome news expedited Martha’s ablutions and dressing. The farther west she got, the more she was beginning to dread the lonely hikes.

In the lobby she was approached by an elderly couple, plain, substantial people whom she trusted on sight. The man might have been a retired country merchant, and his wife appeared to be a motherly soul. She had, Martha thought, rather a sad, sweet face.

They explained that they had been instructed to introduce themselves and offer her a ride as far as Randall.

“It’s just lovely of you both,” replied Martha feelingly. “I’m a lucky girl.”

Not a word about hitchhiking, parents, running away! They had breakfast together and while Mr. Jones went to the garage to get his car Martha helped his wife get together a lunch for the day.

Soon they were off in the bright keen morning, with the dark hills of Wyoming looming on the horizon. That ride almost spoiled Martha Ann forever for hiking. The car was comfortable, the old man drove leisurely and his wife appeared to consider it her duty to entertain their guest. That night when they stopped at an auto camp, Mrs. Jones hardly let Martha out of her sight. She even came into Martha’s cottage and tucked her in bed, something that both embarrassed and touched the young hitchhiker deeply.

“You must have a young girl of your own,” suggested Martha shyly.

“We were never blessed with a child, my dear.”

Before they left the camp next morning Martha came upon her friends in earnest conversation. Her presence ended it so abruptly that she surmised that she must have been the subject of it. And again at noon, when they had lunch along the roadside and Martha stretched her legs by walking to and fro, the earnest talk between the man and his wife appeared to be resumed. She became sure of it when that night at Aladdin, where they stopped, Martha heard Mr. Jones agree to something his wife evidently had been urging most earnestly, “But don’t ask her till mornin’,” she heard him warn.

All this greatly excited Martha Ann’s curiosity. She wondered if she had better get up very early and leave for Randall without bidding these people good-by. She could not understand what urged her to do such a thing, but she refused to consider it as ungrateful. At breakfast next morning, after Mr. Jones had gone out to look after the car, Martha realized that the moment had come.

“My dear, I want to talk seriously to you,” said Mrs. Jones, placing a gentle hand on Martha’s. “Please listen and don’t be offended. I am a childless old woman, but I have known hundreds of girls. I have been a teacher, a worker in our church. John and I did not believe the story your last two traveling companions told us. I know that this hitchhike of yours is more than a lark. You are running away from home. Some misunderstanding has driven you from your relatives. You are a spirited, wild little thing, but I am sure that you are innocent. And you are singularly lovable. Everyone you meet will be drawn to you. But this very attractiveness, this independence of spirit only add to your very great danger on this reckless adventure of yours. Now John has consented to let me ask you this: Will you come with us? We are visiting relatives on a ranch, and then will go on west, stopping where and when we like, on the way to California. Come with us, Martha. And if you ever can learn to love us as we love you, and if it can be arranged with your relatives, then we will adopt you as our own.”

Martha Ann’s surprising reaction to this proposition was to burst into sudden tears. “Oh, I-I’m such a big b-baby,” cried Martha, fighting to recover her composure. “It makes me — so — so angry that people take me for a g-good girl, when I’m really such a bad...I lied to Mother! And she’s the dearest mother in all — the world. She’ll never forgive me...But how can I ever thank you and Mr. Jones for your kindness to me? You have paid me a beautiful compliment, Mrs. Jones. I wish I could be your daughter, too. I know I’d love you...But I’ve got to go on with this foolish adventure — and God only knows what will become of me.”

Martha was in Randall at last! In the excitement of reaching her destination she forgot everything else, even to thank the farmer who helped her on the last lap.

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning. Having breakfasted very early Martha elected to eat lunch. After eating, she sallied forth to ask a few questions. The first person she interrogated was not acquainted with Nick Bligh. Martha reflected that a garage man or store keeper would be certain to know of her uncle. A boy at the service station told her to ask at Toiler’s store where every rancher for miles around the country dealt. A moment later, Martha Ann stepped into the emporium and asked for Mr. Toller. She was directed to a little, lean, gray man at the back of the store.

“Mr. Toller, do you know Nicholas Bligh?” she asked.

“Wal, I reckon I do, Miss,” returned the merchant, eying the strange girl up and down with friendly interest.

“I’m his niece — Martha Ann Dixon — from Chicago. And I’ve come to visit him. I want to be directed to his ranch.”

“Wal, wal, if thet jest ain’t too bad!” ejaculated Mr. Toller. “Nick never knowed you was comin’, thet I’ll swear.”

“No. I — I wanted to surprise him,” faltered Martha Ann, her heart sinking like a leaden weight in her breast.

“Wal, Miss Dixon, your uncle left his ranch on the Belle Fourche several months ago. Jest as soon as the snow thawed. Drove his cattle south an’ west to a new range!”

“Gone! Oh, why did he leave his ranch?” cried Martha Ann on the verge of tears.

“Wal, bad luck one way an’ t’ other. Nick was no hand to keep cowboys an’ his stock got lost, mired in quicksand, an’ stole till he got mad an’ pulled up stakes. Reckon it was a good move.”

“Where did he go?” asked Martha Ann.

“Down on the Sweetwater — the best damn range in Wyomin’,” replied Mr. Toller. “He left his address. Split Rock is the Post Office.”

“How — far?”

“Matter of three hundred odd miles, I reckon, Miss.”

“So far!” Martha almost wailed. To travel three hundred miles in this rough country had taken her days, since she had had to hike part of the way. It was too discouraging! Martha had been having such good fortune of late that she was unprepared for such a blow as this.

“Yes, pretty far, an’ roundabout. But outside of a couple of short runs, like from here to Beulah, travel is all on state highways. Can be drove in a day — if you want to hire a car.”

“I’ve been hiking — and getting rides — when I could.”

“Miss, you can’t hike any more. Not safe. You’d be caught out all night.”

“But I’ll have to walk. I’ve no money — to hire a car,” faltered Martha, tears of disappointment trembling in her eyes.

“Then you’ll have to beg a ride, Miss Dixon. Perhaps I—”

“Thank you,” mumbled Martha, and fearful of breaking down before Mr. Toller and the clerks, she hastily left the store. What in the world could she do? Of course she could only go on as she had come thus far, but the distance was so great and her disappointment so keen that for the moment she simply could not face the problem. Blinded by tears Martha made slow progress to a bench at a filling station, and there she sat down, feeling very sorry for herself. She had just about decided to go back to Toller’s store when a young man came running up to her.

“Miss Dixon, Mr. Toller sent me,” he explained. “He’s got a ride for you clear through to Split Rock. You’re pretty lucky, ma’am. Hurry, and let me take your pack.”

Martha, murmuring incoherently, slipped the straps of her pack, and trotted after the boy. He led her back to Toller’s store in front of which stood a long, low car, covered with dust and mud. It was a powerful car, and the engine was running smoothly.

“This Bligh’s niece?” inquired a tanned individual, in the driver’s seat, of Mr. Toller who stood near.

“Yes. Miss Dixon, we’ve found you a ride. Meet Mr. Lee Todd. He’ll land you in Split Rock tonight by ten or eleven.”

“Oh, Mr. Toller — Mr. Todd—” But Martha could say no more than that. The girl’s hesitation was taken by both men as speechless gratitude.

“Glad to meet you, Miss. I know Nick Bligh. Salt of the earth...Do you mind travelin’ fast?”

Martha shook her head.

“I’ve got to be in Lauder by mornin’. Glad to take you — if you’ve got nerve.”

“That’s my — middle name,” cried Martha huskily. “Get in beside me. Put her bags in back...So long, Sol. See you next week.”

The car roared and lurched, drowning Mr. Toller’s good-by. Martha waved to him and the sympathetic youngster. Then the stores, the service station, flashed by and Martha Ann realized that she was in for the ride of her life.

“Never talk while I’m drivin’!” said Mr. Todd, shouting to make himself heard above the roar of his car.

Martha sank back in the seat and closed her eyes. She did not care how fast he drove. The faster the better! She had been a silly child to give way to her disappointment and homesickness. All the way, everything always had ended well. More than good fortune had watched over her. Prayers that she had never been too weary or discouraged to remember had been answered. Martha just laid her head back and rested for a long while.

At length, when her weakness had passed, she opened her eyes to see the landscape speeding past. The gray road split the rolling plain for miles and miles ahead. But there were hills in the distance, and beyond them low dark ranges of mountains. There were few green fields and the patches of trees and farm houses appeared even scarcer than in Nebraska. Before Martha had realized it they were beyond Beulah, out on the Custer Battlefield Highway. Sundance, Carlisle, Moorcroft were passed in succession, so quickly that Martha imagined the towns to be close together. At Moorcroft the driver crossed the Belle Fourche River and struck off the main highway for Newcastle. He drove too fast for Martha to see either country or towns with any satisfaction. At Newcastle Mr. Todd stopped at a gas station.

“Gas, oil, water,” he ordered, as he stepped out. “We’ll have a couple of minutes here, Miss Dixon. Get out an’ stretch. I’ll fetch some sandwiches an’ pie.”

Martha Ann took advantage of the stop to get a little exercise. She wanted to ask questions, as well as walk, but as she could not do both she chose the latter.

Mr. Todd soon returned carrying two paper bags which he deposited in the front seat. Martha hurried back to the car.

“How are you ridin’?” he grinned.

“Fine. You’re the most satisfactory man who has given me a lift on the whole trip west.”

“Thanks. Here’s some grub, an’ milk, too. Pile in, an’ we’ll hit the pike. Lusk is our next stop. About seventy-odd miles. We’ll do it in an hour or so. At Lusk we’ll hit the Yellowstone Highway, an’ then we will really step on her.”

“Seems to me you’ve been doing fairly well,” laughed Martha. “I can’t see the scenery.”

“Wal, you’ll not miss much along here. Too wide an’ bare. But it gets pretty out along the Sweetwater.”

“What will you have for lunch?” asked Martha peeping into the bags.

“I had a little bite an’ a big drink. I’ll smoke if you don’t object.”

“No, indeed. I don’t mind!”

“Wal, I kinda took you to be one who didn’t smoke,” he replied, offering his box of cigarettes.

“I don’t.”

“Good. There’s a few old-fashioned girls left. Say good-by to Newcastle.”

Martha found it quite a novelty to eat lunch flying along at a mile a minute. She did not know anything about racing cars or drivers, but she had confidence in this bronzed Westerner. She had liked Mr. Toller, too. Uncle Nick had been thirty years and more in the West, and surely he would have become genuinely western. Musing thus Martha slowly ate her lunch. They passed through Clifton, through which Todd drove slowly enough for her to see the post office. After Clifton came Mule Creek, Hatcreek and then Lusk.

From Lusk the towns on the highway became more numerous, and prosperous looking. And at Douglas they crossed the North Platte River, one of the famous streams of the West, according to Todd. Martha had glimpses of it here and there, as they raced on west, and the wide reaches of sand, the grazing cattle, the green bottom lands of willow and cottonwood, delighted her eyes.

Sweeps of country beyond the river caused Martha more than once to exclaim with rapture. They seemed to promise mysterious and marvelous things to come. Perhaps her uncle’s new range land lay in that direction.

At dusk they rolled into Casper, which the city girl found to her surprise to be quite a large place. A wide street, bright with electric lights was crowded with cars, and the sidewalks were thronged with evening shoppers. She kept her seat in the car and ate the remainder of the lunch while Mr. Todd attended to his affairs.

She had more than her reward. A slim wide-sombreroed young man, with mischief written all over his smooth dark face, clinked up to the car and addressed her:

“Howdy, kid, how’d you like to step out tonight?” he inquired with a smile.

“I’d love it,” replied Martha, rising to the occasion. It would take a good deal to affront her on this wonderful day.

“Was thet broad-shouldered driver your pop?”

“He was, and he is never so happy as when he is beating up cowboys.”

“By glory, he looked it,” rejoined the youth sheepishly. “Then we’re up agin it, sweetheart. Unless you can give him the slip. What say?”

“Can’t be done, Lancelot. I’ve tried that all too often.”

“Lancelot? Who’s thet guy?” inquired the cowboy doubtfully.

“Lancelot was a swell guy in the Middle Ages. Wonderful lover, according to history.”

“Say, are you razzin’ me?”

Martha laughed merrily. “Run along, cowboy. I’m afraid you’re no Lochinvar. And here comes pop.”

Mr. Todd arrived just in time to witness the rather precipitate departure of the cowboy.

“What was that puncher hangin’ around you for?”

“I think he wanted to take me out. Called me ‘sweetheart.’ I don’t think our eastern boys have anything on your Westerners for being fast workers. I told that boy you were my pop and made a specialty of beating up cowboys. It worked splendidly.”

The rancher appeared to enjoy Martha’s joke. “Doggone me! I wish I was your pop...Wal, we’ll let ’em eat our dust from here on.”

“What road do we take out of Casper?”

“The Old Oregon Trail — one of the first an’ greatest roads thet opened up the West. Sorry it’s night.”

“When will we get to Split Rock?” asked Martha eagerly.

“Wal, if we don’t chuck a shoe or somethin’ I’d say about ten o’clock.”

They were off, beyond the red and white lights into the black open. The night air was cold. Martha’s jacket afforded but slight protection — at least on her windward shoulder. The car droned like a giant wasp. The runaway slid down a little way in the seat and fell asleep. She awoke with a start, out of a dream in which she had been struggling with tramps. Mr. Todd was shaking her arm.

“Wal, you was dead to the world,” he said. “You shore had a fine nap. We made it in good time. This is your town an’ here’s your lodgin’ house. I’ve stopped here. Nice woman runs it, good grub an’ clean beds. The automobile has sure changed the West.”

He carried her bags in, engaged her room, and told the proprietress who she was and directed her to take good care of Martha.

“Remember me to your uncle, Miss. An’ now good luck an’ good-by.”

“Mr. Todd, it was the swiftest — and happiest — ride I ever had! I just can’t thank you enough. Good-by.”

CHAPTER VI

MARTHA ANN WAS awakened the following morning by a bold baritone voice singing “La Paloma.” Evidently the singer was below in the yard at the back of the inn. The sun was already high in the sky. Surprised that she had slept so late, she hopped out of bed, quickly, to find that the air was cold. It was quiet except for the slightly nasal rendition of “La Paloma” in the yard below.

“Smoky, you shore cain’t sing,” drawled a very slow accusing voice, rich with a southern twang. “No more’n you can make love.”

“Ahuh. I reckon all I’m good for is to fork a boss an’ hawg-tie a steer,” replied another voice, of quite different timber.

“Wal, you play a pretty good game of draw, among some strange punchers.”

“All right, Texas Jack. You win. I shore got—”

“Hey, you lean, hungry lookin’ hombres,” interrupted a high-pitched feminine voice. “Maw says to come an’ get it.”

Rapid footsteps, accompanied by a clinking sound, attested to the importance of this call to breakfast.

Martha was at a loss, for a moment, to name the musical, metallic clink. “Spurs, of course,” she said, presently. “Cowboys! Golly, this is Wyoming!” Then she gave a tiny squeal as she dipped her hands into the basin of cold Wyoming water.

Martha became conscious of a tendency to delay going downstairs. This was the first time she could remember ever being tardy for breakfast. Notwithstanding her joy and eagerness, and her curiosity, she would just as lief not meet those cowboys, especially the one with the drawl, who evidently considered himself a Lothario.

At length, however, she was packed and ready, without any further excuse to linger. Picking up her pack, she proceeded down the stairs. There was no one in the front room, which appeared to be the office. Martha deposited her luggage in a chair and walked down the hall to the dining room, the location of which was not hard to place. As she entered the room she almost tripped over the foot of someone whom she had not seen.

“Look where you’re goin’, kid,” complained a hard voice. “I got a bunion.”

“You’ve got more, sir — and that is — a pair of enormous feet,” retorted Martha, looking up from the huge dusty boots into the lean sharp face of a blond cowboy. He froze with sudden amazement.

“Smoky, you shore air clumsy,” drawled a voice Martha recognized. “Let the lady pass.”

A long arm shot out and dragged the stunned Smoky from in front of the door. Then Martha saw the second cowboy, and if sight of him did not petrify her in her tracks it was not because he was not the wildest and most magnificent human she had ever seen.

“Good mornin’, Miss Dixon,” said Mrs. Glemm, the proprietress, and she rescued Martha and led her to a small table near a window. “Hope you rested right well.”

“I slept like a log. Don’t believe I’d ever have awakened but for some terrible singing in the garden.”

The dining room was small and Martha’s high young voice carried well. From the hall came a sound of stamping boots and then a “Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“Meet my daughter, Nellie,” continued Mrs. Glemm, as a buxom pleasant-faced girl entered the room. “This is Miss Dixon, daughter, who’s come out West to visit an uncle...Now, Miss, Nellie will get you a nice breakfast, an’ I’m at your service.”

“Can you hire someone to drive me out to my Uncle’s — Nicholas Bligh?” asked Martha Ann eagerly. “Yes, indeedie. We’ll have a car all ready.”

Martha enjoyed a western breakfast, as well as a chat with the Glemm girl. She had nice brown eyes and rosy cheeks. The city girl asked casual questions about the weather, the town, the cattle business, the movies, what kind of social life they had in Split Rock, to all of which she received very full and cheerful answers. Evidently Split Rock was an up-and-coming place.

After finishing breakfast and paying her bill, Martha Ann was informed that her car and driver were waiting. Mrs. Glemm carried her packsack out to a dilapidated Ford, the driver of which, a nice young boy, jumped out to assist.

“John, did you find out where Mr. Bligh’s ranch is?”

“No, ma’am. He’s new hereabouts. But Sam Johnson will know.”

“Don’t forget to have Sam fill up...Good-by, Miss. Hope you stay long an’ have a fine visit. But you never will go back — east — not with them eyes of your’ n.”

The boy drove down a wide street, where red signs and garish fronts were conspicuous by their absence. Horses, vehicles, cars, dust and men were everywhere in evidence. Martha saw that Split Rock was a small place, but exciting. A halt was made at a service station.

“Sam, fill this bus up, an’ tell me where to find Nicholas Bligh,” said the young driver.

“Don’t know, Sim, but I do know who does. Rustle down to Jed Price. He’ll tell you.”

No sooner had the boy left than from the little glass-windowed office stepped a lithe, tall young man. The instant Martha espied him she recognized him, and realized that he had been waiting there to waylay her. Her second glance, as he leisurely approached the car, appraised him more closely. His shapely feet were encased in high-top, decorated boots, much the worse for wear, and his spurs dragged in the gravel. He wore jeans, also stained and old, and above his narrow hips was a belt shiny with brass shells. A yellow scarf hung full and loose from his neck. He had a red face, clean as a baby’s, eyes of intense, vivid blue, and hair as red as a flame. It stood up like a mane. In his hand he carried a huge old sombrero of a tan color.

“Mawnin’, Miss Dixon,” he drawled, with a smile that no girl, much less a western-struck maiden like Martha, could have found anything but agreeable.

“Good morning,” she replied, a little coolly. It would never do to encourage this cowboy. But Martha wanted to.

“I shore hope thet clumsy cowpuncher didn’t hurt you when he kicked you over heah at Glemm’s.”

“No, I guess I’m the one who did the kicking.”

He leaned in at the window on the driver’s side, and ringed the brim of his sombrero with strong brown fingers. His piercing eyes took Martha in from head to boots, and back again. But she liked his look, though it verged upon the audacious.

“Hitchhiker, I reckon, an’ all alone. Doggone, but I like a girl who ain’t afraid.”

“What’s there to be afraid of in Wyoming?”

“Wal, a lot, Miss. Tough lot of cowpunchers aboot heah.”

“Indeed! I’ve only seen — two that I know of.”

He never blinked one of those speculative eyes of his. “You shore need an escort, wherever you’re goin’ .”

“Isn’t this young man trustworthy?”

“Aw, Sim is fine. But he’s only a kid. You need a man.”

“Yes? I’m afraid I’ll have to take the risk. I’ve no money to waste.”

“Shore, I wouldn’t take no money from a lady.”

“You are very kind, indeed. But I think I’ll dispense with an escort. What can there be to be afraid of?”

“Wal, ootside of tough punchers, there’s Injuns, hawse thieves, bootleggers, hijackers, a big stiff of a sheriff who thinks he’s a lady killer — to name a few reasons why you shouldn’t go alone.”

“Oh, what a formidable list! How can I tell, Mr. Texas, that you don’t belong to one of those classifications?”

“My Gawd, lady, do I look it?” he protested.

“No. You look very innocuous — not to say innocent.”

“What’s thet inno-yus?” he inquired, with his dazzling smile. “An’ how’d you know I’m Texas Haynes?”

“I didn’t. I only heard the prefix. You, of course, read my name on the ledger in the hotel?”

“Shore did, Miss Martha. Hope you ain’t offended. You see only once in a life-time does a girl like you roll into this town.”

“Is that a compliment?” asked Martha, archly.

“Wal, if you want it straight, no girl so purty ever did—”

“That’ll do, thanks. It’s a compliment.”

He stared at her coolly.

“You don’t get me. I’ll bet you’ve been scared, bothered, insulted on yore long hitchhike? Haven’t you?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to say.”

“But by no Texan...Miss Martha, the cowboy from Texas who’d insult a girl ain’t been born yet,” he drawled with a slow, almost passionate, pride.

“That’s something splendid to know. But aren’t cowboys from Wyoming just as — as chivalrous?”

“I’ll leave thet for you to find oot. An’ you’re liable to pronto if you don’t let me go along with you.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“Where air you haided for?”

“I don’t know exactly. My uncle lives on the Sweetwater. The driver has gone to find out.”

“Miss Dixon, if you don’t reckon me too nosy, what’s yore uncle’s name?” queried Haynes. His flashing blue eyes seemed shadowed with his swift change of thought.

“It is Nicholas Bligh.”

“Bligh!” echoed the cowboy. He stepped back from the car to make her a gallant bow. “I’ve heahed of Nick Bligh, a new cattleman in these parts. Sorry I cain’t tell you I’ve rode for him...Good day, Miss Dixon.”

He put on his huge sombrero and strode across the street, a superb figure, and graceful save for the slightly bowed legs. He did not look back. Martha Ann, watching him, pondered over the sudden slight change in his demeanor and expression upon hearing her uncle’s name.

Then the young man delegated to drive Martha carne running back and jumped into the car. “Found out, Miss. Aw, easy! An’ not so fur. Take us mebbe three hours. We turn off at Sweetwater bridge. Only ranch down river, so we can’t miss it.”

“That’s fine news. Is it safe?”

“Safe? You mean this Ford?”

“No, the road. That redheaded cowboy scared me.”

“Tex Haynes? The son of a gun! What’d he tell you?” Martha repeated in full the dire list of calamities which Haynes had vowed would imperil her.

“I’ll bet he wanted to drive you.”

“Not exactly. He wanted to go along.”

“Ahuh. Thet hombre will be hittin’ yore uncle for a job. I’ll give you a hunch, Miss, but you mustn’t squeal on me. Tell yore uncle not to hire Tex.”

“Thank you. And why?”

“Aw, Tex is gittin’ a bad name. He’s crippled a couple of cowboys. Been in jail for fightin’. But it’s not thet. There are hints out about him. I don’t know what they are. Darn shame, too. Tex is a wonderful puncher. Wins all the rodeos at Cheyenne. An’ you can’t help likin’ him.”

Martha feared that all her driver had succeeded in doing was to increase her interest in Texas Haynes. Her insurgent mind always veered to the underdog. Moreover, he had not looked down upon her scornfully because she was a hitchhiker.

“Who is Smoky?” asked the Chicago girl, as they drove out of town.

“Smoky Reed? He’s a sure ‘nough bad egg of a cowpuncher. Sweet on Nell Glemm. An’ Nell is loony over Tex. Smoky lost his job, I heerd. An’ Tex ain’t had a job for ages. He could get one, though. Any cattleman would be glad to have Tex.”

“Tell me all about this country. Range, you Westerners call it. Oh, I can’t see a thing but these scaly hills.”

“Sorta shet in here, for a spell, Miss. But you jest wait till we come to the Sweetwater.”

“I’m waiting...You didn’t tell me your name.”

“Sim Glemm. Sim is nickname for Simpson. I’m Mrs. Glemm’s nephew.”

Martha Ann loosed the battery of her inquisitive mind, and as there was nothing pretty or unusual to look at in the scenery, she plied her loquacious driver with question after question. Driving the two hours required to reach a point where they could see the river she came into possession of a vast store of Wyoming lore, concerning the history, people and gossip, some of which she accepted with a grain of salt. Sim had the kind of narrative mind that always tried and usually succeeded in amplifying the truth.

But when they drove around a curve that brought them out from the shelter of a drab range which like a wall had hidden the view to the south and west, Martha Ann sat up with eyes wide open.

“Here’s the river,” pointed the lad. “Shines like a ribbon, don’t it? Good fishin’ along here, too. An’ see the green willows winding down from thet blue range. It ain’t the sky you’re lookin’ at, Miss, but Wyomin’ range land. See them round pink an’ red things standin’ up? Row of little mountains called the Antelope Hills. Yore uncle’s ranch is right under them. An’ shore you’re missin’ them white saw teeth way yonder...Way high, Miss. Them’s the snow-tipped Rockies...Now what do you say about Wyomin’?”

“Wonderful!” cried Martha.

“I’ll tell the world,” sang out the western youth proudly.

During the descent toward the river and bridge Martha Ann soon lost the far-flung view which had made her imagine that she was looking through colored glasses that magnified and glorified everything she saw. Across the Sweetwater, however, she had an unobstructed vision for leagues and leagues. There was nothing over there — nothing but endless land of many hues dominated by a hazy purple, countless acres of level land, rolling ridges, dark valleys, on and on to the shimmering horizon. She felt that to understand this amazing country, to appreciate it, she must begin with separate parts, first those that lay close at hand and intimate, and by studying them, graduate one day to some semblance of grasp of the vast infinitude that lay beyond.

The river came first. It was indeed a bright ribbon, and in places, several ribbons, flowing between islands of sand and green cottonwoods. But it struck her that there was very little water for so wide a river bottom. From bank to bank the bed was wide. In times of flood the Sweetwater must be truly awe inspiring. The verdant banks and islands, the sparkling white and amber water, presented a vivid contrast to the somber range of grass and sage. Martha Ann gave this lonely river its proper place in the scene as the life and vitality of that magnificent range.

“But I don’t see a single living creature!” she burst out.

“Say, Miss Tenderfoot, you oughta fetched a spyglass,” replied the driver. “See them tiny little specks yonder?”

“Ye-es, I guess so.”

“Cattle,” he said, with finality. Cattle were the aim and end of this vast country.

Sim turned off the road to the left just before reaching the bridge, and Martha Ann soon lost sight of all the open country. The bumpy road necessitated slow driving along the river bank. Groves of cottonwoods and patches of willow filled the river bottom.

“See thet big tree down thar?” queried her guide, pointing to a huge round-foliaged cottonwood, with wide-spreading branches. “My dad has helped hang rustlers on thet tree.”

“Oh, how dreadful!...What are rustlers?”

“Fellars who rustle cattle.”

“How do they rustle them? Make noises to frighten them?”

“Whoopee!” roared Sim, and then gave way to mirth. “I dare say I’m very much a tenderfoot. But how can I learn if I am not told?”

“You’re gonna be a circus for the cowpunchers. But come to think of it you’ll have the best of them right off pronto.”

“That’s good news, anyway. How will I?”

“‘Cause you’re so durn pretty thet they won’t dare — not even Tex Haynes — to torment you an’ play tricks.”

“I fail to see why my — why that will protect me?”

“Shucks! You jest wait.”

“I’ll wait patiently, young man. But tell me, what does ‘rustle’ really mean?”

“Rustle means to rustle off with cattle. To steal them. Calves, cows, yearlin’s, two-year olds, all kinds of cattle. An’ there are rustlers workin’ yet on this range. Only two-bit stuff, sure. But my dad says there always has been rustlers in Wyomin’ an’ always will be.”

“‘Two-bit stuff.’ What’s that?”

“Two bits is twenty-five cents.”

A long stretch of better road put a different face on the last lap of the approach to Bligh’s Ranch. The land to the left began to slope gradually upward toward the beautiful bare colored hills. And suddenly Martha Ann became conscious of a nearer view of the grand panorama which had so enraptured her more than twenty miles back. Here it was clearer, closer, more eye filling and breath-taking. But the near approach to the ranch drew and held the young girl’s gaze. She saw a long low squat building without a vestige of green about it, and beyond it stood sheds and pens and fences, all sadly in need of repair. And then as the car advanced farther she caught view of a gray old log cabin, picturesque in its isolation and ruin, situated on the river bank, facing the west.

Martha’s mounting excitement left her with a sudden constriction of her throat. She swallowed hard and found breathing oppressive. If she had been mad with yearning for Wyoming, with the sacrifices this trip had cost, she now realized how true her instinct had been. The solitude of the scene drew her, the wildness of the view called to something deep and instinctive within her, the beauty made her soul ache with sadness.

But she must not give way to her emotions now that she was here, or present herself to Uncle Nick as a maudlin, sentimental girl. The driver was babbling on, but Martha could not attend to him. She saw a colt sticking a curious lean head over a fence, she saw two busy little puppies that could scarcely waddle, then a big yellow-haired, fierce-eyed dog. Suddenly she realized that the car had come to a stop.

“Hi! Anybody home?” yelled the driver, with the lusty voice of youth.

“Don’t shout. I-I’ll go in.”

“Nix. Not with thet yaller dawg eyin’ us.”

Trepidation vied in Martha’s breast with a bursting joyous expectancy as she espied a man, little and lean and gray, fit habitant for that dwelling, come ambling around a corner of the house. When he aimed a gentle kick at the yellow dog she saw that he was bowlegged. But all Westerners had legs more or less bowed. Already she had the door of the car open, and now she leaped out to run up to the little man.

“Uncle Nick — I’m — your niece — come to—” she cried, and failing of voice threw her arms around him and quickly kissed his cheek.

“For the land’s sakes!” he ejaculated mildly, as he gently released himself. “Lass, I’m plumb sorry, but I jest don’t happen to be yore Uncle Nick.”

“Oh-h!...Ex-cuse me. You must think I’m crazy...But I never saw him,” burst out the fair visitor, adding confusion to her agitation.

“Hey Nick, come a-runnin’,” yelled the little man.

The door opened to reveal a tall man, gray-haired, weather-beaten of face standing in the doorway. The instant his astonished blue eyes saw the girl he ejaculated: “Martha Dixon!”

“Yes,” cried Martha, running to him. “Martha Ann...Your niece.”

A swift change from amazement to unmistakable gladness, and the quick embrace, relieved the girl, not only of her strength, but of the overwhelming dread that had consumed her. Uncle Nick resembled her grandmother. He had kind keen blue eyes that were filling with tears.

“My niece? Bless your heart! Child, I’m plumb buffaloed...Who’s with you? How’d you come? What—”

“I’m alone. Walked a lot of the way. Begged rides — to save my money...And here I am — to stay.”

“Martha, did you run away from home?”

“So did you, Uncle Nick...I — I wanted to help you.”

He held her in his arms a little closer and bent his lined face close to hers.

“I never expected to see any of my kin again,” he said, with a voice that trembled. “Much less havin’ Martha Dixon’s daughter run away from home on my account.”

“It wasn’t, Uncle — all on your account. I was crazy to see the West.”

“You must have been. Never heard of such a thing. Trampin’ alone an’ stealin’ rides! Jim, what do you think of thet?”

“Wal, Nick, I reckon I’m loco,” grinned the little man.

“Come in, Martha. You can tell us all about it,” said her uncle. “Jim, fetch in her packs.”

“Oh, I mustn’t forget to pay Sim,” cried Martha, running back to the car.

“I’m tellin’ you, Miss. It won’t be very long till you’re gettin’ all the free rides you want,” said Sim, pocketing his fee.

Martha’s uncle led her into the house, apologizing for his humble abode, which he had not expected to be graced by such a fair guest. Martha’s quick survey was much at variance with her preconceived idea of the interior of this rude house. She saw a fairly large room, consisting of roughly plastered walls covered with skins and Indian ornaments, guns lying across the horns of a deer head over the open fireplace, a wooden floor, bare except for a couple of Indian rugs, table and oil lamp, an old rocker and a couch. There was only one window, which was large enough to let in the western light.

“Come in, Mrs. Fenner. See who’s here,” called Bligh through an open door.

“I been lookin’,” replied a feminine voice, and a little woman hopped in like a bird. She had the brightest of dark eyes shining out from a small face, pleasant despite the havoc wrought by a hard, lonely life.

“Mrs. Fenner, this is my niece, Martha Ann Dixon,” said Bligh proudly. “Martha, meet Jim’s wife.”

Greetings had scarcely been exchanged before Martha had taken a liking for this little western woman. Then Jim came in with Martha’s bags.

“Set down, Martha, an’ make yourself to home,” invited Bligh, as he placed the rocker for her. “Mrs. Fenner, I reckon this room will have to be Martha’s.”

“Oh, I couldn’t take your living room,” protested the girl.

“Wal, you’ll have to, ‘cause it’s our only one. It’s got to be fixed up, too. What’ll we need, Mrs. Fenner?”

“Washstand, mirror, bureau, some pegs to hang clothes on, some more rugs on the floor an’ a curtain for the window,” replied Mrs. Fenner practically.

“Reckon we can find all but the bureau. We’ll get thet in town. We’ll rustle things pronto...Martha, tell us how in the world you ever got here, alone, an’ in them togs.”

Whereupon Martha, inspired as well as excited by her glad-eyed, wondering audience, related the pleasantest part of her hitchhiking experience.

“An’ nothin’ else happened?” ejaculated her uncle.

“Not much. Tramps tried to rob me and a couple of young men got fresh. But altogether my trip was uneventful.”

“Nick, it was them eyes,” spoke up Jim Fenner solemnly.

“No — the good Lord!” added Mrs. Fenner.

“Wal, she’s here, an’ I say the day of miracles isn’t past...Come, we’ll rustle what we can find to make her comfortable.”

“But, Uncle, the driver told me that to rustle means to steal,” remonstrated Martha. “Please don’t rustle all those things for me.”

They laughed and departed in great excitement, plainly bewildered by her unexpected arrival, but undoubtedly happy over it. And that was what made Martha’s heart sing. She began to unpack her luggage, but the unpacking, owing to frequent interruptions, took a long time. At last between the four of them they had the living room most satisfactorily furnished.

“Wal, thet’s fine,” declared Bligh, viewing the result of their labors. “I’ll send Jim or Andrew into town tomorrow for what else we can think of...Mrs. Fenner, will you fix some lunch for us? Are you hungry, lass?”

“I’ll say I am!” cried Martha.

“Wal, it does my eyes good to see you,” replied her uncle, taking her hand. “You look so much like your mother that at first I thought she had come...Child, I don’t know what to say to you.”

“Don’t scold, Uncle,” she pleaded. “I just had to come.”

“You ran off?”

“Yes. I lied to Mother. That hurts terribly. It seems so much worse now.”

“Have you written her?”

“Once. I told her I was with a girl friend, whose uncle wanted to take us to the Black Hills.”

“Your mother will have to know.”

“Yes — but — but there’s no hurry...Oh, what can I say to her?”

“Martha, is this a visit you are paying me?”

“A long one — perhaps forever,” replied Martha Ann, as she looked away.

“What has hurt you, lass?”

“Oh, everything.”

“An unhappy love affair?” he asked, with a grave smile.

“No. I’m sick of boys and men who keep pestering me...Then I grew to hate the city — the noise, dirt, rush — and being poor. I worked while I went to college — paid my own way — saved a little to come west...Uncle, I didn’t realize till I got to the Black Hills what it was I really wanted and needed. It was change, freedom, loneliness. To be thrown on my own!”

“How old are you, Martha?”

“Nineteen last February.”

“You look younger...Now, my dear, I’m curious to know how a slip of a college girl aims to help a poor old cattleman?”

“Uncle Nick, wait till you get acquainted with this modern college girl! I shall help you in a thousand ways...Tell me, Uncle, just how are you situated?”

“Wal, I’ve picked up considerable in health out here. It’s higher country. As for worldly wealth, lass, I have mighty little. Got here with the last thousand head of cattle I saved back at Belle Fourche. I should tell you thet before I left there I corresponded with a cattleman whose range is on the Sweetwater. An’ he induced me to come in on a deal with him — which I’m sorry to say Jim Fenner doesn’t like.”

“What kind of deal?” queried Martha Ann.

“I was to furnish stock an’ he would run them with his, savin’ me the expense of an outfit.”

“On what basis?”

“Equal shares. But when I got out here he bucked. I expected an equal share of his stock, but he claims I was only to get a share of my own thet he’d raise an’ market.”

“How much stock has this man?”

“Wal, some less than mine.”

“I think he drove a sharp bargain.”

“So do I. Anyway, he now refuses to reconsider the deal. Says he has my agreement in black an’ white. An’ if I don’t agree he’ll take the deal to court.”

“What’s his name?”

“McCall. What’s more, he claims thet he has a lien on this homestead. A homesteader named Boseman settled here, but never proved up on his claim. Abandoned the farm, which was homesteaded by other cowmen, who in turn never got a patent on it.”

“Did you lay out any more for it?”

“Only on improvements.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know. Not much yet.”

“Then if you have to get off you won’t stand to lose much?”

“No. But I’ve taken a shine to the place. Spring water has some mineral quality. Good for me. I’d like to stay.”

“Then you bet we’ll stay,” declared Martha Ann.

Uncle Nick clapped his hands. “Once in a long while I have a hunch...I just had one.”

“What is it, Uncle?” asked Martha smilingly.

“You’ve changed my luck.”

“Why, of course. What do you think I hitchhiked out here for?”

“I reckon the Lord sent you. Come to think of it, Martha, I believe he’s rememberin’ my years of toil an’ defeat on the ranges. He has sent me help. This man Jim Fenner is an Arizonian. He threw in with me, not in hope of profit, but because he an’ his wife liked me. They’ve had a hard time since Jim got crippled an’ couldn’t do a regular cowboy’s work. Then a handy man came along — works for his board. Now you come with a modern college girl’s ideas on cattle raisin’!”

“Uncle, I’m going to run outdoors where I can yell!”

Martha Ann did run. She ran so fast that she could scarcely see where she was going. Pell-mell she ran around a corner of the barn only to bump so violently into a man that she sat down with a thud. Her hat fell off and her hair cascaded down over her eyes. She put both hands flat on the ground in order to raise herself when the person with whom she had collided uttered a strange exclamation.

“Do you occupy all the land on this range?” inquired Martha flippantly.

She shook the hair out of her eyes to see a tall, wide-shouldered young man in blue jeans. His face was familiar. She saw a sudden cloud of red tinge his brown cheek. His gray gaze seemed to bore right through her.

“You!” he burst out.

“Who else did you think I am?”

“Wyoming Mad!” And he threw up his hands.

Then Martha Ann recognized him. He was changed somehow, thinner, sun blistered yet he was the one real hero of her hitchhike, the rescuer who had so rudely disapproved of her, and whom she could never forget — Andrew Bonning.

“You!” she exclaimed weakly, and she would have crawled into a hole had there been one near to hide her blush.

“Howdy, little kick hunter...Who else do you think I am?”

“Here — in Wyoming — on Uncle Nick’s ranch?”

“Sure. Don’t you see me?”

“You’re the new hired man — the handy man — who works for his board?”

“The very same, Wyoming Mad,” returned Bonning, with a bow.

Martha Ann leaped in front of him. “Then — you’re fired!” she cried.

CHAPTER VII

ANDREW BONNING LEANED back against the corral gate a victim of emotions that were compounded of surprise, annoyance, amusement and reluctant admiration. So this independent young hitchhiker who had haunted him for the past few weeks had turned up again under even more complex and bewildering circumstances. He might have expected her to bob up any day.

“Yeah? So I’m fired?” he queried slowly.

“You bet you are,” she snapped.

“Who’s firing me?”

“I am.”

Andrew studied the girl. She was certainly angry, as well as surprised. Her face was pale and her eyes were blazing. She had the strangest, most beautiful eyes he had ever seen in a woman, and though he remembered them, this nearer view under the bright sun seemed to render null his former impression. They flared upon him with a clear amber light. She had red lips, just now set determinedly.

“Who are you?” asked Andrew.

“I’m Martha Ann Dixon. Mr. Bligh is my uncle. And I’ve come west to help him run his ranch.”

A laugh interrupted Andrew’s gravity. “Miss Martha Ann Dixon,” he said. “That accounts for the M A D...Well, we seem fated to meet each other. I’m sorry...Do you mean to run Bligh’s ranch, or to run off the hired men who don’t fall for you at the drop of a hat?”

“Mr. Bonning, all I mean is that I wouldn’t have you on this ranch,” she blazed.

“I see. Well, if I were to consider only myself, I wouldn’t want to stay. But it just happens that Mr. Bligh needs me.”

“No more than any other hand, I’m sure.”

“Indeed he does — more than any man you might find.”

“Oh. You certainly have a poor opinion of yourself.”

“If I had, it evidently could not be as poor as yours of me. May I inquire why my presence on this ranch is so obnoxious to you?”

“If you were on the level you wouldn’t ask.”

“That’s the last thing I’m not, Miss Dixon,” he returned, coldly. “And if you’re not throwing a bluff with your pretty pride, your outraged dignity, you’ll explain why you say I’m not on the level.”

“You’re not — because you — you insulted me.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” declared Andrew flatly.

“You did! I was terribly indebted to you when you rescued me from those tramps. But you spoiled it by — by taking me for a common — for something I’m not.”

“Miss Dixon, that wild stunt of yours, hiking the roads alone, hunting for kicks, ready and willing to be picked up by anyone, laid you open to—”

“I wasn’t hunting for kicks,” she interrupted almost in tears. “I wasn’t ready and willing to be picked up by anybody—”

“Now you’re not being on the level,” he returned, with obvious sarcasm in his voice. His anger was struggling with a deeper emotion.

“I am on the level, but I don’t care to prove it to you,” she retorted, her face flaming red. “I simply don’t care what you think. I did, but not any more...For all I know you might be a confidence man, a rustler — anything but a Missouri farm hand.”

“I might be, but I’m not. It doesn’t matter in the least to you, or to anyone out here, what or who I am. I’m honest, and I chose to offer my services free to your uncle because I needed a home and he needed an honest hired man. That’s all. And you’re sore at me because I saw through you.”

“You didn’t see through me.”

“Wyoming Mad, you’ll understand me better if I say that you’re not very convincing.”

She grew white even to her bright red lips.

“Andrew Bonning, you thought me a wild, wayward girl, didn’t you?” she queried furiously.

“What else could I think?” he retorted.

“You called me ‘an unforgettable kid,’ didn’t you?”

“I’m afraid you are.”

“Why am I?”

“You are rather pretty and distinctly original,” he answered in a way that made what he said sound almost uncomplimentary.

“But sailing under false colors?”

“I certainly wouldn’t call you true blue. You strike me as the chameleon type, Miss Dixon. You change your color — or your line — to suit the individual you want to impress.”

“You think I flirted with that boy who took me to dinner?”

“I saw you. And you impressed me as a fast little worker — especially with hicks like him.”

“You think — I’m even — worse?” she faltered, in a suffocated little voice.

“I’m ashamed to confess that I did. I let my imagination run riot — and pictured you with him in the park, or in his car.”

“Oh, you’re like all the rest of the beastly men,” she cried, with renewed fury. “You’ve a one-track mind when it comes to women. What kind of sister could you have, or girl friends?...Isn’t there any man who can understand a girl’s longings to be free — to have adventures — to find herself — to be let alone? Oh, what a rotten world! I thought I’d escape from all that — way out here in Wyoming.”

“So did I, Miss Dixon,” he returned, stung to a bitterness that overcame his surprise.

“Well, you can go to blazes!” she concluded, with finality, as she turned away.

“Thank you. After firing me you consign me to blazes. You certainly have a nice, gentle, sweet disposition,” he replied, following her around the barn. “Here’s your uncle now. I’ll tell him.”

It was evident that Miss Dixon wanted to escape this encounter.

“Hello, here you are,” called out Bligh, intercepting them. “Have you scraped an acquaintance?...Martha, this is Andrew—”

“Uncle, we’ve met before, to my sorrow,” interposed the girl icily.

“Eh? What? Wall now?”

“Mr. Bligh, we have met, back in Nebraska somewhere,” said Andrew hurriedly. “I did her some trifling service. But I offended her because I disapproved of a young girl hiking alone along the highway — picking up men to ride with. I’m sorry. But I think it’s a pretty reckless stunt even for these modern days. I had no right to criticize her. And for that I apologize. The harm is done, however...and in fact she won’t have me on the ranch.”

“Uncle, I fired him,” cried Martha. “I hope you agree with me!”

“Fired him!...Why, lass, what’re you talkin’ about? Of course I wouldn’t keep any man — but be reasonable. I agree with Andrew that your hike out here was a pretty wild thing to do. The Lord must have watched over you, Martha...An’ as for Andrew’s leavin’ — I’d hate to see him go. Cowboys are hard customers for me to handle, Martha. They drink an’ leave the ranch. Now Andrew is steady. He’s different, lass. He’ll fit in here. Jim Fenner particularly likes him. Can’t we fix up your quarrel somehow?”

“No, Uncle. But if Mr. Bonning is so valuable to you I withdraw my objection,” replied the girl, and walked away with her head proudly erect.

“Wal, Andrew, this day is one of surprises,” said the rancher. “Strange you two should meet on the road an’ then meet again out here. She seems a mighty fiery little lass...Which of you is to blame for this?”

“I am,” replied Andrew, emphatically. “I reproved her pretty harshly for this hiking stunt. It was none of my business.”

“Reckon you’ve been pretty hard on the lass. She’s only a spirited filly. Like her mother and grandmother before her...Fine old family — the Campbells. Poor now, an’ perhaps thet’s one reason why Martha ran off. I ran off thirty years ago...How about you?”

“Well, I ran off from something, that’s sure. Probably my own morbid self.”

“It will all come right. But not soon. The Campbells don’t forgive easily...Thet was funny about her firm’ you. Wal, she withdrew her objection. I hope thet’ll be the end of it.”

Andrew had his doubts about that. As he walked away toward his quarters he found that his unreasonable temper had cooled, and that he was now in a state close to self-reproach. He had answered the girl’s pertinent queries coolly and to her discredit. Any young woman with a grain of spirit would have resented what he had said and would have defended herself. She had done more. Then remembering what she had declaimed so passionately, he felt deeply ashamed, and suddenly he was horrified by the thought that it was quite possible that he had completely misjudged her. How scathingly she had denounced all men! It made him feel decidedly uncomfortable. She was perfectly right. But what else could she expect from men? It seemed to Andrew that she had almost invited approach. Of all the escapades that had ever come under his notice, of all the crazy stunts that he could conceive, this hiking alone by a stunningly pretty girl through the West was the most audacious and questionable. She seemed clever, intelligent, refined. Bligh vouched for her good blood.

All the more reason to suspect her! This twentieth-century restlessness and thoughtlessness, this boldness so typical of the age, this urge for thrills she could not satisfy at home, this wanderlust of the past combined with this modern obsession to meet and captivate strange men — these all must be at the bottom of Martha Ann Dixon’s flight from a good home. It was a pity. Old Bligh would never be able to see through this clever little minx.

“But she can’t fool me,” he reassured himself. “Not a chance! She knows her stuff. She has my sister and Connie tied to the mast. For they played the game openly and aboveboard.”

Having delivered this ultimatum to his smarting conscience, Andrew stamped into the old cabin where he had elected to make his abode. It was getting to mean a great deal to him — this ancient abandoned cabin. The initials cut on the logs and the charcoal drawings of brands on the stone fireplace, the accumulation of years of range dust on the rafters, the friendly mice and squirrels that had at first regarded his presence as an intrusion, the bleached antlers over the mantel, the old couch of boughs in one corner, the black smoke stains on the chimney, the holes in the roof that he had not yet mended — these things and everything about the big room held for him the atmosphere of bygone frontier days.

Andrew worked at odd times on making the cabin more habitable. Before the snow came he would have it snug and dry and comfortable. Just now there was nothing but his blankets and his bags and saddle. He pictured himself during the winter, on dark nights when the blizzard was howling, sitting beside an open fire, watching the red embers, and reveling in his solitude.

His favorite place during this summer weather was out on the porch that faced the river and the magnificent reach of purple and gold stretching to the Rockies.

This porch spoke as eloquently as the big room of what had happened there. It certainly needed a good many repairs. Andrew decided, however, that the bullet holes in the posts and cabin wall, made during a rustler-cowboy war in early days, should not be removed for any repairs. The slope of the land toward the river caused the floor of the porch to stand high off the ground. The wide steps leading down had rotted away until they were now unsafe.

Andrew flung himself into one of the old crude chairs, and threw his sombrero aside. His brow and hair were moist. No matter how hot it was in the sun, the shade was always cool. Bligh’s cattle grazed along the river banks and down in the bottom lands. Soon they would work up into the draws of the hills; and then the real riding for Andrew would begin. There were horses out on the grassy slope.

All at once it struck Andrew that a rift had come into his new and pleasant way of life. He did not need to puzzle it out. That amber-eyed girl! He thought he had dismissed her and the disturbing thoughts she had aroused with a scornful finality. And here she was back!

“What a sweet, pretty kid!” he mused regretfully. “She will put this range on the blink...Damn it, I like her! Maybe she didn’t hand it to me! Eyes and lips! Never will I forget those eyes...If that girl was only straight I’d — I’d — fall for her like a ton of bricks.”

Andrew admitted this startling possibility. He realized, too, that he was in a strangely receptive and unusual condition of mind. He had severed old ties. He had traveled far and every league, it seemed, had eased his pain and bitterness. This great open range land had expanded his soul. Now this new self seemed in conflict with the old.

While Andrew was in the midst of these introspective self-confessions, the little Arizonian, Jim Fenner, limped into the cabin.

“Where are you, Andrew?”

“Come out here, Jim.”

“Bligh wants some goods trucked from town. Will you drive me in? I’m leery of thet truck. She bucked on me last time.”

“Jim, I can make her run if anybody can.”

“Wal, I’d like to see you take to hosses thet way. But we haven’t a decent nag in the outfit.”

“What’d a good horse cost, Jim?”

“Around fifty. An’ thet reminds me. I heerd the little cyclone who jest blew in askin’ about hosses. Andrew, we haven’t one thet’s safe for her. An’ Bligh can’t afford to buy one.”

“Is he pretty hard up, Jim?” queried Andrew thoughtfully.

“Hard up ain’t tellin’ it. But I’m glad this niece came. She’ll put new life in us, Andrew.”

“Life? If that were only all!”

“Say, I was in the barn when you an’ Martha had thet set-to,” confided the Arizonian.

“Yeah?...Then you heard me get fired?”

“Wal, I reckon, an’ told to go to blazes...Andrew, you an’ me took to each other right off. We’re goin’ to get along. Mebbe thet doesn’t give me license to be too curious. All the same I’ll risk it...Wasn’t you an’ Martha kinda gone on each other — before you landed out west?”

“No. I never met her until one night on the road. I came on her in the hands of a tramp, so I slugged him. We met once after that.”

“An’ what happened then?”

“Nothing. We had very few words until this meeting. Then we had plenty, believe me.”

“I savvied thet you had sort of a pore opinion of her an’ it riled her.”

“Yes.”

“How pore an opinion, Bonnin’?”

Andrew shook his head as if reluctant to interrogate himself. “Pretty poor, I’m afraid, Jim.”

“Wal, you know these eastern youngsters. An’ I reckon they’re a wild outfit these days. It shore was a turrible thing for thet kid to run off from home an’ come out here alone.”

Andrew nodded gloomily.

“But she’s honest, Andrew.”

“Honest?” echoed Andrew, quickly.

“Straight, I mean. No matter how wild thet kid’s been she is decent. Sabe, Senor?”

The curt assertion of the Arizonian annoyed Andrew as much as the hint of his own lack of chivalry.

“Jim, I’m sure I didn’t think—”

“Wal, I’m glad you didn’t,” interrupted Jim bluntly. “My hunch came from my wife, Sue. She never made a mistake about figgerin’ a girl. She cottoned pronto to this pore little runaway. An’ so did I. An’ Bligh, why she’ll make a new man out of him. I’m tellin’ you, Andrew, ‘cause I want you on our side of the fence.”

“Thanks, Jim...Lordy, I’m not such a poor fish...And see here, old-timer, I’ve got something to tell you. It has weighed on my mind.”

“Wal, go ahaid an’ shoot,” replied the Arizonian, leaning back against a post to fix Andrew with his penetrating eyes.

“Listen. The night I reached town I camped out in the brush,” began Andrew swiftly. “Walked in to buy some grub. It was dark when I got back to camp. You couldn’t see my car from the road. I was about to make a fire when a horseman came along from the open country. Then a man on foot from town. They met — came off the road — near where I had crouched down. Briefly, the rider was a cowboy called Texas something. The other was a cattleman. He owed the cowboy money for branding calves with his brand. The man’s name was McCall. He told Texas about Bligh’s recent arrival on the range — that Bligh had driven in so much stock, an’ he wanted Texas to begin what I grasped to be wholesale stealing. Texas refused. He agreed to brand calves as before. Also to carry a message for McCall to another cowboy, named Smoky Reed, who was to clean out Bligh...I heard all the conversation distinctly. When Texas rode away McCall made a crack that showed he feared the cowboy.”

“Wal, you don’t say?” mused Jim thoughtfully.

“I forgot to include some pertinent remarks about Sheriff Slade. He must get a rake-off from bootleggers and Texas knows it. Next morning when I was about to start out here that sheriff searched my car. Quite a crowd collected, and I told Slade to his face that for all I knew he might be a bootlegger himself.”

“Andy, you’ll do,” returned Jim dryly. And Andrew gathered that a compliment greater than he could estimate had been paid him. “Wal, I oughta have a smoke...Say, why didn’t you tell Bligh about this deal?”

“I meant to. But he seemed already to be bearing a pretty heavy burden. I didn’t want to add to it.”

“You figgered correct. It’d never do to tell the boss right now. You an’ me have got to handle this deal.”

“Jim, that tickles me,” responded Andrew eagerly. “Do you know I had a fool notion I’d like to work it out alone. Absurd, of course, but it sure got into me.”

“Wal, you an’ me together can handle it at present. I don’t know about later.”

“How’d you suggest we handle it, Jim?”

“We’ll ketch those cowpunchers red-handed.”

“Then what?”

“I reckon beatin’ the rustlin’ out of them would be a good idee. Of course we used to string up rustlers in the old days. Jail is about all they get now, an’ thet not for long.”

“Humph! That Texas cowboy wouldn’t take a beating. He’d shoot, Jim. Struck me as a tough proposition.”

“Wal, if it comes to shootin’ you’d be in serious.”

“I’m okay with a rifle.”

“Good, so long as you ain’t in close quarters.”

“You’ll have to coach me, Jim...What’d you mean when you said you didn’t know how to handle the deal later?”

“Wal, Andy, if Bligh loses a lot of his cattle or if McCall gyps him, an’ I reckon both is liable to happen, it’ll take a long time to build up again. I’d hate to fail on this range. So I’d persuade Bligh to keep on. He’s gettin’ along in years an’ a crownin’ disappointment would go hard.”

“But Jim, how can disaster be averted?”

“It cain’t. Thet’s the hell of this cattle business. Good grass, good water at times are no better than a bad drought. Because all the calves will be stole. It’s not easy to trace stolen calves. You jest can’t unless you ketch the brander with his runnin’ iron.”

“You believe there’s a paying ranch business to be developed here?”

“Payin’? Hell, there’s twenty per cent at least.”

“How’d you go about developing this ranch to clear such a big percentage of profit?”

“Wal, son, you gotta have some coin. Cattle are way down now. You can buy cheap. If Bligh could restock, say with a mixed herd of two thousand haid, an’ get some Arizona punchers to ride this range, why he’d double his money when prices went up.”

“That’s the rub, then? Bligh is without means to restock...Couldn’t he borrow?”

“The banks jest ain’t lendin’ money without big securities.”

“Why hire Arizona cowboys?”

“Wal, to be shore, they ain’t any better than Wyomin’ punchers. But they’d be on the prod. They’d be like a pack of hounds. Playin’ one outfit agin a rival one used to be an old trick of mine. I’ve been foreman on some great ranches. Bucked the Hash Knife outfit once. An’ I still carry some of their lead.”

“What was the Hash Knife outfit?”

“Hardest ridin’, drinkin’, shootin’, an’ sometimes hardest stealin’ outfit in Arizona.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it some day...Well, Jim, then it’s lack of capital that handicaps our boss — and that stands between us and a swell job?”

“It is, Andy. But what’s the use to smoke our pipes? We’re all broke, an’ the best we can hope for is to make a bare livin’ for Bligh an’ ourselves. Andy, we wouldn’t have any jobs at all if we asked wages.”

“Jim! Are you working for your board, the same as I am?”

“Shore am, an’ satisfied, too. I tell you, son, I don’t mind for myself, but it sticks in my craw thet I can’t give Sue the pretty things women like.”

“Jim, wait a minute,” said Andrew, acting upon an impulse. He ran inside to return with his wallet which he got out of his grip. “I’ve got a little money — and I’m going to lend you some, Jim.”

“Hell, no!”

“Yes, I am. It worries me, all this dough. There — two hundred bucks. I’d lose it in town. I’ve got a little left, Jim. I want to buy some lumber and tools and odd things to fix up my place here.”

The Arizonian fingered the crisp bills while his eyes shed a warm light on Andrew.

“Son, you don’t know me.”

“I’ll gamble on you, anyhow.”

Jim folded the greenbacks and stowed them carefully in an inside vest pocket.

“Wal, all my life I’ve found two kinds of men. One kind makes you want to keep on fightin’ an’ hopin’...Let’s go in to dinner. I heerd the bell.”

“I’ll wait and get mine in town,” replied Andrew hastily. “When will you be ready?”

“Pronto. You see if you can start thet truck.”

“Okay.”

Half an hour later Andrew drove the truck over in front of the house and honked the horn. Jim and his wife came out beaming, to be followed by Bligh and his niece. Andrew had only to see her again to realize why he had shirked dinner when he was hungry. Martha had changed her gray blouse to a white shirt, and she had done something to her hair. It was fluffy and shone like spun gold.

“All aboard,” sang out Andrew. “Mrs. Fenner, hadn’t you better come with Jim? I won’t guarantee his sobriety.”

“Wal, I will,” declared Jim, as he climbed in.

Whereupon Andrew reacted to a sudden impulse. “Miss Dixon, there’s room for you. Won’t you come? You’ll get a kick out of my driving.”

“I’d do anything under the sun for a kick, Mr. Bonning, as you know — except ride with you,” she replied coldly.

“Wal, Sue, you’d better wait up for us,” said Jim.

“I haven’t done thet for years, but I shall tonight,” returned his wife, with an air of happy mystery.

“Mr. Bligh, what can I fetch you?” inquired Andrew casually.

“Jim has the list.”

“Don’t you dare forget mine,” spoke up Martha saucily. “Go to a dry-goods store and ask the price of what I want. It’s all carefully written out. If the price comes to more than fifteen dollars cut out the articles checked off. Can you remember all those instructions?”

“Andrew, you heerd them, so you can jar my memory.”

“If we forget or lose the list we’ll buy lollipops, gum, candy, some movie magazines and a victrola with a dozen jazz records,” replied Andrew facetiously.

Martha Dixon did not join in the laugh that followed, but fixed Andrew with unfathomable eyes. She might either have hated or loved him, to judge by the took she gave him.

“Mr. Bonning will be surprised to see that I can make my own clothes,” said the girl.

Andrew spent a strenuous and absorbing afternoon in town. What with Jim’s supplies and the bulky nature of his own purchases, they had a good load by the time they were ready to start back. Leaving after supper, they gave several hours to the return drive, but Jim made the trip seem short by the resumption of his coaching of the tenderfoot. Andrew let all the Arizonian told him sink in. If there were any range subjects Jim did not touch upon Andrew could not imagine them.

“I shore liked both the hosses you bought,” Jim said on one occasion. “Thet bay has good points, an’ the pinto is a purty dogie. I reckon he’ll make trouble for you at the ranch, an’ I ain’t sayin’ how...Hosses are most important on the range. Now when you’re ridin’ to an’ fro practice with your rope. You don’t do so bad. But practice. Rope everythin’. An’ shoot at every jack rabbit an’ coyote you see. Learn to see trails an’ tracks on the ground. By studyin’ your own hoss tracks an’ others at the ranch, fresh or old, you can judge other tracks out on the range. For instance, you see your fresh track. You study it. An’ then one made earlier. You see what has happened to it — a little dust blown in or water, or mebbe another track over it. You know just when they was made, an’ if you make pictures of them in your mind soon you’ll get the hang of a tracker. Don’t miss nothin’, Andrew. Use yore eyes. You’ve got field glasses. Use them when you’re undecided or too far away from somethin’. When you’re lookin’ for strange riders keep out of sight. In the brush or timber, behind ridges an’ back from canyon rims. If you’re ridin’ in the open do it bold, as if you saw nothin’. When the cattle get up in the foothills — an’ thet’ll be any day soon — you can ride out at daybreak, find a hidin’ place an’ watch. I’ll be with you part of the time, an’ I’ll tell you how to look an’ what you see. But shore you’ll be alone a good deal. An’ it’ll happen when you’re alone. These two-bit rustlers of McCall’s will be slick an’ keep to cover. But often they’ll drive a cow an’ calf from the open into rough goin’. You listen for a gun shot an’ look for smoke. An’ when you sneak up on one of them, draw down on him with your rifle. Order him to throw up his hands an’ turn his back. Then disarm him an’ march him to the boss.”

Andrew was up with the dawn. How many years had he slept away the beautiful hours from the break of day to the burst of the sunrise! The soft mist above the river, the winging of ducks across the bars, the obscurity of the range yielding to a sudden magic brightness, the ghosts of mountains growing clear — these new facets of the morning held him absorbed. Then came the change from gray to rose and at last the glory of the lord of day.

He unloaded the truck and packed his purchases inside the old cabin. He discovered a fondness for tools, as well as hands unskilled in their use except when it came to tinkering with automobiles.

Mornings and evenings thereafter he labored at the pleasant task of rendering his new abode dry and warm and less bare to his gaze. But he had made no luxurious purchases. A hard, primitive simplicity seemed to be Andrew’s goal.

As he ate with Jim in the kitchen and was absent from the house except at meal hours, he saw little of Martha Ann Dixon. Nevertheless she seemed omnipresent. She filled the lives of her uncle and this Arizona couple. They had suddenly awakened to something joyous. Andrew watched her from afar and sometimes, to his discomfiture, he was caught in the act. Yet he wondered how she could have caught him had she not also been taking cognizance of him. He had to listen to Jim’s talk of her interest in horses, in the ranch, in everything and everyone but Andrew Bonning. On Sunday more visitors called on Bligh than during the entire preceding time since he had arrived on the Sweetwater. Some of these were cowboys, spick-and-span in their Sunday best, with boots as shiny as their hair. Andrew regarded them with a vague uneasiness.

Late one afternoon Andrew was riding in from the range, and coming to a wide shallow valley he espied a saddled but riderless horse galloping up the opposite slope toward the ranch. The distance was too great for him to recognize the horse, which disappeared before he could bring his field glasses into use.

Andrew rode rapidly down into the draw, and had not proceeded far along one of the banks when he saw a bright object on the sand. Urging on his horse, he plunged down into the dry stream bed to verify his fears. He came upon Martha Dixon sitting on the sand, her face white and drawn with pain, her hands tremblingly endeavoring to unlace one of her boots. Andrew leaped off his mount to rush to her side.

“Miss Dixon, you’ve had a spill?” he queried anxiously.

“Yeah,” she replied, without looking up.

“I saw your horse galloping home...Did he buck you off?”

“The old bag of bones tripped in the sand.”

“I hope you’re not badly hurt,” continued Andrew solicitously. “There’s blood on your cheek.”

“That’s rouge...I hate to ask you, Mr. Bonningbut please ride to the house and send Jim or Uncle.”

“Nonsense. Take all that time while you’re suffering? Let me see. You appear to have sprained an ankle.” Andrew knelt down to place his hands gently on the boot she had half unlaced.

“Thank you — never mind,” she said, pulling her foot away. “I can get it off. You go for help.”

“But I can help you, Miss Dixon,” he said, looking up into a frowning face lighted by pain darkened eyes. “I don’t want you to.”

“But it’s only common courtesy.”

“I’d lie here and die before I’d let you help me,” she said, turning her face away. He could not help noticing, before she did so, that her lips were trembling.

“So I see. All the same I shall not allow you to sacrifice yourself...Take your hands away.” He pulled them free and unlaced the rest of her boot and despite his care in removing it, he hurt her.

“Oh-h! You brute...Great, big, strong, he-man stuff, eh?”

“Your ankle is swollen. I advise you not to try to walk on it.”

“Mr. Bonning, you seem to know all about the shape of peoples’ ankles—”

“I have been in college athletics,” he replied stiffly.

Struggling to her feet she tried to take a step with the injured member, but faltered. With a moan she sank to the sandy floor of the draw.

“You stubborn little fool. I told you,” he burst out, sorry for her, but angrier still.

“Go get — somebody,” she said faintly.

“I’ll do nothing of the kind. I’m going to pack you up to the house.”

“You will not!”

“Watch me!” Whereupon he led his horse beside a low bank from which he could easily step astride the saddle. Then he returned to the girl.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” she flared.

“Martha Dixon, you ought to get a real kick out of this,” he replied with a grim laugh.

“You really are a brute, aren’t you?”

In spite of her struggles, he picked her up bodily. She kicked out with her feet, but suddenly subsided with a scream.

“Serves you right. Lie still!” And he shook her slightly. “Anyone would think you imagine I want to take you in my arms. Well, let me set your silly little mind at ease. I don’t.”

“You don’t because you imagine I’d want you to — that I planned all this,” she retorted.

“I never allow my imagination to run riot,” he replied coldly, and approaching his horse, cautioned him with stern words, then stepped astride. “I forgot your boot. Oh well, I can come back for that later. There. Are you comfortable?”

“I have never been so wretched — in a man’s arms,” she answered, avoiding his eyes.

“You don’t need to remind me that it is no uncommon experience.”

He held her in front of him with his left arm around her and her head against his shoulder. He had his right arm under her knees, and managed also with his right hand to hold the bridle. He gazed down at the pale face against his arm, aware of its loveliness and its danger. She was watching him with a look no man could have interpreted. But it was a look that made him tremble. Her eyes were the clearest amber, large, luminous, the color of a tawny pansy or a topaz. But it was the look in them rather than their beauty that moved Andrew. In times past he had found himself susceptible to feminine charms. He recognized the symptoms now, in magnified form and he determined that he would not permit it to happen again.

“I hate — you,” she panted.

“That’s all too obvious,” he replied, inclining his head. “And it puzzles me. It seems to be my misfortune to keep receiving you — and getting no thanks for my pains. If you ran true to form you would be employing the moment — to your peculiar satisfaction.”

“You are simply horrid.”

“Why? Because I tell you the truth? Martha Dixon, you certainly are the prettiest creature the sun ever shone on. And it infuriates me that one so sweet, so fresh, so young, so intelligent, so much of a joy to people like your uncle, and Jim and Sue, should be such a cheat to them — and to everyone.”

“I’m not — a cheat,” she cried.

“Yes, you are, if not a brazen little hussy. Didn’t I see you come down the street driving that boy’s car? Didn’t I see you at dinner, all dolled up, flirting shamelessly with him?”

“Yes, you — did. But I did it because you expected it of me. If you were half as smart as you think you are — you’d have known why I was doing it. You had hurt my feelings. I was mad...I played up to your opinion of me...and I was just fool enough to want to make you jealous.”

“Good Lord! You switch your line to suit the occasion. Martha, you have no finesse. You just trust everything to your looks. Well, you’ve cause. But you can’t get me with such sugar.”

“I don’t want you,” she cried struggling to pull herself erect.

“I meant string me, darling,” he rejoined mockingly. “Miss Dixon to you, if you don’t mind.”

“And what were you to the young fellow at the hotel?”

“Just a ‘sweetie,’ of course, if it’s any of your business.”

“Bah! You’re as bad as Connie — worse, for she was only a gold digger. You run away from home — from a nice mother. You want to get out where no one will know who you are or care what you do. And you pick up a saphead like that — drive his car so he can put his arms round you — doll up for him, a mere stranger — eat with him — go out with him — let him kiss you — let him—”

“That’s enough of that,” she commanded hotly. “No one can talk to me like that! Whoever your Connie was I’ll bet she handed you exactly what you deserved.”

“Plumb center,” he returned. “I’m sorry that I spoke that way. I have no right to ask you, but...did you go out with him that night?”

“No!”

“Did you let him kiss you?”

“No!”

“Martha, I think you’re a little liar,” he said softly.

“Just to prove it, I’ll bet even I can kiss you and get away with it.”

Fired by a sudden rash impulse he bent his face close over hers. He had not really meant to carry out his threat. But once under the spell of her dilating eyes, and the sweet red lips so close to his he found it impossible to refrain. He pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that started in defiance of her and scorn of himself, but which lingered in ecstasy. Sharply he drew erect, astonished by his act, ashamed of having given way to his real feelings when he had meant only scorn.

“I’ll kill — you!” she whispered huskily.

“‘Hell hath no fury...’ Martha, that was coming to you. But don’t get me wrong...Well, here we are in sight of the house. Your uncle sees us. And there’s your horse tied to the fence.”

“Jim! Sue! Rustle out here,” shouted Bligh, as Andrew halted. “My Gawd, boy, don’t say she’s bad hurt.”

“She had a spill. Sprained her ankle. But she’ll go to the dance next week...Here. Easy now. She’s a pretty hefty little armful.”

As Andrew handed her down to eager arms he had a last look at her white strained face and great eyes, dark with emotion, as she turned her eyes away from his. They haunted him all the way back to the draw where he returned to fetch her boot.

CHAPTER VIII

TRAINING FOR COLLEGE football had been mild compared to the strenuous exactions of Andrew’s ranch work.

Digging post holes, building fences, repairing barns and corrals, piping water down from the hills, and innumerable odd jobs fell to Andrew’s lot aside from the work on his cabin. There were hours in the saddle and an occasional trip to town in the truck or car. His labors began at dawn and ended long after dark.

For the past few weeks his portion had been blistered hands, sunburned face and aching muscles. He thinned down to one hundred and seventy pounds, which was considerably less than the weight his football coaches had allowed him. Steady hard toil with his hands was something entirely new to Andrew. In the first stages sheer physical discomfort, then actual pain and fatigue that dragged him to bed heavy as a log, could not be denied. In spite of the unaccustomed toil he remained cheerful and to all outward appearances indifferent to the hardships.

But it was the actual range-riding, all day and every day under the hot sun, or facing dust or hail or rain, that put him to the crucial test. A stock saddle was a new contrivance to him; and to keep on riding when he wanted to rest was surely the hardest physical ordeal that he had ever met. When hot midsummer arrived Andrew had to hunt the cattle up in the foothills. Sometimes Jim rode with him, and they would lie out over night in the cedars, or out under the stars. That first week of torture in the saddle sweated and bled all the softness and the indolence, and most of the morbidity, out of Andrew Bonning. He had welcomed the trial; never for a single moment had he quit. From the very first he had sensed something vastly heating in this elemental contact, in this driving of spirit and flesh. He just kept on without thinking much about it, realizing that some distant day he would be made over.

In due time Andrew grew hard and strong and enduring. The day came when he awoke to the fact that joy in action and labor had imperceptibly come to him. Happiness still held aloof; often a strange melancholy lay on his spirit like a mantle; and sometimes his old bitter, mocking self returned, though less and less often. Martha Dixon could still rouse that almost forgotten self in many baffling and humiliating ways. When he was out on the range, where he could not see her as she puttered around, planting flowers, feeding the stock that she had adopted as pets, riding the horses, doing everything imaginable — even to standing like a statue to watch the sunset — then he seemed free of his old somber self. Also it had no place in a man’s mind while out in the open. There were the elemental things for man to combat, the inherited instinct for action without introspection. Martha Dixon did not belong in the West any more than he, and he doubted her complete assimilation. Yet she appeared the gayest, happiest girl he had ever seen. On Sundays the cowboys rode in, more and more each Sabbath. Andrew had to admit that she had handled the situation in a different fashion than he had anticipated.

Andrew knew the West had claimed him. Still he had not faced that realization yet. It was too good to be true. He had expected to find work, to wander from place to place until he was settled, but to fit in as he had, to love the open, the solitude, and particularly the man’s game of wrenching home and competence from wild nature — this had been a revelation to him. And in it he was going to become completely absorbed.

This range had once supported millions of buffalo. It could never be cultivated, except along the waterways and around the spring holes. It would support cattle and horses, in which he calculated man would always find use and profit. There would never be any radical change in the level reaches, in the rolling ridges, the black and gray foothills, the vast purple hollow of sage and grass, in the white-tipped barrier of the mountains. What inexplicable comfort he derived from this assurance!

“Andy, where was you ridin’ yestiddy?” queried the Arizonian one morning.

“South. Along the foothills to Stone Tank.”

“No wonder I didn’t run acrost you. Reckon you seen some of our stock?”

“Yes, a good many. Branded three calves. Cows getting wild. Saw a lot of Triangle X and Cross Bar stock.”

“See any riders?”

“No, and I didn’t pick up any tracks.”

“Wal, I had better luck, or wuss, accordin’ to how we take it. I rode west along the river, haided the creek thet runs in about ten miles down, an’ then struck for the west end of the Antelope Hills. Must have rid nigh unto thirty miles. Rough and brushy in the draws. Lots of water an’ grass. Reckon I seen two thousand haid of cattle. Located three daid cows by watchin’ the buzzards. Thet’s our best bet, Andy. You gotta have sharp eyes, though.”

“Dead cows?” repeated Andrew. “Dead from what?”

“Lead slugs, son. What’d you expect? I cut one bullet out. Forty-five, I reckon. Gave it to the boss. He hit the roof. He’s touchy these days, with McCall pressin’ him.”

“Jim, then — it’s begun?”

“Begun! Why, cowboy, it’s been goin’ on for weeks. I’ll bet we’ve lost a hundred calves. An’ thet means the same number of cows.”

“Two hundred head!” cried Andrew, shocked by the Arizonian’s estimate.

“Wal, it’s a hell of a big country. Our stock is scattered all over, same as thet of the other outfits. We couldn’t keep track of them if we had a dozen riders. I found where some slick hombre had buried the ashes of his brandin’ fire. Trailed him half a mile, then lost the tracks. I’ve a hunch he tied up those calves in the brush an’ drove them away after dark.”

“Where would he drive them?”

“Ask me an easy one. Across the river, mebbe, or around in some canyon where there were cows wearin’ the brand he was burnin’ or possibly to some far part of the range. We’re helpless unless we can ketch him at it. An’ then if there’s more’n one rustler operatin’...Aw, hell, it ain’t no cinch, as I heerd Martha say.”

“Jim, locate me out there. Give me a landmark,” said Andrew eagerly.

“Wal, jest make for the west end of the Antelope Hills. Anywhere up them draws. I reckon on the south side we’ll have our eyes opened. But thet’s purty far. You’ll have to lay out all night.”

“I’ll be glad to! Will you come?”

“Can’t today. Mebbe I’ll meet you out there tomorrow. Keep yore eyes peeled, Bonnin’. You want to see these hombres first an’ hold ’em up. Otherwise — wall, you mightn’t come back. Two cowpunchers was shot last spring, an’ one’s still missin’. Blamed on bandits. But I’m doubtful of thet. You look sharp. I hadn’t ought to let you go alone, but the boss needs me here.”

“Don’t worry, Jim, I’ll be careful,” replied Andrew, and turning toward the kitchen he saw Martha Dixon standing in the doorway. Something about her eyes told him she had heard what Jim had said. It pleased Andrew. Her wonderful eyes had fooled him often, but he felt certain that he saw in them now a fleeting look of apprehension.

“Morning. Is Mrs. Sue here? I could use a little grub,” said Andrew, briskly, as he moved closer to the girl. “She’s house-cleaning.”

Andrew noted then that Martha’s sleeves were rolled high over slender round arms. Her hands were white with flour. She wore a colored gingham apron which did not entirely conceal her shapeliness. A golden tan had now replaced the sunburn of her face. Her golden hair waved rebelliously. He could not look at her saucy mouth without remembering the kiss he had stolen, and which had left him ashamed and troubled.

“What are you doing?” he queried brusquely.

“Mixing dough.”

“Dough tell?” he said with a grin.

“Can’t you ever come near me without saying something mean?”

“Martha Dixon, you get me wrong. You always do...I was surprised, of course, to see flour on your hands. But I didn’t mean to be mean. I was even trying to be funny. It flashed over me what a distractingly pretty little wife you’ll make some cowboy — maybe.”

“Indeed!” she retorted mockingly. But a blush mantled her neck and cheek.

“Would you be good enough to fix me up some sandwiches?” he asked.

“Certainly,” she answered, and went into the kitchen.

Andrew stepped inside and sat down. Martha paid no attention to him, and he watched her in silence, sure of only one thing — that she was decidedly pleasing to look at. He made up his mind then and there never to say another mean thing to her. Presently she turned to hand him a small package wrapped in brown paper.

“Thank you,” he said, rising, and made as if to go. But he did not. “How’s your ankle?”

“Most well.”

“Well enough to dance — at the rodeo?”

“Oh, yes.” She seemed detached, and the absence of her usual spirit and excitement impressed Andrew acutely. Yet he admitted his inconsistency. It was certainly ridiculous of him to disapprove of her, doubt her, insult her, and then feel peevish because she did not act as though she enjoyed being in his presence.

“If I go, will you dance with me?” he found himself asking, outwardly cool and nonchalant, but inwardly uncertain and fearful.

“Do you dance?” she inquired, as though in great surprise.

“Of course I do.”

“I rather imagined that you would think dancing immoral.”

“Do you take me for a prissy reformer?”

“I take you for a mid-Victorian.”

“Well, that’s better than being a modern lounge lizard...You haven’t said you would dance with me?”

“No.”

“Oh, all right...I asked you — anyhow,” he replied lamely, and went out. His unpremeditated friendly overture had been rebuffed. It made him smart. Still for some occult reason beyond his ken he was glad that he had unbent as far as he had. When he came out of the corral with his horse a few minutes later he glanced back at the house and felt sure that he saw her peeping from behind the window curtain. That was a queer thing for her to do when she despised him so cordially. He ruminated over it. Perhaps she was just curious about his trip — from which he might not return! That prompted him to shout to Jim, who had come out with Bligh.

“Hey, Jim, I’ll be back tomorrow night sure unless something unexpected happens.”

At the moment he had a juvenile impulse to stay out another night, just to frighten Martha Dixon. However, he doubted that she would even notice that he was away. He mounted and rode away toward the west.

He took the river trail, a hard-packed cattle thoroughfare that wound through the cottonwoods and out into the open. Andrew had long since learned to know his horse, and liked him better every day. He was a bay with white spots and bars. Andrew changed the cowboy name of Slats to Zebra. It had required a little time for him to find out that Zebra was fast, tireless, spirited yet tractable under a gentle hand, and that he was what the former owner had called a single-footer.

As he rode along, thoughts of the girl, and her strange attraction for him, gradually gave place to more tangible things — his horse, the river, the fragrance of sage, the long swelling slope up to the Antelope Hills, and the vigilant search for moving objects. Rabbits, coyotes, deer crossed his vision. For Andrew, in a ride like this, the absorbing fascination of it and his intense eagerness to practice what he had learned from the Arizonian, seemed to make the hours fly. Always the sense of bigness, of openness came first, then the tremendous force of the range as a thing to be conquered. This horse, this range, this wildness was a job; and always before he had been a failure. Now he was on his mettle, and he must win.

By mid-afternoon Andrew had reached the foothills at the west end of the range. Down between them, opening wide and choked with rocks and cedars, ran draws that were almost as deep as canyons. They were dry as dust and hot, despite the breeze from the heights. Far up these draws water remained in pockets in the rocky stream beds. Cattle trails threaded the maze of narrow deer trails zigzagging through the brush up the slopes. White bleached grass stood knee high in the aisles and glades, while under the shade of the trees, the grass was still green. The air was fragrant, a tangy mixture of dry sage, dry cedars and the hot earth.

Andrew penetrated to a grassy glade where a thin ribbon of water ran down a shallow gully, forming shallow pools here and there. He unsaddled and hobbled his horse, hung his canteen and food on a branch and, rifle in hand, took to the trails.

It occurred to him that he was proceeding with almost ridiculous caution. But since that was the order he had given himself he kept to it, peering, listening, smelling, sensing — using all of the faculties he had learned to use. Whenever he came to a patch of sand or bare earth, or a dusty length of trail, he searched for tracks. And old tracks, which he had learned to know on sight, did not interest him. Fresh signs of cattle did, however, and soon he heard rustlings in the brush, the bawling of calves and the lowing of cows. As the afternoon was very quiet he sat down often to listen, rifle in hand. The several horse tracks he found were old and had been made by unshod animals.

From time to time he arose to steal on up the draw, which became wilder and rougher as he progressed. It surprised him to find how wild the cattle were. He would come upon a group standing on guard like listening deer, and as soon as they espied him they would gallop off, crashing through the brush. And presently it occurred to him that if there were any cattle thieves working this canyon they surely would be forewarned and be able to slip away. A better plan might be to hide at the entrance to one of these wide draws and wait.

Zebra was quietly grazing, yet scented or heard him. For he threw up his fine head to look. Andrew approached him with keen appreciation of what a horse could be to a man in the open. He ought to have a dog, too. Twilight was stealing into the glade and the air was turning cold. An abundance of firewood, however, assured him that he could make a comfortable night of it. First he cut some armloads of cedar boughs for a bed; then he collected a store of dead wood and started a fire. By this time darkness had set in. With his rifle at hand, and his saddle blankets for a seat, he sat down and opened the package of food Martha Dixon had put up for him. He had tied it up in his slicker. Opening it, he was more than surprised to discover its generous contents. Where had his eyes been while that girl had packed this food for him? Where? He shook his head dubiously: “I’m skating on thin ice. Character in a woman has nothing to do with what a man falls for,” he muttered. “Well! I’ll be jiggered!”

Evidently Martha had taken him for a dude tourist. He had asked for sandwiches. In addition, she had supplied cake, pie, cheese and lastly, wrapped in a small packet which he nearly missed, a single lump of sugar. Sugar! She might as well have included apple sauce or caviar. Sweets to the sweet!

This discovery, however, did not keep Andrew from enjoying his supper. When he had finished eating he drew his saddle up for a back rest, and made himself comfortable before the fire.

As he sat there, watching the glow of the embers and the last ruddy flames, it was hard for him to realize that only a few months ago, all of this would have been impossible. The night was black, the sky overcast, the silence oppressive. After a while the wild ki-yiing of a coyote accentuated the loneliness of the wilderness. This little scene of a lone rider and his horse, a campfire in the hills had been enacted there many, many times for years on end. The Indian, the padre, the courriere des bois, the trapper, the explorer, the gold digger, the frontiersman, the soldier, the hunter, the pioneer, the cattleman, the cowboy, the rustler and bandit and outlaw — all of these alone, and with their kind, had sat by a campfire in the wilderness. That lonely scene had been epochal in the history of the West.

As he sat there watching the embers, he knew that he had never been meant for the crowd, for work in an office, for gambling in business deals with men. Peace hovered somewhere near him.

He lay down to sleep with one blanket underneath, the other over him, his feet to the replenished fire, and his head pillowed on his saddle. He lay down expecting to stay awake for hours only to find his eyelids grow heavy, his body grow still, his thoughts fade. When he awakened, chilled to the marrow, the fire was dead. He rebuilt it, warmed his hands and feet and his back, then went to sleep again. Gray cold dawn saw him stirring.

Leading his horse, he walked down to the open slope and then kept to the edge of the cedars along the base of the hills. He passed several draws where cattle were grazing.

Sunrise was lost to Andrew because he had gotten around to the western side of the hills. But the glory and color now were spreading across the vast prairie leading to the mountains. Something to be conquered — this range land! That was how it affected Andrew. To endure it, to fight it, to live by it — what a man’s game!

Coming to another canyon with rugged slopes, he entered it far enough to hide his horse in a thicket, and then continued on foot. First he spent hours high up on a bank watching the gray slope down to the river. During this vigil he counted more than a hundred cattle, near and far. Then he went down to explore the canyon. The sight of lowing cows with full milk bags, dripping udders, and no calves filled him with deep anger. Manifestly here was the work of Smoky Reed or one of his henchmen. When Andrew came upon the remains of a little branding fire, he felt of the ashes, but they were cold. Between this point and the head of the draw he found three more such signs. Allowing for the very small amount of the actual acreage he could cover, he estimated that the brander of calves had done well there. But what he did with the calves was a question. Ranchers had spring and fall roundups when each collected all stock wearing his brand. The game puzzled Andrew and roused him thoroughly. He saw but few of Bligh’s cattle, and did not find a single dead cow nor a horse track.

The day passed swiftly. Night overtook him before he got back to where he had left his horse. He made camp and relished what was left of his dry sandwiches, leaving one for the next day. What would Jim Fenner and Bligh think of his absence? They would be worried. What would Martha Dixon think? Andrew regretted his impulse, in so far as she had been the cause of it. He slept more warmly that night.

At break of day he rode into the wide entrance of the largest draw he had yet encountered. It actually was the opening of a valley leading up into the hills. Cattle dotted the landscape.

Andrew decided that he ought to watch that gateway during the early morning hours. Returning to a patch of cedars half a mile back along the way he had come, he haltered Zebra in a well-screened shady spot. Then he took his field glasses and rifle and set out on foot.

By the time he had reached the wide draw again the slopes, the range land and mountains had lost their gray mantle to take the color of the sunrise. For his hiding place he selected an outcropping of rocks on the slope nearest his horse, and taking up his position there he swept with his glasses the ten miles of sage slope between the hills and the river. Halfway down the slope he picked up two moving objects.

“Horsemen, by Judas!” he muttered excitedly.

With his naked eye Andrew could scarcely discern the riders. But through the field glasses he watched them approaching at a brisk trot. It was to be expected that he would see cowboys at any time or anywhere on that range. Most of them would be going about their work honestly, which meant that any one of them was innocent until proved guilty. Branding of calves went on daily. And he could not assume that all the calves belonged to Bligh. Not a tenth of them! McCall’s hired rustlers, however, were concentrating on Bligh’s stock simply because there was little risk for them. He had to come upon one of them branding a calf the mother of which wore the N.B. brand. It was a ticklish job, and he revolved slowly in his mind all of Jim’s words of advice.

Meanwhile the riders came on, making straight for the wide canyon entrance. Since both rode horses that camouflaged well against the sage brush, he could not make certain that he would be able to recognize them.

As he watched them through the glasses, he saw the horsemen halt at the edge of the scattered thickets and carefully survey the range between the hills and the river, and on to the north. One of them removed his sombrero, revealing a brightly shining head of flaming red hair and a red face, which could belong only to the cowboy Texas. The other rider wore a black sombrero which hid his face. All that could be noted as distinctive about him was a striped gray and black shirt, plainly visible through the glasses.

After a brief discussion they separated, the rider in the striped shirt taking the left side of the valley, and Texas proceeding to the right. He was the last to disappear. Andrew could hear the cracking of dead branches and the ring of metal on stone. Presently all was quiet again.

“Well, they’re here,” said Andrew to himself, feeling his pulse beating high. “Smoky Reed’s the one in the striped shirt, I’ll gamble. It’s not likely that Texas would take up with another cowboy...They’re both crooked. And now what?”

He answered his own query with immediate action, gaining a higher level without risk of being seen. He slung the field glasses over his shoulder, and moved on, ears alert and eyes roving. Presently he came to the place where the nearest rider had entered the canyon. He quickly picked up the fresh hoof tracks, and started to trail them, conscious of a thrill he had never before felt in his life. He was on the track of a crooked cowboy whom he meant to brand as an outlaw on that range.

He followed the tracks for half an hour before he realized that he was moving too slowly. Becoming bolder he quickened his pace. Before long he heard a distant crash of brush, and the bellow of a cow. But he could not locate either sound. Cattle trooped down the draw but they were mostly steers and yearlings. Andrew crouched behind some brush while they passed. Then he went on. The valley was no longer silent, and that emboldened him. Nevertheless he did not advance without being sure of cover. This needful caution grew more difficult to act upon as he advanced. The open places increased, and the cedars and thickets correspondingly afforded less protection. From before came the sound of water splashing somewhere near over stones.

Suddenly the whip-like crack of a gun rang out. The surprise of it shocked Andrew. Cold sweat exuded from his face. Then he realized that he should have expected it. Reed’s method was to drive the mother of a calf into a thicket or rocky recess, kill her, and then brand the calf.

Andrew stole forward as noiselessly as he could, soon learning that stiff cowboys’ boots were poor adjuncts for a stalk of this nature. Presently across an open patch of grass and beyond some cedars there rose a thin column of blue smoke. Andrew knew that he must hurry if he were going to catch the rustler red-handed, yet he doubted the wisdom of crossing that open place. So he made a detour and then could no longer locate the smoke. He listened. Far across the canyon he could see dust rising, and could hear faint thudding sounds. Texas must be busy over there. On this side there was now comparative silence. The movement of excited cattle did not mean much to Andrew at the moment. But his nostrils were assailed by a pungent odor of burning hair.

He came to a clump of cedars and scrub oaks. All at once against the background of barred light he caught sight of something moving. It was crossing a small sunlit aperture in the foliage. A patch of striped gray and black! At the sight Andrew’s nerves grew tense. He felt that he had been heard, but he had no idea if he had yet been seen. An impulse to shoot flashed over him, difficult to restrain in the heat of that moment.

The next instant dead cedar branches close to his head exploded to scatter their fragments almost in his face. The heavy report of a gun followed. Andrew gasped, and actually ducked when he realized that he had been shot at and narrowly missed by a bullet. Angrily he leveled his Winchester and fired into the midst of the cedar brush where he had seen the gray and black object. The high-powered projectile crashed through the branches and ricocheted off some rocks. The thump of hoofs, the plunging of a horse, either tied or under a strong hand, gave Andrew another location for a target. He sent a bullet spatting through the thicket, and working the lever of the rifle as fast as he could, he shot three more times. Sound of the bullets hitting and glancing afforded him considerable satisfaction. Then he waited with rifle cocked.

Rustlings and crashings, apparently both close at hand and far away, stealthy footsteps and heavy hoof beats — these all confused Andrew, and added to his rage. His determination to close with the man who had tried to kill him caused him to make a precipitate move from behind the tree that had screened him.

He felt something like the snap of a whip above his temple, then a tearing pain, followed by a stunning blow that knocked him against the tree. He sank to his knees. Realizing that he had been hit and aware of hot blood pouring down his cheek, he still knew that he was conscious, that he had the will and the strength to kill his assailant. He waited for him to appear. But the wall of gray-green thicket did not split to emit a man. Instead a rapid crunch of boots, a clink of spur on iron stirrup, a crash in the brush and the pounding clip-clop of hoofs, told Andrew that the cowboy he had been stalking was on his way out of there.

“Thinks he — got me,” grunted Andrew, sinking to a seat. “Maybe he has. Look at the damn blood!”

He took off his sombrero to find that the bullet had gone through the band. It took courage for Andrew to run his forefinger into the wound from which the blood was streaming. For a moment he thought it was all up with Andrew Bonning. Then he found the shallow groove above his ear.

“Close shave, but I’m still kicking,” he muttered grimly. “Smoky Reed, if I ever get my hands on you — good night!”

He folded his scarf and bound the wound tightly. While he was attending to his wound he heard another horse rapidly passing his position over to the right. That would be Texas making himself scarce. Listening until the sounds had ceased, Andrew got up to wipe his bloody hands on the cedar foliage. Then he pushed through the thicket to the open patch of ground from which the rustler had shot at him. A little fire of dead cedar sticks still was burning brightly. A running-iron, still smoking and smelling of scorched hair, lay on the ground. But the calf had disappeared. Andrew’s search beyond the opening in the thicket was rewarded by finding a dead cow with the brand N.B. on her flank.

“Well, I can prove Bligh’s cow was killed, his calf branded, and that I was shot...but no more...I’ll have to look Smoky Reed up, and see if I can make him give himself away.”

Andrew went back for the branding iron, and after cooling it in a pool of water, he hurried down the canyon. At the entrance his search with the field glasses for riders proved unavailing. Soon thereafter he returned to the spot where he had tied Zebra, mounted his horse and headed ranchward. The sick giddiness had left him, and except for a dull throbbing pain, he did not seem to suffer any great inconvenience from his recent experience. As he rode slowly along, the determination to discover his would-be murderer vied in Andrew’s mind with more speculative fancies about how he would be received at home. He had to laugh at his own boyishness. It was the first time he could remember desiring to dramatize himself. But he did remember what he had promised Bligh, and he smiled in anticipation of old Jim’s droll humor over his first experience with a bullet, and he could hardly wait to have Martha Dixon see him ride in all covered with blood.

A hard downhill trail and a horse eager to get home argued well for a quick return to the ranch. But the way was long, the sun hot, and Andrew did not bear up under both as well as he had expected. Evidently he had lost considerable blood. When after three hours of riding he arrived at the ranch he felt that it was not any too soon. He did not stop at the barn, because he knew he was going to fall off, and he wanted to be near the house where he would be seen.

Jim was on the porch, however, and with a call that fetched his wife, Bligh and Martha, he came running out.

“Wal, if you’re not a bloody mess,” he said coolly, striding quickly to the side of Andrew’s horse.

“Andrew! What happened to you?” shouted Bligh, in consternation.

“Somebody took a pot shot at me,” replied Andrew, trying to be nonchalant, but the words were very faint. All sensation seemed to be leaving him from his legs up. As he reeled in the saddle his fading sight registered Martha’s great staring eyes dark with alarm, and as he toppled over he heard her cry as from far off: “Oh...How awful!”

Andrew lost his equilibrium but did not quite lose consciousness. He felt in a dull way that he was being upheld and then laid down on the cool grass. Someone supported his head while cold water was slapped in his face. Then he recovered to hear what was being said, but did not open his eyes.

“Jest a bullet crease,” Jim was saying with evident satisfaction. “Wash it clean an’ tie it up. Reckon he bled a lot, an’ the long ride...”

“Let me drive to town for a doctor,” pleaded Martha Dixon. It was she who was holding his head.

“Wal, thet’s unnecessary trouble an’ expense,” replied the Arizonian. “His hurt ain’t nothin’. He’ll be around tomorrow as usual.”

“I’ll bandage it, Sue,” cried Martha. “First aid is old stuff to me.”

Andrew remained quiet until his wound had been dressed — a procedure both painful and pleasurable — after which he opened his eyes and sat up. Martha and Sue were on their knees beside him, and the men stood by watching. Jim had his rifle out of the saddle sheath, examining it. “Much obliged, folks,” said Andrew. “Guess I went down and out for a little. I’m okay now...Say, you got blood on your hands!”

Martha gazed down at them. “Why, so I have,” she said simply, and rose with averted face to go into the kitchen.

“Andy, you been firin’ this rifle,” said Jim.

“Yes. Three or four times,” replied Andrew, and rose to his feet.

“What at?” queried the other sharply.

“Well, the fellow who shot at me.”

“After he hit you?”

“No. He missed the first time. I saw him move. He was hidden behind brush,” replied Andrew, and briefly related his experience. He kept his suspicions and deductions to himself.

“Wal, thet opens the brawl,” said Jim, dryly, as his eyes narrowed.

“Andrew, you were careless,” interposed Bligh.

“I’m afraid I was, boss. Overanxious. Believe me, I’ve learned a lesson.”

“Jim, things are goin’ from bad to worse,” declared the rancher, gloomily.

“Wal, it’s a way things have.”

“What’ll we do about this?”

“Leave it to Andy an’ me, boss. But stavin’ off McCall — thet’s another matter.”

“What new has come up since I left?” queried Andrew.

“McCall sent word that he wanted his outfit to drive my stock across the Sweetwater to mix with his, as I agreed. I don’t see anythin’ else but to comply with this demand. He has my letter, which is equivalent to a contract.”

“Letter hell! We ain’t goin’ to let McCall have nothin’ .” growled Jim.

“If he hales me into court—”

“It would be most damn disastrous for him, Mr. Bligh,” interposed Andrew quickly. “Let’s rely on Jim’s judgment in this matter...There’s something fishy about McCall.”

“Jim, do you agree with thet?”

“Shore. Somethin’ rotten — fishy.”

“I had a hunch, myself.”

“Boss, you’re goin’ to take Martha to the rodeo. McCall will be there. Call his bluff. Tell him the deal doesn’t look good to you no more an’ you won’t go through with it.”

“But man, I can’t go into court now,” protested Bligh. “You won’t never have to go to court.”

“McCall says he has hired a new outfit, built a cabin over on Willow Creek, trucked lumber an’ supplies in. He has a comeback at me.”

“Wal, we have one on him, an’ a hell of a good one.”

“Then we’ll take the bull by the horns.”

Soon after that Andrew was called to supper. Since his departure two days before the dining table had been moved out onto the back porch, where all Bligh’s household were to eat together. During supper Andrew began to feel that his status with Martha Dixon had changed somewhat. She was a disturbing presence at any time, but now that she seemed no longer angry with him, he could see complications ahead.

After supper Jim found him on the front porch of his cabin.

“What’s on your mind, son?”

“Martha Ann Dixon,” replied Andrew, truthfully.

“Wal, thet’s fine an’ shore sarves you right. But I mean about this deal you had in the hills. You didn’t tell Bligh an’ me all of it.”

“No. I thought I’d better not. But I’ll tell you, Jim.” And Andrew recounted the entire adventure in detail, and ended the account with his own deductions.

“Wal, whoever thet cowpuncher was, he shore figgered he’d done for you. An’ if you can face him sudden-like, surprise him, he’ll give himself away, if he recognizes you.”

“Jim, that is my angle. I know it’s Smoky Reed.”

“Ahuh. But no proof except the striped shirt. There might be two cowboys wearin’ thet brand. Anyway, it’s a good clue, thet an’ the Brandin’ iron. What you goin’ to do if you identify him?”

“Old-timer, I’ll incapacitate that cowboy for some time to come.”

“Sounds good — thet word, but I don’t savvy it...Andy, whoever this hombre is, he’ll be with his outfit. They’ll be mean. They’ll kid the pants off you. Razz you in front of the girls. Cowboys are death on tenderfeet. You’ll have to take a crack at ridin’ somethin’ in the rodeo. An’ thet’ll give them a chance to humiliate you still more. But it’ll give you a chance, too — to get sore.”

“Don’t need it, Jim. I’m sore now — at any outfit that Mr. Striped Shirt rides for.”

“You’ll have to fight them all.”

“Okay.”

“Andy, was you skeered out there in the hills — when you heerd thet bullet?”

“I’ll say I was. Scared stiff,” declared Andrew, with a short laugh.

“Are you goin’ to be thet way when you meet this outfit at the rodeo?” asked Jim curiously.

“Will they be packing guns?”

“No. Thet ain’t allowed at rodeos.”

“Then I’ll simply be delighted.”

“Humph! I don’t figger you, son. It shore ain’t no cinch to buck up agin an outfit of mean cowpunchers.”

“Jim, out here on the range, on a horse, or alone in the hills I’m not of much account,” returned Andrew. “But flat on my feet — facing a bunch of unarmed men — well, that’s different. I may say I’ve often held my own in a husky crowd. Ha!”

“Ahuh, You have? Wal, I ain’t never seen a puncher yet who could pitch a hundred pound sack of oats around like you can. I’m gonna be there when you meet up with thet outfit, I’ll get a man to take my place here for a couple of days. But don’t tell the boss.”

On the following day Andrew felt very little the worse for his creased skull, and ten days later he dispensed with the bandage over his temple. If anyone had been particularly interested in the young man’s movements these several days, they would have discovered something unusual for a ranch. He had filled a small burlap bag with sand and had hung it up about face high from a rafter in the barn. Then he put on his buckskin riding gloves and proceeded to punch that bag. When he hit the bag it gave forth a sodden sound.

“Not so bad!” he muttered, at the end of his last workout, which was on the morning Bligh asked him to drive the car to town.

Martha was the last to come out of the house. That was one of her failings, Andrew had long ago observed. She just could not be on time. But when she appeared she looked bewitching in a trim blue dress she had made herself. Her shapely legs were bare, except for socks rolled down over flat-heeled shoes. She had apparently given up wearing hats. Andrew turned away his eyes. This young lady was getting surprisingly on his nerves.

“Please, may I drive?” she asked, leaning over the car door on Andrew’s side. He might have refused the spoken solicitation, but the man did not live who could have denied the appealing look in those amber eyes.

“Why — er — certainly,” stammered Andrew, hastily sliding over to the right side of the front seat.

Martha threw her little bag upon the seat and got in, and as she manipulated the gears with deft hands, her eyes on the dashboard, she said in a most casual way: “When I ride with a handsome young mari I always like to drive.”

“Yeah, so I’ve noticed,” Andrew retorted, and looked across the range to the hills. Her remark hinted at the old enmity. But the look in her eyes when she had asked permission to drive remained with him. He pondered over the lovely expression in those amber eyes. Had it been nothing but youthful, thrilling eagerness to drive the car? Any expression in them was bewildering. They were dangerous eyes because they appeared to any poor, asinine, masculine clod to say infinitely more than she obviously meant. Their exquisite light, their strange color, their indescribable loveliness were simply facts of nature, and therefore false. He had seen them blaze with scorn and that had been something to remember. They had been true then. But how much of their play and change and charm had been intended, for instance, that evening when she flirted so outrageously with the callow youth at the hotel? The recollection of that occasion seemed crude and raw to him. As Jim would say, “it stuck in his craw.” But nature could make a woman a flirt when she was absolutely innocent and unconscious of it. Then he groaned inwardly at the realization that he was developing an excuse like this for everything that Martha Ann Dixon had done. All the same the idea persisted, and another formed, haunting and ruthless — an attempt to imagine how perfectly glorious her marvelous eyes would be if motivated by real, unselfish love.

Martha drove all the way to Split Rock without exchanging another word with Andrew. In town, the moment they stopped, the Glemm girls and their friends claimed her and drove off with her in their car to the rodeo. Andrew felt relieved. If it were not for the serious business he had in mind he would have gone back to the ranch. Bligh learned that McCall had gone to Casper. A few minutes later they took to the road again with Andrew at the wheel.

The run from the ranch to Split Rock had been short, but this one to Casper seemed endless, although he gave the old engine all it could stand. They arrived about dark. Andrew did not remember very much about Casper. It appeared to be a big town and the main street blazoned a welcome to visitors. They went to two hotels before they could find lodgings. The town was full of visitors, tourists, cowboys, ranchers, with two girls to every man.

The hotel to which Bligh had taken Sue and Andrew appeared to be a second-class place, full of noisy cowboys. That suited the Easterner, and immediately he was on the qui vive. Bligh took Sue in to supper while Bonning changed his rough garb. When he came downstairs the lobby and lunchroom were crowded with a noisy, jostling, smoking, haranguing lot of cowboys. All were youthful and some had been drinking, though Andrew could not help liking them.

After supper he sat down beside a plain, weatherbeaten little cattleman and made himself agreeable.

“Stranger hereabouts?” queried the cattleman casually.

“Yes, I suppose I am, though I’ve been west a while.”

“Easterner, I see.”

“I was. My name is Bonning.”

“I’m Jeff Little. Reckon you’re here for the rodeo, same as everybody.”

“Sure am. Never saw one before. Just what is a rodeo, anyhow?”

“Cowboy circus. Thet’s about all. Casper puts on a good show. But nothin’ compared to Cheyenne or Kalispel. Some professionals here, though.”

“What are professionals?”

“Cowboys an’ girls who make their livin’ out of rodeos. Trick riders. There’s some home talent here, though, thet can make any riders go some. I’ve a couple in my own outfit.”

“Interesting. Where’s your range, Mr. Little?”

“Down on the Platte River, south of the Pathfinder Reservation. I run the Double X.”

“How is the cattle business right now?”

“Perkin’ up. I’m runnin’ about forty thousand head, an’ am not sellin’ this year. Thet’s a hunch.”

“Forty thousand. You must employ many cowboys?”

“Only two outfits now, but they’re good. I don’t keep poor riders. Reckon one time or another I’ve hired every puncher in middle Wyomin’ .”

“Ever hire a redheaded cowboy called Texas something?”

“Shore have, an’ ain’t likely to forget him. Likable lad, finest of horsemen, wonder with a rope, but unreliable, if you know what I mean. Proud, wild, Texas breed. Never heard his last name. He’s here, by the way. Saw him today. Great fellow for the girls.”

“Aren’t they all pretty much the same?” inquired Andrew, with a laugh. “Let’s see. There’s another cowboy I heard mentioned over at Split Rock. Smoky something.”

“Reed. I know him. He rode for me once — about a day,” returned the cattleman, with a brevity that was significant to Andrew.

“Thanks. I think I’ll go out and look them over,” said Bonning, rising.

“So you like Wyomin’?”

“Crazy about it!”

“Any idea of ranchin’?” queried the older man shrewdly.

“Well, the idea has occurred to me.”

“Buy cattle before fall then. In a year you’ll double your money.”

Andrew strolled thoughtfully out into the street. He was revolving in his mind the fact that out here in the West everything gravitated to him. Back east they had passed him by. If he were going to get into the cattle business this appeared to be the time. He walked down his side of the gaily thronged street and up on the other. One busy place halted him and that was a brilliantly lighted corner store where ice cream, sodas and other refreshments were served. It was being patronized so briskly by young people that he could not get waited on. Then he went into a moving-picture theater where there was standing room only. Tiring of the picture, he left and went back to the hotel to bed. He was honest enough with himself to admit that he felt disappointed at not having seen Martha Dixon. A melancholy and absurd regret was plaguing his spirit, though he knew that if he had not been a fed-up and morbid Easterner, he might have been having a jolly time with that girl.

In the morning Andrew donned his cowboy duds, except the chaps, and sallied forth to what he had a feeling would be a memorable day. He devoted a few hours to listening and watching on the street and in the stores and hotels. More than one bantering cowboy made his ears tingle, not by some tart or crude words of ridicule, but because he seemed unable to hide the tenderfoot in him. This, however, was more than compensated for by the decidedly roguish and flattering glances which he received from several pretty girls. The town was full of them. In all the store windows were placards advertising the rodeo dance. Andrew kept a keen eye open for three persons — Martha Dixon, Texas and Smoky Reed.

On the street, in the hotel lobby or at the lunch counter, everywhere that he encountered cowboys he met with the prevailing good-natured western raillery, offensive only in a few instances. He started early for the fair grounds, where the rodeo was to be held.

A short time afterward, he found himself inside the high fence, free of the noisy crowd and gibing cowboys, holding in his hand a ticket that permitted him to enter any or all contests. The preliminaries were being run off before a half-filled grandstand, and Andrew thought he would get the agony over quickly. At a window to which some one directed him, he made application and presently found himself outside the circular fence bounding the race track. Things were happening right then, but he was told to do this and that, and before he realized it he was climbing into a little pen. To his horror the beast therein was not a horse but a ferocious-looking long-horned steer of a species unfamiliar to Andrew. There was a rope around its body, evidently for the rider to clutch.

“Get set, cowboy,” called the guard curtly. “Fork him!”

Andrew dropped down to straddle the steer, grasped the rope with his hands, squeezed the huge body with his legs and held on desperately. The door slid back, the wild buffalo, or whatever the beast was, bawled and plunged out.

A tremendous force broke Andrew’s leg hold and flung his feet high in the air. But he held on to the rope to descend with a sickening thud upon the back of the animal. Up he was flung again, like a feather. The spectators roared with glee, and Andrew was sure that they were looking at him. Down and up, down and up, while the infuriated beast ran faster than any horse Andrew had ever ridden. It bounded like a monstrous jack rabbit, all the way down the oval enclosure, to wheel and plunge back again, at every leap flinging Andrew aloft. He long had ceased to come down astride the steer. At last Andrew’s tenacious hold broke and he soared aloft for the last time and then crashed to the turf. The fall jarred his teeth to the roots, but he did not appear to be killed or maimed. To his astonishment the audience gave him unstinted applause. Bonning limped off vowing that his ambitions to be a rodeo star had been completely squelched. At the gate he encountered Jim, who drew him inside.

“How’d you like thet?” queried the Arizonian mildly. “Man alive! Never again!” panted Andrew, feeling to see if any of his bones were whole.

“Bust anythin’?”

“I guess not.”

“Wal, you needn’t look so flustered. You rode thet steer better’n any puncher I ever seen. Fact! An’ the crowd cheered you.”

“Quit your kidding, Jim.”

“Honest. It was funny — the way you rode in, standin’ on your haid. But it ain’t the way you ride thet counts. It’s stickin’ on. I’ll bet you win a prize.”

“No!”

“Wal, anyway, Martha Ann is up in the grandstand with a bunch of girls. You should have heerd them squeal.”

“Okay, Jim. You’re an encouraging chap,” declared Andrew, plainly pleased. “I’d like to take another whack at something.”

“Wal, we’ll see. Come along here, Andy. I’ve located a striped shirt an’ its on Smoky Reed.”

He felt his arm swell tight under his companion’s guiding hand. “Yeah,” he said, glancing at the dark, impassive profile of the Arizonian.

“Lot of punchers over here, waitin’ for their turns an’ watchin’,” explained Jim. “Some of them been lookin’ on red likker too. I reckon you won’t have no trouble gettin’ a rise out of Reed, unless he recognizes you. In thet case you’ll know him, an’ you can brace him pronto. But if he doesn’t know you, then you’ll have to get a rise out of him...There he is. Tall puncher, freckled, towhaided, wearin’ the striped shirt. Strut up an’ down before him an’ the outfit he’s with. I’ll hang back an’ watch.”

Andrew saw a long shed, open in front, facing the arena and directly next to the circular fence. Horses and cowboys were much in evidence, to men standing mostly in little groups, smoking, talking, laughing. There was a fairly wide aisle between the benches and the fence.

When he got a close view of the four cowboys Jim had pointed out, Andrew strode toward them. As he did so he felt for his buckskin gloves, to find that he had not removed them from his hands. There was no redheaded cowboy in the quartet. The nearest to him was a mature man, stocky in build, with a round paunch protruding above his belt. The next two were lean, hardfaced youths, and the fourth was the cowboy Jim had described. He appeared to be muscular, but not heavy. His eyes were blue and bold of expression, gleaming from under bushy brows. He had a sallow freckled face somewhat flushed from drink. When Andrew saw the striped gray and black shirt his heart leaped, and he was certain that he recognized it. But recalling Jim’s instructions, he got himself well in hand, and walked past the four men, looking squarely at them. Then he wheeled and came back, this time giving Reed the benefit of a searching glance.

The cowboy stared at him, but did not wink an eye. If he had associated Andrew in the slightest with the man he had deliberately tried to kill and had left for dead or wounded, he would not have been able to conceal some slight start that would have given him away.

Nevertheless Andrew felt doggedly sure that he had his man cornered. He was absolutely certain of McCall’s offer, of Texas’ promise to arrange the rustling deal, and of the fact that the two had ridden into the canyon out in the Antelope Hills.

“Hey, puncher, was you the hombre who jest forked thet steer?” called one of the four.

“Yes, if it’s any of your damned business,” retorted Andrew. “Trying to kid me, huh?”

“Not at all. You did fine — fer a Yankee tenderfoot.”

Andrew glared at the speaker, who was the short stout one of the four. His retort focused the attention of the others upon Andrew, and evidently they at once discovered the aptness of their comrade’s epithet. Bonning proceeded to strut and swagger up and down before them. And they began to make remarks. The tenderfoot pretended to take no heed, but his sharp ears took in everything. Meanwhile, with his object nearly attained, he used his eyes to further good advantage. There was an open space between the grandstand and the shed where the men were standing. Spectators could look right down upon it. To the right stood a refreshment booth before which a crowd was lined up. People were straggling in through the gates. Jim, within ear shot, leaned over the fence watching the preliminary exercises on the rodeo track.

“Shore he’s a Yankee,” drawled the spokesman of the quartet.

“Pretty snooty,” said another.

“Lady killer, I’d say. Swell Stetson, fancy-top boots, buckskin gloves, an’ all.”

“Swelled-up tenderfoot,” snorted Reed, loud enough for cowboys of other groups to hear. Laughs were immediately forthcoming. Plenty of fun seemed imminent. Only Andrew knew just how much fun there was going to be. Perhaps Jim, standing now back to the fence, had an inkling. A flood of range banter eddied around Andrew’s ears. He gave no sign that he heard, and went on strutting to and fro.

“Look at that mail-order cowboy!”

“Ump-umm. He’s a dude-ranch tourist.”

“Where’d he git thet outfit?”

“Hey, pretty boy, stop obstructin’ the landscape,” called Reed derisively. “Reckon you’re thet dude tenderfoot who drives the little hitchhikin’ queen around.”

“Are your remarks addressed to me?” Andrew queried, wheeling. He did not raise his voice, but there was a note in it that stopped the conversation and directed everyone’s attention upon him. A moment of surprised silence ensued. The tenderfoot’s sudden change of front gave the cowboys pause.

“Shore they was,” replied the older man cheerily. “We was jest pokin’ fun.”

“Fun, hell! If you didn’t insult me, you sure insulted a lady!”

“Aw wal, take it thet way if you like,” returned the other, plainly nettled.

“That’s how I do take it,” snapped Andrew. “Certainly I’m a tenderfoot. An Easterner new to the range. I’m not used to cowboy humor. But I know the difference between fun and insult. And I demand an apology!”

“Haw! Haw!”

“Say, dude, shet your loud mouth.”

Andrew poked a finger in the face of the eldest of the four.

“One at a time, will you?” he cried. “You seem to be half human. Answer me this. If an eastern tenderfoot called an outfit of Westerners like you — called them some choice names and invited them to swallow it or fight — what would happen?”

“Wal, I’m afeared the tenderfoot would git mauled jest to beat hell, an’ swallow a lot of dust in the process.”

“All right, then, listen. You’re a bunch of dirty pack rats! Four lousy cowpunchers! Coyotes, skunks, and all the rest of the range vermin put together. And probably rustlers besides.”

“Stranger, we’re shore gittin’ an earful,” retorted the eldest, sharply, red as a beet in the face.

“Do the three of you know the company you keep?” demanded Andrew, scornfully indicating the astounded Smoky Reed, whose slow mind seemed to be assimilating a startling thought.

“Keepin’ company at rodeos doesn’t mean ridin’ pards, stranger,” parried the other harshly, as the blood left his face.

“Then the three of you are only vermin, but this striped-shirt hombre is a coward in the bargain. Now you gentlemen of the range are invited to step out, one at a time. Let me see the western stuff you’re made of.”

“Wal, it’ll only take one of us, you rantin’ dude,” yelped the stout man, and he lunged out.

Andrew swung a savage right uppercut to the pit of that prominent abdomen. A deep bass sound rumbled out. The victim doubled up and his round face grew distorted, with eyes bulging, and mouth open sucking at air that would not go in. He sank down to his knees convulsively clutching his paunch.

Swiftly Bonning leaped forward to swing a snakelike left to the gaping mouth of the next cowboy and a right to the breadbasket of the third. Down like tenpins they crashed.

“Step out, Smoky, you polecat and get yours,” shouted Andrew, and snatching at the striped shirt, he gave the cowboy a powerful pull which propelled him out from under the shed into the open space below the grandstand. Excited yells drew the spectators on that side of the grandstand to the rail.

“Lay off me, you bruiser! I’m on to you,” harshly rasped out Reed.

Bonning threw his sombrero aside, and pointed to the angry red bullet mark over his temple.

“See that, Reed! You did that! You shot me! From behind a bush like the coward you are!”

The cowboy turned livid and snatched at a gun that was not on him.

“You dirty low-down calf rustler!” yelled Andrew, in a voice he meant to carry into the stand. “This is no gun-slinging scrap.” Then he charged the cowboy, beat down his defense, slugged him with lefts and rights, knocked him down and dragged him up, and then backing him against the fence landed terrific blows on the already bloody face, and would soon have knocked him out completely but for the interference of some shocked bystanders.

“Hyar, let up!” roared a rough voice, and its owner seized the angry Easterner by the shoulders. Like a top he spun round to strike the man before he could see him clearly. The would-be peacemaker fell his length in the dust.

“Did you sock me?” he bawled, in strident rage, as he labored to his feet, one hand at his bleeding nose.

“No — but I will if you lay hands on me again,” panted Andrew.

“You’re thet tenderfoot puncher of Bligh’s. You’re arrested. Assault an’ battery...resistin’ an officer!” Then Andrew recognized the man as Sheriff Slade. “Okay. Suits me fine, provided you arrest Reed too.”

“Who?”

“Smoky Reed, the cowboy I was punishing when you interrupted me.”

That battered cowboy manifestly had taken advantage of the moment to slink away into the crowd. Slade, however, did not make any apparent attempt to locate him.

“Stick out your hands,” ordered Slade, producing handcuffs.

“I’ll go with you,” replied Andrew quickly, as the crowd surged closer.

“Stick ’em out, I tell you.”

“No!”

Jim Fenner interposed his person on the scene, confronting the sheriff with cold narrowed eyes and hard lips.

“Slade, cut the grandstand play,” said the Arizonian sharply. “I’ll be responsible for this lad.”

“Who the hell air you?” demanded Slade.

“I left my cyard at the gate,” rejoined Jim, significantly. “If you’re keen about seein’ it, we’ll stop as we go out.”

“By Gawd, you strangers air gittin’ altogether too cussed fresh...Come on.”

Between them they led Andrew out of the press of spectators. As he passed the grandstand he looked up to see a line of girls leaning over the rail, and in the center stood Martha Dixon, white as a flower, with telltale eyes upon him.

CHAPTER IX

TWO INCIDENTS, THE bold overtures of a cowboy named Reed and the arrest of Andrew Bonning, spoiled what would have been a perfectly marvelous day for Martha Ann.

That very morning on the way to the rodeo Martha had received a letter from her mother, not only forgiving her for the mad escapade to which she had confessed, but also enclosing a check to defray her expenses home. Martha had arrived in Casper with her new friends, excited and happy. The crude overture of a cowboy whom the Glemm girls knew had disturbed her, because the man had evidently heard of her hitchhiking, and had assumed that to be sufficient license to make an advance which had to be squelched in no uncertain words. Then Andrew’s spectacular riding of the steer, ludicrous as it was, had won her unwilling admiration. These had been forgotten, however, in the excitement of the rodeo, the magnificent horses and the daring trick riders, until Andrew’s fight and arrest had broken up the show for Martha Ann.

It chanced that she had been a witness to both. Nellie Glemm, leaving her seat to meet some friends coming up the steps, had halted with them to look over the rail. Something evidently had happened below. People were leaving their seats. At the moment there was nothing going on on the track. Suddenly Nellie had turned to beckon her sister, Martha and the two other girls.

“There’s Smoky Reed now,” said the Glemm girl, pointing. “Cal Brice, and the Hazelett boys...Making fun of the young man who drove you to town. Bligh’s hired hand, isn’t he?”

“Yes. That’s Andrew...his name is Andrew Bonning,” returned Martha Ann.

“I’ve seen him before,” said one of the girls.

“Handsome fellow,” added Nellie.

“Say, look at him parade! That Brice outfit won’t do a thing to him.”

“Girls. He’s just showing off — for their benefit,” Martha had hastily interposed. “Andrew isn’t the least conceited.”

“This is going to be fun,” replied Nellie. “I’ll say he has his nerve with him. That’s a bad outfit.”

The ensuing harangue and fight, the interception by the sheriff and Andrew’s arrest had quite robbed Martha Ann of any further enjoyment in the rodeo.

“Looks like your big boy picked a fight with Smoky’s outfit,” declared Nellie Glemm, meaningly, after they had returned to town to their hotel.

“He’s not mine,” replied Martha Ann, hastily feeling her cheeks grow hot.

“Well, he sure made hash out of Smoky. And wasn’t it rich when he hit Cal Brice in the breadbasket?”

“Will they keep him — in jail?” queried Martha nervously.

“They sure will, if he can’t pay his fine.”

“Jim Fenner went with him. I hope they have enough money.”

Martha Ann felt on pins and needles. She was at a loss how to escape from these spirited Western girls, all so friendly and eager for her enjoyment, without giving them further reason to think that she was interested in Andrew. Still she simply had to find out if he had been released. The idea of his being kept in jail over night was intolerable. The terrific beating she had seen him administer to Reed had made her forget completely the latter’s insulting words. She could not explain her swift championship of Andrew, her unholy delight at the sight of the vulgar cowboy bully standing helpless before Andrew’s amazing onslaught, and lastly her unreasonable alarm over his arrest. These varying emotions left her heart in something of a fluster. For long she had accused herself in the comforting darkness of her room of thinking too much about Andrew Bonning, a confession she had easily scorned in the light of day.

The entrance of Mr. Bligh, with Jim and Sue, delivered Martha Ann from the turmoil of her thoughts.

“Howdy, niece, we been huntin’ you,” said her uncle. “Have you had a nice day? You sure looked excited.”

“Oh Uncle Nick!...Yes, I-I’ve had a nice day — pretty nice,” cried Martha, and checked her impulsiveness.

“You girls stayin’ here?”

“Yes. We have rooms all in a row...The girls are taking me to the rodeo dance tonight. Uncle, you’ve heard of course about Andrew?”

“Yes. We just come from the jail.”

“Isn’t he — out?” faltered Martha.

“Lass, thet bloomin’ Slade locked Andy up an’ slapped a fine of a hundred dollars on him,” declared Jim, without his usual dry humor. “Andy said he had the money, but couldn’t get at it. Don’t know what he meant. So I rustled out to find the boss.”

“Martha, think of it!” exclaimed Bligh, mournfully. “Jim an’ Sue an’ I altogether can’t dig up enough to get Andrew out.”

“I can,” retorted Martha gladly, tearing open her handbag. “Came this morning from Mother. Can you cash it?”

“Sure, right here. You endorse the check,” he said, and led Martha to the desk. Jim and Sue followed.

Martha Ann found herself writing in a scribble that bore little resemblance to her usual neat, firm handwriting.

“Damned outrage!” ejaculated her uncle as he received the check. “Hundred dollar fine for nothin’ but a fist fight.”

“Wal, Andy socked Sheriff Slade,” interposed Jim. “It’s all over town. Casper don’t ‘pear to like Slade much.”

“Never mind, Uncle. It was worth a hundred dollars — even if the money was sent to fetch me home. Now I can’t ever go!”

“Andy will pay it back. But if you’ll be leavin’ us, I hope he doesn’t pay you for a long time.”

“I’m not leaving you, Uncle,” replied Martha warmly. “Lass, did you see thet scrap?” queried Jim, curiously.

“Indeed I did. Lordy! I was scared at first — and then tickled pink.”

“Andy had somethin’ up his sleeve, didn’t he?”

“He did, Jim. It looked as if he deliberately picked a fight with those cowboys. The fellow he beat so terribly was Smoky Reed. The Glemm girls know him. He was introduced to me right after we got here. And he got fresh immediately.”

The Arizonian studied Martha Ann with shrewd penetrating eyes that seemed to read her thoughts.

“Wal, I reckon thet was what Andrew was so het-up about,” he drawled.

Something suddenly struck Martha Ann that seemed surprise and pain and bliss all together. “Jim — d-did Andrew know?”

“I reckon so, lass.”

“He beat that lout — for my sake?”

“Shore. What else?”

“But how’d he find out?”

“I heard Reed speak light of you to Andy.”

Bligh returned with the cash, which he forced into Jim’s hands. “Rustle an’ get Andrew out.”

“Jim, don’t tell Andrew—” called Martha, but Jim already had got out of hearing.

“Lass, are you havin’ supper with us?” asked Bligh.

“I’m not hungry,” replied Martha, trying to appear composed. “Besides I’ve got to fix my dress for the dance.”

“Tell me, how’d this Smoky Reed insult you?” demanded Bligh.

“It was at the Glemm’s. He boards there. I met him and several other cowboys. Reed had had a drink or two. He followed me out to the car, hanging on to my arm. ‘Baby,’ he said, ‘you’re such a swell little hiker, suppose you step out with me tonight?’ I declined and got into the car. He didn’t take the hint. ‘I’m the neckin’est hombre on this range. Don’t you want some of my brand?’ Here Nellie Glemm broke in. ‘Shut up, Smoky. You’re half lit. If you haven’t any manners, at least try to be decent.’ Reed drew back on the curb and said: ‘Aw hell, she’s lookin’ for it, ain’t she?’”

“Martha, I’d hoped that hikin’ stunt of yours wouldn’t become common gossip,” returned Bligh regretfully.

“Uncle, I’m afraid it was a mistake,” replied Martha Ann, her lip trembling. “But I had to come. And there was no other way...I don’t care what vile-minded people think.”

“Don’t be distressed, child. Jim says Andrew’s takin’ it up so fierce will end cowboy talk, anyway.”

Martha Ann made some excuse to the girls and fled to her room. When she had locked the door against intrusion, she went to the mirror and stood there gazing at her face. And as she looked, she felt that a false shell fell away from her. That afternoon the blazing stunning truth had burst upon Martha with Jim Fenner’s revelation. Until now she had been pretending to be in love with Andrew Bonning. Now she realized that she was hopelessly, terribly, passionately in love with him.

“In love with him?... With Andrew Bonning? With a man who thinks me a flirt, a loose woman, a hussy!...My God, if this isn’t the limit!” Her eyes filled with rebellious tears. She began walking up and down in the tiny room, beating her fist into the palm of her other hand. There came a knock on the door which shocked her into an appreciation of the time and place.

“Who’s there?”

“Just me,” called Nellie Glemm gayly. “You’ve got one hour to dress. Doll up for us, Martha. You’ll drive Wyoming mad tonight.”

“Do my — damnedest,” replied Martha Ann, trying to sound gay, too. Wyoming mad! The words stung her to battle. Quickly she undressed and washed and tried to brush her hair into staid waves. Then she put on her stockings and blue slippers, and at last the flimsy blue gown with its simple relief of color.

It was a new and demure Martha Ann Dixon whose amber eyes met her gaze in the mirror. Where had vanished all her golden tan? Her face was the hue of marble. But rouge changed that, so far as lips and cheeks were concerned. Only what to do with her eyes! It seemed to Martha that all the old mischievous and deceiving lights had gone. What she saw now no pride could hide. Now her eyes were transparent windows of amber through which love shone, unashamed. And she suddenly realized with a kind of wonder that never in her life had she looked so well. Would Andrew come to the dance? Would he see her and think her pretty? And chide herself as she might, it made no difference; she gloried in the thought.

That thought might have been short-lived, to judge from warning memory, had not happy voices in the hall and the pounding of impatient hands upon the door, given Martha Ann the glad assurance that she would not be alone any more till the dance was over.

She opened the door, to be swooped down upon and swept away downstairs, lighthearted once more; her natural response to the gaiety and the bright colors and movement of young people reasserted itself with vivid pleasure. The lobby of the hotel was filled with many young men and girls, with all of whom the Glemm girls desired to make Martha acquainted. They were all wholesome red-cheeked girls, and clean-cut tanned boys, none of the latter appearing to have the earmarks of cowboys. They escorted Martha a couple of blocks down the main street, and up a wide stairway of a large building to the top floor. Here they had to run a gauntlet to get into the hall.

It was a big bare place, decorated with bunting and every manner of rodeo paraphernalia that Martha had seen this eventful day. The shiny floor was vacant at the moment, except along the sides where young people sat or stood in gay conversation. At the far end of the hall there was a wide stage on which the musicians sat tuning their instruments. Arched doorways on one side led out upon a porch. Martha’s quick eyes took in all these details, also the obvious fact that the young men far outnumbered the girls.

Once inside Martha met many more young people including some cowboys. She did not catch many names. These Westerners were a democratic, free and easy people, not at all strong on formality. She liked their simplicity and sincerity. She had to admit, too, that she had been stared at more at a university formal than here. She had quickened to the promise of an enjoyable evening — until she suddenly found herself gazing about the hall, searching for someone who was not there.

“Martha, here’s Texas,” whispered Nellie Glemm. “You remember the cowboy who wanted to drive you out to the ranch? Well, it’s he. Such a handsome boy! He’s a gentleman, too! Too bad he’s so wild.”

Martha looked up easily recognizing the red-haired cowboy.

“Howdy, Nell. I shore am glad to see you-all,” he drawled.

“Howdy, yourself,” replied the Glemm girl pleasantly, and turned to Martha. “Let me introduce one of our real cowboys, Texas Haynes...Tex, meet Miss Martha Ann Dixon.”

Texas made her a graceful bow and his flashing blue eyes took her in admiringly.

“Evenin’, Miss. We’ve met before but not reg’lar,” he drawled.

“Good evening, Mr. Texas Haynes,” returned Martha Ann smiling. “I seem to remember something about you.”

“Wal, my red hair, I reckon. Doggone it, I don’t see why I cain’t be towhaided, or somethin’ else.”

“No. I was not alluding to your hair.”

“Did you ever dance with a cowboy?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Will you let me be the first?”

“Certainly, if you ask me!”

“Thank you. I’m askin’ you for the openin’ dance, an’ if I don’t step all over yore feet, mebbe I’ll make bold to ask for another.”

“I don’t know about two dances,” replied Martha, dubiously. “I’ll ask Nellie. Your last name is Haynes, isn’t it.”

“Wal, I don’t use it very often,” replied Texas with a smile. “Fact is, Miss Martha, I kinda forget it myself.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I don’t care much about Tex fer a handle, but I’d like you to call me Jack.”

“You do things rather quickly in Wyoming, don’t you?”

“Shore, an’ I gotta be quick now. Let’s dance before them other buckaroos horn in heah.”

He led her out and somewhat diffidently put his arm around her. Martha needed only that and his touch to decide that he was quite all right, and that she need not have been on her guard against this cowboy. He held her lightly and at a distance. He took his dancing very seriously and did almost no talking. According to Martha’s standard he was a very poor dancer. At the conclusion of this first number he led her back to her party. There was something quaint and charming and deferential about him.

“Gosh, thet was the swellest dance I ever had,” he said gratefully, as his dark blue eyes gazed admiringly down on her. “Last summer I was up at Cody where the dude ranches are. An’ I met an eastern girl who rode an’ danced with me — when she couldn’t get nobody else. I shore fell for her powerful hard. But I’m tellin’ you, ma’am, as a looker an’ as a dancer she wasn’t in the same corral with you.”

“I see you have kissed the blarney stone, Mr. Jack,” returned Martha with a laugh.

“Nope. I’m no kissin’ bug. Don’t brand me with these other punchers, Miss Dixon,” he said curtly. “I was jest tryin’ to tell you how proud an’ happy you made me by dancin’ with me.”

“Thank you. That is a lovely compliment,” she replied, quick to sense a fiery pride in him. “It will be something to remember my first cowboy dance by.”

“Wal, thet makes me bold—”

“Hello, you two. How’d you get along?” interposed Nellie Glemm, with her frank eyes upon them.

“Powerful swell for me, Nell. I’m hankerin’ turrible to ask—”

“For another dance? The nerve of you, Tex.”

“Nellie, I’d be glad to give him another if you say it’s all right,” interposed Martha hastily. From what she had seen of couples on the floor, Texas Jack would be more than acceptable as a dance partner.

“You lucky cowboy! All right, let’s see. As for me, I’m dolin’ out these treats pretty stingily, believe me,” replied Nellie, consulting a card. “You can have the sixth from this.”

“Gracias, señorita, I shore will dance at yore weddin’,” he drawled, with the bow that became him so well. “Don’t forget, Miss,” he said turning to Martha. “I’ll do better next time.”

He made way for other aspirants to Martha’s hand. From then on she met and danced with five young Westerners, all of whom were more accustomed to dancing, and four of whom added to her growing pleasure of the evening. The fifth, however, a tall, dark-faced young man, reminded her that all dances could not be so innocently enjoyed.

“You are holding me too tight,” she said, the instant she took to the floor with the tall stranger. He laughed and eased the clasp of his arm, and during the round of the hall he acquainted her with the fact that he had run over from Cody to see the rodeo.

“You did not strike me as being western,” replied Martha, and presently when she again felt a slight tightening of his arm she said she was tired and wanted to stop.

“Have a heart, honey,” he remonstrated. “What’s this line you’re giving me?”

Martha left him standing at the entrance to the dressing room. She had recourse to her vanity case, and only when the music ceased did she return to the hall. Nellie’s party was not in sight at the moment. And before Martha had gone very far, she was intercepted by Texas Jack.

“Wal, heah I am,” he said, happily. “I watched you dance with thet last hombre an’ I cain’t say I liked it.”

“Neither can I, Mr. Texas. But I got rid of him as quickly as I could,” she replied, smiling up at him.

“I seen he tried to hug you an’ you shied,” he said tersely. “He jest don’t belong heah, Miss Martha. An’ if he tried to get fresh...Did he?”

“He didn’t try. He just did.”

“Wal, I’ll look him up after I dance this one with you.”

“What for?” asked Martha quickly, suddenly alive to his cool drawl and the blue threat in his eyes.

“Where I come from, Miss Martha, thet sort of thing ain’t imposed on girls.”

“That would be Texas, of course. And why is Texas so different from the forty-seven other states?”

They were stopped in the middle of their promenade by someone.

“Pardon me,” said a pleasant deep voice Martha recognized with a start. She looked up into the face of Andrew Bonning. He wore a dark suit which detracted from his muscular build and gave him an air of distinction. It clarified something that had often puzzled Martha. She quickly looked down, anxious that her eyes should not give away her love for him. “Good evening, Miss Dixon. I was detained. I hope I am not too late for a dance.”

“I — I’m afraid you are,” replied Martha, in evident confusion.

Bonning shifted his dark gaze to her escort.

“Hello, Texas,” he said familiarly.

“Stranger, you got the best of me,” replied the cowboy.

“I have, at that. But I hope you’ll give me this dance without my having to explain.”

“Explainin’ what?” queried Texas, bluntly.

“How I’ve got the best of you.”

“Say who’n — who air you?”

“Andrew Bonning. I ride for Bligh.”

“Ahuh. I heahed yore handle somewheres,” drawled the cowboy, his expression changing almost imperceptibly. “Air you the fellar who pulled the sluggin’ trick oot heah at the rodeo?”

“Yes.”

“Wal, thet ain’t givin’ you any the best of me. I’m no pard of Cal Brice or Smoky Reed.”

“No, but if I were to remind you of the night you met McCall some weeks ago?”

“McCall!” repeated the cowboy, turning slightly pale. “Yes, McCall. Do you recollect?”

“I cain’t say that I do, Bonnin’,” rejoined Texas guardedly, feeling his way. Martha Ann sensed something in him that made her shiver. Andrew, too, was strangely quite another person, cold, sarcastic of speech, piercing of eye.

“Texas, you don’t strike me as a liar.”

“Air you callin’ me one?”

“Not yet. I’m just reminding you.”

“What of?”

“The night you rode nearly into Split Rock. And met a man on foot. McCall. Does that help you to remember?”

“Wal, I reckon it does.”

“Then you’ll be sport enough to let me have your dance with Miss Dixon?”

“Bonnin’, I don’t know about bein’ a sport. But I’ll oblige you jest ‘cause I don’t want to call yore bluff heah — an’ embarrass this lady any more. Savvy?”

“Good. You can call it some other time and place.”

Texas turned to Martha with a somber and troubled look on his face.

“Miss Dixon, I shore hate to give up this dance.”

“Then why should you?” asked Martha, finding her voice. “I’m sure I don’t want you to.”

“Wal, yore N.B. rider has insinuated somethin’ agin my good name, an’ I don’t want to call him heah before you...Adios.”

He stalked away, his red head held high, and left the hall. Martha Ann watched him depart, as if his going had spoiled some of the happiness of the evening.

“Martha, that was the only way I could stop it.”

“Stop — what?” He seemed laboring under a strain, his brow clouded, his eyes bent sternly upon her. It was what he so obviously was thinking that liberated her. In another moment she could again be flippant, but right now he was too close to her, too overpoweringly the man who had captured her heart whether she liked it or not.

“Your carrying on with him.”

“Yes? Please explain what you mean by carrying on, will you?”

“I just won’t allow you to flirt with that cowboy, anyway.”

“You won’t?” she queried with deadly sweetness, while her spirit leaped at his assumption of authority. “I’ll flirt and carry on, and — and...with anyone I like, Andrew Bonning.”

“Smoky Reed was the cowboy who shot me. And Texas Jack was with him at the time.”

“Oh!” cried Martha, suddenly weak with all the blood rushing back to her heart. “Smoky Reed!...But Texas said he wasn’t a friend of...Andrew, you don’t mean to say — you don’t think that he was a partner to that attempt on your life.”

“I don’t claim so much. But he was with Reed. I saw him.”

“That nice, soft-spoken, old-fashioned boy!...Andrew, I simply don’t believe you. It was just a mean trick to get his dance.”

“Good heavens! I didn’t want to dance with you. But I suppose I’ll have to for appearances’ sake. That Glemm outfit is watching us.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself. What do I care about appearances?”

“Come,” he said as the music rose seductively, and he whirled her away.

She felt as stiff in body as she was pliable of mind. He would take for granted that she — she hated him for what he was thinking. But she suddenly realized that he was the most wonderful dancer she had ever known. The surprise of it dwarfed her other feelings, and it drew from her a mechanical response. Her uncle’s hired man! With her mind suddenly averted from herself, from her shame and humiliation, Martha Ann had not glided half round the hall with him before she was sure she had penetrated his masquerade. Missouri farm hand, indeed! The strong yet light clasp with which he held her, the perfect timing of his steps and their intricacy, the flying grace of the swing he gave her on the reverse — these told the well-schooled Martha Ann that he was to the manner born. It explained so many of the acts that sat rather incongruously upon a rough-clad, heavy-booted cowboy. He was no cowboy, no garage mechanic, nothing that he pretended to be. Tonight he had the grace and cut of a college athlete.

“Put one over on us, didn’t you, Mr. Andrew Bonning?” she said, unable to keep silent longer.

“Yes — and I’m reaping the whirlwind,” he replied bitterly.

“Ne’er-do-well, blasé society man, wanderlusting realist, swell fugitive from the law — or what?” she queried mockingly.

“Outcast, Martha Ann.”

She quivered in his arms and left off that tack. She gave up to the sheer sensual joy of the dance, and if it had lasted longer she knew she would have swooned.

But before she had betrayed her true feelings the music ended.

“Let’s get a breath of fresh air,” he said, and led her out through one of the arches to the porch. The moon was shining brightly. Couples were leaning over the wooden railing.

“May I smoke?” he asked, without offering her his cigarettes, an omission which she noted.

“Yes.”

“Found these among my store clothes — relic of my past.”

Martha Ann tried to be her old audacious self, the hitchhiker whom no road or man could daunt. What she wanted to appear to Andrew was what she really believed herself at heart to be. But wit, flippancy, flirtation would not come, any more than the play of eyes and smiles which she once had lavished upon the country youth back there on the journey west.

“You dance beautifully. With whom did you study ballet?”

“I’ve had ten thousand teachers.”

“Starry Eyes, I have been kidded by experts. Actresses, heiresses, adventuresses. You didn’t learn to dance like that in the night clubs.”

“Nor did you — in Missouri,” she retorted.

He laughed as he flicked the ash from his cigarette. He seemed entirely natural tonight. There was nothing forced, moody, or brooding about him.

“I wonder what Connie would say to that.”

“Who is Connie?”

“A girl I once thought I loved — but didn’t.”

“Did she love you?”

“Martha Ann, I have not thanked you for getting me out of jail,” he said, ignoring her query. “It was good of you. I’d have had to stay in that dirty hole all night.”

“Now all of us are broke.”

“No, not quite. I have a little left and will pay you when we get home.”

“I have something to thank you for too,” she replied softly, her face downcast. “But I can’t understand why you did it.”

“What?”

“Beat up that cowboy Reed.”

“I had it in for him anyhow, Martha Ann. But I could have killed him for the crack he made about you. Just as well brother Slade dragged me off him.”

“Did Jim tell you Reed insulted me this morning, at the Glemms’?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Funny — these western folk.”

“Aren’t they? When I told the magistrate that I’d been shot at by a rustler — no other than the cowboy Smoky Reed, he wanted to know if I’d caught him with the goods on. I admitted that I had not. Then he said I’d better be careful how I shot off my chin about rustling around here. And the sheriff searched me again for bootleg whiskey.”

“We’re Easterners — tenderfeet.”

Then they fell silent. Martha Ann chafed under the fallaciousness of her position. Why did he not do one of two things — make some advance that accorded with his shallow conception of her — or tell her what a damned idiot he had been to judge her from appearances? How she would have reveled in an affront! But he was too much of a gentleman to respond to what he imagined she was inviting; and too stupid to see that a girl could defy certain conventions, could long for her own freedom to court adventure, and still be a decent person.

She turned from the rail as the music started up again. He threw his cigarette away.

“It’s a pity, isn’t it, Martha Ann?” he asked, his somber eyes on her face.

“Yes...I wonder if you can possibly mean what I mean?”

“Not a chance. Come, my dear, I have monopolized you long enough.”

They went in. The dancers were whirling out from all sides. Martha Ann hoped that Andrew would take her again into their midst, and betrayed her wishes with a shy, uplifted glance.

“Martha Ann, you are too lovely a girl and too wonderful a dancer to waste yourself on me,” he said.

“Fiddlesticks! You don’t think me lovely or wonderful or — or anything but—” She could not conclude the passionate speech, but she showed him very plainly the silent wrath in her eyes.

“Don’t deceive yourself about that. The genus homo is a queer duck. In this judgment of Paris I hand you—”

“A lemon,” she interrupted with a wild little laugh. How cheerfully he could cut her to the quick! How miserably she longed for his respect! They were strangers — as far apart as the poles — he a mid-Victorian and she a waif of the highway. “I would suggest that you don’t interfere the next time you see me with Tex...So long!”

If she expected a protest, it was not forthcoming. He conducted her to the little group waiting for her, and with an easy courtesy that made Martha feel almost like a rowdy he thanked her for the dance and bade her good night. Nellie Glemm’s face expressed a curiosity which she did not voice. But it was easy to see that she and her friends would have liked to meet Andrew Bonning.

The rest of the dance was a nightmare to Martha Ann. She did not know or care with whom she danced. She would have welcomed Texas Jack or even Smoky Reed, if dancing with either of them could have brought Andrew back. She railed at herself for having played up to his idea of her. There it was; the evening had been spoiled. All seemed tasteless dust and bitter ashes in her mouth.

In the wee small hours she returned to the hotel and crept into bed, her feet dead and her heart numb and her brain the abode of conflicting tides of thought, and proceeded to cry herself to sleep.

CHAPTER X

ONE LATE AFTERNOON, a week after the rodeo, Martha Ann caught sight of Jim Fenner approaching her favorite seat under a shady tree on the river bank. It had been a painful period of suspense for Martha, first on account of her own uncertain and baffling state of mind, and secondly owing to her uncle’s increasing troubles.

Jim limped across the road and, favoring his crippled leg, placed himself beside her on the grass. The August day had been hot. His lean face, like a bronzed mask, gave no indication of his feelings, but there was a shadow in his hazel-flecked eyes.

“Lookin’ fer Andy?” he asked, as he swept the purple slope toward the hills.

“Jim, I like you very much,” she replied. “But if you don’t leave off this Andy stuff I’m off you for life. How many times have I told you that I come here because of the view, so open and beautiful, because I can see the river wind away, and all the range and the mountains beyond?”

“Wal, shore. It’s a grand view. Most as fine as some in Arizony. But no scenery is worth much without some life to go with it.”

“I see horses, cattle, sometimes a rider, rabbits, wild ducks, eagles, and once I saw an airplane. What more do you want?”

“Wal, I kinda hoped you might be watchin’ for Andy,” replied the Arizonian simply. “You see it’s this way, Martha. The comin’ of you two young folks bucked us all up. Bligh was failin’ in more than stock raisin’. An’ me an’ Sue, never havin’ had a youngster, an’ always yearnin’ for one, sort of got a new lease on life. Natural-like we’re powerful interested in you. Both of you so young an’ live an’ full of fire. Don’t hold it against us, lass. We’re growin’ old an’ all alone.”

“Forgive me, Jim. I’m sorry,” replied Martha, a little hand going impulsively to his. “I am a cross, spiteful, ungrateful cat. I don’t deserve your interest and kindness...But you don’t seem old to me, Jim.”

“Wal, I’m ten years older’n Bligh, an’ he’s nigh on to sixty.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” replied Martha Ann, with a sigh. “Have you got bad news, Jim?”

“I reckon so, lass. We went to town, hopin’ to fix up the deal with McCall. But he’s a mean hombre. Appealin’ to the Wyomin’ Cattlemen’s Association didn’t get us nowhere. An’ Cheney Brothers wouldn’t lend us two bits. Money is still tight an’ stock has jest begun to move. McCall insisted on stickin’ to the original deal, which we know now ain’t to be thought of. I started to tell him thet in Arizony his deals would look mighty shady, but your uncle shet me up. Jest as wal, fer McCall got redheaded. We laid the deal before a magistrate. An’ it’s up to Bligh to decide to go in with McCall or stand trial.”

“What did you advise, Jim?”

“I’d stand trial. This feller McCall ain’t a big cattleman. An’ he ain’t any too wal thought of. In the meantime we might get somethin’ on him.”

“But if we don’t?”

“Wal, we lose, thet’s all.”

“Does it mean ruin for uncle?”

“Yes, so far as runnin’ cattle is concerned. I doubt thet he could ever get another start, at his age, an’ without capital. It’s a good farm, though, an’ we can live off it.”

“That’s a grain of comfort. Oh, let’s hope it is not as bad as you fear.”

“Martha, what air you goin’ to do?”

“Me?” queried Martha, with a start.

“Yes. Air you goin’ to stick by yore uncle? Me an’ Sue have wondered a lot about you. Pretty, smart girl like you — thet could do most anythin’ — an’ shore marry a million if you was thet sort — comin’ to this lonesome range. But you’ve seemed so happy — till jest latelylayin’ yore hands to all kinds of work. An’ so crazy about horses an’ the outdoors. We jest kinda figgered thet this sort of life was intended for you. What do you suppose brought the pioneers out West? It was thet, Martha — thet spread of prairie an’ valley an’ hill an’ mountain all open an’ free to the eye. Wal, thet pioneer stuff is in you if you only knew it.”

“Oh, Jim, do you really think so?” murmured the girl, deeply moved.

“Shore I do. Lemme see them little hands of yores.” Martha Ann stretched forth the small brown members for his inspection, smiling at his earnestness as he stroked them and turned them palms upward.

“Prettier to me than when they was so white an’ soft...Wal, work is good for anybody. All the same, lass, I wouldn’t like to see you chop wood, plow the field, an’ clean out the stable. Andy said thet same thing one day.”

“Goodness gracious! How kind of him!...Neither would I. But honest, Jim, I like to bake, to sew, to milk the cows, although I hated housework at home.”

“Wal, you gotta do some tall figger’n’, my lass. It’s only fair to tell you thet we may go from bad to wuss here. Sue an’ me will stay by yore uncle. I put thet up to Andy an’ he cussed me proper fer hintin’ thet he might want to quit jest ‘cause the goin’ has got hard.”

“He did?...That was good of him,” she murmured.

“Andy can’t see the bad side of it,” continued Jim. “He says we’ll lick hell out of McCall an’ his range riders. Somethin’ will turn up. Wal, Bonnin’ is young an’ full of hope — an’ shore in love.”

“In love? I don’t believe it. He’s too — too—” protested Martha.

“These boys air all crazy about you.”

“I hadn’t noticed it, Jim...Are you sure you haven’t been eating some of that Arizona loco weed you told me about?”

“Hosses an’ cattle eat loco, my child. I may be smokin’ my pipe at thet. But I reckon Andrew Bonnin’ is as deep in love with you, lass, as a man ever falls.”

“Jim!”

“Wal, you needn’t bark at me like thet...An’ go red — an’ then white — as you air now. You know it, don’t you?”

“No,” whispered Martha, averting her face.

“Haven’t boys an’ men, too, been fallin’ in love with you, ever since you put on long dresses?”

“No.”

“Ain’t thet Texas Jack cowboy who rode out here Sunday — ain’t he in love with you?”

“Cowboy-taffy,” replied Martha Ann tremulously, striving against the rising tide within her breast.

“Ridic’lous, lass. Thet’s yore own word. I’ve heerd it often. Ridic’lous!...I don’t know about you, girl. You’re a deep youngster. You’re honest as daylight, mostly. But I can’t figger you, in this partic’lar. I’m afraid you’re—”

“Jim Fenner, if you side with my parents, my relatives — and a lot of old fogies — and An-Andrew Bonning — I’ll never speak to you again,” cried Martha Ann, the tears coming into her eyes.

“All right. Thet settles thet,” said Fenner placatingly. “From now on I’m takin’ you on yore word. I’m on yore side, Martha. An’ thet means Sue, too. If we two old Westerners can’t understand, we shore can trust an’ sympathize an’ love. I reckon it ain’t been so easy fer you back home, or anywheres. You ought to have been a boy. An’ instead you’re the sweetest girl thet ever was born to vex men. It’s tough, honey. When a girl can’t lift her eyes or smile without some fool feller thinkin’ she wants him to grab her — wal, thet’s shore tough.”

“It’s just exactly what happens, Jim,” she replied brokenly. “It was that way at home...And it’s almost as bad here.”

“Martha, did Andrew do thet?”

“No, not he.”

“Wal, thet’s somethin’ to his credit. I can’t see Andrew makin’ game of a girl.”

“Bah! He’d be no different from any of them — if he believed he was the only one.”

“Are you shore, lass?”

“Well, no. But I’ve met boys like that. Boys who want a girl all to themselves — and hate her if she looks at someone else. I was fed up on all of them.”

“Listen, Martha. You’ve got Andy figgered wrong,” continued Jim earnestly. “He ain’t what he lets on to be. An’ at thet I don’t savvy what he is pretendin’. Sue says she always feels funny when he sets a chair fer her, or stands up when she comes in — things like thet thet women notice. But he is somebody.”

“At the rodeo they called him a prize fighter,” said Martha with a queer little laugh.

“Wal, he shore was a whirlwind. I ain’t got over tinglin’ over thet fight yet...No, Andrew Bonnin’ ain’t no common sort. Whatever druv him out here it wasn’t anythin’ crooked. All my life I’ve dealt with men who have things to hide. Andy hasn’t anythin’. But he’s awful sad an’ quiet.”

“Some woman,” ventured Martha Ann, with a twinge of jealousy.

“Some girl!...Martha, when you first come here Andy was pretty hard on you. I called him fer it, an’ he’s never mentioned it again. I reckon he still thinks the same about your hikin’ out here alone. I didn’t use to blame Andy. I used to think myself thet thet was the foolest stunt any girl ever tried. But I see it different now. The rest of us air wrong. Thet idee was natural an’ innocent, ‘cause it was you.”

Martha Ann laid her head against Jim’s shoulder. “Jim, you’d have made a swell Daddy,” she sighed.

“Not too late yet, by jingo!...But don’t upset me, lass. I’m in turrible earnest. I feel like — like one of them wise fellars who settles the fates of nations...No matter how Andy disapproved of you — or what he thought you was — it still didn’t keep him from fallin’ in love with you. An’ grow wuss an’ wuss as time goes on.”

“What makes — you think — he — he — ?”

“Wal, Sue seen it first. An’ believe me, Martha, thet woman never is wrong...An’ after I was put wise I watched Andy an’ I’ve seen a hundred proofs of it.”

“Give me just one, I dare you,” said the girl, color mounting in her cheeks.

“Wal, let me see. It’s darn hard to pick jest one out...Do you remember the day yore hoss piled you up on the sand down here?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know what it all was about till afterward. But when Andrew went back for your boot I happened to be ridin’ along the bank an’ I seen him get off an’ pick somethin’ up, an’ set down on the sand to hold the thing in his hand, an’ look mighty fond at it. I swear it looked thet way to me. Course it was most dusk an’ I’m a sentimental old cuss. But he sat there like a Navajo watchin’ the sunset. Somethin’ pathetic an’ lonely about the way he looked off over the range. So I didn’t call. Later I asked him where he’d been, an’ then he told me about goin’ after yore lost boot...Now, lass, is thet convincin’?”

“Not at all! You certainly have an imagination, Jim...Tell me something else.”

“Wal, the way he beat up Smoky Reed,” ventured Fenner.

“No. He meant to do that anyhow.”

“The rodeo dance, then. He never seen any other girl but you — let alone danced with one. An’ the girls was certainly layin’ fer him. A blind man could have seen thet.”

“It might be taken as testimony,” she replied ponderingly. “But it would never convince me. You lose, Jim, unless you have a better one — out of those hundred proofs.” And she drew back from his shoulder to regard him demurely.

“Wal, he shore watches fer you all the time, an’ you couldn’t pop yore head up anywhere on this blasted range but he’d see it.”

“Masculine curiosity and his obsession to boss some woman. No more,” proclaimed Martha.

“Sue says it’s somethin’ she can feel in Andy, whenever you come near.”

“But I don’t feel it.”

“Then you’re jest not flesh an’ blood...Martha, I tell you I know he’s fallen for you. An’ I shore feel low-down to double cross him this way. But I gotta do it. ‘Cause you might up an’ do somethin’ jest fer spite. So I’ll tell you. Andy carries a little round picture of you in a frame. I seen him lookin’ at somethin’, an’ when I come into camp he slipped it back pronto in his breast pocket. After supper he went to washin’ in the creek, an’ I sneaked to his clothes an’ fished thet picture out of his shirt pocket. It shore was a sweet picture.”

“Oh! the — the...I missed that picture on the day we went to the rodeo. I drove...He had my bag in his lap. It dropped out or he sneaked it.”

“Wal, is thet any proof?”

“Jim, that’s very strange indeed — if he took it and kept it and looked at it just to see what a bad girl looks like...Still I couldn’t be sure.”

“Do you want to be shore?” he demanded suddenly, as if he now had her at his mercy.

“Jim!...You — I — Oh, yes!” She cried, and her composure seemed about to leave her.

“I seen him kiss thet little picture,” cried Jim triumphantly.

“You’re lying, Jim Fenner!...He didn’t — he couldn’t. Not Andrew.”

“I swear to Gawd I seen him.”

“You’re cruel, Jim. You’ve tormented me for weeks. But today you’re a positive fiend.”

“Ain’t you glad I told you?” he asked chuckling. “Go away!”

“Shore, I’ll mosey along,” he replied, getting up stiffly. “But you haven’t tole me yet if you’ll stay here with yore uncle an’ see it through.”

“I shall see it through, Jim,” she replied simply.

“Wal, if thet ain’t fine. I reckoned you would. You can go home on a visit some day — or have yore folks visit you. It’ll all turn out right in the end.”

“Go away!” cried Martha Ann. “Or I’ll — kiss you!”

“Wal, as I don’t want thet big gazabo to lambaste me one I reckon I’d better make tracks.”

Martha Ann leaned back against the tree. She would stay and see it through! Both sadness and rapture pervaded her soul. By what strange steps had she finally found her niche in life. Tomorrow she would ride and ride, far away and up the purple slope, to some lonely spot where only the wilderness could witness her joy.

The sun was sinking gold and red behind the Rockies. The river traced its winding, green-bordered course out to fade in the ruddy haze of the range. Great clouds of rose and pearl piled to the zenith, stately and serene. Like a sea, the sagebrush rolled and heaved as far as the scalloped hills.

No living creature crossed Martha Ann’s vision. How lonely were the vast spaces! They had been like that forever or, remembering her geology, for the millions of years since the icecap of the north had receded. What was there here so restful to her soul, so like some place she had known before she was even born? The peace that was in her heart had something to do, too, with what Jim had told her about a man’s strange behavior with a misplaced locket.

At that moment a lone horseman appeared, far out in the sage, a black spot becoming gradually perceptible of movement. He gave life to the scene. All it needed! But it gave infinitely more to Martha Ann, who pressed her hands tightly to her bosom, and watched and watched with slowly dimming eyes.

It was toward noon of the following day, and for hours Martha Ann had been alternately trotting and walking her horse up the endless purple slope. She had never before dared to ride so far alone. But this day she knew that she had to find solitude. How easy to think things out in the saddle, riding alone over the range, with the wind whipping in her face, the sun bright and warm, the loneliness calling!

She was heading for the Antelope Hills and they now loomed close. She would wait, she would hold herself in, she would postpone this battle between her two selves until she had found an ideal spot where no other woman creature had ever poured out her innermost heart before.

Soon she was riding among a grove of trees. It was dry and sweet there among these scattered trees where the sage mingled with silver grass and golden flowers. When she looked back down the long slope she was thrilled by the splendor of the descent, sloping to the distant thread of the river and the dot that was the ranch.

At last she felt that she could ride no longer. She had come upon a kind of bowl of silver grass, surrounded by straggling trees, a lonely, isolated glade, hidden from all eyes except those of the eagles, and shining there, peaceful and tranquil, an altar for her abnegation. For she would never rise from this lonely vigil the same wild, intolerant, proud and selfish girl.

Martha tied her horse in the fringe of trees, and chose a low-spreading one under which to rest. A thick fragrant brown carpet of tiny needles covered the ground. Her tree was some species of pine. She gathered a lapful of the little spears, and let them run through her cupped hands.

She found herself loath to give up feeling, seeing, smelling this lonesome covert for the thoughts that she knew she had to straighten out. She had her first intimation of how wonderful it would be never to think at all. Only to use her senses! Perhaps it was that inherited instinct that had lured her to Wyoming. Who could understand who had never felt that enchantment?

And presently Martha Ann lay back on the bed of pine needles and let her thoughts roam. “So he stole my picture!...Darling! — Oh, if you do love me — how terribly I shall make you suffer before I prove that I’m not what you believe I am...And if you don’t I shall — be what you believe I...Oh, no! no! — I shall only die!”

A sudden sound interrupted the girl’s bittersweet reverie. It was a sound which at first she could not define. Alarmed, Martha sat up trembling. The thumping sound grew louder. Hoofs! Her horse had broken away. No, the pounding came from the opposite side of the little amphitheater. Crashings among the trees preceded the shrill bawl of a calf. A cow stumbled through an opening between the trees and behind it galloped a calf. Then something yellow and snaky shot from behind the green, to loop round the calf and jerk it off its feet. In the next instant a horse appeared whose rider was bending low to escape the branches. He pulled his horse back on its haunches and leaped off, to throw the calf down and kneel upon it.

Martha Ann crouched there, her terror of the unknown changing to the terror of an act whose significance she vaguely guessed. When the rider arose to toss his sombrero aside and wipe his sweaty face, he exposed a flaming mop of red hair. But Martha had recognized the lithe form of Texas Jack even before he revealed the telltale hair.

“Bawl an’ be damned, you ornery little cuss. You’re a maverick now. An’ you git oot of heah.” He picked up a rock to fling it at the cow. She lowered her head and threatened him, but another rock, well directed struck her with a resounding thump. Martha Ann’s wide eyes glimpsed the N.B. brand on the flank of the cow. The distracted beast went as far as the edge of the open and continued to bawl.

Texas broke some dead branches off the nearest tree. These he placed on the ground near the calf. He struck a match and started a fire. Picking up his sombrero he fanned the fire until it roared. Then he slipped something from under the flap of his saddle — a thin curved tool. Martha had seen its like — a running iron, Jim had called it — a thing to burn brands on stock. Texas placed an end of the iron in the fire and began again to fan the flames with his hat. They roared as if blown by a bellows.

Suddenly he bent down, and seizing the iron he ran to the calf, and knelt to apply it to its trembling red flank. The calf bawled lustily. Martha heard a sizzle, another and another. She saw smoke arise, and then she smelled burning hair. The smell of it sickened her.

But nausea, fright, and all her other feelings yielded precedence to righteous wrath. Texas Jack was branding her uncle’s calf. He was a thief — a rustler. She had caught him red-handed in the very act.

Quickly Martha Ann rose to brush aside the branches that had screened her and to step into the open.

Texas heard her step and his flaming head shot up like that of a frightened deer. Suddenly he wheeled and whipped out a gun in one single action. At any other time, Martha might have recoiled from his fierce face, but now she kept right on, indifferent to his menacing posture, and to the gun held low and level.

“Wal, fer Gawd’s sake!” he burst out, astounded and visibly relieved.

Martha Ann kept on until the bound calf lay at her feet. On its flank had been branded a double X, the lines of which shone raw and bright in its hide.

“McCall’s brand!” she ejaculated in amazement, and then she faced the cowboy. “Texas Jack, you have burned McCall’s brand on one of my uncle’s calves.”

“Caught with the goods,” replied Texas, and flipping up his gun he caught it by the butt, to return it to his belt. He seemed cool, laconic, devil-may-care, but the paleness that had not disappeared, and the quivering pinpoints in his blue eyes, told Martha that he was not altogether invulnerable.

“You calf thief, you paid rustler, you low-down thieving cowboy,” she blazed, with eyes before which he quailed. “You ride for one man and steal for another. You come to my uncle’s house. You eat and drink there, accepting his hospitality, and my friendship...Oh, you despicable vermin. You coward, liar, cheat!...You brag of being a Texan — you wouldn’t insult a girl — bah! You’re worse than Smoky Reed. At least he doesn’t sail under false colors.”

“Martha, doggone it, I’m not so low-down as all thet,” he expostulated, his face now scarlet, his eyes shamed and appealing. “You’re a tenderfoot. You jest cain’t savvy the West. All cattlemen brand mavericks, when they happen on them. It ain’t exactly stealin’ .”

“A maverick is a calf without a mother,” flashed Martha. “There’s this calf’s mother. And she’s got an N.B. brand on her.”

“Wal, if you split hairs over it — I reckon I’m a rustler,” he said, and kneeling beside the calf he released it. Then, when it had scrambled up to bawl and run he sat down in the grass. He took out a little tobacco pouch, and rolled himself a cigarette with steady fingers.

“Texas, I’m simply shocked. I’m terribly disappointed. Only last Sunday you told me you loved me.”

“Wal, I did an’ I do. What’s thet got to do with this job? I swear to Gawd it was my last — this deal with McCall. But I was in it before I ever seen you. He owes me money. He even threatens to give me away. I had to go on with it, thet’s all.”

“But, Texas, if you’re a rustler you just can’t make honest love to a decent girl,” declared Martha.

“Shore it was honest love, I was goin’ to ask you to marry me.”

“Oh! To think I — liked you — and I might even have fallen in love with you!”

“Wal, you didn’t act much like it,” growled Texas, and took a long pull on his cigarette. “An’ don’t roast me no more. I cain’t stand it from you.”

“Have you no shame? Can you sit there and make excuses for this piece of crooked work? Deliberately ruining my uncle, who’s old and poor! Oh, you’re a fine Texan.”

“Say, my little spitfire, I’ll clap a hand over yore pretty trap in a minnit, if you don’t shet it. If I wasn’t a gentleman an’ a Texan, I’d do what Smoky would do, or any other free-lance rider on this range.”

“And what is that?”

“I’d pack you off in the hills an’ keep you there,” he replied with sullen passion.

“Texas, you couldn’t do a cowardly thing like that!” she returned hurriedly, not so sure as she pretended to be. The cowboy looked like a man at bay.

“No, I couldn’t do that. An’ you can bet yore sweet little self thet it’s only because I am a Texan. An’ what’n hell air you doin’ way oot heah? Suppose it’d been Smoky, or half a dozen hombres I could name, you damn little fool! Haven’t you got no sense at all? You gallivant oot west alone in a pair of short pants an’ now you come ridin’ into the foothills all by yoreself.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“No, I seen thet. But you’re too brainless — too damned innocent an’ trustin’. If you keep this heah sort of thing up, Martha Dixon, you’ll meet with outrage from someone who’ll think you’re askin’ fer it!”

She gazed at him with mute lips, surprised by his passion.

“Thet’s all. Somebody had to tell you. Why didn’t yore friend Bonnin’ tell you?”

“Why should he?”

“Wal, why doesn’t he make you stay home? If he’s so doggone stuck on you as the girls say?”

“He’s not...And he couldn’t make me do anything.”

“It’s too damned bad somebody cain’t. You oughta fall for some lucky dawg an’ stop this heartbreakin’ game...Wal, you caught me with the goods. Now what’re you gonna do aboot it?”

“Texas, what’ll you do if I tell?” she asked earnestly.

“Wal, I’ll try to collect some money from McCall, an’ vamoose oot of the country onless someone tries to stop me, which wouldn’t be so healthy for him!”

“If I promise not to betray you will you promise never to steal again?”

Texas rose to his feet, with the blood of shame again flooding his face. It receded, leaving him pale. His eyes held a piercing blue intensity.

“Martha, thet’s a big order, as you see it,” he said. “I reckon I never appreciated jest what kind of a girl you air. I’m askin’ you to overlook my love-makin’ which wasn’t so honest as I swore it was. But I’d never laid a hand on you...If you don’t squeal on me I’ll promise to go straight.”

“It’s a bargain, Texas. Here’s my hand,” she returned gravely, and held it out to him.

“Wal, I had a close shave,” he drawled with his old smile, as he pressed her hand. “Come, find yore hawse. Smoky Reed is workin’ round in thet next draw, an’ if he seen us I’d have to kill him.”

“Perhaps you had better ride home with me, or part way,” she suggested, nervously.

“Go ahaid. I’ll trail along an’ keep you in sight.”

Breathless and exultant Martha Ann ran to untie her horse, and after tightening the cinches she mounted and rode down the slope.

For once in her life she had done something worth while. One good deed, at least, might result from her mad Wyoming adventure. Martha placed reforming a wild cowboy above saving some of her uncle’s stock. And somehow she felt certain that this footloose and reckless Texan would keep his word. If he did not keep it from any innate reversion to what was right, he would because of that queer honor held by Texans in regard to women. Martha Ann was proud of herself. She could confide in Jim Fenner, at least. But she would not tell her uncle. And as for Andrew Bonning, he would not believe it even if she did confess. The thought galled her. At the same time she knew it was true — she had caught Texas Jack red-handed and she had brought the perplexing and dangerous situation to a clever and happy close.

Looking back over her shoulder she saw Texas half a mile behind, sitting sidewise in his saddle, a figure of a rider that fitted the wild environment. After she had traveled several miles further, to drop into the trail, the exuberance of her feeling wore away, and she came down out of the clouds. It astonished her a little to realize that the revelation that Texas Jack was a rustler had not destroyed her liking for him. He still seemed to be a thoroughly likable chap. She did not see any reason why she should not loiter on the trail until Texas caught up with her. Accordingly, she held her horse to a walk, which he did not like on the homeward trip; and was presently chagrined to observe that Texas also had slowed his gait to accommodate hers. He was showing consideration on her behalf, and suddenly Martha realized just what Texas meant by this holding back, when it certainly would have been so much more interesting for them to proceed down the trail together. Texas was keeping her in sight as a matter of protection, and avoiding the ride with her, because in the event that his status as a cowboy might be revealed, such association would reflect upon her good name. “Amazing! I can’t escape that even out on this uninhabited desert,” exclaimed Martha Ann disgustedly, all her old antagonism welling up. She felt here, as in everything, that she knew her own motives, her integrity, the truth about herself; and for anything else that could be thought by curious, narrow people she did not concern herself in the least.

She halted her horse, and while waiting for Texas Jack to catch up, she gazed down upon the ranch. Those gray houses appeared lost in an immensity of green. It was a lonely place. She tried to picture it with snow everywhere, white and desolate. But the thought pleased rather than otherwise. Winter would be a time to read and study and sew and learn to cook; and perhaps go home some Christmas time. Across the white-barred, green-bordered river the range spread far as the eye could see, endlessly rolling, unrelieved by a break of any kind.

A clatter of hoofs distracted the girl’s thoughts as Texas came loping up to come to a stop beside her.

“Wal, what’s it all aboot?” he asked, eying her keenly.

“I got tired loafing along alone,” she replied with a smile. “Let’s have a little run down this wide stretch.”

“Martha, I reckon you oughta be moseyin’ on by yoreself,” he drawled.

“Don’t you want to ride with me?” she demanded. “Doggone! Girls air queer...I reckon I’ll ride as far as the creek with you.”

Martha urged her horse into a canter, but when Texas’ bay lined up beside her that gait did not suit either horses or riders. They broke into a gallop and then into a run. Martha awoke to something she had heretofore never experienced — the thrill of riding at breakneck speed, the sting of the wind in her face, the blur of sage whirling past, the unexcelled joy of violent action.

The race was won by Martha, a victory no less delightful because she knew Texas had let her win, and she sat her horse breathless and tingling, with smarting skin and flying hair.

“Oh, that was glorious! I never — dared go — so fast before,” she panted.

“Wal, you don’t fork thet hawse so porely at that,” drawled the cowboy. “Shore you cain’t help lookin’ beautiful, but I’m not figgerin’ looks. Reckon you got strong laigs an’ thet’s what it takes to ride. You set a little too stiff. You wanta be easy in the saddle. Ketch the swing of yore hawse with yore body. An’ squeeze with yore knees...It wouldn’t take long fer me to make a rodeo rider oot of you.”

“Please — please do,” pleaded Martha Ann.

Texas sat up with a start and his expression of genuine pleasure vanished. “Wal, I reckon thet’ll be aboot all,” he said. “Look who’s comin’ .”

Martha whirled in her saddle, all her delight suddenly ended. Halfway across the sandy draw she saw a black horse trotting toward her. The rider was Andrew.

“It might be a good idee fer me to vamoose,” suggested Texas.

“Why?”

“Wal, if my eyes ain’t pore, Bonnin’ is seein’ red. I can always tell the way a fellar sets his saddle.”

“Suppose he is?”

“Shore it was fer yore sake, Martha,” he replied coolly. “The man doesn’t live who can scare me.”

“Stay then. Andrew Bonning has no claim on me. I can ride with whom I choose.”

Andrew blocked the narrow trail, so that they had to halt their horses or turn aside into bad going. They were at the place in the dry creek bottom where Martha had once been thrown.

“Hello, Andrew,” called Martha gaily. But her spontaneity did not ring sincere. How white his face was! And his eyes gazed upon her with a dark, scornful look of passionate conviction.

“Howdy, Bonnin’! Fine day fer ridin’,” drawled Texas, nonchalantly, as he leisurely rolled a cigarette.

Andrew did not give the cowboy so much as a glance or a nod. He fixed eyes upon Martha that suddenly she felt to be filled with accusation and with terrible disappointment. They were desperately hard to meet.

“So you’ve done it,” he spoke coldly, bitterly.

“Done what?” she demanded, a hot blush burning her cheek. His look, his query aroused the red flag of her ready anger. But there was some quality in his tone, of disillusionment, or pain, or bitter conviction, that enraged Martha more than his interference.

“You met this cowboy out on the range.”

“Certainly I did. Anyone could see that.”

“You had a date with him.”

“No, I didn’t. It was purely accident. I...But see here, Andrew, this is none of your business. I’m free, white and over eighteen I can meet whom I want to. You have no claim on me. I told Texas that.”

“You would,” he replied, darkly. “No, indeed, I haven’t any claim on you. But I happen to be the only one who dares oppose you, Martha Dixon. You ran away from your mother, father, brother — if you have them. You can easily fool these two doting old men back home — who worship you. There’s no one left but me to try to save you from making a complete fool of yourself.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks! The old stuff! Andrew Bonning, I’m not making a fool of myself!” she cried hotly.

“I hope I’m not too late,” he retorted, with a look that made Martha quail inwardly.

“Maybe you are. But it’s none of your damned business,” she burst out.

“I’ve made it my business,” he said deliberately.

“Is that so? Well, try to remember where I told you to go once before.”

“Girl, if you are absolutely shameless yourself, can’t you have some regard for your uncle?”

“Regard? You know that I love him dearly. What do you mean — regard?”

“An old-fashioned virtue in disrepute with modern girls. Honor. Something due Bligh because he has given you a home. He is a newcomer here on this range. He needs to make friends. It will not do him any good to have his niece gossipped about. To have open scandal about her rendezvous in the hills with a dissolute cowboy.”

“Andrew, you don’t know what you are talking about,” replied Martha Ann, beginning to feel her spirits flag.

“Nothing to you! Good Lord! What a cold-blooded, self centered, kick-hunting little proposition you are!”

“I’ve done — nothing that I’m ashamed of,” faltered Martha Ann.

“Could you ever feel shame?”

“Yes, I could.”

“About what? For what?”

“That a supposedly decent man like you — could make me out the — the rotten little hussy—”

“I didn’t make you out rotten,” he interrupted, a dark flush spreading over his stern, pale face. “Some other time I’ll tell you what I think about you. Suffice it now to say that you are a reckless girl who isn’t helping an uncle who is very much in need of help — as this cowboy knows!”

“Oh! And you have constituted yourself the valiant knight to rescue me?” she exclaimed satirically.

“Only today Jim Fenner said you’d make bad blood out here — and spill it, too, if you were not stopped.”

“Jim! Did Jim — say that?” gasped Martha, stung to the quick.

“Yes. And it was Jim who sent me out to look for you. I, like an idiot, thought you were riding the ranch trails.”

“I rode too far, perhaps, this time — to — to — Oh, never mind,” cried Martha tragically. “You couldn’t understand. Let me pass. I want to go home.”

“Very well, go on home. I’ll settle this with your friend here,” rejoined Andrew grimly, and dismounted to lead his horse out of the trail.

“Texas will come with me,” spoke up Martha hurriedly. She did not like Andrew’s look or the cowboy’s cool silence. She dared not leave them alone.

“Wal, Bonnin’, a lady’s word is law with me,” drawled Texas.

“Just the same you don’t go,” snapped Bonning, and seized the cowboy’s bridle.

“I’m liable to run you down. Let go them reins. Don’t you know any better than to grab—”

“Stop, Andrew,” cried Martha Ann fearfully, as the cowboy’s horse reared. “Texas will stay. So will I...But have a heart — and get it over with.”

“Texas, pile off and face me like a man, if you’re not too much of a coward,” commanded Andrew.

“Say, tenderfoot, I wouldn’t be scared of a million Easterners,” drawled Texas with a smile, and he leisurely slipped out of his saddle.

“Listen then. This reckless girl is not on the level. Do you get me? She doesn’t care a rap for you or me or for anybody. All she thinks of is getting kicks out of everything. She will vamp some poor sucker just to watch him wriggle. And believe me, cowboy, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how far she has gone with you. Do you understand?”

“I’m listenin’ powerful hard, Bonnin’, an’ I’m gettin’ mighty riled,” replied the cowboy.

“All the better. I intend to rile you, one way or another...You’re supposed to be a square shooter, Texas, at least, so they say. Everybody likes you, especially the girls. I like you myself. You’re a clean, fine good-looking cowboy. I’d sure want you for a partner, if that were possible. Well, considering all this, do you think you’re living up to your reputation — do you think it is honorable of you — and fair to this girl — to meet her way out on the lonely range?”

“No, doggone it, I don’t,” declared the Texan, as if moved by Andrew’s eloquence.

“You made love to Martha last Sunday, and before that. I saw you.”

“Bonnin’, I ask you, what in hell would any cowboy do? Or any man?”

“Dubious flattery, cowboy, if you get what I mean,” snapped Andrew. “I see that you have made quite some headway with the little lady.”

“Bonnin’, you talk too fast an’ too deep fer me,” declared Texas angrily. “Let’s get down to callin’ cyards.”

“I told Martha that you were with Smoky Reed when he shot me.”

“Hell you say! Who else did you tell?”

“I didn’t repeat that about you. But I told Sheriff Slade and the magistrate at Casper who shot me. They wanted to know if I could prove it. Well, I couldn’t. And they advised me not to make cracks about Westerners, unless I could prove them. I’m going on my own after this.”

“Ahuh. An’ what’s all this heah talk got to do with me?”

“You were with Reed. I saw you — recognized you through my field glasses. You separated, and you took the far side of the canyon. Do you imagine I thought you were hunting birds’ nests?”

The same fierce wolfish look that Texas had exhibited to Martha when he had wheeled upon her with his gun now settled on his lean face. Blue flames darted from his eyes.

“Not on your life,” went on Andrew accusingly. “You were up there for precisely the same reason as Smoky Reed.”

“Now, I wasn’t.”

“You lie, Texas. I know, I tell you. I heard you make the deal with McCall. You refused to kill cows — like Reed is doing — and you stuck to your idea of maverick branding. But that is the bunk, Texas. You know it is. You stick to your method, because in case you are held up on suspicion you can use that maverick alibi.”

“Bonnin’, cut yore talk mighty short. You’ll say somethin’ in a minnit.”

“You’re damn right I will,” cried Andrew. “You’re a rustler!”

Out leaped Texas’ blue six-shooter, to be thrust almost against Andrew’s abdomen. Martha screamed.

“You cain’t call me thet,” rasped the cowboy. “Girl, mind yore hawse, an’ keep oot of this!”

“The hell I can’t. I do call you. Rustler, damn you! What do I care for your gun? You can’t murder me in cold blood before the eyes of this girl. But I’d call you even if she weren’t here. And that’s what I mean. If you made a date with Martha Dixon — all the time when you knew that it couldn’t be honorable love-making because you are a rustler — well, you’re a disgrace to the Texas you seem so proud of, you’re a low-down yellow thief whose aim is to ruin this girl’s old uncle.”

“Bonnin’, if it wasn’t fer her I’d shoot yore laig off.”

“I don’t doubt it. And that would simply prove what you are. Why, you poor ignorant cowhand, if you had any real manhood in you you’d fight for her, instead of betraying her and her family.”

“I been comin’ to thet. But you gab so much I cain’t get a word in. Now gimme a chance. You hot-haided tenderfoot! You’re muss’n a Mexican fer bein’ jealous. All because you ketch Martha with me! How the hell do you know what come off? As a matter of fact we had no date. She ketched me redhanded Brandin’ the Double X on a calf. An’ she shore called me proper. Then she made me swear I’d never rustle another calf. An’ by Gawd, I’ll keep thet promise if it’s the last thing I ever do...Now you come along, like a baby cyclone, to insult as good an’ sweet an’ innocent a girl as ever breathed. Too innocent an’ fun-lovin’ fer you fed-up eastern highbrows. She had to run out west to get understood. An’ thet to me makes it wuss fer you than my bein’ a rustler.”

“Rot! You do it well, Texas. But too late,” snarled Andrew, his face blanched. “Drop your gun, if you’re not too much of a coward. But if you are, then I’ll have to fight you your own way. I’ve a gun on my saddle.”

“Fairest thing you’ve said yet,” replied the cowboy. Then he unbuckled his gun belt and hung it over the pommel of his saddle.

Martha Ann came out of her trance and got off her horse, almost falling, to run between the belligerents, who were now glaring at each other.

“Andrew...Texas!” she cried imploringly. “Don’t fight. It’s so — so silly of both of you. All for nothing. Please, for my sake — Andy—”

He put her firmly aside. “Get out of my way, Wyoming Mad,” he said with his bitter smile. “This is where your kick-hunting has led to. Now watch and see what I do to your cute cowboy.”

“Oh, Texas — you give in. He is hopeless. Oh, I beg of you!”

“Hell, lady, what am I up agin?” shouted Texas furiously. “Between the two of you I’m aboot nutty. I cain’t stand around an’ let him pound me the way he did Smoky.”

He, too, thrust Martha to one side, not too gently, and when she recovered her balance they had plunged at each other like two infuriated bulls. Their first onset took them completely off the trail. The distracted girl stood riveted to the spot. If she had not been tongue-tied she would have screamed for Texas to whip Andrew within an inch of his life. But she knew that he could not do it. What she dreaded was the possibility of a fight with guns after this one with fists was settled. Andrew would punish the cowboy terribly and that portended a disastrous end for the duel.

It developed that Texas was a far tougher proposition than Smoky Reed. He was as tall as Andrew, as agile and supple, almost as heavy, and what he lacked in skill he made up in ferocity. He resembled a redheaded whirlwind, swinging, striking, feinting. Many vicious blows were struck. It appeared that Andrew received almost as many as he gave. Blood flowed down both furious faces. In the midst of a lunge Andrew tripped in the sand. Texas, swinging hard, struck him alongside the head, a blow that sent Andrew flat on his back. Like a cat he leaped up just as Texas reached him, meaning to throw himself down upon him. Bonning met the charge by knocking Texas down. Nimbly the cowboy was up and at it again, bleeding, snorting, cursing. They fought all over the place, plowing up the sand.

In the end, the battle went against Texas. He could not cope with his antagonist, who appeared to release more vigor as the fight progressed. Again the cowboy went down. When he got to his feet, more slowly this time, warily countering and backing away, Andrew yelled: “Stand up and fight you range Romeo!”

“Wal, I ain’t — no dancin’ tenderfoot!” panted Texas, and suddenly he dove to catch Andrew by the legs and trip him up.

They rolled over and over in the sand. Then Martha saw where the cowboy had made a blunder. Andrew made no effort to rise again. With marvelous ease and swiftness he moved over the ground, breaking Texas’ hold, but never letting him go, battering him on head and body. Texas evidently saw his mistake and endeavored to get up, but it was too late. He was being made a toy in the hands of a giant. Martha understood it when she saw Andrew tackle the half-rising cowboy, almost to bury him in the sand. A little more of these football tactics, a few more thumping blows, and Texas lay still, while Andrew got up to brush his clothes, and wipe his bleeding face with a handkerchief.

“Come — take a look — at your rustler friend,” called Andrew gruffly.

Martha Ann left the trail, gathering strength as she went, until she reached Texas, who lay, a battered spectacle such as she had never seen.

“Help — me — sit up,” he asked faintly.

Martha Ann assisted him to gain a sitting posture, and half supported him.

“Oh, Texas, he has hurt you — terribly,” cried Martha, distressed at the sight of the sagging head. Texas’ hair and face appeared a mass of sand and blood.

“I — reckon,” whispered the cowboy.

“Fetch some water, Andrew,” commanded Martha. “Doggone! What kinda — avalanche struck — around heah?”

“Never mind, Texas. I’ll never — never forgive him,” sobbed Martha.

Andrew fetched a canteen and, unscrewing the top, poured water on his scarf, which he handed to Martha.

“Tex, you were okay — while you stayed on your feet,” said Andrew, breathing heavily. “But you shouldn’t have mixed it with me on the ground!”

Martha Ann gave him a fleeting hateful look. “You big bully!” She wiped the blood and sand off the cowboy’s face, and her action disclosed sundry bruises and a bleeding nose.

“Wal, I feel kinda shaky, but I can hold a gun. Come on, Bonnin’. Mebbe this won’t be — so easy fer you.”

Martha fell on her knees beside him. “Don’t — don’t fight with guns! That would be awful. Texas! He whipped you — but he didn’t get off easy.” Then she turned to clasp Andrew’s knees.

“Let go. Don’t do that,” cried Andrew harshly.

But she would not let go. She clung to him. “Andrew — Andrew — don’t make it any worse!...I was to blame. I — I must be just — no good. But I hated you so — for being — so — so wrong about me...For God’s sake — give in!”

Andrew gazed down upon her, his face working.

“Bonnin’,” spoke up Texas, reaching for Andrew. “If you don’t show yellow — I will.”

“That’s for me to do. I apologize...Texas, you’re a good sport. I must be the mad one...Martha, get up,” said Andrew huskily, and stooped to help her to her feet.

CHAPTER XI

SEPTEMBER CAME WITH its frosty mornings, its hot hazy days and cool nights, painting the gold and scarlet hues of autumn on the Sweetwater Range.

The willows and cottonwoods along the river stood in colorful contrast with the dark-pooled, white-rippled wandering watercourse. And tiny bits of scarlet shone like fires amid the purple monotony of the plain. Flocks of wild ducks, flying from the north, heralding an early winter, alighted on the wide, still reaches.

Since Andrew’s encounter with the rustling cowboy out in the hills, Bligh had refused to allow him to ride alone. Accordingly, Fenner accompanied Andrew on his scouting trips, of which they made several each week, sometimes camping out overnight. It did not take long for the old Arizonian to size up the situation. They never got within miles of any cowboys who were not minding their own business. As far as the Antelope Hills were concerned, the Cross Bar, Triangle X, and the Wyoming Cattlemen’s Association had set a date in early October for the fall roundup. The smaller outfits, of which Bligh’s was the smallest, necessarily had to wait for that event. McCall’s Double X cattle had ranged, or been driven two days’ ride around on the south side of the hills.

But Jim and Andrew came upon an increasing number of branding fires, many of which must have been built by perfectly honest cowmen in the pursuit of their work. It was impossible to tell anything about them. On a few occasions, however, they had happened upon cowboys burning brands. These men had complaints of their own. They were losing cows and calves, as they had always lost them, but not in numbers that warranted any procedure such as Bligh’s men were engaged in. This was the feature that made the case all but hopeless. What could two riders, one of them crippled and the other inexperienced, do in a big country where they could not find half the N.B. cattle in a month of searching? Nevertheless, up in the canyons, in the rough thickets and rocky fastnesses which they did get into, they came upon enough dead cows to make them sick and furious. These days the sky was black with buzzards and there was no choice of canyons over which the birds of prey hovered.

“Too slick fer us,” said Jim one day, as he and Andrew rode the homeward trail. “They must have a lookout with a pair of glasses. He spots us long before we get near the canyons. He tips them off an’ they ride somewhere else.”

“How much are we losing, Jim?” queried Andrew, gloomily. He used the plural pronoun unconsciously, identifying himself with Bligh and his old stockman.

“Wal, thet’s impossible to say. I hate to figger on it. But at least a few calves an’ cows a day. Cows daid an’ calves branded. Say two hundred dollars’ loss every day. An thet’s low.”

Andrew cursed through clenched teeth. Between McCall and these rustlers, Bligh would be ruined before the snow fell. There did not appear to be any redress. It was ridiculous to call on the law when Bligh’s two riders could not prove anything except the presence of dead cows.

“What’s to be done?” queried Andrew.

“Wal, if the worst comes, we’ll go to farmin’,” replied Fenner, with a sigh.

“Will you tell Bligh?”

“Let’s hold off a while yet, Andy. We might ketch this hombre Reed, an’ if we do we’ll make it so damned hot for him thet he’ll quit. An’ he’s runnin’ this two-bit rustlin’.”

“Will we hale him into court?”

“Hell, no! Thet’d do no good an jest cost the boss more money. We’ll try some old time Arizony medicine on thet hombre.”

“Jim, let’s camp out for a week, hiding all the time. Leave the ranch after dark, so they can’t spot us on the way up.”

“Not a bad idee. I’ll figger it over.”

When they rode up out of the river bottom, to pass the corrals and the barn, Jim who was ahead, reined in his mount.

“Look there, Andy,” he said, pointing toward Andrew’s cabin on the bank. “You shore ain’t makin’ any hay with Martha Ann these days!”

Andrew did not need to look, but he did. It was Sunday afternoon, and he knew what to expect. One reason why he rode on Sundays as well as on week days was to avoid seeing Martha with her admirers. On this occasion, she was evidently playing tag around his cabin with several boys. Three cars were parked in front of the ranch house. Andrew heard a shriek of gay laughter.

“Andy, damn if I wouldn’t do somethin’,” said the old Arizonian, doggedly.

“What about, Jim?”

“Wal, if I was you, I’d either fall in with this outfit of youngsters an’ play their game, or I’d bust it up.”

Andrew dismounted without a reply, and set to unsaddling his horse. For the day, at least, he had been free of the state of mind engendered by Martha Ann Dixon. It came back now. He walked slowly toward his cabin, to find the spacious front porch occupied by Martha and her friends, among whom were Nellie Glemm and her brother Tom, a girl named Bradshaw, whom he had met before, two young fellows whose faces were familiar, and Texas Jack Haynes.

“Hello, Andrew,” called Martha, waving. “We’ve been dancing and picnicking on your front porch. Hope you don’t mind!”

“Evening, Martha, and everybody. You’re quite welcome, if you don’t mind my ablutions.”

“Andrew, you’re gettin’ to be the ridin’ est cowpuncher,” said Nellie Glemm. “Any old day and Sunday, too. You’re missin’ a lot, Mister.”

“I dare say I am,” replied Andrew slowly. He was dog tired, and the bewitching, excited face of Martha, the glad light in her amber eyes, and the smile that she seemed to have for everybody but him kept smoldering in him a jealousy against which he was powerless. He removed the grime of his long hot ride, and went inside to change his shirt, while the young people kept on with their games.

Presently Martha Ann called through the doorway: “Are you presentable, cowboy? May I come in?”

“I’d hardly shock you. Come along,” he replied.

She stood framed in the doorway, a perfect picture of joyous youth and beauty. Slowly she entered, and as she did so it seemed to Andrew that she lost something of her radiance.

“Andrew, please don’t mind my taking possession of your cabin,” she said. “There are some nice old people calling on Uncle. We were being rather noisy, so I brought my company over here.”

“Why should I mind, Martha?” he asked.

“I thought — because Texas is here,” she replied hurriedly. “Nellie brought him out. I’ve seen him, of course, since — since...He seems to want to be friendly, Andrew. Will you meet him halfway?”

“For your sake?” asked Andrew quickly.

“Be yourself,” she retorted, flushing. “Not for mine — or yours. But for his.”

“Oh, I see. Still on the reform job?”

“Andrew, you’d make an angel curse,” she answered, glaring at him. “Forget it. Go out and break some more of his ribs.”

“Gosh! Did I mess him up that bad? I’m sorry.”

But Martha was hurrying out the front door, evidently on her way to the ranch house. Andrew presented himself on the porch and made himself agreeable. They were pleasant, wholesome young people, and excepting Texas, a little shy in his presence, yet obviously eager to know him better. When the supper bell rang they ran pell-mell for the house, leaving him and Texas to follow.

“Jack, I hope you didn’t come out to hold me to my word,” said Andrew with a smile.

“What aboot?”

“That gun fight we damned near had.”

“Aw, I thought better of thet, Bonnin’,” drawled Texas. “It’d been oot an’ oot murder. I’d had to beat it, leavin’ Martha with a wuss name than she’s already got.

“Very considerate of you, cowboy,” replied Andrew coldly.

“Not at all. An’ don’t git sore. These range folks have nothin’ to do but talk aboot each other. An’ the women don’t savvy Martha. Why, I heahed they reckoned she was thick with Smoky Reed, an’ thet was why you licked him.”

“It wasn’t. But that’s just as well,” said Andrew curtly.

“Wal, I don’t know. If this panther-eyed kid would behave herself I reckon thet turrible beatin’ you gave Smoky would keep other fellars kinda shy. But Martha does the damnedest things anyone ever heahed of.”

“What has she done now?” asked Andrew with a groan.

“Wal, it do beat hell. What do you call them night duds girls wear nowadays? Paji-bers, or somethin’ like.”

“Pajamas. Eastern girls wear them during the day now. They’re all the rage for the seashore or for lounging about. Bright colors, very pretty, and modest, too, believe me, compared to former styles.”

“Ahuh. Wal, I don’t give a damn aboot thet. This heah is Wyomin’ . An’ when Martha rode Jem Hart’s pinto down Main Street the other day when it was crowded in them flimsy paja-mas — wal, no circus could have beat thet.”

“Good Lord!” gasped Andrew.

“She didn’t even know Jem. Piled on to his hawse in front of the Glemm’s, an’ jest rode off. She damn near got throwed, too. Thet was what jarred me. I gave Martha fits aboot it, called her good an’ plenty. She swore she meant to ride oot of town, instead of down Main Street. You know Glemm’s is at the end of town. But the blasted pinto run off with her.”

“How on earth did she come to wear pajamas?” asked Andrew, helplessly.

“Wal, the Glemms had a party an’ Martha stayed there all night. They slept late next mawnin’ an’ when the girls got up, then it happened. The wust of it, for Martha anyhow, was when Jem Hart reckoned thet stunt entitled him to get free with Martha.”

“Get free? My God! — What the devil did she do?”

“I didn’t see it, wuss luck. But the girls told me thet she slapped Jem so hard he lost his hat. Later I called Jem all I could think of, which was wrong of me, seem’ we was in a crowded drug store. ‘Cause he yelped murder. He’d had a couple of sodas with a kick in them. ‘Ahuh, I’m on to you, Tex. Want to hawg all the pettin’ to yoreself!’...Wal, course I socked him one. He busted a showcase, which cost me fifty bucks. An’ now Jem, same as Smoky, is hell-rattlin’ agin me an’ Martha.”

“It can’t be helped,” said Andrew, as if to himself.

“Nope. I reckon it cain’t till some hombre kidnaps thet kid, breaks her an’ marries her. An’ even then I ain’t so damned shore.”

“Original idea, to say the least,” laughed Andrew. “Speaking of breaking — Martha hinted I’d broken a rib for you, Texas. I hope that isn’t true.”

“It shore was. Busted two ribs. I was laid up fer a week. Doggone, I don’t savvy why I ain’t gunnin’ fer you, Bonnin’. Thet girl has worked a turrible change in me. I kinda like you, dammit.”

“Texas, that girl, as you call her, plays hell with all men.”

“Shore, but only ‘cause she’s so infernal sweet. Them eyes! My Gawd, did she ever look at you when she was mad? Thet’s wuss fer me than when she’s jest full of the old Nick...Bonnin’, you oughta know you cain’t touch thet kid with a ten-foot pole.”

“I don’t know about that,” replied Bonning shortly. “Texas, I like you, too, in spite of myself. But please don’t try to kid me.”

Texas threw up his hands. “Wal, they’re yellin’ fer us to come an’ get it,” he drawled. “Let’s eat even if we air in love.”

Something about the cowboy’s frank and open friendliness shamed Andrew. His first, almost irresistible impulse had been to rush off, forgo his supper, and as he had done many times before, sulk moodily on his porch or out under the stars. But for once he was able to overcome his moodiness and went in to supper. With Texas’ example before him, he drove himself to a gaiety and spontaneity of which he had never believed himself capable. His unusual attitude drew from Martha Ann a look of amazement, and then of grateful and pleased attention. Her obvious pleasure spurred Andrew on. After supper he invited them all over to his cabin, and as the night was cool he started a roaring fire in the big open fireplace, around which the company sat in a circle with no other light save the ruddy blaze. They popped corn, and passed from merry badinage to storytelling.

It may not have added to Andrew’s enjoyment that when his turn came he was well aware of Texas’ close proximity to Martha Ann, and that the cowboy had his arm round her in the shadow. But so well did Bonning have his emotions under control that he did not even appear to notice.

He told a story of a famous football game, during which in reality he had sat on the side lines, but which he now related as if he had actually participated. The bitterness of the memory of his failure in college coupled with a prescience of a deeper failure here in the West lent his tale a vital and compelling interest which held his little audience spellbound. Once, at least, he was aware that he was holding the interest of the amber-eyed girl from Chicago.

“Doggone!” ejaculated Texas, the only one to break the silence. “Now I savvy why Bonnin’ is like a mud turtle full of chain lightnin’ .”

Only Martha failed to join in the laugh that followed Texas’ remark, as her thoughtful eyes were fixed upon the narrator.

Another week went by. Andrew rode the range four days, spent one day in town, and the weekend at the ranch. Looking backward on that Sunday night after the young people had gone, it seemed the hardest week of all since his arrival in Wyoming. The longest, fiercest riding had piled evidence upon evidence without the necessary proofs. In town there had been rumors that he was an upstart Easterner bent upon undermining the good name of certain Wyoming cowmen. Might seemed to be right on that range. Bligh could not pay his bills and Andrew was faced with the problem of a definite decision as to his future action.

On this late Sunday night as he sat smoking before the dying embers of his fire, and watched them glow and fade, two indisputable facts stood out from that eventful day and night in town, and the previous unforgettable weekend at the ranch. Both had to do with Martha Ann. The whole world seemed to revolve around her now.

He realized beyond further doubt that he was caught in the toils of her charm for better or worse, surely the latter. He had watched her for hours on end, when she had not even been aware of his presence. She had improved during her sojourn in Wyoming. Her face now had a clear golden glow, her eyes a wondrous luster, her cheeks a wild-rose flush, her lips an alluring sweetness. But her physical loveliness was only a small part of her charm. It was intangible, impossible to define. He thought of her smile, of her whimsical laugh, of her quaint gestures, and the little graces peculiar only to her. He thought of her sincere interest in all her uncle’s troubles; and her voice, her words, the touch of her hands. He thought of her friendliness. He could not deny the evidence of his eyes and ears. She liked everybody. People, just so long as they did not oppose or criticize her, were tremendously interesting to her. Martha Ann gave unstintingly of her time, her self, her friendliness, her liking to anybody who happened along. She could not go on an errand in town, to the post office, anywhere, without scraping acquaintance with someone. She was attracted by anything and everybody that she saw. She was quick to take the side of anyone maligned, especially if that person was not present.

This gracious side of Martha Ann proved itself to Andrew without her knowledge. But when she knew that he was present, then it seemed that she went out of her way to show the other side of her nature. If possible, she added something to the coquetry with which she had subjugated the youth back at the hotel in Nebraska. At the last dance in town she had been the gayest, wildest creature of a madcap group of girls whom she had inspired. She had verged dangerously close upon the immodest. He had been the miserable witness of her gay, roguish, seductive and resisting struggle with Texas, during which, in the end, she had been soundly kissed on cheek and neck. She ran to be pursued. She denied only to be more desired. She played a game, with that side of her nature, which to Andrew could have only one interpretation.

And it was beginning to interfere with Andrew’s work, peace of mind, happiness, hope for the future and his waking and sleeping hours. This he confessed to the dying embers of his fire, as the autumn wind moaned under the eaves of his cabin. It did not make any difference what Martha Dixon was, how many good and bad sides she had, what she did — he was lost, his future as well as his past. His failures in the East had only been stepping-stones, but a failure here would be the end of Andrew Bonning. And without Martha Ann, life would not be worth living. That was the decision he made during his lonely vigil that cold, windy autumn night.

The next day Jim took Andrew off on a long ride to the headwaters of a creek, where in deep, dark pools under golden-leaved trees they fished for trout. Fishing was a passion with the old Arizonian, all the more so because of the little opportunity to indulge in it. They found few signs of N.B. cattle, but they had a day that gave the younger man a chance to forget his troubles. The streams, the silence of the lonely hills, the hard ride and the hard fare, the contact with nature that had awakened in him an endurance he had never suspected — these all contributed to a peace of mind which he had not felt for days.

On the way home Jim Fenner rode beside Andrew a long while in silence.

“Son, what’s most important jest now?” he queried, at last.

“With whom?”

“Wal, with Bligh, me an’ Sue, an’ you?”

“I hardly know, Jim. The cattle problem, I should say, because it’s our living.”

“No, it’s thet girl.”

“Girl!” echoed Andrew in surprise.

“Shore. Martha. She’s upset us plumb bad. Thet ain’t nothin’ agin Martha. She’s jest like a young filly, feelin’ her oats. I reckon Gawd Almighty is to blame fer it. It gits me, Andy. You know what the Bible says about a woman: ‘Turrible as an army approachin’ with banners!’...Wal, it is plumb so. I can remember the feelin’s I had when I courted Sue over forty years ago. She was only eighteen. An’ had a flock of beaus...But to git back to Martha—”

“What are you driving at?” demanded Andrew gruffly.

“Wal, I want to give you a hunch.”

“Thanks, old-timer. But judging what it might be from your eloquent preamble, I don’t believe I want it.”

“Son, thet girl really cares fer you,” replied Fenner imperturbably.

“What girl?”

“Martha Ann!”

“Nonsense!”

“She does. I’m shore of it.”

“You’re loco.”

“She watches you when you don’t know it. I’ve seen her. Sue’s seen her. We’ve seen her turn away from the window with the wistfulest look in her eyes.”

“Yes. She’s got the eyes, old-timer,” interposed Andrew. “They’d fool any man, even more — er — an old jackass of a romancer like you.”

“All right. I ain’t tellin’ you any more thet I seen. But take my hunch. She cares for you some way or other.”

“You’re crazy as a hyena. She hates me because I saw through her from the very first. Because I wouldn’t fall for her.”

“You was an idgit fer not fallin’. You had a chance to win thet girl. You have one yet, if you don’t stay bull haided. What do you care how many fellers air after her — or what she’s let them do?”

“What do I care?” repeated Andrew thoughtfully.

“She’s wuth carin’ fer, an’ she needs carin’ fer,” replied Jim. “If you was half the man I thought you was, you’d take the bull by the horns, an’ when you get back to the ranch tonight, you’d go right up to her and tell her how you feel.”

It was dark when they reached the ranch. Andrew built a fire on his hearth before he washed up for supper. Then as a man plunging toward a precipice, he made for the house. Jim was eating alone in the kitchen, waited upon by Sue. Andrew did not do justice to the good supper, and did not respond to Jim’s or Sue’s efforts at conversation. Just when he was ready to rise from the table, Martha’s fresh, young voice could be heard singing in another room, and Jim kicked him in the leg. Andrew got up, stamped out, and going round to Martha’s door, he rapped.

“That you, Uncle?” she replied.

“No.”

“Jim?”

“No.”

“Oh, it’s Texas,” cried a tantalizing, laughing voice. “Come in.”

“It’s Andrew.”

“Excuse me. What do you want?”

“You.”

“Indeed. How amazing!”

“Come out here,” ordered Andrew.

After an interval the door opened, sending a broad beam of lamplight into the darkness, and exposing Martha, dressed in a pair of brightly flowered pajamas.

“Where are you?” she called.

“Shut the door.”

She did so, leaving the step in darkness.

“Say, who was your personal slave this time last—”

He cut her short with one of his swift moves. As he caught her up in his arms, she cried out in protest. He set out for his cabin, carrying her as if she were an infant in his arms.

“Oh-h! Andrew! Put me down!”

He gazed down at the disheveled head in the crook of his elbow, at the big staring eyes, black in the starlight.

“Let me go!” she cried, suddenly beginning to struggle frantically. But when he tightened his arms about her she could scarcely move. Suddenly she ceased and relaxed, limp as an empty sack. “Andrew — what do — you mean?” she faltered.

He made no reply and when he looked down at her again her eyelids hid her eyes. He felt her warm body quivering in his arms. The softness of her, the warmth and fragrance, the appalling sweetness of her worked upon him so powerfully that when he entered, his cabin, he dropped his burden on his bunk, and breathing heavily, backed away.

She lay there while he went to the grate to kick the smoldering sticks and put on some fresh ones. After a moment he got his breath back. The blaze brightened, lighting up the room. Martha sat up in a daze, her face white, her eyes large and strange in the firelight.

“Andrew!...What in the world has got into you? What are you doing with me?”

He stepped over to look down upon her.

“What do you think?” he demanded, leaning down. “You look so — so terrible...I know I deserve...but you wouldn’t—”

“No, I wouldn’t — whatever it is you fear,” he interrupted her. “I suppose you think I might treat you as you deserve. I wish to God I were beast enough to maul you good and plenty. To teach you that at last you had fallen into the hands of one guy who wasn’t nothing but wax in your hands!...But I’m not. I’m—”

Then he stopped, unable to continue. The sight of her white, frightened face robbed him of his anger; checked him with the sudden thought that he might have completely misjudged this girl. He stepped back to the fire, kicked the sticks again, then paced to and fro with long, nervous strides, until he had recovered the stern purpose which had driven him to fetch her to his cabin.

“Martha, will you marry me?” he asked.

“Marry you?” she repeated incredulously, staring at him as if she were dreaming.

“Yes. That is why I so unceremoniously packed you over here...to ask you to be my wife!”

“Your — wife!” She seemed to undergo a sudden transformation. “Why are you asking me to — to — ?”

“I don’t blame you for asking that question. It does seem absurd, after my attitude toward you...but listen, Martha. I have just lately found myself. I think I must have fallen in love with you that very first night on the road, when I rescued you from the tramps. But I didn’t know it. All I thought I knew was what a beautiful, unforgettable, wayward child you were. And because I had been hurt back east, by my own people, by life, by a woman I fancied I loved, I was intolerant and suspicious of your hitchhiking. And out here that feeling increased all the time, while I have grown so jealous that I was about ready to commit murder. While you were slaying these cowboys with your eyes — and your wiles — well, I fell too. And I have fallen for good and all, Martha. My rudeness to you, my indifference, have been simply because I was so desperately hurt by your flirtations that I could not be myself. Jealousy is a terrible thing. But it brought me to a realization of what was wrong. I have known for some time, dear, that I loved you. And it has taken such possession of me that I can think of nothing but that I adore you, I know now what a wonderful person you really are, and I want to marry you.”

“Andrew Bonning! You love me like that?” she whispered.

“Yes, But words are futile. Won’t you marry me, my darling?...Let me prove—”

She moved as if to lift her arms up to him. But then something like a sudden shadow chased the glory from her eyes. Andrew felt all love and hope and bliss trembling in the balance. He saw the quickening of intelligence over emotion — the cold reasoning that inhibited her.

“You ask me to marry you, believing me a hitchhiking, wild girl, tramping the roads in order to meet men — to have adventures — to get kicks?” she queried, low and tense, her anger gathering like a sudden summer storm.

“Please don’t think of that any more,” entreated Andrew hastily, feeling the ground slip from under him. “Forget what I thought. I will forget it, too.”

“Never. And if you are on the level, Andrew Bonning, you will tell me the truth. No man could change so completely or so suddenly.”

“I would not lie to you,” he said.

“You had nothing but contempt for that hitchhiking venture of mine, didn’t you?” she demanded passionately.

“Yes.”

“You believed I made it only to get out alone — away from home — from parents and friends — out where I could answer to some wild instinct to be free, to meet strange boys and men — who would never see me again and with whom I could be natural — to flirt, to get a kick out of life, and all the rest of the modern stuff you hate so strangely?”

“Yes, I am afraid I did,” he replied, huskily.

“You think it still?”

“Martha, there has not been anything to change it.”

“You thought I was a liar, a cheat, a rotten little hussy?”

“Not the last, Martha, I swear it. Just a crazy unthinking kid. You don’t know yourself. You’ve two sides, dear.”

“Don’t hedge, Andrew...I know what you thought. You made it perfectly plain to me. But I’m going to make you confess it...to face me with it. You believed me just no good, didn’t you?”

“On the contrary I believed there was a great deal of good in you,” he parried.

“Well, then — a bad girl?”

“Hardly bad. Wayward, perhaps heedless—”

“I know what you thought then, and what you think still,” she interrupted, rising with white face from the bunk.

Andrew reached for her hands, but she put them behind her back.

“You’re making it damned hard,” he said. “Since you force me — I confess that I thought you had been pretty wild — and yet I hoped you hadn’t. You’ll have to allow for the thoughts of a man who had been an idler and a failure, which I was when you met me first, an Easterner, fresh from the disillusionment of my sister and my fiancée, who have a free and easy view on life. That side of me took you for the necking, lap-sitting type. But deep in me, at variance with all I had known and experienced, there was a conflicting still small voice, weak enough and pitiful, God knows, that tried to convince me that you were the innocent and gallant girl I love.”

“Andrew Bonning, I — I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth,” she blazed.

“If you really mean that, then you might have said so at once and spared me this.”

“Did you ever spare me? Have you ever spared me any of your scorn and contempt?” she demanded, standing closer to him, with white, angry face uplifted to meet his gaze. “Andrew Bonning, I ran away from home to escape the very things of which you have accused me. I had been driven to sheer disgust by young men who wanted me, by marriage or otherwise. And college men like you had fed me up so sickeningly on love — their kind of love. What did they care for my fears, my needs?...So I ran away. Do you imagine if I had wanted that kind of kick, I would have had to hitchhike the highways with farmer boys, garage mechanics, traveling men, tourists and what not? No, I wanted to get away from all such rottenness, and with one single exception, I did escape it. I liked most all the boys and men who gave me lifts. I liked you, first off, until you froze me with your damned superiority. And that night at the hotel I flirted with a perfectly nice boy just to show you, to play up to your idea of me. To satisfy your morbid distrust of modern girls! And out here I have done that — and more — and worse, for the same and identical reason. Do you imagine I had no pride? I would have died before letting you see my shame, my humiliation. I let those boys hold my hand and clasp my waist — I even let Texas Jack kiss me — I endured contacts repugnant to me for no reason but to foster your vile suspicions. Did I get a kick out of that? I’ll say I did! But you would never have known if you had not proposed to me tonight. Your offer of marriage squares you with me. It is the best any man can do for a woman. I suspect that you hoped, perhaps, to reform me. But there is nothing to reform, as you shall see from now on. I thank you, Andrew, but I must decline the honor.”

“Martha! You’re being rather hard on me! How could I...don’t go! Please!”

“No!” she almost screamed, running across the floor. “You must care a little — or you—”

“No!” she cried from the doorway.

“Darling!” he beseeched.

“No!” came mockingly from the blackness outside. She was gone. Andrew sank down on the bunk she had so shortly vacated. The lovely scent of her still was in the room. The wind moaned under the eaves. The dead leaves on the cottonwood rustled on the roof. And the shadows deepened in the cabin. A familiar specter stalked out of the gloom. It was the stark, gaunt, ghost of another failure. Only this time it was life itself that had failed him.

CHAPTER XII

WITH THE COMING of morning, after a few hours of sleep, the new savage spirit that had been lately born in Andrew reasserted itself. This spirit was based on pride. He had humbled himself to tell Martha of his love for her. Now he would put that love forever aside and he would give himself wholly to saving the fortunes of Bligh.

In order to forget he had to have ceaseless, exhausting action in the open, privation to undergo and problems to solve, something to fight physically and alone. With horse and meager fare, Andrew took to the hills.

Boldly he rode into cow camps at the eastern end of the hills where no N.B. stock had yet ranged, and made known his errand.

“You ridin’ fer this newcomer, Bligh?” asked an old cattleman.

“Yes.”

“I don’t see no runnin’ iron on your saddle.

“We haven’t branded a calf this summer.”

“How come?”

“My partner is a cripple and I’m a tenderfoot. There are riders who get to our stock first.”

“Ahuh. I see you air packin’ guns,” returned the other, with a speculative glint in his eye, taking Andrew in from head to foot.

“Yes. And if I catch any cowman burning brands on Bligh’s cattle, I’m going to use a gun.”

“You the feller who licked Cal Brice an’ his outfit at the rodeo?”

“I’m that fellow.”

“Is it true that you blamed Reed fer shootin’ at you an’ licked him fer thet?”

“It is. And here’s his trademark on my scalp,” returned Andrew, exposing the long red welt.

“Close shave, youngster. What makes you think Reed shot you?”

“I don’t think it. I know.”

“Wal, thet’s short an’ sweet. Git down an’ come in. Grub is aboot cooked.”

Half a dozen cowboys stood and sat around the campfire. A chuck wagon stood nearby. Horses grazed along the grassy flat.

“Boys, this hyar is Bligh’s one rider — no old-timer as you can see,” announced the cattleman. “Wyomin’ hasn’t done so well by him, an’ some of us ought to be ashamed. He’s the feller who busted Cal Brice’s outfit, Partic’lar sore at Smoky Reed fer shootin’ at him. He’s lookin’ fer Smoky or any other rider who’s appropriatin’ N.B. cattle.”

They were civil, but not friendly. Andrew ate with them, and absorbed considerable from this first contact with a range outfit. The older man evidently was the boss, and owner of the K Bar stock.

“Thanks. I’ll be rolling along,” said Andrew, when he had finished his meal.

“Packin’ light,” said his host. “You’re welcome to a bed with us.”

“No, thank you. I’ll be hittin’ the hay out here some place,” replied Andrew as he mounted.

“Hope you don’t mind me bein’ curious?”

“Not at all.”

“Is your crippled pardner a cowman?”

“Old-timer from Arizona.”

“Wal, he’ll learn the ropes hyar pronto. An’ what you want to learn, youngster, is not to take this cattle stealin’ too much to heart. So long as the range ain’t fenced there’ll be some stock missin’. All the cattlemen have the same thing to deal with. An’ they just don’t notice it.”

“But in Bligh’s case it can’t be overlooked. He’s a poor man. He had only a small herd to begin with, and because he can’t afford enough cowboys to watch the stock these rustlers are taking advantage of it.”

“Thet’s different. Tell Bligh to throw in with some other cattleman.”

“He can’t because he made a deal of that nature with McCall. Then he changed his mind, which made McCall sore. He’s taking the case to court.”

“McCall? Runs the Double X. Wal, if I was Bligh, I’d buy or trade off.”

“I’ll tell him. So long.”

Several of the cowboys waved. When Andrew had ridden a short distance, one of them called after him. “Work the big draws on the south.”

That seemed like a reasonable and friendly gesture. Andrew rode on until sunset overtook him. Then he made camp beside a rocky stream. For half the night he was awake, alternately freezing and replenishing his fire. The still cold, the lonely hills, the white, watching stars calmed his spirit, but were not conducive to sleep. Next day, from daylight until dark, he rode the slopes and draws with which he and Jim had become familiar. The third day took him to the south side of the hills where cattle were more numerous. He saw several riders in the distance but did not come up with them. Late in the day while sitting beside his little campfire he heard the thud of hoofs. Soon a horseman rode up. It was Jim Fenner.

“Howdy, Andrew,” he said, as he laboriously dismounted. “Been trackin’ you since noon.”

“Anything wrong at the ranch?” asked Andrew quickly.

“No more’n usual. Bligh jest mopes around. Martha moons on yore porch. An’ Sue keeps agoin’...Run across anythin’?”

“I met the K Bar outfit. The boss was pretty decent,” replied Andrew, and related the circumstance of their meeting.

“Wal, he’s right. I tell you, Andy, nobody can see our side of it. We’re jest too small potatoes.”

“So I’ve gathered lately. Jim, if I’m ever to be a rancher, is this good training?”

“Best in the world, son. But how’n hell you’ll ever make a rancher by stickin’ to Bligh, I can’t see. We’re gonna be awful pore pronto.”

Andrew bent over the fire to rake the red embers. “Jim, I had it out with Martha. I packed her over to my cabin and asked her to marry me. She gave me the damnedest lacing any fellow ever got.”

“What fer?”

“For once believing she was no good.”

“Wal, you desarved thet,” replied the Arizonian bluntly.

“So it appears,” rejoined Andrew. “She declined the honor.”

“Ahuh. Wal, she’s crazy about you jest the same.”

“You crazy old fool!” burst out Andrew derisively. “Shore. I’m old, anyhow. An’ I feel it tonight...Say, would you like some dried beef broiled over them coals, some biscuits an’ coffee an’ a piece of cake?”

“Jim, my spirit cries ‘No!’ But my flesh is awful weak.”

“Wal, it’s a way of the flesh. When I seen you hadn’t fetched any camp tools I reckoned I’d better hit yore trail.”

“How did you find it out?”

“I didn’t. Martha did thet. An’ she told me.”

“Yeah?...What’d she say?”

“Wal, she says, ‘Andrew has run away empty-handed from home just to get a kick and because he likes to sulk. I hope he starves to death!’”

“Kindly little soul!” said Andrew with a mirthless laugh. Yet his sore heart warmed even to the sarcastic remembrance. She, too, had been terribly hurt.

“But Martha wrapped up the cake. Andy, I’ve discovered something pretty damned cute about thet kid.”

“Only something?” scoffed Andrew.

“Her bark is wuss than her bite...Wal, let’s eat. Kick up yore fire. An’ fetch some water while I open this pack.”

A cheery crackling blaze, a hot meal and a companion drove away Andrew’s melancholy thoughts. Fenner, however, did not appear to be in a talkative mood, and soon after the chores were finished he spread his blanket in the thick grass and rolled up in it without even removing his boots. Andrew paced to and fro under the stars. He was not ready yet to talk to Jim and Bligh about a new ranching venture, but he had pretty well made up his mind that he would make them a proposition sooner or later.

Clouds drifted over the sky, and an unusual mildness in the night air presaged a change of weather. The range needed rain. Many of the valleys that ran up into the hills were as dry as bone dust. Cattle had begun to work down toward the river, along which they would range during the winter.

A fine misty rain set in, sending Andrew back to camp. He dragged saddle, blankets and slicker under a thick bushy cedar, and made his bed there. The coyotes were unusually noisy. He lay snug in his covert and listened. The damp wind blew under the cedar across his face, and drops of rain filtered through and pattered down on him. The thin, high cadence of the insects seemed to carry a knell of passing autumn. The snow would soon sweep down this draw and winds would howl through the cedars.

Andrew got snatches of slumber during the night, and happened to be asleep when dawn broke. Jim called him. The morning was raw, dull and cloudy, with a light rain still falling.

“Rustle a fire, son, while I fetch in the hosses,” said Jim. “You can strip a lot of bark from under the dry side of the cedars. Never hard to build fires in cedar country. I reckon a cedar is the range man’s favorite tree, leastways in high country.”

They rode out of the protected draw into the teeth of wind and sleet that were disagreeable to face. The range looked dreary and gray. For ten miles along the south slope cattle were few and far between. They worked two draws together, and then coming to a wide valley they separated, Andrew riding across to the east side. This evidently must be one of the big draws the K Bar cowboy had told him to investigate. It was unfamiliar to him, being farther to the east than he had ridden until this time, Grass was good in patches, water was running down the gulch, and there was a plentiful sprinkling of cattle of various brands. The N.B. mark appeared conspicuous by its absence.

Andrew rode through cedar groves and thickets of oak, across grassy parks and over rocky areas, up to where the valley narrowed to a canyon box, and travel became rough. He turned back presently and took to Jim’s side. Farther down he met a considerable movement of cattle that evidently had been run that day. Fringes of thickets alternated with meadows. Andrew saw some steers running, and then he heard a distant shout. He galloped across a flat and worked through a wooded stretch to emerge into a small park. His quick eye spotted riderless horses, and then two men on foot, close together in a proximity that excited his suspicions. A thin column of smoke rising near the men confirmed Andrew’s surmise. At last Jim had rounded up Reed or one of his thieving partners.

They were just outside the rocky timbered cape that jutted out from the north slope. Andrew soon reached them and leaped off his horse. Jim was holding a gun on a man who stood with his hands above his head. Near the smoking fire lay a bound calf, still panting desperately. The rustler had evidently been disturbed in the initial part of his branding procedure, for only one mark was visible upon the red hide of the calf.

“Andy, there was two of them,” said Jim. “The other was ridin’ a calf down when I busted out of the brush. He rode off...Take this fellar’s gun.”

Andrew located the butt of a weapon protruding from under the man’s belt. It had been hidden by his coat.

“Cut thet calf loose, an’ tie this hombre’s hands behind his back,” ordered Jim.

This order Andrew performed under pressure of excitement that made him clumsy, but he got the job done speedily.

“Rustler, walk ahead of me,” curtly commanded Fenner. “I’m gonna introduce you to an old-time Arizony way of treatin’ cattle thieves.”

Andrew followed them, leading his horse, considerably disturbed by Jim’s threat. The Arizonian had a flinty look. He kept punching his gun into the back of the rustler who shrank visibly at each thrust. Jim halted under the largest tree along that wall of timber.

“Bonnin’, take yore rope off yore saddle, drop the noose over this gent’s head, an’ toss the other end over thet branch there.”

“My God! Are you going to hang him?” cried Andrew incredulously.

“Shore I am. Rustle now.”

“But Jim! You can’t be serious...Give the poor devil a good hiding, then let him go.”

“Ahuh. To go right back stealin’ our stock? Not much! There’s two daid cows of ours in thet brush. I seen one, an’ I heerd two shots. I’m gonna put a stop to this rustlin’ once and fer all.”

“To hang him!...Jim, that’s taking the law into our own hands! We’d go up for manslaughter, if not murder. But even if we could get away with it — I couldn’t be a party to such — such—”

“You blasted tenderfoot!” yelled Fenner, so fiercely that Andrew stood shocked. “Pitch me yore rope.”

Andrew made haste to comply. The man turned deathly pale. He was not young. His haggard face had a bluish cast under the paling skin. He had thin, tobacco-stained lips, a beaked nose, and hard, glinting eyes. Jim made him turn his back, and sheathing the gun, in a twinkling he had done what he had ordered Andrew to do. Then he strode round in front of the rustler and picking up the end of the rope he hauled it taut over the branch.

“If you want to talk, do it pronto,” shouted Fenner in a threatening voice.

“I’m a poor man,” replied the rustler hoarsely. “Been driven to steal. An’ my cattle gets stole, too. Stringin’ me up fer—”

“Who’s backin’ you?”

“Backin’ me? Nobody. What d’ye mean?”

“You been hired to rustle?”

“No, sir. I won’t hide behind thet. I done my—”

“You lyin’ hombre! Up you go!”

Fenner hauled on the lasso. The man let out a strangled cry. His head stretched with the knot of the noose biting into his leathery neck. When he had been drawn up until his toes just supported his body Fenner held him there a moment, then slowly relaxed the rope. The man sagged back flat-footed, his mouth gaping, his eyes starting from their sockets.

“How’d you like thet?” demanded Jim.

“Fer — Gawd’s — sake!” gasped the rustler. “Let me — off—”

“Who hired you to do this dirty work?”

“Nobody. I — mean—”

“Wal, mebbe I can help you remember,” interrupted the Arizonian, and with a heave he drew the man higher still, until his shaking limbs appeared to stretch. Jim held him in that position until the man’s tongue stuck out, his eyes rolled until only the whites showed and his face turned purple.

“Jim, let him down!” yelled Andrew frantically, charging in to snatch the rope from Fenner’s hands. Andrew again let Jim’s victim down. He fell to the ground, and was choking when Andrew tore the noose free. The hissing intake of his breath assured Andrew that the man still was able to breathe.

“Spoiled my necktie party,” growled Fenner.

“You bloodthirsty Arizonian!” cried Andrew, almost beside himself. “I’ve a mind to bat you a couple.”

The rustler sat up, sweating freely, and rubbing his neck with unsteady hands. Color began to creep back into his ghastly face.

“Boss,” he said huskily, “you’re on the wrong scent. Nobody’s hirin’ me. I been stealin’ a few calves on my own hook. My name’s Hall Pickens.”

“Where you live?”

“My homestead is about twenty miles east, in Spring Canyon.”

“You a homesteader?”

“Yes. Been hyar four years. Jest proved up on my property.”

“You married?”

“Sure. An’ got two kids. I’ve had a tough row to hoe.”

“You swear nobody hired you?”

“I’m tellin’ you honest.”

“Who was the rider with you?”

“I ain’t tellin’,” replied Pickens.

“Happen to know a cowpuncher named Smoky Reed?”

“Don’t recall thet name.”

“All right. I could put you in jail fer this day’s work. But if you’ll agree to lay off N.B. stock from now on, I’ll let you off.”

“I’ll agree to anythin’,” returned Pickens gratefully.

“My name’s Fenner. An’ this is Andy Bonnin’. We ride fer Nick Bligh. He runs the N.B. Have you seen many cattle wearin’ thet brand?”

“Good many steers, but mighty few cows.”

“Have you been wise to another outfit workin’ this cow-killin’ game?”

“I been suspicious of some fellers from the Platte River country.”

“Humph! None from the Sweetwater?”

“No. Course I know the Cross Bar an’ the Wyomin’ outfits across the Hills.”

“Andy, toss his gun out there in the grass...Pickens, you beat it. An’ take a hunch from an old-timer. Fer the sake of yore wife an’ kids quit the cow-killin’ game.”

The homesteader hastened to snatch up his gun and run for his horse. He was soon out of sight.

“You didn’t really mean to hang him?” queried Andrew.

“No. I wanted to throw a scare into him an’ make him confess he was ridin’ fer McCall. But we was barkin’ up the wrong tree.”

“You had me scared stiff.”

“Wal, I’ve seen many a rustler kick at the air, Andy...I felt kinda sorry fer this hombre. Pore as Job’s turkey. Did you see his feet? Had a boot on one an’ a shoe on the other, both full of holes.”

“He looked pretty seedy.”

“Reckon you an’ me will be scarecrows, too, like him, before long...Andy, let’s go home.”

“Home!” echoed Andrew, startled.

“Shore. It ain’t sense fer us to waste no more time hopin’ to ketch Smoky Reed in the act. Probably he’s quit fer a spell. Anyway they got about all of our young stock, that’s a shore bet.”

“When will we know for certain what we have left?”

“After the roundup.”

“I hate to quit, Jim.”

“We ain’t quittin’. We’re gonna tackle this game from some other angle. An’ I’m damned if I can figger what.”

“Okay. Back to the ranch,” cried Andrew.

In a sense it seemed to him that Jim’s ultimatum was a surrendering to evil forces which they were not strong enough to combat. He gave in only to experience and wisdom. After four hard days and nights with little to eat and no shelter, and the long ride in the face of rain and sleet, wet to the skin, Andrew could not help conjuring up supper at Sue’s table, and the comfort of his own open fireplace. Taken all together, his labors at the ranch and his rides in the open during these months had pretty well acquainted him with the life of a cowman. The never-finished manual tasks, the sun and wind and dust, the long rides when the saddle burned, the hours of loneliness, the cold nights sleeping out and the sting of sleet in his face — these physical tests had been welcomed by Andrew, and met, he believed, without discredit to himself. He found in them absolute refuge from the complexes that had tormented him back in the East.

When he rode out of the canyon after Jim, with the hard ice-bitted wind at his back, he hugged something glad and strengthening to his heart. He would make good in the West.

The moment Andrew faced ranchward it all flooded back — the love he had determined to forget — only more tumultuous and demanding after these four harsh days of oblivion. If he had been alone he would have thrown back his head to laugh his scorn to the winds. If the mere thought of seeing Martha again could make his blood surge so madly, how desperately he must love the girl! Just at the thought of seeing her! How could he ever put such a love behind him?

Andrew rode for a long time with his head down, insensible to the wet and the cold. And as he rode home he no longer doubted the strength and depth of his love for Martha Ann Dixon. How tragic that the realization had come too late, that she would never be able to forgive or forget his first mistaken estimate of her character. He was paying for that jealousy-inspired conclusion now — and would continue to pay. Yet Andrew was grateful to the fate that had sent him to Wyoming, though he railed at the bitter thought of finding his salvation in exultant, all-satisfying toil of body only to lose it in the scorn of the girl he loved.

Down off the high slopes Andrew and Jim rode into clearing weather. The gray cloud that hung over the hills did not extend to the river bottom. The sun came out to turn the water and the autumn foliage into silver and gold.

“Jim, do you ever take any stock in dreams?” asked Andrew, riding up to a position beside his comrade.

“No, son, I quit dreamin’ long ago. Do you still believe in ’em?”

“No, but I can tell you a dream I had.”

“Fire away.”

“It was about Bligh’s ranch. I dreamed we threw in two thousand head of cattle, best of stock, carefully selected for building a big herd and a successful cattle business. A bunch of fine horses from Colorado. You picked out four Arizona cowmen, the best you knew, steady, sober fellows, neither too young nor too old, to handle the stock. You brought in some Mexican farm hands. We built new barns, new corrals, new pens, fenced the pastures, pumped water for irrigation, planted whatever the soil will grow and all the acreage will stand, bought a tractor and truck, a new car—”

“By gorry, when you dream, you shore dream yourself dizzy,” declared Jim heartily, as Andrew paused for breath.

“Chickens, pigs — did I include horses? A brace of good hunting dogs, a fine collie or shepherd, shotguns and rifles, saddles, bridles, chaps, spurs — and, oh hell! a lot more stuff!” Out of the corner of his eye Andrew saw the old range man turn to gaze at him, as though he were beginning to doubt his sanity.

“Oh, hell! Shore. An’ you forgot a weddin’ ring fer Martha.”

Andrew landed out of the clouds with a jar.

“No, Jim. I sure didn’t dream that,” he replied soberly.

“Wal, if you had, I’d said thet was somethin’ mighty fine...Andy, I hope you ain’t goin’ dotty.”

“Do I talk dotty?”

“Sorta. You started wal, but you’ve grooved kinda wild. Yore face is red, too. I oughtn’t have let you lay out four nights alone. Andrew, have you got a fever?”

“I guess so, come to think of it.”

“Wal, you’ve ketched cold. Thet sudden change from dry to wet is bad. Sue will have to doctor you up a bit.”

“Jim, it’s not that kind of a fever.”

“What kind then?” asked Fenner anxiously. “Is yore haid burnin’?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“An’ do you ache?”

“Fierce!”

“Hell! You’re gonna be sick. Does thet ache ketch you all over?”

“No. Only in one place...But, Jim, tell me, did that pipe dream I had seem far-fetched and impossible to you?”

“Shore, fer us, wuss luck. If we had a little money, though, it wouldn’t be, by thunder! Bligh has a thousand acres — wal, he has if McCall doesn’t force him offfinest kind of land thet’ll raise most anythin’. Andy, we could develop a great ranch, the prettiest one in Wyomin’ an’ a plumb good money maker...Aw hell! After all, dreams only make you sad.”

“Jim, this one will come true. I know it!”

“Huh?” grunted Jim stupidly.

“I have been kidding you, old-timer,” cried Andrew joyfully, finding it impossible to react calmly to the thing he had disclosed. “It has been a dream, ever since I got here. And now it’s coming true!”

“Andy! You’re out of yore haid!”

“No, Jim. I’ve figured it all out. I’ve got the cash. I’ve got enough for all the things I enumerated. And then some left to run things for a couple of years...Lord, I don’t see how I kept it from you so long!”

“You got the cash!” yelped Jim.

“Bet your life I have.”

“Whar?”

“Under my cabin. Buried deep. Safe.”

“Honest, Andy?”

“Absolutely. On my honor, Jim.”

“Gawd Almighty! Andy, I always was leery about you. Don’t say you’re a bank robber or a politician!”

“Not on your life!”

“Whar did you git it?”

“My mother left me an inheritance, Jim.”

“An you’re gonna stake Bligh?”

“Bligh and I will be partners.”

“An’ me?”

“You’ll run the ranch. Foreman isn’t a good enough job for you. You’ll be superintendent!”

Fenner’s face worked. He had halted his horse to confront Andrew. The sun had set and dusk was shadowing the trail.

“So thet was it!” he finally ejaculated weakly, and nodded his lean old head as if to an invisible interrogator.

“What was?”

“All the time — thet was it!”

“Jim, you’re the loco one now.”

“Andy, somethin’ kept me up,” replied the Arizonian in a low voice. “I never seen a more hopeless deal than Bligh’s. But I never gave up — not since you an’ Martha came. I reckoned mebbe it was her sweetness, her gay bossin’ me around an’ never lettin’ me be false to the hope an’ youth of her — an’ yore comin’ — somethin’ about you thet I could never figger.”

“Whatever it was, I’m glad.”

“Andy, the same thing thet called Martha out here called you,” averred Fenner solemnly. “An’ we old folks have been waitin’...It’ll make a new man of Bligh. Sue will be happy an’ thet wonderful girl — thet Martha...Aw! she’s gonna break her heart now, an’ crawl to you on her knees.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” laughed Andrew. “Jim, you’re not to tell Bligh or Sue till we have it all worked out. And the whole deal must be kept absolutely secret from Martha.”

“Aw! to keep such good news!”

“Tough, yes. But I demand it. Let her be curious when the cattle and horses drift in. You will buy her the swellest pony in Wyoming. And saddle, and bridle to match. Get me, Jim?”

“I git you. An’, by thunder! that Aladdin geezer never had nothin’ on you, Andy...I agree. I swear by you. I’ll be dumb. But don’t expect me to look down in the mouth while I’m doin’ it.”

“Look any way you like. It’ll be all the more mysterious...Well, here we are at the barn,” said Andrew, dismounting with cramped and stiff limbs. “I’m damn near frozen...After supper you come over to my cabin. We’ll go over all the plans and settle everything.”

After unsaddling and looking to his horse Andrew went with Jim to the kitchen. By this time it was dark, and the yellow lights from the windows of the house were shining a cheery welcome. Jim went in and Andrew followed.

“For the land’s sake!” exclaimed Sue. “Of all the bedraggled, dirty-faced punchers I ever seen, you two are the worst.”

Andrew bent over the hot stove to warm his red cold hands. The light, the warmth, the steaming kettle and coffee pot, the supper table already set, the familiar fragrance and comfort — these struck Andrew with a stunning realization of how little it took to make a man humble and grateful.

“Andy has had an orful drill, Sue. I had to track him. Whar’s the boss an’ Martha?”

“Bligh is not so well,” replied Sue, and then turned to call Martha.

As she opened the door to enter, Andrew felt a lift of his heart. Had only five days elapsed since he had seen her? A glamorous light appeared to surround her lovely face and golden head. Her eyes showed the marks of weeping, but that did not account for the subtle change Andrew felt. She went to Jim, where he sat beside the stove, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Howdy,” she said, including both in the greeting. Then she took cognizance of their grimy state, and laughed. “Have you been mining coal? You look it!”

“Lass, I’ve tracked gophers an’ badgers in my day, but fer a shore-enough ground hawg Andy takes the cake,” drawled Jim.

“How come?” she inquired quickly, and her eyes, dark in that light, swept from Jim to Andrew.

“Martha, what have you been crying about?” asked Andrew.

“Uncle Nick,” she replied forlornly.

“Is he ill?”

“He has worried himself sick over this McCall deal.”

“Anything developed?”

“McCall is going to force Uncle off the ranch.”

“Well! That is bad news. Has he gone to court?”

“Not yet, Uncle says.”

Andrew filled a lard pail with hot water from the kettle. “I’ll run over and clean up. Don’t let Jim eat all the grub,” he said as he went out. While Andrew strode across to his cabin, and set about starting a fire his thoughts dwelt on the change in Martha Ann’s attitude toward him. Her civility came as a surprise. His return could have meant nothing to her. Probably days ago she had relegated him to the long list of the undesired and discarded. Still there had been something — that same old unsatisfied look. He was glowing still with the delight her loveliness had inspired. He made haste to shave and change. The thrill of the new ranch project already had faded. Had he been nursing that dream, and divulged it to Fenner, solely for Martha Dixon?

Soberly Andrew went out into the dark, empty, windy hall of the night. He found himself strangely happy. There was no reason why he should feel at all hopeful as far as Martha was concerned. Had she not passionately scorned him? Had she not declared that she would not marry him if he were the last man on earth? Had he not accepted this decree? Certainly he had not blamed her. Whence, then, this longing to see her, to be in the same room with her? Would she be glad of his return — that he had come back safely? Would she think him brave, strong, courageous to venture forth to run down the rustlers? Jim would lose no time telling that story. Could he ever be a hero in her sight? Had she realized that she had driven him into the wilds where, like a wounded creature, he could hide and lick his wounds? Had she thought of him at all? In that short walk to the kitchen a hundred longing, questioning thoughts besieged him — to see her again, to hear her, to watch the play of her features for that sweet smile, to catch the light of her eyes. And at the very door he hesitated for fear that she would read him as an open page and laugh him to scorn.

Boldly he went in. Martha Ann was alone in the kitchen.

“Oh, I’m sorry to be so late. Where’s Jim?”

“He went out to help Sue. I’ve kept your supper hot.”

“Thank you,” said Andrew, and sat down, feeling betrayed again. He did not look up while she placed his supper before him. She brushed against his shoulder and once her hand touched his. How easy it would be to jump up from the table and clasp her in his arms. What an idiot a man could be!

“You don’t act hungry,” she said presently.

“I am, though,” he replied hastily, and fell to.

“Jim told us.”

“What?” he mumbled.

“About your catching the rustler red-handed, then letting him off because he had a wife and babies. You would!”

“Yeah. But Jim had as much to do with it as I did.”

“Andrew, it was wrong of you to run off alone, without food or bedding,” she went on severely. “Uncle was worried. And Sue scolded Jim roundly just now, as if poor Jim were to blame for your wild-goose chase.”

“Ha! Wild-goose chase?”

“Yes! You rode off in a huff, like a little boy who hoped to get hurt, perhaps killed, just to make his mother feel sorry.”

“I had suffered a slight — disappointment,” returned Andrew, raising his eyes. She stood by the table gazing down upon him with what seemed to be genuine disapproval.

“But suppose you had?” she retorted, flushing. “That is no reason for you to distress Sue, worry Uncle — and—”

“You?”

“Yes, me...I — I suppose I hate you, Andrew. But that didn’t keep me from worrying...Once a young fellow shot himself on my account...Oh, it was horrible.” There was now a mischievous glint in Martha Ann’s eyes.

“What for?” asked Andrew, fully aware that she was improvising as she went.

“Because I — I wouldn’t give him a kiss.”

“Did he kill himself?”

“No. But that wasn’t his fault. And I felt almost as bad as if he had.”

“My sympathy is all with him.”

“Don’t try to make fun of me, Andrew,” she rejoined with asperity. “You’re no callow youth. You’ve had real women sweethearts—”

“I had one and she was — all that’s modern rolled into one.”

“Connie. I’d like to meet her sometime...But, Andrew, just because I — I do not love you — and do hate you — and wouldn’t marry you — don’t do such a foolish thing like this again. You aren’t the type for heroics or for dramatizing yourself! Just to make me sorry! You’ve probably gotten over your — disappointment already!”

“That’s what you think!”

“Now I ask you, Andrew,” she expostulated, “if you go play-acting this way, with ruin staring us all in the face, running off to starve and be shot at — won’t life around this ranch simply be impossible?”

“I’ll say it will.”

“Then please stop taking such risks.”

“May I presume to inquire if you wish me to avoid risks?” he queried satirically.

“Yes, you may presume,” she flared, and the flush on her face decidedly deepened.

“But why? I cannot conceive of a girl with your peculiar tendencies—”

Just then Jim and Sue entered the room to end an exchange that once more was headed for danger.

CHAPTER XIII

ANDREW BONNING HAD tackled a man’s job — sawing wood. He had a notion to recommend to all college football coaches the unlimited possibilities in a bucksaw as an infallible test of an athlete’s stamina. The huge pile of driftwood that Andrew had snaked up from the river bottom showed little inroad for all his labors. It seemed to require hours to reduce one hardwood log to firewood.

As an occasional relief from this back-breaking labor, Andrew packed the sawn billets into his cabin. The long room was too big and the north wall did not keep out the wind. So he decided to stack wood solidly all the way across and up to the roof. This would serve a double purpose, first as a wind break, and secondly to furnish an ample supply of firewood for the winter season soon to come. Already he had learned to love a ruddy blaze in the open fireplace. What that would mean on bitter nights, when the gale howled along the eaves, he could well imagine. He must have a comfortable chair, a bright lamp, and plenty to read. He did not choose to spend all of his leisure hours in moodily staring into the embers.

Several times he had caught glimpses of Martha passing to and fro, on errands too obvious to deceive him, and the last time he had discreetly withdrawn into the cabin. When he went out again, he found her tugging at the bucksaw. She was wearing dungarees, top boots and a white blouse, and with her hair flying, she made a most distracting picture. He watched her, surprised to see that she was strong enough to pull the saw through the hardwood log. The extreme effort she had to put forth showed in the clench of her little brown hands, and the strain and bind of the slender figure. As she tired, the saw moved more slowly.

“Damn!” she ejaculated, giving up, quite out of breath.

“Vain oblations, Martha. You will never make a pioneer woman,” said Andrew.

“Who are you to talk?” she replied. “You’ve been at it for two whole days, yet I can’t see that you have accomplished very much.”

“Take a look inside.”

She did so, only to return and say: “Well, I guess you have worked...Looks as if you meant to stay all winter.”

“All my life, Martha, if I am big enough to deserve it.” She sat down upon a log and watched him for a while. There plainly was something on her mind.

“Andrew, what has got into Uncle Nick and Jim and Sue the last few days?”

He took care not to meet her questioning eyes and kept on sawing. “Well, it must be the contagion of my indomitable spirit. My nature not to give up. My unquenchable hope. My unabatable faith.”

“Honest injun, Andy? Are you really like that?” she asked, momentarily deceived.

“I wish to God I were.”

“But Uncle is really much better. He’s being almost cheerful. And as for Jim and Sue — they’re certainly up to something. I hear them whispering, laughing. Sue is packing a grip for Jim. He’s going some place. I asked him, but he put on an innocent air of surprise. What’s come over them?”

“Come to think of it, I have noticed a tendency to cheerfulness,” replied Andrew, resting an elbow on his saw.

“Tendency, my hat! They’re happy now, and they weren’t a week ago...Andrew, this scarcely applies to you; I can see you are still feeling your customary grumpy self.”

“Me? Oh, sure. I can’t be any other way.”

“I could forgive Jim and Sue, but never you,” she said darkly.

“Forgive? What on earth for?”

“I don’t know. But if there was any tiny little hope for us — and you knew about it and kept it from me I — I’d hate you even more than I already do.”

“There is always hope for good people.”

“Good people don’t need hope. It’s bad people, like me — and you.”

Andrew shook his head and went on sawing. Martha would find out sooner or later. He sawed through the log. Martha picked up the block and carried it into the cabin. She remained a considerable while. Upon her return she said: “That’s really a lovely big room. If you fixed it up, it’d be simply darling.”

“I like it the way it is now.”

“But it’s so bare. You ought to clean it, stain the logs, hang curtains instead of bony old horns, put in some nice solid furniture and rugs. Oh, I could make it cosy and warm and bright.”

“I dare say you could — for some girl. But unfortunately for me there is no girl. I’ll make out somehow with my pet squirrels.”

“You might send for Connie,” she said mischievously, but as he ignored her remark she went on: “Are the squirrels really pets?”

“Yes. They run over my bed.”

“Excuse me! I’ll bet you have mice and snakes, too. Primitive stuff! You are a kind of a cave man, at that, aren’t you Andrew?”

“I believe I reacted to some such instinct once with you...Once was enough.”

“Why?”

Andrew declined to answer. The girl was an enigma. Nevertheless, how much better this mood of hers than one of indifference or of hostility! He would not distrust her again, be she as infinitely various as the winds. He was beginning to have another and most disturbing suspicion, and it was that this mood of hers was a sincere one.

“Are you going to work all day?” she asked petulantly.

“Certainly I am.”

“But you don’t get paid for it...I should think you’d want to loaf a little.”

“Work is my one salvation.”

“Oh! you confess then to being a sinner?...Gives me a kind of sisterly regard for you.”

“Martha, I never knew what work really was until I got out West. It’s great,” he said, and spread out his big, strong, brown hands for her to see.

“What kind of work did you do after leaving college?” she asked curiously.

“I tried office work.”

“I’ll bet you were no shining success.”

“Certainly I was a complete failure.”

“I worked in an office for almost two years, and went to the university besides,” she said casually.

“Indeed? Tell me about it.”

“You’d be interested only in the formulas, and the boys who were chasing me for dates between times. And there were hardly enough kicks in that to intrigue you.”

“Kicks! I wonder where I heard that expression before?”

“This conversation is getting nowhere fast,” she said, getting up. “You just saw wood and say nothing — at least nothing intelligent.”

Andrew rested on his saw and ventured to look at her.

“Martha, why all this preamble?”

“Andrew, will you drive me into town?” she asked.

“Can’t you go with Jim and Sue?”

“Uncle is going with them. They’ll have the car full. Besides, I can’t stand Jim’s driving.”

“Take my car. I guess it’ll hold together for another trip.”

“You won’t drive me, even when I ask you as a favor?”

“But I have so much work to do. The ranch ought not be left completely alone. And—”

“Please, Andrew?”

“Well, all right, if you insist.”

“Thanks,” she cried eagerly. “The Earnshaw girls are giving a party tonight and I’d like to go. They’re nice...Will you take me, Andrew?”

Taken quite by surprise, he dropped the bucksaw, and while stooping to recover it he asked: “Why do you ask me — when you’ve a dozen admirers who would jump at the chance?”

“They’ve overdone the jumping, Andy,” she returned, averting her eyes. “Same as I overdid — my fun...I don’t see why you and I can’t be friends. Platonic friends, you know.”

“There is no such thing as Platonic friendship...Besides you are forgetting that you hate me.”

“I — I don’t exactly hate you now, Andrew. Of course, I don’t love you — but—”

“Listen. Will you please stop harping on that? I know you don’t love me. You told me. And once was enough.”

“All right. All right. But, will you take me?” she pleaded, coming close to him.

“Very well, Martha, I’ll be glad to escort you if you really want me to. When do you wish to go into town?”

“Right away,” she said, glad-eyed and eager again. “Andrew, you’re really awfully nice. You’re so dependable. I was rather afraid to ask you. I wish youyou — that you could look on me as a — a sister. Then it’d be so — so nice to have a — a brother to ask favors of, without his wanting to marry me or something for my pains.”

“Well, Martha Ann, even though I can’t qualify as a brother, I can try to be agreeable.”

“Oh, Andy, I’m truly sorry I can’t love you the way you want me to,” she said, and her voice sounded sad. Then she stopped. “There I go again. I’m the limit! But it’s all the fault of you men. You never seem satisfied just to be friends...I’ll rustle and get ready while you get out of those overalls. I’ve a new dress, a lovely blue. Bought the goods and made it myself. Out of the money you paid me back!...But I’ll have to shop a little today. You can pick me up at Glemm’s before supper. I don’t want to stay there. You can take me to that Mexican café where they have such delicious fried chicken. Then we’ll go to the movies — there’s a Western — and after that I can dress for the party. Is that all right?”

“I am entirely at your disposal,” he replied, with an exaggerated bow.

“Still you’re not smiling. Won’t you get even a little kick out of it, Andy?”

“I suppose I will. Another jealous kick under the slats.”

“Andrew Bonning, if you love me — as you swear you do — and if you are with me you ought to make an effort to be happy whatever I am, do, feel or say,” she announced regally, with her head held high.

“My back’s too stiff, or I’d get down and kiss your feet,” he retorted. “I’m sure you’re razzing me...The funny thing, Martha, is that I shall be glad to be with you — whatever you are, do, feel or say.” She saw that he was quite in earnest.

“Funny?” she asked with a doubtful smile, and suddenly reached out and gently touched his arm. “I love it when you’re being funny.” Then she ran toward the house, calling: “Rustle now. Get out your old bus.”

As it turned out, if either Martha or Andrew had had expectations of anything romantic taking place on the ride into town, they were disappointed. For the rancher, at the last minute, elected to ride with them, which meant that what was to have been a twosome laden with all sorts of possibilities became a sedate threesome.

Not improbably this bore upon the young lady’s mind, for after a while she stopped babbling and fell pensive.

“Andrew, let me drive,” she begged after they had gone a short distance. And once seated at the wheel she sped up the ancient car until Mr. Bligh first cautioned and then importuned her to slow down. As for the vehicle’s owner, he did not care how fast she drove; if they skidded over the bank into the river or wrapped the machine around a tree, at least he would be with her. To such a sad pass had love reduced him!

“I’ll get out at the Glemm’s,” said Martha Ann, as they entered town. The car drew up in front of the Glemm’s and she gathered up a large parcel, her bag and hat, and received her jacket from Andrew. As she stepped down, she gave him one of those quick nods of her head which were always so disconcerting. “You’ll come for me about five?” she asked as seriously as if it were of very great importance to her.

“Okay. Unless I get pinched by my friend Slade,” replied Andrew.

“If you have to punish another of my admirers, won’t you please wait till tomorrow?” taunted Martha Ann.

“Miss Dixon, if I have to lick someone, it will be the first person wearing pants that I see with you,” he retorted.

“Andrew, you and Martha seem to be speaking to each other, at least,” remarked Bligh, drily.

“Yes. It’s encouraging...Where shall I drop you, boss?”

“Wal, I want to see Jim before I look up anybody, especially McCall...Jim has got me all haywire with his hints and hunches.”

“Me, too. Has he given you any facts?”

“No, except that he is goin’ to Arizona in the hopes of raisin’ money for me. I didn’t take him too seriously at first. But I can see that he’s got somethin’ up his sleeve.”

“I’ll say he has. Trust him, Mr. Bligh. And no matter what McCall has up his sleeve, you discount it. I want to be with you today when you meet him.”

They went up one side of the street and down the other, at length locating Fenner on the outskirts of town near the stockyards. He was talking to a Westerner named Stanley, whom Andrew knew by sight. Stanley was proprietor of a shady poolroom and rooming quarters for cowboys. He also ran a feed store and livery stable in connection with a large corral.

“Fenner, I can have the pick of them hosses hyar in ten days,” Stanley was saying, as Bonning followed Bligh out of the car.

“Jim, are you hoss-tradin’?” queried Bligh with a laugh. “Give me a minute. Then I’ll run along an’ you can—”

“Hell!” ejaculated Fenner, looking with sharp eyes beyond Bligh. “McCall! An’ it’s a safe bet he’s run you down.”

Andrew wheeled to see Sheriff Slade and a short wide-shouldered, large-headed man get out of a car. Andrew would not have recognized in the smug, coarse features the McCall he had spied upon that memorable night of his arrival in this town.

“Howdy, Bligh. Was on my way out to your ranch when someone said you had come in,” spoke up McCall sharply.

“How’d do,” returned the rancher curtly, and nodded to the sheriff. “Just as well, I was on my way to see you.

“Good. We’ll settle this deal pronto,” said McCall, his light steely eyes glinting. “Come into Stan’s place here, where we can be alone.”

“Right here will do. An’ I’m not talkin’ any more business without a witness on my side. Fenner’s my foreman, an’ this is Andrew Bonnin’.”

“All right,” snarled McCall. “Are you goin’ to settle?”

“Not on the terms you stated.”

“There ain’t any other terms.”

“Then we’re stuck,” replied Bligh stubbornly, spreading his hands.

At this juncture Andrew heard a jingling, slow step behind him and felt a slap on the back. Texas Jack had evidently come out of the poolroom to join the group. The cowboy had been drinking, yet he appeared quite sober, but ugly. Face and hair flamed red.

“Howdy, all. I reckon I’ll jest have to butt in,” he drawled in his cool, slow way. But his usual geniality had given place to a reckless insolence. His piercing, blue eyes fell upon Slade and McCall with unmistakable intent.

“Hyar, puncher, watch yore step or I’ll run you in,” blusteringly interposed Slade.

“Sheriff, you cain’t arrest me for insistin’ on my money. Mac owes me plenty an’ I’m askin’ fer it now. Heah’s witnesses.”

Andrew could see in a flash that a startling revelation was about to ensue which could mean a change in the fortunes of everyone present. Texas had chosen an opportune moment for himself as well as for Bligh. Fenner’s nudge alerted Andrew. McCall eyed the cowboy with exasperation.

“I don’t owe you any money, Tex.”

“The hell you don’t!” shouted the cowboy, moving in a little. He was slow and easy. Slade regarded him uncertainly, but the little rancher manifestly had no doubts about his mastery of the situation.

“Bligh, never mind this drunken puncher. He’s looked on red-eye till he’s red all over. Once more I tax you. Will you settle with me?”

“No. Do your damnedest, McCall,” replied Bligh, trembling with anger.

Andrew concluded that it was time to put in his oar, which he imagined might be something of a surprise to the greedy little bargain driver.

“McCall, would you settle for cash?” he interposed calmly.

“I reckon I would. But what’s the sense of talkin’ cash? Bligh hasn’t got two-bits, an’ you’re only a windy tenderfoot.”

Andrew stepped forward and slapped the rancher’s face so hard that his head jerked back and his hat fell off.

“Take it slow, McCall,” cut in Andrew swiftly.

“Don’t call names and don’t jump to conclusions. I am Bligh’s partner.”

McCall stepped back, an angry tide of color flooding his face.

“Slade, arrest this feller,” he shouted.

“Don’t do anything so foolish,” cried Andrew in disgust. “Slade won’t arrest me, because I won’t stand for it again. He may be your paid henchman, but he’s not a complete fool.”

The sheriff, who had made a threatening gesture, suddenly checked it when he saw a lightning-swift movement on the part of Andrew. He might have guessed that, before he could get his gun half out, he would be knocked down by a fist whose devastating weight he already had witnessed.

Fenner eased himself into the foreground. “McCall, fer a Westerner, you strike me as shore dumb. You’re in a corner.”

“You calf-rustlin’ Texan!” exploded McCall furiously. “Have you gone an’ framed me?”

“Wal, not yet. But I ain’t so damned patient, either,” drawled the cowboy.

McCall stared at Texas for a moment and then turned to Bonning. “Bonnin’, I’ll settle with Bligh fer one thousand dollars,” he declared.

“You’re a highway robber!”

“How much will you pay?” fumed the cattleman.

“Not a plugged dime. What’s more, Mister McCall, you won’t burn another Double X brand on one single calf of ours.”

That seemed to be like waving a red flag in the face of a bull. Andrew had seen his advantage and meant to push it.

“Mister Easterner, the Double X outfit is mine. An’ thet insinuation comes from this thievin’ cowpuncher. To hide his own crooked tracks!”

“You’re a liar, McCall,” returned Bonning coldly. Several cowboys had collected in front of the poolroom during the altercation. A Mexican and a cattleman had lounged out of the feed store. All these spectators added strength to Bligh’s cause. “You know you’re a liar. But I can prove it.”

“Slade, stop this damned rantin’,” cried the irate cattleman.

“Stop it yoreself. It’s directed at you,” replied the sheriff testily.

“I won’t stay hyar an’ listen any longer. This Bonnin’ has framed somethin’ with his low-down redheaded puncher pard.”

McCall waved his arm in passionate finality, and lurched into a stride that would take him away from the scene.

“Mac, better stick it out,” warned Stanley.

Andrew leaped to grasp McCall’s coat and spin the cattleman around. “Not so fast, McCall. You started this, and you’ll see it through,” he declared firmly.

“Slade, do you hear this fresh tenderfoot threatenin’ me?” shouted McCall.

“Sure I’m threatening you. You stand your ground or you’ll measure your length on it, and damn pronto.”

Slade interposed a hand. “I’m advisin’ you to hold yore hosses, Mac,” he said hurriedly. “You’re on the track of business, not a fight. An’ I’m tellin’ you, if this slugger nails you one, you’ll think a mule had kicked you.”

“Lost your nerve, hey, sheriff?” queried McCall in furious scorn. “Bluffed by a redheaded cowpuncher! He’s the one you’re ‘fraid of. But neither he nor his pard can bluff me...Now, Bonnin’, I’m damn good an’ fed up. I’ll take a thousand dollars or take over Bligh’s property.”

“You’ll take a stiff poke in your ugly snoot if you don’t cool off. Who the hell do you think you are?...McCall, you don’t represent this Wyoming community or the law. You can’t scare me. I’ve got plenty on you.”

“So you been hintin’! Wal, spit it out!”

“All right,” replied Andrew rapidly, as he glanced around. “Stanley, get this, and you fellows also...McCall, one night late in May, you went on foot out of this town. You met a mounted cowboy on the road, and the two of you left the road to talk without being seen. But you were seen. You leaned against a big rock and the cowboy sat his horse close by you. Somebody saw you, and what’s more — heard you.”

“Aw, hell! What you givin’ me? Some cock an’ bull stuff?” ejaculated McCall, angrily. But it was noticeable that the red of his face had faded.

“Somebody heard every damned word you and that cowboy uttered,” continued Andrew. “And I’m that somebody. I had driven my car off the road behind a thicket. I saw you coming. There was something sneaky about the way you left the road. So I crouched down behind some bushes, not five good steps from you both and I listened. I heard every word of that plot. Now how’d you like to have me tell what you and the cowboy plotted to do in a courtroom?”

“Mistook your man, Bonnin’,” replied McCall hoarsely.

“I heard your name. McCall. I saw your face when the cowboy lighted his cigarette. I recognize you now.”

“Jest a frame-up to save Bligh,” the cattleman muttered. But he was looking down.

“No, it’s not a frame-up. And if you don’t want that story told in court, you lay off Bligh.”

“Bonnin’, I ain’t hankerin’ fer lawsuits or gossip no more’n you. I deny thet I was the man you seen. But such talk won’t do me no good. I’m willin’ to call the deal off.”

“Okay, it’s off. We’ll meet over at the hotel and draw up a little paper to that effect.”

“My word is good,” growled McCall. He had perceptibly weakened and grown restless toward the end of the interview.

Texas Jack flipped away his cigarette and elbowed Andrew aside to confront the cattleman.

“Mac, yore word ain’t wuth a damn!” he drawled. “I been layin’ back heah listenin’. An’ now I say thet’ll be aboot all the fixin’ you fellers will do. Yore deal with Bligh is off. But with me you can bet yore sweet life it’s on!”

The insolent, cool-voiced cowboy manifestly had the power to infuriate McCall.

“You’re responsible for this holdup,” he fumed.

“Ump-umm. I ain’t responsible fer nothin’ nor nobody but myself. Air you gonna fork over my dough?”

“What you aimin’ at — blackmail?”

“I ain’t above aimin’ at you, if you press me, Mac. Come across, you dirty crook!”

“You never rode fer me, Texas Jack. I don’t owe you anythin’. You been drinkin’. Your head’s muddled.”

“Mac, you overlook what kind of a man you’re up agin. I’m wise now. You’re a hawg, a two-bit greedy cattleman who hires grubline cowpunchers to do his dirty work...What’re you gonna do aboot all thet Bligh stock we ironed yore Double X on?”

McCall jerked up as if a galvanized current had coursed up his frame.

“Puncher, I told you I’d have none of your rustlin’ deals,” he shouted stridently, his thick neck bulging purple. “If you put my brand on Bligh’s stock, you did it on your own hook, by Gawd!”

“An’ you deny you was the man Bonnin’ saw meet me thet night?” queried the Texan. “You deny he heahed you make me thet proposition? I was thet cowboy. I agreed to brand mavericks fer you. I took yore message to a cowboy who’d agree to kill Bligh’s cows an’ slap yore brand on his calves...An’ we played yore dirty game. All fer nothin’?”

“You’re lyin’, Texas. You can’t palm your thievin’ off on me.”

“McCall, you’re wuss’n a thief.”

“I’ll blow your laig off — you lyin’ redheaded calf rustler,” roared McCall, his right hand going significantly to his hip.

The cowboy’s brown hand flashed down and out. Andrew saw the barrel of a gun stuck against McCall’s prominent abdomen.

“Don’t move!” His voice was cold.

But McCall did move. It might have been mere nervous contraction or a further action to draw. He quivered. His crooked arm straightened. Then came a muffled report. Texas leaped back to cover Slade.

“My — Gawd! He’s — bored me!” gasped McCall, his working visage distorting. As his big hands came around to clasp his abdomen, a gun clattered to the ground.

“Gentlemen, I call on you all,” said Texas swiftly, “you are witness that he tried to throw his gun on me.”

“Yes, we all seen thet, cowboy,” replied Jim Fenner.

McCall sagged with blood pouring out between his fat spread fingers. Stanley put an arm around him.

“Help me get him inside. Somebody run for a doctor.”

But Stanley had to support the wounded man alone. The other bystanders seemed waiting in horror-stricken immobility for Texas to shoot the sheriff. Certainly that individual seemed to express the same fear himself.

“Slade, thet’s exactly what you’ll get if you don’t lay off me, now an’ forever,” said Texas, his voice cold and hard. “You represent the law, an’ I’d respect thet if you wasn’t as low-down as McCall yoreself. You was in with him. Smoky gave you both away. An’ you’re a bootlegger besides. We can prove it. Figger on thet when you spill yore case agin me.”

He backed the sheriff up to the car that McCall had been driving.

“Get in an’ make tracks,” ordered Texas.

Slade half fell backwards into the car, and floundering over the wheel made haste to drive away.

Texas watched him out of sight. “Bligh, pick up thet gun, an’ turn it in as evidence,” he said, sheathing his own weapon.

“Good God, boy, you’ve played hob!” ejaculated Andrew, coming out of his trance.

“Wal, it was aboot time.”

Andrew and Fenner followed the cowboy to where he had his horse haltered. Texas mounted, and began to roll a cigarette. His fingers were steady. The pallor of his face and the magnificent blue blaze of his eyes had not changed.

“You fellers will have better luck now,” he said. “Make shore you git them Double X calves back.”

“How many, Tex?” asked Jim huskily.

“Aboot a hundred, mebbe more, I reckon. All on this side of the river, anyway.” He gathered up his bridle and looked down upon Andrew with a ghost of his old smile. “Say so long to my lost sweetie fer me!”

Spurring his spirited bay he galloped out beyond the corrals, and headed for the open range.

“Same ole Texas breed,” muttered Fenner, as if to himself, wrenching his gaze from the fast disappearing horseman.

“Well,” exclaimed Andrew, fighting for a full breath “how sudden it all was!”

They joined Bligh, and the other shocked spectators of the shooting, in the wide areaway of the feed store. McCall lay on the slanted planking. His pallid clammy face and closed eyes, his low rattling gasps suggested a speedy, tragic end.

“About gone,” said Stanley, rising from his knees “I reckoned he wouldn’t need no doctor.”

“What can be done?” queried Bligh.

“Nothin’ fer him.”

“Isn’t there someone to notify?”

“Slade was his only particular friend thet I know of,” responded Stanley. “He shore vamoosed quick. Damn close shave for him, I’d say.”

“Let’s go up town an’ see what Slade’s figgerin’ on,” suggested Jim.

They proceeded to the hotel and made inquiries. No one there had heard of the shooting. Nor had it been reported anywhere around town. Finally they went to the sheriff’s office.

“Howdy men, has McCall cashed?” Slade queried as they stalked in.

“Reckon so by now. He was goin’ fast when we left,” replied Fenner.

“Bullheaded fool! I told him not to rile thet cowpuncher. He brought it all on himself.”

“Slade, we was witnesses, an’ we’d like to know what will be expected of us?”

“Nothin’ much thet I can see. Soon as McCall croaks I’ll phone the report in to the Casper authorities.”

“Ahuh. An’ may we ask what yore report will be?”

Slade leaned back in his chair. “As I see it, McCall an’ Texas had some dealin’s. McCall evidently would not pay money owed. They clashed, an’ McCall went fer his gun first. But he was beat to it. Thet’s my report, gentlemen. I’ll advise against tryin’ to catch the cowboy. It couldn’t be done. An’ I don’t see any sense in repeatin’ the peculiar circumstances. Do you understand?”

“We shore do, an’ agree,” replied Fenner. “But here’s a stumper. What’re we gonna do about them Bligh calves thet Texas an’ Smoky Reed stole?”

“It’ll be roundup time in two weeks. By then this will be blowed over. I’ll probably have to settle up McCall’s affairs, as I had dealin’s with him. An’ I’ll see you get all the Double X stock on this side of the Sweetwater.”

Without more ado the three marched out of the sheriff’s office. Once around the corner, they halted to face each other.

“What do you know about that?” queried Andrew. “You could knock me over with a feather,” added Bligh.

“Plain as print. Our law-abidin’ sheriff is scared stiff,” snorted Fenner.

“Jim, our luck has changed. Mr. Bligh, the worst is over,” said Andrew feelingly.

“It does seem so. We haven’t lost everythin’ an’ we can begin anew...Jim, you won’t need to go off on that mysterious errand.”

“Wal, I’m started now, an’ I’ll jest keep agoin’,” replied Jim cheerfully. “See you both later today. I’ve gotta talk hosses.”

“I forget what I wanted to ask you,” said Bligh ponderingly, and then as the Arizonian limped away he added: “Never saw Fenner like this before.”

“Boss, as soon as I recover from the shock Texas gave us I’ll be feeling sort of flighty myself,” replied Andrew.

They separated, and Andrew went into a range supply store.

“I want to order a saddle,” he said to the proprietor. “It must be a Mexican saddle with silver trimmings, bridle and spurs to match.”

“They’ll have to come from El Paso. Cost you plenty.”

“How long will it take to get them here?”

“Inside of two weeks.”

“Okay. I’ll pay a deposit. Here are the specifications.”

Andrew went out of the store conscious of the strangest emotion — a melancholy gladness following hard on the terrible excitement he had just labored under. He was on his way back to the hotel when he ran into Martha Ann. She was carrying an armful of bundles. Above the armload her flushed face, piquant and sweet, beamed upon him.

“Hello. I’ve blown my last red cent...Andrew, you’re pale! What’s happened?”

“Let me pack that truck for you,” he replied as he relieved her of most of the load, “Which way are we going?”

“Glemm’s...Why do you look so?” she returned very quietly.

“I’ve had a little shock. It’ll be bad for you, too, I fear. Brace yourself a little, Wyoming Mad.”

“Uncle!” she cried.

“No. He’s okay. It’s just — bad news.”

“You?”

“Well! If it were? I wouldn’t expect you to look like—”

“Andrew, tell me,” she insisted.

“Texas Jack shot McCall,” replied Andrew. “We met him over here, and during the argument Texas bobbed up from somewhere. To be brief, he took the argument out of our mouths. McCall owed him money. Texas wanted it. They fell into hot talk, believe me. Slade, the sheriff, was with McCall. Then I saw my chance and butted in. I told McCall what I had on him, and that we would not give him a dime. Apparently I scared him, bluffed him. He withdrew his claim on your uncle, and—”

“Oh, Andrew, how perfectly splendid of you!” interrupted Martha Ann. “But this shooting — tell me quick.”

“Well, Texas went after McCall again. This time it looked bad. Texas asked McCall what he was going to do about the Bligh calves he had put the Double X brand on. That precipitated hell. McCall accused Texas of putting up a rustling proposition to him, in fact, tried to lay the guilt on Texas when it was his own. Texas called him the thief. McCall, the idiot, tried to draw his gun. Then Texas bored him.”

“Is — McCall — dead?”

“By now he is, surely.”

“Oh, how dreadful!...Did Slade arrest Texas?”

“He did not. I thought for a few moments he’d get it, too. I was so paralyzed I couldn’t open my lips to beg Texas not to kill him. But that cowboy was cool and calm as Christmas. He told Slade the plain facts and that he’d get the same if he didn’t lay off. Then Texas ordered Slade uptown, and took to his horse and the range.”

“He got away?” queried Martha happily.

“I’ll say he did. But before he went he gave me a mes sage—”

She turned to catch his arm. Her face was pale and her eyes dilated.

“Andy! You’re — implicated?...You will be held?” she whispered.

“No, my dear. Don’t rush at conclusions,” he quickly replied. “It was self-defense. McCall tried to draw. Texas shot him. That’s all there was to it. Slade has reasons of his own for not pressing the case. Your uncle is free. He’ll get his stock back. It has been a pretty strenuous day for us, but also very rewarding.”

“Oh, I — I can well understand...Wait for me — please,” she replied, and taking her parcels from him, she hurried into the Glemms’ home.

While Andrew waited, he reviewed the girl’s reaction to the news. All he succeeded in settling was the absurdity of his own hope. Naturally she would be disturbed for Texas’ sake and for her uncle’s, but that did not necessarily imply any intimate concern for the cowboy — or for him. Presently Martha came out, still white, with eyes dark with emotion.

“Take me somewhere,” she pleaded.

“A ride? No, the movies would be better.”

“Yes.”

He observed that she clung to the sleeve of his coat and walked close to him, as they headed back to town. For the hundredth time that sense of her simple trust and her wistful youthfulness rushed over Andrew, rousing anew the longing to protect.

“Tell me, Martha. Do you care — very much — for Texas Jack?” he asked earnestly.

“Care? What do you mean?”

“Do you love him?”

“Andrew! Don’t be ridiculous. I liked Texas. Who wouldn’t like him?”

“Then why do you take this thing so hard?”

“He killed that McCall for our sakes. For mine!”

“Martha, you’re being ridiculous now. Please be reasonable. It was an old grudge.”

“You be reasonable, too! Texas was a rustler. I caught him in the act. That day, you remember? I promised I’d never betray him if he’d let that be the last time he stole. He gave me his word, and he kept it. I know...One day not long ago I told him how McCall was hounding uncle, and was going to ruin us...Andrew, what do you think that wild Texan said to me?”

“I’ve no idea, but I’ll bet it was something original,” replied Andrew.

“He took his cigarette out of his mouth and smiled at me, and in his lazy southern drawl he said: ‘Sweetie, look heah. I’m gonna pick a fight with McCall an’ shoot the gizzard oot of him!’...Those were his exact words. I’ll never forget.”

“Well! What did you say to that, Martha?”

“I coaxed and scolded. But it was no use. Finally he said: ‘Listen, honey. You don’t savvy us western hombres yet. If you was in love with me, or if there was any hope you ever might be, I’d let McCall off an’ go straight. But you don’t, darlin’. An’ so it’s all day with thet graspin’ rustler!’”

“Ah! I see through it now,” cried Andrew. “Tex could have bluffed McCall. But he forced the issue. Lordy! The crazy loyal, sacrificing idiot! He never thought that his act would make you unhappy...Martha, he sent you a message by me.”

“What?”

“‘Say so long to my sweetie for me!’”

“‘So long’?...Good-by forever! That’s what he meant. It hurts me a little, Andrew...He was in love with me and I laughed at him.” She halted in the center of the sidewalk, to gaze up with tear-wet, tragic eyes at Andrew.

“Come on, dear. Don’t cry right here in the middle of the street. Be a good sport, Martha Ann, and try to be on the level, too. You never tried too hard to keep the men from loving you — now did you?”

“I never tried to make but one love me,” she answered resentfully, turning aside.

“Martha, all women are loved at least once in their lives by one man. Some women are loved by more than one, and some by many. That is your case, Martha. It is because you are beautiful and because you are lovely. You look at a poor sap once — and presto! He is lost. It is nothing you feel or really want.”

“Oh, so you have changed your mind about me?” she asked. “I’m not really a flirt, then?”

“I told you before that I had misjudged you.”

Inside the theater, after they had found seats in the dimly lighted place, Martha slipped her hand to Andrew’s sleeve, and down to touch his wrist with the lightest of fingers, and on and on, until she had her hand in his. It was a cold little hand, and it was trembling. Andrew simply held it and pressed it warmly. If in these childish moods, when she seemed to need father, brother or friend, he would do his best, silently, without making any more blunders. She sat through the whole picture without speaking. When they reached the street, once more the colored lights were blazing along the sidewalk.

“Andrew, I don’t want to go to that party tonight,” she said.

“I dare say it wouldn’t be much fun, considering.”

“Please take me to that Mexican café. After supper we’ll go home with Sue and Uncle.”

The October days came, Indian summer days, hazy, purple, melancholy. A hush lay over the land. Nature seemed quiescent, waiting. Wild ducks lingered on the river; the willow leaves fell yellow and sere, to carpet the ground.

It was Andrew’s favorite season. Often during his work he would pause to gaze down the gold-bordered river, out to the gray-bleached range, and on to the white-mantled peaks. And he would realize that the time and place suited him, that loneliness and solitude had claimed him for their own. His range-riding had, for the time being, been abandoned; and his work consisted of the various tasks around the ranch and his cabin that he could lay a hand to.

Andrew missed Jim. The old Arizonian rang true as steel; still in his kindly and persistent mania to throw Andrew and Martha into each other’s arms he had kept open a wound that would not heal. A few days after Jim had gone, the long-conceived plan of becoming a rancher and Bligh’s partner had begun to lose its zest. All that was left was the satisfaction that the old man had been saved, and therefore that Martha Ann would be happy, too.

That last trip to town had supplied the final revelation that had quieted all his doubts about Martha. He had been wrong about her; and the truth was devastating. Probably Martha Ann had not the slightest idea there had ever been a battle for her soul. But Andrew knew it; and he would have liked to communicate his infinite gladness to this girl’s mother. Martha had been deeply involved in her problem to get away, to be free from something like a deadening lichen on her heart, to discover the lure of new places, new faces, to yield to the unsatisfied longing for adventure, to seek and to find she knew not what. But Andrew understood it now, to his sorrow. Without a friend or protector this valiant young woman had set out alone on the highways, trusting in her belief in people, in life, in the future. Freed of her passionate intent to hurt as she had been hurt she had reverted to the gay, wistful, fun-loving, whimsical and curious girl that he in his cynicism and jealousy had failed to understand.

For days after Texas Jack’s coup, which had made him an outlaw and had saved Martha’s uncle, she was somber-eyed and unhappy, as if she might have been partly responsible for bloodshed and ruin, even though out of that good had come for her. But the spell passed. She was too young to be permanently affected by an act of violence that she had not witnessed. In a short time she was her happy self again. Life was good and she lived it to the full. She had found something she had risked so much to seek. She worked, she played, she sang, she was the life of the ranch. She rode often, but never far from home. She did not go to town, though she was sought and importuned by her friends there. On Sundays the place was overrun by the young people with whom she had become so popular. Her erstwhile severest critic, Andrew, however, could find nothing amiss with her deportment.

As for Andrew; during those pleasant Indian summer days, he found that his old cynicism was gone, and he thanked God for it. It had been love that had burned it to ashes, even though a love that appeared to be unrequited. Nevertheless his gratitude to her was infinite. In the East Andrew’s sister and sweetheart had been thorns in his flesh. He had wanted them to be different from their class. They were independent, imperious, demanding, making playthings of men and never to be wholly won. They were victims of the age. But Martha Ann represented another type of womanhood, one that Andrew had not believed existed. There might be — there must be — many, many girls like Martha. He was glad to have found this new American girl, even though, for his own happiness, he had found her too late. Andrew had loved his mother, his sister, many girls, all that was feminine. And though he had lost his one chance of perfect happiness, he had gained the knowledge that girls actually existed who, like Martha, could be free and unspoiled and altogether lovely.

CHAPTER XIV

“FOR THE LAND’S sake!”

Sue’s familiar exclamation, that always indicated a real reason for excitement, came trenchantly to Martha Ann’s ears.

“Now, Sue, what’s come off?” she called.

“Martha, if things don’t stop comin’ off around here, I’ll go plain loco.”

“Let me join you in loco land!” cried Martha gleefully, and ran from her room.

Sue had gone out of the kitchen leaving the door open. Martha discovered her in the yard, arms akimbo, gazing spellbound at a boy and a horse. The former did not appear to be anyone so unusual as to cause Sue to react so violently. Martha shifted her gaze to the horse.

“Oh!” she cried out, her eyes lighting up in admiration.

The horse was a mottled buckskin with long black mane and tail, a graceful body, racing limbs and a most beautiful spirited head. There was a halter around his neck which he did not seem to like at all. The boy held it in one hand while with the other he brushed the glossy arched neck.

“Prettiest bit of hossflesh I’ve seen in ten years,” said Sue fervently. “Like the mustangs we used to see in Arizona. Navajo ponies, black as coal, with white manes an’ tails. Or Piute pintos with moon eyes!...Say, boy, what’s the idear fetchin’ him heah?”

The lad appeared to be about sixteen, a tanned, ragged youngster whose face was familiar. He smiled at Sue, but did not answer her.

“Whose horse? Why did you bring him here?” cried Martha Ann. “Oh, he’s adorable!...Whom does he belong to? Where’d he come from?”

“Wind River Valley. Colorado sire. Them Colorado folks breed the bloodinest hosses in the West,” replied the lad enthusiastically.

“He’s the most beautiful pony in the whole world. Oh Sue, I never dreamed of such a horse. I’ll buy him if I have to pawn all my jewelry. Boy, is he for sale?”

“I reckon not. You see he couldn’t have been bought at all ‘cept the girl who rode him died, an’ her folks couldn’t bear to see him around.”

“But who owns him now?...Sue, I’ll have him — if I have to — marry his owner.”

“What’s his name?” asked the more practical Sue. “Buckskin.”

“Who owns him?” almost shrieked Martha Ann. “Wal, accordin’ to my boss, Stanley, he was bought fer another girl,” replied the boy.

“Who? What’s he doing out here? Some one of those town girls showing him off — to make me miserable!”

“Name is Martha Ann Dixon.”

“Me!” called Martha faintly, and sat down on the kitchen bench.

“For the land’s sake!...Some of thet Jim Fenner’s work. Martha, he was shore actin’ queer before he left...Boy, who sent him?”

“My boss, Mr. Stanley.”

“An’ how come?”

“Wal, all I know is thet Jim Fenner picked Buckskin out of a thousand haid an’ sent him by cowboys with some other hosses. Buck arrived yestiddy, an’ the saddle this mawnin’. So my boss sent me right out. Buck shore hated bein’ led out by an old Ford, but he acted decent. He’s shore a dandy pony.”

“For — me?” gasped Martha, rising with bells ringing in her ears. “Boy, if this is a joke — I’ll murder you.”

“Fact, Miss. Look heah, yore name’s on the tag.” He stepped to the car nearby and lifting out a large package wrapped in brown paper he deposited it on the ground before Martha. “There.”

“It’s my name, all right,” cried Martha incredulously. “Oh, dear, I am going loco, too...But, Sue, I always believed in fairies. I never stopped playing with dolls...I never grew up. This is a dream and I’m Alice in Wonderland.”

“Lass, it ‘pears to be true thet Jim sent the mustang an’ this package,” said Sue. “He’s made some kind of a deal or trade. Mebbe gone deep in debt. You was always wantin’ a nice hoss so bad. Wal, he’s shore done it up brown...Boy, help me open this pack.”

Timidly Martha Ann took the halter, and then recalling Jim’s advice never to be afraid of a horse she drew closer to Buckskin, her heart in her throat, and put a slow gentle hand on his neck. He threw up his head spiritedly and his fine dark eyes seemed to say: “Well, who are you? And what are you going to do about me?”

He pranced a little, until Martha drew him down, and he trembled under her hands, and finally surrendered to her soft voice and caressing fingers. When at length he rubbed his nose against her, then Martha gave way completely to her rapture. “Oh, you darling horse! Oh, you Buckskin! I adore you!”

“For the land’s sake!” ejaculated Sue for the third time. “Martha, look heah! There’s been a holdup, or a fire. This is all Mexican stuff, an’ the finest ever.”

“Oh, Lordy! What is it all?” asked Martha Ann, and gaped helplessly at what appeared to be a pile of shiny black, silver ornamented leather.

“Double-cinch saddle with tapadoros, bridle, spurs. All silver-mounted. An’ two Mexican saddle blankets.”

“Simply gorgeous!...But, Sue—”

“Shore. I’m stumped. Must have cost a lot of money. Finest of Mexican stuff. Been used some, which makes it all the better.”

“Where’d he get the money?” faltered Martha Ann. “Gawd only knows!”

Just then Andrew came striding across the road, his dark eyes alight, a smile on his usually stern face.

“What’s doing?...Glory! What a pony!...And black saddle, bridle...Martha, have you gone back to one of your old tricks?”

“Andrew, don’t make fun of me now,” she wailed. “Is it true? Do you see what I see?”

“Well, I see a wonderful little mustang and the swellest saddle and trappings I ever laid my eyes on.”

“Where did Jim get them?”

“Let’s look...Saddle marked Yaeger, El Paso, Yaeger? He’s the most famous saddle maker in the West...So Jim sent these? Well, I’ll say that’s fine. Martha, I’m tickled for you.” His dark eyes shed a warm light upon her and his voice was rich with pleasure.

She tried to transfix him with accusing eyes, though at that moment she would have forgiven her worst enemy. “Andrew, did you lend Jim the money?”

“Me!...Absolutely not, child!...But don’t distress yourself with where Jim got these gifts. Be happy with them.”

“Happy, when we are so hard up!”

“Martha, to me this seems like a sign of better days to come. Let’s take it that way...Go change to your riding togs. I’ll saddle the mustang for you.”

Martha rushed to her room in a state bordering between tears and rapture. “He was glad!” she whispered, as her hands flung things about. “I have never seen him look so glad.” And the hot blood flooded her cheeks.

When she emerged from the house presently, Buckskin stood there saddled and bridled, with a bit of the bright saddle blanket showing. For anyone who loved a horse he was perfect.

“Don’t stand staring. A horse is for riding,” cried Andrew. “I wonder if he’ll give you the flying mount...Well, I’m a son of a gun! Martha, he’s kneeling for you.”

To Martha’s amazement and glee, Buckskin bent a knee and let her step into the saddle.

“A horse that’ll do that will never pitch. Put him through his paces, Martha.”

She rode off into the grassy open pasture. The rest was pure enchantment.

That night, as usual, after dark Martha Ann slipped out of her room, careful not to let Sue or her Uncle hear her. A cold wind blew off the range, and she needed her warm coat. The stars were all out, though there was no moon. Keen-eyed and vigilant she crossed the open to the river bank, and glided along the rim in the shadow of the trees. A pale gleam of water shone out of the darkness. The few remaining dead leaves whispered. Wild dogs of the range, as she called the coyotes, were making the welkin ring. For several nights she had been keeping this stealthy vigil, but tonight there seemed a subtle difference, and it must have had to do with the happiness Jim Fenner’s gift had given her. That glorious ride had left her spent, rapturous. She was too happy, too strangely happy. For days and days Andrew had slowly drawn away, aloof, stern of lip, sad of eye, a lonely young man, a victim of his own pride, and of his firm decision, that if there were to be any change in the impasse between them, she would have to make the first move.

Martha stole like a stalking Indian under the tree whose branches brushed Andrew’s cabin. Unseen, making no more sound than a cat, she glided to the wall and felt for the little peephole she had poked through a chink between the logs. The peephole had been made in the tenant’s absence. Martha’s heart always beat high during this act, her blood raced and her mind whirled between fear and delight. But before undertaking this nightly spying, she had been careful to ascertain just about when she might expect him to be sitting before his fire. So far she had succumbed to this temptation without suffering any embarrassment for her temerity. But trepidation always attended the moment that she glued her eye to the little peephole. More than once she had doubted the propriety of what she was doing, butas she certainly meant to marry Andrew eventually it would not matter so terribly — . But that was always as far as she got and she always was hard put to it to stifle a giggle.

Andrew on this occasion sat in his accustomed place, in the light of the fire, his head bowed, his somber, piercing eyes upon the fire. How handsome, how chastened he looked! That bitter cynical line had left his lips. He was greatly mellowed. His face in this unguarded moment seemed infinitely sad. Martha Ann was jealous of the fire. What did he see in those flickering flames? Did the face of that vile Connie shine there, or the fair faces of other women he had known? But Andrew’s eyes did not see the fire or the past. Had she but known, it was her own lovely face that he was seeing in those flames.

Martha tore herself away and silently walked through the frosty grass, back to the line of trees, and so across the open to the house and her room. She did not light either her fire or her lamp this night. She did not want to see her face. She knew that she was caught in her own toils. Undressing, she murmured her prayers and hastily got into bed to lie there with wide open eyes. And over again she repeated the same nightly refrain.

Andrew loved her. He was breaking his heart over her. The wrong he had done her in his judgment long had been atoned for. She knew beyond any passionate denial, any scornful needs of her pride and vanity, that he now knew her to be true. He had wanted to marry her believing her untrue to what he held the best in womanhood. And she had hated him for it. She had told him the truth, and from that very moment had recognized her real self.

The shame, the smart, the indignation he had caused her had eased away, as night after night she had witnessed his silently endured pain. But still she had not been satisfied. She wanted proof, proof of his misery, of his yearning, of his love. It had been unutterably sweet, this nightly vigil, this intimacy with him in his unguarded hours. The thing had taken a terrible hold on her. She had reproached herself, fought with her conscience, only to go back the next night to watch him brood over his lonely fire.

Martha Ann this last night was certain that she was being a spiteful, revengeful little cat. But she would have her due. And a voice whispered to her conscience, the greater his reward must be. That thought recurring oftener in these days, always filled Martha Ann with shame. She was lost as deeply as Andrew, though she would not face it. She would not have had his courage. The thing which consumed her now, and always denied the still, small voice, or froze the warm sweet tide, was the needful all-satisfying proof of Andrew’s worship of her, of his will to renounce what his heart was not ready to renounce. She had to go on. She must watch him again and again, though she flayed herself, she must see more and more how he wanted her. And when the time came when she saw that he would have reached the end of his endurance — then — then — then.

“Then!” Martha whispered into her pillow. That night, as on every other night since she had begun this last mad prank, obeying this imperious need to look upon the forlorn face of the man she loved, she cried herself to sleep.

About noon on the following day Martha Ann was coming from the corral, which she had already visited three times to feel and pat and talk to Buckskin, when she saw a great cloud of dust up along the river road. She halted, nonplused. It could not be a storm for there was no wind. Then a low thunder of trampling hoofs and the bawling of a herd of cattle smote her ears.

“Of all things! Look what’s coming,” she cried, and mounted like a squirrel to the top bar of the corral fence. There she perched in the thrilled expectation of her first sight of a great range herd after the fall roundup. “Uncle Nick! Sue! Oh, Andy, where are you?”

Bligh heard her and ran out into the road, where he threw up his hands in excitement, and stood for a moment as if transfixed. Martha’s shout was drowned in the oncoming uproar. Bligh ran to take refuge in the doorway of the house. Sue appeared from the kitchen to peer about as one bewildered. When she located the moving wall of dust she turned frantically as if to warn Martha. She ran to Bligh, and he pointed to where Martha was sitting astride the high corral fence.

The forefront of that herd appeared to be a mass of red and white cattle, of legs and horns moving through the rolling dust. It was not a stampede, as Martha had imagined, but the steady drive of a great herd, rendered frightful by the road and bawl, and the cloud of yellow dust that swept onward with them. Like a cataract the left flank spilled over the river bank, the center came on squarely across the wide space comprising road and pasture, and the right, split by the house, sheered off across the range. Soon all the space between the house and Andrew’s cabin was filled with bawling moving cattle. There were hundreds, thousands, Martha thought, steers and cows and yearlings and calves, a great herd on its way to the range.

It enveloped the ranch buildings and swallowed them up in the yellow dust pall, and rolled on past Martha Ann, leaving her excited and a little frightened, and choked and blinded by the dust. She kept her seat on the high fence, coughing, fanning herself with her handkerchief. The herd swept on and began to spread out over the range. The dust cloud blew away.

Then Martha Ann espied an odd, high-boarded wagon, drawn by two teams, and flanking the chuck wagon were five dusty riders on dusty tired horses. They dismounted before the house. The wagon stopped. The five men lined up before Mr. Bligh and shook hands. They talked. Bligh made gestures unusual for him. Sue ran in one door and out the other, wringing her apron, like one completely confused. Then Martha was startled to see four of the men turn to look in her direction, and then stalk toward her.

“Good heavens! What can these cowboys want?” she asked herself. “Where’s Andrew?...Oh, well, let ’em come!”

Something about their leisurely arrogant bowlegged gait roused Martha’s ire. They walked as if they knew that she could not help finding them irresistible. In fact they were, only she did not want them to know how she felt. As they approached she observed that they were older than the cowboys she had been accustomed to, a matured, rough, hard-bitten quartet. Moreover, they were dust-grimed from long riding. The one on the left was the tallest cowboy Martha had ever seen. He fairly towered over his companions and his sombrero was so huge that it made him look top-heavy. The one on the right was the shortest and oddest-looking cowboy that had ever come into Martha’s view. He was so bowlegged that he never could have stopped a pig in a lane!

The pint-sized cowboy removed his sombrero with a sweep, to disclose a round red face, with black streaks of dust and sweat running down it, and the boldest, merriest, most mischievous eyes Martha Ann had ever looked into.

“Mawnin’” he said. “Air you Miss Martha Ann Dixon?”

“I guess I am,” replied Martha dubiously.

“Mister Bligh said fer us to interduce ourselves to you,” went on the cowboy pompously. “Thet tall member of us Four Muskeeters is Tully Sloane.”

The tallest cowboy promptly bared his head which was almost minus hair and shone like a polished nut. His face was thin and weathered, like Cordovan leather. He was so tall that his face was on a level with her knee. Martha liked his smile, but did not trust it. He had very clear, gray eyes that appeared to twinkle as he looked up at her.

“Howdy, Miss. I shore am glad to meet you,” he drawled, and stuck out a hand as wide as a board.

“Thank you. I return the compliment,” replied Martha, and gave over her hand to have it squeezed until she could have screamed.

“An’ this hyar is our lady killer an’ sport, Cash Tanner,” went on the spokesman. And he indicated a handsome florid-faced man of at least forty years, large of frame, with a huge bow-shaped mustache and big ox-like brown eyes under bushy eyebrows.

“Miss Dixon, how do you do,” replied this worthy in a deep, cavernous voice. “Don’t pay no attention to Bandy. When you get to know me, wal—”

“An’ lady, this heah is Sylvester Hay. He’s shy — a Burl dodger from Montana,” interrupted the short one, this time indicating a slim, superbly built cowboy, the youngest of the four, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with smooth unlined face just now betraying considerable embarrassment. He appeared to choke over his acknowledgment of the introduction. Martha Ann murmured her pleasure.

“An’ I’m Bandy Wheelock,” concluded the little man, grandiloquently, transfixing her with his merry, impudent eyes.

“Welcome to the ranch! How’ do. And now what am I supposed to do?” said Martha Ann, divided between a desire to glare at him and to shout with mirth.

“Wal, fust off we gotta get acquainted,” declared Bandy.

“That will be — lovely,” replied Martha. “Lady, air you free?” inquired the deep-voiced one. “Free! I hope so. What do you mean?”

“Fancy-free an’ unattached. ‘Cause if you air—”

“Miss Dixon, I ain’t so pertickler,” interposed Tully Sloane. “An’ I’m gettin’ my bid in pronto fer the dance thet’s goin’ to be give us soon.”

“Thank you. I’ll consider your invitation,” rejoined Martha gravely.

“Wal, he was correct,” said Bandy critically, running his bold gaze over Martha and back to her face. “She’s the doggonedest, purtiest gurl I ever see.”

Martha Ann blushed. This was being a little too sincere.

“May I inquire who has been flattering me?”

“Why, Jim, of course.”

“Jim? Jim who?”

“Who else but Jim Fenner. He shore had us all het-up over you, Miss Martha.”

“Jim Fenner! Do you know him?” cried Martha.

“Wal, I should sniggle we do.”

“Where is he?”

“He come with us. Didn’t you see him?”

“Where you from?” she asked weakly.

“Arizony. All of us ‘cept Syl used to ride fer Jim, when he was foreman of the Hash Knife. But when thet outfit got shot up we scattered. Shore is a happy reunion fer us old timers.”

“Arizona!” gasped Martha. “And this — cattle herd?”

“Wal, lady, we regret to state thet this stock ain’t from Arizony. Jim picked ’em up down on the Medicine Bow, meanwhiles sendin’ fer us to come pronto. We didn’t let no dust collect.”

“To come pronto?”

“Shore.”

“To meet Jim?”

“Wal, Jim is shore some cow wrastler, but he couldn’t drive twenty-two hundred haid of cattle alone.”

“You drove them here?”

“Lady, them eyes of yorn don’t look as if they could ever miss nothin’.”

A light began to dawn in Martha Ann’s bewildered brain. But for a moment her vocal powers were not equal to her curiosity. With a hand trying to steady her thumping heart she gazed down upon the four, from Bandy to Tully and back again. They stood at ease, warmly regarding her, already in their opinion personally and intimately known to her and happy because of it. Strong odors of dust and toil emanated from their soiled, shiny-leathered persons. The three older men packed guns in their belts.

“Whose cattle — are these?” Martha asked haltingly.

“Our new boss’s, of course.”

“Boss! Jim, you mean?”

“No. Jim’s only foreman.”

A loud halloo came from the house. Martha looked up to see Jim, her uncle and Sue, standing near the kitchen door. Jim was waving a gloved hand. Something about him seemed charged with importance. His lean brown face shone and his eyes were flashing.

“Lass, how you like our new ootfit?” he called.

Martha Ann leaped off the corral fence and ran over to the house.

“Jim!...Jim!...” she squealed, almost beside herself with joy. She hugged and kissed him. “Oh! but I’m — glad to see — you!” she panted. “But, what have you — put over — on me?”

“On us, Martha dear,” interposed Bligh with strong feeling. He was pale and somewhat agitated. “All a surprise. I never dreamed this was what Jim left for.”

“I told you that old fox had an idee,” chimed in Sue. She was crying.

Martha Ann gripped the old Arizonian’s vest with tight little hands. She shook him. “You’ve done it now! You deceiving, adorable wretch!...Are you a magician or a rustler?...Jim, is this herd ours?”

“Shore is, lass,” he replied proudly.

“How did you get it?”

“Bought every darn hoof. Fer cash an’ cheap. Shore is a bargain.”

“Where did you get the money?”

“Andrew Bonnin’. He’s gone in pardership with yore uncle.”

“An — drew?” faltered Martha Ann.

“I reckoned Andy would tell you. He wanted to surprise you. But I figgered he couldn’t keep it from you.”

“He — did...Jim, where did he — get so much money?”

“Wal, he had it.”

“All the time — since he’s been here?”

“So he says. Lord knows, he’s got me buffaloed. Sue swears he’s a millionaire jest masqueradin’ oot heah.”

“So that’s where my Buckskin came from?” whispered Martha Ann. “My Mexican saddle — my—”

“Lass, Andy made me promise not to give him away. But I can’t lie to you...There he comes now. Pitch into him, Martha.”

Andrew came strolling leisurely from his cabin, his hands in his pockets, apparently quite cool and unconcerned over all the hubbub. Martha Ann knew that her eyes were dim with tears, but that could hardly account for a magnified vision of an Andrew Bonning whom she could not face just then.

“Folks, little Martha Ann’d better fade out of the picture — for a spell,” she cried, and fled.

CHAPTER XV

“DARLING MOTHER,” WROTE Martha Ann. “Since you have forgiven your naughty child I will be dutiful and truthful and tell you all that has happed to her in these last wonderful days.

“I wrote you about receiving the money, that I wasn’t so happy, and couldn’t think of coming home yet awhile. I hope I thanked you. Anyway I bought the sweetest dress and underthings with that railroad fare. But first I paid my hero’s fine and got him out of jail, and then he paid me back.”

“If you still love me and if you want me excruciatingly I will come home for the holidays — and bring him. You are all going to go loco — dippy, I mean, over my Andrew, and the girls who used to be so catty to me will be green with jealousy, and my old beaus won’t ever again try to kiss me at the foot of the stairs in the hall — not after they see Andrew. To see him is enough. You don’t have to be told that he was an end on one of the big college football teams.

“Mother, I’m so happy that I’m crying like a baby right now. And you know I never was the weepy kind. Uncle was just about ruined. What with cattle thieves (Oh, Honey, I caught one of them myself, and I reformed him, and he — but that’s another story) and in a crazy deal Uncle made with a rancher here, he lost nearly everything. I was ready to die. Uncle was down in the depths, like Father got when the bills used to come in. Then something strange happened. Jim Fenner, our man — he’s an old Arizonian — left mysteriously for parts unknown, supposedly to try to raise money to save Uncle. Sue, that’s Jim’s wife and the dearest soul, suddenly perked up, and so did Uncle. Andrew, however, slowly and surely sank to the depths of despair. That was my doing, and had absolutely nothing to do with the ranch problem.

“I began to think that little Martha Ann had been so blue — so love-sick — yes, love-sick, herself that she would never be able to understand what was going on. I began to do a tall lot of cogitating. But for once I was on the wrong track.

“One day a boy came along with the most wonderful pony, and the most gorgeous silver-mounted Mexican saddle, bridle, etc. for me. I was dazed, then enraptured, then scared. Jim was fond of me, and I feared the old fellow had turned rustler or bank robber just to get me what I had yearned for so long.

“Then on another day along came a great herd of cattle, almost running over our house. They chased me to the top of the corral fence, where I nearly strangled with dust. When the herd passed, four cowpunchers appeared to face me up on my perch. Mother, they were the most thrilling, the toughest, the fiercest, the most enchanting, the funniest human beings I ever saw. At first they had me buffaloed (that means stampeded), and I’m afraid I was sort of upstage. They turned out to be old cronies of Jim Fenner’s, when he rode the wild range in Arizona, and they had come with Jim, and had driven that great herd of cattle here for Uncle Nick.

“I was dumbfounded. I was thunderstruck — I was scared stiff. I couldn’t understand it. Then Jim showed up to whoop at me. I tumbled off the fence and rushed to him. It all came out then. Jim had really bought the herd and sent for his cowboys — all for Uncle Nick! Andrew had supplied the money — thousands of dollars — and he and Jim had hatched the deal to surprise Uncle Nick and me. They darn near killed me of heart failure.

“Now, Mother, here’s where we dig in, and try to get serious.

“I met Andrew Bonning on the night of May 13th at 7:35 on a lonely road. Some tramps had waylaid your not so dutiful daughter and one of them had collared me. I didn’t have time to let out a squawk when up comes a Ford, out jumps Big Boy, and wham! that tramp must be falling yet. Well, it was 7:36 when I looked up at my savior and that moment was curtains for Martha Ann. I fell terribly in love with him right on the spot. But I didn’t know it then.

“He gave me a lift. He took me for a wild little jayhawker, crazy to hitchhike the lonely roads to get kicks out of meeting men. Oh, Mother! I was sunk — and so mad that I saw red. He dropped me at the next town, and I know he hoped he’d never see me again. But I was crazy to meet him. Well, I did. Worse luck! I was picked up by a nice kid, was having a perfectly lovely time driving his car into a town, when all of a sudden I saw my rescuer. Oh, Mother! His eyes looked daggers at me. They said as plain as print that I had vamped this callow youth. I had a funny feeling around my heart. We met in the dining room. I don’t know why I was so — so flip. But he infuriated me. He looked so disappointed in me. Well, for once in my life I flirted. I sure flirted. I can understand now why girls like that line. But it was the only time I can remember that I ever tried deliberately, and I did it to prove to that big handsome prude that I was exactly what he took me to be. All the same, that night I cried myself to sleep.

“I went on my way. I had a wonderful time during all the rest of my hike, except for one horrible experience out of which I kicked myself — literally kicked myself free — the dirty bully — and which right there taught me the error of my innocent hitchhiking ways, and why Andrew was so absolutely right. This is hard to say, Mother honey, and I say it here for the first time, because I’ll have to be on the level and say it to Andrew too. There are some things a girl simply cannot do. Spirit and virtue and religion and training — and nerve are not enough to see a girl through situations that she should never have gotten into. All this new woman, modern-century stuff is the bunk. Women cannot be as free as men. A girl is restricted — that is, a good girl — by her sex. She has a responsibility a boy does not have. She is the mother of the race, and if the race is to progress instead of retrogress, she has to hold herself more sacred than men do.

“How’s that, Muth, for little Martha?

“Well, imagine! When I got to Randall at last, I found that Uncle Nick had moved way out into western Wyoming. I forgot to tell you that Andrew nicknamed me Wyoming Mad. I hated it — and very consistently ended by loving it. The blow nearly killed Martha. But I went on, and had the marvelous luck to get to Uncle Nick’s ranch on the Sweetwater in less than two days, without hiking a step.

“Now brace yourself, old dear. Listen! I’ve already told you about Uncle Nick and the ranch. But not this. I hadn’t been there an hour when I ran around a corner of the barn and plump into — Andrew Bonning. Right into his arms, in fact!

“He had become Uncle’s hired man, working for his board. No accident! Not chance! It was fate, Mother, and it sure floored me. From that moment on we were at dagger’s points. Then came a day when a horse pitched me off and I sprained my ankle. Andrew found me. He was kind, sorry, worried — insisted on helping me. But I was nasty — I didn’t want him to carry me in his arms. But he did, and during that ride he kissed me...Oh, dear! It was then that I found out I loved him madly. And that was where I started to backslide. I didn’t want him to find it out. Things went on happening. I met young people; nice folk, wholesome Western girls, and some bad cowboys. They all took to me, especially the bad ones. Andrew came to the first dance I attended. That night I saw that he was no Missouri garage hand, as he had tried to palm himself off. He looked what he really is, and he danced my poor heart right out of my bosom. It has never come back.

“You couldn’t expect your child to be anywhere without starting trouble. (Mother, I really ought to be married. I’m a menace to society.) It happened. Andrew caught me riding home with the cowboy cattle thief I told you I reformed. They were like a couple of gamecocks. Did they fight over me? Did they? They did. Andrew gave Texas Jack a terrible whipping. And then I had to go on my knees to Andrew to keep him from fighting the cowboy with guns. Another time at a rodeo (that’s a cowboy circus) Andrew beat up four cowboys at one time because one of them had insulted me. Also he punched the sheriff on the beezer. Oh, Sir Galahad never had anything on my darling! This was when Andrew got arrested and I had to pay his fine.

“I flirted some more, Mother. I let the boys hold my hand, and once I let Texas Jack kiss me. If I had known then what I know now, I’d have let him hug me, too. All this when Andrew was in sight! To torture him! Because I knew by then how much he cared for me. All the same, Mother, despite my mad temptation to bring that proud boy to his knees, I did not lose my head over the other boys.

“At last my hour came. One night after supper Andrew called me out — and he — well, never mind what, except that he told me in as beautiful and manly and humble a way as any girl could ask, that he loved me, that despite disapproving of me he worshipped me, and he begged me to marry him.

“How I ever kept myself out of his arms, I have no idea. But I was a demon. I made him confess that he had thought me a vamp, a flirt, a necker, a — oh, almost everything that was bad — that he still thought so and would marry me in spite of it. To reform me! I told him honestly what I was and am. Poor Andrew, that was a tough night for him. I thanked him for the honor and said I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on earth. Like some royal lady I stalked away. But when I got in bed in the dark I thought I would die.

“That ended my play with the young fellows, and it was a relief, believe me. Since Andrew found out his blunder he has gradually gone downhill. I had my revenge. Little-souled as it seems of me it was sweet. Because, oh, how he had hurt me! And oh, how I loved him! I watched him. I gloated over his misery. I saw his heart breaking inch by inch. And all this while I worked, played, sang, made merry — I was a perfect angel. Mother, there is a sadistic streak in all women.

“Then came the unexpected — the thing that devastated me — that makes this letter to you possible — that bends the knees and bows the head of little Martha Ann. Andrew sent me that adorable pony — that magnificent saddle. But I was supposed never to know that they came from him. Only Jim could not keep the secret. Ah! but that old boy is a matchmaker!

“That was sweet of Andrew. But the noble thing, the great deed was for him to save Uncle Nick and back him in a cattle deal that in this country is far from being a sure success. Jim and Sue imagine Andrew is a millionaire in disguise. I don’t. I take him to be a boy of fine family, who came west for much the same reason as I. He had told me he had a little money. He never said how much, and of course I never dreamed that it was enough to save us and start us anew. Evidently it was.

“That’s my tale, Martha Dixon, as Uncle Nick calls you. The sequel is on the knees of the gods. I have yet to crawl to Andrew, to confess I loved him all the time — that when I swore I hated him I was a liar. Telling him will give me the greatest kick of all my life. This letter is my preparation.

“It would serve me right if he scorned me. I have a cold, sick feeling at the bottom of my heart when I think of it. But he, too, has found himself in this wonderful country. He could not change. He would not hate. He can only love.

“And so I dare to hope. I pray I do not hope in vain. You may be assured, dearest, best, most loving, long-suffering Mother, of your unworthy daughter’s happiness — and through that the promise that she will be worthy. I will write again as soon as my fate is decided. But lest your distress yourself anew I give you my word here that I shall come home with Andrew for Christmas.

“Martha Ann.

“P. S. I think I’ll steal unawares upon Andrew, when he is brooding before his fire, and slip in quietly and up behind him. Maybe I will plump right down in his lap. (I’ll be pretty weak in the knees by then.) Maybe I won’t have to, because if he is any good on earth he’ll grab me.

“M. A.”

The night was dark and cool, with stars obscured, and a misty rain beating out of the north. Out there the open range gloomed like a vast windy hall, from whence came the bawling of cattle and the wailing of coyotes.

Martha Ann ran with light feet and lighter heart. Her hour had struck. It had been propelled by the long letter to her mother, and precipitated by Uncle Nick’s startling news that Andrew thought he would go to California for a while. Never would Andrew Bonning leave for California without Martha Ann! She meant to make sure of that tonight.

A flickering light shone out of his window upon the bare boughs of the trees.

Martha Ann felt eager, cool, brave, happy to capitulate at last. But when she saw Andrew through the tiny aperture between the logs, all but her love deserted her. He was dozing in his chair, and with the mask off, his face appeared terrifyingly tragic and sorrowful. She had gone too far. Always too little or too much — she knew no happy medium! Was it too late? She must not lose another moment.

She drew back trembling. The cloak dropped from her head. She felt the cool rain drops upon her burning face.

Like a shadow she crept up onto the porch and tiptoed to the door. It was slightly ajar. She stood there, fighting for breath, in the grip of a strong sweet happiness that slowly replaced her terror. Her fingers shook when she flipped them inside the door. She opened it a little and glided in. The room was in shadow except for a ruddy circle before the forgotten fire. She smelled the pungent wood smoke. Andrew’s dark head showed above the back of his chair. He stirred.

That broke the strain under which Martha Ann had labored. A shuddering gladness engulfed her. She had not lacked courage or strength, but she had not bargained for a failure of her heart, her breath, her thought, her sight.

She crept to the chair, laid a supporting hold upon it. She moved around beside him. Into his half-closed eyes came some change of perception, as if he were dreaming a dream. Martha Ann slid over the arm of the chair upon his lap, and as he started violently, she put an arm around his neck and hid her face from him. She felt him touch her, lightly, then with a hungry convulsive clasp.

“My God!...This is no dream,” he cried hoarsely. “No — Andy...You wouldn’t think so — if you’d had to do it,” she replied quickly.

“Martha Ann!”

“Yes. I hope you were not dreaming of Connie.”

“What?...Oh, you would!...Martha, you have come to thank me. Please don’t! Don’t!” he begged.

“I haven’t come for anything of the sort,” she retorted.

He plied her with incoherent queries, all the time trying to raise her to the arm of the chair. But Martha Ann clung to him all the tighter.

“Listen, tenderfoot. Don’t ask questions.”

“Good Heavens! Are you mad? Wyoming Mad!...What does this last mad prank mean?”

“What does this — mean?” and she kissed him on the cheek. He sank back. All his rigidity left him. His hands fell limp to the arms of the chair. She felt a vast heave of his broad breast and she heard a thumping there.

“Martha, have you no heart — no conscience?...After all, are you only—”

She stopped that question with her lips.

“Andy, every time you try to question me I’ll do that...I have anticipated all your questions. I will answer them.”

She felt safe now. He could not see her face. She slipped her other arm around his neck.

“First. No, I have not come to torment you. Yes, I am terribly sorry I could not do this long before. No, I would not lie to you to gain the whole world...Did I want a little revenge? I did. To my shame I confess it. I did—”

“For mercy’s sake! Martha, do you love—”

“There!...I — I warned you,” she went on shakily. The fire of his eyes — the response to her kiss had wrought their transformation in her. But she would see it through. “Yes. I do — love you!...Since thirty-six minutes after seven, on May thirteenth, I have loved you. First unwittingly. Then hopelessly. Then furiously. Then angrily. Then horribly...And now, deathlessly, with all my heart and soul!”

“Oh, amber-eyes, my darling!...Are you just a wraith? Are you just that golden phantom I’ve been chasing — and trying to clasp — only to fail and fall and weep—”

“Again!” she interrupted, to close her eyes and find his lips. “Oh!...I begin to doubt you...All you want are kisses...No, Andy, I am flesh and blood. Yours...Yes, I — I will marry you. And be the happiest, luckiest girl...Yes, I deserved your censure for my hitchhiking madness. It was a wild, desperate, perilous stunt. But I am glad, glad, glad. For it took me to you.”

“Wyoming Mad! You do love me after all — you will marry me?” he cried rapturously.

“Once more!...I might just as well keep my lips close to yours!”

“When?” he whispered.

“When what?”

“When will you marry me?”

“Andy, this is the last...Oh, but I’m a little liar! How I have yearned to kiss you — to have you hold me like this! Don’t imagine that you suffered alone, Andrew Bonning. That Connie dame...When? When will I — oh, tomorrow — or next day — or next week — any day — if you do not put it off too long — and promise to take me home for Christmas — and never misjudge me again for being Wyoming Mad!”

Robbers’ Roost

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 1

ONE AFTERNOON IN the spring of 1877 a solitary horseman rode down the long, ghastly desert slant toward the ford at Green River.

He was a young man in years, but he had the hard face and eagle eye of one matured in experience of that wild country. He bestrode a superb bay horse, dusty and travel-worn and a little lame. The rider was no light burden, judging from his height and wide shoulders; moreover, the saddle carried a canteen, a rifle, and a pack. From time to time he looked back over his shoulder at the magnificent, long cliff wall, which resembled a row of colossal books with leaves partly open. It was the steady, watchful gaze of a man who had left events behind him.

At length he rode into a trail and soon came in sight of the wide band of green cottonwood, willow, and arrowweed, and the shining, muddy river, which had evidently broken through the great wall of stone. On the far side, up on the level, stood a green patch and a cluster of houses, strangely lonely in that environment. This was the town of Green River, Utah.

The rider needed to reach that town before dark. His food supply had run out two days ago. But unless there was a boat in which he could row across, he would most likely not make it. His horse was too lame to risk in that heavy, swirling, sand-laden river.

He rode on down the trail to enter the zone of green. In the thick dust he noted fresh horse tracks. Dust rose in clouds from under his animal’s hoofs. The arrowweed reached to his saddle and was yellow with it. And when he came to the willows and cottonweeds he found their fresh green similarly powdered. It had not rained for a long time in that section. Yet now the odor of dust appeared to yield to that of fresh, cool water.

Under a cottonwood, some distance ahead, the rider espied a saddled horse, head down, cropping the grass. He proceeded more slowly, his sharp eyes vigilant, and was certain that he saw a man on the river bank before that worthy espied him.

Presently he rode out into an opening from which he could see a place where a ferry touched. A rude cable above his head, attached to a cottonwood, stretched across the river, sagging in the middle. Moored to the opposite bank was the ferryboat.

The rider sat his horse, aware that the man he had observed had stepped behind some willows. Such a move might have been casual. Then the man moved out into plain sight.

“Howdy!” he said, laconically.

“Howdy!” replied the rider. He became aware of a penetrating scrutiny which no doubt resembled his own. Chance meeting at that period was productive of obvious though not offensive curiosity. The rider saw a striking figure of a man, gray with dust, booted and spurred, armed to the teeth. His wide sombrero shadowed a sharp, bold face, the only distinct feature of which was a long, sandy mustache. From the shadow, which resembled a mask, there came a gleam of pale, deep eyes.

“Aimin’ to cross?” he queried.

“Yes. I see a ferryboat over there.” But on the moment the rider was watching his questioner. Then he swept a long leg over the pommel and slid to the ground, without swerving in the slightest from a direct front. “Lucky for me if I can cross on it. My horse is all in.”

“Noticed thet. Fine hoss. Wal, I’ve been hangin’ around for an hour, waitin’ to go over. Reckon he’ll be along soon.”

“Town of Green River, isn’t it?”

“That’s the handle. You’re a stranger hereabouts?”

“I am that.”

“Where you hail from?”

“I suppose I might as well say Wyoming as any place,” returned the rider, casually.

The other man relaxed with a laugh.

“Shore. One place is good as another. Same as a name. Mine is Hank Hays.” He spoke as if he expected it to be recognized, but it caused no reaction in his listener.

“You know this country?” queried the rider, and he too relaxed.

“Tolerable.”

“Maybe you can tell me whether I ought to stop or keep on traveling?” inquired the rider, coolly.

“Haw! Haw! I shore can. But thet depends,” he said, pushing back his sombrero. The action brought into view a bold visage.

To the rider it was like a printed page, with only the narrow, gray, searching eyes presenting any difficulty.

“Depends on what?” he asked.

“Wal, on you. Have you got any money?”

“About ten dollars.”

“Huh! You can’t go in the ranch business with thet. Not regular ranchin’. Lots of cattle between here an’ the breaks of the Dirty Devil. Henry Mountains, too. Some outfit over there.”

“Mormons?”

“About half an’ half. This is Utah, but not strong on Mormons over here. Air you a cattleman?”

“No,” replied the rider, thoughtfully.

“Wal, thet’s straight talk from a stranger,” replied Hays, who evidently took the blunt denial as something significant. “Hullo! Another rider. . . . Shore the desert is full of strangers today.”

Back up the trail appeared a short, heavy man astride a horse and leading two pack-animals.

“I saw him awhile back. And here comes our ferryman. Looks like a boy.”

“Huh! You haven’t them eyes for nothin’. Wal, we’ll get across now.”

The rider, after another glance at the approaching man with the horses, took note of the ferry. The boy had pushed the boat off, and was rowing it into the current. Soon it came gliding across on the pulley. Boat and third traveler arrived at the bank about the same time. Hays appeared interested in the newcomer, and addressed him civilly. He got but a short answer.

Meanwhile the rider led his horse down the sandy bank and on to the big flat boat. It was crudely thrown together, out of rough-hewn planks, but apparently was safe enough. The bay horse appeared nervous.

Hays, after a sharp look at the man with the three horses, led his animal aboard. The ferry-boy grinned all over his freckled face, in recognition of Hays.

“How much is the fare?” queried the newcomer. He was a bearded man under fifty, rather abrupt and authoritative.

“Two bits.”

“For man or beast?”

“Well, sir, the regular fare is two bits for each man an’ horse. But travelers usually give me more.”

Whereupon the stout man threw the packs off his horses and carried them up on the boat.

“Wal now, whatinhell is this fussy old geezer about?” queried Hays, much interested.

It was soon manifest. He tied the halter of his lead pack-horse to the tail of his saddle-horse. The second pack-animal was similarly attached to the first. Then, bridle in hand, he stepped aboard.

“All right, boy. Go ahead.”

“But, sir, ain’t you fetchin’ your hosses on, too?”

“Yes, but I’ll swim them over behind the boat. Get a move on now.”

The ferry-boy pushed off with his pole, and dropping that for the big oar he worked the boat out into the current, which caught it and moved it across quite readily into the slack water on that side. The rider had to hold his impatient horse to keep him from jumping before the boat was beached.

“Didn’t like that, did you, Bay?” the rider said, as he led the animal ashore.

Hays slapped his mount, driving him off the ferry, while he watched the stout man lead his three horses along the gunwale of the boat, until they could touch bottom. Heaving and splashing, they waded out, and their owner followed, carrying one pack.

“Fetch my other pack, boy,” he called.

“Johnny, don’t do nothin’ of the kind,” observed Hays.

“I reckon I didn’t intend to,” said the boy, resentfully.

“Many travelers lately?”

“Nope. First I’ve had for three days. Then a couple of cowpunchers. We’ve only had the boat in about two weeks. River too high. Dad reckons Green River will boom this summer.”

Puffing hard, the stout man carried his second pack ashore.

“You’re not very — obliging,” he said, gruffly, as he felt in his pocket for loose change. The ferry-boy came ashore, followed by Hays.

Presently the stout man, grumbling, and evidently annoyed at the necessity of producing a fat pocketbook, took out a one-dollar bill.

“Here. Give me seventy-five cents change.”

The boy produced it like a flash, and replied, disgustedly, “I’ll bet you don’t play thet trick on me if you ever come back.”

The rider, amused and interested from his stand on the bank, saw something that made him start. Hays whipped out a gun.

“Hands up!” he ordered.

The stout man stared aghast.

“Throw up your hands!” suddenly yelled Hays, harshly. “I’m not in the habit of sayin’ thet twice.” And he stuck the gun square into the plump abdomen before him. The stout man, gasping and turning livid of face, hastily complied by lifting hands that shook palpably.

“Wha-at’s this? R-robbers!” he gulped. Hays reached inside the man’s coat, for his wallet, and extracted it. Then he stepped back, but still with gun extended.

“Get the hell out of here now,” he ordered. And apparently he paid no more heed to his frightened victim. But the rider had his idea that Hays watched him, nevertheless.

“Pretty well heeled, thet old bird,” observed the robber, squeezing the fat wallet. . . .

“If there’s law in this — country — you’ll pay for this,” burst out the traveler, working like a beaver to repack his horses.

“Haw! Haw! You ain’t lookin’ for law, air you, granpaw? . . . Wal, the only law is what you see here in my hand — an’ I don’t mean your money.”

Hays slipped the wallet in his inside vest pocket. Then, with the same hand — and all the while covering the traveler with his gun — he drew a bill from his pocket.

“Thar, Johnny, thet’s for all of us,” he said.

“But, I — Oh, sir, I oughtn’t take so much,” faltered the boy, who was somewhat scared himself.

“Shore you ought. It’s not his money, you noticed,” drawled the robber, forcing the bill upon the reluctant youth. Then he addressed the traveler. “Say, Mormon, when you get uptown, or wherever you’re goin’ — jest say Hank Hays paid you his respects.”

“You’ll hear from me, you glib-tongued robber,” replied the other, furiously, as he rode away.

Hays sheathed his gun. He did not need to turn to face the rider, for, singularly enough, he had not done anything else.

“How’d thet strike you, stranger?”

“Pretty neat. It amused me,” replied the rider.

“Is thet all?”

“I guess so. The stingy old skinflint deserved to be touched. Wasn’t that a slick way to beat the boy here out of six bits?”

“It shore was. An’ thet’s what r’iled me. Reckon, though, if he hadn’t flashed the wallet I’d been a little more circumspect.”

“Is there a sheriff at Green River?”

“I never seen him, if there is. Wal, I’ll be ridin’ along. Air you comin’ with me, stranger?”

“Might as well,” returned the other. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll walk.”

“It’s only a little way. Good lodgin’s, though I never do nothin’ but eat an’ drink in town.”

“That’ll suit me for more than one reason.”

“Stranger, what’d you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Ex-cuse me. I’m not curious. But it’s more agreeable, you know, when a feller has a handle.”

“Call me Wall — Jim Wall,” rejoined the rider, presently.

“Wall? — Wal, thet’s enough fer me. Kinda hard to get over. Haw! Haw!”

They went up the slow-ascending, sandy lane between the cottonwoods toward the town, while the ferry-boy watched.

Hays’ nonchalance reassured Wall as to the status of Green River. They came, at length, into a wide space, which was more of a square than a street, upon the far side of which stood several low, wide buildings, some of which sought the dignity of height with false wooden fronts rising above their single story. The hitching rails and posts were vacant. There was not a vehicle in sight, and only a few men, lounging in doorways. Above and beyond this town of Green River stood the great cliff wall, not close, by any means, and now red in the sunset flare, except for the mantle of snow on the top.

“Any dance-hall in this burg?” asked Wall.

“Nary dance-hall, worse luck. Any weakness for such?”

“Can’t say it’s a weakness, but the last two I bumped into make me want to steer clear of more.”

“Women?” queried the robber, with a leer.

“It wasn’t any fault of mine.”

“Haw! Haw! Reckon you might take the eye of women, at thet. Wal, you’re out of luck here, ‘cause the only women in Green River air old hags an’ a couple of young wives thet you can’t git within a mile of.”

“Not out of luck for me. But you talk as if you regretted it.”

“Wal, women ruined me,” returned Hays, sententiously.

“You don’t look it.”

“Men never look what they air.”

“Don’t agree with you, Hays. I can always tell what men are by their looks.”

“How’d you figure me?” demanded Hays, a little more gruffly than humorously.

“I don’t want to flatter you on such short acquaintance.”

“Humph! — Wal, here we air,” replied the robber, halting before a red stone building.

“What do you suppose became of the fat fellow you relieved of cash?” inquired Wall, who kept this personage in mind.

“I reckon he’s gone on his way to Moab,” replied Hays. “Thet’s a Mormon settlement down on the Green. An’ there’s a Mormon ranch out here a ways. We won’t run into thet geezer here, I’ll gamble.”

“Quiet town,” murmured Wall, as if talking to himself.

A red-bewhiskered man appeared in the doorway that led into a saloon and lodging-house. A rude sign in letters, faded and indistinct, attested to this.

“Howdy, Red!”

“Howdy, Hank!”

“See anythin’ of a fat party, sort of puffy in the face? He was ridin’ a roan an’ leadin’ two packs.”

“Oh, him? Sure. He rode through town yellin’ he’d been robbed,” returned the man called Red, grinning.

“Hell he did? Who was he, Red?”

“I dunno. Mormon, most likely. Leastways thet’s what Happy said. He was standin’ out here, an’ when the feller stopped bellerin’ thet he wanted the sheriff ‘cause he’d been robbed, why, Happy up an’ says, ‘Hey, my Latter Day friend, did he leave anythin’ on you?’ Then the feller up an’ rode off to beat hell.”

It was this pregnant speech of Red’s that decided several things for Jim Wall.

“I want to look after my horse,” was all he said.

“Take him round back to the barn. If Jake ain’t there, you can find water, feed, an’ beddin’ yourself.”

Hays dismounted laboriously, indicating that he had ridden far that day.

“Wal, I’m dog-tired. Send thet lazy Jake after my hoss.”

This edifice was the last one on the street. Wall made note of the grove of cottonwoods just down the slope a few hundred yards. The barn mentioned was some distance back, at the end of a pole fence. Upon turning a corner to enter the corral he encountered a loose-jointed young man.

“Say, are you Jake?” he asked.

“You bet. Want your hoss looked after?” returned the other. His protruding teeth were his salient feature.

“Yes. But I’ll take care of him. There’s a man out in front who calls himself Hank Hays. He wants you to come get his horse. Do you know him?”

The stable-boy’s reply to that was to rush off, his boots thudding.

“Enough said,” muttered Wall to himself as he looked round the place for what he required. “Mr. Hays stands well in Green River, as far as this outfit is concerned.”

Wall’s mind was active while he ministered to his horse. It had long been a familiar thing for him to ride into a strange camp or town; and judging men quickly had become a matter of habit, if not self-preservation. Utah, however, was far west and a wilder country than that he had roamed for years. He liked the looks of it, the long reaches of wasteland, the vast bulge and heave of the ranges, the colored walls of stone, the buttes standing alone, and the red and black mystery of the mountains.

“Bay, old boy, you haven’t had a stall for a coon’s age,” he said to his horse. “Enjoy it while you can, for it may not be long.”

When Wall sauntered back the whole west was one magnificent blaze of red and gold. He would have enjoyed being high up on the cliffs behind, just to gaze out toward those Henry Mountains he had seen all day. But the houses and trees blocked that view. Eastward across the river he could discern the speckled slope of yellow that climbed up to the book-cliff wall, now fading in the dusk.

Jim Wall never turned street corners without knowing what was ahead of him. So that before Hank Hays and the two individuals with whom he was talking were aware of his presence he had seen them. They turned at his slow clinking step. Neither of the two with Hays was the man called Red.

“Hullo! here you air,” spoke up Hays. “I was speakin’ of you. Meet Happy Jack an’ Brad Lincoln. . . . Fellers, this stranger to Green River answers to the handle Jim Wall.”

Greetings were exchanged, but not one of the three offered a hand. Their glances meant infinitely more than the casual few words. To Wall the man called Happy Jack fitted his name. The only contradictory feature lay in his guns, which it was not possible to overlook. Like Hank Hays, he packed two. This, however, signified little to Wall. The other, Lincoln, was some one to look at twice — a swarthy, dark, restless-eyed man, who, like Hays and his companion, had nothing of the cowboy stripe in his make-up.

“Let’s have a drink,” suggested Hays.

“Don’t care if I do,” responded Wall. “But I haven’t had anything to eat for two days.”

“Red’s havin’ supper cooked for us,” said Hays, pushing open the door.

The interior, bright with lamplight, proved to be more pretentious than the outside of the saloon. It had a flagstone floor, a bar with garish display of mirrors, paintings of nude women, bottles and glasses. Several roughly clad men were drinking, and ceased talking as Hays and his companion approached. In the back of the big room three cowboys lounged before an open fireplace where some fagots burned. There were several tables, unoccupied except for a man who lay face down on one. From an open door came the savory odor of fried bacon.

The men lined up at the bar, to be served drinks by Red, who was evidently bartender as well as proprietor. Wall missed nothing. Hays took his whisky straight and at a gulp; Happy Jack said, “Here’s lookin’ at you,” and Lincoln sipped lingeringly. Whisky was not one of Wall’s weaknesses; in fact, he could not afford to have any weakness. But he drank on politic occasions, of which this was more than usually one.

“Cow-puncher?” queried Lincoln, who stood next to Wall.

“Yes. But I’ve not ridden the range much of late years,” replied Wall.

“You’ve the cut of it. Where you from?”

“Wyoming.”

“Long ways. Don’t know thet country. Where you aimin’ for?”

“No place in particular,” replied Wall, guardedly. “Might try riding here, if I can get on some outfit.”

“On the dodge?” queried Lincoln, after a pause.

Wall set down his glass and turned to his interrogator. Their glances locked.

“Are you getting personal?” returned Wall, coldly.

“Not at all. I ain’t curious, neither. Just askin’ you.”

“Ahuh. Well, what might you mean by ‘on the dodge’?”

“Anybody particular lookin’ for you?”

“I dare say. More than one man.”

“Are you movin’ along, dodgin’ them?”

“Not them,” retorted Wall, contemptuously.

“So I thought. Friend, you have the cut, the eye, the movement, the hand of a gun-fighter. I happen to know the brand.”

“Yes? Well, if that’s so, I hope it isn’t against me in Utah.”

Here Hays, who had heard this bit of dialogue, interposed both with personal speech.

“Wall, thet’s ag’in’ a man anywhere in the West, generally. So many damn fools wantin’ to try you out! But I reckon it’s a ticket for my outfit.”

“Your outfit,” declared, rather than questioned Wall, as if to corroborate the robber’s direct statement of something definite.

“Shore. Don’t mind Brad. He’s a curious, blunt sort of cuss. Let’s go an’ eat. . . . Feller’s, we’ll see you later.”

Wall followed Hays into a back room, where a buxom woman greeted them heartily and waved them to seats at a table.

“Red’s woman, an’ she shore can cook,” said Hays. “Wal, fall to.”

No more was said during the meal. At its conclusion Jim Wall had to guard himself against the feeling of well-being, resulting from a full stomach.

“Have a cigar?” offered Hays. “They shore come high and scarce out here.”

“Don’t care if I do.”

“Wal, let’s go out an’ talk before we join the other fellers,” suggested Hays. They returned to the big room. It was empty except for Red, who was filling a lamp.

“They’ve all gone down to meet the stage. It’s overdue now.”

“Stage! — From where?”

“West, so set easy,” laughed Hays. “Thet one from East won’t git in till — wal, now, let me see what day this is.”

“Saturday.”

“Wal, so it is. Then next Wednesday. By thet time you won’t be here.”

“No? Where will I be, since you seem to know?”

“You may be in the Garden of Eden, eatin’ peaches,” retorted Hays. “See here, Wall, you’re a testy cuss. Any reason why you can’t be a good feller?”

“Come to think of thet, yes, there is,” returned Wall, thoughtfully.

“All right. Thanks for thet much. I reckon I understand you better. An’ I don’t want to know why,” he said, with deliberation. He kicked the smoldering fire, and picking up a chip, he lighted his cigar, puffing clouds of smoke. “Aahh! Makes me think of a store I used to run in West Virginia, years ago. . . . What were you, Wall, once upon a time?”

Wall laughed musingly. “A country-school teacher once, for a while, before I was twenty.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned! You ain’t serious?” ejaculated Hays, incredulously.

“Yes, I am. It’s funny. I wouldn’t have remembered that before supper.”

“It do beat hell what a man can be, at different times in his life. But I’m concerned with now. An’ I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Fire away.”

“You didn’t hold it ag’in’ me thet I held up the old geezer at the ferry?”

“No. He was about the stingiest man I ever ran across.”

“All right. Would you have done thet yourself?”

“Possibly.”

“All right. I’d have done it without provocation. Does thet make any particular difference to you?”

“Not any — in particular. It’s none of my business.”

“Wal, make it your business.”

“Hays, you’re beating around the bush,” returned Wall, deliberately. “Come clean with it.”

“I reckoned so,” mused Hays, eying his cigar and flicking off the ashes with a slow finger. Then he veered his gaze to the brightening embers in the fire.

Wall felt that this was the first really unguarded moment Hays had shown, although he had appeared nothing if not sincere. It somehow defined his status, if not his caliber.

“You said you was broke?” Hays began again.

“I will be when I pay for this night’s lodging.”

“Thet’s on me. I’ll stake you to some money. You’ll want to set in the game with us?”

“Any strings on a loan?”

“Hardly thet. With me, it’s come easy, go easy.”

“Thanks then. I’ll take fifty dollars. That’ll do me until I can get located.”

“Wal, friend, the string is thet I want to locate you.”

CHAPTER 2

“BEND OVER HERE, so I can get your ear,” went on Hays, confidentially, and when Wall had complied he said: “I run true to form today when I held up thet Mormon. But it was a blunder, considerin’ the iron I have in the fire. If he wasn’t a Mormon, I’d feel uncomfortable about thet. . . . Now listen. Lately I’ve got in with a rancher over here in the Henry Mountains. He’s an Englishman with more money than sense. Fact is, he’s rich an’ crazy as a bedbug. It’s beautiful country an’ he got stuck on it. Bought ten thousand head of cattle an’ a lot of hosses. There’s some tough cowboy outfits over there, an’ more’n one real rustler outfit. Wal, this Englishman — his name is Herrick — got the idee of hirin’ all the hands available, cow-punchers, range-riders, gun-toters, an’ plain out-an’-out bad men. An’ to throw this select outfit ag’in’ the whole country. What do you think of the idee?”

“Original, to say the least. But not practical, unless he can reform bad men,” replied Wall, much interested.

“Wal, exactly. But I’m not concerned with the practicability of it. Herrick took a shine to me, made me what he calls his superintendent, an’ sent me off all over, lookin’ for hard-shootin’, hard-ridin’ men. An’ thet’s how you happened to run into me. I call it good luck for us both.”

“You’ve taken me for one of the hard-shooting, hard-riding kind, eh?”

“Shore. I only need to clap eyes on a man. . . . An’ don’t overlook, Wall, thet I’m not askin’ questions.”

“I haven’t missed that. Go on.”

“Wal, I want you in my outfit,” resumed Hays. “Brad didn’t cotton to you, I seen first off. But he’s a gun-thrower himself, a suspicious, jealous, queer sort, as more of them fellers air. He’s done for I don’t know how many ambitious-to-be killers. All the same he’s in my outfit an’ I reckon you might get along. It’s Heeseman who sticks in my craw.”

“Heeseman? Who’s he?”

“You’ll take this as confidence, in case you don’t want to throw in with me?” queried Hays, earnestly.

“Yes. I’ll regard it all that way.”

“Wal, Heeseman is the rustler of Dragon Canyon. None of the ranchers even round here know thet, but I know it. He’s got a small outfit, but shore enough bad. An’ in some way he got wind of Herrick’s scheme. Damn me if he didn’t pack over to Henrys with his outfit an’ start ridin’ fer Herrick.”

“Heeseman saw the same opportunity as you?” queried Wall, quietly.

“Wal, yes, I was comin’ to thet,” resumed Hays, gruffly. “I got the upper hand, though, an’ I’ll be the boss. Thet’ll lead to friction, shore as hell. There’ll be two factions sooner or later, an’ the sooner thet fight comes off the better.”

“I see. Less of a division of spoils.”

“Wall, I’m no rustler,” snapped Hays, annoyed.

“Excuse me. If it isn’t impertinent, may I ask just what you are?”

“Ever hear of Henry Plummer?”

“Can’t remember if I did.”

“Wall, Plummer flourished some ten an’ more years ago, first in Montana an’ later in Idaho. He was the greatest robber the West ever developed. Educated man of good family, born in the East. But the gold fever called an’ he was not the kind of a man to dig. He operated on the placer mines. Was an officer of the law while he was head of the biggest robber gang the frontier ever knew. From Bannock to Lewiston he kept the miners, the stages, the Wells Fargo in terror for years. . . . Wal, I seen Plummer hanged. I was one of his gang, a young man then in years.”

“Thanks for the confidence, Hays,” returned Wall, in surprise. “You must have strong interest in me to tell that.”

“Shore I have. But I don’t care to be classed as a rustler.”

“Too low down, eh — Well, then, what’s your plan with Herrick?”

“It certainly ain’t any two-bit cattle-stealin’. . . . However, thet’s not the point between you an’ me. What I want to know is, will you take a job in my outfit?”

“That depends, Hays,” returned Wall, ponderingly.

“Any scruples about it? Remember, I come clean with you.”

“No. I broke jail in Cheyenne.”

“What was you in for?”

“Shot a man. They were goin’ to hang me.”

“Ahuh. Was thet square?”

“I didn’t think so. . . . Had to kill the jailer to get out.”

“When was all this, Wall?”

“Some years ago.”

“An’ since then?”

“Been shooting my way out of one jam after another. I just couldn’t steer clear. So I’ve come far out West where no one ever heard of me.”

“Much obliged,” replied Hays. “I feel better, now you’ve returned the compliment. I’ve a hunch you haven’t sunk to stealin’. Am I right?”

“Not yet. But I’ve been on the verge often,” replied Wall, bitterly.

“Wal, you’re a hunted man. You’re broke. It’s about where you cross the divide.”

“One more question. What about this Herrick’s family?”

“Wal, he ain’t got any,” rejoined Hays. “We heard somethin’ about a sister comin’ out, but she never turned up.”

“Sister? It’d be a hell of a note if she did.”

“Wal, this shore ain’t no country fer women.”

It seemed to Jim Wall that this sally completed a definite conscious feeling in his mind toward the self-confessed robber. If it had not been dislike and disgust before, it certainly fixed at that now. Wall sensed a gathering interest in the situation he had happened upon. A thirst for adventure had played no small part in the event which had started him on his rolling-stone career.

Hays called for drinks and insisted on a handshake, which he executed solemnly, as if it were a compact which implied honor even among thieves. Shortly afterward the saloon gradually began to fill with loud-voiced, heavily-booted men.

Among them were Happy Jack, Lincoln, and a giant of a man with a russet beard, whom Hays introduced as Montana. He might have been a miner once, but his hand, which he offered agreeably, was too soft to have been lately associated with hard labor.

By tacit acceptance of a situation not vague to Wall, these men kept off to themselves, and were quiet and observing. Brad Lincoln had the hawk eyes of a man who was not going to be surprised.

Jim Wall sat back with interest and a certain enjoyment long unfamiliar. Saloons and gambling-halls were well known to him, from the notorious Dodge City to Kalispel, but he had not seen any like this of Green River, Utah. There was not a typical black-frock-coated gambler present, nor a half-naked dance-hall girl, nor a long-haired four-flush gunman looking for an easy mark to add another notch to his gun.

Cowboys were conspicuous by their absence, although before supper Wall had seen three. Teamsters, prospectors, cattlemen were there to the number of a dozen, and the others, making a score in all, had to remain problematical to Wall’s keen observance. Then a man, undoubtedly a trapper, entered. He wore buckskin and seemed out of place in that crowd. The bartender, Red, did a thriving business, selling only whisky, at four bits a glass.

“Seems to be no lack of money,” observed Wall to the watchful Hays. “Where do they get it?”

“Wal, you’re surprised, I see. So was I. This burg here is a stage stop for points in Utah an’ west. Lots of travel. But there’s big cattle ranges off toward the Henrys. South is most Mormons.”

“I see. But at that bar there are half a dozen men who are not travelers or ranchers or riders.”

“Wal, fer thet matter, all men in these diggin’s have got to be riders. It’s a long way from one waterin’-place to another. But you hit into things at thet. There’s four or five fellers I never seen before.”

“Who’s the tall one, with his hat pulled down, so you can only see his black, pointed beard?”

“Thet’s Morley. Claims to be a rancher. But if he ain’t the boss of the Black Dragon outfit, I’ll eat him.”

“And the loud fellow — the one with the plaid vest. He’s got guns inside that vest, one in each pocket, with the butts pointing out.”

“Hell you say! I hadn’t noticed. His name is Stud somethin’ or other. Seen him before an’ ain’t crazy about him.”

At this juncture the door slammed open, propelled by a vigorous hand, and a stout woman entered with a fierce mien. She had a red shawl tied round her head, and she tramped like a man in heavy boots.

“Sam Butler, you come out of this,” she shouted, peremptorily, to a man in the front rank of drinkers. He detached himself with alacrity from his fellows, and amid their boisterous bantering he sheepishly followed the woman out.

“Now thet’s the kind of a wife I oughta had,” observed Hays, admiringly.

“Let’s play poker.”

“Shore, but not just among ourselves.”

“Got any money, Hank?” asked Happy Jack.

“Did you ever see me broke? Brad, go dig up some suckers. But not thet hombre they call Stud. He didn’t get thet name playin’ solitaire.”

There were only two large gaming-tables, one of which was in use. Lincoln went among the men to solicit players, returning with Morley and the russet-bearded giant, Montana. There was no formality or greeting between Hays and these men. It was dog eat dog, Wall grasped.

“Make it six-handed. Come an’ set in, Wall,” said Hays. “Friendly little game of draw. Sky limit.”

Wall laughed. “I couldn’t play penny ante.”

“Wal, I’ll stake you.”

“No thanks. Some other time. I’d rather watch.”

“Excuse me, sir, but we don’t care for watchers,” interposed Morley, curtly.

No sooner had they seated themselves than the man Hays had called Stud strode up. He was a little fellow, but forceful, not one who would be good to meet in a narrow, dangerous place.

“Am I bein’ left out of this on purpose?” he demanded, and evidently he addressed Hays.

“Lincoln got up the game,” replied Hays, coolly, returning glance for glance.

“You ask my friends to set in, an’ not me.”

“Wal, if you’re so damn keen about it, why, set in with us,” went on Hays, fingering a deck of cards. “But if you want to know bad, I’m not stuck on playin’ with you.”

“Mean thet to insult me?” Stud queried, sharply, his right hand rising to the lapel of his open vest. If Wall had not observed the bulge of two guns inside his vest he would have divined from Stud’s action that there was one at least. Probably this fellow was a surly, cross-grained type whom contact with the bottle made unreasonable.

“Not atall,” replied Hays, leaning back in his chair. That significant movement of Stud’s had not been lost upon him. A little cold glint appeared in his pale eyes. “Reckon you’re too slick a poker-player for Hank Hays. I want a run fer my money.”

“Slick, eh? Wal, I don’t mind bein’ called thet. It’s a compliment. I’ve yet to see the gambler who wouldn’t be slick if he could. But when you ask my pards to play, an’ not me — thet’s different.”

“Set in, Stud,” rejoined Hays, civilly, as he began to shuffle the cards. “I feel lucky tonight. Last time you had it all your way.”

The game began then with Happy Jack and Wall looking on. Morley made rather a pointed move and remark anent Wall’s standing behind him.

“Shore I’ll change seats with you,” replied Hays, obligingly, but it was plain he felt irritated.

“Never mind, Hays,” interposed Wall, deliberately. “The gentleman evidently fears I’ll tip off his cards. So I’ll stand behind you, if I may.”

From the very first deal Hays was lucky. Morley stayed about even. Brad Lincoln lost more than he won. The giant Montana was a close, wary gambler, playing only when he had good cards. Stud was undoubtedly a player who required the stimulation and zest of opposition. But he could not wait for luck to change. He had to be in every hand. Moreover, he was not adept enough with the cards to deal himself a good hand when his turn came. He grew so sullen that Wall left off watching and returned to the fireside.

But presently he had cause to attend more keenly than ever to this card game. The drift of conversation, if it could be called that, and especially from the gambler, Stud, wore toward an inevitable fight. These men were vicious characters. Wall knew that life out here was raw. There was no law except that of the six-shooter. Back in Wyoming and Montana, where it was tough enough, Wall thought, there were certain restraints bound to affect any man. There were sheriffs, courts, jails, and something wonderfully calculated to check outlaws, desperadoes and cowboys run amuck — and that was the noose. Wall had seen many a man strung up to the limb of a Cottonwood.

While he bent a more penetrating gaze upon Stud, to whom his attention gravitated, Wall saw him perform a trick with the cards that was pretty clever, and could not have been discerned except from Wall’s position.

Nevertheless, fickle fortune most certainly had picked on Stud. He bet this hand to the limit of his cash, and then, such was his confidence, he borrowed from Morley. Still he could not force Hays to call. He fell from elation to consternation, then to doubt, from doubt to dismay, and from this to a gathering impotent rage, all of which proved how poor a gambler he was. When at last he rasped out: “Wal — I call! Here’s mine.”

He slammed down an ace full. Hays had drawn three cards.

“Stud, I hate to show you this hand,” drawled Hays.

“Yes, you do! Lay it down. I called you.”

Whereupon Hays gently spread out four ten spots, and then with greedy hands raked in the stakes.

Stud stared with burning eyes. “Three card draw! . . . You come in with a pair of tens?”

“Nope. I held up one ten an’ the ace,” replied Hays, nonchalantly. “I had a hunch, Stud.”

“You’d steal coppers off a dead nigger’s eyelids!”

“Haw! Haw!” bawled the victorious gamester. But he was the only one of the six players who seemed to see anything funny in the situation. That dawned upon him. “Stud, I was takin’ thet crack of yours humorous.”

“Was you?” snapped Stud.

“Shore I was,” returned Hays, with congealing voice. His pale eyes took on a greenish cast.

“Wal, I didn’t mean it humorous.”

“Ahuh. Come to look at you, I see you ain’t feelin’ gay. Suppose you say just what you did mean.”

“I meant what I said.”

“Shore. I’m not so awful thick. But apply thet crack to this here card game an’ my playin’.”

“Hays, you palmed them three ten spots,” declared Stud, hotly.

Then there was quick action and the rasp of scraping chairs, and the tumbling over of a box seat. Stud and Hays were left alone at the table.

“You’re a ——  ——  ——  ——  ——  —— of a liar!” hissed Hays, suddenly black in the face.

Here Jim Wall thought it was time to intervene. He read the glint in Stud’s eyes. Hays was at a disadvantage, so far as drawing a gun was concerned. And Wall saw that Stud could and would kill him.

“Hold on there!” called Wall, in a voice that made both men freeze. He stepped clear of the chimney, against which he had been leaning.

Hays did not turn to Wall, but he spoke: “Pard, lay off. I can handle this feller.”

“Take care, stranger,” warned Stud, who appeared to be able to watch both Hays and Wall at once. They were, however, almost in line. “This ain’t any of your mix.”

“I just wanted to tell Hays I saw you slip an ace from the bottom of the deck,” said Wall. He might as well have told something of Hays’ irregularities.

“Wot! He filled his ace full thet way?” roared Hays.

“He most certainly did.”

“All right, let it go at thet,” replied Stud, deadly cold. “If you can say honest thet you haven’t pulled any tricks go for your gun. Otherwise keep your shirt on.”

That unexpected sally exemplified the peculiar conception of honor among thieves. It silenced Hays. The little gambler knew his man and shifted his deadly intent to a more doubtful issue. Such fascination of uncertainty had been the death of untold Westerners.

“Jim Wall, eh?” he queried, insolently.

“At your service,” retorted Wall. He divined the workings of the little gambler’s mind. Stud needed to have more time, for the thing that made decision hard to reach was the quality of this stranger. His motive was more deadly than his will or his power to execute. All this Jim Wall knew. It was the difference between the two men.

“I’m admittin’ I cheated,” said Stud, harshly. “But I ain’t standin’ to be tipped off by a stranger.”

“Well, what’re you going to do about it?” asked Wall.

The moment had long passed in which there had been need of caution.

Stud did not know what he was going to do. And just as plain was the fact that he wanted to annihilate. On the other hand, Wall had no desire to kill this testy, loudmouthed little gambler. These things were manifest. They were Wall’s strength and Stud’s weakness. The spectators of the drama almost held their breaths.

Wall’s deliberate query ended Stud’s vacillation. His body shrank ever so slightly. His lean, dark, little hands lifted quiveringly from the table.

“Don’t draw!” yelled Wall. “The man doesn’t live who can sit at a table and beat me to a gun.”

“Hell — you say!” panted Stud. But that ringing taunt had cut the force of his purpose. There were beads of sweat on his face.

“You’ve got a gun in each inside vest pocket,” said Wall, contemptuously. “Men of your stripe don’t live long in my country.”

The gambler let his nervous, clawlike hands relax and slide off the table. Then the tension of all broke.

“Come on, Stud,” spoke up Morley. “Let’s get out of here.”

Stud shuffled to his feet, malignant, and beaten for the moment.

“Hays, you an’ me are even,” he said, gruffly. “But I’ll meet your new pard some other time.”

“Shore, Stud. No hard feelin’s on my side,” drawled Hays.

The little gambler stalked to the bar, followed by Morley and the russet-bearded giant. “Buy me a drink,” said Stud, hoarsely. “I’m cleaned out.” They drank and left the saloon.

Not until then did Hank Hays turn round, and when he did it was distinctly noticeable that he was pale.

“Jim, thet —— did have two guns inside his vest. I never saw them till you gave it away. The ——  ——  ——  —— would have killed me.”

“I think he would, Hays,” returned Wall, seriously. “You were sitting bad for action. You ought to have got to your feet before starting that argument.”

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Hays, huskily. He wiped his face, then regarded Wall with new eyes. Happy Jack and Brad Lincoln rejoined Hays at the table. Lincoln’s gaze was more expressive than any words could have been.

“Brad, where was you when it come off?” queried Hays.

“I was lookin’ out fer myself.”

“I seen thet, all right. . . . Jim, I’m much obliged to you. I’d have hated shufflin’ off at this particular time. You can gamble I won’t forget it. . . . I’d like to know somethin’.”

“What’s that?”

“Did you bluff him?”

“Hardly. I had him figured. It was a pretty good bet he wouldn’t try to draw. But if he had made a move—”

“Ahuh. It’d been all day with him. . . . This gambler, Stud, has a name out here for bein’ swift on the draw. He’s killed—”

“Bah!” cut in Wall, good-humoredly. “Men who can handle guns don’t pack them that way.”

“Wal, he’s the first I ever seen out here, at thet,” replied Hays. “You see, when I called him I had my eyes on his hands, which was flat on the table. I thought I could shoot him easy enough an’ was a mind to do it. But, hell’s fire, how easy he could have bored me!”

“No, he couldn’t, with me standing here. . . . Let’s go to bed, Hays. I’m sleepy.”

“Good idee. We’ll all go. Have a drink on me.”

They lined up at the bar.

“Jim,” said Hays, poising his glass, “funny how a man figgers another. Not only you figgerin’ Stud, but down at the ferry, when I met you, I had sort of a hunch you’d be a feller to tie to. Here’s lookin’ at you!”

Presently they bade Red good night and went outside. The night was dark, windy, cold. Dust whisked along the road, rustling, seeping. The stars blinked white. Black and grim the cliff wall stood up, seemingly to tower over the town.

“Where you sleepin’?” asked Hays.

“Left my pack in the stall out back with my horse.”

“You don’t call thet pack a bed, do you? Come sleep in a real bed.”

“I’ll make out all right. What do we do tomorrow?”

“I was thinkin’ of thet. We’ll shake the dust of Green River. It might not be healthy for us, seein’ this is Morley’s hangout. Besides, I’m flush with money. I’d only lose it. So I reckon tomorrow we’d better stock up on everythin’ an’ hit the trail for the Henrys.”

“Suits me,” replied Wall. “How about you, Brad?”

“I’ll go, Hank, but it’s only because nothin’ else offers. This new deal of yours, as I size it up, will come to the awfulest mess ever.”

“Ahuh. An’ you, Happy?”

“Sounds tumble good to me, Hank,” replied Jack, with the enthusiasm to be expected from one with his nickname.

“Wal then, good night. Breakfast here early,” concluded Hays.

They parted. Jim Wall bent his cautious steps back to the barn. Presently his eyes became used to the darkness and he made better progress. But he was not passing any trees or bushes or corners, nor did he enter the barnyard by the gate. Nothing intervened to occasion more caution. He found his pack where he had left it, and carrying it out into the open he made his bed and lay down in it, after removing only his gun belt.

Then he reviewed the events of the day and evening. That brief occupation afforded him no pleasure. Nevertheless, he decided that he was glad he had fallen in with Hank Hays and his cronies. He had been a lone wolf for so long that the society of any class of men would have been relief. Well he knew, however, that soon he would be on the go again. He could not stay in one locality long, though there had been several places where he would have liked to spend the rest of his life. At least he was not indifferent to beautiful and peaceful country. The rub was that no place could long remain peaceful for Jim Wall. It would be so here in Utah. Sometimes, rarely, however, his thoughts impinged upon the distant past when for him there had been zest and thrill of adventure.

He had grown callous. It so happened that tonight he seemed on the threshold of another and extraordinary experience, even for him, and it kept him thought-provokingly awake, with only resentment and disillusion as reward.

CHAPTER 3

A RED SUNRISE greeted Wall upon his awakening. He rolled his bed and carried it back to the corral. There was a thin skim of ice on the water in the trough. As it had not been broken, he believed that he was the first up. Bay whinnied to him from the stall.

When, a little later, he presented himself at the back of Red’s house for breakfast, he was to find Hays, Happy Jack, and Brad Lincoln ahead of him.

“Mornin’!” said Hays cheerily. “Do you smell spring in the air?”

“Howdy, everybody!” replied Wall. “I guess I like this country.”

“Only bad thing about this end of Utah is thet you hate to leave,” observed the robber. “Usually we winter here an’ go somewhere else in summer. It’s hottern’ hell here in July an’ August. But I always want to come back. Gets hold of a feller. An’ thet’s bad.”

They had breakfast. “Brad, you fetch your pack-hosses round back,” ordered the leader, when they got outside. “Happy, you get yourself a hoss. Then meet us at the store quick as you can get there. . . . Jim, you come with me.”

“Hays, I’m in need of some things,” said Wall.

Hays drew out a handful of bills and pressed them upon Wall without any interest in how much or little was there.

“Shore. Buy what outfit you need an’ don’t forget a lot of shells,” replied Hays. “If I don’t miss my guess, we’ll have a smoky summer. Haw, Haw! . . . Here’s the store. Run by Josh Sneed, friendly to Mormons. I’ve a sneakin’ hunch he’s one himself. Hasn’t any use for us. But he’ll take our money, you bet, an’ skin the pants off us, if we let him.”

The store proved to be similar to most Western stores dependent upon the stage line for their supplies. It consisted of the whole floor of a stone-walled building, and general merchandise littered it so that moving around was not easy.

A bright young fellow, who looked to be the son of the proprietor, took charge of Wall. A new saddle blanket was Wall’s first choice, after which he bought horseshoes and nails, a hammer and file, articles he had long needed, and the lack of which had made Bay lame. After that he selected a complete new outfit of wearing apparel, a new tarpaulin, a blanket, rope, and wound up with a goodly supply of shells for his .45 Colt, bearing in mind the cardinal necessity of constant practice, a habit neglected of late, for the very good reason that he had no funds. Likewise he got some boxes of .44 Winchester shells for his rifle.

After this stocking-up he was surprised to find that he had considerable money left. Hays had been generous. Whereupon Wall went in for some luxuries, such as a silk scarf, razor and brushes and comb, towels and soap, and finally, amused at himself, some boxes of nuts and candy.

All these purchases he rolled in the tarpaulin, which he threw over his shoulder. Starting out, he passed Hays, who was buying food supplies.

“I’ll need a pack-horse,” said Wall.

“Ha! I should smile you will!” replied the other, with a grin. “Take your pick. We got five or six extra hosses. . . . Did you buy saddle-bags an’ a canvas water-bag?”

“No. I didn’t think of them.”

“Wal, I’ll fetch them things round for you. Rustle Happy an’ Brad over here, will you? An’ throw the pack-saddles on. We want to be hittin’ the trail.”

Wall met the two men on the way to the store.

“Hays wants you to rustle,” he said.

“We’re mozeyin’ along. You’ve a fust-rate pack-hoss, Wall,” returned the genial Happy Jack.

Jim thought so himself by the time he had reached the corral. He was glad he no longer needed to make a pack-animal of Bay. There were six or eight horses in the corral several of which took Jim’s eye. Still, they could not compare with Bay.

Spreading out his possessions, he packed them in one small and two large bundles. This he performed with care, having in mind a long journey over bad trails. By the time he had finished Happy Jack and Lincoln arrived, staggering under burdens. While they rested Hays came along, and the pack he carried attested to the fact that he was no shirker.

“Hank, you look like a thundercloud,” observed Brad Lincoln, chuckling.

“Wal, I feel like one. What do you think, fellers? Thet fox-faced Sneed always did make me pay cash, but this time I had to produce beforehand.”

“These Mormons are slick business men,” said Happy Jack.

“Hank, it ain’t only your credit thet’s bad here in Green River,” added Lincoln, satirically.

“Wal, I’ll tell you what,” growled Hays. “If we didn’t have this Star Ranch deal on we’d take every damn thing Sneed has.”

“Let’s do it, anyhow.”

“Nope. At least not now. Mebbe this fall . . . I’d like to have a shot at Sneed’s sharp nose. . . . Rustle an’ pack now, fellers. We’re behind.”

Half an hour later the four men, driving five packed horses and two unpacked, rode off behind the town across the flat toward the west. Coming to a road, Hays led on that for a mile or so, and then branched off on a seldom-used trail which appeared to parallel the wonderful, gray-cliffed mountain wall that zigzagged on to the purple-hazed distance.

They went down a long hill of bare clay earth dotted with rocks and scant brush, at the bottom of which ran a deep, wide, dry wash. Green River with its cottonwoods dropped behind the hill, to be seen no more.

Gradually the pack-horses settled into single file on the trail and required little driving. The riders straggled along behind. Jim Wall brought up the rear. If he was ever contented it was when he was on horseback with open, unknown country ahead. This for him was familiar action. Once he caught himself looking back over his shoulder, and he laughed. It was an instinct, a habit.

When the opposite, endless, slow-rising slope had been surmounted, Wall saw all around country that wrenched a tribute from him. Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana left much to be desired in comparison with Utah. Jim had not ridden over Arizona, so could not judge. But Utah was stunning.

To his right ran the crooked rim-rock, gray and yellow, with its speckled slides, its jagged peaks, its rough wildness increasing on and on. Ahead a vast rolling plain, bare in the foreground, stark and ghastly in patches, and in the distance rolling from monotonous gray to faint green. Above the horizon towered the black Henry Mountains, far away, dim and strange, with white peaks in the blue.

But it was the region to the left and south of the Henrys that fascinated Jim Wall.

Beyond the bulge of the plain, buttes stood up here and there, lofty and sentinel-like, isolated, hinting of rough country. More, toward Wall’s left, the plain dropped off, allowing him to see boundlessly in that direction. A shiny, wandering line of river, bordered with green, disappeared in a chaotic wilderness of bare rock, carved and broken into every conceivable shape.

The thought came to Wall that a rider down in there would have little to fear from pursuers. He would be alone. He could sleep. He could idle for hours, with never a need to hurry or think or watch. But how could he live? It looked formidable and forbidding.

These impressions of Wall’s did not materially change as the miles passed by, except to augment. The trail grew sandy, though not dragging. Thin, bleached grass, with a little touch of green, began to show on the desert. Wall watched for some evidence of wild creatures. What a bleak, inhospitable land! Hours passed before he sighted a track, and that had been made by an antelope. Patches of sunflower stalks, beginning to green, showed in the sandy swales. There were no birds, no lizards, no hawks, no rabbits, nothing but endless rolling plain tinged with green. But the hours did not drag. They never dragged for Wall on a ride like this, when he could forget all that he had turned his back upon and could look ahead to the calling horizons.

Toward sunset they drew down to the center of a vast swale, where the green intensified, and the eye of the range-rider could see the influence of water. Gradually the Henrys sank behind the rim of this bowl, and the zigzag wall, growing crimson, appeared to lose its lofty height. Only one of the buttes showed its blunt crown of gold and red. For the rest, all was sunset flare, a blazing sky of rose and salmon with gold clouds in the west. And the huge, circular swale was bathed in an ethereal violet light.

Hays halted for camp at a swampy sedge plot where water oozed out and grass was thick enough to hold the horses.

“Aha! Good to be out again, boys,” said Hays, heartily. “Throw saddles an’ packs. Turn the hosses loose. Happy, you’re elected cook. Rest of us rustle somethin’ to burn, which is shore one hell of a job.”

Jim rambled far afield to collect an armload of dead stalks of cactus, greasewood, sunflower; and dusk was mantling the desert when he got back to camp. Happy Jack was whistling about a little fire; Hays knelt before a pan of dough, which he was kneading; Lincoln was busy at some camp chore.

“Wal, I don’t give a damn for store bread,” Hays was saying. “Give me sour-dough biscuits. . . . How about you, Jim?”

“Me too. And I’d like some cake,” replied Jim, dropping his load.

“Cake! — Wal, listen to our new hand. Jack, can you bake cake?”

“Sure. We got flour an’ sugar an’ milk. Did you fetch some eggs?”

“Haw! Haw! . . . Thet reminds me, though. We’ll get eggs over at Star Ranch. None of you ever seen such a ranch. Why, fellers, Herrick’s bought every durn hoss, burro, cow, steer, chicken in the whole country.”

“So you said before,” returned Lincoln. “I’m sure curious to see this Englisher. Must have more money than brains.”

“Hell yes! He hasn’t got any sense, accordin’ to us Westerners. But, Lordy! the money he’s spent!”

Jim sat down to rest and listen. These riders had accepted him and they were out in the open now, where one might expect frankness.

“Rummy deal — a rich Englishman hirin’ men like us to run his outfit,” pondered Lincoln, in a puzzled tone. “I don’t understand it.”

“Wal, who does? I can’t, thet’s shore. But it’s an honest God’s fact, an’ we’re goin’ to be so rich pronto thet we’ll jest about kill each other.”

“More truth than fun in thet, Hank, old boy, an’ don’t you forget it,” rejoined Lincoln. “How do you aim to get rich?”

“Shore, I’ve no idee. Thet’ll all come. I’ve got the step on Heeseman an’ his pards.”

“He’ll be aimin’ at precisely the same deal as you.”

“Shore. We’ll have to kill Heeseman an’ Progar, sooner or later. I’d like it sooner.”

“Humph! Thet ain’t goin’ to be so easy, Hank.”

“Wal, Brad, don’t jump your ditches before you come to them,” advised Hays, philosophically.

“I don’t like the deal,” concluded Lincoln, forcibly.

Presently they sat to their meal, and ate almost in silence. Darkness settled down; the staccato cry of coyotes came on the night wind; the little fire burned down to red coals. Lincoln essayed to replenish it with fresh fuel, but Hays made him desist. One by one they sought their beds, and Wall was the last. He did not lie awake long.

Dawn found them up and doing. Wall fetched in some of the horses; Lincoln the others. By sunrise they were on the trail.

It turned out to be a windy day, cold, almost raw, with only a pale sun. Blowing dust and sand shrouded distant landmarks. About noon they passed close to one of the buttes, a huge disintegrated rock, the color of chocolate, and so weathered that it resembled a colossal pipe organ. Not long afterward another loomed up through the dust — a mound with the shape of an elephant. Thereafter outcropping ledges of rock and buttes grew increasingly more abundant, as did the washes and shallow, stony defiles.

The gray, winding wall sheered off more to the north. About mid-afternoon the trail led down through high gravel banks to a wide stream-bed, dry except in the middle of the sandy waste, where a tiny ribbon of water meandered. It was a mile across this flat to the line of green brush.

“This here’s the Muddy,” announced Hays, for Jim’s benefit. “Bad enough when the water’s up. But nothin’ to the Dirty Devil. Nothin’ atall!”

“What’s the Dirty Devil?” asked Jim.

“It’s a river an’ it’s well named, you can gamble on thet. We’ll cross it tomorrow sometime.”

Next camp was on higher ground above the Muddy, and as it was a protected spot, in the lee of rocks, the riders were not sorry to halt. Wood was fairly plentiful, but there was an entire absence of grass and water. The horses, however, would not suffer, as they had drunk their fill at the river. They were tied up for the night and fed grain.

Hays and Lincoln renewed their argument about the Herrick ranch deal. It proved what Wall had divined — this Brad Lincoln was shrewd, cold, doubtful, and aggressive. Hays was not distinguished for any cleverness. He was merely an honest, unscrupulous robber. These men were going to clash. That was inevitable, Jim calculated; and for that matter he had never ridden with an outfit of hunters or cowboys some of whom did not clash. It was the way of men in the open. Jim remembered a posse with which he had once ridden, in pursuit of rustlers, whose members had argued and fought so much among themselves that they failed to catch their quarry. And certainly it was common knowledge to Westerners that gangs of robbers were continually at strife. Hank Hays was evidently a robber of some degree, though scarcely an outlaw yet. It was difficult to define an outlaw in a country where there was no law.

Early the next day Jim Wall had reason to be curious about the Dirty Devil River, for the descent into the defiles of desert to reach it was a most remarkable one. The trail, now only a few dim old hoof tracks, wound tortuously down and down into canyons of gray, yellow, brown, violet, black earth where stone appeared conspicuous for its absence.

At midday the sun poured down into this colorful hole so hotly that horses and men sweat tremendously, and suffered from thirst and choked with acrid dust. The tracks Hays was following failed and he got lost in a labyrinthine maze of deep washes impossible to climb and seemingly impossible to escape from. Their situation became serious, and they halted for a conference.

“Hell hole!” gasped Happy Jack.

“How much more of this, Hays?” asked Wall, seriously.

“I wish I was shore. If we get off down into the brakes proper it’s all up with us. For this ain’t nothin’ to the seventy miles between here an’ the canyon country. I’ve heared of men bein’ chased down in there, an’ of prospectors goin’ in thet nothin’ was ever known of them again.”

“We’ve walked round and round a good many miles,” said Wall.

Lincoln got off his horse and went down the canyon, evidently searching for a place to climb to the rim above. But he did not find it. Nevertheless, he returned in an assertive manner, and mounting, called for the others to follow.

“No. Thet’s the wrong way,” shouted Hays. “Thet’s south an’ if we keep on we’ll never get out.”

“Wal, I hear the river an’ I’m makin’ for it,” returned Lincoln.

Jim had heard a faint, low murmur which had puzzled him, and which he had not recognized because he did not dismount. They all followed Lincoln, who halted at the mouth of every intersecting gorge to step away from his horse and listen. Eventually he led them into a narrow, high-walled canyon where ran the Dirty Devil. The water was muddy, the current mean, the sandbar treacherous, but as it was shallow the riders, by driving the pack-animals on a rim, and plunging after themselves, forded it without more mishap than a wetting. The great trouble with the horses was that they were so thirsty they would have mired down had they not been forced on. At last a gravelly bar afforded solid enough footing for the animals to drink, and the men to fill their water-bags.

Still they were lost. There was nothing to do, however, but work up a side canyon, which fortunately did not break up into innumerable smaller canyons, as had those on the other side of the river. Eventually they got out, when Hays at once located himself and soon led them to a camp-site that never could have been expected there.

“Fellers, I’ll bet you somethin’,” he said, thoughtfully, before dismounting. “There’s a roost down in thet country where never in Gawd’s world could anybody find us.”

“Ha! An’ when they did it’d be only our bleached bones,” scoffed Lincoln.

“Wal, mebbe you won’t need such a place,” returned Hays, curtly. “Jim, what do you think?”

“I never saw such a place in all my riding. Nothing would surprise me,” replied Wall. “When will we get up high where we can see?”

“Tomorrow. Just before we reach the foothills. Wonderfulest country I ever seen, an’ different. Thet’s what fetched the Englishman. He’s plumb crazy over the view. Wal, it’s grand, shore as shootin’.”

“Hank, you always had the same weakness.”

“Ahuh. A man has to have weaknesses, hasn’t he? Yours is whisky, hard feelin’, an’ greediness,” returned Hays, deliberately.

That sally did not set well with Lincoln, though it effectually silenced him. There never had been any love lost between these two men, Jim conjectured.

A good camp-site left the men more leisure, except Happy Jack, who evidently liked to work as well as talk and laugh. He was capable, too. After supper Jim strolled away from camp, down to where the canyon opened upon a nothingness of space and blackness and depth. The hour hung suspended between dusk and night. He felt an overpowering sense of the immensity of this region of mountain, gorge, plain, and butte into which he was traveling.

He heard running water over rocks, a welcome, soothing sound. Coyotes had raised their hue and cry; now and then a shrill whistle of a nighthawk rent the air; cracking of weathered rock and rustling of brush indicated the presence of nocturnal animals. Hays had led up out of the barren network of canyons to the edge of a zone of life. The wind had a whisk, a tone, an icy touch of the mountain heights. While Jim Wall meditated there in the gathering darkness he was visited by an inexplicable reluctance to go on with this adventure. A blank, impondering fate seemed to stand up, vague, indefinable, yet more bitter than a fugitive life. He could not laugh it away. It needed daylight, and clear view of this calling wilderness, to dispel unrealities. He had had presentiments before, all of which had turned out incredibly true, but this clamped his soul somehow. He seemed to catch a glimpse of that soul, in the shape of a naked man, driven to and fro across the sand and the rock, tormented by horrors that were not physical, tortured by a spirit within.

Jim ponderingly retraced his steps. He could make but little of such a visitation, and that little had to do with his youth, his home, his sister, his mother, all of whom were but ghosts of a dim past. Every man, even these brutalized robbers, had some caverns of memory, into which sleep or unsolicited turn of consciousness thrust them momentarily. It was singular that the instant he caught sight of Hays and Lincoln lying prone on the ground, dark, still, betraying faces turned up to the starlight, this strange feeling left him. It never returned. But Jim Wall went to bed with a feeling that right then he should have found his horse and ridden off into the unknown.

Next morning he remembered something like a distorted dream, but he could not recall details. He had smoked too much these several days, and the strong drink Hays had brought along was not conducive to quiet nerves. Jim found himself confronted by a choice of drifting on in the ways of these men or returning to the lone-wolf character which had long been his. For the time being he chose the former.

Despite the abundance of water and feed thereabouts, some of the horses had strayed. Lincoln came in with the last few and he was disgruntled. Hays cursed him roundly. They got a late start. Nevertheless, Hays assured Jim mat they would reach Star Ranch toward evening.

The trail led up a wide, shallow, gravelly canyon full of green growths. Like a black cloud the mountains loomed ahead and above. Jim was glad to ride up at last out of that interminable canyon into another zone — the slope of the foothills. At last the cedars! Was there ever a rider who did not love the cedars — sight of their rich, green foliage and purple berries, their sheathed bark hanging in strips, their dead snags, their protection from wind and cold, their dry, sweet fragrance?

But upon looking back Jim forgot the foreground. Had he ridden out of that awful gulf of colors and streaks? Hays caught up with him. “Come on, Jim. This here ain’t nothin’. Wait till we get around an’ up a bit. Then I’ll show you somethin’.”

They rode on side by side. The trail led into a wider one, coming around from the northeast. Jim did not miss fresh hoof tracks, and Hays was not far behind in discovering them.

“Woods full of riders,” he muttered, curiously.

“How long have you been gone, Hays?” inquired Jim.

“From Star Ranch? Let’s see. Must be a couple of weeks. Too long, by gosh! Herrick sent me to Grand Junction. An’ on the way back I circled. Thet’s how I happened to make Green River.”

“Did you expect to meet Happy Jack and Lincoln there?”

“Shore. An’ some more of my outfit. But I guess you’ll more’n make up for the other fellers.”

“Hope I don’t disappoint you,” said Jim, dryly.

“Wal, you haven’t so far. Only I’d feel better, Jim, if you’d come clean with who you air an’ what you air.”

“Hays, I didn’t ask you to take me on.”

“Shore, you’re right. Reckon I figgered everybody knew Hank Hays. Why there’s a town down here named after me — Hankville.”

“A town? No one would think it.”

“Wal, it ain’t much to brag on. A few cabins, the first of which I threw up with my father years ago. In his later years he was a prospector — before thet a Mormon. I never had no Mormon in me. We lived there for years. I trapped fur up here in the mountains. In fact I got to know the whole country except thet Black Dragon Canyon, an’ thet hell hole of the Dirty Devil. . . . My old man was shot by rustlers.”

“I gathered you’d no use for rustlers. . . . Well then, Hays, how’d you fall into your present line of business?”

“Haw! Haw! Present line. Thet’s a good one. Now, Jim, what do you reckon thet line is?”

“You seem to be versatile, Hays. But if I was to judge from our meeting with the fat Mormon at the ferry, I’d say you relieved people of surplus cash.”

“Very nice put, Jim. I’d hate to be a low-down thief. . . . Jim, I was an honest man once, not so long ago. It was a woman who made me what I am today. Thet’s why I’m cold on women.”

“Were you ever married?” went on Jim, stirred a little by the other’s crude pathos.

“Thet was the hell of it,” replied Hays, and he seemed to lose desire to confide further.

Jim revolved in mind a story to tell this robber, if only to please him and establish some kind of background.

“Well, Hank, my story isn’t anything to excite pity, like yours. And sure not friendship.”

“Ahuh. I had you figgered, Jim,” replied Hays, wagging his head. “Shore Jim Wall ain’t your right handle. Wal, any handle will do out here. . . . Don’t be afraid to tell me about yourself, now or some other time.”

“Thanks, Hank. A man gets to be cautious. A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

“Wal, I’d rather train with enemies than alone. I can’t stand bein’ alone much.”

“That accounts for Lincoln. He rubs you the wrong way, Hank.”

“Brad’s a cross-grained cuss, but he has his good points. They don’t show in times like this.”

Jim had to make conjecture about the times that did bring out a desirable side of Brad Lincoln. And he had his doubts about it. The trail narrowed into rough going, which necessitated single file, and gradual separation of the riders. The morning was bright, cool, beautiful, with air full of sweet smells of sage, which soft gray growth had come down to meet them. Blue jays squalled, mocking-birds sang melodiously; ring-tailed hawks sailed low over the slopes. Deer loped away among the cedars. As there were three riders ahead of Jim, none of whom got off to shoot, it appeared no time for him to do so, either. Star Ranch probably abounded with game. Jim wondered about this new ranch. It would not last long.

They rode into the zone of the foothills, with ever-increasing evidence of fertility. The blue, cloudy color of the still pools of water in rocky beds gave proof of melting snow. But Jim’s view had been restricted for several hours, permitting only occasional glimpses up the gray-black slopes of the Henrys and none at all of the low country.

Therefore Jim was scarcely prepared to come round a corner and out into the open. Stunned by the magnificence of the scene, he would have halted Bay on the spot, but he espied Hays waiting for him ahead, while the others and the pack-animals disappeared round a gray rock-wall bend.

“Wal, pard, this here is Utah,” said Hays, as Jim came up, and his voice held a note of pride. “Now let me set you straight. . . . You see how the foothills step down to the yellow an’ gray. Wal, thet green speck down there is Hankville. It’s about forty miles by trail, closer as a crow flies. An’ thet striped messy pot of hash beyond is the brakes of the Dirty Devil. Reckon a diameter of seventy miles across thet circle wouldn’t be far wrong. Thet’s the country nobody knows. My father told me of a hole in there I’d shore like to see. Wal, where the green begins to climb to them red buttes — there you’re gettin’ out of hell. An’ beyond lays grassy plain after grassy plain, almost to Green River.”

Jim’s silence was eulogy enough. In fact, he could not think of adequate expression.

“Now shift an’ look across the canyon country,” went on Hays, stretching a long arm. “There’s two hundred miles of wind an’ water-worn rock. You see them windin’ threads, sort of black in the gray. Wal, them’s rivers. The Green runs into the Grand to make the Colorado, less’n sixty miles from where you’re sittin’ your hoss. An’ look at the threads meetin’ the Colorado. Canyons! I’ve looked down into Escalante, San Juan, Noki, Piute. But thet was when I rode with my father. I couldn’t take you to one of them places. We heard of great stone bridges spannin’ the canyons, but only the Injuns know of them. . . . Thet round-top mountain way across there is Navajo. An’ now, look, Jim. See thet high, sharp, black line thet makes a horizon, level as a floor. Thet’s Wild Hoss Mesa. It’s seventy-five miles long, not countin’ the slant down from the Henrys. An’ only a few miles across. Canyons on each side. It reaches right out into thet canyon country, which makes our Dirty Devil here look like a Mormon ranch full of irrigation ditches. Nobody knows that country, Jim. Think of thet. My father said only a few Mormons ever got on top of Wild Hoss Mesa. . . . What you think of it?”

“Grand. . . . That’s all, Hank.”

“Ahuh. I’m glad you ain’t like Lincoln. We’ll get somewhere together, Jim. . . . An’ now, comin’ nearer home, there’s the Black Buttes, sometimes called Bears Ears, an’ here’s Gray Bluff — thet wall thet dances toward us from the gray out there. . . . An’ this mess of rocks across the valley is Red Rocks. An’ so on, as you’ll come to know. Round the corner here you can see Herrick’s valley an’ ranch. It’s a bit of rich land thirty miles long an’ half as wide, narrowin’ like a wedge. Now let’s ride on, Jim, an’ have a look at it.”

But Jim elected to stay behind, trying to realize what it was that caused him to stare blankly, to feel his temples throb. Had he ridden half across the wild West to be made to feel like this?

Jim tried to grasp the spectacle that his eyes beheld. But a moment’s sight seemed greater than a thousand years of man’s comprehension. It would take time and intimacy to make this Utah his own. But on the moment he trembled, as if on the verge of something from which he could never retrace his steps. His sensations were not his to control.

Across the mouth of Herrick’s gray-green valley, which opened under the escarpment from which Jim gazed, extended vast level green and black lines of range, one above the other, each projecting farther out into that blue abyss, until Wild Horse Mesa, sublime and isolated in its noonday austerity, formed the last horizon. Its reach seemed incredible, unreal — its call one of exceeding allurement. Where did it point? What lay on the other side? How could its height be attained?

Nearer, and to the left, there showed a colossal space of rock cleavage, walls and cliffs, vague and dim as the blank walls of dreams, until, still closer, they began to take on reality of color, and substance of curve and point. Mesas of red stood up in the sunlight, unscalable, sentinels of that sepulcher of erosion and decay. Wavy benches and terraces, faintly colorful, speckled with black and gray, ran out into the void, to break at the dark threads of river canyons.

All that lay beyond the brakes of the Dirty Devil.

Here was a dropping away of the green-covered mountain foothills and slopes to the ragged, wild rock and clay world, beginning with scarfs of gray wash and rims of gorge and gateways of blue canyons, and augmenting to a region that showed Nature at her most awful, grim and ghastly, tortuous in line, rending in curve, twisting in upheaval, a naked spider-web of the earth, cut and washed into innumerable ridges of monotonous colors, gray, drab, brown, mauve, and intricate passageways of darker colors, mostly purple, mysterious and repelling. Down in there dwelt death for plant, animal, and man. For miles not one green speck! And then far across that havoc of the elements which led on to a boundless region of color — white jagged rents through miles of hummocky ground, and streaked by washes of gray and red and yellow, on to vast green levels, meadow-like at such a distance, which stretched away to the obstructing zigzag wall of stone, the meandering White Bluffs along the base of which Jim had ridden for many days.

“Down in there somewhere this Hank Hays will find his robbers’ roost,” soliloquized Jim, and turned his horse again into the trail.

Before late afternoon of that day Jim Wall had seen as many cattle dotting a verdant, grassy, watered valley as ever he had viewed in the great herds driven up from Texas to Abilene and Dodge, or on the Wind River Range of Wyoming. A rough estimate exceeded ten thousand head. He had taken Hays with a grain of salt. But here was an incomparable range and here were the cattle. No doubt, beyond the timbered bluff across the valley lay another depression like this one, and perhaps there were many extending like spokes of a wheel down from the great hub of the Henry Mountains. But where was the market for this unparalleled range?

Herrick had selected as a site for his home what was undoubtedly the most picturesque point in the valley, if not one that had the most utility for the conducting of a ranch business. Ten miles down from the apex of the valley a pine-wooded bench, almost reaching the dignity of a promontory, projected from the great slope of the mountain. Here, where the pines straggled down, stood the long, low cabin of peeled logs, yellow in the sunlight. Below, on the flat, extended the numerous barns, sheds, corrals. A stream poured off the mountain, white in exposed places, and ran along under the bench, and out to join the main brook of the valley.

Somewhat apart from both the corrals and outbuildings on the flat stood a new log cabin, hurriedly built, with chinks still unfilled. The roof extended out on three sides over wide porches, where Wall observed three or four beds, a number of saddles, and other riders’ paraphernalia. The rear of the cabin backed against the rocks. Jim understood that Hays had thrown up this abode, rather than dwell too close to the other employees of Herrick. From the front porch one could drop a stone into the brook, or fish for trout. The pines trooped down to the edge of the brook.

Naturally, no single place in all that valley could have been utterly devoid of the charm and beauty nature had lavished there, but this situation was ideal for riders. Hays even had a private corral. As Jim rode up to this habitation his quick eye caught sight of curious, still-eyed men on the porch. Also he observed that there was a store of cut wood stowed away under the porch.

“Wal, here we air,” announced Hays. “An’ if you don’t like it you’re shore hard to please. Finest of water, beef, lamb, venison, bear meat. Butter for our biscuits. An’ milk! An’ best of all — not very much work. Haw! Haw!”

“Where do we bunk?” asked Jim, presently.

“On the porch. I took to the attic, myself.”

“If you don’t mind I’ll keep my pack inside, but sleep out under the pines,” responded Wall.

When at length Jim carried his effects up on the porch Hays spoke up: “Jim, here’s the rest of my outfit. . . . Fellers, scrape acquaintance with Jim Wall, late of Wyoming.”

That was all the introduction Hays volunteered. Jim replied: “Howdy” and left a return of their hard scrutiny until some other time.

Hays went at once into low-voiced conference with these four men. Happy Jack hauled up the supplies. Brad Lincoln occupied himself with his pack. Jim brought his own outfit to a far corner of the porch. Then he strolled among the pines, seeking a satisfactory nook to unroll his bed. Jim, from long habit, generated by a decided need for vigilance, preferred to sleep in coverts like a rabbit, or any other animal that required protection. He was not likely to depart from such a habit, certainly not while in the company of Hank Hays and comrades. His swift glance at the four members new to him had not been comprehensive, but it had left a sharply defined impression. Any rancher who would hire this quartet of lean, dark-faced, hard-lipped border-hawks for cowboys was certainly vastly ignorant, if not mentally deranged. Jim was most curious to meet the English rancher.

At length he found a suitable niche between two rocks, one of which was shelving, where pine needles furnished a soft mat underneath, and the murmur of the brook just faintly reached him. Jim would not throw his bed where the noise of rushing water, or anything else, might preclude the service of his keen ears. There was no step on his trail now, but he instinctively distrusted Lincoln, and would undoubtedly distrust one or more of these other men. Hays exemplified the fact of honor among thieves. Jim had come to that conviction. This robber might turn out big in some ways.

CHAPTER 4

NOT UNTIL THE following morning did Jim Wall get a satisfactory scrutiny of the four members of Hays’ outfit.

His first impression was that not one of them had ever been a cowman, which gave their presence there such incongruity. Nor would any of them ever see their thirtieth year again.

Before breakfast, at the table, and afterward, out on the porch, it was give and take between Wall and this quartet. His lot had never been cast with just such men, but he knew how to meet them.

The eldest, who answered to the name of Mac, was a cadaverous-faced man, with a clammy skin and eyes like a ghoul. He was always twisting and squeezing his hands, lean, sinewy, strong members.

“Whar you from?” he had asked Wall.

“Wyoming last,” replied Jim, agreeably.

“An’ before thet, Texas, I’ll gamble.”

“Funny how I’m taken for a Texan, for I’m not. I never was in that state.”

“Not funny atall,” replied the other, with a laugh. “Leastaways not to Smoky hyar. Haw! Haw! You shore have the look of a Texan.”

“Hope that’s not against me here in Utah.”

“Jest contrary, I’d say,” rejoined Mac.

Jeff Bridges, a sturdy, tow-headed man of forty or thereabouts, probably once had been a farmer or a villager. He had a bluff, hearty manner, and seemed not to pry under the surface.

“Glad Hank took you on,” he said. “We need one cattleman in this outfit, an’ that’s no joke.”

Sparrowhawk Latimer, the third of the four, greatly resembled a horse thief Wall had once seen hanged — the same beaked nose, the same small sleek head, the same gimlet eyes of steel.

“Jim Wall, eh, from the Wind River country,” he said. “Been through thar, years ago. Must be populated now. It wasn’t a healthy place then.”

“Lots of ranchers, riders — and sheriffs,” returned Jim, easily. “That’s why I rode on.”

“Wal, them articles is scarce hyar. Utah is wild yet, except over east in the Mormon valleys.”

Hays had said to Slocum, the fourth member of this quartet, “Smoky, you an’ Wall shore ought to make a pair to draw to.”

“You mean a pair to draw on,” retorted the other. He was slight, wiry, freckled of face and hands, with a cast in one of his light, cold-blue eyes.

“Hell, no!” snorted the robber, in a way to fetch a laugh from his men. “Not on! . . . Smoky, do you recollect thet gambler, Stud Smith, who works the stage towns an’ is somethin’ of a gun-slinger?”

“I ain’t forgot him.”

“Wal, we set in a poker game with him one night. I was lucky. Stud took his losin’ to heart, an’ he shore tried to pick a fight. First he was goin’ to draw on me, then shifted to Jim. An’ damn if Jim didn’t bluff him out of throwin’ a gun.”

“How?”

“Jim just said for Stud not to draw, as there wasn’t a man livin’ who could set at a table an’ beat him to a gun.”

“Most obligin’ an’ kind of you, Wall,” remarked Smoky, with sarcasm, as he looked Jim over with unsatisfied eyes. “If you was so all-fired certain of thet, why’d you tip him off?”

“I never shoot a man just because the chance offers,” rejoined Jim, coldly.

There was a subtle intimation in this, probably not lost upon Slocum. The greatest of gunmen were quiet, soft-spoken, sober individuals who never sought quarrels. They were few in number compared with the various types of would-be killers met with on the ranges and in the border towns. Jim knew that his reply would make an enemy, even if Slocum were not instinctively one on sight. There was no help for these things, and self-preservation could scarcely be felt by men like Slocum. Like a weasel he sniffed around Jim.

“You don’t, eh?” he queried. “Wal, I work on the opposite principle. Reckon I’ll live longer. . . . Wall, you strike me unfavorable.”

“Thanks for being honest, if not complimentary,” returned Jim. “I can’t strike everybody favorably, that’s sure.”

Hays swore at his lieutenant. “Unfavorable, huh? Now why the hell do you have to pop up with a dislike for him?”

“I didn’t say it was dislike. Just unfavorable. No offense meant.”

“Aw, buffalo chips!” ejaculated Hays, in disgust. “You can’t be pards with a man who strikes you unfavorable.”

“I have been, up to the limit.”

“Smoky, I won’t have no grudges in this outfit. I’ve got the biggest deal on I ever worked out. There’s got to be harmony among us.”

“Hank, you’re in your dotage. Harmony among a bunch of grown men, all hard, bitter, defeated outlaws? Bah!”

“Smoky, because you’re an outlaw doesn’t make me one, or Happy or Brad or Mac or any other of us, unless Jim here. He hasn’t confided in me yet.”

“I’m no outlaw,” declared Jim, coolly.

“It’s a little matter thet’ll soon be corrected. This Englishman has money enough to fetch the law out on this border. There’s your mistake, Hank. I’ve been ag’in’ this deal an’ I’ll stay ag’in’ it.”

“Same here,” interposed Lincoln.

“Wal, we don’t agree,” said Hays, calmly. “An’ thet’s nothin’. But Smoky bobbin’ up ag’in’ my new man — thet’s serious. Now let’s lay the cards on the table. . . . Jim, do you want to declare yourself?”

“I’m willing to answer questions — unless they get nasty,” replied Jim, frankly. He had anticipated some such circumstance as this, and really welcomed it.

“Will you tell the truth?” queried Slocum, bluntly.

“I’ll agree to — if I answer at all,” rejoined Jim, slowly.

“How do you size up Hank an’ his outfit?” went on Slocum.

“Well, that was easy, as far as Hank is concerned,” replied Wall, leisurely. “We met at the ferry on Green River. A third party came over with us. Stingy Mormon who swam his horses to save two bits. Hank held him up.”

“Wal, I’ll be jiggered!” ejaculated Slocum. “Right thar in town? An’ a Mormon, too!”

“Smoky, it was a fool thing to do, but I just couldn’t help it,” declared Hays, in exasperation.

“We’ll be huntin’ a roost in the canyons before long,” declared Slocum, derisively. And then he addressed Wall again: “Thet puts another complexion on your showin’ up with Hank. All the same, since we started this, I’d like to ask a couple more questions.”

“Shoot away, Smoky,” rejoined Jim, good-humoredly, as he sensed now less danger of a split.

“You got run out of Wyomin’?”

“No. But if I’d stayed on I’d probably stretched hemp.”

“Rustlin’?”

“No.”

“Hoss-stealin’? Thet hoss of yours is worth stealin’.”

“No.”

“Hold up a stage or somebody?”

“No. Once I helped hold up a bank. That was years ago.”

“Bank robber! You’re out of our class, Jim.”

“Hardly that. It was my first and only crack at a bank. Two of us got away. Then we held up a train — blew open the safe in the express car.”

“What’d you get?” queried Slocum, with an intense interest which was reflected in the faces of his comrades.

“Not much. Only sixty thousand dollars in gold. It was hard to pack away.”

Smoky’s low whistle attested to his admiration, if no more. The others stood spellbound. Mac rubbed his suggestive hands together.

Jim turned to them: “That, gentlemen, is the extent of my experience as a robber. I was never caught, but the thing dogged. Still, I don’t want to give the impression I left Wyoming on that account. As a matter of fact, both deals were pulled off in Iowa. Something personal made Wyoming too hot for me.”

“Women!” grinned Hays, his face lighting.

“No.”

“Guns?” flashed Slocum, penetratingly.

Jim laughed. “One gun, anyhow.”

They all laughed. The tension seemed released.

“Smoky, I call it square of Wall,” spoke up Hays. “He shore didn’t need to come clean as thet.”

“It’s all right,” agreed Slocum, as if forced to fair judgment. Yet he was not completely satisfied, and perhaps that was with himself.

Hays plumped off the porch rail with boots ringing his relief and satisfaction. “Now, fellers, we can get to work.”

“Work! My Gawd! man, we’ve been druv to skin an’ bones since you left,” complained Mac.

“What doin’?” asked Hays, in surprise.

“Doin’? Diggin’ ditches an’ post-holes, cuttin’ an’ snakin’ poles, mixin’ mortar, packin’ rocks, killin’ beeves. Say, fellers, what ain’t we been doin’?”

“Wal, you’re cowboys now,” returned Hays, facetiously. “An’ thet reminds me. Herrick puts a lot of things up to me. I ain’t no cattleman. Jim, do you know the cattle game?”

“From A to Z,” smiled Wall.

“Say, but I’m in luck. We’ll run the ranch now. Who’s been boss since I left?”

“Herrick. An’ thet shore made Heeseman an’ his outfit sore. There’s trouble brewin’ with him, Hank. We got to get rid of him an’ his pards before we can pull any deals.”

“Listen, I’ve only one deal in mind,” replied Hays, powerfully. “Thet’ll take time.”

“How much time?” queried Lincoln.

“I don’t know. Ought to have a couple of months. . . . Shore Heeseman sticks in my craw. We’ll have a powwow tonight. I’ll go see the boss. Rest of you get to work. Haw! Haw!”

“What’ll I do, Hank?” asked Jim.

“Wal, you look the whole diggin’s over.”

Jim lost no time in complying with his first order from the superintendent of Star Ranch. What a monstrous and incredible hoax was being perpetrated upon some foreigner! Jim had no sympathy for him. He was just curious.

Evidently there had been ranchers here in this valley before Herrick. Old log cabins and corrals adjoining the new ones attested to this. The barns, the pastures, the pens teemed with ranch life. Jim did not recall ever having heard so much of a clamor. Burros were braying all over the place; horses whistled and neighed; turkeys gobbled; pigs squealed; roosters crowed; sheep baaed. It was certainly a farm scene, and despite the overcrowding, the disproportion to the natural effects of a normal ranch, was colorful, bustling, thrilling in the extreme.

He would have been willing to wager something that no Westerner had ever seen a barn like the one newly erected. Jim did not know whether to proclaim it a monstrosity or a wonderfully new and utilitarian structure. Probably it was English in design. If Herrick did not mind expense, this sort of improvement was all right. There were fences new and puzzling to Jim, as in fact were all the peeled-log constructions.

Jim passed cowboys with only a word or a nod. He could get along with that breed, whether here or anywhere, because he had developed his own range life with them. He made unobtrusive efforts to espy ranch hands of another type — that which was giving Hays concern. He talked with a stable-boy who proved easy to make friends with, and to an old man who said he had owned a homestead across the valley, one of those Herrick had gathered in. Jim gleaned information from this rancher. Herrick had bought out all the cattlemen in the valley, and on round the foothill line to Limestone Springs, where the big X Bar outfit began. Riders for these small ranches had gone to work for Herrick. They were Mormons. Jim concluded this was a desirable state of affairs, because it might account for the natural antagonism sure to arise between the real cowboys and the older employees of uncertain vocation. He was told, presently, that Heeseman, with ten men, was out on the range.

Presently Jim encountered Hays, accompanied by a tall, floridly blond man, garbed as no Westerner had ever been. This, of course, must be the Englishman. He was young, hardly over thirty, and handsome in a fleshy way.

“Mr. Herrick, this is my new hand I was tellin’ you about,” announced Hays, glibly. He was absolutely shining of eye and face. “Jim Wall, late of Wyomin’. . . . Jim, meet the boss.”

“How do you do, Mr. Wall,” returned Herrick, extending his hand, which Jim took with a bow and a word of acknowledgement. “Hays has been ringing your praises. I understand you’ve had wide experience on ranches?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been riding the range since I was a boy,” replied Jim, aware of being taken in by intelligent blue eyes.

“Hays has suggested making you his foreman.”

“That is satisfactory to me.”

“Are you a Mormon?”

“No, sir.”

“To what church do you belong?”

“My parents were Methodists,” replied Jim.

“Married?”

“No, sir.”

“You are better educated than these other men. It will be part of your duties to keep my books. I’m in a bloody mess as to figures.”

“Mr. Herrick, if you haven’t kept track of purchases, cattle, supplies, wages — all that sort of thing — it won’t be easy to straighten it all out. I’ve tackled that job before.”

“So I was tellin’ the boss,” interposed Hays. “But I’m shore, Jim, you’re equal to thet.”

“As I understand ranching,” went on Herrick, “a foreman handles the riders. Now as this ranching game is strange to me, I’m glad to have a foreman of experience. I was advised in Salt Lake City and at Grand Junction not to go in for cattle-raising out in this section. The claim was that the Henry Mountains was a rendezvous for several bands of steer thieves. That fact has been verified here by the ranchers from whom I bought land and cattle. My idea, then, was to hire some gunmen along with the cowboys. Hays’ name was given me at Grand Junction as the hardest nut in eastern Utah. Not so flattering to Mr. Hays, by Jove! but eminently satisfactory to me. So eventually my offer reached Hays and he consented to work for me, in the capacity, you understand, as a buffer between me and these cow-stealers. It got noised about, I presume, for other men with reputations calculated to intimidate thieves applied to me. I took on Heeseman and his friends. . . . Would you be good enough to give me your opinion, Wall?”

“It’s not an original idea at all, Mr. Herrick,” responded Jim, frankly, seeing the impression he was making on the Englishman. “That has been done before, in some cases, even to the setting of a thief to catch a thief. Its value lies in the fact that it works. But you really did not need to go to the expense — and risk, I might add — of hiring Heeseman’s outfit.”

“Expense is no object. Risk, however — what do you mean by risk?”

“Between ourselves I strongly suspect that Heeseman is a rustler and head of the biggest Mount Henry gang.”

“By Jove! You don’t say? This is ripping. Heeseman said the identical thing about Hays.”

Jim was on the lookout for that very thing.

“Hays will kill Heeseman for that,” retorted Jim, curtly. “But of course not while he’s in your employ. . . . It seems important, Mr. Herrick, for you to understand something of Western ways. There is a difference between hard-riding, hard-gambling, hard-shooting Westerners and rustlers, although a rustler can be that, too. But rustling is low-down. Hank Hays’ father was a Mormon prospector. Hank never grew up with cattle. But with horses. He has been a horse-trader ever since I knew him. If you go over to Green River, to Moab, and towns to the east you will hear that Hays is absolutely not a rustler.”

“I took Hays at his word,” replied the Englishman. “Heeseman did not impress me. It’s rather a muddle.”

“Wal, Mr. Herrick, don’t you worry none,” interposed Hays, suavely. “Shore I don’t take kind to what Heeseman called me to your face, but I can overlook it for the present. Just let Heeseman ride on till he piles up. Then it won’t be our fault, an’ whatever blood-spillin’ comes of it can’t be laid to you. Besides, so long as you hire his outfit you’ll be savin’ money. Jim had it figured wrong about expense. You see, if Heeseman is workin’ for you he can’t rustle as many cattle as if he wasn’t.”

“Meanwhile we will be learning the ropes,” put in Jim. “Such a big outfit as this needs adjustment. You oughtn’t sell a steer this summer.”

“Sell? I’m buying cattle now.”

“That makes our job easier,” returned Hays, with veracity. “Anythin’ come of thet deal you had on with the Grand Junction outfit?”

“Yes. I received their reply the other day,” rejoined Herrick. “We’ll have to send a letter to Grand Junction to close the transaction. . . . By Jove! that reminds me. I had word from my sister Helen. It came from St. Louis. She is coming through Denver and will arrive at Grand Junction about the fifteenth.”

“Aw yes, I recollect — a sister comin’ out,” replied Hays, constrainedly.

“Young girl — if I may ask?” added Jim, haltingly.

“Young woman. Helen is twenty-two.”

“Comin’ for a little visit?” asked Hays.

“By Jove! it bids fair to be a life-long one,” declared Herrick, as if pleased. “She wants to make Star Ranch her home. Friends of ours ranching it in Colorado were instrumental in my traveling out here. Helen and I are alone — except for distant relatives. We are devoted to each other. If she can stick it out in this bush I’ll be jolly glad.”

“Ahuh,” replied Hays, without his former radiance. “Utah ain’t so good a place for a young woman.”

“How so? By Jove! she will love it!”

“Rough livin’. Rough men. No women atall. An’ Mormons! . . . Excoose me, Mr. Herrick, but is this here sister a healthy girl?”

“All English girls are healthy. She’s strong and rides like a Tartar. It’s conceivable that she’ll turn Star Ranch on end.”

“I reckon any good-lookin’ girl would do thet, Mr. Herrick,” said Hays, resignedly. “But, Jim an’ me, here — we only guarantee to handle rustlers.”

“By Jove! you’ll have to handle these Mormon cowboys, too,” laughed Herrick. “Can you drive from Grand Junction in one day?”

“Shore. Easy with buckboard an’ good team,” replied Hays.

Jim Wall sustained his first slight reaction of dismay.

Their colloquy was interrupted by cowboys driving a string of heifers through the yard before the stable. And when they had passed Herrick resumed his talk with Hays, leaving Jim to his own devices.

Jim strolled around the corrals, the sheds, down the lane between the pastures, out to the open range, where for miles the gray was spotted with cattle, and back to the blacksmith shop. Here he scraped acquaintance with the smith, who proved to be a genial fellow named Crocker. He was another of the homesteaders Herrick had bought out, but he was not a Mormon. Manifestly he and his farming associates had been bewildered by the onslaught of the Englishman upon their peaceful valley and were frankly far the richer for it.

From the smithy Jim gravitated up the winding road to the top of the bench, where the rambling, yellow ranch-house, so new he smelled the rosin from the peeled logs, and the stately pines, and especially the view down the valley, wrought from him a feeling he seldom experienced — envy. How inconceivably good to own such a place — to have a home — to be able to gaze down the trails without keen eyes alert for riders inimical to life, and to revel in the far-flung curves and spurs and deeps of the desert! It was something Jim Wall could never know. His lot did not lie in the pleasant lanes of life.

This Englishman’s sister — this Helen Herrick — she would be coming to a remote, wild, and beautiful valley that any healthy-minded girl would love. But whatever the joy of reunion with her brother and the thrill of such unfettered life in the West, such a visit could only end in tragedy. Jim did not like the idea. A woman, especially a handsome one, always made trouble for men, though on the moment Jim was thinking only of her. What queer people the English! He remembered a gambler at Abiline, an immaculate, black-frocked, white-vested Englishman who frequented the dives of that frontier cattle town. He had been the coldest, nerviest proposition Jim had stacked up against. This Herrick had something of the same look, only one of pride and position instead of disgrace and ruin. What would the girl be like? Twenty-two years old, strong, a horsewoman, and handsome — very likely blond, as was her brother! And Jim made a mental calculation of the ruffians in Herrick’s employ. Eighteen! More, for including himself there were nineteen.

He seemed to feel disgust at the prospect of his being party to the misfortune of a young woman. But here, as in so many instances of recent years, he found discontent in the very things he might have avoided. Why rail at circumstance? Hank Hays had befriended him, even if his aim was selfish. Beggars could not be choosers. A robber should not be squeamish, and he, for one, could not be treacherous. Still —

He strode on and let action change the current of his thought. Avoiding another long gaze at the vast expanse half a hundred miles below, yet exquisitely clear in the rarefied atmosphere, he found a precipitous path down to the level, whence he made his way back to Hays’ cabin, satisfied yet dissatisfied with the morning.

CHAPTER 5

JIM PASSED THE afternoon astride his horse, familiarizing himself with the valley adjacent to the ranch-house.

Riding through the sage was a pleasure to which he had not treated himself for a long while. It added to his growing conception of Star Ranch.

On the way in he passed Heeseman’s camp, a group of soiled tents and a chuck-wagon, situated on the opposite side of the bench from that of Hays’, and farther back. The bench was stony there and unscalable. A road passed the camp, heading straight for the notch in the valley, and the pass between these two spurs of the Henrys. This was the main road to Grand Junction, a long fifty miles distant.

Jim halted to pass the time of day with the cook, a burly fellow busy at the shelf end of his wagon.

“Howdy! Is this Heeseman’s outfit?” asked Jim, civilly.

“Howdy yourself! Git down an’ come in,” replied the man, taking stock of Jim. “The boss hasn’t rid in yet.”

“Then I won’t wait. About grub-time over at Hays’ cabin. Will you tell Heeseman I left my respects? Jim Wall, late of Wyoming.”

“Jim Wall, huh? Sure I’ll tell him. It’s more’n any other of Hays’ outfit has done,” replied the cook, gruffly.

“They’re an unsociable bunch. We’re not that way in Wyoming.”

Jim rode on back through the barnyards, meeting lean-faced riders, mere boys in years, who eyed him askance and whispered among themselves. Upon arriving at the corral near Hays’ cabin he unsaddled and turned Bay loose with the other horses there. He left his saddle, too, but took his Winchester.

Hays greeted him from the porch bench, where he sat among several of his men.

“Where you been, Jim? Gettin’ the lay of the land?”

“Just taking ‘heap look’ round, as an Indian would say. Stopped to say hello to Heeseman, but he wasn’t in camp.”

“Wal, there’s nothin’ wrong with your nerve, Jim. I’ve just been tellin’ Brad an’ Sparrowhawk here how favorable you hit the boss.”

“Come an’ get it before I throw it out for the other hawgs,” yelled Happy Jack, cheerfully, from within.

There ensued a scramble. Jim did not rush. Entering last, he came upon Smoky Slocum just in the act of sitting down on a box seat, at the end of the long table. Jim kicked the box, which moved away just the instant Smoky stooped and sank. He thudded heavily to the floor with a most ridiculously clumsy action. A howl of glee ran from that end of the table up to the head, when Hays, standing aside to see, suddenly roared.

Smoky slowly got up, feeling of his rear and glowering at Jim.

“Can’t you see where you goin’?” he growled. “Accidents like that have cost damn fools their lives before this.”

“Slocum — I can’t lie — about it,” laughed Jim. “It wasn’t an accident.”

“You dumped me on purpose?” bellowed the little man.

“I kicked the box. . . . Just couldn’t help it. You’d have done the same to me.”

“Wal, I’ll be — !” ejaculated Smoky, suddenly animated. “So we’ve got a trick-player in camp. If you’d lied about thet, Mr. Wyomin’ Wall, I reckon I’d burned you where you set down. . . . Laugh, all you durned jackasses! But it ain’t funny. It jarred my teeth loose.”

Hays laughed longest, evidently taking the incident as another clever move of Jim’s, upon whom he beamed. Then he led the assault upon Happy Jack’s ample dinner. At the conclusion of the meal he said: “Fellers, we’ve a pow-wow on hand. Clear the table. Fetch another lamp. We’ll lay out the cards an’ some coin, so we can pretend to be settin’ in a little game, if anybody happens along. But the game we’re really settin’ in is the biggest ever dealt in Utah.”

So it came to pass that Jim Wall sat down with a crew of robbers to plot the ruin of a rich and eccentric rancher.

“Talk low, everybody,” instructed Hays. “An’ one of you step out on the porch now an’ then. Heeseman might be slick enough to send a scout over here. ‘Cause we’re goin’ to do thet little thing to him. . . . Happy, dig up thet box of cigars I’ve been savin’.”

“Cigars!” ejaculated Smoky Slocum.

“Hank, trot out some champagne,” jeered Brad Lincoln.

“Nothin’ to drink, fellers,” returned Hays. “We’re a sober outfit. No gamblin’ for real money. No arguin’ or fightin’. . . . Any of you who doesn’t like thet can walk out now.”

They were impressed by his cool force, as well as by the potency of the future. Certainly not one of them moved.

“All right. Wal an’ good. We’re set,” he went on. “Today I changed my mind about goin’ slow with this job. Never mind why.”

Jim Wall had a flash of divination as to this sudden right-about-face. Hays was deeper than he had appeared at first.

“Herrick reckons there are upwards of ten thousand head of stock on the range. Some of these Mormons he bought out sold without a count. I bought half a dozen herds for Herrick. An’ I underestimated say rough calculatin’ around two thousand head. So there’s twelve thousand good. Thet’s a herd, fellers. Can it be drove?”

“Are we a lot of cowboys?” queried Lincoln, scornfully.

“No, an’ neither air we a lot of rustlers,” resumed Hays, just as sarcastically. “If you can’t help me figger, why, just keep still. . . . Air there any of you who wouldn’t care to play a game for twelve thousand head of cattle at forty dollars per?”

There did not appear to be a single one.

“Ahuh. Wal, thet’s okay. Now can we drive such a big herd?” Hays this time directed his query at Jim.

“How far?” asked Jim.

“Fifty miles. Fair to middlin’ road. We can meet buyers there who’ll pay an’ no questions asked. No stiff count.”

“Yes. With eight riders well mounted it can be done in three days — provided they don’t have to fight.”

“Aha!” said Smoky puffing a cloud of smoke.

“Wal, we’d have to fight shore as hell. An’ Heeseman’s outfit is bigger than ours.”

“No sense in stealin’ stock for some other outfit,” added Brad Lincoln.

“Agree with you,” returned Hays, promptly. “I didn’t like the idee. But it’s so damn easy!”

“Boss, listen to this idee,” spoke up Smoky. “Most of these Star cattle range down the valley twenty miles below here. How’d it do for say five of us to quit Herrick an’ hide below somewhere? Meanwhile you go to Grand Junction an’ arrange to have your buyers expect a bunch of cattle every week. A thousand to two thousand head. We’d make the drives an’ keep it up as long as it worked. You’re boss, an’ Wall here is foreman. You could keep the cowboys close to the ranch.”

“Smoky, it’s shore a big idee,” declared Hays, enthusiastically. “But what about Heeseman?”

“Wal, we couldn’t keep it from him.”

“Not very long, anyway.”

“Heeseman’s the rub. We gotta do away with him.”

“Let’s clean out his bunch.”

Hays shook his shaggy head over these various replies.

“Fellers, if we pick a fight with thet outfit, some of us will get killed an’ others crippled. Then we couldn’t pull the deal. A better idee is for one of us to kill Heeseman.”

“Reckon it would. Thet’d bust the outfit.”

“Who’d you pick on to do thet, Hank?”

Jeff Bridges boomed out: “Why, Smoky, of course, or Brad.”

“Nope,” said Hays, shaking his head. “With all thet’s due Smoky an’ Brad I wouldn’t choose either. Jim, here, is the man for thet job.”

“An’ why?” demanded Smoky, in the queerest of tones.

Whether he was insulted or jealous would have been difficult to say.

“Wal, for two reasons. Jim has it on any of us handlin’ a gun, an’ second—”

“How do you know thet?” interposed Lincoln, acidly.

“Hell’s fire!” burst out Hays, suddenly ablaze. “There you go, you ——  ——  —— ! I suppose you think I ought to let you try Jim out? Wal, you can gamble on this. If I did we’d be two men out.”

His fiery intensity silenced them. Jim personally was relieved to see this little by-play. It showed Hays was a strong leader and it gave a line on the testy Slocum and the taciturn Lincoln.

“Go on, boss. I’m shore we figger you have the best for all of us at heart,” spoke up Mac, for the first time. “You never played no favorites.”

“Jim, it’d be murder for you to throw a gun on Heeseman,” said Hays, spreading wide his hands.

“I’m like Brad. How do you know that?” rejoined Jim, coolly.

“Wal, Heeseman’s gifts don’t lie thet way. He’s killed a couple of men that I know of. But I’ll bet I can go pick a quarrel with him an’ do it myself. To be dead certain, though, we’d better sic Jim on him. Besides, Heeseman doesn’t know Jim.”

“If you ask me, I say the better plan is to waylay Heeseman an’ his outfit,” said Lincoln. “Do for him sure an’ all or most of his men. There’s a couple of rattlesnakes among them.”

“Waylay them, huh,” mused Hays, scratching his unshaven chin. “Sort of low-down for us.”

“We’re playin’ for big stakes.”

“Mebbe we could drive off six or eight thousand head of stock before Heeseman ever found out,” put in Smoky. “What’s the sense of fightin’ it out till we have to? Let’s don’t cross any Dirty Devils till we come to them.”

The suggestion found instant favor on all sides.

“But we don’t want Heeseman trailin’ us,” expostulated Hays.

“You mean after we pull the deal?” queried Brad, incredulously.

“Shore I mean after.”

“Wal, what in thunderation do we give a damn for him, when we’ve got the coin an’ on our way to thet roost we’re due to find?”

“I don’t just like the idee, fellers,” replied Hays, evasively.

Jim Wall, studying the robber leader closely, imagined that Hays was not exposing all the details of his plot.

“Aw, to hell with Heeseman, before or after!” exclaimed Smoky. “Let’s put my idee to a vote.”

When this suggestion was solemnly complied with, making use of the deck of cards, it was found that Slocum had won.

“So far so good,” said Hays, as if relieved. “Now let’s see. . . . Smoky, tomorrow you take your gang, includin’ Brad, an’ quit. Pack a slue of grub an’ grain, an’ hide out below. Cache what you don’t need. I’ll go to Grand Junction for new hands. See? But all I’ll come back with will be instructions for you to follow. Then you can go drivin’.”

“Good! An’ how about the cash?”

“Wal, them buyers won’t pay me in advance, you can gamble on thet. But they’ll pay you. Just divide with your outfit an’ save our share.”

“Short an’ sweet. I like it more all the time,” declared Smoky. The trust imposed upon him sat lightly. Jim had no doubt of his honesty with his leader and comrades. Herein lay another reason for the loyalty to Hays. The robber began to loom to Jim.

“We’ll want to know where your camp is,” went on Hays. “Reckon I’d better ride out with you tomorrow.”

“No. You rustle for Grand Junction. We’ll see thet Happy an’ Jim know where to find our camp.”

Jim thought of something. “Men, has it occurred to you that you can’t drive cattle up this road and through the ranch?”

“Shore. No need. It’d be a seventy-mile drive if we came this way. But we’ll drive round by Limestone, an’ up the other valley road. About the same distance to Grand.”

“Air we forgettin’ anythin’?” muttered the leader, his big eyes staring into space.

“Nothin’ but Heeseman,” croaked Lincoln.

“Wal, there are a couple of more things, but we needn’t go into them now,” responded the leader. He slid several cigars into his vest pocket, and throwing the box upon the table he said: “Divide ’em even. An’ I hope it won’t be your last dollar smoke.”

The conference ended. Hays turned to the open fire, and seeking a seat in the shadow by the chimney, he pondered. It was Jim’s opinion that the chief had vastly more on his mind than he had divulged. Lincoln gave him a suspicious stare. The others seemed eminently pleased with the outlook, though no more was said in Jim’s hearing. They joked and smoked.

“Let’s play noseys,” suggested Happy Jack. A howl of protest and derision went up from half those present.

“I’d play for two-bits a card, but not just to have my beak all red,” said Smoky.

“What kind of game is noseys?” asked Jim, curiously.

“Set in with Happy an’ see.”

“What’s it like, Happy?”

“Wall, it’s better’n poker, any day,” replied Happy Jack. “Takes as good playin’. A hell of a lot more guts. An’ doesn’t lose you much money. . . . You deal three cards around. First feller left of dealer leads. You have to follow suit. If you can’t you draw off the deck till you can. High card, of course, takes trick. When the deck’s all drawn you have to eat the card led. Thet is you take it up an’. . . . But come an’ let me show you.”

“Not me. I want to know where the noseys come in.”

“Wal, whoever gets left with any cards, even one, is the loser. An’ everybody gets three whacks at his nose with three cards only. Also he has to pay two-bits to every player for each card he’s left with.”

“Fine game for this outfit,” laughed Jim.

“Shore there air a lot of big beaks to beat. It’s the fightenest game you ever seen.”

Jim bade them good-night and went out. His last glimpse of Hays was thought-provoking. Lighting another cigar, which he vowed would be the last of his smoking for a while, Jim strolled up and down the porch, revolving in mind the conference.

It was a spring night, starry, with an edge on the mountain air that meant frost in the morning. Coyotes were barking. And there came another sound which never failed to rend — the peeping of spring frogs. Plaintive, sweet, they probed the deeps of memory. Jim did not like the night so well as the day. And although he had crossed the Rubicon, had involved his word and meant to see this deal through, he liked it less and less. Was it possible that this lantern-eyed robber had evil intentions toward Herrick’s sister? Jim scouted the suspicion. Certainly, if the man was susceptible to women, he would react normally under favorable conditions. But to plot more than he had expressed, to involve his men in something vastly worse than the mere stealing of a herd of cattle, to betray them with murder and abduction — No! this Hank Hays was too big a man for that. He had the loyalty of his band. And yet —

“Damn the girl part of it, anyhow,” he muttered, flinging his half-smoked cigar out into the noisy brook. Why did a woman have to come along to upset the best-laid plans of men?

Jim went to his comfortable bed up under the dark pines, and lay awake in the shadows, listening to the whispers about him. The very rocks seemed to have voices. Nature had endowed Jim with sensitiveness and life had dealt him iron. The harder he grew the more this secret, deeply-hidden faculty of feeling had to be resisted.

The next morning brought sombre faces and action. Five of Hays’ outfit rode away with six of the pack horses and most of the supplies. Hays watched them until they disappeared among the cedars.

“Wal, now I’ll brace the boss,” he said.

“What excuse will you give him?”

“Anythin’ would do to tell Herrick. But Heeseman will see through me, I’m afeared.”

“Very well. You tell Herrick that your outfit split over me.”

“Over you — ? dog-gone! That ain’t so poor. But why?”

“Both Slocum and Lincoln are sort of touchy about gun-throwing, aren’t they? Well, tell him how queer that brand of gunmen is — how he instinctively hates the real gunman. And that Slocum and Lincoln made you choose between them and me. You chose me and they rode off with their pards.”

“Ahuh. Sort of so the idea will get to Heeseman’s ears that in a pinch with guns I’d rather have you backin’ me than them?”

“Exactly. Only elaborate it. Herrick won’t understand, so the more mysterious you make it the better.”

Not long afterward Hays returned to the cabin jubilant. “You’d never guess, Jim. That Englisher laughed like the very devil. An’ he ordered me to ride off after some desperadoes who’re not afraid of Jim Wall.”

“Ha! Ha! But Heeseman won’t get a laugh out of it.”

“See here. Don’t fetch things to a ruction with him.”

“I’ll steer clear, Hays. But if Heeseman should happen to brace me—”

“Shoot the lights out of him,” interrupted Hays, fiercely. “Wal, I’m off for Grand. Happy, pack me a snack of grub.”

“How long will it take you to ride over?”

“Eight hours, I reckon. An’ I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“Won’t take you long, then, to make connection with your buyers?”

“Wal, I should smile not.”

“Excuse my curiosity, boss, but I can’t help wondering how you can establish connection so quickly, since you claim you are not a rustler.”

“Thet’s my affair, Jim. But I’ll tell you some day.”

“Certainly these buyers will know you’re selling stolen cattle?”

“Oh, shore.”

After Hays had gone Jim settled himself to pass the hours away.

“Mebbe it won’t be so tedious,” observed Happy Jack, dryly. “We’ve got three rifles an’ a sack of shells right handy. So let ’em come.”

Jim half expected a visit from Herrick, but the morning dragged by without any sign of anyone. About mid-afternoon, however, six riders appeared coming down the lane along the bench. The sight made Jim start. How often had he seen the like — a compact little company of riders, dark-garbed, riding dark horses! It was tremendously suggestive to a man of his experience.

“Come here, Jack,” called Jim. “Take a squint down the road.”

Happy Jack looked. “Wal, they’re comin’ shore enough. Reckon I’d better have a peep at our supper. It might burn.”

Jim reached inside the door and, drawing out his rifle, he advanced to the front of the porch, where he leaned carelessly against a post. When the group of riders reached the point where the lane crossed the brook, just out of pistol range, they halted, and one, evidently the leader, came on to the bridge.

“Hi, thar!” he yelled, reining his horse.

“Hi, yourself!” shouted back Jim.

“Is this your day fer visitors?”

“We’re at home every day and Sundays.”

The man, whom, of course, Jim took to be Heeseman, walked his horse half the intervening distance and stopped again. Jim’s swift eye ascertained that the caller’s rifle-sheath was empty, a significant fact. It was still too far away to see what he looked like, but he had stature, and the figure of a man used to the saddle.

At this juncture Happy Jack emerged from the cabin and carelessly propped a rifle against the wall.

“Who’s callin’?” he boomed.

“I don’t know,” replied Jim.

“I’m Bill Heeseman, an’ I come over to talk,” called the visitor.

“Friendly talk?” queried Jim.

“Wal, if it ain’t you’ll be to blame.”

“Come right over.”

The five men left behind over the brook puffed their cigarettes and turned dark faces to watch their leader dismount and walk unconcernedly along the path.

Jim leaned his rifle against the rail and stood aside. Heeseman did not look up as he mounted the steps. He took off an old sombrero to disclose the tanned, clear-skinned face of a man under forty, with narrow blue eyes reddened by wind and dust. It was a more open visage than Jim had expected to see. Certainly Heeseman was a more prepossessing man, at first sight, than Hays.

“Mind if I set down?” he asked.

“Make yourself at home,” replied Jim, and while the other sat down Jim took a less suspicious posture.

“Air you Wall?”

“Yes, that’s my name. And this is Happy Jack, another of Hays’ outfit.”

Heeseman nodded to Jack, who replied with a civil, “Howdy!” and went back into the cabin. Then Heeseman leaned against the wall and treated Jim to a frank, shrewd gaze, which yet was not unmixed with steely speculation. Jim did not feel any revulsion toward the man, but he knew the cold, curious glint of that look.

“You’re Hays’ right-hand man, just late from Wyomin’?”

“Last is correct, anyhow.”

“Old pards? Hays has roamed around a good bit.”

“Not so old.”

“Do you know him?” queried Heeseman, in lower voice.

“Perhaps not so well as you,” replied Jim, who suddenly reminded himself that he knew Hays but slightly.

“I’m goin’ to tell you somethin’.”

“Heeseman, you’ll only waste your breath,” declared Jim, impatiently. That was the thing to say, but he was impatient with himself.

“Wal, I don’t waste much of thet,” drawled the other. “But if you wasn’t new to Utah I’d save myself this trouble. An’ you’re goin’ to believe what I tell you.”

“Why will I?”

“Because it’s true.”

No argument could gainsay that; moreover, the man had truth in his blue slits of eyes, in his voice, especially in the slight unevenness, which hinted of resentment or justice.

“Did Hays tell you I was a rustler?”

“I think he mentioned it.”

“Did he tell you we was pards once? . . . That he double-crossed me?”

“No.”

“Can you swear honest thet what I say doesn’t make you think?”

“I couldn’t swear that honestly,” returned Jim, intensely interested despite the antagonism he had determined upon.

“Wal, I’ll let it go at thet,” returned Heeseman, coolly. “Much obliged for lettin’ me come up. An’ if you get curious, just ride over to see me.”

He rose, stretched his long length, and walked off the porch to mount his horse, leaving Jim about as surprised as he had ever been. Happy Jack came out in time to see him join his comrades and ride back with them toward the corrals.

“Short visit. Glad it was. What’d he want?”

“Darn if I savvy, altogether. Didn’t you hear any of our talk?”

“No. I reckoned the less I heard the better. Then Hank couldn’t razz me. But I had a hunch of what he was up to.”

Jim did not press the question. He carried his rifle back into the cabin, rather ashamed of his over-haste and feeling already curious enough to call on Heeseman. Later, Happy Jack went hunting in the hope of packing in a haunch of venison. Jim had the place to himself until sunset, when the cook returned, staggering under his load.

“Like shootin’ cows,” he said, depositing his load. “Got a nice fat buck. I skinned out a ham an’ hung up the rest. We’ll take a hoss tomorrow an’ pack it down.”

They had supper, after which Jack smoked and talked, while Jim listened. Evidently Happy Jack had taken a liking to him. Jim went to bed early, not because he was sleepy, but to keep from calling on that fellow, Heeseman.

How many nights Jim Wall had lain down under the dark trees to wakefulness, to the thronging thoughts that must mock the rest of any man who had strayed from the straight and narrow path! It tormented him at certain times. But that never kept the old concentrated pondering over tomorrow from gaining control of his consciousness. Men of his type made a complexity of self-preservation.

There had been no hesitation about Hank Hays declaring himself in regard to Heeseman. Callous, contemptuous; Hays had indicated the desirability of ridding the range of Heeseman. But Heeseman had been subtle.

Unquestionably his motive had been to undermine Hays in Jim’s regard. And a few questions, and an assertion or two, had had their effect. Jim made the reservation that he had not accepted Hays on anything but face value. Still, the robber had gradually built up a character of intent force, cunning, and strength. These had crashed, though there was no good reason for that. Jim had not accepted Hays’ word for anything.

Reduced to finalities, Jim found that Heeseman’s last suggestive statement was at the bottom of the trouble. Not that Hays had been a rustler partner of Heeseman, not that he had been or was still a Mormon, but that he was not a square partner! This stuck in Jim’s craw.

Why this seemed true puzzled Jim. He knew nothing about Mormons. And now he guessed they were secretive. Heeseman had simply verified a forming but still disputed suspicion in Jim’s mind — that Hank Hays had evil designs upon Herrick’s sister. Heeseman and Hays had probably known for weeks that this English girl was expected to arrive.

Suppose he had! What business was that of Jim’s? None, except that he now formed one of Hays’ band and as such had a right to question activities. Rustling cattle, at least in a moderate way, was almost a legitimate business. Ranchers back to the early days of the cattle drives from Texas had accepted their common losses. It had been only big steals that roused them to ire and action, to make outlaws out of rustlers. Nevertheless, it was extremely doubtful, out here in the wilds of Utah, that even a wholesale steal would be agitating. To abduct a girl, however, might throw Western interest upon the perpetrators. Hays’ object assuredly was to collect ransom. In that case he would be pretty much of a hog.

Still, that had not been Heeseman’s intimation, nor had it been Jim’s original suspicion. He gave it up in disgust. Time would tell. But he did not feel further inclined to call upon Heeseman. He would stick to Hays, awaiting developments.

The ensuing day passed uneventfully. No one of Smoky’s outfit showed up, nor did Hays return. Jim waited for Herrick to give him orders, which were not forthcoming. The rancher was chasing jack rabbits and coyotes with the hounds.

Next morning Jim made it a point to ride over to the barns. The rancher came down in a queer costume. The red coat took Jim’s eye. A motley pack of hounds and sheep-dogs was new to Jim, as he had not seen or heard any dogs about the ranch. Jim was invited to ride along with Herrick and the several cowboys. They went by Heeseman’s camp, which was vacant. Jim was to learn that the rancher had put the Heeseman outfit to work on the cutting and peeling of logs up on the slope, preparatory to the erection of a new barn.

Jack rabbits were as thick as bees. The cowboys led the dogs, which soon became unmanageable and bolted. Then the race was on. Where the ground was level and unobstructed by brush or cut up by washes Herrick did fairly well as to horsemanship, but in rough going he could not keep to the English saddle. He would put his horse at anything and he had two falls, one pretty jarring.

“Boss, shore as the Lord made little apples you’ll kill yourself with thet pancake,” said one of the long-legged cowboys, most solicitously.

“You are alluding to my saddle?” queried Herrick, standing to be brushed off.

“Thet’s no saddle. It’s a pancake,” was the reply.

Then ensued a most interesting argument which Herrick, despite his persistence, certainly lost. He appealed to Jim.

“Mr. Herrick, in this rough country you want a cow-saddle,” replied Jim. “You see, aside from heavy cinches and stirrups, and room to tie your rope, canteen, rifle-sheath, saddle-bags, and slicker, or even a pack, you want something to stick on. For so much of the riding is up and down steep hills.”

Notwithstanding this, Herrick finished out the hunt. He was funny and queer, but he was game, and Jim liked him. On the way back Jim amused the Englishman by shooting running jack rabbits with his Colt. He managed to kill three out of five, to Herrick’s infinite astonishment and admiration.

“By Jove! I never saw such marksmanship,” he ejaculated.

“That was really poor shooting.”

“Indeed! What would you call good shooting, may I ask?”

“Well, riding by a post and putting five bullets into it. Or splitting the edge of a card at twenty feet.”

“Let me see your gun?”

Jim Wall broke his rule when he handed it over, butt first.

Herrick looked at it with mingled feelings. “Why, there’s no trigger!” he exclaimed, in utter astonishment.

“I do not use a trigger.”

“Thunderation, man! How do you make the pistol go off?”

“Look here. Let me show you,” said Jim, taking the gun. “I thumb the hammer . . . like that.”

“By Jove! But please explain.”

“Mr. Herrick, the cocking of a gun and pulling the trigger require twice as much time as thumbing. For example, supposing the eyesight and the draw of two men are equal, the one who thumbs his hammer will kill the other.”

“Ah! — Er — Yes, I see. Most extraordinary. Your American West is quite bewildering. Is this thumbing a common practice among you desperadoes?”

“Very uncommon. So uncommon that I’ll be obliged if you will keep it to yourself.”

“Oh! Yes, by Jove! I see. Ha! Ha! Ha! I grasp the point. . . . Wall, you’re a comforting fellow to have round the place.”

Herrick was evidently a free, careless, impressive man who had been used to fulfilling his desires. His eccentricity was not apparent, except in the fact of his presence there in wild Utah. He liked horses, dogs, guns, the outdoors, physical effort. But he had no conception whatever of his remarkable situation in this unsettled country.

When they arrived at the barn he asked Jim to ride up to the house, where they would have a brandy and soda and look over some English guns.

The big living-room had three windowed sides and was bizarre and strange to Jim, though attractive. Herrick had brought with him a quantity of rugs, skins, pictures, weapons, and less easily named articles, which, along with Western furniture and blankets, an elk head and a bear skin, made the room unique.

“I’ve sworn off drinking,” said Jim, lifting his glass. “But one more, Mr. Herrick. To your good luck!”

The heavy English guns earned Jim’s solemn shake of head. “No good at all here, Mr. Herrick. Not even for grizzly. Get a forty-four Winchester.”

“Thank you. I shall do so. I’m fond of the chase.”

Herrick had his head near a window, and upon it, standing out in relief from books, papers, ornaments, was a framed picture of a beautiful, fair-haired, young woman. The cast of her features resembled Herrick’s. That was a portrait of his sister.

Jim carried a vision of it in his mind as he rode back down the bench. He cursed the damned fool Englishman who was idiot enough to bring such a girl out to Utah. This was not Africa, where a white woman was safe among cannibals and Negroes, so Jim had read. Then he cursed Hays. And lastly he cursed, not himself, but the predicament into which he had allowed himself to become inveigled.

“I’ll have to stick it out,” he muttered, that fair face and shining hair before his inward eye. “I might have chucked this outfit.”

CHAPTER 6

“WAL, I RUN into Smoky’s outfit over the divide,” announced Hays, complacently. “Damme if they wasn’t drivin’ over two thousand head.”

Jim had nothing to say, though there were strong queries on his lips. Hays’ plans were carrying through. The robber had a peculiar radiance.

“Dumplin’s! Dog-gone, Happy, but I’m a hawg. Gimme some more.”

“I’ll have to hoof it up to see the boss tonight,” he said, after finishing the late supper. “Put me wise to what’s come off in my absence.”

“We’ve had no sign of Smoky’s outfit. So we don’t know where his camp is.”

“I do. It’s not more’n a mile from where I showed you the brakes of the Dirty Devil.”

“Up or down?”

“Up. Back up in a canyon. Good place an’ out of sight. I gave Smoky orders to pack supplies back from Grand Junction every trip.”

“Hank, reckon you’re figger’n on a long hole-up somewheres,” said Happy Jack, with a grin.

“Have you run into Heeseman?” went on Hays, ignoring Jack’s hint.

“Yes. He called on us,” replied Jim, casually.

“What?”

“I told you, Hank. Heeseman came down to see us.”

“Hell you say!” ejaculated Hays, certainly astounded. “Tryin’ to pick a fight?”

“Not at all. I think he was curious to look me over.”

“Wal! What satisfaction did he get?”

“He’s pretty shrewd, Hank. He sized me up. If that is why he called, he got satisfaction all right.”

“Did he say anythin’ about me?” demanded Hays, sullen fire lighting his eyes.

“That was the funny part of it,” replied Jim, frankly lying. “He never mentioned you.”

“Humph! I don’t savvy that dodge. It’s no good. Heeseman is the slickest customer in Utah. Just tryin’ to scrape acquaintance, eh?”

“I think so. It struck me that he might be wanting to throw his outfit with yours.”

“Ahuh. I had thet hunch. It might wal be,” replied Hays, meditatively. “Won’t hurt for us to lay low, lettin’ him make advances. Heeseman’s a slow cuss. But he’s as sure as a rattler.”

“Herrick put Heeseman’s outfit to cutting and peeling logs. He wants more horses, and a barn for them.”

“Thet’s good. It’ll keep that outfit from ridin’ down Limestone way. An’ the cowboys — where have they been?”

“Plenty of work around, but little riding, except after the hounds. I had a chase after jack rabbits with the boss.”

“Hounds an’ jacks! What next? However, it’s not so bad. Anythin’ for us but regular ranchin’. Haw! Haw!”

“Herrick took me up to see his guns,” went on Jim, easily, with furtive eyes on Hays. “Have you seen them?”

“Shore. Cannons, I’d say. Worse than the old buffalo needle-gun.”

“I’d hate to be bored by that five-hundred express, I think he called it.”

“Humph! If I gotta be bored, the bigger the bullet the better.”

“That’s a beautiful living-room of Herrick’s. Have you been in there?”

“Yes. He makes that his office. Funny lot of knick-knacks. There’s one thing I’m a-goin’ to own, though.”

Jim laughed. He did not need to ask any more. Suddenly then a tigerish sensation shot through his vitals. It was like an unexpected attack.

“I’d like to own all that stuff,” he said, carelessly. “Well, what’s on the cards now? You’re back. Smoky’s outfit is on the job. Heeseman is stalled, I think, though I’ll not swear to that.”

“We’ll aim to keep everybody workin’ hard around this neck of the woods. An’ we’ll pitch in ourselves. That’s all on the cards for the present.”

Three days of genuine labor around the ranch, more especially in construction of the new barn, left Jim so happily tired each night that he would have liked it to go on indefinitely. Work was good. Jim could handle tools, and that soon became manifest. But on the fourth day, toward the close, Herrick approached Jim.

“Wall, I want you to go to Grand Junction tomorrow after my sister,” he said. “Take the cowboy Barnes with you. His home is in Grand Junction. Have him hitch the black team to the buckboard and start early. My sister will not arrive until the following day or the next. Usually that stage gets into Grand Junction before ten o’clock. Start back at once and come speedily.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Wall, resuming his work. But out of the tail of his eye he saw Hays.

“Boss, I reckon I’ll go along with Wall,” he said, coolly.

“Hays, I did not ask your services,” returned Herrick. “You are needed here.” His tone as much as his words settled the matter.

Jim purposely delayed his hour of quitting, in order to avoid Hays. His state, not improbably, was identical with Hays’, but Jim did not care to have the robber know that. By the time he had arrived at their cabin, however, he had himself well in hand, though still perplexed and vaguely startled that he had been chosen by Herrick. He sustained some other feeling, too; and if it were not a crowing over Hays he failed to interpret what it was.

Dusk was falling. The day had been warm for April. The spring frogs were shrilly peeping. Jim stopped a moment on the porch to gaze out over the darkening ranch. Cattle were lowing. This feeling he had now was evasive, but he sustained it long enough to realize regret. He liked ranch work. For years he had missed it. Sighing, he went on to the washbench.

Inside the cabin Hays appeared in a brown study, but he had nothing to say upon Jim’s entrance. At Jack’s cheery call they took their seats.

Hays did not eat as heartily as usual. And at table, when he took a moment to speak, he was jolly. After the meal ended he lighted his pipe, and without facing Jim he said:

“Jim, had the boss mentioned this here trip before?”

“No. I was as surprised as you.”

“Wal, suppose you make some excuse an’ let me go instead?”

“What?” exclaimed Jim, blankly.

“I could use a couple of hours in Grand Junction,” rejoined Hays. “There was one buyer I didn’t see. So this offers a good chance.”

“But Herrick won’t like that, Hays,” protested Jim. “He turned down your proposal cold.”

“Shore, he did. Damn funny, I take thet, too. But if you wouldn’t or couldn’t go, I’d be next choice.”

“He’d think it strange,” said Jim, sharply, trying to pierce through the back of Hays’ head.

“What’n’hell do I care what Herrick thinks?” retorted Hays, losing patience. “It you’ll do what I say I’ll get to go.”

“Hays, you surprise me. Here you are on the eve of a big deal — the biggest of your life. And you risk angering Herrick at this stage. Man, can’t you think? It would be a bad move. A mistake. For heaven’s sake, why are you so keen on going to Grand Junction? What for?”

“I told you,” snapped Hays, taking refuge in anger.

“Hays, I refuse,” declared Jim, shortly. He must keep up his pretence of cautiousness for all their sakes, but he wanted to flash out stingingly with the truth. “Herrick ordered me to go. And I’m going.”

Hays puffed his pipe. He was beaten. And now he must save his face.

Jim turned to the surprised cook.

“Happy, I’ll want breakfast at daylight tomorrow.”

“Any time, Jim.”

Finally Hays veered around heavily, with traces of anger vanishing. “Wal, I reckon mebbe you’re right, Jim,” he said, honestly. “Only it didn’t seem so.”

By sunrise next day Jim Wall was on his way to Grand Junction. Young Barnes, the cowboy, had his hands full with the spirited team.

Frost sparkled on the sage and rocks; the iron-shod hoofs rang on the hard road; the swift pace engendered a stinging wind; deer bounded ahead to disappear in the brush on the slope; bold coyotes stood and gazed.

“Are the horses gun-shy?” asked Jim, his lips near the driver’s ear.

“No. But they’re feelin’ their oats an’ I reckon you hadn’t better shoot yet, leastways fer nothin’.”

Jim had to wrap the robe about him, and then he felt uncomfortably cold, until a rising grade slowed down the team and the sun began to warm his back. Then he applied himself to a twofold task — that of winning the driver’s confidence and gaining what information was available.

He asked numberless questions about the country, in fact whatever popped into his mind. Trails, waterholes, ranchers, riders, the pass they were climbing, timber and game in the mountains — all these claimed their share of Jim’s interest, but he did not yet touch on any other than casual things.

The pass was long, of gradual ascent, and afforded little view. Once over, however, the scene ahead was superb, a great valley ending in a long red and black range. Jim kept sharp watch for a road coming in on the left. He was not greatly concerned about cattle tracks, however, because there were plenty under the wheels of the buckboard. And it was a hard, white gravel-and-limestone road, on which it was difficult to judge tracks.

“I like the country powerful well,” said Jim, frankly. “But I’m not so crazy about my job.”

“Bet you was a cowboy once,” replied Barnes, with a grin.

“You bet. And sure wish I was still. But I got to going wrong, and first thing I shot a man. . . . Heigho! I wasn’t any older than you.”

“What’s yer job hyar?” asked the boy, emboldened by Jim’s confidence.

“Say, didn’t you know why Herrick hired Hays and Heeseman?”

“All us fellers had idears.”

“Well, I think Herrick wanted some hard-shooting riders as a sort of protection.”

“You ain’t long in Utah.”

“You’re right there. So I don’t know the ropes.”

“Wal, Mr. Jim, I’ll say this. It was a good idear of Herrick’s if you fellers play square. This neck of Utah is bigger’n all outdoors, an’ it’s overrun with varmints, two-legged as wal as four-legged.”

“Barnes, you’ve hit the thing plumb center,” replied Jim, soberly. “Thanks for speaking right out.”

“Nobody much in Utah knows who’s a rustler an’ who ain’t,” went on Barnes. “Your neighbor might be one, an’ your boss might be the boss of a rustlin’ outfit. Thet’s the hell of it.”

“How about Heeseman?” asked Jim. “Don’t talk against your good sense, Barnes. I’m just asking. I don’t know anything about this game up here, as you can see. And what you choose to tell me I’ll keep to myself.”

“I had a hunch thet way. . . . Wal, some people says Heeseman’s outfit rustles, an’ some don’t believe it. He has a brand, H bar, an’ a range over back of Monticello.”

“That’s straight talk. How about Hank Hays?”

“I’d be up a stump if the boss asked me thet. I’d shore have to lie. Everybody between the Green an’ the Grand knows Hank Hays, an’ what he is. But nobody ever whispers it.”

“Ahuh. Darned interesting. I sort of liked Hank, first off. Rustler, then? Or just plain robber?”

“I ain’t sayin’, Mr. Wall.”

“You can call me Jim,” returned Jim, thinking it time to change the subject. “Let me drive a little.”

He fell silent for a while. Curiosity might prompt him further, but he really did not need to know any more about Hank Hays. A dawning and impatient antagonism to the robber began to gain strength. It presaged events.

About noon they halted at a wayside stream, and while resting the horses they ate the lunch Happy Jack had provided.

Beyond this point cattle began to show on the valley floor, and green notches in the slopes across bore traces of homesteaders. Ten miles from Grand Junction, according to Jim’s informant, was the Utah Cattle Company, a big outfit from Salt Lake.

Presently Jim’s ever-watchful eyes caught dust far ahead, and dots of riders getting off the road into the cedar thickets. They would be Smoky’s outfit, Jim calculated, and gave them credit for seeing the buckboard first. They did not appear again, and Jim knew they were hiding on their way back to Star Ranch to make another raid.

The country appeared to be flattening out, greener and more cultivated in the open places, though the red cedar-dotted bluffs stood up here and there, and far off white-tipped mountains loomed. At four o’clock they drove into Grand Junction, which was considerably larger and busier than Green River. Like all Western hamlets, it had a single, wide street, lined by stone and frame buildings.

“Barnes, here we are,” said Jim. “This is a metropolis, compared with Green River.”

“Fust I’ve been home fer long,” rejoined Barnes. “I’ll take care of the team at my Paw’s. An’ say, Mr. Wall — Jim — will you come home an’ stay with us or hyar at the hotel?”

“Thanks, but I’ll stay here. Is this the hotel?”

“Yeh. It ain’t much on looks, but the grub’s good an’ beds clean.”

“Fine. Now, Barnes, you and I are getting along. Do you give me any hunch on how to conduct myself?”

“Haw! Haw! Jim, you’ll be looked over a heap, but nobody won’t ask no questions. See you later.”

Barnes drove off down the road, and Jim leisurely entered the lodging-house, which, it turned out, was run by a buxom woman, who made herself agreeable and certainly was not above making eyes at him. As far as any curiosity on her part was concerned, he might as well have lived there always. She was loquacious, and very shortly Jim gained the surprising information that no cattle herds had passed through Grand Junction this week.

After supper Jim strolled out to see the town. It was still daylight. The street appeared to be practically deserted. He went down one side and up the other, and crossing to the overland stage office he found the door locked. There was a sign, “Wells Fargo and Co.,” on the front. Evidently this town was on the stage line from Denver to Salt Lake. The big store on the corner was open, however, and Jim went in. He bought some things and incidentally corroborated Herrick’s statement as to the arrival of the stage next morning. Finally Jim wandered into a saloon.

To his surprise it was a large place, in which fully a score of men lounged at the bar or sat around as if waiting for something. Jim fitted this atmosphere. He felt at home in it and knew he gave that impression. And he had not been in there very long before he realized that well-armed strangers were really not strangers to that place and community. There were no drinking, hair-raising cowboys or any flashy gamblers or any drunkards. Some of those present had shifty eyes. A few were idle, tattered louts. For the most part, however, the occupants were dusty-booted men who did not radiate either civility or hostility. That suited Jim. He had expected just such a town.

He read an old newspaper that he found, and after he had exhausted its contents, he watched a card game, but at a respectable distance with other onlookers, and passed a quiet evening without learning anything.

That night he slept in a bed, the first time for so long he could not recall the last occasion, and the softness of it, or his nearing closer and closer to tomorrow’s adventure, kept him awake till late. All this while he heard a roulette wheel, but he could not tell whence the sound came. Probably there was a gambling-hall above the saloon.

Awakening early, he got up and leisurely shaved and dressed, paying more than usual attention to his appearance. This occasioned him a bitter smile. Jim Wall, erstwhile cowboy, bank bandit, train-robber! What was he now? He could not define it. But he was there to escort an English girl fifty miles across the wilderness to Star Ranch. One thing he was sure of, and that was that it would be vastly better for Miss Herrick than if Hank Hays had been sent. Suddenly this fact struck Jim as singular. Was he any better than Hank Hays? He conceded that he was. Still, there had never been a time since his wild cowboy days that sight of a pretty girl or a handsome woman had not made his heart leap. But for long years he had avoided women, not because he was not hungry for them, but because he seldom saw one that did not rouse his disgust.

After breakfast he went out and found a boy to shine his high top-boots and brush his dark, worn suit and his black sombrero. Presently, then, he encountered Barnes. “Howdy, boy! Did you have a nice time home?”

“Gee, I did!” the cowboy grinned. “I was with my gurl last night an’ she wouldn’t let me off.”

“Right she was. Your sure look bright this morning.”

“Wal, you look kinda spick an’ span yourself, Jim,” drawled Barnes. “Funny how the idear of a gurl gets a feller.”

“Funny? You mean terrible, my friend. A woman is as terrible as an army with banners.”

“Gosh! who’d ever dreamed you had been inside a Bible?” exclaimed the cowboy.

“It’s funny, though, how I happened to remember that. Now, Barnes, listen. This Miss Herrick might take me for an honest, decent fellow like you. But if I let that pass I’d be sailing under false colors. I don’t do that. And as I can’t very well tell her myself, you must.”

“Tell her what?” queried Barnes, with a puzzled grin.

“You know . . . the kind of a man I am.”

“I sort of like you myself. So if you want me to tell her anythin’ you must say what.”

“Well then, tell her about Herrick hiring all the desperadoes in Utah, and that I’m one of them. Make me out worse than Hays and Heeseman thrown together.”

“Shore. That’s easy. But what’s the idear, Jim?”

“I wasn’t always an outcast. . . . And I think it’d hurt me less if this girl was scared and repelled. If she took me for a real Westerner, you know, and talked and laughed — well, I’d go get powerfully drunk and probably shoot up Star Ranch. So you fix it for me, will you, Barnes?”

“Shore, I’ll fix it,” replied Barnes, with a sly glance at Jim. “You jest give me a chanst when the stage rolls up. She’s due now. I’ll run down an’ drive the buckboard up.”

But the stage did not show up for an hour — a long, nervous, dragging one for Jim Wall. Grand Junction was no different from other Western points remote from civilization — everybody turned out to see the stage come in. It was a gala occasion for the youngsters, of whom there was a surprising number. The women onlookers, Jim observed, rather hung in the background.

The four-horse stage came rolling up in a cloud of dust. The driver, a grizzled old frontiersman, brought it to a stop with a fine flourish, and he bawled out: “Grand Junction! Half hour fer lunch.”

There were six passengers, two of them feminine. The last to leave the stage was a tall, veiled young woman, her lithe and erect figure incased in a long linen coat. She carried a small satchel. Expectantly she looked around. Jim stepped before her, baring his head.

“Are you Miss Herrick?”

“Oh! Yes,” she exclaimed, in relief.

“Your brother sent us to meet you,” went on Jim, indicating Barnes, who stood to one side.

“He did not come!” The full, rich voice, with its foreign intonation, struck pleasantly upon Jim’s ear.

“No. There’s much work at Star Ranch. But it’s perfectly all right, Miss Herrick. We will drive you safely over before dark.”

Jim could not see clearly through the tan veil, but he discerned well enough that big eyes studied him.

“Didn’t he send a letter or anything? How am I to know you men are employed by my brother?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to take my word,” replied Jim, gravely. “But, Barnes, here, he can prove his identity. He lives in Grand Junction, and of course there are responsible people who will vouch for him.”

“Miss, the boss did send word,” spoke up Barnes, touching his hat, and stepping closer, he added in a lower tone, “he told me last night you was to fetch what come by Wells Fargo.”

“Then it is all right,” she replied, apparently relieved. “My luggage is inside, on top, and tied on behind. The name is on every piece. Helen Herrick.”

“I’ll attend to the baggage, Miss Herrick,” rejoined Jim. “Meanwhile Barnes will show you where to eat. It might rest you to walk a little. We have an eight-hour drive.”

“Thank you. I’ve been riding steadily for two weeks and I’m stiff.”

Whereupon Jim set about collecting the pieces of baggage marked “Herrick.” It appeared that the stage had been loaded down with them. Nineteen in all! Manifestly Miss Herrick had come to stay. To find room for all of them in the buckboard was going to be a task. He set about this methodically, his mind at once busy and absent. By packing carefully under the seats, and on them, too, Jim got the bags all in. He went to the store and bought rope to tie some of them on securely. Wonder what she looks like, he thought! He had felt vaguely uncomfortable when she looked him over through that veil. His task completed, Jim stood beside the restless horses, waiting. And it seemed he was waiting for he knew not what.

Presently Barnes returned, wearing an excited grin. His eyes were important.

“Jim, I fixed it. I shore gave her an earful,” he said.

“Did you? Much obliged, cowboy.”

“She took off thet coat an’ veil. Lordy! . . . Utah never seen the likes of her. Red lips, pink cheeks, hair like gold, an’ eyes like violets! Jim, for a minnit I went plumb back on my gurl! But, shucks! thet’s crazy! She asked me to set at table. I did. She’s just as nice an’ free as Herrick. It was while we was eatin’ thet I had the chanst to tell her about the nootorious Jim Wall. Mebbe I didn’t spread it on. An’ she looked — Gee! such eyes! She said, ‘So Bernie Herrick sent a desperado to be my escort? How perfectly rippin’!’ Honest, Jim, thet’s what she said. So I shet up pronto. . . . When I jest come away she said she’d walk a little in the orchard an’ after goin’ into the Wells Fargo office she’d be ready.”

“Have you double-crossed me?” queried Jim, suspicious of this boy. “You were to make me out low-down.”

“Jim, honest to Gawd, if thet gurl ain’t scared to death of you she’s a new one on me,” declared Barnes. But there was fun and evasion in his keen hazel eyes. Somehow he had failed to follow instructions.

“I’ll go in the Chink’s here and get a bite to eat. You watch the horses.”

Upon his return Jim espied Miss Herrick emerging from the yard of Mrs. Bowe’s lodging-house. She carried the linen coat on her arm, and without it did not appear so tall. She had a wonderful step, a free, swinging, graceful stride, expressive of health and vitality. She did not look slender, as in the long ulster, but superb, broad of shoulder. She wore a half-length coat over her brown dress. It had a collar of dark fur which presented vivid contrast to her exquisite complexion. The veil was tucked back and now permitted sight of a wave of shining golden hair. At a little distance her eyes looked like great, dark holes set in white. But as she approached Jim saw they were violet in hue, warm, beautiful, fearless.

“Are we ready to go?” she asked, gayly.

“Yes, if you have seen the Fargo people,” replied Jim.

“I have it in my satchel,” she returned, indicating the half-hidden receptacle under her linen coat.

Jim tried to interest himself in that satchel because he was in league with robbers, but it did not work. Suddenly he had a murderous desire to kill Hays. This girl — for she appeared a girl in vivid freshness of youth — seemed not in the least frightened, absolutely free from revulsion. Indeed, she was regarding him with undisguised interest and delight.

“Mr. Jim Wall, you’re not in the least what my brother’s letters have led me to believe,” she said.

“Letters! Why, Herrick has not had time to write about me,” exclaimed Jim, incredulously. “It takes long for a stage letter to go. . . . I’ve been at Star Ranch only a few days.”

“Oh, he did not write about you, individually,” she laughed. “But from his letters about bandits and desperadoes I had evolved a rather frightful conception.”

“Thank you, Miss Herrick,” he replied, gravely. “Don’t trust appearances on our Western border. . . . Will you get up? We must be going.”

And he attempted to assist her inside the back seat of the buckboard.

“If you are going to drive, I want to sit in front,” she said, frankly.

With a bow he helped her up the high step, cursing inwardly at Hank Hays and Herrick and the inscrutable fate that had brought this about. For some way or other he was lost. He almost forgot to wait for Barnes, who was saying good-by to a red-cheeked, wide-eyed girl in the crowd. Barnes came running to leap into the buckboard, and then Jim got in. Owing to the way he had packed the baggage, there was not a great deal of room in the front seat. His heavy gun and sheath bumped against Miss Herrick.

“Rather tight quarters, with that gun there,” he remarked, and swung the sheath round in his lap.

“Do you sleep in it?” she asked, quizzically.

“Yes. And never am dressed in the daytime till it’s buckled on.”

“What startling folk, you Western Americans!”

“Some of us are indeed startling. I hope you won’t find us unpleasantly so,” he replied and, loosening the reins, let the spirited team go. In a few moments the noise, dust, heat, and the staring populace of Grand Junction were far behind, and the red and black ranges lifted above the meadows and sage.

“Oh, glorious!” she cried, and gazed raptly ahead as the curving road brought into view a wonderful sweep of Utah.

Jim was hard put to it to keep the blacks from breaking out of a brisk trot. He thought grimly that he would have liked to let the team run off and kill them both. Far better that might be! Miss Herrick’s photograph on her brother’s desk fell infinitely short of doing her justice. It failed to give any hint of her color, of the vivid lips, of the glory and gleam of her hair, of the dancing, laughing violet eyes, of her pulsing vitality. Jim Wall felt the abundant life of this girl. It flowed out of her. It got into his veins. It heated his blood.

“The wind makes me cry,” she said, merrily. “Or maybe it’s because I’m so happy. You say we’ll get to Star Ranch before dark?”

“Surely.”

“Oh, it’s been such a long, slow, dusty, cramped journey,” she exclaimed. “But now I want to see, to smell, to feel, to gloat.”

“Miss Herrick, this is fine country. But tame compared with that all about the Henrys. You will see them when we top the next hill. I’ve seen most of the West. And the canyon desert below Star Ranch is the wildest and most sublime of all the West, probably of the whole world.”

“Indeed! You speak strongly, not to say surprisingly. It never occurred to me that a gunman — that is what you are, is it not? — could have any appreciation of the wonder and beauty of nature.”

“A common mistake, Miss Herrick,” rejoined Jim. “Nature develops the men who spend their lonely, hard, bloody lives with her. Mostly she makes them into boasts with self-preservation the only instinct, but it is conceivable that one now and then might develop the opposite way.”

“You interest me,” she replied, simply. “Tell me of this canyon desert and such men.”

Jim talked for a full hour, inspired by her unflagging interest. He described the magnificent reaches and escarpments ending in Wild Horse Mesa, and the unknown canyoned abyss between it and Navajo Mountain, and lastly the weird, ghastly brakes of the Dirty Devil.

“Ugh! how you make me shiver!” she ejaculated. “But it’s wonderful. I’m sick of people, of fog, rain, dirt, cold, noise. I’d like to get lost down in those red canyons.”

CHAPTER 7

THEY CAME TO a long level valley where the white road was like a floor, and the horses went like the wind. Wall’s letting them out was unconscious: it was a release of his vagrant and startling imagination.

Here the English lady could not catch her breath enough to talk. The tan veil was flying and so were some strands of her hair. She appeared to be a beautiful thing of porcelain and gold, animated by throbbing life.

What was going to be the effect of this extraordinary female upon the fierce men of this lonely region? Upon that swarthy Hank Hays! Once in a long time, perhaps, his pale eyes alighted upon a fresh, red-cheeked, buxom girl, but for the most part, Jim knew, Hays never saw any but flat-chested, lanky-limbed, big-footed, and hard-handed women, whose faces were dark, coarse, weathered with skin dried in the wind. They wore overalls and boots, as often as feminine garments, and they were always married. Utah was still so wild and unsettled that the hags and camp-followers common to Wyoming had not arrived.

At last the horses had to be held in at the base of the longest ascent on the journey. Miss Herrick tucked her disheveled hair with the ends of the veil under her bonnet.

“What a run! I’m used to horses but not tearing along — with a vehicle like this,” she said, breathlessly.

“Wait till one of these old drivers get a chance at you. I’m really no teamster.”

“Are you a cowboy?”

“I used to be. And I still ride after cattle occasionally. But now I’m only a — a range-rider.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, a range-rider just travels from camp to camp.”

“It must be a wonderful life. Like a gypsy’s. I have been among the gypsies in Spain. But that can scarcely be the nature of your position on my brother’s ranch.”

“Didn’t young Barnes tell you who and what I am?” queried Jim, turning to her.

“He talked like — like that babbling brook we just passed,” returned the lady, with a musical laugh. “Much of it was Greek to me. But I grasped that you were a stranger to Utah — that you were from Wyoming, where you had killed many bad men, and that your mere reputation was enough out here to keep rustlers and desperadoes away from Star Ranch. Mr. Wall, you certainly are a hero in his eyes.”

It did not take great perspicuity to grasp that Jim was not far from that in her eyes. He groaned in spirit.

“Miss Herrick, this young fellow is an awful liar,” said Jim.

“How so? He seemed very frank and sincere to me. And he has such honest eyes. I don’t know Westerners, as they call you folk, but what of that?”

“You are in for a terrible disillusion.”

“Mr. Wall, you cannot quell my enthusiasm. I know I am going to love this wild, glorious country. I’ve lived in London most of my life. I got to hate the crowded streets, the mud, the clamor, the dark, cold rooms where you had to have a light at midday, and the endless, ever-hurrying throngs of people. There’s a strain of primitive blood in me. One of my ancestors was a viking. I think another must have been an American Indian.” Here her rich laughter rang out. “At any rate, I am going to indulge my wild strain. The red gods have always whispered to me. Even as a child I knew I was intended for something big, strange, extraordinary.”

“I hardly understand you, Miss Herrick,” returned Jim, in perplexity. “My education has been limited, except out in the open. I had some schooling, and I taught a country school before I was twenty. But I never saw anyone like you. So if I appear ignorant, please excuse it.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Wall, you have impressed me as far above the average Westerner,” the girl returned, kindly, but without a trace of condescension. “I’ve met numberless people on the way out. Pioneers, farmers, ranchers, drivers, cowboys, and a good few that I couldn’t place or learn from. But I talked with all of them. You certainly do not need to apologize for yourself. . . . And you have been a school-teacher! That is something that I would never have attributed to you. And what else have you been?”

On the moment Jim was too stricken to take advantage of the opportunity to repel her once and for all. The astounding idea flashed over him that he did not want to repel her.

“A little of everything — Western I guess,” he floundered. He felt her gaze.

“I see that you will not tell me about yourself,” she went on. “Pardon my inquisitiveness. But I must inform you that I expect to go into the ranching business with my brother. You will be working for me, then, as well.”

“I hope you don’t, Miss Herrick,” he burst out, impulsively. “Somebody must tell you. It oughtn’t come from a — a — rider like me. But this Utah is no place for such a girl as you.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Wall? That hardly seems a compliment to me. I can work, and I want to. I shall adore this wild country. I tried to explain why. I can milk cows, bake bread, take care of horses. It doesn’t follow just because I have money that I do not want to work.”

“Miss Herrick, you didn’t get my meaning,” replied Jim, hastily, with strong feeling. “It is not you who couldn’t fit in. You’ve convinced me you could. And that is the biggest compliment I could pay you. . . . I meant that you will not be able to live, and work, too, in Utah the way you want to. You absolutely cannot indulge that primitive strain you spoke of — not out here. You dare not ride around — or even leave the house. Even that—”

“For mercy’s sake, why not?” she demanded, in astonishment.

“Because, young woman, you are too new, too strange, too lovely to risk yourself in sight of these Utah men. . . . Not all of them, nor a tenth of them. But some of them. And they are the men you would meet at Star Ranch.”

His sudden intensity, perhaps as much as the content of his words, made her realize his sincerity, and that there was something amiss which her brother had failed to tell her.

“You cannot be serious.”

“I swear it, Miss Herrick.”

“But what of the vaunted chivalry of Westerners? England rings with the daring, the gallantry, of Americans on the frontier. I’ve read of Fremont, Kit Carson, Crook, and many others. And of the thousands who are unsung.”

“That is true,” he replied, his voice husky. “Thank God, I can say so. But you won’t find that at Star Ranch.”

“You say I am too new, strange — too, too lovely to risk — I understand you, of course. I must doubt it, despite your evident strong feeling. You may be playing a Western joke on me.”

“I wish I was.”

“My brother will know if there is anything in what you say.”

“No! No!” burst out Jim, passionately. He was at the limit of patience with her and himself. What possessed him to talk this way? “Herrick doesn’t know. He never will know. He is English. He can’t see through a millstone with a hole in it. — Oh, don’t misunderstand me. Herrick is a fine chap, generous, friendly, not the least stuck-up. But Utah is no place for an English gentleman and sportsman, any more than it is a fit place for his sister.”

“That is for us to decide,” she returned, coldly. “It is less disturbing than what you say against me having my fling. I shall ride, anywhere and everywhere. I’ve always ridden. I’d go mad not to get on a horse in this glorious country.”

“I’ve done my best. I’ve told you,” he said, curtly, as if he were also addressing his conscience.

“I thank you, Mr. Wall,” she said, quick to catch the change in him. “No doubt you Western folk regard Bernie as eccentric. And I’m bound to admit his ranching idea — ripping as it is to us — must appear new and strange to you. So I’ll compromise. If it’s really dangerous for me to ride about alone, I will take you with me. Not, however, that I’d be afraid to go alone. Then I would be perfectly safe, would I not?”

Wall flicked the reins.

“Look, Miss Herrick. We’re on top at last. There’s your country. The black snow-capped mountains are the Henrys. We go through that gap — a pass — to Star Ranch. That purple space to the left — with the lines and streaks — that’s the desert. Magnify its everything by ten thousand.”

“Ah-h-h!” she had cried out, breathlessly.

Jim halted the horses and gazed himself, trying to see with this stranger’s eyes. Her silence, after that one outbreak, was amply eloquent. But he got no satisfaction out of his own gazing. He had an instinctive desire to get on a horse and ride off alone into this wilderness. He had more — a presagement that it would not be long until the open wasteland claimed him again. For him the bursting of one of the Henry peaks in volcanic eruption would be no more startling than what would accrue from the advent of this white-faced, golden-haired woman.

Jim anticipated, presently, an outburst from Miss Herrick, but it was not forthcoming. He drove down the hill, and again put the blacks to keen gait on a level road, this time a straight white line across a longer valley. The warm sun had begun its descent from the zenith. Jim calculated that he would beat the time he had declared, and reach Star Ranch before sundown. Only one more hill to climb and that was the Pass, which was comparatively short on this side. He wished he could fly. The sister of Bernie Herrick had an unaccountable effect upon Jim. Bernie! The name suited Herrick, as that of Helen suited this girl. It was a fatal name for a pearly-skinned, blue-eyed, golden-haired beauty. Vague legend stirred in Jim Wall’s memory.

Fast as he drove, it was yet not fast enough to escape from himself. Then when the wind tore off Miss Herrick’s bonnet, he had to stop the iron-jawed blacks — no slight task — and get out and walk back. But the change seemed to soothe him somehow. He strode back with the flimsy headgear. Far from prepared was he, however, for sight of Miss Herrick bareheaded.

“Thank you,” she said. “Too bad to make you get out and walk. But you drove so terribly fast. It’s a wonder my clothes didn’t follow my hat.”

Jim made a light reply, he knew not what. To him the wonder was — flashing like a flame from the darkness of his mind — that he did not turn the team off the road and drive down into the wilderness, never to let the gaze of another man rest upon this destroying woman.

In an hour more he had crossed the valley and again addressed a slope, where the slow gait of the horses gave Miss Herrick further opportunity to talk. He both dreaded and longed to hear that rich voice, so different from the few women’s voices he recalled. But she surprised him again, this time by silence. She had been overpoweringly struck by the two hours’ riding toward that gorgeous region of color and upheaval. Not until they got to the top of the Pass, when Jim pointed down the Star Ranch Valley, did she awaken out of her trance. Then during the hour and a half it took to reach the ranch Jim answered queries and explained what this and that was which caught her eye. Such wholly objective conversation was easy for Jim, and the time flew by.

When he drove past Heeseman’s camp all that worthy outfit were at supper. The road passed within fifty feet of their chuck-wagon.

“What a ruffianly crew!” murmured Miss Herrick. “Who, pray, are these men?”

“Part of the outfit your brother hired to protect his cattle from rustlers,” replied Jim. “Funny thing about that is they are rustlers themselves.”

“Deliciously funny, though hardly so for Bernie. Does he know it?”

“Not to my knowledge. Heeseman — the leader of that gang — came on his own recommendation and got the job.”

“I’ll have the fun of telling Bernie. . . . Oh, what’s that? . . . What an enormous barn! All yellow. And a new one going up. Logs and logs — Look at the horses! I want to stop.”

“No, Miss Herrick,” he replied, grimly. “I’ll drive you home safely or die in the attempt. . . . Don’t look at this tall man we’re coming to.”

“Which?” she asked, laughingly.

“The one standing fartherest out,” replied Jim. “He’s got on a black sombrero. . . . Don’t look at him. That’s Hank Hays. . . . Miss Herrick, drop your veil.”

She obeyed, unobtrusively, though her silvery laugh pealed out. “You are teasing, of course. But I must reward your effort to entertain me.”

Jim drove by Hays, who stood apart from a group of cowboys. He had the stiff, alert posture of a watching jack rabbit that imagined itself unseen. If he noticed Jim at all, it was totally oblivious to Jim. But Wall’s glance, never so strained, pierced the shadow under Hays’ dark sombrero rim to the strange eyes below. They were not pale now. Jim’s hand clenched tight on the reins. He became preoccupied with the nucleus of the first deadly thought toward Hays.

“Hank Hays. Who is he?” Miss Herrick was saying.

“Another of your brother’s vigilantes.”

“Uh! — How he stared! But it wasn’t that which struck me most. In India I’ve seen cobras rise and poise, ready to strike. And your Mr. Hays looked for all the world like a giant ring cobra with a black sombrero on its head. Wasn’t that silly of me?”

“Not silly. An instinct. Self-preservation,” returned Jim, sternly.

She passed that by, but only perhaps because she caught sight of the ranch-house up the slope. Here her enthusiasm was unbounded. Herrick stood on the porch steps with his dogs. He wore high boots and a red coat. He waved.

Presently Jim reined in the sweating horses before the steps. He was most curious to see the meeting between brother and sister. She stood up.

“Bernie, old top, here I am,” she said, gaily.

“Yes, here you are, Helen,” he replied, and stepped out to help her alight. “Did you have a nice trip?”

“Ripping — from Grand Junction in.”

They did not embrace or even shake hands. Jim decided that when it came to intimate feelings, these English either did not have them or else they hid them. Jim, coming to himself, leaped out and began removing the bags. Barnes, whom he had totally forgotten, jumped out on the other side.

“Barnes, carry the bags in. Jim, hurry the blacks down. They’re hot. You must have pushed them.”

“Yes, sir. Stage was late, but we made up for it.”

“Helen, where’s that Wells Fargo package?” queried Herrick.

“Here in my satchel. Oh, Bernie, it’s good to get home — if this can be home.”

“Come in and take off that veil,” he said, and with his arm in hers led her upon the porch.

Jim let Barnes take the team, while he crossed the bench and made his way down the steep, rocky declivity to Hays’ cabin. Happy Jack was whistling about the fire, knocking pans and otherwise indicating the proximity of supper.

“Howdy, Jack! What’s tricks for today?” asked Jim.

“Glad you’re back, Jim,” declared the cook, cordially. “Anyone’d have thunk you was goin’ to dish the outfit — judgin’ from Hays. He’s been like a hound on a leash. Smoky rode in today full of ginger, news an’ a roll of long green that’d have choked a cow. But even thet didn’t ease the boss.”

“What ailed him, Jack?” inquired Jim, not without impatience.

“Dinged if I know. It had to do with your goin’ to Grand, a darned sight more than Smoky’s.”

Heavy footfalls outside attested to the return of Hays. Without more comment Jim stood up and away from the table, to face the door. Hays entered, not the genial Hays of other days, yet it was hard to define the change, unless it consisted in a gloomy, restless force behind his stride. Smoky followed him in, agreeable by contrast.

“Hullo! Here you air. I waited at the barn,” said Hays, gruffly.

“Howdy, boss! I took a short cut down,” replied Jim, with a nod to Smoky.

“I seen Barnes an’ had a word with him. So your trip come off all right? You shore made them blacks step.”

“It wasn’t as pleasant a drive as you’d imagine,” returned Jim, darkly.

“Haw! — You must be one of them woman-haters. . . . Outside of thet side of it, what happened to jar you?”

“Nothing to concern you or your outfit. Smoky saw me yesterday before I got a line on him. He ducked off the road. At Grand Junction nobody paid any more attention to me than I’d expect.”

“Ahuh. Thet’s good,” replied Hays, and going over to the pack beside his bed he rummaged about to return with a packet, which he slapped down upon the table.

“There you air, Jim. On our first deal.”

The packet unrolled and spread out — greenbacks of large denomination.

“What’s this for?” queried Jim, blankly.

“Quick action. Thet’s how we work. Your share. Smoky fetched it.”

Jim did not care to give the impression that he was unused to this sort of thing. Straddling the bench, he sat down to run through the bills.

“Five thousand six hundred,” he said, as if to himself, and he slipped the money inside his pocket. “Much obliged, Smoky. Now I’ll be able to sit in in a little game of draw.”

“Jim, ain’t you got any news atall?” inquired Hays, searchingly. “A feller with your ears an’ eyes shore would pick up somethin’.”

“Miss Herrick fetched a Wells Fargo package to her brother,” rejoined Jim, slowly yielding to what he felt was due himself as an ally of this robber.

“Then it’s come,” said Hays, cracking his hands. “Herrick was expectin’ money last stage.”

“Yes,” returned Jim, indifferently.

“Boys, set down an’ fall in,” called out Happy Jack.

As usual, supper was not a conversational matter. Hays’ outfit always ate as if they were facing starvation. It was a habit of riders, engendered by the fact of being always on the move. After supper Smoky was the first to break silence.

“Boss, now Wall is back, you can make up your mind about what I’d like to do.”

“Jim, listen to this. Smoky an’ the other fellers, except Brad, want to make a clean sweep with this next drive. What you think?”

“Clean Herrick out?” asked Jim.

“Thet’s the idee.”

Jim pondered a moment. His mind answered that in a flash, but he considered it wise not to be precipitous.

“It’d be harder work, but save time, and perhaps our bacon as well. These cowboys are going to find out pretty soon that the cattle have thinned out. If Smoky drives a couple thousand more it’ll be sure to be found out, sooner or later.”

“See thar, boss. Wall sees it just as I do. There’s plenty of water along the road an’ feed enough. Let’s make it one big drive.”

“Meanin’ for me an’ Jim an’ Happy to fall in with you?” queried Hays, tersely.

“Shore, onless you think thet ain’t so good.”

“Wal, it’d mean leavin’ Star Ranch sudden,” cogitated the robber chief.

“Shore. An’ thet’s good.”

“But I don’t want to pull out of here sudden,” declared Hays.

“Why not, if we git away with ten thousand head?” queried Smoky, astounded.

“Thet ten thousand won’t close the deal I’m on.”

“What’ve you up your sleeve, Hank?”

“Thet’s my business. Yours is drivin’ cattle.”

“You mean to rob the Englisher? Fer Gawd’s sake, Hank, don’t be a hawg!”

“Hays, if you’ll excuse me I’m thinking Smoky talks sense,” interposed Jim, quietly.

“Wal, I’m listenin’, but I reckon you can’t change me,” returned Hays.

“If we put it to a vote, Hank, you wouldn’t be nowhere. I don’t want to buck ag’in’ you. But you’re way off on this. . . . Listen. I had the gall to tip Hadley off thet he’d better run up to Salt Lake an’ get a big lot of cash. He took the hunch. Said he’d go an’ thet he’d guarantee buyin’ us out, every damn hoof.”

“Thet’s all right. It’s good figgerin’. Only I see no call for rush.”

“But we do. We’re all on edge fer it. Brad thinks it wise. He doesn’t like this English deal, anyway. An’ now Jim Wall backs us up.”

Hays knocked the bowl of his unsmoked pipe on the table, and he arose, gaunt and virile, to stalk up and down the room, plainly a victim of conflicting tides of feeling. But indecision did not last long. His gesture, abrupt and passionate, not only indicated the men who opposed him, but infinitely more.

“My mind’s made up. We’ll stick to our first idee. You fellers make drive after drive, goin’ slow. . . . Thet’ll give me time—”

“Ahuh. So you’ll risk goin’ ag’in’ the whole outfit,” interrupted Smoky, with a curious gaze at his superior.

“Wal, hell, yes, if you put it thet way,” replied Hays, and he stalked out.

“No help fer it, men,” said Smoky, presently. “Somethin’s got into the boss. Reckon I’ll hit the trail fer camp. Didn’t intend to leave till mornin’. But it’s jest as well. Jim, don’t you want to come along?”

“I’d like to, at that. But how’d Hays take it?”

“He’d swear you was double-crossin’ him. I hope to Gawd he doesn’t do the double-crossin’.”

“Smoky, will you start that second drive tomorrow?” asked Wall.

“I’ll lay it up to my outfit. Wal, so long. See you soon, one way or another.”

He went out. Jim heard a few sharp words pass between Smoky and Hays, and then silence. Happy Jack looked at Jim, shaking his head dubiously. Jim waited awhile, hoping that Hays would return, but as he did not, Jim went to bed. For once he hated to be alone in the dark and quiet. In his inmost heart he realized that he was tremendously upset by the advent of this Herrick girl.

Next day he went back to work on the new barn. A subtle change in Hank Hays augmented his suspicion of that individual. Jim let him alone. He did not require much more to satisfy himself about Hank Hays.

While Jim worked with the cowboys he watched, and he had the eyes of a hawk. Herrick was around as usual, interested in every detail of the building. Hays had gone off with the cowboys across the valley to put them upon some job there, which no doubt was a ruse to keep them away from Limestone Springs, where most of the stock grazed. He did not see Hays until supper. And the day had ended without one glimpse of Helen Herrick. Jim measured the incredible fact of his desire to see her by the poignancy of his disappointment. Then he cursed himself for a fool. His mood changed as subtly as had Hays’, with the result that he and the moody leader made poor company.

This night Jim deliberately set himself to study the robber near at hand and to watch him from a distance. At table and round the fire Hays apparently made some effort to be his former self. But the effort betrayed constraint. And out in the dark, when Hays imagined no one saw his actions, he seemed a hounded man. What was on his mind? What further plot was he hatching? Could it be possible that intent to rob Herrick of money, and any valuables procurable, could obsess him to this extent? After all, Jim did not know Hays well. He had to give him the benefit of a doubt.

At breakfast the following morning Hays surprised Jim.

“Was the Herrick girl out yesterday?” he inquired.

“Didn’t see her,” replied Jim, setting down his cup.

“You didn’t say what kind of a looker she was. An’ the other night she had her face hid by some contraption. Might as wal wore a mask. I seen her hair, though. Like sunflower! An’ she shore has a shape.”

“Oh, that!” laughed Jim. “I forgot or didn’t think you were interested. She’s a washed-out, pink-and-white thing. No blood. Consumptive or anemic, I reckon.”

“Consumptive! With thet breast?” rejoined Hays, scornfully. “Wal, I’d like to see her once before our deal’s off here.”

“Are you thinking better of Smoky’s idea?”

“Not of thet. But I’m worryin’ about him.”

Hays had his wish fulfilled next day. He was at work on the new barn, on the far side from where Jim was occupied, when Miss Herrick came down with her brother. Jim stared as if his eyes deceived him. An English riding-habit was known to him only from pictures. She looked queenly. Jim did not look at her face. Besides, he wanted most to see the effect upon Hank Hays. That worthy’s hawk-like head was erect, but Jim could not see the tell-tale eyes. Hays stood transfixed, then, suddenly, in strange gesture, as of finality, he flung down the tool he had been using. Was that his satisfaction having seen this wonderful girl? Was it hail and farewell to such beauty as might once only come under the gaze of a man of his class? Most certainly it was repudiation of something.

Herrick and his sister walked toward Jim’s side of the barn. They talked. Jim heard that laugh again. He seemed to be bewitched. Then she approached.

“Good morning,” she said. “So you are a carpenter as well as a vigilante?”

Jim doffed his sombrero and stood up straight. His gun struck the scantling with a perceptible little thud. She could not help noticing that and it gave her pause.

“I’m not at my best with this kind of hammer,” replied Jim, with a smile, after greeting them.

“Apropos of that, Bernie told me how you shoot bob — no, jack rabbits from the saddle,” she said, admiringly. “I want to see you do that. And I want to learn how. Will you show me?”

“I’d be pleased, Miss Herrick,” he returned. “But I can’t guarantee you’ll hit any of them.”

“I may surprise you. Tomorrow, then, you will ride with me?”

“I’m at your service,” replied Jim, hearing his voice as something far off.

“Wall, you’ll oblige me by riding with my sister when it suits her,” said Herrick. “By Jove! I can’t live on the back of a horse, and I don’t want her to ride alone.”

“Yes, sir,” returned Jim, gazing across at the statuelike Hays.

The couple moved off toward the open yard where mounted cowboys were leading out saddled horses. Presently Jim heard them ride away with the barking dogs. He looked up, however, when Hays accosted him, at his elbow.

“I seen her, Jim,” he said, as if the event were epic. “She walked right by me. I smelled her.”

“Oh, hello! You startled me,” replied Jim, essaying a laugh. “What if you did, Hank?”

“Nothin’. Only you gave me a wrong idee. Pink-an’-white washed-out thing, you said. My Gawd!”

“Hank, I’ve no use for blond women,” replied Jim, testily, tired of the deception.

“Hell! you needn’t bite my head off,” said Hays. “I’ll bet you haven’t any use fer any color women. . . . What was she sayin’ to you?”

“It seems Herrick told her about my shooting jacks from my horse, and she wants to see it done.”

“Wal, I’ll be jiggered! You’re goin’ ridin’ with her? . . . The luck of some men!”

“Hank, I’d a darn sight rather they’d asked you,” declared Jim, and then a keen idea struck him, which would, if Hays was not wary, clear up a knotty question. “Shall I tell Herrick you’ll go in my stead?”

“Nix, much as I’d like to. I can’t hit jumpin’ rabbits. An’ I wouldn’t want to be showed up bad.”

“Like as not I’ll be rattled and miss a lot,” returned Jim, lowering his eyes lest the thought in them might be read. Then he went back to work. Hays hung around the barn, mostly idle, watching the valley, until the Herricks returned to ride up the hill toward the house. The cowboys brought the horses down. Whereupon Hays abruptly left. And he did not come back. From that hour he became an elusive man. Jim, preoccupied with his own troubles, barely noticed this circumstance until that night.

That day ended Jim Wall’s carpentry. On the next he was summoned, early after breakfast, to ride with the Herricks. He went. And it would have been idle for him to deny that the event was enthralling. These English people were thoroughbred. Not improbably, in their minds unconsciously, the abyss between them and him was so wide and deep, that it was not thought of at all. That accounted for things. He divined vaguely, however, that for him the abyss did not exist.

Under the stimulation of this girl’s inspiring presence Jim gave an exhibition of swift and accurate shooting that surpassed any he had ever accomplished.

“Marvelous!” she exclaimed, with dark-flashing, admiring eyes on Jim. “It would be suicide for men to oppose you. . . . But poor little jack rabbits! What a pity they are destructive around the ranch!”

“Helen, he’s a bally good shot,” declared Herrick.

That night Hank Hays evinced slight but unmistakable symptoms of jealousy, occasioned, perhaps, by Jim’s report of killing thirteen out of fifteen bounding jack rabbits. Happy Jack, wide-eyed and loud-voiced, acclaimed Jim’s feat as one in a thousand.

“Air you thet good frontin’ a man who you know is swift?” drawled the robber chief.

Jim stared, coming out of his natural gratification. “Hank, I’m not so good then,” he replied, slowly.

“Wal, somebody’ll try you out one of these days,” added Hays, without significance.

“I dare say,” he rejoined, coolly, and sought his seclusion. He refused to let that linger in his mind. Something else haunted him. His slumber was troubled.

Next day Herrick did not accompany his sister on the daily ride, a circumstance which, if anything, gave freer rein to her spirit. Jim had concern for her safety. He could not judge well of her horsewomanship, because of the side-saddle she rode. Bluntly he disapproved of the atrocious thing and said it was worse than the “pancake” her brother rode. But she rode after the hounds just the same, and held her own until she was thrown.

If she had alighted upon rocks or even hard ground she would have been seriously injured, if not killed outright. But when the horse stumbled she hurtled over his head and hit in the sand. Jim was off almost the instant she struck, and he yelled for the cowboys.

Kneeling, he lifted her around and held her head up. She appeared to have been stunned. Her face was gray with sand.

“Water, Barnes!” he called, as the cowboy dashed up.

“There ain’t none close,” replied Barnes.

“I’m all — right,” spoke up Miss Herrick, weakly. “I came — a cropper — didn’t I?”

She sat up, evidently not hurt, though she clung to Jim’s arm. With his scarf he wiped the sand from her face, aware that his hand was not steady. If he had had to rely upon a gun then! The stiff hat she wore with this riding-habit had rolled yards away. Barnes got it. Her hair had come partly loose, to fall in a golden mass on her shoulder. She rearranged it and put on her hat, deftly despite gloved fingers.

“Help me up, please,” she said.

Jim placed a strong arm under hers and lifted her to her feet. She appeared able to stand alone, so he released her. However, she still clung to him.

“Deuced clumsy of me,” she said, flexing her right knee.

“Miss Herrick, are you sure you’re not hurt?” asked Jim, solicitously. “It was a nasty spill.”

“I’m not really hurt,” and letting go of Jim she essayed a few steps to prove it.

Then something cold and tight within Jim let go, and his reaction was to take refuge in anger. “Miss Herrick, I told you that saddle was no good. It’s a wonder you were not killed.”

“Oh, don’t exaggerate. I’ve come many croppers cross-country riding at home.”

“Barnes, back me up in this,” appealed Jim to the cowboy.

“Miss, he’s tellin’ you true,” said Barnes, earnestly. “You was ridin’ fast. If this hyar had been stony ground, like it is lots of places, you’d never knowed what hit you.”

“I believe I did strike pretty hard,” she admitted, ruefully.

“You want a cow-saddle with a double cinch, and overalls,” concluded Jim.

“Overalls!” she exclaimed, and she blushed rosy red. “You mean like these blue — trousers Barnes has on?”

“Yes. Then you can ride. This is the West, Miss Herrick. You like to run a horse. It’s dangerous. I shall have to speak to your brother.”

“Don’t. I’ve never ridden astride, but I’ll do it, since you are so very fearful about me. . . . Please help me up.”

That experience left Jim shaky, probably a good deal shakier than it had left Miss Herrick. But it was not fear for her. Jim reveled in the torturing sensations engendered by contact with this beautiful girl. He shook like a leaf at the staggering realization that when she lay on the ground with her arms spread wide, her hair gold against the sand, he longed to snatch her to his breast. A natural impulse, under the circumstances, but for him — idiotic!

Hays was not present that night at supper. This omission in no wise concerned Jim. He was too preoccupied to care or think about the chief. Days passed by, heady or blank, according to whether or not he rode with Miss Herrick.

She took to the Western saddle like a duck to water. She could ride. Moreover, that spirit of which she had hinted certainly overtook her. More than once she ran off alone, riding like the wind, and upon one of these occasions it took the cowboys till dark to find her. That with Hank Hays and Heeseman there to see her gallop away unescorted! Herrick did not seem to mind.

As far as Jim Wall was concerned, however, these rides with her centered him upon the love which had come to consume him; and the several she took alone were more torturing because they roused fear of Hank Hays. It could not be ascertained whether or not Hays followed her, but when the day came that Jim discovered Hays had been riding the trails frequented by Miss Herrick, then it seemed time to act.

This placed Jim in a worse quandary. To act, for a man of his training, at such a time and place, was to do only one thing. But how could he kill his leader upon mere suspicion of sinister intent to kidnap the girl? It was a damnable predicament for a man who had always played fair, alike to honest friend and crooked ally.

Jim paced under his dark sheltering trees, in the dead of night, when he should have been sleeping. Days had passed without his once seeking to avoid disaster; and he had not sought because he knew it was of no use. To wish to be with this blond girl seemed irresistible. More than once he had caught himself in the spell of a daring impulse — to tell Miss Herrick that he loved her. The idea was sheer madness. Yet the thought persisted, and when he tried to shake it the result was it grew stronger in a haunting, maddening way.

His manhood cast this aside. The love of the male, especially a lonely one of the wilds, expressed itself in many thoughts that Jim realized were the heritage of barbarism. They occurred in strange, vague, distorted dreams. They were strong in a man in whom the primitive instincts prevailed. But seldom did they gain ascendancy. Jim remembered his mother and sister; and then he thrust away from him any possibility of distress coming to this Herrick girl from him.

That was how he met temptation. Then he was to be confronted by the fact that making love to her was insignificant to what Hank Hays might do. Whereupon the battle was fought all over again. He won as before, though with dark doubts in his mind. What could come of this tangled circumstance but disaster?

At breakfast next morning Hays raved about the fact that Smoky had not been there for over two weeks.

“Things air comin’ to a head,” he concluded, gloomily.

“Reckon they ought to have made two drives by now,” rejoined Happy Jack. “I rid down the valley yestiddy eight or ten miles. Cattle thinned out, boss. Any cowboy with eyes in the back of his head would be on to us by now.”

“Shore. Haven’t I kept them workin’ up here? But I’ve no control over this —— hossback-ridin’ after hounds. Pretty soon Herrick will be chasin’ down Limestone way. Then the fire’ll be out.”

“Hank, he wouldn’t know the difference,” interposed Jim.

“Aw, I don’t give a damn,” replied Hays, harshly, and that finality intimated much. “Wait till Smoky’s outfit shows up!”

Every morning when Jim rode down to the corrals he fell back under the spell of something sweeter than wine. The sunny hours with the sage flat ahead, the fragrant pines, the baying hounds, and always out in front this bright-haired girl, were vastly different from the dark hours when the day was done. Nothing could be truer than that this utterly incongruous and bitterly sweet situation could not last. In moments of humility, engendered by the higher emotions this girl aroused, Jim clasped to his breast the fact that he was protecting her from worse men.

Barnes and another of the cowboys had taken the horses for the Herricks up to the house. To Jim’s honest dismay he espied Helen riding ahead, with the cowboys behind, leading her brother’s mount. Herrick was not coming. The hounds bounded and cavorted about her, keen for the chase.

Miss Herrick looked far less proud and unattainable in the boy’s riding-garb she had adopted. Moreover, it had transformed her, yet her femininity appeared more provokingly manifest than ever.

Barnes turned Herrick’s horse over to a stable-boy, and with his companion fell in behind Miss Herrick, who rode out upon the valley. Jim joined them, and they trotted their horses together.

“Why didn’t Herrick come?” asked Jim.

“He was rowin’ with Heeseman,” replied Barnes, soberly.

“You don’t say! What about?”

“Reckon I don’t know. They shet up as I come along,” returned the cowboy. “But I seen enough to calkilate somethin’s wrong. They was on the porch. Herrick looked sort of peevish. He didn’t want his sister to go huntin’ today, I heard thet. An’ she said right pert she was goin’.”

“How did Heeseman look?” went on Jim, ponderingly. Something was up. For two days Heeseman’s outfit had been through hauling timber.

“Dead serious, like he was tryin’ to persuade the boss to somethin’.”

Jim lapsed into silence. What turn would affairs take next? It was getting warm around Star Ranch.

Each day the hunters had to ride farther afield to find game. Jack-rabbit chasing had grown too tame for Miss Herrick; besides, the rabbits had run off down the valley.

Three or four miles out the hounds jumped a coyote from a clump of sagebrush, and the chase was on. At first the hounds gained, but after a mile or so the coyote kept the distance even between them. At what was only fifty feet the chase was noisy, fast, and exciting. The coyote led toward the low, wooded slope to the west and gained it, where the chase slowed up as far as the riders were concerned.

The cowboys took the lead, then came Miss Herrick, while Jim brought up the rear. It was a long, gradual ascent up to an open ridge, where pine trees alternated with clumps of chaparral; very fragrant and picturesque country.

Here the hounds jumped a herd of deer. Despite the yelling of the cowboys, they dashed up the ridge with a chorus of wild yelps and barks. Barnes and his companion rider gave pursuit, trying to call them off. They all passed out of hearing.

Jim caught up with Miss Herrick, who waited in an open spot among the pines. Flushed and disheveled, with her sombrero on the pommel, panting from the arduous ride, she made a distracting picture.

“Hunt’s off for us, Miss Herrick,” said Jim. “The cowboys will be hours catching that pack.”

“Too bad! But wasn’t — it fun — while it — lasted,” she replied, gaily. “I’m glad the coyote — got away. I had designs on — his brushy tail.”

“Shall we ride down?” went on Jim, uneasily. He had been alone with this girl on a couple of brief occasions, just long enough to realize the danger of such a fateful accident as this.

“Let us rest the horses. I’m out of breath myself. . . . Listen. Don’t I hear the hounds? They might fetch those deer back. Oh, I love to see deer bound on their springy legs.”

Jim turned his ear to the wind. First he heard the beating of his blood, like a muffled drum, and then the swish of the tree-tops.

“No. It’s not the hounds you hear. Only the wind in the pines.”

“How mournful and sweet!” she murmured.

Jim dismounted to tighten his saddle-cinches. He felt queerly helpless, and impatient to be on the move.

“Wall, take a look at my cinches,” she said.

“May I ask you not to call me Wall?” he queried, with unreasonable resentment. He hated the way she addressed him occasionally. “I must remind you I’m no butler.”

“Pray pardon me,” she rejoined, in surprise. “I presume I should address you as Mister Wall?”

“Yes, if you’re too stuck up to call me Jim,” he said, rudely.

She lifted her chin and deigned no reply. And that infuriated him.

“While I’m at it I’ll tell you this, too,” he went on, doggedly. “You must not ride around alone again. I’ve had no chance to speak with you. But I told your brother. He laughed in my face. He is a damned fool.”

“Mr. Wall, I will not listen to such talk,” she spoke up, spiritedly.

“Oh, yes, you will!” he flashed, striding over to her horse. “You’re not in an English drawing-room now, confronted by a disrespectful butler. You’re in Utah, girl. And I am Jim Wall.”

“That last is obvious, to my regret,” she returned, coldly. “Will you please be so kind as to tighten my cinches? It will be the last service I shall require of you.”

“Thank the Lord!” ejaculated Jim, in grim heartiness. “All the same, I’ll tell you. If you were an American tenderfoot, it wouldn’t be hard to make you understand. If you were Western, you would not need to be told. But as an English lady of quality, who thinks class, her class will protect her anywhere, you need to be jarred. . . . It’s wrong for you to ride around alone on this range like any wild tomboy.”

“Why? You intimated this on our way from Grand Junction. But you do not give me any concrete reasons why it is wrong.”

“Some of these men might kidnap you for ransom.”

“Nonsense!” she retorted, contemptuously.

“Or one of them might waylay you with worse intention.”

“Mr. Wall, I still believe your intention is good, but you grossly exaggerate the dangers out here, if there are any. Bernie asked Heeseman about this and was assured that you, being from Wyoming, maligned Utah.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Jim, at himself as much as at that information. “What do you say, Miss Herrick, when I tell you that Hank Hays has been watching you from the ridges, riding the lonely trails, biding his chance to waylay you?”

She paled at that, or at his piercing look and change of tone.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, presently. “For some reason you are over-zealous on my behalf. It is becoming absurd.”

“You think I lie?”

“Mr. Wall, I didn’t call you a liar,” she returned, in annoyance. “I did say—”

“And you’ll go on riding alone when it suits your royal fancy?” he queried, witheringly.

“That is no longer any concern of yours,” she replied, at last stung. “But I certainly shall ride when and how I please.”

“Then you’re as big a damn fool as your nincompoop brother,” declared Jim, hotly. “Here I am, the only man in this Star outfit with honesty enough and guts enough to tell you the truth. And I get insulted and fired for my pains.”

She sat her horse, mute. Jim laid a strong hand on her pommel and shook it.

“Your saddle’s loose. Will you oblige me by getting off?”

“I can ride it back,” she rejoined, icily.

“But your blanket will slip out. The saddle might turn with you. . . . At that it might be a good thing for you to fall off and hit your head on a rock.”

She removed her boot from the stirrup. “Tighten the cinches then — and hurry.”

Jim complied expeditiously enough, but in doing so he accidentally touched her. Something like fire shot through him at the contact. Under its stimulus he looked up to say a few more words to her, words to mitigate his offense and protest his sincerity. But they were never uttered. She had bent over to fasten a lace of her boot, and when Jim raised his head it was to find his face scarcely a foot from her red lips. Without a thought, in a flash, he kissed them, and then drew back stricken.

With startled movement she jerked erect, her face flushing scarlet.

“How dare you!” she cried, in incredulous amaze and anger.

“My God! I didn’t mean that!” ejaculated Jim. “It just happened. I — I don’t know—”

She swung her leather quirt and struck him across the mouth. The blood spurted. The leap of Jim’s fury was as swift. He half intercepted a second blow, which stung his neck, and snatching the quirt from her hand he flung it away. Then his iron clutch fastened in her blouse. One lunge dropped her out of the saddle. He wrapped his other arm around her and bent her back so quickly that when she began a furious struggle it was too late.

His mouth hard pressed on hers stilled any but smothered cries. There was a moment’s fierce wrestling. She was no weakling, but she was in the arms of a maddened giant. Repeatedly he kissed her lips, long, hard, passionate kisses. Suddenly she collapsed heavily in his arms. The shock of that — its meaning — pierced Wall with something infinitely more imperious and staggering than bitter wrath. He let go of her. Reeling away from him to collide with the pine tree, she sank against it, slid to her knees, and thrust out with repelling gesture of hands spread toward him.

“There — my English lady — maybe that will convince you!” he panted, hoarsely. His chin quivered and there was terrific commotion in his breast. “If you weren’t a — pink-and-white-faced — washed-out — ninny of an aristocrat . . . if you had any — blood in you — I’d prove — by God! — what men are in Utah! . . . But I wouldn’t lay — another hand on you — to save my life. . . . Now get up.”

She obeyed him, slowly, with one hand clutching nervelessly at the bark of the pine, the other at her breast. There was blood on her lips and cheeks; otherwise her face was like alabaster.

“I think I must have been in love with you — and wanted to protect you — from men worse than myself,” he went on, huskily. “I hope to God this will be a lesson to you. . . . Keep your beautiful face and body from sight of Hank Hays — or any of these robbers. Their thirst for gold is nothing compared to that for a woman. They are starved. They would almost eat you alive. It’s criminal carelessness for you to go about as you do brazenly, as if it were your due to let the sun shine on your head for men to see. Your brother was crazy to come to Utah — crazier to let you come. Go home! Go before it’s too late. Make him go. He will be ruined shortly.”

She wiped the blood from her cheeks, and then, shudderingly, from her lips.

“You — outraged me that way — to frighten me?” she presently whispered, in horror, yet as if fascinated by something looming.

“Get on your horse and ride ahead of me,” he ordered, curtly. “Now, Miss Helen Herrick, one last word. Don’t tell your brother what I did to you till after I’m gone. . . . If you do. I’ll kill him!”

She left a glove lying on the ground. Jim made no effort to recover it. His horse had grazed a few paces away, and when he had reached him and mounted, Miss Herrick was in her saddle. Jim let her get a few rods in advance before he followed.

The excess of his emotion wore off, leaving him composed, and sternly glad the issue had developed as it had. The situation had become intolerable for him. It mocked him that he had actually desired to appear well in the eyes of this girl. How ridiculous that one of a robber gang should be vain! But he was not conscious that being a thief made any difference in a man’s feeling about women. He knew that he could not command respect or love; but that in no wise inhibited his own feelings. Strange to realize, he had indeed fallen in love with Helen Herrick.

She rode on slowly down the ridge without looking to right or left. Her gaze appeared to be lowered. The droop of her head and of her shoulders indicated shame and dejection. Outraged by a few kisses taken by force! She would remember them — the brutal kisses of a hard man. Jim would remember forever that first kiss, surprised on sweet, full lips.

The ranch-house came in sight, not far down now, standing out yellow against the green and gray. Miss Herrick saw it and halted a moment as if that had been the last thing in her mind. It recalled perhaps that she must face her brother presently. Jim had nearly caught up with her when she rode on again, bracing in her saddle. The next time he looked she had recovered the old poise and grace.

When they got down to the level bench at a point where the road curved up from below, Miss Herrick waited for Jim to come up abreast of her.

She gazed straight ahead, her face coldly pure against the green.

“Can you be gentleman enough to tell me the truth?” she asked.

“I have not lied to you,” replied Jim, in weary amaze.

Who could make anything of a woman?

“That — that first time you kissed me — was it honestly unpremeditated?”

“Miss Herrick, I don’t know what to swear by — having no God or honor or anything. But, yes, I have. My mother! I swear by memory of her that I never dreamed of insulting you. . . . I looked up. There your face was close. Your lips red! And I kissed them.”

They went on for perhaps ten paces, as far as the road, before she spoke again. “I believe you,” she said, without a tremor of the rich, low voice, though it was evident her emotion was deeply stirred. “Your action was inexcusable, unforgivable. But I should not have struck you with the whip. . . . That, and your passion to frighten me, perhaps justified your brutality. . . . I shall not tell. . . . Don’t leave Star Ranch.”

For an instant Jim felt as if he were upon the verge of a precipice. That was the crowning shock of this unnatural experience. What she meant no wit of Jim’s could fathom; he could only take her literally. But her change from revulsion to inscrutable generosity called to all that was good within him.

“Miss Herrick, I’m sorry, but I must leave,” he replied, sadly. “I’m only a wandering rider — a gun-slinger and — a member of a gang of robbers. And I was mad enough to fall in love with you. . . . Forget it. . . . Go home to England. But if you won’t do that — never ride out alone again.”

He spurred his horse and galloped down the road, by the barns and across the court, into the lane that led along the brook. Suddenly he espied a compact group of mounted riders coming down the road beyond Hays’ cabin. They bestrode bays and blacks, and there was that about them which drew Jim sharply up with a fiery thrill. Smoky’s outfit!

CHAPTER 8

HAYS STOOD OUT in front of the cabin, bareheaded, his legs spread apart as if to anchor himself solidly, his hands at his hips, his sandy hair standing up ruffled like a mane.

“Huh! The boss isn’t mad. Oh no!” soliloquized Jim. “Not at all! I’ll bet his teeth are grinding thunder. . . . Small wonder. Smoky’s outfit has busted loose or is going to. . . . Well, now, I’ve a hunch there’s luck in this for me.”

Jim turned off into the corral, and took his time unsaddling. He did not wish to appear in a hurry to know what was up. He fed Bay grain and did not turn him into the pasture. Moreover, he left his rifle in its saddle-sheath. If he did not miss his calculation he would be riding away from Star Ranch that night, a thought that afforded relief even while it stabbed.

Above the babble of the brook he heard the angry voice of the robber leader. Jim made for the bridge then, and crossing, looked up to see the horses of Smoky’s outfit standing, bridles down, and the riders up on the porch. Jim mounted the steps.

Hank Hays sat upon the bench, his shaggy head against the wall, his pale eyes blazing hell at the row of men leaning on the porch rail. Hays’ long legs stuck out, with his spurs digging into the porch. He looked an infuriated, beaten man, and his twitching lips attested to impotent speech.

Smoky was lighting a cigarette, not in the least perturbed, but his eyes had a hard, steely gleam. Brad Lincoln sat back on the rail, eying the chief with a sardonic grin. Mac appeared more than usually ghoulish; Bridges and Sparrowhawk Latimer betrayed extreme nervousness.

“Howdy, Jim!” spoke up Smoky.

“Hello, men! What’s the mix? Am I in or out?” returned Jim, sharply.

“I reckon you’re in,” replied Slocum. “Hank is the only one thet’s out. . . . Hyar, Jim, ketch this.” He drew a dark-green bundle from a bulging pocket and tossed it to Jim, so quickly that it struck Jim in the chest. But he caught it on the rebound — a large heavy roll of greenbacks tied with a buckskin thong.

“Yours on the divvy, Jim,” went on Smoky. “Don’t count it now. There’s a heap of small bills inside, an’ if you untie them hyar there’ll be a mess. But it’s a square divvy to the last dollar.”

The denomination of the bill on the outside was one hundred. The roll would not go inside his vest or hip pocket, and it took force to put it in his side pocket.

“That’s a hefty roll, Smoky, for a man to get for nothing,” observed Jim, dubiously. “But the boss doesn’t look particularly happy about it.”

Jim then noticed that a roll of bills, identical with the one he had just received, lay on the floor.

“ ——  ——  ——  —— ! You double-crossed me!” burst out Hays, at length.

“Wal, thet’s accordin’ to how you look at it,” retorted Slocum. “You wasn’t with us when you ought to ‘ave been. We couldn’t ride forty miles every day to talk with you. Things came up at Grand Junction. We seen some of Heeseman’s outfit. Shore as hell they’re onto us, or will be pronto. So we jest took a vote, an’ every damn one of us stood for one big drive instead of small drives. An’ we made it. We was ten days drivin’ thet bunch of stock, in the saddle night an’ day, half starved to death. Your buyers swore they was short of money an’ would pay twelve dollars a head. Talk about robbers! Wal, I took thet an’ said I liked it. . . . Now, boss, there’re the cards face down, an’ you can like them or lump them.”

“I’m lumpin’ them, Smoky Slocum. . . . An’ I’ve shot a man for less!”

“Shore. But I can’t see you shootin’ me. I wasn’t to blame, I tell you. We took a vote.”

“Hell! You disobeyed orders.”

“Put it up to Jim, hyar. He’s most a stranger to us an’ he won’t play no pards. . . . What do you say, Jim?”

Thus appealed to, Jim made a serious matter of it and addressed Hays point-blank.

“Smoky’s right. If you meant to clean out Herrick, that was the way to do it.”

“Aw — shore, you’d side with them.”

“I wouldn’t do anything of the kind, if I thought they were wrong,” retorted Jim, angrily. Here was a chance to inflame Hays that he jumped at. If the robber could be drawn into a fight, when his own men were against him, the situation for the Herricks could be made easier for the present.

“I make my own deals,” snapped the robber.

“Yes, and this one here at Star Ranch is a damn poor one, whatever it is.”

“Wal, thet’s none of your bizness, Jim Wall,” declared Hays, more sharply.

“But it is. What do you think I am? A sucker? If I’m in this outfit, anything you plan and all you plan is my business, same as it’s Smoky’s and the rest of the outfit.”

“You’d better shet up.”

“I won’t shut up, Hays. Some one has to have the guts to tell you. And I’m that fellow. There’s no hand-out against you in this outfit. I never saw an outfit as loyal to a man as this one is to you. Never heard of a bunch of riders who’d work like dogs while the boss was twiddling his thumbs and talking mysterious.”

Hays glared like a mad bull. He dragged his feet up under him and guardedly rose.

“Take care, boss,” spoke up Smoky. “Who’s runnin’ this outfit?” he hissed. “Nobody jest now. I tried to talk sense to you. An’ Jim shore is talkin’ sense. Thet guy can talk, Hank. An’ you gotta get it in your thick head thet he’s talkin’ for all of us.”

“Who’s thet thick skulled? But I’m sorer’n hell. I ain’t ready to leave Star Ranch, an’ now, by Gawd! I’ll have to!”

“Why ain’t you ready?” queried Smoky, curiously. “Our work’s all done. We’ve cleaned out the ranch, except for a few thousand head. We’ve got the long green. You ought to be tickled to death.”

“I’m not through here,” replied the robber, righting himself.

“Wal, you ought to be. Thet Heeseman outfit will be after us. What’s the sense of fightin’ fer nothin’? This rancher, Herrick, likely has some cash around the house. He pays cash. But, hell; Hank, you can’t rob the man of his spare change. We’ve done awful good an’ we’re heeled as never before.”

Hays appeared gradually to relax under the cool persuasive arguments of his lieutenant. Jim saw his coveted chance glimmering.

“Smoky, why don’t you ask Hays what this mysterious deal is?” queried Jim, sarcastically.

From a cornered lion Hays degenerated into a cornered rat. Jim sank a little in his boots while his upper muscles corded.

“Hank, what’n hell’s got into you?” queried Smoky, high-voiced. “Glarin’ at Jim like a trapped coyote. An’ me too!”

“Smokey, the boss is up a tree,” said Jim, caustically. “He means to rob Herrick, all right. But that’s only a blind. It’s the girl!”

“Thet gold-headed gurl we seen you drivin’ hyar?”

“Yes. Herrick’s sister.”

“Wal, for Gawd’s sake! Haw! Haw! Haw! So thet’s what’s eatin’ you, Hank?”

Hays had reached his limit and probably, but for Smoky’s mirth, would have started hostilities. He hesitated, but there was a deadly flare in the eyes he had fixed on Wall.

Smoky got between them. “See hyar, Hank. So thet’s the deal? An’ you’d do fer pore Jim hyar jest because he’s onto you? . . . Wal, if you’re so damn keen as thet to draw on somebody, why, make it me. I started this. I dragged Jim into it. An’ I’ll be —— if you’re goin’ to take it out on him.”

There was an instant when a touch to the flint would have precipitated fire. Then Hank came back to himself.

“I weaken. Jim’s right. Smoky, you’re right,” he declared, hoarsely. “I’m bull-headed. . . . An’ I lost my bull-head over Herrick’s sister and the money I could make out of her.”

“There. Spoke up like a man,” declared Smoky, heartily relieved. “Why didn’t you come thet clean long ago? Neither Jim nor me nor any of us blame you fer admirin’ thet gurl. She’s a bloomin’ rose, Hank. But, hell! air you gettin’ dotty in your old age? An’ if you’d gone crazy, like you did once, an’ dragged her away into the brakes with us, by Gawd! we’d quit you cold.”

Hays bent to pick up the roll of bills, which he tossed up and caught as if it were a ball. To Jim Wall’s penetrating eye the chief had capitulated for the moment, but he was far from vanquished.

“Happy, how about grub-time?” he called through the door.

“‘Most ready, boss.”

“Fall to, men. I’ve got to do some tall thinkin’,” he said.

Before they were half finished with their supper Hays entered and sailed his sombrero into a corner. His face was a dark mask.

“We’re shakin’ the dust of Star Ranch tonight,” he said, deliberately. “Pack up an’ leave at once. I’ll come later. If I don’t meet you at Smoky’s camp at sunup, I’ll meet you shore at midday in thet cedar grove above the head of Red Canyon.”

“Good!” ejaculated Smoky.

“Wal, it was about time,” added Brad Lincoln. “You’ll aim to roost up somewheres till this blows over?”

“Thet’s the idee. Smoky, did you remember to pack out them extra supplies I told you to?”

“Yep. We could hole up six months an’ not get scurvy.”

No one asked any more questions or made any more comments. Whatever they thought about Hays’ peculiar way of leading his band they kept to themselves. Jim Wall was not greatly relieved; still, he concluded that Hays must abandon any plot he might have concocted toward Herrick’s sister. To be sure, he would take the bull by the horns this last night, and attempt to rob Herrick. But that latter possibility did not worry Jim particularly. The young woman had just had a valuable lesson. She would not be easy to surprise or take advantage of. At any rate, whatever was in Hays’ mind, Jim could not further risk alienating him or his men. Jim would have to ride out with them. If he stayed behind to spy upon Hays or frustrate any attempt he might make to call upon the Herricks, he would have to kill Hays. He did not mind that in the least, but he did not care to go riding it alone in this unknown country, with Smoky and the others hunting for him.

“Pack up fer me, somebody,” said Hays. “I’ll keep watch outside. We shore don’t want to be surprised by Heeseman the last minit.”

Dusk was mantling the valley when Jim went out. Under the bench the shadows were dark. From the shelter of the pines he looked for Hays, expecting to find him standing guard. But the robber was not on the porch. He was stalking to and fro along the brook, and he was no more watching for Heeseman than was Jim. His bent form, his stride, his turning at the end of his beat, his hands folded behind his back — all attested to the mood of a gloomy, abstracted, passion-driven man.

Jim cursed under his breath. Here was a situation where, if he gave way to suspicions that might be overdrawn, prompted by his own jealousy rather than facts, he would certainly outlaw himself from Hays’ band. Almost he yielded to them. Almost he distrusted his own fears. But he was in love with Miss Herrick and that had biased him. Hank Hays was blackguard enough to do anything to make money out of a woman, but he would scarcely betray his faithful followers. Hays was as loyal to them as they were to him. Honor among robbers! Still, in the case of a magnificent creature like Helen Herrick —

Jim wrenched himself out of sight of the stalking robber. He was not superhuman. He had to make a choice, and he made it, on the assumption that his fears for Helen, surrounded by servants and with her brother, were actually far-fetched, if not ridiculous.

Whereupon Jim repaired to his covert, rolled his bed and made a pack of his other belongings. What to do with the two packages of bills, this last of which was large and clumsy for his pockets, was a puzzle. By dividing the two into four packets he solved it. Then he carried his effects down to the cabin. All was cheery bustle there. The men were glad to get away from Star Ranch. They talked of the robbers’ roost Hays had always promised them, of idle days of eat and drink and gamble, of the long months in hiding.

“Wal, you all ready?” queried Hays, appearing in the doorway.

“Yep, an’ bustin’ to go.”

“On second thought I’d like one of you to stay with me. How about you, Latimer?”

“All right,” declared Sparrowhawk.

“This is all right with you, Smoky?”

“Suits us fine. If you ask me, I’d say you’d better keep Jim an’ me, too, with you.”

“I would if there was any chance of a fight. . . . Take Sparrow’s pack-hoss, an’ mine, too.”

In a few more minutes all the men leaving were mounted. The pack-animals, with packs gray against the darkness, straggled up the trail. Jim tried hard to get a look at Hays’ face, but the lights were out and gloom hung thick everywhere.

“Wait at your camp till sunup,” said Hays, conclusively. “An’ if I’m not there I’ll meet you about noon shore at head of Red Canyon.”

Without more words or ado Smoky led off behind the pack-horses, and the five riders followed. Once across the brook, all horses took to a brisk trot. Jim Wall looked back. The cabin faded in the gloom under the bench. Not for a mile or more did Jim glance over his shoulder again. Then he saw a bright light on the bench. That was from Herrick’s house. He and his sister would be sitting in the living-room, reading or talking. After all, how easy for Hank Hays to corner them there! Jim’s reluctance, his uneasiness, would not down. An unfamiliar sensation, like a weight of cold lead in his breast, baffled Jim. He knew he was glad that he would never see Helen Herrick again.

The spring night waxed cold as the hours wore on and the riders took to the slope. When they got up above the valley, out of the gray mists and shadows, the stars shone bright and white. A steady clip-clop of hoofs broke the silence. The riders proceeded in single file and seldom was a word spoken, except to a lagging pack-horse.

About midnight Smoky turned the pack-animals up the slope into the woods, and after a mile of rough going emerged into an open canyon head. Water splashed somewhere down over rocks.

“Hyar we air,” said Smoky, making leather creak as he wearily slid off. “Throw things an’ git to sleep. I’ll stand first guard.”

Evidently the horses were not to be turned loose. Nevertheless, Jim put hobbles on Bay. The men spoke in subdued voices while they unsaddled and threw the packs. Jim overheard Brad Lincoln offer to bet that Hays would not show up at sunrise. Gradually they quieted down, one by one. Jim unrolled his bed beside a rock and, pulling off his boots and unbuckling his gun-belt, he crawled under the blanket. He was neither tired nor sleepy. White stars blinked down pitilessly and mockingly. Would he ever lie down again without the face of Helen Herrick before him, without the lingering fragrance and softness of her lips on his? But that was something different to remember. He welcomed it. And he lived over everything leading up to that kiss, and after it that fierce attack he had made upon her lips. Lastly came her amazing request to him not to leave Star Ranch, and this abode with him until he fell asleep.

Crack of ax and Happy Jack’s voice pierced his slumber, both recognized before he opened his eyes. The sun was topping the eastern range. Jim sat up, stretched, and reaching for his boots he gazed around. The camp was an open draw, with level floor narrowing to a timber belt below. Behind rose shrubby limestone walls, in a crack of which poured a gush of water. The men were stirring, two around the camp fire and others among the horses. Happy Jack fetched an armload of wood; Bridges was slicing bacon. Jim smelled a mixture of wood smoke and coffee.

“Wal, long past sunup,” said Slocum as he approached the fire. “Who was it bet Brad thet Hank wouldn’t show up?”

“Nobody,” replied Lincoln.

“Jim, suppose you take your rifle an’ sneak down an’ knock over a deer,” suggested Smoky. “I see a buck an’ three does a minnit ago. If you get one, gut it an’ leave it lay. We’ll throw it on a hoss as we go down. We’re gonna need fresh meat. But shore step out of the woods first an’ see if Hank’s comin’, or anybody.”

Three hundred yards down the slope Jim emerged into the open. Such a wonderful blaze of sun! The valley burned purple and red. There were no riders on the winding, white trail. Jim took a long look at the lilac-hazed, canyoned abyss to his left. It was a sight to make even a hardened rider gasp. It was enough to make Westerners love their wilderness. There seemed to be no reality in the endless black link of Wild Horse Mesa.

Stealthily working back into the timber, he soon espied two deer about sixty paces distant, long ears erect. He killed the buck standing, and sent a quick shot after the bounding doe, but missed.

Upon his return to camp, Smoky greeted him with a grin. “I jest bet Brad thet you busted two.”

“Sorry; you lose, I missed the doe. Buck’s big and fat, though.”

“Fine. We got two extra pack-horses. Wal, Jim, gobble some grub. We’re on the prod.”

“How far to Red Canyon?” asked Jim.

“I don’t know. About fifteen miles — Utah miles, haw! haw! Don’t you remember thet heavy grove of cedars leadin’ down into a red hole?”

“Reckon I do. If Hays joins us there, it’ll mean he comes by another trail, doesn’t it?”

“If! So you figger he might not? — course he’d come around the mountain, or mebbe over another pass. He shore knows trails thet we don’t.”

“Aw, Hank’ll show up on time.”

“Wonder if he stayed back to plug Heeseman? He hates thet rustler.”

In less than an hour the riders were on the move down the mountain. Packing on the deer Jim had slain occasioned a little delay for all, because Smoky kept them close together. At the edge of the timber belt he halted them again while he peeped out to reconnoiter. Then he called, “Come hyar, a couple of you long-sighted fellers.”

They all rode out to join him, where he sat his horse, pointing to a faint blur on the purple valley floor. “Is thet dust?”

Most of the riders inclined to the opinion that it was just haze.

“Ten miles or more back and hard to make out,” spoke up Jim. “If this was my range, I’d say it wasn’t haze or smoke.”

“Wish I had Hank’s glasses. My eyes are no good any more fer long shots. Wal, let’s mozey. At thet distance we don’t give a damn what it is.”

Nevertheless, Jim noted that Smoky led to the left, across the ravine, along the edge of the timber belt over a ridge, and then down to the trail. Soon they turned a yellow corner of wall to come out at the point where Hays had described the expanse to Jim. It had been wonderful enough then, at noonday, when all was pale and dim in the white, solemn light, but now, just after sunrise, it seemed a dazzling world of rainbow wheels, glorious to the gaze. So different was it that Jim could not recognize any particular point Hays had designated. There were now a thousand striking landmarks rising out of the colorful chaos.

To Jim’s regret, however, this spectacle soon dropped behind gray foothills.

Smoky pushed the pack-horses at a trot. They wound in and out of the brushy hills, at length to leave them for the long slant of greasewood and gravel which led down into the brakes. Here on the left the great bulk of the black white-tipped Henrys towered majestically, lost in perpetual clouds. Once Jim caught sight of the winding serrated wall of rock across the ghastly barrens, and it was a brilliant purple, except at the far-distant end, where it paled to lavender. Far ahead a black fringe of cedars thickened to a grove above a red jagged line which was the canyon head where the riders had a rendezvous with Hays.

When they reached another turn from which it was possible to look back for five miles or more, Smoky halted while the others caught up.

“Jeff, you hang right hyar,” he said, “an’ keep your eyes peeled on the back trail. I ain’t so shore thet gray patch back on the valley was haze. It sort of moved to me. An’ there wasn’t a lick of wind. Wal, from round this corner you can easy see the cedar grove where we’ll hang up fer the boss. An’ if you ketch sight of any more’n a couple riders on the back stretch, you come ridin’ hell-bent for election. Don’t stay long after noon.”

Perhaps another five miles down the slope lay their objective to which they headed. The gait was slowed a little, if anything, yet in somewhat over an hour the riders arrived at the cedars. Jim recalled the place, but it was not, as he had imagined, the point where Hays had led up out of the brakes of the Dirty Devil.

The hour was still some time before noon. Smoky scanned the slope to the south and east. It would not have been possible to see riders at any distance, as the rocks, brush, ridges, and washes intervened profusely.

“What’ll we do, Smoky? Throw the packs or not?” queried one of the riders.

“Dog-gone if I know,” replied Slocum, peevishly. “It’s a rummy deal. Hot as hell now an’ gettin’ hotter. I forgot to ask Hank. Reckon you’d better herd the hosses an’ we’ll wait. I’ll keep a lookout fer the boss.”

Jim tied his horse in the shade of a cedar, and climbed a jumble of rocks so he could command a better view. Almost at once he sighted riders coming down a wash about a mile away, and he had opened his mouth to shout the good tidings, when something checked him so abruptly that he bit his tongue.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Three riders! Assuming that two of them were Hays and Latimer, who could the third be? They disappeared behind a corner of bank. Jim sank down in a cold sweat. Perhaps these men were Indians, or strangers from Hankville, or prospectors. But he had not seen any pack-animals.

After a long, anxious watch he saw the three reappear in the wash, considerably closer. The one in the middle rode a gray horse and otherwise contrasted sharply with the dark mounts and dark clothes of the other two. A second time the trio disappeared. Smoky was peering about in a desultory manner, but he was too low down to sight the riders. Jim was now shaking. An awful premonition attacked him. He had met it and almost overcome it as another unaccountable attack of nerves when the foremost horseman emerged from behind a bank. He recognized the stalwart figure, the wide, black sombrero, the poise in the saddle. That man was Hank Hays.

Jim scarcely dared shift his gaze back to the second rider, but he was irresistibly forced to. A slighter figure in tan, drooping in the saddle!

“So help me God!” he whispered, and sank down on the stone. That center rider was Helen Herrick. For a moment a hell rioted in Jim Wall’s breast. How he cursed himself for a vacillating idiot! His intuition had been right. He had seen through this robber leader’s behavior at Star Ranch. But like a fool he had not trusted himself. That trick spelled death for Hank Hays. Jim grew cold to his very marrow. Yet his intelligence did not wholly succumb to his fury. He strove to think. This black-hearted hound had gotten Helen, just how, it was useless to conjecture. But to kill him then, right on the spot? That gave Jim Wall pause. Hays’ men would roar at this deal, involving them in the abduction of a woman; still, they would hardly go so far as to resist him with arms. He would be cocky, radiant, conciliatory now. Jim crushed down his deadly impulse. He would wait. He would hear what the others had to say. He would bide his time.

Well indeed had it been for Jim to espy this trio long before they reached him. He had time to recover, to think what was best. If Hank Hays had come upon Jim suddenly, it would have been to his doom.

One of the pack-animals neighed shrilly and then all the horses stuck up their ears.

“Say, I heerd a hoss-shoe ring on a stone,” called Mac, who had ears as keen as a horse.

“What’s thet?” queried Smoky, sharply. He leaped up.

“Look! Riders comin’,” exclaimed Brad Lincoln.

“Can’t be nobody but Hank.”

Jim leaped off the rock, crashing down behind the watching men, startling them. “Smoky, it’s Hays. I saw him a mile off.”

“Why’n hell didn’t you say somethin’, then?” retorted Slocum, gruffly.

“I was too flabbergasted,” replied Jim, coolly, as he joined them.

“It’s Hank, all right,” said Mac.

“Shore, I see him now. Thet’s Hank.”

“Jim, what flabbergasted you?” demanded Slocum.

“Three riders!” flashed Jim.

“Wal! . . . So I see. What you make of thet?” ejaculated Slocum.

The three emerged clearly from behind the cedars. A blank silence ensued. Jim at last got the tigerish nerves under control. His thoughts were whirling.

“Humph! Little rider in between,” commented Lincoln.

“Thet’s Sparrowhawk behind.”

“Who’s the third party?”

“Hank shore is a queer duck, takin’ up with strangers like he does.”

“Somebody with a mask on!”

“An’ a long slicker.”

“Fellers,” rasped out Slocum, “thet’s a woman with a veil!”

Jim thought the moment had come. “Men, Hank has doublecrossed us. He’s stolen Herrick’s sister!”

“The ——  ——  ——  ——  ——  —— !” cursed Slocum.

No more was said after that profane outburst. It probably voiced the unity of the watchers. Hank Hays led his two followers to within a few feet of the cluster of riders, when he leaped off and checked the gray horse. Sparrowhawk came right on. Jim’s lightning-swift glance took the three in, their dust-caked horses, and flashed back to fasten upon Miss Herrick. Her features were not visible through the veil. The linen coat showed the wear and tear of contact with brush. To Jim’s incredulous amaze, she had on riding-boots and overalls. She sat free in the saddle, with neither hands nor feet bound. The gray horse carried a long pack folded over the cantle.

“Wal, you’re all here but Jeff,” began Hays. He had a bold front, a piercing eye. Fear of man or beast or God did not abide in him then.

“Jeff’ll be comin’ by now,” replied Smoky.

“We ain’t got a hell of a lot of time to wait,” said Hays.

“Whar you aimin’ fer?”

“Brakes of the Dirty Devil.”

“But we was goin’ around an’ head thet hot hell hole.”

“No time.”

Brad Lincoln thrust himself forward, black of face, hitching his gun-belt. “Who’s the third party?”

“Wal, you can guess,” leered Hays.

“I take it you’ve fetched Herrick’s sister.”

“You’re a bright boy. Go to the head of the class.”

“Hank Hays, after all you doublecrossed us,” roared Smoky.

“Wal, if I did — turn about is fair play.”

“Fair play — hell! You’re a liar. You’re a cheat. You’re a —— . You think you can drag us in on a deal like this. I thought you acted powerful queer. So it was this double-breasted gurl you tricked us fer? . . . You ——  ——  —— !”

Jim Wall strode forward and aside, his swift action menacingly significant.

“Hays, your jig’s up. She goes back!” he thundered.

“You can all go to hell,” the robber replied, stridently. “Stick or quit, if you want. But if you give me a word edgeways I’ll say somethin’. I fetched this gurl fer ransom. She come willin’, ‘cause if she hadn’t I’d killed Herrick. He’ll pay twenty-five mebbe fifty thousand for her. Is thet to be sneezed at?”

“So thet was your deal?” queried Slocum.

“Thet, an’ nothin’ else. Now what’re you goin’ to do about it?”

“Hank, on the face of it thet’s different. All the same you doublecrossed us.”

“Same as you did me. I swore to get even with you.”

Jim interposed again. “Hays, you’re a dirty liar. You didn’t steal this girl for ransom,” he called out fiercely.

“Well, I can allow fer you all bein’ riled. But I can’t stand names like thet forever.”

Jim turned to the dejected figure on the gray horse. “Miss Herrick, is he telling the truth?”

“Yes, he stole me for ransom,” she replied, with emotion. “They broke into my room — one through the window — the other at the door. They threatened me with guns. . . . If I screamed they’d kill me! If I didn’t come with them they’d kill my brother! . . . I agreed. I had to dress before them — the beasts! They forced me to dress for riding. . . . And I’ve been on this horse since midnight.”

“What’d they do to Herrick?”

“Oh, I didn’t see. I don’t know whether they told the truth or lied.”

“Jim, if you’re so damn pert to know everythin’, I’ll waste more time by tellin’ you,” interposed Hays. “We tied Herrick up before we got the gurl. An’ after, we made him promise to pay handsome. An’—”

“That’s enough,” snapped Jim. “Give me a man or two. We’ll take her back and get the money.”

“Hold on. Thet was somethin’ I had in mind,” drawled Hays. “But it didn’t work. I had to kill Progar. An’—”

“Who’s Progar?”

“Wal, he’s Heeseman’s right-hand man. Now it happened thet foxy Heeseman was plannin’ the same trick I pulled. Progar an’ another feller ketched us takin’ the gurl out. The other feller got away.”

“ ——  ——  —— ! Thet’s wuss than ever,” screamed Smoky. “Heeseman will find out.”

“Huh! I should smile in perticular thet he will. We seen his outfit on your trail!”

“Shet up! Hosses comin’!”

“Grab your rifles an’ dig fer cover!”

The ensuing rush was quelled by Smoky’s ringing order. “Hold on! It’s Jeff!”

“Lordy! Look at him come! No wonder he sounded like a stampede.”

An opening in the grove showed Bridges plunging upon them. Wild-eyed and snorting smoke, his big charger threw gravel all over them.

“Heeseman’s outfit trailin’ us,” he announced. “Back about five miles when I left my post.”

Smoky turned in cold fury upon their leader. “Now ——  —— you! See what you’ve got us up ag’in’!”

CHAPTER 9

FROM THAT SPEECH, Jim calculated, dated the beginning of a definite breach between Hank Hays and his lieutenant, Slocum.

“Wal, it’s no time to cuss me,” snarled the robber leader.

“By Gawd! I wish I had some,” replied Slocum, bitterly. “Fellers, grab your rifles an’ take to cover.”

“There ain’t no cover, Smoky,” asserted Brad Lincoln.

“This place won’t do,” interposed Jim, sharply. “Miss Herrick might be hit. We’d better make for a canyon.”

“No sense in a fight, anyhow,” rejoined Hays.

“But, man, we’ll have to fight,” rasped out Slocum. “Heeseman’s ridin’ light. We’ve got this pack outfit. He’ll ketch us shore. An’ I say let’s hide behind these trees an’ wait fer him.”

There was no gainsaying the little rider’s wisdom, and Jim would have backed him up but for the girl. If she fell into Heeseman’s power she would be as badly off, if not worse.

“Jeff, air they comin’?” queried Hays of Bridges, who was standing in his saddle, peering back.

“Nope. But I see dust over the ridge, an’ I reckon thet’s him.”

Hays made a dive for his horse, and mounting, he leaned over to take up a rope halter around the neck of the horse Miss Herrick was riding.

“You lied — to me!” she cried, angrily. “You assured me that if I’d come without resistance you’d soon arrange for my freedom. Here we are miles from Star Ranch.”

Hays paid not the slightest attention to her, but started off, leading her horse.

“Jim Wall, are you going to permit this outrage?” She turned in her saddle to entreat him.

“I’m powerless, Miss Herrick,” he replied, hurriedly. “I’m only one of Hays’ band. We are being tracked. If Heeseman catches us you’ll be worse off.”

“Oh, how dreadful! I will not be dragged down into that ghastly hole.”

“Drive the pack-horses behind me an’ keep ’em movin’,” yelled Hays. “Once we reach the river I can give them the slip.”

“Aw, you’re crazy,” derided Smoky. “Heeseman knows this country as well as you.”

The leader did not answer that taunt. He headed down the slope, dragging Miss Herrick’s horse. Sparrowhawk Latimer fell in with them. Jim could hear the girl’s protestations. The other riders made haste to line the pack-horses. Smoky brought up the rear.

The wash that Hays had come down was the one which led into the Red Canyon. It was shallow, dusty, hot. The dry stream-bed afforded easy progress. Jim could not see any sign of a trail or even of an old hoof track. No doubt about Hays knowing his way! He rode as one familiar with this red-clay and gray-gravel canyon. Soon it merged with another coming in from the left, and then all features were magnified. It began to drop, the stream-bed grew rough, the walls higher. All landmarks above were lost sight of; even the Henry Mountains disappeared. The pack-horses kicked up a dust like a red cloud; the riders pulled their scarfs up over mouths and noses. Their yells and curses sounded muffled.

Jim kept unobtrusively working ahead until there were only three pack-horses in front of him and he could see Hays and the girl at intervals. Latimer hung close to them. The canyon deepened. No more places occurred where it might have been possible to lead a horse up. And not long after that the walls became so steep that a man could not have climbed them.

The direction of this canyon appeared to be swinging toward the north, but how much Jim could not estimate. As it twisted, the sun was often in front, then to the right, and again almost behind. Short patches of shade were exceedingly welcome. The horses began to be covered with a lather of dust, sweat, and froth. Jim looked back. Brad Lincoln, his face uncovered, red and wet, rode close behind the last pack-horse. Then followed Jeff, Mac, Happy Jack, and lastly Slocum, dark harsh figures, their very attitudes expressing resentment at this unexpected flight. Slocum was the only one who betrayed any sign of their being tracked, and he kept looking back and up at the ragged rims.

Gradually the sand and rocks and holes slowed the pack-horses to a walk. Hays yelled back for his riders to hurry. He pointed to the left wall as if any moment their pursuers might appear there. Jim thought if they did that, it was all up with Hank Hays’ outfit. What to do kept harassing Jim, until that problem, combined with the heat and dust, wrought him far from his usual coolness of mind.

From the first moment that he espied the girl in Hays’ power he had conceived the idea of rescuing her. But how, when, where? He could only go on and await developments. The immediate necessity was flight, until some safe retreat had been found.

An hour or more of this travel, the first half of which had been rapid, the last slow, brought them to a comparatively long stretch of canyon with a turn. This was too open and unsafe to suit Jim. And evidently it increased Smoky’s concern, for he bawled out to push the pack-horses harder.

The next sign from Smoky was a rifle-shot. It bellowed out from wall to wall. Jim wheeled to see that he was throwing in another shell, both gun and face pointed back and up toward the right wall.

“What you shootin’ at?” yelled Brad, jerking out his rifle. The other riders shouted hoarse queries.

Jim espied something flash along the rim, high up and far back, out of range, if it were a pursuer.

“Rustle!” shrilled Smoky. “I seen riders. They ducked back. They’ll aim to head us off.”

Hays bawled back an order and pointed aloft. Jim, from his point, could not see the very evident danger. Halfway down this long stretch, on the right side, opened a deep canyon. That would surely block pursuers, at least until they had headed it, which might require miles of travel. At any rate, it relieved Jim.

He, with the riders behind, had the pack-horses loping, a risky thing, because if a pack slipped thereby stopping the horse, it would have to be abandoned. And to these fugitives, going down into this hole, packs were incalculably precious.

Suddenly riders popped into view back on the point of the intersecting canyon. Hays and Latimer opened fire with their side-arms, the .45 Colts, the heavy bullets of which fell short, puffing yellow dust on the sloping point. The riders began to return the fire with rifles. Jim saw Latimer knocked off his horse, but he leaped up and mounted again, apparently not badly injured. He raced ahead after Hays, who rode fast, dragging the girl’s horse, and at the same time shooting at the riders until he passed around a corner of the canyon. Latimer soon disappeared after him. Then the riders above turned their attention to the rest of Hays’ outfit.

“Come on!” yelled Jim to those behind. “Run for it! Our only chance!” And charging after the galloping pack-horses ahead, he let Bay find the way and threw up his rifle.

The distance to the pursuing horsemen above, who were riding up and down, yelling, shooting, dismounting to run out, was close to four hundred yards — a long shot with the .44 Winchester from a horse. Heeseman’s outfit had the upper hand. They could stand or kneel and shoot. Apparently they saw their advantage, for they did not take to cover. Jim heard their piercing yells, as well as the bellowing replies of the riders behind him.

He had a quarter of a mile to ride to pass the corner ahead to safety. The pack-horses were scattered, tearing up the canyon. Jim gained on them. Then he began to shoot, aiming as best he could at that swift pace. Suddenly the canyon awoke to an infernal din. The reports banging from wall to wall magnified a hundredfold, until there was a continuous roar.

One of Jim’s first shots hit a horse, and his seventh connected with a rider, who plunged like a crippled rabbit back out of sight. The others of Heeseman’s outfit took alarm, dodged here and there to hide, or ran back. Jim emptied the magazine of his rifle just before he passed round into the zone of safety. Neither Hays nor the two with him were visible, but the canyon ahead had another sharp turn.

Jim hauled Bay to a halt, and soon the pack-horses galloped by, every pack riding well. From below came the slackening bellow of guns. Lincoln dashed into sight first, closely followed by Mac, Happy Jack, and Jeff, all with guns smoking. And lastly came Slocum, hatless, blood on his face, to rein his mount among them.

“Smoky, did they — git you?” queried Lincoln, in alarm.

“Jest barked,” panted Slocum, spitting fire. “ ——  ——  —— ! If we could only — fight it out! . . . Looks all right ahead. Load yer guns an’ ride on!”

Around the next turn they came upon Hays and his two riders. The pack-horses had slowed down behind them. With another big intersecting canyon on the right it looked as if their pursuers were held up.

“Fellers, Heeseman will have to go back,” declared Lincoln. “Thet’ll take hours. I reckon Hank knowed what he was about.”

“Wal, thet was a hell of a close shave,” replied Smoky. “Bullet hit my rifle an’ glanced — skinnin’ me over the ear.”

“Latimer,” replied Jim. “I saw him knocked off his horse. But he was up, like a cat, and on again.”

“Ahuh. Luck’s with us. Say, it’s hot. If we don’t come to thet river soon we’re cooked.”

“Must be close now.”

That last hopeful assertion, however, was wrong. The Dirty Devil, expected at every winding corner, failed to show up. Deeper and deeper grew the canyon, until its ragged, crumbling, colored walls, as denuded as the dry floor, rose three hundred feet, and everywhere slides and shelves of soil hung ready for an avalanche.

Mid-afternoon found the fugitives entering a less constricted area, where sunlight and open ahead attested to the vicinity of a wider canyon, surely the Dirty Devil. And so it proved. Mud-holes appeared in the stream bed, and at last pools of clear water, from which the thirsty horses could scarcely be dragged.

Then Red Canyon joined that of the Dirty Devil, a union which was startling in its nakedness. All was drab gray, yellow, and red, with the sullen river running shallowly over sandbars.

Hays waited for his riders and the pack-animals to reach him.

“Cinch up an’ look to the packs,” he ordered. “We’ve hell ahead, but nothin’ no more behind.”

“No! Haven’t we, though?” queried Lincoln. “Don’t you fool yourself about Heeseman not follerin’ us.”

“Wal, he’ll track us this fer, an’ thet’ll be his limit,” declared the robber. “There ain’t no man in Utah who can foller me into the brakes of the Dirty Devil.”

“Hank, air you aimin’ for thet roost you always give us a hunch about but never produced?” asked Slocum.

“I’ve saved it up, Smoky, fer jest some such deal as this. . . . Pile off now. Once we hit the quicksand we cain’t stop fer nothin’ or nobody. Look to saddles an’ packs.”

The riders complied. Jim, over the back of his horse, watched Miss Herrick when Hays made her get off. The long coat fell below her knees. She walked as if the use of her legs was almost gone. He saw her bend over stiffly, to rub them, and then lift her veil to let the gentle breeze blow upon her face. But presently, when Hays harshly called her to come back, she replaced the veil again. She was tiring and her head drooped.

“Fellers, listen,” began Hays. “The river’s low. I was feared it might be up. It ought to be, ‘cause by now the snow must be meltin’. Luck shore is with us. Wal, jest foller me. Drive the pack-hosses fast as they’ll go. Don’t stop for nothin’.”

“Ahuh. All right. But Sparrowhawk looks pale an’ weak,” replied Slocum.

“He’ll make it. We cain’t stop now to doctor him up.”

“Sparrow, I ain’t trustin’ the boss so damn much. How bad air you hurt?”

“Not so bad, Smoky,” replied Latimer. “I was hit in the back, high up. The bullet’s in there. Hurts like hell.”

“Ain’t you spittin’ blood?”

“Shore, a little. I reckon my lung got nicked. But not bad; I can ride. Don’t worry about me, Smoky.”

Hays laid a rude hand on Miss Herrick. “Git on, an’ don’t let me hear any more squawks out of you.”

The robber took up her halter and straddling his horse he spurred into the muddy stream. The going looked worse than it was. There was quicksand, but it had a stiff crust; it bent but broke only as the hoofs of the horses were being withdrawn. The pack-animals bunched on the shore; then one led, and the others followed. Jim was alongside the foremost. Bay feared quicksand, yet trusted his rider.

Hays led into the middle of the river and then turned downstream. He was never in difficulties and the gray horse carrying the girl got along still better. The water was scarcely six inches deep and this fact no doubt rendered traveling easy at that point.

Soon the whole cavalcade was splashing down the river, the riders behind and on each side of the pack-horses. They left no trace of their tracks now. Washes and gorges and canyons opened into the Dirty Devil on both sides. Half a mile down, the river made a sharp bend and the canyon narrowed again to a dark, forbidding, many-hued crack. Hays kept on, getting into swifter and deeper water, where he plunged his horse and dragged the gray. He passed one wide intersecting gorge from which a slender, muddy stream emerged. That, thought Jim, should have been a good place to go up. But this robber knew where he was heading. He had a goal in mind. Nothing but death could have stopped him.

The pack-horses floundered in places. Some of them stuck, only to be beaten to violent exertion, when they freed themselves to go on. Jim’s sight covered all the surroundings from moment to moment, always to be drawn back to that tan-clad form on the gray horse. Time and again water splashed all over her; her horse staggered, sank one hoof and then another, plunged to free himself, and got out; she swayed in the saddle; often she looked back, and no doubt, through her veil, could see Jim never far from her. Jim took it that she realized this was no accident.

Hays passed other gorges breaking in from the left wall, and ever the way grew more forbidding. At last he turned into a crack that could not be seen a hundred yards back, and when Jim reached it he was amazed to see the robber leading up another narrow gorge, down which ran another swift, narrow stream. Jim appreciated that a man would have had to know where this entrance was, or he could never have found it. The opening was hidden by a point of wall which curved out and around. It opened down the river, and against the dark shade there was not visible from the opposite side of the canyon or from upriver any line of demarkation to show this secret gateway, which undoubtedly led into the wildest part of the brakes.

This gash wound like a snake into the bowels of the colored, overhanging earth; and part of the time Jim could not see Hays ahead nor more than a few of the pack-horses behind. When, however, the water began to lose something of its muddy nature, Jim concluded that the loamy soil of this canyon changed, or else it was not long.

The former proved to be the case. The canyon widened and the walls lowered; grass and shrubs made their appearance upon banks and shelves; a heavy, gravel bottom gave the stream a rippling murmur; huge rocks and caverned cliffs made their appearance. Still the volume of the stream did not diminish.

By sunset Jim calculated the horses had traveled seven or eight miles without stepping once out of the water. The heat and dust had vanished. Twilight thickened between the cliffs. And at last, at a point where the walls were scarcely a hundred feet high the canyon forked. Hays took the left fork, which was dry. And darkness soon hid from Jim any distinct features. Seldom did he see a gleam of Miss Herrick’s gray horse. The rims grew black; stars burned in the strip of sky above; the weary hoofs cracked on stone.

Two long hours later Hays led up out of the boxing canyon. A hummocky, lonely, black-and-gray landscape rolled away on every side to the horizon of stars. Up and down, on through grass and weeds, across flats and ridges, the robber led for two or more hours longer, until Jim began to wonder how much more the pack-horses could stand. Then abruptly they began to descend into a black, round hole the dimensions of which were vague. Presently they reached a bottom from which weird, black, bold walls stood up, ragged of rim against the sky. Jim felt thick grass under his feet. He smelled damp earth; he heard a rustle of cottonwood leaves.

“Hyar we air,” called out Hays. “Throw saddles an’ packs. Let the hosses go. No fear of hosses ever leavin’ this place.”

Jim alone heard the chief, and he passed the word back to his nearest follower, and presently the pack-horses stood drooping, gray-backed in the gloom. The riders were not too weary to express themselves after that grueling trip.

“Where’n hell air we?”

“Smells good.”

“Dawg-gone! I cain’t eat, but I shore can sleep.”

“Sparrow, how air you?”

“Alive yet, an’ not bleedin’.”

In the gloom Jim’s night-owl eyes discerned Hays lifting Miss Herrick off her horse and half carrying her off toward the rustling cottonwoods. Jim, making pretense of leading his horse, followed until Hays stopped at the border of what appeared a round grove of cottonwoods impenetrable to the sight. He heard the tinkle of water near and a musical flow farther away and down.

“Oh, for God’s sake — let go of me!” gasped the girl, and sank down on the grass.

“You may as wal get used to thet,” replied Hays, in low voice. “Do you want anythin’ to eat?”

“Water — only water. I’m — choking.”

“I’ll fetch some an’ a bed for you.”

Little did Hays realize, as he strode back to the horses, that Jim stood there in the gloom, a clutching hand on his gun and mad lust for blood in his heart. Jim knew he meant to kill Hays. Why not now? But as before, he had the sagacity and the will to resist a terrible craving.

With nerveless hands he unpacked his outfit and turned the wet, raw-shouldered pack-animal free with the others. Then he sat down upon his bed-roll, exhausted by the physical and mental excess of the last twenty-four hours.

Above him a few rods the men were unpacking, their relief voiced in low talk. Hays passed with a bed-roll on his shoulder. Jim heard it thud to the soft turf close by in the shadow.

“Any wood around this bloomin’ hole?” Happy Jack shouted. “It’s midnight, but I’ll hatch up a snack of grub an’ coffee if we can start a fire.”

“Darker’n hell,” growled Smoky. “An’ I shore got a headache. I’d like to meet the hombre who bounced thet bullet offn my head.”

Hays returned. He was full of energy and his voice vibrated.

“Plenty firewood,” he said, cheerfully. “I’ll pack some up, Happy. Tomorrow you’ll see the greatest roost fer robbers in all Utah.”

“It needs to be,” growled Lincoln.

Jim listened, while he gazed around. He appeared to be down in a round hole, the circular walls of which stood up a hundred or more feet above him. Only a couple of notches, one V-shaped and large, to the west, and another small and shallow to the north, broke the level rim of the insulating walls. The stars turned very white in a dark blue sky. The low voices of the men and rattle of packs and the cutting sound of horses grazing seemed only to make the deep silence more permeating. The place fascinated. An owl hooted down somewhere in a canyon, and far away a wolf bayed blood-thirstily.

Soon a crackle of fire turned Jim to see a growing light, and dark forms of men. Happy Jack was whistling. His cheerfulness was irritating. Could nothing upset him, tire him? Jim waited until he saw Hays pass in the shadow, back to the camp fire, and then he, too, joined the men.

“Boss, any guard tonight?” asked Lincoln.

“Nope. We won’t stand guard except in daytime,” replied the robber. “Tomorrow I’ll show you the lay of the land.”

“What kind of a roost is it, Hank? Anythin’ like thet Dragon Canyon?”

“No indeed. I seen thet place once. It’s a cave high up — forty feet mebbe, from the canyon bed. You have to go up on a pole with steps cut in. But I was never up. Only one outlet to that burrow, an’ thet’s by the same way you come. This roost has four. We could never be ketched in a hundred years.”

“Ahuh. How about the hosses?”

“Wal, you-all know that hosses will travel from barren country. They’ll stick here. We’ll never even have to go up on top to find them. Best of pure water — no alkali — an’ grass till you can’t believe your eyes. I haven’t been here fer ten years, but I know it’d never change.”

“Any game?”

“Antelope an’ rabbits in flocks.”

“Jest where air we?”

“I’ll show you in the mornin’ when we can see.”

“Hank, how’d the lady stand the ride?”

“She’s all in.”

“Gosh! no wonder! Thet was a job fer men.”

“Reckon I’ll put up the little tent fer my lady guest.”

“Say, Hank, do you aim to sleep in thet tent with her?” queried Smoky, who had not spoken before. His tone was peculiar.

“No, if it’s any of your mix,” returned Hays, after a considerable pause.

“Ahuh. Much obliged. I was jest curious.”

“Hank, how’n hell air you goin’ to collect thet ransom now?” inquired Lincoln.

“Damn if I know. Heeseman shore spoiled my plan. But I’ll make another, an’ after we lay low awhile I can work it.”

“Keepin’ thet gurl hyar all the time?” queried Smoky.

“What else can I do, man? I meant to hang out over on the other side till I got the money for her. But now thet’s no good.”

“It never was no good, boss. An’ if it hadn’t been fer Heeseman hot on our trail, I’d never stood fer this.”

“Wal, you’ll have to stand fer it now, whether you like it or not.”

“Ump-umm!” muttered Smoky, as if to himself.

That concluded the conversation for the moment. Happy Jack gave each one a cup of coffee, a slice of cold meat, and a biscuit.

“Wal, thet’s better,” said Hays, presently. “Now, Sparrow, I’m a-goin’ to look after your gunshot.”

“Wait till daylight, boss. I’m restin’ tolerable comfortable,” replied Latimer.

“You know thet’s bad. When blood-poisonin’ sets in it does it quick. I’ll go get my salve an’ some clean linen. Stir up the fire, Jack, an’ have me two pans of hot water, one of them boilin’ hot.”

Jim watched the robber chief minister to his wounded comrade. Latimer cursed, and stuck out his boots to dig his spurs in the ground.

“Thet bullet will have to come out, or your name is cold cabbage. Tomorrow, mebbe, I can find it. A lot depends on thet, Sparrow. Bullets in fleshy parts ain’t so bad. I’ve got one in me somewheres. But if this forty-four chunk of lead in you ranged down instead of up, I’m thinkin’ you’ll cash.”

He was cold-blooded and methodical, but his earnestness and solicitude were not to be questioned. While he was bandaging the wound Jim stole away in the darkness toward where the chief had left his prisoner. He did not run great risk of detection because he could see all within the camp fire circle of light, while it would be impossible for any of them there to discern him out in the blackness.

CHAPTER 10

IT WAS DARK as pitch toward the grove of cottonwoods, which were shadowed by the bluff, here very close. The rustling of the leaves and the tinkle of water guided Jim. There was also a first tiny peeping of spring frogs.

At length Jim located gray objects against the black grass. He stole closer.

“Where are you, Miss Herrick?” he called in a tense whisper. “It’s Jim Wall.”

He heard a sound made by boots scraping on canvas. Peering sharply, he finally located her sitting up on a half unrolled bed, and he dropped on one knee. Her eyes appeared unnaturally large and black in her white face.

“Oh, you must be careful! He said he’d shoot any man who came near me,” she whispered.

“He would — if he could. But he’ll never kill me!” Jim whispered back. “I want to tell you I’ll get you out of this some way or other. Keep up your courage. Fight him — if—”

“I felt you’d — save me,” she interrupted, her soft voice breaking. “Oh, if I had only listened to you! But I wasn’t afraid. I left both my door and windows open. That’s how they got in. I ordered them out. But he made that Sparrow man point a gun at me. He jerked me out of bed — tearing my nightgown all but off — throwing me on the floor. I was half stunned. Then he ordered me to dress to ride. I ran in my closet. But he kept the door open. . . . He — he watched me — the unspeakable beast!”

“I saw him pawing you,” said Jim, under his breath.

“Yes — yes. He never loses an opportunity. I — I’m sick. I begin to fear this talk of ransom is only a blind. If he robbed me — which he did — certainly he would rob Bernie. And it takes weeks for money to come by stage. Meanwhile—”

“I tell you to keep your nerve,” interposed Jim, with a backward glance toward the camp fire. “But I’ll not deceive you. Hank Hays is capable of anything. His men are loyal. Except me. I’m with them, though I don’t belong to the outfit. I could kill him any time, but I’d have to fight the rest. The odds are too great. I’d never save you that way. You must help me play for time — till opportunity offers.”

“I trust you — I’ll do as you say. . . . Oh, thank you.”

“You said he robbed you?” went on Jim, with another look back at camp. Hays was standing erect.

“Yes. I had four thousand pounds in American currency. It was hidden on the top of my trunk, which they broke open and searched. The Sparrowhawk man found it — also my jewelry. . . . Another thing which worries me now — he made me pack a bundle of clothes, my toilet articles—”

“Ahuh. But where was Herrick all this while?”

“They said they had tied him up in the living-room,” she went on hurriedly. “I remember now that I heard considerable noise and loud voices. But it didn’t alarm me. What a complacent imbecile I was! Oh, I should never, never have come to Utah!”

“How much money did Herrick have on hand?”

“I don’t know, but considerable.”

“Where did he keep it?”

“I have no idea. We Herricks are careless with money.”

“It is a good bet he robbed your brother, too. That’d make this ransom deal look fishy, even if there were nothing else. Hank Hays is the kind of robber who burns bridges behind him.”

“Oh, what am I to do?” she moaned. “I’m utterly at his mercy.”

“It’s hell, Miss Herrick. But you were warned. Now you must take your medicine, as we say out here. If life means so much to you, I can save that, sooner or later. Even that depends on my playing along with Hays and his men until something turns up. Heeseman’s outfit is after us, as you certainly know. They may find us. I hope they do. . . . But for the rest — your — your womanhood. . . .”

“My God! . . . But you could kill me!”

“I couldn’t — I simply couldn’t. . . . I love you myself. . . .”

“There! He is coming. Go — go! You are my only hope.”

Without a look Jim rose to glide away along the grove. He made no sound. The darkness cloaked him. Once it nearly proved his undoing, for only in the nick of time did he sense that he was on the verge of a gully. This proved to be behind the grove and between it and the wall. He heard water down there. Hays’ deep voice floated to him from the other direction. Circling to the left, he got on higher ground from which he saw the camp fire again. The horses were grazing near.

Jim paced to and fro. This was not the thing for him to do. Suppose Hays or Smoky should discover him! If they concluded that he was thinking too much they would be right. Jim sought his bed and crawled into it.

He had committed himself. He had sworn to save this girl from Hank Hays. He loved the fair-skinned, golden-haired girl, but in any case he would have saved her. Once or twice at Star Ranch he had answered to old memories and instincts; he had beaten down in their very inception the promptings of his longing to make love to her. But Miss Herrick at home, with her brother, and in the light of her position and class, was a tremendously different person from a girl captive, in the hands of a robber, out in the wilderness.

Jim Wall realized, as he lay under the pitiless white watching stars, that if Miss Herrick were kept there by force for a week or a month, subject to the jest and scrutiny of these robbers, she would surely suffer mentally and physically from such an ordeal.

Every day to see her shining hair, her white face and wonderful eyes — that could never lose their beauty! Every night, perhaps, in the dead silence of this weirdly insulated place, to fear to hear her cry. It would be too much.

Moreover, Jim realized, through his association with lonely men of the open, that when Hank Hays stole this girl from her home he had broken the law of his band, he had betrayed them, he had doomed himself. No matter what loyalty, what comradeship they felt for Hays, the woman would change it. Her presence alone meant disintegration, disruption, and death.

At length sleep came to Jim. Morning disclosed as remarkable a place as Jim had ever seen. The air was fresh fragrant, and not at all cold. Mockingbirds, blackbirds, and meadow larks were mingling their melodies, more wildly sweet for this solitude. The new leaves of the cottonwoods were turning a thousand shining faces to the sun.

Jim gazed around, and then got up to see if the place was real or only a dream. But it magnified reality. Below him the little gray tent Hays had raised for his captive had been pitched against the grove of cottonwoods, which occupied a terrace and was composed of perhaps fifty trees, none of them old or even matured. One-half of the trees stood considerably higher than the other, which fact indicated rather a steep bank running through the middle of the grove. The luxuriant jungle of vines, ferns, flowers, moss, and grass on that bank was eloquent of water.

This grove was a point that was separated from the wall on each side by a deep gully. But these gullies ended abruptly where the point spread into the oval floor of the hole. Also both gullies opened into a canyon below, dark-walled, rugged, and deep, winding out of sight. Looking the other way, Jim saw some of the men at the camp fire, among them Hays. Beyond them rose a wall of white, gray, and reddish stone, worn by erosion into fantastic shapes. This cliff, on the other side, was red and gray, more precipitous, with shelves and benches covered with moss and cactus and flowers. Farther up a gorge split the cliff, and Jim was reminded of what Hays had said about outlets to their burrow. There was also, on the other side, the steep entrance down which Hays had come to get into this fascinating place.

The inclosed oval contained perhaps twenty-five acres of level sward, as grassy as any pasture; and at the far end the walls slanted down to a wide gateway, through which a long brush-dotted valley led to gray, speckled slopes. The walls all around were veined with ledges.

Evidently the horses had grazed on out of this hole, which fact spoke volumes for the grass farther on. Jim made the discovery that the middle of the oasis contained a knoll, considerably higher than its margins. Aside from the features that made this retreat ideal for robbers, and which they naturally would give prominence in calculations, it was amazing in its fertility, in its protected isolation, and in the brilliance of its many colors.

Jim strode over to the camp fire to wash. “Good morning, men. Wonderful place this is of Hank’s. I don’t care how long we stay here.”

“Hell gettin’ in, but shore good now,” replied someone.

“How’s Sparrowhawk?” asked Jim.

“Stopped bleedin’.” It was Hays who answered this time. “If fever don’t set in he’ll pull through. But I gotta dig out thet bullet an’ I’m plumb feared I can’t.”

“Let it be awhile. How’s our prisoner?”

“Say, all you fellers askin’ me thet! Fact is, I don’t know. She was dead to the world last night.”

“Let her sleep, poor girl. That was an awful ride.”

“After grub we’ll climb up an’ look our roost over,” announced Hays, presently. “You can’t appreciate it down here. Thet gully below is one way out an’ I reckon the best. There’s a waterfall about fifty feet high an’ it looks impassable. But it ain’t, as I found out by accident. There’s a slant thet you can slide a hoss down. It’s slippery an’ mossy under the water an’ takes nerve to put a hoss to it. I reckon any one foller’n’ us could do the same, if they saw our tracks. Thet gully heads into the one we took up from the Dirty Devil. Shore we could go back by the canyon we come up last night. A third way out is up the draw, an’ thet peters out on the uplands. An’ there’s a fourth way out, by thet north gap. But if we took it I reckon we’d get lost in the canyons.”

“It certainly is a great robber’s roost,” agreed Jim, wiping his face. “If we get surprised we’ll simply go out on the other side.”

“Wal, we jest can’t be surprised,” said Hays, complacently. “One lookout with a glass can watch all the approaches, an’ long before anybody could get close we’d be on our hosses an’ gone.”

“But, Hank, you fetched us hyar in the dark,” said Smoky.

“Shore, but it wasn’t easy. I was lost a dozen times. An’ I knowed the way.”

“Ahuh. Did any other men know this place?”

“Yes, but they’re dead.”

“Dead men don’t track nobody, thet’s shore,” said Smoky. “But, Hank, I wouldn’t swear nobody atall could never track us in hyar. What you think, Brad?”

“It would take a lot of nerve to tackle thet Dirty Devil,” replied Lincoln.

“What d’you say, Jim?”

“If I was Heeseman and had seen you, as he sure saw us, I’d find you in three days,” returned Jim, deliberately. “Provided, of course, I had pack-horses and supplies.”

“Wal, I’ll bet you two to one thet you can’t even git out of here,” declared Hays.

“Why, man, you just told us all how to get out.”

“Down the gully, yes. But you’ve never seen it an’ you’d shore be stuck. . . . Wal, we’ll keep watch durin’ daylight. What’s your idee about keepin’ watch? One man’s enough. Two hours on an’ ten off? Or four on, an’ every other day.”

“I’d like the four-hour watch better,” replied Jim.

“Me too.”

“Reckon thet’d suit.”

“Wal, four hours on it’ll be, then,” asserted Hays. “An’, Jim, seein’ as you spoke up so keen, you can have first watch. There absolutely ain’t no need of any watch before breakfast.”

“Hays, don’t forget thet you got here after nightfall, an’ some other man might,” said the pessimistic Lincoln.

At breakfast Hays departed from his habit of silence and he talked, betraying to the thoughtful Jim the presence of excitement. He repeated himself about the security of the place and sought to allay any doubts in the minds of his men.

“It’ll be hotter’n blazes down here in summer,” he said. “An’ it rains. Say, but it rains! Course you-all got a hunch of thet from the cut-up canyons we come through. An’ never be ketched in any of them when it rains hard. . . . I’ll build some kind of a shack, an’ we’ll need a shelter to eat an’ gamble under, an’ as fer sleepin’ dry, there’s some shelvin’ cliffs thet air as good as cabins. So after eatin’, I’ll show you the lay of the land from up on top. We’ll leave Jim on guard, and start to work.”

It chanced that during the part of this speech referring to shelter, Jim happened to see Smoky and Brad Lincoln look at each other in a peculiar way. They did not change glances. They merely had the same thought in mind, and Jim wagered he had caught it.

“Fellers,” Hays said at the end of the meal, and his impressiveness was marked, “I forgot to tell you thet we took a little money from Herrick. I’ll make a divvy on thet today.”

This news was received with manifest satisfaction.

“How much, about, Hank?” asked Bridges, eagerly.

“Not much. I didn’t count. Reckon a couple thousand each.”

“Whew! Thet added to what I’ve got will make me flush. An’ I’m gonna keep it.”

“Hank, as there’s no deal in sight all summer, an’ mebbe not then, we can gamble, huh?”

“Gamble ourselves black in the face, provided there’s no fightin’. It’s good we haven’t any likker.”

“Boss, I forgot to tell you thet I bought a couple of jugs at the junction,” spoke up Smoky, contritely.

“Wal, no matter, only it ‘pears we’re all forgettin’ things,” said the leader, somewhat testily.

“It shore do,” rejoined Lincoln. “Hank, when’re you aimin’ to collect ransom fer the girl?”

“Not while thet hard-shootin’ outfit is campin’ on our trail, an’ don’t you fergit it.”

“Brad, so long’s the boss had honest intentions we can’t kick about how the deal’s worked out,” said Jim, thinking it wise not to be always silent.

“No — so long’s he had,” admitted Smoky, casually. But Lincoln did not reply.

Later Jim caught Smoky aside, digging into his pack, and approached him to whisper:

“Smoky, I wish we had time to talk. But I’ll say this right from the shoulder. It’s up to you and me to see no harm comes to this girl.”

“Why you an’ me, Jim?” returned Smoky, his penetrating eyes on Wall’s.

“That’s why I wish I had time to talk. But you’ve got to take me straight. If I wasn’t here you’d do your best for her — that’s my hunch. . . . Shoot now, quick! Hays is suspicious as hell.”

“Wal, yore a sharp cuss, Jim,” returned Smoky, going back to his pack. “I’m with you. One of us has always got to be heah in camp, day an’ night. Do you savvy?”

“Yes. . . . Thanks, Smoky. Somehow I’d have sworn by you,” replied Jim, hurriedly, and retraced his steps to the fire.

After breakfast Hays led his men, except Latimer, up through the west outlet, from which they climbed to the highest point in the vicinity. It was to the top of a bluff fully five hundred feet above the draw. It afforded a magnificent view of this baffling country. Every point of the green hole was in plain sight. Every approach to it, even that down the dark gully, lay exposed; and a sharp-eyed scout with a field-glass could have detected pursuers miles away, and have caught their dust long before they came in sight.

“No use talkin’,” was Smoky’s comment.

Others were loud in their encomiums.

Brad Lincoln said, sarcastically: “So you been savin’ this roost for your old age?”

They all laughed, then Jim put in his quiet opinion: “A band of men could hang out here for twenty years — unless they fought among themselves.”

“Ha!” Slocum let out a single sharp exclamation, impossible to designate as containing mirth or censure, yet which was certainly corroborative.

“Wal, I never give it no name,” concluded Hays. “An’ we’ll let the future do thet. I’ll gamble every dollar I got thet some outfit will last hyar twenty years. If Heeseman does for us, then Morley will do fer him. An’ so it’ll go. None of us will ever live to see cowboy posses ride into these brakes.”

They left Jim on the bluff to keep the first watch.

“I’d like this job every day,” he replied to jocular remarks.

“Shore you would, an’ git out of real work. So would I. Haw! Haw!”

Jim was well pleased to be left alone. The die was cast now. Hays had made his bed and must lie in it — no doubt to a last long bloody sleep. He had betrayed his loyal allies, not only in the matter of making way with the girl, but in regard to honest division of stolen gains. Jim had Miss Herrick’s word as to the amount taken from her. It was a certainty that Hays had also robbed her brother. But he had not reported the truth as to amount; and this was another singular proof of the disintegration of the chief’s character. Only by strict, fair dealings could he ever have gained the confidence and loyalty of that hardened crew.

In all likelihood Sparrowhawk Latimer was aware of this omission on the chief’s part, for men of his type were not easily fooled. Probably he had been bribed to keep his mouth shut. Jim resolved to lose no time being kind and thoughtful to the wounded man. Whatever there was to learn, Jim meant to learn. Latimer was seriously ill. Presently the outfit would begin to gamble and then for them the hours would pass as moments.

There was a round depression on the mound-like eminence of the bluff, and it made a comfortable seat. It would be very hot here in midsummer, but a sunshade of some sort could be erected. Today the sun felt good.

He could see the men with his naked eye, and with the field-glass he could almost read their thoughts. How much more jealously and savagely could he now watch Hays than if he were below! It was an unique situation, but devastating. Jim had nothing to hide up there.

Notwithstanding the cue he had for passion, he did not neglect exercising the requirements of a good scout. And presently he applied himself to a careful study of his surroundings. The horses grazed in the valley below, between him and the camp, and in all probability they would stay there indefinitely. As summer advanced with warm rains, the valley would grow more and more luxuriant. Horses used to the barrens would have to be dragged away. That disposed of the all-important necessity of having the animals close.

To the north and west the whorls of red rock dominated the scene, but there were many grassy plots and meadows and valleys down in between. The main canyon, an extension of Hays’ retreat, ran for miles, to widen and grade out on the western horizon. Jim espied innumerable rabbits, some coyotes, and many antelopes. That country to the west must be a paradise for the fleet-footed, white-rumped deer of the plains. There was no evidence of water in that direction.

To the south and east spread the brakes, and it was one white slash, red slash, gray slash, yellow slash after another, clear to the dark slopes that formed the base of the mighty Henrys, black and deceiving, their peaks lost in the clouds. Only a blue, faintly streaked gulf marked the zone of the canyon country, of which the Dirty Devil brakes were merely the stepping-off point. Jim remembered the great, dim cliffs glancing down from Wild Horse Mesa. They would be thousands of feet in depth and all sheer rock; the walls of the brakes were mostly clay, loam, gravel, and only hundreds of feet at their deepest. Still they were forbidding, and inaccessible except to the most desperate and resourceful of men.

What would Heeseman’s persistent pursuit of Hays mean, provided it were persistent? That chase and attack of the other day did not amount to much. Riders without pack-animals could easily have made that. But if Heeseman made a long pursuit of it his motive would be either revenge or money, very likely both. Jim had divined in Heeseman a strong antipathy for Hays, something born far back in the past. Jim rather inclined to Lincoln’s skepticism and looked for further dealings with Heeseman.

While Jim’s thoughts ran in this fashion, skipping from one aspect to another, his keen manipulation of the field-glass followed suit. He would study the white-ridged draw by which Hays had entered the hole, and try to follow its devious wanderings till he lost it in the brakes. He would bend his magnified sight upon the dark seamed gorge heading under the terrace of cottonwoods. And the two other exits to that rendezvous came in for their share of attention. In this way he gradually became acquainted with them. And after each survey he would shift the glass back to the oval bowl where the robbers were at work.

Some were carrying water, brush, stones, while others were digging post-holes. Hays was apparently a mason, for at once he began to lay a square fireplace of flat stones. The stone, sand, water were fetched to him, but he did the building himself. An hour or so after the start, the square grate appeared to be completed, and the chimney was going up. Four cottonwoods formed the four corner posts of the shack. Poles of the same wood were laid across for beams. Probably Hays would construct a roof of brush, and give it pitch enough so that the rain water would run off.

That growing structure became fascinating to Jim Wall. What was going to happen in it? Three times Hays left off work to walk across the green to the tent where Miss Herrick kept herself. No doubt the robber called to her. The third time he peeped in.

“Go in, you —— scurvy bloodhound!” ejaculated Jim, fiercely. There was a hot joy at the ring of his words in his ears. He need not even deceive himself. He could roar like a bull if he wished.

But Hays did not attempt to enter the tent. Certain it was, however, that he glanced back to see if any of his men were watching him. They were, though perhaps to his estimate not at all obtrusively. Jim, however, with the strong field-glass, could actually catch the expression on their faces. Smoky spoke to Lincoln, and with a suggestive jerk of his head toward Hays and the tent added a volume of meaning. Then Hays retraced his steps back to the job.

The sun grew hot, and when it reached the zenith Hays and his gang suspended their labors for a while. The others gathered at the shelter, evidently eating and drinking. Presently Latimer appeared, coming out of the cottonwoods, and he walked unsteadily across to the group. One of them came out to help him. They spent an hour, perhaps, under Happy Jack’s shelter. All this morning no sign of life from the tent!

Long after noonday, and when Jim had spent at least six hours on watch, Jeff Bridges detached himself from his comrades and laboriously made his way out the west entrance and up the long, gray-green slope to the red bluff, upon the top of which Jim was stationed.

Jeff was a heavy man, not used to climbing on foot. His red face was wet with sweat. “Jim, we ‘most forgot you,” he panted, good-naturedly. “The boss had us — a-goin’. He’s shore — enthusiastic over makin’ a roost of thet hole!”

Jim relinquished the glass and his seat to Bridges. “I don’t mind,” he said. “Sort of like it up here.” He left and made his way leisurely down off the smooth red ledges to the slope, and eventually to the valley floor. Cottontail rabbits scurried out from under his feet, to crouch in the grass or under a bush not far off. Jim drew his gun, and selecting a favorable shot he put out the eye of a rabbit; and presently he repeated the performance. With the rabbits dangling, one from each hand, he turned into the oval, amused to find not a single man in sight. They had heard his shots and had taken to cover.

As he approached, one by one they reappeared, out of the earth it looked to Jim, and when he reached Happy’s camp-site they were all back.

“Huh! You scared the very hell out of us,” declared Hays, forcibly. “How’n hell could we know you was shootin’ rabbits?”

“Young rabbit for supper won’t go bad,” rejoined Jim.

“They shore won’t,” agreed Smoky. “Lemme see, Jim.” He took the rabbits and examined them. “Look ahyar, Brad. He shot the eye out of both of them.”

“Durned if he didn’t,” said Brad, enthusiastically. “How fer away, Jim?”

“I didn’t step it off. Reckon one was about twenty paces and the other farther,” returned Jim, stretching the truth a little. He knew such men, how their morbid minds centered about certain things.

“Ahuh. You’re a poor shot,” declared Lincoln.

“Hank, fer Gawd’s sake don’t let’s give Jim a chanct to shoot at us!” ejaculated Smoky, with a loud laugh.

The robber chieftain did not see any levity in the circumstance.

“Hell, no. We don’t want Jim shootin’ at us any more’n he wants us shootin’ at him.” That was a distinction with a difference. But Smoky was sincere, Lincoln was dubious, and Hays was deceitful.

“Fellows, make all the fun you want out of my perfectly good intention of supplying meat for supper,” he said, genially. “But don’t joke about my shooting. I’m sensitive.”

“Can you hit a bottle in the air?” queried Smoky.

“I wouldn’t if it was full.”

“Aw, no foolin’. Can you, Jim?”

“Whenever you want to bet, come on.”

“Hey, save your ammunition, you cowboys,” interrupted Hays, gruffly. “We’ll git all the shootin’ you want, mebbe. . . . Jim, take a snack of grub, an’ then come to work with us.”

CHAPTER 11

WHILE THEY WERE at it Smoky suggested they erect a sun and rain shelter for the prisoner, and Jim casually seconded the proposition. Hays consented with a bad grace. So before dark they built one for Miss Herrick that would add materially to her comfort.

“Reckon this cottonwood grove is her private grounds, fellers,” added Smoky.

In the main they were kindly disposed and amenable. Lincoln’s bitterness toward the chief, however, rather augmented, if anything. He said, “I got it figgered thet Hank reckoned this grove was his private grounds.”

“Wal, he figgered wrong, then,” snapped Smoky. “It ain’t no fault of ourn if this gurl is hyar. But since she is, we’ll see she gets treated like a lady.”

That was strong speech, yet passed over by Hays. He had resourcefulness, after he had accomplished his design in getting the girl there.

The shelter extended from the edge of the grove, where her tent stood, out far enough to permit of other conveniences. A tiny stream ran out from under the trees. Jim banked it up with clean red rocks, forming a fine little pool of clear cold water. Smoky, who had skill and artistry, deftly fashioned a rude armchair, which, when covered with saddle-blankets, made an acceptable chair. Hays, not to be wholly outdone, cut and carried a great armload of ferns.

“Come out, miss,” he called into the tent. “We’re makin’ you comfortable. An’ heah’s some ferns to put under your bed.”

Helen emerged quickly enough, her eyes suspiciously red, but that did not mar the flash of them. Jim tried to turn away, only he could not. Hays carried the bundle of ferns inside and spread them out.

“I’ll make my bed, please,” she called, impatiently, whereupon the robber chief crawled from the tent.

“Hays, am I to gather from this kindly service that my enforced stay here with you will be indefinite?” she queried.

“Wal, it looks like thet. But what else can I do?” returned Hays, avoiding her gaze.

“You can send Jim Wall and another of your men back to Star Ranch. I’ll write a letter to my brother to pay and ask no questions nor make any moves.”

“Shore I reckon Jim would go. It’s easy to see thet. But none of my regular men would risk it,” returned Hays.

“There’s a better way, Hank,” spoke up Smoky. “Send Jim an’ me back with the girl. If she’ll promise ‘t we’ll get the money.”

“I give my word,” swiftly agreed Miss Herrick.

“It ain’t to be thought of,” returned the robber, dryly.

Jim watched his opportunity to give Helen a warning look when Hays could not see. She had forgotten his cautioning her. And that halted whatever retort she had on her lips. Smoky, however, was making good Jim’s estimate of him — that he was deep, and would answer unexpectedly to any situation.

“Hell you say, Hank. It is to be thought of,” he rejoined, coolly. “You nor nobody else can think my thoughts.”

“Wal, I mean I’m not thinkin’ that way, an’ as I’m boss of this outfit, what I say goes. Do you savvy?”

“Shore. Thet’s short an’ sweet.”

“Wal then, let’s have no more to say. When it suits me — which is when it’s safe to send fer thet ransom money — I’ll do it, an’ not before.”

He stalked away toward the cook shelter, evidently to secure a bucket and basin for Miss Herrick. Happy Jack loudly disclaimed any intention of letting go any of his few and precious utensils. Jim heard the chief say: “Wal, at thet she don’t need a bucket. Them two lady-killers dammed up the brook for her. I’ll take a basin an’ call it square.”

During this interval Helen had appealed to Jim with eyes so eloquent of fear and hope that he almost threw up his hands in despair.

“You — what’s your name?” she asked, turning to Smoky.

“Wal, you can call me Smoky,” drawled that worthy, with an inscrutable smile. But something in her, beauty or purity or spirit, had reached his depths.

“Jim has made you a friend — to help me?”

“I reckon so, but fer Gawd’s sake don’t talk so loud. Try to savvy this deal an’ what’s your part in it.” Smoky wheeled to his task as Hays strode back into earshot.

Miss Herrick entered her tent, where Jim heard her spreading blankets upon the ferns. After that little more was spoken between the men, and presently, at Hays’ suggestion, they quit for the day.

“Whar you bunkin’, Smoky?” inquired Hays.

“Under the cliff with Sparrow. Thet poor devil needs nursin’.”

“Sorry aboot him. But we could have got in a hell of a jam over ther. Figger it out, if we’d been a quarter hour later.”

“Wal, thet’d been the end of Hank Hays an’ outfit,” remarked Smoky, caustically.

“An inch is as good as a mile. . . . Jim, whar you sleepin’?”

“There’s my bed and pack and saddle,” replied Wall, pointing. “I’ll leave them there till it rains.”

Hays made no comment. They repaired to Happy Jack’s shelter and to their evening meal. Later by the light of the camp fire Jim saw Helen come out of her tent to walk up and down in the dusk. And she got nearly as far as where Jim’s things lay in the lea of a low shelf. He wondered if she was keen enough to calculate that he would be nearest to her and that he was the lightest of sleepers.

Darkness soon settled down, and with it the robbers, worn out with their labors. Jim stayed up long enough to see Hays stretch in his blankets under Happy’s shelter. So far so good! A heavy breath of oppression eased off Jim’s chest. It could have been far worse. His impulse to appeal to Smoky had been an inspiration. Still, he had intuition. Smoky was probably as great a rogue as any unhanged, yet he had subtle qualities that men like Jim felt in extremities. Before this game was far spent Smoky would loom splendidly, of that Jim was certain. He went to bed, and for a long hour kept himself awake with poignant thoughts, while he listened and watched.

The next day came, and was like the preceding, with its camp tasks and improvements, the guard duty, attendance upon Sparrow, and the universal if covert observance of Miss Herrick. To do her credit, she kept out of her tent, ate, exercised, and watched with great anxious eyes that haunted Jim.

After that, day after day, full of watching and suspense for Jim, wore on. Every morning dawned with a sense of something about to happen. And he divined that suspense would go on and on. Yet it could not last forever. In the clear light of day, during his watches up on the bluff, he had gone sternly and finally over the situation. He could not attempt anything radical until something happened. And he would adhere to that.

Meanwhile he and Smoky had assumed all the care of Latimer, who had improved for a few days, and then had a relapse. Hays, in his growing absorption, had gladly relinquished the work to Jim. And then Smoky had shared it. Between them they did all that was humanly possible for Sparrowhawk, but he went from bad to worse. Often in lucid moments he asked about Hays and the girl.

“Dog-gone it, Jim,” complained Smoky during a moment when they were alone, “Sparrow’s conscience is hurtin’ him.”

“Yes, and I think he feels Hays’ neglect.”

“Ahuh. He’s been longest with Hays. What’s your idee about somethin’ stickin’ in his craw?”

“Sorry he had a hand in stealing the girl, maybe,” offered Jim.

“Nope. Thet wouldn’t phase Sparrow,” declared Smoky, with decision.

“Well, he killed Progar, you know, and that put Heeseman on our trail. Hays admitted it.”

“Ump-umm. You don’t know Latimer. He’d never think twice about killin’ a man. It’s somethin’ else an’ closer to home.”

That gave Jim an idea, which he was careful to keep to himself. Latimer surely knew that his chief had not divided the last Herrick money fairly. It might be this. Anyway, Jim, though he could not have been any kinder to the wounded man, spent more time with him.

The seventh day, during the heat of the afternoon, while some of the men were asleep and others absent, and Jim was on the lookout from the bluff with his field-glass, Hays began carrying things from the grove to the shack he had built. It had been set some distance away, on a level gravel flat, just out from a notch in the south wall. A deep wash separated it from the camp.

Jim’s field-glass brought things close — too close for his peace of mind. Hays’ first bundle was his own pack which he took into the cabin. Jim cursed. On the second trip Hays fetched his bed-roll. Like a hawk Jim watched. It was certain that cold sweat broke out all over Jim.

His hour was about up, and leaving the lookout he ran down the slope and into the oval, slowing up when near camp. He came upon some of the men arguing.

“Hell, no!” ejaculated Smoky, as Jim arrived.

“Hell, yes!” returned Lincoln.

“Fellers, it’d be too low-down,” went on Smoky, with passion. “We’re a lot of bad eggs, but Hank ain’t thet bad. . . . Collect the ransom an’ send her home to her brother after degradin’ her!”

“Smoky, you’re a faithful cuss,” rejoined Lincoln, admiringly. “When air your eyes goin’ to open?”

“They’re open, all right,” replied Smoky, doggedly.

“Cheese it. Hyar comes Hays now.”

Jim was satisfied with the slow wearing away of their faith.

“Fellows, I heard you, and I’m agreeing with Lincoln,” he said, hurriedly. “Looks as if Hank is bent on dragging Miss Herrick over to his shack.”

There was an intense silence.

“I’ve been watching through the field-glass,” added Jim.

“Wal, by Gawd!” burst out Smoky, convinced against his will. “I been hopin’ we was hard on Hank. But, hell, let’s give the man a chance. . . . Jim, if he does fer me, you take it up.”

“Let me face him first,” demanded Jim, harshly.

“What the hell, Smoky!” ejaculated Lincoln.

“Shet up! Hyar he comes. Keep out of it now.”

When the chief reached the shelter he would have passed on without noting them, so great was his abstraction.

“Hays, come hyar,” called Smoky, ringingly, as he stepped out. The robber swerved off his course, startled. “We been arguin’ aboot you. Wal, you know me. I’m askin’ you damn straight. Do you mean bad by this Herrick woman?”

“Bad!” echoed Hays, his face changing from red to white.

“Thet’s what I ast,” retorted Smoky.

“Wal, an’ suppose I say I do?” demanded Hays, “if it’s any of your damn bizness!”

“Then you can shoot it out with me, right hyar an’ now!”

“Smoky!” gasped the chief, incredulous.

“An’ if you do fer me you’ve got Jim to take on,” snapped Smoky.

“More double-crossin’!” bellowed Hays, suddenly wild.

“Shore. More from you, Hank.”

The leader spat in his fury; and then it was remarkable to see him pull himself together.

“I jest wanted to know how fer you fellers would go,” he declared. “An’ you’ve shore give me a cud to chew. . . . As fer thet gurl, I’ve no more bad feelin’s toward her than any one or all of you. Savvy? An’ let me say if I heah any more sich talk I’ll be bustin’ up this outfit.”

“It’s busted now, Hank,” replied Smoky, betraying the bitterness of the disillusioned.

Jim sought seclusion until sunset, dragging through one of the most horrible hours he had ever lived. Hays would not fight. Jim’s hands were tied until further complications untied them. Even an overmastering love could not change his creed, and his creed was similar to that of Smoky Slocum. And he was not so sure but that there were others in Hays’ gang who lived up to the honor of thieves. It looked as if Hank Hays had at last broken upon the rock of woman’s lure.

Smoky espied Jim returning, and came to meet him.

“Sparrow’s askin’ fer you,” he said, moodily. “I’m afeared he’s wuss.”

When Jim bent over the wasted Latimer it was indeed to feel a cold apprehension.

“What is it, Sparrow? I’ve been on watch,” said Jim, taking the other’s thin hand.

“Am I a-goin’ to croak?” queried Latimer, calmly, and the look accompanying the words was something to stir Jim.

“You’ve a fighting chance, Sparrow. While there’s life there’s hope.”

“Wal, I’ve been shot before. But I never had this queer feelin’. . . . Now, Jim, if I git to sinkin’, don’t keep me from knowin’. If I’m dyin’ I want to tell you and Smoky somethin’ thet I’d keep if I lived. Savvy?”

Smoky, kneeling at Latimer’s other side, nodded sadly.

“Sparrow, I couldn’t honestly ask for that confession yet,” replied Jim. “You might pull through. But I promise you, and I’m shaking your hand on it.”

“Good. Thet eases my mind. Gimme a drink of cold, fresh water.”

Smoky took up the dipper and strode down to fetch it.

“Jim, I like you — a heap,” said Latimer.

“Thanks, Sparrow. I’m sure I return it,” replied Jim.

“Fellers like me can only expect to die this way. I always knowed. . . . But it’s different — now it’s hyar. . . . Jim, did you ever think it’d be better to go — back to honest livin’?”

“Not lately,” replied Jim, gloomily.

“Wal, you’re younger’n most of us.”

Smoky returned with the water, and the two men helped Latimer to drink.

“Sparrow, you can’t gain strength on water,” complained Smoky, earnestly. “I’m gonna fetch you somethin’.”

On the walk across the oval Smoky said, very seriously: “Jim, I reckon we better have Sparrow tell us tomorrer — whatever he has on his chest. That is, if we want to know it. Do you?”

“I sure do, Smoky.”

“Wal, I ain’t so damn keen about it myself,” rejoined Slocum, darkly.

“But, Smoky, if it’s something Latimer must confess, it’s something we ought to know.”

“You think so, even if it splits the outfit?”

“If there’s anything that can do that — you bet your life we ought to know,” rejoined Jim, forcibly.

“Not so loud, man. These hyar walls have ears. We’ll see tomorrer.”

That night Jim took his time at supper, and afterwards he lingered around the camp fire, and long after Hays had stalked off into the gloom with a significant parting speech: “Good night all. I’m turnin’ in.”

“Reckon Hank’s tired of layin’ awake nights listenin’ to thet gurl cry,” said Mac.

“Looks like thet.”

“Thet’s what it ‘pears to me,” replied the cook. “I fixed up her supper before callin’ you-all. Hank took it over. He was late comin’ fer his own supper, as you saw.”

“Wal, it’s decent of him.”

Jim moved his bed closer to the grove, farther from the camp fire, and it commanded a view of the rise of ground where any one passing could be detected above the horizon. And he sat on his bed watching until he was too tired to sit up any longer. But even after he had crawled under his blankets he watched. There was an overhanging shelf of rock, black as coal, then a strip of velvet blue sky, studded with stars, and last the dark, uneven rise of ground. A coyote passing along that near horizon would have seemed as large as a horse.

But nothing passed. The hours wore on until the utter loneliness of the deep pit weighed heavily upon Jim’s oppressed breast. Even the crickets ceased to chirp. The wind failed. He might have been lying in a stone sepulcher. He was fixed in a solitude that seemed to be working upon him. But Jim Wall did not believe in ghosts, and always he had scoffed the few intimations of spirit that had whispered to him from nature. Bent unalterably upon dealing death to the robber who had befriended him, he did not listen to still, small, inward voices.

He fell asleep and dreamed that he was riding a gigantic, black horse with eyes of fire, and that there was a white flower growing out from a precipice, and in a strange, reckless desire to pluck it he fell into the abyss. Down, down he plunged into blackness. And suddenly a piercing, terrible cry rose from the depths.

He was sitting upright in bed, his brow clammy with sweat, his heart clamped as in a cold vise. What had awakened him? The night was silent, melancholy, fateful. He swore that a soul-wrecking cry had broken his slumber. Then he remembered the dream. How absurd that he should dream of plucking a white flower and plunging to hell! Nevertheless, it disturbed him. There were things hard to explain. He was not subject to dreams. The rest of the night he dozed at intervals, haunted by he knew not what.

One by one the members of the gang appeared at Happy Jack’s calls to breakfast. With no work to do, no horses to find or rides to make, the robbers were lazy.

Jim was the last to arrive, except Hays, who had not yet appeared.

“Darn good thing we ain’t in an Injun country,” observed Mac.

“Humph! Fer a feller who lays ten hours in bed I sleep damn little,” rejoined Smoky, moodily. “I hear things an’ I’m always waitin’ fer somethin’.”

“Yell fer the boss. My voice is gone,” said Happy Jack.

Nobody took the trouble to comply with this request. The men fell to eating. Brad Lincoln had not spoken, and he kept his eyes lowered. But Lincoln was always morose in the mornings. After the meal, Jim, as was his custom, hurried toward the shelf where Latimer lay. He had gotten about halfway when Slocum caught up with him.

“Jim, you look like the wrath of Gawd this mornin’.”

“Smoky, I didn’t sleep well. I’m cross, and I reckon I need a shave.”

“Wal, if thet’s all. . . . Say, Jim, did you hear the gurl scream last night?”

“Scream! . . . Did she?”

“Huh. If she didn’t, I’ve shore got the jimjams. . . . My Gawd! Look at pore Latimer!”

Their patient had wrestled off his bed out into the grass. They rushed to lift him back and make him comfortable. He appeared to be burning up with fever and alarmingly bright-eyed, but he was conscious and asked for water. Jim hurried to fetch some.

“How’n hell I rolled out there I don’t know,” said Latimer, after he had drunk thirstily.

“Reckon you was delirious, Sparrow,” replied Smoky.

“No, sir. I was scared.”

“Scared! — You? Thet’s funny,” rejoined Smoky, looking across at Jim.

“What scared you, old man?” queried Jim, bathing Latimer’s hot face with a wet scarf.

“It was after I got my sleep. Must have been late, fer I always am dead to the world fer five or six hours. I was wide awake. It was shore a lonesome, still night. Mebbe my sins weighed on me. . . . But all of a sudden I heard a cry. It scared me so I jumped right off my bed. Hurt me, too, an’ I didn’t try to get back.”

“Maybe it was a coyote right by close,” returned Jim.

“Fellers, I’ll bet you’ll find thet gurl dead. . . . Murdered!” concluded Latimer, hoarsely.

“Wal, I’ll be —— !” ejaculated Smoky.

“Sparrow, you don’t look flighty,” replied Jim, gravely. “But your talk is. Else you’ve a reason to think it.”

“Shore I have,” rejoined Latimer, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Hays beat an’ robbed Herrick! . . . Thet’s the part I wanted to tell you, if I was goin’ to croak. But I gotta tell it anyhow. An’ I ask you both, as pards, to keep what I tell you secret till I’m dead.”

“I swear, Sparrow,” said Smoky, huskily.

“You can trust me, too,” added Jim.

“Wal, thet’s why I feel Hank must have done fer the gurl, too.”

“Robbed Herrick!” exclaimed Slocum, incredulously. “Was there a fight?”

“Yes. But Hank might have avoided it. He drove the man crazy.”

“Fellers, Hays’d steal coppers off a dead nigger’s eyes — shore. But what he said he wanted was the gurl fer ransom. Yet he picked a fight with Herrick an’ beat him with a gun.”

“Sparrow, how come you didn’t tell us before?” asked Smoky, sternly.

“I’m beholdin’ to Hank. But I will say thet if I’d knowed his game, I’d never have gone with him. After it was too late — wal, I stuck. An’ I’d kept it secret. But I feel in my bones I’m done fer. So I’m squealin’, an’ I’m doin’ it because Hays double-crossed you all.”

“Reckon I’d have done the same, if Hank had a hold on me,” conceded Smoky, generously. “Suppose you take a nip of whisky an’ tell us what happened.”

“I’m hot enough without liquor. But I’ll tell you. . . . Gimme some more water.”

After a moment Latimer drew a long breath and resumed: “Hank picked me because he had a hold on me. . . . After you fellers left thet night Hank went out an’ got another hoss. He had a saddle hid somewhere. We took them hosses up the bench back of the house an’ tied them. Then we went down toward the house.”

“Ahuh. He’d had this deal in mind all the time,” said Smoky, nodding his head.

“Yes. Before we got to the house he told me he meant to hold Herrick up fer what money he had on hand — then steal the gurl fer ransom. I opened my trap to kick ag’in’ the gurl part of it, anyway, but he cussed me somethin’ fierce. I seen then he was blood-set on it, so I shet up. . . . Herrick was in the livin’-room. We walked round the house, an’ Hank showed me the gurl’s winder, which was open. . . . Wal, we went back, an’ up on the porch, an’ into the livin’-room. When Herrick looked up Hank threw a gun on him. ‘Keep quiet an’ shell out your money,’ Hank ordered. Thet didn’t phase the Englishman. He jumped up, thunderin’ mad. Hank hit him over the head, cuttin’ a gash. Thet didn’t knock Herrick out, but it made him fight till Hank got him good an’ hard. Then he opened his desk and threw out some packages of greenbacks. After that he slid to the floor. Next Hank ordered me to go out an’ round to the gurl’s winder. It was bright moonlight, but I didn’t locate thet winder quick. An’ at thet I was guided to it by the gurl’s voice. . . . Gimme another drink.”

Latimer quenched his inordinate thirst again, while Jim and Smoky exchanged thoughtful glances over him.

“Wal, where was I? . . . When I straddled thet winder-sill I seen the gurl sittin’ up in bed, white as the sheets about her. Hank had a gun pointed at her head, an’ he was sayin’ if she yelled he’d shoot. Then he told me to look around fer money an’ jewels. I started thet, keepin’ an eye on them. The room was as moonlight as outdoors. Hank told her to git up an’ dress fer ridin’. She refused, an’ he yanked her clean out of bed, splittin’ her nightgown half off. ‘Gurl,’ he said, ‘yore brother is hawg-tied down in the livin’-room, an’ if you don’t do as I tell you, I’ll kill him. . . . I’m takin’ you away fer ransom, an’ when he pays up you can come home. So long’s you’re quiet we won’t hurt you.’ . . . At thet she got up an’ ran into a closet. I heerd her sobbin’. He made her put on ridin’-clothes an’ pack what else she wanted. Meanwhile I found a heap of gold things an’ diamonds, an’ a package of money, still with the Wells Fargo paper on it. These I stuffed in my pockets, an’ I shore — was a walkin’ goldmine.”

“How much was there?” asked Smoky, curiously, when Latimer paused to catch his breath.

“I’ll come to thet. . . . We went out the winder, an’ Hank hustled her into the woods, with me follerin’. Soon we come to the hosses, an’ Hank put the gurl up on the gray. He blindfolded her an’ told me to see she didn’t git away. Then he run back down the hill. The gurl talked a blue streak, but she wasn’t so damn scared, except when we heard a shot, then some one runnin’ on hard ground. Hank come back pronto, pantin’ like a lassoed bull. He said he’d run plump into Progar an’ another of Heeseman’s outfit.

“‘Miss Herrick,’ he says, ‘them fellers — was bent on robbin’ your brother — mebbe killin’ him. I shot — Progar, but the — other — got away.’ . . . He tied the bundle on his hoss, an’ leadin’ the gurl’s hoss, he rode up the mountain. We rode the rest of the night, stoppin’ to rest at daylight. Hyar I turned the money an’ trinkets over to Hank. He counted the money Herrick had turned over — somethin’ more’n sixteen thousand — but he never opened the Wells Fargo package I’d found in the gurl’s trunk. . . . Thet’s all, fellers. We rode till noon, meetin’ you as agreed in the cedars.”

“What was in thet Wells Fargo package?” asked Smoky, after a long pause.

“Money. Hundred dollar bills. I tore a corner of the paper off. It was a thick an’ heavy package.”

“Ahuh. So Hank went south with thet an’ the jewelry?”

“Yes. When he made the divvy hyar he give me his share of thet sixteen thousand. It’s hyar in my coat. You an’ Jim air welcome to it. Cause where I’m goin’ — I won’t need any.”

“Sparrow, it was a long story fer a sick man — an’ hard to tell,” said Smoky, feelingly. “Jim an’ me will respect your confidence. An’ if you pull through — as I hope to Gawd you do — we’ll never squeak. . . . But, pard, don’t be surprised at what comes off.”

CHAPTER 12

FIVE DAYS LATER Sparrowhawk Latimer died during the night, after a short interval of improvement which gave his comrades renewed hope. He passed away alone, evidently in agony to judge from his distorted face. When Slocum found his body in the morning it was stiff and cold.

“Wal, I don’t know but thet Sparrow’s better off,” remarked Smoky, with pathos. “This hyar game ain’t hardly wuth playin’.”

They buried him in his tarpaulin on the spot, and divided his effects among them by drawing lots.

“What’d you do with the money you found on him?” queried Hays.

“We didn’t find none. Sparrow gave it to me an’ Jim some days ago,” replied Smoky.

“Reckon you better divide it.”

“Ump-um,” rejoined Smoky, nonchalantly, his beady little eyes on the chief.

“Why not?”

“Wal, Sparrow wanted us to have it, not, I reckon, because we took care of him when you forgot him, but jest because he cottoned to us.”

“Smoky, tell Hays the other reason,” spoke up Jim.

“Thet’ll wait, Jim. No hurry. An’ I’m not so shore Sparrow wanted us to tell.”

Hank Hays turned livid of face and the gaze he flashed upon his two cool subordinates held nothing if not the lightnings of a desperate soul.

“Ahuh. Mebbe you’d both be wise to stay shet up,” he said, and left.

Brad Lincoln was the first of the others to voice intense curiosity.

“What’s all this gab?” he demanded.

“Keep your shirt on, Brad,” returned Smoky, provokingly.

“Fellers,” continued Lincoln, turning to the others, “I’ve had a hunch all along there was a stink in this deal. Air you with me in demandin’ a show-down from Smoky an’ Jim?”

“We shore air,” rejoined Bridges, and Mac and Happy Jack expressed like loyalty.

“Smoky, you’re square. If there’s anythin’, we want to know.”

“Wal, there’s a hell of a lot. It’s due you. Jim an’ me have no mind to keep silent, now Latimer’s gone. But we’re stuck hyar in this hole, an’ we don’t want to fight among ourselves.”

“Right you air. But no matter,” snapped Lincoln.

“It’ll bust up the poker game, Brad. You’re behind, an’ so long as there’s a chanct to win Hays’ roll, why not take it?”

Lincoln made a passionate gesture. Smoky had hit his weakness. He was the top gambler of the outfit. They were all gamblers when they had money and leisure, but Lincoln had the distinction of winning most.

“Smoky, you’re sluggin’ me one below the belt. You know damned well I’d pass up anythin’ to beat Hank. I’m game. Keep your mouth shet till it’s gotta come out. An’ you can bet your life if it’s as serious as you hint, there’ll be a hell of a row.”

“Mebbe we can slick it over,” replied Smoky, smoothly. “If we win all the boss’s money — an’ he’ll shore be easy now with thet gurl on his mind — I reckon there won’t be any sense in tellin’ at all. Eh, Jim?”

“I don’t make any rash promises, Smoky,” returned Jim. “I admire you a lot, Slocum, but I’m thinking you run this into the ground. In all justice these men ought to be told something.”

“Damn you, Wall!” flashed Smoky, but he was not venomous.

Lincoln leaped up and hissed like a snake. His rage was confirmation of suspicions. Smoky laid a restraining hand on him.

“It sorter r’iled me, Brad. But take my word for it, it’s a case of choosin’ between the cards an’ bein’ told.”

“I say cards. You fellers can’t keep it forever,” rejoined Lincoln, darkly.

From that hour dated the grim and passionate gambling in which they all participated. With one man on lookout duty, the others spent most of the daylight hours sitting at Happy Jack’s table of cottonwood poles. Hays was a gambler by nature; he gambled with everything, particularly life and death.

Jim had separated his money into two parts — one consisting of the bills of large denomination, and the other of small. The former was very much in excess of the latter. While on guard up on the bluff Jim sewed his considerable sum in the lining of his coat and vest. He had a premonition that he would need it some day. The other he kept out for gambling, intending to quit when it was lost.

But fortune was fickle. He did not lose it. Instead, he won steadily. There was no hope of his getting out of the game so long as he was ahead. He wanted to watch, think, plan. Luck changed eventually, and he lost all he had won. Then he seesawed for a day, before he struck another streak of losing, and lost everything.

“I’m cleaned,” he said, rising. “But, by gosh! I gave you a run.”

“Jim, you shore had rotten cards lately,” replied Hays. “But you can’t be clean busted.”

“No. I’ve saved out a little, and I’m going to hang on to it.”

“I’m way ahead. I’ll lend you some,” offered Hays, generously.

“No, thanks. I’m glad to get off this well. I’ll go up to the rock and send Mac down. From now on I’ll do most of the lookout work. I like it.”

“Thet’s civil of you, Jim. . . . How many cards, Jeff? . . . Say, Smoky, don’t you ever talk no more? I can’t read your mind.”

“Hell of a good thing you can’t,” replied Slocum, glumly. Gambling roused the worst in him, as indeed in all of them. Hays was loud, merry, derisive when he won, and the reverse when he lost.

Jim was glad this phase of his connection with the outfit was past. He had played for days, won and lost, all in the interest of the scheme fermenting in his mind. He wanted to be alone. If nothing else intervened, this gambling would lead to the inevitable quarrel. Whether Hays won all the money or lost what he had, there would be a fight. Daily the stakes had grown higher, the betting more reckless, the bitterness or elation more pronounced. There was too much cash in the possession of these robbers. It had been begotten in evil and only in evil could it end.

Mac was so glad to be relieved of his lonely duty in the hot sun that he ran like an overgrown boy down the slope and back to camp.

But Jim welcomed the change. The sun had no terrors for him. Nevertheless, he had packed up a bundle of thick brush and three long trimmed poles, with which he essayed to erect a shelter. This proved not an easy job, for the reason that there was no place to stick the poles. However, by carrying up stones he finally accomplished his design, and took his well-earned seat in the shade.

And at once a restless, baffled, hurried condition of mind seemed to leave him. To face those men hour after hour, day after day, hiding his thoughts, had engendered irritation. Happy Jack was an agreeable and likable man, who really had no business among these robbers. He had no force. He veered like the wind, and the person who last had his ear convinced him. Smoky Slocum was the salt of the earth, if such tribute could be paid one of Hank Hays’ band. The others, however, had palled upon Jim. When the split came and the shooting began Jim wanted to be around. He would help it along considerably.

He plied the glasses as diligently as before, sweeping all the hazy distances, the purple canyons, the white washes and valleys of green from which heat veils rose like smoke, and the mounds and ridges of red stone. Then he would watch the gamblers for a while. Often he would take a long look at the tent shelter where the girl spent her weary days. Savage as Jim was to precipitate eruption and catastrophe, here he had the sagacity and stamina to wait. Time was a conspirator with him. As surely as the sun shone blazingly down upon Robbers’ Roost by day and the stars pitilessly by night, just as surely would tragedy decimate the gang. Every day brought that hour closer.

The season of storms arrived and showers of rain fell almost every day. Dust cleared out of the air; the heat diminished; and flowers and grass sprang up out of the earth.

Jim kept his slicker at the lookout, in expectation of a long, drenching rain, but seldom did he put it on. Often he stood out from under the brush shelter to let the rain beat upon him. He loved the smell of the hot stone, the sand, the dust after they had been wet. In the mornings the sky would be clear and azure blue, except round the peaks of the Henrys, where the storms formed. About noonday or later the white clouds would sail up on all sides, and they would darken and swell and gloom. Then streaky curtains of rain, gray as steel, would wind down from the clouds and move across the desert. Here would be sunshine, and here shadow, and in between, rainbows of gorgeous vividness, of transparent, ethereal delicacy, or dark, sinister, ruddy hue, and of every shape that was possible for a curve.

One day in midsummer when Jim was returning to camp somewhat before sunset he heard a shot. It startled him. Gunshots, except his own while hunting rabbits and antelope, had been marked by their absence. And this one either had a spiteful ring or so it sounded to Jim’s sensitive ears. He listened for others. None came.

The moment he entered the oval to see Hays striding for the cabin, his hair standing up, and his men grouped outside of the camp shelter, Jim knew that there had been trouble. It had been long in coming, but it had arrived. Jim hoped Hays had not shot Smoky or Happy Jack. Any one of the others would be one less.

Presently Smoky detached himself from the group and came to meet Jim. He walked slowly, his head down. They met at the rise of ground opposite the little cove where Hays had erected the cabin.

“What now, Smoky?”

“Hank did fer Brad.”

“How? Why? . . . You don’t mean Hays beat Lincoln to a gun?”

“He did, Jim. By Gawd he did!” ejaculated Slocum, his eyes gleaming strangely. “But Hank was at the end of the table an’ had a free throw. You know thet bench Jack fixed on the side next to the fire? Wal, Brad was sittin’ on it an’ his gun bumped the table. Thet gave Hank the edge. He bored Brad. I was the only feller who seen it. The rest was duckin’ to beat hell.”

“What was it about, Smoky?”

“Wal, Brad has been gittin’ sorer every day, an’ today we cleaned him. Hank had a bad run, too. But you know he was way ahead, an’ most on Brad’s money. Brad opened up on Hank, no doubt meanin’ to call him fer fair. But Brad didn’t git goin’ good before Hank hissed an’ went fer his gun.”

“Smoky, he had his mind made up,” declared Jim, tensely.

“Shore. That’s the queer part of it. Hank was not goin’ to let Brad spit out much. . . . An’, friend Jim, that’s a hunch fer us.”

“You and me?”

“So I take it.”

“Hays can’t beat me to a gun,” rejoined Jim, with a cold ring in his voice.

“Nor me, either. Thet’s a safe bet.”

“Does Hays know that?”

“Wal, he orter know it, leastways about me,” replied Smoky, in perplexity. “But he’s grown so cocky lately thet mebbe he’s damn fool enough not to believe it.”

“Shall I call him out?”

“Hell, no!” flashed Smoky, with a passionate gesture. “After all, Brad was to blame. . . . But, Jim, I jest can’t advise you no more. We both gotta paddle our own canoes.”

“Well, I’m not so squeamish,” declared Jim, with meaning. “I like you, Smoky. I reckon you’re the one real, square man in this bunch. And if you want my advice you’re welcome to it.”

“Jim, I’ve sorta cottoned to you,” admitted Smoky. “But honest to Gawd I’m afeared to ask you anythin’.”

“What’re you afraid of, Smoky?”

“I don’t know. Mebbe it’s a queer hunch Hank has busted us over this gurl.”

They reached the camp. Lincoln lay face down over the table, his right arm hanging low, and his gun lying near his hand.

“Fellers, if I’m gonna cook your supper, you’ll hold obsesquees fer our departed pard,” observed Jack.

“Wonder who’ll go next?” queried Mac, gloomily, twisting his lean hands.

“Lend a hand, some of you,” ordered Slocum, peremptorily.

They carried Lincoln, face down, across the oval to the lower side of the cottonwood grove, where he had his bed and pack.

“I’ll search him,” said Slocum. “Mac, you go through his pack. Jim, fetch the ax an’ anythin’ we can dig with.”

In half an hour Lincoln had been consigned to the earth, and his possessions divided among the men who buried him.

“Grave number two?” speculated Smoky. “Fellers, it runs in my mind thet Robbers’ Roost in these next twenty years will be sprinkled all over with graves.”

“How so, when nobody has any idee where it is?”

“Heeseman will find it, an’ Morley, an’ after them many more,” concluded Slocum, prophetically.

“Let’s rustle out of the damned hole,” suggested Bridges.

It was dark by the time Happy Jack called them to supper. Jim carried over an armload of brush to make a bright fire. By its flare Hays was seen approaching, and when he drew near he said, “Jim, did they tell you straight how I come to draw on Brad?”

“Reckon they did,” replied Jim, coldly.

“Anythin’ to say?”

“No. I don’t see how you could have acted any differently.”

“Wal, you’ve coppered it with the ace. The second Brad jumped me I seen in his eyes he meant to egg me on to draw. So I did it quick. . . . Jack, what you got fer supper?”

By tacit consent and without a single word the men avoided Happy Jack’s table that night and ate around the camp fire. Hays stood up, Smoky sat on a stone, Jim knelt on one knee, and the others adopted characteristic poses reminiscent of the trail.

“Cool after the rain,” remarked Hays, after he had finished. And he took up a blazing fagot of wood. “Reckon I’ll make a little fire fer my lady prisoner.”

He stalked away, waving the fagot to keep it ablaze.

“I call thet nervy,” declared Smoky. “What you think, Jim?”

“Just a bluff. Watch him.”

“Hank’s gone dotty,” snorted Happy Jack, for once affronted. “Thet gurl hates his very guts.”

“Men, what this Herrick girl thinks or feels is nothing to Hays,” chimed in Jim, ringingly.

“I seen her last night when he called me to fetch her supper,” said Jack. “Fust time I’d had a peek at her face lately. Seemed a ghost of thet other gurl.”

“Yes, and you fellows saw only a ghost of the money Hays got from the Herricks,” retorted Jim, divining the moment for revelation had come.

An angry roar arose. Smoky threw up his hands and left the camp fire. Then Jim, in brief, cold terms, exposed the machinations of their chief. After the first outburst they accepted the disclosure in astounded and ominous silence. Jim left the poison to brew and paced off into the darkness.

The fire Hays had built in front of the shelter cast a bright light, showing the girl walking to and fro. Jim kept in the shadow of the cliff and stole within a couple of hundred feet, then sat down on the grassy bench. If the girl spoke, when Hays brought her food, it was too low to hear. Jim quivered when she faced in his direction and at the end of her short walk gazed across at the camp fire. It was too long a gaze to be casual.

Jim had a feeling that he could not much longer stay his hand. Right then if he had seen Hays as much as touch the girl he would have shot him and risked having it out with the men. But the chief sat there, a fading figure in the dusk. Finally Helen went into her tent. Jim grasped at that break in the tension of the hour and stole away to his bed. Tomorrow! He could wait through tomorrow. There would be a row and anything might happen. Hays was in no mood to tolerate inquiry or criticism. Most of them all, he had answered to a vitriolic devastation of character through crime. He wanted that money, that which he had kept, and all of theirs. He wanted it for more than gambling. Robbers’ Roost was a hiding-place only; Utah had grown too small for him. So Jim Wall’s divining mind whirled on, until slumber claimed him.

Sometime during the night Jim was awakened. He opened his eyes. Above him arched an opal starry sky. The moon had gone down, yet its radiance still dominated that of the stars. Pearly tints crowned the high bluffs. The hour was late and wolves were mourning in the distance. Perhaps they had roused him. Still, there was something mysterious and melancholy in the moment, as if he had been under the influence of a dream.

As he closed his eyes again a soft hand touched his cheek and a whisper brought him wide awake, transfixed and thrilling.

“Jim! . . . Wake up. It is I.”

Helen knelt beside him. Jim sat up with a violent start.

“You! . . . What is it? — Has that devil—”

“Hush! Not so loud. Nothing has happened. . . . But I couldn’t sleep — and I must talk to you — or go out of my mind.”

In the starlight her face had the same pearl-white tint as the clouds, and her eyes were like great black gulfs peering down upon him. After a moment he could see more clearly.

“All — right. Talk — but it’s risky,” he whispered huskily. His hand rested upon the blanket. She put hers on it, as if in her earnestness to assure him of her presence and her feeling.

She bent lower, so that her face was closer, and she could whisper very softly.

“First I want to tell you how cruelly it has come home to me — my ignorance, my failure to believe and trust you, even after you — so — so rudely insulted me that day upon the mountain trail. If I had only had faith in you then! It’s too late. But I want you to know I have the faith now.”

“Thanks. I’m glad, though I didn’t kiss you — handle you that day — just to frighten you. I fell!”

“I don’t believe that altogether. No matter. If I had listened to you I would not now be in this terrible predicament. The fear — the suspense are wearing me out.”

“But you are well — all right still? . . . He has not harmed you? Helen!”

“No he has not harmed me, and I am not ill. I’m losing flesh because I can’t eat. But that’s nothing. . . . Lately I don’t sleep because I’m horribly afraid he will come — and — smother me — or choke me — so I can’t cry out. I’ve slept some in the daytime. . . . Jim the thing is I — can’t stand it much longer.” Jim smothered a violent curse. “He has not tried — lately,” she went on. “I swore I would jump over the cliff. I think I frightened him. But I can see — I can feel — Oh! Jim, for God’s sake, do something to end — this horror—”

She leaned or fell forward in the weakness of the moment, her head against him. He stroked it gently, his reaction as far from that passionate and mocking embrace at Star Ranch as could have been possible.

“Helen, don’t give up,” he replied. “You have been brave. And it has gone — better than we could hope. . . . Only a little while longer!”

“We might steal away — now.”

“Yes. I’ve thought of that. But only to get lost and starve — or die of thirst in these brakes.”

“That almost — would be better — for me.”

“If you can’t stick it out we’ll plan and go — say tomorrow night. We must have food, horses. . . . It’s only honest, though, to tell you the chances are a hundred to one against us. . . . We’ve got an even break if we wait.”

“How can you — think that?”

“This gang is about ready to go up in smoke. There’ll be a terrible fight. Hays surely will be killed. And just as surely, more than he. That will leave a proposition I can handle without risk to you.”

“Even then — we still have to find a way out of this awful place.”

“Yes, but I’d have time, and I could pack water and food. . . . Helen, trust me, it’s the best plan.”

“If you take me back to my brother, I’ll give you the ransom.”

“Don’t insult me,” he replied, bitterly.

At that she drew up suddenly, and threw her hair back from her face. “Forgive me. . . . You see I have lost my mind. That never occurred to me before. But I’ll reward you in some way.”

“To have saved you will be all the reward I ask — and more than I deserve. . . . You’ve forgotten that I love you.”

“Yes — I had,” she whispered. Her great eyes studied him in the starlight, as if the fact had a vastly different significance here than it had had at Star Ranch.

“The proof of it is that I’m one of this robber gang — yet ready to betray them — kill their chief and any or all of them. Except Smoky. I’ve worked on him so that he’s our friend. He is a real man, as you’ll see when the break comes. . . . If you were an American, you’d be human enough to grasp the situation and help me through with it.”

“I am human and I — I’ve as much courage as any American girl,” she flashed, stung by his caustic words. “You — you talk of love as freely as you Westerners talk of horses — guns — death. . . . But surely you don’t mean that it’s because you love me you’ll save me?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“I cannot believe you. . . . I never accepted you as a desperado.”

“Miss Herrick, all that doesn’t matter,” he rejoined, almost coldly. “We are wasting time — risking — much—”

“I don’t care. That is why I had to come to you. I knelt here for moments before awakening you. It helped me somehow — and it is easing my nerves to talk.”

“Well, talk then. But make it low. . . . You must have crept very softly to my side. I sleep with one eye open.”

“Indeed you don’t. Both yours were tight shut. And your lips were stern. A strange thought came to me. I wondered if you had not had a good mother, and sister perhaps.”

“I had,” whispered Jim, feelingly.

“That accounts.”

“It did not keep me from—”

Suddenly she stiffened, no doubt at the slight sound that had checked Jim’s speech. She put a hand over his lips and stared at him with wide, vague eyes.

Over her shoulder, Jim’s eye was arrested by a glint of starlight upon a bright object on the ground. Above and behind it a shape, darker than the dark background, gradually took the outline of a man on hands and knees. Cold terror assailed Jim Wall, despite his iron nerve. That was Hays crawling upon them with a gun in his hand. A bursting tide of blood through Jim’s veins paralleled the lightning flash of his thoughts. Death for both of them was terribly close. His gun was under his pillow. Helen knelt between him and the robber. A move of even the slightest kind would be fatal. Cunning must take precedence of action. He swerved his rigid gaze from the humped black form to Helen’s face. It was white as marble in moonlight. Her eyes showed the tremendous strain under which she labored. In that instant she could almost read his very thoughts. Her fingers still crossed his lips and they had begun to tremble.

“It’s Hays,” he whispered, scarcely audibly. “Follow me — now.” Then, exerting all his will to speak naturally, he said aloud: “No, Miss Herrick, I’m sorry, but I can’t oblige you. I don’t approve of Hays’ kidnapping you, but it’s done. And I’m a member of his band. I would not think of going against him, let alone trying to run off with you.”

There was a tense silence, fraught with much apprehension for Jim. Would she be able to play up to him? There was just a chance that Hays had not heard any of their whispers, in which case it was possible to deceive him. Helen comprehended. It was Jim Wall’s privilege then to see the reaction of a woman at a perilous moment.

“I’ll give you the ransom money,” she said, quite clearly, and certainly most persuasively. “My brother will reward you otherwise.”

“You can’t bribe me,” he rejoined. “And I wouldn’t advise you to try it on Smoky or any of the others.”

“Hays may have had only money in his mind at first, but now—”

“Don’t move, Jim!” came a low hard voice from the shadow.

Helen gave a little gasp and sagged on her knees. Jim waited a moment.

“I won’t, Hank,” he replied.

Then Hays’ tall form loomed black above the rise of ground. He strode forward. If he had sheathed his gun, Jim would have made short work of that interview. But he held it half leveled, glancing darkly in the starlight.

The robber chief gazed down upon Jim and Helen. His features were indistinguishable, but the poise of his head was expressive enough. Still, Jim sensed that he had been misled.

“You cat!” he declared, roughly. “If I ketch you again — tryin’ to bribe any of my outfit — I’ll treat you so you won’t want to go back to your baby-faced brother. . . . Now you git to your tent!”

Helen rose unsteadily and vanished in the gloom.

“Jim Wall, you ain’t been with me long, an’ I don’t know you, but I’m takin’ this deal to heart,” Hays said, slowly. “I’m much obliged. I reckon you’re the only man in the outfit who could of withstood thet woman.”

“No, you’re wrong, Hank. Smoky wouldn’t have listened to her. And I’m sure the others would have stood pat.”

“My faith was damn near gone.”

“That’s in you, Hank. You’ve no call to lose it. You’ve about split your gang over this woman.”

“Wal, I’m not askin’ judgments from you or any of the outfit,” growled the chief, gloomily. “You’ll all be good an’ glad to git your share of the ransom.”

“The thing is — boss — will we get it?” queried Jim, significantly.

Hays made a violent move, like a striking snake. “What you mean by thet?”

“I’m askin’ you.”

“Air you insinuatin’ you mightn’t git yours?” demanded Hays. And Jim, used for years to sense peril, divined he was not far from death then. He had not moved a hand since Hays’ arrival. If he had had his gun within reach he would have ended that argument. But the chances were too greatly in Hays’ favor. Wit and cunning must see him through. He could feel how intensely the chief wanted to know what Jim knew.

“No. You might say I was askin’ for all of us,” replied Jim, curtly.

“Wal, I’ll git the outfit together an’ do some askin’, myself.”

“It’s a good idea. It might prevent the split — provided you divide the money you stole from Herrick.”

“I’ll wring thet white cat’s neck,” hissed the robber.

“You’re wrong, boss. She didn’t tell me. She doesn’t know you robbed her brother. Sparrow confessed before he died.”

Hays swore a mighty oath. “. . . An’ he squealed?”

“Yes. To Smoky an’ me. We kept it secret until we had to tell. They knew somethin’ was wrong.”

“All the time you knowed!” There was something pathetic in the fallen chieftain’s shame and amaze. By this he seemed to realize his crime.

“You see, Hank, how your outfit has stood by you, even in your guilt.”

“Ahuh! . . . If it ain’t too late — I’ll make amends,” he rejoined, hoarsely, and stalked away in the darkness.

Jim lay back on his blankets with a weight of oppression removed. He had saved himself for the hour, but what would the outcome be? After deliberation it seemed he had put Hays in a corner from which there could be no retreat.

CHAPTER 13

NEXT MORNING JIM, who slept ill the rest of that night, was building a fire when Happy Jack, who had his bed under the shack, heard him and rolled out with his merry whistle.

“Thet’s downright good of you, Jim,” he drawled. “I like cookin’, but I shore hate to rustle firewood an’ chop. When I was a kid I ‘most cut off my big toe.”

“Happy, you’re a card,” replied Jim. “How in the hell can you whistle and smile when you know this outfit is primed to blow up?”

“Wal, Jim, show me the sense of bein’ sore an’ unhappy, no matter what’s comin’ off,” rejoined Jack, philosophically. “As a feller grows older his mind sets one way or another. Look at Brad. Gamblin’ got to be breath of life to him an’ he lost thet breath. Look at Hays. Love of robbin’ lost him wife, family, ranch, respect. An’ look at you, Jim. Lone wolf, your hand always itchin’ wuss to throw your gun.”

“So you figure me that way!” exclaimed Jim, in genuine surprise.

“Reckon I see through a lot I don’t git credit for.”

“You see through me wrong, Jack. I don’t ride around looking for trouble. But I can’t help being worked on by other men and conditions.”

“Wal, I’m admittin’ Hays eased us into a rotten deal.”

Jim had breakfast before the other men were up. It still wanted half an hour till sunrise. This was the beautiful time of day. All was balmy, sweet, fresh, fragrant. Mockingbirds were bursting their throats. To Jim their melody was indeed a mockery, not of other birds, but of men and life and nature. The dawn, the air, the sky, the birds, the cliffs — nothing that was there in Jim’s sight held any intimation of the hell about to break in Robbers’ Roost, nor of that captive imperiled woman! Jim hurried away on scout duty before Hays and his accusers had assembled at the camp fire.

With rifle in hand Jim headed toward the western exit. Not until he was out in the valley did he realize that he carried his rifle. The fact surprised him. There was plenty of fresh meat in camp. He had no idea of hunting. That act had been instinctive and it puzzled him. But there was a release of a clamped tension within. This day would see events, and he felt almost elated.

Perhaps that had something to do with a singular sense of the mounting beauty of the morning, of the magnified solitude, of the rarefied atmosphere that gave the buttes and mountains a most deceiving nearness. The outside world of Utah seemed to be encroaching upon this wilderness of canyon brakes.

The sun was still beneath the rim of the escarpments in the east, but its approach was heralded by a magnificent glory of red and gold, of flushed peaks and rose-shrouded mesas, of burning faces of the zigzag walls along distant ramparts.

Jim had never before been up high here at such an early hour. Any man would have been struck by the spectacle. He felt that if he were to die that day he would be leaving earth without having fully realized its sublimity, its mystery, its solemn warning, its inscrutable promise. And there ran through his mind a thought of how Miss Herrick would have reveled in this glorious scene.

“Well, I am loco,” he soliloquized, blankly, suddenly brought up sharply by the absurd reflection. Excitement and emotion had reacted so powerfully upon him that he was not himself. Right then he made the stern decision that when he started back to camp, to face Hays again, he would be a thousand times his old self.

The sun-shelter he had erected had once before toppled over, and this morning he found it again flat, except one of the poles. Jim gathered up the dry brush and made a seat and back-rest of it. He did not examine into his premonition that the shelter had served its turn. Then he sat down to watch.

It was as if he had never seen a sunrise. There was no comparing it with any other he could recall. And one magnifying look through the field-glass was more than enough. Nature’s exaggeration of color and loveliness and transparency and vastness, was too great even for the normal gaze of man.

But that superlative grandeur passed, leaving something Jim could accept and gloat over as actual.

From this lofty perch he gazed with narrowed eyes across the shaded hole below, into which no ray of sun had yet penetrated. The black mouth of the gorge yawned hungrily. Above it on all sides spread the gray and red rock ridges, dotted with dwarf cedars, with white washes between, and on to spotted red ragged hummocks that fringed a green level, yellow with sunflowers, which led to an abrupt break into a canyon. The walls showed brown, rust-colored, hard as iron, with dark lines and shadows, beyond which stood up the pyramids and bluffs of the brakes. Here gloomed suggested depths and corrugated slopes, then the infinitely wild, obscure, stratified space terminating in the Henry Mountains, looming colossal in the lilac light of morning, ghostly, black, unscalable, piercing the pale-blue sky.

To their left the lifting sun, losing its gold for red, spread a transparent curtain over the line of level escarpments and mesas, finally to dazzle the canyon country under it to blinding rays. To the right shone many leagues of rock ridges and mounds, broken at intervals by pale gleams of washes and alkali flats and banks of gray clay, ending in the dim, wandering White Bluffs.

Loneliness was paramount. There was no sound — only an immense silence. No life at all! Not a winged creature hovering over that ghastly region! But over this scene of desolation slowly spread the solemn blight of heating, blazing sun, soon to mantle all in illusive copper haze.

Before that hour arrived, Jim Wall took up the field-glass. Below in the camp the men were lazily stirring to a late breakfast. The door of the cabin was open. A glint of gold crossed the dark aperture. Then the tall form of Hays stalked out. He yawned. He stretched wide his long arms. His ruddy face gleamed in the glass to that sight. Wall’s whole being leaped.

“By God!” his voice rang out, as if to all which had just enchained him. “Hays, that’s your last morning’s stretch. . . . Before this day’s done you’ll stretch forever!”

Let his men have their hour, thought Jim, darkly, but if they did not mete out justice to their chief, the end was nevertheless fixed and unalterable.

Jim settled back and raised the field-glass more from habit than any semblance of the old watchfulness. There was nothing to see but the stark denudation of the brakes.

Suddenly into Jim’s magnified circle of vision crept dark objects — a long line of them.

He was so startled that the glass waved out of line. He moved it to and fro, searching. What could that have been? An error of sight, a line of cedars, a conception of idle mind!

“There!” he breathed. He had caught it again. Not cedars — not brush, but moving objects! . . . “By heaven!” he muttered. “Am I dotty?”

Horses! A line of dark horses! His straining eyes blurred. He lowered the glass with shaking hands to wipe the dimness away. “So help me — it looks like riders!”

A third time Jim caught the objects. He froze the glass on them. Horses and riders — horses with packs! A bursting gush of hot blood ran all over him. The expected pursuit, now long neglected, almost forgotten, had materialized. It looked like Heeseman’s outfit, at least three miles away, approaching slowly by a route far to the south of that over which Hays had come.

“About three miles,” muttered Jim. “Coming slow. They’re lost. . . . But that wash they’re in heads into the Hays trail. . . . If they strike that they’ll come fast. Not enough rain yet to wash out our tracks. We’ve not time to pack and ride out. . . . By thunder! they’ve cornered us! Now, Hank Hays—”

Jim took one more straining look. No hope! It was a big outfit, and not traveling so slowly, either. The leader bestrode a black horse. Jim remembered that horse. Snatching up his rifle, he slung the field-glass over his shoulder and ran down off the bluff to the slope. It occurred to him to locate Hays’ horses. He sighted some — six, seven, eight — the others were not visible. Hays would rage like a madman. Then Jim tore down the slope with giant strides. Reaching the valley floor, he ran along the wash, through the entrance into the oval, and once on the grass he fairly flew the remaining distance to camp.

To his profound amaze he espied Hays bound hand and foot, with a stick behind him and through his elbows. The robber sat in an uncomfortable posture against the woodpile. Moreover, a second glance acquainted Jim with the fact that Hays was gagged and that his visage appeared scarcely human, so malignantly enraged was it.

“What the hell!” cried Jim, breaking out of his bewilderment.

Hays gave vent to an inarticulate sound, but it was expressive. Jim wheeled to stalk under the shack, his hand on his gun, as if he half expected Heeseman to have arrived before him. To his further amaze Miss Herrick was sitting at the rude table, eating breakfast. A big gun, that Jim recognized as Hays’ property, lay conspicuously in front of her. Happy Jack, whistling as usual, was serving her.

“What does this mean?” demanded Jim.

“Ask the men,” she replied, curtly.

Outside and below the shack sat Smoky on a rock, with the others standing near. They all had the appearance of having been swayed profoundly.

“Mawnin’, Jim,” drawled Smoky, with a grin. “You see we’ve got a new chief.”

“Who hawg-tied the boss?”

“Reckon I did — with a little help.”

“What for?”

“Damn if I know. Our lady prisoner made me do it.”

“Miss Herrick forced you to tie Hays up?” queried Jim, trying to conceal his exultation.

“I should shiver she did. Stuck Hays’ hair-trigger gun — cocked — right into my belly, an’ says: ‘Will you tie this villain — an’ swear by your honor not to release him or allow any of these other men to do so — or will you have me shoot you?’”

“How’d she get that gun?”

“Wal, she snatched it quicker’n lightnin’, thet’s how. An’ when she cocked it with both hands it went off, bang! The bullet went between Hank’s legs. Tickled him. You can see the hole in his pants. Scared? My Gawd! you never see a man so scared. Thet gurl cool as a cucumber cocked the gun again, an’ held Hays up — then all of us. We was sittin’ at table. She made us all stand, hands high, an’ then she performed thet little trick with Hank’s gun ag’in’ my gizzard. Jim, I’d like to die if I didn’t go cold an’ stiff. But I promised on my word of honor — as a robber — thet I’d tie Hank up an’ make the other fellers play square. It was so funny, too, thet I near bust. Hays, soon as he was helpless, got over his scare, an’ then was he mad! I reckon no one on this earth ever saw a madder man. He cussed so terrible thet she made me gag him.”

“Well, I’ll be — blowed!” gasped Jim.

“No wonder. We was wuss. We’d had breakfast, an’ Hank was tryin’ to face us fellers. I’ll say he came clean, Jim. He divided all the money he got from Herrick an’ his sister, an’ the gold things an’ diamonds. ‘Fellers,’ he said, ‘I could lie an’ say I meant to give this to you later. But I’m not built thet way. I double-crossed you all — first time in my life. I meant to keep it all, an’ the ransom fer the gurl. But now there won’t be no ransom, for I’m not goin’ to give her up. She’s mine, an’ I can do as I want, an’ if any of you don’t like it you can make your kick now.’ . . . Wal, we was so plumb flabbergasted thet we didn’t see the gurl, who came close on the sun side of Happy’s shelter. She heard the whole damn show. . . . Jim, I wish you could have seen her when she stepped up to Hank. I don’t know what did it — mebbe her eyes — but he shore wilted. It was then she snatched his gun.”

“So that’s the deal!” ejaculated Jim. “What are you going to do?”

“Don’t ask me. I gave my word an’ I’ll keep it. Fer thet matter the rest of our outfit air fer the gurl, ransom or no ransom.”

Suddenly Jim awoke out of his stupefaction to remember the approach of Heeseman.

“Smoky, I know what you’re all going to do, and that’s fight,” he flashed, curtly. “I was so surprised I forgot. Heeseman’s outfit is coming. I sighted them perhaps three miles. Traveling slow, but sure. We’ve no time to pack an’ get away. We’ve got to find the best place to stand an’ fight, an’ pack our stuff into it pronto.”

“Heeseman!” cried Smoky, coolly. “So it’s come. I reckoned on thet. Git busy, men.”

Jim strode under the shelter to face Miss Herrick. She had heard, for she was white.

“We’re all but surprised by Heeseman’s outfit,” he said, abruptly. “We must fight. You will be worse off if you fall into their hands. I’m sorry I must release Hays. We need him.”

“Too late!” she exclaimed.

“Pack your things quickly and hurry over to the cave on this side.” Then Jim picked up Hays’ gun from the table and ran out. First he removed the gag, and then in terse terms he stated the situation. Next he released the robber from his painful fix, and handed him the gun.

“Heeseman, huh! Wal, so be it!” Hays said, facing Jim with an air of finality that intimated relief.

“How far are they away?” Hays then asked.

“Two miles.”

“Gawd Almighty — Where? Which way air they — comin’?”

Facing south, Jim pointed. “Little west — of south. They’re in a — wash that’ll head — into the trail we made.”

“I know thet. But it’s rough before it heads in. We’ve got half an hour — mebbe. Did you think to look fer the hosses?”

“Eight horses in the — valley. Others not in sight.”

“You ——  ——  — !” cursed Hays, suddenly furious. “Fine scout you air. How come you didn’t spy them soon enough fer us to rustle out of hyar?”

“I couldn’t have seen them half a mile sooner,” snapped Jim. “They came out from behind a bank.”

“Hell’s fire. Tell thet to me? You was sleepin’.”

“You’re a liar,” flashed Jim, leaping clear of the others. “Open your trap to me again like that!”

“Say, it’s you who’ll shet his trap,” replied Hays, stridently. “Or you’ll git a dose of medicine I gave Brad Lincoln.”

“Not from you — you yellow dog of a woman thief!”

Smoky Slocum ran out in time to get in front of Jim.

“Hyar! Hyar!” he called, piercingly. “Is this a time fer us to fight each other? Cool down, Jim. Make allowance fer Hays, He’s wuss’n drunk.”

“I don’t care a damn if there’re ten outfits on our trail. He can’t talk to me that way. . . . And, Smoky, I reckon you’re presuming on friendship.”

“Shore I am,” returned Slocum, hurriedly. “I’ll not do it again, Jim. Hays is what you called him. But leave your dispute till we settle with Heeseman.”

“All right. You’re talking sense,” replied Jim. He had been quick to grasp the opening made by Hays. “There must be ten riders in Heeseman’s outfit.”

“Wall, thet suits me,” rejoined the robber, harshly.

“Now think fast,” snapped Smoky.

Hays pulled himself together. “Mac, you an’ Jeff run like hell to fetch what hosses you can find quick. . . . Jack, you an’ Smoky an’ Wall hustle the grub, cook-kit, packs, an’ beds into thet cave across the wash. I’ll git up high an’ watch. When I yell dig fer cover.”

“You aimin’ to fight or run?” queried Smoky.

“We might git packed light, if somethin’ holds them up. But we can’t leave the way we come in. Dirty Devil’s too high. Heeseman has stumbled on the next best way. If we had plenty of time. . . . But rustle, everybody.”

Mac and Jeff were already in lumbering flight up the oval. And Happy Jack, not concerned enough to stop his whistling, was sacking his utensils. Hays made for the notch in the bluff west of the cabin. Jim sprang into action, while Smoky dashed off toward the cottonwood grove.

CHAPTER 14

UPON JIM’S FIRST return trip from the cave he encountered the girl, burdened with her effects.

“Helen, I’ll carry that. Hurry! We’ve no time to lose.”

At the back of the cave there was a crack deep enough to protect Helen. He directed her to hide inside and await developments.

“Jim — promise me you’ll shoot me — before letting Hays or any of them — get me.”

He considered that a moment, then answered, “I promise.”

Her reply was incoherent, though couched in passionate tones. Jim ran on toward the camp, resolving to withhold a shell in his rifle and to keep a sharp watch on Hays.

The next quarter of an hour was filled with strenuous and unceasing action. Their united efforts collected all the supplies, utensils, saddles, and packs, and several of the beds in the three-cornered cave back and to one side of the shack. A huge slab of stone lay across the top of this triangular notch in the cliff. The wall had been hollowed by the action of water. A small stream flowed out from the base of the wall. At the extreme apex of the notch there was an opening, but hidden from above by thick bushes. Also bushes of the same kind screened the west side of this notch. Beyond the shack and in close around the opposite corner a corral had been built under that shelving wall. It was the best place for defense in the oval, and Jim believed Hays’ outfit could hold it indefinitely, though not to save the horses. If it came to a siege they could be released.

Smoky came panting in with Hays’ pack, and started off again.

“That’s enough, Smoky,” called Jim.

Slocum returned. “Nothin’ left— ‘cept Hank’s bed,” he panted. “I — couldn’t — locate thet.”

“Listen!”

“What do you hear?”

“Horses.”

“Sure, I catch it. . . . Which way?”

“Damn if I can tell.”

“Grab a rifle. Seems to me if Hays was up on top somewhere he’d hear horses before we could — in that direction.”

“Shore. Must be Mac an’ Jeff.”

Smoky had guessed correctly. Half a dozen horses appeared tearing over rocks and through brush into the oval, with the two men, riding bareback, in close pursuit.

Then above the noise rose Hays’ stentorian voice: “Ride! Ride fer camp! . . . Let the hosses go!”

The robber chieftain came plunging down the gap. He was warning Mac and Jeff. There must have been more danger for them, on the moment, than for him.

“Jim, keep your eye peeled on thet cliff,” said Smoky, and stole forward under cover of the brush.

Presently a white puff of smoke showed above the ragged rim. Spang! The fight was on. One of Hays’ men — Bridges — let out a hoarse bawl and swayed over, almost losing his balance. Jim looked no more at him, but concentrated his gaze on the rim. Another puff of white! Something dark — a man’s slouch hat — bobbed up. Jim’s rifle, already raised, swerved a trifle — cracked. The hat went flying.

“Wal, if thet bird didn’t have it on a stick he got scalped, I’ll gamble,” observed Smoky, which remark attested to his keen sight.

The horses came over the bench, frightened, but not stampeding, and Mac drove them into the corral. This was around the corner from the range of the sharpshooter on the rim. Bridges, reeling on the horse, followed Mac, who ran out of the corral to catch him as he fell. Then, as they came along to the wall, Hays arrived puffing from the other direction.

“Heeseman — with his outfit — nine in all,” he heaved. “They’re scatterin’ to surround the roost. . . . But they can’t cross — below us — an’ across there it’s — out of range. . . . We’re all right.”

“Yes, we air! Haw! Haw!” ejaculated Smoky, glaring back.

Mac half carried the bulky Bridges into the safety zone, and let him down on the ground with his head on a bed-roll.

“Where’s he shot?” demanded Hays. “I seen thet feller who did it jest a little too late.”

“Through the belly.”

“Hank, I’m done fer,” said Bridges, weakly.

“Lemme see.” And the leader, kneeling beside Bridges, tore open his bloody shirt. He had been shot in the back, the bullet going clear through. “Wal, I should smile! Say your prayers, Jeff. . . . Somebody take his gun.”

“Take it yourself, Hays,” rejoined Mac, sullenly.

“Hank, you go hide with your lady prisoner an’ we’ll do the fightin’,” added Slocum, who had crawled back from the edge of the brush.

“Hide! — What’n hell’s eatin’ you?” roared the chief.

“You know what, you ——  ——  —— !”

“Hays, we’d a damn sight rather die fightin’ than owe our lives to one bullet of yours,” said Happy Jack, in a cold contempt Jim had not thought possible of the man.

“Wal, I’ll take you up,” rasped Hays, after a moment of assimilation. He had degenerated to a point where he let passion sway him utterly.

“You stay here, Hays,” ordered Jim, hotly. “You got us in this mix. You lied and cheated. You betrayed us. And you’ll fight, by Heaven! unless you’re as much of a coward as you are betrayer.”

The chief grew livid where he had been gray. Only then had he grasped the significance of this fiery scorn of his comrades.

“You-all double-crossed me!”

“Shore. Same as you did us. If we git through this deal, which I’ve a hunch we never will, there’ll come a reckonin’ with me, Hank Hays,” declared Smoky.

“I meant to make a clean breast of it — divvy all the money,” said Hays, in a strangled voice. “But I got crazy about the gurl. I couldn’t think of nothin’ else.”

“Haw! Haw! fer thet first crack, an’ okay on the second. . . . Now!”

A bullet thudded into the wall and spanged away, followed by the report of a rifle.

“Duck back! Thet was from somewhere else,” shouted Hays.

They dove twenty feet farther back. Here they were apparently safe, except from the grassy ridge of the oval in front, which it was unlikely any sharpshooters could reach in daylight. Smoky peeped around the west corner, Mac round the one opposite. Hays knelt on one knee, rifle in hands, peering out. Jim went back to the apex of the notch, and bracing one foot in each side, clinging with one free hand, got up to a shelf from which he could peep out of the hole. He was exceedingly wary. In front was thick, low brush; on his right a thinner fringe, and the left was open. The rocky ground ridged away from the oval and the deep gorge below. A sharp scrutiny in that direction failed to discover any of the attackers Hays had affirmed were attempting to surround the oval. But there might have been some crawling behind the rocks or down the fissures.

After a careful study Jim crept out into the brush, stirred by a renewal of firing from the west rim. Wisps of white cloud, thinning on the light wind, located the position of the shooters. First Jim peered through the growth of brush directly in front. He did not espy any men, but half a mile over the hummocky rocks he saw a little cove full of horses. The packs had not yet been removed from some of them, nor saddles from the others. Heeseman had come to make a siege of it.

Jim did not move hastily. A ragged section of cliff, quite high, above and to the left of the south exit, gave him misgivings. That was a likely place for ambush. Farther to the west, however, where the shooting came from, there was some hope of locating an enemy.

Lying flat, Jim wormed his way a few yards to the fringe of brush, and took another survey. Almost at once he caught a movement of a dark object through a crevice in the rim. The distance was far for accurate shooting at so small a target. But with a rest he drew a coarse steady aim and fired.

The object flopped over. A shrill cry, unmistakable to any man used to gunplay, rent the air. Jim knew he had reached one of the Heeseman gang, to disable him if not more. Next instant a raking fire swept the brush on both sides of him. Like a crab he scuttled back, almost falling into the hole. Bullets had hissed only a foot above his head. He dropped down into the cave.

Smoky stood there, in the act of climbing.

“Fire in your eye, Jim,” he drawled.

“They damn near got me,” rang out Jim. “I hit one of them way over where they shot at Bridges. There’s a bunch of them hid on that cliff to the right of the outlet, you know, where Jeff went up to scout.”

“Ahuh. Thet’s way this side of the smoke I seen.”

“Yes. It’s pretty close. But they can’t do us any harm from there, if we keep low bridge.”

“Jim, they got us located,” replied Slocum, gravely.

“Sure. But so long as they can’t line on us in here—”

“They can move all around. An’ pretty soon Heeseman will figger thet men behind the high center in front can shoot straight in hyar.”

“Smoky, you’re right. One of us ought to be on the far side of the oval.”

“I can work round there without bein’ seen. Along the cliff wall hyar, ‘crost the gorge, round under the cottonwoods, an’ up thet draw on the far side.”

“You might. But suppose some of Heeseman’s outfit are below, as Hays said?”

“Thet’d end history for Smoky Slocum.”

“Wait, then. Don’t risk it. I believe I can see over that high center.”

“Whar from?”

“This hole above. The side towards the oval is a foot lower. It’d be reasonably safe.”

“I’ll go up with you.”

Bridges lay groaning, his big hands clutching his clothes, his face a bluish cast. Mac sat helplessly beside him. Hays knelt out by the corner of wall, with Jack whispering behind him.

“Hold my rifle. I’ll go up,” said Jim. Without encumbrance he readily climbed to the shelf, finding to his satisfaction that he could stand on it and look out over the oval without being seen from the cliff.

“Hand up both rifles.”

Smoky complied, and was soon beside Jim, but owing to his smaller stature he could not see over the rim. However, he found steps for his feet, by which he surmounted the difficulty. Like a general he swept the lay of the land. “Jim, there’s only one place we couldn’t see, an’ thet’s straight back of the center. If they savvy it they’ll almost shore try to work in from the west.”

“You’re right, old-timer,” replied Jim, grimly, and pointed to the western entrance, where two stealthily moving figures could even then be discerned slipping, like Indians, from bush to bush.

“Jim, you’re a right fine fightin’ pard,” quoth Smoky, delighted. “Now, ain’t thet jest a shame? They won’t have sense enough to run like hell, givin’ us hard shots. They’ll sneak it. . . . Shore, look at ‘em. I could almost bore one already.”

“It’s nervy of them at that,” admitted Jim, “after I shot from the top of this bank.”

“They might not know thet. It takes a good quarter of an hour to grade round thet cliff an’ down. . . . Where’d they go, Jim?”

“They’re below the ridge now. Look sharp, Smoky, or they might get a couple of shots in first.”

“Wal, if they do, I hope both bullets lodge in Hank’s gizzard.”

“My sentiments exactly. . . . Smoky, I saw something shine. Tip of a rifle. Right — to the right. . . . Ah!”

“Take the first feller, Jim. . . . One — two — three.”

The rifles cracked in unison. Jim’s mark sprang convulsively up, and plunged down to roll and weave out of sight. The man Smoky had shot at sank flat and lay still. Next moment a volley banged from the cliff and a storm of bullets swept hissing and spanging too uncomfortably close.

“Low bridge, Jim,” chuckled Smoky. “Gimme your gun. Drop down. They’re shootin’ lower.”

Jim slid and leaped to the floor of the cave below. Smoky, by lying down, lowered the rifles to him, and then came scrambling after.

Hays had slouched back to them, followed by Happy.

“What’d you shoot at?” he queried, hopefully.

Jim did not deign to notice him. “Smoky, I winged mine and you hit yours plumb center.”

“Two more. Heeseman ain’t havin’ a walk-over. By Gawd! if we can kill two or three more, an’ particularly Heeseman, we’ll have thet outfit licked!”

“Yes. But how, Smoky? We’re stuck here. And they’ll take less risks now.”

“Wal, luck’s with us. An’ in a pinch I can work way round behind them.”

“Smoky, I don’t want you to try that.”

“Wal, Jim, I ain’t carin’ a lot what you want. The thing is we can’t let night overtake us in hyar.”

“Why not? It’s as safe for us as for them.”

“Safe nothin’. We can’t make no light. This green brush wouldn’t burn. An’ Heeseman has us located. He’d be slick enough to station men after dark. Behind the center an’ the rocks. In thet wash, an’ shore above us watchin’ our hole. Then when daylight come we’d be snuffed out. No, if we don’t end it before dark we shore gotta sneak out of hyar after dark.”

Hays swaggered closer. “Thet’s a good idee, Smoky.”

“Air you talkin’ to me?” asked Slocum, insolently.

“Shore I am, you spit-cat! What’n hell’s got into you — an’ all of you?” shouted the robber, hoarsely.

“You wanta talk, huh?”

“Course I do. I’m boss hyar, an’ what I say—”

“Hey, fellers, the boss wants talk,” interrupted Slocum, fiercely. “You, Happy an’ Mac, talk to the skunk who used to be our boss. An’ you, Jeff, air you able to talk to Hays?”

The dying man raised a haggard, relentless face, which needed no speech to express his hate for the fallen chief.

“Hays, when I — meet you in hell — I’ll stamp your cheatin’ — guts out!” whispered Bridges, in terrible effort to expand all his last strength and passion in one denunciation. Then he sank back, his head fell on his breast, and he died.

“Gone! Thet makes three of us,” ejaculated Mac, twisting restless hands round his rifle.

“Talk to Hays, damn you,” yelled Smoky. “He wants talk.”

“I wouldn’t talk to him if it was my last breath, like Jeff, an’ talkin’ would save my life.”

“Jim, can’t you oblige our former chief an’ pard?” asked Smoky, turning to Jim.

“I’m past talking to him, Smoky — that is, with my mouth.”

“Wal, so it’s left to me,” declared Slocum, bitterly. “Me who ranged Utah with you fer ten years! Me whose life you saved an’ who cottoned to you as to a brother! Me who slept with you, fought with you, robbed an’ killed with you!”

How potently significant that rifle barrel of Smoky’s almost aligned with Hays’ body! Jim felt a cold thrill of expectancy — Smoky would kill the chief. Hays might have held himself proof against words, but not against bullets.

“Hank Hays, some of us will live long enough to tell the Utah border what you sunk to,” went on Slocum. “An’ this place, which I bet a million will be your grave, won’t be forgot in history. Robbers’ Roost? It oughter be Robbers’ Grave. For many years, outfits like ours used to be will hole in hyar. An’ many a low-down rustler or common hoss thief will laugh an’ say: ‘Hank Hays croaked in hyar, after doin’ dirt to the best men who ever throwed a gun for each other. An’ all fer a white-faced slip of a woman who was sickened near to death at him!’”

“Aw, you go to hell!” shouted Hays, malignantly. “I ain’t croaked yet.”

“Wal, if Heeseman doesn’t do it, I will.”

“Man, air you drunk or crazy?” burst out Hays, in dazed incredulity.

“Neither. An’ thet’s my last talk with you, Hank Hays,” concluded Slocum, in cold finality.

Jim, sitting back on a bulge of wall, watched and listened. He could not have asked more, though he had hoped Smoky would finish the chief then and there, despite the pressure of the peril from without. Hays’ bravado did not deceive Jim. The foundations of Hays’ manhood had been torn asunder, as indeed they had decayed during this last wild enterprise. He realized it, and the effect seemed tremendous. He was in his last ditch. Heeseman, an enemy of years’ standing, was there to kill him. And if he and this remnant of his outfit succeeded in beating off the attackers, even then his doom was imminent. Smoky did not make idle threats. And if he failed to kill Hays, then this stranger, this mysterious gunman from Wyoming, would do it. Thus Hays’ mind must have worked. Only one chance in a thousand for him! It looked as if he meant to take it in desperate spirit.

“Jack, gimme Jeff’s gun an’ belt,” he said, and receiving them he buckled them over his own. Next he opened his pack to take out a box of rifle shells, which he broke open to drop the contents in his coat pocket on the left side. After that he opened his shirt to strip off a broad, black money-belt. This was what had made him bulge so and give the impression of stoutness, when in fact he was lean. He hung this belt over a projecting point of wall.

“In case I don’t git back,” he added. “An’ there’s a bundle of chicken-feed change in my pack.”

There was something gloomy and splendid about him then. Fear of God, or man, or death was not in him. Rifle in hand, he crept to the corner on the left and boldly exposed himself, drawing a volley of shots from two quarters.

“Ahuh. I’ll upset thet little party,” he muttered, and crossing the front of the cave he passed his men and started to glide along the zigzag wall on that side. He had to dodge out around the end of the corral, which move, however, did not draw fire. Then he disappeared.

“Wal, we set the old devil up, didn’t we?” said Smoky, his tragic mien softening. “Hangin’ thet money-belt there showed Hank with his back to the wall. I seen him so far gone once before. Gawd Almighty! . . . Heeseman is standin’ on the verge this minnit, Jim.”

“What’s Hays’ idea?”

“He must know a way to sneak around on them. . . . Jim, if he makes it an’ they git to shootin’, I’m gonna try my plan.”

“You’ll cross around on the other side?”

“Shore. One day I figgered out the thing I mean to do now.”

“If Hank gets them all shooting, you might risk it, Smoky. But wait. Let’s see what—”

A metallic, spanging sound, accompanied rather than followed by a shot, then a sodden thud right at hand, choked Jim’s speech in his throat. Before he wheeled he knew that thud to be a bullet striking flesh. Happy Jack had been cut short in one of his low whistles. He swayed a second, upright, then, uttering an awful groan, he fell.

Smoky leaped to him, bent over.

“Dead! Hit in the temple. Where’d thet bullet come from?”

“It glanced from a rock. I know the sound. Was that an accident?”

“Shore. How else could a bullet reach us in hyar, unless from straight across behind that mound?”

“No. The bullet came—”

Spoww! The same sound — another shot, and another heavy lead, deflected in its course, struck the stone above Jim’s head and whined away to whip at the gravel.

“Thet rock thar,” shouted Smoky, pointing. “See the white bullet mark. . . . Jim, some slick sharpshooter has figgered one on us.”

Twenty feet out, a little to the left of the center of the cave, lay a huge block of granite with a slanting side facing west. This side inclined toward the cave. On its rusty surface showed two white spots close together.

Another spang and shot followed, with a banging of another heavy bullet from wall to wall. It narrowly missed Mac, who was quick to flop down with a surly yelp.

“Come on, Jim, it ain’t healthy hyar no more,” said Smoky, hugging the wall and working to the extreme left-hand corner. “It do beat hell. Thet’s Heeseman. He’s a bad feller to fall out with. I remember once hearin’ Hank tell when he an’ Heeseman was pardners in cattle-raisin’. Funny, ain’t it? Wal, some rustlers made a cattle steal. Hank trailed tracks into what’s called Black Dragon Canyon. There was a cave high off the bottom, an’ Hank told how he an’ Heeseman, an’ their riders, shot ag’in’ the wall of the cave an’ shore routed out them rustlers.”

“Smoky, if they’re loaded with ammunition they can rout us out, too. That infernal rock! We couldn’t move it, even if we dared try.”

“We gotta kill Heeseman.”

“I had somewhat the same hunch myself. . . . Bing! There’s another.”

“I seen the smoke then. Look, Jim. There’s a rock sticks up like a owl’s head. An’ it come from left of thet, out of thet wide crack. He’s back in there, the bugger. Let’s give him a dose of his own medicine. We got shells more’n we’ll ever use.”

“Wait till he shoots again. Then you empty your rifle and give way to me.”

Soon the little white cloud puffed up, and a crack instantly followed. Smoky, on one knee, fired deliberately, and thereafter worked the lever of his rifle steadily until the magazine was empty. Jim saw the red dust of bullets strike here, there, everywhere in that crack on the rim. And before that dust settled Jim emulated Smoky’s feat.

“Mebbe thet’ll hold the sucker fer a spell,” muttered Smoky, as he reloaded.

But it increased the ricocheting of the bullets, to the growing embarrassment of the besieged.

“I’m goin’ up in thet hole,” declared Mac, furiously, after another leaden missile had chased him around the cave.

“Mac, it ain’t any safer up there,” warned Smoky.

“All I’m lookin’ fer is to kill one of them cusses.”

He laboriously climbed up out of sight, and presently Jim heard him shooting. No volley answered him, only a single shot. Conditions were changing up on top. Mac fired again, then bellowed down the hole:

“Smoky, I crippled one runnin’.”

“Don’t cripple nobody, Mac. Kill ‘em!” yelled Smoky. “Keep your head down.”

Other shots pattered out from the cliff. Jim heard a scuffle above, then the clang of metal on stone. Mac had dropped his rifle. A shock of catastrophe affected Jim, and flattening himself against the wall, he stared at the aperture. A sodden crash did not surprise him. Mac had fallen back into the hole to lodge upon the shelf. His shaggy head hove in sight over the edge. It dripped blood. Then he slid heavily off the shelf to fall like a loaded sack into the bottom of the notch.

An instant later, before either Jim or Smoky could comment on this further diminution of their outfit, another spanging, zipping, spatting ounce of lead entered the cave. It actually struck both walls and the ceiling before it droned away into space.

“Jim, the only safe place from thet — is hyar, huggin’ this corner,” declared Smoky. “An’ there ain’t room enough for the two of us.”

“Keep it, Smoky. I’m not going to get hit. This is my day. I feel something in my bones, but it’s not death.”

“Huh! I feel somethin’ too — clear to my marrow — an’ it’s sickish an’ cold. . . . Jim, let’s both sneak out an’ crawl back of them. Thet’s my idee. I don’t have wrong idees at this stage of a fight.”

“Leave that girl here alone? Not much.”

“Hell! I clean forgot her,” declared Smoky, his hand going up. “I’ll go an’ you stay. . . . Jim, it’d be a pity to let Heeseman’s outfit git her. Why, they’d devour her alive, like a pack of bloody wolves!”

“It would, Smoky, by Heaven!”

“Wal — wal! . . . Hank is goin’ to raise hell out there, an’ if I do the same on this other side, between us we might stave Heeseman off. But if we don’t an’ there’s no chanct fer you to take thet poor gurl back home—”

“Smoky, you forget.”

“Aw! . . . But if you see the fight goin’ ag’in’ us — Jim, you could kill her. Thet’d be merciful.”

“Smoky, I promised her I would,” returned Jim.

“Wal, thet’s all right. . . . Now! . . . Another glancin’ hunk of lead. —— thet sharpshooter. I’m gonna snip off the top of his head. . . . Jim, there’s only one thing more thet sticks in my craw.”

“And what’s that?”

“Hays. I’d never be comfortable in hell if he lived on, crucifyin’ thet gurl. . . . I had a sister once. Gawd! it seems long ago! She had gold hair, not so gold as this one, though.”

“He sticks in my craw, too, Smoky. And in my throat and brain and blood.”

“Wal, then, it jest ain’t written thet both of us could croak an’ Hays be let live. . . . Jim, I reckon we understand each other.”

“Yes. . . . Smoky, I’d have liked you as a pard, under happier circumstances.”

“Wal, it’s too late, ‘cause we can’t both git out of this mess. But I’m sayin’ you shore air a man after my heart.”

That was the last he spoke to Jim. Muttering to himself, he laid a huge roll of bills under the belt Hays had deposited on the little shelf of rock. The act needed no explanation. Then he took a swig of whisky from the flask beside Bridges’ ghastly form. And as he dug into his pack for more shells another spanging, ricocheting compliment from the sharpshooter entered the cave.

Jim wheeled to see if he could return the shot. There was no sign even of smoke. When he glanced back again Smoky had gone. Jim caught one fleeting glimpse of him darting round the corner of the corral, and then he vanished.

Scarcely had he gotten out of sight when Jim thought of the field-glass. Smoky should have taken it. Jim risked going back to his pack to secure it, and had the fun of dodging another bullet.

What had become of Hays? A moment’s reflection dissolved Jim’s natural return to suspicion of further treachery. No. — When Hays forgot the woman, and under the flaying of Slocum’s scorn went out to kill Heeseman, he had swung back to his former self. It was not only a flash back, but a development, perhaps a borrowing from despair. Heeseman’s outfit would hear presently from this dethroned chieftain, and to their sorrow. Jim returned to his safest cover and waited. Sitting against the wall he used the glass to try to locate Smoky across the oval. But birds and rabbits were the only moving objects that fell under his vision. Meanwhile the sharpshooter kept firing regularly, about three shots to the minute. Jim became accustomed to the whang of the bullets.

Next he attempted to locate the diligent member of Heeseman’s outfit. This man evidently shot from behind the rim, low down, and not even the tip of his rifle could be seen. From his position, however, as calculated by the puffs of smoke, he certainly must be exposed from the west side of that cliff. Jim had a grim feeling that this fighter would not much longer be so comfortable. Before this, Smoky must have passed the danger zone below. He could work up the ravine on the north side, climb a ragged rock slope, go down into the valley beyond the oval, and under cover all the way, get high up somewhere behind those of Heeseman’s riders who were still on that west side.

What had become of Hays? Waiting alone amongst these deflecting bullets wore on Jim’s mood. He decided to peep out of the hole again, making sure that his impatience would not result in recklessness. To this end he climbed to the shelf, rifle in hand and the glass slung round his neck. There was a great blood patch where Mac had fallen.

He could command every point with the aid of the field-glass, without exposing his head. Through apertures in the brush the glass brought most of that west cliff, at least the highest third of it, clearly and largely under his eye.

The sharpshooter had eased up a bit on wasting ammunition. Jim sought for the owl-shaped piece of rim-rock and got it in the center of the circle. Just then, up puffed a wisp of smoke — crack went the rifle, followed by the spanging and pattering in the cave below.

An instant later a far-off shot thrilled Jim. That might be Smoky. Suddenly a dark form staggered up, flinging arms aloft, silhouetted black against the sky. That must be the sharpshooter. Smoky had reached him. Headlong he pitched off the cliff, to plunge sheer into the wash below.

This tragedy heralded war on the cliffs. Dull booms of heavy guns vied with sharper reports, and between, in slow regularity that indicated cool and deadly nerve, cracked the rifle beyond the cliff. Smoky had at least carried out his idea. He was up somewhere, behind cover or in the open, as the exigency of the case afforded, and he was making it hot for the Heeseman gang.

The rattle of rifles fell off, but still what was left was not the scattering, desultory kind. It meant a lessening of man power. One at least for every two shots of Smoky Slocum’s! And those on the cliff grew louder, closer. Heeseman’s gang, what was left, were backing from that fire out of the west.

Jim swung the glass to the left and swept the cliff, and the rocky approach to it. Suddenly he espied Hays boldly mounting the slope at that end. Bold, yet he lunged from rock to rock, taking advantage of what cover offered. But it appeared that he had not been discovered yet. Those on top were facing the unseen peril to the west.

Jim marveled at the purpose of the robber chief. Certain death, it seemed, awaited him there. But he kept on. Jim, transfixed and thrilling, waited with bated breath. Still another shot from Smoky — the last! But Hays had reached high enough to see over. Leveling the rifle, he took deliberate aim. How menacing and deadly his posture! His shaggy locks stood up. His rigidity was that of resistless and mighty passion. Then he fired.

“Heeseman!” hissed Jim, as sure as if he himself had held that gun.

Hays, working the lever of his rifle, bounded back and aside. Shots boomed. One knocked him to his knees, and he lunged up to fire again. He made for a rock, gained it but it was not high enough to shield him. Again he was hit, or the rifle was, for it broke from his hands. Drawing his two Colts, he leveled them, and as he fired one, then the other, he backed against the last broken section of wall. Jim saw the red dust spatter from the rock above Hays, on each side, and low down. Those opposing him were shooting wild, or from difficult positions, or were retreating. Hays seemingly could not stand there long. He had emptied a gun. One more instant Jim watched, frozen to the glass. What a figure of defiance! From Jim’s reluctant heart was wrenched a sullen respect and admiration. At the end, this robber had reverted to the man who had won Smoky and Latimer to extraordinary loyalty. He was grand in his disregard of his life. When he started up that slope he had accepted death. But it had not come.

The shots thinned out, and ceased. Hays was turning to the left, his remaining gun lowered. He was aiming down the slope on the other side. He fired again — then no more. Those who were left of Heeseman’s outfit had taken to flight. Hays watched them, strode to the side of the big rock, and kept on watching them.

Soon he turned back with an air of finality and, sheathing one gun, took to reloading the other. It was at this moment that Jim relinquished the field-glass to take up his rifle. With naked eyes through the aperture in the brush he could see Hays finish loading his gun. Then the robber examined the top of his shoulder, where evidently he had been shot. His action, as he folded a scarf to thrust up under his shirt, appeared one of indifference.

This moment, to Jim’s avid mind, was the one in which to kill the robber. He drew a bead on Hays’ breast. But he could not press the trigger. Lowering the hammer, Jim watched Hays stride up among the rocks to disappear. No doubt he meant to have a look at that enemy whom he had so deliberately shot with the rifle.

A storm was imminent. The sky had darkened, and a rumble of thunder came on the sultry air.

Jim leaped up out of the hole to have a better look. Far beyond the red ridge he discerned men running along the white wash. There were three of them, scattered. A fourth appeared from behind a bank, and he was crippled. He waved frantically to the comrades who had left him to fare for himself. They were headed for the cove where the horses still stood. And their precipitate flight attested to the end of that battle and as surely to the last of Heeseman’s outfit.

Jim picked up the field-glass, and slinging it in his elbow, he essayed a descent into the cave. On the shelf he hesitated, and sat a moment locked in thought. A second time he started down, only to halt, straddling the notch. The battle had worked out fatefully and fatally. Would he see Smoky again? Yet nothing had changed the issue. The end was not yet. With his blood surging back to his heart, Jim leaped down to meet the robber chief.

CHAPTER 15

HAYS WAS NOT yet in sight. Thunder was now rolling and booming over the brakes, and gray veils of rain drifted from purple clouds. The storm, black as ink, centered over the peaks of the Henrys. To the west the sun shone from under a gorgeous pageant of white and gold. And over the canyons hung rainbows of vivid and ethereal loveliness.

Between the intervals of mumbling rumble there was an intense quietness, a sultry suspension of air. Even in that moment the beauty of the scene struck Jim as appalling. It seemed unnatural, because death lay about him, bloody and ghastly; and down the arroyo stalked the relentless robber.

Jim strode out. The chief hove in sight. He walked slowly, with an air of intense preoccupation.

Jim deliberated. A survival of the fittest entered into this deliberation, yet there was in Jim a creed born of the frontier. It was what Hank Hays had lived by before he threw everything to the winds for the beauty of a woman. Hays had reverted to it, in the hour of his extremity. He had gone out to bear the brunt of Heeseman’s attack and he had expected to die. The fortune of war had favored him. Therefore, it was not Jim’s confidence that forbade him to kill Hays at long range. Not even for the girl’s sake would Jim force himself to such a deed, however justified by Hays’ villainy.

The robber chieftain neared the cave.

“Where’s Smoky?” called Jim, his lynx eyes on Hays’ right hand.

“Cashed in,” boomed Hays, fastening great hollow eyes of pale fire upon Jim. “He had cover. He plugged I don’t know how many. But Morley’s outfit had throwed in with Heeseman. An’ when thet gambler, Stud, broke an’ run, Smoky had to head him off. They killed each other.”

“Who got away? I saw four men, one crippled.”

“Morley an’ Montana fer two. I didn’t recognize the others. They shore run, throwin’ rifles away.”

“They were making for their horses, tied half a mile back. Where’ll they go, Hays?”

“Fer more men. Morley is most as stubborn as Heeseman. An’ once he’s seen this roost of ours — he’ll want it, an’ to wipe out what’s left of us.”

“Heeseman?”

“Wal, he didn’t run, Jim. Haw! Haw! — His insides air jest now smokin’ in the sun.”

The chief strode to the mouth of the cave and stared around. Jim remained at the spot he had selected, to one side, between the robber and Helen’s covert.

“Jack an’ Mac, too?” he ejaculated, in amaze. “How come? No more of thet outfit sneaked down in hyar.”

“Mac stuck his noodle too far out of that hole in the cave. And Happy Jack stopped a glancing bullet. See this rock here. Look at those white spots. Every one made by a bullet. Must have been two dozen or more slugs come hummin’ off that rock. They’d hit the walls and glance again.”

“I’d know who started thet if I hadn’t seen him,” said Hays, to himself. “Old Black Dragon Canyon days.”

“Two of us left, Hays,” returned Jim, tentatively. The robber had utterly forgotten such a thing as sworn retribution, or else, now that Slocum was not to be reckoned with, he had no fears.

“The storm’s travelin’ this way,” he said, as thunder boomed and rolled like colossal boulders down the canyons. “Reckon we can hang out hyar one more night.”

“Going to bury your dead?” queried Jim, in curt query.

“Wal, we might drag these fellers to the wash thar, an’ cave in the bank on them.”

“Sand and gravel would wash away.”

“What the hell’s thet to us? If I do anythin’ atall it’ll be fer my gurl. Them stiffs ain’t a pretty sight.”

If Jim Wall needed any galvanizing shock to nerve him to the deed he had resolved upon, that single possessive word was enough.

“I’ll bury them later,” he said.

“Good. I’m all in. I climbed more ‘n a mile to get to them fellers.” Hays sat down heavily, and ran his right hand inside his shirt to feel of the bulge on his shoulder. Jim saw him wince. Blood had soaked through his shirt.

“You got hit, I see.”

“Flesh wound. Nothin’ to fuss over this minnit. An’ I’ve got a crease on my head. Thet hurts like sixty. Half an inch lower an’—”

“I’d have been left lord of Robbers’ Roost?”

“You shore would, Jim. Lousy with money, an’ a gurl to look after. But it jest didn’t happen thet way.”

“No, it didn’t. But it will!”

That cool statement pierced the robber’s lethargic mind. Up went his shaggy head and the pale eyes, opaque, like burned-out furnaces, took on a tiny curious gleam. When his hand came slowly down from inside his shirt his fingers were stained red.

“What kind of a crack was thet?” he demanded, puzzled.

“Hays, you forget.”

“Oh-ho! Reckon I did. Never thought I’d fergit Smoky’s blastin’ tongue. May he roast in hell! . . . But, Jim, this wasn’t no mix of yours.”

“I’ve made it mine.”

“You an’ Smoky come to be pards?”

“Yes. But more than that.”

“You’re sore thet I didn’t divvy square?”

“Hays, I take it you double-crossed me same as you did them.”

“Uhhuh. Wal, you got me in a corner, I reckon. Thar’s only two of us left. I’d be crazy to quarrel. . . . Would a third of my money square me?”

“No.”

“It wouldn’t? Wal, you air aimin’ at a bargain. Say half, then?”

“No.”

A tremor ran over the robber’s frame. That was a release of swift passion — hot blood that leaped again. But he controlled himself.

“Jim, I don’t savvy. What’s eatin’ you? Half of the money hyar is a fortune fer one man. I did play the hawg. But thet’s past.”

“I won’t make any deals with you.”

“Ahuh. Then we’ve split?”

“Long ago, Hays.”

“Air you tryin’ to pick a fight with me?”

At this Jim laughed.

“‘Cause if you air, I jest won’t fight. I’d be senseless. You an’ me can git along. I like you. We’ll throw together, hide somewhere awhile, then build up another outfit.”

“Hays, you’re thick-skulled,” retorted Jim, sarcastically. “Must I tell you that you can’t bamboozle me?”

“Who’s tryin’ to?” demanded the robber, hotly. “All I’m tryin’ is to patch it up.”

“It can’t be done.”

“I’ll give you two thirds of the money.”

“Hays, I wouldn’t take another dollar from you — that you gave willingly.”

“No money atall!” ejaculated the chief, bewildered. His mind was groping. Probably his natural keenness had suffered dulling for the hour.

Jim had turned his left side slightly toward Hays, concealing his right hand, which had slipped to his gun butt, with his thumb on the hammer! For Jim then, Hays was as good as dead.

“It’ll all be mine, presently,” he replied.

“Holdin’ me up, huh?” rasped Hays. “Learned to be a shore-enough robber, trainin’ with me, huh?”

“Hays, I promised Smoky I’d kill you — which he meant to do if he had lived to come back.”

The robber’s face grew a dirty white under his thin beard. At last he understood so much, at least. What volumes his stupidity spoke for his absorption! It changed. Jim’s posture, his unseen hand, suddenly loomed with tremendous meaning.

“Shore. Thet doesn’t surprise me,” admitted the robber. “When men’s feelin’s git raw, as in a time like this, they clash. But I did my share to clear the air. An’ if Smoky had come back he’d have seen it different. I could have talked him out of it. . . . Jim, you’re shore smart enough to see thet, an’ you oughter be honest enough to admit it.”

“I dare say you could have won Smoky back. He had a fool worship for you. . . . But you can’t talk me out of anything.”

“Why, fer Gawd’s sake — when I’m givin’ you all the best of the deal?”

“Because I want the girl,” thundered Jim.

A great astonishment held Hays stricken. Through it realization filtered.

“Thet! — Thet was it — all the time!” he gasped.

“All the time, Hank Hays,” replied Jim, steadily, and it was the robber’s eyes, pale fires no longer, that he watched for thought and will.

Still he saw the violent muscular quivering which slowly diminished to freeze into rigidity. He had struck the right chord. In whatever way possible, Hank Hays loved this woman. However it had begun, the sordid, brutal thing had ended in Hays’ worship of the golden-haired sister of Herrick. Jim read this in the extraordinarily betraying eyes; and read more — that it had been Helen the robber had fought for, not his lost caste with his men, not the honor of thieves. It was this that accounted for the infernal blaze of unquenchable hate, of courage that death itself could scarcely have stilled. All this immediately coalesced into the conscious resolve to act and kill!

As the robber sprang up, Jim’s first shot took him somewhere in the breast. It whirled him half round. His gun, spouting flame, tore up the gravel at Jim’s feet. A terrible wound with its agony, a consciousness of its mortality, added to the overwhelming ferocity of jealous hate, gave the man superhuman physical activity. He whirled bounding the other way so swiftly that Jim’s second shot missed him altogether. Hays’ gun was booming, but it was also describing the same curves and jerks as his body. Then as passion gave place to desperate need and the gun aligned itself with Jim, Jim’s third shot destroyed aim, force, and consciousness.

Hays’ demoniac face set woodenly. The gun, with hammer up, dropped to explode. And the robber lodged against the slant of wall, dead, with the awfulness of his mortal passions stamped upon his features.

It was over. Jim breathed. The hand which held his gun was so wet that he thought his blood was flowing. But it was sweat.

“I wish — Smoky could — know,” muttered Jim, over a convulsive jaw. He shoved Hays off the wall.

Wiping his face, Jim staggered to the rock and sat down. All the sustained excitement, culminating in such passion as Jim had never known, had weakened him. Spent and heaving, he sat there, his will operating on a whirling mind. It was over — the thing that had had to come. All dead! Loyal and faithless robbers alike. What to do now? The girl! Escape from that hell-hole, soon to be besieged again! He must pack that very hour and ride — ride away with her. His heart swelled. His blood mounted to burn out the cold horrible nausea. To save this woman — this golden-haired, violet-eyed goddess with her wonderful white skin — to ride with her for one day, one hour — Jim Wall would have paid what the robber chief had paid.

“Jim! — Oh, Jim!” came a cry from the back of the cave.

“Helen — it’s all — over,” he called, hoarsely.

She appeared in the opening. “Gone?” she whispered.

“Yes, gone — and dead.”

“I — saw — you. . . . Is he — dead?”

“You bet your life,” burst out Jim, his breast oppressed.

“Oh, help me out!”

He ran to assist her. She came sliding out, to fall on her knees, clasping Jim with fierce arms. Her head fell against him.

Jim’s hands plucked at her arms — caught them. Yet they seemed hands of steel binding his knees to her breast.

“Get up,” he ordered, sharply, trying to lift her. But she was more than a dead weight.

“God bless you! — Oh, God bless you!” she cried. The voice was husky, strange, yet carried the richness and contralto melody that had been one of Helen’s charms.

“Don’t say that!” he exclaimed, aghast.

She loosened her hold and raised her head to look up at him. He saw only her eyes, tearless, strained in overwhelming gratitude.

“Jim! You’ve saved me,” she whispered.

“No — not yet!” he blurted out. “We must hurry out of this.”

She arose, still clinging to him. “Forgive me. I am selfish. We can talk some other time. I should have realized you would want to leave here at once. . . . Tell me what to do. I will obey.”

Jim stepped back and shook himself.

“You kept me from thinking,” he began, ponderingly. “Yes, we must leave here. . . . Put on your riding-clothes. Pack this dress you have on — and all you have. Take your time. We’re safe for the present. And don’t look out. I’ve got to bury Hays and the men.”

“My spirit wouldn’t faint at that,” she replied. “I saw you kill the wretch — and I could help you bury him.”

“I won’t need you,” replied Jim, constrainedly, and wheeled away, a victim of conflicting tides of emotion. What manner of woman was this? She had blessed him to God! She could not see in him anyone but a savior. Harder to bear — inexplicably sweet and moving — she had clung to him willingly! Madly he rushed to and fro, cursing while he searched the dead robbers, to fling their money and valuables in a pile, cursing while he dragged them to the brink of the wash and toppled them over. He hauled Hays by the hair — gave him a shove into a grave with villains who were better men. Then he carried rocks and rolled them. He performed prodigious feats of strength, and lastly he pushed an avalanche of sand and gravel, a whole section of bank, down to half fill the wash.

He was as wet as a dog coming from the water. And he burned. Yet he felt cold within.

But action had begun to steady Jim, if not compose him. He shoved all the money into his saddle-bag. Next he packed every one of his shells. He might be attacked again, in that hiding-place. Then he selected supplies for two packs and filled them, not forgetting a few utensils. Poor Happy Jack! That fellow would whistle no more. He unrolled his bed, which consisted of three blankets and a tarpaulin.

His next move was to strap blankets and saddles on the two gentlest horses. Those he led back to the cave, and packed them. It was an indication of his state that, though he had always been a poor, slow packer, he now developed into a swift and efficient one. After that he had only to saddle Bay, and the gray horse Helen had ridden there.

Suddenly he thought of Smoky. If he had been alone, or with another man, even a helpless one, he would have taken time to find that strange and faithful robber and have given him decent burial. But he would not leave the girl.

While he stood there, trying to think what else to do, he remembered a sack of grain that Hays had packed from Star Ranch. He found it half full and tied it on the lighter pack. Sight of his rifle started another train of thought. He put it in his saddle sheath.

Huge, scattered raindrops were pattering down on the hot stones and earth. The storm was working toward the northwest, trailing gray veils across the canyons. The tail of it would flood Robbers’ Roost and the canyon below would be impassable. Southward sunshine and silver cloud, blue sky and hazed desert, threw the balance on his inclination that way.

He hurried back to the girl, calling, “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been waiting,” she said, and came swiftly out. The rider’s costume brought out the rounded grace of her form. She had braided her hair. The sombrero he remembered shaded her face.

“Where is your veil and long coat?” asked Jim, seeing her as on that unforgettable day.

“He burned them,” she answered, in a stifled voice.

“Get into this.” And he held his slicker for her. It enveloped her, dragged on the ground.

“I’m lost in it.”

“We’re in for storm. Rainy season due. You must keep dry.”

Turning to the gray horse, she mounted. But she nearly fell, owing to the cumbersome coat. Jim saw and sprang quickly to right her. Then his swift hands attacked the too long stirrups.

“How strong you are! I saw you toiling like a giant with those huge stones.”

But Jim had no reply for such inconsequential speech. His mind was racing again, yet wild as were his thoughts they could not outstrip his savage joy. She was saved. The endless wait was past. Dependent upon him now! Strong? He could have laughed like a hyena. He could drag down the pillars of the escarpments for her. He could wade through gore. Something vague and new crept into his sense of possession. It edged into his rapture.

His hands, just lately so swift and efficient, fumbled over the task of shortening stirrups, of cinching the saddle. It was because he could not avoid contact with her.

“Ride close beside me where there’s room. Just ahead where there’s not,” he directed her.

Jim tied the halters of the two pack-animals to their packs, and started them off. Then he vaulted upon Bay — the first time for many weeks. The horse pranced, but steadied down under an iron hand and heel.

Helen looked back as one fascinated, but Jim bent stern gaze ahead.

“I would destroy this canyon if that were in my power. Come,” he said.

They rode up out of the oval, driving the pack-horses ahead. The rain was now falling heavily, great spattering drops that kicked up a smell of dust. Over the low wall the trail led up and down, across the hummocks. On the gravel ridge to the west Jim saw a dead man lying prone. Soon they entered the wide, shallow wash, in the sand of which Jim espied footprints filling with water. Behind, the lightning ripped and the thunder crashed. They rode out of the tail of the storm and into a widening of the wash, where it reached proportions of a small valley. Scrub cedar and brush and cactus began to show, and patches of sunflowers on low, sandy knolls. They passed the cove where the raiders’ horses had been left. Broad and deep was the trail to the south.

“Are you all right?” Jim queried.

“Oh, I did not know I could feel rapture again. Yes, I am.”

“You’re dizzy, just the same. You sway in the saddle. Ride closer to me, while you can. . . . Give me your hand. Don’t talk. But look — look! You might see what I do not see.”

They rode at length to a canyon head, down which the hoof tracks turned.

“We came this way by night, but I remember,” she said. “Do you dare to follow them?”

“We must not.”

“But that is the way to Star Ranch!”

“Yes, on the trail of desperate men and across that Dirty Devil River. These summer rains. It will be in flood. I could not get you through.”

“You know best. But just to be free. . . . To see my brother Bernie! It is unbelievable.”

Jim Wall looked away across the brakes. Presently he said: “I will try to find a way out of this hole. The country is strange. I’ll be lost soon. But somewhere up out of here — we’ll find a lonely canyon where there is grass and water. I must not run into cattlemen. Robbers are not my only enemies. I don’t want to be hanged for — for saving you.”

“Hanged! Oh, you frighten me!”

“I didn’t want to tell you. It is no sure thing that I can safely elude the rest of Heeseman’s outfit, if I try to get out through the brakes. It’d be far safer to hide you awhile — south of here, out of the way of riders.”

“Take me where you think best,” she said, tremulously.

“When you get out, you must go home to England.”

“I have no home in England. Bernie is my only kin, except very distant relatives who hate the name of Herrick.”

“Then go to a country as different from this naked, stony wilderness as day from night. . . . Say, Minnesota, where it snows in winter, and in spring there are flowers, birds, apple blossoms. . . .”

“No, I shall not — leave Utah,” she replied, positively.

A flash of joy leaped up in Jim at her words, but he had no answer for her. He led on, away from that broad fresh trail, into an unknown region. And it seemed that this point of severance had an inscrutable parallel in the tumult within his heart.

The sun set in an overshadowed sky and storm threatened all around the horizon. Far north the thunder rolled, and to the south faint mutterings arose. Jim could not hold to a straight course. He wandered where the lay of the land permitted. Rising white and red ground, with the mounds of rock falling, and green swales between, appeared endless and forlorn. He began to look for a place to camp.

At last, as twilight darkened the distant washes, and appeared creeping up out of them, Jim came to another little valley where scant grass grew, and dead cedars stood up, spectral ghosts of drought, and on the west side a low caverned ridge offered shelter. He led over to this, and dismounting, said they would camp there. Her reply was a stifled gasp, and essaying to get out of her saddle she fell into his arms.

CHAPTER 16

TO JIM WALL it seemed a miracle that he did not snatch Helen to his breast. Like a wind-driven prairie fire his blood raced. But it was her unexpected little laugh, her dependence upon his strength, her relaxing to his clasp, that compelled his restraint. He set her upright on the ground.

“Can you stand?” he inquired.

“I think so. But my legs feel dead.”

“Then you’d better walk a little.”

She essayed to, and letting go of him, plainly betrayed her spent condition. Jim helped her into the shallow hollow under the rock and sat her down with shoulders and head raised against the slant of wall.

“My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak,” she said.

“You did wonderfully. It was a hard ride, after a tough day,” he replied. “I’m afraid I did not have thought enough for you. . . . Rest here while I unpack. Then I’ll soon make you comfortable.”

Jim flew at the task, his rush of physical action a counter-irritant to his agitations. In a quarter-hour before dusk he had unpacked, hobbled and fed the horses, built a fire and put water on to boil. He had brought three canteens full of water and one canvas bag. Rainstorms, he reflected, would be good for the horses and bad for travel. He would take any chance before attempting to cross the Dirty Devil. Through his mind ran recollection of Hays one night telling about a marvellously fertile valley far up this river — a place once cultivated by Mormons, and then deserted. Jim would find that valley if he could.

He carried his bed under the shelf and unrolled it, changed and doubled the blankets and folded the tarpaulin so that it could be pulled up in case rain beat in. That was likely to happen, for the rumble of thunder had grown closer and the cavern was not deep enough for shelter, unless the storm came from behind.

The fire sent a ruddy light into the cavern, and all at once Jim discovered that the girl was watching him with wide, dark, unnaturally bright eyes. In that deceiving light the ravages of the past weeks did not show so plainly in her face. It seemed to have an unearthly beauty.

“Are you able to get up and walk a little?” he asked. “And you must eat and drink, too, or we’ll never escape.”

“I’ll try.”

He helped her up, and out of the cumbersome slicker, and led her a few steps, after which she managed it alone.

“Fine! You’ve got spunk, Helen. Now you walk up and down while I cook supper.”

“Are we safe here?”

“God only knows! I think so — I hope so. It’s a lonely desert. Our enemies have gone the other way. Don’t worry. They’re more scared of us than we are of them. But Morley got away with at least one of his men. The others belonged to Heeseman’s outfit. They know they nearly wiped out Hays, and they’ll try again with reinforcements. They knew Hays had a fortune in cash — and you.”

“Morley? . . . I remember the name, but not the connection. Hays was always telling me stories of love — what he called love — and hate, revenge, death. . . . Would this Morley try to capture me to hold for ransom, too?”

“Helen, that ransom idea of Hays’ began in sincerity, but — lonely, hunted men in this hard country are wild dogs,” ended Jim, gloomily.

He did not look up from his tasks, and she passed on with her light, dragging step. Rain had begun to fall, sputtering on the hot coals and the iron oven. He did not need to bake biscuits, for he had packed a sackful, a few of which he warmed. With these, and fresh meat, sugar and coffee, and canned fruit he felt that they fared well. Now and again he was aware of her passing, but he never looked around at her. No matter where they camped or what the peril was, she must be free to come and go at will. But he would caution her that because he was a fugitive, so was she. At last he called her, only to discover that she sat behind him, watching.

To his concern and discomfiture, she ate very little. She tried, only to fail. But she did drink her coffee.

“That is more than I’ve had for long,” she said. “Perhaps if I wasn’t so excited I’d have more appetite.”

“You’ll pick up,” he replied, hopefully. “Sleep, though, is more necessary than food.”

“Sleep! — Oh, when have I really slept? . . . But now it will be different.”

Jim stared thoughtfully into the camp fire. Paling, flowing opalescent embers hissed when the raindrops fell upon them. He must remember to collect dry wood and put it under shelter for the night, and see that the horses did not stray.

“Jim, I can’t pull off my boots,” she said. “Please help me.”

“Better sleep in them, as I shall in mine.”

“But my feet hurt so. I’m afraid they are swollen.”

She was sitting on the bed when Jim took hold of the boot she elevated. It did not come off easily. The other one, however, was not hard to remove.

“There are holes in your stockings,” he observed. “Have you another pair?”

“One other. . . . My feet are so sore. They burn. What a luxury a bath would be! The few I’ve had were stolen. Hays would fetch me hot water, and then sneak around to watch me, so that it was always cold before I could use it.”

“Shut up about Hays, please,” replied Jim, sharply.

“I’m sorry. But he has so hung over my days and nights, like the weight of a mountain,” she murmured in explanation, startled by his abruptness.

“Look to see if you have any blisters,” he said. “I’ll bathe your feet in a little cold water and salt.”

“Cold water? And have ice blocks for feet all night?”

“I have a stone heating for you. I’ll wrap it in a sack. That will keep you warm.”

Bringing a pan of water, he knelt before her; and to look at her then was to find the past destroying weeks hard to believe.

“I never had any gentlemen bathe my feet,” she said, with a flash of humor which Jim was almost too perturbed to notice.

“Don’t stand on ceremony, Helen. Stick out your foot. . . . My dear woman, this is purely kindness on my part. I really don’t want to do it.”

“You’ve changed somehow since Star Ranch,” she mused. “Very well, thank you.” And she put out her small feet.

Jim lost no time in pressing them down into the cold, salt water, which made her cry out, and what he lacked in gentleness he made up in effectiveness. And he had to use his scarf to dry them because he had no towel and hers was in her bundle. Then he rubbed her feet until they were red, during which operation she did not exactly squeal, though she emitted sounds which were similar.

“Put your stockings back on and sleep in your clothes,” he said.

“I could scarcely do anything else, Mr. Jim. . . . Tell me, did you ever have a wife?”

“My God, no!” ejaculated Jim, hastily.

“Or sweetheart?”

Jim dropped his head. “Not really — not one I could speak of to you. . . . Long ago, before I became a thief—”

“Nonsense! You’re not a thief. I asked you because you did that in such a — a detached manner. I once had pretty feet, if I remember rightly. But you did not notice them. Oh, how silly of me! . . . Jim, I can’t help talking. My tongue appears to be freed!”

“Talk all you want, but no more tonight. We’ll have a tough day tomorrow. . . . Wait before you crawl in — I’ll bring the stone.”

He kicked the round rock out of the fire, and wrapping it in burlap, he laid it under her blankets. “Push that down.”

“Ooooo!” She stretched out with a slow, final movement, and pulled the blankets up under her chin. Her eyes were purple pools, unfathomable with emotion and thought.

“Go to sleep,” he said, gazing down at her, conscious that these involuntary words were not what he thought he wanted to say. “I can’t swear we’re safe or that I’ll get you out alive. But if we’re caught I’ll kill you before they do me.”

“In any case you are my savior. I grew hopeless back there. I could pray no more. But I shall tonight. God has — not — forsaken — me.”

And it appeared that almost instantly she fell asleep with the flickering firelight upon her face, and her white hands clasped over the edge of the blankets.

Much of Jim Wall’s life, since he was sixteen, had been spent in the open around camp fires. But there had never been any night comparable to this. He could not understand the oppression upon his heart. His moods changed in a trice.

He walked out to find the horses close to camp and making out fairly well on the grass. Rain was falling steadily now, though not copiously. No stars showed. Far off down the desert fitful flares of lightning ran across the horizon, revealing black, weird buttes and long, level escarpments. In the south thunder still rumbled. Probably tomorrow the storm would set in. The place appeared more desolate than the roost because there rustling leaves and tinkling water seemed to break the solitude, while here there was nothing. Even the rain fell silently.

Jim gathered a quantity of dead cedar wood which he stowed away to keep dry. Then he unrolled the bed he had brought for himself. This one had belonged to Smoky. Jim thought of the implacable little gunman, lion-hearted, going out to save his comrades because he felt that he alone could do it. Lying stark and stiff now, out on the naked rock, with the rain beating down upon his face! That was his creed toward men. His creed toward women could not have been very different.

Jim paced to and fro, unmindful of the misty rain. He put another billet upon the fire and some bits of dry brush. The flame licked up through the twigs and brightened the shadow, and appeared to cast a halo round the girl’s white face. But that was the gold sheen of her hair. Softly Jim took a step or two closer, to peer down. Deep in slumber as any child! Strangely his mother’s face stood out in the dim years — as she had looked when she lay dead. Fugitive from the law, he had risked liberty to see her once more. A sad and heart-broken face it was, yet not as this sleeping girl’s, helpless in his power, trusting him as she would have trusted her brother.

He patrolled his beat between the flickering fire and the sleeping girl, up and down from shadow to shadow, bowed, plodding heedless of the rain, sleepless for hours, on guard, almost as ruthless to himself as he would have been to marauders of the night. And after that when he slept it was with one eye open.

Toward dawn he got up and rolled his bed. The air was raw and cold, blowing a fine rain in his face. It was still too early to begin preparations for breakfast and too dark to look up the horses. So he strode again the beat of the preceding hours, which seemed farther back in the past than one night.

Two days’ travel, sixty miles, without delay, ought to take them out of the brakes. Would the girl be able to make it? He had to choose between a serious break-down for her and the possibility of being held up in the brakes by the rainy season. His decision was instant. He would carry her in his arms, if she gave out, but if the floods came, their predicament would be deplorable. All this region, except the rock, when it got thoroughly wet, became what the riders called gumbo mud. And the overdue rains appeared about to burst upon them.

Under the cliff the deep shadows grew gray as dawn approached. As soon as it was light enough to see, Jim looked at Helen. She lay exactly as she had fallen asleep ten hours before; even her hands had not come unclasped. Her face made a pale blotch against the dark blanket. She might be dead. A pang rent him. Bending low, he listened, to be rewarded by the sound of soft breathing. Then he sprang erect, conscious that former emotions stirred. Must he have them to fight every day?

Jim hurried out to find the horses. It was a sodden, wet world, overhung by clouds as gray as the shrouded ridges and dismal flats. The horses had strayed and he felt alarmed. Still, he could track them by daylight. Leaving Helen alone, however, small as the risk was, he hated to consider. As luck would have it, he came upon all four animals grazing in another little valley. Taking off their rope hobbles, he drove them back to camp, an easy task with horses that had been fed grain the night before. He had four square pieces of canvas upon which he spilled a quart of grain for each horse. Then he strapped on the pack-saddles. The riding-saddles, however, he left for the last task.

By the time breakfast was cooking, daylight had broken. The rain had ceased. There were breaks in the gray canopy of cloud, but no blue showed. The air seemed to be pregnant with storm. Finding a thin, flat rock, Jim placed Helen’s breakfast upon it and carried it to her bedside. Then he called her. No answer! A second call did not pierce her deep slumber; whereupon he had to give her a little shake. At that her eyes opened. Jim recoiled from the purple depths. She had awakened as on the mornings past. Then as he knelt there came a transformation in her gaze, which, when he realized the absolute reversal in it, flayed him more bitterly than had the other. No help for him! He seemed at the mercy of uncontrollable vagaries of feeling.

“You were hard to awaken,” he said. “I’ve brought some food and strong coffee. You must get it down somehow.”

“I heard you call. I felt your hand. I thought—” She broke off and struggled to sit up. “I’ll eat if it tastes like sawdust.”

Jim repaired to his own breakfast, after which he wrapped up biscuits and meat to take on the day’s ride.

“Did you steal my boots, Mr. Robber?” she called.

He made haste to get them from the fire, where he had placed them to dry.

“I am more of a robber than you think,” he replied.

“You’ve dried them. Thank you. . . . Play your strange part, Jim Wall, but I know what I know. . . . Oh, I’m so stiff and sore! My bones! But I’ll do or die.”

She pulled on her boots, and crawling out and straightening up with slow, painful effort she asked for a little hot water. Jim fetched it, and also the bundle that contained her things.

Free then to pack, Jim applied himself with swift, methodical hands, his mind at once both busy and absent. At length all was ready except her bundle, which he turned to get. He saw her coming along the shelving wall, walking slowly, her hat shading her features.

“I did better this morning,” she said, presently, as she reached him.

“Let’s see if you can get on your horse,” he replied, and led the gray up. “You can put on the slicker after you’re up.”

She did mount unassisted. Jim helped her into the long slicker, and tucked the ends round her boots.

“It’ll be a tough day,” he went on. “But we’re starting dry and if you don’t fall off in a puddle you’ll stay dry. Hang on as long as you can. Then I’ll pack you, if necessary. We absolutely must get out of these brakes.”

With that he tied her canvas bundle back of his saddle, and donning the slicker that had been Smoky’s he lined up the pack-animals, and they were off.

Beyond the ridge the country looked the same as it had to the rear — hummocks of rotting shale, ridges of brush and gravel, swales and flats and little valleys on each side, with the difference that as they enlarged to the west and to the east they roughened up into the dark red, irregularly streaked brakes. Jim traveled as best he could, keeping to no single direction, though the trend was northerly, and following ground that appeared passable. The pack-horses led, and one of them scented water or knew where he was going, possibilities not lost upon Jim. He followed them, and Helen brought up the rear. Watching her at first, Jim lost something of his anxiety. For the present she would not retard their progress.

It began to rain and that did not cause Jim to spare the girl. They had to travel as fast as the pack-horses could walk on rough ground and trot where possible. Jim could not see more than half a mile to the fore. Dim mounds stood up in that cloud that overhung the whole country. Jim conceived the idea he was swinging to the west, but for the time being could not make sure.

The rain fell all morning, and let up at intervals. Again the clouds broke their solid, dull phalanx, to let light through. Once a rift of blue sky showed far ahead, with sunlight gilding a very tall, strangely tipped butte. Jim marveled at this, and believed it was one he had seen from the high slope under the Henry Mountains, a hundred miles and more to the southward.

Shortly after this, black clouds gathered, and a storm, with thunder and lightning, burst upon them. The thirsty horses soon had opportunity to drink. Water ran in sheets off the rocks, where Jim, without dismounting, filled the empty canteens.

Soon down every gully and wash rushed a muddy torrent. The lead pack-horse knew his business and earned Jim’s respect. Jim was sure now that he had traveled this way before. The rain slackened, but the floods increased. At length the fugitives came to a veritable river at which the lead horse balked. Bay, however, did not show any qualms. The flood was fifty yards across, evidently a shallow gully, down which rocks bumped and rumbled in the current. All about was desolation. No shelter or wood or grass could Jim see. So he put Bay to the task. The big horse made it easily, with water coming up to his flanks. Whereupon Jim rode him back, after which, the pack-horses, intelligent and sensible, essayed the ford. The one with the heavier load was all but swept away. Luckily, he kept his feet, and lunged out in a great splash, snorting his terror.

Then Jim returned for Helen.

“I’ll carry you while you hang on to your bridle,” said Jim, riding close to the gray. “Slip your feet free and come on.” He had to lift her sheer off her horse and around in front of him, where he upheld her with his left arm. “Here’s your bridle. Hang on. . . . Get up, Bay, you old water-dog.”

They made it, with the splendid horse staggering out under his double burden just in the nick of time. A perceptible rise in the flood, like a wave, swelled by them. He let Helen down.

“Look at that!” exclaimed Jim. “See the water come up? If we’d been in the middle then it’d been good-by.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know. All that’s ahead. Hear the water roaring below, where it drops into a gulch? . . . I tell you luck is with us.”

“God and luck,” she corrected.

“Are you afraid?” asked Jim.

“Not in the least. Under happier circumstances this would be an adventure. . . . I must move about a little. My legs are gone. And I have a terrible pain in my side.”

“You are doing fine. We have come eighteen or twenty miles. But I don’t like the look ahead. We’re climbing all the time. I think I hear the Dirty Devil.”

“That dull, distant rumble? . . . If we had gone down the way he — the way we came — we’d surely have been lost. Could those men have made it?”

“No. They might be marooned on some high bank, or they might have turned back. In which case they would see our tracks.”

“Would they follow us?”

“I don’t know. Not soon. But we can’t afford to waste any time.”

“We will get out safely. I feel it. Please help me up.”

When once more they were on the way Jim gave her a biscuit and a strip of meat. “Eat. The rain will be on us soon.”

And it was, a deluge that obliterated objects at a few paces. The lead pack-horse did not show himself at fault. He had indeed been along there. Jim saw evidences of an old trail and this encouraged him. It must lead somewhere. That storm passed, leaving a drizzle in its wake. Wide pools stood on the flats and cataracts leaped off the rocks. But the washes were shallow.

Late in the afternoon there was a momentary brightening of massed clouds in the west. Dull red and purple gloomed over the dun hills.

They rode down out of these low gravel hills that had limited their sight, into a long, green, winding valley from the far side of which came a sullen roar. A red river, surely the Dirty Devil, ran, ridged and frothy under a steep wall of earth. As Jim looked an undermined section went sliding down with a hollow crash.

The remnant of a trail hugged the base of the hills. The valley seemed a forbidding portal to even a harsher country.

“I can’t hang on — longer,” faltered Helen, faintly.

“I’ll carry you. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” reproved Jim. He knotted her reins and dropped the loop over the pommel of her saddle. Then he lifted her off her horse onto his. She fitted in the narrow space in front of him, and he supported her with his left arm. “Come on, Gray.”

So Jim rode on, aware that her collapse and the terrible nature of the desert, and another storm at hand, were wearing away even his indomitable spirit. It might well be that he was riding into a trap — on and on up this infernal river to where it boxed in a canyon or widened into a morass of quicksand, either of which would be impassable. If he had to turn back where would it be to? There were foes behind, and anyway Robbers’ Roost was unthinkable as a refuge. Still he had faith in that lead pack-horse. They plodded on, and the rain beat in his face. He turned Helen on her side so that her back was toward the storm, and though he spoke she did not answer.

When he weathered that storm he had traveled some miles and was approaching the head of the valley. Ragged, red bluffs stood up all along his right, with acres of loose rock ready to slide. The base of these narrowed to a bank of earth, cut straight down on the outside, which fronted on a muddy flat now reduced to a width of scarcely a hundred yards by the river.

The lead pack-horse kept plodding away, apparently not sharing Jim’s growing apprehension about the abrupt turn under a huge beetling bluff. The Dirty Devil, however, swung away to the left again and could be seen sliding round a wall miles farther on. Night was not far away, being hastened by a sinister black storm.

They swung in behind the bluff, and then out again to the higher and narrower bank upon which the old trail passed around the corner. But for this lead animal Jim would never have attempted that. He knew when a horse was lost or indifferent. This horse headed for some place with which he was familiar. He disappeared around the corner where the bank was scarcely ten feet wide, slippery and wet, with streams running down from the bluff above and rocks rolling. The second pack-horse, sure of the leader, rounded the point.

“Whoa, Bay,” called Jim, hauling up to wait for the gray. “I don’t like this place. Don’t look, Helen.”

As she made no reply, Jim leaned back to get a glimpse of her face. Asleep! If he had marveled at many aspects of this adventure, what did sight of her thus do to him? For one thing it shot him through and through with a fierce something which excluded further vacillation.

“Come on, Gray,” he called to the horse behind, and to Bay: “Steady, old fellow. If that narrows round there you want to step sure.”

It did narrow. Eight feet, six feet — less! Bits of the steep bank were crumbling away. But the pack-horses had gone round. A strange wrestling, lashing sound struck Jim’s ears. Water running somehow! He did not look up from the trail, but he sensed a fearful prospect ahead. It would not be safe to try to turn now. The drop on his left, over which he hung, was fifty feet or more straight down, and below an oozy flat extended outward from it.

Suddenly Jim encountered a still narrower point, scarcely five feet wide. The edge had freshly crumbled. It was crumbling now. Jim heard it slop, despite the growing hollow sound farther on.

Bay stepped carefully, confidently. He knew horses with wide packs had safely passed there. He went on. Jim felt him sink. One hind foot had crushed out a section of earth, letting him down. But with a snort he plunged ahead to wider trail.

Jim’s heart had leaped to his throat. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He heard thud of hoofs behind, a heavy, sliddery rumble. Looking back, he saw the gray horse leap from a section of wall, beginning to gap outwards, to solid ground ahead. Next instant six feet of the trail, close up to the bluff, slid down in an avalanche.

“Close shave for us all!” cried Jim, huskily, and looked up to see what more lay ahead.

Right at his feet a red torrent rushed with a wrestling, clashing sound from out a deep-walled gorge of splintered, rocking walls. And the roar that had confounded Jim came from the leap of a red waterfall from the high rim-wall. Everywhere red water was pouring off the cliffs. Rocks were bounding down the stepped slope right in front of him, to hustle off the bank and plunge below. Slides of gravel, like the screech of pebbles in a tide, were running down.

This was an intersecting canyon, a tributary, a vicious child of the hideous Dirty Devil. It barred Jim’s progress. Thirty paces to the fore, on the widest part of the bank, stood the pack-horses. Jim forced his startled gaze to the rear. No rider would ever come or go that way again.

CHAPTER 17

THE RAIN HAD slackened; otherwise Jim could not have seen far in advance. The girl, stirring in his arms, roused him out of his bewilderment.

He rode on to a huge section of cliff wall which had fallen from above and now leaned at an angle over the trail. It appeared to be a safe retreat unless the whole cliff slipped in avalanche, and as this consisted half of stone and half of red earth and gravel the possibility of such catastrophe was not remote.

Jim dismounted carefully with Helen and, stooping as he moved under the leaning rock, he set her down on dry dust.

“Where are we? What’s that awful sound?” she asked, and her voice came to him in a whisper.

“We’re held up by the storm. . . . Let me get this wet slicker off.”

“Is it the end for us?”

He did not answer. Folding the slicker into a pillow, he laid her head back upon it. She seemed hardly able to sit up without his support. He tried to avoid her eyes, but was not wholly successful. Scrambling up, he removed the saddle from Bay and dropped it under the shelter. Then, leading the horse, he stepped forward to where the gray and the pack-animals had halted. The clatter of rocks, the screech of gravel, the thresh of strange waves in the torrent below, and the roar of the waterfall made an increasing din. If it rained any more this gorge would be a hell-hole compared with which any place on the trail back would seem paradise. But Jim did not waste time to look around.

The instinct of the horses had guided them to halt behind the only safe spot on the unsafe bank, and this was where several immense boulders had lodged at the widest part. The horses were tired, but not appreciably frightened. Jim removed their packs, leaving the saddles on. He had tied the sack holding the pieces of canvas and the grain so that he might get at it quickly. Without hesitation he poured out all of the grain, about two quarts for each horse. Lastly he jammed the packs under the edge of the boulders, and left the horses free to take care of themselves.

Then he took stock of his surroundings and conditions. A sinister red twilight invested the gorge. It was about a hundred yards wide, with the opposite wall low, and consisted of detached blocks and slides of rock on a background of red earth. Innumerable little streams were twisting, meandering, pouring from the walls. About one hundred and fifty yards up, the gorge turned to the left. Here the waterfall leaped off from a crack in the high cliff and shot far out to roar down in the rocks. Already it was appreciably fuller. Most fearful, however, was the gigantic slope to the left, of which Jim now had his first clear view. It was very high and rugged, and sloped so far back that he could not see the top. Streams above were pouring together into a main torrent, the outlet of which he could not place, though he believed he heard it. This slope was veritably a mountain-side, unstable and treacherous as quicksand. Everywhere there was motion, not only of water, but gravel, mud, and small rocks of all sizes. In past storms thousands of tons of rock had piled off that slope, most of which jumble had been covered with earth and which formed the bank upon which he stood. This was fifty feet wide at its widest, and several hundred feet long, and the upper end sloped down to the bed of the gully, where evidently the old trail ran. Lastly, this short gorge opened out into the valley of the Dirty Devil, whence came a roar heavy enough to be heard above the nearer din.

Above this infernal trap a murky sky, partaking of the red hue that dominated the unstable earth, presaged more storm. Low down over the gorge rims, black clouds showed tiny threads of zigzag lightning. But if thunder accompanied them Jim could not hear it. He had a growing thunder near at hand.

“If that storm breaks over the head of this gorge we’re lost,” soliloquized Jim, in dark solemnity. Had he endured the past weeks, had he made his desperate stand against the raiders and then Hays, had he saved the girl — only to have her drowned or crushed by rock or swallowed by avalanche? But for what had he endured — fought — saved? The very elements had combined to defeat him. Gloomy, weighed down by inscrutable events, he hurried back to the shelving rock.

He dreaded the coming hours — the night — the — he knew not what. But whatever time intervened between now and death or deliverance would be dreadful to live. He felt that.

Jim removed his slicker and folded it into a long pad. He was dry, except for his feet. As he crept closer the girl stirred again and spoke. He thought she asked if he were there. Many weary nights Jim had sat up to watch or wait, and he knew what it meant. He placed the slicker in the best available place and covered that with the drier of the two saddle blankets. He pulled the saddle closer. Then he lifted the girl over his lap so that her legs fitted across the saddle. With the dry blanket he covered her. Then he leaned back against the stone with her head on his shoulder and his arm supporting her. The sombrero he had removed. It was not only that he wanted to keep her dry and warm: he had to have her in his arms while he waited for the nameless terror he anticipated.

In the fast darkening gloom he could see her wide eyes, black as holes in white parchment. Her lips moved.

“I can’t hear you,” he answered, bending low.

“You are afraid?”

“Yes, I guess it’s that.”

“For me?”

“Certainly not for myself.”

“What really has happened?”

“I followed an old trail. The country is new to me. And so we’ve gotten stuck in a terrible place. We can’t go on or back. You hear the flood — the slides — the rocks. . . . And there’s a heavy storm about to break.”

“You fear we’ve little hope?”

“One chance in a thousand.”

She was silent a moment, then she raised her head so that she could speak close to his ear. He thought he felt a light hand touch his shoulder.

“For myself I’m not afraid. . . . But for you I am. You brave — splendid man! . . . To fight as you did for me — indeed you must have loved me. At Star Ranch I did not believe. . . . God bless you. You did — your best. I’ll — pray — for you — with my last — breath.”

Suddenly the earth under Jim trembled and a terrific boom momentarily drowned the other sounds. An avalanche or a falling rock! But this he had expected. It added not a tithe to his terror. That was not physical.

Staring out into the gathering darkness, he pondered this thing. It had come from her last words. She had no fear at the prospect of death. A curling flame might have licked at the heart of Jim’s manhood. Brave and splendid she had called him. Craven and ignoble he called his past. It was what Helen Herrick had said that had wrought this transformation in his feelings — this swelling, flaying reproach, this hate of that which allied him with the robber who had carried her off. Of course he had loved her, though he had not dwelt often or thoughtfully upon that. Up until now love in his crude opinion had been the hunger, the need of a woman, without regard to her mind, her heart, her spirit. But that was not what she had meant. . . . And again she besought God to bless him — and she would pray for him with her last breath.

A hard pang clutched Jim’s breast. It numbed his throat. And for the moment his mind became chaotic. Let that last breath of hers mingle with his last breath, drowned in that thrashing torrent or smothered under tons of crushing rock and earth. . . . It would have been nothing to die for her — that he had risked — but to die with her, to have her locked in his arms — that would be great. . . . What had he ever done with his life that he should want to prolong it? . . . A ne’er-do-well, a failure, a rolling stone, a robber, a killer! Could he pray to save it now, to go on being the same kind of hard, wicked, useless man? No, by the God she whispered of — he could not. He would not. . . . And now that she lay helpless, trusting, dependent upon him, the truth of his monstrous past roared in his inward ear mightier than the storm and flood.

He relaxed his stiff frame against the wall. A shuddering spell or a demon of spirit seemed wrenched out of him and flung to the night. This free and wild life had been part of him, and the whole savageness of it seemed to have cumulated in the fury of the elements, to cast his sin out, to change his whole life was yet left to feel, to understand, to grovel in repentance.

The God she called upon and the Nature he knew had conspired to defeat him. The former he could only tremble before as One unfamiliar, never recognized until now when it was too late. But Nature he had lived with and now he welcomed her furies.

Thunder buried all the other earthly sounds and a red flare of lightning showed the appallingly black sky and the ghastly gorge. The heavens above appeared to burst and a deluge descended upon that place, so that no sound pierced the continuous, beating roar of rain.

Jim Wall gathered Helen up in his arms and drew her breast to his. He felt her warmth. But she was unconscious or so deep in slumber that she could not awaken. Now let the very firmament fall upon them! Two lost humans, inexplicably hounded into this desert, where fire and water and earth were hollowing a grave for them! The terror that Helen’s acknowledgment of his heroism and his love had roused, abode within him still, but was losing itself in the defiance he threw into the teeth of this cataclysm.

This was the climax of the storm that had been gathering for days. Out upon the level desert it would have been serious for travelers; here in this gorge it was a maelstrom. Jim did not expect to live to hear it pass away. Yet he did. And then began the aftermath of a flood let loose upon such unstable earth. The waterfall gradually rose to a thundering, continuous crash. It dominated for a while, until the thousand streams from above poured over the rims to deaden all, to completely deafen Jim.

A sheet of water, sliding over the rock, hid the opaque blackness from Jim’s eyes. Any moment now a flood would rise over the bank, and when it did Jim meant to climb higher with the girl, to front the hurtling rocks and slipping slides, and fight till the bitter end.

But many changes as the hours brought, that flood did not rise above the bank. Jim saw the sheet of water fail, and the black space of gorge again. He heard the avalanches and the great single boulders come down, and the furious backlash of the torrent below, and the lessening roar of the waterfall. The time came to Jim, as if he dreamed, when all sounds changed, lessened, faded away, except the peculiar threshing of the stream below. And he got to listening for the sound, which occurred only occasionally. For a while the sliding rush of heavy water swept on, suddenly to change into a furious contention. At length Jim calculated it was a strong current laden with sand, which at times caused billows to rise and lash their twisting tips back upon themselves. Long he heard these slowly diminishing, gradually separating sounds.

The streams ceased flowing, the slides ceased slipping, the rocks ceased rolling, and the waterfall failed from a thundering to a hollow roar and from that to a softening splash. Nature had audited so much for that storm, and still the mountain-side appeared intact with its fugitive atoms of flesh and spirit.

Jim imagined he saw dim stars out in a void that seemed to change from black to gray. Was dawn at hand? Had they been spared? The gurgle of the stream below merged into the distant, low ramble of the Dirty Devil. Jim rested there, staring out at the spectral forms on the opposite wall, thinking thoughts never before inhabitants of his confounded brain.

But the sky was graying, the gorge taking shape in the gloom, and this place which had heard a concatenated din of hideous sounds was silent as a grave.

At last Jim had to accept a marvelous phenomenon — dawn was at hand. Gently he slipped Helen into the hollow of the saddle. She was still asleep. His cramped limbs buckled under him and excruciating pains shot through his bones and muscles.

In the gray light objects were discernible. He could not see to the head of the gorge, where the waterfall had plunged out from the wall. But silence meant that it had been surface water, a product of the storm, and it was gone. Beneath the bank ran a channel of fine-ribbed sand where not even a puddle showed. On the bank the horses stood patiently, except Bay, and he was nosing around for a blade of grass that did not exist on the sodden earth. The great slope appeared the same and yet not the same. A mute acceptance of ultimate destruction hovered over it.

Sunrise found Jim Wall topping a rise of rocky ground, miles beyond the scene of his night vigil. Again he followed the lead pack-horse.

The sky was blue, the sun bright and warm, and on the moment it crowned with gold the top of the purple butte Jim had seen twice before. It appeared close now, rearing a corrugated peak above yellow and brown hills. Jim was carrying Helen in front of him. Conscious, but too spent to speak or move, she lay back on his arm and watched him.

There had been a trail here once, as was proved by a depressed line on the gravelly earth. When Jim surmounted this barren divide he suddenly was confronted by an amazing and marvelous spectacle.

“Blue Valley!” he ejaculated.

Below him opened a narrow, winding valley, green as emerald with its cottonwoods and willows. Only in the distance did it shine blue under the hot sun. Through it the Dirty Devil wound a meandering course, yellow as a bright ribbon. It was bank full in swirling flood. And from where it left the valley, which point Jim could not see, a dull chafing of waters came to his ears.

“Blue Valley! . . . Helen, we’re out of the brakes! . . . Safe! Mormons live here.”

She heard him, for she smiled up into his face, glad for his sake, but in her exhaustion beyond caring for her own.

There was no sign of habitations, nor any smoke. But Jim knew this was Blue Valley. It was long, perhaps fifteen miles, and probably the farms were located at the head, where irrigation had been possible. How could even Mormon pioneers utilize that ferocious river?

The startling beauty of this lost valley struck Jim next. It resembled a winding jewel of emerald and amethyst, set down amid barren hills of jasper and porphyry, and variegated mosaics of foothills waving away on the left, and golden racks of carved rocks, and mounds of brown clay and dunes of rusty earth. All these were stark naked, characterized by thousands of little eroded lines from top to bottom. The purple butte to the west dominated this scene, so magnificent in its isolation and its strange conformation, that it dwarfed a yellow mesa looming over the valley.

Jim followed the lead pack-horse down into gumbo mud. The floor of the valley supported a mass of foliage besides the stately cottonwoods. Sunflowers burned a riot of gold against the green. Willows and arrowweed and grass, and star-eyed daisies sprang in luxuriant profusion out of the soil. And at every step a horse hoof sank deep, to come forth with a huge cake of mud.

At midday Jim passed deserted cabins, some on one side of the river, some on the other. They did not appear so old, yet they were not new. Had Blue Valley been abandoned? Jim was convinced it could not be so. But when he espied a deserted church, with vacant eyelike windows, then his heart sank. Helen must have rest, care, food. He was at the end of his resources.

An hour later he toiled past a shack built of logs and stones, and adjoining a dugout, set into the hill. People had lived there once, but long ago. Old boots and children’s shoes lying about, the remains of a wagon, a dismantled shovel and a sewing-machine, gave melancholy manifestation of the fact that a family had abode there.

Jim’s last hope fled. He was still far from the head of the valley, but apparently he had left the zone of habitation behind.

The afternoon waned. The horses plodded on, slower and slower, wearying to exhaustion. Helen was a dead weight. Despair had seized upon him, when he turned a yellow corner between the slope and the cottonwoods, to be confronted by a wide pasture at the end of which a log-cabin nestled among cottonwoods. A column of blue smoke rose lazily against the foliage. And behind this transfiguring sight loomed the purple butte, commanding in its lofty height, somehow vastly more to Jim than a landmark.

The horses labored out of the mud to higher ground. Jim rode up to the cabin. Never in all his life had he been so glad to smell smoke, to see a garden, to hear a dog bark. His ever-quick eye caught sight of a man who had evidently been watching, for he stepped out on the porch, rifle in hand. Jim kept on to the barred gate. There were flowers in the yard and vines on the cabin — proof of feminine hands. And he saw a bed on the porch.

“Hello!” he shouted, as he got off carefully, needing both hands to handle Helen.

“Hullo, yourself!” called the man, who was apparently curious but not unfriendly. Then as Jim let down a bar of the gate with his foot, this resident of Blue Valley leaned his rifle against the wall and called to some one within.

Jim hurried on to the porch and laid Helen on the bed. She was so exhausted that she could not speak, but she smiled at Jim. Her plight was evident. Then Jim straightened up to look at the man. Friend or foe — it made no difference to Jim — because here he would see that Helen received the care and food that she needed. Jim could deal with men. His swift gaze, never so penetrating, fell upon a sturdy individual of middle age — a typical pioneer of the Mormon breed, still-faced and bearded. The instant Jim looked into the blue eyes, mildly curious, he knew that, whoever the man was, he had not heard of the abduction of Herrick’s sister.

“Howdy, stranger!”

“My name’s Wall,” said Jim, in reply, slowly reckoning for words.

“Mine’s Tasker. Whar you from?”

“Durango. . . . My — my wife and I got lost. She wasn’t strong. She gave out. I’m afraid she’s in bad shape.”

“She shore looks bad. But the Lord is good. If it’s only she’s tuckered out.”

“What place is this?”

“Blue Valley.”

“And where is Blue Valley?”

“Sixty miles from Torrey.”

“Torrey? Never heard of it.”

“It’s a Mormon settlement, friend. Yes, I’ve stuck it out here, but I’ll be givin’ up soon. No use tryin’ to fight thet Dirty Devil River. Five years ago there was eighty people livin’ hyar. Blue Valley has a story, friend—”

“One I’d be glad to hear,” interrupted Jim. “Will you help me? I have money and can pay you.”

“Stay an’ welcome, friend. An’ keep your money. Me an’ my womenfolks ask nothin’ fer good will toward those in need.”

“Thank — you,” Jim replied, huskily. “Will you call them to look after my — my wife?”

Helen was staring up at Jim with wondering, troubled eyes.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, faintly.

“Yes, if to find friends an’ care is that,” replied the Mormon, kindly. Then he stepped to the door to call within. “Mary, this rider was not alone. It was his wife he was carryin’. They got lost in the brakes an’ she gave out. We must take them in.”

CHAPTER 18

THAT NIGHT, AFTER the good Mormons assured Jim that Helen was just worn out and she had smiled a wistful guaranty of that, Jim went to sleep under the cottonwoods and never moved for seventeen hours.

When he awoke it seemed to be a transfigured world. The Dirty Devil had ceased its rumble. There was a sunset glory crowning the purple butte — a light that seemed not of the earth. Some day soon Jim promised himself the reward of climbing high where he could see this challenging sentinel that had so guided him. It had done more — what, he could not tell, any more than he understood the thing that had come to him in the fury and thunder of the storm. But he felt almost free of terrible fetters, of a past that had gone.

At supper the Mormon bowed his head and prayed: “O Lord, bless this food to our use. Bless this good stranger within our gates. Heal his wife and send them on their journey rejoicin’ in Thy name. Amen.”

That night Jim heard the sad story of Blue Valley and the brief conquest of the Dirty Devil. Yet, singularly, this settlement had ever been given a wide berth by the rustlers and robbers of Utah. At least, when strange riders went through, as used to happen in former days, they left only pleasant recollection. The Mormon, accustomed to loneliness and loving men, loosed his tongue; and when Jim went to bed that night he knew where and how to go out of the country.

Helen sat up the second day, white and shaky indeed, but recovering with a promise that augured well. Her eyes hung upon Jim with a mute observance. They haunted him in his walks along the river, under the cottonwoods where the sunflowers followed the sun with their faces, and at night when he watched the stars. He never went far from the cabin. He had never yet climbed to make his in memory forever that grand purple butte. Factory Butte the Mormon called it, and there was where he dug the coal he burned. No blade of grass or bit of shrub grew upon this mountain. It would not sustain life. Even the eagles shunned it.

Next morning while the women were at work in the fields and Tasker was away somewhere, Jim approached Helen on the porch. She sat in a home-made rocking-chair, and she had marvelously improved, considering the short space of time. Her hair, once again under care, shone like burnished gold.

“Well, you look wonderful this morning,” he said. “We must begin to think of getting away from this haven of rest.”

“Oh, I’m able to start,” she replied, eagerly. “We mustn’t overdo it. Tomorrow, perhaps. And then, if we’re lucky, in three days you’ll be back at Star Ranch. . . . And I—”

His evident depression, as he broke off, checked her vivid gladness.

“You will never go back to — to your old life?” she questioned, quickly.

“No, so help me God! This I owe to you alone, Helen. It will be possible now for me even to be happy. But enough of myself. . . . You are gaining daily. Oh, you have such beauty! . . . But — we are still in the wilds of Utah, with its strange secret, underground channels. With its Dirty Devils! . . . I have traded two of the horses for Tasker’s light wagon. I will take you to the stage line and soon you will be at Grand Junction.”

Jim ceased. Her hands slipped from her eyes, to expose them wide, filmed with tears, through which shone that which made him flee.

“Wait — please wait!” she called after him as he made with giant strides for the gate. But he did not go back. If she pitied him he did not want to see it.

This time he made for the bluff which he had promised himself he would climb. He had to walk far to cross the deep gully out in the level floor of the valley. And he found the bluff farther away and much higher than it had looked from the ranch. And then what had appeared the top was only a rim of a slope, rising gradually to a rock-studded summit.

At last, hot and wet, with his heart thumping audibly against his ribs, and his breath coming in whistling pants, he surmounted the ridge.

Then he stood transfixed and gasping. The wild brakes, the mysterious canyon country, the illimitable, lilac-hued escarpments, the grand, black-sloped, white-peaked Henry Mountains — these lost incomparably to the scene unrolled before his rapt eyes.

Far out there on a plain rose the butte which had influenced him from afar. But he had seen only its crown. This pyramid towered alone and its effect was staggering. Jim had spent days and weeks in the silence and solitude of the brakes; and now he recognized the top of this butte as the one he had so many times watched with longing, as the loftiest and farthest point from his prison in Robbers’ Roost. It had typified not only freedom, but for him the unattainable. His idle, dreaming thoughts, gaining a foothold now and then in the interstices of his plans of blood and capture, had made of this rock thing a goal.

And now not only was it a possession of magnifying vision, but something he had attained symbolically.

From the bluff a gulf yawned at his feet leagues wide in every direction, dominated by this phenomenon of nature in the center. It was a naked plain. Beginning under him the rust-colored rocks, ragged as a stubblefield, marched in an endless circle round the margin of that vast plain. Barren threaded soil and stone, deceiving the eye, stretched on and on, for miles and miles, to the first rise of the base of this incredible butte. Ridged and traced, the slow upheaval of the mountain burned to flaming saffron, which merged into blue, and that to violet, and through all the darker shades, up and up the swelling slopes, with their millions of tiny irregular lines of cleavage, to the great wall of purple-black that crowned the peak.

The creation which had built this stupendous edifice of isolation and grandeur, flaunting its millions of years, yet melancholy with the evidence of decay and erosion that would sometime lay it flat on the plain — the Nature or the Omniscience that had made it was responsible for him, for his unwelcomed birth, his wayward boyhood, his footsteps that partook of evil, and the maturity that had seen his moral collapse and his victory. He had looked upon a physical thing that typified his conception of himself. And the future held the same for both.

But inscrutably, though none the less surely, he felt that he had arisen out of that whorled and traced rock, alive, with beating heart, with mind and soul and will, and in that he was incalculably more. He had risen out of the depths, he had found love, the greatness of which might be denied better men.

In the moonlit hour that night, late, when the good Taskers had gone to well-earned rest, Jim heard his name called. He ran with swift, noiseless feet to Helen’s bedside.

“You did not come back,” she whispered. “I cannot sleep. . . . There is something I — want to say.”

He sat down upon the bedside and clasped her hand in his, to look down into the white face, with its unfathomable, midnight eyes.

“Is your real name Jim Wall?” she asked, with more composure.

“No. I will tell it, if you wish.”

“Are you a free man?”

“Free? What do you mean? Yes, free — of course!”

“You called me your — your wife to these kind people.”

“I thought that best. They would be less curious.”

“I was not offended — and I understood. . . . I want you to go back to Star Ranch with me.”

“You ask me — that!” he exclaimed incredulously.

“Yes, I do.”

“But you will be perfectly safe. Some one will drive you from Grand Junction.”

“Perhaps. Only I’ll never feel safe in Utah again — unless you are near. I’ve had too great a shock, Jim. I suppose one of your Western girls could have stood this adventure. But this was my first rough experience. It was a — a little too much.”

“I can never go back to Star Ranch,” he replied, gravely.

“Why not? Because you are — you were a member of a robber gang? I had an ancestor who was a robber baron. To be a robber is not such a degradation — provided he be great — like you.”

“That’s not the reason,” he said.

“What is it — then?”

“If I leave you now — soon as I’ve placed you in good hands — I can ride off in peace — go to Arizona, or somewhere, and be a cowboy — and be happy in the memory of having served you and loved you — and through that having turned my back on the old life. . . . But if I went back to Star Ranch — to see you every day — to — to—”

“To ride with me,” she interfered, softly.

“Yes — to ride with you,” he went on, hoarsely. “That’d be like what you called your rough experience — a little too much. It would be terribly too much. I’m only human.”

“Faint heart never won fair lady,” she whispered, averting her face and withdrawing her hand. “Jim, I believe if I were you, I’d risk it.”

Jim gazed down at the clear-cut profile, at the shadowed eyes, hair silvered in the moonlight; then stricken and mute, he rushed away.

CHAPTER 19

BEFORE DAWN JIM had beaten his vain and exalted consciousness into a conviction that the heaven Helen hinted at for him was the generosity of a woman’s heart. She could not yet be wholly herself. He must not take advantage of that. But to reassure her he decided he would conduct her to Star Ranch, careful never to reopen that delicate and impossible subject, and after she was safely there and all was well, he would ride away in the night, letting his silence speak his farewell.

At sunrise Jim acquainted Tasker with his desire to leave for Torrey, provided Helen felt recovered sufficiently.

“Reckon I’d better see you through Capital Wash an’ as fur as Torrey,” replied the Mormon.

That was a relief to Jim. A whole day with its endless scenes and incidents, and the companionship of the Mormon, might make it possible for him to stand by his resolve.

At breakfast and in the bustle of departure he was sure Helen felt something aloof and strange in him, and he dared not meet her thoughtful eyes.

Soon they were on the way, Helen comfortably settled in the back of the two-seated wagon, and Jim riding beside Tasker in front.

Factory Butte furnished a fascinating hour for Jim, and from that on the scenery lost nothing by its vicinity to this grand monument. The Mormon was talkative and told the story of Blue Valley, and other narratives relative to the region. Capital Wash was a rent through a high ridge of red rock and the road was a stream bed, running free with muddy water. Toward the end, this passage grew to be a splendid canyon.

A Mormon rancher, at whose place Tasker stopped, invited them to pass the night at his house, and next morning take the road from there to Grand Junction, which could be reached in a long day’s drive. Jim accepted both invitation and advice. In the morning Tasker bade them good-by and Godspeed.

“Thank you, Mr. Tasker,” replied Helen. “I shall remember your kindness. And I’d like to buy back the two horses Jim traded you.”

“I’ll fetch them, if you’ll tell me where,” replied the Mormon.

“Star Ranch, north of Grand Junction.”

“I’ve heerd of thet. Wal, you may expect me some day, though I had taken a likin’ to your bay hoss.”

Jim drove off in the clear cold air of a mountain autumn morning before the sun had come up.

“Helen, you shouldn’t have asked him to fetch the horses,” said Jim, reprovingly. “He’ll find out I lied.”

“Lied! What about?”

“I told Tasker you were my wife.”

“Oh, that!” laughed Helen, and turned away a scarlet face. “It can be explained easily — if necessary. . . . Look! — This glorious country! . . . No, I don’t ever want to leave it.”

Somehow Jim got through that long ride of suspense, fear, and thrills, and when they reached Grand Junction just after dark, it was none too soon for him. Fortunately, he got Helen into the little inn before she was recognized, and then returned to put the tired horses in the care of a stable-boy. Jim did not risk entering store or saloon. Hays had secret friends there. Yet Jim was keen to hear the gossip about Star Ranch. He was late for supper, having taken time to shave and change his shirt.

To his surprise, he found Helen radiant.

“What do you think Bernie has done?”

“Bernie!” ejaculated Jim.

“Yes. My brother. This good woman told me. . . . Jim, you are the richer by ten thousand dollars.”

“Richer? . . . Me!”

“Indeed. Bernie offered ten thousand dollars for my safe return.”

“I won’t take it,” replied Jim, darkly.

“I certainly wouldn’t either,” she retorted. “It is not the half or quarter what your service was worth.”

“You know I wouldn’t take a dollar!” flashed Jim.

“Well, what do you want, Jim?” she inquired, with a woman’s sweet tantalizing mystery. “However, never mind that now. Listen. Bernie raised the very devil. He hired all the riders available to hunt for me. Also he found where Hays sold our cattle, and he forced the buyers to sell back every head, at the price they paid. He threatened to take the case to Salt Lake City.”

“That’s sure good news. It might have a tendency to end rustling, at least in wholesale bunches. Did you hear how badly your brother was hurt?”

“She did not mention that. Anyway, it couldn’t have been much, for Bernie has been here. . . . Aren’t you going to eat any supper? Oh, I shall not sleep much tonight. . . . And what shall I tell Bernie?”

That query was arresting to Jim and he hastened to direct her mind into other channels, trying to make her feel concerned that they had still fifty miles to cover.

“Jim, I’ll never pooh-pooh dough again,” she replied, her eyes darkening.

“It’s you who is not eating,” he reproved. “Better eat and drink. And go to bed soon. We will be leaving before daylight.”

Every moment of that ride next day was a joy and a pang. It seemed as short as the preceding one had been long. Helen was gay, sad, thoughtful, and talkative by turns, but she did not infringe on the one subject that crucified Jim.

It chanced that as they surmounted the pass that led down into Star Ranch Valley, the sun was setting out of a glorious cloud-pageant over Wild Horse Mesa and the canyon brakes of the Dirty Devil. Jim judged of its beauty and profundity by the sudden silence it enjoined upon his companion. She never spoke another word until Jim halted the team in front of the ranch-house porch. “Home!” she whispered, as if she had never expected to see it again.

At Jim’s halloa Herrick came out on the porch. “By Jove! here you are!” was his greeting, as cool and unemotional as if they were returning from a day’s visit to the village.

“Yes, Bernie, here I am — thanks to my gentleman escort,” replied Helen.

Jim helped her out, while some cowboys came running, shouting to others below.

“I’ll take the team down,” Jim said, hurriedly.

“You come in,” returned Herrick, as he gripped Jim’s hand and gave him a searching glance. He kissed Helen and led her in, with his arm around her. Jim purposely lingered at the task of collecting Helen’s worn and muddy luggage, and carried them in. Brother and sister stood with arms locked, and their gaze was hard to meet.

“Jim, you will have supper with us,” she said. “I’ll leave you and Bernie. . . . Oh, what will a tub and a change feel like!”

She gathered up her things and ran out of the living-room.

“Jim Wall, you bloody shooting cowboy!” ejaculated Herrick.

“That’s not my right name,” Jim made haste to reply.

“To hell with that, as you Westerners say. . . . Jim, come have a drink.”

Herrick poured out red liquor with a hand that shook. They drank, and the rancher refilled the glasses.

“Helen hadn’t time to tell me much,” he said. “Hays kidnapped her for ransom. Took her to a hell hole down in the brakes. Robbers’ Roost she called it. Held her there captive — and she would have been degraded but for you. They fought among themselves — gambling with my money. Heeseman’s crew found them. There was a battle. In the end you killed Hays, and brought Helen back. . . . That’s the gist of her story. But I want it in detail.”

“I have all the money, almost to a dollar, Herrick,” replied Jim.

The Englishman waived that as of little consequence, and urged Jim to a recital of the whole affair. At its conclusion Herrick said, hoarsely:

“Let’s have another drink! Let’s have two.”

“As a rule I don’t drink. But this is an exceptional occasion. . . . To your good health, Herrick, and to your sister’s happiness and well-being in Utah!”

Presently Herrick spoke with something of gravity. “Helen told me that I was to keep you at Star Ranch. I hope you won’t let this Hays débâcle drive you away.”

“It’ll be impossible for me to stay,” rejoined Jim, briefly. “But thanks for your kindness.”

“I’ll have you manage the ranch — give you an interest. Anything—”

“Please don’t embarrass me further. I can’t stay. . . . It’s hard to confess — but I have had the gall, the absurd luck, to fall in love with your sister. I couldn’t help it. . . . I want you to know, however, that it has turned me from the old outlaw life. I’ll go away and begin life over again.”

“By Jove! So that’s your trouble. Does Helen know?”

“Yes, I told her. It was after she asked me to come and stay at Star Ranch. Said she would never feel safe again unless I came. So I had to tell her.”

“Declare I don’t blame her. I’d feel a little safer myself. That devil Hays left his trade-mark on me. Look here. . . . By thunder! Wall, it’s a blooming mix. I understand you, and think you’re a man to respect and like. Can’t we get around the trouble somehow?”

“There is no way, Herrick.”

“Helen has her own sweet will about everything. If she wants you to stay, you’ll stay, that I can assure you. Is there any honorable reason why you ought not stay — outside of this unfortunate attachment to Helen?”

“I leave you to be judge of that,” replied Jim, and briefly related the story of his life.

“Deuced interesting, by Jove! Let’s drink to it.”

“One more, then,” laughed Jim, with a load off his mind. Somehow he had wanted to stand clear and fair in this Englishman’s sight.

“Damn me, I like your West. I like you Westerners!” Herrick exploded. “Whatever Helen wants is quite right with me. . . . I can’t conceive of her insisting on your staying here — unless there is hope for you.”

“My God! That is wild, Herrick. I can’t conceive of such a thing. It wouldn’t be fair to take her seriously — after the horror she’s been through — and her intense gratefulness.”

“Beyond me! — Let’s have another drink.”

Long Jim paced to and fro under the rustling pines that night, favoring the shadow because the stars somehow mocked him. Yet a sense of worthiness, almost happiness, abided with him for the first time in many years. Who was he to have had such an opportunity, not only to do good, but to lift himself out of the depths? His gratitude to chance, to life, to whatever had guided him, was intense.

The ordeal was over. It seemed scarcely likely that the Herricks would be subjected to another such raid. Such things as Hank Hays had evolved never happened twice in the same place. Jim felt it incumbent upon him to give Herrick some strong advice about running a ranch. For a moment Jim allowed himself the pleasure of dreaming over what a wonderful and paying ranch he could make it, had circumstances permitted him to accept Herrick’s offer.

As for himself and his future, he had a singular optimism. He felt the meanest of labor could never detract from the glory and the dream of the thing that was his. Some men never lived at all; a few lived well or ill; it was given to one here and there to live some extraordinary experience that sufficed for all the remaining years.

The rangeland and the ranch-house were locked in slumber. Jim listened for the old familiar night sounds, but the only one was the song of the pines. That seemed everlasting. Pine needles, like aspen leaves, were never still. At length Jim repaired to the room assigned him by Herrick, and having extended his powers of mind and body to their limit he dropped into heavy slumber.

When he awakened it was the sense that during his sleep something vital had been decided for him. Star Ranch would see the last of him that day, if he had to walk away.

As he dressed, his thoughts dwelt upon Helen. Probably he would spend most of his waking hours with her in mind, from this day on. But what a beautiful and incomprehensible woman! At supper she had appeared in a white gown, in which he did not know her, so lovely was she. Not a word, not a sign that the Robbers’ Roost incident had ever transpired! How was it possible for any woman to hide emotions that still could not be effaced? But Jim paid mute tribute to the nerve and poise of these English. As soon as they learned the West they would fit into it, and by their character and work make it better.

Helen came in to breakfast attired in the riding-habit she had worn on that never-to-be-forgotten day of their last ride. She was cool, sweet, and her eyes were audacious. The thrill that enveloped Jim’s frame seemed equivalent to a collapse of bone and muscle and structure.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Herrick. “If I were you, I’d never want to ride again.”

After greeting her, Jim could only look his admiration and wonder.

“I am taking up my ranch life where it left off — with reservations from sad experience,” replied Helen, as she took her seat. “Bernie, we had to trade Jim’s horse, Bay. What can he ride today?”

“He may take his choice. There are any number of good beasts.”

“By the way, Jim, I told Tasker to follow us at once with our horses. I shall treasure that horse, Bay. A robber’s horse! . . . Tasker ought to be here soon, maybe tomorrow.”

Jim felt the solid earth slipping from under his feet.

“I expected to leave today,” he said, casually. “But I’ll wait till tomorrow. Bay is a horse I hated to part with.”

“So soon!” exclaimed Helen, with dark inscrutable eyes on him.

“You are home. All is well with you. . . . I must be on my way.” It seemed a forced, cold speech from a man inwardly burning.

“Bernie, could you not induce Jim to stay?” she queried.

Herrick waved a deprecatory hand and went on with his breakfast. She smiled at Jim as if in explanation. “Bernie has consented to let me share his ranching enterprise. I’d like to see it pay — a reasonable interest, at least. And I have rather conceived the idea that it’d be difficult, if not impossible, without you.”

“Not at all,” replied Jim, constrainedly.

Presently she arose. “Come, let us ride. We can discuss it better in the saddle. . . . Bernie, will you come?”

“No, thank you. I want to stow away all that money Wall returned to me,” rejoined Herrick, and as Jim followed Helen out, he called after them. “Jim, look out for kidnappers!”

“Whatever did he mean by that?” ejaculated Jim as they went down the steps of the porch.

Helen laughed. “Bernie is clumsy in humor. I rather think he meant I might try Hank Hays’ way with you. . . . Jim, entirely aside from my wishes, my brother wants you to stay. He needs a man he can trust — one who can see through these riders — especially one who will be feared by those with reason to fear.”

Jim could not find his tongue. He was vastly concerned with this ride. After it, would he be as strong as he was now? To be near her —

Barnes led the onslaught of ranch-hands upon Helen, and the welcome she received could not have been anything but gratifying. Helen replied to one and all, and ended with the simple statement, subtle as it was strong: “Hays made way with me to Robbers’ Roost. Heeseman trailed us. There was a fight, which wiped out all of Hays’ gang and most of Heeseman’s. Jim killed Hays and brought me home.”

Barnes gave Jim such a glance as a man might receive once in his life. “All the time I knowed it! Shore all the time!”

He did not vouchsafe what he knew and perhaps from any point of view that was superfluous.

Soon Helen was mounted. “Barnes, we will not want the hounds or any attendants today. I cannot ride far or long.”

Jim got on the horse Barnes saddled for him and followed Helen, who, to his surprise, took the road back up to the ranch-house. Perhaps she had forgotten something. But when he turned the bend she was mounting the trail that led up the ridge. If there had been giants on huge steeds pulling Jim back, he still would have kept on. When they got up to the level ridge, among the pines, he trotted to catch up with her. But she kept a little ahead. Jim’s thoughts locked around one astounding fact — this was the trail they had ridden down, after that encounter when he had kissed her. Sight and hearing, his sense of all around him, seemed strangely intensified. The pines whispered, the rocks had a secret voice, the sky burned blue, the white clouds sailed, the black Henrys loomed above, and the purple-gray valley deepened its colors below. There was as much presagement in the air as on the day he plunged down the slope into Robbers’ Roost with the news that the enemy was upon them. But how vastly different!

Helen halted her horse under the very pine where they had stopped to listen to the hounds and cowboys racing up the ridge after the deer.

“My sense of direction seems to be all right,” said Helen, turning to face him. But her flashing eyes and her pallor rendered her levity null.

“Helen, I fear it’s better than your sense — of kindness, let me say. . . . Why did you bring me here?”

“Please look at my cinch,” she replied, coolly.

Jim dismounted, more unsure of himself than ever in any of the many crucial moments of his career. He did not understand a woman. He could only take Helen literally.

Her saddle-cinch was all right, and he rather curtly told her so.

“Then — maybe it’s my stirrup,” she went on, lightly, as she removed her booted and spurred foot.

“Well, I can’t see anything wrong with that, either. . . . Helen. . . .”

Something thudded on the ground. Her gloves and her sombrero. But they surely had not fallen. She had flung them! A wave as irresistible as the force of the sea burst over him. But he looked up, outwardly cool. And as he did, her ungloved hand went to his shoulder.

“Nothing — the matter with — your stirrup,” he said, huskily.

“No. After all, it’s not my cinch — nor my stirrup. . . . Jim, could any of your Western girls have done better than this?”

“Than what?”

“Than fetching you here — to this place — where it happened.”

“Yes. They would have been more merciful.”

“But since I love you—”

“You are mad,” he cried.

“And since I want you — presently — to behave somewhat like you did that day.”

He reeled under that. The truth was almost overwhelming. The strong, earnest light of her eyes told more than her words. Her pallor had vanished. She was no longer cool.

“Jim, you might have saved me this — this abandon. But perhaps it is just as well. You are laboring under some delusion that I must dispel. . . . I want you — ask you to stay.”

“If you are sure — I will stay. Only, for God’s sake, don’t let it be anything but — but—”

“Love,” she added. “Jim, I am sure. If I were going back to England, I would want you to go, just the same. . . . It’s what you are that has made me love you. There need be no leveling. I lived years down in Robbers’ Roost. That changed me — blew the cobwebs out of my brain. This hard, wonderful West and you are alike. I want both.”

“But I am nobody. . . . I have nothing,” he cried, haltingly.

“You have everything a woman needs to make her happy and keep her safe. The fact that I did not know what these things really were until lately should not be held against me.”

“But it might be generosity — pity — the necessity of a woman of your kind to — to pay.”

“True. It might be. Only it isn’t. . . . I brought you here!”

Jim wrapped his arms around her, and for the reason that he was ashamed to betray the tears which blinded his eyes he buried his face in her lap, and mumbled that he would worship her to his dying breath and in the life beyond.

She ran soft ungloved hands through his hair and over his temples. “People, cities, my humdrum existence, had palled on me. I wanted romance, adventure, love. . . . Jim, I regard myself just as fortunate as you think you are. . . . Lift me off. We’ll sit awhile under our pine tree. . . . Jim, hold me as you did that other time — here!”

THE END

The Hash Knife Outfit

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS A rainy November night down on the Cottonwood. The wind complained in the pines outside the cabin and whispered under the eaves. A fine cold mist blew in the open chinks between the logs. But the ruddy cedar fire in the huge stone fireplace gave the interior of the cabin a comfortable aspect and shone brightly upon the inmates scattered around. A coffee-pot steamed on some coals; browned biscuits showed in an open iron oven; and thick slices of beef mingled a savoury odour with the smoke. The men, however, were busy on pipes and cigarettes, evidently having finished supper.

“Reckon this storm looks like an early winter,” remarked Jed Stone, leader of the outfit. He stood to one side of the fire, a fine, lithe figure of a man, still a cowboy, despite his forty years and more of hard Arizona life. His profile, sharp in the fire glow, was strong and clean, in no way hinting of the evil repute that had long recorded him an outlaw. When he turned to pick up a burning ember for his pipe the bright blaze shone on light, rather scant hair, on light eyes, and a striking face devoid of beard.

“Wal, early or late, I never seen no bad weather down hyar,” replied a man back in the shadow.

“Huh! Much you know about the Mogollans. I’ve seen a hell of a winter right here,” spoke up another, in a deep chesty voice. “An’ I’ll be trackin’ somethin’ beside hoofs in a couple of days.” This from the hunter Anderson, known to his comrades as Tracks, who had lived longer than any of the others in this wild section, seemed to strengthen Stone’s intimation. Anderson was a serious man, long matured, as showed in the white in his black beard. He had big deep eyes which reflected the fire-light.

“I’ll bet we don’t get holed up yet awhile,” interposed Carr, the gambler of the outfit. He was a grey-faced, grey-haired man of fifty. They called him Stoneface.

“What do you say, Pecos?” inquired the leader of a long-limbed, sandy-moustached Texan who sat propped against the wall, directly opposite the fire.

“Me? ...Shore I don’t think nothin’ aboot it,” drawled Pecos.

“We might winter down in the Sierra Ancas,” said Stone, reflectively.

“Boss, somethin’s been eatin’ you ever since we had thet fight over Traft’s drift fence,” spoke up Croak Malloy, from his seat against some packs. His voice had a peculiar croaking quality, but that was certainly not wholly the reason for his significant nickname. He was the deadliest of this notorious outfit, so long a thorn in the flesh of the cattlemen whose stock ranged the Mogollans.

“I ain’t denyin’ it,” replied Stone.

“An’ why for?” complained the croaker, his crooked evil face shining in the red light. “We got off without a couple of scratches, an’ we crippled them two Diamond riders. Didn’t we lay low the last nine miles of thet fence?”

“Croak, I happen to know old Jim Traft. I rode for him twenty years ago,” answered Stone, seriously.

“Jed, as I see it, this drift fence of Traft’s has split the range. An’ there’ll be hell to pay,” snapped the other.

“Do you reckon it means another Pleasant Valley War? That was only seven years ago — thereabouts. An’ the bad blood still rankles.”

Croak Malloy’s reply was rendered indistinguishable by hot arguments of Carr and Anderson. But the little rider’s appearance seemed silently convincing. He was a small misshapen man of uncertain age, with pale eyes of fire set unevenly in a crooked face, and he looked the deadliness by which he had long been known to the range.

Just then the sodden beat of hoofs sounded outside.

“Ha! that will be Madden an’ Sonora,” said Stone, with satisfaction, and he strode to the door to call out. The answer was reassuring. He returned to the fire and held his palms to the heat. Then he turned and put his hands behind his back.

Presently a man entered the cabin, carrying a heavy pack, which he deposited against the wall, then approached the fire, to remove dripping sombrero and coat. This action disclosed the swarthy face and beady bright eyes of the Mexican whom Stone had called Sonora.

“Glad you’re back, Sonora,” said the leader, heartily. “How about things?”

“No good,” replied Sonora, and when he shook his head drops of rain water sputtered in the fire.

“Ahuh!” ejaculated Stone, and he leaned against the stone chimney, back in the shadow.

The other rider came in, breathing heavily under another pack, which he let fall with a thud, and approached the fire, smelling of rain and horses and the woods. He appeared to be a nondescript sort of man. Water ran off him in little streams. He hung his coat on a peg in the chimney, but did not remove his battered black sombrero from which the rain drops dripped.

“Wal, boss, me an’ Sonora got here,” he said, cheerfully.

“So I see,” returned Stone, quietly.

“Bad up on top. Snowin’ hard, but reckon it won’t last long. Too wet.”

“What you want to bet it won’t last?” queried Carr.

Madden laughed, and knelt before the fire, his huge spurs prodding his hips.

“Lemme eat,” he said. “It’ll be the first bite since yestiddy mornin’.”

The youngest of the group, a cowboy in garb and gait, rose to put more wood on the fire. It blazed up brightly. He had a weak, handsome face, with viciousness written all over it, yet strangely out of place among these hardened visages. No one need have been told why he was there.

The returned members of the outfit did not desist from appeasing their appetites until all the drink, bread, and beef were gone.

“Cleaned the platter,” ejaculated Madden. “Gosh! there’s nothin’ like a hunk of juicy salty meat when you’re starved...An’ here’s a real cigar for everybody. Nice an’ dry, too.” He tossed them to eager hands, and taking up a blazing stick he lighted one for himself, his dark face and steaming sombrero bent over the fire. Then he sat back, puffed a huge cloud of white smoke, and exclaimed: “Aghh!...Now, boss, shoot.”

Stone kicked a box nearer the fire and sat down upon it. Then from a shadowed corner limped a stalwart man, scarred of face and evil of eye, with a sheriff’s badge glittering like a star on the front of his vest. Some of the others edged closer. All except Croak Malloy evinced keen eagerness. Nothing mattered to this little outlaw.

“Maddy, did you fetch all the supplies?” asked Stone.

“Yep. An’ kept them dry, too. There’s four more packs out in the shed. The tobacco, whisky, shells — all that particular stuffs is in the pack Sonora fetched in. An’ I’m here to state I don’t want to pack down Cottonwood any more in the snow an’ rain. We couldn’t see a hand before our eyes. An’ just follered the horses.”

“Any trouble at Flag?” went on Stone.

“Nary trouble,” answered Madden, brightly. “All our worryin’ was for nothin’.”

“Ahuh. Then neither of those drift-fence cowboys we shot up died?”

“Nope. Frost was around with a crutch. An’ Hump Stevens will live, so they told me.”

“How did Jim Traft take the layin’ down of nine miles of his drift fence?”

“Which Jim Traft do you mean?”

“The old man, you fool. Who’d ever count that tenderfoot of a nephew?”

“Wal, boss, I reckon you’ll have to count him. For he’s shore countin’ in Flag...Of course I could only get round-about gossip in the saloons an’ stores, you know. But we can gamble on it. That nine-mile drop of Traft’s drift fence didn’t make him bat an eye, though they told me it riled young Jim somethin’ fierce. Jed, the old cattle king is goin’ through with that drift fence, an’ with more’n that, which I’ll tell you presently. As I got it the drift fence is comin’ more to favour with cattlemen as time goes on. Bambridge is the only big rancher against it, an’ shore you know why he is. But the fence ain’t the only thing talked about...Boss, the Cibeque outfit is busted.”

“No! — You don’t say?” ejaculated Stone.

“Shore is. Most owin’ to that cowpuncher Hack Jocelyn who left the Diamond outfit an’ throwed in with the Cibeque. That split the Cibeque. It seems Jocelyn lost his head over that little Dunn girl, Molly, sister to Slinger Dunn. You’ve seen her, Jed, at West Fork.”

“Yes. Prettiest kid in the country.”

“Wal, Jocelyn was after her hard, an’ he double-crossed the Haverlys an’ Slinger Dunn by tryin’ to play both ends against the middle. He hatched a low-down deal, if I ever knowed one. But it fell through. He got away with the girl Molly, however, an’ thet precipitated hell. Slinger quit the Cibeque, trailed them to a cabin in the woods. Back of Tobe’s Well somewhere. Must have been the very cabin Anderson put up there years ago. Wal, Jocelyn an’ the rest of the Cibeque had kidnapped young Jim Traft for ransom. But Jocelyn meant to collect the ransom an’ then murder the boy. The Haverlys wasn’t in on this, so the story goes. Anyway, things worked to a hot pitch at this cabin. Jocelyn had a drink too many, they say, an’ wanted to drag the little girl Molly off ‘n the woods. An’ she, like what you’d expect of Slinger Dunn’s sister, raised hell. Jocelyn tried to shoot young Jim. An’ she fought him — bit him like a wildcat. Wal, Slinger bobbed up, Injun as he is, an’ killed Jocelyn. Then he had it out with the Haverlys, killin’ both of them. He was terrible shot up himself. They fetched him to Flag. But he’ll live.”

“I’m dod-blasted glad, though there ain’t any love lost between me an’ Slinger,” said Stone, forcibly. “No wonder Flag wasn’t excited over our little brush with Stevens an’ Frost.”

“Wal, thet’s all of thet news,” went on Madden, importantly. “Some more will interest you-all. Bambridge lost his case against Traft. He had no case at all, accordin’ to the court. It seems Traft got this Yellow Jacket Ranch an’ range from Blodgett, years ago. Bambridge didn’t even know the deeds were on record in Flag. He was hoppin’ mad, they said, an’ he an’ Traft had it hot an’ heavy after the court proceedin’s. Traft jest about accused Bambridge of shady cattle deals down here. Bambridge threw a gun, but somebody knocked it out of his hand. Wal, thet riled the old cattle king. What do you think he said, boss? I got it from a feller I know, who was in the courtroom.”

“Maddy, I’ll bet it was a heap,” replied Stone, wagging his head.

“Heap! Reckon you hit it. Traft swore he’d run Bambridge off the Arizona ranges. What’s more, he made a present of this Yellow Jacket Ranch, which Bambridge an’ you reckoned you owned yourselves, to his nephew, young Jim, an’ — but guess who?”

“I’m not guessin’. Out with it,” rejoined Stone, hardily.

“No one less than Slinger Dunn,” announced Madden, with the triumphant tone of the sensation-lover.

“What?” bellowed Stone.

“I told you, boss. Old Traft gave this ranch an’ range to young Jim an’ Slinger — half an’ half. Providin’ thet Slinger throwed in with the Diamond outfit an’ helped them clean up Yellow Jacket.”

“Haw! Haw!” croaked Malloy, with vicious humour.

“Slinger Dunn an’ the Diamond!” exclaimed Stone, incredulously. Evidently it was a most astounding circumstance, and one fraught with bewildering possibilities.

“Thet’s it, boss, an’ they’re ridin’ down here after Thanksgivin’,” ended Madden, and took a long pull on his cigar.

Stone once more leaned in the shadow, his dim profile bent toward the fire. Madden stretched himself, boots to the heat, and gave himself over to the enjoyment of his cigar. All except the leader puffed white clouds of smoke which rose to catch the draught and waft through the chinks between the logs.

“What do you make of it, boss?” finally queried Anderson.

Jed Stone vouchsafed no reply.

“Humph!” grunted the hunter. “Wal, Frank, you’re the green hand in this outfit. What you make of Maddy’s news?”

The cowboy stirred and sat up. “I reckon it can’t be done,” he replied.

“What can’t?”

“Cleanin’ up Yellow Jacket.”

The hunter took a long draw at his cigar and expelled a volume of smoke, while he thoughtfully stroked his black beard.

“Whar you from, Frank?”

“Born in Arizonie.”

“An’ you say thet? Wal...Reckon it ain’t no wonder you ended up with the Hash-Knife outfit,” said Anderson, reflectively. Then he turned his attention to the Mexican, who sat nearest. “Sonora, you been herdin’ sheep for years on this range?”

“Si, señor.”

“You’ve seen a heap of men shot?”

“Many men, señor.”

“Did you talk to sheep-herders in Flag?”

“Si. All say mucho malo. Old Traft bad medicine. If he start job he do job.”

Whereupon Tracks Anderson, warming as to a trail, set upon the long-limbed, sandy-moustached Texan. “Pecos, what was you when you rode thet river you’re named fer?”

“Me? Much the same as I am now,” drawled the rustler, with an easy laugh. “Only I wasn’t ridin’ in such good safe company.”

“Safe, huh? Wal, thet’s a compliment to Jed an’ the Hash-Knife. But is it sense? ...To my way of thinkin’ this — drift fence has spelled a change fer Arizona ranges. There’s a mind behind that idee. It’s big. It throws the sunlight on trails thet have been dim.”

Croak Malloy did not wait to be interrogated. He spat as he emitted a cloud of smoke, which hid his strange visage.

“If you ask me I’ll tell you Maddy’s talk is jest town talk,” he croaked. “I’ve heard the same fer ten years. An’ Yellow Jacket is wilder today than it ever was. There’s more cattle runnin’ than then. More rustlers in the woods. More crooked ranchers. An’ one like Bambridge wasn’t ever heard when I first rode into the Tonto...An’ what’s a bunch of slick-ridin’ cowboys to us? I’ll kill this young Traft, an’ Sonora can do fer Slinger Dunn. Thet’ll be the last of the Diamond.”

“Very pretty, Croak. It might be done, easy enough, if we take the first step. I ain’t aimin’ to class thet wild Diamond outfit with the Hash-Knife. It ain’t no fair fight. Boys ag’in’ men. An’ this is shore allowin’ fer Slinger Dunn an’ thet Prentiss fellar.”

“Tracks,” spoke up Pecos, dryly, “you’re plumb fergettin’ there’s a Texan in the Diamond. Lonestar Holliday. An’ you can bet the Texas I come from wouldn’t be ashamed of him.”

“Humph! — Lang, you swear you come honest by thet sheriff badge,” went on the hunter, in a grim humour. “Let’s hear from you.”

“There ain’t no law but might in the Mogollans an’ never will be in our day,” replied the ex-sheriff.

“Kirreck,” snapped Anderson. “Thet’s what I’m drivin’ at. Our day may be damn good an’ short.”

“Aw, hell! Tracks, you need some licker,” croaked Malloy. “Let’s open the pack an’ have some.”

“No,” came from Stone with sharp suddenness, showing how intent he was on the colloquy.

“Wal, it narrows down to Stoneface,” continued Anderson, imperturbably. “But seein’ he’s a gambler, you can’t ever get straight from him.”

“Tracks, I’ll bet you them gold wheels you’ll be hibernatin’ fer keeps when spring comes,” said Carr, clinking gold coins in his palms.

“Quién sabe? But I won’t bet you, Stoneface. You get hunches from the air, an’ Gawd only knows you might be communicatin’ with the dead.”

A silence ensued, during which the hunter gazed with questioning eyes at the shadowed leader, but he did not voice his thought. He returned diligently to the cigar that appeared to be hard to smoke. The rain pattered on the roof; the wind moaned under the eaves; beyond the log wall horses munched their feed; the fire sputtered. And presently Jed Stone broke the silence.

“Men, I rode on the first Hash-Knife outfit, twenty years ago,” he began. “An’ Arizona never had a finer bunch of riders. Since then I’ve rode in all the outfits. Some had good men an’ bad men at the same time. Thet Texas outfit in the early eighties gave the Hash-Knife its bad name. Daggs, Colter, an’ the rest didn’t live long, but their fame did. Yet they wasn’t any worse than the cattlemen and sheepmen who fought thet war. I’ve never had a real honest job since.”

Stone paused to take a long pull on his cigar.

“An’ thet fetches me down to this day an’ the Hash-Knife outfit here,” he went on. “There’s a heap of difference between fact and rumour. Old Jim Traft knows we’re rustlin’ his stock, but he can’t prove it — yet. Bambridge knows we are stealin’ cattle, but he can’t prove it because he’s crooked himself. An’ same with lesser cattlemen hereabouts. If I do say it myself, I’ve run this outfit pretty slick. We’ve got a few thousand head of cattle wearin’ our brand. Most of which we jest roped out on the range an’ branded. We knowed the mothers of these calves had Traft’s brand or some other than ours. But no posse or court can ever prove thet onless they ketch us in the act. We’re shore too old hands now to be ketched, at least at the brandin’ game. But ...an’, men, here’s the hell of it, we can’t go on in the old comfortable way if Traft sends thet Diamond outfit down here. Yellow Jacket belongs to him. An’ don’t you overlook this Diamond bunch if Slinger Dunn is on it. Reckon thet’ll have to be proved to me. Slinger is even more of an Indian than a backwoodsman. I know him well. We used to hunt together. He’s run a lot in the woods with Apaches. An’ no outfit would be safe while he prowled around with a rifle. I’m tellin’ you if Slinger would ambush us — shoot us from cover like an Indian, he’d kill every damn one of us. But I’ll gamble Slinger wouldn’t never do thet kind of fightin’. An’ we want to bear thet in mind if it comes to a clash between the Diamond an’ the Hash-Knife.”

“If,” exploded Anderson, as the leader paused. “There ain’t no ifs. Any kind of reasonin’ would show you thet Traft has long had in mind workin’ up this Yellow Jacket. It’ll run ten thousand head, easy, an’ shore will be a fine ranch.”

“Wal, then, we got to figger close. Let me make a few more points an’ then I’ll put it to a vote. I wish I hadn’t always done thet. For I reckon I see clear here...We’ve had more’n one string to our bow these five years. An’ if we wasn’t a wasteful outfit we’d all be heeled right now. Bambridge has been playin’ a high hand lately. How many thousand unbranded calves an’ yearlin’s we’ve drove over to him I can’t guess. But shore a lot. Anyway, he’s figgerin’ to leave Arizona. Thet’s my hunch. An’ he’ll likely try to drive some big deals before he goes. If he does you can bet he’ll leave the Hash-Knife to bear the brunt. Traft has come out in the open. He’s on to Bambridge. There’s no slicker cowman on the range than Traft’s man, Ring Locke. They’ll put the Diamond down here, not only to watch us, but Bambridge too. An’ while we’re at it let’s give this young Jim Traft the benefit of a doubt. They say he’s a chip off the old block. Wal, it’d jest be a hell of a mistake for Croak to kill thet young feller. Old Traft would rake Arizona from the Little Colorado to the Superstitions. It jest won’t do. Slinger Dunn, yes, an’ any of the rest of the outfit. But not young Jim...Wal, I reckon it’d be wise fer us to make one more drive, sell to Bambridge an’ clear out pronto.”

“My Gawd!” croaked Malloy, in utter amaze.

“Boss, do I understand you to hint you’d leave the range your Hash-Knife has run fer twenty years?” demanded Stoneface Carr.

“Men, I read the signs of the times,” replied the leader, briefly and not without heat. “I’ll put it up to you one by one...Anderson, shall we pull up stakes fer a new range?”

“I reckon so. It ain’t the way of a Hash-Knife outfit. But I advise it fer thet very reason.”

Sonora, the sheep-herder, leaned significantly and briefly to Stone’s side. But the gambler was stone cold to the plan. Malloy only croaked a profane and scornful refusal. The others came out flat with derisive or affronted objections.

“Wal, you needn’t blow my head off,” declared Stone, in like tone. “If you do there shore won’t be a hell of a lot of brains left in this outfit...It’s settled. The Hash-Knife stays until we are run out or wiped out.”

CHAPTER TWO

THAT SAME STORMY night in early November, when the members of the Hash-Knife gang had their fateful colloquy in the old log cabin on the Yellow Jacket range, Jim Traft sat with his nephew in the spacious living-room of the big ranch-house on the edge of Flagerstown.

It was a bright warm room, doubly cosy owing to the whine of wind outside and the patter of sleet on the window panes. Old Traft had a fondness for lamps with rosy globes, and the roaring fire in the great stone fireplace attested to his years on the open range. A sleek wolf-hound lay on the rug. Traft occupied an armchair that looked as ancient as the hills, and he sat back with a contented smile on his fine weather-beaten face, occasionally to puff his pipe.

“Dog-gone-it, Jim, this is somethin’ like home,” he said. “You look so good to me these days. An’ you’ve come through a Westerner...An’ the old house isn’t lonesome any more.”

He nodded his grey head toward the far end of the room, where Molly Dunn curled in a big chair, her pretty golden-brown head bent over a book. Opposite Molly on the other side of the table sat Mrs. Dunn, with eager expectant look of enchantment, as one who wanted to keep on dreaming.

Young Jim laughed. It looked more than something like home to him, and seldom was there a moment his eyes did not return to that brown head of Molly Dunn.

“Shore is, Uncle,” he drawled, in the lazy voice he affected on occasions. “You wouldn’t think we’re only a few weeks past that bloody fight...Gosh! when I think! ...Uncle, I’ve told you a hundred times how Molly saved my life. It seems like a dream...Well, I’m back home — for this is home, Uncle. No work for weeks! No bossing that terrible bunch of cowboys! You so pleased with me — though for the life of me I can’t see why. Molly here for the winter to go to school — and then to be my wife next spring...And Slinger Dunn getting well of those awful bullet wounds so fast...It’s just too good to be true.”

“Ahuh. I savvy how you feel, son,” replied the old rancher. “It does seem that out here in the West the hard knocks and trials make the softer side of life — home an’ folks — an’ the girl of your heart — so much dearer an’ sweeter. It ought to make you keen as a whip to beat the West — to stack cunnin’ an’ nerve against the wild life of the range, an’ come through alive. I did. An’, Jim, if I’d been a drinkin’, roarin’ cowpuncher I’d never have lasted, an’ you wouldn’t be here tonight, stealin’ looks at your little Western girl.”

“Oh, Uncle, that’s the — the hell of it!” exclaimed Jim. “I’m crucified when I realise. Those weeks building the drift fence were great. Such fun — such misery! Then that fight at the cabin! Oh, Lord! I could have torn Hack Jocelyn to pieces with my hands. Then when Molly was fighting him for possession of his gun — hanging to him like grim death — with her teeth, mind you — when he lifted and swung her and beat her — I was an abject grovelling wretch, paralysed with horror...Then when Slinger leaped past me round the cabin, as I sat there tied and helpless, and he yelled like an Indian at Jocelyn...I thrill and shiver now, and my heart stops...Only since I’ve been home do I realise what you mean about the West. It’s wonderful, it’s glorious, but terrible, too.”

“You’ve had your eye teeth cut, son,” said Traft, grimly. “Now you must face the thing — you must fight. I’ve fought for forty years. An’ it will still be years more before the range is free of the outlaw, the rustler, the crooked cattleman, the thieving cowboy.”

“Uncle Jim,” called Molly, plaintively, “please hush up aboot the bad West. I want to study an’ I cain’t help heahin’.”

“Wal, wal, Molly,” laughed Traft, in mild surprise, “reckon I thought you was wrapped up in that school book.”

“An’, Jim — shore the West’s not as wicked as Uncle makes out,” went on Molly. “He wants you to be another Curly Prentiss — or even like Slinger.”

“Ha, ha!” roared the rancher, rubbing his hands. “That’s funny from Molly Dunn. My dear, if you hadn’t had all the Western qualities I’m tryin’ to inspire in Jim, where would he be now?”

Even across the room Jim saw her sweet face blanch and her big dark eyes dilate; and these evidences shot an exquisite pleasure and happiness through him.

“Uncle, I’ll answer that,” he said. “I’d be in the Garden of Eden, eating peaches.”

“Maybe you would, Jim Traft,” retorted Molly. “A little more bossin’ the Diamond outfit an’ your chances for the Garden of Eden are shore slim.”

Later, when the ladies had retired, Ring Locke came in with his quiet step and his intent eye. Since Jim’s return from the disastrous failure of the drift fence (so he considered it, in contrast to his uncle’s opinion) and the fight at the cabin below Cottonwood, he had seemed to be in the good graces of this Westerner, Ring Locke, a fact he hugged with great satisfaction. Locke was a keen, strong, and efficient superintendent of the old cattleman’s vast interests.

“Some mail an’ some news,” he announced, handing a packet of letters to Traft.

“How’s the weather, Ring?” asked the rancher.

“Clearin’, I reckon we won’t see any green round Flag till spring.”

“Early winter, eh? Wal, we got here first...Son, letter for you from home — two. An’ in a lady’s fancy hand. You better look out Molly doesn’t see them...Ring, help yourself to a cigar an’ set down.”

Jim stared at the first letter. “By gosh! Gloriana has written me at last. It’s coming Christmas, the little devil...And the other from Mother. Fine.”

“Glory must be growed into quite a girl by now,” remarked his uncle.

“Quite? Uncle, she’s altogether,” declaring Jim with force.

“Wal, I hardly remember her, ‘cept as a pretty little kid with curls an’ big eyes. Favoured your mother. She shore wasn’t a Traft.”

Locke lit a cigar. “Some of the Hash-Knife outfit been in town,” he announced, calmly.

Jim forgot to open his letters. Old Traft bit at his cigar. “Nerve of ‘em! Who was it, Ring?”

“Madden and a greaser whose name I’ve forgot, if I ever knowed it. Reckon there was another of the gang in town, but I couldn’t find out who. They bought a lot of supplies an’ left Thursday. I went around to all the stores an’ saloons. Dug up what I could. It wasn’t a lot, but then again it ‘pears interestin’. One in particular. Curly Prentiss swears he saw Madden comin’ out of Bambridge’s, after dark Wednesday, he says. But Curly has had a ruction with his gurl, an’ he’s been drinkin’, I’m sorry to say. That cowboy would be the grandest fellar, if he didn’t drink. Still, drunk or no, Curly has an eye, an’ I reckon he did see Madden.”

“Funny, his comin’ out of Bambridge’s,” growled Traft, and the bright blue eyes narrowed.

“Awful funny,” agreed Locke, in a dry tone, which acquainted the listening Jim with the fact that the circumstance was most decidedly not funny. “Anyway, it started me off. An’ the upshot of my nosin’ around was to find out that the Hash-Knife crowd are at Yellow Jacket an’ all of a sudden oncommon interested in you an’ young Jim, an’ the Diamond, an’ Slinger Dunn.”

“Ahuh. Wal, they’ll be a heap more so by spring,” replied Traft. “Funny about Bambridge.”

“The Hash-Knife have friends in Flag, you bet, an’ more’n we’d ever guess. Shore, nobody knows our business, onless the cowboys have talked. I’m afraid Bud an’ Curly have bragged. They do when they get to town an’ guzzle a bit. Madden did darn little drinkin’ an’ none ‘cept when he was treated. Another funny thing. He bought all the forty-five calibre shells Babbitt’s had in stock. An’ a heap of the same kind, along with some forty-fours for rifles, at Davis’s. He bought hardware, too. Some new guns. An’ enough grub to feed an outfit for a year.”

“Winter supplies, I reckon. An’ mebbe the Hash-Knife are in for another war, like the one it started in eighty-two. Ha, ha! ...But it ain’t so funny, after all.”

“It shore doesn’t look like peaceful ranchin’,” drawled Locke.

“Damn these low-down outfits, anyway,” growled the rancher. “I fought them when I rode the range years ago, an’ now I’m fightin’ them still. Locke, we’ll be runnin’ eighty thousand head of stock in a year or two.”

“Eighty thousand! — Then you can afford to lose some,” replied Locke.

“Humph. I couldn’t lose a calf’s ear to those thievin’ outfits without gettin’ sore. They’ve kept me poor.”

“Uncle, we appear to have the necessities of life around the ranch. Nice warm fires, and some luxury,” remarked Jim, humorously.

“Just you wait,” retorted his uncle. “Just you wait! You’ll be a darn sight worse than me, pronto.”

“Locke, who is this Madden?” asked Jim, quietly, with change of tone.

“One of Jed Stone’s gang. Hard ridin’, hard drinkin’ and shootin’ hombre. Come up from the border a few years ago. The murder of Wilson, a rancher out of Holbrook, was laid to Madden. But that was only suspicion. In this country you have to catch a man at anythin’ to prove it. Personally, though, I’d take a shot at Madden an’ ask questions afterward.”

“Tough outfit, Uncle tells me,” went on Jim, reflectively.

“Boy, the Cibeque was a summer zephyr to thet Hash-Knife outfit. Stone used to be a square-shootin’ cowboy. Rode fer your uncle once. That was before my day here. He’s outlawed now, with crimes on his head. An intelligent, dangerous man. He’s got a Texas gun-fighter in his outfit. Pecos something or other, an’ I reckon he’s ‘most as bad as any of the killers out of Texas. Croak Malloy, though, is Stone’s worst an’ meanest hand. Then, there’s Lang an’ Anderson, who’ve been with him for years.”

“Is Slinger Dunn the equal of any of these men?” queried Jim.

“Equal? I reckon. Yes, he’s ahaid of them in some ways,” replied Locke, thoughtfully. “Slinger could beat any one of them to a gun, unless mebbe this Pecos feller. But Slinger is young an’ he has no crimes on his haid. That makes a difference. None of this Hash-Knife outfit could be arrested. They hang together an’ you bet they’ll die with their boots on.”

“Then we’re in for another fight?” mused Jim, and though he sustained a wonderful thrill — cold as a chill — he did not like the prospect.

“Traft,” said Locke, turning to the rancher, “strikes me queer that Stone hangs on in this part of Arizona. He’s no fool. He shore knows he can’t last for ever. If the Diamond doesn’t drive him out it’ll break up his outfit. An’ other riders will keep on his track.”

“Wal, you know, Stone will never be run out of anywhere. But he’s an Arizonian, an’ this range is home, even if it has outlawed him. He’s bitter an’ hard, which is natural enough. Stone ought to be a rich cattleman now. I — I feel sorry for him, an’ that’s why I’ve let Yellow Jacket alone.”

Jim thought his uncle spoke rather feelingly.

“Wouldn’t it be better to drive off what stock’s left there an’ let the land go?” went on Locke.

“Better? Humph! It can’t be done. We’ve got to organise against these rustlin’ outlaws or they’ll grow bolder an’ ruin us. Take that case over in New Mexico when a big cattleman — crooked of course — hired Billy the Kid an’ his outfit to steal cattle, an’ he sold them to the Government. That deal lasted for years. Everybody knew it, except the Government officials. Wal, I’m inclined to think there’s some ranchin’ man backing’ Stone.”

“Ahuh. I know how you incline, Traft,” returned Locke, dryly. “An’ it’s likely to get us into trouble.”

“Wal, if Bambridge is buyin’ in our stock we ought to find it out,” said Traft, testily.

“Suppose your suspicions reach Bambridge’s ear? He might be honest. In any case he’s liable to shoot you. An’ I say this Yellow Jacket isn’t worth the risk.”

“Ring, I don’t like the man. I suspect him. We’ve clashed from the first. He was hoppin’ mad when he found out I owned Yellow Jacket an’ had the range rights there. It’ll be interestin’ to see what move he makes.”

“Like watchin’ a game of checkers,” rejoined Locke, with a laugh. “All right, boss. I’m bound to admit you’ve made some sharp guesses in my days with you. Reckon I’ll go to bed. Good-night.”

In the silence that succeeded after he had gone, Jim slowly opened the letters he had been idly holding.

“Uncle, I’m afraid Locke is against this Yellow Jacket deal, especially the Bambridge angle.”

“Locke is cautious. He hates this sort of thing as much as I do. But what can we do? I take it as my duty to rid Arizona of this particular outfit, an’ I’m goin’ to do it.”

“Then it isn’t a personal grudge against Bambridge?”

“Not at all. I shore hope we find out my suspicions are wrong. An’ I’m relyin’ on your Slinger Dunn to find out. He’s the man we need, Jim. I shore appreciate your gettin’ hold of him.”

Jim spread out one of the letters on his knee and read it.

“Good heavens!” he ejaculated, blankly. “Son, I hope you’ve no bad news. Who’s the letter from?”

“Mother,” replied Jim, still blankly.

“Wal?”

“Uncle, what do you think? Mother is sending my sister, Gloriana, out here to stay with us a while...Doctor’s orders. Says Gloriana has a weak lung and must live a year or more in a high dry climate...By gosh! Glory is on her way right now!”

“Wal, wal! I’m shore sorry, Jim. But Arizona will cure her.”

“Cure!...Cure nothing!” snorted Jim. “Gloriana has no more lung trouble than I have. She’s the healthiest girl alive. It’s just a trick to get her out here.”

“Wal, I reckon there ain’t no need of tricks. We’ll be darn glad to have her, won’t we?”

“Uncle, you don’t understand,” replied Jim, in despair.

“Tell me, then.”

“Gloriana will upset the ranch, and break the Diamond and drive me crazy.”

“Haw, haw, haw!”

“It’s no laughing matter.”

“But, Jim, you’ve been away from home ‘most a year. Your sister could have failed in health in much less time.”

“That’s so...Oh, I hope not...Of course, Uncle, I’ll be glad to have her, if she’s really sick. But...”

“Son, don’t you care for this little sister?”

“Gosh, Uncle, I love her! That’s the worst of it. I can’t help but love her. Everybody loves her, in spite of the fact she’s a perfect devil.”

“Humph! How old is Gloriana?”

“She’s eighteen. No, nearly nineteen.”

“Wal, the Trafts were all good-lookin’. How does she stack up?”

“Glory is the prettiest girl you ever saw in all your life.”

“Shore then it’ll be fine to have her,” replied the rancher. “An’ I’ll tell you what, Jim. When we once get her out heah we’ll keep her.”

“What?” queried Jim, weakly.

“We’ll never let her go back again. We’ll marry her to some fine Westerner.”

Jim felt his turn to laugh. “Ha, ha, ha! ...Uncle, there’s not enough men in Arizona to marry Glory. And I’m afraid not one she’d wipe her feet on.”

“Sort of stuck up, eh? Thet ain’t a Traft trait.”

“I wouldn’t say she was stuck up. But she’s certainly no plain everyday Traft, like you and I, or Dad or Mother. She’s not conceited, either. Glory is a puzzle. She changes each moon. I wonder what she’s like now...Jerusalem! Suppose she doesn’t take to Molly!”

“See heah, young man,” spoke up Traft, gruffly. “Mebbe it’ll be the other way round. Molly mightn’t take to her.”

“Molly? Why, Uncle, that adorable child would love anybody, if she had half a chance.”

“Ahuh. Wal, that accounts fer her lovin’ you...Jim, it’ll work out all right. Remember your first tenderfoot days. Would you go back East now to live?”

“Gosh, no!”

“Wal, the West will do the same for Gloriana, if she has any red blood. It’ll go tough, until she’s broke in. An’ if she’s a high-steppin’ Easterner, it’ll be all the tougher. But she must have real stuff in her. She’s a Traft, for all you say.”

“Gloriana May takes after Mother’s side of the family, and some of them are awful.”

“She’s got to have some Traft in her. An’ we’ll gamble on that. For my part, I’m glad she’s comin’. I hope she burns up the ranch. I’ve been so long without fun and excitement and devilry around heah that I could stand a heap.”

“Uncle Jim, you’re going to get your desire,” exploded Jim, dramatically. “You’ll see these cowboys walk Spanish and perform like tame bears with rings in their noses. You’ll see the work on the ranch go to smash. The round-ups will be a circus. As for dances — holy smoke! every one of them will be a war!”

“Wal, I’ll be gol-darned if I wouldn’t like the girl all the more,” declared Traft, stoutly. “These cowpunchers make me awful sick with their love affairs. Any girl will upset them. An’ if Glory is all you say my Gawd, but I’ll enjoy it!...Goodnight, son.”

Jim slid down in his chair and eyed the fire. “Gosh! It’s a good bet Uncle Jim will be apple-pie for Glory. But if she really loves him, why, I reckon, I’ll be glad. And I might get along with her, in a pinch — But there’s Molly...Heigho! I’d better dig into Glory’s letter.”

He held it to the dying glow of the fire and read:

DEAR BROTHER JIM,

“Don’t let Mother’s letter worry you. I’m not very sick. I’ve planned to start west the day after I mail this letter, so you won’t have time to wire me not to come. I’m just crazy about the West. Your letters have done it, Jim. I’ve devoured them. Dad is so proud of you he almost busts. But Mother thinks it’s terrible. I’m sorry to spring this on you so sudden. I hope you will be glad to see me. It seems ages since you left. You’ll never know your Gloriana May. Expect me on the Western Special, November 7th, and meet me with a bunch of cowboys, a string of horses, and one of those tally-ho things you call a chuck-wagon. I’m starved to death.

“Love.

“GLORIANA.”

Jim read the letter twice and then stared into the fire. “Sounds like Glory, yet somehow it doesn’t...I wonder if she is really ill...Or in any kind of trouble...It was Glory’s affairs with boys that stuck in my craw...Well. November the seventh. By jinks! it’s Monday! What shall I say to Molly?”

The difficulty, it seemed to Jim, would be serious. Glory was bright and clever. She had graduated from high school at seventeen. She could do ‘most anything well, and had a genius for designing and making modish dresses and bonnets. Molly, on the other hand, was a shy little wood-mouse. She had never had any advantages. Two years at a backwoods school had been all the opportunity for education that had ever come to her. She was exceedingly sensitive about her lack of knowledge and her crudeness. The situation would be a delicate one, for Molly, in her way, was quite as proud as Gloriana was in hers.

“I’ll trust to Molly’s generous heart and the western bigness of her,” soliloquised Jim. “In the end Glory will love her. That I’ll gamble on.”

CHAPTER THREE

NEXT MORNING AS they went out to breakfast, Jim hugged Molly disgracefully in the dark, cold corridor. When Molly escaped into the dining-room a less keen eye than that of the old rancher, who stood back to the blazing-fire, could have made amusing deductions.

“Mawnin’, Uncle Jim. I — I been chased by a bear,” laughed Molly.

“Good mornin’, lass. Shore I seen thet...Howdy, son! What do you think of Arizona weather?”

“Terrible. And you’re sending me to camp out after Thanksgiving!” protested Jim. It seemed to him there was going to be good reason for him to stay in Flagerstown.

“Wal. Yellow Jacket is five or six thousand feet lower, an’ if it snows it melts right off. Molly can vouch for thet. An’ the valley of the Cibeque is higher than Yellow Jacket.”

“I’ve seen snow every winter I can remember, most up on the Diamond. Down at my home it never lasted a day,” replied Molly.

“That’s some consolation.”

“Jim, I think it’s grand. I shore hope you won’t go back on your promise,” said Molly.

“What promise?”

“Aboot takin’ me to town in a sleigh, with bells ringin’. An’ snowballin’ me. Oh! I’m shore I’ll love this winter.”

“Yes, I’ll keep my praise, and I bet you beg for mercy.”

Jim made good his promise, and when he had Molly bundled in the sleigh beside him, her cheeks like roses and her dark curls flying, he was as proud as she was delighted. Much to his satisfaction, all the young people of Flagerstown appeared to be out sleigh-riding also; and many a girl who had made Jim uncomfortable when he was a tenderfoot saw him now with Molly.

Jim drove around to the barn, having in mind the latter half of his promise to Molly, which surely she had forgotten. As they went by the big bunk-house Bud Chalfack poked his ruddy cherub face out of the door and yelled, “Hey, boss, thet ain’t fair.” Jim yelled back, “Get yourself a girl, you cowboy.”

At the barn he handed the reins to a Mexican stable boy, and helped Molly out. Then he led her into the lane toward the ranchhouse. She was paddling along beside him through the deep snow and babbling merrily. When fully out of sight of the hawk-eyed cowboys Jim snatched up a big handful of snow, and seizing Molly he washed her rosy face with it.

“Jim Traft — you — you—” she sputtered, as he let her go. Then before she could recover her sight and breath he snatched up a double handful of snow and pitched that at her. His aim was true. It burst all over her in a white shower. She screamed, and bending quickly she squeezed a tight little snowball and threw it at Jim. He managed to save his eye, but it struck him on the head. Molly, it appeared, was no mean antagonist. Then fast and furious came the little snowballs. Never a one missed!

“Hey, you said — you’d never had a snowball fight,” he panted.

“Shore never had. But I can lick you, Missouri,” she replied, her high gay laugh pealing out.

Jim realised that she would make good her word unless he carried the battle to close range. Wherefore he rushed her, getting a snowball square on the nose for his pains. She dodged.

“Aw, Jim — stand up — an’ fight square,” she squealed.

But he caught her, tumbled her into the snow, rolled her over and over, and finally swept a great armful upon her. Then he ran for dear life, tinglingly aware the snowy cyclone at his heels.

Later Jim emerged from concealment and walked down to the bunk-house. He had not seen the boys for several days. He stamped on the porch.

“Hey; don’t pack no snow in hyar,” yelled a voice. “I gotta do the sweepin’ fer this outfit.”

Jim opened the door and went in. The big room was cheerful with its crackling fire, and amazingly clean, considering it harboured the hardest cowboy outfit in Arizona.

“Howdy, boys!” he sang out.

“You needn’t come an’ crow over us,” answered Bud. “Sleigh-ridin’ with Molly Dunn!”

Jackson Way looked askance at Jim’s snowy boots, his lean young face puckered and resentful. “Boss, I reckon you had this snow come on purpose.”

Hump Stevens spoke from his bunk, where he lay propped up, cheerful and smiling.

“How are you, Hump?”

“Rarin’ to go, Boss. I been walkin’ around this mornin’. An’ I won all the money the boys had.”

“Good work,” said Jim, and turning to Uphill Frost, who sat before the fire in a rocking-chair, with a crutch significantly at hand. “And you, Up?”

“Boss, I ain’t so damn good, far as disposition goes. But I could fork a horse if I had to.”

“Great! Where’s Cherry and Lonestar?” went on Jim.

“They hoofed it in town to see Slinger,” replied Frost.

“I haven’t been to the hospital for three days,” said Jim. “How’s Slinger coming around?”

“He was up, walkin’ around, cussin’ Doc fer not lettin’ him smoke all he wants. Reckon time hangs heavy on Slinger. He can’t read much, an’ he says he wants to get back in the woods. Asked why you didn’t come to see him. Didn’t he, Bud?”

“Sure. Slinger complained like hell of your neglect, Boss. I seen him yestiddy. An’ I told him thet no one never seen you no more. Then he cussed Molly fer not fetchin’ you.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll see him tomorrow,” replied Jim, contritely.

Curly Prentiss, the handsome blond young giant of the Diamond outfit, sat at a table, writing with absorbed violence. He alone had not appeared to note Jim’s entrance.

“Curly, I’ve news for you.”

But Curly gave no sign that he heard, whereupon Jim addressed Bud. “What ails Curly?”

“Same old sickness, Boss. I’ve seen Curly doubled up with that fer five years, about every few months. Mebbe it’s a little wuss than usual, fer his girl chucked him an’ married Wess Stebbins.”

“No!”

“Sure’s a fack. They run off to Winslow. You see, Curly come the high an’ mighty once too often. Caroline bucked. An’ they had it hot an’ heavy. Curly told her to go where it was hot — so she says — an’ he marched off with his haid up...Wal, Carrie took him at his word. Thet is — he’d unhooked her bridle. Wess always was loony over her, an’ she married him, which we all reckon was a darned good thing. Now Curly is writin’ his funeral letter, after which he aims to get turrible drunk.”

“Curly,” spoke up Jim, kindly.

“Cain’t you leave me alone heah?” appealed the cowboy.

“Yes, in a minute. Sorry to disturb you, old man. But I’ve news about Yellow Jacket, Jed Stone, and his Hash-Knife outfit.”

“To hell with them! I’m a ruined cowboy. Soon as I get this document written I’m goin’ to town an’ look at red licker.”

“Nope,” said Jim, laconically.

“Wal, I jest am. Who says I cain’t?”

“I do, Curly.”

“But you’re not my boss. I’ve quit the Diamond. I’ll never fork a hoss again.”

“Curly, you wouldn’t let us tackle that Hash-Knife gang without you?”

“Jim, I cain’t care aboot nothin’. My heart’s broke. I could see you all shot. I could see Bud Chalfack hung on a tree an’ laugh.”

“Curly, didn’t you and I get to be good friends?”

“Shore. An’ I was durn proud of it. But friendship’s nuthin’ to love. Aw, Boss, I’m ashamed to face you with it...Caroline has turned out to be false. Chucked me fer thet bowlegged Stebbins puncher! Who’d ever thought I’d come to sech disgrace?”

“Curly, it’s no disgrace. Wess is a good chap. He’ll make Caroline happy. You didn’t really love her.”

“Wha-at!” roared Curly. And when his hearers all greeted this with a laugh he sank back crestfallen.

“Curly, there’s some good reasons why you can’t throw down the Diamond at this stage,” said Jim, seriously, and placed a kindly hand on the cowboy’s shoulder.

“Jest you give me one, Jim Traft,” blustered Curly, and he laid down his pencil.

Jim knew perfectly well that this wonderful young Westerner could not be untrue to anyone. “First, then, Curly. You’ve already got a few head of stock on the range. In a few years you’ll be a rancher on your own account.”

“No reason at all. I don’t want thet stock. I’d have given it to Bud if he hadn’t been so nasty aboot Caroline. Swore she’d finally come to her senses. Then I gave the cattle to Hump, heah.”

“Well, Hump can give them back...Another reason is Uncle Jim is throwing us plumb against the Hash-Knife outfit. Now what would the Diamond amount to without Curly Prentiss?”

“I don’t give a — a damn,” rejoined Curly. But it was a weak assertion.

“See there, Boss,” yelled Bud, red in the face. “He hates us all jest because thet red-headed Carrie Bambridge chucked him.”

“Curly, it’s just as well,” went on Jim. “Listen, and all of you. This is a secret and not to be spoken of except among ourselves. Uncle Jim is sure Bambridge is crooked. Making deals with the Hash-Knife.”

All the cowboys except Curly expressed themselves in different degrees of exclamation.

At length Curly spoke. “Even if Bainbridge was crooked — that’d make no difference to me.”

“Did you ask Caroline to marry you?” queried Jim, kindly.

“Dog-gone-it, no,” replied Curly, and here his fine, frank face flamed. “Boss, I never was sure I cared that much, till I lost her.”

“Curly, it wasn’t the real thing — your case on Caroline.”

“Ahuh. Jim, you haven’t given me any argument why I shouldn’t go out an’ drown my grief in the bottle — an’ shoot up the town — an’ kill somebody or get put in jail.”

“No? All right. Here’s another reason,” replied Jim, and he drew a photograph out of his pocket and laid it on the table in front of Curly.

The cowboy started, bent over, and became absorbed in the picture.

Bud Chalfack started, too, but Jim waved him back.

“My Gawd! Boss, who is this?” asked Curly.

“My sister, Gloriana May Traft.”

“Your sister? — Jim, I shore ought to have seen the resemblance, though she’s ten million times better-lookin’ than you...But how is she a reason for my not goin’ to the bad?”

“Curly, it’s as simple as pie,” said Jim. “Gloriana is a sick girl. She’s coming West for her health. She’ll arrive on Monday, on the Western Special. Now, I ask you, have you the heart to bust up the Diamond — to get drunk and worry me to death — when I’ve got this new trouble on my hands?”

Curly took another long look at the photograph, and then he turned to Jim with all the clouds vanished from his eyes and face. To see Curly thus was to love him.

“Boss, I haven’t got the heart to throw you down,” he replied. “It’s my great weakness — this heah heart of mine...I reckon I wasn’t goin’ to — anyhow...An’ I’ll go down to meet the Western Special with you.”

Jim, if he had dared, could have yelled his mirth. How well he had known Curly.

“Lemme see thet pictoor?” demanded Bud, advancing.

Curly handed the photograph back to Jim, and said, blandly, “Bud, gulls of high degree shouldn’t interest you.”

“Boys, I want you all to see Glory’s picture,” said Jim, calmly, though he revelled in the moment. “Come, take a look.”

Bud and Jackson Way leaped forward; Uphill Frost forgot his crutch, Hump Stevens hopped out of his bunk; and they all, with Curly irresistibly drawn, crowded around Jim.

The long silence that ensued attested to the beauty of Gloriana Traft.

Finally Bud exploded: “Lord! ain’t she a looker?”

“Prettier even than Molly Dunn,” added Way, as if that was the consummation of all beauty.

“I never seen no angel till this minnit,” was Uphill Frost’s encomium.

“Ef I jest wasn’t a crippled cowpuncher an’ had a million dollars!” exclaimed Hump Stevens, with a sigh. “Boss, her name fits her.”

Curly Prentiss reacted peculiarly to all this. It seemed he resented the looks and sighs and fervid comments of his comrades, as if they had profaned a sacred face already enshrined in his impressionable heart.

“Wal, I’m informin’ you gentlemen of the range thet I saw her first,” he said, loftily.

Bud took that as an insult. Frost swore his surprise. Hump Stevens stared in silence. Jackson Way laughed at the superb and conceited cowboy. Then Curly addressed Jim. “Boss, it’s shore plain the Diamond will be busted now.”

CHAPTER FOUR

JIM DID NOT see much of Molly on Sunday. She kept to her room except at meal hours. He found opportunity however, to ask her to go into town with him on Monday to meet his sister.

“I’d rather not, Jim,” she replied, as if her mind had long been made up. “She’d rather you didn’t fetch any girl, especially your girl, to meet her, thet’s shore.”

“But why, Molly?” he queried.

“It’ll be a surprise to her — the way things are with you an’ me. An’ it oughtn’t come the minute she gets heah.”

“We don’t need to tell her right away.”

“She’d see it...Jim, you should have written home weeks ago — to tell your folks aboot me.”

“I suppose I ought. Really I meant to. Only I just didn’t write.”

“Wal, I reckon it’d be better not to let her know right away. I could hide it. But I’m shore afraid you couldn’t. Uncle Jim will blurt it out.”

“Molly! The idea — not telling Gloriana we’re engaged,” he protested, mystified by her gravity.

“Jim, it’ll be all right if only she takes to me, but if she’s like you when you first struck Flag — she won’t.”

“I was pretty much of a snob,” he admitted. “Molly, I’m the better for all I’ve gone through...You realise, don’t you, how much I—”

The entrance of Molly’s mother prohibited the rest of that tender speech. And Jim presently left the living-room perturbed in mind. He could not rid himself of a premonition that Gloriana’s coming heralded disaster. No further opportunity to speak privately to Molly presented itself that day; and early Monday morning Molly trudged off to school like any country girl, wading through the snow. How serious she was about her studies!

In the afternoon Jim sent for Curly Prentiss, who appeared as if by magic, most gorgeously arrayed in the gayest and finest of cowboy habiliments.

“For goodness’ sake? Why this togging up?” exclaimed Jim.

Curly appeared to be labouring under stress.

“Had hell with the outfit,” he said. “Come near punchin’ Bud. He swore I ought to wear a plain suit — which is somethin’ I don’t own — but I’m no business man, or even a rancher yet. An’ I want to look what I am.”

“Oh, you mean you want my sister Gloriana to see you’re a real cowboy?”

“Shore do.”

“Big hat, gun, spurs, and all?”

“I reckon.”

“Well, Curly, she’ll see you all right. She could see you a mile away.”

“Jim, don’t you give me any of your chin aboot how I look. I had enough from Bud an’ Jack an’ Uphill. An’ my feelin’s are hurt...They’re goin’ to meet thet train, all of them except Hump. He wanted us to carry him on a stretcher. Up is goin’ on a crutch — the damn fool!”

“Fine. The sooner you all see Gloriana May the sooner you’ll be miserable...I’ve ordered the buckboard to meet the train. Let’s walk in, Curly, and stop to see Slinger.”

“It’s a good idea. A little movin’ around might steady me. I’d shore hate to meet Jed Stone or thet Pecos gun-thrower.”

Their long steps soon brought them to the edge of town and eventually the modest hospital, which, unpretentious as it was, had become the boast of cowboys.

They found Slinger Dunn the only inmate, besides an attendant or two, and he was limping up and down a warm and comfortable room. His dark face, bronze and smooth like an Indian’s wreathed into a smile at sight of his visitors. He had gained since Jim had last seen him. His long hair, black as the wing of a crow, hung down over the collar of the loose woollen dressing-gown he wore, in which obviously he felt ill at ease. Jim always thrilled at sight of Slinger, and had reason to do so, beyond appreciation of his striking figure and piercing eyes. Anyone who had ever seen Molly Dunn would at once connect Slinger with her.

“Howdy, boys! It’s aboot time you was comin’,” he drawled. “Molly came in on her way to school, or I’d shore be daid now.”

“Patience, Slinger. Why, you’ve made a marvellous recovery!” said Jim, cheerily.

“Slinger, you backwoods son-of-a-gun, only five weeks ago you was a sieve of bullet holes,” declared Curly. “An’ heah you can walk aboot.”

“Wal, it’s easy fer you fellars to talk, but I’d like to see you stand stayin’ heah. Day after day — night after night. Thet damn Doc won’t give me any more cigarettes an’ only a nip of whisky. Set down, boys, an’ tell me some news.”

“Slinger, just as soon as you can ride we’re off for Yellow Jacket,” announced Jim.

“Wal, pack up fer tomorrow mawnin’.”

“Not till after Thanksgiving. Three weeks yet. And now listen.” Whereupon Jim related all the late news and rumours about the Hash-Knife outfit.

“Shore, I’d expect thet of Jed Stone,” said Dunn. “An’, Boss, if you want to know, I’ve long had a hunch Bambridge is back of the Hash-Knife.”

“No!” ejaculated Jim, aghast at so definite a statement from this backwoodsman.

“Slinger, we reckon you mean Bambridge ain’t above buyin’ a few haid of stock from Stone now an’ then?” queried Curly, slow and cool, but his blue eyes flashed fire.

“Hell no! Buyin’ a few steers nuthin’,” drawled Dunn, forcibly. “Bambridge’s outlayin’ ranch is across the divide from Yellow Jacket. Thirty miles around by road. But by the canyon — Doubtful we call it — there’s less’n ten miles. An’ Bambridge is gettin’ stock through Doubtful an’ drivin’ it to Maricopa.”

Curly whistled his amazement. Jim simply stared. This was getting down to hard pan. It did not occur to either of them to question Slinger Dunn.

“Shore, I can’t prove it, Jim,” he continued. “But it’s what I reckon. An my hunch is fer us to keep our traps shet — an’ go down to Yellow Jacket to make shore.”

“Right, you bet,” agreed Curly. “But if it’s true, the Hash-Knife will stop operations until either they or the Diamond are settled.”

“We’ve got to find out,” interposed Jim emphatically. “Ring Locke advised against Uncle sending the Diamond on that job. Said we could do easier and more important work. He’s afraid Bambridge might shoot Uncle.”

“Wal, there’s shore risk of thet,” rejoined Dunn. “But Traft could keep out of the way. When we get the trick on these fellars we can do a little shootin’ ourselves...You know, Boss, there ain’t no other way oot of it.”

“So Uncle says,” assented Jim, gloomily. “Slinger, you don’t think it’ll be another Pleasant Valley War?”

“Lord, no,” declared Dunn, showing his white teeth. “Thet war hed hundreds of sheepmen an’ cattlemen behind it, with rustlers on the side of the sheep fellars. This heah deal is a matter of a little gunplay.”

“Slinger, you’ve got a lot of time to think it over,” said Jim. “Do so, and I’ll come in after a few days. I’m a little upset just now. My sister is coming today. She’s ill. They say the climate will agree with her.”

“Thet’s too bad, Boss. But mebbe it’ll all turn oot right...Molly never told me you hed a sister. I reckon I know how you feel.”

“Here’s her picture, Slinger,” said Jim, producing the photograph and handing it over.

“Wal, I never before seen any girl or a pictoor of one thet could beat Molly. But this heah shore does.”

“Molly is totally unlike Gloriana. Just as pretty in her way, I think,” he said, stoutly.

“Boss, you’re loco. Molly is a slick, soft, pretty little woodmouse. But this sister of yourn is like the sun in the mawnin’.”

Jim felt a surprise he did not betray. The compliment to Gloriana at Molly’s expense did not find great favour with Jim. Receiving the picture back, he took a look at it, somehow seeing Glory differently, and then he returned it to his pocket.

“It was taken a year ago,” he explained. “And if Gloriana has improved in looks since I’ve been gone as much as she did the year before — whew! but she’ll be something to look at. I hardly expect improvement, though, since she has been ill.”

“Huh! Thet gurl couldn’t be ailin’,” returned Dunn, positively.

Conversation reverted to other channels then — the Diamond, the incompleted drift fence, winter, horses — until finally Jim rose to go, with Curly following suit.

“Slinger, I’m awful glad you’re doing so well,” said Jim.

“Wal, you fellars have cheered me right pert. Come again soon...An’, Jim, would you mind lettin’ me borrow thet pictoor fer a spell? I get hells rattlin’ lonesome — an’ it’d be good to look at.”

“Why, certainly, Slinger,” declared Jim, hastily producing it. “I’m sure Glory will be flattered.”

“Thanks, Boss,” drawled Slinger. “Your havin’ a sister too, kinda makes us closer, huh? Wal, adios.”

For a cowboy who had been born on a horse and who had spent most of his life in a saddle, Curly Prentiss could certainly walk. He might have had on seven-league boots. In quick time they arrived at the station, to find Zeb there with the buckboard; but Jackson, Lonestar Holliday, Cherry Winters, and Uphill in a state of vast excitement, that seemed strange in their plain business suits, at least three of which were brand new.

The Western Special roared into the station, all ice and snow, with the steam hissing and the smoke obscuring the platform lights. It was almost dark. When the engine and mail and baggage cars passed the air cleared, and the bright lights shone again. In his excitement Jim quite forgot his comrades. The second coach stopped opposite his position and he was all eyes. A porter began sliding bags and suit-cases off the step. Then a slim form emerged from the car upon the vestibule. The furs proclaimed it feminine. But there was too much shadow. Then she stepped down and paused in the bright light. It was Gloriana, Jim said to himself, conscious of inward tumult. The tall slim shape, with its air of distinction, the cut of the long fur coat, the set of the stylish little hat, would have been enough. But Jim stared a moment longer, Gloriana’s face shone like a white flower out of the black furs, and her great eyes, dark in that light, strained eagerly to and fro, and then fixed on him.

“Jim!” she cried in rapture. When had she ever called to him with a voice like that? He ran to the steps and lifted her down in a bearish hug. She did not appear as substantial and heavy as he remembered his sister.

“Glory! — Dog-gone, I’m glad to see you!” he said, and certainly returned the warm kiss she gave him, which struck him as even more unusual than the poignant tone of her voice. Something had changed Jim Traft’s value in the eyes of his sister.

“Jim, you can’t be — half as glad — as I am to see — you,” she panted, gaily, clinging to him. “Is this the — North Pole? Who are these young men?...Jim, I thought Arizona was desert — sunny, hot — all golden ranges and pine trees.”

“Hey, boys, grab the bags,” ordered Jim, with a laugh. “Fetch them into the waiting-room.” Then he led Gloriana into the station, where it was light and warm. “The rig will be here in a minute...Gosh!...I just don’t know you, Glory. Your eyes, maybe.”

“No one, not even a brother, would ever have been likely to forget Gloriana May’s eyes. At this moment they were travelling over Jim, brilliant with amaze.

“I know you and I don’t. You great big handsome man. Oh, Jim, you’re so wonderfully different. Arizona has improved you...I’ll bet you’ve fallen in love with some Western cow-girl.”

Jim should have said she had guessed right the very first time, and he would have done so, but for the something familiar and disconcerting that was merely Gloriana. Then the cowboys came bustling in with bags and suit-cases. Even Uphill carried one with an air of importance. Curly disengaged himself from the excited group and strode forward. Sight of him filled Jim with glee, and a quick glance at Glory took in her eyes, fixed and beautiful. Now it was a natural function of Glory’s eyes, even in her most casual glance, to shine and glow and give illusion of a thousand thoughts that were not in her head at all. They were so alive, so speaking, so eloquent, so treacherously lovely, that Jim sustained a second thrill at sight of them.

“A cowboy!” she whispered. “Jim, I believe you now.”

It probably was a magnificent moment for Curly, but he did not betray that in the least.

“Boss, Zeb is heah with the buckboard,” he announced in his cool, lazy way.

“Gloriana, this is Curly Prentiss, one of my cowboys — and quite a cattleman in his own right,” introduced Jim. “Curly — my sister.”

Curly doffed his sombrero and made a gallant bow that, though easy and slow like his voice, was as singularly pleasing.

“Miss Traft, I shore am glad to meet you-all,” he said.

“How do you do, Mr. Prentiss. I’m pleased to meet you,” she replied, with a dazzling smile. “You are my very first cowboy.”

Gloriana May probably did not mean she had taken possession of Curly at first sight, but Jim saw that this identical circumstance had come to pass.

“Wal,” drawled Curly, not in the least knocked off his balance, “I’m shore happy to be the first an’ I’ll see to it I’m the last.”

“Oh,” laughed Glory, merrily, and turned to Jim with her first appreciation of a cowboy.

The other boys lined up, with Uphill Frost hanging a little behind to hide his crutch. They presented a bright-eyed, shiny-faced coterie, at the moment devoid of any trace of devilment or horns and hoofs.

“Boys, this is my sister, Gloriana,” announced Jim. “Glory, meet the rest of the Diamond, except two that are laid up for repairs...Bud Chalfack.”

Bud took a step out and his smile was cherubic. “Miss Gloriana, I reckon there ain’t no one any gladder to welcome you to Arizonie.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chalfack. I’m happy to meet you,” replied Gloriana.

“And this is Lonestar Holliday,” went on Jim. Lonestar in his eager confusion stepped on Bud’s foot and could not find words to answer Glory’s bright acknowledgement.

“And Jackson Way...and Cherry Winters...and Uphill Frost...There, Glory, you’ve made the acquaintance of most of the Diamond, which, according to Uncle Jim, is the most terrible cowboy outfit in Arizona.”

“Oh, I’m sure Uncle Jim is wrong,” said Gloriana, sweetly.

“They look very nice and mild to me — except Mr. Prentiss — who is quite terrifying with his gun and those awful spurs.”

Somehow Jim got the impression from Glory’s speaking eyes that she meant Curly’s handsome presence was something calculated to stop the heart of a girl fresh from the East.

Bud looked disgustedly at Curly, as if to say he had gone and done it again. If there was anything a cowboy hated it was to be thought nice and mild.

“Miss Glory,” he spoke up, most winningly, and Jim made certain that the next time Bud addressed her it would be Glory minus the prefix, “there’s some cowpunchers who pack hard-ware all the time an’ sleep in their spurs. But they ain’t the dangerous kind.”

Thus Jim saw with delight a new species of men and life dawn upon his bewildered sister. Likewise he perceived with fiendish glee that he was going to get even with the Diamond.

“Carry the baggage out, boys,” he said. “We’ll go home to the ranch...Curly, you can ride with us, so in case we meet any desperadoes or Indians they won’t get Glory.”

CHAPTER FIVE

ON THE WAY out Jim did not say anything to Glory about the room he had fixed up for her. In fact, he did not have much chance to talk, for Glory addressed her curiosity to Curly. Jim drove fast, so the wind would pierce through his sister, furs and all. It did.

“F-f-fine f-for a g-girl with o-one lung,” chattered Gloriana as Jim lifted her out of the buckboard. “G-good-n-night — Mr. Curly. If I don’t — f-f-freeze to death I’ll see you — to-tomorrow.”

“I shore pray for a moderation of temperature,” replied Curly, gallantly. “Goodnight, Miss Traft.”

“Set the bags on the porch,” said Jim, “and hurry those horses into the barn...Glory, I reckon you’ll want to get warm before you see Uncle Jim.”

Gloriana stood in the cold starlight, looking out at the spectral pine forest and the pure white peaks that notched the sky. “W-w-wonderful!”

Jim almost carried her to her room, which was in the west end of the rambling ranch-house. When he opened the door a blaze of light and warmth and colour greeted Gloriana’s eyes. Jim had spent a whole day on making this room different from any Glory had ever seen, and one that would be livable, even for a sick girl in zero weather. It had an open fireplace where logs were snapping and blazing; Navajo rugs covered the floor; Indian ornaments of bead, basket, and silver work hung on the walls; a fine elk head, with massive horns, stood out over the mantel; the bed had a coverlet of deep, woolly, soft red, most inviting to the eye. Even the lamp had a shade painted with Indian designs.

Gloriana gasped with delight, threw off her furs and hat, and rushed to the fire, where she stretched her gloved hands.

“Pretty nifty, huh?” asked Jim.

“Just lovely. But wait a minute until I can see.”

Jim went out to fetch in the luggage. He had to make three trips to the porch and back. “Glory, from the looks of this you’ve come to stay awhile.”

“I’ve three trunks, too,” rejoined Gloriana.

“Is that all? Gee! I didn’t figure on trunks when I worked over this room. But there’s a big closet...Turn round, Glory, so I can look at you.”

“Well, how do I look?” she asked soberly.

“Prettier than ever, Glory, only different. I can’t figure it yet,” said Jim.

“Thanks. I didn’t hope for compliment...Jim, you’ve been away almost a year.”

“So long? Gee! time flies. Well sister, it has been a terrible and a wonderful year for me. I’ve sure got a story to tell you. But that can wait. Sit down. You look fagged. And tell me about yourself. Mother’s letter scared me.”

“Jim, you’re my last bet,” she said frankly.

“Glory!...I don’t understand,” exclaimed Jim, blankly. “You were a belle when I left home. You had so many friends that I never saw you. Then all that money Aunt Mary left you...And now I’m your last bet!”

“Funny, isn’t it, Jim?...Retribution, I guess.”

“For what?”

“I was never — a — a real sister.”

Jim caressed the soft, thin little hand while he gazed into the fire and pondered. A chill of fear of he knew not what crept over him. Glory had always worried him. Her childish pranks then her girlish escapades — but now she seemed a woman!

“Perhaps that was my fault,” he replied, regretfully.

“Jim — you’re changed,” said his sister, quickly.

“Sure. I’d not been much good if this Arizona hadn’t changed me.”

“I hope it does as well by me,” she continued, wistfully.

“Glory...what’re you driving at?” burst out Jim, no longer able to repress a mounting anxiety.

“Please — ask me questions.”

That from Gloriana May was indeed a strange request. Jim felt an uncomfortable constriction of his throat.

“Glory, have you really lung trouble?” he queried, sharply.

“No. Mother and Dad think so because I got so white and thin. I coaxed Dr. Williamson to hint of that. I wanted to come West.”

“Thank goodness! — But, you deceitful girl! Why such an extreme? And are you really ill?”

“Only run down, Jim.”

“From what?”

“Worry — unhappiness.”

Jim imagined his ears were deceiving him. Yet there his sister sat, slipping closer to him. She was now half off the arm of his chair and her head rested on his shoulder. A faint fragrance came from her hair. He let a long silence ensue. He could not ask just then what was forming in his mind.

“Love affair?” he finally asked, lightly.

“Affair — but not love,” she replied, scornfully.

“So that’s it?”

“No, that’s not it. Still, it had a lot to do with it.”

“Gloriana!” That was how he had used to address her when he was on his dignity or wished to reprove. She laughed a little, remembering it.

“Jim, I — I have disgraced the family,” she admitted, with a catch in her breath, and suddenly she sat up.

“My God!...Oh, Glory — you can’t be serious!” he exclaimed, distressed, yet uncertain.

“I wish to heaven I wasn’t serious.”

Jim tried to prepare himself for a blow. Contact with the rough and wholesome West had knocked pride and prejudice out of his head. Nevertheless, something of the former reared its hydra head. In his gathering apprehension and horror he sensed that he was on trial. He must react differently to this revelation. Glory had come to him in her trouble. If he repulsed or scorned her! If he showed any of the old outraged brotherly disfavour! Suddenly he happened to think of Curly Prentiss — that cool, easy, careless firebrand of a Texas cowboy. How would he take such a confession from a once-loved sister? Beloved still, he discovered, poignantly! But that thought of Curly was sustaining. Its content typified the West.

“Well, so little sister has kicked over the traces?” he queried, as coolly as ever Curly could have said it.

“Jim, don’t misunderstand,” she said, quickly. “I’ve been wild, crazy, out of my head. But I can still look you in the eyes.”

“Shore, I never had any notion you couldn’t,” he replied, essaying Curly’s drawl. Then he put his arm around her, which action brought Glory slipping into his lap. Her head went down with a suspicious haste. Her nervous hands tightened on his. “Tell me all about it.”

“Jim, you remember when I was sixteen the Andersons took me up,” began Glory, presently. “That began my gadding about, my desire for fine clothes — excitement, dancing — and so forth. Then Aunt Mary left me that money. And you remember the summer I graduated — how gay I was — what a wonderful time I had!...Even before you left I was travelling with a pretty fast set. But we younger girls hadn’t really gotten into it yet. After you left home I was about ready for it, I guess. But something happened. I met a man named Darnell — from St. Louis. He was handsome — and all the girls were crazy over him. That tickled me. I — I thought I was in love with him. It might have been just as well — the way things turned out. I could have done worse. Mother wanted me to marry Mr. Hanford — you know him — the dry-goods merchant.”

“Not Henry Hanford?” broke out Jim, incredulously.

“Yes, Henry Hanford. He was more than old enough to be my father. But Mother nagged me nearly to death. I dare say she wanted me to be — safe — Dad hated my running around — and he didn’t like Ed Darnell. So we had a bad time for some months...I thought I was engaged to Ed. So did everybody else. All the same, I wasn’t. He said he was mad about me, but he didn’t ask me to marry him...He borrowed a lot of money from me. He was a gambler. Then he embezzled money from Dad. Oh, how wretched it was! He left town, without a word to me. The truth came out — and — and the Andersons, the Loyals, the Millers — all my old friends dropped me. Cut me dead!...That broke Mother’s heart. And it went hard with Dad...Well, I had reached the end of my rope. You know what gossip is in a little town. And gossip made it a great deal worse than it actually was. I had been a fool over Ed Darnell. I had snubbed some of the boys because of him. I had been wild as a partridge — so far as parties, dancing, running around were concerned. But I wasn’t as bad as I looked. Still that queered me at home, when the crash came...And, Jim, it knocked me out. I began to go down-hill. I realised I was done for there. I worried myself sick. Many and many a night I cried myself to sleep. I went downhill...And then I got thinking about the West — your West. I read all your letters to Mother. You never wrote me. And I thought, if I could get out West, far away, it’d be my salvation...and here I am.”

“Well, is that all?” drawled Jim, true to his imitation of Curly. “You shore had me plumb scared.”

“Jim!” she cried, and then she kissed his cheek in mute gratitude. By that Jim felt how hard it had been for Gloriana to confess to him — how little of a brother he had been in times past. Then before he could say more she burst into tears, which was another amazing thing, and Jim could do no more than hold her. Pity and tenderness welled up in his heart for his sister. Indeed, there had been cause for her to come West and throw herself upon his protection. The very idea was incredible, yet here she was, sobbing softly now, and gaining control of herself.

“Thank God I — I had the — courage to come,” she said, speaking a thought aloud. “I — I never knew how — good Jim was!”

That established a character Jim regretted he hardly deserved, and one to which he felt he must live up.

“Glory, I’ve got a little confession to make, myself,” he said, with a happy laugh. “Not that I’ve actually fallen by the wayside. But I’ve gone back on the East. And I’m—”

“Wait,” she interrupted, sitting up to dry her eyes. “I haven’t told all — and what seems the worst to me.”

“Gosh!” ejaculated Jim, with a sinking sensation in his chest. “Perhaps you’d better not tell me more.”

“Jim, I met Ed Darnell in the station at St. Louis,” went on Glory, hastily, as if eager to impart what seemed important. “Quite by accident. I had to change trains there and wait five hours. And it was my bad luck to run into him first thing...Well, he raved. He made a thousand excuses...The liar! The thief!...I absolutely refused to have any more to do with him. Yet I was scared stiff at him. He had some queer power over me. But I had sense enough to realise I despised him. Then he threatened me — swore he’d follow me. And Jim — that’s exactly what he’ll do. He knew, of course, about Uncle Jim, the rich ranchman. Mother gabbed a lot. At first she was fascinated by Ed. I didn’t tell him where I was going, but he could find out easily. And he’ll come. I saw it in his eyes...And that’d be dreadful.”

“Let him come,” replied Jim, grimly. “I hope he does. It would be a bad move for Mr. Darnell.”

“What would you do?” queried Gloriana, with all a woman’s curiosity.

“Glory, you’re out West now. It’ll take you some time to realise it...I’d impress that fact upon Mr. Darnell pretty pronto. And if it wasn’t enough, I’d tell Curly Prentiss.”

“That wonderful-looking cowboy!” exclaimed Gloriana. “He seemed so kind and nice. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Jim laughed outright. Gloriana would be the tenderfoot of all tenderfeet who ever struck Arizona.

“Glory, I’m engaged,” he blurted out suddenly, with a gulp.

“Jim Traft! You’ve kept up that catty Sue Henderson,” exclaimed Glory, incredulously.

At first Jim could not connect any of his Missouri attachments of bygone days with that particular name. When he did he laughed, not only at Glory’s absurd guess, but at the actual realisation. Ten times ten months might have elapsed since he left home.

“No, Glory. My girl is a real Westerner,” he replied.

“Real Westerner? What do you mean by that? Uncle Jim was born in the East. He couldn’t be Western.”

“He’s pretty much so, as you will discover. Molly was born in Arizona. She’s about eighteen. Twice in her life she has been to Flagerstown, and that is the extent of her travels. She lives down in the Cibeque, one of the wildest valleys in Arizona.”

“Molly — Molly what?” queried Glory, her white smooth brow wrinkling, and her fine eyes dilating and changing, as she bent them upon Jim.

“Molly Dunn. Isn’t it pretty?” rejoined Jim, warming to his subject. He had need to.

“Rather. But sort of common, like Jones or Brown. Is she pretty?”

“Glory, I reckon there’s only one prettier girl in the world, and that’s you.”

It was a subtle and beautiful compliment, but somehow lost upon Gloriana May.

“You were always getting a case on some girl — back home. It never lasted long,” said his sister, reflectively.

“This will last.”

“How about her family?” came the inevitable interrogation.

“Arizona backwoods. And that’s as blue-blooded as the skies out here,” replied Jim, rising to the issue. “Her father was ruined by a range feud between cattlemen and sheepmen. Her mother has been a hardworking pioneer. You will learn what that means. Molly has one brother. Slinger Dunn. I don’t know his first name. But the Slinger comes from his quickness and use with a gun. He has killed several men — and shot up I don’t know how many.”

“Desperado?” gasped Gloriana.

“Of course an Easterner would call him that. I did at first. But now he’s just Slinger to me — and the very salt of the earth.”

Dismay, consternation, and sincere regret succeeded one another on Gloriana’s expressive face.

“Dad called me the black sheep of our family,” she said. “But I’m afraid there are two...It’ll kill Mother...Jim, they have no idea whatever of all this. Dad brags to his friends about you. How you are in charge of his brother’s big cattle ranch. Nothing of this — this you tell me — ever crept into your letters. I know them by heart.”

“That’s true, Glory. I left out the real stuff which was making me over. And besides, it all sort of bunched just lately...Look here.” Jim unbuttoned his flannel shirt at the neck, and pulled his collar back to expose a big angry scar at his breast.

“My heavens! what’s that?” she queried, fearfully.

“My dear sister, that’s a bullet hole,” he replied, not without pride.

“You were shot?”

“I should smile.”

“My God! — Jim, this is awful! You might have been killed.”

“Shore I might. I darn near was. I lay in the woods two days with that wound. Alone!”

“And you can smile about it!” she ejaculated, her eyes dark with awe and fading terror.

“It helped make a man of me.”

“Some desperado shot you?”

“Yes, one of the real bad ones.”

“Oh, Jim,” she cried. “I hope — I pray you — you didn’t kill him.”

“It turned out I didn’t, Glory — which was darn lucky. But at the time I’d have shot him to bits with great pleasure.”

“This terrible West has ruined you. Mother always said it would. And Dad would only laugh.”

“Nope, Glory. You’ve got it wrong. I’m not ruined by a long shot. And I hope you’ve sense and intelligence enough left to see it.”

“Jim. I’ve nothing left,” she replied. “You’re wild, strange to me — sort of cool and indifferent like that Prentiss fellow. I’m just terribly sorry this West has made you rough — crude. I know I’ll hate it.”

“Glory, you just misunderstand,” rejoined Jim, patiently. “It’ll jar you at first — more than it did me. You were always a sensitive, high-strung thing. And your trouble has only made you worse. But please give the West and me the benefit of a doubt, before you condemn. Wait, Glory. I swear you will gain by that. Not have any regrets! Not hurt any of these Westerners.”

But he saw that he made no impression on her. He had shocked her, and it nettled him. She had quite forgotten already how kindly he had taken her dereliction.

“Where is this Molly Dunn?” asked Gloriana, curiosity strong.

“She’s here.”

“In this house?”

“Yes. She and her mother. I fetched them up from the Cibeque. Molly is going to school. It’s great — and a little pathetic — the way she goes to study. Poor kid. — she had so little chance to learn...I expect to marry her in the spring, if I can persuade her.”

“Persuade her!” echoed Gloriana, with a wonderful flash of eyes. “I dare say that will be extremely difficult.”

“It probably will be,” replied Jim, coolly. “Especially after she meets you. But Uncle Jim adores her and he’s keen to see me married.”

“Well, I deserve it,” mused Gloriana. “What?”

“A dose of my own medicine.”

“Glory, I don’t want to lose patience with you,” said Jim, slowly, trying to keep his temper. “I can understand you, for I felt a little like you do when I landed out here...Now listen. I’m glad you’ve come to me. I’m sorry you’ve made mistakes and suffered through them. But they are really nothing. I predict the West will cure them in less than a year. You won’t know yourself. You could not be dragged back to Missouri.”

Gloriana shook her beautiful head in doubt and sorrow.

“If you only hadn’t engaged yourself to this backwoods girl!” she said, mournfully. “But she saved my life,” declared Jim, hotly. “She fought a fellow — one of those desperadoes you mentioned — fought him like a wild cat — bit him — hung on him with her teeth to keep him from murdering me as I sat tied hand and foot...saved my life until her brother Slinger got there to kill Jocelyn.”

“The wretch!” exclaimed Gloriana, in passion and horror. Her face was white as alabaster and her eyes great dark gulfs of changing brilliance. “Did this Slinger Dunn really kill him?”

“You bet he did. And two other desperadoes. They shot Slinger all up. He’s in the hospital at Flag. I’ll take you in to see him.”

“Wonderful!” breathed Gloriana, for the moment thrilled out of her disgust and horror. “But, Jim, why all this bloody murdering? I thought you worked on a cattle range.”

“I do. That’s the trouble,” said Jim, and forthwith launched into brief narrative of the drift fence and subsequent events which led up to his capture by the Cibeque gang, of Hack Jocelyn’s arrival with Molly, who had consented to sacrifice herself to save Jim, of Jocelyn’s treachery and how Molly fought to keep him from killing Jim until Slinger got there.

When Jim concluded, there was ample evidence that Gloriana did not lack heart and soul, though they were glossed over by restraint and sophistication. This reassured Jim in his stubborn hope that Gloriana was undeveloped and needed only the hard and wholesome contacts she was sure to get in Arizona.

“But, Jim, you can’t marry a girl who bites like a little beast, no more than I could the brother who kills men,” was Gloriana’s grave reply.

“I can’t — can’t I?” retorted Jim, goaded at the regurgitation of a forgotten phase of the Traft boy he had once been. “Well, I am going to marry her, and I’ll think myself the luckiest fellow on earth.”

Plainly she thought he was out of his head or that Arizona had broken down his sense of values. But she did not voice either conviction.

“Gloriana, I think I’d better take you in to meet Uncle Jim — and the Dunns,” concluded Jim.

“Yes, since it has to be,” she replied, soberly. “Give me time to make myself presentable. Come back for me in fifteen minutes.”

“Sure. I’m curious to see what you call presentable,” said Jim, and went out whistling. Nevertheless, his heart was heavy as he proceeded down the hall toward the living-room.

CHAPTER SIX

JIM FOUND HIS uncle alone in the living-room. “Hey!” he said, “when are you going to trot my niece in?”

“Pretty soon. She was tired and wants to clean up after the long ride.”

“How is she, Jim?” he asked, anxiously.

“White and thin. Looks wonderful, though. You could have knocked me over with a feather, Uncle.”

“Wal, I reckon I’m plumb ready for mine.”

At this juncture Molly and her mother came in, and it was certain Jim had never seen Molly so pretty, so simply and becomingly attired. He did not see how Gloriana could help admiring her.

“Oh, Jim, did your sister come?” she asked, eagerly.

“You bet. Curly and the boys were there with me. It was a circus.”

“I shore reckon,” agreed Molly, her eyes round and bright. She was excited, trembling a little.

“I’ll fetch Glory in pronto.”

Jim went out and thoughtfully wended his way to the west wing of the huge ranch-house. In a certain sense this event was a thrilling and happy one, but in the main it was shadowed by misgivings. He tapped at Gloriana’s door, and at her call he entered.

He stared. Was this lovely white creature Gloriana Traft? She wore a pale-blue dress, without sleeves, and cut somewhat low. She was slender, but there was not an ungraceful line about her. And she had a little colour in her cheeks, whether from excitement or from artificial means Jim could not tell.

“Glory, if you let the boys see you in that rig we can’t go on ranching,” he said, with grave admiration.

“Why not?” she asked, not knowing how to take him.

“Because this place would beat the Pleasant Valley War all hollow. You just look like — like some beautiful sweet flower.”

His genuine praise brought more colour to her cheeks. “Thank you, Jim. It’s nice to hear I look well. But this dress is nothing. I’ve some new ones and I’ll have to wear them, even if your ranching can’t go on...Guess I’d better put my coat around me. That hall was like Greenland’s icy mountains.”

“This house is a big old barn. But the living-room is comfortable,” said Jim as he replaced the screen before the fire.

“Jim, if I catch cold again it’ll be the end of little Glory.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. This is a beginning for you, Glory,” he replied, warmly, and he kissed her. Gloriana caught his hand and clung to it. Her action and the sudden flash of her face toward him gave Jim a clue to something he had not before guessed. Glory might resemble a proud, cold, aloof young princess, but she really was unconsciously hungering for love, kindness, sympathy. By that Jim judged how she had been hurt, and through it he divined he could win her. Right there Jim decided on the attitude he would adopt with his sister.

“Jim, my failure and disgrace do not alter the fact that I represent your family out here,” she said, as they went out.

The remark rather flustered Jim. He was not used to complexity, and he could find no words in which to reply. He hurried her down the hall to the living-room, and opened the door for her to enter. When he followed and closed it Gloriana had let her coat fall to the floor and was advancing quickly to meet the rancher.

“Oh, Uncle Jim, I know you,” she said, happily as if she had expected not to.

“Wal — wal! So you’re my niece Gloriana?” he replied, heartily, yet with incredulity. “I remember a big-eyed little girl back there in Missouri. But you can’t be her.”

“Yes, I am, Uncle. I’ve merely grown up...I’m so glad to see you again.” She gave him her hands and kissed him.

“Wal, it can’t be, but if you say so I’ll have to believe,” he said, quaintly. “I reckon I’m powerful pleased to have you come West...Gloriana, meet some friends of ours — Arizona folks from down country...Mrs. Dunn and her daughter Molly.”

“Gloriana, I’m shore happy to welcome you heah,” said Molly, with simple sweet warmth. She was tremendously impressed — Jim had never seen her so pale — but there was no confusion for her in this meeting. Her eyes had a shining, earnest light. Jim could not have asked more. She was true to Molly Dunn. She was Western. She had stuff in her. Never in her life had she been subject to such an intense and penetrating look as Gloriana gave her. Jim’s heart leaped to his throat. Was Glory going to turn out a terrible snob?

“Molly Dunn! I’m glad to meet you,” replied Gloriana, cordially, and she was quick to accept the shy advance of the Western girl. She met Molly’s kiss halfway. Jim almost emitted audibly a repressed breath of relief. But he was not sanguine. Gloriana appeared the epitome of perfect breeding, and she was too fine to let the Western girl outdo her in being thoroughbred. Yet heart and soul were wanting. And Jim thought that if he felt it Molly must have, too.

Uncle Jim beamed upon Gloriana and then upon Molly, and lastly upon his constrained nephew.

“Jim, shore there’s such a thing as luck,” he said. “I reckon I didn’t believe so once. But look there. An’ think of your havin’ a sister an’ a sweetheart like them.”

It was a simple warm tribute from a lonely old bachelor who had given his heart to Molly and now shared it with Gloriana. But the compliment brought a blush to Gloriana’s pale cheek and broke Molly’s composure.

“Wal, I don’t know aboot it, as Curly would say,” drawled Jim, far from feeling like Curly. “A man can have enough luck to kill him.”

This unexpected sally from him made the girls laugh and eased the situation. All took seats except Molly, who stood beside Gloriana’s chair, plainly fascinated. It gave Jim a pang to see that Molly had already fallen in love with his sister. If Gloriana would only give the Western girl the smallest kind of a chance!

Thereupon followed a half-hour of pleasant conversation, mostly for Gloriana’s edification, and received by her with undisguised enthusiasm. Then she said she was very tired and begged to be excused.

“Jim, take me back to my Indian wigwam. I’d never find it,” she begged, and bade the others good-night.

When back in Gloriana’s room Jim stirred the fire and put on a few fresh sticks of wood.

“Well?” he queried, presently, rising to face his sister, and he was quite conscious of the gruffness of his voice.

To Jim’s surprise she placed a hand on each of his shoulders.

“Jim, your Western girl is distractingly pretty, sweet as a wild flower, honest and good as gold — and far braver than I could have been. I saw what you couldn’t see. Probably it was harder for her to meet me than that Hack fellow she — she bit to save your life. I’m your family, so to speak.”

“Thanks, Glory,” replied Jim, somewhat huskily. “I — I was afraid—”

“I’d not like her? Jim, I don’t blame you for loving her. I did like her...But — and there’s the rub — she is illiterate. She comes from an illiterate family. She’s only a very common little person — and certainly not fit to be the wife of James Traft.”

“That’s your Eastern point of view,” returned Jim. “It might — though I don’t admit it — be right if we were back home. But we’re out West. I love the West. It has made me a man. It is now my home. I worship this ‘common little person’, as you call her. I think she is farthest removed from that. She’s strong and true and big, and crude like this great raw West. And as I’ve thrown in my fortunes here I consider myself lucky to win such a girl...All of which, Glory, dear, is aside from the fact that but for her I’d be dead...But for Molly you wouldn’t have had any brother to come to!”

“Don’t think me ungrateful,” she rejoined, in hurried, shuddering earnestness. “I am...and indeed you talk like a man. I admire and respect you. But I had to tell you the ethics of it. I wouldn’t be a Traft if I failed to tell you.”

“Then — you’re not against us?” queried Jim, hopefully.

“Jim, I disapprove. But it would be absurd for me to oppose. I have come to you for help — for a home — to find my chance in life, if there be one. Besides, I like Molly...The trouble will come not from me, but from her. Can’t you see it? I don’t think I ever was subjected to such study. Yet no trace of jealousy or bitterness! She was just being a woman seeing you, your family, your position through me. I saw fear in her eyes as she bade me good-night. That fear was not of me, or that I might come between you. It was a fear of realisation, of love. She ought not to marry you because she is Molly Dunn of the Cibeque! And, Jim, if she’s really as strong and fine as it seems she is, she will not marry you.”

“I’ve had the very same fear myself,” admitted Jim. “But I always laughed myself out of it. Now you—”

“Make it worse,” she interposed. “I’m sorry. I ought not to have come...I could go away somewhere, I suppose, and work...But, Jim, the damage is done.”

“I wouldn’t let you go. I think we’re making a mountain out of a molehill. It’ll sure come out all right, if you’ll help.”

“Jim, I promise. I’ll do my utmost for you. I’ll be nicer to that little girl than I ever was to anyone in my life. I can make people like me. But the worst of me is I’m cold. I’ve been frozen inside since Ed Darnell deceived me. I can’t promise to love Molly, though it’d appear easy enough.”

She seemed so eloquent, so moving, so beautiful that Jim could have decried aloud her intimation of her indifference.

“Glory, I couldn’t ask any more,” he concluded. “It’s more than I had hoped for. You have made me feel — oh, sort of warm deep down — glad you’ve come West. We’ll win out in the end. We’ve got the stuff...And now good-night. You’re worn out. Be sure to put the screen in front of the fire.”

“Good-night, brother Jim,” she said, and kissed him. “I’m glad I came.”

Jim left her with her kiss lingering on his lips. Gloriana had never been the kissing kind, and it was easy to tell now that she had not changed. She was older, deeper, more complex, with a hint of sadness about her which he wanted to eradicate. The cowboys would do that. They would change even the spots of a leopard. He went toward his room, and on the way tapped on Molly’s door.

“Are you in bed?” he called.

“No, Jim — not quite,” she replied, and presently opened the door a few inches to disclose a sweet, agitated face.

“I just wanted to ask...Do you like her?”

“Like — I shore fell in love powerful deep. She’s — she’s—” But Molly could find no adequate word to express herself.

Jim darted his head downward to give her a quick kiss. “Darling, I’d gamble my soul on you,” he whispered, gratefully. Then louder, “Did your mother like Glory?”

“Shore. But she was aboot scared stiff...An’, Jim, me too — a little.”

“Well, now, you mustn’t be. Glory said some mighty sweet things about you.”

“Oh, Jim — tell me,” she begged, breathlessly.

“Not much. I’ll keep them until I want something special out of you, Ha, ha! — but they’re awfully nice...Good-night, Molly.”

Jim found his uncle dozing before the living-room fire. “Wake up and tell me what I’m to do?”

“Huh?” grunted Uncle Jim.

“Wake up and talk to me,” replied Jim. “Did you like Glory? What on earth am I to do with two such girls on my hands? How can I keep the cowboys from murdering each other? Tell me what...”

“One at a time, you Missouri rooster...Wal, Glory is the most amazing girl I ever saw. Bright an’ smart as beautiful! She’s got a haid on her, Jim. An’ only nineteen. I reckon she’ll be a bitter pill for Molly. But Molly is true blue. She’ll be Western. In the end she an’ Glory will be sisters. Not soon, but you can bet on it. An’ your part is goin’ to be harder’n buildin’ the drift fence. Shore, Glory will upset the cowboys. Because she’s sweet, she’s nice, she’ll be interested in them — an’ the poor dumbhaids will reckon they can win her. At that she could do worse than be won by Curly or Bud or Jackson Way.”

“I’ve come somewhere near that conclusion myself,” rejoined Jim, thoughtfully. “Confidentially, Uncle, I want to tell you Gloriana has come West for good.”

“Fine!” ejaculated the rancher. “Is she thet sick? or what—”

“She’s not so sick as it appeared. Only run down. She got involved in an unfortunate affair back home. Took up with some flashy fellow — thought she loved him when she didn’t — and he turned out bad. Borrowed money from her and cheated money out of Dad. It hurt Glory with her crowd, which she was pretty sick of, anyhow, I guess. She’s the proudest of the whole raft of Trafts...So she has turned to me, poor kid.”

“Ahuh! — Wal, dog-gone!...Jim, you ain’t implyin’ some scoundrel ruined your sister?”

“No, thank God,” returned Jim, fervently. “But he ruined her reputation, at least. Fellow named Ed Darnell. And Glory is sure he’ll show up here.”

“Wal, if he does I reckon it’ll be aboot the last place he ever shows up,” replied the cattleman, grimly.

“I said as much...So, Uncle, we’ve got the happiness and future of two wonderful girls to make. I swear I’m stumped. I’m scared. I’m stuck pretty deep.”

“Wal, it’s a problem, shore. But you’re young an’ you want results too quick.”

“I can be patient. I’ll do everything under the sun. But suppose Molly gets upset by Glory? Scared of my family, so to speak.”

“Wal, in thet case I’d put Glory up against the real stuff out heah. An’ have Molly with her. Thet’ll square the balance. Then they’ll learn from each other.”

“It’s a good idea,” agreed Jim, almost with enthusiasm. “You mean put Glory up against rough outdoor life — horses, cowboys, camp, cold, heat, rain, dust, and hail? Hard beds, poor feed, privation — danger — and so on?”

“Shore, an’ so on. Put her up against everythin’ thet Molly knows.”

“It’s risky, Uncle. Glory is not strong. It might kill her.”

“Wal, you’d have to go slow an’ easy till she could just aboot stand it, an’ thet’s all.”

“But, if it didn’t kill her—” mused Jim, fascinated by the memory of how terrible and wonderful the raw West had been to him. It was that which had won him for Molly Dunn; and now he regarded the stronger and primitive in him more desirable than any development he might have had in the East. The thing had to be gone through to be understood. Gloriana would succumb to it sooner than he had done, despite or probably because of her sensitive, feminine nature. And during this transition of his sister he was going to have trouble holding on to his sweetheart. Jim regretted that he had not persuaded Molly to marry him before Gloriana had come out. Could he do it yet? His mind whirled and his blood leaped at the suggestion. But it would not do, because Molly might suspect the reason. All of a sudden he realised that his uncle was talking.

“Beg pardon, Uncle, I was lost.”

“Wal, I was changin’ the subject,” replied the rancher. “Locke was in awhile ago an’ he’s got wind of Bambridge shippin’ steers tomorrow from Winslow. He was figurin’ thet it might be a good idea for you to run down there an’ look ’em over.”

“Gee! In this weather?”

“Wal, you forget we’re up high heah on the mountain slope. Winslow is down in the desert. Reckon there won’t be any snow. Anyway, weather never fazes this Bambridge cattleman, thet’s shore.”

“What’s the idea, Uncle?” asked Jim, soberly.

“Bambridge doesn’t know you, nor none of his outfit, so Locke reckons. An’ you’ve never been in Winslow. You could look them steers over without bein’ recognised. An’ for thet matter it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference if you were...Whatever is comin’ of this Bambridge deal is shore comin’.”

“Uncle Jim, you expect trouble with him?”

“Son, I’ve seen a hundred Bambridges come an’ go. I know the brand. I’ve been forty years raisin’ steers...Ten years ago a fine-spoken, most damn likable fellow, named Stokes, drifted into Flag. Had money. Began to buy stock an’ sell. Soon was operatin’ big. Everybody his friend. But there was somethin’ aboot Stokes thet stuck in my craw. An’, Jim, I seen him hangin’ to a cottonwood tree — by the neck.”

“Queer business, this cattle-raising,” mused Jim, darkly.

“Wal, so long’s there are big open ranges there’ll be rustlers. An’ I reckon when the ranges are fenced the cattlemen of my type an’ Bambridge, an’ Jed Stone, too, all will have passed. It’s a phase of the West.”

“You regard Jed Stone as a cattleman?” queried Jim, in surprise.

“Shore do. He’s a factor you’ve got to regard. Yellow Jacket belongs to you, legally, because I bought it, an’ gave it to you. But Stone shore thinks it belongs to him,” replied Traft, with a dry laugh.

“Humph! And for what reason?”

“He’s just been ridin’ it for years, thinkin’ it free range, same as the rest. But it’s a ranch, an’ two sections of land, twelve hundred acres, have been surveyed. The best water — an’ by the way, Jim, Yellow Jacket Spring is the wonderfullest in Arizona — an’ level ground are in thet surveyed plot. The corners were hid pretty well by the man who first owned the ranch. I haven’t been down there for years. But Locke has an’ he’s seen them. So we can prove our claim.”

“Good heavens, Uncle!” exclaimed Jim. “Do you mean we may have to prove to an outlaw that we have a right to a piece of land you bought?”

“Not Stone. You’ll have to prove it to him with guns. Haw, haw!...But Bambridge, an’ mebbe thet cattleman who’s in with him — I forget the name — may want to see our proofs. Of course, son, nothin’ but a little fight may ever come of this. But I’ve a hunch Yellow Jacket will catch your eye. It did mine. It’s the wildest an’ most beautiful place to live I ever seen in Arizona. Yellow Jacket isn’t a valley, exactly. Really it’s a great wide canyon, with yellow walls. Protected from storms. Best place to hunt in Arizona. Bear, deer, turkey, just thick. An’ very few hunters ever get in there, because it’s a long way an’ there’s plenty good huntin’ ranges closer. Lots of beaver left in Yellow Jacket, an’ where there’s beaver you bet it’s wild.”

“Well, I’ve set my heart on Yellow Jacket, Uncle Jim Traft,” declared Jim, forcefully. “And Slinger Dunn has a half interest in the stock running there. That was the deal I made with him, you know, to get him into the Diamond.”

“Shore, an’ you don’t know how good a deal it was. Wish Dunn could go to Winslow with you...An’ come to think of it, Jim, you take Curly along.”

“Fine. We’ll hop the early train.”

In the nipping frosty dawn, Jim and Curly went into the kitchen, shutting the door, and they warmed their palms over Jeff’s fire until breakfast was ready. Curly was not his usual bright self, which might have been owing to the night before, of which he had hinted, but also it might have been the portent of Jim’s early call. They had breakfast and hurried out into the snow. The morning was still, with the frost crackling, and the fence posts glittering with sunshine on the snow. Curly had little to say until they reached the station.

“Ring Locke was in last night,” announced Curly, “an’ he shore had bad news.”

“Thought you were out late?” queried Jim, gruffly.

“Wal, I wasn’t. Ring got wind of this herd Bambridge was shippin’. Dog-gone-it, Ring’s always gettin’ tipped off aboot things we don’t want to heah. He has too many friends.”

“Wait till we’re on the train,” replied Jim, tersely. The station-room and platform were not the places just then for indiscriminate speech. Cowboys, cattlemen, Mexican labourers, and other passengers for this early train, were noisily in evidence.

When they got into the train, to find a seat somewhere isolated from those occupied, Jim whispered, “What did Locke hear?”

“Some darn fool sent him word there were Diamond steers in thet bunch of stock Bambridge is shippin’.”

“So that’s it? Uncle didn’t tell me Locke said that...The nerve of this Bambridge!...Curly, what’re you growling about?”

“Locke ought to have kept his big mouth shet...We shore cussed him last night.”

“And why?”

“‘Cause we all knew what’d come off pronto. Old Traft would send you down there, an’ if you saw any steers with our brand you’d go right to Bambridge an’ tell him.”

“I should smile I would.”

Curly threw up his hands, an expressive gesture of his when he was helpless, which in truth was not often.

“Why shouldn’t I tell him, cowboy?” queried Jim, somewhat nettled. How long it took to understand these queer cattlemen!

“Wal, we reckon Bambridge oughtn’t know we’re suspicious, till we’ve had a spell at Yellow Jacket.”

“But, Curly, surely Locke and Uncle Jim know more what is best than you cowboys.”

“Hell, yes. But they don’t have to do the fightin’.”

The way Curly spat out those words, as well as their content, gave Jim a breath-arresting moment. Indeed it was true — Locke was an aggressive superintendent, and the old rancher a stern and ruthless dealer with crooked cattlemen. No more was said then, and Jim gazed out at the speeding white and black landscape. The pines had given place to cedars and pinons, and these soon made way for sagebrush. The snow thinned out, and when the train got down on the open desert the white began to give way to the yellow of grass and occasional green tuft of sage and greasewood.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE HASH-KNIFE WERE back from a drive, the nature of which showed in their begrimed, weary faces, their baggy eyes, and the ragged condition of their garb.

“Home!” croaked Malloy, flinging his crooked length down before the fire Stone was building.

“My Gawd!” ejaculated Stone, staring at the little gunman. And his men simulated his look if not his speech. The idea of Croak Malloy giving expression to such a word as home was so striking as to be incongruous, not to say funny.

“Did you ever have a home?” added the outlaw leader, more curious than scornful.

“Aw, you can’t gibe me,” replied Malloy, imperturbably. “What I mean is hyar’s rest an’ comfort — after a hell of a job.”

“It shore was,” agreed Pecos.

“An’ ain’t it good to be down out of the snow an’ thet damn Tonto wind,” said Madden. “Like spring down hyar at Yellow Jacket. It smells different.”

“Wal, we’ll sit tight till spring, you can gamble on thet,” spoke up the gambler, Carr.

“Mebbe we will,” interposed Jed Stone, sarcastically, yet not without pathos.

“Aw hell!” bit out Malloy. “Jed, don’t begin your belly-achin’, now we’re home. We’ve got supplies till spring, plenty of drink an’ money to gamble with. Let’s forget it an’ be happy.”

Sonora came in dragging a pack, and young Frank Reed followed. Lang, the ex-sheriff, also appeared heavily laden. It was about midday, and outside the sun shone brightly warm. The air was cool and sweet with sage and cedar, and had a hint of spring, though the time was early December.

“Reckon Jed built thet fire ‘cause he’s so absent-minded,” remarked someone.

“No, I want a cup of coffee. I’m soured on whisky...At that it ain’t bad to be back in the old cabin... — Bambridge anyhow!”

“He shore pulled a rummy deal,” said Pecos, his tone harmonising with Stone’s.

“Wal, no one much ain’t a-goin’ to connect the Hash-Knife with thet winter shippin’ of stock. So what the hell?” replied Malloy. “But it wasn’t a slick trick to turn.”

For Malloy to show disapproval of a cattle-steal seemed to prove it was the last word in bold and careless rustling.

“Bambridge will skip Arizona pronto,” put in Anderson, wagging his shaggy head. “I’d have give my pipe to see thet young Traft call him.”

“So would I — an’ some more,” said Stone, thoughtfully. “Nervy youngster...Frank, tell me about it again.”

“Boss, I told you twice,” complained Reed.

“Sure. But we was on the trail an’ it was cold an’ windy. You made it short an’ sweet, too...Here’s a cigar.”

Thus importuned the young cowboy rustler lighted the cigar, smiling his satisfaction, and settled himself comfortably.

“I was in Chance’s saloon after the shippin’, an’ I heard a man say ‘Damn funny about thet Bambridge cattle-drive. I went by the railroad stockyards late last night, ‘cause I live out thet way. There wasn’t no cattle there. An’ next mornin’ at daylight the pen was full of bawlin’ steers.’”

“Haw haw!” croaked Malloy, gleefully, rubbing his thin brown hands.

“Laugh, you frog!” exclaimed Stone, darkly. “Thet drive was another blunder. We ought to have left the cattle at Bambridge’s ranch, which I wanted to do. But he got sore...An’ well — Frank—”

“We drove the stock in at midnight, as you-all ain’t forgettin’,” resumed Reed, puffing his cigar. “It was a slick job fer any cow-punchin’ outfit. An’ next mornin’ at ten o’clock them steers was all on a stock train, ready to move. Then I seen Curly Prentiss. Used to ride under him when he had charge of the U Bar. He had a young fellar with him thet turned out to be Jim Traft. They watched the cattle fer about two minutes. No more! An’ young Traft jumped right up an’ down. You could see Prentiss talkin’ turkey to him. I made it my business to foller them back to the station. An’ you bet your life Curly Prentiss seen me. There ain’t much thet hombre doesn’t see. But it was safe, I reckon, ‘cause nobody knows I’m with the Hash-Knife. Prentiss an’ Traft went in the freight office, an’ I ducked in the station. As luck would have it, Bambridge came in with a darkcomplected fellar, sporty dressed, an’ goodlookin’. I edged over an’ heard Bambridge ask: ‘Where you from?’ The fellar said St. Louis. ‘What do you know about cattle?’ He said nuthin’, but he happened to know a stock-buyer in Kansas City who told him to hunt up George Bambridge, if he was goin’ to Arizona. ‘An’ who’s this stockman?’ asked Bambridge, quick like. He said ‘Darnell’ — I got thet name straight. ‘Come to my office up town later in the day. I’m busy now with this cattle shipment.’...He was shore goin’ to be damn busy in a minnit, only he didn’t guess it. Just then Prentiss an’ Traft come in. They was both packin’ guns, which was funny only for Traft, I reckon. Prentiss sleeps in a gun. They looked kinda fire-eyed, an’ Traft stopped Bambridge right in the middle of the station, an’ he was in a hurry, too.”

“Talk, an’ come to the point,” ordered Stone, in a cold, testy voice.

“Not much more,” replied Reed, casually. “Traft asked, ‘Are you George Bambridge?’ — an’ he got a short answer.

“‘You’re shippin’ some of my steers,’ snapped Traft.

“Bambridge turned red as a turkey gobbler’s comb. ‘The hell you say, my young cowpuncher! An’ who may you be?’

“‘My name is Traft,’ said thet young cowpuncher, an’ he said it loud.

“Bambridge went white now. ‘Jim Traft’s nephew?’

“‘Yes, an’ you’re shippin’ steers with my brand.’

“‘What brand is thet?’ jerked out Bambridge, sort of husky. He was madder’n hellsfire.

“‘Diamond brand.’

“‘Ahuhm, I see.’...Bambridge sort of pulled himself together. ‘Sorry, Mr. Traft. Mistakes happen. This is a rush order. An’ them Yellow Jacket steers of yours overrun my range. An’ I’m runnin’ some new cowhands. Send me a bill.”

“‘No, Mr. Bambridge, I’ll not send you a bill now, but I’ll send a telegram East to have a count made of the Diamond steers in this shipment,’ said Traft, an’ he shore looked a lot.

“‘You call me a liar — an’ a cattle thief?’ busted out Bambridge, movin’ a hand back.

“‘No. An’ don’t pull a gun. This gentleman with me is Curly Prentiss...I didn’t say you was a liar an’ a thief. But this shipment has a queer look an’ I’ll not be satisfied till it’s been counted over.’

“‘I tell you if there’s Diamond steers on that train it’s only a mistake. Any rancher makes mistakes when he’s rushed,’ yelled Bambridge.

“‘No, any rancher doesn’t make such mistakes!’

“‘Every cattleman drives stock sometimes thet ain’t his.’

“‘But not branded stock.’

“‘Your uncle does it. An’ fer that matter he’s as much of a cattle thief as Blodgett, or Babbitt, or me — or any—’

“‘Don’t you call my uncle a thief,’ broke in young Jim. An’ he cracked Bambridge square on his ugly mug. You ought to have heard thet fist. Sounded like hittin’ a beef with an axe. Bambridge fell all over himself — damn near knockin’ down the stove, an’ he didn’t get up. It was a good thing he was knocked out, fellars, for when I looked at Traft again there he was waitin’ with a gun, an’ Prentiss was standin’ far over to one side.”

“Pretty,” croaked Malloy, with relish.

“Is thet all?” asked Stone, tersely.

“Jest about. Some men got around Bambridge an’ helped him up. I seen Prentiss eyein’ me sort of sharp so I ducked back to Chance’s an’ hid there till early next mornin’.”

“Bambridge is a damn fool,” burst out Stone. “An’ I was the same for dealin’ with him.”

“Looks like young Traft has done us a good turn,” said Anderson, with satisfaction.

“It shore does, Boss,” added Pecos, quietly. “He throwed the light on Bainbridge.”

Others of the group attested to the same conviction.

“Well, yes, I reckon — mebbe,” agreed the leader. “But it’ll only make old Jim Traft sorer.”

“Jed, the fact that you once rode fer Traft an’ stood well with him sticks by you like a fish-bone in the throat,” observed Anderson. “We’ve all seen better days. We was all different once — onless mebbe Croak there, who hasn’t changed a damn iota since he was born.”

“What’s a iota?” inquired the subject of this remark. “Sounds somethin’ like IOU, which you’ll all be doin’ pronto.”

“Men,” said Stone, “I’ll split this money I got fer this last job, an’ let myself out.”

“Thet ain’t fair,” objected Malloy, who was strict in regard to shares of spoil. He had been a bandit at an earlier stage of his career. “You did thet last time.”

“An’ spoiled my settin’ in for you an’ Carr to fleece? It’s jest as well. I’d be broke soon, anyhow.”

“Reckon thet four-flush rancher owes you quite a wad?”

“Ten thousand.”

“ ——  ——  —— !” cursed Malloy, in consternation. “Jed, he’s goin’ to do you. Sure as shootin’!”

“He’d better not, or there’ll be a little shootin’,” declared the chief, grimly. “But I don’t mind admittin’ thet the Hash-Knife has struck a snag in this same hightalkin’, crooked cattleman.”

Stone left his men to their profanity and humour, both of which expended some force over the debt Bambridge owed him, and he went outside to walk around the familiar grounds.

Stone strolled under the great checker-barked junipers. Bear sign not yet old showed on the brown matted earth; and gave him peculiar satisfaction with its suggestion of the loneliness of this canyon. That feeling did not survive long. He had a premonition that the race of the long notorious Hash-Knife was about run. None of his men shared that with him, and not improbably the big ranchers of the Mogollans and the Little Colorado Range would have scouted the idea. But Stone knew better than any of them; and this homecoming, as he bitterly called it, back to Yellow Jacket, had made him pretty sick. He was weary with the toil, the devious crooked ways, the sweat and blood, and, yes, the ignominy of the Hash-Knife. He confessed it to himself for the first time, and realised it as a factor that would lead to something drastic.

Yellow Jacket possessed a very singular feature. High and isolated and enclosed as it was, it yet looked down, at least through that narrow gateway, upon the desert which sloped away into purple infinitude. For that country it had the right altitude, neither too high nor too low, and its walls held back the winds and reflected the sunlight.

Some years back Stone had indulged in the illusion that he was going to own Yellow Jacket. Bambridge had promised to give it to him. But Bambridge had failed to get possession, and Stone’s dream of quitting the outlaw game and settling down to honest ranching had been dispelled. He hated Bambridge for that, though he blamed himself for indulging in dreams. Hunted man as he was, the plan could have been carried out. Arizona was quick to recognise a cattleman whose shady dealings were in the past.

From that hour Jed Stone was more than ever a preoccupied man, wandering around the canyon during sunny hours, sitting in favourite places, or smoking by the camp fire. Stone had something on his mind, and it was not only the slow disintegration of the once virile Hash-Knife outfit, and therefore the decline of his leadership, but a realisation that for the first time in his life he leaned toward betrayal of those who trusted him. And loyalty was the predominating trait of his personality. It was loyalty to a friend that had lost him his place among honest cattlemen.

One afternoon, Jed, returning from a walk up the brook, heard a shot. Rifle-shots were not rare around camp, but this came from a small gun of heavy calibre. It had a dull, ominous sound that echoed from the walls. Upon reaching the cabin he saw some of his men standing in a group — the kind of group he had seen so often and which suggested so much.

“Croak jest shot Carr,” said Pecos, coolly and slowly; but there was a glint in his eyes.

“What for?” demanded Stone.

“Ask him.”

Stone hesitated at the threshold of the cabin door. He did not trust Malloy, or was it that he did not trust himself? Then he entered. The little outlaw sat at the rude table, smoking a cigarette and shuffling a deck of cards. Carr lay humped over a bench, his head resting on the floor.

“Is he dead?” queried Stone, asking a superfluous question.

“Thet’s funny,” replied Malloy, with his little croaking laugh.

“Not so damn funny!” retorted the leader. “What’d you shoot him for?”

“Boss, he cheated at cards,” returned Malloy, almost plaintively.

It was Stone’s turn to laugh. Malloy’s statement was preposterous, if not in fact, then certainly in significance.

“Sure he cheated. But you all turn a trick when you can. Carr was the slickest. You had no call to kill him for what you do yourself.”

“Wal, he won all the money. Thet’s the difference.”

“Ahuh. I see. It’s shore a big difference. An’ where’s all this money Carr won?”

“He was stuffin’ his pockets an’ laughin’ at us,” said Malloy, with heat. “Thet made me sore. An’ I cussed him fer bein’ a caird sharp. Then, Boss, he got mean an’ personal. He swore I stacked the cairds, which you all know is a lie, ‘cause I can’t do it. The best trick I know is to slip an ace from the pack or hold out a hand. An’ the damn gambler threw thet in my face.”

Stone called the men in from outside. “Search Carr an’ put what he has on the table. Then take him out an’ bury him — an’ make it a good long way from this cabin.”

“Boss, what’re you goin’ to do with it?” asked Malloy, as the heaps of gold coins and rolls of greenbacks were thumped upon the table.

“Divide it, accordin’ to what each of you lost.”

Then arose an argument among the gamesters over what amounts Carr had won from them. Lang and Madden, and especially young Reed, lied about it. Malloy frankly admitted he did not know how much he had lost, but certainly all that he had. Stone finally adjusted the difficulty by giving each the exact sum he had portioned out to them as their share of the recent cattledrive. This caused some grumbling. And it turned out that Stone himself, with the aid of Pecos, had to carry Carr out into the woods and bury him.

“Much good his stone face done him,” said the outlaw leader, wiping the sweat from his face.

“Shore not much,” agreed the Texan. “Boss, I reckon Carr got his deserts. He was aimin’ to slump with all thet money.”

“You don’t say? Who told you?” asked Stone, in surprise.

“Carr told me aboot it. Made no bones of braggin’ he’d quit the outfit soon as he’d won our pile.”

“Did he ever say thet before Croak?”

“Shore. We all heahed him.”

“Then that was why Croak shot him.”

“I reckon so myself.”

“Pecos, do you hold this job as good or bad for the Hash-Knife?”

“Wal, both, I reckon, Carr riled the fellars, most of the time. He was a disorganiser. Bad hombre for a business like ours. On the other hand, the fact that he meant to double-cross us an’ thet Croak killed him in cold blood shore is serious...Boss, the Hash-Knife is ailin’ from dry rot.”

“Ahuh...Money too easy — no hard work like we used to have — this two-faced Bambridge—”

Pecos nodded his lean hawklike head, acquiescing silently with the leader’s unfinished speech.

Two mornings later, rather early, for Madden and Lang were cleaning up after breakfast, Stone was surprised by Sonora darting in the cabin door with his noiseless swift step.

“Boss, somebody comin’,” he whispered.

“Who!”

“Cowboy — on foot.”

“Sit tight, all of you,” ordered Stone, and faced the door. Then Sonora told him that there was a camp somewhere down outside the gateway of the canyon. He had smelled smoke and had started to hunt for it when he had spied this lone cowboy approaching up the trail.

After a long wait a leisurely footfall was heard outside. A shadow fell across the sunny threshold. Then came a knock.

“Hello! Anybody home?” called a clear voice.

“Come in,” replied Stone.

A tall, lithe-limbed, broad-shouldered young man stepped into sight. He was bareheaded, and the sun shone on a tanned open countenance.

“I’m looking for Jed Stone,” he announced, frankly.

“Wal, you’re lookin’ at him,” replied the outlaw, tersely. “An’ who may you be, stranger?”

“Boss, it’s young Jim Traft,” spoke up Reed, excitedly.

“Yes. But I can talk for myself,” returned the young visitor, with a flash of sharp hazel eyes at Reed.

“Jim Traft!...What you want?” exclaimed Stone, in slow amaze.

“I want a straight talk with you.”

“Wal, young fellar, thet ain’t hard to get, though most ranchin’ folks reckon they’d get straight shootin’ instead.”

“I’d like to talk to you alone,” said Traft, eagerly.

“No. What you have to say to me you’ll say in front of my outfit.”

“Very well, then,” rejoined Traft, slowly, and he sat down on a box in the broad sunlight that flared through the wide door. He did not appear to be hurried or nervous; indeed, for an Easterner not long in the West he was exceedingly cool. Stone liked his face, the keen, curious light of hazel eyes, and his manner. And the thought stung Stone that twenty years ago he was very like this young man. Traft glanced casually over the Hash-Knife outfit, his gaze lingering longest on Croak Malloy, who sat on the floor, leaning against a pack, and for once his expression was one of interest. Though the little gunman did not realise it, he had respect for courage.

“First off, my Uncle Jim didn’t advise me to call on you. I’ve done that on my own hook,” said Traft.

“Wal, you needn’t of told me thet,” observed Stone.

“I’ve made my mind up ever since I got out of that fight at Tobe’s. Well — to try common sense.”

“It ain’t a bad idea, if the other party has any.”

“Stone, would it surprise you to learn my uncle speaks well of you?” queried the young rancher.

“Reckon it would,” replied Stone, slowly. And a pang rent his heart.

“He has done so. To me, and I’ve heard the same to others. He said twenty years ago he knew you and you rode for him — and there wasn’t a finer or squarer cowboy in Arizona. He said you must have been driven to outlawry. Anyway, you never had been and you never would be a cattle thief at heart...And it was a damn pity.”

Stone felt a rush of hot blood to his face, and a cold tightness of skin as the wave receded. His breast seemed to cave with a sickening pain. So old Jim Traft spoke openly that way about him? Somehow it had a terrible significance, almost a fatality, coming at this hour. Malloy’s hollow croaking laugh jarred on him.

“Wal — thet was — good of Jim — but I reckon — wasted sympathy,” he replied, rather hoarsely.

“I’m not concerned with the truth of it though, I believe my uncle,” went on Traft. “It just encouraged me to call on you and have a talk.”

“No harm done, young fellar, but shore a little risky.”

“I didn’t see it. Curly Prentiss called me a crazy tenderfoot. And Slinger Dunn swore it was ten to one I’d not come back. But I couldn’t see it that way. I’m not packing a gun or looking for trouble.”

“Wal, Traft, I reckon if you’d happened to miss me here — you’d run into trouble all right.”

“I took the chance...But, Stone, before I make you the — the proposition I have, I want to talk some more. Making the best of my opportunity.” He had to laugh at that, and once more glanced over Stone’s men, particularly at Malloy, who appeared to fascinate him. “I went down to Winslow to look over a cattle shipment. Prentiss and I. We saw a big herd of stock being loaded on a freight train. Wildest bunch of steers Prentiss ever saw...Well, we only watched the loading for about two minutes. A good many unbranded cattle — and some wearing the Diamond brand...That’s my mark, Stone. They were my cattle, and that was all I wanted to know...I met Bambridge at the station and told him he was shipping some of my steers. He laughed it off as a mistake. I needed only one look at him to see he was as crooked as a rail fence. And that any man who dealt with him would get the worst of it. So you can bet my talk was pretty sharp. He got nasty and said old Jim Traft had made many such mistakes — or words to that effect, and — but, Stone, what do you think of him accusing my uncle of stealing cattle?”

“Kinda funny,” replied Stone. “But the fact of ranchin’ is, every cattleman appropriates cattle thet ain’t his. It can’t be helped. The dishonest cattleman takes advantage of this. All owin’ to the custom of the range. No rancher has ever thought of anythin’ better than the individual brand. An’ thet shore has its defects.”

“Bambridge didn’t mean it that way,” resumed Traft. “Anyway, I got mad and swung on him — but, Stone, maybe you’re a friend of Bambridge’s?”

The sly, quick query was that of a boy and fetched a hollow croak from Malloy, and a smile to the hard face of the outlaw leader.

“Nope. He’s shore no friend of mine, an’ I’d have liked to see you slug him.”

“I was sorry for it afterward. My outfit regretted it. Said it’d lead to worse. But I got hot under the collar, and saw red—”

“Traft, if I don’t miss my guess someone will make you spill red before you’re much older,” returned the outlaw, significantly.

“Lord! I hope not,” said Traft. “But I don’t know what’s come over me. Prentiss told me that after I hit Bambridge I pulled my gun and waited...Well, the other thing I wanted particularly to tell you is that we can’t find any of my three thousand head of stock. We’re camped down among the rocks, and, of course, we haven’t ridden over Yellow Jacket. But Ring Locke told me we’d find my cattle down there in the brakes. But he was wrong. There are a few bulls and steers, wilder than the deer or bear...I’d like to ask — not insinuating anything if you know where that three thousand head have gone?”

“Wal, Traft, I shore don’t,” replied Stone, and he was telling the truth.

“Bambridge could tell me, I’ll bet a hundred. He hired someone to rustle my stock. I don’t accuse you, Stone. I know there is more than one gang in the Tonto Basin. Take the Cibeque outfit, for instance. So if you tell me straight out that the Hash-Knife didn’t rustle my Diamond cattle — why, I’ll believe you.”

Then ensued a queer little silence. Stone’s men seemed as much concerned with him as the audacity of this young visitor.

“Wal, thet would be kind of you, Traft, an’ I reckon foolish. But I’m not tellin’ my business, one way or another,” replied the Hash-Knife leader.

“Which is answer enough for me,” returned Traft, with a shrewd, almost merry twinkle in his clear eyes. “Well my job here is to clean up Yellow Jacket.”

“Uhuh. Clean it up of what?”

“Wild cattle, rattlesnakes, cow-eating grizzlies and cougars, brush and cactus — and anything else not good for the making of a fine ranch.”

“Your Uncle Jim hasn’t give you no job atoll,” said Stone, with a grin. “Where’s the common sense comin’ in?”

“This visit to you is my first move, except ride around below to look for stock,” rejoined the young man, seriously. “I’ve made up my mind — that if I live through this job I’ll build me a fine, big, roomy log house here and make this place my home.”

“Home!...Marry some Western gal, I reckon?” went on the outlaw, with interest.

“I’ve already found her, Stone...No one else than Molly Dunn.”

“Molly Dunn! — You don’t say? Thet little brown beauty of the Cibeque! Wal, Traft, I’ll say you’re a good picker an’ a fast mover. I happen to know Molly. Used to run into her at Enoch Summer’s store in West Fork. Last time scarce a year ago...Me an’ Slinger, her brother, was friends once. She’s the prettiest lass an’ the best little woman south of Flag.”

“Or north, either,” said Traft, happily. “Thanks for your compliment. I’ll tell her...And see here, Stone, don’t you agree with me that it’d be pretty tough for me to get killed now or shot up bad — with marriage with Molly coming next spring?”

“Shore would be for Molly. She never had nothin’ but tough luck...If you feel that way about her, why go lookin’ up chances?”

“I’m not. I’m trying to avoid them. But this Yellow Jacket is a fine ranch. It belongs to me. It’s my job. What can I do?”

Stone shook his head as if the problem was a knotty one.

“Now here’s another reason I want to — well, keep my health. Ha ha!...My sister, nineteen years old, arrived in Flag a few weeks ago. Came to make her home in the West. With me. She’s not so well. The doctor thinks Arizona will make her strong again. So do I. Already she has begun to improve...She wasn’t very happy when she first got here. But that’s passing. Stone, she’s a lovely girl. Full of the devil — and, I’m afraid, stuck up a little — Eastern, you know, but the West will cure her of that, you bet...Now, she’s in my charge, not to say more, and even if there wasn’t a Molly Dunn to make life so sweet, I’d hate like sixty to fail my sister...So there you are, Jed Stone.”

“Thanks. You’re shore kind spoken, confidin’ in me...It’s a hell of a situation for a young man.”

“I wanted you to know exactly how I stand,” went on Traft, earnestly. “I’m not afraid of a fight. I’m afraid when I get into one I almost like it. But common sense is best. I’m down here to tell you and your outfit to get out of Yellow Jacket. I want to tell you in a decent way, and that I appreciate this range has been like your own. But business is business. You’d do the same...If you don’t move off I’ll have to try to put you off. And that’s no fair deal. The Diamond, even with Slinger Dunn, is no match for the Hash-Knife. I may still be a tenderfoot, but I’m no damn fool. A clash will mean a lot of blood spilled. I’d like to avoid it. Not only for my own sake, but for my men, and for that matter for you, too...So I’m putting it up square to you. I can raise ten thousand dollars. That’s my limit. Uncle Jim won’t help me buy anybody out. I’ll give you that to move off, fair and square, like the good fellow I believe you are.”

“Traft, I couldn’t accept your offer, nohow,” returned Stone, pacing the floor with grave face and intent eyes. He made his last move look casual, but he did not like the gleam in Croak Malloy’s pale eyes, and wanted to be within reach of the little rattlesnake. Croak did not have to be stepped upon to show his fangs. “Much obliged to you, but shore I couldn’t take the money. I’ll say, though, that Jed Stone ain’t the man to stand in the way of a young fellar like you...I’ll get out of Yellow Jacket for nothin’.”

“You will!” cried Traft, in amaze and gladness. “Well, that’s darn fine of you, Stone...Uncle Jim was right. I — I just can’t thank you enough.”

“Shore you needn’t thank me at all.”

“Gosh!—” The young man arose in relief and with shining face stepped forward to offer a hand to Stone. “Shake. I’ll always remember you as one of the big lessons the West has taught me, and already they’ve been more than a few.”

Stone gripped hands with him, with no other reply. Then Traft moved back into the sunlight, and halting at the door proceeded to roll a cigarette, in Western fashion and with deft fingers.

“It’ll be great to tell the boys. Good-day and good luck to you, Stone...And same to your men.”

If he had glanced at these men he might not have expressed such goodwill. As he struck the match and held it to the cigarette there came a ringing crack of a gun. The match vanished. A bullet thudded into the dark logs. Traft suddenly changed into a statue, his empty fingers stiff, his face blanched in a fixed consternation. Then followed another shot. The cigarette whipped out of his mouth and another bullet thudded into the wood.

“Them’s my compliments, Mister Jim Traft, junior,” croaked Malloy, in a stinging, sarcastic speech full of menace.

Slowly Traft lost his rigidity and turned his head, as if on a pivot, to fix staring eyes upon the little gunman.

“Good God! — Did you shoot that match — and cigarette?” he exclaimed, hoarsely.

“Yep. I didn’t want to see you leave without somethin’ from the rest of the Hash-Knife,” replied Croak, significantly.

“But you — you might have shot me — at least, my hand off!” expostulated Traft, the white beginning to leave his face for red.

“Me? Haw haw haw!...I hit what I shoot at, an’ you can go back an’ tell your Slinger Dunn an’ Curly Prentiss thet.”

“You — crook-faced little runt!” burst out Traft, furiously.

At this juncture Stone took a noiseless and unobtrusive step closer to the sitting Malloy.

It had chanced that of all opprobrium, of all epithets which could have been directed at Croak Malloy, the young rancher had chosen to utter the worst to inflame the gunman. His lean body vibrated as if a sudden powerful current had contracted every muscle, and his face flashed with a hideous deadly light.

As he raised his gun Stone kicked his arm up. The gun went off as it flew into the air. Malloy let out a bellow of rage and pain, and leaped erect, holding his numbed arm.

“Croak, I reckoned you’d done shootin’ enough for one day,” said Stone, coolly.

The little outlaw had no time to reply. Traft sprang at him and in three bounds reached him. He was like a whirlwind. One swift hand fastened in Malloy’s shirt and swung him off his feet. The other, doubled into a big fist, swung viciously the other way round. But it missed Malloy’s head by an inch. He flung the outlaw, who went staggering over the floor to crash into the door. Traft, light and quick as a cat, was again upon him, even before he could fall, which he surely was going to do. Traft gave him a terrific slap alongside the face, which banged his head against the door. Then he held him there.

“You dirty — little snake!” panted Traft. “You may be a good shot — but you’re a damned yellow — coward.”

A hard blow from Traft’s right sent Malloy’s head with sodden thump against the door post. The outlaw swayed forward, only to meet Traft’s left swing, which hurtled him through the doorway, out on the ground, where he rolled clear over and lay still.

Traft stood on the threshold, glaring out. Then he stepped back, produced another cigarette and match. His fingers shook so he could hardly light the cigarette. His ruffled hair stood up like a mane. Presently he turned, to give Stone another thrill. It was something for the outlaw to look again into furious blazing honest eyes.

“Reckon I was a little previous,” he said, in a voice that rang. “All the same, Stone, I’m wishing you good luck.”

As he swept out the door Malloy appeared to be attempting to get up, emitting a strange kind of grunt. He was on his hands and knees, back to the cabin. Traft stuck out a heavy boot and gave him a tremendous shove. The little outlaw plunged face forward and slid into the brush.

Stone stood in the doorway and watched Traft’s lithe, erect, forceful figure disappear in the trees. Then he laid a humorous and most satisfying gaze upon Malloy. And he muttered, “Somebody will croak for this, an’ I hope it’s Malloy.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

JIM TRAFT DID not pause in his rapid stride until he had passed through the walled gateway which permitted egress from Yellow Jacket to the rough brakes of the basin below. Then he slowed up along the brawling brook, waiting to compose himself before he arrived at camp. The fire and tumult within him did not soon die down. “Gosh!” he ejaculated. “I get worse all the time...I’m going to kill somebody, some day — sure as the Lord made little apples.” And thoughtful review of the experience he had just passed through in the old Yellow Jacket cabin made him correct his exclamation by adding, “if I don’t get killed myself.”

He reached the wall and flung himself down in a sunny spot surrounded by green on three sides and dominated by the cracked and caverned cliff. If he was compelled to leave Arizona he would always remember it and cherish it by pictures in mind of this marvellous Yellow Jacket country. If the Tonto Basin, the Cibeque Valley, and especially the Diamond Mesa, across which he had built the now famous drift fence, had fascinated him, what had this wilderness of canyon and forest done? It brought into expression some deep, long-latent force of joy. Hours he had spent alone like this, not worrying over some problem, nor dreaming of Molly — which happened often enough — but not thinking of anything at all. It was a condition of mind Jim had not inquired into, because he realised it was pure happiness, and he feared an analysis would dispel it. And the enchantment fastened down strong upon him, so that it alternated with a serious consideration of what he had just passed through at the outlaw camp.

“I’ve made another blunder,” he soliloquised, regretfully. “Stone proved to be a decent fellow, as Uncle Jim vowed he was...But Stone is not all of the Hash-Knife. Whew!...That little hatchet-faced ruffian! — Sure he scared me, and I reckon I wasn’t in any danger from his playful bullets. But, my God! when I cursed him — if Stone hadn’t kicked his arm up I’d be dead now!...That was Croak Malloy, sure as hops. Reckon I’ll remember his face. And any of them. Sure a hard crowd!...They’ll probably buck against Stone about leaving Yellow Jacket. But he struck me as a man who’d be dangerous to cross...Anyway, I made a good impression on him...I’ll put the matter up to the boys and see what they say.”

If Jed Stone did really keep his word and abandon Yellow Jacket, how that would simplify the big task there! Jim would put the boys to cutting, peeling, and dragging pine logs down to the site where he wanted to erect a wonderful house. He had meant to clean up that ragged brushy end of Yellow Jacket, but after seeing it he had changed his mind. He would not even tear down the old log cabin where the Hash-Knife outfit had held forth so long. In time this cabin would become a relic of Arizona’s range days. It would take all winter to cut the logs, rip-saw the boards, split the shingles, and pack in the accessories for the ranch-house Jim had planned.

If Stone moved off peacefully and took his men — about whom Jim was most dubious — then it would be possible for Jim to go back to Flag for Christmas. What a thrilling idea! It warmed him into a genial glow. But another thought followed swiftly — the cowboys of his outfit would go back to Flag also. And that would be terrible. He groaned when he recalled the Thanksgiving dinner and dance which his Uncle Jim had given in honour of Gloriana May Traft. It had been a marvellous occasion, attended by everybody in or around Flagerstown, and something about which the cowboys raved more and more as time passed. Or it was Gloriana about whom they raved! What havoc that purple-eyed, white-faced girl had wrought! She had looked like a princess — and had flirted like a — a — Jim did not know what. She had even enticed Slinger Dunn to dance — a feat Molly avowed was without parallel. And she had showed open preference for handsome Curly Prentiss, which fact had gone to the head of this erstwhile gay and simple cowboy. He had made life for Bud and Cherry, not to mention the others, almost insupportable. Yet it all — the whole situation following that unforgettable dance — was so deliciously funny. All except the stunned look of Molly’s eyes — as Jim recalled it! Molly had not been jealous, She, too, had been carried away by Gloriana’s lovely face and charming personality. But there was something wrong with Molly. And Jim had been compelled to leave Flag almost before he realised that the advent of his sister had brought about some strange change in Molly’s happiness.

Jim had only to recall the last moments he had spent with Molly, her betrayal of self, her utter devotion, and her passionate love, to which she was gradually surrendering. These sufficed here, as they had before in moments of gloom, to lift him buoyantly to the skies again.

At last he got up and wended a devious way toward camp, preoccupied and tranquil. He was so absent-minded that when Slinger Dunn appeared as if by magic, right out of the green wall of foliage, he sustained a violent shock that was not all thrill.

“You darned Injun!” he ejaculated, in relief, “always scaring me stiff.”

“Howdy, Boss. I reckon you spend a heap of time heah-aboots — sittin’ in the sun,” replied Dunn.

There was no help for it — Jim could not leave camp or approach it, or hide, or in any way escape the vigilance of this backwoodsman. It rather pleased Jim, who recognised in it a protective watchfulness. His cowboys were always concerned, sometimes unduly, when he was absent. And the acquisition of Slinger Dunn to the outfit had been hailed with loud acclaim.

Slinger leaned on his rifle and regarded Jim with eyes like Molly’s, only darker and piercing as the points of daggers. He was bareheaded, as he went usually, and his long hair almost lay upon his shoulders. He wore buckskin, which apparel singularly distinguished him from the cowboys. In his backwoods way Slinger was fastidious, or so it seemed. His simple woodsman’s costume partook of the protective hue of foliage and rock, according to which furnished a background.

“Jim, you look sorta worried,” he observed.

“Huh! Small wonder, Slinger.”

“How’d Jed treat you?”

“Fine. He’s a good fellow, even if he is an outlaw.”

“Shore I reckoned you’d like Jed. But I was skeered of Croak Malloy, an’ thet slippery greaser sheepherder.”

“I didn’t get a line on the Mexican you called Sonora. But, Slinger, I formed the acquaintance of Mister Malloy, croak and gun and all. I did!...Wait till we reach camp. I don’t want to have to tell it twice...How are the boys? I swear I’m afraid to leave them alone these days.”

“Hell to pay,” grinned Slinger, showing his white teeth, and his black eyes had a gleam of fun.

“Now what?” demanded Jim, perturbed. “Curly busted Bud one on the nose.”

“Oh!...Is that all?”

“Wal, it shore was enough, leastways for Bud.”

“Aw, they’re pards, the best of friends. They worship each other, even if they do scrap all the time. What was it about this time?”

“Somethin’ aboot Gloriana’s laigs,” drawled Slinger.

“Wh — hat!” exclaimed Jim, astounded and furious.

“I didn’t heah Bud. But you could have heahed Curly a mile. He roared like a mad bull. An’ I near died laffin’. I’ll shore have fun tellin’ Gloriana aboot it.”

“Oh, the — you will?” queried Jim, constrainedly. Slinger was an entirely new element in the Diamond outfit and assuredly an unknown quantity. He was naive to the point of doubt, and absolutely outspoken. “Better tell me first.”

It appeared, presently, that Bud Chalfack, as frank and innocent in his cowboy way as Slinger was in his backwoods fashion, had been talking about Gloriana’s pretty feet, ankles, and so on, much to Curly’s disgust. And when Bud nonchalantly added that Gloriana was not wholly blind to the grace and beauty of her nether extremities Curly had taken offence. He could allow no insult to his young lady friend from the East, and despite Bud’s protest he punched him on the nose.

Jim held himself in until he reached camp. He did not know whether to explode with wrath or glee. But the incident might prove to have advantages. Gloriana had upset the outfit; and Jim had found himself at a loss to combat the situation. He grasped at straws.

The camp site, assuredly the most beautiful Jim had seen, was in a break of the wall, where a little brown brook ran, crystal clear over stones and between grassy banks. A few lofty silver spruces lorded it over an open glade, which the sun touched with gold. Huge blocks of cliff had fallen and rolled out. Boulders as large as houses stood half-hidden by pines. Ferns and amber trailing vines coloured the rock wall behind. Camp paraphernalia lay around in picturesque confusion that suited the lounging cowboys.

Jim stalked toward the boys. He must maintain tremendous dignity and make all possible use of this opportunity. Curly got up, his fine face flushing, and made a halfhearted advance, which he checked. Jim divined that this young man was not sure of his stand. Bud sat apart, disconsolate, and nursing a bloody nose.

“What’s this Slinger tells me?” Jim demanded, in a loud voice. “You insulted my sister?”

“Aw no, Boss. Honest t’Gawd I never did,” burst out Bud, in distress.

“Is Slinger a liar, then?”

“Yes he is, dog-gone-it, if he says so,” retorted Bud.

“And Curly slugged you for nothing?”

“Not egzactly nuthin’, Boss,” replied Bud. “I — I did say somethin’, but I meant nuthin’.”

“Bud Chalfack, did you dare to speak of my sister’s legs — here in this camp of low-down cowboys?” demanded Jim, as he leaned over to jerk Bud to his feet.

“Aw, Jim. Fer Heaven’s sake — listen,” begged Bud. “Shore I — I said somethin’, but it was compliment an’ no insult.”

Jim placed a boot behind Bud and tripped him, spread him on the grass, and straddling him, lifting a big menacing fist.

“Aw, Jim, don’t hit me. I got enough from Curly. An’ he cain’t hit as hard as you.”

“I’ll smash your wagging jaw!”

“I’m sorry, Boss. I — I was jest excited, an’ talkin’ aboot how pretty Miss Gloriana is. An’ I reckon I was jest seein’ if I could rile Curly. It shore did...I swear I didn’t mean nuthin’. An’ I apologise.”

“What’d you say?” demanded Jim, his fist still uplifted.

“Aw, I forget. It wasn’t nuthin’ atall.”

“Curly, come here,” called Jim, sharply, and as the red-faced cowboy advanced reluctantly Jim went on: “Since you had the gall to constitute yourself my sister’s champion you can tell me just what this blackguard did say. Don’t you dare lie!”

Curly seemed to be in a worse predicament than Bud, though for no apparent cause, unless it was Jim’s great displeasure. He did not look like the chivalrous defender of a young girl. But presently he got it out, thereby acquainting Jim with the exact words and nature of Bud’s offence. Jim could have shrieked with glee, though he acted the part of an avenging Nemesis. Curly was the deceitful one who had taken advantage of Bud’s ravings; and Bud was the innocent victim, scored terribly by Jim’s wrath and a dereliction he could not quite understand.

“Ahuh. So this is the kind of a cowboy you are,” shouted Jim, raising his fist higher. “I’ll beat you good, Bud Chalfack...Do you crawfish? Do you take it back?”

“No — damn’ if I do!” cried Bud, righteous anger rising out of his grief. “You can beat all you want. What I said I said, an’ I’ll stick to it...Cause it’s true, Jim Traft.”

Jim solemnly regarded the prostrate cowboy, while poising aloft the clenched mace of retribution. Bud’s true spirit flashed out. In his code of honour he had not transgressed. But Jim did not like the familiarity with which the boys bandied about Gloriana’s charms. It was absolutely inevitable, it was Western and there was not any harm in it; nevertheless, he was inconsistent enough to see the humour of it and still resent.

Suddenly an idea occurred to Jim and in an instant he accepted it as a way of escape out of the dilemma. He certainly had not intended to strike Bud, unless there was real offence. He released the cowboy and got up.

“Bud, you are hopeless,” he said, with pretence of sorrow and resignation. “No use to beat you! That’d be no adequate punishment. I’ll make you an example...I’ll tell Glory what you said about her!”

“Aw — Boss!” gasped Bud.

“I shall, Bud Chalfack. Then we’ll see where you get off.”

“But, Jim, for Gawd’s sake, think! You’d have to tell her Curly punched me for it. Then I’d be wuss’n a coyote an’ he’d be a hero. Thet’d be orful, Jim, an’ you jest cain’t be so mean.”

“Curly never talked exactly that same way about Gloriana, did he?”

“No, I never heerd him, but I reckon he thinks it, an’ more’n thet, too, you bet.”

“Bud, if you admire a girl and must gab about her, why not confine yourself to her eyes, her hair, or mouth? Couldn’t you be satisfied to say her eyes were like wells of midnight, her hair spun gold, and her lips sweet as red cherries?”

“Hell yes, I could. But I never swallered no dictionary. An’ dog-gone-it, any bootiful girl has more’n eyes an’ hair an’ lips, hasn’t she?”

“Nevertheless, I shall tell Gloriana,” returned Jim, inexorably.

“Boss, I’ll take the beatin’,” implored Bud.

“No, you won’t, Bud. You’ll take your medicine. And pretty soon, too. We’re all going back to Flag for Christmas. Jed Stone agreed to get off Yellow Jacket and that leaves us free, for the present, anyway.”

“Whoop-ee!” yelled the outfit, in a united chorus.

Only Bud was not radiant. “I’ll get drunk an’ disgrace the outfit,” he avowed.

“Listen, men, and tell me what you make of this deal,” said Jim, and seating himself on a pack while the cowboys gathered around, he began a detailed account of his visit to the Hash-Knife outfit. He took longer than usual in the telling of an incident, because he wanted to be specific and not to omit a single impression. When he had finished there was a blank silence, rather perturbing. At length Slinger Dunn broke it:

“My Gawd! Boss, you’re as good as daid!” he ejaculated, with the only expression of concern Jim had ever seen on his dark impressive face.

Curly Prentiss broke out: “Jim! You’ve slugged the dangerousest gunman in Arizona!”

One by one the others vented similar opinions, until only Bud was left to express himself.

“Boss, you’re a tenderfoot, same as when you come West,” declared that worthy. “You cain’t be trusted with a job like thet. Didn’t I ast to go? Didn’t I tell you to take Curly? You dod-blasted jackass! Now you’ve played hell!”

“So it appears,” returned Jim, sober-faced.

“If you’d only shot Malloy when you had the chanct,” said Slinger, moodily.

“But I didn’t pack a gun,” expostulated Jim, “I went unarmed so that I couldn’t shoot anybody.”

“Wal, Boss, you shore made another mistake,” spoke up Curly. “Jed Stone is square. He’ll keep his word. But he’s only the brains of the Hash-Knife. Croak Malloy haids the gun end of thet outfit. An’ if he doesn’t shoot up Arizona now, I’ll miss my guess.”

“Well, it’s too late. I’m sorry. I sure was mad. And I’d have slammed that dirty little rat around if it was the last thing on earth...But let’s get our heads together. What’ll we do? Slinger, you talk first.”

“Better lay low an’ wait while I watch the trails. Jed will go, but he might go alone. An’ I’m shore tellin’ you if he goes alone the Hash-Knife will be ten times wuss’n ever.”

“I reckon he’ll get off Yellow Jacket an’ persuade the outfit to follow,” said Curly. “Stone is a persuasive cuss, I’ve heahed men say. An’ Yellow Jacket is cleaned out of cattle. They’ve made way with your Diamond stock, Jim, an’ once more you’re a poor cowboy. Haw haw!”

“They’re welcome to my stock, if they only vamoose,” returned Jim, fervently.

“Boss, they shore ain’t welcome to the half of thet stock you gave me,” declared Dunn, darkly. “I was pore, an’ all of a sudden I felt rich. An’ now—”

“Slinger, you still have your half interest in what cattle are left and what I’ll drive in,” replied Jim. “My uncle won’t see us left stripped.”

“Wal, thet’s different,” said Slinger, brightening.

“You stay off the war-path, you darned redskin,” interposed Curly. “We’re shore goin’ to need you...Now, Boss, heah’s the deal in a nutshell, as I see it. An’ I know these rustlin’ outfits. Jed Stone will change his base. But he won’t get out of the brakes. There’s rich pickin’ on the range below. The Hash-Knife will hide down heah, an’ then go to operatin’ big an’ bold. Stone will throw thet outfit down or I don’t read the signs correct. An’ as Slinger says, then the Hash-Knife will be worse. Somebody will have to kill Malloy or we cain’t do any ranchin’ in these parts. Shore everythin’ will be quiet till spring.”

Jim maintained a long, thoughtful silence. He respected Curly Prentiss’s judgement, and could not recall an instance when it had been wrong. Curly was young, but old in range wisdom. Then his intelligence and education were far above that of the average cowboy.

“Very well,” finally said Jim. “We’ll stick close to camp, with two guards out day and night. Slinger will watch the Hash-Knife gang and report. So until then I guess we’ll have to play mumblypeg.”

Two lazy idle yet watchful days passed. Slinger did not return until long after dark of the second day, so long that it took persuasion by Curly to allay Jim’s anxiety. Slinger came in with Uphill Frost, who had been on guard down the trail and who had missed the supper hour.

“The Hash-Knife gang is gone,” announced Frost, loudly. “I seen the whole caboodle ride by, an’ I damn near took a peg at thet Croak Malloy.”

“What — You sure, Up?” shouted Jim, leaping excitedly to his feet.

“Yep. I wisht I was as sure of heaven. It was aboot two o’clock this afternoon. I’d come back sooner, but Slinger slipped up on me an’ told me to wait till he got back. There was eight of ’em an’ they had a string of pack-horses.”

“Slinger, where’d they go?” asked Jim, breathlessly.

“I followed them ten miles, an’ when I turned back they were travellin’,” returned Dunn. “To-morrer I’ll take a hoss. I reckon they’re makin’ fer the Black Brakes.”

“How far is that?”

“Aboot twenty miles as the crow flies.”

“Too close for comfort.”

“Boss, I sneaked up almost within earshot of the cabin,” went on Dunn. “Fust off this mawnin’ I seen the greaser Sonora wranglin’ their hosses. An’ as he’s the only one of thet outfit I’m skeered of I went up the crick an’ crawled up in the brush. I got close enough to heah voices, but not what they said. Shore was a hell of a argyment, though. They’d pack awhile, then fight awhile. Reckon I didn’t need to heah. All as plain as tracks to me. Malloy kicked on quittin’ Yellow Jacket an’ most of the outfit was with him. But Stone was too strong. An’ along aboot noon they rode off.”

“Yippy-yip!” yelled Jim, in wild elation. “Gone without a scrap. Gosh! but I’m glad.”

“Boss, you shore air previous,” spoke up Bud, with sarcasm. “Thet Hash-Knife gang hey only rid off aways to hide till you throw up a fine big cabin. Then they’ll come back an’ take it away from you.”

“They will like — h-hob,” stammered Jim.

“Thet’ll be like Malloy,” admitted Slinger. “I’m afeered they went off too willin’.”

“Shore is aboot the deal to expect,” chimed in Curly, cheerfully. “But life is short in Arizona an’ who knows? — Malloy may croak before spring.”

“Curly Prentiss, you’ve somethin’ on your mind,” declared Jim, darkly.

“Humph! It’s only curly hair an’ sometimes a sombrero,” said Bud.

“Shore. I’m a thoughtful cuss. Always reckonin’ fer my friends an’ my boss.”

“An’ your next sweetheart.”

“Bud, old pard, for me there’ll never be no next one.”

“Boys, we’ll build the house,” interposed Jim, with decision that presupposed heretofore he had been only dreaming. “Jeff, we’ll break camp at daylight. Better pack some tonight. We’ll hit the trail for Yellow Jacket. Gosh! I’m glad! ... We’ll keep Slinger on watch, and the rest of us will cut, peel, an’ make pine poles out of the woods.”

“Swell job for genuine cowpunchers,” observed Bud, satirically.

“I’ve ridden all over Yellow Jacket, Jim,” spoke up Curly. “Some years ago. But shore there’s timber to build a town. Grandest place for a ranch! It’d be tough to spend a lot of coin on it, an’ work a good outfit to death, an’ haul in stuff to make a nice home, an’ fetch your little Western bride down fer your honeymoon — an’ then stop one of Croak Malloy’s bullets...Shore would be tough!”

“Curly, you’re a blamed pessimist,” burst out Jim. “Don’t you ever have any dreams?”

“Me? Never once in my life,” drawled Curly.

“Boss, he’s dreamin’ now — an’ if you knowed what it’s aboot you’d punch him on his handsome nose,” said Bud, revengefully.

“Bud, you surprise me,” rejoined Jim, mildly. Then he advised the outfit to turn in and be up at daylight.

Jim rode through the colourful rock-wall gateway of Yellow Jacket, imagining himself Vercingetorix riding his black stallion at the head of his army into one of the captured cities.

On his hurried visit to Jed Stone he had scarcely noted details of this wild and beautiful retreat. But now he had eyes for everything.

“Wal, we’ll shore have hell cuttin’ a road in heah,” Curly was observing. “Reckon it’ll have to be at the up end of the canyon.”

The trail wound among big sycamores and spruces, a remarkable combination for contrast, of green and white and silver, and of gold. The brook brawled between mossy banks of amber moss, and at the ford it was deep enough and swift enough to make the horses labour.

“Cain’t cross heah in a spring an’ fall freshet, that’s shore,” went on Curly. “By golly! this place gets under my skin.”

Blocks of red and yellow rock lay scattered beyond the gateway, with tall pines and spruces shading them, except in occasional grassy open sunlit nooks. The grey walls converged from the gate, sculptured by nature into irregular and creviced ramparts, festooned with bright-red vines and bronze lichens, and with ledges supporting little spruces, and with crags of every shape lifting weathered tops to the fringe of pines on the rim.

There was a long slow ascent thinning from forest to park-like ground, up to the old cabin. Indeed, Jim meant to preserve this relic of rustler and outlaw days.

“What’s thet white thing stuck on the door? Looks like paper to me,” said the sharp-eyed Bud.

Curiously they rode up to the cabin, dismounting one by one. Jim saw a dirty page of a lined note-book pegged into the rotten woodwork of the door. Upon it was scrawled in a crude, but legible hand-writing, the word “Mariana”. And under it had been drawn the rude sketch of a hash-knife, somehow compelling and suggestive.

“Clear as print,” replied Curly, tersely. “Wal, heah’s four bits thet Croak Malloy left thet,” added Slinger.

“Well?” demanded Jim, somewhat impatiently.

“Boss, yore mind’s so full of ranch an’ house an’ — wal, an’ so forth thet it ain’t workin’,” explained Bud. “Mariana means to-morrer. An’ the knife says they’ll come back pronto to make hash out of us.”

“Oh, is that all?” returned Jim, with a laugh. “Bud, life does not seem very bright and hopeful for you just now.”

“Hell no! I got brains an’ six-sense eyesight,” replied the gloomy cowboy.

“We’ll throw the packs under the pine trees there. No sleeping in that buggy cabin for me,” said Jim. “Jeff, I’d rather you didn’t cook here unless it storms. You can build a fireplace under the extension roof there...Say, there’s an open-roofed extension at the back too. Used for horses. Well, here we are. Let’s rustle. Slinger, your job is to use your eyes.”

“Boss, there’s two holes to this burrow,” spoke up Bud.

“Where’s the other?”

“Reckon it’s aboot three miles west, where the canyon boxes,” replied Curly, pointing. “Higher an’ not so rough. If I recollect, the trail grades down easy. We’ll cut the road through there. It’ll take some blastin’.”

“We’ll take a chance on that end,” said Jim. “Bud, I tell you what you can do. While we pitch camp you ride up and find the best place to cut our poles. But remember, it must be back in the woods, out of sight. No defacing the beauty of this property!”

“Funny how some fellars are,” observed Bud, philosophising. “Beooty first an’ last, an’ always in wimmen.”

Then he rode away. Jim gazed after him in perplexity. “What’s wrong with Bud?” he asked.

“His nose an’ his feelin’s are hurt,” replied Cherry Winters.

“You forgot, Boss. You swore you’d give him away,” drawled Curly. “An’ the poor kid is in love. I’ve seen him like this sixty-nine times.”

Jim set the outfit to work, and had no small hand in the cutting and trimming of pine poles. Bud had located a fine stand of long straight trees, growing so close together that there was scarcely any foliage except at the top. This particular grove would benefit by a good thinning out. The peeling of the green bark was no slight task. Some of the boys proved adept at that.

Ten days of uninterrupted labour followed. Slinger Dunn had trailed the Hash-Knife outfit to Black Brakes, the very retreat to which he had surmised they would go; and according to him they had stayed there, or at least had not ridden north on the trail toward Yellow Jacket. When Jim allowed himself to think of it he was vastly concerned. The prospect of a ranch and a home within twenty miles of the hardest and most notorious gang in Arizona was almost unthinkable. They would have to be dealt with. Nevertheless Jim nursed a conviction that Jed Stone would turn out to be the kind of man Uncle Jim had vowed he was. To be sure, all Jim had to substantiate such faith was the fact of Stone’s leaving Yellow Jacket, and an undefinable something Jim felt.

One night Jim overheard Curly and Bud talking. It was late, the fire had died down so that it cast only ruddy flickering shadows, and no doubt the boys thought Jim was sound asleep. Bud had seemed more like his true self lately, and had forgiven the blow on his nose and the affront to his vanity. He worshipped Curly like a brother.

“It’s a fool job, I tell you, Curly,” Bud was saying, almost in a whisper. “Like as not Malloy will burn this pile of logs while we’re in Flag.”

“Shore he will, or more like wait till the house is half up,” agreed Curly. “But, dog-gone-it, Bud, I cain’t go against the boss. He has a way of makin’ me soft. Shore as hell he’ll stop my drinkin’. I’m jest a-rarin’ fer a bust. It’s due in Flag this heah trip, an’ honest to God, Bud, I’ll be afraid to take a drink.”

“I feel the same, but I’m gonna get orful drunk onct more or die tryin’...Curly, if you don’t watch out Jim will argue you or coax you to stop gun-throwin’. An’ then you’ll be slated for a quiet rest under a pine tree!”

“Uh-ugh. I practise just the same as ever, Bud, only on the sly.”

“Wal, I’m glad. If I don’t miss my bet we’re gonna need some gun-throwin’. Slinger don’t like this ‘possum-playin’ of the Hash-Knife. He knows. Curly, what do you think? Slinger was tellin’ me he reckoned he oughta dog them rustlers, an’ pick them off one at a time, with a rifle.”

“Slinger cain’t do thet, no more than I could. Shore I’m not Injun enough. But you know what I mean. What’d you say, Bud?”

“I ast him why he oughta. An’ he said for Molly’s sake.”

“Shore. The same thing worries me a lot. I never seen a girl love a fellar like she loves Jim. Dog-gone! It’d shore be...Wal, Croak Malloy will shoot Jim the first time he lays eyes on him, no matter where.”

“Curly, I agree with you. Croak would. But I bet you Slinger gets to him first. Because, Curly, old pard, our backwoods cowboy is turrible in love with Gloriana May. Did you get thet?”

Curly swore surprisingly for him, and not under his breath by any means.

“Not so loud. You’ll wake up somebody,” admonished Bud, in a fierce whisper.

“Shore he is, Bud,” admitted Curly. “But thet’s nothin’. I’ve lost my haid. So’ve you, an’ all the boys. The hell of it is Glory is in love with Slinger.”

“Wow! You are out of your haid. He amuses Glory — fascinates her, mebbe, ‘cause she’s crazy aboot desperadoes, but thet’s all, pard,” returned Bud, with all the heart-warming loyalty of his nature.

“Shore sounds queer — for me to say that aboot Glory,” went on Curly. “Lord knows I mean no disrespect. She’s a thoroughbred. But, Bud, jest consider. She’s an Easterner. She’s young. She’s full of sentiment an’ romance. An’ she’s had some kind of trouble. Deep. An’ it’s hurt her. Wal, this damn Slinger Dunn is far better-lookin’ than any of us — than any cowpuncher I ever seen. He’s a wonderful chap. Bud. If I wasn’t so jealous of him that I want to shoot him in the back — I — I’d love him myself. It wouldn’t be so strange for a girl like Glory to fall haid over heels in love with him. An’, honest, I’m scared so I’m afraid to go to Flag.”

“Nonsense. Any damn fool could hev seen you had the inside track with Glory. Sure, if you back out an’ show yellow, Slinger, or somebody else, will beat you. Don’t you think I’m backin’ out. I reckon Glory couldn’t see me with a spy-glass, but I’m in the race an’ I got a flyin’ start. When I raved aboot Slinger havin’ her picture she gave me one, an’ a darn sight newer an’ prettier than his.”

Curly swore again. “Wal, can you beat thet? Shore she wouldn’t give one to me...Women are no good, Bud.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s thet bad, Curly,” replied Bud. “They’re damn hard to figger. I reckon Glory jest likes me. Why, she laughs an’ cuts up with me. She’s sorta shy with you.”

“Shy nothin’. Shore I haven’t seen her a lot of times — that is, to talk to. Twice at the corral — three times in the livin’-room, when I went in to see Jim — once at Babbitt’s store — an’ at the dance. That was the best. My Gawd! I cain’t get back my breath...But, she was only curious aboot my gun-play. It makes me sick as a dog to remember the fights I’ve been in, let alone talk aboot them. But she kept at me till I got mad. Then she froze an’ said she guessed I wasn’t much of a desperado, after all.”

“Haw haw!” laughed Bud, low and mellow. “Curly, what thet little lady needs is a dose of Croak Malloy.”

CHAPTER NINE

JIM BLAZED A road out of Yellow Jacket. His authority was not questioned by any one of the cowboys, but his ability as an engineer certainly was.

“You gotta drive wagons up this grade,” asserted Bud, repeatedly. “You wasn’t so pore runnin’ a straight-line drift fence, but this hyar’s a different matter. You don’t savvy grades.”

“All right, Bud. Maybe I’m not so darn smart as I think I am,” replied Jim, laying a trap for Bud. “Suppose we go back and run it all over. You can be the engineer. That’ll cut two days off our Christmas vacation in Flag. Too bad, but that road must be right.”

The howl that went up from the Diamond was vociferous and derisive, and it effectually disposed of Bud.

“Aw, Boss, mebbe it ain’t. I reckon it’ll work out — an’ any little grade can be eased up after,” he rejoined, meekly.

Twenty miles on through the slowly ascending forest they struck a cattle trail which afforded good travel, and in due course led them to the Payson road, and eventually the ranch where they had left the chuck-wagon. They stayed there all night, and the following night camped at the edge of the snow, only one more day’s ride to Flag.

Next afternoon late a tired, cold, dirty, unshaven, but happy group of cowboys rode into town, and there they separated. Jim had reasons to shake Curly and Bud, and they manifested no great desire to continue on with him.

Flagerstown was windy and bleak. The snow had been shovelled or had blown off the streets, down which piercing dusty gusts whipped in Jim’s face. But it would have taken an unfaceable blizzard or an impassable prairie fire to have daunted Jim’s soaring spirits. He had two important errands before rushing out to the ranch, and he did not want them to take long, for his horse was pretty warm. Dismounting in front of the jeweller’s, Jim hurried in. The proprietor, with whom Jim had left an order, was not in, but his son was, a young Westerner whom Jim did not like.

“Mr. Miller in?” he asked.

“No. Father’s out of town. But I can wait on you...The diamond ring is here — if you still want it,” returned the young man.

Jim stared. What in the devil did this nincompoop mean?

“Certainly I want it. I paid in advance. Let me have it, quick, please,” retorted Jim.

The jeweller produced a little white box, from which glistened a beautiful diamond. Tim took it, trying to be cool, but he was burning and thrilling all over. Molly’s engagement ring! It was a beauty — pretty big and valuable, he thought, now he actually saw what he had ordered. Molly would be surprised. She did not even know Jim had ordered it. And sight of her eyes, when they fell upon it, would be worth ten times the price.

“Thanks. I reckon it’s all right. I was careful about size,” said Jim, and pocketing the ring he strode out to his horse, which he led down the street. “Funny look that gazabo gave me,” he soliloquised, thoughtfully, and he dismissed the incident by admitting to himself he must have been rather amusing to the clerk. Then he went into Babbitt’s, where he had left another order, for a Christmas present for his uncle, and one for Molly. Securing the packages, which were rather large and heavy, and which he did not trouble to open, he hurried out through the store. In the men’s furnishing department a bright-red silk scarf caught his eye, and he swerved to the counter.

“I’d like that red scarf,” he said to the girl clerk, “and a pair of buckskin gloves.”

The girl neither spoke nor moved. Then Jim looked at her — and there stood Molly Dunn, with white and agitated face. Jim was perfectly thunderstruck. Could he be dreaming? But Molly’s gasp, “Oh — Jim!” proved this was reality.

“What — what does this mean?” he stammered.

“I’m workin’ heah, Jim,” she whispered. “Mawnin’s I go to school an’ afternoons I’m heah.”

“For Heaven’s sake! A clerk in Babbitt’s?” he exclaimed.

“Di — didn’t you — get my letter?” she faltered, her eyes unnaturally large and frightened.

“Letter? No, I didn’t. How could I get a letter when I’ve been three weeks in the woods?”

“I — I left it — with your uncle.”

“Molly, I just rode in. Haven’t been home. What’s wrong? Why are you here?” Jim leaned against the counter, fighting to check the whirl of his thoughts. Molly’s eyes suddenly expressed a poignant dismay.

“Oh, Jim — I’m so sorry — you had to come in heah — not knowin’,” she cried, piteously. “I wouldn’t have hurt you...But I — I’ve left your home...I’ve broke our engagement.”

“Molly!” he ejaculated, in hoarse incredulity.

“It’s true, Jim...But you mustn’t stand there...”

“Why, for God’s sake—” he burst out.

“Please go, Jim. I — I’ll see you later — an’ tell you—”

“No. You can tell me here why you jilted me,” he interrupted, harshly.

“Missouri — I — I didn’t,” she said, huskily, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Was Gloriana mean to you?” Jim suddenly demanded.

“She was lovely to me. Kind an’ sweet. An’ she — she tried to meet me on my own level — so I wouldn’t see the difference be — between us...but I did. I — I wasn’t fit to be her sister. I shore wasn’t goin’ to disgrace you. So I — I left an’ come heah to work. Mother went back home to the Cibeque.”

“You swear Glory didn’t hurt you?”

“No, Jim, I cain’t swear thet. But she never hurt me on purpose. There’s nothin’ mean aboot your sister...I just loved her — an’ thet made it worse.”

“Molly Dunn, you’re a damn little fool,” exploded Jim, overcome by a frenzy of pain and fury. “You were good enough for any man, let alone me...But if you’re as fickle — as that—”

Jim choked, and gathering up his packages he gave Molly a terrible look and rushed out of the store.

In an ordinary moment he could not have mounted his horse, burdened as he was, but he leaped astride, scarcely feeling the weight of the packages. And he spurred Baldy into a run, right down the main street of Flagerstown. The violence of action suited the violent tumult in his breast. But by the time he reached the ranch-house the furious anger had given way somewhat to consternation and a stunned surprise. That simple, honest, innocent child! But even so she might be protecting Gloriana. Jim left his horse at the barn, and taking his bundles he ran into the house and into the living-room, bursting in upon the old cattleman like a hurricane.

“Jim! Good Lord! I thought it was Injuns,” exclaimed Traft. “Wal, I expected you along soon. How are you, son?”

“Howdy, Uncle!” replied Jim, throwing aside his bundles and meeting the glad hand extended. “I was fine, till I struck town...Glad to report the Hash-Knife got off Yellow Jacket without a fight.”

“Jim Traft! — You’re not foolin’ the old man?”

“No, I’m happy to say. It’s a fact, Uncle.”

“Wal! — You long-headed, big-fisted tenderfoot son-of-a-gun from Mizzouri!...Jim, I’m clear locoed. I’m dead beat. I’m — wal, I don’t know what. How’n hell did you do it?”

“I went straight to see Jed Stone.”

“You braved thet outfit?” yelled Traft.

“Sure. Jed Stone was sure decent. He agreed to get out. But Croak Malloy shot a match out of my fingers, then the cigarette out of my mouth. I sure was mad. I cussed him — called him a crooked-faced little runt. He’d shot at me then, but Stone kicked his gun. It went off in the air. Then I piled into Croak. I banged him around then knocked him about a mile out of the door. He was trying to get up when I went out, and I gave him a good stiff kick, and left.”

“My Gawd! — Son, don’t tell me you punched thet gunman, same as these cowboys?” ejaculated Traft.

“I reckon I did, Uncle. It was foolish, of course. But I was mad. And I didn’t know then that the little runt was Malloy. It mightn’t have made any difference.”

“Croak Malloy! Beat and kicked around by a Mizzouri tenderfoot!...Jim, my boy, you’re as good as dead,” wailed the old rancher.

“Don’t you believe it,” retorted Jim. “And how long do I have to serve as a tenderfoot...Well, no more about the Hash-Knife now. We moved up to Yellow Jacket and went to cutting poles. And on our way out we blazed a line out to the road. After the holidays we’ll go back, and by spring be ready—”

Suddenly it dawned upon him that something had happened which made the home-building at Yellow Jacket a useless and superfluous task. His heart contracted and sank like cold lead.

“Wal, you’re an amazin’ youngster,” said Traft, with his keen blue eyes full of admiration and pride. “You scare me, though. I reckon it’s a more Christian thing to slug a man than to shoot him. You ‘pear to have a hankerin’ to use your fists. I heard aboot your hittin’ Bambridge in the station at Winslow. You never told me that, you sly young dog. Didn’t want to worry your old uncle, huh?...Wal, I can see you’ve more on your mind. An’ I’ll wait to hear aboot Bambridge, the Hash-Knife deal, an’ Yellow Jacket.”

“Uncle, I ran into Babbitt’s, and there, behind a counter, was Molly,” burst out Jim, and the mere telling of it aloud causing a regurgitation of fierce emotions. “She’s broken our engagement...She’s gone to work...I’m stunned.”

“Jim, don’t take it too hard,” replied the old rancher, soothingly. “Don’t imagine it a permanent break. Why, she done it because she loves you so much. She came to me an’ told me, Jim. How she wasn’t good enough for you — she hadn’t the courage to marry you — your family would stick up their noses at her, an’ all that sort of thing. I tried to argue her out of goin’. But she’s a stubborn little minx. Independent, an’ proud, too, in her way. So I jest told her thet you’d understand, but you’d never take her at her word. She cried at thet. Jim, she couldn’t hold out against you for five minutes. So don’t let it break you all up.”

“My word, Uncle, but you’re a lifesaver,” replied Jim, with intense relief. “It’s bad enough, Lord knows, but if there’s any hope I can stand it. Do you think Glory made it hard for Molly?”

“Wal, I reckon she did,” said Traft, seriously. “An’ all the time she was tryin’ to put poor Molly at her ease. But she couldn’t. An’ that’ll never come until Molly gets Glory on her own ground. Then there’ll be a balance struck. Glory an’ I have got on fine, Jim. She’s a comfort to me, an’ has been confidin’ a little of her troubles at home. I reckon we’ll never let her go back.”

“No, we’ll keep her out West. Uncle, how is she? Has her health improved?”

“Wal, Glory’s got thet bad cough yet, an’ she gains but slow. I reckon she has improved. It’ll take summer an’ outdoors among the pines an’ cedars to make her strong again. Suppose you hunt her up. Then after supper you can get the rest off your chest.”

“All right, Uncle, but just one word more,” returned Jim, eagerly. “You tell me not to fear a permanent break with Molly. When she’s made it, already! I’m sick. I’m dumbfounded. I was so furious I called her a damn little fool.”

“So she is. An’ thet won’t hurt your cause none. Now, Jim, don’t fall into this broken-heart cowboy style an’ go to drinkin’. I tell you Molly worships the ground you walk on. An’ if I was you I’d jest go an’ pack her back home here to the ranch.”

“Pack her?” echoed Jim, aghast.

“Shore. She won’t come willin’, not very soon. So I’d jest fetch her back by force. A good spankin’ wouldn’t do no harm. But I reckon you haven’t nerve enough for thet. Molly has given the town people lots to gossip about. Glory will tell you. An’ you in turn can give them somethin’ to gossip about.”

“Ahuh...Thanks, Uncle,” rejoined Jim, soberly. “I’ll consider your advice. It appeals to me, especially the spanking part.”

Jim left the living-room, absent-mindedly fingering the ring box in his pocket. He did not take all his uncle had said as absolute gospel, but it surely checked the riot of his feelings. Then he knocked at Gloriana’s door.

“Who’s there?” she called, in rather a startled voice.

Some devil beset Jim, perhaps the besetting sin of his joke-loving cowboys, and without reflection he announced in a gruff voice:

“Darnell.”

He heard an exclamation, followed by quick footsteps, and a sudden locking of the door.

“You nagging scoundrel!” called Gloriana, her voice ringing. “The nerve of you! I’m sick of your chasing after me. Get out of this house or I’ll scream for my uncle. You’ll reckon with Jim and his cowboys for the way you’ve treated me.”

Jim was thunderstruck again, though in a vastly different way.

“Oh, Glory,” he cried, “it’s only Jim. I thought I was being funny.”

“Jim!”

“Sure. Don’t you know my voice? I just rode in. Had a word with Uncle and here I am.”

“Are you — alone?” she asked, fumbling at the lock.

Wherewith she opened the door to disclose a lovely though most agitated countenance. Jim went in, stricken at the scare he had evidently given her.

“Glory, I’m darn sorry. I don’t know what possessed me — to think of that fellow Darnell. Please forgive me.”

“Have you heard — anything?” she asked, searching his face with darkly troubled eyes.

“About Darnell? I think I did hear that name. Before I left for Yellow Jacket. But I only just got back. Saw Molly!...Imagine my luck! I ran in Babbitt’s — and almost fell over her. We had a few words, sister...Then I came home. Saw Uncle for a minute...Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“You great big handsome hairy — bear!” she cried, breathlessly. “You look like a tramp. You smell like horses and smoke...Oh, Jim, I’m so glad to see you!”

“We’re square on that, then,” he said. “Come to the fire. Gee! I’m nearly frozen. I’ve been so knocked out I hardly knew it was cold. Let me look at you.”

“Well, what’s your verdict?” she asked, meeting his gaze with a wistful smile. Gloriana’s eyes had the inscrutable quality of beauty that was a blending of purple hue and a light which anyone might well mistake. But Jim saw deeper, and he was satisfied.

“I couldn’t ask more. You’re on the mend.”

“Jim, I was fine until that damned Darnell turned up here in Flag,” she replied. “I told you he would. It was a couple of weeks ago. But I found out before I saw him. He came here — coaxed and threatened. I told him I would have absolutely nothing more to do with him. He has bobbed up every time I went downtown, to stores, post-office, everywhere. Finally I stayed home. And you bet I was angry when I took you for him.”

“What’s he doing out here, Glory?” asked Jim.

“He followed me. But he’ll have more than one string to his bow. Said he had gone to work for a rancher named Bambridge—”

“Oh, I remember now,” interrupted Jim, “I saw him that day at the station. So your erstwhile beau has thrown in with Bambridge? Interesting — and funny.”

“Jim, it’s not funny to me,” she spoke up, hurriedly. “I’m afraid of Darnell. He’s a two-faced slicker. But he has become acquainted in town. He’s already popular with the girls. I’m deathly afraid.”

“Of what?” laughed Jim. He was in fact a little amused at the way he found his Western development disposed of Mr. Darnell.

“He’ll talk about me — disgrace you, hurt you in Flag.”

“Talk about you, will he? Glory, what do you suppose Curly Prentiss or Slinger Dunn would do — if he so much as spoke one slighting word of you?”

“I — I can’t imagine, Jim,” she replied, her great eyes dilating.

“Well, it will be funny — unless I get to him first...Glory dear, this Darnell has no claim on you?”

“No, Jim, on my honour,” she replied.

“Then dismiss him from your mind. He has struck the wrong place to hound a girl.”

“I’m afraid he’ll wheedle Uncle out of money,” went on Gloriana, slowly yielding to relief.

“Ha ha! That’s funny. He can’t do it, Glory. He’s not slick enough. Besides, he has gotten in with the wrong rancher. Bambridge is a cattle thief. We know it, and we can prove it presently. Darnell will have to step mighty slow and careful. Have you had any other trouble, sister? Come out with it.”

“Yes, with Molly. Jim, she’s the sweetest kid. Honestly, I just fell in love with her. But I made a tactless start. I wanted only to help her. She misunderstood. She thought I was stuck up, and she got the idea she wasn’t good enough for you. When she told me she was leaving here I begged and I scolded. I talked sense to her. I argued myself hoarse. I was sincere, too. Only she imagined me afraid of you and lying to her. Then I lost my temper — I have one, if you remember, Jim — and I — well, I made it worse by telling her how lucky she was — that you meant to marry her...But she has a will of her own. She left. And I haven’t been able to get her back. I’ve been to that store I don’t know how many times. Then I heard Molly had met Darnell — one of the Flag girls, Elsie Roberts, told me. And she went to a dance with him. I—”

“Molly went to a dance with this Darnell?”

“Yes, she did. But, Jim, you mustn’t hold it against her,” entreated Gloriana. “She’s only a child. I went right downtown and told Molly who and what Darnell was. She didn’t believe me. Darnell is attractive and smooth. She doesn’t care a rap for him, because she worships you, Jim. But in her present state of mind she’d do anything. And Darnell is dangerous and unscrupulous. If I had not been pretty wise — despite my infatuation — he’d have ruined me. You mustn’t lose any time getting Molly out of his clutches.”

“My God!...Do I want her?” groaned Jim, dropping his head.

“Yes, you want her. So do I. And so does Uncle Jim. Molly is a treasure. No matter what she does, you must stand it, bear with her, and get her back.”

Jim raised his head to kiss Gloriana gratefully. “Thanks, Glory. You couldn’t have said anything that would mean so much to me. I love that kid. It’d kill me to lose her...But Uncle Jim bucked me up, and now so have you...Here’s her engagement ring. Isn’t it a beauty?”

Gloriana looked at the jewel with eyes that sparkled like it.

“She wouldn’t be human if that didn’t fetch her...But, Jim, Molly is Western. Diamonds might mean nothing at all to her. Still, I know she loves pretty clothes. She told me she went in debt for a new dress to wear at the Christmas dance.”

“Molly certainly must be human and wholly feminine,” said Jim, with a tinge of bitterness. “In love with me last month — engaged to me. Now she’s going to a dance with another fellow. I call it pretty raw.”

“She wrote you — begged Uncle Jim to send it by a rider. But Uncle wouldn’t do it...And Molly is just wild with regret and pain and wounded love. Any girl is in peril under a mood of that kind. She wants the town people to believe she’s no good, so that they can’t think she jilted you. It’s a sad little story, Jim. But now you’re here it will be all right. I know it, Jim, unless you’re an utter jealous fool. Trust me. I know girls. Molly only needs to learn that you do love her for herself and that neither you, nor I, nor anyone could be ashamed of her — to be the sweetest and happiest girl in the world. That’s your job, brother mine. And it beats building the drift fence.”

“Glory, I can prove it — with you and Uncle to help. Gosh! I feel as if a mountain had been lifted off my heart...Now what festivities are in order for the holidays?”

“Oh, Flag is quite a social place,” laughed Gloriana. “But the dance Christmas Eve, and the party here on the following Wednesday night, are the outstanding events. Uncle is giving that for Molly. She, of course, thinks it’s off because she left. But Uncle says no. Wait till Jim comes.”

“It’s not off, Glory,” declared Jim, grimly. “Molly will be here if I have to pack her.”

“Romantic, to say the least,” replied Gloriana, with a trill of laughter. “I approve...And now, Jim, tell me about Slinger and Curly. And don’t forget Bud. He’s a dear.”

“Your Three Guardsmen, eh?” rejoined Jim, dryly. “They’ve managed to live together without actual murder. Slinger looks at his rivals and listens in silent contempt, as down upon lesser men who did not share his secret of power.”

Because of the whiteness of Gloriana’s face even a little wave of colour appeared a startling blush.

“Do they talk about me, among themselves?” she asked, a little confused.

“For three weeks you have shared conversation honours with the Hash-Knife.”

“How flattering! And what do they say?”

“I’ve forgotten most of it. At first I got kind of sore. They talked right out before me, with the utmost candour. They were all going to marry you, I gathered. To be sure, murder must be committed. It was funny. You should have been around to listen.”

“They are the most amusing fellows — just fascinating to me.”

“So I’ve gathered. Well, dearest, out West you reap as you sow...One day I came back to camp and found Bud with a bloody nose. Curly, his pard, his almost brother, had punched him for talking about your legs.”

“What-at!” gasped Gloriana.

“Sure. I ascertained that Bud said you had pretty legs and you knew it. Curly took that as an insult and bloodied Bud’s nose. When I got there Bud was nursing his nose and his wounded vanity. I thought it a good opportunity for an object lesson, so I pretended tremendous anger, when really I wanted to split with laughter. I threw Bud down on the grass, straddled him, and threatened to smash his face unless he recognised his offence, apologised, and took it back. Do you know, Glory, he couldn’t see any offence, although he apologised. But he swore it was true and he wouldn’t take it back. Then I conceived the idea of greater punishment for Bud by giving him away to you. He almost wept at this, begged me to beat him, said he could stand anything except you thinking Curly a hero and him a low-down skunk, or something.”

“I — I don’t know what to say,” replied Gloriana, but it was plain to Jim that she wanted to laugh.

“Glory, I told you — gave you fair warning. If you flirt with these cowboys you must pay dearly for it. And, of course, you have flirted, if not intentionally, then some other way. It won’t do out here. These boys have hearts of gold. Every last one of them would die for you. They seem like some kind of inflammable tinder. So easy, cool, droll, yet underneath all fire. Curly Prentiss is the highest type of cowboy I know. He is a prince. All the same he’s a strutting, conceited jackass who needs a lesson. Bud is the best-hearted of the lot, honest as the day. He speaks right out what he thinks. A raw, crude, common sort of person to any superficial observer from the East, but to me, or Uncle Jim, or anyone who sees clearly, he’s a boy to love. The rest of the outfit trail along somewhat similarly, except Slinger Dunn. He’s not a cowboy. He’s a strange mixture of woodsman and Indian, of country boy and chivalrous gentleman. All the same, if I were you I’d be careful of what I said or did before him.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late,” replied Gloriana, with gravity. “You took us to the hospital to see him. He had my picture under his pillow. Told me right out he’d gazed at it until he was terribly in love with me. That you had taken Molly from him and he was going to take me from you.”

“Well, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Jim.

“I should have squelched him at once,” admitted Gloriana. “But I didn’t. I didn’t take him seriously. Thought that was just Western. And at a dance here I’m afraid I made it worse. He—”

“Glory darling,” interrupted Jim, plaintively, “I don’t want to know any more. I’ve trouble of my own. I need your help — not to be staggered with your love affairs.”

“Silly! My love affairs? The idea!” she retorted, but her cheeks were red.

CHAPTER TEN

AFTER BREAKFAST, AT which Gloriana was not present, Jim asked for a conference with his uncle and Locke. They repaired at once to the living-room. Jim began with his discovery of Diamond-branded cattle going aboard the train with Bambridge’s shipment from Winslow, and slighted nothing in his narrative of what had followed, nor any of his conjectures and convictions, and lastly, the opinions of his men. After he had concluded, his superiors smoked furiously, which appeared their only indication of mental disturbance. Locke was the first to break silence: “I advise givin’ up Yellow Jacket.”

“Naw,” replied Traft, laconically.

“I don’t want to,” added Jim. “It’s a wild, lonely, wonderful wilderness. I want to own it — improve it — and live there part of the year, at least.”

“Wal, aside from Jim’s leanin’ to Yellow Jacket, I wouldn’t let it go now,” went on Traft. “It’d be givin’ in to Bambridge, an’ I’ll see him in hell first.”

“Short an’ sweet,” said Locke, with a dry cackle. He knew his employer of old. “Then I suggest we arrange some plan of transportin’ Mr. Bambridge to the place you name.”

“Aw, Ring, don’t get funny. This is business...How many head of unbranded stock can you round up this spring?”

“Matter of ten thousand, more or less, countin’ new calves.”

“Wal, slap the Diamond brand on half of them, this comin’ round-up,” ordered the rancher, brusquely.

Locke wrote in his note-book, then said: “I’d advise no cattle drive to Yellow Jacket till spring. Let the rustlers have a change at the lower range.”

“Reckon thet’s a good idea. Put it down. Now, Jim, tell Locke what you want for the house. He’ll order it. Meanwhile the sleddin’ will be good an’ we’ll haul all supplies such as hardware, cement, tools, powder, down to Cottonwood Ranch, an’ store it there. Lumber, framework, bricks, and all such to follow fast as it gets here. When the ground dries in the spring you can haul in over your new road...As for the present, wal, stick to our original plan. Take the Diamond back to Yellow Jacket an’ clean it up — of varmints, rubbish, an’ such, includin’ any rustlers who might come burnin’ your good firewood...Savvy?”

“Wal, don’t pester me with this two-bit stuff any more,” replied Traft testily. “Help Jim all you can. It’s up to him.” And he stalked out sturdily, his shaggy head erect, leaving Jim alone with the superintendent.

“Shorter an’ sweeter,” said Lod tapping his book with his pencil.

“Gosh — I never heard Uncle talk like that. What ails him?”

“He’s sore at Bambridge. Small wonder. He’s had forty years buckin’ the crooked side of cattle-raisin’, an’ he hates it...Jim, he’s given you a man-size job. But you’ve got a hard crew in the Diamond. They’re good fer it. Jed Stone’s movin’ off your range strikes me deep. It means a lot, besides his bein’ decent. I’ve a hunch he’s about through, some way or another. But Malloy will have to be reckoned with. If you ever meet him, anyhow, under any circumstances, shoot quick an’ think afterwards. Don’t ever fail to pack a gun, an’ keep Slinger or Curly close to you.”

“Ring — you mean here — at home — in town?” queried Jim, aghast.

“I should smile.”

“Whew! — When will I ever learn?”

“You’ve been shot once, an’ shot at a number of times. Don’t you savvy what it means? Come down on the hard ground, Jim.”

After that conference, which left Jim with a keen, poignant sense of responsibility, he stayed in his room until after dinner and then started for town on foot. Any sharp observer, at least a Westerner, could have detected the bulge of a gun back on his hip, and the tip of a leather sheath projecting an inch or two below his coat. How he longed for the cool imperturbability of Curly Prentiss or the aloof unapproachableness of Slinger Dunn! But these he could never attain, for he had not been born to the West. Jim had to make determination do for confidence. And when, in accordance with his plan, he walked into Babbitt’s store, no one would have guessed the sinking sensation he had in his vitals. He was terribly afraid of Molly Dunn, not to mention the gunman, Croak Malloy.

Jim knew he was something of a lion when under the sway of righteous anger, but most assuredly he could not muster that at will.

Molly stood behind the counter, and from her wide startled eyes he gathered that she had seen him first. It was early and he appeared to be the only customer present, and at once the object of much interest, both of which facts did not confuse him one whit.

“Good-day, Molly,” he said, doffing his sombrero. “Yesterday I forgot what I wanted to buy.”

“Howdy — Jim,” she faltered, huskily, the scarlet coming up from neck to face. How the sight made Jim’s blood leap! She could not be indifferent to his presence.

“I want that red silk scarf and a pair of buckskin gloves,” he said.

Molly produced the scarf, and then, with the other clerks snickering openly, she had to try glove after glove on Jim’s hand, until he was satisfied with the fit. Her little brown fingers trembled so that she was scarcely able to perform the task; and Jim gloated over this manifestation of weakness, instead of feeling sorry for her.

“Thanks. I reckon these will do,” he said, at length. “Please charge to the Traft account...I shall tell Mr. Babbitt you are a very beautiful clerk, but a poor saleswoman.”

Molly was staring at the gun-sheath under his coat. Her eye had been quick to see it.

“Jim! — You’re packin’ a gun!” she exclaimed, breathlessly and low.

“I should snigger I am, as Bud would say,” he replied facetiously

“Who for?” she whispered, and it was significant that she did not say what for.

“Well, if you care to know, that Hash-Knife gunman, Croak Malloy, is looking for me — and I am looking for a fellow named Ed Darnell,” concluded Jim, and heartless though he knew himself, it was impossible to look into her eyes then. He took his parcels and went out, most acutely conscious of bursting veins and thrilling nerves.

Jim walked down the street, dropping in at all the business places his uncle had dealings. Then he visited the saloons, which were more numerous and to him vastly more interesting. He acted, too, like a man who was looking for someone. Next he called at the post-office and the hotel, after which he returned to Babbitt’s store.

Molly did not see him enter. She was busy with a customer, which occupation permitted Jim a moment to devour her sweet face with hungry eyes. She looked paler and thinner than he had ever seen her; and these evidences of trouble were dear to Jim’s heart. She had not done this cruel thing without suffering. Presently she finished with her customer and espied Jim.

“You again?” she queried, blushing furiously.

“I forgot something, Molly,” he drawled.

“Somethin’, you wanted to buy?” she went on, a little sarcastically.

“Yes, but I forget. Whenever I see your sweet face I forget everything...Oh, yes, buckskin gauntlets for the cowboys — the fringed ones with a horseshoe design on the back. Christmas gifts, you know. My size will do.”

“How many pairs?” she asked.

“Have you forgotten how many cowboys in my outfit?”

She did not reply and presently sorted out the gloves, wrapped them into a parcel and handed it to him. This time he fixed upon her reproachful piercing eyes.

“Molly, you are to understand that I do not accept my dismissal,” he said, deliberately. “I’m sorry you feel so. I — I forgive you, I guess...And I’ll not give you up.”

“But, Jim, everybody heah knows,” she said, shrinkingly.

“What?”

“Thet I gave — you up ‘cause I wasn’t good enough — for you.”

Jim could scarcely refrain from leaning over the counter and snatching her to his breast.

“I know, Molly. But you’re terribly mistaken. Uncle Jim knows you’re good enough for me. I know you’re too good for me or anyone else. And Glory, she’s heart and soul for you.”

“Jim, I reckon, you’re somethin’ of a liar,” she returned, a red spot forming in each cheek.

“Ordinarily, yes, but not in this,” he said, cheerfully. “Anyway, it doesn’t make the slightest difference who and what you are. You’re going to be Mrs. James Traft.”

“I — I am — not.”

“You bet you are...Oh yes, that reminds me. I forgot something else. Look here.” He slipped the little ring-box out of his pocket, and bending over the counter opened the lid. The big blue-white diamond seemed to leap up. Jim glanced quickly at Molly’s face. And that was enough, almost even for him.

“I thought you’d like it,” he said, remorsefully, but not now meeting her tragic eyes. “We’ll try it on first chance...So long, till tomorrow.”

Taking up his purchases, Jim hurried out, his pulse tingling, his heart singing. Molly loved him still. And all the way out the bleak cold road he could have danced. Upon arriving home he went in to see Gloriana, who was gorgeously arrayed in a dressing-gown and demonstratively glad to see him. Jim recounted his adventure to Glory.

“Men are brutes, devils, fiends,” responded his sister. “But since the female of the species is what she is and self-preservation the first law of life, I don’t see what else you can do. Hurry and get Molly back here.”

“Give me a little time, Glory,” declared Jim, somewhat daunted.

“Get her here before she goes to the dance with that darn Darnell,” advised Gloriana, with a wonderful purple flash of eyes.

“Reckon I don’t want to, till afterward. I sure am curious to see how she acts — and Darnell, too — and what the cowboys do.”

“Will you tell them?”

“I will, you bet, and between you and me, Glory, I wouldn’t be in Darnell’s boots for a million.”

“You are beginning to make me feel the same way...Jim, you showed the ring to Molly?”

“Yes — and you should have seen her eyes. Oh! — I felt like a coyote, but, gosh! I was happy.”

“It’s a lovely ring, Jim. Let me have it a little — just to look at. I won’t put it on.”

“Sure. But wait till I come back from the bunk-house. I want to show it to the boys.”

“Jim, if you’re going to tell them about Darnell, put it strong.”

“Huh! Trust me. I’ve already told them something...Glory, I don’t feel so sick this afternoon.”

“You loving goose! — Heigho! I wish somebody loved me that way.”

“That’s funny. As if you hadn’t had and didn’t have more love than any girl ever had.”

“But, Jim, only to be loved because you’re pretty!” she exclaimed. “Would even these sentimental cowboys love me — if they knew I couldn’t cook, sew, bake, darn a sock — that I’m a useless ornament that the thought of babies scares me stiff?”

“Sure they would. Men are loving geese, Glory. Don’t worry. Only begin to deserve it.”

He made his way to the bunk-house, finding all the boys in, as he had expected, and recovered from any indulgence they might have treated themselves to the night before.

“Fellars, hyar’s the boss, lookin’ like a thundercloud,” announced Bud.

“Packin’ a gun, too, the Mizzouri hayseed,” added Curly.

“Boys, friends, pards,” he began, dramatically, “if it weren’t for my sister and you I’d blow my brains out.”

Silence! Staring eyes and awed lean faces attested to the felicity of his acting.

“Why, Jim, what the hell?” uttered Curly, without his drawl.

“Listen. Let me tell it quick,” he announced, hurriedly. “We go back to Yellow Jacket after New Year’s. No more town till spring, if then. The old man is sore at Bambridge — at this two-bit rustling. We’ve got the job of clearing the range of varmints, rubbish, rustlers, and so forth. He’ll throw five thousand head of cattle on to Yellow Jacket in less than a year. That’s that, and it isn’t a marker to what I’m going to tell you.”

“Let me get it off my chest,” went on Jim. “Maybe you remember I hinted of a fellow named Darnell, who made trouble for my sister back in Missouri. Anyway, he’s here in Flag. Has taken a job with Bambridge. He has been hounding poor Glory until she has stopped going to town. She is deathly afraid of him. Afraid he will disgrace me by talking about her. Mind you — Glory is straight and fine and good. So don’t get the wrong hunch. She was only a crazy girl and this Darnell is a man, handsome, slick as the devil, a gambler and cheat at cards, and crooked otherwise. He beat Glory out of money, and my father too. She thinks he’ll beat Uncle Jim the same way. But you all know Darnell can’t fool the old man...Now does that sink in?”

“Wal, it shore doesn’t sink very deep in me, Boss,” drawled Curly. “Mister Darnell has shore picked an awful unhealthy climate.”

“You saw Darnell with Bambridge that day at the station.”

“Shore. An’ thet was enough fer me an’ Bud an’ all of the outfit.”

“All right...here’s the worst — Lord! how am I to get — it out?” continued Jim, and now he did not need to simulate trouble. He was genuine. He felt clammy and nauseated. He paced a step here and there, flung himself upon the chair before the fire, and all but tore his hair in his distress and shame.

“Molly Dunn has — jilted me. Broken her engagement — left my uncle’s house...Says she’s not good enough to marry me. And it’s just the other way around. Poor kid! Just let that sink in, will you?...She’s a clerk in Babbitt’s store in the afternoons. Mornings she goes to school. All that’s tough, boys. But listen to this. She’s going around with that —— Darnell!...I can’t realise it, let alone understand it. But Glory says Molly is only distracted — out of her head — that it’s really because she loves me she’s done it. Wants everybody in Flag to see she’s not good enough for us! That’s why she’s carrying on with this Darnell. I’m so sorry for her I — I could cry. And so mad I could bite nails. And so scared I can’t think.”

Jim paused for breath. What relief to get this confession made! When he looked up he gathered a singular conception of the regard in which he was held by the Diamond. It was rather a big moment for him.

Slinger Dunn, without a word, put on his cap and glided noiselessly toward the door.

“Hold on, Slinger. Where you going?”

Dunn turned. At any moment his sloe-black eyes were remarkable; just now they made Jim shiver.

“I was shore wonderin’ why my sister hadn’t sent fer me to come up to the house,” he said. “An’ I reckon it’s aboot time I hunted her up. Then I’ll take a look round fer this Darnell fellar.”

“Slinger by all means go see Molly, but let Darnell alone for the present,” rejoined Jim, earnestly.

“Jim, air you electin’ to boss me aboot Molly?” asked Slinger.

“No indeed, Slinger. Only asking you to wait.”

“What fer?”

“Listen, Slinger, and all of you,” said Jim. “Tomorrow night is this Christmas Eve dance. We’ll all go. We’ll look this Darnell over. I won’t do anything and I ask you not to — until after that. But understand me. I — I couldn’t stick it out here in the West without Molly. You all know how I care for her. It’s far more serious for me than the Hash-Knife deal...I’ve confided my intimate feelings because I believe you all my pards. I reckon I’ll be laughed at and ridiculed by the Flagerstown young people, as I was at first. But I don’t care. All I care for is to get Molly back, to make a home for Glory, and to have the Diamond stick to me.”

Curly might have been spokesman for the outfit. Usually in critical cases he assumed that position. Now he laid a lean, brown, pressing hand upon Jim’s shoulder.

“Jim, all this heah Diamond cares for is thet you grow a little more Western overnight,” he drawled, in his careless, cool, inflexible tone, that seemed to carry such moment. Curly’s ultimatum intimated so much. It embodied all of Jim’s longings. He divined in that cowboy’s droll words an unutterable and unquenchable loyalty, and more, the limitless spirit and the strength of all that the wild range engendered.

“By Heaven — I will!” cried Jim, ringingly, as he leaped to his feet.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JIM HAD RESISTED an impulse to bribe the cowboys to call in a body and singly at Babbitt’s store to make purchases of Molly and incidentally remind her of him.

In his own case he went downtown late, and everywhere except Babbitt’s, trying to screw up his courage. It was not that overnight he had not become transposed to a thorough Arizonian, but that his genuine tenderness for Molly had asserted itself. This he knew he should not yield to. Still he did. On several occasions he espied some of his cowboys, laden with bundles, mysteriously gay and full of the devil. They had not required prompting to do the very thing he had so sneakingly desired. He could just imagine the drawling, persuasive Curly telling Molly she was out of her haid. And Bud — what that cherubic volcanic friend would say was beyond conjecture. And Slinger! Jim had forgotten that Slinger was Molly’s brother, her guardian, in his own estimation, at any rate. It rather frightened Jim to guess what Slinger would do, considering he was not given to much speech. And the rest of the cowboys — they would drive Molly frantic in their Western fashion.

Ruminating thus, Jim lounged in the lobby of the hotel. All of a sudden he saw Molly go into Davis’s store, on the far corner. He jumped. It was only four o’clock, and she should have at least another hour of work. What a chance! It quite took his breath. He went out, crossed the street, and stood back in a hallway, close to the door of the store, where he could see and scarcely be seen. Once he had to dodge back to escape detection when Lonestar and Cherry passed, each with a load of packages. “Gosh!” ejaculated Jim. “They’ve been in Babbitt’s. I can tell by the wrapping-paper on those parcels.”

He had to wait what seemed an endless while before Molly appeared. Then he stepped out as if by magic, and Molly bumped into him. It startled her so that she uttered a cry and dropped some of her bundles. Jim picked them up, and rising he coolly faced the scarlet Molly and appropriated the rest of her parcels.

“I reckon I’ll carry these. Where you going?” he said, naturally, with a smile.

“Home. To my boardin’-house,” she said, a little mockingly.

“Well, I’ll pack your load for you,” returned Jim.

“You played me a low-down trick,” she said, presently, coldly.

“Me? I sure did not. How so?”

“You set thet Diamond outfit on to me.”

“Molly! I swear I didn’t. Honest. You know I wouldn’t lie,” replied Jim, most earnestly.

“You shore would. You’d do anythin’.”

“But I protest my innocence.”

“Innocence? — You!” She gave him her eyes for a second. Jim felt shot through with black and gold arrows.

“Sure I’m innocent. I thought how good it’d be to send the gang in on you — if for nothing else than to remind you of my existence. But I didn’t. Not only that, Molly, but yesterday I actually kept Slinger from hunting you up.”

“Wal, you shore didn’t this heah day...Oh, it was — turrible!” Her voice broke, close to a sob.

“Molly! — I’m sorry. What’d Slinger say?”

“Nothin ‘cept, ‘come heah, you moon-eyed calf!’...I was paralysed when I seen him come in. I couldn’t run. Slinger’s eyes are shore turrible. He reached over the counter an’ said — what I told you. Then he grabbed me by my blouse — it’s a way he has — only this time he pulled me half over the counter — face down — an’ — an’ smacked me so hard you could have heahed it out in the street...I won’t be able to — to set down at dinner!...An’ then he said he’d see me later.”

Molly stopped before a modest little brown cottage, almost at the end of the street. Jim made a note of the single large pine-tree in the yard, for future emergency, when he wished to find Molly after dark.

“This is where I board,” she said, simply.

“Are you comfortable here?” asked Jim, anxiously.

“I’m used to cold. But there’s a stove in the parlour. Come in.”

Jim was elated that she should trust him so far as to ask him inside. The modest little parlour was warm and comfortable indeed, compared with the blustery outdoors. Jim deposited Molly’s bundles in a chair, and turning discovered that she had removed her hat and coat and was warming her hands over the stove. She looked healthy and pretty, yet somehow forlorn. What was to prevent him taking her in his arms then and there? He longed to. That had been his intention, should opportunity offer. Nevertheless, something inhibited him. Probably it was a divination that Molly, during the few minutes’ walk with him, had unconsciously been drawn to him again. She betrayed it now. That was what he had prayed for, but he could not act upon it.

“Thanks for asking me in, Molly,” he said. “I suppose you expect me to get my trouble off my chest — then let you alone...Well, I won’t do it now. When that time comes we’ll have a grand row And I just won’t spoil your Christmas...But I ask you — will you send word to Darnell that you will not go to the dance with him tonight?”

“Thet’d be a low-down trick,” replied Molly, quickly.

“It does appear so. There are good reasons, however, why it would be wise for you to do so — unless you want to lose your good name in Flag.”

“Glory said thet. I don’t believe either of you. An’ it’s not square of you to—”

“You needn’t argue the point. Answer me. Will you go with me instead?”

She hung her head, she clenched her little trembling hands, she shook all over. What a trial that must have been! Jim sought to add to it.

“With me and Glory, of course. She wants you. And she thinks this is the time for you to come back. Before you’ve made me the laughing-stock of Flag.”

“But it cain’t do thet,” she cried.

“Yes it can. And it will. Not that I care a hang for what people think or say. We want you to avoid — well, Molly, being misunderstood, not to say worse.”

“You hit it on the haid, Jim,” she replied, with spirit. “Thet’s what I’m not goin’ to avoid.”

Jim regarded her speculatively. If he had had a vehicle of some kind out in the street he would have picked her up right there, as she was, and packed her out, and carried her off home. But this drastic action could scarcely be undertaken now, though his finger-tips burned to snatch her.

But there was a deadlock. Molly and Jim glared at each other across the stove, above which their extended hands almost met. Jim found it hard to tear himself away, especially in view of her anger. He pondered a moment. Finally he said, gently: “Darling, do you have any idea to what extremes you may drive me?”

She shook her head dubiously.

“Don’t you know I worship you?” Her glossy head dropped.

“Don’t you realise you’ll ruin me if you persist in this madness? I can’t believe it. But you might convince me, eventually.”

Then she covered her face with her hands and the tears trickled through her fingers.

Jim grasped at the right moment to make his escape.

“I won’t distress you any more,” he said. “Don’t cry and make your eyes red. I’ll see you tonight. Please save a dance for me.”

Then he rushed out to find the cold wind soothing to a heated brow. He trudged home, his mind in a whirl.

Before supper he went out to the bunkhouse, to find the place a bedlam of jolly cowpunchers and a storeful of the men’s furnishings, goods which they had bought so indiscriminately. All of the boys were sober — a remarkable circumstance on the eve of Christmas. When he entered — and he had stood in the open door a moment — they whooped and began to throw packages at him.

“Merry Christmas!” yelled Bud. “Son-of-a-gun from Mizzouri!” yelled Curly.

“Whoopee, you diamond-buyer!” yelled Cherry.

“You lovesick dyin’ duck!” yelled someone Jim did not pick out, for the reason that he had to dodge. And so it went until they had exhausted their vocabularies and their missiles.

“Am I to understand that this fusillade is kindly meant?” he asked, with mock solemnity.

“Means we shore went broke on you an’ Molly Dunn,” replied Bud.

“Boys, that was a cowboy stunt — your buying out Babbitt’s,” said Jim. “I’m broke, too, but I’ll share the debt.”

Someone observed that he would like the old lady who kept tavern out west, and as Jim had learned that that was a very disreputable thing, he made no further comment.

“Slinger, I hope you didn’t tell these wild men what you did in Babbitt’s,” he returned.

“I shore did, an’ the outfit’s with me, Mister Traft,” answered Dunn.

“Boss, Slinger had an inspurashun,” observed Bud, sagely. “Soon as a fellar learns to treat bull-haided sisters an’ fickle sweethearts thetaway he’ll get some obedience.”

“I’m afraid it won’t work on high-spirited girls like Molly and my sister.”

“It shore would. Wimmen is all the same. What you say, pard Curly?”

“But, on this heah Christmas Eve my heart is shore sad,” rejoined Curly. “Peace on earth an’ good will toward men is a lot of guff. There’s battle an’ murder in the air. Some of us won’t ever see another Christmas.”

“Then we oughta get turrible drunk,” said Bud.

Approval of this statement was not wanting.

“Curly, what’s eating you?” asked Jim, grasping that his favourite cowboy had something besides the festivities of the season on his mind.

“Ask Bud,” replied Curly, gloomily.

“Wal, Boss, it ain’t nuthin’ much, least-ways oughtn’t fuss us till after Christmas,” replied Bud. “Curly an’ I made a round of the gamblin’-places this afternoon. I didn’t know what was in Curly’s mind. Anyway, the doorkeeper at Snell’s tried to bar Curly out. Shore it’s a swell place, but we reckoned it wasn’t none too good fer the Diamond. After I got in I seen why Curly pushed his gun against the doorkeeper’s bread-basket. A bartender friend of Curly’s had tipped him off thet there was a big game goin’ on at Snell’s. Wal, there was. Bambridge, Blodgett, another rancher we didn’t know, an’ Blake, a hotel man from Winslow, an’ last this hyar Darnell hombre, was sittin’ in. You should of seen the coin of the realm on thet table. Wal, we watched the game. I seen Bambridge was bettin’ high an’ losin’. Looked like he’d whoop up the pots, an’ Darnell would rake them in. Blake is no slouch of a gambler, an’ he was shore sore at the game, either from losin’ or somethin’. All I seen about Darnell was thet he was mighty slick with the cards. They jest flew out of his hands. Curly, you know, is a card sharp hisself, an’ he swore Darnell stacked the deck on every deal he had. An’ Blodgett an’ the strange rancher, anyhow, was gettin’ a hell of a fleecin’.”

“Ahuh. So that’s it,” returned Jim, seriously. “Curly, I don’t see anything in that to make you sad on Christmas Eve.”

“Boss, there’s shore two things,” drawled Curly. “I’ve got to raise enough money to set in that game at Snell’s. An’ I’m wonderin’ if Darnell is as slick with a gun as he is with the cairds.”

“Life is orful hard fer a cowpuncher when he’s in love,” observed Bud. “Sky so blue an’ grass so green, flowers an’ birds, dance an’ holdin’ hands, an’ kisses sweeter’n ambergris — an’ jest round the corner bloody death lurkin’.”

“What’s the idea, Curly?” asked Jim, quickly interested.

“Boss, it’s a fine chance to get rid of Mister Darnell without involvin’ any of our lady friends, you know. Flag is such a hell of a place for gossip. An’ I reckon there’s shore enough right now.”

“Get rid of Darnell!” ejaculated Jim curiously.

“Shore. I can set in thet game if I’ve a good-sized roll. Shore I’d flash in an’ let on I was a little drunk. Savvy? Wal, I can nail Darnell at his cheatin’ at cairds. If he pulls a gun — well, an’ good. If not he’ll shore find Flag too hot a town in winter.”

“Curly, it’s a grand idea, except the possibility of Darnell’s throwin’ a gun. I hardly believe he’d have the nerve. He’s an Easterner.”

“We don’t know for shore,” said Curly. “He might even be from Texas.”

“Aw, guff an’ nonsense!” burst out Bud. “Thet handsome white-mugged sharper won’t go fer a gun. But whatinhell’s the difference if he does? Saves us the trouble of stringin’ him up to a cottonwood...An’, Boss, an’ Curly, an’ you galoots, thet’s what Darnell is slated fer. I seen it — I felt it...Now I ask you, knowin’ how few my hunches are — do you recollect any of them far wrong? What’s more, Bambridge ain’t genuine Western. He’s too cock-sure. He reckons us all easy marks.”

“Curly, I’ll dig up the money and go with you to Snell’s,” said Jim.

The Diamond immediately voted upon a united presence at that occasion. Curly made no objection, provided they dropped in unobtrusively.

“I heahed this poker game has been goin’ on most in the afternoons,” he said, “An’ course it’s kind of private — Snell’s is — an’ you may not get in. But don’t start a fight. Aboot four o’clock would be a good hour, Jim.”

“How much money will you require?” queried Jim.

“Wal, I ought to have a roll of greenbacks big enough to choke a cow, with a century as a wrapper. Shore I’ll have to flash this roll or they’d never let me set in. But you can gamble I won’t lose much of it.”

“That makes it easier,” said Jim. “I can manage somehow...Now, fellows, about this dance tonight. It’s at the hotel and the big bugs in town are back of it. No knockdown and drag-out cowboy dance. Savvy?...I — I tried to coax Molly not to go with this Darnell, but she’s stubborn. She’s going. And we can’t help it. I’m curious to see what comes off. Also a little worried about you boys. Anything up your sleeves?”

“Nope. We’re layin’ low, Boss, honest Injun,” averred Bud.

“You see, Jim, Molly’s picked the quickest way to queer herself with Flag folks,” went on Curly. “But the crazy kid — she’s not smart enough to see that Darnell won’t queer himself with these Flag girls fer her. Shore as shootin’ Molly Dunn of the Cibeque will be a wall-flower at the dance.”

“But you boys...” began Jim, haltingly.

“Shore we’ll cut her daid,” interrupted Curly, and his drawling voice had a steel ring. “Molly’s a darlin’, but she, cain’t play didoes with the Diamond.”

While Jim dressed for the dance his mind was active. If his cowboys and acquaintances snubbed Molly that night it might give him an opening for the wild plot he meant to carry out. And if Darnell played up to it as Gloriana had declared he would play — then the hour would be ripe for Jim’s coup. He had to choke down his shame, his resentment that he must resort to such means to recover his sweetheart. Whatever he was going to do must be done quickly, for Molly’s sake more than his.

Molly’s room at the ranch-house had been kept precisely as she had left it. Jim went to the kitchen and gave the housekeeper instructions to light Molly’s lamps about midnight, to start a fire in the grate, and to be careful about the screen. Lastly, Jim took from his closet the fur coat he had bought for Molly, and with this on his arm, and his own overcoat, he made the stone-floored corridor ring with his footsteps. Gloriana’s room was dark, except for the flicker of wood fire behind the screen. Whereupon Jim hurried to the living-room.

Glory stood in the bright flare of lamps and fire, her furs on the floor, and she was pivoting for the benefit of her uncle.

Jim was not prepared for this vision of loveliness. Glory, in white gown with flounces of exquisite lace, and a hint of blue, her beautiful arms and neck bare, with a smile of pure joy on her face, and that dancing purple lightning in her eyes, was an apparition and a reality that sent the blood thrilling from Jim’s heart.

“Glory, you look a little like your mother,” Uncle Jim was saying. “But I reckon, only a little...Lass, I — I hope we Western folks are not too rough an’ plain to — to make you happy. It shore makes me happy, an’ almost young again, to look at you.”

“Thank you, Uncle; that is a sweet compliment,” said Glory, and she stepped out of her furs to kiss him. “Don’t you worry about me and all my finery. It’ll wear out — and by that time I hope I’ll deserve to be happy in the great West.”

It was late according to Western custom when Jim and Gloriana arrived at the hotel, and the lobby was crowded. Red and green decorations, upon which shone bright lights, lent the interior of the hotel the felicitous colour of the season. Entrance to the dining-hall, from which emanated strains of Spanish music and the murmur of gay voices, was blocked by a crowd of lookers-on, some of whom surely had the lithe build of cowboys.

Jim saw Gloriana to the wide stairway which led to the ladies’ dressing-room, and then went in search of his own. Curly and Bud were there, immaculate in dark suits and white shirts, which rendered them almost unrecognisable to Jim. Curly, particularly, looked handsome and clean-cut, and he did not appear uncomfortable, as did Bud. Slinger also showed up on Jim’s entrance, sleek and dark and impassive, as striking in his black suit as when he wore the deerskin of the forest.

“Where’s the gang?” asked Jim.

“Wal, they’re shore out there hoofin’ it. Up an’ Lonestar an’ Cherry an’ Jack all dug up girls somewhere. Hump says he’s too crippled yet an’ will only look on.”

“Boss, you oughta see the lady who came in on the arm of Jackson Way,” observed Bud. “Out-of-town gurl an’ she’ll run Molly close fer looks. Jack never seen us atall. Son-of-a-gun! We gotta get a dance with her.”

“Sure. I’ll fix it, boys,” Jim assured them. “Slinger, you’re going to dance?” asked Jim.

“I shore ain’t hankerin’ to make a slidin’ fool of myself. Bud promised this mawnin’, an’ I reckon I cain’t back out.”

Curly looked rather fierce, and chewed at his cigarette, something unusual for the cool Texan.

“Well, come on, you Diamond,” said Jim, at length. “Let’s go get Glory.”

She was waiting for Jim on the stairway, queenly and beautiful, her great eyes brilliant with excitement and interest.

“My Gawd! Curly, lemme hold on to you,” whispered Bud.

Curly let out a little gasp, which was not lost on Jim, but Slinger showed no sign of being transfixed by Gloriana’s loveliness. She came down to meet them, with just a hint of eager gaiety, and apparently unconscious of the gaping crowd. After a moment of greeting Curly elbowed an entrance for the others into the colourful hall.

“Pretty nifty, I’ll say,” observed Bud. “What do you think of the style of Flag’s puttin’ on, since you come, Miss Glory?”

“Very different from Jim’s letter descriptions of Western dance-halls,” laughed Gloriana. “I like this.”

“Jim, hurry an’ dance with your sister so we can get a chanct,” added Bud, very business-like.

“Say, don’t you gazabos fight over Glory or dance her off her feet,” replied Jim. “That happened last time. Glory came West to get well, and not to be buried...Come on, Glory, see if boots and chaps have made me clumsy.”

When he swung his sister out into the eddying throng of dancers she said: “Jim, I saw Molly in the dressing-room. Sue Henderson and her mother cut her dead. Mrs. Henderson, you know, is the leading social light of Flag. Molly looked wonderfully sweet and pretty in her new dress. But scared, and dazed in spite of her nerve. Jim, she won’t be able to carry it through. Darnell will fail her. Then your chance will come.”

“Poor crazy kid!” choked Jim. “This’ll be a rotten night for her — and sure a tough one for me...Glory, if it wasn’t for that, I’d be the proudest escort you ever had at any dance. Even as it is I just want to bust with pride I’ll bet you Curly squeezed my arm black and blue, when he saw you on the stairs. And Bud whispered: ‘My Gawd! Curly, lemme hold on to you!’”

“They are dears,” replied Gloriana, dreamily. “Only — just too much in earnest...Slinger scares me.”

At the expiration of that waltz they were at the far end of the large room, and had to make their way through a whispering, staring crowd of dancers. Jim espied Jackson Way with a pretty brunette girl. Jack tried to escape in the press, but Jim nailed him gaily. “Where you going, cowboy?” And so the blushing Jack and his fair damsel were captured and led across to Curly and Bud and Slinger.

“Glory, I’ll leave you to the tender mercies of the Diamond,” said Jim, after there had been a pleasant interchange of introductions and some gay repartee. “But I’ll keep an eye on you...”

“Jim, there are Ed Darnell and Molly,” interrupted Gloriana, suddenly. Her voice had an icy edge.

Before Jim glanced up he felt a jerk of his whole frame, as released blood swelled along his hot veins. He saw Molly first, and knew her, yet seemed not to know. As he met her dusky eyes, unnaturally large and bright, with almost a wild expression, his passion subsided. He smiled and bowed to her as if nothing untoward had happened. And it pleased him that Gloriana did likewise. The others of Jim’s company, however, pointedly snubbed Molly. Then Jim’s glance switched to Darnell. In this good-looking and elegant gentleman Jim scarcely recognised the man he had seen with Bambridge in the station at Winslow. At least that was a first impression, which had not the test of proximity or consistence; and he concluded it would be wiser to be deaf to his jealousy and await developments.

Darnell did precisely what Gloriana had predicted. He neglected Molly for the girls of higher social standing, and it seemed to Jim that when Darnell grasped the significance of the situation he showed his true colours. He left Molly to the cowboys and the clerks. She danced and flirted widely. She was too gay, too indifferent, and before long she broke and went to the other extreme. Jim watched her sit out three dances alone, trying to hide in a corner. But Molly Dunn could not hide at that dance.

Jim thought it was time to do something, and approaching Gloriana, who sat with Curly, he said, “Come on, you.” And he dragged them up.

“You’re going to dance with Molly,” replied Gloriana, gladly. “It is high time.”

“Yes, if she will. But, anyway, we can show this crowd where we stand.”

As they approached Molly she appeared to shrink, all except her big dark eyes. Gloriana sat down beside her and said something nice about Molly’s new dress and how sweet she looked.

“Molly, won’t you dance the next with me?” asked Jim.

Curly gazed down upon her, his fair handsome face clouded, and his flashing blue eyes full of sorrow.

“Molly Dunn, you’ve shore played hell heah tonight,” he said.

Molly surely was ready to burst into tears when the music started again. Dancers from all sides rushed upon the floor, and Curly, with a gay call to him, drew Gloriana into the thick of the whirling throng. Jim did not wait for Molly’s consent; he took her hand, and pulled her to her feet and led her out into the maze. Then when he had her close and tight in his arms, he felt that he had surely understood himself.

“Oh — Jim,” she whispered, “it’s been awful!...An’ that worst was when Glory came to me jest now — before them all — an’ spoke so sweet — as if nothin’ had happened...Oh, I wanted the ground to open an’ swallow me.”

Jim thought that a strange speech, full of contrition and shame as it was. What about him! But Gloriana had been the great factor in Molly’s downfall.

“Glory is true blue, Molly,” Jim whispered back. “That ought to prove it. You’ve doubted her.”

Jim felt a gradual relaxing of Molly’s stiff little hand, and then a sinking of her form against him.

“I’m ashamed,” she replied, huskily. “I’ll go drown myself in the Cibeque.”

“Yes, you will!” In the press of the throng it seemed to Jim that he had her alone and hidden safe from the inquisitive eyes. He could hug her without restraint and he did. Molly hid her dusky head on his shoulder and danced as one in a trance.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ALL TOO SOON that dance ended, and Jim got Molly into an out-of-the-way corner, where a few other couples, evidently lovers, were too concerned with themselves to look at anyone else.

Jim believed the tide had turned in his favour, though tragic little Molly was unconscious of it. She gazed up at him as if fascinated, with almost a terrible yearning and hopelessness. “Don’t do it,” whispered Jim, “or I’ll kiss you right here.”

“Do — do what?”

“Look at me like that...Molly, you’ve sure made a mess of Christmas Eve, but it’s not too late.”

“Oh, yes, Jim dear, it is too late,” she sighed, mournfully. “They all gave me — the cold shoulder. Except Glory, bless her! I — I cain’t realise she didn’t take me at my word.”

“Not Glory. And what do you care for the others? You won’t have to live with them...Molly, you were mistaken in this Darnell. He’s no good. He very nearly ruined Gloriana. What she told you was true. Look how he has treated you—”

“Jim, I don’t need to be told now,” she interrupted bitterly. “He’s made a fool out of me...But only tonight did I learn he’s no good. Before we got here. He — he insulted me, Jim.”

“Did he? — Well, that’s not surprising. Just how?” returned Jim, in cool, hard query. “I hope he didn’t lay a hand on you.”

“He laid two hands on me,” she said frankly. “An’ he was ‘most as bad as Hack Jocelyn, if you remember, Jim...I was aboot ready to bite when someone came into the hall.”

“Ahuh! Why did you come with him, then?” queried Jim, serenely.

“I had to come to this dance or die. Besides, I reckon I was some to blame. I told Darnell I wasn’t good enough for the Trafts an’ their crowd.”

“Molly, you’re generous, but you can’t save him now.”

“You leave him alone,” flashed Molly. “He carries a gun. He might hurt you — an’ thet’d shore kill me...I’ll tell Slinger. Honest I will. But Slinger has never even looked at me tonight. He must despise me.”

“No. Slinger is just angry with you...Now, Molly, you must not let Darnell take you home. Promise you won’t — or I’ll go right out now—”

“I promise, Jim. Please ask Slinger to take me away. I’m sick of this dance. I want to go home.”

“Out to the ranch?” he asked, hopefully.

“Home to the Cibeque, where I belong.”

“All right, I’ll find Slinger,” rejoined Jim, thinking fast and furiously. “But let’s dance again. There goes the music.”

Jim did not break the sweet tumultuousness of that dance by a single word. When it was over he asked Molly to wait near the door, and left her back somewhat out of the throng. Then he instituted a wild search for Gloriana, whom he found presently with Curly.

“Gee! you two must be having the time of your lives!” he exclaimed, surprised at Gloriana’s radiance and something indescribable about Curly.

“Jim, I am enjoying myself,” admitted Gloriana, with a blush.

“Boss, this heah is aboot as near heaven as I ever hope to get,” drawled Curly.

“Fine. Then you see Glory home. I’m going to be — engaged...Glory, don’t stay late.” And Jim rushed away to find Slinger. In this he was also fortunate, as he found him in the smoking-room, alone and watchful. His dark face wore rather a sad expression. He was out of his element at a dance.

“Slinger, I want you. What’re you doing? Dancing any?”

“I had one with Glory. Thet’ll be aboot all fer me. If I wasn’t worried about the kid I’d chase myself back to the ranch. I’ve been hangin’ around heah listenin’ to this fellar Darnell.” Slinger spoke low and indicated a noisy group of young men. They had a flask and were exchanging it. Darnell had here the same ingratiating manner, the same air of good fellowship, which Jim had noted in the dance-hall. He appeared to be a man nearing thirty, well set up, handsome in a full-faced sensual way, and unmistakably egotistical. He would go far with young people.

“What of him?” whispered Jim.

“Wal, I shore ain’t crazy aboot him. Strikes me sort of tincanny...Jim, he’s packin’ a gun. Can you see thet?”

“No, Slinger, I’ll be hanged if I can.”

“Wal, he is, an’ thet’s kind of funny. If I could find a reason, I’d mess up this heah place with him. But it’d look all the wuss fer Molly—”

“Yes, it would. Let Darnell alone. And, Slinger, listen. Molly has had enough of this. She sent me to ask you to take her home. But I’ve got an idea. You run over to the stable and send a boy with a sleigh. Pronto. I’ll let Molly think you’re going to take her. But I’ll take her myself, and out to the ranch? Savvy, pard?”

“I shore do. An’ damn’ if you ain’t a good fellar,” declared Slinger. “Molly had better sit tight this time...Jim, this heah deal eases my mind.”

“Rustle, then, you Indian.”

Jim saw Slinger glide out with his inimitable step, and then he went to get his overcoat and hat. For the moment he had forgotten the fur coat, which he had folded inside his. But there it was. With these he hurried back to the hall, eager and thrilling, afraid, too, that Molly might have bolted or that Daniell might have come out. To his relief, however, he found her waiting, strained of face, her eyes like burnt holes in a blanket. They leaped at sight of him.

“Slinger has gone for a sleigh,” said Jim, as he reached her, and he tried to be natural. “Here, slip into this. You won’t need to go upstairs. I’ll get your coat to-morrow. And no one will see you as you go out.”

“Whose coat is this?...Oh, what lovely fur! — Glory’s?”

“Hurry!” he replied, holding if for her. “Slinger can fetch it right back.”

Jim turned up the high collar of the coat, and against the dark fox fur Molly’s eyes shone beautifully. What a difference fine feathers made!

“Come,” he said, taking Molly’s arm. He led her out, relieved that but few dancers paid attention to their departure. In the lobby entrance they ran squarely into Darnell, gay, heated of face.

“Hello, kid! — Where the deuce are you going?” he shot out, and his gaiety suddenly fled. Two men behind him came up, evidently his companions, and curious.

Jim did not recognise either.

“Home,” replied Molly, and she flashed by.

Darnell took a step forward to confront Jim.

“We’ve met before?” he said, and both voice and look were uncertain.

“Yes. I happen to be Jim Traft — Miss Dunn’s fiancé. And if you don’t step aside this meeting will be somewhat like the one you spoke of.”

It was certain that long before Jim completed this deliberate speech Darnell had recognised him. One of the strangers drew him aside, so Jim could pass. And as Jim went out he heard Darnell curse. Molly was already out in the corridor. As Jim joined her Slinger came up the steps.

“Any ruction heah?” he queried, sharply. “I seen Darnell stop you.”

“No. I got out of it all right, Slinger. Come on,” replied Jim, grimly, and he laughed inwardly at the thought of what this Ed Darnell had happened upon. His luck, at least, was out.

A two-seated sleigh, with a Mexican driver, stood at the curb. Jim bundled Molly into the back seat, and stepping in he tucked the heavy robe round her and himself. Molly uttered an exclamation which was surely amazed protest.

“Slinger, I’ll see Molly — home,” said Jim, and for the life of him he could not keep the elation out of his voice.

“Shore, Jim, you see her home,” drawled Slinger, meaningly. And he leaned over the side of the sleigh. “Sister, you’ve messed up things considerable. But somehow Jim still loves you, an’ I reckon I do, too. We jest cain’t help it. All the same, don’t go triflin’ with strange fellars no more. I’ll see you in the mawnin’.”

“Slinger, you lay off Darnell,” insisted Jim, forcefully.

“All right, Boss. But I’ll jest watch him a little. Shore is an interestin’ cuss. I seen him gettin’ gay with one of them rich gurls.”

Jim laughed and told the Mexican boy to drive straight out the main street.

“It’s closer, turnin’ heah,” spoke up Molly, a little alarmed. As yet, however, she had no inkling of the plot.

“More snow out this way. This bare ground is hard on the runners,” replied Jim, and indeed the rasping sound of iron on gravel was irritating to nerves as well.

Jim felt for Molly’s hand under the robe, and found it, an ungloved cold little member. She started and tried to draw it away. In vain! Jim held on as a man gripping some treasure he meant to keep. Soon they were on the snow, and then the sleigh glided smoothly with the merry bells ringing. Soft heavy flakes were falling, wet and cool to the face.

“Heah — turn down heah,” called Molly, as they reached the last side street.

“Boy, drive straight out to the Traft ranch,” ordered Jim.

Molly stood up, and would have leaped out of the sleigh had not Jim grasped her with no uncertain hands, and hauled her down, almost into his arms. She twisted round to look up at him. The darkness was thick, but he could see a pale little face, with great staring eyes.

“You — want to get somethin’ before takin’ me home?” she asked.

“Why, of course, Molly. This is Christmas, you know,” he returned, cheerfully.

“I — I didn’t know you could be like this.” And Jim imagined he had more cause to be happy.

No more was said. Jim endeavoured to secure Molly’s hand again, but she had hidden it somewhere. Thwarted thus, Jim put an arm round her. When they reached the big pine trees, black against the snow, Jim knew they were nearing the ranch. He nerved himself for the crisis. There was no use of persuasion or argument or subterfuge. Then the ranch-house loomed dark, with only one light showing. The bells ceased jangling in a crash.

“Molly, come in for — a minute,” said Jim easily, as he stepped out.

“No, thanks, Jim,” she replied, with pathos. “I’ll stay heah. Hurry, an’ remember — I — I cain’t accept no Christmas presents.”

Jim leaned over, as if to rearrange the robe, but he snatched her bodily out of the sleigh.

“All right, boy, drive back,” he ordered, and as the bells clashed again he turned with the kicking Molly in his arms. He heard her voice, muffled in the furs, as he pressed her tight, and he feared she used some rather strong language. Up the steps, across the wide veranda and into the dark ranch-house he packed her, fighting all the while, and on into the dim-lighted living-room, where he deposited her in his uncle’s big armchair. Then he flew to lock the door. It was done. He felt no remorse — only a keen, throbbing, thick rapture. He turned up the lamp, and then lighted the other one with the red shade. Next he removed the screen from before the smouldering fire, to replenish it with chips of cedar and pine cones.

“Jim Traft — what’ve you done?” cried Molly huskily.

Jim turned then, to see her in the chair, precisely as he had bundled her.

“Fetched you home, Molly,” he said, with emotion.

“It was a trick.”

“Reckon so.”

“You didn’t mean to take me to my boardin’-house?”

“I’m afraid I never thought of that.”

“An’ thet damn Slinger! He was in the deal with you?”

“Yes. Slinger was implicated — to the extent of getting the sleigh.”

“Wal, now you got me heah — what you think you’re goin’ to do?” she demanded.

“Oh, wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.”

“Jim — honest I wish — you the same,” she responded, faltering a little.

“Thanks. But it’s not Christmas yet,” rejoined Jim, consulting his watch. “Only eleven o’clock. At midnight I’ll give you the other Christmas present.”

“Other? — Jim Traft, are you loony? Or am I dreamin’? You didn’t give me nothin’. You tantalised me with thet — thet ring, which was shore low down. But thet’s all.”

“Molly, you have one of your presents. You’ve got it on...That fur coat.”

Uttering a cry of surprise and consternation, she bounced out of the chair to slip out of the rich, dark, fragrant coat. She handled it with awe, almost reverence, stroked it, and then with resignation laid it over the table.

“Pretty nice, don’t you think?” queried Jim, pleasantly. “Becomes you, too.”

“I’m findin’ out you’re as much of — of a brute as any cowboy,” she asserted, tearfully. “How’m I to get back to my boardin’ house? When Glory comes? You’ll send me then, Jim?”

“Molly, you’re not going back to your boarding-house — tonight or ever again,” he replied, confronting her and reaching for her, so that Molly backed into the armchair and fell into it.

“I am — too,” she retorted, but she was vastly alarmed.

“No, this is home, till you’ve grown out of your school-girl days.”

“Kidnappers — you an’ Slinger!”

“I reckon we are, Molly.”

“You’re wuss than Hack Jocelyn,” she cried, wildly. “Are you goin’ to hawg-tie me heah?”

“No. I don’t believe you’ll want to leave, after tomorrow when you see Uncle Jim and Glory.”

“Jim — I cain’t see them. It’d hurt too bad. Please let me go.”

“Nope...You hurt me, didn’t you?”

“All fer your good, Jim...Cain’t you see thet?”

“Indeed I can’t. You just almost broke my heart, Molly Dunn. If it hadn’t been for Uncle and Glory — Well, never mind. I don’t want to heap coals of fire upon your head.”

“What did Uncle Jim an’ Glory do?” she asked poignantly.

“They both have faith in you. Faith!”

“I cain’t stand thet, Jim, I cain’t,” she wailed.

He slipped into the big chair and gathered her in his arms. What a tight, quivering little bundle!

“Molly, both Uncle and Glory love you.”

“No — no. Thet’s not so,” she cried, half-smothered. “Let me go, Jim.”

“Ha ha! I see myself...Hold up your head, Molly.”

“If you dare kiss me — Jim Traft — I — I...Oh—”

“Don’t you dare kiss me, Molly Dunn,” added Jim, quite beside himself now. Molly’s lips were sweet fire, and she could not control them. But she was strong, and as slippery as an eel. Jim had to confine his muscular efforts to holding her merely.

“Molly, you are mussing a perfectly beautiful little dress,” he said, mildly, “besides, darling, you’re making a very indecorous, not to say immodest, display of anatomy.”

“I don’t care,” panted Molly, red of face, blazing of eye. But she did care. She was weakening.

“Darling,” Jim divined this word had considerable power; at least enough to make Molly hide her face.

“Sweetheart,” he went on.

And this appeared to end her struggling. “Don’t you love me, Molly?”

“Thet has been — all the trouble...Too much — to disgrace you,” she replied, haltingly, and she looked up with wet eyes and trembling lips. Jim was quick to kiss them, and when he desisted this time, she lay back upon his arm, her eyes closed, heavy-lidded, her face pale and rapt.

“Don’t you want to stay, Molly?” he went on, tenderly.

“No — no...But I’m a liar,” she replied, brokenly, without stirring.

“To be my wife?”

She was mute and therefore won. Jim found the little box in his pocket, and extracting the diamond ring from it he slipped it upon her finger, where it fitted tight and blazed triumphantly.

“There!”

Moreover, it had potency to make her eyes pop open. She stared. Slowly transformation set in. She became ecstatic and ashamed, filled with sudden wild misery and joy, all at once.

“Oh, I — I’ve been — jest what Slinger called me,” she cried.

“What was that?”

“It’s too turrible to tell...How can you be so good — to make me love you more?...Jim, honest I thought I was thinkin’ only of you. If I was fit for you I wanted to — an’ sometimes deep down in me I reckoned I was, because love ought to count — I wanted to make myself unfit...Yet when thet mouthin’, pawin’ Darnell laid hold of me — when I had my chance to disgrace you an’ degrade myself — I couldn’t. My very soul went sick. An’ then I only wanted to get free of him at any cost. I did. An’ afterwards he begged so hard, an’ I longed so to go to the dance, thet I went.”

“Well, I’m glad you did, since we had to have this ruction. But don’t mention Darnell to me again, at least tonight.”

“After all, people won’t know how bad it was,” she said, with a passion of hope and regret.

“They’ll think it only a lovers’ quarrel,” replied Jim, happily, and he was glad to believe that himself.

“If only Glory will forgive me!”

“Glory! Why, she has already.”

“You don’t know thet lovely sister of yours, Jim...The more she persuaded me I was doin’ wrong, the kinder an’ sweeter she talked, the proud way she looked — the more I wanted to do some-thin’ awful. I wanted to hide thet I loved her, too...Oh, she seemed so wonderful — so far above me. But if she’ll forgive I’ll never do wrong again, so help me Gawd!”

“Molly, that’s a vow. I’ll hold you to it...And now, honey, make up to me for all I suffered — for every miserable moment.”

“I cain’t, Jim,” she replied, mournfully. “What’s done is done. Oh, if I only could.”

“Well, then for every wretched moment you spent with him. Could you count how many?”

“I reckon I could,” she said, thoughtfully. “What’s a moment? Same as a minute?”

“More like a second. Some are utterly precious, like this one. Others are horrible.”

“Wal, with sixty seconds to the minute and sixty minutes to the hour — an’ I reckon aboot five hours, all told — thet would be how much? — A lot to make up for!”

“Will you try? That will be your repentance.”

“Yes,” she promised, shyly, yet fearfully, as if remembering.

“Put your arms up round my neck...There — Now start kissing me once for every one of those heart-broken minutes.”

Molly was not very far on this tremendous penance, considering sighs and lulls, and spasms of quick tender passion to make amends, when a knock on the living-room door startled her violently.

“Well, if that isn’t tough!” ejaculated Jim, and putting Molly down he arose to go to the door. “Must be Gloriana May.”

And she it was who entered, radiant and beautiful, with swift hopeful flash of purple eyes that moved from Jim to Molly, and back again. Curly stepped in behind her.

“Jim, dear, I hope we didn’t intrude,” she said, sweetly, with mischief and gaiety underlying her speech. “Were you aware that this is Christmas?”

“Jim, many happy returns of this heah evenin’ — I mean the last of it,” drawled Curly, as he came forward, so cool and easy, and already within possession of the facts. “Molly, I’ve been shore daid sore at you. But I’m an understandin’ cuss...Suppose I kiss you my Christmas greetin’s.”

And he did kiss her, gallantly, though withal like a brother, while Molly stood stiff, blushing and paling by turns.

“Curly Prentiss, do you kiss every girl on Christmas?” she had spirit to retort.

“Nope. Thet privilege I reserve fer particular gurls,” he drawled, and turned to Jim with extended hand. “Boss, I’m shore glad. This is the second time the Diamond’s near been busted. Never no more!...Good-night, all. I’ll see you in the mawnin’.”

When Jim had closed the door upon him there was an eloquent silence in which Gloriana and Molly gazed into each other’s eyes. Certain it was that Jim trembled. Yet his hopes ran high. Molly approached Gloriana and stood bravely, without trace of the shame Jim knew she felt.

“Glory, I’m heah again — to stay,” she said, simply. “Jim kidnapped me — an’ I reckon saved me when he did it...I’m shore powerful sorry I’ve been such a dumb-haid. But you cain’t doubt my love for Jim, at least...Will you forgive me?”

Gloriana took Molly into her arms, and bending over her spoke with emotion. “I do indeed, Molly, as I hope to be forgiven...Come with me to my room...Goodnight, brother Jim; it’s late. We’ll see you in the morning.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SNELL’S GAMBLING-HALL WAS crowded on the afternoon of Christmas Day, when Jim Traft and Curly Prentiss arrived rather late. Evidently no open sesame was required on this occasion, and no doortender. Curly said this was because the business-men of Flagerstown, who liked to buck the tiger, would be conspicuous for their absence on this holiday. But there would be a big game going, and Darnell would be in it.

Curly appeared to be under the influence of liquor, which Jim knew he was most decidedly not. But Curly excited no interest whatever, for the good reason that he differed very little in garb and manner from other cowboys present. Some, in fact, were hilariously drunk.

They strolled around to watch the faro game, the roulette wheel, and other games of chance or less busy with customers, until they approached a ring of lookers-on which surrounded the heavy poker game. Curly wanted to sit in, provided Darnell was one of the players. By looking over the heads of spectators they ascertained that Darnell was indeed there, and also Bambridge. Then Curly whispered to Jim that the other three gamblers were precisely the same he and Bud had watched yesterday afternoon.

“All set,” concluded Curly, his blue eyes flashing like a northern sunlit sky. “Big game an’ all daid sore. Darnell is ridin’ them high an’ handsome.”

Then he turned to the circle of watchers and lurched into it. “Heah, lemme in, you geezers,” he called out, in a loud and good-natured drawl. “I’m a-rarin’ to set in this heah game.”

But Curly’s action was more forceful. Without waiting for the men to open up he swept them aside. Jim followed until he secured a place just back of the front row, where he could see and yet keep out of sight.

“Gennelmen, I wanna set in,” said Curly. “There’s only five of you heah. Thet shore ain’t no good game. You oughta have six. An’ heah I am.”

Darnell looked up and gave Curly a hard glance. But if it were one of recognition he certainly did not connect Curly with the little meeting in Winslow some time previous.

“This is poker for men of means and not casino for two-bit cowpunchers,” he said.

“Hell you shay,” replied Curly, without offence, as he wiped a hand across his face, after the fashion of the inebriated. “Reckon you don’t savvy I ain’t no two-bit cowpuncher.”

“Get out or I’ll have you thrown out,” snarled Darnell. His concentration on the game was such that an interruption jarred him. Yet even in anger there was no heat in the sharp dark eyes. His cheek and the line of his chin were tight. Here Jim saw the man as a handsome cold-faced gambler.

“My Gawd! man, you must be a stranger heahaboots,” drawled Curly, and he clumsily pulled out the one vacant chair and fell into it, knocking against the table. With one hand he dropped his sombrero beside the chair and with the other he slammed down a huge roll of greenbacks, the outside one of which bore the number one hundred.

“My money ain’t counterfeit, an’ I reckon it’s as good as anybody’s,” said Curly, lolling over the table in the careless laxity of a drunken man. His curly hair, wet and dishevelled, hid his eyes. He gave his mouth and chin the weakness characterising the over-indulgence in drink.

At sight of the roll of greenbacks Darnell’s eyes leaped, but before he could speak, which it was evident he intended to do, Bambridge came out with: “Sure your money’s as good as anybody’s, cowboy. Sit in an’ welcome.”

“Much obliged, Mister,” replied Curly, gratefully, as he snapped the rubber band off his roll. “What’s the game, friends?”

“You make your own game. No limit,” replied the dealer, who happened to be the man from Winslow. “Your ante.”

“Make it five call ten,” drawled Curly, but he laboured long over the huge roll of greenbacks trying to find one of small numeration. “Dog-gone! — This heah legacy of mine is shore dwindlin’ of change.”

The game proceeded then with Curly apparently a lamb among wolves. Still, though betting with reckless abandon, he did not risk much. “Dog-gone-it! Wait till I get some cairds,” he complained, “an’ I’ll show you fellars how a cowboy bets.”

Upon Darnell’s next deal the play was a jack-pot, with the dealer’s privilege of making the ante.

“Throw in one of your hundreds, cowboy,” he said, as he chipped in one hundred dollars.

“Wal, century plants ain’t nothin’ in my young life,” drawled Curly. “There you air, my Mississippi River gazabo.”

Darnell gave a slight start, and eyed the cowboy intently. Curly’s head was bent rather low, as usual, with his eyes hidden under that wave of bright hair any girl might have envied. He was smiling, easy, and happy in the game. Perhaps his remark was merely a chance one and meant nothing. But Jim’s reflection was that Darnell certainly did not know cowboys of the Arizona-range stripe.

The Winslow man opened the jack-pot, the two players between him and Curly stayed, and then Bambridge raised before the draw. Presently they were all in, in a jack-pot carrying more than six hundred dollars. The watchers of the game looked on with intense interest. Each player called for what cards he wanted. Darnell said casually: “Three for myself — to this little pair.” And he slid the three cards upon the table and laid the deck aside.

Suddenly like a panther Curly leaped. His left hand shot out to crack down upon Darnell’s and crush it flat on the table. Then his right followed, clutching a big blue gun, which he banged on the table, making the players jump, then freeze in their seats. Curly sank back and threw up his head to show blazing eyes as clear as crystal. His frank young face set cold. How vastly a single moment had transformed him!

Darnell turned a greenish livid blue. He had been trapped. Malignance and fear betrayed him.

“You — low-down —— of a caird sharp!” drawled Curly, in a voice with a terrible edge. “You reckoned I was drunk, eh?”

The circle of men back of Darnell split and spread, with shuffling feet and hoarse whispers, in two wings, leaving the space there clear. That act was as significantly Western as Curly’s. Jim had seen it before.

“Don’t anybody move a hair,” ordered Curly, and the pivoting of his gun indicated the other players. Bambridge gasped. Only the Winslow man remained cool. Perhaps he knew or guessed the nerve behind that gun-hammer, which plainly rose a trifle, sank back, to rise again, almost to full cock.

“Gentlemen, look heah,” went on Curly, bitingly, and he turned Darnell’s crushed hand over. Bent and doubled in his palm were three cards that dropped out. Aces!

“Pretty raw, I must say,” spoke up the Winslow man. “At that, I had a hunch.”

“Darnell, we Westerners don’t often hang caird sharps, like we do cattle thieves. But on second offence we throw a gun,” said Curly, and the menace of him seemed singularly striking. Then in the same cool, careless voice he called Darnell all the profane epithets, vile and otherwise, known to the range. “You get out of Flag. Savvy?...An’ any time anywhere after this — if you run into me — you pull a gun!”

Darnell whirled on his chair, knocking it to the floor, and he rushed through the opening in the crowd to disappear.

Curly moved the gun, by accident or intent — no one could tell — until it had aligned itself with Bambridge.

“Mister Bambridge, you’ve laid yourself open to suspicion round heah — long before this poker game,” said Curly, as cutting as before. “I told your daughter thet, an’ naturally it riled her. I reckon she’s a fine girl who doesn’t savvy her Dad.”

“Who the hell is this hyar lyin’ cowpuncher?” demanded Bambridge, yellow of face, as he appealed to the other players.

Curly’s arm moved like a snake. “Don’t you call me liar twice!...I’m Curly Prentiss, an’ I belong to the Diamond. We are on to you, Bambridge, if no other outfit round heah is. We know you’re a damn sight crookeder cattle thief than Jed Stone himself...Now listen closer. What I said aboot gun play to your gamblin’ new hand, Darnell, goes for you, too. Savvy?...Right now an’ heah, or anywhere after.”

“You — you drunken puncher — you’ll pay for this hold-up of an innocent — and unarmed man,” panted Bambridge, as he got up his face ghastly, sweating, and his eyes bulging with a fury of passions. He swept the edge of the crowd aside and thumped away.

“Gentlemen, I apologise for breaking up your game,” said Curly, sheathing his gun. “But I reckon I saved you money. Suppose we divide what’s on the table an’ call it quits.”

“Agreed,” replied the Winslow man, gruffly. “Prentiss, we sure owe you a vote of thanks.”

It was Jim, and not Curly, who told the rest of the Diamond what had happened at Snell’s late on Christmas Day.

It seemed incredible to Jim that the quiet evening at home was real. How strange to glance at Curly now and recall the tremendous force he had exhibited at Snell’s only a few hours before! He was so easygoing, so droll and tranquil, as he unmercifully teased Molly, subtly including Gloriana in his philosophy.

“You cain’t never tell aboot girls, Jim,” he said, sorrowfully. “I’ve shore had a deal of experience with all kinds. Redheaded girls, I reckon, are best to gamble on. Blondes are no good. Brunettes are dangerous. They’re like mules, an’ fer a spell will be powerful good, just to get a chance to kick you. Christmas an’ birthdays, though, a fellar’s girl can be relied upon to stand without a halter. But these girls between blondes an’ brunettes, the kind with hair like the ripple of amber moss, an’ eyes like violets under water — they’re scarce, thank the Lord...I’ve heahed of a few, only never saw but one.”

Uncle Jim roared. Molly threw something at Curly, while Gloriana was convulsed with laughter. Curly evidently was a perpetual source of surprise, delight, and mystery to Gloriana. There dawned in Jim a hope that she would grow to find more.

They had a pleasant hour in the bright living-room, then the rancher left the young folk to themselves. Curly stayed a while longer.

“Wal,” he said, presently, “I’ll say good-night, Miss Glory.”

“What’s your hurry?” queried Gloriana, in surprise. “Don’t be so outlandishly thoughtful of my brother. He and Molly don’t know we exist...Oh, maybe you want to go to town.”

“Wal, I had thought aboot it,” drawled Curly.

“And maybe join in the general painting the Diamond is giving Flag?” went on Gloriana.

“Wal, they shore cain’t do much paintin’ or anythin’ without me,” he admitted, his keen blue eyes studying Gloriana.

Despite Gloriana’s conviction of Jim’s utter absorption, he still had eyes and ears for his sister and his best friend. Molly saw nothing except the ruddy coals of the fire, until Jim gave her a nudge.

“Very well, Mister Prentiss, good-night,” said Gloriana, icily, as she rose.

“Say, do you care a whoop aboot whether I get drunk or not?” demanded Curly, his face flaming. Gloriana was the one person who could stir him out of his nonchalance or coolness.

“Certainly not,” replied Gloriana, in amaze. “Why should I?...But you are my brother’s right-hand man. And I had hoped you would develop some character, for his sake.”

“Cain’t a man take a drink an’ still have some character?” asked Curly, stoutly.

“Some men can,” replied Gloriana, with emphasis that excluded Curly from her generalisation.

“Wal, I reckon I’ll go get drunk. Goodnight, Miss Traft.”

“Good-bye!...Mister Prentiss.”

Curly departed hastily. His heavy steps sounded faster and faster, until they died away.

“Jim, this Curly cowboy irritates me,” remarked Gloriana, coming to the fire.

“What? — Oh, I’m sorry, Glory.’ I thought you liked him,” replied Jim innocently.

“I do. He’s a fine upstanding chap, so kind, easygoing, and big-hearted. He worships you, Jim. And, of course, that goes a long way with me. But it’s the other side of him I can’t — savvy, isn’t it? It’s that plagued cowboy side...For instance, just a moment ago he saw you holding Molly’s hand. So he possessed himself of mine. And I give you my word I could hardly get it away from him.”

How sweet to hear Molly’s laugh trill out! And the perplexity of Glory’s expressive face, with its suggestion of colour, likewise pleased Jim.

“Glory, the way to get along with Curly — and amuse yourself — is to let him hold your hand,” said Jim.

“Don’t be silly. I — I did that very thing, at the dance, until I got scared. In fact, I scarcely knew I was letting him.”

“Glory, I told you Curly was the finest fellow I ever knew, for a man’s friend, or a pard, as they call it out West. If you could stop his drinking he’d be that for a woman, too.”

“I want to stop his drinking,” admitted Gloriana, now gravely, “but I — I am not prepared to — to—”

“Sure you’re not,” interposed Jim, apologetically. “Don’t misunderstand me, Glory. On the other hand, don’t be cold to Curly just because you wasted some admiration — and sentiment — perhaps some kisses and caresses that would have raised poor Curly to the seventh heaven — on that Ed Darnell...”

Next morning the bunk-house was incredibly quiet when Jim knocked and stamped in. Jeff was cooking a lonely breakfast. “Outfit’s stampeded, Boss. I seen it comin’.”

“Dog-gone their hides!” complained Jim. “Now I’m afraid to go downtown.”

Before he started, however, he consulted his uncle and advised a postponement of Molly’s party until New Year’s Eve.

“Fine idee,” agreed the rancher. “But don’t be hard on the boys, Jim. Remember that Diamond was the toughest outfit in Arizona. Lovable punchers, if I ever knew any, but sure blue hell on holidays. Better go downtown an’ drag them out. Reckon thet four-flush Sheriff Bray had his chance at us last night. Don’t tell the girls.”

Jim had no intention of that, though so far as Molly was concerned she would know. He had a talk with Ring Locke and told him about the affair at Snell’s. The foreman seemed both vastly concerned and pleased. “Son-of-a-gun, thet Prentiss boy...Jim, thet’ll settle Bambridge. He’ll have to shoot or git out. An’ he ain’t the shootin’ kind. All the same, I wish the Diamond was out of town.”

Some of the cowboys might as well have been out of town, for all Jim could find of them. Jackson Way, of course, had gone to Winslow with his girl. Hump, Cherry, and Uphill had disappeared, after a bloodless and funny fight with some rival cowboys over a pool game. Lonestar Holliday was discovered lurching out of a cheap Mexican lodging-house, almost speechless, and certainly lost to a sense of direction. Jim bundled him into the buckboard. “Sit on him, Charley,” ordered Jim, “and take him home. Then hurry back.”

Bud was in jail, and all Jim could find out, in the nature of offence, was a charge of disorderly conduct, including unusual profanity. Bray, the sheriff, was not to be found on the moment, and probably that was a good thing for all concerned. Bud was locked up with a tramp, two Mexicans, and a Navajo, and a madder cowboy Jim never had seen. “Boss, I’m gonna shoot thet — coyote of a sheriff!” he asserted. Jim paid his fine and got him out, greatly relieved that it had been no worse.

“Where’s Curly?” demanded Jim.

“Shore haven’t the slightest idee. I reckoned he’d stay home on Christmas — considerin’.”

“When’d you see him last?”

“Yestiddy sometime, I think it was, but I ain’t shore. The last time I seen him was when he was helpin’ Miss Glory in the sleigh, after the dance. My Gawd! you’d took him fer the Prince of Wales.”

“Then you went an’ got drunk?”

“Must have, Boss, or suthin’ like. My haid feels sorta queer.”

Jim went back to the ranch considerably concerned over Curly’s disappearance. Lonestar and Bud were back, and late that night Uphill came, so Ring Locke informed Jim. The next day and the next passed. On the third Hump and Cherry rolled in, more or less dilapidated. But no Curly! Jim discovered that he was not the only one who missed the drawling-voiced cowboy. Gloriana passed from coldness to disdain and then to pique, and from that to a curiosity which involved her own state of mind as well as interest in Curly’s whereabouts.

“Curly is a proud fellow,” observed Jim, for Gloriana’s benefit, though he directed the remark to his uncle. “Belongs to a fine old Southern family. Rich before the war. He has taken offence at something or other. Or else he’s just gone to the bad. I don’t know what the Diamond will do without him.”

Later, Gloriana, with one of those rare flashes of her eyes, said to Jim: “Brother mine, your remarks were directed at me. Very well. The point is, not what the Diamond will do without Curly, but what I will.”

“Glory! — What are you saying?” expostulated Jim, both thrilled and shocked. “It’s just pique. You don’t care a rap for Curly. But because he bucked against your imperious will your vanity is hurt.”

“Some of your deductions are amazingly correct,” retorted Gloriana, satirically. “But you’re off on this one. And I’m afraid your prediction about my bucking up the Diamond must be reversed. If you were not blind you’d see that.”

“Glory, hang on to this strange new, sweet, loving character you’ve developed, won’t you?”

“I’ll hang on for dear life,” laughed Gloriana, finally won over.

The last day of the old year dawned — the day of Molly’s party. The cowboys, excepting Bud, had given up ever expecting to see Curly Prentiss again, who, they claimed, had eloped. Bud, however, was mysterious. “You cain’t ever tell aboot thet son-of-a-gun. He’ll bob up, mebbe.”

Jim was not sanguine, and felt deeply regretful. Had he unduly lectured Curly? But he could not see that he had, and he resigned himself to one of those inexplicable circumstances regarding cowboys, which he had come to regard as inevitable.

Jim’s small family were all in the living-room early that morning, planning games for the party, when there came a familiar slow step outside, and a knock on the door, Jim opened it.

There stood Curly, rosy-cheeked as any girl, smiling and cool as ever.

“Mawnin’, Boss,” he drawled.

“How do, Curly...Come in,” replied Jim, soberly. It was too sudden for him to be delighted.

Curly sauntered in. He wore a new coloured blouse, new blue jeans, and new high top-boots, adorned with new spurs. He did not have on a coat or vest, the absence of which brought his worn gun-belt and gun into startling prominence.

“Mawnin’, folks. I dropped in to wish you-all a happy New Year,” he drawled.

Uncle Jim, Molly, and Gloriana all replied in unison. The old rancher’s face wreathed itself into smiles; Molly looked delighted; and Gloriana tranquil, aloof, with darkening eyes.

“Where you been — old-timer?” queried Jim, coolly. Curly’s presence always steadied him, whether in amaze, anger, or indecision.

“Wal, I took a little holiday trip to Albuquerque — to see a sweetheart of mine,” replied Curly. “Shore had fun. I wanted particular to brush up on dancin’. An’ my girl Nancy shore is a high stepper. I got some new steps now that’ll make Bud green.”

“Albuquerque!” exclaimed Jim, beginning to realise this was Curly Prentiss.

“Curly, I never heahed of no Albuquerque girl before,” said Molly, bluntly.

“Molly, this was one I forgot to tell you aboot.”

“Did you fetch her down for my party?”

“No. I couldn’t very well. Nancy’s married an’ her husband’s a jealous old geezer. But I shore would have loved to fetch her.”

It was the expression in Molly’s big dark eyes that gave Jim his clue. The cowboy did not live who could deceive Molly Dunn. Curly’s story was a monstrous fabrication to conceal his drunken spree. Yet how impossible to believe this clear-faced, clear-eyed cowboy had ever been drunk! Not the slightest trace of dissipation showed in Curly’s handsome fair face. He looked so innocent that it was an insult to suspect such a degrading thing. Suddenly Molly shrieked with mirth, which had the effect of almost startling the others.

“Say, anythin’ funny aboot me?” queried Curly, mildly.

“Oh, Curly Prentiss! You’re so funny I — I could kiss you.”

“Wal, come on. I’ve shore been in a particular kissable spell lately.”

Gloriana was the quiet, wondering one of the group. She had been gullible enough to believe Curly’s story, and had no inkling from Molly’s mirth. Moreover, the growing light in her beautiful eyes gave the lie to cool indifference to Curly’s presence. She was too cool. Gloriana could never wholly hide her true feelings. That was part of the price she had to pay for those magnificent orbs of violet.

“Molly,” put in Jim, “if you have an urge to kiss anybody, you can come to me. I won’t have you wasting kisses on this handsome, heartless cowboy...Well, let’s get back to our plans for the party...Curly, we’d be glad to have you sit in with us on this discussion — that is, of course, if you’re coming to the party.”

“Wal, you shore flattered me, postponin’ Molly’s party once on my account,” he drawled, with a blue flash of eyes upon Gloriana. “An’ I wouldn’t want you to do thet again. I gave up the society of a wonderful damsel to come to this heah party.”

“You dog-gone lovable fraud!” burst out Molly, unable longer to conceal her feelings.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE DAY AFTER the New Year gaieties they rode forty miles ahead of the chuck-wagon, down out of the snow and cold, to the sunny cedared and pinoned forest. Back to saddle and chaps, sourdough biscuits and flapjacks, to chopping wood and smoky campfires — in a word — back to the range! And as if by magic they were all in a day the same old Diamond. Jim felt that he could burst with pride and affection. Where was there to be found another group like this? Yet that was only his personal opinion, for Uncle Jim and Locke had laughed at his conceit and told him of other noted Arizona outfits. “You get an outfit that sticks together for a spell — anywhere in Arizona — an’ you have the makin’s of another Diamond,” declared Locke.

The fourth day they rode along their blazed trail, down into wild and beautiful Yellow Jacket. All the long way down that zigzag trail Jim whistled or stopped his horse at the turns to gaze down. Once he heard Bud remark, laconically: “My Gawd! it must be great to be in love like the boss. Jest soarin’. He’ll come down with a hell of a thump pronto.”

Jim laughed at Bud, but a couple of hours later, when he gazed at a huge blackened, charred mass, all that remained of the wonderful peeled pine logs which had been cut to build his ranch-house, he did come down with a sickening thump.

“Haw haw! — Reckon the Hash-Knife has had a party, too,” yelled Bud, shrilly.

“Croak Malloy’s compliments, Boss. See the latest cut in the aspen there,” added Curly, grimly, pointing to the largest of the beautiful white-barked quaking-asps near at hand.

Curly had sharp eyes. Jim dismounted and walked over to the tree. The crude, yet well-fashioned outline of a hash-knife had been cut in the bark, and inside the blade was the letter M. Jim had seen enough of these hash-knife symbols to be familiar with it, but not before had he noticed the single letter. That was significant. It seemed to eliminate Jed Stone. In a sudden violent burst of temper Jim wheeled to his men and cursed as never before in his life.

According to Slinger the tracks around the cabin site and pile of charred logs were old, and probably had been made the day after the Diamond rode home to Flagerstown before Christmas.

“Which means the Hash-Knife had a scout watching us,” asserted Jim, quickly.

“Boss, you shore hit it on the haid,” remarked Curly, admiringly.

“Dog-gone if he ain’t gettin’ bright,” agreed Bud.

“Speaks kinda bad fer me, but I shore do think jest thet,” went on Slinger.

“Slinger, all you could hope to do heah is watch the trails down in the canyon,” said Curly. “Thet greaser of Jed Stone’s, the sheep-herder Sonora, has been keepin’ tab on us from the rim.”

Jim drew a deep hard breath that actually hurt his lungs. “God, it is hell — to wake up to this!...Boys, my softy days are past. We’ll start this long job slow, and watch as much as we work. Slinger, your job is the same as before, only it’s more. Bud, you hunt meat for camp, and I don’t need to tell you what else.”

Slinger spied upon the Hash-Knife camp, reporting several of their number absent. They were inactive, waiting for spring. “I couldn’t get no closer than top of a rock wall,” said Slinger. “But I seen Stone, walkin’ to an’ fro, his haid bent, as if he had a load on his back. Couldn’t make out Malloy, an’ reckon he’s away. Same aboot the greaser.”

“Take my field-glasses next time,” said Jim, tersely. “We want to know who’s there and what they’re doing.”

When more days, that lengthened into weeks, passed without any sign on the part of Stone’s gang that they were even aware of the return of the Diamond to Yellow Jacket, Jim felt the easing of a strain.

“Wal, we’ll heah from them when Malloy comes back,” said Curly, meditatively. “He’ll come. I cain’t conceive of thet hombre bein’ daid or quittin’ this range. Can you, Slinger?”

“Not till he raises some more hell,” returned the backwoodsman. “Malloy an’ thet Texan an’ the greaser must be down-country, hatchin’ up somethin’, or huntin’ up cattle to rustle in the spring.”

“Wal, spring will be heah some fine mawnin’,” replied Curly. “An’, dog-gone-it, Jim, your uncle will be shovin’ all thet stock down in heah. He’s in too darn big a hurry.”

“Anyway, Uncle can’t be stopped,” rejoined Jim. “This rustler nest has long been a sore spot with him. And really, he doesn’t see any more than a scrap or two for us, like we had with the Cibeque. The Hash-Knife outfit simply doesn’t faze Uncle Jim.”

“He’s shore a tough old cattleman an’ he’s been through the mill. But I cain’t agree with him aboot only a little scrap or two. Shore there may be aboot only one.”

Besides Spring, March also brought the vanguard of Mexican labourers to blast out and grade the road down into Yellow Jacket. Already the road was cut and levelled through the forest to the rim. And at the nearest ranch lumber and framework, cement and pipe, bricks and hardware, had begun to arrive.

Coincident with this arrived also more food supplies, and mail and news, all of which were avidly devoured by the cowboys. Curly had received a letter which rendered him oblivious to his surroundings, even to Bud’s sly intrusions into his dream. Jim’s uncle had taken Gloriana to California, while Molly went to stay with Mrs. Locke and diligently pursued her studies.

“Jim, lemme see thet letter from Miss Glory,” asked Bud, casually, “I jest want to admire thet lovely handwritin’.”

And the innocent Jim handed over the letter.

“I knowed it,” declared Bud, after a quick glance, but on the moment he did not explain what it was he knew. Jim guessed readily enough that Bud had seen the handwriting on Curly’s letter, and now he was in possession of the secret of Curly’s trancelike abstraction.

News from Uncle Jim and Ring Locke, from friends of the cowboys, from the weekly newspaper recently started in Flagerstown, furnished debate, not to mention endless conversation, for many a camp-fire.

Bambridge had sent his family away from Flagerstown, no one knew where, and had moved to Winslow to conduct his cattle business. Darnell had not been seen in town since Christmas, when he boarded a late east-bound train, after buying a ticket for Denver. But a cowboy friend of Uphill’s had seen Darnell in Holbrook right after the New Year, and hinted that he kept pretty well hidden there. Croak Malloy had shot a man in Mariposa, according to range rumour. Blodgett, who operated a ranch south of the brakes, complained of spring rustling.

“Uncle Jim says to expect our five thousand head of cows and calves, with a sprinkling of steers, just as soon as the road dries up...Darn his stubborn hide!”

The road came on down into Yellow Jacket, and all too soon the horde of bawling cattle followed, to spread over the great wild canyon and to go on down into the brakes below, and on their heels rolled the wagons with materials for Jim’s ranch-house. It took days to transport the lot. And meanwhile the two builders Jim’s uncle had sent down drove the cowboys to desperation with log-lifting. Jim laboured mightily with them, and had the joy of the primitive pioneer, in seeing his habitation go up in the wilderness. Bud ran a pipe-line from Yellow Jacket spring, and had water on the place before the house was up. The canyon had never resounded to such unfamiliar noise. Its tranquillity had been disrupted. And this kept on while the log-house grew, one log above the other, and the high-peaked, split pine-shingle roof went on, with its wide eaves sloping out over wide porches. Then while the carpenters were busy with the floors and windows and inside finish, the big barn was started, and long slim poles cut and hauled for corrals.

It was well on in May when the expert workmen left to go back to Flagerstown, leaving Jim possessed of a spacious new pine-house that flashed yellow in the sunlight. But much labour there was still, and Jim realised it would take months before that habitation coincided with the picture in his mind.

“Jim, heah you have a log-cabin palace aboot ready,” drawled Curly, and did not add whether he meant ready for furniture or a bride or for another bonfire for the rustlers.

“Wal, the longer thet Hash-Knife waits the wuss they’ll ride over us,” summed up the pessimistic Bud.

“Boss, it’s shore the range twenty miles an’ more down in the brakes that’ll take our cattle,” added Curly. “You can pen up a few hundred haid heah in the canyon. But your range is below. An’ thet damned country is big, an’ lookin’ for a lost cow will be huntin’ fer a needle in a haystack. It’s yours, though, an’ worth fightin’ fer. You can double your stock in two years. Grass an’ water mean a fortune to a rancher. To find ’em an’ hang on to ’em — thet’s the ticket.”

“Aw, you gotta hang on to the cattle,” rejoined Bud. “I’ve known many a rancher who’d made his pile — if he could only have hanged on.”

“Wal, it’s lucky fer Jim thet the Hash-Knife is peterin’ out.”

“Shore...Say, did you fellars heah a rifle-shot?” Curly threw up his head like a listening deer.

“By gum, I heerd somethin’,” replied Bud. “What’s strange about it — if you did?” queried Jim, uneasily.

“Get back under the porch,” ordered Curly, sharply. “We made one mistake aboot buildin’ this cabin. A good rifle could reach you from thet cliff.”

“Wal, it’s a safe bet Hump heerd some-tin’. Look at him.”

The cowboy designated by Bud’s speech and finger appeared hurrying under the pines toward the cabin.

“Shot came from high up,” observed Curly, warily. “Back a ways from the rim. I wonder would Slinger be up there?”

“Slinger’d be anywhere he ought to be,” said Lonestar.

They waited for Hump.

“Fellars,” he said, sharply, running up on the porch, “I heerd a forty-four crack up on the rocks.”

“We heahed a rifle-shot, Hump. But I couldn’t swear to it’s bein’ a forty-four...Thet would be Slinger.”

“Mebbe shot a deer on the way to camp.”

“An’ pack it around an’ down? Not much. Somethin’ wrong. You could hear it in thet shot.”

The Diamond waited, with only one member absent; and every moment increased speculation. When Slinger appeared down the trail there was only one exclamation, which was Curly’s “Ahuh!”

They watched the backwoodsman glide along. He had the stride of the deer-stalker.

But there seemed to be force and menace, something sinister, in his approach.

“Packin’ two rifles,” spoke up the hawk-eyed Curly. “An’ what’s thet swingin’ low?”

“Pard, it’s a gun-belt,” declared Bud.

“By Gawd! so it is!” ejaculated Curly, and then, as they all watched Slinger come on, he sat down to light a cigarette. “Boss,” he said, presently, now with his lazy drawl, “I reckon you have one less of the Hash-Knife to contend with.”

“Wal, it’s been some time comin’,” added Bud, as if excusing a flagrant omission.

Slinger soon reached the porch. His dark face betrayed nothing, but his glittering eyes were something to avoid. He laid a shiny worn carbine on the ground, muzzle pointing outward. It was the kind of rifle range-riders liked to carry in a saddle sheath.

“Wal, Slinger, what’d you fetch it heah thet way fer?” demanded Curly, sharply.

“Dog-gone if it ain’t cocked!” exclaimed Bud. Jim, too, had just made this discovery.

“Jest the way he left it,” replied Slinger. “I wanted to show you-all how near somethin’ come off.”

He went over to touch the trigger, which action discharged the rifle with a spiteful crack.

“Funny it didn’t go off up there,” observed Slinger. “Hair trigger, all right.” Then he laid a gun-belt full of shells, and also burdened with a heavy bone-handled gun, at Jim’s feet on the edge of the porch. But Jim did not have any voice just then. He sensed the disclosure to come.

“Slinger, whose hardware are you packin’ in?” demanded Curly.

“Belonged to thet Hash-Knife greaser, Sonora,” replied Slinger, who now removed his cap and wiped his wet face. “I struck his fresh track this mawnin’ down the trail, an’ I followed him. But I never seen him till a little while ago, up heah on the rim. He was lyin’ flat on his belly, an’ he shore had a bead on Jim. Pretty long shot for a greaser, but I reckon it was aboot time I got there.”

Jim stood stricken, as he gazed from the porch steps where he had been sitting up to the craggy rim. Surely not a long shot! He could have killed a deer, or a man, at that distance. He suddenly felt sick. Again a miraculous accident, or what seemed so to him, had intervened to save his life. Would it always happen? Then he became conscious of Curly’s cold voice.

“You —— !” cursed that worthy, red in the face, and with a violence that presupposed a strong emotion. “Heah I’ve been tellin’ you to keep under cover! Is it goin’ to take a million years of Arizona to teach you things?...My Gawd! boy — thet greaser shore would have plugged you!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ED STONE REGARDED his Texas confederate with a long, unsmiling stare of comprehension.

“Shore, Jed,” repeated Pecos, “you’re goin’ to draw on Croak one of these days. You cain’t help yourself...I’d done it myself if I hadn’t been afeered of him.”

“Pecos, you tell me thet?” queried Stone, harshly. “You know then? He’s got you beat on the draw? You’re not hankerin’ to see?”

“Not a damn hanker, Jed,” drawled Pecos. “I’d shore like to see him daid — the crooked little rattlesnake — but I still love life.”

“Ahuh...An’ thet’s why you’re leavin’ the Hash-Knife?”

“Not by a long shot, Jed. I’d gone with Anderson, but for you. An’ I’d gone when Malloy killed thet cowboy Reed, who throwed in with us. But I stuck on, hopin’ Malloy had spit out his poison. I’m goin’ because I reckon the Hash-Knife is done. Don’t you know thet, too, Jed?”

“Hell! If we are done, what an’ who has done us?”

“Reckon you needn’t ask. You know. Malloy was the one who took up Bambridge. Arizona will never stand a cattle thief like Bambridge. She shore hates him most as bad as Texas. It’s Bambridge’s pretence of bein’ honest while makin’ his big cattle deals thet riles Jim Traft, an’ other ranchers who are the real thing. Mark my words. Bambridge won’t see out this summer.”

“Huh! If he doesn’t fork over the ten thousand he owes me he shore won’t, you can gamble on thet,” returned Stone.

“Wal, all those deals thet have brought us up lately were instigated by Bambridge. Runnin’ off the Diamond brand up at Yellow Jacket an’ shippin’ the stock from Winslow — of all the damn-fool deals, that was the worst. We could have gone on for years heah, appropriatin’ a few steers now an’ then, an’ living easy. No, Malloy has done us. These last tricks of his — they make me sick an’ sore.”

“You mean thet cattle-drive in April, without me knowin’?”

“Not thet particular. I mean buildin’ this heah cabin, fer one thing. Shore it’s a fort. An’ only twenty miles from Yellow Jacket!”

“Ha ha! — Croak runs up this cabin, he said, because he liked the view down over the brakes, an’ the wall of the Mogollans standin’ away there so beautiful.”

“Wal, I ain’t gainsayin’ the view. But to take Malloy serious, except regardin’ life an’ death, is sheer nonsense. He aims to hang on heah whether you like it or not.”

“Mebbe he will hang — an’ from a rope,” muttered the outlaw.

“Not Croak Malloy! He’ll die with his boots on, sober an’ shootin’. Don’t have vain hopes, Jed...Malloy will run the Hash-Knife — an’ run it to hell. Take, for instance, these two hombres he’s lately rung in on us. Just a couple of town rowdies, drinkin’ up what they steal. No stuff for the Hash-Knife!”

“I had the same hunch when I seen them,” said Stone, pacing to and fro.

“Wal, heah’s Lang an’ Madden, both scared of Croak, an’ they’d double-cross you any day. An’ Sonora, he’s Croak’s man, as you know. Right now, Jed, the Hash-Knife, outside of you an’ me, is done.”

“I reckon so. It’s been keepin’ me awake nights.”

“Wal, then, shake the ornery outfit an’ come away with me?”

“Where you goin’, Pecos?”

“Reckon I’ll lay low fer a spell.”

“Shore. But where? I want to know.”

“Jed, I’ll ride straight for the haid of the Little Colorado. I told you I had word last fall from an old Texas pard who’s layin’ low up there.”

“Uh-huh, Pecos, have you got any money?”

“Shore. Malloy hasn’t won all I had.”

Stone turned with a jerk of decision. “All right, Pecos, if I don’t join you up there before the snow flies, you can reckon Malloy’s done fer me, as he has fer the Hash-Knife.”

“Jed, shore there’s no call fer you to risk an even break with Croak,” said the Texan, gravely. “He’s no square gunman. He’d have murdered young Traft over there at Yellow Jacket thet day.”

“Yes, I remember. An’ my kickin’ his gun up made him hate me...Honest to Gawd, Pecos, the only reason I’d ever risk an even break with Croak — if I did — would be just to see if he could beat me to a gun.”

“I savvy. I had the same itch. It’s the one weakness of a gunman. It’s plain vanity, Jed. Don’t be a damn fool. Come away with me now.”

Stone thought for a long moment. “No, not yet. I’m broke. I want thet money from Bambridge. An’ I want to—” His pause and the checking of his thought suggested an ominous uncertainty of himself rather than meaning not to confide in the Texan. “But, Pecos, I’ll promise you, barrin’ ordinary accidents, thet I’ll meet you at the haid of the Little Colorado sometime before the summer’s over.”

“Thet shore sounds good,” replied Pecos, rising to his lofty stature. “Shake on thet.”

Stone gripped his lieutenant’s hand, and their eyes locked as well. It was one of the moments that counted with men of the open. Then Pecos strode out to his horse, and while he mounted Stone untied the halter of the pack-mule.

“Reckon you’d better work out through the woods,” he said casually. “If Croak happened to meet you on the trail he’d be curious. He took Anderson’s desertion as a slap in the face...Good luck, Pecos.”

“Same to you, Jed. I’ll shore be countin’ the days.”

Malloy had certainly selected this site for a cabin with more than its superb view in mind. It stood high up, above a long fan-shaped bare slope of grass, and had been built in a notch of the great wall of rock. It could only be approached from the front, facing downhill. The spruce logs, of which it had been constructed, had been cut right on the spot. They were heavy, too green to burn for a long time, and significant indeed were the narrow chinks left open between the logs, some close to the floor, others breast high, and not a few in the loft. A spring of clear cold water ran from under the cliff, and the cabin had been erected right over it. The wall above bulged far out, so far that neither avalanche nor bullets from any point above could reach the cabin. With store of meat and provisions a few vigilant and hardened outlaws could hold that cabin-fort indefinitely. No Arizona posse of sheriff’s sworn-in deputies, or any reasonable outfit of cowboys, were going to rush that retreat, if it sheltered the Hash-Knife. Stone conceded Malloy’s sagacity. But it was a futile move, simply because he and his new accomplices would spend very little time there. They had made three cattle-drives already this spring, one of which was as bold and as preposterous as the raiding of the last of the Diamond stock on Yellow Jacket. Bambridge, with his new man, Darnell, was back of these. Stone had not needed to meet Darnell more than once to get his status. Darnell would hardly bother the Hash-Knife long. He was too sharp a gambler. Presently, if he won too much from Croak Malloy, very suddenly he would turn up his toes.

But it was Malloy who stuck in Jed Stone’s craw. Jed had never before admitted even to himself that he meant to kill the gun-thrower. When, however, he had intimated so much to Pecos, he realised the grim thing that gripped him. He did mean to kill Malloy. It had been in his dreams, in that part of his mind which worked when he was asleep, and now it possessed him. How and when to do the deed were matters of conjecture; the important thing was the decision, and Stone imagined he had arrived at it. Nevertheless, conscience awakened a still small voice. Bad as Malloy was, he trusted Stone, had fought for him, would do so again at the drop of a card, and that meant, of course, he stood ready to die for him. Stone faced the issue uneasily.

“An’ the little cuss likes to set here fer the view,” soliloquised the outlaw.

Stone took satisfaction in convincing himself that the Hash-Knife had no more need of concern about the Diamond. Still, an afterthought was that he no longer controlled the Hash-Knife. Suppose that doughty old cattleman, Jim Traft, did throw a few thousand head of steers down into Yellow Jacket! He was fool enough, and bull-headed enough, to do it. And if he did, nothing but death could ever prevent Croak Malloy from stealing them. Wherefore the ghastly idea of death for Malloy again held sway over Jed Stone.

Stone’s quick eye, ever roving from habit, detected movement of grey down in the foliage. He thought it was a deer until he saw brown and heard a distant thud of hoofs. Horses! Probably Malloy was returning. But Stone took no chances with suppositions, and his hand went to the rifle leaning against the bench.

When three horses emerged from the green below he recognised the first of the riders to be Madden, but they were halfway up the hill before he made out that the second was Bambridge. The outlaw’s thought changed, and conjecture that was not friendly to this visit took the place of hard vigilance. Bambridge riding down into the Black Brakes must certainly have something to do with Malloy. It was unwise, especially for this pseudo rancher. Stone arose and walked to the high step.

The dusty horses limped wearily up the hill, to be halted before the cabin. The men were travel-stained and tired. Bambridge’s big face appeared haggard, and it did not express any pleasure.

“Hullo, Boss! I fetched a visitor,” called out Madden, busy with saddle packs.

“So I see...Howdy, Mr. Bambridge!” replied Stone, coolly.

“Mornin’, Stone. I expect you’re surprised to see me,” said Bambridge, bluntly.

“Shore am. Glad, though, for more’n one reason,” answered the rustler.

Bambridge unstrapped a coat from his saddle, and mounted to the porch, heavy of step and dark of eye. He flopped down on the bench, dropping his coat and sombrero. Evidently he had not slept much, and it was plain his sweaty and begrimed apparel had not been changed for days. He packed a gun, which Stone had taken note of first.

“Malloy failed to show up,” he said, sourly.

“Ahuh. It’s a way Croak has. But he’ll show up when you least expect him an’ don’t want him. Where’d you go to meet him?”

“Tanner’s out of Winslow,” returned Bambridge, shortly, his dull grey eyes studying the outlaw, as if he was weighing that remark about Malloy.

“Tanner’s. So Malloy meets you there, eh? — Wal, I reckon he might as well go into Winslow or Flag,” said Stone, dryly.

Bambridge seemed uncertain of his ground here, but was indifferent to it. Stone grasped the fact that the cattle dealer did not take him for the dominant factor in the Hash-Knife.

“You can bet I’d rather he had. Eighty miles’ ride, without a bed, an’ practically nothin’ to eat, is enough to make a man bite nails.”

“What’s the reason you undertook it?”

“It concerns me an’ Malloy,” said the other.

Whatever sense of fair play Jed Stone felt toward this man — and he confessed to himself that it was little — departed here.

“Any deals you make with Malloy concern me. I’m boss of this Hash-Knife outfit.”

“Not so anyone would notice it,” rejoined Bambridge, with scant civility.

The man was on dangerous ground and had no intimation of it. Steeped in his absorption of his greedy sordid plans, if he had the wit to understand Jed Stone he did not exercise it. Stone paced the narrow porch, gazing out over the brakes. For the moment he would waive any expression of resentment. Bambridge was in possession of facts and plans that Stone desired to know.

“Wal, mebbee you’re right aboot Croak bossin’ the outfit pretty generally,” he said, at length. “But only in late deals that I had little to do with. What I don’t advise I shore don’t do. Thet deal of Diamond cattle last winter — thet was an exception. I’ve kicked myself often enough...By the way, you can fork over thet ten thousand you’ve owed me on thet deal. I sent Madden in to get it.”

“Man alive! I gave the money to Darnell, with instructions to hand it to Malloy for you,” ejaculated Bambridge, in genuine surprise.

“You did? When?”

“Weeks ago. Let’s see. It was the ninth of April that I drew that ten thousand. Next day Darnell was to ride out to Tanner’s. He met Malloy there and delivered your money.”

“Not to me,” declared Stone.

“Why! — the man is reliable,” replied Bambridge, in exasperation. “Are you quite — honest about it?...Have you seen Malloy since?”

“Wal, Bambridge, I’ve seen Malloy several times since then. He never mentioned no money — for me. Appeared to be pretty flush himself, though...An’ much obliged for the hint about my honesty.”

Bambridge let the caustic rejoinder go by without apology.

“Honesty is not your trade, Stone. I’ll say, though, you’ve kept your word to me, which is more than Malloy has...You suspect this new man of mine, Darnell?”

“No, I don’t suspect him. I know him to be a Mississippi gambler, run out of St. Louis — accordin’ to his own statement. I’ve seen a few of his kind hit the raw West. They didn’t savvy us Westerners an’ they didn’t last. Darnell has double-crossed you. He’ll try it on Croak Malloy, which will be bad for his health.”

“No wonder Darnell can’t savvy you Westerners. Who the hell can, I’d like to know?”

“Wal, not you, thet’s shore.”

“Give me proof Darnell has done me dirt?” demanded the other, impatiently.

“Wal, I saw him right here after the tenth of April — along aboot the twentieth, I reckon, for it was after Malloy made a raid on Blodgett’s range...Darnell did not give me any money. He had a big roll, for I saw him flash it when he was gamblin’ with the men...Thet was the day Croak shot young Reed.”

“Aw, I’d want more proof than that,” returned Bambridge. “You might have been drunk when Darnell gave it to you.”

“Shore. I might have been anythin’. Us outlaws are pretty low-down, I reckon. But I, for one, am not as low-down as some who call themselves cattlemen...Bambridge, am I to hold you or Darnell responsible fer thet ten thousand?”

“Not me, you can bet. Or Darnell, either. Malloy is your man. He seems to be runnin’ your outfit now, an’ no doubt appropriated your money.”

“Nope. Croak is square aboot money,” said the outlaw, meditatively.

“Bah! — What you givin’ me?” retorted Bambridge, harshly. “Stone, you talk queer for a rustler. Here you are, hidden down in this God-forsaken wilderness afraid to go near any town — with a price on your life, yet you talk of honesty in yourself an’ men. Thet’s a joke about honour among thieves.”

“Wal, we needn’t argue aboot it,” replied Stone. A Westerner would have gauged something from the cool quality of his voice and the averting of his eyes. “I’ve served your turn. An’ now thet Malloy is doin’ it, why, you’ve no call to get nasty. What I’d like to know is — how’d you come to ride out here? Shore is a long hard ride fer anyone.”

“I want action. That’s why I came,” almost yelled Bambridge, red in the face. “Malloy has failed me twice, both times because I didn’t pay first. Here I have a chance to sell ten thousand head of cattle — to the government buyer in Kansas City — an’ I haven’t the cattle.”

“Chance to sell quick an’ get out of Arizona, huh?”

“You’ve hit it, Stone. An’ that’s why I’m here. I want cattle. Old Traft lately drove a big herd down into Yellow Jacket. I’m after it. Malloy agreed to drive it. I’ve built a corral along the railroad, half-way between Winslow an’ Holbrook. Short-cut idea, see? An’ I can load there. He also agreed to make away with this damned young smart Alec, Jim Traft. Took the money quick enough, by damn.”

“Took what money?” queried Stone, with no apparent interest.

“What I offered for the job,” fumed the cattleman. “Then afterward he said it was the kind of job Croak Malloy couldn’t do. But he’d put his man Sonora on it. A Mexican.”

“Job to do away with young Jim Traft,” mused Stone, drumming the bench with his fingers. “Wal, I reckon thet’s a fine idee — fer you. I’ll tell you somethin’, though. Sonora will never do it.”

“More double-crossin’, eh?”

“No. The greaser is straight. Funny fer a greaser, ain’t it? But he simply won’t, because Slinger Dunn will kill him. I wouldn’t go prowlin’ around Yellow Jacket for anythin’, an you can gamble Malloy wouldn’t, either.”

“So that’s why he’s slow about drivin’ the Diamond cattle. Damn his crooked mug!...Stone, did you know Malloy was in with that Tanner outfit an’ has been workin’ on Blodgett’s stock?”

“No. Thet’s news to me. Who told you?”

“Darnell. In fact, he made the deal. This was against my orders, I’m bound to admit. I am pretty sore at him an’ I’m through with him. But Malloy has got to square himself with me.”

“Your man is playin’ both ends against the middle,” observed the outlaw, thoughtfully. “He’s smart enough to try to use Malloy same as you — an’ get a big raid off. Then he, too, can jump Arizona. Wal, my advice is to be jumpin’ quick. We decent rustlers don’t work thet way. We never rob any cattleman of enough stock to ruin him. Thet’s why the Hash-Knife has lasted twenty years.”

“My daughter married a cowboy in Flag last winter,” said Bambridge. “An’ I’m ready to get out quick, without any advice from you. Can you jack up Malloy on this job?”

“Shore I can, if I like,” replied the outlaw, easily. “I can handle Croak on any deal, providin’ I give him the big share. I’m not keen, though, to egg him along — for nothin’.”

Bambridge was no match for Stone in subtlety. He had been led on to tell his business with Malloy; now all the outlaw leader wanted to know was whether or not he had brought the money.

“Malloy wanted twenty thousand dollars,” said Bambridge. “That was out of all reason. He can’t deliver cattle enough. So we jawed about it. He came down to fifteen — an’ I’ve got ten thousand with me. Suppose you persuade Malloy to make the drive — with as few men as can possibly be needed. An’ the day you land the cattle at my corral I’ll fork over the other five thousand.”

“How many cattle?” asked Stone, tremendously interested, but not in any case in the query he made.

“I don’t stipulate any number. Only as many as can be rounded up quick an’ driven out quick.”

“Ahuh...Suppose you let me see the colour of thet ten thousand,” suggested the rustler, as if he needed a little more material persuasion.

Bambridge unbuttoned his bulging vest, and from an inside pocket drew forth a packet of clean new greenbacks, with the bank wrapper still round them. He flipped it upon the bench. Money was only so much paper to him! His large features worked.

“You’ve as much right to doubt me as I have you,” he said, blandly. “There you are! — Nice fresh green colour!”

“Wal, it ain’t so much money, after all, considerin’,” reflected Stone.

The cattleman’s face fell. He had calculated upon this last card.

“I’ve got about five hundred more in gold. I’ll throw that in. Will you pull off the deal?” And he jingled the heavy coins, which evidently were what had made his vest bulge.

Stone’s veins leaped as the released blood gushed hot and bursting along them. All his talk had been pretence, except wherein he had wanted to find out if Bambridge really carried the money with him.

“Let me see thet, too...The gold! The good old yellow stuff with the music — an’ the hell hid in it.”

Bambridge reacted slowly to that suggestion. Something wedged into his eager one-ideaed mind. Instead of complying with Stone’s request he ceased jangling the gold and snatched up the packet of bills, which he returned to his pocket. Then he buttoned up his vest.

“Fork it all over!” suddenly called the outlaw, and in a single second such a remarkable transformation occurred in him that Bambridge’s eyes popped wide.

“Wha-at?” he stammered.

“Hand me thet money.”

“I will not. No pay in advance, Malloy.”

“Pay hell! I wouldn’t drive a steer for you. But I want the ten thousand. You owe it to me.”

“See you in hell first,” burst out Bainbridge, furiously. He stood up, and stepped out as if to go off the porch.

Stone gave him a sudden hard shove, which staggered him backward. “You — fool! You will brace me on my own ground? Fork over thet money or—”

“You’re a low-down thief! No wonder Malloy’s quit standin’ for you...An’ if you want to know it — there’s talk of collectin’ the reward on your head.”

Bambridge’s ignorance of such men as Jed Stone could not have been better expressed. And if he had known how to inflame this outlaw it was doubtful if he could have done so more subtly. For years that price on Stone’s head had been a thorn in his flesh. There were still a mother and a father living, not to forget a sacrificed sweetheart; and the thought of them hearing of this reward was torture.

Stone drew his gun and struck Bainbridge over the forehead. Not a violent blow, though it brought blood! The cattleman fell over the bench, against the wall.

“Get that through your thick skull?” demanded Stone, as he menacingly straddled the bench. “Hyar! Don’t pull—”

But Bambridge, like a madman, his face ablaze, reached back toward his hip.

“Take it then!” hissed the outlaw. His shot broke Bambridge’s draw. The gun slipped out on the floor and spun round. Bambridge uttered a horrible groan, sagged back, his huge face going out like an extinguished light.

Stone stood an instant. Then with swift movement he picked up the gun from the floor, fired it into the wall, and dropped it again. Then, bending over the dead man, he ripped open his vest and extracted the money, which he transferred to his own pocket. That done, he stepped to the porch. The gun in his hand still smoked. Sheathing it, he glanced along the wall of the cliff to see Madden coming on a run. His next move was to light a cigarette, and his fingers were as steady as a rock. He had shot Bambridge as he would have a hydrophobia skunk, than which there was no more despised beast of the wilderness.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MADDEN THUMPED UP to the cabin, breathless and alarmed. “Boss, I heerd — shootin’,” he panted.

“Reckon you did,” replied Stone, removing his cigarette to puff a cloud of smoke.

The right-hand man of Croak Malloy took his cue from that — no need for concern!

“What come — off?”

“Wal, you can see fer yourself.”

Madden stamped up the high porch steps, his beady eyes working as if on points, until suddenly they fixed on the dead man, the little stream of red blood running out toward the gun lying on the floor. It seemed to be an accusing finger.

“ —— ! Throwed on you?” ejaculated Madden, in amaze.

Stone nodded.

“What’s thet cut on his haid?” asked the other, curiously.

“Wal, he fell all over the place,” replied Stone, casually. “I reckon he hit the bench...Better search him, Madden.”

The outlaw picked up the gun, took a look at the chamber, and laid it on the bench. Then he extracted watch, papers, and a handful of gold coins from the pockets, which he placed beside the gun. His next move was to look for a money-belt.

“Wasn’t well heeled,” he remarked, in disgust. “I recollect he an’ Croak had a hell of a row at Tanner’s. There was a game on. An’ Bambridge lost. Swore he’d never fetch any more money where there was a lot of robbers. Haw haw!”

“You’re welcome to thet, Madden. I shore don’t want it.”

“Thanks, Boss. An’ what about all these papers?”

“Wal, I reckon you can keep them for Croak,” said Stone, with humour. “By the way, Madden, when do you expect him?”

“Today, sure. Thet’s why I near rode Bambridge off his laigs gettin’ hyar...What’d you an’ Bambridge fight aboot?”

“Wait till Croak comes,” replied the rustler leader. “I don’t want to tell it all over again.”

“Shall we drag Bambridge an’ bury him, or wait fer thet, too?”

“Reckon we’d better wait. Put thet gun back on the floor where you found it. An’ cover him over.”

“Haw haw! Pertickler on Croak seein’ the evidence, huh?...Don’t blame you. Croak will be a-rarin’. But at thet he wasn’t so fond of Bambridge, an’ don’t you overlook it.”

Call to supper at last brought the outlaw leader inside the cabin, where bright fire and smoking pans and pots attested to Madden’s practical application to duties surely neglected by others of the Hash-Knife.

“No sign of Croak?” he asked.

“Nary. An’ mebbe it’s jest as well,” replied Stone.

“Shore. Tomorrer you’ll feel less testy...Wal, Croak’s been in a fight, you can lay to thet. Else he’d been hyar. I seen him at Tanner’s about a week ago — yep, jest seven days, an’ we set the day for me to get hyar with Bambridge...Thet feller Darnell has messed things up again, I reckon.”

“Madden, I appreciate your cookin’, if not your company,” said Stone.

“Shore kind of you, Boss,” replied the other, sarcastically. “But when the final row between you an’ Croak comes don’t take any of it out on me. I was Croak’s pard before we come to the Hash-Knife. An’ if I do see some queer deals I hardly approve of, I can’t do nothin’.”

“I’ll remember thet, Madden;” rejoined Stone, in a surprise he did not show. “Thet’s straight talk. I didn’t think it was in you.”

They finished the meal, after which Stone smoked in front of the fire, where Madden presently joined him.

“Forgot aboot thet dead hombre out there,” he said. “We ought to have planted him.”

“Maddy, you’ve slept before where there was a dead man lyin’ around.”

“Shore. But I ain’t crazy aboot it.”

After a while, which was mostly silence, they sought their blankets. Stone’s bed happened to be in the corner just inside where Bambridge lay, and he could smell the blood. Sleep did not come readily, so presently he got up, and carrying his blankets to another unoccupied bough-couch in the cabin, he spread them in that. It was a quiet night, with no sound except a low moan of wind in the caverns of the great overhanging cliff. And some hours elapsed before Stone fell into slumber.

Next morning he was up with the sun, and something, as black and uncanny as the vanished night, had left him. Stone walked along the wall, as far as the intersecting canyon which the rustlers used as a corral for the horses. He reminded himself that he did this quite often. There seemed no sense in deceiving himself — would soon be riding away from the rendezvous and the brakes. Which presupposed that he did not mean to give Malloy a chance to kill him!

On his return he heard a halloa, and quickening his steps soon turned a corner of wall to see riders coming up the slope. Three — with pack animals!

Madden hailed him from the door. “Croak comin’ with Blacky an’ some fellar I cain’t make out yet.”

Stone, in action of which he was unaware, hitched his heavy belt, as if about to mount a horse or undertake something physical. As he went up the porch steps his quick eye took in the tarpaulin that hid Bambridge. The body looked like some covered packs.

“Maddy, no hurry aboot tellin’ Croak,” said Stone, indicating the dead man.

“All right, Boss. I’d jest as lief see Croak cheerful as long as possible.”

Then they both went into the cabin, Madden to bustle around the fire, and Stone to watch through one of the chinks between the logs. The three rustlers came very slowly up the slope, to halt before the cabin. A lean, dark rider, the stranger, sagged in his saddle. A bloody bandage showed from under his sombrero. He was the last to dismount, but they were all ridden out. Without speaking they threw saddles and packs, and left the weary horses standing.

“Wal, if thar’s anybody home they shore ain’t powerful glad to see us,” said Malloy, gruffly.

Madden ran out, his hands white with flour. “Howdy, men! We seen you comin’, but didn’t think it no call fer a brass band.”

“Haw! — I should smile not...Anybody hyar?” returned Malloy.

“Only the boss.”

Whereupon Stone stalked out, and a singular incomprehensible fact was that he was glad to see the gunman. Croak radiated the raw hard force of the range. He was, at best, an ally to depend upon in times that tried men. On the other hand, Stone certainly had a wavering thought — this was the moment! Nevertheless, he did not take advantage of it.

“Mornin’, Croak. How’s tricks?” he said, cheerfully.

“Hullo there, you old son-of-a-gun!” replied Malloy. “Got news fer you — an’ somethin’ else.”

Malloy limped. Something beside sweat and dust had caked on his worn yellow chaps — something dark and sinister. Stone’s sharp eye caught a bullet-hole in the leather. Malloy carried a rifle, saddlebag, and an extra gun-belt, minus shells. His leather jacket looked as if he had slept in wet clay that had hardened. His crooked face somehow appeared wonderful to look at, or else Stone’s mind at the moment was steeped in strong feeling. Malloy might have been wearing a death mask, yet his eyes were alight, and it seemed that in them was a smile. His boots dragged across the floor, his spurs jangled, as he went into the cabin, to deposit wearily what he carried.

“Howdy, you cook!” he called. “Then thet four-flush cattle thief didn’t come out?”

“Croak, I’ve shore got bad news,” returned Madden. “But s’pose you rest a little — an’ eat somethin’ — before I spring it on you.”

“Good idee. I’m glad as a tarantula wasp anyhow...I reckoned Bambridge wouldn’t come...An’ mebbe I like it jest as well as if he did. No more deals fer me with thet —— !”

“Sounds good to me, Croak,” returned Stone, with satisfaction. “Reckon I can give you a reason why you can’t take up any more deals with Bambridge. But it’s bad news. An’ suppose you have a shot at my bottle first.”

Malloy took a long drink of fiery liquor that made him cough huskily and brought colour to his ashen cheeks.

“Uggh! — if I’d hed thet two days ago mebbe I’d never got hyar,” he said, enigmatically.

“Where’s Lang?”

“Ha! — Feedin’ the buzzards.”

“You don’t say,” returned the outlaw leader, coolly, though the statement had struck fire from him. Another of the original Hash-Knife gone! Lang was not loyal, but he belonged to the old school, and once he had been respectable.

Slow footfalls thudded up the steps outside, across the porch. The bar of light from the door darkened. Reeves entered with the lean-jawed stranger.

“Hed to shoot thet bay. She was bad crippled,” announced Reeves.

“Should have been done before,” replied Malloy. “Boss, shake hands with Sam Tanner...Cousin of Joe’s from up Little Colorado way.”

“Howdy, Tanner,” said Stone, civilly, though he did not move toward Malloy’s new man. Perhaps this omission was not noticed, as table and packs and also Malloy stood between. Tanner merely bowed his bandaged head, which, with sombrero removed, showed matted hair, and dark stains extending down over the left temple and ear.

“Must have jagged your haid on a snag or somethin’,” went on Stone.

“Nary snag. I got sideways to a lead slug,” returned Tanner. He had a low voice, and a straight, level look from his black eyes. Stone gauged men of the range with speed and precision. This fellow, since he was kin to Joe Tanner, and in the company of Croak Malloy, could be only another of their ilk, but he seemed a man to consider thoughtfully.

“Croak, I reckon you’ll be tellin’ me you’ve had a little brush with somebody,” said Stone, dryly.

“Brush? — Haw haw!” rejoined the gunman, and his flaring glance, his crisp query, and his deadly little croak of a laugh made Stone’s flesh creep. He guessed there were some dead men somewhere who would never tell the tale of what had happened.

“Wal, take your time tellin’ me,” drawled the leader.

“Come an’ get it,” yelled Madden.

“A good stiff drink with some hot grub — an’ a fellar’s able to go on,” he said, as he rose. “But I’ll shore sleep most like our pard Lang hangin’ down there on thet cottonwood.”

Stone did not reveal his curiosity; he knew he would soon be enlightened, and if his intuition was not at fault most weighty things had happened. But when Malloy drew a heavy roll of soiled greenbacks from his pocket and tossed it over, Stone could not hide a start.

“Bambridge sent thet money he owed you,” said Malloy. “Like the muddlehead he is he trusted it to Darnell...An’ I’m tellin’ you, pard, if it hadn’t been fer me you’d never seen it.”

“I reckon. Thanks — Croak,” replied the outlaw chief, haltingly. This was one of the surprising attributes of the little gunman. Vicious and crooked as he was, he yet had that quality which forced respect, if not more, from Stone’s reluctant mind.

Malloy laboriously took off his chaps and flapped them into his corner of the cabin. Then a bloody wet spot showed on the leg of his jeans. “Some hot water, Maddy, an’ a clean rag. I’ve a crease on my laig.”

“What’s the fellar got who gave you thet cut, Croak?” queried Stone.

“He got nothin’, wuss luck. I was shore damn near my everlastin’, Jed, an’ don’t you overlook it...Sam, you better have Madden wash thet bullet hole of yours. He’s pretty handy.”

Stone curiously watched the deft Madden dress the wounds of the injured rustlers.

In due time the ministering was ended, after which Malloy asked for another drink. “Reckon I’d better get some of my news off my chest. Then after I hear yours I’ll have a nap of about sixteen hours...Boss, would you mind comin’ out on the porch where I can set down an’ talk?”

They went outside, and Stone experienced a qualm when Malloy hobbled to his favourite seat. The foot of his injured leg rested upon what he must have thought was a pack, but it happened to be Bambridge’s head under the tarpaulin.

“Jed, you know thet trapper’s cabin down hyar a ways — reckon aboot three hours’ stiff ridin’? — Thet old one under the wall, where a spring runs out by a big white sycamore?”

“Shore I know it. Slept there often enough. Full of mice an’ bugs.”

“Wal, it ain’t no more,” said Malloy, with a grim chuckle. “It’s a heap of ashes.”

“Burnt, eh? What you fellars doin’ — burnin’ all the cabins around?”

“Hell no. We didn’t do it. That darned Slinger Dunn!”

“Ah, I see...Wal, Slinger is a bad hombre. Too much like an Apache!...Hope you didn’t brush with the Diamond.”

“Jed, your hopes air only born to be dashed. Me an’ you left of the Hash-Knife, ‘cept Maddy hyar — an’ you can lay it to thet damned slick tracker Dunn an’ the outfit he’s throwed in with. You oughta have killed him long ago.”

“Not so easy to do as to say,” replied Stone, sarcastically.

“Ha — you’re talkin’. Wal, I had a chanct to kill Slinger, but it’d have meant me gettin’ it too.”

“You’re learnin’ sense late — mebbe too late, Croak...I hope to God, though, you didn’t raid this new stock of Jim Traft’s.”

“No, Jed, we didn’t,” replied Malloy, frankly. “I was sore at you fer talkin’ ag’in’ it, but after I got away an’ seen what a mess Bambridge an’ his card sharper got me into I changed my mind. Not that I wouldn’t of druv the cattle later! But this hyar wasn’t the time. An’ if Bambridge had come to meet me hyar, as he promised, with a new deal on fer this Diamond stock, I’d shore have taken the money, but I wouldn’t have made a single move. Not now.”

“Wal, you puzzle me. Suppose you quit ridin’ round in a circle,” declared Stone, impatiently.

“Fust aboot the money Bambridge sent you by Darnell,” began Malloy. “I seen he was flush at Tanner’s, an’ he was losin’ fer a change. Joe is pretty keen himself with the cairds. I set in till I was broke. We hung round Joe’s ranch fer a week, waitin’, an’ finally I got wind of this backhand game Darnell was playin’. He was the mouth-piece between me an’ Bambridge. But all the time he was hatchin’ a deal on his own hook. An’ this one was to make a raid on Blodgett’s range without lettin’ Bambridge in on it. Joe Tanner never was no smart fellar, an’ shore he was always greedy. So he double-crossed us, too. Wal, it was Sam hyar who put me wise. An’ after figgerin’ some an’ snoopin’ around I seen the deal. Funny I didn’t shoot Darnell. But I jest held him up. Then he swore the big roll he had was fer you from Bambridge. I reckoned thet was the truth...Wal, a day or so after they druv the lower end of the brakes an’ got some odd thousand head of Diamond stock up on the open range below Tanner’s. I was hoppin’ mad when I found out, but neither Darnell or Joe came back to Tanner’s. Sam’s sweet on the sawmill man’s daughter, an’ thet’s how he come to be out of what followed. He told me, an’ also thet Darnell, Joe, Lang, an’ some riders he didn’t know were comin’ up to get another whack at the Diamond cattle. Then I was a-rarin’ to get at them. I seen it all too late. Bambridge, by playin’ on my hopes, had got me in on his deals. He was aimin’ fer a big stake — then to duck out of Arizona. Now Darnell carried his messages to an’ fro, an’ he seein’ a chanct himself, double-crossed Bambridge an’, as I said, persuaded Joe Tanner to throw in with him.”

Malloy refilled his pipe and called for Madden to fetch him a light. After puffing thoughtfully, his cramped, wrinkled brow expressive of much, he went on:

“I took their trail with Sam. Night before last, jest before sundown we come damn near gettin’ run down by a stampede of cattle. We rustled to thet trapper’s cabin, an’, by Gawd! we hadn’t hardly hid our horses an’ slipped in there when hyar come Joe, Lang, Darnell, an’ his seedy-lookin’ outfit. Some of them had sense enough to ride on. But both Darnell an’ Tanner had been shot an’ found ridin’ hard. I never seen a madder man than Tanner, nor a scareder one than Darnell. We’d jest started to have hell there — with me readin’ it to them, when we found out who an’ what was chasin’ them...No less than the Diamond outfit, Jed, led by Slinger Dunn an’ thet Prentiss cowpuncher — Dog-gone, I’d always wanted to run ag’in’ him!...Wal, there they had us, an’ you can bet we didn’t sleep much thet night. When daylight come I took a look out, an’ was surprised when the bullets began to fly. Them darned punchers all had rifles! An’ there we was, with only our guns, no shells to spare, little grub, an’ no water at all. We was stuck, an’ you bet I told them.

“It wasn’t long after thet when I smelled smoke,” resumed Malloy, after a pause. “Thet damned redskin Dunn had set fire to the cabin roof. It was an old roof of shacks an’ brush, an’ shore dry. Burn? You should have heerd it! We didn’t have a hell of a lot of time. Fire began to drop on us. Lookin’ out, I seen thet the cowboys had bunched over at the edge of the woods, jest out of gunshot. I seen also thet the smoke from the cabin was blowin’ low an’ gettin’ thicker. ‘Men,’ I says, ‘we’ve got one chanct an’ a slim one. Take it or leave it. I’m gonna run out under cover of thet smoke, an’ make a break fer cover. Anyway, it’s better to be shot than burn up or hang. Take your choice. But whoever’s comin’ with me start when I yell.’”

Malloy took another long pull at his pipe, and his wonderful eyes, flaring with lightning, swept down over the wild brakes and along the wandering grey wall of rock.

“I waited till a thick lot of smoke rolled off the roof,” went on Malloy, “an’ then I yelled, ‘Let ‘er rip!’ An’ I run fer it, a gun in each hand. To do ’em credit, every last man in the cabin charged with me. But what’n hell could they do?...Wal, I got a bullet in the laig fust thing, an’ I went down. But I got up an’ run as best I could. You’d thought an army had busted loose — there was so much shootin’. An’ bullets — say, they was like bees! But we had the smoke with us, or not one man jack of us would have escaped. Shore I was shootin’, but bein’ crippled an’ on the run, I was shootin’ pore. I nailed one of them punchers, though, an’ I seen another one fall. Thet one was daid before he hit the ground. But someone else allowed fer him...I got to the timber an’ fell in the brush, where you bet I laid low. I reckoned my laig was broke. But I wasn’t even bad shot, an’ when I got it tied up I felt better. The shootin’ an’ yellin’ soon ended. I peeped through the brush...an’ what do you reckon I seen?”

“Some rustler swingin’.” returned Stone, hazarding a guess.

“Nope. It was thet caird sharp, Darnell. But when I seen him fust they hadn’t swung him up. I could hear him beggin’. But thet Diamond bunch was shore silent an’ swift. They jerked him clear, till he kicked above their haids. I seen his tongue stick out...then his face go black...An’ next went up Lang an’ Joe Tanner. They had their little kick...I watched, but seen no more rustlers swing. But shore Prentiss an’ Dunn would have nailed some of them on the run. I crawled away farther an’ hid under a spruce thet had branches low on the ground. I lay there all day, till I was shore the cowpunchers had rid away. Then I went into the spruces where me an’ Blacky had hid our horses. His was gone, but mine was there. I sneaked him off into the woods, an’ worked round to the trail. All night! This mawnin’ I run into Blacky, who’d got away without a scratch. An’ Sam, who hadn’t been in the cabin, seen us from his hidin’-place, an’ whistled...An’ wal, hyar we air.”

“Croak, you might have reckoned on some such mess as thet,” said Stone gravely.

“Shore I might, but I didn’t. Jed, I’ve had too damn much money lately. Thet gambler het up my blood. I’m sorriest most thet I didn’t plug him. But it was a hell of a lot of satisfaction to see him kick.”

“No wonder. I’d like to have been there...So the Hash-Knife is done! — Croak, what do you aim at now?”

“Lay low an’ wait,” replied the gunman. “We shore can find men to build up the outfit again.”

“Never — if young Traft got killed in thet fight,” retorted Stone, vehemently. “Old Jim would rake the Tonto with guns an’ ropes.”

“Course I don’t know who got shot, outside the two cowboys I see drop. The one I shot wasn’t young Traft, an’ neither was the other. An’ they wasn’t Slinger Dunn or Prentiss, either...Boss, have you seen Sonora?”

“No. He hasn’t been in fer days,” replied Stone.

Malloy held his pipe far away from him and sniffed the air.

“Damn it, am I loony, or do I smell blood?”

“I reckon you smell blood all right, Croak, old boy,” returned Stone, jocularly.

“How so? I’m shore washed clean.” Suddenly, with his gaze on Stone, narrowing and shrewd with conjecture, he felt with his foot the pack upon which it had rested. “What the hell?”

“Bambridge!” he exclaimed, in cold and ringing speculation. “Boss, you done for him?”

“I reckon, He throwed a gun on me, Croak,” replied Stone, rising to go to the wall, where he poked a finger in a bullet hole in one of the yellow logs. “Look here.”

“Ahuh...Wal, you saved me the trouble, mebbe...Shot yestiddy, I reckon. What’d he have on him?”

“Ask Madden. He searched him.”

“Hyar, Maddy, come out pronto,” he yelled, and when the cook ran out breathless and anxious, he went on. “This was your bad news, eh?”

“Nope, I didn’t reckon thet bad. But he had only aboot five hundred on him, an’ some papers.”

“Huh. Five hundred what?” demanded Malloy.

“Dollars — in gold-eagles.”

“An’ this two-bit cattle thief reckoned he’d bribe me with thet!” he ejaculated, in disgust. “Wal, Maddy, give me one of them gold birds fer luck, an’ keep the rest...An’ say, somebody’ll have to plant this stiff...Blacky, you an’ Madden gotta dig a grave fer our departed guest. Dig it right out hyar alongside the porch, an’ put up a stone or somethin’, so when I see it I’ll be reminded of what a foolish galoot I am.”

“Reckon you’d better search him again, Madden,” added Stone. “Bambridge was the kind of hombre who’d sew bills up inside his clothes.”

The two outlaws, enthusiastic in obedience, lost no time complying. Stone turned away from the gruesome sight. But Malloy watched with a sardonic grin.

“Jed, I don’t notice thet you’ve gone back any on the draw,” he remarked. “You shore hit him plumb centre...An’, wal, I guess I gotta take it as friendly act on your part, though I seen red fust off.”

That day and the night passed. Stone grew more thoughtful. It did not surprise him to see Sam Tanner saddle a horse and ride away while Malloy lay asleep. These two men would never have gotten along.

Stone walked under the wall, and found his way into the hidden recesses of a wide fissure which opened out into a canyon, chocked with green thicket and splintered sections of cliff, where silence and peace reigned. He could not stay longer at the cabin. Any hour that wild Diamond outfit might ride up there. Stone realised that Malloy expected it and certainly would not remain. Tanner had taken no chances.

Pecos would be waiting for him up at the headwaters of the Little Colorado. Stone decided that the sooner he started the better for him. There was a shadow over the yellow cabin built by Malloy, and more than that cast by the bulk of the looming wall. Besides he hardly trusted himself, so long as he remained in propinquity to the remnant of the Hash-Knife.

Upon Stone’s return to the cabin, at sunset, he found it deserted. Malloy and his two comrades had departed in a hurry, leaving the interior of the cabin in a state of confusion. He felt no surprise. It had happened before. Still, there might have been good reason for such a departure. Sonora might have returned or anything could have happened. Hastily packing some food supplies and a blanket, Stone made his way under cover of the wall to the corral, His horse was among the several horses left. In a few moments Stone rode down the slope into the darkening forest.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THREE MORNINGS LATER, in the first rosy flush of sunrise, when the black squirrels were chattering and the blue jays screeching, Jed Stone struck into a blazed trail new to him and which led to a newly graded road. This he concluded was the road lately cut down into Yellow Jacket.

Up out of the canyon country now, on the level of the slowly rising plateau, where forest of pine began to be sprinkled with open patches of desert of cedar and pinon and sage, he relaxed something of vigilance and made much faster time. Because of this he discovered, presently, that he had ridden some distance over fresh horses’ tracks before he had observed them.

“That’s queer,” he soliloquised, halting. “They shore weren’t in the road back there a ways.”

Riders had come along here that very morning, and they had certainly cut off into the woods somewhere between this point and back where Stone had noticed the clean untracked road.

The fact was disturbing, but after he had reflected a moment he made sure that he would have heard and seen them long before they could have discovered him. For he had been alone, and though relaxed somewhat from strain he still exercised keen eyes and ears. They had turned off not to avoid him, but for reasons of their own.

Stone spurred on and rode at a brisk canter for a while, anxious to get to the cottonwood country, where again he could take to the deep forest. But when he came to the junction of the new road with the old one he was halted by plain evidences of a hold-up. A vehicle of some sort had come along here headed south and had gone no farther, along either road. Stone found a canvas bag, open and rifled of its contents, and thrown aside. The ground about had been so cut up with hoofs that he could read but little from the tracks. But soon he ascertained that the wheel tracks turned back the way they had come.

“Wal, now, jest what come off heah?” he muttered. He was accustomed to read the signs of the open. These might have meant little, and again they might have meant a great deal. Stone sensed the latter, and he searched the roadside until he found along the wheel tracks a bloody glove that had fallen into the weeds.

“Ahuh. I smelled it — as Croak would say,” declared Stone. “I’m jest curious now to catch up with whatever had these wheels.”

And in an hour or less he sighted a buckboard with one occupant driving slowly north. Stone kept on. He would have a look at that driver and his vehicle. A strong instinct prompted this, not all curiosity. He did not need to come to close quarters with the driver. This individual wore no hat; he had grey hair; he sagged in his seat, now his head hunched between square shoulders and again with it lifted doggedly. Stone, after the manner of riders of his kind, like hounds on scent, caught the colour of blood on stones along the roadside. Then he spurred his horse into a run.

Before he caught up with the buckboard it stopped, and the man turned, evidently having heard the thudding hoofs behind. As Stone flashed up, to haul his horse to a sliding halt, he caught sight of the dark face of a Mexican lying on the floor behind the back seat. Stone had seen too many dead men not to know this was one.

“Hey, old-timer—” Then he experienced a violent heart-stabbing start. He was staring into the hard convulsed visage of a man he had not seen for twenty years, yet whom he instantly recognised. A wrench tore Stone. “Dog-gone-me if it ain’t Jim!”

“Howdy, Jed!” replied the rancher, grimly. “An’ what do you want?”

“Me! — Hell, nothin’, except to ask what’s happened? I run across your tracks a ways back. Looked like a hold-up to me. An’ I knew it when I found this glove.”

Stone pulled out the stained glove, which he had tucked under the pommel of his saddle.

“Belonged to my driver, Pedro, lyin’ there,” said Traft, nodding at the dead man. “But, shore, you know what come off.”

“I don’t. I know nothin’. I’ve been three days ridin’ out of the brakes. I jest run across you.”

“Jed Stone, can you expect me to believe thet?” queried Traft, incredulously.

“Reckon I expect it, Jim, ‘cause I swear it’s true,” replied Stone, and gazed straight into the steel-blue eyes bent so piercingly and accusingly, and yet so strangely, upon him. That look bridged the long cruel years back to the dim cowboy days.

“You don’t know I’ve been held up an’ robbed by Croak Malloy?” demanded Traft, derisively.

“By God!...You have?...No, Jim, I didn’t know.”

“Nor thet he killed my driver?”

“I didn’t know, Jim,” repeated Stone, now with terrible earnestness to be believed by this old rancher.

“Jed, I reckon I don’t see any reason for you lyin’ to me. Many years ago you lied to me — an’ thet lie ruined you an’ saved me. But don’t lie now.”

“Jim, I’m not lyin’. I swear to God!...I’d quit the Hash-Knife. I left our hole down in the brakes three days ago. My outfit’s done. Malloy broke it up. I’m leavin’ Arizona for ever — an’ this life I’ve led.”

After a protracted study of Stone’s face the rancher burst out: “My Gawd! Jed, I’m glad. An’ it’s shore a queer meetin’ for me an’ you...But listen. I was goin’ down to Yellow Jacket to surprise my nephew Jim. I had his sweetheart, Molly Dunn with me, an’ his sister, Gloriana. We slept last night at Miller’s sheep-ranch, I reckon some fifteen miles up the road. An’ at the turn-off down there we got held up by three men. I didn’t know Malloy till one of his pardners called him Croak...Wal, when Pedro drove on, at my order, Malloy rode up an’ shot him. An’ you bet he’d have done fer me but fer an idea he got. Anyway, they robbed me an’ yanked the girls out of the buckboard. They had to hawg-tie Molly. She shore fought. Malloy says, ‘Traft, I’ll give you three days to come to Tobe’s Well with ten thousand dollars. Put the money in the loft of the cabin, next the chimney. We’ll see you come, or whoever you send. An’ these girls will be set free. Mebbe a little wuss fer love-makin’!’...The little ruffian said jest thet, an’ grinned aboot it. I agreed. An’ he let me go.”

“Jim, if I know Malloy he let you off easy,” declared Stone, sharply, and he reined his horse over close to the buckboard. “I struck their tracks down by the new road. An’ I know aboot where they cut off into the woods...Jim, I’ll trail Malloy, an’ go round an’ haid him off, or come up on him at Tobe’s Well. Mebbe I better make a short cut an’ beat him there...But I’ll come up on him before dark. An’ I’ll get the girls.”

“Jed Stone, are you aimin’ fer thet ten thousand?” demanded Traft.

“I don’t want a dollar. I’ll do this because, wal, because I liked young Jim, an’ because I’d starve before I’d do you another dirty deal. At thet Malloy an’ Bambridge rung me into the only one. An’ I killed Bambridge fer doin’ it.”

“You killed Bambridge?” ejaculated the rancher.

“I shore did. An’ Croak told me he’d seen thet gambler Darnell kickin’ at the end of a rope. But, Jim, you’ll hear all thet pronto. I’ll have to rustle...One thing more. Malloy may kill me. I reckon I can outfigger him, but to be on the safe side you’d better send a trusty rider with thet money, an’ after you do, make a bee-line for Yellow Jacket. For I’ll fetch the girls there.”

“Jed Stone, by — heaven!...wait!” faltered the old cattleman.

But Stone had spurred away, to call over his shoulder, “So long, Jim — old pard!”

Like the wind Stone raced back down the road, and as soon as he was sure of direction he cut across the cedared desert and into the woods, where gallop and trot soon brought him upon Malloy’s tracks. He followed them, and marvelled in mind at the inscrutability of chance, at the inevitableness of life — at this meeting with Jim. After all, he was not to ride away from the brakes without the blood of Croak Malloy on his hands. How his heart leaped at the just cause! For as surely as his keen eyes were finding the tracks over moss and pine needles, he realised he would kill Malloy. Very likely all three of the rustlers! He must come up to them before night, otherwise the young women would be subjected to abuse and worse. Malloy had always made much of his few opportunities to degrade women. Probably owing to his misshapen body and repulsive face all women, even the slatterns of the town, had wanted none of his acquaintance, which had made the little gunman a woman-hater.

The hours of the day were as moments. Forest and ravine, pine and spruce, rock and log, all looked alike to Stone. Yet he recognised familiar country when he rode into it. By mid-afternoon he had approached the vicinity of Tobe’s Well, a wonderful natural hollow in the high escarpment overlooking the Cibeque. Stone left the trail he was hounding, and going around came up on the rim from the south. Horses rolling below in the sandy patches! Smoke curling from the stone chimney of the log cabin! Saddles and packs under the great silver spruce!

Jed Stone led his horse around the rim and down a dim seldom-trodden trail to the opening into the circular gorge. And never in all his twenty years of hard, wild life had he been more Jed Stone.

No one hailed him as he strode along the mossy bank of the brook, under the stately pines, and on toward the cabin. The lonely isolation of the place invited carelessness. But Stone muttered: “They must be powerful keen on what’s inside. Reckon I didn’t get here too soon.”

Dropping the bridle reins, he strode on to the open door. It was a big bright cabin, open on the lee side. And as he glanced in he heard a girl’s low cry, deep, broken with emotion. He saw a dark little girl with gold-brown hair, all tossed and tangled, lying bound half upright against a pile of packs. That was Molly Dunn. He did not need to look twice. His eyes swept on.

Madden was on his knees, his hands white with flour, but on the moment he appeared riveted. Reeves stood back, his face set toward Malloy, who manifestly had just torn the blouse off a white-faced, white-shouldered girl, shrinking before him.

The moment had been made for Jed Stone. He recognised it, and saw, as if by magic, how far in the past it had its incipiency and now had reached fulfilment. He gloried in it. What debts he would pay here!

He stepped inside to call out, harshly, “What the hell’s goin’ on?”

It was the first occasion on which he had ever seen Malloy surprised, but perhaps the thousandth when he had seen him angry. Stone felt his sudden presence had been decidedly inopportune for his erstwhile partner and his accomplices.

“Aw, it’s the boss!” gasped Madden, in explosion of breath that suggested relief.

“Who’s been chasin’ you?” burst out Malloy, and with a gesture of impatience he flung down the torn blouse.

“Jed Stone!” screamed Molly Dunn, and if ever a voice thrilled Stone this one did then. She had recognised him. Even on the moment he remembered the times he had patted Molly’s curly head when she was a mere tot, had bought her candy at the store in West Fork, had often lifted her upon his horse, and in later years, when she was grown into a pretty girl, he had walked with her on occasions when he rode to and fro from the Cibeque to the Tonto.

“Wal, I reckon ten thousand devils might be chasin’ me, fer all you’d care, Croak,” replied Stone. “I jest happened in on you here.”

“Damn queer, an’ I call it tough. You’re wuss’n an old woman,” complained Malloy.

“Who’re these girls an’ what’re you doin’ with them?”

“Jed we got into another brush down in the brakes,” replied Malloy. “Damn if it wasn’t full of cowpunchers. But we give them the slip. An’ comin’ out we run plumb into old Jim Traft an’ these gurls. It gave me a great idee. An ‘hyar air the gurls while old Jim is raisin’ the dust back to Flag.”

“My Gawd! — Not old Jim Traft — the rancher?” burst out Stone, loudly, in pretended consternation.

“Shore. I said old Jim, didn’t I?”

“An’ these girls are friends or kin of his?”

“Shore. I reckon you’d know Molly Dunn if you’d look. She knowed you all right. The other is young Jim Traft’s sister.”

“An’ you aim to make money out of them?”

“I shore do.”

“An’ make game of them while the money’s comin’?” demanded Stone, harshly.

“Wal, thet’s none of your bizness, Jed,” rejoined Malloy, testily. Habit was strong upon him. This interruption had upset him and he had scarcely adapted himself to it.

But Stone, acting his part, intense and strong, saw already that Malloy’s mind had not grasped the situation.

“Man, are you crazy?” shouted Stone. “Jim Traft will have a hundred cowboys ridin’ on your trail. You couldn’t hit it — with nine horses. They’ll catch you — they’ll hang you.”

“Hang nothin’. Jed, you’re the one who’s crazy. What’s got into you lately?” replied Malloy, in plaintive amaze and disgust. “You’re gettin’ old and you’ve lost your nerve.”

“Croak, you’ve done fer the Hash-Knife, an’ now this deal will set the whole country ablaze.”

Malloy stared his amaze. Stone, seizing the instant, strode to and fro in apparent despair, and wringing his hands, he wheeled away. But when he turned, swift as light, he held a gun spouting red. The little gunman died on his feet, without a movement, even of that terribly sensitive right hand. But he fell face down, showing where the bullet had blown off the back of his head.

Madden, with a bawling curse, swept one of his flour-covered hands for his gun. Too late, for Stone’s second shot knocked him over as if it had been a club.

Reeves leaped for the door, just escaping the bullet Stone fired after him. And he was visible running madly in the direction of the horses. Stone let him go. Then he surveyed the cabin. A glance sufficed for Madden and Malloy, but it was a dark and terrible one, of reckoning, of retribution.

The girl Malloy had half stripped had slipped to the floor in a faint, her white arms spread. Then on the instant Molly Dunn’s eyes opened, black and dilated with terror.

“How do, Molly!” said Stone, as he bent over her to slash the thongs of buckskin round her boots. He had to roll her over to free her hands. “I reckon I got her none too soon, but not too late, either.”

“Oh, Jed — you’ve come — to save us?” cried Molly.

“Shore. An’ as I said I hope not — too late.”

“We’re all right, Jed. But, oh, I was scared. Thet croakin’ devil!...Is he daid?”

“Malloy has croaked his last, Molly,” went on Stone. “I happened to run across old Jim out on the road. Thet’s how I got on your trail. Brace up, now, Molly. Why, this little affair shouldn’t faze Molly Dunn of the Cibeque.”

“I knowed — knew you at first sight, Jed. An’ oh, my heart leaped!...Jed thank God you come in time. I was aboot ready to die. I’d fought Malloy till he hawg-tied me...Oh, how can I ever thank you enough? How will Jim ever do it?”

“Wal, you needn’t try to thank me, Molly,” he replied. “Now let’s see...It’s ‘most dark already. We’d better camp here tonight. An’ tomorrow we’ll start for Yellow Jacket...Reckon I’d better pull these disagreeable-lookin’ hombres outside.”

Inside the cabin Stone saw that Molly had somehow gotten the torn blouse on the unconscious girl, and was now trying to bring her to.

“Let nature take its course, Molly,” he advised. “She’ll come to presently of her own accord, an’ mebbe the shock of her will be less...Lord! what a pretty girl! I never seen her like...An’ she’s young Jim’s sister?”

“Yes. An’ isn’t she just lovely?”

“Here, we’ll lift her up on this bed of spruce. Somebody cut it nice an’ fresh. You can both sleep there tonight.”

“Glory — you called her?”

“Shore. But her name’s Gloriana.”

“An’ she’s a city girl from the East?”

“Yes. An’, Jed, she’s come to live out West always.”

“Fine, if you can keep her. Proudlookin’ lass! Won’t this little adventure sicken her on the West?”

“It’ll be the best thing that ever happened to her,” avowed Molly, with bright eyes. “Jed, she shore was aboot the proudest girl I ever met. An’ Jim’s sister. His family, really! Gosh! it was hard on me. I made a mess of things. Jed, I went back on Jim because I thought I wasn’t good enough for him — for his aristocratic family. But he kidnapped me — thank the good Lord. I reckon I was jealous, too.”

“Small wonder, Molly. It was tough on you — to stack up against these Trafts, you just fresh from the Cibeque. But you’re good enough fer anybody, Molly Dunn. I shore hope it’ll come out all right.”

“Oh, it will, Jed,” replied Molly, hopefully. “Glory has a heart of gold. I love her — an’ indeed I believe she’s comin’ to love me. But she can’t savvy me. Heah I’ve had only two years schoolin’, an’ lived all my life in a log cabin no better’n this, almost. Never had any clothes or nothin’. An’ she has had everythin’. Uncle Jim says the West will win her an’ thet she an’ I will get along an’ be sisters soon as Glory is broke in. He says she must get up against the real old West — you know, an’ thet will strike the balance. I don’t savvy jest what Uncle Jim means, but I believe him.”

“Molly, I reckon I savvy what Uncle Jim is drivin’ at,” replied Stone, smiling thoughtfully at the earnest girl. “The real old West means hard knocks, like this one she’s gettin’, cowboys an’ cattle, work when you want to drop, an’ no sleep when you’re dyin’ fer it. Cold an’ wet an’ dust an’ wind! To be starved! To be scared stiff!...A hundred things thet are nothin’ at all to you, Molly Dunn, are what this city girl needs.”

“Jed, thet’s exactly what Uncle says...I’m to marry Jim soon,” she went on, with a blush. “They all wanted it this spring, but I coaxed off till fall.”

“Ahuh. I reckon you love him heaps, Molly?”

“Oh! — I’m not really Molly Dunn any more. I’ve lost myself. I’m happy, though, Jed. I’m goin’ to school. An’ if only Glory could see me as I see her!”

“Wal, I’ll help her see you true, Molly,” returned Stone, patting her hand. “Now, I’d better go outside while you fetch her to. Sight of the desperado who came a-rarin’ in here, swearin’ an’ shootin’, mightn’t be good.”

“Jed, she was simply crazy aboot desperadoes,” said Molly, “An’ I honestly believe she was tickled when Malloy carried us off. Leastways, she was till he got to pawin’ her.”

“Dog-gone! Thet’s good...Now, Molly, don’t you say one word aboot me till I think it over. I’ll go outside an’ see to my horse. An’ when she’s all right, you come out to tell me. Mebbe by then I’ll have a plan.”

“Jed Stone, never in my life — an’ I’ve always know you — did I ever think of you as a rustler, a killer, a bad man. An’ now I know you’re not really.”

“Thanks, Molly; thet’ll be sweet to remember,” he replied. “Fetch her to, now, an’ say nothin’.”

Stone went outside, unsaddled his horse and turned him loose, then walked to and fro, in his characteristic way when deep in thought. Presently Molly came running to him. What pleasure that afforded the outlaw whose life had been lived apart from the influence of women!

“She’s come to, Jed. An’ she’s not so knocked out as I reckoned she’d be,” said the girl, happily. “I darn near exploded keepin’ our secret — thet we’re safe with you an’ will start in the mawnin’ fer Yellow Jacket.”

“Wal now, Molly Dunn, you stick to me,” rejoined Stone, eagerly. “We’ll let on I’m wuss than Croak — thet I jest killed them fellars an drove the third off so I could have you girls to myself. It’s a good three-day ride to Yellow Jacket, fer you, anyhow. Thet gives us time to cure Miss Gloriana of all her bringin’-up. I’ll be real shore enough desperado — up to a certain point. Savvy, Molly?”

“Oh, Jed, if I only dared do it!” exclaimed Molly, pale with excitement. How her dark eyes glowed! “But she’ll suffer. An’ — an’ I love her so!”

“Shore. All the same, if she’s got the real stuff in her thet’s the way to fetch it out. It’s the only way, Molly, to strike thet balance between you an’ her which your Uncle meant. If you’ve got the nerve, girl, an’ do your part, you’ll never regret it.”

“Jed, you don’t mean never to tell Glory you’re good instead of bad. I couldn’t agree to thet.”

“Wal of course, she’s bound to find out sometime thet I’m not so bad, after all. But I’d advise you to put Uncle Jim wise an’ keep the secret for a while. Molly, I’ll be disappointed in you if you fall down on this chance. I’ll bet you young Jim would jump at it.”

“He would — he would,” panted Molly. “Jed, Heaven forgive me — I’ll do it. I’ll trust you an’ do my part.”

“Thet’s like a girl of the Cibeque,” replied Jed, heartily. “Go back now, an’ tell her you both have fallen out of the fryin’-pan into the fire.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

STONE ENTERED THE cabin, as once he had seen the villain in a melodrama. The Traft girl was sitting up, with Molly fluttering around her. He sustained a shock — like wind rushing back through his veins to his heart. It was as if he had not before seen this girl. In all his life such eyes had never before met his. They were large, dark violet, strained with an expression which might have been horror or terror, or fascination. How wondrously lovely. Stone doubted that he could play his part before their gaze.

“Wal, what’d this Dunn kid tell you?” he demanded, with a fierce glare.

“Oh — sir — she said you — you were Jed Stone, the desperado,” faltered the girl, in haste. “That we’d fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire — that you killed those men so you could have us all — to yourself.”

“Correct. An’ now what do you think?” queried Stone, studying the girl. She was frightened, and still under the influence of shock, but she was no fool.

“Think? About — what?”

“Why, your new owner, of course. Reckon I always was jealous of Croak Malloy — of his gun-play an’ his way with wimmen.”

“Mister Stone, when you came in this cabin — when that little beast was tearing my clothes off — I knew you were going to save me from him.”

“Wal, you’re the smart girl,” he replied, and almost wavered before those searching, imploring eyes. “Shore I was.” Then he reached down with a slow hand and clutched the front of her blouse and jerked her to her feet. Holding her to the light, he bent his face closer to her. “You’re a beautiful thing, but are you good?”

“Good?...I think so — I hope so.”

“Wal, you gotta know if I ask you. Are you a good girl?”

“Yes, sir, if I understand you.”

“Wal, thet’s fine. I’ve shore been hungry fer one of your kind. Molly Dunn there, she’s a Western kid, an’ a little wildcat thet’s not afraid of desperadoes. She comes of the raw West, same as me. She’ll furnish game fer me. But you’re different. You belong to the class that made me an outlaw. An’ I’m gonna take twenty years of shame an’ sufferin’ out on you...Make you slave for me!...Make you love me! Beat you! Drag you down.”

She sagged under his grasp, without which she would have fallen. Her face could not have been any whiter. “I — I am at your mercy...But, for God’s sake if you had the manhood to kill those brutes — can’t you have enough to spare us?”

“If you’re gonner flop over an’ faint every time I grab you or speak to you this’ll be a picnic fer me,” he said, disgustedly. “Where’s your Traft nerve? Thet brother of yours, young Jim, has shore got nerve. He braced me an’ my whole outfit. Come right to us, an’ without a gun. I shore liked him. Thet was the day he knocked the stuffin’s out of Croak Malloy...No, Gloriana, you ain’t no real Traft.”

That stung red into her marble cheeks and a blaze to her wonderful eyes.

“I haven’t had half a chance,” she flashed, as much to herself as to him.

“You’d never make a go of the West, even if you hadn’t had the bad luck to run into Jed Stone,” he went on. “You’re too stuck up. You think you’re too good fer plain Western folks, like Molly there, an’ her brother, an’ me, an’ Curly Prentiss. An’ you really ain’t good enough. Because here it’s what you can do thet counts. Wal, I’ll bet you cain’t do much. An’ I’m shore gonna see. Come hyar!”

He dragged her across the floor to the fireplace, where Madden had opened packs and spread utensils and supplies.

“Get down on your knees, you white-faced Easterner,” he ordered, forcing her down. “Bake biscuits fer me. If they ain’t good I’ll beat you. An’ fry meat an’ boil coffee. Savvy.”

With trembling hands she rolled up her sleeves and began to knead the flour Madden had left in the pan. Stone observed that she was not so helpless and useless as he had supposed. Then he turned to Molly.

“Wal, my dusky lass, you can amoose me while Gloriana does the housework.”

“I shore won’t. Stay away from me!” shouted Molly, bristling like a porcupine. When Stone attempted to lay hold of her person she eluded him, and catching up a pan she flung it with unerring aim. Stone dodged, but it took him on the back of the head with a great clang, and then banged to the floor.

“You’ll pay fer thet, you darned little hussy,” he roared, and made at her.

Then followed a wild chase around the cabin, that to an observer who was not obsessed with fear, as was Gloriana, would have been screamingly funny. As an actor Jed was genuine, but he was as heavy on his feet as an ox, and he had to face the brunt of missiles Molly threw, that never failed to connect with some part of his anatomy. When she hit him on the knee with a heavy fruit-can he let out a bawl of honest protest. Molly finally ran behind the half-partition which projected out from the wall, and here allowed Jed to catch her. The partition was constructed of brush. He tore out a long bough and cracked the wall with it.

“Take thet — you darned — little Apache squaw,” he panted, and he whacked away with his switch. Then he bent over Molly, who was convulsed on the pine-needle floor, and whispered in her ear, “Yell — scream!”

Whereupon Molly obeyed! “Ah...Oh!...Ouu!”

Stone paused for effectiveness, while he peeped through the screen. Gloriana knelt erect, her breast heaving, her eyes wildly magnificent. They were searching round for a weapon, Jed concluded.

“Now — Molly Dunn — mebbe thet’ll learn you not to monkey with Jed Stone...Come hyar, an’ kiss me.”

He had to shake her to keep her remembering her part. Stone made smacking sounds with his lips, capital imitations of lusty kisses.

“Oh — you crazy desperado!” burst out Molly, choking. “Jim Traft — will kill you — for this!”

“Haw haw! Thet’s funny...Now, you be good fer a minnit.” Whereupon he picked her up and carried her, along with the wicked whip, out to the couch, where he dropped her like a sack of potatoes. Molly’s face was a spectacle. It was wet and working. She hid it on the green spruce boughs and then she kicked like a furious colt. Her smothered imprecations sounded like: “Brute! Beast! Coyote! Skunk!”

Stone had made a discovery. His keen sight caught Gloriana concealing the butcher knife, clutched in her hand and half-hidden in the folds of her dress. She, too, was a spectacle to behold, but beautiful and marvellous to him — her spirit so much greater than her strength.

“Say, what’re you goin’ to do with thet knife?” demanded Stone.

“You’re no desperado! You’re a dog,” she cried. “If you lay hand on Molly again I — I’ll kill you.”

Here indeed was a quick answer to the primitive instincts Stone and Molly had wished to rouse in the Eastern girl. Indeed, Stone thought she might develop too fast and spoil the game. Most assuredly she had to be intimidated. “You’d murder me — you white-faced panther?” he shouted, ferociously. “Drop thet knife!” And whipping out his gun he fired, apparently pointblank at her; but he knew the bullet would hit the bucket of water. The crash in the encompassing cabin walls was loud. Gloriana not only dropped the knife — she dropped herself. However, she did not quite faint. Stone lifted her up, with feelings vastly different from what he pretended, and then he made a show of collecting everything around which she might have used as a weapon.

“Get back to work,” he ordered.

She weakly brushed back her amber hair, leaving a white blot of flour on it and her forehead, and then went at the biscuit dough again.

“Say, darlin’, did you wash them slim little paws of yourn?” asked Stone, suddenly.

“No. I — I never thought to,” she faltered.

“Wal, you wash them. There’s the washpan...What’re you tryin’ to do — poison me with dirty hands? I’ll have you know, Gloriana Traft, thet I’m a clean desperado, an’ any woman who cooks fer me has gotta be spick an’ span.”

Then Stone searched among the packs to find a short-handled shovel, with which he proposed to dig Croak Malloy’s grave. The thing was monstrously impelling. Jed Stone digging Croak Malloy’s grave! Arizona would learn that some day, and the range-riders would marvel as they talked about the campfires, adding bit by bit to the story of the doom of the Hash-Knife.

The job done, he placed a huge rock at the foot of the grave, with the prophetic remark: “Shore some wag of a cowpuncher will plant a haidpiece.”

Whereupon Jed’s active mind reverted to the issue in the cabin, and on the way back he picked up a good-size stone which he concealed under his coat. The light of blazing pine cones revealed the two girls working frantically to get supper for him. He caught the tail end of Molly’s conversation: “an’ no use lyin’, Glory — I’m as scared as you.”

“O Heaven! how false men are!” sighed Glory. “When this desperado came in I had a wild thought he was a hero.”

“Hey, don’t talk aboot me,” put in Stone. “I’m a sensitive man.”

Silence ensued then. The girls did not look up. And Stone, profiting by this, threw some sacks over the blood pools on the hard-packed clay floor. Also he surreptitiously laid the stone on the box seat where he intended to sit at the rickety old rough-hewn table. This he cleared by piling Malloy’s trappings on the ground, and covering these with the cleanest piece of canvas he could find. Then he sat down to watch and wait. He realised he had fallen upon the most delicious situation of his life — if he had ever had one before — and he wanted to live every second of it to the full. Finally the girls put the supper on the table.

“Thet’s right, wait on me, Gloriana,” he said. “An’ you, Molly, set down an’ eat...Gimme one of them turrible-lookin’ biscuits...Ou! Hot!”

He contrived to drop the biscuit and at the same instant push the heavy rock off the box seat. It fell with a solid thump. Gloriana actually jumped. Her eyes opened wide.

“Golly! Did you heah thet biscuit hit?” ejaculated Stone, as if dumbfounded.

“I heahed somethin’ heavy,” corroborated Molly, serious-faced, but her sweet red lips slightly twitched.

“Say, gurl, air you aimin’ to poison me?” demanded Stone, suspiciously. “What’n hell did you put in thet biscuit?”

Gloriana stammered something, and then walking round the table she espied the rock, which, unfortunately, had fallen upon the biscuit.

“It was a rock,” she said, slowly.

“Wal, dog-gone! So it was. Must have been on the box. I shore didn’t see it...I offer my humble apologies, Miss Traft.”

No doubt Gloriana’s mind was so steeped in fright that it could not function normally, yet she gazed with dubious tragic eyes at the desperado.

“Wal,” he drawled, when he could eat no more, as he transfixed Gloriana with eyes he tried to make devouring, “if you can love as well as cook, I’m shore a lucky desperado...Get out now and I’ll wash up. No sweethearts of mine ever had to do the dirty work round my camp.”

While he was noisily banging pans, cups, and other utensils around his trained ear caught Gloriana’s whisper, “Now — let’s run!”

“An’ get lost in the woods — for bears to eat!” whispered Molly.

Stone dried the camp utensils and placed them on the shelf, after which he washed his hands, in hot water.

“Put some wood on the fire,” he said, filling his black pipe. “Pass me a red coal on a chip...Thet’s it, darlin’; you’re shore learnin’ fast.”

“Spread some blankets on the bed there,” he said, pointing to the pack he had opened. While this order was being complied with he puffed his pipe, and opened his big hands to the fire with an air of content. Molly’s reproachful glance might have been lost upon him. Jed reasoned it out that the little Cibeque girl had lived too long among Western men to trust him wholly. That gave Stone more thrills. He would fool Molly, too. At length he got up to view the bed.

“Kinds narrow fer three to sleep comfortable,” he said, laconically. “I always wear my boots an’ spurs to bed — in case I have to hurry to a hoss — an’ I kick when I have nightmare. But I reckon there’s room fer two. Now, Molly, you an’ Gloriana draw lots to see who’ll sleep fust night with me.”

“Jed Stone, I’ll see you in hell before I’d do it,” cried Molly, passionately. “You’ll have to tie me, hand an’ foot.”

“Wal, you needn’t take my head off. I kinda lean to Glory, anyhow.”

Gloriana gazed at him with eyes full of a sickening horror and desperate defiance.

“You’ll have to kill me — you monster!” she said, hoarsely.

“Wal, both buckin’ on me, huh,” replied Stone, as if resigned to the nature of women. “All right, I don’t want no tied gurl sleepin’ with me, an’ shore no daid one. So I’ll pass. You can sleep together, an’ I’ll be a gentleman an’ go outdoors.”

Stone picked up one of the bed rolls, and carrying it out back through the open side of the cabin he unrolled it in the gloom of the cliff and stretched himself as if he never meant to move again. He could see the flicker of the firelight on one wall of the cabin, but the girls were out of his sight. He heard their low voices for what seemed a long time.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JED STONE AWOKE with the first pink streak of dawn flushing the sky. The old sombre distrust of the new day had departed. He seemed young again.

Going to the door of the cabin, he called: “Hey, babes in the woods! Roll out an’ rustle.”

He heard a gasp, and then a low moan, but he did not look in. He went out to fetch the horses. There had been nine in the canyon the night before; now he could see but six, including his own. One was a pretty pinto mare which he selected for Gloriana, with a chuckle at the thought of how all her life she would remember this ride. He drove four horses in, haltered them, and chose the best saddles for the girls, the stirrups of which he shortened to fit them. It tickled him to see the blue smoke curling up from the cabin, and a little later his keen nostrils took note of the fragrance of coffee.

Presently he repaired to the cabin.

“Mawnin’, gurls,” he bawled, stalking in.

Gloriana had been listlessly brushing her lustrous hair, while Molly attended to the breakfast chores.

“Ha, makin’ yourself look pretty,” remarked Stone. “Wal, we can’t bamboozle the boss of the Hash-Knife. An’ you ought to be ashamed — lettin’ Molly do all the work.”

“I started the fire and made the biscuits,” she retorted. Stone had grasped before that she seemed peculiarly susceptible to criticism, and decided he would work on her sensitiveness to the limit.

“Wal, you can’t pack much of this outfit,” observed Stone. “You gurls pick out what belongs to you.”

Molly designated two duffle-bags and one small grip. Stone carried them outside. Then returning, he rolled some blankets. He remembered that he had some hard bread and dried meat in his saddle-bags, which supply he would add to without letting the girls know. His plan precluded an insufficiency of food on this three-day ride down to Yellow Jacket. When he had packed the horse Molly called from the cabin, “Come an’ get it!”

“You come hyar yourself an’ get some-thin’,” he replied.

Molly came runnin’, anxious and big-eyed. “What — Jed?”

“Pitch in now, an’ show this Eastern gull what a Western lass is made of. Savvy?”

“I reckon.”

“I’m givin’ you the chance, Molly. Don’t fall down. Take everythin’ as a matter of course. Help her, shore, but give her a little dig now an’ then.”

“Jed, you’re a devil,” returned Molly, slowly, and turned away.

The breakfast was even more tasteful than had been the supper the night before. Stone ate with the appetite of an Indian, and the wisdom of a range-rider who had to go far.

“Gulls, I’ve gotta hurry, so can’t pack much grub,” said. Stone, rising to gather up a few utensils, some coffee and meat, and what biscuits had been left.

Presently the girls appeared. Molly had taken the precaution to don a riding-skirt and boots, but Gloriana wore the thin dress which Malloy had torn considerably.

“Where’s your hat?” asked Stone.

“It blew off, yesterday...I — I forgot to look in my bag — and change. If you’ll give me time—”

“Nope. Sorry, Gloriana. Didn’t I tell you I was a hunted man? You’ll have to ride as you are. Strikes me the Lord made you wonderful to look at, but left out any brains. You’ll do fine in Arizona...Here, wear Croak’s sombrero...Haw haw! If your ma could see you now!”

She had to be helped up on the pinto, which promptly bucked her off upon the soft sward. What injury she suffered was to her vanity. She threw off the sombrero, but Stone jammed it back on her head.

“Can’t you ride?” inquired Stone, gazing down upon her.

“Do you think I was born in a stable?” she asked, bitterly.

“Wal, it’d be a darn sight better if you was. An’ far as thet is concerned the Lord was born in a stall, so I’ve heerd. So it ain’t no disgrace...I’m curious to know why you ever come to Arizona?”

“I was a fool.”

“Wal, get up an’ try again. This little mare isn’t bad. She was jest playin’. But don’t let her see you’re afraid. An’ don’t kick her in the ribs, like you did when you got up fust.”

“I — I can’t ride this way,” she said, scarlet of face.

“Wal, you are a holy show, by golly!” observed Stone. “I never seen so much of a pretty gurl. You shore wouldn’t win no rodeo prizes fer modesty.”

“Molly, I can’t go on,” cried Gloriana, almost weeping. “My skirt’s up round my neck!”

“Glory, I don’t see what else you can do. You’ll have to ride,” replied Molly.

“Thet’s talkin’. Glory, you’ll get some idee of the difference between a no-good tenderfoot from the East an’ a healthy Western cowgurl...Now, you follow me, an’ keep up, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

The ease with which Molly mounted her horse, a wicked, black animal, was not lost upon Gloriana, nor the way she controlled him.

“Molly, you better lead this pack-horse. I’ll have to keep my eye on our cultured lady-friend hyar,” drawled Stone, and he started off. At the gateway of the canyon, where a rough trail headed up toward the rim, he turned to caution Gloriana, “Hang on to her mane.”

When they reached the top he had satisfaction in the expression of that young woman’s face. Stone then struck out along the rim, and he did not need to pick out a rough way. The trail was one seldom used, and then only by riders who preferred to keep to the wilder going. It led through thickets of scrub oak, manzanita and dwarf pine, with a generous sprinkling of cactus. To drag Gloriana Traft through them was nothing short of cruelty. Stone kept an eye on her, though he appeared never to turn his head, never to hear her gasps and cries. Molly, who came last, often extricated her from some tangle.

Stone, from long habit, was a silent and swift traveller, and did not vary his custom now. But he had to stop more often to let the girls catch up. The condition of Gloriana’s dress — what was left of it — seemed satisfactory to the outlaw. Before Gloriana Traft got through this ride she would give all her possessions for a pair of blue jeans.

About the middle of the morning Jed came out on the high point of the Diamond Mesa. And he halted. The girls came up, to gaze out and down.

“Oh-h!” cried Miss Traft, her voice broken, yet deep and rich with feeling. She did not disappoint Stone here.

“The Tonto!” screamed Molly, suddenly beside herself. “Jed, why didn’t you tell me you were comin’ heah?...Oh, Glory, look — look! It’s my home.”

“Home!” echoed Gloriana, incredulously.

“Yes, Home!...An’, oh, how I love it! See thet thin line, with the white? Thet’s the Cibeque windin’ away down through the valley. See the big turn. Now look, Glory. There’s a bare spot in the green. An’ a grey dot in the middle. Thet’s my home. Thet’s my cabin. Where I was born.”

“I see. But I can hardly believe,” replied Gloriana. “That tiny pin-point in all the endless green?”

“Shore is, Glory. You’re standin’ on the high rim of the Diamond, a mile above the valley. But it looks close. You should see from down there. All my life I’ve looked up at this point. It was the Rim. But I was never heah before...Oh, look, look, Glory, so you will never forget!”

The Eastern girl gazed silently, with eyes that seemed to reflect something of the grandeur of the scene. Stone turned away from her, glad in his heart that somehow she had satisfied him. Then he had a moment for himself — to gaze once more and the last time over the Tonto.

“Molly, don’t forget to show Gloriana some other places,” said Stone, with a laugh. “There’s West Fork, a village I used to ride through an’ see you at Summer’s store. An’ buy you a stick of candy...Not for years now...An’ never again...There’s Bear Flat an’ Green Valley. An’ Haverly’s Ranch, an’ Gordon Canyon. An’ see, far to the east, thet bare yellow patch. Thet’s Pleasant Valley, where they had the sheep an’ cattle war which ruined your dad, though he was only a sympathiser, Molly. I reckon you never knew. Wal, it’s true...Miss Traft, you’re shore the furst Eastern gurl ever to see the Tonto.”

Though they wanted to linger, Stone ordered them on. Momentarily he had forgotten his role of slave-driver. But Gloriana had been too engrossed in her own sensations to notice his lapse.

When Stone crossed the drift fence, which along here had been cut by the Hash-Knife, he halted to show the girls.

“Traft’s drift fence. Gloriana, this is what the old man saddled on your brother Jim. There’s nine miles of fence down, which Jim an’ his uncle can thank Croak Malloy fer. But I will say the buildin’ of this fence was a big thing. Old Jim has vision. Shore I’m a cattle thief, an’ the fence didn’t make no difference to me. I reckon it was a help to rustlers. But Malloy hated fences...Wal, it’ll be a comfort to Traft an’ all honest ranchers to learn he’s dead.”

“Jed Stone, you — you seem to be two men!” exclaimed Gloriana.

“Shore. I’m more’n thet. An’ I reckon one of them is some kin to human. But don’t gamble on him, my lovely tenderfoot. He’s got no say in my make-up.”

Molly Dunn lagged behind, most intensely interested in that drift fence, the building of which had made her lover, young Traft, a marked man on the range, and which had already caused a good deal of blood-spilling. Stone had to halloa to her, and wait.

“What’s ailin’ you, gurl?” he queried, derisively. “Thet fence make you lovesick fer Jim? Wal, I reckon you won’t see him again very soon, if ever...Get off an’ straighten thet pack.”

While Molly heaved and pulled to get the pack level on the pack-saddle again, Stone rolled a cigarette and watched Gloriana. Her amaze at Molly Dunn amused him.

“Wal, Glory, she used to pack grub an’ grain from West Fork on a burro, when both of them wasn’t any bigger’n jack-rabbits.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know,” observed Gloriana, thoughtfully, as for the hundredth time she tried to pull her torn skirt down to hide her bare legs.

“Shore,” agreed the outlaw. “An’ when a fellar finds thet out there’s hope fer him.”

The rest of that day he rode through a maze of wild country, at sunset ending up on a weathered slope where he had to get off and walk.

“Hey, there!” he called back. “Fall off an’ walk. If your hoss slides, get out of his way. An’ step lively so you won’t go down in one of these avalanches.”

All of which would have given a cowboy something to do. Molly had to stop often to rescue her friend, and more than once a scream rent the air. But at length they got across and down this long slant of loose shale, and entered a grassy wooded flat where water ran. Here Stone halted to make camp.

“Wat-er!” choked Gloriana, huskily, as she sank down on the sward.

“Aha! Spittin’ cotton, my proud beauty?” ejaculated the outlaw.

“Reckon you’d better have a drink out of my bottle.” But she waved the suggestion aside with a gesture of abhorrence. And when Molly came carrying a dipper of water, Gloriana’s great tragic eyes lit up. She drank the entire contents of the rather large vessel.

“Wal, Glory, you have to go through a good deal before you find the real value of things,” remarked Stone, thoughtfully. “You see, most folks have life too easy. Take the matter of this drink of cold pure spring water. Sweet, wasn’t it? You never knowed before how turrible sweet water could be, did you? It’s the difference between life an’ death.”

“Thanks, Molly,” said Gloriana, gratefully. “Aren’t you — thirsty?”

“Not very. You see, out heah we train ourselves to do without water an’ food. Like Indians, you know, Glory,” replied Molly.

Plain indeed was it that Gloriana did not know; and that she was divided in emotion between her pangs and the surprise of this adventure.

“Hey, Molly, stop gabbin’ an’ get to work,” ordered Stone, dryly. “Our St. Louis darlin’ here will croak on us, if we ain’t careful.”

He slipped the axe out from under a rope on the pack, and proceeded to a nearby spruce, from which he cut armloads of the thick fragrant boughs. These he spread under an oak tree, and went back for more, watching the girls out of the tail of his eye. Once he caught Gloriana’s voice in furious protest— “the lazy brute! Look at the size of him — and he makes you lift those packs!” And Molly’s reply: “Aw, this heah’s easy, Glory. An’ I’m tellin’ you again — don’t make this desperado mad.”

Then Stone slipped behind the spruce and peered through the branches. Molly did lift off those heavy packs, and unsaddled the animal. Next she turned to remove the saddle from her horse. At this Gloriana arose with difficulty, and limping to the horse she had ridden she tugged at the cinches, and laboured until she got them loose. Then she slid the big saddle off. It was a man’s saddle and heavy, which of course she had not calculated upon, and down she went with it, buried almost out of sight. Molly ran to lift it off. Stone saw the Eastern girl wring her helpless hands. “Dog-gone tough on her,” he soliloquised, and proceeded to get another load of spruce boughs, which he carried over to the oak tree.

“Hey, Gloriana, fetch over thet bed roll,” he called.

She paid no attention to him. Then he bellowed the order in the voice of a bull. He heard Molly advise her to rustle. Whereupon Gloriana lifted the roll in both arms and came wagging across the grass.

“Untie the rope,” he said, not looking at her, and went on spreading the boughs evenly. Presently, as she was so slow, he looked up. She was wearily toiling at the knot.

“I — I can’t untie it,” she said.

“Wal, you shore are a helpless ninny,” he returned, in disgust. “What in Gawd’s name can you do, Miss Traft? Play the concertina huh? An’ fix your hair pretty, huh? It’s shore thunderin’ good luck for some fine cowboy thet I happened along an’ saved him from marryin’ you.”

The marvel of that speech lay in its effect upon Gloriana, whose piteous mute appeal to Molly showed she had been driven to believe it was true.

“See heah, Jed Stone,” demanded Molly, loyally, “how could Glory help the way she was brought up? Everybody cain’t be born in Arizona.”

“Misfortune, I call thet...But see heah, yourself, Molly Dunn. The more you stick up fer this wishy-washy tenderfoot the wuss I’ll be. Savvy?”

“You bet I savvy,” rejoined Molly, resignedly.

“Wal then, rustle supper. I’m tired after thet ride. My neck’s stiff from turnin’ round to watch Miss Traft. It was a circus, though...Gather some wood, start a fire, put on the water to boil, mix biscuits, an’ so forth.”

No one could ever have guessed that Molly Dunn had packed a horse and led him, and had ridden over thirty miles of rough wilderness during the hours of daylight. She was quick, deft, thorough in all camp tasks; and it gave the outlaw pleasure to watch her, outside of his diabolical plot to subjugate the Eastern girl.

“Say, if this heah’s all the grub you fetched we’ll eat it tonight,” said Molly.

“Go light on grub, I tell you. Mebbe I didn’t pack enough. But I was a-rarin’ to get away from Tobe’s Well.”

“Molly, I’ll help you or die trying,” offered Gloriana. “But if that queer pain comes to my side again — farewell.”

“What pain, honey?”

“Reckon she’s got appendicitis,” drawled Stone, who allowed no word to get by him unheard.

“It was in my left side — and, oh, it was awful!”

“Thet comes from ridin’ a hoss when you’re not used to it. But it’ll not kill you.”

“Yes, it will, if I live long enough to mount that wild mustang again,” avowed Gloriana. Then in a lower tone she added, “Molly, I thought Ed Darnell was a villain. But, my, oh! — he’s a saint compared with this desperado.”

“Oh, no, Glory. Jed Stone is an honest-to-Gawd desperado,” expostulated Molly.

“What’s she sayin’ aboot thet fellar Darnell an’ me?” demanded Stone, going to the fire.

“Jed, she saw Darnell back in Missouri,” explained Molly.

“You don’t say. Wal, thet’s interestin’. Hope she didn’t compare me to him. Two-bit caird-sharp before he hit the West. An’ then, like a puff of smoke, he lit into crooked cattle-dealin’...An’ did he last longer than any of them dude Easterners who reckon they can learn us Westerners tricks? He did not.”

“What do you mean, Jed?” queried Molly, who divined when he was lying and when he was not.

“Croak Malloy was in thet outfit Traft’s cowboys rounded up in a cabin down below Yellow Jacket. They’d been rustlin’ the new Diamond stock an’ had to ride fer their lives. Wal, they didn’t ride fer, not with your redskin brother an’ Curly Prentiss an’ thet rodeo-ridin’ bunch after them. Croak said they set fire to the cabin, an’ burned them out, an’ he got shot in the laig. But he escaped, an’ it was when he was hidin’ in the brush thet he saw the cowboys string up Darnell along with two rustlers. Croak said he never see a man kick like thet white-cuff, caird-slicker, Darnell.”

Gloriana’s eyes were great black gulfs. “Mr. Stone, among other things you’re a liar,” she said, deliberately.

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated the outlaw, genuinely surprised and not a little hurt. “I am, am I? Wal, you’ll see, Miss Traft.”

“You’re trying to — to frighten me,” she faltered, weakening. “Have you no heart — no mercy?...I was once engaged to — to marry Darnell, or thought I was. He followed me out here.”

“Ahuh. What’d he foller you out heah for?”

“He swindled my father out of money, and I suppose he thought he could do the same with Uncle Jim.”

“Not old Jim Traft. Nix come the weasel! Old Jim cain’t be swindled...Wal, Miss Gloriana, I must say you was lucky to have Darnell stack up against Curly Prentiss. I remember now thet Madden was in Snell’s gamblin’-den when Curly ketched Darnell cheatin’ an’ drove him out of Flag. Funny he didn’t bore thet caird-sharp. Reckon he savvied how soon Darnell would come to the end of his rope. He did come soon — an’ it was a lasso.”

“I don’t believe you,” replied Gloriana, steadily.

“Sweet on him yet, huh?”

“No, I despise him. Any punishment, even hanging, would be too good for him,” retorted Gloriana, with passion.

“See there, Molly. She’s comin’ round,” drawled Stone. “We’ll make a Westerner of her yet.”

“Jed, was there a fight down below Yellow Jacket?” asked Molly, with agitation.

“Shore was. Malloy said he seen two cowboys shot, one of which he accounted fer himself. But he didn’t know either. An’ so they couldn’t have been Jim or Slinger or Prentiss.”

“Oh how’ll we find out?” cried Molly in honest agony. And the tone of her voice, the look of her, about finished Gloriana, who fell in a heap.

“Wal, what difference does it make,” queried Stone, “to one of you, anyhow? One of you girls is shore goin’ with me, an’ cowboys won’t never be no more in your young life. Haw haw!”

“I could stick this in you, Jed Stone,” cried Molly, brandishing the wicked butcher knife.

The outlaw reached down and lifted Gloriana upright. Gloriana’s head rolled. “Brace up,” he said, and shook her. She found strength left to resist. Then he clasped her in his arms and hugged her tight. And while he did this he winked and grinned at Molly, who stood there aghast. “You need a regular desperado hug to stiffen your spine...There! Now you stand up an’ do your work.”

She did keep her feet, too, when he released her, and such eyes Jed Stone had never seen. If he had been the real desperado he pretended, he would have flinched and quailed under their magnificent fury.

While they sat at the meagre supper, Stone bedevilled Gloriana in every way conceivable, yet to his satisfaction it did not prevent her from eating her share. That was the answer. Let even the effete Easterner face the facts of primal life and the balance was struck.

Darkness soon settled down, and twice Gloriana fell asleep beside the fire. “Let’s sit up — all night,” she begged of Molly.

“I’d be willin’, if he’d let us. But, Glory, dear, you jest couldn’t. You’d fall over. An’ by mawnin’ you’d be froze. We’ll have to sleep with Stone. He’s put all the blankets on thet bed. An’ I’ll sleep in the middle — so he cain’t touch you.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” retorted Gloriana. And when they reached the wide bed under the oak tree she crawled in the middle and stretched out, as if she did not care what happened.

“Wal, now, thet’s somethin’ like,” declared the outlaw, as he saw the pale faces against the background of blankets. He sat down on the far side of the bed and in the gloom contrived to remove his boots and spurs. “Gurls, I’m liable to have nightmare. Often do when I’m scared or excited. An’ I’m powerful dangerous then. Shot a bedfellow once, when I had a nightmare. So you wanta kick me awake in case I get to dreamin’.”

It was not remarkable to Stone that almost before he had ceased talking Gloriana was asleep. He knew what worn-out nature would do. Nevertheless, as soon as Molly had dropped off he made such a commotion that he would almost have awakened the dead. Then he began to snore outrageously, and between snores he broke out into the thick weird utterance of a man in a nightmare.

“Molly — Molly!” cried Gloriana, in a shrill whisper, as she clutched her friend madly. “He’s got it!”

“Sssh! Don’t wake him. He won’t be dangerous unless he wakes,” replied Molly.

Jed made the mental reservation that his little ally was all right, and began to rack his brain for appropriate exclamations:

“AGGH! I’ll — carve — your — gizzard!”

And he sprang up to thump back. Then he gave a capital imitation of Malloy’s croaking laugh. Then he shouted: “You can’t have the gurl! She’s mine, Croak, she’s mine!...I’ll have your heart’s blood!”

After which he snored some more, while listening intently. He did not hear anything, but he thought he felt the bed trembling. Next he rolled over, having thrown the blankets, to bump hard into Gloriana. But that apparently did not awaken him. He laid a heavy arm across both the girls and went on snoring blissfully.

“Molly,” whispered Gloriana, in very low and blood-curdling voice. “Let’s — kill him — in his sleep!”

“Oh I wish we could, but we’re not strong enough,” replied Molly, horrified. “Don’t you dare move!”

In the grey of dawn he got up, pulled on his big boots, and went at the camp-fire tasks, careful not to make noise. His two babes in the woods were locked in sleep, also in each other’s arms. Stone cooked the last of the meat and boiled the last of the coffee. A few biscuits were left, hard as rocks. Then he went to awaken the girls. Their heads were close together, one dark, the other amber, and their sweet pale faces took the first flush of the sunrise. It was a picture the outlaw would carry in his memory always, and he found himself thanking God that he had come upon Croak Malloy before they had suffered harm.

“Gurls, roll out,” he called.

Molly awakened first and was bright and quick in an instant. She smiled, and Jed thought he would treasure that smile. Then Gloriana’s eyes popped open. Dim gulfs of sleep! Stone turned away from them with a conscience-stricken pang.

“Rustle an’ eat. I gotta hunt the horses,” he said.

Upon his return they had finished eating. Molly said: “Glory’s bag is missin’. With all her outdoor clothes!”

“Shore. I hid it. I don’t want her dressin’ up. She looks so cute in thet outfit,” he replied. “Saddle your hoss, you starin’ idgit,” he said to Gloriana. “An’ Molly, rustle with the bed an’ packs while I eat.”

Molly proved as capable as any cowboy, but poor Gloriana could not get the saddle up, and when the pinto bit and kicked at her, which was no wonder, she gave up coaxing and struck it smartly with a branch.

“Hyar! Don’t beat thet pony,” expostulated Stone. “Who’d ever think you’d show cruelty to a dumb beast?”

“Dumb! He sure is,” replied Gloriana, “and he’s not the only —— thing around that ought to be beaten.”

“Molly, you cain’t never tell aboot people till you get them in the woods,” said Stone, reflectively. “Their real natoor comes out. I reckon Glory, hyar, would have murdered Croak Malloy in cold blood if he’d got away with her. It’s turrible to contemplate.”

Soon they were mounted and riding in single file, as on the day before. Stone led them out of this gorge, miles and miles through the forest, out into the sunny desert, and back again, and finally, without a halt to the rim of the Black Brakes. He followed along that until mid-afternoon, when he came to a trail he knew, which was seldom used even by rustlers, unless pressed. Here they had to walk down and it was no fun. “Don’t let your hoss fall on you,” was all Stone said. At a particularly bad descent Gloriana and her pinto both fell, and she miraculously escaped being rolled on. “Whew!” ejaculated Stone. “I reckoned you was a goner then. The Lord shore watches over you.”

“I don’t care,” panted the girl. “I’d sooner die — that way — than some other way.” Her spirit was hard to break. She seemed to recover her courage after each successive trial. But her strength was almost spent. Stone calculated their position at that hour was less than a dozen miles below Yellow Jacket. And his intention was, if Gloriana could stand it, to climb out of the brakes and ride to the head of Yellow Jacket, where he could show the girls their way and then take leave of them. There was a risk of being held up along the trail by one or more of the Diamond outfit, but since he had the girls to credit him with their rescue he had little to worry about. Still, he did not want that to happen. He had planned a climax to his plot.

The sun set behind the western wall of the brakes; a mellow roar of running water filled the forest with dreaming music. Stone thought it about time to choose a place to camp, and he desired it to be remote from the trail, which he believed ran somewhat to his left along the stream. With this end in view he wormed his way through the woods toward the wall they had long since descended.

It loomed above him, grey and lofty, always silent and protective. And suddenly he emerged into an open space, where tall spruces and wide-spreading sycamores dominated the green. The glade appeared familiar, and as Gloriana and Molly rode out of the forest he reined his horse.

“O my God — look!” cried Molly, in accents of horror.

Simultaneously, then, Stone’s sense accounted for a smell of burned wood, the pile of charred logs that was once the trapper’s cabin, and three grotesque and hideously swaying figures of men, hanging limp by their necks from a prominent branch of a sycamore.

Stone’s shock had its stimulus in Gloriana’s shriek. She swayed and slid out of the saddle. He caught her and lifted her in front of him, a dead weight.

“Jed — this heah is too much,” expostulated Molly, hoarsely. She looked as if she, too, would faint.

Cursing under his breath, he turned to the girl. “I swear it was accident,” he vowed, earnestly. “We were east of the trail, an’ if I thought aboot it at all, I reckoned we were far from thet old cabin. By Gawd! I’m sorry, Molly. It is too much.”

“Jed, I’ll be — keelin’ over, too,” gasped Molly. “Thet’s a hard sight for me, let alone Glory...If I recognised Darnell, she recognised him, you bet.”

“Shore she did. I never seen him but once, an’ I knew him. An’ there’s my old Sheriff Lang, his star still a-shinin’ on his vest. An’ Joe Tanner...Wal, thet’s shore a cowboy job, slick an’ clean. Thet’s the way of the West!”

Stone halted in the first likely spot for camp, and slipping out of his saddle with Gloriana in his arms, he laid her down on a soft pine-needle mat. She was conscious.

“Tend to her, Molly,” said Stone, briefly, and he turned to look after the horses. Then he cut ample spruce boughs for two beds, and made them, one of which, for the girls, he laid in a protected niche of the cliff. Having finished these tasks, he approached his prisoners.

“There’s nothin’ to eat.”

“Small matter, Jed. Our appetites are shore not a-rarin’,” replied Molly.

Gloriana transfixed him with solemn tragic eyes.

“I take back — calling you a liar,” she said, simply.

“Thanks. I accept your apology.”

“Who — who did that?” she asked, with gesture to indicate the tragedy down the valley.

“What? Who did what?”

“Hanged those men?”

“I reckon thet was Curly Prentiss an’ his pards. Shore young Jim had a hand in it, onless, of course, Curly an’ Jim got killed by the rustlers. Some of the Diamond were done for, thet’s shore.”

“But — you — said—” she faltered, piteously.

“Shore. I said I reckoned it wasn’t Jim or Curly. I forgot thet. Must have been one or more of them daredevils. Bud or Lonestar — an’ mebbe Slinger. I seen where blood had dripped on the leaves, about saddle-high, along the trail. Some cowboys packed out, shore.”

That surely finished Gloriana and all but did the same for Molly. She had just strength left to help Stone carry Gloriana to bed. The outlaw then sought his own rest, and the meditations inspired by the latest developments. This adventure had not lost its sting, despite the knocking at the gate of his conscience. Tomorrow would see the end of it and he must not fail in the task he had set himself.

Morning disclosed Molly to be herself again, and Gloriana able to get up, though she could not stand erect. She could do nothing but watch the others saddle and pack. Still, her perceptions were all the keener, and she paid Molly mute and eloquent tribute of appreciation.

“I’m made of straw and water,” she said, humbly.

“Wal, Gloriana, darlin’, a thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” rejoined Stone, with gallant cheerfulness.

Before they reached the head of the Yellow Jacket, which Stone was approaching, he had fears the Eastern girl would not make it. Yet a little rest enabled her to go on, without complaint, without appeal for mercy.

At last Stone espied the new road, where it turned to go down into the canyon. He halted before the girls noticed it and dismounted near the rim.

“Wal, we’ve reached the partin’ of the trails,” he said. “There’s a ranch down heah where one of you can go an’ send word to the cowboys. ‘Cause I can’t take you both with me any farther, I’m a hunted desperado, you know. An’ I’ve gotta hole up till all this blows over. One of you goes with me.”

“Take us both — Jed,” implored Molly, and that plainly was her last word in this trick perpetrated upon an innocent tenderfoot.

“No, Molly, I will go,” interposed Gloriana. “You love Jim. He worships you...There’s no one cares for me or — or whom I care for...And I’m not strong, as you’ve seen from my miserable frailty on this ride. I won’t live long, so it’ll not matter much.”

Molly, with eyes suddenly full of tears, averted her gaze. Stone regarded the Eastern girl with poignant emotion he gladly hid.

“Ahuh. So you’ll go willin’?”

“Yes, since you compel me. But on one condition.”

“An’ what’s thet?”

“You must — marry me honestly. I have religious principles.”

“Wal, I reckon I could fetch a padre down into the brakes — where we’ll be hidin’,” replied Stone. “An’ so — Miss Gloriana Traft — you’d marry me — Jed Stone of the Hash-Knife — thief, killer, outlaw, desperado — to save your friend?”

“Yes, I’ll do even that for Jim and Molly.”

Suddenly Jed Stone turned away, gripped by a whirlwind of passion. It had waylaid him, at this pathway of middle life, like a tiger in ambush. All the hard, bitter years of outlawry rose like a hydra-headed monster to burn his soul with the poison of hate, revenge, lust, and the longing to kill. To wreak his vengeance upon civilisation by despoiling the innocence and crushing the life of this young girl! The thing roared in his brain, a hell-storm of fury. He had never realised the depths into which he had been thrust until this madness wrapped him in a whirling flame.

Far beyond his hope had he succeeded in forcing latent good into being. This Eastern girl had really defeated him. What could be greater than sacrificing virtue and life itself for her friend? Stone bowed under that. Gloriana Traft had love — which was greater than all the fighting instincts he had meant to rouse. It would have been an error of nature to have created such a beautiful being as this girl and not have endowed her with unquenchable spirit. She was as noble, in her extremity, as she was beautiful. Her eyes and lips, the turn of her face, were no falsehoods. And so Jed Stone divined how he was to profit by the courage of a girl he had driven to such desperate straits. The lesson, the good, would rebound upon him.

“Ride over hyar a step,” he said to the girls, and he pointed down into the canyon. “This is Yellow Jacket, an’ thet new house you see way down there in the green is Jim Traft’s.”

While they stared he went back to mount his own horse and turn to them again.

“The road is right hyar,” he went on, as coolly and casually as if that fact was nothing momentous. “Shore you can make it thet fer.”

Then he patted Molly’s dusky tousled head: “Good-bye, little wood-mouse. Be good—”

“Oh, Jed,” cried Molly, wildly, with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Remember aboot never — rustlin’ no more!”

Stone turned to the Eastern girl. “Big-eyes!” he called her, for that was the most felicitous of all names for her then. “So long! — Marry Curly or Bud, an’ have some real Western kids...But don’t never forget your desperado!”

As he spurred away he heard her poignant call: “Oh wait — wait!” But Jed Stone rode as never had he from sheriffs and posse, from vengeful cowboys who pursued with gun and rope.

CHAPTER TWENTY

IT WAS SUNDAY evening at the ranch-house down in Yellow Jacket. The big living-room shone bright and new with lamp and blazing fire. Jim had been endeavouring to write a letter to his uncle, reporting loss of two thousand head of Diamond brand stock, and the fight at the cabin down in the brakes, which had entailed a more serious loss. But the letter for many reasons was difficult to write. For one thing, Molly and Gloriana would surely see it, and as Gloriana took care of her uncle’s mail she would be very likely to read it first. And it had to be bad news. Jim could not gloss over the deaths of Uphill Frost and Hump Stevens, nor the serious condition of Slinger Dunn and Bud Chalfack. Moreover, he found it impossible to confess to his part in that fight. On the moment Curly was trying to keep the fretful and feverish Bud from reopening wounds. Lonestar Holliday read quietly by the lamplight across the table from Jim, but he could not sit still, and as he moved his bandaged foot from one resting-place to another he betrayed the pain he was suffering. Jack Way wore the beatific smile which characterised his visage while writing to the absent bride.

“I can’t write to Uncle Jim,” began Jim. “If he doesn’t show up here in a few days I’ll have to ride to Flag.”

“An’ take Jack with you?” queried Bud, in a terrible voice.

“Yes. Jack has a wife, you know.”

“An’ leave the rest of us hyar fer Croak Malloy to wipe out, huh?”

Jim paced the floor. The matter was not easy to decide, and more than once he had convinced himself that the longing to see Molly had a good deal to do with the need to go to Flagerstown.

“Of course, if you boys think there’s a chance of Malloy coming back—”

“Wal, Jim,” interposed Curly, coolly. “As I see it you’d better wait. We’ve managed to get along without a doctor, an’ I reckon we can do the same without reportin’ to old Jim. He’ll roar, shore, but let him roar. This last few weeks hasn’t been any fun fer us. Somebody will get wind of thet fight an’ Flag will heah aboot it.”

“All right, I’ll give up the idea about going, as well as writing. It’ll be a relief,” replied Jim, and indeed the outspoken renunciation helped him. “You know one reason I wanted to go was to block Uncle Jim’s fetching Molly and Glory down here.”

“Aw!” breathed Bud, reproachfully. “An’ me dyin’ hyar by inches.”

“Let Uncle Jim fetch the girls,” rejoined Curly, stoutly.

“Curly, you’re a cold-blooded Arizonian,” declared Jim, with both irritation and admiration. “Here’s the deal. We had to take Slinger home to West Fork, shot to pieces. Bud’s on his back, full of bullets and bad temper. Lonestar hobbles about making you grind your teeth. And out there under the pines lie two of the Diamond in their graves!”

“Wal, it’s shore sad,” replied Curly, “but the fact is we got off lucky. An’ we cain’t dodge what’s comin’ because of what’s past. I reckon thet fight aboot broke the Hash-Knife fer keeps. I’m pretty shore I crippled Malloy. I was shootin’ through smoke, but I seen him fall. An’ then I couldn’t see him any more. He got away, an’ thet leaves him, Madden, an’ Jed Stone, of the Hash-Knife. Stone won’t stand fer the kind of rustlers Malloy has been ringin’ in of late. Thet Joe Tanner outfit, let alone such hombres as Bambridge an’ Darnell. So heah we are, not so bad off. An’ I reckon we could take care of your uncle an’ the girls.”

Cherry Winters came in at that juncture, carrying a rifle and a haunch of venison. The cool fragrance of the night and the woods accompanied him.

“Howdy, all!” he said, cheerfully.

“What kept you, Cherry?” asked Curly.

“Nothin’. I jest ambled along. Reckon I was pretty fur up the crick. Got to watchin’ the beaver.”

“Jeff has kept supper on for you,” added Jim. “You know how sore he gets when we’re late? Rustle now.”

Jim went out on the porch.

The trouble with Jim was that he had not been weaned of his tenderfoot infancy; he had swallowed too big a dose of Arizona and he was sick. Beginning with Sonora’s ambush — which only Slinger’s timely shot had rendered futile — a series of happenings had tested Jim out to the limit. He had been found wanting, so far as stomach was concerned, and he knew it. Asleep and awake, that fight before the burning cabin had haunted him. No use to balk at the truth! He had taken cool bead with rifle at an oncoming and shooting, yelling rustler, and well he knew who had tumbled him over, like a bagged turkey. Afterwards Jim had looked for a bullethole where he had aimed, and had found it. That was harsh enough. But the fact that he had, in common with his cowboys, turned deaf ear alike to the cursings and pleadings of the gambler Darnell, and had himself laid strong hands on that avenging rope, had like a boomerang rebounded upon him. All the arguments about rustlers, raids, self-preservation, had not been sufficient to cure him. Reality was something incalculably different from conjecture and possibility. In the Cibeque fight, rising out of the drift fence, he had been unable to take an active part; and so the killing of Jocelyn and the Haverlys by Slinger Dunn had rested rather easily upon his conscience. But now he was an Arizonian with blood on his hands. He still needed a violent and constant cue for passion.

Curly came outside presently: “Fine night, Boss, an’ it’s good to feel we can peek out an’ not be scared of bullets. I reckon, though, thet feelin’ oughtn’t to be trusted fer long. We’ll heah from Croak Malloy before the summer is over.”

“Yes, it’s a fine night, I suppose,” sighed Jim. “But almost — I wish I was back in Missouri.”

“Never havin’ seen Arizona an’ Molly?” drawled the cowboy, with his cool, kindly tone.

“Even that.”

“But more special — never havin’ killed a man?”

“Curly!”

“Shore you cain’t fool me, Jim, old boy. I was aboot when it come off. I seen you bore thet rustler. Fact is I had a bead on him myself.”

“I — I didn’t dream anybody knew,” replied Jim, hoarsely. “Please don’t tell, Curly.”

“Wal, I cain’t promise fer the rest of the outfit. Bud seen it, from where he fell. An’ what’s more, he seen thet rustler shoot Hump daid.”

“He did?” cried Jim, a dark hot wave as of blood with consciousness surging to his head. A subtle change marked his exclamation.

“Shore. An’ Lonestar reckoned he seen the same. Wal, thet rustler was Ham Beard. We searched him, before we buried him. Used to be a Winslow bar-tender till he murdered someone. Then he took to cattle-stealin’. Sort of a lone wolf an’ shore a daid shot. If it hadn’t been fer thet smoke he an’ Croak might have done fer all of us. Though I reckon in thet case, if they’d charged us without the cover of smoke, we’d have stopped them with our rifles...It was a mess, Jim, an’ you ought to pat yourself on the back instead of mopin’ around.”

Jim realised this clearly, and in the light of Curly’s cool illuminating talk he felt the relaxing of a gloomy shade.

“If Glory an’ Molly never hear of it — I guess I’ll stand it,” he said.

“Wal, you can bet your last pair of wool socks in zero weather thet our beloved Bud will spring it on the girls.”

“No!”

“Shore. An’ not because of his itch to talk. It’ll be pride, Jim, unholy pride in your addition to the toll of the Diamond.”

“I’ll beg him not to, and if that’s not enough I’ll beat him.”

“Wal, Mizzouri, it cain’t be did,” drawled Curly.

Curly was not as easy in mind as might have appeared to a superficial observer. He was restless; he walked up and down the canyon trail. Jim noted that Curly’s blue flashing eyes were ever on the alert. And when Jim finally commented about this, Curly surprised him with a whisper: “Nix on thet, Mizzouri. I don’t want Bud or Lonestar to worry. They make fuss enough. But I’ll tell you somethin’. This very day, when you were eatin’ dinner, I seen a rider’s black sombrero bobbin’ above the rim wall there. On the east rim, mind you!”

“Curly!...A black sombrero? You might’ve been mistaken,” replied Jim.

“Shore. It might have been a black hawk or a raven. But my eyes are pretty sharp, Jim.”

Hours of uneasiness on Jim’s part followed, and apparently casual strolling the porch on Curly’s. Nothing happened, and at length Jim forgot about the circumstance. He went back to his account-books, presently to be disturbed by the nervous Bud.

“Boss, I thought I heerd a call a little while ago, but I didn’t want to bother you. But now I shore heerd hosses.”

“You did?” Jim listened with strained ears, while he gazed around the living-room. Lonestar was asleep, and so was Cherry, while Jack, writing as usual, could not have heard the crack of doom. But Jim distinctly caught a soft thud, thud, thud of hoofs.

“Curly!” he called sharply. That jerked the sleepers wide awake, but it did not fetch Curly.

“Boys, something up. We hear horses. And Curly doesn’t answer. Grab your rifles.”

“Listen, Boss!” ejaculated Bud.

Then Jim caught a call from outside: “Jim — oh, Jim!”

“Molly!” he shouted, wildly, and rushed out, to be followed by the three uninjured cowboys. No sign of horses down the trail. But under the pines in the other direction moved brown figures, now close at hand, emerging from the grove. Molly led, on a big raw-boned bay horse. Hatless, her dusky hair flying, she called again: “Jim — oh, Jim!”

Roused out of stupefaction, Jim rushed to meet her. “Molly! for Heaven’s sake, how’d you get here?” he cried as she reined in the bay. She dropped a halter of a pack-horse she was leading. Then Jim saw that she was brush-covered and travel-stained. Her hair was full of pine needles, and her eyes shone unnaturally large and bright. Jim’s rapture suffered a check. He looked beyond her, to see Curly supporting Gloriana in the saddle of a third horse. Her head drooped, her hair hung in a tawny mass.

“My God! what’s happened?” he exclaimed, in sudden terror.

“Shore a lot. Don’t look so scared, Jim. We’re all right...Help me down.”

She slipped into his arms, most unresisting, Jim imagined, and for once his kisses brought blushes without protest. If she did not actually squeeze him, then he was dreaming. He set her down upon her feet, still keeping an arm around her.

“What — what’s all this?” he stammered, looking back to see Gloriana fall into Curly’s arms. As Curly carried her up the porch steps Jim caught a glimpse of Gloriana’s face. Then he dragged Molly with him into the house.

“Curly, let me down,” Gloriana was saying.

But Curly did not hear, or at least obey. “For Gawd’s sake, darlin’, tell me you — you’re not hurt or — or anythin’.”

No longer was Gloriana’s face white. “Let me down, I say,” she cried, imperiously. Whereupon Curly became aware of his behaviour, and he set her down in the big arm-chair, to gaze at her as at a long-lost treasure found.

“Glory! — What crazy trick — have you sprung on us?” gasped Jim, striding close, still hanging to Molly. He stared incredulously at his sister. Her flimsy dress had once been light-coloured. It seemed no longer a dress, scarcely a covering, and it was torn to shreds and black from contact with burned brush. But that appeared only little cause for the effect she produced upon Jim and his comrades. One arm was wholly bare, scratched and dirty and bloody; her legs were likewise. To glance over these only forced the gaze back to Gloriana’s face. The havoc of terrible mental and physical strain showed in its haggard outlines. But her eyes seemed a purple radiant blaze of rapture, or thanksgiving. They would have reassured a cynic that all was well with heart and soul — that life was good.

“Oh — Jim,” she whispered, lifting a weak hand to him, and as he clasped it, to sink on one knee beside her chair, she lay back and closed her eyes. “I’m here — I’m safe. Oh, thank Heaven!”

“Glory, dear, what in the world happened?” begged Jim.

On the other side of the chair Curly lifted her hand, which clung to a battered old sombrero, full of bullet holes.

“Jim, this heah’s what I seen bobbin’ above the rim,” he said, in amazed conjecture. “Whose hat is this? Reckon it looks some familiar.”

He could not remove it from the girl’s tight clutch.

“Thet sombrero belonged to Croak Malloy,” interposed Molly, who stood back of Jim, smoothing the pine needles out of her tangled hair.

“Holy Mackeli!” burst out Curly. “I knew it. I recognised thet hat...Jim, as shore as Gawd made little apples thet croakin’ gun-thrower is daid.”

“Daid? I should smile he is,” corroborated Molly, laconically. “Daid as a door nail.”

The tremendousness of that truth, which no one doubted, commanded profound silence. Even Curly Prentiss had no tongue.

“Jed Stone killed Malloy, an’ Madden, too,” went on Molly, bright-eyed, enjoying to the full the sensation she was creating.

Jim echoed the name of the Hash-Knife leader, but Curly, to whom that name had so much more deadly significance, still could not speak.

“Molly Dunn, I’m a hurted cowpuncher,” called Bud from his bed. “An’ if you don’t tell pronto what’s come off, I’ll be wuss.”

Gloriana opened her eyes, and let them dwell lovingly upon her brother, and then Molly, after which they wandered to the standing, wide-eyed cowboys, and lastly to the stricken Curly, whose adoration was embarrassingly manifest.

“Tell them, Molly,” she whispered. “I — can’t talk.”

“We planned to surprise you, Jim,” began Molly. “It took some persuadin’ to get Uncle Jim in on our job. But we did. An’ let’s see — five days ago — early mawnin’ we left Flag in the buckboard Pedro drivin’. That night we slept at Miller’s ranch. Next mawnin’ at the fork of the road we got held up by Croak Malloy, an’ two of his pards, Madden an’ Reeves. They’d jest happened to run into us. Uncle Jim didn’t know Malloy until he shot Pedro. Malloy robbed Uncle, took our bags, an’ threw us on horses. An’ he told Uncle to go back to Flag, dig up ten thousand dollars, an’ send it by rider to Tobe’s Well, where it was to be put in the loft by the chimney. Malloy drove us off then, into the woods, an’ along in the afternoon we reached Tobe’s Well. We’d jest been dragged in, an’ they’d hawg-tied me, an’ Malloy was tearin’ Glory’s clothes off, when in comes Jed Stone. He shore filled thet cabin...Wal, Croak was sore at being interrupted, an’ Jed raved aboot what Uncle Jim would do. Queer what stress he put on Uncle Jim! Called him Jim!...Croak got sorer at all the fuss Jed was makin’ over nothin’. Then Jed stamped up and down, wringin’ his hands. But when quick as a cat he turned one of them held a boomin’ gun. I shut my eyes. Jed shot two more times. I heahed one of the rustlers run out, an’ when I looked again Malloy an’ Madden were daid, an’ Reeves had escaped.”

“Wal, of all deals I ever seen in my born days!” ejaculated Curly Prentiss as Molly paused, gradually yielding to excitement engendered by her narrative. Her big eyes glowed like coals.

“Wal, it turned out we’d only fallen out of the fryin’-pan into the fire,” went on Molly, presently. “Jed had run into Uncle Jim, an’ learnin’ aboot the hold-up, he’d trailed us, an’ he killed them men jest to have us girls all to himself. It began then...Whew, what a desperado Jed Stone was! He had to beat me with a switch. An’ when he was fightin’ an’ kissin’ me Glory grabbed up the butcher knife to kill him. She’d been put to makin’ biscuits while Jed made love to me. He had to shoot at her, an’ she fainted again...He let us alone then. Next mawnin’ we rustled off quick, without hardly any grub, an’ he rode us all over the Diamond. He got lost, he said. We had two more days of ridin’, up an’ down, through the brush, over rocks. Oh, it was bad even for me. All the time Jed made me do the work an’ near drove Glory crazy. One night he forced us to sleep in the same bed with him, an’ gave us choice of who was to lie in the middle. Glory wouldn’t let me. He had nightmare. Yesterday, late afternoon, we slid an’ rolled down into the canyon, an’ soon we rode plumb into thet place where you hanged Darnell an’ the two rustlers...The sight near keeled me over. An’ poor Glory — But enough said aboot thet. We camped above there, an’ this mawnin’ climbed out again. Glory was all in, starved an’ so sick after seein’ those daid men, hangin’ like sacks by their necks, thet she couldn’t sit up in her saddle. I had to hold her. We went along the rim till we came to the road. An’ there Jed said he’d located himself again, an’ we’d have to separate, as he could take only one of us with him, the other goin’ to a ranch he said was down heah. I begged him not to separate us...an’ then Glory told Jed she would go with him, to save me!...Then flabbergasted Jed, as you could see. He hadn’t savvied Glory. He’d been daid set to make her squeal an’ show yellow — which she shore didn’t...An’ then what do you reckon he said?”

Only questioning eyes made any return to that.

“He patted me on the haid, called me Wood-mouse, an’ then to Glory, ‘Big-eyes, go marry Curly or Bud, an’ have some real Western kids, an’ never forget your desperado.’...Then he rode off like mad. An’ after Glory had braced up we found the road, An’ heah we are!”

“Of all the strange things!” exclaimed Jim.

The cowboys were mystified. Curly ran his lean brown hand through his tawny locks, in action of great perplexity.

“Molly, was Jed drunk?”

“No. He had a bottle, an’ he made Glory drink some of the stuff. But he didn’t drink any.”

“Bud, you heah Molly’s story?” went on the nonplussed Curly.

“Yes, an’ if she ain’t lyin’, Jed Stone was locoed. Thet happened, mebbe, when he seen Glory, an’ it ain’t no wonder.”

“Bud Chalfack, don’t you dare hint I’m not tellin’ the truth,” declared Molly, approaching his bed, and then seeing how white and drawn his face was, how prone his sunk frame, she fell on her knees, with a cry of pity.

“Wal, ain’t you only a kid, an’ turrible in love?” he growled. “You couldn’t see straight, let alone tell anything straight...I’m a dyin’ cowpuncher, Molly. I reckon you’d better kiss me.”

“Oh, Bud, I’m so sorry. Are you in pain?” she asked.

“I shore am, but you an Glory might ease it some.”

Whereupon she kissed his cheek and smoothed the damp hair back from his wrinkled brow. That fetched a smile to Bud’s face, until it almost bore semblance to the cherubic visage he possessed when in good health and spirits.

“Glory, ain’t you comin’ over to kiss me, like Molly done?” he asked, plaintively.

“I am, surely, Bud, as soon — as I’m able,” she replied, smiling wanly. “I hope and pray you’re not serious — about dying.”

“Aw, I am, Glory. But I might be saved,” he said, significantly. “If only I jest didn’t want to croak.”

“Hush, you sick boy. Molly and I will nurse you.”

At that Curly arose with a disgusted look, muttering under his breath: “If it takes thet, I reckon I can get shot up some.”

Jim came out of his trance. “Boys, in our surprise and joy we’re forgetting the girls...Curly, fetch hot water, and tell Jeff to fix something fit for starved people. Cherry, bring in the bags...Now, Glory, I’ll carry you upstairs...Come, Molly.”

“Oh, such a wonderful, sweet-smelling house!” murmured Gloriana as he carried her along a wide hall, into the end room, sunny and open. It was bare except for a built-in bed of sycamore branches, upon which lay a thick spread of spruce foliage. He gently deposited Gloriana there, only to find her arms round his neck.

“Jim, brother — my old world came to an end today,” she murmured, dreamily.

“Yes. But you can tell me all when you’re rested again,” he replied, and kissing her cheek he disengaged himself and turned to meet Molly, who had followed. “Molly, you two use this room. Make her comfortable. Put her to bed. Feed her sparingly. And have a care for yourself...What a kid you are! To go through all that ride and come out like this! — Damn Jed Stone. Yet I bless him! I can’t make it out.”

Curly and the cowboys came up, packing things, and Curly lingered, unmindful of Jim or Molly.

“Glory, I beg your pardon for callin’ you darlin’, in front of the outfit,” he said, humbly. “I was shore out of my haid. But they all know aboot me.”

She transfixed him with eyes of awe and reproach, almost horror.

“Curly, I — I ought to shudder at sight of you,” she said, very low. “But I — I don’t.”

“There! That’ll be about all for you,” interrupted Jim, and he shoved the shy and stricken cowboy out of the room, to follow on his heels.

“What’d she mean, Jim?” Curly asked, huskily.

“I don’t know, but I imagine it’s a lot — from Gloriana Traft.”

Curly stalked downstairs and out into the open, like a man who did not see where he stepped. He remained absent until sunset. At supper, which was a silent meal, in deference to the sleeping girls upstairs, he ate but little, and that with a preoccupied air. Later he sought out Jim.

“Boss, I been thinkin’ a heap aboot Molly’s yarn,” he said, ponderingly. “An’ it’s shore a queer one. The idee of Jed Stone bein’ lost!...Heah’s what I make of it — if you swear on your knees you’ll never squeal on me.”

“I promise, pard,” returned Jim, feelingly.

“Wal, you remember how crazy Glory was to heah aboot desperadoes. Now she took Jed fer one, an’ I’ll bet he was cute enough not to disappoint her. Jed must have hatched up some deal with Molly, to fool Glory, to scare her, to find out if she had any real stuff in her. Thet an’ thet only can account fer Jed’s queer doin’s an’ Molly’s queer story.”

“But, Curly, was that motive enough?” asked Jim, incredulously.

“No, I reckon it wasn’t,” admitted the cowboy. “They had to have a deeper one. Now, Jed knew Molly when she was a baby, always was fond of her. Molly is shore Arizona, Jim. So is Jed. But you cain’t savvy thet because you’re an Easterner. An’ to boil it down I reckon Jed scared Glory an’ starved her an’ drove her jest fer Molly’s sake. An’ in the end Glory took the brim off their cup by meanin’ to give herself up to save Molly’s honour. Glory was plumb fooled, an’ clean honest an’ as big as life. It was great, Jim. An’ if I hadn’t been in love with her before, I shore would be now.”

“If that’s true, Molly is an awful little liar,” said Jim, dubiously.

“Wal, yes an’ no. It depends on how you see it. Molly worships Glory, an’ she couldn’t have meant anythin’ but good. An’ good it shore was an’ is. Thet gurl is changed.”

“Ahuh. I begin to savvy, maybe. I believe I did notice some little difference, which I put down to her joy at being safe again with us.”

“Shore it was thet. But more. If I don’t miss my guess, Gloriana will never see through Jed an’ Molly. An’ thet’s jest as well. I hope the lesson wasn’t too raw. But thet sister of yours has guts...When she gets rested she’ll appreciate things as they are out heah.”

Next day Molly showed up downstairs, in changed garb, merry and shy by turns; and she surely was beleaguered by the cowboys. Eventually Jim contrived to get her away from Bud, and to walk out to look over Yellow Jacket. She was enraptured.

“Molly, the end of the Hash-Knife makes a vast difference,” Jim was saying as he halted with her on the log bridge across the amber stream. “We can actually live down here, eventually. But not till next year, and then you must have frequent visits to Flag...You haven’t forgotten your promise to marry me this fall, have you?”

“Oh, did I promise, Jim?” she asked, in shy pretence of surprise.

“You sure did.”

“Wal, then, say late November.”

“But that’s winter!”

“November? Oh, no, thet’s the last of fall.”

“Gosh! how long to wait!...But I love you so and you’re such a wonderful girl — I guess I can wait.”

“Maybe — the middle of November,” she whispered, whereupon Jim, with a glad shout, snatched her into his arms, to the imminent peril of their falling off the log that bridged the brook.

Next morning late a lovely and languid Gloriana trailed shakily down the winding stairs into the living-room. Dark shadows enhanced the depth and hue of her eyes. She wore white, and to Bud and Curly, at least, she might have been an angel. But to Jim she appeared spent and shaken, completely warped out of her old orbit. She was made much of by the cowboys, except Curly, who worshipped and glowered by turns, from afar. Bud took advantage of Gloriana’s pledge of the day before and held her to it, after which he held her hand. At length Curly lunged out of the room, as if he meant to destroy himself, and then almost immediately he lunged back again. Jim understood his pangs, and when Curly gravitated to him, as always happened when he was cast down, Jim whispered:

“Pard, it doesn’t mean anything!”

“Wal, I’ll shore find out pronto,” replied Curly, in heroic mood. “Never do to let her get hold of herself again.”

Presently the other cowboys went out on the porch, to take up tasks, or to amuse Lonestar, who had a chair outside. This left Jim and Molly at the table. Gloriana sat on the edge of Bud’s bed, which consisted of blankets over spruce boughs, laid on the floor. Curly, who had before wandered around like a lost dog, now watched his friend and his sweetheart with flashing blue eyes. They apparently were oblivious of the others.

“Glory, you’re the beautifulest gurl,” Bud was saying.

“Silly, you’ve seen prettier ones,” she replied, but she was pleased, and she stroked his hair with her free hand.

“Nope. They don’t walk on Gawd’s green earth,” returned her champion firmly.

“Bud, I’m to be here all summer,” she said, with a smile of enchantment “Oh, it’s so heavenly here. I didn’t know...Will you be all right soon — so you can ride with me — teach me how to handle a horse? I’m so stupid — so weak. Why, that pinto bucked me off!”

“She did? Son-of-a-gun! I’ll beat her good fer thet.”

“No you won’t. I love her.”

“Love a pinto!...Is thet all?”

“Bud, I love every horse — everything — everybody in Arizona.”

“Aw, thet’s wuss.”

Jim, entranced at this by-play, suddenly felt a tug. “Look at Curly,” uttered Molly.

Curly seemed to have become transformed back to the old cool, easy cowboy, an unknown quantity, potent with some secret of imperturbable assurance. Yet Jim divined his was the grandeur of despair.

“Glory,” drawled Curly, as he sat down on the bed, opposite her, and possessed himself of Bud’s other restless hand, “we’ve been like brothers for six years...Bud an’ I...An’ I reckon this last fight I evened up an old debt. When Bud went down, thet rustler would have killed him but fer me.”

“Pard, what’s ailin’ you — thet you never told me before?” demanded Bud, his voice deep and rich.

“No call fer it, Bud.”

Gloriana looked from one to the other fascinated, and vaguely troubled. Her intuition distrusted the moment.

“Dog-gone! I had a hunch you did. Shore as hell thet’s why you missed the chance at Croak Malloy.”

“I reckon.” Then Curly looked up at the girl. “I jest wanted you both to know, in case I don’t stay on heah.”

“Stay on — heah?” faltered Gloriana, in her surprise actually imitating him. Then her eyes dilated with divining thoughts.

“Now what I want to know — seein’ Bud an’ I are the same as brothers — which of us is to call you sister?”

“Curly!” she entreated.

“Aw, pard!” burst out Bud.

“This son-of-a-gun ain’t bad hurt,” went on Curly. “I’ve seen him with more and worse gun-shot wounds. He’s only workin’ on your sympathy. Wal, thet’s all right. But it makes me declare myself right heah an’ now.”

“Please, Curly — oh, don’t.”

“You know I love you, Glory,” he continued, coolly and slowly. “Only it’s more since I told you first. An’ I asked you to marry me an’ let me be the one to help you tackle this tough Arizona...Well, thet was Christmas-time, aboot. You promised to write your answer. But you never did. An’ I reckon now I’m wantin’ to heah it .”

“But Curly — how unreasonable! Wait, I beg of you. I — I’m upset by this adventure. I don’t know myself.”

“Wal, you know whether you love me or not. So answer pronto, lady.”

She drooped her lustrous head a moment, then raised it, fearlessly, as one driven to the wall.

“Curly, you’re not greatly different from Jed Stone,” she said.

“I reckon thet a compliment.”

“I’m not sure yet how or what I feel toward you, Curly, except that I know I’m not worthy. But since you insist I — I say yes.” And with wistful smile she held out her free hand to him. Curly clasped it in both his and carried it to his breast, his face pale, his eyes intense.

“Whoopee!” yelled Bud in stentorian tones. “I knowed I could fetch him. All the time I knowed it — the handsome jealous geezer!”

Next day Uncle Jim Traft drove down into Yellow Jacket.

No suggestion of the hard old cattleman! He was merry and keen, full of energy to see and hear, and somehow mysteriously buoyant. At Jim’s hurried report of the lost cattle he replied: “Pooh-pooh! Only an incident in a rancher’s life!” But he gazed sorrowfully down at the graves of those cowboys who had died for the Diamond. They had not been the first, and perhaps they would not be the last.

Curly related the story of the fight at the trapper’s cabin. Molly led him aside to tell her version of their adventure with Croak Malloy and Jed Stone. And Bud with pride rare exhibited the headpiece of carved aspen which he vowed he would place on Croak Malloy’s grave.

“Wal, wal, we have our ups and downs,” replied the old rancher, when all was said. “An’ I say you got off easy...My news is good news. Blodgett’s riders rounded up your stampeded stock. All the range knows Malloy is dead an’ the Hash-Knife no more. Spread like wildfire. Yellow Jacket will prosper now, an’, my! what a gorgeous place! An’, Jim, you won’t be lonesome, either, when you settle down with the little wife. Allen Blodgett is takin’ charge of his father’s range, an’ he’ll live there. Jack Way’s wife’s father will start him ranchin’. Miller is goin’ to move down. An’ in no time this valley will be hummin’. An’ I near forgot. The doctor come back from West Fork, reportin’ Slinger Dunn out of danger.”

That, of all news, was the best for Jim, who found his joy and gratitude in Molly’s brimming eyes.

“Rustlin’ will go on,” continued Uncle Jim, “but no more at the old Hash-Knife rate. It’ll be two-bit stealin’ an’ thet we don’t mind.”

After supper, when the old rancher had Jim, Gloriana, Molly, and Curly alone, he pulled a soiled paper from his pocket. His air was strikingly momentous.

“I’m askin’ you never to tell what I read you now. Promise?”

Surprised at his earnestness, at his fine softened face, strangely pale, they solemnly pledged themselves, whereupon Uncle Jim adjusted his eye-glasses and began to read slowly:

“TOBE’S WELL,

“DEAR JIM,

“I changed my mind about the money your rider fetched down. I appropriated it an’ am leavin’ this letter instead. You owe me thet, to make a new start in life.

“Thet niece of yours, Gloriana, offered to make a sacrifice. Same as I twenty years ago, to save my pard. For the sweet-heart we both loved an’ which he never got, after all. It sort of faced me back on the old forgotten trail. Jim, it’s never too late.

“Tell her, if she ever has a boy to call him ‘Jed.’”

THE END

The Drift Fence

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER ONE

MOLLY DUNN SAT waiting on the rickety old porch of Enoch Summers’ store in the village of West Fork. For once she was oblivious to the approach of the lean-faced, long-legged young backwoodsmen who lounged there with their elders. Molly was sixteen and on the eve of a great adventure. She had been invited to ride to Flagerstown with the Sees. She had been there once some years before and the memory had haunted her. In her pocket she had money to buy new stockings and shoes, which compensated somewhat for the fact that she carefully kept her feet and ankles hidden under the bench. She wore her good dress and bonnet, and though not satisfied with them she was not ashamed.

Andy Stoneham, a tall youth with sallow face and fuzzy beard, edged over closer and closer.

“Reckon you’re orful stuck up this mawnin’,” he drawled.

Molly looked at the bullet holes in the wall of the old store. She had seen them before, and long ago when she was ten she had stuck her finger in them and wondered about the battle that had been fought there once.

“Goin’ up to Flag, huh?”

“Do you think I’d dress up like this for West Fork?” inquired Molly, loftily.

“Wal, you used to, didn’t you? You shore look purty. But I can’t see you’ve any call to get uppish. I’ve seen you in thet rig before, haven’t I?”

“I don’t remember, Andy.”

“Then you’ve got a darn short memory,” replied Andy, bluntly. “Didn’t I take you to the last dance in thet dress?”

“Did you?”

“Wal, I shore did. An’ didn’t I hug you in it?”

“Did you?” queried Molly, flippantly.

“You bet I did.”

“I’ve forgotten. But I’ve heard it said you’re so big and awkward you have to hold on to a girl when you dance. Else you’d fall down.”

“Wal, how aboot kissin’ you, too? On the way to the dance an’ drivin’ home?”

“Oh, did you?” retorted Molly, her face hot. Andy’s voice carried rather far. “An’ what did I do?”

“Wal, I figger thet you kissed me back an’ then slapped my face.”

“Andy Stoneham, you’re a liar about that first.”

“Haw! Haw!...Say, Molly, there’s goin’ to be a dance next week.”

“Where at?”

“Hall’s Mill. Come on an’ go.”

“Andy, I don’t like that place,” returned Molly, regretfully. “Besides, I wouldn’t go with you, anyway.”

“Wal, you shore air gettin’ stuck up. An’ why not?”

“Because of what you said — about huggin’ an’ kissin’ me.”

“What of thet? I did an’ you liked it. Aw, you’re funny. Haven’t all the boys done the same?”

“They have not,” declared Molly. “Who ever said such a thing?”

“I heerd Sam Wise say it. An’ Bill Smith laughed, though he didn’t say nothin’.”

“So that’s the kind of fellows you are!” exclaimed Molly. “Talk about a girl behind her back?...To kiss an’ tell!”

“Wal, at thet we’re not so gabby as your cowboy admirers from Pleasant Valley. Take thet red-headed cowpuncher. Accord-in’ to his talk he’s a tall fellar with Burls. He shore had you crazy aboot him.”

“He did not,” said Molly, hotly.

“Wal, you acted orful queer then. Danced all the time with him. An’ three times walked out under the pines. Aw, I watched you. An’ come Saturday night he was drinkin’ heah, an’ accordin’ to his talk he could have had a lot more than huggin’ an’ kissin’ from you, if he only got you alone.”

“Andy Stoneham! — You let him talk that way aboot me?”

“Wal, why should I care? You’ve shore been mean to me.”

“Why should you, indeed?” replied Molly, coldly, and turned away.

At that juncture a horseman rode up, and his advent not only nterrupted Molly’s argument with her loquacious admirer, but had a decided quieting effect upon the other occupants of the porch. He was a lean range-rider, neither young nor old, and he fitted the hard country. His horse showed the dust and strain of long travel.

“Howdy, Seth,” said old Enoch Summers, rubbing his bristled chin and stepping out. “‘Pears like you been humpin’ it along. Whar you come from?”

“Me an’ Arch Dunn just rode over from the Diamond,” replied the other.

Molly’s attention quickened to interest at the mention of her brother. Seth Haverly was his boon companion and they had been up to something.

“Wal, thar’s news stickin’ out all over you,” drawled Summers. “Reckon so.”

“Git down an’ come in. Mebbe a drink wouldn’t go bad.”

“Nope. I’m goin’ home an’ get a snack of grub.”

One by one the men on the porch joined Summers. The fact that Seth Haverly did not want a drink, as much as his arrival, interested them.

Haverly had a still brown face and intent light eyes.

“Enoch, you know thet rift fence we been hearin’ aboot for the last year?” he asked.

“Reckon I heerd the talk.”

“Wal, it’s more’n talk now.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yep. Me an’ Arch rode along it, for ten miles, I figger. Straight as a bee-line. New three-wire fence, an’ barbed at thet!”

“What you say? Barbed!”

“You bet.”

Silence greeted Seth’s nonchalant affirmative.

“Arch had a hunch aboot this fence goin’ up,” went on Haverly. “An’ in Flag we found it was a fact.”

“Wal, who’s buildin’ it?”

“Trait.”

“Ahuh. He could afford it. Wal, what’s his idee?”

“It ain’t very flatterin’ to West Fork,” drawled Seth, with a grin. “We heerd some things thet’d be hard for you old cattle-nesters to swaller, if they’re true. But me an’ Arch only had the word of some idle cowpunchers. We couldn’t get any satisfaction from Traft’s outfit. New foreman. Nephew from Missourie, we heerd. Tenderfoot, but I agree with Arch, who said he was no fool. Anyway, we asked him polite like: ‘Say, mister, what’s the idee of this drift fence?’ — An he looked me an’ Arch over an’ said, ‘What do you suppose the idee is?’”

“Short an’ sweet!” ejaculated a man standing beside Summers. “Wal, you two-bit free-range cattlemen can put thet in your pipes an’ smoke it.”

Whereupon he strode off the porch and down the road, erect and forceful, his departure expressive of much.

“Me an’ Arch was sure curious aboot this fence,” continued Seth. “We rode out of Flag an’ started in where the fence begins. It strikes south into the timber at Traft’s line, an’ closes up every draw clear to the Diamond. At Limestone we hit into Traft’s’ outfit. They’ve got the job half done an’ by the time the snow flies thet drift fence will run clear from Flag to Black Butte.”

“Ha! A hundred miles of drift fence!” exclaimed some one.

“Ahuh,” nodded Summers, sagely. “An’ all the cattle will drift along to Black Butte an’ then driftback again.”

Haverly swung his spurred boot back to his stirrup and without another word rode away.

Molly watched the departing rider as thoughtfully as any of the others on Summers’ porch. This drift fence must be going to have a profound significance for the few inhabitants along the West Fork of the Cibeque.

Then down the road from the other direction appeared the See buckboard, sight of which brought Molly bouncing to her feet. To her relief young John See was not in the vehicle with his parents. John had more prospects than any of the young men Molly knew, but he also had more than his share of their demerits. The buckboard rolled to a stop.

“Hop up, Molly,” called See, gayly. “We’re late an’ it ain’t no fault of yours.”

“Good mawnin’,” returned Molly, brightly, as she climbed to the seat beside Mrs. See.

“Mornin’, lass,” replied the rancher’s wife. “You look like you could fly as well as hop.”

“Oh, I’m on pins,” cried Molly. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

“Howdy, Caleb,” spoke up Summers. “Reckon you’ve got time to come inside a minute.”

“Mawnin’, Enoch,” replied See, which greeting included the others present. “I’m in a hurry.”

“Wal, come in anyhow,” returned Summers bluntly, and went into the store.

See grumbled a little, as he wound the reins around the brake-handle, and laboriously got down. He was a heavy man, no longer young. All the loungers on the porch followed him into the store, but Andy Stoneham remained in the door, watching Molly. “That lout’s makin’ sheep eyes at you, Molly,” said Mrs. See.

Molly did not look. “He just said some nasty things to me,” she confided. “Then the fool asked me to go to a dance at Hall’s Mill.”

“Molly, you’re growin’ up an’ it’s time you got some sensible notions,” said Mrs. See, seriously.

“I’m goin’ to Flag,” trilled Molly, as if that momentous adventure was all that mattered.

“Lass, you’re a bad combination. You’re too pretty an’ too crazy. I reckon it’s time to get you a husband.”

Molly laughed and blushed. “That’s what ma says. But it’s funny. I have to work hard enough now.”

Caleb See came stamping out of the store, wiping his beard, sober of face where he had been merry. Without a word he stepped into the buckboard, making it lurch, and drove away.

Molly was reminded of the news about the drift fence.

“Mrs. See, while I was waitin’ for you Seth Haverly rode up,” said Molly. “He’d just come in from the Diamond with my brother Arch. They’d been to Flag. An’ he was tellin’ old Enoch Summers about a fence that was bein’ built, down across the country. A drift fence, he called it. What’s a drift fence?”

While Mrs. See pondered over the query Caleb answered.

“Wal, lass, it’s no wonder you ask, seem’ we don’t have no fences in this country. On a free range cattle travel all over, accordin’ to water an’ grass. Now a drift fence is somethin’ that changes a free range. It ain’t free no more. It’s a rough country this side of the Diamond. All the draws head up on top an’ run down into the West Fork, an’ into the Cibeque. Water runs down these draws, an’ feed is good. Wal, a drift fence built on top an’ runnin’ from Flag down country will keep the cattle on top. They’ll drift along an’ water down on the other side. Then they’ll drift back.”

“Why were they so serious about it?” asked Molly, curiously.

“Isn’t a drift fence a good thing?”

“Reckon it is, for Traft an’ Blodgett, an’ the big cattlemen up Flag way. But for us folks, who live off the Diamond, it ain’t so good.”

“Most of us couldn’t live much worse,” replied Molly, thoughtfully.

“You bet you could, lass. Haven’t you always had milk an’ beefsteak, an’ shoes to wear?”

“Most always, but not always. Just now I’m walkin’ in my bare toes,” said Molly, with a giggle. “If I hadn’t saved up money enough to buy stockings an’ shoes I’d never come.

“Molly, you goin’ to have a new dress, too,” declared Mrs. See. “I didn’t tell you we are goin’ to a picnic. Goin’ to be a big time in Flag on Saturday, most like the Fourth.”

“Oh, heavenly!” exclaimed Molly, rapturously. “An’ to think I almost didn’t come!...Mrs. See, you’re awfully kind.”

Mr. See went on with something in his mind. “No, Molly, we’ve been fair to middlin’ prosperous down here in the valley. But this drift fence will make a difference.”

“Caleb, isn’t the land owned by the government? Couldn’t any man homestead it?”

“Shore. An’ there’s the rub. Traft has no right to fence this free range. But he’s a rich, powerful old duffer an’ bull-headed as one of his steers. Who’re we down here to go to law? An’ where’d we go? Fairfield, the county seat, is farther away than Flag. It takes time an’ money to travel.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed the good woman. “Then it’ll mean hard times.”

“Wal, Susan, we can stand hard times, an’ I reckon come out ahead. But this drift fence means trouble. It’s a slap in the face to every free ranger in this section. They’ll all take it Traft accuses them of stealin’ unbranded stock that drifts down into the draws on the West Fork.”

“Lass, kind of trouble, Uncle Caleb?” queried Molly, soberly. “Lass, do you remember the Pleasant Valley war over across the mountains in the Tonto? Let’s see, you must have been about six years old. Ten years ago.”

“Yes, I remember, mamma wouldn’t let me play out of the yard. We lived at Lunden then. But if I hadn’t remembered I’d sure know what that war was. Papa talks about it yet.”

“A huh. Lass, some people say your dad was crippled for sympathy to one faction in that fight.”

“Pa denies it. But he was on the side of the sheepmen. An’ that riles my brother Arch somethin’ funny. They never get along. Arch isn’t much good, Uncle Caleb.”

“Humph! I’d not say that, for Arch has good parts. But he’s much bad, an’ that’s no joke...Wal, if Traft’s outfit ever finishes their fence — at least down in the Diamond, it’ll be cut. An’ as Traft runs a lot of hard-ridin’ an’ shootin’ cowpunchers, there’s shore goin’ to be blood spilled. It takes years sometimes to wear out these feuds. An’ we’ve a lot of thick-headed hombres in our neck of the woods.”

His ominous reasoning had a silencing effect upon his hearers. The women of that country were pioneers in suffering, and there were many widows and orphans. Molly thought of her brother Arch. He was only twenty-two, yet he had killed more than one man, and through many fights, but few of them bloodless, he had earned a reputation that was no source of pride to his family. Arch not so long ago had been a nice boy. Lack of work, and drinking, and roaming the woods with fellows like Seth Haverly, had ruined him. Now it would grow worse, and that would make it harder for Molly’s crippled father, who had to sit at home and brood.

Molly conceived a resentment against the rich cattleman who could impose such restrictions and embitter the lives of poor people. And as for Traft’s tenderfoot relative, who had come out from Missouri to run a hard outfit and build barbed-wire fences, Molly certainly hated him. Funny if she should meet him! What would he be like? A change from long-legged, unshaved, ragged boys who smelled of horses would be a relief, even if he was an enemy. It was unlikely, however, that she should have the luck to encounter Mr. Traft’s nephew from Missouri, which fact would be good luck for him, at least. Molly would certainly let him know what she thought of him.

It occurred to her presently that Arch had seen this new foreman of Traft’s and could tell her all about him. How was Arch going to take this newcomer? Seth Haverly was as easy-going a boy as Arch, but dangerous when crossed. Molly was prone to spells of depression and she felt the imminence of one here.

Wherefore, in order to shake off the insidious shadow, she devoted herself to the ride and to her companion, who needed a little cheering also.

It had been years since Molly had been so many miles from the village. She did not remember the road. From her own porch she always had a wonderful view down the valley and across to the rand upheaval of earth and rock locally called the Diamond, and atthe rugged black hills to the south. But now she was riding at a fast trot of a spirited team through a winding timbered canyon, along the banks of the West Fork. As there was a gradual down grade, the gray cliff walls grew higher until they were far above. Only a lone horseman was encountered in all the fifteen miles down to where the West Fork poured its white torrent into the Cibeque. Here Mr. See took the main road, which climbed and wound and zigzagged up the long slope. Molly looked down and back at the wilderness which was her home. All green and gray, and so big! She could not hate it, somehow. All her life she had known that kind of country. She had played among the ferns and the rock, and in the amber water, and under the brown-barked pines and spruces, where deer and elk and wild turkeys were as common as the cows she drove from pasture in the dusk. She felt that it would be a terrible break to sever her from this home of forest and gorge.

CHAPTER TWO

FROM THE HEAD of the Cibeque the road wound through undulating forest land, heading the deep draws and glens, and gradually ascending to the zone of cedar and piñon, which marked the edge of the cattle-range.

There had been snow on the ground all winter, which accounted for the abundance of gramma grass, now beginning to bleach in the early summer sun. Cattle dotted all the glades and flats and wide silvery meadows; and toward afternoon, from a ridge top the vast gray-green range spread like a billowy ocean far as eye could see.

Several ranches were passed at any one of which See would have been welcome to spend the night, but he kept going all of daylight, and by night had covered more than half the journey to Flagerstown.

“Wal, wife, we’ve made Keech’s, an’ that’s good, considerin’ our late start,” remarked See, with satisfaction, as he drove into a wide clearing, the hideousness of which attested to the presence of an old sawmill. Rude clapboard cabins and fences, not to note the barking dogs, gave evidence of habitation.

The cabins, however, were more inviting inside, Molly was to learn, and that the widow Keech was a most kindly and loquacious hostess. She had two grown daughters, and a son about fourteen years old, an enormously tall boy who straightway became victim to Molly, a conspicuous fact soon broadly hinted by his elders.

“So this hyar is John Dunn’s girl growed up,” said Mrs. Keech. “I knowed your father well, an’ I seen you when you was a big-eyed kid. Now you’re a woman ridin’ to Flag.”

Molly, however, was not to be led into conversation. This adventure seemed to her too grand to be joked about. She was keen to listen, and during the dinner hour heard much about Flagerstown and the fair to begin there on the morrow, and to end on Saturday with a rodeo. Mrs. See had not imparted all this marvellous news to Molly and she laughed at the girl’s excitement.

“What you know aboot this drift fence?” finally asked See.

“Caleb, it’s a downright fact,” replied the widow, forcefully. “Harry has seen it. Traft’s outfit are camped ten miles north of us. They’ll pass here this summer an’ be down on your Diamond by the time snow flies.”

“Ahuh. So we heerd. But what’s your idee aboot it?”

“Wal, Caleb, all things considered, it’ll be good for the range. For no matter what folks say, cattle-rustlin’ is not a thing of the past. Two-bit stealin’ of calves is what it really is. But rustlin’, for all that. An’ up this way, anyhow, it’ll help.”

“Are you runnin’ any stock?” asked See, thoughtfully.

“Cows, mostly. I send a good deal of butter in to town. Really am gettin’ on better than when we tried to ranch it. I don’t have to hire no-good punchers. People travel the road a lot these days. An’ they all stop hyar. I’ve run up some little cabins.”

“An’ that’s a good idee,” said See.

Molly listened to hear everything, and particularly wanted to learn more about the young Missouri tenderfoot who had come out West to build fences for Traft. He would certainly have a miserable existence. And it was most liable to be short. To Molly’s disappointment, no more was said about the drift fence.

“Wal, we’ll rustle off to bed,” concluded See. “Mrs. Keech, I’ll want to leave early in the mornin’.”

Molly shared one of the new cabins with Mrs. See. It was small, clean, and smelled fragrantly of dry pine. It had three windows, and that to Molly was an innovation. She vowed she would have one like it, where she could have light in the daytime and air at night. She was tired, but not sleepy. Perhaps the bed was too comfortable. Anyway, Molly lay wide awake in the dark, wondering what was going to happen to her. This trip to Flagerstown might be a calamity for her. But she must have it. She must enjoy every moment of it, no matter what discontent it might engender.

The hounds bayed the wolves and made her shudder. Wolves and coyotes seldom ranged down in the brakes of the Ciberque. Bears and lions were plentiful, but Molly had never feared them. Wolves had such a mournful, blood- curdling howl. And when the hounds answered it they imitated that note’, or else imparted to it something of hunger for the free life their wild brothers enjoyed.

When at last Molly fell asleep it seemed only a moment until she was rudely awakened. Mrs. See was up, dressing by lamplight. A gray darkness showed outside the open window, and the air that blew in on Molly was cold enough for early fall, down on the West Fork.

But the great day was at hand. She found her voice, and even had a friendly word for the boy Harry, who certainly made the most of it. When she came out from breakfast, a clear cold morning, with rosy flush in the east, greeted her triumphantly, as if to impart that it had some magic in store.

Harry squeezed Molly’s arm, as he helped her into the buckboard, and said, confidently, “I’ll see you at the rodeo.”

“Hope so,” replied Molly.

Then they were off behind fresh horses and soon into the cedars. Jack rabbits bounded away, with their ridiculously long ears bobbing erect; lean gray coyotes watched them roll along; deer trotted out of sight into thick clumps of brush.

Soon they came to the open top of a ridge and Molly say a gray, dim, speckled world of range, so immense as to dwarf her sight. The scent from that vast gulf was intoxicating.

“What’s the sweet smell?” she asked.

“Sage, you Cibeque Valley backwoods girl,” replied Mrs. See. “Anyone would think you’d never been out of the timber.”

“I haven’t, much,” laughed Molly. “I’ve seen an’ smelled sage, but it’s so long ago I’d forgotten. Reckon I’d better be pretty careful up at Flag, Auntie See?”

“Shore you had. But what aboot?”

“Talkin’. I’m so ignorant,” sighed Molly.

“You don’t need to be dumb. You just think before you speak. You’re such a pretty little mouse that it’ll become you. I don’t care for gabby girls, myself. An’ I never seen a man who did, if he was in earnest.”

Molly was silent enough for the next long stretch. She watched a sunrise that made her think how beautiful the world was and how little she had seen, hidden down there in the green brakes. But she reproved herself for that. From her porch she could see the sun set in the great valley when the Diamond sheered abruptly down into the Cibeque, and nothing could have excelled that. And what could be better than the wooded canyons, deep and gray and green, with their rushing streams? But this open range took her breath. Here was the cattle country — what Mr. See had called the free range, and which riders like her brother Arch and Seth Haverly regarded as their own. Yet was it not a shame to fence that magnificent rolling land of green? For a moment Molly understood what it meant to be a range-rider, to have been born on a horse. She sympathized with Arch and Seth. A barbed-wire fence, no matter how far away, spoiled the freedom of that cedared grassy land.

“Wal, lass, thar’s the smoke of Flag,” said Mrs. See. “Way down in the corner. Long ways yet. But we’re shore gettin’ there.”

“Smoke,” said Molly, dreamily. “Are they burnin’ brush?”

“Haw! Haw! That smoke comes from the railroad an’ the sawmill.”

From there on the miles were long, yet interesting, almost every one of them, with herds of cattle wearing different brands, with ranches along the road, with the country appearing to spread and grow less cedared. Ten miles out of Flagerstown Mr. See pointed to a distant ridgetop, across which a new fence strung, startlingly clear against the sky. It gave Molly a pang.

“Traft’s drift fence, I reckon,” said See. “An’ I’d almost rather have this a sheep range!”

For all her poor memory, Molly remembered Flagerstownthe black timbered mountain above it, the sawmill with its pile of yellow lumber, the gray cottages on the outskirts, and at last the thrilling long main street, with buildings that looked wonderful to her. Mr. See remarked with satisfaction that the time was not much past four o’clock. He drove straight down this busy thoroughfare. Molly was all eyes.

“Hyar we are,” said Mr. See, halting before a pretentious brick building. “This is the new hotel, Molly. Now, wife, make the best of our good trip in. Take Molly in the stores. I’ll look after the horses, get our rooms, an’ meet you hyar at six o’clock.”

Molly leaped out of the buckboard with a grim yet happy realization that she would not need much longer to be ashamed of her shoes and stockings.

Three hours later, Molly, radiant and laden with bundles, tagged into the hotel behind Mrs. See, likewise laden, to be greeted vociferously by Mr. See.

“For the land’s sake! Have you robbed a store or been to a fire? — An’ hyar me waitin’ for supper!”

“Caleb, it happens seldom in a lifetime,” replied his beaming wife. “Help us pack this outfit to our rooms. Then we’ll have supper.”

Molly had a room of her own. She had never even seen one like it. Loath to leave her precious purchases, she lingered until they called her from the hall. It struck her again how warmly these old people looked at her. Molly guessed she was a circus and ruefully admitted reason for it.

The dining-room might have been only “fair to middlin’,” as Mr. See put it, but it was the most sumptuous place Molly had ever entered. Sight of it added to the excitement of the few hours’ shopping effectually robbed her of appetite.

“Wal, I reckon Molly wants a biscuit an’ a hunk of venison,” remarked Mr. See.

Molly did not know quite how to take that remark. She became aware, too, of being noticed by two young men at a nearby table. They were certainly not cowboys or timber-rangers. Molly was glad to get out and upstairs to the privacy of her, room.

There she unpacked the numerous bundles and parcels, and laid out her newly acquired possessions upon the bed. How quickly her little hoard of money had vanished! Still, it had gone farther than she had anticipated. Mrs. See had been incredibly generous. A blue print dress, a white dress with slippers and stockings to match, the prettiest little hat Molly had ever seen in her life, ribbons and gloves and what not — these had been the expansion of the good woman’s promise.

But not only the pleasure of looking and buying had Molly to think of. She had met more people than she had ever met before. She had been asked to serve in one of the booths at the fair. One of the storekeepers had offered her a position as clerk in his dry-goods department. And altogether the summing up of this day left Molly staggered with happiness.

“Oh, dear!” she said. “If it’s true it’ll spoil me.” And she cried a little before she went to sleep.

Another morning probed deeper into Molly’s faculties for enjoyment and wonder. Mrs. See had relatives and friends in Flagerstown, and they made much of Molly. Not the least of that morning’s interest was a look at Jim Traft, cattle king of the range. It was in the bank, where Molly and Mrs. See had visited with Mr. See.

“Thar’s the old reprobate,” whispered See to Molly. “Jim Traft, who’s fencin’ off West Fork from the range!”

Molly stared. She saw a big man in his shirt sleeves and dusty top boots. He had a shrewd weather-beaten face, hard round the mouth and chin, but softened somewhat by bright blue eyes that certainly did not miss Molly. If he had not been Jim Traft it would have been quite possible to like him.

As they turned to go out he hailed See.

“Hey, don’t I know you?”

“Well, I reckon I know you, Traft,” returned See, not over-civilly. “I’m Caleb See.”

“Shore. I never forget faces. You live down in the Cibeque. Glad to meet you again. If you’re not in a hurry I’d like to ask you some questions about your neck of the woods.

“Glad to accommodate you, Traft,” returned See, and then he indicated his companions. “Meet my wife...An’ this is our little friend, Molly Dunn. Her first visit to Flag since she was a kid.”

Traft shook hands with Mrs. See, and likewise Molly. He was quaint and genial, and his keen eyes approved of Molly.

“Wal, wal! I’m shore glad to meet you, young lady,” he said. “Molly Dunn of the Cibeque. I think I used to know your father. An’ this is your first visit to Flag in a long time?”

“Yes, sir. It seems a whole lifetime,” replied Molly.

When Molly got outside again she exclaimed, breathlessly: “Oh, Mrs. See, he looked right through me!...I don’t want his pity...But I’m afraid the Dunns of the Cibeque have a bad name.”

“Reckon they have, Molly dear,” rejoined Mrs. See, practically. “But so far as you are concerned it can be lived down.”

“But, Mrs. See — I’d have to stick to dad an’ Arch,” said Molly, suddenly confronted with a lamentable fact.

“Shore. In a way you’ve got to. I wouldn’t think much of anyone who couldn’t stand by her own kin.”

Not until afternoon on the ride out to the fair-grounds did Molly quite forget Jim Traft’s look and the ignominy of the Dunns. But once arrived there she quite lost her own identity. This girl in blue at whom everybody stared was some other person. Crowdsof people, girls in gay apparel, cowboys in full regalia, Indians in picturesque attire, horses, horses, horses, and prize cattle, and every kind of a vehicle Molly had ever heard of, appeared to move before her eyes.

Quite by magic, it seemed, she found herself separated from the smiling Mrs. See and conducted to a gaily decorated booth. There she was introduced to a girl about her own age, with whom she was to share the fascinating work of serving the public with sandwiches and coffee. Fortunately for Molly, her partner was nice and friendly, and certainly gave no indication that she had ever heard of the Dunns of West Fork.

Under her amiable instruction Molly, who was nothing if not expert at waiting at table, acquitted herself creditably. But she could not get used to the marvellous gown she had on, and was in a panic for fear she might get a stain upon it. She did not, however, have so much work that she could not see what was going on, and presently she was having a perfectly wonderful time.

Once she served three cowboys. They were hardly a new species to Molly. Nevertheless, she had not seen such brilliant scarves and fancy belts. She noticed, too, that these young men, like Arch and Seth, packed guns in their belts, a custom she had hardly expected to find at a fair. One of them made eyes at Molly.

After a while they came back, when Molly’s partner had left, and if ever Molly had seen the devil in the eyes of a youth she saw it in one of these customers. Still, he was not bad-looking and Molly could not help liking him.

“Miss — Miss — What’d you say your name was?” he asked as he straddled the bench before the counter.

“I didn’t say,” replied Molly.

“Oh, ex — cuse me. My mistake,” he returned, crestfallen at the subdued glee of his comrades. “Have you any pop?”

“No,” replied Molly.

“Or ginger ale?”

Molly shook her head.

“Not any pink lemonade?”

“Only coffee an’ sandwiches an’ cake.”

“Cake? Well, give us cake an’ coffee,” ordered the cowboy. She served them swiftly and discreetly, deftly avoiding the bold hand that sought to include her fingers as she passed a cup. “Do you live here?” he asked presently.

“You know quite well I’m a stranger in Flag, else you wouldn’t be so impertinent,” returned Molly severely.

“Aw!” He subsided with that exclamation. And his comrades proceeded to enjoy themselves at his expense. Molly’s keen ears lost nothing of the banter. They were just brimful of fun. Evidently the bold one enjoyed something of a reputation as a lady-killer, and had at last met defeat. Presently, as he could not get Molly to notice him, and grew tired of listening to his friends, he threw some silver on the counter and said, loftily, “Keep the change, Little Snowflake.” Then he strode away, and after a few moments the others followed.

From this time Molly was kept busy, and only gradually did it dawn upon her that a string of cowboys kept coming and going, for the very obvious reason of getting a look at her. More than once she heard the name Snowflake. Still, none of them were rude. Manifestly they had taken her for a guest of some prominent family in the town, and a lady of quality. Molly enjoyed it hugely, though she had more than one melancholy reservation that it might have been different if they had guessed she was only one of the Dunns of the Cibeque.

Soon she was relieved by the young lady, Miss Price, who shared the booth with her.

“You’ve got the boys guessing,” said this smiling worthy. “They’ve nagged me to death. I don’t know them all, though. Just keep it up.”

“I — I don’t do anythin’ but wait on them,” gasped Molly.

“That’s it. Guess they think you’re cold when you’re only shy,” went on Miss Price. “But you can have a heap of fun. Keep on freezing them. Tomorrow night you’ll have the time of your life.”

“Tomorrow night?” faltered Molly.

“Sure. Big dance after the rodeo. Didn’t my mother tell you? Anyway, you’re going with us.”

“I — I hadn’t heard. It’s terrible kind of you. But I really couldn’t go. I’m such a stranger. An’ if they — they think—”

“You dear kid! You are going. Mrs. See promised mother.”

Molly thrillingly resigned herself to the unknown. The afternoon ended all too soon, and she rode back to town, babbling to the pleased Mrs. See about the adventure she was having. That night they were out to dine with relatives of Mrs. See. No other young person was present and Molly had the relief of being comparatively unnoticed. These serious older people talked about the affairs of the town and the range, all of which found lodgment in Molly’s mind.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS SATURDAY afternoon and the rodeo had just begun, which accounted for the deserted appearance of the grounds adjacent. Molly had remained longer than was really necessary. Mrs. See would be waiting for her at the stand. She was about to leave when she saw that she was to have a last customer.

A young man, in overalls and heavy boots, got off a dusty horse and approached the booth. He asked for something to eat and drink. Apparently he took no notice of Molly. His face wore a troubled look.

Of all the young men Molly had waited upon in two days, this was the first one who had not looked at her twice, and the only one who had not appeared gay or bold or pleasant. Molly felt a little pique and secondly more than a little curiosity.

He might have been twenty-two or -three years old and evidently was not a cowboy. Molly judged that he would have been fair-skinned if he had not been so sunburnt. His nose had begun to peel, but these demerits did not exactly keep him from being handsome. Presently he laid his sombrero on the counter, which act disclosed light wavy hair, and a broad brow marred by deep furrows.

He struck Molly just about right, and considering her vast experience during these two days, she imagined she was a connoisseur in young men. He slowly drank the last of his coffee, and looking up, met Molly’s glance. Then she knew he had not seen her before. He had gray eyes full of shadows.

“What’d you do if you were just about licked?” he queried suddenly.

“Sir?” exclaimed Molly.

He repeated the question, this time more deliberately, as if now he weighed it.

“I — I’d get up an’ fight some more,” declared Molly, surprised into genuine sincerity.

He smiled. Then something beside surprise happened to Molly. “You would? Suppose then you got licked sure?”

“It wouldn’t make no difference,” replied Molly, at last forgetting to watch her speech. And she smiled back at him.

He saw her really then as a girl, and not as any individual who might propound a personal point of view. Leaning his elbows on the counter, he regarded her with interest verging upon admiration.

“Very well, I’ll take your hunch. I’ll not quit. If they lick me — I should say when they lick me, I’ll get up and fight some more.”

His words were severe, his purpose almost grim, yet Molly realized the best compliment she ever had received was being paid her.

“I never saw you before,” he went on.

“That isn’t my fault,” replied Molly, demurely, with level gaze on him. What a nice face he had!

“But you don’t live in Flag,” he protested.

“No indeed.”

“Where then?”

“I’m from the Cibeque.”

“Cibeque. Is that a town or a ranch or what?”

“It’s a valley.”

“Never heard of it. How far?”

“Two days’ ride.”

“Just here on a visit?” continued the young man, and it was manifest that every word carried him farther into interest.

“Yes. We leave in the mawnin’,” said Molly, and sighed. Would she ever come back to Flagerstown? And if so, could it ever be so wonderful?

“That’s a long while yet,” he returned, and smiled again, with a meaning which made Molly’s heart jump. “I haven’t heard, but of course there’ll be a dance tonight. And you’ll be going?”

Molly nodded. She had begun to be conscious of confusing sensations.

“I’ll bet every blame cowboy at this rodeo has a dance with you,” he declared, jealously.

“Not quite.”

He gave her a long gaze that began in doubt and ended with trust. Molly felt that he knew every last thing in the world about her and she wanted the earth to open and swallow her.

“I don’t care for these town dances,” he said. “But I’m going to this one- -if it’s true you’re not engaged for every dance.”

“To tell the truth I — I haven’t one single dance yet,” she replied.

“Well! Then your best fellow isn’t here?”

“He doesn’t happen to exist,” said Molly, wistfully. Like all the others, he had taken her for somebody, and if he knew she was only Molly Dunn of West Fork he would not be so nice.

“Listen. This is a serious matter,” he rejoined, gravely. “Young ladies aren’t always to be believed.”

“I wouldn’t lie to anyone,” retorted Molly.

“Honest! You haven’t a best fellow?”

“I haven’t any fellow,” replied Molly, blushing rosily. “I’m only sixteen. Do you think me as old as Methuselah?”

“Your age hadn’t occurred to me. But I’d have taken you for eighteen, anyhow. It really doesn’t matter...Have you been in Flag lately?”

“Not for years. I was a little girl.”

“Will you dance with me tonight?” he asked, without any pretence.

“Yes,” replied Molly, equally sincerely.

“How many times?”

“I — I don’t know about that. You see, I’m not used to city dances.”

“Oh, it’d be quite proper, if that worries you. You see I might be taken for your best fellow. I’d sure like, that...Would you?”

“It’d not be terribly disagreeable to me,” said Molly, archly, and after a roguish glance she looked away.

But he responded to that differently from what she might have expected. “Thank you,” he rejoined, and stood up, with his gray eyes alight. “Save some dances for me. Good-bye, Miss Cibeque.”

He strode away and led his horse in the direction of the corrals. Molly stood there tingling, to be disturbed by the arrival of Mrs. See.

“I had one last customer,” said Molly, as if apologizing for the delay.

“Child, everythin’ closed at one. The rodeo is on,” returned Mrs. See. “Hurry now, but don’t forget the cash. We’ll turn that over to Mrs. Price...You’ve been a success, Molly. An’ I’m tickled.”

They hurried into the crowded stand, where someone had kept seats for them; and straightway Molly became absorbed in her first rodeo. After that, time meant nothing. The horse-races left her weak and quite husky, for she yelled in unison with everybody else present. The staid Mrs. See hit a fat gentleman on the head with her umbrella, and that was only a minor indiscretion observed by Molly.

Then came exhibition trick riding by experts of the range. Molly could ride a horse herself and she knew what good horsemanship included, but this riding went far beyond anything she could have imagined. One rider, bareback, rode at full speed, and he slipped all over his horse, even underneath. But that appeared less wonderful than the splendid rider who rode two race-horses, standing with one foot on the bare back of each. Molly thrilled to her toes at that performance.

The roping of calves was not new to her, though she had never believed such swift time possible. The roping of two-year-olds was a sterner game. Next after that came the riding of bucking bronchos. In any horse country there are bound to be some mean horses, and Molly imagined she had seen a few. But she had not even known what a mean horse was like. There was a black devil of a mustang with rolling white eyes that simply made the cold chills run over Molly. Buck! He went six feet into the air, doubled up, and came down stiff- legged. And he threw three successive riders. Yet how these lean, supple, round- limbed, small-hipped cowboys could ride! They stuck on like burrs. But it was dangerous sport. Many were thrown. One red-headed fellow had a horse fall back on him. Another rolled clear over with his horse and still came up in the saddle. At this the crowd roared. Molly saw another boy carried off the field, but she had not observed what had happened to him. When that whirling, dusty, snorting, and yelling mêlée ended it was none too soon for Molly.

“Bulldoggin’ steers next,” said Mr. See, consulting his programme.

“Goodness! Do they chase them with bulldogs?” ejaculated Molly, in amaze.

See laughed heartily. “Wal, thet’s a good one.”

“Caleb, this is Molly’s first rodeo,” reproved his wife, though it was plain the girl’s remark had tickled her.

Molly was soon to learn more. A wicked wide-horned steer was let loose, and a cowboy, superbly mounted, came tearing down the field, to drive the steer furiously, catch up with it, and then to dive out of his saddle. He alighted on the neck of the steer, and swinging down by the horns he tumbled it head over heels, and rolled over with it. Molly screamed. But the cowboy came out of the dust unhurt and victorious, for there he sat on the head of the steer, holding it down.

“There! What do you think of that for a cowboy?” exclaimed See, turning to Molly.

“He’s wonderful. But he’s crazy. Who ever heard of such a thing?” returned Molly, feelingly.

“Molly’s right,” agreed Mrs. See. “I think this bulldoggin’ sport is brutal. Where’s the sense in it?”

“Ain’t none. But shore takes a slick rider to do it,” said her husband.

“A cowboy once told me he didn’t have an unbroken bone in his body. Now I can see why,” commented Molly.

Nevertheless, though this style of riding, and downing a steer like a bulldog, made Molly cold and sick, she could not help watching it through. She would certainly have something to tell Arch Dunn. Fortunately, none of the riders were seriously hurt during this most perilous test of horsemanship and hardihood. And the rest of the programme allowed Molly to recover.

“Wal, lass, an’ how’d you like it?” asked Mr. See.

“I’ve had the most wonderful time in all my life,” dreamily replied Molly.

“With the best yet to come,” added Mrs. See. “This is all very well for the men, but it’s the dance where a girl shines.”

With that remark there came flashing back to Molly the strange thoughts and sensations roused by her last customer at the booth. Ought she not tell Mrs. See about this young man? Molly was inherently honest and she knew she should, but she was also in conflict with feelings new to her, and most confusing. She would wait. What would Mrs. See and Mrs. Price think of her if they knew she had promised dances to a stranger who had not even told her his name? That omission had not even occurred to Molly until now. All during the service at the booth she had been most careful of her tongue, and then the very last young man had made her forget herself and what was due her hostesses. Molly could not understand it. He had sort of carried her away. Still, he had not been bold like some of the cowboys, or flirtatious like others. At least she did not think so. But then she might have been wrong. The trouble was he had surprised her into liking him. No doubt of that! Who was he and what had troubled him and how had he been about licked, as he called it? Would it be possible for any young fellow to be so clever and so deceitful as to make up all that? Molly was startled. She had known boys to do queer tricks. But she loyally defended this one who had found her weak. He was as honest as he was nice.

Here Molly got down to the point where he had become so undisguisedly interested in the fact that she did not have a best fellow. There had been a soft, almost mischievous light in his gray eyes. Could he have meant that he would like to be her best fellow? Molly burned within and without. The tumultuous fact was that he could be her only fellow, if he wanted to be. And she was ashamed and shocked to confess it. What had good Mrs. See brought upon her?

This perturbing state of mind got side-tracked again at the hotel, from which there was a general exodus of ranchers who lived near town. Molly was thrown in contact with women whom the Sees knew. And at dinner they sat with friends, so that Molly was not able to think for herself, until she got to her room. There anticipation and delight assailed her again, into which crept a dread of what she knew not.

Then she spread the white gown and accessories out on the bed, to revel in them, and forget the proximity of catastrophe. The following hour was one of exultation and dismay combined. She fixed her hair this way and that, never satisfied. It was an apparition which stared wide-eyed at her from the mirror. Who was this girl? Her arms and shoulders were bare. She could not get over the feeling of being still undressed.

When Mrs. See came in, to exclaim in raptures over her, then Molly’s last vestige of sense went into eclipse. She needed to be scolded and reminded that she was only Molly Dunn of the Cibeque, instead of being lauded to the skies, and told not one of the society girls at St. Louis, where Mrs. See had once been, could hold a candle to her.

“Upon your haid be it!” murmured Molly, tragically.

And so they went out to the dance, which was held in the town-hall a few blocks from the hotel. They walked, and Molly trod on air. Never in her life had she felt anything like her sensations when she walked through the crowd before the hall, between lines of men and women, children, Indians, and then at the entrance, before a phalanx of polished-faced cowboys. Whatever happened, she would have that to remember.

Inside there was a goodly assembly, among whom were Mrs. Price, her daughter Ellen, and an awkward son about Molly’s age. They at once appropriated Molly, and this perhaps was the time of greatest strain for her. It was scarcely necessary, however, for Molly to remember Mrs. See’s injunctions. She scarcely had a voice at all. Fortunately, she was too little and dainty to be clumsy, and shyness only added to her charm.

There was a good deal of standing around, talking and waiting, with introductions in order, while slowly the hall filled comfortably. Then the music began, and it was not a fiddle sawed by a backwoodsman, but real music, and Molly could have danced in leaden boots.

Waltzes and square dances, with the former in large proportion, were to be the programme. Molly’s first partner was the Price boy, who could not dance very well, but that did not spoil it for her. It developed that intermissions were frequent, but brief. The young people clamoured to dance. They would let the old folk sit and look on and talk. Molly had the next dance with a friend of Ellen’s, a young man of the town, very pleasant and attentive, and a good dancer. And the third with Mr. Price himself, who declared he would allow nothing to prevent him having a dance with Molly. She enjoyed it, too, for he was light on his feet and full of fun.

All this while, which seemed interminable despite her enjoyment, Molly knew there was something amiss. The dance had really begun and she was there. Everywhere she turned she met smiles and admiring glances. They bewildered her. Yet she was keen to note that this was no wild, continuous, stamping log-cabin dance. Hilarity prevailed, but not boisterousness. She wondered if there would be any drinking and fights. A dance without these would be new to Molly.

Then, after the fourth, when she was standing with a group near the entrance of the hall, she saw Him. She felt herself tremble. He wore black and looked tall and slim. His eager eyes, dark with excitement, swept the hall. Molly knew what they were searching for. She had never wanted anything so badly as for him to see her, yet she was afraid. He did see her. His smile and bow came before he had time to look her over. Then Molly’s cup grew perilously full. But what would he do? She was standing with Ellen Price and her friends. Suppose this stranger would present himself! Molly thought she might pretend to have forgotten his name; then if he had any sense he could save the situation for her. To her relief, however, he did not approach.

The music burst forth again and another partner claimed Molly. But even in the whirling throng she did not lose sight of this young man whom she had promised dances. Now and then as she turned she saw him leaning against the wall. Met his dark glance! It followed her everywhere. He did not dance. He did not mingle with the crowd. During the next intermission she saw that he was noticed by girls, who whispered to one another, and by cowboys who gave him rather contemptuous looks. Both actions struck Molly singularly. In some sense he seemed an outsider or else he did not choose to make himself agreeable. The meaning of feminine glances sent his way was not lost upon Molly. And when she, too, dared to glance his way, to find him watching her, she would quickly avert her eyes. She realized that he hopefully and reasonably expected her to give him an opportunity.

At the end of the next number, which Molly had with young Price, she claimed to be a little tired and wanted to sit down. They found a vacant place, where they conversed for the brief interval.

“Shall I take you across to mother?” asked young Price.

“No, thanks. I’ll wait here for my next partner,” replied Molly. graciously.

“Excuse me, then,” he returned, and left her.

Molly hoped her stranger would be quick. But she had scarcely prepared herself for his sudden arrival.

“Is this mine?” he asked, bending over her eagerly.

“Yes,” murmured Molly, rising.

Then he whirled her into the throng. His presence did not quite make her oblivious to his strong arm, his light step, his perfect time. But instantly Molly realized she did not need to help this young man learn his steps.

“I was afraid you’d forgotten me,” he said, pressing her hand. “Don’t talk,” returned Molly.

He laughed and obeyed her. Molly’s head came about to his shoulder and she just escaped contact with it. Not that she wished to! She felt that her face must be burning and she would have liked to hide it there. She did not seem to be making any effort to dance. Yet she was whirling, swaying, gliding around among dancers who looked vague and dim. All the threatened feelings accumulated during the last two days took possession of her now.

The music ceased when they were at the farther end of the hall. “Come Let’s get out before some of them grab you,” he said. “I must talk to you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

HE LED HER out through a corridor to a long porch, high up over a garden. It appeared deserted and shadowy. There was moonlight at the corner and just at the edge of it a bench. He found a seat for her there.

“You look perfectly lovely,” he said, expelling a deep breath, as if in relief. “I just didn’t know you.”

“You — you don’t know me, anyhow,” returned Molly, not knowing what to say.

“Nor you me. But at first I thought you did. It sure was jolly. To think I almost didn’t ride to town!”

“That would have been terrible, wouldn’t it?” murmured Molly. She could not remain silent. He seemed to draw expression from her.

“It sure would. But I don’t want to tell you about myself, now. I want to talk about you.”

“An’ I’d rather not.”

“Aren’t we mysterious?” He took her hand and held it.

Molly did not have the desire to withdraw it, nor the strength. But she managed to look up. How pale and eager he was! His eyes devoured her. And his face wore an ineffable smile.

“‘All’s fair in love and war,’” he said. “And I rustled you away from them” — he indicated the distant dance-hall by an eloquent gesture— “to have a minute with you alone.”

Molly’s presagement that something was going to happen to her was near its fulfilment.

“There’s a strange thing about you — a lack I can’t understand,” he went on.

“What — do you mean?” faltered Molly. Had he found her out already?

“Oh, it’s the most wonderful thing for me. I mean about the — the lack of that best fellow you said you didn’t have. How does it happen? Sure you’re only sixteen. But that’s quite grown up in this country. Have you a fierce father or brother?”

“You bet I have. Both!” replied Molly, with a little laugh. She was sure of her ground here.

“Then that accounts. I’m glad. I was afraid of something else...Very well, I make application for the vacant place.”

“Place?” echoed Molly, weakly.

“Yes. I most earnestly apply for the job of being your best fellow.”

“Oh, you — you can’t be serious!” exclaimed Molly, in confusion.

“Serious? I’m afraid it is,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “You don’t know me. And I haven’t any recommendations. But I’d like you to take me on without these.”

“It isn’t customary,” returned Molly, trying to be light when she feared he might hear the outrageous beating of her heart.

“I know that. But I’ve a weakness to be trusted with responsibility. If I hadn’t I’d never gotten into the trouble I’m bucking now...You’ll have to take me on faith — or not at all.”

“But doesn’t it — it apply to me — that way?” asked Molly, tremulously.

“No. I’m a man. And you’re a girl.”

“Yes. I’m beginnin’ to find that out.”

He laughed as if her reply was encouragement and possessed himself of her other hand. Then undoubtedly he began to draw her a little toward him, but to do him justice Molly imagined he did not realize it. She did, however, to the imminent danger of rout of reserve and self-control.

“I would take you as my best girl — my only girl, I should say, without one single thing beside your Yes.”

Molly felt irresistibly drawn to the edge of an abyss. Here was an opportunity quite beyond even her dreams.

“You’re — you’re—” Molly did not know just what he was, besides being very careless and foolish. He had her almost leaning on his shoulder now. She had not made the slightest resistance. She was as unstable as water. Still, she tried to think in spite of his nearness and her dawning emotions. “If I said — yes — an’ — an’ afterwards you went back on me!”

“Good Heavens!...Little girl, you had better say ‘yes’ pretty quick or I’ll—”

He choked at the end of that passionate utterance. Molly knew what he meant. For the moment it paralysed her. And then it was too late. He had her in his arms — tight against his breast. Molly closed her eyes. She did not realize her state beyond the exquisite contrast to what her backwoods admirers had roused in her. And suddenly that thought ended in a singular revulsion. She stiffened She repulsed him with a stinging slap which, blindly delivered, struck him across the lips.

He uttered an inarticulate cry of surprise and regret. His hand went to his mouth, and then he applied a handkerchief there. The force of the blow had cut his lip.

“I apologize,” he said, constrainedly. “Sure lost my head — but I didn’t mean to insult you.”

Molly, with as unaccountable an impulse as the other, placed a tender, trembling hand on his lips. “I — I’m sorry,” she whispered, wildly. “I didn’t mean that — at all.” And she followed the touch of her hand with a shy, swift kiss. Then she gasped at her utter effrontery.

“Well! You make sweet amends,” he said, haltingly, as if she were beyond him. “By that did you mean ‘Yes’?”

Molly dropped her head and covered her face with her hands. The tight, hot constriction in her breast eased its grip. “I don’t know what I meant, only it wasn’t ‘Yes.’”

“In that case you’d better explain.”

Molly looked up, impelled by his tone. His eyes burned doubtfully down upon her. His face shone pale in the moonlight.

“I — I’m dishonest,” she burst out. “I’ve slapped boys before when they — took liberties with me. I liked them, I suppose, but I didn’t want them pawin’ and kissin’ me...I really gave in to you...Only, I wasn’t fair. I wasn’t honest. I hit you because I — I wanted you to keep on believin’ I was what all these people thought...They’ve made me act a lie. Me — in these pretty clothes! But, oh, I couldn’t help it. I was afraid all the time. I knew somethin’ terrible would happen.”

“You wanted me to believe you were what?” he asked, sharply, bending over her.

“Like Miss Price an’ her friends.”

“I think they might do well by being more like you,” he returned. “I asked to be your best fellow. I sure never asked it of any of them.”

“But you don’t know me!” cried Molly, distracted.

“I can see and think, cain’t I? You’re the sweetest, loveliest little girl I ever met.”

Molly was brutally torn between the ecstasy of that and the mercilessness of her honesty.

“Fine feathers make fine birds,” she replied, bitterly.

“You poor kid!...There’s something queer here, but I swear it’s not in you. I’m taking your kiss for ‘Yes!’ Heavens! what else could a kiss mean?”

“No, no. It meant nothin’,” said Molly.

“Are your kisses so common, then?”

“You’re the first boy I ever kissed,” she flashed at him.

“I’m very proud of that. Well, then, what else could it mean except ‘Yes’?”

“I was beside myself. I told you...I was ashamed — sick because I hit you. But I wasn’t dishonest when I kissed you.”

“You said you wanted me to think you like Miss Price and her friends. That puzzles me. I do think they can’t compare with you.”

“But you’re only fooled,” she said, despairingly.

“By what?”

“I don’t know. This pretty dress, an’ the place — an’ everythin’.”

“Why, it wouldn’t make any difference to me what you wore or where you were,” he protested, tenderly.

“Oh yes, it would!”

“But, you child, didn’t I fall in love with you at the booth?”

This protestation was almost too beautiful and poignant for Molly to bear. It came in the nature of a revelation of her own beset state. In another instant she knew she would surrender and fall into his arms.

“But you don’t know who I am!”

“You’re my sweetheart!” he returned, triumphantly.

Molly suffered during one instant of glorious exaltation.

“I am Molly Dunn, of the Cibeque,” she said.

“Molly Dunn. What a pretty name!...Cibeque? Oh, that’s the valley you told me about.”

“Yes. They call it the brakes of the Cibeque.”

“Dunn. I’ve heard that name, too. Oh yes, I got into an argument with a fellow named Dunn. Slinger Dunn, they called him. But sure you couldn’t be any relation to him.”

“Why couldn’t I?” she queried, in a curious calm.

“Heavens! He’s a desperado! Wonderful-looking chap. They call him ‘Slinger’ because of his habit of throwing a gun. He has killed several men. The sheriff here is scared to death of him. I happened to cross his trail, unfortunately, and gave him a piece of my mind. If I ever saw lightning in a man’s eyes I saw it then. Whew!...Well, his companion, as tough-looking fellow as he was, dragged him away. Saved me a scare if not more.”

“His right name is Arch,” replied Molly, and rose to her feet.

“Of course, living around here you’d have heard of him. It must be disgusting to have a criminal like that roaming around with the name of Dunn. People might think he is related to you.”

“He is.”

The young man rose slowly, in consternation, and made an appealing gesture.

“Impossible, Miss Dunn...Perhaps a very distant relation?”

“He is my brother.”

“Good God! Your brother? You lovely, dainty, sweet little lady!...Why, I saw him again, drunk and dirty, hobnobbing with Mexicans and Indians, if he’s a- -one of your family, he surely must be an outcast.”

“No. He was home the day I left to come here.”

He appeared suddenly staggered, not only by the truth, but by the nature of his transgression.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” he began, hurriedly. “I’ve hurt you. I never dreamed — please forgive me...After all, it was natural enough. Another of my damned tenderfoot blunders! But who would ever think that you—”

“Ah! Now you’ve said it,” she interrupted, passionately.

“Miss Dunn, I was only going to say who would ever think a wonderful girl like you could have such a rotten brother? Well, it makes no difference to me, I assure you of that,” he said, bravely, essaying a fine effort to keep under restraint. He was regarding her fearfully and again he had turned pale.

-The bitterness of reality had steeled Molly, yet she shook inwardly as he stood there, erect and earnest, doing her honour.

“Yet it does, or you couldn’t have talked so,” she replied, shaking her head gravely.

“I say it doesn’t,” he retorted. “And I certainly shall hold you to your word.”

“Word? I didn’t give any.”

“You kissed me. Of your own sweet will! You can’t get over that.”

“No, I cain’t...But it wasn’t a promise.”

“It certainly was. More than a promise. Unless you lied to me.”

“Lie? I wouldn’t lie to you,” she declared.

“Then I hold you to it...Come, let’s forget the — the thing. You see, Molly, we fell in love before we got acquainted. Didn’t we? Isn’t that great?”

“I didn’t say we-I fell in love,” returned Molly, pondering over the significance of the words.

“Not in words — yet.”

Again Molly felt the imminence of a precipice. She could not resist this young man, stranger though he was, and presently she would not care to try.

“I kissed you because I wanted to be square,” she said. “With myself, same as with you. I sure wasp t when I hit you. That’s all.”

“How can you say that? Kissing me proved your honesty. And for such a girl as I hold you to be, a kiss means a good deal. It just about means everything.”

Molly was mournfully becoming cognizant of that very fact. Desperately she cried out again that she was only Molly Dunn of the Cibeque.

At this he seized her in his arms, masterfully, yet guardedly.

“Stop harping on that,” he demanded. “What do I care who you are? You might be Sally Jones of the Missouri. I don’t care any more than you’d care if my name was Bud Applegate instead of Jim Traft.”

“Instead — of — what?” faltered Molly, slipping out of his arms. “Why, James Traft! Jim, for short.”

“Traft? But that’s the name of — of the cattle king.”

“Sure. I’m his nephew. My dad is his brother. I was named after Uncle Jim.”

“You’re the new foreman of the Traft outfit?”

“Yes, I am,” he replied, nettled. “That’s the very question your brother asked me. Only he was insulting and you’re — well, I don’t care to have you ridicule me. The idea of my being a foreman seems to stick in the craw of these Westerners. Why not? I’m no nincompoop.”

“You’re the fellow who’s buildin’ the drift fence?”

“Yes — I am,” he replied unsteadily.

“Did you know that fence is a slap in the face to every person down in the Cibeque?”

“No, I didn’t. Uncle Jim said it would rile a lot of no-good homesteaders.”

“I’m the daughter of one of them. An’ sister to another,” repined Molly, in tragic finality, and with a flash of eyes she left him there.

CHAPTER FIVE

UP TO EIGHTEEN years of age James Traft had often seen his uncle, the Arizona pioneer and cattleman, who made frequent trips East. There had grown up a bond of affection between them. James had from knee-high listened to stories of Indian fights and road-agents, gunmen and rustlers. The Westerner had never married; he was devoted to his brother, who was James’s father.

Then had come an interval of four years during which Jim Traft did not visit Missouri. His vast interests had grown so complicated that he could not leave them. During this time James had been at loose ends, trying farming, clerking, and odd jobs without any indication that he might set the world on fire. At last a letter from the West at least changed the world for James.

Some passages in this blunt letter to his father were hard for James to swallow. — In the natural course of events all of Jim Traft’s property would go to his nephew James. But that was something aside from James ever making good use of it. If he were a strong, resourceful boy with guts he might become a rancher. The cattle industry was growing. The days of the great rustler barons were gone, though cattle-stealing still represented altogether a big loss to the range. And so on.

The implication seemed to be that James would get all his uncle’s money without having worked for it, and that there was a question whether or not he was big enough for the West. At first James had been humiliated and furious, and would hear nothing of going to Arizona. Nevertheless, his father prevailed in the end. Old Jim was caustic and crude; he had grown up in the stern school of the ranges, but he was the very salt of the earth and had genuine affection for James. He would be terribly hurt if James refused and he would never understand.

“It scares me a little, Jimmy,” his father had said. “You’ve got to have the real stuff in you out there. I believe you have and I want you to go. Show Jim you’re a Traft!”

Persuaded and made to realize his opportunity, for which he should sacrifice anything and strive with all his heart. James started West. His first acquaintance with the Great Plains had come from the window of a train, and long before he saw the vast gray slopes of Colorado and the white-peaked Rockies the latent spirit of adventure stirred thrillingly in him. Then the wild timbered uplands of New Mexico and the red-walled canyon of Arizona won him to the West, long before he stepped off the train at Flagerstown.

He had telegraphed his uncle as to his arrival, but there was no one to meet him. What a funny, slow, sleepy, wide-streeted town! Every other building, all high boarded and weathered, appeared to house a saloon. He knew his uncle lived out of town, though not far. James finally found a livery-stable, where he engaged a loquacious negro to drive him, bag and baggage, out into the country. What he learned from this citizen of Flagerstown, in that short drive, was certainly not reassuring.

But James liked the pine forest and the gray levels along the road, and the black mountains rising in the distance. And he had a fine view of Jim Traft’s ranch home. It was nothing at all like he had pictured. Uncle Jim had been long on cattle deals and short on description, so far as talk was concerned. Across one of the wide grassy flats the long, low white house stood on a pine-timbered knoll, and below it clustered a bewildering array of corrals, barns, and sheds. Cattle dotted the wide valley, and on the fenced meadows horses and colts grazed, too numerous to count.

The road wound along the edge of the timber, from which James had ample opportunity to see the ranch at different angles, and by the time he reached the house was wild with enthusiasm about his future home.

A low-roofed comfortable porch fronted the house. Here James deposited his baggage, and paying the driver, he knocked. Nobody answered, however, so he went around to the back. A wide courtyard led out to the corrals. He espied men out there and directed his footsteps in that direction.

Soon he came upon three cowboys around a horse, and then his uncle, who stood with another man, watching them.

“Hello, Uncle Jim!” he yelled, and his rapid strides soon fetched him up.

“Howdy, Jim!” replied the rancher, as if he had seen his nephew only yesterday, and extended his hand. “Got your telegram, but forgot to meet you....By gum! you’ve sprung up like a weed.”

Traft had not changed. His garb, however, was new to Jim, and consisted of high boots, corduroys tucked in them, an old leather belt with an empty gun- sheath on it, gray soft shirt, and a vest that had been new years ago. He was a stalwart figure of a man, nearing seventy, but still erect and rugged, with a lined hard face expressive of his life on the frontier.

“Shake hands with Ring Locke,” said Traft, indicating his companion, a tall, lean, sandy-complexioned Westerner whose narrow eyes were almost hidden under an old black sombrero.

Jim was cordial and prompt in his greeting.

“How do!” drawled Locke, whose accent proclaimed him a Texan. “I shore am glad to meet you, sah.”

“This is the nephew I told you about, Ring,” went on Traft. “He has come West to run the Diamond outfit.”

Jim tried to bear well the scrutiny given him by this range boss of his uncle’s, a right-hand man who had been with him twenty years.

“Uncle should have said I’ll try to run that outfit, Mr. Locke,” said Jim, frankly. “I’m not afraid. But I’m an awful tenderfoot.”

Perhaps his earnestness favourably impressed Locke, for he smiled and replied, dryly, “Wal, it ain’t bad to start when you’re a tenderfoot, just so long as you know it.”

“You bet I know it,” continued Jim, hastening to follow that up. “When Uncle’s letter came I was sure up a tree. It sounded wonderful. But I had listened to Uncle Jim’s stories about gunmen and bad cowboys, wild steers and bucking bronchos, stampedes and rustling. It wasn’t easy to decide...But here I am. And I can take a licking.”

“Wal, reckon you’re likely to get it,” rejoined Locke. “But in this heah country a lickin’ ain’t nothin’, so long’s it’s not for keeps.”

Jim took almost instantly to the lean Texan. But the three cowboys standing by, apparently like hitching-posts, yet with still eyes and faces, gave him an uncomfortable sensation. To be sure, they heard every word. What clean-cut, lithe-limbed young men! The one holding the horse had a gun hanging low from his belt. Jim faced this triangle of judges, for so they seemed, expecting to be introduced. But his uncle apparently neglected or avoided it.

“We’ll go back to the house,” he said, and led Jim away. “Have a good trip out?”

“You bet. I’ve got a stiff neck from looking out of the car window,” replied Jim, enthusiastically. “No matter what you’ve read or heard, you can’t get any true idea till you see it. I mean the plains, hills, valleys, ranges, and mountains...Uncle, I liked all the whole long ride out. But Arizona best.”

“An’ how’s that?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe the great red walls — the canyons.”

“Ahuh...Sorry I didn’t meet you at the train. I reckoned I would. How’s your mother?”

“Fine and well. Uncle, she was crazy to have me come, but scared stiff.”

“Good! An’ how’s that storekeeper brother of mine, your dad?”

“He hasn’t been so well lately, but I guess it’s nothing much. He sent a letter and some things which I have for you.”

“Did he kick about your comin’ out?”

“No. All he kicked about was my making good. He gave me a stiff talk, you bet.”

They reached the house, where Jim was conducted to a large light room, with walls and floor of clean yellow pine. A few deerskin rugs, a wood-burning stove, a table with lamp, an old bureau and mirror, and spare blanketed bed, constituted the contents, the simplicity of which pleased Jim.

“Come out on the porch and we’ll talk,” his uncle had said. And Jim, after securing the letter and parcels he had mentioned, hurried out to deliver them.

“Thanks. I’ll look at them later...Wal, Jim, you’ve growed. You’re a pretty husky chap. Too heavy, mebbe, but ridin’ the range will soon change that. By the way, have you been ridin’ much since I saw you last? You used to take to hosses.”

“Had two years of riding every day. You know I tried farming.”

“Yes, your dad mentioned it. How’d you make out?”

“I fell down, Uncle,” replied Jim, regretfully. “I just couldn’t do it.”

“An’ why not?” asked Traft, as if he already knew.

“I don’t know, unless it was too tame. Every day the same! I thought I’d die. But I stuck for two years. Then dad sold the farm, which was lucky for me.

“What else you been doin’ these four years since I seen you?”

“I was still in school for a year after you last visited us. Then the two years on dad’s farm. And the last year I tried several jobs, only one of which I was any good at.”

“An’ what was that?” asked Traft, kindly. “Reckon it wasn’t clerkin’ in the store?”

“No. I’m almost ashamed to tell you, Uncle. It was on my own hook, though. I got an idea some shade trees would look fine round our place. So I drove out to the river and dug up cottonwoods and planted them. Dad laughed at me. Then our neighbour hired me to do the same for his place. Through that I got other jobs, and I was making good money when your letter came.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated the rancher. “Plantin’ trees, an’ cottonwoods at that. Son, it was a darn good idee.”

Jim thanked his lucky stars he had confided something he had been afraid his uncle would think trivial.

“Wal, so much for Missouri,” went on Traft. “You’re here in Arizona now. Reckon I might have wrote you all about what I want and hope. But it wouldn’t have been fair to you or me. Fact is I couldn’t have said all I need to in a letter. Your dad would have throwed a fit. I reckoned it’d be better to get face to face an’ have it out. Don’t you figger that way, too?”

“I certainly do, Uncle, especially if it’s as big and hard a job as I imagine. And if it’s really true that you have made me your heir.”

“Wal, naturally, all I have would go to your dad an’ you. But that’s not the question.”

“It’s a serious part of it for me,” declared Jim, bravely. “I appreciate your kindness, Uncle Jim, but if I can’t make good as a rancher — well, I don’t want the property.”

“Ahuh, I see. Wal, reckon your dad never guessed that.” Jim felt the piercing intensity of eyes like a pale blue gleam, yet not lacking understanding. “However, what becomes of my property ain’t the main issue with me. Blood is thicker than water. An’ under any circumstances I’d want my only kin to have what I left.”

“Then, Uncle, what is the main issue?” queried Jim, anxiously. “Wal, I reckon it’s I want you to be as near a son to me as possible.”

“That’s easy, Uncle, if it depends on sincerity and affection and obedience.”

“They’ll help, but it depends most on what I said in my letter. Guts!”

“I remember, and that worried me. But I hope I have some.”

“Jim, the job I want you to take is the hardest in the West.”

“I don’t care. The harder the better,” declared Jim, answering the stimulation of doubt. “I always told dad that I needed responsibility. He never gave me any. The fact that you will put responsibility on my shoulders is half of the battle right now.”

“Son, that’s straight talk,” returned his uncle, nodding his head thoughtfully. “An’ I liked the way you spoke up to Ring Locke. If he took a shine to you it’d help a lot...But, Jim, the hell of it is no rancher who knows’ the West ought ever to give a tenderfoot from the East such a job.”

“Why not?”

“Wal, I reckon because of natural human feelin’s. But I’m just bull- headed enough to want a Traft an’ nobody else to take my place.”

“If you were a young man, Uncle, could you take care of this job?” asked Jim curiously.

“Yes. An’ I reckon I could do it yet.”

“All right, then,” returned Jim, feeling his face blanch. “I’ll commit myself here. I’ll do it.”

“Fine! I like your spirit, son,” exclaimed Traft, warmly, and a smile transformed his hard lined face. “Now listen. I’m runnin’ eight thousand head of cattle, mebbe more. But we can never get a count. That’s a lot of stock, Jim. Figger out the value at forty dollars a head, which is a low estimate. Wal, I lose from a thousand head up every year. Most of this loss can be laid to cattle thieves. It has gradually growed worse an’ has begun to rile me. I used to laugh at this two-bit rustlin’. But it’s no good deceivin’ myself any longer. The thing is serious. I’ve reason to believe Ring Locke knows it’s worse than he’ll tell me. Anyway, he’s the best-posted cowman on the range. — Blodgett runs a big lot of cattle. So does Hep Babbitt. They’re all losin’ stock, too.”

“Uncle Jim, this is bad,” declared Jim, in surprise. “It’s almost like the rustler stories you told me when I was a kid.”

“Son, if I don’t miss my guess you’ll shore live one of them stories,” responded Traft, with a grim laugh.

“You’re being robbed, but you don’t know where the cattle go?” queried Jim, ignoring the start his uncle’s statement gave him.

“Humph! We know darn well where they’re gain’.”

“Where?”

“South of here, in the brakes under the Diamond. An’ the Diamond, I should explain, is high country south of here. On three sides it sheers straight down an’ cattle can’t get off. But on the west, for forty miles or so, it slopes off into the roughest canyon country in Arizona. Thicker than the Tonto. These canyons head up high in the timber an’ run down deep an’ rough. All of them have fine grass an’ water. Lots of deer, bear an’ turkey, too, if you like to hunt. Wal, a good deal of stock, especially cows with unbranded calves, drift into these draws an’ work down into the brakes. There the cows are killed an’ the calves stolen. It used to be these thieves would take the meat an’ bury or burn head an’ hide. But lately they kill too many. They just down the cows in a thicket or drag them into one, an’ leave them there for the varmints. Locke’s last report shore riled me.”

“Then, Uncle, this tough job you’re giving me has to do with the thieves,” asserted Jim.

“Wal, I should sort of smile it does,” drawled Traft.

“But why not entrust it to an experienced Westerner, like Locke?”

“Locke can’t bother with it, an’ wouldn’t if he could, at least the way I want to stop it. An’ as I told you I want a Traft to do this. Son, it’ll be a big thing for the range, if we succeed. I don’t want one of these gun-packin’ cowboys to have the credit, when I can throw it to you.”

“You’re very kind, Uncle,” said Jim, with a dry humour not lost upon Traft. “Are you sure anyone but a fool tenderfoot would tackle the job?”

Trait laughed. He was growing more at ease with Jim. “Some of my boys are achin’ to get the job. Jim, my Diamond outfit is the damnest bunch of cowpunchers in Arizona. An’ it’s this Diamond outfit you’re to take charge of.”

“Damnest bunch! Doesn’t sound very good, Uncle. Just what do you mean?” returned Jim, dubiously.

“Huh! I’ll leave that for you to find out...Now to come out with my plan. I want a drift fence built from my ranch here clear down across the Diamond to where it jumps off. A hundred-mile fence!”

“What’s a drift fence?”

“It’s just a fence along which cattle will drift south as far as they can go, then drift back. It’d have several good uses, but the main one is to keep the cows an’ calves from driftin’ down into the brakes.”

“Well, the building of a fence even a hundred miles long oughtn’t to be so difficult.”

“Shore it won’t. But keepin’ it up after it’s built is where the hell will come in.”

Jim grasped subtly that here was the crux of the whole matter.

“There’ll be opposition? Down on the Diamond,” he rejoined.

“Shore will. An’ for that matter all over the range. Even Blodgett is oncertain about fencin’ the range. You see, a barbed-wire fence in this country is nothin’ short of murder. An’ these nesters an’ homesteaders an’ backwoodsmen will lose by it. An’ as for cowboys. Lord! how they hate any kind of a fence! I reckon I used to. But I’m ahead of my day. I can see what is needed an’ what is comin’. So, Jim, you can trust me so far as the benefit to ranchers is concerned.”

“Uncle, have you an actual right to fence the range?”

“Shore, but it’s open to question. If it ever went to law I’d have to prove my contention. An’ whoever sued me would have to show why he was bein’ hurt. No honest cattleman will ever take such action. An’ I’m shore doubtful about any of the homesteaders goin’ so far.”

“Could you prove your contention, which of course is that you are being robbed?” queried Jim, earnestly.

“Wal, I could, if Ring Locke an’ some of my cowboys would testify. But they hate the idea like sixty. I’ll expect you to find out what they know, an’ then add evidence of your own.”

“I see. So far so good. How about your moral right?”

“Jim, I’m glad you ask that. You’re no fool, if you are a tenderfoot. The question of moral right is the most puzzlin’ one — the most open to argument. My own conscience is clear on that. I know in the long run the range will benefit.”

“How do you know? Prove it to me.”

“Wal, you can see how us big cattlemen will profit by it.”

“Yes, that’s easy.”

“Wal, the little cattlemen will have to stop stealin’.”

“If there’s no more to it, you’re absolutely right. But won’t you close the range or fence off part of it from them?”

“In some sense, yes. But only those draws an’ canyons I told you about. There’s shore water an’ grass enough in them for ten times the stock they own. Any one of them will admit that. These honest ranchers will just stop appropriatin’ calves they’re not shore they own.”

“The really honest fellows do that now?” queried Jim, in surprise.

“Shore they do, an’ don’t hardly think they’re stealin’.”

“An’ the other kind?”

“Wal, we’ll put them up a stump. Some of them will see the handwritin’ on the wall an’ quit. An’ others will cut our fence an’ go right ahead stealin’. That’s where our trouble will come in. Mebbe we can stop it in a few years, mebbe not. Some of the ranchers here think it’ll start a long, hard fight. An’ that’s why they’re leavin’ it to me.”

“Wal, Uncle, what do you think it will lead to?”

“Nothin’ much compared to what I’ve been through. But I reckon some fence- cuttin’ an’ hard ridin’ an’ shootin’ will seem a whole lot to you. Ha! Ha!”

“It’s not very funny,” said Jim, soberly.

“Wal, son, your face was. Don’t let my Diamond outfit see you look like that.”

“I’m to hide my feelings from them?” queried Jim.

“Nope. You’re not to have any, except gettin’ mad, an’ when you do that you want to let them see it damn pronto.”

“Oh!...Uncle, I can see this is going to be a lovely easy job.”

“Wal, it’d shore pleases me if you’d find it that...Jim, I’m puttin’ a lot on you. An’ I reckon in a way it’s selfish.”

“No. Nothing of the kind,” replied Jim, hastily. “I believe implicitly in you, Uncle Jim. I’ll make your ideals and motives mine...Otherwise, I’m scared stiff, but I believe I like the tough job you’ve given me — if I can only make a go of it!”

“Wal, the best encouragement I can give you is that I like the way you face it,” returned Traft. “Shore it’s more than I expected, first off.”

“Thanks, Uncle. That’ll help a lot,” declared Jim, feelingly. “I’d like some advice, too.”

“Wal, I never was much on givin’ advice. Nobody ever follows it.”

“I’d try. But at least you can tell me what you’d do, if you had all your knowledge of the range, yet were only my age.”

“Haw! Haw! That’s a stumper. Jim, I reckon I’m goin’ to like you, outside of blood relationship. What’d I do? Wal, let’s see...First off I’d go to town an’ buy the best cowboy outfit I could get, an’ that means saddle, bridle, spurs, chaps, sombrero, gun, boots, an’ so on. That would be for special occasions. Then I’d wear most the time just plain overalls. I’d pack the gun an’ begin to learn to shoot it. I’d have a little straight talk with the boys who was to work under me an’ I’d let them know I was to be boss. I’d always do my share of any an’ all kinds of work. I’d show a disposition not to give any boy a job I wouldn’t try to tackle myself. I wouldn’t be too nice to take a drink, on occasions where it might be wise, but I’d leave drink alone. Also — an’ I hardly need to tell you this — I’d leave the town slatterns alone. I’d lend my money free, but never my hors or saddle or spurs. I’d always stand the brunt of any trouble directed against my outfit. That’ll be hard, for you’ll find each an’ every one of your cowboys keen to do that same thing. Last, an’ I reckon most particular an’ hard, I’d stand up under the hell the Westerners will make for a tenderfoot. I’d run the gauntlet. I’d make all the decent fellows like me — an’ most of them are decent — an’ I’d make the others respect me.”

Jim had the good humour and the nerve to laugh in his uncle’s face.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Is that all, Uncle? I thought you were going to give me something hard.”

“Wal,” declared Traft, gruffly, with a dubious look at his nephew, “I was a-goin’ to add somethin’ that I never could do myself.”

“And what is that?” asked Jim, suddenly.

“Get married pronto.”

Jim whistled. “Heavens! I hope you haven’t picked out a Western girl for me.”

“Nope. But I’m hopin’ you didn’t leave no Eastern girl behind.”

“Luckily I didn’t, Uncle.”

“Wal, that’s somethin’. You won’t find these Western girls special sweet on a tenderfoot. But you’re not bad-lookin’. You shore have prospects, an’ if you try you might win one of them.”

“Whew! Uncle, that’s a sticker. I’m afraid I’ll have to jump the traces on that one.”

“Jim, I’m onreasonable,” said Traft, wistfully. “But I’d shore like to hear the laughter of children round this ranch-house before I die.”

CHAPTER SIX

A WEEK ELAPSED before the Diamond outfit came in from the range.

Jim made the most of that reprieve. He was up at dawn and did not go to bed till late. He went at Ring Locke like a youngster who could not swim in a swift current and was going to hold on or die. But Locke seemed only kind and aloof. He answered some questions; he never vouchsafed any range lore. Jim was sharp enough to find out, however, that Locke had a keen eye for him, and this gave him some grain of comfort.

Apparently his uncle never saw him unless he bumped right into him. Jim refused to take all or any of the wonderful horses that were his to own and ride. He rode or tried to ride all the mustangs and bronchos about the ranch. At first he kept account of the times he got thrown, but he gave this up. He certainly did know, however, that he had many bruises and sprains and bumps. Moreover, he grew so saddle-sore that it was agony for him to struggle up on a horse.

During this wait he learned every nook and cranny of the ranch, and there were a thousand acres and more, including the timber. He could not avoid coming into occasional contact with other of his uncle’s cowboy outfits. And these instances were painful to Jim.

He found also, on numerous trips into town, where it was impossible to keep from meeting people, that he was an object of very great interest to everybody, especially the girls and young women. Jim, remembering his uncle’s wishes, and being far from a hater of the opposite sex, at the outset made himself most agreeable. Presently he confined himself merely to politeness. The interest he had observed did not extend as far as personal propinquity.

One morning he had returned from a disastrous determination to stick on the back of a mustang, and had again taken up a dirty job at the barn, when a farmhand approached him with a message: “Boss says the Diamond outfit is in waitin’ fer you.”

Jim let them wait awhile, until he got himself thoroughly dirty and tired and cross. Then he limped round to the bunkhouses. His uncle did not appear to be among the bunch of cowboys at the last house. No doubt he had beat a hasty retreat.

“I’ll bet the old devil is snickering,” muttered Jim.

He approached the young men, and before he got even close he saw they constituted a remarkable group. They had a singular similarity, and yet upon near scrutiny they were not at all alike.

“How do, boys!” he said, bluntly, as he halted before them. “So you’re the Diamond outfit I’m to boss?...Well, I’m not a damn bit gladder to meet you than you are to meet me.”

Most of them greeted him with a word or nod. Jim found that he had not exactly spoken the truth, for he certainly sustained thrills when he looked these cowboys over. There did not appear to be one as old as he was, nor, for that matter, as big, though several were as tall. Lithe-bodied, long of limb and bow-legged, with small round hips and wide shoulders, lean and sharp of face, bronzed and sunburnt, with expressionless eyes like gimlets, they certainly belonged to a striking and unique class.

“Who was your last foreman?” asked Jim.

After quite a long silence one of them replied, “Jud Blue.”

“Is he here with you now?”

“Reckon no one has noticed him.”

“Where is he?”

“Wal, if he’s where he ought to be he’s in hell,” came the laconic reply.

“How so?” flashed Jim.

“Jud was shot last month down on the Diamond.”

“Shot!...Was it an accident?”

“Shore was, for him. But whoever did it was lookin’ pretty straight.”

Jim did not betray the shock this intelligence gave him, but he certainly made note of another circumstance his uncle had not imparted.

“Which one of you has been longest with my uncle?” he questioned.

“Hump Stevens, heah, was in the first Diamond outfit. Six years ago, wasn’t it, Hump?”

“Round aboot thet,” drawled a tall, tawny cowboy who was stoop- shouldered.

“Stevens, then, ought to be foreman of this outfit,” returned Jim. “And after him every one of you according to your service. Well, let’s understand each other right here. I certainly am not stuck on the job and think I’m the last fellow on earth to tackle it. But my uncle has put it on me. He wants to leave his property to me. And I won’t have it unless I can deserve it. And that means make good at ranching from the ground up.”

Blank, still faces baffled Jim. It was impossible to tell whether or not these cowboys were in the least impressed. They certainly thought he was a liar.

“You can lay off till Monday morning,” added Jim, curtly. And before he started to limp away he gathered that his first order to them had been received with a pleasant surprise. Perhaps the ensuing hour was the most profoundly thoughtful of any since he had decided to embark upon this adventure. What an unknown quantity the Diamond outfit! He had needed only one look at these devil- may-care boys to realize it. Cowboys were not wholly strangers to him. These, however, were the dyed-in-the-wool range product. They were potential chain lightning and firebrand. He was conscious of admiration, dread, and an acute desire to make friends with them. After meeting them he realized he could not expect any material help from Ring Locke or his uncle. The matter was personal.

Wherefore he carefully kept out of their way for a day and a half. On Saturday afternoon he went to town, and he had not been there long before he heard that the Diamond outfit was painting some very vivid red. Jim laughed. After a while, however, it grew monotonous. And when he happened to encounter Miss Blodgett in one of the stores and have her subtly refer to his cowboys he became irritated. Must the whole town take up the situation which his uncle had precipitated? A second look into Miss Blodgett’s hazel eyes confirmed the suspicion. She was the nicest of the girls he had met so far, a tall, rangy girl who looked like she could ride a horse. She had freckles and brown curls and was rather pretty.

“I met Curly Prentiss in the post-office,” she announced, after he had greeted her.

“Who’s he?” asked Jim, though he had an inkling.

“Don’t you know Curly yet?” she rejoined, merrily. “Well, he’s one of your Diamonds.”

“Oh, I see! Fact is I don’t know any of them. Was there anything particular about your meeting him today?”

“Not so very — for Curly. He used to ride for us. Finest cowboy in the world. But when he drinks — well, his tongue wags.”

“Reckon it wagged about me on this occasion?”

“It sure did...Mr. Jim, have you anyone to write home to your mother and sister?”

Jim eyed her with misgivings. These Western girls were as deep as the cowboys. Jim conceived an idea, however, that Miss Blodgett was friendly, or she would never have made that remark.

“You mean about the disposition of my remains?” rejoined

Jim, dryly. “Thanks, but I’m going to see that will not be necessary. I’ve fallen in love with my new job. In fact, I like the West — and everybody out here. Good afternoon, Miss Blodgett.”

And Jim went on, muttering to himself: “Dog-gone it! They’re all after my scalp, even the girls. I hope I’m not going to get sore.”

Presently he went into a pool-room to buy a smoke. The place was fairly well crowded, and at the very first table he saw a cowboy he recognized as one of his Diamond outfit. He was in the act of making a shot. But he straightened up. His fine tanned young face was flushed and there were other indications that he had been drinking.

“Boss, I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” he said, slowly.

“Who said you were?” returned Jim, realizing that he must have looked sharply at the boy.

“You’re lookin’ for Curly?”

“Yes,” answered Jim, suddenly inspired.

“Sheriff Bray just collared Curly. Honest, boss, Curly was behavin’ himself strick proper. But Bray has got it in for us Diamond fellars. An’ Curly” — here the cowboy came round the table to be closer to Jim— “Curly was pretty drunk an’ noisy. It was a chance for Bray, who’d never had nerve enough any other time. This sheriff is a four-flusher, boss. He’s never had one of us in jail yet.”

“Which way did they go?” asked Jim.

“Down the street. The jail’s across the tracks.”

Jim hurried out and in the direction advised, not certain of his position in the matter. Still, he did not take kindly to the idea of one of his cowboys going to jail. Moreover, he had met Sheriff Bray and had not been greatly impressed in that individual’s favour. Jim, while crossing the tracks, espied Bray dragging a reluctant and protesting cowboy along the station platform, followed by a small crowd. Running ahead, Jim intercepted them. This cowboy he also recognized, a tall, handsome fellow with curly yellow hair, just now very red in the face, but not so drunk as Jim had been led to suppose.

“Hold on, Sheriff!” called Jim, as he confronted them. “You’ve got one of my boys. What’s the charge?”

“Hullo!” gruffly returned Bray.

He was a burly man, thick-featured, with a bluish cast of countenance, and he wore his sheriff’s badge and gun rather prominently. “Oh, it’s young Mr. Traft. I didn’t know you...Wal, this boy was gettin’ a little too obstreperous to suit me. So I’m runnin’ him in.”

“Obstreperous! What do you mean by that?” demanded Jim, arriving at his decision.

“Wal, thet’s what I call it.”

“Curly, what’d you do?” inquired Jim of the red-faced, blue-eyed boy.

“Boss, I was singin’,” asserted Curly. “This heah one-hoss occifer sings in — choir an’ he thinks he’s — only singer.”

“Wal, you can sing in jail,” declared the sheriff, with a gleam in his eye.

“Bray, I reckon you’d better not run Curly in,” said Jim, coolly. “Let’s walk along across and get away from this crowd. I’ll take Curly around the block.”

“Say, for a tenderfoot you’re startin’ fiat in to play a high hand,” sneered Bray. All the same, he had his doubts, which Jim was quick to observe.

“Correct, Bray,” rejoined Jim, as he took Curly’s arm. Between them they walked him away from the curious onlookers, and round a corner to the entrance of the jail. Here Curly’s face was a study. Manifestly before Jim’s arrival he had surrendered to the majesty of the law, but this amazing champion in the shape of his boss had galvanized him.

“Bray, there ain’t none of Diamond outfit ever been — in jail. It’s disgrash,” he asserted, belligerently.

“I’ll vouch for him, Sheriff,” added Jim.

“Prentiss, you come along,” ordered Bray, roughly.

By this time Jim’s blood had grown a little hot. He had recalled what his uncle had said about Bray and thought he might just as well face the issue. He jerked Curly free from the sheriff, and interposed himself between them.

“If you had any charge against Curly I wouldn’t interfere. But you haven’t. Why, he isn’t half drunk.”

“I’ll arrest you both for resistin’ an officer,” threatened Bray, his hand going to his hip.

Jim saw the action, followed it with his eye.

“So you’d throw your gun on us,” he said, with derision.

“Boss, let go an’ stand aside. This heah ain’t funny no more,” spoke up Curly. The change in him, the ring in his voice, made Jim jump, but he did not release the cowboy.

“No, Curly, I’m responsible here,” he replied.

Bray had subtly altered, which fact Jim grasped to have to do with Curly’s sudden menace.

“Wal, Traft, I’ll let him go in your care,” he growled. “But I’m givin’ you a hunch. Prentiss said somethin’. This Diamond outfit ain’t funny no more.”

“Thanks, Bray. I consider that a compliment to me. Come on, Curly.”

Jim walked the cowboy down the block and up a side street until they got out of the centre of the town. Neither he nor Curly broke silence during his walk. Finally Jim halted on a corner.

“Curly, will you go back to the ranch? I’d go with you, but I’ve errands to do.”

“Boss, are you orderin’ me?” queried the cowboy.

“No, I’m asking you.”

“Then I ain’t a-goin’.”

“Very well, then. I’ll have to make it an order. Will you go now?”

“I reckon. The Diamond ain’t disobeyin’ orders. But what’d you want to go do this heah trick for?”

“Trick? I’ve only kept you out of jail.”

“Shore. An’ the outfit will be sore at me.”

“Curly, I don’t understand you,” protested Jim.

“They ain’t a-goin’ to stand for me bein’ friends with a tenderfoot boss.”

Jim began to get a glimmering. The tall cowboy seemed pained over this little service. He looked most disapprovingly at Jim. “Curly, you needn’t let that embarrass you.”

Apparently Curly could not help being embarrassed. He wheeled and strode away. Half across the street he turned. “Boss, I fort. I’m in an orful fix,” he said, and strode back. “My gurl’s in town. I haven’t laid eyes on her for two months. Shore it won’t be safe to let it go longer.”

“Curly, are you asking me to explain to your girl or to allow you to come back to town?” queried Jim.

“Reckon I was just tellin’ you.”

“Well, I dare say you are in a fix. What do you want of me?” rejoined Jim, who divined that the cowboy did not like to ask a favour.

“It’d never do for you to see Nancy. I lost one gurl that way.”

“Curly, I’ll help you out. Promise you’ll not take another drink today. Then walk out to the ranch and walk back tonight. That’ll sober you. And you can see your girl.”

Curly swore. He bent a strange blue gaze upon Jim.

“I reckon there ain’t no help for it,” he muttered, as if declaring an inevitable fact to himself. Then he strode away.

Jim scarcely knew how to take this last declaration and he went back uptown, pondering over it. These cowboys were certainly going to be problems. They were like children. But he had had a most pleasing reaction from this first encounter with one of the Diamond outfit.

Jim returned to his errands, which took him up and down the main throughfare of Flagerstown, and therefore past the saloons and pool-halls. It struck him that the town was growing rather lively as evening approached. All the hitching-rails were crowded with saddle-horses, many of which took Jim’s appreciative eye.

Jim was entering the hotel, where he expected to meet his uncle and ride home with him, when he was detained by another member of the Diamond, who barred his way obviously if not rudely. Two other cowboys drew back.

“Excuse me, Mister Traft. I’m Hack Jocelyn, an’ I’m wantin a word with you.”

He was cool, insolent, and something else Jim could not name. “Aren’t you one of my cowboys?” asked Jim.

“I’ve been ridin’ with the Diamond, if thet’s what you mean. But I ain’t shore I’m stayin’ with the outfit.”

Jim had been told by no less an authority than Ring Locke that horses and men could not separate the Diamond outfit. “You’re not, eh? Well, you want to be pretty sure, or you won’t be riding for it. What do you want?”

Jocelyn appeared to be gauging Jim.

“I was in Babbitt’s an’ they told me they’d sent out a wagonload of barbed wire to the ranch. Fer the Diamond outfit! An’ I calls him a liar.”

“Then you’ll have to apologize. It was for the Diamond. And there’s a carload more ordered.”

“Hell you say!” ejaculated Jocelyn, in amaze and gathering anger. “An’ what’s it fer?”

“None of your business, Jocelyn,” retorted Jim. “If you’d asked me civilly I’d have told you.”

“But barbed wire is most used fer fences!” exclaimed the cowboy. His two comrades edged closer until they were beside him, watchful, hiding their feelings, if they had any. “An’ nobody in Gawd’s world would reckon the Diamond’d have anything to do with thet!”

“The Diamond is in for some new experience, Jocelyn. And you may as well know fence-building is one of them.”

“Haw! Haw! It shore is. A tenderfoot dude foreman! Then barbed-wire fence! My Gawd! what’s the range comin’ to?”

Jocelyn had turned to his companions, to whom, in fact, his exclamation had been directed. Jim shot out a hand and spun him around like a top.

“Did you call me a tenderfoot dude foreman?” he queried, and despite his temper he was quick-witted enough to ascertain that Jocelyn was not armed. Otherwise he would wisely have restrained himself altogether.

“Wal, Mister Traft, I reckon I did,” he drawled. He expressed the usual cowboy nonchalance, but there was also a vindictive quality in his words, if not their content.

Jim knocked him flat. He had not calculated consequences. In accepting his uncle’s job he had burned his bridges behind him. But when Jim saw Jocelyn lying there, then slowly rising, his hand to his face, which was black as a thundercloud, he awoke to another sensation. He would not, however, have recalled the blow.

“Jocelyn, you’re fired,” he said, as coolly as the cowboy had spoken. “But if you come out to the ranch and apologize to me I’ll take you on again.”

“You better be packin’ a gun,” declared Jocelyn, darkly.

“Aw, shut up, if you can’t talk sense,” returned Jim, in disgust. “You insulted me. And if you’re not man enough to own up to it you can bet there’s no place on the Diamond for you.”

Jocelyn’s two friends laid hold of him and drew him away. Whereupon Jim turned to enter the hotel, where among several persons who had been spectators of the little by-play were his uncle and Ring Locke.

“Hello! Say, I’m sorry you happened to see that,” said Jim, regretfully. “But, Uncle, he just made me boil.”

“Come inside,” rejoined Traft, and when the three of them were out of earshot of bystanders he turned to Locke. “Ring, he called Hack’s bluff. An’ mebbe he didn’t poke that puncher’s snoot! I damn near choked myself to keep from yellin’.”

“Uncle!” exclaimed Jim, as surprised at this speech as at Traft’s glee.

“Son, the only fault I can locate in you so far is you talk too quick an’ too much. It’ll get you in serious trouble.”

“But I nearly burst at that,” expostulated Jim.

Ring Locke shook his lean hawklike head forebodingly. “Wal, it’s six for me an’ half a dozen fer the other,” he said. “It’s bad an’ good. More good, I’d say. If the new foreman of the Diamond had stood fer that — wal, he couldn’t have had a chance. Mebbe the boys put Hack up to it. If so he’ll be as nice as pie an’ come back to square himself. If not—” Here Locke shook his head gravely.

“Ring, I’ll bet you four bits he’ll be out here tomorrow,” said Traft.

“But suppose he doesn’t come?”

“Can’t we fill his place?” asked Jim, anxiously.

“Nope. We can’t fill the place of any of thet outfit,” rejoined Locke. “But I was thinkin’ of what it’d mean...Young man, this same Hack Jocelyn has shot fellars fer less.”

“It’s true, son,” corroborated Traft, sombrely. “That’s the worst of it. This gang of yours has made way with nine men since they rode for me. Six years! Shore some of them were damn good riddance.”

“More’n nine, boss,” corrected Locke. “Lonestar Holliday got drove out of Texas fer a shootin’.”

“What!” gasped Jim. “Those fine clean boys murderers?”

“Jim, you’re out West now,” said his uncle, testily. “When two men get into an argument or quarrel an’ draw — it ain’t murder if one is killed. We couldn’t run the range without cowboys an’ they’re shore a tough crowd of young roosters...Ring, fetch round the buckboard an’ we’ll go home.”

On the way out Traft dilated on the serious and uncertain side of range life. Jim realized that his education on the West had but just begun. He had not been ignorant of facts, but they seemed vastly significant and perturbing at close hand. During the ride out and at supper he maintained silence. Later, when he had recovered from the effect of this first clash, he could not feel that he would have desired to have met it in any other way. But neither his uncle nor Ring Locke could understand his feelings. Jim himself found them rather complicated. He had been furious, then frightened, then cold. And now, instead of wanting to go home to Missouri, he surrendered still more to Arizona.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LATE ON SUNDAY afternoon, while Jim sat on the porch, his uncle called attention to a cowboy approaching from a direction in which he could not be seen from the bunkhouses.

“Bud Chalfack,” announced Traft, with a chuckle.

“Who’s Bud?”

“You’ll see pronto. He’s the peacemaker of the outfit. Bud’s a diplomat, the slickest, coolest hand on the range. Whenever anyone is in wrong, Bud is elected to set him right.”

“Ahuh,” returned Jim, dubiously. He watched the cowboy stroll up the lane and down the path to the porch. Bud appeared to be a little fellow, but sturdy, bow-legged, and otherwise suggestive of long association with horses. He was smoking a cigarette, which he threw away as he reached the steps. He had an open, guileless countenance and he reminded Jim of a rosy-faced cherub.

“Good evenin’, Mr. Traft, an’ howdy, boss!” he said, cheerfully. “May I set down?”

“Shore, Bud,” replied Traft, genially. “Reckon you look sort of weak. What ails you? Too much town?”

“Weak? I couldn’t fork a bench at a feast, let alone a hoss. We been wrastlin’ all day with Hack. But you ought to see the other fellars. They’re laid out.”

“Is Hack here?” asked Jim, quietly.

“He’s down at the bunkhouse. I been sent fer him.”

“Why didn’t he come himself?”

“Wal, lust off he wouldn’t come an’ I reckon now, he ain’t able.”

Bud’s grave infantile face was averted for a moment, during which Jim shot a quick glance at his uncle, to be rewarded by a wink. Matters were progressing favourably. Jim drew a breath of relief and gave in to the fun of the situation.

“What ails him? Did he get drunk last night? Sick this morning?”

“Boss, I reckon both. But it ain’t them. We was sorta put out with Hack. Shore we didn’t mean to let him bust up the Diamond. An’ he was daid set on thet. So after arguyin’ all day we got tired, an’ — wal, Hack’s in bed.”

“I see. Then he can’t come over to apologize and get his job back. Or did he want to do it?”

“Wal, Hack shore wanted the job back all right, but he hated the terms. He said, ‘Jest tell the boss I’ll apologize if he’ll swear I won’t have to dig no holes fer fenceposts.’”

Jim had difficulty in restraining a shout.

“Bud, I’m afraid Hack will have to dig holes along with the rest of us. I sure expect to,” replied Jim, gravely.

The cowboy looked incredulously to Mr. Traft for corroboration of that statement.

“Bud, it’s up to Jim. You’ll have to fight it out together. You can tell the boys, though, that Jim will not give them anythin’ he won’t tackle himself.”

“All right, sir. Thet’s shore fairer’n any foreman I ever rode under...But Hack won’t never dig no fence post-holes. We had it out with him an’ so I may as well tell you. He yells at us, ‘Hell! if I gotta dig holes, let ’em be graves fer thet Cibeque bunch of calf thieves.’”

“Wal!” the old rancher exclaimed, and glanced from Bud to see how his nephew would take that. Jim did not feel like shouting with laughter over it. Nevertheless, he concealed his consternation.

“Bud, wasn’t Hack just raving?” he asked.

“Shore he was ravin’. An’ he’d reason, too. Boss, shore your uncle has told you what this drift fence will do?”

“He hasn’t told me anything,” replied Jim.

“Wal, some of us will have to, then,” said Bud. “I ain’t quite agreed with Hack an’ the other boys of the Diamond. But I’ve only been ridin’ hyar fer a couple of years. Hack swears we’ll have to fight. He knows Seth Haverly an’ his outfit of the Cibeque. Bad hombres, he called them. An’ Slinger Dunn don’t need no introduction ‘round Flag. You can see his trade-mark in more’n one place...Some of the boys agree with Hack. We’ll have hell buildin’ thet fence, an’ wuss’n hell when we get it done.”

“Bud, is the Diamond game to build that drift fence?” queried Jim, with sarcasm.

“You bet your life it is,” flashed Bud.

“Are you going to stick together?”

“Wal, we reckon nothin’ but death can bust the outfit.”

“If I left it to a vote, how many of you would be for building the fence?”

“Boss, we’ve already voted. This mawnin’. An’ Hack was the only fellar to drop a black mark in the hat. Leastways, we think it was Hack.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Now how do you stand on the moral issue?”

“Boss, I don’t just savvy.”

“You’re all cattlemen in the making. Is it right or wrong?”

“Wal, fact is, we’re not all shore. But the most of us believe that Mr. Traft knows more an’ sees farther, an’ wouldn’t never do no homesteader or little cattleman a low-down trick. We’re goin’ to believe he’s right an’ stand by him.”

“But you all think he shouldn’t have saddled this job on to a tenderfoot nephew?” queried Jim, penetratingly.

“Wall, I — I reckon we do,” replied Bud, growing red in the face.

“There!” cried Jim, triumphantly, to his amused uncle. “See what you’ve done!...Come, Bud, I’ll walk down to the bunk-house with you.”

He found half a dozen of the boys there, but missed Curly Prentiss. Hack Jocelyn lay on a bunk under a window, the light of which showed him rather badly bruised up. He had one black eye, which he endeavoured to hide.

“Hack, you get your job back, but it was a half-hearted apology,” said Jim.

“Boss, I’d never give in but fer this low-down lousy outfit,” replied Jocelyn. “An’ I’m tellin’ you straight I won’t dig no fence-post holes. I’ll cut an’ haul posts. I’ll cook an’ wash, an I’ll pack water an’ run errands.”

“Hack, you don’t look like you were sorry you insulted me.”

“Boss, I don’t reckon it no insult. I was only bein’ funny. But you shore do wear nice store clothes, don’t you?”

“Can’t I wear overalls all week and put on clean shirt and pants without being a dude?” inquired Jim.

“Wal, it depends on the pants an’ the shirt.”

“Matter of taste, eh? Well, I’ll wear out my St. Louis clothes pronto.”

Jocelyn peered hard out of his unclosed eye at this new specimen of range foreman, and then gave up with a disgusted grunt.

Next morning before sunrise the Diamond rode out upon their momentous adventure. Thirty saddle and pack horses, one four-horse wagon hauling wire and tools, and the chuck-wagon, made quite a cavalcade. Ring Locke saw them off, but Traft did not show up. Locke’s last word was one of commendation at Jim’s wise move to pitch the first camp five miles out of town. Jim intended to drop bales of wire all along the way, then work back from camp.

By the time that camp was pitched Jim imagined he was at the head of the weirdest rodeo ever given in the West. But the only argument he had was with Curly, who took violent exception to the ragged, bony old mustang Jim chose to ride.

“But I’m tellin’ you,” protested Curly, at length. “He’ll eat out of your hand till he gets a chance to kick your brains out. Thet ain’t no hots fer the boss of the Diamond. It’s an orful disgrace.”

“You’ll have to put up with a lot, Curly,” said Jim, patiently. “I can ride this nag.”

“Ride him! There ain’t no cowpuncher in this outfit who can do it.”

“But, Curly, I have ridden him.”

“He’s only foolin’. Boss, he’ll pile you up aboot tomorrow.”

Jim started the work just after noon hour and it beat any circus he ever attended. He dug the first hole himself, with his cowboys gaping around.

“There!” he exclaimed, in satisfaction.

“Whoopee!” yelled Hack Jocelyn, in stentorian voice. “Boys, heah’s the grave of the Diamond!”

His fellow cowboys whooped so wildly in reply that Jim felt constrained to believe Jocelyn’s pessimistic augury. Then, under Jim’s orders, they set to work, and they yelled and swore, and kept up a constant harangue with one another. Jim had three of them dragging in long poles, which were cut into seven-foot lengths, five feet of which were to stand above ground. Jim had thought out his plan and it bade fair to work. Bud Chalback, Lonestar Holliday, and Hump Stevens had volunteered to handle the wire, which, next to post-hole digging, seemed to be the most obnoxious to these aristocrats of the range.

Fortunately for Jim, it was not necessary to build the drift fence in a straight line. A general direction to the south, keeping to levels and the easiest way, was the rule. Jim marked the line and the holes for a certain distance, then went back to help in all details of the labour. It had happened that not so many months ago he had built a barbed-wire fence round his father’s farm in Missouri. He had not forgotten that. His father had not only been an exacting employer, but he knew how to go about fence-building. So Jim had a distinct advantage over his cowboys. who certainly had never had any share in such work. All the same, they found fault with every single detail of Jim’s plan and execution, sometimes so guilelessly and with such apparent sincerity that he knew they had begun their mischief. He took especial care, however, in every instance to explain and prove to them the fallacy of their criticisms. Here was too good a chance to miss.

The first day ended, and a dirty, sweaty, hungry string of cowboys walked back to camp.

“Who’d a thunk it? Hoofin it to camp! As if barbed-wire-fence buildin’ wasn’t enough. Boys, we’d be better off in the pen at Yuma,” declared Cherry Winters, throwing his sombrero.

“It’s a helluva good thing none of us has to cook on this job,” said Uphill Frost. “You’ve all got to thank the boss fer thet.”

“Wal, Up,” replied someone, “we’d liefer you was the cook, ‘cause then we’d soon be daid.”

“Look aheah, Jackson Way,” retorted Frost. “You hungry-lookin’ jack rabbit! I kin beat you makin’ sour-dough biscuits any day.”

“Shore you can. I ain’t no cook.”

And so the badinage went on. Jim shut his ears when he was a little way off, to avoid hearing their facetious remarks about him, but on occasions he caught some of it.

The amazing day ended with Jim’s adding a lame back and blistered hands to his other ills. They had camped in the open field, where a few straggling pines had escaped the lumbermen, and the site was far from pretty. Jim unrolled his tarpaulin under one of them. He had never slept out in the open in his life. The cowboys would have laughed if they had seen him in his room at the ranch-house, struggling over the rolling and roping of that bed.

The cook had been highly recommended to Jim, by no less a person than himself, and that, too, in writing. He claimed to hear fairly well, but he was dumb. Shot in the throat once, by a vicious cowboy!

“Say, when is thet cadiverous galoot a-goin’ to yell, ‘Come an’ get it’?” demanded Hack.

“Anybody know what his handle is?” asked another.

“Boys, our cook’s name is Jeff Davis,” announced Jim, importantly. “He hails from Alabama. He can’t talk, but he wrote he could hear fairly well.”

“Why cain’t he talk?” asked Hack.

“A dumb cook! Holy Jupiter! We’re Jonahed fer keeps!”

“Fine. He cain’t cuss the daylights out of us.”

“Wal, if he can cook — O-Kay!”

“Thar’s enough rebels in this heah outfit now without havin’ a rebel cook,” growled another.

“Boys,” added Jim, by way of answer to all these remarks, “Jeff claims to have been shot in the throat by a vicious cowboy. Made dumb forever. Think of it!”

“Wal, he might have been one of these fellars who talk too much,” declared Hack, significantly.

The sudden and violent beating of a tin pan appeared to be Jeff’s call to supper.

Uphill Frost, who had fallen into a doze, leaped up with a yell, “Injuns!”

He was the last to reach the chuck-wagon, perhaps by the fraction of a second. The things they said to the grave-faced cook, as he filled their plates and cups, were enough, Jim thought, to make a dumb man swear. Probably he alone caught a curious little gleam in Jeff’s deep-set eyes. That gave Jim food for thought. Then the members of the Diamond stood around, or sat cross-legged like Indians on the ground. The ensuing silence fell like a mantle. It seemed so beneficent and wonderful that Jim imagined he had been suddenly transported to another world.

After supper they had a camp fire around which they sat and smoked. Jim enjoyed that hour. The infinite and various moods of the cowboys seemed to have flagged. Then one by one they, some without removing their boots, rolled in their tarpaulins. Jim took off some of his clothes, and when he stretched out in his bed with a groan he felt that he would never move again. How delicious that bed! He burned and ached all over, and tired as he was could not soon go to sleep. The canopy of white stars seemed so wonderful and strange. The air, which had turned cold with the night wind down off the mountain, blew over his face. Jim had heard his first coyote chorus at the ranch, so he was in a way prepared for another at close range. Evidently this visiting bunch sat round in a half-circle, just behind his bed, and barked, yelped, whined their wild concatenations. He enjoyed the music for a while, but he conceived that he might have a murderous instinct develop.

He endeavoured to enumerate the especial happenings and remarks of the day. Impossible! It had been his intention to keep a diary. He did not think he could do the opportunity justice, though he would try. Besides, it would never do to record many of the speeches of these range-riders.

Suddenly he felt something tugging at the back of his bed, at the blankets under him. It made him start violently and instinctively frightened him. A coyote! Did the scavengering beggars steal that close? He yelled with much meaning but poor articulation.

“GIOUT!”

Then he popped up. He could see a few feet back of his bed. Nothing there! Perhaps it might have been a gopher or a rattlesnake about which the boys had remarked after supper. With a boot he beat around back of his coat, which he had folded up for a pillow. Then with a still shaking hand he felt back there. And it came in contact with a rope. It had been tied to an end of the blanket over him, and this had been drawn half off. “Well, by gosh!” he muttered.

From all around strange sounds arose. He sat there amazed until he grasped the situation. The cowboys had played their first trick on him and were now trying to hold in a fiendish and bursting glee. Presently from way over near the chuck-wagon broke out a raucous “Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Jim untied the rope and flung the end as far away as he could. Sons-of- guns, he called them to himself! But nevertheless, he was tickled. They would make life miserable for him. Nevertheless, he took this as an augury of good luck. His uncle had assured him that if they played tricks on him there was hope. If they suffered him in silence and let him severely alone the case was hopeless. Jim lay back happy, despite his chagrin at being scared half out of his wits, and went to sleep.

Next morning he hobbled around cheerfully without mentioning the incident and went to work. That turned out to be a trying day, particularly in keeping at it. Upon returning to camp he washed his blistered hands, and then thinking to rest a little before supper, he sought his bed.

But it was gone. At first he imagined he had mistaken the place, but he soon reassured himself that he was right about the location. After a few moments he discovered his bed-roll hight up in the pine tree, swinging by the rope. Jim swore under his breath. If he had to climb that tree, crippled as he was, it would afford these devilish cowboys a treat. He just would not attempt it. They stood and sat around, waiting for call to supper, and obviously they were aware of his predicament.

“Oh, were I a little bir-r-rd,” sang one of them.

Jim ‘decided he would make one gigantic bluff. He had been pretty lucky so far. Why not play that to the limit? Whereupon he went to his pack. and taking up his Colt, he aimed steadily at the rope above his head and shot. He cut the rope. As he gasped, the bed-roll fell with a heavy thump. Jim flipped the gun in a way he had learned through a week’s practice, and carelessly tossed it over to his pack. Then approaching the cowboys he said, seriously, “I sure hope none of you hombres make me throw a gun on you.”

They seemed to be a wide-eyed and stricken group.

“Boss. I shore ain’t goin’ to do thet little thing,” spoke up Curly.

So they had to score another for the tenderfoot. That night around the camp fire they were thoughtful, and whispered behind Jim’s back. He went to bed knowing the war was on, and that he was in for utter rout. Ring Locke had said cowboys when pressed would do anything under the sun. Jim had thought it all out, and he could only regulate his conduct according to theirs. The main issue for him was to earn their respect.

Nothing happened that night nor the next day, but on the following night he was awakened by a terrible crash and jar. He lay there shaking. The stars above showed more numerously. The pine tree must have been struck by lightning, for its branches no longer sheltered him. It had fallen. But there could not have been a stroke of lightning, because the sky gave no sign at all of storm. The cowboys bad provided the lightning. Probably they had sawed the tree nearly through during the day, when he was absent, and at night they had pulled it down. The tips of one of the branches lay across Jim’s feet, which he moved after some effort. Nice gentle cowboys! Not for a long while did Jim go to sleep after that.

By the end of the week they had finished the drift fence town-ward to where it joined Traft’s ranch. They had also about finished Jim. Saturday night he spent alone in camp, except for the cook, who plainly showed a solicitude for Jim. Sunday he was to have gone in to see Uncle Jim, but he never left the camp. Late afternoon the cowboys began to straggle back in twos and threes, some of them still pretty drunk. Jim resented that. He watched them come, careful to see who were the sober ones. Bud returned, holding Hack Jocelyn in his saddle; and Curly performed a like office for Cherry Winters. Drink manifestly was Hack’s besetting sin, for he presented a sombre and ugly figure. On the other hand, Cherry was funny. Curly handled him roughly, even to tripping him up twice; still, in spite of it Cherry succeeded in getting to Jim.

“Bosh, ish all ri’,” he said, waving a deprecatory hand. “Ben lookin’ at redeyes, but I’m sober’s jedge. An’ I wanna tell you. Lash night—”

Curly dragged him away. At sunset Jim took a long walk, which in a way mitigated his mood. The supper gong recalled him. As he neared camp his keen ears caught Curly saying: “Wal, it’s shore eatin’ into my gizzard. I reckon he’s pretty decent, considerin’.”

“Curly, somethin’ shore is eatin’ you,” returned Hack Jocelyn, sarcastically. “He’s got no kick comin’. Ain’t we buldin’ this drift fence? What the hell!”

Jim wondered if this talk referred to him or his uncle, and after a moment’s consideration decided it was about himself. Curly, then, as Jim had grasped before, was leaning a little toward championing him. It was the one bright spot in a gloomy week-end.

On Monday at dawn they broke camp and drove south to the edge of the timber, perhaps another five miles. Here the camp site delighted Jim. It was on a grassy bench just where the pines began, and near a beautiful spring. The bare despoiled land they had traversed was no longer visible. This drive, of course, included the dropping of bales of wire along the way; and that, with the unpacking and making camp, constituted the day’s work.

At this camp matters came to a pass where Jim grew beside himself with rage. And the incident that capped the climax was where Curly Prentiss, after gradually and perceptibly leaning toward friendship for Jim, suddenly became alienated. Jim laid this to influence of a clique of four in the Diamond outfit, the ringleader being Hack Jocelyn. And it happened that Jim had begun to need some little evidence of reward for his unswerving patience and endurance.

“Curly,” he said, “you’ve got a saffron streak as wide as the road.”

“Boss, is thet thar relatin’ to my work on this heah drift fence?” queried Prentiss, with a keen glance on two of the cowboys who certainly heard Jim.

“No. I’m bound to admit you do more than your share,” rejoined Jim.

“Wal, then, I’m takin’ your remark as personal, an’ if you ain’t just as yellow you’ll step out with me.”

“Good Heavens, Curly!” ejaculated Jim, wearily. “You wouldn’t make it a matter of guns?”

“Wal, in this heah country a man has to protect himself.”

“Ahuh. And how in the hell am I to protect myself from most of this devilish bunch without a friend’?” queried Jim, bitterly. “I’ve been banking on you right along. You have helped me a good deal, though you may not know it. I like you. And I swear you were beginning to like me. Then all of a sudden you turn cold and mean.”

“So that’s why you called me saffron?” asked Prentiss, with curious little flecks of light in his eyes.

“Yes, it is.”

“Wal, the outfit put it up to me this heah way. They accused me of bein’ friends with you. An’ they made me cut the deck. You or the Diamond.”

“So that is it,” replied Jim. “I never thought of that. Naturally you’d stick to them.”

“Shore. An’ I’m demandin’ an apology before the outfit,” said Curly, with the air of one who held a whip hand.

It was on Jim’s lips, of course, to beg Curly’s pardon, when something perverse prompted him.

“Suppose I won’t?”

“Wal, then, as you cain’t stand fer a little gun-play, I’ll have to lick you,” drawled Curly.

“You’ll have to?”

“Shore will.”

“Curly, you couldn’t do that if you tried it every day we are building this fence.”

The retort, as amazing to Jim as to Curly, came out of the past days of Jim’s turmoil.

“Mister Traft, I’m shore differin’ with you. An’ I’ll show you pronto.”

“Well, let’s get the apology over first,” replied Jim, dryly.

It happened to be just before supper-time and all the boys were there. Jim did not require to be told that they had heard about what he had called Curly.

“Fellows, I’ve a word to say,” he began, and the slow sly glances he drew made him want to swear at them. “I want to apologize to Curly before you all. I told him he had a streak of saffron. Well, I take it back. And instead of Curly I’ll apply it to those of you who made Curly turn me down. I don’t know who they are, but you know. It is pretty low down. This rotten job I’ve tackled for my uncle has got on my nerves. There’s so much I don’t know. Curly or any one of you could help me, I think he was leaning that way. But you made him quit.”

Then Jim turned to Curly.

“There, Mister Prentiss. You politely invited me to a gun party, and then threatened to lick me. But neither of these made me apologize to you. It was because I had done you an injustice. Now I’ll tell you some more before your grinning-ape pards. You can’t lick me. And unless you make a blamed good stab at it right here and now I will say you’re yellow.”

Curly’s face was more of a study than that of his allies, which certainly presented a good deal in puzzles. But presently at the prospect of a fight long deferred they began to beam.

“Boss, I reckon your uncle will-” began Bud, conscience-stricken.

“Shet-up, you durn little crow!” bawled somebody, presumably Hack.

Lonestar Holliday burst into the circle. “Fellars, heah comes thet slinger Dunn,” he whispered, warningly.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TWO RIDERS HAD come out of the woods. They were not cowboys, yet Jim could not in a glance determine why he made that distinction. Had it not been for Lonestar Holliday’s announcement and its instant and singular effect upon his comrades, Jim would not have made anything unusual about a visit from strange riders. That had already happened. Nevertheless, as the former horseman halted, Jim modified this opinion.

The rider looked like an Indian, yet his skin was dark bronze instead of red. His features were shadowed by the brim of an old black sombrero, yet piercing eyes shone out of that obscurity. He wore a buckskin shirt, much the worse for long usage. The rest of his apparel corresponded with any cowboy’s.

The second stranger was a lean-faced, hard-lipped young man, with eyes that appeared to oscillate like a compass needle. Both were mounted on long- haired, ragged, wild-looking horses. The saddles were superb, with long tapa dores. Rifles were slung in saddle sheaths.

The foremost of these two riders did not greet the Diamond, individually or collectively. And Jim, quick to note this and that none of his men spoke, waived any sort of greeting himself. But he stepped out in front with an air of authority. This placed him somewhat closer to the rider, in a better light, and he looked up into a handsome, still, strange face.

“You the new boss of this heah Diamond outfit, hey?” inquired the rider, in cool hostility.

“Yes, I’m supposed to be,” replied Jim, just as coolly. “Young Traft. from Mizzourie?”

“James Traft.” corrected Jim.

“Howdy, Mister Traft! I shore am glad to meet you,” drawled the rider, without any intimation that he intended to reveal his own name.

Presently Jim replied. “I can’t return the compliment if you don’t say who you are.”

Holliday took a couple of slow steps, which placed him beside Jim, an action that somehow thrilled Jim, though he might have misunderstood its significance.

“Boss, it’s Slinger Dunn an’ his pard, Seth Haverly, from the Cibeque,” said Holliday, crisply.

“Howdy, Lonestar,” returned Dunn.

It was noticeable that Holliday had no more to say. But Jim greeted the visitors and asked them to get down and stay for supper.

Dunn might not have heard, for all the sign he gave. “Say, ain’t you buildin’ sort of a long fence?” he queried. “Yes. It’s getting pretty long,” replied Jim, with a laugh. “How long’s it goin’ to be?”

“Hundred miles, the cowboys say.”

“They don’t say!...Thet’s purty long. An’ barb-wire, too. What kind of a fence is this heah goin’ to be?”

“A drift fence to hold cattle, Mr. Dunn,” returned Jim. “What’s the idee — a drift fence?”

“What do you suppose?” counter-queried Jim, just as curtly. Then he gazed up into burning eyes that positively gave him a shock.

The second rider came up. “Arch, let’s be goin’,” he said. “Wal, I suppose a lot. But I’m askin’ questions,” went on Dunn. “This heah fence is ole Jim Traft’s idee?”

“Certainly it is.”

“Does he own the land?”

“No.”

“Is he aimin’ to fence free range?”

“It will divide the range, that’s sure.”

“Wal, along heah it won’t make no difference to nobody. But when it gets down in the Diamond it’s goin’ to be a bad deal for cattlemen in the brakes.”

“So I’ve been told, Mr. Dunn,” rejoined Jim. “I’m just beginning to learn the cattle business, and can’t say one way or the other.”

“Wal, I reckon you won’t go far,” replied the other, meaningly, and he rolled a cigarette without ever taking his gleaming eyes off Jim.

“Arch, I’m sayin’ let’s rustle out of this,” interposed Haverly, teaching over to give Dunn a jerk.

“I’m going to the end of the Diamond with this drift fence.” averred Jim. “And after it is finished my outfit will see that it Lays up.”

“Your outfit?”

“Yes, my outfit.”

“Say, mister, you cain’t have it in your haid thet your Diamond oufit will stick to you.”

“I’ve got that notion.”

“Wal, you’re plumb off the trail. Even down in the brakes we heah what Jocelyn thinks of you. An’ Cherry Winters. An’ Uphill Frost.”

“I’m sorry to admit that some of my men ridicule me,” said Jim, feelingly. “Perhaps deserved, for I sure am a tenderfoot. But all the same the drift fence goes up and stays up, if it takes half a dozen Diamond outfits.”

Dunn poised his cigarette, arrested by a speech that evidently struck him.

“Traft, no drift fence will ever stay up in Cibeque County,” he returned, presently, with grim passion.

“That remains to be seen. Thanks for giving me a hunch. And now, since you’re neither polite nor agreeable, will you please mozey on out of my camp?”

Dunn’s face showed the darker for a wave of blood. His companion roughly seized him, nearly unseating him from the saddle. “Slinger, I shore ain’t waitin’ to be ordered out of no tenderfoot’s camp,” he said, gruffly, dragging at Dunn.

“You’re a little late,” put in Jim, with sarcasm. “My invitation included you. Now I say to both of you-get out!”

The instant Jim had delivered this contemptuous order he realized he had done something terrible. Not only Dunn’s aspect, but Jim’s men appeared to freeze. Jim had never seen such a blazing hell in human eyes as he encountered in Dunn’s.

Haverly reached down, and grasping the bit of Dunn’s horse wheeled it and the rider away. Dunn could be heard cursing his comrade and getting roundly cursed in return. They were watched out of sight into the woods.

Jim turned to his men. As he did so he observed Curly Prentiss move his right hand, containing a cocked gun, from behind his back. This revealed to Jim more of the nature of this encounter with the two riders from the Cibeque, but it in no wise mitigated his temper.

“I don’t think much of you men,” he said, with a ring in hi voice, “If I told my uncle about this he’d fire every last one you. You may be the great Diamond outfit, but to me you’re a I of four-Rushers. What the hell do I know about Slinger Dunn an his kind? Some of you might have chipped in and stood by me.

“Boss, I reckon we stood by you without you knowin’ it,” declared Curly Prentiss. “You were doin’ the talkin’. An’ if we’d chipped in there would have been gun-play.”

“Curly’s right, boss,” added Lonestar Holliday. “I don’t know if Dunn seen Curly slip his gun out. But I reckon he did, as he was shore civil for him. This Slinger Dunn has a bad rep. He’s killed several men an’ shot up more’n you could count.”

“Boss, I’ll chip in a word,” said Hack Jocelyn. “It shore was nervy of you to fire Dunn out of our camp. If you hadn’t been a tenderfoot you’d never have done it. You want to look out for Slinger Dunn.”

“Aw, I’m not afraid of him, even if he is a gun-slinger.” declared Jim, passionately. “How do I know it wasn’t another trick, hatched by some of you? You may think you’re having fun at my expense. Perhaps you are. But there ought to be a limit. You’re such awful liars I can’t believe one word you say.”

“Boss, are you callin’ us liars?” inquired Curly, in a queer tone.

“I reckon I am. Damn liars! You’re more. You’re a flock of swell-headed, cross-grained, cantankerous cowboys. Now put that in your cigarettes and smoke it!”

At least for once Jim silenced them. He had no idea of the magnitude of his offence and he did not care. He had been frightened, and if anger had not come to his rescue he would have betrayed it. That would be the finish. He had vowed he would never let any of this famed Diamond outfit see him scared. At that juncture Jeff called them to supper, but Jim stalked oil into the woods and walked under the dark pines. He recovered from his fit of temper, but not from the sense of disaster that had slowly accumulated. This task he had undertaken seemed well-nigh impossible. At length, gloomy and troubled, he stalked back to camp and to bed.

Next day the stretching of wire fence went on, and now with a remarkable celerity, compared with that done in the open country. The strands of wire were nailed upon trees, and seldom had a post-hole to be dug. Perhaps this had a cheering effect upon the members of the Diamond, but Jim regarded their attempts at approaching him, their sudden solicitude, their amazing amiability, with suspicion. He was right, too, for that night, when he opened his bed-roll be found the blankets soaked. Someone had poured a bucketful of cold spring water into one end of the roll. Jim pondered over this mean trick. Oh, he would get even, but what ought he do on the moment? He could strip a blanket off every one of his men and by so doing catch the guilty party. But he decided against that course of procedure. Instead he built a roaring fire, so hot that he almost roasted the boys alive before they could awake and move back in the woods. Such profanity! Jim had heard a little on the docks at St. Louis, but it could not hold a candle to this. He took half the night to dry his blankets, knowing, of course, that a huge fire would keep his men awake. Then he went to bed, and in the darkness before dawn he crawled out to yell words he had heard them often use:

“THE DAY’S BUSTED! ROLL OUT!”

That day and another passed. The camp was moved ten miles down in the woods, into a wide, pleasant draw where the creek ran, and wild turkeys gave Jim a thrill. The wagon had to go into Flagerstown for more wire, and the driver returned with a note from Traft, asking Jim why he had not been in to the ranch to report. Jim never answered it, nor did he ride in. Another week- end went by, including Sunday, when Jim was left in peace. He was nearing the end of his rope now. As the days passed and the drift fence lengthened, these incomprehensible cowboys of the Diamond outfit were driving Jim to distraction. They meant to break him. They were going to. No tenderfoot out of Missouri could ever run the Diamond! So Jim had overheard.

They were bewildering in the infinite variety of their attacks, and he was almost helpless because he knew so little of the West, and horses, and of the nature of cowboys. To him they seemed inhuman — cool, still-faced or smiling devils, hiding their sincerity, if they had any, possessed of a fiendish desire to nag him, worry him, inconvenience him, make him acknowledge defeat.

On Monday the wire-wagon went on ahead, along a line Jim had blazed on Sunday, and dropped its load, then went back to town for another, necessitating now a trip of three days.

Jim, driving the men hard that week, reached the end of the blazed line before the wagon returned. There was a wide, deep ravine that had to be crossed. The country was growing rougher.

“Boss,” said Bud, that morning, “there’s a lot of bales of wire been rolled down in the draw.”

The rest of the outfit whooped, but Jim could not tell whether it was front resentment or satisfaction.

“Who rolled them?” he roared.

“How’n’ll do I know?” retorted Bud.

“Another funny trick!” ejaculated Jim. And he walked on along the line to the ravine. There far down at the bottom he espied a dozen or more bales lying scattered about.

“Go down and pack them up,’ ordered Jim to his men, who bad followed him.

“Wha-at?”

“Up thet hill on foot?”

One and all they sat down in the shade, to begin rolling cigarettes. When Jim swore at them they smiled in the slow, cool way that always infuriated him.

“All right,” he fumed. “I’ll pack them up myself.”

He strode down the slope, which he found steeper and longer than it had appeared at first glance. Like a toy he handled a bale of wire. Jim was powerful. He could throw a sack of grain or a barrel up into a wagon. However, by the time he had packed that bale up the hill he knew what a heavy load was. He had bitten off more than he could chew. But with those intent eyes on him so watchfully, he could not quit. He went down again, and this time was careful to zigzag up the steep slope. It took him two hours of the most trying toil to finish the job. Then, hot as fire, wringing wet with sweat, he panted at the silent cowboys. “Now — if you’re rested — we’ll go on — with the fence.”

“Boss, we was just waitin’ to see how soon you’d think of gettin’ a pack- hors fer thet job,” observed Hump Stephens, amiably.

For Jim to realize how again, for the thousandth time, he had showed how utterly unfit he was to be foreman of the Diamond, did not improve his mood. He worked off the mood at length, as he invariably succeeded in doing, just as if he did not know another would soon be imposed upon him.

It was Curly Prentiss who discovered horse tracks along the line, and he showed them to Jim, no doubt in the interest of himself and companions.

“Fresh tracks, an’ unshod horses at thet.” he said. “Reckon we can lay it to some of the Cibeque outfit.”

“I’m sorry I accused you fellows.” he replied, regretfully. No matter what he did or said now, it was wrong.

Friday, at the lunch hour, Bud Chalfack approached Jim. “Boss, I’m talkin’ fer the outfit,” he announced. “We figger thet we’re aboot up on this week’s work, an’ we want this afternoon an’ tomorrow off.”

“What for?” queried Jim, in surprise.

“We want to ride in today. There’s a fair on in Flag, an’ tomorrow’s rodeo day. Most of us are entered.”

“But we can’t stop our fence-building to go to rodeos,” protested Jim.

“Shore we can. We-all cain’t see any hurry aboot the fence. An’ when the Fourth comes we’ll be ‘way down too far to ride in. So we want to have a chanct at this rodeo.”

Jim actually could not decide whether this was insubordination or the legitimate claim of a cowboy. He felt helpless. If he refused they would go, anyhow. If he gave his consent it might well be that they had him “buffaloed,” as Curly had been overheard to say.

“Very well, you go on your own hook,” he said to Bud.

They rode off, a gay and superb group of young riders who made his heart swell with pride and vet saddened it with the thought that he never could be received by them. Why had they not asked him to go with them? He would have been delighted. He had never seen a rodeo. But they did not want him; they were ashamed of their tenderfoot foreman.

After they had gone, Jim strode off toward the woods. He was astounded to hear Jeff Davis call.

“Boss, you oughtn’t go out alone. But if you must go, take a rifle.”

Jim did not answer, though he was grateful to Jeff. The cook, then, had perpetrated a hoax on the Diamond. He was not dumb. And it was a sure bet that neither was he slightly deaf, as he had claimed. He would be one on the cowboys, presently. Jim assured himself that he would not betray Jeff. He did not, however, take the latter’s advice, but went on into the forest alone and unarmed.

He was beginning to feel a strange solace or help or something in the deep solitude of the woodland. It was early summer now. The ferns and wild flowers were springing up along the brown aisles. His step made not the slightest noise. He saw squirrels and birds, and, once, gray vanishing forms that might have been deer. Huge cliffs festooned with moss and vines, from which dripped water, arrested him in his walk. There was a pleasant, low sough of wind in the tree-tops, if anything could have spurred his flagging spirits, the sweetness and loneliness of this forest would have done so. But he guessed he was about beaten. And that confession, gaining audible admission into his consciousness, could not be dislodged.

The afternoon passed, and he returned to camp, there to cat supper in silence, without appearing to remember that the cook bad spoken to him. He slept well, but in the morning the old bitterness and hopelessness assailed him again. An impulse to ride to town seized him, and straightway he acted upon it. He did not quite acknowledge to himself that this was a signal of defeat, but it would probably come out when he faced his uncle. He reached home about noon, to ascertain that his uncle was at the fair. Jim rode out there, and walked his horse. What a vacillating jackass he was! It would hurt Uncle Jim to find him a quitter. Ought he not to try again? Weary and distressed, he entered the fairground; and espying a gaily decorated booth advertising lunch, he dismounted and approached the counter. He gave an order to a girl behind. When he was about through he happened to look up to see a pair of gold-brown eyes upon him.

And they wrenched out of him the query, “What would you do if you were about licked?”

It was when the girl had finally said, “I’d get up an’ fight some more!” that Jim really looked at her with seeing eyes. If her spirited reply had stirred him, what more did the toss of her pretty dark head, with its glints of gold. She was a little girl, very young, and she wore a dainty blue dress. Still, there were contours under it that betrayed womanhood. She had a small, oval, almost dusky face. Her hands were small and brown, yet they struck him as strong and capable. She was Western, of course. but she was a little lady of quality. He kept talking, scarcely with any idea of what he was saying. And that suddenly betrayed to him a swift and remarkable interest in her. After that he knew what he was saying to her, and every word added to a realization of charm. By the time he had found out she did not have a best fellow he seemed far on a strange new adventure; and when he rode away toward the stands, with her shy half-promise of a dance that night, he changed his mind about his mission to Flagerstown. “I’d get up an’ fight some more!” She had looked it, too. What a sweet and fiery little girl! Evidently she had taken it for granted that he had been knocked down. Well, he had been. But he had gotten up. And he would act precisely and indomitably upon her advice. Fight! He would whip each and every one of that Diamond outfit.

He gave his horse to a boy at the stalls, and went round to the stand, where he soon found his uncle and was welcomed in a way that made him ashamed. It pleased his uncle that he had come to town in his work clothes.

The rodeo was on. And Jim sat enthralled. “The Diamond bunch will walk away with everythin’,” his uncle had averred, but even that startling prophecy had not prepared Jim.

He sat there gripping his seat, yelling when the crowd yelled. And he saw Curly Prentiss ride wild bronchos that threw all the other riders; he saw Hack Jocelyn break the record for roping two-year-olds: he saw Bud Chalfack climb all over a horse, racing at breakneck speed; he saw Jackson Way ride two beautiful horses, standing with one foot on the back of each, and beat his opponents two full lengths; and lastly he saw Lonestar Holliday win the money for the perilous feat of bulldogging steers.

Out of sixteen events the Diamond outfit took nine first prizes. Jim scarcely could contain himself. That was his band of cowboys. He might have hated them before today, but now he loved them. He gathered vaguely that something tremendous had happened to him.

He rode out to the ranch-house in a trance, divided between pride for his cowboys and the momentous dance near at hand. He shaved and washed and changed his clothes, aware of an undue regard for his appearance. His uncle had guests, to whom Jim was presented as the boss of the Diamond. Jim acquitted himself creditably and kept his miserable secret, strangely growths less miserable.

Then he was off to the dance, eager, with palpitating heart, amused at himself, amazed and glad. He now had opportunity to show some of these Flagerstown girls that if he was a tenderfoot he could interest and perhaps win a prettier girl than any of them. But he had not prepared himself for a vision in white — his girl of the booth — stunningly transformed by a gown, a brown- armed, brown-faced beauty with haunting dark eyes. She saw Jim at once. She bowed. And whatever had not already happened to his heart surely happened then.

Jim did not approach anyone; he saw only her. And he was in a torment waiting for her to give him the opportunity he longed for. If she did not he must go to her, and introducing himself ask for the dance. But she divined his predicament. How the dark eyes met his across the hall, through the whirling throng! Soon she sought a seat with her young partner, and obviously dismissed him. Jim made haste to reach her, to bend over her.

“My dance!” he whispered.

She rose, her face like pearl, her eyes downcast, and gave herself to his embrace.

CHAPTER NINE

IT WAS SUNDAY and Jim had returned to the Diamond camp, a bewildered and chastened young man. Except for Jeff, who was asleep under a tree, the camp was deserted. Jim went again into the deep shade and quiet of the forest. There out of chaos his thoughts got some semblance of control over his emotions and order in themselves.

All the other egregious tenderfoot blunders he had made could not in the aggregate sum up the magnitude of alienating Molly Dunn. He writhed under that. And always he would protest — who could have imagined that sweet, dainty girl sister to a desperado, a gun-thrower, a killer, a rustler of the very brakes it was Jim’s task to fence off from the range? Then, just as poignantly he would add — but what difference did it really make who was her brother and why bad he been so asinine as to distress and shame her with the connection?

He found excuse for himself for everything but that. It had struck him almost dumb at first to realize that he had lost his bead and seized her, hugged her atrociously, surely would have devoured her with kisses had she not brought him to his senses with a cutting blow across his mouth. That act, at once under the astounding dominance of her voluntary kiss — a strange, sweet little touch of cool lips — had lost its heinousness. In the light of the present hour, when it came to him that there had been genuine sincerity, the wild impetus of first love, be realized he had not much to be sorry for there. But she had not known that. How would she ever know? Not that knowing would change her! Her eyes haunted him. What a magnificent blaze! In them had been repeated the fire of Slinger Dunn’s.

Why had Molly Dunn kissed him? He recalled her pitiful little confession, and that hurt Jim more than anything else. She was not what he had thought her and she yearned to be. Jim stoutly fought against the fading and receding of something beautiful. The drea, the glory of new, vibrant emotion, had to pale before reality. Yet Jim could not renounce, nor could he resign himself to another bitter blow this West had given him. It was sudden, complicated and disastrous. But was it irremediable? A grain of comfort lay in the fact that he had time to think, to go over it, to puzzle it out, to find what had actually happened to him, to conceive who and what Molly Dunn was, and understand her reaction to their meeting.

Most vivid of the things he recalled was the bitter reproach in her big eyes. Why had she reproached him? Not because he had unwittingly intimated of a wide class distinction between Jim Traft and Molly Dunn. She knew she was Molly Dunn of the Cibeque. The reproach had come from a deep and terrible hurt. Jim divined suddenly that maybe she, too, had fallen in love at first sight. The ecstasy of that was short-lived. It could not be true. His own state for weeks had been one of excitement, strain, growing to morbidness. Then a swift change to romance and sentiment had thrown him off his balance. He sank as deep into the depths as he had been lifted to the skies. All of which seemed only to add to the mystery and fascination and fatality of Molly Dunn. He discovered himself vainly trying to do battle against her own estimate of herself. Just a little backwoods girl to whom a white gown had added charm! But he soon scouted that. Molly Dunn had innate charm.

Through the pine trees he saw some of the cowboys returning from Flagerstown and the considerable distance between them did not drown sounds of their hilarity. Jim plumped down under a pine, overcome by an entirely new and unforeseen probability. Some of the members of the Diamond had been at that dance last night. Beyond the bounds of hope and reason was it that they might not have seen him there with Molly Dunn. Those hawk-eyed cowboys could see through walls. They had an uncanny genius for finding out everything. But they needed only to know a little to drive Jim to distraction.

He lingered there in the woods, not actually afraid yet, but certainly loath to confront them. Molly Dunn’s terse statement that she would get up and fight some more, which he had appropriated as a slogan, in this vacillating hour lost its grip. What a pity if he could not be actuated by that spirit again! Perhaps it would revive, if he got sufficient cue for anger.

Long before the supper hour, which Jeff had early on Sunday, the cowboys rode into camp. So presently Jim felt the imperative necessity of showing himself, because longer absence would only aggravate any suspicions concerning him.

He dragged himself up and to the edge of the forest, only there bracing himself for the ordeal. Somebody saw him coming. Did they pursue their usual demeanour and pay no attention to him? They did not. To his horror they lined up on each side of the camp fire, and faced him like a lot of grim judges. Jim divined that whatever he had dreaded was about to be perpetrated. And some last shred of courage came to his aid as he ran the gauntlet of the merciless Diamond.

“Howdy, boys! Back early, I see.” he said cheerfully, if haltingly. “I changed my mind and went in to the rodeo yesterday. You sure gave me the treat of my life, I congratulate the outfit on so many prizes. You can bet I was proud of you.”

Not a murmur! He bent over to move a couple of billets on the newly started camp fire, solely to hide his face. Then he sauntered on toward the tree where he kept his pack and bed.

“Wal, boss, we heahed ya walked off with a prize yourself.” called Bud Chalfack. “Some little blue-ribbon boy from Mizzourie!”

That sally of Bud’s was greeted by uproarious mirth. Like a giant hand it pulled Jim round. His cowboys presented a group of nine young men in varying stages of convulsions. The devil himself emanated from them. Jim choked back a sharp retort. Then Cherry Winters, still quite drunk, staggered over to Jim, his red face a whole grin of impish delight, and he essayed to deliver what must have been intended for an important speech. But its manner of delivery and inchoherence spurred Jim to a blunt “Get out!” and a hard shove. Cherry kept on staggering, this time backward, and he kept on until he met with an obstacle in shape of Jeff’s woodpile. He fell on this, toppled it over upon him, and he did not arise. The gang whooped. They had all been drinking, and Bud looked pretty wobbly on his feet.

“Tenderfoot hell!” he bawled. “You got us — skinned to frazzle.”

“Thanks, Bud, but I don’t quite savvy,” returned Jim.

“Boss, I shore — ben savin’ somethin’ up,” raved Bud, beside himself with maudlin emotion. “Th’ outfit’s all heahed aboot you last night. But I seen you.”

“Well, anybody not blind could have done that,” snapped Jim, trying to pierce the secret intensity of Bud’s rapture.

“But I ben — savin’ it up.” crowed Bud, slapping his knees with his hands.

“You better keep saving it,” warned Jim.

“Aw, boss, I couldn’t think of thet. It’s too orful good. I gotta tell the Diamond aboot it.”

If Jim had any dignity left it was that of the gathering might of fury. What did the little fool know? Jim resisted a fierce impulse to slap the gaping mouth. The cowboys clamoured to hear. They sensed the long-hoped-for corralling of their tenderfoot foreman. Jim grimly gazed from face to face. Most of them were only in fun, and Bud was drunk. Curly, too, appeared a little under the influence of the bottle. But Hack Jocelyn was keen, cold, leering. Jim did not miss anything.

“Boss, I seen you on the porch,” shouted Bud, triumphantly. Jim gasped at that revelation. Oh, misery! How exceedingly worse than he had dreaded!

“Fellars, I seen our fastidinous boss from Mizzourie.” went on Bud, swelling with his denouement. “I seen him huggin’ thet little hussy — Molly Dunn!”

Before Jim realized what he was doing he had leaped at Bud, to knock him over the pack-saddles. The blow had been solid, and at least for the moment another of the Diamond was down and out.

Curly Prentiss jumped out from the circle, slamming his sombrero down with a smack.

“You two-faced Mizzourie gent!” he yelled. “Bud’s my pard. I’m shore gonna lick you for thet.”

“Bah! You bow-legged cowpuncher!” blazed Jim. “If you can’t fight any better than you dance — you’ll never lick me.” That hurt Curly more than the blow to his friend. He threw his scarf one way, his vest another, his gun-belt at Jackson Way, and he almost sprawled on the ground ridding himself of chaps and spurs.

The delay gave Jim time to collect his wits. But even that and some semblance of coolness did not mitigate his welcome of a battle with any or all of this confounded Diamond outfit. The incentive he needed had been miraculously forthcoming.

Curly gave a capital imitation of a bull about to charge, when he was detained by Uphill Frost.

“Hold on a minnit,” yelled that individual, impressively. “Don’t corral me. I’m gonna pulverize this gurl-huggin’ foreman,” replied Curly, swinging his arms.

“Shore, an’ my money’s on you. Curly, old buckaroo,” said Frost, holding up a hand stuffed with greenbacks of small denominations.

There was a noisy scramble then among the cowboys to get money up on Curly. But it developed that not a single backer of Jim came forward. If Jim had not been so wretched about Molly and so furious at these pig-headed cowboys he would have howled with mirth.

“Ill take every bet,” he declared.

“Whoopee!” yelled somebody, with an eye to fortune. “Give any odds, boss?”

“Two to one,” answered Jim. “But hurry. I want to get this over and have my supper.”

“Atta boy, Curly!”

“Larrup him unmerciful!”

“You’re flghtin’ fer the Diamond!”

When Curly came lumbering in Jim stepped aside and hit him in the ribs. The blow gave forth a hollow sound. Curly whirled around and plunged, swinging. He delivered wide, sweeping blows that, if any of them had connected with Jim, would have fulfilled the hopes of the yelling Diamond. But they expended their strength on the empty air. In a couple of moments Jim became aware that Curly could not hit him. The cowboy was a wonder in a saddle, but on the ground he was lost. He got his feet tangled up and he appeared the farthest remove from nimble. After hitting Curly a few times here and there Jim discovered a vulnerable spot in Curly’s big handsome nose. Wherefore Jim began to concentrate on that. He whacked it with his left. Soon the blood began to flow and with it Curly’s wild exuberance. But this did not improve his fighting. Then Jim landed his right and that upset Curly. He sat down quite suddenly. This also upset Curly’s backers.

“Git up, you big cheese!” yelled Hack Jocelyn, and he did not mean to be funny. “Our money’s on you.”

Curly responded to that trenchant call. And now to his amazement was added fury. In the ensuing few moments he showed that his spirit was willing but his flesh weak. The blows he landed upon Jim were inconsequential. On the other hand Jim gave him a severe drubbing. After the third knock-down Curly merely sat up. It chanced that this time he was near Bud, who was also sitting up.

“My Gawd! pard, hey we come to this?” cried Bud, evidently sober enough to realize. “What’d he hit me with?”

“I reckon it was a hoss-shoe,” said Curly, feeling his swollen and bloody nose.

Jim stepped closer and peered down at Curly.

“Well, Prentiss, have you got enough?” he asked, fiercely. Curly looked up without the least trace of resentment and nodded.

“Boss, I cain’t say how it come aboot, but I’m shore licked,” he said, and he grinned.

“Did I pick this fight?” went on Jim, quick to grasp the situation.

“You shore didn’t.”

“All right. Are you going to threaten me with that damn nonsense about gun-play or are you going to shake hands?”

Curly laboriously got to his feet. Something had pierced the armour of his stupidity.

“I reckon I’ll shake,” he rejoined, and he took Jim’s proffered hand.

“Aw, you’re drunk,” growled Hack Jocelyn, in disgust, with a hard eye on Curly. “An’ we had our money on you!” With that he strode surlily away.

Bud Chalfack essayed to rise, a task no means easy, owing to the billets of wood that surrounded his feet.

“Bud, you better stay there, because if you get up I’ll only have to knock you down again,” said Jim, menacingly. “But I wasn’t fightin’ you. Thet was Curly,” protested Bud. “No matter. You’re a little skunk, and I’ll have to do it, unless you have another pard who’ll take it for you.”

“Ahuh.” Bud looked around, and it was evident that at the moment not one of the cowboys seemed eager to take Jim’s hint. “Boss, so you’re one of them fellars thet’s never satisfied once he gets a-goin’?”

“I’m afraid I am.”

“But you’re bigger’n me an’ I didn’t do nothin’ except give you away. An’ if you hadn’t soaked me I’d hey told the fellars—”

“If you tell any more 111 beat you into jelly. And do that anyhow unless you apologize.”

“Aw! Fer callin’ Molly Dunn a little hussy?”

Jim looked a grim affirmative.

“All right, boss. I crawl. But I didn’t mean any insult.”

“You didn’t? Say, you little dumb-head! Didn’t you lie when you said you saw me hug her?”

“Boss, I think I was sober then,” replied Bud, gravely. “I seen you hug her. You lifted her clean off the floor. She whacked you one — an’ when you let her down, she went fer you sudden-like an’ kissed you.”

Jim faced the silent, puzzled cowboys. He had extracted all the humour for them from the situation, and he believed for once he had the upper hand.

“Boys, Bud was drunk last night. He has heaped disgrace on me and insulted a fine little girl.”

Bud took violent exception to this, as was manifest from his face and actions, without the speech that followed.

“Boss, it ain’t no disgrace to hug a gurl in Arizonie. An’ if it happened to be Molly Dunn you’d shore make this outfit proud. ‘Cause Molly Dunn has handed the mitt to me an’ Lonestar. An’ she shore set Hack Jocelyn down cold an’ hard. Hack is plumb crazy over her.”

“But you called her hussy!” thundered Jim, trying to hide his rapture.

“But, boss, I didn’t mean thet in no insultin’ way,” protested

Bud. “Molly’s a little wildcat. She’s a devil. She has shore made this Diamond outfit sick. Why, me an’ Lonestar was flirtin’ with her down at West Fork, an’ we never knowed she was Slinger Dunn’s sister!...Boss, I take thet hussy back.”

“Very well, in that case I’m sorry I misunderstood you,” said Jim, and offered his hand to Bud.

Jeff’s noisy banging call to supper ended the incident. Jim imagined an almost imperceptible transformation in the air of the cowboys, except in Jocelyn and Winters, who were surly and uncommunicative.

Jim sought his bed early. There was no singing round the camp fire that night. Scarcely had darkness set in when the fire flickered and went out. The coyotes had uninterrupted possession of the silence. But Jim did not find slumber coming easily. He believed he had stumbled on a way to get the best of the Diamond outfit. He was not sure that his hope was not father to the conviction, but the more he pondered over his achievement the more elated he became. These simple elemental boys respected only achievement. They did not really in the least care who a man was. It was what he could do! And Jim believed he could whip every last one of them. Hack Jocelyn would be a mean customer. Jim had liked Hack less and less all the time, and Bud’s allusion to Hack’s interest in Molly Dunn aggravated the feeling. Jocelyn would be dangerous in a fight and not to be trusted in relation to a woman. Jim could have laughed aloud at this deduction. Already he seemed to be anticipating rivals! But so far as Molly Dunn was concerned he certainly could not trust himself.

Jim reflected. It had amazed him — the ease with which he had bested Curly, and he tried to reason out why. Curly was a big, lithe, strong fellow, who ought to have put up a very aggressive battle. But he had been born on a horse and had lived in a saddle. On the ground he did not know what to do with himself. Slow, awkward, uncertain, he had been at Jim’s mercy. Whereupon Jim took stock of himself. He weighed around one hundred and seventy. He had a long reach, a fist like a mallet; he was quick as a cat and fast on his feet. Only a couple of years back he had been pretty clever with his hands. And this had come about naturally enough. When he was about fourteen years old he was friends with a boy who had a cousin come visiting from the East. And this cousin taught Jim and his friend something of the manly art of self-defence.

It began to look as if Jim had another asset which he had not counted on at all. The fence-building on a Missouri farm had been the first; now the second was this playful and friendly boxing habit. These cowboys had long since given him reason to resort to violence. But Jim knew he had been backward and perhaps afraid. From some source had come the courage of a lion. He chuckled to himself No fear that these cowboys would haul in! By their very nature — their pugnacity and curiosity — they must grow worse. Each and every one of them would feel it his bounden duty to wipe up the camp-ground with the tenderfoot foreman of the Diamond. Jim revelled in a situation that a few days back had been well- nigh intolerable. No wonder they had been a pondering lot of young men! A gleam of light they refused to see had begun to penetrate their craniums.

But as for Molly Dunn! When Jim let clamouring thoughts of her dominate his consciousness his exultant glee died and his heart sank like lead in his breast. So some of these tough cowboys knew her! Had dared to approach her! The idea made Jim’s blood run hot and cold. Still, Molly could not have helped that if these cowboys had discovered where she lived or any place she frequented. West Fork! He had not heard of that place. But he would very soon see it for himself. Stone walls could not keep these riders of the Diamond out. How much less then could a girl do it? Molly had spunk, though, Jim thought. It was no use to let pride and distrust have sway over him. As he lay there, his face upward to the dark canopy of pines, through which starlight filtered, he realized he was infatuated. That was as far as he grasped truth. Molly was an enigma, but only that because of the allusions of Bud Chalfack. That confounded cowboy had been witness to the scene on the porch in Flagerstown. He had seen Molly’s incredible response to Jim’s embrace. Jim felt it as a sacrilege. How could he dream and ponder over something that had been profaned by the keen eyes of a vulgar cowboy? Jim writhed over this aspect of the situation. Then when Jim was abject a staggering thought struck him. Bud Chalfack had lied about the interpretation of the word hussy. Bud was a smooth-tongued, crafty cowboy. Jim had observed a hundred instances of his diplomacy with his comrades. He was the brainiest of the lot.

The thought of Bud’s trenchant remark was sickening. If these cowboys actually knew Molly Dunn, if they had ever been in her willing presence — especially that hard-lipped, veiled-eyed Jocelyn — it would be for Jim no less than a calamity. Because he would have at once to turn his back on romance. Then suddenly he recalled Molly’s shy swift kiss — timid if there had ever been a timid kiss — and later her sharp retort that he had been the first ever to have that from her, and loyalty and love leaped to her defence. There, then, the battle raged in Jim’s mind — between uncertainty and gossip, between romance and realism, between faith and unfaith.

CHAPTER TEN

MOLLY DUNN FILLED the bucket at the spring and set it down.

She had been home from Flagerstown ten days — two weeks — exactly fifteen days, and they seemed years. All had changed. Her very identity was not the same. If she had ever had any capacity for happiness, it had fled.

She looked at the old wooden bucket. She had carried it as long as she could remember, and that was as far back as when she had been so little she could scarcely lift it. And the spring — all her life she remembered that. Once it had been an unfailing source of wonder and gladness. It was the biggest and finest spring of granite water of all the springs in the Cibeque Valley. It roared out from under a mossy cliff at the head of a shady glen, as large as a room and as deep as a well. Molly could see the pink-sided trout lying along the rocky sides; she could see the golden gleams deep down where the bubbles sparkled out of the shadow. Maple Spring was deep enough to drown her, and Molly wished she had the courage to fall in and sink. But she had accidentally fallen in there often, and she could swim like a fish. It would be of no use.

The glen, too, had been one of her perennial joys. The spring lent music and movement as it boiled and eddied round the great hole and then burst over a little fall to begin its melodious way down the winding gully. Many rocks and drooping ferns lined the banks; maples and sycamores leaned over the amber water, letting only gleams of sunshine through; huge pines and spruces rose from the bank above to tower high. Above the spring on a level bench were grass and flowers, and clean, flat, gray stones where Molly had played alone all her childhood and dreamed hours of her girlhood. It had been a hiding-place, too, for it was isolated and not close to the cabin or trail. The squirrels and jays shared this secret with Molly. Only in the fall when the wild turkeys came down, and the hunters followed, were the sanctity and sweetness of this glen disrupted.

But Molly gazed about with eyes hopelessly disillusioned or else blinded by the trouble that had come to her. All because of the wonderful ride to Flagerstown — a white gown, a dance — and Him! Molly felt she could never be again what she had been before that visit. She would be what he had mistaken her for or she would die.

Every day since her return home had seen a struggle. At first she had been hot and resentful in her humiliation. She had hated Jim Traft. She would be a worthy sister to Slinger Dunn. She would carry on so boldly with the riders that her name would become a byword on the range for — for — Molly did not know what, but she would find out. She would encourage that nice little cowboy of the Diamond — Bud Chalfack, whose name she had never known until the night of the dance. And she would flirt outrageously with Curly Prentiss. Indeed, she would no longer repel the advances of Hack Jocelyn, though she disliked and feared him. She would show Jim Traft that she could win his vain and stuck-up cowboys and cast them aside, for Seth Haverly and even for Andy Stoneham.

But opportunities for such conduct had multiplied and she had not availed herself of them. Seth had been often at her home, with her brother Arch, but she knew why he came. And always Andy waylaid her when she went on errands down to the village. On Sunday she had espied Hack Jocelyn riding up the trail from West Fork, and she had dodged into the brush.

She resented her vacillation and was long in understanding. But as the days went by she had finally realized that she was terribly, miserably in love. Her amaze and scorn, her fury and contempt, her pride and her shame, her wretched attempts to sink under this malady and make of herself what Jim Traft must think her — all were of no avail and only added to her burden.

Lately Molly had begun to soften toward Jim, and that had been the forerunner of dreams and remembrances and longings. Once she had surrendered to this sweet fancy she was doomed. Before she knew it she could no longer fight herself or the thought of. Jim. So that a few lonely afternoons in the glen, a few nights lying wide awake in the dark loft of the cabin, had been her undoing. The shame of it made her more furious than ever, but she was helpless. In the daylight she had some semblance of character. At least she could throw off yearnings and what she deemed idiotic enchantments, but at night she became a weak girl, with aching heart and mad tumultuous emotions.

Each morning for a week when she had come to the spring for water she had set the bucket down, to indulge in pondering, brooding thoughts. This morning they prevailed longer than usual.

But at length she picked up the heavy bucket and took the trail home. She left the glen behind, and perhaps the most bearable of her thoughts.

The trail led to the clearing, to the forty acres of hideous slash in the forest that Dunn had homesteaded twenty years before. The rest of the hundred and sixty acres consisted of timber land. Dunn had never “proved up” on his claim, and therefore had no patent for it.

Arch Dunn ploughed the red field and planted the beans and corn and sorghum and potatoes. He had spells when he stayed home and worked about the farm. But the last year or two he had left the harvesting of the crop to Molly and her mother.

As Molly passed along the trail, under the cedars and piñons and an occasional pine, she gazed out at the red furrows, now green-ridged with beans and corn; she saw that she would soon have to get in there with a hoe. It had never occurred to her before, but she certainly hated that beanfield. Here and there stood dead pines and cedars that had been “ringed” by an axe and left standing to become bleached and ghastly; and everywhere black stumps stuck up, surrounded by a patch of weeds. Farmers in the Cibeque let the stumps rot out.

The cabin, at the end of the clearing, fitted the scene. It consisted of two one-room log buildings, with a porch between, and one rough-shingled roof over all. The shingles were moss-green in places and the logs were bleached. In the chinks between, sections of clay had broken out. The fences were down, the sheds built of uneven clapboards.

Altogether Molly saw the homestead with gloomier eyes than ever. Yet it could boast of the finest view in all the Cibeque. To north and east the vast gray-cuffed and canyon-notched wall of the Diamond towered, a mountain face of a thousand features and never the same any two hours of the day. Southward opened up the valley of the Cibeque, all its whole length from this high prospect. But its endless promontories, and long ridges running down, its red walls and gray crags, its winding bright ribbon of water through the green valley, and in the far distance the dim blue ranges, had little charm to intrigue Molly Dunn this unhappy day.

She carried the bucket into the kitchen end of the cabin — a dark room, only in winter a place of comfort.

“You’ve been gone long enough to dig a well,” remarked her mother, with sarcasm. Mrs. Dunn was still young and good-looking enough to be jealous of Molly. She had come from a station considerably above John Dunn’s, and she was a bitter, unhappy woman. Since Molly had grown old enough to attract the attention of men, what accord that had existed between mother and daughter had gradually been broken.

“That bucket is heavy an’ it’s a long ways,” replied Molly. “You used to fetch it in a jiffy. You met some cowboy on the trail.”

“No. It’s funny, but I didn’t this mawnin’.”

“Well, you must have fallen in the spring, then.”

“Wisht I had,” returned Molly flippantly. She went out and across the porch. Her father had got up and was slouching in his crippled way to the big blanketed chair where he passed his wakeful hours. Of late Molly had seemed to see him differently, with pity and tolerance. These feelings, too, applied to her mother. Dunn was not an old man in years, but he was in all else. His dark hair, shading gray, hung down over his knotted pale brow. He was a broken man, living in the past, ruined by some secret association with an infamous war between sheepmen and cattlemen, and devoured by passions that had outlived his enemies. Molly had affection for her father, despite the impatience and disgust which grew with the years. And of late, since her own trouble, she had begun to have some little understanding of her mother — of what it must have meant to be faithful to Dunn all these years. There flashed over Molly a consciousness that she could follow Jim Traft to the end of the world and slave her fingers to the bone for him. Then she laughed at her imbecility. For her to aspire to be the wife of Mr. James Traft, gentleman tenderfoot from Missouri, and the sole heir to old Jim Traft’s land and stock — that was rather far-fetched and ridiculous. Besides, she did not do anything of the kind. But she could not control vagrant and perverse thoughts. Here flashed another. This same Jim Traft had importuned her to let him be her best fellow. How pale and earnest he had looked! It was impossible to repudiate his sincerity. To be his sweetheart! Molly had a stronger, sweeter, more suffocating rush of emotion. What would become of her if this thing grew? She must throw herself at Andy or Seth, or both of them, and kill this affliction. But could those louts kill it? Molly divined they could not kill anything except her self-respect. And that, strangely, had become a pronounced thing. She would now have it to contend with. Her pride — her vanity! All because she had been hugged by a handsome young fellow from Missouri! Molly let out a peal of ringing laughter that made even her father take notice.

“Lass, you’ve been queer since you come back from Flag,” he remarked, in his quavering voice.

“I feel queer, dad,” she replied. “I waked up from my backwoods sleep.”

“Backwoods! You mean this heah homestead?”

“Never mind what I meant, dad.”

He could not understand, and if she confessed the truth to her mother it would only add fuel to that strange animosity which had developed between them.

Molly plunged into one of her working spells. It could never have been said of her, at any time, that she was lazy, but she took streaks in which she was busy from dawn to sundown. Small as she was, Molly had strength and endurance. Her little tanned hands were pretty to look at, on the back; her palms, however, and the insides of her fingers were hard and cut and calloused. They occasioned Molly pangs of regret, though she had never felt ashamed of the labour that had coarsened them. It was just that the vanity inborn in her rebelled. She was vain of her little feet and trim ankles; and that was why she never went barefoot and barelegged any more. She would brush her hair until it crackled and shone gold glints in its dusky splendour. But she could work like a beaver, and she did this day, preoccupied and sad most of the time, yet cheerful during intervals.

Toward sunset, while Molly was at the wood-pile — one of her many accomplishments being skill with an axe — her brother approached. This was an unprecedented action for him. Years before she and Arch had been like sister and brother, playmates, but that seemed long before he had taken to evil ways of the woods and had earned the sobriquet of Slinger Dunn.

“Molly, cain’t you leave a little work around heah for me?” he complained.

She dropped the faggot she had picked up, and she stared at him. What a handsome, shiftless, backwoods beggar! He had the build of an Indian. Horses had not warped his legs nor broken any bones. His soiled buckskin garments somehow suited him. For some amazing reason he had shaved the golden down from chin and lips, and his dark, lean face shone clean and smooth. Arch’s eyes usually lost their piercing quality when they beheld Molly. Just now they were bearable.

“Arch, you shore ain’t drunk,” she said, thoughtfully regarding him.

“No. An’ I ain’t sick, nuther,” he replied. “Never you mind aboot me. But cain’t I be civil without you gettin’ sassy?”

“Shore I hope so. An’ now I know somethin’ ails you, Arch.”

“Set down. A fellar cain’t talk in there,” he said, jerking a sinewy brown hand toward the cabin. “Dad is out of his haid. An’ mother — wal, poor mother raves if you so much as open your mouth.”

“Poor mother? Yes, an’ poor dad, too...Arch, you said a lot.”

“Molly, what chanct have we ever had to help make them different?” he queried, swallowing hard. “I never had no schoolin’ at all. An’ you — only a couple of years. What do we know?...An’ before I was sixteen I was Slinger Dunn!”

Molly was so amazed she could not keep track of flying thoughts. One held, however, and it was that if awakening consciousness of heretofore vague things could come to her it surely was possible for them to come to Arch. “Arch, is it too late?” she whispered.

“Hell! yes, for me. But for you, Molly — wal, mebbe it’s not. I hope to Gawd it ain’t.”

“Arch, if you want to know, I’m as down in the mouth as you,” said Molly.

“You have been queer lately, since you come home...Mol, did anythin’ happen at Flag?”

“A whole lot.”

“Your feelin’s get hurt?”

Molly gave a solemn little nod.

“Wal, tell me aboot it,” he went on, with that wonderful flash of eyes.

Molly laughed. “So you can shoot somebody up? — No, Arch, you cain’t ever help me that way.”

“Is thet so? Wal, you never know. But all the same, tell me.”

“Arch, it was awful for me,” she replied, unable to resist sympathy. “Mrs. See took me, as you know. She was lovely. Bought me clothes — an’ oh! such a beautiful dress. All white — what there was of it! Arch, I actually felt naked. She has fine friends in Flag. She introduced me. I was asked to help in a booth at the fair...Well it’s like a dream now. A dream you cain’t believe. I- -I was the belle at that dance, Arch. Can you believe it? I was crazy with joy — at bein’ taken for a — a lady. I must have looked one, Arch...Then somethin’ happened an’ my heart broke.”

“They found you out, Mol?” he queried, shrewdly. “Thet you lived down in the brakes? Thet your dad was John Dunn? An’ your brother Slinger Dunn of the Cibeque?”

“Yes, Arch, I was found out,” she replied. “But I didn’t go back on you.”

“Shore you’d never do thet,” he said, sombrely, “You oughtn’t to have gone to Flag!”

“Must I stick here buried in the backwoods all my life?” she asked, passionately.

“Molly, thet stumps me. I reckon I’d have said yes a while back. But if you was made much of in Flag — if you was took for a lady, why, there’s somethin’ turrible wrong!”

“There is, Arch. That’s the trouble.”

“An’ it’s with dad an’ me? An’ with mother, too, cause she’s stuck to him.”

“Arch, I am a Dunn, too.”

“Mol, I come out heah to ask you a fool question. I see thet now. But I promised Seth an’ I’ll keep it. He wants to know if you’ll marry him?”

“Seth Haverly? Heavens! — No!” she cried, aghast.

“I reckoned you liked Seth.”

“Perhaps I did, once, a little.”

“Wal, marryin’ Seth wouldn’t help none. Now you make me think, Molly, I’d be ag’in’ thet. But you needn’t never tell him...Andy Stoneham is a decent fellar, though. An’, Mol, he’s turrible sweet on you.”

“That tobacco-chewin’ lout!” exclaimed Molly.

“Who you gonna marry, then — to git you out of this heah hole?”

“No one, Arch. You see that marryin’ one of these Cibeque boys would only nail me heah...An’ the — the kind of a boy I — I — who could save me — wouldn’t have me.”

“He’d be a damn poor sort, then,” flashed Arch, with passion.

“If I was sich a fellar as you mean, I could swaller a lot for you, Molly. Don’t fool yourself. You’re good enough for any fellar.”

His earnestness, his sincerity, touched Molly. She went to the woodpile and sat down beside him, meaning to thank him, to yield to this surprising sympathy in him, but all she did was to burst into tears.

“Wal, don’t cry,” he said, almost roughly. “Molly, I heah this Diamond cowboy, Hack Jocelyn, was seen in West Fork last Sunday.”

“Yes. I saw him, myself, an’ I shore ducked into the brush.”

“Ahuh. Wal, thet lets you out, if you’re not lyin’.”

Molly dried her useless tears and presently faced him. “Arch, I used to lie to you, about the boys an’ everythin’. But I wouldn’t no more.”

“Reckon Jocelyn hasn’t rid down heah so often the last year for nothin’. Molly, is it you?”

“Yes, Arch, it’s me.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“I did at first. But not now. He’s older. He’s daid in earnest.”

“Humph! You mean aboot you? In love with you? Wants to marry you, same as Seth?”

“Arch, he’s in love, all right, but he never said nothin’ about marryin’ me. An’ of course I wouldn’t have him if he had.”

“Wal, I should smile not!” ejaculated Arch. “Marry one of thet Diamond outfit? My Gawd!...But at thet they’re some pretty decent boys compared to Jocelyn...Mol, he an’ me are aboot ready to meet up.”

“Arch, you can’t help me by killin’ any more fellars,” cried Molly, shocked at the significance of his words. “That’s one thing against me — your bloody record. An’, Arch, if you keep on — if you should happen to kill one of that Diamond outfit — well, I’ll just go to the bad!”

He took that darkly, without a protest, as if consciousness was being driven home to a man inevitably lost.

“Wal, I reckon I want to tell you suthin’,” he spoke up. “All this talk aboot marryin’...I up an’ asked Lil Haverly to marry me.”

“Arch! You did? Lil Haverly — that-that—”

“Never mind what. Anyway, I did, an’ I told her I’d turn over a new leaf an’ go to ranchin’ if she’d have me. An’ she laughed in my face!...She’d let me be sweet on her, too, Molly, an’ thet fooled me.”

“She’s no good!” retorted Molly, fiercely, suddenly and astoundingly conscious of her brother’s pain.

“Wal, not much, mebbe. Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” he replied, sitting up. “Come. I’ll help you pack in this wood.”

Molly slaved and brooded the days away. She could make life bearable by getting so tired during the day that sleep made short shift of the long, dark, silent nights. On Sunday she accepted the calls of Andy Stoneham and other village boys. Her wild intention to flirt viciously, to play fast and loose with them, seemed an utter impossibility once they were in her presence. One Sunday afternoon, while walking the trail with Andy from the cabin to the creek, he took her hand in his, as had been his wont in the past — a preliminary to his by no means timid love-making. Molly let her hand lie passively in his a moment, which encouraged Andy to squeeze it. She wondered about this. She had absolutely no interest whatever in the action, except as something further to study about herself. Coming to the shade of a piñon tree, Andy gave her a little pull, accompanying the move by one of his speeches. Molly freed herself.

“Andy, don’t do that again,” she said, quietly, with a glance, and walked on.

Presently he caught up with her, and falling into step with her went on beside her for a goodly distance, without speaking. It was some time after this incident that Molly realized he had never attempted another liberty with her.

The other boys, however, were hopeless in this regard, and the only way Molly could circumvent them was to entertain them on the porch. Two of these Sunday afternoons were rendered exciting by the fact of cowboys from the Diamond riding up and down the trail. Hack Jocelyn was one of them on both occasions. The other cowboys Molly did not know, though she had certainly seen the youngest one, frank-faced, and as rosy as a girl.

“Molly,” said Andy, on the second of these visits, “you know thet cowboy Jocelyn belongs to the Diamond?”

“Shore I know,” replied Molly. “Is that a crime?”

“Wal, reckon ’tis, leastways since thet outfit’s been buildin’ the drift fence...Jocelyn has an eye fer you, gurl.”

“He’s very handsome an’ attractive. ‘Most all the Diamond boys are.”

“Ahuh. Why doesn’t Jocelyn brace in hyar, then?”

“He aims to catch me alone, Andy. An’ it’s just as well you’re heah.”

“Much obliged. Glad I’m good fer suthin’,” replied Andy, with sour humour. “But jokin’ out of it, this fellar Jocelyn is up to tricks. Last night I seen him in Mace’s saloon. He had money an’ was spendin’ it. Sort of stumped me to see Seth Haverly drinkin’ with him.”

“No, Andy!” exclaimed Molly, aroused.

“Wal, I jest did. Honest Injun. An’ you ain’t the only one surprised.”

“Was Arch there?”

“Reckon not. Arch hasn’t been around lately. Now what’s he a-goin’ to say to thet?”

“Say! He won’t say anythin’. But he’s liable to do somethin’. Seth an’ Arch are like brothers.”

“Molly, around hyar Arch is considered a dangerous fellar, but one you can trust. Seth ain’t so dangerous, they say, but he cain’t be trusted. Now we know thet Arch an’ Seth, the other Haverlys, an’ Hart Merriwell, an’ Boyd Flick, an’ some others make up the Cibeque outfit. One or more of them, on an’ off, rode fer the Coffee Pot, the Hash Knife, the Bar 0 an’ other outfits in the valley. But so far as I know not one of them is ridin’ fer any outfit now — except their own.”

Molly echoed his last words and she caught the significance of his lowered voice and roving look around.

“It jest strikes me funny thet Jocelyn of the Diamond seems to me makin’ up to Seth Haverly of the Cibeque. How does it strike you, Molly?”

“Not funny, you can bet,” replied Molly, with a short laugh. “Andy, there’s somethin’ in the wind. I’m thankin’ you for givin’ me a hunch. Arch is strange an’ sore lately. He’s that touchy aboot the Diamond boys an’ their work I cain’t get a word out of him.”

“Ahuh. Wal, Molly, you can shore get them out of me,” rejoined Andy, solidly, as one who had hit upon a happy medium. “I heard folks talk aboot Jocelyn. An’ I’ll tell you what. If he keeps on ridin’ down to West Fork it’s gonna be plumb bad fer him.”

“Oh — Andy!” faltered Molly.

“Slinger will kill him,” whispered Andy. “My own idee is thet Slinger might stand fer Jocelyn gettin’ thick with Seth an’ his outfit, fer after all this brother of yours is a lone timber wolf. But he’ll never stand fer Jocelyn runnin’ after you.”

“Andy, I know he won’t,” whispered Molly. “But I’ve told Arch about it.”

“Molly, air you shore you aint interested in Jocelyn atall?”

“Yes, I’m shore. I was at first. Like a ground squirrel with a snake! But now — Jimmy, I’ll run like a scared rabbit.”

“Thet’s good if it’s true. Will Slinger believe you? Molly, excuse me, but thar’s folks who say you’re meetin’ Jocelyn on the sly, along the trail somewheres.”

Again Molly suffered a hint of her status in West Fork. She passed by Andy’s covert suspicion. What could he know of a girl’s honesty? But she told him rather forcibly that at least her brother trusted and believed her.

“Ahuh. Wal, I’m glad. You know what a place West Fork is fer talk. Wuss’n a beehive. An’ the drift fence has shore stirred up hell. Molly, do you know thet son-of-a-gun tenderfoot Traft is ‘most clear to the brakes with his damned fence?”

“I — I hadn’t heahed,” replied Molly, thrilling.

“Wal, he is. ‘Most clear on the Diamond!’ Ole Enoch Summers says, ‘Tenderfoot hell! Thet boy is Jim Traft over again, an’ you two-bit calf- chasers hey gotta look out.’”

“Did Mr. Summers — say that?” gasped Molly.

“He shore did, an’ to a whole storeful of fellars.”

From that hour Molly was kinder to Andy. She relied upon him to fetch her news — the facts as well as gossip. And Andy, evidently sensing some change in her, accepted the part gratefully. Molly went to one of the Saturday night dances with him. It was an ordeal. She was made much of, though some of the boys were rude, and some of the girls catty with their remarks. Where was the grand white dress with which Molly Dunn had killed off the Diamond outfit, including young Mr. James Traft? Molly did not stay long, especially after she had espied Hack Jocelyn enter the hall. She was quick enough, and Andy helped her, to get out before Jocelyn saw her.

“Take me home, Andy,” she said, nervously holding his arm.

“Wal, it’s a huggin’-bee inside an’ a fightin’-bee outside.” replied

Andy, sardonically. “West Fork as she is an’ always will be, I reckon.”

Saturday night at West Fork always had been exciting, and Molly could count on her fingers the times she had seen it. But no longer was it diverting. There were groups of men and boys outside, noisy and rough. Sounds of hilarity came from the saloons. Indians passed her with soft tread. She heard the jingle of spurs on all sides. Shadows passed in front of the dimly lighted windows. The air was cool and sweet after the smoky hall. The dark bulk of the Diamond promontory stood up against the star-studded skyline. Molly was glad to turn off the street into the lane, and she held Andy’s arm tighter.

“Molly, I ain’t had a chanct like this in a coon’s age,” said Andy, as if stolidly realizing the opportunity.

“Andy, I’m afraid of Hack Jocelyn,” replied Molly, simply. “I cain’t be your sweetheart. I cain’t let you handle me...Do you want me to be afraid of you, too? Afraid to have you take me home in the dark?”

He did not reply at once. Evidently the facts were hard to assimilate by his slow mind.

“Wal, now you tax me aboot it, I reckon I don’t.”

Molly regarded that as more than an answer to her question. Andy, too, like Arch, had unplumbed depths in the darkness of which there must be good.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DRY, HOT MIDSUMMER lay upon the Cibeque. In the shade of the glen Molly spent hours idle on a rock, watching the big trout lying still in the clear water. The bees hummed by. The sumac on the stony slope had taken on touches of red and brown. Squirrels and jays were taking their high-noon siesta. The lizards, however, were active. They loved the heat and the dry brush and the hot stones. Molly never wearied of watching them, and she could sit so quietly that the tiny ones would crawl over her hand. Seen near, they were beautiful with their many colours and jewel eyes.

Things that concerned the life of West Fork revolved uppermost in her mind. The drift fence, so dominant a factor now, was well out on the Diamond. In the eyes of the Cibeque folk young Jim Traft was a perfect hurricane for work. Conflicting stories about how he worked and his fights with his cowboys were rife about the village. More cattle had drifted down into the brakes this summer than ever before. Vague hints that they all did not drift there of their own accord filtered to Molly’s ears. Her father was perceptibly failing now, and her mother talked of going back to Illinois. Molly wondered what was to become of her, and she did not care much.

Arch had been home steadily for a month, more morose than she had ever seen him. But he had driven Molly out of the bean-field and had harvested the beans himself. She tried not to see that he and the Haverly gang had cattle deals frequently. They drove cattle in from the brakes and down the Cibeque, small bunches and short drives that had a sinister significance to Molly. Resolutely she refused to think the matter out clearly.

She went back home through the woods, watchful along the trail, sure that she was going to hear any rider or see anyone before he discovered her. A ten- acre pasture appeared to have more young cattle than it could very well graze. But they had not been there the day before.

Along the eastern side of the cabin a line of sunflowers blazed gold in the sun. Molly’s mother had planted sunflowers every spring as long as Molly could remember. It had always seemed funny to Molly, but she guessed nothing was that any more. Her father drooped in his chair on the porch; her mother puttered around in the kitchen; some ragged saddled horses stood bridles down at the edge of the timber. Molly knew that Arch would be out there. The still, hot summer air seemed charged with a suspense.

Molly’s mother sent her on an errand to the village. She was always glad when a trip of this kind could be made in the daytime. Her mother had a habit of forgetting until just before the evening meal. Molly did not start out toward the horses. She hurried out back of the barn and slipped into the woods to cut across to the trail, sure that none of the riders with Arch had observed her.

The dusty village street was asleep. So was old Enoch Summers in his store. Molly made the necessary purchase, and not tarrying to listen to his gossip, though his query about Arch made her curious, she made haste homeward.

When she reached the shady trail she went slower to regain her breath. At a thickly overgrown point, where the trail turned, a brown hand shot out from the green and grasped her arm. Molly was not the screaming kind. But she struggled with all her fierce young strength. It availed nothing, however, and she was dragged through the brush a step or two into a little clearing beside a huge fallen pine. Molly was frightened but not surprised to look up into the dark face of Hack Jocelyn.

“Howdy, sweetheart!” he drawled. “I bin layn’ fer you.”

“Let go,” said Molly, and she jerked so hard that she freed her arm. “What you want?...Did you have to drag me in heah?”

“Wal, there’s some folks I’d rather not see me,” replied Jocelyn.

“My brother Arch, for one, I reckon.”

“No. I’m standin’ tolerable with Slinger. I was thinkin’ of thet sneak, Andy Stoneham. He’s got eyes an’ he thinks too much.”

“Well, what you want? Mother sent me on an errand. She’ll be waitin’.”

“Let her wait. Reckon I’ve waited often an’ long enough. I had to see you.”

“If you had to, why didn’t you come to my home, like any decent fellow would?”

“I’ve had reasons, Molly. But I’m glad to tell you one of them ain’t pressin’ no more. I’ve quit the Diamond.”

This had decided interest and surprise for Molly, though she did not voice it. She peered, however, up under the big sombrero, at the cowboy’s handsome, wicked face. It bore recent signs of battle.

“I couldn’t stand Jim Traft no longer,” went on Jocelyn. “I bin layin’ fer a chance to quit a month an’ more. We had some words. An’ it ended in a fist fight.”

“Did he lick you?” asked Molly, unable to resist her swift curiosity.

“I reckon he did,” returned Jocelyn, ruefully. “He’s a slugger with his fists, an’ thet kind of fightin’ ain’t mine. I couldn’t make him draw a gun while I was ridin’ with the Diamond, so I jest quit.”

“Ahuh. Quit so you could make him?”

“Shore. An’ I reckon thet sounds good to you?”

“It means nothin’ to me,” replied Molly, lying with tight lips. “What was this heah talk aboot Bud Chalfack seein’ Traft insult you at the fair dance in Flag?”

“It’s news to me. Was there such talk?” rejoined Molly, flippant to hide her start.

“There shore was, an’ it’s goin’ the round like brush fire. Any reason fer it?”

“I cain’t stop waggin’ tongues.”

“You danced with Jim Traft an’ went out with him?”

“Mr. Jocelyn, if I did, that’s my business an’ none of yours.”

“Molly Dunn, I’m makin’ it mine,” he said. “I reckon you’d lie even if there was anythin’. But you ought to have sense enough to know Jim Traft couldn’t be serious aboot you.” Molly looked away into the forest, conscious of deep-seated pain.

“Good day, Mr. Jocelyn. I’ll be goin’,” she said, and moved away.

Like a panther he leaped at her, cursing under his breath. She was a leaf in his grasp and she realized it. He lifted her high, held her close, and it was only by contortions of her supple body that she escaped hot, fierce kisses on her lips. These burned face and neck.

“You’re stayin’ heah — till I get through — with you,” he panted.

“Let me — down. I — I’ll stay,” choked Molly.

He let her slide till her feet touched the ground, but did not at once release her. Molly burned with more than shame. She could have killed him if she had not been so scared. All cowboys were violent and rude at times, but this one was a man with a cruel hand as masterful and relentless as if she were a horse. She must use a woman’s wit or she might have infinitely more to regret. The place was secluded, lonely, so far from any cabin that screams would be useless.

“I reckon you’d better,” he said, giving her a shake. “Molly Dunn, you made up to me when I met you. An’ now you’re re goin’ to pay fer it. I’m through with the Diamond an’ I’m throwin’ with the Cibeque. If you fell sweet fer Jim Traft, like them in eyed Flag girls, you can jest forget it. ‘Cause I’m crazy in love with you an’ I’m goin’ to have you. An’ you’ll marry me as soon as I make the stake we — I’m figgerin’ on.”

“Marry you! — Mister Jocelyn, you’re shore takin’ a lot on your haid,” said Molly, aghast and astounded at his effrontery. “I’m thankin’ you because a man cain’t do any more than ask that of a girl, but I must say no.”

“An’ why must you?” he queried.

“I don’t love you.”

“Wal, if I know gurls, you’ll change your tune soon as I make my stake.”

“Stake. What you mean?”

“Never you mind now. I want to talk to you aboot your brother. Accordin’ to the Haverlys he ain’t got any use fer me. No reason except I was on the Diamond an’ thet I’m supposed to have been driftin’ round heah on your trail. An’ thet ain’t no lie! Wal, you’re goin to set me straight with Slinger.”

“Oh, I am!” quoth Molly. Her fear held her in abeyance, but she could not wholly suppress her leaping spirit. “If I know Arch Dunn that little job wouldn’t be easy.”

“We — I — I’ve figgered it out,” declared Jocelyn. “It’s been goin’ the rounds thet Jim Traft made a show of you at the dance. An’ it’s see it gets to Slinger’s ears pronto. Wal, you’re goin’ to admit it’s true, an’ tell him I quit the Diamond because of it. Savvy, sweetheart?”

“I savvy that you are a deep an’ cunnin’ hombre, Mister Jocelyn,” replied Molly, sarcastically. Not to have saved her another of his onslaughts could she have restrained from that retort. But Jocelyn’s instant grin proved that he took it for a compliment.

“You can jest bet your sweet life I am...An’ now soon as you swear you’ll tell this to Slinger — an’, wal, give me a kiss — you can run home to your mom.”

Molly could not look back on any experience with men like Jocelyn. He lacked something most cowboys had. But she divined that with whatever sort of girls he had consorted he had won them to his will. It seemed rather a force of character than conceit. Where Molly had disliked him, had been vaguely repelled, now she thoroughly hated and feared him.

“I won’t kiss you, but — I’ll think aboot tellin’ that to Arch,” she replied, playing for time, to propitiate him enough to let her escape from a predicament she would never let herself in for again.

“I cain’t let you go on thet, Molly,” he said, cheerfully. The idiot actually felt sure of her. And he began to roll a cigarette, a shadow of a smile on his dark smooth face.

Molly averted her eyes, lest he read in hers the thought that she was forming. Once out of reach of his long arm she could get away. The cowboy did not live who could catch her on foot. Molly calculated distance and moment, while concentrating all her energy. Suddenly like a flash she ducked and bounded at once, under the brush into the trail. Joceyn shouted and crashed through. But Molly darted away. She could run like a deer. Her moccasined feet pattered on the hard trail. He thudded heavily after her, soon losing ground. Molly looked over her shoulder to see that he might as well have been roped, for all the hope he had of catching her.

She screeched a laugh back at him and sped on out of his sight, never slacking her swift pace until she reached the place she had cut across to avoid the riders. Once in the clearing, she went slowly so as to regain her breath.

The fool! The hard-lipped cowpuncher — to think he could bully her into knuckling to him! But otherwise she welcomed the encounter. Hack Jocelyn had quit the Diamond. It was a stunning fact against all precedent. He was making up to the Cibeque, and especially to Arch Dunn. Some deviltry afoot! Molly divined that she was not the whole contention. She recalled Jocelyn’s looks and words — his actions. How grimly satisfied with himself! He had built some big cowboy trick. What a clever ruse to win Slinger Dunn’s friendship! If anything could have placated the lone timber wolf of the Cibeque, that crafty lie might.

Molly sat down on a log to rest. And the gist of this complex situation burst upon her in realization of menace to Jim Traft. That agitated Molly even more than if attack on her. Hackmore Jocelyn would kill Jim, and f he did not Slinger Dunn or the Haverlys would. Molly divined it, shocked that it had not dawned upon her before, and her warm pulsing blood turned to ice. Jocelyn had proved traitor to the Diamond. For that he would be welcomed by the Cibeque, though she doubted Arch’s complaisance. An infernal scheme had been hatched and Hack Jocelyn was the prime mover in it. And what did he mean by a stake? Molly understood the word to imply what riders called food or money that they hoped to get by some lucky or clever break. Jocelyn had certainly meant the latter and no small amount. Molly racked her brains for a solution, which was not forthcoming. Then her mother, espying her on the log, called, loudly. Molly hurried to the cabin.

“I declare, but you take long to do anythin’,” said Mrs. Dunn, harshly.

“Well, so would anyone if she got waylaid by a bully of a cowpuncher,” retorted Molly.

“Who?” demanded the mother, with a keen look at Molly’s heated face.

Instead of answering Molly ran like a squirrel up the ladder to the loft that opened over the porch. It had two compartments, one over each cabin. That over the kitchen was a storeroom, and the other, over the living-room, was Molly’s. It had a window at the far end, a rude contraption that had been put in by Arch. The V-shaped roof was high enough only in the middle for Molly to stand erect. Since Molly had been a child this had been the only room she had ever had, but she preferred it to the living-room, where her parents slept and quarrelled. Arch Dunn used to sleep on the porch below, and then Molly had felt safe, but for years now, most of the nights, only the pines and spruces had sheltered him. What furniture there was in Molly’s boudoir was home-made, and some of it by her own hands. Yet until Mrs. See had taken her to Flagerstown she had been contented in this loft. But then she had been a good many things before that lamentable visit.

At any rate, Molly kept her cubbyhole, as she called it, clean and neat, and fragrant with the scent of pine and spruce boughs, upon which she spread her blankets. She lay down there now and tried to puzzle a way through the maze of circumstances which seemed to have involved her.

Following her mother’s call to supper, Molly heard Arch’s slow, clinking footfall. When he wore moccasins he could not be heard at all.

“Where’s Molly?” he asked.

“I don’t know. She got huffy because I asked her a question an’ flounced out somewhere,” replied the mother.

“Some of your questions are shore irritatin’,” said Arch. “What was thet particular one?”

“She came home red in the face and panting, and when I told her it had taken her a long time to go to the store, she said she’d been waylaid by a bully of a cowpuncher. Then I asked her ‘who?’”

“Ahuh. I reckon the gurl’s gettin’ too big an’ pretty to be alone on the trails,” returned the son, ponderingly.

“Big! She’s only a mite, an’ not so awful pretty.”

“Molly is no kid any more. You can bet I’m findin’ thet out. An’ as fer bein’ pretty — where’s your eyes, ma? I heah she beat them Flag gurls all hollow at the fair dance. I heah a lot.”

“I never hear anything,” complained Mrs. Dunn. “I’m stuck in this cabin from sunup till dark. I want to get away before I die on my feet.”

Molly had heard such ranting of her mother’s for years, but she was stunned to hear Arch reply that maybe soon they would be able to move away from the Cibeque.

“Arch! What’ve you done now?” queried the mother. “Nothin’ jest yet. But I reckon to make a stake soon.”

“Humph! — Call the girl to supper.”

Arch stepped to the end of the porch and called “Hey, Mol.” Molly thought best to answer sleepily: “Yes, Arch. Heah I am. What you want?”

“Supper, you wood-mouse,” he replied, and he waited by the ladder to give her a slap and then lift her down.

“No kid no more! Mol, you’re as heavy as a sack of beans.”

“Shore, an’ worth aboot as much,” retorted Molly. “You’re plumb interested in me lately, Arch.”

“Yep, I am, more’n you’d guess,” he replied. “You an’ me are goin’ to have a little confab after supper.”

Molly looked straight into his piercing eyes, though she felt her face burn and her nerves quiver. However she did not reply. She carried her father’s meal to him and placed the board across the arms of his chair.

“Lass, what’s Arch jawin’ you aboot?” he asked.

“I haven’t any idea, dad. He’s got one of his spells.”

“There’s too much goin’ on heah,” declared Dunn. “They all think I’m blind, settin’ on this porch. But my eyes are good yet for cattle-rustlers.”

Molly saw Arch lift his lean head with the action of an eagle, and give his father a dark look. She felt perturbed herself at her father’s pointed remark, though now and then he would make some caustic allusion to the movements of cattlemen.

He hated them, and made little distinction between ranchers and rustlers. His day had been one when sheep held the range. Molly ate her supper in silence, which, in fact, was what they all did.

“Wal, sister, you can have a walk with me,” said Arch, dryly, as lie got up from the table.

Molly did not need to look at him again. She knew there was something in the wind, but she felt only halffrightened. Arch was a puzzle lately. She walked beside him as he led her along the edge of the field toward the creek. The heat of the day was gone; the sun had sunk, yet the top of the Diamond blazed gold and red; there were deer in the pasture with the cows; somewhere a burro brayed shrilly. When Arch got to the head of the trail where it led down into the glen toward the spring he halted and said: “Reckon this is far enough. No one can heah you if you do squawk.”

“Arch, you’re not a bit funny,” replied Molly. “An’ you cain’t make me squawk.”

“Who was the bully of a cowboy thet waylaid you?”

“Hackamore Jocelyn.”

“I reckoned so. On your way home from the store, I seen you go out the back trail.”

“Yes. He must have seen me, too, for he waited along the trail.”

“Wal, what’d he do, Mol?” went on Arch.

He was hard to penetrate, yet so far Molly had no great misgivings.

“Arch, I don’t have to tell you everythin’ or anythin’,” she said, steadily.

“Reckon you don’t, to be fair aboot it. But you ought to. Poor ole dad is done, an’, wal, I reckon ma’s no good. I’m no good, either, fer thet matter. But I’m your brother, Molly.”

She had never heard him speak like that before.

“Arch, you — you don’t trust me,” she faltered.

“Hell! It’s only the last few days thet I seen you was old enough to mistrust.”

“Then — how can I confide in you?” she asked, simply.

“Molly, are you goin’ to make me choke thin’s out of you?”

“I’m not anxious aboot it.”

“Wal, then, are you sweet on this Diamond cowboy?”

“Which one?” rejoined Molly, with a titter.

He laughed, too. “Thet’s one on me. But fer the moment I mean this heah Jocelyn.”

Molly told him bluntly just what she thought of Jocelyn. “Wal, I’ll’ be dog-goned. I been given to believe you was sweet on him.”

“Who told you, Arch?”

“It come round aboot.”

“Somebody lied. I haven’t any use for Jocelyn. If you want to know, I’ll give you the straight goods aboot him — so far as I am concerned — but, Arch, I’d a good deal rather not tell you.”

“Why — if you’re willin’?”

“Well, it’ll make you mad, an’ probably run you into another fight.”

“Molly; it’s no shore bet thet Jocelyn an’ I won’t fight, anyhow. Seth has been talkin’ too much for Jocelyn. He’s too anxious. There’s somethin’ up. It looks to me like Jocelyn wants to double-cross the Diamond an’ somehow throw in with the Cibeque. I’m not shore. But I don’t take to the puncher. Mebbe I’m cross-grained. Mebbe it’s because he’s throwed a gun heah an’ there. All the same, if he’d double cross Traft he’d shore do the same by us.”

Long before Arch had concluded that speech, Molly had made her decision to be honest — to hold back nothing, though at the suspicion he might presently ask pertinently about Jim Traft her heart came into her throat.

“Arch, you’re on the track,” she replied, swiftly. “Jocelyn has quit the Diamond. Had a fight with — Jim Traft, he said, an’ jumped at a chance to quit. He had a black eve, a cut lip, an’ some other fist marks. An’ an’—” Here Molly paused to relieve the oppression in her breast, and failed to do it. “Jocelyn tried to bully me into lyin’ to you. Wanted me to tell you he’d quit the Diamond because — because Jim Traft had insulted me. Then he could throw a gun on Traft!”

Slinger Dunn whistled long and low, and afterward muttered a deep curse. His brown hand shot out like the strike of a snake and snapped a dead twig of cedar.

“Molly, you’ve shore cleared up part of this heah deal,” he said, gratefully. “I’ll bet a hundred Jocelyn aimed to throw in with the Cibeque.”

“That’s what he said, Arch,” rejoined Molly, and impelled by released emotion, she began at the point when Jocelyn waylaid her on the trail and recalled every word and action of that encounter.

“So much fer Hackamore Jocelyn,” muttered Dunn. “I wonder now — I just wonder what cairds Seth holds — or if it is his deal.”

“I wouldn’t trust Seth Haverly with his grandma’s spectacles,” said Molly.

“Wal, Molly, mebbe I’d better take your hunch. But I cain’t believe Seth would double-cross me, leastways with a puncher from the Diamond. An’ thet brings us to real talk.”

Molly had only to look up to realize that herself. Dunn fastened a hand in her blouse, so close and tight as to pinch her neck, and with a slow pull he drew her up so that her eyes were scarcely a foot from his.

“What’s this I heah aboot Jim Traft insultin’ you?”

“I — I don’t know what you heahed, Arch — but it’s a lie.”

“Did you meet him?”

“Yes, at the fair.”

“An’ went to thet dance with him?”

“Oh, no. I went with Mrs. See...But Jim Traft came — an’ I — I danced with him once.”

“An’ thet’s all? You wasn’t out in the moonlight with him, on the porch?”

“Yes — we walked out a — a little.”

“An’ he grabbed you an’ hugged you?” demanded Dunn, leaning down.

“Y-yes, Arch — he did,” whispered Molly.

“You let him?”

“He’s big an’ strong...What could I — I do? But at that I slapped him.”

“Which was proof you felt insulted. So how’s it come you say you wasn’t?”

“Listen — Arch — an’ don’t choke me,” she gasped. “I — I wasn’t honest with him. The truth is — I took to him — somethin’ outrageous. An’ he must have guessed it...But when he — he had me in his arms — I hit him. I — I wanted him to believe I was insulted. He’d taken me for a girl far above one from the Cibeque...But I really wasn’t insulted — an’ when I hit him I wasn’t honest. An’ an’—”

Molly reached the subtlety of a woman in her instinct to protect Jim Traft. And she seemed to divine that her brother might not know more.

“Took to him somethin’ outrageous!” ejaculated Arch, incredulously. “Molly Dunn!”

“Yes, Molly Dunn,” retorted Molly, gaining courage with resentment. “Even if I do belong to the Dunns of the Cibeque I’ve got a heart.”

“I ain’t blamin’ you, Mol,” he returned, as if real zing the inevitableness of the fact, and he let go of her. “You’re only a kid. An’ he’s shore a good-lookin’ fellar. An’ he can talk. But, Molly, the thing is he’s old Jim Traft’s kin. He’s worth a million. An’ he couldn’t have no honest intent toward you.”

“I’m no fool, Arch, if I am a kid,” she rejoined. “I know when a man means bad by me. Lord knows I’ve had reason to. I shore knew today when Jocelyn grabbed me...But Jim Traft didn’t mean bad. I swear it.”

“Molly, he must have talked you out of your haid,” said Dunn, amazed.

“No. He didn’t waste any time talkin’. I’d hardly got out in the moonlight. It was that white dress, Arch.”

“What white dress?”

“The one Mrs. See bought for me. It’s lovely. He — they — everybody there said I looked—”

“You poor kid! Mebbe they was all to blame. Damn thet See woman, anyway.”

“Arch, let me put on the dress for you.”

“Molly, I don’t need any white dress to know how pretty you are...An’ I reckon I hold ag’in’ Traft your defendin’ him.”

“But that’s not fair, Arch.”

He shook his shaggy head doggedly.

“You cain’t tell me honest thet Jim Traft didn’t make you feel you was Molly Dunn of the Cibeque.”

“No, Arch, I — I can’t. He did. He was shore surprised. An’ he let out what he thought. Afterwards he tried to — to soften it. But — but then my heart was broke.”

Dunn made a swifter and more expressive movement of his hand, passionate and vindictive.

“Hurtin’ your feelin’s thet way is a wuss insult than huggin’ you,” he declared, with a note of pathos in his anger.

“It hurt like sixty, Arch. But he didn’t mean it. There is a difference between Molly Dunn of the Cibeque an’ Jim Traft from the East — rich, educated, with family name.”

“Ahuh. You said it, Molly. Family name. You’re daughter of old John Dunn. An’ sister to Slinger Dunn!”

“I told him that.”

“Before or after?”

“It was after, of course.”

“Shore it was. No, Mol, there ain’t no overlookin’ thet. He was only playin’ with you. Shore, in some safer place he’d gone farther. Made a hussy of you!”

“No!” cried Molly, poignantly, as if at the thrust of a blade. “An’ you’re givin’ it away thet you’d let him go as far as he liked.”

“Oh, Arch! How can you — talk so!” sobbed Molly. “That’s a lie. You’re insultin’ me.”

He shook his head gloomily, and averted his blazing eyes to hide their thought from her. Then he strode away, leaving, her there trembling and stricken.

CHAPTER TWELVE

FOR DAYS MOLLY lived in a perpetual state of nervous dread of events that had cast their shadows.

Arch remained in one of his brooding moods. He worked in the fields as if to make up for lost time. And he did not go to the village in the evenings. The Haverlys rode over every day or so and engaged him in long talks, which left Arch more taciturn than ever.

Then one morning when Molly came down she saw Arch’s horse saddled and carrying a small pack.

“Where are you goin’, Arch?” she asked, at breakfast.

“Up on the Diamond, an’ I reckon you better stick around home,” he replied, gruffly.

“What’re you — goin’ for?” she dared ask.

“Wal, fer one thing, to see if this outfit is lyin’ to me. I didn’t tell you thet Seth an’ his new pard swear they posted a notice up north of the Diamond. They laid down the law fer thet drift fence. The Cibeque wouldn’t stand fer the fence goin’ farther than the haid of East Fork. Thet’s in the saddle just under the Diamond. And if it was built farther it’d be laid down pronto.”

“What else you goin’ for?” added Molly, anxiously.

“Wal, I reckon you ought to know,” he replied, with a dark glance on her.

Molly in trepidation followed him out to his horse, where her mother would not hear. She laid a trembling hand on him, as he was about to mount. She did not know what to say. But terror of something possessed her. “Arch, if you really love me you — you won’t—”

He stared down at her, arrested by her agitation if not her words.

“Who ever said anythin’ aboot me lovin’ you?” he asked.

“No one. But you do, don’t you?” she implored. “Somebody must love me or — or I cain’t live.”

“You seem to’ve been tolerable healthy all along,” he drawled. Nevertheless, he evaded the question.

“I’ve only you to help me, Arch,” she went on swiftly. “I’m tryin’ hard not to run true to what they expect of Molly Dunn. An’ I can be drove too far. 111 hate you if — if you—”

But he was flint. Molly gathered that her emotion somehow augmented his suspicion of her.

“You have run true to the Dunns, I reckon,” he replied, bitterly and rode away.

Molly hid up in the loft, tormented beyond endurance. When she could stand it up there no longer she climbed down and went out to look for her horse. She had not done her errands by horseback for a year or more, for the very good reason that she had no saddle and would not be seen in the village without one. The dignity of sixteen years had been embarrassing in many ways. Molly had ridden bareback since she was big enough to get on a horse.

She found the pony in the unfenced north end of the clearing. He was wild and she did not easily corner him. But finally, when she had him and was patting his neck, she wondered what she had wanted him for. And she seemed struck with the fact that it was not beyond her to ride up on the Diamond to warn Jim Traft his life might be in danger. But worried as Molly was, she did not think that so dire a thing would threaten until the drift fence actually crossed the Diamond. Down in the valley the opinion was general that the barbed wire would never go so far. Moreover, Molly remembered more than once when Slinger Dunn had ridden off with intent to fight, and this morning he had not been like that.

Three days later, while Molly was in the village with her mother, she heard that her brother was there, drunk and quarrelsome. At the store she met Andy Stoneham, who was a clerk for Enoch Summers. While waiting upon Molly, he contrived to whisper: “Heaps goin’ on, an’ hadn’t I better come out tonight?” Molly nodded, and joined her mother, conscious of a sinking sensation in her breast.

Old Enoch was full of talk. “High jinks goin’ on around West Fork. Hain’t been so busy since last fall round-up.”

“What’s goin’ on?” queried Mrs. Dunn. “Cattle movin’. Riders comin’ through.”

“This time of year! Well, that’s strange.”

“So it is, Mrs. Dunn. An’ we can lay it to thet drift fence. Did you heah the latest aboot Jim Traft?”

“Where’d I ever hear any news?”

Molly felt the blood tingle in her cheeks.

“Wal, it’s shore news,” replied the storekeeper. “Young Traft has had notices put up thet he’d make no claim to cattle already drifted down into Sycamore Canyon. His drift fence has crossed the head of Sycamore an’ is now out on the Diamond.”

“Well, is that all the news?” declared Mrs. Dunn, indifferently. “Wal, most folks is agreed thet Jim Traft was shore more than square to the Cibeque when he done thet,” went on Summers. “Mebbe there’s more’n a thousand haid of steers, let alone cows an’ calves, in the brakes of Sycamore. Seth Haverly an’ his outfit sold near two hundred two-year-olds hyar yesterday. Forty-eight dollars a head! An’ they’ve gone back fer another drive. Reckon they’ll have most of thet stock, before the other boys get wind of it.”

“Forty-eight a head!” ejaculated Mrs. Dunn, who appeared to be conjuring with figures. “Arch was in on that?”

“Wal, it seems not. He’s had a fall-out with the Cibeque, or somethin’. Anyway, he was in town last night. It was Slinger who busted in here with news thet the drift fence had reached Tobe’s Well. It shore upset all reckonin’s around West Fork. Tobe’s Well is way out on the Diamond.”

While her mother completed her purchases, Molly waited in the grip of conflicting feelings. She could not help a thrill to hear Jim Traft kindly spoken of, nor a start at the information he had passed Sycamore Canyon with his fence. This was the dead line drawn by the riders of the brakes. Traft had disregarded their notice:

Molly calculated that he was then actually within ten miles of West Fork, and not more than forty to the east end of the Diamond. She had ridden up and down the brakes of Beaver Canyon and knew the trail to Tobe’s Well. She had also been over the Derrick Trail once, but had no confidence that she could remember how to find it.

After supper that evening she waited at the gate for Andy, something she had never before done, and she knew he would make stock of it.

“Shucks!” he ejaculated, when he arrived to beam upon her with his homely face. “It’s different when you want suthin’ of somebody, ain’t it, Molly?”

“I reckon so, Andy. You see what bein’ friendly does. I’m doin’ a heap of worryin’ an’ I’m just low-down enough to want your help.”

“Wal, you’ve cause to worry, Molly Dunn,” he said. “Let’s get out of sight somewhere. I’m plumb scared of thet Hackamore Jocelyn.”

Molly led him back of the cabin along the edge of the clearing to the creek and halted beside a huge fallen pine. The amber creek babbled over the rocks below; the squirrels and jays were noisy; the woods were full of the golden glow of sunset.

“Molly. last night I happened on suthin’ thet’s got me scared stiff,” he began. “After work hours I went up the crick to ketch a mess of trout. An’ as I was comin’ back along the crick trail I seen Seth Haverly an’ some riders. I ducked into the brush an’ squatted down. I reckoned they’d pass. But I’m a son- of-a-gun if they didn’t stop in a little glade not forty steps from where I hid. With Seth was his brother Sam, an’ Hack Jocelyn. The Haverlys stayed in their saddles, but Jocelyn got off. He acted oneasy. An’ he walked up an’ down the trail. They was waitin’ fer someone.”

“I’ll bet it was Slinger,” said Molly, who sometimes in excitement used her brother’s sobriquet.

“It shore was. Wal, fust off, Jocelyn swore Slinger wouldn’t come, an’ Seth said he would...Molly, they stayed there till dark an’ I could repeat every blame word they said. But heah short an’ sweet is what it all means...Hack Jocelyn has got in with the Cibeque outfit, an’ they’re aimin’ to double-cross Slinger. They’re goin’ to cut the drift fence an’ lay the blame on to Slinger. They’re goin’ to kidnap Jim Traft an’ squeeze a big ransom out of his uncle. Thet’s the stake Jocelyn is playin’ fer. But I seen, if Seth couldn’t, thet Hack is playin’ a deeper game than they savvy. Mebbe Slinger is on to him. ‘Cause Slinger wouldn’t heah of Jocelyn throwin’ in the Cibeque. He wouldn’t go in the cattle drive they’re plannin’. Thet all came out in their talk before Slinger got there.”

“Oh — did he come?” cried Molly, breathlessly.

“Yep. Jest before dark. Hart Merriwell an’ Boyd Flick was with him. ‘Seth,’ says Slinger, cool-like, ‘I’m splittin’ with the Cibeque. No hard feelin’s. You’ve got mebbe a better man than me in Jocelyn. Anyway, I cain’t take the share of this cattle money you sent me. Much obliged, Seth. An’ heah it is.’

“An’ then Seth says,” went on Andy, after a pause. ‘All right, Slinger. You’re shore your own boss. An’ if there’s no hard feelin’s on your side there’s shore none on mine. But you ought to come in on thet kidnappin’ deal. Why, it’s a gold-mine. Old Jim Traft won’t blink an eye at a hundred thousand.’

“Slinger owned it was a pretty slick deal an’ easy money, but he jest couldn’t see it thet way.

“‘An’ why in hell not?’ asked Seth, sore as a pup.

“‘Wal,’ says Slinger, ‘I reckon there’s more’n one reason. But particular with me is thet I happen to be goin’ to shoot Jim Traft.’

“‘So we figgered,’ says Seth, ‘but cain’t you wait till we’ve got thet ransom money?’

“‘Nope,’ replies Slinger. ‘I don’t like the deal. An’ if I happen to run into any of you Cibeque gents up on the Diamond, I’ll take particular offence. Savvy thet?’

“‘We ain’t deaf, Slinger. But I, fer one, am shore plumb surprised,’ answers Seth, slick-like.

“‘Wal,’ went on Slinger, I’ve been sort of surprised myself, lately.’...An’ he shore said it full of meanin’. Slinger rode away then, an’—”

“You heahed all this last night?” interrupted Molly, poignantly.

“Yes, before sundown.”

“But we heahed Slinger was drunk!”

“Nary drunk. Somebody lied to you. He was as cool an’ hard as ice. Those fellars was scared of him, Molly. I haven’t seen him since. Now to go on with what happened. You never heerd such cussin’. Some from Seth an’ most from Jocelyn. Then they got their haids together again. It was all right with them aboot Slinger goin’ to kill young Traft. But they didn’t want that to spoil their stake. An’ they reckoned they’d have to give up the ransom idee. Hack Jocelyn busts in then with another. An’ it was that if Slinger did queer their kidnap deal by killin’ Traft, they’d have a chanct to rustle a big bunch of stock an’ lay thet on to Slinger also. This struck Seth an’ his brother all right. An’ they won over the other two fellars. Then they started off. One of the horses must have smelled me, fer he shied an’ didn’t come far from jumpin’ on me.

“‘Somethin’ in thet brush,’ said Jocelyn.

“By this time I was pretty scared an’ I up an’ tore through the brush. Mebbe Jocelyn didn’t let out a roar. An’ he shot three times after me. I don’t want no bullets closer to me.”

“Oh, Andy, they’ll find you out,” cried Molly, fearfully.

“Wal, mebbe, but I don’t see how they can. I hate to have thet Hack Jocelyn meet up with me very soon, an’ you bet I’ll see him fust.”

“But Jim Traft will never see Slinger first,” wailed Molly.

“I reckon not. Molly, ain’t you a little over-concerned aboot Traft?” asked Andy.

“No more than I am about Slinger,” retorted Molly. “It’s an awful mess. Oh, Andy, what can I do?”

“Do? Good Heavens! gurl, you cain’t do nothin’,” he declared. And his idea of the enormity of such a supposition made Molly conscious of her helplessness. Yet could she not ride up to Tobe’s Well, find the Diamond camp, and save Jim Traft from both her brother and the Haverlys with their new and treacherous ally? Tobe’s Well was only ten miles. She could ride there and back in less than half a day. If she once eluded Slinger! But she would have to wait until he left, for he might come home any time, and he would find her trail and run her down. It was not conceivable that he would ride directly into the Diamond camp bent on his deadly intent. Slinger was slow to act upon any project, secretive and wary. Like an Indian he would watch the trails.

Andy, roused to a sense of his importance, repeated parts of his story, and then guardedly leaned toward the possibility of telling Slinger of the plot against him.

“Molly, you might let on you heerd all this yourself,” continued Andy. “I reckon Slinger would believe you. Shore he would. An’ thet’d let me out. I’m plumb afraid of Hackamore Jocelyn. He’s got it in fer me because of you. Aw, I figgered diet. He only had to look at me onct.”

“Andy, I’ll not give you away,” said Molly, earnestly. “An’ I’m shore owin’ you a good deal...Yes, I ought to tell Slinger. Oh, I must think...Andy, I’ll go back now. I don’t want to risk missin’ him.”

They walked through the woods in the gloaming, and Molly did not repulse Andy when he timidly took her hand. He deserved some recompense for his interest in her brother’s fortunes and his loyalty to her.

She went as far as the gate with him. “Andy, you’ve been good to me lately,” she said. “An’ I like you for it. I haven’t a friend in all this valley, unless it’s you. I wish I could be more to you. But I — I cain’t.”

Bidding him good night, she ran back to the cabin. It was quite dark under the porch. No lamp had been lighted.

“You better come a-runnin’,” came in slow, cool voice from the gloom. “Who was thet with you? Looked like Andy.”

“Oh — Arch!” panted Molly, feeling her way to the porch, “Yes, it was Andy.”

“You like thet fellar?”

“Why, yes — more than I used to — which wasn’t much.”

“Wal, Andy ain’t as no-good as some of them. He works. An’ he doesn’t guzzle drink all the time.”

“Arch, are you goin’ to be home a while now?” asked Molly, sitting down beside him. She bumped against his gun, which contact gave her an icy little shudder.

“Pa had one of his sinkin’ spells tonight,” said Arch, ignoring her query.

“He looked bad today,” rejoined Molly, sighing. “Where’s ma?”

“She got him to bed an’ I reckon she’s in there...I been sittin’ heah thinkin’, Molly.”

“What aboot?”

“Wal, fer once not aboot my own damn self. Pa’s an’ ma’s thet contrary. Course I’m home so little it don’t matter. But it’s tough on you, Molly. What’re you goin’ to do soon — when we bust up?”

“Oh — Arch!” faltered Molly, and she felt for his band, slipping hers into it.

“Might as well face it,” he went on. “I’m goin’ to get killed or have to leave the Cibeque country. Pa won’t last long. An’ ma will go back to Illinois. Will you go with her?”

Molly pondered a long moment. “I wouldn’t if she didn’t make me. I’d hate to leave heah...Arch, I can get work in Flag.”

“Shore. An’ it ain’t a bad idee. But don’t get any moonshine idees in your haid.”

“What you mean, Arch?”

“Wal, aboot Jim Traft. Because you’ll be in fer a heap more hurt than you’ve had.”

Molly had fortified herself for the very thing hinted in his slow drawl, nevertheless it made her blood run cold.

“I’m shore in for more hurt any way you look at it.” said Molly, sadly.

“Natural-like. Life ain’t no fiesta fer the Dunns...If I’d only knowed when I was a kid what I know now!”

Molly thought the moment propitious.

“Arch. the Cibeque outfit is goin’ to double-cross you. Hack Jocelyn is at the bottom of it. But Seth Haverly is as treacherous. They want you to throw in with them an’ kidnap Jim Traft. Hold him for ransom. Course you know this, because you refused to be in it. But there’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Wal, you darned little wood-mouse!” he ejaculated. “You was there last night?”

“Arch, I heahed more’n you,” she replied, evasively.

“A huh. What was thet shootin’ aboot, after I left?”

“Hack Jocelyn heahed a noise in the brush an’ shot three times.”

“Wal! I come darn near ridin’ back...Molly, what did you heah?”

Briefly then she told him what had happened along the trail, as related by Andy; and though the supposition was that she had been there she actually did not lie.

“ —— !” muttered Slinger Dunn, and he held her hand tight. “I had a hunch. I didn’t trust Jocelyn. But thet Seth could be so low-down! My Gawd!”

“Arch, it couldn’t be no worse,” went on Molly, in agitation. “They mean to cut the drift fence an’ lay it on to you. An’ if the ransom deal falls through — owin’ to you killin’ Jim Traft — they’ll rustle a big bunch of cattle. An’ it’ll all be laid on you!”

She felt him freeze, and he was silent so long that she could not restrain an appeal for him to abandon an idea of revenge and to go away somewhere.

“An’ leave it easy fer them?” he queried, harshly. “I know their deal now...I’ll settle with them afterwards.”

He slipped off the porch. His moccasined feet made no sound and his dark form vanished in the gloom. Molly clapped a hand over her mouth. Of what avail to call out! Shaken and wretched, she climbed to her loft and crawled to her bed. Through the hours of distress that followed one growing resolve at last found permanence, and then she slept.

In the gray of dawn she was peering down from the loft, watching Slinger Dunn — when on the first time for long he rolled out of his bed on the porch and pulled on his boots and buckled on his spurs and gun-belt — when he slipped off in the gloom to return with his horse — when he packed blankets and biscuit and meat, and then rode away on his mission.

Molly sat there, thinking out her plan. She would let Slinger get some miles ahead, then she would follow, climb the Diamond, and when some distance from Tobe’s Well she would make a detour and hit the trail beyond Traft’s camp, and ride back to it. She could hardly get lost, going only a short way from the trail. The peril lay in being discovered by Slinger. He would probably half kill her. But if she accomplished her purpose and saved Jim Traft from his enemies, she did not care what Slinger might do. In fact, that would be the end of Molly Dunn in the Cibeque. She would be hated from one end of the valley to the other. Traitress! A little fool who betrayed her brother and her kind for love of a man who had only played with her! An object of scorn she would be, and so far as Seth Haverly and Hack Jocelyn were concerned, she would be marked for life. Molly knew the Cibeque. Seth Haverly would choke the very life out of her, and Hack Jocelyn would do worse. These convictions added to Molly’s terror, yet in no wise changed her mind.

Before her mother was up, Molly put on her buckskins and slipped down out of the loft with a blanket, which she carried out to the barn and strapped on her pony. She fed him grain. Then she coiled a lasso and tied it to the end of his halter.

The sun was rising like a rose in the cloudless sky. Dark and wild loomed the Diamond. It seemed to call to Molly. Every moment added to her courage. She saw clearer the beauty and the good of her action, if it were successful. In time even her own people would see that.

“What you up early for?” demanded her mother.

“Didn’t you heah Slinger?” asked Molly, who knew how to divert attention from herself.

“No, I didn’t, and you quit calling him that name,” returned Mrs. Dunn garrulously. “Haven’t I told you enough?”

“Ma, if I guess right he’s aimin’ to add more to what gave him that name.”

“Oh, Lord help us!” cried the mother, and she launched into a tirade against her son and ended against her husband and Molly and the low-down life in the brakes.

That likewise strengthened Molly. She made another resolve. If she got out of this adventure alive, she would ride to Keech’s and hire the boy there to drive her to Flagerstown. There she would go to work. Molly roused to a glamour over this enterprise.

After breakfast, the first moment that offered, she ran to the barn, and leading Jigger out she mounted him and rode into the woods.

Soon she came to the trail, in the dust of which she espied the tracks of Slinger’s horse, and turning into it she rode north. Jigger was not shod and his hoofs padded softly. He could not be heard very far, and Molly vowed that she would see any rider before he saw her.

It was still and cool in the forest, and she soon reached the zone where the Diamond cut off the morning sunlight. Here the dark shade was almost like twilight. The trail followed the creek and often crossed it. The amber water foamed around the boulders. Great gray rocks lined the banks, and above stood up the maples and oaks, and the lofty pines and spruces.

At every turn of the trail Molly would peep around before going on. Always, too, she had a keen eye for Slinger’s tracks. This was easy riding and there were miles of the gradual ascent before the trail entered one of the brakes, which was merely a local name for canyon. Open forest, with scarcely any brush, afforded vistas on all sides. Molly saw deer, but no cattle. She was still down out of the cattle zone.

In a few miles the forest changed and thickened. The maples and oaks had been left behind. Clumps of young pine obstructed vision. The silver spruces began to lord it over the yellow pines. Manzanita appeared, and tufts of grass in open spots. Molly had difficulty in keeping the charm of the forest from breaking her vigilance. The wall of brown-streaked green rose on both sides. Through openings in the foliage she saw the lofty gray crags of the Diamond promontories. Soon she would be climbing in earnest, and then she must exercise extreme caution.

Presently she missed Slinger’s tracks in the dust of the trail. Molly rode back, bending in anxious scrutiny. She had been careless. Soon she found where he had turned out of the trail. Molly slipped off her horse. What could this mean? She dared not go on for fear she might get ahead of him. Perhaps he was going to climb the Diamond by a trail known only to himself. Molly stood in dismay, pondering the problem.

Suddenly a rifle-shot clear and sharp up the trail gave her a violent start. A wild cry followed. Molly stood transfixed. Then came the clatter of rapid hoof beats. She drew her horse behind a thicket of pines.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JIM TRAFT, RESTING on the soft, fragrant matt behind a spruce tree, and waiting for the call to supper, inadvertently heard conversation most assuredly not intended for his ears.

“Nope. You cain’t deal no more cairds to me,” Curly Prentiss was saying to someone. “I won’t take a hand in any more deals against the boss.”

“But, Curly, we all reckon you wasn’t at your best when he licked you,” rejoined Uphill Frost.

“How so?”

“Wal, you’d been drunk. An’ you know how weak likker makes you. An’ you was sort of in fun. You didn’t get mad.”

A silence betrayed that no doubt this eloquence and persuasion were balm to Curly’s wounded vanity.

“Mebbe so. Dog-gone!...But he hit me on the nose an’ seen how it hurt. Then he kept pokin’ me again right there. An’ thet’s what he’ll do to you, Up. He’ll find out how anythin’ ag’in’ your belly hurts you. Aw, you know you cain’t even stand a tight belt. You’ve et so many million sour-dough biscuits thet your insides is gone. An’ you, Jack Way, if you pick a fight with our boss, Gawd help you! Because you’re all weak spots. You’re not got a well bone in your body. An’ ev’ry time he cracks you with one of them big fists, you’ll yell. I’ll bet a month’s pay.”

“Take you up. Heah thet, Frost,” grumbled Way. “Fact is, though, I’m afeard he will lick me. He shore put it all over Lone-star last Saturday. But we gotta fight him. Somebody has gotta do it or the Diamond is done fer on the range.”

“Don’t you believe sech talk!” declared Curly. “We’re doin’ a big stunt with this fence. Boys, the boss is a chip of the old block.”

“Hack Jocelyn says so an’ Hack’s an old-timer heah.”

“You’d be smart not to listen to him,” replied Curly, in lower tone. “Hack’s out fer trouble. Not fun! He’s stuck on Molly Dunn an’ he cain’t stand fer the Flag talk aboot the boss winnin’ Molly. There’ll be a fight one of these days as will be a real one An’ I wanna see it.”

“Natural you’d like to see Hack get licked proper,” growled Frost.

“You can shore bet on thet,” said Curly, emphatically.

“Wal, you an’ Bud have double-crossed us,” complained Jackson. “Bud is clean out with it. He says: ‘You can all go to hell. I’m sidin’ with the boss.’”

“Boys, you cain’t blame Bud much. The boss kept me, out of jail, but thet ain’t a marker to what he done fer Bud. An’ if you look back hasn’t this heah Jim Traft done somethin’ fer each of us, ‘ceptin’ mebbe Hack? Now I ask you?”

Both cowboys were significantly silent.

“I’m gonna pick a fight with him, anyway,” concluded Up Frost. “He’s sore at me an’ it’ll be easy.”

“When you aim to pick it?”

“I had my mind made up more’n onct. But when I get near the son-of-a-gun, I don’t stick to it.”

“Ahuh. You jest cain’t help likin’ Jim Traft. If Hack Jocelyn wasn’t in the outfit we’d all be fer the boss pronto.”

“Up, if you tackle him, I’ll do it, too, soon’s he licks you.” put in Jackson Way. “An’ mebbe we can get Cherry to try ag’in, if he licks me.”

“If? Haw! Haw! Say, you couldn’t hire Cherry to stand up ag’in under them sledge-hammer fists. Fer fact is he was sittin’ down all the time.”

“Wal, we can get Hump to tackle it.”

“I don’t know. He an’ Hump’s been tolerable civil lately. It’s workin’ on Hump.”

“Curly, air you helpin’ to keep this outfit from bustin’?” queried Frost, scornfully.

“I reckon I am,” replied Prentiss, in colder knife-edged tone. “An’ you can expect trouble between me an’ Jocelyn any day.”

“Hell you say!”

“Wal, Jack, I told you...Let’s go an’ try to talk Hump into suthin’.”

The cowboys strolled away into camp, arguing and complaining, while Jim Traft lay there amused and touched and singularly pleased. This incident occurred at a camp on Pine Creek in the forest on what was called the Saddle. It lay half-way between Black Butte and the Diamond. Not for weeks had Jim seen or heard anything so encouraging to him. He could not contain his delight. The drift fence was going on. He had not been in Flagerstown for weeks, but letters from his uncle kept him informed of the news at that end of the fence. He had long since worked and ridden out the soreness of muscle and bone that had made him suffer so excruciatingly. He was now strong and hard. He could stick in a saddle. He could dig fence-post holes all day. In truth he seemed vastly changed and improved, and almost happy, despite periodic spells of depression. The months did not pale Molly Dunn’s charm.

The call to supper disturbed Jim’s reverie. He got up and, keeping the thick, low-spreading spruce tree between him and camp, he walked off into the woods, and, circling, came back to camp on the other side. Meantime he had evolved a plan to help Uphill Frost and Jackson Way to realize their ambitions in regard to a physical clash with him. The prospect simply filled him with glee.

He found the boys at supper, and a sudden cessation of voices proved he had interrupted something unusual, for cowboys seldom talked during their brief mealtime.

“Sorry to spoil your talk, boys,” he said, with sarcasm and putting on a severe face. “But I can’t go without my meals to let you gab about me.”

“Boss, you might flatter yourself,” replied Bud Chalfack.

“Sure. But not this time,” said Jim, as he surveyed the masklike faces. “Hack looks mighty innocent and indifferent. The rest of you, though, strike me bad.”

“We was only talkin’ aboot the fence,” put in Frost. “Me an’ Jack stand by our argyment of this mawnin’. You’re runin’ thet line wrong lately, keepin’ to this thick woods hyar.”

“Well, tomorrow we’ll run off a way, then, into the open draws. And I’ll give you and Jack the job of digging post-holes for a few days.”

A long howl of mirth made the welkin ring. After that had subsided Uphill and Jackson rendered the air blue around camp.

Jim stood it a while and then, though it was not out of the ‘ordinary, he pretended to take exception to such profanity.

“Shut your dirty mouths,” he ordered. “If you want to rave you can do it without such cuss words.”

“Wha-at!” bawled Uphill. “Ain’t this hyar a free range? Cain’t I open my mouth?”

“Why don’t you eat with it? This is supper time. And the rest of us are hungry.”

“You heered thet, Jack,” roared Up, in real or assumed wrath. “I shore did,” yelled Jack.

Whereupon the two of them burst out into another long string of profanity. Jim got up and deliberately punched Uphill in the mouth and then Jack. That certainly and effectually stilled the profanity, as well as all other vociferations.

“After supper I’ll oblige you boys with all the satisfaction you want,” said Jim, sitting down again.

Uphill’s face was brick red and he appeared about to explode. “You bet — you will — boss,” he choked.

Jackson Way bent thoughtfully over his supper, with the sombre air of a boy who had been let into something unawares.

Another silence fell. This time Hackamore Jocelyn broke it.

“So the Diamond’s come to this!” he exclaimed, in derision. “My Gawd! no wonder we’re the talk of the range.”

Jim bent a clear, straight gaze upon his one real enemy.

“Jocelyn, the Diamond is doing fine, according to reports from Flag,” he said, deliberately. “And I can see how it could do better.”

“Ahuh. So can I,” replied Jocelyn, with far less subtlety than Jim’s.

“Aw, hell,” interposed Bud Chalfack, “there ain’t no outfit on the range thet could run this drift fence.”

“Wal, cowboy, you mean would run it, an’ thet’s no lie,” returned Jocelyn, sneeringly.

“All stale talk, Hack,” spoke up Jim. “Can’t you think of something new? I sure get tired of it. You’ve got a reputation for hatching up tricks and deals. Why can’t you be original in your gab? It’d amuse us, anyhow.”

Jim had spoken cheerfully, yet with scintillating pointedness. And this remark fell like a blanket upon the company. Most of the cowboys took a bold look at Jocelyn, to see what effect this strong talk from the boss might have. Jocelyn’s lean face paled and he bent over his plate. The tension relaxed, but Jim felt that he had inserted a wedge into the breach.

Uphill Frost finished his meal in remarkably quick time for him. And he arose to make most elaborate preparations for the fray.

“Boss, tell me where you want your carcass planted,” spoke up Bud, quizzically. “An’ give me word to send home.”

That resurrected the humour of the cowboys, except in several instances.

“Any money to bet, Up?” inquired Curly.

“This ain’t goin’ to be fun,” quoth Frost.

“I should smile not. Lay you ten to one you cain’t lick Jim.”

“Jim!” ejaculated Uphill, with a fierce snort. “Who’s Jim?”

“Why, our boss, you damn fule,” replied Curly, innocently. Jim got up with alacrity, and threw off his vest.

“Bud, you be my second,” he said, cheerily. “Fetch those soft gloves of mine.”

Bud complied and Jim pulled them on. These were heavy, soft, woollen gloves that Jim wore occasionally.

“Lemme see? What’s the idee of gloves?” asked Uphill, suspiciously.

“I don’t want to hurt you badly, Up. These gloves are like pads.”

“You don’t say. Wal, you might have a hoss-shoe or nail hid in them. Lemme see...Ahuh, I’ll take my chanct with your bare fists.”

“Come on. Let’s get it over,” said Jim, business-like. “We’ve fence to build, you know.”

After a few passes at each other Uphill swung in like a snorting bull, and Jim, making a feint with his right, came up hard with his left. It connected. Barn!

Up got rid of breath he could not retain.

“Wow!” yelled Curly.

“Got Up’s bread-basket fust off,” added Bud, merrily. “Fellars, we’d better move back,” suggested Cherry. “Fer if the boss soaks him thar ag’in we’ll be dodgin’ biscuits.”

Up had begun valiantly, evidently adhering to a preconceived plan of battle. Jackson Way behind him kept calling encouragements. They danced around, and presently Jim ran in to take a couple of blows in order to plant another, at the pit of Up’s stomach. Biff! It had a solid sound. Up let out a groan. His face changed remarkably, and from that instant he became a changed man. He left his face and head wholly unguarded, endeavouring to stem the attack on his lower anatomy. Jim could have landed at will on nose or eye or chin. But he wanted to hit Up’s weak spot and he fought accordingly. He got in two or three blows, glancing ones, and not quite on the mark. Yet they spread consternation and terror to poor Up’s heart. He had nothing left to get enraged upon. He grew mortally afraid that he would sustain another blow in his vital spot. And he made a ludicrous spectacle. Hack Jocelyn stood in the background, smoking a cigarette, disdainful and aloof. The other cowboys, including Jackson Way, gave vent to their riotous feelings.

Jim took the fight in hand then.

“You cussin’ cowpuncher,” he said, imitating the vernacular of his men. “You lazy hole-diggin’ gopher! Take this one in the gizzard.”...Wham!...”You bow-legged, biscuit-eatin’ rhinoosceross!”...Pop! “Right on the kisser! Forgot you had a face, hey, Up? Look out now.”...Crack! Smack!...Zugg!

That last one, a solid blow over Up’s rather stout middle, elicited an awful groan from him. He sagged, and bent forward like a jack-knife.

“Fer Gawd’s sake!” gasped Up, his face convulsed. “Boss, don’t hit me — there — no more.”

Jim lowered his fists and ceased prancing around the bewildered cowboy.

“Very well. Have you got enough?”

“Aplenty,” groaned Up.

“All right, then, provided you call it square for keeps and shake hands. Otherwise—”

“Boss,” interrupted Frost, hastily, “I’ve ben ag’in you, jest natural an’ cussed. But there was no sense in it. An’ hyar you are!”

Uphill showed the true manliness back of his contrary, cantankerous spirit.

“Now, Jack, come on. It’s the only way for us to settle the difficulty.”

“I reckon so, boss,” returned Jack, ruefully. “But it ain’t fair.”

“Why not? Sure, I didn’t start this. If you want to apologize—”

“Nope. I ain’t takin’ nothin’ back. But my pore body has too many sprains an’ dislocations an’ cracks to stand your hammerin’. All the same, I’ll take my medicine.”

And he did take it, putting up a better fight than Frost’s, though of obvious pain to himself and less fun for the cowboys. He brought the blood from Jim’s nose, an inconsequential blow, yet one loudly applauded by his companions. Shortly after that Jim caught him in the ribs. Jack went down in a heap, rolled over, and laboriously sat up, his face ashen.

“Jim — it was — bad enough — hittin’ all my other — places,” he panted. “But them busted — ribs! I knowed you’d find them...Would you mind — callin’ it off fer keeps?”

“If you want,” replied Jim. “But you’ve bloodied my nose! And I reckon I’d like to soak you some more.”

“Aw no! Take it out on Hackamore,” replied Jack, beseechingly, and he got up to offer his hand to Jim.

His suggestion instantly charged the atmosphere with something more compelling.

“Strikes me,” said Jim, quickly. “How about it, Jocelyn? You’ve a sore head. You’ve been mean and full of poison talk. And I haven’t been as decent as I might have been. Let’s have a whack at each other. It can’t do any harm and it might do good.”

“I wouldn’t soil my gloves on you, Mister Traft,” drawled Jocelyn, with undisguised malignity.

“Oh, wouldn’t you? I reckon you’re thinking more of your handsome face.”

“Yep, I ben told it’s handsome lately, an’ I’m shore keepin’ it so,” returned Jocelyn, with caustic significance. No one there could have misinterpreted him.

Jim bit his tongue. It was no time for him to say more or make a move. Jocelyn packed his gun and had the look of a man who would strain any chance to use it.

That incident marked the definite break between Jim and Jocelyn. There was no hope of a better state of feeling. Jim hoped this disgruntled cowboy would keep to his threat to quit the Diamond. Both Bud and Curly had warned Jim to let Hack alone to take his own time. They assured Jim that Hack would go presently, but they could not quite figure just what he was up to. Jim was glad of their advice and this late evidence of friendship. It seemed, indeed, that Jocelyn was now the only thorn in the flesh of the Diamond. Day by day he became more alienated from Cherry Winters and Hump Stevens, who had been the last of his stand-bys.

Another Saturday came. Some of the boys went to Flagerstown. Hack had disappeared before daylight, and according to Bud and Curly his horse tracks led south.

“Boss, he’s gone to West Fork,” claimed Bud, with a wise look. “Shore as you’re born,” agreed Curly, wagging his bright head. “Curly, let’s ride down there, too,” suggested Bud.

The idea found favour with Curly, who looked at Jim for approval.

“It ain’t a bad idee, boss. We’ll hit the Sycamore trail at Tobe’s Well an’ go off the mountain there. Thet’s aboot at the haid of the brakes. We’ll get a line on driftin’ cattle, an’ mebbe other thin’s, too.”

“Go, by all means,” replied Jim, and he found himself fighting an almost irresistible longing to go with them.

That was the longest week-end Jim had put in since his advent in Arizona. He was on pins and needles until Bud and Curly returned, late on Sunday night. To his disappointment, they seemed uncommunicative and brought no news of any moment. They had not seen Hackamore Jocelyn. They did not mention either Slinger or Molly Dunn. They reported considerably more cattle than they had expected to run across. Numerous dead cows, and old carcasses, neither of which had been killed by wolves or lions, lying in the open along the trails, attested to a changed and startling condition of affairs since the drift fence had been started.

Jim was too sick at heart to go into the subject of stolen stock any deeper that night. What had he expected of the boys? When he lay alone in the dark, his eyes peering through the canopy of foliage at the stars, he confessed to himself that he had yearned for even a word of Molly Dunn. Next morning at an opportune moment he asked Bud.

“Shore I seen Molly,” replied the cowboy, frankly. “At the village. But she didn’t see me. Looked sweeter’n a peach to me. Changed a little, though, somehow. Curly says so.”

“Did you hear anything about Hack?”

“Yep. An’ it ain’t good news,” replied Bud, soberly. “Curly reckoned we’d better not tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Wal, you might ride, off down there.”

“Bud, tell me if there’s anything to worry you.”

“It ain’t worryin’ us exzactly,” rejoined Bud, scratching his head. “I wanted to tell you, an’ Curly talked mein’ it.”

“Jocelyn went to see Molly Dunn,” asserted-Jim, quietly.

“He shore did, which ain’t none of our bizness, since thet little devil has no use for us. But, boss, this is damn queer. Hack is makin’ up to the Haverlys. An’ thet means the Cibeque outfit!”

“Well, what of it? I wish he’d quit us, as he’s hinted.”

“What of it? Gosh! I don’t know. But if Hack quits us I’ll shore tell you what Curly an’ I think.”

Hackamore Jocelyn did not ride into camp until late Monday night. This was a break against rules, and Jim saw that the cowboys were keen to get his reaction to it.

“Where’ve you been, Jocelyn?” he asked.

“Down in the brakes to see my gurl,” replied the cowboy, almost gayly. He had not been drinking. There seemed to be a singular elation or buoyancy about him.

“Why didn’t you get back Sunday night, same as Curly and Bud? They went down to West Fork.”

“Hell you say!” In a twinkling Jocelyn was his old self. “Wal, if you want to know I was havin’ too sweet a time with Molly.”

“I’m not inquiring into your private affairs,” said Jim, coldly. “But if you take another day off without permission, I’ll tire you...Do you understand?”

“Wal, I ain’t hard of hearin’, Mister Traft,” replied Jocelyn, softly.

No more was said. Jocelyn ate his supper alone. The cowboys sat silent. Jim sought his bed presently, and tried to find ease from his pain in slumber.

The drift fence went on mile after mile, and one camp followed another. Three week-ends in succession Jocelyn rode down to West Fork, but on each occasion he returned some time late on Sunday night. The other cowboys ceased riding to Flagerstown. Curly and Bud rode off alone the second week-end, evidently bent on a mission of their own, which Jim guessed to be the movement of cattle, as well as of Hackmore Jocelyn.

Early in August, Jim Traft, acting solely upon his own judgment and responsibility, celebrated his fencing off the many heads of Sycamore Canyon from the brakes of the Cibeque, by posting notices that the Diamond would lay no further claim to stock in and north of Sycamore, and west of the drift fence.

It was a strategic move on Jim’s part. It caught the fancy of every cowboy in his outfit, excepting Jocelyn, who, nevertheless, was staggered by it. Jim had just wanted to be generous to the riders down in the brakes. He had authority to do what he thought best. What did a few herds of cattle, more or less, matter to his uncle? But a singular reaction to this proclamation was the effect upon his cowboys and the several homesteaders living in the proscribed limits. Jim won his cowboys by that act, and further alienated Jocelyn. The homesteaders called at his camp, unmistakably friendly and grateful. They all profited by it. One of them told Bud that he could now make a good start at ranching.

“He was stealin’ a few cattle right along,” vowed Bud. “An’ he admitted it. Any honest cattleman will admit he’s run a few haid not strictly his...Dog- gone it, boys, Jim Traft has hit one plumb centre.”

But so far as Jim was concerned this splendid news, which he knew would travel like wild-fire all over the range, was more than offset by Jocelyn’s talk. The shrewd cowboy had divined how his talk about West Fork and Molly Dunn hurt Jim, and after that he kept everlastingly at it at meal hours or round the camp fire. At first it was just conceited comments upon his girl and her attachment to him. Gradually, however, it developed into vulgar parade of conquest, at which times Jim would make himself scarce. It threatened worse, and Jim vowed if he heard any more derogatory to Molly Dunn that he would force the issue with Jocelyn, come what might, and dismiss him from the Diamond.

In mid-August the drift fence, now up on the great triangular promontory, received its first backset from enemies. Half a dozen stretches, where it crossed the heads of Rock Canyon, had been laid low, with wire cut and hopelessly tangled, and posts broken down. Two days of hard labour were required to repair the damage. Jim had his consolation in the slow anger of the cowboys. It frightened him, too, for he now saw indications of his uncle’s prophecy coming true.

“Boss, let me trail them boss tracks,” begged Curly Prentiss. “I can find out in two days who cut our wire.”

“Suppose you do, Curly. What good will that do?”

“Wal, we can stop it from happenin’ ag’in. An’, Jim, shore as Gawd made little apples it will happen, onless we hit thet trail.”

“How do you propose to stop it?” queried Jim, aghast at the flashing-eyed cowboy.

“Thet’s fer you to say, after we ketch these hombres.”

“Well, let’s wait a little. A few miles of wire, a few days’ extra work — what’s that to us? I’ll admit, though, if they keep on we’ll be up a stump.”

“Shore. We cain’t help matters by waitin’. Bud an’ I agree it’s thet Cibeque outfit, though we cain’t prove it.”

“Prentiss,” spoke up Jocelyn, bitingly, “I reckon you know it’s onhealthy to speak names when you cain’t prove nothin’.”

“Hack, I can shore prove one thing damn pronto,” snapped Curly.

“An’ what’s thet?”

“I take offence at your speakin’ up fer the Cibeque.”

“Ahuh. But what does thet prove?”

“It proves you can git my game any minnit.”

“Wal, if thet’s so there ain’t any helluva rush. I’ve a date with my gurl, Molly, on Sunday, an’ I shore wouldn’t want to miss thet.”

“Aw, you’re a liar, Hack!” retorted Curly, passionately.

Jim got between the two, and by backing Curly away from the camp fire he prevented more trouble for the present.

“Boss, he makes me see red,” raved Curly, when they were alone. “I could uv stood his crack aboot the Cibeque, ‘cause Bud an’ I don’t know shore who cut the fence. But he’s all the time throwin’ pore little Molly Dunn up to me. I liked her orful well, Jim. An’ I cain’t believe she’s thick with him. I cain’t! Mebbe she is. But I jest cain’t believe it. He’s a —— liar!”

“Thick!” echoed Jim.

“Shore. He claims he’s thick with Molly. Haven’t you heahed him?”

“No. What do you mean by thick?”

“Wal, it’s pretty low-down fer a gurl as sweet an’ young as Molly.”

“But you —— . It might be true?”

“Hell yes. Thet’s what hurts so. Shore he’ll marry her sooner or later, if it’s true. Gurls like Molly don’t grow on all the bushes. An’ I reckon most uv the cowboys would take her if she was a d —— little hussy. Bud swore he would.”

“How about you, Curly?” asked Jim, in strangely level voice.

“I would, too. In a minnit,” replied Curly, with his fair head lifting in a way to thrill Jim. “What chance has thet pore kid had? Her father’s no good. An’ they say her mother will cock her eye at a cowboy. An’ Slinger Dunn! He’d be enough to ruin any gurl.”

Jim made no immediate reply. He sat on his bed and pulled the petals off a tiny aster, which he had absent-mindedly plucked. Twilight was stealing down through the forest, melancholy and tranquil. The heat of the day was dissipating. A bell on one of the hobbled horses tinkled musically. The vast forest sighed with a breath of breeze, moving down from the heights.

“Curly, I wish I were as much of a man as you are,” said Jim, presently.

“Aw, boss, thet’s nonsense! You shore are an’ more,” burst out Curly, nonplussed yet pleased. “It’s bin a drill fer you — this Diamond job. But the outfit’s with you. Honest, Jim, an’ heah’s my hand on it. We cain’t count Jocelyn. But to hell with him! He’s been a disturber always, an’ he’s growed wuss. I reckon you’d better fire him pronto.”

“Curly, I couldn’t answer for my temper — if I faced him again tonight,” replied Jim, unsteadily. “Perhaps tomorrow or soon.”

“Jim, ain’t you takin’ this hombre too serious? After all, you’re boss of the Diamond. An’ who’s Hack Jocelyn?”

“It’s not who he is, but what he claims, that’s dug into me,” replied Jim, frankly, lifting his head.

“Claims! You mean aboot Molly?” asked Curly, incredulously.

“Yes. Only I take it harder than you, Curly.”

“Fust Bud, an’ then me, an’ now you! Aw!...Who’d ever think it? Thet black-eyed little devil.”

“Curly, I’d bet my life she’s decent,” declared Jim, with emotion.

“So would I. But it’s a long shot, an’ we’re takin’ odds!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE DAY CAME when Jim Traft had his first look at the country from the rim of the Diamond.

It was from the western promontory under which the Cibeque curled like a winding snake. The rest was endless green, relieved by bare spots and gray specks, which were the homesteads of the inhabitants. West Fork lay almost under the rim, a few cabins and fields, a gray line of road between some houses. Far to the south the dense forest began to lose its grip and showed bare grass flats and ridges. Westward the slopes ran up in long slants, like the ribs of a washboard, ending in a craggy mountain range.

Standing above the forest to look back through the wilderness he had built the drift fence, Jim gazed down over a gradual descent to the open cattle country, rolling and vast and dotted, ending in deep purple distance.

The splendid panorama transported Jim. He gazed long, and ever his eyes travelled back to the picturesque little homestead in the bend of the Cibeque, where he imagined Molly Dunn lived. He could see a log cabin, a ragged clearing in the woods, and tiny specks that must have been cattle or horses.

He lingered there a long while. This, his first sight of Arizona land from a loftly prospect, had staggered him with its vastness, its magnificence, its tremendous note of solitude and the wild. For weeks a subtle happiness in his surroundings had been almost imperceptibly stealing over Jim. He had grown to love the forest and life in the open. He could not hate this beautiful wilderness because through it he had received the cruellest hurt he had ever suffered. And when at length he clambered over the rocks, up to a level and to his horse, he realized that Arizona had claimed him.

On the way back to camp, while riding across one of the grassy draws which headed on the western side of the Diamond, Jim found another placard nailed to a tree. It was identical with one Hackamore Jocelyn had brought in from the head of Sycamore, and its crude mis-spelled message read the same. This one, however, had a round black spot in the centre. Upon tearing the placard loose Jim saw that the spot was a bullet hole. It stirred a curious heat in his veins. And he was reminded of Curly’s admonition, not to ride around alone through the forest. “To be honest aboot it, boss, I’m more afeared Hack Jocelyn will take a shot at you than one of these Cibeque hombres,” said Curly.

“Curly! I can’t believe that of Jocelyn,” expostulated Jim. “It’s not hard to believe it of Slinger Dunn. But one of my own men. No!”

“Wal, heah you are — the same old tenderfoot! You’re daid wrong, Jim. Jocelyn would do thet little thin’ if he had a chance. Mebbe it’s on his mind an’ thet’s why he hangs on heah. But Slinger Dunn would never shoot you or no other man in the back.”

“You rate Slinger Dunn above Jocelyn as a man?” queried Jim, in surprise.

“Lord! yes. An’ it’s hard to explain, boss. But you’ll get it some day...Please take another hunch from me. An’ from this next camp we’re makin’ I’m advisin’ you to have one man whose job is to keep back off the fence line an’ watch.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Curly,” replied Jim. “You can take turns, one man a day. But it’ll slow us up.”

“Listen, Jim. This heah drift fence won’t be done this fall, an’ what with patchin’ it up and savin’ our hides, we’ll shore be next year on the job, an’ then some more.”

“Gosh! Curly, but you’re a pessimistic cuss.”

“Wal, I don’t know jest what thet is, but I reckon it’s a compliment.”

Next day Jim moved camp to Quaking Asp and inaugurated the scout duty for one man. It was hailed with satisfaction, except in case of Jocelyn, who ridiculed it as another “new-fangled idee from Missourie.”

“That lets you out, Jocelyn,” retorted Jim, like a flash. “I don’t know as I would have trusted you, anyhow, with a job so important as that.”

This was throwing down the gauntlet with a vengeance, and certainly against the advice of Curly and Bud.

“Mister Traft, you’re gettin’ mighty pert these days,” returned Jocelyn, the ugly expression changing his handsome face.

“Yes. I’m finding out what little good it does to be civil to some people.”

“Ahuh. Wal, your wise joke was more’n oncivil, I take it.”

“Jocelyn, you can take that crack of mine any way you like.”

“Shucks! We’re shore bustin’ out brave now.”

“Keeping my mouth shut in the past wasn’t proof I was afraid of you, Hack Jocelyn. I’ve politely invited you to fight — twice. Beware of the third time.”

Bud slouched in between the belligerents, sloe-eyed, and hard of face for him, but he did not speak.

“Shore,” drawled Jocelyn, with that peculiarly mean note. “I know you invited me to a fist fight. An’ I couldn’t take you on. My sweetheart won’t have me all bunged up.”

Jim felt the cold tightening of his skin which heralded the receding of blood from his face. Either this crafty cowboy had guessed his secret or he had learned something from Molly Dunn. And in the passion of the moment Jim inclined to the latter suspicion. If he replied to Jocelyn, or even glanced at him, there would be no more possibility of restraint. Yet Jim quivered in his eagerness to get his hands on Jocelyn. Curly saved the situation for him.

“Hack, you ain’t showin’ much respect fer our boss,” he said, and interposed his long frame before Jocelyn.

That worthy let out a guffaw. “It ain’t so long thet you did the same. Now you’re eatin’ out of his hand. Wal, Curly Prentiss, you lay to this. Heah’s one who’ll never do it.”

“Reckon none of us figgered you would. Hack, you may have the edge on me an’ Hump, an’ mebbe Lonestar, when it comes to years on the range. But we ain’t quite looney.”

This droll speech, delivered in apparent good humour, effectually silenced Jocelyn, who without more ado left the group.

“Boss, I’d reckon he’ll last heah till one more pay day,” ended Curly. But several of the boys, outspoken and less humorous, took issue with him on that score.

Another Saturday arrived, and at noonday, when the cowboys knocked off for the week, Jocelyn, with more than usual of his donning his best and gaudiest, made a parade of his start for West Fork.

Jeff Davis, the dumb cook, electrified Jim and prostrated the cowboys.

“I’m a quiet man an’ I like peace,” he began, in a perfectly clear and resonant voice. “Thet’s why I never talk. But that ——  ——  —— a Jocelyn has got me riled. An’ if some of you ——  —— cowpunchers don’t shet him up, I’ll slip some coyote poison in the —— meat!”

Such profanity had never before been heard in the Diamond camp, at least since Jim had taken charge. The boys gave the cook wide-eyed and gaping stares, then after their usual manner when enraptured they whooped like Indians and rolled on the ground. Upon partial recovery they delivered themselves with characteristic remarks.

“Our tongue-tied cook!”

“Deaf an’ dumb! Haw! Haw!”

“An’ mebbe he cain’t cuss!”

No other of the Diamond outfit left camp that week-end. They had a lazy, jolly time of it, interspersed with some thoughtful conferences about the obstacles ahead. Jim could not feel that they had accepted him as one of them yet, but they had changed so materially that their humour had lost its sting.

At Quaking Asp a stream of cold water ran down into the canyon, and half a mile below the rim there were pools full of fine trout. Bud took Jim fishing. Now it chanced that fishing had always been Jim’s favourite pastime, but he had never seen a rainbow trout. The tackle was not much, Bud averred; merely hooks and lines which he dug out of his kit. They cut poles and caught grasshoppers for bait. Jim had the most thrilling few hours of his Western experience, always putting aside those fatal hours with Molly Dunn. He caught a number of nice trout, and Bud caught a string as heavy as he wanted to pack uphill. When they arrived at camp with fresh fish for supper they were received with vociferous acclaim.

On Sunday they assayed to go again, and Curly begged to be taken. He was put to catching grasshoppers, and the spectacle of that long-legged, awkward- running cowboy, whooping wildly ‘and batting grasshoppers with his huge sombrero, was something to see.

They had a great day on the brook, the climax of which was when Curly slipped off a rock and fell in to his neck.

It wanted an hour to sunset when they arrived in camp. To Jim’s amaze Hack Jocelyn had just ridden in and had kicked his chaps off. Jim’s quick eyes noted the cowboy’s gun-belt hanging on the pommel of his saddle. The sight seemed to make every fibre in Jim leap. Jocelyn presented a marked contrast to the debonair braggart of a courtier who had left for West Fork only the day before. His garb looked as if he had slept in a hay-loft. His face was haggard, dark, and sullen. Not many hours past he had been under the influence of liquor.

If Jocelyn saw the approach of Jim and his companions, he gave no evidence of it, but went on in forceful harangue to Cherry Winters and Lonestar.

Jim caught the tail end of a speech that drew him up, strung and sharp. He dropped his string of trout. In a few strides ha was upon Jocelyn, and with hard hand jerked him round.

“Were you speaking of Molly Dunn?” he demanded.

“Wal, if it’s any of your —— mix, yes, I was,” returned Jocelyn, deliberately, and the way he squared himself and dropped his right hand to his side was not to be overlooked. Only he had forgotten that his gun hung in his belt over the pommel of his saddle.

“Jocelyn, you’re fired,” rang out Jim.

“Nope. Beat you to it, Traft. I quit,” replied Jocelyn. “When?”

“Wal, if I recollect, it was yestiddy.”

“All right. Get out of my camp. You can’t even eat here.”

“Traft, thet ain’t Western — to send a man out hungry,” said Jocelyn, darkly.

“Is it Western to speak vilely of a girl?” flashed Jim, hotly. “Depends on thet gurl, Mister raft.”

“Jocelyn, what you said may be true, though, by God! I think you’re a liar! One way or another you’re a dirty skunk!”

Then Jim lunged out with all the fury of might and grief. His big fist covered one of Jocelyn’s malignant eyes. The cowboy fell over the bench, knocking Winters down. Jim leaped after them, and plunged upon Jocelyn, to kick him fiercely, and then fall on him like a battering-ram.

Curly was the first to leap and grasp Jim. But he could do nothing.

“Help, somebody!” he yelled. “Bulldog him, Bud!...There!...Why, boss, shore you’d killed the fellar. Come now...You shore lost your temper.”

Between them they dragged Jim off the bloody-faced Jocelyn, who sat up groggily.

“Some of you — lead him out of — camp,” panted Jim, struggling for breath. “Then come back for his horse and pack...And his wages, too.”

Jim turned away unsteadily, with Bud still holding his arm. “Let go!” growled Jim, roughly. “Or I’ll biff you one.”

“Boss, I ain’t fit to face my Maker jest yet,” drawled Bud, complying with this command.

They crossed to where Jim had his bed and pack. “Fetch my bag, the one I keep my money in,” said Jim, as he sat down. He was visibly shaking and the sweat dropped from his face. Bud brought out the little bag and opened it.

“Wal, I don’t see how we could hey avoided thet, boss,” he said, resignedly, shaking his head.

“Avoid hell! Ought to have jumped him long ago.” Jim looked at his big, dirty, red-stained hands. “Get out the money, Bud...Let’s see. I’ll pay him the month out.”

“Pay him nuthin’ you don’t owe,” declared Bud, carefully calculating and counting out the amount due. “I’ll give it to Cherry an’ let him hand it over.”

Jim did not look up from the ground until he had recovered his balance. Jocelyn had evidently been led off into the woods, for Cherry appeared to be following with his horse and Hump Stevens with his pack. They disappeared. Whereupon Curly and Bud returned to Jim.

“Best job fer the Diamond in six years,” said Bud.

“Ahuh. But bad fer the boss, Bud,” added Curly, gravely. “Boys, I couldn’t stand him any longer. I couldn’t,” broke out Jim, spreading wide his hands.

“Shore you couldn’t. But Jocelyn will never get over thet. I don’t mean the lickin’, though you near busted him. It’s what you called him an’ orderin’ him out of camp. Thet’ll go over the range. It’ll aboot make Hack Jocelyn an outlaw.”

“I’m not sorry. I suppose he’ll kill me, but I couldn’t have done otherwise.”

“Wal, Jim, it’s done,” rejoined Curly. “He’s shore slated fer wuss company. I’ll bet my spurs Slinger Dunn will kill him. But the thing fer you to make up your mind aboot is — if you ever meet Jocelyn ag’in, no matter where, grab your gun an’ begin to shoot. Savvy?”

“Boss, will you promise to do thet little trick?” asked Bud, just as earnestly as Curly had spoken.

“Yes, boys, I promise,” replied Jim.

“Fine an’ dandy,” declared Curly. “You’re no slouch with a gun an’ Hack ain’t so much. It’d been plumb murder fer me to draw on him. But the chances are slim you’ll ever meet up with Jocelyn alone. If he gets in the Cibeque an’ Slinger Dunn stands fer it — which I’ll gamble he won’t — he’ll be jumpin’ out of the fryin’-pan into the fire. Jocelyn is only another cowpuncher thet’s gone to the bad. I’ve seen a lot of them. The Cibeque will be the wuss off with Jocelyn. They’ll cut our fence an’ rustle our stock. An’, boss, if you don’t hold the Diamond back, every damn one of thet two-bit outfit will be daid or in jail before the snow flies.”

“Boss,” added Bud, impressively, “Curly an’ I know right now thet the Haverlys arc cuttin’ our fence an’ rustlin’ our cattle. We didn’t ride down to West Fork fer nothin’.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Wal, you had trouble enough. An’ we reckoned we’d keep it as long as we could.”

“If you give me proofs I — I’ll not hold the Diamond back,” declared Jim, and probably that decision marked the West claiming him for its own.

“Wal, we cain’t lay a hand on proof jest this minnit, but it’ll shore come,” replied Bud.

The Diamond operated out of that camp until wagon-loads of fresh supplies and more wire arrived from Flagerstown. Then they pushed on to Tobe’s Well, which was the end of the road. Thereafter all transports had to be packed on horseback.

Each succeeding camp site had added something to Jim’s appreciation of Arizona; and Tobe’s Well outdid them all.

Tobe, an obscure bear-hunter, had long ago built a log shack there, after which the canyon and the bubbling well of crystal spring water had taken his name. The situation was wholly different from the other camp settings. The canyon headed on the best slope of the Diamond, in a deep, bottle-necked, gray- cliffed gorge. The floor consisted of several acres of cleared land and as much more in pine and spruce. The well was a huge spring at the upper end of the clearing, and the wonderful flow of water boiled and bubbled up in the centre. Under a magnificent spruce, the dead top of which tipped the rim-wall above, stood the old log shack in ruins. There were several outlets to this miniature lake, little rivulets that wound away under grass and fern-bordered banks to merge into one stream in the centre of the gorge. Soon it gathered velocity and plunged with low roar through the canyon neck, thereafter to fall precipitously down to the Cibeque. Giant pines and spruces stood far apart around the well, too lordly and self-contained to mingle branches or shade. White and purple asters, gold daisies, and blue flags waved in the summer wind. Birds and squirrels appeared tame and friendly. A herd of deer, does and fawns, stood with ears erect to watch the wagons roll clatteringly in at the rocky gateway.

“Boss, this heah is one water-hole you cain’t fence off the Diamond.” declared Curly, with a chuckle.

And indeed it seemed imperative to run the drift fence considerably below the gateway. Tobe’s Canyon was one of the brakes of the Cibeque, not so large and open as the Sycamore, or Deer or Long Horn Canyons. It was, however, a big country in itself, extremely wild and rugged up on the slope of the Diamond, and a noted place for bear and lion. The cattle that drifted down Tobe’s Canyon had never been recovered by their owners.

“I’m going to have my fall hunt right here,” declared Jim.

“Wal, heah’s a gent who’d like to chop wood an’ pack water fer you,” said Curly.

“An’, boy, if I do say it myself, I can cook rings around Jeff,” added Bud, eagerly.

“You’re both on,” replied Jim, gladly.

“But, Lord! we’re forgettin’,” went on Curly. “We won’t hey the fence up by October, an’ if we do get it up it’ll only go down ag’in...An’ then we’ll be huntin’ wire-cutters an’ cattle thieves.”

On the second day at Tobe’s Well the drift fence was run below and around this famous waterhole and back up on the Diamond.

Jim had a rather uneasy conscience. Tobe’s Well lay below the rim, and there was no other water close either to the north or south. Of course, all the water from the well ran on down the mountain, and cattle west of the fence could find it. But somehow the thing did look as if he was fencing off a waterhole. And he ventured to ask Curly what he thought the West Forkers would say about it.

“Aw, hell, let ’em drink whisky,” declared Curly. “Boss, you’re too tumble conscientious. Our side will say we’re savin’ the drift of cattle. Their side will say we’re fencin’ off grass an’ water. It’s nip an’ tuck. But wait till you heah some bullets hissin’ past your ear!”

The sixth day from that fell to Jim as his turn for the scout duty he had initiated. He had saddled and mounted while yet the others were at breakfast.

“Boss, how fur do you aim to ride back along the line?” asked Bud.

“I’ll make for Sycamore, strike the fence, and work this way.” replied Jim.

“Wal, keep your eye peeled,” said Curly, gruffly.

Jim rode out of the canyon and up to the rim above, from which he gazed down with a stinging sensation of pleasure at the wild camp site, the does and fawns grazing with the horses, the blue column of smoke curling upward, and at the circle of cowboys round the fire.

Lonestar’s mellow voice floated up: “Oh, I am a Texas cowboy, jest off the Texas plains. My trade is cinchin’ saddles—”

Jim wheeled his horse off into the pines, conscious that his full heart could not quite attain the joy of realization. He loved the West; he was proving his mettle to his uncle and his father; he had begun to fit in with these elemental, dare-devil cowboys; he liked life in the open and the wild. But he could not rid himself of the pang and oppression in his breast, of the persistence of a bitter, sickening doubt and regret. Long weeks, even months, had not killed his love for Molly Dunn. Time and thought, long hours in the lonely nights and bitter reflection, had proved to Jim that the one constant, ever-growing thing had been love. Some day before long he would ride down to West Fork and see Molly Dunn. See for himself what she was and if there was not reason for his blind faith!

So his thoughts came and went, repeated themselves and augmented, while he rode through the forest. There was no trail, but he had his direction and knew he could not miss Sycamore. Cattle were numerous and many of them wild. He saw not only unbranded calves and heifers, but two-year-old steers. And he remarked this as something against the large cattlemen. It could do no less than tempt the little stockmen and the homesteaders to something morally dishonest, if not so according to range law. And once a man had stolen unbranded cattle he was on the down grade. This was Jim’s personal conviction. Curly Prentiss would argue, “Wal, how do I know this heah unbranded calf ain’t mine?” Jim had to concede the point, but he thought it could become far- fetched. The free range and mixed cattle were mistakes. Jim, however, admitted he could not see any remedy at present. The drift fence was a start.

Arriving at Sycamore, he rode west a short distance until he came to the fence, when he turned south to follow it. He walked his horse, keeping back a few rods, and he peered ahead with keen eyes. He covered several miles in this cautious manner and came out on the bank of a swampy swale, from which water drained down into Rocky Canyon. Aspen thickets, clumps of new spruce and pine, filled the head of this canyon. Cattle were drifting down.

Jim found the fence down in a section clear across this gateway to the brakes. He really had not expected to find a cut, and hard on his surprise and dismay it roused his slumbering wrath.

He proceeded, though less cautiously, with his rifle across the pommel. And along toward noon he rode down the wooded slope under Tobe’s Well. Cattle were working down here, too. Not drifting! Jim prepared himself for another surprise. The bottleneck width of Tobe’s Canyon had been sheared of its wire fence. A clean-cut job it was, every wire strand having been cut on each side of trees and posts.

Jim descried fresh hoof tracks in the dim, seldom-used trail. Such was his wrath now that he followed them, keeping on the grass and under the pines where his horse walked quietly. Once the animal neighed, much to Jim’s annoyance. That worried Jim, but did not deter him. And as he worked down, keeping intense vigilance on all sides, he could scarcely fail of impressions as to the wildness of Tobe’s Canyon.

His intent was to trail this fence-cutter clear to his hole, wherever that was; and Jim’s excitement kept him from realizing the miles he descended, until he got down on comparative level, in the midst of a most beautiful forest of spruce and pine. Few indeed were the open glades and aisles. He heard cattle or elk breaking sticks back of the trail; the black squirrels and blue jays noisily resented his presence; he saw a squirrel-hawk flash down through an opening and crash into a tree, to flop violently and fly off, clutching a furry victim in his claws. That was a near bit of cruel nature to Jim.

Suddenly his horse elevated his ears and stopped. The trail ran straight for twenty paces, and turned at a huge brown pine. A man stepped out, silent as a shadow. Jim recognized the lithe buckskin-clad form, the dark face, the eyes like holes that exposed fire behind. He levelled a gun, took deliberate aim, while Jim froze in his saddle.

He saw a red belch from the gun. A sharp impact as from a violent gust of wind struck him. Then a terrific shock, a tearing rend of flesh, a thundering crash! Jim’s horse plunged to throw him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

VIOLENT COLLISION WITH ground or tree ended Jim’s acute consciousness. His first sensations afterward were the chill of water on his face and a burning pain in his breast. Then he felt hands on his forehead.

He forced his weighted eyelids open, to see bright sunshine and spread of foliage over him. He lay half sitting up against a log. Beside him knelt a girl. She uttered a broken cry.

“Oh — Mister Traft — you’ve come to!” she exclaimed, huskily.

“Molly Dunn!” Jim’s voice was not very strong. She straightened up a little so the light struck her face. It appeared pale and convulsed, with dark eyes dilated in horror. Both her little hands were red with blood. This fully clarified Jim’s stunned faculties. “Am I bad hurt?”

“Oh — I don’t know! I — I’m afraid!” she cried.

“Show me where I’m shot.”

“Your breast...heah!”

Jim’s shirt was open. Even with the girl’s help it took nerve to feel for the wound. His whole breast burned. A wet scarf lay pressed tight over his heart. Warm slippery blood! It had saturated his clothes. It was flowing freely. Then his fingers located a hole in his flesh that seemed on fire. Despite the shock to his wits Jim knew he had not been shot through or near the heart. The bullet hole ranged upwards. Had it missed his lungs? The moment was fraught with terror. And as he felt of it he was gazing up into the strained eyes of the girl. He localized the sharpest pain higher up. The bullet had come out on top of his left shoulder. From here the blood poured. Something cold and ghastly released its clutch upon Jim.

“Bullet — glanced,” he muttered. Then he asked if there was any other wound.

“You hit on your haid,” replied the girl.

“Molly, I’ll not die,” he said.

“Thank God! I — I was so terribly frightened. What can I do?”

“You had water here?”

“I filled your hat at the brook.”

“Tear this scarf in strips,” directed Jim. “You’ll find a clean one in my pocket...Now tear that — and fold into pads. You’ve only to wash off the blood — and bind the pads on tight.”

She complied with his instructions, without hesitation, though her hands shook.

“But this top hole! You’re bleedin’ so! Fast as I wipe the blood off—”

“Put one of the pads over it. Press tight. Now I’ll hold it there...Knot the strips...Slip under my arm — over my shoulder. Now the other pad...and tie tight.”

The difficult task was at length accomplished. Molly sat back on her heels, plainly weak. Tiny drops like dew stood out upon her forehead. Her hair was wet. She made a move to brush it back from her face, then, aware of her bloody hands, she essayed to do it with her elbow, holding them out so as to avoid contact.

“Molly Dunn, you’ve got my blood on your hands — all right,” said Jim, with significance.

But it escaped her. “I shore have — and it sickens me,” she whispered. Then pouring water from his sombrero she washed them, and wiped them upon the grass.

Jim felt faint, and he was suffering severe pain, both of which in the thrilling agitation of the moment seemed nothing to be concerned about.

“I must get you back off the trail heah,” she spoke up, suddenly.

“Yes. If you help me I can manage,” he replied. With her assistance he laboured to his feet and walked, leaning on her. For a little girl she certainly was strong. They seemed to go far. Jim grew dizzy. He heard running water, but could not see it. Blurred spruce trees stood up all around. His head swam, and when the girl stopped to let him down it was none too soon for Jim. He spoke, but apparently she did not hear. Then his sight cleared. She was coming with water in his sombrero.

“You aboot fainted that time, Mister Jim,” she said, lifting his head so he could drink.

“I — should — smile,” whispered Jim, as he lay back. Presently he had recovered again, not only to the mounting pains, but to a thrilling sense of this extraordinary situation.

“What — happened?” he asked.

“Shore a lot,” she replied, mournfully.

“Do you know who shot me?” he went on.

She hung her head.

“You needn’t tell me. I know. It was your brother, Slinger Dunn...He stepped out from behind a tree...didn’t seem in any hurry. But I was paralysed. I forgot I had a gun.”

“It’s beyond me — that you’re alive. Oh, I’m thankful...But what’ll we do?”

Jim felt the lump over his breast where the lower pad had been bound. It was right under his shirt pocket over his heart. His finger located the bullet hole in his shirt and at the same instant his watch.

“See here, Molly,” he said, curiously. “Take my watch out.”

She complied. The watch was of heavy silver and had been long in the Traft family. Evidence was not wanting that it had served its day. The bullet had struck the case, making a heavy dent and then had glanced upward.

“That accounts,” whispered Molly. “I wondered aboot it. Slinger doesn’t often miss what he shoots at.”

“Saved my life! — Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed Jim, fondling the watch. “And I came awful close not fetching it!”

“Oh, such luck! Thank Heaven!...But, Mister Trait, what’ll we do?”

“Do? I haven’t the slightest idea. I couldn’t get on a horse...I’ll probably be laid out. My, but it throbs and burns!”

“You’ll have fever. An’ maybe blood-poisonin’. We got to have medicine,” she rejoined, tragically.

“It won’t do to send you up to my camp.”

“Why not? My horse is heah, tied over there.”

“The boys would know your brother shot me. I don’t want that.”

“Shore they’ll find it out, anyhow.”

“Well, I suppose. But if I’m on my feet I could keep them from—”

“Mister Jim, you needn’t let Slinger off on my account.” she interrupted.

“I’ll have something to say to him when I’m all right again.” declared Jim, grimly. “What’d the — Why did he shoot me? On account of this drift fence?”

“No. Reckon it was aboot me.”

“You!”

“Shore. It’s gone all over the country — what you did — what we did — that night of the dance...out on the porch.”

“Bud Chalfack — the devil!” ejaculated Jim, stirringly aware of Molly’s scarlet blush. “He told it!...Oh, I’m sorry, Molly! That was such a — a crazy thing for me to do.”

“Reckon I was just aboot as crazy,” she replied, generously, and smiled just a little wistfully. “But Slinger didn’t heah what I did...an’ he shore wouldn’t believe me. I was scared he’d choke it out of me.”

“What does he think, Molly?”

“It couldn’t be no worse, Mister Jim.”

“The damn blockhead! Some of these Arizona fellows make me see red...I’ll make it my business to hunt Mister Slinger up.

“Oh, don’t do that! I beg you!” she implored.

“Suppose I busted in on him somewhere. At your home or in the saloon at West Fork — before other people. He wouldn’t murder me outright, would he?”

“No. But he’d make you draw. Arch is the most awfullest man when he’s mad.”

“I didn’t know whether he was mad or not, but he sure looked awful,” replied Jim, forcing a laugh. “Molly Dunn, how’d you happen to come along here and find me?”

“Slinger just the same as told me he’d kill you,” she replied, grave, dark eyes on him. “I waited this mawnin’ till he was gone. Then I trailed him. My plan was to keep behind him till we were up on top, then I’d ride off the trail an’ go round to your camp.”

“Well! What for?”

“I wanted to warn you aboot Slinger. An’ that you was in ‘most as much danger from the Cibeque outfit.”

“Molly Dunn!” he cried, incredulously. “Then it wasn’t an accident? You actually came to save me?”

The distance to the little brown hand on her knee was not far, and his quickly bridged it. She seemed neither shy nor cold. “It shore wasn’t no accident, Mister Jim,” she said.

“You must have risked a good deal, Molly.”

“I didn’t think aboot it. But if they find it out down in the brakes — well, the Cibeque wouldn’t be no place for me. An’ Slinger will aboot kill me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! And grateful! Molly Dunn, I’ve got to think up some way to prove it...But you must not let Slinger or anyone see you. How far is it to your home?”

“Reckon aboot five miles, down through the woods. I can keep off the trail.”

“How’d you happen to find me?”

“I trailed Slinger to where his tracks went off into the woods. Then I stopped. ‘Pretty soon I heahed a shot — then a cry — then a horse comin’ my way fast. I hid behind a spruce. An’ I seen Slinger ride by. I didn’t know what had happened. But I tied my horse an’ slipped up the trail. First I saw your horse. He was makin’ off, draggin’ his bridle. Then I found you lyin’ by a tree. You’d fallen off an’ hit your haid.”

She released her hand from his and gently touched Jim’s head above his temple, where even a slight pressure caused him pain. “I’d better fetch your horse,” she added, rising.

“Don’t go far or stay long,” said Jim.

The slight buckskin-clad form vanished in the green. And only then did Jim take note of his surroundings. He lay in a sort of lean-to made of spruce boughs, dead and brown. He could see one small bit of blue sky; all the rest was green. He heard a low murmur of running water. The place was secluded, and redolent of dry sweet pine needles.

But the effort to sit up caused him so much pain that he was glad indeed to lie back. He must not forget that he had been shot. What an adventure! His thoughts simply whirled, and he had to force them to a logical plan. He absolutely must send the girl home soon. Could he dare let her risk coming back the next day? The idea overcame him. Sooner or later the cowboys would find him, though the last place they would look would be down the trail from Tobe’s Well.

Soft thuds on the ground made Jim aware that Molly was returning with his horse. They ceased. Then he heard a rustling sound, and then the soft flop of leather. Next she appeared with his saddle blankets and his coat.

“Mister Jim, didn’t you have a gun?” she asked.

“So I did. A rifle...I had it across the front of my saddle when Slinger stepped out from behind that tree.”

She disappeared again. And he lay there, subject to renewed emotion. Presently she returned with the rifle, to deposit it by his side. How pretty, slim, and graceful she looked in buckskin! He told her so. She just gazed at him with great, reproachful, melancholy eyes.

“Have you worn the lovely white dress since?” he added. “No...I’m savin’ that to be buried in.”

“Molly!...You should have said married. How sweet—”

“Mister Jim, you’re shore talkin’ too much — not to say too wild. Your face is hot. An’ time is flyin’. What’ll we do? I’ve hobbled your horse.”

“You must go home at once. Don’t let anybody see you...Will you come back tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she replied, with gravity, as if only she knew what that promise implied.

“Thank you. Better fetch some medicine. I’m going to be pretty sick...And some clean linen to bandage my bullet holes.”

“There’s a canteen on your saddle,” she said, and stepped outside the shack to procure it. Upon returning she placed it beside his rifle. Then on her knees she scraped up a soft pile of pine needles, and spread his saddle blankets upon them, and folded his coat for a pillow.

“There’s a bed for you. I reckon you won’t get cold. If you do, use one of the blankets...An’ now I’ll go.”

Jim gazed up at her as she knelt there.

“Molly...kiss me,” he importuned, quite beside himself. “Mister Jim!”

“I’ll be here alone, unable to move...Slinger might come back and kill me...Kiss me, Molly.”

“No. He won’t come back.”

“I might bleed to death or die of fever,” he went on, wildly. “You’re out of your haid.”

“Of course I am. But I know what I’m asking. Please kiss me.”

“You ask that of me — Molly Dunn?”

“I don’t care who or what you are.”

Twice he reached for her, but she was just a little too far away.

“You mustn’t move,” she said, in alarm, edging close on her knees. Then he could reach her. How large and dark her eyes appeared in her pale face!

“Kiss me, and go.”

She bent over his forehead as if impelled, yet earnestly.

“No!” he cried, seeing her intent, and moving impatiently.

Then blushing duskily scarlet she bent lower, closing her eyes, laid cool sweet lips on his. Before Jim could catch his breath to speak again she had fled.

“Low down of me to take advantage of her that way,” he muttered. “But, after all, was it?...Curly would say, ‘Thet shore aboot spills me.’”

Whereupon Jim called Molly every adorable name that he had ever heard or could make up, and in some measure satisfied himself of sincerity. After which he lay for long in a dream, the pleasure of which made him almost unconscious of pain. From that he fell into a fitful slumber.

When he awoke the light low down had shaded and rays gold slanted through the forest. He was uncomfortably hot and thirsty, but the pain had somewhat dulled. It hurt him, however, to move over on to the bed of boughs, and he was glad to stretch out. Common sense told him that his situation was pretty serious, if his condition was not, but he could hardly dwell on anything else save Molly Dunn’s return the next day. What endless hours to wait! Suppose she did not come? But that girl would come. Jim knew it positively. Nevertheless, he tried to consider his predicament.

The boys would scarcely be apt to search for him until next day. He had often been absent from camp until late. Then they would ride north to Sycamore, and the chances were favourable that they would not find him until the following day. Jim hoped they would not. Slinger Dunn, though, might come back to see his victim. After pondering this, however, Jim inclined to Molly’s conviction that Slinger would not come. There was nothing else to speculate upon then but the girl. Jim suddenly felt glad for the solitude of the forest and the long night hours that he must pass wakefully.

He watched the gold fade from the tips of the spruces. The sky turned gray. Twilight enveloped the green surroundings in obscurity. Soon all was black except a small space of sky overhead where pale stars blinked, and grew clear and white. The stillness was something that Jim soon felt he could not endure. But it did not last. A sigh breathed through the tree-tops. The night wind had begun its dominance of the forest. Soon from all around came rustlings and stealthy sounds.

From time to time Jim had to take a swallow of water from the canteen. These movements caused him acute pain, but when it subsided he suffered only the dull throbbing ache in head and breast. He could stand it. He did not mind only when it interfered with the pondering of his problem. Some late hour in the night relief from his mental struggle came, if not for the physical distress under which he laboured. He had made up his mind about Molly Dunn, and a sweetness, a gladness, pervaded his soul. Then he fell asleep.

Jim awoke at what he imagined must be the dark hour before dawn. He lay flat on his back, and it took a moment or more for him to realize he was not in camp, but alone in the deep forest, wounded, and parched by thirst. This he satisfied, and had begun to mill over his predicament again when his heavy eyelids closed as if weighted with sleep.

When again they unclosed not only had dawn come, but the sun had arisen, and squirrels and jays were holding forth noisily.

Jim’s throbbing headache had departed, and aside from the painful itching and contracting of his wounds he seemed to be doing pretty well indeed. At any rate, he told himself so. He sat up, finding that only the use of his left arm and shoulder hurt him severely. About this hour, he reflected, and with considerable gratification, there would be consternation in the Diamond camp. Curly and Bud, on the rampage, would scatter those cowboys like a bunch of quail; and lonesome riders encountered in the woods were going to give strict account of their presence.

Sooner or later someone would find him, and if no one did he might be able in a couple of days to reach camp. Perhaps he was not very practical this morning, for he almost felt grateful to Slinger Dunn. Young Jim Traft, head of the Diamond outfit, shot by a fence-cutter in the Cibeque — how that would fly over the range! And how would his uncle take it? And Ring Locke? Jim realized that he would have risen in their estimation. All the same, he did not intend to betray Molly Dunn’s brother. Jim had the nucleus of a plan hazily forming in his mind.

Waiting for Molly Dunn was not in the least wearisome, though the moments multiplied into hours. Jim had too much to thrill over — to conjecture about. How would she take him? He tried to imagine the expression of her face — of her wonderful eyes at the critical moment.

Thus dreamily engaged, he was not prepared for a low clatter of hoofs down the trail. He sat up with such a start that he wrenched his shoulder and had to pay a severe penalty. The forest was very still, except for birds and squirrels. The rhythmic beat of hoofs subsided, and likewise Jim’s mounting heart. Then the sound came clear again. The hoofbeats were soft, and the horse that made them was neither heavy nor shod. They swelled clearer for a little, slowed down, and then ceased.

“It’s Molly,” said Jim softly, and yet he endeavoured to fortify himself against mistake. The moments dragged, and he was becoming nervous and discouraged when a rustle of brush and soft footfalls just behind the lean-to brought him up transfixed and thrilling.

Suddenly the slight gray form he had in his mind’s eye appeared before him. She was bareheaded and the sunlight glinted from her dishevelled hair. She carried a bundle.

“Oh, there you — are! I was — shore scared!” she panted. Her eyes appeared unnaturally large and black in her small pale face.

“Morning, Molly! I reckoned you’d never come,” he said, gladly.

“Are you — all right?”

“I had an awful night. And I was bad until just now,” he replied.

She sat down, and, depositing her bundle, she put a hand to her bosom as if to still its heaving. She averted her eyes. It was plain she could not look at him. She appeared worn and troubled, as if she had passed a harassed, sleepless night. She seemed such a wistful, pathetic little figure. Jim’s heart filled with tenderness and he could scarce contain his tremendous secret.

“Molly, did you get home safe?” he asked, anxiously.

“Yes. Slinger didn’t come, an’ ma never heahed me.”

“That’s fine. I’m sure glad. I’ve worried a lot.” Then, noticing that she wore a blood-stained bandage around her left hand, he asked solicitously if she had not injured herself.

“No. I just put this on to fool ma, so I could go to the store,” she explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “An’ I told Mr. Summers I’d cut myself an’ was scared of blood poison. I bought this medicine, an’ I’ve fetched some clean linen, a towel an’ soap, an’ somethin’ for you to eat.”

“You’re just wonderful, Molly!” said Jim, and meant it in a multiplicity of ways.

She gave him a fleeting flash of eyes. “I’ll fetch some water,” she returned.

Jim noted, as she glided away with the canteen, how cautiously she peeped around the spruce tree before venturing farther. She was none some moments, that dragged for the eager Jim. Then presently she reappeared as noiseless as a shadow, to get the dripping canteen down beside him, and knelt to undo a buckskin thong around the bundle.

“It’s goin’ to hurt right smart,” she said, practically.

“Molly, I could stand to be carved into mincemeat by you.”

Whereupon she laid a cool hand on his forehead and temples, and then slipped it inside his open shirt to feel the bandages.

“Wal, you don’t ‘pear to have fever, but you shore look an’ talk flighty,” she said. “Will you hold still an’ keep quiet? This’s goin’ to hurt like sixty. I’ve done it more’n once for Arch.”

Jim nodded his acquiescence, and thought it would be safer and facilitate the operation if he closed his eyes. She cut the strips of scarf that had served as a bandage and then she essayed to remove the pads. They had evidently crusted with blood and they stuck tight. She saturated them with water and pulled gently at them until it appeared that more force must be used. Jim made the mental reservation that it hurt twice times sixty. But once the pads had been removed, how soothing to his hot skin and the irritated wounds were the touch of her cool hand and the feel of water!

“Mister Jim, from what little I know aboot gunshot wounds, I’d say you’re not so bad off this mawnin’,” she said.

“I dare say my — my favourable condition can be laid to my beautiful and splendid nurse,” he replied, without opening his eyes. He thought he caught a suppressed titter, but could not be sure. Then he attended to her applying a stinging solution to his wounds and a deft and thorough bandaging of them.

“There. I cain’t do no more foryou,” she said. “I reckon these bullet holes are healin’ clean, but it’d be sense to have your men get you to Flag, pronto...An’ then stay there, Mister Jim.”

“Thanks, Molly. I’m very grateful to you,” he rejoined, opening, his eyes to smile up at her. “I’ll go to Flag, of course, if it’s necessary. But I’ll come back...Molly, is it safe for you to stay with me awhile?”

“Safe? I reckon so, now I’m heah,” she replied, thoughtfully. “Ma won’t miss me...But all the same I ought to run!”

“Run? From what?”

“From you, Mister Jim.”

“Please leave off the ‘Mister.’ We’ve known each other a long time, now. It’d be perfectly proper.”

She laughed, and her mirth had just a touch of bitter mockery.

“Why should you run from me?”

“I’ve been with you only twice an’ you made a fool of me both times,” she replied, resentfully.

“I never did,” he protested. If he could stir her, even to anger, he might overcome the aloofness he sensed in her this morning. But failing in this, he thought he knew a way.

“You shore did. That night on the porch at Flag! You grabbed me just like Hack Jocelyn an’ other cowpunchers I know. An’ yesterday — that was worse. Your persuadin’ me!”

“Molly, consider. There was no excuse for me at the dance. But yesterday there was.”

“Maybe for you. But not for me. I shore wonder what you think of me.”

Jim saw the delight of playing upon her simplicity must be forsworn. She seemed to be smarting under shame. The moment had come, far swifter than he had anticipated, but he welcomed it, hastened to end for ever her doubts of him.

“Molly, if you’ll look around I’ll tell you what I think of you,” he said, in the coolest, easiest tone he could muster.

The dark head whirled. Her spirited action, the fire of her eyes, the receding of hot colour, implied a doubt of him and her resentment at it. Yet there seemed something else in her expression, not conscious hope, but a pathos due to the dream she only half divined.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, simply, but with deep emotion.

Perhaps nothing else could have so altered her. At length she burst out:

“Mister Jim!”

“Let’s dispense with the ‘Mister.’ Call me plain Jim, and say ‘yes.’”

“Boy, now I know what ails you,” she said, in self-reproach. “No, you don’t. I haven’t come to that.”

“If you’re not out of your haid, what on earth are you?” she cried, wildly.

“In love, Molly.”

“In love!...With me?” she whispered.

He got hold of her hand, to find it trembling. “Listen, child,” he began, determined to convince her. “You remember our meeting. Well, I think I fell in love with you then. If not then, at the dance surely. And last night I made up my mind to ask you to marry me. I’ve been shot, I know, Molly. And I’m excited. But I am absolutely in possession of all my wits. I love you very dearly. And I want to make you my wife.”

“Me? Molly Dunn?”

“Yes, you, Molly Dunn.”

Then Jim Traft devoutly thanked the god of love or faith, or both, whatever it had been that had prompted him to broach this most impelling and sacred of all propositions to a woman. For though Molly Dunn was wholly unconscious of it, the instant he had convinced her was one of a singular transformation. He had convinced her of so marvellous a thing that it worked a like change in her.

“Oh!...I cain’t believe it,” she exclaimed, incredulous with the amazing truth. “My God! What would Slinger say to that? An’ ma an’ pa an’ Andy — an’ that grinnin’ Jocelyn?”

“Molly, it doesn’t matter in the least what they’d say. But a great deal what you say.”

“Wal, Mister Jim—”

“Stop calling me that.” interrupted Jim, imperiously, and he shook her. He divined not only that she really cared for him, but that she could never hold out against him. It shone in her startled eyes. She betrayed it in other unconscious ways. “Call me Jim...Do you hear? Jim!”

“Shore I heah you...Jim,” she replied, sweetly.

“It sounds very nice. Now, what do you say, Molly?”

“I’m shore upset. An’ I’ll be so — so proud all my life — an’ happy that you love me an’ want me...But, Jim, I cain’t marry you.”

“Molly! Do you love someone else?” he queried, sharply. “No.”

“Don’t you — couldn’t you care for me?” he implored.

She gave him an enigmatical little smile, as much mournful as derisive — something dedicated to the stupidity of man.

“Jim, heah you have lost your haid,” she went on. “I’m Molly Dunn of the Cibeque. They always called me that. My brother is Slinger Dunn. An’ this last shootin’ will make him an outlaw.”

“It needn’t, Molly. No one need ever know. I’ll not tell. And I’ll find a way to change Slinger.”

“But that’s only one reason.” she protested. “My father has lived for years under a cloud. No one can prove he belonged to that murderous outfit. But it’s behind...My mother isn’t much good, either. There’s talk aboot her an’ this an’ that cowboy.”

“Molly, I wouldn’t be marrying your family,” replied Jim, sagely.

“Jim, I may be pretty, like a wood-mouse, as Arch calls me, but I’m nobody,” said Molly, mercilessly. “I’m no — no fit girl for you.”

“Why not?” he demanded, stabbed again by that fierce, jealous doubt. “You’ve sure got good looks. You’ve the face, the hands — the instincts of a lady. There must be good blood in your family somewhere.”

“Yes. My mother came from a Southern family. She brags aboot it to this day. It’s a lot to do with her fittin’ so poor in a log cabin.”

“Molly. if — if” — he tortured himself to get this out— “if you’ve had affairs with any boys — that damned Jocelyn — or anyone — affairs you’re ashamed of — just forget them. I know you’re the kind of a girl who’d tell me. But I really don’t want to know. I think you’ve had a rotten deal down here in the Cibeque. What chance have you had — among these louts? Curly Prentiss said that...So, Molly, turn your back on the whole mess and come to me.”

“Jim Traft, do you think I’d ever disgrace you now?” she flashed, with tears welling down over her cheeks. “Just that you said would make me love you, if nothin’ else could. But it also makes me see clear...I — I cain’t marry you.”

Jim did not press this point any further, for her demeanour, the way she clung to his hand, the tremendous agitation that shook her, the traitorous eyes which she did not realize, were facts that moved him with tumultuous joy.

“But, Jim, I reckon you’ve heahed talk about me,” she went on. “An’ you’re shore the one man I’d tell everythin’. Don’t you let any lies aboot me stick in your haid.”

“I didn’t, Molly,” said Jim, which he feared was not wholly truth. But on the other hand, under circumstances of extreme exasperation, had he not clung to some strange championship of her? Then he told her of Hack Jocelyn’s vain boastings, of his innuendoes, and at last his open, vile claim.

“Slinger will kill him for that,” she replied, furiously.

“I’d have done it myself,” declared Jim. “The boys had to pull me off him.”

“I saw his face an’ taunted him with it,” she said. “Hack admitted you licked him...Jim, he scared me bad that time. He lay in wait for me along the trail home. An’ he jerked me into the brush. That’s when I learned he was quittin’ the Diamond an’ makin’ up to the Cibeque. He was playin’ for a big stake. My brother had no use for Hack. An’ Hack aimed to win him over by makin’ me tell him he’d quit the Diamond because you insulted me. When I didn’t take kind to this deal, he grabbed me up in his arms an’ near broke every rib I own. An’ he kissed me, Jim — all over except my mouth...You bet I was scared an’ I changed my tune. He let me down then, an’ pretty quick I broke an’ ran.”

“And that’s all the claim Hack Jocelyn had on you!...Molly. all the time I knew he was a liar. But, oh, it nearly broke my heart.”

“Jim, he never had no claim on me,” she replied, earnestly. “Some of the other boys have tried to make up to me by grabbin’ me. You did, Jim Traft! It must be a failin’. But, I cross my heart, Jim, no boy ever got anythin’ like you got from me.”

“Darling!” cried Jim.

That and the stealing of Jim’s arm round her waist, drawing her down, would have been Molly’s undoing. But he heard a soft step. He felt Molly freeze under his arm. A shadow crossed the light above him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

JIM HAD ONLY a glimpse of Slinger Dunn looming over him, gun in hand. Then Molly, with a scream, threw herself upon Jim protectingly.

“So heah you are, you wood-louse,” grated Slinger.

“Arch, I found him — on the trail — bleedin’ to death,” cried Molly.

“When — an’ what you doin’ up heah?”

“I — I went ridin’, Arch. Yesterday. I heahed a shot. Then you came by like mad. An’ I found him.”

“You was meetin’ him heah.”

“No. No. Honest to God — I wasn’t.”

“Molly Dunn, I’ve had my doubts aboot you lately. An’ now I’m shore.”

Jim managed to move enough to get his eyes from under Molly’s dishevelled hair. He needed only one look up at Slinger Dunn’s face to understand Molly’s terror.

“Dunn, she’s not a liar,” he said, hurriedly. “She couldn’t have known I was on the trail. I was trailing the man who cut the drift fence.”

“Aw, she’d lie an’ you’d swear to it.” His piercing gaze rested curiously on Jim. “How’n hell do you happen to be alive?”

“Your bullet hit my watch.”

“Wal, heah’s another,” said Slinger, with strange intensity, and he brought the gun up to align it with Jim’s head. But quick as a flash Molly covered Jim.

“For God’s sake, Slinger, don’t kill him,” she begged.

“I shore will. An’ I jest aboot as lief bore you, too...Git up.”

He kicked Molly, and his boot came partly in contact with Jim’s thigh. The brutality of it, after the deadly speech, seemed to liberate Jim from a cold paralysis.

“Let go of me, Molly,” ordered Jim. “If he’s such a skunk as that, he might kill you. And if he means to murder me you can’t stop him.”

“Now you’re talkin’, Mister Trait,” returned Dunn, harshly.

Molly not only refused to move, but she got her arms around Jim, and clung to him, shielding his vital parts with her quivering body.

“Arch, you cain’t shoot him — when he’s down — crippled — defenceless,” she burst out, passionately. “It wouldn’t be human. It wouldn’t be like Slinger Dunn...If it’s on my account, you’re wrong — terribly wrong. He never meant — bad by me.”

“Molly, I reckon he’s done bad by you. An’ you’re not only lyin’ for him, but givin’ yourself away.”

“You cold-hearted devil!” she exclaimed. “How could you have a decent thought?...Kill me, too!”

“Ahuh. You damn little hussy!...But bein’ daid wouldn’t hide your shame, Molly Dunn.”

“Oh, Arch, there’s no shame...There’s been nothin’ but thoughts an’ feelin’s that have changed me...I love him. Cain’t you see it? I love him!”

“Wal, I ain’t blind,” replied Slinger, and reaching down he laid hold of Molly and tried to pull her off. But she clung like a leech. Then with a curse he shifted his hold to her hair. Even then he could only budge her by savage force, and he had to step on Jim’s shoulder to keep her from lifting him with her. Suddenly Molly, fierce as a wildcat, flung herself upon Slinger, and fought him for the gun, which he held out in his right hand.

The girl’s courage, following her declaration of love, roused the lion in Jim. With all his might he kicked Dunn’s hand, knocking the gun out of it.

“Hold still! — Somebody comin’!” whispered Dunn, hoarsely, stiffening.

Molly slipped out of his grasp, down to the ground. Jim listened, but could hear nothing save the pounding of his heart. Dunn stood strung like a listening deer, gradually relaxing his intensity. He might have been mistaken. But during this short interval he had removed his eyes from Molly, who suddenly snatched up the gun. She held it low, with both hands tight, pointing up at Dunn’s body.

Jim could not bear the terrible intent expressed in her face and eyes. He grasped the gun, turned it aside.

“Molly, you mustn’t shed your brother’s blood — even to save my life,” he said, very low. And at his words she relinquished the gun.

Slinger Dunn seemed to be calculating desperate chances. That Jim would not instantly turn the gun on him never flashed into his consciousness. Jim grasped this and thought he might turn it to good account. The last thing he could be forced to do would be to kill Molly’s brother.

Then the brush crashed.

“Hands up!” came in cool, sharp voice that made Jim’s blood leap.

Dunn’s back was turned. Swiftly he elevated his arms high above his head. Jim moved to see that Curly Prentiss had appeared round the corner of the lean- to. He held a cocked gun.

“Come round heah, Bud,” he called. And with more crashing in the brush Bud Chalfack followed his extended rifle into view. Both cowboys stepped closer, eyes quick and hard.

Jim slipped Dunn’s gun out of sight — an act as impulsively swift as the thought that prompted it.

“Face around heah,” ordered Curly, and as Dunn pivoted he showed no surprise, but an alert, cold suspicion.

“By Gawd!” shouted Bud. “Look. Curly! If there ain’t the boss...an’ Molly Dunn!”

Jim seized avidly upon his opportunity, though his wit and spirit far exceeded his physical strength.

“Hello — boys!” he began, huskily. “So you found me — at last...Put up your guns.”

“What’s wrong heah?” demanded Curly, and Jim’s heart felt a rush of warm gladness and thrill at the significance of the cowboys’ mien.

“Nothing wrong, Curly — now — you’ve found me,” replied Jim, cheerfully, though he realized his appearance must have given the lie to his words.

“Boss, you’re pretty white — an’ there’s blood on your shirt,” returned Curly, sharply.

“You bet. But put down your gun — and you, too, Bud. I’m nervous.”

“Wal, you look it,” growled Curly, complying with Jim’s order. Bud likewise lowered his weapon. “I reckon you’d better talk fast.”

“Curly,” burst out Jim, in relief, “yesterday I found a cut in the drift fence. And horse tracks on the trail. I followed them down here...Somebody shot me, knocked me galley-west off my horse...When I came to, Molly Dunn was bathing my face. Pretty lucky for me she happened to ride along. She was on her way up to camp — to warn me that Jocelyn and the Cibeque outfit had planned to kidnap me — for ransom. She heard the shot and found me...Well, it turned out the bullet had glanced off my watch and cut up through my shoulder. We tied it up. I wasn’t able to get on my horse. Molly wanted to ride up to camp and fetch you, but I thought it’d be best for her to go home. You fellows would probably trail me, and if you didn’t she could ride up today...Well, Molly came today, and it seems that her brother trailed her. Found us here. And, well — the truth is, he thinks I’m a bad egg — and had evil intentions toward Molly. That upset me — and made Molly sore. We were having hell when you came up...And, I reckon — that’s all.”

“Slinger Dunn, you’re shore a hell of a bright fellar,” quoth Curly, with all the sarcasm of a disgusted cowboy. “Let your hands down. An’ mebbe you’d do well to make yourself scarce around heah. But before you go you put this in your pipe an’ smoke it, you ——  —— hard nut of a Cibeque gun-slinger! — My boss, Jim Traft, wouldn’t never have evil intentions toward no gurl, much less so sweet an’ luvly a little lady as your sister.”

“Slinger, sumbody ought to beat the daylights out of you,” added Bud, with even more scorn. “An’ I’ll bet you a hat the boss will do it sometime...Me an’ Curly both made up to Molly. Was we good enough fer her? No, we was not. Mebbe Jim was good enough. But you can gamble both he an’ Molly are above your low-down suspicions...Now you mozey along, and hereafter stay on your side of the fence.”

Slinger eyed them while they delivered their separate speeches, and then looked strangely down upon Molly, who had rallied somewhat from the ravages of emotion, and lastly at Jim. There was little to be made of his impassive face, strong and hard as brown stone. Then he strode out to disappear in the brush. The situation lost its suspense.

“You dog-gone old tenderfoot!” said Curly, sitting down beside Jim, to place a hand on him. “Gone an’ got yourself shot fer the Diamond! I shore hope it ain’t bad.”

Bud crowded in beside Molly. “Boss, I wuz orful scared fust off. ‘Course we didn’t see who it wuz...Gosh! I never wuz so glad aboot nothin’...Did thet bullet go deep?”

“Not very. I bled a good deal. And I’m sore. But I should think you could hold me on my horse and get me up to camp.”

“An’ so little Molly found you!” ejaculated Curly, tossing his sombrero and shaking his curly head, while he bent bright knowing eyes upon the confused girl. “My Gawd! the luck uv some fellars!...How air you, Miss Molly?”

“Not so well, this minute, Mr. Prentiss,” replied Molly, with a wan smile. “But I’m sure glad — the way it’s turned out.”

“Howdy, Molly!” drawled Bud. “You look orful purty this minnit. So you saved our boss? Wal, I reckon now the Diamond will belong to you.”

“Boys,” interposed Jim, with a happy ring in his voice, “I know a diamond that will be Molly’s, if she’ll take it — along with the boss of the Diamond.”

The cowboys looked bewildered volumes and were speechless, which loss of function absolutely testified to a state so rare in them. And Molly was hopelessly stricken and confused. She had no strength left, even if rebellion was in her.

“You boys take yourselves off in the woods for ten minutes,” ordered Jim, audaciously.

Curly got up awkwardly, after the manner of cowboys, and Bud followed suit. It was just as well, thought Jim, that he had flabbergasted them and then had not allowed them time to recover. Signs were forthcoming of potential and scintillating cowboy wit.

“But say good-bye to Molly,” added Jim, relenting.

Curly had dignity and selflessness. “Miss Molly, you shore hey my thanks. Jim has won over the Diamond, an’ if, as he hints, he’s won you — wal, I don’t wonder, an’ I reckon him the luckiest fellar on the range. Good-bye an’ good luck.”

Bud, however, availed himself of an opportunity to make sheep’s eyes. “Molly, good-bye, an’ so long’s it can’t be me, I reckon you’ve made the best deal by ropin’ the boss.”

They slumped away into the spruce, leaving a pleasant jingle of spurs.

“Oh, they’re terrible — an’ lovable, too,” burst out Molly, lifting a flushed face.

“You bet they are. But that tickled me, Molly,” declared Jim. “I’ve had a time with them. And of all the tables turned on them, this with you is the best!”

“But, Jim, it cain’t ever be true,” she murmured, sorrowfully. “Forget your trouble now, Molly dear,” replied Jim. “You must hurry home. I’ll find some way to let you hear from me. A letter — or I’ll come to West Fork.”

“Oh, you mustn’t! It wouldn’t be safe!” she cried.

“Molly, I think we turned the table on Slinger, too. That fellow is no clod...Darling, do you know you told him — you loved me?”

“What else could I do?” wailed Molly.

“But, Heavens, tell me you didn’t lie!”

She turned away her face. “No, Jim.”

“You do love me?” he implored, drawing her close.

“I cain’t help it...But don’t ask me — never no more — what you did.”

“I shan’t, if you’re going to be distressed. But, Molly Dunn, that offer stands!”

“Don’t! — What do you think I’m made of, anyhow?...But, Jim, the wonderfullest thing I ever lived was when you hatched that lie to save Slinger...That Prentiss boy is a real hombre. He’d have shot Slinger in the wink of an eye. An’ my brother knew it...Jim, if I hadn’t loved you before that I’d have done it after...Perhaps it’s all for some good. You shore have changed me. Who knows? Maybe even Slinger Dunn might be made to see.”

“I had the same thought, Molly,” said Jim, earnestly. “And some day I’ll follow it up...Now you must go, Molly.”

He released her, won to solicitude by the gray hue and strain of face she betrayed. But suddenly she surprised him by flinging her arms around his neck and pressing lips and cheeks to his. “Oh — Jim! Jim!...” Then she rose and ran into the spruce.

Jim lay back spent, elated, conscious of recurring pangs in his wounds, overcome by his feelings. So that sooner or later, when the cowboys returned of their own accord, it was no wonder they were concerned.

“Lemme see where he got plugged?” growled Curly, and with Bud assisting, he untied the bandages. “Wal, Bud,” he continued, presently, “it’s only a groove, an’ we could do no better by it...Reckon it’s the gurl thet took the sap out of him.”

“Ahuh. Anyone could see he was light-haided,” replied Bud, plaintively. “Ain’t it funny what a lovely female can do to a fellar? But, my Gawd! if I’d been Jim—”

“Idiots!” burst out Jim, opening his eyes and sitting up. “Shut up and get me to camp.”

“Ex-coose us, boss,” said Curly, hastily. “You see, we was comin’ back — reckonin’ your — the little lady had gone — but jest then she pounced on you, an’- -”

“Curly, you needn’t explain,” interrupted Jim. “You are a couple of two- faced demons from Hades. Find my horse. He’s hobbled here somewhere.”

“Wal, boss, I understand you,” drawled Curly, as he got up.

“My conscience has stung me more’n once fer mistrustin’ friends on account uv a gurl.”

They ambled away into the woods, snickering and talking low, and presently Curly’s mellow laugh rolled out. Jim had to love them, realizing they were secretly delighted with his conquest of Molly Dunn. But what would his Uncle Jim say? Jim decided to withhold the matter until some time when he could contrive to have the old bachelor cattleman see Molly in that white dress. Then the rest would be easy. Just here, however, he happened to remember Molly had refused him and importuned him not to ask her “never no more.” The poor harassed, conscientious, adorable child!

Presently Jim’s reverie was disrupted by the advent of the cowboys with his horse and their own. Bud found his saddle, and then came into the lean-to for the blankets.

“Come on, you boss of the Diamond,” he said, making no effort to help Jim up.

Jim slowly crawled to a post of the lean-to and using that as a support he laboured to a standing position. For a moment he felt dizzy. Then it passed.

“Fetch this medicine and towel,” he said, as he walked out.

Bud was singing one of his Texas ditties: “When a boy falls in love with a pretty turtle dove, He will linger all around her under jaw—”

They made no move to help Jim on his horse, and he certainly gave no hint that their aid would have been most helpful. This cowboy school was a hard one. Jim remembered something about the Spartans, and concluded that Curly’s and Bud’s mothers had been Spartans. He swung up into the saddle to fierce shooting pangs through his shoulder.

They rode off, with Bud leading the way, and Curly beside Jim.

“Boss,” he said, abruptly, “are you shore Slinger Dunn didn’t shoot you?”

“Say! Whatever gave you that idea?” queried Jim, who did not need to feign surprise.

“Wal, when he turned round he shore expected to be bored. An’ fact is, I come damn near borin’ him.”

“You’d have made a terrible mistake, Curly,” rejoined Jim. seriously.

Jim managed fairly well in the saddle on the level ground, and even up the first gradual ascent of the trail, but when they reached the steep and rough part he had to hold on to the pommel. And he had never before suffered such sickening weakness and pain. But he stuck it out. He realized that he could do it, else these cowboys would never have let him tackle it alone. Nevertheless, he ground his teeth to keep from calling out. If anything in the world could have kept Jim Traft from falling out of his saddle, upon arriving in camp, it would have been the warwhoop the cowboys let out when they saw him. But even that could not do it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A WHOLE WEEK had to pass by before Molly Dunn came out of her trance. “I shore been walkin’ in my sleep,” she said.

Good luck facilitated an otherwise insupportable situation. Her parents never learned she had been away from home nearly the whole of two days. Slinger had arrived at the cabin before Molly, and Molly had a suspicion it had been through him, somehow, that their mother had not become aware of her absence. She felt Slinger’s eyes upon her, at times when she was not looking at him, but he never spoke to her, never gave any indication that he heard her. More significant of his mental chaos were the hours he spent sitting idle. Sometimes he would go into the field and work, careful to take a rifle along. Molly would catch a glimpse of him, leaning motionless on a spade, looking off into the forest.

“Whatever ails your brother?” inquired Mrs. Dunn. “I hear him walkin’ the porch at nights.”

“Ma, I reckon he’s in love,” replied Molly, mischievously, “Folks get queer when they’re that way.”

“You know, don’t you?” said her mother.

Molly nursed a calamitous conviction that she did. And she became grief- stricken.

She fell into a state in which there were no moments of relaxation, or dream, or relief from misery. Her heart was broken and she wanted to die. She thought of drowning herself in the great Maple Spring, and pictured herself lying at the edge, down in the clear water, her face white and her hair waving, and her eyes wide open, staring up at the cruel world which she had chosen to relinquish. There was some consolation in this picture. Arch would find her and suffer sorrow that he had been partly the cause of her demise. The thought of a conscience-stricken mother was not unpleasant. And then Jim might be the first to discover her lying cold and dead in the spring. Where he had driven her! The aching ecstasy of this thought vanished in sudden pain and self-reproach. Why should she make Jim suffer? He had done nothing but fall in love with her — nearly lose his life through her. He had lifted her out of obscurity. He had exalted her. No! She could not make him any unhappier than he was already. She had to forswear thought of suicide.

She could not do her work, which involved her in trouble with her mother. She moped all day, most of it in some corner; and she chose the dark and bare and squalid places, that seemed to be in harmony with her moods. At dusk she sat out in the clearing, on a stump, and watched the bats and the night-hawks. She did not sleep well. Many hours she crouched at her little window in the loft, and during those when the gloom and silence of dawn seemed like her life she suffered most.

A second Sunday came. Would she date all the rest of her life from that last day in the woods with Jim Traft? What would become of her? When Andy called she begged him to excuse her. “Why, gurl, you’re sick! You look turrible!” he said, anxiously.

Then in the afternoon young Keech came on horseback. He was very mysterious, and Molly felt she would presently be rude, but he whispered to her that he had brought something for her which he had left outside by the fence. He gave no explanation and departed even more mysteriously than he had come, even winking at her.

“Darn fool!” muttered Molly, who had no patience these days. “Whatever is he up to?”

Nevertheless, curiosity consumed her and she went out by the gate and searched in the bushes. There she stumbled upon a large package, neatly tied in paper, the like of which she had seen in the big Flagerstown store. Molly was puzzled. Had young Keech begun to “spark” her in this romantic manner? It was highly improbable, because if he had fetched her presents he would most assuredly want to see her reaction to them.

No! That package was Jim Traft’s first message. Molly divined it, and passionately she reproached herself for her doubt of him. Still, he might have forgotten her. This might be a joke, or anything.

Molly watched her chance to carry the parcel in unobserved, and up to the sanctity of her attic. Then, with trembling hands and beating heart, she opened it. Inside were three smaller parcels, and some books, one old and several new. One parcel was a box of candy tied with ribbons. Another contained the most beautiful silk scarf Molly had ever seen. The third was a little sewing-kit, containing everything imaginable.

“Shore it’s from Jim — bless his heart!” she murmured, and searched frantically for a note. There appeared to be none, and her wild hopes subsided. She examined the books and thrilled at their titles. The old book was a school grammar and had the look of long thumbing. Then on the fly-leaf she discovered handwriting: “James Traft. Wellsville High School. Sept. 1, 1878.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned! He’s sent me his school-book, of ten years ago!...Now what in the dickens does he mean by that?”

Molly was thrilled, puzzled, and then suddenly dismayed. “It’s a hint for me to study how to talk correct,” she muttered, resentfully. But anger would not abide with her. One single query drove it away. Why should Jim Traft want her to make up for her lack of education? There could be only one answer. And straightway Molly was lifted to the skies and plunged into the depths. She had imagined — most absurdly — that he had repented of his rash offer, and had let her go at her own valuation. But he had not. He wished her to study. He believed in her. He meant — But Molly dared not follow on that thought.

Molly hugged the grammar, miserably sure of her mingled pain and joy. She put it under her pillow. She kissed the silken scarf and tied it round her neck. And all the rest of that afternoon she sat by her window, devouring both the candy and the story-books. A hundred times she rooked dreamily out, to whisper: “Why didn’t he write me a letter?” and after a while it dawned upon her wondrously that Jim Traft, despite his demands, was trying to make it easy for her.

All during the next week Molly studied, day after day, until her eyes ached. She taunted herself, but she could not help it. The brooding thoughts of making away with herself recurred, but they could not gain any hold in this new and strange consciousness. There seemed to be a joy even in her torment. Why could not her life be like that of the girls in the story-books? When she had punished herself greatly with their power over her, then she went back to the grammar.

The next Sunday Molly waited all day for another possible visit from young Keech. But he did not come and she had to fight bitter disappointment. Reason came back to her, however, after she had become thoroughly wretched. Keech would have to ride to Flagerstown — a whole day, and another back home. Then it would take the same time to make the trip down the Cibeque and back. Four days out of one week! That was too much. But he might come again the following Sunday, and she lived on hope of that.

Meanwhile September was far on its way. The golden flowers of autumn had begun to line the trails and fields. In the glen the ferns were turning brown. High up in the notches under the Diamond the scarlet, and purple, and gold had begun to burn in the sunlight. Fall had come — the season Molly loved best.

Slinger still stayed at home, though now he went to the village; and Molly detected that he drank. Once or twice he had spoken gruffly to her. And he had cut the corn and packed it into the crib; he had repaired the fence to keep the hogs out; he had begun to haul and chop the winter supply of firewood.

Molly marvelled and sadly divined the torment in him. No doubt he had expected a visit from the Flagerstown sheriff, or the cowboys of the Diamond. But they did not appear. And no word of Jim Traft having been shot by fence- cutters had yet reached West Fork. Molly believed now that it never would, and so she told her brother.

Other news and rumours were rife, however, some of which might be true. Work on the drift fence had not progressed beyond Tobe’s Well. All the labour that the Diamond put in was in repairing sections that had been laid low. Small herds of stock had been reported on the trails, driven by riders whose names were not even whispered in West Fork. Money appeared plentiful in the village. There had been several shooting frays, of small consequence, one of which had been an attack on Andy Stoneham while walking the trail to Molly’s home.

Another Sunday arrived, and with it, after Molly had waited long, agonizing hours, young Keech with more of a mysterious air, more assurance that he shared a great secret, more winks and grins. He nearly drove Molly mad. He stayed for a whole insupportable hour, during which, before her drooping father and her inquisitive mother, and once or twice her sharp-eyed brother, Molly had to maintain her equilibrium as well as the demeanour of a village maiden entertaining a visitor. At last Keech said he wanted to run down to West Fork, and Molly accompanied him as far as the lane that led out from the barn, where he had left his horse.

“Thar’s a pack fer you inside, hid in the corner,” he informed her, with a meaning grin. “I’ll drop in on my way back, in case you want to send a letter.”

“Letter!” faltered Molly. “How — how soon’ll you he hack?”

“Reckon aboot sundown. I’ll whistle,” he returned, and rode off down the lane.

Molly watched him guiltily. He seemed to take it for granted that she was a party to this courtship of Jim Traft’s. The affair certainly could not be kept secret very long, even if young Keech justified the trust Jim had in him. Molly knew these younesters. Soon everybody would learn that she was accepting gifts from the nephew of rich old Traft, and that would only be another black mark for Molly Dunn of the Cibeque. Not that Molly cared on her own account — she was thinking of Jim, and how her people and neighbours of West Fork would only have more against him. It would never enter their heads that he might have honourable intentions. Oh, if she could only let them know his honesty — his goodness!

She went in the barn and found the pack. Three times as large and heavy as the first one! Molly’s fingers burned to open it, but she resolutely hid it and ran back to the house. She would return it. But no, she had not the strength to do that, let alone hurt Jim’s feelings. She would write and tell him not to send any more.

Up by her loft window, Molly laboured over that letter and her tears fell upon it. She was aware that she was placing in Jim’s hands documental proof of her lack of education. It hurt her, but she was not ashamed, and she wrote as she would have talked. She had meant to make it short, which intention turned out to be impossible. For she had to explain to Jim why he must not send more presents, why he must forget her. And then she seemed driven to add more, the content of which she scarcely realized and that she dared not read over.

She was sad while she waited in the lane for Keech, yet conscious of something she had not felt before. She was proving to herself and to Jim that she did not wholly lack decency and consideration. A melancholy consolation came to her. This was the end of her brief little romance.

Keech trotted down the lane, and received the letter as a matter of course. “I’ll rustle along, Molly. I’m stoppin’ at the head of the Cibeque. Have a little sparkin’ to do on my own hook. Haw! Haw!...Good-bye till next time.”

Molly watched him ride away into the gloom of the forest. And when he had gone she stood there, looking up at the grand bulk of the Diamond, from the rugged rim of which the afterglow of sunset was fading, and felt vaguely that somehow she was a forlorn little soul, cheated of love and happiness. Yet she was glad she had arisen to the heights, even if for ever afterwards she must be plunged into the depths.

Under cover of the thickening dusk she secured the pack and carried it to the cabin and up to her secluded abode. There was at least one exceedingly good feature about her room, and it was that nobody ever got up there. Molly could not remember when anyone, except Arch, who had patched the roof, had invaded her retreat.

Panting, Molly sat down by her window, with her hand on the precious pack. She would revel in opening it, and in its contents, which must do for all time. Little chance of her ever having another suitor and less of her ever wanting one!

Dusk had settled down now. Her window was open, and a cool air began to move down from the mountain. The pines stood up like a black fringe. She could see the hideous dead trees in the clearing, and the pale blot of the bare fields. A cowbell tinkled, and somewhere a hound bayed. It seemed very sweet and peaceful there. Molly felt that strife and anguish were matters of the heart.

At last she lighted her lamp, and in its uncertain light she opened the pack, ashamed of her rapture, yet utterly victim to it. Carefully she assorted the parcels, little and big, searching for a letter. But again there was none. And Molly was glad. If she read written words of love and hope and demand from him she would be as unstable as water. Suppose he should take exception to her letter of renunciation and boldly come to see her? Her heart gave a wild leap, then subsided proportionately. He would not come. He had pride and he would never stand more than a second refusal from Molly Dunn.

More books, and these from St. Louis! To her amaze all the parcels were marked with the name of that distant Eastern city. He had sent for things. The Flagerstown stores were not good enough for her. How could she ever resist his way of making somebody of her? Then for the ensuing hour she marvelled at and gloated over a multiplicity of pretty and useful little presents. He did not submerge her with an overwhelming sense of great expenditure. He had tact and taste. “Oh, the darlin’,” she murmured, “if he ever sees me again — it’s shore all day with me!” Then she crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep.

During the next few days Molly went through a hundred variations of mood, ranging from lofty pride to self-pity, from resignation to furious revolt. And then she seemed to fix upon a settled wretchedness. Yet the days passed and life had to be lived and neglected work done.

On Saturday afternoon she went to the village with her mother, the first visit there for a month. It was the one day in the week when there was any activity at West Fork. Molly felt a reluctance to being seen, yet a tingling curiosity in regard to possible rumours. She knew she could tell instantly, when she met any of the girls or young men, if they had heard of the marvellous romance that had enmeshed her.

But she was to discover that, so far as her acquaintances were concerned, Molly Dunn was the same old Molly Dunn as ever. Strange to realize, Molly was chagrined. If they could know how far she had been removed from the ordinary life of West Fork!

Old Enoch Summers’ establishment, that combined several stores in a row, all connected, stood on the main corner of the village street, and next to it was Mace’s Saloon, a place of doubtful character, and one which Summers openly frowned upon, but in which rumour gave him a large interest. Board porches high off the ground, with wide steps in the middle and at each end, were a feature of West Fork’s few business houses. Saddle-horses and buckboards, along the hitching-rails, attested to visitors in town. And in the next block all the available room along the plank sidewalk was taken up by wagons and buggies.

Molly for once was glad she had come with her mother, of whom it had been said that she had scant civility for Molly’s admirers. They came at length to Summers’ store, where Molly had to run the gauntlet of numerous men, old and young, strangers and acquaintances. It was a busy hour for the village merchant and his clerks. Mrs. Dunn and Molly had to await their turn, and when Mrs. Dunn met the worst gossip in West Fork, to become avidly absorbed at once. Molly, as a matter of self-preservation as well as taste, strolled on through this store into the next. Presently she found herself quite near the door, and curiously took a peep out. A young man had just ridden up to the porch. And when Molly recognized Jim Traft she nearly dropped to the floor. Fate had led her aimlessly to that door — for this. Then as the usual hum of talk of the loungers outside abruptly ceased, Molly realized that she was indeed not the only interested one. Jim surveyed the group on the porch, then dismounted and threw his bridle, to step up half the steps.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said, coolly, and his resonant voice carried. “My name’s Jim Traft and I’m looking for Slinger Dunn.”

Molly bit her tongue to keep from crying out. Her next impulse was to rush to Jim. But that would be a crazy thing to do. He certainly would resent it. Her quick glance flashed over his lithe figure. He wore corduroys, high top- boots, and a brown shirt. Manifestly he could not have had a weapon upon him. Relief mitigated Molly’s terror. He did not mean to fight, and certainly Slinger, no matter how provoked, could not shoot an unarmed man before all these people. Jim did not look exactly pleasant, but how fine, Molly thought, and manly and clean-eyed.

“Wal, Mister Traft, you’ll find Slinger in Mace’s saloon,” drawled someone.

“Thanks,” replied Traft, and flipping a silver dollar to an urchin there, he said, “Johnny, go in and tell Slinger Dunn that if he isn’t afraid to come out Jim Traft would like to see him.”

The boy snatched up the coin and bounded off the porch. Jim stepped up another step. He appeared composed, but pale. He had some deep motive in bearding Slinger Dunn right in his own den. Molly fell prey to a tumult of thrill and shudder. She could not have rushed out now, for she was riveted to the spot. Traft’s message had caused a low exclamation to run through the occupants of the porch, a dozen or more of whom Molly could see through door and window. Jim surely would have espied her had he looked in. But he faced down the porch, toward Mace’s saloon.

“By gum! Slinger’s a-comin’!” said someone.

“Reckoned thet’d fetch him,” replied another. These two stood near the door and partly shielded Molly. She wrenched at her fettered feet, to move a little forward, the better to see. However, she could not see Slinger yet. People in the store behind her approached.

Then the slow step of a spurred boot sent a combined fire and ice over Molly. Slinger came into view, crossed the porch to confront Traft.

“Did you send thet kid in heah,” and Slinger jerked his left hand backward. His right hung significantly free and low, “askin’ me out if I wasn’t afeard?”

“Howdy, Slinger. Yes, I did,” replied Jim, and he stepped up the last step. After a keen, fearless glance straight into Slinger’s eyes, he extinguished the cigarette he carried and dropped it off the porch. It was noticeable that he wore gloves.

“Wal, you want to be careful aboot sendin’ fer me thet way.”

“No offence. I just wanted you outside.”

“An’ what fer, Mister Traft?”

“Several things, Slinger, and for that reason I’m glad some of your friends and town folks are present,” replied Traft. A small group of men had followed Dunn out of the saloon, but did not come up on the porch. In fact, they edged out toward the hitching-rail.

“What you want?” demanded Dunn, in mingled anger and amaze.

“First I want to tell you I’m sorry my outfit suspected you of cutting our drift fence. We found out who did it, and, though we never said it was you, we think we owe you an apology. So I’m apologizing for myself and the Diamond — to you, publicly.”

“Wal, it wasn’t necessary fer nobody to apologize to me,” returned Dunn, with a grim laugh. “All the same, I hadn’t nuthin’ to do with cuttin’ your drift fence.”

“Well, that settles that. Now you settle this. There’s talk going around about your sister and me. Some of it is credited to you. Did you tell Hack Jocelyn and Seth Haverly that you not only heard I had insulted Molly — mistreated her, but you believed it?”

“I reckon I did, Mister Traft,” replied Slinger, not shorn of his personality, because nothing could have done that, but plainly staggered.

“Thanks,” said Traft, raising his voice. “Now listen. You are dead wrong. I fell in love with Molly — pretty pronto, I admit. And I asked her to marry me. Twice!...Was that an insult? I shall ask her again. Will that be an insult?”

“I cain’t see it thet way.”

“I did — well, embrace her before I asked her. But I meant no insult. I was just excited — out of my head. Could that be held against me by any fair- minded person — knowing I followed it up with an offer of marriage?”

“No, it couldn’t be,” declared Dunn.

“Thanks again...Well, Molly refused me. And one of the reasons she gave me was that she was Slinger Dunn’s sister.” Molly saw Arch flinch, and, tremendously agitated as she was, she felt a pang for him. This Jim Traft had a tongue as deadly as a bullet.

“Now, Slinger Dunn, listen,” added Traft, his voice rising to a ring. “You’re going to hear something. If you were half the man you think you are you’d quit this lazy, drinking, gun-slinging life for your sister’s sake. She’s a fine little girl — good as gold, damn your stupid heart! And she deserves a better fate than to be disgraced and degraded by a rotten two-bit of a desperado brother...But you’ve not got sense enough to see what she’s worth. And as for your talk about her — well, you are a dirty, low-down skunk. You’re a yellow dog. You’re a liar, and a suspicious, miserable Cibeque blood-spiller. Now, I’m not much on guns, but if you’re not a coward — a coward — you’ll lay off that gun-belt. And I’ll swear, if I don’t beat you as you deserve, I’ll borrow a gun from somebody here, and fight you your own way.”

Without the slightest hesitation Slinger unbuckled his belt, containing the heavy gun, and handed it shakily over to someone. He sailed his sombrero off the porch, exposing a livid face. He made a gesture, eloquent of supreme fury, and added to it with incoherent speech. Then like a panther he leaped at Traft.

Molly saw Jim move as quickly, just as Slinger reached him, and appeared to strike at the same instant. The blow cracked. Its force, added to Slinger’s momentum, sent him off the porch, where only a remarkable agility kept him on his feet. But he thumped solidly against the hitching-rail, which broke. Horses snorted and jumped. The crowd let out a whoop. Fights were mostly as common as meals in the Cibeque and infinitely more amusing. People inside the store crowded out, and joining the men cut off Molly’s view. She edged out, back to the wall, fearful, yet tremendously impelled. She had gloried in Jim’s brave front, but she felt he would be helpless in a fight with Slinger. Bumping against a bench, Molly stepped up on it.

She saw Jim go down off the steps to meet Slinger. Then began a fierce exchange of blows, with Slinger slowly forced backward in front of Mace’s saloon. Something was wrong, or unusual, Molly vaguely gathered from the exclamations and whispers of the villagers. Slinger Dunn had the reputation of being able to whip his weight in wildcats. But evidently he was slow in getting started here. Suddenly a blow upset him, and he plumped down ridiculously. The crowd, warming to the fight, greeted that with yells.

Slinger bounced up, only to be knocked down again. Then pandemonium broke loose. The young man from the Diamond might not be going to get mauled into a pulp. He might be cordially hated, but that had nothing to do with the surprise and glee of the West Forkers. Molly could no longer distinguish the shouts, the jeers, the egging on of the contestants, the riotous advice.

Bounding up with the agility he was noted for, Slinger took a couple of nasty digs in order to get hold of Traft. He clinched and plainly sought to trip his antagonist or wrestle him down. But Jim was the heavier and stronger, for with a whirl and a fling he sent Slinger sprawling. This occasioned a sudden silence. Was it possible for Slinger Dunn to be worsted?

“Stand up and fight — you Indian!” yelled Traft. And indeed Dunn had the look and the suppleness of an Indian.

Dunn, now bloody and dirty, responded as if he had no control over himself, as if this taunting voice could drive him to anything. He crouched and bored in, fighting low, until Traft swung up under his guard. Dunn’s head jerked up. Another blow sent it back, and a third, square on the nose, making the blood fly, landed him on his back.

This time Slinger did not bounce up. Something was being battered into his consciousness — something that had already dawned upon the crowd. He slowly and cautiously rose, a stream of red running from his nose, down across his tight lips and protruding chin. Again he changed his tactics, proving that a fury of confidence had succeeded to grim realization, and that where an ordinary fighter would have been whipped he still had resource to spirit and energy. He tried a square stand up, give and take. It grew evident that had he adopted this style in the beginning he would at least have done better, for he hit Traft now and then. But the latter could take punishment. If it hurt he gave no sign. His method grew clear to the bystanders, and wagers were shouted out, backing him to win. Molly, in a fit of wild joy at Jim’s unexpected and wonderful ability, jumped up and down on the bench, and it was not certain that she did not cry out.

Soon down went Slinger again. The blow that prostrated him was from Traft’s right, and was a swing, coming at the end of a succession of short blows, delivered fast and closely, no doubt to beat his antagonist back and out of balance. Anyway, Molly saw her brother go piling into the dust.

“Reckon now Slinger will rooster him, an’ it’s shore aboot time,” declared a young fellow in front of Molly.

“Yep. An’ I’m damn curious,” replied his companion.

Other remarks were not wanting. Evidently Slinger Dunn was not yet beaten. Molly had heard of the “rooster” trick in fighting, but had never seen it. And her lot had been to see many an encounter between boys of the Cibeque. She had seen more than one dance interrupted, with the dancers fleeing to the walls, while a fierce battle ensued in the middle of the floor.

But fear for Jim had fled from Molly. He could meet any of Slinger’s backwoods tricks.

Slinger slowly circled Traft, keeping well away. Undoubtedly Traft was ready for a new attack. When he got rather close to the wall he divined that Dunn was trying to back him into such a position, whereupon he stood stock- still and waited. Suddenly Slinger dived down with incredible swiftness, on the back of his head and neck and elevated his feet even higher than his arms had been.

His boots were armed with long spurs. He began to kick at Jim. He actually appeared to stand on the back of his neck and his elbows.

“Rooster him, Slinger!” bawled a lusty-lunged lout. And the crowd of West Forkers roared.

Molly saw Jim back from this amazing onslaught, and that was what he should not have done. For Slinger, hunching himself on his elbows, quick as a cat, forced Jim to the wall. He dodged one vicious kick that raked the wall. Another caught him on his extended arm, tearing his sleeve from wrist to shoulder. Molly saw a glimpse of red. Then a cruel spur cut open Jim’s chin. At this Molly screamed at her brother, but her voice was lost in the din. If Slinger did not kill Jim he would surely disfigure him for life. She leaped off the bench and darted here and there to get through the circle of men. Suddenly a louder yell, hoarse and thrilling, made Molly desperate. She squeezed into the front.

Jim, in bent position, had both arms round Slinger’s legs. The terrible spurs stuck up, but they scarcely moved. Jim threw Slinger from him with such force that he turned clear over, his head and shoulders acting as a pivot. He fell with a flop. Jim made one jump and landed square on him with both heavy boots. This overbalanced Jim, who went down, but he went down kicking. Rolling over, he was up and at Slinger just as that hideous blood-and-dirt-begrimed individual tried to rise.

Jim fastened both hands in his neck and lifted him and flung him sheer against the wall, where his head rang like a bone on wood. But Jim did not stop. As Slinger, eyes rolling, tongue hanging out, was sinking down, Jim banged him against the wall again, and finished with a terrific sodden blow. Slinger sank down limp and senseless.

The crowd grew silent. Molly had sense enough left to hide behind someone. Jim gazed down a long moment at his beaten antagonist, and then with scarf he wiped the blood and sweat and dirt from his face. He turned sidewise, so that Molly saw a pale, tense cheek.

“See here — you fellows,” panted Jim, “I come down — here — to lick him — and to offer him — a job...Reckon he’s not worth it...But I’ll go through with my part...Tell him — when he comes to — that if he can play square — there’s a place on the Diamond for him.”

Then Jim parted the crowd and disappeared. Molly slipped back up on the porch into the store, and, never even thinking of her mother, she hurried through to the other corner store and went out the side entrance. Sobbing, and in a terrible condition of mind, she ran home.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

IT DID NOT help much for Molly to be home, safely hidden in her loft, except that presently she could breathe freely and would not be seen. Her world of the Cibeque had come to an end. She had been publicly championed, in a royal way that left no peg for the poison-mongers of West Fork to hang calumny upon. Jim Traft had beaten her brother half to death. He had proclaimed his love in the street, for those who ran to hear. He had blazoned abroad the incredible fact that twice Molly Dunn had refused to marry him and that he meant to ask her again. He had called Slinger Dunn all the dastardly names he could lay his tongue to, had banged and pounded and kicked him to insensibility, and then he had told the crowd Slinger could have a place on the Diamond, if he were man enough to take it.

Not one of the romances Jim had sent her in book form could reach up to the heights of this true happening in West Fork. How impossible to believe! Yet Molly knew her eyes and ears were to be trusted, if not her heart. Jim Traft had done a marvellous thing. It was breath-taking. He had a noble spirit that might not be wholly realized in the valley, but his ability to whip the wildcat of the Cibeque and then offer him a job on the greatest outfit of the range would be appreciated. That kind of language was understood down in the brakes.

Molly began to divine that Jim was invincible. He had brought brains and brawn with him, and the West had taken stock of it. He had given his enemies a hard row to hoe. Molly had spent so many hours dreaming and thinking about Jim that now in the light of his decisive and open stand she could understand him. And she summed up her reaction to it all in a tragic whisper: “My land! If he comes heah I — I’ll fall at his feet!”

Her mother’s return warned Molly that she was liable to have a bad half- hour, and she tried to fortify herself.

“Molly, you up there?” came a trenchant call.

“Yes, ma.”

“Come down pronto.”

Molly started promptly, but lagged slower and slower, and she thought she would drop off the last steps of the ladder. Her mother stood there, arms akimbo, gazing at her with an entirely new and astounding expression.

“Why’d you run home?” she demanded.

“There was a fight — an’ — an’ it scared me.”

“It needn’t have — since it was in your honour...Molly Dunn, did you hear what that young Traft told the crowd?”

“Yes, ma. I was there.”

“And it’s the truth? He did ask you to marry him?”

Molly nodded mournfully. Presently she would be treated to a terrible harangue, and she had already stood enough for one day.

“It’s all over town. Crowds on the corners talking. I was told by ten or a dozen people. But I couldn’t believe it. You’re sure it’s no trick? I ran everywhere, hunting you.”

“Mother, it’s the bitter truth,” said Molly, steadily.

“Bitter! Are you crazy, girl?...It tastes pretty sweet to me...Did you say ‘No’ to young Traft?”

“Of course I did.”

“But you’re in love with him. That’s what has ailed you ever since you went to Flag. Anybody could see you were lovesick. Aren’t you?”

“Ma, I’m shore sick aboot somethin’,” replied Molly. “For Heaven’s sake, then, why didn’t you accept him?”

“Because I’m Molly Dunn of the Cibeque.”

Then indeed the storm broke over Molly, though it was so vastly different from what she had anticipated that instead of casting her down it began to do the opposite. In fact her mother presented a most interesting and amusing study, after the first tirade about Molly’s lack of family pride. Molly learned learned that she was a grand-daughter of Rose Hillyard of Virginia, and had bluer blood than any Traft who ever lived.

“Didn’t I always try to keep these West Fork louts away from you?” demanded Mrs. Dunn, in protest at the outrageous way she had been foiled. “Didn’t I bring you up different? You always were somebody, Molly Dunn. And that’s where your father and me split. Now it’s proved. You’re courted by a fine young chap. He must be mad about you — to tell it in the street. They said his being a tenderfoot didn’t make him any the less a fighter from way back...He damn near killed your brother, and folks weren’t backward about saying that’d have been a good thing...Molly, this young fellow will go far out here in the West. He’s got stuff in him. He’s nephew to old Jim Traft, they tell me, who owns ranches all over, and eighty thousand head of stock...You can’t refuse to marry him. Why, it’ll be our salvation!”

Molly had to listen and she dared not voice her protest. Moreover, she was as much amazed as her mother was indignant. She could not understand this sudden right-about-face in regard to her admirers. Temporary relief, however, came with an interruption in shape of the arrival of several young men, bringing Slinger home.

For once her mother’s tongue stopped its wagging. Arch Dunn was a spectacle to behold. He could walk, but that was about all, and he rewarded the kindly offices of those who had escorted him by driving them off. Both Mrs. Dunn and Molly stood back, afraid to approach or speak, and almost afraid to look. Slinger dragged himself around to the back porch, where he sagged to his bed.

“Arch — can I do anythin’?” faltered Molly.

“Wal, I reckon, since I cain’t do for myself,” was the surprising answer.

Molly hastened to get a pan of water, soap and bandages and salve, and hurried to his side. She divined that by this incident she would either gain or lose a brother. She unbuckled the long spurs, shuddering at the bloodstains on one of them. Arch had got what he deserved. The imprint of hobnails on his face appeared to be a brand. He had been treated to a dose of his own medicine. But the fatal issue might be now that he would kill Jim Traft. Molly prayed and hoped. Could not the same thing, almost, that had happened to her, happen to Arch? She pulled off his boots, and then his wet and torn shirt. The mixture of blood, sweat, and dirt actually made it heavy.

It was not pleasant to look into her brother’s visage. Yet pity and tenderness came to her aid.

“Much obliged, Molly,” he said, when she had finished what little she could do. “Was you in town when the cyclone hit?”

“Yes, Arch. I — I saw it,” she replied, thrilled that he would talk to her in such wise. She prayed for something to make the moment helpful for this wayward brother.

“Did you see him lick me?”

She murmured an affirmative.

“My Gawd! who’d ever thunk it? A Missourie tenderfoot! But, Molly, he had it on me. I never was so hurted in all my fights. He must have binged my nose a thousand times. I could have bellared out.”

“Arch, you must have — have hurt him very much, too,” said Molly. “He was all bloody.”

“Shore. I reckon so. I’d have cut him to pieces — I was thet mad...Molly, I got too mad. An’ at thet he hurt me vuss with his sharp tongue.”

“It’d not have been so — so bad if you hadn’t tried to ‘rooster’ him.”

“Wal, all’s fair in thet kind of a fight. I don’t care aboot thet any more’n I care aboot his lickin’ me. He’s simply a better man. I told them so...But I reckon there’s another way.”

“Arch, you — you’ll meet Jim — force him to draw?”

“Thet’d be natural-like, wouldn’t it?”

“From the stand of the Cibeque, yes. But there’s a bigger way to meet it. If you forced him to draw, you’d kill him!”

“Huh! I’m not so damn shore of thet. Mister Jim Traft is a surprisin’ hombre.”

“Arch, I shan’t beg you again,” went on Molly, eloquently, “but I’ll pray.”

“Pray? What fer?”

“For you to see clear.”

“How’n hell can I see anyway with both eyes shet?”

“Brother, I mean see with your spirit.”

“Aw, you talk like thet parson who was shot heah onct...Molly, did Traft want to marry you?”

Solemnly Molly nodded.

“I cain’t see very well. Talk. Honest now — did he?”

“Yes, Arch — an’ that justified my faith in him.”

“Reckon a fellar could do no more...An’ you wouldn’t take him up ‘cause you was Slinger Dunn’s sister?”

“That was one reason,” admitted Molly.

“What you mean?”

“Well, you’ve a reputation that to civilized folks would look terrible.”

“Molly, I’ll gamble there’s wuss men than me. It ain’t nuthin’ to pack a gun an’ use it when you’re crowded...Now thet day up the canyon. I shore gave young Traft a long time to shoot. An’ he had a rifle in his hands.”

“That’s what’s wrong aboot it, Arch. He wouldn’t want to kill you in the first place — an’ second, when you met him he’d forget he had a gun. Or be scared.”

“Scared! Thet hombre? He was orful scared of me today! Nope, it’s jest gun-slingin’ wasn’t brought up with him.”

“It’d be plain murder.”

“Wal, I’ll let him off — providin’ you agree to marry him.”

“Arch!” whispered Molly, at once rapt and stricken.

“Only deal you can make with me, an’ you bet it’s a hard one to swaller.”

Molly knew Slinger Dunn and that she must grasp at straws. “I — I’ll — take you up, Arch,” she said, in a strangled voice, “if he — asks me — any more.”

“Don’t worry none, sister. Thet hombre will be heah today. An’ you can make him ask you again. Reckon, though, he’ll wait till dark — not wantin’ you to see his mug. I shore bunged him up.”

Molly trembled on the brink of the precipice to which she had been driven. She dared not look over. She must leap with closed eyes.

“Did you — rooster him bad?” she asked.

“Nope. Only scratched him. But I was shore leggin’ it fer him when he ducked an’ grabbed me...Fetch me a drink. I’m shore parchin’.”

Presently Molly stole away to her nest under the roof, thankful to let well enough alone, so far as Slinger was concerned. To secure his promise not to kill Jim was more than she had hoped for, at any cost. And that cost! What a terrible thing to take upon herself! If Jim did not ask her again and soon, he would not live very long. Slinger kept his promises. Molly felt that she would die for Jim and it was not so very much worse to have to marry him. The prospect dazzled and terrified her. If Jim would live in a log cabin and let her work for him! That would be heaven. But he would want to take her away from the Cibeque — from the woods! from Maple Spring! and wear stockings and live in the mansion of a ranch-house at Flagerstown, and meet his rich old uncle — his other relatives — and his mother. Molly was overcome at the thought. She could not do it. But to save his life she would do anything. She sank on her bed with a sensation as if her breast was caved in. And there she lay, like a wounded deer, for hours, and never could have accounted for them.

She crawled down to help get supper and she took some to Arch, who could not eat, and she sat at table more to avoid clash with her mother than to satisfy hunger.

In the dusk she wandered along outside the lane, irresistibly drawn. Her mother and brother were fools. Jim would not come. She longed for him, yet prayed he would stay away.

The bats were whirling in the clear, cool air overhead. The Diamond stood up black and bold, somehow strengthening her. All her life she had looked up to that mighty bulk. The smell of burning pine floated from the dark forest. A night-hawk flitted by with sharp note.

Then a whistle electrified Molly. She had been whistled for many times in this gloaming hour. It was one of the courting tricks of the Cibeque. But never before had a whistle sent a blade into her heart or lent her wings. Her moccasined feet pattered on the hard-packed ground.

She saw a dark form at the gate, leaning on the bars. She ran on. Yes — Jim!...Then somehow she was sitting on the top bar — one hand at her bursting breast and the other, which was her left, in Jim’s grasp. He spoke, but she did not distinguish what he said, and she could not reply. She felt his rough, strong hands. He was slipping something on her finger. A ring!

Then from the gloom behind rasped a low, hard voice: “Hands up, Traft!”

Dark forms appeared out of the brush, almost without rustle. One man shoved a gun against Jim’s back. Seth Haverly! lip went Jim’s hands. Molly recognized Sam Haverly. The third man came close — laid a powerful hand on her.

“If you yap we’ll kill him.”

Molly would have fallen but for his hold. It was Hackamore Jocelyn.

“Turn round, Traft, an’ march,” ordered Seth Haverly. “What’s this? A hold-up?” queried Jim, hoarsely.

“Keep still — or it’ll be wuss!” hissed Haverly.

“Fellars, I’m takin’ the gurl along,” announced Jocelyn.

Haverly made a fierce gesture, which included his gun. “You air like hell! I’m tellin’ you agin, Jocelyn, thet I’m runnin’ this outfit. Stay heah an’ keep her quiet till we git away with the hosses.”

“But, Seth, I want the gurl,” replied Jocelyn, low and doggedly. “I’ll divvy my share of Traft’s ransom with you.”

“ —— you, Jocelyn!” cursed Haverly. “We’ll have hell enough without that. Do you want Slinger Dunn on your trail?...Stay heah an’ hug the gurl who hasn’t no use fer you, if you re that much of a sucker. But follow us pronto.”

The Haverlys then forced Jim ahead of them, vanishing in the gloom of the lane. Molly heard the whinny of a horse at a distance. She seemed paralysed. Hack Jocelyn loomed over her.

“Molly, I’m takin’ you willin’ or by force,” he whispered, bending down to peer at her. “An’ don’t fergit — if you make even a peep they’ll shoot Traft.”

“Where they goin’?” gasped Molly.

“Up back on the Diamond. Thet wasn’t my idee. They don’t know Curly Prentiss. But they’re goin’ to hide Traft an’ hold him fer ransom. But when they git the money they’ll kill him. Hang him on the drift fence! Thet’s the plan. An’ the only chance of savin’ his life is fer you to go with me.”

“How’ll that — save Jim?”

“I’ll do it. I’ll stick out fer lettin’ him go. An’ if it comes to a pinch I’ll force them.”

“You swear to Gawd!” demanded Molly, in fierce passion. “Shore. I swear to Gawd.”

“Slinger will kill you. I cain’t answer fer him. It won’t be long till he’s on my trail. I’m warnin’ you, Hack Jocelyn.”

“I heah you,” he replied, grimly. “Reckon Slinger is — or would be — a stumper. But he’s crippled, an’ before he’s out ag’in, it’ll all be over...I’ll hey my stake an’ we’ll ride out of the country.”

“You an’ me?” she queried, marvelling at the man’s egotism and stupidity.

“You an’ me, Molly Dunn. Shore it’s been long in my mind...Now, will I hey to hawg-tie you?”

“I’ll go willin’. But keep your hands off me.”

He led her down the darkening lane, out of the clearing into the forest.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WHEN JIM TRAFT heard that rasping command to throw up his hands, and felt the hard prod of a gun against his back, he came down to earth with a sickening thud.

Behind Molly he saw a dark form rise and loom. He recognized it. Hack Jocelyn! With a muttered curse at his heedless disregard of Andy Stoneham’s warning, he lifted his hands above his head. Then another dark form clinked into sight. He was ordered to face round. A swift glance was the last he had of Molly. Jocelyn’s looming over her further added to his dismay.

The men had their short and disgruntled argument, then Jim was faced down the lane. Jocelyn’s staying behind to “hug” Molly, as Haverly so vulgarly put it, made the heat dance back into Jim’s veins. He turned once to call out to Molly, but a hiss and a move from Haverly dissuaded him. He could scarcely help her, and after a moment’s reflection he saw the fallacy of Jocelyn’s kidnapping her, too, and he had faith in Molly’s wit and nerve. It galled him horribly to leave her there, to be subjected to rudeness, perhaps insult. And the uncertainty of the situation would grow on him until Jocelyn joined them again.

At the point where the lane entered the road to town three other men waited with horses. Jim was amazed to make out his own horse, saddled and bridled. These kidnappers evidently were thorough and bold.

“What’s your game, Haverly?” queried Jim, breaking into a whispered colloquy.

“We’re holdin’ you fer ransom,” came the gruff reply. “We’ll take you to a hidin’-place an’ send a rider in to Flag.”

“Well, I’ll recommend my uncle’s paying it, provided you agree to two things.”

“An’ what’s them?”

“That the ransom isn’t made out of all reason — and that Hack Jocelyn doesn’t share in it.”

Haverly let out a grunt which might have meant anything. Jim conceived an idea, which he proceeded to put into execution at once.

“This man Jocelyn is no good.” went on Jim. “He had friends on the Diamond and he double-crossed them. He’s not a straight shooter. He plays both ends against the middle. You fellows are a lot of suckers.”

“Sam — you heah thet?” sharply ejaculated Haverly.

“Hell! I ain’t deaf,” replied one of the uneasy listeners.

“Jocelyn is using you Cibeque fellows to his own end and you can bet on it,” concluded Jim, thinking this entering wedge enough for the moment.

“Seth, I’m gettin’ leary myself,” replied Sam Haverly. “An’ I’m sorry I plugged Jocelyn’s game. When he killed Andy Stoneham tonight, right in the road, I shore throwed a fit. Nobody but Boyd an’ Hart an’ me seen it done. But you can gamble West Fork will lay thet on to us.”

“Killed Andy Stoneham!” ejaculated Seth, leaning forward. “When?”

“Jest now, almost. You ought to have heahed the shot.”

“Wal, I’ll be — ! What on earth fer?”

“Jocelyn swore Stoneham was spyin’ on him an’ givin’ us away to Molly Dunn.”

“Ahuh. Jealous of poor Andy! Gawd! but thet fellow is crazy aboot Molly Dunn...We better not wait fer him. Tie his boss, Boyd, an’ we’ll hit the trail.”

Jim was told to climb into his saddle.

“Hart, you lead his hoss. An’ I’ll foller behind him.”

They started off at a trot and soon turned off the road into a trail. It was dark and overgrown with branches of trees that had to be dodged or brushed aside. Jim knew that he had not ridden down to West Fork by that trail. He settled himself for what he anticipated a long night ride and his thoughts were gloomy. He had been shocked to hear that Andy Stoneham had been shot by Jocelyn. Not an hour after Andy had warned Jim to keep indoors! But Jim had disregarded this advice, to his bitter regret. If only Jocelyn would catch up with them! His distrust of this cowboy had been more than justified. Jim realized now that Molly would be in peril. Jocelyn had insisted on kidnapping her, too. The chances were he would do it. Then, when he brought her along with him, there would be precipitated a complex situation. It might well be that Jocelyn in his passion had bitten off more than he could chew.

Jim grew darkly active in thought. He contended with the problem that presupposed Jocelyn was following with Molly.

And while he cudgelled his brains he rode on into the denser forest. His captors were silent, and kept to a trot on level ground, and a walk over rough places and upgrades. The moon arose and sent a shadowed blanching into the forest. They rode down into a gully, where water ran over rocks, and the unshod horses slipped and splashed. It was weird and wonderful under the great pines, that moaned fitfully above. They climbed out of the gully to zigzag up a steep trail, soft and full of rocks. And after one of the halts to let the horses rest Jim made certain they were climbing the Diamond. The nerve of these Cibeque riders! Jim knew the Diamond was a big country, exceedingly wild and rough on the high west slope, but he would have staked a good deal on Curly Prentiss trailing them to their lair. Curly’s reputation as to tracker would have to be sustained. How the outfit would drive him! As to that, they would each and every one ride out on the man-hunt. This aspect of the situation was thrilling, but Jim felt qualms at the possible outcome. He had come to know his men now.

The moon went down; the sky grew dark blue and star-fired. Jim’s captors climbed out on top of the rim, and when Jim looked down into that black abyss he caught his breath. They rode on into the forest, toward the east, and after a long ride they headed a thick-timbered canyon, and turned west again. They climbed a ridge and kept to its summit for what seemed hours to the wearying Jim, and at last they cut down into wild, dense forest. In the gray of dawn they rode up again, into open grassy parks where no hoof-tracks would show, down again and up once more, to descend a pine- and spruce-timbered slope, to enter at daylight a beautiful white-grassed park, fringed by forest.

Jim saw a shaggy gray log cabin in the edge of the pines. A flock of wild turkeys, all gobblers, stately and bronze-flecked, walked across the open. Far down the valley-like park, near a willow-bordered stream that wound through, stood deer motionless, with heads and long ears up.

Smoke issued from the rude outside stone chimney of the cabin. Then a man appeared, rifle in hand. Haverly let out a shrill whistle. Another man appeared, and he shouted in hoarse welcome.

The cabin was very old, built of peeled pine logs and split shingles, which in places had rotted through. The front of the roof had an overhang of ten feet or more, with one post at each corner. That end of the cabin was open and there were no windows or doors. The fire was inside. Saddles and pack outfits were stacked under this projecting shed-like roof.

“Wal, we’re heah,” announced Seth Haverly to Jim, as they came to a halt at the cabin. “I cain’t say that you squealed a hell of a lot on the way.”

He was a thin, wiry young man, blond, with hazel eyes, clear as light and which certainly did not have any shifty quality. His beard was like fine amber moss.

“No, Haverly, I’m not a squealer,” replied Jim. “And I could be worse off.”

“Shore you could.” said the other, after a moment of surprise. “I reckon Jocelyn had you figgered wrong or he lied like a streak.”

“What notion of me did he give you?”

“Wal, you was a dude tenderfoot, afeered of your shadder. Swore he licked stuffin’s out of you.”

Jim laughed. “Am Ito get down?” he inquired.

“Shore. Pile off.”

“Was Jocelyn in West Fork yesterday when I had a little set-to with Dunn?”

“Nope. But I was an’ I seen your little set-to...Might I ask, Mister Traft, what you’d call a big set-to?”

“Well, there’ll be a pretty fair one when Curly Prentiss and the Diamond hole you fellows here,” responded Jim, cheerfully. “And a real one when Slinger Dunn meets Hack Jocelyn. I wouldn’t be in Jocelyn’s boots for a million.”

“Huh! Wal, I kinda like you, Jim Traft, an’ I reckon I did thet fust day at Limestone, when I rid into your camp with Slinger. Do you recollect?”

“Yes, I remember you, and that you seemed to have some sense.”

“Wal, I used to. But I’m damned if I don’t think it left me when I fell out with Slinger.”

Meanwhile the horses were unsaddled, hobbled, and turned loose. And Jim had a chance to look over the men. They were all young and they looked the part they were playing. Jim did not, however, conceive a very unfavourable impression. They were a group of cowboys misled — gone wrong; and that appeared to be a common enough thing in Arizona during the last of the ‘eighties.

Sam Haverly was also blond, almost red of hair and complexion, more sturdy than his brother, less lean of face and intelligent of eye. Hart Merriwell could not have been picked out of a group of cowboys for any distinct individuality. Boyd Flick was dark, small, and as he hobbled around in his enormous chaps Jim thought that he could never have stopped a pig in a lane. Jim had yet to hear the names of the two members of Haverly’s outfit that had been keeping camp here in the park. They certainly struck him forcibly, and the bigger one, a brawny fellow for a rider, had very pale eyes and hairy like tow.

“Whar’s our new boss?” he inquired, after greeting Seth, and his tone did not lack sarcasm.

“Matty, you can cut thet talk,” replied Haverly. “Or I’m gonna get sore...Jocelyn stayed behind.” And in succinct words he gave his questioner a few details of what had detained him. And these elicited a short, terse comment, mostly profane.

“If you’re hungry, come an’ git it before I throw it out,” called the other fellow, from the cabin.

“Make yourself to home,” said Haverly to Jim, leading him in.

Whereupon these backwoods riders, precisely after the manner of cowboys, ate their breakfast standing or sitting or squatting, and one of them knelt with his. Jim very soon could have commended the cook, and he made a hearty meal.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked, genially.

“Wal, you shore wouldn’t expect me to sing fer your amoosement,” replied Seth, dryly.

“No. I’m feeling pretty good now, considering, and I don’t want to take risks,” returned Jim, just as dryly.

This retort went home, for remarks were forthcoming anent Seth’s opinion of his vocal powers. The men looked frankly at Jim.

“Wal. Traft, do I hawg-tie you or not?” queried Haverly.

“I’m sure I can’t read your mind. As a matter of fact, Haverly, I don’t think you’ve got much gray matter. Or you’d never have let Jocelyn persuade you into this deal.”

Haverly took that retort gravely, as well as corroborative ones from Matty and the cook.

“If you’ll give your word not to make a break I won’t tie you up,” went on Haverly to Jim.

“Man, I can’t promise that. Would you?” protested Jim.

“Wal, I’ve done it, an’ lied like hell...Mister Jim, you ‘pear to be a straight-talkin’ fellar. Reckon we’ll jest cut this idee of you bein’ a tenderfoot...You can set around heah in comfort. But if you run we’ll wing you. Thet’s my order. Do you savvy?”

“Sure. And much obliged. Molly was right when she said you were a pretty decent fellow. It was only bad company that was making an outlaw of you. She was glad Slinger quit your outfit,” replied Jim, departing somewhat from literal veracity. But he had a deep game to play and he knew he could work hard on this simple, primitive mind.

“Wal, so Molly said thet!” he ejaculated, with a queer look on his face. And he fell into a profound reverie.

“Hyar we air,” announced Matty, spreading his hands. “An’ Chet Jocelyn not in the outfit. Air we goin’ to wait around, riskin’ our necks, while he sparks a gurl?”

“Sparks nuthin’. He’ll have to hawg-tie Molly Dunn, if he wants her near him,” replied Seth, snorting.

Jim imagined he saw an opening. “Say, didn’t you see Jocelyn grab Molly last night? If he hadn’t she’d have run.”

“I seen him. An’ I’ll bet you-all a hundred thet he packs her up heah,” replied Haverly.

“Why, the man’d be out of his haid,” said Matty. “It’s bad enough to kidnap this heah Traft boy fer money. But to haul a Cibeque gurl up heah — for doubtful reasons! Seth, this Jocelyn ain’t no Cibeque fellar nohow.”

“Matty, you’d needn’t rag me,” rejoined Seth, sullenly. “I cussed him fierce last night. An’ I said ‘No!’ If he fetches her ——  —— ; it’ll be the wuss fer him!”

“An’ it’d be wuss fer us, don’t you fergit thet.”

Sam Haverly spoke up, “Many, you ain’t heerd aboot Jocelyn shootin’ Andy Stoneham last night?”

“.Andy! Fer Heaven’s sake, thet good-natured clerk of Enoch’s!” exclaimed Matty, aghast.

“Hack swore Andy was informin’ ag’in’ us.”

They all looked puzzled, and Seth Haverly shook his blond head broodingly. The expression of thoughts, opinions, criticisms, animosities, by these woodsmen seemed equivalent to the amassing of evidence.

“Fellows,” broke in Jim, “Hack Jocelyn is too deep for you. He had the Diamond standing on its head. Even after I saw through him I had a job convincing some of them.”

“S’pose you give us a hunch aboot this deal,” suggested Seth Haverly.

“I will.” declared Jim, “provided you agree to what I asked.”

Seth turned to Matty, who evidently was an important member of the outfit. “Traft says he’ll advise his uncle to pay a ransom, providin’ it’s not out of all reason, an’ thet Jocelyn don’t git no share.”

“Strikes me hard,” said Matty.

“Jocelyn will raise hell. He wanted to name the amount of ransom an’ write the letter to old Traft. But he’s not heah an’ we’ve shore no time to lose.”

Jim had a wild idea. “Haverly, would you trust me to get the ransom for you?”

That rendered the eager group speechless. Before Haverly regained his voice the cook, who had gone outside to empty a pan, whistled low and sharp. They all jumped, and it certainly startled Jim. Then Seth strode out; to be followed by the others.

“Jocelyn comin’ down out of the woods — ridin’ double,” said the cook, pointing.

“Fletch, if you ain’t correct!” ejaculated Matty. To this Seth Haverly added a volley of curses.

Jim’s eyes roved and strained, at last to espy a horse coming under the pines carrying double. He stood stock-still, suddenly galvanized. How slowly the tired horse descended the slope! It was some moments before Jim made out Molly clearly. She was riding astride, behind Jocelyn’s saddle, and appeared to sit there easily. Her dark head grew distinct — then her face — then her eyes. Jim wondered how he would ever have the courage to look into them. A long night ride through the wild forest with that vicious cowboy!

Jocelyn had a gray, corded face — eyes like gimlets. He threw the bridle and, hands on hips, regarded the silent group. “Missed the trail an’ was lost till daylight,” he explained.

Seth Haverly took a step out in front of his comrades. He was slow, guarded, but not afraid.

“So, Jocelyn, you kidnapped Molly?” he queried harshly. “Nope. She come willin’.”

“What!”

“She come willin’. Ask her yourself,” returned Jocelyn, coolly.

“Molly, is he tellin’ me straight? Did you come up heah of your own accord?” demanded Haverly.

“Yes, I did, Seth,” replied Molly, calmly.

Haverly stepped closer and peered up into Molly’s face, as if to read not only confirmation of Molly’s admission, but of suspicions of his own. Again he made that striking gesture with his hand, and, turning to Jim, baffled, eyes afire, he said, “Traft, will you take a look at Molly an’ tell me if she’s drunk, crazy, or — or—”

He did not finish. There seemed to be eloquent manifestations about him that he had loved Molly Dunn.

Jim dragged himself forward to obey, and there might have been a chain with iron balls attached to his legs. Yet something sustained him despite the icy clutch at his heart.

Molly’s face was wan. The big dark eyes gazed straight down into Jim’s. He read in them love, hope, meaning.

“Mawnin’, Jim!” she said.

“Good morning, Molly! How — are you?” he managed to get out.

“I’m all right, Jim.”

“All — right?” he echoed. But he took little stock of her words. Jocelyn had acquired some control over her, probably lying to her about his authority in this kidnapping deal. Jim’s whole inner being seemed to collapse with his sudden relief. Her eyes told him all he wanted to know.

“Shore. Only awful sleepy, hungry, an’ sore,” she answered. “Did you come with Jocelyn willingly?”

“Reckon so, Jim. But I didn’t have a lot of choice,” drawled Molly, and from behind Jocelyn’s shoulder she gave him a deep warning look that certainly could not have been lost by the others.

Jocelyn laughed sardonically. “My word goes a hell of a long way in this heah outfit.”

“You fetched her ag’in’ my order,” declared Seth Haverly.

“Yes, I did. But I tell you she would come,” snarled Jocelyn.

“Tell that to the chipmunks,” retorted Seth, contemptuously, and, turning to Molly: “Get down, gurl. You shore look fagged. Fletch will fix you somethin’ to eat. An’ I’ll make a bed for you.”

He picked up an axe and strode off toward a clump of spruce. Molly slid down, and, limping to a seat under the extension, she asked for a drink of water. Matty hastened to get a dipperful from a bucket and proffered it, not without kindliness. Here was a girl of the Cibeque — their own kind — placed in a queer predicament by a comparative stranger.

Jim’s gaze had followed Molly devouringly. Happening then to shift it to Jocelyn, he was struck by that worthy’s deep-set eyes, smouldering fire. Jim read intuitively that his very life was in peril, right at the moment. There did not appear to be any reason why Jocelyn could not and would not shoot him, as he had Andy Stoneham. It stilled Jim’s emotion. Sitting down, back to a log, he studied the ground and tried to catch at whirling thoughts. And the first one he got hold of was that Molly’s strength and composure were due to sacrifice. She was in possession of facts unknown to him or Haverly’s outfit. Jim believed he could unravel the plot presently.

Seth returned carrying a huge bundle of spruce boughs, which he carried into the back of the cabin, where a stall-like partition hid a corner. Evidently behind this he made a bed, for he came out to get a blanket. After which task he reappeared, to approach Molly.

“You can sleep back there an’ be out of the way,” he said. Finally, Jocelyn dismounted, and, uncinching the wet horse, he threw saddle and blankets, unbuckled the bridle, and let him go. “I’ll eat somethin’,” he said, “an’ then we’ll talk.”

He went into the fireplace and sat on a box, where he could not see Molly. And when he bent ravenously to his meal Jim ventured to look at her. Deliberately she held up her left hand, and, slipping the ring round to the back of her finger, where the big diamond caught the sunlight, she gave Jim a smile that seemed reward for all his agony. Yet, on second thought, there seemed, beside love and loyalty, a sadness that might be renunciation.

Seth Haverly saw Molly’s look, also the ring, and if he did not put two and two together Jim missed his guess. Moreover, Seth did not react sullenly to this revelation.

Presently Molly had satisfied her hunger and thirst, and she repaired out of sight behind or in the stall at the back of the cabin. Jocelyn, about finished with his meal, watched her go, and there seemed that of a lean wolf in his gaze. A moment later he got up, and, giving his belt a hitch, he stalked out under the overhang of the roof, a strong figure, sure of himself and his resourcefulness. Among these men, anyway, he had no superior, and knew it.

“What’s on your mind, Seth?” he queried.

“Shore there’s a-plenty, Jocelyn, an’ you’re part of it,” replied Haverly, gruffly.

“Ahuh. Mister Traft’s been talkin’ to you. The man who gets your ear last has you on his side.”

“Wal, if I’m not loco you stuffed both my ears prutty full.”

“Come away from these crawfish of yours, an’ we’ll settle this deal pronto.”

“Nope, not no more. Sam an’ the rest of my outfit air goin’ to heah every word I say.”

Jocelyn rolled and lighted a cigarette. It struck Jim that he was prepared for most anything, and had little respect for the minds and abilities of these Cibeque riders. He leaned against the log post of the cabin and smoked, his hard eyes studying every one of them, and not missing Jim. Something Ring Locke had said to Jim seemed to be justified here. Jocelyn was one of the breed of far-riding cowboys, outlawed from many ranges, perhaps, and a dangerous man. He looked it now.

Seth Haverly, after a pause, went on speaking: “I’m sore aboot your shootin’ Andy Stoneham.”

“Thet’s none of your bizness,” snapped Jocelyn.

“But it is. You’re in my outfit now. We’ll all be held part responsible for thet. I reckon it don’t make a hell of a lot of difference — if we get away with this ransom deal. But your stealin’ Molly Dunn from her home — thet’ll let us out.”

“Haverly, I didn’t steal her. You’ve got ears, man. You heered her say she came willin’.”

“Bah!”

That nettled Jocelyn. He had lost grip here. “Haverly, you’ve no call to worry on account of Molly. She’s goin’ away with me to marry me.”

“She is! — an’ you’re leavin’ us heah?”

“Thet’s your affair. I told you it’d be a good idea to light out fer another range or hole up till the thing blowed over.” Haverly got up, red in the face.

“It’s none of my mix, if Molly means to marry you. But it looks damn queer to me. I know thet gurl. She wouldn’t double-cross a Cibeque dog...You’re playin’ a prutty high hand. Jocelyn, an’ I’m admittin’ you’re too smart fer this outfit.”

“Thanks. But it ain’t so much of a compliment...You’ve no kick comin’, if you get your stake out of it.”

“I wouldn’t of had. But your murderin’ Stoneham an’ runnin’ off with Molly — thet puts a bad complexion on the whole deal. I’ve a mind to back out of it.”

“You will like hell!” asserted Jocelyn. “You’ll go through on this deal or you’ll have me to square up with.”

The scarcely veiled threat had its solid effect upon Haverly. A break was imminent between them — a fact Jocelyn probably saw, but it would not come at once or openly.

“Wal, we ain’t got a lot of time to palaver,” said Seth. “Curly Prentiss is on Traft’s trail, you can bet. The West Forkers air goin’ to give him a hunch. An’ wurst, Slinger Dunn has got to be considered.”

“Dunn was beat so bad thet he’ll be layin’ up fer a week. Mister Traft played into our hands there.”

“Jocelyn, you cain’t figger Slinger, an’ thet’s why I’ve my doubts aboot you. Shore as Gawd made little apples Slinger Dunn is on your trail right this minnit.”

Jocelyn looked up at the threatening clouds rolling from the south- west.

“It’ll rain tonight an’ then we can’t be trailed,” he said, confidently.

“Wal, thet’ll only delay Slinger. He knows every hole in these hills, an’ he’s shore a hound on a scent.”

Suddenly Jocelyn took hold of Haverly and dragged him out of earshot of the listeners. There in plain sight under a pine they argued, with Haverly growing less and less protesting. Finally they reached some kind of an agreement and returned to the cabin.

“Sam, we’ve made the best of a bad bargain,” announced Seth. “The hitch was Molly. I jest don’t care to be around if Slinger happens along. Wal, Jocelyn has agreed to take the gurl an’ go to the haid of the draw up heah, an’ stay hid in thet trapper’s cabin at Turkey Spring. A rifle-shot will warn him to rustle...As fer the deal — we’ll send Boyd to Flag pronto with the letter to old Traft. Boyd’s got the fastest hoss, an’ allowin’ half a day to get the money he can make it in lessen two days. What you say?”

“Suits me,” said Sam, laconically.

“Wal, it ain’t so slick,” added Matty. “Tomorrer is Sunday an’ no bank is open. Suppose Boyd don’t find old Traft at home?”

Jocelyn waved this aside as if unworthy of consideration. “It’s the letter thet’ll fetch results. Blodgett or any of Traft’s friends would dig up ten thousand.”

“Oh. will they?” queried Matty, dubiously. “I’ll write the letter. It’ll be short an’ sweet. It’ll say if thet money isn’t heah with Boyd in twenty-four hours we’ll kill Jim Traft an’ hang his body over his drift fence!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

JOCELYN OPENED A saddle-bag, to take out a small packet, which be lay on the ground. Then, as if it was an afterthought, he lifted out a large flask, which he shook with satisfaction. Placing it back, he next removed a bottle half full of dark-red liquor. He drank from it. And then he slipped that in his hip pocket.

Jim shared Seth Haverly’s surprise at this act.

“Reckon it ain’t no time fer drinkin’, onless your nerve’s poor,” he said caustically.

The other wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You’re a bright fellar, Seth,” rejoined Jocelyn, rising with the packet. “But you ain’t as bright as I am. My idea is to make Traft write this letter to his uncle.”

“Shucks! I thought of thaet long ago. An’, fer thet matter, he offered to do it.”

“Who offered?”

“Traft heah. But he made it providin’ I didn’t ask fer too much ransom, an’ thet you wasn’t to hev no share.”

“Oh! The hell you say!” returned Jocelyn, with a dark glance at Jim. Then he opened the packet and laid writing-paper, pen, and ink on the woodpile. “Fetch a box.”

One of the party procured a box from inside. “Now, Mister Jim Traft, I reckon you’ll put one of your accomplishments to good use,” declared Jocelyn.

As Jim rose from his seat Seth Haverly made that singular gesture.

“Wait,” he said, in lower tone. “Jocelyn, I’ll agree aboot sendin’ fer the money. But I’m daid set ag’in’ your doublecrossin’ old Traft.”

“Talk low, you ——  ——  —— !” rejoined Jocelyn, swiftly. “She might be awake an’ heah you...Git it off your chest quick.”

Haverly had paled so that his thin amber beard stood out in contrast. He knelt on one knee and whispered huskily, “I weaken on two points of your deal.”

“An’ what’s them?”

“Layin’ the blame on Slinger Dunn, fer one—”

“Too late. I’ve already fixed thet in West Fork. Never mind your otherpoint.”

Jim had heard enough to divine Jocelyn’s diabolical plot. Whether that ransom was paid or not, he realized Jocelyn meant to decorate the drift fence with his dead body, like a scarecrow hung up in a cornfield. There was one instant when it seemed Jim’s whole internal machinery would fail. Then he rallied in desperate spirit. Right then and there he would have snatched a gun from one of these men, had he been close enough. He nursed the inspiration. If he could kill Jocelyn, that at least would save Molly. Slowly his muscles set to the terrible determination.

“You already fixed the blame — on Slinger!” ejaculated Haverly.

“Shore did. An’ nobody but you fellars can prove he didn’t shoot thet store clerk.”

“Jocelyn, you’re orful smart, but you cain’t work miracles,” said Haverly.

“Let’s don’t argue. I’ve no time to tell you how I put the job up on Dunn. But it’s done. If he has started on our trail, he’ll never be able to clear himself. Thet’s all.”

“Gawd-Almighty!” gasped Haverly.

At this juncture Jim, whose eyes kept continually travelling back to the corner of the cabin, made the startling discovery that Molly was peeping round the corner of the stall. This added to Jim’s uneasy sense of premonition and made him more restless than ever. He tried to move round where he could warn Molly to be careful.

“Somebody tie up this fellar,” ordered Jocelyn, who apparently could see in all directions at once. “He’s snookin’ around. Reckon he’d like to get back there with my lady love.”

But nobody lifted hand or foot to comply with his order. Snatching up a lasso, he made at Jim, and swung the loose loops viciously, cracking on Jim’s hip. It was just possible for Jim to resist leaping at Jocelyn, who, he knew, would shoot him upon the slightest excuse.

“Turn round an’ lean ag’in the post,” he commanded. “An’ put your hands behind you.” With that he proceeded to bind Jim’s hands and feet, and tied the last in intricate knots. “It ain’t my rope, an’ it’ll have to be cut.” Then he kicked Jim’s feet from under him, letting him down. It so happened that Jim slid round in falling, and there he sat, back to the post, helpless and so devoured by wrath that he felt he was sweating blood.

Whereupon Jocelyn drew his bottle from his hip pocket and took a drink.

“To celebrate the day, Mister Traft,” he said. “An’ when I drink the rest of this I’ll set the bottle on your head an’ treat you to some real shootin’.”

Repairing to the box, he sat down again before the writing materials. “Hell! I was goin’ to make him write the letter, an’ now I’ve tied him up...Wal, I’ll write it myself.”

And he did, labouring over the task like a schoolboy. Then he read it over with evident satisfaction.

Seth Haverly held out a lean hand. “I’m askin’ to see what you writ.”

Imperturbably Jocelyn sealed the letter. “Reckon you couldn’t read it, if I let you,” said Jocelyn.

“You’re demandin’ more’n we agreed on,” shouted Haverly, beside himself with rage.

“I shore am. Ten thousand wouldn’t begin to do me. You’re a fool, Haverly. Old Traft will pay to save his nevvy’s precious life.”

“Yes, an’ he’ll pay all in vain,” snarled Haverly, white to the lips.

Jocelyn gave little heed to him, and, turning to Flick, he presented the letter. “Ride like hell, now. An’ get this in Traft’s hands today, or Blodgett’s. An’ if they ain’t handy go to Tobin at the bank. Any one of them will pile out the greenbacks. An’ you ride back, pronto.”

“I ain’t stuck on the job,” declared Flick, brusquely, rising to his feet.

“It’s safer than waitin’ here, you can gamble...An’ I reckon I needn’t tell you what I’ll do to you — if you don’t come back.”

Flick threw the letter in Jocelyn’s face. “Go to hell! You cain’t make me do your dirty job an’ insult me to boot.”

But Seth and Matty quickly intervened, one to rescue the letter and the other to lead Flick aside. Between them they persuaded him.

“All right, I’ll go an’ do my damnedest,” said Flick. “But I’m tellin’ you straight, Jocelyn has busted the Cibeque.”

With that he picked up his saddle, blanket, and bridle, and disappeared round the corner of the cabin. Jocelyn stood up to tilt his bottle and drain the contents. He was about to fling the empty bottle aside when he remembered something. Stalking over to Jim. he pulled him up to an erect sitting posture, rapped his head hard against the post and set the bottle upon it.

“There!” he exclaimed, with elation, and drawing his gun he flipped it in the air, catching it by the handle with great dexterity. “Anybody want to bet me?”

No one answered. Seth Haverly looked a protest he knew it would be useless to voice. Jocelyn had dominated the group. He had alienated them, but had them under his thumb. Jocelyn stepped off ten long paces and turned, his face singularly bright, to level the gun.

Jim saw that the hammer of the Colt was up. Next instant he looked into the small, black, tube-like barrel of the quivering weapon. All faculties but sight seemed to be in abeyance. And that deadly little hole suddenly belched fire. He felt a slight jar, just before the gun boomed. Particles of shattered glass fell on his head and shoulders.

“Ha! How’s thet, Seth? Shot the neck off first crack!” cried the grinning devil.

“Wal, it’s damn bad, if you ask me,” growled Haverly. “Thet gun of yourn can be heerd fer miles.”

When Jocelyn levelled it again, Jim’s consciousness seemed unclamped. Jocelyn was aiming a little lower this time. Back of the gun gleamed the eyes of a cat playing with a mouse.

Then came a rush and patter of moccasined feet. Molly flashed out. She struck up the gun so violently that it went off harmlessly in the air.

“Hey, gurl! You might get hurt,” protested Jocelyn, as if he had been interrupted at a favourite sport.

“Flack Jocelyn, put away that gun,” demanded Molly, furiously.

“Say, little lady, you cut quite a figger in my eyes, but you ain’t givin’ orders yet,” drawled Jocelyn. But a keen person could have observed that here he was on uncertain ground.

“Put it away — or I’ll—”

“What’ll you do?” interposed Jocelyn, darkly. All the same he lowered the gun.

Seth Haverly, his brother, and their three comrades showed undisguised satisfaction at the turn of affairs. Seth, in fact, exhibited more. Molly Dunn, whatever her relation to this man or his villainy, was certainly not afraid of him.

“I’m liable to do anythin’, Hack Jocelyn,” she said, and she looked it.

Seth stepped out unsteadily. “Molly, you better stay back. Honest, gurl, Hack was only foolin’. He ain’t really goin’ to hurt. Traft.”

“You’re a liar, Seth,” snapped Molly. “You know better. An’ you’re a lot more than a liar. Flick was right, only the Cibeque is busted. You let Jocelyn drive Slinger out an’ now you’re—”

“Shet up,” ordered Jocelyn, sheathing his gun. “Molly, you’re damn pretty when you’re riled, but you’re goin’ too far. Shet your mouth now, or I’ll slap it good an’ hard.”

“You dare touch me!” she blazed, with such passion that it affected loving Molly Jocelyn.

Jim, loving Molly so deeply, and feeling her emotion so tremendously, had an intuition of a change in her that was not wholly explained by her fears for him. She had heard intimations not intended for her. She had realized Jocelyn’s perfidy — that if murder was to be averted she would have to do it. This, of course, could have roused Molly’s wild spirit to any extreme. Still, there seemed to be something else. Was Molly talking to gain time? Her suppressed air of suspense, her furtive glances, were slight indeed, compared with stronger expressions, yet they did not escape Jim.

“Wal, I’ll touch you a-plenty an’ pronto,” replied Jocelyn. And that fetched Jim’s gaze back to the leader in this woodland drama. He was in time to note Jocelyn, as he espied the ring on Molly’s left hand.

“Where’d you get thet ring?” demanded Jocelyn, suddenly hot. “On your third finger! An’ a big sparkler!”

“None of your mix, Hack Jocelyn,” retorted Molly, and she put her hands behind her back. It was then that Jim imagined he saw her look over Jocelyn or behind him.

Jim peered across the grassy open to the wooded slope. On that side the pines were scattered, as by an expert landscape gardener who wanted a beautiful open forest. And on the instant Jim sighted the flash of a dark form vanishing behind a tree trunk. It resembled what he imagined an Indian would look like, and all his being responded in a concerted shock. Had Molly seen it?

“You two-faced hussy!” ejaculated Jocelyn, dark with jealous wrath. “Stick out your hand...Lemme see.”

Molly coolly brought her hand round and extended it, fingers spread, upper side exposed, and she preened it before the exasperated cowboy. She might have been actuated by many motives, but one of them assuredly was a woman’s desire to inflict pain.

“Reckoned you was hidin’ thet from me,” declared Jocelyn, tragically.

“You just had that idea. Why should I hide it from you — or anybody else?...It’s my engagement ring.”

“Engagement!” echoed Jocelyn.

“Shore...An’ I may as well announce it.”

“Wimmen shore air hell,” muttered Jocelyn, more to himself, as if the puzzle of Molly Dunn’s dual nature was beyond him. He seemed to be studying her as a species new to him, as fascinating as mysterious. And his doubt grew.

Jim took advantage of the moment to glance across the open to the slope, up and down, and to each side. He was about to believe he had been deceived, when far down to the left, at the edge of the forest, he saw something move — a shadow of a branch or the tail of a horse or —

“Molly, who gave you thet ring?” went on Jocelyn, coming to himself.

“Mister James Traft,” replied Molly, blushing deeply. Even though she was playing a woman’s wit against this jealous lover, she could not conceal her maidenly confusion, her pride and joy.

Jocelyn bellowed like a bull.

“Since when? How long you bin engaged to this —— tenderfoot?”

“I reckon — since the night of the rodeo dance in Flag.”

Perhaps nothing else could have shaken Jocelyn as this mortal blow to his vanity. Perhaps Molly was working on that very weakness. If so, she was taking desperate chances, and she knew it. A transformation took place in Jocelyn, not a swift one, but a gradual breaking up of illusive force, of the one vital vulnerable link in his personality, and it left him a cold, hard fiend.

As he whipped up his gun Molly stepped in front of him, to shield Jim.

“You’ll have to kill me first,” she declared, resolutely. Certain it was, however, that she knew he would not shoot her.

Jocelyn was in no hurry now. He had a gun in his hand. He would torture as well as slay.

Seth Haverly, however, took him as seriously menacing Molly. “My Gawd, Jocelyn — put thet down!”

“Nope. I feel too much at home with my gun stickin’ out in front.”

Molly seemed to Jim to be at the end of her rope. Slowly Jocelyn backed her toward where Jim sat, his head against the post, still holding the broken whisky bottle.

“Oh, Seth Haverly, but you’re a rotten coward!” cried Molly. “You leave it for a girl to face this devil.”

“But, Molly, devil or not, I’m in a deal with him,” expostulated Seth, as if stung. “An’ it ain’t no call fer me to risk my hide.”

“Deal, yes — a dirtier deal than you know. He’s—”

“Molly Dunn,” cut in Jocelyn, “shet your jaw — or it’ll be too late.”

“Too late! Why, you poison-tongued snake — do you think I’d believe you again?...You can kill me an’ Jim — an’ this yellow bunch, for all I care. But, by God! I’m givin’ you away.”

Jocelyn made a fierce reach for her. But he did not quite lose himself in the passion of the moment. He had to stand clear, to be free, to watch the Haverlys. So he dared not close in with her.

“I’m warnin’ you onct more.”

Molly must have kept her burning eyes on him, at bay, while she denounced him to the Cibeque.

“Seth, he cut the drift fence, even while he was workin’ on the Diamond. An’ after. He aimed to get you an’ Slinger blamed for that. He’s double-crossed you as he did Jim. He means to take all the ransom money...to murder Jim an’ lay that on to you...Oh, I know. I see through him — now...He got me up heah — by swearin’ he’d save Jim’s life if — if I’d give in to him. I agreed. An’ then he kept at me — all night long — an’ once I had — to fight him. But I — I wouldn’t give in—”

“You pop-eyed cat,” yelled Jocelyn, stridently. “Who wants you to give in? I’ll rope you like I would a mean hawse!”

Suddenly the gun banged. Jim felt the bottle blown off his head. Molly screamed.

“Right under your arm, Molly,” said Jocelyn. “How’s thet fer shootin’?” And he began to step from one side to the other, the gun extended about even with his hip.

Molly did not back away from his formidable advance. She blocked his every move, interposing her body between the gun and Jim. Then like a cat she pounced upon Jocelyn’s hand, shoving it out of line. Bang! The bullet scattered dust and gravel over Jim. Both her hands and then her teeth were locked on Jocelyn’s wrist.

“Leggo!” he yelled, lustily, westling to get free. But he could not free himself. With left hand he lifted Molly by her hair. He swung her clear of the ground, her weight nothing to his powerful arms. But he could not shake her grip. Blood began to drip from his wrist.

“Bite, —— !” he cursed. And, lifting her, he tried to get the gun on Jim. But as he pulled the trigger she swung desperately, spoiling his aim. The gun roared and a bullet tore splinters out of the post beside Jim’s ear, and whirred away into the forest. The recoil of the heavy Colt loosened Molly’s teeth, but not her hands. She screeched like a wild creature. Before Jocelyn could take advantage of this, she again buried her teeth in his wrist. He swung her aside, but she alighted on her feet. He fought her to and fro, until they entered the cabin. Haverly and his men were caught in a trap. Like rats they ran to dodge behind the stall, yet to peep out at this extraordinary encounter.

Jocelyn took another snap shot at Jim, narrowly missing him. The shock of this explosion, right at her ear, appeared to weaken Molly, for she let go with her teeth, and her weight sagged on Jocelyn’s arm. He shifted his left hand from her hair to her neck, where his long fingers shut like a vice. Yet on the instant he could not get loose. His malignant cry, however, hoarse and exulted, attested to the victory he saw. Molly could no longer move. He was lifting her, and the gun.

Jim’s distended sight caught a shadow of something passing him. He could not move, even his eyes, but out of the tail of his right he saw a buckskin- clad figure that had appeared as if by magic.

“Hey, cowpuncher!” rang out the voice of Slinger Dunn.

Jocelyn jerked up his head and a fleeting consternation showed on his convulsed face. He let go of Molly’s neck. And as her hands slipped loose she slid down.

Like a whipcord Jocelyn’s gun leaped. But as it leaped Dunn’s crashed. Jocelyn appeared to be arrested. Then, shot through the heart, he staggered forward, with an awful look that set blankly, and plunged step by halting step, to fall clear outside of the cabin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A HEAVY BREATH escaped Slinger Dunn as he removed his gaze from the twitching Jocelyn to Molly and then to the bound Traft. His battered face was scarcely recognizable, but his eyes were wide open.

“‘Pears like I didn’t get heah none too soon,” he drawled. “Slinger! Just- -in time!” gasped Jim.

Molly sat up dazedly, her hair disordered, blood on her chin and nerveless hands. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” she moaned.

“Air you hurted. Molly?” asked Dunn.

She stared wildly. “Arch!” she cried, in recognition. “Is — he daid?”

“Wal, I reckon, onless he wears a big watch in his breast pocket.”

Molly got shakily to her feet and ran unevenly to Jim, where she fell, still game, still proof against the collapse that had taken her strength.

“Cut — this — rope,” she whispered, huskily, plucking at Jim’s bonds.

Dunn, with a wary glance at the back of the cabin, dropped a knife in front of Molly.

“Jim — did he — hit you?” she asked, fearfully, as she freed his hands.

“No. But I sure know what a bullet sounds like...Let me have the knife...Molly!”

“I cain’t heah you,” she said. “His gun deafened me.”

Jim severed the knotted rope and got up, lifting Molly with him, which action assured her that he was uninjured.

“Oh — thank heaven!” she cried, sinking against him. “Jim! Jim! I thought — he’d hit you.”

Jim held her tight, and probably no other moment of his life could ever equal that one. Following it he became aware of Dunn sheathing his gun.

“Come out heah!” he called, and his voice was piercing enough to penetrate more than a board stall.

Seth Haverly came out first, livid of face, and Matty followed, visibly shaken, but unafraid.

“Slinger, he had us buffaloed,” explained Seth.

“Who else back there?”

Sam slouched out, then Hart Merriwell, and lastly Fletch. “Where’s Boyd?”

“Jocelyn sent him with a letter to old Jim Traft.”

“Ahuh.” Then Dunn turned to his sister.

“Molly, you was shore fightin’ thet skunk, an’ I needn’t ask if he got the best of you. But Seth, heah, an’ Sam — did they stand around an’ let thet hombre bulldog you?”

The moment was critical and Molly reacted to it as might have been expected from Slinger Dunn’s sister. If Jim had had the impulse to check her, he suppressed it.

“They shore did,” she cried, lifting her pale face from Jim’s arm. “An’ what is wuss, Arch, they believed him...believed I’d got thick with him an’ come up heah, a willin’ hussy...I agreed to give in to Jocelyn — if he saved Jim’s life. No use lyin’ — I’d have done it...But I never trusted him. I lay back there in the stall — listenin’ an’ watchin’. An’ pretty soon I knew his game...Arch, I was ‘most crazy. I prayed — an’ I peeped out through a chink between the logs. An’ I saw you comin’ under the pines!...Oh! then I had to brace an’ keep Jocelyn off his guard — till you — could get heah.”

“Wal, I reckon it’s aboot good fer Jim Traft thet you air Slinger Dunn’s sister,” drawled Dunn.

“Good and fine and wonderful,” declared Jim, fervently. “I’m thanking God she is Molly Dunn of the Cibeque!”

“Thet squares you with me, Jim Trait,” replied Slinger, gruffly. “Take her away from the cabin...An’ wash the blood offen her.”

Jim was not loath to lead Molly away, half supporting her in his arm. He lifted her across the brook, surprised and pleased to find she was a pretty heavy little chunk. He led her on, across the open grassy flat and up the first gentle slope to a pine tree, where a fragrant brown matt, and shade, invited a stop.

“This is far enough,” he said, letting her down. “I’ll run — back—”

“Don’t leave me. There’ll be a fight,” she cried, clinging to him. “But only to the brook to wet my scarf...You’re all bloody.”

“Then hurry.”

Jim made short work of the trip down to the brook, and while soaking his silken scarf he heard a loud angry protest of Haverly in the cabin, and the cold ring of Slinger’s voice. He ran back to Molly. She was spitting like an angry cat.

“I bit him, Jim, I bit him! I’d have chewed him to pieces...But now it’s over I’m sick — sick with the taste an’ smell an’ sight of his blood.”

And as she spat out she did look sick.

“Never mind, darling. Your biting saved my life...My God! how wonderful you were — how I love you!” And he kissed her passionately, stained lips and chin and hands.

Evidently this treatment effectually checked her nausea.

“Oh — Jim — somebody’ll see,” she whispered.

“Who cares? — But let me scrub you good,” laughed Jim, and he did scrub her mouth inside and outside, and nearly washed the skin off her chin, and likewise the little strong brown hands.

“There goes one. Slinger’s let him off. Look!” said Molly.

“That’s Matty,” replied Jim, recognizing the tall member of Seth’s outfit. He was in a hurry, and snatching up a saddle and bridle he strode off up the park, looking back over his shoulder. “He didn’t seem a bad sort of fellow.”

“I’m glad. Slinger is hell when he’s — like you saw him...Oh, but wasn’t Hack Jocelyn the dastardliest—”

“Sweetheart, don’t think of him,” entreated Jim.

“But he’s daid! An’ Slinger killed him — all on my account.”

“No, not all. Some on mine, and some on his own...Honey, did you really mean you’d accepted me — when you threw it up to Jocelyn — that we were engaged?”

“Yes, Jim — but, man alive, you cain’t make love to me now! I tell you Slinger will kill Seth Haverly, an’ like as not Sam, too.”

“I’m afraid, but I hope not,” declared Jim. “All the same, Molly Dunn, while they’re palavering I can make love to you.”

“Funny tenderfoot from Missourie you are — I guess not,” she declared. “You’re almost another Curly Prentiss.”

“Thanks. You couldn’t pay me a compliment that’d please me more.”

“Jim, I’d have liked Curly if he hadn’t the cowboys’ weakness,” said Molly, thoughtfully.

“And what’s that?”

“Bein’ too gay with a girl — the very first thing — all same like an Easterner I met once.”

“Ha! Ha! — Where’d you meet him. Molly?”

“I reckon it was in Flag...Oh — Jim—” She was surrendering to his arm, when suddenly she started up. “Look! Another leavin’.”

“That’s the cook. Fletch, they called him,” said Jim, watching the man, who lost no time in imitating Matty’s example in making tracks from the cabin, burdened by his saddle.

“Hart Merriwell left, besides Seth an’ Sam. Slinger will let Hart go. Now you watch.”

Presently Jim espied Merriwell come out, in no great hurry, and instead of striding away he slipped round to the back of the cabin and peered through a chink.

“Well, there must be something up,” declared Jim, anxiously. “Listen! That’s Slinger shoutin’,” rejoined Molly.

Jim did distinguish Slinger’s voice, with its high ringing note, but only the sound carried so far. What meaning he could attach to the harangue he had to supply himself. But as Slinger kept on it was no great task to imagine the storm of violent backwoods profanity with which he was berating the brothers who had betrayed him.

“Just like I heahed once at a dance,” said Molly, with a sigh. “There!” She jerked spasmodically at the crack of a gun, and clapping her hands over her ears she sagged against Jim.

“Gosh! — That didn’t sound like Slinger’s gun!” ejaculated Jim, and all his being seemed suspended upon his hearing. Bang! “That was Slinger’s,” he went on, huskily, tightening an arm round Molly. Shots followed, three or four, so swiftly as to be hardly separated. Then again came the heavy boom and a volley of lighter reports. There was a pause that might have been a suspension of hostilities. Jim dared believe it was over. Then followed loud reports, a heavy one — more of the sharp rifle shots — another heavy, and quickly the boom. Silence! Smoke drifted out of the cabin, showing blue against the green pines. Hart Merriwell, who had evidently run off, appeared coming slowly back, halting, waiting, then approaching again. But there were no more shots.

“All — daid!” whispered Molly, lifting her head. She must have been able to hear the shots even with her ears covered.

“I — I’m afraid so,” replied Jim, huskily. “I see Merriwell coming back...There. He’s going in...Molly, I’ll go, too.”

“That’s the end — of the Cibeque,” she murmured. “Poor Arch!...He wasn’t all bad.”

“Stay here, Molly,” admonished Jim. “I’ll come back — if—” He squeezed her hand, and getting up he ran down the slope, leaped the brook, and soon reached the cabin. As he peeped peed round the post, against which he had sat not many minutes past, his hand came in contact with the place splintered by Jocelyn’s bullet.

The iterior of the cabin was still smoky. Jim saw one of the men huddled in a heap. Then on the other side he espied Merriwell kneeling beside Slinger, whom he had propped up.

“Is he — alive yet?” called Jim, breathlessly, and he ran in.

“Hullo! Shore, Slinger’s alive, but shot all up,” replied Merriwell. “Help me carry him out of this smoke.”

They lifted the bleeding, broken body and carried it out to the shady side, where they laid it on a blanket. While Jim lifted Slinger’s head Merriwell placed a saddle under it.

“Reckon you’ll — cash in, Slinger, ole pard,” he said, gulping. “Anythin’ I can do?”

“Where’s Molly?” asked Dunn, faintly.

“She’s across the brook. I’ll call her,” replied Jim, and he got up to go round the cabin. Molly was coming. She had seen them carry her brother out. Jim went out to meet her.

“Molly, he’s alive. He asked for you.” He had to run to keep up to her.

“Oh, Arch!” burst out Molly, dropping on her knees. “Are you — bad hurt?”

“Wal, Molly, I ain’t hurt atall — but I reckon — I’m done fer,” he said, feebly.

“Where there’s life there’s hope,” interposed Jim, as he too knelt.

“Oh, cain’t we do anythin’?” cried Molly.

“You don’t happen — to have some — whisky?” replied Slinger.

“There’s some here,” said Jim, leaping up. “Where did I see it?...Jocelyn had it.” Jim ran to the saddlebags, and procuring the flask he rushed back. Dunn took a stiff drink.

“Wal, Jim Traft, you’re lucky — thet you’re not layin’ around heah full of bullet holes,” he said, in stronger voice, not devoid of humour.

“I guess yes,” said Jim, fervently.

“I was fer killin’ you myself — till Molly made me — a promise.”

“What promise?”

“Molly, air you goin’ to keep it?”

“Yes, Arch,” replied Molly, as she bent over him, her bright tears falling.

“Good! Reckon thet’ll be aboot all,” said Slinger, with satisfaction.

“Molly dear, tell me the promise,” rejoined Jim, earnestly.

“Jim, he was shore set on killin’ you. I begged him not to. An’ he said he’d let you off — if I — I would make you ask me again — to marry you — an’ take you up...So I promised.”

Jim took Dunn’s limp hand. “Slinger, she’d never have had to make me. I’d kept asking till doomsday.”

“Ahuh. Then you’re powerful fond of my kid sister...Wal, I cain’t thank Gawd fer much — but I do fer thet.”

“Oh, let’s do somethin’,” burst out Molly, in desperation. “Hart, where’s he shot bad?”

“Lord! he’s shot bad all over,” declared Merriwell.

“Jim, I tell you bullet holes are nothin’ to Slinger Dunn. He’s not bleedin’ at the lungs, because he’d be spittin’ blood. This cut on his haid isn’t bad. His left arm is broke. There’s a hole in his right shoulder...Heah, low down is the bad one...Oh, my Heavens! — But let’s tie it tight.”

The practical Molly prompted the stricken men to get busy and do what was possible for the wounded one. Jim believed the gunshot in the abdomen would have killed any ordinary man. It had gone clear through. They padded that and bound it up. He had another dangerous wound in the hip, which, according to Merriwell, like the hole in his abdomen, had been made with a rifle.

While they washed and dressed his wounds, as best they could do it with limited means, Slinger talked.

“Sam throwed fust on me, when I was keepin’ two eyes on Seth. An’ he got me thet crack in the belly. It keeled me over, or the fight’d been short an’ sweet...I nailed Sam. Then Seth showed his true colour at last. He dove fer the stall an’ began shootin’ from behind. He had a Colt an’ a forty-four Winchester. An’ he shore pumped lead into me...I sent a couple through the stall. Hit him, fer he cussed hard. But he come back at me. Then I flopped over along the wall, where he couldn’t see me onless he come out. He’d used up all his shells fer the Colt. Anyway, he didn’t take risk to load, an’ stuck to the rifle. Reckon thet beat him. I got to the corner by the stall — leaned over quick — an’ bored him — when he was tryin’ to shift the rifle round.”

Beyond a slight huskiness Dunn’s voice did not depart radically from a tone of ordinary conversation. There was no trace of emotion, unless the mere fact of lengthy recital of the fray was one. He had a remarkable vitality. Jim knew that in case of injury, especially from gunshots, the next perilous thing to the wound itself was the shock to the consciousness. This probably had not occurred in Dunn at all.

“Now, Merriwell, what more is to be done?” queried Jim.

“I reckon nuthin’, onless he wants us to pray. How aboot it, Slinger?

“Nope,” was the laconic reply. He lay still, with closed eyes, a limp and ghastly sight. Molly sat beside him, supporting his head.

“I heah hosses,” suddenly spoke up Dunn, opening his eyes.

They all listened, and Jim shook his head.

“You ain’t close enough to the ground. I shore heah hosses,” added Dunn.

Merriwell got up to walk away from the cabin.

“Bunch of cowboys comin’,” he said, excitedly. “Reckon I’d better make myself scarce.”

Jim joined him. “No need to run, Merriwell. That’s Curly Prentiss and some of my outfit.”

“By gum! An’ they’ve ketched Matty an’ Fletch,” ejaculated the other.

So it appeared to be, and presently Jim made certain of it. Curly rode down the slope, followed by Bud and Lonestar and Jackson Way, who had in tow the late fleeing members of the Cibeque.

Curly threw his bridle and made one sweep of his long leg and slid to the ground. A blue flash of keen eyes took in the situation.

“Howdy, boss! Mawnin’, Miss Molly!” he said, and lifted his sombrero from his bright hair. Then he bent his gaze upon the prostrate Dunn.

“Prentiss, you’re a little late in the day,” said Dunn. “But I’m recommendin’ you let Matty an’ Fletch go. I did...It was Jocelyn an’ Seth an’ Sam. Take a look in the cabin.”

Curly did as he was bidden, returning promptly, a queer cold look in his eyes.

“Wal, Slinger, it shore was a good job. But I’m sorry they got you.”

“Wal, I ain’t cashed yet, an’ if I do it shore won’t be owin’ to Seth or Jocelyn. Sam’s the one who bored me. I wasn’t lookin’ fer it from him.”

Bud Chalfack and the cowboys came riding down, to halt before the group.

“Dog-gone, Jim, if it ain’t fine to see you on yore feet,” said Bud, heartily. “How do, Molly!...Somebody tell me what’s come off.”

Whereupon Jim briefly related the circumstances leading up to the stop at this cabin, the wrangle over the conditions of the ransom, the blackguard conduct of Jocelyn, and the several fights that succeeded. If Jim emphasized anything it was the wit and courage and ferocity of Molly.

“Dog-gone me!” burst out Bud, with worshipful eyes on the girl. “Molly, I always knowed you was the sweetest an’ wonder-fullest little devil in Arizonie, but now I jest haf to take off my hat to you.”

And he did it, quite gallantly.

Curly’s encomium was directed at Jim. “You lucky son-of-agun! To come out heah an’ steal her from us!”

Slinger had missed nothing of all this. He seemed not only incredibly tenacious of life, but singularly possessed of receptive faculties.

“Wal, fellars, she’s Molly Dunn of the Cibeque,” he drawled.

Molly took exception to compliments on the moment. “You heartless cowpunchers! Heah’s daid men all aboot an’ Slinger dyin’ — yet you talk an’ make eyes at me. Jim, you’re as bad. Curly, haven’t you got some sense?”

“Molly, I’m shore beggin’ your pardon,” replied Curly, contritely, as he threw off his gloves and knelt by Slinger. “Tell me jest where he’s shot.”

Molly and Merriwell together gave him the desired information. Curly got up, decisive though grave. “Mebbe he’s a chance. You cain’t kill some fellars...Jack, ride to Flag an’ fetch back the doctor. He can drive a buckboard clear to Cottonwood. You lead an extra saddlehoss, an’ then come rustlin’ across country...Holliday, you an’ Bud go back to camp an’ pack some of our outfit over heah. Fetch the boss’s pack an’ don’t fergit everythin’ to make Miss Molly comfortable...Boss, do you want to hold these Cibeque men heah? I reckon if we let them go they’ll haid Flick off with thet ransom money. An’ we shore don’t want to lose thet.”

“Hold them, then, till Flick comes back,” replied Jim. “You and I can take turns on guard.”

“Wal, Traft,” spoke up Matty, “if you’d like to know, we’re so darn glad the way things hey come off thet we won’t need watchin’.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

SLINGER DUNN SANK into a pallid insensible state that Jim believed was the coma preceding death. Molly, too, succumbed to a fear that every moment would be his last. But the hours passed; the three prisoners played cards and made no trouble whatever; Curly and Jim erected a tarpaulin shelter over Dunn, and a spruce-bough bed for Molly beside him; they got supper from the coarse stores they found in Haverly’s packs; the setting sun filled the forest with a mellow glory; the heavy buffeting wings of wild turkeys going to roost in the pines broke the silence. And Slinger Dunn still lived.

Night fell, and the wind moaned the threatening storm. Coyotes ranged the park and yelped a staccato whining protest at the camp fire. Weird flickering shadows played on the cabin and the improvised tent. Molly sat close to her brother, leaning against the wall, silent and watchful. The only way she could ascertain that Dunn still lived was by touch, and when his pulse grew imperceptible and his hands cold she laid her head on his breast to listen to his heart.

Jim stayed up with her, and seldom left her, except to replenish the fire and take a look at the inside of the cabin, where the prisoners slept. Curly lay across the opening and every time Jim stepped near, though ever so noiselessly, he would awaken. The dead men had been moved to a corner of the cabin and covered with canvas.

Sometimes Jim paced up and down, finding action helpful to the surcharged condition of his mind. He never closed an eye, and seldom indeed was there an interval of any length when he was not watching Molly. In the dead of night there in that lonely forest he came to full appreciation of her sterling worth and a deep respect for the primitive life that had developed her. Many things considered by civilized people as necessary were merely superficial. Molly had the great qualities, virtue, courage, and love.

When he would approach her, as he did often, and sink down on one knee to peer at the pale Slinger, Molly would take hold of him. By the firelight he could see the big eyes, black as night, rest upon him with a glance that made him wonder how life had come to reward him so beautifully.

Towards dawn the wind ceased and, despite the overhanging clouds, the air chilled until it grew bitter cold. Jim wrapped his coat round Molly and laid his saddle blanket over Slinger. He kept the fire going, and stood close to it, burning his palms, turning from front to back.

It grew very black and still, the formidable hour before dawn when even the life of the forest seemed at lowest ebb. Slinger would go soon, Jim thought.

Molly called him. “He whispered somethin’ just now,” she said. “I think he called for Seth’s sister. He was sweet on her...She’ll hate even his memory now.”

Jim sat with her then, silently awaiting the end, holding her against him. It seemed the most melancholy and poignant of all the long night hours. How welcome the first gray streaks! Something ghastly and ghostly stole away into the forest. A fine misty rain began to fall. Daylight at last with Slinger Dunn still not dead!

Curly appeared around the corner of the cabin, yawning, and stretching his lithe length.

“Mawnin’, you babes in the woods,” he said, and dropped beside them, to lean over Dunn. “Wal, Slinger, old man, I reckoned you’d belong where the blue flags an’ the cornflowers blow.”

“Curly, not yet,” replied Jim. “All night we’ve been expecting him to die. And every moment the last hour.”

“It takes so long,” said Molly, sadly.

Curly placed his ear over Dunn’s heart and listened.

“Wal, you both got the willies,” he declared, as he rose with a glad smile. “He ain’t goin’ to croak.”

“What!” ejaculated Jim.

“Oh, Curly!” cried Molly, in an agony of hope.

“Shore he’ll live. I ain’t no doctor, but I’ve seen a heap of fellars pass out. An’ Slinger don’t show no earmarks of thet this mawnin’.”

Molly’s little remaining strength eked out here and she collapsed in Jim’s arms. He let her gently down on the bed of spruce and covered her over. “Go to sleep, honey,” he said.

“Boss, it’s goin’ to rain,” announced Curly, when indeed it was raining already. “Let’s rig up another tarp heah fer Slinger...Look! Molly asleep all in a jiffy. Poor kid!...I don’t see how I kin give her up to you.”

“Don’t you? Well, please be reasonable about it,” replied Jim, dryly.

They stretched a tarpaulin over the makeshift canvas shelter. “Thet’ll do fer a spell. Mebbe we kin move him into the cabin after Doc Shields looks him over...But say, boss, how aboot them stiffs in there?”

“They’ll have to be buried, of course.”

“Wal, the Haverlys ought to have decent burial, I s’pose, but thet Hack Jocelyn, —— , he ought to be throwed to the coyotes.”

Jim followed Curly inside. He stripped the scant covering off the bodies. It was not a pretty spectacle. Jim recoiled. But Curly viewed it differently.

“Daid centre on thet left vest pocket,” he muttered, bending over Jocelyn. “Slinger’s fancy shot, I’ve heahed say. Wal, I’m durned if I want the jasper slingin’ one at me.”

Jim went back to rouse the three prisoners.

“Roll out, you buckaroos, and help get breakfast.”

Matty lumbered up cheerfully, and the others followed with an alacrity that presupposed a desire to please. Probably they did not hold themselves guilty of the deal hatched by the Haverlys and Jocelyn.

“Say, you Cibeque duffers,” said Curly, facetiously, “I fell asleep purpose last night so you could sneak off.”

“Prentiss, I’d hate to of tried it. But all we own in the world is this pack outfit,” explained Matty.

“Wal, thet ain’t a hell uv a lot.”

While they ate breakfast the rain ceased and blue sky showed overhead, soon to be obscured, however, by fast scudding clouds out of the south-west.

Molly slept on, and even the bells of the Diamond pack-horses ringing down the slope did not wake her. Jim did not recall ever being so glad to see cowboys as then.

“The whole night long!” sang out Bud. “The whole night long!”

“Say, Bud, if it was long for you, what do you suppose it was for Molly and me?” retorted Jim.

“I see you haven’t covered Slinger’s face, so he mustn’t hey croaked yet,” replied Bud, practically.

“Howdy, boys! Sure glad to see you,” said Jim, running his eye over the group. “Where’s Hump and Uphill?”

“Don’t know. Cherry will tell you What he thinks, an’ it ain’t no cheerful news,” announced Bud. “We left some uv the hosses an’ packs. Jeff is comin’ somewhere back. He shore hates a saddle.”

“What’s up, Cherry?” queried Jim, approaching Winters, who was dismounting.

“Boss, I reckon Stevens an’ Frost hey struck somethin’ out at the head of Derrick. We left a note fer them to hit our trail. An’ I reckon they’ll be along, mebbe tonight.”

Jim did not see in Cherry’s words much to be worried about. But still less did he like Cherry’s expression than the hint in Bud’s remark.

“Well, unpack and make camp,” he ordered. “If Dunn pulls through we’ll have to stay here for days. Put up the little tent for Molly, if you fetched it. But first thing after you unpack bury these dead men.”

One by one, Bud leading, the cowboys went up to have a look at Slinger and Molly. Strange to say, no remarks were forthcoming, which was probably owing to solicitude for the girl. Then, after the fashion of cowboys, they set to work. Jeff Davis rode down into camp, and added his efficient hands to the task.

The rain held off till early in the afternoon, when it began to fall in earnest. Molly slept on through it all, dry and snug under shelter and blanket. Slinger showed no change. The three Cibeque men had been unceremoniously moved out of the cabin, which the cowboys had thoroughly cleaned. Jim, after a short stay beside Molly and her brother, watchful to see any change in the latter, went inside the cabin to wait. There was nothing much to do now but wait.

Bud appeared to be industriously working over something. It was a section of aspen tree, split in half, on the white surface of which he had carved some words. Jim bent over Curly, who was intent on the artist.

Hackamore Jocelyn, N. G. Drift Fence Cutter Died with his boots on, Sept. 1889.

“I clean forgit the date,” said Bud, viewing his work with satisfaction.

“Reckon it’s aboot the twenty-third. Towards the end of September, anyhow. An’ what’s the date amount to? Jocelyn should never hey bin borned. All we aim to celebrate with this heah tombstone is thet he’s damn good an’ daid,” replied Curly.

The other cowboys noted Bud’s work with quite different points of view.

“Bud, anyone could see you onct worked in a graveyard,” said Cherry.

“What’s the idee — cuttin’ out a haidpiece fer thet greaser?” inquired Lonestar, scornfully. “There’d be sum sense in it if we’d buried Slinger.”

“Shore. But it’s good practice in case Slinger croaks,” observed Bud.

“Hey I gotta tell you fellars any more thet Slinger will live?” queried Curly, annoyed that his judgment was questioned.

“He might, Curly. Life is darn oncertain. I’ll bet you Slinger croaks,” returned Bud, much animated at the prospect of a wager.

“Aw hell!”

“Wal, then, I’ll bet you he croaks before Doc Shields gits hyar,” went on Bud.

“You’d gamble on your grandma’s coffin,” asserted Curly, in supreme disgust. “Funniest thing, too. You always lose.”

“Like hob I do! Right this minnit your spurs an’ chaps belong to me. You’d be naked ‘most but fer my magnanimity.”

“Bud, it shore ain’t no wonder no gurl will stick to you,” replied Curly.

“Woes a gurl got to do with games uv chance? I’m a born better, as you know to your cost.”

“But you’ll bet on anythin’ in Gawd’s world,” protested Curly.

“Thet’s the secret. How much did I clean up when the boss licked you — an’ Cherry an’ Up an’ Lonestar? Huh! I got it all down, an’ if we live to reach Flag ag’in, I’ll be rich.”

“Shore. An’ you’ll be drunk, too.”

“Curly, you make me orful tired. If I wasn’t so all-fired fond uv you — fer no reason thet any human bein’ could see — I’d be riled at your insults...Now listen. Money talks. Put up or shet up. Hyar’s my roll.”

Bud exhibited a roll of greenbacks that made Curly’s eyes stick out and likewise excited Lonestar and Cherry.

“Where’n hell’d you git thet?”

“I bin holdin’ out. Now produce your roll. It’ll look like a peapod thet a hors stepped on...Wal, mebbe not so flat,” added Bud, as Curly retaliated by surprising him. “Now, hyar’s a bet thet’ll show how game I am. My roll ag’in’ yours thet Slinger won’t croak!”

Curly’s face was saved, and the risk of his money, too, by the arrival of lack Way and Dr. Shields. The latter was a little man, lost in a heavy slicker. From the exchange of greetings he was well acquainted with several of the Diamond. He got off, and out of the slicker, then removed a small medicine- satchel and a parcel from the saddle-bag.

“Where’s your man?” he queried, after being introduced to Jim. “Fetch clean hot water.”

Jim did not think it necessary to awaken Molly. The job would be gruesome and she would insist on helping. Dr. Shields felt Dunn’s pulse and heart, and said, “Hum!” which meant little to Jim. Then he cut open Dunn’s blood-caked garments, and first removed the bandages from the wound in the abdomen. At sight of this he shook his head. When he saw that the bullet had gone clear through he nodded his head. So Jim inferred it was both bad and good. Cherry fetched a pan of hot water. Whereupon the doctor went to work, and, with Jim’s assistance, in an hour had all six wounds dressed.

To Jim’s amaze, Slinger opened his eyes. No doubt all the while he had been conscious.

“You ought to be a boss-doctor,” he said. “Hurtin’ me wuss’n the bullets...Am I goin’ to cash?”

“Dunn, that shot in your belly ought to have killed you long ago,” replied the doctor. “The one in your hip is bad, but not critical. The others just gun-shots.”

“Did you fetch any whisky?”

Shields made haste to supply this evident pressing need. “Jim,” said Slinger, “I knowed you gave me some whisky of Jocelyn’s. But I shore didn’t want to live on thet.”

Suddenly Molly sat up, wide-eyed and bewildered.

“Hullo, wood-mouse! You’ve shore slept a lot,” said Dunn. “Oh, Arch! — Jim!”

“Molly, this is Dr. Shields from Flag. He has just attended to your brother’s wounds, and—”

But Jim could not reply to Molly’s mutely questioning eves. And Dr. Shields, blunt as he was, shrank from their wonderful eager look.

“Molly, I’m further from bein’ daid than last night,” spoke up Slinger for himself.

“Don’t talk. Don’t move,” admonished the doctor, and he led Jim and Molly away. “Very likely he told the truth,” continued Shields, presently. “I can’t make predictions. He ought to have passed out long ago. Some of these cowboys are like Indians, to whom bullet holes and knife-cuts are nothing. Your Curly Prentiss is one...Miracles happen. This man might live. If he lasts till tomorrow I’d say there was hope. I’ll stay.”

The rain dripped through the roof of the old cabin, in some places in little streams, one of which happened to go down Bud Chalfack’s neck. It had the effect of a lighted match dropped in gunpowder.

“Bud, why don’t you git used to water?” complained Curly, when the explosion had subsided.

Molly had dinner in the cabin and she was the object of much solicitude. She went back to her shelter, claiming it dry, at least. The three Cibeque men became restless as the afternoon grew late. Boyd Flick did not return. All the cowboys save Bud passed the time playing cards. Bud had evidently become enamoured of his carving ability, for he spent hours over the other half of the aspen log. When he exhibited his latest bit of sculptural genius the cowboys were spellbound. Bud had hewn out a masterpiece of a wooden headpiece for a grave. And he had engraved upon it: “Curly Prentiss. Died —— . Unmarried.” This he presented to Curly, before the bursting cowboys.

“You bow-legged, kangaroo-rat!” declared Curly, who could not see the joke. “I could of married a hundred gurls.”

And so the day passed, every minute of it with less strain for Jim. He was attentive to Molly, who began another vigil over her brother. The rain roared on the canvas, but Molly was comfortable.

“Traft, you look fagged out,” said Dr. Shields, when night fell. “Go to bed. I’ll keep tab on Dunn and wake you if there’s any turn for the worse. He simply amazes me.”

Jim slipped under Molly’s shelter to encourage her and say good-night. In the dark he was feeling round for her when she tugged at him.

“Ssh! He’s asleep,” she whispered.

“Molly, you’ll not sit up all night again? Dr. Shields said he’d watch.”

“I’ll lay down when I get sleepy,” she said. “Jim, I’m beginnin’ to hope.”

“So am I,” replied Jim, and put his arms around her. Molly gave a start and then slowly relaxed. Jim waited to see what she would do. After a long moment she stirred, and in the dim light of the smouldering camp fire he saw her head come up. Then shyly and sweetly, but surely, she returned his embrace, and just brushed his cheek with her lips. Thrilled and utterly grateful and content, he bade her good-night.

He sought his own bed in the stall behind which Seth Haverly had met his death. Once stretched out, Jim discovered how weary he actually was, and that was the extent of his conscious mental activity for this trying day. He slept till the ring of axe and stirring of men roused him. It was a dark, wet, gray dawn, but evidently the rain had ceased. While pulling on his boots, he heard Curly speak:

“Wal, Doc, how’s your patient this mawnin’?”

“I give up, Prentiss. You cowboys are not made of flesh and blood. Dunn just asked for a cigarette,” replied the doctor. Jim went to the fire in a hurry.

“Then he must be — be—” he faltered, just overcome with hope for Molly.

“Traft, I reckon he’ll pull through. I’ll look him over after breakfast. Then you can send a man with me. I left my horses tied in a corral over here where the road ends. Guess they’ll be all right, but I’d like to hurry.”

“Boss, it shore is good,” said Curly. “My hunch was all right. But I was scared stiff fer the little gurl.”

Jim felt too grateful for expression and had to restrain himself from rushing in to Molly. At the breakfast call she appeared pale, yet somehow glowing, and to Jim’s delight she chose a seat beside him.

The morning showed a prospect of clearing weather. A bit of sunlight tipped the spear-pointed spruces on the ridge. Jays and squirrels were noisily in attendance upon the cabin.

Dr. Shields seemed vastly relieved, and not a little glad.

“Miss Molly, you can rest easy,” he said. “Your brother will live...Traft, I’m leaving only a few instructions. Give. Dunn a little whisky and water now and then, for a couple of days. If fever sets in send for me. But there’s no sign of that or other complications. His wounds have closed clean in this forest air. Then begin to feed him nourishing soups, beef tea, and presently light food. But don’t overdo. In about ten days make a canvas litter and have four men pack him to the road, where you can safely haul him in a wagon to Flag.”

When the genial doctor had said good-bye to all and ridden away with his guide, Bud ejaculated plaintively: “Nourishin’ soup! Beef tea! I need somethin’ like thet myself.”

“My Gawd!” added Curly, his loyal champion, at times. “So do I. This heah fence-buildin’ has run me down to skin an’ bones.”

“I’ll bet a two-dollar bill thet if I got shot up our deaf-an’dumb cook would feed me salt mackerel,” ended Bud, in disgust.

Long since Jim had learned this apparent discontent and garrulousness were just their perennial spirit of fun, but he still found occasion to pretend he did not understand them.

“Curly, you and Bud are so darn full of energy — suppose you split some shingles and repair the cabin roof,” he suggested, dryly.

“Boss, it ain’t a-goin’ to rain no more,” replied Bud.

“I think it might. It’s clouding up just like Curly’s face now.”

“Boss, I’m as weak as a sick cat,” protested Curly.

“You’ll feel better at work. That’s what you boys need. Good hard work.”

“Wal, fer cripe’s sake!” exploded Bud.

“Come on, Bud,” said Curly, with resignation. “No turkeyhuntin’ this heah mawnin’. We gotta work while our Mizzourie boss looks at his gurl like a dyin’ duck in a thunderstorm.”

They hailed Cherry on the way out, “You’re helpin’ us split shingles.”

“Who said so?” demanded that worthy, affronted.

“We said so. Orders from the boss.”

It was well that Jim had advised this job, for no sooner had it been completed than the swift-moving clouds rolled up black and the rain poured down in a gray deluge. It rained all day. The cooped-up cowboys talked and played and joked and quarrelled. Once Jim heard a thought-provoking speech from Curly, evidently made in deep argument: “Wal, I tell you gazaboos there’s only one man in Arizonie who could fill Jocelyn’s boots on the Diamond.”

Jim saw Molly at meal-times. She had grown shyer as the strain of anxiety lessened. And the cowboys, now that her cause for distress had been removed, began to pay pretty compliments and make sly little speeches and eye her with flirtatious longing. She seemed even shyer with Jim. But he was happy, and when night fell, with the rain teeming down, he could not resist a moment alone with her under the canvas. Slinger, however, was awake, evidently suffering, and cursing Dr. Shields about the limited nips of whisky. Jim could only squeeze Molly’s hand and say good-night.

It stormed that night, a regular equinoctial gale. The old cabin groaned and threatened to fly away on the wings of the wind. Jim thought there really was risk, for the rafters were heavy. Nevertheless, like the cowboys, he took the risk. It was wonderful to lie snug and warm, however, and listen to the crash and roar of the gale through the forest, and the intermittent and varying spells of rain on the roof. Now and then a faint flash of lightning showed the lashing pines, and dull thunder reverberated across the heavens. Toward morning the fury of the storm abated and it turned cold. When daylight came the sky was fast clearing. the air had a keen cold edge, and the colour of the forest had perceptibly changed. There were hints of red in the maples, brown in the oaks, and the aspens showed a splash of gold. The willow leaves were gone. Autumn had come to this low part of the Diamond, and he ventured a guess that winter had laid a white mantle on the high promontories. This caused Jim concern, for he had hoped to get the drift fence finished before the snow fell.

He went outside to wash. The morning was beautiful, with rose and gold clouds skimming the tree tops, and the sky a deep blue. The brook was a rushing torrent of amber water, full of floating aspen leaves, and it was cold enough to make his fingers ache.

He was wiping his face with his scarf when Curly and Bud appeared, each with a rifle and a fine turkey gobbler.

“Mawnin’, boss, did you hey enough sleep?” drawled Curly. “Boss, you ain’t risin’ with the larks no more,” added Bud, with pretended solicitude. “I hope you’ve no wuss ailment than—”

Jim swore mildly at them. “You went wild-turkey-hunting without taking me! It’s a low-down trick. When I’ve been waiting and longing to go...I’ll get even with you.”

“Boss, I’m downright sorry,” replied Curly, with profound regret. “But it was dark an’ cold, an’ Bud says—”

“Aw, don’t lie it on to me,” interrupted Bud, scornfully. “You know you said, ‘It’ll jest aboot make the boss weep if we waddle in with a couple of turks.’”

“It just has done that,” said Jim.

“Wal, wait till Jeff roasts these young birds!” added Curly. “Boy, yore mouth’ll water so you’ll swear you’ve got dropsy.”

“Ahuh. Do I get to go along next time? Of course there’s a lot of odd jobs around camp—”

Vociferously and in unison Curly and Bud gave remarkable evidence of their regret and how they would make amends that very day.

It turned out that Jim would not leave Molly. Her brother was in agony most of the time, with fever threatening, and not until late did he grow easier. They were all concerned about Slinger, except Curly, who said: “Wal, the third day is the wust. From now on he’ll mend fast.”

Next morning, however, Jim routed Curly and Bud out so early that they could not see even a tree for half an hour.

“Boss, wild turkeys is wild, shore, but they ain’t owls,” complained Bud.

And Curly, loyal as always, vowed that Jim was not going to be permitted to shoot a turkey while still on the roost. “Thet’s pot-huntin’, an’ not sporty atall.”

“After eating that turkey drumstick last night, I’d perpetrate any kind of a dark deed to get another,” averred Jim.

“Didn’t I tell you? Wal, now don’t talk so much, an’ mebbe, if it ever gits daytime, we’ll see a flock,” rejoined Curly.

Jim, therefore, kept his exuberant spirits under restraint. He noticed, however, that Bud and Curly talked right on as usual, and after a few moments he dryly mentioned the fact.

“Wal, you see, these heah turkeys air used to us cowboys ridin’ around in the woods,” explained Curly. “They know our voices.”

Daylight came, with rosy colour and nipping air, with frost like diamonds on the gramma grass, and so quiet that a falling aspen leaf rustled loudly. Evidently they had come up to the head of the park, for they crossed a brook and passed a tumble-down log cabin, where Hack Jocelyn had elected to hide with Molly and wait for the ransom. Curly remarked about how the plans of crooked men went wrong more often than right.

“Flick ought to ride in today,” he added. “He might be cute enough to savvy the way the deal has turned out an’ skedaddle with the money.”

“I don’t believe—” began Jim, when he got a prod from Bud.

“Hist!” he whispered. “Shet up, you elocuteners! Turkey!”

Jim heard the well-known gobble of a turkey, and it certainly resembled that of a tame turkey at home. Bud led the way over a rise of ground, under green and gold aspens, into an open glade, wildly closed at its upper end by a confusion of maples, oak, and pines. There were logs on the ground, and one huge pine across them. Something crashed ahead through the brush, snapping twigs. Then came a rap of bone on wood.

“Elk. Never mind him,” whispered Bud. “There! A big gobbler — lookin’ at us.” He forced his rifle into Jim’s eager hands. “Where?...That thing? It’s a stump.”

“Take a chance, boss,” said Curly, with a chuckle. “If it’s a stump it ain’t a-goin’ to run. An’ if it’s a turkey, keep on shootin’.”

“Aim low an’ be quick,” added Bud.

“But I tell you that thing is a black stump,” remonstrated Jim, always and forever looking for tricks from these boys. “Honest to Gawd, boss, it’s a turk,” appealed Bud.

“Well, to please you. But I know it’s a stump I can see,” replied Jim, and he levelled the rifle and fired. To his utter consternation the motionless stump turned into the most magnificent bird he had ever seen. It ran swift as a deer. It thumped the ground. It was black and bronze, with a wonderful speckled tail, like an immense fan.

“Stump, huh? Why didn’t you peg him while he was tannin’?” queried Bud.

“Gosh! I forgot I had a gun. What a sight! Say, that wasn’t a turkey, but an ostrich!”

“Wal, it was shore a rotten shot,” said Curly. “But he didn’t scare the flock...See them scratchin’ over heah — under the jackpines?”

Jim did see them and grew wildly excited. It was an enormous flock, some of which exhibited signs of nervousness.

“Duck now, an’ crawl after me,” whispered Bud, getting down on his knees. “They’ve seen or heerd us, but we’ll get a shot if we’re smart...Now, boss, don’t crawl like a elephant with a broken laig.”

Jim did not see anything but grass and leaves, the ground, logs, and tree trunks for several strenuous moments. But he heard turkeys gobble, and then, close at hand: put-put, put-put-put.

“Damn!” swore Bud. “It’s always the hens thet bust up every-thin’...0 Lord! hyar they come...Now stand up an’ shoot.”

Jim got to his feet and certain was it that he shook. The great black and bronze gobblers, the sleek, smaller, less conspicuous hens, were coming under the scrub pines, out into the open. They no longer resembled tame turkeys. The huge-breasted gobblers, with their long beards, their stately nodding walk, suddenly halted. Jim picked out one that looked as high as a church and pulled the trigger.

Then ensued a terrible crashing, buffeting, roaring mélée. The turkeys burst into united action. A dozen or more launched themselves marvellously into the air, and flew as swiftly as quail, only with tremendous flapping of wings, right at Jim. But most of the flock ran. Jim shot at this one and that one. He could not get the bead on them. How they ran! Curly was yelling and shooting. Bud was shooting and yelling. Turkeys darted right between them, here, there, everywhere. Jim kept working the lever of the rifle, aiming and firing. Then the uproar ceased. Jim stood holding a hot rifle, looking bewildered, while his two companions held their sides.

“Dog-gone!” gasped Curly, as soon as he could speak. “They shore stampeded us. Boss, aboot how many did you knock?”

“Gosh! I never touched a feather, that I could see. Oh, it was wonderful!...But why in the dickens didn’t you prepare me for such a charge?”

“Boss, I know turkeys orful well, but I didn’t hey this bunch figgered,” said Bud, “Didn’t you plug one?”

Jim shook his head sorrowfully. “I’m as bum a hunter — as — as everything else.”

“How many times did you shoot?”

“I don’t know...The gun’s empty.”

“Gee whiz! So ’tis. It had ten shells in the magazine, one in the barrel. Countin’ thet stump thet wus a turkey, you’ve shot eleven times.”

“Good Lord! I must have. But didn’t you boys shoot a lot, too?”

“I picked out a buster an’ lambasted him,” replied Bud. laconically.

“Boss, I shore hated to break in on you,” added Curly. “But I seen you was shootin’ over their haids an’ between their laigs, so I jest had to pulverize one fer supper. You ought to hey heahed him hit the ground. Sounded like a bull.”

Bud walked across logs and grass and picked up a beautiful hen turkey. Curly went somewhat farther in the opposite direction and picked up a gobbler that dragged head and wings on the ground. Both cowboys returned, with much pride and sang-froid, to lay their quarry at Jim’s feet.

“Plumb centre, mine,” said Bud.

“Boss, I always hit turkeys in the neck,” said Curly. “You see thet shot doesn’t spoil any meat. I always pick out a turk either runnin’ towards me or away from me, straight. You cain’t hit one of them runnm’ crossways or even quarterin’.”

“It was a great shot, Curly,” replied Jim, admiringly. The big gobbler was a rare specimen of the finest game bird, glistening, purple and black, bronze-flecked and white, with plenty of red-brown. And heavy — Jim could hardly lift him.

“Boss, your shootin’ can be improved on a little,” said Curly, seriously. “If we’d got holed up by the Cibeque bunch, as might have happened, or by thet Hash Knife outfit, which is shore goin’ to come off an’ be wuss, wal, I’d hate to have my life dependin’ on you.”

“So would I, Curly,” replied Jim, very sober and self-accusing.

“Wal, let’s mozey back to camp. You practise all day, shootin’, an’ we’ll try again tomorrow.”

Upon returning to camp the excitement of the hunt was dispelled by an astonishing fact. Boyd Flick had ridden into camp with the ransom money. which he was glad indeed to get rid of, and he and the other three members of the Cibeque were packing to leave.

“Traft, it wasn’t no deal of mine,” said Flick, frankly. “But I don’t need to tell you thet. Jocelyn had us all buffaloed. I’m glad Slinger croaked him an’ thet the Cibeque is done fer.”

They had breakfast with Jim’s party, bade them and Slinger good-bye, and rode away into the forest, manifestly glad to get off so easily with whole skins.

Some time after they had gone and camp life had resumed normality, Molly called Jim, “You come heah.” She led him around the cabin, out of sight of the others. Jim’s instant perturbation subsided when he saw that she was smiling, though her gold-black eyes were full of fire.

“The sons-of-guns! Devils!” she exclaimed.

“Who?”

“Curly an’ Bud. All of the bunch. Listen heah. I happened to be near when Bud an’ Curly got Lonestar an’ Cherry behind the corner of the cabin there. I could tell they were up to some mischief, so I listened. Heah’s what Bud said: Fellars, it’s so good I near bust waitin’ a chanct to tell you. Me an’ Curly took Jim huntin’ (they always call you Jim behind your back, an’ I shore like thet), ‘an’ soon’s it got daylight we seen a gobbler as big as a hill. Jim swore it was a stump. But we made him shoot. Laws! he was funny when thet stump ran off like a wild steer. We located the flock an’ sneaked up on them. Say, it couldn’t hey worked out any better if we’d had a deal with them gobblers. They got skeered an’ come at us. I said to Jim, ‘Stand up an’ shoot.’ He did an’ then hell busted loose. Me an’ Curly turned loose our artillery an’ let go all we had. I even took a peg with my six-gun. Neither of us so much as winged one of them turks. But Jim killed two — them we fetched in. Thet gobbler will weigh thirty-five pounds. Only we seen pronto thet Jim reckoned he’d missed. Never touched a feather, he said, an’ was shore down in the mouth. Curly gives me the wink, an’ so we hands Jim a deal. Curly an’ me only shot one each, an’ as a matter of course downed a turk. Curly enlarged on how he always picked one out comin’ or goin’ straight, an’ shot him in the neck. Kin you beat thet, boys? My Gawd!...Wal, Jim swallered the whole deal. He was shore nice aboot it, an’ grateful to me an’ Curly, an’ as humble as pie...My land! nuthin’ we ever did tickled us so much!’”

Molly paused a moment breathlessly, her eyes alight. “An’ Jim, the devils doubled up like poisoned coyotes, an’ howled, an’ yowled, an’ rolled over on the ground.”

Jim surely wanted to howl and yowl himself, but he limited himself to jumping up and down in mingled rage and mirth. Then he vented it in all the language he dared use before Molly.

“Aren’t they maddenin’?” she asked. “But Jim, they’re strong for you, an’ I cain’t help lovin’ them.”

“Neither can I; only, Molly, I’ve got to have revenge for that — or die,” he declared.

“You bet. An’ I’ll help you. Heah’s an idea, Jim. These two boys cain’t hunt wild turkeys. They don’t know the least bit aboot it. Now I do. Slinger taught me. I could call turkeys before I was ten.”

“Call? What do you mean by that?”

“I can call them right up to you, so you can knock them over with a stick, almost. I’ve done it a thousand times.”

“But how do you call them?”

“With a turkey-caller. We make that out of a wing bone. But I can call with a hollow weed, too. I’ll show you an’ teach you. Heah’s my plan. You tell Curly an’ Bud you think they’re not so good, after all, an’ you’re goin’ with me to kill a few turkeys. Then we’ll go, several mawnin’s an’ evenin’s, too. I like sundown best. We’ll fetch turkeys in. An’ after we get a dozen or so you can say to Curly an’ Bud: ‘Boys, I quit huntin’ with you, ‘cause when I killed turkeys you lied an’ swore you did it. That mawnin’ when you claimed the big gobbler an’ hen — all the time I knew. All the time I was shore of your low-down trick!’”

“Great! Wonderful!” exclaimed Jim, beside himself with the joy of such a double prospect. “Molly, darling, run or I’ll hug you right here.”

She ran, laughing over her shoulder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

WHEN JIM DRYLY remarked to the cowboys that he guessed he would not hunt with them any more, they looked nonplussed and then blank. And he realized that if Molly could live up to her part of the programme, he could crush the tricksters for ever.

That morning, too, Dunn showed a decided turn for the better, and Jim, losing all his misgivings, was happy for Molly. She loved this backwoods brother and had faith in him. Jim generously waived the ambush on the trail and the rooster trick to which Slinger had treated him, and vowed he would share Molly’s faith. Long before that he had decided to reward Slinger for saving his life.

The atmosphere of the camp grew merry, with only one drawback now, and that was the failure of Hump Stevens and Uphill Frost to arrive. Jim grasped that the cowboys were concealing anxiety from him, if not more. To his queries, Curly made evasive answers. But there was a cloud in the cowboy’s flashing blue eyes, and Jim read its portent. He decided to send Jackson Way and Cherry Winters to Tobe’s Well to ascertain if the missing cowboys were there. If they would only come in, or if news arrived that they were safe, Jim felt that he would be happy, and could even face that grim old Westerner who had entrusted him with such responsibility.

There were only two rifles in camp and they belonged to Curly and Bud.

“You boys don’t need to go hunting, anyway,” said Jim, as he appropriated the rifles and all the shells in sight. “Considering how many thousand turkeys you’ve killed, Bud, and how many you, Curly, have shot through the neck, running at you, there certainly shouldn’t be any excitement left in it for you. So just think of me, going out with Molly, after wild turkeys!”

That last thrust was almost revenge enough, Jim thought. Still, after a moment’s recall of past suffering, he steeled his heart. Supper was had at four o’clock, after which he started off with Molly, scarcely able to contain himself. And after he got out of sight of camp he no longer did.

“Jim. are we goin’ huntin’ or makin’ love?” queried Molly.

“Can’t we do both?”

“No. If you keep on huggin’ me an’ kissin’ my ear — how am I to heah turkeys, let alone call them?...If you must make love, let’s set right down under this spruce an’ do it.”

“Oh, Molly Dunn!” cried Jim, in the throes of temptation he knew he must resist. How bewildering she was! Her simplicity sometimes stunned him. He divined that his reward would be infinitely greater if he let her take her own time to respond to him.

They climbed a slope, scaring squirrels, rabbits, and deer on the way, and came out on top of a ridge where the forest made Jim ache with its wildness and beauty. Towering yellow pines and stately silver spruces lorded it over the green-gold aspens and the scarlet maples. The ground was soft with pine needles and moss and decaying wood. Everywhere lay logs and windfalls, which had to be climbed over or avoided. The setting sun lent a glamour to the dry, sweet wilderness. Here were thickets of young pine, impossible to penetrate, and there was a long shade-barred aisle down the forest. They came to an open oak glade, and here Molly pointed to turkey scratches on the ground.

“Fresh tracks. They’re after acorns. Now, Jim, when we see turkeys, you shoot pronto,” she said.

Jim’s four months in the West had been productive of numberless experiences, of late merging upon breath-arresting agitation, but he counted high among them this slipping through the forest, close at the stealthy heels of little Molly Dunn. She was a wood-mouse, as Slinger called her. Not the slightest sound did she make. When Jim cracked a twig or brushed against a bush she admonished him with finger to her red lips and a dark, disapproving glance. Then when Jim nearly fell over a log, she whispered, “You big clodhopper!”

Nevertheless, despite his awkwardness, she led him within sixty yards of a flock of turkeys that appeared to Jim to cover a half-acre in extent. They were of all sizes, from that of a large chicken to gobblers as large round as a barrel.

Molly cocked her rifle. “Get ready, Mizzourie. When I count three — shoot. But only once...Ready. One — two — three!”

Both rifles cracked in unison. Jim seemed deafenedby the crash of wings. The gobbler he had fired at bounced straight up, ten feet, and went lumbering through the woods, hard put to it to get into flight — then he flew as fast as the bullet that had missed him. When he disappeared Jim sought the others. Gone! And also the uproar had ceased. Far off he heard heavy wings crash through foliage. In the middle of the glade lay a dead turkey, feathers ruffled. Jim hurried to fetch it.

“Two-year-old,” said Molly, as she surveyed the fine young gobbler. “Jim, that flock’s made up of old birds, hens, a lot of two-year-olds an’ yearlin’s. We’re shore lucky. Now come heah.”

She led him to a log just on the edge of the glade. “We’ll set down heah, an’ I’ll call.”

A few thin bushes partially screened them from the glade. Molly sat down beside Jim, and, slipping a hand under his arm, leaned her head on his shoulder. “Oh, but this’s goin’ to be fun. I’m just tickled. We’ll shore make Bud an’ Curly crawl. Now, Jim, the way to do is to wait a little. Listen!...There. That’s a hen squawkin’. An’ there’s a yearlin’ yelpin’.”

Jim not only heard these clear sounds out in the forest, but a deep gobble-gobble, farther away. He agreed with Molly about the fun of it; and whatever else it might be to her it was absolute bliss for him to have her so close, to feel her hand squeeze his arm, her head against his shoulder, her hair touching his cheek. And only a half-year back he had been at odds with life!

Molly produced a short thing that looked like a quill to Jim, but which, upon examination, proved to be the small wing bone of a turkey, with a hole through its length.

“Listen, now, you boss of the Diamond,” she whispered gaily. “First I’ll call the yearlin’.”

Sitting up, she put the bone in her mouth, keeping the other end partly covered in the hollow of her hand. Then she sucked air through it, and the result was a perfect imitation of the yelp of the young turkey. It was answered immediately, not once, but several times, and each reply sounded nearer.

“He’s shore comin’. Now I’ll call that fussy hen out there.” And she produced a high-pitched, prolonged squawk, likewise a perfect counterfeit. Answers came from all sides, one of which was a deep gobble.

“Get your gun ready, Jim. Shoot restin’ on your knee. Take lots of time. It’s murder, shore, but we have to eat...Look! There’s the yearlin’. But don’t shoot him...Look! Over heah! A whole bunch — mixed.”

Cluck-cluck, put-put, all around him! Then he saw turkeys coming on a run, from this side and that.

“Heah’s the gobbler. Knock him, Jim,” whispered Molly, as she leaned back away from him. “Wait till he stops. An’ after you shoot look sharp, you may get a crack at another.”

The gobbler entered the glade, stalked out majestically, and suddenly stood motionless, head up, not forty feet from where Jim sat. He scarcely had to move the rifle. Even as he aimed carefully, quivering as he put pressure on the trigger, he could not help seeing the glossy beauty and superb wildness of that giant bird. He shot, and the turkey appeared to pile up with a great feathery roar.

“Quick,” whispered Molly, pointing. “Knock this young gobbler. Heah. He’s crazy, standin’ still there.”

Jim located this one and killed it. The others had vanished.

“Drag in the game, Mizzourie,” directed Molly.

Hurrying to comply, Jim lifted the smaller turkey, and then lay hold of the giant gobbler. It was huge, and so heavy that indeed he did have to drag.

“You didn’t do so bad, then,” said Molly, when he returned. “That big gobbler is an old bird. We don’t often fool one like him. Set down now, an’ I’ll call again.”

“But, Molly, surely you can’t call them up again?” queried Jim, in amaze.

“Cain’t I? The show’s just begun. Arch an’ I used to call half a day on a big mixed flock like this. But I reckon no more old gobblers will come.”

In excitement just as tingling as before Jim listened, and heard, and watched, under precisely the same thrilling circumstances. Molly called to the turkeys and whispered to him. No doubt his delight was infectious. Presently a string of yearling turkeys came cluck-clucking into the grove, and Jim, out of three shots, got two.

Then again Molly began to call, and confining herself to the yelp of the yearling, she gave it a wailing note. Answers came from near and far, closer and closer. But it was long before Molly lifted a hand to indicate she had espied one.

“I’ve been callin’ too fast an’ often,” she explained to Jim. “But I was shore so anxious to have you heah an’ see them. We’ll wait a little.”

It turned out she did not need to call again, for a fine hen turkey followed on the heels of a yearling into the glade. Yet they did not come close. Put-put. Put-put-put. Jim made a capital shot on the suspicious hen, but missed the yearling.

“That’ll be aboot all we can pack to camp.” said Molly. “Heah’s a string. We’ll tie their feet together an’ run a stout pole through.”

“What a load! Gee! but won’t Bud an’ Curly be sick?...Molly, this has been just glorious. I always loved to hunt. But there was never any game except rabbits and squirrels, and sometimes a partridge. And to think — all this grand sport with you, Molly!”

“I’m glad, Jim. Shore I never felt so good aboot huntin’ before.”

“Would you mind kissing me?” he asked.

“Jim, you put such store on my kisses,” she replied, wistfully. “I reckon they’re not — not so precious as you imagine.”

“Yes, they are, Molly.”

“I told you once — I — I’d been kissed a lot.” she went on, shamefaced, yet brave. “Not that I was willin’...An’ now I know what love is I — I wish my lips had been for you alone, Jim.”

“No, Molly. You were a child. That you can feel as you do now is enough for me, regarding the past. You are a dear, good girl, and I couldn’t begin to tell you how I love and respect you.”

She kissed him, then, absorbed with the seriousness of it, rather than the sweetness of surrender.

“I reckon I’ll let myself go, pronto, an’ eat you up,” she said.

Resting often, they packed the string of turkeys down through the forest, across the park, into camp. Somebody whooped, and there stood Bud and Curly, transfixed and staring. Neither came out of his trance until Jim and Molly halted under the cabin shed, breathing fast, and glad to lay down their burden.

“For the land’s sake!” ejaculated Bud, which speech, considering his proclivity for profanity, merely attested to his mental aberration.

“Didn’t I heah you boys talkin’ aboot how Jim couldn’t hit the side of a barn?” inquired Molly.

“Wal, I reckon you might of — sumthin’ like,” replied Curly. “He’s a daid- centre shot.”

“Ahuh. So it ‘pears. But what you mean? At gurls’ hearts or turkeys?”

“I reckon both,” replied Molly, and she fled.

Much was made of the turkey-hunt at supper-time. It appeared apropos, inasmuch as the meal consisted of roast turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Jim was really concerned over the gastronomic feats of the cowboys, especially of Bud and Curly. And the result of talk and supper was to inspire the two cowboys to get up before daylight to hunt for more wild turkeys. Molly and Jim left an hour after that, and returned with three fine birds before Curly and Bud got back. At length when they arrived, tired from much climbing on foot — which certainly was not their forte — empty- handed, with all kinds of excuses that implicated each other, they were allowed to talk some before being shown what Jim had bagged. Presently Jim directed their attention to the three fine gobblers hanging in bronze and purple splendour on the cabin wall.

“Dog-gone!” said Bud, sagging.

“Huh! Turkeys walked right in camp, so you could knock them over with a club?” queried Curly, snorting fire.

“Nope. I went out for half an hour.”

“This heah mawnin’?”

“Yes, after you left. You’ll observe they are all shot high up in the neck. I got them coming and going. Straight, you know.”

Curly let out a feeble groan. Bud had submitted abjectly.

“Boys, I hope this will be a lesson to you,” went on Jim, eloquently, impressive before all the listeners. “Don’t go out with an old hunter, and when he kills birds claim you did it, and brag about your prowess!”

“Jim, was you on to us — aboot them two turks, the other mawnin’?” asked Curly, in misery.

“Yes, I’ve long known of your perfidy.”

“Aw! Aw!” yelled Curly, in pain. “Bud, this much. Jim has dun fer us.”

“Yes,” ripped out his partner in shame, “but we can lay it to the root of all sorrow fer cowboys — a gurl!”

On the following day Slinger Dunn had improved so materially that Jim began to hope it would be safe to move him at the end of another week, perhaps sooner. That forced him to consider the coming situation. Mrs. Dunn had been sent word by Boyd Flick that Molly was safe, and her brother mending favourably. Jim began to incline to a plan to take Molly also into town. The very good excuse of a wounded brother would suffice. How about the Flagerstown feminine contingent when they scented this romance? Jim indulged in a gleeful laugh. Uncle Jim might be destined to have his heartfelt desire fulfilled long before he anticipated any hope of it. But Molly was so young — only sixteen!

Another more perturbing question, for the moment, was the continued failure of Hump and Uphill to appear. Probably they would show up soon with Jack and Cherry. Jim dismissed that, too, as something to be combated another and perhaps more favourable day.

Early in the afternoon he slipped off alone with one of the requisitioned rifles, but not to hunt. He wished to have a long, lonely walk in the forest. It turned out, however, that he did not go far, hardly out of range of Jeff’s ringing axe on a dead aspen log.

He took a peep into the old log cabin where Hack Jocelyn had planned to hide Molly. It was full of debris, leaves, pine cones, woodmice, and insects. The place showed evidence of having once been lived in by human creatures. What had happened there? Perhaps once the very thing Jocelyn had wanted! Jim felt a haunting story in that lonely cabin.

Then he followed the draw, up under the spreading silver branches, to a spot where he simply had to stop. Frost had turned the aspens gold. The wondrous hue blazed against sky and forest. All the tranquil little glade appeared to have absorbed light from the aspen leaves, that quivered so delicately and silently, each separate one fluttering like a golden moth.

Jim sat down and gloated over these quaking aspens, and the towering pines and spruces. A hawk sailed across the blue opening above. A dreamy hum pervaded the forest. He did not wonder at a backwoodsman. Here was strange, full, strength-giving life. Molly Dunn seemed a composite of all that he saw and felt there.

Deep in his soul, now that he had time and place to face it, he thanked the God of chance, and the higher divinity to whom all events were subservient, for her love and her promise. The West had dealt harshly with him, yet made greater amends. He had served his apprenticeship under these fire-spirited cowboys; and he sensed more and yet more hardships, problems, pangs, of that elemental range life.

He had had his eye teeth cut. In the future he might hide his stern acceptance of labour and duty under a guise such as that of Curly Prentiss, if he could aspire to this prince of cowboys’ mask. But recklessness and boyish desire for adventure for adventure’s sake, carelessness and loss of temper, deliberate seeking of trouble — all these must not only be suppressed, but done away with. His responsibility had quadrupled.

Jim wrought over his many failings like a blacksmith hammering malleable iron. If he must build drift fences, he would do well to add something of Slinger Dunn to his conception of Curly Prentiss, in his intelligent acceptance of that which made a Westerner.

That was the clearest of his many hours of self-teaching.

Late afternoon found Jim descending the slope towards camp. He espied a curling column of blue smoke after he had smelled a camp fire. Saddle-horses in camp, grazing with dragging bridles! He quickened his pace. Probably the cowboys had returned. He made sure of this when he saw Cherry’s pinto horse hobbling up the park.

Approaching from behind the cabin, he could not see anyone until he turned the corner. But he had heard a merry voice and a deep laugh. There outside the cabin on a bench sat his uncle, holding Molly’s hand. Jim was thunderstruck.

“Uncle!...Where’d you come from?” he exploded.

“Howdy, son! I rode in with Locke a while ago,” replied Traft, his keen eyes sweeping Jim from head to toe. “I haven’t been lonesome, as you see.”

“I do see,” replied Jim, and he could have shouted to the skies the good of what he saw. Molly did not look as if she wanted to run from Uncle Jim. A blush slowly rose under tearstained cheeks.

Traft exposed the back of Molly’s little supple brown hand, on a finger of which the diamond sparkled, as if in gay and treacherous betrayal.

“Son, I see you’ve been goin’ in debt for diamonds,” drawled Traft.

“One. Has Molly — told you?” replied Jim, and it was his turn to blush.

“Wal, she only said you gave it to her.”

Molly gently disengaged her hand. “If you’ll excuse me I — I’ll run beck to Arch,” she said, shyly, and fled.

Traft looked up at Jim. “You pie-eatin’, soft-spoken, hard-fisted Mizzourie son-of-a-gun!” he ejaculated.

“Yes?” returned Jim, hopefully.

“Doc Shields told me first of these doin’s,” went on the rancher.

“So Locke an’ I hooked up the buckboard an’ dragged a couple of saddle- horses along. We left the team at Keech’s, where...but that’ll wait. Curly told me the whole business. So did Bud. I had a little talk with Slinger. An’ then I got hold of Molly...Jim, you’ve done it. Winnin’ the Diamond was a real job, but nothin’ to that girl. It took me a minute to fall in love with her myself, an’ a whole hour to get the story out of her. Son, she’s real Western stuff.”

“I — I’m awful glad you like her — Uncle Jim,” said Jim, and, weak in the knees, he sat down.

“So much for that. We can come back to it later...I’ve got tough news for you.”

“Uncle, I can stand anything now,” replied Jim, and indeed felt that he could.

“Hump Stevens is at Keech’s, all shot up, but I reckon not so bad as Slinger,” went on Traft. “I had him hauled to Flag. Up Frost got to town night before last, an’ he’s crippled. The darn fool reported to me before he went to a doctor.”

“Oh! I’m more relieved than surprised. I was worried. Who shot them, uncle?”

“Up told me he an’ Hump run plumb into some of the Hash Knife outfit, cuttin’ your drift fence, an’ there was a bit of a fight. Hump thinks he killed one of the gang. There was five of them, an’ they rode off with one hangin’ across a saddle. Then Up packed Hump across to Keech’s an’ come on in to town.”

“Hash Knife outfit!” ejaculated Jim, thoughtfully. “The boys used to argue. Curly always said: ‘Wait till the Cibeque falls down on the job. Then see!...’ Uncle, who and what is this Hash Knife outfit?”

“Humph! They’re a heap, son. The Hash Knife used to be the king-pin cow outfit of Central Arizona. That was twenty years ago. Now, it’s got the Cibeque beat to a frazzle for hard-nut hombres, exceptin’ Slinger. Old-timer named Jed Stone runnin’ the Hash Knife. He used to ride for me, years ago. Killed one of the best foremen I ever had. An’ I’d hate to say how many men he’s shot since...Wal, Jed an’ his bunch haven’t any boss or ranch, or even a homestead. They ride from camp to camp, like Injuns, an’ believe me they eat more beef than this Cibeque outfit stole.”

“Their own beef or somebody else’s?” asked Jim, gruffly.

“Haw! Haw! I’ll tell that one on you, if I get hard up...Jim, listen to, the worst! The last nine miles of your drift fence is down. An’ some of the aspen trees are fresh decorated with Jed’s trade-mark, a plain old hash-knife cut in deep.”

“Well, the nerve of him!”

“Jim, that outfit drinks six cups of coffee a meal, to keep their nerve quiet, Jed bragged to me once...Now you’re up against a far worse crowd than the Cibeque. Old cowboys, gunmen rustlers! — Wal, you’ve still got up sixty miles or more of fence: An’ that’ll have to do for this year. Fact is, I’m more than satisfied. I’m darn proud of you, Jim.”

“Thank you, Uncle. But soon as I see what’s to be done about Slinger and — and Molly, we’ll go right back to fence-building.”

“No more till next spring, Jim. You don’t savvy. That end of the Diamond is high, an’ this storm spelled winter. The cattle had drifted off before this snow came.”

“Snow!”

“Shore. Two feet at Tobe’s Well now, an’ deeper as you climb south. Tough luck, son, but don’t ask too much. Mebbe Jed Stone will get his deserts this winter, though that’s plumb too much to hope for.”

“Aw! I put such store on finishing our drift fence before die snow flies,” exclaimed Jim, poignantly.

“That was a dream, son. An’ Locke an’ I let you dream it...Listen! I’ve got an idee that may suit you, since Molly Dunn talked so hopefully about her brother. It seeems she thinks you had good influence on Slinger. Wal. follow it up. If you can get Slinger Dunn into the Diamond — why, you’ll have it all over the Hash Knife. — Son, it’s turnin’ tricks like this that is genuine Western.”

“I had that idea myself, Uncle! If I can only get him! Why. Molly would sing for joy.”

“All right, then. Let’s put our heads together. We’ve got to take Slinger to town, an’ so we’ll take Molly along. Then we’ll send for her folks and keep them at the ranch. I wouldn’t rush that kid into marryin’, not before a year. She’s backward, an’ it’d be good for her to meet people, an’—”

“Great! Uncle, you’re just the finest ever!” cried Jim. wildly fired with enthusiasm. “Molly could go to school, or at least have private lessons, and what could not that bright girl learn in six months?”

“You’ll have some trouble talkin’ Slinger into it, mebbe.” went on Traft. “I sat talkin’ to him a little while. He’s got one weakness shore, an’ that’s Molly. An’ I’ll gamble he has another — a ranch. Play these cards strong.”

“Ranch?” queried Jim, eagerly.

“Shore. I happen to own the Yellow Jacket. It’s a big, wild range, run down, with only a few thousand head of stock. I took it over on notes of Blodgett’s not long ago. Some rustlin’ down there. It’s a fine winter range. Just the place for the Diamond this next six months. You talk up the Yellow Jacket to Dunn. Tell him you’ll take him in with you as partner, or half shares, providin’ he’ll throw in with the Diamond. That’ll fetch him, unless you an’ Molly have him figured wrong.”

Jim got up, trembling, and put a strong hand on Traft’s shoulder.

“Uncle Jim!...So this is one of the things that makes you a great Westerner? Oh, I’ve heard a lot!...I couldn’t ask more in this world — than—”

But he choked over that utterance and rushed round the cabin to drop in upon Molly and Slinger. He was half sitting up and looked better, especially as one of the boys had shaved him, and his face had regained some of its clean tan. Jim swallowed hard and strove for calmness. He did not dare look at Molly, whose eyes he felt.

“Howdy, Slinger! You seem to be doing fine. I’m sure glad. How about a little talk?”

“Suits me, if you do the talkin’,” he replied. “Molly is aboot talked out, an’ I never had nuthin’ to say.”

Whereupon Jim sat down next to Molly, and took time to settle himself comfortably.

“We’ll be riding you into Flag, pronto,” began Jim.

“Say, I don’t hanker aboot thet. I’d only meet up with Bray. An’ fact is, I’ll be sorta sick fer a while.”

“Bray won’t get near you,” went on Jim, warming to his subject. “But Doc Shields will. We’ll take Molly along an’ go right to Uncle Jim’s ranch. — And send for your father and mother to come up...You see, Slinger, it’s this way. Molly and I will be getting married in a — a year or so” — here a half-stifled gasp at his elbow disrupted him— “and you know she’s pretty much of a kid. We won’t let her go back to the Cibeque — ever — except, of course, on visits — and you just ought to be where you can see her often.”

“I reckon I ought,” agreed Dunn.

“Fine. I thought you’d agree. Now, here’s another angle. Do you happen to know the Yellow Jacket ranch?”

“I shore do.”

“What kind of a place is it?”

“Wal, no ranch to brag aboot — only a cabin an’ corrals. But, Lord! what a range! Water an’ grass an’ timber!”

Jim really needed no more than the light of Slinger’s eyes.

“Uncle has turned it over to me, lock, stock, and barrel,” laughed Jim. “Only three thousand head of cattle. But great possibilities for development...Now, Slinger, I want you to go in with me — be my partner in making a big ranch out of the Yellow Jacket.”

Dunn grew quite red in the face for him.

“Molly, is this heah fellar of yours drunk or crazy?” he asked, turning to her.

“I — I don’t quite know — Arch,” she faltered. “But I reckon you can trust him.”

Jim had further impetus to his enthusiasm. A small trembling hand slipped into his and clung.

“Sure there’s a string to the offer, Slinger. There always is — in business deals. Sure it’s a big chance for you — not to say how wonderful for Molly. But I’m quite selfish in the matter. You’re more than worth the deal to me, provided, of course, you agree to my terms.”

Jim felt another pressing little hand stealing up around him, over his shoulder.

“Alia. An’ what’s them terms, Jim Traft?” queried Dunn. “Do you happen to know Jed Stone?” counter-queried Jim.

“I shore ought to. Jed an’ me drawed on each other aboot a year ago. Reckon we was so durn scared we missed. But we hevn’t met since.”

“Do you know his Hash Knife outfit?”

“Better’n anyone who rides the Diamond.”

“Well, it was Jed Stone and his outfit who cut the last nine miles of our fence. And he has cut his brand on the aspens. Next spring we’ll go back on the job. Slinger, to complete that fence and keep it up, I need you. Savvy? Will you throw in with me and the Diamond?”

“Gawd! Jest gimme the chanct!” replied Dunn, hoarsely.

“Here’s my hand. And with it is an end of the bad blood between us.”

When Jim extended that hand he naturally released the little one that had clung tighter and tighter to his. Suddenly, while he came to grips with Slinger, and their eyes met in the understanding of men, this little hand flashed up before him to lock with the other hand behind him. As he had reason to remember, these little members were strong, and now he had more proof of that. Moreover, Molly’s arms were inseparable from them, and they twined and twined. “Mizzourie Jim!” she whispered. And between Jim and Slinger, while yet their hands gripped, intervened a pale little face, with wet eyes, dark in passionate gratitude, with red parted lips that came up and up and up —

“Wal, Jim, I reckon thet’ll be aboot all,” said Slinger Dunn.

THE END

Thunder Mountain

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

The first edition

Chapter One

A WARM SPRING rain melted the deep snows in the Saw Tooth Range, and a flood poured down the headwaters of the Salmon River.

It washed out a colony of beavers, one of which, a crippled old female with a cub, fell behind the others and lost them. She came at length into a narrow valley where the stream meandered along a wide rocky bench wooded by stately isolated pines and fringes of willow and aspen.

The old mother beaver lingered with her cub near the mouth of an intersecting brook. In a sheltered bend under the looming mountain slope she began her labors. While the little cub played and splashed about she toiled industriously, cutting branches, carrying sticks, dragging rocks, and padding mud until she had bridged the brook and built a dam. A still pool rose behind the barrier.

One night when the afterglow of sunset loomed dull red upon the pool and the silence of the wilderness lay like a mantle upon the valley, the old beaver noticed a strange quivering ripple passing across the placid surface of her pool. There was no current coming from the brook, there was no breath of wind to disturb the dead calm. She noticed the tremors pass across the pool, she sniffed the pine-scented air, she listened with all the sensitiveness of a creature of the wild.

From high up on the looming mountain slope, from the somber purple shadow, came down a low rumble, a thunder that seemed to growl from the bowels of the great mountain.

The old mother beaver did not wait to hear that again. With her cub she abandoned the quivering pool, and taking to the main stream she left the valley.

The last remnant of the Sheepeater Indians pitched camp on the rocky bench across the stream from the abandoned beaver dam.

Outcasts from various tribes, they were fugitives and had banded together for protection, fifty-one in all, warriors, squaws, and children, under the command of Tomanmo.

While the braves put up their lodges, the weary squaws unpacked meager supplies and belongings. The lame children, exhausted from continuous march, sat silent with somber eyes.

Tomanmo gazed up and down this valley to which he had been led by the Nez Percé member of his band. Long and hard had been the tramp hither, and the last miles over solid rock. The soldiers could not track them here. It was a refuge. Deer and elk as tame as cattle grazed under the pines; white goats shone on the high bluffs of the south wall; mountain sheep stood silhouetted against the sky, watching the invaders of their solitude.

“We will hide here and rest. It is well,” said Tomanmo to his band, and he sent hunters out to kill fresh meat.

When the chief sat down he found himself facing the north slope of the valley. It struck him singularly, and he gazed with the falcon eyes of one used to the heights. Bare and steep, this slope, open to the south, slanted abruptly from the edge of the rocky bench some few hundred yards distant. What first attracted Tomanmo’s curiosity was the fact that no game trail, not even a single track, marred the smooth surface of the incline. It sheered up a long way before its purple continuity was broken by a thin line of fir trees, pointing skyward like tufted spears. From there the color gray and the smooth surface broke to scantily timbered ledges that stepped up and up prodigiously, at last to turn white with snow on the skyline. Precipitous looming mountains were the rule in that range, and all the south slopes, where the snow did not long lie, were bare of timber. But the endless south slope of this mountain showed no solid foundation of rock, no iron ribs of red granite, no bulge of cliff sheering up out of soft earth. Tomanmo shook his lean dark head.

Presently the Nez Percé approached the chief to open a skinny fist to his gaze. He held a handful of wet gravel and sand among which glinted bright specks.

“Ughh!” he ejaculated. “Gold!”

“Bad. White man come,” grunted the chief.

“Some day, long after Sheepeaters gone,” assented the Nez Percé.

The solemn still day wore on. The pointed lodges of elk hide and the brush shelters, the columns of blue smoke rising upward, the active raven-haired squaws with their colored raiment flashing in the sun, the hunters dragging carcasses over the stones, the ragged hollow-cheeked children asleep on the ground — all attested to a settlement of permanent camp. Soon pots were steaming, fragrant viands broiled over the red coals, cakes of bread baked on the hot flat stones.

At sunset the band feasted. Only Tomanmo did not share the sense of well-being after long hardship. While he ate he watched the changing colors on the steep slope, the darkening purple at the base, the merging of gray into the gold-flushed snow, high on the peaks.

Dusk fell, and then silent night, with the dark velvet sky studded by cold stars. The fires burned low, gleaming red over the haggard visages of the sleepers. But Tomanmo did not sleep. He stalked to and fro, listening as a chieftain who expected the voices of his gods. A low roar of running water permeated the silence and a sharp bay of a wolf, far up the valley, accentuated it.

Tomanmo’s ears, attuned as those of the deer to the whisperings and rustlings of the wild, registered other sounds. He sought out the sleeping Nez Percé and roused him with a moccasined foot.

“Ughh!” exclaimed the brave, sitting up.

“Come,” said the chief, and led him away from the circle of dying fires and sleeping savages. “Listen.”

Across the bench, away from the murmur of stream and song of pine, close under the black looming slope, Tomanmo bade his scout bend keen ears to the silence.

For long there was nothing. The valley seemed dead. The mountains slept. The stars watched. Wild life lay in its coverts. Then there came a ticking of tiny pebbles down the slope, a faint silken rustle of sliding dust, a strange breath of something indefinable, silence, and then again far off, a faint crack of rolling rocks, a moan, as a subterranean monster trying to breathe in the bowels of the earth, and at last, deep and far away, a rumble as of distant thunder.

“Hear?” queried the chief, with slow gesture toward the looming bulk.

The Nez Percé’s somber eyes, mirroring the stars, dilated in answer. Tomanmo was assured that his own sensitive ears had not deceived him.

“It is the voice of the Great Spirit,” he said, solemnly. “Tomanmo is warned. This mountain moves.... When the sun shines we go.”

Years later, long after Tomanmo had gone to join his forefathers, three adventuring prospectors, brothers named Emerson, toiled down into the valley from the south, and late in the day unpacked their weary burros and made camp.

“Reckon it’s the place, all right,” said Sam, the eldest. “Thet old Nez Percé gave me a clear hunch.”

“Wal, I shore hope it ain’t,” replied Jake, the second brother, with a short grim laugh.

“Why?”

“Hell, man! Look around!”

Sam had been doing that avidly. The long valley, shut in by the rough red and green wall on the south, and the insurmountable and prodigious slope of talus on the north, evidently had taken his eye. But Sam was thinking of the isolation, the possibility of finding and working a gold claim without sharing it with other prospectors or being harassed by robbers. The dark caverned and notched wall on the east side, where the stream cut its way in cascades down to the valley, had a fascinating look to Sam Emerson. Those cliffs would hide gold-bearing ledges of quartz.

“Jake, I didn’t befriend that poor old Injun for nothin’,” replied Sam, with satisfaction. “This is the valley.”

“Wal, Sam, we never seen things alike, even as kids,” rejoined Jake, resignedly. “To me this is shore a hell of a hole. Gettin’ out will be worse than gettin’ in, an’ that was a tough job.”

“I’ll grade out a trail,” said his brother, cheerfully, “if that’s all you’re rarin’ about.”

“It ain’t all. It ain’t even a little,” retorted Jake, nettled by the other’s imperturbability. “This is a gloomy hole. The sun comes late an’ leaves early. It’d be hotter’n hell in summer an’ colder’n Greenland in winter. It’s too far to pack in supplies. It’s too lonely. Shore I know you an’ our gun-packin’ cowboy brother here like loneliness. But I like people. I like a barroom an’ to set in a little game now an’ then.”

“Jake, thet last objection of yourn may soon remedy itself. You may see this valley hustlin’ with miners, an’ a gold-diggin’s town springin’ up overnight like a mushroom.”

“Wal, it won’t last long, I’ll gamble. Look at thet slope. Five thousand feet of silt an’ gravel on end, fresh as if some one was diggin’ above an’ slidin’ everythin’ down. No grass, no brush, no trees! Nary a damn rock! It’s alive, Sam, thet slope is, an’ some wet day it’ll slide down an’ obliterate this valley.”

Sam was impressed, and gazed up at the sinister slope.

He had to tip his head far back to see the snow-patched summit.

“Queer-lookin’, at thet,” he said. “But I reckon it’s been there just as long as these other mountains.”

Jake turned to the youngest brother, Lee, who stood leaning on his rifle, looking about with piercing hazel eyes. He was a stalwart young man with the lithe build of a rider.

“Wal, Kalispel,” drawled Jake, “you ain’t often stumped for speech. Are you linin’ up with Sam in favor of this ghastly hole?”

“It’s great, Jake.”

“Ah-huh.... Wal, just why? I reckoned you’d stand by me, consider’n’ your weakness for horses, girls, an’ such thet can’t be had here.”

“I like it, Sam. You know I don’t care a heap about diggin’ gold. Too dam hard work for a cowboy! But I love the wildness an’ beauty of this valley. It’s a paradise for game. I’ll bet I saw a thousand head of elk today. An’ deer, bear, goat, sheep — even cougars, in broad daylight! I’ll hunt game while you fellows hunt gold.”

“Humph!... Sam, what you think of Kal’s shiftin’ to your side?”

“All proves I was right draggin’ Lee off thet bloody Montana range,” replied the eldest brother, forcefully. “I feel relieved ‘cause he won’t be lookin’ for thet hard-lipped sheriff an’, for all we know, some more of them ridin’ gents.... Rustle some firewood an’ water now while I unpack.”

Lee Emerson, nicknamed Kalispel by the first outfit he had ever ridden for in Montana, laughed at his loquacious brothers, and laying aside his rifle for a bucket, he made for the stream. It was a goodly body of water, dark green in color, still high and somewhat roily from melting snow. In places it was running swiftly, in others tarrying in pools formed by huge boulders. Kalispel espied a big leather-back salmon rising to break on the surface, and that sight considerably enhanced the charm of this valley which had already intrigued him. There were sure to be mountain trout, also, in this stream. Stepping out on a sand-bar, he dipped the pail and filled it with water as cold as ice. As an afterthought then, Kalispel scooped up a handful of wet sand. He saw grains of gold glistening in it.

“By thunder!” he ejaculated. “As easy as that!... Sam will be wild. I’ll let him discover it.... I wonder. Minin’ might beat runnin’ cattle. Reckon I was sick of the range.”

Thoughtfully he returned to camp. There seemed to be a vague portent in connection with their arrival in this wild valley. Jake came staggering in under an enormous load of dead wood. Sam had spread supplies out on a tarpaulin and was awaiting the water to mix dough.

“About a week’s rations, not counting meat,” he said. “If we make a strike here two of us will have to go to Salmon an’ pack in grub.”

“Ah-huh. An’ if we don’t strike it we’ll starve,” rejoined Jake, humorously.

Sam had no answer for that and silence fell upon the trio. Kalispel performed what camp tasks offered, and lastly unrolled his canvas and blanket in the lee of a fallen pine. Next he found a bit of soap in his bag and a towel that resembled a coal-sack. Repairing to the stream, he enjoyed a wash in the icy water. After that he sat down to wait for supper.

The valley changed every hour. Shadows were dusking the far comers. He saw a black bear amble along the lower reaches of the stream, where it turned into the dark canyon. A troop of deer had come down off the south slope. Eagles soared above the sunlit crags. The upper third of the north slope blazed with gold and the snowy summit had a rosy flush. The place had a fascination for Kalispel that he could not define in a moment. The longer he gazed the more he appreciated things not strikingly noticeable at first. On all sides the formidable walls frowned down. White and black tips of mountains peeped above the ramparts. Purple veils deepened in the notch where the valley turned to the east. He had thought at first glance that the valley headed at the eastern end, but he decided that the stream split there, one fork leaping down off the ledges, and the other turning with the narrow valley into a defile. It was a big country, just what his gaze encompassed, and incredibly rough on the heights. The gold faded up off the north slope and the whole atmosphere changed as if by magic. The steely grays and blacks stole upward out of the valley, as if now free of their arch enemy. And night was at hand.

Kalispel thought that he would find enough loneliness there even for him. Not often did he yield to the memory of the past. But he did so now. No doubt his brothers Sam and Jake had found him in the nick of time; otherwise that wild Montana range where he had gone the pace of hard cowboys would have soon seen his end. Still, he could excuse it ail to himself. His serious blunders, his shooting-scrapes, his deflections which, if continued, would have made him an outlaw, he could trace to circumstances for which he was not to blame. What Kalispel had longed for was a little ranch, with cattle and horses of his own, a wife to keep him straight, and a chance to realize the promise he knew he possessed. But he never could save a dollar; his several attempts to gather a herd of cattle had led to questions he could only answer with a gun; and nothing but trouble had ever come of the girls who had attracted him.

His brooding reflection was interrupted by a” low rumble of thunder.

“Say! So early in spring?” he muttered, looking up in surprize. The sky was clear and cold, already showing tiny pale stars. “That was an avalanche somewheres. Strikes me these Saw Tooths might cut loose a lot that way.”

He returned to camp and the blazing fire. Jake was lighting his pipe with a red ember. Sam bent his ruddy bearded face over some task.

“Did you fellows hear thunder?” asked Kalispel.

“Shore did,” replied Jake. “Sam says it wasn’t thunder.”

“Slide somewhere, then?”

“Son, thet wasn’t thunder or slide,” answered Sam, looking up. “My Nez Percé friend told me we’d know the place when we came to a valley under a high white mountain-face thet talked. I reckon we’ve found it.”

“How do you account for that rumble?” queried Kalispel, puzzled.

“Damn if I know yet. Must be earthquake.”

“Nix,” said Jake. “Thet was just a slide rumblin’ down somewheres. These hills must be full of high bare slopes like this one. It gives me the creeps. Don’t you remember some of the steep Lemhi slopes? An’ thet knife canyon over on Trail Creek?”

“Wal, what’s the odds one way or another — if there’s gold here.”

“Suits me. The spookier the better,” returned Kalispel, and sought his bed.

He listened for a while, but the rumbling sound was not repeated. Then he fell asleep. When he awakened it was broad daylight with rosy flush upon the peaks. His brothers were bustling about camp. The ringing bugle of an elk brought Kalispel to a sitting posture, wide awake and thrilling.

“Kal, go out an’ bust thet bull,” said Jake. “The valley’s alive with game. Seems different by day.”

“Son, take a peep in thet pan,” called Sam, sonorously. Kalispel got up and pulled on his boots, then stretched his tall frame. Sam, impatient at his nonchalance, thrust the pan under his nose. Kalispel saw a thin layer of sand and gold, about half and half.

“Dog-gone! Looks like a strike,” rejoined Kalispel, lazily. “Nothin’ to rave about,” replied Sam, setting the pan down. “But if we can find the lode thet came from, we’re rich. You’ll have the ranch your heart desires, an’ a thousand hosses, an’ ten thousand cattle before the year is out.”

“Rich!” ejaculated Kalispel, incredulously.

“We’ll sell out for a million. An’ damn me, I’ve a hunch we’ve struck it this time. But even if we can’t find the lode there are good diggin’s all up and down this bench, one way or another!”

“Sam, are you talkin’ sense?”

“Kal, he’s been up since daybreak, roarin’ around,” interposed Jake.

“If it doesn’t turn out my luck to have other prospectors driftin’ in here,” muttered Sam, somberly. “Thet has happened before.”

“What difference would it make, Sam, if we located first?” asked Kalispel.

“Wal, a lot. If we can’t find the lode we can clean up a fortune off this bench — giving us time.”

“Ah-huh. Sam, do you trust thet Nez Percé?” added Jake, scratching his stubbly chin.

“You bet. He’ll not tell. An’ let’s not borrow trouble. We ought to be singin’. Come on an’ eat. After thet we’ll set to work. We’ll move our camp out of these rocks. There’s a likely sheltered spot across the stream. Kal, you fetch in some meat an’ hang it up in the shade. Then you might scout around a bit. Have a look at the outlet of this valley. Jake, you stick your pan in every sand an’ gravel bar along this stream. I’ll take a pick an’ look for the lode.”

Kalispel found it impossible not to respond to Sam’s forceful optimism. Sam had always been a born prospector. Always seeing the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow! And he had always been poor. He had never made a real strike. On more than one occasion he had almost had fortune in his grasp. This time would probably end like all the others. Yet Kalispel felt himself profoundly stirred by his eldest brother’s inevitableness. Kalispel did not have the gold fever in his blood. He was not given to false hopes. As a cowboy he had been the poorest gambler on the whole Montana range. But he responded to the thrill, the dream of what impetus it would give life actually to find gold.

When camp had been moved to a pretty sheltered spot, Kalispel took his rifle and made off for the widest part of the valley. At the moment he did not see any game. The spring morning was fresh, clear, cold. A film of ice gleamed on still pools; red buds showed on the willows. He remarked the absence of small game and birds. The first living creatures he espied were Sam’s burros. Next he located a herd of elk fairly high on the south slope. He kept on, however, up the stream, making for the widest part of the valley. It proved to be a high bench, well wooded, and merging on a steep mountain slope where the black timber came down thickly to the level. He caught - a glimpse of moving gray objects. Presently a small group of deer, does and fawns, trooped out of the brush to stand at gaze, long ears erect. As he approached them they bounded away as if on springs. Soon after that he sighted a buck, which he shot. It was too heavy to pack into camp, so he dressed it on the spot, and carried it in quarters.

While passing to and fro over the bench, taking a straight cut to camp, he spied numerous deer. The ground was cut up by tracks of hoofed game. He saw beds in the grass, and the bones of two cougar kills, one old and the other comparatively fresh. Cougar tracks showed in every patch of soft ground. Game trails led down off the south slope to the water, but he did not note that they crossed the stream. The problem of meat, which constituted the main food supply for hunters and prospectors in the mountains, appeared to be solved for an indefinite period.

This hunting job attended to, Kalispel washed his bloody hands, remarking again the icy shock of the water, and then strolled down the valley. The sun shone overhead now and lent brilliance to the many colors of slope and cliff. On one side the valley was stark and naked, on the other fringed and patched with forest, green ledges, and gray crags.

He proceeded far down around the bend to where the valley boxed in a red-walled canyon. This he could have entered, and perhaps followed for some distance, had he chosen to wade. But he did not like the idea of immersing to his neck in the melted snow water. Retracing his steps, he halted in a sunny spot with fragrant sage all around, and there he flung himself at length, as had been his wont so often on the cattle range. He liked the intimacy of the great walls. The monotonous purple reaches of the Montana ranges had palled upon him.

“Dog-gone!” soliloquized Kalispel. “I’d like to settle in this country. That cottonwood fiat over on the Salmon River shore took my eye.”

And he gave himself over to a daydream, fostered by Sam’s ineradicable hope of the good fortune about to be.

Kalispel marked that spot. Somehow it had induced lingering hours of happy reverie, to which he had long been stranger. The place was down around the bend from the valley, where a bench of sage nestled under a great wall. The melodious murmur of the stream came up; the warm sun beat down, reflected from the cliff; a still, sweet, drowsy languor pervaded the place; the sweetness of sage was almost intoxicating; the solitude was omnipresent; and across the canyon sheered up a tremendous broken slope as many-sided as that mountain could boast. Long glistening slants of talus, rugged narrow defiles winding up, grassy benches fringed with firs, huge sections of splintered cliff hanging precariously, and patches of black lodge-pole pines stepped up endlessly to the blue sky. This wonderful mountain-side would have been fascinating to Kalispel without a sign of life. But the reward of searching, patient exercise of keen vision made hours there seem like moments. At first the vast slope had appeared bare of life; before the westering sun had turned Kalispel campward he had espied elk, bear, sheep, deer, cougar. And to see cougar in the sunlight was rare indeed.

He found camp deserted. Evidently neither Sam nor Jake had been in since morning. That augured well for this first day. Kalispel set to work at camp tasks, pausing once to laugh when he heard himself whistling. He put things in shipshape, halting only for the mixing of biscuit dough, at which he was a signal failure. But he liked to swing an ax, which art he had mastered during his boyhood along the hardwood creek bottoms of Missouri.

Meanwhile the colored lights of the valley had succumbed to waning afternoon. Kalispel began to grow anxious about his brothers. Presently Jake appeared some distance up the stream. He looked a tired man. Kalispel halloed and waved. Jake made a weary response. Upon nearer view Jake was a sight to behold. He was the dirtiest, muddiest, wettest, raggedest object of a man Kalispel had ever seen. He carried under his arm his gold pan, and in his left hand something small and heavy wrapped in a bandana handkerchief.

“Dog-gone-it, Jake!” ejaculated Kalispel, undecided whether to laugh or whoop. Then as Jake staggered into camp, Kalispel met a wonderful look in his eyes.

“Boy, look ahere,” panted Jake, and he forced the bandana into Kalispel’s hands.

The contents were soft, wet, heavy, significant to the touch. Kalispel knew what it contained without being told, and suddenly he was mute. Jake fell on his knees beside his pack and began to fumble around in it.

“Whar’s my weighin’-scales?... My Gawd! — gotta have them!... Ah-ha!... Kal, cluster around now an’ pour out the gold.”

Kalispel did as he was bidden, and as the tiny golden stream of grains and nuggets thudded into the scales he became aware of trembling hands and knocking heart. Three times the scales had to be emptied before all the gold could be weighed.

“Ten ounces — an’ over,” boomed Jake, breathing thickly. “At eighteen dollars the ounce.... Hundred an’ eighty dollars!... An’ as Sam ordered, I only panned one pan at each bar.”

“Heavens!” ejaculated Kalispel, incredulously. He fingered the shiny nuggets, some of which were as large as peas. All were smooth and worn, due, no doubt, to the action of water and gravel. The majority of the gold was like fine sand, and it slipped from Kalispel’s palm in a yellow stream. Suddenly he sat down to stare at Jake.

“Boy, we’re rich! Rich!... Our fortunes are made. Sam hit it plumb center this time.... My Gawd! if mother could be alive now! We was always so poor.”

“Jake, it — it’s hard to — believe,” replied Kalispel, choking. “But here it is. Gold!... An’ you panned all that in a single day?”

“Boy, I could have doubled — trebled thet ten ounces. But Sam wanted me to cover all the bars. So I did. All showed yellow. But some more than others.... Several were lousy with gold.”

“Gosh! I’m glad for Sam — an’ you, Jake.... Reckon for myself — a little.”

“Lee, you be a hell of a lot glad for yourself,” replied Jake, deep-voiced and husky. “Your cattle ranch is in sight.”

Suddenly Kalispel leaped up to let out such a cowboy yell as had never pealed from his lungs. “WHOOPEE!” The stentorian sound rang along the walls and beat back in hollow echo. It was answered, too, by a halloo from upstream.

“You hear that?” cried Kalispel.

“Shore. Thet was Sam.... An’ there he comes.”

“Gosh! Is he drunk, staggerin’ along like that?”

“Boy, Sam’s packin’ a heavy load.”

“Can’t be firewood. Too small.”

“Nope.... It’s white.... An’ shore as you’re born — it’s a rock.”

“Rock! What’d Sam be packin’ a rock for?... He hadn’t got his pick an’ crowbar, either.... Jake!”

“Boy, I reckon I’m a little weak on my pins.” Jake sat down heavily.

Kalispel stared, his thoughts whirling. Sam came on sturdily, but manifestly under great physical strain. He plunged into camp to thump his heavy burden upon the ground in front of his brothers.

“Look at — thet!” he panted.

Kalispel saw a thick slab of white quartz, brilliantly veined and belted with gold. It appeared to be the most beautiful inanimate object that he had ever beheld. But he could not speak, and Jake strangled over incoherent words.

Sam wiped the sweat from his face which betrayed traces of feeling. He now appeared calm, though his eyes held a singular effulgence.

“I went straight — to the lode — like steel to a magnet,” he said, in cool, slowly expelled words. “Thar’s five hundred dollars — in thet chunk.... An’ a million more — where it come from!”

Chapter Two

EXCITEMENT PREVAILED IN the Emerson camp. Sam succumbed to some extent to the uncontained joy of his brothers. Jake declared it was a good thing that there was not any whisky in the packs. They fell over each other preparing supper and partaking of it. Jake could not decide what he wanted to do with his share. Lee had his ranch picked out, his herds, his horses, and he decided that a rich young cattleman, not bad-looking, might possibly find a wife.

Faint thunder came rumbling from the darkness.

“Ah-huh! Thar’s the old-man mountain grumblin’ thet we ain’t got the gold yet,” exclaimed Sam.

A menace seemed momentarily to hold the three in thrall. It passed, and with it the hilarity, the boyish indulgence in wild prospect.

“Listen, boys,” spoke up Sam, seriously. “We’ve struck gold. Maybe I need to tell you thet the majority of prospectors who strike it rich never reap the profits of their discovery.”

“Why’n hell not?” roared Jake, aghast, his rugged visage red in the firelight.

“It’s just a fact, thet’s all. Prospectors ain’t business men. They’re usually ignorant, heedless, improvident. They lose out somehow.”

“We ain’t gonna lose nothin’,” declared Jake, belligerently, he who had formerly been the most pessimistic. The gold fever had inflamed his brain. Kalispel looked on silently, conscious of a sinking sensation within his breast.

“If we can sell out for a hundred thousand dollars we’d be wise to do it,” said Sam, ponderingly.

“Hell no!” yelled Jake, and entreated Kalispel to side with him.

“A hundred thousand seems a lot of money, but—” muttered Kalispel, struggling with his feelings.

“Right here we form a company,” went on Sam, emphatically. “Thet is, a company to work this quartz vein. Thet’ll leave us free to take up placer-minin’ claims on the bench. We want to pick out the three richest claims before the stampede.”

“Stampede?” echoed Jake.

“Shore. They’ll be a mad rush to this valley the day thet chunk of quartz is shown in Challis, Boise, or Salmon.”

“I might have figgered thet,” admitted Jake.

“Sam, why need anyone learn about the quartz vein?” queried Lee.

“It’ll take a ten-ton stamp mill to work this mine.” ‘Ten-ton!” ejaculated Kalispel. “How on earth could such a mill be gotten here?”

“Packed in on mules. It can be done. It must be done.... An’ now you see why we must sell out, or sell a half interest, at least. We have no money.”

“Why not keep the quartz mine secret, while we work all this placer mine for ourselves?” asked Kalispel. “Then afterward sell out or finance the job ourselves?”

“Thet’s a big idee,” agreed Jake.

“It may be a good idee, but it’s not good business. We want action. We’d risk everythin’ to keep this quartz mine a secret. Because sooner or later, while we are workin’ the placers, other miners will drift in. The Bitter Root range an’ the Lemhi are full of them.”

“Well, let them drift,” declared Kalispel. “We can take care of ourselves an’ hang on to our holdin’s. All the time we’ll be diggin’ gold while keepin’ our best secret. Then, when we are forced to show our hand, all right. An’ the situation will be precisely the same as it is now.”

Jake agreed with Kalispel, and they argued with Sam. But he was obdurate, and at length out of deference to his superior experience and judgment they let him have his way. Whereupon they fell to discussing the other aspects of the case. Sam finally worked out a plan. He would stay in the valley, guarding the quartz mine, while working the placers along the stream. Jake and Kalispel were to trace the best trail possible out of the mountains and then make their way to Boise, where they would exhibit their quartz finding to prominent mining-men, and consider no less than a hundred thousand dollars for a half interest, the contracting parties to furnish the mill, have it packed in, and work the mine. If a good deal could not be consummated at Boise, they were to proceed to Challis and Salmon. Sam said he could stretch food supplies for a month and it would be necessary for one of the brothers, at least, to pack in before the expiration of that time. They settled all before going to bed at a late hour.

Kalispel could not sleep at once. His mind was full. It seemed that the unlucky star under which he had always ridden had marvelously brightened. And while he lay there the old mountain rumbled its faint deep thunder of warning.

On the following morning Kalispel and Jake, driving three lightly packed burros, headed up the valley on their important mission. Sam accompanied them as far as his quartz vein, which was located in an outcropping ledge of rock at the edge of the bench where it merged into the mountain. Jake, who did not like this separation, strode gloomily along without looking back. Kalispel, however, at a curve of the stream, turned to wave good-by. But Sam had already forgotten them. His red-shirted frame bent over his precious gold-bearing ledge.

Jake had been given the task of lining a trail that could be used later by a heavily-packed train of mules. Wherefore he kept to the watercourse. They found that the narrow valley did not box at all, but wound to the south, grading to a rough pass between forest-patched mountain summits. They headed the stream, and by noonday had worked to the divide from which an elk trail descended under beetling cliffs. It led to a wide valley through which ran the Middle Fork branch of the Salmon river. It was a wide, swift, shallow stream. They crossed with difficulty, finding the icy water and slippery rocks hard to contend with. They camped on the opposite bank, where a roaring fire, dry clothes, and hot food dispelled the discouragement that had attended the inception of this doubtful journey.

Next day they zigzagged up a vast mountain slope, covered with thick white grass, and picturesque for its numerous patches of black fir. Elk and deer scarcely took the trouble to move out of their path. Once on the summit of this range Jake encountered obstacles to the much-desired, easily-graded trail to the southwest. He made a false start and was compelled to return and more carefully study the baffling maze of sharp peaks and dark canyons. In the end he led around a mountain, from the higher shoulder of which, before sunset of that day, he pointed out to his brother the valley of the main Salmon, the town of Challis, the Lemhi mountains and to the south rolling, gray country that opened into the purple range.

It took three days to grade out a trail down to Challis. The brothers camped on the outskirts of the little town. After supper Jake made inquiries, and to his dismay ascertained that a stage for Boise did not leave until Saturday, and that the supplies needed must be brought from Salmon, sixty miles down the river.

Jake was a thoughtful man that night round the camp fire. Finally he unburdened himself.

“Lee, I didn’t like leavin’ Sam alone in thet hole. An’ we can’t go on to Boise, make this minin’ deal, an’ come back to Sam inside of a month. So here’s what we’ll do. I’ll go on to Boise alone.... Don’t worry. I won’t lose the quartz an’ I’ll be shore nobody gets a hunch about it. Reckon I’ll not need more’n a few dollars till I make the deal. So you can have this money. You go to Salmon an’ buy three more burros, an’ all the supplies you can pack on them, an’ rustle back to Sam.... What you think of my idee?”

“It’s a damn good one,” replied Lee. “By the time I get to Salmon a week will be gone. It’ll take a couple of days to outfit there. An’ with six burros all loaded down, an’ allowin’ for the steep grades an’ rough ground on that trail we worked out on — why Jake, even with good luck I couldn’t nake it back to Sam in two weeks.”

“You shore couldn’t. Say a month. An’ then you’ll beat any cowpunchin’ job you ever had.... Wal, it’s settled, an’ I’m relieved.”

Late afternoon of the second day, on the way down the river, Kalispel came to where the Salmon made a wide, slow bend. The several hundred acres of land inclosed by the stream in that circling constituted the ranch he had seen from a mountain-top on the way in. From that far point he had made out several groves of cottonwoods, the wide, flat, brown and green fields, the fringe of trees bordering the river, the sheltered log cabin under the lea of the hill. But at close range this ranch appeared the finest prospect he had ever encountered. The soil was fertile. He crossed several brooks on his way toward the log cabin. On each side of the river sloped up endless acreage of grazing-land. Kalispel thrilled with his resolve to own that ranch.

A settler named Olsen lived there with his small family. Lee had supper with him and talked casually.

“Been prospectin’,” he explained. “Don’t care for it much. But I like ranchin’. Could you use a good cowman?”

“Huh! Got more work than I can do. Couldn’t pay wages, though. Fact is I’d like to sell out.”

“That’s interestin’. What’d you take?”

“I’d hate to have some real money shoved at me,” replied the settler, tersely.

“So? — well, if I strike pay dirt I’ll come back an’ shove some at you.”

Next day, late, Kalispel trudged footsore and weary into Salmon. He had been there several times and he liked the place. It had been a mining-town for years and ha’d seen more than one gold boom. Even in dull times Salmon was a bustling center, being a distributing point between towns over the Montana line and those west into Idaho as far as Boise. Salmon resembled other Western mining-towns in its one long, wide, main street, but off this thoroughfare it reminded Lee of some of the hamlets back in Missouri.

He found pasture for his burros, and made a deal to secure three more, including pack-saddles. Then he repaired to the main street and a lodging-house he knew. When former acquaintances failed to recognize him, Kalispel decided that he must be a pretty dirty, bearded, ragged, hard-looking customer. The best he could do that night was to wash and shave, which helped mightily; but he seriously appreciated the fact that he must make a most advantageous deal in buying the supplies so that he would have money enough left for a new outfit. His boots had no soles and his trousers hung in tatters. He recalled a girl whose acquaintance he had made on a former sojourn in Salmon — what was her name? — and he could not present himself to her in this scarecrow garb.

Kalispel put on his coat, then had to remove it because he had slipped one arm through a rent instead of the sleeve. This was another rueful reminder of his poverty. He did not care about his appearance or even comfort while out on the range or in the wilds, but here in town among people he did not like his poverty. He blew out the lamp and left his room.

In the yellow flare of a hall lamp he saw two figures at the head of the stairway — a young woman standing with her back toward him, facing a man who had started down the steps and was looking back.

“Dad, please don’t leave me alone. I—” she was entreating, in a voice that would have arrested Kalispel even if her small, dark, graceful head had not.

“You’ll be all right, Sydney,” replied the man, with a laugh. “You’re out West now and must look after yourself. I want to talk to some miners. Go to bed.”

He stamped on down the rickety stairway. The girl partly turned as Kalispel passed her and he caught a glimpse of a pale, clean-cut profile, striking enough in that poor light to make him want to turn and stare. But he resisted the desire and went quickly down, wanting to get another look at the father of that girl. He caught an odor of rum. There was a barroom connected with this lodging-house, but there was no doorway opening into it from the hall. Kalispel followed the man outside, where at the street corner under the yellow lights he met several men in rough garb, evidently waiting for him.

Kalispel approached them. “Howdy men,” he said, genially. “I’m a stranger hereabouts. Where can I eat?”

“Reckon I’ve seen you before,” replied one, a keen-eyed, hard-visaged Westerner who apparently missed nothing in Kalispel’s make-up, especially not the gun hanging low.

“Yeah? All the same I’m a stranger an’ hungry,” retorted Lee, as he returned the searching scrutiny.

“Young fellow, there’s a good restaurant a few doors below,” replied the man Lee wanted a second glance at. He was beyond middle age, a handsome man with lined, weak face and dark eyes full of havoc. His frame was not robust and his garb betokened the tenderfoot.

“Thanks. Would you have a bite with me?” returned Kalispel.

“I had mine early.”

“Say, cowpuncher, mozy along, will you?” broke in another of the trio of Westerners. He had a lean sallow face, a long drooping mustache, and eyes that burned in the shadow of his sombrero.

That was sufficient to ignite the spark always smoldering in Lee’s spirit.

“Why shore I’ll mozy along — when I get ready,” he replied, curtly.

“Ain’t you thet Kalispel cowboy late of Montana?” queried the man who had first spoken, as with a slight gesture he silenced his lean-jawed companion.

“Yeah, I happen to be that cowboy — Kalispel Emerson.”

“Wal, no offense meant,” rejoined the other, hurriedly. “We jest want to talk business to Mr. Blair hyar. An’ time’s pressin’.”

Kalispel did not trouble to reply. He fixed piercing eyes upon the tenderfoot, who appeared to sense something amiss, but could not gather what. “Excuse me, Mr. Blair, if I give you a hunch, usin’ the advice I just heard you give your daughter. You’re out West now an’ must look after yourself.”

With that pointed speech Kalispel wheeled to pass on down the street. “Dog-gone!” he soliloquized. “They’ll fleece the socks off that tenderfoot.... An’ the wolf-jawed hombre — wherevd I ever see him? Gambler, I’ll bet.... Well, it’s none of my mix. I’ve trouble of my own. But that girl — now—”

Kalispel went into the restaurant to go about appeasing his ravenous hunger. He had not had a square meal for so long that he felt like a starved bear. His quick eye surveyed the assembled males, not one of which was a cowman. From long habit Kalispel always looked for that uncertain quantity. He fell to conversing with a miner and soon forgot the Blair incident. Then, in a few moments, he was attending to savory food set before him.

Then Kalispel, cheerful and responsive to exciting surroundings, strode out to see the town. How many nights had he ridden in off the range to make up for the monotony of a rider’s life! But a voice cautioned him to remember the importance of his mission. No bucking the tiger — not a single drop of red liquor! This somewhat subdued his exuberance. Still, he would have a look, anyhow, and to that end he made the rounds of the saloons, the gambling-dens and dance-halls, winding up at the Spread Eagle, a composite resort at the edge of town on the bank of the river. This place was in full blast, and as Kalispel went into the big barnlike, gaudily-decorated dance-hall, full of smoke and the merry roar of music and dancers, he experienced a thought that had come to him many a time before — it would be well for him to have an anchor. He liked this sort of fling, which he argued would be all right, if it were not for the drink and fights and worse that seemed to attend a lonesome cowboy’s infrequent visits to town.

Presently, at the end of a dance, he saw a girl detach herself from a burly dancer, to make her way in his direction. Kalispel had observed that, besides himself, there was not a young fellow in the hall. And this girl was hardly more than sixteen. She was little in stature, pretty in a birdlike way, with golden hair, and certainly was most inadequately clothed for such a cool night. She accosted Kalispel with a query as to where she had met him before.

“Gawd only knows, sweetheart. I’m shore a rollin’ stone.”

“You’re not one of these mining galoots?” she asked, quickly. “I’ll bet you’re a grub-line cowpuncher out of a job.”

“Plumb center, little girl. Gosh! but you’re smart. An’ you know the range, too.”

“Put on your hat, unless you want to dance with me. I’m not used to bareheaded men,” she returned, testily, while she fastened penetrating blue eyes on him.

“I’d like to dance with you, but I’m too much of a ragamuffin.”

“That’s no matter. Come on.”

“Besides, I’ve no money to buy drinks.”

“I don’t want to drink. I can’t stand much. I hate these club-footed, rum-soaked miners who slobber over me and paw me.... And I kind of like you, cowboy.”

“Dog-gone it, I like you too,” replied Kalispel, dubiously, feeling a wave of the old loneliness surge over him.

She was about to put a hand on his arm when a pale-faced, sombre-eyed man, approaching from behind Kalispel, with a slight gesture of authority, sent her hurriedly away.

“Young fellow, you’ll excuse me,” he said, coldly. “Nugget is much in demand.”

“Nugget?” queried Kalispel, slowly.

“Yes, Nugget. Nobody knows her real name.”

“Ah-huh. Suppose I take this act of yours as an insult. Your Spread Eagle is open to all.”

“Certainly, but not over cordial to tramps.”

“Your mistake, mister, an’ damned risky,” flashed Kalispel, changing to a menace the bitter range had fostered in him. “If I had intended to dance with your Nugget — an’ she asked me to — you’d be dancin’ to dodge hot bullets with your feet, right this minute.”

Whereupon Kalispel lunged out of the glaring hall into the cold, dark night. It was getting late and the street was no longer crowded. He took to its center and made for his lodging-house. A familiar old sensation assailed him, a weakening, a sinking down, always in the past the precursor to a drinking debauch and a period of oblivion. But this had to be battled now. His status had changed. There was fortune to be made and happiness to achieve. In that clarifying passionate moment of vision he saw the future, and it was like a picture, beautiful and golden and rosy.

He reached the tavern. Men were passing in and out of the crowded noisy saloon. Kalispel went into the hall and up the rickety stairway. The lamp burned brightly on the landing of the second floor. As he turned toward his door he heard a low agitated voice, “Get out — of here!”

He stopped short. That Blair girl, whom her father had called Sydney! A man’s voice, hurried and sibilant, answered her. “Sssch! Some one will hear. Listen to me—”

“No! Get out of my room!” she cried, her voice poignant with anger and fear.

Kalispel saw that her door was ajar. In two long strides he reached it and with forceful hand shoved it open violently. The act disclosed a tall man starting back from this sudden intrusion, and a white-faced girl, with dark eyes distended in fear, in the act of slipping off her bed. She was clad in a long nightgown and with one hand held the edge of a blanket to her breast. A lighted lamp stood on a little table close to her bed; a book lay face open on the floor.

“Pardon, Lady,” said Kalispel, curtly. “Did I hear you order some one from your room?”

“Yes — you did,” she replied, poignantly.

“All a mistake. I got in the wrong room,” spoke up the man, with a short laugh that betrayed little concern for this intruder but considerable annoyance at the intrusion. He had to brush by Kalispel to get out the door.

“It was not a mistake,” spoke up the girl, hotly. “He came in. I asked if it were Dad. He saw me — in bed — reading. I ordered him out Twice! But he — he came toward me.”

“Aw, nonsense!” rasped the man, halted by her accusation to confront Kalispel. He had bold eyes that gleamed, a protruding, clean-shaven jowl, a forceful presence. “She’s a tenderfoot, scared silly because I happened to open her door instead of mine.”

“Ah-huh. Why didn’t you step out quick when you saw the lady in bed?” demanded Kalispel.

“I was going to.”

“Say, I heard her order you out. Twice!”

“Look here, are you questioning me, you—”

“Not any more,” interrupted Kalispel. “But I’ll take a whack at you.”

A sharp left-handed blow sent the man staggering back off his balance. He might have gained his equilibrium, but Kalispel leaped after him and swung a terrific right to that prominent jaw. The sudden blow knocked him against the railing, which gave way with a crack. He went down the stairway, to fall with a resounding crash to the floor below. The jar that accompanied the crash brought the trample of heavy boots and excited voices of men entering below.

“Lady, shut your door,” called Kalispel, and whipped out his gun. He hardly expected any trouble from the offending Romeo he had knocked down, but he had lived to distrust these incidents so often forced upon him.

“It’s Borden,” rang out a hoarse voice. “Dead — or damn near it.”

“Back of his head all bloody,” spoke up another man. “Must have been hit with an ax. Hold up, mebbe. Thet Casper outfit in town. He had a big roll on him. I seen him flash it today. Search him, boss.”

“Hold the lamp, somebody.... Nope — no hold up. Here’s his money an’ watch.”

“He’s not dead, either. He’s comin’ to.”

Kalispel stepped to the head of the stairway. “Hey, down there!” he called.

There followed a tense pause, then, “Hey yourself!”

“Who is that man?”

“What man?”

“Why, the one I just rapped gently on the chin.”

“Ha! It must have been orful gentle, stranger.”

“Wal, come out with it. Who an’ what is he?”

“His name’s Cliff Borden. An’ he’s well known hyar.

Part owner of the Spread Eagle. Buys minin’ claims, and—”

“Forces his way into a young lady’s bedroom,” interrupted Kalispel, scornfully. “An’ wouldn’t get out when she ordered him out.... Now listen, you Salmon gentlemen. Drag Mister Borden out of this lodgin’-house an’ when he comes to his senses tell him he’d better steer clear of me.”

“An’ who might you be, young fellar?” queried the gruff leader below.

“My name is Emerson an’ I hail from Kalispel.”

A whispering ensued, which soon gave place to the clearer voices of men engaged in lifting and carrying Borden out of the house.

After a moment Kalispel sheathed his gun and stood irresolute. Should he not assure the girl that the incident was past? The fact of her door being ajar emboldened him, and he knocked.

“Who is there?” came the quick response.

“It’s me, Miss Blair.”

The door opened wide. Kalispel had intended to inform the girl that all was well, but sight of her sent his thoughts whirling. She had thrown a dressing-gown over her shoulders, the effect of which simply enhanced a beauty he had only faintly grasped upon first sight.

“Oh!... Is — is he dead?” she faltered, with great, dark eyes upon him.

“Goodness no, miss!” exclaimed Kalispel, hastily. “I only hit him. Shore he fell hard an’ must have busted his head below. They said it was all bloody. Don’t you fear for him, miss. He’s not hurt much.”

“You misunderstand me. I don’t fear for him. I wouldn’t care — if — if you had killed him.”

“Aw, now!” ejaculated Kalispel, staring. A flush came over the whiteness of her cheek. Her face was the loveliest thing Kalispel had ever gazed upon. He felt something terrible happening to his heart.

“I thank you for saving me — I — I don’t know what,” she said, tremulously.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad as it looked,” replied Kalispel, lamely. “He might have made a mistake about your door — an’ then, after he was in — just lost his head, you know — which wouldn’t be no wonder.”

“You are generous to him, and — and—” she replied, suddenly to check her reply and to blush scarlet. “But I should tell you that he followed me today. He spoke to me twice. He knew this was my room.”

“I stand corrected, Miss Blair,” returned Kalispel. “It will be just as well for Mr. Cliff Borden to keep out of sight tomorrow.”

“I heard what you told those men to tell him.”

“Yes? I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice talk for a girl new to the West.”

“I’m new, all right,” she breathed, almost passionately. “I’m a most atrocious tenderfoot — and I — I ha-hate this West.”

“I’m terrible sorry to hear that, miss,” replied Kalispel, earnestly. “It’s shore tough on newcomers. I know. I came from Missouri years ago.... But you’ll love it some day.... Here I am keepin’ you up! I only wanted to tell you everythin’ was all right.”

“But it’s not,” she said. “There’s no lock on my door. That’s why I was reading while waiting for Dad. His room is next to mine. Only, he stays out so late. And he comes in—”

She broke off confusedly, evidently in her serious train of thought about to betray something not favorable to her father.

“You’ll be all right. Never mind when your Dad comes in. Shut your door tight an’ brace it with a chair under the knob. My room is just at the head of the stairs. An’ havin’ been a cowboy, I sleep with one eye open. I’d hear if a mouse came sneakin’ up this hall.”

“Thank you,” she replied, shyly. “I will see you tomorrow.... Good night, Mr. Kalispel.”

He bade her good night and went to his room, to light his lamp and sit upon his bed, for long so absorbed that he had no idea where he was nor what he was doing.

Around midnight Kalispel heard voices below in the lower hall. He opened his door slightly. Blair had evidently been accompanied, if not escorted, back to the lodging-house by his Western acquaintances. They were hot on his trail. Kalispel heard him stumble over the broken steps and come up breathing heavily, to open and close a door. Kalispel undressed and went to bed.

He was up early, the first to await breakfast in the restaurant. From there he went to the largest store in town and presented his list of supplies, and told how he wanted them packed for a hard trip into the mountains. His next errand was out to the pasture. This proved to be unfruitful, as the owner was in town, whereupon Kalispel went back.

He remarked to himself that he had seen the sun shine before, he had seen the pearly, fuzzy buds opening on the willows, he had been out on many and many a cold sparkling spring morning with the gold and rose on the hills; but no morning nor one of the things he noted had ever been so beautiful and heart-swelling as now.

“Must of been Sam’s gold-strike,” he mused as he swung along. But he knew that was a lie.

In front of the tavern he encountered Blair talking to the proprietor and another man.

“Here’s your Kalispel fellar now,” said the former. “Kalispel? — I met this young man last night,” returned Blair. “How do you do, sir? It appears I’m indebted to you for a service in my daughter’s behalf.”

“Mornin’.... Nothin’ a-tall, Mr. Blair,” replied Kalispel. “Some gazabo named Borden had been annoyin’ Miss Blair all day. An’ last night he busted into her room. I happened to be goin’ up an’ heard her order him out. But he didn’t come, so I investigated.”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed the proprietor. “Who’s gonna pay for the damage to my stairs?”

“Damn if I will. You make Borden pay,” retorted Kalispel. “I’ll gladly foot the bill,” interposed Blair, hurriedly. “Young man, I’m greatly obliged to you. Excuse me if I persist. Sydney, my daughter, told me about it. Very different from your version. She’s very much worried this morning. She fears there’ll be a fight.”

“Mr. Blair, your daughter didn’t waste any fears on Borden last night. She’d been glad if I had shot him.”

“Naturally.... But now it’d distress her — and me too — if Borden and you — —”

“Not much chance, Mr. Blair,” interrupted Kalispel, shortly. “I know his stripe.”

The proprietor interposed. “Wal, young fellar, with all due respect to your nerve I’m givin’ you a hunch somethin’ will come of it. But sure I don’t need to tell you to keep an eye peeled.” After this trenchant speech he went indoors with his companion.

“Here’s my daughter now,” spoke up Blair.

Kalispel, with a strange sensation of dread and rapture combined, turned to see a slender, graceful young woman almost at his elbow. He did not recognize her. But the shy greeting she gave him, the blush that suffused her face, the way she slipped her hand under Blair’s arm, appeared to establish the fact that she was his daughter.

He doffed his ragged sombrero in some embarrassment. “Mornin’, lady. I shore hope you slept well,” he said.

“Not so very well,” she replied.

In the bright sunshine, Kalispel discovered that the girl’s hair was of a chestnut-gold color, and the eyes which he had imagined matched her dark tresses were violet in hue. In her street clothes she seemed taller, too, but somehow Kalispel began to associate her with the lovely creature of last night.

“What’s your name?” asked Blair.

“Emerson. Lee Emerson. I got the nickname Kalispel out on the Montana range.”

“Pray overlook my curiosity, Emerson.... There seems to be an idea in this town that you’re — what did they call it? — a bad hombre. Last night, one of those men you met with me — Pritchard — he gave you a hard—”

“Pritchard!” interrupted Kalispel, sharply. “I knew I’d seen him somewhere. Mr. Blair, that man is a gambler — a shady customer. Look out for him an’ all of them. Don’t drink with them, or gamble, or consider any deals whatsoever.”

“Thanks. I’ll admit I’d grown a little leary. There might be a reason for Pritchard calling you a bad hombre.”

“Aw, I am a bad hombre,” admitted Kalispel, coldly. “But that’s no reason why I can’t do a good turn for newcomers to the West.”

“May I ask just what is a bad hombre?” inquired Sydney Blair, her disturbing violet eyes searching his.

“It’s no compliment, Miss Blair, I’m sorry to say,” replied Kalispel, returning her intent glance.

“Don’t embarrass him, Sydney,” said Blair. “See here, Emerson. I’ve got considerable cash on my person. Is it safe for me to carry it around?”

“I should smile not. If you’re going to be here after dark, put your money in the bank pronto.”

“Thanks. That’s straight talk. I’ll ask you another. I came West to go into a mining deal with a Boise man, a promotor named Leavitt. I met Pritchard on the stage coming from Bannock. I told him. He discouraged me. And he and his partners are endeavoring to interest me in mining enterprizes here. What do you think of it?”

“Highway robbery, in the majority of cases. Of course some minin’ claims pan out well. But if I were you I wouldn’t risk it.”

“Emerson, I’ll go deposit my money in the bank at once. Then I’ll want to talk to you again.”

“All right, Mr. Blair. I’ll be around town today an’ I reckon most of tomorrow,” called Kalispel after him as he hurried away.

“I’d like to talk to you, too,” said the girl, shyly, yet with sweet directness. “We are strangers, and I’m beginning to realize we’re such tenderfeet.... Won’t you come somewhere with me, so we can talk? Not in here. How about the restaurant? It’s lunch-time and I haven’t had any breakfast.”

“You’d take me to lunch — even after I’ve admitted I’m a bad hombre?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Yes, I would. You don’t seem so — so very bad to me,” she replied, returning the smile.

“But I shore look disreputable,” he protested, with a gesture inviting her to note his ragged apparel.

“I haven’t seen any dressed-up Westerners yet,” she rejoined, demurely, and with a flash of eyes took him in as far down as the cartridge-studded belt and swinging gun. “Perhaps you mean — that,” she went on. “It is rather fearful.... Please come. I don’t care what your reputation is. I know there’s no reason why I — I should be ashamed to — to—”

“How do you know, Miss Blair?” he interposed, gravely.

“I — You... Well, it’s the way you look at me....”

“Miss Blair, I’ve been a pretty wild cowboy, but there’s no reason I can’t look you straight in the eyes.”

“Well then, what else matters?”

“But mine’s a Westerner’s point of view,” he rejoined, soberly, driven to stand clear in his conscience before this girl. “For a range-rider in these days, rustlin’ a few cattle, gamblin’-hells an’ dance-hall girls — red liquor an’ gun-play — all in the day’s work!”

“It’s honest of you to tell me,” she said, losing her color. “I’m sorry I forced you to.... But if I am to live in this — this beautiful, terrible West, I must learn. I must meet people — see things. I feel so — so lonely, and you’re the only person I’ve met that I’ve wanted to talk to.... Won’t you come?”

And that was how Kalispel Emerson found himself seated at a table in the corner of the little restaurant, opposite this lovely violet-eyed girl. He accepted the miracle and tried to battle against his sensations, to be worthy for the moment of the trust she placed in a stranger and to help her. Ordering the lunch from the waitress took a little time and added to his composure, after which he faced the girl across the table.

“I am Sydney Blair,” she began, impulsively. “You may not believe that I’m only nineteen. We are from Ohio. Owing to an unsatisfactory partnership and poor health, my father decided to sell out his business and go West. I was the only child. My mother is dead. I had a — a — something happen to — that made me want to leave Ohio forever.”

As she paused, almost faltering, Kalispel saw a slight bit of color come and go in her cheeks.

“Miss Blair, that’s to the great gain of the West,” he replied, gallantly, as she hesitated. “People come out here from everywhere — to begin anew, to make the West what it will be some day.... I reckon you feel lonesome an’ homesick an’ scared. It’s hard on young women — this West, especially if they are pretty like you. But you’ll learn to stand what seems so rough an’ crude now — you’ll fit in, an’ some day love it.... Reckon I speak for all Westerners when I say I just can’t be sorry you came.”

“It’s not so much to me just now — my comfort, my adapting myself to new people and conditions. It is concern for my father. He has responded strangely to Western influences that we knew nothing of. He drinks, he gambles, he makes friends with any and everyone he meets. He leaves me alone at night, as you know. And I am beginning to worry myself sick over what to do.”

“Ah-huh. An’ that’s why you wanted to talk to some one,” replied Kalispel, kindly. “Well, that happens to ‘most every man who comes out here. In your case, Miss Blair, you’ve got just two things to do to keep him from goin’ plumb to hell.”

“Oh! — What are they?” she exclaimed, eagerly.

“You must get hold of his money an’ hang on to it.”

“Yes. I thought of that myself. I can do it.... What’s the other?”

“Let him get to hard work at whatever his heart is set on.”

“It is this gold-mining. Dad is mad about that. Please tell me all about it.”

Kalispel did not need to draw upon imagination or hearsay to acquaint the young woman with the facts. He painted a graphic picture of the hardships, the failures of thousands of gold-seekers to the fortune of one, the rough camp life, the wildness of the gold-diggings. And despite his deliberate sticking to realism, upon the conclusion of his discourse he found himself gazing into such radiant, shining eyes that he was astonished.

“Oh, I would like that!” she cried.

He spread wide his hands, as if to indicate the hopelessness of tenderfeet and his inability to discourage this one. Then suddenly a query flashed into his mind — why not induce Blair and his daughter to go back with him into the mountains and share with him and his brothers the marvelous opportunity there? It struck Kalispel almost mute. He managed to finish his lunch, but his former simplicity and frankness failed him. Fortunately, the girl was so thrilled with the prospect of gold-seeking that she scarcely noticed Kalispel’s lapse into pondering reticence.

Soon they were out on the street again, Kalispel biting his tongue to keep back a rush of eloquence, and Sydney babbling away as if the hour had made them friends.

Halfway to the tavern they encountered Blair. “Sydney, where have you been?” he queried. His face and demeanor betrayed agitation.

“I took Mr. Emerson to lunch,” she replied, gayly. “We had a... Dad, what is the matter?”

“Emerson, you are being hunted all over town,” declared Blair, hastily.

“Ah-huh,” replied Kalispel. His wary eye had noted a circle of men in front of the tavern. On the moment it split to let out Borden and a wide-sombreroed individual with a star prominent upon his vest. Kalispel recognized him and cursed under his breath.

“Blair, take your daughter inside — pronto,” he called, tensely, and striding up the sidewalk, he faced the crowd.

Chapter Three

Borden’s bold front altered manifestly in his swerving aside. The crowd, too, split behind the two men, the larger half going out into the street and the smaller half lining against the walls of the buildings. These significant moves had their effect upon the sheriff. His big bulk appeared less formidably actuated. He slowed down, then halted.

“Howdy, Kalispel,” he called, in a loud voice.

“Not so good, Lowrie,” replied Lee, bitingly, and he stopped within fifteen steps of the sheriff. “Kinda sore these days.”

“You’re under arrest.”

“Say, man! Are you gettin’ dotty in your old age?” rejoined Kalispel, derisively. “You didn’t arrest me in Montana. How can you do it in Idaho?”

“I was sworn in this mornin’.”

“Bah! You can’t bluff me. You couldn’t be sworn in short of Boise.”

“Wal, I’ve been deputized by citizens of Salmon. An’ I’m arrestin’ you an’ takin’ you back to Montana.”

“What for? Throwin’ this dirty skunk, Borden, out of a respectable young woman’s room last night? Where he’d forced himself!... If I know Salmon citizens, they won’t back Borden an’ you for that.”

“No. It’s a case of long standin’.”

“What?” flashed Kalispel, suddenly blazing. “Sing it out so this crowd can hear you. I’ve got friends in this town.”

“Wal, it’s — rustlin’ cattle,” returned Lowrie, hoarsely. All at once he realized that he was skating on thin ice.

Kalispel leaped as if he had been stung. His face flamed red and then turned white.

“I shore did. I admit it. I’m proud of it. But what kind of rustlin’ was that, Hank Lowrie? I helped steal cattle from the outfit who first stole cattle from mine. Why, that kind of rustlin’ is as old as the range! Nothin’ but an exchange of beef!”

“Wal, you followed up thet exchange by spillin’ blood, didn’t you?” queried Lowrie, sarcastically, his little gimlet eyes wavering like a compass needle.

“Forced on me, damn you! An’ you know it. Your lousy K Bar foreman hounded me all day. He was drunk an’ crazy. I had to meet him. At that it was an even break. An’ there’s some decent Montana cowmen who patted me on the back for doin’ it.... I left Montana to save my outfit from fight-in’ on my account.”

“Thet’s your story, but—”

“It’s true,” interrupted Kalispel, in ringing passion. “An’ you’re a liar!”

Borden propelled himself into the argument by advancing a couple of nervous strides and exploding furiously. “Lowrie, are you going to arrest this cowboy beggar?”

“Shore I am,” replied the sheriff, gruffly.

“Like hell you are!” rang out Kalispel, contemptuously. “Handcuff the bully!” shouted Borden, his discolored face ugly with ungovernable fury.

“Shet up,” rasped Lowrie, giving way to more than exasperation. Uncertainty sat visibly upon him.

“Put irons on me? Haw! Haw! That’s funny.... Why, you damn fools! Where is this bluff going to get you?”

“Emerson, I’m arrestin’ you. If you submit peaceful I’ll take you along without irons. We’re goin’ on the noon stage. An’ this time tomorrow you’ll be under the roof of a Montana jail.”

Kalispel believed he had gauged his man correctly. But slowly he froze to the consciousness that he might be wrong and that Lowrie, egged on by Borden and his stand before the gaping crowd, might try to go through with it. Kalispel sank a little in his tracks and stiffened, all except his quivering right hand, now low at his side.

“Lowrie, long before tomorrow you’ll be under the sod — if you press this deal any farther.”

“What! Air you threatenin’ me?” blustered the officer. “No. I’m just tellin’ you.”

Lowrie edged a foot forward.

“Look out!” cried Kalispel, piercingly. Then, as the other became like an upright stone, Kalispel went on, coldly. “Old-timer, if you’d moved your hand then, instead of your foot, it’d been all day with you.”

“What!” bellowed the sheriff. “You’d draw on — me?”

“I’ll kill you!”

Lowrie’s visage turned a livid white. His attitude appeared suggestive of inward collapse. It was plain that he had not expected resistance, let alone a deadly menace that held the spectators rooted in their tracks. A moment of intense suspense passed. Then Kalispel relaxed out of his crouch.

“I had you right, Lowrie. You’re just what they call you in Montana — a blow-hard sheriff, yellow to your gizzard. Now get out of Salmon. If you don’t, an’ I run into you again, you throw a gun or I’ll shoot your leg off.”

“I’m not matchin’ gun-play with a killer,” replied Lowrie, hoarsely.

“No? Then what the hell kind of a sheriff are you in these days? — Rustle now.”

Lowrie wheeled as on a pivot and rapidly strode down the street. Borden backed away as if desirous of losing himself in the crowd.

“Hey, you! Hold on!” called Kalispel.

Borden turned a distorted face expressive of an impotent wrath.

“Did you get a message from me last night?” demanded Kalispel.

“No,” replied Borden, harshly.

“Well, I sent one. An’ here it is.... You steer damn good an’ clear of me.”

“Emerson, you add insult to injury,” fumed Borden, his pale eyes glaring. “Last night you assaulted me for something I was innocent of. A mistake.... I opened the wrong door.... An accident misunderstood by a tenderfoot girl scared out of her—”

“Accident, hell!” shouted Kalispel, just as keen to have the crowd hear as was Borden “You hounded that girl all day yesterday. She told me so. Then late at night you busted into her room. An’ you wouldn’t leave till I heard her an’ went in to drive you out. I should have shot you. Forcin’ yourself into the bedroom of a fine little lady at midnight! My Gawd! what are honest pioneer folks goin’ to think of us Westerners if we stand for the likes of that?... I never learned rotten cuss-words enough on the range to fit you. So I won’t try. But you steer clear of me. If I get the littlest chance in the world, I’ll shoot you.”

Borden hurriedly shouldered his way through the crowd and disappeared. Kalispel stood there at the edge of the sidewalk, running his eyes over the faces turned his way. He espied Blair and his daughter in the entrance of a hallway just opposite his position. The girl’s pale face and wide dark eyes proved that she had seen and heard the encounter with Lowrie and Borden. It had been a bad enough situation without that. Kalispel experienced a sickening reaction. What miserable luck dogged him! What kind of an unfavorable opinion would the girl have of him now? On the moment, when this thought waved hot over him, he glanced back at the hallway. Blair was emerging with his daughter. She was still staring, as if fascinated, at Kalispel, and catching his eye she nodded with a wan little smile. They passed on into the lodging-house. That smile held hope for Kalispel. He stood there on the spot until the crowd dispersed. Then he strode off with the idea forming in mind to hurry his purchases, pack, and leave town before nightfall.

He found that the additional three burros had been acquired for him, but pack-saddles were in the process of repair and would not be finished until the morrow. The fact that the man from whom Kalispel got the burros offered to let him have a horse and saddle on credit put a different light on the journey back to the gold claim. A sure-footed, staunch horse could travel where packed burros could go. He gratefully accepted the offer. And an hour later he was tightening the saddle-girths on a bay horse that he liked.

Gradually the wrath which weighed upon Kalispel wore away. He had moments of dejection when he remembered Sydney Blair, but each time he reasoned away his wild romancings and satisfied himself with having rendered a service to the loveliest and sweetest girl he had ever met.

“Gosh!” he sighed. “If I’d seen her a couple of more times it’d been all day with me.... Maybe so, anyhow.... Well, I owe Borden somethin’. I oughtn’t kill him, just for that.”

Kalispel watched the cloud-ships sailing in shadows along the mountain-sides; he sat a long time on a log while the sunset curtains fell into the valley; he walked on the river bank, listening to the low mellow roar of deep current over rocks. All was certainly not well with him, for these things stirred a new and pervading melancholy.

Finally he returned to town, not forgetting to be his vigilant, wary self. His supplies were all packed and ready to be delivered to his order. Upon leaving the store, Kalispel strolled down the long street as far as the Spread Eagle, and up again on the other side. This was a gesture such as might be expected of him, and which he had made before under like conditions; but this time it did not afford him any satisfaction. To Sydney Blair it would have been the act of a braggart. Kalispel was divided between a longing to see her again and a dread that he might.

He met a number of acquaintances, only one or two of whom evinced any avoidance of him. On the contrary, most of them greeted him cordially. Kalispel felt that he had not done Salmon a bad turn. Lowrie had certainly left town and Borden was conspicuous by his absence.

Kalispel quietly slipped into the lodging-house and up the stairway. A bright light came from Miss Blair’s open door. He heard her talking to her father. The mere sound of her voice had an unaccountable effect upon him. He went into his room, closing the door softly, and stood a moment in the darkness, conscious of a pang. Then he lighted his lamp.

As he turned he espied something white on the floor just inside the threshold. He stared. It was an envelope. Picking it up, Kalispel found it open and unaddressed. A faint perfume assailed his nostrils, and recognizing it, he experienced a swift, strong vibration all through him. With clumsy shaking hands he extracted the folded sheet of paper from the envelope and spread it out in the glare of the lamp. The page appeared to be covered with fine, even, graceful handwriting.

DEAR MR. KALISPEL:

Father and I saw and heard everything. If it had not been you, it would have been a show for us. But I was terrified. I thought you were going to fight them, and I was divided between sudden hate for that pompous, beady-eyed sheriff and fear for you. Not until I was safely here in my room and could think did I realize that you weren’t in much danger. I also found that I had caught a glimpse of the other gentleman’s discolored face, which somehow afforded me a peculiar satisfaction.

However, the purpose of this note is to assure you that I did not believe one word the sheriff said, and — please do not leave town without seeing us again. I feel directly responsible for Borden’s having put the sheriff after you. Likewise I am elated that he failed to arrest you. I want to entreat you, despite this newborn savage something in me, to avoid meeting either of those men, for my sake.

Won’t you have supper with us tonight? You can tell father about gold-mining.

Sincerely,

SYDNEY BLAIR.

Kalispel sagged against the bed and sat down limply. He read the note again. There was no doubting the written words that ran on so firmly and beautifully under his bewildered eyes.

“She didn’t believe that liar,” he whispered, raptly. “She trusts me.... She wants to see me again.... She likes me.... Aw, I’m plumb loco! She’s just a little lady, too fine and kind to let me go off feelin’ sick with shame an’ disgrace.... An’ by Heaven! that’s too good for me!”

Kalispel took a few moments to wash his face and brush his hair, and then, blissfully oblivious of his ragged garb, he went out bareheaded to knock at Miss Blair’s door.

“There he is now,” announced her father. “Come in, Emerson.”

Kalispel presented himself in the doorway, and bowed. “Good evenin’,” he said. “I’ll be happy to have supper with you.”

Miss Blair had changed the brown street dress to one of white and she looked so lovely to Kalispel that the blood rushed back to his heart with a shock.

“Oh, here you are!” she cried gayly, though a vivid blush stained her cheek. “Good evening. I — we feared you had run away — after that sheriff.”

“No. I reckon I’m not much on runnin’. Fact is I shore forgot Lowrie,” drawled Kalispel, growing cool now and sure of himself, conscious that the havoc had been wrought in him and glorying in it. “I’ve been out lookin’ over my burros an’ tryin’ a new saddlehorse.”

“Go on down, Sydney. I’ll catch you,” suggested Blair. “Of course horses are an old story to you,” said the girl as she and Kalispel started down the stairs.

“I reckon. But I’ve never outgrown livin’ that story. Do you ride, Miss Blair?”

“Yes. But I wouldn’t take any prizes for horsemanship,” she rejoined, with a laugh. “I’d love horses if I had a chance. Perhaps here in the West I may find it.”

“How’d you like to ride a horse for days an’ days out into those wild hills? Lonely camp fires at night! Meetin’ never a soul, not even an Indian, on the way! Seein’ deer an’ elk an’ bear so tame they stand to watch you ride by! Two hundred miles almost out into these beautiful mountains — an’ then a valley like one in a dream — where you can scoop up gold by the handful!”

She turned in the yellow flare of the tavern light to look at him.

“Heavens! Don’t torment me!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “But you’re not teasing. You’re serious.... Oh, I would be mad with joy!”

Blair caught up with them before Kalispel could find a reply for Sydney’s astonishing response.

“Emerson, I gather that the less said to you about today’s little fracas the better,” remarked Blair. “So all I’ll say is that it tickled me. And it might not displease you to learn that at least a dozen men spoke to me about it — to your credit. Lowrie is partial to Morman cattlemen, I hear. And Borden is not liked any too well in Salmon.”

“Ah-huh.... Well, I reckon it’d be kind of hard to displease me this minute,” replied Kalispel, with a laugh.

They entered the crowded restaurant, where a miner gave up his table to them. Kalispel saw every man in that place before he followed the Blairs to their seats. Sydney was about to take the seat facing the room, when Kalispel intercepted her with a smile.

“Excuse me, Lady,” he drawled, coolly. “Reckon you had better let me sit here. Maybe it’s not strict etiquette, but it’s important. You see — there are some poor devils who can’t sit with their backs to a door.”

“Oh — really?” she returned, blankly, and then suddenly she understood. Her color paled, and when she took the chair he held for her it was with downcast eyes.

“Blair, I reckon I want to pay for this supper,” said Kalispel. “It’s my turn.”

“I’ll match you for it,” replied Blair.

“Gosh! you’re lucky. I’d hate to match you for a bag of gold nuggets.”

“I hope you get the chance,” declared Blair, gayly. “Sydney has been raving about your talk.”

“Yeah? — She didn’t strike me as particular enthusiastic.”

“Kalispel Emerson, that’s not true,” interposed the girl, with a doubtful look at him.

“Wal, I mean from my side of the fence,” he rejoined, lamely. “Here’s our waitress. Let’s order. An’ for me it’s to be a meal I’ll remember.... But not for what I eat.” Presently, with the orders given, they were free to talk. “Emerson, what have you been putting into my girl’s head?” queried Blair.

Kalispel leaned his elbow on the table and looked across at Sydney. She met his glance, and a little by-play he had intended to be teasing developed into the thoughtful look of man and girl in whom some magic current had leaped from hidden springs. It decided Kalispel to make a reality of the wild dream he had cherished.

“Blair,” he began, turning to him, “it’ll cost you about fifty dollars for two horses an’ saddles. An’ about a hundred for supplies, beddin’, tent for Miss Sydney, an’ other stuff, not includin’ trail clothes, guns, an’ such. Say, an outlay of two hundred dollars at the most.”

“Yes?...You certainly are a sudden fellow. What are you drivin’ at?”

“Would you risk so much on the chance of a gold claim where you can dig your two-hundred-dollar investment in one day?”

“Emerson, are you serious?”

“I reckon. Never more in my life. This is serious, for me.... I said — in one day!”

Blair turned to his daughter. “Sydney, is our newfound Western friend panning out like the others?”

“No, Dad. He’s honest,” she replied, in hurried directness.

Her bright, shining eyes did not need that warm, fascinated regard to complete Kalispel’s undoing.

“No offense, Emerson,” said Blair. “I was joking, of course. All the same, I’d take you or your word on Sydney’s say-so any day.”

“Thanks, Blair.... But — Miss Sydney — do you give him your say-so?” rejoined Kalispel, earnestly, and again he met the eloquent eyes.

“Yes.”

“You trust — me?”

“I do trust you.”

“But I’m a stranger. I’ve admitted I’m a bad hombre. You’ve had evidence of — of my wild range life.”

“Are you trying to undermine the — the—”

“No. I only want to be sure. I reckon it’s a pretty wonderful thing for me.”

“I am out West now,” she countered. But her eyes were intense.

“Meanin’ you must level yourself to us Westerners. That’s true.... But if you really mean what you said — if you can believe me worth makin’ a friend of — wal, I’ll put something wonderful in the way of you an’ your father.”

“I do trust you — and I will go with you,” she returned, paling again.

“That makes this hour the biggest of my life,” declared Kalispel, stern yet radiant. “Now listen,” and he bent over the table to whisper. “Not many days ago my two brothers an’ I struck gold over here in a valley of the Saw Tooth Mountains. It is rich diggins. There’ll be a million in gold dust panned out of that valley, an’ no tellin’ how much from the quartz lode.... We left Sam there. My brother Jake has gone to Boise to sell a half interest in our quartz mine. We’re askin’ one hundred thousand. I am here to pack in supplies. We planned to keep the strike secret as long as possible. That won’t be very long. Such strikes leak out. There’ll be the wildest gold stampede Idaho ever saw. But we’ll have time to clean up a fortune before the rush.”

“My word!” ejaculated Blair, incredulously. “Great! You sound like a book! No wonder you upset poor Sydney!”

“Blair, will you pack in there with me?” asked Kalispel. “Will I? — Say, do you mean accept a chance like this — on an outlay of a few hundred dollars?”

“I reckon that’s what I mean.”

“You don’t want to sell me a claim — or get backing?”

“No. An’ I don’t aim to knock you in the head an’ steal your money, which is precisely what Pritchard an’ his pards would do if they couldn’t get it any other way.”

“Then why offer strangers such a wonderful opportunity?” asked Blair, gravely.

“There’s more gold than we can ever dig — an’ the idea appeals to me.”

“Have you fallen in love with my daughter?”

“Oh — Dad!” gasped Sydney. A burning blush obliterated the whiteness of her face. “How perfectly terrible of you!” She tried to hide the hot cheeks with her hands. “Kalispel — please don’t — mind his rudeness.”

Kalispel suffered for her poignant embarrassment, but the feeling was nothing compared to the torment of his own emotions. He had laid a trap for himself. He wanted to base this whole interview and offer upon his honesty, his sincerity.

“Blair, you call my hand — pretty hard,” he replied, with strong agitation. “I — I reckon I have... but I mean I never knew it till this minute.... That needn’t make any difference to you an’ Miss Sydney.”

“Hell! as you Westerners say,” exclaimed Blair, frankly. “You needn’t apologize for it. Lord knows I’m used to men falling in love with Sydney. She had three proposals on the way out here. Sudden? Say, one of them was on a stagecoach. It came from a man as big as a hill, with a voice like a bull. He was a rancher. But he was bluff and honest.... You had to like him.... I’ve made up my mind that Sydney will be a disturbing element out here in the West.”

“Any girl is that, I’m proud to say,” replied Kalispel. “But Miss Sydney will create havoc wherever she goes.”

“Is that a cowboy compliment?” demanded the girl, lifting her face to look at him with inscrutable eyes.

“I reckon I meant it so.”

“Listen, young folks,” interposed Blair, good-humoredly. “First Kalispel takes my breath away. And then Sydney confronts me again with the awful responsibility of having her on my hands.”

“Dad, that isn’t nice!” she protested.

“Well, where are we? Sydney, we’ve just had a magnificent offer to make our fortunes. With no strings on it!... But does this perfectly natural and perhaps unfortunate state Emerson finds himself in make any difference to you?”

“I am amazed — and sorry if it is true — which of course it really can’t be,” she replied, haltingly, her gaze falling. “But in any case, Dad, if you are really so keen to dig gold — it need not make any difference.”

“Fine! Sydney, you are a thoroughbred.... We’ll go! — Kalispel, shake on the deal.”

“Wait. I’ve a little more to tell,” returned Kalispel, deep stirred. “Here’s my story. I was born on a farm in Missouri. My mother died when I was little. My father married again. I wasn’t happy after that. When I was fourteen I ran away from home. Joined a wagon-train. At Laramie, Wyomin’, I got in a fight an’ left the wagon-train. I’d been used to horses all my life an’ naturally I became a cowboy. I rode all over Wyomin’, in some of the hardest outfits on the ranges. Then I drifted to Montana, an’ the same applied there. My quickness with guns, my propensity to get in trouble, especially over some girl, earned me a name I wish I could shake.... That range-ridin’ of mine lasted ten years. I’m nearin’ twenty-seven now. My brothers Sam an’ Jake had been prospectin’ gold in Montana. They got wind of my shootin’-scrape at Kalispel, an’ they hunted me up, an’ persuaded me to quit the ranges. So I went with them, an’ after long discouraging months we made this strike over here in the mountains.... I can’t see anything but a fortune for all of us. Wal, when I get mine, I’ll buy a ranch. I have the place picked out up the Salmon, a beautiful valley where the river makes a bend, an’ there are groves an’ lines of trees, long low slopes for cattle grazin’, an’ in short, just the most amazin’ wonderful ranch in the West. I’ll settle in there an’ live down this Kalispel name.... Now that’s about all to tell. I just wanted you to know.”

“Emerson, I appreciate your frankness and confidence,” said Blair, warmly. “You didn’t say so, but I gather that you’re not so black as you were painted.... And here’s my hand.”

Sydney offered hers without hesitation. Kalispel could only press the soft little hand in his. In that moment he could not trust his utterance. —

“I thank you, too,” she said, softly. “I’m sure I understand your wish to tell us. This West must indeed be a savage, bloody country. But even if you had been wilder than you intimated — that ‘would not mean anything to me. It is what you are now!”

Kalispel’s heart swelled with the contact of her hand and the significance of her words. The future seemed to beckon with enchanted promise. After all the lean, hard, wasteful years he had his chance for all a man could work and fight for.

“We don’t appear to be hungry,” concluded Kalispel. “Let’s go back to the hotel an’ plan. We absolutely must keep secret your goin’ with me. That’d excite suspicion. Pritchard an’ his outfit would follow us. You must let me buy everythin’ except maybe clothes for Miss Sydney.”

“You certainly are not going to buy them,” she replied, laughingly. “But you may give me hints about boots, overalls, gloves, sombrero.... Oh! what fun!... Dad, I’m reminding you that this adventure came through me.”

Kalispel turned often in his saddle to look back down the winding river road. Certain events the last day in Salmon had convinced him that Pritchard and his cronies had somehow found out he was taking the Blairs with him. But this was late in the second day of the journey and there had been no sign of men on their trail.

Blair lagged behind, changing from one side of the saddle to the other. He was rather heavy and unused to horseback. Now and then he got off to walk a little. Sydney rode ahead, driving the burros. Already she was a surprising success. Young, strong, supple, and vividly elated with this adventure, she made play and romance of what was really hard work. Then her appearance alone had transformed the world for Lee. In a light sombrero, with her dark hair hanging in a braid, and wearing red scarf, buckskin blouse, fringed gauntlets, overalls, and boots like any Western girl, to Kalispel she was an object of adoration.

If anything, she drove the heavily-laden burros a little too fast. But Kalispel, having reproved her once over some trifle, did not care to risk it again. She could do anything she chose, just so long as she did not drive the burros into the river or endanger her life or limb.

Before sunset that day they arrived at the widening of the valley and the ranch Kalispel had decided would be his some day. He particularly wanted to get Sydney’s opinion of the place, and to that end he tried to keep from talking about it. Nevertheless, even before she had dismounted, something she said, or the way she looked, prompted him to transgress.

“Wal, Lady, look the ranch over, ‘cause — who knows — you might be mistress of it some day,” he drawled, in cool audacity, though he carefully avoided her eyes.

He heard her catch her breath, and then, a little too long afterward to seem convincing, she uttered a silvery peal of laughter. It jarred on Kalispel, until he reflected that he deserved just such a rebuke.

During the camp tasks she was as helpful as on the preced-ing night, but she made no response to his several remarks and he observed that she held her chin pretty high. He wondered what she would do when, sooner or later, something happened to frighten her. That time would surely come. The girl had scarcely any conception of what lay in store for her.

The sun went down in golden splendor that evening. Kalispel could not have ordered a sunset more calculated to enhance the natural beauty of that impressive bend in the river and the slow-swelling slopes of silver to the gold-fired peaks. A troop of deer stalked out of the woods to stand on a gravel bar, and a flock of ducks winged swift flight along the shimmering water. Kalispel was quick to call Sydney’s attention to the wild element that made the picture perfect. If she deigned to look, she certainly did not make any comment. After supper she stole away to disappear along the river bank. Kalispel had the satisfaction, presently, of feeling that she would indeed have to be blind to miss the extraordinary afterglow of sunset.

The expanding, slow-moving clouds spread a canopy of burning rose over the scene. And the valley filled with clear lilac light that seemed more enchantment than reality. Diamonds of rose shone on the willows, and the winding river slid along, murmuring and singing, mirroring the blaze from the sky and the fading purple of the slopes.

Dusk fell on the valley floor, while high on the black-fringed, white-capped peaks the gold still lingered. The lowing of the cattle, the raucous he-haw of a burro, the baa-baa of sheep broke the solitude and kept the wilderness from laying its mantle over the valley.

Kalispel put up Sydney’s little tent and unrolled her blankets inside, then went over to renew acquaintance with the settler. He was to learn that he might take a shorter route to the Middle Fork, and save miles farther on a trail cut into the hills on the west side of the Salmon, and thirty miles over the hills graded down into a valley called The Cove. From this point the trail followed down Camus Creek to the Middle Fork. The settler assured Kalispel that he would have no difficulty working his way up the Middle Fork as far as he cared to go. The valley boxed here and there into canyons, but these could be traversed by fording the river.

When Kalispel returned to camp, the fire had burned low, and as the Blairs were not in evidence he concluded they had gone to bed. He unrolled his own blankets back near the road so that in case any riders came along they would surely awaken him.

He was up at dawn and had the horses and pack-animals in, and breakfast ready by the time the sun burst red up the cleft in the valley. Blair rolled out, lame and sore, but cheerfully grumbling, and he gasped at the ice-cold water.

“Say, what a morning!” ejaculated Blair as he ferociously used a towel on face and hands. “This isn’t water! It’s ice.... Enough to make a man out of me!... Have you called Sydney?”

“Reckon I’d better risk it,” replied Kalispel, anxiously, and making a bold front before the little tent he called out, lustily: “Miss Blair!... Miss Blair! — come an’ get it!” No answer. After a moment he tried again, louder. “Miss Sydney!” Receiving no reply, he shouted, “Hey, you Sydney!” And as that elicited no response, he yelled, bravely, “Hey, Syd!”

A moment’s rather pregnant silence was finally broken by a clear, cold, wide-awake voice. “Mr. Emerson, are you calling me?”

“I reckon — I was,” replied Kalispel, confusedly.

“What do you want?”

“Wal, the fact is it’s long past time to get up. Breakfast is waitin’ — nice buckwheat cakes an’ maple syrup. Here’s some hot water I’ll set by your tent. An’ the horses are waitin’!”

“Oh, is that all?” she inquired, slightingly.

“Wal, not exactly all,” he drawled. “I’m shore powerful keen to see you again in that spankin’ cowgirl outfit.”

As he had calculated, this speech surely suppressed her. He dispatched his breakfast before Blair was half finished, and was saddling the horses when Sydney appeared. She deigned him a rather formal good morning, but to her father she was gay and voluble. Kalispel went on serenely with his work, somehow divining this glorious morning that all was well. Sydney did not come near him. She studiously averted her face when occasion made his approach necessary, but when he was quite distant, then her dark glance sought him and hung upon his movements. In less than an hour he was packed and ready to go.

Blair had to mount his horse from a stone. But Sydney swung herself up, lithe and agile. Then Kalispel took advantage of the moment to approach her.

“Did you tighten your cinch?” he asked, casually.

“Oh, I forgot. I’ll get off an’ do it.”

“Didn’t I tell you always to feel your cinch before climbin’ on?”

“Yes, I believe you did, Mr. Emerson,” she replied, curtly, and the dark eyes lowered coolly upon him.

“Wal, why didn’t you, then? Shore I don’t care if your saddle slips an’ you get a spill. But you hate so to be taken for a tenderfoot. An’ some day we’ll be meetin’ people.”

“Pray don’t concern yourself.”

“Will you move your leg, please, an’ let me tighten this cinch?... Wal, it shore was loose. Do you know a horse is smart? He’ll swell himself up when you saddle him.... There, I reckon that will hold.”

Kalispel transferred his hand to the pommel of her saddle and gave it a shake, after the habit of horsemen, then he let it rest there and looked up at her.

“Are you havin’ a nice time?”

“Lovely, thank you,” she replied, with averted face.

“Do you want our ride to last for days?”

“I’m not tired of the ride — as yet,” she returned, distantly.

“Sydney.”

“Were you not in a hurry to start?” she queried, icily.

“I made you angry with that fool speech. Please forgive me.”

“You are quite mistaken, Mr. Emerson.”

“Tell me, Sydney,” he implored. “Don’t you like this place? Couldn’t it be made a wonderful ranch — an’ a beautiful home?”

Then she turned to look down into his eyes.

“It has not struck me particularly,” she replied. “There have been pretty places all along the river.”

“Aw!” he exclaimed, in bitter disappointment, and he wheeled to his horse.

Soon Kalispel faced the winding strip of road, the shining river, the notch of the valley; and the vigilant habit of looking back reasserted itself. Two hours of leisurely travel passed. According to landmarks he had been told to look for, he was approaching the point where he soon must strike off the road on the trail to The Cove. He had spied the green-willowed mouth of a gully in the hills and felt relieved that soon he would be leaving the river, when, upon looking back a last time, he espied three horsemen with pack-animals not far behind.

Kalispel was in the lead. He reined his horse and let the string of burros pass by. Blair caught up with him, and lastly the reluctant Sydney.

“Slow today, eh? Not steppin’ high an’ handsome like yesterday,” gibed Kalispel.

“You took the lead, so I fell behind,” replied the girl.

“Wal, you can go ahead now, ‘cause if my eyes don’t fool me I’m in for trouble,” retorted Kalispel.

“Trouble? — What do you mean?” she rejoined, quickly.

“Emerson! There are three horsemen coming. Are they following us?” ejaculated Blair, anxiously.

The three riders came on at a trot. Their seat in the saddle, their garb and general appearance, proclaimed to Kalispel’s experienced eye that they were Westerners. In a few moments more he recognized the leader and had no doubt as to the identity of the other two.

“Just as I figured,” muttered Kalispel, angrily.

“Who are they, Emerson?” asked Blair, hurriedly.

“Pritchard an’ his pards.”

“Oh!” cried Sydney.

“Blair, go on with your girl till I catch up.”

“I don’t want to do that, Emerson,” rejoined Blair, nervously. “I ought to stick with you.... Do you think they mean violence?... Sydney, you ride on.”

“I shall not,” she declared.

“Blair, drag her horse to one side — pronto!” ordered Kalispel, sharply.

He slid out of his saddle and blocked the road. The approaching trio slowed to a trot, then a walk, and finally halted in front of Kalispel. Pritchard’s lean, gray visage needed no speech to confirm Kalispel’s suspicion.

Chapter Four

“HOWDY, KALISPEL,” CALLED the gambler, coolly, making a point of deliberately lighting a cigarette. “Have you turned road-agent, along with your other accomplishments?”

“Now I got you placed, Pritchard,” snapped Kalispel. “I set in a game with you once at Butte. An’ my pardner reckoned you slick with the cards.”

“Case of mistaken identity,” returned the other, puffing a cloud of smoke. Evidently he thought he had the situation in hand. His companions sat nervously in their saddles. “I ain’t denyin’ any compliments about my game. Those days if a man wasn’t slick with the cairds he’d be a lamb among wolves.... Are you holdin’ us up?”

“I reckon you’re trailin’ me.”

“Wrong again. Haskell an’ Selby here are goin’ to Challis with me.”

“You’re a liar, Pritchard.”

“Wal, I’m not arguin’ the case with you, Kalispel. If you’ll let us pass we’ll ride on, mindin’ our own business.”

Kalispel concluded that it would be a wise move on his part to let the trio get ahead. Pritchard manifestly would avoid a clash, but there was little doubt that he wanted to keep track of the Blairs.

“Pritchard, you an’ your pards mozey along. An’ don’t make the mistake to come slippin’ along on my back trail again,” snapped Kalispel, and strode aside to let the restive pack-animals and saddle-horses go by.

“Blair,” called Pritchard as he rode on, “you’ll regret exchangin’ our deal for whatever this cowboy has sprung on you.”

“All right, Pritchard,” replied Blair. “It couldn’t be much worse than yours and it’s my business.”

“Wal, we wasn’t after your girl, anyway. You’ll wake up some mornin’ to find her gone.”

Kalispel was not of a caliber to let that gibe pass. He concluded that the whistle of a bullet by the gambler’s ear would be more effective for the future than any verbal threat. Whereupon he whipped out his gun and took a snap shot at the top of Pritchard’s high-crowned sombrero. He knocked it off, too. The horses plunged. The man on the off side shouted: “Rustle, you damn fool! Thet fellar is rank poison.” Pritchard did not even look back, let alone halt to get his sombrero. He spurred after his galloping comrades, who already had the pack-horses on the run. Kalispel flipped his gun and, sheathing it, he walked forward to pick up the gambler’s hat. The bullet had cut a furrow across the crown. Returning, he hung the sombrero on the pommel of Blair’s saddle.

“Just to show you I wasn’t intendin’ him any hurt,” he said. “But I ought to have shot his leg off. Reckon I was mad enough to.... Blair, they were followin’ us as shore as you’re born. But it hasn’t struck them yet that we’re turnin’ off into the mountains pronto. They’ll find out, though, an’ if they track us again there’ll be real trouble. I’m dam sorry. For two bits I’d call the deal off with you. If I had the money I’d pay you what—”

“See here, Kalispel,” interrupted Blair, earnestly, “this incident didn’t please me, but I’m getting hunches, as you call them. If Sydney and I have to get used to these nice gentle ways you Westerners have — well, I think we’re lucky to be with you. That’s all.”

“It’s pretty straight talk. But look at Sydney’s face.”

That sweet face had indeed not recovered from the fright of the meeting and Kalispel’s sudden termination of it.

“A little pale around the gills,” laughed Blair. “Why, boy, three days ago she would have fainted! Sydney’s doing fine.”

“I shore say so, too. But with me it’s a question of what she thinks.” Kalispel stepped close to Sydney’s horse and looked up at her. “Girl, for a tenderfoot you’ve got nerve. I admire you heaps.... But if you’ve got the littlest doubt of me I won’t go on with this deal. I’m askin’ you to be plumb honest.”

“Doubt of — you?” she asked, tremulously.

“Yes. You heard what that hombre said. I reckon my deal with you an’ your father does look kind of fishy. It’s not too late to turn back. If you go on into the wilds with me you couldn’t find your way back.”

“I don’t want to turn back. I told you I trusted you.”

“Wal, I’m not shore ya do. You hardly spoke to me this momin’.”

His simplicity might have been responsible for the break in her gravity. At any rate, she flushed and smiled.

“After all, I have to obey Dad,” she said. “And he seems to swear by you.”

“All flatterin’ enough. But your dad hasn’t a ghost of a show to see these gold-diggin’s unless you swear by me, too.”

“That’s asking a great deal, Mr. Kalispel.”

“What do you think of me?” demanded Kalispel, stubbornly.

“Well, if you compel me — I think you are a devil and a flirt.”

“Aw — Miss Sydney!” burst out Kalispel, in dismay.

“And very impudent — and inclined to be conceited — and an atrocious cook — and a domineering fellow — and a bloodthirsty Westerner — and—”

“Wal, the deal is off,” interrupted Kalispel, throwing up his hands.

“But I willingly trust my honor and my life in your hands,” she concluded, changing from jest to earnest.

Kalispel felt the hot blood smart in his weather-beaten neck and face. Unconsciously he had demanded the very answer she had granted, but now that it was delivered he seemed to have overstepped himself again.

“Sydney, I just had to know,” he returned, huskily. “I’m the doubtin’ one. An’ I shore don’t deserve your kindness, though I swear I do your trust.... So now if you say we’ll ride on — wal, we’ll ride.”

She betrayed sympathy for him and evidently appreciated the complex situation. He was proud, sensitive, fiery, and would not tolerate any word against himself, yet had confessed grave faults and facts.

“Let us ride on, and be friends,” she said, simply.

Kalispel found the burros resting under the cottonwoods. Little danger of them straying or traveling along without being driven! Far ahead at the bend of the road slight clouds of dust marked the progress of Pritchard and his men. They were already well out of sight. This fact, however, meant little to Kalispel, for he felt sure that they would not abandon the track of the Blairs. He would encounter them again sooner or later, and not improbably the issue would be serious. But he had no fears that they would ever track him as far as the gold-diggings.

Presently he came to the mouth of a gully out of which flowed a brook. An old trail seldom traveled followed the watercourse. It led up gradually, winding through groves of cottonwoods and copses of willow, to emerge into a wide valley. This was open country, the haunt of elk and deer. The trail led up the rolling slopes to a forest of pines. The Blairs kept Kalispel in sight, but when they caught up with him on top of the divide, where he decided to camp, they were pretty weary and quiet.

It was cold up there. Patches of snow showed under the pines. Kalispel’s first task was to build a fire for his companions, after which he plunged into his duties with a will. Blair, lame as he was, lent a hand, but Sydney sat before the fire, a rather weary and dejected girl. To unsaddle and hobble the horses and unpack the burros took only a few minutes, as likewise the pitching of Sydney’s tent, but when it came to preparation of the supper, Kalispel was slow and deliberate. Sydney’s remark as to his status as a cook rankled in Kalispel. It was impossible for her not to observe his care, especially as she was obviously hungry. Blair frankly came out with the fact that he would “starve pronto.” When presently Kalispel served them he had no misgivings about this supper. At its conclusion Sydney lifted her dark eyes and murmured: “I’m sorry I said you were a poor cook. I suppose — when you get your ranch back there on the river — you will not want any woman to do your cooking.”

Blair laughed heartily at that cryptic bit of flattery, but Kalispel was nonplused and bewildered. He had never been very successful in understanding girls, and this one was wholly beyond him. What had she meant by that? Not want any woman! Was she telling him that he could never get her or that she would like to be the woman? Kalispel pondered it a moment.

“Wal, since you tax me, I’ll say that I’ll never want a Lemhi squaw or a bronco-bustin’ cowgirl to cook for me.”

The night bade fair to be a cold one. Kalispel heated a stone and wrapped it in a canvas for Sydney to put at her feet. He and Blair did not make a very good night of it. Off and on he was up replenishing the fire, and welcomed the gray dawn. Sydney was up before sunrise and declared she had slept snug and warm. —

They were all that day riding down through the pines to The Cove. It was a big round basin of several thousand acres, surrounded by bold bluffs and high mountains. They camped on Camus Creek, and next morning following the rushing stream down into a rugged canyon, which augmented its characteristics until it grew to be a magnificent chasm with great colored cliffs, eddying pools and foaming rapids, intersecting brooks that trembled white over the banks to swell the Camus, long gullies splitting the stupendous walls up to the black patches of lodge-pole pines, huge caverns hollowed out by wind and water, grassy and fern-clad benches where white goats watched the intruders go by down the trail.

For some reason beyond Kalispel’s ken, Sydney rode directly behind him most of the way down this canyon, and she plied him with innumerable questions. And at many a place, where the stream roared over a fall or the pines and flowers and shade invited rest, or a beautiful glade opened up she would say: “Let’s camp here. It’s too lovely to pass by.”

And Kalispel would say: “Ride your hoss, lady. This shore is no picnic.”

“But if I was particularly crazy about a place, wouldn’t you stop?”

“Wal, I reckon so, if you could persuade me you could be crazy about anyone — I mean thing.”

“Oh!” she replied, enigmatically.

Blair had a bad trip. He was so saddle-sore that he had to spend more and more time walking. The trail led up and down, endlessly, and it was rough, and in spots, dangerous.

Before sunset the bronze-walled canyon with its pine-fringed rims opened out into a wider and grander canyon from which came a low sullen roar.

“Hear that?” called Kalispel, turning to Sydney.

“Do you think I’m deaf? Oh, it makes my skin prickle.”

“That’s the roar of the Middle Fork,” declared Kalispel. “An’ dog-gone me! I’m shore afraid the meltin’ snow has raised the river.”

“Will we have to swim our horses across?”

“Gosh! I wish we could. But the danger is we’ll have three or four feet of swift water slidin’ over slippery rocks. An’ if a hoss rolls with you — good-by!”

“Heavens!... I should think you’d want to keep me with you a little while, anyway.”

“Sydney, I don’t savvy you,” he retorted. “But I’m tellin’ you I’d shore love to keep you with me always.”

“Yes? And you’re so wondrously brave with men.... Oh, the river! beautiful! — How wide and green and swift!... Dare we ever try to ford that?”

“We shore have to. But not here,” replied Kalispel, his keen eyes ranging the canyon.

Camus Creek spread wide and shallow over yellow ledges to flow into the river. At this junction the Middle Fork was twice as wide as the Salmon, and presented a thrilling and formidable spectacle, roaring around a dark-walled bend to slide green and hurrying onward, down under a colossal bronze-faced mountain wall into a purple gateway beyond. On the Camus Creek side sage-covered benches sloped down to banks where tall lofty pine trees bordered the river. The whole scene had a bigness and roughness that emphasized this opening into the wild Saw Tooth Range.

They forded the Camus to climb a sage-bench, from which a view of the vast, smooth, grassy slopes on the left, swelling and mounting to gold-mantled peaks, capped the climax of that splendid wilderness scene.

“I’m going to camp right here,” declared Sydney, and she dismounted.

“Alone?” queried her guide, smiling.

“But it’s sunset. We’ve come so far. Dad is ready to drop. And I — oh, I’ve deceived you. I’m ready to die.”

“Shore a couple more miles up river won’t kill you.”

“Kalispel, have you no heart?”

“Reckon I did have one awhile back. Come, pile on again, Lady.”

“Don’t you love beautiful places? Oh, I’m disappointed in you. Won’t you camp here — to please me?”

“Wal, if you put it that strong I reckon I will,” he drawled.

“Fact is I’d camped here, anyhow. I just wanted you to coax me.”

“Indeed! — I wonder if my trust is misplaced.”

“Quién sabe,” he ended, sagely.

“Go away,” she waved. “I’ll take care of my horse.”

To Kalispel’s amaze and secret glee she not only unsaddled her mount, but hobbled him, too. She must have watched Kalispel at this task, for she executed it neatly. She scolded her father and drove him out to fetch in firewood. And then she essayed to help Kalispel at his manifold camp tasks.

“Dog-gone it! Get out of my way,” he ejaculated, mildly. “How do you expect me to get supper pronto?”

“But I want to help,” she protested.

“Wal, you’re terrible disturbin’.”

“How? I’m certainly not clumsy.”

“Gosh! You’re gracefulness itself. I reckon it’s your good looks.”

“Nonsense! You should be used to my looks by now.... Please, Kalispel, let me learn. It fascinates me — the way you mix dough for biscuits.”

And she plumped herself down on her knees beside him, and rolling up her sleeves to expose strong round arms, she put her hands with his into the pan.

“Take yours out,” she said, presently.

“Reckon I can’t. They’re fast.”

She giggled. “Was there ever such a man? — You are holding mine.”

“So I am. Dog-gone!... Sydney, if you don’t want me to love you, this is no way to act.”

“We must eat, little boy. And I must learn to be a camp cook.... And for that matter a — ranch cook.”

“Yeah? — If I had any nerve—”

“Kalispel, never fear. You are the nerviest person I ever met in my whole life.”

“With men an’ guns, you mean?”

“I mean with helpless, innocent, trusting, tenderfoot girls,” she retorted. “The proof is in the pudding. No, the dough! You are still holding my hands.”

Kalispel surrendered and removed his floury hands from the pan.

“You ab-so-lute-lee don’t want me to love you?” he asked, sternly.

“I ab-so-lute-lee don’t,” she mimicked.

“Well, you bake the biscuits — an’ be a murderer in another way,” he said, and got up.

Supper was late that night. Neither Kalispel nor Blair appeared to note that the biscuits were burnt and soggy. Kalispel heroically made way with several.

The wide canyon with its dark sky-high walls was an impressive place. The Blairs sat up for an hour around the camp fire.

“You’re gettin’ a touch of the real wild West here,” remarked Kalispel. “But the lonesomeness, an’ that strange feeling for which there’s no name, don’t grip your soul here like they will over in my valley. The voice of the stream is different. Wolves mourn on the slopes. An’ the old mountain thunders.”

“Thunders! How can a mountain thunder? Is it a volcano?” rejoined Sydney, greatly interested.

“I can’t say how it thunders, but it does. Makes you shiver when you wake up in the middle of the night. It’s the mountain on the north side of the valley. Twice as high as that an’ amazin’ to see. The whole front of it is a mile-high slope of many colors, bare as weathered earth can be. A terrible slant of loose dirt an’ gravel an’ clay. Seems like it is alive an’ growls deep inside.”

“Uh! Sounds kind of spooky,” declared Sydney.

“Reckon you’ve hit it, spooky!”

Next morning Kalispel rounded up the stock in the gray of dawn and had his party on the way early. The trail leading up the river was not so well defined as the one they had been following. In some places of rocky foundations it disappeared altogether. But the travel was fairly good and almost level, so that the little caravan made perhaps three miles an hour.

Kalispel soon called the attention of the Blairs to a tremendous slope of weathered rock on the other side of the river. It was a slide of talus so high that the ledge from which the mass of loose shale and rock had eroded could not be located from below. Deer and elk and bear trails bisected it low down. It terminated, not many rods below, in a rough white rapid that swept quickly into a deep eddy. If a horse was carried that far he could not scale the steep bluff of rock and would unquestionably be lost in the heavy rapids below.

They plunged on. The icy cold water splashed up in Kalispel’s face. Sydney had not yet realized actual danger. Then suddenly her horse slipped. The water surged up to her saddle. She shrieked and appeared about to throw herself off.

“Stay on!” yelled Kalispel. The animal righted himself. “Pull him downstream a little.”

“I thought I — was a gone gosling then,” she called, and turned a startled face toward him.

“You’re doin’ fine.... Not much more now. We’ll make it.”

He kicked and spurred his own mount, that was scarcely doing better than Sydney’s. And they entered the bad stretch, slanted a little downstream. Kalispel urged his horse on ahead and closer-to hers.

“Give me your hand,” he shouted, reaching precariously for her. And he caught hers just in the nick of time, for her horse went down and rolled. Kalispel dragged the girl free from the saddle. His own animal labored, slipped, plunged and snorted furiously. Sydney’s weight in the racing current was too great. Besides, the current pulled her head under. Kalispel dragged her up, caught her blouse, and would have succeeded in drawing her across his pommel, but his horse fell. Kalispel swung his leg and slid off. He went almost under. Then with his boots touching the bottom he drew Sydney’s head out of the water, and leaning back against the current he used it to hold him up and push him along while he edged toward the shore. When he was about to be carried off his feet a boulder helped again to catch him. By accurate calculation and prodigious effort he reached the shallow water just above the rapid.

He lifted the girl in his arms, and staggering over the slippery stones he gained the bank and laid her down on a mat of pine needles. She was conscious and not in any way harmed.

Kalispel stood erect to gaze upstream to see how Blair had fared. To his relief the big horse was wading out in the shallow water. Both the other horses, unencumbered with riders, were doing likewise. The burros were already out on the bank.

“Lucky! Wal, I guess!” exclaimed Kalispel as he knelt beside the girl.

“Sydney, it was a close call.... How are you?”

“Frozen — stiff,” she whispered.

“No wonder. Gee! Wasn’t that water cold? I’ll have a fire in a jiffy.... Shore you’ve no hurts?”

Her wet face was pallid and her great violet eyes beginning to lose their dark shade of terror.

“You saved — my life,” she said, in wondering gratitude.

“Sydney, shore we both dam near went over the rapids.... An’ that would have been all day.”

She smiled wanly and clung to him. “I’m sorry I said that — last night.... You know — about what I didn’t want — you to do.... It isn’t true.”

Next morning Kalispel found the trail he and Jake had made with their burros coming down off the mountain. He rejoiced. Somehow a vague fear had attended him. Now all was well. He had but to travel slowly and husband the strength of the Blairs, and in four days, or less, he would be back with Sam in the valley of gold. He had no fear that his generous-hearted brother might resent the coming of Blair and Sydney. Sam was right, however, in wanting a month or more of staking claims and digging gold before the stampede came. Eventually a stampede was inevitable.

Kalispel did not trifle with his happiness by importuning Sydney about her shy confession. That had been enough to lift him to the seventh heaven. She seemed to be a girl of an infinite variety of moods, the last of which, since the river episode, was one of shyness and reserve. She no longer teased him or made ambiguous remarks or met his worshipful eyes. Moreover, the strain of the strenuous horseback ride had begun to tell upon her. That night, high up on the windy, grassy hilltop, at the end of the day’s climb, she said: “Lift me down, Kalispel.”

The next day provided easier travel, owing to a winding trail around the slopes of the round bald mountains. He found, too, that he was getting on faster than he had expected. The horses made half again as much progress as he and Jake had made on foot.

Toward the middle of the afternoon of the third day Kalispel ascertained that they were almost over the divide, from the ridge of which they could look right down upon Sam’s valley.

He had dreamed a good deal this last day, so that the hours had been as minutes. A thousand times he had glanced back to make sure Sydney’s slender graceful form was a reality, that the pensive face with its dark, challenging eyes was there to gladden his sight. And many of those times had been rewarded by a smile, a gleam or flash, or wave of gauntleted hand, something sweet to enhance his dream. Love, fortune, happiness were within his grasp. And he would gaze about him, over the vast spread of jagged peaks and forested domes, or down into the rough gulches, or out upon the colored bare slopes so characteristic of the region, or up at an isolated ledge where the sheep and goats kept motionless vigil — all with a sense that the thing which had saved him was this continual reversion to nature, to the lonely silence of the hills, to the heights and the depths of the rocks which called for endurance, for the infinite breathing whole that had given him faith.

As he approached the last few rods of the ascent to the summit of the divide he slowed down to let Sydney catch up. The burros passed on over out of sight. On the left rose the bulk of a bronze peak, and on his right towered the mighty half of the stupendous slope of defaced mountain-side.

“Oh, how wild and ghastly... but beautiful!” panted Sydney as she joined him. “Kal, I shall hug you — maybe — for fetching me here — giving me this — this tremendous experience.”

“Kal?” he echoed, in a transport.

“Yes, Kal,” she retorted, archly.

“Let me tell you somethin’,” he pleaded.

“Well, you’ve been pretty good lately — for you,” she temporized, but her eyes were eloquent and warm.

“Sydney, in a moment more we’ll be lookin’ down into my valley. An’ it’ll be the happiest moment of my life.”

“Little boy, why so pale and solemn? It certainly will not be the unhappiest of mine.” She stretched a gloved hand to him. They went on.

Kalispel saw the fringed tip of the south slope rise about the divide.

“I smell smoke,” said Sydney.

“So do I,” replied Kalispel, in surprize. “That’s strange.”

The horses stamped up on top. Kalispel swept his eager gaze downward to the gray valley of rocks, the silver winding stream, the grand bare slope looming sinisterly beyond. But what was it that flashed and moved? White tents! Columns of blue smoke rising! Men wading in the stream!

“My Gawd!” burst out Kalispel, his heart contracting.

“Oh! Your valley is full of people!” cried Sydney, in dismay.

Chapter Five

Kalispel stared down into the valley with a terrible sickening realization that the spectacle below represented a stampede of miners. Long before Jake could have gotten to Boise and back the gold-diggings had been discovered.

“Smoke! Tents! Men puttering in the brook! What does it all mean?” exclaimed Blair, in amazed consternation.

“Look! There’s a pack-train coming down the valley,” cried Sydney.

“Of all the cursed luck!” exclaimed Kalispel, in bitter passion. His sweeping gaze took in a new and well-defined trail coming in from the south. Heavily laden mules wagged their canvas packs, bristling with shovels and picks, along this trail. Prospectors swung behind them, with the stride of men who had found the pot at the foot of the rainbow. Kalispel at last turned to his friends.

“Folks, I’m so sorry I want to die,” he said, huskily. “Our diggin’s have been discovered... an’ the stampede has begun.”

“Oh, Kalispel — don’t look — so — so dreadful!” entreated Sydney. “We know it couldn’t be your fault.”

“Hell, boy! If what you say is true — and, by golly! it looks like it — why, there’s enough gold for all,” added Blair, manfully swallowing his disappointment.

“Let’s rustle down,” replied Kalispel. But he was inconsolable. He divined a blow, the crushing extent of which he could not grasp. Sam would tell him.

He urged his horse down after the burros. The Blairs followed. As Kalispel descended his gaze sought to encompass all the activity in that valley. Tents glanced white and gray in the afternoon sunlight. They appeared to run in two long lines down the middle of the bench, leaving a lane between. That lane was a street. Already a town had been laid out. A keener survey gathered even more dismaying facts. Camps had been located close together all the way down the stream as far as he could see. That meant claims. All available gold-bearing ground could not have been taken up yet, but no doubt the rich claims had been staked.

The descent of that pass seemed interminable to Kalispel. He never looked back once at Sydney. He pushed the string of burros at a pace that threatened slipping of their packs. At last he drove them out on the level bench, not far from the stream, where they began to crop the green grass. Kalispel dismounted. Whatever he had to encounter here he wanted to face on foot. Thought of Sam’s rich quartz claim somehow did not mitigate his queer misgivings. As he threw his saddle, a familiar low deep rumble brought him up with a start. The old bald-faced mountain had growled ominously.

“Hear that, Blair?” he asked, as his followers arrived.

“Hear what?”

“Oh, I did. Thunder!” cried Sydney. She was wide-eyed and agitated, and gray of face from fatigue. She reached out her hands for Kalispel to lift her down, and as he leaped to her side she almost fell into his arms.

“You poor kid!” he said, thickly. “Set here an’ rest.... Blair, you watch the burros while I go see what’s what.” Kalispel strode over the rocky bench down to the stream to the nearest camp. Bed-rolls, packs, utensils and stone fireplaces, picks, and shovels, piles of wood, all kinds of camp paraphernalia, appeared to line the stream. Of the two nearest miners one was bending over a rock in the stream, and the other, a tall, bearded, wet and dirty young man, evidently having espied Kalispel, advanced a little to meet him.

“Howdy, stranger. See you found a new way in,” he replied, genially.

“That’s the way I went out two weeks or so ago,” replied Kalispel, curtly.

“Was you in hyar — two weeks ago?” queried the other, incredulously.

“Yes. Me an’ my two brothers.”

“Wal, it’s a pity you didn’t stay on. Mebbe one of you fellars was responsible for the news of a gold strike that hit Challis about a week ago.”

“I wasn’t. I went out with my brother to pack in supplies. Maybe he got drunk an’ gave the snap away.”

“Rand Leavitt got wind of it first, an’ a stampede rustled after him. Leavitt beat us all to it. Bonanza! He struck a quartz vein packed with gold. The rest of us are placer minin’. An’ believe me, stranger, no kick cornin’.”

“Shore you know my brother, Sam Emerson?”

“Nope. Not by name, anyhow.”

“Sam found that rich quartz vein, an’ Jake an’ I packed out a piece worth five hundred dollars.”

“What? — Stranger, are you drunk or crazy?”

“Neither. But I’m most damn curious,” snapped Kalispel. “Bill, come out hyar,” yelled the young miner. His call fetched the big, bearded, red-shirted man on the run. “Say, Bill, listen to this. Hyar’s a fellar who says his brother made a gold strike hyar weeks ago, an’ thet he an’ another brother packed out a chunk of quartz worth five hundred.”

“It’s true. Do you know my brother, Sam Emerson?” flashed Kalispel. “We left him here, located on the quartz vein.”

“Sam Emerson? Don’t know him. An’ he’s shore not located on the quartz vein now, for Leavitt staked thet. He got in hyar first with Selback an’ outfit. You’re shore haidin’ fer trouble, young man, if you make thet claim to them.”

Kalispel abruptly wheeled and almost ran across the bench toward the location of Sam’s quartz vein. As he neared it he slowed up to catch his breath and to take the lay of the land. In the first place he had difficulty finding the outcropping ledge under the looming bare slope. It appeared to be hidden by tents and a large framework of peeled logs, which manifestly was a cabin in course of construction. Kalispel heard the blows of an ax. He passed the end of the lane between the tents. It ran west the remaining distance of the bench. He heard the crash of falling timber and the hoarse voices of men. These came from behind him, down by the stream. The tent town appeared deserted, except at this end, where he espied men actively engaged in labor around the cabin.

In another moment Kalispel stalked upon the scene of Sam’s strike. He did not need to look twice at the long outcropping ledge. A tall man with a rifle across his knees sat significantly in the foreground.

“Are you Rand Leavitt?” called Kalispel, in a voice that rang, as he passed the open tent to confront this guard.

The man rose quickly. He stood coatless and hatless, young, bullet-headed, swarthy-faced, and his deep-set eyes appeared to start.

“No, stranger. My name’s Selback. The boss is down town,” replied the man. “An’ who might you be, bustin’ up hyar like a bull out of a corral?”

Kalispel was slow to answer, but swift and sure in his estimate of this guard, Selback. There was something expected, furtive, cold, and calculating in the man’s eyes, yet no gleam of intuitive sense of Kalispel’s status.

“I’m Kalispel Emerson — brother of Sam... Where is Sam?”

“Are you askin’ me? I don’t know your brother — or you, either.” —

“Shore you haven’t seen Sam Emerson?” rang Kalispel, piercingly. The builders had ceased their tasks to come down on the ground.

“There are a lot of miners hyar whose name I never heard.”

“Name or not, you shore seen Sam when you hit this valley... because he was here on this claim. He found this quartz. I was with him when he struck it. So was Jake, my other brother.”

“Man alive! You’ve gone gold mad,” declared the guard, with a gruff laugh. But there was no sincerity in word of mirth. He did not ring true.

“By Gawd!” cried Kalispel, “this has a queer look!”

“An’ so have you, stranger!” retorted Selback, probably misled by Kalispel’s poignant exclamation. “Just you rustle along or Leavitt will run you out of Thunder River.”

“We Emersons don’t run.”

“Wal, walk, then, an’ be quick about it,” ordered the guard, making a move to swing the rifle around.

“Hold on!” cut out Kalispel.

But Selback did not heed the warning. The rifle barrel continued to swerve beneath the man’s paling visage. In a flash Kalispel drew and fired. The guard’s head sank, and, stumbling, he fell forward over his clattering rifle.

Rapid footfalls cracked on the rocks. Kalispel wheeled to confront a man who yelled as he cleared the tent. He ran almost into Kalispel’s smoking gun.

“Line up with your gang. Pronto!” ordered Kalispel, with a wave of the gun. He knew his man. This was Leavitt, who lost no time lining up beside the three laborers, but he did not put up his hands.

“You see I’m unarmed,” he said, coolly. “What’s the deal?” and he swept a glittering gray glance from Kalispel to the man on the ground and back again.

“You’re Rand Leavitt,” confirmed Kalispel as he instinctively recognized a shrewd, nervy, resourceful leader. Leavitt was under forty, a man of lofty stature, whose pale, cold, boldly-chiseled face denoted intelligence and force.

“Yes, I’m Leavitt. What’s this hold-up mean?”

“Wal, your man Selback didn’t get a hunch, as you see,” returned Kalispel, sarcastically.

“If you’re a bandit, hold up the miners. We’ve got a quartz vein. No gold yet. I’ve sent out for a stamp mill.”

“Fm no bandit, an’ damn well you know it.”

“How the hell do I know who and what you are?” demanded the other, in pale anger. “What’d you kill Selback for — if it’s not a hold-up?”

“The damn fool tried to throw his rifle on me, after I warned him.”

“Who are you?”

Kalispel did not answer. He backed against the wall of the tent. Miners, led by the couple whom he had accosted upon his arrival, were hurrying to the scene, drawn, no doubt, by the gunshot. Kalispel fought down his fury and despair.

Whatever the justice of his claim, it would never be recognized. He was too late. He had to decide whether or not to kill this man Leavitt.

“Boss, he said his name was Kalispel Emerson,” spoke one of the laborers, hurriedly. “Thet he was brother to a Sam Emerson, whom he swore had located this quartz vein.”

“Sam Emerson!” shouted Leavitt, loud-voiced and protesting. “Where in the hell was he, then? I found this claim, opened up to be sure, gold shining in the sun, pick and shovel, camp duffle and stuff lying around. But no miner!”

“You lie!” hissed Kalispel.

“No I don’t lie,” stormed Leavitt. “There wasn’t any miner here. I swear that. I could have proved it by Selback.”

“You made away with my brother an’ jumped his claim.”

“I jumped it, yes. I had a perfect right to. But it had not been worked for days.... When you accuse me of making away with your brother you’re the liar — or you are out of your head.”

He was steady of hand, pale-faced, but fire-eyed, and his voice and demeanor carried conviction, if not to Kalispel, to the others present, a constantly growing crowd.

“Leavitt, I reckon I’ll bore you.”

“You’ll murder an innocent man, then,” replied Leavitt. “I’m not threatening you, as was Selback. You’ve no excuse to kill me, except your suspicion, which is rank injustice.... And these miners will lynch you.”

Kalispel had put him to a crucial test. But Leavitt had not weakened. If he was guilty, as Kalispel believed, he was too shrewd, too quick-witted and iron-nerved, to betray himself to Kalispel or lose his prestige with the crowd. Besides, there was a remote possibility that Sam had wandered out of the valley or had met some inexplicable tragic end. Kalispel felt that he was not omnipotent. In his torturing disappointment and frenzy he might have erred in judging Selback. He dared not force the issue here and lose forever any chance of reclaiming the mine. Jake would return with proofs that he had packed out the gold-veined quartz.

“Leavitt, I’ll let you off because men like you hang themselves,” declared Kalispel, bitterly. “But I’m accusin’ you before this crowd. You’re crooked, you made away with my brother an’ jumped his claim. I call on all here to witness my stand against you an’ my oath that I’ll live to prove it.” Kalispel backed away from the tent and from the gaping miners. He was keen enough to see even in that moment that sentiment of these men was divided. Turning presently, he sheathed his gun and had headed for the spot where he had left his burros, when he remembered Sydney. In that exceeding bitter moment of hopeless despair it seemed he could not face her with blood on his hands, with the fear that these miners, and surely Leavitt, would convince her that he was a murderer. As truly as that had his hasty deed made him an outcast! Plunging away in the other direction, he leaped the creek and hid far across the valley, in a clump of firs, and there lay like a deer mortally wounded and seeking to die alone.

Long after darkness fell he went back to the place where he had left the Blairs and the burros. He found only his own packs. The Blairs, with their supplies and equipment, had left. Kalispel welcomed that fact. He searched in his pack for a flask of whisky and finding it he sought to kill the cold, sick misery in his marrow and to blot out the insupportable loss of brother, fortune, love.

When Kalispel recovered a consciousness with which he could remember, it was another day, and he believed the second or third after his arrival. The sun had blistered his face as he lay unprotected in the open. Ill, shaken, in a horrible mental state, he drank the last swallow of liquor.

Then he looked about him. The packs were intact, his saddle lying on the ground, his bed unrolled. The horse and burros were gone from the grassy bench. This location was as good as any, he thought, and after a survey of the bench he concluded he could not do better. He was far back, close to the base of the divide, and over a half-mile from Leavitt’s camp, which stood about even with where the great bare slope began its terrifying rise to dominate the valley. The new trail coming down the stream forked into the one he had made up the divide just below where he elected to camp. Forthwith he spread his tarpaulin across a narrow space between two high boulders, and moved in his supplies. Behind him and up the gradual slope were quantities of dead and fallen lodge-pole pines. He could not eat, though his thirst was intense, and in a mood to drive himself to exhaustion, he packed down one tree after another until he had a huge pile of them. Then, spent and wet and hot, he flung himself down and importuned heart and consciousness with hopeless query — what was it that had happened and what could he do? Footsteps roused him to sit up, braced against a boulder. Blair confronted him.

“How are you, Kalisper?” he asked, not unkindly.

“Mornin’, Blair — or is it afternoon?... I’d be better off dead,” replied Kalispel.

“Don’t say that, lad. It’s not like you at all. You must pull yourself together and shake the terrible passion you must have had — and the debauch afterward.”

“Blair, am I still drunk, or are you speakin’ kindly to me?” queried Kalispel.

“I am, son, and I mean it,” went on the elder man, taking a seat near Kalispel.

“Wal, if I can be grateful for anythin’, I’m thanking you.”

“Listen, cowboy. I’ve seen a good deal of life, and life anywhere, east or west, is the same when it comes to misfortune, loss, grief. If ever a young fellow had a tough thing to face, you certainly had. But you gave in to it in wild West fashion and it has ruined you. Leavitt stands high with these miners. They elected him judge of the camp — an office, as I understand it, to determine gold claims and all the accepted rules of mining-camps. Your denouncing him apparently hurt you more than killing Selback. For as I got it, Selback was a hard, grasping man, not at all liked. Then to make the situation worse for you, our friends Pritchard, Selby and Haskell rode in yesterday morning. They made friends at once with Leavitt. I heard them, especially Pritchard, denounce you as Kalispel Emerson, notorious gunman from Montana, a bad hombre in every way.”

“Interestin’ — an’ about to come true, I reckon,” replied Kalispel, with the ice in his soul cutting his voice. “An’ I’m calculatin’ that you come out to give me a hunch to leave?”

“No,” declared Blair, emphatically. “I might have felt that way a couple of days ago. But not now. Something has changed me. I’d stay.... You see, I’m convinced of your honesty, Kalispel. I believe you and your brothers have been robbed of this claim. Probably I’m the only man in camp who does. I’ve always been a contrary cuss, prone to take the under dog’s side. By heaven! I’d stay and find out.”

“I’ll stay, all right,” returned Kalispel, grimly. “Blair, set me right. How long have we been here?”

“This is the third day.”

“Where did you an’ Sydney go? What did you do?”

“Well, after you left us we heard the shooting and followed the crowd into camp. There we met Leavitt. He was very agreeable and helpful. Asked us to supper. Pretty much taken with Sydney, of course. He gave us a tent, sent out for our packs, made us comfortable. Yesterday I bought my gold claim from him. It’s one of the best, they say. Twenty dollars a foot. One hundred feet. All the claims are divided into sections of that size.... I’ve been panning gold. Dug two ounces of dust today before I gave out. It’s the hardest work I ever undertook. But great fun. Sydney is crazy about it. Leavitt showed her how.”

“Wal, that doesn’t improve his chances of long life,” muttered Kalispel, somberly. “It’s hell enough to lose her — without—”

“Kalispel,” interrupted Blair, hurriedly, “we were out here yesterday. Sydney wanted to see you. She seemed driven. I caught her looking out this way often. She was pretty hard hit, son.... Well, we came, and found you dead drunk, lying there — not a pleasant sight. Sydney was horrified. And then disgusted. I wanted her to stay — help me do something for you. She wouldn’t.... I’m going to tell you what she said, because I believe it will do you good. ‘Dad, I — I cared for that cowboy, Kalispel! — But this isn’t he. Or if it is I am disillusioned.... To protest love for me — then, scarcely out of my sight — give way to his terrible passion to kill — and drink.... To lie here like a sodden beast.... He did not love me.’”

“Aw, Gawd!” groaned Kalispel, hanging his head. This was the last, the most exceeding bitter drop of his cup of gall.

“Kalispel, that’s tougher than loss of your mine. I don’t share Sydney’s disillusion. She is young and this is her second hurt. By far the deepest, I am sure. If I know the Blairs, she won’t soon get over this one.... Now, boy, a last word, then I’m through this painful talk. Adversity either beats us down or brings out the latent in us, the unquenchable spirit of manhood. This is not a question of your physical courage. It seems you are notorious for that. But a question of whether or not you are going to succumb to drink — and such abasement as that in which we found you.”

“Blair, don’t say any more, please,” replied Kalispel, hoarsely. “Only tell me, why did you talk this way?”

“I like you and I think you have had a rotten deal. Besides, I know the horror of the bottle, myself.”

“Were you ever a drinker?”

“Yes, I was. And I have never been safe.”

Kalispel recalled what Sydney had betrayed to him about her father’s conviviality.

“Ah-huh. So that’s why.... Wal, red liquor never had me down till this time.... Blair, you’ve got another reason for all this plain, kind talk.”

“Yes. I’ve taken a sudden dislike to Leavitt.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know, except what revealed it to me. And that was a look I saw him give Sydney when she was unaware of it. If I were your kind, Kalispel, I’d pick a fight with him and shoot him. This illustrates my peculiar streak. But as I look back over my life I find that seldom or never has my distrust of a man been unjust. Or my faith wrong. It’s a gift.”

“Wal, I had the same hunch about Leavitt. Yet I couldn’t lay a single proof of its being fair.”

“Leavitt has a powerful personality,” declared Blair. “He might have that two-sided nature so common to many men. If he is crooked he’ll never fool me. But he could Sydney. She thinks he is handsome, well educated, fascinating, the biggest Westerner she has met yet.”

“I reckon that’s easy for me to see, but most damn sickenin’ to swallow.”

“Leavitt is taken with her. He may get her on the rebound. Funny how strange and weak women are that way. Perhaps it is self-preservation. It worries me. I tried to give Sydney a hint of my suspicions. She shut me up pronto.”

“Wal, Blair, don’t talk against the man. That’ll only make Sydney contrary. Women are shore strange an’ weak. But sometimes strange an’ wondrous strong, too. I’d class Sydney among the last. An’ if she really cared for me I can’t conceive of her goin’ to Leavitt, whether or not I’m a bloody gunman an’ beast. Rebound or no rebound!”

“She did care for you. She said so, right out. And that implies more than she confessed.”

“My Gawd, man! Stop torturin’ me.”

“I’m sorry,” rejoined Blair, hastily, as he arose. “But she is my daughter. And she was your sweetheart.... Hell! don’t glare at me like that. I know her better than you.... You can’t get out of this fact. We had a common cause. This West is hell. I can’t go back. I must meet what comes. And I’m scared.... I took a shine to you, Kalispel, and I felt I could lean on you.”

“You can — so help me Gawd!” cried Kalispel, fiercely. The father of the girl he loved had called to the best in him — to what had seemed utterly destroyed. But — for her sake he might perform a miracle.

“Atta boy! That’s the talk,” ejaculated Blair, warmly. “But how — Blair? How?” gasped Kalispel, haggardly. “I’ll be an outlaw now. Every miner’s opinion, if not his hand, will be against me. Leavitt will see to that. He stole our mine. An’ he’ll be crafty as hell.”

“Yes. But this camp will grow like a mushroom overnight,” declared Blair, earnestly. “In a month there’ll be thousands of people here. They are streaming in. Twelve pack outfits yesterday. Old-timers here say Thunder Mountain will bring the biggest gold rush Idaho ever saw.... A tent town, a saw-log, clap-board town full of miners, gamblers, adventurers, women, merchants, pack-drivers, freighters. All bent on gold. An awful mess, they say. It’s fascinating to think of. I’d like the idea but for my daughter.... Well, you lay low. Dig gold yourself. Cut the drink and don’t use your gun except in case of self-defense. Wait for your brother Jake to come back. He may shed some light on this stampede. And all the time you will be working for proof of Leavitt’s guilt. But that will not be your main objective.”

“What will be, Blair?” queried Kalispel, thrilling despite his agony.

“Sydney! To win back her confidence and respect. To show her that you are a man. That you can take a blow like this, yet still come up to make your fortune. That no defeat can keep you from winning her and the ranch your heart was set on.”

“You’re diggin’ my guts out of a vise,” returned Kalispel. “Blair, it’s not hard to see why Sydney is such a wonderful girl. You’re her father.... I’ll play the cards as you have dealt them to me. An’ win or lose, I shall owe to you an’ Sydney the great lesson of my life.... You go back now. I’ve work to do an’ some mighty desperate thinkin’.”

Kalispel’s acts, in great contrast to his inertia for three days, attested to the spell which beset him. At least the interest taken in him by the miners along that end of the stream proclaimed he was an individual of marked interest in Thunder Mountain Camp. He bathed and scrubbed himself in the ice-cold creek; he packed water up to his camp; he shaved his bristling face; he burned his ragged clothes and donned the new outfit he had purchased; he put his camp in ship-shape, and then cooked supper, all with feverish haste and in plain sight of his neighbors.

He thought that they would be vastly more astounded if they could have read his mind. It seemed to him to be a whirling chaos of consciousness, a continual stream of ideas, plans, hopes, fears, of deduction and calculation, of intuitive reasoning and rejected imaginings. And a fight against the deadly menace he felt for Leavitt. He divined presently that any effort of will directed against that mood was wasted. Leavitt was responsible for Sam’s disappearance, probably his death. He would get back Sam’s quartz mine from that suave and resourceful robber and kill him afterward, or he would kill him, anyhow. Proof was the imperative necessity.

Finally he grasped the wisdom of Blair’s reasoning. What he had to do was to live down an undeserved reputation for reckless shooting and evil motive, for all the hard idiom the frontier had cast upon him. How to set about that seemingly impossible task was the imperious question. Kalispel cudgeled his brain. Long after dark he paced to and fro under the black sinister mountain and the stars, and long after he lay in his bed he pondered the problem. In the end he remembered his earlier years of cowboy life on the Wyoming ranges, where he had been popular with everybody with whom he came in contact. Drinking, gambling, his appeal to dance-hall girls, and the inevitable gun-play — these had been his bane. The man who made the same mistake twice could never cope with the terrific problems that confronted Kalispel. At midnight he heard the faint thunder of the mountain, and it seemed to record the passing of time, the brevity of life, the fact that nature audited her secret books — that now was the day to seize.

Morning came. Kalispel awakened to it, mindful that a resolve made in the white heat of misfired passion could be kept through the gloom and tedium of recurrent moods. He was equal to his task. He laid stone walls; he chopped wood; he washed and dried his blankets; he built a fireplace; and to his watchful neighbors he made plain that he had adopted his camp as a permanent abode.

He had supplies for a month, but not a dollar to his name. His resentment powerfully combated the idea of working a poor claim, when by rights he should have owned the best. Yet he yielded to the exigency of his plan. Once decided, he had the thought that there must be hundreds of fine claims left. But where? Anywhere in that valley of treasure, he argued. Seldom did the mile stretch of winding trail up the valley fail to show pack-trains. The prospectors, the miners, the adventurers were coming. He had as fair a chance as they.

A few minutes later he was deepening the gravelly pit of his fireplace when a gleam of yellow caught his eye. “What the hell!” he muttered, falling on his knees. The bright gleam had resulted when his spade cut into a dusty gold nugget. Incredulously he stared. The blood fled back to his heart and appeared to dam up there; a muffled drumming pounded in his ears. Then with eager, grasping hands he clawed into a pocket of nuggets, a few large and many small, coarsegrained and dull, but gold, gold, gold.

Chapter Six

The town of Thunder Mountain grew as if by magic.

Only a little while back the valley had been a wilderness of solitude and silence, undisturbed save for the scream of the eagle on the heights, the bugle of elk on the slopes, and the strange rumble, like distant thunder, deep under the earth.

The old beaver, answering to the instincts of nature, had taken her cub and had left the valley. The Indians, creatures of the wild, in touch with the elements, had listened to the mysterious voice of the Great Spirit, and they too had fled.

But the white man came. The magnet was gold. And no voice, no warning, no spirit, no God could drive him away.

From Challis and Salmon, Boise and Bellair, from Washington and Montana, from the south across the black lava deserts, from the Wyoming ranges, from everywhere that men heard that siren call, enchanting and irresistible, they came deepening the trails; prospectors, engineers, promoters, miners, followed by the adventurers, the gamblers, the women with hawk eyes, the dive-keepers and rum-peddlers, until Thunder River hummed with a raw, bold, happy, excited greedy throng.

Tents sprouted like white weeds and shacks and cabins followed suit. Two enterprising carpenters packed in a portable saw-mill and made more money than the gold diggers. Like grass before the scythe the willows, the cottonwoods, the pines and firs, the lodge-pole pines and the spruces went down. In peeled logs and sawed clapboards they went up again, almost as swiftly as they had come down, and from dawn to dark the incessant pound of hammers resounded through the valley. The solitude that had beguiled the Indians vanished in the roar of a thriving gold-camp, and the beauty perished in the stark, ghastly, hideous defacement of nature by white men.

In less than six weeks after its discovery, Leavitt Mine was in operation, grinding out the precious yellow metal. A ten-ton stamp mill in sections had been hauled by wagons to within a hundred miles of Thunder River. From there the greatest freighter in Idaho, one Juan Uriquides, had packed the mill over perilous trails and down into the valley on the backs of mules. He received ten cents a pound for this packing, and thereby set a price for all supplies and merchandise to be freighted in.

The once crystal stream of mountain water ran low and muddy; the big-horn sheep that had watched from the lofty ledges deserted their haunts to escape the noise and smoke; the elk and deer went across the divide.

Every available claim for two miles along the creek had been staked. Up the slopes and in the gullies miners dug in the loose earth blasted in the rock. By day and by night the long wide street of Thunder City roared. On each side of this long wide street stores and restaurants, saloons and gambling-dens, lodging-houses and dance-halls, made bid for the custom of the populace, and each and every one of them was full. Thunder City, in its early bloom, was rich. The atmosphere was one of swift, gay, ruthless, happy-go-lucky life, under which burned the fever of gold. There were no drones in that beehive. A restless tension strung each and all as if they unconsciously knew Thunder City would not last and they must make hay while the sun shone.

The time came when Thunder City achieved the dignity of a miners’ meeting, during which, as was the custom of progressive mining-camps, a judge, sheriff, and recorder were elected. The former’s duty was to preside at each meeting of the gold-diggers; the second was supposed to maintain law and order; and the third had the task of keeping records of claims. All claims went by numbers. Leavitt’s mine was No. 1, and all the others, up and down the valley, were numbered accordingly.

Rand Leavitt was the judge; Hank Lowrie, the sheriff; and Cliff Borden, the recorder.

One sunset hour in early summer Kalispel Emerson sat in the door of the little cabin he had erected between the boulders that had served as his shelter.

He had a double motive for occupying this favorite seat during his leisure hours — first he could watch the trails in the hope of seeing his brother Jake some day; and secondly, from this vantage-point he could look down the gradually descending bench to the cabin of the Blairs, located on the bank of the stream, and on the site of Blair’s gold claim. Tents and shacks were scattered all along the stream and over the bench, but the cabin of the Blairs stood out conspicuously by reason of its yellow peeled logs and pretentiousness. It had a wide porch on the eastern side, where Sydney spent a good deal of her time working and resting.

Kalispel watched her at this distance, perhaps an eighth of a mile, and knew that she knew he watched her. The young miners going by her cabin always stopped to chat a moment, and Rand Leavitt often visited her there, especially on Sunday afternoons, but Kalispel never went near enough to catch the expression of her eyes. They appeared to be black gulfs in a pale face the sun did not tan.

Two months had gone by for Kalispel on the wings of his strenuous gold-digging and his passionate devotion to the Herculean task he had set himself. The former had been successful beyond even the dreams he had entertained before his loss. Every place he struck his pick yielded gold in some quantity, and he had so many little buckskin bags of dust and nuggets hidden away that he was afraid to count them. But in his serious reflection he knew beyond doubt that his dream of a ranch could be realized, and that if his star continued to shine all through summer and fall he would be rich. It did not affect him much, except when he indulged in a melancholy dream of what might have been.

His passionate devotion to the ideal set up by Blair had not been entirely futile, but he had found that to live down a bad name kept alive by enemies in high places was something well-nigh impossible. The sole hope that now inspired Kalispel hung upon the fact that Sydney Blair watched him from afar.

Always at the back of his mind was the consciousness that he still was Kalispel Emerson and would one day stalk out to face Rand Leavitt. That seemed inevitable. Jealousy had been added to what he considered a stem passion for justice. Leavitt’s attention to Sydney Blair was unmistakable and if she had not responded she had at least accepted it. Gossip of the gold camp had it that Leavitt would marry the girl.

Each and every honest miner in the diggings was too busy with his own labors to know what the other fellow was doing. The saloons and gambling-dens were objective proof of whether a miner was rich today and poor tomorrow. As they earned prodigiously, they wasted prodigally. But this fact did not apply to Kalispel. He did not drink or gamble or spend; and therefore was considered poor, one of the many unsuccessful diggers. Moreover, his story was known, and his absurd claim and loss were an outstanding joke with those miners who did not know him.

Thunder City, however, was overrun with adventurers, and miners who labored for gold only as a blind, while by stealth they stole and robbed. Kalispel had come under the cold, watchful eyes of those parasites, and many had been the time his gun hand had itched. But if they were suspicious of him, they had no ground to substantiate it, for he was just as shrewd and infinitely more watchful.

On a late afternoon Kalispel pondered a plan to further his interests; and this was to begin to hunt game with the idea of supplying meat to the miners. Deer had been run out of the valley. Good hunters were few, and most miners would not take the time to hunt. Yet they were greatly dependent upon meat, for food prices in the stores were abnormally high. Kalispel thought his plan would serve several purposes — to give the impression that he needed money, to enable him to become acquainted with many miners and win their confidence, and to hide his secret motive to work out the truth of Leavitt’s guilt. As the weeks passed Kalispel grew more sure of this. Leavitt might be another Henry Plummer of Alden Gulch fame. Murder of miners had so far not occurred, but the finding and stealing of stored gold dust, and robbery by masked men at night had grown increasingly until it was something to contend with.

As he revolved these thoughts the valley became steeped in a luminous golden sheen, the last reflection from the sunset flush upon the heights. And at that moment Sydney Blair appeared upon the porch, to lean against the rail and gaze out. This had become such a habit of hers that Kalispel waited for it. She wore something which shone faintly blue. He got up to pace to and fro, and at last to stand where she could not help but see him. Always he was alone. And she must know that his heart was yearning for her — that degradation was impossible for him now. But did she know, and if she did, what were her thoughts?

Kalispel had talked often with Blair, and somehow their positions had become reversed. The advice and solicitation now came from Kalispel. After all, Blair had not made as good a deal in his gold claim as he had fondly believed. His gravel bar had suddenly panned out. And digging among the rocks of his claim for nuggets or quartz had not been successful. He had begun to drink and gamble, moderately, as was common among the better class of miners, yet even that little had lately made a subtle difference in him. Wherefore Kalispel, summing up, decided that it was about time for him to step out of his quiet, watchful isolation.

He walked down to the stream, to the big camp where Hadley and Jones, two progressive miners, maintained a mess for eight of their comrades. Kalispel dropped in on them at supper-time. He was not exactly friendly with these men, but knew that through the weeks they had unlearned some of the lessons gossip and ill-will had taught them.

“Jones, I’ve an idee,” said Kalispel. “How are you off for meat?”

“Meat? — Jehoshephat! Costs us more than ham an’ bacon.”

“How’ll it be when the snow flies?”

“If it grows any harder to get we’ll blow this grub-shack, an’ thet’s no lie.”

“I’m thinkin’ of huntin’ meat to sell. What’ll you pay a pound for fresh venison an elk?”

“Thet’s a good idee, Emerson. Are you serious?”

“Shore. I’ve got to live. I’m a poor miner, but a good hunter. Will you pay ten cents a pound till fall, an’ more when the snow flies?”

“You bet I will. An’ jump at a hundred pounds a week, an’ double thet when winter comes.”

“Done. It’ll be no trick for me. I’ve a horse an’ burros.”

“Kalispel,” spoke up Hadley, the young partner of Jones, “you’d be doin’ us a service. Lack of meat is the drawback in this mess. An’ thet holds all over town.”

“Wal, I’ll see if I can drum up some more customers. An’ if I can, I won’t trade for any of your claims.”

“Small chance of you gettin’ a whack of mine,” called out a miner, cheerfully. “Look at this.”

Kalispel stepped over to have placed in his hands a bright smooth nugget weighing in excess of three ounces.

“Gosh! That’s the biggest I ever saw,” exclaimed Kalispel, as he returned it.

“This ain’t a marker to the one sold to Leavitt by a miner. Three hundred dollars he got for it. An’ you can gamble thet if Leavitt paid so much it was worth a good deal more.”

“Yes, an’ our hard-fisted judge grabbed the Woodbury claim today,” interposed another miner.

“I hadn’t heard,” replied Kalispel, quietly. “You fellows know I’m particular interested in how Judge Leavitt acquires land, cold, claims, an’ quartz veins.”

“Haw! Haw! — Wal, this was easy. Leavitt has the decidin’ of all claims, you know. An’ he took over most of Woodbury’s because thet hombre stepped high, wide, an’ handsome when he stepped off his claim. Course the miners in on the meetin’ were thick with Leavitt an’ voted Woodbury out. There’s some gossip floatin’ about. Leavitt, Borden, Lowrie, an’ a few more are playin’ a high-handed game these days.”

Kalispel went on down the trail, pondering what he had heard. He stopped at camps of miners he knew and got not only orders for fresh meat, but also sincere thanks for the offer.

There were several trails leading into town and the one on which he found himself happened to pass the Blair cabin. This time Kalispel did not avoid it.

The hour was almost dusk, but the magnificent afterglow of sunset reflected down into the valley, bathing it in rosy light. The day had been hot, and now the drowsy heat had begun to yield to the cool air from the heights.

Blair sat on his porch steps, smoking. Kalispel heard voices, and as he recognized Sydney’s, he felt his breath catch in his throat.

“Howdy, Blair,” drawled Kalispel, as he leisurely halted. “Any dust these days?”

“Hello yourself,” replied Blair. “Where you been keepin’ yourself?”

“Me? Aw, I been meditatin’ on a misspent life,” said Kalispel, coolly.

Sydney stepped from the back of the porch to the rail. She wore white. Kalispel bowed and greeted her.

“Good evening,” she rejoined, in perfect composure.

Kalispel’s quick glance noted the sweet, troubled face, and the dark eyes that swept over him. Then he looked back at Blair, striving to hide the tumult sight of her had roused in him.

“Kalispel, the only dust around this claim is what blows in from the trails,” said Blair, disgustedly.

“All panned out?”

“Ha! — My neighbor, Dick Swan, an old miner, says the bar in front of my claim was planted.”

“Dad, you should not say things you can’t prove,” interposed Sydney, quickly. “Especially to an enemy of Rand Leavitt.”

“Oh, well, what’s the use?” returned Blair, wearily. “I’ll have to buy another claim.... How you making out, Kalispel? Never saw you look so fine. Still digging up in the rocks?”

“Not much. I hate it ‘most as bad as I did diggin’ fence-post holes back in Wyomin’. Blair, what I dropped over to see you about is this. I’m goin’ to hunt game an’ sell fresh meat to the miners. Would you like some?”

“Fresh meat? Lord, yes! We’ve been living on canned stuff. But ask Sydney here. She does the buying.”

“How about it, Miss Blair?” inquired Kalispel, easily. “Would you like a nice fat haunch of venison now an’ then?”

“So you intend making honest use of your one talent?” she said, in a level voice that irritated and mystified Kalispel. Why could she not be civil?

“Butcherin’, you mean,” rejoined Kalispel, in a voice as controlled as hers. “Shore. I’m gettin’ out of practice handlin’ guns. An’ sooner or later now I’m shore to buck into Borden or Lowrie — or Leavitt.”

She vibrated slightly to that, but her reply was an inscrutable gaze from eyes now shadowy and deep. Then she wheeled away from the rail.

Blair laughed, not without a tinge of bitterness. “Sydney’s testy these days, Kalispel. No wonder. But you fetch the venison.”

“Thanks, Blair.” Then Kalispel bent close to whisper. “If you get up against it in any way — come to see me.”

Blair regarded him with haggard eyes. “Son, I’m ashamed to do it, after that spiel I gave you weeks ago.”

“Hell! Never mind that. It served its turn.... Are things goin’ bad?”

Blair whispered, after a glance back on the porch. “I’ve lost a good deal of money gambling.”

“Aw!” and Kalispel made a passionate gesture. “Pritchard?”

“Mostly to him. But others, also. I was way ahead at first. If I’d only had sense enough to quit then! Now I’ve got to play to get even.”

“You never will, Blair. Take a hunch from me. Never with this gang. They’ll fleece the skin off you.”

“Fleece! Do you mean to imply the game is crooked?”

“Good Heavens, man! Don’t you know that?”

“No. I don’t. But by Heaven! I’ll watch them next time.” Blair appeared to be stubborn, somber, thick, and hard to reach. Kalispel had seen that change in hundreds of genial and wholesome men. It came from drink. Kalispel sustained a sudden sharp misgiving about Blair. So many Easterners were too soft to tackle the adversity of the West. Yet he was not a man who could be criticized. Kalispel thought rapidly.

“All right. I’ll watch them with you,” he replied, curtly, and turned to go.

“Hold on, Emerson,” called Blair, rising and taking Kalispel’s arm. “You won’t go in these gambling-halls on my account, will you?”

“I shore will. Sydney’s goin’ back on me is no reason for me to go back on you.”

“But, son, listen,” returned Blair, in distress. “Sure as you do that you’ll be using your gun again.”

“Like as not. Will that jar you?”

“Not by a damn sight!” retorted Blair. “I was thinking of... Never mind now. Anyway, I appreciate your friendship. And, by thunder! I think you have been unjustly maligned. They’ve all got you wrong, and that goes for my own daughter.”

He squeezed Kalispel’s arm and abruptly returned to the porch, turning at the steps to call back: “I’ll let you know when I’m going to buck the tiger again.”

“Fine. I might set in the game myself,” called Kalispel, which remark was inspired by Sydney’s white form once more against the rail.

“Dad, is he persuading you to gamble?” came in Sydney’s high-pitched voice.

“Hell no!” rasped Blair. “He’s been trying to stop me. That boy is the only friend we’ve made. You don’t savvy the West. You don’t appreciate that cowboy. You’ve allowed your absurd squeamishness and that blighter Leavitt—”

Kalispel passed on out of hearing. He would like to have heard Sydney’s reply to that last reproach of her father. Kalispel found his blood racing unwontedly and a choking sensation in his throat. He had been responsible for getting the Blairs into this unhappy situation. What would be the end?

He went downtown. Thunder City was having its supper hour; nevertheless, that in no wise detracted from the appearance of activity. The yellow lights of the main street flared brightly; it was crowded with moving figures; music and laughter vied with the hum of conversation. The saloons were full of drinkers, loungers, miners selling and buying claims, gamblers on the lookout for prey, adventurers of every type.

Kalispel started in to make a round of all the stores, halls, resorts, houses, on the street. He took supper in the third place, a restaurant of pretensions, newly started. There were several women present, not of the dance-hall stripe, and one of them, young, handsome, richly clad, manifested interest in Kalispel, and bowed to him with the freedom prevalent in the mining-camp. He doffed his sombrero and approached her table.

“I reckon you ladies are shore lost here in Thunder City,” he said, with his winning smile.

“We would not have missed it for the world,” returned the handsome young woman. The other two smiled their corroberation and frankly flattered him with their glances. The man accompanying them was obviously not a mining-man. He said they were travelers going home from California and had not been able to resist the lure of a gold stampede.

“Did you enjoy the ride in?” queried Kalispel, of the youngest woman.

“It was terrible, but wonderful,” she replied, enthusiastically. “We rode, walked, fell off, and rode again.”

“An’ now you’re here — what?”

“I’d like to stay,” she said, frankly.

“Wal, you’d shore be an asset to Thunder City,” drawled Kalispel, admiringly. “No trouble drawin’ yourself a husband!

Now if you’re lookin’ for one I’d—”

They interrupted him with merry laughter, in which their escort joined.

“The delightful simplicity and suddenness of you Westerners!” exclaimed the pretty one. “You don’t look like the rest of these miners, though.”

“I’m no miner,” rejoined Kalispel, in his coolest, laziest voice, enjoying the incident hugely and playing up to it. “My name is Kalispel Emerson. Used to be a cowboy. Sorry to add, lady — just now a desperado.”

“Indeed? How thrilling!... So I have a proposal from a desperado? Are you one of those Mr. Leavitt said were to be run out of Thunder City — or hanged?”

“I reckon not, lady,” replied Kalispel, stiffening, and passed on, to their evident disappointment. He could not escape Leavitt’s name. Everywhere he went Leavitt somehow intruded upon any word.

Kalispel passed out upon his round of the street, with a consciousness that it did not require much to kindle the old spirit of fire. About the only thing that could save Leavitt and Borden and Lowrie from facing him soon was for the mountain to slide down and bury the gold camp. In the Dead Eye Saloon he ran straight into Lowrie, but saw that individual first.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” he said, with careless nonchalance that had a bite in it. “Are you still trailin’ Montana cowboys?”

“Howdy, Kalispel,” returned the other, gruffly. “No, I reckon not, so long as they keep the peace.”

“Wal, I’m not drinkin’ or gamblin’, these days.”

“What are you doin’? Look fit an’ pert to me. An’ prosperous, too.”

“Shore, I’m all three. Just hangin’ around for my brother to come. Then we’ll hunt for Sam, my other brother, who made this gold strike.”

“So I heard, Kalispel,” rejoined the sheriff, ponderingly. “You don’t look loco. But thet talk shore is.”

“Lowrie, you know damn well I wouldn’t make that claim if it wasn’t true,” snapped Kalispel, coldly, and backed out into the throng on the street.

He watched gambling games in several halls. Then he went into Bull Mecklin’s, reputed to be the toughest den in the gold-diggings; and was there invited by gamesters to join them. Kalispel smilingly responded that he hated to win money from anyone. And as he did not play or approach the bar he attracted the attention of the proprietor, a massiveheaded, thick-necked man whose name fitted him. He gruffly asked Kalispel what he wanted there.

“I’m lookin’ for a man,” replied Kalispel, significantly, and was severely let alone after that. Some one recognized him, however, and he heard the whisper: “Kalispel, Montana gun-slinger!”

Thunder City was a bonanza gold-strike, the scene of Idaho’s great stampede, and it was full of raw, bold characters, many of whom were dishonest; but it had nothing of the menace Kalispel had known in cattle towns of Wyoming and Montana. Here he was an object of curiosity, a notorious person to be let alone, a doubtful and sinister figure. Back there he would have been encountered in every saloon and gambling-hall by some hard-lipped youngster or lean-faced man who did not like the look of him or the way he packed his gun. Thunder City was new; it would grow wild if the gold lasted.

Finally Kalispel strolled into the most pretentious resort of the street, one that had just been erected and not yet named. It occupied the largest structure in the mining-town, a barnlike frame outside and a markedly contrasting gaudy interior. Music, gay voices, shrill mirth, clink of gold and crash of glass, a shuffle of rough boots — these united in a roar. Kalispel was surprised to run into the pretty little girl he had met in the Spread Eagle at Salmon.

“Howdy, Nugget,” he greeted her pleasantly. “What you doin’ away from Salmon. Did you shake the Spread Eagle?”

“Say, was I drunk when I met you — somewhere?” she asked, flippantly.

“You shore wasn’t. Why? That’s not flatterin’.”

“Because I wouldn’t forget a handsome gazabo like you. What’s your name?”

“Kalispel Emerson,” replied he, and related the incident of their meeting.

“Oh, I remember now. But you don’t look the same. Except your eyes.... Struck it rich, I’ll bet. All spruced up, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked! — Say, boy, you’d better let me alone.”

“Don’t you like me, Nugget?”

“If I didn’t, would I give you a hunch?”

“Let’s dance. I reckon I’m rusty, but I shore used to be slick.”

They joined the whirling throng on the wide dance-floor, and they had not progressed far when she said: “You may be rusty, Kalispel, but you’re pretty good. My God! what a relief to be free of these clodhoppers, heavy with liquor, bearded and dirty!”

“Nugget, it struck me over in Salmon that you were too nice a kid for this dance-hall life.”

She looked up at him, but made no reply.

“Who fetched you over here?” he went on, presently.

“I came with Borden’s outfit.”

“Borden? Oh, yes! He ran the Spread Eagle over there. Is there anyone in this deal with him?”

“Say, are you pumping me?”

“Sounds like that, I reckon. But listen, an’ then tell me or not, as you like.” As they danced around he briefly related the part his brothers and he had played in the discovery of gold there in the valley, about his leaving with Jake and returning alone to find Sam gone, and the claim lost, his shooting of Selback and accusing of Leavitt.

“So you’re that fellow!” she whispered, excitedly. “You’re that bad hombre, then? You look it, Kalispel.... Well, go ahead and make love to me. It will make Rand Leavitt wild.”

“Ah-huh. — Is he sweet on you?”

“I wouldn’t call it sweet. He has reasons of his own for not being open about it. And I don’t mind telling you that he’s Borden’s partner here, on the sly, too.”

“Wal, thanks, Nugget. One more question. But don’t be hurt even if you won’t answer.... Is this man Borden responsible for your being here?”

“No. I can’t lay that to him exactly. I have to earn my living. But he’s a slave-driver. Ask the other girls.”

“Nugget, suppose you let me be your friend.”

“You mean make love to me?” The bitterness in her voice touched a deeper cord in Kalispel’s kindly nature.

“I don’t want to be that kind of friend, Nugget. I can be a better one. I admit, though, I’d shore have made love to you if my heart hadn’t been broken. You’re as pretty as the dickens. An’ nice. I like you.”

“Well, you’re a queer duck. But I like you, too. And you’re on. I won’t promise, though, not to fall in love with you.”

“I’ll risk that, Nugget.”

“You’ll risk more. It’s bound to look like you were drinking and making up with me. And if you get — well, too thick with me, Borden will rare. And so will Leavitt.”

“I reckon. Wal, I’ve made the offer.”

“You’re a deep one. What’s your game?”

“Didn’t I confide in you — trust you?”

“So you did,” she returned, wonderingly. “I’ve got a hunch.... Kalispel, I’m yours for jest or earnest.... Say, it’s nice to dance with you. You’re clean and decent.”

“I’ll stick with you all evenin’. We’ll pour the drinks on the floor.... Reckon it’s awful nice to dance with you, too, Nugget.”

Chapter Seven

Jake Emerson’s case against the Leavitt Mining Company was scheduled to be heard on the night of the very day he got back to the valley, a gaunt, haggard ghost of the man who had left there two months before in the prime of life and ambition. It was significant to Kalispel that Judge Leavitt, furious at the claim, rushed the hearing of the case.

The law of the mining-camps was that in case of a dispute over a gold claim as to ownership, the case was to be heard before the judge in the presence of the other miners, all of whom were to listen to the testimony and then vote. Whichever claimant received the most votes got the gold claim.

Borden’s dance-hall, being the most commodious place in the camp for a courtroom, was selected for the trial. This was to be its initiation in such proceedings.

Even without much time for advertising, the case attracted a throng. Kalispel had personally notified hundreds of miners to be present. He realized that Jake and he had no chance of winning the claim. But Kalispel’s purpose was to establish a contest of Leavitt’s right to the property.

A thousand and more miners assembled in the street before Borden’s dance-hall. Less than a hundred of these were admitted, however, and that augmented the growing curiosity in the case.

“Fellars,” sang out one man, “thar’s room for three or four hundred of us in thet hall, packed like sardines.”

“Wal, every consarned one of us has a right to vote,” said another.

“Wake up, tenderfeet,” called a cool ringing voice from the shadows. “This case is fixed.”

That voice belonged to Kalispel, who had remained outside to see how many miners came and what their comment might be. Then he pounded to be admitted. He required only a general survey of those present to be assured that very few friendly to him were there. Blair had promised to come, but could not be located. Lowrie, the sheriff, the two deputies, all armed, stood conspicuously before the orchestra platform of the hall, where at a table sat the judge and his recorder.

Leavitt, pale and stem, stood up and rapped on the table.

“Gentlemen,” he began in a loud voice that carried out of the open windows into the thronged street, “the case at hand is that of one Jake Emerson, claimant, and the Leavitt Mining Company, defendant. The property contested is the quartz lode, claim Number One.... We will hear Emerson’s argument.”

When the judge sat down Jake came forward. His appearance carried conviction of two facts — first that he had endured almost mortal illness and the privation and toil of a desert wanderer; and secondly that his white face and eyes of fire, his heavy irresistible strides forward, pronounced him a formidable person absolutely sure of the right of his cause. He halted in front of the platform, and after a long steady stare at Leavitt, he turned to face the hall.

“Men, you are all miners like myself,” he began, in sonorous voice. “An’ if you are honest, an’ live by the rule ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ I could ask no more than to be judged by you.

“I arrived in Idaho ‘most a year ago, comin’ from Montana with my elder brother Sam, an’ my younger brother Lee, who is standin’ there. Sam an’ me had been prospectin’ for years an’ knew the minin’ game from A to Z. Our young brother, however, was a cowboy. He took to the wild life of the range, an’ as he survived one hard outfit after another he earned the name Kalispel Emerson, gunman, bad hombre, rustler. He may deserve the first, because the fact thet he is alive today proves it. But the other names are undeserved. The fact thet Sam an’ I believed in the boy’s honesty is responsible for our bringin’ him with us to Idaho.

“We prospected the Lemhi Range before we wandered over here into the Saw Tooths. It was on the second of April, as I figgered out afterwards, thet we dropped down over the south slope into this valley.... Now, men, I can prove thet we came, though not the date. As I’ve only just returned here today, so tuckered out thet I fell in my tracks, it stands to reason thet I couldn’t have seen any of the things I’ll enumerate.... Some of you miners will remember signs of an old beaver-dam on the far side of the creek, where the little brook curves in.... There used to be some rings of ground, earth banked up in circles. These were made by the Sheep-Eater Indians who camped here many years ago.... There used to be a pine tree across the creek on the high ridge, an’ it forked at the trunk so low down you could step up in it....”

“Thet big pine furnished lumber for my cabin,” interrupted a miner. “I cut it down myself.”

“Silence!” ordered Judge Leavitt, pounding the table. “And, Emerson, you confine yourself to your claim. We haven’t time for all this rigamarole.”

“The first night we camped here we heard the old mountain thunder,” continued Jake. “An’ the next day we struck gold. I took a hundred an’ more pans of dust an’ nuggets out of the creek. An’ before sunset Sam came staggerin’ into camp with a chunk of quartz showin’ heavy veins of gold. He had uncovered a ledge thet carried a quartz lead.

“We made our plan. Sam was to stay here to guard our claim. Lee an’ I were to go out. I was to take the quartz to prove our claim an’ sell a half interest for one hundred thousand dollars. Lee was to pack supplies back into the valley.... We left, workin’ up over the pass at the east end of the valley, an’ we crossed the Middle Fork, an’ got to Challis. There, as we decided it took so many days to get out, an’ Sam would soon be needin’ supplies, Lee left Challis for Salmon, where he was to outfit an’ go back over the trail we had made. I was to go to Boise an’ make our deal.

“Men, I never got to Boise. I never got away from Challis.... We must have been watched an’ suspected. Mebbe some sharp-eyed claim-jumpers saw me unpack my burros. It was all I could do to lift thet chunk of quartz. I hid it under my bed.... Wal, I had a few drinks thet night. But I wasn’t drunk or near drunk. I was in possession of all my faculties. An’ when I was slugged from behind I fell an’ seen the man who hit me before he knocked me out. He was youngish, had a big round head with short hair, an’ deep eyes like gimlets—”

“Gentlemen,” Kalispel’s voice rang out, “that description fits perfectly the man Selback I shot here the day I arrived. He was a guard at the quartz mine an’ tried to throw his rifle on me.”

Leavitt pounded the table furiously. “Another interruption will end this case,” he shouted.

“Wal, men,” resumed Jake, “when I come to I was lyin’ in a shack an’ damn near dead. An’ old fellar named Wilson had took pity on me an’ took me in. I’d been crazy for weeks. You don’t have to look close to see where I was hit.” Here Jake bent his head to show bare, livid scars over his temple. “An’ it was weeks more before I was strong enough to start back here. Accordin’ to Wilson, the day followin’ my accident Leavitt an’ Selback packed in a hurry an’ left for parts unknown. Some more men, known to be thick with Leavitt, left the next day, then mules loaded down with supplies an’ minin’-tools. Thet started the stampede.... Then, the rest you know. An’ as Gawd is my witness I have told the truth!” Emerson ended amid a breathless silence and Leavitt arose. His strong face was white with suppressed emotion which might have been anger. But to Kalispel it was that and more. Leavitt had no fear of losing the quartz mine. But he did have fear that he would lose his life. The menace of Jake Emerson could be felt by all. Moreover, Leavitt had for a second time, met Kalispel’s steely-cold gaze.

“Gentlemen, I represent the Leavitt Mining Co.,” he began, clearing his throat. “And I am the only one living of the two men who found the open quartz claim.... So far as Emerson’s testimony reflects upon me, I merely deny. He did arrive in Challis. He did get drunk. He did talk and he did get into a brawl in a saloon. But I heard about that after the stampede was well on here. Selback had the hunch to come in here. I never knew where he got it. That, however, is of no importance, because when we got here we found the quartz mine open. The ground had been stripped, the lode exposed, and the gold vein was shining in the sun. But there was no miner. He had been there days before, but he was gone. Gone, gentlemen! We hunted and hunted, yet found no other trace of him than the few tools and camp equipment he had left behind. I had a perfect right to take the claim, which I did. That’s my testimony and that is all. You will please vote as you see fit.”

In silence the miners dropped their votes into the hat Lowrie passed. When the contents were emptied on the table Leavitt said: “I cannot take part in the counting. Emerson, you are invited to sit with the recorder and count these votes.”

Borden presently called out impressively: “Leavitt Mining Company sixty-six. Emerson twenty-two.”

Kalispel riveted his gaze upon Leavitt. That individual, despite an iron nerve, showed the stress of the climax, and that fury had been added to his other feelings.

“Give me those twenty-two names,” he hissed livid of face, and snatching the papers from Borden he scanned them with a mien that boded no good for these voters. Some miner yelled out the window: “Leavitt sixty-six. Emerson twenty-two.” Loud huzzahs did not drown yells of derision. The verdict was not unanimous. Leavitt could not have failed to hear that vote of discord.

Then Jake Emerson confronted the three officers on the platform.

“You win, as we knowed you’d win,” he boomed in his sonorous voice. “But you haven’t heard the last of this deal.” Kalispel leaped to the side of his brother.

“Leavitt, that last will come when Sam returns — or we find his body!”

Jake Emerson located an obscure claim and went to work, a gloomy, taciturn, defeated man, brooding revenge. Kalispel took to hunting, and packing elk and deer meat down off the high slopes and swales. About half his time was required to fulfill the obligations he had made. The rest he utilized working his claim, which still yielded gold. He had become obsessed with the idea that somewhere inside the claim he had walled off there might be another and the largest pocket of nuggets. These nuggets he had found appeared to have been melted and therefore must have encountered volcanic action.

In midsummer the peak of the stampede was reached and Thunder City saw its heyday. Gambling-dens, saloons, and dance-halls, reaped a rich harvest. Several shooting escapades, and a fatal encounter between Lowrie and a drunken miner, with an increase of banditry, augured ill for the future of the gold-diggings.

Kalispel celebrated the first of August by taking a full tin can of gold nuggets out of a hole no deeper than his waist. He did not tell Jake, much as he wanted to help that morose brother. The last thing Kalispel desired was for miners and robbers to learn he had struck gold. Besides, of late, Jake had taken to searching for Sam’s body, which he claimed to have seen in a dream.

Two or three times a week Kalispel would go to the town in the evenings and develop his interesting and risky friendship with Nugget or watch Blair’s gambling vicissitudes.

At length Kalispel’s opportunity arrived when he found Blair sitting in a game of poker with Pritchard, Selby, and two miners he did not know. For a change Blair was winning, which fact was obvious to all from his radiance and frequent call for drinks. Pritchard was a loser, but that fact could not have been deduced from his cold pale face and impenetrable eyes. Kalispel saw how the fickle luck went against him; and as the stakes were heavy, the gambler would certainly have to resort to trickery to recoup. Coin, currency, and small ounce-sacks of gold dust furnished the medium for betting, and the game was one of table stakes.

Kalispel watched from a vantage point behind Pritchard and out of his sight. It appeared evident that Pritchard’s ally was aware of Kalispel’s presence, yet nothing came of that fact.

Finally the tide turned against Blair and he lost the pile of gold in front of him, most of which flowed to Selby. One of the miners was under the influence of drink and scarcely knew one card from another. The second, a sharp-eyed young giant, had begun to get suspicious. Then a jack-pot was started which progressed inordinately before it was opened. Pritchard was the dealer and this was his chance. As cards were dealt Kalispel casually stepped forward. Only an eye like his could have detected duplicity on the part of the gambler. At the right instant Kalispel shoved his gun hard into the gambler’s side.

“Pritchard, if you move a finger I’ll bore you,” he called, in a voice to silence the room.

“What the... Who — ?” gasped Pritchard, his face becoming ashen in hue.

“You know who.... Blair, turn his hand upside down — the left one.”

Blair, staring aghast, did as he was bidden, disclosing neatly palmed in the long white hand the aces of spades and diamonds. Selby cursed under his breath. The young miner leaped to his feet with an imprecation.

“Steady, all,” warned Kalispel, “else you’ll spoil the fun or scramble this cheat’s gizzard.... Now turn over the cards he dealt himself.”

In these five cards were the two other aces.

“Only four aces!” drawled Kalispel. “Pritch, you pulled one at the wrong time.”

“ — !” cursed the young giant, in a rage, and he threw his cards in the face of the gambler. “We’ll run you out of town for this.”

Selby, on the opposite side of the table, broke his stiff posture to jerk suddenly. He drew, but before he could get the gun above the table Kalispel shot him in the arm. He screamed with frenzy and pain, while the gun thumped to the floor. The gambling-den rang with loud shouts and scraping of chairs and stamping of boots. Selby appeared to be fainting and fell over the table.

“Push him off,” ordered Kalispel, who did not trust that move of Selby’s.

The stalwart miner gave him a shove, sending him to the floor, where it was manifest that Selby was not shamming. The young giant’s next move was to lunge across the table and knock Pritchard ten feet out of his chair. Moreover he leaped after the prostrate gambler and, seizing him with powerful hands, he dragged him across the floor, making a furrow in the saw-dust. And he threw Pritchard bodily out of the hall.

“Rustle, Pritchard, or you’ll get shot,” shouted the miner. “Some of us are gettin’ damn sick of gamblers, robbers, claim-jumpers, an’ such in these diggin’s.”

He strode back to the table and shoved a hand out to Kalispel, who could not accept it, as he still had his gun extended.

“Emerson, you don’t know me, but I know you,” declared the miner, in no uncertain voice. “My name’s Jeffries. Thanks for interferin’. I’m strong for you. An’ there are a good many more in the same boat.”

“Much obliged, Kal,” added Blair, pale and shaken. “I should have taken your advice.”

“Damnation!” ejaculated Jeffries. “Can’t we play a little poker in this camp without bein’ skinned?”

Kalispel waved Blair out and backed away from the crowd. Haskell might still have to be reckoned with. Gaining the outside, Kalispel joined Blair and hurried away up the street. Kalispel cursed him roundly.

“Man, you’ll be ruined if you’re not shot.” he ended, passionately. “An’ that’ll leave Sydney at the mercy of Leavitt. Then I’ll have to kill him an’ get run out of town myself.”

They found Sydney on the porch in the moonlight with the very man Kalispel had mentioned. Anyone with half an eye could have seen that Leavitt had been making love to the girl. Kalispel certainly had murder in his heart.

“Leavitt, you better hurry downtown,” said Blair. “Kalispel shot another man. It happened in your crooked gambling-joint.”

“Oh, Dad!” cried Sydney, as Leavitt, leaving her abruptly, strode off the far end of the porch and went around the cabin.

Blair sat down upon the steps and wiped his wet face. Kalispel stood in the moonlight, gazing up at the girl.

“You — you devil!” she cried, in a low choking voice.

“Hey, do you mean me or your dad?” drawled Kalispel.

“I mean you. And Dad is as bad — only he’s a coward instead.”

“Wal, if you mean me — shore it takes devils like me to save bull-headed old geezers like your father.”

“Dad, what have you — done now?”

“Nothing. I was playing cards. Got way ahead. Then lost. That gambler Pritchard cheated. Kal showed him up. And then Pritchard’s partner Selby pulled his gun. Kal shot him, that’s all.”

“Killed — him?” whispered Sydney, in horror.

“For Heaven’s sake, no! Just shot the gun out of his hand. It’d been a damn good thing if he had killed the blighter.... Kal, come to think of it — who ought to clean up on that last deal?”

Kalispel threw up his hands as if to indicate to Sydney that her parent was hopeless.

“Daughter, it looked mighty like Leavitt was making love to you,” went on Blair.

“Yes? Well, if he was, you may be sure that I sanctioned it,” she retorted.

“I won’t have it,” stormed Blair. “Leavitt is not what he seems.”

“Unfortunately, that applies to the majority of men,” replied Sydney, bitterly. “I have found it true of two, at least.”

“Sydney Blair, I never was two-faced,” exclaimed Kalispel, with passion. “If I were that kind, I could tell you something about Leavitt which would make you despise him.”

“Rand Leavitt is a handsome, generous, splendid man,” she flashed, “and I am considering his offer of marriage.”

“Wal, darlin’,” drawled Kalispel, cool and hard, “consider all you like. But you won’t marry him.”

“Don’t dare call me — that. I am not your darling. And why have you the — the effrontery to say I won’t marry him?”

“Do you see this lovely little plaything, shinin’ in the moonlight?” taunted Kalispel, as he flipped his gun up and caught it.

“Oh-h! — You are a monster — or you are mad.”

“Shore. Good night, darlin’.”

The next day was Saturday, a drowsy summer day, with a hint of blue haze in the air and the smell of fall. Kalispel happened to meet Nugget on the street. In everyday costume, free of the scant and alluring attire of the dance-hall, she made a pretty graceful figure. Kalispel did not need to be asked twice to accompany her to Reed’s store. As luck would have it, Leavitt and Sydney appeared coming down the street.

“Look! There’s my secret admirer with the Blair girl,” said Nugget, laughing. “Funny thing — life!... Kalispel, do you know her?”

“I’ve met her,” replied he.

“She’s lovely. What a damned shame if she’s stuck on that hypocrite!”

“Nugget, when we pass them I dare you to speak to him.”

“Never took a dare in my life.... It might be a hunch to her.”

Perhaps twenty paces distant, Sydney looked up to espy Kalispel and his companion. Suddenly a blazing scarlet blush suffused her face. It waved away as swiftly, leaving her pale, with great tragic eyes staring straight ahead. Because of her strange reaction, which staggered Kalispel, he could not look at Leavitt.

“Howdy, Rand,” called Nugget, with the most innocent, smiling naïveté.

Then the couples passed each other and Nugget turned to her companion. “Gosh! but he’ll murder me!... Did you see her blush.... Why, Kalispel, you’re as white as a sheet!”

“Am I? Wal, I feel yellow.”

“Ashamed to be seen with me?”

“Not on your life! I was glad, an’ don’t forget it.... Nugget, that’s the girl who broke my heart.”

“You don’t say! The Blair girl!” she whispered, excitedly. “Oh, Kalispel, she is lovely. You poor fellow! Now I understand you and I like you better than ever. You’re true to that proud girl, though she passes you scornfully on the street. And Leavitt, the skunk, parades along with her, doing the elegant — and after dark, late at night, slips in the back door to try to make love to me.... I’ll be darned if I don’t tell her!”

“Nugget, that’d be doin’ her a good turn,” replied Kalispel, hopefully.

“Boy, if I know girls, she didn’t burn like a house afire for nothing when she recognized you. Kalispel, I’ll bet she’s in love with you.”

“Aw, Nugget, don’t handle words so horrible careless.”

“I’ll bet it,” she went on, vehemently. “Did she ever love you?’”

“I reckon so. A little.”

“Then it’s a lot now. Nothing like jealousy to show a woman’s heart! She saw us — she thought you were sweet on the little blond dance-hall girl. She gave herself away.”

“No — no! It’s only worse. She’ll like him all the more.”

“Listen, pard,” whispered the girl, wickedly. “If she does I can tell her something that will kill it pronto. And if not, I can tell you something that will make you kill him pronto.”

“Nugget!” cried Kalispel.

“That’s all now. Here’s the store. Don’t give up, cowboy.... Tell Dick I’ll meet him tonight, right after supper.”

Chapter Eight

Kalispel was scraping and stretching an elk hide when his young friend, Dick Sloan, put in an appearance.

“Howdy, Dick. You’re not pannin’ gold while the sun shines,” was Kalispel’s greeting.

“I don’t care,” replied the youth, flinging himself down.

It was then that Kalispel glanced up from his work. Dick was a fair-haired and frank-faced young fellow of twenty-two, lately come to Thunder City, and had at once taken a liking to Kalispel. The mining-camp was not the best place in the world for Dick, and this morning he looked it.

“Had a scrap with Nugget?” asked Kalispel, intuitively. “Not exactly. But she — dished me,” rejoined Dick, miserably.

“Dished you? — Wal, the fickle little devil! She swore she liked you.”

“I thought so, too.”

“Did she meet you last night?”

“Yes. An’ we walked across the bridge. She was different, somehow. Sort of cold an’ gloomy. Wouldn’t let me touch her. I smelled liquor on her. I hate thet, an’ I scolded her fierce. She took it so quiet I was sorry. Then she said: ‘Dick, my boss says you interfere with my business. You take my time. An’ you don’t drink or gamble. There’s nothin’ in it for the house. So I’ll have to give up seeing you any more.’”

“Wal, I’m damned! Doesn’t sound like Nugget.... An’ what’d you say to that, Dick?”

“I told her I’d drink an’ gamble. My claim is comin’ out fine, Kalispel. You can never tell about gold-diggin’s. My neighbor, an old miner, says I’ll strike it rich. So I can afford to take Nugget’s time.”

“Ah-huh. An’ what’d she say to that?”

“She wouldn’t hear of it. First she talked sense to me, an’ seein’ that was no good, she pitched into me proper. Then I told her there wasn’t any use — that I loved her an’ wanted to marry her an’ take her away from the rotten dance-hall.”

“The devil you did? Gosh! Dick, you are gone. An’ all my fault! What’d I do it for?... AN’ how’d Nugget take that?”

“Kind of shocked her,” replied Sloan. “We were walkin’ back an’ had just got to the bridge. She stopped to lean on the rail. Burst out cryin’.... I was plumb near cryin’ myself — she looked so forlorn an’ pretty in the moonlight. But she got over it quick an’ walked on. ‘Thanks, Dick, for askin’ me. I’m sorry I can’t.’ — I asked her why she couldn’t an’ she told me she didn’t care for me. An’ I said she had cared at first. She’d admitted it, an’ kissed me, too. I kept naggin’ her all the way back. Finally she laughed sort of mockin’ an’ said: ‘You poor kid! Mebbe I’m in love with Cliff Borden!’ — Then she left me.”

“I’m a son of a gun!” ejaculated Kalispel.

“Borden runs the hall where she dances, doesn’t he?” went on Sloan.

“Yes. An’ Rand Leavitt is his silent pardner.”

“Do you think she told the truth? I can’t believe it.”

“No. I should smile not,” declared Kalispel, vehemently, slamming his knife down. “Nugget is as good an’ fine an’ clean as the gold she’s named for. Aw, I don’t care if she is a dance-hall girl. That’s her job, her misfortune.... She dished you, Dick, because you were serious an’ she wanted to save you from trouble with Borden.”

“Kalispel, I shore was serious.”

“Better forget her, boy, an’ go back to your pannin’ gold.”

“But I can’t forget her,” Dick protested, miserably. “I love her! — Pard, didn’t you ever feel thet way about a girl, an’ couldn’t forget her?”

“Yes, I did, Dick. I do!”

“Then you must understand, Kalispel. I’ve got to figure a way. If I go to hittin’ the bottle an’ buckin’ the tiger she’ll see there’s no help for me — an’ be nice.”

“Dick, you’d be fool enough to do that,” snapped Kalispel, furiously. It was as if he were caught in the trap, too.

“My mind is made up, unless you can do somethin’,” answered Sloan, simply. “Nugget thinks a powerful lot of you. I hoped mebbe you’d coax her to change her mind about givin’ me up. I don’t ask much. But I’ve just got to see her.”

“All right, I’ll make her see you,” decided Kalispel, goaded by his conflicting emotions. “Go back to work. An’ I’ll fetch Nugget to the bridge tonight if I have to pack her. Right after supper.”

Sloan lunged up with glowing face, about to burst into grateful acclaim.

“Cheese it!” yelled Kalispel. “Get out quick, or I’ll change my mind.”

Sloan fled, and Kalispel returned to his work. But often his hand dropped listlessly and his busy mind cogitated the strangeness, the mystery, the terror, and the glory of love. Kalispel knew what yearning for a girl’s lips meant. He knew, and hated himself while he confessed it, that he would be madly glad for Sydney Blair’s kisses even though he had to share them with other men. But his portion seemed more bitter than that. For Sydney surely despised him now. She could not but believe that he was in love with the dance-hall girl.

Perhaps such trend of thought had more to do with Kalispel’s impotent rage than poor Sloan’s predicament. At any rate, he worked himself into one of his cool, reckless, dangerous states, and towards sunset he left his cabin and paced swiftly down the trail.

As he passed Blair’s cabin Sydney came out on the porch, with a pan or dish in her hands. She wore a blue gingham apron, her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, and she looked bewitching. Kalispel was in a mood for anything. He would confront her, make her furious or sick or something, cost what it might. Sloan’s miserable love, so devastating and all-powerful, had called to his own.

Kalispel went up on the porch, to Sydney’s amaze. He had never done that before. Her violet eyes, suddenly dilating, appeared to search his face for signs of intoxication. “Where’s your dad?” asked Kalispel.

“I don’t know. He left in a huff.”

“How are things goin’?”

“They could not be worse.... But as Dad is out — please—”

“Please rustle, eh? Ump-umm. I’m hopin’ you’ll ask me to supper.”

She laughed contemptuously. “You flatter yourself, Mr. Emerson.”

“Do you expect to be alone?”

“Yes. Dad will not come back. And I don’t care.... Oh, I hate the way things are turning out.”

“Tell me, Sydney.”

“No. You may be Dad’s friend. He thinks so. But you are certainly not mine.”

“Is Leavitt comin’ over tonight?”

“I’d like to lie to you. But he is not.”

“An’ you’ll be alone till late?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like it a damn bit,” declared Kalispel, forcibly. “You don’t! As if it were any of your business,” she returned, and again her mocking little laugh scorned him.

“Wal, take your choice,” said Kalispel, with the chill in his voice. “Either you let me come back here or I’ll drag your father out of that gamblin’-joint an’ beat him so he’ll be laid up for a spell.”

“You cannot mean that — that last,” she protested.

“I shore do.”

“You would hurt Dad?”

“Hurt him? Isn’t he hurtin’ you more an’ more? Isn’t he slippin’ more every day? Isn’t he leavin’ you alone for this slick-tongued Leavitt to—”

“Yes,” she interposed hurriedly. “But that is no reason for violence. Your kindness is misplaced, Mr. Emerson. You are not my champion.”

“Not with your consent, I shore can see. But I am, anyhow.”

“You are, in — in spite of my scorn for you?”

“In spite of that.... I’ve had a rotten deal, Sydney. From life, from luck, from this liar, Leavitt — from you. But deep as it all has sunk into me, I’m still a man. An’ I’m goin’ to raise hell around these diggin’s pretty pronto.”

“In my behalf, Sir Galahad?”

“Aw, Sydney, that doesn’t become you!” he ejaculated, reproachfully. “Scorn me all you want, but don’t bemean yourself.”

“I declare — you are the most amazing person. I simply cannot understand you.”

“Wal, that’s because I’m simple an’ honest. An’ you’re deep an’ deceitful. You’re a woman. You don’t play fair.... But as always we get into a fight. I’ll be goin’. Make your choice. Do I come back here or —— —”

“Very well, you may come. I prefer even your presence to having my poor, misguided dad beaten.”

“Oh no. You can’t say cuttin’ things. Not at all!... All right, I’ll come, unless I can persuade your dad to,” replied Kalispel, and he leaped off the steps and strode away, smarting under her gibe, sick with his impotence. Yet as he recalled that last unfathomable gaze, his nerves seemed to quiver. When she hated him so flagrantly why did she look at him like that? It seemed as if some part of her personality was in conflict with another. But whatever complexity of emotion ruled her, the effect on Kalispel only added to his somber state. He felt the old swamping wave roll over him — the need to drown his woe in drink. As he could not resort to that, he ceased to rail against passion and bitterness. He was just Kalispel Emerson, kicked by fate, and he could not stay the inevitableness of things.

He went into the Chinaman’s little shop and passed some time over a biscuit and a cup of coffee. Then at half after six o’clock he wended his somber way toward Borden’s dance-hall. It was the hour when fewest of Thunder City’s thousands were abroad, yet there were enough of the motley crew to cause Kalispel to take to the center of the street. The yellow lights cast their flare out into the night; music thrummed and beat somewhere; the saloon emitted a ceaseless hum; the smell of smoke and sawdust and rum filled the drowsy summer air.

Kalispel sensed events. He could no more stave off the ominous violence of the time and the place than he could the fire in his spirit. Restraint and resistance seemed spent.

“Wal, things happen this way,” he muttered. “Just now I wouldn’t budge a step to avoid Leavitt or Borden.”

The music-hall building occupied considerable space, and as it was only one story high, the dining-room, kitchen, and other rooms were on the ground floor. Kalispel presented himself at the door of the dining-room. Half a dozen young women were at supper, but Nugget was not with them. “Evenin’, girls. Where’s that golden-headed Nugget?”

“She just left the table,” replied one of them. “Down the hall, last room on the right. But she don’t receive gentlemen in her budwar.” The last sentence had something of a sneer in it.

Kalispel thanked the girls, but made no other reply. He found the narrow dark hall, and at length reached the end and knocked.

“Who’s there?” came the answer.

“It’s me, Nugget.”

“So I hear. But who’s me?”

“Kalispel.”

The little door swung open to let him step into a small room, well lighted and furnished. Nugget welcomed him with glad eyes.

“Howdy, cowboy,” she said, gayly, as she closed the door. Then as she observed him more closely: “Kalispel, what’s wrong? Oh, you look—”

He reached for her with powerful hand and pulled her close, to peer down into the startled face.

“For two bits I’d wring your white neck.”

“Why, Kalispel! — you’re drunk!” she gasped.

“Nugget, you’ve seen too many drunken men to make a mistake about me. No, I’m sober, an’ as mad as I’m sober.”

“Mad! — At — me?” she faltered, her hands catching at his arms.

“Wal, I reckon it’s you. I’ve a mind to beat you good, drag you out of this hell-hole, an’ shoot it up proper.”

“Oh, my friend, you wouldn’t hurt me!” she cried. “What have I done?”

“You’ve played fast an’ loose with my pard.”

“Dick — I did not. I played square with him. Poor boy! He wanted to marry me.”

“He’s crazy about you.”

“Dick will get over that.”

“I reckon not. If I thought so, I wouldn’t be here after you. I don’t get over my case.”

“After — me?”

“Yes, after you,” he replied, giving her an ungentle shake. “Nugget, you’re going to break Dick’s heart.”

“Kal, don’t — don’t hurt me,” she begged, like a child. “I can’t stand to be beat. That’s why I ran away from home. — Choke me — shoot me — if you think I deserve it. But don’t—”

“Do you care for this boy?”

“No! No! — Not any more than I do for you,” she protested.

“That’s not what I mean. I’m your big brother.”

“Oh, I know that!”

“Wal, he loves you, too wonderful to... Nugget, don’t lie to me. You love this boy?”

“I — I like him terribly,” she sobbed. “But I don’t want to — to get him into trouble with these men.”

“He’s ruined now. An’ we’ve got to save him. Put some clothes on. I’m takin’ you to meet him.”

“Where is he?”

“He’ll wait at the bridge.”

“Fetch him here — to my room. I’d keel over if — I went with you.”

As Kalispel released the girl she sank on the bed, weak and white, with her blue eyes fixed in tragic solemnity upon him.

Kalispel ran out into the alley, and had almost reached the street when he remembered that such hasty procedure was perilous for a man with enemies. Resuming his habitual vigilance, he went on across the street and down to the bridge. Dick loomed out of the darkness.

“Pard, I was afraid she wouldn’t come,” he said dejectedly.

“Come on, idiot. It’s all right. An’ if you open your face, I’ll punch it,” growled Kalispel.

In a very few minutes he and Dick entered Nugget’s room and closed the door. She had not moved since Kalispel’s departure. But there had come a subtle change in her. “Nugget,” began Sloan, huskily.

“Don’t call me that. My name is Ruth,” she replied as she slipped off the bed to confront him.

“All right... Ruth,” said the young man, hopefully. They forgot Kalispel. They stood with glances locked, tense in that uncertain moment, searching each other’s souls.

It was the girl who swayed. Sloan caught her to his breast.

“Oh, Dick! I do love — you for wanting to — to marry me,” she whispered, brokenly. —

“Darlin’, there’s only one way to save me.”

“Don’t — don’t make me!”

“Kiss me!” he demanded, emboldened by her entreaty. She flung her arms round his neck and pressed her lips to his. Kalispel saw the tears streaming from under her closed eyelids. And then she was looking up at him, as beautiful as any woman could be, transfigured.

“Mad boy!... Oh, why do you love me?” she whispered. “I just do.”

“Can’t you get over it?”

“Never.”

“Borden will be wild,” she whispered, wavering.

“Does he own you?”

“He thinks he does. Kalispel will have to kill him. And that—”

“Enough. Say you will leave — this place.”

“Oh, if I only dared!”

“Say you will! Or I’ll carry you out of here this minute.”

“Yes. I — I will come.”

“Say you will marry me!”

“If — nothing — else will do.”

“Nug — Ruth, darlin’, you leave here right now. Pack your things. I’ll help. You can have my tent. It’s quite comfortable — board floor an’ all. You can keep house for me while I dig gold for you. I’ll sleep at my neighbor’s. An’ then the very first parson who comes will marry us.... I’ll make my fortune here. Then we’ll go far away. My parents are dead. I have no one to look out for.... You’ll be my wife!” Kalispel stepped out and softly closed the door.

“By heaven! there’s one good mark for Kalispel!” he whispered.

On the street he searched for Blair. Eventually Kalispel located him in the most disreputable gambling-hell in the gold camp. He was already under the influence of drink and the elation of winning. Blair was a poor gambler for many reasons, but his chief fault was to lose his head when fortune smiled. Kalispel surveyed the room and then approached the table to lean over and whisper in Blair’s ear.

“Come home soon as you start losin’. Hell to pay!”

“Huh?... Oh yes — all right — all right,” returned Blair, slowly comprehending.

Kalispel went out. “Wouldn’t do for me to stay down town tonight,” he soliloquized as he made his way through the noisy throng. He was like a man that could see in the dark, and on all sides at once. The atmosphere of the gold town seemed charged with fatality for him. It was, for all these gold-grubbers and parasites. Mirth, song, and guitar, the discordant squeak of fiddles, the gay, soft murmuring inside and the coarse roar outside — these belied the truth that only a step away from this life loomed defeat, ruin, death.

Kalispel felt this, and deeply his relation to it. He had drawn the Blairs into the vortex of this maelstrom, and he doubted that he could avert a tragic end. As for Sydney, he was in a state of desperation. She had seemed at first so self-contained, so strong and fine and balanced. But who could understand a woman? Sydney might do anything.

As Kalispel left town the moon came out above the bold black dome of Thunder Mountain. Its hue was orange and it had a weird, threatening aspect. The whole dark mass of the slope lay in shadow, looming as always, menacing as always, waiting. And on the moment a low hollow rumble pealed from subterranean depths.

“Thunder an’ grumble, old man,” muttered Kalispel, grimly. “You’re not foolin’ me. You’ll never bury me an’ my gold.”

When he ascended the steps of the Blair porch Sydney was not in sight. Lighting a cigarette, he paced to and fro, heavily, so she would hear his footfalls. The door was open and a faint light shone in the far room. But she did not come out. He was about to call when he heard quick steps on the ground. He turned to see Sydney appear in the moonlight, coming from the trail. His pulses leaped again. Slowly she ascended to the porch, leaned against the post, panting. He approached her.

“Somebody chase you?” he queried, sharply. “Don’t you know enough yet to stay away from that gold camp after dark?”

She did not answer. Kalispel stepped closer, to peer into her face. The moon shone at her back, so that all he could descry in the shadow were two dark eyes that electrified him.

“Where you been?” he demanded.

“I followed you,” she replied, as swiftly, and the low, rich voice shook.

“Where?”

“Downtown. Never lost sight of you for a moment.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!... Flatterin’, Sydney — but I don’t savvy.”

“You may call it flattering if you like.”

“Where’d you follow me?”

“To Borden’s dance-hall.”

“An’ then what?”

“I followed you in.”

“My Gawd!... Sydney, what possessed you? — That joint! To go in it!”

“I was possessed, yes, of several things — the only one of which need concern you is that I had a determination to know.”

“Ah-huh. I’m some flabbergasted.... Wal?”

“I went through to the dining-room,” she continued, hurriedly. “Those girls! — I asked where Kalispel Emerson had gone. They looked queer. But one of them laughed and said: ‘He’s gone back to Nugget’s room. Down the hall — last on the right!’”

“Then — what?” gasped Kalispel.

“I ran out. On the way up the street I thought I’d make a good job of it. I went into all the — the gambling-places and asked for my father. But he had not been seen in any one of them tonight. Oh, I am so — so frightened.”

“Wal, you needn’t be — about him, anyway. I found him in Flannigan’s. He was all right. He’d won a lot. I told him to quit soon as he began to lose. Told him there was hell to pay — which wasn’t no lie. He’ll be home pronto.”

She murmured something in relief. Then silence fell. Kalispel threw away his cigarette, in a slow, uncertain gesture which betrayed the conflict of his thoughts. The yellow moon, the black slope, the pale squares of tents, the faint roar of the stream, and the fainter hum of life in the town — all seemed unreal to Kalispel, like the objects remembered from a dream.

But as he attended once more to the girl he found she was real — so real and intense that his consciousness fixed sternly on one obvious fact — her conviction of his utter shamelessness.

That did not greatly shock Kalispel, because he knew his innocence and could prove it, but what staggered him was her motive in wanting to determine this supposed guilt of his.

“Miss Blair, your trailin’ me ‘pears a powerful strange proceedin’,” he drawled, stifling his agitation and playing for time. She would commit herself.

“Yes, it was — for me — more than you could dream. But this West is strange — this raw camp — these gold-mad men — all are strange. And I have been upset by them.”

“Wal, what’d you do it for?”

“I’d never tell you, but for the fact that I must clear myself of something brazen.... When I met you on the street with that — that — with the girl called Nugget I was so distressed and shamed that I realized I had not utterly lost faith in you — that in my heart I still cared.... Even your prompting her to speak familiarly to Rand Leavitt — even after he said she was your sweétheart — even then I still fought for you. Oh, it was hard to kill. I had to be sure, so tonight I followed you.”

Into Kalispel’s slow and mounting ecstasy there burnt, at the mention of Leavitt, a passion that held all softer emotions in check.

“So Leavitt told you Nugget was my sweetheart?”

“Yes, he did.”

“An’ that confirmed your suspicions?”

“It told me what a fool I was. Still I had to find out for myself.”

“An’ you believed I put Nugget up to speakin’ intimate to Leavitt?”

“That was how he explained it — and I believed.”

“Wal, for once you were right,” replied Kalispel, coldly. “I did put her up to it.”

“How contemptible of you!” she exclaimed, hotly. “He is a gentleman. He is insulted.”

“Ah-huh. An’ you are perfectly shore Leavitt is too much a gentleman — too far above us poor miners — to have any interest in a girl like Nugget?”

“Yes, I am. More than that — he is too fine and clean to come to me, if he had been with her — as you have done.”

“An’ whatever decent feelin’ you ever had for me is dead an’ gone?”

“Yes, thank God. You are a strange mixture of chivalry and baseness. You don’t know what honor means. You have no morals. You saved me from a ruffian. You make love to me and pull me out of the river when I was drowning. Then you kill an innocent man and become a drunken sot. Lastly you become transformed, apparently. At least your appearance underwent some great change. No more ragged garb or unkempt locks! You win my father. You win the miners to your side. You take up the hardest job of all, to pack meat down to these madmen who would starve before they’d give up gold.... And then all the time, no doubt, you were going to — to the room of this Nugget. And worst of all you come to me with her kisses on your lips...”

In her denunciation Kalispel grasped the undercurrent — the betrayal of her jealousy.

“Sydney, how do you know that Nugget is not as good as the very gold she’s named for?”

Sydney gasped-”Do you imagine I am mad, too?” she cried, incredulously.

“Couldn’t a man — couldn’t I go into Nugget’s bedroom without having you think something wrong?”

“No!” she replied, violently.

“Suppose I told you she needed a brother an’ I’d tried to be one? That she’d run off from home when only a kid, an’ drifted into this dance-hall business to earn a livin’? That some one had to save her from ruin — from dyin’ of drink an’ violence — from men like these brutal miners — an’ Borden — an’ Leqvitt?”

She laughed in mocking astonishment.

“I’d think you a monumental liar.”

“Wal, the funny thing is — I could prove it.”

“Kalispel, you lack a great deal, and one thing is brains. Can’t you see how — how cheap it is to intimate that Leavitt — Oh, I wouldn’t repeat it!”

“Shore I can see what I lack,” he rejoined, in the might of gathering wrath. “One thing is common sense. Another was to keep on levin’ a girl who failed in the big things — faith, love. But whatever I had for you, Sydney Blair, is as dead as whatever you had for me. An’ cold as ashes!”

Her passion spent, she backed away from him to the porch rail. He loomed over her, peering down into the white face.

“All the same, I can prove my innocence,” he went on. “I can prove it two ways.”

“How can you?” she whispered, as if she could not hold back the words.

“Wal, I reckon this way suits — me — best,” he replied, hoarsely, and seized her in powerful, relentless arms.

Sydney struggled violently, but in a moment she was in such a vice-like clasp that she was unable to move. He bent to kiss her, but she twisted her face this way and that, so that his lips swept her cheeks, her closed eyes, her hair.

“How — dare you?” she cried, in fierce anger and dawning fright. “Let me go!... You shall suffer — for this....” Kalispel reached her lips with his, ending her outcries, her struggles. Suddenly she sank limp on his breast. And he kissed her with all the despairing passion of his innocence, with the agony of renunciation, with mad hunger for what he knew was lost to him.

When he released his hold she sank upon the bench, drooping and spent.

“There!” he said, huskily, “I reckon — that’s my proof. I couldn’t be — villain enough to do that — if I was the — what you called me.... An’ I’ll never forgive you, Sydney Blair.”

Kalispel wrestled himself erect, and at that juncture Blair came staggering and panting up the steps.

“Wal, old-timer, I see you’re drunk again,” remarked Kalispel, stepping forward doubtfully.

“That you — Emerson?... No, I’m not drunk... Where’s Syd — ?”

“Here, Dad,” cried the girl, rising with her hands on the rail. “Oh, you look so white!”

“Blair, where’d the blood come from?” queried Kalispel, sharply, as he put his finger to a dark splotch running down Blair’s face.

“I won all — their gold,” panted Blair, heavily. “Stacks of it!... And I was hurrying home with it all — got beyond the camp — heard steps behind — men — three men — they hit me — ran off with the gold.”

“Ah-huh. Wal, this crack won’t kill you, but maybe it’ll be a lesson. Sydney, better wash an’ tie it up.”

“Dad, I knew it would happen,” faltered Sydney.

“Wal, I reckon some gun-play is just what I need,” said Kalispel, and strode off the porch.

“Come back!” called the girl, poignantly.

Kalispel did not even turn his head, though her voice was like a dragging weight.

“Oh, don’t go!... Kalispel!”

He walked on, his formidable self again, out into the weird moonlight.

Chapter Nine

September came with its frosty mornings and purple-hazed afternoons. Kalispel spent less time hunting game on the heights, though meat brought almost as high a price as gold. It had been inevitable that Jake would retrograde. After he lost hope of finding Sam’s body or some clue of his having left the valley, Jake seemed on the verge of ruining all their chances. Kalispel, finally in desperation, confided in him, and that worked a great change in the despondent miner. He became amenable, and willingly set his hand to the task of accumulating firewood for the winter, no small need when the snow began to fly.

Events had multiplied. Kalispel did not watch for Sydney on her porch any more, and when by accident he happened to see her, he suffered a wrenching pang. Blair had been laid up with his injury, which had induced fever; and Kalispel thought that was a good thing. He sent Jake with meat and firewood to the cabin, and also had his brother do what tasks and errands Sydney would permit.

Miners with mediocre claims were working like beavers to clean up as much as possible and get out before winter locked the valley.

This had been added incentive to the small clique of bandits who were operating in the diggings. Kalispel had been unable to discover Blair’s assailants, and had come to the conclusion that they were under the dominance of a clever and resourceful leader. While Kalispel was not hunting, he haunted the town by day and night, a somber, watchful man who had become marked by the populace.

One morning Kalispel had a call from a miner who brought a request for an interview from Masters, the new sheriff. Kalispel regarded that as something to expect and told the messenger he would see the sheriff.

A little later Masters approached leisurely. Kalispel had never encountered the man at close range. He was tall and lean, in his shirt sleeves, without any star on his vest, and walked with a limp. He wore a huge black sombrero, that at a distance hid the upper part of his sallow face, and he packed one gun prominently where it ought to be. Kalispel’s sharp eyes made sure he had another inside his vest.

“Howdy, youngster,” he drawled, with the accent of a Texan. “Shore am obliged to you for seein’ me.”

“Howdy, yourself,” replied Kalispel as he met the other’s deep gray eyes. One glance at them and this man’s lined, quiet face told Kalispel that he did not have to do with another Lowrie. “You sort of surprised me. A sheriff usually don’t ask to call.”

“Wal, I reckon he ought to, if he happens to want to see a youngster like you.”

“Ah-huh. That sounds friendly, Masters.”

“I’d like to be friendly with everybody heahaboots. I didn’t want the job, Kalispel. But since thet rock busted my laig I can’t do hard work. I got a man workin’ my claim on shares. An’ I let the miners elect me. There was some opposition from the big mugs, but thet didn’t keep me from bein’ elected.”

“Good thing for Thunder City, I’d say,” rejoined Kalispel, thoughtfully. He liked the man. “Who were the big mugs?”

“Wal, who’d you say? You’ve been heah longer than me.”

“Masters, I’m a pretty blunt-spoken fellow. Borden an’ Leavitt, with their backin’, run this camp. An’ if they didn’t want you elected I don’t see how’n hell you ever got in.”

“Lowrie was their man, as you know, an’ after you drove him out of town they moved to set up Haskell. Do you know him?”

Kalispel grunted an unfavorable affirmative.

“Wal, my friends canvassed the diggin’s an’ got the jump on the opposition. So I was nominated at the meetin’, an’ elected, as you must have heahed if you were there.”

“No, sorry to say I missed that. I’d kind of enjoyed it.”

“Youngster, why’d you drive Lowrie out of camp?” queried the Texan, deliberately.

“What do you want to know for, Sheriff?”

“Wal, I don’t want thet against you.”

Thus importuned, Kalispel told him in full the details of his entire association with Lowrie.

“An’ you’d killed him if he’d hung on heah?”

“I shore would. That job of his, tryin’ to arrest my friend, Dick Sloan, for no reason on earth except that Sloan dragged the girl Nugget out of Borden’s dive — that soured me for good an’ all on Lowrie.”

“What’d you have to do with Sloan’s takin’ up the girl?”

“I had a lot to do with it. They love each other. She’s a good kid. An’ Sloan means to marry her.”

“Wal, thet puts a different light on the matter. I’m glad you told me.... Youngster, I don’t mind tellin’ you I like you. I’m from Texas, an’ thet oughta explain. You’re in bad heah with most of the miners an’ thought wal of by the rest. I’m one of the rest. You an’ me ought to pull together.”

“My Gawd! — Me pullin’ with a sheriff. About as funny as death!”

“There are sheriffs an’ sheriffs. I don’t need to tell you thet Lowrie was a four-flush. He couldn’t have lasted a day in Texas. Wal, outside of my likin’ you, there are some good reasons why I’d hate to clash with you.”

“Masters, I can name one myself,” replied Kalispel, heartily. “I just don’t want to clash with you.... Suppose you name some of your reasons.”

“Wal, youngster, I’ll tell you one, an’ if you stand for it we’ll shake on it. Then I’ll tell you the others.”

“Shoot, Texas, dog-gone it, I kind of like you!” exclaimed Kalispel, frankly.

“I’ve seen twice the frontier life you have, an’ most of it spent with a harder shootin’ outfit than you ever met up with. When I was your age I rode for McNelly an’ his Texas Rangers. Later I trained with gun-fighters like King Fisher, Wess Hardin’, an’ others of thet Texas ilk.... Wal, the point of all this gabbin’ aboot myself, which I ain’t much given to, is thet if you an’ me clashed heah, I’d pretty shore beat you to a gun.”

“How do you know?” queried Kalispel, voicing the old, dark, insatiable curiosity of his kind.

“Wal, it stands to reason. An’ besides, I seen you draw on Selby.”

“Masters, you can bet I’m not askin’ to put it to a test. An’ here’s my hand on that.”

“An’ heah’s mine, youngster,” drawled the Texan, with satisfaction.

“All right. I’m lucky for once. Now give me another reason for not wantin’ to lay me out cold.”

“I don’t like Leavitt.”

Kalispel made one of his swift passionate gestures. “Ha!... Go on. You’re the most interestin’ sheriff I ever met.”

“Wal, another is I don’t like Borden.”

“Ah-huh. I reckon one more will about do me.”

“I don’t like the rumor thet’s spreadin’ heah.”

“What rumor?” flashed Kalispel.

‘Thet you’re one of these bandits who are holdin’ up the miners.”

Kalispel leaped up with a curse. “ ——  — , Masters! This is the last straw. An’ what’n hell did you tell me for — if you want me to be a law-abidin’ citizen?”

“Set down again, youngster. You shore air hot-haided,” replied the Texan, in his slow, quiet way. “Listen. I made up my mind since I been heah with you thet you have been lied aboot. I had a hunch before I came, but wasn’t sure.... Give me the straight of this camp gossip aboot the Emerson claim to Leavitt’s property. On your honor, youngster. This is shore a critical time in yore life. You’re young. You’re no fool. You don’t drink an’ gamble — which shore surprised me. Now come clean an’ straight.”

Whereupon Kalispel, stirred to his depths, related in detail and holding to absolute facts, the discovery of the valley, of the placer gold, of the quartz vein, and the events following, up to Jake’s return and the trial.

The Texan nodded ponderingly, pulling at his long drooping mustache.

“Youngster, I believe you,” he returned, at length. “Leavitt has jumped your claim. But it’s just as possible thet yore brother Sam was gone as it is thet he was heah. You’ve got to admit thet. An’ like as not you’ll never know. But you can never tell.”

“That alone has kept me from drawin’ on Leavitt.”

“Wal, it’s aboot all cleared up in my mind. Thet’s the status of one Kalispel Emerson.... How’d you come to fetch Blair an’ his daughter in heah? I heahed talk aboot thet, too — not to yore credit.”

“I happened to meet them in Salmon. Pritchard an’ his outfit had got on the scent. An’ Borden got after the girl. He busted into her room an’ I threw him out. Wal, I got acquainted with the Blairs. They jumped at the idea of goin’ with me to my gold prospect. So I fetched them — an’ fell good an’ deep in love with Sydney — the girl — on the way in. On gettin’ here I was so wild to find a stampede on, an’ Leavitt holdin’ our claim, that I busted loose. Shot Selback an’ got drunk. When I came to, Leavitt had played up to the Blairs an’ ruined my chance of winnin’ back Sydney’s confidence.”

“So thet’s the story?... Did the girl care for you?”

“Yes, she did. I reckon she might have loved me in time,” replied Kalispel, sadly. “But things have gone from bad to worse. Leavitt has it all his way now. She might be damn fool enough to marry him — unless I”

“You’ve shore split on Leavitt,” interposed Masters. “Stands to yore credit thet you haven’t bored him.”

“I’ve shore wanted to.”

“Wait, youngster.... Heah’s an idee. Suppose we work some slick deal on the town. For a spell you an’ me will become open enemies, apparently, always lookin’ to meet an’ shoot it oot. Only we won’t. I’ll furnish you some bags of gold dust. An’ you start roarin’ around camp, pretendin’ to be drunk, thet you struck a big claim. Anythin’ to show the gold an’ brag. Then bandits will trail you up, if they think you’re drunk enough. But you hold them up. An’ thet way we might round up these robbers.”

“Ha! We might round up more’n you gamble on. Masters, I’m your man.”

“Good! I’ll slip up heah after dark tonight.... Suppose you point out the Blair cabin. I’ll drop in on them.”

Kalispel did so, and experienced again that blade in his heart, for Sydney was on the porch.

“There’s Sydney now. She’ll see you’ve been here.”

“Wal, I’ll tell her I was makin’ a missionary call on you, but all in vain. Thet you cussed me oot, swore you’d draw on me at sight, thet you are a discouraged boy goin’ to hell.”

“Aw!” groaned Kalispel, flinching.

“Youngster, the way I’ll say it ought to wring tears from thet girl.”

“All right. If you can wring her heart, I’ll die for you.... An’ say, Masters, while you’re callin’ on people don’t pass up Dick Sloan an’ Nugget. You’ll love them, by gosh! Inquire down by the bridge, on the other side.”

Next day Kalispel took Jake with him to the big high basin over the south slope and packed down the meat of two elk. A herd of several hundred had come into the basin, which evidently was their winter abode.

“Jake, I got a great idee,” announced Kalispel.

“Idees are great when they are great,” replied Jake, noncommittal.

“Soon as it gets cold enough to freeze meat hard we’ll come up here an’ slaughter a hundred of these elk, drag them over to the rim above the valley, an’ hang them up in that heavy growth of firs. Meat-market for the winter.”

Jake did not express any rapture over this very creditable plan; however, when Kalispel confided the ruse Masters had suggested as a clever means to identify the bandits and possibly to learn something more, then Jake showed how sparks could be struck from flint.

That afternoon Kalispel strolled down to Sloan’s tent. Before he mounted the steps of the spacious, canvas-topped dwelling he heard Dick’s deep, pleasant voice and Nugget’s silvery laughter. Both rang sweetly in Kalispel’s ears.

“Hey,” he called, “I’m invitin’ myself to supper.”

“Come in, you life-savin’ hombre,” called Dick, gladly.

“Oh, it’s Kal,” cried a high treble voice, in wild welcome. And Kalispel found himself being leaped upon and kissed by what appeared to be a lovely, little, rosy-faced, golden-haired boy in blue jeans. “Where have you been for so long?”

“Folks, I’ve been plottin’ murder,” replied Kalispel, with a voice and smile that made him a prevaricator.

“We been hearin’ things. I was goin’ to hunt you up tonight. But thet d — new sheriff dropped in yesterday afternoon. He was darned nice to me an’ Ruth, but he shook his buzzard head doubtful about you.”

“Kal, we hated him for that,” added Nugget, who was clinging to his vest and gazing up with troubled, appealing eyes. “Have they put him against you?”

“Say — dog-gone! You look just like peaches an’ cream,” rejoined Kalispel, suddenly realizing the girl’s wonderful improvement. Her face had lost its pallor; the hollow cheeks had filled out; the red lips that had been bitter were now sweet; the blue eyes no more the windows of havoc. She was happy. It seemed incredible. But Kalispel accepted what his keen scrutiny revealed.

“Nugget, you always was pretty, but, gosh! — Why, now you’re lovely!”

“Not Nugget any more, not even to you. Ruth.”

“All right, then it’s Ruth. Dog-gone! If I’d had a hunch you was goin’ to turn out happy an’ beautiful like this, I’d shore grabbed you for myself.”

“Kal!” cried the girl, startled.

“I shore love you heaps, Ruth.”

“Hey, stop makin’ up to my girl,” ordered Sloan, gayly. “She likes you too dam much already. An’ we’re not married yet.”

“I shall always — love him, Dick,” she said, earnestly.

“Wal, don’t be scared my heart will break again,” rejoined Kalispel, with pathos.

“Kalispel, how is it with you and Sydney?” she asked, presently, watching him with a woman’s eyes.

“It’s not atall.”

“I’m going to call on that girl some day,” declared Ruth, with a spirit that boded trouble for Miss Blair.

“I see her with Leavitt,” interposed Dick, gravely. “Doesn’t strike me right.”

“It’s rotten, if you ask me,” burst out Ruth. “Won’t somebody tell her the truth about Rand Leavitt?”

“That’s up to one of us. Nobody but you an’ me an’ Kal know. An’ tellin’ her what Leavitt really is — if she believes — will be damn serious for us. He an’ Borden have gotten thick.”

“Don’t you kids worry any more. Sydney Blair will find out some day, probably too late,” returned Kalispel, darkly.

“Kal, Cliff Borden has been here to see me twice, while Dick was out on his claim,” said Ruth.

“Ah-huh. Wal, what of it?”

“First time he tried being persuasive. He wanted me back. Made me extravagant offers. Seemed to be struck with the change in me. Tried to make love to me — He laughed when I told him Dick and I were not living together. And he got sore when I told him I intended to marry Dick. He stamped out, saying he’d see me soon. Day before yesterday he came again. He was different. He threatened me. I called him every bad name I ever heard and drove him out. But I am worried, Kalispel.”

“What’ll we do?” queried Sloan, anxiously. “If my claim wasn’t pannin’ out so rich I’d take Ruth an’ rustle away. But that’d be throwin’ away money enough to start us for life.”

“I reckon you better leave it to me,” replied Kalispel. “Then I won’t worry,” declared Ruth. “This Thunder City is not the bloodiest camp I ever saw, by far. But it’s low-down and mean. I can’t cope with these men. Neither can Dick. But you can, Kalispel. And I, who haven’t prayed since I was little, am thanking God for you. That’s all. You talk with Dick while I get supper.”

Kalispel went outside with Sloan, where they walked up and down.

“Ruth saw through Masters,” said Sloan. “He’s not as unfriendly toward you as he wants it to look.”

“Dick, that Texan is a man to tie to. I should smile he is not unfriendly. But you an’ Nug — Ruth keep this to yourselves. Masters wants me to make a bluff at bein’ drunk, an’ go round flushed with gold — which he staked me to — an’ get some of these bandits to hold me up.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Sloan, amazed and concerned. “Will you risk it?”

“Shore looks good to me.”

“I’ll bet none of these two-bit robbers will hold you up in a hurry. Whoever they are, they are miners, workin’ claims or prospectin’, an’ they know you.”

“Wal, it won’t hurt to try.”

“It’ll hurt you with Sydney Blair.”

“I couldn’t be hurt no worse with her.”

“Ruth seems to think you’ve got a chance there. Don’t ruin it by becomin’ a rowdy.”

“Sort of tickles me. She’s goin’ to be the fooledest girl some day.”

“Kal, you can’t let her marry that cheat of a Leavitt,” declared Sloan, hotly. “Even if you didn’t love her! Ruth told me. An’ if I was a shootin’-man, believe me, I’d go after Leavitt.”

“Take care you don’t shoot off your chin,” advised Kalispel. “Ruth knows too much an’ talks too much. She’s got nerve. But Borden an’ Leavitt have a strangle hold on this camp. They can ruin you. An’ if I kill them before I can show them up, two-thirds of the diggin’s will rise up to hang me. An’ I’ll lose my chance to find out if Leavitt really made ‘way with Sam.”

“You bet he did,” cracked out Dick. “Ruth told me. She swears it.”

“Hell you say!”

“Yes, the hell I say. She knows, but she can’t prove it.”

“How could she know an’ not be able to prove it?”

“She says it’s a little of what she heard an’ a lot that she felt.”

“Wal, that wouldn’t go far in a court, unless what she heard was important.”

“We take her word. I’ll bet Masters would, too. But nobody else would take stock in what a dance-hall girl swore to. That’s the weakness of the case.”

Kalispel admitted it. Leavitt had Boise mining-men interested in the quartz lode. To get possession of the property by force seemed impossible; and any other way began to loom as a forlorn hope. Kalispel divined that the day was not far distant when he would abandon that hope. In this event all he wanted was a short pregnant meeting with Rand Leavitt.

That night Kalispel went on his pretended spree. He staggered into every saloon on the street, smelling of rum, inviting all idlers to drink with him, yet contriving not to drink himself. Everywhere he displayed a big bag of gold nuggets. The invitations to gamble were as numerous as the gamblers.

“Ump-umm. No time — gamble,” he would reply. “Wanta drink — an’ shoot thish town up. I’m bad hombre — I am — an’ lookin’ fer trouble. Gonna shoot daylights outa dansh-shall fellar — an” lousy claim-jumper.”

He created a sensation everywhere. Word flew from lip to lip. “Kalispel Emerson on the rampage!” The roar subsided when he entered, pale-faced, maudlin, staggering, with a bag of gold in his left hand; the chairs scraped or fell over or the players left them; the crowded bars turned a sea of faces; the throng split to let him through; and mixed, together again to follow him out into the street. He broke up the dance at Borden’s hall and shot out the lights. Lastly he weaved from side to side up the center of the street, singing a range drinking-song, and thus on outside of town. But that night the ruse did not work, and he arrived at his cabin tired out and disgusted.

Next morning he saw the sunrise from the rim of the south slope.

Kalispel’s bad moods might start out with him, or like giants stalk behind him on the trail, but they never lasted. When, on this day, he gained real solitude, his morbid thoughts began, one by one, to drop away like scales. The labor of climbing high, the smell of pine and fir, the intimacy of the old gray cliffs, the melancholy twittering of birds on their way south, and the low song of insects bewailing the death of summer, the color and wildness of the ledges, the freedom of the heights, the wild life that ranged before his gaze — these and all the phases of nature, increasingly more satisfying as the days multiplied, began to soften defeat and heartbreak, and the evil of the sordid greedy camp below.

The valley was now a hideous blot in the wilderness, a checkered hive of toiling bees, an evidence of how white men despoiled nature in their madness for gold.

From Kalispel’s lookout he could see the whole of the mountain that loomed over the mining camp. In bulk it dwarfed the area of the valley. He never gazed at this mile-long slant of denuded, soft earth that he did not feel its forbidding aspect. It hung there precariously. The faint rumble that resembled thunder and which sounded at infrequent times, the gloomy face of the great slide, its ghastly, naked, mobile nature — these to a mountaineer were fraught with catastrophe.

But in other directions the views were superb, a sea of choppy jagged waves of rock, peaked and curled and frosted, suggesting the purple depths of canyons between, and the brawling streams deep down.

Kalispel led his pack burros back to the edge of the basin, where he hunted, and tying them to saplings, he began his stalk.

Chapter Ten

Late that night in the fitful glare of Kalispel’s camp fire, Blair appeared like a man who was afraid of his shadow.

“Say, Blair, it’s right dangerous to come sneakin’ up on me,” warned Kalispel. “I can’t tell for shore who my friends are in the dark. An’ Lord knows my enemies multiply.”

“Never thought — of that. Excuse me — Kal,” panted Blair, finding a seat. He was sober, but apparently laboring under great stress. “Leavitt and Sydney — have been haranguing me. Made my life — hell — lately. I didn’t want them to see me — coming here — so waited till dark.”

“It’s long after dark, old scout,” replied Kalispel, scrutinizing the other’s haggard face. “I got in late. Had a heavy pack of meat.... What’s on your chest?”

“I’m a ruined man.”

“Wal, that’s nothin’. I’ve been ruined a lot of times.”

“You’re young and you don’t care a damn for anything or anybody.”

“Shore. But you can do like me. Get up an’ go on!”

“I can’t. This gold-digging was all right for me when I had some results and didn’t work too hard. But that’s finished. The gambling is worse. I’m a fool. I had twenty thousand dollars when we got here. All gone!”

“Whew! — Twenty thousand? My Gawd! man, you have drank an’ gambled all that away?”

“No, not by any means. I bought two claims, you know. Then I had ten thousand hidden in the cabin.... The rest went for our living, and my—”

“Wal, that’s different,” interrupted Kalispel. “You’re not ruined if you’ve got ten thousand.”

“I haven’t got it. Stolen out of the cabin! It was in a big leather wallet, hidden in a chink between two logs, high up where I thought nobody could locate it. But somebody did. Sydney left the cabin open. She went downtown with Leavitt. That was the night you got drunk and went raving around town.”

“Yeah, I did sort of slop over,” drawled Kalispel. “If Sydney went downtown I reckon she saw me.”

“Did she? — Well, I guess she did. She quarreled with Leavitt. And later with me she was in a passion. It struck me she was madder about your break than she was at the loss of our money.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Kalispel, in a quandary. “I reckon you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, Blair.”

“I always have done that,” returned the older man, plaintively. “But I still have ears. I can hear. And I heard Sydney lacing it into Leavitt about you. Evidently he had been blackguarding you, and she, like a woman, roasted him for it when it was true. Later she did the same to me. I haven’t any tact. I’m testy, anyway, these days. And when I said: ‘If you cared so much about Kal, why in hell did you let him go to the dogs?’ I thought she was going to tear my hair out.”

“Wal, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” exclaimed Kalispel, utterly floored.

“Sydney ended it by swearing she despised you — that if I ever spoke to you again she’d leave me — and that for her you were dead.”

Kalispel sat mute. His consciousness could not get beyond the query— “Did she care so much for me?”

“But to come back to the money,” went on Blair. “I didn’t dare mention to Sydney that I wouldn’t put it beyond Leavitt to steal. I haven’t a leg to stand on, Kal. And I ought to be ashamed. All the same, I’ll be damned if I don’t believe he might have stolen it. No one else has been there — at least indoors.”

“Wal, there are two more men in camp who’d back you up. Jake an’ me,” declared Kalispel. “But that’s far-fetched, Blair.”

“Maybe. I’m finding out a good deal.... Leavitt has only a quarter share in that quartz mine. He had to give the other shares to mining-men of Boise to back the deal. He told Sydney that they had taken out about three hundred thousand dollars. Also that lately the vein panned out on solid granite. The engineer who was here claimed they’d strike the quartz again, but it would be necessary to pack in and install a hundred-ton stamp-mill. At enormous expense. Leavitt doesn’t believe the mine is worth it. And he confided further to Sydney that he’d be leaving Thunder City by spring. Wants her to go out with him and marry him.... All of which he asked her to keep strictly secret.”

“Queer deal from the start,” muttered Kalispel, as if he were alone. “But Leavitt is a deep lyin’ hombre.”

“Why would he want it kept secret? That about the quartz vein failing in solid granite is bound to leak out.”

“I reckon these minin’-men are all close-mouthed. Maybe Leavitt has other irons in the fire here. For instance, he’s a pardner of Borden in that saloon an’ dance-hall.”

“That’s news indeed. Wonder what Sydney will say.”

“Aw, she won’t believe it if she’s hipped about the fellow.”

“She’s strange these days. I’m afraid coming here has ruined her as well as it has me.”

“Blair, if that isn’t shore yet, it soon will be, unless I can find some good reason to kill Leavitt.”

“I should think you have reason enough.”

“Ump-umm! If I could force him to an even break where we had witnesses — that’d be fine. I’ll try it next time I meet him. But if he can’t dodge the meetin’ he’ll shore dodge the fight. An’ you see, if I kill him anyway, this gang of his will hang me.”

“Well, it’s a sickening mess. I have failed, my girl is drifting, and you have gone back to your old habits. You’ll break out presently and get shot or hanged. Then we won’t have a friend.”

“Wal, you could count on Leavitt,” replied Kalispel, with a sarcasm he was far from feeling.

“I’ve fallen low enough without accepting charity from him.”

“Hell, man! He sold you worthless claims — planted claims — at enormous prices. Borrow from him.”

“You said that about planted claims before. You mean he had gold dust stuffed in the sand and gravel so that it’d look like a natural deposit?”

“Shore, that trick is as old as minin’ gold.”

“There have been several other claims which panned out the same way, and every single one of them was bought by men who didn’t get here early in the stampede.”

“More damnin’ evidence.”

“Then — there’s no redress,” said Blair, with finality. “Nothin’ but red blood,” replied Kalispel.

Blair got up to slink away, bent and plodding, like a man overburdened.

“Tell Sydney I’ll be droppin’ in on you pronto,” called Kalispel. “An’ don’t you be surprised at anythin’.”

“Better not come. Sydney will — And what do you mean?”

“Wal, wait an’ see. An’, Blair, if you got any sense atall try to figure things out.”

Blair went on mumbling to himself. Then Kalispel set about making himself as dishevelled and drunken-looking as was possible, in accordance with the part he had to act. He meant to make the best of it, and thought that if he did get to see Sydney, it would be an adventure.

“Dog-gone!” he soliloquized, as he started out. “I been this way so often that actin’ it is just sorta natural. Gotta be extra good for Sydney!”

The porch of the Blair cabin was dark and the door was closed. Kalispel espied a crack of light, and stumbled up the steps, puffing like a porpoise, and staggered to the door.

“Ushed be — door round someplash,” he grumbled. After fumbling around he knocked loudly. The door opened swiftly enough to make him suspicious that Sydney, who opened it, had heard him before he knocked. She looked like an outraged queen, yet intensely curious. Kalispel lunged in, pushing her aside. The room was bright with lamp and fire, very colorful and cosy. Blair sat staring at this intruder in astonishment.

“Howdee, Blair,” said Kalispel, wiping his nose sheepishly. “Where is that lovely dotter of yours?”

“She let you in,” replied Blair, and suddenly he averted his face to hide a smile.

“Ish that you, Syd?” asked Kalispel, turning to the girl. “Get out of here,” she ordered, anger, disgust, and sorrow expressive in face and voice.

“Jush wanta tell you — ain’t gonna drink no more... turnin’ over new leaf.... An’ I’m comin’ back to you.”

“You are not.”

“Aw, Syd, be reasonable,” he begged, reaching for her with unsteady hands. She avoided him, as if his person was contaminated. “You ushed to be — turrible fond of me.”

“Yes, to my shame and regret,” she retorted, hotly. Yet he fascinated her.

Suddenly Kalispel ventured a dramatic transformation. “Say, girl... this talk buzzin’ round....You ain’t lettin’ this fellar Leavitt make up to you?”

“That’s none of your business, Mr. Emerson. But I am.”

“Should think you’d be ashamed.”

“Well, I’m not. Why should I be? Rand Leavitt is — is all that you are not.”

“By Gawd, Lady, you shore said it! Haw! Haw! Bad hombre as I am I wouldn’t be lowdown enough to make love to you — an’ then go straight to them dance-hall girls,” exclaimed Kalispel, passionately, forgetting the part he was playing. But all she got was the content of his words, not their delivery.

“Oh, you liar!... Get out! I will not listen to your insulting him in my own home.”

“I’m gonna kill him!” hissed Kalispel.

“Maybe you are,” she returned, bravely, though she shrank visibly. “I am not so scared about that as I was. You’re pretty much of a blowhard. And if what I hear is true, you will be arrested before you can do this mischief.”

That flayed Kalispel. There was no sense in acting with this girl. You had to stand for what you actually were, or be made out a fool. He wiped his wet face and brushed up his dishevelled hair, and swiftly dropping his rôle, he transfixed her with a gaze no drunken man could have managed.

“Miss Blair,” he said, in a voice like a bell, and made her a mocking bow. “I am shore indebted to a little trick to find out just what you think of me. An’ I’ll say that I’m as disappointed in you as you are in me. I thought you a wonderful fine girl, too wise to be made a fool of, too loyal to go back on your friends. But you’re just ordinary, after all. You’ve been easy for this lyin’ villain, Leavitt. It’d serve you right if I let him go on an’ ruin you as he has ruined your father. Maybe I will.... An’ as for insult, you can take this for yours to me.”

And he slapped her face, not brutally, nor yet gently. She gasped and swayed back, her hand going to the red mark across cheek and mouth, and her eyes widening with horror, fury, and utter incredulous amaze.

Kalispel stepped out, slamming the door behind him. In all his life he had never known such passion as had just waved over him.

“Oh, Daddy — he — he wasn’t drunk!” Sydney cried, wildly, inside the cabin. “He wasn’t drunk! Yet he struck me.... I don’t understand. There’s something — wrong — terribly wrong!... Oh, his eyes! — He will kill Rand! He will. I saw that.... What can I do?”

“Daughter, it strikes me you can’t do anything,” Kalispel heard Blair answer. “Least of all save that rotten Leavitt’s life. Not from this Kalispel boy! And I wouldn’t raise my finger to avert it.”

“Oh, it’d be awful — if they hanged him!”

Kalispel passed down the steps out of hearing. What he had heard blew out his passion like a storm-wind a candle, and he went out in the open....

For a long time he sat on a log in the darkness. The upshot of his pondering was that Sydney’s amazing reaction to his denunciation of her seemed to be a divided fear that he would kill Leavitt and get hanged for doing it. Kalispel regretted his impulsive play-acting. His jealousy and his habit of trying to rouse her one way or another always got him into hot water. This last madness left him in torture. She still cared something for him or felt herself involved or responsible in some degree.

At length Kalispel, mindful of Masters’ game, passed on into the town. The familiar lights and sounds, the raw atmosphere in the street and smell of rum, smoke, and sawdust, the loud-voiced, rough-garbed, bearded miners and the pale, hawk-eyed gamblers all seemed to pall on Kalispel this night. Having resolved not to overdo his part, he probably underdid it this time. At any rate, he must have created the impression that he was out gunning for some man. Which, he reflected, was close to the truth. Borden he wanted particularly, and he certainly felt that he would go to extremes to make that individual fight. But as to Leavitt, there was always Sydney’s influence. She inhibited him. Like as not, he fumed, his absurd reluctance to increase her disgust for him would result in his letting Leavitt go entirely or getting shot himself.

For that night, at least, Kalispel gave up, and thought more of his growing idea of trying to work less obtrusively to gain the same end. He returned to his cabin and changed his boots for crude moccasins he had recently made. Passing by Blair’s cabin, he listened under the lighted windows. Some one was moving about within, but evidently the Blairs did not have company.

Kalispel decided upon a venture he had long cogitated — and that was to track Leavitt relentlessly, like an Indian bent upon revenge. He knew that there was always a guard on duty at the quartz mine, the shafted opening of which was only a step from Leavitt’s cabin. If occasion required, Kalispel could overpower the guard, but what he wanted was to act with caution until he would be rewarded by something to substantiate his suspicion that Leavitt was leaning toward the career of Henry Plummer, who, most notorious of all prominent officials of a frontier mining-town, had all the time been the leader of the most desperate and murderous band ever hanged on the frontier.

Kalispel confessed that he was a bull-headed cowboy who would never give up on a trail, if he had seen the slightest signs of tracks. In this instance the only track he had was the masked, hard brilliance of Leavitt’s eyes.

He made his way across the boulder-strewn bench to the edge of the bare slope. Once again he sustained a trenchant sense of what all the gold-mad inhabitants of Thunder City seemed to be blind to — that this vast mountain was actively threatening. The town lay directly in its way. Kalispel’s cabin, and many of the habitations along the stream to the east were out of line of even a tremendous avalanche. But the fact which came revealingly to Kalispel then was that if or when Thunder Mountain slipped, Thunder City would be destroyed and Thunder Valley would become an inland lake. The faint seep of sliding sand, the faint rolling of pebbles, always to be heard here in a quiet hour, attested to the instability of the mountain, and were indeed warning whispers of catastrophe.

Lights in the gloom marked the location of the mine, but the mill and adjacent buildings, and Leavitt’s cabin, could not be detected until Kalispel was right upon them. This sort of work was not new to him. Much of a cowboy’s labor had to be done at night, so that he learned to see in the dark like a cat. Moreover, Kalispel had himself been a fugitive more than once; and many times, alone and with posses, he had tracked rustlers. It was a familiar thing for Kalispel, this slow vigilance, this peering through the blackness, this listening with the ears of a deer. And now it became a deep-seated, exciting passion, prompted by suspicion and fostered by jealousy.

Step by step he proceeded until stopped by a high barbed-wire fence which surrounded Leavitt’s claim. The slanting shaft and the shacks on the slope loomed above him. He could not see the lights that had attracted him. Following the fence, Kalispel rounded the corner. Huge piles of boulders, cleared off the claim, afforded ample cover for him to approach the cabin. At length he passed the claim fence and faced the open. Leavitt’s big cabin sat apart, with bright flares streaming from door and window. Slow footfalls sounded on the porch; voices came from inside; the black shadow of a man barred the light.

Kalispel sank behind a boulder to listen and watch and decide upon further action. He could not distinguish what was being said inside that cabin. It would be necessary for him to get a position under the window. That seemed impossible in view of the fact that the guard patrolled the porch and the space in front of the claim. Kalispel watched for a long time, during which the guard left the porch twice to pass between Kalispel and the fence. It would have been easy enough to waylay him at the extreme limit of his beat, but that seemed of no importance at the moment and eventually would lead to making Leavitt aware he was being watched.

Waiting until the guard passed a third time, Kalispel crawled from his covert and wormed his way across the open ground. It was ticklish work, a risk very different from being on his feet, ready for any emergency. Still, he knew he could not be seen and would have to be stumbled over. He had just crossed the space when by one of the chances that rule events the guard turned back off the porch. Kalispel sank, silently flattening himself to the earth. He held his breath, his hand on his gun. The guard was smoking. He was talking to himself. He passed within ten feet of where Kalispel lay, and went on toward the end of his beat. Kalispel glided to the cabin and a point under the lighted window. When he got beyond the outflaring ray of lamplight he cautiously rose to his feet, with a sense of relief. He had the situation in hand.

“Mac,” came in Leavitt’s voice, “tell Leslie to keep off the porch.”

Heavy footsteps followed this order.

“Cliff, I don’t like this man Masters. To hell with Texans, anyway,” went on Leavitt, pounding a table with his fist.

Kalispel quivered. Borden and Leavitt together there in the cabin!

“Well, he’s after that damned meddling gun-slinger,” replied Borden.

“Bah! How much is he after him?” retorted Leavitt. “Masters is like the rest — afraid.”

“The miners say Masters is a real, sure-enough Texan of the old school.”

“Too much so, for us. If he isn’t afraid, why doesn’t he arrest Emerson?”

“I asked him,” replied Borden irritably. “He said, ‘Wal, I reckon I ain’t had reason yet.’ I said, ‘How about the rumpus he made in my place the other night?’ And he replied: ‘Borden, if I arrested Kalispel Emerson on a charge like thet, I couldn’t keep him jailed forever, an’ when he got out he’d shoot you shore.’”

“Like as not. The infernal cowboy has got us all buffaloed. It was he who took Nugget away. I’ll bet as much for his own pleasure as for that fellow, Sloan. Have you seen Nugget again?”

“Yes. No good. She’s brimstone and steel, that kid. Once off the drink, she can’t be handled.”

“Well, let her go,” returned Leavitt, roughly. “I’m through. Sydney has said a couple of queer things to me lately. She’s heard gossip. Or maybe Emerson put something in Blair’s head. He’s got leary of me.”

“All the better. You can’t be saddled with him, girl or no girl. I’ll gamble there’s no more to be squeezed from him.”

“We’d better let Nugget alone,” rejoined Leavitt, evasively. “I’m through. And if you know when you’re well off, you’ll do the same.”

“Hell!... Rand, the fact is I didn’t know I was stuck on the girl. Maybe I wasn’t till she left. But you should see her now. She’s got your proud, dark-eyed beauty beaten to a frazzle. And I’m going to get her back to the place.”

“Look here. It’s not good business. I’m reminding you that I have a half share in your place. No kick coming as to returns. It’s a gold mine. But don’t press this case of yours over Nugget.”

“I’ll have her back,” clipped out Borden.

“How?”

“I’ve thought of a way, all right.”

“Risky. You’ve not a safe man to deal with, Borden. You might do away with Emerson without risk. But if you did the same by Sloan, it’d stir up the miners. They’ve stood for the hold-ups pretty reasonable. Plenty of gold dust. If you go to killing some of them, though, you look out.”

“I won’t take your advice,” replied Borden, sullenly. “Why not? I certainly have more brains than you. And I tell you, damn your stupidity, that Emerson will kill you. Lowrie told me you had clashed with Emerson before and only got off because of Sydney. The cowboy was crazy over her. And she had a soft place for him, believe me.... Why won’t you listen to me?”

“You run your own affairs. I’ll run mine.”

“I see. We’re not making as good a team as I thought we’d make.”

“Leavitt, excuse me for being blunt,” returned the other, hotly. “But you seem to be whole hog or none. I had a hunch you were head of this hold-up gang and —— —”

“Don’t talk so loud, you damned fool!” rejoined Leavitt, in a voice like the clink of cold metal. “You’ve hinted that before. Don’t do it again.”

“Well, here are the cards on the table,” returned Borden, insolently. “You are pretty smart, but you don’t know it all. Your right-hand man, Charlie March, loosens up a bit in his cups. And he told Sadie and Sadie told me.”

There followed a pregnant silence. Kalispel heard the soft tapping of pencil or some hard instrument on the table inside.

“What?” asked Leavitt, coolly.

“That your quartz vein was done. That you’re sore because your partners got most of the gold dug. That talk of a hundred-ton stamp mill was a bluff. That you meant to clean up here by spring and then leave.”

“All of which is true, Borden. This place will soon be played out. I got a — rather unsafe start for me. I’m sorry, because there’s plenty of placer gold yet, and no doubt more quartz veins to be opened.”

“Thanks,” returned Borden, gruffly.

At this juncture Kalispel heard men talking in front. They were walking up and down, directly across the only avenue by which he could escape. The cabin stood against the slope, which could not be scaled.

“Borden, you’re skating on thinner ice here than any man in the camp. Once more I tell you. Don’t trust this Masters. Lay off Nugget. Keep out of Emerson’s way.”

It appeared to be Borden’s turn to be silent. In the ensuing stillness Kalispel fought something almost too strong to be resisted, and that was a fierce impulse to confront Borden and Leavitt. He discarded this for the old reason that he could not prove sufficient motive to insure his safety from the large contingent of miners whom Leavitt influenced.

“Suppose I won’t take your advice?” queried Borden, presently.

“Then we split. Amicably, of course. You can pay me what you think square for my interest in your place.”

“All right, I’ll think it over,” concluded Borden, and stamped out. Kalispel heard his heavy boots crunching the gravel. Then came the scrape of Leavitt’s chair and the measured tread of a man locked in thought. This continued until the cabin was entered again, as it turned out to be, by the man who had gone out to see the guard.

“Mac, shut the door,” ordered Leavitt, suddenly.

“Boss, what’s up?” inquired the other, complying with the order. “Borden’s went off cussin’ mad. An’ you look kinda pale behind the gills.”

“March has been gabbing.”

“You don’t — say!” gasped Mac, in a sibilant whisper.

“I always distrusted Charlie where a combination of woman and liquor could get to him.”

“Wal, he has been runnin’ thet girl Sadie pretty strong.”

“He has talked to her and she told Borden. We can’t risk any more. Mac.”

“Hell no!”

“Where will he be now?”

“With the girl, shore.”

“All right. You and Struthers slip round to Borden’s by the back way. Hide by that side door. It’s dark there, you know. When he comes out, let him have it. And rob him!... Savvy? — Everybody knows he’s my right-hand man.”

“I savvy, boss. Not a bad idee,” replied the other, in a hoarse whisper, and he left the room and cabin with no uncertain steps.

Kalispel leaned sweating and shaking against the cabin wall. He had the thing in a nutshell. How raw and simple, after all! But what to do? He battled again with a temptation to hold up Leavitt and take him down to Masters. This idea was not tenable. Suddenly it occurred to him to intercept Leavitt’s men before they accomplished their work, and better, to get to Charlie March first. If he could convince March of this plot against him, he might make an ally out of that worthy. Kalispel decided on the attempt.

When it came to getting away unseen, however, Kalispel encountered difficulty. The guard hung close to the cabin. And another, who came to relieve him, offered no opportunity until Leavitt called the man in. Whereupon Kalispel was divided between his new project and a desire to hear more from Leavitt. Quickly he decided on the former and glided away in the darkness.

Once on the noisy, glaring street he strode rapidly downtown. The roar of Thunder City was in full blast — that sinister sound of revel which attended the pleasure and business of gold-miners in a bonanza camp.

A crowd of unusually large proportion stood in front of Borden’s resort. Kalispel had not before beheld so many persons grouped in that attitude of singular suggestiveness, but he had seen many a knot of somber men, heads together, talking low, with that unmistakable air of fatality about them.

“What’s happened?” queried Kalispel of the nearest men.

“Some fellar shot, comin’ out of the bird-cage,” was the reply.

“Killed?”

“Yes, an’ robbed, too.”

“Who was he?”

“Nobody seems to know.”

Kalispel mingled with the crowd and was not long in discerning the quality of its temper.

“Men, thet’s carryin’ this hold-up game too far,” said one.

“First shootin’, an’ ought to be the last,” replied another.

“Hell, if this keeps on it won’t be safe to come out after dark.”

“Thunder City ain’t nothin’. I was in both the Bannock an’ Alder Creek gold rushes. Plummer’s gang murdered a hundred miners before he was found out.”

“Wal, what we want hyar is a vigilante.”

Masters came out of the hall with several men.

“Sheriff, did you identify him?” asked a bystander.

“Yes. It’s Charlie March, foreman at Leavitt’s mine.”

“March! — That’ll shore make Leavitt hoppin’ mad.”

“Reckon he didn’t know thet March was hell on likker an’ wimmen.”

Masters, moving into the less-crowded street, encountered Kalispel.

“Howdy thar, cowboy,” he called in a voice markedly louder than his usual drawl. “Was you heah-aboots when this shootin’ came off?”

“Just got here, Sheriff,” replied Kalispel, not amiably. He did not relish attention being focused upon him at that moment.

“I heahed you was always around where there was dancin’ an’ fightin’ — an’ hold-ups.”

Kalispel was dumbfounded at this caustic, significant speech, and unable to understand it, or accept it in any way as friendly.

“Wal, Sheriff,” he retorted, bitingly, “when I am around such — usually the right man gets shot.”

Chapter Eleven

The crisp cool weather gave place to a warm threatening spell that according to Jake would end sooner or later in the equinoctial storms. The wholesale killing of elk for meat storage was not advisable until frost came again.

Discouraged and defeated gold-seekers took advantage of the mild days to leave the valley. The winding trail was now seldom vacant of pack-animals and plodding men, leaving without regret the El Dorado that had not glittered for them.

Kalispel noted, however, that none of the parasites left the valley. They would stay on, intensifying their leechlike endeavors upon the diminishing throng of miners. The next phase of Thunder City, therefore, could be expected to increase the activity of those who preyed upon the diggers.

Blair made it known to Kalispel that he had tried in vain to sell his claims back to Leavitt, for merely enough to hire some freighter to pack him and Sydney out of the valley.

Kalispel made no comment.

“How are you fixed for supplies?” asked Blair, as if forced.

“Can let you have flour, bacon, coffee, salt, some tinned fruit, but no sugar,” replied Kalispel.

“Help me pack it down to my cabin. There’ll be hell,” went on Blair, desperately. “I swore I’d starve before I’d eat any food that came through Leavitt. And Sydney swears she’ll leave me if I get any from you.”

“Ah-huh. Where would she go?”

“Once she said she’d go to Leavitt. And again that she’d become a dance-hall girl.”

“Bluff. Let’s call her.”

Wherewith they packed the supplies down to Blair’s cabin. Sydney stood silent upon the porch, watching them carry in the goods. She had grown thinner; her bloom had faded; and her large eyes were all the more wonderful for their tragic pride and scorn. Kalispel felt his heart soften. If she had only really loved him, only a little, he could have forgiven her incomprehensible affair with Leavitt.

“Sydney, do you want to leave here?” he asked, abruptly, as always carried away by her presence.

“Yes.”

“I’ll get some money somewhere.”

“Somewhere!” she echoed, scornfully.

“By gamblin’ or borrowin’ from Nugget or even holdin’ up a miner,” replied Kalispel, with passion, driven to strengthen her miserable estimate of him.

She gazed at him in horror and wonder. Her woman’s intuition detected some insincerity about him, something baffling that repelled as well as fascinated her.

“My Gawd! Lady, I wouldn’t have as much to beg forgiveness for as you have — not for a million,” he mocked.

“Oh, is that so?”

“I reckon. But once more, Sydney, an’ the last time, so help me Gawd! For your father’s sake, for yours — for your honor an’ more than life — give up this man Leavitt.”

“Why?” she asked, as if leading him on.

“He’s not what he seems.”

“Are you?”

“No. But that’s no matter. I’ve lost power to influence you.”

“All men are liars.”

“Ump-umm. Not me, Sydney Blair. I might lie to tease you or keep you from bein’ hurt, but I wouldn’t tell you a black lie to save my life.”

“You lied about your little Nugget,” she returned, in a hot passion that would have betrayed jealousy but for his hopelessness. “You rescued her for your friend — from the vile dance-hall. How noble! How chivalrous!... Yes. But to share her with—”

“Shut up!... If you don’t close your catty lips I might — or you might say somethin’ no man could ever forgive.”

“You prate that word forgive,” she went on, furiously.

“Why, you conceited, stupid cowboy—”

“Never mind more of that. One word about Leavitt. Yes or No.”

“No,” she cried, violently. “And if you come here tonight a little before eight — and conceal yourself there — you shall see him kiss me.”

“Sydney! — Don’t — don’t say you ever let him—”

“I have not yet. But tonight I shall. That will end this farce. Brutal as you are, you could hardly murder him in my arms.”

“I’ll come — I’ll be here,” whispered Kalispel, spent and shaking. “An’ if you let that villain have you — Gawd help him — an’ Gawd help me!”

Kalispel, long before the appointed hour, hid in the dark shadow of the large rock upon which one end of the Blair porch rested. He leaned there, sick, desperate, his faith in Sydney fighting against utter hopelessness. It seemed he had never believed in an irrevocable step on her part. But to go so far as she had threatened — that would be staggering. Leavitt was a thief, a bandit, one of the frontier’s greatest criminals. Nevertheless, it was manifest that he was fascinating to women. Kalispel had seen a little of the magnetic influence exercised by complex men of dual nature, combining virile and physical force with suave and attractive personality. He did not imagine that he belonged to such a class. Kalispel had been in love often, once or twice so seriously that he knew he would never recover.

He had not only recovered, but lived to fall more deeply than ever — in this case, with Sydney Blair. The affair had turned out unhappily, and what hurt Kalispel so terribly was not Sydney’s failure in affection — for, after all, she really had cared — but her shallowness, her readiness to believe the worst said about him, or the slightest circumstantial evidence against him. Were she the loveliest and sweetest girl in the world — and she might be no longer conceded this point — he would not want her if she had no lasting ineradicable faith.

Blair left the cabin early, grumbling as usual, and disappeared in the blackness. Clouds obscured the stars and the air was warm. Nighthawks swept overhead, uttering melancholy cries; a wolf mourned from the heights; and the stream murmured on as if weary of its endless task. Miners strolled by on the trail, going down to the town, to drink and dance and gamble. Kalispel wondered over the fact that he had no desire to go with them. He felt no more need of that kind of expression. He did not feel old, yet he had changed and seemed to be weighed upon by long experience. Something waited for him, and it was not like anything he remembered. But it did resemble that mysterious, looming mountain, waiting there for the great hour of its existence, and surely its dissolution. Kalispel had no illusions about the brevity of life. He had seen too many accidents. Death might be lurking downtown for him at this very moment. For himself, all he asked was what his kind called an even break. For those he chose to serve, however, he demanded more — time and opportunity and luck. This Thunder City was undermined by deceit and intrigue and evil that struck straight at the hearts of the few people Kalispel loved.

His sensitive ear caught the beat of rapid footsteps coming along the trail. They sounded like the steps of a formidable man who would be hard to turn aside. And they came direct for Blair’s cabin.

Kalispel leaned out to see a tall dark form leap up on the porch. Leavitt! Kalispel sank back into the shadow. It was coming. The hot passion that leaped through his veins did not wholly drown the sick revolt of his soul.

“Hello, Sydney,” called Leavitt, in a low, eager voice as he knocked at the open door.

“Rand!... There you are. Late again!” replied Sydney. “It is after eight.”

Kalispel gaped in amaze. Sydney’s reply did not seem natural. But, he corrected, what did he know about the many sides of a woman?

“I’m — sorry,” replied Leavitt, breathing fast. “I took time while my man was away at supper — to hide some more gold. You see, I’m growing stingy. I want a lot of gold for you to help me spend.”

Sydney laughed — a curious little laugh without mirth. “Don’t come in. It’s cool outside.... Now, Rand!... I get so tired resisting your advances.”

“Stop then! You’ll never have any peace until you do,” he responded, with the ardor of a lover.

Kalispel saw the upper part of their forms silhouetted black against the frame of yellow light of the doorway. Leavitt had his arm around her waist. They walked out of the flare, and presently appeared at the porch rail, side by side, their faces indistinct in the gloom.

“You are always talking about gold,” she said. “If I were ever to — to care for you, I’d be jealous of your gold.”

“Ever! — Don’t you care now?”

“I’m afraid not — in the way you want. — Speaking of gold, father said you offered to lend him some today.”

“Yes. He refused it. Your dad has changed toward me in some unaccountable Way. I’ll have to buy back his claims to help him. And I’ll be glad to do it. I always regretted these claims failed to pan out. But they looked as good as any.”

“Thank you, Rand,” she murmured, gratefully. “Where do you hide your gold? Aren’t you afraid it will be stolen?”

“I hide mine under the floor of my cabin. A section of log slips out — it fits so perfectly that it could never be detected. Underneath there’s a space hollowed out in the base log.... There! I have trusted you. The only person I would trust.”

“Take care I don’t steal your riches, sir,” she retorted. Then in a grave voice: “Father thought he had a safe hiding-place for his money. But he would soon have gambled it away.”

“Emerson stole that money,” declared Leavitt.

“So you have said before. I should imagine it would be embarrassing to tell him.... Why do you think he took it?”

“Well, he has been seen with considerable gold lately. It is known he seldom pans for gold. And it is hinted that he is one of the bandits who are taking toll of us miners, more and more.”

“Better safeguard your own, then.”

“I seldom leave my cabin, except to come here. Then I have guards who patrol my claim.... I’m more afraid of a landslide than robbery.”

“Rand, are you not afraid of Kalispel Emerson?” she asked.

“No. But why should I risk gun-play with a notorious cowboy?” he replied, somewhat coldly. “I’m surprised that you ask.”

“Father said you and Borden were deathly afraid of the fellow.”

“That is not true, of me, at least. He has threatened me, I know. But there’s nothing for me to gain by fighting Emerson, and everything to lose.... You!”

“But how about your Western code of honor? As I understand it, when a man has an enemy and accuses him of something — and dares him to come out — if he fails to do so he is branded a coward.”

“That is true. Still, it can scarcely apply in my case. I am a man of affairs, with a future. Kalispel Emerson is a wild cowpuncher, a drinking gamester, a bully, proud of his gun record — and if he doesn’t get shot he’ll hang.”

“I understand. But still there it is — the man-to-man thing.”

“Sydney, you could not possibly want me to meet this gunman in a street fight?” demanded Leavitt, in great or pretended concern.

“No, I hate fighting. This blood-letting sickens me. A little more will send me back home.... Still, I’m a woman — and curious.”

“Indeed you are a woman — and glorious,” he replied, passionately, throwing his arms around her. “Sydney, I’m hungry for you.”

“Then you are a cannibal, too,” she rejoined, laughing. “Darling, this is the first time you have let me embrace you!” he exclaimed, in a transport.

“Why, so it is! You should not have told me.” And she drew away from him. Suddenly he grew bolder and snatched her to his breast.

“Sydney, don’t you love me?” he implored.

“I don’t think — I do,” she returned, faintly. “I’m afraid you fascinate me. But you should wait.... Oh!”

He had kissed her. Kalispel’s suffocating ears registered the soft contact of the man’s lips. Then for an instant Sydney’s pale face gleamed against his dark shoulder, and she drew away.

Kalispel staggered like a drunken man from his covert, and made his way round the corner of the cabin to the other side, where he headed for the open bench.

“Take your medicine, Kal,” he whispered, huskily. “It’s over — an’ not so tough!... Gawd! these women! They’re like snakes.... Yet in her heart she despises him.”

Suddenly into the hot hate and agony of the moment there flashed an idea that effected almost instant transformation of his feelings. He remembered Sydney’s strange luring from Leavitt the secret of the hiding-place of his gold. What had been Sydney’s motive — knowing Kalispel heard there in the shadow? Was it just woman’s deviltry? Whatever it was, Kalispel responded to it without doubt or hesitation.

He ran across the bench to the slope. He glided along that to the fence which inclosed Leavitt’s claim. There he rested, regaining his breath, listening, peering for the guard. There was no sound, no moving object. He slipped among the boulders and stealthily made his way to the point almost opposite the cabin. A light shone from Leavitt’s window. The door was closed. Footfalls attracted his attention. They were coming. Soon a dark form appeared. It grew blacker, took the shape of a man. He passed by close to the fence. When he was out of sight, Kalispel crossed the open space and hid behind the corner of the fence. He drew his gun and knew his course of action. If he bungled, he would have to kill the guard; this he did not want to do unless compelled.

Presently the guard returned. He passed the corner scarcely a yard away. Kalispel took one quick step and struck the man a hard blow on the head with the butt of his heavy gun. The fellow dropped like a log, his rifle clattering to the ground. Kalispel knelt and rolled him over on his back, intending to bind his mouth and hands. But he had no scarf, and Kaispel did not want to leave a clue by using his own. Rising, he ran to the porch, leaped up to try the door. Barred! Listening a moment more, he sheathed his gun and hurried round to the window. It took but a moment to force it and climb into the cabin.

He turned up the lamp and cast a swift, keen gaze round the room, scrutinizing the lowest log of the wall. In several places that log was hidden by bed, bench, chest, table. Kalispel dragged away the bed and felt with scrupulous care, searching for a joint. He did this all around that side and then the other. Each log ran the whole length of the wall. Behind Leavitt’s table and under a canvas curtain where he hung his clothes Kalispel found what he was seeking.

His sharp fingernails halted at a smooth, scarcely perceptible joint. About four feet to the left of it he found another. With powerful hands he pressed the section of log, which slid out upon the floor, disclosing a dark hollow in the base log beneath.

Then as Kalispel bent over, the first object with which his eager hand came in contact was a large, long, leather wallet. It felt full of money. Kalispel could have yelled his glee. Blair’s wallet!

The wallet was too large for Kalispel’s pocket. It took but a moment for him to snatch a blanket from the bed. This he spread by the aperture in the log, and dropped the wallet upon it. Then he lifted out bag after bag of gold of various sizes — some canvas, but mostly buckskin. He did not desist until he had a pile of them that would have filled a bushel basket. Where, he thought with grim irony, had Leavitt got all the gold? Next he twisted the ends of the blanket and carried it to the window. He peered out. All quiet! It took all his strength to lower the heavy load down to the ground. Then he leaped out.

When he swung that improvised pack over his shoulder he calculated there was in excess of a hundred pounds of gold in it. He wanted to make the welkin ring with his triumph. But never had he been more vigilant. He stepped on the grass and on stones, out to the hard trail. The guard lay where he had fallen. Kalispel passed him and gained the boulders. Sheering to the left, he soon reached the base of the slope.

Only then did he relax, to exult and revel. He had done it. He had recovered Blair’s money and he had taken what rightfully belonged to Sam Emerson.

“Gosh!” whispered Kalispel, halting to rest his burden on a convenient boulder. “Even if we’d never made this strike, I’d turned robber once, just to get even with this two-bit thief.”

Of all the considerable feats Kalispel had ever achieved, this one gave him the most exultation. He was safe. He could never be apprehended. And nothing was any surer than that he could hide and keep this gold, which, added to what he had hidden, would make a fortune. He reverted to the youth that had dreamed of romance, adventure, daring feats, to the day he ran away from home to seek the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow. He had unearthed the pot, but the bright face of the rainbow had faded.

He toiled on in short stages, careful each time to listen, to peer ahead, to make certain of his direction and safety. At last he reached his cabin, hot and wet, with bursting veins and throbbing heart, exhausted from over-excitement and exertion, but full of a satisfaction that made up for the irrevocable loss of Sydney Blair.

When he got ready he would return her father’s money to him, with a few caustic words to Sydney anent where he had found it. And possibly some of the gold the miners had lost could be identified and returned to them. Then he had Jake to think of and plan for, to establish in life, and also Nugget and Sloan, and lastly himself. Somehow thought of the ranch, certain to be his if he lived, did not rouse the old joy.

Kalispel, all the while with whirling thoughts, concealed his treasure, assured that his hiding-place could not be discovered without long and painstaking search.

The hour was late and he took advantage of this to burn the blanket.

“I reckon my high-minded Sydney would figure me out a thief,” he soliloquized. “My heaven! If she cared for that hombre, what a jar she’ll get!

“But,” he puzzled again, “why did she persuade him to tell where the gold was hidden, when she knew I was there?”

He went to bed without disturbing Jake, who slept like a log, and he lay there wide-eyed until the gray dawn.

That day Kalispel remained in camp, restless and watchful, working at small tasks, expecting any moment a posse of miners with Leavitt at their head. His loaded Winchester leaned against the door of the cabin, and he had an extra gun in his belt. He felt capable of holding off even a determined band of men.

But afternoon came without any untoward event. Then when he espied Leavitt on Sydney’s porch, apparently nO more excited than usual, he concluded that the loss of the gold had not been discovered. Kalispel pondered over this amazing aspect of the situation. No doubt that guard knew how Charlie March had come to his untimely end. He might have recovered consciousness without it becoming known that he had been assaulted, and then in the interest of self-preservation he had chosen to keep his mouth shut. Kalispel reflected that he had left Leavitt’s room as he had found it, except for the purloining of the blanket. This loss, too, might not have been noticed.

Leavitt made a lengthy call upon the young woman he was wooing, most certainly too long for a man who had lost a fortune. In this Kalispel had positive proof that Leavitt did not yet know of his great loss.

“Dog-gone!” ejaculated Kalispel, rubbing his hands in glee. “My luck has changed. I’ll play it to the limit.”

About midafternoon Kalispel, watching, saw Rand Leavitt rise to make his departure. Either he wanted Sydney to accompany him downtown or she wanted him to stay there. In any event, they idled some moments at the head of the steps, in plain view of Kalispel — which was assuredly known to both — and at length Leavitt leisurely left. Kalispel watched him take the trail to town instead of the one across the bench toward his cabin.

Jake had keener observation than Kalispel had credited him with.

“Brother, you’re on edge today, like a stiff wire in a cold wind,” remarked Jake. “When are you goin’ to kill him?”

“Him! — Say, Jake, are you dotty? What’s eatin’ you?”

“Nothin’. I been watchin’ you watchin’ Leavitt down there sparkin’ yore girl. An’ I wouldn’t give two bits for his life.”

“Hell! Am I that easy?... Wal, Jake, jealousy is pretty tough, an’ what’s more it’s new to me.”

“Has Leavitt added outrage to theft?” queried Jake, his big eyes flaring.

“He shore helped queer me with Sydney, but I reckon I was most to blame. I was responsible for bringin’ the Blairs here. It has been ruin for them. Blair has gone to the bad. Sydney hates drink. An’ altogether she’s had too much of wild West an’ Kalispel Emerson mixed.”

“Not a sweet drink, I’ll admit,” growled Jake. “But, hell, hasn’t she got any guts? If she is as tenderfooty as she looks she wouldn’t do for you. Reckon it’s just as well. When you go to ranchin’ you’ll want a husky girl who can cook, sweep, sew, milk, an’ look after a flock of kids, an’—”

“Hey!” interrupted Kalispel, red in the face. “Do you take me for a Mormon?”

“Are you still keen about the ranch?”

“Keen? I’m worse than ever. If I didn’t have a couple of scores to keep here I’d leave pronto.”

“But, Kal, you can’t buy that Salmon River ranch on credit.”

“Wal, I’ve got enough saved up for a payment. Forgot to tell you.”

“Thet’s different,” rejoined Jake, brightening. “An’ I’m offerin’ myself as cowboy, milkman, farmer, or any other help you’ll need.... Just for a home, Kal. I’m sick of this gold fever. Sam is dead. I feel it. An’ I don’t want any more prospectin’ without him.”

“Same here, Jake,” replied Kalispel, feelingly. “I’m takin’ you up, Jake. But I won’t give you a job an’ wages. You’ll be my partner.... Dog-gone, but that cheers me! It’s just fine of you, Jake, an’ we’ll shore —— —”

“Who’s thet goin’ up on Blair’s steps?” interrupted Jake. Kalispel wheeled as on a point. A slight-statured boy in blue jeans had just mounted to Blair’s porch. But when the sun, that had peeped out late, caught a glint of golden hair, Kalispel realized with a start that the boy was not a boy.

“Nugget! — Wal, I’ll be damned! She swore she’d do it,” ejaculated Kalispel.

“Do it? What? An’ who’s Nugget?”

“She’s Dick Sloan’s girl, an’ she’s callin’ on Sydney Blair. Struck me funny, that’s all.”

“Lots of funny things happenin’.... Kal, do you know thet they’re hintin’ you could tell a lot about these hold-ups?”

“Could I? — My Gawd! man, believe me I could — an’ I will when I’m ready,” cried Kalispel, so fiercely that Jake stared aghast, and then resumed his camp tasks.

Kalispel riveted his gaze upon the Blair home. He made out Nugget standing outside the open door for some minutes before she was admitted. If she had decided to acquaint Sydney Blair with some revealing facts, it would require nothing less than force to prevent her. Kalispel grimly recognized that Sydney Blair was in for some bad moments. Nugget could convince a wooden image of Leavitt’s guilt, if she chose to. Probably she was mostly concerned with proving Kalispel’s innocence and honesty; nevertheless, in the process of explaining this she would hardly spare Leavitt.

Nugget did not come out. The minutes dragged. She was making a lengthy call. Somehow Kalispel’s sympathy was with Nugget, and, strangely, for the balance of the endless hour that the girl stayed there, Kalispel’s thought was of her, not Sydney.

Finally she came out, to trip down the steps, to run gracefully away, her hair shining in the sunlight. She did not take to the trail, but sheered off to disappear among the tents along the stream.

Scarcely had she gone out of sight when Sydney appeared on her porch, hesitatingly advanced to the rail, and clung to it as if for support. For a moment she appeared bowed and shaken. Then she raised her head to gaze toward Kalispel’s cabin.

She saw him sitting on his bench before the door. She waved her scarf, dropping it a moment, then waved again. Next she beckoned for Kalispel to come, and her action was urgent, appealing. The imploring gesture that followed was almost a holding out of her arms.

“Ump-umm, Lady! Not me,” Kalispel was muttering, feeling his heart in a cold vise. “Not after last night! — You can walk on me — an’ spit on me — an’ insult me scandalous, but, by Gawd! when you gave that hombre what I yearned for an’ never had — I was through!”

Sydney edged along the rail. Plainly she was gathering courage or strength to come to him. When she got as far as the porch post she clung to that and watched him, her posture and demeanor most expressive of trouble and weakness. At length she gave up and went into the cabin.

Kalispel seemed released from the vise. He gazed around in inexpressible relief. The sun had set, yet fan-shaped rays shot up toward the zenith and down into the valley. The broken clouds of purple and gold appeared edged with fire. And for a moment longer a marvelous color bathed the fringed peaks. Then it faded, and that fading of the exquisite glow appeared to resemble what had happened in Kalispel’s heart.

That Sydney should wave to him, beckon for him, almost hold out her arms! That was as incredible as his strange callousness to her entreaty. Too late! He understood that. Not that she had failed him so often, but that she had lightly given what he had regarded sacred! He would have killed men and moved mountains for her kisses.

Twilight fell and dusk mantled the valley floor. Jake called him to supper. Kalispel went in, shaking himself as if to throw off fetters. He ate without his usual gusto. Jake talked of the ranching plan, growing enthusiastic, but Kalispel scarcely heard. Then came a timid knock on the cabin door. “Somebody knockin’,” whispered Jake.

Kalispel stared at the door. Another knock, fainter, brought him to his feet on fire within and cold without. Slowly he swung open the door. The broad flare of lamplight shone upon Sydney Blair. Kalispel grasped the manifestations of her passionate trouble before a sense of her beauty waved over him.

“Come in,” he said, and as she entered he indicated Jake, who stood staring as if at an apparition. “My brother Jake — Miss Blair.”

“Glad to meet you, miss,” replied Jake.

Sydney bowed. Then her wide dark eyes traveled back to Kalispel. “I must see you alone.”

“Jake, will you leave us?” said Kalispel, tensely, and it was as if he girded up his loins for battle. Jake went out. Kalispel turned up the lamp to increase the light. “Sydney, you look shaky. Please sit down.”

She made no move to take the chair he offered.

“Why did you not come?”

“Do you need to ask that?” he countered.

“You saw me wave and beckon and — hold out my hands to you, like a drowning woman?”

“Yes, I saw you. An’ I reckoned I’d spare you some pain — an’ myself hell, if I didn’t go.”

“Then you were there last night!” she affirmed, tragically, and sinking on the couch she covered her face with her hands. “I couldn’t tell. Oh, I was mad!”

“Shore you were mad,” he agreed. “Yes, I was there... an’ when he kissed you somethin’ in me cracked. I sneaked away then.”

“That — was nothing,” she whispered, revealing her shamed face. “He pulled me back to the hammock — made violent love to me. I forgot you. I — I thought I was in love with him.... And I promised — to — marry him.”

Kalispel’s Laugh was not harsh, but she flinched at it. “Ah-huh. An’ after Nugget got through with you, Mr. Leavitt didn’t rate such a good bargain, eh?”

Humbly she shook her head.

“An’ what you thought last night you don’t think now?”

“I loathe him!”

“Wal, Sydney, that gives me back a little of my respect for you. I reckon you got off easy. A few words of love, a hug or two, an’ some kisses — they probably go terrible against the grain for so proud a girl as you. But there’s no harm done. An’ if you despise him — why, that ends it.”

“Ends it, yes. But not my shame.”

“That will wear away, Sydney. I reckon you felt the same when I mauled an’ kissed you so scandalous.”

“No. I was furious, but not ashamed.”

“Wal, nothin’ much can be done about it. I remember when I was a kid an’ learned cuss words my mother used to wash my mouth with lye soap. You might try that. I have a piece here somewhere.”

“Don’t jest!” she importuned.

“All right,” he retorted, harshly. “An’ now you want me to kill Leavitt?”

“Oh no, Kalispel, no!” she cried. “I don’t care what he has done — what he is. But it’d be horrible to kill him. An’ you cannot forever escape yourself!”

“Humph! You’d care a hell of a lot, wouldn’t you?” he exclaimed, unable to resist that gibe.

“Yes, I would care,” she replied, steadily, with unfathomable eyes on his.

“Wal, that doesn’t matter atall. Ever since I first saw Leavitt an’ read in his eyes that he’d done away with my brother, I’ve intended to kill him. An’ I’m goin’ to do it!”

“‘Vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord. ‘I will repay,’” she quoted, solemnly.

“Beautiful words, Sydney. But they don’t go out here.... What did Nugget tell you?”

With a little cry of distress, Sydney again covered her face.

“Never mind, if it hurts,” he added, relenting. “I reckon I can guess.”

“I will tell you,” she cried, poignantly, “if it kills me.” When Kalispel did not reply, she went on:

“She came. She stood in the door. She said, ‘I want to tell you something.’ — And I asked how she dared address me. ‘I’m sorry you’re like that,’ she said. ‘I’m wondering where Kalispel will get off.’ I was amazed at her. She stood there white and cool, with the sweetest face, the bluest eyes — the very prettiest girl I ever saw. Then she came in and shut the door.

“‘You’ve given Kal Emerson a rotten deal,’ she went on. ‘And I’m here to call you for it.... He was a wild cowboy, a bad hombre, as they say in the South. One way and another he has been driven to defend his name, his life, or some one who needed a friend, until he became notorious. He’s what the West calls a gunman, a killer. But all the same he’s a better, finer, truer man because of that. The West has to have such men. Don’t I know? Good God! How many drunks, burns, thieves, adventurers, gamblers — how many lowdown men do you guess I’ve seen shot in the street or dragged out of dance-halls? — Yes, and I’ve seen good boys like Kalispel go down — worse luck....You are to get it into your head, Miss Blair, that this Kal Emerson is a better man than your father, a better boy than your brother, if you have one. He was so clean an’ straight — r-so true to you — that he could dance with me, be my friend, with never a word that you could not have been glad to hear. I loved him!... He brought a boy to see me, Dick Sloan, and that boy, too, was clean and fine. He loved me. I treated him badly. I did all I could to make him despise me. I couldn’t.... Then Kal came for me — dragged me out of Borden’s hall — scared me stiff because I thought he meant to beat me — and I can’t stand that.... Dick wanted to marry me and Kal made me promise.... I’m living in Dick’s tent now. And I might be his sister! We will be married as soon as it’s possible. I’m free. I’d be — happy if — I could forget.’”

Sydney’s husky, failing voice trailed off. For several moments there was silence.

“She fascinated me,” went on Sydney. “And then she changed somehow. The scorn — the earnestness — the sweetness all fled. ‘Now for your new lover, Leavitt,’ she began, with a terrible look at me. ‘I’ll make short work of him — and the rest of this job.... Rand Leavitt is two-faced, and one of his faces — the one I know — is that of a dog. I know he made way with Kalispel’s brother and jumped his claim. But I can’t prove it. He sold your father two worthless claims, which I can prove. If your father has been robbed, as I’ve heard, one of Leavitt’s men did it. But that side of Leavitt is the least vile. All this time that he’s been making love to you he’s been trying to get me. Oh, you needn’t glare at me! — I can prove that, if you need proof. Any of the girls at Borden’s will corroborate my statement.... Leavitt played the gallant lover to you. He vilified poor Kal and talked marriage to you. To me he showed the beast. In many ways you couldn’t understand if I told you. But you’ll understand this. He beat me when he couldn’t get the best of me. He has beaten other of the girls. He likes to beat women.’” Sydney panted in her agitation, and for a moment could not continue.

“She saw I was faint,” she presently went on. “‘I could tell you more, Miss Blair,’ she continued. ‘But unless you are mad indeed I’ve told enough. That is the kind of man Rand Leavitt is.’... She left me without another word.”

Kalispel paced to and fro in the confined space of the cabin, and tried to avert his face from his visitor. He divined that the most trying part of this interview might yet come. “I have told you — about all,” said the girl, haltingly. “Shore. An’ it’s been hard on you.”

“Can you — forgive me?”

He was silent and stared fixedly at the smouldering fire. The wind outside moaned under the eaves and roared hollowly down the chimney.

“I was a proud, egotistical, conceited thing,” she went on, humbly. “And out here only a tenderfoot. I love the beauty of this wilderness. But I hate the raw, the crude, the toil, the blood. I thought I could stand it. I fear now I never can.... Please forgive me!”

“I reckon.... All except last night. That I can’t forget.... Maybe in time.”

“Kalispel, I do not know myself. I am weak or crazy — or both. I was jealous of that girl Nugget. I despised myself. But I was. And yesterday I grew furious at you. I wanted to hurt you, drive you insane with jealousy. I had loved you. I thought you’d killed it.... And in the end all I did was — promise to marry — Rand Leavitt.”

“There was one thing I didn’t understand, Sydney,” queried Kalispel. “Why did you get Leavitt to tell you where he hid his gold, knowing I might be there to hear? You didn’t think Leavitt was a thief then.”

Sydney’s face flamed scarlet. “I don’t know, Kalispel. It was just part of my madness. Maybe I had an idea it might prove to me if you were a bandit. I wanted to believe the worst of you. Can’t you understand? Or maybe I just wanted to show you how much Leavitt cared for me — to tell me where he hid his fortune. Oh, I don’t know what it was — I was just out of my head.”

Kalispel nodded. “I guess — I understand, Sydney,” he said, slowly. Then, “Sydney, what will you do?” he queried, as if suddenly released.

“Is there nothing — for you — and me?” she faltered. “Hopeless,” he burst out, with dry lips. “I am a gunman, a killer. I mean to do for Leavitt an’ Borden before I leave here.... You are a lady, far above me, too fine for this bloody West.... Wherever I go my name will follow me. If you — you married me you’d be a pioneer’s wife. You’d have to pitch hay, bake bread, cut off the turkey’s head, milk the cows — an’, as Jake said, look after a brood of kids.... You see it isn’t a pleasin’ prospect.”

“It would be if I were woman enough,” she replied, and rising faced him with eloquent eyes that made him weak. Then she moved toward the door.

“Aw! — I’ll see you home, Sydney,” he replied, hurriedly, and followed her out.

The night was dark and windy, with storm in the warm air. He led the way for her among the boulders, and once had to take her hand. She clung to his a moment and then let go. They reached her porch without speaking again. She started up, then turned to him, so that her face gleamed pale, with shadowy eyes.

“No woman like me could ever love you like that girl does. No other woman could ever have such cause.... It was a revelation to me.”

“Aw, Sydney, you exaggerate. Nugget is grateful, of course, but—”

“She blazed with it,” interrupted Sydney. “And out of this ghastly lesson I’ll get most from that.”

“I’m awful glad you see the kid fair an’ straight now. She never was bad!”

“Thank God you saved her!” returned Sydney, with deep emotion. “Good night, Kalispel.”

He bade her good night and wended a thoughtful and sad way among the boulders, while the old black mountain rumbled its low thunder.

Chapter Twelve

There had been humility, remorse, and scorn of self in Sydney’s capitulation. Like a pendulum she had swung over to the other extreme. She had all but killed something beautiful and wonderful in Kalispel, and now it struggled to rise again and live. Under the dark and threatening sky, where he walked his beat, he was to find that love did not die so easily. His survived, and he was glad that was so, for he hated hate. Sydney still cared for him, in some degree, enough to sue for his forgiveness and his allegiance.

But in the light of all her vacillation Kalispel realized that he was not the man to make her happy. One wild hope shook him to the core — to take her and his gold, and go back where she belonged, where his fateful gun-play would never be called upon again. This idea, however, was untenable. He belonged to the West. They were incompatible. The biggest thing he could do for Sydney was to conquer his longing for her, to renounce her beauty, and to let her go to a better and more suitable mate. He succeeded, but it was the bitterest victory of his life.

It did not leave him peace. The long strife wore his nerves raw. What seemed left was a stern duty to expel these softer emotions which had made him weak, and get back to the grim and hard passion that had obsessed him before this upheaval.

Jake returned to the cabin late, to find Kalispel burning the midnight oil.

“Hello!” he said. “I allowed I’d let you have plenty of time with your lady-love.”

“Wal, I had plenty, believe me,” replied Kalispel, gruffly.

“Peaches an’ cream, thet girl, an’ sweet on you, Kal, or I’m a born fool.”

“You are a born fool, Jake.”

“Reckon I better change the subject or get bored.... Lots of talk downtown.”

“What about?”

“Masters an’ Leavitt have locked horns, it seems. You know Leavitt has been sore about Masters’ election. Wal, they’re at odds now about a vigilante committee. Masters wants one elected by the miners, with him, of course, at the head. An’ Leavitt holds that he has power to appoint the vigilantes.”

“Whew! — That’ll make a hell of a mess. — Jake, keep this under your hat. Leavitt is the boss of these bandits.”

“Thunderation an’ damnation! — Is it possible? But I’d believe anythin’ of thet man.... Are you shore, Kal?”

“Absolutely positive.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I could to honest, fair-minded men. Not to Leavitt’s crowd.”

“An’ that’s the rub. — Son, look here. If Leavitt organizes a band of vigilantes to catch an’ hang his own outfit — that will be a hell of a mess.”

“Worse. They’d hang me.”

“I wish you’d bored thet — long ago,” declared Jake, thoughtfully. “What’re we goin’ to do?”

“Hang on an’ see what comes off. But I’m bound to say, if this news of yours isn’t just camp gossip, it’s gettin’ sort of hot around here.”

“I should smile it is.”

“An’ I’m at the end of my rope.”

“Wal, thet’s good. Just so long as you’ll not be at the end of their rope!”

“How’s the weather?” asked Kalispel, as he began to pull off his boots.

“Mistin’ a little. But clouds breakin’ some. It’ll rain shore, sooner or later. Then it’ll turn off cold an’ winter will set in colder’n blue blazes.”

Kalispel lay awake for a long while, and then slept late, far into the morning. Upon arising he shaved and then partook of a belated breakfast which Jake threatened he would not keep hot any longer. Kalispel did not waste words that morning. From the open door he saw that the storm still held aloof. Securing Blair’s wallet, he wrapped the bulky thing in a burlap sack and set out.

“Mind camp,” he said to Jake. “From now on one of us must be here all day.”

The hour was about noon. He found the kitchen door of Blair’s cabin open. Father and daughter were at lunch. “Howdy! Excuse me, but this is sort of ticklish,” said Kalispel, as he went in and closed the door.

Blair’s greeting was cordial and curious. Sydney had been weeping. Her smile was something to conjure with.

“Can you be trusted — now?” he asked Sydney, with strong emphasis on the last word.

Sydney submerged the old outraged dignity, but it took an effort. Kalispel unwrapped the burlap sack and laid the wallet on the table.

“Can you be trusted to take care of this yourself?” demanded Kalispel.

Blair leaped up in great excitement. “For the land’s sake! — My wallet!... Let me feel — let me look!”

“No, I will,” declared Sydney, after a gulp, and she snatched the wallet away from Blair’s clutching hands. She opened it. “Yes — yes — the money appears to be all here. Oh, how glad I am!... Kalispel, where did you get this wallet?”

“Where do you suppose?” he launched at her, keenly.

She flushed. “I — I did not mean anything.... But where?”

“I stole it from Leavitt.”

Blair betrayed his excitement by cursing prodigiously.

“Sydney, it’s not likely Leavitt will suspect you or search your house,” said Kalispel. “But hide the wallet in your bed or on your person. An’ never forget it. Pack your belongin’s an’ plan to leave the valley with one of these freighters as soon as this storm is over. I wouldn’t advise it till then. You might get caught up on top. An’ that’d shore not be any fun.”

“Pack!... Are you leaving, too?” she inquired, tremulously.

“No. Not unless I get chased out.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and dropped her tell-tale eyes. “Come back and let me thank you.”

“Kal, I just noticed you’re wearing two guns,” said Blair, his eyes popping. “Must be going to a prayer-meeting.”

“Ornamental, that’s all, Blair. So long,” drawled Kalispel, and cautiously opening the door, he saw that the coast was clear and went out.

Once at the gateway of the town it seemed to Kalispel that he was entering Laramie or Medicine Bow or Butte or Kalispel. It was not a happy nor an easy mood. Thunder City did not look as if it had lost half of its inhabitants, for the thoroughfare was as crowded, as loud, as bustling as usual. But the fact was that at least half of the miners had decided against being snowed in on a bonanza diggings the bright bubble of which had burst.

Kalispel had no particular objective just then except to ascertain the facts about the Masters-Leavitt controversy. If the argument developed into a dispute, that would be favorable to Kalispel. He went into one place after another. The business of buying, selling, freighting, eating, drinking, gambling, gossiping, prevailed as always. Kalispel received his meed of greetings and avoidances. Far ahead he espied Haskell and Selby, the latter still with his arm in a sling, standing in front of the Dead Eye Saloon. They crossed the wide street, obviously to let Kalispel pass.

At length he ran straight into Masters, who emerged from his office with no other than Borden.

“Hello! Just the man I’m lookin’ for,” ejaculated the sheriff.

“Wal, if you want anythin’ short of arrestin’ me you got to keep better company,” replied Kalispel, curtly.

Borden broke out of his rigidity; his swarthy face paled, his jaw bulged, his big eyes dilated, and with an imprecation he strode swiftly away up the street. Kalispel turned deliberately to watch him.

“Chip on yore shoulder, eh? An’ packin’ double hardware?” drawled Masters. “Will you come in an’ have a little talk?”

Kalispel followed him into the little board shack without troubling to reply. The room contained a rude table piled high with papers, two boxes for seats, a sawed-off shotgun, and a rifle.

“I needn’t tell you that walls have ears,” warned Masters, dryly, as he fastened his searching, eagle eyes upon his guest. “Our little plan to locate the bandits didn’t work, eh?”

“Not yet. An’ I reckon I’ll lay off that,” replied Kalispel.

“Just as wal. It might have turned out embarrassin’ for me.”

“Masters, I don’t need to make bluffs to get a line on the bandits,” declared Kalispel, pointedly, as he sized up his man. “Do you want to know who’s their chief?”

“Emerson, I’m not so damn keen as I was,” drawled the sheriff.

“Gettin’ cold feet?” queried Kalispel, just a little sarcastic.

“No. My feet air always warm an’ they stay on the ground. I’m leary, Emerson. I want to find out more before I act.”

“More about what — or who?”

“I reckon you could tell me, Emerson.”

“I reckon I could. But it looks like I’m playin’ a lone hand.”

“You mean I’ve got to show my hand, heah? Declare myself for Kalispel Emerson or against him?”

“You savvy.”

“Wal, I’ll do that. I’d stack yore friendship against the enmity of Borden an’ Leavitt any day. They’re the men buckin’ me heah.”

“Straight talk from a Texan,” returned Kalispel. “Shore you’ve heard this low-down hint about me bein’ a bandit?”

“Yes. I’ve been asked to arrest you.”

“Wal, I reckon if you go hobnobbin’ all over town with me it’ll offset thet talk.”

“Yes, an’ raise a hell of a lot more. But I’ll do it.”

“All right. Now what’s this vigilante deal?”

“Wal, it’s the queerest deal I ever stacked up against,” declared the Texan, dragging at his mustache. “I proposed to elect a vigilante committee. Judge Leavitt overruled me an’ appointed the men himself.”

“Has he already done it?”

“Shore. This mawnin’.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say. Borden, who I had in heah pumpin’, didn’t know, either. An’ he didn’t care a damn. He’s out with Leavitt.”

“Take a hunch from me, Masters,” rejoined Kalispel, impressively. “Appoint another vigilante committee from the miners you know an’ do it pronto.”

“Youngster, I hadn’t thought of thet. You got the jump on me.... What you drivin’ at?”

“Masters, I’m not ready to come clean yet with all I know.”

“Wal, you’ve made one thing damn plain,” declared the sheriff, gravely. “If I cain’t trust Leavitt’s vigilante committee, I cain’t trust Judge Rand Leavitt.”

“Take it as you like,” said Kalispel, coolly. “Come out now an’ make good your friendliness for me.”

“Son, I’ll do thet little thing with genuine pleasure.”

They went out together, and Kalispel was about to lead his companion up the street when a young, heavy-booted miner halted to accost him.

“Ha, Emerson — hyar you — are,” he panted. He was livid of face and sweating. Kalispel recognized one of Sloan’s friends and sensed calamity.

“What’s come off?”

“Sloan! — He’s been beat — and knifed. Bad shape — I’m awful worried.... Nugget sent me. I — run all — way to your cabin. Come.”

“Holy — !” Kalispel leaped as one under the leash. “Masters, trail in on this...

They had almost to run to keep up with the young miner, whose incoherent tongue worked as fast as his legs.

“Get yore breath — an’ then talk,” suggested the Texan, brusquely.

By the time they reached the log bridge over the stream the miner had recovered sufficiently to be understood.

“I got it — this way,” he said. “Sloan had a new claim — over in the brush. He laid off workin’ it — an’ this mornin’ when he went there — it had been jumped by three men. Argument ended in a fight. Sloan was hurt serious. He crawled till he got help. They took him home — did all thet was possible for him. But we reckon he’ll cash from the lung stab alone.”

“Ah-huh,” breathed Kalispel, as if a weight were on his chest.

“Did Sloan recognize his assailants?” asked the practical Masters.

“I didn’t hear thet.”

They turned up the trail which ran between tents and cabins and the stream. A knot of miners stood outside Sloan’s cabin.

“You go in, Emerson,” said the sheriff. “I’ll talk to these men heah.”

Kalispel entered. Besides Nugget, and Sloan, who lay on the bed, there were two others present — a neighbor miner whom Kalispel knew by sight, and a serious-faced woman, evidently his wife.

“Kal! — It took you so long,” said Nugget. “He wanted you so badly. And he’s sinking now.”

“I’m shore sorry,” replied Kalispel, not wanting to face her then. “I was downtown.”

He approached the bed. Sloan lay dressed, except for his boots, and his boyish face was ghastly of hue. Kalispel had seen the shade of death too many times not to recognize it here. But prepared as he was for the worst, the actual presence of fatality, the pity of it, the raw evil, sent the freezing cold to his marrow.

“Pard,” whispered Sloan, faintly. “Ruth — will — tell you.”

Kalispel took the boy’s limp, clammy hand.

“Dick, it shore breaks my heart to see you this way,” returned Kalispel, huskily. “But don’t give up. You might pull through.”

Sloan’s singularly intense blue eyes appeared to burn with a fire not for himself. Kalispel found them shockingly sad to gaze into.

“Kal, would it be — askin’ too much of you — to take care of Ruth?”

“It shore would not.”

“She has no — other friend....You saved her...

“I’ll take care of her, Dick,” interrupted Kalispel, squeezing the cold hand “Thanks, pard,” Sloan said, more clearly, with passionate gratitude. “Thet was makin’ — me hold on...

“Don’t talk. Only give me a hunch. You told Ruth all you know?”

“Yes,” replied Sloan, appearing to rally as he reached weakly for the girl. Quickly she took his hand in hers, and kneeling pressed it to her breast. “Ruth — thet horrible fear — is gone.... Kal will look after you.... Some day...

“Dick, I would never have gone back,” she interposed, softly. “You must not talk so much. It’d bring on another hemorrhage.... Rest, and fight the thing, Dick. While there’s hope.”

He smiled faintly, as one who knew and was relieved, and closed his eyes wearily. A trace of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. Ruth wiped it away. He lay still, breathing slowly.

After a few moments Ruth released his hand and stood up. Kalispel found that Dick had let go of him. Then Kalispel drew the girl away. At that juncture Masters entered and went up to Sloan’s bed to gaze silently down, shaking his lean head. He turned then to whisper:

“We cain’t do nothin’. Shore you got his deposition?”

“Ruth did. Masters, you take these folks out an’ leave me alone with her.”

When the Texan had complied, Kalispel turned to Ruth. She was pale but composed, and outside of a hunted expression in her blue eyes betrayed no other marked evidence of emotion. As he looked down upon her, however, she took hold of his gun-sheath and clung to it, a wholly unconscious action.

“Nug — Ruth, are you up to talkin’ now?” he asked, earnestly.

“Yes.”

“Who do you think is back of it?”

“Borden.”

“Why?”

“Two days straight running he has been here. Last time I had to fight to keep him from packing me off. I kicked and bit and screamed. He went out to run into our neighbors, who’d heard me. When I heard him lie to them I went out, too, and told the truth. Called him I don’t know what, right before them. Then he left, white with rage.... I know he is behind this attack on poor Dick.”

“Yet he might not be.”

“I feel it. A woman never makes a mistake when she feels that way.”

“I feel it, too. But, Ruth, we must have facts. These miners are in an ugly mood. Did you know Leavitt has organized a vigilante band of his own, with himself as leader?”

“No. I hadn’t heard.”

“Wal, it’s true. An’ it’s bad news. I reckoned he an’ Borden had split. But so far as I’m concerned he’d take Borden’s side. I must have facts.”

“Kal, I have facts as to Dick’s assailants, but I can’t connect Borden with them.”

“Uh-huh. All right, you might as well tell me now.”

“Dick left early this morning,” she began, swiftly and intelligently, “to work his new claim. He hired Presbry, a neighbor miner, to work this claim here, on shares. It is about panned out. Dick’s new claim is way across the valley, up high, among the rocks and brush. I’ve been there. It is hard to get to.... Well, I don’t know how long ago — two hours, maybe, men came packing Dick in here, all bloody and dirty, terrible to see. He had been stabbed in the back and beaten over the head. While we worked over him as best we could he talked.... He found that his new claim had been jumped. There were three men, one of them digging. Dick had seen him before, but did not know him. They seemed friendly at first, as if he ought to take it for granted they had a right to jump his claim. But as Dick had visited that claim every day, he did not agree with them. They argued, and finally Dick got sore. He jumped in the hole to throw the man out. Then began a fight, in which the other men joined. In the scuffle one of them called out: ‘Don’t shoot! You might hit Mac!’... This man in the hole, then, was the one named Mac. Dick said he had a stubby red beard and a bloody patch pasted over a recent wound just above his ear. One of the two above stabbed Dick in the back. The blade went clear through in front. Then they beat him over the head. When Dick came to he was alone. They had no doubt left him for dead. He walked and crawled within call of the miners who carried him home — and that’s all, I think.”

“Did they rob him?”

“Oh, I forgot. Yes, his watch, gun, money, everything was taken. And his pockets turned inside out.”

“Pretty slick. Robbery motive, eh? Wal, we know enough. Ruth, that fellow Mac is one of Leavitt’s trusted guards. An’ I made that wound on his head.... Why in hell didn’t I kill him while I was about it?”

“Let him go, Kal.... Let them all go!” she begged, suddenly changing from the calm, cold girl who had related Sloan’s story. Her eyes turned a darker, stranger blue. Nervous hands pulled at the lapels of Kalispel’s vest.

“Ruth, you ask that?” he queried, in surprise.

“Yes. I implore it.”

“I reckoned you knew me.”

“I do. But it’s too late to save Dick. And even if you are Kalispel Emerson you might get killed.”

“Shore. Only that’s not the way to meet this situation. If I showed yellow I’d stand a heap more chance of cashin’. Besides, Borden would get you shore.”

“Not alive!” she flashed.

“Ah-huh. There you’re admittin’ the weakness of your argument to let these skunks off. Can’t you see that, girl?”

“We could leave Thunder City as soon — as—” she faltered. “Kal, can’t you see something, too?”

“I see a lot, Ruth. An’ the biggest thing is for me to go on the rampage. Borden an’ Leavitt are white livered, an’ their men are not the real stuff. They shoot in the dark an’ knife in the back. I’m goin’ to wipe out some of them an’ scare the rest of them stiffer’n a crowbar. That, with the proofs I have, will wake up these miners. Masters is on our side. He’s a crafty Texan an’ he shore smells a rat.”

“Oh, Kal — suppose—” she choked, and after one terrible gaze into his face she sank against him, quivering.

Kalispel held her, suddenly troubled with the memory of Sydney’s statement about this girl. That was scarcely credible. Yet — Ruth drew away from him. To his surprise and admiration, all trace of weakness had vanished. She was of different caliber from Sydney Blair, not built of the same stuff.

“You know best, Kal,” she said, with composure. “It is not for me to try to stay your hand.... Go — and don’t worry about me.”

“That’s the way to talk, Ruth,” he rejoined, hiding his own feeling. “Looks like Dick is unconscious. Reckon he won’t come to again. An’ that’s just as well, seein’ he’s done for.... Ruth, don’t worry now about me.”

“I’d hate to be in Borden’s boots,” she replied, lightly, and went to Sloan’s bedside.

Kalispel strode out slowly, gazing back at Ruth. There was a girl who understood a man. Once out of the door, he was himself again. Masters stood outside, talking to the couple. The crowd, except for a few groups, had dispersed.

“Folks, go inside an’ stay with Ruth,” begged Kalispel. “Masters, you come with me.”

They had crossed the bridge and reached the main street when the Texan broke the strained silence.

“Younsster, you’re aimin’ to play a lone hand?”

“I reckon.”

“Wal, I calculate I’d back you up,” returned the other, deliberately.

“Masters, I’d be most damned glad to have you line up with me on this deal,” said Kalispel, forcefully, as he gratefully squeezed the sheriff’s arm. “But if I got in deep an’ dragged you in, why, you might not be left to look after your friends. An’ believe me, if we got bored, they’d shore need it.”

“Emerson, you’re hintin’ of a Henry Plummer outfit. An’ I reckon thet’s far-fetched. Neither Leavitt or Borden air Plummer’s caliber. An’ the rest of this gang air four-flushers.”

“My idea, too. But this gang may be bigger than I’ve figured.”

“No matter. Without leaders they’d wilt like yellow paper in a blaze. I’ve sized up every man in this camp. An’ you’re the only hombre heah I’d be leary of. It wasn’t because I was afraid of you that I offered to back you.”

“Fine. That’s like a stiff drink, which I needed. The only thing I’m leary about is bein’ picked from some door or window.”

“Wal, thet’s not liable to happen if I hang close to you. At the same time it’ll show this outfit thet there’s something damned onsartin’ in the wind.”

They had halted just short of the corner to conclude this conversation.

“Look for a stocky man with a stubby red beard an’ a bloody patch over his ear.... An’ let me see. It’d be his right ear, thet’s shore.”

“Must have put thet patch there yourself,” was the deduction of the shrewd sheriff.

“They call him Mac,” said Kalispel. “I can’t describe him, more n that. But I’ll shore know his shape when I spot it.”

In the town there was no indication that the killing of Sloan had become the latest news. But talking and walking miners, and other inhabitants of Thunder City, were not slow to take cognizance of Bruce Masters and Kalispel stalking up the street.

“Hey!” called one excited observer. “Looks like Sheriff Masters has arrested thet gunman.”

“Not to me, it doesn’t,” replied another.

They entered the Dead Eye Saloon. It was blue with smoke and noisy with voices.

“Say, crowd,” shouted Kalispel, piercingly, and when the hum ceased and all faces turned, he continued: “I’m lookin’ hard for a man with a stubby red beard an’ a patch over his right ear where he got slugged recently. He answers to the name Mac.”

Every man present, even the card-players, looked at his neighbors. Then a bartender set down a glass with a nervous clang.

“Boss, nobody in hyar who answers to thet,” he called. Kalispel led the way out, and he heard the buzz that arose behind him.

“Reminds me of bein’ in Texas,” drawled Masters, with a chuckle.

“What does?”

“Why you, boy.”

Kalispel merely glanced into the stores. But he went into the Gold Dust Saloon, the Elk, the Bonanza, the Thunder Boom, all the resorts on the right side of the street, in each of which he interrupted gayety to spread silence and consternation. But he did not find his man. By this time a crowd followed at a respectful distance and the whole tenor of the main street had changed as if by magic.

“Wal, Kalispel,” said the Texan, as they crossed the street at the extreme east end of town, “nobody figgerin’ now thet you air under arrest.”

“Reckon we have them guessin’.”

“None of these men will meet you for an even break.”

“Don’t expect it, Masters.”

“Looks like you’d have to hole them up. An’ when you’re outside of a barricaded cabin, up ag’in’ shotguns an’ rifles, it gets testier’n hell. As a Ranger I had a lot of thet.”

They faced downstreet on the right side, passing the blacksmith shop, some closed tents, and a merchandise store. As far down as Kalispel could see men were gazing in his direction, and not a few of their number were taking to the middle of the street. In the Red Likker Saloon Kalispel’s ringing challenge elicited a reply from some one in the crowd.

“What you want Mac fer?”

“He an’ his pards jumped Dick Sloan’s claim.”

“Wal, thet ain’t sayin’ what you want,” replied the gruff voice.

“Sloan’s dyin’!”

Kalispel advanced upon the group before the bar and ordered them to spread out. His swift scrutiny failed to locate a man with a stubby red beard. He backed out of the saloon, keenly aware of hostile looks. On down the street he went, searching in the places where miners congregated. Opposite the Dead Eye Saloon Kalispel espied a tall bearded man who strode across in a manner to excite a second glance. Kalispel knew him as a friend, a neighbor of Blair’s.

“Shore you’re lookin’ at this fellar?” inquired Masters. The miner came on without slacking his pace or betraying any sign that he recognized Kalispel. But as he passed he shot out low-voiced: “Your man’s been tipped off.... Dead Eye Saloon!”

Kalispel halted.

“Heah thet?” queried Masters, sharply. “I reckon I’ll stand aside now, Emerson.”

It was a hundred long steps or more diagonally across the street to the Dead Eye Saloon. When the Texan moved on a little way and then faced about, it appeared to be a signal for every man in sight of Kalispel to halt. Various comments carried to Kalispel’s sensitive ears.

“There! Masters has shied away,” said one, in hoarse excitement.

“He ain’t drunk this time, shore.”

“Who’s he after?”

“He’s watching the Dead Eye.”

“Gentlemen, the ball is about to open.”

“We’ll be duckin’ lead pronto.”

For these observers the stage had been set for the familiar street-scene drama of the frontier. But in Thunder City there had been few indeed of these duels.

Kalispel cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Somebody tell Sneed to drive Mac an’ his pards out — or I’ll burn ’em out.”

A man shouted into the door of the Dead Eye. If Sneed did not comply, Kalispel would take his failure as inimical to himself. He counted, however, on the fact that the creed of the West was for men to meet in the open and decide their disputes without risk to spectators.

Bill Sneed appeared, opening wide the swinging doors of his saloon.

“Git out!” he bellowed. “I ain’t harborin’ ye, by Gawd!” Two white-faced men sneaked out, followed by a third, whose sombrero, pulled low, failed to hide the betraying red beard. The first slipped like an eel into the backing throng. The others dashed into the street, sheering widely to the left.

“Stop!” yelled Kalispel, and he shot at the foremost runner. The bullet kicked up the dust beyond and whined away. But it had hit the runner, for there was a violent break in his swift action. Kalispel’s second shot, aimed low, brought the last man down in the middle of the street. He screamed with pain and terror. Like a crippled fowl he flopped, attempted to get to his feet again, but fell, screaming all the time. Then as Kalispel leaped forward into the street the man raised himself from the hips and pulled his gun, to fire rapidly. The bullets splintered glass and thudded on wood, and caused a rush of onlookers to get out of range. Kalispel plunged to a halt and shot to kill. His adversary spun around and went down, while his gun slid in the dust. Again Kalispel leaped forward to his prostrate foe, glad to find him alive. The second bullet had taken him high up in the breast, from which the blood was pouring.

“Howdy, Mac,” called Kalispel, grimly, as he stood over him with smoking gun. The black sombrero lay in the dust and Kalispel had needed no more to recognize his man.

“Masters, come here an’ bring somebody,” yelled Kalispel to the sheriff. Then he bent his gaze upon the claim-jumper. “Sloan marked you, Mac.”

“Is he — daid?” queried Mac, hoarsely. His eyes foiled furtively.

“I reckon, by this time.”

“Don’t kill me — Emerson.... I’ll talk.”

Masters came hurriedly up, accompanied by two miners. “Winged, eh? — Make him squeal, Kal,” he said, stridently. “Mac, I reckon you won’t cash if you don’t get bored again,” added Kalispel, deliberately aligning his gun at the fallen man’s heart. “Talk — or I’ll bore you again!”

“Fer Gawd’s sake, Emerson!... I didn’t knife Sloan — or slug him, either.... I was for robbin’ an’ kidnappin’ him — so Borden could get — Nugget!”

Chapter Thirteen

Like wildfire the news spread up and down the main street of Thunder City that Macabe, one of Leavitt’s guards, had confessed having been forced by Borden to put young Sloan out of the way. Rumor ran as fast as men could walk and their tongues could wag. The motive for the crime — to waylay and kill an honest young miner for the purpose of dragging his sweetheart to the dance-hall den, and to a life of drink and violence — that inflamed the populace to an increasingly dangerous degree.

Kalispel patrolled the center of the wide street, the cynosure of all eyes. The tide had turned his way. The creed of the frontier would force Borden to meet him.

Sunset was still several hours away. Kalispel’s beat covered the lower end of town, just out of rifle-range from Borden’s place. Borden had been located at once and informed of Macabe’s confession, and that there was a man waiting for him out in the street.

Toward midaftemoon business, except that of drinking, ceased for the day. Everybody wanted to see the encounter between Kalispel and Borden. If there were exceptions, they were Leavitt and his men up at the mine. They had been told. And later the news flashed around, from the very messengers who carried it, that Leavitt had refused to protect Borden from Emerson. “Tell the girl-snatcher to go out and take his medicine!” was Leavitt’s coarse reply to that appeal. Gossip quickly added the fact of Leavitt’s half interest in Borden’s property, and that the mine-owner would not be unhappy to take over Borden’s half. The lower end of the street was deserted except for Kalispel’s solitary form, pacing to and fro, or standing motionless and menacing. The throng, drinking more and more, gradually succumbed to the mob feeling, so easily aroused in crude men at such an hour. Kalispel’s status rose to that of a chivalrous and admirable man, while Borden was labeled a trafficker in women.

Dick Sloan’s neighbor, the young miner, detached himself from the crowd and hurriedly strode out to Kalispel.

“Better give me elbow room,” warned Kalispel, somberly.

But the young fellow came on unheeding.

“Emerson, it’s over,” he said, hoarsely, his face pale and set. “Sloan died without comin’ to.”

“No surprise to me. I gave him up.... An’ how’d Ruth take it?”

“Game as they come. She’s with me. We was huntin’ you.”

“Hang on to her an’ get her home.”

“I’ll hang, all right, but I’ll never get her off the street,” declared the young man. “She’s goin’ to see it!”

“Let the crowd know that Sloan’s dead.”

“I’ve already sprung it.... They’re with you, Kal.”

It did not take a long while for the tragic death of Nugget’s champion and would-be husband to become known to all. It flowed from lip to lip. And it was the last spark that precipitated an unprecedented explosion. Mutterings and curses augmented direct calls to Kalispel.

“We’re with you, old Montana!” yelled a miner.

“Bore him low down, Kal!”

“Go in after the yellow dog!”

“If you want us to rout him out — say the word!”

Such outspoken ejaculations served to unleash the passion of the mob. Men would shout to Kalispel and then go into a saloon for another drink. That Borden did not appear wore on the unruly miners. The raw good humor of the many subtly changed. They merged closer and closer to Kalispel, forming a dense circle behind him across the street. And gradually they edged him foot by foot toward Borden’s hall. This largest building in the town was the last upon the street, and presented for once a lonely aspect. Doors and windows appeared like dark, vacant eyes. It stood isolated, apparently deserted.

The impatient mob, thirsty for blood, switched its vociferous acclaim of Kalispel to a sinister call for Borden.

“Come out, Borden!”

“Hyar, you skunk! Mac has squealed an’ Sloan is dead! Come on!”

“Borden, we all want to see you!”

“Borden, it’s your only chance!”

“You’re done in Thunder City!”

“Walk out like a man, you — !”

“An’ let us see daylight through yore gizzard! Haw! Haw!”

“Come out, Borden, or get run out!”

A leather-lunged miner bawled: “Smoke him out!”

A roar attested to the mood of the watchers.

“Burn him out!”

And when they stopped to catch their breath the stentorian-voiced miner rent the pregnant air.

“Borden come out an’ fight — or we’ll lynch you!”

The cry, “Lynch him!” was caught up and carried along like a wave, until Masters ran out to confront the crowd. He held his hands high to quiet them.

“Steady, men,” he yelled, authoritatively. “Give Emerson time! — We don’t want a lynchin’. An’ fire might destroy the town.... I’ll guarantee to fetch Borden out!”

Above the murmuring roar cut out a sharp high voice: “All right, Sheriff. But no arrest goes hyar. We want to see Borden shot or swing!”

Masters sped swiftly to confront Kalispel.

“fhet gang’s in an ugly mood,” he said, with a gleam in his gray eyes. “They might set fire to Borden’s place. An’ thet’d be hell. These shacks would burn like tinder.... Emerson, you better let me go in after Borden.”

“He’s hid in there,” warned Kalispel. “He might shoot you.”

“I’ll take thet risk. An’ if I get to him, I’ll make him see thet shore as Gawd made little apples this mob will burn him out an’ hang him. An’ I’ll agree to protect him from them if he kills you. Thet’ll fetch him. It’s his only chance.”

“Suppose he bobs up with a rifle?” queried Kalispel, darkly.

“Wal, if he’s thet much of a cheat I’ll bore him myself,” replied the Texan.

“Masters, I don’t like the deal. It’s plumb good of you. But it’ll queer you with Leavitt. An’ Leavitt is strong — we don’t savvy how strong.”

“To hell with Leavitt. One at a time!... Do I go?”

“Shore. An’ thanks, old-timer.”

Masters swung away, pulling out a white handkerchief which he began to wave. The crowd yelled both encouragingly and derisively. They did not wholly trust this action of the sheriff’s.

It was more than two hundred yards from where Kalispel stood to the dance-hall. Masters slowed his pace. When he got halfway there he shouted, and went on. He had nerve, but undoubtedly he calculated that Borden would see him and grasp at anything to avert a meeting with Kalispel. Masters then increased his gait, as if the suspense was less insupportable than the risk. He still waved the white handkerchief. And when he got within a hundred feet of the hall, Borden suddenly appeared in the doorway with a leveled rifle.

“Halt!” he yelled.

Masters lowered his flag of truce with suggestive violence. His clear voice rang even to Kalispel.

“Air you drunk or crazy? Drop yore rifle The mob back there will burn you alive or hang you, shore.”

“What you want?” yelled Borden, stridently, and lowered the weapon. Masters went forward then, talking fast, but Kalispel could not distinguish what he said. Masters approached to within thirty steps of Borden, who still held his rifle threateningly. The Texan might wisely halt there and deliver his proposition and leave, thought Kalispel. Masters’ posture did not lose dignity, but his few gestures were singularly expressive of the finality of a cold ultimatum. He whirled on his heel, and swerving out of line to the left, he strode rapidly up the street toward the crowd.

Kalispel watched that rifle, and if it had started for a level he meant to leap aside for cover. He would not take any chances with a hound like Borden. The crowd seemed locked in suspense, waiting, with eyes on the two principals. Into this oppressive lull the leather-lunged miner projected his raw yell:

“Take your choice, Borden!..”

And the shout that burst from the crowd proclaimed that every watcher divined what the choice was — to drop the long-range rifle and come out like a man, or use it and swing by the neck. Certainly Borden understood, for the echo of that taunting decree had not ceased, when he lifted the rifle high to fling it down. The metallic crash of its contact with the flagstones came plainly to the listening ears.

Even at that distance Borden’s swarthy visage gleamed.

“Wal, Emerson, he’s comin’ an’ we’re gamblin’ you’ll bore him low down in the middle,” yelled the wag from the crowd.

Borden whipped out two guns, and lowering his head, like a bull about to charge, he leaped out of the doorway.

“Spread out everybody!” boomed the miner with the clarion voice. “The ball’s opened!”

Kalispel started to stride forward, drawing his gun. Borden gained the center of the street and, like a man propelled by irresistible force from behind, came lurching on. He threw forward the gun in his left hand and fired. The ball whizzed by Kalispel, glanced on the gravel behind, and brought a shrill yell from some person in the crowd. Shouts and trample of feet attested to the splitting of the mob to both sides of the street.

Kalispel kept on swiftly. Borden halted. His gun flamed red and cracked. Another bullet hissed uncomfortably close to Kalispel’s body. Far beyond it struck up dust and ricocheted along the street. Again Borden strode on and again his big gun boomed. Then bang! bang! bang! he emptied the gun in his left hand, as if driven to be free of it. He flung it aside and raised the one in his right.

Kalispel stopped to turn his side toward his adversary, upon whom he brought his gun to bear. The distance was far over a hundred yards. Kalispel froze in his aim and pulled trigger.

Everybody heard the sudden impact of that bullet. It had the soft, thudding sound of lead entering flesh. Borden’s hurried stride appeared blocked as if by a battering-ram. He uttered a choking cry, but he strung like a whipcord and began to shoot. Deliberate and cold, Kalispel took time, well knowing that this was no game for snap-shooting, and aimed as at a target, while Borden’s first and second bullets passed whistling by Kalispel, one on each side. Kalispel shot. And Borden was knocked flat, as if by a hard fist. In frenzied action he sprang up like a bent willow released, and shot wildly. But something about Kalispel’s posture, his statue-like immobility, his dark, terrible calm, pierced Borden’s chaotic brain. He essayed to take his cue from his adversary. Dropping on one knee he rested his elbow on the other, and steadying his gun, took slow and careful aim.

A suspended breath seemed to wait in the onlookers. A woman screamed as if she could not stand the deliberation for which Kalispel was famed.

The silence burst to the ringing crack of his gun. Borden’s rigidity underwent a break. His gun fell to explode. And simultaneously he appeared to be batted to one side, as by an invisible force. On hands and knees, his back to the crowd, he wrestled himself almost erect, then suddenly plunged down on his face to kick the dust and lie still.

Standing alone in the street, with the breathless crowd beginning to stir, Kalispel stood over his prostrate enemy to watch him die. It was one of the prerogatives of gunmen, to be in at the death, and owed its origin to the incentive to make sure that the enemy did die. In Kalispel’s case it was an ordeal, where ruthlessness gave way to a sickening remorse.

Borden lay beyond his last convulsion, conscious.

“Nugget?” he tried to articulate. She was his last thought, one seemingly divorced from the hard motive that had brought him to this pass. It might have been a revelation of love.

“I’ll look after her,” replied Kalispel. And Borden died with something like relief on his ghastly face.

Kalispel hurried down the street to avoid the surging crowd. He made his way out of town and down the stream to the bend, and up to the sage slope where he had often gone. It seemed almost a physical action to dismiss Borden from his consciousness. Then he was solely concerned with the revolt in heart and brain, the battle of returning normalcy with the primeval instinct of self-preservation, which was to kill or be killed. He had to make slow shift of that here, because there was Ruth to think of. And his first thought of her was that the name Nugget died with Borden.

The hour was past sunset, crimson and gold, tranquil and sad. The relentlessness of man, with his love, his hate, his avarice, did not intrude here. The stream murmured on, unmindful of the little lives of men, and the great walls frowned broodingly down. The shadows came and deepened to purple. High up on the rugged slope a wolf wailed his wild note of loneliness. Nature had been a panacea for Kalispel’s ills, from the old recovery after a cowboy debauch to the heartbreak he had sustained recently, and now to the repetition of the cruel retrogression of blood-lust.

Dusk fell. He could tarry no longer. A chill air floated down the canyon. Nighthawks and bats were fluttering. He left the fragrant sage bench and retracing his steps, crossed the bridge to Sloan’s tent. Several miners, and Barnes, the kindly partner of Sloan, met Kalispel and informed him that they had just buried Sloan on his own claim, in the deep hole where he had dug for gold and had found a grave.

“Barnes, I’ll be takin’ the girl up to my cabin,” said Kalispel. “Sloan’s claims an’ tools are yours.... An’ I won’t forget your friendship for him — an’ your goodness to her.”

“Aw — thet’s nothin’,” replied Barnes, haltingly. He, like the others was, for the moment, inhibited by Kalispel’s presence.

Kalispel went into the tent. The interior was almost too dark to discern objects.

“Ruth,” he called, “where are you?”

“Kal!” she cried, gladly, and her light feet pattered on the floor. He made out her pale form against the gloom. Then she was clinging to him, with her head pressed against his breast.

“Wal?... Don’t shake so, child,” he said, gently, as he held her. “Brace up. You’ve seen a lot of hard doin’s, though not so close to home.... Barnes told me they’d buried Dick right here. I reckon that was the thing — to get it over.” -

“Yes. I told them to,” she replied.

“Can’t you stand on your feet?” he asked, finding that he had to hold her.

“My legs are — shaky.”

“But, Ruth — you’re the gamest kid. This is gold-diggin’s life, you know. Shore it is awful tough, your losin’ Dick — but it’s done — it’s over, an’ you got to brace.”

“Kal, I’m terribly sorry about Dick,” she whispered, and then suddenly she clutched him, “but — but it was your fight with Borden — that knocked me out.”

“Aw! — Didn’t Barnes drag you off the street?”

“I stayed. I seemed possessed of a thousand devils while you waited for Borden.... Oh, how I wanted you to kill him! And I knew you would. I gloated over the thought. The crowd was for you and that thrilled me.... But when Borden plunged out, like a mad bull — then I went to pieces. I suddenly realized — he might kill you, too. And I nearly died of terror.... I saw it all.... Then I collapsed.”

“Ah-huh.... Wal!” ejaculated Kalispel, strangely affected by her poignant words and clinging hands. She was only a child, this dance-hall girl, and he was her only friend. “Ruth,” he got out, at length, “I’m takin’ you up to my cabin.”

“Kal! — I’m glad, but I can’t walk.”

“I’ll carry you.” He lifted her and swung her around comfortably against his shoulder, and edged sideways through the door.

“Barnes,” he said to the waiting miner, “would you be good enough to have your wife pack up all Ruth’s clothes an’ things, an’ bring them up to my cabin?”

“Shore’ll be glad to,” was the reply.

Kalispel took the trail up the stream. For the most part it was dark, though he could readily see the pale path winding between the shacks and the creek. Here and there lamps cast a yellow glow through doors or canvas, and camp fires flickered, silhouetting burly, red-shirted miners at their evening meal.

“Kal, I’ll walk now,” said Ruth, after they had gone a long way.

“You might stumble in the dark.”

“How strong you are! — But I am heavy, and you must be tired.”

“Wal, you were like thistle down at first. An’ I’m bound to admit you’re not quite as light as that now. But I can pack you.”

When Kalispel passed the Blair cabin, almost under its high porch, he saw a light and heard Sydney’s contralto voice. How strange to pass by Sydney this way in the darkness with a girl in his arms — a girl whose life and happiness henceforth must be his care! He tightened his hold on the slender form in his arms. And he was unable for the moment to straighten out his labyrinthine thoughts or comprehend his conflicting emotions.

They passed the last shack. Far across the bench flickered a camp fire that was Jake’s. Kalispel had been increasingly aware that Ruth’s head had slipped from his shoulder closer and closer until her cheek rested against his neck. It felt warm and moist. She was crying.

Jake was stirring around a camp fire outside the cabin. He heard Kalispel’s footsteps and straightened up to peer out into the darkness.

“It’s, me, Jake.”

“Aw! — Shore glad, son. I saw your meetin’ with Borden. All same Kalispel Montana! — Suited me fine.... Hey! what you packin’?”

“What you think? A sack of flour?”

“My Gawd — a girl! — If you don’t beat the Dutch!”

“Shut up, an’ light the lamp in the cabin.”

Jake knocked things over in his hurry to execute that order. He stared with rolling ox eyes at the white-faced, golden-haired girl Kalispel laid on the couch. Ruth sat up.

“I’m not an invalid,” she said, with a wan smile. “Howdy, Jake. Your brother has packed me up here.”

“I see,” replied Jake, with a broad grin. Ruth’s looks quickly found the hearts of men. “I reckon you’re the gurl—”

“Ruth,” interrupted Kalispel, shortly. “Jake, put a canvas up outside the cabin. An’ take your bed out. You an’ me will bunk together.”

“So our family’s increased permanent?” rejoined Jake, beamingly.

“Our family’s shore increased permanent,” drawled Kalispel. “Rustle now, an’ get some supper first.”

When Jake went out, whistling, Kalispel turned to the girl, sensing full well that he was in for what he knew not. He caught the recession of a vivid blush which left her face white, and accentuated the cornflower blue of her eyes. He had never met such an earnest, lovely light in a human’s gaze.

“Kal, let’s have it out now,” she said.

“Out! Have what out?” he queried, blankly.

“This deal.”

“Gosh, child—”

“Don’t call me child. I am a woman, Kal.”

“How old?” asked Kalispel, sparring for time.

“Eighteen in years — but years are nothing.”

“So old? You’re short huntin’ Methuselem.... An’ what deal is this you’re rarin’ about? Fetchin’ you to my cabin? What else could I do? Just because Borden has gone to join the angels is no reason to believe you’d be safe alone.”

“No. I heard what you promised Dick.”

“Wal?”

“You said, ‘I’ll take care of her, Dick’!... What did you mean by that?”

“I meant what I said,” declared Kalispel, bluntly, as if his word had been questioned.

“You’ll be my friend — my brother — as Dick was?”

“No. I reckon I didn’t mean that.”

“What then?”

“Didn’t Dick intend to marry you?”

“Yes.”

“Wal, that’s what I meant.”

“You’d marry me — Kal?” she cried.

“Why, shore! What kind of a hombre do you take me for?”

“You are the most wonderful... But, Kal, you’re in love with Sydney Blair!”

“I reckon I was, tolerable. But when she dared me to come over an’ see her in Leavitt’s arms — an’ I took that dare — Wal, it all died, pronto.”

“Oh, Kal, she wouldn’t — she couldn’t do such a thing.”

“The hell she wouldn’t,” flashed Kalispel, stung by the memory. “She did do it. I saw Leavitt kiss her.”

“Oh, she must have been driven.”

“Wal, I don’t care a whoop whether she was or not,” de-dared Kalispel, bitterly. “It hurt. An’ it showed me a lot. You’ll oblige me, Ruth, by not alludin’ to that again.”

“Forgive me. I never will.... But, Kal, do you think Dick meant for you to marry me?”

“Shore he did. How else could a man take care of you?”

“Very well, then,” she replied, with a dangerous softness. “I won’t marry you.”

“Why not?”

“I won’t, that’s all,” she rejoined, and averted her agitated face.

“Ah-huh. Wal, shore I’m no match for Sydney Blair or for you, either. — No honest, fine, young fellow like Dick!”

“Kal Emerson!” she flashed, and turned with an angry blaze of eyes.

“Shore. Kal Emerson! Bad hombre! Tough cowboy! Rustler! Gun-slinger! All-around desperado who no woman atall would be wife to!” ejaculated Kalispel, in sincere scorn of himself. This emotion, no doubt, was a partial regurgitation to the sickening aftermath of a fatal gun-fight.

“Don’t lie that way about yourself,” she retorted. “You’re Western and you’re great, Kal Emerson. I won’t have you demean yourself to me.”

“Never mind my promise to Dick. I’d have asked you to marry me, anyhow.”

“Oh, Kal! — Don’t! — God knows it’s hard to refuse—”

“Wal, why won’t you?”

“Because I love you,” she cried, passionately.

“Ruth! — You mean same as you did Dick?”

“No. I didn’t love him.”

“But, child, how come you to love me?... Aw, it’s just gratitude, Rûth. An’ you’re awful upset.”

“Don’t ask any woman, good or bad, how she came to love. It can’t be explained. It happens.”

“Wal, then, if — if you do — why that’s all the more reason for you to be my wife.”

“It is not.”

“Ruth, we’re off the trail,” he said, soberly. “When I thought of marryin’ you it wasn’t just to get a wife — a woman. I had only a wonderful feelin’ for you — the kid who’s had such a rotten deal from life. An’ I meant to take care of you always as I would of my own sister. But when you say you love me, why that makes me think and remember. I always wanted a real home, a wife to keep me straight, an’ kids —— —”

“Hush!” she sobbed, and put her hand to his lips. “I love you, Kal.... I love you as I never loved anyone, even my mother. I will live with you, be faithful till my dying breath, work my fingers to the bone for you, but I will not marry you!”

He took her hand in his and kissed it. For a while, neither spoke.

“I’m distressin’ you, Ruth,” he said, finally. “But, one more word. If you won’t marry me you can’t be my real wife. Savvy, dear?”

“Yes, I savvy,” she whispered, sagging against him.

“An’ I’ll keep my promise to Dick just the same,” he went on, eagerly. “An’ I reckon you’ll be my salvation, just the same.... Forget it now, Ruth.... There’s so much to think of. To plan for! An’ I’ve much to do before we leave here.”

“Leavitt!” she cried lifting eyes he could not gaze into. “Yes. I meant to kill him. I ought to.”

“Kal, it’s not for me to — to stop you. Not to serve him, of all men!... Only — today!... Can I stand that again?”

“Wal, don’t worry, maybe Masters will take care of him.” Jake opened the door a half-inch. “Hey, Romeo an’ Juliet! Will you have supper served in the drawin’-room or out on the balcony?”

Chapter Fourteen

During the night the long-deferred equinoctial storm broke.

Jake got up to reinforce his end of the improvised shelter. “Hey, Kal, is it wet over where you are?” he called. “Ump-umm,” replied Kalispel, sleepily.

“Wal, it’s wetter’n hell over hyar,” growled Jake. “Thet storm finally busted an’ I’ll bet it’ll be a humdinger. Might as wal wake up an’ get ready to be washed away.”

“What time is it?”

“Wal, it was somewhere’s near mornin’, but I don’t know what it is now... Whew! Blazes an’ brimstone! Kal, I wish we was safe out of this hole.”

“So do I,” replied Kalispel, sitting up. A blue-white blaze filled the valley with weird light and a ripping thunderbolt rent the heavens. And before the booming echoes ceased reverberating, another flash of lightning streaked the inky blackness and a mighty sound as of mountains rolling down deafened Kalispel. Soon the intervals between the illuminating flashes appeared to be mere glimmerings and the thunder mingled continuously. Rain fell in torrents.

Kalispel and Jake huddled close to the cabin wall, and by covering themselves and blankets with a tarpaulin managed to keep dry. Toward dawn the violence of the storm subsided and the rain slackened. Morning broke dreary and gray.

The stream was roaring. Kalispel went over to look at it. Miners all along, as far down as he could see, were trying to rescue rocks, flumes, boxes, tools from the yellow flood. It was bank-full and rising rapidly. Many of the claims would be flooded. Even those above high water could not be worked, for all the holes were filled.

Thunder City would continue to roar, but not with labor. The saloons and halls and dens would reap a harvest.

As always, Kalispel swept an appreciative gaze across to the bare slope. This morning it presented a furrowed front. Thin yellow streams were running down its face, flattening out on the level to triangular areas of mud and silt. It presented an ugly sight. Far up, the peak was obscured in gray cloud. Kalispel calculated that it would be snowing up there; and he conceived the idea that it would be well to get ready to leave the valley as soon as the storm was over. He returned to the cabin. Jake was fanning a refractory camp fire which he had started under the shelter.

“I reckon it’d be a good idea to wrangle our burros an’ horses,” Kalispel remarked, thoughtfully, to Jake.

“Shore would, an’ grain ’em good before thet drill out.”

“All right, let’s rustle breakfast,” replied Kalispel, brightening with the definite decision. Something dragged darkly at him, holding him back, a cold grim passion hard to relinquish. “Then you go downtown an’ buy a sack of grain, a pair of alfagos — I want two new strong ones — an’ let’s see. I’ll figure on it.... I’ll rustle the stock.”

“Kal, hadn’t you better stay in camp an’ let me do the rustlin’?” queried Jake, gruffly. “You got the girl hyar, an’ our cabin is shore strong built. With them two rifles you could keep off—”

“Hell!” ejaculated Kalispel. “I reckon I had. But after yesterday, wouldn’t you figure Leavitt to lay low an’ let me shake the dust of Thunder City?”

“You mean mud, son,” replied Jake. “My idea, Kal, is that when you think, you shore get those deals right. But you had hell yesterday an’ you ain’t thinkin’. I’ve a hunch Leavitt had somethin’ up his sleeve organizin’ them vigilantes.”

“Ah-huh. Wal, I’ll think,” snapped Kalispel, between his teeth. “An’ I’m thinkin’ I’d better see Masters pronto.”

“I’ll send him up hyar,” replied Jake, hurriedly, with a speculative glance at his brother. “After we eat I’ll rustle. An’ you get to packin’. This storm will let up today, an’ in a couple of days we can be on the move.”

Later Kalispel knocked on the cabin door.

“Come in,” replied Ruth.

Kalispel entered to find her in bed, with the red blanket tucked up under her chin.

“Wal, ain’t you ashamed, you sleepy-head?” was his greeting as he stepped close to look down upon her with a queer sensation of possessiveness.

“Is it late?” she asked, smiling up at him.

“No. I was just foolin’. Can I fetch in a pan of hot water? An’ after that some rice, bacon, coffee, an’ a biscuit? You don’t need to get up. It’s a rotten day. Did you hear the storm?”

“Storm? No, I didn’t.”

“Dead to the world! Gosh! if you didn’t hear the thunder, you should have heard Jake cussin’. He woke up in a puddle.... All right, I’ll fetch things in. Reckon I might as well get used to bein’ your maid.”

“It’ll be the other way around.”

“Say, what’s all this?”

“My bags. Barnes brought them last night.”

“Lady, you’ll require a whole pack-train. Gosh! Ruth, we only got six burros.”

“We’ll burn my dance-hall clothes.”

“All except that skimpy blue thing you had on the first time I saw you in Salmon. You shore caught my eye, kid!”

“We’ll burn that, too, darling.”

Kalispel beat a hasty retreat, presently to carry in a pan of water and her breakfast on top of a box. She sat up like a delighted child.

“Kalispel Montana, my maid and cook!” she exclaimed. “Who would believe it?... Put the box here and give me the pan on my lap. And hand me that small bag.... Oh, don’t go, Kal — unless you’re busy.”

“I’m shore busy,” replied Kalispel, lamely, and he went out. He had been struck with something new and sweet in the intimacy of that moment, in the girl’s beauty, in the blue eyes that appeared glad for his presence. He sensed a problem to be contended with in the future. But he dismissed disturbing reflections and set to work at the many tasks.

Jake returned to report that Masters had been flooded out, like many others who had tents and shacks close to the treacherous slope of silt. Masters would call on him later in the day. But the busy hours passed by without the sheriff putting in an appearance. Jake finally rounded up all the stock, and with them in the corral, Kalispel began to have visions of the long winding trail down to the Salmon. Suddenly, then, he remembered the ranch he had coveted so dearly; and with a sense of exultation, he realized that he had the gold to buy and improve and stock a dozen such ranches. Ruth must be his wife. He resolved not to distress her now, but when they got to Challis he would insist on marriage in name at least. It was the only way he could really protect her and silence gossip for good and all.

It had rained on and off until midafternoon, when the clouds broke, showing a bit of blue sky and a gleam of sun. Ruth emerged to stretch her legs, she said, and she wandered around among the huge boulders, going as far as the stream, which was now a torrent. She came back to tell how the miners were moving back off their claims. All at once the sun shone out strong, and as if in happy augury of the future, it appeared to strike a bright glory from Ruth’s golden head.

“Oh, there is Miss Blair — watching us!” cried Ruth suddenly, and then, with scarlet face she went indoors.

Kalispel did not look in the direction of the Blair cabin. His great pity went out to Ruth; but still, if Sydney was hurt, as it seemed she was, he felt an unavailing sorrow.

Kalispel had hidden his bags of gold dust and nuggets under the flat hearthstone in front of the open fireplace. Beneath this was a hollow boulder, the opening of which he had discovered by accident and which would not be easily detected. For the present he did not want either Jake or Ruth to learn about his treasure.

That night while Ruth slept and Jake worked outside, Kalispel packed the gold in two alfagos and hid them under the pile of firewood in the corner of the cabin.

When at length he went out to go to bed, Jake remarked with great satisfaction, “It’s clearin’ off cold.” The stars were shining white, and a nipping wind blew down from the heights. Before Kalispel went to sleep, he had decided that it would be sensible to try to avoid trouble with Leavitt. If anything happened to him, Ruth might be left alone. When he analyzed this deduction he found that life had become singularly and incomprehensibly sweet. This for a cowboy whose heart had been broken was thought-provoking.

The day dawned frosty and bright. Miners were astir early, and two pack-trains left while Jake was getting breakfast.

“They’re beginnin’ to drift out,” said Jake. “An’ I’ll have all our pack-saddles an’ harness mended today.”

“Brother, I reckon you’re not in any hurry atall to shake the gold dust of Thunder City,” drawled Kalispel.

“Kal, one of my hunches is workin’,” nodded Jake, somberly.

“Which one?”

“Wal, two hunches, in fact.”

“You an’ your hunches!”

“Hell, man! Tell me one thet never worked out.”

“Forced to think of them, Jake, I’ll be darned if I can remember one that didn’t.... Oh yes, you were wrong about old Thunder Mountain.”

“How so?”

“Why, you always croaked about old Thunder Mountain slidin’ down on us.”

“Wal, she ain’t yet, thet’s true,” admitted Jake, morosely. Ruth came out to interrupt the gloomy conversation. She wore a gray woolen dress, and with some color in her cheeks this morning, she made a picture from which Kalispel found it difficult to keep his eyes. She extended her small hands to the fire. “Gee! it’s cold,” she said, merrily. “I don’t see that you gentlemen have proceeded far with breakfast.”

“My land! gurl, we jest got up,” retorted Jake, who had taken a decided liking to Ruth and delighted to serve her. “An’ you’re springin’ somethin’ on us this mornin’.”

“Ruth, do you like cold weather?” asked Kalispel, thoughtfully.

“Love it. I came from Wisconsin, you know.”

“Ump-umm, I didn’t know. An’ can you ride a horse?” he went on, eyeing her slim lithe figure.

“Can I ride a horse! Listen to him, Jake.... Can a duck swim?”

“Say, kid, where’d you ever ride?” queried Kalispel, hopefully.

“Kal, you’ll be tickled when I tell you that I was a regular cowgirl once.”

“No!”

“Honest Injun.”

“Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Kalispel, radiantly. “Where an’ when?”

“My dad moved to Wyoming when I was twelve,” Ruth answered, subtly changing. “He bought out a rancher near Chadron —— —”

“Chadron!... Why, Ruth, that’s near Cheyenne. I rode there, myself.”

“Must have been before my time,” she went on, while Jack drank in her words. “You see, I left there only three years ago. Dad did well for a while — until the rustlers cleaned him out. He never got over that. It killed him.... I was left to the tender mercy of a stepmother... and well — I was sixteen when I came to Cliff Borden’s dance-hall....” Kalispel’s sudden transition from keen delight to bitterness left him speechless.

“Don’t look so — so terrible, Kal,” she said. “I had to work or starve — and Borden lied to me about the job. But it’s all over now. Oh, Kal!... I know I’ve been such a trouble for you all along. Worrying and fighting over me! — But just realize, if you can, how blessed good you’ve been for me.... And, Kal, when we’re away from this madhole we’ll forget. Then I’ll make it up to you.”

“Let’s get away pronto,” replied Kalispel, with one of his flashes of passion. “This afternoon or tomorrow, shore. Jake, rustle breakfast. Then pack. Put Ruth’s bags in the canvas packs. An’ you, young lady, get into your blue jeans. Keep out a warm coat, gloves, boots. It’ll be a tough ride for a couple of days. Soon as I eat a bite I’ll rustle down to see Masters. He’s been pretty decent, or I wouldn’t go at all. I want to tip him off. An’ I reckon — that’ll let me out here.”

“You reckon? Aren’t you sure, Kal?” queried Ruth, a doubt edging into her face.

“Gosh! you can’t be shore of anythin’ except death.”

“Promise me you won’t look up Leavitt,” she entreated. “Wal, that’s easy. I promise.... But if I meet him...”

“Bore him an’ rustle back here to tell me,” interrupted Jake, coolly. “An’ then I’ll show you some real packin’.” Soon Kalispel sallied forth on his last visit to Thunder City. At Blair’s cabin two packers were busy assorting and weighing packs. Burros, not yet saddled, stood haltered to the porch. Blair waved cheerfully to Kalispel: “We’re leaving today.” And Kalispel replied just as cheerfully: “So are we. Hope we see you on the trail.” Sydney appeared in the rider’s garb in which Kalispel had admired her so exceedingly. He suffered a divided pang — one of regret and the other of relief. Those proud dark eyes were not destined to shine upon him. They watched him pass by, intent and haunting as ever. But she made no motion.

The sun had just come up bright over the eastern mountain-top, to shine down upon the flooded valley. Thin skins of ice glistened on the ponds; white frost burned like diamonds on the roofs of the shacks; blue columns of smoke curled upward; and the swollen stream brawled on its swift, noisy way toward the canyon.

On the hillsides and high parts of the benches the miners had returned to their blasting, digging, panning. But two miles of flooded claims along the stream had left hundreds of men idle. Therefore the main street of Thunder City presented the spectacle of a circus day in a small town.

Kalispel hoped to escape notice in the crowd, and succeeded to some extent. He found Masters in his halfdemolished shack, a pondering and somber man.

“Howdy, Kal,” he drawled, with those penetrating gray eyes hard on his visitor. “You look fine for a hombre who’s just added another notch to his gun.”

“Aw, I’m fine as silk. Leavin’ today, Masters.”

“Good. Did your brother give you my message?”

“All he said was that you’d be up to see me.”

“Nix. I told him no — an’ for you to rustle out of heah quick.”

“Wal, he didn’t tell me, the son-of-a-gun. What’s up, old-timer?”

“Reckon I cain’t find out all thet’s doin’ in this heah gold-camp, but the little I know is shore enough.”

“Uh-huh — Wal, if it’s enough for an old Texas steer like you, it’ll be more’n enough for Kal Emerson. But come on with it.”

“Leavitt took over Borden’s property, on half shares an’ debts, he claims. My show of friendship for you ‘pears to have riled the judge. He politely sent me word to turn over my office an’ my badge.”

“The hell he did! Wal, of all the gall! — Masters, you wouldn’t think of that?”

“Wal, ordinarily I wouldn’t. But I didn’t seek this job. My friends shoved it on me. An’ now most of them have packed an’ gone. The bottom is droppin’ out of this boom, Kal. I reckon I couldn’t locate a dozen men who’d back me in any deal against Leavitt. So what is there in it for me?”

“Damn little, if you’re askin’,” replied Kalispel, shortly. “But are you goin’ to let Leavitt bluff you?”

“No man ever bluffed a Texan Ranger,” drawled Masters.

“I’m just sore enough to resign, pack, an’ get ready to leave with my friends — then call on Leavitt to leave my caird.”

“Your card? — Ah-huh, I savvy,” rejoined Kalispel, with a cool ring in his voice. “By thunder! I’d like to do that. But I promised Ruth I’d not look Leavitt up.”

“Square of you. Thet girl is deservin’, Kal. An’ about the prettiest one I’ve seen since I left Santone.”

“Old-timer, I’d shore feel better if I knew you was goin’ to present my compliments to Leavitt.... Listen, this is what I came down to tell you. Leavitt is at the head of this bandit gang, an’ he’s runnin’ it shore slick.”

“Emerson, are you sure?” queried the Texan, leaning forward like a striking hawk.

“Hell, yes!” whispered Kalispel. “I stood under Leavitt’s window an’ heard him betray himself. It was I who put that scar over Macabe’s ear. Macabe, Leslie, Struthers, all right-hand men of Leavitt’s. An’ it’s somethin’ to figure on that Macabe implicated only Borden in the Sloan case. Leavitt can run men of that caliber. But he’s also a common, low-down, two-bit thief, a second-hand murderer, an’ a slick-tongued deceiver of women.”

“An’ don’t forget he’s a leader of Thunder Mountain’s vigilantes!”

“Masters, has he really carried it as far as that?”

“Rumors are flyin’ thick as autumn leaves. I don’t know what is true an’ what’s false. But now I’ll bet my guns thet Leavitt has gone through with it. He hasn’t been seen downtown since you shot Borden. Nobody knows what’s up, an’ everybody’s figgerin’. But for me you’ve about cleared it up.”

“Ah-huh. You get my hunch. If Leavitt has organized a vigilante committee you can bet your last dollar the men in it are his hold-up gang.”

“Precisely. A damn slick dodge! We underrated this man Leavitt.... An’ now, Kal, my advice to you is rustle out of heah hell for leather!”

Kalispel got up with a cool little laugh and a sharp hitch of his belt.

“Shake. An’ that’s my advice to you.”

“I’ll trail you up street a ways.”

Kalispel did not like the suspense in the Texan’s mien and voice. There was something in the wind. The instant Kalispel got outside, he was amazed to find that the street that had been noisy and animated a few minutes before was now silent, empty except at the extreme lower end. There strung across from Borden’s hall to the Last Chance Saloon stood five masked men, armed with rifles.

Kalispel cursed as a fiery current ran along his veins. Vigilantes! He could not see the upper end of the street, because it curved slightly. His thoughts centered around the query — did the presence of those vigilantes have to do with his visit to town? He decided to cut through the first alley between buildings to make the creek trail. Once back at his cabin, he and Jake could hold off any reasonable number of men.

There were no alleys near. He must go through a store or saloon. Faces appeared in doors across the street. Everybody in town knew —

“Hands up, Emerson!”

The rough, deadly voice, nervous in its timbre, carried threat of instant death. Kalispel had heard that note before. Freezing in his tracks, he elevated his arms high above his head.

“Up they are!” he ejaculated, damning himself for overconfidence.

“Keep ’em thar.” Cautious, heavy steps sounded with that voice. “Frisk him, Dan.”

Rude hands jerked his guns from his belt. He heard the click of a hammer being raised, then felt the hard prod of a gun-barrel against his back.

“March!”

Kalispel strode up the middle of the street, with his heavy-booted captors close behind. And he heard the slam of doors, the buzz of voices, shouts and trampling of feet. As he turned the slight bend, he saw far at the upper end of this trap, five more masked vigilantes on guard. Cold fury possessed Kalispel, and for a moment he saw red. In the power of the vigilantes! That meant Leavitt. Instantly he realized the grave nature of the predicament. He had been in close quarters before, but never in a situation so perilous as this. A sensation of futility and despair assailed him. Leavitt had hatched some plot to capture and execute him. Probably he had discovered the loss of Blair’s money and the gold, and had connected Kalispel with its disappearance. Possibly Sydney had betrayed him. Suddenly Kalispel remembered Ruth, and then indeed life became significant for him. A rush of tremendous spirit banished his fears. He would get out of this. There would be a way.

“What’s the deal, boss?” he asked.

“It’s a straight hand, Emerson, without cards to you,” came the reply.

Kalispel was marched up the street, where, at the end, the five masked vigilantes led the way toward Leavitt’s cabin and mill. Judging from the increasing hum and trample in the rear, all of Thunder City was in attendance. It seemed a long walk to Kalispel, and he had to muster all his nerve to dam emotions that might militate against his readiness to seize any opportunity.

“Halt!” ordered Kalispel’s captor, when the procession had approached to within twenty paces of Leavitt’s cabin.

“I’m kinda tired holdin’ my arms up,” complained Kalispel, as he halted, and slowly lowered them.

The five vigilantes in the lead lined up to one side. Kalispel heard the others stop behind. And from far back came the increasing roar of the trailing mob.

“Captain Leavitt,” shouted the spokesman, “we have your man!”

The cabin door stood wide open. A table and chairs on the porch had a business-like look. Presently two miners came out, followed by Leavitt. He was white of face and stern. His flaring gaze leaped upon Kalispel standing motionless in the open square, and then swept over the vigilantes and to the approaching crowd, then back to the prisoner.

“Leavitt, what’s the meanin’ of this outrage?” demanded Kalispel, his voice carrying far. He might as well not have made a sound, for all the attention Leavitt paid to him.

“Let the crowd come close enough to hear the proceedings,” ordered Leavitt.

The trampling of many feet slowed up behind Kalispel and spread in a half-circle, until it was possible for him to see the people on both sides. This swerving of his gaze brought into his line of vision a scaffold newly erected. Kalispel sustained his last shock, for with a realizing shudder that this instrument of frontier justice had been erected for him he became a man of iron. Leavitt would never hang him.

“That’s close enough,” called out Leavitt, and then he appeared to fix his flaring eyes upon some man whose slow steps could be heard. “Masters, that applies to you, too.”

“Wal, I reckon I’m sheriff of Thunder City,” drawled the cool, easy voice of the Texan. It warmed Kalispel’s heart. It meant something for him to grasp.

“Yes, and a damn poor sheriff you are,” retorted Leavitt. “Flaunting your friendship for this desperado in the face of the whole town!”

“Leavitt, I back my actions. Thet’s why I’m heah. We might disagree as to Emerson’s status. An’ if this heah deal is a trial, as I reckon it is, you’ll want it to stand the test of public opinion.”

“Certainly. There’s nothing secret about this trial. Emerson is before the vigilantes of Thunder City.”

“Wal, in thet case somebody must represent him, an’ I’ll make thet my last official duty, after which I’ll resign.”

“Very well. We accept your stand for Emerson, and also your resignation.”

Masters slowly came into the line of Kalispel’s vision. Sight of the cool Texan flooded Kalispel’s grim soul with gratitude. Whatever Masters meant, it seemed unreadable to anyone there, except Kalispel, who grasped the nerve of the man, the intention to befriend. But how he was to do it seemed inscrutable.

The Texan turned to Kalispel with slow, casual steps. “Am I acceptable to you, Emerson?” he queried. “Looks like a high-handed procedure to me. But if these vigilantes mean to put you on trial I’m heah to see it’s fair.”

“Thanks, Masters,” returned Kalispel. The Texan’s words were potent, but negligible compared with the wonderful power and meaning of his gray eyes. Kalispel was swift to read that gaze. There could be no question of a fair trial here. Masters’ action was merely a ruse to permit him to come forward, gradually to edge closer and closer to Kalispel, until, when the situation reached its climax, he would be near enough for Kalispel to leap and jerk free Masters’ two big guns and shoot his way to death or freedom. Leavitt in his suppressed deep passion was as good as dead at that very moment.

“Judge, before you make a charge against the prisoner, may I ask what constitutes yore right to this procedure?” queried Masters, deliberately.

“I am captain of these vigilantes,” replied Leavitt, curtly. “Wal, thet won’t stand before the law. You were not elected. You appointed yoreself.”

“But I was elected judge of this mining-camp,” parried Leavitt, with composure. “If you know the laws of gold-diggings you will agree that I have absolute authority.”

“Wal shore, aboot all claims, arguments, sales an’ exchange, an’ all thet. But hardly to make arrests an’ build scaffolds. That ought to be my job.”

“Masters, we won’t split hairs over that,” declared Leavitt, with cold finality. “Emerson is on trial, and I’m his judge.”

“Air you puttin’ him on trial for gun-play?”

“There is no law on the frontier against even breaks.”

“Wal, then, what’s Emerson’s offense?” demanded the Texan, sharply.

Judge Leavitt seated himself at his table and arranged papers before he replied.

“Emerson is a bandit.”

Masters wheeled to take a long stride toward Kalispel. “You heah thet?” he called.

“I’m not deaf, Masters.”

“Wal, what you got to say about it?”

“Leavitt is a damned liar.”

Again Masters faced the porch. Kalispel felt like a tiger about to leap. The Texan stood a little to the left, a good long jump distant, and his black guns hung in plain sight, as easy to draw as if they had been on Kalispel himself.

“Judge, I’ve heahed yore accusation. An’ I heard Emerson’s denial. I mean no offense when I say thet his word before the court is as good as yores. You’ll have to furnish proof.”

“That is what we propose to do,” rejoined Leavitt, loudly. “Keep quiet there in the crowd. This is a trial.... Jones, step forward.”

The smaller of the two men who had come out of the cabin with Leavitt strode forward to face the Vigilantes. He looked like any other middle-aged miner.

“State your evidence against this prisoner,” ordered Leavitt. “He robbed me,” returned Jones, in resonant, frank voice. “It happened at night, two weeks ago come Wednesday, just after six o’clock. I was comin’ from my claim in the dark. Just off one of them deserted tents down the crick a man stepped out behind me an’ jabbed a gun in my back. He asked for my dust. I had bags, one dust an’ the other nuggets. I gave them up.”

“Did you recognize Emerson?” asked the Judge.

“No, thet is, not his person. But I shore did his voice. I’d heard thet often.”

Masters turned to take another step in Kalispel’s direction. “What you say to thet?”

“Sheriff, it’s another rotten lie,” called Kalispel, piercingly. “An’ Jones couldn’t look at me with it, unless he knew I’d never get out of this alive.”

“Matthews, step forward,” ordered the Judge, to the second man, who was tall, pale-visaged, and less convincing. “State your case against the prisoner.”

“Emerson held me up, Jedge,” replied Matthews. “It was last Saturday night, at about half after eight. It was right in town. An’ he stepped out of the shadow of Spence’s store.

He had a scarf over his face, but it slipped down a ways when he was friskin’ me. An’ I recognized him easy. He took my gold, watch, an’ guns.”

“Matthews, you say this occurred last Saturday night at half-past eight, and that you recognized Emerson perfectly?” queried the Judge.

“Yes, sir.”

Leavitt waived the witness aside and again attended to the sheriff. “Masters, that seems conclusive to me. There’s no doubt in my mind Emerson is guilty of all these hold-ups, and shootings, too.... I’ll put it to a vote.”

“Never mind havin’ yore vigilantes vote yet,” returned Masters, with sarcasm. “The trial ain’t over.”

He faced around to Kalispel, the third time with unobtrusive step.

“Kalispel, you heahed?”

“Yes.”

“An’ I reckon thet’s another lie?”

“It shore is.”

“Wal, it sounded fishy to me,” replied the Texan. “An’ if you can recall shore jest where you was on Saturday night at half-past eight, I’ll take yore word for it.”

“I was—” began Kalispel, readily, when suddenly he remembered that on the hour in question Sydney Blair was alone with him in his cabin.

“Wal, speak up, an’ make it plain to this listenin’ crowd,” said Masters, impatiently.

Kalispel let out a hard laugh. It did not make any difference to Leavitt and his Vigilantes whether he cleared himself or not. And in another moment he would be leaping for Masters’ guns.

“Sorry, old-timer,” his voice rang out. “I reckon I can’t remember.”

“There,” flashed Leavitt, his hand extended shaking. “Condemned by his own lips!”

The crowd stirred to restless shifting of feet and sibilant whispers. Then Kalispel was transfixed at sight of Sydney Blair running in to face Leavitt.

“Rand Leavitt,” she cried, in her high tones that pierced to every listening ear in the multitude, “Your tool, Matthews, has not condemned Emerson, but himself as a liar — and you as a worse one!”

“What?” hissed Leavitt, leaping up, to lean forward with purpling face. The surprise had penetrated his armor.

“Kalispel Emerson absolutely could not have robbed Matthews last Saturday night, at half-past eight,” rang Sydney’s voice, vibrant with righteous anger.

“And why not?” shouted Leavitt, furiously.

“Because he was with me — in his cabin!”

It was then that the jealous lover took precedence over the presiding judge.

“In his cabin... alone?”

“Yes, alone.”

“Sydney Blair! — You?... My promised wife!... What — why were you there?”

“I went there to tell him what a villain you are — to tell him I had broken my engagement with you... to beg him to — to forgive me and take me back again!”

The transformation that swift, poignant speech wrought in Leavitt was monstrous to behold. The suave gentleman, the confident mining-boss, the cold, grim judge went into eclipse. And a malignant, mouthing, passion-ridden devil leaped off the porch.

“Look there, woman!” he shouted, strident with hate, as he pointed with quivering finger at the scaffold. “You shall see your lover hanged!”

This seemed to Kalispel to be the moment for him to leap for Masters’ guns, kill the maddened Leavitt, and then turn loose his fire upon his captors. But Sydney stood in the way. There would be other shooting beside his, a wild tumult, pandemonium. He dared not risk harm to her. Masters edged back toward him. There was time. He would wait. “Men! Seize him,” yelled Leavitt. “By God! he hangs!” The answer was a woman’s piercing cry, whether Sydney’s or another’s Kalispel never knew. And at the same instant the solid ground shook under his feet.

“Hell’s fire!” shrieked a vigilante, suddenly gone crazy. “The mountain! The mountain!... Run for your lives!”

Chapter Fifteen

Every spectator looked. The vast slope was waving like a sea. And on the instant a groaning, straining rumble came from the depths. Far up, a whole bare ridge began to slide. “Avalanche!”

“A slide — a slide!”

“Thunder Mountain!”

These pregnant cries were drowned in the united yell of the crowd. And this was lost in a terrific thunder that came unmistakably from a mountain mass in movement.

Terror clapped on Kalispel, but when he saw Sydney sway and fall he leaped out of his paralysis to snatch her up in his arms and back away from the awesome spectacle.

The vigilantes were in full flight with the rest of the crowd. Masters passed Kalispel, yelling words that could not be heard. Leavitt had run from the lee of the cabin to look up and see the slow, waving descent of sections of slope, of ridges and mounds. The earth seemed shaken to its core. Thunder that was not thunder filled the air.

Leavitt seemed suddenly bereft of his senses. He dashed a few steps after the crowd only to whirl and dash back. No sense of escape actuated him. He bounded up on the porch and into the cabin.

What had been rumble and thunder died in a crash as if the earth were rent asunder. A great slide piled down on Leavitt’s mill, crushing, shoving, covering the chutes, and at last, as if by magic, obliterating the mill. Out of the thick rolling mass of mud huge balls of dry earth broke to let out puffs of dust.

The mill was gone and with it went the splintering crash. Hoarse shouts of men, sounding far away, pierced Kalispel’s ears. He backed against a boulder, still holding the girl, who appeared to be regaining consciousness. Masters stood by him, holding his arm, shouting Kalispel knew not what. The spectacle fascinated them, and when Leavitt appeared in the door of his cabin, acting like a man bereft of his senses, they were rooted to the spot.

His frenzy, his wringing hands, his voiceless yells were eloquent of something that was gone! gone! gone! Kalispel understood then that not until this tragic moment of catastrophe had Leavitt known of the loss of his gold.

His pale face vanished from the dark doorway. And that instant, with a rumble and a shake the mass of slope let loose in a landslide to move down upon the cabin. The roof caved in, and earth poured down like water into a vessel.

Leavitt appeared at the door and then was felled by a falling rafter. He went down, his head outside the door. And there, wrenching and lunging, like an animal caught by its hind feet in a trap, he raised his body and flung his arms. In each hand he held a bag of gold. His face was a gray blotch, his strained action terrible.

The sliding silt filled the cabin and began to pour out of the door over Leavitt. Still he struggled. Like a waterfall the earth rushed off the roof on each side, leaving a slowly-closing, fan-shaped aperture through which the doomed man could be seen. Then came a sliding roar, a cloud of dust — and the cabin disappeared.

As if in mockery of the littleness of man, nature pealed out the doom which the wise old beaver and the savage chief had foreseen. No sound before had ever equaled that thundering travail of the mountain yielding its might, its bulk, its stability to the stupendous force of gravitation. For ages its foundation had groaned warnings. And now the hour of descent had come.

The slope was a billowy sea on end. Far up the trees were aslant, falling, wagging, piling up and sliding down. The hollows filled, the scant thickets rode the avalanche, the ridges rose like waves and sank in furrows. Majestic and awful, the mile-high face of the mountain moved down. Gradually the movement slowed and as gradually the rumbling thunder diminished. The shouts of men could be heard. Once more the sound of the stream penetrated the valley.

Blair approached Kalispel and Sydney, who had recovered from her faint.

“My God! Kal — isn’t it awful?” gasped Blair, taking hold of Sydney.

“Shore came in the nick of time for me,” replied Kalispel, hoarsely. “Pack an’ rustle, Blair.”

Masters appeared, approaching the edge of the slide, which had moved out some distance on the bench. He stopped for a while to watch it.

Sydney seized Kalispel’s hand.

“Look! The place where — I fell — is covered,” she whispered, with a glance Kalispel would never forget.

Presently Masters held up his hand and bellowed to the watching crowd.

“She’s movin’ three feet a minute.... Thunder City is doomed.... Run an’ tell everybody. Grab yore gold, some grub, a blanket, an’ rustle out of heah!”

Kalispel ran toward his cabin, every few moments halting to look back at the extraordinary spectacle. It was as great and as strange as had been his deliverance. Every rod that he progressed away from the sliding slope changed its perspective; the farther he got away the more he could see. Three feet a minute! It would not be long until the encroaching landslide must reach the edge of the long, one-streeted town. Miners were running like red-jacketed ants in every direction.

Jake’s gloomy visage lightened at sight of Kalispel.

“About time you got back! Didn’t I tell you I had a hunch?”

“Don’t rub it in.... Where’s — Ruth?”

“Poor kid, she’s scared ‘most damn near to death,” replied Jake, indicating that the girl was inside the cabin.

Ruth lay on the couch with her face covered. But Kalispel saw the heaving of her breast.

“Ruth!” he panted as he sat down beside her and tore her hands and scarf from her face. “I’m here.”

She leaped up to clasp him in her arms, and the horror faded from her eyes as she kissed him wildly, unconscious of all save his return.

“Why — kid — don’t take on so!” he said, huskily, but her clinging hands and lips were sweet to him.

“I saw the vigilantes march you up to Leavitt,” she whispered. “Jake held me back. He swore you’d come through.... But, oh, I nearly went mad!”

“Closest shave I — ever had,” replied Kalispel, breathing hard. He beckoned for Jake to come in the open door. Then he recounted to them the pregnant events of the last hour.

“Kal, there must be a God,” said Ruth, solemnly, when he had finished.

“I’ll never doubt it again,” replied Kalispel, fervently.

They did not remain longer in the cabin. Outside again, they gazed spellbound at the unparalleled scene. Shacks and tents were riding up-ended at the base of the moving mountain, splintering sounds came clearly across the distance; the sinister inexorable landslide crept toward the town.

But if the spectacle low down was fascinating, that high up on the slope was indescribably so. The movement seemed more visible there and it was monstrous. Over the ridge back of the center of the town hove in sight a moving forest that ordinarily had been hidden from view. With firs and pines uprooted, upflung, upended, a section of slope slid down with slow and terrible precision. Far at the end of the town, where the valley narrowed in its approach to the canyon, the landslide had made more progress. Borden’s huge dance-hall stood in line for almost instant annihilation.

“Oh, I hope the girls are safe!” cried Ruth.

“Never fear. They’ve had plenty of time. If only they had sense enough to get their clothes an’ grub. It’ll be bad if they don’t.”

“Kal, that landslide will wipe Thunder City out, dam the valley, an’ make a lake where we’re standin’ now,” declared Jake. “Aw no! I never had a hunch — not atall.”

“Wal, what hunch is eatin’ you now?” queried Kalispel. “I’ll tell when I get one.... Wow! hear thet smash! Borden’s dance-hall dancin’ to its grave! Ain’t thet a queer sight? It jest ain’t real, folks.”

“Jake, rustle to your packin’,” ordered Kalispel, remembering the issue at hand. “We want to get out ahead of the mob.”

“I reckon the exodus won’t begin till tomorrow,” returned Jake. “Most of these gold-hawgs will hang on till the end.”

“Ruth, rustle into warm things an’ overalls. It’ll be tough sleddin’ on the pass. But we’ll get over before night an’ camp below the snow line.”

“Listen! Oh, listen to the thunder!” cried Ruth, her eyes shining with excitement, her golden hair flying in the wind.

They packed feverishly for a while and then stopped to breathe and gaze again at the phenomenon. The Blairs rode by behind the freighters and a train of pack-animals. Far across the stream miners could be seen in droves, moving their effects up on the high bench. Fire broke out in one of the overturned buildings, sending forth flames and volumes of yellow smoke. The grinding of boulders went on, the cracking of walls, the thudding of trees, and the incessant shouting of excited men.

Kalispel selected the best burro to pack the alfagos which carried his gold. Over this pack he strapped his bed. Then he haltered the burro close at hand. The grimness of the hour did not prevent a singing of his heart. Ruth came out dressed to ride, and when he saw her he did not fear that the picture of Sydney Blair in riding-garb would ever haunt him again. By this time Jake had packed the other two burros.

“If you pack my saddle-horse, Jake, I’ll walk. I reckon that’ll take the outfit,” said Kalispel.

“Oh, look!” cried Ruth.

A mile of the face of the landslide had crept upon the long line of the buildings on the north side of the main street. Three feet a minute! Yet it might have been a tidal wave, for the crashing and rending, the smashing and rolling, the collapsing and upheaving of tents, shacks, cabins, stores, and saloons, gave the impression of swiftly-advancing havoc and ruin. The landslide seemed relentless. It had waited long; it had faithfully warned this mushroom city; and now it was fulfilling its augury.

Thunder again! The ground shook beneath Kalispel’s feet, and Ruth reached for him with eager hands and parted lips. Only a huge slide of earth from far above, pouring over the lower strata like lava over an old slow-moving stream! Rocks heaved out of the moving silt to roll, to be buried again, to appear once more, to slide and gather momentum until they were hurtling down to leap the boulders on the bench and crack as if exploding, or were thudding soddenly into the piling earth around the houses. One half the city seemed alive, writhing and crunching in the maw of the avalanche, while the other half waited apprehensively the approach of the cataclysm.

“Ruth, fork your horse,” ordered Kalispel, driven to tear his gaze from the spectacle. “Jake, move ’em along. We’re late now.”

He watched the girl, keen even in that moment to see if she could make good her boast of horsemanship. Ruth never thought of it. She stepped up and swung into her saddle with a lithe ease and grace which could come only from long practice. Somehow the sight enhanced her value and suddenly gave her a charm he had not appreciated till then.

“Wal, you win, Calamity Jane. Ride on,” he called. And then he untied his burro, and with rifle in hand stepped out upon the trail.

At the bend of the stream, where the trail turned, Kalispel had his last close view of Thunder City and the juggernaut which was destroying it.

That Ruth did not look back seemed strange. Kalispel turned even after he could see no more. But he could still hear the detonations like sodden blows. Far up the trail a train of pack-mules zigzagged toward the summit of the pass. The stream, bank-full, and yellow in hue, roared hurriedly down, as if sensing an hour when no escape from the valley would be possible. And the sun, westering, had begun to gild the white clouds over the western wall.

Kalispel marveled at his deliverance. There had been a moment when he had given up and prayed only to get his hands on a pair of guns. This vengeance had not been meant for him. A higher power had settled the score with Leavitt.

The trail grew steep and began its zigzag course. Jake, always a careful leader, often held the burros to rest. Kalispel climbed behind Ruth’s horse. She did not talk nor did she look back. Kalispel anticipated the moment when from the summit of the pass he would view the unparalleled scene of his life.

The air grew cold, with a hint of snow in its breath. Jake toiled on, his wide shoulders bowed. The lop-eared burros plodded on behind him. Kalispel never let go of the halter of his burro, a procedure which the wise animal regarded with disfavor. Jenny did not realize the preciousness of the treasure which burdened her. Nor was Kalispel able to make himself believe it.

The melodious roar of the stream ceased to thrum in Kalispel’s ears. It died gradually away. Sharp cold wind rustled the sagebrush on the slope. The rush of a bird of prey sounded above his head. And the patter of tiny hoofs went on.

At last Jake halted on the first level of the pass, where patches of snow spotted the gray. His ruddy face, almost as red as his shirt, turned down toward the valley. His mouth gaped, his jaw dropped, his eyes popped, and he threw up one long arm in a voiceless salutation of something aweinspiring.

Ruth must have seen him, she must have understood. But she bowed her head over the neck of her horse and did not turn. Kalispel’s lips had opened to call her, to have her share with him this last and unforgettable view of Thunder City. But suddenly he understood. Ruth had the strength not to look back. She had forever bidden farewell to that sordid gold-camp and to the life she had led there. She wanted no transcendant beauty of scene, no terrible convulsion of nature, limned on her memory.

But Kalispel gazed back and was stunned.

The long valley lay at his feet, under slanting rays and veils of golden light, and through its center meandered a shining stream of fire, which ended in a broad, shield-shaped, blazing lake.

The farthest end of the landslide had dammed the stream. Houses, half-submerged, like sinking boats, floated upon its surface. Men like ants toiled along its farther shore. Kalispel looked in vain for what had been the long, narrow gray-walled, white-tented town, for the long, wide street with its teeming life.

Chaos reigned down in that valley, transcendantly beautiful in its sunset hues and curtains, terrible with its naked destructive forces of earth and rock.

Kalispel had to gaze over and over again and readjust his perspective to make clear what he really did see. And when Jake and Ruth had gone on up the trail, and the sun sank behind the western wall, Kalispel had painted forever on his memory the grandeur of the slide of Thunder Mountain into the valley.

To his right and far above gleamed the stark, smooth, glistening slant of solid rock from which the mountain of earth had finally detached itself. Through the years it had moaned this intention. Halfway down and more, the avalanche had slid; and now even high up, its gradual subsiding was perceptible to the awe-struck watcher. It was moving to its rest. A wide belt of bare, dark earth slanted down from the naked rock. But this smooth slope gradually roughened down to the boulder-strewn, tree-spiked, hummocky middle of the landslide. Here began the chaotic evidences of the devastating nature of the element earth when once released from its confines. The slow, processional, downward trend had an awful solemnity. By steps and crevasses and bulges, all working, heaving, swelling, caving in, the great unstable bulk crept irresistibly down, and always down, growing wilder and raggeder, until it fell into the terraces that had moved like slow swells of the sea to wipe away the town.

What was left of Thunder City rode the avalanche, or was shoved ahead of the sliding wall out into the blazing lake.

These long uneven terraces of debris fascinated Kalispel. From this viewpoint he could grasp all, as an eagle could when it leaned wide wings against the wind. From below Kalispel had not had any conception of this monstrous defacement of a mountain and the destruction of habitations of thousands of men. What struck him most was the relentless, slow descent. Every phase of this austere motion had in it the illimitable power that had doomed Leavitt. Watching there, Kalispel had a strange thought that the landslide had waited there for Leavitt.

Beyond all and above all shone forth its appalling and ghastly and sublime beauty. The triangular side of the mountain, the rock face, gleamed with the gold of the sunset; and the dark earth grew rich in purple and lilac; the rolling terraces caught the tints of the sun like oncoming billows of surf burning with gold fire on their crests; the tilted houses, ghosts of edifices where mirth and greed and hate had abided, moved on under down-dropping curtains of rose light, while others floated on the lake, gray-sailed barks that grotesquely rode the shimmering water.

Mountain and valley had existed there side by side, the one looming grandly over the other, for untold ages. Then, one amber-veiled afternoon, the mountain had begun its slide, and the valley was filling with debris and water. Death had stalked there. And only a step away the throng of intrepid miners, undaunted by this cataclysm, had pitched camp on the high bench beyond, there to watch it out, to remain behind for the precious gold, or to take the long trail, defeated but not despairing.

Kalispel wrenched himself from the scene, and profoundly grateful and humbled and troubled, he led his burro up the pass into the snow. The trail had been made and packed by those who had gone before. And on the descent beyond, the cold white mantle thinned out and failed. As twilight fell Kalispel plodded down into a sheltered grove of aspens where a bright fire blazed and Jake whistled at his tasks. Ruth sat before the fire, her face rosy and sweet, with no trace of grief, her small bare hands extended to the heat.

“We’re over the hill!” said Kalispel, as he gazed down upon his charge, and he meant vastly more than the surmounting of the snowy pass.

The Middle Fork presented Kalispel’s next problem. If it was in flood, there would be many miners camping at the ford. Kalispel desired to avoid contacts. The river itself did not worry him. He would wait until the flood subsided or build a raft and ferry his packs over on that. Ruth was at home in a saddle, and this surprising fact gave Kalispel unending satisfaction.

Trailing downhill was easy on burros and men. The ford of the Middle Fork was reached in the late afternoon of the third day out from the valley. The river was high, but not so high as to hold back the miners who had turned their backs upon the Saw Tooths. Kalispel ordered camp and busied himself constructing a raft.

“What’n hell do we want a raft fer?” snorted Jake.

“Keep your shirt on, brother. I’m buildin’ it, you see.”

“But what’s it fer?”

“Reckon to freight Ruth’s fine togs safely across.”

“Kal, I burned them!” exclaimed Ruth.

“Aw, wal!... I’ll pack mine over on it, then. Hate to wet my clothes an’ bed.”

Next morning disclosed his wisdom. Jake had a ducking in the icy water and one of the burros was rolled by the swift current. Kalispel dragged his improvised raft up stream a hundred yards and crossed on it with his alfagos without a hitch. Ruth handled her horse like a cowboy.

“Yip-yip!” yelled Kalispel, unable to subdue exuberant feelings.

Chapter Sixteen

Kalispel made noonday halt in a grove of cottonwoods on the bank of the Salmon River below Challis.

He wanted to give that congested town a wide berth. But he sent Jake in to fetch back some very necessary fresh supplies, and upon a mission he did not confide to Ruth until his brother was out of sight.

“Say, kid,” he began, hesitatingly, as he felt his cheeks grow hot, “Jake is goin’ to fetch back the — the parson.”

“The — what?” flamed Ruth, starting up.

They sat resting in the shade of the cottonwoods some distance from the road, and screened by willows from passers-by. It was a pretty spot. Leaves of gold and green fluttering over them and carpeting the ground, blue sky and white clouds, warm sunshine and the amber river rolling on with its deep, gurgling, sonorous note — these seemed to encourage Kalispel in his delicate task.

“I sent for the parson,” he replied, after a pause. “I shore hate to make you feel bad, but, wal, it’s terrible important.”

“Kal Emerson, you’re going to stick to that promise to Dick?”

“I’d forgotten about him, but not about marrying you. I shore intend to do that.”

“I won’t,” she declared.

“You will,” he returned.

“A woman has to swear to — to love, honor, and obey a man, doesn’t she, before it’s binding?”

“Why, I reckon. But you can cut out the obey if you want.”

“You know every little wish of yours would be law to me,” she said, passionately.

“Ruth, I didn’t know that, but fine — fine! My wish is for you to be my wife.”

“Why?” she asked, her face paling.

“Wal, for a number of reasons, most particular of which is that I want to take care of you an’ make you happy.”

“But you don’t have to marry me — to do that. I’ll be happier than I ever was in my life — just to be with you, work for you.”

“Maybe you could. An’ that would be all right with me,” he rejoined, earnestly. “Only, our story will be known.... An’ wal, I won’t have it any other way.”

“I can jump in the river,” said Ruth, tragically. “I always wanted to. Those deep green pools always fascinated me.” She rose to her feet, her face white, her eyes dark with pain, but with something rebellious in them that persuaded Kalispel she would not naturally go so far.

“Aw, Ruth, you wouldn’t,” he replied. Nevertheless, he laid a strong hand on the nearest blue-jean leg.

“I would rather than disgrace you,” she asserted.

“But, you little dunce, if you won’t marry me, you will disgrace me.”

“I — I thought I’d settled it,” she faltered, miserably.

“If you cry I’ll — I’ll spank you,” he declared, threateningly. “I’d forgotten everything — and I was happy.”

“Ah-huh. An’ now you’re unhappy just because I’m determined to make you Mrs. Lee Emerson?... Gosh! It’s shore flatterin’ to my vanity.”

“Kal, I’m not like other girls — for instance, Sydney Blair.”

“Yes you are, an’ a darn sight nicer.”

“Oh! — Oh! If you only — only had met me — when I was sixteen!” she sobbed, and broke down.

Kalispel almost took her into his arms. He surely wanted to, and choked up with his feeling, but he was afraid of hurting her further. After a while, when she grew composed once more, he said: “Ruth, it’s only for appearance’s sake. I told you that.... You’ll not be my wife, really. So there’ll be nothin’ for you to be ashamed of. An’ I’ll have you to take care of — an’ you’ll have me.”

“Very well. I will marry you,” she replied, in faint and sober tone.

Kalispel left her alone then and walked under the cottonwoods realizing that he did not understand himself very well. But he felt greatly relieved and glad of her decision. Presently he heard a clip-clop of hoofs and the crunch of wheels on the gravel road. The vehicle proved to be a light spring-wagon which turned off toward the cottonwood grove. Soon Kalispel saw that the driver’s garb betokened him to be a minister and that the other occupant of the wagon was Jake.

“Kal, this is Parson Weeks,” announced Jake as they came to a stop. “I commissioned him to pack our fresh supplies out. An’ he’s offered to sell the hoss an’ wagon cheap. So I reckon, when he winds up by hitchin’ you an’ Ruth, thet it’ll be a right pert day for him.”

“Howdy, Parson. I’m Lee Emerson, called Kalispel by some, an’ I’m shore glad to meet you,” drawled Kalispel, offering his hand, as the gray-haired, blue-eyed, brown-faced little man alighted.

“The pleasure is mine, Emerson. I’ve heard of you and I’m glad to shake this good right hand of yours.”

“Come an’ meet the lady.”

Ruth rose from her log seat as they approached, and Kalispel’s fears were unfounded. She showed no trace of distress and met them with a smile and brave, sweet eyes.

“Ruth, this is Parson Weeks,” announced Kalispel. The meeting came off to Kalispel’s keen pleasure.

“Parson, I have promised to marry him,” said Ruth, presently, with lovely, troubled eyes uplifted. “I will — but I ought not.”

“And goodness me! why not, if you care for him?” exclaimed Weeks, kindly.

“Oh, I do love him, but I was a dance-hall girl and I can never live down the bad name that gave me.”

“Suppose you were,” he replied, slowly. “That is nothing if he wants you.” He turned to Kalispel.

“Yes, I do!” interrupted Kalispel, with passion. “Parson, I took her out of a dance-hall, but that doesn’t say she was bad. An’ I’m goin’ to marry her an’ make her happy. She’s afraid she’ll disgrace me, but she’s a lot better than I am. She has a better education than I had, too.... If you can only talk a little sense into her pretty head you’ll be doin’ me an everlastin’ favor.”

“Ah! I see!” returned the minister, deeply moved, and he took Ruth’s hand. “My dear child, this is a question of love and love alone. Emerson is proving his. You have told me of yours. I advise you as a father and beseech you as a minister to marry this young man.... I am of the West, Ruth. And I know what the foundation has been. Women are scarce on the frontier. A few pioneer women with their daughters, and the rest a horde of Indian squaws, adventuresses, prostitutes — and dance-hall girls. From these Westerners must choose their wives. And they have done so for years, are doing it now, and will continue to do so. Man must have woman. It is a hard country, this glorious West of ours. It takes big women to stand it. And bad women, if there are any bad women, have turned out big and good. They are making the West. Who shall remember in threescore years, when this broad land will be prosperous with cities and ranchers, that the grandmothers of that generation, ever were, let us say, dance-hall girls? And if it were remembered, who could bring calumny against the strong-souled mothers of the West?”

Parson Weeks married Ruth and Kalispel under the gold-leafed cottonwoods, with Jake grinning happily by. And when Kalispel bent over Ruth to watch her sign the marriage certificate, he was rather astonished to discover that he had never before known her surname.

Kalispel bought out Olsen, lock, stock, and barrel, to his own rapture and the dissatisfied rancher’s great satisfaction.

A belated Indian summer fell upon the Salmon River Valley, and added its enchantment of smoky, still, golden days to the splendor of silver, black-tipped slopes, and the singing river.

While Jake scoured the Lemhi Valley for horses and cattle, Kalispel superintended the erection of a spacious addition to Olsen’s log cabin. Carpenters and builders from the town peeled the lodge-pole pines that the Indians snaked down from the forests, and sawed and raised and hammered till a long living-room arose, with a large open fireplace in the center, and small, well-lighted rooms at each end. Kalispel never left the ranch, but his orders were sent out, and wagon-loads of furniture arrived. And when he had exhausted Salmon’s resources he sent freighters to Boise for the luxuries he wanted for Ruth. Pictures, curtains, lamps, rugs, linen, all the things he had surreptitiously learned from Ruth were dear to the hearts of housewives, all these and many more came almost before the roof was on, to Ruth’s growing consternation and rapture.

“Oh, Kal! If you are going in debt we are ruined before we start!” she wailed.

“Nary a debt,” he replied, with a mysterious air.

“Kal, you couldn’t have lied to me!” she implored. “You couldn’t!”

“Wal, I don’t recollect lyin’ to you,” he drawled. “What about?”

“You swore you have never been — oh, forgive me! — a — a bandit?”

“Shore, I swore. I never took two-bits in my life — that didn’t belong to me.”

“Then, Kal, you struck gold over there — struck it rich — and kept it secret!”

“Wal, there’s somethin’ in what you say,” he replied, lazily, and then he ran out to keep from telling her of his secret, of the bags and bags of gold dust so carefully hidden by himself deep under his corner of the new house.

Kalispel planned many surprises, to Ruth’s endless bewilderment. When Smoky arrived, the finest and prettiest little saddle-horse in the valley, with a Mexican silver-mounted saddle and bridle, Ruth wept and loved the horse and followed Kalispel around with eyes that made a slow, strange heat throb in his veins. What was this intense desire of his to see the light of gladness come to her blue eyes? How stern his determination to make up to her for what she had suffered, to fill the present with a joy that must obliterate the past!

However, when a young Lemhi Indian couple put in an appearance, the stalwart man to help Jake with his manifold tasks, and the comely squaw to look after the house, then Ruth arose like a roused lioness. To her wrath and her protestations and lamentations Kalispel turned a flinty, if not a deaf, ear.

“Dog-gone it! There’s too much work on this big place for a little girl like you!” he ejaculated, finally.

“I’m not little. At least, if I am little, I’m strong.”

“Shore. But I won’t have my wife makin’ a slave of herself. Not while I’m rich.”

“Rich!... Damn you, Kal!... Oh, forgive me. I meant to stop swearing.... But I don’t care if you are rich, you mysterious cowpuncher! I want to be worth my salt.”

“Ruth, I reckon I’m findin’ out you’re worth gold an’ rubies an’ pearls.”

“You are!... Oh, Kal, you’re so careless with your speech. Remember I’m only a poor little lost waif — and if I ever thought you’d — I — Oh!... but let me cook and bake and sew for you!”

“Wal, I sort of think I’ll like that, a little,” he drawled. “But no pichin’ hay or diggin’ potatoes or milkin’ cows or choppin’ wood or scrubbin’ floors, or any of a hundred jobs such as Olsen’s wife had to do. You savvy, Mrs. Emerson?”

“Yes, I savvy,” she replied, her eyes shining through tears.

By mid-November the leaves were off the cottonwoods and willows; the grass had grown sear and brown; the skies were mostly gray; and the wailing wind and dismal croak of ravens from the hill attested to the imminent approach of winter.

Jake had driven in a thousand head of cattle and fifty horses, which were turned out in the river pastures. The freighting was all finished. Jake and the Indian cut firewood when the other farm chores left them time.

During these eventful and all-satisfying weeks Kalispel had not visited Salmon or Challis. His thoughts were absorbed by his ranch and a new something that had come into his life.

Nevertheless, he heard endless gossip from Jake, who never failed to return from town with the latest happenings. Moreover, miners and travelers, who often stopped at the ranch, brought their share of news. Only of late had the stream of miners from Thunder City diminished to a few stragglers.

Five hundred undefeated gold-diggers had remained behind to spend the winter in the ruined gold-camp. Thunder Mountain had slipped down to pile a dam a hundred feet high across the valley at the lower end. A hundred feet of water now covered the long, wide street where revelry had held sway day and night. And the lake had backed up two miles, here and there dotted by clapboard houses that had floated until they stranded in shallow places. But the gold was still there. And in the spring the hundred-ton stamp-mill would be packed in.

Of vital interest to Kalispel was the news that Masters had lingered at Thunder City long after all his friends had left. And one day, in a tent-walled gambling-den, he had clashed with two miners named Jones and Matthews and had killed them both. One of these men, while dying, had confessed to the murder of Sam Emerson, at Leavitt’s instigation.

Leavitt’s vigilantes had taken off their masks that last day when the landslide had saved Kalispel, and were never known by their fellow miners or heard of again.

Kalispel often inquired about Blair and his daughter, but they seemed to have vanished. Memory of the dark haired, violet-eyed girl had mellowed to something fine for Kalispel and he no longer felt any regret or remorse.

Then one day a leaden sky mantled the mountain peaks and snow began to fall. Great, feathery, white flakes floated down to cover the slopes, the ranges, the cabins, the sheds and fences, all except the dark-green, gliding river. Three feet of snow fell during that first storm of the winter, and when it cleared the mercury slipped down below zero.

Kalispel gazed out of the window that morning upon a beautiful white world.

“Gosh, how I always used to hate winter!” he ejaculated. “Blizzards on the Wyomin’ range were no joke.”

“I love winter,” replied Ruth, gayly. “I shall wade out in the snow every day.”

“Wade away, but not with me, darlin’!” he drawled. The unconscious term of endearment checked any further enthusiasm of Ruth’s and again opened for Kalispel a singular train of thought, which for long had recurred, despite his perplexity and disfavor.

“Snowed in, like a couple of Missouri groundhogs! Snowed in for the winter, you an’ me, Ruth!... Aw, it’s terrible hard luck for Kalispel Emerson! Nice, cozy, bright livin’- room, big open fireplace an’ stacks an’ stacks of dead wood to burn! — Shore is hard luck for a down-trodden, never-understood cowboy!”

“Yes, I had observed the same thing,” replied Ruth, demurely, with an expressive glance from her blue eyes.

“Shore. I’m glad you are observin’,” drawled Kalispel, the mood growing on him. “An’ stuff to eat! Oh, my! Two deer hangin’ up in the shed an’ a thousand pounds of elk meat! — Pantry full of grub! Milk an’ cream an’ butter all I can stuff, an’ not have to lift a dam hand to get it.... An’ then this here livin’-room. Books an’ books, an’ magazines galore! Nice, bright lamps an ‘easy chairs! Aw, the long winter evenin’s when the wind moans an’ the snow blows, with all these things an’ a girl no man would ever tire lookin’ at!”

“Oh, so you have observed that last!” exclaimed Ruth, lightly, but she did not raise her eyes.

Kalispel had looked at her often of late, though not so keenly and realizingly as on this white morning when he accepted the fact of winter.

“November, December, January, February, March, April, May!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, the long months, eh?” she rejoined, encouragingly.

“Yep, the long months with you alone.”

“Kal, isn’t that prospect very — very — ?” she asked, troubled of eyes, and unable to find the word she wanted.

“Shore it is,” he agreed, but did not tell her what.

Ruth had greatly improved during these weeks of autumn. The hollows of her cheeks and neck had filled out, and she had gained otherwise, so that her appearance of frailty had vanished. The shadows that had once lain under her eyes were gone, and the haunting pain no longer lurked in her expression. With Kalispel’s sense of relief at this transformation came his full realization of the love that had grown in him. He had long been conscious of something deeply sig-nificant for him in her presence. Every thought of her busy, happy days and evenings seemed to be for him. She lived for him. And his love, insensibly born that dusk in Sloan’s cabin, had been fed by her sweetness, her shining hair and never-failing smile, her improvement in health and beauty, the day by day unfolding of her brave and loyal soul.

He kept his secret to himself for days and nights, gloating over the wonder of it, the transformation it had wrought in him. He played with this happiness and hugged it to his bosom.

But the time came when Kalispel felt that he could not keep his love secret any longer. Wherefore he reacted to his old cowboy humor and planned his capitulation.

That night he had been unusually quiet, and not responsive to Ruth’s thoughtful importunities. But when bedtime came he apparently regained his cheerfulness.

“Dog-gone! — Ruth, can’t you feel the cold creepin’ in?” he said, as he got up to bank the red bed of embers in the fireplace. “If I don’t keep pilin’ on wood —— —”

“It was fifteen degrees below zero this morning,” she declared.

“Wal, no wonder.... Do you sleep warm, Ruth?” he asked, solicitously, as he turned his back, raking up the coals.

“I freeze to death,” she rejoined, frankly, with a laugh.

“So do I, towards mornin’,” he drawled, thoughtfully. “Dog-gone it, Ruth, suppose we sleep together to keep warm.”

She uttered a slight gasp, but did not reply. Kalispel went on piling the ashes over the live fire and taking pains about it. He did not want to look at her just then, because he knew that when he did there would be the end of his secret. As she did not speak, however, he began to feel that he had overstepped his bounds.

“Course I won’t sleep in my chaps an’ spurs, as I used to,” he ventured.

“Kal!...” she whispered, faintly. “You — you’re not — in earnest?”

“Shore, come to think of it. You see I just happened to think that married people do sleep together in winter-time. So I’ve been told. It’s not a bad idee, Ruth.”

Another long silence, which at length she broke in a strangled voice.

“Very well.... I — I will.”

Then he let out a great exultant laugh.

“What’s so — so funny about it?” she asked, resentfully. Kalispel laid aside his poker and faced about with outward composure. He saw a very flushed and agitated girl. “Kid, I never told you about my love-affairs, did I?”

“No. And I don’t want to hear about them,” she replied, achieving disdain.

“Wal, all right, then I won’t bore you with details,” he went on. “But I reckon I thought I was in love a lot of times. Queer thing! I had some fights, too, an’ near got shot more’n once, an’ shot.... Wal, never mind about them.... But when I met Sydney Blair I fell kerplunk. Gee! I was lovesick! I had luck, too, in that affair. Saved Sydney from Borden, an’ again from drownin’, an’ along about then, after we got over to Thunder Mountain, when she got kinda sweet on me an’ I kissed her that night —— —”

“Kal, I don’t want to hear any more,” cried Ruth with the red of her convulsed face changing to white. Her eyes darkened with a shade Kalispel could not endure to see there.

In one long stride he reached her, and lifting her out of her chair he kissed shut the pained eyes, and then her cheeks, and then her lips. After which he sat down in her chair and held her close and tight to his breast. About that time his secret, his humor, his tantalizing, his strange need to watch and wait and ponder the marvelous fact of his love all went into eclipse.

“Listen, Ruth.... I never was in love, not in those range days. That was just plain girl-hunger. I reckon I had a case on Sydney. Only that wasn’t real love, either. She had me buffaloed.... But the night when Sloan lay dyin’ an’ you refused to say you’d marry me, that was when I lost my heart once an’ forever. I didn’t know till after. An’ as soon as I did know, then it grew an’ grew with all your sweet ways, an’ your love of me, an’ the fact that you were my girl, all the truer an’ finer for the hell you’d been through.... An’, Ruth, I wouldn’t change you for Sydney Blair an’ a dozen girls like her, if I could be a Mormon an’ have them all. An’ now that you’re well an’ happy, I wouldn’t want it different. I don’t know how to explain, but I know what I feel.... An’ I love you just wonderful, with a savin’ love that’ll keep me straight an’—”

Soft lips on his ended Kalispel’s revelation. Ruth threw her arms round his neck, and with closed eyes and rapt face held him tight.

“Oh, Kal!... Oh, Kal! How I have longed and waited!... But all the time I knew it. That is what saved me — changed me — uplifted me — made me happy.... All the time I knew!”

“Wal, you wonderful girl!” he ejaculated, incredulously and holding her as if he would never let her go, he watched the opal heart of the dying embers, his thoughts too deep and ecstatic for words.

Outside, the winter night-wind complained under the eaves; the branches of the cottonwood rustled on the roof the river roared its melancholy song; and a wolf mourned his lonely and hungry state, — all of which sounds were of Kalispel’s past; pregnant of the solitude and the wild, now gone with the hard days that were no more.

THE END

Majesty’s Rancho

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER I

LANCE SIDWAY PULLED himself up from the stone steps of the Natural History Museum. He laughed ruefully as he realized that this was his third visit to the institution. As on his two previous excursions, he had wandered round and round the inside halls examining the mounted specimens of wild animals. He loved four-footed creatures, and though a pang beset him to see these lifeless counterfeits of what had once been the free beasts of the wild, he yet experienced a sense of escape and peace that he had not felt since he left his Oregon range home for Hollywood.

There was, he knew now, a future in the motion-picture studios for his great horse “Umpqua,” and perhaps one for himself as well. But he shied at becoming an actor and hated to double for the handsome cowboy Apollos of the screen; and to hang around the studios merely as the owner of a wonderful horse, letting the spirited animal earn his living for him, did not fit his idea of a career. As a matter of fact, he had never desired a future in Hollywood under such circumstances and the immediate necessity for earning money was over. Nance, his sister, was perfectly well again after her operation and would soon be married. So in demand, indeed, had Umpqua been that Lance found himself with at least enough cash in hand to last him until he could find a job more to his liking.

He found himself leaning toward a horseback ride through southern California, across Arizona, perhaps into New Mexico. To be sure the cattle business was practically ruined, but the desert ranges and purple uplands of Arizona, or the silver grassed valleys of New Mexico, about which he had read so much, would be vastly wilder and infinitely freer than the old pastures he had ridden, and surely there would be some kind of a job for a husky chap who was fond of animals.

There was a singular zest in the thought of new adventure in a harder country than he had known. But the truth was, Hollywood did not let go its grip so easily. And why? Lance knew that he had no ambition to beat the movie game. Still he admitted the fascination of the gay bright whirl of the picture world. Reducing this down to the lure of feminine charm seemed another step in the right direction. Lance dubiously admitted to himself that he was afraid he had more than the ordinary male’s weakness for the fair sex. But hell! he thought in self-defense, just think of Hollywood’s thousands of extras, and more thousands of girls unable to find even jobs as extras, many of them exceptionally beautiful, all of them pretty! Here was a case where it was hard to break away. And he ruefully recalled the three girls to whose attraction he had succumbed — Coretta — and Virginia — and lastly Maurine. Only last night Maurine had faced him, a little pale, with dark eyes steady. “Lance, you’ve been swell to me,” she had said. “I could lie to you, but I won’t. At last I’ve got a break. You know what that means. I must make the grade.... Sure I love you. String along with me, darling, and when I’m a star....”

That was Hollywood, but it was not Lance Sidway. Looked at now, in this serious moment, it seemed a deciding factor. “It’d happen again,” muttered Lance, sadly. “And I might fall worse. It’s coming to me.... I’m through!”

And he arose with springy step to gaze at the hazy Sierra Madres beyond which barrier there was an unsettled land. He strolled through a long terrace of roses, sensitive to their color and fragrance. They were beautiful, but he liked wild flowers best. Meanwhile he was revolving in mind the problem of riding Umpqua out of California. The horse was fat and needed work. He would not care much for the asphalt roads; perhaps, however, from Palm Springs south Lance could keep mostly to soft ground. Once in condition again, Umpqua was good for fifty miles a day without turning a hair.

Lance emerged from the Museum park, and presently, strolling along, he found himself on the edge of the University campus. Students of both sexes were in evidence, some chatting in groups, others moving along with books under their arms. These bareheaded boys and girls in their colorful sweaters, young and full of the joy of life, aroused memory and regret in Lance. After high school he had attended college in Corvallis for nearly a year, and outside of freshman miseries, which now seemed sweet, he had done well in his studies and better in athletics. But financial trouble had intervened and Nance’s illness... both of which had sent him to Hollywood. This college atmosphere was something that he liked. If only his father had not died, to leave Nance and him orphans! Lance cast off the sadness. His sister was well — happy — and he had the greatest horse in the West and a new adventure in that West before him. Pretty lucky, Lance thought he should be telling himself! Reaching a cross street Lance halted to absorb more of the flash of color on the campus. He sauntered up the cross street toward some shade trees. On that side there were more students. He heard bantering voices and gay high-pitched laughter.

The shrill sound of a siren disrupted his attention, as well as that of the students. Wheeling, Lance saw a bright topless roadster turning the corner from the main street. Its driver was a bareheaded girl with hair bright as spun gold. At the moment she withdrew her extended left arm. Behind her raced the car with the loud horn. It caught up with her. One of the two occupants, surely policemen, yelled for her to stop. The young woman took her time about it, and passing Lance, finally halted at the first shade trees where half a dozen students had congregated. Lance had not far to go to reach them and he strolled along, curious, expectant, and a little angry at the gruff yell of the officer. Lance was in time to hear:

“Why didn’t you stop?”

“I have stopped,” replied the girl, coolly.

Lance joined the group of students who had advanced to the curb. From all points on the campus others were coming, some on the run. Then Lance saw the girl at close range. Many a time in the studios and on the locations had he sustained a shock of masculine transport, but he had never seen a motion-picture star who in his opinion could hold a candle to this girl.

“Majesty, what do these cops want?” queried a tall young fellow, stepping out.

“I’m not sure, Rollie,” she replied, with a laugh. “But I think they want to chase me off the streets.”

“What’s the idea, officer?”

“If it’s any of your business, freshie, she was speedin’,” returned the other, a burly man, red-faced and thin-lipped, alighting from the police car. “I know her an’ she knows me.”

“Yeah?” queried the student, insolently.

“Yeah! She was makin’ forty-five on the turn an’ she didn’t even hold out her hand.”

“Say, ossifer, we saw this lady turn and she wasn’t making twenty,” interposed another student.

“Lay off us kids, can’t you?” asked another, plaintively.

“Aren’t there enough drunk drivers to keep you busy?”

“Looks a little steamed up himself.”

Good-natured cat calls and boos sounded from back of the circle of students, crowding closer and denser. They sensed events. Lance gathered that the officers did not fail to grasp something inimical to their own well-being at the moment.

“Give the girl a ticket, Brady, and let’s get going,” advised the one at the wheel.

A storm of protest went up from the foremost line of students. Rollie, who evidently had some distinction on the campus, yelled for them to shut up.

“Beat it, you flat-feet!” he called, sharply. “You hang around here and run us fellows ragged. But lay off the girls. Get that? We won’t stand for it.”

“You shut up or I’ll run you in,” said Brady angrily, as he began writing the summons.

“Madge, is it coming to you?” Rollie asked.

“Not this time, Rollie, I swear,” she replied. “I did run away from him some days ago. But today I wasn’t making twenty.”

“You tell that to the Judge,” said Brady, coldly. “An’ you’re interferin’ with an officer of the law.”

“Law, hooey! Only when there’s nothing in it for you. Get the hell out of here!”

The crowd of students surged over the sidewalk and pulled the officer from the running board of the car. He made the mistake of raising his fist, and striking himself free he shouted to his companion: “Send a riot call!” At that juncture a motorcycle policeman roared up to make a fringe of students in the street hop out of his way. Brady hoarsely repeated his order to him, and with his comrade, both swinging their arms, cleared a space.

Lance had been shoved off the pavement by the pushing of the students, all of them roused now and full of devilment. Rollie appeared to be the only one who took the affair seriously. The girl, Madge, acted as if she were enjoying the proceedings. But her violet eyes were ablaze. Rollie leaped on the running board and leaned close to speak low to her. Then Brady turning with red visage and bristling front jerked Rollie down.

“Young woman, get away from that wheel,” he ordered, opening the door. “I’ll take you for a little ride.”

“Like hell you will,” she rejoined, her voice as ringing as a bell. And she snapped the door shut.

Brady’s attention veered to a charging crowd of students who pushed the officers’ car down the street, while another gang, yelling like Indians, rushed the truck of a fruit and vegetable vendor who had happened along. They halted him, and in gold and red streams they spilled the mounds of oranges and tomatoes into the street. Another moment saw the air full of colored missiles. Their target was the offending car of the law. A smashing of windows and clinking of glass mingled with the derisive yells of the assailants. Then the driver, who had attempted in no gentle manner to drive the students from crowding Brady, turned to roar at the slingers. A huge soft tomato struck him squarely in the face. That elicited a howl of fiendish glee from the armed force in the street. A hail of oranges and tomatoes not only halted his belligerent rush but blinded him, swamped him, knocked him flat. At the moment, then, a blare of sirens announced the arrival of reinforcements.

Lance hung by the girl’s car while the students, numbering hundreds by now, rushed pell-mell into the street, whooping like a lot of Indians. What was left of the vendor’s ample supply of oranges and tomatoes disappeared from his truck as if by magic to take swift form of a colorful barrage right at the charging policemen. For a while they were held back, but as the supply of ammunition began to diminish, they forged forward, eventually to drive the students out of the street upon the campus. But it was not an onslaught such as Brady and his man had attempted. The students were having a wonderful time, but the officers, plainly disgusted and angered though they were, did not resort to violence. Against three hundred crazy students they could do nothing save harangue them off the street.

Lance, keenly enjoying the whole performance, was suddenly startled by a cry from the girl in the car. And as he wheeled he leaped off the curb. Brady had opened the car door.

“Move over, Blondie,” he ordered, a rude hand on her shoulder.

“You dirty bum! Don’t you dare paw me!”

It appeared to Lance that the officer’s action exceeded his authority. Even if it had not, the girl’s poignant outburst and the flash of her magnificent eyes would have been enough for Lance.

“I’m drivin’ you to the station,” declared Brady, shoving at her.

“You are not!” she cried, starting the engine. “Get off or I’ll spread you along the street.... I’ll drive to...”

Lance snatched the policeman’s hand off the car and as he turned in surprise Lance hit him a not-too-gentle blow on his rather protruding abdomen. A gasping expulsion of breath followed the sodden drumlike sound. Brady began to sag. Lance reached up with powerful hand, pulled him off the running board, and then with a vicious swing of fist at the convulsed visage he laid the officer neatly in the street. In action as swift, Lance vaulted into the car.

“Step on it!” he yelled. And almost before the words passed his lips the little car shot ahead. Lance’s knees came up hard under the dash. A shrill blast from the horn sent several students leaping for their lives. Then the car ate up the open street, to whirl at the corner, and sped on, describing swift half-circles in the traffic. Lance’s hat went flying, and as the car grazed a trolley his hair stood up stiff. Though scared as he had never been, Lance’s heart strangled a cowboy yell in his throat and his blood beat thick in his ears and he was possessed by a wild elation. The car whirled off the thoroughfare into a quiet street, on which the houses blurred in Lance’s sight. Another turn, then block after block on a traffic-congested street, then a break in the speed — and at last a parking place!

“Whew!” exploded Lance, catching his breath. “We’d have shaken them — if they had chased us.”

“Swell, wasn’t it?” rejoined the girl, with an amazing coolness. And she uttered a low laugh.

“I’ll tell the world. Say, but you can drive,” burst out Lance, turning to look at her. With steady beautiful hands, and shapely coral-tinted finger tips she was taking a gold monogrammed cigarette case from her purse.

“Thanks. Have a cigarette?”

“Don’t mind.”

“Did I scare you?”

“Yes — but it was a great ride.”

“Well, we got the best of those cops anyway, and now we’re just two fugitives from justice.”

All this time Lance was gazing at the girl, conscious of a mounting exhilaration. To find pleasure in the beauty of women had been the only debt he owed Hollywood. But this visual experience seemed a magnifying of all former sensations.

“Oh, your hand!” she exclaimed, in sudden solicitude.

Then Lance became aware that he was opening and shutting his right hand, the knuckles of which were bruised. It was a big brown member, matching his brawny wrist.

“Bunged my fist — a little,” he said, awkwardly. “Nothing much.”

“No? — I wonder what that cop thought. I’ll never forget his face. I was looking at it when you socked him. Did that tickle me?”

“Then I’m glad,” returned Lance, beaming at her.

“You see he was sore at me. He’s caught me before. Last time I made eyes at him, you know, and let him think.... I had a date and was late. Next time he spotted me I ran away from him. Today he must have been laying for me.”

“So that was it? Big fathead! You’ll get hauled up for this. I’m sorry. But I had to slug him.... I was looking at you when he...”

“Don’t be sorry. You made me your friend for life. Rollie was mad, but he wouldn’t have done that.... You’re not a college man?”

“No. I went one year at Corvallis. Then... but that wouldn’t interest you. I — I’d better be going.”

“Don’t go yet,” she replied, detaining him with a hand on his sleeve. “Indeed I am interested. You’re not going to walk out on me after such a romantic adventure. Are you?”

“Why, Miss Madge — I — you... of course, that’s up to the lady.”

“It always should be, even if it isn’t. Tell me about yourself. I’ll bet you’re from Hollywood. You have that cut.”

“Yeah? You don’t mean movie actor?” inquired Lance, quickly.

“No? Too bad! You’re handsome enough to be one. My sorority sisters will be jealous. I’ll have you out to the house to meet them.”

“That’d be swell. But I’m afraid it’s not possible. Thank you.”

“You’re not married?”

“I should say not.”

“Nor in love. I know how that malady affects them,” she replied, flippantly. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

“You’re very kind. I — I have to say no.”

“Well, of all things. A turn-down from a cavalier who fought for me! ... It doesn’t happen, at least never yet.... They always say: ‘How about a date?’... What’re you doing out in Hollywood?”

“I own a horse. He’s been in pictures, not I. Oh, I’ve had to ride him a few times, doubling for these actors. I hated that. It’s almost as tough on me as letting them ride him.”

“A wonderful horse. How thrilling! I love horses.”

“As much as cars?”

“More. We have a ranch and some Arabians.... What’s his name?”

“Umpqua.”

“Umpqua? Must be Indian?”

“Yes, it is. Means swift.”

“Then he can run?”

“Run! — See here, little lady, Umpqua is as swift as the wind.”

“I’ll bet I’ve a horse that can beat him.”

Lance laughed. Here apparently was a real western girl. It did not detract from the dazzling glamour of her.

“Is he pretty — beautiful — grand, or what?” she continued.

“All of them. Umpqua has Arabian blood,” replied Lance, warming to her interest. That seemed to put him on her level. “He is big and rangy. Mottled black with white feet and nose. Bright soft eyes. Spirited but gentle. And this Hollywood game hasn’t done him any good. That’s why I’m going to quit it and leave this place. Ump is too fine, too sweet a horse for Hollywood.”

“You love him, don’t you?” she said, softly, as if she understood.

“I’ll say I do. Why, he saved Nance’s life.... Nance is my sister. Umpqua was given to me when he was a colt. He’s cowboy bred. On the Oregon range near Bend. And no horse ever had ten years’ better breeding.... Well, Nance and I were left alone. We lost the ranch. I had to quit college. She fell ill. It was necessary to have special treatment for her — operations and all — to save her life. So to earn the money I brought Umpqua to Hollywood where I had been assured of a job. And did he make good? I’m telling you.”

The girl’s eyes were bright with interest.

“Splendid. And your sister — Nance?”

“Just fine now. She’s going to be married soon.”

“Swell!... Oh, wouldn’t I love to see Umpqua? But I wouldn’t dare. I’d want to buy him. I always try to buy everything I like. And you’d hate me. That wouldn’t do at all.... Cowboy, are you leaving town? Wouldn’t you like... couldn’t we meet again?”

“Why — I — I... hope to see you again,” stammered Lance.

“We have a lot in common. Horses and ranches — and things,” she went on, consulting her wrist watch. “Let’s see. If I don’t get pinched and haled into court, I can cut psych. Say two-thirty, here, tomorrow. Will that be convenient?”

“Okay by me,” replied Lance, and opened the door to step out.

“Thank you for all you did. Good-by till tomorrow. And be careful. Don’t forget you punched a cop. They’ll be looking for you if they can remember what you look like. I won’t forget.”

Lance stood there rooted to the spot, watching the bright car and golden head flash out of sight. Then expecting to come down to earth with a dull thud, he found himself in the clouds. He soared while he hunted for a westbound trolley and the long ride out seemed only a few moments. Riding a block past his street augured further of his mental aberration. He strode on, out of the main zone of buildings, into the hills, and up the canyon where he had lodgings with a man who rented him a little pasture and stall for his horse. Lance went into the alfalfa-odorous barn. Umpqua nickered at him. “My God, Ump!” said Lance, as he put his arm over the noble arched neck and laid his cheek against the glossy mane. “I’ve fallen like a ton of bricks. Hardest ever! — No, old pard, not a movie extra or even a star. But a college girl. Another blonde, Ump! Only this one has them all backed off the lot.... So that’s what was wrong with me when I sat dumb in her car?”

Contact with Umpqua brought Lance down to reality and to the fact that he was leaving Hollywood. Against his sober judgment he would keep the date with the girl, which would be a last sentimental gesture before he rode out toward the open ranges and to the life he was meant for.

Lance packed and tagged his outfit, walked downtown to an express office, and checked it to be sent for later. Then he cashed his last check from the studio. It was still only midafternoon. On the boulevard he dropped into a movie theater and sat through two pictures, no details of which he could have even faintly remembered afterward. Then he went to a restaurant for his supper. Even his usually keen appetite did not return to break his abstraction. Thereafter he strolled up the boulevard, knowing it would be the last time. There was a première at the Chinese, heralded aloft by great searchlight beams, streaking up and sweeping across the heavens. Hollywood’s main thoroughfare blazed with colored lights. Cars hummed to and fro, halted for the signals, rolled on again. Lance stood on the corner of Vine Street, absorbing the flash, the glitter, the roar, the vivid life of the strange city. There was a little sadness mixed with his varied feelings and he could not quite analyze the cause. He did not really want this life. Then a shining black limousine sped noiselessly by. Lance caught a fleeting glimpse of a lovely fair girl, radiant in white, lying languorously back against the black-clad shoulder of her companion. That was Hollywood. How many times Lance had seen the same sight, always with a vague envy!

He let that glimpse be the last to intrigue him, and striding back to his room, he went to bed. There, wide-awake, he lay in the dark, remembering, wondering, feeling more clearly than at any time since his adventure.

A vivid and entrancing picture of the girl appeared etched against the blackness. Her face floated there, exquisitely fair. It was oval, crowned by shining golden hair, which waved back from her broad low brow. Slender arched eyebrows marked large intent eyes, wide apart, dark, the color of violets and singularly expressive with a light of friendliness, of frank interest. The whole face had a flash, of which fixed and changeless beauty was only a part.

Feature by feature the girl’s face appeared to Lance with a clearness which astonished him.

Lance shut his eyes to blot out this memory picture. But it made no difference. She was there, in his mind, on his heart. Never in all his life had he yearned for anything so dearly as to kiss those red lips. That dragged him rudely out of his trance. It would be wise not to see the girl again. With a pang he abandoned the idea. Majesty.... Madge, that student Rollie had called her. The first name suited her. Who was she? Where was that ranch with the Arabian horses? Somewhere in California, no doubt. That girl had class. Yet there was nothing the least snobbish about her. Too lovely, too kind and sweet to be a flirt! No need. She was rich, of course, Lance thought, remembering her clothes and her car! He remembered, too, the jeweled monogram on her cigarette case, but could recall only the letter M. And Lance rolled over to go to sleep. Aw! What the hell? He was always mooning over some pretty dame, especially a blonde, and here he had what was coming to him. Forget it, cowboy, and hit the trail.

All the same he dreamed of her and upon awakening in the morning, he began to waver in his resolution. Why be a sap? She had been grateful. He would want to know how she fared with the police and the college authorities. She would keep the date and wait for him. Lance, in the broad light of day, while he made his final preparations to leave, thought better of his resolve not to meet her. Treat a swell girl like that — stand her up on a promised date — a girl who loved horses — it just was not in him. And all the rest of the morning, at lunch, and when he took the bus downtown, he was conscious of a tingling expectance, a heat in his veins, a glamour over everything.

It amazed Lance extremely that he could not immediately find the parking place where he was to meet the girl. He had been so balmy, he thought, that he had scarcely known whether he was walking or riding. It was a good thing that he had come downtown so early. After wandering around, up one street and down another, at last he found the vacant lot which had been utilized to park cars. He was still a quarter of an hour ahead of time. An attendant, observing Lance loitering around, told him he could sit in one of the cars if he were waiting for someone. Lance promptly availed himself of this permission; in fact he took a back seat in a car standing against a building. Lance did not believe she would come at all; if she did he wanted to see her before she spied him. The buoyancy usual with Lance at a rendezvous seemed to be wanting here. This was a tremendous occasion.

He could see a large blue-handed clock in a tower some distance away, and watching this, as the half hour neared, he gave way more and more to inexplicable feelings. If she came, that would be proof she liked him, and maybe.... Why not postpone his departure for Arizona? A few days or even weeks would not make any particular difference. If she wanted to see him, take him to the house to meet her friends, perhaps go out to see Umpqua — how could he ever resist that? He had always been a fool over girls. With this one he would be serious and assuredly she had only a passing fancy or interest in him.

Or she might have been one of these beautiful dames who had to have a new flame every day. Maybe he had better just wait to have a farewell look at her, and not let her know he was there. But suppose she really had been struck with him! That was possible. It had happened once. In this case there would never again be any peace away from the glad light of those violet eyes.

“Gosh! I was a dumbbell for coming,” he muttered, kicking himself. “She’s late now.... She won’t come — and am I glad?”

Nevertheless he lingered there, sliding down in the seat, watching with hawk eyes the passing cars, slowly succumbing to a pang in his breast. At a quarter to three he gave up hope.

Then a bright tan roadster flashed into sight. It slowed and turned in. The driver was a girl in blue. But her blue hat did not hide a gleam of gold. She had come! Lance’s heart gave a leap and his blood gushed through his veins.

Then a seven-passenger car, shiny black in hue, flashed into sight, slowed and stopped outside the turn. From it leaped a slender young man, noticeably well-dressed. He waved the car on with sharp gesture and came hurrying, his piercing gaze on the blonde girl.

Lance saw her sweep a quick glance all around the parking place. She was looking for him, and the disappointment she expressed was so sweet and moving to Lance that it would have drawn him out of his hiding place but for the mien of the newcomer.

She had halted at an angle from Lance’s position, perhaps a dozen steps distant, and scarcely had she dismissed the polite attendant when the other man caught up to lean over the side of her car. He did not remove his soft gray hat. He had a remarkably handsome visage, pale, chiseled as if from marble, a square chin and ruthless mouth, and light gray eyes sharp as daggers. He reminded Lance of someone he knew.

“On the lam, eh, Madge? You certainly gave that driver of mine a run,” he said, with an air of cool effrontery.

“Hello, Bee. What do you mean — on the lam?” she replied.

“Trying to run away from me again.”

“No. I was in a hurry to keep a date. I’m too late. He’s come and gone. Damn old Fuzzy-Top! It was his fault.”

“Was your date with Fuzzy-Top?”

“No. You don’t seem to understand my college talk any better than I do your gangster expressions. Fuzzy is one of my profs.”

Gangster! Lance sustained a sudden shock. So that was it. This young man bore a remarkable resemblance to the picture star, Robert Morris, in his racketeer roles. What could the girl possibly have to do with a gangster? Plenty, thought Lance, considering that she had the imperious look of one who had an insatiable thirst for adventure.

“Madge, I haven’t said nothing yet,” replied the fellow, with a laugh. “Saying it with flowers is not my way. How about cocktails? Take me for a ride.”

“Bee, I told you I had a date,” she protested. “With a perfectly swell fellow. I’m crazy about him.”

“Yeah? He doesn’t seem so crazy about you. Dish the date and let’s go places.” With that the cool gentleman walked around the front of her car, and opening the door he slipped in and slammed it shut.

“You’ve got a nerve,” she retorted.

“Didn’t you tell me that was what you liked about me?”

“I suspect I did. You were something new, Bee.”

“Thanks. You’re a new twist on me. All women are flirts. But I went for you in a big way. And you went out with me, didn’t you?”

“Yes. A couple of times. If you recall I met you at the Grove one afternoon for tea. We danced. And one other time at the Biltmore, where we quarreled because you were pretty raw.”

“Cooled on me, eh?”

“Not exactly. You still pack a thrill. But you’re a little too — too...”

“Madge, no broad ever made a sucker of Bee Uhl yet,” he rejoined, with a crisp ring in his voice.

“Mr. Uhl, you’re quite beyond me,” said the girl, with a smile that disarmed her aloofness. “I’m afraid you’re going to make me regret my — well, shall we call it playful indiscretion? I never took you for a gentleman, but I thought you a good sport. If I’m not mistaken the favors of our little flirtation were yours.... Where can I drop you?”

“Say, Beauty, you hate yourself, don’t you? Well, I can take it. But the Honey Bee is not through buzzing around yet.... Let me off corner Seventh.”

In another moment they were gone, leaving Lance in a queer state of mind. He hardly knew what to think, or why he had not made his presence known. Presently his romance burst like a pricked bubble. But his relief did not equal his regret. He would not be seeing Madge again. If her apparently friendly contact with a gangster had caused her to fall somewhat in his hasty estimation, that did not seem to make any difference. Almost he sympathized with Honey Bee Uhl. That was a cognomen. Lance wondered what it signified. Then his sympathy veered to the spirited girl. He seemed to grasp that it would be impossible for her to have any fun, at least with men, to follow any natural bent of conquest or coquetry, to play around and look for what and whom she wanted from life, without leaving havoc in her wake. A girl as beautiful as she was, radiant with such an intense and fatal charm, would have to go into a nunnery, or else expect a fall of Troy around her. No doubt she desired that very thing. Lance congratulated himself on his great good fortune in avoiding the meeting, yet when it was too late he wanted it otherwise.

* * * * *

In less than two hours Lance was riding Umpqua along the hilly backroads of Hollywood. He was on his way and saw the last of the town from a bridle path high upon a foothill. He knew every bit of soft road under the slope of the mountains and avoided the asphalt wherever possible. At nine o’clock, some twenty miles out of the city, he called it a day and sought lodgings for himself and Umpqua.

Up at dawn he made San Bernardino by nightfall and the next day Banning. This entrance to the desert pass he welcomed as an event. From there on he could keep his horse almost altogether off the paved roads. That night Lance was so tired he went to sleep when his head touched the pillow. On the following morning he headed down San Gorgonio Pass toward the great gray valley of the southernmost California desert.

He knew that arid country, having been to Palm Springs and Indio with motion-picture companies. Still, sight of the rolling wasteland with its knolls of mesquite and flats of greasewood, and the irregular barren mountains zigzagging the horizon, afforded him keen pleasure. How different this country from the golden pastures and black hills and swift streams of Oregon! Lance could not have conceived a greater contrast. And by noonday the June heat of the desert was intense. Sweat oozed out of his every pore and Umpqua was wet. But this heat was what both horse and rider needed. They were heavy from underwork and overeating. By midafternoon Lance reached a little station on the railroad above Indio, where he halted for the night. He slept on a spread of hay under a cottonwood tree; and when the red sun peeped over the Chocolate Mountains next morning Lance felt that the comfort and the lure of Hollywood had been left far behind.

From that point he began a leisurely journey down the long sun-baked desert. Mecca, the Salton Sea, Niland were each marked by hitching up another hole in Umpqua’s cinch. But the great horse, once off the automobile roads and loosened up by the heat, soon showed his sound bottom and his love of the open. He knew they were headed for new ranges. Lance struck the five-mile stretch of sand dunes at sunrise, and he marveled at the smooth mounds with their knifelike crests, the scalloped vales between the dunes, the opal hues changing and playing across the sands. Umpqua did not like this region where his hoofs sank to his fetlocks. The flinty levels beyond, black and red with polished gravel, the sparse tufts of greasewood and cactus, the volcanic peaks, and finally the dusky arrowwood-bordered road to the Colorado River — these kept Umpqua on his easy ground-covering gait. Lance’s first sight of the red river justified what he had anticipated — a sullen swirling muddy flood, inimicable to horse and rider. And Yuma at night struck Lance favorably, with its wide main street and bright lights, its giant Indians and stealthily stepping Mexicans. He was across the river and this was Arizona.

That fact roused Lance at dawn. On his way again he appeared to have Arizona burst upon him in a blaze of brilliant sunlight that flooded vast wastes of barren soil and meager patches of grass, and ranges of ragged mountains asleep in the sunrise, and dim mesas and escarpments in the distance, and ghosts of purple domes hauntingly vague. Lance was a man of the open, but the great distances, the vastness, the endless reach of wasteland allured while it repelled him. He rode on, and dust, heat, wind were his portion. Ranches, service stations, hamlets stretched lonesomely across the desert. He had lost track of days and miles beyond Yuma by the time he reached Florence. Tombstone with its preserved buildings of a hard frontier past, Bisbee with its great mines and bustle, Douglas, an enterprising and progressive town marked Lance’s long ride across southern Arizona. Lance meant to strike off the main highway and railroad somewhere beyond Douglas into the ever-increasing rugged grandeur and beautiful valleys of this Arizona land. But his money, which he had thought would hold out for a much longer period, had dwindled to almost nothing, and it was now necessary that he stop and look for work. A rest would do Umpqua good. Lance found a Mexican who owned a small pasture outside of town and here he left the horse. In a pinch he could pawn his watch or gun, but he would have a try at finding work before resorting to that.

Lance accosted men in service stations and stores without any success. What he wanted to encounter was a cowboy. But this type appeared remarkably scarce. One man, evidently a cattleman, laughed gruffly at Lance: “Wal, son, thet kind of two-laiged critter has been aboot washed up on this range.”

“You don’t say. What by?” queried Lance, blankly.

“I reckon by hard times. North of heah a ways there’s some cattle left. But down heah the only successful business is bootlegging.”

That discouraged Lance, and he strolled around, slowly succumbing to the need of pawning his watch. Walking in high-heeled cowboy boots was not exactly a joy. It was noon and Lance was hot. Presently he heard voices near at hand, and turning discovered that he had halted close to a big black car, from which issued sharp voices. A second glance at that car struck him singularly. How like the black car that had followed the girl Madge to the parking place where he had chosen to avoid meeting her! With a pang he realized he had not thought of her for days. He was in another world. But this car!... Shiny black, without a gleam of metal anywhere, a fine high-priced machine, it certainly resembled....

“Hey, buddy, come here,” called a voice that shot through Lance. A young man, with pale face and eyes like gimlets, was leaning out of the front seat opposite the driver. Lance recognized him immediately. The young man Madge had designated as a gangster and who had called himself Honey Bee Uhl.

CHAPTER II

LANCE ADVANCED SLOWLY, hiding an intense curiosity. Somehow he wanted to find out all he could about this fellow.

“Hello, yourself,” he replied.

“You look sort of on the loose.”

“Well, I look just what I am,” Lance replied.

“No offense. We’re loafing here for a guy, and I just wanted to be friendly. Care for a drink?”

“Not till I have a feed.”

“Broke?”

“Flat as a pancake. And I can’t find a job in this slow burg.”

“Say, buddy, there’s plenty jobs for the right guys. Can you drive a truck?”

“Mister, I could drive two trucks,” retorted Lance, boastfully.

“Yeah? Well, how’d you like to grab a century?”

“Uhuh! Sounds good to me. I’d pull almost any kind of a job for that much dough. Only I’d want to be sure I was going to get it,” laughed Lance.

“Exactly. It’s okay. Now who are you and what have you been doing?”

“You never heard of me, mister,” said Lance, evasively. “But I’ll say I’ve been beating it from L. A.”

“Dicks after you?”

Lance laughed grimly and looked blankly silent, and averted his face somewhat from the piercing scrutiny bent upon him.

“Come clean with me, buddy, if you want your luck to change. What you been doing in L. A.?”

“Are you asking me, mister?”

“Yes, I am. It’s not for you to ask me questions,” replied Uhl, with impatient sharpness. “Take it or leave it.”

“Aw, what the hell? I’m hungry.... I beat it out of Portland ahead of Latzy Cork,” hazarded Lance, remembering the name of a shady underworld character who had recently been eluding the police on the coast.

“That racket, eh?” flashed Uhl, snapping his fingers. And with his eyes like gray fire he turned in the seat to his companions. Lance took advantage of this moment to make certain that he would recognize the driver of the car, and the three hard-faced individuals in the back seat, if he ever saw them again. At the side of the one farthest toward the road Lance espied the muzzle of a machine gun. “Cork may have been spotting me. What do you think, Dipper?”

“Not a chance, Bee. He’s been in Frisco and north for two months,” replied the one addressed.

“We don’t know that,” said Uhl, doubtfully, and turning again he pulled out a roll of bills, the wrapper of which bore the denomination one hundred. “Here’s your dough, buddy.... You’re on the spot. But the only risk you run is if you double-cross me.”

“If I undertake the job, I’ll be straight,” interposed Lance.

“That’s how you strike me.... See the big canvas-covered truck across there, back of the service station? Well, she’s your bus. You’re to take her to Tucson. She’s empty, but you drive slow, as if she was loaded heavy. See? You’ll be held up sooner or later, probably after dark outside of Tucson. That’ll be okay. You’re dumb. You just drove the truck over and you don’t know me. See?”

“I don’t know whether I see or not,” rejoined Lance, dubiously. “Who’ll hold me up — and why?”

“Say, you won’t need to fake being dumb. All you got to do is stop when you’re held up. See? You don’t know nothing.”

“Does that truck belong to you?”

“Yes.”

“Rumrunner?”

“I told you it was empty,” snapped Uhl. “Is it a go?”

“You bet,” declared Lance, taking the proffered money. “What’ll I do when I get to Tucson?”

“You’ll be on the main highway. Stop at the first service station on the edge of town. Right-hand side.”

“Then what?”

“If I don’t meet you someone else will.”

“Suppose these holdup gents take the truck away from me?”

“That won’t be your loss.”

“Boss,” interposed the sallow-faced Dipper, “this husky bird is packin’ a rod.”

“Say, are you telling me? I hope he turns cowboy with it on those dopes.... Buddy, if you turn this trick there’ll be more.”

“This one doesn’t strike me so hot,” declared Lance, tersely. “But one at a time. I’m on my way.”

As Lance strode off, carefully pocketing the money he heard Uhl say: “Dip, if he comes through we’ll take him on.”

“No gamble, Boss. That fellow will do....”

Lance passed on out of earshot. At the station he said to the operator: “That truck ready?” Upon being informed that “she’s all set,” Lance climbed into the driver’s seat and took a look. The machine was a fine make. As he moved out of the station yard he observed that the big black car had gone. Lance did not look to see what had become of it. A block away he turned into the highway and got through Douglas without a stop. Once beyond the town he opened up to twenty-five miles an hour and faced the north with a grim realization that he was in for an adventure he never would have hazarded but for a blonde college girl named Madge who had intrigued him.

“Queer setup,” soliloquized Lance, now giving rein to his conjectures. “I hit the bull’s-eye with that crack about Latzy Cork.... Racket? Wonder which racket? Cork was suspected of most everything up north.... Anyhow I got away with it.... And this Bee Uhl. He’s a crook all right. From Chi.... I get it. Chicago, of course. He doesn’t seem to care who knows it. And this big truck must have to do with bootlegging. Over the border, maybe. Or up from some harbor on the Gulf.... Nothing to me. It gets my goat, though, what this slick bozo had to do with that girl.”

Lance reflected presently that he ought to have that circumstance mastered. Madge’s own words testified to that. She had flirted with Uhl, obviously for the thrill of it. She certainly knew he was a gangster. Perhaps that was the secret. A girl like her must be besieged by admirers, importuned and bored until she was tired of them. Still Uhl was handsome, and perhaps his hard and insolent way might have appealed to the girl. Assuredly that had been the inception of the affair. Lance felt glad to convince himself that she had realized her mistake, and in a thoroughbred but kindly way had made it clear to Uhl.

“But what in the hell did she want to fall for a guy like that?” bit out Lance, jealously. “Oh, be yourself, Lance!” Just because this Majesty, the student Rollie had called her, happened to be the loveliest and most fascinating girl Lance had ever met, was no reason for him to think her on the plane of the angels.

Lance did not need to bring back the vision of her. That was limned on his memory. No use faking it, he thought — he had fallen in love with her at first sight. That was all right. But he wished the thought and beauty and charm of her would not stick so tenaciously. He could not banish her and again came the regret that he had not stood right out like a man to meet her that day. He could at least have spared her the encounter with Uhl.

All at once Lance had a disturbing thought. Uhl, gangster, racketeer, bootlegger, might have another slant to his crookedness. He might be a kidnaper. That seemed reasonable enough, and the idea grew on Lance. The girl must belong to a rich California family. Her style, her patrician air, her talk of a ranch full of Arabian horses, surely these attested wealth. And that might explain Bee Uhl’s interest in her. With the near approach of repeal of prohibition these bootleggers must work up other rackets. Already there had been a nationwide activity in kidnaping.

“Goofy or not, I take it as a hunch,” muttered Lance, with finality. “Believe me, I’ll get a line on that slicker with his roll of centuries, if I can.” And in the stress of the moment Lance thought that if he did verify such suspicion of the gangster, it would not be beyond him to go back to Los Angeles to warn the girl. Then the realization of his sudden tumult of delight made him look aghast at himself. “Quit your romancing, kid,” he said. “This is hard pay. And I’m on a job I should have passed up.”

But nothing he thought or reasoned out changed the essential sentiment and presagement of the situation. The way accidents and circumstances fell across his path and what came of them had taught him to believe any strange and far-reaching adventure could befall him.

Cars and trucks going and coming passed Lance now and then, the southbound traffic being the heavier. Lance did not see the big black automobile belonging to Uhl. Once he looked back down a league-long stretch, half expecting to discover the car following. But he did not.

Driving a truck did not permit of close attention to the desert scenery, which had been his pleasure while riding Umpqua. However, that labor and his concentration on the peculiar circumstances leading to this ride, certainly made the time fly. Almost before he knew it, he was climbing the tortuous grade through Bisbee, keeping keen lookout for the holdup he had been told to expect. About midafternoon he went through picturesque Tombstone on the outskirts of which he halted for gasoline. This necessitated his breaking the hundred dollar bill Uhl had given him. The service station man, a westerner of middle age, glanced from the bill to Lance with keen blue eyes. “Seen bills like this before — an’ also that truck you’re drivin’. How aboot yore company?”

“Don’t savvy,” returned Lance, gruffly. “What you mean by company?”

“Wal, usually thar’s two or three trucks like this one strung along. Reckon you’re new to...”

“To what, mister?” interrupted Lance.

“Wal, I ain’t sayin’,” responded the operator, in cool evasion.

“Yeah? Well, as a matter of fact, I’m damn new at this job.”

That little wordy byplay roused Lance anew to the possibilities that might be thickening ahead of him. Thereafter he kept keen as a whip, increasing his speed a little. It was almost dark when he passed Mescal, a desert hamlet, and he did not halt to appease thirst or hunger. He wanted to get this job over. The desert night was soft and balmy, cooling as the radiation of the day’s heat passed away. Jackrabbits and coyotes leaped across the road, gray in the flash of his lamps. The headlights of cars grew from pin points in the blackness to yellow orbs, rushing at him and passing by, to leave the distant road dark again. The dry odor of dust and desert growths clogged his nostrils. Under favorable circumstances Lance would have liked closer acquaintance with that desert. The spectral arms of cactus and the dense thickets of mesquite accentuated the lonesomeness.

Some miles beyond Vail there appeared to come a brightening to the north. Soon Lance made that out to be the lights of Tucson, miles away still, but clear in the rarefied atmosphere. Lance rolling along at forty miles or more an hour, began to feel an edge for the expected holdup. Every time he caught the gleam of headlights behind he prepared for the order to halt. But so many cars passed him the next hour and so bright grew the illuminated horizon that he began to believe he might reach the first service station on the right without being stopped.

Presently a car came up behind and held its place for a couple of miles. Lance anticipated that this was the one, and he forced himself to be ready. He slowed down to thirty, then to twenty. The car kept behind him, somewhat to the left. At length it slipped up alongside Lance. “Hey, you driver. Halt!” rang out a hoarse voice. Lance shut off, and applying the brakes, screeched to a stop.

“Stick ’em up!” came from the car. A flashlight blinded Lance.

“Okay!” he yelled, complying with the order.

Two men leaped out and a door clicked. The car moved on ahead to come to a standstill in front of the truck. Lance’s door was jerked open. Light flooded his cab. Over an extended gun he caught indistinct sight of two faces, the foremost of which was masked. Lance heard footsteps running back behind his truck and the clank of bolts.

“Bud, j’ever see this one before?” queried the bandit with the gun.

“Nope. Another new one,” came the laconic answer.

“Who are you?” followed the demand.

“Arizona cowpuncher,” replied Lance. “Broke. Agreed to drive this truck.”

“Who hired you?”

“I don’t know. Five men in a black car at Douglas.”

From behind clanked the hinge and there was a slap of canvas. “Empty, by God!” cried a hoarse voice, in anger. Footsteps preceded the appearance of two more men, one of whom Lance managed to distinguish despite the blinding flashlight. “Henny, we’re tricked. He’s made suckers out of us again. This truck is empty.”

“Ah, hell no!”

“Aw, hell yes! It’s a cattle car. As late as yesterday, when we picked them cars up, this one was full of steers. The other one had the...”

“Shut up!” yapped the leader, pounding his gun on the door. “Hey, driver, how many trucks like this have you lamped lately?”

“Off and on I’ve seen a good many,” rejoined Lance, glibly. “Three in a row day before yesterday.”

“Goin’ which way?”

“North, out of Douglas.”

“Ah-ha! I told you, Henny,” yelled the enraged bandit. “An’ they’ll all come back full of steers. He’s took to buyin’ steers. What you think of that? In the cattle bizness. A blind. Ha! Ha! An’ it made a sucker out of you.”

“Driver, is there a short cut to El Paso without goin’ through Douglas?” queried the leader, sharply.

“Yes, at Benson,” replied Lance, readily. “Poor road, but passable.”

The leader snapped off his flashlight. “Beat it, cowboy, wherever you’re goin’. An’ tell your boss we’re onto his racket.”

“Henny, if there’s a short cut, no matter how bad, we might head off that car,” rasped the man Bud. He had a bitter raucous voice that Lance would remember. The four bandits ran to pile into their car. “Turn an’ step on it!” ordered the leader. In another moment their car was roaring east on the highway, and Lance had a clear road ahead. Relieved, and more interested than ever, he threw in his clutch and sped on toward Tucson. Lance saw that he had been used merely to throw this gang off the track. The cattle slant to the business seemed a trick that would take more than one carload of bandits to beat.

The run from that lonely stretch of road to the service station designated was accomplished in short order, Lance driving at a fast clip. The truck appeared to ooze along as smoothly as a limousine. Hardly had Lance come to a halt in the station yard when two men in dark garb, slouch hats pulled down, hurried out to meet him. Lance was ready for them, and opening the door he stepped out with a long whew of relief.

“Hello. Am I glad to see you? Take her away,” he said, vociferously.

“Dey stick you up?” queried one, tensely, while the other leaped into the seat.

“You bet. About five miles out. You should have heard Bud and Henny cuss to find her empty. I gave them a bum steer.”

“Yeah? An’ how bum?”

“They asked me if there was a short cut to El Paso and I told them yes, at Benson. I heard it was some road. They’ll get lost.”

“Thet’ll go hot with the boss. How much’d you dole out for gas? He forgot thet, an’ told me to square it.”

Lance named the sum, which was handed to him in a five dollar note and no change wanted.

“Blick, have we got all night?” demanded the man in the driver’s seat. “Cut it.”

“Keep your shirt on. Honey Bee gave me an order, didn’t he?... Driver, yer come through clean. I’m to tell you thet if you’re hangin’ round Douglas next run, you can get another job.”

“Swell. I’ll hang around, if it’s not too long. When’s the next run?”

“I don’t know. Mebbe in a month — mebbe longer.”

When they had gone Lance went into the service station, aware that his arrival and the short conference had been observed.

“How far to a hash joint? I’m sure starved,” he began, genially.

“Stranger hereabouts?” the man returned, with a keen look. “Plenty grub places up the street.”

“Thanks. Yes, I’m a stranger. And I don’t mind telling you I drove that truck because I was broke. I was held up out here and scared stiff.”

“You don’t say. Well, that’s not strange considerin’ the company. You got off lucky.”

“Yeah? What was I up against?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Did you ever see that truck before?”

“Yep, an’ some more like it. They been comin’ and goin’ every six weeks or so.”

“Cattle business must be good when steers get hauled in trucks,” commented Lance; then waiting a moment for an answer, which did not come, he strode up the street. In the middle of the second block he found a café, where he obtained his supper. At the next corner there was a hotel. Inquiry brought the information that he could take a bus early next morning for Douglas. Then he went to bed. Events of the day had been thought-provoking, but they did not keep him awake.

On the bus the following morning, however, he had nothing to do but think. It took Lance practically all that long ride to reason out the futility of any further interest in Uhl. Lance did not want to drive any more questionable trucks. Aside from an interesting experience, this meeting with Uhl had no warrant to absorb him. It was the singular connection with the college girl that kept him wondering and conjecturing, and thinking that he should warn her somehow. But he did not even know her last name. And to go back to Los Angeles on such a fanciful assumption seemed absurd. Nevertheless his conscience bothered him. That passed, however, leaving Lance with only the increasing pang of regret. When at Douglas he went out to see Umpqua, and quite provokingly he conceived a picture of Madge on his beautiful horse, he almost gave way to rage at his sentimentality. All the same, thought of the girl persisted, and Lance finally reconciled himself to being haunted.

Riding northeast from Douglas the Arizona desert land magnified its proportions of color and wildness and rugged grandeur to such a degree that Lance was loath to travel on and turn his back to ranges that dwarfed those he had ridden in Oregon. What a grand country he was entering! Ahead of him were mountains, peaked and lofty, purple in the distance, growing black and gray as league after league he neared them. Lance took his time stopping to ask questions, but the several little hamlets along the way failed to yield much information. He spent one night at Chiricahua, which town appeared to be in the center of a vast green and gray range surrounded by mountains. He had begun to see cattle in considerable numbers, though not one hundredth as many as the country might have supported. He rode on and on over a rolling and lovely valley.

Darkness overtook Lance. He had inquired at Apache about towns farther north. He had been told they were few and far between. It looked as though his preoccupation with the solitude and beauty of this upland valley was going to make him spend a night in the open. He did not mind that. The day had been hot and the night still remained warm. However, three hours after sunset he sighted lights ahead and soon entered a place called Bolton. Unlike most of the other towns, this one appeared to be comparatively new and located on both highway and railroad. There was a wide main street with bright lights and many parked cars, stores and cafés, a hotel and an inn, a bank and motion-picture theater. Lance rode on through to the outer zone of garages and autocamps. Umpqua, staunch as he was, had begun to tire. Lance was pleased to see several horses tethered beyond a garage off the main street, and next a livery stable. The garage, evidently, also provided the facilities of a service station and was quite modest compared to showy places Lance had passed.

“Howdy, cowboy,” drawled a pleasant voice. “Git down an’ come in.”

“Hello, yourself,” replied Lance, greeting a sturdy bow-legged young man who had appeared from somewhere. There was enough light to make out a lean tanned face from which shone narrow slits of eyes, keen and friendly.

“My Gawd! — Where’d you steal thet hawse?” queried this individual.

“Are you kidding me or is that the way horsemen are greeted here?” asked Lance.

“Shore kiddin’, cowboy. We got some grand hawses in this country an’ thet’s why I got fresh. But on the level where did you find him?”

“Oregon bred. He was given us when he was a colt. And I raised him.”

“You from Oregon?” went on the other, walking around the horse in a way that betrayed a love of horseflesh. It was an open sesame to Lance’s friendliness.

“Yes, rode him all the way.”

“Don’t tell. I’ll be dog-goned.... Wal, lookin’ him over I ain’t so surprised. All hawse, cowboy, an’ I’d trade you my garage for him.”

“Sounds cowboy,” laughed Lance.

“Shore I was — I am a cowboy. Been ridin’ Arizona ranges all my life. But these hard times I had to make a livin’ for my mother an’ me.”

“Gee, that’s bad news. I came to Arizona to find a job with some cattle outfit.”

“Wal, you’re jest outa luck. Cowboys air scarce these days. As scarce as jobs. Plenty of cattle all through heah. An’ the outfits thinned down to two or three riders. My job for three years before this bust-up hit us was with Gene Stewart. Finest rancher in these parts. Used to run eighty thousand haid. But of late years Gene has lost out. An’ as I couldn’t ride no more for nothin’ I had to take this place. Pays fair, but I just hate it.”

“Don’t blame you.... How about me bedding down Umpqua in this livery stable?”

“Umpqua? What a name! Where’n hell did you git thet?”

“It’s Indian. Name of a river in Oregon. Means swift.”

“Swell handle at thet. Shore, this stable is okay. I’ll go in with you.... What’d you say your name was? Mine’s Ren Starr.”

“I didn’t say yet. It’s Lance Sidway.”

“Air you gonna hang about heah a spell?”

“Yes, if I can find work.”

The livery stable man turned out to be an old fellow with an unmistakable cattle range air about him. He was almost as enthusiastic over Umpqua as Starr had been. For the first time in a long while Lance began to feel at home with his kind.

“Ump, old boy, this barn smells good, doesn’t it?” said Lance, and giving his pet a parting smack he went out with Starr. “Where can I eat and sleep?”

“Several places, but outside the hotel, you’ll like Mrs. Goodman’s café. Nice woman, dotes on cowboys, an’ runs a swell little chuck house.”

“Won’t you come with me? I’d like to talk.”

“Wal, shore. I’ve had my supper. But I can always eat. An’ it’s closin’ time for my place anyway.”

Presently Lance was ushered into a clean fragrant little shop, with more of a homey than a café look, and introduced to a portly woman of kind and genial aspect. Evidently she had a warm spot in her heart for cowboys.

“Wal, Oregon, I’d shore like to see you stop heah,” said Starr, eagerly. Manifestly he had taken to Lance as Lance had to him.

“All the way up from Apache I’ve liked the range more and more.”

“Hell, this ain’t nothin’. You ought to see thet range down along the west slope of the Peloncillo Mountains. Swell deer an’ antelope huntin’. Bear an’ cougar up high. Trout fishin’, oh boy! Grass an’ sage ranges.”

“Sounds more than swell. Is that where your Gene Stewart runs cattle?”

“Used to, when he had ten outfits. But now he’s only got about a thousand haid left, not countin’ yearlin’s an’ calves. He jest lets them graze around his ranch, with a couple of Mexican kids ridin’ for him.”

“How far away is his ranch?”

“I reckon about thirty by trail. The road runs round an’ up an’ down. Cars register forty-two miles. No road work this spring makes tough goin’, an’ I don’t mean mebbe.”

“Wonder what chance I’d have getting on with him? Wages no object for a while. I want to ride open country, and have a square meal often, with pasture for Umpqua. You see he was raised to fare for himself. Alfalfa and grain would spoil him.”

“My idee of trainin’ a hawse right.... I’ll tell you, Sidway, there’s a pretty shore chance for you out with Gene. He needs riders most damn bad. I’ll give you a note to him in the mawnin’. Thet’ll cinch it, if you really want a job for nothin’ ‘cept board. He’ll be glad. Only you gotta approach him sorta careful.... Sensitive fellow, Gene is, but the salt of this range. For two bits I’ll sell out an’ go with you.”

“That’d be swell. Why don’t you?”

“It’d be all right with Mom. She wants to get out of this hot country for a while. But I’m makin’ money an’ I reckon I ought to save plenty before hittin’ the trail again.”

“All right, Ren. Thanks for the hunch. I’ll go. Maybe we can see each other sometimes. I’d like that.”

“Me too. Shore we can. Gene would give you a Sunday off now an’ then. I’d run out after you.”

“What kind of ranch does Stewart own?”

“Gee whiz! I reckoned every puncher in the West had heahed of it. Close to the border. Used to belong to a Mexican named Don Carlos. He was shot long before I come to this part of Arizona. I was hardly borned then. But I’ve heahed the story. Durin’ the Mexican Revolution around twenty-five years ago Don Carlos had thet ranch. It was a Spanish grant. An’ he was sellin’ contraband along the border. Gene Stewart was a tough cowboy them days. Great with the rope an’ hawse — a daid shot — an’ nerve, say! they didn’t come no cooler than thet hombre. Wal, he joined up with the revolutionists. They called him El Capitan. After Madero was assassinated Gene come back heah. About thet time a rich girl from Noo Yoork come along. She bought Don Carlos’ Ranch. Stillwell, the foreman then, corralled the hardest bunch of cowboys thet ever rode a range. But nobody could boss them until he put Gene on the job. They run Don Carlos an’ his band off the range. An’ they made thet ranch the finest in the West. It’s as beautiful as ever, but turrible run down these last two years... Wal, Gene married his boss, the rich girl from the East, an’ was thet a romance!”

“Darned interesting, Ren. I’m going to like Stewart.”

“You shore will, an’ if you turn out as good as you look — excuse me bein’ personal — Gene is goin’ to cotton to you. He was grand to me. An’ I just love him as if he was my dad. He always stops in to see me, hopin’ I’ll come back. But he never says so. He was in town today, worried plain about somethin’! He said it was only cause he was losin’ a few cattle.”

“Cattle thieves?” exclaimed Lance, quickly.

“Rustlers over heah, Sid.”

“No!”

“Shore. There’s still some rustlin’ all over. Nothin’ heah like it used to be. But you see a dozen haid to Gene now means more’n a thousand, years ago. He was sore because he couldn’t find out how the cattle was stole. An’ old Nels, the last of thet great outfit of cowboys, couldn’t find out either.”

“Too old-fashioned, maybe.”

“Dog-gone, Sid. I had thet very idee.”

“Say, Starr,” spoke up Lance, as if with an inspiration. “Not so many days ago I drove a big truck from Douglas to Tucson. It was empty but it had been full of steers.”

Lance related briefly the circumstances that made it necessary for him to earn some money, but he did not go into detail about the men he had met on that adventure.

“Wal, I’m a son-of-a-gun!... What kind of a truck?”

“A big one, fine make, and canvas-covered. I took the license number and the name of the owner. Which I suspect is not the name of the right owner.”

“Sidway, you’re sayin’ things,” rejoined Starr, growing cool after his excitement. “I’ve seen three or four trucks like thet one pass heah every month or so. One went through north four days ago.”

“Did you pay any particular attention to it?”

“No. Only saw it an’ was sore as usual ‘cause the driver got gas from one of the other stations. You see them fellers never have bought a gallon of gas from me. Thet’s okay, shore. My place is as you saw it.”

“Starr, they passed you up because you were a cowboy.”

“You don’t say! Thet’s an idee. A hot one.”

“Something I heard on my drive gives me a hunch now that these truckmen bought cattle as a blind. Perhaps of late they steal cattle. All kinds of business pretty punk these days.”

“Pard, you are a whiz,” ejaculated Starr, intensely. “Rackin’ my haid I figger thet I haven’t seen them trucks go through heah southbound since last fall. They do go through, shore. I been told thet. But late in the night.”

“We got something to work on.”

“I should smile. I’ll grow curious as hell. Sid, this heah is goin’ to be most damn interestin’ to Gene. You tell him pronto. All about them trucks.”

“You bet. And, Starr, if I get in with Stewart I’ll send you the receipt and money to send for my baggage in Los Angeles.”

“Glad to fetch it out.... Wal, I reckon you ought to hit the hay. Your eyes look tired. Come on an’ I’ll take you to the hotel. Most as reasonable as autocamps, an’ good.”

On the way across the street Starr said: “There’s shore a lot to tell you about Stewart, his ranch an’ all. But I cain’t think of everythin’ all to oncet.... You’ll find Mrs. Stewart jest swell. Still handsome an’ the nicest woman! I most forgot their daughter. No wonder, ‘cause I haven’t seen her for nearly four years. She was only a kid then. But could she cock her eye at a man? Had all the cowboys dotty. Me! I reckoned I had the inside track ‘cause she let me kiss her oncet. But I was wrong, Sid. Thet girl was a hells-rattler, but straight as a string. Jest full of fem.... Wal, Gene told me today thet she was comin’ home. He was plumb excited over thet. Worships the girl! An’ mebbe he was worryin’ about her too.... Sid, if I remember thet girl she will keep you awake nights.”

“Not much,” declared Lance with a laugh. “Boy, I’ve been in Hollywood for a spell, hobnobbing with the prettiest and slickest girls in the world.”

“Hollywood? My Gawd, what’ll you spring on me next? Sid, you are goin’ to relieve the tedium of my days.... Did you fall for any of them stars?”

“Ren, I fell with a dull thud for three. And not stars, either. Just extras prettier than the stars. Harder every fall! And I can’t imagine me falling for a ranch girl. No offense, boy. My sister is a ranch girl and she’s my pride. But you can get what I mean, if you go to the flickers.”

“You mean movies? I go every show an’ sometimes twice.”

“Then you know how safe I’ll be on an Arizona ranch.”

“Safe out heah, if she doesn’t come home, which I don’t believe she will? Pard, I wouldn’t gamble on thet.... Wal, heah’s your hotel. I’ll be sayin’ adios till mawnin’. I’m shore glad we met, Lance.”

“So am I, Ren. It’s just swell. See you early tomorrow. Don’t forget to write that note to Stewart. Good night.”

Lance went to bed glowingly excited and satisfied with the day’s happenings, and its promise. Particularly was he pleased at finding the ex-cowboy, Starr. Lance thought he would be a fellow to tie to. Luck had attended this adventuring into a new and far country.

After an early breakfast next morning Lance made his first Arizona purchases, which consisted of a new riding outfit, and a much needed shaving kit and several other articles. His discarded things he tied in his old coat, so that he could carry the bundle conveniently on his saddle. When he presented himself at Starr’s garage, that worthy stared in comical surprise.

“Mawnin’ Sid,” he drawled. “What you been about? All dolled up. My Gawd! I hadn’t no idee you was such a handsome galoot. On thet hawse you’ll knock ’em cold. Say! I’ve a hunch you’ve either seen or heahed about Gene Stewart’s daughter.”

“Nope, I haven’t. But I needed some clean duds and a shave,” explained Lance. “Couldn’t ask for a job looking like a tramp.”

“I ain’t so shore, Sid,” returned Starr, doubtfully. “Gene likes ’em tough. Why, with thet red scarf an’ all you look like Buck Jones.”

“Ren, I bought the least gaudy outfit that storekeeper had,” protested Lance. “If you think I should change back to...”

“Aw, I was half kiddin’. You look okay. In fact you look grand. But no cowpuncher can fool Gene Stewart. He’ll see right through you, Sid. An’ I’ll bet my shop he’ll take to you same as I did.”

“Well, then, what the hell...”

“Thet’s it. What the hell will come off if you run plumb into Gene’s daughter? She’s on her way home. Gene told my mother so yesterday.”

“Ren, you certainly harp on that subject. Is the heart of Miss Stewart all you’re concerned with?” queried Lance, facetiously.

“Hell no! I’m jest concerned about what’ll happen to you, if she sees you. An’ in this new outfit you shore stand out from the landscape.”

“Like all the Arizona cowboys, aren’t you?” went on Lance. “Oh, I knew a lot of them in Hollywood. Swell fellows, but simply nuts on jokes and tricks and girls!... Next to that they liked to gamble. I’ll bet you five bucks I don’t even see your Arizona cowgirl queen.... Man, I’ve lived in Hollywood for over a year.”

“So you told me before,” replied Starr, dryly. “Thet bet’s on. Heah’s your note to Gene Stewart. I shore hope you turn out half as good as my recommendation.”

“Thanks, Ren. I hope I make good. Now tell me how to find this wonderful ranch.”

“Go out the highway, south, of course. Take the first road — it’s a dirt road — turnin’ left. Stick on thet for about five miles, till you come to a bridge over a crick. Lots of green willows. Anyway, it’s the first bridge you come to, so you cain’t miss it. There’s a trail thet follers the crick, on the right-hand side. Hit thet trail, pard, an’ good luck to you.”

“How’ll I know the ranch when I come to it?”

“Hell! it’s the only ranch out there. The house, old Spanish style, sets on a knoll among trees. Walls used to be white. But you can see it from the divide, ten miles away.”

* * * * *

In very short order Lance was out of Bolton on a road that seemed to climb and lose itself in gray obscurity. Umpqua, scenting something out there, the sage and the open, perhaps, settled down to his fast ground-gaining trot. Lance saw on his right where the highway, a shining ribbon, followed the railroad and line of telegraph poles off to the southwest across the desert. On his left, beyond the green willows bordering the brook, an occasional humble ranch, or adobe Mexican house, gave life to a range gradually growing wilder as he proceeded. Ahead of him on the horizon mountain ranges stood up, some bold, others dim. Lance’s quick eye caught sight of romping jack rabbits and sneaking coyotes, and the white rumps of deer-like animals he concluded were antelope.

Eventually the trail left the brook. Dwarf cedar trees and a line of pale purple marked the zone of sage. Lance was familiar with Oregon and California sage, but neither had the luxuriance and fragrance of this Arizona brand. Umpqua manifestly liked the smell of it. There seemed to be a tang and a zest in this clear air. The sun became hot on Lance’s back; heat veils arose like smoke from the ground; the peaks that had been sharp against the blue appeared to dim in haze. Down to the right, toward the road Lance could still see, herds of cattle dotted the gray. The trail, however, headed more to the left, toward rising land, and rugged bits of outcropping rocks red in color, and back clumps of cedars.

By noonday Lance calculated that he had covered at least twenty miles, two thirds of the distance to Stewart’s ranch; and soon he had surmounted the divide Starr had mentioned. The scene was so splendid that Lance halted to gaze and gaze spellbound. He saw a moving dust line from a car creeping across this vast gray-purple bowl under him which must be the southern end of Bernardino Valley. Rocky areas and clumps of cedars and darker patches of trees relieved the monotony of that range, sweeping away and upward to the mountains that must be the Peloncillos. Then Lance’s keen eyes sighted the forested knoll and the old Spanish mansion built by Don Carlos. Ten miles away still, it appeared to stand out with a magnificence that Starr had hinted of. A lake, blue as a gem, shone in the sun, and its circle of green let out a branch that wound down across the gray, to make a wide bend around the rocky ridge Lance had surmounted. This, of course, was the stream he had encountered below. It was a big country. How vast this country must be when here lay only a mountain-walled valley! Heading down the trail Lance thought gravely, yet somehow with exaltation, that he was won forever. He would find or make a home there, and felt that he owed Ren Starr infinite gratitude.

* * * * *

By midafternoon Lance rode into a pretty little Mexican village at the foot of the knoll. Columns of blue smoke arose slowly. The half-naked children, the burros and dogs, the natives in colored raiment watching idly from the low porches, all appeared to have a leisurely air. Lance ventured a question to one group. An exceedingly pretty Mexican girl, whose big dark eyes shone bright and roguishly upon Lance replied to him: “Buenos dias, señor.”

“No savvy. Can’t you talk United States?” asked Lance, mildly, smiling at the girl.

“Yes, cowboy, Mr. Stewart is home.”

“Thank you, señorita. I think I’m going to like it here.”

Her dusky eyes snapped with mischief, and quick as their flash she retorted: “It didn’t take you long, señor.”

Riding away up the gentle slope Lance cogitated that remark of the Mexican lass’s. “Say! what did she mean? Can’t make out, but sure she was kidding me. Some little peach! Okay by me, señorita. I’ll be seeing you.”

Lance had not proceeded beyond where the road turned up the wooded knoll when a boy overtook him to inform him that Señor Stewart was at the corrals, toward which he pointed. Lance threw him a quarter, and kept to the right along the base of the knoll, to come at length into view of log barns and sheds and corrals, a long mossy-roofed bunkhouse, old and weathered, picturesquely falling to decay. A piercing whistle from an unseen horse brought a snort from Umpqua. Lance rode down a lane of tumble-down poles, to turn into a kind of court, at the immediate right of which stood a blacksmith shop; in front of this were several Mexican riders, and a thoroughbred black horse so glossy and well-groomed that he did not appear to belong there. Then a tall white man stepped out from behind the horse. He had a superb build, a dark intent face, deeply lined, piercing dark eyes, and there was white hair over his temples. Lance did not need to be told that this was Gene Stewart. As Lance rode up he caught first a relaxing of this stern face into a smile that warmed it attractively, and then a keen interest in both rider and horse.

“Howdy, cowboy,” the rancher greeted Lance, in pleasant deep voice. “You got the jump on them.”

“Who... what?” stammered Lance. “Are you Gene Stewart?”

“Yes, I’m Stewart. And who’re you?”

“Lance Sidway. I want a job.”

“Fine.... May I ask if you have been recommended by my daughter?”

“No — indeed, sir,” replied Lance, recalling Starr’s talk, and suddenly filled with dismay. “I don’t know your daughter.”

“That’s quite possible. But might not her return home today have something to do with your asking for a job?” asked Stewart, with a twinkle in his piercing eyes.

“It might, judging from the Arizona cowboys I’ve met,” rejoined Lance, recovering coolness at the fun evidently enjoyed at his expense. “But in my case it hasn’t.”

“Indeed? Well, in your case then I’ll listen.”

“Here’s my letter of introduction,” went on Lance, producing it.

Stewart opened and read it, suddenly to beam upon Lance. “Pard of Starr’s, eh? You sure can’t be all Ren says. But if you’re anyways near as good...”

“Excuse me, Stewart,” interposed Lance, hurriedly. “I’m not sailing under false colors. Starr doesn’t know me any better than you do. Met him only last night! We liked each other right off. He told me you might take me on. Offered a letter of introduction.”

“I see. That’s like Ren. Get down and come in.”

Lance stepped out of the saddle to drop the bridle. Stewart spoke to one of the admiring native lads: “Pedro, water him and rub the dust off him.... Cowboy, you’ve a grand horse. I can’t see a fault in him. Any rancher in the West would give you a job to get a chance to buy him or steal him.”

“Umpqua is swell,” replied Lance, as the rancher led him to a seat on the porch of what appeared to be a store.

“Nels, come out,” called Stewart, into the wide-open door of the old building. Receiving no answer he said plaintively: “Nels must be out back with my daughter, looking at her horses. Cowboy, you’ll have hell keeping that horse.”

“Oh, I see,” laughed Lance, thrilled at the intimation that the rancher might take him on. “Any girl who loves horses would want Umpqua, naturally. But she’ll have to take me with him.”

“Old-time cowboy spirit! I was that way, once.... Where you from?”

Lance briefly told of his home in Oregon, his experience on the ranges there, modestly enumerating his abilities and skipping the Hollywood experience.

“Did you ever hear of this range and my ranch?”

“Only from Starr. It’d be a great place to work. Please give me a trial, Stewart.”

“I’d sure like to,” returned the rancher, kindly but gravely. “Once I had the best and wildest outfit on the border. But times have changed.... Starr says in his note that wages are no object.”

“I’ll be glad to work for my board.”

“Are you rich?”

“Lord, no! I have a few dollars in my pocket. And Umpqua. Yes, I should have said I am rich.”

“Sidway, I couldn’t let you work for nothing.”

“But sir, if it’s money don’t let that keep you from hiring me,” importuned Lance.

“Tell me straight. I’ll like you the better if you confess you want this job on account of Madge.”

“Madge! — Who’s she? Oh, of course, your daughter.... Mr. Stewart, on my honor I swear I never heard of her until Starr raved about her last night.”

“But that might have been enough. You’re cowboy brand, all over.”

“It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t anything. Women are not in my troubles.”

“Don’t perjure yourself. Girls are always cowboys’ troubles.... I’ll take you on, Sidway, and pay you a few dollars a month till the cattle business looks up.”

“Thank you. I’ll sure do my best for you.”

“Did Ren mention he might come back to me?”

“Yes, he did. He wants to. I’ll bet he’ll come, soon as he saves a little more money.”

“I hate to ask him. But with you hard-riding youngsters to help me and Danny, and my vaqueros we might save the herd. You see, Sidway, there’s been some queer rustling....”

Stewart was interrupted by a sweet high-pitched voice that came from round the corner of the porch, down the lane.

“Nels!... For Pete’s sake look at this black horse! ... Oh, what a beauty! — Oh! Oh!”

Clinking spurs attested to the slow steps of a rider.

“Well, lass, I never set eyes on thet hawse before,” drawled a quaint voice. “You’ll shore hate me when I say he’s got yore nags beat to a frazzle.”

“Nonsense! — But he is.... Nels, I want him. I’ll have him if it costs ten thousand.... Dad! Dad!”

Stewart whispered: “Step around and tell her here’s one horse she can’t buy. It’ll be fun.”

“Certainly, sir,” replied Lance, dubiously. It was his first order from his boss. Besides he seemed curiously struck by the situation or that sweet voice. As he moved to the corner he heard pattering footsteps. Then a vision flashed into sight to plump squarely into his arms.

“Oh!” she screamed, and staggering, would have fallen had she not caught Lance with swift hand. A girl — bareheaded — golden hair flying — lovely flushed face, strangely familiar — violet eyes widening, darkening! “Who on earth?... You!... Of all the miracles! If it isn’t my hero!”

Lance recognized her. His girl of the campus adventure and the mad ride through the streets of Los Angeles. As she enveloped him, with gay trill, and her red lips came up nearer to meet his in a cool sweet kiss, his breast seemed to cave in.

CHAPTER III

IT WAS ALONG about sunset when Gene Stewart drove into the courtyard of his ranch. The drive out from Bolton, despite the old car, had seemed short, and for once he had failed to enjoy the magnificent range that he had loved so well for over thirty years. That day the many familiar spots, memorable of the wild past, failed to start the old dreams. Even the adobe ruins of the Mexican village where Madeline had importuned him to abandon his bad habits and come to work for her, failed for once to remind him of the turning point, the blessed uplift of his life. Trouble indeed gloomed Gene Stewart’s eyes when he could not see the sage flat where, bitter and hopeless, he had pulled Madeline off her horse, and knowing that she was secretly his wife, that though she did not dream of it, she was his, and he was leaving her forever, to ride out on his old hard-shooting, hard-drinking trail to get himself killed, he had kissed her with the mocking passion of renunciation. When Gene, passing the place, did not remember that, though it had been over twenty years ago, he was indeed sore distraught with worries.

Nels, the old Texan who was the last of his great riders of that earlier and wilder day, sat on the porch of the store, smoking and waiting. Gene seemed to see that white head, and the narrow eagle eyes, the lean lined face, with a rare and shocking sense of their age. Nels must be close to seventy now. And all the West showed its life and havoc under that mild mask of tranquillity.

“Wal, you’re late, Gene, an’ come draggin’ along like you was on a bogged hawse,” remarked Nels.

“Yes, old-timer,” replied Gene, wearily, as he sat down on the porch, a folded newspaper in his hand.

“What’s on yore chest?”

“Things have gone from bad to worse, Nels.”

“Heahed from Majesty?” queried the old cowman, eagerly.

“Letter and telegram to me. More for Madeline.... Madge is on her way home. For good!”

“You don’t say? — Aw! Then nothin’ can be bad,” replied Nels, settling back with an air of beautiful relief.

“Bad news from Madge, Nels. But let that go for the moment. There are lesser evils. Lawson has gone into bankruptcy. No hope of the money he owes me. I had banked on that. My creditors are pressing. Money must be raised.”

“Any better market for cattle?”

“Gone down to thirty dollars on the hoof.”

“Boss, I reckon I’d sell.”

“All the herd?” queried Gene, in surprise. Nels would be the last cattleman to sacrifice all his stock. There was not in Arizona a keener judge of matters pertaining to cattle.

“Every horn an’ hide, Gene.”

“But that is an unheard of thing for a rancher to do,” protested Stewart.

“Shore. How aboot these times? Onheard of, ain’t they? Never in my life have I seen the like. Lookin’ far ahaid, Gene, I’ll predict thet the day of the big cattleman is over.”

“Unthinkable!” ejaculated Stewart. The idea somehow hurt him. “What warrant have you for such a prediction?”

“Government interference, sure as shootin’. Then the range land grows less an’ less every year. Last an’ wust, we already have Argentine meat comin’ heah to the U. S., cheaper than we can raise it. Gene, we’re in for bum years. I’ve got a hunch.”

“I always respected your hunches, Nels,” replied Stewart, testily. “But this seems preposterous.”

“Gene, jest how bad in debt air you?”

“I haven’t the nerve to figure it up,” replied Stewart, evasively.

“Wal, if you sold oot at thirty you could pay up, an’ then tide over ontil good times come again. If we live thet long!”

“I might consider selling half my stock,” rejoined Stewart, thoughtfully.

“You’re the boss. An’ you asked my opinion. I forgot to tell you thet Danny Mains rode up today. He ain’t makin’ oot with his cattle raisin’. Been losin’ too many steers. An’ Danny is afeared thet the Mexicans air doin’ the stealin’.”

“But how could a few Mexicans, even if they were crooked, get rid of cattle without leaving any sign?”

“I don’t know, Gene. But there’s shore somethin’ doin’. All of Bonita’s relatives cain’t be good. Some of them won’t be good until they’re daid. Danny’s got a fine wife in Bonita, an’ shore a dandy girl in their daughter, young Bonita. But thet’s aboot all. And he’s scared of her relatives. Asked me plumb oot what to do?”

“And what’d you say, Nels?”

“Wal, I told him to sell. An’ when he bucked on thet I advised him to throw in with you. Then if you hired a couple of good cow hands we could beat this game. At least the stealin’ end. Thet’s the profit-eatin’ cussed part of it.”

“Not a bad suggestion, Nels. But what’d we pay hired cow hands with?”

“Aw, shucks, Gene! It cain’t be thet bad with you,” complained Nels, plaintively.

“I’m sorry, old-timer. But it is. I hate to face Madeline. And especially with this.” Stewart unrolled the newspaper he had twisted in his hands and spread one over the old cowman’s knees. Nels took out his glasses, and adjusting them he read slowly:

COLLEGE CAMPUS RIOT

CO-ED EXPELLED FOR INCITING RIOT BETWEEN STUDENTS AND POLICE

“Wal, I’ll be... !” he ejaculated, jerking up his fine white head. Gene had seen those blue eyes flash fire many a time, though hardly ever like this. Nels divined the truth and his affections were attacked.

“Majesty?”

“Yes, I’m damn sorry to say. But read what it says, Nels.”

“Aw!”

Gene watched that fine lined face as Nels laboriously read the half column in the newspaper. He had seen Nels face death many times and deal it often, with never a gray shade creep over his features nor a convulsive quiver, such as were visible now for a fleeting instant. And he remembered that it was Nels who loved Madge as well as her own father, it was Nels who had long years ago named the imperious child Majesty, who had put her upon a horse and taught her to ride. Nels folded up the newspaper and handed it back.

“Gene, I’d give somethin’ to throw a gun on the cuss who wrote thet.”

“Nonsense, Nels. Are you crazy? This is 1932.”

“Why hell yes! And there’s more shootin’ in the U. S. now than when we come first to this range, thirty years ago for you an’ more for me.... He’s a damn liar, Gene.”

“Who? The writer of this article?”

“Yes. I don’t believe a word of thet dirty part. Aboot her bein’ wild, rich, an’ as hard a drinker as she was a speed demon. Gene, don’t you believe thet an’ fer Gawd’s sake, don’t tell Madeline.”

“I’m sort of sunk, Nels. Kind of a last blow. I don’t know what to think. Madge’s letter admits it. Honest, right out! And her telegrams say she’s on the way home to stay.”

“Gosh! Thet’s the best news I’ve heahed fer a long time.”

“It is good news, Nels. It hurts, though. Looks kind of like disgrace is responsible.”

“Aw no, Gene. Why, Majesty loves this range, this house where she was born. It’s home.”

“I don’t know my own girl,” sighed Stewart. “Remember, Nels, I haven’t laid eyes upon Madge for over three years. You know I was in Mexico the last time she came home. And the summer before that she went to Europe.”

“Wal, I have. An’ I’m gamblin’ on her, Gene. Wild as a young filly, shore she was. But good as gold an’ as true as steel. When she was heah last I had some jars, you bet. I had to figger oot thet times had changed since you an’ me ran after girls. We’ve stayed right in one spot, Gene, an’ this old world has moved on.”

“Right. I’ll bet you we have it coming to us. Madge said in her letter she was having a crowd of college friends come to visit her.”

“Fine. She did thet last time an’ I never had such fun.”

“Nels, you’re a hopeless old fool. Madge will have you eating out of her hand. But I’m her father!”

“Shore. An’ I’m gonna have fun oot of you, Gene.”

Gene slowly walked up the winding green-bordered path toward the ranch house. He had not told Nels all his worries. As a matter of fact he was both overjoyed at the prospect of Madge’s return and greatly dismayed. A crowd of college friends!

Mockingbirds and quail and robins and magpies were rustling and chattering in the thick pines. The last rays of the setting sun burned gold on the flowering vines and the open weathered walls and arches of the old Spanish mansion. The fragrance of roses mingled with that of pine, and the soft sage wind from off the range. Gene felt the fact that the grounds, the great adobe structure, were more beautiful than ever. But the evidence of decay struck Gene most forcibly this evening. The trellises were falling down; the planking of the porches had rotted through in places, the weathering of plaster showed the adobe bricks.

Passing through the high archway at the rear of the house, Gene entered the patio. It appeared a dusky jungle of dark verdure, running water, drowsy twittering of sleepy birds, and odorous fragrance. A savory smell wafted from the kitchen where he heard the servants talking in their low voices. When Gene crossed the wide porch to enter Madeline’s sitting room, the newspapers to which Nels had objected did not show among the large quantity of mail. Madeline had heard his step on the porch and had come to meet him. Love for this patrician woman who as a girl had forsaken the East to make his country and his life hers, and pride in her well-preserved beauty and charm, seemed to be strong and moving emotions at the moment when these disclosures about their only child had to be made. Would Madge be another Madeline? There was gray visible in Madeline’s hair and lines had begun to show in the handsome face. But the light in her lustrous eyes appeared as soft and glad as in her youth.

“Gene!” she exclaimed, kissing him. “A whole day late!... You look tired — worried.”

“Howdy, Madeline,” replied Gene, laying the bundles and packets of mail on the table. “Yes, I’m tired — and worried. Bad news, Wife. It never rains but it pours. Lawson failed, Madeline. Gone into bankruptcy. No hope of money. I’ll have to sell some stock. Nels advises selling all my herd.... That’s nothing though. I’ve got a big surprise for you. Madge is coming home.”

“Madge! Coming home? Why? What has she done now, Gene?” rejoined Madeline, quietly.

“Got herself expelled from college,” Gene blurted out, knowing that he should have broken the news more gently, but incapable of the guile necessary to spare his wife’s feelings.

“Oh, no! Not on the eve of her graduation? June eleventh.”

“Yes. It’s tough, but maybe not so bad as it seems. Here’s her letter and telegrams to me. Read them before you open yours.”

Gene went into his office, which adjoined the sitting room, turned on the lights, and laid all his unopened mail, and some business papers upon his table. Then he repaired to his room to wash and change for the evening meal. He took plenty of time about this, his thoughts under the dominance of gloom. Presently Madeline called him to supper, and he found her in the dining room. If he had expected her to be cast down he was agreeably surprised.

“I ought to be hungry,” he said. “Most forgot to eat in town.” And he asked Madeline questions pertaining to the ranch during his absence. Nothing had happened. The drowsy languorous summer had come and the tranquil tenor of the lonely range land had not been broken. When Gene had finished a hearty meal he suggested that they go into the sitting room and get it over.

“Dear, it will never be over until you change your habit of mind,” she replied, sweetly. “You always look upon the dark side.”

“Madeline, this time of trouble has brought back the Gene Stewart of other and darker days.”

“It should not. You have made me perfectly happy for more than twenty years. Loss of money, for you and me, is nothing.”

“Madeline, I could take my losses without.... But it’s yours that distress me. All your life you have had luxury. You were born to it. This last year and more you’ve been using your money to pad Madge’s bank account. She keeps overdrawing her income and you keep from telling her that her income isn’t one with what it was. Now through me and that spendthrift girl of ours you must suffer. When the depression hit us you should have told Madge the truth. How much her income had fallen off. Instead of that you never told her — made up the difference yourself. And she spends hundreds like a drunken cowboy does dollars. That is what hurts me.”

“Gene, I expected the shrinking of capital and income would be only temporary. I still believe, as my lawyer in New York assures me, that we will recover. Madge’s capital is intact and eventually her income will grow normal. That was a wise provision of Aunt Helen’s. Madge can’t spend the capital. And it doesn’t make so great a difference that her income has dwindled. But now we should tell her — if we have the courage!”

“We!” expostulated Gene, startled. “Not much. Why, I don’t know Madge since she grew up. When she was seventeen — before she left for college I was scared to death of her. You’ll have to tell her.”

“That’ll be hard. I’m afraid myself of these years she has lived away from us. If I had it to do over I’d not have sent her away to college.”

“Well, let’s forget the financial side of it for the present. You read her letters and telegrams?”

“Yes. Madge asked me to reserve judgment until I had heard her side. Evidently she became involved in some kind of a college row, for which she was not responsible, but which resulted in her expulsion. She regretted greatly that she could not graduate.”

“Was that all? No regret for the — the disgrace?”

“She never mentioned disgrace. I don’t believe that has occurred to her.”

“Same old Majesty, eh? She couldn’t do any wrong,” returned Gene, and there was a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “What else?”

“She said she had invited her college friends to come out here for the summer — for the summer, mind you. That will be after graduation. It worries me more than the fact of her being expelled.”

“That’s easy. Tell Madge she can’t have her friends this summer.”

“Could you tell her that?”

“Sure I could,” replied Gene, grimly.

“Very well. That will be a relief. For the rest she wired from L. A. she was leaving. And last evening from Yuma. Gene, don’t excite yourself over probabilities. The fact seems that at that rate she may get here tomorrow.”

“Madeline, it — it’ll be so wonderful to see her again that I almost don’t care what she’s done,” replied Gene with emotion.

“Gene, she’s our problem. She’s a composite of you and me.”

“Madeline, not much of me?” implored Gene.

“A very good deal of you, her father.”

“Suppose she inherited some of that wild blood of mine?” ejaculated Gene, aghast.

“If it hadn’t been for that, there might have never been any Madge, darling.”

“Lord! — I always said Madge had your beauty, your sweetness, your intelligence. But if she’s got my old devil in her, too — come out in these modern days of freedom for women — what, Maddie, what on earth can we do?”

“I don’t know, Gene. Love her, trust her. Make her love her home. Let us agree on that right here, Gene.”

“I promise, Madeline. But I’m scared.”

“So am I. But not the way you are. I’m scared of a crowd of young college people, just freed from cramping restrictions, let loose upon us here.”

“Madeline, do you remember your young crowd — that you had come out here from New York just after you bought this place?”

“Indeed, I do,” replied his wife, musingly, her eyes shadowed. “My brother Alfred — his romance with Flo — my sister Helen — my best friend Edith Wynne. Oh, they seem so far away — so long ago. But Alfred has been coming back to us for ten years.... Gene, did you ever guess that Helen was in love with you — then, when you were El Capitan?”

“Helen! — Why, Maddie, you’re crazy,” protested Gene.

“No. It’s the truth. I never told you. Helen never married, you know. And she left her fortune to Madge — which after all has been such a problem — is so yet.... Gene, if Madge’s friends are like her, we would have a more exciting summer than that one twenty-three years ago.”

“I haven’t the slightest doubt of that,” growled Gene.

“If we only had an El Capitan to tame Madge!”

“Maddie, we don’t want a wild hombre like he was.”

“Perhaps no other kind could ever win Madge.... My husband, why do you always disparage yourself so bitterly?”

“I’ve failed as a rancher. After raising a herd of eighty thousand head.”

“But that was not your fault. Who could foresee what would happen to the cattle business? Anyway I was referring to your status as the cowboy who came — and conquered.... Gene, my memories are beautiful, always, eternally all-satisfying. Even to this day I can dream of that awful ride down into Mexico to save you from being shot — and revel in the sight of you striding out, as you supposed, to your execution. To meet instead — me — your wife, who you had no idea knew your secret!”

“Well, I find it sweet too, Madeline. The past would be enough for me. But there is you — our home — and now Madge to think of.”

“Gene, it will all come out right.”

“Sure it will, dear. I’m an old croaker. Wish I could be like Nels.... You’ll want to read your mail. And I’ve a lot of papers to look over.”

Gene left his wife, conscious of a sense of guilt and remorse. He had not told her all. The deal with Lawson had been made to raise money to pay a mortgage he had secretly placed upon the ranch. Gene had meant to confess this, but could not bring himself to it. Nels had sensed that something was wrong, though the keen old friend had not dreamed that it was so bad. It was insupportable for Gene to think of Madeline and Madge losing this beautiful ranch.

Outside he walked the old familiar path under the cotton woods that had been planted there before Don Carlos built the house. The sultry heat of day was wafting away; a fragrant incense of flowers and pine needles filled the air; the irrigation ditch in its stone-walled vine-covered confines murmured on musically like a brook.

There was strength and help in this environment, and in the solitude that hung over it. But there was no comfort in Gene’s confession that he had not been equipped to cope with these modern days of bewildering changes and upsets in business. Nels was a far better cattleman than he. For fifteen years there had been too much money to spend, and he had spent instead of saving it. Then out of a clear sky, like a thunderbolt, had come the collapse of eastern securities, and the bank that had held the rest of Madeline’s fortune. She did not know how poor they really were. Sober reasoning assured Gene that Madge could and probably would save the ranch. Nevertheless telling her of the straits he had brought about seemed absurdly beyond him. Gene made up his mind to sell two thirds of his stock, pay his pressing debts and the interest on the mortgage, then plan and plot somehow to save the situation.

With a mighty effort he threw off the depression, and went back into the house, to deceive Madeline with an apparent return of his old cool unconquerable spirit, and presently to bed.

In the morning there had come a change. Whether or not the anticipated home-coming of Madge had wrought the magic or a vivid realization of the sweetness of life on this glorious June morning, so rich in song of birds and blaze of purple range and golden sun, Gene did not know. A good sleep and then the light of day always worked wonders.

Gene found Danny Mains with Nels, having a cup of coffee in the old cowboy’s bachelor quarters which had been his home for twenty-five years. Danny had been one of Gene’s wild outfit in those long-past prosperous days. His bow legs, his sturdy build had not altered. But Danny’s homely visage betrayed the havoc of the years.

“Howdy, Boss,” he greeted Gene, gladly. Danny had not worked for Gene for a whole decade and more, but he always addressed him in the cowboy vernacular of rider to his employer. “I was comin’ up. Nels an’ me hev been talkin’ over my throwin’ in with you. I like the idee, Boss. Are you goin’ to sell some stock?”

“Good morning, you two old hombres,” replied Gene, cheerfully. “Yes, I’m selling two thirds of my cattle. What’s your angle on that, Danny?”

“Like it, Boss. If the price is goin’ up, as Nels figgers, why by the time we can round up an’ drive to the railroad it ought to reach thirty-five dollars a haid.”

“Shore it will,” drawled Nels, as he sipped his coffee. “Danny figgers he has aboot seven hundred haid, probably more. An’ he aims to sell half of them.”

“Boss, with a lot fewer cattle we can keep count better an’ mebbe stop this queer rustlin’.”

“Who’s doing it?” demanded Gene, angrily.

“I’m damned if I know. I’m shore afeared, though, thet some of my wife’s lazy kin are mixed up in it some way.”

“Ahuh. So Nels said. That ought to be easy to correct.”

“Yes? How’n hell can I hang her relatives?”

“Danny, we don’t need to hang them. Just stop them.”

“An’ you knowin’ greasers for thirty years!... Gene, we’re growin’ dotty in our old age.”

“Let’s pull out of it, Danny.”

“I’ll drink on thet.”

“Nels, I can see you’ve got it all figured out for us. Spring it pronto.”

“Mighty simple to me,” rejoined Nels, thoughtfully. “Hire a couple of rattlin’ good cowboys. An’ with you an’ Danny an’ the vaqueros heah you can do the job in a week.”

“Hire two good cowboys, eh? Where? How? What with?” queried Gene, spreading wide his hands.

“Sech ain’t to be had, Boss,” declared Danny, hopelessly.

“Wal, I’ve an idee,” went on Nels. “Gene, you an’ Danny open the store while I clean up heah.”

Gene took the key with its buckskin string attached, and accompanied by Danny went out by the long-deserted bunkhouse, across the green toward the store. He could hear the whistling of Madge’s horses beyond the corrals.

“Danny, I’d closed up this store long ago but for Nels,” said Gene.

“Aw, Boss, you can’t do thet. Why, it’d kill the old feller. An’ the store ain’t runnin’ at a loss, is it? All the Mexicans deal with Nels.”

“Yes, and they owe him plenty. He must restock. And I just can’t go deeper in debt.”

“Hell no! We’ll do somethin’, Boss. I’m afraid we’re down in the mouth. As if I didn’t hev enough to pester me without thet girl of mine!”

“Bonita?” queried Gene, quickly, with a chord of sympathy.

“Yes, Bonita. Boss, I’m damn ashamed to confess it, but I’m afeared she’s a no-good little hussy. After all your wife has done for Bonita — educatin’ her — makin’ a lady out of her — why, she’s jest cussed.”

“Danny, what do you mean?”

“Bonita has the vaqueros nutty. But she doesn’t give a damn for one of them. She’s white an’ she runs with the white. Ren Starr, you know, was tumble stuck on Bonita. But her flirtin’, mebbe wuss, I don’t know, queered her with him. She goes to town every chanct thet comes along. She drinks an’ Lord knows what. I ought to beat the hell out of her. But I jest can’t. I love thet kid like I loved her mother, Bonita, long ago. You remember, Gene, ‘cause you saved Bonita for me.”

“Yes, I remember, Danny, old pard. It’s tough sledding now for us old boys, who can’t figure the present and this younger generation. ... I’ve a daughter of my own, Danny. An’ she’s due home today or tomorrow.”

“Majesty comin’? Aw, thet’s grand! Why, Boss, she’ll put the life in us. I’m sure glad, Boss. This time you gotta make her stay home.”

“Make her? — Danny, didn’t you just admit you couldn’t do anything with Bonita?”

“Sure. But what the hell has thet got to do with Madge?”

“I suspect these girls are precisely the same.”

“Lord help us, Boss!”

Gene unlocked the rickety door of the old supply store and threw it open. The shelves were almost bare. Some print goods, gaudy in color, and glass jars of pink and yellow candy, and gewgaws for children, and a spare supply of tobacco and cigarettes were about all the stock left for Nels. In the wintertime he sat beside the old stove, to smoke his pipe, and feed billets of wood to the fire; and to talk about the past when, at rare intervals, somebody dropped in.

“Always makes me think we’re living in the past,” said Gene, coming out to join Danny.

“Aw, Boss, don’t talk as if it was all over,” returned Danny. “We got a future.”

At that juncture Nels appeared behind them, his free clinking stride belying his white locks. As he was about to step up on the porch he halted, his keen blue gaze fixed beyond the village, far down on the range.

“Look!”

Gene sighted a streak of yellow dust tailing out behind a motorcar. His heart swelled up in his throat to check his utterance.

“Car. Comin’ hell-bent fer election! — Boss, doesn’t thet remind you of Link Stevens when he used to drive Madeline’s white car across thet sage flat?”

“Yes. I’ve never forgotten Link. A great cowboy who could no longer ride! He loved to drive and scare us all stiff. But, Danny, it’s a cinch Link would turn over in his grave if he could see that car coming.”

“I should smile. Makin’ seventy miles an hour. On thet road. My Gawd, some fellers have nerve! He’s young an’ don’t give a damn fer his life!”

“Wonder who it can be?” queried Gene, under his breath. “Important telegrams, I’ll bet. Hope it’s not bad news. Nels, have you a field glass handy?”

“Don’t need none, Gene. Thet’s Majesty!” rang out Nels.

“Madge!... Say, can you see? Or is it one of your hunches?”

“Both.... Look at thet car streak along! Gene, it shore ought to make you feel as young as it does me.”

“Young! Man alive, it makes me a doddering old man,” replied Gene, thickly, and he sat down to relieve shaky legs.

Somehow he knew that reckless driver was Madge and he wondered why he had not grasped the fact at once. At the same instant he had a resurgence of pride in the girl’s spirit and ability. She could drive — she could ride a horse like an Indian — she could do anything.

“Nels, what color is the car?” asked Gene, whose eyes had grown dim.

“Color of a coyote, I reckon. Gene, she had two cars heah last time, both of them black, if I recollect.... Dog-gone, but it does my pore heart good to see Madge eatin’ up the miles like thet.”

“Nels, you always were an inhuman monster, a bloody gunman,” declared Gene. “How do you suppose it makes me feel to see my only child risking her life that way?”

“Boss,” interposed Danny, impressively. “You an’ me hev a common cause. Nels has no feelin’s. I reckon we oughta git drunk.”

“You said it, Danny.”

“Say, you fellers air blessed among men,” put in Nels. “Both got purty daughters an’ you rave aboot yore troubles! I wisht to Gawd they was both mine.”

“Boss! Did you see her take thet wash? Must hev forgotten it.”

“I’m looking, boys, but I can’t see very well.”

Nels had walked to the end of the porch. Gene could make out only the streaking dust-comet, blurred in his sight. Yet that appeared to grow magically closer.

“Gene, she’s off the wust of the road. Be heah in a few shakes of a lamb’s tail.... It’s a low open car — shiny — with a long front — a nose like them staghounds Madeline used to have.”

Presently car and rising dust disappeared under the slope.

“Heah thet drone? All the same airplane,” shouted Danny.

Gene heard and thought that his ears had never drunk in such sweet music. Madge — his kid — his little girl — his second Madeline — come home for good! He heard Danny babbling in his old cowboy manner, and then Nels let out a “Kiyi!” The drone gave place to hum and then a mellow roar. Then like a flash a tan car shot into sight, passed the village, to turn left at the fork of the road, and speed out of sight up the knoll into the green foliage.

“Shore, I oughta reckoned on thet,” said Nels to himself.

“Boss, I’ll be waitin’ home when you come down,” added Danny. “Welcome Majesty home fer me.”

“Nels, I think I’ll go up.”

“Wal, I should smile.... Tell her my heart ain’t as strong as it used to be,” drawled Nels, with a hand on his breast.

That jest in earnestness troubled Gene Stewart as he made his way up the knoll. The years were flying by. This home-coming of his daughter seemed to mark an epoch in his life and Nels’, too. The old cowboy had no kin; he did not remember his age and he could not have worshiped Madge more if she had been his own. Gene fought a disloyal and disturbing thought about Madge. If she turned out to be wild and flighty, undutiful!... But he conquered the incipient fear. As a child she had been warmhearted, loving, imperious and willful as her mother had been. Gene expected to find Madge bewildering, and he walked slowly up the shady path, seeking to prepare himself for he knew not what. His steps, however, led him inevitably up to the house, through the great arch into the patio and on toward the east wing. Before he stepped into the flagstone corridor he heard a strange voice, swift and high-pitched, sweet and happy. That would be Madge. She was with her mother in the living room. Gene took some long strides to reach the wide doorway. He saw Madeline in her big armchair with the girl on her lap.

“... Mom, darling, I am wild with joy to be home. I have forgotten nothing. I am drunk with the sage. I am....”

And then Gene stepped into the room. They heard his step. The girl raised a lovely face, flushed and radiant, with great violet eyes that were wet and dim. Gene knew her, yet he did not know her. This Madge had golden hair.

“Dad!” she cried, poignantly.

“Yes — if you are — Madge,” he replied, a little huskily.

She sprang up, taller than he remembered her, and not so slim, to rush at him arms spread. She threw them around his neck, and swinging free of the floor she hugged him tight. “My handsome Dad! My El Capitan!... Oh, how — good to see — you!” And with kisses and incoherent words she at last let down her feet, to lean upon him breathlessly. As Gene gazed down, his breast congested and his utterance clogged, he saw that her long dark lashes lay upon her cheeks, and tears were streaming from under her lids.

“Madge, is — is it really you?”

“Yes, Dad — your bad chicken come home to roost.” And she opened eyes that were like her mother’s, only a deeper, darker blue, exquisite in their soft and misty lights. “Darling! You’ve changed somehow. Lines I don’t remember.... And this white over your temples! — Mom, what has grieved our El Capitan?”

“Dearest, the years leave their marks,” replied Madeline, her voice not quite steady.

“I think he’s handsomer. Can you find me a lover like him?”

“Lord forbid, Madge!” laughed Gene. “Now stand away and let me look at you.”

She revolved for his inspection, like the models in fashion shows, and from the crown of her golden head to her suede shoes she appeared to be the ultimate in grace and beauty, in vivid and intense pulsing life. Then her eyes, wide upon him, brought back the child and the girl to prove this lovely young woman his own Madge. It was a profound and moving moment for Gene.

“Madge, my girl. It is you, yet not you. I recognize your eyes, your look, your smile. All else is strange — especially this.” And he caressed a waving tress of her golden hair.

“Mom said almost the same,” rejoined Madge, with a laugh. “Both of you have forgotten your darling.”

“Not much,” said Gene.

“Madge, once your hair was chestnut, like mine before it darkened,” added her mother.

“Well, honey bunches, we will waive that question. But really I am disappointed. I was sure you’d fall for me hard.”

“Daughter, if you are one hundredth as good as you are lovely, I shall be the happiest father in all the West.”

“Dubious, but eminently satisfactory.” Then with striking suddenness she changed from gay to grave. “Let’s get it over, my darling Mom and Dad.” It struck Gene that she addressed both of them but looked at him with eyes no man on earth could have doubted. “You had my letters and wires. I hope you did not see the L. A. papers.... I was expelled from college, in disgrace. It was hateful — the publicity. I’m sorry I couldn’t graduate, for your sakes. For mine, I don’t care in the least. I learned all they gave me and yelped for more. I was secretary of the student body and I’m a Phi Beta.”

“What does that mean, Madge?” asked Gene.

“Why Dad! — To belong to the Phi Beta is one of the highest honors any woman can attain in college.”

“Dearest,” murmured Madeline, “that makes me happy indeed.”

“Madge, what did they expel you for?” queried Gene, stern despite his emotion.

“Dad, I was indirectly to blame for a riot between the students and the police.”

“Indirectly? Does that mean innocently?”

“It certainly does.”

“Okay. Tell us what came off.”

“I like to drive fast and I didn’t pay overmuch attention to laws and rules,” rejoined Madge, frankly. “I never had time to poke along slowly. Several times I received tickets for speeding. Once after that I was in a rush and the officer who caught me happened to be the same one. Well, he was a sap, swelled on himself, and by making eyes at him and telling him he wouldn’t pinch his little co-ed, or some such rot, I kept him from taking me to court; he said, ‘I’ll be seeing you, sweetie,’ and the next time he saw me he was fresh. I cut him dead, of course. One afternoon I was driving up to college and saw him coming up alongside. That time I was not exceeding the speed limit. Nor did I forget to put out my hand at the corner, but he accused me of that. He followed, calling for me to stop, which I did presently along the side street halfway down the campus. It happened in between classes, and there were students everywhere. Some of my friends were right there when I stopped. They heard my argument with this policeman. And did they take my side? Students came running from everywhere. Then I noticed a young fellow in the front line, and at first took him for a student. There were two policemen in this car and a motorcycle cop came up. Both officers got out, and the mean one stepped on the running board of my car — told me to move over — that he was taking me for a ride. Then the students rushed a vegetable truck, and loading up with tomatoes and oranges they just swamped that police car. The motorcycle cop called out the reserves, and the dirty bum of a policeman who had been to blame for this — he actually laid his hands on me — to push me out of my seat. Then this young fellow I mentioned, socked him in the stomach — a terrific wham! The officer began to fold up. Did I get a kick out of that? Then my champion laid him out in the street and leaping into my car told me to step on it. We left the mob of reserves and students having a swell fight. When I got out of the crowd I did step on it. We escaped. ... That’s all, Dad, except the board of directors expelled me and the officers forgot to come and arrest me.”

“It doesn’t strike me as so terrible,” replied Gene, with a reassuring smile. It was certain Madge had no idea she had done the least wrong. “What do you think, Madeline?”

“Madge was rather thoughtless and indiscreet.”

“What became of the young man?” queried Gene. “I’d like to shake hands with him.”

“So would I,” flashed Madge, her eyes lighting up. “I drove him downtown, to a parking place where we chatted. He was the handsomest fellow. Shy. He had no line at all. Oh, I liked him. Made a date with him to meet me right there the next day. But he didn’t come, the idiot! Instead, oh, never mind — that was all of that.”

“If you don’t feel badly over it, why should we?” asked Madeline, happily.

“Then we’ll forget it. I think you are both darling. I’m going to make up for my long absence by loving you to death.”

“Madge, we can stand some loving,” returned Gene, fervently. “Are you really going to stay home now?”

“Dad! Don’t look so wistful. Oh, how I have neglected you both! But you wanted me educated. You’ve had your way. I am, and how!”

Neither Madeline nor Gene could resist a laugh.

“You will stay home with us — at least once in a while?” asked her mother.

“Forever, darling. I’ll have my friends come to see me. I wired you to expect a crowd after graduation. What a place this ranch is to entertain city tenderfeet! I’ll have the time of my life.”

“Madge, the ranch — is run down,” said Gene, hesitatingly. “Hardly fit now for your friends.”

“But, Dad, it’s so western, so Spanish. I adore the atmosphere of years and leisure. Before I left L. A., I bought three truckloads of stuff. Everything under the sun. Mom, I hope you like my modernistic taste. I’ll refurnish my rooms, and all those in the west wing. Oh, it’ll be swell.”

“Only three truckloads!” ejaculated Gene, with a smile at Madeline. He had to laugh. His daughter was amazing, electrifying. He felt shot through and through with new life. The flush on Madeline’s lovely face was pleasant to behold. “What about your baggage?”

“My car outside is full. And I expressed ten trunks and a lot of bags. They will be at Bolton today. The other stuff comes by freight. I do hope soon. We have only two weeks to get ready for my crowd.... Dad, will you carry in my truck? I brought you both presents galore, when I can unpack. Mom, are my rooms ready?”

“They are clean, my dear, and exactly as you left them.”

Gene went out in front, conscious of varied emotions. A good deal of the happiness that possessed him was the pent-up delight Madeline had betrayed.

“Gosh! No wonder this car could travel!” ejaculated Gene, sizing up the magnificent machine, new, glittering, apparently all engine. The back seat was packed full of bags and parcels. And there were three beautiful coats, one of them fur. All about the car and its contents reminded Gene of Madeline Hammond when she had first arrived at El Cajon, which was now Bolton. Like mother, like daughter! Still could Madge ever adjust herself to the changed times? She had a fortune but she could not squander her principal. Aunt Helen, wise in her vision, had seen to that. But Madge’s income now could not support her present extravagance. Gene thought of these things and many more, in the fifteen trips he made with Madge’s baggage. On the last she and her mother met him in Madge’s sitting room.

“Mom! Why should you apologize for my rooms?” Madge was saying. “They are just swell. I wouldn’t change them. Of course the furnishings are rather dingy and old. But I anticipated that.... I’ll paint these walls.”

“You’ll what?” asked Gene, incredulously.

“I’ll paint them. I bought the paint and brushes.”

“You learned that in college?”

“I certainly did. See here, Dad Stewart, you give me a job I can’t do?”

“You’re on, Madge.... I’d like, though, that you’d run down to see Nels.”

“Nels and my horses! Oh, am I happy?... Where’s my purse? I don’t want Nels to see me such a sight,” she babbled. Finding the purse she sat down to open it and take out something shiny on a chain. From this she extracted a powder puff, with which she powdered her nose. This act was performed deftly and while she talked to her mother. But when she took out a small metal tube and began to paint her lips with it, Gene observed that she was careful and quiet. Her lips took on a hue still more scarlet. Madge, bouncing up, encountered her father’s nonplused gaze, and she burst into mirth.

“Why do you do that?” he asked, curiously.

“You old range rider! Why do you suppose?”

“I’ve no idea, unless you imagine it makes you prettier. Nothing artificial could do that.”

“Dad, don’t you fool yourself. I just could. I’ll make up really for you some day. It’s an art.... I suppose, to answer you, that the custom grew popular through motion pictures. The most beautiful stars are those who have the artistry, or do their making up under experts.... Mom, would it interest you to know that I had an offer to go into the movies?”

“Yes, of course. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“There was one studio hot after me. It turned out that I had met some official or director at some function, or the Grove, I forget which. He talked me deaf, and phoned the house until I told him where to get off. I was interested, of course. Any girl in the world is keen about the movies. I’d like to have taken a fly at it. But — I decided it would cost more than I’d pay.”

“Cost? Why, I read about the big salaries the companies pay their stars.”

“Oh, Dad! — Mom, isn’t he a darling old dumbbell?... I’ll be back right away to unpack.” She ran out, her high heels clicking.

Gene stood there, smiling quizzically at Madeline. Presently he heard the slam of a car door and the burst of engine.

“Dumbbell? I suppose I am. Poor Nels and I are in for hell.”

“Gene, I’m tremendously relieved. Whatever college and city may have done to her these four years she is wholesome and sweet. And oh! so lovely!”

“I liked the way she looked when I spoke of Nels.... Maddie, I think, if she’s got a heart, we can stand anything.”

“Be assured then, Gene, and relieved as I am. She is warmhearted. She loves us. She loves — this home.”

“Why, Madeline! You’re crying.... At that I feel sort of — weak myself. Our little girl come home — grown up — a woman! I never saw a princess, but she’s one. I’m so proud of her I could burst.... Wife, I forgot to ask you. Don’t you think we ought to patch up the telephone system to town? The wires are down in places. And there are other things.” Whereupon Gene went over with her the talk he had had with Nels and Danny Mains. After that he proceeded to the room Madeline and he used as an office, and there he read neglected mail, carefully studied books, and figures that always were Greek to him, and wrote some important letters. Madge’s coming had seemed to fire his energy, to make a break in the old mañana habit of mind he had fallen into, and to stimulate his determination to see this climax of hard times through. To Gene’s surprise he was called to lunch before he had any idea the morning had passed.

Madge met him as he entered the living room, and he halted in sheer amazement. She looked like a slim boy.

“Madge, what kind of a riding outfit is that?” Evidently his reaction to her appearance gave her delight.

“Dad, I have on slacks. Don’t you like them?”

“Daughter, I’m afraid I’ll like anything you wear,” he replied, putting his arm around her.

“Against your better judgment, yes?”

They entered the dining room, which appeared brighter than for many years. The sunshine sifted through the foliage over the open window. There were roses and Indian paintbrushes and sage in the vases. Madeline had celebrated the occasion by gracing the table with white linen and some of her old silver and china.

“Swell to be home!” exclaimed Madge.

“Disappointed in — anything?” asked Gene, haltingly.

“Not a thing. The ranch had gone to hell when I was home last. But I didn’t mind the tumble-down corrals and sheds. Fits the range. But the big barn must have a new roof.... Dad, it gave me a shock to see Nels. I think he has failed a little. But he is the same old darling. I was so overjoyed to see him that I forgot my horses. Fancy that? Then the luncheon bell rang. I had scarcely time to change. This afternoon I’ll get into riding togs, just to please Nels. What do you think he said, Dad?... ‘Wal, Majesty, the only things aboot this heah ranch thet ain’t gone daid is yore hawses. Me an’ yore vaqueros hev seen to thet.’... Oh, I love to hear the old Texan talk.”

“Yes, your horses are okay, Madge,” replied Gene. “I hope Nels didn’t talk too much.”

“He couldn’t keep anything from me.... Dad, I’ve known for a couple of years that your financial situation was not so hot. Mom told me when I was home last. And of course I’ve read about the depression going from bad to worse. Just how bad is it for you?”

Madge’s direct query and the gaze that added more to it were not easy to meet.

“Pretty tough, Madge — but I’d rather not confess just what a poor businessman your dad is.”

“Gene, it is not your management of the ranch,” interposed Madeline. “You made it pay expenses until the bottom dropped out of everything.”

“Madeline, that’s darn good of you,” protested Gene. “But it’s not so. We had too much money and too many cattle. For ten years we ran behind, a little more every year. Then came the crash... .”

Gene hesitated, spreading wide his hands, looking from wife to daughter. Nels was not the only one who would find it difficult to lie to Madge Stewart.

“I get it,” she said, soberly, dropping those penetrating eyes. “I’ve always understood Majesty’s Rancho was mine. You know, just in a vain and playful way, perhaps. How about that, Dad — seriously?”

“Of course this ranch is yours — or will be someday, which is just the same. And a white elephant — my daughter.”

“Not for little Madge. What do you suppose I went to college for? What did I study economics for?... Dad — Mom, I tell you I’m home for good. I’m crazy about my home. It has been swell to have unlimited money. Let me play around this summer — entertain my friends — then I’ll hop to the job.”

CHAPTER IV

IN THE AFTERNOON Gene rode out on the range toward Bolton with one of his half-Mexican riders, Manuel Mains, son of Danny, the only one of Danny’s four youngsters that Gene thought was worth much. Bonita, the eldest, was distractingly pretty, to be sure, but that seemed to be a bad thing for the girl.

Gene wanted to find out how many telephone poles were down on the short cut of the line across the valley and over the ridge. From that point on in to Bolton, both the survey of the line and the necessary repair work could be done by truck. Manuel and he met some horses later, and the sum of their report was an agreeable surprise to Gene. Less than a dozen poles were down and there was only one break in the wire. Several days’ labor, after the new poles had been snaked down from the foothills, would put the telephone in working order again, which Gene saw was important in view of Madge’s return and the activity presaged for the summer. Then it would be very necessary to go over the road and make that safe for automobilists. The problem of help occupied his mind. That, added to his other difficulties seemed an insurmountable fact, yet somehow, Madge’s presence counteracted it, and made that afternoon sojourn in the colorful and fragrant sage as pleasant as it was serious. Riding back he thought that he could not succumb to gloom and hopelessness.

Manuel turned off at the village to get his supper. Bonita, whose sharp eyes always saw everybody and everything, waved a red scarf at Gene, as if he had been a cowboy with whom to flirt. Gene waved back at her. Despite her deviltry, she was lovable. “Gosh! there’ll be young fellows in Madge’s crowd,” suddenly exclaimed Gene. “What Bonita will do to them! But I’ll gamble on her.”

It was almost sunset when Gene turned his horse over to Jose. He saw Madge’s golden head blazing from the top of the pasture fence. Nels’ white locks appeared brighter by contrast. They were watching Madge’s horses, which no doubt had been turned loose. Gene, about to join them, was deflected by the sight of a strange rider coming down the lane. Instead Gene proceeded to the square where one of the vaqueros and some Mexican boys surrounded a black horse in front of the blacksmith shop. Gene ascertained that the horse was lame. He examined the leg, which proved not to be badly sprained, and upon rising he saw that the strange rider had arrived. Gene’s first glance at the handsome young man in his flashy cowboy attire occasioned him some amusement. A forerunner of the range contingent that inevitably would throng there to see Madge!

The rider got down, and introduced himself, saying bluntly that he wanted a job. Gene looked him over, favorably impressed. He seemed under twenty-five, tall and lithe, powerful of limb and shoulder, and he had a strong open countenance and fine hazel eyes, medium dark and very penetrating. His black horse would have been an asset for any cowboy.

Gene read a letter of recommendation from Ren Starr, and it was not many moments till he liked Lance Sidway’s looks, his words, and had given him a job on the ranch.

Meanwhile one of the lads had taken the black horse down the lane for a drink. Gene anticipated results from that procedure and he was tinglingly prepared for Madge’s ecstatic squeal. That girl had cowboy blood in her. Then Gene, with malice aforethought, sent the unwilling Sidway in Madge’s direction. They met, so precipitously that Madge ran into Sidway and almost fell out of his arms. Astounded, plainly stunned for an instant, Madge’s vivid face suddenly flashed radiance. Recognition and rapture were evident in her speaking eyes.

“You!... Oh, if it isn’t my hero!” she cried in intense excitement. “Of all the surprises I ever had! You darling!” And with swift action that matched her voice, she lifted her gauntleted hands to Sidway’s shoulders and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him warmly. Evidently she had aimed at his lips, but she missed them, leaving half of a red bow to the side.

Gene, utterly astonished as he was at his daughter’s impetuous action, yet did not fail to catch the reaction in the boy. When she ran into his arms he gave a violent start and uttered a gasp. Then at her words of surprise and delight, followed by that impulsive kiss, his face turned a dusky scarlet. It receded as she drew back until he was pale.

“My God!... You?... Not you!”

“Yes — me!” she replied, sweetly.

“You can’t be — be Stewart’s daughter?” he implored. “You can’t be Madge — not Majesty Stewart!”

“I am. And you know that, you clever devil,” she returned, in positive admiration. “You put one over, didn’t you — meeting me here? No crowded noisy parking place for you, Mr. Oregon. You wanted to keep that date here, at my home, on the Arizona range. Romantic — individual — beautiful! I figured you perfectly, my campus champion. I knew you weren’t ordinary. And almost I can forgive you for not keeping that date.”

“I — I did keep it,” he gulped.

“You did?” she echoed, her violet eyes wide and dark. “Then you didn’t disgrace me by being the first fellow ever to break a date with Madge Stewart?”

“I came — Miss — Miss Stewart,” replied Sidway, still overcome. “I was there — long before you came. In a car.... I saw you drive in. Then that — that fellow followed you....”

“You saw him — heard us?”

“Yes, I was quite close.”

“Why didn’t you jump out and let him see you were my date? He would have acted true to type — and you could have socked him, too. I’m afraid you lost a golden opportunity.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Stewart,” he said, in awkward though sincere regret. “But I was — sort of paralyzed. I never got over it until after you drove away with him.”

“Then I do forgive you. What is your name?”

“Lance Sidway.”

She touched his arm and turned him toward Gene, who had leaned against a post, taking it all in. Gene had no idea how he looked, but he felt highly amused at this clever ruse of Sidway’s.

“Dad, isn’t it just darling?” said Madge. “This is my hero — the young man whom I told you and Mom about — who rescued me at the campus riot.... Lance Sidway — my father, Gene Stewart.”

“Madge, we haven’t been introduced, but we’ve met,” replied Gene, genially, and he eyed Lance as if he had been taken in a bit.

“Of course. How silly of me! He just rode in and you...”

“I gave him a job,” interposed Gene.

“What?... To ride for you! — He is a fast worker.... Lance Sidway, I don’t know just what to make of you.”

“That goes for me, too,” replied Gene, with a smile which softened the doubt.

“Mr. Stewart, I am on the spot,” burst out Sidway. “I told you I’d never met your daughter — never heard of her till I met Starr. How could I guess she was that one?... I did meet her — as she told you.... I’m innocent of...”

“Sidway, don’t take it so hard,” went on Gene, kindly. “I was young once. It didn’t turn out just as you planned. But I’d have liked you better if you’d told me...”

“I did not lie to you,” declared the cowboy, with such vehemence that Gene began to feel sorry for him. Then Madge claimed Sidway’s attention.

“I get you, Mr. Lance Sidway. But I’ve been kidded by experts,” she said, with laughing eyes. She was pleased with his subterfuge.

“Yeah? You get what?” he demanded bluntly, and it appeared that his awkwardness was vanishing.

“What is so obvious.”

“Miss Stewart, it may look obvious that I knew who you were — that I deliberately rode out here because of you. But it is not true.”

“Oh, so you are ashamed to be caught?” she taunted. “You’re a pretty smooth actor, cowboy, but you can’t fool little Madge.”

“You may be pretty smart but you’re wrong this time,” he retorted, and there was plainly resentment in his tone.

“Let’s skip it,” she returned, without the archness. And at that moment Nels, and the lad leading Sidway’s horse, came around the corner.

“Nels, shake hands with Lance Sidway,” interposed Gene, glad to relieve the growing strain between the young couple. “He hails from Oregon. And I’ve just given him a job.”

“Howdy,” drawled Nels, and shook hands with the flustered lad. Gene was of the opinion that Sidway had no conception how he was being looked over by the keenest eyes in Arizona. Gene’s conclusion was that the cowboy showed up favorably in a most trying situation. When Madge saw the black horse again, her swift reversal of mood eased the situation. Like a true range rider she walked around the black, all eyes, placing a careful yet confident hand on him, and never saying a word until she had made a second circuit.

“Nels!” she importuned, as if wanting him to refute her judgment.

“Wal, I’m shore sorry, lass,” drawled Nels. “He’s a grand hawse. He’s got Cedar beat all holler.”

“Traitor!” she flashed, her eyes blazing purple fire at Nels. “You’re teasing me. Nels darling, you don’t mean that?”

“Wal, mebbe I’m exaggeratin’ some. But see heah, Majesty. Even if you been away from the range so long, you know a great hawse when you see him.”

“I’m afraid I do.... Mr. Sidway, will you please let me get on him?” Her query to the cowboy was tinged with slight sarcasm, yet her desire was deeply sincere.

“Of course — if you wish.... The stirrups will be long.”

Madge swung gracefully up into the saddle and Nels beat the cowboy to her side. Presently the stirrups were laced up to fit Madge and she walked Umpqua across the green square, trotted him up the lane a few hundred yards, paced him a little and loped him back. What a picture the black horse and the golden-haired girl made! Turning away from the sight himself, Gene saw it in Nels’ worshipful eyes, and then he caught a gleam of the eternal cowboy in Sidway’s.

Madge sat the saddle as if reluctant to get off, while she patted the arched glossy neck. She was flushed of face. Her eyes were soft, glowing. At that moment Gene experienced the old fullness of love for her in his heart. She was Madeline’s daughter, but she was western. Presently she sat up in the saddle, the glamorous spell vanished, and she faced the three men coolly. Gene imagined he could read her mind.

“His trot does not equal Cedar’s, but his pace and lope beat that of any horse I ever rode.”

“Wal, lass, thet’s strong praise from you,” declared Nels. “Justified, I reckon.”

“Madge, never go back on your own horses,” warned Gene.

“I don’t, Dad. But I must be just.... Mr. Sidway, do you know how fine Umpqua is?”

“Me!” ejaculated the cowboy, amazed. “Nobody can tell me anything about him.”

“I’ll bet I can.”

“Go to it.”

“What’ll you bet?”

“Aw, the truth is I haven’t anything. Of course I wouldn’t bet Umpqua.”

“No? Oh, you’re a cowboy. You might some day,” she returned, subtly. “Umpqua reminds me of something I read — that an Arab chieftain said. I didn’t have to commit it to memory. It just stuck in my mind... ‘If in the course of your life you alight upon a horse of noble origin, with large lively eyes wide apart, and black broad nostrils close together, whose neck, shoulders and haunches are long, his forehead, loins and limbs broad, his back and hip-bones and pasterns short, all covered with soft skin, fine hair, and his lungs wide and powerful, and his feet good, with heels high off the ground — hasten to buy or trade or steal that horse — secure him, and always afterward bless Allah for your good fortune!’”

“Wal, if thet doesn’t beat me,” said Nels, in rapt admiration.

“Madge, you’ve the high sign on us. But it was good,” added Gene.

“You win,” chimed in Sidway, reluctantly smiling.

“It seems superfluous to ask — can he run — is he fast?” asked Madge, tensely.

“He can beat your Cedar or any other nag you own.”

“That remains to be seen, cowboy,” returned Madge, darkly.

“What’s more,” went on Sidway, “he’s the best cowboy horse ever bred in Oregon.”

“Now yore talkin’,” said Nels. “An Arab is no good to us riders, onless he’s a cow-hawse.”

“Nels, Umpqua can run over rocks as if they were level ground.”

“I seen that from his hoofs.”

Madge slipped slowly out of the saddle, facing Sidway: “No need to ask how you love Umpqua,” she said, with a softness rounding the turn of her words. “You won’t take it amiss if I — almost insult you?”

Sidway stared at her, and then with something of a gallant gesture he repudiated any possibility of her doing that.

“What value do you place on Umpqua?” she launched, suddenly keen, vibrant.

“Value!... None, Miss Stewart.”

“Every horse has a value. Tell me.”

“Diamonds, rubies, gold!”

“Swell! I like you the better for that.... Do you know that you could sell him for five thousand dollars?”

“Humph. A movie star offered me that,” returned the cowboy, contemptuously.

“Yeah?... I’ll give you six thousand for Umpqua.”

“No.”

“Seven thousand.”

“No.”

“Eight thousand.”

“No!”

“Ten thousand!”

Sidway’s flushed face turned pale, either with anger or some other emotion.

“Miss Stewart, don’t you know that money can’t buy everything?” he queried, with dignity. “Umpqua is all I own in the world. He has saved my life twice. I love him. We raised him from a colt, and all of us loved him.”

“I know I’m rotten,” she cried, as if forced. “But no matter. I love him, too.”

“That’s well. I’m glad you do. But — you can’t buy him.”

“I always have what I want,” she flashed, imperiously.

“You probably have had.”

“But be reasonable.” Madge stamped her booted foot until her spur jingled sharply. Tears of vexation and disappointment burned out of her big eyes and they glowed and dilated like mystic balls. “You admit you’re broke. I offer you a small fortune. You can get a start here on the range. Dad and Nels will help you. I will. You can still go on loving Umpqua. You may ride him — sometimes. You can make me happy. Please, Mr. Lance Sidway.”

The cowboy gazed at her, listened to her eloquent appeal as if fascinated by something beside and beyond her offer.

“Really, Miss Stewart,” he said, finally. “You may be Gene Stewart’s daughter, born on this wonderful range, but you don’t know cowboys.”

Madge betrayed that she could not gainsay that, and it seemed a struggle went on in her between realization and selfishness. The latter evidently conquered. Anger at herself for being so little or at him for frustrating her desire burned out that momentary softness.

“You won’t sell him?” she queried.

“I told you — no.”

“Mr. Sidway, I can’t have you riding around here on a finer horse than — a horse that I want.”

“That’ll be just too bad,” returned the cowboy, in a tone which brought a hue to her cheeks that matched the carmine on her lips.

“You appear to be rather dense. Do I have to tell you I will not have you on this ranch?”

“You don’t have to tell me anything, lady. Your father hired me and he’ll have to fire me.”

She looked at Gene with great luminous eyes. “Dad!”

“Madge, you’re unreasonable,” replied Gene, coolly, smiling upon her. “I need riders badly. Sidway has offered to ride for me at a wage I am ashamed to take advantage of. I couldn’t discharge him just because he refuses to sell you his horse. Could I, Nels?”

Nels showed plainly that he was between the devil and the deep sea. Madge had been his especial joy and treasure all her life, as Gene well knew, and he had always spoiled her. Gene enjoyed his old cowman’s extreme discomfiture, but knew he would extract himself somehow.

“Majesty, I shore know how you feel aboot this hawse,” he began, in his slow drawl. “But, lass, you’re bound to respect Sidway for his feelin’s. I reckon you wouldn’t be playin’ the game if you fired him. Shore I never heahed of you bein’ unfair. You used to give hawses to cowboys. An’ I reckon, if yore happiness actooly depends on ownin’ Umpqua, wal, in the nature of things on the range, you know, he’ll jest naturally drift yore way.”

The persuasive cool voice of the old cattleman, the significant content of his last words, spread oil upon the troubled waters.

“Very well, Mr. Sidway, you stay,” said Madge, loftily. “I’m sorry if I was unfair. But I will have that horse.”

The dark passionate glance she bent upon Sidway had infinite and unknown possibilities.

“Thank you, Miss Stewart. But I do not want to remain under false pretenses. You will not have Umpqua.”

“I accept your challenge. If you don’t show yellow and ride off — we’ll see.” Then she smiled upon him without malice or resentment, and wheeled to start up the path.

“Hey, Madge, you’re forgetting your car,” called Gene. “What’ll we do with it?”

She turned to call back in a sweet high-pitched voice: “Mr. Lance Sidway can use it to bed down his darling Umpqua.” Then she was gone into the foliage.

“Whoopee,” sighed Gene, and Nels came back with: “Dog-gone, old pard! Seems like old times when you fust came to Majesty’s Rancho, before thet lass was borned.”

Sidway had been lengthening his stirrups with swift hands. Presently he turned with pale face and hazel eyes shadowed.

“I’ll be on my way. Thank you, Gene Stewart,” he said.

“Hold on, Sidway. You wouldn’t let my daughter’s taunt. ...”

“No, it’s not that, altogether. I know you didn’t believe me — that I didn’t come here on — on Miss Stewart’s account. And under the circumstances I don’t want to stay.”

“No, I didn’t believe you,” rejoined Gene, seriously, searching the troubled face.

“See heah, cowboy,” interposed Nels, descending from the porch with clinking slow steps. “Don’t ride off hot-haided. Air you on the level? You didn’t know this was Majesty’s Rancho an’ thet the lass you done a favor for in Los Angeles was Madge?”

“Nels, I did not,” replied Sidway, forcibly.

After a keen scrutiny of Sidway’s face the old cowman turned to Gene: “Boss, he’s tellin’ the truth. Don’t let him go.”

“Hanged if I don’t believe it myself.”

“Stewart, I swear that I am on the level. I didn’t know. It was just an infernal coincidence,” rejoined Sidway huskily.

“Okay then. Let’s shake on it.... Maybe your infernal coincidence will turn out well for me and this ranch problem. I’ve a hunch it will.”

Sidway appeared too poignantly affected to voice his manifest relief and gladness. Gene’s conviction was that the young man felt too strongly for the mere misunderstanding. There was more behind it. Gene liked this cowboy, and that Nels did also added a good deal of satisfaction.

“What’d you say yore fust name was?” drawled Nels.

“Lance. It’s screwy, I know. Bad as Umpqua.”

“Not so orful bad.... Gene, yore supper bell has rung. I’ll look after Lance. He can hev supper with me, an’ the bunk room next to mine.... Whar’ll I hev Jose put his hawse?”

“Not in the pasture tonight. Better in the barn.... Say, wouldn’t it be funny if we could bed him down in Madge’s car?”

“Not so damn funny in the mawnin’.”

Dusk was settling under the pines when Gene mounted the slope to the house. A ruddy glow faded over the peaks in the west. Coyotes were wailing somewhere low down. Plodding up the low ascent, Gene was revolving in mind the events of the day. He had to side with the cowboy against Madge. She was willful and spoiled. That came out when she could not have her own way. He recalled the tone of her voice, her imperious look, her temper; and he shook his head sadly. But what could have been expected of the girl, their only daughter, adored and petted, born with a gold spoon in her mouth, and left a million when she was fifteen? But Gene reflected that despite these faults she seemed to be irresistible. If only one or more of his own besetting sins did not crop up in her! The cowboy Lance was in love with her — there was no doubt about that, even if he had not found it out yet. Gene, remembering that Madge had always had what she wanted, was heartily glad that Sidway had been strong enough to brook her will. He had good stuff in him, that lad. Gene’s yearning for a son, long buried, had a rebirth. If Lance Sidway turned out as fine as he promised he would come somewhere near the ideal Gene had dreamed of.

By the time Gene had washed and changed, the second supper bell rang. He found Madeline and Madge waiting. The girl wore white, some clinging soft stuff that made Gene catch his breath. He thought of what little chance he had or Sidway or Nels, or any man, to resist this lovely and bewildering creature. Not a trace of the recent mood showed on her face.

“... and he wouldn’t part with Umpqua, the sap!” she was saying to her mother. And as Gene entered she extended a hand to him with a radiant smile. “Dad, I’m telling Mom about my hero and his wonderful horse. What a liar he is! He found out who I am and where I lived. I can’t get what possessed him to deny that. He needn’t. It was a clever stunt. Intrigued me. After I fell so hard for him that day he rescued me!... Well, I fell for his horse a thousand times harder. Oh, Mom, what a beautiful horse! Has it all over Cedar and Range and Bellefontaine — all of them. I wanted Umpqua so badly that I could have murdered the cowboy... . At first I had a kick out of it. Never occurred to me that I couldn’t buy the black. But it turned out that I couldn’t. Then I lost my temper. I’m afraid I reverted to feline type with claws out. Did Mr. Sidway jar me? I’m constrained to admit that he did. Made me feel selfish, mean, rotten. Which I was. But I’d do worse to get that horse. And all the time I was so mad I had a sneaking respect for Lance, though I hated him. He’s just swell, Mom. Don’t you agree, Dad?”

“Rather cottoned to him myself,” replied Gene to this long monologue.

“So did Nels, the traitor,” she retorted.

“I am indeed interested to meet this paragon among cowboys. And see his Umpqua,” said Madeline, with a smile. “Madge, in the succeeding days of trial I might be of service to you. I’ve had some experiences!” Madeline threw a laughing glance at her husband.

“Mom darling!” expostulated Madge. “Falling for Mr. Sidway doesn’t mean a thing in the world. I’ve done that nineteen times this last semester.... But will I give that big boy a ride? It’ll be a kick. And I’ll have that horse if — if...”

“Well, if what, my girl?” taunted Gene.

“If I have to marry him.”

Madeline neither reproved her nor showed surprise, but she remarked that cowboys must have vastly more than horses to be eligible for marriage.

“But I could divorce him next day,” Madge flashed bewilderingly.

* * * * *

Next morning Gene was out early enough to catch Nels and Sidway at a sunrise breakfast.

“Wal, look who’s heah,” drawled the old cowman. “Mawnin’, Gene. You ain’t got oot this early fer years.”

“Neither have you, old-timer,” returned Gene, jocularly. “Shall we put it down to our lately acquired cowboy, Mr. Sidway?”

“You shore can. The son-of-a-gun kept me up till eleven o’clock tellin’ stories, an’ then, by thunder, he rustled me oot before sunup.”

Manifestly Nels and the newcomer had gotten along famously. Sidway appeared fresh and eager, and having donned his old outfit, he looked a lithe and striking rider.

“Don’t call me Mr. Stewart,” Gene replied to his greeting. “I’m Gene, or Boss, or Stewart.”

“Okay, Boss. I sure appreciate falling in with you. And I’m asking if I may have the day on my own.”

“On your own? What do you mean?” inquired Gene, puzzled.

“If you give me the day, I’m pretty sure I can tell you where your cattle have been rustled lately.”

“Gene, he made some such crack as thet to me,” drawled Nels. “Jest young hot blood. But I don’t know.”

“Sidway, are you hinting that you can find out what Nels and I and Danny Mains couldn’t?”

“No, I’m not hinting. I’m telling you,” replied the cowboy, with an engaging smile.

“You don’t lack nerve,” returned Gene, shortly.

“Boss, I don’t mean to be fresh. I just think you men have been hunting for rustlers in an old-fashioned way.”

“Old-fashioned?” echoed Gene, while Nels ha-ha’d vociferously.

“Listen, young man, rustling is rustling. Cattle don’t fly. They have to be driven. On their hoofs. And hoofs leave tracks.”

“Only so far. I’ll bet you tracked yours as far as a macadamized road, and no farther.”

“Yes, that’s true. Or I should say, Jose and Manuel tracked them.”

“Then what?”

“Wal,” interposed Nels, “Them two riders split an’ rode east and west fer twenty-odd miles, an’ never found the place where them hoof tracks left thet highway.”

“Swell!” ejaculated Sidway, clapping his hands. “That’s exactly what I wanted to be sure of. Saves me the trouble.”

“Of what?”

“Bothering with tracks on the highway. They never left the highway short of Douglas or Tucson.”

“Listen, son,” returned Nels, his drawl more pronounced than ever, and very patient. “Shore you’re talkin’ to a couple of old cowmen, oot of date, an’ I reckon pretty dumb, as you youngsters say. Will you talk a language we know? These heah modern days air hell on speed, shore, but cattle cain’t be drove on a cement road fer hundreds of miles.”

“Sure they can. It’s a cinch. Your cattle were so driven.”

“Dog-gone!” complained Nels, turning to Gene. “An’ I was kinda takin’ to this lad.”

“Nels, he’s got something on us,” declared Gene. “See here, Lance, just how were my cattle driven along the highway?”

“Simple as a, b, c. — In trucks.”

“Trucks!” burst out Gene, incredulously.

Nels swore, and dropped one of his galvanized utensils on the floor. “Gene, it’s shore simple. But we’d never guess such two-bit rustlin’ of twenty or forty-odd haid would be done thet way.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Sidway, how’d you find that out?” added Gene.

“I’ve seen inside one of these cattle trucks. Fact is I drove one of them,” explained the young man.

“Yes? Wal, I reckon you’ll be tellin’ us next you’re one of these newfangled rustlers,” drawled Nels, dryly.

“I might have been without knowing, if the truck had been loaded.... On the way over here to Arizona I went broke at Douglas. Hung around for any kind of a job. Well, it came along, and it was to drive a big canvas-covered truck to Tucson. I was paid a hundred bucks, and told to expect to be held up somewhere along the road. I was held up all right, a little ways out of Tucson, by a gang who expected just what I’d figured out — that the truck was full of booze. But it wasn’t — and were they burned up? These highjackers corroborated my suspicions.... All right now. To come short with it, by figuring, and asking questions I found out that a string of trucks go through Douglas east about once in six weeks. Presumably they go east loaded with bootleg liquor and come back west loaded with bought or stolen cattle. My hunch is that this gang used to buy cattle for a blind to their real operations, but finally turned to rustling. Just easy money!... On the other hand it may be that only one of the trucks is loaded with booze, and possibly it may come west, along with the cattle. We can safely gamble, however, on this — that your cattle have been stolen in this manner.”

“Wal, what air we comin’ to?” ejaculated Nels, scratching his white head. “Gene, shore we can look forward to be robbed by airplanes next.”

“Fake rustling, likely,” added Gene. “What’d the money for a few cattle mean to these bootleggers?”

“Nothing to the big shots,” rejoined Sidway. “I’ve had a hunch that maybe the drivers of these trucks are grabbing a little money on their own hook. What I want to find out now is who drives the cattle to the highway. That’d have to be done on horses.... Boss, give me some idea where these last cattle tracks were made. I’ll ride out and see if I can pick up some horse tracks. If I do I’ll measure them, make sure I’ll know them again, and then ride all over this darned range.”

“Fork your horse and hit — No, let Umpqua rest. Tell Jose to saddle Range for you.”

“I’m on my way,” replied the cowboy, and he strode out of Nels’ bunkhouse. Presently he passed off the porch carrying his saddle and accessories.

Nels went on wiping his utensils. Presently Gene said: “What do you know about that?”

“Gene, that feller proves how much old-time cowboys like us want to figger on new angles. Since the war, you know, we’ve jest been goin’ back. Smart, this boy Sidway. If we only had Ren oot here now!”

“Yes. We know Ren Starr,” replied Gene, ponderingly.

“Gene, did you ever know me to be fooled aboot a cowboy?”

“You mean his being straight?... I can’t remember one, Nels.”

“Wal, if this Oregon lad can ride an’ shoot, he’ll be a Gawd-send to you.”

After that encomium from the old cattleman Gene felt himself convinced. He talked a while longer with Nels, went to the store with him, and presently set about an inspection tour of the barns and sheds and corrals, the reservoir, the lake, the irrigation ditches, the fences, and all pertaining to the ranch. He had divined that Madge would be coming to him presently and he wanted to be well posted. This survey was a melancholy task. He saw now why for years he had neglected it. In some degree verdure around the water hid the rack and ruin of the wooden structures. Those built of adobe were also damaged. And in fact repairs were badly needed everywhere.

Upon returning to the store Gene found Madge there with Nels. She wore overalls, high-top boots and spurs, and a blue sweater with a red scarf. The mere sight of her flushed and disheveled, and clad as she was, chased away Gene’s gloom.

“Mawnin’, Dad,” she drawled. “I caught Nels drinking red likker.”

“She did, at thet,” admitted Nels, ruefully. “An’ I’m darned if she didn’t ask me for some.”

That was a touchy point with Gene, which he passed by. “How’d you find your horses?” he asked.

“Cedar wild as a March hare. Bellefontaine as sweet as ever. Range was gone, and I learned from Jose that our new cow hand took him,” returned Madge, and the dangerous tone of the last words were not lost upon Gene. He hastened to explain that he had told Sidway to saddle Range.

“Oh.... What’s the matter with your own horses?”

“Sold most of my saddle stock. Your horses are fat and lazy, Madge. They need to be worked out.”

“Indeed they do. That was okay, Dad. I thought Mr. Sidway, seeing he is so fresh, might have taken Range on his own.... Dad, his horse Umpqua came right to me. Oh, I was tickled pink. He likes me. I’ll have no trouble winning him from his owner. And will I do it?”

“Madge, that’d be a dirty trick.”

“So it would be. But I’m crazy about the horse — and Nels said I couldn’t do it. Added fuel to the flame!... Besides,” she pouted, “Nels has fallen for that cowboy in a most unaccountable way.”

“So have I, Madge.”

“Et tu, Brute,” she returned, reproachfully.

“I can account for it in more ways than one. Let me tell you just one.... First thing this morning he told Nels and me how we had been losing stock so mysteriously.”

“How?” she queried, suddenly intent. Gene liked that instant response.

“Driven away in trucks. That was a new one on us. It floored Nels. Sidway...” Here Gene briefly told her about the cowboy’s experience on the trip over, and how swiftly he had put two and two together. “He’s gone off down the valley to get a line on horse tracks.”

“I told you he was a regular guy,” declared Madge, enthusiastically.

“Yes, you did. But it turned out — you don’t like him,” said Gene, casually.

“Unfortunately, it did. You saw me kiss him. I was just delighted. If it had not been for him I’d have had to go to court.... But my feelings don’t matter. If Sidway doesn’t start something round here he may be a big help to you and Nels. Between the two of us, we will put this ranch on its feet.”

“Wal now, lass. What you mean — start somethin’?” interposed Nels, greatly interested.

“Nels, you old spoofer. You know what I mean.”

“He’s already started somethin’ with thet hawse.”

“I’ll say. But I meant particularly what invariably happens to fresh cowboys when I’m here.”

“Ahuh. An’ thet poor devil will hev to go draggin’ himself off withoot his hawse — an’ his heart.”

“Nels! You’re the same old darling!” she cried, gleefully as she left them. Presently she turned a happy face over her shoulder. “Dad, it’s swell to be home!”

“Oh! that’s good, Madge. It’s sure swell to have you.”

Madge looked in at the open shed where they had parked her car, then crossed the court and disappeared up the path. Gene observed that Nels’ eyes had never left her while she was in sight.

“Gosh!... Nels, I wouldn’t be in that poor devil’s boots for a lot.”

“Wal, you jest bet I would,” averred Nels. “If I know cowboys, this Sidway feller will give Majesty a run for her money.”

“Humph! He doesn’t strike me as the fortune-huntin’ breed.”

“All cowboys air fortune hunters. You was, Gene. An’ if I remember you, old El Capitan, this Oregon boy has you tied fer all ‘cept drinkin’ hard an’ shootin hard. I reckon no hombre ever beat you at thet.”

“Nels, you’re a sharp old rascal. I’ve relied upon you for years. But let’s not get sold on this stranger so pronto.”

“Wal, I’m sold now — same as Majesty is. Reckon it’d be a good idee for you to keep yore haid.”

“Madge sold on Sidway?” ejaculated Gene.

“Shore. Only she has no idee atall aboot it yet.”

“You romantic old geezer!... It’d just suit you now — if Madge would take to a man of our kind, wouldn’t it?... Well, to be honest, I’d like it, too. But I think that’s only a dream. Madge will marry some city man, tire of us and our simple life here on the open range — and go for the fleshpots of Egypt.”

“Natural for her Dad to hev sich pessimistic ideas. But ump-umm!”

“Why natural?” demanded Gene.

“‘Cause you reckon she has inherited a lot of yore no-good blood.”

“Right again, old-timer. I am afraid.”

“Thet lass will turn oot like her mother. But I ain’t sayin’, Gene, thet we won’t hev hell with her before she turns oot.”

* * * * *

During the afternoon Gene persuaded Madge to drive him up the old road toward the foothills, where was located the big spring that fed the lake and provided irrigation for the ranch. As the road was rough they did not get back until toward the end of the afternoon. Passing through the little Mexican village, the inhabitants of which had once depended solely upon the ranch, Gene said to Madge: “Thanks, daughter. You’re almost as good a driver as you are a horseman. I’ll stop off at Danny Mains’ and walk home from there.”

“Oh — oh!” said Madge, presently. “Look who’s here.”

Then Gene espied Sidway, on foot, leaning on the gate talking to Bonita Mains. Range, bridle down, stood near by. There was no more denying the cowboy’s demeanor than Bonita’s delight. The dusky-eyed maiden radiated charm and coquetry. That Sidway was not in the least embarrassed by their arrival somehow gave Gene a tingle of expectancy and satisfaction. The car stopped. Gene stepped out.

“I’ll wait, Dad,” said Madge, lightly. “No need to walk home when you can ride.... Bonita! — Buenas tardes. How are you?”

“Buenas tardes, Miss Stewart,” returned Bonita, shy and flushed. “I am so happy to see you. Welcome home to Majesty’s Rancho!”

“Thanks, Bonita. I’m glad to see you. Introduce me to your boy friend.... Oh, it’s Mr. Sidway. I thought I knew that horse. How’d you like him?”

“Not so much. He’s cranky, contrary. Spoiled by girls, I expect,” replied Sidway, coolly.

“That’s fine. I’d rather you didn’t ride him.”

Gene spoke up: “Bonita, please call your father.” And as the girl flashed toward the house, Gene turned with interest to Madge and the cowboy. She was quietly lighting a cigarette. But Gene had never seen her eyes as magnificent as now. Sidway, however, had stepped away from the gate to bend eagle eyes down upon the sage.

“Boss, look at that car,” he said quickly. “Hitting only the high spots!”

Gene espied a speeding black car appearing to run away from a long trail of dust.

“He’s sure coming,” agreed Gene, puzzled. Drivers did not race on that rough road for nothing.

“Hope it’s my mail,” spoke up Madge. “I left orders for it to be sent out.”

At that juncture Danny Mains came out, his homely weatherbeaten face wrinkled in a huge smile. Gene called his attention to the car. Mains took one look and then said: “Darn fool’ll break his neck, ridin’ like thet.”

Then he greeted Madge and the cowboy. Bonita, bright-eyed and self-conscious, came out to join her father and gaze down the slope.

“Ren Starr!” she cried.

Gene was quick to detect a note of fear stronger than the surprise in her exclamation. Sidway must have caught it too, for he turned a narrowed gaze upon the girl. Then the group watched the racing car until it passed out of sight under the slope. Bonita, with troubled face, left them to enter the house. Gene, attending to Danny’s speculation about Starr still had an ear for a byplay between Sidway and Madge.

“Awful pretty girl — this Bonita,” the cowboy was saying.

“Swell kid. On the make, too. But am I telling you?” retorted Madge.

“You appear to be. I didn’t get that about her.”

“And you such a fast worker — Well!”

“I — I like your horse,” went on Lance, evidently no match for her at repartee. Her voice had a cutting edge.

“But you said Range was cranky.”

“Sure. Can’t a fellow like cranky horses — and girls, too, for that matter?”

“I don’t know anything about such fellows.”

“Yeah? I’ll bet what you don’t know wouldn’t fill a book.... When is your college crowd coming?”

“Oh, you are interested? My sorority sisters, I suppose?”

“No.... Just the crowd. When? The time?”

“That can hardly concern you, Mr. Sidway. But they arrive on the twentieth.”

“Thank you. I wanted to know because I’d like to help your father a little. Then I’ll beat it.”

“Oh! — I get you. Dad thought you had taken to him and the ranch.”

“I had. You see, I just left Hollywood. I was fed up on a lot of glamour gals and pretty boys. And I’m leery of a college outfit.”

“Indeed. Mine would not embarrass you, Mr. Sidway. Certainly my girl friends do not aspire to collect cowboys.”

“Yeah! Too slow, I suppose. Prefer gangsters, eh?”

“What?... You insulting...”

“You can’t kid me, Miss Majesty Stewart.... Listen, let me tell you something while I’ve a chance. Your dad is swell. A grand guy. And if you were a credit to him you’d not have this crowd of yours out here now.”

“Oh! — And — why?” gasped Madge, as if stifled.

“Because he’s in trouble — deep — without your fast crowd to make it worse.”

At that moment the humming car sped over the brow of the slope to draw swiftly up to the waiting group. The driver was Ren Starr. As he stopped, Gene espied the tip of a rifle barrel sticking above the door, and in the back seat a pile of duffel, topped with a saddle and bedroll.

“Howdy, folks,” he said, laconically. “Heah we all air.”

“Wal, Ren, you look like bizness,” returned Danny Mains, soberly.

“Glad to see you, Starr,” added Gene.

“Boss, you got another new cowboy. Right heah an’ now.... Ah, Miss Majesty, I shore am glad to see you back home. Hope it’s fer good.... An’ heah’s my new pard, Lance Sidway.”

“Darn glad to see you, Starr,” rejoined Sidway, eager and puzzled.

“Gather around, Gene and Danny. You’ll get an earful,” announced the newcomer, and as the three leaned over his car he whispered, directly to Sidway: “Pard, yore trucks rolled in no more’n a couple of hours ago. Stopped at the big garage acrost the street. I got most damn curious. An’ when the six drivers mosied into the lunchroom I went round aboot to peep into the trucks. Empty!... Graves, the new hired hand at the garage, was pilin’ up, gas, oil, water, air. And he give it away thet the trucks was stayin’ over, mebbe all night. Like hell they will! Pard, these air yore canvas-covered cattle-rustlin’ trucks. Them drivers air timed fer tonight. Gene, they’re gonna make one of them two-bit raids on yore cattle. An’ I’ll tell the world they’re gonna get a helluva jar.”

Gene swore under his breath, and feeling a handclasp on his arm, he turned to see Madge, pale, with dilating eyes of purple fire, close behind him.

“Wal, you gasoline hound!” declared Danny Mains. “Back on the job.”

“Starr, you’ve more hunch than that. Spill it,” said Sidway.

“Shore. I seen a rider — stranger — who’d been hangin’ aboot all day — go into thet lunchroom. He was the go-between. An’ then I beat it fer heah.”

CHAPTER V

MADGE’S UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER with Uhl at the parking place, where she had failed to find Sidway, made her abruptly conscious of the fact that her indiscreet affair with the gangster had lost its interest for her. She admitted this to herself while concealing her annoyance from Uhl. Her impulses were quick and she gave in to them daringly, up to a certain point. But she was just as keen to divine when a new one had superseded the old. She did not even have to see Uhl to realize that the man she expected to meet had effaced the fascination of the strange, cold-eyed and masterful gangster. Looking at Uhl, listening to him, Madge felt relief that this was so. She regretted her short flirtation with him. And presently it occurred to her that the thing to do was to get him away, drop him somewhere, and then come back.

“Jump in, Honey Bee,” she said, brightly. “I’m too late for my date here and must rush back to campus. Where can I drop you?”

“But, baby, you can’t flag me that way,” retorted Uhl, getting in beside her. “I know where there’s a speak close. Let’s have a drink — and a chin.”

“Indeed, I’m sorry, but I simply haven’t the time. I can’t even run you downtown. I’ll have to drop you at the first streetcar corner.”

“Me ride on streetcars? That’s a kick.... What’s the dope on this newspaper stuff about you this morning?”

“Damn tough break! I wasn’t to blame for that campus riot. But I’ll tell you.... Say, Thursday. Give me a ring, and I’ll meet you,” said Madge, and she slowed up and halted on a corner.

Uhl left the car ungraciously, plainly against his will. That steely something about him which had appealed to Madge did not affect her again.

“Yeah? I’ve called you twice and nothing doing. That doesn’t go with me, sweetheart. I don’t wait on no girl.”

“Perhaps you’ve found me a new species, as I you,” returned Madge. “Sorry. Bye. I’ll be seeing you.”

“She’d better be,” Madge heard, and then she had flashed across the intersection. The dumb cluck! Whatever had possessed her to let him sit down beside her that day at André’s? Madge reflected she was not so much to blame as Dixie Cune. But before she had circled several blocks to get back to the parking place she had forgotten Uhl. Then, half an hour late, she drove to the rendezvous, and did an unprecedented thing — she waited half an hour longer for this Oregon boy who loved his sister and his horse Umpqua. Not until Madge thought of how long she had waited, how much she wanted to see him again, did she realize that her weakness for new faces, new adventures, had in this instance established an extraordinary parallel. How nice he was! How different! And evidently he had not felt that way about her. Madge suffered a new sensation akin to pique, and that melted into disappointment. Here was one fellow who would not call her up to make a date. He did not even know her name. Why had she not told him and the phone number of the house? Nevertheless on the way back to campus her injured feelings were assuaged by an inexplicable premonition that she would meet him again.

Fraternity Row appeared to be more than usually crowded with cars. All the houses had several parked out in front. Madge pulled into the driveway and ran into the living room. All her senior sorority sisters, except Maramee, were there, with two boys from the Tau Phi house. The circle did not, as was its wont, let out a whoop as she entered. They all looked pretty glum and their greetings were forced. Madge now prepared for the worst.

“That sharp-voiced boy friend of yours just called up, Madge. Uhl’s the name. Has he a string on you?”

“I was foolish enough to let him think so,” rejoined Madge. “You all look like death’s-heads. What’s the worst? I can take it?”

“Majesty, I just came from campus,” replied Rollie Stevens. “They’ve called a meeting for tomorrow morning. Looks like curtains for you.”

“I met the Dean just now,” said Pequita Nelson, reluctantly. “She is afraid — because you already were on probation.”

“Madge, if you hadn’t pulled so many stunts this semester!” exclaimed her roommate and her closest friend, Allie Leland. “They’ll hate to expel you — at this late date — graduation right at hand — and you an honor student. But ever since you were elected in your junior year you’ve — —”

“Don’t heap it on, Allie.... I’ve been a damn fool. But I had a lot of fun. For myself I wouldn’t care — much — only it’ll reflect on the house. And if Dad and Mom see the papers — Oh, that’ll hurt.... After all, I didn’t egg on the students to throw that party.”

“I can vouch for that, Majesty,” admitted Rollie gloomily. “I did. I collected some of the boys and we went to the President. He was swell. But...”

“Rollie, that was darling of you. I’m obliged. If it were up to him I’d come through. Mad Everett, however, has it in for me.... How about a bull session this time tomorrow? About my ranch party.... Rollie, be sure my boy friends come.”

“Humph! In that case we’ll have to hold your session in the chapel. You couldn’t park them here.”

“Rollie Stevens, I said my boy friends,” retorted Madge.

“Am I one — or just a messenger boy?”

“You’re number one, when you’re nice.”

“It was never obvious to me, Majesty.... Then I’m to page Barg — Dawson — Nate — Brand? — Here my judgment, not my imagination, halts shrinkingly.”

“You left out Snake!” protested Madge.

“That muscle man? — Majesty!”

“Yeah? I get you. But I like him. I wonder if I have a horse that can hold him up.”

“It’d take an elephant,” chimed in Allie.

“But, Majesty,” importuned Pequita, eloquently. “Will footballer and cowboy mix?”

“We’ve got to have something beside drinks and dances,” averred Madge, and then she thought of her champion. “If I had only had a chance to ask him!”

Rollie threw up his hands and departed, and presently Madge and her roommate were upstairs on the third floor, in their light colorful room.

“Who’s him?” asked Allie.

“Him! — Why the wonderful fellow who slugged the cop and saved me from being pinched.”

“Hadn’t heard of him. Madge, you can dig up more romance and more trouble than any girl on campus.”

“Rather a doubtful distinction, Allie, darling. If they expel me I’ll have to think about myself at long last.”

“They won’t. Why, they’d be afraid the senior class would walk out on them!”

Dinner that night was not the usual merry gathering. Madge seemed the only cheerful girl in the house. She felt a thickening atmosphere of disaster. Her friends knew, perhaps, what she could only anticipate, and they were stricken. Soon after supper Madge phoned to break an engagement and went to her room and presently to bed. When Allie came in and crept into Madge’s bed and into her arms to weep unrestrainedly — then Madge made certain of the worst. She did not sleep well until late. At breakfast she missed the girls. Summoned to the office on campus she went with her chin up and her face tranquil, but inwardly she felt a little sick. She had an interview with the Vice-President, and it was short. The directors of the college had expelled her. They had to take into account the fact of her former derelictions and that she had been on probation. To overlook this last escapade would be establishing a precedent that would have a very bad effect. Madge accepted the decree gracefully, without a word of self-defense, and left the embarrassed official to go out, and cross the campus for the last time.

For her own sake Madge did not care particularly. She was tired of college, and traditions, such as graduating and receiving a degree, had never held any significance for her. She felt she had absorbed everything that this university could give her that would ever have any meaning in her life. When she crossed the row she did not look back at the campus, and knew that she never would again.

Nevertheless, up in her room alone Madge shed some bitter hot tears. She had loved that room, and to realize its intimacies, its joys and sorrows, its plans and stunts, were over forever struck her with her first deep grief. But in an hour Madge, to all appearances, was her old self again, and had turned her facile mind upon the problem ahead of her.

There was trouble out in her Arizona home. Long ago she had sensed that. And it was high time she returned there to take up the burden, whatever it was, for her beloved parents. Madge knew she was going home to stay. A trip now and then to the coast, and perhaps an occasional one East, would suffice her. Before she had come to college the lonely range, the stately Spanish ranch house, the horses, and her lovely soft-spoken, stately mother, and her stalwart father, had filled her life with action and excitement and love. Now that she was a woman, they would be all the more to her. And somewhere there was a man like her Dad... but she dismissed that disturbing thought.

Allie came in at the lunch hour to disrupt Madge’s concentration on a long-considered task, that of making a list of things to select and order for the ranch. Once given up to that occupation, Madge found it absorbing. “Honey,” she begged of Allie, “fetch me up some food. Anything.”

A long while seemed to have elapsed when at four o’clock Madge tripped downstairs, in a new and striking gown, to meet the bull session. Rollie had them all there, even to the hulking Snake Elwell, whose rosy cherub-like visage for once wore an intelligent expression. As Madge stood in the wide door the faces of her friends flashed expectantly and tragically at her.

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen — don’t look like that!” she cried, gayly. “It’s over. And I can take it!... I’ve asked you all here to talk over my cherished dream — to have you out to the ranch. Do I need to sell the idea to any one of you?”

“No!” came the concerted reply.

“Okay then. Here’s the dirt. I want you to arrive on the twentieth or as near that date as possible. There are eleven of us. Allie will come in my little car, Nate driving; unless darling, you’d prefer Brand?”

“Ow! Ow!” squealed Nate. “That is a hot one. Majesty, damn your honest tongue!”

“I’ll match you for that honor,” spoke up Brand.

“You’re on — if you got a nickel to toss.”

When that dire contingency was settled in Nate’s favor Madge went on, consulting her notes.

“The rest of you can come in two cars, that is, by expressing most of your baggage. Jot this down... Bolton, Arizona. And ship your baggage three days ahead, so it will be there.... Rollie’s big car for one. Dawson has one. And Snake, whose big bus is it I’ve seen you in — with a red-headed girl?”

“Madge, it belongs to Bu — and I can’t get it unless I bring her along,” said Elwell, awkwardly.

“Ha! Ha! Snake’s on the spot,” shouted Rollie.

“Well, he can’t wiggle like a snake through this field,” declared Madge, laughing. “Bu who?”

“Aw, never mind.”

“Madge, it’s Beulah Allen,” declared one of the boys, sotto voce.

“That number!” ejaculated Rollie, aghast. “Swell kid, Majesty — but I’m afraid she would disrupt the sweet tenor of our Tau Phi constancy.”

“You telling me?” retorted Madge. “I know Beulah. Snake, it’s up to you. Do you want her, for herself and not for her car?”

“Go into a huddle, Snake,” taunted someone.

“Madge, do you like Bu?” countered the athlete, earnestness stronger than his confusion.

“Certainly I like her, or I wouldn’t consider her. But, Snake, if you’re crazy about her.... Cowboys and vaqueros are even more susceptible than students.”

“I’ll take a chance, and Madge, you’re a peach,” declared Elwell, in red relief.

“That’s that,” said Madge, when the roar subsided, and she checked her list. “You can fight among yourselves who’s going to ride with whom.”

“Madge, sweetest, get down to it — Clothes! — What’ll we need to wear?” burst out Maramee Joyce.

“Your ruling passion, Maramee, for once will be foiled.... We’re on a ranch you know — grand place to wear out all your old clothes. Mostly outdoor stuff, both heavy and light; your riding togs and don’t forget a bathing suit. In fact, girls, I want you — if you have to come without a stitch to your backs,” declared Madge, warmly.

“Suits us swell!” yelled the boys. “And Majesty—” added Rollie, “we’re tired of pink teas and cakes, you know.”

“I’m sending over cases and cases,” replied Madge, radiantly. And when the row had subsided she continued: “I can supply anything in the world but happy hearts. You must bring them.

“I’ve been hours on end making up lists. It’ll take two full days to shop. Oh, some job! And then I’m off. No more dates. The sooner I go the better, dear friends.... That’s my say — for my — last bull session!”

She fled in a silence that hurt.

Early and late for three days Madge shopped in the Los Angeles stores. At night she packed, with Allie to help, and sometimes Pequita or Selma. What a relief when the expressman took her trunks away! At length all her tasks were done, even to the packing of bags in her car. Next morning when she awoke the sun was flashing on the vine-covered walls of the chapel. With Allie in her pajamas, Madge tiptoed down the stairs, passed the closed doors of her sisters, and hurried to the garage. Her last load of baggage was stowed away.

“Don’t make me — cry—” she whispered, huskily, to the weeping mute Allie. “I’ve got to drive some.... Tell them all — good-by... darling — I’ll — be — seeing...”

Madge drove out with blurred eyes that did not clear until she rounded the corner and turned her back to the campus forever. An early rising student halloed, but she did not look. The constriction in her throat eased as she threaded into the traffic. It was over — college and all that went with it. Madge did not deceive herself. All these lovely contacts would sever and fade away in the conflicting tides of new and wider life.

Not to press down on the accelerator seemed harder to resist than ever. In one of the suburban towns Madge stopped for breakfast and to send telegrams home. To her sorority sisters she wired: “All’s well. I’ll be seeing you.” Soon then she faced the long orange-grove — and vineyard-bordered road, and here she drove the powerful car up to sixty along the straight stretches. Madge loved to drive, to speed, to feel the impact of wind, to see the narrow thread of road flash under her, and the blurred greens pass by. By ten o’clock she was in Banning, where she halted for fuel. The service man paid Madge and her car an admiring gaze.

A hot furnacelike breath waved into Madge’s face up from the long Gorgonio Pass, as she left Banning. Once, however, under way again, the pressing air felt cool to her. At Indio she had a bite to eat and a malted milk, then leaving her car at a service station she crossed out of the copper sun to the shade of cottonwoods. These green full-foliaged trees, like the pines, were reminiscent of her ranch, and the ranges of the West. Palms and orange trees belonged to California, somehow removed from Arizona. A sultry breeze blew off the desert, tinged with an acrid dust, that felt gritty to her moist hands. Gloves were almost intolerable, and the skin of her lips and cheeks felt drying up. Nevertheless she welcomed this dry heat. Soon she would be across the desert, up on the sage ranges of Arizona, where the air was different. The sun could shine down hot, but in the shade the air felt cool. Then in her beloved home state there was never that copper sky or the blurred distance which she saw now. San Jacinto stood up shrouded in heat; smoky veils curled up from the gray weed-spotted desert; the ragged line of the barren ranges stretched south to fade in the distance; the pale expanse of the Salton Sea gleamed in the hollow of the valley, its salty shore line ghastly and weird.

Madge walked a few minutes under the cottonwoods, despite the discomfort. The next two hundred miles and more would be the most trying of this drive. To traverse a long stretch of flat country below sea level was far from a joy ride in June. Madge, rested from nervous strain, went back to her car to resume her journey. From Indio to El Centro Madge reveled in speed and the rare delight of catapulting through space. Beyond El Centro, where she halted for a little while, sunset caught her in the dunes, those exquisitely graceful curves and mounds and scallops of sand, beginning to color with opal tints, and shadow darkly away from the sun. This five-mile stretch was the only one on the journey that she longed to acquire for Arizona. Through that stately region Madge drove at a snail’s pace, and rediscovered her love of color and symmetry and solitude. She felt like a Navajo at sunset, part of the nature she watched.

When dusk mantled the black lava point of Pilot Knob, and dim purple Picacho, Madge sighted the lights of Yuma and soon the broad Colorado, chafing in sullen flood away into the darkness of a bend toward the south.

In a few more minutes she crossed the bridge into Arizona, and drove to the Alcatraz, a new hotel where she had stayed coming and going on her visit home the preceding summer. Her head and eyes ached, and her body was stiff from the long drive. And hungry and thirsty as she was she enjoyed the luxury of a bath and change before going downstairs. Apparently there were only a few guests at the hotel. After finishing a light dinner Madge went out to walk up and down the street and send some telegrams. The night was sultry and warm, with no air stirring, but she required exercise more than comfort. She walked to a corner and back. Mexicans with sloe-black eyes passed her, and a group of the lofty statured Yuma Indians who wrapped their long hair in a coil on top of their heads and set a cake of mud upon it. The glaring twin lights of cars loomed and passed by. Madge did not succumb to an impulse to walk down to the main street. Yuma was fascinating at any hour, especially after nightfall.

A long black car had drawn up to the curb before the hotel. Madge, as she passed it, heard a low exclamation, then quick footsteps. A slim hand with fingers like steel clutched her arm.

“Gold-top, what you doing here?” called a sharp voice, cold as ice. Madge knew to whom it belonged before she turned to see Uhl, bareheaded under the electric light, his eyes glittering from his pale face.

“Oh! — hello — this is a surprise,” replied Madge, haltingly, as her wits leaped to meet the situation.

“You alone?”

“Yes. On my way home,” she said, slowly, fighting a confusion of thought. She did not like his look nor the hard clutch on her arm.

“Home! Say, what kind of a twist are you? Told me you lived in Santa Barbara.”

“Did I? Will you be good enough to let go my arm? You hurt.”

“Come for a ride,” he returned, in a voice that brooked no opposition to his will and he almost dragged her toward the big black car.

“No, thanks,” rejoined Madge, as, supple and strong, with one wrench she freed herself. “I’m tired. Drove all day. See you tomorrow.”

“Like hell you will! Same as phone calls. I’m seeing you right now. Get that, baby!” He was neither angry nor insolent. His face had the clear cold chiseling of a diamond. Madge was not afraid of him, but she realized that she should be. She wavered between turning her back upon him and asking him into the hotel. The important thing was to get in off the street, and acting upon that she said: “I won’t talk here. Come in for a moment.”

Uhl hung close to her, hand at her elbow, and did not speak while they went through the lobby. He steered Madge into a back room with subdued lights, where several couples sat at tables, drinking. Here Uhl led her to a seat at a corner table and ordered cocktails from the attendant.

“What kind of a deal are you giving me, sister?” he began, forcefully, as he leaned toward her across the table. All about him was cold, suspicious, repellent.

“Deal?” she queried, playing for time.

“You knew I fell for you. I told you. And you met me, danced and drank with me. Then when I get stuck deep you try to pull this ‘I’ll be seeing you’ gag. That doesn’t go. See?”

“Mr. Uhl, I seem to see that you have misunderstood me.”

“Yeah? Nothing doing, eh?”

“If you wish to put it that way.”

He controlled what must have been a murderous fire, judging from the instant lowering of his blazing eyes and the quiver of his slim hands. Strangely, this reaction of his again restored a certain fascination he had exerted over Madge, she felt that it was almost an attraction of repugnance. She had had too much adulation, too many at her feet. There was in her, unconsciously, a primitive longing.

“Baby, I’ve gone nuts over some dames,” began Uhl deliberately, apparently having suppressed his violent feelings. “But none ever held a copper to you. I’m horribly in love with you, sweetheart.”

“Oh, I’m sorry you’ve allowed it to go so far,” murmured Madge. “Any girl would be flattered and.... But, you see, I’m engaged.”

“Yeah? What’s that to me?”

“I can’t imagine, I’m sure. But I know a girl can’t accept serious attentions from one man when she’s engaged to another.”

“The hell dames can’t. They do. They all do... Aw, Beauty, don’t be such a plaster. I’m crazy about you.... If you’re alone here tonight let me....”

Madge felt his slim hand slide upon her knee under the table. His eyes, gray as molten metal had a hypnotic power. For a moment she felt paralyzed. Then her rigidity broke to a start, to a stinging heat, to an insupportable sensation. That tearing thing seemed to actuate Madge more than Uhl’s outrage. In a fury she kicked out with all her might. And her onslaught sent the man sprawling over his chair. Madge almost overturned the table as she leaped up. Wheeling she fled from the room, and never stopped until she backed up against her locked door.

“Serves you damn — right!” she panted, passionately. “Playing with a heel like him!... Are you ever — going to think?”

Madge hardly had time to think then. Hurried steps in the hall preceded a knock on the door. Another knock, louder, followed, and the handle of the door was tried.

“Madge!”

“Who is it?” she called.

“Bee. Let me in. I want to square myself.”

“I’ll take your word for it — from that side.”

“I was out of my head. I’ll come clean. You’re not like other dames.”

“Thanks, Mr. Uhl. You discovered that rather late. But I take the blame for your mistake.”

“Will you let me in?”

“No. I’m going to bed.”

“That wouldn’t make any difference to me. I want to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to listen.... But I’ll see you in the morning. At breakfast. Eight o’clock,” she replied, thinking that might be a way to get rid of him.

“Okay, baby. But don’t string me again.”

Uhl’s voice had an ominous ring that jarred unpleasantly upon Madge’s ruffled nerves. Uhl was dangerous. Recalling his bragging, the roll of bills he exhibited, his extraordinary intimation of some kind of power, which Madge now analyzed as underworld, she realized that she might be in actual peril and by no means should she encounter him again. She determined to be a hundred miles and more beyond Yuma by eight o’clock next morning. Following that decision her first impulse was to telephone the desk to leave a call for five o’clock, but she thought better of it. She always awakened early, provided she went to bed early. This she did at once, and eventually fell asleep.

The roaring of a motor truck awakened Madge. She hardly seemed to have done more than close her eyes. Ruddy light on the desert ridges attested to sunrise. Her wrist watch said ten minutes to five. By five o’clock she was at the desk downstairs, paying her bill. She told the night clerk, in case anyone asked, that she had received a telegram which recalled her to Los Angeles. In another ten minutes she was speeding east on the Arizona highway.

The morning was fresh and cool. A line of fire rimmed the ranges. No cars, no curves on the empty black road ahead gave full rein to her desire and her need to drive fast. Sixty miles an hour had been her conservative limit, except a few times on short favorable stretches. Here Madge had the course and the incentive to increase her speed to seventy and more. The motor droned like a homing bee. It ate up the miles. At eighty miles on the indicator Madge tasted the last complete and full elation of the speedster. The telegraph poles were almost as fence posts.

Madge never looked back once. She drove under the urge that Uhl was pursuing her and that she could run away from him. At Gila Bend where the highway forked she slowed down and took the right branch, then opened up again. Mohawk, Aztec, Sentinel — the stations that she knew well were overtaken and passed by. At Casa Grande, while the car was being refueled and gone over, she had breakfast and lunch in one. From there Madge again faced the waving colored desert, with its black buttes and red ranges, ever growing rougher. But she took little account of it or of the hours. She was bent on a record drive. Tucson for once was not interesting, only as a service station; and the quaint Tombstone and bustling Bisbee only obstacles on the road. Late that day, which had flashed by like the hamlets, Madge drove into Douglas with the most perfect satisfaction for a driving mania she had ever experienced.

She stopped at an automobile camp, had her dinner at a lunch counter, and by eight o’clock she was in bed, her eyelids heavy. Her last thought was of what she would do on the morrow to the hundred-odd miles between Douglas and Majesty’s Rancho.

Next morning she was on the way by six o’clock, after having breakfasted. She would have made the run to Bolton in an hour but for the fact that she was held back by a detour, and some heavily laden, slow-moving canvas-covered trucks that simply stuck to the middle of the road. They annoyed her so that she thought that she would not soon forget them, nor one of the drivers, a swarthy visaged fellow who glared at her when at last with incessant honking she forced him over.

At Bolton Madge tarried long enough to leave orders with the stationmaster about her baggage and freight due to arrive. Then she refueled again, and drove on, beginning to feel strangely happy — with the journey almost ended, with turmoil behind her, and rest and home almost gained.

But when she struck off the highway beyond the culvert, up the old rancho road, which proved to be annoyingly full of lumps and gutters and rocks, she passed from an amused impatience to a burst of temper. She endured the jolting and the messing of her baggage and packages for some miles, then she had to drive slowly. What an atrocious road! And she with a crowd of guests due in less than two weeks! How would three truckloads of purchases ever safely negotiate that trail for steers and cowboys? Did her father have that same old loafing bunch of vaqueros? She would hire a gang of Mexicans to make a decent road out of it pronto. It took Madge three quarters of an hour to drive from the culvert to the summit of the slope — approximately fifteen miles.

Madge, surmounting the slope, abruptly to face the vast purple valley, with its arresting black knoll topped by the gray mansion which was her home, and the grand uplifting range beyond, stopped the car to gaze as one in transport. How astoundingly familiar! She had only to see to realize that all these blue distances and splendid landmarks were veritably a part of herself. But absence and life too full for memory had come between them, and her thought and her love, now suddenly leaping to vivid and poignant life again. The morning was still fresh; shadows still lingered under the ridges; every wash and rock shone white; the waves of sage rolled on and on, in an endless sea, dotted with cattle; the league-long slope up to the knoll had a beautiful sweep; and there peeping out of the black pines, lonely and superb, stood the mansion of the old Dons. As a fitting background the mountains loomed impressively, white-slided and black-canyoned, upflung in rock battlements to the blue sky.

“Oh, darling, darling home!” cried Madge, in rapture and reproach. “I have been faithless. But I have come back. For good! Forever, to you — to my home — to the love and life I shall find here!”

The moment of exaltation was difficult for Madge, inasmuch as she had a vague realization that she was not big enough, not good enough for this noble country, nor for the devoted mother and father who awaited her coming. But she had a clear conception that if she were true to the emotion this magnificent scene had aroused in her heart, she would grow far toward being worthy of it. That thought persisted helpfully, too strong even for her misgivings.

She drove on. The descent into the valley afforded swifter travel. She had left rocks and ruts behind. Soon she was down to a level, on a white road, six inches deep in dust; and here she cut loose again with a shriek of joy, to shoot ahead of the yellow clouds that puffed up from the wheels. The wash in the center was sand and she hit that at a fifty-mile clip, to veer and leap and plunge, the wheel lurching under her strong grip, and roar safely across to another strip of dust. Beyond that the long slope of yellow road was like a country lane, with its two narrow wheel strips, its weedy center, its hard ground. Madge hummed up that, out of the grass and sage, into the pines, and on up the shaded brown-matted aisle to the green oval before the stately mansion.

And on the porch, telescope in hand, her eyes deeply dark with joy stood her mother. Madge pressed the brake so forcibly that the great car, answering with a grinding scream on gravel, stopped so suddenly that she and the bags had a violent jerk. Madge threw off gloves, goggles, hat all in one swift action, and leaping out she ran up the steps into her mother’s arms.

* * * * *

They were inside, in the living room, and Madge, wiping her eyes was saying: “Fancy me being such a baby! But somehow it’s different this time. Coming home!... Let me look at you, Mom darling... . Oh, the same lovely patrician mother! — But, darling, you have some gray in this beautiful hair — and a few lines I never saw before. But you’re more perfect than ever!”

“Madge! How you rave!” exclaimed her mother, her voice low. “But it’s worth a great deal to have you home — and hear you talk like that.... I hope it’s not all — let me say, remorse.”

“Mom!... Come, let’s not stand all day. My legs are weak.... I’ll sit on the arm of your chair.... There,” and Madge slipped her arm around her mother and drew the handsome head to her shoulder. “I’m the little girl who has courage to confess — but who would rather not face her mother’s loving eyes.... Let me get it over, darling.... You had my letters — my telegrams?”

“Yes, child.”

“Well?”

“I understand, Madge. You need not tell me anything. I went to college once. And all these years you’ve been away — these hard and changing years — I’ve tried to keep abreast of the times, even if it was only through newspapers and magazines and books. Most of all, your letters have told me. I know what has gone on, what has come to pass, even if I have trouble grasping it.”

“Mom, I knew you’d say that,” replied Madge, earnestly. “But I doubt, Mother darling, that with all your intelligence and wisdom you could realize what has actually happened to us, to my generation. Somehow I can’t get it. Yet they call me brainy, Mom. You’ll get some firsthand information soon. My crowd of sorority sisters and student friends will be here to spend the summer. They are normal, as young people go today. They are all radical. But I’ll let you judge them for yourself. ... My self, Mom, this contrite daughter returned to you, is an enigma to herself.... I hate restraint. I won’t be told what I should or should not do. I have no idea what I want, except that I want something terribly. I read trash where once I read poetry, history, fiction. I’ve read Freud and he’s all wet. My favorite authors at present are Cabell and the best detective writers, wide apart as the poles. Most grownups give me a pain in the neck. But you don’t, Mom! I am scared of Dad, though as a girl I worshiped him. He was my hero, my El Capitan, as he was yours. But will he get me — my crowd?... In my freshman year I went a little haywire — drinking, dancing, petting, smoking — all, Mom, except I didn’t go the limit. I tell you that, a little ashamed, as if I were an old-fashioned virgin. But college girls, except some who are fools, work out of that worst mess in their upper-classman years. Still the pace is swift, Mom, in education, achievement, in a social way, in the modern thing.... For young people that modern thing seems to be to break all the laws — speed laws, booze laws! There is no such thing as modesty, as I remember you taught it to me. Pagans, I fear! I haven’t opened a Bible since my religion course during my sophomore year. Lastly, Mom, don’t think that all co-eds fall under this category. There are loads and loads of girls besides. Only my crowd, and the other sorority crowds — they get by the college courses somehow, though a few like me gain class honors and high scholarships — only for these the aim and end of existence are cocktails, dances, clothes, cars and men.... There, Mom, darling, that’s all. Will I dare tell Dad — and will he understand?”

“My dear,” replied her mother, quietly, after a moment fraught with suspense for Madge, “I don’t think you should tell your father — all that.... And there — his step in the patio!”

Her father entered, sending Madge’s blood rushing back to her heart, still the stalking giant with the piercing eyes she remembered, yet somehow indefinably changed. Was it the white over his temples — the hollow cheeks and lean jaw? Then followed the greeting, the embrace, which made Madge mistress of that errant and incredible weakness, leaving only the resurgence of her girlish love for her ideal of all men. During the disposal of her luggage in her rooms, so thrillingly the same, and the luncheon afterward, Madge babbled on and on, listening but little, far removed from the honest girl she had been to her mother. She divined that she thirsted for something from her father — something she knew she had, beautifully and everlastingly, from her mother. But here was a Westerner, one of the old school, that daredevil El Capitan of the Revolution, the cowboy who had killed men! He had worshiped her mother, but would his love for his little girl survive all that the years and changes had made her?

* * * * *

After luncheon Madge leisurely unpacked her numerous bags and suitcases, stopping dreamily at intervals, or finding some excuse to go to her mother. During all this while the desire to see Nels and her horses grew stronger, until at length it was too demanding to resist. It need not have been anything to resist, if she had been able to put aside the strong desire to change to riding garb, and vault upon Cedar once more. Nels surely would not have liked her in these new English riding breeches, so tight and leggy, and that first day home she could not don overalls and boots. Wherefore at length she went down the old back road, now an overgrown trail, to gray ruin of ranch buildings and corrals.

Nels was her second father. He had taught her to ride, to shoot, to rope — all the tricks of the range. He had told her the terrible stories about her famous father, and that lovely and appalling romance of her mother and all about ranch and cowboy life, even before she was old enough to understand.

Meeting Nels proved to mean more, to be a deeper experience, than even her memories had anticipated. The change in him was not indefinable. Madge felt the warm blood recede from her cheeks. The years had told on Nels.

Not until she sat with him on the top bar of the corral fence to see her horses did the zest and stir of home-coming return. What a glossy, long-maned, plume-tailed, racy and thoroughbred troop of horses! Cedar, gray as the cedars for which he was named, pranced before her, soft-eyed, whinnying, high-stepping and sensitive, knowing her yet not sure. And Range, the long rangy sorrel, red as fire in the rays of the setting sun; and Bellefontaine, that dainty proud little mare, sure of Madge, poking her nose up for sugar; and Blackboy, like shining coal in his well-groomed hide, and Sultan, the roan, and Dervish and Arab, twin whites, as perfect as the movie horses, but not so tame, and Leatherstocking, a range cow horse, loved despite his plebeian blood, and Pinto, a mustang — all her own, and the corral full of shaggy jealous horses and colts, snorting and kicking — all of them brought home to Madge the stinging truth of her return.

But it was when she walked up the lane with Nels to encounter a Mexican lad leading a black horse that Madge’s emotion flooded to a bursting pitch. A strange horse, a grand horse, dusty and lame, bearing a cowboy’s accouterments, in one inconceivable flash, added a bitter drop to the sweet cup which she had just tasted. Screeching to Nels, importuning the lad, this got Madge nowhere. Full tilt then she ran around the corner of the store, straight into the arms of a clanking cowboy, gorgeously arrayed — a strangely familiar cowboy whose face went white and then a dusky red.

As if by magic Madge confronted her campus champion, and under this last straw her burdened feelings burst in glad amaze and gay delight, to a welcome she did not consider and a kiss she could not recall.

Could she have paid him a more flattering compliment for his cleverness in contriving to be there at her own home? In the following exchange of words, in this cowboy’s well-simulated protest and confusion, Madge experienced a reaction which inwardly she divined was something more, something deeply and inexplicably glad. And that, at his denial, submerged this sweet self. What was the matter with the fool? To be sure there stood her dad, his piercing eyes hard to meet, and his slight amused smile disconcerting. But even so, Madge argued to her ruffled vanity, her welcome, her kiss should have inspired him to confront half a dozen fathers and confess his duplicity.

It was the horse Umpqua that saved the embarrassing situation for the moment, and which precipitated a really serious one. Madge left them, furious with the cowboy. She spied upon the group below from the covert of pines, curious even in her anger to see what Sidway would do. There was no doubt about the sincerity of his purpose, when he went to his horse. He meant to ride away. And would have done so but for her father and Nels. “Can’t he take it, the big handsome stiff?” muttered Madge, in her angry surprise. “What’d he beat me here for if not to make a hit with me? It did!... And — I was hit before.... Oh, the dumbbell! To spoil it all!... Now I’ll have to jolly him along and play with him to get that horse — when I really liked him... how much? ... Am I burned up?”

By the time Madge had told the story, with reservations as to her own uncertain feelings, to her mother, her resentment had gone into eclipse. She could not bear ill will. And she had developed a merciless truth about herself.

“What is young Sidway like?” asked her mother, presently.

“Oh, swell!”

“That is rather an ambiguous term these days.”

“Mom, I’d hate to spoil a pleasant surprise for you. Also I’d like to get your reaction to Sidway before I tell you mine. I may be — I must have been all wet, if you get what I mean.”

“I don’t, my dearest,” replied her mother, with a bewildered smile. “But I’m sure you like him.”

“Not on your life! — I did, yes.... The dirty look he gave me — what he said!... Such things just aren’t done to me.”

Madge leisurely changed for dinner, and after catching herself approving of the white image in the long mirror, she had the grace to be ponderingly amused at that part of her thought which conceived a possibility of Sidway seeing her thus. No telling where that Hollywood extra might bob up! She arrived late in the dining room, yet in time to hear her father say: “He’d have gone, too, Madeline, if Nels and I hadn’t believed him when he swore he didn’t come here on account of Madge.”

“Well, Dad Stewart!” declared Madge, in mock solemnity. “So that cowboy put it over?”

“Daughter! You look like your mother — the first time I ever saw her in white!”

“Oh, thank you, Dad! Then I must look just stunning.”

“You do.... Madge, young Sidway didn’t put it over. He told the truth. Nels believed him. So did I. He hadn’t the remotest idea that my daughter, the girl Ren Starr told him about, was you — the girl he’d actually met and befriended.”

“Dad, he’s a liar. I wouldn’t believe that on a bet,” declared Madge.

“I’ll bet you find it out and you’ll be sorry.”

“Preposterous! So he put up a big bluff to you and Nels?... Dad, that cowboy is right up to date. He knows his stuff.... What I can’t get is why he was ashamed of his clever stunt?”

“Madge, it’s conceivable that he seemed ashamed because of his innocence when all of you believed in his deceit,” observed her mother.

“Oh, my adorable parents! What you must learn about us! Mr. Sidway’s ears must be burning. Let’s forget him.”

Nevertheless, despite her suggestion, Madge had no slight difficulty in conforming to it. She succeeded presently by launching into an account of what she wanted done to the road, and the patio, and the long-deserted rooms in the west wing, and about more servants from the Mexican village — all in the interest of her guests who were to arrive on the twentieth. She was indeed not disappointed in her anticipation that both of her parents seemed heartily interested in her summer party, with no wish but to contribute in every way to its success. If they appeared a little bewildered several times during the discussion, and at a loss for words, Madge put that down to her elaborate and extravagant plans.

They stayed up late, at least for them, and when Madge bade them good night, she went to her rooms thinking how perfectly splendid they were, and that she was happy, and the most fortunate girl in the world.

Next morning she satisfied a craving that had long beset her — that of getting into the saddle again. To find Range gone gave quick rise to her temper, which strangely did not greatly fall when her father explained that the cowboy had merely obeyed orders. She had resolutely to keep her eyes off Umpqua or she would have yielded to riding him again, which pride bade her forego.

That afternoon Madge found great enjoyment in driving her father high up the old road, to an elevation that permitted their gazing down upon the ranch and the house, and the flowing sage flats with their speckled knots of cattle. While her father puttered around the boxed-in spring and repaired the outlet, Madge sat at ease, lulled by the heights and the depths of this wide-spreading land.

“No wonder the lake and reservoir went almost dry,” said her father, when he came back to the car. “Two thirds of the water leaking away.”

“Oh, I forgot to look at the lake. Will it be full again by the time my friends arrive? We’ll want to go in bathing. Dad, is there any sand near enough to haul?”

“Sand. The wash down below is all sand. Fine and white, too.”

“Swell! I’ll want a nice sandy beach for us to lie around on in the sun.”

“That’s an easy one, Madge.”

The end of a perfect day just had to have a drawback. When Madge caught sight of Lance Sidway leaning over the gate, apparently deeply interested in Bonita Mains, she fell victim to a most disconcerting irritation. The cowboy, as she drove up to a halt, did not noticeably move, until Bonita blushingly drew back, to come out of the gate. Then he stared at Madge, rather satirically she thought. Was there not a single man in the whole vast earth who did not fall for every pretty girl he saw, regardless of her color? It had not taken Lance Sidway long to contact the little half-breed coquette of the range. Madge chalked up another mark against the cowboy.

The succeeding moments, outside of Danny Mains’ kindly welcome — Madge did not take Bonita’s to heart — should have bored Madge, if she had been running true to form. But she was off her stride and she knew the reason, and therefore looked at that reason with rather scornful eyes. Her mental alertness quickened, however, when Ren Starr’s car was sighted, and Bonita precipitately fled.

The stab Sidway had given Madge, along with the look he gave her, silenced Madge, and gave rein to whirling thoughts that refused to recognize her wrath. She nursed it, yet succumbed to curiosity, and got out of the car to listen to the short talk of the men. Rustlers! Verily her home-coming had not been dull. Then the men fell back from Starr’s car, Sidway to leap astride Range and gallop off, Mains to run into his house, and her father to get in with her, his fine face stern and dark, somehow recalling her fear of him when she was a little girl.

“Step on it, Madge.”

“Oh, Dad! What is it? I heard some of your talk. Trucks! Rustlers!”

“You bet you did.... Madge, these boys have made me feel like my old self. Sidway got a line on these cattle thieves. All in a day! Won’t Nels jump at that? Won’t he be pleased? And Starr ran out with news of a truck raid on our cattle tonight.”

“Truck raid! Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“Sidway got it, just like that. Keen as a whip, that cowboy. And Starr’s a running pard for him.... Madge, I have a hunch things will look up for us this summer.”

“Darling, are you telling me?... What will you do?”

“I must tell Nels first.”

“That old — ranger! Oh, Dad, he’ll be for guns! horses! ropes!”

“You bet. Madge, before the night is over we’ll hang some of these truck drivers and cattle-raiding greasers.”

“I want to go!”

“Nonsense, child. You might get hurt.... Let me out here. I won’t be up for supper. Tell Mother.”

Naturally Madge expected her mother to be greatly perturbed, but was agreeably surprised.

“This will wake up your father and Nels, too,” rejoined her mother, with satisfaction.

“But, Mom!... Dad swore they’d hang some of them. They will have to catch them first. Oh, wouldn’t I like to go?... It means a fight. Crooks these days use machine guns. Dad might be hurt.... And Sidway. He’s a reckless devil.”

“Madge, your father and Nels and Danny Mains will be a match for all the crooks in the Southwest. Don’t worry about them. Rustlers will give them just the impetus they need. And cattle raising will probably be the better for it.”

Nevertheless Madge did worry. She read and worried and waited until long after her mother had retired. Then when she did go to bed she could not sleep. She listened. But there were no sounds except the lonesome chirping of crickets and the murmuring of running water. This Lance Sidway had certainly injected some vim and vigor into the dead old ranch. His fine eyes, shadowed, troubled, and then blazing with scorn, haunted her as did that taunt about gangsters. She hated him, but she deserved it. Her conscience wrung that from her. Indeed he had kept the rendezvous that day, and bad luck have it! he had seen Uhl meet her, get into her car. And being Hollywood-wise he had caught the cut of that gentleman all in a few minutes. Not this fact, but his scorn was what galled Madge. Still if he had been so burned up by her friendship with an underworld character, why had he learned her name, where she lived, and conceived the brilliant idea of meeting her at her own home? The answer was that no matter whom she knew, what she had done, he must have conceived more than a mere interest in her. But was that the answer? Madge conceived the idea that there was a remote possibility it was not.

CHAPTER VI

LANCE STOOD BACK in the shadow of Nels’ cabin, a little abashed at his agitation, as he compared it to the coolness of these Arizonians. He did not want them to see that he was an unfledged cowboy, so far as rustlers were concerned.

“Wal, I reckon you fellers better have a smack of grub an’ a cup of coffee with me,” Nels drawled, as Stewart ended his brief story.

“Reckon I hed, at thet,” rejoined Mains. “My two Bonitas would be too interested in thet confab we hed by the house.”

“We’ll all sponge on you, Nels,” said Stewart. “Pitch in, fellows.”

“All set ‘cept fryin’ some more ham. You cut it, Danny. ... Whar’s Sidway? Come heah, cowboy.... Gene, this truck rustlin’ is shore two-bit stuff. Kinda oot of our experience. Let’s get the cowboy’s angle on it.”

“Suits me.”

“Sidway, you oughta be up on this automobile cattle stealin’. What’ll we do?”

“We’ll intercept this raid, of course,” replied Lance, realizing that he was on the spot and forcing a calm and serious front when inwardly he was quaking. It reassured him that his wide sombrero hid his face.

“Hev a slice of ham. I can cook, cowboy.... Wal, how’d you intercept it?”

“I’d like Starr in on this with me,” replied Sidway.

“By all means. You young bloods put your heads together,” said Stewart.

“I’m with you, pard, an’ I’ve got some ideas,” returned Starr, nonchalantly. “But I cain’t talk an’ eat.”

Lance thought with all his might. It was a situation in which he wanted to make good. But the fact that these old cattlemen, who had fought rustlers and Mexicans for over a score of years, put the responsibility up to him and Starr seemed more stultifying than inspiring.

“Starr, what hour of the night will that highway be most free of traffic?” asked Lance.

“About three in the mawnin’ thar’s a quiet spell. Sometimes fer two hours not a darn car goes by.”

“That will be the time the thieves will load,” concluded Lance.

“I agree. And even then it’s pretty risky. Old-time rustlers wouldn’t be that brazen,” said Stewart.

“Boss, we gotta deal with a new breed of criminal,” added Starr.

“Like as not the drivers of these trucks won’t be regular range characters. These men will be city crooks, stealing cattle as a blind. They are gangsters. Probably hop-heads.”

Stewart’s leonine head swept up and he transfixed Lance with penetrating eyes.

“Cowboy, I heard you use that word hop-head less than an hour ago?” he queried, sharply.

“Yes sir... You — you may have,” replied Lance, startled. But despite his qualm he kept his head. “I can explain it.”

“Very well. Go on. What’s a hop-head?”

“It’s the name underworld characters give to men addicted to opium or heroin. They smoke or eat opium. Heroin they mostly inhale by smelling from the back of their hands. It’s a powder.”

“Wal, the hell you say, cowboy?” ejaculated Nels. “Them hop-heads must be kinda tough nuts, eh?”

“Brutal killers. No mercy! No respect for law. Rats, the police call them.”

“Boss, they’ll shoot if they’re cornered, an’ if they have machine guns, it’ll jest be too bad,” interposed Starr.

“They must be ambushed, or at least surprised,” went on Lance. “They’ll be waiting or driving along slow at the place nearest the highway — most convenient to pick up the cattle.”

“Thet’s less than forty miles from where we’re talkin’,” said Starr. “I spotted the blackest bunch of cattle on my way oot. I can drive fairly close. We’d hev to walk the rest of the way.”

“I was going to suggest that,” resumed Lance. “But not to drive too close. These raiders, whose job it is to round up the cattle, could hear a car.... They will be mounted — acquainted with the range — probably living on it.”

“In cahoots with the truck drivers. Pard. You said a mouthful.”

“Reckon he did thet same little thing,” observed Mains, in dry subtlety.

“Wal, Gene, the kids ain’t so pore,” said Nels. “If yore through eatin’ an’ talkin’ let’s go. When we git down thar on the flat we can figger the rest.”

“What’s the hurry, Nels?” asked Stewart.

“Wal, I ain’t trustin’ them hop-haids to wait till mawnin’. Why, I reckon they’d jest as lief rob us in broad daylight.”

Soon after that the five men, armed to the teeth, passed down the road in Starr’s car, driving without lights. They had reached the village, passed the main street, when approaching Mains’ house, Sidway’s keen eyes, accustomed to the dark, espied two mounted riders close to the fence.

“Hold it, Ren,” he whispered.... “There!... Down the walk past Mains’ house. Two horsemen!... They’re moving.”

“My gosh, I see them,” replied Starr. “Gone now. Listen. ... Heah them hoofs? Good fast trot.”

“Boys,” interposed Mains, “it ain’t nothin’ to see hawsemen around heah. They ride up bold as hell an’ then again they sneak up like Injuns. Bonita’s the reason.”

Lance bit his tongue to keep from bursting out with the news that he had seen Bonita’s dark form glide across in front of a yellow-lighted window. To his mind neither the riders nor the girl had moved without significance of secrecy. Lance resolved to make up to this pretty señorita for two reasons.

“Drive on, Ren,” said Stewart, presently.

Below the village some few hundred yards Starr steered off the road down the slope. In the dark he had to go very slowly, a procedure difficult to accomplish on account of the grade. A vast dim emptiness stretched away under the stars. Far down, double pin points of light, moving along, attested to the presence of a car on the highway. Lance asked Stewart how long that road had encroached upon his range.

“Six or seven years, if I remember. Used to bother old-timers. But that feeling has gone into the discard with the cattle business.”

“It’ll pick up again and be better than ever,” declared Lance.

“Ren, stop every little way, so we can listen.”

It was a silent night, not yet cooled off from the day’s heat. The rustle of sage and the low hum of insects accentuated the silence. Stars were growing brighter in the darkening blue. Gradually the men ceased talking. Once down on the flat Starr had easier driving. Presently he ran out of the sage into the wash where on the sand and gravel the going was smoother and almost noiseless. Starr must have halted a dozen times at Nels’ order and the five had listened intently before Lance heard cattle bawling.

“Reckon we’ve come fur enough. What say, Gene?” queried Nels. “Let’s pile oot.”

“I think I know about where we are,” said Gene, peering about in the gloom. “Still pretty far from the road, that is, where this wash goes under. But the road curves in to the west.”

“Cattle all aboot,” observed Nels. “An’ they ain’t skeered, thet’s shore. Let’s mosey on till we heah somethin’.”

Guardedly and slow, with senses alert, the men zigzagged through the sage, working southwest. Grazing and resting cattle grew more numerous. After what Lance believed was several miles’ travel Nels halted them near a rocky mound.

“Fur enough, till we heah or see somethin’. You cowboys climb up thar.”

The eminence appeared to be rather long and higher toward the west. Lance signed to Ren that he would climb the far point. He did not, however, get to do it, for a hist from Starr called him back. Lance joined Nels and Stewart who stood under Starr.

“... Aboot a mile from the highway,” Ren was saying, in guarded voice. “Three big double lights comin’ from Bolton. Trucks. They’re close together. Movin’ slow.”

“How do you know they’re trucks?” asked Stewart.

“Cars an’ lamps an’ such hev been my job fer a year an’ more, Boss. These belong to trucks, an’ you bet the ones we’re expectin’. Jest creepin’ along. An’ thet’s a level road.”

“How fur away?” queried Nels.

“Cain’t say. Mebbe three miles, mebbe six.”

“Nels, down along here about even with where we are now there are several benches that run close to the road and break off in banks. It would be a simple matter for trucks to be backed up against these banks and loaded. In some places you wouldn’t even need a platform. And my cattle are tame.”

“Wal, we’re some sucker cattlemen,” drawled Nels, and sat down with his back to the bank. “Set down an’ let’s wait fer Starr to find oot somethin’. Sidway, you got sharp ears. Go off a ways an’ listen. It’s a still night. Listen fer cattle thet air disturbed.”

Lance did as he was bidden, conscious of growing excitement. These ranchmen evidently gave him credit for more and wilder experience than he had had. He felt that he must rise to the occasion. Presently there would be some sharp and critical work for all of them and he nerved himself to cool hard purpose. From time to time he heard Starr’s low voice.

It was some time, however, fraught with suspense, before Lance’s range-trained ear caught the faint trample of hoofs and occasional bawl of cattle. Whereupon he ran back to report.

“Good!” declared Stewart. “How about you, Starr?”

“I reckon I heahed but wasn’t shore. I am now. Not so all-fired far, either.... Boss, jest wait, I’m watchin’ them trucks.”

Starr did not speak again, and the others listened intently. The faint sounds of moving cattle augmented. Presently the cowboy whispered sharply: “Boss, the trucks hev stopped — jest a little to the right of us.... Lights go out!... No, by damn — the trucks air turnin’... backin’ off the road this way, or I’m a born fool.”

“Wal, look like it’s all set,” said Nels, getting up. Stewart followed his example.

“Them rays of light flash across the highway,” went on Starr.

“‘Pear to be linin’ up.... Fust lights gone out!...”

“Come down, Ren. We’ll be moseyin’ along.... Danny, you come with us. Gene, you go with Sidway. Work straight down to the road an’ foller along it. We’ll aim to slip up behind the hombres who’re doin’ the rustlin’.”

In another moment Lance was gliding cautiously along at Stewart’s heels. They progressed fifty steps or more when Stewart halted to listen.

“But Nels didn’t say what to do!” whispered Lance.

“It’s a cinch we’ll break up the raid. But our object is to capture at least one each of the riders and drivers.”

Lance silenced his misgivings and conjectures, and transferring his rifle to his left hand he drew his gun. Stewart, he had observed, packed two guns, and Lance thrilled at the way he wore them. So different from the movie bad men! They stole along slowly, avoiding the larger sagebrush, careful not to scare cattle, listening at intervals. The hum of a motorcar off to the east distracted Lance’s attention from the now audible moving herd. Presently he saw the lights and he and the rancher watched them grow and pass not far below, and go on out of sight. That car was making fast time. No doubt it did not see the trucks. Soon Lance followed Stewart out of the sage upon the highway, black and glistening under the stars.

“We’re farther this way than we thought,” whispered Stewart. “That bunch of cattle are down to the road.... Hear that?... We’ve got to hand it to these truck rustlers for nerve. Right on the highway! Not leary of noise.”

“To hell with the ranchers, eh?” replied Lance, with a little husky laugh. He felt the heat throb in his pulsing veins.

“They wouldn’t put a guard out, as the old rustlers used to.... Let’s hurry along.”

Stewart strode so swiftly that Lance could not hear anything while they were moving. But presently they halted; the trample of hoofs and bawl of cattle became plainly audible. On the third halt Lance distinctly heard the thump of hoofs upon a board floor.

“ —— !” swore Stewart. “Loading already! Won’t that make Nels snort? It should be getting hot over there. But Nels would move slow.”

After another hundred steps or so Stewart led off the highway into the sage. Lance divined that the rancher wanted cover to drop behind in case the truckmen flashed their lights. Nevertheless it was not long before Stewart went down on all fours to crawl. This was tremendously exciting to Lance. The thump of solid hoofs on wood drowned all the other sounds except an occasional snort or bawl. The cattle were being moved with amazing celerity and little noise.

“Beats me,” muttered Stewart, then crawled on. They had scarcely gotten even with a point opposite, where a high black bulk loomed up squarely above the horizon and marked the position of the trucks, when huge glaring lights gleamed out of the darkness. Lance flattened himself beside Stewart. A low fringe of sage on their right saved them from detection. But Lance’s throat contracted. A harsh low voice, a sudden bursting of an engine, into whirring roar, a grind of wheels left no doubt that a truck was starting. It moved quickly down to the road, and turned so that the lights swerved to the right, leaving the men in darkness. Then the truck stopped and the driver called. Stewart jerked Lance to his feet, whispering: “We’ve got to move. Careful now. Keep your head.”

His voice, his presence stirred Lance as nothing else had ever done. Stewart ran along the sage and up on the road to the truck. Lance, sharp-eyed and tense, kept at his heels. The engine was purring. Reaching the front of the car Stewart jerked open the door and commanded: “Hands up!”

Lance over Stewart’s shoulder saw the big gun go prodding into the driver’s side. “Agg-h!” he ejaculated, and lifted his hands off the wheel.

A quick grating footstep on the other side of the car caused Lance to crouch. A man came swiftly round the front.

“Beat it, Bill — we’re held up!” rasped the driver.

But this man cursed and swept up his arm. Lance having him covered, had only to pull the trigger. His shot preceded the others only by an instant. Lance saw his action violently break, his gun burst red. A crash of bursting glass, a thud of bullets preceded Stewart’s staggering away from the truck to fall. The driver, with hoarse bellows of alarm, shoved his power on so quickly that the cattle in the truck banged against the gate. Then the truck roared down the road.

The horror that gripped Lance at Stewart’s fall nearly overcame him for a moment. Then strident yells, the flashing of lights and roaring of engines added to his fighting fury. Nimbly he leaped beyond the broad flares. And as the second truck whizzed down upon the road he emptied his gun at the front of the first one. The splintering crash of glass, the lurching of the car, the loud yells told that his bullets did some execution. Both trucks gained the road. As they roared on shots rang out from the bank. Then Lance, resorting to his rifle, aimed above the red rear light of the last truck, and sent ten shots after it. Lowering the hot rifle he stood a moment, shaking, wet with cold sweat, realizing all shots had ceased. He caught a clatter of rapid hoofs, the crowding of cattle, then a ringing voice:

“Hey, over there,” called Nels. “What’n hell was yore hurry?”

“Nels! Come — quick! Stewart’s...” yelled Lance hoarsely.

“Keep your shirt on, cowboy,” intercepted the cool voice of Stewart. Then Lance saw his tall dark form against the lighter gloom.

“Oh — Ste — wart. I was afraid,” gasped Lance.

“Hello. Where are you, fellers?” shouted Danny Mains, and then followed Starr’s cheery voice. “Busted, by thunder!”

“Here,” called Stewart. Presently the three loomed on the road.

“Gene, you let ‘um git away,” protested Nels, hopping mad.

“Trucks vamoosed in spite of us. How about the riders?”

“Wal, we was creepin’ up behind, all set, when you opened up the ball.”

“Did you identify any of them?”

“Hell, we didn’t even see them. Slick an’ fast ootfit, Gene. Makes me more curious.”

“I ain’t so damn curious as I was,” growled Danny Mains, enigmatically.

“Pard, you shore done a lot of shootin’,” declared Starr, peering into Lance’s face.

“Here’s what happened,” explained Stewart. “Sidway and I got here just as that loaded truck came off the sage. When it turned on the road, we jumped and ran. It stopped. I opened the door and stuck my right gun in the driver’s ribs. He yelled in spite of that. Then his pardner came running. Bill, the driver called him. Bill sure saw me. For he came up with a gun. I threw my left on him but it struck the car door, low down. Sidway shot this fellow — broke his aim — or sure as God made little apples he’d have killed me. At that he hit me. His bullet knocked me flat.”

“Gene! You shot? Whar? Not a body hit?” exclaimed Nels.

There was a moment’s silence, during which the cold began to creep into Lance’s marrow.

“Don’t know where,” returned Stewart, calmly, as he felt of his body and shoulders. “I’m bleeding. Busted glass cut me. That hombre saw my body outside the door and believe me he threw his gun on it. But Sidway’s shot knocked him off. Maybe the bullet didn’t hit me at all. Maybe it did, because I’m bleeding all over my face and head.”

“Aw, then it cain’t be serious,” declared Nels, with relief. “An’ Sidway hit this hombre?”

“Bored him plumb center,” replied Stewart, grimly. “He stood just inside the light. I saw him drop like a sack. He’s lying here somewhere.”

Starr produced a flashlight and with the two men began searching the immediate space, while Lance fought the strangest, most sickening sensation of his life.

“Heah!... Daid, I’ll tell the world!” rang out Starr. “Lousy-lookin’ little bastard! One of them hop-haids.”

“Search him, Ren, and drag him off the road.... Sidway, you’re too damn good a shot. Dead men tell no tales.”

“Wal, if you ask me, our new cowboy is a man after my kind. Gene, don’t call him fer shootin’ fast an’ straight.”

“I was kidding. But at that I wish Sidway had only crippled him... . What’d he have on him, Ren?”

“Automatic tight in his mitt.... Watch. Knife. Cigarettes.... An’ this wad of long green. Fellers, will you look at thet! A hundred dollar bill on the ootside!”

Lance gradually dragged himself closer to the trio, and discerned Starr on his knees beside the dead man, a slack spare figure, terribly suggestive, showing in the flashlight a crooked visage, ghastly in hue and contortion.

“Wal, you lousy hop-haid,” broke out Starr, in genial levity, “bumped up agin the wrong hombre, didn’t you?... Lay hold, Danny, an’ help me haul him over heah.”

The cold grip on Lance’s internals slowly lessened; and he helped it pass by a desperate effort to conceal what he felt to be his squeamishness before these ranchers. He thought he could get by in the dark.

“Sidway must have stung more than this hombre,” Stewart was saying to Nels. “He shot the front glasses out of both cars. And he sure cut loose with his rifle as they drove away. I heard the bullets hit that last truck.”

“Wal, thanks to him, it didn’t turn oot so pore. Mebbe thet money will more than pay fer the cattle they rustled.”

“Boss, reckon I’ll hev to drive back to Bolton in the mawnin’ an’ report this execution to the sheriff,” said Starr, joining them.

“Yes. And I might have to see a doctor.”

“Lemme look.” Starr flashed his light upon the side of Stewart’s face which he turned for inspection. Lance saw with concern that the rancher was bloody enough to have been struck by a load of shot. The cowboy wiped the blood off, and peering closer he ran his fingers over Stewart’s cheek and temple and neck. “Hell! You ain’t been shot atall, Boss. Jest a blast of glass, I reckon.... Leastways I cain’t find any bullet hole.... Gosh, I’m glad them glass bits missed yore eye.”

“Feel here — back of my ear.”

“Ah-ha! — Shore, he creased you thar.... Hot as fire, huh. Thet was made by a bullet, Boss.”

“A miss is as good as a mile.... Sidway, I owe you something.”

“Oh, no! — He — he just missed you. I was too — too slow,” replied Lance, thickly.

“I’ve been shot at before, boy. I saw him jerk and his gun spurt up. He’d have bored me.”

“How aboot moseyin’ along? Thet’s a long tramp fer a man who never trailed rustlers on foot,” said Nels, plaintively.

As they moved up the highway Starr dropped back to Lance’s side. He put a hand on the other’s arm. “Pard, you didn’t tell me you was some punkins with a gun.”

“I’m not.”

“Hey, you might josh me, but not these men. You pulled a fast one, Sid. An’ Gene Stewart seen you. Wait till I get a chanct to tell you some stories about Stewart an’ Nels. Hell, man, they’ve seen the wildest of western days. An’ Nels was a Texas ranger before he ever hit this country. If you know yore West! An’ Gene Stewart, or El Capitan as his handle was them days, was not only a tough cowboy but a real gunman.”

“Ren, I hope this night’s work will end the truck rustling,” said Lance, lamely.

“Wal, it might, if them hombres was ordinary cattle thieves. But who’n hell can figger these hop-haids. Anyway, pard, you’ve cinched yore job, believe you me. An’ I’m gonna ride with you.”

“That’ll be swell. I’m glad. We’ll get along fine, Ren.”

“Gosh! I jest happened to think!” ejaculated Starr, stopping in the middle of the highway to take a pull at Lance. “I’d give a heap to be in yore boots.”

“Why — what’s hurting? Don’t you think, usually?”

“Will you be sittin’ pretty with Majesty Stewart?... Fust stunt — right off — savin’ her dad’s life! Pard, she adores him. My Gawd, the luck of some gazabos!”

“Lord!... Starr, if you’re my pard don’t tell — her — please,” exclaimed Lance, his weakness making him prey to another emotion.

“Wal! — Why, shore, Sidway. I won’t tell her. But how about Gene? An’ thet gabby old Nels — Pard, if I was you I’d shore want her to know.”

“We’ve clashed, Ren. She misunderstood my coming here. Thinks I’m a liar. Laughed at me — when I denied it.... Vainest girl I ever met!”

“Hell! What of thet,” returned Ren, bluntly. “She’s also the loveliest, the sweetest, the finest an’ squarest. Get thet, buddy?”

“Yes, I get you — you dumbbell! I see if I’d speak my mind about this glorious creature, you’d sock me one.”

“Forget it, pard. You’re a little upset. I ain’t wonderin’ at thet. You reckoned Stewart was daid an’ seein’ him come back to life would excite anybody, outside the fight.”

Starr gave Sidway a friendly pat on the back and then let him alone. Presently they reached a culvert over the wash, and turning here, they followed the pale line of sand into the sage. The sand dragged at Sidway’s feet, but the exertion helped restore his equilibrium. The distance back to the car seemed interminable and proved how, on the way down, the excitement had made it short. They found the car at length and were soon bumping over the uneven ground. Starr had no incentive now to drive slowly and noiselessly. He certainly gave his passengers a rough trip back to the ranch.

Lance went to bed at once. For half an hour Nels and Mains, dressing Stewart’s wounds in the adjoining room, kept Lance awake, thinking one moment and going over the adventure the next. When quiet settled down, he soon fell asleep.

Upon awakening, Lance heard Starr and Nels talking while they got breakfast. Presently Starr pounded on the wall between, jarring the house. “Hey, Oregon, air you daid?”

“I’m up,” replied Lance.

“Wal, you’re quieter’n hell if you air. Waltz out. I gotta rustle to town pronto.”

“Ren, send for my baggage.”

“Shore, pard, an’ what else?”

“I’ll see.”

When Lance entered Nels’ bunkhouse to have breakfast he sensed such a great transformation in himself that he felt certain his friends would exclaim about it. But they did not notice any difference in him. During the meal they did not once mention the affair of last night. All in the day, for them, thought Lance! He essayed a cool and quiet demeanor which he meant to make permanent.

“Nels, what’ll I do today?” he asked.

“Dog-gone if I know, son,” drawled the other, scratching his gray head. “They’re all goin’ to town. Go wrangle yore hawse an’ I’ll ask Gene when he comes down.”

Umpqua had made the most of the huge grassy pasture. Lance found him in the extreme far corner, more than a mile from the corrals, and rode him bareback to the corrals. After rubbing him down and saddling and bridling him, Lance led him up the lane to the court. Stewart, his head swathed in white bandages, stood by Madge’s car talking to Starr. As Lance passed the open door of the store he heard Madge’s rich voice, breaking with a singular note, and it gave him a wild impulse to run. Starr hailed him, and then he and Stewart approached.

“Hope you’re okay, Boss,” said Lance, eagerly.

“Mornin’, Sidway. Reckon I feel like a nigger who had to have the buckshot picked out of him. Would you like to go to town with us?”

“Not on my own account, sir. Thanks. There’s a lot I can find to do here.” Lance said this at the same moment he heard Nels’ clinking slow step behind him and a lighter pace that stopped his heart. But he did not turn.

“Starr will come back soon,” went on the rancher. “It might be a good idea for you and him to fix up your quarters. Nels said they had gone to rack.”

“How about the cattle?” asked Lance.

“They have been left free to run the range, and as you saw, have worked low down. Danny and I will be driving a big herd to the railroad soon. Maybe next week. I’ll make that deal in town today. As for immediate jobs, I want you and Ren to repair the water flume and the telephone line pronto.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get started on them today.”

“Nels, did you make out your list of supplies?”

“Majesty writ it oot fer me.”

“Say, what have you been tellin’ that girl?” demanded Stewart.

“Me? Why, Gene, nothin’ atall,” drawled Nels, innocently.

“You old liar! Look at her!”

Lance wished to do this with an almost irresistible desire. But he sat down on the edge of the porch, dragging Starr with him, aware that the others had stepped into the store.

“Ren, you’ll not forget my baggage?”

“Shore, pard. Anythin’ else? Say how’s yore bunkhouse fixed up? I didn’t look.”

“It’s not fixed up at all,” replied Lance. “No mattress, no chair, no mirror, nothing to wash in or with. No towels. I’ve been using Nels’.”

“Wal, mine cain’t be no wuss...”

“Ren, buy what you need today,” said Madge Stewart, from behind them. She had not gone into the store at all. Manifestly she had heard their talk. “Whatever is this ranch coming to?”

“Aw, you heah, Miss Majesty. Good mawnin’,” replied Starr, with confusion, as he stood up to turn toward her. “About the ranch — wal, I’d say things was lookin’ up.”

“Lance Sidway!”

Arising stiffly, Lance wheeled to doff his sombrero and greet her in apparent composure. But the tone of her voice and then the look of her played havoc with all his resolves. At this juncture Stewart and Nels came out of the store.

“Nels, do you think I dare ride in with Madge?” quizzed Stewart.

“Wal, I’d jump at the chance.”

“You old traitor! Why, you never could be hired to ride in a car. Do you remember Link Stevens driving that big white car of Madeline’s?”

“My Gawd, do I? But I’ll bet Majesty would hev druv rings around Link.”

Madge was looking down upon Lance. The fairness of her face appeared enhanced by the scarlet upon her lips. In truth Lance saw that she was pale and that her eyes were unnaturally large, glowing, dilating, with a violet fire. Then she seemed to float down the steps and entwine her arm in Lance’s, and lift her lovely face to him, that in the action flushed a hue to match her lips and then went pearly white.

“You saved Dad’s life!”

Lance had prepared himself for he knew not what, though not for this close proximity, the tight pressure of her arm, the quivering feel of her. “Oh, no, Miss Stewart. Somebody has exaggerated.”

“Nels told me,” said Madge, intensely.

“I might have known,” went on Lance, trying to be cool and nonchalant. “Nels is swell, but you know he.... Starr told me what an old liar he is.”

“Heah!” yelped Starr. “Don’t you get me in bad. I never said thet...”

“Miss Stewart, please...” interposed Lance. “You mustn’t give me undue credit. I was there — and I’m glad — I made myself useful. I didn’t want to kill the man...”

“You killed him?” she cried, aghast. “Oh, Nels didn’t tell me that.”

Lance spread wide his hands to the watching men, as if to say “Now see what you’ve done.” But it was not the revelation that distracted him.

“So you’re bound to be our good angel!” she exclaimed, softly, and shook him gently.

“Really I — you... it was — it’s not so much.”

“Nothing! And you killed a robber who’d have murdered my father? I wonder what you’d consider very much.... Come away from these grinning apes, so I can thank you.”

She led him out to her car and still clung to his arm. “It’s impossible to thank you,” she went on, her voice breaking. “I can’t even try. But I’m unutterably grateful. I’ll do anything for you.”

“Thank you, Miss Stewart....”

“My friends call me Majesty,” she interrupted, sweetly.

“I — I appreciate your excitement and feeling. It’s kind of a tough spot for you. I hoped they wouldn’t tell you. But they did... and I won’t let you make too much of it.”

“Too much! Aren’t you glad?” she rejoined, incredulously.

“Glad? That I was there — with him? Good heavens! Of course, I am. Greatest kick I ever had!”

“Nels told me you were a bad hombre to meet in a fight. That you reminded him of an old pard, Nick Steele. But that you were different from the old-time bragging gunmen... modern, modest — a new kind to him, but dangerous, and just what my father needed — just what I needed...”

“Nels is a sentimental old jackass,” burst out Lance. If she would only let go of his arm, move her soft warm shoulder away from his!

“It bothers you,” she asserted, quickly. “We’ll skip it.... Come into town with us.”

“Is that an order?”

“Oh, no. Just a request.”

“Thanks, but I’ve plenty of work to do here.”

“I’ll say plenty.... Lance, I hated you yesterday.”

“Are you telling me? But really I’m sorry I was so rude.”

“I forgive you. Let’s be good friends now. You’re here, I’m here — and my friends are coming. You’ll like the girls. They’re peaches. Full of fun — and great sports. It will embarrass me if we are at odds.”

“How could that be? I’m only your father’s cowboy.”

“Don’t forget that I saw you first,” she taunted. “You’re my cowboy. They’ll all make a play for you, especially that red-headed Bu Allen. She’s a devil on the make. They’ll hear of your — about you — make you a hero. I want you to be good friends with me.”

“I will be, of course. A friend like Ren Starr,” qualified Lance.

“But I mean more than that. Ren is swell. Only he’s a hired hand.”

“So am I. I won’t forget my place.”

“Aren’t you being just a little snooty?” she inquired, subtly changing, and she released his arm.

“Aren’t you kidding me?”

“No,” she flashed, loftily.

“Then isn’t that your line?”

“I haven’t any line, Mr. Sidway.”

Lance felt utterly helpless in two conflicting ways — that he simply could not help rubbing the girl the wrong way, any more than he could resist her lovely person and insidious charm. He wanted her to hurry away so that he could think. In another moment she would see that his heart if not his will was prostrate at her feet.

“I’m afraid you had better fire me right here and now,” he said, glumly.

“Perhaps I had,” she returned, her purple eyes glowing upon him, as if visioning afar. “But Dad needs you. And he wouldn’t let you go.”

“I’d go anyhow. Just you fire me.”

“No. I’ll not do it.... Listen, big boy, you gave me some dirty digs. And I’ve been catty. It’s fifty-fifty. Here’s my hand for a new deal.”

“Miss Stewart — as Ren says — you’re one grand girl,” rejoined Lance, unsteadily. “It’s unconceivable that I could withhold my hand, if you offered yours. But I can’t forget so easily as you evidently do.”

“I see. You can’t take it?”

“Do you still believe I found out who you were — where you lived — and came out here to — to...” he queried, hotly, and ended, unable to finish.

“Why, certainly I do.”

“When I swear on my word of honor that I didn’t?” went on Lance, passionately.

“Yes,” she retorted, almost with like heat. “And I’d think more of you if you’d not lie about it. This word of honor stuff!... I thought it was a swell stunt. I was tickled pink. I’ll still think it grand of you if you’ll only stop bluffing. What more could you want?”

“I must seem ridiculous to you. But I’m neither a callow college youth nor a thickheaded gangster. I’d expect a girl to believe me. Else I couldn’t be her friend. You’re just kidding me. You’d play with me in front of your college crowd — and let me down afterwards. Why, you even have nerve enough to try to get my horse!”

“Yes I have, Lance Sidway,” she blazed at him. “I’ve nerve enough to get him, too, at any cost — unless you show yellow and ride away!”

Lance bowed and turned away toward the bunkhouses, forgetting the others and afraid to go to Umpqua. He heard her call to her father, and presently the sound of the cars wheeling away. In that moment of passion he divined if he approached Umpqua it would be to ride away from that ranch. And he flung himself upon his bunk to shut out the sunlight. Neither pride in himself nor loyalty to Stewart accounted for that victory over himself. The paralyzing and staggering truth was that he did not ride away because he could not bear to leave this beautiful and tormenting girl.

CHAPTER VII

EARLY AND LATE Sidway was out on the road job, overseeing the Mexican laborers, while Starr and Mains, with the vaqueros, repaired the telephone, and then drove upwards of six hundred head of cattle to the railroad.

No sooner was the road fit for heavy traffic when it appeared all the trucks in Bolton came along loaded to capacity with the crated furniture and bales and boxes that Madge Stewart had sent from Los Angeles. There were four small trucks and two large ones. The contents, Lance calculated, must have cost the girl thousands of dollars; and the sight of them aroused an unreasonable resentment in him. What business was it of his? Yet he could not help thinking of her all the day and half the night. That fact lay at the root of his intense dissatisfaction rather than her extravagance at such a hard period for her parents. Lance was determined that Madge must not know this. He was always fighting against an acceptance of her faults.

On Saturday afternoon of that busy week Lance was glad to see Starr drive up with Stewart and Mains in his car, and an empty truck behind.

The road job was finished, very much to Stewart’s satisfaction, and he paid off the Mexicans, and sent them back to town.

“Well, I reckon we’re ready for Madge’s outfit,” said Stewart, eyeing his cowboys.

“Who is, Boss?” queried Lance.

“Not me, neither,” added Starr, making a wry face. “All summer long! Gene, they’ll drive us nuts.... An’ shore one of them swell college sprats will cop my girl.”

“Oh, Bonita, you mean,” returned Lance, laconically, as he rested against the car. “Ren, I haven’t noticed — so much — that she is your property.”

“Sid, you double-crossin’ son-of-a-gun! I might have knowed it.”

“Swell kid!”

“Look heah, Sidway, hev you been after my daughter, too?” demanded Danny Mains.

“I’ve seen a good deal of her while you were away. I knew you didn’t approve of Ren.”

“Danny,” interposed Stewart, “cowboys are the same now as we were. Only a good deal better. I think Bonita is better off for friends like Starr and Sidway.”

“Wal, I reckon,” agreed Danny, dubiously. “On’y I’m afraid they might do some mischief to Bonita’s several vaquero beaus.”

“Mischief! Say, Danny, you ain’t got me figgered,” replied Ren, doggedly. “I love Bonita an’ hev asked her to marry me.”

“Ren — So that was it?” ejaculated Lance.

“So that was what?” queried Starr, suspiciously.

“I don’t want to embarrass you here, pard.”

“Ren, you’ll excuse my cantankerousness,” said Mains, simply. “I didn’t hev you figgered.”

“Starr, this here Oregon ladies’ man is not only stepping on your preserves, but he’s kidding you,” rejoined Stewart, with a laugh. “Hook her up and let’s go. Sidway, it’s a good job well done.... Oh, yes, I’ve a message for you by phone. Madge wants you up at the house to open boxes.”

“Boss! I’m a tired man,” expostulated Lance. “And Umpqua needs to be worked over. Up and down this dusty road for a week!”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed Starr, fiendishly.

“All right. I’ll tell Madge not tonight.”

Starr grinned knowingly at Lance and drove off. From where they had caught up with him it was only a short ride to the ranch. Yet it seemed a long and thoughtful one for Lance. It began to look as if Madge Stewart either meant to try him with odd stable-boy jobs or else she wanted him to be unable to avoid her, as he had tried so hard to do. The former made him furious and the latter made him weak.

By the time he had put Umpqua away it was dark, the store was closed, and bright light shone from Nels’ window and door. A drowsy breeze blew in from the range, moved down by the cooler air on high. Frogs were croaking in the lake. Lance washed his grimy hands and face before he went in.

“Jest in time, son. Come in an’ get it,” said Nels, cheerily.

“Pard, what say to a swim in the lake after supper? She’s bank full already,” suggested Starr.

“Okay by me. But, boy! that water is cold.”

“An’ you from Oregon!”

It turned out to be warmer water than Lance was used to at home, and he enjoyed the bath. On the way back he realized that Ren had something on his mind. Lance clapped him on the back.

“What’s on your chest, buddy?”

“It’s Bonita.”

“Say, Ren, I was surprised at what you admitted to Danny. I had no idea you were serious. I’m sorry, old man.”

“You like Bonita?”

“I’ll say. She’s some kid.”

“Pard, did you kiss and hug her?”

“Ren! Have a heart. Would you expect me to tell?”

“Wal, in my case, yes. You see, pard, I want you to help me win thet kid. I cain’t do it alone.”

“Okay. Yes I did — a little. But it was no cinch. And I liked her the better. She’s a charming girl, Ren. I honestly think she’d make a swell little wife. But there are a lot of guys who’re after her, and not all of them with your good intentions.”

“Some of them Mexican vaqueros.”

“Yes. But town fellows, too. And I’m suspicious of them. I’ve a hunch some of them might know something about that rustling.”

“My hunch, too. We’ll find out. An’ pard — listen! If you’ll help me with this black-eyed little girl I’ll shore play yore game with yore proud Majesty.”

“My God! — Ren, have you gone nutty?”

“Nope. I’m cool as a cucumber right this heah minnit.”

“But man! Me aspire to that...”

“Why, hell, yes. Pard, I seen her look at you thet day, an’ if she’s not stuck on you — mebbe unknowin’ to herself — then I am nutty an’ what hev you?”

“You are — Ren — you are,” replied Lance, frantically. “I’ll make that Bonita kid think you’re a prince. But, pard, forget your pipe dream about the other.”

“Faint heart never won fair lady,” returned Starr, lightly.

That night Lance had a dream of a cherub-faced cowboy leading him along flower-strewn trails to a bower where a goddess with golden hair awaited him with white arms extended. At breakfast he was silly enough to tell Ren and Nels about that dream.

“Dreams come true, sometimes,” declared Ren, stoutly. “Hey, Nels?”

“Shore they do. An’ this one of Lance’s has a pertickler bearin’ heah,” observed Nels, without glancing at Lance.

“Yeah? And how d’you figure that?” asked Lance, scornfully.

Nels and Ren both laughed and Lance’s face crimsoned. Luckily at that juncture a message came from Stewart requesting the cowboys to come up to the house, not dressed in their Sunday clothes.

“That means work. And it’s Sunday!” complained Lance, honestly and fearfully divided between bliss and panic.

“Aw, you know you’re piflicated,” replied Starr, cryptically.

“I am — sure, but what is piflicated?”

“Wal, as I remember from past mournful experiences, it’s a kinda prolapsus of the gizzard. Heart trouble, pard.”

Upon ascending to the ranch house the cowboys, with Nels accompanying them, found a busy and excited household. Front porch and part of the patio were packed with crates, bales, boxes, trunks, packages. Stewart, in his shirt sleeves, apparently in a trance, was helping the beaming Danny Mains carry furniture into the house. Mrs. Stewart, flushed and radiant, was bustling about with the servants. Bonita was there, red-lipped and pretty, her arms full of linens. And Madge, in slacks and a backless waist, cool and sweet and smiling, evidently was boss.

She put Lance and Ren to opening crates. For a couple of hours they worked diligently at this job, and after they had unpacked everything, they carried boards and boxes and burlap and paper out to be hauled away on the morrow. The next job was to move things into the patio rooms. Lance observed that these were light, high-ceiled rooms, with colored adobe walls, and shiny floors. He had a glimpse of Madge’s rooms, and was reminded of some of the luxurious motion-picture sets he had seen in Hollywood.

At noon they had lunch on the patio porch, and it was a merry occasion. Lance, looking at Mrs. Stewart, no longer wondered how Madge had come by her beauty. She was a western girl, but her mother’s eastern breeding and distinction had been augmented in her. Lance had to admit that parents and daughter made a delightful trio, and also that the girl’s singular zest and enthusiasm motivated them.

After luncheon everybody worked harder than ever. Nels was wearing his long spurs, that stuck in dangerously as he knelt to hold a pillow in his teeth and slide it down into a slip. Nevertheless in housekeeping matters, Nels proved serious and efficient. Madge presently gave Starr and Bonita tasks to perform together, while Stewart carried and unrolled rugs and his wife oversaw his disposition of them, and the moving of furniture. Lance propounded the question as to whether he had naturally gravitated to tasks with Madge or she had arranged it that way. But the time came when he no longer doubted. That fixed his distant exterior, but it added more and more to the tumult within.

The tasks she set him, and completed with him, would never be remembered. As the minutes sped by he seemed hardly conscious of anything besides her presence — her intense and zestful activity, her requests and suggestions, and her talk in between, the intimacy that she seemed not to notice but which he felt so subtly, the play of her lovely features and the changing expressions in her violet eyes, her laugh, her smile, her grace, her disheveled golden hair falling over her face to be brushed back with a beautiful hand.

And at last, how it came about he could not say, they had finished all present tasks, and she was offering him a cigarette.

“No thanks,” he said, easily.

“Don’t you smoke?”

“Sure. Once in a while.”

“Lance, you’re one swell assistant. I think I’ll promote you, if...”

“To what?”

“Oh, major-domo or gigolo — or just cavalier.”

“It’ll be all I can do to make good as a cowboy. That is — here!”

“How modest and cool you are! I’d like it, if I could be sure you were sincere. You don’t ring true, darling.”

He had no reply for that. They had come out into the patio, and Lance was walking slowly toward the back, with apparent composure and the respectful demeanor of a cowboy toward the boss’s daughter. She walked with him, cigarette in hand. Somewhere near by Starr and Bonita were quarreling, but Madge gave no sign she heard them. Lance felt that he must escape at once, or he would betray what he knew not. Yet the bitter paradox was that another self of him longed to linger there.

“Oh, I forgot. There’s a nice room at that end of the patio. I want you to have it.”

“But, I — thank you, Miss Stewart. I have my bunkhouse lodgings.”

“Yes. I peeped in there one day while you were out. Nels showed me. Rotten for even a cowboy. And you’re a gentleman, Lance.”

“Thanks again. But I’m satisfied down there.”

“I expect you to help entertain my guests.”

“What!” He was tremendously surprised, and could say no more.

“Why should you be so surprised? Because you’ve been rude to me and I’ve been selfish? — That’s nothing. We can give, and take it, too.... These boys and girls will be tenderfeet. I must have some real western he-man around on occasions — especially where my horses are concerned. I’d like to trust you with that job.”

“But your father wants Ren and me to ride the range, build and dig and what not.”

“So Dad told me. Ren can attend to that with the vaqueros. I want you.”

“Are you giving me an order?”

“I am inviting you — asking you to be a friend — a good sport,” she retorted, her eyes flashing.

“You are very — kind. But in that case I must refuse.”

“Don’t you like me?” she demanded, incredulously.

“Miss Stewart, that is a personal matter,” he replied, looking straight ahead.

“You do like me,” she asserted.

“If you put it that way, I’m afraid I must be rude again. You are mistaken,” he rejoined, and his voice sounded curiously strange to his throbbing ears. But he was telling the truth. He did not like Madge Stewart because he loved her. The silence grew almost unbearable. He steeled himself against sarcasm, anger, wounded vanity. When they reached the wide green-bordered exit from the patio, when she stopped, he simply had to look at her. The last thing he expected was to see her eyes brimming with tears. She looked by him, out over the slope to the range. Her wide eyes were softly blurred, dark with pain.

“Lance, I can take it,” she said, presently, and lifted her cigarette to her lips. It had gone out. “Have you a match?” He produced one, struck and held it for her, and she blew a cloud of smoke, with apparent unintention, into his face. When the blue cloud cleared away he could not have believed she could possibly have looked hurt.

“Anyone can start something. But it takes a real sport to finish.”

Did she refer to an affair with him or the acquisition of his horse, or was it the passionate pride of a woman in herself? He answered by saying that he feared he, at least, had undertaken something he could never finish, and bidding her good night he left her. On the way down he took a short cut off the back road into a trail, and lingered on a secluded spot, from which he could see the flaming range on fire with sunset. The critical hour of his life had struck. He loved this girl, and the emotion seemed a coalescing of all his former fancies and loves, magnified into an incredible passion too great to understand or hate or resist. It did not require to be brooded over and analyzed and made certain. Like an avalanche it fell upon him. It was too terrible in its fatality, too transporting in its bliss, too great to be ashamed of. But it must be his secret. He swore he would die before he would let this man hunter and love taster, who like a savage princess exacted homage, this frail, spoiled, lovely creature know that he loved her.

Before dusk settled down thickly, Lance had fought out the battle, losing in his surrender to the catastrophe that had overtaken him, but victor over his weakness. Nevertheless he realized anew that he should straddle Umpqua and ride away before another day dawned. As he was not big enough to do that he did not blind himself to the peril that played and led him on.

No matter how troubled and hopeless he felt when he lay down at night, when morning dawned, with all the exquisite freshness and sweetness of this country, and the golden light over the range, he seemed to be transformed, renewed, to be glad of life and youth, and the nameless hope that beckoned him on.

Returning from his tasks at the corrals he found Madge and Nels puttering around her car. She wore a blue hat, blue gown, blue gloves — everywhere she appeared as blue as her eyes.

“Heah, son, come an’ help,” called Nels. “I don’t know a darn thing aboot these enjines.”

Madge’s look of annoyance vanished as Lance strode up to the car.

“What’s the matter?”

“The damn thing won’t start,” she said, smiling.

“You have a mechanic here. Cars are Starr’s specialty.”

“He’s gone. Will you oblige me?”

Lance leisurely lifted the hood of the engine, to see at a glance what was wrong, and in a moment adjusted it.

“How easy for you!” she flashed. “I’m terribly grateful.... Won’t you ride in to town with me?”

“What for?”

“Well, it might go on the blink again.”

“Not a chance.”

“All right. Then — just for the ride,” she returned.

Lance returned her look with a feeling that he knew he was the only man on earth who could have refused her and who must suffer the anguish of despair because he had done so.

“I’m sorry, Miss Stewart. I’ve no time. Your father relies on me for certain things. And I’m glad to relieve him of many labors — if I can’t of worries.”

“Noble of you, big boy!... Strike a match for me. I have my gloves on,” she rejoined, and leaned over the door with the cigarette between her lips. Lance had to step close, and he executed her request, but to save his life he could not have stilled the quiver of his hand as he held the match. She could not have seen it, however, for her unfathomable eyes were fastened upon his face. Then, with a merry good-by to him and Nels, she drove away. Not until she had gone down the slope did Lance realize he had watched her. Evidently Nels had done the same.

“Wal, son, she’s kinda set on disturbin’ you,” he drawled.

“Nels, I’ll never last here,” he replied, poignantly.

“Shore you will. We all like you, cowboy, an thet applies to Majesty Stewart, too.”

“Hell no!” ejaculated Lance, borrowing Starr’s expressive language.

“Sidway, I’ve knowed thet girl since she was borned,” declared Nels. “You don’t figger her atall. You made her mad at you fust off. I reckon thet was good, if you’re as nutty aboot her as Starr swears you air.”

“Nels, did he tell you that? I’ll sock him, by thunder! — Isn’t there anything or anybody on this ranch but that girl?”

“Wal, she seems to be the center of things, whirlin’ them like a dust devil.”

All day long Lance glanced up from this and that task to see if there was a car raising the dust down on the valley road. Nevertheless he accomplished three days’ work in one, so strenuously did he apply himself. When he went in to supper, Starr sat there, owl-eyed and pretending innocence. His entrance evidently disrupted some kind of a eulogy Nels was delivering to Stewart.

“Sidway, I’ve got to hand it to you,” said the rancher, warmly. “You’re a glutton for work.”

“I don’t hate work, sir.”

Starr sat up in mild reproof. “Heah, you queer duck from Oregon, you aint no hawg fer eatin’, I’ll tell you thet. An’ if you keep on doin’ ten greasers’ work on an empty stummick you’ll be an angel in heaven.”

“Been off my feed lately,” Lance admitted, after the laugh subsided.

“Sidway, are you any good at figures?” asked Stewart. “My accounts are in a tangle. I never was any good at them. Nels can’t add two and two to make four. And Starr never went to school.”

“Aw, Boss! The hell I didn’t. I can read an’ write some.”

“Stewart, your daughter can, I’ll bet. It must have cost you a lot to educate her. Why not make her your bookkeeper?”

“I wouldn’t have Madge see what a poor businessman I am for anything.... Can you straighten out my accounts for me?”

“Be glad to, Boss. I had a course in bookkeeping. I’m not so hot at it, but ordinary figures are not beyond me.”

“Nels, I’ll bet our new range hand is hot all around,” interposed Starr.

“Ren, he started well. But any fool can start. It’s stickin’ to the finish that counts.”

The cowman’s lazy drawl of humor recalled Madge’s subtle expression of the very same thought.

“Shall I come up right away?” asked Lance.

“No. I’ll fetch the books down. I had to hide them from Madge. She came home full of the Old Nick. She’d be curious, and maybe offended, if she found out about it.”

When Stewart was gone, Ren stared solemnly at Lance. “Pard, did you get thet? Full of the Old Nick!”

“Are you going to begin again?” burst out Lance. “You’re most as bad as Nels. Give me a rest about Madge Stewart.”

“Rest! You cain’t have a rest. Never again so long as you live! Thet’s what Bonita did to me, only not anyways so bad.... Pard, I smelled hard likker on Majesty’s breath!”

“Yeah? When did she come home?”

“Couple hours ago. She was sweeter’n a basket of roses. But I got a scent like a wolf’s.”

“What of that? She drinks. All these college girls drink. It’s nothing. No more than cigarettes.”

“Shore. I read the magazines an’ go to the movies. But, pard, it’s different in Majesty’s case. It worries me an’ Nels.”

“And why? You’re wasting your time.”

“Son,” interposed Nels, gravely. “Gene Stewart was the hardest drinkin’ cowboy on this range. He was a drunkard. For ten years he swore off. Thet was on account of Madeline. Then he drank again — oncet in a long while — an’ he does now. When he said Majesty come home full of the Old Nick, me an’ Ben hed the same idee. Did he mean drink? An’ is he afeared his girl has inherited his weakness for strong likker?”

“Oh, fellows, the boss didn’t mean that,” expostulated Lance. “I’m sure he didn’t. He just meant mischief.... My God, that’d be a tough spot for Stewart! He’s one grand guy.”

“Wal, you said it. Pard, if she asked you to ride in town with her how’n hell did you keep from it?”

“I’ve got a job and a sense of responsibility. Besides, she just wants to make a — a chump out of me.”

“Son, don’t you let her,” declared Nels.

“Wal, I hope to Gawd you can keep from it,” added Ren, fervently. “Say, Sid, there’ll be high jinks goin’ on if them girls air the least like Majesty. Comin’ day after tomorrow.”

“Lord help us!”

“Son, it shore looks like you’d hev to be the Lord. Fer all of us air under her thumb,” said Nels, so very earnestly that Lance could not laugh.

“That’s telling me, Nels,” replied Lance, and went to his own room. He stumbled over something soft, then ran into a chair that had not been there in the morning. He could not locate his table. Even in the pitch blackness the room felt different and smelled differently.

“What in the deuce has come off?” he muttered, and taking out his matches, he struck one. This colorful clean-smelling room could not be his. Yes, it was — because he heard Nels and Ren talking through the partition. Burning his fingers in his astonishment he struck another match to light the lamp. But where was his plain, cheap, stinking lamp? Here was a shining one of brass with a big white globe. Rugs on the floor, curtains at the two windows, a dresser with a fine mirror, pictures on the walls, a new three-quarter bright-blanketed bed where his bunk had been, a washstand with colored ware upon it, and towels the quality of which no cowboy before had ever felt, a comfortable Morris chair beside his table, and... but his roving gaze encountered a striking photograph in a silver frame upon his table. Majesty Stewart! With a groan he took the picture and fell into the chair, to stare down upon the lovely face, the speaking eyes, the bare neck of this girl who had bewitched him.

“Damn you! damn you!” he whispered, softly. It seemed a long while before he became aware of whispers and low laughs in Nels’ room.

“Hey, pard, air you daid?” came through the wall.

“No! But I wish I were,” shouted Lance.

“Why fer, you big stiff?... You oughta see my bunkhouse. My Gawd! — Pard, what’s thet fairy-guy we used to read about when we was kids? Aladdin! Thet’s the hombre. Wal, he’s been here. ... Nels told me the servants fetched all this truck down today, an’ Bonita fixed the rooms up. An’ a swell job she did!”

At that juncture Stewart stamped into Nels’ room. Lance hid the picture, and hurried out, and into the ranchman’s presence. “Here you are, Jack-of-all-trades,” said Stewart, gayly, and he opened a ledger on Nels’ table. “Balanced proper up to this page and date. And there’s a year and more of figures. Sidway, if you make sense of these I’ll be obliged.”

“I’ll hop to it, Boss.”

It was midnight when Lance straightened out those accounts. The last entry was of seven hundred and thirty steers sold at thirty-five dollars a head — payment not yet received. Among the bank statements, papers and correspondence were a batch relative to Madge Stewart’s income and expenses. Over a period of time a yearly income of sixty thousand dollars had diminished until at the present it had shrunk to a few thousands. The correspondence indicated that from time to time bonds and stocks had been transferred from Madeline Stewart’s account to that of her daughter.

“Gosh! I wonder if Stewart really meant me to see these,” pondered Lance. “All as plain as print! Mother and father sacrificing themselves to the extravagance of spoiled daughter! And she doesn’t know it! — Can you beat that?”

Lance’s troubled mind yielded to the exhaustion of a hard day and toilsome hours with figures, and he slept. Ren’s pounding on his door awakened him. After breakfast Stewart appeared and Lance brought him the ledger.

“All done, sir, and not so bad except for — for these,” said Lance. “Accounts, you know, of your daughter.”

“Sidway! Did I leave them in this book?” ejaculated Stewart, utterly discomfited.

“Evidently you did. Of course, I went over them. I’m sorry, sir.”

“If she ever found this out...”

“Stewart, she won’t from me,” interrupted Lance, hurriedly, hoping to relieve the rancher of embarrassment. “And — as for your own accounts, sir — they’re not so bad as you led me to believe. When you receive the money for that batch of cattle sold the other day, you can pay your debts and have around five thousand dollars left.”

“No! — Sidway, you’re — you’re.... it’d be too good to be true.”

“Maybe you did not figure out just what you’d receive for the cattle.”

“I didn’t at that.”

“Well, it comes to twenty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a lump sum, sir.”

“I must have made a big mistake on the wrong side.”

“You evidently did.”

“I was thinking most of Madeline,” replied Stewart, his dark eyes softening. “Sidway, I reckon Starr is right about you.”

“That knock-kneed windbag! Now what’d he say?”

“I don’t remember it all. One thing stuck, though. He called you a whiz.”

Lance felt that he had never received a compliment that had pleased him more. He went to work that day and drove Starr to distraction and dragged him home a cripple.

“Look at me, Nels,” whined Ren, wet with sweat, grimy and ragged.

“Hey, Sid, who’s this heah nigger you fetched in?” drawled Nels.

“It’s me, Nels. Me! — Worked to death by thet fiend. An’ what I hate most in all this world is diggin’ postholes!”

“We finished that corral, didn’t we? Now we can have some peace when Manuel and Jose wrangle Miss Stewart’s horses.... Oh boy — tomorrow!”

“Me for the hills!” ejaculated Ren.

* * * * *

Lance was waiting for Starr the following night at sunset. Inside Nels was banging pans in unusual excitement.

“Pard, what’n hell’s wrong with you?” demanded Ren, staring.

“Behold a — a — devastated man!”

“Wal, whatever’n hell thet means you shore air it.... So you obeyed them orders?”

“Yes. They were Stewart’s.”

“An’ you had to ride in town with Majesty — all alone — and meet her friends — all them peaches we jest know air comin’ — an’ be a swell lady’s guy?”

“You said it!”

“My Gawd, how tough! Jest the rottenest break ever. Wait till I bed down my hawse an’ I’ll be ready to be deevasstated.”

After supper Ren got up to help Nels with the dishes and he said: “Okay now, pard. Shoot! I reckon I’m strong enough now.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Tell us aboot Majesty’s outfit.”

“Well, the boys are all nice clean-cut college chaps. You’ll like them, especially the big football player, Snake Elwell. He’s a regular fellow.”

“Aw, nix on the fellers. It’s the gurls Nels an’ me want to heah about.”

“Six of them, Ren. Six! And they might have been picked for a swell movie.... The gang arrived at ten-thirty. They stayed in town until three. Five awful hours! If I performed one job, there were a hundred. They probably were kidding me or Madge, for the whole bunch of crazy women went after me. Poor little me! While the boys hung around Madge. They ate and they drank. Can that crowd lap up the booze? I’m telling you. And they had to see everything and everybody in Bolton.”

“Swell. But thet ain’t tellin’ us how they stacked up.”

“Can’t you wait till you lamp them?”

“Nope. Me an’ Nels hev artistic feelin’s.”

“Well, here goes — the way I got it. Allie Leland first, evidently Madge’s best friend, a slim stylish girl with gray eyes, the peach of the bunch, I’d say, though not in looks. Next Maramee Joyce, brown beauty built like Jean Harlow, a knockout. Next a little southern girl, looks like sixteen but must be twenty-two. Dark, vivacious, with a smile that would drive any man nutty, and a sweet southern accent. Nels will fall for her. Then Pequita Nelson. Part Spanish, Ren. Creamy olive skin, great dreamy sloe-black eyes, willowy and graceful. Blue-blood, pard.... Then Selma Thorne, a blonde that, if you never saw Madge, would do the trick. And last Beulah Allen.... Whew! Ren, here’s a peach that’s a composite of honey, dynamite and autumn leaves of red and gold. Pretty! Why, she’s so pretty I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Red-headed, roguish-eyed, and a shape! What’s more she’s a devil clear down to her toes.”

“Pard!” gasped Ren, utterly fascinated. “What’n hell air we up agin? It was bad enough with only Majesty heah. We shore air a deevasstated outfit.”

“Ren, you should have heard the whoop those college tenderfeet let out when they saw Bonita.”

“Ahuh. Wal, I’ll be liable to shoot a laig off one of them,” growled Ren.

* * * * *

Work on the ranch for Lance and Ren, except an occasional and brief overseeing of laborers brought out from town, practically ceased. Their jobs took on manifold aspects. They had to drive and to ride, especially the latter. The only girl guest who knew anything about horses was Dixie Conn. Madge’s horses were all too spirited for tenderfeet. Lance and Ren disagreed as to Madge’s own ability to handle several of her mounts.

“Say, Ren, you’re all wet,” protested Lance. “She was a swell horsewoman once. Nels vouched for that. But she has been to college for four years. She’s forgotten a lot. Besides she’s out of condition. She’s soft, if you get what I mean.”

“Cain’t you lay off yore grouch?” complained Ren. “Majesty is okay.”

“So far as looks are concerned, yes. She looks grand. And that’s all you see. Ren, you ought to be back at that garage.”

The expression of Starr’s face became so peculiar, and a giggle of Bu Allen sounded so gleeful that Lance turned toward the wide stable door. Madge had entered and she had heard him. Likewise had Rollie Stevens and Nate Salisbury, who were with her. The others appeared coming down the lane.

The purple fire in Madge’s eyes was no new catastrophe for Lance. As a matter of fact, he had never seen it blaze for anyone or anything except him. Nevertheless this time, as always, it stimulated him to battle. Perhaps he labored under the delusion that he was right, but so long as he believed so he would not give in.

“Ren, saddle Dervish for me,” ordered Madge, quietly.

Lance stepped forward and laid an ungentle hand on the cowboy. “Miss Stewart, please forgive my interference. But you should not ride Dervish — just yet. You — he...”

“I heard you express your opinions to Ren,” she interrupted, in a tone that made Lance feel as if he were the scum of the earth. “You can save your breath.”

“That I won’t do so long as I am a cowboy on this ranch,” replied Lance, coolly, as he found himself. “I have a duty here — to your father — and through him to you.... Dervish is a bad actor. He has not been worked out. Besides he does not like you, Miss Stewart. It’s dangerous for you to mount him.”

“Majesty, listen to Sidway,” interposed Rollie, his fine face earnest. “That horse looks skittish to me.”

Dixie Conn backed up Stevens, and the other girls apparently fell in line. This, Lance knew, was only adding fuel to the fire. He believed that if they only had advised it, Madge would have been amenable. But Lance Sidway was waving a red flag in her face.

“Ren, do as you’re ordered,” said Madge.

“Miss Majesty, mebbe Lance is right about this.”

“I know I’m right,” Lance said, earnestly. “Nels agreed with me. He saw you on Bellefontaine the other day, and Bell isn’t half the horse this Dervish is. May I repeat what Nels said to me?”

“Why, yes, if it pleases you so much,” rejoined Madge.

“He told me to keep you off the wicked horses if I could.”

“Nels! The old traitor! He taught me to ride.”

“He said also that when you were sixteen there wasn’t your beat in this state.... Coming from Nels, Miss Stewart, that is the very highest compliment.”

“And you think sixteen is so far back in my past that I’ve forgotten how to ride?” queried Madge, with sarcasm. “Well, I’ll show you!”

“I didn’t say that. I think, though, you act like sixteen or under.... Will you force me to go to your father?”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Yes, I would.”

“Go ahead. It’ll be a relief to be rid of you. By the time you find Dad I’ll be far out on the range.”

“Miss Stewart, he will hold me responsible if you are thrown.”

“So that’s it? Thinking of your job! It’s not too sure, at that.”

Lance gave up, and went back to saddling Pinto. Starr, at Madge’s order, led the slender racy Dervish out of his stall. Lance heard the cowboy curse under his breath. He also heard Allie Leland, and some of the other girls, taking his part against Madge. And Lance’s ears burned with something besides resentment. All these guests of Madge’s had been fine to him, and Bu Allen more than friendly. Lance put Pequita Nelson up on Pinto, and hurried on to saddle Leatherstocking. The young men were having the fun of saddling their own horses. Lance liked this bunch of college boys better than he had anticipated.

At last all the girls were up except Madge and she was leading Dervish out into the open. Ren was with her. Lance hurried to get astride Umpqua. The others, except Allie Leland, rode out toward the range.

“Sidway, go with the others,” called Madge.

He waited to see her put a foot into Starr’s hand and go sailing upon Dervish. She was not in the least afraid of him. There was a red flush in her cheeks, a smoldering fire in her eyes. Lance had to admire her for more than the superb and lovely figure she made on the roan. Then Madge and the Leland girl passed him to join the others. Dervish acted all right, Lance thought, but Madge was holding him in. But could she hold him if he broke into a run or could she stay on if he wanted to pitch? Lance gambled that she would fail in the latter event, anyway. Starr joined him and they loped to catch up with the others.

“Ren, you four flusher, why didn’t you stand by me?” queried Lance, with irritation.

“By thunder, I should of,” he replied, contritely. “But Majesty always kids me along — makes me reckon I’m a helluva feller.”

“Yeah? Well, if you’d come strong, we might have avoided a risk.”

“She’ll ride thet nag.”

“Gosh, I hope so. She handles him great. But Ren, damnit! That’s a horse — a mean horse! And she can’t weigh more than a hundred and ten.”

“Fifteen, pard, and she’s strong. I’ll admit, though, I forgot she hadn’t been ridin’.”

“All right, let’s go. I’ll try to make Madge think I don’t care a damn if she breaks her neck.... Fact is, I — I don’t. But I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Me too, pard. Ain’t they a swell lookin’ outfit? I wish Bonita was heah. Majesty said I could ask her. But I knowed I couldn’t see anyone else, then... hey!...”

Lance rode away from the loquacious cowboy and steadied down conscientiously to his job. Once out in the grass and the sage there was much less danger of accidents. The girls had listened to reason, if their hostess had not. And except Dixie Conn, they were all too scared of horses to try any stunts. Dixie and Madge forged ahead, and Lance kept a position that would enable him to overtake Dervish, if he bolted. But nothing happened across the sage flat to the pine knoll five miles away. Madge led them up to the top of that, then down, and over the rolling range land toward the foothills. Half an hour of lope and trot brought them to the slope.

“Majesty,” screamed Maramee Joyce. “For Pete’s sake — hold on! I’m dying!”

“I’ve got that — awful stitch in my — side,” cried Selma Thorne.

“We’ll rest,” replied Madge, merrily. “But how in the world will you girls ever make it up into the mountains?”

“But you’re — not going soon?”

“Ah! this is swell, Majesty!”

“Majesty, let’s leave these tenderfeet behind on that trip,” suggested Snake Ewell, good-naturedly.

“What? You big hunk of protoplasm!” exclaimed Bu Allen, her pretty face scarlet, her roguish eyes snapping, her red hair disheveled. “Why, astride that horse you look as much like Sidway as I do like a rodeo queen.”

At length when they were rested Madge gave the word: “Let’s go! And step on it!”

As they swept off with merry screams and shouts Lance, with an eye ever on Dervish, saw that he meant business. He balked. And when Madge laid on the spurs he began to pitch. Lance in a few jumps had Umpqua beside her, but as he reached for the roan’s head Madge cried: “Let him alone!”

“But he’ll pile you up.”

“He will not!”

As bucking horses went, Dervish would have been mean for any rider. But to Lance’s surprise Madge stayed in the saddle. Bent double, red-eyed and infuriated, the roan bucked all over the flat, and failed to dislodge the girl. She had her spurs dug into him and sat her saddle as if a part of it.

“You’re riding him, cowgirl!” yelled Lance, carried away with her spirit and the spectacle she made.

Then Dervish, succeeding in getting the bit between his teeth, bolted away across the valley, in the opposite direction from the ranch. It took only a glance to see that the roan was a runaway horse and that he would eventually get the best of his rider. Lance spurred Umpqua after him. By now the others were a couple of miles distant toward the ranch, and they were not yet aware of Madge’s predicament. The roan was fast. Lance had to urge Umpqua into his top speed to gain at all. And he saw that it was going to be a race. Madge fought her mount with all her might. If she heard Lance yell to let the horse run she gave no sign. The girl had evidently been jolted by the bucking, and now she was spending the last of her strength. She would be thrown.

Then after a grueling run Lance drew close to the roan. Madge showed signs of distress. She was beginning to sway.

“Drop your bridle!” yelled Lance. “Grab the pommel! Hold on!”

She heard him and obeyed. That saved her from an immediate spill. Umpqua thundered closer and closer until his nose passed the roan’s flank. But again Madge was swaying. She was near a fall and the ground was rocky, and rough with hummocks. Desperately goading his horse, Lance gained inch by inch, until he stretched out a clutching hand. She had the sense to shake her feet loose from the stirrups. But that loss of stability broke her seat in the saddle. She was in the air when Lance caught her in a grip of steel and swung her up before him.

“Oh!” she screamed, wildly. “You’re tearing my flesh!”

Lance let her go, to slip her into the crook of his arm, and hold her across his saddle. Umpqua was excited, too, and hard to slow down.

“Whoa! Steady, old boy!” called Lance, over and over again. “We’ve got her.... There, Ump! — Easy now — easy!”

At length Lance halted the horse and then turned his attention to the girl. Her face lay high up on his left arm, near his shoulder, and it was white. The lipstick on her strained lips made a startling contrast.

“Gosh — I’m — sorry I had to hurt — you,” he said, haltingly. “But I — couldn’t help it. That damned — roan can run. Lucky to catch you — at all.”

“How strong you are!” she exclaimed, her eyes, darkly dilated, upon him. “You had the muscles of my back. I’ll bet I can’t wear my new formals very soon.”

“Shall I get down? Can you ride my horse?” asked Lance, hurriedly.

“I feel very comfortable where I am.... Lance, I deserve it. I was wrong — bullheaded — vain. You were right.... Now does that soothe your wounded vanity?”

“My feelings don’t count. But I don’t remember that vanity entered into it.”

“Damn you anyway, cowboy!” she exclaimed, broodingly, passionate eyes upon him in speculation.

“That’s not very kind,” returned Lance, beginning to weaken under another kind of strain. She was resting in his arms, her head now on his shoulder. A little color began to creep into her cheeks. Lance almost collapsed under a terrific longing to kiss her.

“For you to be the one always to catch me in the wrong — do me a service!... It’s a tough break.”

“Miss Stewart, I had a hunch about this horse.”

“For the love of Mike stop calling me Miss. Why don’t you cuss me out?” she replied, hotly.

“To tell the truth I — I don’t know why,” answered Lance, lamely. He sensed that fatality for him consisted in being with her, and this close contact was insupportable. If he did not get away from it instantly he could not answer for himself. She was in his arms and if she did not like it, she was acting a part. Then Lance saw Starr approaching in a long sweeping gallop, and the others a mile or more behind.

“They’re coming,” said Lance, in relief, as he carefully slid with her out of the saddle. “Can you stand?”

“I can — if you hold me.” And she swayed against him.

“Miss... Madge, you’re not hurt so — bad,” he protested.

“That’s what you say. My back is broken.”

“Nonsense!” cried Lance, in alarm, and he turned her round to feel of her. “It’s just bruised — sore. I must have pinched you.”

She squealed as he felt to see if he had broken a rib.

“You’re a swell western girl — I don’t think. Can’t you take it?”

“What do you think, Lance Sidway?”

“God only knows!” he responded, with an inward groan. “Here’s Ren. And the others are coming. Sit down. I’ll ride after Dervish.”

He found upon releasing her that she could stand easily enough.

“What’n hell come off?” shouted Starr, as he leaped from his saddle.

“Only me,” laughed Madge.

Lance thankfully galloped off to catch Dervish, now contentedly grazing half a mile away. What a girl! He was slipping — slipping. Then his softer agitation burned away in a tumult, some of which emotion was wrath. He had not had half a chance. To save her life, or at least, a nasty spill, was just his hard luck. All in a second to find her in his arms! Hell! What was a girl like that for? Her lying lovely eyes would make an imbecile out of a cigar-store Indian. Yet there seemed to be something so sweet, so square about her. If only she had not hated him, maybe he never would have known of her other nature! But that would have been worse. At length he caught Dervish, and by the time he had returned to the waiting group he was outwardly his cool self again.

“Did you beat him?” asked Madge.

“No. I never beat horses.”

Ren glowered at the sweating roan, as he stood meekly, his racy head drooping. “Wal, I’ll beat him some day, believe me.”

“I wonder — why is he so kind to dumb brutes,” said Madge, cryptically. “Listen, friends. Sidway saved my neck. After I refused to listen to him — insulted him! I am a cat. Now you shall see me apologize.”

She turned to Lance in one of her bewildering flashes. “Lance, I am sorry. I beg your pardon. You were swell to keep your temper — and stay a gentleman. I’ll tell Dad. And I’ll not get on Dervish very soon again — if ever.”

“That’s just fine,” replied Lance, heartily. “Now you ride Umpqua home. He’s gentle and easy.”

“What will you do?” she asked.

“I’ll ride Dervish. He’s worked off his edge now.” He helped her mount and shortened the stirrups while the others expressed their relief in various ways. The girls, especially, had been frightened. The boys, except Rollie Stevens, quickly recovered their spirits. Then just as the cavalcade got into motion, Bu Allen said slyly:

“Lance, if I ride Dervish some time will you be a hero for me?”

CHAPTER VIII

THAT NIGHT AFTER supper, when Starr, in the next room, was exaggerating the story of Madge’s adventure on Dervish, and Lance sat in his big chair gazing at the beautiful photograph, there came a soft step outside and a tap on his door. Hastily hiding the picture of Madge, and with a leap of his heart he called: “Come in.”

The door opened to disclose Beulah Allen on the threshold. She wore a henna gown that matched her hair, cut to expose her creamy arms and neck. Her charm appeared considerably magnified.

“Good evening, Lance. Here I am,” she said, archly.

Lance awkwardly returned her greeting, then: “So I see. Who’s with you?”

“I’m alone. I had a scrap with Snake, so I thought I’d hunt you up.”

“Swell. — Only, what’ll Snake do to me?”

“He hasn’t any strings on me. We’ve been engaged several times and broken it off as often. Tonight is the last.”

Lance had arisen, and now he stood looking at her, fully aware of her seductiveness, and half inclined to yield to it.

“How swell you are here! Madge got a kick out of dolling up these rooms. Isn’t she a peach? Always playing Santa Claus!”

“Indeed, she’s very kind. Which reminds me — in the excitement today I forgot to thank her.”

“She hates to be thanked.... Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“No. But I’ll come out,” replied Lance, and taking his sombrero he joined her and led her off the porch. She took his arm and remarked that the night and the full moon were made for love.

“Yeah? — But how about a guy, who if he fell, would be down for good?”

“You?”

“I’m telling you. Beulah, you’re one attractive kid. I like you. I’ll be glad to help you with your riding — as you asked me. But don’t get me in bad with Snake Elwell. He might beat hell out of me.”

“I don’t know about that. Snake can run with a football. But he gets hurt easily. Always crippled.”

“You little devil!” laughed Lance. “Honest now, isn’t Snake in love with you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, reluctantly. “But he’s not alive.”

“Beulah, I’ve met a lot of young fellows. Elwell is not flashy. He’s a rough diamond. He’s a regular guy. If you liked him well enough to be engaged to him you oughtn’t to play fast and loose with him.”

“I don’t.”

“What do you call this? Coming to my quarters after me?”

“Lance, if you must be serious, I came because I felt a little out of it tonight. There’s an odd girl, you know. Snake belongs to the same fraternity as the other boys. But I don’t belong to Majesty’s sorority.”

“Oh, I see.... But she wouldn’t slight you?”

“No. She’s a thoroughbred — a real sport. And I’d be crazy about her if she’d let me. She’s just a little aloof with me. And I’m as proud as the dickens. So when Snake made me mad, I beat it to you.”

“I’m sure flattered. Let’s walk down to the village cantina, and have a Mexican cone.”

It was dark except for starlight. Lance thought that the ground was hardly uneven enough for Beulah to hang onto him so tightly. But after a while he put his arm around her. When they reached the cantina, with its open vine-covered porch and dim lights, he did not remove his arm in time to escape Bonita’s black eyes. She was there with a group of young people, and her escort was a Mexican lad Lance had never seen. He was of the vaquero type, a born rider, lithe of form, lean of face, and he had small glittering dark eyes. As Lance passed the table where they were sitting his keen faculties grasped Bonita’s jealousy and her friend’s uneasy lowering of his face. It strengthened his suspicion that some of these admirers of Bonita could have shed some light upon the rustlers.

“Hello, Bonita. Ren is looking for you,” hazarded Lance, with a meaning glance. When her dusky eyes dilated widely he knew he had hit some kind of a mark. Before he and Beulah had finished their ice cream, Bonita left with her escort. The incident determined Lance to pay more attention to Danny Main’s pretty daughter.

It developed that Beulah had an intense interest in motion pictures, about which Lance talked at length, and in fact all the way up the hill to the ranch house. She led him in through the corridor to the brightly lighted living room, where Madge and part of her guests sat at two card tables, and the others grouped around Stewart and his wife. Most of them were dressed in white. Lance had to bear the sight of Madge supremely lovely in filmy blue.

Their entrance put a stop to games and conversation. Beulah, flushed and radiant, made the most of the situation. It invoked various greetings, all full of fun and interest.

“Beulah, you look stunning,” observed Madge. “What’s your recipe for such glamour? My cowboy!... Where’d you pick him up?”

“Oh, Lance came up after me,” returned Beulah, sweetly. “He took me to the village — for a cone.”

“For a which?”

“Cone?”

“You mean ice-cream cone?”

“Yes. It was swell. I’d have liked one of those Mexican drinks we had in town, but I guess Lance doesn’t buy drinks for girls.... We saw that pretty Bonita. Say, she’s got rr!”

“Come on, Barg,” spoke up Nate Salisbury. “Let’s drive down and grab a cone.” And the two young men went tearing out.

“Mr. Sidway, do you play bridge?” asked Madge, politely.

“I tried it once. Didn’t get the hang of it.”

“Do you play any game — that is, card game?”

“Poker.”

“Of course. Ren plays poker. We’ll have you up some night.”

“Thanks a lot. I’ll hate to take your money. But I’ll come.... I’m glad to see you okay, after your run on Dervish.”

“I may look okay in front.... See, you ironfisted cowboy!” And Madge arose to turn her back. The V-shaped opening in her gown extended clear to her waistline. About half way down, disfiguring her lovely back, showed black and blue marks of a ruthless hand.

“I’m sorry!” burst out Lance, his surprise and regret checking other feelings. “That’s terrible.... But, Miss Stewart, how could I help it?”

Madge’s slow smile might have promised much. However, at this point, Stewart called the cowboy: “Sidway, I’ve had several versions of this runaway. Madge wouldn’t say anything. From the looks of her back, though, I’d say you laid hold of her hard. Nels whitewashed the accident. Starr didn’t see it, nor did the others. Come now, what’s your story?”

“Mr. Sidway, take this chair here,” interposed Mrs. Stewart, beckoning Lance to a seat beside her. He felt the penetrating kindness of her eyes.

“Thank you.... Well, really, there wasn’t much danger. For a western girl!” replied Lance, deprecatingly, with a casual gesture. “Dervish began to pitch. Mad — Miss Stewart stayed in the saddle. Then he nailed the bit and lit out. Ren had gone with the outfit. I chased Dervish across the flat. He can run, that roan. I caught up with him — and grabbed her — a little roughly, I’m sorry to say.”

“Did you forget my instructions?” queried Stewart, his kind eyes twinkling. “I forbade Madge to ride Dervish. And I told you not to let her get on any bad horse. You’re a judge of horses, aren’t you?”

“Not so good. I — I’m afraid I forgot, sir,” returned Lance, not meeting Stewart’s eye.

“Dad, your cowboy is a liar,” spoke up Madge, in her rich voice, that now had a little ring. “In fact he’s an awful liar.... He advised me not to ride Dervish. He insisted that I must not. He made me furious by threatening to hunt you up. But you know your little Madge, Dad.... Dervish worked out fine as long as I held him in. We rested a while. When I mounted again he began to pitch. He made me see red, and hurt me — took it all out of me. Finding he couldn’t unseat me, the devil beat it up the valley. I stayed on somehow. After a while I heard Umpqua pounding at my heels. And Sidway yelled: ‘Let him run! Hold on!’ But for that I’d have gone off. The rocky ground scared me stiff. My arms went dead. I lost my stirrups. Just then, as I pitched out of the saddle, Sidway caught me. He certainly put his brand on me.... But, Dad, he saved me broken bones, perhaps a crushed face — maybe my life!”

Lance groaned in spirit to be thus made out a hero, yet her eloquence radiated through him, and added another link to the chain that was fettering him.

“Sidway, modesty is a becoming trait, but hardly justifies your lying to your boss to save his willful and wayward daughter,” said Stewart, mildly.

“Dad, don’t rub it in,” called Madge, mirthfully. Then, taking up her cards, “Where was I, Allie?”

The card players settled down to their game again. Mrs. Stewart began to ask Lance about Oregon, and she was so gracious and interested that he found himself telling her of his boyhood home, of his mother and sister, about that sister’s malady, and how he had left college to take Umpqua to Hollywood, how wonderfully the great horse had made good, how he loved him and would not part with him for the world, and finally how he had set out for Arizona and New Mexico.

“Majesty Stewart! You trumped my ace!” exclaimed Rollie Stevens, incredulously.

“She’s transported!” declared Allie.

“Listening to Mr. Sidway,” chimed in Maramee, with a giggle. “Majesty, you’re not very flattering to us.”

“Caught with the goods!” cried Madge, leaping up with a blush, and slamming down her cards. “I hate bridge anyway.... Turn on the radio, you all. Or play the Victrola. Dance! What’d you come here for? ... Mom, please surrender Mr. Sidway to me for a little. I want him to talk to me!” And approaching Lance she tugged at his sleeve. He arose, bowed to Mrs. Stewart, and allowed himself to be led toward the door.

“Madge, take a coat or wrap, if you’re going into the patio,” advised her mother.

“There’s one in the hammock, Mom.”

Rollie Stevens called forcefully after them. “Majesty, I’ll cut in — what do you call it — pronto.”

“He will, the sap!” whispered Madge. “But we’ll fool him.” The patio was silver-bright under a full moon. The fountain tinkled, there was a stir of leaves, and peep of sleepy birds. Madge caught up a white coat from the first hammock and gave it to Lance. He helped her into it, and turned up the wide collar, and buttoned the upper buttons, his fingers clumsy, while she stood still and gazed up at him with eyes he felt but dared not meet. Then she took his arm and led him along the wide porch, where the shadows of foliage played black on the tiles. Lance was helpless in the thrall of the moment.

“Lance, it’s coming to you right now — while I’m hot under the spell,” declared Madge. “Beulah Allen has fallen for you. They all saw that. I saw it long ago. What did you do to her? She sailed in positively regal. That was for my benefit, Lance Sidway. Only yesterday I told the girls you didn’t neck. What a liar you’ve made me out!... They all like you. Dad doesn’t throw a fit over every fellow who comes along, not even a cowboy. And Mom!... Young man, do you know you couldn’t pull a greater stroke here than that? I listened. It couldn’t be a line. All that about your sister! Oh, Lance.... Mom likes you! That is the last straw! My lovely patrician mother!”

“She was just — moved by my — my service to you,” said Lance, unsteadily.

“No. Don’t start that stuff. This is serious,” she rejoined, and halting beyond the last archway, she turned to him in the white moonlight. In that light, shining from the pale oval of her face, her eyes held the sum of all beauty. “Isn’t it a pity — I don’t like you?”

“Maybe that is lucky for me,” he returned, huskily.

“Lance, are you engaged to any girl in Oregon?”

“No — indeed.”

“Are you fancy-free?”

“Yes,” he lied, glibly enough.

“You made a play for Bonita. Oh, I know. She gave you away — and herself. I was brazen enough to pump her.... Lance, do you know Ren Starr has a terrible case on Bonita?”

“I found that out pronto.”

“You were only playing with her?”

“I didn’t admit that.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not since I found out about Ren.”

“Listen, these college friends of mine, particularly Barg and Nate, are nuts over that little Mexican hussy. She’s half white, yes, but the Latin blood dominates.”

“Bonita isn’t quite all that,” rejoined Lance, stoutly.

“She is. And I’m a jealous cat. But all this is for Ren’s sake.... You seem to be as big as that mountain there. Are you big enough to play Ren’s game — to keep these college devils away from her? They’re on the make. One or the other, most likely Nate, will get her.”

“I’m afraid I’m not quite so — so big as that,” answered Lance, led on and on by the deadly sweetness of her, and by the infernal power of his bleeding vanity.

She released his arm and averted her face. Like a cameo the perfect profile shone as if cut out of marble. The night breeze stirred her golden hair. “I’m disappointed in you — again.”

“Why should you be, Miss Stewart?” he queried, stiffly, fighting a struggle almost vain. “I’m human — the same as you. Just no good!”

“How dare you!” she cried, wheeling with a startled movement. “Smile — when you say that.”

But Lance did not smile. She had wanted to be serious and he had told her the truth. Without a word she left him standing there. Lance stepped into the black shadow of the wall, his thoughts whirling, his conscience stinging, his judgment at fault, his love valiantly championing this perverse and wayward beauty. A thousand wild queries did not lodge in his mind, let alone find an answer. There was not any answer to anything. Why had she asked those direct thought-provoking questions? How easy to escape from her if she were only like Beulah! But Madge Stewart had the insidious power to make men believe in her sincerity. Her look was enough to lift any poor masculine fool to the seventh heaven — to be convinced that he was the one man!

Lance’s endless ravings were disrupted by approaching voices. Two people were coming down the patio path. Then Madge’s silver laughter, a little mocking, froze Lance to the spot. They came clear to the inside wall.

“Majesty, you drive me mad,” came in Rollie Stevens’ subdued voice. “You know you have no use for that cowboy. You told me so. Yet for days now you’ve been rotten to me, on his account! Oh, I get it! Sidway hasn’t fallen for you — and that’s piqued your vanity. Besides you want his horse. Why don’t you give the fellow a break? He’s a real man. He’s not a sap. But pretty soon he’ll fall for you, even if he knows you’re not on the level with him.”

“Rollie, I might be in earnest,” she scoffed.

“Rot! Why, Majesty Stewart, only a month ago you said you — you might marry me.”

“That was a month ago, darling. An age!”

“Majesty, you can’t marry a cowboy,” he expostulated, incredulously.

“Rollie, I hadn’t thought of that. But — why couldn’t I?”

“You’re a lady of quality, a talented girl. Why he’s not of your class. Admitting Sidway is a fine chap — I like him, Majesty — you couldn’t marry him. Oh, to talk of it is preposterous.”

“All right. Skip it.... Rollie! don’t kiss me right here in the moonlight.”

“I’ll bet he did,” he returned, hoarsely.

“Who?”

“Your cowboy!”

“He never even thought of it.”

“My word! — Majesty, can you expect me to believe that?”

“No, I don’t.”

A slight scuffle followed, a protest from the girl, then the soft sounds of kisses.

“Rollie, you needn’t tear my clothes off. Pick up my coat. And remember, my back is too sore for hugging.”

“Darling — it maddens me — to taste your lips. I’m just wafted...”

“New kind of lipstick! All over your face. And mine too.”

“Majesty, honest to God — didn’t that Sidway even kiss you?”

“No, Rollie. He didn’t even try, I’m ashamed to admit.”

“He could have kissed you! All the boys kiss you! It was campus talk!”

“You jealous sap! Surely he could have — and they do. I rather like it. And besides what’s a kiss?”

“You know what it leads to, Majesty Stewart.”

“Yeah? Well, it never led me anywhere in particular yet, except to muss my dress and make-up, as you’ve done.”

“I’m sorry. But you drive me wild.... Kiss me good night, sweet. A real one, like you used...”

“There, little boy. Let us go back. I am cold.”

Then soft footfalls and subdued voices faded away. Lance plunged down the trail like a blind man. He had his answer.

* * * * *

Every morning Lance awakened under the shadow of impending calamity. What was going to happen next? Or what would Madge be up to doing? It did not make the slightest difference to Lance, only he seemed to be the one doomed to encounter her in moments of stress.

Things happened to Madge’s guests. Pinto ran off with Beulah; Pequita, who was a poor swimmer, fell or was pushed off the platform into the lake, and nearly drowned; Maramee was kicked in the ankle so badly that she could not ride; Allie lolled around all day on the sandy beach and was blistered by the sun. In spite of the fact that Stewart insisted on Lance’s keeping a close watch upon the girls, accidents happened.

According to Starr the long-looked-for camping trip in the mountains was approaching; and that, for two lone cowboys, was a job too big. Starr told Lance that he was trying to persuade Madge to take the vaqueros and a cook.

The boys went off on larks of their own contrivance, and on one occasion became lost less than ten miles from the ranch. Another time they slipped off to town and did not show up at the ranch until late the next day, for which jaunt Madge called them “a lot of bums.”

When, however, the least little thing or something more serious, such as Dervish’s bolt, happened to Madge, Lance seemed always to be on the spot. This morning he was morosely counting the occurrences, and wondering if the last two had been strictly bona fide, yet nursing a sense of guilt because of his doubt.

There were endless jobs. He was laboring on a corncrib. Ren had taken the boys fishing. And just about the time Lance forgot his woe, there came a wild clamor of screams from the big barn.

“Sounds scary. Now what the hell?” he muttered, darkly, and strode for the barn. The first screams might have been mirth, but those following sent Lance into a run. He dashed up the runway.

The girls were in a pandemonium of fright, shrieking, pale as death and wild-eyed. It could not be an ordinary circumstance. Missing Madge from the group Lance yelled: “Shut up! — Where’s Madge? What’s the matter?”

“Oh! — Oh! — she’ll be killed!”

“Save her, cowboy — for God’s sake!”

“If she falls... it... it’ll be terrible!”

“Where is she? What is it?” yelled Lance.

“Girls, if you tell him — I’ll hate you,” cried Madge, piercingly from somewhere. “Lance Sidway, you get out — of here! Don’t you dare look!”

At that juncture Beulah Allen ran to Lance, “She was swinging on the hay rope — from one loft to the other.... Sitting on the noose!... Something gave way — and up she went bang against the roof.... There!”

“That’s out for you, Bu Allen!” raged Madge.

Then Lance saw Madge up under the roof, hard against the wheel. The noose evidently slipped from her hips, up to her armpits, and had stripped her that far. But Lance saw only those terrible eyes and the scarlet face.

“Go away!” she shrieked.

“Madge, you’re in great danger,” flashed Lance.... “Grab the wheel!”

“I’d rather die — than — have you...”

“I didn’t look at you — directly,” fumed Lance, angrily. “I didn’t see you. I wouldn’t give a whoop to... didn’t you ever meet a gentleman?... hang on! — Help me, girls. Make a pile of hay right under her — so if she falls... .”

Frantically he began to drag huge armloads of hay from the loft, flinging them to the girls. They worked with a will. Then Lance dashed to the windlass. It was an old-fashioned hay-fork contrivance, and the heavy reel, owing no doubt to a swinging rock wired on it for a balance, had slipped to jerk her aloft.

“All right,” shouted Lance, as soon as he had loosened the rope and taken a strong grip. “Let go the wheel up there.... Down you come.... Hang on to the rope now.”

“You’re squeezing me — to death,” cried Madge.

Madge reached the floor and the rope went slack. A chorus of tender and commiserating exclamations came from the girls who had surrounded Madge. Bu Allen met Lance with a twinkle in her eyes.

“She’s not hurt much. I’ll say she got squeezed once hard enough.”

Lance made no effort to approach the circle around Madge, who evidently lay prostrate on the hay. He had been forced to expend breath as much through emotion as effort. Bu put a sympathetic hand on his arm. Lance received the impression that the girl, despite her sophistication, was someone to like.

“Girls — is — she hurt?” panted Lance.

“Not that we can tell,” replied Allie, who knelt on the hay. Maramee had Madge’s head in her lap. Her abbreviated costume had been decently arranged.

“Where’s that dragon killer?” asked Madge, her voice weak, but spirit apparently undaunted.

Bu Allen dragged Lance over to the pile of hay, where Madge lay, white as a sheet.

“You would!” she exclaimed, with inscrutable eyes on Lance.

“Would — would what?”

“Be the one to catch me in that stunt. I used to do it when I was little. It never occurred to me to look at the windlass. I’m an idiot. ... Sidway, please promise you’ll not tell Nels or Dad, or even Ren.”

“It never happened, Miss Stewart,” rejoined Lance, soberly.

“Help me to the car,” she replied, and with Allie and Maramee’s assistance arose painfully to her feet. “The knot on that damned noose stuck into my back.”

The girls helped Madge in, and then piled in themselves, with Allie at the wheel. Madge leaned over the door and took hold of the dusty edge of Lance’s vest with unsteady fingers.

“Did I thank you?”

“No. But that’s not necessary,” returned Lance, hurriedly.

“I ought to be decent enough.”

“Madge, you said it,” chimed in Beulah.

“She’s just waiting for something big,” added Allie softly. “Anyway, Lance, we all thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”

“Lance Sidway, don’t you save me any more,” said Madge, imperiously. “Not from hayforks, fences, horses, cars — from college youths or gangsters — nor from myself. If you do, I’ll not be responsible.”

“Are those orders?”

“Yes, they’re orders.”

“Thanks. I’ll not be present next time. And I won’t attend your funeral!”

The car rolled away.

* * * * *

Lance felt inclined to the conviction that it was his careful avoidance of the girls the next few days which kept him out of hot water. Still he had to hear about their mishaps and stunts from Ren, who had been relegated to the job, and who raved rapturously through supper, and then long afterward, to Lance’s disgust. It did not help Lance’s mood to realize that he listened keenly when he might have gone out of hearing.

On the third night, however, Ren, for some reason appeared very glum and silent. Nels ventured a few sly queries. And when Lance added: “Has our poodle had his tail pulled?” Ren stalked out and stamped to his room.

“Wal, he ain’t often like thet,” said Nels, ponderingly. “Reckon one of us ought to make a move, anyhow.”

“I’ll go, Nels,” returned Lance, and lighting a cigarette he went out. Approaching Ren’s door and seeing that the light was out, Lance knocked and said:

“Sorry, old man. I was only kidding.”

“Shore, I know that. It’s okay,” replied Ren, gruffly.

“Little off your feed, Ren?”

“I reckon.... An’ I was made out a turrible sucker today!”

“By whom?”

“Wal, who’d you think?”

“Bonita?”

“Thet little hussy! — Say, she’s lost her haid over them boys. I cain’t do a damn thing about it.”

“Don’t try. They’re only in fun, Ren.”

“Like hell they air!” ejaculated the cowboy, bitterly.

“Ren, I lay off Bonita for your sake. Maybe I shouldn’t have. She liked me. And I’m your pal, you know.”

“You’re damn right you shouldn’t. Them boys hev been chasin’ Bonita an’ her friends pretty hard lately, an’ unbeknown to Majesty.”

“That’s not so good, Ren.”

“Good! — It’s pretty bad, if you ask me.”

“Well, I’ll walk down and give the kid a spiel, Ren.... But, I forgot. Who made the sucker out of you?”

“Never mind now, pard. I don’t want to hear you whoop.”

Lance strolled off the long porch across the square, and down the road toward the high wall of poplar trees that marked the village. The night was close and warm. Merry voices up by the lake attested to the presence of night bathers. The strumming of a guitar and the lilt of a Spanish love song suited the summer night. At the corner Lance turned left to go down the long avenue of poplars. Lance passed the deserted adobe houses, then the lighted store, and beyond that the noisy cantina. Here there was no one out under the vine-covered trellis. Peeping in he saw a number of Mexicans, but no girls or white men. Lance crossed the street, and in the deep shadow of the other lane of poplars, he went slowly on toward Danny Mains’ house. When he got to the corner he halted in the shadow. The gate was beyond a little ways. Lance thought he would hang around a little before he went in. There were both lights and music in the Mains’ cottage. Presently three bareheaded girls appeared, scarfs round their shoulders. The foremost was Bonita. They hesitated, whispering excitedly, and were evidently expecting someone. When Lance called Bonita she gave a start and then approached slowly, while the other girls hung back. He met her at the gate.

“Hello, kiddo. Where are you going?”

“Oh, Señor Lance! — I was afraid it might be my brother Manuel... I’ve — we have a date.”

“You look it. Sweet as a wild rose!... Bonita, have you gone back on Ren and me?”

“No indeed. But I never see you — and him so seldom. He’s jealous. Tries to boss me. I won’t stand it, Lance.”

“Don’t blame you. Has he asked you to marry him yet?”

“He has not,” she retorted. “But he did say I was so — so bad he wasn’t sure he wanted me to.”

“Well, that’s a tough one.... Bonita, have you been stepping out a little lately?”

“Not so very. Tonight’s the first time I’ve consented to go to town. Francisca and Maria have both been. I’m scared. If Daddy finds it out he’ll whip me.”

“Stay home. Come with me to see Ren. He’s blue. Let the others go.”

“Lance, if you wanted me for yourself I’d break any date. I’d rather. These young college men are too swift for Bonita Mains.”

“Listen, honey. Now don’t be a little chump. It’s all right to go if you refuse to drink. You’ll enjoy the movies and dancing.”

“They all drink like fish.”

“Right.” And Lance laughed at the frank girl. He drew her close to him and kissed her. “Bonita, get a load of this. I like you myself — more than these college guests of Miss Stewart’s. But Ren loves you, dearly. I know it. And I’d hate to see you two fail to make a go of it. Now be a good kid. Promise me. I’ll make a date with you for tomorrow night, like this, so we can talk.”

“I promise, Lance,” she replied, happily, her hands on his arm. “I’ll not drink tonight. If you can’t patch it up between Ren and me, it’ll not be my fault.”

“Swell! You’re okay, Bonita, and Ren is a crabby old sourdough. We’ll fix it.... Hello! — a car?”

“They’re coming. Perhaps it’d be just as well if you weren’t seen.”

Lance gave her dark head a pat and hurried back into the shadow of the trees. But the car did not come close to the house, and Lance could not ascertain to whom it belonged. The girls ran out and were taken in with merry greetings. As the car went on, Lance thought he saw a figure hanging on behind. Presently, being certain of this, he took to the road and strolled down the hill. He knew that if someone had stolen a ride, he would not stick on for long, not on desert roads at the speed these fellows liked.

This car, however, did not appear to open up, until it reached the level valley floor. Lance kept on, presently reaching the level, where the dry wash and the sand made rough going for a space. At length he gave up and was about to turn back when he almost bumped into someone sitting on the low bank of the road. A little peal of silvery laughter magnified his start.

“Lance Sidway! I was just gambling with myself how soon you’d arrive,” said Madge Stewart.

“Well, I’m damned!”

“So am I. Fatally damned to have you get me out of every scrape.”

“That’s a tough break. You’re not alone?”

“Yes, I am. Allie was in the plot with me. She was to hang onto the other side. Either she did not get on or she was jolted off. You didn’t see her along the road?”

“No. She couldn’t have come. I saw only one person hanging on the back of that car.”

“You saw me? When?”

“When the car stopped outside Mains’ house. I was with Bonita. The other girls waited in the yard.”

“Oh! I see. Johnny on the spot! — Did you get who the boys were?”

“No. That didn’t interest me particularly. Bonita told me these boys were too swift for her. What Bonita does is probably none of my affair, but I am interested because of Ren. So I urged her not to drink and she said she wouldn’t. Bonita is easily influenced if you go about it right. I’ve been Ren’s friend, with her, if you know what I mean.”

“I didn’t until now,” returned Madge, bluntly. “We girls thought the boys were going to the cantina with the girls. I think it lousy of them, especially of Barg Hillcote. Just engaged to Maramee! There I go spilling my insides.... Lance Sidway, men are all rotten.”

“Yeah!” answered Lance, uncertainly. She had begun to strike him rather singularly, as she had not moved, and she sat leaning back on both hands with one leg up over the bank. In the starlight he could see her lovely face and speaking eyes.

“Maramee would break her engagement with Barg for this. I would. And she’s been so happy.... I hope to goodness Allie didn’t get on and fall off.... Surely she’ll come soon.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Lance said suddenly, and he leaned close to Madge, peering at her.

“Guess I got hurt,” she replied, with great inscrutable eyes meeting his.

“Where?”

“My foot. This one. Thought at first I’d sprained my ankle. But I’m not sure.”

“Let me see.” Lance stepped up on the bank and knelt. She had taken off her shoe and stocking. Her white foot and leg gleamed in the starlight.

“Don’t touch it!” she cried. But he went right on until she screamed out.

“All right, all right, touchy!... Let me see you move it.... Flex it!”

“Oh, I can do that. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Your ankle is okay. You’ve sprained your instep — or something. But if you keep off it and use hot water frequently, you’ll be all right tomorrow or next day.”

“I’ll have to walk back home.”

“No you won’t. You can’t. Let me get your car.”

“But I don’t want anyone to know about this, and they will if I come in the car. I’ll have to sneak in by the west wing to my room. I’ll have to walk.”

“Nonsense. I can easily carry you.”

She laughed outrageously.

“But I can. I’m strong,” protested Lance, earnest, amazed, solicitous. “I can throw a hundred pound sack of grain all over the place.”

“Strong? I know you’re a perfect Hercules, Mr. Sidway,” she said, tauntingly. “But I won’t have you packing me around.”

Very carefully she stepped, and moved up the slope. Every time her injured foot touched the ground it must have pained greatly, Lance knew. He put a hand under her arm and half lifted her along. They came into a trail, and that appeared to be easier for Madge. When they arrived at the pines, however, she was tottering. But this girl was the kind that could not quit.

“Why won’t you let me carry you?” he asked, suddenly. “You did once.”

“That’s why.”

“If you’re not the queerest, screwiest girl, I’ll eat my hat!” declared Lance.

“Yes, when you haven’t one!” she retorted. When she started on, Lance knew she would not make it much farther. And he bided his time, hot and perplexed. Finally she swore and sobbed almost in the same breath. Without a word more he picked her up in his arms and went on. Shifting his hold, so she would carry more comfortably for her, he said: “There. Isn’t that better? I hardly feel your weight.”

“Better, indeed. But I fear — riskier,” she returned in a queer voice.

Lance had to look at her. Before that, all had seemed well. He was relieved to save her pain. Her face lay high up on his right arm, almost on his breast, turned toward him somewhat, and its lovely proximity grew suddenly exciting. She was looking at him with eyes whose expression he could not fathom.

“Riskier! — What do you mean?” he demanded.

“You see I am utterly helpless. You might get a cave-man notion... . Really that wouldn’t be so bad. But you probably just kissed Bonita...”

“I did. For Ren’s sake — mostly.”

“Ye gods and little fishes!... And no doubt it was Bu Allen last night. She came in with her lipstick all smeared up. Radiant. Bold as the very devil. And she didn’t deny it when we kidded her about you.”

“Miss Stewart, I did not see her last night,” protested Lance.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, can the Miss.... It doesn’t sound natural.... And well, if you had been with Bu, you’d have kissed her, wouldn’t you?”

“That would have depended entirely upon her.”

“How chivalrous! If she had been suffering for contact or release — or what have you, why you’d have been a perfect necker.... Lance, you give me a pain in the neck.”

“I know. But why — why?” he demanded, furiously.

“It must be because you’re a liar.”

“Well, Madge Stewart, you give me worse than that — and it’s because you’re no good.”

“Let me down. You said that before. I’ll die before I — I’ll...”

“Bunk! You can die all right, after I get you home. I hope you do. I hope you choke on your terrible tongue.”

Anger and intense mortification, and some other emotion began to augment in Lance’s consciousness.

“The girls think you’ve the sweetest disposition — that you’re the swellest fellow. My God!” And she uttered a tinkling little laugh that cut into Lance like icy blades.

“Your boy friends think the same of you. But they’re a lot of sapheads. They don’t know you.”

“You do!”

“Bet your — sweet life I do. Better than you have any idea,” he panted.

“Rest here, young Lochinvar! or you’ll fall. I think, after all, you’re not so strong. This magnificent frame is pithy — like your head.”

Lance groaned under the excess of his burdens. Halfway up to the house, in one of the little bench parks under the pines, he sat down on a boulder to regain his equilibrium, but he did not let go of Madge. He could feel the throb of her against his throbbing. And all at once he happened to think of what she had told Rollie that last night. Under the galvanizing stress of the idea that leaped out of it he arose like a giant and a fiend. He wrapped his long arms closer about her and drew her wholly against his breast. Madge seemed totally calm. Then Lance kissed her, not with any particular feeling, but merely as a preliminary.

“I thought it was about time,” muttered Madge.

Then, staggering on under the pines, he kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her hair, her neck — and when at last she protested, Lance stopped her mouth with his, in an endless passionate kiss which magnified all he had ever bestowed in his life.

“Damn — you!” she panted, as he moved a moment to breathe. And she began to pound him — to tear at his hair. “You insult me...”

“Insult you! — Good God — it — couldn’t — be — done,” he mocked her, breathlessly. “I heard you say — you rather liked it... .”

“You — what...”

“Mine ought to be — as good as any of those guys — and cleaner, by heaven! and fresher — from lack of promiscuous practice.” And bending over, squeezing her face up immovably, he began to kiss her lips like a madman. His kisses choked off her scream. After one frantic and tense struggle she collapsed in his arms. And he kissed her for every step, on under the pines, out upon the drive, almost to the front archway. Keeping outside the drive he passed this, and once in the shrubbery he began again his ravenous tasting of her lips, as if his appetite grew with what it fed upon. But not until he rounded the west wing and reached her window did he realize that her face, her lips, her body had changed. Her eyes were closed tightly — heavy eyelids dreamy, long curled lashes on her cheeks; her lips bowed, open, sweet with a strange fire; her breast pressed on his. Not until Lance lifted her into the open window did he realize that she had an arm round his neck. He lowered her carefully to the floor. Then he leaned on the sill, spent and devastated.

She stirred, and sat up, and laboriously climbed upon the bed. Lance, watching her, expected, yearned for a scourging, bitter enough even for him. But she just looked at him. In the starlight he saw her face as only he would carry it in his heart forever.

“Majesty,” he began, in husky whisper, “I...” but he could not go on.

CHAPTER IX

MADGE SAT UPON her bed gazing tensely out of her window into the gloom where Lance Sidway had vanished. A fringe of her senses seemed to register the drowsy murmur of water, the rustle of leaves, the chirp of crickets, as well as loud voices and gay laughter of some of her guests in the living room. But for all that, her acute senses coalesced on her burning cheeks and neck, her breast, and especially her lips on fire with that cowboy’s terrible kisses.

Not all at once could her wit and intelligence throw off that spell. She found herself rubbing her stockingless leg and ankle. The tightness around her foot, the heat, meant injury in some degree, but she felt no pain. Over and above these sensations thundered the truth, clearing in her mind. She had ranged the gamut of incredible feeling — from pique, surprise, shock, fury to a sudden overwhelming tumult of love, of her willful changing moods, her wounded vanity, her temper and upflaring hate, and her softening doubt, her endless misgivings and suspicion, that had kept her up and down for days, only to have this shameful assault leave her undone, madly in love at last, stricken forever.

“I — I can take it!” whispered Madge, with her fluttering hand on her hot lips. She did not weep. She asked no quarter. She had her just deserts. But she was not as he believed — that shot through her with a passionate pang. From the very beginning everything had worked to her detriment. Her imperious demand for that horse? No — that was not the first. Her meeting with the gangster Uhl! That had started her wrong with this Oregon boy. And every single thing afterward had gone wrong — her tempers and her tricks, her insincerity and subterfuge, her nasty tongue and open satire. He must have overheard her saying she rather liked being kissed. That night when Rollie had met her after Lance had infuriated her! But there was nothing to be ashamed of about that. It was true, only on the moment she was torturing Rollie. The cowboy had something these other boys lacked. His recent treatment of her was wholly at variance with that, and seemed inexplicable to Madge. He did not want to kiss her. He did not approve of her. He despised her. He must have possessed some kind of a masculine trait that made her kissing promiscuity intolerable and abhorrent. He was avenging the throng of boys she had kissed and forgotten. There were a thousand slants and angles to this outrageous assault upon her — only one terrible revelation accruing from them! The doom of love, that she had trifled with so regally and callously, had fallen upon her. How impossible to understand! If Lance Sidway had entered her room that moment and snatched her up.... But he had not known she had been, at the last, taking his kisses and spending her soul in exchange. And suddenly Madge was possessed of an insane rage. She wanted to kill him. It would not be enough to have him horsewhipped and driven away. He must not live to kiss girls like Bonita and have the sunlight shine in his hazel eyes for some other....

“Oh, nuts!” burst out Madge, baldly, suddenly sick of herself, so weary that the fury drained out of her. “I’ve put this day of reckoning off long enough!”

Her exclamation must have been heard, for clicking high heels sounded on the stone corridor.

“Majesty!” called Allie, in great eagerness. “Did I hear you?”

“I shouldn’t wonder. I was cussing. Come in. I’ve a story to unfold. What happened to you?”

“Me! — I was thrown in the dust,” whispered Allie. “Blinded. I couldn’t see a thing. The car was gone and you with it. I felt my way back to my room and washed the dust from my eyes. After that I walked under the pines — down the road — watching for you.”

“Funny you didn’t see that cowboy carrying me or hear him kissing me. Must have sounded like a decisive battle of the world!”

“Majesty!”

“Be careful, darling. I’m a cripple. I fell off the car, too. Hurt my foot.... Help me into my bathroom.”

There between the two of them, Madge boiled out the pain in her foot, and bound it up, to find then that she could walk without limping. She sent Allie out to find where everybody was, and bade her return to sleep with her. Madge found it good to stretch out in bed, in the dark, and wonder. Presently Allie came back, to feel her way to Madge’s side. It was a mutual emotion that caused them to seek each other’s arms.

“Your mother has gone to bed, I think,” whispered Allie. “Snake was playing checkers with your dad. I told them you were tired. Your dad seemed concerned. ‘Madge tired? that’s unheard of.’ He looked worn himself, poor dear. Majesty, do you know I’ve an idea he worries about you and us....”

“Skip it! — Where were the girls?”

“In their rooms, lolling, fussing, gossiping. Except Bu. She’s down the hill looking for cowboys, so Dixie said.”

“Oh!” cried Madge, poignantly.

“What ails you, darling? You act kind of queer and talk worse. You’re burning up. I’m afraid you’ve got fever.”

“Fever! — Ha! Ha! — Yes, I’ve got galloping fever... . And the boys?”

“Down playing pool. Wouldn’t take the girls.”

“Frame-up to shield that trio of heels!” whispered Madge. “All in the know about that date.... Darling, get a load of this. Barg and Dawson and Brand were in that car. And down below they took in Bonita and two of her friends. They went to town.”

“Majesty! Not really.”

“I’ll say. What do you think of them, Barg especially?”

“For Barg? — Lousy is too lovely a word. That dirty little bum! Just finally won Maramee, and he pulls such a stunt. Maramee is so happy. She thinks Barg is perfect. It’ll break her heart.”

“She must never know. Don’t you breathe it.”

“But, darling, they don’t mean any harm.”

“Who don’t?”

“Why, Barg and the boys.”

“No, I don’t suppose they do mean any harm, but it hauls me up, Allie. I’ve done my damnedest to entertain this crowd. They’re swell, only they want to do what they like. Suppose there’d be an accident, or a fight, or they drank too much, and got stuck out all night. That happens, when no harm is intended. What’d my dad say? I grow stiff at the very thought. He’s such a peach. He believes I’m so.... Oh, hell!... What would Danny Mains say? Good old scout. Worships that black-eyed flip! What would that cowboy do? My heavens!”

“Majesty! Someone will hear you. Cowboy! You mean Sidway? It’s none of his business.”

“Isn’t it, though? Ren Starr is his pal. Ren has been at Bonita’s feet for long. And Lance has been courting her for him. Would he be sore? He was sore tonight, maybe somewhat because I... Allie, that cowboy would call the boys down to the barn...”

“But, honey, nothing terrible has happened yet. It won’t.”

“Yes, it has — to me,” whispered Madge, tragically. “Death wouldn’t be half so hard!”

“Majesty, are you crazy? Such talk! What happened?”

Madge hugged her loyal friend close and shook over her. “I fell off the car way down the road. Hurt my foot. I took off my shoe and stocking. Then I sat up on the bank waiting. I knew who’d come. I’d have bet my soul. And he did come. Sidway, the darned inquisitive rooster. We talked, and as always in a few moments we were at each other’s throats. All before he knew I was hurt. When he found that out he was human for a little bit. I wouldn’t let him go for a car or for help, and I started walking up the hill. Hurt? Oh, Lord, did it? Pretty soon he grabbed me up in his arms. I gave him some dirty digs because I knew he’d kiss me. No fellow yet ever got that far with me without kissing me. And I was scared of having Sidway do that. Allie, I — l-liked him too much.... Well, pretty soon he did. I never was so mad in my life, just at first.... After that I began to like it. I thought he was going to eat me alive.... Allie, he lighted some kind of a conflagration in me. If I hadn’t been too weak I’d have.... Oh! — But I couldn’t move. It was only after he tumbled me in my window here that I realized I’d been in a trance of bliss... that at last there... I’d been kissing him for every kiss he’d given me. It all comes to me gradually. Later I’ll remember some of the things he said, and tell you.... Allie, darling, I’ve told you many stories in the dead of night — after love dates, blind dates, hells. But what do you say to this one?”

“Majesty, you love him!” whispered Allie, in awe.

“Ha! Ha! So you get that? What wonderful perspicacity, darling! Never mind about me — about the dual rotten nature that has turned on me ... but what did Lance Sidway mean? Tell me that.”

“Madge, it’s beyond the bounds of human possibility that he doesn’t love you.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a man. And you’ve placed him on the damnedest spots. Seeing you every day and every way.... Why, Madge. I was sorry for him the other day at the lake. You in that indecent bathing suit — the boys wallowing you all over the sand! And he stuck there to save our lives if we got cramps!”

“Wrong again. But what did you see?” flashed Madge, in a passionate whisper.

“I saw the look in his eyes. You know he has beautiful eyes, when they’re soft.”

“You’re as sentimental as Maramee, and as gullible. That cowboy hates my very insides.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“But, sweet, listen. For God’s sake use some brains. Isn’t it conceivable that I should finally fall foul of a real man who sees through me — who has my number — whom I can’t fool or intrigue or fascinate or seduce — who has fine ideals, and who consequently despises me?”

“Yes, it’s conceivable. That’d be a horrible misfortune. ... But if Sidway wasn’t mad about you he couldn’t act as he does. Actions, my proud savage! Actions! Any boy or man can rave. But it’s actions that count. He’s done something, hasn’t he?”

“He’s done me wrong,” wailed Madge, fighting vainly against the sweet madness of Allie’s loyal convictions.

“Take the day you were caught in the noose of the hay rope. Madge, do you imagine any man ever recovering from that?”

“From — what?” asked Madge, faintly.

“From seeing you — from your chin down — without a stitch!”

“Oh, no! He — he didn’t see me... he swore he didn’t.”

“He did, Madge Stewart.”

“Oh, Allie! I’m so horribly afraid he’ll turn out big and fine and noble — despite all — that tonight.”

“He was indicating his sex.”

“Oh!”

“He was jealous. They all kiss you. So would he — and make one swell job of it. I think he’s grand.”

“You are a traitor, Allie Leland.”

“No. You’re that, Madge, to yourself.”

“Oh, I couldn’t be a traitor to anyone,” retorted Madge, fiercely.

“You are a queen and a law unto yourself. Sidway will not bend to you.”

Spent, but still unconvinced, Madge lay there in her friend’s arms.

“Darling, have you ever been your true self to Sidway?” asked Allie.

“Yes, once. The first time. That campus day.”

“Then go back to that. Even if he hates you unmercifully, he’ll come around. After we are gone — and we shouldn’t drag this grand vacation out selfishly....”

“Gone! I couldn’t stay. Yet I must. This is home. I owe it to Dad and Mom. But — alone on the range with that eagle-eyed cowboy! Mom says he is like Dad used to be! Dad is hipped on him. And Nels.... Oh, what is the use?”

“Majesty, it’ll all work out. But I’m afraid you must suffer more.”

“Have a heart, will you? For Pete’s sake! I’ve been dying for weeks.”

“Darling, compose yourself and get to sleep,” begged Allie, tenderly.

“I’m dead tired. But sleep! What’ll I do when I wake up?”

“You mean about him?”

“Of course.”

“Why be just the same as if nothing had happened.”

“You callous woman!... Allie — I think — I guess...” faltered Madge, finally weakening to tears... “I’m licked.... I’m afraid — he’ll go — away!”

* * * * *

Golden sunlight streaming in at Madge’s window seemed inconsistent with the gray gloomy void she wanted to believe was her lot. Allie had gone out in her dressing gown to fetch some coffee and toast. Madge’s foot felt stiff, but it was not going to incapacitate her in the least. What she wanted most right at that moment was to be down at the corrals. Would Lance be such a coward as that — to run off for fear she would betray him? What kind of girls had he known anyway? She would not have hurt him in her father’s estimation for anything in the world. She was consumed with a desire to see Sidway this morning. To see if the monster resembled in any degree her conception! He should be haggard, drawn, after a sleepless night, burdened by guilt, unable to look anyone in the eye.

Allie returned, escorted by a bevy of bright-eyed girls, all of whom had been in the kitchen.

“Lazy girl! It’s ten o’clock,” said Maramee, whose sweet face appeared so gay and happy that Madge wondered at the credulity of human nature. They all came in, their colorful print dresses bright around Madge’s bed.

“Where are Dixie and Bu?” asked Madge.

“Horse mad. Dixie loves to sit on the corral fence and Bu is crazy to ride everything.”

“She’ll get piled up,” declared Madge, severely.

“Humph! Bu’s been piled up, as you call it. But she picks herself up and yelps for more. The cowboys get some kick out of her.”

After a little Madge inquired for the boys. Gone, hours before, off on a hiking trip!

“Not really?” ejaculated Madge, her cup halted halfway to her lips. “Not Barg and... and...”

“Yes, Barg,” declared Maramee, happily. “He poked his head in my window and tossed wild roses on my face, to awaken me. Whispered he’d rather have stayed home with me. Oh, he was darling.”

“To be sure. Barg’s a darling, all right....” Madge was interrupted by the arrival of Dixie Conn, flushed and breathless, no doubt from a climb up the hill.

“Majesty, I thought you were indisposed or something. You just look stunning,” said the southern girl.

“Yeah? Thanks, Dix. But you’re looking through rose-colored spectacles.... Where’s Bu?”

“Madge — Girls! That outsider has shown us up. She’s dishonored the fair name of our sorority.”

“Oh, for the love of Mike — what now?”

“Bu is riding Umpqua right this minute. You know we all tried to coax Sidway to let us ride him. Same as Majesty tried to buy him. Nothing doing! And now she’s down there having a swell time on that grand horse. The cowboy is teaching Bu to jump over logs and ditches, and what have you? Was I jealous? All the same I had to hand it to Bu. She looked great. How’d she ever put that over with Sidway?”

“I’ve a hunch and I’m going to try it,” said Selma Thorne, subtly.

“Say, don’t imagine I let any grass grow under my feet,” declared Dixie. “I went up to the cowboy, raved about his horse and complimented Bu. Then I said, with all I’ve got, old dears, ‘Lance, I’d almost sell my soul to ride Umpqua!’ He said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t read your mind. Umpqua loves girls. I’d be only too happy to put you up on him. Hang around, till Beulah is through.’ I wasn’t dressed for riding as you see, so I asked if I might go down early tomorrow. Then he looked troubled. I hadn’t noticed that. Why, he looked just wretched. And he said: ‘Yes, by all means, if I’m here. But I expect Miss Stewart to fire me this morning!’... Majesty, darling, what has he done now? But no matter, don’t fire Sidway.”

And then the other girls burst into a chorus of appeals and conjectures and wisecracks that fairly infuriated Madge. She flung pillows at them. “Beat it, you pack of imps! I must have been bughouse to invite you over here.... Get out! — No! I’m — not — going — to — fire — Lance Sidway! Go climb on his neck and then on his precious Umpqua for all I care. That’d be the way to get there. But I’d die first.”

They fled in a fiendish clamor and Madge hid her face in her pillow. It was a bad moment. There were many impetuses toward a magnificent fury, which she viewed with her mind, one after another. But she could not surrender to the one thing that had crushed her — the perfectly inconsequential and natural circumstance of Lance putting Bu Allen up on his horse. The absurdity of her childish pique gradually faded in the stern realization that her happiness, her future, and the welfare of her dear parents, so fatefully bound up in her, were at stake. Well might it be too late! But she would humble herself, crucify her selfish imperious side, absolutely refuse catastrophe. If she had been half as nice to Sidway as Bu Allen had been she would not now be in such extremity.

Madge prostrated herself before her love, which was to betray her pride and spirit. It was too great a thing to deny any longer. But by surrendering she gained some aspect of the wit and self-control she needed at this trying time. Three betrothals among her guests attested to the success of their sojourn at her ranch. That Beulah and Elwell would make a go of it there was no reasonable doubt. Madge decided to shorten and intensify the remaining stages of their entertainment and center her energies upon the trip into the mountains and the dance she had long planned.

This decision would change for her, and therefore her guests, the idle languor of the summer days. To that end, an hour after she left her room, she approached her parents, finding them in her mother’s room. Evidently Madge had interrupted a serious talk, and having changed the direction of her mind she looked at them penetratingly, conscious of her neglect this exciting summer.

“Darlings, am I intruding?” she asked, halting in the doorway.

Her mother’s sweet response and the light that her presence always brought upon her father’s dark face assured Madge of her welcome, and that indeed she had been remiss.

“Mom, you can hide trouble, but Dad can’t,” said Madge, going to them, and she found that this was not a new thought, only one put aside because it hurt. An unaccountable aloofness, arising from her shame, kept her from sliding upon the arm of Stewart’s chair. When had she done that? How little she had seen of him for a month and more! His reserve betrayed it.

“Has my crowd gotten on your nerves?” she asked.

“They have been somewhat trying,” replied Mrs. Stewart, with a smile. “But that was only because of our difficulty in adjusting ourselves to excitement and mirth and — well, the life they brought with them. I like them all, Madge. Your favorite Allie is mine, too. And the boys are fine. I’m glad you had them all here.”

“Dad?” queried Madge, poignantly.

“After they’re gone, I’ll tell you, lass,” replied her father, then hastily: “Oh, I like them all right. I just mean I must get hold of myself.”

“Yeah? I’m afraid I’m answered.... Has Rollie Stevens been nagging you about me?”

“No. That young man steers a little clear of me. But he has approached Madeline.”

“He has told me he wanted to marry you, darling. Three separate times. And has taken occasion to tell about the Stevens, their position, wealth, and all that. Very correct and a fine young fellow. But, Madge, he wouldn’t care to live out here.”

“I’ll tell the world he wouldn’t,” retorted Madge, with a laugh. “And I wouldn’t have him if he would. So skip that, Mom.”

“Madge, then — so you intend to stay home — a while?” asked Stewart, a little huskily, gazing away from her out of the window.

“Dad!” If she had followed her swift impulse it would have been to throw her arms around his neck. But she could not do it. Her intuition grasped something strange here. “I’m going to pack this crowd off sooner than I had expected. And after that I’m going to stay home for good.”

It was her mother Madge looked at, and she divined that whatever had been her thoughtless failings and deplorable shortcomings, they had never changed that faithful heart. If she had lost her father, through the years of absence, and his inability to understand her when she did come back, she divined that would not be a permanent estrangement, because she was kind and loving, and if she made amends for her wildness and settled down to a real love of him, and her future at the ranch, all would be well. Her quiet talks with Nels, too few and far between, had played no small part in the awakening of her conscience. Yet remorseful as she felt, her temper would admit of no reason that she knew why she should arraign herself at these odd moments. It was on account of that cowboy, and because she had been so unaccountably a prey to love for him. She had always known she must love some man with all her being, desperately, once and for good and she had always been looking for him. That might account somewhat for her endless interests.

“Dad, what’s on your mind?” asked Madge, after this flashing pageant of thought had left her composed, once more in a way to win back her old confidence. “Nels told me you were worrying over money troubles.”

“The gabby old woman!” ejaculated Stewart, impatiently.

“Don’t be angry with Nels. I coaxed it out of him. I’ve intended to go at him again — but I’ve been so busy with these friends. Besides, Dad, I’ve troubles of my own.”

“You have? No one would guess it. You are the happiest, gayest, most thoughtless of all these young people.”

“On the surface. But never mind my trouble now. It’s going to keep.... What I’d like to know is — when my friends are gone will you tell me everything and let me help? For five years I’ve spent money like a drunken sailor. It’s begun to frighten me a little, Dad, if I thought... if I found out I’d been a spendthrift while you and Mom had.... Oh, I’d hate that so inexpressibly.”

To Madge’s amaze Stewart abruptly took her in his arms and clasped her so closely that she could not breathe. And over her he said to her mother. “Madeline, Nels knows our girl better than we do.” Then he kissed her hair, her cheek, and rushed out.

“Mom!” she cried, going to her mother. “What have I done?... Is it?... Oh!”

“Darling, your conscience and your heart have spoken,” replied her mother, earnestly. “I knew they would. I have never doubted. It is no small thing for a rich and popular girl to return from college, from a great city, to the old-fashioned life of a ranch. Don’t distress yourself further now. Devote yourself to your friends. When they are gone we’ll face our problems. You have eliminated the only one that concerned me.”

“Mother! Whether or not I loved you — and my home?... I’ll never forgive myself.”

“What is it you girls say? ‘Skip it!’... Madge, you will not accept young Stevens?”

Madge did not need to avert her eyes, because they were blind with tears. “No, Mom. I like Rollie, and I’ve played with him. He has done the same with other girls while courting me. Rollie is a playboy. He couldn’t stand this lonely range. But I can, Mother!... And I want a handsome brute who will beat me!”

“The latter is inconceivable,” returned her mother, mildly. “I hope no such contingency arises. I do not want to see the ranch blown to bits or be shaken by some cataclysm.”

“You overrate me, darling. I’m a very meek little girl this morning.”

“You are certainly strange.”

Madge’s original idea had been to ask her father’s advice about taking her guests to the wild fastness up in the Peloncillo Hills, famous as a stronghold of the great Apache chief, Cochise. Before her school days Madge had ridden to this place with her father and the cowboys. She had never forgotten it, and it had been one of her cherished hopes to give her friends a camping trip there. For some inexplicable reason she found that she was cooling on the project, but she was too stubborn and fearful to analyze the cause. To abandon the trip after having exalted it continually for weeks did not quite suit Madge. She would have welcomed a reasonable excuse for not going, and as she considered the plans, that idea amplified. If she remembered correctly the ride up to Cochise’s stronghold was long and arduous, and not for tenderfeet. That very fact had been an incentive. She had vowed that her friends would get one experience of the real thing.

Whereupon Madge, feeling that there was safety for her in numbers, filled her car full of girls and drove down to the store. Nels was there, chipper as a grasshopper, and ready to sell the girls anything from cigarettes to calico. Three separate times Madge’s contingent of friends had bought the store out, to Nels’ joy.

“Where are the cowboys?” asked Madge.

“Lance is diggin’ postholes. An’ thet’s a job he hates as turrible as any other cowboy. Ren says every time Lance does somethin’ awful he goes oot an’ digs postholes.”

“Sort of a penance?”

“Must be. I seen Ren aboot somewheres a minnit ago. I’ll yell fer him.”

It developed that Ren was very easy to locate and soon stood, sombrero in hand, his sunburned face beaming, before Madge and her friends.

“Mawning, cowboy. Where’s your side partner?”

“Wal, Miss Majesty, he’s drunk or crazy or somethin’,” replied Ren, with a grin. “Woke me up before daylight, an’ heah’s what he said, kinda loud an’ ringin’. ‘ren, I’m goin’ out to dig postholes fer thet new fence. If anybody about heah wants to hang me or hawsewhip me, I’ll be out there. Savvy?’”

“How very thoughtful of him,” remarked Madge, resisting a deep vibration that was more than thrill. “What’s he — done now?”

“Dog-gone if I know. But it musta been turrible. I says ‘Lance, you think you’re funny?’ An’ he says ‘About as funny as death!’ An’ he stamps off, without any grub. Why, he’s worryin’ pore Nels to death.”

“How would you and Sidway like to do me a great favor?”

“Job or jest fun?”

“It’ll be a job. No fun at all! I want you to truck your horses as far as you can from town toward the Peloncillo Hills. Find the old trail up to Cochise’s stronghold, and fetch me a report on it and the camp site.”

“I’d like it swell, Miss Majesty, an’ I reckon Lance would about pass out to get away fer a spell. But, excuse me, what’s the big idee? I was huntin’ deer up there last fall. I can tell you most anythin’.”

“Ren, be very serious now. Think of my friends. Is that trip going to be a safe and comfortable one for them?” And Madge gave Starr a look that had passed from her to him on former occasions. Ren suddenly looked blank and dropped his head.

“Hell no! it’s neither one or the other. But thet’s why it’d be grand.” Ren hated to abandon the idea.

“I’m a little afraid of it. You see, Ren, I was sixteen when I made it first, had been riding horses all summer and I was fit.”

The girls burst out into bitter lamentations. “What’re we if not fit?... Haven’t we been riding horses all summer? — Madge, we don’t care a damn how hard it’d be. At that, we can beat the boys.” One and all they put up arguments hard for the kindhearted Madge to withstand. When they were out of breath, Bu Allen contributed calmly: “Lance told me it’s a lousy trip.”

“Lousy! What’s he mean by that?” returned Madge, on fire in an instant despite the fact that Sidway’s inelegant remark was in line with her designs.

“Did I ask him that? He told me a lot of terrible stuff. Said we were all too weak-kneed and soft-bottomed. That’s just what he said, the bum. He thinks we’re a lot of swell kids, but no good for the West. And that goes for you, Majesty.”

“I am quite aware in what poor opinion Sidway holds me,” rejoined Madge, cool once more, and her contrariness was such that now she felt a mounting desire to go and show him how soft-bottomed she was. “Ren, you take Sidway, and leave at once. Find out all about the trail and Cochise’s stronghold. Good and bad. Then upon your return you will report to me and all the crowd, after which we’ll vote to decide whether to go or not.”

“Very wal, Miss Majesty, I’m on my way,” replied Ren.

“Madge, you’re a whiz! Of course, we’re on to you. But we think this investigation will make the trip irresistible.”

“At least it’d be upon your own heads,” warned Madge, then calling Ren back she met him halfway, to ask: “Will you let me know if this plan is acceptable to Sidway?”

Ren regarded her, comically dumfounded. Madge averted her face slightly to go on: “You see, Ren, he may leave any minute. The more I — I need him the more contrary he grows.” She managed that demurely, but she was not smiling. Starr’s tanned face brightened.

“Miss Majesty, between you an’ me we know Lance is daid plumb nutty, an’ what it’s all about. Fer a time there I kind of feared you wasn’t on to him. Wal, I am an’ so is Nels. If you don’t believe me go to Nels. Shore I’m a pore pard to double-cross Lance this way. He’d kill me if he ever found out.”

“Found out what, Ren?” queried Madge, cool and sweet, mistress of herself again, but there was an incredible and unbelievable tumult within her being.

“Thet I give him away.... Majesty, Lance is a turrible bluff. He brags about ridin’ away. Wal, up to this time he hasn’t been able to. He’s been mad an’ wild, but he jest cain’t leave.”

“You surprise me, Ren.... And why?” went on Madge, unable to resist these precious and unreliable words from Lance’s friend.

“Wal, you gotta figger thet out fer yourself. An’ if you cain’t, why go to Nels. I’ve talked too much. Thet son-of-a-gun has eyes like gimlets when he’s close an’ telescopes when he’s far. He might be seein’ us right now. Anyway all he does is watch fer you, Majesty.”

“Ren! What on earth for?”

“It’s not because you’re nice to look at.... I’ve peeped through a crack in the wall between our rooms — an’ seen him porin’ an’ sighin’ over a picture. He acted like a man who couldn’t help lookin’ when he hated to. Thet picture is one of you, Majesty, fer I sneaked in an’ took a peep. He keeps it under a book in his table drawer. Now don’t ask me no more. I feel pretty yellow. But I’d never give him away onless fer my hunch thet you like Lance a little. Don’t you?”

“Like — Lance?” repeated Madge, and all her blood seemed rushing to her head. “Ren, if Lance cannot trust you, how can I?”

“Doesn’t make sense. But you can.”

“I’ll trust you. Yes, I do — like Lance,” returned Madge, and to save her life she could not have made it casual. She went back to the house with the girls, playing her gay part, but there had come a complete reversal in her emotional reaction. Ren had vindicated her own deep convictions — that even if Sidway did hate her, he liked her too, against his better judgment and will, surely. Once more alone in her room she endeavored to stem this tide of overwhelming love, that was so great and so humble at the mere words of a sentimental cowboy. It frightened Madge — that flood of feeling. The sweetness of it warned her that this was not the time for surrender. But she had a tiny nucleus of hope around which to build. If she could only clasp to her breast this humble spirit! Time, days and days, would be her ally.

* * * * *

It was getting along into August, with touches of color beginning to show on the hills. Stewart advised Madge that if she was contemplating a camping trip up in the Peloncillos not to waste any more time. And she confided that she was pretty sure that would fall through. Snake Elwell had to return to college soon for fall practice; Allie had planned to motor east with her parents; and the rest of the party were beginning to think of the city. Nevertheless they were enthusiastic over the prospect of that horseback ride.

It chanced that Madge’s wish to see Sidway and Starr upon their return, before any of her friends, was denied her, much to her concern. She had been alone with her mother when word came up from below that the boys were in. Madge rushed out the patio way and down the trail. A confusion of bright colors decorating Nels’ porch attested to the whereabouts of the girls, and where they were the boys would be also. It was a good long run, and Madge had to halt to catch her breath before she half crossed the square. The horses had just been unloaded from the trucks, and the packs thrown out. Ren was surrounded by her excited friends who were evidently besieging him in unison. Sidway stood a little apart, conversing with Nels and her father. The vaqueros were attending to the horses. Umpqua nickered at Madge, and she flew to stroke his dusty neck, while he nosed at her for sugar. She had never ridden him since that first day, but she had won his affection, and she felt a sense of guilt to look up and see Sidway’s piercing eyes upon her. Ragged and dark, dusty and unshaved, he appealed so powerfully to Madge that as she approached them she wondered how she could hide it.

“Majesty, they won’t say a darn thing,” burst out Maramee, and the others chimed in with gay sallies.

At last Madge reached them, and with a hand on Stewart’s arm, she faced Sidway, and the grinning Starr. She was keen to feel something proven in them.

“Boys — it took you — long enough,” she panted, and smiled upon them.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, you gave us all the time there was,” replied Ren.

Sidway’s hazel eyes, dark and intent, appeared to pierce through Madge. Not for weeks had she met his full gaze like this, and despite the scattering of her wits, she realized the searching nature of his look, as if he were striving to divine her wishes.

“Miss Stewart, it was well you sent us,” said Sidway, simply. “I’m sure it spared you and your friends a real ordeal!”

A groan ran through the listening party.

“Real ordeal! What do you mean?”

“Too severe a physical strain for tenderfeet. A motion-picture crowd would shy at this one — and they do things.... But it can be done, Miss Stewart, and I’m bound to admit, it’d be the trip of a lifetime.”

“You don’t advise it?”

“I do not.”

“Would you take the responsibility if I insisted?” asked Madge.

“Yes, if your father insisted, too.”

“Dad, are you with me?”

“Daughter, this issue is between you and Sidway. He has not told me a thing. My advice is to listen before you make up your mind. You know how you are, Madge.”

Madge transfixed Sidway with a troubled passionate gaze. She did not want to undertake this trip. She rejoiced that Sidway was making it impossible. But there was something about him that dared her to see if she could prevail upon him. She realized that until she could conquer such weakness, she would never be at her best with him.

“Lance, you’re on the spot,” she said.

“Heavens, when haven’t I been?” he ejaculated, and joined Stewart in a laugh. Their understanding and good feeling seemed manifest. Then he bent a glance upon Madge, so clear, so frank, yet so supremely doubtful of her, that she writhed inwardly under it. She divined a thrust aimed at what must be his conviction of a vulnerable point in her which she had no idea she possessed.

“Shoot!” she said, with all her disdain, but she felt dismay before she had been attacked. This cowboy must know something about her, to her discredit, or he could not have affected her that way.

“It may seem superfluous — to you,” he said, coolly. “But have you considered the expense?”

“Expense!” echoed Madge. That was the last question she would have expected.

“Yes. Perhaps you have not thought of that.”

“I had not. Usually I don’t consider what my plans cost.”

“Exactly. That is why I presume to mention it.... This trip would cost a great deal. A gang of laborers would be needed on the trail. Two weeks’ work at least. The cabin up at Cochise’s stronghold has gone to rack and ruin. It would have to be repaired. There are no tents and tarpaulins at the ranch, nor cooking utensils. You would require a complete new camping equipment. We have packsaddles for only a few horses; and, well, would you expect to have this camp on the scale on which you do everything?”

“I’m afraid I would.”

“Of course. Then it would be necessary to buy twenty new packsaddles and at least ten pack animals. That would entail hiring half a dozen extra riders.... So you see, Miss Stewart, it is quite a big undertaking.”

“I see all right,” replied Madge, dubiously. To the credit of her friends, they at once turned thumbs down upon the whole proposition, and were so nice and fine about it that Madge regretted her subterfuge. But what was Lance Sidway aiming at? She believed his report implicitly. A half or a quarter of these obstacles would have sufficed. He believed that no matter how unfavorable his report or how exorbitantly the trip would cost, she would decide to go willy-nilly. Then he believed other things that mystified Madge. For an instant she had a bothersome thought that he might feel contempt for her because expense had never meant anything to her. A rebellious impulse to do the very thing he expected died in its infancy, somehow hastened to its death by the singular, almost mocking light in Sidway’s hazel eyes. In a flash she saw how she could amaze and undeceive him.

“Thank you, Sidway. I’ll abandon the camping trip solely upon your report,” she said. “You have been very conscientious and dependable. I appreciate it.”

If Lance’s scarcely veiled surprise proved Madge’s intuition close to correct, his relief and gladness, that warmed out the coldness of his face, augmented the thought-provoking power of that moment. Madge conceived, too, an impression that Sidway’s feelings were reflected in her father’s dark face. Could these two possibly have an understanding? Madge drove the perplexing thought away.

“Friends, it’s off, our mad ride up into the wilds,” declared Madge. “Some other summer! Instead I’ll throw the biggest party ever.”

Pandemonium broke out among the boys and girls. When they ceased mobbing Madge she suddenly found Sidway towering over her, a stranger to whom her whole being seemed to leap.

“Thank heaven, I won’t have to make a report on that,” he cried. “But, come here!” And seizing her hand he led her aside. “You don’t know what I thought and I’ll never tell you. Only I’m begging you to forgive me. You are one swell sport! You’re a thoroughbred! It’s no wonder...”

He broke off and squeezed her hand and strode away toward the bunkhouses. Madge stood a second, aware of the cramped fingers she could hardly straighten, and wondering what were the words he had left unsaid. It was not her fault if he had not had a glimpse of all her sides. Madge went back to her father.

“Dad, have you and Lance framed me?” she asked.

“My dear, I’ve had no part in this — this, whatever you’d call it,” he laughed. “Honest, Madge. It looked as if I might have been in cahoots with Lance to queer your trip. But he never told me a thing. Nor did Ren. I think he carried it off very well indeed. Your mother will be pleased.”

“Yeah? — What’s this Machiavelli mean by pleasing you and Mom? Looks like deep stuff to me.”

“Madge, he’s just a nice boy, who disapproves of you a lot.”

“Dad, he said some strange things, for him. Nearly crushed my poor hand. Look! Then he beat it. He ran off before I could even answer.”

“Lass, if this Machiavelli and your dad, or better, old Nels, could get you locked in a room and starved or beaten or loved into listening for some hours, you’d come through like your mother did when she decided some momentous questions twenty-five years and more ago.”

“Dad! — Starved or beaten or.... You are as mysterious as he!” And Madge judged that the better part of valor would be to flee. But not until she had plunged deeply into plans for her party did she recover from the confusing thoughts resulting from that surprising contact with the cowboy and her father.

Madge set the date for the party. Invitations were sent to all the range people her father knew from Douglas to Bolton. All the vaqueros and señoritas known to Bonita and her brothers were invited. It took a whole day to put up the decorations. That night when Madge tried out the colored lights and lanterns the glamorous effect transported even her. Next morning the caterer rolled in with his trucks and minions, and Majesty’s Rancho hummed like a beehive. Last to arrive were the sixteen musicians. That was early in the afternoon. Madge went to bed to rest, but she could not sleep. The girls could not even rest. They were in and out all afternoon, and finally when Madge asked Allie to get out a new gown none of them had ever seen, and which she had reserved for this occasion, there ensued a perfectly rapt silence. Bu Allen, of course, broke it. “My Gawd!” she gasped in uncontrollable excitement. “Majesty, you must be married in that!”

“Bu, a girl has to have something beside a gown to get married.”

“Not that one. You don’t even need a slip.”

And so mad were they all that only Madge noted the omission of a man. The thing struck a fatalistic chord in her. She had everything — wonderful parents, lovely friends, wealth, education, ranch, horses, cars, all to make any girl happy — except a man to marry.

But that was the last thing in the world to occupy her mind now. Anyway it was a calamity she could remedy this very night, provided she beat down her obsession for one unappreciative, unresponsive cowboy. Still it had been ingrained in Madge’s girlish dreams that no one save a cowboy like her father could ever have her.

Toward the end of that long day Madge slept, and was awakened by Allie and Maramee. They informed her that the lights were lit, the many tables set, and guests were arriving. Madge sent them off to dress and flew to her bath. She was in the midst of her make-up task when they returned, formal and elegant, to draw encomiums from Madge.

“Girls, we’ll knock ’em for a loop tonight,” said Madge, gleefully.

“We?” chirped Maramee.

“Yes, us,” declared Madge.

“Darling, I think you mean him,” retorted Allie.

They brushed her hair until it sparkled with glints of fire, and then by some magic of deft feminine hands they encased her in the blue and gold gown. For jewels Madge wore a string of pearls, the gift of her Aunt Helen, so beautiful and valuable that she had not risked it out of the safe for years. Allie was silent, gazing raptly at her, but Maramee raved on and on.

“Once in my life!” was all Madge whispered to the image shining from her long mirror, and either she meant that she was satisfied or that she would play that beauty to the limit. Madge went to her mother’s room, to be admitted. Her father was there, lean and dark and handsome in his black suit.

“Oh, Mom, but you are a lady of quality!” cried Madge, a rush of warm sweetness piercing her trance. “Dad, isn’t she just stunning?”

Both her father and mother appeared incapable of speech on the moment, but their eyes would have gratified a far vainer girl than Madge. “I wanted you to see me first.” And she whirled for their benefit. “Now, darlings, this is my party. I’ve had it coming to my crowd for a year. Unknown to them it is my farewell to them — to college — to that kind of life. Whatever we do, don’t be shocked.”

And she ran out, through the living room, into the corridor where she encountered Sidway. In his dark garb he looked so slim and different that she did not recognize him at first glance.

“Oh! — how stupid of me! It’s Lance.” And she halted under the colored lights.

He started and backed partly against the balustrade, while a dazed and frowning expression altered his face. Then it vanished as he leaped erect, to utter a queer little laugh and make her a profound bow.

“Lance. Do you — like me?” she queried softly.

“Majesty, I used to believe you were a mistake of evolution, but now I know it was God.”

“Is that a compliment or a slam?”

“Pardon me. I’m in urgent search of your father. I just found out that the balance of his cattle herd were just rustled. And I’m going to find out who stole them and where they were driven.”

“Oh, Lance, how dreadful. But must you tell him tonight?” wailed Madge.

“Come to think of it, no,” he returned, brightly. “I haven’t even told Ren. Poor kid! It’s going tough with him. Love is a terrible thing!”

“It is indeed,” agreed Madge, fervently. “But you have merely heard or read about that.”

She left him, sailing with a swish down the corridor to her room. She had no time to deduce sense from Lance Sidway’s queer remarks, and she was glad of it. If she spent ten minutes with that cowboy there would be no triumph for her tonight. What a devastating effect he exercised over her! Some of the girls were in her rooms and the others soon paraded in. Every last one of them had on a new gown! And had they planned for this pièce de résistance of Madge’s? They were interrupted by the caterer, a handsome Italian in immaculate white. Madge admitted him and drove out the girls. “Find the boys. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“I hope you please,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

“Corvalo, I’m bound to be. Remember, serve champagne to my party in the living room. Wine to the other tables. As for the punch, it must have an awful wallop. But not an immediate kick. Use creme de menthe to flavor only — to make them like it — leading them on. A soft sweet tasty punch — flowers and music leading to a precipice. Get me, Corvalo?”

He departed with shining eyes and beaming face, as if that order had been one to his liking. Madge went in search of her friends. They had rounded up the boys, who looked cool and natty in white flannels. Their various comments were incense to Madge’s heart. Rollie Stevens said: “Murder in the Rue Rancho this night!”

“Come, let’s make the rounds,” said Madge. “At least I can speak to all these strangers.”

“Lamping you will be enough,” declared Barg.

Madge found it easier to be courteous and friendly than she had anticipated. The delight of the Mexicans especially pleased her. There were ranch people she remembered, and apparently all the cowboys on the range.

“Pack of wolves!” averred Rollie. “They’d eat you alive. Good thing you’re under my wing.”

“Are you sure you can be trusted to think of me?”

The long patio made a colorful and beautiful spectacle. A row of tables extended down the center. Benches and chairs lined the walls. The waxed floors, built in for the occasion, shone iridescently. Colorful lanterns hung from the center of the arches. The gorgeous Spanish and Indian decorations lent a richness and legend to the old rancho. Madge slipped a hand over her heart to still its beating, its muffled pain. What was this pang stealing into her happiness?

Moments for pondering had passed by. The great dinner gong pealed through the corridors and the patio, and was followed by a merry hum. Then the orchestra upon which Madge put such store pealed its exotic music through the house. It heralded the Spanish fiesta that was to last until dawn.

Madge, with her college guests, and her father and mother, sat down to dinner in the living room. That table from its hothouse orchids, its silver plate and crystal, to the rare and savory dishes of the sumptuous dinner, excelled anything the ranch had ever known.

Stewart appeared to be staggered with its magnificence. But as the dinner wore on he fell under the spell of his wife’s pleasure and Madge’s rapture, and the continuous merriment and wit of the college crowd. Snake Elwell and Bu Allen were the first couple to begin dancing. Bu looked ravishing in a white gown that threatened to split at every move. Allie, usually the sweetest of girls who never made a criticism or caustic comment, spoke right out: “Some hot little cookie!” And Madge’s father, who heard it, surrendered unconditionally to this group of young moderns.

Madge’s keen eyes did not miss anything. Once she saw Sidway and Starr, flushed of face and fire-eyed, peep into the living room. She also observed that her father did not drink his champagne. With dinner at an end, the dancing set in continuously, with only short intermissions. Madge loved to dance, and the first hour passed by on wings. When her crowd happened to congregate, someone remembered the punch, whereupon they flocked to the living room. The long table had been cleared, and moved back to the wall. In the center an enormous bowl of silver and crystal shone resplendent, full of a twinkling liquid that had life and color. An attendant stood ready to serve. Curious and gleeful, Madge drained her cup, tasted and wondered, and listened for comments. She alone knew that innocent-looking punch was loaded with dynamite.

“Say, Madge, where’d you hit on this concoction? Pretty nifty,” observed Rollie Stevens, who considered himself a connoisseur.

“New to me, Rollie.”

“Soft and minty,” interposed Brand. “I’ll bet it’ll lead you on.”

“Tame, if you ask me,” said Allie, loftily, and that from her was a source for mirth. Allie could not stand liquor at all.

“Swell punch,” observed Elwell. “What do you say, Bu?”

“Hand me another,” replied the redhead.

“Majesty, are you kidding us with this stuff?”

“I’m sorry, Brand. But this is my home, you know. And remembering your capacities I wanted something weak.”

“Weak or not let’s have another.”

Madge finally dragged her friends out. While dancing and resting the next hour she contrived to keep tabs on that punch bowl. Just as she had suspected, her friends were succumbing to this insidious drink. Once with Rollie she almost burst in upon her father, Nels, Danny Mains, Starr and Sidway, but she drew her escort back behind some decorations in the corridor. With intense interest and fiendish glee she watched them and listened, holding Rollie back with imperious hand.

Manifestly this group of gentlemen had been in there before.

“Gene, we shore lived too soon,” drawled Nels, regretfully.

“Shades of Monty Price and Nick Steel!” ejaculated Stewart. “Nels — Danny, what would our old pards have thought of this drink?”

“My Gawd, I dunno.... Fill me up another, waiter.”

“Boss, this heah punch is nectar an’ honey an’ hell all mixed up together,” said Starr.

“Where does the hell come in?”

“Wal, I hadn’t noticed thet until this last drink, which was my sixth.... Pard, how many have you had?”

“Enough,” replied Sidway, tragically.

“Why, you dawg-gone kill-joy! Cain’t you hold your likker?”

“Ren, I can’t hold this liquor — and I can’t take it!”

“Lissen, pard. I’m gonna put a couple of these under Bonita’s belt,” whispered Ren, behind Danny Mains’ back.

“Don’t. You’ll lose her right then.”

“Umpumm! Thet’s when I’ll win her. Pard, Bonita is funny tonight. Been cryin’ an’ turrible upset.”

“Come here, you geezer!” And Sidway dragged Ren out of the room.

“Gene, any drink that can make an old man young again is one to tie to,” said Nels.

“I agree with you. But, pards, even if my daughter hadn’t sprung some destroying drink on us, I’d have to get drunk with you for old times’ sake.”

“Wal, ole El Capitan again!” ejaculated Danny Mains. “If the ootfit was only heah!”

Madge had heard enough to give her a twinge of conscience. But only gay and rapturous thoughts could abide in her mind. She went back to dancing. Rollie with more drinks than were good for him had begun to grow demanding and bossy. Soon came an added interest in Sidway’s presence upon the floor. He was taller than her college friends, slim and erect in his black suit, broad-shouldered, quite the handsomest boy there. He had started in dancing with Bonita, and from her to Bu Allen was only a short step. Then he cut in on the boys and apparently enjoyed thoroughly her girl friends. Naturally she expected him to gravitate to her. But he did not approach her or look at her, an omission that did not go unnoticed. It was rude of him, Madge thought, as she was his hostess, but it seemed between them there was no observance of rules. From that hour Madge’s feeling of happiness underwent a change. Visits to the punch bowl kept up her spirits. By midnight some kind of a climax seemed imminent. Her father and his friends, despite their visits to the living room, were still steady on their feet. Stewart appeared to have lost his gaiety. Madge saw her mother apparently remonstrating with him, to no avail. Thereafter Madge did not see her mother. Madge was glad and she hoped her father would retire soon. There would be no fights such as Stewart had known in the early days, when he was El Capitan, but Madge knew something was bound to happen, and she repented now that she had been responsible for it.

It came in the nature of a surprise. Bu Allen sat down on the floor, a cup of punch in her hand, and turned a somersault. She did not spill any liquor. The boys and girls howled at the sight. Thus encouraged, she turned somersaults all across the living room. Nels and Danny Mains were in hysterics; Ren Starr whooped like the cowboy he was; Sidway strode out of the room. Stewart, his face like a thundercloud, threw up his hands like a man who had been vainly fighting facts, and lunged out into the patio.

Madge, frightened at the lightning of his eyes, watched him disappear with a sinking of her heart. Had she gone too far? But she had not known Beulah Allen would disgrace her party. And if Snake Elwell had not violently jerked the girl to her feet and dragged her out Madge felt that she would have had to adopt extreme measures. That event saw the disintegration of the party. The dancing grew desultory, except in the patio where the range guests still held forth.

Finding Barg and Maramee asleep in each other’s arms in a corner, and some of the other couples fading from the living room to the benches, Madge realized her party was about over. And it had been a failure. She knew when she had had enough to drink. But in her bitterness, she overstepped her habit. With Rollie she drank two more cups of punch. And as she went outdoors with him, wrapping a mantle around her bare shoulders she realized two things — that Rollie was pretty drunk and that a gaiety had overcome her gloom. Good to have the blue devils fade away! Lance Sidway had not come near her! To hell with him! Rollie was a pal, and on the way out under the pines, Madge not only permitted his extravagant embraces but returned his kisses. She felt just on the verge of being giddy and dizzy. But she did not want to think. After all she could do worse than marry Rollie Stevens.

In an open space, shaded by spreading pines and surrounded by low foliage, they found a bench covered with blanket and pillows. The moonlight streaked through rifts in the branches to lend a silver glamour to the glade. Rollie sat down and drew Madge upon his lap. At first she felt silly and soft at his love-making, and experienced a pleasant glow of excitement.

“You’re going to marry me,” he said, thickly, between kisses.

“Is that so? Who told you?” laughed Madge.

“I’m telling you,” he replied, more violently.

“Rollie, you’re drunk.”

“If I am it’s your fault.”

“You all fell for that punch. My secret, Rollie!”

“Yeah?... Your line, Madge — secrets! I’ll give you another one.”

The edge on his voice, accompanying some rough handling of her awakened Madge to the situation. But her lackadaisical good nature was such that she made only feeble resistance to his ardor.

“You love me — don’t you?” he demanded fiercely.

“‘Course I love you — Rollie — as a pal — old friend, and what have you?... but...”

“Nuts! I’m tired of that dope.” And the hot kisses upon her mouth and neck grew more violent. Madge was no longer returning his kisses. From that to remonstrating with him was only a short step. It appeared to inflame him. Locked in his arms she was at a disadvantage. A rattling of her pearls alarmed her. The fool would break the necklace.

“Let me — go!... You’re drunk — boy.... this is ...”

“So’re you — drunk,” he panted, and pushed her back off his lap upon the cushions. Madge’s utterance was stifled by his kisses. She twisted her face away. But Rollie only grew more violent.

Furiously she flung him aside, and sprang off the bench. In the dark she fell over someone she took to be Rollie and had to clutch his arm to regain her balance. He appeared to be sitting against a tree trunk. But there at the end of the bench was Rollie, mumbling and cursing.

“Oh! — What? — Who?” screamed Madge, leaning forward on her knees to peer at this man she had fallen against. He had his hands over his eyes and ears. They fell, and Madge recognized Lance Sidway.

She managed to arise despite a paralyzing dismay, that gave place to a terrific shame and rage.

“You!” burst out Madge.

He rose rather slowly and pulled himself erect. A slant of moonlight fell across his face. It was ashen white, and out of it glittered eyes as black as coal and as sharp as daggers.

“Yeah, it’s me. Who else in hell could have such rotten luck?” he returned, with exceeding bitterness.

“Lance Sidway! you waylaid me!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he flashed, hotly. “I’d left your drunken outfit. On the way to my lodgings, I stopped here to — to smoke. But after I’d finished, I lingered, like the sap I am. I saw you coming and made sure you’d pass. But you didn’t. Ha! Ha!”

“Oh, you lie! And you laugh at me!” exclaimed Madge, beside herself with rage.

“No, I don’t lie,” he retorted. “But I’ve the laugh on you, Madge Stewart.”

Rollie had clambered up, hanging to the bench, evidently more than ever under the influence of liquor.

“Whosis?”

“Rollie, it’s Lance Sidway. He was sitting here all the time,” declared Madge.

“That cowboy cad? Conceited jackass!... Look here, sir, you spy on me. I’ll cane the hide off you,” shouted Stevens, and he struck openhanded at Sidway.

“Keep your hands off me,” ordered the cowboy, shoving him back. “I’m sorry. But I wasn’t to blame. I didn’t spy on you. You get that?”

“You’re a liar, Sidway. You’re always spying on Madge. You’re stuck on her.”

Sidway jerked as if he had been stung. “Stevens, if I were you, I’d be a gentleman about it, which you’re not. I wouldn’t try to take advantage of her when she was drunk. Somebody ought to beat you good. And by God, I will, if you don’t let me out of this.”

Rollie lunged at Sidway who avoided him, backing against the bench.

“Let him alone, Rollie. You’re drunk,” cried Madge.

Sidway had no recourse but to stave off Stevens’ blows. Finally a hearty slap in the face changed the cowboy’s tactics. He seized Stevens by the arms and shook him violently. Then he shoved him back. “Stevens, I warn you. Lay off me, or I’ll sock you.”

“I’d shoot you if I had a gun.”

“Yes, if my back were turned. You’re one swell flop, Stevens. ... Stay away from me, I tell you.”

“Lance, get away from the fool!” implored Madge, who was if anything more infuriated with Stevens than Sidway.

“Sure, you would ask that. Me run, to save this guy’s face.”

“It might save my good name.”

“You can’t save a rotten egg, Madge Stewart. I tell you I’m the insulted one here and I’m getting sore.”

When Stevens belligerently confronted Sidway again, it was to meet no resistance. The cowboy stood motionless in the moonlight, his arms lowered. But to Madge he looked formidable.

“You — insufferable cow hand!” shouted Stevens, furiously and he struck Lance twice in the face.

“Okay, Rollie. Now let’s see if you can take it,” rejoined Sidway, grimly, and he swung hard on the collegian. The blow sounded solid, meaty, and Stevens went down with a thud and did not move.

“There! Sorry to mess up your lover, Miss Stewart, but as you saw, I couldn’t avoid it.”

“He lies so still... he’s so white,” cried Madge, in alarm.

“I hope the sucker croaks,” rejoined Sidway, brutally.

“What’ll I do?”

“Well, you might hunt up your dad and Nels, tell them what this guy tried to do to you — and watch them hang him.”

“What a beast you are, Lance Sidway! It was bad enough to sit there, like a cheap eavesdropper, and listen, let alone...”

“Hell! I tell you I’m innocent. I didn’t look. I didn’t listen — at least until you got so raw in your love-making...”

“But you should have made your presence known at once,” cried Madge, poignantly.

“Right. I’m damn sorry. But I was scared, confused... It wasn’t easy — for me — Madge Stewart.”

He choked over the last utterance, and gazed down upon her with eyes of terrible reproach, which might have softened Madge but for her own insupportable emotions.

“That’s no excuse for a gentleman,” she retorted.

“No! But for God’s sake, do you think you were a lady?”

“Lance Sidway, I was and I am!” she rejoined, imperiously.

“And I’m a poor, miserable, crawling louse!” he ejaculated, in desperation.

“I regard the appellation as fairly felicitous.”

“And you’re Majesty Stewart, a law unto herself, a lady of quality, a princess who can do no wrong?” he burst out, passionately. “Listen, you! — That college bum there was not drunk. But his decency, if he had any, was gone. And you were not drunk, either, but your dad would have despised you if he had been here in my boots.”

“Rollie forgot himself — I confess... But I didn’t...”

“Bah! Why, for a real man you’d have been a push-over,” retorted Sidway, hoarsely.

Madge slapped him viciously across the lips. The next instant his open hand cracked along her cheek and head, and but for the bench would have upset her. Nevertheless, almost blinded by stars and shock, Madge slapped him again, with all her might.

“Regular cat, eh?” he burst out, huskily. “But you can’t make a dog out of me.”

“I — don’t — have — to...” panted Madge.

He seized her in powerful hands, hard and hot, and dragged her into a ray of moonlight.

“Majesty — what a travesty that name is! — Madge Stewart, you’re going to hear the truth once in your life.”

He was suddenly so strangely different, so grimly righteous and ruthless, so white and fire-eyed that Madge sustained a sinking of her heart. She tried to retort with some further insult, but failed of coherence. He shook her as he had shaken Stevens.

“Majesty Stewart! One swell girl, they all think. Proud, blue-blooded, rich. What a mistake! Why you are as false as hell. It was low-down enough before I caught you tonight. Thank God it was I instead of your dad who caught you. He’s had enough of you to stand.”

“Sidway, what do you — mean?” whispered Madge, and slipping out of his nerveless grasp she sank upon the bench.

“I mean your splendid father and your loving mother are too damn good for you, Madge Stewart.”

“Lance, I — I know that.”

“But you don’t know what you’ve put them through.”

“Oh! — Not — not money trouble?”

“Yes, money!” he bit out, bending over her.

Madge moaned. This it was then that had vaguely haunted her, the conscience which she would not face. She felt it in this man’s intensity, in the bitterness of his voice, the fire of contempt in his eyes. This something had given him power over her, and her spirit seemed to be fainting.

“It’s fate that I have to tell you this,” he went on, swiftly. “Your dad gave me his books to straighten out. He did not know that in the book he had left your bank statements, checks and what not. I went over these, too. And that is how I learned of your rotten extravagance and the way your parents have ruined themselves for you.”

“Oh! Lance! — don’t — don’t! You are furious with me. I — I don’t blame you. But for mercy’s sake, don’t say any more...”

“Listen, girl, I couldn’t say enough,” he interrupted, adamant to the piteous fear in her appeal. “I love your dad. He makes me remember my own father. And your mother — how sweet and loving and thoroughbred! — All for Majesty. That has been the whole story of this ranch.... Madge Stewart, you’re not rich. You have no income any more. Three years ago it flopped. And these parents of yours have let you go on, spending like a drunken sailor, deceiving yourself, sacrificing them for your college career, your clothes and cars, your cocktail dates with gangsters — My God! that is the limit.... And this party of yours, Miss Stewart, this rare and exotic fiesta to your glory — you have pulled it when you were broke. And your dad rounded up the last of his cattle to sell — to cover your debts... And tonight when the whole country was doing you honor, dancing to your jazz, drinking your wines and punch — that last herd was rustled.”

Madge sank down to hide her face in the pillows. The blow had fallen. And of all blows it was the mortal one which could crush her.

“And now, angel-face,” whispered Sidway, almost spent, “your father is ruined — and who’ll pay for this party? Would you like Nels and Ren and me to chip in our savings....”

Madge stretched out a shaking importunate hand that silenced him. And it seemed amidst the knell of pride and happiness that had fallen in ruins about her, she heard Sidway’s swift footfalls fading away.

CHAPTER X

HALFWAY DOWN THE slope Lance halted in his blind hurry. The Spanish music floated softly on the still air; the moon soared pitilessly white. What was it that he had done? He sat down under a pine and battled with his conflicting emotions.

Brutally he had made impossible any longer stay at Stewart’s ranch. That long-deferred break seemed an unutterable and immense relief. But his conscience flayed him. “What for?” he whispered, huskily. “Why do I feel this — this.... It was — coming to her!” He was glad that he had had the courage to tell her. If she had a grain of good in her the truth would bring it out. Then why this stab in his heart, this clamor of furies in his ears, this still small voice? He would have wanted to tell her like an impassive destiny, letting the iron consequences fall. And he had sunk to the level of a man like Uhl. Perhaps even that philanderer would have been more of a gentleman. Lance struck the low of misery.

Then attending to his smarting lip he found it cut and bleeding. How about that? And the stinging blows might as well have been re-enacted. He had struck her, a hard openhanded slap that had staggered her. Suddenly it all flashed clear. Jealousy had been at the root of that incredible passion. Loving Madge Stewart to distraction, his damnable fate had been to be compelled to cower there in the shadow, seeing, hearing the kisses she had lavished on that college fellow. Lance tried to blot out the sight. That had seemed a sickening mortal blow, but it was his vile speech to her that stuck like a hot blade in his side — the jealous false word for which she had struck him across the lips. At last Lance uncovered the real trouble.

“Rotten of me!” he muttered, under his breath. “My God, how terrible she made me feel!... But even half drunk she could take care of herself. I saw that. Yet I... Jealousy made me low-down. If she had been kissing me... it would have been heaven. A tough spot for Lance Sidway!... Well, Madge, whatever else you are, you’re straight — and I can climb out of hell on that.”

Lance stood up, shivering a little at the cool air and the indifferent stars. This was the end of his secret love affair. And there would never be another, he was certain. It did not seem possible that any man, much less he, could see Madge Stewart as he had seen her, and carry her in his arms, and kiss her with such abandon, and then fall in love with another woman.

Lance strode down to the bunkhouse, his mind trying to take up the threads of the information he had forced from Bonita. There was a light in Nels’ cabin. Lance’s watch said that morning was less than an hour away. He burst in upon the old cattleman, who was in the act of undressing.

“Nels, are you sober?” demanded Lance.

“Hello, son, what’s ailin’ you — all white an’ eyes aburnin’?”

“Hell to pay, Nels. Are you sober enough to get me straight?”

“Sober? — Dog-gone! I don’t know. Thet shore was some punch. I jest couldn’t stop drinkin’ it.”

“Swell drink, all right. What’d it do to Danny and Ren and Stewart?”

“Wal, they cleaned oot the bowl. Gene said it was an act of charity on their part. He was sober. Gene used to hold more bad likker than any man on the range. But Danny an’ Ren were lit up some.... Say, what you got on yore chest?”

“Plenty! Now, listen. Pack me some biscuits, meat, dried apples — anything you can dig up pronto. Put it in a saddlebag. I’ll wrangle my horse. And you be sure you sober up while I’m gone.”

“Son, I reckon I savvy,” drawled Nels.

Lance went into his cabin, and hastily changed into his riding garb, buckled on his gunbelt, and hurried out, to jerk a bridle off a peg on the porch. The night before, because of the strange horses that had arrived, Lance had put Umpqua in the barn. The moment Lance’s step sounded on the runway, Umpqua nickered, and stamped his hoofs. Lance looped the bridle round his neck, led him out, and filling a nosebag with grain, he put that over Umpqua’s head. Then leading the horse he hurried back to Nels’ cabin. There he saddled Umpqua, but left the cinch loose. He decided before seeing Nels to go into his cabin thinking hard what to take. It was necessary to light the lamp. A blanket, his fleece-lined coat, his rifle and some shells, his gloves, money and matches — these he thought would be about all. Then he remembered Madge’s photograph. He would take that, for the chances were against his returning, or ever seeing her again. Fortunately the picture fit inside his coat pocket. He wrapped it in a silk scarf and carefully put it away. Funny, he thought, if a rustler’s bullet pierced that lovely likeness of Majesty Stewart before it pierced his heart! But even so it could not hurt any more than she had hurt him. Then he extinguished the lamp and went out. The east was breaking gray. Dawn was not far off.

Umpqua was pitching the nosebag to get the last of the grain.

“Nels, come out,” he called.

“Heah I am. Been waitin’, son, kinda worried.”

“Thanks, Nels,” replied Lance, receiving the saddlebags. “Nothing to worry about — much.”

“No. Wal, you act kinda queer. I’ve spent my life with range fellers. An’ if you’re not drunk on thet punch, you’re shore drunk on somethin’.”

“Yeh? Well, what, old wiz?” rejoined Lance, his swift hands at work over the saddle.

“You’re leavin’ Majesty’s Rancho.”

“Ha! Gee, Nels, you’re keen. I rather snicker to snort that I am.”

“An’ on account of Majesty?”

“Yes, on account of Majesty!” ejaculated Lance, flippantly.

“Aw! — Did you quarrel?”

“Look where she split my lip. That little lady has a sock.”

“Son, don’t tell me she — she hit you?”

“I’ll tell the world she did.”

“What in Gawd’s name for?”

“Nels, it’s too long a story. I deserved it and I took it.”

“Lance, you’re uncommon bitter.... I don’t mind admittin’ thet I had it figgered you — you was in love with Majesty.”

“Nels, damn your lunatic hide!” burst out Lance. “You don’t mind admitting! — Say, you lying old matchmaker, you’ve been driving me nuts! You haven’t given me any peace for weeks. You wouldn’t even let me sleep. ‘Ain’t I kinda in love with Majesty? She shore is sweet on you!’... What kind of talk! — Now, listen, for once, for good and all. ‘Kinda in love with Majesty?’ Ha! Ha! Ha!... I love that good-for-nothing angel so terribly I’m dying for her. Do you get that? I’m stark staring mad about her. I’d shoot myself if I hung around here any longer. So I’m beating it. Now, take a load of that.”

“Son, it’ll be the turriblest mistake if you run off now,” replied Nels, awed and moved. “Fer Majesty’s jest as turrible in love...”

“Skip it. You’re balmy. You’re nuts. You’re crazy,” retorted Lance, wrenching the words out. It was insupportable to listen to such raving from this simple old man. “Listen to this. All the cattle Stewart had left were rustled last night, right after dark. Must have been rounded up in the daytime.”

“What?” roared Nels, changing magically. “Why’n’hell didn’t you tell us?”

“Your darling Madge begged me to keep it till tomorrow. Well, that’s today.”

“Who told you?”

“Bonita.”

“Ahuh. How’d you drag thet oot of her?”

“I threw a couple of those punches into her, danced with her, took her out. Well, she spilled the beans, on conditions.”

“What conditions?”

“Never mind them, Nels. I won’t tell you. And you’re not to give Bonita away to Stewart or Ren.”

“Humph! You cain’t fool them.”

“That’s not important. The cattle have been rustled by vaqueros. Bound across the border. By the Gray Ridge Divide. Where’s that?”

“It’s thet long gray hill southeast of heah. Aboot ten miles, closest. Separates the range from the foothills of the Peloncillos. There’s a cattle trail straight down the valley across the border. Rustlers used it years ago.”

“Stewart’s cattle ought to be around that divide by now.”

“Shore, an’ then some. What’s yore idee, son?”

“I’m going to find out.”

“Good. But don’t let yourself be seen from the ridge top. Those rustlers will figger thet the cattle won’t be missed right off. But they’ve got sharp eyes. With two days’ start they’d aboot get acrost before we could haid them off.... I’ll get Stewart an’ Danny, an’ Starr drunk or sober, an’ hit this cattle trail. Meanwhile you locate the rustlers, then ride on in to town. Don’t lose no time gettin’ an ootfit of cowboys — or any land of a posse, an’ ride hell fer leather to haid these greasers off.”

“Use my own judgment as to where I’ll cross the ridge?”

“Shore. But if you’re smart an’ lucky you can cross by the Cochise Trail. Only don’t ride down into thet valley onless you’re ahaid of the rustlers.”

“Okay, Nels. I’m on my way,” replied Lance. “Nels, that outfit might get suspicious or something, and hit up the Cochise Trail. Tell Gene and Ren to look for my tracks on that trail, crossing the valley.” Then vaulting astride he rode across the square, down by the sleeping village, out upon the shadowy gray range. It was almost daybreak when he struck the wash. By the time a ruddy light showed over the dark mountain barrier Lance had struck the fresh cattle track. It crossed the highway and headed straight for the low slant of gray that marked the northern end of Gray Ridge Divide. Satisfied and thrilled, Lance swerved off the trail to make a short cut, intending to climb the ridge ten miles or so toward the south. It was then only that his mind reverted to the tragedy of his leaving. Madge haunted him, her lovely face white and tragic, her big eyes, and most of all, after he had told her that she had ruined her father, the way she sank down, crushed by amaze and shame. Lastly that imploring hand, mute appeal for mercy. Would she like him and Nels and Ren to donate their wages? — those had been his last words. Too late! Lance writhed in his saddle. As the dawn slowly flamed to a glorious sunrise and the broad daylight drove away his morbid thoughts, he could not understand how he had been so base. He felt that he would be driven to go back to the ranch and explain to Madge how his jealousy and passion had made him a coward and a cad. That would be a betrayal of his love, a refuting of all his scorn. As he rode along, his brooding self-reproach and remorse augmented his error and mitigated Madge’s faults. If it turned out that he was to be the means of saving her father’s cattle, and perhaps getting himself shot in Madge’s interest, that would be all right with him, if only she could know of his repentance.

Lance crossed the valley obliquely and headed up the ridge about five miles south of the point. The sun was high in the heavens when he gained the summit. He took care not to show his horse or himself on top of the ridge. There were rocks and scrub cedars all along, affording good cover. Lance dismounted to reconnoiter. He had to walk a long way north on the ridge before he discovered the cattle. They had been driven into the head of the narrow valley between the foothills and the ridge, and were grazing. The distance was not quite too far to distinguish horses and riders, but Lance had to wait a good while before he made sure he saw them. They should have traveled down the valley to a point almost equal with his position. Lance lingered there until he saw the herd move down the valley toward him. Then he retraced his steps.

Vaqueros had almost as keen eyesight as Indians. But if these rustlers had anticipated immediate pursuit they would not have traveled so leisurely during the night. They had probably calculated upon the cowboys and riders sleeping all this day after the excitement and disturbance of the señorita’s fiesta. The raid would not be discovered for several days, which would give the thieves time to get across the border. It was a clever and nicely timed move on their part.

Arriving at the spot where he had left his horse, Lance sent a keen gaze back across the valley toward the ranch. He espied puffs of dust some miles out from the highway, about on a line with the cattle trail. He concluded Gene and his riders were in pursuit of the rustlers.

“Okay,” soliloquized Lance, with satisfaction. “Pretty lucky for me to worm this out of Bonita. Poor kid! All to save her good-for-nothing brother! Well, I’ll keep my word.”

Lance mounted and rode along a rough summit trail, which Umpqua had to walk. Lance calculated that he was forty miles from the highway, and close to forty from town. The hour was short of midmorning. He had all the rest of that day, and longer, if need be, to carry out Nels’ instructions. Recovery of the cattle looked easy to Lance. He tried to conjecture unforeseen circumstances. If the vaqueros discovered they were being pursued they would take to the foothills and escape. Lance eyed those formidable hills, rising and swelling gradually to the rough black summits of the Peloncillos.

“My best bet is to go down to the range and look for a cattle outfit between here and town,” Lance told himself, and after thinking of every angle possible he decided to put his idea into effect. There were several ranches along that slope of the ridge, and he might be fortunate enough to meet some riders. To this end Lance headed down the slope.

Lance had enough on his mind to make the miles and hours seem short. Umpqua walked and trotted under the hot sun. As long as he had soft ground to travel on he would not tire. Late in the afternoon Lance arrived at the last ranch along the ridge, and ascertained that an outfit of cowboys had left not long before to round up some cattle south of Bolton. This was good luck, indeed, and Lance set off with high hopes. These riders would very likely camp outside of Bolton.

It was sunset when Lance caught up with a trio of cowboys leading three pack horses, and half a dozen extra mounts. Lance joined them with a greeting and pulled Umpqua to a walk.

“Howdy,” returned a lean towheaded rider, fastening penetrating eyes upon Lance. “I seen you coming ‘way back. Jest about in a hurry, wasn’t you?”

“I’ll say. You’re the Bar X boys from Spencer’s ranch, aren’t you?”

“Wal, we’re some of them.”

“I’m Sidway, riding for Gene Stewart.”

“I reckoned you was. My handle’s Tim Sloan, an’ my pards are brothers, sons of Spencer.”

“Your boss told me you were bound south of Bolton to round up some of his cattle.”

“We air, if we can locate them. But I reckon they’re rustled across the border. Some two-bit outfit been workin’ the edges of the range lately.”

Lance lost no time accounting for his presence, and the lean rider was so interested that he reined his horse, and halted the cavalcade in the middle of the road. “Hell you say! — Boys, you hear thet?... How far back air these raiders with Stewart’s cattle?”

“Over the ridge in the valley, halfway at the least.”

“An’ when was it you sighted them?”

“This morning around ten. Stewart will be behind them, keeping out of sight. And it’s my job to get some riders to head them off from this end.”

“We’re with you, Sidway.... Boys, like as not this same outfit has been runnin’ off our stock.”

“Purty shore, I’d say,” replied one of the brothers. “But we’d help you out if there wasn’t a chance.”

“Thanks, fellows. I’m relieved.... And now, Sloan, what do you advise?”

“Wal, them stolen cattle won’t get nowhere near this end of the valley tonight. My idee is to camp here outside of town, an’ be off before daylight in the mawnin’. How’s thet suit you?”

“Fine. It’s just going to work out great.”

Before dusk settled down the riders halted just on the edge of Bolton near a clump of trees Lance remembered having passed on the trip to the Peloncillos.

“Sloan, will we eat in town?” queried Lance, as he dismounted.

“No. Boss won’t stand for thet. We’ll throw up some grub here. But we’re out of coffee an’ butter.”

“I’ll buy some. Do you think I ought to notify the sheriff?”

“Hell no. This deal is a cinch, an’ thet old geezer would hawg all the credit.”

Lance strode off into town, his mind thronged with thoughts. He seemed on the verge of an adventure much to his liking. Stewart and Nels were sure to like him better than ever. And proud, wild, volcanic Madge Stewart would surely be indebted to him, whether or not she ever confessed it. Lance had a desire to telephone the ranch. At that hour, with Stewart and his men absent, it was ten to one that Madge would answer. How coolly he could make his report, not omitting subtly to augment the dangers! Did that violet-eyed girl have a heart? Lance had to admit that she had, but he had never touched it. His bitter and final resolve of last night still held, yet he was conscious of a rending of spirit at the thought of keeping it, and leaving Majesty’s Rancho forever.

At Smith’s Store on the highway Lance purchased butter and coffee, and several cakes of hard chocolate, one of which he put in his pocket. While the clerk was wrapping Lance’s purchases the proprietor accosted him.

“Hey, Sidway, when did you leave the ranch?”

“Before daylight this morning. Rode down the ridge looking for cattle.”

“Then you don’t know Stewart’s phone is out of connection? I suspect it has been cut.”

“Indeed I don’t.”

“Well, something’s wrong. This morning Mrs. Stewart phoned in an order. I expected some things she wanted by express, so did not call until after they arrived. Then I couldn’t get an answer.”

“That’s not strange. One of the old telephone poles may have toppled over,” replied Lance, thoughtfully.

“Yes, it might, but it didn’t,” returned Smith, bluntly.

“Yeah? How do you know?”

“Mike Scanlon was in not ten minutes ago. He’d been out for a load of dead aspen wood. He said that when he was cuttin’ it, out there along the creek, he saw a big black car dustin’ along toward town hell-bent fer election. An’ it stopped down the road eight or ten miles. Mike forgot about thet until he got near to the highway. Then he tangled up in a wire thet turned out to be Stewart’s. It had fallen across the road. Hadn’t been cut long, for Mike saw the bright end, where it had been clipped. He thought somebody in thet big black car had done it. Not half an hour ago! Damn queer, don’t you call it?”

“Where does this Mike Scanlon live?”

“Up at the end of town, on the other side of the highway. Ask Meade, the garage man.”

Lance, hurrying along past the bright red and yellow lights, pondered this news. It clamped down upon him with a presagement far out of proportion to probabilities. Apparently Stewart’s telephone wire had not been cut until late in the day. That seemed to preclude any possibility of the rustlers being accountable. A big black car! Lance wanted to talk to Mike Scanlon about that car.

He passed the last bright neon lights. Meade’s garage appeared to be deserted. Just at that moment a big black car, with headlights dark, moved slowly down the back road. Lance wanted a look at that car. It was strangely familiar in line and build. He swerved off the highway, crossed the open space to the back road.

“Hi there. Hold up,” he called boldly. Manifestly the driver heard him for the car came to a halt. The street lamp behind Lance caught the gleaming faces of men in the front seat.

“Stick ’em up, cowboy!” cut the air with deadly menace. As Lance threw up his hands he recognized that voice. It belonged with the car.

“Okay, Uhl. Up — they are,” he replied quietly.

“Come close.”

Lance walked to the automobile halting abreast of the front seat. Uhl had his hand in his coat pocket and he was leaning over the door. Lance knew that he faced a concealed gun and that he had to think quickly and right. Uhl was bareheaded. His clean-cut visage shone pale and cold in the light. The driver hunched down over the wheel, as if ready to race. The engine purred. Then Lance caught the gleam of a machine gun on the lap of a man in the back seat. Between him and another man shrank a girl with face as white as chalk and great dark eyes. Lance recognized her with a terrific stop of his heart. For an instant he seemed to reel dizzily, then the cold sickening freeze of his very marrow quickened to a hot gush of blood, and his faculties cleared to a magnified intensity.

“Cowboy, you’ve been here on Cork’s snatch racket?” queried Uhl, sharply.

“Yes.”

“What held him up?”

“I don’t know.”

“We beat him to it! Who wised you and why’re you looking for me?”

“Want to tip you off. You cut the wire too late. Sheriff here has blocked you as far west as Tucson and as far east as El Paso. Posse down the road waiting to blow your tires into smithereens.”

Uhl burst into vehement curses: “Raggy, ——  —— your dumb soul! You ——  ——  —— hop-head! I ought to bump you off for that loss of time back there.... What’ll we do?”

“Shoot our way through,” rasped the driver.

Lance interrupted in ringing low voice: “Might be okay for Bolton but points farther on the highway will be blocked. No chance in a million. Just as bad east. The wires are hot.”

“Fox, what’s the dope?” flashed the leader.

“Are you asking me?” curtly retorted one of the men in the back. “Didn’t I warn you against this racket? I advise hiding along the railroad track and hopping a freight.”

“You’re no fox. You’re a rabbit.... Cowboy, what’s your tip?”

“Beat it for the hills pronto,” exclaimed Lance, hurriedly. “You can’t get through this town by car.”

“Hills!... I get it. But horses, food, blankets — where can they be found?”

“Cowboy outfit just out of town. You can buy what you need from them and be on the trail in a jiffy.”

“Good. Where’ll we go?”

“Up in the Peloncillos. Rough wild country. You couldn’t be tracked. You can hide for days. As soon as you get your dough you can ride down across the border into Mexico.”

“Good tip, cowboy. What about this bus?”

“Send your driver on the ridge road. Give him water and grub. When morning comes he can drive off the road into the cedars beyond the point. And hide there. He could get out later.”

“Oke. Will you guide us?”

“Sure. If you slip me enough.”

Uhl’s gun gave out a metallic clink as he drew his coat over the door. Producing a roll of bills he handed one to Lance.

“Here’s a grand.”

“Make it two, Uhl. And promise of more if I get you through,” demanded Lance, lowering his hands.

“Okay, you chiseler. Jump on the running board and tell the driver where to go.”

Lance ran around to the other side of the car and caught on. He directed the driver down the road and away from the town. A campfire blazed among the trees. In a reaction of feeling Lance could scarcely hold on. He imagined he was in a dreadful nightmare. But the car was moving. In the back he saw a gangster on this side with a machine gun across his knees, the same as the other. And on the floor lay another man. Lance puzzled over that. By sheer luck and wit he had met a tremendous situation. Anything to keep Uhl from carrying Madge off to the cities! She would be worse than lost or dead. He divined that Uhl would never release her. If he could steer them up into the hills, Stewart would be on his trail in another day. It was the only chance.

“Here we are,” called Lance, as the car approached to within fifty feet of the campfire, out in the shadow.

“Fox, you and Flemm get out and stick up this bunch,” ordered Uhl.

It was done almost in the twinkling of an eye. Uhl got out and faced the cowboys. Sloan’s comrades, especially the cook, looked comical in their maze, but Sloan himself grew pale and grim.

“No holdup, cowboys. I want to buy horses and stuff to go up in the hills. Here’s a grand.”

“What’s thet?” queried Sloan.

“Ten hundred smackers — a thousand dollars, you dumbbell.”

“What do you want fer thet much?”

“Five saddle horses, some packs, and whatever else we need.”

“It’s a deal.”

Uhl stuck the bill into the cowboy’s shirt pocket. “Line them up, Flemm, and keep ’em covered.... Come here, cowboy.”

Lance strode into the campfire light, quite prepared for the profane ejaculations of Sloan and the Spencer brothers.

“Pick out what we want damn quick.”

“Uhl, we’d save time by having these cowboys help me saddle and pack. Two of your men can keep them covered,” suggested Lance.

“Oke. Step on it,” rejoined Uhl, then repaired to the car. He opened the back door. “Come out, baby.”

Madge descended from the car, clad in white slacks and a white sport coat. She made a step toward the campfire, when Uhl seized her roughly.

“Say, you move only when you’re told,” ordered the gangster, harshly. “Honey Bee Uhl talking — and you get it.”

“All right. But keep your hands off me,” flashed Madge, with a passion that told her spirit had not been weakened. And she twisted free.

“Oke, baby. But you might as well get used to them.... Raggy, throw that college bloke out. Then you grab some eats and drink and beat it.”

Lance was as amazed as the other cowboys to see a limp young man pulled out of the car. He appeared dazed or injured, but he sat up, to disclose the handsome pale features of Rollie Stevens.

“Get up and come to the fire,” ordered Uhl. And he pushed Madge along ahead of him. “Now sit down, both of you. In a minute I’ll talk ransom money to you.... Raggy, don’t forget to put our bags out of the car.”

Lance tried to see and hear everything from where he saddled Umpqua. The other cowboys were saddling and packing with extreme celerity under the guns of the two gangsters. Lance, thinking to have Madge ride his horse, shortened the stirrups. If a chance offered he might shoot one or more of these fellows and leap up behind Madge to make their escape. In a very few minutes six saddle and two pack horses were ready to travel. He searched for an extra rope and canteen, to tie them on his saddle. He heard the car roar and roll away up the ridge road. Hurrying back to the campfire he said crisply: “Ready, Uhl.”

“My God!” cried Rollie Stevens. “It’s Sidway. Madge, look!”

“I’ve had the pleasure,” returned Madge, with infinite scorn.

“Kidnaper!” shouted Stevens, incredulously. Then it appeared a kind of joy came over him. That infuriated Lance, whose nerves were taut.

“Fetch those cowboys here,” called Uhl.

When Sloan and his two comrades were lined up in front of the gangster, he asked, indicating Sloan, “What’s your name?”

“Tim Sloan.”

“Get this dope, cowboy,” went on the gangster, deliberately. “In the morning you notify Stewart I’m holding his daughter for fifty grand....”

“My father can’t raise that,” interposed Madge. “He is practically ruined. But I can raise half that.”

“Baby, will you keep out of this?” retorted Uhl, then turning to Sloan again he resumed, “Notify Stewart I want fifty grand for her, and the same for her boy friend. If my orders are not obeyed, we’ll rape the girl, and then kill them both. No bluffing. Send one man on our track with the money. Get that, cowboy?”

“Shore — I get it,” replied Sloan, huskily.

“Fox, you keep these fellows covered until we’re all in the saddle and out of the light.... Sidway, you lead the way with the pack horses. I’ll follow with the dame. Fox, you and Flemm drive Stevens between you. Let’s go.”

“Uhl, I’ve selected an easy-gaited horse for Miss Stewart,” spoke up Lance. “It’s a tough trail.”

“Yeah? Bet she’ll stand it better than any of us. I haven’t been in a saddle half a dozen times in my life.... Which horse? Come on, baby.”

Lance led them over to Umpqua, and took from the saddle the fleece-lined coat he had untied.

“Get into this. It’ll be bitter cold when we’re high up,” he said, and held the coat for her. If he had not been under stress of strongly suppressed emotion he might have recoiled from her convulsed white face and magnificent eyes. But her look of horror and hate strangely changed.

“It can’t — be true!” she cried, poignantly.

“What can’t be true, baby?” interposed Uhl.

“That Lance Sidway is a side partner of you, Bee Uhl!”

“Miss Stewart, it happens that I am,” replied Lance. “Hurry into this coat.... You’ll find gloves in the pocket.”

Lance blindly held the coat for her and then plunged away. Mounting Sloan’s horse he drove the two pack animals into the road, and headed for the dark hills. In a moment or more he recognized Umpqua’s gait behind him, and presently heard the other horses following. It was done, and his heart seemed to descend from his throat and settle where it belonged. A cool wind blew down from the heights. The stars blinked as if incredulous. His jumbled thoughts began to straighten out. No use to marvel at where he found himself — at the unaccountable fate which had finally placed it in his power to save Madge Stewart, her honor and her life, and the happiness of her parents. Somehow he would do it. All these dove-tailing angles could not be merely coincidences. They fitted, and he felt that he would solve the problem. But he must be governed by cool judgment instead of emotion. To this end he brought sternly to bear all the mentality of which he was capable. And out of the welter of thoughts he fixed upon a determination to be alert and ready on the instant to seize any opportunity to escape with Madge. It would come inevitably. These tenderfoot gangsters, unused to horses and pains, climbing into the wild rugged hills, would sooner or later provide that opportunity. But if it did not come before Uhl resorted to violence with the girl then Lance must be quick to kill him, and call upon her to run for her life while he fought it out with the others. That settled Lance into a cold and calculating mood which transformed him into another man. He was dealing with a matter of life and death — with vicious degenerates from the underworld of crime.

Tim Sloan had a rather complex problem to solve, as far as Lance’s connection with Uhl was concerned; but any cowboy would obey the gangster’s orders, and then let Stewart decide. Lance knew what would happen and he would not have been in Uhl’s boots for a million dollars. Stewart and his men would be Indians on the trail of this gang, and they would shoot them down from ambush or surprise them and hang them from the pines. All Lance’s faculties must be concentrated on his task of saving Madge from these merciless fiends.

Several miles out, the road swung to the south, and the Cochise Trail branched off around the lower point of the ridge. The black hills loomed high. A brightening to the east heralded a rising moon. Lance did not need the repeated calls from Uhl to “step on it,” and he led across the valley at a trot. The pack horses, with light burdens, did not hold up the progress. In short order Lance reached the point where the trail started up the slope. He dismounted here to wait for the others. Umpqua was close behind. Lance broke the tip of a cedar bush with a vicious twist. He prepared this first sign to make his trail easy to follow.

“How you riding, girl?” queried Lance, as Umpqua came up.

“Swell. I like Umpqua in spite of the bum who owns him. It’s going to be some romantic ride,” replied Madge, mockingly.

Uhl arrived next, straddling his horse as if he were on stilts.

“What you gassing about?” he demanded.

“I asked Miss Stewart about her saddle cinch,” returned Lance.

“Yeah? And what did that little dame say?”

“Ask her.”

Uhl did and was promptly told to go where it was hot and that if he wanted to keep her from talking he would have to gag her. Stevens rode up then, accompanied by his captors. He appeared to have recovered somewhat and sat his saddle upright. The other gangsters, packing their bags and machine guns in front, looked as if they would have been glad to get down and walk.

“We begin to climb here,” said Lance, “and I’ll tighten your cinches.” When he worked back to Madge and made a motion at her cinch she interrupted him.

“Keep your black hands away from me. I don’t want to be soiled. If my cinch needs tightening, I’ll do it,” and her voice rang with contempt.

“Black?... Oh, I see. Gosh, how dumb I am!” declared Lance, lowering his bare hands. “Listen, you all. This trail is steep. Give your horse his head. Lean forward in bad places and hang onto his mane. When I stop to rest my horses you do the same. That’s all.”

He slapped the pack animals up the trail, and mounting he followed them. Umpqua, with a loose bridle, kept right on the heels of Lance’s horse. When Lance turned to look back he saw Madge almost close enough to touch. The other four riders came on in close single file.

Lance zigzagged after the pack horses, and forbore gazing back again. But he thrilled at her nerve. She was not in the least afraid of Uhl. Lance let the pack horses initiate the rests. They were well-trained animals. Beyond the first foothill yawned a shadowy cedar flat, which led to another slope, long and gradual. When he surmounted it to the summit a full moon soared white above the black domes, transforming night into a silvery luminous day.

“Beastly trail,” declared Madge, sarcastically. “I’ll have to send a gang of laborers up here for two weeks to work on it. Big expense, though.”

“I’ll say,” replied Uhl, taking her literally. “Tough as nuts. But, baby, you ride like one of those circus girls in tights.”

“Miss Stewart, you’d better not go to such expense,” interposed Lance, satirically.

“Oh, are you a monumental liar?” burst out the girl.

“Shut up gabbing to him,” ordered Uhl.

That significant speech for once silenced Madge, and it almost drove Lance into throwing his gun on the egoistic crook. He had kidnaped Madge for more than ransom.

Lance rode on into an up-an-down cedar country with an occasional pine tree heralding the approach to the heights. The air began to have a cool edge. The moon climbed toward the zenith. Presently the trail led into a narrow canyon. It was long and tortuous, heading at last into a mountain meadow, where traveling was comfortable for a while. A black belt of pines loomed ahead, shining in the moonlight. Lance kept eye and ear keen for his followers. Madge appeared to ride easily, but the others were growing crippled. They shifted from side to side in their saddles, let their legs hang, and grumbled intermittently.

Once, under the dark pines, Lance was seized by a savage and desperate impulse. Here was the place to shoot Uhl and ride off with Madge. He almost surrendered to it. He was sure of killing the gangster, sure of Umpqua, but some hitch he could not anticipate might give the other gangsters a moment to rake forward with those machine guns. Lance refused the chance. A better would offer, and he importuned patience.

The forest belt gave way to rough rocky country where Madge, if she had not bestrode a grand horse, would have suffered considerably. The horses labored slowly over shale and up loose slides and through thick brush that tore at them. The moon reached a point overhead; the air had a bite in it; coyotes mourned lonely cries; the night grew far advanced. Here Uhl at last fell off his saddle and walked behind Madge leading his horse. The other gangsters cursed and raved for a halt.

“Sidway, for God’s sake, have a heart!” yelped Uhl, finally. “Aren’t we far enough? Can’t we camp here?”

“No water. No grass. You must go on,” replied Lance.

“But we’ve rode — a hundred miles — already,” panted the gangster.

“Seems like, maybe. But we’re not twenty miles from town. Better get on your horse again.”

Uhl obeyed groaning. Lance would not let them rest, and presently divining that Uhl was dependent upon him and knew it, he turned a deaf ear to appeals and curses and threats alike. And he led on and up through increasingly rough country, until Uhl, with a bellow, fell off his horse.

“Sorry, Uhl,” said Lance. “You almost made it.”

“Made what?”

“Camp at Cochise’s stronghold. Not much further. And a swell place. Water, wood, grass. A log cabin.”

“Gimme a — drink — Fox,” panted the gangster. “I can walk — the rest.”

“I wouldn’t ride no furder for Al Capone,” retorted Flemm, doggedly.

“Well, you can rot here — for a little shot,” snapped Uhl, and he labored to his feet.

“Beat it, cowboy.”

Lance led on, riding with his hands in his pockets. On the heights it was cold. Madge would be warm, all except her feet. Stevens appeared to be sagging in his saddle, but Lance could not summon any sympathy for the collegian. After more weary miles of travel Uhl burst out:

“Baby, what kind of liar did you call Sidway?”

“Monumental. But that’s weak. He’s a colossal liar!”

“Shall I bump him off?”

“Nothing could delight me more, except to see you bumped off.”

“Say, you’re a hellcat, ain’t you? But I’ll tame you.... Hold up, you guide. I want to get on again.”

The last miles of that uphill ride were dragging and cruel to the gangsters. Even Stevens, hurt at the outset in some way, endured the ordeal better. When Lance led into the beautiful wooded park, which inclosed Cochise’s stronghold, the moon was low and dawn not far away. He halted the cavalcade under some spreading pines.

Lance’s hands were so stiff from cold that he could scarcely start a fire. But that once done, he gathered firewood, and soon had a blaze. White and silent now Madge leaned against a tree. Lance threw his saddle, then flew to the packs. In a few moments he had them off the horses. He carried one to the fire and threw out blankets. Uhl knelt, his shaking hands to the fire. The other gangsters stood over the blaze, guns in hands, still wary and watchful. Their chief might have trusted Lance, but they did not.

“Majesty — aren’t you — frozen?” asked Rollie, his teeth chattering. “Come to the — fire.”

“My feet — are ice,” she whispered.

“Here,” cried Lance, sharply. “They can’t be frozen. It’s not cold enough.... Sit here, on this blanket. Lean against the pack. Put this blanket over you.... Never mind, I’ll take off your shoes.”

Her thin shoes and stockings afforded little protection against this frosty air. Her little feet did feel like blocks of ice.

“Rollie, throw a blanket round you and sit close to her,” went on Lance. No one seemed to oppose him, and he caught Madge’s great dark eyes upon him.

Then Lance leaped to throw the other pack, and unsaddle the horses. He turned them loose. The luxuriant grass and good water in the mountain park were the equal of any pasture. There was not much likelihood of their straying soon, and Umpqua at least would stay. Lance went back to the fire. Madge was asleep, her fair face drooping upon Rollie’s shoulder. He too had sunk into weary slumber. On the other side of the fire Uhl lay covered with his head on a log, dead asleep. Fox appeared to have crawled under a pack canvas. Flemm sat on his guard, his machine gun at rest, his eyes like gimlets.

“Cowboy, stretch yourself right there,” he said. “Me an’ Fox will have a go at this job.”

Lance dragged his saddle close, and wrapping himself in his blanket he lay down to make up a little for the loss of two nights’ sleep. His last thought was a wondering if he dared risk a snap shot at Flemm, and then kill Fox and Uhl as they lay. Sleep claimed him before he could decide.

Daylight had come when he was awakened by a sound of wood being dumped upon the fire. Fox had taken Flemm’s place on guard. The others were locked in slumber. Lance fell asleep again and when he awakened the sun was high. Uhl sat huddled near the fire, his pale face showing the havoc of extreme exertion and privation. Behind him the fox-featured guard paced to and fro, gun in hand.

Lance threw off his blanket and arose to his feet, cramped with the cold.

“Good morning. Kind of brisk up here on top,” he said, cheerfully.

“Brisk? — Ha! I damn near froze to death,” ejaculated Uhl.

Lance spread his hands to the blaze, and casually looked about. The third gangster evidently was hidden under the tarpaulin. The two victims of the kidnapers were asleep. All Lance could see of Madge was her disheveled golden hair.

“Uhl, it’s only a little way to the log cabin,” said Lance. “Much better place to camp. Hadn’t we better move over? Then I’ll cook some meat and make some hot coffee.”

“Oke, cowboy. Step on it. I’ll follow with these duds.... Fox, kick Flemm out of his sleep.... Baby, wake up and get wise. This is the last time you’ll ever sleep with any man but me.”

Lance, with murder in his heart, lifted a pack upon his shoulder, and stepping into the trail he strode for the clearing. He could see it through the big pines, a beautiful glade, with its frosted grass glistening under the sun. Sight of deer made him think of his rifle. That was in his saddle sheath. There might come a chance later to use it. Umpqua whistled from some point near at hand. Lance saw no sign of the other horses. A huge pine tree with wide spreading branches, and some high gray rocks marked the site of the log cabin. Its open door stared like a black curious eye, wondering what was to happen there. All around the stately pines stood up and beyond them rugged crags. This spot had once been the stronghold of the Apache chief, Cochise, at which time the trail was known only to the Indians.

Depositing the pack under the pine, Lance hurried back for another load. Halfway he met the gangsters. Lance swerved off the trail into the brush. He had a reluctance to meet Madge Stewart face to face. Yet the part he was playing sustained him with a kind of rapture. Perhaps he was afraid she might see through him. Most certainly he must look a queer kind of villain. Returning to the glade with the second pack, which he had opened, he set that down with the other, and then proceeded to build a fire. This done, he went back to fetch his saddle and the blankets that had been left.

Flemm, the meanest looking of the gangsters, manifestly distrusted Lance, and for that matter, the situation itself. He sat apart, holding the machine gun across his knee.

Lance spread the tarpaulin on the grass and proceeded to empty the contents of a pack.

“Rollie, you’re one of these worthless rich guys, I know,” said Lance, not without sarcasm. “But if you’d condescend to help me, we’d have breakfast sooner.”

“I’d starve to death before I’d associate with you in any way,” declared the collegian.

“Yes, and you’d let Madge starve, too. If you and she were left alone on your own, she’d soon get your number.”

“Don’t address me again, you two-faced scoundrel. You’re a dirty rat, Sidway, and your pleas won’t get you anywhere with Miss Stewart or me.”

“What would you call yourself for night before last?” queried Lance, in bitter scorn.

Stevens’ pale face flamed red, but it was fury more than shame that strangled his speech in his throat.

“Cowboy, you said a mouthful,” interposed Uhl, caustically. “What’d this swelled-up sap pull on my baby?”

“I don’t know whom you mean,” snapped Lance.

“Well, then, Miss Stewart.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Yeah? — See here, cowboy. Don’t let this dame work on you. Flemm swears you’re sore because we beat you to this snatch.”

“Bee, I tell you he’s not on the level,” interposed Flemm.

“Sidway, you’re not on the spot with me,” went on Uhl. “You’ve done me service and I’m for you. But don’t strain things on account of a pretty skirt. That doesn’t go with me.... What’d this swell sap do to Madge Stewart that burned you up?”

Lance was quick to see how jealousy and heat had imperiled him, and therefore the girl. Despite his calculations he had erred.

“Chief, you wouldn’t think it much,” Lance said, with an outright laugh. “I happened to see Stevens trying to take liberties with Miss Stewart.”

“Did he get away with it?”

“I’ll say he didn’t.”

The gangsters’ explosion of mirth was no compliment to Madge. Lance resisted a strong impulse to look at her then. No doubt she would be something unforgettable to see.

“Skip the dirt about me, you poor fish!” she interrupted shortly.

Suddenly Lance felt her close to him, and then heard her light step. He was on his knees on the tarpaulin fumbling among cans and parcels, and he was aware that his hands shook.

“Did anyone see the sack I had with me last night? Coffee and butter.”

“If it was a snake, it’d bite you,” spoke up Madge, sweetly. “There, under your nose! — Lance, can I offer my services as assistant cook?”

Lance sustained a slight start. “Are you — any good?”

“Pretty good — in that way.”

“Can you mix biscuit dough?”

“Swell. Nels taught me.”

“Go to it. Here’s flour, salt, lard, pan. Fetch some water. I’ll heat the Dutch oven.”

Uhl showed interest in the proceedings. The other gangsters grinned sardonically. Stevens sat dejectedly with his face in his hands. Lance cut strips of bacon into a skillet all the while bafflingly aware of the going and returning of the girl, and then her agitating presence close beside him, on her knees. The shine of her hair, the fragrance of her, the vitality of her, and more than all that nameless and irresistible attraction seemed propelled into his senses. Hurriedly he arose to rake red coals out of the fire, to put on the oven to heat, and the coffeepot to boil, to fetch more firewood, and to find other tasks. It was the eyes of Uhl and his allies fixed upon the kneeling girl that drove Lance to look at her. She had thrown off the heavy coat, and knelt in her thin slacks, her round, gold-tanned arms bare, her beautiful voluptuous form revealed in all its devastating allurement. Lance cursed under his breath. This gangster was a ghoul for both money and flesh. Madge was in deadly peril, yet seemed oblivious of it. Lance’s calculation had been that by midday Stewart would be on his trail. That would fetch him to the mountain clearing late the coming night or at dawn. What might happen before then? No matter what happened, Stewart and his men could be expected to waylay or ambush the gangsters and kill them. No doubt Tim Sloan and the Spencer boys would be with them. It was all up with Uhl right that moment. They would not escape these relentless rangers. Gene Stewart would experience a throwback to his wild frontier days. But they were hours and miles away. And Lance had to escape with Madge before nightfall. These thoughts revolved in his mind as he performed the tasks of cook around the campfire.

Presently breakfast was ready, and it was Madge, not Lance, who called: “Come and get it!” Kneeling over the fire had caused her cheeks to burn red, and it was only in her deep somber eyes that there was any sign of physical or mental distress. They all sat or knelt to eat and drink, except the cursed Flemm, who patrolled his short beat. Fox brought him food and drink.

“Baby, I didn’t think it was in you,” declared Uhl, devouring one of the hot biscuits.

Then Lance discovered that as she did not reply, nor deign to glance at the gangster, he took offense at her indifference. Evidently he had a tremendous egoism. “Get this, baby,” he flashed, in cold passion. “Soon as I thaw out and get some sleep, I’ll change your damned snooty manner.” With that he stamped away into the pine brush beyond the clearing. Stevens appeared to shrivel up at the significance of that threat. Madge gazed intently at Lance, her wonderful eyes, hypnotic in effect, searching his very soul. She was delving into his depths. What did she imagine she saw there? She was strangely uncertain of her convictions about him. Her present bad conceptions might be warring with good ones of the past. Lance nearly betrayed himself before her tremendous appeal. But he was aware that the beady and fox-eyed gangsters were watching, too. Kneeling once more, Lance bent over the utensils, and began collecting them preparatory to washing. Presently Uhl returned.

“Flemm, I’ll give you a rest for half an hour. Then I want to sleep. God, that sun feels good!” Then he turned to Madge.

“Baby, you can go into the cabin.”

She hurriedly acted upon the order.

“Uhl, hadn’t I better look up the horses?” queried Lance.

“Horses? I forgot them.”

“They’ve strayed. I didn’t see any tracks going down the trail. So they must be around. You realize how important horses are, don’t you?”

“By God, I do now!... Here, Stevens, you wash up that mess. Cowboy, find those horses.”

Lance, making a show of anxiety and hurry, strode off. Circling the clearing he found Sloan’s roan and near by his own horse Umpqua. No sign of the other animals. Lance did not bother to hunt tracks. He made a detour and came up within sight of the camp, and sat down on a log to peer through the foliage. He could see the cabin. There, watching intently, he brooded over the situation. Presently he saw Flemm rejoin Uhl. The three gangsters held a colloquy, which was unintelligible to Lance. But they did not appear concerned. Once Fox pointed at Stevens, who knelt with his back turned, laboring over his task. Again Uhl made a passionate gesture toward the cabin, at which Flemm threw up his hands in resignation. Then Uhl lay down on a blanket in the sun and went to sleep.

Lingering there for some time Lance finally retraced his steps.

“Found only two horses,” he informed Flemm. “The rest have wandered off. I’ll have to saddle up to find them.”

“Wait. If we waked up the boss now he’d bump you off.”

“But every hour they may stray farther away.”

“Okay by me. I’d a hell of sight rather walk.”

Whereupon Lance proceeded to wipe the utensils for Stevens. “Rollie, this is a tough break,” he said. “Don’t take it so hard. You’ll come out okay, except for loss of some dough you won’t miss.”

“I don’t mind the money. I fear for Majesty. It was all my fault — that we were caught by these ruffians. I persuaded her to come out — lied to get her, in fact. And we were held up.”

“Sidway,” interrupted Flemm, sarcastically, “you don’t strike me as a snatch scout.... Cheese it!”

Lance wisely refrained from further talk, though he gnashed his teeth. When the chores were finished he cut and packed firewood, mostly bark from dead trees. After that he cut great armloads of spruce boughs and dragged them to camp.

“Sid, there’s somethin’ rotten about you, but it ain’t in this camp stuff,” commented Fox.

“Ha! He learned all that in Chi,” laughed Flemm.

“Say, tenderfeet, if you’re stuck up here for a week, you’ll appreciate soft beds,” replied Lance.

“Week! What in hell’s eatin’ you? Two days is my limit,” retorted Fox.

Lance strode off, ax in hand, groaning over a thought of what complications would evolve among these violent men in another day. He cut armloads of spruce, and packing that back he approached the door of the cabin, and without a glance at the gangsters, made bold to enter.

To his amaze Madge had been waiting, surely watching for him, for she leaped at him.

“Lance — darling,” she whispered, and circled his arm with two steellike hands.

He let the load of spruce fall with a sodden swish. Her extraordinary loveliness must have been due to intense spirit and emotion. Her face was like a pearl — her eyes glowing purple.

“Are you crooked or honest?” she added.

“Crooked — as hell!” he gasped.

“I fear it.... But still you must save me from him — and get the ransom. I’ll pay anything.... He means to attack me — keep me!... For God’s sake — for Mother’s — for mine — save me from that!”

“I’ll try.... Keep your nerve. Watch!” he whispered, huskily, and turned to stride out. Before facing the gangsters he thought it best to go into the woods and cut more boughs. Recovering his poise he packed another huge load back to camp. Presently he said to Flemm.

“It’s getting late in the afternoon. I ought to be wrangling the horses.”

“Yeah. An’ what’s that?”

“Hunting them.”

“Set down an keep your shirt on. Or you might peel potatoes an’ what have you.”

“Uhl!” yelled Lance, suddenly.

The gangster leader roused out of his slumber with surprising quickness, and sat up, blinking.

“These guys won’t let me hunt for the horses. I found only two. I ought to ride around these woods and find them.”

“Hop to it, cowboy. But don’t forget we want supper soon.”

Lance ran to get his saddle and bridle and blankets, tingling with the vibration of his nerves. All day he had pondered over the need to saddle Umpqua. Once astride the horse he felt that the critical hour was near at hand. Riding off out of sight he returned to the point where he could watch the camp. The heat of the day was waning, and sunset burned in the west. Lance saw Uhl, bare-headed and coatless, get up to go toward the cabin. And he went in!

That was a signal for Lance to ride back toward the camp. He had to meet the crisis. Terror and panic gave way to fury, and by the time he had reached the clearing he was steel — cold and tight in mind and body. Boldly he rode to the big pine opposite the cabin, and there halted. Flemm and Fox were watching him curiously. With warning gesture, Lance pointed down the trail toward the opening into the clearing. Both gangsters were impelled to leap up and look. On the moment Lance heard Madge’s ringing voice: “No!... Bee Uhl, I’ll pay the ransom. But....”

“Baby, you started it. You got to come through. No dame who ever lived can play with me,” he replied, in cold passion.

“I did play with you,” she protested. “But I didn’t mean what you mean!”

“No matter now. You’ll come across.”

Lance leaped off Umpqua and ran over to the excited gangsters. His manner would have struck anyone into amaze and fear.

“Where’s Uhl?” he queried.

“He said he was goin’ to love his baby,” replied Fox. “What’s eatin’ you?”

“I rode up high back there on the slope. And I saw two horses down where the trail comes up. First I thought they were our horses. But they had riders and were coming this way.”

“Riders! You mean men on horseback?”

“I sure do.... There may be more than two. Looks damn bad. You better sneak down the trail, keeping out of sight, and make sure.”

“What of?”

“Who it is and what they want.”

“Fox, you go,” ordered Flemm.

“Okay. But what’ll I do!”

“Hold them up. An’ use your gray matter.”

Fox looked to his machine gun, and ran out to the trail, which he entered, and glided along till he reached the green foliage where he soon passed out of sight.

Lance stepped up on the pack beside Flemm.

“There! Look!” he whispered, tensely. “That little open place, beyond the yellow pine. See!”

“My eyes must be damn poor. I see nothin’ but green,” growled Flemm.

“Okay! then see stars,” hissed Lance, and swung his heavy gun on the gangster’s bare head. Flemm fell soddenly. Whereupon Lance sped across the space to the side of the cabin, listening, watching the door.

He heard a scuffle, then swift light footfalls, then panting breaths, and — : “I’m not — afraid of you — Bee Uhl!”

“Swell! I like my dames to be wildcats,” replied Uhl, with something exultant in his voice, no longer cold. “Make me fight for it, eh?”

“You lousy bum! Fight you? I can whip you,” cried Madge, hotly.

Lance made for the door. He heard thudding footfalls, a cry, and then a rip of cloth.

“Let go! — Oh, you beast!”

“Baby — I’ll strip you — right now,” panted the gangster.

Lance leaped into the doorway, gun leveled. Uhl had Madge backed against the wall. The gangster’s clawing hands held strips of her clothing. The girl, half-naked, was warding him off, like a tigress at bay.

“Madge! Duck! Get away from him!” shouted Lance.

The gangster froze a second, then sprang into convulsive action, to catch the girl and get her in front of him. But she was as strong as he and far more supple. A short struggle ensued, the end of which came when Uhl made the blunder of striking her down. Then, even as he half turned, his thin face gray, his eyes hot and clear as molten steel, Lance leaped to get in better line. When his gun boomed the gangster appeared to be propelled against the wall. It upheld him a moment. A great bloody blotch came as if by magic. Lance thought he had shot away half of Uhl’s face. He stuck there an instant, a ghastly spectacle, then slid sideways to the floor.

Madge lay apparently unconscious, a bruise on her white temple and a red welt across her bare shoulder. Lance snatched up a blanket, and lifting her flung it around her and carried her out the door. Flemm lay as Lance had last seen him. Far down the trail Fox appeared running toward camp. Lance took a long shot at him for luck, then sheathing his gun, he stepped to the snorting Umpqua, and kicked the stirrup around.

“Steady, Ump! It’s me. Hold, you fool horse!”

With Madge in his left arm Lance mounted and drew her across his saddle. Umpqua needed no urging. As he plunged away a rattle of gunshots blended in a continuous volley, and a rain of bullets whistled and ticked through the trees, and pattered on the cabin. But in a few jumps the horse was behind the cabin, and out of danger. Lance held him to a lope along the wall of foliage, into the woods.

CHAPTER XI

NO SOONER HAD Gene Stewart lain down and dropped to sleep, some hours after midnight, than he was assailed by nightmares. It was just as well that he had not gone to bed in his own room, for he kicked around pretty violently. And he was in the thick of violent events when someone not a hobgoblin or demon thoroughly aroused him. Dawn had come. He made out Nels standing over him.

“Wal, Boss, you was loco. Never seen you so oot of your haid.”

“Hello, old-timer. Been having crazy dreams. Must have been that punch concoction Madge sprung on us.”

“Wait till you see Ren.... Pile oot, Gene, an’ throw on your ridin’ things. We’ve got work on hand.”

“Uhuh. So that was the big idea. What’s up?”

“Sidway just left on the trail of your cattle. Rustled last night before the ball opened.”

“By jacks! — He wanted to tell me last night. But Madge wouldn’t let him.”

“Might hev spoiled her party.... We’re to hit Sidway’s trail pronto. Danny is wranglin’ the hawses. An’ I’ve throwed some grub together. Come along, Boss. We hev Sidway to thank fer somethin’ like old times.”

Nels clinked out into the patio where his musical footsteps died away. Gene quickly dressed in his range garb, and slipped a comb and toothbrush into his pocket. His gunbelt had ample shells, and his rifle was down at Nels’ bunkhouse. Then he went to his wife’s room and poking his head in the door he awakened her: “Sorry, dear. Nels just called me. We’re going after a bunch of strayed stock. May not be back for a day or two.”

“So this is what young Sidway had to tell you?” she replied quickly.

“Good guess, Mom. Go back to sleep, and don’t worry about what that cowboy starts. He’s a finisher.”

Going out through the patio Stewart saw two of Madge’s guests, boy and girl, asleep in each other’s arms in a hammock. They were half covered by a colorful blanket. It was a pretty picture, and Gene thought the girl was Maramee. “Some party!” he muttered, as he strode on. “But dog-gone-it! I had a good time watching them.... Only — my girl worries me!”

Clear daylight had come when Stewart reached the bunkhouses. Four horses saddled and bridled stood at the rail. He found his men inside eating. Danny looked grim and dark as he bent over his plate. Starr appeared drunk.

“Boss, throw some hot cakes under yore belt.... Ren, you drink thet hot coffee or I’ll pour it down you.”

“Nels — old manz — I want drink.”

“I gave you a bracer.”

“Ren, you’re drunk,” said Gene.

“Whosh drunk? I ain’t so.... It wash just thet peach juice las night.”

Nels forced the cowboy to drink the coffee, and stuffed some biscuits and cold meat in his pocket.

“Boss, let’s get goin’,” interposed Danny Mains, darkly. “If I don’t miss my guess we’ll hev hell catchin’ Sidway. Thet boy’s another Nick Steele.”

“Right,” agreed Nels.

They dragged Starr outside and threw him on his horse.

“Can you stick on?” queried Stewart.

“You insolt me,” protested Ren, swaying in his saddle.

“I’ll hold him on, Gene,” said Danny, “till he sobers up.”

“Bosh, whash in ‘ell was thet punch as night?”

“I don’t know, Ren. It sure gave me a hell of a nightmare.”

“I’m agonna get thet mixtoure from Miss Madge — an’ make million bucks. Washen thet heavern best drink ever?”

“A most deceiving one, Ren. It led you on.”

“Whash wuz in it?”

“Dynamite, greased lightning, sweet cider and aqua fortis.”

“Hell you shay?”

They rode down past the village, Stewart and Nels gradually drawing ahead, while Mains came along behind steadying Starr in his saddle.

“Nels, what’s the deal?” asked Stewart.

“Wal, some Mexicans sloped off with the rest of yore an’ Danny’s cattle. Gosh, but Danny is sore! They was slick aboot it, when every last person in the country was heah last night. I’ve a hunch how Sidway got wise to the deal. He’s a clever boy, Gene. But how he found oot ain’t nothin’ to us. The thieves drove the cattle acrost to the valley behind Gray Divide. An’ they expect to work them by easy stages down acrost the border. It’d been a cinch but fer Sidway.... Wal, he’s goin’ to locate them, then ride on into town an’ get help. In the mawnin’ he’ll haid the rustlers off in thet narrow valley. Our part is to ride in behind the ridge an’ trail them down, keepin’ oot of sight. By this time tomorrow I reckon we’ll be smokin’ them up.”

“Hardly, in that open valley,” replied Stewart. “They’ll see us and slope. Which suits me, though I’d like to throw a scare into them.”

“Wal, we’ll get the cattle back, an’ mebbe thet’ll end this two-bit rustlin’.”

“Nels, as long as westerners raise cattle out on the range there will be stealing.”

“Kind of a disease.... Look, Gene, heah’s the trail, plain as plowed ground. An’ there’s the track of Sidway’s hawse.”

“I see.... Nels, do you remember when I gave my great roan Majesty to Madeline and beat it for Mexico to get myself shot?”

“My Gawd, yes,” declared Nels, fervently. “All thet past seems to be gettin’ clearer in my memory.... Gene, I’ll bet Sidway gives Umpqua to Madge.”

“Not that cowboy. He’s got too much spunk. He’s onto Madge,” replied Gene, a little sadly.

“Wal, I reckon thet won’t make no hell of a difference. There ain’t a man in the world who could resist thet girl long.”

“If you put it that way,” agreed Stewart, pleased with the old cattleman’s hint.

Once across the highway the four riders settled down to a steady trot, and in two hours had reached the rocky point of the ridge. They rode around cautiously. The gateway to the valley was wide, and on the ridge side thick with sage and brush.

“Let’s hold up heah,” suggested Nels, and reined in. “Ren, air you so bleary-eyed yet you cain’t see nothin’?”

“Nels, I can see a hawse ten miles an’ a steer more’n thet — an’ a gurl with a red bonnet twice as fur,” declared Starr, swaggeringly.

“All right. Climb up the slope heah an’ see if you can spot the cattle down the valley.”

“My Gawd! — Climb in these high-heel boots?”

“Come on, Ren. I’ll go, too,” offered Stewart. They did not ascend the rough brushy slope more than a hundred feet when Starr made good his brag. Then Gene saw a long black band, moving like a snake, down the valley.

“Eight or ten miles?” asked Gene.

“More’n thet, Boss. Jest moseyin’ along.”

They retraced their steps and reported to Nels. “Wal,” said that worthy, “I reckon we better keep travelin’. We want to be on their heels when Sidway haids them back in the mawnin’.”

“Ren, don’t I remember there’s good water down this valley?” asked Gene.

“Shore you do. Nice rocky creek haids aboot where them cattle air now.”

“That’ll be far enough for us. We’ll camp there.... Walk your horses and keep your eyes peeled.”

They rode on in single file, somewhat separated. The sun rose hot; a flock of buzzards circled high over the locality where the herd moved, indicating death to a calf or heifer. Coyotes slunk through the sage, another indication of meat on the move; the black domes of the Peloncillos sank behind the gray foothills.

Stewart’s memory was busy. He recalled his early days with Nick Steele and Monty Price, and others of Stillwell’s famous cowboys. And that reminded him of Madeline’s brother Al, who had married Florence Kingsley, and had moved to Colorado to take charge of a ranch she had inherited. They had prospered. Stewart wondered if it would not be a good plan to ask financial assistance of Al. Something had to be done as soon as Madge’s guests left, or he would lose the ranch. Madge would have to be told of the impending ruin, and Stewart hated the thought. But he must do it. Madge was wonderful, adorable, irresistible, but she was on the wrong track. Hours wore away while Stewart revolved memories and problems and hurts over and over in his mind.

Some time late in the afternoon Stewart and his men arrived at the head of the creek and halted to make camp there. It was an ideal spot, with grass and sage, and cottonwood trees, and dead cedars near by on the slope.

“Wal, I’ll boil a pot of coffee,” drawled Nels, “an’ what with our meat an’ biscuits we won’t fare so bad.”

“Rustle then, for I’m almost asleep this minute,” replied Gene.

“We ain’t none of us had a damn wink of sleep,” added Starr.

“Why, Ren, I had to kick you onmerciful this mawnin,” protested Nels.

“Thet wasn’t sleep. I was unconscious from Majesty Stewart’s punch.... Boss, don’t you never let thet gurl make thet drink again. My Gawd! if college eddication is responsible fer thet — wall, when I marry Bonita an’ we hev a dotter, she ain’t goin’ to get any modern schoolin’ atall.”

“Ren, your philosophy is sound,” declared Stewart, ruefully after the laugh had subsided. “But it can’t be adopted.”

“An’ why’n th’ell not?”

“Because these days girls will do as they please whether they have education or not. They are going to have equal rights with men.”

“Wal, Gene, thet’ll make a better world,” interposed Nels.

“Nels, never in yore born days, did you know anythin’ aboot wimmen, much less a dotter,” observed Danny, pessimistically.

“Dan, do you mean a dotter is a turrible burden?”

“More’n turrible’n awful.”

“An’ if you had it all to live over again would you kept single, so you couldn’t hev no dotter?”

“I ain’t sayin’ thet.”

“An’ you, Gene, would you rather never hev had Madge?”

“Nels, old pard, ten thousand times no,” burst out Stewart, somehow glad to express himself. “Madge has been a joy. And will be forever.”

“Thar yore talkin’. She’s life — beautiful life — an’ thet cain’t be perfect.”

They talked and had their leisurely and frugal meal round the little smokeless campfire, while the sun set, and shadows appeared under the slopes. Stewart made his bed with saddle and blankets, and scarcely had he stretched himself when a subtle glue touched his eyelids. Late in the night he awoke, saw Danny replenishing the fire, fell asleep again, to be roused at dawn by an ungentle boot.

“Come an’ get it,” said Nels, cheerily. “I’ve a hunch we’ve a day ahaid of us.”

Before broad daylight they were on the move. When the sun arose, Danny and Ren rode up the slope to locate the cattle, but failed to do so, owing to a projecting cape that ran down into the valley. This was some miles ahead. Before they reached it Ren sighted dust clouds.

“On the run already,” declared Nels.

“Looks like it,” admitted Stewart.

“They’re pretty far yet, Boss,” added Ren.

“Wal, there ain’t no use in our haidin’ the cattle off, when we want them to come this way.”

“No. But how about the rustlers?”

“If they got haided off below, we won’t see hide nor hair of them.”

They rounded the cape and rode at a trot fully five miles farther before Ren sighted cattle. They were headed up the valley and evidently had been running, but had now slowed down. They rode on, keeping sharp lookout for riders on the slopes, and presently had to take to higher ground to let a scattered herd pass.

“Aboot seven hundred, I’d say,” observed Nels. “Reckon thet’s all of them. Not winded much. They’ll be home tomorrow.”

“Wonder where’n hell them rustlers rode?” complained Ren. “I ain’t feelin’ swell, an’ I’d shore like to shoot at somebody.”

“Suits me,” replied Danny, relieved. “Killin’ Mexicans even from acrost the border wouldn’t set good with my family.”

“Danny, we don’t know them rustlers was greasers,” declared Ren, too casually.

“No. But I was afeared they might be.”

Stewart suggested they ride on to meet Sidway, and whoever he had with him. Very soon Ren sighted three riders, whereupon Stewart ordered a halt.

“Lance ain’t in thet ootfit,” declared Starr, presently. “Say, they see us, an’ air ridin’ to beat the band.”

Stewart was curious about the three horsemen who were evidently in a hurry to reach them. In very short order they arrived, three lean cowboys, ragged and dusty and hard-eyed. Stewart recognized them.

“Howdy, boys. Where’s Sidway?”

Stewart thought Sloan’s intent eyes searched his with undue fire, and he wondered what was coming.

“Mawnin’, all,” returned Sloan. “Stewart, you don’t ‘pear all het up aboot this raid — or nothin’.”

“I’m well satisfied, thanks to you boys. Did you get a line on the rustlers?”

“They seen us far off an’ bolted. We couldn’t make them out.”

“All right, that’s that. Where’s Sidway?” rejoined Stewart, sharply, suddenly sensing some untoward circumstance.

“By now Sidway must be at Cochise’s stronghold, guidin’ some gangsters who’d kidnaped your girl Madge an’ a young fellow.”

A blank silence ensued. But amaze did not long obstruct Stewart’s faculties. He had sensed catastrophe. Sloan’s tan had lost a shade. His eyes smoldered.

Nels flung a clenched hand at him. “Sloan, what you sayin’?”

“Listen, all of you. But don’t waste no time restin’ here. Come on. Ride close an’ let me spill it.... Yesterday a little before sundown, Sidway caught up with us on the road to town. He told us about this cattle steal an’ asked us to help him haid them back this mawnin’. Me an’ the Spencers was glad to help, of course. We made camp jest outside of town. Jest about dusk, Sidway walked in town to get some coffee an’ butter. Not long after, but it was dark, a big black car came up, an’ Sidway was on the runnin’ board. We was held up by two men with machine guns. Then their boss got out an’ bought my hawse outfit fer a thousand dollars. They was a gangster outfit an’ Sidway ‘peared to be on good terms with them. I didn’t get wise to the kidnapin’ till Miss Madge an’ the young feller was dragged out of the car. Then I seen it plain as print.... Now, to make it short, one gangster drove the car away, up the range road. Sidway an’ us fellers, under them guns, saddled an’ packed. Then thet pale-faced gangster ordered me to wait till mawnin’, an’ notify you to send one man up the Cochise Trail with fifty thousand dollars fer Miss Madge an’ the same for the young feller. An’ if his orders was not carried out Miss Madge would be raped, an’ both of them killed.... It was hard fer me to wait till mawnin’ but with your telephone wire cut, I couldn’t find out if you’d left, an’ I knew you’d be comin’ along here after the cattle. So here we are.”

By the time Sloan had concluded, Stewart’s horror had mounted to a ruthless and terrible wrath. Starr’s face had grown a leaden white, and he appeared incapable of speech. After a brief paroxysm of emotion Nels interrupted Danny Mains’ curses with a terse query: “Gene, what do you make of Sidway?”

“What do you?” countered Stewart, huskily.

“I got it figgered. When he went in town he seen thet car with Madge in it. He must hev been slick enough to scare them kidnapers off the highway, to take to the hills.”

Sloan interrupted impatiently: “But, Nels — Stewart, it looked like Sidway was one of thet gang.”

“It shore did,” corroborated the Spencer boys in unison. “Their boss knew him.”

“You all think Sidway was in with the gangsters?” queried Stewart.

“I’m afraid, sir — we do. Why, we stayed awake half the night talkin’ it over. These kidnapers are pretty smart. They take their time. We figger Sidway must have been sent on ahead — planned the job — rode away the day it was done. But we jest couldn’t figger this cattle steal in the job atall.”

“Sloan, I’ll grant it looked that way to you,” rejoined Stewart, tersely. “But you don’t know Sidway. I tell you the idea is preposterous.”

“All right, sir. I only hope an’ pray you’re right.”

Then Ren Starr exploded. “I ought to throw my gun on you,” he roared. “Sidway’s my pard. He’s as true as steel. He couldn’t be in a deal like this. How in hell he ever got mixed up in it I can’t guess, but you bet your life it’s damn lucky for the girl an’ us. He’ll save her. An’ you’ll have to apologize to me fer thinkin’ him a crook.”

“I’ll do thet now, Starr,” returned Sloan. “But be reasonable. Things looked queer. Circumstantial evidence, you know.... An’ Miss Madge! — she believed Sidway was one of them. You should have seen her — heard her call him.”

“My — Gawd!” gasped Starr, totally overcome by that information.

At last Nels broke silence: “Gene, I knowed thet cowboy would hev his chance. It jest worked oot thet way. An’ I’d gamble my bunk in heaven on his honesty, an’ his nerve an’ sense to beat thet gang. He knew we’d be on his trail. Why, the last thing he said was, in case, look fer his tracks. Them gangsters air tenderfeet. Once up in the hills they’ll be lost, an’ easy fer thet slick cowboy. He’ll lay fer his chance, an’ as shore as we’re right heah he’ll hold them somehow till we come, or get away with her, or do something to save her from them.”

“Boss, thet’s it — one of Nels’ hunches,” affirmed Starr. “But, my Gawd, we got to rustle!”

“Sloan, you boys will go with us,” asserted Stewart.

“You bet your life!”

“Nels, we’ll cut off the trail halfway up, and work round to the west side of Cochise’s stronghold. We might get there ahead of them. It’ll be a drill for tenderfeet. They’ll be all in. We’ve got time. We must make it before dark.... Now, all of you — ride!”

* * * * *

Riders and horses were wet with sweat, and practically spent when that long climb up the mountain had been accomplished by sundown. A halt was made in the deep forest west of Cochise’s stronghold, at a point they all agreed was scarcely a half mile from the clearing.

“Ketch your — breath, fellers,” panted Nels, as he removed his chaps.

“Men, in case they’re here...” began Stewart.

“They air heah,” interrupted Nels. “Didn’t we foller their tracks over two thirds of thet trail? Didn’t Sloan ketch two of his hawses makin’ fer home? Sidway would make the gang stop heah, even if it wasn’t the logical camp.”

“All — right, then,” Stewart rasped. “We’ll slip up on them. Then what?”

“Stewart, they’re gangsters with machine guns. I’d say shoot ’em down on sight.”

“Hell, yes,” agreed Starr.

“Wal, I don’t know,” added Nels, ponderingly. “Shore we never — dealt with any of this ilk — before. I’d say hold ’em up. If they don’t hold up pronto then bore ’em.”

“By all means before they can turn machine guns loose in our direction,” replied Stewart, grimly. “But I want to talk to these hombres first — and then see them kick at the end of a rope.”

“Boss, it’s a better idee at thet,” agreed Ren, savagely. “But my gun finger is shore itchin’.... If we only find — Madge alive an’ unharmed.”

“We will — shore,” declared Nels, passionately. “I may hev lived to be old an’ soft, but somehow I gamble on Sidway. He loves thet girl an’ he’ll ootwit the slickest kidnapers there ever was.”

“Nels, that faith has kept me from collapse. First time in my life I’ve weakened. But it’s — my girl!” exclaimed Stewart, low and thick under his breath.

“Come on,” ended Nels. “Keep even an’ in sight of each other. No noise!”

A pine-thicketed slope led up to the gray crags. They entered the mountain enclosure through a gateway between the huge monuments of stone. The clearing lay beneath Stewart’s strained eyes, a green and gold park marked by great pines scattered about, and shining with appalling beauty under the sunset glow. A thin column of blue smoke halfway across made Stewart’s heart leap. Ren pointed to a roan horse grazing in the open meadow, and Sloan whispered that it was his horse Baldy.

At a motion from Nels they stealthily began their approach down to the level. Every few rods Nels halted to listen. Stewart could hear only the sough of the wind in the pines, and the murmur of distant running water. The place seemed locked in an unearthly silence.

Suddenly Ren startled Stewart and all of them. He held up a pregnant hand.

“I heah voices,” he whispered.

He must have possessed extraordinarily sharp ears, for all of his companions shook their heads. Hardly had they started forward again when the boom of a gun made them statues. They listened with bated breath.

“No forty-five Colt,” whispered Stewart.

“Sidway packs a forty-four Smith an’ Wesson. Sounded like it,” replied Nels. “Come on, we gotta see this.”

Before they had taken a dozen swift steps a rattling biting volley halted them.

“Machine gun!” whispered Sloan, in great excitement. “Have I heard them? I’m tellin’ you!”

The continuous volley appeared to come from their right down the trail. Accompanying the rattling was a swishing cut of bullets through foliage and then a pattering on solid wood. It ceased. And Ren leaped up in the air, trying to see over the green brush.

“Heah ’em? — Hawse hoofs!”

“Shore as Gawd made little apples!” ejaculated Sloan.

Stewart was quick to catch a soft rapid thud of hoofs, a crash of brush, a cracking of dead twigs, then thudding hoofbeats dying away.

“Thet was when, Gene!” hissed Nels, his gray eyes like points of flame, and he motioned them on.

Despite the intense suspense, Nels had the cool judgment to advance very slowly, without the slightest sound. Stewart swallowed his harrowing fears and doubts. Then swift footfalls close in front made him, and all of them, aware of the nearness of the trail. Nels crouched down and stealthily separated the small pines to slip through. Starr followed suit, as did the others to left and right. Stewart saw the roof of the old cabin over the tips of the brush.

“Flemm!” shouted a hoarse voice. “What happened?”

“He crowned me,” replied another man, hotly.

“Who? Not Stevens?”

“No. It was that two-timin’ cowboy. He lied about seeing horses down the trail. Ruse to get rid of you. Then he beaned me.”

“That shot in the cabin?”

“I didn’t hear any.”

“You know Uhl went in the cabin to the girl?”

“Yes. I saw that.”

“Well, there was a shot in there, all right. Sidway went in and bumped Bee off. That’s it. For I saw the cowboy come out with the girl in his arms and jump on his horse. I let loose my gun, but I was running — and didn’t connect.”

The faces of Nels and Ren appeared to shine upon Stewart, a singular transformation from grim dark passion to an ecstasy of gladness. Stewart felt the same so powerfully that he was overcome. But his tremendous relief was counteracted by a hateful query — had Sidway gotten in that cabin in time? Again Stewart’s passion to rend and slay dominated him. He crawled softly after the others, until he bumped into them.

They had arrived at the edge of the clearing. Ren’s hard hand pressed Stewart’s shoulder. Peering through the foliage he saw that they were scarcely fifty yards from the campfire. Two bareheaded young men, with corded livid faces, stood facing each other. Both held machine guns. The taller, a dark-haired individual, was bending his head to the other, no doubt for examination. Beyond them on the ground sat young Stevens, apparently uninjured, but plainly shocked with terror. Then on the moment the gangsters whirled at a piercing shout from the cabin. A third man appeared, a slim-built fellow, with a bloody face. He staggered toward them, a ghastly spectacle, but assuredly instinct with life and desperation. His curses rang through the forest clearing. Then he confronted the astounded gangsters.

“That —— fake cowboy shot me... got away with her!” he yelled, wildly. “I’ll kill you both — you —— hop-heads! What in hell were you doing?”

“He fooled us, Bee,” replied Flemm. “Made us believe he saw horses. Sent Fox down the trail. Then he crowned me.”

“I wish to God he’d smashed your empty pan!”

“Looks like he emptied yours. Better let us wash you off. Looks like what you used for brains is oozing away.”

“It’s only blood. He grooved me... here... Christ, how it burns! — Wipe me off.”

Fox laid down his gun and picked up a towel from the pack. He dipped it in a water bucket, and wiped off the blood to disclose to the watchers the visage of a white, hard-faced criminal whose passion and experience seemed greatly beyond his years.

“HANDS UP!” thundered Nels.

“Stick ’em up, gangsters!” rang out Starr’s voice.

Uhl and Fox lost not a second in elevating their hands. But Flemm whirled with his machine gun bursting into flame and rattle. Almost instantly his distorted visage went blank and he pitched forward. The machine gun sputtered into the ground, scattering gravel, then fell from the gangster’s stretching hands. Stewart saw smoke issuing from Starr’s rifle. Then Nels, gun low, ran out, to be followed by the cowboys. Mains came out from the right. When Stewart emerged from the foliage Sloan was disarming the gangsters.

“Heah, gimme thet rope, Spencer,” yelped Starr. Receiving it he spread the noose, and pitched it deftly over Uhl’s head. The gangster had courage or else he did not get the significance of Starr’s move.

“Wait, Ren!” ordered Stewart, and strode over to Stevens. “Are you all right, boy?”

“Yes — sir. I — guess so,” faltered Stevens. “Thank God. I was about — dead of fright.”

“Sidway made off with Madge?”

“He did, sir, but — but...”

“Was she — all right... too?” queried Stewart, hoarsely.

“I’m afraid — not.... I heard her fighting — him!” And Stevens pointed a shaking finger at Uhl. “She’d fainted — or was dead — when Sidway got on his horse with her.... But, Mr. Stewart — even if she was alive — she’s as bad off with him... for he’s one of — these gangsters!”

“Yeah, that’s correct,” interposed Uhl, darkly. “Sidway belongs to Cork’s snatch gang. He tricked me. He wants the ransom and the girl for himself. I’ll get him for that if it costs me a hundred grand.”

“Haw! Haw!” burst out Sloan, sardonically.

“Gangster,” added Stewart, coldly. “If you knew Westerners you would not concern yourself about that.”

Ren Starr confronted Rollie Stevens. “Say, did I heah you make a crack about Sidway bein’ one of this outfit?”

“Yes, you did. He’s hand in glove with these kidnapers. And he has betrayed them. He’s...”

“Shet up, you white-mugged college dude! What’d you go to college fer? Haven’t you any sense? My pard saved the girl.”

“You’re a thickheaded fool.”

“I reckon I’ll have to bat you one...”

“Hold on, Ren,” interrupted Stewart, sternly. “Make allowance for circumstances. It does look strange. But we’ll clear it up presently.”

The gangster Flemm was dead, shot through the center of the forehead. Stewart ordered Sloan to take charge of the machine guns, and Starr to search the gangsters. Nels stood with his gun on Uhl, and not for many years had Stewart seen such an expression on that lean face. Then Stewart strode to the cabin and went in. There was a pile of spruce brush on the floor, but it had not been disturbed. Searching around Stewart saw tracks of Madge’s little feet in the dust, and he could read from them that she had run and fought. He also found a splotch of blood in a depression, where no doubt Uhl had fallen, and had lain until he came to. There was little more to be learned in the cabin. The dreadful pang in Stewart’s breast did not subside. But how grateful he was that Madge was alive and in the keeping of a man!

Upon Stewart’s return to the group, Ren pointed to several automatic pistols evidently salvaged from the gangsters’ effects.

“You boys can have those. Save Uhl’s for Sidway. I imagine he’d like to keep it.”

“How about these, Boss?” asked Ren, and handed Stewart several wads of greenbacks. On one, the outside wrapper had a denomination of one thousand.

“Peep into thet, Boss. All the same. What these guys call grands.”

“Well! — These gentlemen seem to deal in large numbers, said Gene, sarcastically.

“Stewart, that dough is yours if you pass up this snatch,” said Uhl, suavely. He seemed to lack comprehension and fear. And his assurance, even before the grim and silent Nels, was remarkable, and could have come only from supreme egoism and ignorance. Stewart knew that no power on earth or in heaven could stay Nels’ hand. These vultures had dared to frighten, and probably harm, Nels’ one treasure, and that had been Madge since she had first ridden his knee.

“Thanks, Uhl. You can afford to be generous, for you won’t need that money where you are going.”

“Boss, he doesn’t get it,” declared Starr, contemptuously. “Let me hev the fun of tellin’ him.” And the cowboy gave the lasso a jerk that made the noose close up like a snake round Uhl’s neck. The gangster spread the noose and flung it off his head.

“Cowboy, I never forget faces,” he snarled. “I’ve put men on the spot for less than that.”

“For the love of Mike!” shrilled Starr, astounded and resentful. “Boss! — Nels! — Danny! Did you heah this guy? He’d put me on the spot!”

Stewart realized that his comrades as well as he were profoundly impressed by this new type of desperado. Absolutely, Uhl was convinced he would get out of this predicament. His ally, Fox, was an older man and less assured. No doubt he had always been a tool. Uhl, young as he was, indubitably had been used to imperious and unlimited power.

“Say, you opium-eatin’ nut, air you so dotty you think you’ll get out of this?” yelled Starr, red in the face. It struck Stewart that the cowboy voiced a tremendous antagonism toward the cold-faced, steel-eyed gangster, while Nels maintained a silent ruthlessness. Stewart knew Uhl was as good as dead, yet had not the slightest divination of it. Stewart felt that he had an intense curiosity about this species of gunman. His own inflexible hate, now that fear for Madge had somewhat subsided, was controllable.

“Let me talk to this hombre, Ren.... You boys tie up the other one,” he said, as he stepped close to the gangster. Nels had never swerved his gun an inch from its first deadly alignment. “Uhl, you implicate Sidway in this kidnaping of my daughter. How come?”

“He’s a scout for Cork. I know that bird. I met Sidway in Yuma. He drove one of my booze trucks.”

“Ahuh. One of those trucks you sent back with stolen cattle, eh?”

“Me steal cattle? That’s a kick,” replied Uhl, with a laugh of contempt.

“All the same your drivers did, probably on the sly. Sidway drove an empty truck to Tucson. It had been full of cattle. He was held up by men who expected to find bootleg whisky. Later this truck and others like it parked off the highway near my ranch to be loaded with stolen cattle. They got away with one load. Sidway killed one of your men.”

Uhl gave vent to a rage that convinced Stewart of his innocence of complicity in the raid. Such curses Stewart had never heard in the dens of the frontier.

“What’s more, Sidway is not what you think him,” went on Stewart. “He’s just a slick cowboy. He knew you — outguessed you — led you up here to your death.”

“He was going to kidnap Madge himself,” snapped Uhl, but his certainty seemed weakening.

“Your mistake. Why would he want to kidnap her when he’s going to marry her?”

That random shot of Stewart’s broke down the gangster’s stubborn convictions and betrayed the terrible nature of the man. If he were capable of love for a woman, he must have felt it for Madge Stewart. At any rate Stewart decided the gangster had been obsessed with some violent passion for Madge and that an insane jealousy possessed him.

“Marry her — yeah?” he choked out, his face purple, his neck convulsed, his eyes not those of a human. “He’s welcome — to the rag — I made her!”

Stewart knocked him flat, but had the self-possession to turn aside Nels’ quivering gun. It seemed impossible, however, to control Starr, and suddenly Stewart had no desire to. Starr dragged the gangster to his feet.

“You bastard,” he hissed, his visage gray and set. “You’ll never live — to brag of thet again!”

“Stand aside, Ren,” ordered Nels, piercingly.

“No, Nels, you ain’t gonna bore him,” shouted Starr, hoarsely. “An’ we ain’t gonna hang him. We’ll hang his pard, an’ make him look on, but by Gawd! I owe somethin’ to myself heah!”

Starr slipped the noose over Fox’s head and jerking it tight he threw the end of the lasso over a sturdy pine branch, and caught it coming down. “Heah, Sloan, an’ you Spencers! Get in on this. An’, young feller, grab hold of this rope behind me, an’ pull, if you’re half a man.... If you don’t I’ll beat hell oot of you.... PULL!... Ahah! Them yells choked off! Yellow clear through!... There, tie the end, Sloan.”

Stewart averted his eyes, but he could not escape the grotesque jumping-jack shadow on the ground, or the expulsion of breath from the condemned and executioners, the scrape of boots and jangle of spurs, and lastly the incredible spectacle of Stevens hauling on the lasso. For the moment the collegian had answered to primal instincts, and his red visage was as beastly as those of his fellows.

But suddenly Stewart swerved his attention to Uhl. The gangster had watched the hanging of his lieutenant, and his face, his look, his mien were vastly but incalculably transformed from what they had been.

“What do you think of our necktie party, gangster?” demanded Ren, leering at him. “Thet’s how we do things in the West.... I’m jest damn sorry I cain’t hang you an’ watch you kick. But yore swagger gets my goat. So Mister Bee Uhl, kidnapin’ — bootleggin’ gangster gunman, you’re gonna go up agin my game!”

“Heah, Ren — none of thet. Hang him,” said Nels, speaking for the first time.

“Umpumm, old pard. I wonder you ask it.... Where’s thet popgun of his?” Ren snatched it up from the pack and held it gingerly in contempt. “What do you think of thet toy, Nels? These guys in the movies shoot through their coat pockets. Okay!... Where’s his coat?” Starr took that up and slipped the little automatic into the right coat pocket.

Stewart had answered to the same strange antagonistic passion that beset Starr. No doubt Nels also was under its influence or he would have shot the gangster and made an end of the thing. Nels had been a gunman in his day; and later cowboys, who packed and shot guns, were wont to view with contempt the exploits of the modern killers with their automatic and hidden firing. They were simply murderers. An even break was Greek to them. But Ren wanted the test.

“Listen to reason, cowboy,” importuned Stewart. “I savvy you. But even a little risk...”

“Risk, hell? There won’t be none. Anyway, Boss, neither you nor Nels must hev this crook’s blood on yore hands.”

“What’s the difference whether it’s you or me or all of us?”

“On account of Madge. An’ if you elected to take him to jail — why Sidway would ride down there an’ shoot him in his cell. Thet wouldn’t do either, Boss.”

Nels appeared to be struck mute and Stewart had no ready answer. At that moment Starr reminded Stewart again of Monty Price. The advance of time did not change the hearts of these firebrand range riders.

Starr drew his gun, and kept it in his hand while he helped the gangster into his coat.

“There!... Stewart, you fellers get back pronto.... Now Uhl, don’t move a hand.” Starr backed away from him for perhaps twenty feet. “Turn around, Uhl.”

The gangster did as he was bidden, exposing a front that was sickening to men who held courage and nerve as Stewart held them. Blood had again begun to stream down the side of Uhl’s temple and cheek.

“Ten — grand — if you’ll...”

“Bah!” interrupted Starr, piercingly. “You’re talkin’ to an American cowboy.” Starr sheathed his gun and held his hand out, his fingers clutching at the air.

“Nels, you give the word.... Come on, kidnaper! Let’s hev yore game.”

“Ready!” rang out Nels. “Shoot!”

Stewart’s gaze was riveted on the gangster. In a flash he jerked his right hand down into his coat pocket. As the corner of his coat suddenly pointed out to bark and smoke, Starr’s gun crashed and in a second again. The gangster’s bullet sputtered up dust and gravel. Between the shots his visage underwent an indescribable change, and as he fell the terrible instinct to survive left his body.

* * * * *

Darkness found Stewart and his men around a campfire in another spot, several rods from the cabin. Nels was cooking some supper. And he was speaking:

“Wal, Gene, I cain’t see any sense in tryin’ to trail Sidway in the dark.”

“Hawses all in, Mr. Stewart,” interposed Sloan. “We’ll have to rest up tonight at least.”

Stewart endeavored to subdue his impatience and dread, knowing how right his comrades were.

“Anyway, wait till Ren comes back,” added Nels, and presently called them to supper. While they were sitting there the cowboy returned. In the campfire light his face showed white and set, without the violence that had distorted it.

“I found Lance’s trail,” he said, eagerly. “Used my flashlight. He had Ump goin’ some when he struck into the trail. But he soon slowed down. I follered the tracks till they turned left off the trail.”

“What’ll he do?” queried Stewart, sharply.

“Beat it fer home. Thet guy an’ thet hoss — nothin’ to it, Boss, if Madge is okay.”

“Does he know how to get down out of here?”

“Wal, we rode all over when we was up heah.”

“Ren, you take his trail at daybreak,” suggested Nels.

“Shore. I’d thought of thet. But mark my hunch, Sid will beat us home half a day.”

“Set in an’ hev a bite.”

“Nels, I sorta ain’t hungry.”

“Wal, eat an’ drink anyhow. It’s been a tough day.”

“You boys go after our horses and hobble them out for tonight. And Sloan, you’ll hunt up the rest of your horses tomorrow,” asserted Stewart.

“They’ll be around close. Seldom thet stock will leave this grass an’ water.”

Stevens set propped against a pack, with a blanket around him, his hair damp on his pale forehead.

“Rollie, you had a hand in that lynching,” said Stewart. “How you feel?”

“Pretty scared — and sick yet,” he replied, weakly. “But it — isn’t my part in that hanging. That was great.”

“Fine. Brace up now. Everything is okay. And we’re d —— lucky.”

Very little was spoken after that and nothing at all about the tragedy. The cowboys brought a pile of firewood to last out the night. Stewart asked one of them to fetch the cut spruce in the cabin, and he made his bed upon that. Starr was the only one who did not smoke. He stood back to the fire, his head bent. Stewart appreciated how he felt. The night wind set up its dirge in the pines and coyotes barked off in the distance. Despite his extreme fatigue Stewart could not sleep at once. The stars seemed to mock his troubled mind.

CHAPTER XII

UHL’S STRIKING MADGE down had less to do with her collapse than the appearance of Sidway in the cabin, with his darkly stern visage, his deadly voice, and the bursting red boom of his gun.

She did not wholly lose consciousness, for she felt him lift her and wrap her in a blanket and carry her out. More clearly then she heard a string of shots and the spang and thud of bullets all about, and felt herself swung upon a horse, and the violent jars of her body as he plunged away.

A vague, almost blank interval succeeded. When her mind cleared again she was being carried comfortably upon a pacing horse over a level trail. Through the big black pines she saw the stars shining, and then a dim outline of Sidway’s face and bare head. That thrilling reality brought back vividly the fight with the gangster, his half stripping her, and the brutal blow he had dealt her, and then Sidway’s startling and fatal intervention. Sidway, no matter why, had saved her again, and this time from a horrible fate — an insupportable shame and inevitable death. Her thoughts grew so wildly whirling that she had to disrupt them by talking.

“Lance,” she whispered. Apparently he did not hear her.

“Lance!... We got away.” She felt a strong vibration pass through him.

“Hello! You’ve come to?” he returned, hastily.

“Yes. But I wasn’t altogether out.”

“I haven’t had time to see.... Did he hurt you?”

“Lance, I was holding my own with him — when he struck me. I wasn’t afraid of him — till then.... I suppose he could have beaten me helpless?”

“Then... Uhl didn’t — harm you?” queried Sidway, in a halting husky voice.

“No, not outside the blow. Lance! You — killed him?”

“Yes.”

“You saved — me?”

“Yes.”

“From something hideous. He never meant to let me go for ransom. He’d have kept me.... Merciful heaven! What an idiot I was — to flirt with Honey Bee Uhl!”

“It takes a lot to cure some girls’ egotism,” returned Sidway with an intonation she could not define. He seemed far removed from her, somehow.

“I’m cured — Lance.”

“Listen, baby! — Excuse me. I fell into Uhl’s way of speech.... The day will never come when you won’t look at a man.”

“But for goodness sake! I have eyes. I can’t hang my head — never look.”

“A look from your eyes is enough.”

“Yeah? — For what?”

“To incite a man to madness — kidnaping — outrage — murder.”

“Oh! — Not a real man. What do you mean?”

“I mean, Miss Stewart, that whether you have guilty intent or perfect innocence, when you look at men with those eyes, you play hell.”

“I observe, Mr. Sidway, that my marvelous eyes failed to play hell with you,” she returned, sarcastically.

“Only because I was wise to you.”

Madge had no quick retort for that, mainly because there seemed some hope for her with this young man of dual nature. They rode along the trail in silence. But she watched him from between narrowed eyelids. If she had not been spent and in pain she would have found this situation vastly intriguing. At length Umpqua exchanged his pacing gait for a walk. Evidently the mountain clearing had been passed. Presently Sidway turned off the trail to the left, and had to pick his course. The forest gradually grew less dense, and therefore lighter. Thickets of pine and spruce reached above Sidway’s head, and in places had to be carefully threaded. It became evident to Madge that they were traveling downhill. At length the cowboy halted as if undecided how to proceed.

“Lost?” inquired Madge.

“I’ll tell the world,” he replied, with a queer laugh.

“I’d just as soon you made a halt till morning. I’m about done for.”

“My idea exactly.... Soon as I hit a level spot.”

He zigzagged down the slope for a while, and eventually stopped, to slide out of the saddle. Madge could not help feeling that he handled her as if she were a child. He set her down, back against a tree, which Madge observed to be a cedar. There were still big pines about, but scattering, and the presence of cedars denoted lower altitude.

“I’m freezing to death,” she said.

He stripped the horse and haltered him to a sapling. Then from his saddle he untied a blanket, and other trappings. This he doubled and wrapped around her. Then he tore sheathes of bark off the cedar, and snapped twigs and dead branches, with which he started a fire not far from her feet. The crackling of wood and leaping of red flame changed the moon-blanched gloom. While Madge stretched her hands to the heat, Sidway opened a saddlebag.

“Here’s some meat, biscuits, dried apples, and a piece of chocolate.... Yes, and a little salt. Are you hungry?”

“I could go for a filet mignon in a big way.”

“Daresay you could. Sorry I can’t furnish one.”

“Very well. I’ll have a biscuit and a piece of meat.... Thanks. Where are we, Lance?”

“Up in the Peloncillos.”

“How far from that camp?”

“Miles, I’d say.”

“I wish you could have gotten Rollie away from them.”

“Well, I expect trouble enough, without your boy friend.”

“Trouble? — You’ll not have any with me,” she returned, all at once cognizant again of the double role he played. “Lance, you’re after that ransom yourself!”

In the light of the fire she saw a dark tide sweep across his face. His somber eyes regarded her as if somehow she had recalled to him her true character. He let out a mirthless laugh.

“You guessed it, Majesty,” he replied, grimly.

“I will gladly pay you.... What will those gangsters do with Rollie? His people are rich. They will pay. But it’ll take time. Meanwhile Dad and Nels will be on the rampage. That demand of Uhl’s will drive him crazy. He can’t pay it. I’ll bet they are on our trail now.”

Sidway had averted his face and he made no reply, facts that excited Madge’s speculation. Suddenly a wild conviction bore crushingly upon her. “Lance! Ransom or no ransom — you mean to — to keep me?”

“You sure are some guesser,” he declared, bitterly.

“My — God! — You can’t — be so low.”

“Men as a rule are pretty bad hombres. Don’t you think you deserve it?”

“Yes — yes! Oh, I’ve been a heedless, vain and selfish thing!... But, Lance, I — I haven’t been rotten...”

“Are you telling me?” he queried, turning his back on her.

“Yes, I am. I never.... Oh, what you must think me!... Lance Sidway, you killed that devil Uhl just so you could have me — take me yourself?”

“You said it, baby.”

“Don’t call me that. I’ll hate you.”

“I thought you did already.”

“I didn’t. But I shall.”

“Okay by me. More sport if I have to beat you.”

“Beat me! You’ve already done that.”

“Miss Stewart, I think you hit me first.”

“Yes I did. For the dirtiest remark any fellow ever dared make to me.”

“Struck me at the moment as strictly merited.”

“Oh, the way we quarrel! It gets my goat!... What do you intend to do with me?”

“You’re so damn smart — why don’t you tell me?”

“I can.... You’ve fallen for this temptation, Lance Sidway. Too much easy money in sight! And a chance to get even with me!... I suppose you’ll tie me in a cave — starve me — beat me... till you get that money.”

“I declare,” he interrupted, as she choked over her words, “you grow better all the time. Wise girl! College girl, you know!”

“Oh, damn! — Lance Sidway, you’ll have to marry me!”

She might have struck him, judging by his shrinking start. “I’ll refuse to pay that ransom or move out of my tracks unless you swear you’ll marry me.”

“Very well, if you think that important,” he returned, in a queer voice.

Madge, in the wildness of that agitation, thought she must make the best of a bad bargain. She loved him, whether he was a crook or a cowboy, a Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, a strange combination of virtue and vice. It ran through her mind that he could not forever stay immune, that she could win his love, and reform him. That might be the retribution meted out to her for her imperious and willful ways. After all he had saved her. She could not hate him. If he beat her she would fight back, and perhaps, womanlike, love him the more for his brutality. There was a queer streak in her, she feared, or at least one strongly primitive.

“You are fagged out,” he said, presently turning. “I’ll make a bed for you.”

He broke an armful of cedar brush, laid it flat, and put a saddle blanket on that. Then he arranged his saddle for her head. As she moved over, half crawling, the folded blanket fell, and the one wrapped around her half slipped off. Madge made no great haste to wrap it around her again.

“What’s the odds?” she said, moodily. “You’ve seen me almost naked twice.” And she lay down to stretch out wearily, her eyes upon him, as he bent to cover her with the extra blanket. She made the discovery then that if the moonlight did not deceive her, his face was white.

“Now it’s settled, let’s talk...”

“What’s settled?” he interposed.

“Why, I suppose you’d vulgarly call it my hash.... I intend to make up for the ruin I unwittingly brought upon Dad and Mom. I suppose you’ll block that.”

“Too late! I’ll need the money.”

“But you needn’t be a hog. You seemed to like them. Can’t you be sport enough to let me make amends?”

“Sure, I liked Gene. And your mother is... swell!... But they won’t need the money after you’ve gone.”

“Mr. Sidway, when you were snooping over my securities and bankbooks, did you get a line on what I was worth?”

“I did, you bet. It used to be about a million!”

“Yes. But that won’t do you much good now. I can sell my pearls and other jewels for a hundred grand — as your gangster pards call it. I’ll do that on one condition only. You let me split with Dad and Mom!”

“Okay! Fifty grand will do for our honeymoon — at least until the dicks get me.”

“Oh, you were wanted by the police even before this,” cried Madge, despairingly. Then she grew enraged and flung at him: “How can you be so — so fine — so — Oh, so many things, and still be such a beast.”

“Mystery of life, baby,” he retorted. “How can you be so sweet — have such an angel-face — such soulful, eloquent, lovely eyes — such a winning way with everyone, when at heart you are just no damn good?”

“You’ve about convinced me,” she said, darkly. “Perhaps this will either kill or cure me.... But beating me, as no doubt you will, depriving me of the home I’d just begun to love, packing me off like this to misery and — and God knows what else — perhaps it’ll reform me.... Yes? No?”

“I wouldn’t limit your possibilities any more than I’d believe one word you said,” he returned, passionately.

“We’re certainly two of a kind,” she retorted. “But let’s not be fourflushers. If you’re not big enough to reform yourself, and me, then be big enough to be outright bad. And not a two-faced liar such as you are!”

That stinging speech appeared to wither him. Presently he began to gather firewood and pile it conveniently. Madge had an intense curiosity in regard to him, and tried hard to keep awake. But she was utterly exhausted, and felt her eyelids falling again and again until they shut for good. She seemed scarcely to have slept any time at all when she was awakened. Sidway was shaking her, and not gently.

“Are you dead?” he called, with something besides impatience.

“Oh!”... The gray dawn, the piercing cold, the ghostly pines quickly regulated her bewildered senses to actuality. “Buenos dias, darling. No, I’m not dead — yet.”

“Don’t call me that,” he almost shouted, most unreasonably. “I’m liable to slap you good.”

“Well, you put one black and blue brand on me. Why not another?”

“Get up. Move around. Eat something,” he ordered, peremptorily.

Madge found the first desperately hard to accomplish, and the second no easy matter, and the third impossible. Her hands were numb and her feet blocks of ice, until she almost burned them in the fire. Sidway went off somewhere in to the woods, presumably to hunt his horse. Madge could easily have escaped from him then. But that would have been absurd, even if she had wanted to. She walked away from the fire and back again, and presently found that exercise relieved both cold and cramp. At length the cowboy returned with his horse, which he saddled and bridled.

“You’ll have to ride,” he said, brusquely.

“Thanks. You’re very kind to your squaw — darling.”

“But not in that blanket. Here, put on my coat.”

“No. You’ll need that yourself. I can ride with this blanket around me. Only my hands and feet are cold now.”

“Warm them pronto, while I tie these things on.”

When presently Madge mounted into the saddle she found the stirrups had been shortened to fit her. Without a word Sidway took hold of the reins and led Umpqua down the slope. He took long strides and a slanting zigzag course, down through the cedars. Broad daylight had come and gradually the nipping air and the frost lessened. Madge kept her hands in the folds of the blanket and endured the acute pain of cold feet. Gray shaggy foothills appeared to surround them; the heads of ravines slanted down between these, to widen into narrow valleys; through the trees Madge sometimes caught glimpses of a hazy void. When the sun rose it appeared to be in the wrong direction to her, and if her calculation was correct, Sidway was taking her down across the border into Mexico. He never spoke, never glanced back at her, but strode on, down and ever down, like a man who was lost and did not know nor care where he was going.

Madge’s thoughts did not change materially from those which had had their inception in the dark hours of the night before. She could not save herself, or help herself, and any romance or thrill she might conjure up were welcome. In the sunlight of day, however, her disappointment in Sidway and her disillusion grew more bitter hourly. She felt her strength failing, and a consequent gloom and sadness wore on her antagonistic and unquenchable spirit. The time came when she would not have cared what happened, if she could only rest. The cedar trees gave place to brush, which offered no protection from the sun, now climbing high and growing unendurably hot.

“Lance, I’m — spitting cotton,” said Madge, at last breaking silence. “Must have — a drink.”

“So am I. But hang on. I see green willows below. There’s water.”

When at last Sidway found water it was none too soon for Madge. There was nothing to drink out of and Madge said if she got off the horse she could not climb back. Whereupon the cowboy, regardless of the fact that she had let the hot blanket slip down, lifted her out of the saddle, and after she had slaked her thirst, he put her back. Madge had never known before the sweetness and life in cold pure water. There were many things she had never appreciated.

Sidway led on tirelessly, always down, but it appeared to Madge that the slopes were less precipitous and the zigzags far longer. She grew so weary that she sagged and swayed in the saddle, and so hot she wanted to fall off and perish, and so miserable that she had hardly strength left to hold the remnants of her garment around her. Nevertheless she would have endured more before entreating him to find some shade and let her rest. She hated him now. She could have killed him. To make her love him hopelessly and terribly, to heap the shame of her horrible selfishness upon her head were indeed enough, without adding this endless insupportable ghastly ride. Madge clutched the pommel and her blanket with sore and hot hands, and sat with closed and burning eyes, wearing to collapse. Minutes or hours dragged by until she seemed not to feel any more. Still she was aware when the horse stopped.

“Look, Madge!” rang out Sidway’s voice.

Madge seemed impelled by more than his command. Opening her eyes she saw that they had halted upon a promontory, a level summit of the last foothill. A blue and gray range land not far below, clear and close in the sunlight, appeared to leap up at her. Across its sage-spotted floor moved a long line of cattle, wearily wending their way. Like a black ribbon some miles out stretched a road with speeding automobiles, flashing sunlight from their glass windows. And beyond, over the blue sage loomed a green timbered knoll, from the top of which, half concealed, peeped a white ranch house that Madge knew.

“The cattle herd you see working back belong to your father and Danny Mains,” said Sidway, imperturbably.

“That’s the highway!... there’s — my home!” faltered Madge, fighting a sudden dizziness.

“Thought you’d recognize it,” he drawled, lighting a cigarette. “I’m sure tickled with the way I came straight down, in a swell short cut, from Cochise’s stronghold.”

“Lance!” She could not hear her own voice.

“Okay. What now?” But he never turned to look at her.

“You’re taking — me home?”

“Certainly, you poor fish!”

“You’re not — what I took you for? — Liar — two-faced — cowboy — kidnaper... gangster?”

“No, Miss Stewart. I hate to disillusion you — spoil your pipe dream. It’s just too bad, for you’re such a swell romancer. You concoct such lovely things about me and my motives. But they didn’t pan out, as you see.”

“Oh, my — God! — Then you didn’t kill Uhl — to — to abduct me, but — but to save me?”

“Right. Your comprehension is at least encouraging. You may be a bright girl yet.”

“You don’t want — a ransom?”

“Madge Stewart, I’d starve to death before I’d accept a dollar of your money.”

“Oh — oh — I... What you’ve done — for me, for Dad and Mom!... And I? — Oh, how little — how miserable — you’ve made me! Oh, the shame!...”

Uttering a sharp cry she swayed in the saddle.

“Madge! Hang on!” she felt pierce her fading sense, and then, as she fell into his arms, all went black.

When Madge recovered consciousness she found that Sidway was carrying her in front of him, and traveling at a fast pace across the range. Only vague thoughts accompanied her sensations of faintness and pain, and these faded. Then she went through stages of sleep or semiconsciousness, until at last she recovered sufficiently to make out that it was sunset and that she was almost paralyzed.

“Lance... how far?” she whispered.

“Almost home,” he replied, cheerily. “I’m glad you came to... Brace up now. So you won’t scare hell out of your mother and the girls.... Here, I’ll have to wrap you up again, for you’re sure in a state of nature.”

“Oh — you cowboy!” And she turned in his arm, to sink against his shoulder, reviving anew to life and pain and love, and realizing that there would be nothing worth living for without him. Wide-eyed she lay there, her cheek against his hot dusty vest. They began to climb and entered the pines. A little later Sidway halted the horse in front of the house and yelled: “Hello, inside! It’s Sidway!... And here’s Madge all in, but okay!”

He stepped off with her in his arms, and mounting the porch, encountered a group of wild screaming and questioning boys and girls, and behind them her white-faced mother and the servants.

“Mrs. Stewart, she’s all right,” Sidway assured her. “Let go, girls.” He carried her into the house and to her rooms, finally to lay her down on her bed. “There!” he ejaculated, poignantly, and straightened up as the others flocked in, eager and wide-eyed, all talking at once.

“Mom!” And that was all Madge could say as her mother knelt to envelop her in loving arms. But she gazed with blurred eyes up at the faces of her friends, crowded around the bed. It was a little while before Madge could answer coherently.

“Mother! — Darlings! I’m well — and safe. You’re to thank Sidway for that.... I’m just done up. Oh, what an adventure!... About Rollie? — I don’t know — I don’t know.... Lance, tell them what it’s all about.”

Sidway turned away from the window. “Stevens was all right when we left. I’m sure Stewart with his men will have rescued him by now. They’ll be back tonight, or tomorrow surely.”

“Rescued!” they all cried in unison.

“We were kidnaped,” whispered Madge. “Rollie and I went down to the village. That gangster Uhl! — I knew him. I’d met him in Los Angeles. He’d found out where I lived. He and his gang kidnaped us... And that night Sidway bobbed up — to perform another miracle. He also knew Uhl — and he fooled Uhl — tricked him to leave his car — and ride into the mountains.... Lance was the guide — and I thought — but never mind that. He led us up — to Cochise’s stronghold. Uhl had sent word to Dad to — pay ransom... . Uhl meant to — to... he was vile — and Lance had to kill — him — to save me!...”

Sidway interrupted the chorus of wondering and awed exclamations. “Her voice is gone. Stop making her talk, and fetch her something to drink,” he said, hastily. “Mrs. Stewart, Madge is naturally excited about all this.” He briefly outlined the history of the adventure, ending, “Now, it’s a sure bet that Sloan joined Stewart and they cut loose after us. I think you may expect them back with Stevens by tomorrow.”

“Sidway, how can we ever thank you for this?” exclaimed Madge’s mother, fervently. “What a relief!...”

“Mom, don’t let him leave!” cried Madge, frantically, as Sidway started out. “He’ll ride away... and never — let me thank him.”

“Why, child! — Sidway would not do that.”

“Wouldn’t he? Much you know!... Lance, promise me...”

Then the girls added their entreaties to hers, until Sidway, red of face, assured them he wanted only to go down to his bunkhouse to clean up, and that he would come back.

“You’ll have supper here,” added Mrs. Stewart.

At this juncture Barg elbowed his way to Madge’s bed with a silver flask, and a glass.

“Nothing doing!” cried Madge, her voice still weak. “I’m on the wagon — for good.... Get me some water first — then hot coffee.... And I’m starved.”

But despite the assiduous attention of her friends and mother Madge could not keep awake very long. She slept until late the next day, to find that a relaxation had set in from her strenuous and harrowing experience. She was too weak to get out of bed. Allie, who had slept with her, told Madge she had never before looked so lovely and languid and fascinating.

“That bruise, though — I think you’d better hide it,” added her worshipful friend.

“Not on your life!” retorted Madge. “That’s where Bee Uhl socked me.... It might serve to soften the heart of a certain callous and soulless person.”

“Majesty!... Is it that bad?”

“Oh, Lord! — Allie, it’s terrible. A million times worse than before — before...”

“Before what?” whispered Allie, intensely excited.

“Before he slapped me the night of my party. Oh! wait till you get an earful of that.... Before he saved my life.... Before I took him for a gangster and a crook — and God only knows what else I called him!... Allie darling, I’m terribly afraid it’s hopeless.”

“Moron! Of course it will be, if you persist in this inferiority complex. But if you get to HIM...”

The other girls trooped in, clad in colorful pajamas and slacks, and made much of Madge. The boys hung at the door and out in the patio, and then her mother entered. Madge, for once in her life, was coddled and nursed, and paid enough compliments to last a month. But the one person Madge wanted most to see did not present himself. She was too proud, too hurt to ask for him. Why could he not be kind enough to come to see how she fared after the long ride? No doubt Sidway was anxious for the return of Stewart and the others. Madge hardly expected them so soon, and not at all without Rollie Stevens. Late in the afternoon, however, when gold shafts from the setting sun filtered through the foliage at her window, Madge was greatly excited to learn that Rollie had returned safely.

“Drag him in — no matter how he looks,” cried Madge, who knew Rollie’s weakness.

“He’s a sight,” replied Nate. “But we’ll get him.”

Presently there was a merry hubbub outside. Then Rollie came in, supported between Nate and Snake Elwell. Allie, who sat beside Madge on the bed, uttered a shriek. Madge was too overcome for mirth. The collegian’s appearance presented grim evidence of the hardship and fright he had suffered.

“Oh, Rollie! — I’m so — so glad!...” burst out Madge.

“I’m glad myself, especially to see you home safe.... That blighter turned out a hero instead of what you and I took him for?”

“Yes, Rollie.”

“He’s one swell fellow — I’ll tell you,” gulped Stevens, gallantly.

“But, Dad!”

“Your father is all right, Majesty. He’s coming up, with Sidway. The boys drove me.... Excuse me now, Majesty. I’m a mess.”

Then, as Rollie left, Dawson Metcalf called in at the door. “Steady, Madge! Hold everything! Here come your dad and the hero!”

The clinking of spurs on the stone patio path sent strange little shivers all over Madge. She squeezed Allie’s hand and she felt her heart weakly swell in her throat. Then her father entered her room, followed by someone Madge saw only vaguely. Sight of her father stalking in, dusty in his rider’s garb, dark of visage, somehow recalled Madge’s earliest memories. What a piercing gaze he bent upon her! Never had she met his eyes like that. What thought had been in his mind? After that strange look, his eyes and face softened, and he held her shaking hands and kissed her.

“Well, lass, I’m happy to see you safe at home,” he said, with deep feeling.

“Oh — Dad!” And Madge sat up to cling to him and hide her face. There was more than the aftermath of her adventure in her instinctive action. Had she nearly lost him?

Stewart laid her back upon the pillow. “You’re pretty white, Madge. And that’s a nasty bruise on your temple. How’d you get that?”

“Honey Bee Uhl paid his respects — that way.” Her eyes fastened upon Sidway, who stood at the foot of her bed, looking with grave eyes down upon her. It was not only his clean shave and change of garb that made him look so different. Madge thought she had never seen him so handsome, so fine, so disturbing to her heart and mind. She had wit left to realize that she should control her spoken thought, but so great an emotion that she did not care what she said. Her remorse seemed insupportable.

“Lance,” she said, beseechingly, “come here — beside Allie — and let me thank you.”

“What for?” he asked, smiling.

“Well, saving me from Uhl — killing him, for one thing.”

“Madge, you and I were mistaken. I didn’t kill him.”

“No!”

“Daughter, though you both thought so, Sid isn’t responsible for that,” interposed her father. “Or I either. It was Ren Starr. That cowboy seemed unusually wild, even for him. Effect of that punch you served the other night!... Well, Ren shot Flemm when he held them up. That gangster turned on us with his machine gun spitting fire. Then Uhl came out of the cabin, all bloody. Sid’s bullet had grooved his scalp. I had some words with Uhl. He was a queer duck, quite beyond me. While Nels held a gun on him, Ren and the other boys hanged the third gangster. And they forced your college boy friend to help. What do you think of that?”

“Heavens! — Rollie help hang a man — even a gangster who had kidnaped me?”

“It’s a fact. He pulled on the lasso like a regular cowboy.”

It would have been extremely embarrassing then for Rollie, had he been present, to hear the outburst.

“We intended to hang Uhl, of course,” resumed her father, presently. “But Ren wouldn’t hear of it. He forced Uhl to fight — gave him his gun and an even break. Killed him, Madge!... Well, I’ve told the sheriff all about it, and that lets us out.... Madeline,” said Stewart, addressing his wife, who had come in to stand with Sidway, “it’s a good thing this sheriff is not like Pat Hawe, my enemy sheriff of our early years here.... And to conclude, we will have our cattle back in another day. All’s well that ends well. Let’s forget it.”

“But, Dad,” said Madge, her voice soft and low, “it — hasn’t ended well, yet.”

“How come? Sure it has.”

“I haven’t thanked Lance,” rejoined Madge, turning the full battery of her eyes upon Sidway, knowing she did so, but deeply sure of her sincerity.

“Well, do so, then,” declared Stewart, with a laugh, as he arose.

“I don’t need — want to be thanked,” said Sidway, with inscrutable eyes upon her.

“Darling! — I...”

“There! Let that do,” interrupted Sidway, holding up an appealing hand. “It’s an inconsequential word for you, Madge. You call your friends ‘darling,’ both boys and girls. You call Nels and Ren darling, and your parents, even your horses. So, evidently it’s just a convenient word that places the lucky one within the charmed circle of your intimates. I accept that gratefully as your thanks for my little service. And it’s enough.”

Madge stared up at him while the others laughed and made mirth out of it. What a speech for Lance Sidway! He was keener, wittier than she had ever realized. Had he the faintest conception of her remorse? Could not the cool smiling enigma see how she regarded him? There came a culminating rush to Madge’s uncontrollable emotion.

“Beloved!” flashed Madge, with a passionate defiant eloquence. “Is that less impersonal?” she added trying to make her tone flippant although she felt her face burn red.

Sidway appeared very far from being prostrated by that exquisite epithet. Turning to her father he spread wide his hands: “Gene, I told you she is flighty. Out of her head! I noticed it yesterday toward the last of the ride. No girl ever pulled a gamer stunt. That night ride up on the mountain, then half another night down, then all day in the hot sun — why, it was a grand performance. Not to say fighting off that thug in between! It’s no wonder she’s cracked under the strain.... I think we all ought to get out of here. She needs rest, nursing, quiet.”

“Right you are, Sid. Come, beat it, all of us, except one or two of you girls to care for her.”

They filed out, except Allie and Maramee, who piled back upon the bed. Someone shut the door.

“Oh hell!” cried Madge, wildly. “Was there ever such a man?... So I’ve cracked!”

“Majesty,” murmured the incorrigibly romantic Maramee. “It’s the most delicious love story there ever was in all the world.”

* * * * *

Madge made the following day a quiet and recuperative and thoughtful one. Her guests were due to leave next day and she felt that she would be both sorry and relieved to see them go. The truck loaded with baggage departed early the following morning. And at one o’clock three cars took aboard a hysterical bevy of girls and a merry wisecracking complement of boys. Farewells were prolonged. And at last, when it seemed all had been said, Bu Allen hailed the somber Sidway in a high-pitched penetrating voice.

“Lance, old darling, if Snake Elwell gives me the gate, I’m coming back to go for you in a big way.”

That sally elicited a roar of mirth, in which Lance had to join. Madge’s rather weak response was a little insincere.

“But, old red-top, that will be swell,” retorted Sidway.

“Cowboy, you don’t think anyone else around here has a look-in with you?” went on Beulah, demurely anxious, with a sly glance at Madge standing big-eyed and disconsolate on the porch.

“Not a chance, Bu.”

Then with a chorus of: “We’ll be seeing you!” they were off. Madge watched the cars wind into the green pines and disappear down the slope.

“That’s over,” she said, with a sigh.

Sidway, with Nels and Ren, had slipped away unobserved. There were tears in her mother’s eyes. Her father bent an abstracted gaze below, watching to see the cars come out from under the slope.

“Darlings, let’s get it over,” said Madge, and locking arms with her parents she led them in.

“Get what over?” queried Stewart, with a start, and her mother looked suddenly concerned.

“Now, Dad! Don’t try to fool your little Madge.” Forthright then, she plunged abruptly into a confession of how it had come about that Sidway had told her of the impending ruin, if she did not retrieve the situation. She tried to spare the cowboy, but not herself. The quarrel they had had, and the vicious slap she had given him, surely justified him in losing his temper to bitterly flay her.

“You slapped that cowboy, Madge?” queried Stewart in surprise and concern.

“I’ll say I did. You may have observed his cut and swollen lip.”

“Yes.... What did Sidway say to that?” asked her father curiously.

“He slapped me back.”

“No!”

“I thought he’d jar my teeth out of their sockets. But I hit him back with all my might. Then he said he refused to let me make a cat and dog fight out of it.... Well, that, of course, happened before he told me where to get off.... Dad, dear — Mom darling, this pass that my extravagance and stupidity — and selfishness — have brought you to, has almost broken my heart. I shall make amends. I’ll pay it all back. I’ve wired L. A. and New York, too. I can raise a hundred grand on my jewels. I don’t need them. I seldom wore Aunt Helen’s pearls. I shan’t miss them.... Dad, will that money save us, with plenty to spare?”

“It would — lass,” he replied, a little huskily, and his arm tightened round her.

“Madge, dearest,” spoke up her mother, her poise for once broken. “I knew you would do just this. If Gene had let me tell you long ago!”

“Dad was trying me out, Mom. It’s settled then.... I’ve had a ghastly lesson. I’ll make up for it, my darlings... . Dad, I never could hope to be your ideal western girl, nor ever in Mom’s class as a lady of quality, but I can be a square shooter and I will be.”

“Lass, we might argue over that western girl idea,” returned Stewart, his dark eyes alight. Her mother folded her in loving arms, and by these simple things Madge seemed to grasp a great joy that had almost eluded her.

“Oh, yes, Dad... there’s one other thing,” said Madge, turning in her mother’s arms. She essayed to be composed and casual, with dubious success. “Can I rely on you — on your keeping Sidway here? He — I.... At least I can thank him — reward him somehow.”

“Madge, I don’t think that’ll be at all difficult,” replied Stewart, but he did not make clear whether he meant keeping Sidway there or rewarding him.

“I’m almost — happy again,” said Madge, yielding to tears, “but still feel kind of wobbly and I’d better — lie down.”

“It might be a good idea to talk that matter over with Nels,” added Stewart, smilingly. “He and Sid are thick as hops.”

Madge fled, yearning to ask just what matter her father meant, but she did not dare. How perilously close was she to betrayal of her secret! Her father’s evasive eye and significant words, her mother’s softened face and restrained sympathy — these were hard to resist. But Madge had a little pride and spirit left. In her room, which had again taken on its old tranquillity and speaking silence, she salvaged something of her old self.

Next morning, biding her time, until she had seen Lance and Ren ride away, Madge waylaid Nels in his bunkhouse.

“Wal, Majesty! I shore was wonderin’ when you’d remember yore old Nels.”

“Darling, I’ve never forgotten you,” she said, tenderly. “It’s just that I’ve been knocked out — and lots on my mind.... And I knew when I did see you I’d have to talk turkey.”

“Aboot who, lass? Wal, I reckon I know. An’ it’s aboot high time.”

“Nels! He’s not leaving?” queried Madge, hurriedly.

“Wal, he talks aboot it a lot. An’ he’s purty sad these days. Ren rags him all the time aboot you. Lance says he’ll stay till Ren an’ Bonita air married.”

“Oh, Nels! Is that settled?”

“It shore is. An’ Ren is one dotty cowboy.”

“I’m happy over it.... Oh, what shall I give them? It must be something wonderful.”

“Wal, lass, if I had my say, I’d want to see another marryin’ pretty pronto.”

“Nels! — You’re so sudden. Have a heart!... You mean....”

“Lass, I’m confessin’ somethin’,” replied Nels, earnestly. “I’m gettin’ along — close to seventy. An’ I’ve had a long full life. Lately my heart has been warnin’ me thet I might not hev long to be heah. An’ I couldn’t go satisfied an’ happy if you wasn’t...”

“Oh, Nels! — Don’t! don’t!” implored Madge, poignantly, and she flew to throw her arms around his neck and lay her face against his hollow bristling cheek. “Don’t think such a thing! — It’d break my heart. — Nels, you’re my second dad. You taught me everything.... You must not go away — and leave me.”

“Wal, honey, I reckon there ain’t any reason to be onduly scared. I was jest preparin’ you.... An’ thet fetches me to the somethin’ nearest my heart. It’s this turrible love affair between you an’ Lance.”

“Turrible one-sided.... Yes,” choked out Madge, hiding her face.

“One-sided? — Not onless you don’t love him.”

“Oh, dear old Nels!” was all she could say, clinging to him.

“Majesty, the boy is dyin’ fer you. He’s got it wuss than I ever seen any boy in all my life.”

“How do you know?” she cried, desperately.

“Wal, a blind man could see. But, lass, I’ll give him away — double-cross him — if you say his case is not hopeless.”

“Nels — darling... it’s not — quite hopeless,” she whispered.

“Aw, thet’s fine! — Wal, Lance has told me time an’ again, an’ this last time, the other night, he jest cried in his misery. It seems you hurt him turrible by believin’ he was a gangster — a kidnaper — an’ Gawd knows what.... Lass, I cain’t understand how you — so smart a girl — could ever make thet mistake.”

“I did! I’m not smart. But I know now — and that’s killing me.”

“Wal, he’s the finest youngster yore Dad an’ me ever met. Thet’s all of thet. An’ he loves you so much he suffers awful. I could tell you the things he does thet’d make you ashamed an’ sorry. But this is enough. He told me thet he loved you so much he couldn’t stay heah an’ he couldn’t leave. Now Majesty, I’ve told you — I’ve betrayed him. What do you say?”

“I can’t say — much — when — I — I’m crying.... But I — I love him more — than he loves me — and I’m dying of longing — and shame....”

“Thet’s enough, lass,” interrupted Nels, vastly disturbed by her weeping. “It’s gonna be all right.... What you must do is be clear enough to break his pride. He’s stubborn as a mule.”

“Break his pride! You mean — make him confess — he loves me?”

“Sartin I mean thet. An’ you’ve gotta do somethin’ onheered of an’ powerful sweet thet won’t give him no chance on earth.”

“Nels, I’ll do — anything,” cried Madge, wildly. “But what?”

“Wal, thet’s more than I can tell. You’ll hev to figger thet yourself.”

“I’ll do anything — anything...” Madge repeated.

“Wal, thet makes me happy,” burst out the old cattleman. “Majesty, run home now an’ cudgel yore pretty haid fer a grand idee. Somethin’ onheerd of — turrible lovin’ — amazin’ an’ sweet thet won’t give Lance no chance atall. An’ spring it on him pronto.”

“You darling old matchmaker — I will,” promised Madge, and almost blind with ecstasy, she ran away, up into the solitary pines.

* * * * *

After dinner that night, during which she had been rapturously gay, to the wonder and delight of her parents, Madge put on one of her flimsiest, most shimmering gowns, with high-heeled white slippers to match. Wearing a long dark coat over this she stole forth upon what seemed to her the most momentous and thrilling venture of her life.

She went by the patio and down through the pines by the trail. At this hour she knew Nels, her father perhaps, and surely the cowboys, would be at the store. As if by magic all her old imperious confidence, tempered this time by a secret humility and gratitude and love, returned in full force. She could not lose, and that gave a tremendous zest to her venture.

Her blood raced with her thoughts and her heart throbbed high as she gained the level, and like a shadow glided across to the bunkhouses. Lance’s was next to that occupied by Nels. She tiptoed down the porch, close to the wall until she came to Lance’s open door. The yellow lights of the store cast a glow out upon the open. She heard low voices and Sidway’s laugh. That gave her pause. Could he be so deeply and miserably in love, as Nels had sworn, and laugh like any other fancy-free cowboy? What if that sly Nels had framed her? The thought was terrible. But nobly she cast it aside as unworthy of a chastened and humble girl. Anyway the die was cast.

Madge took off her clicking high-heeled slippers and stole into Lance’s room and laid aside the long coat. Feeling around for his chair she found it and curled up in it, shaking with excitement. Presently she dimly espied her picture on his table, and that overjoyed her.

It was done. She was there, in his room. Beyond Lance’s finding her there she had not thought. This was far enough. Of all the things in the world, this was the last Lance Sidway would think of. It did not matter much what he did, when he found her there, unless he took her by the heels and dragged her out. He was capable of that, Madge thought.

Voices and jingling spurs enjoined silence. The men were approaching. Madge would have preferred that Lance came alone. For a moment she fought a wild need to laugh. How her blood was gushing through her veins!

Heavy footfalls upon the porch jarred the log cabin. Madge sat as quietly as a mouse, her heart pounding. She hoped Lance would not come to his room while the other men were in the bunkhouse. Still, no matter! She did not care what happened. Nels had cured her malady. She had all the cards in her hands.

The men, apparently three in number, filed into Nels’ room.

“Strike a light, Nels,” said Stewart.

“It’s pretty darn warm,” rejoined Sidway. “I won’t light my lamp.”

“Wal, Sid, you won’t need to,” added Nels. “Reckon you got kind of a glow aboot you.”

“Nels, I’ve a mind to bounce something off your dome,” declared the cowboy, irritably, and then he laughed.

“Son, I’ll smoke one of your cigarettes,” said Stewart.

How Madge shook at that laconic epithet given Sidway by her father! Poor Lance! They were all in league against him. Not a ghost of a show to escape!

“All right, we’re set,” went on her father, seriously. “You’re determined to ride away tomorrow?”

“Yes, Gene — I am,” replied Lance, sadly.

“There’s a future here for you. This ranch will pay again some day. I’m glad to tell you that I’m going to pull through this tough time. Madge is helping me.”

“By God! I knew she would,” cried Lance, passionately, as if verifying something to a doubtful side of him. “I’m glad, Gene. It’s worried me a lot. Not that it’s any of my business.... She’s swell. She’s a Stewart, all right.”

“I had that hunch myself.”

“Wal,” drawled Nels, “I always told you hombres thet Majesty was true-blue, a western girl at heart, an’ one grand thoroughbred.”

There ensued a momentary silence, during which Madge feared they might hear her heart beat, so thickly and swiftly did it pound in her ears.

Then Stewart spoke: “Son, please tell me why you don’t want to stay here at Majesty’s Rancho?”

“Gene, it can’t be possible you don’t know,” retorted Lance. Then his laugh cut a little coldly, with a hopeless note. “Gene, to come straight out with the truth — I’m so mad over your beautiful daughter that I can’t stand being any longer where I can see her.”

“That’s blunt and to the point,” returned Stewart. “I’ll speak the same way. I’d like you to be my son.... Have you asked Madge to marry you?”

“Good heavens — no!” ground out Sidway, apparently tortured.

“Why not? Faint heart never won fair lady! I don’t recall being very shy with Madeline. Was I, Nels?”

“Hell no!”

“Madge hates the very sight of me,” declared Lance, abjectly.

“Don’t believe it,” declared Stewart, vigorously.

“Son, I reckon you air wrong aboot thet,” drawled Nels.

“Oh, you fellows will drive me to drink. Let’s make an end of it. I know you like me, and you’ve been swell to me. I love you both. But that has nothing to do with it. Madge is the one. And she loathes the ground I walk on. It’s no wonder. I’ve had the rotten luck to save her in humiliating circumstances. She is as proud as a princess. I’ve rubbed her the wrong way. I’ve bucked her in everything. Perhaps the last straw was her finding out that I had seen her bank statements and credits. But that wasn’t my fault. Worse than that, my knowing about her flirtation with that gangster, Uhl...” Suddenly Lance broke off, panic in his voice. “I didn’t mean to tell you that — to give her away. I could kick myself.”

“Son, you’re not giving Madge away. I savvied that. And then she told me.”

“She did? Holy cats!”

“She just casually spoke of it, as if for her it was okay. That has been bothering me.... Just how far it went!”

“Wal, Gene, thet doesn’t bother me none,” drawled Nels.

“But it should,” flashed Stewart.

“Gene, one day Majesty talked to me for a long while. She was in one of them bare bathin’ ootfits, an’ I jest couldn’t look at her atall. An’ she got to tellin’ me aboot the girls an’ boys, an’ these new modern ways. We air old-fashioned, Gene. An’ this world has moved along. It’s changed. Somehow I seemed to savvy Majesty, an’ since thet day nothin’ she ever did or might do could bother me.”

“Why didn’t she confide in her father, too?” asked Stewart, jealously.

“Gene, you may not believe it,” put in Lance, “but Madge was afraid of you. Loved you — craved your respect. I know.”

“All right. You and Nels are hipped on this girl. You just can’t see anything wrong....”

“There wasn’t anything wrong,” interrupted Sidway, with heat, “unless we except her flirtations and extravagances. Not in this day!”

“What’s the age to do with it?”

“I don’t know, but it has a lot.”

“Sidway, speak right out, will you?” importuned Stewart. “It seems we three all worship this strange girl. Well, Nels is set and safe in his worship. I don’t want to embarrass you. I know you’d lie like a gentleman to protect her. And so would I if I were in your place. I love Madge and nothing can change it. Still I wish.... Oh, hell, I don’t know what I want. But it’s a deep and bitter need, I assure you.”

Again there ensued a silence, except for Nels’ cough, and the tapping of his pipe upon the table, while Madge sat there, strung and tense, her heart bursting.

“Gene, I get you,” spoke up Lance, with finality. “You want your old idea of respect back for Madge. I tell you, on my word of honor, that you may feel that respect. Madge Stewart has never done one single thing that she would hide from you — that she could not look you in the eyes and tell. Sure she is modern, sophisticated. She’s a college girl. A radical, when it comes to mid-Victorian standards.... But, get this, both of you. Even if she had been what you old fogies would call bad, it’d make no difference. Not to me! Not to anyone who knows her! Madge Stewart is like Helen of Troy. Their value is as incomparable and incalculable as their beauty, their minds and souls, their great power to create love, to give, to be a joy to all who come in contact with them.”

“You win, son,” came Stewart’s quiet voice, a little husky. “Then, even if Madge were what you swear she is not — you’d make her your wife, if she cared for you?”

“My — heaven! Gene, you’re thickheaded,” declared Lance in despair. “Yes! Yes! And consider myself the luckiest fellow in the world — as I’d be the happiest.”

Madge could not bear any more. Slipping out of the chair she picked up her slippers, and softly went outside, to appear in the open doorway of Nels’ room. She paused a moment, then entered.

The smile of beatitude that shone resplendent on Nels’ visage, the sudden sinking of Stewart into a chair, as if his legs had suddenly grown weak, and Sidway’s backing into the wall for support, — these reactions sustained Madge in this emotional climax of her life.

“Dad — Nels — Lance, did I happen in opportunely?”

“Madge! Where did you come from?” demanded Stewart.

“From Lance’s room. I’ve been in there listening to you.”

“For God’s sake!... Are you crazy, girl? — What were you doing there?”

“Waiting for Lance. I’d framed a little stunt. But you’ve upset it.”

“Yes. And what were you going to do — when he came?”

“Dad, I hadn’t the slightest idea. But I know now.”

She approached Sidway, in so poignant a joy and surety of her power to bestow happiness, that his pale and working face did not deter her from prolonging his torture a little longer.

“Lance, if I don’t put on my slippers I won’t be so tall, and I can look up to you better. See!” And dropping them she stepped closer, to look up into his eyes.

He stood like a statue, his gaze somber and unbelieving. But her glance quickly descended to his vest, where her hands, quivering almost imperceptibly, touched the frayed edge, and a spot that lacked a button. She was not quite ready yet to let him read what her eyes would surely say.

“Cowboy, you need someone to look after you,” she went on, sweetly. “Did you know I could make buttonholes and sew on buttons?”

“No. I couldn’t imagine it,” he returned hoarsely. “Did you learn that in college?”

“Mother taught me.... I can mend socks, too. And make my own clothes, and I know how to cook and bake, too.”

“You’re — a — remarkably accomplished — young lady.”

“Thank you. I wondered if you had found it out.... Are you interested in my waiting for you — in your room?”

Evidently it was utterly impossible for Lance to answer that. He divined something his intelligence repudiated.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I forgot. You and Dad and Nels spoiled my plot. Let’s skip it.”

She began to slide her gold-tan hands up the edges of his vest, and her eyes traveled with them. Then, in a flash, her arms encircled his neck, and she gave him her eyes, with all her heart and soul in them.

“I have much to thank you for,” she said, eloquently. “But even more than for my very life. I want to thank you for what you told Dad just now.”

“Madge, please — don’t,” he rejoined, unsteadily. “You’re excited again.... I don’t want thanks.”

“Wrong again, darl... No, darling is out. I must find another word.... Lance, I’m not excited. Just in a transport,” and her hands slipped by one another, so that in another moment her arms were clasping his neck.

“Did it ever occur to you that I might have fallen in love with you at first sight — that day at the campus in L. A.?”

“It — certainly — didn’t!” he gasped.

“Well, I did. And then wondering where you were, and if I could find you again, and then discovering you here where we have misunderstood each other and fought like cat and dog — all this while, Lance, it’s grown worse, until I’m dying more for you than you are for me.”

“Madge — for God’s sake — for my sake... .”

“It’s for all our sakes, but mine mostly. Lance, I need more than you need.... Aren’t you going to hug me? Can’t you see the real thing? Can’t you take it?”

“No!... Gene — Nels, get her away,” he implored, hoarsely, his face the hue of ashes. “She is getting even with me. It’s her revenge.... She’s acting.”

“Son, a moment or so ago you very chivalrously championed this girl,” declared Stewart, with a rare smile. “I’ve a hunch she’s serious.”

“Wal, Lance, I reckon you better believe her — an’ take it — an’ hug her all to oncet,” drawled Nels, supremely nonchalant. “Com-mon, Gene.” The two walked out, but Madge was beyond noticing.

“Listen, Lance,” she began again, lifting her lips until they were close to his. “If I should happen to throw another party — a wedding party, for instance — there would not be any punch. And....”

“Wait! Give me — a break!” he panted, his arms encircling her, and almost crushing the breath out of her.

“I’m giving you — a break,” she whispered. “Only — don’t break — my ribs.” She could no longer endure the beseeching incredulous love light in his eyes, and hastened to her surrender.

She felt her willful spirit fading away in a deep and overpowering rapture, and the kiss she gave him almost prevented one last expression of her mischievous self.

“Sweetheart. You know I swore I’d have Umpqua,” she said, softly, at his lips.

He drew back startled, with questioning eyes. “Darling, you couldn’t be — so — so,” he replied, huskily... “just to make me give you Umpqua?”

“But that oughtn’t be so hard — giving Umpqua — along with yourself,” she whispered, tremulously, and as she blindly sought his lips again, it seemed the end of their travail.

“Majesty!... You can have him — and me forever,” he said, with incredulous bliss. “I adored you... my heart was broken. ... But I’d live it all over again — for this!”

THE END

Knights of the Range

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER I

COLONEL LEE RIPPLE sat on the porch of his ranchhouse in astern New Mexico, facing that famous fan-shaped scene that lay between the great timbered escarpments stretching down over the green and grey terraces to the vast rolling plain below, through which the Old Trail followed the shining way of the Cimarron into the purple distance.

It was the grandest scene in all New Mexico, and the sad due eyes of the cattle baron lingered long there before shifting round to the west, where a splendour of range empire unfolded to his gaze. A million acres swept and waved on all sides to the silver slopes, and these in turn sheered up to the black-belted mountains with their snowy peaks.

“Wal, Kurnel, I heahed you, shore, but I’d like to get oot of takin’ you serious,” said Britt, the rancher’s foreman, who sat on the porch steps.

“Cap, you must take me seriously,” replied Ripple, in slow, grave speech. “Another spell with my heart like this last one fill kill me.”

“Aw, I cain’t believe it,” rejoined Britt, stubbornly, despite he something convincing in his employer’s tone and look.

“I know, Cap. I thought this second attack would do for me. Ay heart has acted queer for a long time. But that spell in San Antonio was the first bad one. I consulted a doctor. He told ne to make my will and get ready. But scared as I was, I didn’t obey. I went on to New Orleans after Holly, and fetched her home without tellin’ her aboot it. I just couldn’t tell her.”

“No wonder, boss. Thet would have been plumb hard on he lass,” replied Britt, wagging his lean, hawk-like head. “You sent her to thet school when she was eight years old. An’ you vent to see her half a dozen times in these nine years she’s been gone. An’ when you was fetchin’ her heah to Don Carlos’ Rancho, the only home she ever had — to tell her you was aboot o die — Aw! thet would have been cruel!”

“You’re right,” agreed the Colonel, bitterly, as he spread his hands with a hopeless gesture. “That mawnin’ when I met ter and told her I had come to take her home she was so happy, so radiant. I couldn’t kill her joy....But now, Britt, she must be told at once.”

“Why, boss? You know how onsartin life is. Quien sabe? You might live long yet.”

“Yes. It’s possible. But not probable. And I want her to make her choice while I am living.”

“Choice of what, Kurnel, if I may make bold to ask?”

“Whether or not she will live heah or go to her mother’s people in Santone.”

“Holly will never leave Don Carlos’ Rancho,” said Britt quickly.

“Did she say so?” asked Ripple, eagerly, his grey eyes full of soft warm light.

“No. But I’d gamble on it. These few days Holly has been here she’s been plumb loco aboot the ranch. Why, she has been wild with joy. Boss, she’s like a freed bird. An’ she loves it all, particular the hawses. She’s crazy aboot hawses. An’ she’s never been in a saddle yet. Think of thet, Lee Ripple. Heah’s a girl of sixteen, granddaughter of old Don Carlos, the greatest of all the old hawse-breedin’ dons — an’ she’s never straddled a hawse.”

“I know — I know, Cap. Don’t rub it in. I always meant Holly to have all the West could offer. But first I wanted her to get an education. The years have slipped by.... So my lass loves horses! — What did she say?”

“Wal, the lass has yore blood in her, same as thet of the Valverde. She asked me how many hawses we had. An’ when I told her aboot four hundred thet we knowed of she squealed with joy. Swore she’d ride every one of them.... Lord, I see my troubles. But I’ll teach Holly to ride. I shore won’t leave thet to these saddle rowdies.”

“Britt, you make me hope,” returned the Colonel, feelingly, as he lay back in the great rocker. “I always wanted a son. But I never loved Holly the less for that.... If she lived on heah, and learned to run this ranch under your wise eye, and some day married one of these saddle rowdies — I could die happy.”

“My Gawd, boss!” expostulated Britt, heatedly. “Why’d you ever send Holly away to make a fine lady oot of her if you wanted her to marry one of these firebrands?”

“Cap, could Holly do better? I mean, if this lucky cowboy is one of the breed we know so well. Not a Texan! Holly is half Spanish, and you know Texans will be long forgettin’ the Alamo.... He must be of good family and have some little schoolin’. For the rest, I don’t care so much. Holly could make most any cowboy take his place in the makin’ of the West.... They are the salt of the earth, these wild range riders. Without them there would never have been this cattle business growin’ by leaps and bounds, destined to tame the frontier. You know, Britt, even better than I do. For five years you’ve handled these hard-ridin’, hard-drinkin’, hard-shootin’ devils of mine. And you have loved them.”

“Wal, mebbe I haven’t loved them like I ought to have,” rejoined Britt, regretfully, surprised into feeling. “But, Kurnel, it just makes my blood run cold, to think of Holly alone on this big ranch.”

“Cold! — Your blood should run swift and warm at the very thought. It will be wonderful. Holly looks Spanish, but she is American. She has her mother’s beauty. But my brains. I have no fear for her, Britt.... If she only chooses to stay!... With you to train Holly, teach her to run the ranch, watch over her — she would not be alone. I’m not afraid to risk it.”

“But I am, Boss,” declared Britt, tragically. “I almost wish you hadn’t fetched her home.”

“Nonsense, old timer. My girl has loved you all her life. It was you who nick-named her Holly. You danced her on your knee and helped teach her to walk. You can’t go back on her now. You must take my place as her Dad.”

“Kurnel, I’ll do my damndest.... But lookin’ ahaid, in the light of this lovely lass growin’ up heah into a woman, I don’t like the times.”

Colonel Ripple made a slight, violent gesture, as if a motive prompted by passion had been quenched by will.

“Nor do I. That is somethin’ I have put off, and like this other must now be talked over. Yet the reason is simple.... Look there to the south, old timer. That is the grandest outlook in the West, if not in the whole world. Kit Carson sat right there and said so. Lucien Maxwell did the same, and you know his pride in his old Spanish grant and the beauty of his sixty square miles of ranch. St. Vrain tried to buy this ranch from Don Carlos. Chisum, Murphy, the Exersall Company, and that English outfit who bought the Three X’s — not one of these cattle kings has the West under his eye as I have. Not one of them has the protected grazing-lands.... Look down over the Old Trail and the Cimarron. Peaceful, lonely, eh. The Kiowas and Comanches are my friends. Look at the buffalo. All those black patches down there are buffalo.... And now look around to the west, Britt. No range like that in all this broad New Mexico. Look at the cattle. Do you remember when we drove in heah first? It seems long. But it’s only seven years. Seven years! They were heaven compared to the years of the war, and long before.... You know my story, Britt. How I came through heah in 1855 with a caravan on the way to Santa Fe. How I won Carlotta Valverde and took her back to Texas with me. How old Don Carlos cast her off and did not forgive her for many years.... Look at my herds of cattle dottin’ the range. Like the buffalo. Fifty thousand head, so you say, and half a thousand horses. I could sell ten thousand head — twenty thousand head and be rich.... What is wrong with the times, Britt?”

“Wal, you ain’t told it all yet. Go on.”

“Oh, I know what you’re driving at.... But listen, Cap. The war is long past. Texas has come through, and her cattle have built this empire. Just as the trappers did, the gold-seekers had their day, so had the freighters. The caravans are slowin’ up, Britt, and those that roll by down there on the Old Trail are loaded up with pioneers. A new day is dawnin’ — the day of the settled West.”

“Shore. But a hell of a lot can happen in a day, Kurnel. Yore hope is father to yore belief.... This heah year of our Lawd seems fine an’ fair to you, Kurnel, ‘cause white men an’ red men alike, ootlaws an’ robbers, all the good an’ the bad of the plains air yore friends. As the house of Don Carlos was open to all, so has yore house been.... But I say, fer you if you live, an’ fer all of us who live heah, the hardest an’ bloodiest, the wust times air yet to come.”

“Kit Carson said that years ago. But I never believed it. And his prophecy has not been verified.”

“Yes, Kit swore thet, settin’ right heah where I set now.... Kurnel, I reckon men like you an’ Maxwell an’ Chisum know more aboot cows than anythin’ else. It’s men like me an’ Carson who have vision. We never was blinded by great possessions.”

“Britt, I bow to that vision,” replied Ripple, solemnly. “I always feared, but I drove fear from my mind. Let us grant, then, that the worst times of the frontier are to come. Tell me what they are and how they will work.”

“Wal, it’s as simple as when Carson seen through it. But only been long in comin’.... Fust, take the buffalo. The huntin’ of buffalo fer their hides has begun. We old Texans always feared this. It means such war with the Indians as has never been seen on this frontier. Yore friends the Utes, the Kiowas, the Comanches, the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Pawnees, all the tribes will go on the war-path. Thet means tumble bloody times, for the settlers have come pourin’ oot West thick. Texas will see the wust of thet, because the buffalo on their rangin’ from south to north an’ back again air most on the Texas plains. The hide hunters will concentrate in the Pan Handle, or under the Llano Estacado or between the Brazos an’ the Rio Grande. An’ the plains Indians will fight to the death fer their meat. They live on buffalo. It will be a fight to the finish between the buffalo hunters an’ the Indian tribes. The Yankee army could not lick the red men. Not in a million years! Look at the Custer campaigns. I heahed thet Carson, an’ Buff Belmet, an’ other scouts have advised these army men to lay off the Indians. But they will blunder right on to be massacred.... The pioneers you talk aboot cain’t lick the Indians. An’ if the buffalo hunters don’t lick them this West will shore become unhealthy damn pronto.”

“I gather that, Britt. All the same I’d say the hide-hunters will break the power of the allied tribes and drive them off the plains.”

“My guess, too. When this hide-huntin’ movement gets goin’ strong there’ll be many thousands of hunters. An’ all keen, hard-fightin’ men, armed with heavy rifles an’ with wagon-loads of ammunition. They’ll do fer the Indians, I reckon. But it will be a hell of a fight with the chances not all agin the Indians.”

“Agreed. We’ll pass, however, on to that future period when the red men’s power will be gone. What is the next catastrophe you predict?”

“Wal, no less than the hey-day of the rustlers.”

“Cattle thieves!” exclaimed the Colonel, contemptuously. “We’ve always had them, Britt. Texas before the Civil War had her cattle raids. Mexicans, Indians ran off cattle. And the white raider developed. You had him when you were trail drivin’ the herds up to Dodge an’ Abilene. But what did that ever amount to? Hardly any more than the beef every cattle outfit appropriates wherever it happens to camp. We lose some cattle heah, so the boys say, but not a tenth — not a hundredth of the yearly increase.”

“Right, Kurnel, so far as you go,” drawled the foreman. “Listen, boss, an’ I’ll tell you how I figger. Durin’ the last year a lot of tight-lipped, cold-eyed strangers have rode into New Mexico. Mebbe you haven’t seen this much. But I have talked with men who have seen it an’ who didn’t like it. Jesse Chisum is one. Thet old Texan with his Jingle-bob brand has a far eye fer everythin’ aboot cattle. If you rode to San Marcos or Fort Union or Sumner, or over Pecos way to Roswell an’ Lincoln, you’d shore get a hunch. Wyomin’, Nebraska, West Kansas, East Colorado, an’ of course Texas, air sendin’ a good many riders oot our way. Riders thet don’t give names an’ don’t ask questions an’ don’t take kind to curious Westerners! Some of these may be what you called the cowboys — salt of the earth — but the most of them air bad. Thet is to say hawse-thieves, rustlers, bandits, desperadoes, the genuine bad men an’ genuine four-flushers, ootlaws, all of them, an’ thet ain’t countin’ the riff-raff from the East an’ the ruined rebels from the South.”

“Britt, I’m not so blind as you think,” protested Colonel Ripple. “I’ve noticed somethin’ of what you say. However only what might be expected with this westward movement.”

“It’s more than might be expected. New Mexico is as wild as Texas west of the Pecos. There is no law, except the law of the six-shooter. It has a bad reputation. Please observe, Kurnel, thet most of these pioneers keep right on travellin’. New Mexico will be the last of the states frontin’ on the Great Plains thet will be settled. This in spite of the finest grazin’ lands in the West.... Wal, heah is what’s goin’ to happen. Cattlemen like you an’ Chisum, followin’ in the footsteps of Maxwell an’ St. Vrain, air goin’ to grow powerful rich in cattle. In three years the Ripple brand will show on the sides of eighty thousand haid of cows. Think of thet! An’ thet ain’t countin’ what you sell. Wal, this will give rise to such rustlin’ of cattle as was never dreamed of before on the ranges. It inevitable. It will last ten years or more. You see this govern- ment buyin’ of beef fer Indians on the reservations, an’ thousands more thet must be counted in as time goes on, will furnish a market thet rustlers cain’t resist an’ cattlemen cain’t stop fer a long time. Then there’s the railroads. It ain’t no hell of a drive to Dodge from heah or Las Animas either. The longer the drive the shorer the market.... An’ there it is, Ripple, all in a nutshell.”

“So help me heaven, you are right!” ejaculated the rancher, in concern. “Hey-day of the rustler!... Britt, with your usual perspicuity you have seen ahead to an unprecedented and dubious future for the cattleman who operates on a large scale.... All right, suh! If you see that clearly you will be equal to meetin’ such a situation when it comes. I’ll never see it, worse luck. But Holly will be in the thick of it — perhaps unmarried. That freezes me inside.... Britt, you’ve been Texas Ranger and Trail Driver, both of which callings, peculiar to the great Lone Star State, should fit you to deal with bad men at a bad time. You have always been a genius handlin’ cowboys.... How do you aim to meet this situation?”

“Wal, I’ll admit thet’s been a stumper,” replied Britt, with a dry laugh.

It was something he had pondered over during many a lonely ride on the range and many an hour in the darkness of the bunkhouse while the wind moaned in the cedar trees outside.

Britt gazed thoughtfully down over the green-grey terraces to the far ribbon of silver meandering across the plains to blue obscurity, and he knew that that scene was good, always soothing and strengthening to the lover of the open. He always looked to this southward scene when the one to the westward had given rise, as now, to a troubled mind. He loved the spur of cedared ground from which this unparalleled view lay open, and likewise he loved the grey escarpment walls as they widened and heightened towards the plain below, and the aloof mesas and the sandy arroyos and the dark canyons, and all that wild and rugged beauty which at length softened into the vast blue prairie. But even if the eastern steppe of New Mexico had not been inspiring and all-satisfying, Britt would have loved it for Holly Ripple’s sake.

When he looked back at the cattle empire, however, he was actuated by mingled feelings of pride, of achievement, of dis- may, and over all a sense of fatality in the sublime reach and sweep of the range. The insulating mountains might temper the winter winds and send down never-failing streams upon the grazing lands, and protect the rich bunch-grass and gramina-grass which were so fattening for the herds, but no rock walls could ever keep out the parasites of the range-land. For a cattleman that scene had a pastoral and intimate beauty wholly dissociated from the wilder one to the south. A hundred thousand cattie dotted the endless pastures. A winding yellow road led down to San Marcos, a green circle of foliage from which the white and grey houses of the town gleamed in the spring sunlight. Far across and leagues away showed the dark patch that was Fort Union. Lincoln was a tiny speck in the distance. But northward the red spot which marked Santa Fe shone plainly over a hundred miles away. With its colour and legend of three centuries of occupancy by the dons and padres it had power to cover this broad land with the drowsy, languorous atmosphere of the Spaniards.

But all that had only a momentary charm for Britt. With his hawk-eyes he was seeing the deeds of the day at hand. San Marcos would lose the sleepy tenor of its way. The saloon, the dance-hall, the gambling den would soon ring with the revelry attendant upon the pay-day of the cow-hand. Halfnude girls with pretty faces and shadowy eyes and hollow laughs would waylay the range-rider upon his infrequent visit to town. Pale-visaged and thin-lipped gamblers, with their broadcloth frock-coats and wide-brimmed, flat-crowned hats, would shuffle their cards with marvellous dexterity of long, slim, white hands. And groups of dark-garbed, dark-horsed riders, proceeding in close formation, with something inimical about them, would pass up the wide street. The bark of six-shooters would become too common to attract interest, except when the town flocked out to see some gunman forced to draw upon a drunken, notoriety-seeking cowboy, or when the flint and steel of real killers struck sparks face to face.

Britt saw the raw wildness of Hays City, Dodge and Abilene enacted on a smaller scale, yet with an equal lawlessness. There might not ever be another Wild Bill Hickok, at whose vested star so many desperadoes and outlaws had shot vainly and too late. But there surely would rise to fame emulators of Buck Duane and King Fisher and Wess Hardin and Ben Thompson, those famed and infamous Texas exponents of the draw. And perhaps there might arise one who would dwarf the achievements of any of this quartet. And lastly Britt saw, with something of a grim and sardonic humour, dark slack forms of men, terribly suggestive, swinging from the cottonwoods in the moonlight.

“Wal, Kurnel,” he said, finally, “I reckon there’s only one way to meet what’s comin’. An’ it is to scour the country fer the damndest ootfit of cowboys thet can possibly be found.”

“Britt, the outfit you’re runnin’ now are far from bein’ lambs. I could name half a dozen others that are bad. But not one of them could buck such a rustler gang as you expect to develop heah on this range.... I don’t quite grasp what you mean by damndest.”

“I shore know, boss, an’ the idee grips me. Reckon I’ve pondered over it a good deal. I want riders so hard an’ wild thet they cain’t hold a job fer long. Fact is, Kurnel, I never hired a cowboy thet I couldn’t have kept on, if I’d stood fer his tricks. My idee is to pick my men — I’ve a few in mind now — an’ make this job so attractive thet they’d stick. Shore I’d have to stand fer hell itself. But I could do it.”

“Britt, I agree you can handle cows and men. Your idea is great. There’s only one drawback. My daughter. Think of that young girl, lovely, like an unfoldin’ rose, innocent, full of fire and joy, as mistress of the hardest outfit of cowboys ever thrown together in the West.... My God, Britt — think of it!”

“I been thinkin’. It’d been better fer us, an’ Holly, too, if she hadn’t had them nine years in school. But thet cain’t be helped now. If you are keen to have Holly live her life oot heah, keep up the great house of Ripple, thet’s the way to do it — an’ the only way.”

“Would you risk it, if Holly was your child?” queried the rancher hoarsely.

“I shore would. Holly is no ordinary girl. She will rise to the occasion.... Run yore herd an’ yore house — wal, by thunder! I’ll bet on her!”

“She shall choose,” shouted out Colonel Ripple, stung with emotion. “We will tell her the truth and let her decide. I have been tortured between the devil and the deep sea. I want her to live here. Yet if she prefers San Antonio-or New Orleans, I shall not let her see my disappointment.”

“Boss, you’ll shore never be disappointed in Holly. I reckon, seein’ how het up you air, thet we’d better call her oot an’ get it over. But I’d rather face a bunch of ridin’ Comanches.”

“Holly!” called the Colonel, his rich voice ringing.

As there was no answer from the house, Britt arose to go in search of the girl. All the rooms in the front of the wonderful old Spanish mansion opened out on the arched porch. Britt went through the wide hall to the patio, where his spurs clinked musically upon the flagstones. But the girl was not to be found near the sunny fountain, or among the roses, or in the hammock under the dense canopy of vines. Britt went into the living-room, and halted a moment in the shadowed light. Then from the porch came a gay contralto voice. He went out, lagging a little.

Holly stood beside her father’s chair. And Britt had a tingling recurrence of the emotion the girl had roused in him when he saw her first after her arrival from New Orleans; a strange yearning to be young again, to be the very flower of fine, noble manhood, handsome, gifted, rich, worthy.

“Howdy, Holly,” he drawled. “I was oot lookin’ fer you.”

“You old hawk-nosed, hawk-eyed devil! What have you been putting into Dad’s head?”

Britt laughed and found himself forthwith. Holly Ripple had a regal air. She looked her aristocratic Spanish lineage. Her great dark eyes and her exquisitely pale skin came to her from the Castilian Valverdes. But Britt had only to hear her to know that she was American, and Lee Ripple’s daughter, and that she belonged to the West.

“Lass, I reckon it’s been yore Dad puttin’ things into my haid,” replied Britt, and resumed his comfortable seat.

“You both look like owls,” said the girl, and she slid on to the arm of her father’s chair.

“Holly, dear, it’s only fair that you learn at once the serious side of your home-comin’,” replied the Colonel.

“Serious?” she asked, with a puzzled smile.

“Indeed it is. Back me up, Britt.”

“Wal, lass, I reckon it’s nothin’ to make you feel bad,” said Britt, feeling his way and meeting squarely those compelling eyes. “You’re oot West now. You’ve been heah three days. An’ it’s just sense to tell you pronto what we air up against.”

“Ah, I see,” Holly rejoined, soberly. “Very well. Tell me.

I left Don Carlos’ Rancho a child and I have come back a woman.”

“Holly, look down there,” spoke up her father, pointing to the grazing lands below. “All those black dots are cattle. Thousands of cattle. They are mine. And all I have to hold them is a wavy brand from shoulder to flank. A ripple!... Times are changin’. We expect the wildest years this section of the West has ever known. When we came back from San- tone by stage, you saw Indians, soldiers, cowboys, pioneers, rough men galore. You saw buffalo by the million, and cattle and horses almost as many. In short, you rode across Texas and you saw wild life.... But nothin’, my daughter, compared to what you will see heah in New Mexico the next decade — if you stay.”

“If I stay?” she echoed, with a curious intentness.

“Yes. Because I meant it to be a matter of your own choice,” he went on, swiftly. “Rustlers — that is the western name for cattle-thieves — and a horde of hardened men of differin’ types will ride into New Mexico. There will be fightin’, Holly.... Now, for instance, suppose I happened to be shot. What—”

“Oh, Dad!” she cried, poignantly.

“Holly, the chance is remote, but it might happen. Suppose I were shot by rustlers. What would you do?”

“Do! — I’d hang every rustler in this country,” exclaimed the girl hotly.

Britt met the piercing eyes of the rancher. Holly Ripple had answered to the subtle call of the Texan.

“All right,” went on Ripple, a little huskily. “Now, say for example that I — I didn’t get shot, but just passed — on, you know.... Died.... Holly, listen. That, too, might happen. It’s natural. I’m gettin’ on in years and I’ve led a strenuous life.... Well, suppose that happened.... Would you want to stay on heah at Don Carlos’ Rancho?”

“Yes, Dad,” she answered quietly.

“But, listen, child. You will have wealth. You — you could go to your mother’s people. I have no near relatives, but those I have would welcome my daughter.... Holly, the time has come to make your choice.”

“It was made — long ago. I hate cities. I don’t care for crowds — or relatives, either. I was cooped up in school. I am free now — free!... I was unhappy there — I love it here.... Dad, I will never, never leave.”

Britt saw the long, dusky lashes close over tear-filled eyes. Ripple bent over to kiss the lustrous dark hair. Under his tan a pallor showed and his jaw quivered. Britt turned away to gaze down the valley. Holly had seen through her father’s attempt to disguise the truth.

“Then — that is your choice — Holly?” the rancher resumed, presently.

“Dad, there never was any choice. There was only — home. My West! I have never forgotten a single thing.”

“My beloved — I am ashamed,” returned the Colonel, with agitation. “I should have known you would be like Carlotta. I imagined you might... Well, never mind what, since it can never be.... Holly, in the days to come you will learn how I run my ranch — how I keep open house for all. Never have I turned away anyone from Don Carlos’s Rancho. Indians, outlaws, wanderers, travellers, all have been welcome heah. That is why no white or red hand has ever been against me yet.

... When the time comes, Holly, will you preserve my open hand to all?”

“I will, Dad.”

Ripple clasped her in a close embrace, then turned a working visage and beaming eye upon his foreman.

“Britt, you old rebel, you know my child. And I’m thankin’ God that when I have to go you will look after her.... There, Holly. Our serious talk is over.”

“Not yet, Dad,” she murmured. “I have my turn. There are some questions I want to ask you.”

“Ah! — Fire away, daughter,” he replied, gaily, but it was easy for Britt to see his perturbation.

“Dad, I know hardly a word of Spanish,” said Holly, softly, with her eyes downcast. “It was forbidden me at school. I did not realize until I got home. Your Mexicans speak Spanish to me. The living-room I remembered so well has all been done over, refurnished. The beautiful rooms you have given me — the same. Everything new, beautiful, costly. But not a trace of Spanish colour or design.”

“Holly, that is easy to explain,” returned her father, frankly. “I wanted you to be American. That is why I kept you away at school so many years. If I had brought you up heah, in the Spanish environment which pertained until recently, you would have been all Valverde. I was not a Catholic. I respected your mother’s religion, but I did not want you to have it. I wanted you to be American in education, creed, manner and spirit.”

“Dad, was that any reflection upon Don Carlos Valverde?” queried Holly, with proud, dark eyes upon him. There was something passionate and alien in her that could never be wholly eradicated. And Britt, who loved her as his own, felt glad this was so.

“No. I had a high regard for Don Carlos, and these early Spanish families. Both Kit Carson and Lucien Maxwell married into them.”

“Were you ashamed of my — mother?”

“Absolutely no, my child. I was proud of her beauty and quality.”

“Did you love her?”

“Holly, I think I may say yes with an honest heart. But, dear, when I met Carlotta I was a wild young Texan, a gay blade in love with every pretty face I saw. It is hard to confess to you that when I became infatuated with your mother, I did not go to Don Carlos honourably and ask for her hand. I knew only too well that he would have raged and thrown me out. Carlotta was hardly more than fifteen.... I — I ran off with her. But I married her in San Antonio. As I grew to love her more I regretted havin’ been the cause of estrangement between Carlotta and Don Carlos. She was an only child. In time he forgave her. You were born soon after that. Then followed the happiest years of our lives. Don Carlos left Carlotta this ranch. After the war I drove a cattle herd up from Texas, and have prospered ever since.”

Britt liked that frank confession of the Colonel’s, and when he saw Holly’s reaction he thought it was well. If there had ever been any brooding doubts in the girl’s mind, they were dispelled then and for ever. She embraced her father.

“Thank you, Dad,” she whispered. “It’s all right now — except you mustn’t frighten me again.”

The moment seemed sweet and far-reaching for Britt. All was well that ended well. This home-coming of Holly Ripple had been fraught with dismay as well as dread. She had been an unknown factor. But now the old ranger revelled in the faith he had doggedly held in the girl he himself had named.

“Lass, I never told you how I come to call you Holly,” he said, as the girl sat up again, to smile with wet eyes. “I had a sweetheart once an’ thet was her name.”

“Sweetheart? — Cappy, you used to call me that when I was little. I’m horribly jealous. What was she like? Did you — run off with her as Dad did with my mother? Please tell me.”

“Some day,” replied Britt, rising, and he patted the glossy head. “Kurnel, I’ve seen a few happier days than this, far away an’ long ago. But not many. Shore you will be long heah with us. What fun you’ll have teachin’ this big-eyed lass to handle hawses, to shoot an’ rope, to run the cowboy ootfits ragged, to be mistress of this great house an’ do honour to yore name! An’ I — wal, I’ll go ahaid with my plans.”

“Plans! What plans, Cappy?” queried the girl. “You began that speech sadly. You grew really eloquent. Then you end with that hawk-eyed glinting and with news of plans. If I am to become mistress of Don Carlos’ Rancho, I shall be your boss. Oh, what a dance I’ll lead you!... But come, tell me. Do your plans include a party to celebrate my return?”

“Holly, that shall be my job,” interrupted her father. “I will give such a party as was never seen heah in New Mexico. And every year thereafter, on the anniversary of that date, you must repeat it.”

“Oh, glorious!” she cried, rapturously. “My first party.”

“Britt, bring on your wild outfits!” sang the Colonel, keen and glad-eyed. “Bring on your riders, rangers, cowboys, outlaws, desperadoes, gunmen, and killers! Don Carlos’ Rancho shall flourish many a year!”

“Wild outfits! — cowboys — desperadoes — killers?” echoed Holly, mystified, her great eyes like dark, glowing stars.

“Holly, it is Britt’s plan to surround you with the wildest and most dangerous outfit of men ever gathered on a western ranch,” announced the Colonel.

“Oh-h! — But why?”

“Wal, lass, the idee is to save you an’ yore cattle when the times grow bad,” interposed Britt.

“How perfectly wonderful!... Don Carlos’ Rancho! Holly Ripple’s outfit!... Dad, I shall fall in love with every single one of them. That is the penalty you must suffer for penning me up with books. Nine long years! And I was born on the range!... Cappy Britt, henceforth Old Hawk-eye, you will need your keen sight. Bring on your wild cowboys!”

Britt paced his slow, clinking way down the flowered path towards the bunk-house. Hard upon his excitation followed a pensive sadness. Only he realized what lay in store for Holly Ripple. Let her enjoy the girlish freedom she had been denied. Let her ride and laugh while her father was with her and the days burned with all the glamour of à New Mexican summer. For the shadow on the horizon would soon loom into dark groups of horsemen, strange, silent, formidable; and the languorous serenity of Don Carlos’ Rancho would be gone.

CHAPTER II

TWO EVENTFUL AND fast-flying years later, almost to the day, Cap Britt sat his horse on the high slope above the mouth of Paso del Muerte, and with grim, bitter revolt in his heart forced himself to admit that the evil times of his prophecy had come.

“They been comin’ ever since the Kurnel died,” he muttered darkly. “Slow but shore!... Wal, by Gawd, I didn’t get my hard ootfit none too soon.”

Britt gazed down across the eight miles of rolling grey rangeland, and on up the long slope to Don Carlos’ Rancho, standing like a picturesque fort, red and green on the high divide between the two great valleys. Holly Ripple was there on the porch, no doubt at this very moment with glass levelled upon him. It was that powerful glass which had brought about the present critical situation. He had a string of several hundred horses ranging up Paso del Muerte, among which were a number of the fine blooded Ripple stock. And the day before Britt had sent three of this riders over there to report on this drove of horses. They had not returned. For riders to lie out a night or several nights was nothing for the foreman to concern himself about. But early that morning Britt had taken a sweep of the range with the glass. And he had picked out one of those dark compact bunches of horsemen that were no longer rare on the range. They had disappeared up the pass. If they were not rustlers they were horse-thieves, a distinction with a difference. Holly Ripple had been unconcerned about the increasing loss of cattle, but highly indignant at the stealing of some of her thoroughbreds. Britt’s big outfit of cowboys was scattered all over the range for that day on various jobs. When he rode down at Holly’s order he expected to pick up some of the cowboys at White Pool: at least Stinger, Beef Talman, and Jim, who should have been there. But they were not there. Whereupon Britt had climbed the slope to the pass alone.

Dobe Cabin, in a grove of green and white aspen trees, lay beneath Britt in the mouth of the wide canyon. A substantial fence of peeled poles stretched from slope to slope. That bunch of riders who had roused the foreman’s suspicions had left the big gate open. Presently Britt espied dust clouds far up the winding pass, and soon after that a line of horses coming at a jogtrot. Britt waited until a number of dark riders on dark horses appeared; and then he dated the war on the Ripple range from that moment.

“Wal, it had to come, so why not right now?” he soliloquized, sombrely, and headed his mount down the slope. Arriving at the fence he got off his horse and closing the big gate he awaited developments with watchful vigilance and active mind. Britt scanned the slopes for some of his riders. He was going to need them presently. Horses and cattle grazed below, and under the mesa a few shaggy black buffalo had strayed up from the south. Britt was hard put to it to decide whether to ambush the raiders or meet them out in the open. In the former case he was pretty sure to be shot in a brush with eight or ten desperate men, but in the latter there was a chance that wit and nerve might serve him better. The question of letting these riders go unchallenged did not occur to the old Texas Ranger.

Dobe Cabin had been the home of a settler who had been murdered by Utes. A fine stream of water babbled down out of the pass; the aspens were out in their spring dress of fresh green, every leaf quivering in the still air; white-rumped antelope edged up the slope; wild turkeys were gobbling from a lofty wooded bench. Britt recalled the legend of Paso del Muerte, which concerned the massacre of some Spaniards by Apaches a century and more ago. It might have happened on a beautiful, serene, sunny New Mexico morning such as this.

And he had a premonition that those bygone days of the old padres had been tame to those that were still to come.

Britt heard the bony crack of unshod hoofs on the rocks beyond the grove of aspens. Then gleams of brown and grey and black showed through the leaves. Soon horses appeared slipping leisurely between the slim white tree-trunks. Some splashed into the brook to drink while others trotted out of the grove into the sunlight. The foremost shot up long ears and halted with snorts. Others coming from behind forced them onwards. Presently the band, sighting and scenting Britt, sheered to one side, and trooped to the left. Stragglers followed to join the main bunch.

The foreman climbed up on the high fence and sat on the top pole next to the gate. Shrill whistles from the driven animals would certainly acquaint the raiders that the advance had been halted. Britt counted two score and more of horses that had been selected from the stock by men who knew horses. These were all young, notable for thoroughbred points and the fact that they were unbranded.

“Cuss the luck!” growled Britt. “Another show-down. Stock we haven’t time to brand is just lost. Thet’s all. If I had twice as many cowboys I couldn’t put an iron on all the colts an’ calves thet belong to us.” —

The horses stopped at the fence, stood head on for a while, and then began to graze towards the slope. Britt saw the riders before they discovered him. There were eight in sight. He rather inclined to the opinion that more were yet to come. Voices came clearly to him.

“Bill, somethin’ turned the dogies.”

“Gate closed.”

“Look thar!”

“Who’n hell’s thet?”

After a trenchant pause one of the riders answered: “Thet’s Cap Britt, foreman of the Ripple outfit.”

Britt recognized that surly voice as belonging to Mugg Dillon, one of his cowboys.

“Ride ahead — you,” ordered one of the group, sharply. “Take a peek in thet cabin.”

Dillon rode on out of the aspens and up to the open door of the cabin. Peering in he called gruffly: “Nobody hyar.”

Then the riders advanced, separating in a manner which told the Texan much: and in this formation they rode to within a hundred paces of the fence. Dillon fell in behind them. Britt’s swift eye took in many significant points. These men were superbly mounted on dark bays and blacks. They were heavily armed. A harder looking gang Britt had not seen on the range. Whatever else they were, they surely were cowmen. Britt needed only a glance to link the lithe, easily poised riders, all evincing the incomparable saddle-seat of cowboys, to the stone-faced, matured type of range-rustier and horse-thief.

“Hyar, Dillon,” rasped the leader, a swarthy man whose features were vague in the shadow of a wide sombrero. The rider called made haste to get out in front. “Come on an’ introduce me to your boss.”

“Easy, Bill,” cracked a dry voice from the line. “Thet hombre was a Texas Ranger.”

Warily the leader urged his horse all of fifty steps towards the fence. Dillon lined up beside him. At this distance Britt gathered from the cowboy’s ashen face that he was in a predicament from which there seemed to be no escape. Britt had never seen this man Bill. He had brawny shoulders and unkempt hair low on his thick neck. The foreman could catch only a gleam of rapacious eyes.

“Dillon, is this your boss?” he queried, gruffly, without looking at the cowboy.

“Yes.”

“Howdy, Britt.”

“Howdy, yoreself,” rejoined Britt, curtly.

“Enjoyin’ the scenery roundabout?” went on Bill, sarcastically.

“Not particular, leastways not in front.”

“Reckon you shut the gate on us.”

“Wal, it’s our gate.”

“You can open it pronto.”

The foreman vented a short dry laugh, but vouchsafed no other answer.

“What’s the idee, Britt?” went on the raider.

“I seen a bunch of our hawses comin’ an’ I didn’t want them to get out.”

“Your hosses? — How you goin’ to prove thet? They ain’t branded.”

“Wal, I reckon I cain’t prove it. But my ootfit knows ’em an’ they’ll be comin’ pronto.”

“Hell you say,” retorted Bill, flashing a plainsman’s gaze across the range. “Only one hossman in sight.”

“Mugg, where’d you leave Stinger an’ Brazos Keene?” inquired Britt, coldly.

“Boss, we left Stinger fer dead. An’ the last I seen of Brazos he was ridin’ hell-bent fer leather up the pass,” replied the cowboy, hurriedly.

Dillon had been the last rider taken on by Britt for the Ripple outfit, and he was an unknown and doubtful quality. Britt knew his status would be defined shortly.

“Mugg, how come you’re ridin’ with these gents?” drawled the foreman.

“I — he... boss, I jest had — to,” burst out Dillon, disconnectedly. He was not yet old enough at this game to face death coolly from two sides. Britt knew he was guilty.

“Bah!” ejaculated the raider, scornfully, and with a back sweep of his gloved left hand he struck Dillon from his saddle. The cowboy fell, and bounded up hatless, a cornered wolf. His horse plunged away, dragging the bridle. “Britt, save me the trouble of borin’ the yellow pup.”

“Mugg, I reckon I wouldn’t bore you for double-crossin’ me,” drawled Britt, ponderingly. “But these air Miss Holly’s hawses — an’ some she puts store in. What air Brazos an’ Jim goin’ to do aboot this deal?”

“Britt,” interposed the raider, “I don’t mind tellin’ you thet Brazos took a flyin’ shot at Dillon an’ creased him, as you can see if you look close.”

“Cowboy, fork yore hawse an’ ride,” said Britt, contemptuously, after verifying the raider’s statement. Dillon bent over to pick up his sombrero.

“Suits me,” said Bill, laconically. “But fust open thet gate.” Dillon had no choice but to comply and Britt likewise had no choice but to sit on the fence and take this humiliating procedure. He had himself well in hand, though an unwonted heat boiled beneath his skin. Britt knew his job. His life was worth more to Holly Ripple than that of this insolent raider, and all his men. Nevertheless it galled the Texan to withhold his hand.

“Thet fellar’s comin’ fast,” spoke up the raider, after Dillon had opened the gate.

Britt did not turn, but he had an uneasy premonition. Certainly no single rider in his outfit would be bearing swiftly down upon that doubtful group.

At this Britt wheeled so quickly as nearly to lose his seat on the fence. His sudden dread was verified. Scarcely two hundred paces distant came a black clean-limbed racer with Holly Ripple in the saddle. “Good Gawd!” groaned the foreman, in sudden distraction. Then, cupping his hands round his lips, he bellowed stentorianly: “Holly, turn back! Hawse-thievés!”

She did not hear, however, or did not heed, but came up swiftly, a striking figure on the racer.

“Britt, you ain’t flatterin’, but I’ll pass it over,” remarked Bill, tersely.

In what seemed only a moment, and one fraught with acute concern and uncertainty for Britt, the fleet-footed black slowed down and plunged to a gravel-scattering halt at the gate. Britt had seen his young mistress many times to thrilling advantage, but never like this. She had not taken time to don her riding-garb, yet she sat her saddle astride, as the black, silver-mounted chapere-jos proved. A thin jacket, buttoned tight, emphasized the slender voluptuousness of her form, as did the red spots in her cheeks the singular creamy whiteness of her beautiful face. Magnificent eyes, black as the wing of a raven, blazed levelly out upon the men. This was the first direct contact of Don Carlos’ granddaughter with the riff-raff of the ranges.

“Whoa, Stonewall. Steady,” she called to the spirited prancing horse, and she raked his flanks with her spurs. “Britt, is it — a raid?” she queried, pantingly.

“Wal, this gent heah contests our ownership of these hawses,” drawled the foreman, with a mildness he was far from feeling.

Holly rode inside the fence toward the raider chief.

“Dillon, close the gate,” she ordered, and the cowboy obeyed with no less alacrity than when he had opened it.

“I am Holly Ripple.”

Bill awkwardly doffed his sombrero, exposing a lean head of dark hair streaked with grey, a swarthy face which, but for its curious awe and smile, would have been a seamed bronze cast of evil.

“Howdy, Lady of Don Carlos’ Rancho. I sure am glad to meet you,” he replied. He appeared dazzled, not by the pride of that little regal head or the imperious contralto voice, but by the ravishing charm of this descendant of the dons.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Bill Heaver, at your service, Miss.”

“What are you?”

“I reckon I’m a little of all pertainin’ to the range,” he replied, with a broad grin. He had been momentarily impressed by her fearlessness, but that had passed.

“Were you driving these horses?”

“I sure was.”

“They belong to me.”

“You can’t prove thet, Lady. Not by unbranded stock on this range.”

“Yes, I can. At least I can prove I own some of them.... I’ve ridden that roan. I know that bay.... That sorrel is two years old. There’s a scar on his left flank where the cowboys started to brand him and I stopped them.... The pinto there I called Paint-brush. Most of these horses have been in the corrals at the ranch. I know them. I never forget a horse I’ve looked at closely.”

“Well, Lady, all thet makes no difference. They’re not wearin’ a brand. Thet’s all a hoss-dealer reckons with.” Heaver replaced his sombrero, hiding the tell-tale ghoulish eyes. But not before Britt had caught the birth of a hot glint, like a spark. The raider had succumbed to Holly’s allure. It was an old story to Britt, though this man was the first desperado to face Holly with it. Britt’s hand slipped to his gun. If driven far he would kill Heaver, and any other of the band that threatened, and then depend upon intimidating the rest. All of the raiders had ridden up close, to surround the principals in a half circle against the fence. It was here that Britt discovered the presence of two new riders, one of whom, hanging a little back, struck him as somehow remarkable among these conspicuously formidable men. But Britt had only time for a glance, as Heaver was urging his horse toward Holly’s. What was the hardened lout up to? Holly had not sensed any peril in the moment. She had expressed anger at this deliberate theft of her horses, but no other emotion. Britt knew to his sorrow that the girl had never yet felt fear. This situation, however, was deplorable, and might easily lead to a catastrophe. Already it had passed out of Britt’s control. If Heaver grew ugly and answered to the leap of passion, Britt must take a desperate chance, and he grew cold and steely at the certainty of its enaction.

“So you’re the famous Holly Ripple?” queried Heaver, with a subtle changing of his voice to something intimately personal. Holly caught it, and was reining her horse aside when the raider stretched out a long arm and caught her bridle near the bit. “Hold on, my proud Senorita. Suppose you come in the cabin with me where we can have a little private confab about these hosses.”

“You insolent ruffian! Let go that bridle.” Holly supplemented her sharp words by lashing down with her quirt. The leather thongs cracked on Heaver’s bare wrist. Cursing, he let go in a hurry.

“You half-breed wench! I’ll — —” —

“Heaver, you fool! Look out for Britt!” interrupted the cool dry voice of the raider’s subordinate.

“Aw, to hell with him! You watch him, Covell. If he winks, bore him.”

Before Holly could get out of his reach, the raider seized her arm so fiercely that he almost unseated her. The red spots left her cheeks. Suddenly Holly appeared to realize the actuality of brutal affront, if not real peril. She made no move to wrench free.

“What do you mean?” she demanded, with incredulous amaze.

“For two-bits I’d pack you off to the mountains,” he answered, thickly.

“You — wouldn’t dare!” gasped Holly, shocked out of her poise.

“The hell I wouldn’t,! — But I’ll let you off easy... With a little lovin’! Thet proud white face will go red from rubbin’ stiff whiskers. Haw! Haw!... Come on. We’re goin’ in the cabin.”

“No!” she rang out.

One powerful pull dragged Holly out of her saddle on to Heaver’s hip, but her far foot caught in her stirrup.

“Britt, stop him!” she cried, struggling frantically. The horses began to plunge.

In one leap Britt cleared the space between him and Dillon. He snatched the cowboy’s gun from its holster.

“Open the gate,” he hissed, and with two guns extended low he wheeled to take his only chance. Heaver had hold of the girl and her bridle as well. The black was rearing, and the raider’s horse plunging. Heaver was at a great disadvantage in trying to hold Holly and draw her horse close so he could release her foot from the stirrup. The action of the horses and Holly’s furious struggle to free herself prevented Britt from getting in a shot at the outset of this fracas. He dared not fire for two reasons — fear of hitting Holly, and realization that if he killed Heaver while her foot was caught she would fall and be dragged. Suddenly Holly’s foot came free. The raider swung her clear, evidently oblivious to Britt’s rising gun. But as Britt had three horses between him and Covell he appeared momentarily protected from that quarter.

“Stop!”

A piercing command halted Heaver. It even shunted Britt for an instant from his deadly intent. Then from behind Britt and to one side a horse plunged in with screeching iron hoofs that sent sheets of gravel flying. Before he slid to a halt his rider leaped clear and with a single bound confronted Heaver and his men. The rowels of his long spurs kept up a whirling tinkle. This member of Heaver’s band was the striking newcomer whom Britt had glimpsed hanging in the background.

“Frayne!” expostulated the raider, with a rising inflection of voice that had vast significance for Britt. He knew men. For twenty years he had observed and heard desperate characters of the frontier in meetings that were critical.

“Let her go,” came the command, in icy staccato notes.

“Wh-what?” stammered the raider chief, his swarthy face burning dark red.

“Heaver, you heard me!” Frayne’s lithe form sank perceptibly, but even more significant were the quivering, clawlike hands that lowered as perceptibly over the big blue guns sheathed low on his thighs.

“My Gawd — Man! — What’s eatin’ you?” yelled Heaver, hoarsely, and his red visage turned a dirty white. He lowered Holly to the ground and dropped her bridle. Hurriedly she snatched it up and dragged the black away out through the gate, where she mounted.

Heaver leaned forward, shoving his huge sombrero back with nervous hand, showing his hard grey face beaded with sweat.

“Frayne, you buckin’ me?”

“What’s the sense of more talk?” queried the other, derisively.

“But talkin’ is on the cairds,” went on the raider, hoarsely, his voice losing its tremble for a gathering might of rage. “This hyar is the second time you’ve bucked agin me. I’ll allow you had some reason, leastways this time. But I was only tryin’ to scare the gurl.”

“Liar!”

“Well, at that I might have hugged an’ kissed her till she swallowed her high an’ mighty talk.... What was it to you, anyway? I’ve seen before you was kinda touchy about wimmen. Holly Ripple sort of got you, huh, the pretty black-eyed hussy of a half-breed?”

“Shut up, you dirty foul-mouthed dog! Miss Ripple is a lady, which is something you can’t appreciate. Leave her out of this.”

“Hellsfire!... Frayne, I’ll allow fer your stand, if you’re so testy over a gurl. But I let her off. An’ you’ll lay off more insultin’ talk — or we’re through.”

“Heaver, you’re dense. When I called you we were through.”

“Aha, we air, eh? All right. It’s damn good riddance,” fumed the leader.

“You’re not rid of me yet.”

Uncertainty ceased for Heaver. He changed again, not subtly, but with sudden hard realization that the breach was irremediable and something dire hung in the balance. Turning to Covell he cursed him roundly: “ — !

This comes of your takin’ on men of his lone wolf stripe. I told you.... An’ now, —— you! Show yellow or come in!”

Britt wrenched his gaze from the infuriated Heaver to the man who had opposed him so strangely. In a flash then he caught the drift of events. This Frayne loomed as inevitable as destiny. Seasoned as Britt was, he felt galvanized through with the man’s terrible presence. Among hordes of Westerners, desperadoes, outlaws, he would have been recognized then as one of the few. He epitomized the raw wild spirit of the frontier. His lips curled in a snarl, his white teeth gleamed, his eyes were slits of grey fire. All his features combined to express an appalling power. And Britt had seen that power expended by more than one implacable and unquenchable killer.

“Frayne — I savvy,” choked out the raider chief, in hoarse passion. “But why you forcin’ me?”

“I don’t trail with your kind,” replied Frayne, deliberately. “You lied, same as you lied on the other deal.... I didn’t like the way you worked on Dillon to make him betray his outfit. We rode out here to steal a bunch of unbranded horses. But that wasn’t enough. When chance threw Miss Ripple in your way, out bristled the dirty dog in you.... You insulted her, pawed her off her horse.... You would have carried her off... leaving your men to fight this Texan. You’d have made your men accomplices in a crime that Westerners never forgive. You’d have put that stigma on me.... Now, Bill Heaver, have I made myself perfectly clear?”

“Per-fickly — clear — Frayne,” returned Heaver haltingly. He drew a long deep breath that whistled with the intake. Then blood and arm and voice leaped simultaneously. “Covell! Bore him, men!”

Britt’s sight was not swift enough to catch Frayne’s draw. But there the big blue guns were, spouting red behind puffs of smoke. Then followed the crashes, almost together. Covell’s gun was out and half up when it exploded. But his face was fiercely blank and he was swaying backward when his gun went off. Heaver sagged in the saddle as his horse lunged away, to unseat him and throw him heavily. Then Covell fell. Neither man moved a muscle. Both had been dead before they struck the ground.

The other horses were hard to control. Iron arms dragged at their heads. Frayne had the riders covered. Perhaps the action of the horses favoured Frayne in his intimidation of these men. None of them drew. As their mounts were pulled to a standstill Britt lined up beside Frayne with his two guns ready. The tension relaxed.

“You fellars ride. Pronto!” called Britt, seizing the moment. Frayne’s left gun took a slight suggestive swerve toward the gate. As one man the raiders spurred their horses, almost running down the pale-faced Dillon, and galloped away toward San Marcos.

“Fork yore hawse, Mugg,” called Britt. “This range won’t be healthy fer you heahafter. You shore got off easy. Take yore gun.”

While Dillon hurried to leap astride, Britt ran out the gate to where Holly hunched stiff over her pommel. The marble whiteness of her face, the dark fading horror of her dilated eyes, the palpitating of her heart attested to the strain she had come through.

“Holly, it’s all over,” said Britt, fervently, as he grasped the gauntleted hand that shook on her knee. “Brace up. We’re shore lucky. Mebbe I won’t scold you good when we get home!”

“He drove — the others away,” she panted, lifting her head to sweep the range with flashing glance.

“Wal, I sort of snicker to say he did,” drawled Britt, talking to ease the contraction of his throat.

“That devil — and the other man, Covell... dead?”

“Daid? — I reckon they air.”

“He killed them for me?”

“Holly, lass, it shore wasn’t fer anyone else.... Come oot of it now. You had nerve. Don’t collapse now after it’s all over.”

“He saved me — from God only knows what,” she whispered in awe.

“Yes, he did, Holly. I cain’t gainsay thet. I’d had no show on earth if he had sided with Heaver. Shore I’d have killed Heaver, an’ then more of them. But I’d have got mine pronto. An’ thet’d left you at their mercy.... Holly, fer Gawd’s sake let this be a lesson to you.”

“I must thank him — talk to him.... Go back, Britt. Give me a few moments. Then bring him to me.”

Britt sometimes opposed Holly when she was serene and tractable, but never in her imperious moods, or when she was stirred by emotion. Naturally she had been poignantly upset. Still he did not quite like her request and he was in a quandary. As there seemed to be no help for it, however, he hid his dismay and hurried back inside the enclosure.

He found Frayne leaning against the fence, one boot hooked on the lower pole. He was rolling a cigarette. Britt made note of the steady fingers. Frayne had shoved his sombrero back.

His face was extraordinarily handsome, but that did not surprise Britt nearly so much as its utter absence of ashen hue, twitch, sweat, dark sombre cast, or anything else supposed to show in a man’s features immediately after dealing death. It was indeed a baffling face, smooth, unlined, like a stern image of bronze. Frayne had all the characteristics of the cowboy range-rider, even to the finest sombrero, belt, dress, and boots, which but for their dark severity would have made him a dandy.

“Got a match, Tex?” he inquired, civilly. His intonation was not that of a Southerner. Nor would Britt have accorded him western birth. Nevertheless the West had made him what he was. Britt had not seen his like.

“Shore. Heah you air,” replied the Texan, producing a match.

“Hardly needed you in that little set-to,” he said, as he lighted the cigarette. “But thanks all the same.”

“You’re darn welcome,” grunted Britt, feelingly. “It was shore a bad mess.... Did you see me dancin’ aboot tryin’ to get a bead on Heaver?”

“Yes, I was afraid you’d hit Miss Ripple. That made me run in sooner than I might have. I was curious to watch Heaver. Stranger to me where women are concerned.”

“Wal, I seen thet, an’ I heahed you,” rejoined Britt. “But yore reasons don’t concern me. It was the result. Shore you saved me from gettin’ bored and Holly Ripple from wuss than death.... Seems sort of weak to thank you, Frayne.”

“Don’t try. It was nothing.”

“Wal, the girl wants to thank you. Come on oot.”

“Thanks, Britt, but I’d rather not.”

Holly, riding outside the fence on the grass, passed so close that she could not have failed to hear the cool speech of the raider. She turned in the gate, and rode up to the men. A wave of scarlet appeared to be receding from her face. Frayne stood out from the fence and, removing his sombrero, inclined his head.

“May I ask your name?” she queried, composedly, though, to Britt’s astonishment, her usual poise had gone into eclipse.

“Frayne. Renn Frayne,” he replied. He was courteous but cold. The immeasurable distance between Holly Ripple and an outlaw of the range might have been imperceptible to Heaver, but not to this man.

“Mr. Frayne, I — I am exceedingly grateful for your — your timely interference.”

“Don’t mention it, Miss Ripple,” he returned, flipping his cigarette away. After that first direct glance he did not look up at her again. “I want no thanks. You only distress yourself further — coming inside near these dead men. Go away, at once.”

“It was sickening, but I am over that.... Thanks in this case seem so silly. But won’t you accept something substantial?”

“For what?” he retorted, and his wonderful grey eyes, clear and light as crystal, and as soulless, turned to fix upon her.

“Evidently you place little store upon your service to me,” she replied, pride gaining ascendancy.

“And you want to pay me for shooting a couple of dogs?”

“You make my duty difficult, Mr. Frayne.... But I do want to reward you. Will you accept money?”

“No.”

She stripped off a gauntlet to take a magnificent ring of Spanish design from her finger and proffered that to him with an appealing smile.

“Won’t you take this?”

“Thank you. I don’t want it.”

“Would you accept one of my thoroughbreds?” she persisted, hopefully.

“Miss Holly Ripple,” he said, as if stung, “I am Renn Frayne, outlaw, rustler, gunman. This day made me a horse-thief. I have not a dollar to my name, nor a bed to sleep in, nor a friend in the world. But I cannot accept pay or gift for what I did. You could not reward such service any more than you could buy it. Not from me.”

“Forgive me. I did not understand,” she replied, hastily. “But your — your kind have been unknown to me. How was I to know that a desperado — all you called yourself — could be a — a gentleman? You are a knight of the range, sir.” Plaintively she appealed to Britt. “What can I do, Cappy? He has placed me under eternal obligation.”

“Lass, I reckon you’ll have to let it go at thet,” replied Britt. “Miss Ripple, I am rude, but I don’t misunderstand you,” said Frayne. “If you must do something for me... But first — Haven’t you any more sense than to ride out on this range alone?”

“I — I do as I please,” retorted Holly.

“Then you ought to have a lesson. I’ve ridden all the wild ranges. And this is the worst. You are a headstrong little fool.”

“How dare you?”

“I call spades spades, Miss Ripple,” he rejoined. “It may do you further service to listen to the truth. You are a spoiled young woman. If Heaver had packed you off to the mountains, as he and many men like him have done before with girls — you’d soon have learned that blood, wealth, pride could avail you not at all. You would have become a rag. Heaver would have made you wash his feet.”

“Sir!... Pray do not make me resent your service to me.”

“That is nothing to me. But have you no father to hold you down?”

“He is gone — and my mother, too.” In spite of herself, Holly seemed impelled to answer him.

“It’s easy to see you have no husband. But surely a sweetheart—”

“No!” A crimson tide blotted out Holly’s lovely fairness. “Small wonder then. Well, Miss Holly, if I were your father I’d spank some sense into you. And if I were your sweetheart, I’d beat you good and hard.”

Holly’s individuality seemed to have suffered a blight. Her great eyes opened like midnight gulfs. In mute fascination she stared at this stranger to whom she owed so great a debt and who, all in the same hour, dared to flay her as no one had ever dared.

“You’re a child, too,” he went on, as if astounded to contriteness. “Well, I’ll tell you how you can reward me. Promise on your honour never to ride out on this range again without men to protect you. That’d save you and your friends bitter grief. And for me it would mean one good deal to chalk up against all the bad ones.”

“I — promise,” she replied, tremulously.

“Thank you, Holly Ripple. I didn’t really think you would.... Shake hands on it, man to man.... There, we’re quits.”

“Do you trust me?” she asked, strangely. “Do you think I can keep it?”

He studied the beautiful face apparently blind to its charm, and impervious to the lure of her femininity, as one to whom the thought of attainableness had never occurred.

“You would never break your solemn word,” he said with finality, and turned to Britt. “Take her home, Tex. You’ll send some boys down to plant these stiffs?”

“Shore will, Frayne. You better search them.”

“Not me. And I mustn’t forget to tell you that your boy Stinger might still be alive.”

“If Brazos Keene got away from Heaver he’s right back with Stinger now. Cowboys don’t come any nervier than Brazos.”

“Brazos Keene. Wonder where I heard that name? He got away, Britt, believe me. They was all shooting at him. A chip off the old Texan block. Watch that lad, Britt.”

“Wait — please wait,” called Holly, as Frayne turned to look for his horse.

“I thought we were quits,” he said, dubiously.

“Not yet. I have something more to ask of you.”

Britt cursed under his breath. Almost, but not too late, to send him aghast and quaking the girl had come to her sweetest self. A man would have to be anchored like the rocks not to be drawn by those eyes of velvet blackness, shining eloquence of her strong and passionate soul.

“Make it adios, senorita,” Frayne said.

“You have no money, no bed, no friend in all the world.”

“I told you. It is unkind to remind me.”

“What will you do?”

“The same as many a time before. Ride on.”

“Not back to Heaver’s men!”

“No.”

“You’ll ride on alone, until loneliness drives you to other men like them?”

“The truth is bitter, Miss Ripple.”

“Renn Frayne, you do not belong to such gangs.”

“I did not once, but I do now.”

“You do not.”

“Why, may I ask?” he queried, wearily.

“Because of something noble in you. Because you killed to save a girl from harm!”

“Well, I shall remember how Holly Ripple romanced over me,” he rejoined, with the ghost of a smile.

“Will you work for me?” she asked.

“Miss — Ripple!” Frayne ejaculated, at last shocked out of his indifference.

“Will you ride for me?”

“Girl, you are mad!” he burst out, incredulously. “You ask me — Renn Frayne — to ride for you?”

“Yes.... Britt, don’t stand there like a gaping idiot. Tell him I need him, and why.”

“Wal, Frayne,” exploded the Texan, “it ain’t a bad idee. I’ve got an ootfit as wild as they come. With you at their haid we’d weather these comin’ years.”

“Man, the girl has you locoed.”

“Thet may be. But it ain’t the question. I reckon she means this. Turn yore back on ootfits like Heaver’s an’ raise yore hand fer Don Carlos’ Rancho.”

Frayne shivered and by that slight reaction he betrayed himself. His brazen boast of irremedial ill-fame was nullified.

“My God, you ask me this?” he besought, huskily, a hand going out to Holly as if to warn her.

“I beg of you.”

“But I am a thief!” he blazed.

“Yes, and you hate it,” she flashed, poignantly.

“Heah’s yore chance, Frayne,” interposed Britt, at last inspired. “I’ve known a heap of bad men turn oot good. Thet’s western. Air you big enough fer the break?”

“Miss Ripple, I’d be a liar if I denied the — the wonder of your offer. Only — it’s unbelievable. I’m new to this range, but the Texas Pan Handle, Kansas, all the ranges north, scream at me for listening to you.”

“I don’t care what you’ve been,” she went on, passionately. “It’s what you are now.... Those ranges are far, far away. Forget them. Bury that past. Fight for my rancho, my cattle, my horses, for me!”

Like a drunken man Frayne staggered back against the fence. Britt quickened to the most complex and moving situation of his experience. If this man had been utterly bad, he could not have remained so.

“I will never ask you one question,” went on Holly. “I’ll exact only one promise.”

“What?”

“That as long as you stay with me — and I hope it will be always — this, this dishonesty you confess will be as if it had never been.... Do you promise me?”

“I swear it.... But how can you trust me?”

“I made you a promise. You said I would never break my word.... Can I do less than trust you, Frayne? Here’s my hand.”

Blindly he reached out to take her ungloved hand in his, and bowed his face over it.

Holly gazed down upon his lowered head. Britt had seen many lights and shades in those splendid Spanish eyes, but none so soft and strange and mystically lovely as those that shone there now. It had taken an outcast of the range to reach Holly’s wayward heart. For two years Britt had watched her varied obsessions in the cowboys of Don Carlos’ Rancho. She had been Lee Ripple’s American girl, but her light and fickle fancies had been Spanish. Britt sighed over the inevitable, yet his love for Holly stormed his convictions and routed them.

Frayne lifted a cold face, from which emotion had been erased, and released her hand.

“Take her home, Britt. I will follow,” he said, composedly, and stalked toward his grazing horse.

CHAPTER III

HOLLY RIPPLE’S SCHOOL life in New Orleans, from her ninth to her sixteenth year, had been one of comfort, luxury, restraint, so that when she was launched upon the wildest range on the frontier, soon to become sole mistress of Don Carlos’ Rancho with its great herds of cattle and droves of horses, she most certainly needed the pride and spirit that had been born in her.

Britt had trained her ceaselessly and faithfully during these past years. She cared nothing for cattle, but as she loved horses he had taught her to ride them like an Indian and to know them. She developed a superb physique, strength, skill, endurance, and a daring that had cost her foreman much dismay and anxiety. But Britt could not perform miracles, and the hard life of the range failed to blunt thë soft feminine characteristics which had been fostered upon Holly during the impressionable forming time of adolescence. Perhaps the wise Colonel had intended this very thing.

Naturally Holly had seen much rough life on the range. Curious, interested, thrilled by everything, it had not been possible to hold her back. The old caravan trail from Santa Fe to the Mississippi ran across her land. A Mexican village, the inhabitants of which were in her employ, nestled picturesquely below the great ranch-house. À branch post of Horn’s Trading Company was maintained here, where trappers came to sell and red men to buy and trade. Troops of dragoons stopped there on their way to escort caravans. From spring until winter the caravans passed, always camping in the cottonwood grove along the creek. Wagon-trains from Texas made the most of Don Carlos’ Rancho.

In two short years much of western life had unrolled before Holly’s all-absorbing eyes. Half a hundred cowboys had come and gone. Many a wild or drunken cowboy had bit the dust or dug his spurs into the earth on her range. Fighting was the breath of their lives. Holly had seen the beginning or the end of innumerable brawls. She had been known to stop fights. On more than one occasion she had unwittingly ridden upon dark slack forms of men swinging by their necks from trees. She had viewed a brush between soldiers and savages; she had seen stage-coaches roll in with bloody drivers roaring and dead passengers with the living; she had been present that very spring when a cattleman and rustler shot it out fatally on the street of San Marcos.

But the raw terrible spirit of the frontier had never closely touched Holly Ripple until this bright May morning when an outlaw had killed two of his comrades to save her.

Holly rode away from that scene sick to her marrow. She had watched the encounter on her nerve. Every word and every action had been etched indelibly upon her consciousness. Anger at the boldness of these horse-thieves had given place to fury at their leader, and then to fright such as she had never known. If she could have saved the lives of Heaver and Covell by lifting her hand, she would not have done so. The West of her birth welled up in Holly that day. Afterward pride upheld her while she answered to irresistible and incomprehensible impulse in persuading this lone-wolf outlaw to become one of her riders.

Upon facing homeward with Britt, the trenchant thrill of this impulse faded away. And then the ghastly business of what had threatened her, and the blood and death which had followed, resulted in a cold misery in her vitals. Only the interest in the strange man who had saved her kept Holly from reacting to that aftermath as might have one of her tenderfoot schoolmates in New Orleans who used to faint at the sight of blood.

“Holly, you air pale aboot the gills,” spoke up Britt, solicitously, before they had ridden far. “An’ you ain’t settin’ yore saddle like you’d growed there.”

“I’m sick — Cappy. Ride close.... But I’ll get over it.”

“Shore you will. Grit yore teeth an’ hang on, Holly.”

“Please don’t scold me — for riding down alone. You were right.”

“Wal, lass, I’ll not scold you now, anyway. But I hope thet will be a lesson to you.”

“It will be. I’ll never be headstrong again.... I promised him. Oh, he was ruthless, insulting. But no common sort!”

“Holly, our new hand ‘peared to be a lot of things — one of which was chain-lightnin’. My Gawd, but he was quick!... Holly, I’ve seen a few of the great Texas gunmen draw. Frayne would have killed any one of them to-day. Wonder who he is?”

Holly was silent. She did not want to know. Frayne repelled her even more than he fascinated her. What had possessed her to such a rash and inconsidered offer? Did she already regret it? Had gratitude and pity prompted her wholly? At length she turned in her saddle to see if Frayne was coming. No horseman in sight on the grassy plain! She felt relieved. He might not follow. Then hard on this thought stirred a vague and disturbing fear that he might not keep his word. Next instant she championed him with self-accusation. He would not lie. Shame edged into her conflicting emotions. Cold, ruthless, indifferent, insulting outlaw! No man had ever dared to so criticize her. Holly rode on unaware that her sickness was gradually succumbing to stronger sensations.

“Cappy, was I wrong?” she asked, at length.

“How so, lass?”

“To offer him work?... To trust him?”

“Wal, thet’s a stumper. Fust off I was scared stiff. But I’m hedgin’, Holly. If Brazos an’ Cherokee an’ the Southards take to Frayne I’d say his acquisition might turn oot great fer Don Carlos’ Rancho.”

“You wouldn’t be afraid to trust him?”

“It seems onreasonable, but I reckon I wouldn’t,” replied Britt, thoughtfully.

“Is he — coming?” she asked, hurriedly.

Britt glanced back over his shoulder to scan the rolling range. As he did not reply immediately, Holly grew conscious of a blank restless merging of relief and regret.

“There he is, just toppin’ a rise,” answered Britt, at length. “Didn’t see him at fust. We might have knowed thet hombre — —”

But Holly did not hear any more of Britt’s drawl. She suddenly grew deaf and dumb to all outside stimuli. Her sickness and conjecture vanished in a rush of startling glad certainty, which as quickly affronted her. Holly, in consternation, and with a sinking of her heart, tried to take refuge in the thought that this had been the most exciting and upsetting day of her life. But an uneasy, unstable sense of weakness remained with her.

“Holly, there’s a caravan in,” spoke up Britt, eagerly pointing toward the long grove of cotton-woods, above which rose columns of blue smoke. “Fust from Las Animas this spring. Must be Buff Belmet. He’ll have loads of stuff fer us.”

“Yes, indeed, and high time. Let us ride over to greet him,” replied Holly, suddenly animated.

The afternoon sun shone on a natural scene of rangeland that never failed to awe and delight Holly. High on the grey-sloped, green-topped hill blazed the red of the old mansion. She could picture Don Carlos there in the days of the Spaniards, monarch of all he surveyed. It was hers, that indestructible home, vine-covered and weather-stained, a monument to the friendship between Don Carlos and the Indians, and likewise for her father’s day. No enemy had ever darkened that open portal. No man of any degree had ever been turned away from that door. Holly had kept faith with father and grandfather. She prayed that she might still do so in this wilder day yet to come.

Soon the galloping horses reached the zone of cotton-woods, and then the wide clear brook babbling over gravelly bars. In the long half-circle on the other side, the caravan had halted for camp. How the great broad-wheeled, boat-bodied, grey-canvassed prairie-schooners thrilled Holly! They not only represented the forerunners of the western empire, but they seemed to be bridges across the plains to civilization. There were scores of these immense long-tongued wagons. Sturdy oxen were grazing away across the open; rolling mules were lifting the dust in many places; a hundred brace of horses had taken to the grass, while many were being unhitched. A dozen huge fires were burning. Red-shirted men stood out conspicuously among a horde of others, and all were busy as ants. The camp shone with colour and bummed with activity. It was a scene of a kind which never palled on Holly.

As Britt and Holly rode up to the first group, several men advanced to greet them. Holly recognized a sturdy, bearded freighter who boomed at Britt, and then the magnificent Bluff Belmet, scout and plainsman, a friend of her father’s, and famous across the frontier. At the age of ten he had driven one of these great wagons. He had lost mother, father, brother, and childish sweetheart on his first trip across the plains. At twenty he was a leader of caravans and a noted Indian fighter. And now at thirty he had the lined, stern face, the piercing half-shut grey eye, the wonderful poise of the frontiersman to whom all had happened except death.

The greetings were as between friends long separated.

“An’ air you still single an’ fancy-free, Miss Holly?” queried the grizzled Jones.

“At least, I’m still single,” replied Holly, with a laugh.

“What’s the matter with these young ranchers an’ range-hands out hyar?”

“Tom, it’s a case of too many to pick from,” drawled Britt. “How many wagons this trip? You shore come heeled.”

“We left Las Animas with thirty-eight,” replied Belmet, “an’ we picked up twenty on the way. Jest as well, otherwise we might had more’n a brush with some Kiowas on the Dry Trail.”

“I seen yore decorations,” replied Britt, pointing to the feathered arrows that stuck out in grim suggestiveness from the wagons. “Look there, Holly.”

“I saw them long ago,” she replied, her eyes dilating.

“How aboot my supplies, Bluff?” inquired the foreman. “Six wagons, Cap. I’ll leave them hyar for your boys to unpack, an’ pick them up on my way back from Santa Fe.”

“Fine. We shore need them. An’ Miss Holly has been frettin’ more aboot—”

“Now, Cappy, don’t betray my vanity,” gaily interrupted Holly. “Even if all my pretty things did come, I’ll never be vain again.”

“Wal, Miss Holly, you don’t ‘pear your usual bloomin’ self at all,” chimed in Jones.

“No wonder, Tom. She had a scare oot on the range to-day. An’ believe me, I had one, too,” replied Britt, seriously.

“Friends, I’ve had a scare for every one of these,” said Belmet, putting his finger to the white hairs over his temples.

“Britt, this hyar New Mexico was gettin’ hot last year,” interposed Jones, wagging his head. “Buff will agree with me, I’ll bet. You’re in for hell.”

“I’d rather not give Miss Holly another scare to-day,” rejoined the scout.

“I’ll tell you aboot it,” said Britt. “You know, Buff, how things happen right oot of a clear sky. This would have been plumb bad but fer a queer deal.” Whereupon Britt briefly told the story without mentioning Frayne’s name.

“Miss Holly, ain’t you ever goin’ to grow up?” queried Jones, reprovingly. “This range ain’t safe fer a girl no more.”

“I fear I discovered that to-day.”

Belmet shook his eagle head in grave portent. “It’s comin’, Cap. I told Colonel Ripple thet years ago. Too big an’ wild a range. Too many great herds of cattle. In Maxwell’s day beef was cheap. He couldn’t give it away. But this is a new era. The range offers easy pickin’ fer rustlers, an’ good markets. All the bad outfits will flock into New Mexico.”

“I had thet figgered, an’ I’m goin’ to meet the situation with an ootfit of my own.”

“Thet’s the Texas idee, Cap. You’ll give them a run for your beef.”

“Buff, did you ever run into or heah of a fellar whose handle is Frayne — Renn Frayne?”

“Frayne? I know him. Not likely to forget him, either. Cap, I was present in Abilene some years back when Frayne made your Texas gunman, Wess Hardin, take water.”

“No!” ejaculated Britt, incredulously.

“Hard to believe, an’ thet’s why it’s not generally known. But I saw it. Frayne bluffed Hardin. Dared him to draw. An’ would have killed him, too.”

“Wal, I’ll be darned. Who is this Frayne, Buff?”

“I don’t know who he is, but I can tell you what he is.”

“Go ahaid. Miss Holly an’ me air shore interested. It was Frayne who did the shootin’ to-day.”

“You don’t say?... I met Frayne first time after the war. Young fellar, footloose an’ wild, with a hand for guns. He was a cow-puncher. He became one of many hard-shootin’ hombres. I heerd of him often after thet, but never seen him again until thet time in Abilene. Then he was classed with the best of gunmen. An’ you know, you could count them on the fingers of one hand. Let’s see. That was three years ago. After thet he killed Strickland’s foreman, an’ went on the dodge.”

“Crooked?”

“No. It was the other way round, as I heerd. Strickland was a power in Kansas. An’ any one who bucked him had sheriffs an’ jails to reckon with.”

“Like Chisum?”

“I wouldn’t class Chisum with Strickland, except as a hard driver of men.”

“What was yore idee of Frayne?”

“Wal, I reckon some different from thet of most of the youngsters I’ve met along the Old Trail. Most boys of good families didn’t last long. The Englishmen — an’ there was a sight of them — an’ still comin’ — petered out pronto. They didn’t adapt themselves. They got snuffed out. But Frayne had the stern stuff of the Texas cowboy. He lasted. An’ I’m glad to hear he done you a service.”

“Is Frayne an ootlaw?”

“I reckon so, back in Kansas. An’ probably Nebraska, Wyomin’, Colorado. But I wouldn’t call him an outlaw here in New Mexico.’Cause there ain’t any law yet.”

“Wal, last summer we inaugurated what hawse-thieves an’ rustlers fear wuss than a gun — the rope,” declared Britt, forcibly.

“Cap, has it occurred to you thet Frayne would be a whole outfit in himself, if you could hire him?” asked Belmet, thoughtfully. “I reckon you couldn’t, though. Anyway, Miss Holly wouldn’t have a bad hombre like Frayne around the ranch.”

“Wouldn’t I?” rejoined Holly, hiding her nervous embarrassment. “I thought of it first and asked him.”

“Good! You are wakin’ up to the needs of the range,” declared the scout. “It takes bad men to cope with bad men on this frontier.”

“We’ve got him, Buff,” added Britt, with satisfaction. “An’ since I seen you last summer I’ve added Brazos Keene, Cherokee Jack, Tex an’ Max Southard, an’ two or three other tough nuts to our outfit. Now with Frayne it shore beats any bunch I — ever heahed of. I’ll be obliged if you’ll spread thet news all along the Old Trail.”

“You bet I will,” replied Belmet emphatically. “I’ll lay it on thick, too.... Miss Holly, I shore feel sorry for you. But it’s the way to tide over this rustler wave.”

“Britt, I know you was a Texas Ranger, an’ a Trail Boss, but can you handle an outfit like thet?” asked the bearded man with Jones.

“It’ll be the job of my life, but I’ll do it.”

“They’ll fight among themselves over Miss Holly,” declared Jones, quizzically.

“Wal, thet’s up to her,” laughed Britt.

“Gentlemen, it may amuse you, but it’s not funny to me,” interposed Holly. “But thank you for the advice — and come up for supper. We shall want to hear the news.”

“Miss Holly!” expostulated Belmet, aghast. “It’s awful good of you.... Look at us ragamuffins!”

“Come as you are, Belmet. At six o’clock sharp.”

“Wal, be it upon your bonny head, Miss Holly.... I almost forgot to tell you. There’s a man with us who claims to know you. He’s in the Texas crowd. I didn’t get his name. We heerd about him from the women folks in thet train. They gossiped. Handsome rich southerner — suitor of yours when you was in school in Orleans — comin’ to visit you, an’ all thet sort of talk.”

“I have no personal friends or acquaintances in the south,” replied Holly, dubiously.

“Wal, accordin’ to the caravan gossip this gentleman was more’n a personal acquaintance,” went on Belmet. “I didn’t take much stock by it. But remembering’ how you’re run after by so many adventurers, I reckoned I’d better tell you.”

“Indeed yes. Thank you, Belmet.... Come to supper, surely.

I must go now.”

When Holly was half-way home Britt caught up with her. “Wal, lass, you look fagged. Rest a couple of hours, an’ throw off all thet’s troublin’ you.”

“I wish I could. To-day seems to be a cloud on the horizon.”

“Wal, thet cloud will come an’ go.... I see some of the cowboys ridin’ in. An’ there’s our new man pokin’ along. Holly, I’m glad Belmet gave Frayne a better rep than he gave himself.”

“I was glad, too. Still, it was bad enough.”

“Holly, you’re right. An’ at thet Buff had no line on Frayne these last few years. I take it Frayne finally went to the bad. It always happens thet way. But mebbe nothin’ will come of it. The West is awful big an’ in these times you cain’t separate bad from good. We can afford to be charitable.”

“Will you please ask Frayne to supper?”

“I was aboot to give you a hint. Let’s impress him powerful fine fust thing.... Shall I set him next to you?”

“By all means.... Britt, I’m worried about Brazos.”

“Wal, you’re wastin’ yore feelin’. Thet boy will be ridin’ in pronto.”

“But Stinger is dead or wounded!”

“So we heahed. In either case Brazos will fetch him in.... Now, Holly lass, leave it all to me. If I cain’t pick up Brazos with the glass I’ll send some of the cowboys after him.... You go sleep a while an’ forget this mess, an’ then make yoreself prettier than ever before.”

“Cappy! — Why so unusually — pretty?” inquired Holly, curiously, with a smile.

“Wal, thet Frayne was as cold as a daid fish,” declared the Texan, resentfully. “He looked at you once an’ didn’t see you atall. An’ thet was all he looked.”

“Indeed, he was not flattering,” observed Holly, conscious of a quickening of tired pulse. “But he had just shot two of his own comrades.”

“Nothin’ atall to Renn Frayne. I reckoned thet he was a Westerner who had no use fer wimmen. You run into one now an’ then. I don’t recollect you ever bein’ so sweet to any man. An’ the damned hombre not only never seen it but insulted you to boot. It riled me.” —

“Cappy, it will be good for us. You have spoiled me,” she rejoined, thoughtfully, and rode on in silence to the corrals.

Rest and sleep and the image Holly saw in her mirror gave her back her poise, but did not eliminate from her mind the sombre sense of that day’s catastrophe.

The great dining-room was exactly as it had been in Colonel Ripple’s day, when red men and white men of high and low degree met at his table. Don Carlos’ rich and lavish hand showed in the heavy dark furniture, in the polished stone floor with its worn rugs, in the huge carved stone fireplace, and the stained adobe walls with their old Spanish weapons, the painted frieze, and the huge rough-hewn rafter that centred the ceiling all its length.

Holly’s guests arose at her entrance. Every seat had an occupant except the one of honour to her right.

“Be seated, friends,” said Holly, in the words of her father’s custom. “Eat, drink, and be merry.”

Belmet occupied the’ seat next to the one which Holly had intended for Frayne. His absence affected her as had his affront out on the range, despite the fact that her reason made excuse for the mood of a man who had just shed his fellow-men’s blood. Conchita Velasquez and the Mexican women of Holly’s household sat upon her left. Britt faced her at the end of the long table, and the seats between were occupied by the invited guests and by others who took advantage of the standing Ripple hospitality. Among the rough-garbed, bearded freighters and teamsters a young man, conspicuous because of the difference of his attire, at once caught Holly’s eye. She recognized him, and acknowledged his elaborate bow. Embarrassment, and something of anger, accompanied her recognition. This fair man, whose sharp, cold, handsome features proclaimed him about thirty years old, and whose black frock-coat and gaudy waistcoat and long hair characterized him as a gambler of the period, was no other than Malcolm Lascelles, a Louisianian, whom Holly had met in New Orleans, during the concluding year of her school. It was a shock to see him at her table, recalling her girlish indiscretion.

She had met him by accident, and then, resenting her loneliness and longing for freedom, for adventure, for love, she had been so foolish as to steal out to meet him again and again. Upon learning that Lascelles was a gambler and adventurer, she had regretted her folly and ended the acquaintance. Lascelles had persistently annoyed her with attempts to reestablish himself in her esteem, thereby getting her into disgrace with her teachers. For Holly this had its good side, for the principal wrote to her father, who hastened the advent of her departure for home. Holly had never heard from Lascelles and had almost forgotten the incident. But here he had turned up, at her own table, an older man with whom the years had played havoc, whose hungry eyes betrayed that he had been hunting for her, and intended to make her remember. Holly suffered a moment of dismay. She was to blame for this. Whatever had been in her mind — to imagine she had been in love with this Lascelles?

The supper was served by a troupe of Holly’s Mexican girls in native costume, and it was a bounteous one. The table groaned with savoury viands and steaming vegetables and luscious fruits. At the outset the burly members of the caravan were too hungry and too glad to be present for any consistent merriment. But by the time the wine was passed around they made up for their lack.

In the succeeding hour Holly heard all the news from the towns on the Mississippi, from the cattle centres in Kansas, from the camps and posts in the plains, from the forts. Not the least of this information consisted of reports of Indian attacks on the vanguard of the buffalo hunters, the advance of the railroad, the increase of travel westward, the renewal of soldier escorts for the caravans south from Las Animas, the hold-up of stage-coaches, all of which attested to the spring quickening of activity on the frontier. And the best of it was a marked rise in prices for beef, the increase in markets, owing to the pushing westward of the Santa Fe Railroad.

“Hard times for railroad construction are about over,” said Belmet. “Last December the work crossed the Colorado state line. That was well within the ten years of grace allowed the builders by the land grant. Rails will reach La Junta by 1873, mebbe, and Raton the year after, mebbe.”

“Holly, thet’s great news!” exclaimed Britt. “When the Santa Fe crosses New Mexico we want 75,000 haid of cattle heah.”

“Cap, you can breed them on this wonderful range,” said the scout. “But keepin’ them long enough to sell — thet’ll be the rub!”

When the supper-party broke up Holly was standing with Britt, saying good-bye to Belmet, as Lascelles presented himself. Looked at through more mature eyes, he did not revive even a hint of the old girlish thrill. Still he had a semblance of Southern grace.

“Holly Ripple, we meet again,” he said, with a gallant bow. “I have long dreamed of this moment. May I present my compliments? You have changed from the girl I knew so well at Madam Brault’s school in New Orleans. From pretty girl to lovely woman!”

Holly did not offer her hand and she met his eyes with level gaze.

“I remember you, Mr. Lascelles,” she said. “Are you not lost, away from the boulevards of Orleans? What are you doing on the frontier?”

“Holly, I have never ceased to search for you,” he returned, boldly. “You alone brought me West.”

“Indeed? I am sorry. You must have over-rated the silly flirtation of a pent-up school girl. You are welcome, of course, at the table of my father. But I have no wish to renew the acquaintance.”

“Holly, I’d like to meet the gentleman,” interposed Britt, in his cool drawl.

“Mr. Lascelles, this is my father’s old trail comrade, and my foreman, Captain Britt.”

Holly moved toward the door with Belmet. “Thet’d shore took the hide off the impudent fellow if it hadn’t been so thick,” observed the scout. Holly went out on the porch with him. The last group of guests were thudding down the path. Stars were shining; the peep of spring frogs came plaintively from the ponds; a cold tang of mountain air made Holly draw her wrap close about her bare shoulders. She bade the plainsman good night and went into the living-room, to turn up the lamp. Cedar logs burned ruddily on the hearth. She thought again of Frayne. Presently Britt entered, with his keen eyes gleaming unwontedly.

“Say, Holly Ripple, air you responsible fer thet flash gambler showin’ up heah?” he demanded.

“He says so.”

“Has he any hold on you?”

“None whatever.”

“I heahed you tell him. An’ shore I shouldn’t need more. But he ruffled me, lass. I must be gettin’ testy in my old age.

... Dog-gone-it, I’m the only Dad you got!”

“Cappy, you are indeed, and I love you. Don’t waste concern on Mr. Lascelles.”

“Wal, he tried to make oot there was somethin’ between you. Kind of brazen, or thick-haided. I told him he’d had supper at Don Carlos’ Rancho, an’ to slope. All the same, if I don’t mistake my figgerin’ men you’ll heah more aboot this kid flirtation.” —

“Cappy, you don’t mean this man will take advantage of that indiscretion of mine to — to—”

“I shore do,” returned Britt, as Holly hesitated. “The damn fool thinks you air — or was — sweet on him. Reckon it’s a bluff. He’s an adventurer, an”way down on his luck. He fetched his pack up heah, an’ I had to give him a room. Another instance of yore Dad’s famous hospitality to anyone! I cain’t throw him oot.”

“No, indeed.... But it might prove annoying. I certainly don’t want to meet him again.”

“Wal, how air you goin’ to avoid it, if he stays heah? Remember thet army officer who bored you half to death?”

“You might try the same remedy,” said Holly, with a little laugh.

“Brazos! — Holly, I must say thet when you air sick of a man you reckoned you liked — wal, you show yore Spanish. It wouldn’t never do to give Brazos a hint aboot this gambler.”

“Did Brazos get back?” asked Holly, quickly.

“Yes, before supper. Mad as a wet hen because he had to pack Stinger on his hawse, an’ walk ten miles. How thet boy hates to walk!”

“Oh — Stinger! Is he—”

“Shot up some, but nothin’ to worry aboot.... It happened thet Frayne seen Brazos comin’ an’ packed Stinger in. Frayne said he knowed gun-shot wounds, an’ thet this wasn’t bad if dressed proper. Which he proceeded to do. Done it swift an’ slick, too. I shore get a laugh oot of those cowboys. Brazos said, ‘I’m dawg-tired an’ I don’t care a damn if he croaks. An’ I’m gonna bore Mugg Dillon!’... Then Stinger looks up at Frayne an’ asks, suspicious like, ‘Who’n hell air you, stranger?’ An’ Frayne says easy an’ cool, ‘Renn Frayne’... Thet bunk-house went as quiet as a church. They’d heahed of him. Cowboys air a curious lot. They never fail to talk whenever they meet riders or go any place. An’ they never forget an’ they tell each other. Some of our new boys have rode the Pan Handle. Ride-’em Jackson is from Texas. They’ve heahed of Frayne an’ have talked aboot him, same as of every bad hombre on the range. It worries me.”

“Did you tell Mr. Frayne that I invited him to supper?”

“I shore did, Holly. He just refused, short an’ sweet. I was sort of stumped, an’ told him when you invited people, same as yore Dad before you, an’ Don Carlos before him — why, they just come plumb glad. Then he says: ‘Thank Miss Ripple for me, and tell her I appreciate the honour, but that I do not want to come.’”

“Britt, is Frayne a criminal, with good instincts?”

“No criminal, believe me, in the sense you mean. No lowborn man could ever look straight at you like Frayne does.... An’ I shore don’t believe he was ashamed to come.”

“Could it have been because he shot his comrades?”

“No. Frayne wouldn’t think no more aboot shootin’ them than jackrabbits. Holly, you’ll have to swaller it. Heah’s an outlaw you’ve been gracious to. An’ he just plain snubs you. I reckon, though, thet it’d mean nothin’ to you except fer thet absurd old custom of yore Dad’s, an’ one you think every man should kow-tow to.”

“It’s not absurd, Britt,” protested Holly, spiritedly.

“Be reasonable, lass. What could an old Spanish law of hospitality or the pleasure of a great pioneer mean to a man who survives only by eternal vigilance?”

“Survives! I don’t understand you.”

“Renn Frayne is a hunted man. By officers perhaps, but mostly by men who want revenge fer the killin’ of friends or relatives. Or by genuine bad men he has got the best of. Or by the bluff bad hombres or wild cowboys who’d like the fame of killin’ him.”

“Oh! — Frayne is indeed to be pitied,” murmured Holly.

“Look at his hands next time you get a chance. Kept careful as yores, Holly. I’ll bet Frayne never chops wood or digs postholes. He keeps them hands limber an’ soft so thet he can handle them guns swift as lightnin’.”

“I can excuse his rudeness,” concluded Holly, and bade her foreman good night.

Holly was at breakfast in her room when she heard a familiar clinking step out upon the path. She was expecting Britt, but this step was quicker and more vibrant than that of the old Texan.

“Mawnin’, Cap,” spoke up a lazy resonant voice. “How’s our Lady of the Rancho?”

“Howdy, Brazos,” returned Britt, who evidently had arrived first. “Haven’t seen her yet this mornin’. She’s late. But yesterday knocked her oot, I dare say.”

“Who’s the flowery-vested caird-sharp I jest met?”

“Name’s Lascelles. From New Orleans. Dropped in heah yesterday with thet wagon-train. Used to know Holly when she was at school. She confessed she’d flirted a little with him before she found oot he was a gambler. An’ he pestered her after thet. It was plain last night thet he meant to take advantage of the early acquaintance.”

“Wal, you don’t say,” drawled Brazos, in a tone that sent little shivers over Holly.

“Yes, I do say,” rejoined Britt, testily. “Dog-gone! We never know what’s goin’ to bob up. Lascelles fetched his pack. An’ I had to give him a room. If he hangs aboot heah it’ll be unpleasant fer Holly.”

“How you know thet?”

“She told him plumb oot thet she had no wish to renew the acquaintance.”

“Ah-huh. Holly can shore tell a fellar.... What you gonna do aboot it?”

“Reckon I’ll give Lascelles a hint to leave with the wagon-train.”

“Holly won’t like thet. It ain’t Ripple hospitality.”

“But the four-flusher might set down to live heah. Thet’s happened before.”

“Shore. But if Holly doesn’t like the galoot he wouldn’t be around long.”

“I savvy. You’d set in a little game of cairds with him, huh? An’ then we’d have to plant another stiff back on the hill. Brazos, you’re just plain devil.”

“See heah, boss. Haven’t you forgot thet little confab you had with me when you persuaded me to ride heah?”

“No, Brazos. But I hate to distress Holly. She was game yesterday. All the same thet blood-lettin’ made her sick.... Besides, dog-gone-it, I don’t want you to get any wuss name on the range. I like you, Brazos.”

“You don’t say? Nobody’d ever notice it. Wal, there’s some hope of me likin’ you, Cap.”

Holly finished her coffee rather hurriedly, and went through the living-room to the door. Britt was sitting on the porch steps, looking up at his tall companion. Brazos Keene was the youngest, the wildest, the most untamable, yet the most fascinating and lovable of all Holly’s cowboys. His slim, round-limbed rider’s figure lost little from the ragged garb and shiny leather; his smooth tanned face, fresh and clear as a girl’s, clean-cut and regular as a cameo, his half-shut, wild blue eyes and clustering fair hair, all proclaimed his glad youth and irresistible attractiveness, without a hint of his magnificent lawlessness and that he was a combination of fire and ice and steel.

“Howdy, Texans. Come right in,” invited Holly, gaily. “Mawnin’, Lady,” drawled Brazos, doffing his sombrero. “How air you, Holly?” asked Britt, rising uncovered.

“My dreams were troubled, but I am fine this morning.”

“Thet’s good. You were so late I... Wal, I cain’t waste more time. The wagons air heah, Holly. There’s a whole wagon-load for you. Jim said ‘Shore we know spring is come!...’ Boxes, bags, an’ what not. Where’ll I have the boys pack this stuff?”

“In the patio by my storeroom. Have the boxes opened, Britt.”

“All ready fer you in less’n an hour,” returned Britt, stepping down. “Adios, Holly... Then he looked at Brazos, as if prompted by an afterthought. “Say, cowboy, rustle along pronto.”

“Aw, boss, I have a report to make,” complained Brazos. “Wal, cut it short an’ leave oot the smoke,” concluded Britt, curtly.

“Come in, Brazos, I’d rather not see the frocked gentleman who is loitering around.”

“Thet pale-faced gent! — Britt told aboot him,” said Brazos, and following her into the room to her desk he took her hand. “Holly, you never was in love with him?”

“No, I don’t believe I ever imagined that. But I was pining for company — for masculine company, I confess. Then I was mad at my teachers. I met this Lascelles and I was a foolish girl. It was an adventure. I flirted with him — a little.”

“Holly, you never let him kiss you?”

“Gracious no! Nor allowed him to hold my hand as you are doing now.... Brazos, promise me you won’t pick a fight with Lascelles.”

His imperturbability lay only on the surface. Holly felt the throb of his sinewy hand and the blue flame of his eyes. “Promise me,” she repeated, imperiously.

“Why should I, Lady?”

“Because you are more to me than just one of my cowboys.”

“Yore word is the only law I know.... Holly, do you care anythin’ aboot me atall?” —

“Si, senor,” she replied, smiling, and gently endeavouring to remove her hand.

“When I fust come to this rancho you liked me a heap, Holly. An’ it kept me straight. You rode with me more’n any of yore riders. My land, how jealous they was! An’ I got my hopes up, Holly.”

“Hopes of what, you foolish boy?”

“Wal, thet you’d love me — an’ marry me some day,” he replied, with a soft frankness that touched Holly with contrition.

“Brazos, I do like you a heap. I am proud that I have kept you straight. But I do not love you.”

“Aw!... Thet night at the fandango — last summer. You let me kiss you!”

“No, Brazos.”

“But, Lady, you made no fuss. An’ you didn’t run off or — or slap me.”

“Brazos, please be honest. You kissed me, not by force, but by surprise.”

“My God, girls air strange! — Holly, how aboot my puttin’ my arm around you thet night in the buckboard, when I drove you home from San Marcos?”

“Yes, you did. I was very foolish, Brazos — and cold, too.”

“Then it never meant nothin’ atall,” said Brazos, with pathos. “Not even at first?”

“Brazos, I asked you to be honest,” replied Holly earnestly. “So I can be no less.... I never quite understood myself. I did have a — sweet, romantic feeling for you. I did. But I had had that before. It didn’t last. And I’ve had it since. For that young army officer who came here wounded and we cared for him. It didn’t last, either. I am a fickle jade, Brazos. It must be my Spanish blood. But I do really love you, Brazos — as a sister. And I want you for a brother. I’m a lonely girl.”

“Shore. But I don’t want to be yore brother,” he replied, stubbornly. “I want to be yore husband. You need one, Holly. You’ll never leave Don Carlos’ Rancho. You ought to marry a cowman. Yore Dad would have wanted thet. An’ I’m as good as any of these ridin’ gents an’ better than most.... If you’d marry me — you’d come to love me some day. An’ I wouldn’t ask you to be my — my real wife till then. I could take care of you, Holly.”

“Brazos, dear, you do not grasp the situation. I don’t love you that way. I never will.... Why you’re not yet nineteen years old. And I am!... I feel like your mother. You’re only a boy.”

“Boy! — Holly, I’m as old as Britt, in the ways of the range. An’ this range is yore home. An’ if you can believe me or Tex or Britt or Buff Belmet, it’s gonna get powerful wild pronto. Holly, ain’t a man in the ootfit who wouldn’t give an eye to save you what Frayne saved you. He’s a darn good-lookin’ chap, educated, an’ was somebody once, as anyone could see. Buff Belmet knows the frontier. It’s only fair fer me to admit thet the ootfit took to Frayne. We’re scared of him, shore, but if he only takes to us he’ll be a round peg in a round hole.”

“Brazos, I hope Frayne, and all of them are as loyal and gallant as you,” rejoined Holly, feelingly. “Then I’ll have the outfit Britt has dreamed of. And Don Carlos’ Rancho will be the home for me that Dad prayed it would be.”

CHAPTER IV

LATE ONE AFTERNOON in early June, Britt rode wearily across the valley toward Cottonwood Basin where he expected to find a third group of his cowboys in camp. Weeks on end his outfits, widely separated, had been branding calves. That day Britt had ridden to White Pool and from there to Ute Flat. He had had worry enough without bad reports from these places, and he had been tired enough without this added ride across to the basin.

Yet despite the mounting burden of Britt’s responsibilities, he was as sensitive as ever to the open range. He faced a half circle where for thirty miles his keen vision could distinguish cattle as thick as scattered bunches of sage-brush. Off towards San Marcos a group of riders headed toward the little town. They might be cowboys, but Britt inclined to the conviction that they were not. Down the vast green slope a stagecoach rolled along, streaming dust behind. It was due at the trading-post below Don Carlos’ Rancho that night and the driver, Bill McClellan, was not letting any grass grow under the hoofs of his six horses. The run from Santa Fe to Las Animas had taken on greater risk these days.

But there was another side to Britt’s state of consciousness, and this was a revivification of pleasure and even exaltation in the beauty and wildness of his surroundings. Holly Ripple had been the cause of such sentiment in an old Texas Ranger, who had slept on the ground half his nights for twenty years. She rode with him almost every day and it was impossible not to see the West through her young and vivid eyes.

The range appeared limitless. Don Carlos’ Rancho was only à red dot on the green divide to the east. The roofs and trees of San Marcos blazed gold in the sunset. The basin was bisected by a shining ribbon. All the rest, beyond, was level plains and rolling land, and ridges and valleys, leading to the lilac-hazed mesas, to the rosy foothills, and the dim purple mountains.

A last flush of sunset bathed the valley in dying fire as Britt rode across the belt of cottonwoods to the camp. Evidently the cowboys had knocked off for the day. A small knot of cows and calves was working out toward the black-spotted range. Along the bank of the creek several score of horses grazed. This was Jim’s remuda. They waded knee-deep in luxurious grass and flowers. The Mexican cook, Jose, stooped over his camp fire and steaming pots. Cowboys stretched at length, their shoulders propped against packs. Riders were straggling in from the range.

Britt dismounted to greet Jim, the cowman in charge. He was a tall, stoop-shouldered, sandy-moustached range-rider of uncertain years. His dust-begrimed face showed the marks of sweaty fingers.

“Howdy, boss. Jest in time fer grub.”

“I’m shore needin’ some — an’ water, say! — Shades of old Texas Land!”

“You look it. Hyar’s a good cold drink.... Reckon you rid over from Ute Flat?”

“Yes, an’ White Pool, too.”

“Then you’ll hardly be ridin’ back to the rancho to-night?”

“Have to. But I’ll eat a bite an’ rest some.... It’s been a real warm day.”

“Humph! If you ask us, boss, we’ll say it’s been hot.”

During the interval before supper, while Britt walked a little to ease his cramped legs, the cowboys bestirred themselves languidly. They were tired, quiet. Some went bare-breasted to the creek; others importuned Jose for hot water.

“Skylark, if I’m as black as you, I’m a nigger,” said one.

“You’re blacker’n me, Laigs, but washin’ won’t make you handsomer,” was the reply.

“Come an’ geet eet,” called Jose.

Presently Britt found himself seated amidst Jim’s outfit, eating as heartily as any hard-worked rider among them. From this group Britt missed Brazos Keene, and Mugg Dillon. The latter, of course, he had not expected to see. But where was Brazos? The magnificent Skylark, his clean thin visage as red as fire, stood up with pan in hand; Laigs Mason, the little bow-legged, homely clown of that outfit, sat on a pack, finding it awkward to get his knees close enough together to hold a pan; the Nebraskan, Flinty, bent his hard face over his supper; Tennessee, the sallow-faced, tow-headed southerner, knelt on one knee to eat. Santone, swarthy and beady-eyed vaquero, helped Jose at his tasks.

For a while only the sound of grease sputtering in the iron oven, the sizzle of fresh beef frying, broke the hungry silence. Twilight marched down over the range from the hills, and soon after that coyotes began their hue and cry. Cows lowed and calves bawled. The lonely night began to creep on.

Britt was not by far the first to finish supper. “Wal,” he said, at length, “thet was good. Jose is the best cook in the ootfit.... Gimme a smoke, somebody.”

“Boss, how’s tricks over White Pool an’ Ute Flat way?” asked Jim, at last finding a seat. One by one the cowboys clustered around, lighting their cigarettes.

“Good an’ bad. Hell of a new crop of calves, an’ a lot of activity to offset it.”

“Activity?” queried Jim.

“Thet’s what I said.”

“Ah-huh. An’ same for Ute Flat? Some movement of steers an’ a lot of burned hair not by the Ripple outfits, huh?”

“Exactly, Jim.... You don’t ‘pear bustin’ to make yore report.”

“Boss, I’m bustin’ all right, but not with good news.”

“Where’s Brazos?” returned Britt, quickly.

“He ought to be hyar before dark,” rejoined Jim, evasively. “Come oot with it,” snapped the foreman.

“Laigs, will you tell the boss what come off?”

“Cap, it was like this,” replied the bow-legged cowboy, sitting up. “Day before yestiddy me an’ Brazos run onto some rustlers drivin’ a bunch of steers thet wore our mark. This was way up at the head of the Cottonwood, I reckon fifteen or twenty miles from hyar. Brazos acted plumb sore, so I reckoned he’d been expectin’ it. Wal, there was four of the rustlers an’ one of them was Mugg Dillon. We yanked out our rifles. But they seen us pronto an’ rode off toward San Marcos. After a bit they slowed up, seein’ we didn’t follow. We rode back. Brazos rode slower an’ slower, till finally he stopped. ‘Laigs,’ he says, ‘I’m waitin’ hyar till dark an’ then I’m ridin’ to town.’ Wal, you know Brazos. All I said was I’ll go with you. ‘No, you go back to camp an’ report to Jim. An’ if the boss should ride in tell him I went after Dillon, but he’s not to let Miss Holly know.’”

“Damn thet cowboy!”

“No use to damn Brazos,” interposed Jim. “He an’ Stinger have shore got it in fer Dillon. I don’t know jest what made them so sore, outside of his double-crossin’ us.”

“Stinger never said a word to me,” rejoined Britt. “I couldn’t pump much out of him.”

“My hunch come from somethin’ Frayne said.”

“Frayne?”

“Shore. He thinks Brazos an’ Stinger were on to Dillon — thet they ketched him before an’ trusted him not to go into another low-down deal.”

“Wal!... A hawse deal?”

“No. I reckoned it must have been cattle, but Frayne didn’t think so.” —

“When did Frayne tell you this?”

“Weeks ago, jest after he started ridin’ with us.”

Britt pondered a moment, darkly revolving in mind what risks Brazos might have incurred while trailing Dillon. Finally he voiced his concern: “If Brazos doesn’t come back to-night, go after him — some of you.”

“Boss,” interposed Laigs Mason, coolly, “if you’d seen Brazos you wouldn’t be worried. I savvy thet hombre. He’s the nerviest fellar on this range, but when he takes chances he’s got an even break.”

“All right, Jim. What else?” went on Britt, gruffly.

“We been hyar seventeen days, an’ shore slapped our irons on a sight of calves,” replied Jim complacently. “Jest about cleaned up this basin. But we had help, an’ thet riles me some. Sewall McCoy’s ootfit hung in this neck of the woods till the other day. We jest know his men was brandin’ calves whose mother had a Ripple brand on her flank. We seen a hundred an’ more that had new burned Bar M’s on them. The boys was partickler not to drive any cows over hyar but ours. McCoy’s ootfit didn’t round up a bunch, as is our way. They jest rode everywhere, brandin’ every maverick in its tracks. Shore we might have got a few calves not really ours. But damn few.... An’ to be short an’ sweet, I don’t like this McCoy cattleman nor his ootfit.”

“Sewall McCoy? So he’s rangin’ over heah. Jim, how many cattle has he on this range?”

“Couldn’t say. But I’d swear not more’n five thousand haid.”

“Wal, while you an’ yore boys air ridin’ around, make a count of McCoy’s an’ any other brands. We got too many cattle an’ too many calves. I’ll recommend thet we sell a bunch to the government beef-buyers an’ make a big drive to the railroad.”

“Thet’s a good idee, boss. It’d give us a chance to get a line on what’s bein’ bought an’ shipped. Countin’ the increase this year, we’re runnin’ sixty thousand haid.”

“Thunder an’ blue blazes!” snorted Britt. “We can’t handle them. We could sell to the posts, an’ reservations, an’ to eastern markets, over an’ over again without makin’ a hole you could see in our herd.”

“Shore. But we’re havin’ help in makin’ thet hole,” remarked Jim, impressively. “Rustlers drove a good big herd off toward the Purgatory last week, an’ you can bet your life most of them steers belonged to Miss Holly.”

“Et ees so, senor,” corroborated the vaquero, puffing a cloud of smoke.

“Not mucho malo, but... Hello, what’s thet?”

“Hoss comin’.”

“Thet’s Brazos. I know his trot,” added Laigs Mason.

“Wal, I shore hope so,” returned Britt, peering into the gathering gloom. Presently a horse bobbed black against the grey. Jim threw some bits of sage on the fire. It blazed up brightly. Soon the horseman entered the circle of light.

“Who comes?” shouted Jim.

“Brazos,” came the harsh retort.

Then in the flare of fire Britt recognized the striking figure of his favourite cowboy. Laigs Mason, who got up, was the only one to stir. Brazos stepped off. With a few swift violent pulls he loosened the cinches, then one powerful sweep of arm flung saddle and blanket to the ground. Slipping off the bridle, he slapped the wet horse, to send him cantering off in the darkness.

“Pard — you all right?” queried Laigs, haltingly. At that moment there emanated from Brazos something inimical to approach. He tossed his sombrero at Mason and stood bareheaded beside the fire, over which he held lean brown hands that quivered slightly. His fair hair stood up, shining like a mane. His face appeared ghastly grey, out of which slits of glittering eyes swept over his comrades.

“Aw!... So you’re heah — Cap,” he jerked out, in colourless voice.

“Howdy, Brazos,” replied the foreman.

Laigs approached to place a hesitating hand on his friend’s arm.

“Hey, you — ! Lay off!” exclaimed Brazos.

“Thought thet wing hung kinda funny. Hope it ain’t broke.”

“Gun-shot. Nothin’ much. But sorer’n a burnt thumb.”

“Pard, you look peaky. Ain’t you hungry?”

“I don’t know, Laigs. But I haven’t eaten anythin’ since I left.”

Britt interposed with a dry query: “How aboot whisky, Brazos?”

“Nary a red drop, boss,” replied the cowboy, wildly.

“Three days? Gosh!” ejaculated Laigs, with concern. “You must be starved.”

“I can’t eat, pard.”

“But Brazos!... You gotta try. I’ll rustle some soup — an’ a biscuit.”

“Got the makin’s — anybody?” asked Brazos, hoarsely.

“Hyar, cowboy. Jest rolled one,” replied Skylark, sitting up. “Ketch.”

He flipped the cigarette accurately, but the nervous Brazos failed to catch it in the air. Stooping, he picked it up, and at the same time a bit of half-burned stick, with which he lighted it, and puffed clouds of smoke. Then he sat down on a pack, and with expulsion of deep breath appeared to relax. No one spoke to him. Laigs, who brought a plate and cup, handed these to Brazos without speaking. The cowboy took a few more pulls at his cigarette, then spat it out. He sat motionless a moment, gazing into the fire. Then he seemed to remember the food and drink which he held. But at first they must have been tasteless and repellent, for he could hardly force them down. At length, however, hunger manifested itself, and he ate what Laigs had fetched him.

“Brazos, lemme see your arm?” asked Mason.

“Get some hot water. You’ll have to soak my sleeve off. It’s all caked.”

Britt’s heart warmed anew to this wild youth. Yet on the moment dismay dominated his feelings. Brazos was no uncertain quantity: his actions could be fairly well forecast. Britt got up to stroll away into the darkness, revolving in mind what to say to Brazos. And he recalled the last argument he had had with Holly anent the managing of these cowboys. Britt seemed to feel that the time was ripe to put her plan to a test. Returning to the camp fire he found Brazos stripped to the waist, his slender powerful white torso shining in the light. An ugly red bullet hole showed in the upper part of his left arm. Britt bent over to scrutinize it closely. It was a superficial wound.

“Clean as a whip, boss,” said Mason, deft and business-like. “It won’t be nothin’.”

Brazos sat indifferent to pain, if he felt any, intent on the fire. Britt resumed his seat. Skylark appeared to be the only curious one, though he did not manifest this vocally. As always, Britt was amused and thrilled by these cowboys. Of all western types he admired them most. He had vision to see that they, more than trappers, traders, gold-seekers, freighters, soldiers, and pioneers, should be given the glory of being the empire builders. With the buffalo-hunters, who were going to subjugate the Indian and drive him into the waste places, these cowboys, with their rolling herds of cattle, would be the true and great freers of the West.

“Wal, Brazos, it won’t hurt you none to talk,” drawled Britt, mildly, after a long interval of silence.

“Cap, now I’m back again with the ootfit, it ain’t easy to say what I had in mind,” replied Brazos, soberly.

“Shore, I savvy. But I’m leavin’ pronto, an’ I reckon you might as wal get it off yore chest.”

“Did Laigs tell you I quit my job?”

“No.”

“Jim, did he tell you?”

The tall cowman shook his head as he removed the cigarette from his lips. “Laigs talked a heap, but he didn’t tell thet.” Brazos turned to the comrade who was bandaging his arm.

“You — !”

“Pard, you’d quit before more’n onct an’ come back. So I jest kep mum about it,” explained Mason.

“Dog-gone! I used to ride with boys thet you could depend on,” complained Brazos, bitterly.

“What’d you quit fer, Brazos?” asked Britt.

“‘Cause I knowed you’d let me oot if I didn’t quit.”

“Wrong, cowboy. I wouldn’t let you oot, no matter what you did.”

“What’s thet?” demanded Brazos, swiftly, as for the first time he turned from the fire to face Britt.

“You heahed me, Brazos.”

“But I don’t savvy.”

“Wal, since you been oot on this round-up, Miss Holly has laid down the law to me. I convinced her that we had the greatest ootfit of riders ever got together under one brand. But the hell of it was to hold them, to make them pards, to stand one an’ all loyal to her.... Brazos, an’ the rest of you — listen. Miss Holly took that responsibility off my hands.” Every cowboy sat up, cigarette suspended, eyes intent on Britt in the firelight. Brazos’ stern pale visage worked with a voiceless question.

“You bet, boys, Miss Holly has a big idee. She sees these bad times abaid. She knows she’s dependent on her ootfit. You all know she could sell oot fer a million, leave this hard range, an’ go live a life of luxury an’ comfort. But she won’t do it. She is Ripple’s daughter, an’ she’ll carry oot his dream of a great cattle kingdom. To do thet she must have such an ootfit as I have roped in heah. I reckon Miss Holly cares a heap fer you-all, collectively an’ singly. Yore bad record don’t phase her. Wal, every last one of you knows in his heart whether he’s worthy of thet or not. But what concerns her now is not yore past, but yore loyalty to her.”

“What’s she mean — loyalty?” queried Brazos, hoarsely. “Wal, mebbe this will explain. I called you boys Rowdies of the Saddle. Thet was Kurnel Ripple’s name fer his ootfit. But Miss Holly doesn’t like it. She calls you her Knights of the Range.... I reckon there ain’t a one of you so ignorant thet he never heahed what a knight is.... Wal, loyalty means you’ll stand by her in these bad times, fight to save her rancho, her herd, an’ if necessary — die for her.”

“My Gawd!” burst out Brazos, as if to himself.

“Miss Holly is boss of this ootfit an’ you’re beholden to her,” went on Britt, driving his appeal home. “I cain’t let any of you go. An’ she wouldn’t. She doesn’t care what you do so long as you’re loyal to her.”

“Cap, thet means not to steal from her — not to stand fer a pard double-crossin’ her!” queried Brazos, with ringing passion.

“You hit it plumb centre, Brazos.”

“Cap, I did,” cried Brazos, poignantly.

“Did what, you locoed cowboy?” demanded Britt, fiercely. “Don’t tell me you stole from Holly Ripple!”

“Stole? Me! — God, no! But Dillon stole an’ I ketched him. I made him swear never to do it again. I trusted him. Stood fer it! Never told you! An’ the — low-down skunk double-crossed me.”

“Tell Miss Holly. She will forget thet, Brazos.”

“But thet wasn’t loyalty.”

“Not to her. But it was to Dillon. Mark my word, cowboy, she will forgive you. But tell her yourself.”

“I hate to, wuss’n poison. But I will.”

“Fine!” ejaculated Britt, with intense relief. By that he knew Brazos would reverse his decision to quit. The cowboys settled back to more comfortable positions. Laigs Mason finished his task of bandaging, and helped Brazos get back into his spirit. Conversation lagged again. All this excitement and talk without a word about the fate of Mugg Dillon! Jim ordered the Mexican lads out to guard the remuda. The noisy coyotes ventured close to camp, to snarl and snap over bones thrown away by Jose. Wolves bayed out on the range and the bawling of cows attested to the merciless carnage enacted out there. The night settled down black and starry. Britt felt that he must start for the rancho. Yet he liked to linger there around the camp fire, among these hard-faced youths. Meanwhile he watched Brazos, trying to read that worthy’s mind.

“I forgot, Jim,” suddenly Britt spoke up. “Rustle oot this week an’ then home. Thet’s my orders to all the men.”

“I was wonderin’,” replied Jim. “Next Wednesday week is the anniversary of thet great party Kurnel Ripple gave Miss Holly nigh on three years ago. We ain’t heahed nothin’, but I reckon the party will come off. This would be the third.”

“It’ll come off, bigger’n ever,” Britt assured Jim. “Some of you was there last year. Wal, this time Miss Holly is givin’ a dinner to her ootfit before the party.”

“You don’t say?” ejaculated Jim.

“There!” shouted Laigs Mason, suddenly vehement, shaking a finger in Brazos’ face. “I told you. Now you’ll miss thet grand purty.”

“Miss nothin’,” growled Brazos. “Shore I quit. But I’m gonna ask Miss Holly to take me back.... She wouldn’t have it without me.”

“Haw! Haw!... If you ain’t the conceitedest cowhand on this range!”

Britt got up to join in the laugh that broke the restraint and established something of a genial’ atmosphere once more. He took advantage of the moment.

“Wal, somebody fetch my hawse. I’ll be rustlin’.”

“Boss, shall we send someone with you?” asked Jim.

“Brazos, do you want to come?”

“Aw!... Not just yet.”

“Wal, never mind then, Jim.” After a moment, as he stepped to his horse, which Santone had led up, Britt gazed hard at his crippled cowboy.

“Say, Brazos, I reckon I’m to figger thet bullet-hole in yore shoulder jest happened you know — oot of a clear sky,” he drawled.

“Cap, I don’t get shot oot of a clear sky,” retorted the cowboy.

“Wal, then?” But there did not seem to be an answer forthcoming. Brazos stiffly arose to his lofty height. Then Britt launched sharply at him: “Did Mugg Dillon shoot you?”

“Hell no! — Thet hombre never even got his gun oot,” replied Brazos just as sharply, and with that he stalked away from the camp fire.

Britt had his answer. His glance at Jim corroborated his interpretation of Brazos’ curt reply. A cold wrench tugged at Britt’s vitals. Dillon had been a fine rider, a good chap, except when under the influence of strong drink. The bottle and evil companions had ruined him. A common story on the ranges! Britt sighed as he mounted.

“Adios, boys,” he said. “Keep yore eyes peeled, an’ rustle in on time.” Then he rode out into the dark, lonely, melancholy night.

It was Holly Ripple’s bad luck — and Britt averred that anything untoward for Holly simply multiplied itself for him — to have an east-bound caravan, a troop of dragoons, two tribes of trading Indians, and a band of trappers, all arrive at Don Carlos’ Rancho the week-end before the great party.

This would have augured ill at any time, but the fact of Holly’s cowboys all riding in, after a month out on the range, made the situation unmanageable.

The Horn brothers, traders, had always contested the Ripple right to the land upon which their post was situated. Holly objected strongly to the saloon and gambling-hall they maintained, but she did not want to force them off or interfere with their business because there were many advantages in having the trading-post and store near at hand. Caravans and stage-coaches all stopped overnight at the post. Britt had always advised Holly to make the best of it, and so far only ordinary brawls had been the outcome. But this was different. Britt was mightily concerned. All three of his outfits had ridden in late on Friday, and they had clamoured for their wages. He had the money to pay them, but was afraid to do it. With Holly’s annual party only a few days away he was at his wits’ end to meet the situation.

Saturday morning Britt had breakfast and a conference with Holly, after which, fortified by her forceful instructions and the money for her riders — both of which he intended to keep to himself if possible — he strode valiantly into the big bunk-house. This was a long structure of adobe, with kitchen and storeroom at the back, and in front a single hall-like room, running the full width of the house. It contained twenty-odd bunks in rows of three, one over the other, built out from the wall, very roomy and comfortable. A huge, open fire-place centred the back wall. From a rough-hewn rafter hung a large lamp, under which stood an enormous table.

As Britt entered, the room appeared to blaze and roar at him. Red blankets and every variety of colourful cowboy accoutrements, and a score of clean, tanned, freshly-shaven faces, leaped at Britt. His entrance, however, stopped the babel of voices.

“Mawnin’, men,” he said, cheerily, and gazed around the room, trying to be casual. The cowboys sat and lounged and lay everywhere. Brazos, as usual, was the centre of observation, and this time it was in the middle of the floor, where he sat cross-legged like an aborigine. The ruddy-faced Beef Talman inclined his large bulk on the table; Stinger, pale but brighteyed, dangled his bow-legs from a bunk; Cherokee, the Indian, leaned straight and dark against the stone mantel; Handsome Gaines straddled a chair.

Before Britt could survey half of his outfit, Brazos, in his inimitable manner, claimed attention.

“Cap, what the hell do you think of a cowboy who throws his sombrero on the floor, hangs up his spurs an’ sprawls aboot with two heavy guns hangin’ low on his thighs?”

That was a long speech for Brazos. A dancing devil beamed from his blue eyes. Britt had only to hear him and get one glance at his fair and brazen face to know that Brazos was in his happiest and most bewildering mood.

“Wal, I reckon thet cowboy is some oot of the ordinary,” replied Britt, with a laugh. “Sounds Texan to me. Who you mean, Brazos?”

“There’s the dog-gone hombre,” rejoined Brazos, pointing. Renn Frayne sat in a chair, tipped back against the window-seat. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and for the rare moment a slight smile gave charm to his leonine features. The whole outfit, except Brazos, had taken to this outlaw. He had been a cowboy for years; he possessed all the qualities that cowboys admired or revered or strove to attain; and his notorious renown sat lightly upon him. Britt caught a twinkle in the half-shut grey eyes, and he felt anew that Frayne was vastly more than what he had claimed to be — a lone wolf of the ranges. He liked the young, fair-haired firebrand, and he understood him.

“Brazos,” he began, coolly. “The way you asked Britt that sounds friendly. But really it’s not. It’s a slur. You’re always giving me a dig. I must rub you the wrong way.”

“Yu do, Frayne,” replied Brazos, flushing as red as an embarrassed girl. Frayne had at last called his bluff.

“All right. That’s frank. I’m glad you came out in the open. You’re always bragging about putting the cards on the table. Just why do I rub you the wrong way? Can it be because I always pack two guns — that I am Renn Frayne — and you, like an ordinary fool cowboy who’s quick on the draw, want to try me out? I’d be ashamed of you for that. And I don’t believe it. You’re a wild youngster, Brazos, but you are genuine. I like you. I never did you a wrong, or even hurt your feelings, which I know are damned sensitive. So come out with it. What have you against me?”

“Wal, Frayne, since you push me — not a — thing,” rejoined Brazos, with a hint of contempt for himself, as if he had been driven. “I reckon I’m a cross-grained cuss.”

Britt felt that he alone understood Brazos’ strange antipathy for Frayne, and that the cowboy had lied. Holly Ripple’s only too evident interest in the most notorious of her men was responsible for it. Frayne, of course, had no inkling of this, and Brazos imagined his secret was safe. Britt welcomed the byplay and hoped it would clarify the atmosphere.

“Brazos, the last thing we want in this outfit is a disorganizer,” went on Frayne, earnestly. “You never were that kind of a cowboy. I trailed cattle for ten years. I know the game. I know cowboys. And I’m telling you that never again in the West will there be an aggregation such as Britt has gotten together to ride for Miss Ripple. The day will come when you’ll be proud of it. I’m proud now to be one of you. Like Britt, I see what’s coming. We’re older, Brazos, and we look forward. There’s just going to be bloody hell on this range. Some of us will stop lead. But our outfit must not break up from internal strife. It must not, Brazos. Can’t you see that?”

“I see it better’n I did,” said Brazos, the blue flame of his eyes on Frayne, as if to pierce through the man’s cool, earnest mask. “Shore we mustn’t fight among ourselves.... Frayne, I’ll come clean before the ootfit. I apologize fer naggin’ you. But don’t misunderstand thet naggin’. I never had no hankerin’ to mix draws with you, Frayne. Not me!... An’ heah’s my hand, if you’ll shake.”

Frayne’s chair crashed to the floor as he moved to meet Brazos half-way. The meeting of this gunman and cowboy held more for Britt than the smoothing out of a rough discord in the outfit. The cowboy’s subtle search for a motive behind Frayne’s impassive refusal to be insulted, for his eloquent appeal for harmony, struck Britt as singularly thought-provoking. Brazos had the keen intuition and perspicuity of a lover. Why should Renn Frayne, one of the marked bad men of the plains, prove so strong and eager to keep Holly Ripple’s great outfit of cowboys intact? As Frayne never looked at Holly, or spoke to her unless addressed, as he had never sat at her famous table or been in her house, and as his indifference had become so marked as to excite comment among his com-panions, it followed then that his stand was simply that of a man.

“Brazos — Frayne,” sang out Britt, happy for whatever had corrected this rift, “I’m shore glad to see you shake hands. An’ I’ll bet the ootfit is, too.”

“Boss, give us some pesos an’ we’ll go drink to them, an’ to an outfit thet can’t be busted now,” called out some cowboy unseen by Britt. The voice sounded like Rebel McNulty’s, young brother of the famous Captain McNulty, of the Texas Rangers.

“He coppered the trick, boss.”

“Wager a whole month back before we rode out.”

“Britt, we’re plumb busted.”

“Aw, come on, Cap, an’ be a good fellar. We all need boots an’ pants.”

The clamour grew until Britt threw up his hands.

“Boys, I have the money right heah, but..

That was a blunder, as Britt deduced by the ensuing uproar. Nevertheless he waved them back and held his ground until they quieted down.

“Wait! — Brazos, Frayne, Jim — I leave it to you. Is it safe to shell oot yore wages jest four days before Miss Holly’s party?”

“I reckon so, Cap,” grinned Brazos, slyly.

“No,” declared Frayne.

“Boss, I hate to have this pack of range dawgs snappin’ at me, but dog-gone if I’d pay them till after the party,” added Jim, vehemently.

But these few older heads availed nothing against the young bloods who were hot to spend, to buy, to drink, to gamble. Britt, driven to succumb against his better judgment, drew a chair up to the table, and hauled forth rolls of greenbacks and a handful of gleaming gold.

“Listen, you dumb-haids!” he yelled. “Miss Holly made me take this money. I didn’t want it fer another week. But she insisted. ‘Pay my cowboys,’ she said. ‘But tell them thet if any one of them comes to my party drunk I’ll never speak to him again!’... There! Thet’s the kind of mistress you have. Do you want yore wages now?”

“Who’s gonna get drunk?” asked the irrepressible Brazos, with his beautiful smile.

“Line up, then, an’ let’s get it over,” called Britt, slapping the table. “With two months’ wages comin’ you can all afford to pay each other what you owe.”

Brazos got his first, and with the gleeful face of an imp, he clanked for the door.

“Hyar, Brazos,” bawled Laigs Mason. “You owe me ten pesos.”

“Chase him, Laigs,” said Britt, as he paid the cowboy.

It was noteworthy that the brothers Tex and Mex Southard, half-breed vaqueros, asked for only “Cinco pesos” each; and the lithe Cherokee, with a smile breaking his sombre bronze, said: “Me take ten dollar.” When they had all rushed out, eager as boys released from school, Britt discovered Frayne leaning on his knee, with his foot up on the window-seat. He was watching the cowboys make down the slope for the village.

“Frayne, come get yore money,” called Britt. “What was yore wages?”

“Miss Ripple did not speak of any,” rejoined Frayne, as he turned. “She just asked me to ride for her, and I agreed.”

“Shore. She overlooked it. Thet’ll annoy her. But I won’t tell her.... How much, Frayne? I’m payin’ the cowboys forty. Jim gets more, an’ so I reckon you should, bein’ older.”

“Suppose we just pass the wages up.”

“What?” queried Britt, dumbfounded at the idea of a cowman not wanting his wages.

“I have plenty of money,” returned Frayne, his voice cool, his face impassive. “My needs are few. I’m through with drink and cards. So never mind wages for me, for the present, anyway.”

“Miss Holly won’t like thet,” declared Britt dubiously.

“You won’t tell her.”

“But Frayne!... See heah, man, you’re not gonna ride away on us?”

“I gave my word.”

“Excuse me, I forgot.... But it’s not regular.... Frayne, have this your own way. I don’t savvy you, atall. Think a heap of you, though. Thet was sure fine of you to slap it on our smart-alec Brazos. You jest hit me right. I’d like to get better acquainted with you.”

“Well, why don’t you?... I’ve an idea, Britt. These boys will go on a tear. Some of them will be drunk for Miss Ripple’s party. I won’t go myself, but I’ll see they’re all sober. I’ll get Cherry to help me. The day of the party we’ll hunt out every drunk or drinking cowboy, and dump him into the creek. It’s cold as ice. Then we’ll tie them in their bunks.”

“Frayne, you do have idees,” drawled Britt. “Thet’s a darn good one. It’ll work, an’ Miss Holly will be tickled.... But what’s this aboot yore not goin’ to her party?”

“I’d rather not, Britt.”

“Why in hell not?”

“Look here, old timer, do I have to tell you that? I’m no roistering cowboy. I’m a man with enemies. This rancher, Sewall McCoy, is one of them. He made an outlaw of me. And he’s the crookedest cattleman I ever knew.”

“Hell you say,” snapped Britt, deeply stirred. “Thet’s news, most interestin’! But what’s it got to do with yore comin’ to Holly’s party?”

“McCoy might come. Everyone on the range is invited, you know. Or some other enemy of mine might bob up.”

“Ah-huh. An’ you’d have to draw?”

“I would. Even at Miss Ripple’s table.”

“All right. We’ll chance it. You’re comin’. I won’t see Holly hurt.”

“Nonsense, Britt,” ejaculated Frayne, his composure broken. “How could it possibly matter to her?”

“Wal, it does. Yore attitude to Holly has already hurt her.”

“How do you know that?”

“I knew before she told me.”

“Vain little Spaniard,” declared Frayne, with heat. “Britt, are you sure you understand your mistress?... I’ve heard all about her affairs. Don’t get me wrong, old timer. Miss Ripple is as good as gold, as proud as her mother, as fine as the Colonel must have been. But she’s a spoiled girl. She is a flirt. She is like a princess. She wants all these cowboys to adore her, bow down to her. Well, I won’t do it. I daresay she made a sort of hero out of me. But I’m no hero, nor a romancing cowboy to be made eyes at. I’ve forgotten who I was, but I’ll never forget what I am. Is that plain, Britt?”

“Plain as print,” retorted the foreman. “You figger Holly right, as she was. But thet girl has changed lately. I wouldn’t swear it’s permanent. An’ I wouldn’t swear you had all to do with it. Only you shore had somethin’.... An’ I’m remindin’ you, Frayne, thet so far as her respect fer you is concerned, an’ mine, yore past doesn’t count. I’m remindin’ you thet this is New Mexico in seventy-four with hell aboot to pop heah. What we need oot heah is men. What Holly Ripple will need sooner or later is a man. She’s blood of the West. A few years now an’ this wild frontier will slow up. If you live, an’ if you air loyal to Holly — which means turn yore back square against yore past — you’ll have as good a chance with her as Brazos or any other cowboy. An’ from cowboys Holly Ripple will choose her mate!”

Frayne turned aside a slightly paled face to bend it while he lighted a cigarette.

“Old timer, why do you tell me that?” he inquired, with voice a little deepened.

“Wal, I’m concerned fer Holly’s happiness. Since she came home from school she’s had a dozen flames fer boys, like a Mexican senorita. But they never lasted. Whatever sbe feels aboot you, it’s different. Mebbe she’s jest piqued at yore indifference. If you know women atall you’ll understand thet.”

“No man can understand a woman. Still, you may be right. She might be young enough and crazy enough to be piqued. I doubt it. But no matter what she feels — I am an outlaw — a gunman with a bloody record that must grow bloodier before this West sees any law. The odds are all against me living that long.... Now do you see my side, Britt?”

“Yes. An’ I reckon you’re right,” replied Britt, gruffly. “All the same, you come to Holly’s party — at least thet dinner she’s givin’ fer the ootfit.”

“Very well, Britt, if you put it that way.... I’ll come.”

CHAPTER V

ONCE OR TWICE each spring of late years the trappers would come down out of the mountains with the Indians to sell their pelts.

Horn’s Post had seen the day when thousands of them came to barter. But the glory of the trapper had faded long ago. Perhaps a score of white men, and a hundred red men, comprised the motley crew which visited Don Carlos’ Rancho that Saturday in early June. The trappers were a greasy, bearded, rollicking lot; and the Indians a hungry, silent crowd with the prospect of the reservation in their sombre eyes. The beaver were almost gone from the mountain streams.

Britt was one who sympathized with the red man. He sensed the romance of Carson’s day, when the eastern demand for beaver hats made the fur hunters rich. Indians never depleted any natural resource. But the white trappers were the advance guard of that greedy army of adventurers who must strip the streams and hills.

Across the half-mile-wide trail from Horn’s Post, a large flat adobe structure, cracked and crumbling of wall, was the Indian encampment. Ponies and dogs, squaws in their beaded and fringed buckskin, braves lolling on their coloured blankets, a few tepees of painted hides, packs and pelts and fires — all these gave the old Texas Ranger a sad inkling of the past. Below the village in the wide bend of the creek the grey groups of prairie-schooners, the droves of oxen and horses, the movement of burly teamsters, somehow harmonized with Britt’s conception of the past glamour of the trappers’ era. The day of the caravan, too, was passing. In a few more years, when the steel rails reached Santa Fe, the great white rolling ship of the plains would be gone.

On Britt’s way to the trading-post he encountered an army sergeant who hailed him as an acquaintance. Britt remembered the ruddy Irish visage, but could not place the man. They chatted. The sergeant belonged to Gen. Mackenzie’s Fourth U.S. Cavalry bound for Fort Union and other points in southeastern New Mexico and Texas. They were making trails, and expected some hard Indian campaigns in the near future.

“Did you travel west along the Old Trail?” queried Britt, ever eager to add to his information of the day.

“Yes, from Fort Lyon,” replied the sergeant.

“How aboot movement of cattle?”

“Shure more than last summer. Las Animas reminds ye of Dodge.”

“Wal, you come up fer supper an’ tell us all aboot it.”

Before Britt got much farther on his way he was accosted by a young man whose apparel proclaimed him not long in the West, and whose dissipated face told the common story of many a tenderfoot.

“Are you Captain Britt, foreman for the Ripple ranch?”

“Yes, I’m Britt. What can I do fer you?”

“My name’s Taylor — Lee Taylor. I’m from the south. Miss Ripple will remember me. She knew my sister. I used to call at their school.”

“Ah-huh. Come in from Santa Fe?” asked Britt, casually, studying the young man. Long used to reading faces, he reacted unfavourably to this one.

“Yes. Up from El Paso.”

“Hawse-back, caravan or stage?”

“Came in the stage.”

“Had kinda a rough time, eh? What you want of me? A job ridin’?”

“No. I’d like to borrow some money. Don’t want to call on Miss Ripple in these rags. I’ll get money from home eventually.”

“Wal, I’ll ask Miss Holly aboot you. An’ if she knows you, why shore, I’ll help you oot.... Come in heah an’ meet the ootfit.”

Britt led Taylor into Horn’s saloon. At first glance he thought all his cowboys were there lined up at the rude bar. Brazos met him, surprised at his entrance and curious as to his companion.

“My Gawd, boss, air yu lost?”

“Say, Brazos, cain’t I take a drink myself once?... Heah, meet Lee Taylor, from the south. Says he knows Miss Holly.... Taylor, this is Brazos Keene.”

Britt conveyed a good deal more with a look than by words. He had no compunctions in turning the stranger over to Brazos. If Taylor was all right, which he certainly did not look, Brazos would grasp it quickly. Britt was getting tired of strangers imposing upon Holly’s generous hospitality. Lascelles was still up at the ranch-house, to Holly’s annoyance and Britt’s helpless rage.

“Wal, dog-gone! Another old beau of our Lady’s,” drawled the devilish Brazos. “Come on, Mister Taylor, meet the ootfit.... Cap, will yu have one on me?”

“Don’t care if I do. An’ I’ll set them up once, anyway.”

“Gosh, fellars, the world’s shore comin’ to an end. Heah’s the boss, an’ he’s thirsty.”

“He looks guilty to me,” declared Skylark, with a keen grin.

“Boys, meet Lee Taylor, from the south,” announced Britt, glad to relinquish the stranger to the tender mercy of his cowboys. And he lined up with them, amused at Skylark’s perspicuity. In truth he had more than one sense of guilt. Frayne had always had the power to excite him, thrill him, upset him; and the colloquy in the bunk-house weighed hauntingly on Britt’s conscience. His feeling had gotten the better of his judgment, which seldom happened, and never except pertaining to Holly. He needed a bracer. On Frayne’s account he was glad to have had the talk. It gave more light on this fascinating complex outlaw. But it might have been a hasty and inexcusable exposure of his own conjectures. His love and concern for Holly often led him to impulsive speech. On the other hand, when he cudgelled himself with reproach, he had, to uphold him, certain acts and words of Holly’s. If he could have been cold and calculating they might have betrayed more. As it was, he feared Holly liked this indifferent Renn Frayne far more than was good for her happiness. In view of Frayne’s attitude, which Britt felt bound to admit was honourable and fine, a wild and hopeless infatuation on Holly’s part would be deplorable.

Britt partook of a good stiff drink, and then he had another. They stimulated him to the extent of eradicating the oppression of vague trouble that had weighed upon him.

As Britt shook off the happy Brazos and turned to go out he met Ride-’Em Jackson, the negro of the outfit, with Bluegrass and Trinidad, two more of his cowboys.

“Boss, we is sho lookin’ fer yo,” declared Jackson.

The red-headed Trinidad, and the sharp eagle-eyed Bluegrass, hailed Britt with glad hands, and both gabbled at once.

“You needn’t squawk at me,” said Britt, producing his roll of bills. “Come over heah.”

“Boss, doan gimme all dat,” objected Jackson, his black face and rolling eyes ludicrously expressive. “Dis hyar Goge Washington Jeffersun Jackson sho nebber could keep it me dan ten minnits.”

“Good, Ride-’Em. You got sense in yore woolly haid,” declared Britt. “Jest ride in?”

“Dis hyar minnit. An’ I’se got news.”

“Bad news?”

“Yes, suh. I reckon — orful bad fer Missy Holly.”

“Hawses?”

“Yas, suh.”

“Wal, report to me at the bunk-house in half an hour.”

Britt went out through the trading-post, lingering to watch the unaccustomed scene. Perhaps the most interesting place on the frontier was a trading-post during a big day. Dance-halls, gambling-halls, and saloons had more of raw drama and wildness of the period, but the trader’s emporium had the life, the vividness, the atmosphere and business of the West. Here Mexican pesos and American silver dollars jingled on the counters, and rolls of gold coins went into the greasy buckskin of the trappers. Lean, half-naked, befeathered, and painted savages sat and lounged around the great barn of a room, waiting to market their packs of hides. A dozen or more rugged white trappers held the floors, haranguing like auctioneers. Horn Brothers were close buyers. They knew these trappers dared not ship consignment of pelts east. And the trappers, earnest, desperate, knowing their day was past, argued with bulging jaws for a living wage. Fat squaws and comely maidens, with their coal-black shining hair hanging down their backs, fingered the dry-goods and gazed longingly at the coloured candy. Counters were piled high with merchandise; rows of shelves sagged under the weight of countless cans; the odour of tobacco vied with that of dried pelts. A swarm of flies buzzed in the warm air.

Of late a habit of procrastination had grown upon Britt. He was conscious of it, believed that in a measure it was deliberate. He hated to think — to get down to facts and figures. If he had been alone, with only that bunch of fire-eating cowboys, if he had not the responsibility of Holly’s future on his hands, he could have revelled in the near prospect of the cattle crisis.

Repairing to the bunk-house, he jotted down his payments to the men, and then figured carefully details of the two cattle drives he would advise Holly to sanction right after her party. The rise in price of beef was unprecedented, and it had two sides, one of them cardinally serious.

Presently Renn Frayne sauntered in leisurely, thoughtful of brow and smouldering of eye.

“Howdy, cowboy. Whar you been?” asked Britt, closing his account book.

“Didn’t you see me trailing you around?” was the laconic answer.

“Nope, I never did.”

“Cap, you are a worried man?’

“Hell yes.”

“I don’t blame you. It’s Miss Ripple, of course. An old Texas Ranger like you wouldn’t wink an eyelash about cattle or rustlers, or a tough outfit.”

“Shore. It’s Holly — bless her heart! I’m the only Dad she’s got.... What’d you see down at the post?”

“Getting lively. By to-night it’ll be going strong. Reminds me of Dodge and Hays City. But tame.”

“So you know Hays, eh? Ever run up against Wild Bill?”

“I saw Bill shoot five cowboys in a row, across the street, and he never got a scratch. But they were drunk and had buck-fever beside.”

“I used to trail-drive up oot of Texas. Them was the days.

Dodge ‘peared the wust town to me.... Wal, everythin’ is haidin’ west. We’ll think we’re back in Kansas pronto. Jackson has some bad news fer me. It jest keeps on comin’.”

“Britt, was it a good plan to draw all your riders in off the range?”

“No. Miss Holly’s orders.”

“It’ll cost her plenty.”

“I’m not so shore, Frayne. Everybody inside of a hundred miles will be heah. It’s an open invite, you know. Old Kurnel Ripple’s idee.”

Ride-’Em Jackson came trudging in to interrupt them. Walking did not appear to be his best method of locomotion. His shiny black face was wet with sweat.

“Hyar I is, boss.”

“Set down, Jackson, an’ get it off yore chest.”

“Yas suh,” he returned, with hesitation, rolling his eyes at Frayne. “Howdy, Marsh Frayne. How yo is?”

“Shoot, Jack. I’m able to help Cap bear up under your bad news.”

“Boss, dem hosses was gone.”

Britt cursed under his breath, though he had expected no less. It was not the loss of a score and more of good stock so much as verification of the closing in of a net about Don Carlos’ Rancho. Since the Heaver raid all of the Ripple thoroughbreds had been driven into the pastures and corrals. This bunch of many remaining out on the range had been left in Cedar Draw, an out-of-the-way place.

“We tracked ’em tree days, an’ den we gibe up,” went on the negro.

“Hawse-thieves, of course?”

“Yas suh. Dey sho nebber runned off by demselves. De tiefs rode shod hosses. Blue an’ Trinidad disagreed wif me aboot how many dey was. I made oot fo shod hosses, an’ one of dem was a little hoss carryin’ a heavy man.”

“Which way did they go, Jackson?”

“To de souf. We tracked ’em till we could see Seven Rivers. Den we reckoned we’d better mosey back.”

“Ha! I rather snicker you reckoned correct,” retorted Britt, sarcastically. “Frayne, do you know the Seven River country down on the Pecos?”

“No. Only by hearsay.”

“Wal, thet’s Chisum country. The old reprobate. Boss cattleman of the West! An’ boss cattlethief, too! He laughs an’ owns up to it. Frayne, I reckon Chisum has his Long Rail brand on a hundred thousand haid of stock.”

“No!” ejaculated Frayne, incredulously.

“Des thick as bees, Marsh Frayne,” corroborated the negro. “I rode for Chisum an’ I knows.”

“Wal, Jackson, I hope thet’s all.”

“Yas, suh. But it ain’t, suh. I sho ain’t tole yo nuthin’ yet.... Fust camp we made comin’ back Chisum’s top ootfit rid down on us. We sho was scared, boss. But dey wuz friendly. A plumb dozen riders, boss, an’ Chisum’s top riders. I knowed ‘em. I’d rid with dem. Russ Slaughter was haid of dat ootfit. Only ornery Slaughter in all dat Texas familee.... Wal, Russ tole ’em dey had quit Chisum. Dey wuz goin’ in de cattle game demselves. Russ says, ‘Jack, what yo want to ride fer thirty dollars a month when yo can git a hundred?’ — An’ I asks Russ how. An’ he says dere’s half a million hed of cattle in de country an’ no law. Railroad market payin’ forty dollars a hed, an’ government buyers givin’ ten an’ no questions ast.... Russ talked till he was red in de face. We sho didn’t want to tro in wid dem an’ we was sort of flabustered.”

“Jack, thet was a fix. How’d you get oot of it?”

“Wal, suh, I says to Russ— ‘Yo knows I’se turned ober a new leaf, an’ I’ll be dawg-goned if I’ll quit. Missy Ripple has been good to me an’ I sho gonna stick.’... Blue an’ Trinidad talked like one man. Dawg-gone they did! An’ they says, Tse not gibben up providin’ a husband fer Missy Ripple.’... Russ looked ugly an’ talked ugly, which I ain’t gonna squeal to yo-all.’Cept he said, ‘Say, if all you heah boot the little lady is so, dere’s a chance fer any hombre to grab dat million.’”

“Ride-’Em, what did Blue an’ Trin say to that?” quietly asked Frayne.

“Marsh Frayne, you know Blue. Thet Kaintucky boy got kinda pale, but he kept mum. Russ hed been hittin’ de bottle, an’ anyway, he wuzn’t acquainted wif Blue. I was scared ‘cause it looked like Blue might bore him. But Trinidad he got red-der’n a beet an’ busted oot, ‘The — hell yo say?

Shore yo come ober to Don Carlos’ Rancho, an’ try dat game yoself, Russ Slaughter.’... An’ Russ laughed kinda mean. ‘Why not?’ he says. ‘If niggahs, Injuns, ootlaws, all hev a show with Holly Ripple, then sho a white cowman can buck his luck. We’ll come to de party an’ look yo all over.’... Den dey rode off an’ Blue hed a hell of a time keepin’ Trin frum trowin’ his rifle on Slaughter. An’ we rustled home. Dat’s all, boss.”

“Jackson, keep yore mouth shut aboot this,” replied Britt, authoritatively. “Hurry back to Bluegrass an’ Trinidad an’ tell them my orders air they’re not to tell the ootfit.”

“Yes, suh. I’se rustlin’, suh,” replied the little negro, and bolted out of the door.

“Frayne, what you think of thet?” queried Britt, meeting the outlaw’s piercing grey eyes.

“It never rains but it pours.”

“Slaughter’s ootfit will come, shore as Gawd made little apples. They’ll use Holly’s party as a blind to look over the lay of our cattle. I don’t know what could be wuss than their quittin’ Chisum. I remember Maxwell tellin’ Kurnel Ripple why he was sellin’ oot. He knew.”

“Britt, didn’t you get the significance of that nigger’s report?” asked Frayne, cuttingly.

“Hell yes!” retorted Britt, heatedly. “Thet aboot Holly.... I’ve heahed it before. But Frayne, these hard-nut range-riders have vile minds an’ vile mouths. If only Holly would get married! Thet’d stop all this crazy courtin’ an’ gossipin’.... Slaughter will come an’ he’ll have the gall to make up to Holly. Thet needn’t bother us. She can take care of herself. But if Blue or Trin get drunk they’re liable to squeal what Russ said aboot Holly. If Brazos heahs it! — He’ll draw on Russ at fust sight.”

“Why Brazos?” queried Frayne, with cold detachment. “Why not Blue? Or someone else?”

Britt gave Frayne a sharp glance and threw up his hands. He paced the floor for a few minutes, while Frayne leaned in the doorway gazing out.

“Frayne, gimme yore angle on this idee,” spoke up the foreman, presently. “After Holly’s party I’d like to drive all our cattle on this side of Cottonwood Creek, an’ hold them fer a while heah in sight of the ranch. Then cut oot as big a bunch as would be safe to drive to Las Animas. An’ do the same in the fall.”

“I’d advise that very thing. Only we can’t drive all the Ripple stock along the Cottonwood. But if we bunched the cattle closer and put out a night-guard we would cut down rustling. And I’d say the more Miss Ripple sells now the less she’ll lose.”

“My sentiments. I’ll advise thet strongly.... Now, Renn, I’m lookin’ to you fer help. Our problem is to hold these cowboys. Can we do it? What effect will Russ Slaughter’s quittin’ Chisum have on them?”

“You may pay the penalty of hiring the riff-raff of the ranges. They’re most bad, these cowboys, and some of them as bad as Slaughter. I’d say in the ordinary run of things your outfit would break under this deal. Then, of course, you’d suffer an enormous loss, perhaps ruin. It has happened before.”

“I savvy thet. We must make this oot of the ordinary.”

“There’s a chance Miss Ripple might reach those boys so all hell couldn’t change them. You know cowboys. Tell her to double their wages and give them freedom. Put them on their honour. I know that’s funny, Britt. But do it. If they can be made to see that she relies on each and every one of them to beat these rustlers and save her rancho — why, it’s as good as done.”

Britt cracked his hands together with the sound like a pistol-shot.

“Renn, thet night at the supper, will you have a talk ready fer the boys?” flashed Britt.

The outlaw waved the proposition aside.

“Unbeknown to Holly, I mean,” went on Britt, eagerly. “She’s preparing a talk. Of course she’ll call on me, an’ perhaps Brazos, though if he knowed it, he’d die of fright. But you can, Renn, an’ I’m appealin’ to you. Surprise Holly an’ the whole ootfit. I declare I’d never get done thankin’ you.”

“Old Timer, you are back to the wall,” said Frayne, with his rare smile. “I’ll do it, Britt. I’ll take the hide off these cowboys.”

Sunday was a lonesome day for the foreman, who likened himself to an old hen that had lost most of her brood of chickens.

Frayne, Tex and Mex Southard, Santone, Ride-’Em Jackson, and Cherry were around when Jose called them for meals. But the rest of the outfit had succumbed either to liquor or games of chance, or, according to Santone, to both these failings of cowboys. Britt did not have opportunity to consult Holly about his plan to drive a big herd of cattle to the railroad. Holly was engrossed with the details of her coming party and dance, especially with the speech she intended to make to the cowboys. She was going over her books, and her father’s papers and correspondence.

Britt kept track of the boys through Santone and Jackson, and by patrolling the beat between the bunk-house and the corrals and the crowded Mexican street with its concentration around Horn’s place. Nothing of any moment had occurred in the way of brawls. The cowboys were jolly and prodigal of their two months’ wages.

On Monday the east-bound caravan pulled out with its wagons about half-loaded. The departure of sixty-odd teamsters thinned the ranks of the crowd. But before that day had advanced far the vanguard of visitors to Don Carlos’ Rancho began to arrive. By Tuesday, which was the date for the great fiesta, the ranch-house was full of guests from all over the surrounding country. San Marcos, Cimarron, Raton, and Lincoln were represented to the extent of practical desertion of these frontier towns. Sewall McCoy rode in at the head of his con-tingent of cowboys. Various groups of hard-faced, intent-eyed men arrived to keep to themselves.

About noon on Tuesday Britt thought it high time to inaugurate the proposed treatment of cowboys under the influence of liquor. It developed that Frayne and Cherokee would not want for help. Skylark, who had marvellously sobered up on Monday, and Talman, Stinger, and Jim all wanted to be in on the ducking of the inebriates. Cherry and Santone hitched up and drove a big wagon into the village, where Frayne and Britt were ready to receive them. Bluegrass and Trinidad were carried out and dumped into the wagon. Rebel and Handsome Caines were located, and hilariously took the proceedings as a ride in their honour; Flinty and Tennessee had to be tied hand and foot, a procedure which brought a frightful chorus of profanity. The triumphant cowboys in charge drove toward the bunk-house, followed by a crowd of whites, Indians, and Mexicans.

Brazos Keene and his faithful Laigs had been dead to the world for many hours. They were rudely awakened and hauled out of their bunks.

“Wot you hombres up to?” Brazos bawled, furiously. They promptly roped him and carried him out like a lassoed bull.

“Boss, wot ya gonna do?”

“Brazos, you forget the party to-night.”

“No I didn’t neither,” he protested. “Me and Laigs come home early last night.”

“Wal, you’re too shaky to suit this vigilante ootfit.... Pile him in, boys.”

“ ——  — !” roared Brazos, “I’ll kill somebody fer this.”

Laigs Mason was more complaisant.

“Wasser masser?” he asked, stupidly, leering around at his captors. “Wash Brazos raisin’ — hell aboot?”

“Laigs, come oot. We’re takin’ you on a little hay-wagon ride.”

“Dawg-gone!” babbled Laigs, staggering between Britt and Frayne. “Shore nice of — you fellars.... Brazos, no cowboys ever hed sich frens.”

“Haw! Haw!” yelled Brazos, fiendishly. “Laigs Mason, you’ll wake up pronto.... All yore fault. Didn’t I want to come home? — Jest one more little drink!”

“Rustle Cherry,” ordered Britt, climbing up on the seat beside the driver. “Down over thet stony flat to the creek.... Drive like hell.... Frayne, you boys keep ’em in the wagon.”

Cherokee drove the wagon at a gallop over ground covered with loose boulders. If cowboys hated anything it was to be jolted. They were bumped and tossed about. When one of them tried to jump or fall out he was promptly thrown back by Frayne and his allies. That ride down to the creek was hard enough even for sober cowboys who could hold on. Cherry drove down upon a gravel bar to the edge of a green, clear pool about three feet deep.

“Brazos first,” yelled Britt.

They dragged the flaxen-haired cowboy out of the wagon and threw him in. Brazos went under, and then bounded up with incredible speed.

“Aggh!” he bellowed. And the shock was so great that upon plunging back he went under again. Floundering and rolling, he got up to wade out, like a drenched shivering dog, and as sober as be had ever been in his life.

“Come mon, Laigs. Take yore medicine,” he shouted, bouncing around on the bar.

When they rolled Laigs out upon the gravel he sat up with his solemn blinking eyes beginning to show some intelligence.

“Wash thish, boys?”

“Grab hold and swing,” called Frayne. Britt and Santone and Skylark also laid hold of the cowboy, one to each arm and leg, and they swung him, once, twice, three times, then let go. Laigs was small and light. He went far, and fell with a tremendous splash. And when he came up like a spouting porpoise his breathless yell was echoed by the ruthless captors. That water must have been as cold as ice-water. Laigs made terrific haste to plunge out. When he got ashore he was sober, and madder than a wet hen.

“I’m g-gonna cut out s-somebody’s gizzard,” he shivered. He presented such a ridiculous figure that the cowboys yelled in glee.

“Take those guns,” called Frayne, as they dragged out the limp Bluegrass.

“Frayne, how’s Blue goin’ to take this?” queried Britt, dubiously. “He’s from Kentucky, you know!”

“He’ll take it wet,” declared Frayne, with grim humour. “In with him, boys.”

Bluegrass went in like a sack of lead and sank likewise. As he did not immediately burst up with a great splash, Britt yelled frantically for Brazos and Laigs to drag him out.

“S-say, I — I wouldn’t wade in thet water even fer you, boss,” declared the Texan, laboriously climbing into the wagon.

“Laigs! Pull Blue oot! Rustle!”

Whereupon the obliging Mason plunged in and rescued Bluegrass, pulling him out on the bar, where he presented alarming symptoms of unconsciousness.

“He’s all right,” declared Frayne. “I’ll look after him. He’s coming to now. Throw the rest of them in!”

Splash! Splash! Splash! went the remaining cowboys in succession; and with their bawls of shocked sensibilities and the infernal glee of Skylark and his helpers, they made the welkin ring.

Britt forgot to keep track of Brazos and Laigs. But in a moment more they made their presence known. Brazos lashed the horses and drove them at break-neck speed off the bar and up the slow slope.

“Wait fer us, boss,” yelled Brazos, from the wagon-seat. “We’re gonna come back with another load.”

“Stop!” replied Britt, in stentorian tones.

“Go to hell, Cappy, you an’ your baptizers,” shouted Laigs, gleefully. “We’ll be back.”

“Wal, Brazos turned the tables on us. We’ll have to walk,” declared Britt.

“I’ll bet he’ll come,” said Frayne. “We’ll have to wait till Blue recovers.”

“Aw, Brazos will be heah pronto. Didn’t you see thet devil in his eye? He’s shore up to suthin’.”

It developed that Bluegrass must have opened his mouth under water and had almost strangled. Frayne rolled him on his face, pounded and pumped his body, until signs of life returned. His pale features took on a shade of red, and he opened his eyes to stare at the faces bent over him.

“There, you’re all right now, Blue,” spoke up Britt, with relief. “Airyou sober?”

“I reckon.... Who thought I needed a bath?”

“We all did. Brazos an’ Laigs got theirs fust. Look at Trin, an’ the rest of yore pards.”

But Blue did not laugh. He sat up shivering. “Whose idee was this?”

“Mine,” rejoined Britt, fearing the reaction of this hot-blooded Kentuckian.

“He’s a liar, Blue,” spoke up Frayne, with a laugh. “It was my idee. I’ve seen it worked before.... You forgot we were all to be sober for Miss Ripple’s fiesta to-night. I was afraid some of you boys wouldn’t be. So we ducked you.”

“Frayne, I’m holdin’ you responsible.”

“Sure. But don’t be a damn fool, Blue,” returned the outlaw, easily. “Take a joke when it’s on you.”

“Joke hell! I’m froze. I’m a bag of ice-bones. I’ll catch numonia an’ die.”

“All you need is a rub-down and a sleep. Then you’ll be fine.”

“I’m gonna call you out for this,” said Bluegrass, doggedly. Britt silenced the cowboys who were about to remonstrate with Blue. He divined that Frayne was equal to the occasion. “Blue, that’d be a poor return for the favour I’ve done you.”

“Favour! — Jest what favour, Mister?”

“Why, sobering you up. And saving your good name with Miss Ripple. If you get sore I’ll have to shoot your arm off — or worse if you get ugly. That would put Miss Ripple against me. I was only working for her, for your good, and for all of us.”

“I don’t care a damn,” yelled Blue, now red in the face. But he did care. “You gotta sbow me you can beat me to a gun.”

“Blue, we took yore guns off an’ you bet we’ll keep them,” interposed Britt. “Swaller yore medicine, boy.”

“Did you duck Brazos?”

“Wal, I should smile we did.”

“An’ how’d he take it?”

“Yelled murder. But he stole the wagon, an’ drove off, leavin’ us heah to shank it back.”

Bluegrass gazed from his partner Trinidad to the other shivering cowboys, and his face began to work.

“Dog-gone-it! Do I look like them?”

“Wuss. You lay in the mud. An’ you better let me wipe it off.”

“All right.... Frayne, I lay down. But I’ll play some orful trick on you, by thunder!”

“You’re welcome, Blue,” replied Frayne, heartily. “I knew you were a good fellow.... Boys, you all want to take this to heart. If we don’t pull together as an outfit, like brothers, like men with their backs to the wall, Miss Ripple will be robbed poor. And we’ll be disgraced in our own eyes for ever.”

Skylark called from the bank: “Brazos’s drivin’ back, hellbent fer election.”

The cowboys, except Frayne and Blue, trooped behind Britt up the slope, all voicing anticipation. Sure enough there came the bouncing wagon behind galloping horses and leaving a cloud of dust.

“Wonder who thet son-of-a-gun has got?” demanded Britt, with vast curiosity.

“I’ll bet ten bucks I know.”

“Gee, look at thet wagon!”

“Boys, you can gamble Brazos would figger up suthin’ great.”

“Thet hombre always laughs last.”

To Britt’s amaze the horses did not fall and the wagon did not break to pieces. Brazos, whooping, his face like that of a red imp, drove down and slowing the team, brought them with a fine flourish to a halt on the wide bar. He leaped out. His audience was not slow in reaching the tail-end of that wagon. Britt saw Laigs Mason astride a man dressed in black. There was another man in the wagon. Brazos laid hold of his heels and hauled him out to drop him on the sand, like a sack of potatoes. This personage was Lee Taylor, whose visage attested to a debauch.

“Heah yu air,” sang out Brazos, and with a remarkable exhibition of strength he lifted Taylor aloft, above his head, and giving vent to an Indian yell, threw him into the pool. Whatever the Southerner’s condition on the moment of hitting the water, it was certain that when he lunged up in a great splash and floundered ashore he was not under the influence of anything but exceedingly cold water.

Blue of visage, shaking as one with the ague, drenched and dishevelled, Taylor fronted Britt.

“S-so this is h-how you let your ruffianly cowboys treat a gentleman?”

“Only fun, Taylor. An’ at thet you needed it,” replied Britt, dryly.

“Say, who’s a ruffian an’ who’s a gentleman?” queried Brazos, menacingly. The diabolical fun in him suffered a blight. Britt quietly pushed Taylor back to the rear.

“Let him up, Laigs,” shouted Brazos.

Britt wheeled in time to see the gambler, Malcolm Lascelles, arise clumsily from the floor of the wagon. His frock-coat and flowered vest were spoiled by contact with dust. His wide, flat-crowned sombrero was not in evidence. His handsome face was streaked with dirt and distorted by rage.

“Step oot, Mister Lascelles,” invited Brazos, sarcastically. Lascelles jumped down, his action proving that his equilibrium was not perfect.

“Britt, what’s the meaning of this outrage?” he demanded. “I don’t know, Lascelles. We treated Brazos an’ Mason to a duckin’. They stole the wagon an’ drove away. Why you’re heah I don’t savvy, but it wasn’t from order of mine.”

“Damnable outrage!” fumed Lascelles. “These drunken louts of yours—”

“Take care, Lascelles,” interrupted Britt. “I warn you.”

“But this range is free. A man has a right to his liberty.”

“Shore. But there’s no law heah. An’ if a man doesn’t measure up to what the frontier expects, he’s liable to lose not only freedom, but life.”

“You’re one with your crew,” snarled Lascelles, malignantly. “I am Miss Ripple’s guest — an old friend — and you dare insult me.”

Brazos stepped up. “Boss, I reckon this is my deal,” he interposed coolly.

“It shore is, Brazos. But you’re sober now. Use your haid.” Laigs Mason edged his ludicrous little misshapen form in beside Brazos. His homely face expressed an untamed and unabatable fidelity to his partner.

“Don’t weaken, Brazos. This caird-sharp stinks of rum.”

“Shet up. Lemme do the talkin’ heah,” snapped Brazos, and then he fastened those piercing half-slits of eyes on the gambler.

“Lascelles, my idee was to duck yu along with yore southern gent friend,” said Brazos. “Reckon I don’t often explain my actions toward any hombre who makes me sore. But I’m tell-in’ yu. Miss Holly ast us to be sober to-day. Thet’s why Frayne an’ Britt hashed up this duckin’ idee. Wal, it is a plumb good one — an’ I’ll be ——  — if I’m gonna let her see yu at her party drunk—”

“I’m not drunk,” protested Lascelles.

“Aw, you’re a liar. Yu been drunk fer a week. Right now, as Laigs heah swears, yu stink of rum. An’ my idee was to give yu a cold bath. Gonna take yore medicine?”

“No, you heathen rowdy. Don’t you dare lay another hand on me.”

“Ah-huh.... Wal, my idee grows a little,” returned Brazos, with a cool insolence that Britt had learned to gauge. “I jest happened to remember how yu fleeced Laigs oot of half a month’s wages.”

“I did not. My game is square,” declared Lascelles, stoutly, though he paled slightly. No doubt he had been long enough on the frontier to find out what was meted out to crooked gamblers.

“How aboot it, Laigs?”

“Pard, I couldn’t swear I seen him, ‘cause my eyes was pore,” admitted Mason, frankly. “But Sky seen him hold oot on me, an’ Ride-’Em seen him, too.”

“Boys, is thet so?”

“Yes, it’s so,” declared Skylark, curtly.

The little negro rolled his big eyes till the whites showed. He was reluctant. He remembered the southern attitude towards his race. But he was also loyal.

“Brazos, jest how slick Mistah Lascelles is I dunno. But I sho seen him pull tricks thet Laigs hisself can pull when he’s sober.”

“Lascelles, now what?”

“You’re a Texan. Can you believe a nigger against a white man?”

“Yu bet yore life — when I know the nigger. Jackson isn’t a liar. Cowboys don’t lie — when they’re in earnest.”

“You’re as low-down as they are,” retorted Lascelles, yielding to a passion that perhaps did not rightly interpret the cowboy’s coolness. “That’s the last straw, you take a nigger’s | word to mine. I’ll shoot him. And I’ll recommend to Miss Ripple that she discharge you.”

“Fine. You’ll get a long way, ‘specially with thet first bluff,” rang out Brazos. Then with incredible rapidity he launched a terrific blow upon Lascelles. Following a sharp, solid crack the gambler fell backward to measure his length in the pool. All save his head went under. In contrast to the others who had been immersed in that icy current, his motions were slow and deliberate. When he strode ashore, his right hand inside his coat, all the cowboys except Laigs sheered to either side of Brazos. Britt himself leaped instinctively out of line. All saw Lascelles’ white supple hand close round something which could only be a gun. Gamblers seldom packed a gun on their hips, but they always had one, or a derringer, up their sleeves, or inside the coat, concealed but easy to draw. And there stood Brazos and Laigs, unarmed.

“Look oot!” warned Britt, reaching for his weapon, which he had left on the table in the bunk-house. The moment was terrible. Out of a clear sky the thunderbolt!

‘‘Lascelles, don’t draw!”

Even the maddened gambler stiffened at Frayne’s voice. Britt suddenly relaxed with a strong revulsion of feeling, and the sweat broke out all over his cold skin. And he knew what to expect before he turned. Frayne leaned back against the wagon with a gun levelled low.

“Let go.... Come out.”

Lascelles’ hand dropped limply from under his coat, and with a repulsive face, dirty grey and livid white, he stepped out of the water.

“Hawses comin’,” shouted Brazos.

In the soft sand of the bank a group of horsemen had drawn close without being heard by the tense spectators or participants in that drama.

“Russ Slaughter I” added Bluegrass, trenchantly.

Britt swept his gaze from Frayne and Lascelles. At least ten or more riders were heading down under the cottonwoods, with a swarthy leader in front. Several more horsemen hung back on the bank with a string of pack-mules. Slaughter at the head of his followers walked his horse leisurely down on the bar, far enough to take in the situation. Then as Frayne stepped out from the wagon Slaughter halted so sharply that his companions’ horses collided with him. Like so many range-riders, Slaughter had the visage of a beast of prey. It would have been impossible to determine his motive, but to be on the safe side Britt gauged him as an enemy. Frayne could be trusted to read this man the same way.

“‘Scuse us fer ridin’ in on you,” drawled Slaughter. “We seen the wagon as we wus crossin’ above... Howdy, Blue.

... Wal, there’s my ole nigger cowboy, Jackson.... An’ Trinidad too, wet as a drowned rat.... I take you, sir, to be Britt, foreman of the Ripple outfit.”

“Yes, I’m Britt, but you’ll excuse me fer the minnit.”

“Who are you, rider?” queried Frayne.

“I reckoned everybody had heerd of Russ Slaughter, an’ would shore know him on sight.”

“Never heard of you,” returned Frayne, curtly. “Would you mind shutting your jaw until I get through with this card-sharp?”

“Wal, it’s none of my bizness, but I don’t like your talk.... I reckon you’re this coal hand, Frayne, huh?”

“If you don’t like my talk — lump it,” deliberately rejoined Frayne, with the nerve of a man who had no fear.

“Yeah?” returned Slaughter, insolently. His oscillating red eyes had swiftly grasped the general absence of guns in that group, except in Frayne’s case.

“Lascelles, you’re played out here at Don Carlos’ Rancho,” said Frayne. “If your card-sharp tricks weren’t enough, your gall in taking advantage of the Ripple hospitality and using it to press your absurd suit upon Miss Holly would be. Send for your pack and get out. That’s all.”

“An’ see heah, Lascelles,” added Brazos, passionately. “Yu seen I hadn’t a gun. Yu’d shot me but fer Frayne.... Wal, — yore cheap soul, go fer thet gun next time we meet.”

“Lascelles, thet’s clear enough,” interposed Britt, forcefully, wanting to lend his authority to this expulsion. “I advise you to leave pronto.”

Lascelles flung his hands with a gesture of hopeless rage and impotent defeat. Then he started to stalk off, his back to Frayne, who still held that ominous gun forward.

“Hold on,” called Slaughter. Then he addressed Frayne and Britt. “If you’re through, I reckon you’ve no objection to my talkin’ to this Lascelles?”

“Wal, it’s a free country,” answered the foreman, not heartily.

“Who air you, stranger?” asked the Chisum cowman, fastening hard eyes upon Lascelles.

“My name’s Lascelles. I’m from Louisiana.”

“Gambler?”

“I play cards for pleasure.”

“This fellar Frayne called you a card-sharp.”

“He’s a-a-er... That’s not true. The cowboys lost and put up a job on me.”

“What’s thet talk about your imposin’ on Miss Ripple?” queried Slaughter, with a crackling laugh.

“More balderdash,” retorted Lascelles. “I’m a guest here. Everybody in the West knows of the Ripple brag. AU welcome! Stay as long as you like! No man ever turned away from that Ripple door! — That would be enough. But I knew Holly Ripple in New Orleans.... We were sweethearts. Her father took her away. I got here finally to try to win her back. And these jealous—”

“Stop the — liar!” burst out Brazos, flaming of face.

“Wal, by — , that’s interestin’,” drawled Slaughter. “I’ve heard a sight aboot thet little lady. Sweet on you, Lascelles?”

“Yes, she was.”

“Jest what you mean by sweet?” went on Slaughter, his evil mind betrayed in tone and look.

Brazos’ harsh appeal to Frayne caused Lascelles to turn, and suddenly he read something in Frayne’s menace that the arrival of the Slaughter contingent had disrupted.

“No gentleman ever kisses and tells,” he responded.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!... But come out with it, Lascelles.... Hell no! — Keep yore mouth shet.”

Frayne had taken a forward stride, his gun going to a level with his eye. It quivered and froze.

“Another word about Holly Ripple and I’ll shoot out your teeth,” hissed Frayne.

“Lascelles, you’ll need your teeth,” interposed Slaughter, as cool as if disaster did not impend. “You can keep — all thet fer my private ear.... How’d you like to throw in with my outfit? We’re footloose. Got plenty of money an’ big deals on buyin’ an’ sellin’ cattle.”

“I’ll do it,” choked out Lascelles.

“You’re in. Come on. Send fer yore pack an’ camp with us to-night,” rejoined Slaughter, motioning his men back and wheeling his horse. He turned in his saddle.

“Britt, I’ll see you at the fandango,” he said, jeeringly.

The foreman was glad indeed that he did not have a gun on him.

“Frayne, we’ll meet again,” called Slaughter, from the slope. The outlaw’s piercing gaze did not leave the retreating Lascelles until he passed out of sight with the horsemen under the trees. He might not have heard Russ Slaughter’s taunting last call.

Brazos’ first move, after being relieved from that restraint, was to boot the southerner in the rear. “Taylor, get oot. Go along with them. An’ Gawd help yu if yu run into me again!” The frightened young man, ashen of face, and dripping water from his bedraggled garments, hurried up the slope to disappear in the direction of the village.

“Brazos! You’re plumb loco!” remonstrated Britt.

“Who’n hell ain’t? — Mad? I’m so — mad I could bite nails. Look at Laigs, heah! He’s spittin’ fire, but he cain’t talk. Look at Frayne. White in the face, by Gawd! Look at yourself, boss. You’re green. All ‘cause we got ketched with our pants off. No guns! — Cap, if yu ever rustle my gun again, fer any reason whatsoever, I’ll hate yore guts.”

“I’m sorry, Brazos. But cool down. Mebbe it’s better we weren’t packin’ our hardware. What do you say, Renn?”

“Britt, I haven’t swallowed so much in years,” replied the outlaw, breathing heavily. “I’d say — let’s never be caught unarmed again.”

“Boss, you’ll bust the outfit wide open,” claimed Mason. “Course we-all know it’s on account of Miss Holly. What you-all say, fellars?”

“You needn’t vote on it,” interrupted Britt, harshly. “My fault! Old Ranger thet I am — thet girl makes me wax in her hands. But boys, she’s no squeamish woman. She’s got guts. She’s just afraid some of you cowboys will be shot.”

“Shore she is, bless her heart!” rang Brazos. “But we’re gonna get bored anyhow. An’ I want my guns an’ my chances.”

“Boys, after this you’re wakin’ an’ sleepin’ arsenals,” ordered Britt, grimly.

“Whoopee!” bawled Laigs Mason.

“All the same, we’re gonna use our haids,” concluded Britt.

Brazos turned to Frayne and thrust out his long arm and quivering hand. His boyish face lost its tense cruelty and bitterness in a warm and beautiful smile.

“Shake, Renn.”

The outlaw made haste to comply, for once somewhat flustered.

“Yu saved my life. Thet gambler would have bored me. I seen murder in his eye.”

“Struck me that way,” rejoined Frayne, as Brazos wrung his hand. “Bad mess. I was afraid Fd have to shoot Lascelles. Slaughter’s an ugly, contrary cuss.”

“He didn’t quite savvy yu, Renn,” went on Brazos. “But I did, shore. An’ I was itchin’ to line up beside you.”

Britt placed a clasping hand on the grip of the two men. “Thet should make you friends.”

“Pards, if Renn will have it,” replied Brazos, his strong, wild spirit visible in his blue eyes.

“Brazos, I would only be too glad. But—” Frayne’s piercing grey eyes, fine and glad yet doubtful, strove to read the cowboy’s mind.

“There ain’t no buts — leastways no more.”

“Frayne, take him up. Brazos is a true blue Texan,” interposed Britt, in earnest zeal. “Cement this proffered friendship. It’ll save the ootfit.”

“Frayne, I never had one damn thing against yu — but — but—” and here Brazos hesitated and grew as rosy as any girl.

“But! There you are, Brazos,” replied Frayne, hastily. “I know what it is, you darned locoed cowboy! I’ll take your word.... Don’t give yourself away in front of this bunch of hard eggs!”

“I shore will, Renn,” retorted Brazos, recovering his cool ease. There was something winning about him then. “I never had a damn thing against yu — but — but this.... Fust off I was afeared Miss Holly I-liked you better’n me. An’ now I know it.”

“Brazos! — You sentimental jackass,” retorted Frayne, his anger vying with other and more powerful feelings. An unfamiliar ruddy tinge showed under his tan. “You are wrong.... But I appreciate what it cost you to come clean like this.... I’m with you for life, cowboy.”

“Laigs, yu pop-eyed geezer,” ejaculated Brazos, roughly, perhaps to hide more emotion, “shake hands with our new pard, Renn Frayne.”

CHAPTER VI

HOLLY HAD BARRED herself in her room for an hour’s relaxation and rest after the long preparation for her party. This day was the third anniversary of this event inaugurated by her father on the occasion of her birthday. She was twenty years old; she was wondrously happy about innumerable things and unhappy about only one.

There came a knock on her door, accompanied by Britt’s familiar voice: “Holly, don’t disturb yoreself. But you ordered me to report.”

“Yes, Cappy.... Oh, I hope..

“All’s well. The cowboys air sober, fine, happy like a lot of colts, an’ shore prancin’ aboot.”

“All of them?” called Holly, with eagerness.

“Lady, thet applies to every single last one of the ootfit.”

“Thank Heaven!... And you, Cappy?”

“Shore. But you’ll have to thank Renn considerable,” drawled the foreman.

“Renn?” thrilled Holly.

“I said Renn. Thet’s Frayne’s first handle, you know,” replied Britt, with a touch of dry humour.

Holly hesitated a moment, conscious of a suspension of breath, and a heat in her cheeks.

“Why must I thank — Renn?”

“Wal, I’ll tell you some other time. Adios, senorita.... Be shore you’re not late.”

She heard his clinking steps pass through the living-room, and out on the path. Holly sat up on her bed, dreamily stirred, aware that the last hour was at hand, and then arose to gaze out of her window. The sun was tipping the high mountain wall in the West. Splendour of scene and glory of colour held Holly enraptured. The open range rolled away from Don Carlos’ Rancho, a wild and purple world, so vast that the specks of cattle, the threads of roads and trails, the dots of distant ranches and towns appeared lost in an immensity of space. The sun sent shafts of gold down upon the white peaks. Long scattered stretches of cloud, like islands of rose in a golden sea, lay above the bold horizon. All the shadows under the clear bulk of the mountains were of an obscuring purple. And even while Holly gazed it seemed that the purple sheen was encroaching upon the gold-red empire of grass, softening, enveloping, changing with magic alchemy.

The loveliest sunset of the year, so far, Holly thought, had come upon her birthday, as if to honour her party, and remind her of the incomparable beauty of New Mexico. Below the ranch-house the Mexican village, the wide flat between it and the cottonwood-bordered creek, bathed in the glow of sunset hues, glittered and flashed with the activity of the most colourful day of the year on that range. At the village it was fiesta day. Indian camps, cowboy camps, ranchers’ camps, covering of a wagon-train shone brightly gold; horses grazed everywhere, as if that grassy flat was a huge pasture; far out along the creek the dark spots of outlaw and stranger camps, significantly far apart, attested to the drawing power of the Ripple invitation to all.

When Holly’s father had inaugurated this annual entertainment, which was merely a grand festival embodying the principles of hospitality that he had held for years, conditions on the range had been very different. The one drawback now, Holly admitted, was the presence of many undesirables who came out of curiosity or for other motives inimical to the courtesy that made it possible for them to be present. Some day, much as Holly hated to think of it, she would be compelled to change her father’s hospitable policy. It was Britt, supported by Clements, Doane, Haywood, and other ranchers with experience and standing on the frontier, who was accountable for this drastic change in Holly’s mind. She had never dreamed, until lately, that she could ever go against her father’s wishes. Another factor was the annoyance, not to say actual distress, fostered upon Holly by fortune-hunters such as Lascelles, and that ne’er-do-well brother of a schoolmate, Lee Taylor, both of whom had made her virtually a prisoner in her own home. Then there were others, Westerners, especially Sewall McCoy, whom Britt called Holly’s rival rancher, who had been persistent in flattering but most unwelcome attentions since their arrival at the rancho.

Holly cast all thought of them aside, as well as doubts about this annual birthday fiesta. Then she thought of Renn Frayne, and that was different. Britt had used the outlaw’s first name, Renn! Holly liked the sound of it. She recalled that she had put its owner out of her mind of late. But this time she seemed to surrender to Britt’s insidious hint. Frayne had somehow subdued those wild cowboys. Holly left her window. She paced the floor. There hung the exquisite gown, with its soft folds of Spanish lace, which she must be putting on presently. Would Renn Frayne like her in that? No! — Would he even see her? Long had Holly’s pride suffered over his indifference, all to no avail. The more proof of his callousness to her beauty, the more he fascinated her. Holly had a sudden attack of honesty. It was no use to lie to herself any longer. Would Renn Frayne admire her in the beautiful gown? Would he ask her to dance? It shocked Holly to realize that for her the success of this long-prepared-for party depended upon the response of an outlaw, whose notorious fame had gradually dawned out of the eastern ranges. For weeks past she had feared that her feeling for Frayne was actually and dismayingly serious. Then, not long ago, had come a climax, a change that caused her as much shame to recall as when it had first burned over her. One day, riding up to Horn’s Post, she had gone in to encounter Frayne most obviously attentive to Senorita Conchita Velasquez. There were several pretty girls in the village, but Conchita was by far the prettiest, as well as the most seductive and irresistible. All the cowboys, even Brazos, had run after her, and it was Holly’s opinion that the dusky-eyed maiden, like the majority of her soft-voiced, voluptuous kind, was not absolutely unattainable. Holly had reproved Brazos for dallying with Conchita. It had seemed a far stranger, and somehow stingingly shameful thing to catch Renn Frayne flirting with the girl. Holly had ridden home furious with herself, thinking one moment that she loved Frayne and the next that she hated him.

“But Conchita is distractingly pretty,” mused Holly, now trying to be fair to Frayne, as she had been to the other cowboys. “She’s a seductive creature. If I were a man I’d be crazy about her.... But Frayne — Oh! he wouldn’t—”

Holly dared not go on with this thought, for she divined that to do so would result in the realization that Frayne might very well find Conchita as attractive as the other cowboys apparently found her. And this was a contingency Holly felt she wanted to escape, not that she could not be woman enough to excuse Frayne, but that it must lay bare the mysterious and mounting tumult of her own heart.

“Quien sabe? My party to-night may tell me much,” soliloquized Holly, soberly. “So much that I may never give another.”

Whereupon she admitted her maid Roseta, and called Ann Doane, who with her father was a guest at the rancho. Ann was a buxom girl of seventeen, rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed, a daughter of the frontier. In the pleasant bustle that ensued, the introspective and troublesome thought went into abeyance.

“Ann, how many of your beaux will be here?” asked Holly, michievously.

“Laws! All of them, Holly,” ejaculated Ann, with a giggle. “And I’m shore scared stiff.”

“Why? You should be delighted.”

“Holly, I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it secret,” whispered Ann, tensely.

“Of course I promise.”

“It’s this, Holly. Oh, it’s awful to confess.... Last night I — I promised to marry Skylark.”

“What? — My cowboy Skylark?” exclaimed Holly, in delight.

“There’s sure only one — an’ he’s the hombre.”

“Ann! — How perfectly splendid! I’m happy to hear it. I congratulate you. Skylark is one of my — my steadiest boys.”

“Well, you know, Holly, that isn’t so terribly steady,” rejoined Ann, sagely. “Sky is all right. I’m not flustered about his bad habits. I’ll settle them.... What worries me is that I took up with him before I ended off with some other boys.”

“Dear! That is awful. Ann, you don’t mean any other of my cowboys. Not Brazos?”

“Not that flaxen-haired devil! Or I would be scared. Brazos never no more than chucked me under the chin once, an’ said if I got lonesome he’d ride over. These other boys are from over our way — an’ well, they’re not crazy aboot any of the Ripple ootfit. There’ll be a fight, but I swear I’ll keep it from happening here at your party. Holly, I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t.”

“Ann, we women have to forgive much, don’t we?” sighed Holly. “Last year at my party there were three fights — one of which ended in gun-play down below.”

“Shore I remember. But thet’s pretty good, I reckon. Sam Price was not shot seriously. And he shore deserved a licking. You were away so long at school. This is the West, Holly. My Dad says it’s going to be the hellbentenest West thet ever was.”

“So does Britt,” laughed Holly. “I’m trying to prepare myself for war. But I hate the idea.”

“There’ll be war over you to-night, if I don’t miss my hunch,” declared the Western girl. “Holly, you never looked so — so lovely. These hombres will go mad.”

“Do you think so, Ann?” murmured Holly, intrigued by the startling idea.

“I know it. Holly, you’re a year older, different somehow, more of a — a ——  — Oh, I can’t tell you.”

“Ann! You don’t mean this gown. I’m afraid to look in my mirror.... Arms, shoulders all bare! My — oh, I feel naked. It’s an indecent gown, Ann.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as that,” remonstrated the girl, loyally. “It’s cut pretty low. But, Holly Ripple, you’re a grand dame.”

“Ann, if it’s really — so bad — I’ll lose my nerve,” faltered Holly. “I had it made in Santa Fe. I never tried it on. I was afraid I’d try to alter it here. I’ve the dress I wore last year.”

“Holly, you may feel queer when you see yourself, but you can’t never change now. Not for this fiestal... Roseta, what do you say? Doesn’t the Senorita look grand?”

Roseta was volatile, passionate, and incredibly flattering, without a hint of what Holly feared.

“Et ees so, La Senorita, she ees so lovely. And her dress?.. Que bonita! Que hermosa!”

When eventually Holly stood up to view her image in the mirror she uttered a little cry of shocked amaze. Following that came another emotion, one she sought to shunt aside before it dominated her completely enough to make her appearance in this gown impossible. She sustained more girlish vanity than fear, more womanly pride than shame. She soothed the still small voice of conscience which had haunted her, for she knew her father would not have sanctioned this Spanish gown. At that moment she loved her little regal head, with its rich black hair so beautifully and elaborately dressed. Excitement had given her face a pearly pallor. She hardly recognized those dark, turbulent eyes, such indicative masks of her troubled and passionate heart.

For an endless moment she gazed, divided between widely separated impulses, with a strong leaning toward that in her which was American and which her father had fostered and developed. But the throb and beat of her Spanish blood conquered. The flashing thought which swayed Holly was that Renn Frayne should see her thus, cost what such folly might. Then the swift fire of scarlet neck and face stung her with the bitter and terrible truth — she loved this outlaw. An instant later she was as pale as marble, true to the proud Castilian race of Valverdes as well as the indomitable spirit of her pioneer father.

Holly viewed herself anew, with eyes unbiased by a shameful secret.

Her glossy hair, circling in a loose knot low on her neck, and held in place by a huge jewelled comb, appeared almost too heavy for her small head. She had been wise in choosing the Spanish gown of shimmering sequins and ebony lace, if she were bent on conquest as well as to do grace to her ancestors.

When it lacked but a few minutes to the hour for her to appear in the living-room to meet her cowboys, Britt again knocked at the door.

“Holly, how air you comin’?” he asked, anxiously. “The boys air quiverin’ like a bunch of race hawses.”

“All ready, Cappy. Come in,” replied Holly, gaily, motioning to Roseta to open the door. Britt appeared, spick and span in a new dark suit. “How do you like me, old friend?”

Britt’s eyes popped. They expanded to help in a smile that satisfied even Holly’s insatiate vanity. His first effort to speak was a failure. Then he exploded: “My Gawd!... My lass, not only do you make me young again, but you break my pore old heart.”

“Ah! Cappy! Why break?”

“Wal, I reckon with love an’ joy.... You’re changed, Holly. No little girl no more!”

“Thank you. If I please you I shall please them.... Are they all there? I’m intensely curious — and I — I don’t know what else.”

“Holly, you won’t know thet ootfit. They been trained to the minnit.”

“Trained?” asked Holly, eagerly.

“Shore. By Frayne, with me helpin’. But I forgot. I wasn’t to give thet away.... If I don’t miss my guess you’ll think thet ootfit has been used to dressin’ up slick an’ dinin’ off silver all their lives.”

“Darlings!” cried Holly. It would be just like that inimitable Brazos to inspire his comrades to a cool easy nonchalance which no person or no event could disrupt. “Go back now, Cappy. I want to make an effective entrance.... Oh, I feel like a schoolgirl.”

“Wal, you look like an empress,” replied Britt, and went out.

The door let in the commingled sounds of footsteps, gay laughs and voices. Holly heard the twang of a fiddle, the mellow chord of a guitar. Supper for the multitude was to be served simultaneously with that given her cowboys, the former in the dining-room and patio, the latter in the living-room.

“What-have-I-forgotten?” gasped Holly. “Oh, my notes!

... Pray for me, girls.”

When Holly entered the brightly-lighted, brilliantly-coloured living-room to see that group of keen-faced standing men, she received from them, or from some inexplicable source, a welling trenchant emotion that completely vanquished her nervous qualms. Advancing to the head of the table she stood a moment behind her chair, smiling down the lines of intent faces. Frayne stood at her right while Brazos was on her left. Britt’s place was at the foot of the table. Nineteen in all! Holly counted them with eyes that did not see clearly.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said. “If my father were only here this would be the happiest hour of my life. Nevertheless, I am very happy...

Frayne stepped to draw back her chair, and as she took her seat he bent over gallantly: “Miss Ripple, may I say no fairer lady in King Arthur’s day ever sat to do honour to her Knights.”

“Frayne!” Holly’s amaze and delight inhibited the confusion which threatened her poise. Though she blushed she did not otherwise betray herself. “English Knights! Why not the gay Spanish Caballeros?”

Brazos had heard Frayne and was not to be outdone. “Holly, you shore look grand. You make me want to die ‘cause I cain’t have you an’ stay on livin’ just to see you.”

“Flatterers! I’d know you were cowboys if you were strangers and I was blind,” replied Holly, stirred to laughter. And she looked down the lines of shining faces. They were all there, somehow inexplicably dear to her, the sombre Cherokee, the black rolling-eyed Jackson, the vaquero Santone, and the half-breed Southards, her knights as well as the cowboys of her own colour. Holly felt a nameless strength steal over her. The last of the Ripples had no family. These were all she had — her range riders, wild characters from all the wild ranges, and in that hour she loved them.

The long table with its white linen and silver, its burden of fruit and food satisfied Holly’s critical eye. When her guests were seated it was the signal for the Mexican maidens, garbed in their colourful gowns, to enter with steaming dishes. Holly had hoped for comfort and happiness for her cowboys, so used to hard fare in all kinds of weather. She was to have her wish. There was an utter lack of embarrassment, and the cool, devil-may-care audacity of cowboys who had been made to feel at home, to be glad, to be themselves in the presence of their mistress. Their garb differed with an infinite variety, yet all was new. Frayne, like Britt, wore a dark suit with white shirt and collar that emphasized the eastern manner that sat becomingly upon him. Holly had not yet looked directly at his face. Brazos, always strikingly handsome, surpassed himself this evening in a new blue blouse with wide collar, around which he had gracefully knotted a red scarf. He was the only one minus a coat, in lieu of which he wore a new beaded and fringed buckskin vest. It was open, and the left side bulged noticeably. Holly had an instant suspicion.

“Brazos, what have you in your pocket?” she asked.

“Aw Lady!” Then he looked across the table at Frayne. “What’d I tell yu galoots? It jest cain’t be done.”

“What can’t?” asked Holly.

“Foolin’ you.”

“Brazos. Have you a — a bottle or a gun inside your vest?”

“Wal, what do yu think, Holly Ripple?” he queried, fastening those eyes of blue fire upon her.

“I hope it’s a gun,” Holly made haste to reply.

“Don’t you know it is?”

“Yes... but I forbade that, too.”

“Wal, I’m not the only one.”

His gaze directed Holly’s to Frayne, who drew back both lapels of his coat, to disclose the shining black butts of guns, one on each side. “Britt’s order, Miss Ripple.”

“Oh! — You are all armed?”

“Yes.”

Brazos interposed, leaning to speak low. “Holly, we gotta sleep in our hardware from now on. An’ it’s a grand idee.”

“Whose?”

“Wal, Frayne’s fust; ‘cause he always plumb refused to be without his guns, an’ if he hadn’t packed them to-day you’d be conductin’ a funeral ‘stead of a grand party.”

“Brazos!”

But as the cowboy only smiled in his cool exasperating way Holly appealed to Frayne.

“Child, it’s nothing for you to bother about,” he replied with a smile.

“You call me child?” asked Holly, firing. “This is my twentieth birthday. I am your employer.”

“Granted. But, nevertheless,” he rejoined, with a baffling halt and an inflexion which might have meant that his retort proved her to be a child, or that he considered her an adorable one. The latter interpretation made Holly’s face burn and routed her anger. These cowboys were hopeless. Holly beckoned imperiously for Britt. He came swiftly around the table to bend over her.

“Cappy, the two gentlemen nearest me call me a child,” she told him.

“Wal! You don’t say?” Britt returned, not feeling sure whether to laugh or be concerned. “In some ways I’ll back them up. You air a child. But not to-night. This evenin’ you shore air the distractionest woman in the whole wide world.”

“Thank you.... Britt, I discovered Brazos had a gun inside his vest. Then Frayne showed me the butts of two guns inside his coat. Are all the cowboys armed thus?”

“Indeed they air, Holly.”

“But that is expressly against my orders.”

“I know, lass. An’ I’m sorry.”

“Why have you disregarded them?”

Britt stiffened slightly under her unusual severity.

“Won’t you trust me to know what’s best, an’ let me explain some other time?”

“Tell me now.”

“This mawnin’ somethin’ come off thet showed how even an old cowman an’ ranger like me can be too soft,” replied Britt, swiftly. “It was Frayne’s idee, this mawnin’ to — wal, to sober up some of the boys thet needed it. The idee was to haul them down to the creek an’ duck them. All of us left our guns behind ‘cept Frayne. We had a heap of fun duckin’ these sleepy cow-hands. Did they wake up pronto? Wish you had been there, Holly.... Wal, one of these red-head boys took it plumb serious. Mad at fust an’ then devilish. While we was fetchin’ Blue — aw! there I go, givin’ him away — this cowboy an’ his pard jumped in the wagon an’ drove off lickety-cut. An’—”

“That was Brazos Keene and his shadow, Laigs Mason,” observed Holly. She had read Brazos’ serene countenance.

“I didn’t say so.... Anyway, they fetched back young Taylor an’ Lascelles, both the wuss’ fer liquor. Brazos throwed — Oh, Lord, there I go again! — Wal, Brazos throwed Taylor in. But Lascelles turned oot ugly. He wasn’t drunk. I reckon thet gambler doesn’t go so far. He shore resented the ootrage, an’ he made Brazos sore. He made me sore, too, blurtin’ oot thet crazy claim of his on you. Wal to make it short, Brazos soaked him an’ piled him into the water. Lascelles came oot, his face like ice, an’ with his hand inside his coat, where he had a gun. He had seen thet Brazos and Laigs was without guns. We split to get on either side, all except Laigs, who stood his ground by Brazos.... Miss Holly, if it was plain to all of us thet Lascelles meant to kill Brazos, how do you suppose Brazos felt? — But Frayne stopped Lascelles’ draw.”

Britt, evidently having warmed somewhat to this recital, paused a moment, during which Holly turned to Frayne. She might have spoken then, but for a slightly weary or bored expression on the outlaw’s face. Britt had to humour his child employer! He had to tell what men did not tell outside of their circle.

“Jest then down on us rode Russ Slaughter with his Chisum ootfit of hard-nuts. Aboot fourteen strong. He was plumb curious, an’ if that was friendly, I’m oot on my figgerin’. But Frayne shut him up pronto, an’ then proceeded to tell Lascelles he was through at Don Carlos’ Rancho. Jackson an’ Skylark testified thet Lascelles was a card-sharp, who’d stoop to cheat a drink-befuddled cowboy.... Frayne told Lascelles to get oot.... Wal, then Slaughter took a hand at questionin’ Lascelles. I didn’t like this atall, because I could read Slaughter’s dirty mind. We all seen what he was driving at. Lascelles, the skunk, brought up yore name an’ thet flirtin’ he put sich store on. An’ shore he’d have insinuated somethin’ wuss if Frayne hadn’t sworn to shoot oot his teeth, if he opened his trap again.... Wal, thet bluffed Slaughter. He offered Lascelles a chance to throw in with them an’ Lascelles jumped at it. Thet’s all, Holly. I meant to tell you in the mawnin’.”

“Never wait to spare my feelings, at any time,” returned Holly, composedly, though she had passed from hot to cold during this narrative. “Thank you, Cappy. Go back to your seat.”

Holly sat there inwardly shaking. Except for Brazos, and perhaps Laigs Mason beside him, and Frayne, none of the cowboys had apparently paid any attention to this colloquy. They were intent on the most gorgeous repast of their lives. Holly watched them a moment while she fought her emotions.

“Lady, please don’t let thet spoil yore party,” appealed Brazos, earnestly. “It wasn’t nothin’. Course it might have been plumb bad — fer me, if Frayne hadn’t been there. But he was there.”

Brazos’ emphasis of finality seemed to intimate something inevitable about Frayne. Holly’s intuition was swift to catch in Brazos’ look and voice the absence of former hostility toward the outlaw. That warmed away the cold terror and sick confusion within her. Impulsively she laid her hand upon Frayne’s as it rested momentarily on the table.

“Again — Frayne?” she said, without betraying agitation. “You increase my debt.”

“Miss Holly, don’t overrate these things,” he replied, kindly, and he gave her hand a strong pressure, while his hard face softened. “It is a tough job for an orphan girl who had to spend half her life in school. You are game, Holly Ripple. Let this twentieth birthday see your eyes open wide to the violence of this range! Listen to Britt. Let him give us leeway.”

Holly was so strangely affected by the clasp of their hands that she scarcely made coherence of his words. She nodded her thanks. Then she addressed herself to the sumptuous meal, and by forcing her thoughts upon her speech, she gradually drew away from the confounding fact that the mere touch of Renn Frayne’s hand could make her weak.

Evidently the cowboys had been fasting for this supper, or if not they had prodigious appetites. Holly could not deny the evidence of her eyes. Laigs Mason was a little fellow, but he stowed away so much food that Holly feared he would do himself harm.

“Heah, pard, you’ll founder,” whispered Brazos.

“Say, you ain’t passed up some second an’ third helpin’s,” rejoined Laigs, in fierce remonstrance. “I ain’t had nuthin’ yet.”

But there appeared to be remarkably little conversation. Cowboys were not much given to talking even in the bunk-house during the meal hour. At last, however, even Laigs brought his gormandizing to an end. The wine was poured and all the lean faces and keen eyes turned toward Holly.

Holly rose, sure of herself at last and revelling in this crucial hour. The room grew silent. But from the outside came a ceaseless hum of voices and music, of constant tread on the porch and in the patio. A coarse laugh from some rowdy jarred into a Spanish love-song. Holly took time to allow her sweeping glance to rest upon every face at her table. And when she looked up from Frayne’s piercing eyes she seemed shot through with something strong and sweet, a gleam of encouragement to do her best.

“Gentlemen, Westerners, my cowboys:

“In any case I would have addressed you to-night, as I have done twice before, and as my father used to do all the years that he employed riders. But my purpose to-night goes far beyond just a repetition of the Ripple hospitality. It is to make an appeal to you. It is to inaugurate a change in policy of the running of Don Carlos’ Rancho. It is to place clearly before you the certain danger of loss, the grave danger of ruin, which Britt has made me see. Particularly it is to emphasize what a splendid part you are unconsciously playing in the opening of the West. And to tell you what a wonderful thing you are doing for the last of the Ripples.

“Despite what Britt says, I know cowboys. I was born among them. I returned from school with eyes keener to see them, with mind sharper to understand their strange, hard, lonely, violent lives, with heart bigger to forgive, to tolerate, to sympathize. My father called cowboys ‘Rowdies of the Saddle.’ That was a felicitous name. For cowboys are all that the name rowdy implies — wild, rough, bold, often killers, many worthless except to ride and rope and break, yet withal true to that spirit which developed them. The West needed cowboys. The empire of cattle, now in the making, will never be made without you hard-riding, hard-drinking, hard-shooting cowboys. My father did not go quite far enough in his eulogy. That is my happy task to-night.

“But first let me delve back a little into the past of this glorious West, into the history of the ranges. You cowboys of the ‘lone prairee,’ who have stood endless watches in the dead of night, under the white stars, in sleet and rain and sand, in bitter cold and the hot blast of summer, who have ridden from the Rio Grande to the Black Hills, from the big river to this last and greatest cattle-range, who have slept nine out of every ten nights on the hard ground of plain or desert or upland or mesa, who know the West as none but the Indians know it, perhaps you still do not know the West. You know its romance but do not think of its history; you know its cruelty but you do not consider its destiny. And to have you see this to-night, its past and its future, its greatness and your own greatness, is the main purpose of my address to you.

“That Old Trail down there crossing my rancho: to you it is a half-mile lane of furrows, so poor a trail that you choose to ride your horses aside, so bleak and waterless and ghastly a road that you hate to put a horse to it. Well, my friends, that Old Trail connects three civilizations to this wild and primitive range. It is the main artery of the West. Over it men have toiled in blood for three hundred years.

“The white man’s love of gold, gain, power, adventure accounts for the Old Trail. Spaniards were the first to set their mailed feet upon the plains of America — the intrepid conquistadores. Alvar Nunez de Vaca. You cowboys, if you know your Spanish, should like that name, for Alvar Nunez means Cow’s Head. I daresay Laigs Mason will call some of you Alvar Nunez from this day. In 1528 de Vaca started from Florida with many men, but before they went far his party was reduced to three companions. They were lost for eight years before they met men of their own race on the Mexican border. They were the first white men on earth to see what they called ‘the hump-backed cow,’ no other than your old pest, the American bison — the buffalo. Can you imagine these ragged and miserable Spaniards wandering along, suddenly to be confronted by the huge, shaggy, black and tawny buffalo? Gentlemen, surely that was a tremendous moment.

“The Spaniard Mendoza, a Governor of Mexico, fired by stories of fabulous gold, sent men out to verify de Vaca’s claim. They found some pueblos on the Rio Grande, but they augmented this into the ‘Seven Cities of Cibolo,’ the El Dorado of the Spaniards. Coronado was sent with three hundred Spaniards, all of high degree, and eight hundred Indians. It was a great retinue doomed to failure. They rode and walked, starved and died of thirst, fought the savages, but they never found Cibolo. Coronado was the first to see the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. He left the first horses that ever roamed the Great Plains.

“Next came the Spanish friars, the wonderful padres who marched’ not for gold or gain, but to plant their religion in the minds of the savages. In 1591 De Sota got as far north as the Zuni pueblos. In 1598 four hundred Spaniards under Onate left Mexico with many wagons and thousands of cattle. It was through Onate that our Santa Fe was established in 1609. Then began the early days of the Old Trail. The Spaniards wanted to be let alone. But they had to have a market to buy and sell. In 1690 the French-Canadians, the fur hunters, began to edge into New Mexico. With the trappers, marching west with their pack-mules, laden with whisky, guns, beads, bright goods to trade to the Indians, the Santa Fe Trail became known to the world — our Old Trail down there along the Cimarron and the Cottonwood. The fur trade expanded. The trappers were friendly with the Indians. There was no war. Americans began to mingle with the French. The era of the great fur trade lasted for nearly a hundred years.... My friends, there will be trappers here at my party to-night. Ask one of the white-haired old fellows to tell you what the trade was when he took to it as a boy. That must have been a grand free life. It used to thrill me to sit beside Kit Carson, when I was a child, and listen to his stories. Still Carson only knew of that magnificent early day from the old trappers who had seen some of it. When Carson ran away West as a boy, the plains were black with millions of buffalo and thousands of wild horses.

“After the dwindling fur hunters came the Forty-Niners, the gold seekers, streaming across the plains for the bonanzas in California. They, next to our thoughtless government, incurred the hostility of the Pawnees, the Utes, the Comanches, the Arapahoes; the Apaches, of all our Western tribes. And scalps of the white men dried in the sun on the wigwams of the Indians.

“Next came the freighters and the day of the caravan. The wagon-trains! The canvas-covered prairie-schooners! They hauled supplies to the forts and to Santa Fe, to Taos, to Las Vegas. But Santa Fe was their great objective.

“Most of you here to-night have seen Buff Belmet, the scout and caravan-leader, who hauls from Las Animas and the end of the advancing railroad. Think, my cowboys, of that trail of steel! You are responsible for that. No Santa Fe line would ever have been built but for cattle. The rails march on. Next spring they reach Raton. In a few years they will reach Santa Fe. That indeed will be the end of the Old Trail.

“Buff Belmet told me the story of his life. It is marvellous.

In 1855, when he was eleven years old, he left Independence in a caravan with his father and mother. Before he had travelled half-way to Dodge, he had lost his mother, and he was driving one of the great ships of the plains. The romance and adventure of the caravans made Belmet a scout. His father was killed, as were his old friends and comrades; he was wounded countless times, but bore a charmed life. His childhood sweetheart was lost to him for years, and that added to his hatred of the red man. But Buff found his sweetheart a few years ago, in 1869, the year that Carson died — found her still young, beautiful, faithful.

“Following the freighters with their mile-long caravans came the pioneers, the settlers. The end of the Civil War spilled a horde of ruined Southerners, of rebels, of outcasts from the East, of fugitives, wanderers, criminals, adventurers — and the day of the desperado was at hand.

“Then, my cowboys — the cattle herds! You all know that story. The Trail Drivers from Texas, with their unparalleled heroism that made my father’s native state an empire. Hundreds of thousands of cattle up from the Rio Grande — herd on the heels of herd — ten miles a day over grass and rock and sand, across the Texas rivers, often in flood, fighting Indians, rustlers, drought and heat, the icy blizzards, the electric storms, on and on and on to Dodge and Abilene! Oh, my cowboy friends, grasp the truth of that day to your bosoms! It was great. Britt was a Trail Driver. Frayne has ridden the Chisholm Trail. They will tell you as I cannot.

“1867,’68,’69,’70,’71,’72,’73 and this year of our Lord 1874 — and we have a million’ cattle grazing from the Cimarron to the Pecos. No law! Rustlers raiding every day and more coming. Cowboy outfits betraying their bosses. They are leagued with the rustlers. Many have quit work to take up the profitable stealing. Stock buyers from the East meet the cowboys at the railroad — and ask no questions. There are dishonest officers in the government post. They buy beef for the reservation Indians. They pay five and ten dollars a head — and ask no questions. What do you suppose the government pays them a head?

“Thus is ushered in the day of the rustler. He flourishes on all ranges, but he will be freest, boldest, bloodiest, richest — and therefore last longest on this New Mexican range. This is Britt’s prophecy. It was my father’s. It is now mine.

“To conclude now, my cowboys. This then is the situation to-day along the Old Trail. To meet it Britt has gathered together the wildest outfit possible in the West. You come from all points except further west. I doubt if there is one of you who could not cut a notch on his gun if you were that kind. I’d hate to know all you are guilty of. Some of you are — or think you are — lady killers! — I don’t need to be told that. My state of feeling toward you all is not easy to define. In some way, I think I — I love every single one of you. My grandfather built this home. He had a hundred vaqueros on this hacienda. My father loved his ‘Rowdies of the Saddle.’

“Once upon a time there was a good King. He gathered an outfit of great fighters and put them to noble tasks — to redressing human wrongs in his dominion, to driving out or killing the robber barons who oppressed the weak. I am bold to hope, to pray that my outfit of fighters will deserve my name for them — Knights of the Range. I beseech you — do not imagine I ask this for myself. But also for the other ranchers in this beautiful and wild valley, for the poor settlers and their children, for our good neighbours, the Mexicans. But mostly, for the West — our West — and because it is something great to do.

“From this night you are free as the wolves out there. You will have no restraint. You can drink, gamble, fight, kill — if you must. Your wages will be doubled, and those of you who are alive and with me after this rustler-war is ended, will be given an interest in my business, or helped to start one of your own. — Only I ask you, I pray you, don’t break out and take undue advantage of your freedom. Try to see your importance in this vast, incomprehensible movement westward. Don Carlos’ Rancho is only a speck on this range. Try to be proud of your place. Try to be serious about it. Oh, I know that what you are now is solely because of the life of the frontier. You may have been bad, but you are not to blame. You could not be good, tame, gentle — all that women like in men — and make this range habitable. Lesser cattle outfits will take their cue from you.... And so I dare to believe you will earn — the name I have — bestowed upon you...”

Holly’s voice failed at the very end. She sat down in a breathless silence. To her amaze, the cowboys sat like stone images. Then Brazos jumped up with a yell that rang from the rafters, and the others followed suit. For a few moments pandemonium reigned.

When the noise had died down Britt stood up, to tap lightly on the table. Instantly all the eager taut faces turned his way.

“Miss Holly, an’ gentlemen,” he began, in the dry drawl that presaged something inimical in motive or word, and he transfixed his men with those bright and twinkling eyes. “We have with us to-night a boy who is in a class by himself. In an ootfit which contains many bad hombres, an’ which hasn’t one thet is not a great rider an’ roper an’ gunner, this boy stands oot conspicuously, not only fer these qualities, but fer many others, prominent among them bein’ his gift of gab. He has been known to talk cowboys deaf an’ dumb. I know of one instance, back in Texas, where he talked a sheriff oot of arrestin’ him.... An’ thet, gentlemen, is shore talkin’.... Gawd only knows the misery among girls this boy’s silver tongue has wrought.

... Wal, it behooves me on introducin’ this paragon among riders of the range to prepare you, no doubt, fer a speech thet never was made before, an’ never will be again.... Friends.... Brazos Keene!”

A short, sharp roar rang around the table. Holly punctuated it with her high, sweet trill of delight.

Holly calculated that everyone present, except herself, had entertained the idea that Britt had Frayne in mind. Certainly Brazos himself was the most surprised cowboy who ever had gotten himself inadvertently or otherwise into an awful predicament. Obviously he had never made that kind of speech in his life. His homely face turned as red as a beet and then as white as a sheet. He sustained a more violent shock throughout his lithe frame than if someone had shot at him from behind.

“My — Gawd!” he gulped, his face beginning to work, and he fixed eyes of agony upon Holly. “Cap cain’t — mean me!”

“Indeed yes, Brazos,” replied Holly, beaming upon him. “Aw! — No!” groaned the cowboy, turning to his faithful partner. But before Laigs could betray him, which the devilish grin on his face surely presaged, the other cowboys called with the caustic and trenchant originality and wit characteristic of them.

“Come mon, you curly-haired darlin’ of the range.”

“Brazos — who ever heerd of you afeared to talk?”

“Cowboy, you’re the talker of this ootfit.”

“We’re sure expectin’ Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech to be skinned to a frazzle.”

“Fork yore hoss, pard, an’ rustle.”

“Brazos, you sho only gotta be yo own self.”

“You grande senor.”

“Brazos, you might as well warm up, ‘cause Conchita is here to-night, an’ thet black-eyed little dame is shore layin’ fer you.”

This from Skylark about finished Brazos, whose expression was that of an innocent cowboy against whom a diabolical plot had been concocted. More cutting remarks were forthcoming, and then Laigs Mason had his say.

“Pard, the honour of the ootfit is at stake. Who’d ever think thet Brazos Keene had lost his wits.... Wal, if you can’t talk, sing ‘Lone Prairee’!”

Brazos, goaded to desperation, again appealed to Holly.

“Shore, it’s a low-down trick,” he said, huskily. “Aw, Holly, say yu wasn’t in with them?”

“No, Brazos,” she replied, earnestly. “I’m absolutely innocent. But now I’m thrilled to death. Show them, Brazos.”

“Gawd help this heah ootfit from now on,” replied Brazos, as if he were destiny itself.

CHAPTER VII

BRAZOS’ ESCAPE FROM his chair and rise to his lofty height were as remarkable as they were funny. There might have been a rope around his neck, tight over one of the rough-hewn rafters above, and hauled upon by some of these grinning imps who revelled in his anguish. He came away so heavily that he might have been glued to his seat.

Once upon his feet he had to look at his hostess, and then upon his gleeful and expectant comrades. It was Holly’s conjecture that he did not see any of them clearly. Brazos’ remarkable eyes were round, bewildered, starting from his head, and his face baffled description.

He bowed low to Holly, then jerkily to the others.

“Our — Lady,” he began, in a hoarse whisper, “an yu — fellas... Yu — we — I... Yu-all join — me-all join yu... this orful occasion — I mean grand — in honour of pack of hound-dawgs... yu — we... er, my...”

As Brazos floundered hopelessly for more words there came suddenly from under the table a solid cracking thud. Holly did not need to be told that Laigs had kicked Brazos on the shin. She nearly choked trying to contain her dignity. Brazos’ breath puffed. His expression of fright and distress changed to a physical distortion of acute pain.

“Aggh!” he yelled.

“Fer Gawd’s sake, pard, be yoreself,” burst out Laigs, with a passion of loyalty. His love for and pride in Brazos had transcended even the cowboy passion for fun.

His importunity reacted with subtle and incredible power upon Brazos.

“Aw!” groaned Brazos, “shore yu had to pick oot my burn laig.” Then he stood erect to face them all differently. Holly sustained a deep and poignant thrill in the surety that Brazos would find himself.

“Fun is fun, boys, an’ yu’ve had it at my expense. But I savvy thet Miss. Holly gave us this supper fer more’n a good time. It must hev took lots of study to read up all thet aboot the Spaniards, an’ those thet come after.... Fer me, pards, the Old Trail will hev a different meartin’. An’ range-ridin’ a bigger job. An’ belongin’ to Holly Ripple’s ootfit aboot as close to heaven as I ever expect to get.

“Pards, my folks was fine old Texas stock. I never had much schoolin’ — yu know how hard it is for me to write my name — an’ I run away from home ‘cause I was jest no good. All thet a cowboy can do except gettin’ himself killed I’ve done. But, so help me Gawd, never since I run away till this heah minnit, hev I had any thought of a cowboy havin’ respect fer his callin’. It sort of seeped through my thick haid — the real an’ strong reason why Our Lady is callin’ to us so sweet an’ earnest. An’ it dug deep into me, boys. Heaven knows we air an ignorant lot, ‘cept in case of Frayne, an’ mebbe Skylark, who shows human intelligence sometimes. But to find oot — an”specially from Holly Ripple, daughter of a great Southerner, and the great Don Valverde, thet what we air is what the range made us an’ what she needs — why, fellars, there ain’t words enough, leastways not in my dictionary, to tell how savin’ an’ upliftin’ thet is.

“An’ so, cowboys, heah’s where Brazos Keene lays his cairds down as never before in no game. My pards of Texas Pan Handle days air daid. Since then I never had one ‘cept Laigs heah. Yu all know why I took on Renn Frayne.... Wal, heah’s where I take yu-all on. My pards! When a Texan makes a pard of a nigger somethin’ big has happened. I’m sinkin’ race prejudice an’ all thet other damn selfish rot. We’ve got a common cause, men.... I never was in an ootfit thet didn’t hev a disorganizer, an’ a rustler or two, an’ a mean gun-toter who ached to try you oot.

“Wal, if I’ve been any one of these things, after to-night I’ll never be no more. Yu-all know yore inside thoughts an’ feelin’s. Yu shore can see Miss Holly’s wonderful offer to yu. An’ none of yu is such an ignoramus as not to see now the wuth of the cowboy to the West. But if any one of yu — or two of yu — or three should double-cross Our Lady an’ disgrace her ootfit — they’ll have to draw on me — an’ Laigs heah — an’ shore our latest pard, Renn Frayne.”

Amid stamping and vociferous applause Brazos sat down, white and rapt of face. When the uproar subsided Holly leaned to Brazos.

“Oh, Brazos,” she whispered, with agitation. “I knew you would not fail. You were splendid.”

Suddenly Holly became aware that Frayne had touched her hand. She turned, quick and vibrant.

“May I speak?” he asked, with his slight smile.

“Oh! — I would be delighted...

Frayne stood up, striking of form and face, piercing-eyed and stern. There would be no humour from this outlaw. He bowed to Holly.

“Miss Ripple, our gracious and lovely hostess, Our Lady, as Brazos so truly said, on behalf of all of us I thank you for this hospitality, and particularly for your magnificent and generous spirit.”

Then he bent his gaze on the uplifted tense faces, down one side of the table, to the absorbed Britt, and up the other side to Brazos.

“The rest of my few remarks will be addressed to you, as man to man.  To you Britt, you old leather-backed Texan trail-hound, to you Jackson, you black-faced, nose-bitting horse-driver, to you Cherry, you Indian buckaroo, to you half-breeds, to each and every one of you rowdy cowboys!. If what I say pinches your foot in its high-heeled boot, grin and say you like it.

“But before I make implications which at any other time and place would hurt your feelings, I shall tell a little about myself. I am an Easterner. I have been on the frontier fourteen years, since I was twenty. Many ignominies have been fastened upon the name of Renn Frayne, which is my own. But that one which made me a fugitive from justice was false. As a boy and young man I hated cities, crowds, work. I wanted adventure. The West called me. I landed at Independence in 1860. From buffalo hunting I drifted from one thing to another. I shot a cheating gambler on a steamboat — and that started me on the career some men unfortunately must be intended for. During the Civil War I was a soldier for a while. I killed an officer at one of the army-posts — over a woman — and I deserted to hide out with trappers in the mountains.

After the war I became a cowboy and rode the eastern ranges for years. The Pan Handle, Nebraska, Wyoming, eastern Colorado, but mostly Kansas. The time came when I couldn’t ride into Old Dodge, or Hays City, or Abilene, or Newton, without smelling smoke of my own gun. Finally I shot Sutherland, a big cattleman. It was the most justifiable killing of all. He was one of those cattlemen who operated in two ways, one open and honest, the other hidden and crooked. There are many such rustler-developing cattle kings. There are two right here in New Mexico. Sutherland had powerful friends, and they egged on the gun-fighters, the two-faced sheriffs, and the tough cowboys to put me out of the way. I became an outlaw, with a price on my head. When some clique exposed Sutherland, laying bare his crooked dealings, they forgot to remove the price from my head. It has never been removed, and if I went back to Kansas I’d have to shoot my way out. That’s the bad thing about being a marked man who is quick on the draw.... Lastly I’ve trained with some hard gangs, of which Heaver’s wasn’t a marker to others.... Rustler! I’m bound to admit it. But, men, you all know the status of cattle on the range. It is hard to define the line between branding and stealing. To appropriate beef wherever you found it has been a universal custom. To round up a bunch of cattle, not your own, drive them off their range, sell them for a fourth of their hoof value — that is cattle-stealing. In weak defence of all of us who have transgressed thus I can only say that the easy custom, the unfailing fact of cattlemen all accepting small losses, have been to blame. The cowboy hasn’t had a fair chance to be honest.

“But horse-stealing is another matter. A rancher will stand to lose some cattle; he raises Cain when he loses horses. My one offence, which I am ashamed to confess, was the Heaver deal in which we drove some two score of Miss Ripple’s thoroughbreds. Britt blocked that drive. I never felt right after Heaver double-crossed me about that deal. He didn’t say we were after horses, and I was into it before I realized. Then I hated him.... Well, he got shot for his deceit, and that saw the beginning and end of my career as a horse-thief.

“When I threw in with your outfit I promised Miss Ripple that I would be honest. That promise I shall keep — Boys, I wonder if you can appreciate it when I tell you that I sleep at nights, that I no longer hear steps upon my trail, that I know, absolutely, I will never dangle by my neck from a cottonwood. It will not be many years now before the noose will supersede the gun — in execution of rustlers.

“In our case there is no use, no sense, no reason for us to steal from our employer. We are a lucky outfit. Chisum’s top bunch of riders have left him cold — Russ Slaughter and his outfit. They look bad and they might go far — unless they run foul of us. Slaughter did not know that he missed it to-day by a hair. If he had soft-soaped Lascelles into opening his vile trap again — well, pards, there would have been two less for you to contend with. You all know as well as I that Slaughter quit Chisum because he saw big money for the next few years. Jackson tells us Chisum is a hard boss. He pays little and drives his men. Moreover, he’s not above making them do a little rustling. Except for the uncertainty of life Slaughter is figuring all right. He and his outfit will be very much better off going on their own hook. Or I should say their own guns! And there’s the rub. Guns make life uncertain. Guns in the hands of Brazos Keene and Laigs Mason and Cherokee and Mex Southard — or any of the Ripple outfit, not to forget our Texas Ranger boss — and your humble servant here speaking — guns in these hands make life most damned uncertain, all of which is to say that if Slaughter’s outfit go to rustling on this range they will not last long.

“But, gentlemen, that is not so important, in my mind, as what Britt called inside rustling. You’re bound to respect a bunch of hard nuts who go out in the open and steal cattle, and fight on sight. It’s the gang that has inside help that I’m leary about. You know what I mean. A big cattleman, outwardly honest, mixed up in all that’s doing on the range, but secretly in league with one or more crooked outfits, and with some crooked boys in his own outfit. This was what always ruined the cattle business in Kansas, when cattle were cheap and plentiful. Sutherland was such a man. And, men, as sure as I stand here to-night, that kind of rustler will develop here soon, if he is not already here.... Savvy, men? He may be here now.

“Well, such a leader, with his large holdings, his many deals, his influence, and his crooked cowboys, is what we must expect and prepare for now. Some of you boys will be approached. Attractive propositions will be made you. This big fellow will want a spy, a scout or two, even in the camp of Don Carlos’ Rancho. There is the case of Dillon who was just weak, dishonest and ignorant. He was a damn fool. A likeable cowboy, so I’ve heard, full of fun, lend you his last dollar, or stand your watch, or nurse you when you were sick — but when under the influence of whisky he was a poor, easy, yellow dog. He deceived Brazos, because Brazos is kind-hearted and likes everybody.... Men — that fool break of Mugg Dillon’s cost him his life! And I say if there is one among you to whom life is not sweet he had better ride away pronto — or else cultivate a keen and passionate desire to live. Otherwise Don Carlos’ Rancho will be the last place for him.

“Now, comrades, a last word. The deal ahead of us on this range is hell. Some of us — half of us will get killed. But it appeals to me because of the right — which I have disregarded for so long — and because a thoroughbred Westerner, a game kid, a girl, refuses to go back on her father’s wishes, on her ranch, and her cowboys. We cannot go back on her. It would be too low-down.

“Pards, from now on we are a pack of lone wolves. We ride the range together. We are no longer good fellows, to talk, to drink with cowboys of other outfits, or strangers. We reverse the old habit of cowboys. And always one of us, or two of us, will keep the others from drinking too much.... Now, gentlemen, please stand up!”

As Frayne’s ringing voice ceased, the cowboys, with scarcely a sound, rose erect, most of them pale and all of them stern. Frayne’s cold, harsh facts and arguments had told.

“Britt has asked me to propose a toast,” went on Frayne. “We will drink to — Holly Ripple and her Knights of the Range!”

When Holly fled from her cowboys to her room, with her hands over her ears pretending to shut out their thundering applause, she knew herself to be a deceitful creature, because she should have pressed those white members over her tumultuous and bursting heart.

Before Frayne had ended his talk Holly knew that she loved him. She fled now because she had to be alone a few moments or go mad. Safe in her room, barred in, behind closed curtains she paced swiftly to and fro, in a torment that was rapture.

She knew now who and what he was. Had he come out openly with his ignominy for her sake, as much as to impress her men? He was finer than she had dreamed. Cold and hard as rock! Like Nemesis he had faced those rowdy wild cowboys, to convince them of the inevitable law of right itself, of how great they might become in loyalty to her, in chivalrous friendship among themselves, in unrewarded and unsung duty to the empire in the making.

Holly made no compromise with herself. She flung doubts and moods to the four winds. She loved Renn Frayne, and her happiness depended on winning his love. It would not have mattered now if he were really bad. She had to be his wife. But he was not bad — not in the sense that she had feared. She believed him, she loved him, and her heart sickened and froze at remembrance of his past indifference. That did not last. He had killed a man over a woman. Then Holly knew the real horrible pangs of jealousy. But Frayne could not have been more than a boy.

“Oh, what shall I do?” she whispered, frantically. “No mother! No woman friend!... I am twenty.... My party — all the range here!... I must go out there — smile — talk — dance — be Holly Ripple — when I am so terribly in love that I’ll die — if — if he—”

But as she passed the mirror and caught her reflection in it, some instinct, deep and strong and female, stirred in her. Holly sat down on her bed, there to face this catastrophe as she had faced the future on the day of her father’s death. From some unplumbed depth welled strength. In a few moments she was again outwardly composed. She had had her fight, and it was more terrible than that of loneliness. She was a Ripple of the South, she had the pride and passion of the Valverdes in her veins. She could not kill pride. She knew her vagrant moods, her temper and spirit. She had to change them or suffer horribly through them. As it did not seem reasonable to expect that she could change her nature she accepted suffering. It would be her portion. Renn Frayne would be hard to win. Holly slew her vanity; nevertheless, as all was fair in love she would use her beauty, even to lowering herself to the wiles of a Conchita Velasquez. All these lonely frontier men were hungry for women. This very night her cowboys would surround her like a pack of wolves. Why could not Renn Frayne be human? She would be happy with so little. His protection, his presence, his kisses.... She realized, then that she had yearned for them. Vague fancies, yes, but seen now in this hour, how different, how sweet and terrifying!

“He called me a thoroughbred Westerner — a game kid — a girl who refused to show yellow,” soliloquized Holly, as she arose, exalted and unquenchable. “All right, Renn. That is my star and my anchor. You never dreamed — that then you won yourself a friend — a sweetheart — a wife!”

Holly swept out to capture Britt and a cowboy, who happened to be Skylark. With their assistance she addressed herself to the task ahead — of greeting her guests. They were soon joined by the Doanes; and Ann, merrily attaching herself to Skylark, went along with them.

The dining-room and living-room were being stripped of all furniture, except lights and decorations, to prepare for the dance. A horde of strangers, Indians, Mexicans, were being served in the patio. Outside on the porch and in the front of the house were groups of men who held aloof. Holly instructed Britt to invite them through the main hall to the patio, where they too would be served. Cowboys were everywhere. Bevy after bevy of Mexican girls, pretty and graceful in their brilliant colours, paraded to and fro, dusky-eyed and coquettish, waiting for the music to start. Holly had engaged all the musicians in the valley, and as they were lamentably few in number she would have been short but for Mexicans with their guitars. The two big rooms would accommodate a hundred or more dancers, and the wide stone-floored L-shaped patio porch a like number. There were seven American girls present, beside Ann and herself, and perhaps two score of Mexican girls. There were also two decidedly pretty Indian maidens. They were outnumbered ten to one by the male contingent, avidly ready to dance.

“How many here to-night?” asked Holly, breathlessly.

“Thunderin’ big crowd. All of five hundred, countin’ the Indians,” replied Britt.

“Say, boss, hev you taken a peek out in front?” queried Skylark.

“Shore, but I forgot them.”

“Almost twice as many as last year. Oh, how lovely!” cried Holly, delighted. “If only all goes well!”

“Lass, you’ve done yore part. Leave the rest to us. I’ll take my stand at the front door. An’ some of the boys will take turns at the back. No rowdy drunk or armed will get in.”

A whooping howl and a rhythmic stamp from the diningroom drew Holly to the door with her companions. The cowboys were lined in a half-circle around the little negro Jackson who was engaged in some incredibly active and ludicrous movements. One of the fiddlers was sawing violently upon his instrument. Upon Holly’s entrance the hullabaloo ceased.

“Jackson, what in the world were you doing?” queried Holly, most interested and curious.

“Missy — Ripple —— —” panted the coloured cowboy, wiping the beads of sweat from his shining black face. “Dey done provoke me — dese heah white trash. Dey bet me — I wuz a swamp niggah — wot couldn’t dance — an’ I was sho showin”em.”

“Very well. Show me. I will be judge,” replied Holly.

“Nix, fellars,” shouted Laigs Mason, in alarm. “Ride-’Em is the jumpin’-jackinest darky thet ever come out of Texas. Take thet bet back.”

“Yo cain’t take it back, Laigs, ‘cause I’se put up my money.... Come arustlin’ dere, Mistah fiddler. I’se rarin’ to go.”

With the music and the beating of time with hands and feet by the cowboys, Jackson flung himself into violent motion. Holly became aware then that; funny as he looked, he had a remarkable ability to keep time, not only with his pattering feet but with all his body, even to the rolling of his eyes. Music, clapping, stamping, and the shouts of the cowboys, increased in intensity, swiftness, and volume. Suddenly Laigs Mason, evidently unable to resist the combination, flung himself into action with the negro. Laigs was as small in stature, as bow-legged, and as clownish as Jackson. No doubt he was bent upon out-doing the negro. But he was far from being such a master as his comrade. Finally the speed and fury of the dance precipitated Laigs to the floor, amid a roar that Holly feared would lift the roof. It likewise proclaimed Jackson the victor on two counts.

“You win, Jackson,” said Holly, when she could make herself heard. “You are a wonderful dancer.... Mason, may I inquire what that was you were doing?”

“Aw, Miss Holly,” protested Laigs, “I was jiggin’, too.”

“You did very well indeed. Perhaps Brazos or Frayne would like to try you out. I’ll be glad to back you.”

“Not much,” yelped Brazos. “I’m a lady’s dancer,” while Frayne smiled his disinclination to compete with Mason.

“Fork over, yose gennelmen,” spoke up Jackson. “I’m collectin’ mah bet.... Two-bits, suh, frum every dawg-gone one ob yo.”

“Boys, get your partners,” called Holly. “Dancing will begin in ten minutes. I shall ask one of you to start with me.” Brazos led a charge of eager cowboys toward Holly. She fled, while Britt and Skylark blocked the door. Holly had long ago made up her mind whom she intended to choose. Her sudden flight had its inception in fun, perhaps a little coquetry, and assuredly, as the moment arrived, in strange lack of courage. She raced from one place to another, announcing the dance, sending girls and boys in flocks to the big rooms. When she returned to the dining-room, a score and more couples were waiting with bright eyes and restless feet.

Holly glided in, once more mistress of her feelings and of Don Carlos’ Rancho. She espied her choice, Renn Frayne, evidently paired with Conchita Velasquez. But Brazos was present, also, and she might have been mistaken. Nevertheless, sight of Frayne, subtly less cold and formal, with this Mexican belle who had never before appeared so alluring, with the vivid contrast of her beautiful white arms and shoulders to her dusky eyes and raven hair, brought to Holly the staggering fact that here was a rival. Holly went directly up to Frayne. “Renn, will you start the dance with me?”

For once his reserve, his poise, was shattered. Most obviously amazed, embarrassed, he turned red and stammered: “Why — er? — I — I’m sorry.... I’ve asked Conchita.”

Holly gazed straight up into his grey eyes.

“Did you not know I would ask you?”

“Miss Ripple!... I — I never dreamed of that. Why should I? — Please excuse me.”

Holly turned her back upon him. Brazos was beside her, with that same cool, audacious smile. He had come to her rescue.

“Lady, I had them hombres all figgered,” he drawled. “An’ I waited fer yu. But at thet I ain’t so turrible flattered to be second choice.”

Holly waved her signal to the musicians and slipped into Brazos’ arms, to be whirled away upon the floor. All cowboys could waltz, but Brazos was the best she had ever danced with. And the sudden pleasure of the moment edged into the hot pain of the jealousy she could not control.

“Old Faithful Brazos,” she murmured.

“Shore. I’m the only one of thet ootfit who luves yu deep, who’s been true, who’d die fer—”

“Brazos, did you say true? I just happened to remember. And I called you Old Faithful Brazos.”

“Wal, I would die fer yu, wouldn’t I?”

“I’m quite sure you would. Brazos, but be true to me. Oh, cowboy, that’s different.”

“Dawg-gone-it, Holly. You never give me the tiniest little hope.”

“Of what?”

“Thet you’d marry me.”

“Brazos! — I’d have to love you first.... Don’t hold me so tight. If you must hug me, wait till — the floor is full.”

“Wal, I’ll wait, but I shore must,” replied Brazos, breathing heavily.

“Then I’ll never dance with you again.”

“But I’m the best dancer.”

“Yes, you are. But I don’t care.”

“Look at Frayne,” whispered Brazos, gleefully. “Said he hasn’t danced fer ten years. Shore looks it. But Conchita doesn’t ‘pear to mind. She’s wrapped up in him.... Look, Holly.”

“Thank you, I don’t want to,” replied Holly, dreamily. “I’m very happy as I am.... Is Renn hugging Conchita?”

“Wal, if he ain’t she is him.... Holly, thet Mexican dame is after Renn.”

“Indeed. Is that an unusual proceeding for Conchita?”

“No. But Renn is kinda shy aboot gurls. He’s plumb decent, Holly.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” murmured Holly.

“Conchita will hev Renn eatin’ oot of her hand in no time.”

“Jealous, Brazos?”

“Aw, Holly, yu make me mad. I don’t care nothin’ atall aboot Connie. An’ I do aboot Renn.”

“Brazos, you are growing remarkably chivalrous lately. What do you want me to do?”

“Wal, you might give Renn a hint.”

“Impossible, my cowboy.”

“Then dawg-gone-it — she’ll get him.”

“And you’ll lose her!”

“There — them sons-of-guns have stopped fiddlin’. Gee, thet was a short dance. But nice, Holly. Only you made me forget to hug yu.... Do yu reckon yu could give me another chance?”

“Not to-night, Brazos.”

“Aw wal! — My Gawd, Holly, you’re lovely to-night. Yu jest go to my haid.”

“Brazos, your head is not very strong.”

“Wait! I cain’t say nuthin’ when thet ootfit corrals yu,” he whispered, detaining her. “Listen. Heah, darlin’, is where Brazos plays the game.... Thet fellar Frayne is so in love with yu he cain’t be natural.”

“Bra-zos!” she gasped, collapsing inwardly.

“Wal! — Don’t grab me like thet, if you’re so all-fired.... Aw, ‘scuse me, Holly.... I seen through Renn. He’s all bluff aboot yu. Thet cold, mean, stand-offish way of his is ‘cause he’s afeared yu’ll see he loves yu wuss’n we all do.... Now, Lady, play yore cairds.”

“Nonsense!”

Brazos, with something warm and bright that almost dimmed the piercing devil of his eyes, relinquished Holly to one of his comrades, which one she had no idea at the moment. Holly danced dizzily, with her cheek on the broad shoulder of her present cavalier, who turned out to be Tennessee, the enigma of her cowboys, whom she knew least. When presently he in turn let her go to Bluegrass, Holly had still only partly recovered. Brazos was a fiend, but he could not have told Holly that unless he believed it. He had, however, guessed her secret. Brazos’ virtues of magnanimity and generosity were as great as some of his other qualities. He was making up for unjust dislike of Frayne. But he was wrong. Frayne did not love her. He did not even like her yet. Holly beat down the ecstasy of her rebel heart with her own convictions.

The dance went on. Holly did ample duty by her cowboys, dancing with all who claimed her. Twice Frayne had his opportunity, but did not avail himself of it. Once she caught his gaze, when he must have imagined himself unobserved, and the lightning of it was something she dared not believe in.

The rooms crowded with other cowboys, with ranchers, and strangers. And eventually Sewall McCoy approached Holly. He was a large, square-shouldered cattleman, over forty years old, handsome in a bold rugged way, heavily jowled and possessed of the hard eyes and thin lips characteristic of so many rangers. Holly did not like McCoy, but as Britt had suggested that she talk with him and draw him out she was ready to dance with him.

For so heavy a man he danced well, except that he presumed upon his opportunity. Holly had a way of circumventing these range men, and she kept McCoy from crushing her. He was a man of some education, of large means and influence; and he had already proposed to Holly twice. She had become used to offers of marriage on short notice. It was a Western way. There was no time for courting. Long distances made a general social life impossible. Once a year range folk met, and that was about all.

“Miss Holly, I’ve been anxious to see you,” began McCoy. “Yes? What about?”

“Well, several things, all important, and all hangin’ together. Do you recollect that little offer I made you last year?”

“Offer? I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.”

“Flatterin’. — I asked you to marry me.”

“Oh, that! Pray excuse me, Mr. McCoy, I thought that was over.”

“No doubt. But I’m makin’ it again. Third an’ last time. They say a third time is the charm. How about it, Holly?”

“My answer is the same. Thanks for the honour you would do me — but no.”

“Why not?” he asked, rather arrogantly.

“The main reason a woman refuses a man is because she doesn’t love him.”

“Holly, there are reasons why you’d do well to waive that.”

“Indeed. And what are they?”

“This range is changin’. You’re runnin’ thirty thousand head—”

“Fifty thousand, Mr. McCoy,” corrected Holly; and in that very moment her woman’s intuition placed this cattleman in the same category as Sutherland.

“So many? Well, your man Britt never was any good at countin’ either or grades. But no matter. This range is in for some long tough drill with rustlers. Your outfit has a bad name. This man Frayne is an outlaw — a notorious gunman.

Britt picked him out of a band of—”

“Wrong again, Mr. McCoy. I picked him.”

“You did? I’m surprised.... When cattle-stealin’ gets bad Frayne an’ some more of your disreputable outfit are goin’ to be suspected. I am your nearest neighbour. Our cattle run together, at least most of my ten thousand head—”

“Mr. McCoy, you have a little less than five thousand branded stock on this range.”

“Sure, a lot of mine hasn’t had the iron yet,” he added, hastily. “I’ve been short of riders. But now I’ve got the best outfit on this range. If you throwed in with me we’d be too strong for any combination of rustlers. An’ my outfit would give yours a respectable name. We’d dominate the range. This Chisum bunch — they’re foot-loose. Slaughter has got somethin’ up his sleeve. He made me a proposition, which I won’t consider till I get your answer.”

“You are threatening me,” returned Holly, and stopped dancing on the spot, which happened to be just outside of an alcove where Britt and Frayne stood talking with Doane.

“Not at all,” protested McCoy, nettled and uneasy. “I’m just talkin’ sense.... What’s your answer?”

“No.”

“Very well. You may regret it.”

“Never,” rejoined Holly, spiritedly, in a voice that carried to her men. “Mr. McCoy, I shall back my disreputable outfit, as you called it, to the very limit. Throw in with Russ Slaughter, as you threatened. That has a suspicious slant — just as suspicious as your hint that some of my men are dishonest.... Mr. McCoy, I resent your blackguarding my men. You force me to break for the first time my father’s law of hospitality.. Please leave my house!”

Stunned, his heavy visage grey in hue, McCoy gave Holly a baleful look and strode through the dancers like a jostling bull. The music ceased. Holly moved to confront Britt. Outwardly calm, burning within, she gave Britt her hands, but she looked into Frayne’s impenetrable face.

“Good Gawd, Holly!” ejaculated Britt. “We heahed you. What possessed you to lace it into McCoy thet way?”

“Rage.”

“Wal, shore. You needn’t tell us thet. You’re as white as I never seen anythin’. An’ yore eyes, lass I”

“Can I speak before Mr. Doane?”

“Shore. Doane is my friend as he was yore Dad’s.”

“Renn — McCoy insulted you,” said Holly, with a passion that made her thoughtless. Frayne made no reply. “He tried to strengthen his offer of marriage by claiming that you and others of my men were crooked. He hinted of a big secret rustler combination for whose deals my outfit would be blamed. He said throwing my outfit in with his would give mine respectability.”

“What was thet aboot Russ Slaughter?” queried Britt, sharply.

“McCoy said he’d consider throwing in with Slaughter — if I refused his offer.”

Britt stroked his chin gravely, while his keen eyes went from Doane to Frayne.

“Oh, I lost my temper,” cried Holly, beginning to see something seriously amiss.

“Lass, I shore couldn’t have answered McCoy better, an’ neither could Frayne heah — unless he’d flashed a gun.... Renn, back me, will you? Holly is upset.”

“Miss Ripple, you could not have handled the situation better,” replied Frayne, with respect and admiration. “But tell us. How did you make that tight-jawed cattleman give himself away?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do anything.... Let me think. He smelled of whisky. He tried to hug me. He began at once to make his proposal. He was excited.”

“Plumb easy,” concluded Britt, with a wry smile. “Doane, keep this under yore sombrero. But think a heap. An’ keep close tab on everythin’ over yore way.... Holly, I’ll leave you with Renn.”

To be left thus with Frayne would have been disturbing enough to Holly, even if she had not been profoundly moved. Besides, Frayne’s eyes pierced her.

“Like father, like daughter. If I could only have known him — ridden for him years ago!... Miss Holly, it’s easy to understand why you are what you are.”

His flattery was impersonal. But any praise from this man, with the fine allusion to the father she had worshipped, would have affected Holly then. A dreamy, seductive Spanish waltz suddenly thrummed from the guitars. Holly drew Frayne out of the alcove.

“This is our dance,” she said, and swayed into his arms. He could not see her face, which was hidden on his breast, nor her heart, which was more of a traitor. She did not care if he did feel it throb. She did not know nor care whether he danced well or ill. All Holly felt then was his strong clasp, under which she sank to the irresistible sweetness of this trance. Sooner or later it lost dominance over her mind, and she awakened to the subtlety and allurement which she had sworn to practise upon this man.

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I am now.”

“Didn’t Conchita — amuse you?”

“She did more.”

“Did you hold her as — closely as you are holding me?”

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize.... Yes, I must have. Conchita has a way of dancing you off your feet and out of your head.”

“Have I not that, Senor?”

“No doubt, to these boys with sage-brush in their heads, instead of brains.”

“But not to you?”

“No.”

“If it had not been for your one and only compliment — a moment ago — my birthday party would be spoiled.”

“Must you chatter such party nonsense? — Be sincere, Holly, or be quiet.”

She was quiet for a few rounds among the whirling couples. Then all too soon the waltz ended.

“You are pale — dizzy,” he asked, solicitously, as he released her. “It is long past midnight. You have danced steadily.”

“That will be the last. And I had to steal it! — You would not have asked me. You alone!”

“Santone did not ask you. Nor Mason, nor Jackson, nor the Southards. Why do you persist in expecting more from me?”

“Let us go out a few moments,” she replied, and led him into the patio. Dancers and strollers were numerous along the wide porch, and every bench had its couple, but at the lower end, where the patio opened into the garden, there was the seclusion Holly desired.

“Is this garden walled in?” asked Frayne, peering into the gloom of foliage.

“Yes. You can enter only from the patio. Why?”

“Miss Holly, has it not occurred to you that some of your guests are thieves, outlaws, rustlers? You are surrounded by men who hate your cowboys — who would stop at nothing.... It astonishes me — your nerve or your blindness, I don’t know which. A splendid tribute to you, this turn-out. But I disapprove of this free-for-all hospitality. It will lead to annoyance to you, or more. Yet you seem not to see it. You are a grand lady on this range. Still, in my opinion to laugh, talk, dance — flirt under such circumstances is most unwise.”

“Renn, I want to be happy,” she explained poignantly. They walked on in silence, out into the garden, down a moonlit, rose-scented path. Their slow footsteps gave forth no sound. At a curve in the path Holly heard a familiar voice, and she halted. Above it sounded the sensuous melody of a Spanish love-song from somewhere beyond.

“What has leetle Conchita done that her beeg senor ess no more sweet — he has no kees, or hug for her to-night?... No!”

Holly would have recognized that pleading voice without its self-betrayal, and she turned to leave when Frayne detained her. “Hold on,” he whispered in her ear. “I’d like to hear some more.”

“But, Renn!” whispered Holly, in expostulation. “It’s not nice — to listen.”

“I reckon not. But wouldn’t you like to?”

‘ Holly’s “no” was not a miracle of truth, but it would have actuated her had not Frayne put his arm around her waist, which made it impossible for her to move, even without the slight restraint.

“Connie, you’re no good,” drawled Brazos. “You’re like all the rest of them.”

“Ah no, senor! You theenk bad of Conchita when her heart beet only for her magneeficente Brazos.”

“I’ll bet you let Frayne hug an’ kiss yu.”

“Frayne? — that so-cold Senor, who no speek Spanish — who dance so steefly.... Si Senor, he hug Conchita, but he not know it. An’ he never think of kees. He no love Conchita!”

“You black-eyed kitten! If you lie to me!”

“Conchita no lie—”

“Come heah,” replied Brazos, masterfully. A low soft murmur ended in a succession of audible kisses. “Dog-gone-yu, Connie. If you didn’t cock yore eye at every cowboy on this range, I reckon I’d marry yu.”

Frayne lifted Holly clear of the ground and carried her noiselessly back up the path for some distance before he let her down. Then he drew her on to the arched, vine-covered entrance to the patio.

“Risky, sneaking on Brazos that way,” he remarked. He relaxed from his tenseness. His face changed magically and grew convulsed with mirth. “Gosh, if I could only — tell the outfit!”

“Don’t you dare,” broke out Holly, loyally, though she sensed a queer burning within.

“I won’t. But, Holly, wasn’t it — rich? The jealous son-of-a-gun! Sore at poor me. Why, honest, the girl almost fooled me. She said the same things to me. She rubbed her cheek against mine — her lips. She got her hair in my eyes. She just melted in my arms.”

“But you hugged her!” exclaimed Holly, with all a schoolgirl’s senselessness.

“Good heaven! Of course I did. I’m human. And that little Mexican lass is devastating. But no more! I’m on to her now. The darned little hussy! She’s as much of a devil as Brazos.... Holly, didn’t you nearly burst?”

“Yes, but not with mirth.”

“What do you mean?” he queried, changing.

“Renn, I was jealous.”

“No! Not really?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But just because... Brazos is your favourite cowboy, I know.... You wouldn’t be seriously jealous of that pretty Mexican?”

“Not on his account,” replied Holly, with a significance wholly lost upon Frayne. He threw off something in relief. What had suddenly clouded his mind? Holly grasped it. He knew Brazos as she did not know him, and his perplexity, his obvious consternation had undoubtedly come from the impossibility of telling her. Britt had once informed her that cowboys did not possess morals, a sweeping statement which Holly had disbelieved. She grew perturbed, and struggled against an insidious reasoning that Frayne held her innocence sacred.

“Take me in,” she said, worn out with physical and mental strain. The stars burned white and remorselessly down upon her. That Mexican with his love-song! The music thrummed and throbbed; and the great house seemed riotous with mirth and sound. Holly had had enough. She clung to Frayne’s arm through the gay bright rooms to her own door, which she opened.

“Good night, Caballero,” she said, softly, holding out her hand.

“Holly, let me apologize.”

“For what? — Your not wanting to dance with me?”

“No. That absurd misunderstanding — about your jealousy.”

Holly smiled her forgiveness, and denied herself little in one fleeting glance before she closed her door.

CHAPTER VIII

HOLLY AWOKE LATE and lay thinking. The golden sun sifted through the vines over her window, spreading lace-like shadows and bright spots upon her bed. In broad daylight she could not retrieve the thoughts and feelings under which she had strained — last night. It seemed impossible to give credence to some of them. What had she done — what had she said? Nothing compared to that which she had determined upon! Would she ever be able to cultivate the beguilement of Conchita Velasquez?

She passed from a vague and unsatisfactory review of her experience and conduct for the evening to an impersonal contemplation of her birthday party. It had undoubtedly been a huge success. There had been no fights, so far as she knew. But she never knew half that went on. Frayne’s sombre intimation that the gay and sumptuous party had been held over a powder-magazine had been a warning she must heed in the future. How easily her house could be made the scene of as bloody a fight as had ever occurred among cowboys!

When her next birthday rolled around Holly would break her father’s rule, to the extent that only those who received invitations could be present. It might be wise, also, to close her house at once to strangers. Lascelles and Taylor had virtually forced her to remain a prisoner in her room. The good old tranquil days of southern hospitality and Spanish atmosphere were gone for ever. The era of the settler and the rancher had begun.

Holly had her breakfast, sitting up in bed, listening to the chatter of the Mexican maids, who pronounced her party una fiesta grande. Many of her guests had departed early. And some had never gone to sleep at all. They lived thirty, forty, sixty and even a hundred miles away, which meant long drives and dark camps before they reached their homes. This was a fact about the range that Holly deplored. She had visited San Marcos, but the towns farther west, Lincoln, Fort Sumner and Fort Union, Santa Fe, Taos and Las Vegas, she had never seen. Britt did not approve of Holly riding in stage coaches.

“My party is past — maybe the last one,” said Holly, to herself, as she slipped out of bed. “Now what? I haven’t a thing to do. There are many things I ought to do..... One that I can’t — I can’t.... But I shall!”

She had peeped out of her window, down upon the grassy pastures, the wide green and grey stretch to the line of cottonwoods, and around to the corrals and the cabins. That was never a lonely scene, but this morning it appeared even more than yesterday active and colourful with horses, Indians, riders, wagons and buckboards on the move. The scene in front of the bunk-house decided Holly at once to go down. Cowboys on foot and on horseback, to the number of a hundred or more, excited her curiosity. Her boys must be up to something. She hesitated a moment, checked by a thought, but as it appeared to be a friendly gathering Holly hurriedly donned her riding outfit, and quirt in hand she ran out. She did not inquire into her eagerness, her keen scent of the warm, sage-laden air, her mounting thrill at the purple range, with its thousands of cattle. She did not inquire into the unusual precipitancy of her blood, the sense of youth and life and happiness, the joy of unplumbed anticipations. Holly’s thought, as she ran down the path, was a rebellious one that Britt was not going to hold her in any longer.

When Holly emerged from the trees she saw mounted riders and cowboys on foot in groups beyond the cabins. She recognized some of her own boys at the far end of the long bunk-house porch. As their backs were turned, they did not see her. Holly gained the door, which was open, and from which issued a voice she knew.

“Aw, hell, Cap, don’t tell me nothin’,” Brazos said, harshly. “But I do tell you. Frayne’s hunch is to watch Talman,” rejoined Britt, sharply.

Holly knocked on the door with the handle of her quirt. “May I come in?”

“Thet you, Holly?... Yes, come in, now you’re heah. I’m shore glad Jose cleaned up this messy place.”

Holly went in to meet Britt, who for once did not brighten at sight of her. Brazos slipped off the table to greet her. But his moody face broke to the smile it always wore for her.

“Mawnin’, Lady. Yu shore look top-notch after yore all-night fandango.”

“Brazos, I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment.”

Britt interposed nervously, if not testily: “Holly, what’d you bob down heah for? You go right back to the house.” She laughed at him. “Who are you talking to?... What’s going on?”

“Wal, thet Slaughter ootfit sent word they had a hawse they’d bet no cowboy of yores could ride. I reckon it’ll delay range-ridin’ fer the time bein’.”

“I hope you’ll disprove that. Have they ever heard of Jackson?”

“Shore not, Holly, else they wouldn’t be so gay.”

“Too good to miss,” interposed Brazos. “We’ll lead them on an’ win every dollar they got.”

“Britt, what is this I heard you tell Brazos, as I got to the door?”

“What?... Aw, nothin’ much. I forget,” returned the Texan, coolly. But he did not deceive Holly.

“Will you tell me, Brazos?”

“Shore. I’d tell yu anythin’, if I remembered. But I cain’t keep track of my own talk, let alone Britt’s.”

“Call Frayne,” returned Holly, shortly.

They stared at her.

“Do you hear me? Call him, or I shall go out after him.” Britt went to the door and halloed for Frayne. Brazos gave Holly a cool, scrutinizing glance. She smiled back at him, not so coolly, but with an intelligence he must have grasped. Quick, heavy steps sounded on the porch.

“Come in. Miss Holly is heah an’ sent fer you,” said Britt. Frayne came in with his sombrero in his hand, the same inscrutable man that had so long baffled Holly. He bowed without speaking.

“Good morning, Renn.... Britt has just lied to me. And Brazos has lost his memory. Before I ask you some questions I want to tell you something, which I mean for them to hear as well.... From now on I am boss of this ranch. Britt treats me as a little girl he used to’ dandle on his knee. He thinks he’s my Dad and that I’ll never grow up. Brazos is a slick hombre who thinks I’m as easy to fool as — well, Conchita, for instance. They try to keep everything unpleasant or serious or bad from my ears. This I will not tolerate any longer.... Have I made myself quite clear?”

“Indeed you have, Miss Holly,” rejoined Frayne, in surprise. Both Britt and Brazos were dumbfounded, as well as ashamed.

“Very well, now, Renn, for the questions. You wouldn’t lie to me. You wouldn’t keep things from me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because of last night.”

‘‘I don’t understand.”

“It is personal, of course. I always trusted you. But after your talk to my men last night, I shall have absolute faith in you.”

“You win, Miss Holly,” he said, with his fleeting smile. “Certainly I will never lie to you.”

“Thanks, Renn.... What is this hunch of yours to watch Talman? I heard Britt tell Brazos.”

“Last night Britt and I divided our time in watching. With McCoy and Slaughter in the house we did not feel at ease.

Anything could happen. Slaughter got in with a gun inside his vest, a fact he didn’t think any of us knew. He approached some of our boys and got a cold shoulder for his pains. But McCoy got to Talman. They did not go out together. McCoy went first, then Talman. They met outside.”

“Did you — follow?” asked Holly, breathless with interest. “No. It might have been nothing. Yet again it might have meant much.”

“What time did that happen?”

“Late. After you had said good night.”

“Frayne, you would not have given Britt a hunch to watch Talman, if your suspicions had not been aroused.”

“Hardly. But I never took to Talman, somehow. It’s my habit to study men. That seems to have been inborn. The need of self-preservation developed it strong. Talman is a queer duck. He’s one of the few cowboys I’ve met who loves money. He’s greedy. He’s a great horseman. He makes friends, yes, but not pards.”

“Did Talman come back?”

“No. And if he slept at all last night, it was little. It happens that I know eyes. It has saved my life more than once.”

“Therefore you advised Britt to watch him?”

“Yes, Miss Holly.”

“Well, Britt, this is what you and Brazos were quarrelling about when I stepped to the door?”

“I reckon.”

“But why the quarrel?”

“Brazos wouldn’t heah. My idee, of course, was to tell him an’ have him watch this cowboy.”

Holly turned to Brazos, who sat with downcast gloomy face. “Brazos, it may be nothing. We must respect Frayne’s judgment. Still, he may be over-zealous. And your watching might prove Talman merely thoughtless, which heaven knows you all are.”

“Dog-gone! I hate it,” ground out Brazos, with passion. “What? You mean spying on a comrade? So would I.”

“No, Lady, I don’t mind thet. It’s the idee I hate. I’ve knowed so many pards who turned oot to be jest no good atall.”

“That is bitter, Brazos,” said Holly, earnestly. “But listen. I am dependent upon my men. Why, for all, even my life and more than life.... Suppose I lost Britt and Frayne. How would you handle this case?”

“I wouldn’t discharge Talman. Thet’d tip off these schemin’ ootfits. I’d want to ketch their drift. I’d watch him, with Laigs to help me. Thet’s all.”

“But you would not listen to Britt.”

“I was stallin’.”

“Do you want to be let out of this distasteful job?”

“Not atall, Lady. Fust off I was huffy. But no more. I hope to Gawd I can prove Talman straight. It’d shore be tough to find another Dillon in the ootfit.”

“I hope so, too. Now, boys, go back-to the riding contest. I’ll stay and watch out of the window. I’d like to bet, too.”

“Wal, we’d shore like to hev yu,” replied Brazos, changing as if by magic. “Hev yu got any money in them togs? It’ll be a cash deal, believe me.”

“Brazos! Wouldn’t you trust me?”

“I would, but I don’t know aboot—”

Britt extracted a heavy wallet from his coat.

“What’ll you bet on Jackson?”

“Five hundred. And give him half if he wins.”

Brazos smothered a whoop, and instead of letting off his exuberance in that way, he danced a jig.

“Lady, yu shore air a thoroughbred,” he declared, suddenly getting tense and business-like. “Heah, get yore haids together.... Jackson would ride a bat oot of hell fere thet much. We cain’t lose.... Now heah’s the deal with this Slaughter ootfit. They started it. We didn’t even encourage it. But they galled us pretty deep. My idee is they must have a hell-buckin’ broncho. They reckon they can clean us oot. All right. We’ll bet easy fust off. We’ll back Laigs, an’ course he’ll get piled. Then we’ll back, say, Blue, fer a little money. To egg them on, see? Then I’ll get sore, an’ fork thet varmint myself. It’ll be a bluff ‘cause I cain’t ride nothin’. We’ll be het up, then, an we’ll flash our rolls, an’ bet every damn peso we got on Ride-’Em. It’ll be highway robbery, an’ thet bunch will yell murder.... How’s my idee strike yu-ail?”

“Brazos, it strikes me fine,” replied Holly, warming to the youthful face, the flashing blue eyes, the mobile lips that expressed such glee.

“Wal, so long as Slaughter throwed this in our faces I kinda am fer it,” drawled Britt.

“Great idea,” declared Frayne, keenly. “I want a chance to look this outfit over.”

“They’re yellin’ fer us. Aw, I hate to do this. Come on.”

“Miss Holly, you can see very well from this window,” said Frayne, as Brazos and Britt started out. “Would you mind dropping the bar, after I close the door?”

“Renn! Are you afraid I’d be kidnapped?” exclaimed Holly, jokingly.

“Hardly that. But you will be seen. These men are hard, curious, insolent.”

“Oh, you don’t want me annoyed?”

“That is putting it mildly.”

“I’m curious myself. I want to see this Russ Slaughter.”

“He’s not mucb to look at. I’d say a big tawny wolf, just come out of winter quarters, ragged and rough, with hungry eyes.”

“How thrilling! I shall come out.”

“You are a woman — that is to say, hopeless, incomprehensible,” retorted Frayne, retreating into his shell. “No wonder Britt is growing grey. You won’t listen to sense. You are a contrary little devil. Come on out. Slaughter will insult you, if not by word then by look. And I’ll kill him.”

“Renn! Don’t — don’t be so harsh,” faltered Holly, subdued. “I was only teasing. I’ll stay in — and bar the door.”

Holly did not at once take her seat at the window. Renn Frayne seemed to magnify in one man all the ruthless qualities of the frontier. If her attempts at coquetry were to be met thus she would not progress very far. Thoughtful and subdued, she found herself to be merely an instinctive natural woman. Her spirit rose rebelliously at the proof of what a stern look and a few cold words from this man could do to her. If they could make her as weak as water, what would happen to her if Renn Frayne took her in his arms, as Brazos had done, as other cowboys had tried to do.

“Oh, dear! Why do I think such — such insane things?.. If he did — and I was not so — so mad with joy that I’d faint....”

A yell from outside directed Holly’s feelings into another channel. She drew a chair to the window and sat down. The edge of a crowd of cowboys, Indians and Mexicans, was not many rods from the bunk-house. The crowd split with wild shouts, to let out an ugly beast of a horse, upon the back of which Laigs Mason sat precariously. No ordinary horse could make Laigs look like a tenderfoot. It was a dark buckskin in colour, ragged and hairy, with wild eyes and steaming nostrils, humped in a distorted ball on four legs, which bounded as if on stiff springs. Such swift and violent bucking Holly had never seen. All at once Laigs Mason went flying to the ground, whereupon there arose wild mirth, punctuated by shouts and jeers. The buckskin, having gotten rid of his burden, ceased his gyrations. Standing still he was indeed a horse to tantalize any boastful cowboy. He was big, rangy, exceedingly muscular and uncouth, with an ugly head and untamed eye.

This time Holly was witness to the laying of more wagers, and to the assault of the Kentuckian upon the catapult of the Slaughter remuda. Blue was a fine horseman, but he lasted only five jumps before he was thrown. He was hurt and angry, too, as was indicated by his yell, almost unheard in the din, and by the fist he shook at Brazos.

Holly revelled in Brazos then. Since last night he had fallen from his pedestal, but she still loved him as a perfectly real, wild, terrible cowboy, the type of the age. Brazos simulated fury. He hopped up and down like a flea on a hot griddle, flung his arms, tore his curly hair, and otherwise demonstrated his rage at defeat. When the noise subsided he yelled:

“Lay yore bets, fellars. I’ll ride thet ornery cayuse myself — or die tryin’. But ask fer odds, boys. This ain’t no ordinary hawse. Russ Slaughter has jobbed us. It’s a dirty trick. He’s got a circus hawse.... Lead him heah.... Aha, yu fire-eatin’, smoke-snortin’, iron-jawed mule — you’re shore gonna be rid!”

Brazos was not only a magnificent actor, but also, according to Britt, the equal of any rider who ever straddled a horse; always excepting Ride-’Em Jackson, who was in a class by himself.

The tremendous exhibition that Brazos boasted of did not materialize. He manifested none of his skill and made the poorest show of any of the boys. Holly noticed, however, that he chose a nice grassy plot to be thrown upon. Picking himself up, he apparently had sustained a surprise and shock.

“Dog-gone! Thet ain’t a hawse,” he complained. “No long-laiged rider could ever stay on him.”

“Naw, nor any short-legged ones in your outfit,” jeered a rider, striking for his superb seat in the saddle, his hatchet-face and tawny fringe of beard.

“We call yore bluff, Slaughter,” returned Brazos, ringingly. “We got pore riders an’ pore hawses heah, but we shore got plenty of the long green. Give us two to one odds an’ we’ll bet yu again, whole hawg or none.”

Slaughter was suspicious, but his clamouring men overruled his objection, or whatever his gestures and voice implied. They crowded to take all bets offered by the Ripple cowboys. Slaughter was not proof against the sight of so much money, and he got off his horse to elbow his way into the crowd around Britt, who was holding stakes. The time required to get all wagers made attested to the large amounts and the importance of this last contest. But at last it was done. Slaugher and most of the visiting cowboys got back in their saddles, their lean, dark faces hungrily expectant.

“How aboot it, Slaughter?”, yelled Brazos. “Any more money to bet?”

“All we got is up, Keene, an’ you’ll never smell it.”

“Cowboy, take thet saddle off,” called Brazos, to the rider who had charge of the bucking horse.

“Hey, you don’t put no other saddle on him,” objected Slaughter, as his cowboy looked up dubiously.

“We don’t want no saddle atall,” announced Brazos, swag-geringly. Whereupon in another moment the saddle was stripped from the restive mustang.

“Throw him. We want him on the ground,” ordered Brazos. “What’s the idee?” yelled Slaughter, belligerently.

“Lay yore hawse down,” returned Brazos, curtly. “Our man wants to fork him from the ground. If he cain’t ride him, yu win.”

Accordingly, two of Slaughter’s cowboys roped the horse, stripped him, and threw him on his side. Brazos promptly seized the bridle from the one who held it and knelt upon the head of the horse.

“Slip them ropes loose,” shouted Brazos. “All right, Jack, come arunnin’.”

The little bow-legged negro appeared as if he had come up out of the ground. “Heah I is,” he rolled out, and ran to the prostrate horse. He straddled the animal. “Gimme dat bridle, Brazos. I done hate to do dis.” He appeared to wrap himself around the horse and to bend flat, almost to the ground. Brazos also bent over, evidently to see. Suddenly he leaped and backed with a wild yell. On the instant, with a borrid scream the horse raised himself spasmodically with a cracking of hoofs. Like a burr Jackson’s body appeared stuck upon him. Holly had seen Jackson perform this trick before, though never so clearly. He had sunk his teeth in the nose of the horse, which made it impossible for the animal to get its head. And when they came up together the horse had his head high, turned back in a distorted way, with the little negro like a leech upon his neck.

“Look oot!” bawled Brazos, leaping aside, as the frantic beast began to lunge. Riders and those on foot scattered like quail. The great horse, frenzied at this attack, plunged all over the space before the bunk-house, amid a din that made the former noise insignificant. It took a few moments for the intelligent beast to realize that lowering his head to pitch was impossible. He screeched like a demon. He scattered dust and gravel. And at length he bolted straight across the level. The angle of his head made him run in a circle, so that in short order he was back from where he had started. And right before his backers he quit as obviously as any horse could have done without balking. Jackson let go his cruel hold, and sliding off threw the bridle. His grin showed his wide mouth and big white teeth.

“Wharyou-all wuz, pards?” he boomed.

To Holly’s amaze her cowboys did not break into a pandemonium, as was usually their wont at any coup. Brazos strutted like an Indian chief to meet his black jockey. The other cowboys stood close around Britt. Slaughter and his men were dumbfounded.

“Come hyar, nigger,” yelled Slaughter.

Instead of complying, Jackson replied: “What yu want, boss?”

“How’d you ride thet hoss?”

“Sho mah own bizness.”

The cowboy who had again taken charge of the prize horse called out: “His nose is bleedin’. Thet nigger bit him — hung on by his teeth.”

“Hell! Can’t I see?” rasped Slaughter. “Jackson, you rode fer me onct. How come you never showed us thet trick?”

“Wal, boss, I wuzz only a nigger in yore ootfit.”

“Ahuh. Wall, you’ll be a dead nigger fer this outfit — some day.”

“Sho. We’se all gotta die — an’ some men’s gonna get hunged by de neck,” declared Jackson, sarcastically, as he slipped out of sight among his comrades.

“Take your medicine, Slaughter,” rang a voice from among the group around Britt, and the tone of it made Holly start.

Brazos sheered off to come between Slaughter and Britt’s group. “Haw! Haw! Haw! Slaughter, we Ripple ootfit haven’t any hawses or riders or nothin’! Like hell we haven’t!... Yu come over to make a friendly bet, didn’t yu? Wal, yu got it an’ yu lost it.”

“Right. We got trimmed plumb good. I ain’t kickin’, Keene. But I’ll have you know it wasn’t my idee.”

“Wal, whoever had it, shore blew some greenbacks our way,” drawled Brazos.

“Jest two-bit change fer us. Plenty more where thet come from,” replied Slaughter. But when he turned to his men he was not so boastful. “Get the hell out of hyar!”

It was noticeable that Slaughter, as he turned to ride away with his men, veered somewhat to the left, and when opposite the bunk-house window, where Holly sat, halted to light a cigarette. But when he looked up, directly at her, Holly knew that had been a ruse. He was not too far away for the expression of his eyes to be discernible. Holly unwittingly caught their hard brightness before she could avoid them.

“Howdy, girlie,” he called. “You might keep me from throwin’ in with McCoy.”

Holly left the window, nonplussed at the ruffian’s declaration, until she interpreted it through the evil meaning in his eyes. It revolted her to realize that the time had come when she was not safe from insult even on her own ranch, in front of her cowboys. But hearing steps on the porch she stifled her sickening sensations. At a hard knock on the door she slipped the bar and opened it. Frayne and Brazos stood there, as if they were her judges.

“Holly, did thet hombre see yu?” demanded Brazos. “Certainly. I was in plain sight. They all saw me.”

“Why didn’t yu duck when he rode by?”

“Brazos, I am not in the habit of ducking.”

“Wal, it’d be a darn good one fer yu to learn,” complained Brazos. “I wasn’t lookin’ jest then. Too busy grabbin’ my money from Britt. But Renn heah says Slaughter spoke to yu.”

“He did. I heard him,” corroborated Frayne, quietly, his penetrating grey gaze enveloping her.

“Yes. Did you hear what he said?” asked Holly, with a laugh. She was not so sure she could deceive Frayne. These men breathed something that stopped her heart.

“Only one word. ‘McCoy.’... It was quite far and he spoke low.”

“My vengeful caballeros, it was nothing.”

“Holly, you claimed the absolute truth from me,” declared Frayne, sternly.

“Why, of course,” replied Holly, lightly. Yet she could not but thrill at the raw wild youth of Brazos, at the ruthlessness of Frayne. If she told them the truth they would call Slaughter out, kill him, and precipitate a bloody battle she wanted to put off as long as possible. It could not be put off for ever.

“Holly, you’re gonna lie to us. To me an’ Renn — yore best friends on Gawd’s earth!” protested Brazos.

“No!” exclaimed Holly. “I’ll tell you some day. When you come back from Las Animas after the drive.”

“Probably just as well,” rejoined Frayne, briefly. “If you told us now we might not make your cattle drive to the railroad.”

“Renn!”

“He heahed Slaughter mention McCoy. What aboot him?” added the persistent Brazos.

“Well, I can tell you definitely that Slaughter is going to throw in with McCoy.”

“What’d I tell yu, pard?” hissed Brazos, with a lightning simulation of the draw. Frayne continued to pierce Holly with eyes of doubt and condemnation, and some other disconcerting thing that she found it preferable to avoid. A clamour of voices outside and a stamping of boots preceded the advent of Britt, who ran into the house, his hands full of bills, his eyes full of mirth.

“Hey, gimme elbow-room, you Injuns,” he protested. “Every man will get his money. I wrote all the bets down.”

Ride-’Em Jackson confronted Holly with great shiny black orbs, full of worship.

“Missy Ripple, I sho nebber seen so much money in all mah life. Wid yu backin’ me dat way, why I sho could have rode de debbil.... I’se tellin’ yu — dat money yu staked me is goin’ to mah ole black mammy.”

Not so many days after the event of the year, the grassy triangle below Holly’s ranch-house shone red and white with thirty-five hundred head of steers ready for the drive to the railroad.

It was early morning with sun hot and the range blossoming in flowery meadows, the cottonwoods and willows full-foliaged. The mountains burned purple up to the gradually lessening snow patches. Down to the east, where the Old Trail wound along the ribbon-like Cimarron, the descending range rolled and rippled out to the vast grey of prairie.

Brazos had just bade Holly good-bye, a cool and nonchalant Brazos as always, but somehow stronger in earnestness and less sentimental. He left Holly thoughtful and sad. She knew and he knew that some day he would depart never to return.

Britt, brisk and business-like, came in with Frayne for final instructions.

“Wal, they’re pointed, Holly, an’ all you got to do is wave yore scarf.”

“Frayne, whom did you choose to take besides Brazos? Of course he would not go without Laigs,” asked Holly.

“Santone, the Southards, Jackson, Cherokee. Eight of us in all,” replied Frayne. “Not enough for so big a job. But we must not leave you short here.”

“Who on the wagon?”

“We’ll take turns driving.”

“No remuda?”

“Only a few extra horses, which we’ll drive ourselves.”

“You are saving.... What’s the count, Britt?”

“Three thousand five hundred an’ sixty-two. Brazos had less. But Renn an’ I tallied the same.”

Holly wrote the number down in her note-book. “Here’s the mail, Frayne, and my several orders for supplies, which you may look over at your leisure.”

“What are your instructions about selling?” queried Frayne, anxiously.

“No different from Britt’s. Has he not told you?”

“Yes. But let’s go over it again. This is a new job for me.”

“Take the best offer you get.”

“Shore thet’ll be no less than forty dollars a haid,” interposed Britt.

“What is the lowest I can accept, provided conditions fluctuate?”

“Frayne, I want to get rid of cattle. You need not advertise that. Hang out for a good price, but if compelled, take any offer.”

“Very well. I don’t anticipate any save the present top price. Have you written instructions to deposit cheques, mail them east, or bring them back?”

“No, you are to take cash. And wait if it has to come by express.”

“Cash!” ejaculated Frayne, aghast. “Britt did not tell me that.”

“Wal, I wanted Holly to take the responsibility,” explained Britt. “I disapprove, but Holly’s boss.”

“Please — Miss Holly!” exclaimed Frayne, almost en-treatingly.

“Please what?”

“Don’t put such a burden on me. — Just think! — Figure it out. Allowing for losses in any way — even a little rustler raid — I’ll set out for over one hundred and forty thousand dollars.”

“What of that? We need cash. Britt agrees now is the best time. Trail conditions will grow worse. When we sell again we’ll make deposits.”

“Holly, you’ll trust me — me — with all that money?” queried Frayne, hoarsely, white to the lips.

“Certainly I’ll trust you,” replied Holly, evenly, finding his level grey gaze of pain exceedingly trying to meet squarely.

“Thank you.... But you — shouldn’t.... That’s a fortune. How do you know I’ll not steal it — and run off?”

“Renn, it’d be worth that much to find you out,” she rejoined.

But he did not catch the significance of that. “How do you know the half-breeds and Cherry won’t murder me?”

“Don’t insult them, either, Renn. But they need not know. Tell Brazos.”

Frayne turned to Britt with twitching lips. “Old Timer, can you beat this? For two-bits — if it was anyone else but Holly Ripple — no — I wouldn’t take the risk.”

“Risk of what?”

“Loss. Be reasonable, you child. If through any chance I lost all that money you — you’d never believe in me again.”

“Yes I would,” replied Holly, calmly taking her scarf and moving toward the door. She bad at last intrigued or driven this man into a betrayal of feeling. It was so sweet, so beautiful, that she dared not prolong the interview. They followed her out on the porch. Her trust in him then meant something. She had planned this responsibility to see how he would react to it, how he would execute it. Yet she had not gone so far as to hope or dream that he cared deeply for the faith she reposed in him. She must wait until she was alone to ponder that out. The certainty that Frayne entertained something besides indifference to her made Holly strong and calm. She stepped off the porch into the sunlight and waved the red scarf. Scarcely had she sent the long streamer aloft when a puff of white smoke appeared against the green, way down at the apex of the triangle, and it was followed by the report of a gun.

“They’re off,” declared Britt, with relief. “I see Brazos ridin’ hell bent fer election.... Go, Frayne. Catch up.... Catch up!... Thet’s the Old Trail word.”

Holly lowered the scarf with a whirl that circled it around her neck. That was well, she thought, because her cheeks were hot and red. She extended her hand and smiled up at Frayne, no longer sure of anything except that the parting was poignant. “Adios, Renn.... Good luck! — Don’t forget — Don Carlos’ Rancho!”

“Be it on your head!” he replied, so darkly that Holly did not grasp whether he meant the risk of her money, the risk of her trust, or the risk of some terrible consequence to him that was surely not peril or death. “But don’t worry about us. We will come through.... Look out for yourself. Don’t ride out of sight of the cowboys.... Adios.”

After the blur had left her eyes Holly watched the herd wind the valley toward the gleaming, green-bordered Cimarron. She had always loved to watch a crawling herd of cattle. The yellow dust rose to cloud the sides and rear of the vast wedge of moving red and and white. There were two riders in the lead, pointing the herd. One bestrode a big brown horse, and that would be Cherokee. Brazos’ white shirt and sombrero shone in the sunlight. She watched until she saw Frayne on his black come into view below, loping swiftly eastward. Upon him she used her field-glasses, trying with shaking hands to work him into the magnified circle of her vision. What was that trailing out behind him, like a streamer of red? He had taken her scarf without her being in the least aware of it, though she remembered it last around her neck.

CHAPTER IX

WHEN BRITT HAD been captain of the Texas Rangers, hard riding, perilous and perplexing situations, criminals to arrest or kill, rescue of stolen stock, mysterious murders to clear up, settlers to protect from thieving Mexicans and marauding Comanches, all were the order of the day and taken as a matter of course.

But Britt had not then had in his charge a beautiful and imperious young woman whom he loved as his own, and who had no relative, no husband, no one save himself to look after her. It was telling on Britt. In the five weeks since Frayne and the cowboys had driven east with the big herd, enough had happened on the range to keep him awake nights without the several narrow escapes Holly had sustained. She had a habit of riding out alone in spite of orders, protestations, entreaties. There were occasions when the girl was strange, moody, and refused to have an escort. At such times Britt had to watch her or have one of the cowboys do it, and trust to Providence. The arrival of the short, hot, mid-summer period put an end to Holly’s riding, for which Britt was profoundly grateful. When the cooler weather came, Frayne and Brazos would be back, and after that it would not be long until frost and snow. The rustlers holed up in winter; there was no movement of cattle; and some peace and rest might be obtainable until spring.

“By thunder,” muttered Britt, “I’m shore goin’ to move heaven an’ earth to marry Holly off by then!”

Britt did all this soliloquizing in the bunk-house while he sat at the table, poring over the crude map he had tacked there. The drawing which had been made by the foreman himself, was not a work of art, but it was accurate to a distance of fifty miles or more beyond Don Carlos’ Rancho. The range was now knee-deep in grass and flowers, and black with cattle. The streams had been bank-full until the late hot spell, and with the summer storms still in prospect, the creeks, springs and water-holes would not go dry this season. For Britt this had its good and bad side, the latter being in the fact that many cattle would graze up into the hills and the canyons. Rustlers had become increasingly active. Small bunches of cattle were being driven to Santa Fe and Las Vegas, and to the forts. This rustling of mixed brands did not make much of an inroad upon the Ripple stock, but it would increase and in several years must count heavily. That was calculating without a great raid of thousands of cattle and the incessant drainage upon the herd of unbranded stock. One of these rustler bands was appropriating unbranded calves and yearlings for the nucleus of a herd. The cowboys had tracked numerous small bunches of young stock toward the hills to the south. Russ Slaughter and his outfit had disappeared, so far as actual sight of them was concerned, but they were well known to be on the range.

With only nine riders and himself, Britt was hard put to it to keep track of stock. They had thirty thousand head in the valley, between the pass and the head of the Cottonwood. Beyond this point a half million cattle roamed the wide plain, and more thousands of these than Britt knew and more than he had calculated before wore the Ripple mark. It was an unprecedented situation and rich in pickings for rustlers and unscrupulous cattlemen.

“Wal, let’s see,” said Britt, as he bent over his map. “Skylark with Stinger an’ Gaines air at White Pool. Jim an’ Blue an’ Flinty air at Cedar Flat. Talman an’ Trinidad somewhere in Cottonwood Basin. Rebel is ridin’ alone.... Nobody heah with me, an’ thirty thousand longhorns oot there to be run off. Shore is a hell of a deal!”

Britt had sent Talman and Trinidad to the head-waters of the Cottonwood with a deliberate purpose. This was up in the rough breaks through which the Ute Trail led to the north. Talman had been consistently watched, to no avail. One thing only had Britt noted — Talman’s unobtrusive cultivation of Trinidad since the other cowboys had gone and the usually merry Trinidad’s preoccupation. As the days and weeks passed Britt grew more convinced that there was something amiss. The crafty indefatigable Rebel had been detailed to keep track of Talman.

These several relays of cowboys had been absent nearly a week, and except the last three Britt had named, were already overdue at the ranch. Britt decided to ride out on the morrow, if none of them returned.

Later, while he was pacing up and down the porch, plodding with his hands behind his back, Holly put in an appearance, slender and graceful in her flimsy white. Her cheeks were without colour and her eyes gloomed.

“Cappy, I picked up some riders with the glass. Across the Cottonwood, five miles or so. Three horsemen with two pack animals.”

“Thet’ll be Skylark,” replied Britt, gladly. “Aboot time.”

“Frayne is four days late,” she said, broodingly.

“What’s four days? Why, lass, he might be four weeks late. Reckon he had to wait for the money.... Holly, air you worried aboot thet?”

“What do I care about money?” she exclaimed, impatiently. “Holly, after what you told the man — you couldn’t doubt him.... In only four days!”

“Doubt him? — Don’t insult me, Cappy.... I’m worried because there might have been a fight. Brazos will fight, you know.”

“Anythin’ is possible, lass, of course. But thet’s not likely. I tell you again, Frayne will be along soon now.”

“Oh, I hope so!..’. I’ve watched that Cimarron Trail until my eyes have grown dim. Not a wagon — not a horseman for days on end.... It’s lonely.... Cappy, will you come up to the house after you see Skylark?”

Britt assured her he would come, and almost took advantage of her mood to ask a question about Frayne that he had long pondered. But Holly did not look happy. The old, gay, wilful spirit seemed in abeyance. He watched Holly with misgivings. Any question, save one of the heart, she could master with the Ripple intelligence and courage. But if it was love...

In an hour Skylark rode up with Stinger and Gaines, with the white dust sliding in little streams off horses and riders. Begrimed and sweaty, with eyes of fire, they brought a lusty welcome from the old ranger.

“Like May-flowers, you easy-cornin’ gents! Gosh, I was lonesome. I don’t care a damn if you have bad news — I’m shore glad to see you.”

“Mebbe we’re not glad,” replied Skylark, leaning over his pommel. “Any news?”

“Nope. Nobody else in.”

“How’s Miss Holly? I seen her mopin’ up the hill.”

“She’s wal. But lonesome, too.”

“Roll off, Sky,” said Stinger. “We’ll look after the hosses.” Skylark unlimbered his long frame from the tired and dusty horse and clanked upon the porch, to throw gloves, sombrero, scarf, shirt and gun-belt in a pile beside the wash-bench.

“We got out of smokes,” said the cowboy, tragically. “Ahuh. Is thet dirt or gun-smoke on yore face?”

“Both, I reckon. I pumped my Winchester pretty fast this mornin’.”

“Wal, clean up. I’ll walk over to the store an’ fetch you the makin’s.”

Britt strolled leisurely across the flat to the trading-post. Skylark’s few remarks were not reassuring. The Mexican village appeared to be taking its midday siesta. Two dusty, well-pointed horses stood at the hitching-rail. Britt encountered a brace of hard-lipped men, strangers who gave him a gruff word and passed on. Britt made his purchases and took his time returning to the bunk-house.

Stinger and Gaines were splashing like ducks in a pond. Skylark was inside, donning a clean shirt. His tanned face, cleaned of grime and beard, appeared somewhat gaunt. He yelled with delight when Britt pitched the package of little tobacco pouches on the table.

“A cowboy without cigarettes is like thet play I read of — with the main hombre left out — jest nothin’.” In another moment he was puffing away. “Boss, we drove near four thousand head down out of the canyons to White Pool.”

“What? Not our stock! Don’t tell me you boys have taken to rustlin’ other ranchers’ cattle.”

“Knew it would floor you, Cap. It shore did us. Say, we have no idee how many cattle we have. These were all wearin’ the long ripple. An’ there was a load of calves we didn’t count.”

“Wal, I’ll be darned. How you explain thet, Sky?”

“We all had different reasons. Mine is we haven’t got enough riders to go around. Stinger knows thet country better than any of us. He says a big percent of this stock has been drifted in them south canyons. I reckon Stinger is right, but doggone! I hate to believe it.”

“Ah-huh. Stinger seldom makes a mistake, Sky,” rejoined Britt, in deep thought.

“If it’s so, it means a big drive up out of them canyons before the snow flies.”

“Where to?”

“South, you ossified little Texan.”

“Wal, where south?”

“Seven Rivers — most likelee — or down the Pecos sure.”

“By Paso del Muerte?”

“No, boss. West of the Pass. You know them little canyons south of White Pool? They were full of our stock an’ nobody else’s. We cleaned them out. I advise the outfit ridin’ over there pronto an’ drivin’ the bunch down so they’ll water on the Cottonwood.”

“Good. We’ll do thet. Wal, go on. Who did it, Sky?”

“Are you askin’ me?”

“I shore am.”

“Humph. You better tell me.”

“An’ what else? Thet doesn’t account fer gun-smoke.”

“We run on to a funny deal. Or I should say Old Wasp Stinger did. After we got the herd pointed this mornin’ — about sunrise — Stinger took us on a little ride into a draw thet drains into White Pool. Sting didn’t say much, but he looked heaps. After we got in the brush he took to his hoofs, an’ you can bet Handsome an’ me were not so crazy about thet. It shore was hot in thet brush. Finally we get sore an’ stops short. ‘Whar the hell you takin’ us, Sting?’ Gaines wanted to know, an’ I swore I was near dead. ‘Fellars, I got shot at again up here yesterday, an’ damn near bored. Look here!’... He stripped up his shirt an’ showed us a red welt across his side. ‘Close shave? — Ha, I should smile.’... We saved our wind then an’ went on till we come to the big open. There had been a new shack thrown up under the bluffs where the spring comes out. We saw smoke an’ saddled hosses. Stinger hadn’t been very cute about slippin’ up, for the bunch was watchin’, an’ they opened fire on us. We dove for cover, an’ they took to their hosses. Sting had a rifle an’ I was packin’ mine. There were six or seven men in the bunch, all carryin’ light packs behind their saddles. Which says a lot. Stinger swears he killed one of them. Saw him pitch out of his saddle. But I was too busy pumpin’ lead to watch his shots. I had ten at them, say from four hundred yards on. An’ I saw one man who was shootin’ back — I saw him drop his gun an’ keel over his hoss, an’ I’m sure I crippled another. Anyhow, they got away.”

“Did you cross the open to see if Stinger had downed one?”

“Not so you’d notice it. Stinger wanted to, but Handsome an’ me voted him down.”

“Whose ootfit was it, Sky?”

“Stinger swears it was Heaver’s. He’s seen them, you know. They were workin’ thet side of the range. Anyway this job of Stinger’s was good. We might have lost thet bunch. Most shorthorns, cows an’ calves, an’ tame.... Boss, I’d advise, soon as some of the boys come in, to throw thet slow bunch way over here along the creek.”

“Tomorrer, maybe, or next day. — Wal, what else, Sky?”

“What do you want for a few days’ ridin’, Old Timer?”

“I hope thet’s all.”

“I wish it was. Half-way home we saw three riders bob over a rise, an’ stand their hosses, waitin’ for us. Turned out to be Joe Doane, an’ two of his Dad’s riders. Joe gave me the stump of his cigarette, which was all he had. Doane lost twenty head of hosses, his best, includin’ the blue roan wearin’ the Ripple brand. Miss Holly gave thet roan to Ann. Say, wasn’t I sore? — Joe said they’d trailed this bunch for three days till they darn | near starved. Along by Dobe Cabin, down to the Cimarron, which the thieves crossed on to the Old Trail.”

“How many hawse-thieves?” asked Britt, shaking his head. “Joe didn’t find out. Four shod hosses, he said.... Now, boss, wouldn’t it be funny if thet bunch run into Brazos an’  Frayne comin’ back?”

“Funny? Aboot as funny as death.”

“Cherokee could see thet bunch a long way before they’d see our boys. An’ a string of hosses would excite suspicion these days. It just about will happen thet way.”

“Brazos would see red.”

At this juncture the slim Stinger came in, stripped to the waist, his lean white side marred by an ugly welt.

“Stinger, who’s been creasin’ you?” asked Britt, jocularly.

“Boss, I’ve an idee some cowboy took me fer a wild hoss.

... Mebbe you think thet welt ain’t sore? Hurts — wuss’n a boil.”

Jose put his smiling, swarthy visage inside the back door. “Eet ees ready, vaqueros,” which call elicited a wild howl from the two cowboys, and drew Gaines in, mopping his shiny, soapy face with a towel.

Early in the afternoon of the next day Jim, Blue and Flinty arrived from Cedar Flat.

This section of the range was quite remote from Don Carlos’ Rancho, being a succession of tremendous benches running out from the foothills some sixty miles away. It was favoured by cattlemen and cattle alike for spring and summer grazing. Snow fell there in the fall. Jim reported a hundred thousand head of mixed stock on and around Cedar Flats, the largest number of which bore Chisum’s famous Long Rail and Jingle-bob brands. There were more Ripple cattle in this herd than Jim was glad to find.

Activity of rustlers had been difficult to uncover and hard to trace. They had encountered half a dozen cowboy outfits, three of which omitted to make clear what connection they had on that range.

Jim’s report, however, included other activities that gave Britt food for reflection. San Marcos had more than a year ago begun to feel the influx of new settlers, cattlemen, and the parasites that lived on them, but this summer had seen the sleepy little Mexican village grow in a way that had both gratifying and dismaying reactions for the Ripple foreman.

Horn Brothers had started a new post there, which Jim said was just an excuse to add another saloon and gambling-hall to the already long list. New stores, a hotel, a mining company, and numerous residents, both Mexican and American, had been added since Britt’s last visit there. McCoy was reported to have an interest in several new San Marcos business developments. He claimed to be going into partnership with Chisum, but Britt knew this was mere brag, and rather stupid of McCoy, because it was well known that the Jingle-bob cattleman was a lone wolf.

Russ Slaughter and his Seven Rivers outfit had apparently dropped out of sight; and this to Britt was the most significant news. Slaughter had quit Chisum to be a free agent, to be in the thick of the fat pickings for cattle-buzzards that would prevail in central and eastern New Mexico.

“I reckon Slaughter has gone up in the foothills to the north of McCoy’s ranch,” calculated Britt. “Some wild nest-holes up there, an’ within a day’s ride of the trail north to the Indian reservations an’ forts.”

“Enough said,” agreed Jim. “But, boss, dog-gone-me if I think thet’s as interestin’ as the talk aboot central New Mexico. The Pecos country from Seven Rivers to Roswell an’ Lincoln, an’ west has poured up the Pecos, an’ by the time the railroad gets to Santa Fe there’ll be a million head of stock west of us.”

“So much the better.”

“Shore, ‘cept thet it’ll help draw the damndest lot of outfits from all over.”

“Rebel ought to be heah soon,” replied Britt.

“Where’d you send him?”

“No place in particular. I reckon he’ll keep track of Talman an’ Trinidad.”

“Cap, thet’s a big country between Cottonwood Basin an’ Ute Hills. Clements has twenty thousand cattle there, Haywood aboot eight, an’ Doane, who’s on the idge, aboot five thousand. Or he did have thet many. Doane was pretty much het up when he was heah.”

“Wal, countin’ six to ten thousand of ours oot there, these hombres have a big bunch to pick from. A big range an’ easy ootlets. Jim, it jest makes my blood boil.”

“We’re doin’ all we can. A hundred riders wouldn’t be enough. Cattle hev growed too thick an’ fast. An’ to hev the price bust on us is somethin’ onheerd of!... Cap, what we ought to do is like Chisum. Help ourselves.”

“No. Thet’s the cowboy’s point of view, Jim,” returned Britt, seriously. “Mebbee Chisum takes what comes his way. An’ some of the other cattlemen will when this deal comes to a haid. But we cain’t double-cross Miss Holly, an’ she wouldn’t own a steer thet wasn’t hers.”

“Whoopee!” yelled Blue fiercely, from the porch.

Britt ran out with Jim. A cloud of dust down the road only partially hid a troop of horses being driven up from the Pass toward the village. Flinty joined the others on the porch, where Britt expressed his belief that Frayne and Brazos had arrived home with the horses stolen from Doane.

“By all thet’s lucky!” ejaculated Britt. “Gosh, my eyes water! How many, Blue?”

“Aw, two dozen or more. An’ thet’s our top bunch of riders. There’s the chuck-wagon, Britt, comin’ down out of the Pass.”

“Skylark will be plumb tickled.... Wal — wal, I hope Frayne came through safe.”

“Outfit’s all trailin’ home at once,” remarked Jim, with satisfaction. “Now, if Rebel would rustle in.”

Britt caught the rather significant omission of Talman and Trinidad. It gave him a pang. He had grown attached to every member of this greatest band of cowboys that he had seen.

Stinger appeared in the bunk-house door, half dressed and blinking of eye. “What’s all the hullabaloo, boss?”

“Ootfit’s back, an’ I reckon they got Doane’s hawses.”

“Darn my pictures! Didn’t I have a hunch?... I’m gonna get into my jeans.”

Britt found in the situation another reflection as to his peculiar strain these days. He could hardly conceal either his joy or concern or impatience. How good to have them back — to see Frayne and Brazos — to feel Holly’s relief! Would all the cowboys be with them, safe and well? He managed, however, to contain himself while waiting for them to come up. At last when Britt walked off to meet Frayne it ran in his mind that he had never before in his life been so glad to see a man. Britt wondered with a sting of conscience if he had unconsciously harboured a doubt of Frayne. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, unshaven and hard, Frayne had seemed to have about him that something inimically western and stable.

“Howdy, Cap,” he said, leaning to meet Britt’s eager hand. “I’m shore glad to see you. Everythin’ all right?”

“Now that I’m here — yes,” replied Frayne, with his cool laugh.

“How aboot the money?”

“All here,” rejoined Frayne, patting the saddle-bags which hung over his pommel, instead of the usual place behind the cantle. “That is, except a few dollars to each of the boys.”

“What’d they bring?”

“I got forty-two dollars a head.”

“Wal, you son-of-a-gun! Thet’s great! — But, heah, don’t. waste another minute on me. Ride up to Holly an’ get rid of thet money.”

“Brit, you take it up for me. I’m tired. And—”

“No, sir. Holly would — Wal, never mind. But she wants to see you. Renn, I’d rather like to be in yore boots. She’ll be surprised you’re heah.”

“She saw us coming, Cap,” he rejoined. “Must have been watching with the glass. Cherry saw her wave before we crossed the Cimarron.”

“Holly has been on the job with thet glass for the last ten days. Rustle, now.”

“But, Cap—”

“There ain’t any buts. Go! The girl has worried herself sick. She can’t eat or sleep,” went on Britt, lying shamelessly.

“Worried herself! — Good God, man! — for fear I’d turn yellow?”

“Hell no! — you’re as testy as Brazos.... She didn’t care a hang aboot the money. She missed you.”

Without another word Frayne turned his horse toward the winding road up the green hill. He could not have been a more pondering and dazed man if he had been forced to report the loss of the large sum of money.

Britt’s conscience did not even smart, and he chuckled to himself as he directed his attention to the approaching cowboys. They had driven the band of horses into a corral. Skylark, Blue, Flinty and Gaines, all on foot, were escorting the mounted boys to the bunk-house. Stinger was on his way to meet them. Britt’s fond eye soon missed a familiar figure.

“Where’s Brazos?” he yelled, while they were still some distance off.

“He’s drivin’ the wagon. Be hyar pronto,” shouted Laigs Mason.

Britt returned to his chair on the porch. All was well. The outfit had come home. That sombre purple shadow which hung over the foothills could be forgotten for the time being. He watched the cowboys dismount and throw their saddles. Tex Southard appeared to be the only one incapacitated.

Skylark took his horse while Blue helped him to the bunk-house. Tex had a decided limp.

“Wal, I reckon a hawse fell on you,” said Britt, dryly.

“Boss, eet es lead bullit, in my laig. Yu mus dig oot,” replied the vaquero.

“Anyone else hurt?”

“Mason got barked. You’d think he was all shot up, to hear him holler,” said Blue.

Britt refrained from more questions at that time. He took out his impatience in listening and watching. They all piled past him with greetings, the vociferous ones of which he noted were made by the cowboys who had remained home. They were merry. Mason glared at Britt as he hobbled up on the porch and shoved out a dirty hand with a bloody furrow across the back of it.

“Thet’s what I get fer not throwin’ my gun,” he growled, as if Britt had been somehow to blame.

“Wal, it’s yore left hand.”

“Yass? An’ how’m I gonna play cards?”

“Cap, Laigs means he can’t stack the deck,” said Blue.

“Laigs, when did you an’ Tex stop these bullets?” queried the foreman.

“Yestiddy mornin’.”

“I reckon it was accident.”

“Sorta — fer the hombre who done it.”

During the ensuing half hour while Britt went inside to wait for Frayne and Brazos he heard much interesting news, but nothing at all about the rescue of Doane’s horses, and the fight which had evidently taken place with the thieves.

Railroad construction had been slow during the spring and summer owing to lack of funds. But now the rails were moving west again and Las Animas was roaring. The construction engineers expected to get to Trinidad before winter set in. Trains were running regularly between Las Animas and Kansas City. One train had been held up for a whole day near Dodge by a herd of buffalo. Another had been stopped recently by bandits. Frank and Jesse James had been blamed for this, but according to railroad men they could not have been implicated because they had been recognized in western Kansas at the time of the hold-up near Newton. This strengthened the rumour of other strong bands of outlaws working westward.

Cattle shipments had been large and the price of cattle on the hoof, delivered at the railroad, was expected to increase. The cowboys had passed a large caravan between the Cimarron and the Purgatory Rivers. Laigs Mason had won a hundred dollars in a game of poker, which bit of news appeared to be the most impressive the returning cowboys felt that they had.

Presently the doorway framed the striking figure and face of Brazos Keene. Unlike his comrades, Brazos had that morning taken the trouble to shave and don a clean shirt and scarf. He looked like a handsome imp of Satan.

“Howdy, Old Timer! Yu shore look lonesome. Proves yu don’t ‘predate us when we’re heah,” was his greeting to Britt. “Pards, I had a drink as big as thet. An’ who yu think was layin’ fer me? Connie! — Did she — was she glad to see me? Wal, yu’d all been green.”

“Aw, I was onto you,” bawled out Laigs. “You let me drive thet ole wagon all day long, till we get near home. Then you offer to relieve me — all so you could hang behind an’ meet the gurls an’ have a drink. Dog-gone-you, Brazos! I don’t know how’n the hell you make sich a sucker out of me.”

Brazos did a jig in the middle of the bunk-house floor, his fine embroidered boots flying, his spurs jingling, his clustering yellow locks dancing with the rest of him.

“Back home!” babbled Brazos, as he completed his jig. “Lucky trip! — Sweet rest an’ good grub an’ thet black-eyed slave of mine! Aw, a cowboy’s life is hard.”

Britt thought that all the marvellous traits of the Texas cowboy, and for that matter of all the range-riders in the West, were epitomized in this slender, fair-haired, blue-eyed boy of nineteen. But Britt knew that to look at him and to listen was to court deception. Brazos was never what he seemed. On the surface he was frivolous, care-free, a heedless wild youth, hard as flint, living for the moment, conscienceless and irresponsible. This was true of Brazos, but it had to do with externals. Either Brazos was a youth with many sides or an incomparable actor, or both.

“Wal, how aboot it?” queried Britt, into the first lull.

“How aboot what, boss?” drawled Brazos.

“I want a report, don’t I?”

“Dawg-gone if I ever know what you want,” complained Brazos, plaintively. “Anyway, Frayne was haid of this drive.”

“You got back Doane’s hawses.”

“Shore. We didn’t know whose they were till I seen thet blue roan with a ripple on his flank. I’d seen Miss Holly on him, an’ I recollected thet she gave him to Ann Doane.... So things kinda connected up in my dumb haid.”

“Ah-huh, I reckon. Wal, tell me aboot what happened?”

“Boss, I ain’t feelin’ like talkin’,” replied Brazos, in cool evasion.

“Laigs, do you want to tell me?” went on Britt, dryly.

“Boss, I’m a cowman what’s shy of words. Besides, I’m tired an’ hurt an’ I couldn’t talk fer a million.”

“Million what?” asked Britt, convinced that he could make Laigs retract this extra vagan t-speech.

“Pesos,” said Laigs, shortly.

Then Britt called loudly: “Jackson!”

“Yas, suh. Heah I is.”

“Come over heah.”

The little bow-legged negro approached Britt with some uncertainty and trepidation, but his eyes rolled till the whites showed, to match with his teeth.

“Air you dumb, too, Jack?”

“I reckon — yas, suh, I’se as dumb as Laigs.”

“Wal, heah’s ten pesos.”

“Boss! Fer me?” asked Jackson, with a huge grin.

“Yes, if you’ll take thet back aboot bein’ dumb.”

“Sho, suh. I’se not dumb atall.... Yo see, Boss, I wuz jes sidin’ wif Laigs—”

“Hyar!” yelled Laigs, suddenly coming out of his stupefaction. “You darn, hoss-chewin’ nigger! Lay off’n me....

Boss, I’ll take it back. I’ll tell you anythin’ fer ten—”

“Shet up, Laigs,” interrupted Britt. “All of you keep shet up while I get this report from Jackson. Things hev come to a sad pass in an ootfit when the boss has to pay fer a report.... Come on, Jack.”

“What yu want, suh?”

“Tell me all aboot how you come to get Doane’s hawses back.”

“Wal, suh, it wuz dis way,” began Jackson eagerly. “Jes befo noon yestiddy mawnin’ we wuz ridin’ along wben Cherry oot ahaid seen dust, an’ he held us up. When we all seen it we got to bettin’ on what made it. Boss, on dis drive we sho seen things before dey seen us. Cherry bet der wuz a string of hosses comin’. Wal, Cherry won de bet an’ Mars Frayne held us dere to wait. It wasn’t long den till we seen fo hossmen behind dat string. Wal, den Mars Frayne had us hide round a brushy bend in de road till them riders done come up. Befo all de bosses got by Brazos seen dat blue roan wif our brand, an’ den we all knowed sho dey’d been some hoss-stealin’. But, suh, when Frayne rode oot in front of us dem fo men was sho susprised. Dey didn’t ‘pear sociable an’ de leader yelled an’ was pullin’ his gun when Frayne laid him offen his hoss. De odder riders bolted, shootin’ back, an’ we rustled after ’em sho burnin’ powder.... Wal, suh, it wuz soon ober. Laigs an’ Tex wuz hit. Dem fo hoss-thieves wuz pore white trash, boss. Dey didn’t hev nuthin’ much. We trowed dere guns an’ saddles in the wagon, den round up de stole hosses, an’ rustled along.... Dat’s all, suh.”

“Ten cart-wheels fer thet story,” stormed Laigs Mason. “I coulda told it better fer two-bits.”

At this junction Britt heard a horse outside, and soon found Frayne there, unsaddling. The outlaw had a preoccupied manner. He left saddle and bridle on the ground, and when he turned Britt met a frowning face and bewildered eyes from which the piercing quality had gone into eclipse.

“Wal, Renn?” queried Britt, with a smile.

“Don’t grin at me — you Texas chessy-cat,” groaned Frayne, with suspended breath.

“What’s wrong?” —

“Wrong! The whole world is upside down.... I’m locoed, Britt — buffaloed — beat! — Nothing left for me but to go out and get myself shot!”

“Renn, have you been drinkin’?”

“Not yet. But I sure will be, pronto.”

“Nonsense. Tell me what happened. — Why, man, I was shore Holly would be glad to see you. I’m darn sorry. But I’m only an old fool.”

“She was glad — to see me,” whispered Frayne, huskily, and he look dazed.

“Aw! — Wal, what could be wrong, then?” went on Britt, smoothly, and drew the unresisting Frayne along to the end of the porch. He felt mightily guilty, yet somehow elated.

“What? — Man alive, it’s all wrong.”

“Renn, I cain’t savvy. Better tell me. What did Holly say?” returned Britt, powerfully.

“She stood in the door — as I rode up,” replied Frayne, as if impelled. “But when I got off with the bags she was gone. I went in.... There she stood — white — as white.... I said, ‘Miss Holly. Here I am with the money — more than we figured.’... I laid the bag on the table. She waved it aside — as if that money — which damn near drove me crazy — was nothing. Nothing at all! That, and the way she looked — upset me.... She took told of my coat. ‘Renn! You’re back — safe?’ she whispered. I don’t know what I said, but I assured her I was all right — that all was well. She shut her eyes. I saw tears slide out from under her tight eyelids.... She leaned against me and shook. Then she opened her eyes. The tears were all gone. They shone like black stars — deep in a well — Beautiful!

— They will haunt me sleepless — the rest of my life.... Then, Cap — she — she kissed me.... Not on my cheek! But on my lips — my sun-burnt, alkali-split, tobacco-stained lips!”

“Yeah? An’ then what did you do?” queried Britt, feelingly, as Frayne leaned against the cabin wall. This was the moment. The cool hard outlaw did not manifest himself in this moment. He was betraying his true self. A dark terrible pain changed the grey of his eyes.

“Do? — I broke — and ran,” he whispered,-hoarsely, swallowing hard.

“Ran? — You, Renn Frayne? Wal, wal!”

“Britt, you are a soulless cuss.”

“Holly loves you,” returned Britt, quietly, sure of Holly, sure of himself, and in this stern broken mood of Frayne’s, sure of him.

“My God! — Don’t say that!”

“It’s true, Renn. I found it out since you left. This is the end of Holly’s many flings at the cowboys. This time — poor kid — she’s got a dose of ber own medicine. Holly is caught.... Renn, for heaven’s sake—”

“Britt, you needn’t say more,” interrupted Frayne, coming away from the wall, grey-faced and spent. “Do you think I’m one of these rocks — or a piece of dead wood.... I worship Holly Ripple! — That’s been true ever since the day she asked me to stay at Don Carlos’ Rancho.... And it was all right — till now.... Till now! — My God, who could have foreseen that sweet, beautiful, innocent girl would fall in love with me? Me! — Britt, I’ve got to go out and get myself shot.”

“Ah-huh! “ejaculated Britt, in slow scorn. “Thet’d be a fine way to treat Holly.... Fer her kindness an’ generosity — her faith an’ love — you’d reward her by leavin’ her heart-broken — by leavin’ us heah wuss off than ever. You cain’t do thet, Renn Frayne.”

“Yes, it’s yellow of me,” flashed Frayne, passionately. “But what else is there for me? — Cap, she might — she might—”

“Like as not, Renn, Holly not only might. She will! An’ then what, man?”

“I’d fall — on my knees.”

“Quite appropriate, if you ask me.... Frayne, you’re worn oot an’ overwrought. Let’s go in.”

“Wait.... Cap, I’ll take that back — about getting myself shot. Lord knows, I may get it any day.... I’ll stay on and see you through this rustler war. But I must not go near Holly. And you must swear you’ll never betray me.”

“Shore, I swear thet, Renn,” replied Britt, once more dry and drawling of speech. A happiness tugged at his heartstrings. A moment back panic had assailed him. Britt liked and respected Frayne all the more for his weakness, for his despair, for what must have been honour. The future did not look so dark as formerly for Holly Ripple.

CHAPTER X

ONE AND ALL the returning cowboys sought their bunks, after Jose had satisfied the inner man, and in Brazos’ case left a dire threat as to what would result if anybody disturbed his repose. Skylark showed remarkable eagerness to undertake the twenty mile ride to Doane’s, to acquaint that individual of the recovery of his horses. This deceived no one, although Laigs made the only audible comment: “My gosh, I’d like to get it so I’d know how it feels!”

Britt, in fear and trembling, yet happy within, went up to the ranch-house to see Holly. He found her another perfect example of the incomprehensibleness of women. She was the old Holly. It relieved Britt as well as puzzled him. Frayne had been most revivifying medicine. To be sure Holly would never imagine that Frayne had told Britt about the kiss which had been his undoing. And Britt concluded this would be a very inopportune time to break his perfectly unscrupulous promise to Frayne. Somehow, marvellously, Holly had extracted the old fire and joy and mystery, with something sweetly baffling, from those few moments alone with Frayne. Therefore all seemed well.

“Did you hide the money?” asked Britt, recalling Holly’s carelessness about this detail. They shared a secret hiding-place, where her father and the Valverdes before him had stored gold and valuables.

“Yes. I counted it. Such a job! You know we told Frayne to fetch small bills.”

“How much?”

“Nearly one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Wal, it’ll hev to last a while, my dear. I can’t risk any more drives.”

“But you intended to,” she protested.

“Shore. Since the ootfit got back I’ve changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“Wal, information. Brazos doesn’t like the idee, an’ Frayne won’t heah of it.”

“He won’t? — I wonder why?”

“Struck me Renn’s kinda queer. I reckon it’s thet he just cain’t leave you again,” rejoined Britt, casually, and he pretended to be blind to Holly’s rich red blush. This romance was proceeding to his satisfaction, but he had a warning then not to overdo his part. He would let nature take its course for a while.

“Holly, you remember thet blue roan you gave Ann Doane?” inquired Britt.

“Frisk? Indeed, I do. I loved that pony. But Ann was so taken with him. Why do you ask?”

“Wal, Frisk was stolen by hawse-thieves along with Doane’s other hawses. Lo an’ behold, our ootfit fetched them back!”

“To-day?” exclaimed Holly.

“Shore. When else could they? It was plumb lucky. I didn’t get much oot of Brazos an’ nothin’ oot of Frayne, so I reckon there wasn’t much to it.”

“Cap Britt! Don’t you try any of your old tricks. You know — if these devils of mine captured any horse-thieves they’d hang them.”

“I reckon. They’re shore het-up aboot things these days. But I know fer a fact thet they didn’t capture this bunch of hawse-thieves.”

“Good. I’m glad. I pity these poor outcasts who have to steal.”

“Wal, lass, I’m not so full of pity as you,” drawled Britt. “An’ if you didn’t have the most dangerous ootfit on this frontier you’d soon lose yore pity.”

“Oh, for the days when I was little! The long, lazy, glamorous days of caravans, of the endless fiestas, the fandangos, the sombreros and chaparagos!”

“They will never return, lass. But you will always have Mexicans. I rather look ahead, say five years, though thet’s awful soon, when we’ll have peace on the range — an’ the prattle an’ patter of children in this great house.”

“Oh, yes — how romantic,” remarked Holly, without flicking an eyelash. “Perhaps Brazos and Skylark — possibly Frayne — will supply you with some of that joy of life soon.... By the way, Cappy, are all the men in?”

“No.”

“Who’s out?”

“Talman, Trinidad an’ Rebel.”

“Oh.... That doesn’t look so good, does it?”

“Wal, it might be good. I’m givin’ Talman the benefit of a doubt. Cottonwood Basin is a long way an’ a big country. It’ll take lots of ridin’. But Rebel ought to be heah.”

“Is he working alone?”

“Yes. I gave him an odd job.”

“Watching Talman! — I should think the boys would hate spying on one another.”

“They shore do.”

“How could any of my men betray me!”

“Wal, Frayne explained thet in his way. I’d say aboot the same. Hail fellar meetin’ strangers, or cowmen not in the ootfit, a few stiff drinks, some persuasion — an’ a big roll of greenbacks. The queer thing is thet cowboys withoot a bit of yellow in them have been known to do it. An’ the other kind air easy. Slaughter an’ McCoy know this as wal as we do.

They’d shore pay handsome to corrupt some of our boys. If they are goin’ crooked.”

“Is there any doubt about that?”

“No. But to prove it! Thet’ll take hard clever work, unless these men grow bold or careless. Sellin’ to crooked cattle buyers they might steal indefinitely heah on this range without bein’ caugbt.”

“Britt, I don’t believe any cowmen, especially on my ranch, could ever fool Brazos or Frayne.”

“Wal,” rejoined Britt, made thoughtful by this pregnant observation from a woman’s intuition, “there might be a heap in thet.”

“Anyway, if it happens, don’t tell me,” concluded Holly, shrinkingly.

At supper that night Britt asked Frayne, “What’s this talk aboot the James boys?”

“They were in Las Animas,” returned Frayne. “It wasn’t known to everybody. But all kinds of talk was going around. I met Jesse and talked with him. I knew him years ago. He wanted me to join his band.”

“Wal! — What was he doin’ way oot heah?”

“He and Frank had been in California. They came right through Don Carlos’ Rancho. They ate at Holly’s table one night and she never knew who they were. Cole Younger and others of their gang met them at Las Animas. They had scattered after the robbery at the Kansas City Fair last September. Just before that, somewhere in Missouri, Jesse James had killed three men. Jesse told me that he and Frank had killed six men over a card game in California.”

“Nine men!”

“That’s nothing for the James Boys. If you cross them one way or another they’re tolerable bad hombres. Train robbers, bank robbers! They work on a big scale. Jesse must have twenty men in his outfit altogether. But they travel in small bunches.”

“Renn, air them James fellars any punkins with guns?” inquired Brazos, who had been an absorbed listener.

“Neither would stand much chance with you, Brazos, on an even break. But they’re not gunmen. Just plain robbers.”

“Gosh! I stood right alongside Jesse James in thet saloon — an’ didn’t savvy.”

“Damn good thing,” ejaculated Laigs Mason. “If you had, you’d picked a fight with him.”

“Aw, talk sense, yu little tumble-bug! I never picked a fight in my life.”

“Frayne, did James ask you what you were doin’?” queried Britt.

“No. I told him I had gone into the cattle business. He said New Mexico had the prettiest ranges he had seen. But that cattle raising was too slow, too tame for him.”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed one of the cowboys.

“Too slow an’ tame!” ruminated Mason, with scorn.

“Sho he’s wrong,” spoke up Jacksqn, seriously. “I done wuz a bank robber once. We stoled de safe oot of de bank, an’ sho nuff near busticated ourselves luggin’ it oot on de prairiee. Den we wearied ourselves fer two days breakin’ dat iron box open. Dere was nuthin’ inside but paper.”

A roar greeted the negro’s laconic exposition of why he considered the bank-robbing business undesirable.

“Wal, dawg-gone-it—”

“Lissen!” suddenly interrupted the Cherokee, holding up his hand, his sombre, bronze face intent. Jose stopped like a statue over his oven. The room became quiet.

“Cherry, what yu heah?” queried Brazos, sharply.

“Hoss come like hell!”

“Wal, I should smile,” agreed Brazos, rising, his face clouded. This cowboy had a penchant for presaging trouble.

“Keep still,” ordered Britt. “We all haven’t the ears of a jack-rabbit.... What if a hawse is comin’ like hell?”

That quieted the listening group. The doors were open. The warm summer night was still except for soft sounds of song and guitar in the distance. As Britt listened he swept his glance from one to another of his men. Brazos had heard. The half-breeds nodded. Santone flashed dark eyes at Cherry. Then all the others, almost as one man, exhibited proof of the Indian’s marvellous hearing. A second later Britt caught the faint rhythmic roll of the hoofs of a horse coming at a dead run on the hard road. There was nothing in this sound to make that group of cowboys tense and expectant. But it did. It was the moment and the place — the something charged in the atmosphere. Some of the boys went on eating, yet they were very quiet.

“Thet hombre is ridin’ in fer cigarettes,” burst out Mason.

“Mebbe he wants to keep cool this hyar hot night,” vouchsafed a comrade.

“Shore, he’s runnin’.”

“Jose, shoot me a hot biscuit.”

These and other remarks greeted Britt’s ears. Outside on the road the swift beat of hoofs slowed to a clatter, then a scraping slide that sent gravel pattering in a shower. Creak of leather, clang of spurs, thud of boots — and hard steps on the porch!

“Rebel!” sang out Brazos. “An’ the fire is oot!”

Swift clinking steps thumped through the bunk-house to the door of the dining-room. A rider entered. Britt recognized Rebel, but only from his unmistakable small stature and his garb. Lather and dust covered him; bits of brush and cedar stuck in his chaps; the odour of the range clung round him. From a grey and black visage blazed two terrible eyes that flashed over the outfit.

“Brazos — Santone — you — all back!” he panted, hoarsely.

“Howdy, Rebel. Shore, we’re all heah,” replied Brazos, coolly.

“Been ridin’, eh?” asked Britt, as he arose.

“Boss, I couldn’t have — wuss news.... Fellars, finish yore supper. Lemme get — my breath.... Water an’ some grub. No whisky. I’m — all right.”

“Take it easy, pard. I’ll throw yore saddle an’ turn yore hawse in,” replied Brazos. And scarcely another word was spoken among them, none to Rebel, until a few minutes later, when they all assembled in the bunk-house.

“Shet doors an’ winders,” said Rebel, curtly. “Reckon we don’t want anybody else heahin’ what I got to say.”

“Hev a smoke, Rebel,” said Laigs Mason, offering one. “An’ set down, cowboy. You’re shakin’ like a fence-wire in a November wind.”

Rebel accepted the cigarette and, seating himself on the table, he puffed it a few times while sweeping the semicircle of his comrades with those eyes of fire.

“Captain Britt — an’ fellars — I’m darn sorry I hev to report thet — thet Talman an’ Trinidad air double-crossin’ us,” began Rebel, in husky, halting voice.

Into the shocked stillness that followed split the cracking sound of a hard fist in a hard palm. The first treachery under the new regime, since Holly Ripple’s endeavour to enroll them in knightly loyalty, greyed the faces and silenced the tongues of these cowboys. Britt’s heart sank. He had hoped against hope. And a slow smouldering rage took flame within him.

“All right — Sloan,” choked out the foreman. “We all know you hate to squeal as much as we hate to heah you. But as an ootfit we got our backs to the wall.”

“I’ve been ridin’ ten days an’ in thet time we’re oot aboot three thousand haid, rough estimate made at long distance with a glass, an’ all grades. Which means shore other brands besides ours.”

“Three thousand haid!” ejaculated Britt, thunderstruck.

“Talk low, Cap,” interposed Frayne. “Sloan, you’re not a man to overestimate. But...”

“Frayne, I’m underestimatin’.”

“Rebel, yu shore ain’t drunk or crazy,” burst out Brazos in a fierce whisper, his eyes leaping blue flames. “Hev yu been hit on the haid?”

“Aw, Reb!” remonstrated Laigs, who would have corroborated anything stated by Brazos.

“Gospel truth, fellars. An’ don’t rile me. I’m kinda sick an’ so — mad thet I’m seein’ you-all double.... Jest the same you know damn well thet Ben Sloan has good eyes. They’ve watched four drives, all aboot the same size, an’ with five riders each. Different riders! Three of these went between west an’ south, haided either fer Fort Sumner, Roswell, Lincoln, or Santa Fe, or mebbe Las Vegas. The last drive, with aboot a thousand haid, air due to go north in the mawnin’, I reckoned.”

“These drives from Cottonwood Basin?” queried Britt, hanging on Sloan’s words.

“Three of them. The last bunch must have been picked within sight of the ranch.’Cause I seen the cattle travellin’ west on the other side of the Cottonwood.”

“Ha! In the timber?”

“Yes. An’ along the edge. Say, less’n thirty miles from where you’re settin’ now.”

“But, Sloan, how could all thet be possible?” demanded Britt, utterly bewildered.

“I don’t know shore. My idees may be wrong. But heah’s how I figger. Fust, Talman had a field-glass.”

“How do you know thet?”

“I seen it. I seen him usin’ it from the top of Grey Hill.”

“Where’d he get it?”

“Ask me another. Wal, to go on. You sent Talman an’ Trinidad off fer the Basin, ahaid of all of us. I was to trail them a day late. Boss, I didn’t track them. If I had they’d seen me.’Cause they never went to the Basin. I figgered they’d do aboot what they did do. So I struck off into the hills from heah, an’ worked down. Second mawnin’ early I seen smoke come oot of the cedars on Grey Hill. An’ thet was my tip. But it took me two days to find oot them campers was Talman an’ Trinidad. One of them was there all the time. One of them rode off three times. Two separate bunches of riders made the foot of thet hill, aboot sundown on different days. Wâl, Talman is cute. He played to locate when an’ where you sent riders. No doubt he seen Skylark ride oot with his men, an’ Jim with his. I mustn’t forget thet Talman had two kinds of signals, mebbe a piece of mirror, an’ the other was regular old Injun smoke-signals.”

“Hell you say!” ejaculated Britt, greatly chagrined at becoming the dupe of a cowboy he had not considered at all clever.

“I rode all night an’ took up a stand on a high knoll in the Basin. I stayed there two days. Seen the drives from there. I had to get oot fer water. So I left after night-fall, an’ come back, an’ got a foothill back of McCoy’s ranch. I could see Grey Hill, but too far away to make anythin’ oot. I lay low all day. An’ thet was yesterday. This mawnin’ before daylight I moved back ten miles or so where I could watch Grey Hill. More smoke-signals. Aboot mid-afternoon I catch some dust risin’ above the cottonwoods. I watched thet creep along fer hours. I seen a big bunch of cattle cross the creek an’ work toward thet draw west of Grey Hill. Four riders. I watched the cattle oot of sight. An’ aboot sundown I seen Talman an’ Trinidad ride down to meet them four riders.... Aw hell! I knowed their hawses, ‘specially thet iron-grey pack-hawse. I watched them go oot of sight up the draw. Then I hit oot fer home an’ if my hawse ain’t daid by now he’s shore got bottom.”

“No, it couldn’t be wuss,” soliloquized Britt, sadness momentarily infringing on anger.

“Reb, it was a hell of a job, but yu done it great,” was Brazos’ eloquent tribute.

“Rest easy to figger, boss,” put in Jim, mildly.

“Sloan, get it over. What’s yore angle?” added Britt.

“Wal, I’d say it’s all over but the fire-works.... There’s a fine pasture up thet draw. Oot of sight, an’ it leads short cut over to the trail to the reservations. Thet’s where thet beef is haided. Jest timed nice before the snow flies. Whoever sells them steers to them cheatin’ government buyers will get ten dollars or more a haid. — Whew! What a haul!...Wal, I don’t figger Talman an’ Trinidad goin’ any farther than thet camp. They’re on the way heah. But I figger they had pore fare on thet hill-top. They’ll be cocky an’ hungry. Mebbe want to talk more business. They might not stay in camp all night an’ may be on the way heah now. But I’d gamble not.”

“Cap, Talman has sold oot to some big cattle interest fer big money, an’ he’s made a sucker oot of Trinidad,” said Brazos, with terse finality.

“Britt, it’s all plain as print now,” added Frayne. “Talman’s job is to stick with us and be a spy for whoever bribed him to ditch us. Keep these rustlers posted on when and where our outfit rides and the movements of our stock.... Damn clever! There’s brains behind that deal.... Sloan, I congratulate you on the slickest piece of scout work I ever heard of.”

“Aw, I was jest lucky.... An’ onlucky to be the fellar to ketch them.”

“Don’t talk thet way,” returned Britt, sharply. “We air honour an’ duty bound in this ootfit. It was a magnificent job.... Who’s behind this steal?”

“I don’t know, boss,” admitted Rebel. “Reckon thet’s a small matter now, ‘cause it’s a cinch we’re gonna find oot.”

“Ah-huh! Thet fetches us down to brass tacks,” rejoined Britt, grimly. “Sloan, will you handle the deal?”

“Air you askin’ me, or orderin’ me, sir?”

“Wal, I leave it to you.”

“Reckon I ought to.... All right. Gimme six men on fresh hawses. We’ll leave pronto an’ cut up in the hills the way I went, an’ come down on thet draw, before daylight. I know right where they’ll camp. We’ll leave our hawses back a ways an’ slip down, aimin’ to surprise them.”

“Men, I’m callin’ fer volunteers, but reservin’ right not to accept anyone I want to stay heah,” announced Britt.

“Me,” spoke up Brazos, coolly, his head bowed. He, the cowboy who had only recently suffered from the treachery of a friend, whom he killed for that treachery, had allied himself with this sinister posse for a like fatal responsibility.

“An’ me,” growled Laigs Mason.

“I’ll go,” said Frayne.

“No, Frayne. You stay heah,” interposed Britt. “I want to go myself, so I’d rather you stayed heah.”

“Me, too,” called Tennessee.

“No,” objected Britt.

“I’se willin’, suh,” put in Ride-’Em Jackson. “Dat Talman hombre kicked me once, an’ I sho nebber lubbed him.”

“Thet’s three. Come on, you,” called Britt, impatiently. “Me,” replied Santone.

“Wal, I ain’t keen to go, but I reckon I’ll do it,” said Jim, wagging his lean head.

“I’ll let you off, Jim,” declared Britt. “Rustle, boys. Two more.”

Cherokee signified a reluctant willingness to participate, but Britt ruled him out, as also Blue. Then Tex and Mex Southard, slow and impassive as always, chimed in to complete the number Sloan had asked for.

“Couple of you wrangle fresh hawses,” ordered Britt. “What else, Rebel?”

“Rifles, water-bags, some grub. We might have a chase.”

“Cap, what’ll we do if Talman and Trinidad ride in tomorrow?” queried Frayne.

“I was thinkin’ of thet. They’d smell a rat, shore.... Wal, tie ’em up an’ wait for us to come back.”

“This must be kept from Miss Ripple.”

“Hell yes! So in case they come be shore careful. Holly’s worried aboot them cowboys.”

“Britt, it’ll be most damn uncomfortable for us if Talman and Trinidad come back,” said Frayne, ponderingly.

“Let’s don’t borrow trouble.”

An hour later eight horsemen, on bays and blacks, darkly garbed and heavily armed, rode silently away from Don Carlos’ Rancho, headed for the foothills to the north.

Down on the range the night was warm and still. Stars shone brightly. Sloan led the single file at a trot until he struck a slow grade, where he put his horse to a walk. The fact that no rider smoked or spoke attested to the nature of this night adventure.

Britt was reminded of his ranger work down on the Rio Grande. How many nights had he ridden out with a grim group of rangers, bent on some such dark quest as this! The fall of Talman, and especially of Trinidad, had hurt him deeply. Still, after the first regrets had given way to wrath, he did not think his faith in the other cowboys of his outfit had been impaired. Talman and Trinidad were due for a terrible reckoning.

Once up on the ridge Britt found the air cool and his heavy coat comfortable. Soon Sloan turned west and kept heading the draws that came out from under the bulk of the mountain. From sage they rode on into the cedars, and at last into a fringe of scattered pines reaching down from the timber belt. Deer took the place of cattle, and coyotes and wolves wildly broke the silence. Table Mountain, over in Colorado, loomed square and black above the range of lesser mountains. The grey cedar-dotted ridges ran down to end in hills that sloped off into the range. Between these wide ridges dark timber-choked gullies wound down to merge in the grey. Water splashed with cold tinkle over rocks. Once the lead horses snorted and plunged as a black bear lumbered by insolently. As the country became rougher travel grew slower. Sloan led a tortuous course through thickets of oak and patches of cedar, winding in and out of a jumble of great rocks fallen from above. He crossed a goodly mountain stream, which went tumbling down with shallow roar. This surely was Bush Creek, that had its confluence with the Cottonwood fifteen miles west of the rancho.

In another hour of as rough riding as Britt had experienced Sloan left the dim deer trail and headed down hill. By starlight Britt made out that his watch said one o’clock. The guide knew his way and took his time. It seemed to Britt that the longer the hours the grimmer the men.

A late moon rose, dimming the stars, adding to the weird aspect of the wilderness. It was a pale yellow moon, misshapen, and low over the ramparts. Gnarled and stunted cedars, reaching out with bleached dead snags, added to the spectral scene.

At length Sloan led out of the heavy timber to a marked break in the conformity of the vast slope. Grey, black-dotted ridges ran down with bare white backs and sides, toward the vast void that was the cattle range. The night spectacle here appeared to Britt grand in the extreme. He was on the backbone of the tableland, between the mountains and the foothills. The great range curved around this corner into an amphitheatre walled by the Rockies.

Sloan halted to let his comrades close in around him.

“How long till daybreak?”

“Wal, let’s see. My watch says two-thirty. I reckon we hev an’ hour an’ a half before we can see good.”

“Plenty time. Thet camp is tolerable far yet. But in this air a crack of a hoof on a rock would carry a long way. What you-all say?”

“Better be shore than sorry,” rejoined Britt. “Pile off, fellars.”

“Leave everythin’ extra heah but yore rifles — an’ ropes,” whispered Sloan, as he securely tied his horse to an oak sapling. “Take yore chaps off an’ spurs.”

In a moment his followers were all ready, dark faces agleam in the pale moonlight.

“Listen, men. I know right where this ootfit will camp. We’ll have to go slow an’ easy.... Now, boss, what’s the deal when we slip up on them?”

“Hold them up. If they show fight, wal — thet’d suit us all better. Only—”

“Only we want to find oot who’s back of this deal,” interrupted Sloan, menacingly. “We wouldn’t be so much better off without thet.”

“Rebel, you’re daid right. We want to force one of them to squeal.”

“Jest so thet ain’t Talman or Trinidad,” said Brazos.

“Britt, you want me to go ahaid with this?” asked Sloan, hoarsely.

“Yes, an’ clear through with it.”

“All right. Foller me close. Do what I do. When I yell run in with me. Hold them up. Don’t shoot unless they go fer their guns. Thet’s all.”

With a rifle in one hand and a coiled lasso in the other Sloan slipped off under the cedars. He picked his way, walking stealthily, and after proceeding a hundred steps or more he halted to listen. In a moment he pressed on. Britt came last in that file. He had difficulty with his breathing. The altitude bothered him. Patch after patch of dark cedars were passed, and thickets of aspens, rustling in the cool soft breeze, and labyrinthine mazes of lichened boulders. Another thread of brooklet meandered down the slope. Beyond it a low incline ran up to a ridge-top where a few rods down on the other side the belt of timber ended. A grey swale extended down into obscurity. Sloan halted at the edge of the trees until all the men were around him. They touched each other and looked, but no one spoke. All heard the cattle down in that swale.

When Sloan started on again he took to an Indian’s stealth and slowness. Every few feet he halted. The moon shone fitfully through the spreading branches, casting dark shadows. A cow bawled somewhere. From the opposite ridge a wolf howled. Once again Sloan’s followers lined up beside him. He touched his nose. Those nearest him nodded. They smelled smoke or a burned-out camp fire.

Then he went on more guardedly than ever. The moon failed or passed behind a peak. This permitted the men to see that the dark hour before dawn had almost passed. Sloan proceeded more slowly, halted oftener, and waited longer, until gloom lightened to grey.

Britt heard horses nipping the grass and presently saw a bunch on the grey slope. Birds began to twitter. The wail of coyotes soared up from the range below. Water trickled somewhere over rocks. Day was at hand, yet the crafty Sloan grew more relentlessly slow than ever. If any of his men snapped a twig, which happened a few times, he paused long. At last when stones and trees could be clearly distinguished be got down to crawl. This method of advance was a relief to Britt, for whom the unusual exertion had been trying. They crawled and they rested. Finally Britt felt a restraining hand patting his shoulder. He looked up. Santone crouched a little ahead of him. Britt discovered a beautiful glade just below him, the smoking remains of a camp fire, prone blanketed forms on the ground, and packs scattered around.

Britt saw Sloan lay aside his lasso and take his rifle in two hands, slowly getting to his knees. His followers did likewise. Britt felt the cold sweat break out over him. He changed his rifle to his left hand, and drew his gun.

On the moment one of the prostrate men rolled over to throw off his blanket, to sit up yawning.

Rebel leaped up to let out that rebel yell for which he was famed. Then rang out a stentorian chorus: “Hands up!”

The farthest of these seven men leaped nimbly up, to shoot as swiftly and bound away. A volley of rifle shots answered him. Britt saw him stagger and fall.

Another, unheeding commands or shot, rolled out of his bed, guns flashing red. He was riddled by bullets before he got off his knees. A third, agile and swift, escaped a first fire to make the blunder of wheeling before he reached cover. His gun spouted as the rifles cracked, and he collapsed like a wet sack.

“Hands up, — !” bawled Rebel, advancing, his rifle at his hip.

Of those remaining one stood paralysed, his hands aloft, another sat with his hands high as his head, a third lay as if stunned, and the fourth leaned on his elbow, a blanket half concealing him. But his posture, his grey blotch of face, struck Britt as forbidding.

“Yu there. Up with ‘em!” rang out Brazos, striding forward.

“Look oot, pard! He’s got a gun!” yelled Laigs, leaping and shooting simultaneously. He lunged in front of Brazos just as the rustler fired through his blanket. Mason staggered under the impact of a heavy ball, then shot the man three times, flattening him on the ground.

“My Gawd! — Laigs, air yu hit?” cried Brazos, piercingly.

“Aw — it ain’t nuthin’,” replied the cowboy, thickly, and turned his rifle on the remaining three men.

“Air yu shore yu’re not hurt? I heahed thet bullet hit.”

“Never touched me, Brazos.... Git yore hands up, thar!... Wal, if it ain’t pard Talman! — Howdy, Beef. Kinda in the wrong grub-line, ain’t you?”

Britt came forward, his gun smoking. He had been in action. The standing rustler was no other than Lascelles, the card-sharp from Louisiana. He looked his fallen estate. Brazos hopped with a wild yell when he recognized the gambler. The second was Talman, on his knees, ghastly livid of face, and petrified with horror. The third was a young, blue-lipped, lean-jawed cowboy who realized his peril.

“Jackson, grab their guns,” shouted Sloan, bloody of visage and fearful to behold. He had met a bullet in that mêlée.

“Anybody else hit?” queried Britt, sharply. Tex Southard sat on a stone, his head bent down. Mex, with a suspicious red on his hands, was fingering his brother’s shoulder.

“Tex bored, but not bad,” he called.

“Which one was Trinidad?” queried Brazos.

“I reckon thet one who run first,” replied Britt. “Go see. But slow, Brazos.”

The cowboy gave the rock a wide berth, and with rifle half up, he sheered around, alert and formidable, to peer ahead. Like a hunter stalking game he started, stiffened, then slowly forged forward to halt and look down. He remained in that posture a long moment.

“Daid!” he called, with the piercing note in his high voice. But he still gazed on. Then in strangled voice he burst out.

“Yu —— yellow fool! Game, but yu’re daid!”

Brazos came striding back, his hair up like a tawny wave, his eyes narrowed to blue dagger points.

“Jack — Santone. Search these men — an’ tie their arms back,” ordered Sloan.

Swift hands carried out this command. Brazos poked with the nose of his rifle at the various articles piled on a rock, markedly among them a huge roll of greenback bills which had been taken from Talman.

“Hundred-dollar bills,” muttered Brazos, his tone and action strangely significant. Then, like a gold-headed striking snake, he leaped to confront Talman. “If yu’d had guts, like Trin, yu wouldn’t hev to swing!”

“Swing?” squeaked Talman, his visage like beaded wax. In profound egotism or arrogance or sheer blind folly the cowboy had not counted the cost of failure. “For God’s sake! — Brazos!”

The inexorable cowboy turned his back. He bent over Mason, who sat humped on a pack. “Laigs, air yu shore yu ain’t hurt bad?”

“I ain’t hurt — none.... Rustle this necktie party — along.” Santone, left-handed and careless, tossed a noose neatly over Lascelles’ head and whipped it tight. Then he made as clever a throw with the other end of his rope, sending it over a branch ten feet up. The gambler, evidently sodden and dazed, awoke to his extremity.

“Lay hold — cowboys!” yelled Sloan, crisply, springing to Santone’s side. Brazos was as quick, and Mex Southard left his brother, to participate. One concerted lunge cut Lascelles’ hideous blasphemy to a gasping wheeze, and jerked him into the air.

“Make fast.”

Britt saw the cowboys hold and tie the rope in a twinkling, and duck to evade the tremendous grotesque kicks of the swinging man. But it was not possible to remove his gaze from Mason, who leaned back with bloody hands pressed to his abdomen and leered up at Lascelles.

“Hey, my caird-sharp galoot. — How you like thet shuffle?... Slip out from under now. Haw! Haw! — Kick, you — ! Stick out yore tongue!... Say, you got any jumpin’-jack I ever seen beat to hell an’ gone!... To hell with you, Lascelles!” —

Meanwhile the other cowboys were not idle. The ugly business must be done quickly. Jackson threw a noose over Talman’s head and grinned in the act.

“Beef, you is sho a wonnerful kicker,” he shouted. “But yo won’t kick no me niggers on dis green earth.”

Talman was sagging down when the ropes strung tight from another branch. His voice had failed; only sickening gasps issued from his lips. Up he shot, six feet above the ground. And Britt turned away. Just then the sun rose, bright and red, over the eastern wall and flooded the glade with crimson light. Shadows of the writhing victims danced across the sunlit rocks.

Rebel Sloan confronted the pallid third of that trio, and waved a ruthless hand aloft.

“Rustler, you see them?”

The reply was an incoherent affirmative.

“Do you want to save yore neck?”

“Gawd Almighty! — Yes — yes! — Gimme — a chance.”

“Will you talk?”

“I — I’ll tell — all,” he whispered, in eager huskiness, and dark, awful eyes lighting with hope.

“Boss, come heah,” called Sloan.

Britt hurriedly got out his pencil and note-book, and ran over. Brazos joined them.

“Watch them ropes, you cowboys,” yelled Sloan. The rustling and threshing of foliage above attested to the violence of the hanged men.

“What’s yore name?”

“Jeff Saunders.”

“Wal, Saunders, this heah is Britt — Holly Ripple’s foreman. What he says you can rely on.”

“Britt — if — if I squeal will you let me go?”

“Yes, provided yore information is conclusive, an’ you swear to leave the country.”

“I know enough, sir, an’ I swear.... I’m only too glad.”

“Who you ridin’ fer?”

“Sewall McCoy.”

“How long hev you rode fer him?”

“Two years. I come to New Mexico with his outfit.”

“Is McCoy back of this deal involvin’ my cowboys?”

“McCoy an’ Slaughter together,” rejoined Saunders, gulping to get his words out quickly. “They joined outfits. Slaughter was the dark hoss. He’s got fourteen hands, not countin’ this Lascelles. They’re located at Aspen Springs, up in the hills.”

“What was their game?”

“A few quick drives this fall. Then big deals next spring. McCoy has buyers all over. When the railroad gets heah he aims to ship a hundred thousand cattle, before the law comes.”

“How many cattle in his herd?”

“Five thousand. All Texas longhorns. He aims to keep thet herd as is, only addin’ branded calves.”

“Who’s he stealin’ from?”

“A little from all cattlemen. But concentratin’ on Ripple stock.”

“From Chisum, too?”

“No. I reckon McCoy is shy of Jingle-bob cattle.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Mebbe ‘cause Chisum will let him alone, so long as he steers clear of the Seven Rivers range.”

“How did McCoy corrupt Talman an’ Trinidad?”

“Money. Talman was leavin’ the range before winter. Trinidad was sore because Talman didn’t divvy. Thet’s why they camped with us last night. Trinidad refused to go back to your ranch. He cussed Talman mighty hard.”

“All right, Saunders. Thet will do. Sign your name heah.... Somebody untie his hands.”.

After this signature was added to Britt’s note-book, Sloan turned Saunders loose. “Grab your saddle, an’ things. Pick oot yore gun. Fork yore hawse an’ ride a bee-line somewhere far an’ wide. Fer yore good luck might not last.”

A poignant cry caused Britt to wheel as on a pivot. Brazos was on his knees beside Mason, who had slumped off the pack to the ground and now sat propped there with strange ashen face.

“Laigsl.”

Agony rang in that cry. Brazos’ nervous hands plucked at Mason’s stained shirt.

“It’s all — right, pard,” replied the wounded cowboy, weakly. “We done fer thet outfit... what we come fer! — Funny, how most of these double-crossers show yellow. Pity aboot Trin.

... I’m glad he cashed game.”

“Old man, you’ve lied to me,” exclaimed Brazos, fearfully.

“Wal, it’s the — last time,” replied Laigs, with a ghost of a smile.

“Fellars, come heah,” faltered Brazos, appealing for help, when perhaps he felt instinctively there was none. He opened Mason’s wet shirt. In the middle of the cowboy’s chest, just below the breast bone, showed an ugly red hole. Only a froth of blood appeared outside. Brazos slipped his hand round to Mason’s back.

“Oh — my — Gawd!” he cried, in terror, and when he brought his hand out it was dripping blood. “Laigs! Yu got in front — of me!” Brazos’ passionate protest of remorse and sorrow broke at the end.

“Wal, pard — you’d done the same for me.... Only I wasn’t — quick enough. — I oughta shot — an’ yelled afterwards.... Don’t take on so, Brazos.”

Britt bent over to examine Mason’s injury. A heavy 45- calibre slug had gone clear through the lad. His moments were numbered.

“Laigs. You haven’t got long.... Is there anythin’?”

“Don’t know what become of — my people. But thet’s no matter.... Gimme a smoke.”

They gathered around Mason and someone gave him a lighted cigarette. He puffed with difficulty, but composedly. He could not inhale.

“Let’s play a hand of draw.”

Santone had a greasy pack of cards which he proceeded to shuffle, and dealt to Laigs, Jackson, Mex and himself.

“Dog-gone! I was always lucky,” said Mason. “Gimme two cairds.... What’re you bettin’, Jack?”

“I done got you skinned, Laigs. I sho has.... It’s goin’ up.”

“Raise you.... Rest of you layin’ down, huh? You darn black scamp! I’ll call an’ lay down three aces.”

“Thet’s good, Laigs. I wuz bluffin’.”

“You oughta know better, Jack.... Yore deal, Mex....

An’ rustle — Gettin’ kinda dark already.”

But the sun was shining bright and gold now, bathing the glade in a glamour of light. A breeze stirred the tree-tops. Somewhere a raven croaked. The cattle were bawling. Across the golden patch of grass where the cowboys knelt swayed the sinister black shadows of the hanging men — now quiet.

Laigs picked up his cards with steady fingers. Brazos knelt behind, holding him up.

“Thet’s dog-gone funny,” said Mason, faintly. “These cairds — sorta blur.... Fellars — I cain’t see!”

He dropped the cards to the grass and his head fell back against Brazos.

“Pard — sing — Lone Prairiee.”

Brazos appeared to quiver through all his lithe frame. He lifted his working face to the sunlit boughs and closed his eyes. In a moment the convulsive quivering ceased. His features shone with a stern, sad and beautiful light. Brazos was the singer of the outfit. He had a clear tenor voice. It broke and | quavered, piercingly sweet. He began again.

“‘O bury me not on the lone prairie,’

The word came low and mournfully

From the pallid lips of a boy who lay

On his death-bed at the close of day.

He had wrestled with pain till o’er his brow

Death’s shadows fast were creeping now;

He thought of his home and the loved ones nigh

As the cowboys gathered to see him die.

‘O bury me not’ — and his voice failed there,

Bui we paid no heed to his dying prayer;

In a shallow grave just six by three

We buried him there on the lone prairie.

Where the dewdrops shine—”

Britt reached out to silence the singer. Laigs was dead.

CHAPTER XI

1874, AS HAD been predicted by Buff Belmet and other frontiersmen, ushered in for eastern and central New Mexico the bloodiest era that ever made history for the West.

There were two reasons for this fact — the rich vast grass ranges that had lured venturesome cattlemen in the ‘sixties to run cattle over the limitless acres once owned by the Spanish dons; and secondly because there was no semblance of law in all the broad land. Rustlers, desperadoes, wild cowboys, adventurers flocked into New Mexico. At one period, from 1874 to 1879, New Mexico held more desperate and vicious men than ever assembled at any other place or time in the settlement of that range country west of Texas and Kansas.

This period saw the inception and development of the Lincoln County War, the bloodiest of all frontier wars, in which three hundred men were killed. It saw the rise of Billy the Kid, Jesse Evans, mere youths in years, but who had no peers in cold nerve, or guncraft, or bloody deeds. At sixteen they were cowboy comrades, riding the same ranch. Before they were twenty they got into different factions and swore to kill each other. But Billy the Kid and Jesse Evans never met face to face. Evans admitted Billy’s superiority with a rifle, but claimed he could beat him to a gun. The saloons of Lincoln and Roswell waited and gambled on the meeting of these two cowboys. No doubt Billy and Jesse avoided the encounter that meant a draw on sight.

Don Carlos’ Rancho stood at the gateway of the pass through which the Old Santa Fe Trail wound up off the Great Plains. The Mexican village had at one time or another har-

boured every Western character, good or bad, who passed that way. In the spring of 1875 Holly Ripple closed her famous, hospitable door to the travelling public. The old, leisurely, singing, glamorous Spanish days passed away; and the new day was hard, keen, vivid, uncertain and raw.

Britt saw with regret the snow gradually melt off the uplands of the rolling range. The flowers sprang up as if by magic, and so did riders coming down out of the hills.

May brought the first caravan and the news from outside. Las Animas was teeming. The railroad was forging west. Cattle, stage-coaches, pack-trains, lone, furtive-eyed riders, wagon-trains of settlers, bands of horsemen who asked no questions and said nothing about themselves — movement of all these came upon the heels of the vanishing snow.

Six months had slipped away into the past, quietly for Britt and his outfit, riding less than in the summer, with their enemies holed-up, like ground-hogs, until the warm winds would blow again. There had been no rustling of cattle since those raids of last fall. But following Rebel Sloan’s round-up of one of these gangs, with report and gossip flying like wildfire over the range, there had been plenty to disturb the peace of the Ripple contingent.

Britt had called a conference in San Marcos of a number of cattlement within a hundred-mile radius of Don Carlos’ Rancho. Doane, Halstead, Clements, his nearest range neighbours, and Bill Wood, the Sedgwick brothers, newcomers in the country, and Hardy Wilson — all these cattlemen had met Britt, to have laid before them the startling facts of the McCoy-Slaughter combine. The result was far-reaching, but very different from what Britt had planned and hoped for. One of these ranchers, in Britt’s opinion, no other than Bill Wood, had told of the conference and its purpose, with the result that Britt’s hope for a unified front against the rustlers was frustrated. It would have been better if Britt had kept his counsel, as well as the Saunders’ confession, from everybody except his own men. McCoy was stronger in the range than Britt had estimated; he had powerful friends who were not friendly to Texans. He dominated the ranchers of small herds and little means. Moreover he developed a tendency to go to town and drink and gamble, during which times he was dan-gerous. He made veiled threats, and in open defiance of Britt and his several notorious cowboys, he attached to his outfit a gunman late from the Kansas border, one Jeff Rankin, whose reputation as a killer came with him and needed no boasting by McCoy. But the loud-mouthed McCoy did brag that he had a man to match Renn Frayne.

After this one blunder Britt kept his mouth closed and his men away from San Marcos. With the Pecos Valley War between bitter factions not wholly ended and the Lincoln County War in its incipiency Britt saw how easily he could be involved in one or the other, or have a private war on his hands.

He and Frayne and Jim talked often and long about how to meet the future. In any case they had a fight on their hands. Doane and his neighbour ranchers feared to ally themselves openly against McCoy. But they ran few cattle compared to the Ripple estate, and knew their own losses would be inconsequential provided they were neutral.

The foreman and his confidants, especially Frayne, worked out a plan that to Britt seemed formidable. They would not make any more cattle drives to the railroad for an indefinite period; they would concentrate all their stock on the thirty-mile range between Cottonwood Creek and the hills; they would no longer split up the outfit into small bunches for isolated trips; they would ride and watch the range in a body, sixteen strong, on the swiftest horses. They would be heavily armed and they would shoot first.

Frayne was the genius of this carefully thought-out defence. He did not think Slaughter and McCoy could last out the summer if they resorted to stealing cattle again. Frayne was noncommittal in regard to Jeff Rankin, the gunman imported obviously to kill him and Brazos. Nevertheless it was clear to Britt that Frayne knew beforehand the result of a possible encounter between himself and McCoy’s desperadoes. Most significant to Britt had been the constant gun and rifle practice that Frayne insisted upon. The last caravan before winter arrived the preceding year had brought a large consignment of weapons and ammunition Britt had ordered to meet the very contingency that now threatened. New -44 calibre Winchester rifles, and the new 1871 model Colt 45 guns were presented to the Ripple outfit. And Britt, urged by Frayne, had the boys constantly at practice, especially with the rifles. They all be-came skilled marksmen. The practice of shooting at coyotes and jack-rabbits from a running horse grew to be fun and spirited rivalry, instead of work. Brazos led them all with the six-shooter, but Jackson paired with the Kentuckian Blue, who had been a squirrel hunter as a boy, in pre-eminence with the rifle. McCoy’s riders would possess but few of the long arms, and constant practice with either of them or the short arms was out of the question. Ammunition in any quantity cost a good deal of money, an expense to which McCoy and Slaughter would not go. That was a detail they overlooked. McCoy had paid hundreds of dollars to corrupt Ripple cowboys, but he probably never thought of making his own unerring marksmen.

Range gossip this spring had it that Britt’s wild outfit of Texans and half-breeds, topped by an outlaw who had killed many men, were intimidated and afraid to frequent the old drinking-saloons and gambling-halls. Gossip from San Marcos came by stage, by rider, and by queer ways that could not be traced. The whole range was buzzing. But what with Chisum about to declare war on rustlers, the Murphy-McSween factions of Lincoln up in arms, the coming of the railroad and the influx of strangers, Holly Ripple’s troubles scarcely held first place in popular clamour.

The death of Laigs Mason had changed Brazos Keene. He grieved for months, and when he got over that the boyish, fun-loving, devilish glee had apparently gone for ever. Brazos drank a good deal, and drifted toward that fiery, untamed, passionate spirit that had heretofore flared up only seldom and fleetingly. Nevertheless he failed in nothing else.

The tragic end of Talman and Trinidad, as well as Mason’s, had likewise worked stern havoc in the devil-may-care minds of the other cowboys. A fatal carelessness which had once marked them almost totally disappeared. They gambled, they drank, they played tricks, but they were changed. They had become cemented in comradeship. Holly Ripple’s faith, the spell of Brazos Keene’s loss, the creed of Laigs Mason, the example of Renn Frayne — these laid their inscrutable and ineradicable hold upon their primitive minds.

Best of all, and in spite of many adverse conditions, Holly Ripple was happy. Britt, stifling his conscience, hugged that to his bosom. As Holly’s twenty-first birthday approached, she grew lovelier than she had ever been, more of a woman, though still capable of girlish fits of temper and pouts of wilfulness. In those winter months, while confined mostly to the house, she had lost her tan and something of the robustness that had come with a summer’s riding, to gain again that pearl whiteness of face and black brilliance of eye for which her Spanish mother had been noted.

Holly Ripple was happy. And Britt knew he dared take the glory of that fact to himself. He had betrayed Frayne’s secret.

Britt often ruminated over the occasion of his faithlessness to Frayne. When he had an idle hour in the dusk beside the fire he often saw Holly’s glorious eyes of rapture in the heart of the coals. Frayne would know some day and bless him for it. He had played fair, he had kept faith as long as he could, and that had been until Holly’s beart was breaking. Weeks and months of Frayne’s strange aloofness, his cold, stem avoidance of her, his inexplicable reaction to that kiss of gratitude she had given him — these had at last paled her cheeks and shamed her into seclusion, and would have destroyed her but for Britt’s revelation.

Christmas Eve he had found Holly alone, weeping before her fire, prey to the old memories of her father and to the hopeless despair of the future.

“Holly lass, I have a Christmas gift for you,” he said, taking her hands.

“Oh, Cappy — I — I don’t want — any gifts.”

“Not anythin’ from me, or Brazos, or the boys?”

“You are dears — to — to remember me — but I can’t care...”

“Not anythin’ from Renn?”

A little shock went through Holly, and the fire-bent eyes gazed up hungrily.

“From Renn?” she whispered.

“I reckon.”

“Did he send me — ?”

“No, not directly. It has come through me.”

“I don’t want it, then,” she replied, moodily.

“Wal, you can heah aboot it, cain’t you?” he went on, persuasively, his heart warming, stirring his courage to this momentous and dangerous revelation.

“If it pleases you, Cappy dear.”

“Wal, I’ll pull up this chair an’ set heah beside you.... Nice fire, Holly. Cedarwood burns so pretty. You see pictures in the coals. An’ it’s snowin’ oot an’ gettin’ darker’n the ace of spades. The boys air all in, comfortable as bugs in a holler log, an’ comparin’ the presents you gave them.... All except Frayne. He’s by the fire, lonesomer’n ever, with eyes you cain’t look into.”

“Sad! Lonely! — He might be here — with me,” cried Holly, passionately.

“So he might. Wal, if you still care, be patient.”

“Still care? — It is killing me,” she murmured, hollowvoiced.

“Holly, our friend might be rememberin’ his youth — a good home — a lovin’ mother — a nice sister. Shore he bad them once.

... Lass, I like the fight Renn’s makin’.”

She did not answer, but her hands clung to his, and her head inclined to his shoulder.

“Listen, lass.... Do you remember the day last summer when Frayne got back from Las Animas?”

“Remember! It haunts me.”

“You kissed him!”

“Oh-h!” Holly let out a smothered cry. “How did you know?”

“Renn told me.”

“Oh — I thought better of him.”

“Wait. I was on the lookout. He came down an’ I waylaid him. Renn was not himself. He was dazed. He was like a man between rapture an’ despair. Shore I took advantage of this weakness. An’ I pumped him, nagged him, till he told me you’d kissed him. He misunderstood thet, Holly. He reckoned you was jest grateful. But thet kiss wrecked him. An’ when I cussed him fer not carin’ aboot you — then I thought he was goin’ to slay me. His eyes were terrible. An’ it all come oot in a flood. Love you? Thet was nothin’ atall. He worshipped you. Aw, it was all there, in his white face an’ burnin’ eyes. Then he said: ‘Now I’ve got to go oot an’ get myself shot!’”

Holly was on Britt’s breast, beating at him, hiding her scarlet face, crying incoherently: “Cappy — darling! — I — oh! — if you’re lying — it’ll kill me.”

“True as gospel, Holly. He made me swear not to tell you. An’ I’ve kept it. Now be a woman. It’ll all turn oot right. This man Frayne comes from fine people. He has good instincts.

Honour! Give him time, lass. Time to prove himself. Time to find himself worthy. Thet day he said if you ever kissed him again he’d fall on his knees. So you can bide that time, long as it may be. Always remember thet you can end it when you choose. Be happy, Holly Ripple — an’ wait.”

Britt was off at dawn one May morning, bound for Grey Hill, to do some field-glass scouting for his own outfit.

The morning was of that exquisite New Mexican kind which even the old dyed-in-the-wool Texan felt bound to admire. Frost-diamonds glistened on the sage and the blades of grass resembled spears of crystal. The air had an exhilarating tang, cold as ice, and sweet. The sunlight, coming from behind, and just up over the rim of the world, cast long grotesque shadows of himself and his horse ahead over the rippling sage. The cottonwoods along the creek showed a fresh green; the range was black and red with cattle; the hills sloped up bleached grey to the fuzzy dark summits; far off black timbers belted the mountains up to the dazzling snow. But it was the range that fascinated Britt — the lap of earth which the cowmen designated as rangeland — level reach on reach and rolling ridge, swale and coulee, the purple vastness on to the dim distance that was obscurity.

At the ranch Britt had left Frayne, Jim, Tennessee and Flinty, Handsome Gaines and Rebel Sloan, all pleasantly engaged in keeping an eye on a herd working westward. The otber cowboys were out at the other end of the herd with a scout on the top of Grey Hill.

Disturbing news had initiated this early season vigilance. A stage-coach driver, on the run from Santa Fe to Las Animas, had brought Britt some interesting reminders of the anticipated feud due Between the McCoy and the Ripple factions.

McCoy, with some of his men, notably Rankin, had accosted Doane, the rancher, in Blade’s Saloon at San Marcos, and had shot him for alleged accusations reflecting upon McCoy’s honesty as a cattleman. “Somebody tell Cap Britt that he’ll get the same if he shows up in San Marcos,” McCoy had loudly proclaimed, standing with smoking gun before the spectators. And the stage-driver repeated another remark, untraceable, to the effect that if Renn Frayne did not untie Holly Ripple’s apron-strings from his neck and come to town like a man he might have to face Jeff Rankin on the porch of the Ripple bunk-house.

Thus the opening gun of the season, fired at an unarmed and defenceless rancher, had to be chalked up in black against the McCoy-Slaughter faction. The cowboys had almost to rope Skylark to keep him home. Brazos rolled his gun with an incredible swiftness. The other cowboys, usually noisy, resentful, volatile, took the news in silence.

Britt rode his fast bay at a swinging lope along the inside trail under the lee of the slope, watchful always. And while he rode his mind was active. This information from San Marcos was three days old. With Russ Slaughter’s gang down from the hills, like wolves long famished, and McCoy’s outfit in town, it would follow as night the day that a cattle raid might be expected. Britt was well-nigh as eager for a rustler raid as his cowboys. The failure of other range cattlemen to side with Britt had given offence, and the gibes of the Slaugh-ter-McCoy riders rankled deep. In all his career as a Texas Ranger, as a Trail Driver on the Chisholm Trail, as a foreman of hard cattle outfits, Britt had never faced a crisis like the one impending. His Ripple band numbered some of the wildest cowboys and vaqueros Texas ever produced, and this did not count the outlaw and gunman Frayne. Brazos Keene was the only one well known to the New Mexico range, though Rebel Sloan’s coup the preceding fall had earned him notoriety. But as a matter of fact, Britt’s hard outfit had not been tried out. A hard reputation had to be sustained on the frontier. Britt knew the nature of his men. He knew that their tendency to drink, gamble, steal, to ride into town looking for trouble, to run true to their class, had been changed by the extraordinary relation Holly Ripple had given them to her and to the West. Therefore, the cattlemen and rustlers and the desperadoes of — eastern New Mexico had come to the conclusion that Cap Britt’s outfit had been over-rated. Certain it was that they would be tried out to the limit this summer.

The trail Britt rode branched at Sage Creek, and the left fork wound up in the hills. He followed it to emerge on a long hog-back that dipped to a deep saddle, and then rose to climb Grey Hill. Britt rode two miles of open sage country, up and down, before getting on to the slope he wanted. As he had not been up there before he was not quite sure of his way. At length he espied a landmark he was looking for, a huge split rock standing alone, and from there he soon climbed to the cedars of Grey Hill.

This hill was the highest of the lower foothills, and stood out somewhat isolated, projecting with steep grey bluff over the range below. It had been a favourite lookout for Apaches while waylaying the caravans along the Old Trail, which could be plainly seen, a white road winding over the grassy rolling land. Britt entered the fringy patch of stunted cedars. Presently his horse threw up its ears and whinnied. Britt soon espied a wiry mustang which he took to be Jackson’s. Dismounting to tie his horse, he went on. The cedars played out into scrubby brush, at the end of which he found the negro.

“Boss, I seen yu comin’.”

“Howdy, Ride-’Em. I don’t see how a jack-rabbit could get by you heah.”

“He sho couldn’t. No suh.”

“What’s doin’?”

“A lot of bad things doin’, boss. A whole lot,” replied Jackson, rolling his big ox eyes. He wore a field-glass slung on a leather strap round his neck. He had one of the new -44 Winchesters, and packed his old Colt as well as the new one. And his belt was studded with brass shells. The black vaquero did not appear to Britt to be a desirable person to encounter on a lonely hill-top, unless he was friendly.

“Ah-huh. Wal, Jack, let me ketch my breath before you knock me oot,” replied Britt.

“Keep yu haid low, boss. Yu can set on my coat. An’ I won’t spliflicate yu till yu’re ready.”

This vantage-point was the highest from which Britt had surveyed the range. The outlook was grand indeed. He could see across the tops of the uplands to the south and west, which had the effect of shrinking the range below into a three-cornered valley, in shape resembling the ace of clubs. Over to his right the Maxwell grant, consisting of a million and a half acres, resembled a purple sage flat of no great proportions. Cottonwood Basin was a speckled bowl, from which ran a green-lined thread of water. The thirty miles of Ripple range was a hollow in the hand of the vast scene. But the cattle appeared to be too numerous for the space.

The perspective of this immediate valley, which appeared boundless from below, was distorted and reduced by the magnificence and enormous reach of New Mexico to the southwest. The day was clear and bright, rendering visibility perfect. Britt saw the arid breaks running down to the south, a wilderness that amply presaged the termination in the Llano Estacado, the Seven Rivers country, and the grey palisades of the Pecos, and farther around the Blood of Christ Mountains, until at length the great white wall of the Rockies loomed south of Las Vegas. Britt had full appreciation then of why New Mexico could graze so many cattle and hide so many rustlers. He made a promise to himself to fetch Holly up there and show her why her father had given up Texas for New Mexico. The strip of Texas here visible was desert, shining far down across the rugged black breaks. Britt disliked to prove traitor to his beloved state, but this vast land of fertile ranges, valleys, hills and plains could not be denied.

Reluctantly the foreman wrenched his gaze from that glorious spectacle to cast it below, on the ten-mile grey strip between the hills and the creek. Cattle were thick down there, thinning out to the west toward the Basin, where in the dim haze they belted the grey with black.

“Wal, Jack, shoot,” said Britt, finally.

“Boss, I sho will, befo yu leave dis hill.”

Britt flashed a sharp inquiring glance upon his black companion. Jackson had spoken casually, though with conviction. On the moment he had the field-glass fixed upon a point near where Cottonwood Creek sheered toward the hills. Britt saw dust clouds there.

“I ben heah tree days, all de whole day long. Fust day two riders com oot from San Marcos an’ stop ober dere on dat yaller ridge. An’ dey watch till sundown.... Second day de same two com again, an’ dis time dey rode ten miles down de crick till I seen dem no mo. Bos, dey wuz scouts lookin’ out fer riders. An’ sho dey seen dem down whar our cattle is grazin’ thick.”

“Ah-huh. An’ how aboot this mawnin’, Jack?” queried Britt, gruffly, as the negro paused.

“Dere’s ten rustlers down dere inside de bend, roundin’ up a fat bunch of our steers. Plumb pertickler dey air, dis mawnin’, boss.”

“Hell you say! — Where?”

“Take de glass, boss.... Locate de bend of de crick. An’ den com oot dis way to dat green swale whar yu see dust pilin’.

... See dat black patch on de west side of de swale. Dere’s a low bluff—”

“Got ‘em, Jack. Wal, by — !” interrupted Britt. “Of all the gall!”

The clear magnified circle had showed successively the green border of cottonwoods, the shining pools and grey rocks of the creek, the rolling grassy levels and hollows, and then riders in couples driving cattle down to the natural corral where a goodly herd had already been collected. Britt swore under his breath, and moved the glass back over the same ground to make a count. The rustlers were working in couples. They appeared bold and unhurried. He counted four couples making the round-up. The distance was less than ten miles.

“Thought you said ten riders,” said Britt. “I can locate only eight.”

“Two lookouts, boss. One on dat little knoll above the swale, an’ the other a mile down on dis high ridge. Dat hombre is botherin’ Brazos, yu can sho bet yore last dollah on dat.”

Britt was silent until he had located both scouts. Both straddled their horses in any way but that of tense and vigilant spies. The whole procedure had an air of a leisurely execution of well-laid plans.

“Where is Brazos?”

“Aboot half-way between de bend of de crick an’ whar dat fardest scout is forkin’ his hawse. Dey’s hid under de bank in dat clump of cottonwoods. Ben campin’ right dere dese tree days. I rides oot before sunup an’ rides in after sundown. Tree whole long days, boss. But de time is aboot up.”

“Jack, air the boys all together in thet place?”

“Sho. Dey’s bunched dere.”

“Brazos — Skylark — Santone — Blue — Tex — Cherry — Mex?” muttered Britt, significantly. “An’ they’re waitin’ to see how many steers thet thievin’ ootfit will take an’ where they’d haid fer.”

“Boss, not so much dat as gibbin’ dem time to tire oot dere hosses. I heahed Brazos plan dat. It won’t be long now till dem hosses will hev dere edge wored off. An’ Brazos’ hosses hevn’t run fer tree days.... Boss, if dat bunch don’t scatter like a covey of quail dey air gonna be snuffed oot pronto.”

“Jack, they won’t scatter.... But if I was Brazos I’d bust loose on them soon. — I reckon, though, it’ll be better to let them line up fer the drive. Which way will they haid?”

“We wuz bettin’ on dat de odder night. An’ I says dey’d drive square up under dis hill, same as dat McCoy ootfit last fall.”

“Jack, you’re aboot correct, if we judge by the lay of thet swale. There’s low ground all the way to the hill — By George, thet would fetch them right heah.”

“Boss, if any of dem rustlers run up dat draw dey’ll meet hell’n blazes at de top.’Cause Ride-’Em Jackson will be dere. He sho will!”

“Jack, take the glass an’ swing round in a circle, far back an’ work closer.”

“Nuttin’ dere on San Marcos side,” returned the negro, presently. And he gave a like report of a survey down the Cottonwood to the east. But when he searched the west he was so long in speaking that Britt grew suspicious and worried.

“Boss, I seen riders come up oot of de crick way far ober. Behind dat scout on de ridge.... Den I lost ‘em.... Day didn’t ride like more rustlers. No suh! — Tree ob dem. Must hev dropped in a wash.... Dere! — Boss, I see Brazos on his white hoss. As sho as Gawd made little apples! — Two riders wid him. Cherry. I know his hoss.... Dere stealin’ up behind.... Boss, I’se sho sweatin’ blood. Brazos is cute. De idee is to rush dem rustlers from de souf an’ de west. Dey’ll make fo de hills, boss. An’ heah we is, waitin’, plumb chuck full ob bullets.”

“I’m sweatin’ some myself, Jack,” agreed Britt. It was a wonderful and exciting thing to watch from this high hill, to know what the rustlers did not dream of, to wait for the charge and the fight. Britt had a grim sense of its deadliness.

“Brazos out of sight again,” went on the negro, intent with the glass. “Dawg-gone! Boss, we sho ought to hev a telescope..... Dat cain’t be far from where I last seen Brazos to de man on de knoll.... I got it, boss. I done has. Brazos is off his hoss; crawlin’ up on, dat hombre. I’m sho glad I’se me ‘stead ob him. De odder boys will be holdin’ Brazos’ hoss, ready to run oot when he shoots. Brazos will be in his saddle again, quicker’n hell. Dat shot will be de signal. Den de bawl is on.”

“Give me thet glass, you bloo’d-thirsty coon!... No, take it back. I cain’t see clear. My eyes water. Keep close tab, Jack, an’ sing oot. I want to know what’s goin’ on.”

“Wal, boss, if dey run dis way you’ll see sho.”

Jackson swept the scene again. “All de round-up riders bunched, boss. Got all dey want, I reckon. Hah! dey ain’t hawgs atall — O no! — Bet dere’s five hundred haid in dat bunch.... Boss, dat far scout’s ridin’ in.... It’ll be jes like dat Brazos boy to git dere at de right minnit. Dat’s Brazos.... No sign yit.... Ah, boss — puff o’ white smoke!”

Britt saw that tiny white puff appear against the green. “Dat fust scout falls offen his hoss, Cap,” reported Jackson, with sang-froid. “Slides offen de bluff. Dem rustlers bunch sudden. Den dey ride fer de crick. But not straight fer our ootfit. Dat’s tough luck. Dey git goin’, boss.... Awha! Up piles dat ootfit, smokin’ dem rifles.... I see a rider fall. Dey wheel west. But Brazos an’ dem two pards cut ’em off.... Boss, dey haid dis way. Dat crick ootfit spreadin’.... Dere’s Santone on his grey, quarterin’ east. Anudder rider close to him. Dat will be Stinger.... Boss, dem rustlers pilin’ by de steers dey stole. Haw! Haw! Dey won’t drive no me dis day.... It’s a race fer de hills, boss, an’ dem white trash might jes as well fold dere arms an’ pray.’Cause it’s all ober but de fireworks.”

“Any more shootin’, Jack? I cain’t see any smoke,” cried Britt, eagerly straining his eyes.

“No mo. Dey’s too fur apart.... Dere! De rustlin’ gents air pilin’ under dat ridge.... Dey’re oot of sight.... Dat wash leads right heah, boss. Our boys air crossin’ de wash. Some of dem stay on dis side. Dey’se on bof sides, boss. All workin’ jes as Brazos planned.... Boss, now’s de time fer us to run back an’ haid dat draw.”

“Lead, Jack, an’ don’t run too fast.”

Britt snatched up his rifle and started after the negro. Through the brush, back under the cedars, beyond the horses, slanting down the slope they ran until they came out above the saddle that dipped from the back of Grey Hill to the next foothill.

“Boss, dis is de best place to see,” said the negro, as he halted. “It’s better’n up dere on top.”

“Shore is — if they keep on,” panted Britt.

“Dis is de only way dey can go. Dey’se cut off. Dey gotta come up de trail dere. See it? Dat’s whar McCoy’s ootfit drove our cattle last fall. Dere’s an easy grade. All de udder slopes air steep.”

“Find a place, Jack.”

Presently the two were located somewhat lower down on a low bluff which afforded a perfect ambush of the trail and a fan-shaped view of the range below. Britt could now see with his naked eye rising puffs of dust and running horses. There were four riders on each side of the wash and a string of others down inside.

“Boss, dem rustlers hev to com up oot of dat wash,” observed Jackson, through the field-glass. “Too sandy. Dey gotta get on hard. Our boys air gainin’, boss. An’ dey ain’t stretched oot, neither.... Dere! Up dey come. Dust flyin’. — Away dey’se off, haidin’ fer de trail....Wal, now we’ll see. I reckon Brazos an’ his tree on dat fur side will stay dere. Dat wash peters oot up heah.... Aboot even race so fur, boss. An’ five miles to come.”

“Not so far, Jack. I can see pretty good now. — By Gawd, it looks bad fer thet bunch. One-two-three-four.... How many, Jack?”

“Nine, I reckon. But dey’re sho pilin’ ober each udder. Every dawg fer hisself!”

Jackson took the glasses from his eyes and wiped them with his scarf. Britt attended closely to the race. It seemed to him that the distance between Santone, whom they recognized by his grey horse, and the last of the fugitives was about a quarter of a mile. All horses were running, but apparently not extended yet. If the rustlers had rifles they had a chance to stop their pursuers and escape. If not — ! Britt was keen to ascertain this point. He had been in many a running race in which the general dislike of most riders for rifles had been their doom.

“Boss, guess I hed dat five miles wrong,” said Jackson. “Nebber was no good at distance.... Reckon two miles now. An’ dey’re comin’ into dat long sage-flat.... Brazos cuts across. His men foller. Dey’re behind Santone’s bunch. But ketchin’ up.... Spreadin’ again, boss. An’ dem rustlers stringin’ straight ahaid. By golly, it’s like chasin’ rabbits into a burro.... Whoopee! Brazos has cut loose. Dat white hoss is stretchin’. Boss, dere ain’t his beat on dis range.... An’ look at dat Santone. He ain’t gonna be left at de post. None of ’em is — Boss, dat space is shortenin’ some pronto. See dem rifles shine...  Boss, de rustlers air shootin’!... Six guns, boss. Haw! Haw! I jes see one damn rifle in dat string. Ob all de white trash fools!... Boss, I’se gettin’ hot under de collar. I see de dust kickin’ up by bullets way in front ob our boys. Aboot tree hundred yards, mebbe.... Dey’se comin’, boss. Heah dem guns boomin’?... Lud, how Brazos can hold dat fire! I’d sho be smokin”em.... Awha! Dey’se shootin’, boss. Dem rifles air talkin’! Whoopee!... Dat last rustler. Hit! He sho takes a lot of killin’. Down! — Dere’s a hoss piles up.... Anudder rustler down! Anudder!... Haw! Haw! Youse will steal Ripple cattle.... Two hosses down! Tree plungin’ off, saddles empty.... Boss, boss! Heah — dem rifles pingin’? See dat rustler lead failin’ — short?”

“Save yore breath, Jack,” ordered Britt, sharply. “You’ll hev to be runnin’ to haid some of them off. Two of them air far in front. They’re on the grade.”

“Look at dem beat dere hosses! — Boss, dey might git away down dere. But nebber up heah.”

Jackson laid the glass down and slipped back into the brush. Britt heard his boots thudding. The negro would close the one avenue of escape.

Two of the rustlers were far in advance, out of rifle range. The two behind them, goading their horses, tried to increase the distance between them and their relentless pursuers. Brazos was in the lead, reloading his rifle. Santone came next and his rifle was puffing blue clouds of smoke. The other riders, scattered in line to the right, were firing at intervals. Suddenly the last rider swerved abruptly off the trail and tore across and down in a daring attempt to pass Brazos. Then began as thrilling a man-hunt race as Britt had ever seen. Brazos headed to cut the rustler off before he gained the corner of the slope, some few hundred yards distant. The fugitive, desperately goading his horse, gained perceptibly. But he had farther to go. And Brazos had slowed. Perhaps he wanted to get his rifle fully reloaded. Certainly he did not choose to close in on the rustler, whose bullets were striking up dust beyond him. In a magnificent burst of speed, slanting down the slope, the rustler passed Brazos out upon the flat. But he had not reckoned upon what the crafty cowboy had counted upon. Once on a level, straight in front, the rustler had no hope for his life. He was now reloading. Still at two hundred yards Brazos withheld his fire. The white racer stretched lower, to close up that gap as if by magic. And then as the rustler turned again in his saddle, his arm high, his gun spouting red, Brazos bent his head over his levelled rifle. One blue puff of smoke — another — a third! The rustler pitched headlong out of his saddle, to be dragged by a stirrup at the heel of a terrified horse, to be torn loose by the grasping sage. Brazos kept on.

Britt’s gaze came back to the draw, in time to see the rustler farthest behind shot off his horse. He flopped like a crippled rooster. He got up on one knee, and with levelled gun, faced his merciless pursuers. Even as his gun puffed smoke they mowed him down.

That left the two fugitives far up the draw, still goading their horses. When Santone slowed up on the trail, now getting too steep to run a horse, the rustlers did likewise. One of them kept shooting back down the draw. He handed one of his guns to his comrade who proceeded to load it. Santone’s followers caught up with them. Brazos’ piercing yell floated up from the flat. He put the white to a gallop until he reached the grade.

At this juncture Britt picked up the field-glass. In that hard grim moment he had no pity for these doomed men. They were some four or five hundred yards distant, and still below him. The trail ascended on the far side of this draw. Jackson would be hidden somewhere above.

Britt fixed the glass upon the two rustlers, and brought them so close that it seemed he might touch them. The taller, a bare-headed, sallow, lead-faced ruffian, he had seen in Slaughter’s outfit. He mopped back his wet dishevelled hair with a bloody hand, still holding a gun, and gazed down the slope, speaking to his companion, who on the instant handed him another weapon. He cocked and levelled it deliberately, to aim long, to fire down the draw. Dust puffed up right in front of the cowboys’ horses. They made haste to spread; and harsh yells rang up from them. Britt did not recognize the second rustler. He was a matured, grizzled man, his dark face sullenly vague under his black sombrero.

They pushed the dust-and lather-coated horses just to the point of stalling them on the trail. Loud curses pealed down upon their pursuers. Britt clearly saw the bulging jaw of the hatless one, the sombre hawk-head of the other. Then the silence split to the negro’s bellow.

“Slow down — white trash!”

Britt’s keen gaze, glued to the glass, saw the rustlers whirl with terrific start. Something checked their violence. Something like wind streaked the tall grass beyond them, to strike up dust. Then two Winchester shots pealed almost simultaneously. The rustlers fell together, one upon the other. And the spent horses drooped. Britt realized that he had been witness to an extraordinary sight — that of seeing the impact of two bullets upon grass and ground, after they had passed through the bodies of the men, and before he had heard the shots. Wheeling in grim amaze, Britt espied the little negro out in the open where undoubtedly he had stepped to confront his quarry.

CHAPTER XII

SPRING RUDELY DISRUPTED Holly Ripple’s dream. All the long winter months she had been happy, free from the dreams of rustler raids and cowboy fights, reading and dreaming in the big sunny living-room, before an open fire of cedar logs, and on Saturday nights giving a little fiesta with music and dancing. Always she had contrived to see Frayne or to send him a note, and though he always made excuses, the love in her heart kept warm and sweet. He feared to be with her, and Holly feared to be with him, though she yearned for it.

Holly hated the snow, and she could not face the cold wind that whipped down from the heights. Wherefore in winter she could indulge in languishing dreams during her enforced idleness. Holly was ashamed of what she considered a weakness. Always she intended to grow hardy and strong like Ann Doane, to ride in any weather, to exercise the various accomplishments that she possessed, to learn what a pioneer wife should know. But she did not progress far that winter. She blamed it upon love.

The restlessness of spring pervaded her. When the snow melted off the knolls, and it felt good to walk out in sunny protected spots, when the dusty mêlées began again in the corrals, and the lean riders to sweep over the grey bleached flats, when caravans and stages, horses and cattle began to move, then Holly knew that the thrilling, disturbing, shocking range-life had again come into its own.

The killing of Doane opened Holly’s eyes to the true state of affairs on that range. Not right but might was the law of the unscrupulous, and its exponent was the six-shooter. If her father had lived on to this period he might have been as helpless before such a ruthless creed as had been Doane. Britt blamed Doane for talking too much. It came to light after this tragedy that Doane’s stock had entirely vanished from the range, and his son and daughter were left in poverty. Holly sent for them. They arrived one day with a wagon-load of possessions, and the few horses that bad been left them. Joe took up his abode with the cowboys, who welcomed him heartily. Young Doane was no detriment even to the hard-riding Ripple outfit. Ann went up to the big ranch-house to live with Holly.

All the cowboys, especially Skylark, approved of this arrangement, and only Britt demurred. The reason for this, Holly divined, was that Britt would find it harder to keep her in the dark as to what was going on. Ann Doane was younger than Holly in years, but appeared far older. She had been born in a prairie-schooner crossing the plains; she had only the teaching her mother had given her as a child; she was a comely, rose-cheeked, stalwart girl who could ride like a cowboy, throw a rope, and who had at the calloused finger-tips of her strong brown hands all the skill of the pioneer girl. And she was as strong in character as she was in body. She was frank, droll, simple, big-hearted and wise in the ways of the range. She was Western.

Very soon after Ann arrived Skylark voiced the desire of his heart. He wanted to marry her at once. Ann was willing, though she felt that she ought to wait until a little after her father’s death. There was an empty log cabin which could be fixed up comfortably.

“You see, Holly, it’s this way,” pleaded the tall cowboy. “Ann an’ me might as well have each other while we can.”

“Meaning what, you persuasive devil?” inquired Holly, dubiously.

“I’m liable to get shot any day,” returned Skylark, bluntly.

“Oh, dreadful! — Such an argument for marriage! — You are not going to get anything of the kind.”

“Lady, some of us boys will get it this summer — an’ it might be me,” said Skylark, with the cool inevitableness of his kind, which always stilled Holly’s protests.

“Sky, marry Ann whenever she says,” replied Holly. “I’ll do all I can to start you comfortably.”

Whereupon Skylark ran off with a glad whoop, evidently sure of Ann’s surrender. She did set a day, a not very distant one; then naturally, she grew absorbed in the important details of making a bare log cabin habitable for house-keeping. Holly fell into the spell of this, and helped so much and gave so much that Ann protested.

“Holly, it’s shore awful good of you. But I just can’t take any more. Save somethin’ for yourself.”

“Me! — Oh, nonsense,” exclaimed Holly, with a blush. “You’ll be gettin’ married one of these days.”

“Ann, a girl has to be asked,” retorted Holly, lightly.

“Holly Ripple! You can’t be serious.... An’ you ought. This marryin’ business is serious out heah.”

“I’m serious, Ann.”

“Thet is nonsense. Everybody on this range knows all the single boys an’ some of the married men have tried to court you. Didn’t my man?”

“You mean Skylark? — No indeed. Sky liked me. He tried to—”

“Wal, Sky told me so himself,” interrupted Ann, in her appallingly blunt way. “It’s all right. I couldn’t be jealous of you. All the boys love you.... Holly, ain’t you ever goin’ to love one of them back?”

“Dear me, I hope so,” murmured Holly.

“Wal, you’ll just have to. A girl can’t go single on this range. It ain’t good. It ain’t right.... These pore, lonely, woman-hungry men! They all need an’ want a woman. An’ just think, Holly, outside of you an’ me there’s only five other unmarried white girls in eastern New Mexico. An’ hundreds of cowboys. Not quite enough to go round.”

“Ann, you make it look terrible. Poor boys.”

“How aboot Brazos, Holly? There’s a fellow! — I was crazy over Brazos.”

“He’s wonderful. I — I like him, Ann. But that’s not enough.”

“I heah a lot aboot this Renn Frayne,” went on Ann, complacently. “Talk goes thet he’s turrible sweet on you. Is it so, Holly?”

“He never — told me,” faltered Holly, wanting the floor to open and swallow her. Yet she knew this honest Western girl would be good for her.

“Do you like him, too?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“He’s a man, Holly, no young wild cowboy! — Wonderful lookin’ chap. Kinda sad, I thought. I’d hate to have him shine up to me, Skylark or no Skylark. His gun record wouldn’t phase me. Dad told me all thet’s said aboot Frayne.... Holly, out heah you can’t afford to be particular. If you are goin’ to live in the West you’ve got to take the West. I know Westerners. Most of them at some time or other weren’t so damn good. My Dad rustled calves when he first started in. Yet he shot a man once who stole from him. An’ Sky has confessed some pretty bad jobs of his.... Holly, you’re young, you’re rich, you’re beautiful, an’ everybody loves you. But where are you gettin’ with it all?”

“Nowhere, Ann.”

“Wal, I say thet’s too darn bad. I’m going to talk to some of these cowboys.”

“Don’t you dare, Ann Doane.”

“I’m goin’ to tell thet handsome hombre Frayne somethin’.”

“Oh, Ann — please don’t,” cried Holly, wildly, her dignity dissolving.

“Holly! You shore must like him a lot,” rejoined the Western girl, shrewdly. “Wal, in thet case I’ll lay off Frayne. But somethin’ has got to be done aboot you. I’m shore glad I’ve come to live at Don Carlos’ Rancho.”

Holly escaped somehow, but that talk with the Western girl, coupled with all the preparations for the wedding and the furnishing of the little cabin, awakened Holly to her own outcast and deplorable state. She made the discovery that she longed for this very thing herself. It was not that she desired marriage so much: she wanted to be Frayne’s wife. She had dreamed of him all winter; she had been happy because he really loved her, and some day it would all work out beautifully. But now something stirred her sluggish blood. If she could have changed places with Ann Doane, provided Skylark were Frayne, she would have given money, jewels, all the old Spanish lace, her ranch and her cattle, just for that cosy little log cabin.

So the old haunting distemper again laid its hold upon Holly’s heart. She had been living in a girl’s romantic dreamland. Nine years of books, of gentle women, of garden walls, of isolation and protection had ill-fitted her for her part on this hard range. She would have to fight. She had been happy because she had denied realities. She was madly in love with an outlaw who had reformed, but whose fine instincts refused to lay the dishonour of his past upon her. Holly no longer cared what Renn Frayne had been. She wanted his sad, bitter, hard lips to soften to her kisses. Yet her respect for him increased in proportion to his restraint, his strength, his loyalty; and all that mad scheme of coquetry, of stooping to the allurements of Conchita, was as if it had never been.

Ann Doane’s wedding-day came all too soon. Holly had found the preparations, the interest, the excitement, the companionship of the girl, strangely stimulating. Ann was married in the Ripple living-room by the padre of the village. Holly gave the bride and groom a fiesta, at which only a few of the cowboys could be in attendance. Britt was evasive and aloof. Trouble out on the range! But the event was a happy one for Skylark and Ann. Only after they had gone, and Holly was left alone, did the blank abrupt break seem unendurable.

That night Holly heard the cowboys making the welkin ring around the cabin of the newly wedded pair. Not till morning did these antics cease. But the next day Skylark went back to riding the range and Ann took up the manifold duties of a young housekeeper. Only for Holly was there an emptiness, a desolation, a complexity far removed from the simple happiness of the Western couple.

It seemed to Holly that self-preservation lay in a reversion to the ambition of the preceding summer — to take up her father’s work and learn it, to be not only mistress of Don Carlos’ Rancho but a worthy daughter of a plain cattleman. Britt had not aided her in this laudable desire, nor had Frayne. Even Brazos, than whom no cowboy could be more ruthlessly frank, had become evasive and elusive. They had sought to spare her the sordid and distressing details of range life. Holly rebelled against this, and especially against the truth she forced from herself — that she had been too soft, too aristo-cratic, too gentle and girlish to stand up under the hard knocks of the frontier. She admitted it. She scorned it. Her father had been mostly to blame. In his strange need to educate the Spanish out of her he had kept her away from the West, at the formative time of youth and adolescence. And now she was neither Spanish nor Western, nor Southern, nor anything but a highly sensitive, passionate young woman, terribly in love, and despairing of the future.

But Holly did not now torture herself long with indecision. Her spirit rose in revolt, not against the times, nor the trick fate and love had played her, but against that in her which was not of the West. She would know it, she would do battle with it, she would conquer it. Wherefore she magnified all the prophecies Buff Belmet and Britt had ever uttered, and steeled herself against the invisible. But it was that invisible which tortured Holly. She had imagination; she was ignorant, however, of range tendencies, complexities, possibilities. How could she be otherwise when her foreman, her cowboys, when even the man she adored turned his back upon her, and no one would explain and teach her the things she needed to know? Holly forgave them, for they were indeed the knights of the range. She made a resolution, however, that she would be less of a queen and more of a woman.

Holly went out into the spring sunshine. She rode. She walked. Britt stormed at her, and she obeyed. Brazos swore at her, and she listened. Frayne transfixed her with his piercing eyes, and she smiled. The wind stung her white cheeks; the dust choked her, the chill penetrated through her fleece-lined coat. She often stayed hours with Ann and learned to cook, to bake, to sew. She made friends with Conchita and learned much beside gossip from that range belle. She frequented the trading-post to converse with traders, soldiers, Indians, Mexicans, strangers — with any and everyone she met. She went often to the bunk-house, and the cowboys began to look forward to her coming. They betrayed their solicitude. They did not understand, but they felt, they saw the change in her. Yet, of them all, Ride-’Em Jackson was the only one who did not evade her, deceive her. The negro was as simple as a child and he could not lie to her. Holly came to know why Britt or Brazos or Jim always sauntered near when she talked with Jackson. They were aligned against her. They would die for her, but refused to sicken her or blanch her cheek with the truth.

But soon it dawned upon Holly that no one of them, not even Frayne, nor all of them put together, could be a match for her. She was a woman. Her intuitive powers transcended their cunning. And their vulnerable spot was their devotion to her.

Doane’s death, apparently, was the forerunner of untoward events out on the range. Holly got an inkling of some fracas that had happened at Grey Hill. Cherokee had been severely wounded out there. But he did not go to bed. Gun-shots were nothing to the Indian. He stayed home, sombre, brooding, silent, an enigma to Holly, except that she sensed he had the savage’s creed of an eye for an eye. Britt seldom ran up to the ranch-house these spring days. He was a troubled, dark-browed man who adopted a cheerful mask the moment he espied her. Brazos drank hard, but at length, at Holly’s earnest importunity, he promised to stop, and kept his promise. It was noticeable that Frayne seldom stayed away overnight from the rancho. The cattle, at least thirty thousand head or more, which now constituted two-thirds of the Ripple herd, could be seen in the valley from the hill-top. Brazos and the half-breeds, with Jackson, Flinty and Stinger, rode hard and late, seldom getting back until long after dark, and often staying out all night. But there were no more extended stays away from the ranch. Jim, Gaines, Tennessee, Doane, Rebel and Frayne patrolled the lower end of the triangle of range that led into the pass. Holly saw them often with her field-glass, riding often, always watching, watching from some height. When she missed Tennessee for several days she had her doubts, but kept them to herseif. He never came back. And she discovered for a certainty that Stinger nursed a crippled leg, which, when she inquired, he said had been hurt in a fall. But Holly’s learning eyes detected a bullet-hole in his chaps.

These were alarming signs, and as the spring days warmed into early summer, they increased. Mex Southard returned one day alone, severely wounded. He had almost bled to death. When Holly saw bim, two days later, he was recovering. She did not even attempt to make him talk. A day later, when the outfit got back, Flinty was missing from the ranks.

“Am I losing any cattle?” asked Holly once, casually, of Brazos.

“Yu air not,” he drawled, with his old cool smile. “But thet’s aboot all yu’re not losin’.”

“Brazos, you know I prefer to lose my cattle to my cowboys.”

“Aw, what’s a cowboy now an’ then?”

Ann was Holly’s greatest source of information. She was not one of the reticent Western girls; she liked gossip; and would linger at the post or the store, or when the stage came in. Outside news did not concern Holly, or she would have added immeasurably to her burden. The Lincoln County War was on, threatening to involve eastern New Mexico in its turmoil. Chisum was not mixed up in that, but the several bands of desperadoes who were had been stealing his cattle, and he had declared war to the hilt against rustlers. Bandits were operating between Santa Fe and Las Animas.

These items were interesting, but not so thought-provoking as the news of a cattlemen’s organization, headed by Sewall McCoy, to protect themselves against cattle thieves. To Holly, who shared Britt’s opinion of McCoy, this seemed far-fetched and was very probably merely rumour. But the Western girl had a different point of view.

“Dad was in thet move,” she said, “an’ he knowed, along with all the ranchers, there was a nigger in the wood-pile somewhere. There’s bands of rustlers wal known. An’ there must be others — one big outfit anyhow — thet only themselves know. Dad’s suspicion of McCoy cost him his life. He oughtn’t to have spoken out like thet. But Dad was always talkin’, an’ if he had a drink or two he was loco. People say thet McCoy ain’t the man at the head of this secret combine, ‘cause if he was he’d not have shot Dad at the drop of a hat. But somebody is. An’ thet’s what makes the hell. All the cattlemen suspect each other an’ are afraid to say so. They’ll take it out on some poor cowboys, Skylark says. An’ they might be in the Ripple outfit.”

“Oh, Ann — impossible!” ejaculated Holly, aghast.

“Wal, Talman an’ Trinidad showed yellow, didn’t they? An’ Dillon before them. No other outfit on the range has tbet bad a record. I tell you, Sky is worried. An’ he says Britt doesn’t sleep at nights.”

“But that must be because they are fighting to save my cattle,” protested Holly.

“Mebbe. But not all. What’s a few cattle? They don’t even know how many you got. They can’t count them. You’re runnin’ too many fer these times.”

“That’s true. I’d sell half of my stock, and more, if they could be driven to the railroad. But Britt dare not take riders away from here for the drive. It is a dreadful situation, Ann.”

“Don’t let it upset you, Holly,” rejoined the Western girl. “We women have just got to stand it. An’ not let the men know how we feel. Skylark says to me, ‘How’n hell can Brazos or Frayne go out an’ meet this killer Rankin, when if either of them was bad hurt it’d aboot kill Holly?”

Holly’s heart contracted in her breast.

“Who’s Rankin?”

“Jeff Rankin, late of them bad Kansas cattle towns. I seen him the day McCoy shot Dad. A little tan-faced man with eyes like a weasel. You feel queer when he looks at you. I’ll always remember him because he told McCoy to wait an’ give Dad the benefit of a doubt. But McCoy was full of red-eye an’ wild to kill somebody.”

“Horrible! — This Rankin.... who is he?”

“Just another bad hombre, only worse. They say he has killed a dozen men. No quiet, sober gunman, like the real ones, but a quarrelsome, ugly, blood-huntin’ desperado, quick as lightnin’ on the draw, an’ a dead shot.”

“Why is this Rankin mentioned particularly in connection with Brazos — and Frayne?”

“Wal, they say Rankin an’ Frayne clashed back in Kansas — thet Frayne killed Rankin’s pard. Anyway it’s common talk in town thet Rankin is lookin’ for Frayne.”

“Yes? And where does Brazos come in?” asked Holly, strangely disturbed by a totally unknown hot beat and swell along her veins.

“Sky says it’s none of Brazos’ mix. But Brazos will take up any cowboy’s quarrel. An’ since Laigs Mason is gone he has cottoned to Frayne.... Somethin’ will come of it.”

“Oh dear!... Ann, can’t these — these terrible things be avoided?”

“When I was twelve my mother told me Dad had wronged some man somehow or other. An’ this man dared Dad to come out to fight. Wal, mother wouldn’t let Dad go. An’ do you know, Holly, thet ruined Dad with his friends an’ neighbours, an’ he had to clear out. It was at some fort in Kansas where Dad worked, durin’ the war. We moved farther west, an’ since then I’ve seen a heap of frontier where men count for what they are.”

“If one man is called out by another — to fight — whether it’s justifiable or not, he must go or be branded a coward?”

“Thet’s it, Holly. An’ it’s unfair, to my thinkin’. Because a bad man can force a good one to meet him. The moral of it doesn’t seem to be considered. Every man has to defend himself with a gun, an’ if he can’t, he just doesn’t belong to the West. Thet applies to all plain Westerners. But it shore applies more to them who have killed others. It’s a kind of hideous curiosity. On the part of the fighters to see who can draw quickest! On the part of the crowd to see who gets killed first!”

“So I have to live through that?” queried Holly.

“Wal, dear, it won’t be so bad so long as you don’t love one of them,” declared Ann, with a laugh.

“But suppose I did?”

“What?”

“Why — why, love one of them?” Holly faltered.

“Well, you’d have to pray awful hard thet your man beat the other to his gun.... There was a girl over here in Roswell who loved both men. They fought over her an’ it ended bad.”

“What happened?”

“They killed each other, an’ she had to go back to an old beau — a no-good cowboy — an’ marry him.”

“How very sad!” murmured Holly, constrainedly, wanting both to scream and laugh. It was evident that this matter-of-fact Ann would never have understood her poignant agony. Would she be compelled to suffer such suspense — to — wait — wait — wait! to see if Renn came home? Worse, she might be with him when this ruffian Rankin contrived to bring about a meeting. These men did not think about women, love, home, children, happiness. The West was in the making. Holly had always to come back to her share in this profound epic — to stifle the cries of her soul and fight to be strong like Ann Doane. But she could not do it. And thinking, pondering, brooding, she felt a birth in her of anger at the times, at the men who tortured her.

Holly was haunted by this thing. She vacillated between despair and a dawning strength. She would never wholly conquer her sensitive, poignant emotions, and she could conceive of a West too hard, too unendurable for her if it robbed her of love. But this growing shadow only increased her love — only added fuel to the fire — only brought out her infinite capacity for tenderness and passion. The life of the range out there struck at her heart. Holly awaited something, a trial, the very suggestion of which blanched her cheeks and sent the blood curdling back from her cold skin.

Holly awoke under a strange boding spell. It was not depression, nor the after effect of a dreadful dream. She had not before borne the weight of such an inexplicable consciousness, though she had often laboured under what her cowboys called “hunches.” This was a strong apprehension of an untoward fatality and she could not drive it away.

May with its wind and dust, in melting snows, had passed into June. The golden light that filtered through the foliage over her windows proclaimed the approach of summer. Holly got up and into her riding garb. She had not been on a horse for days, and the reason was because Britt would not allow her to ride out upon the range. But she concluded it would be better to ride up and down the lane rather than not at all. Her Mexican servants were as cheerful and complaisant as usual. Roseta had been down to the village the night before, and prattled of the commonplace happenings. After breakfast, as was her habit, Holly went out on the porch with her field-glass to survey the range. This habit had become fraught with uncertainty and suspense, almost as painful as had been her daily watch for the return of her cowboys from Las Animas. She dreaded to search the wide expanse of grass-land for her riders, for there was no telling what they might be engaged in these days.

Far out along the Cottonwood Trail she espied a string of riders coming. That would be Brazos and the outfit with which Britt had been combing the range of late. Not so many riders as usual! They were driving a number of unsaddled stock ahead, probably the remuda. She caught a gleam of bobbing packs. The dust clouds rather disputed a leisurely return. These days the cowboys were always in a hurry.

Britt had expected Brazos back and had not able to hide his concern from Holly. In fact Britt had not been up to see her in the last forty-eight hours, an omission that seemed far from reassuring. Frayne had become more elusive than ever.

‘ Holly reflected on these matters while she slowly moved the glass from the incoming riders along the widening strip of range between the hills and the creek. Cattle blackened the range in spots, and speckled it in others. The cottonwoods were in full foliage, green and beautiful against the grey background. She searched the range beyond the stream as far as San Marcos, shining brightly in the June sunlight, without finding any more riders. Frayne and the cowboys on duty near the rancho could usually be picked up of a morning. But the purple and grey levels out there did not reward Holly’s anxious survey. A film of dust, however, hazed her clear vision, and this made her aware that there was movement of cattle or riders closer in to the ranch.

All at once the circle of Holly’s glass was filled by a compact group of horsemen. They were on the San Marcos road scarcely a mile from the corrals. Holly looked again, suddenly struck by surprise and dread. These were not cowboys. They did not have that free, easy, graceful look so characteristic of her riders.

“I wonder who they are,” she soliloquized, and thought of the bands of rustlers known to ride often in the open. Holly had seen more than one group of that kind. These horsemen gave her the impression of being ranchers and cattlemen on some business-like errand to the trading-post or the village, possibly her ranch. She left the glass on the porch and raced down the hill in search of Britt, revolving in mind disturbing contingencies.

On the way down the brush and trees obscured view of the range, and when she reached the open she was on a level. In the immediate foreground stood the long bunk-house, with its adjoining mess-hall and kitchen, Skylark’s cabin and several adobe shacks, beyond which Holly could not see.

“Britt,” she called anxiously, as she mounted the porch. He did not answer. Holly knocked at the open door. The bunk-house was empty. She went through to the kitchen, expecting surely to find Jose, but he Was gone also.

Holly hurried along the lane toward Skylark’s cabin. Ann was never anywhere but home. To Holly’s amaze, however, she found the door open, Ann’s apron lying upon the threshold, where she had evidently hurriedly flung it. Immediately then Holly connected Britt’s absence, and Ann’s as well, with that visiting band of horsemen. The road, which was the Old Trail, led between the pastures and the ranch-barns.

The lane appeared long and dusty, and empty. Corral after corral lined the range side, all opening into the big stock-yard. On Holly’s left towered a dusty green hedge-fence. Inside the irrigation ditch babbled and gurgled on its way like a brook, to pour presently into the high-banked, willow-bordered pool. Ducks and geese swam and squawked in the amber sunlight; blackbirds shone black against the green foliage. The bray of burros, whistle and trample of colts, the bawling of calves, added further to the sense of pastoral ranch life.

Holly reached the last corral on the lane. She heard harsh voices of men, but could not distinguish words. The huge barn loomed above the fence. Holly halted with her hand pressed to her breast. This did not seem a procedure to alarm her prodigiously, yet it did. What if that band of horsemen had not gone on to the post? But where were her riders? What had become of Frayne? And the answer to both was that they were here.

She peeped around the corner of the corral, into the wide court. A score of saddled horses! Holly saw several she thought she recognized. Riders in the road! Men in a circle on the long slant that led up to the wide door! Dark forms outlined against the sunlight beyond the wide floor-space between the walls! She saw women, too.

Holly turned back to run into the open gate of the corral. She followed the fence of peeled poles along toward the barn, past the horses, beyond the groups of riders, as far as she could go. There in the corner she gazed between the fence-poles. Her position was parallel to the line of riders on the runway up to the barn. The great doors had been rolled back on each side.

Britt, bare-headed, his face troubled and dark, paced the entrance to the barn. Frayne occupied the centre place. Havoc lined his pale stern features. His eyes appeared to be grey blanks, peering over Britt’s head, up at the ranch-house. Back of Frayne to the left stood grim cattlemen Holly recognized with augmenting fear. But when she swept her gaze to the opposite side and saw Sewall McCoy, heavy-jowled, lowering of face, standing before some cowboys, panic gripped her with petrific power.

“ — ootrage!” Britt cursed fiercely. “I’m tellin’ you, Clements. You’ve been fooled by this slick hombre.”

“Thet remains to be seen,” declared Clements, a grizzled cattleman, rugged of feature. “We’re all gettin’ fooled by somebody; thet’s shore. Hayward hyar disliked this job as much as me. But we had to organize. McCoy has proof thet three of your riders was crooked. Dillon, Talman an’ a cowboy called Trinidad. You don’t deny thet, Britt.”

“Hell no! I cain’t, ‘cause it was true,” retorted Britt, spitting as if he had hot ashes in his mouth. “They’re daid, aren’t they? Wal, who visited thet crime on their haids? My men! An’ they were the last of crooked cowboys in my ootfit.”

“Thet’s what you think, Britt,” spoke up Hayward, a tall, sallow, sharp-eyed rancher. “But you was fooled three times, an’ you can be again. McCoy swears he’ll prove it.”

“We’ll show proofs, soon as Slaughter gets here,” declared McCoy, loud-voiced and aggressively important. “He an’ his outfit ought to be here now.”

“By Gawd, he’ll have to prove it!” hissed Britt. “Listen, Hayward, an’ you Spencer, an’ you Clements. Cain’t you see this means a range war?”

“No, I can’t,” protested Hayward, testily. “We’re not goin’ to be drawn into thet Lincoln County mess.”

“You’ll make a mess of our own, right heah.”

“Britt, for an old Texas Ranger, you’re not showin’ much sense,” declared Spencer, a short, thickset, bearded man. “Didn’t Ripple want you to collect the toughest outfit of cowboys in this hyar whole country?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Wal, haven’t you got it?”

“You bet yore life I hev,” flashed Britt. “An’ thet’s why I tell you McCoy is skatin’ on the thinnest kind of ice. An’ if you back him up in this ootrageous deal you’ll all be—”

“ — it, Britt, this man is an outlaw!” interrupted Hayward, angrily.

“He was, yes. But not heah. Not in New Mexico. He’s as honest as I am — an’ a damn sight squarer an’ finer than any one of you.”

“Britt, is it an insult or a threat you’re givin’ us?” demanded Hayward.

“Both!”

Clements and Spencer shifted uneasily. Britt’s passion had told upon them. Hayward appeared to dominate the trio.

“Men,” interposed McCoy, insolently, “you’re wastin’ a lot of breath. This deal is up to Frayne.”

That stung Britt as the lash of a whip.

“Shore, you — lyin’ schemer! You play both ends against the middle. Two chances of gettin’ rid of the man you hate — the man you fear! You egg on thet gun-slinger Rankin to call Frayne oot. An’ thet fails — as shore as death it will fail — you’ll throw yore hatched deal on the table. Accuse Frayne of stealin’ Holly Ripple’s cattle!... Gawd Almighty, man, I wouldn’t be in yore boots fer a million!”

McCoy grew red and furious under the Texan’s piercing tirade.

“Britt, you’re a hell of a talker. But this deal is up to Frayne. He has been given two choices. He can meet Rankin, who’s over there at the post waitin’, an’ if he kills him, he can face our proofs of his rustlin’. Or he can fork his hoss an’ leave the country.”

“Renn Frayne will never leave heah,” replied Britt, whitefaced with resigned finality, and he turned to Frayne.

“Cap, I’ve known all along I’d have to meet Rankin,” said Frayne, calmly. “I’ll do it now. Afterwards..

Holly’s paralysing emotions gave way to a terror that released her. She slipped through the poles of the fence. She ran up the slant. Ann’s scream and the cowboys’ excited shouts only lent wings to her feet. Frayne wheeled to see her. The marble relentlessness of his face changed to living colour.

“Renn!” cried Holly, wildly, and flung her arms around his neck. A madness possessed her. It was as if the agony of loss had fallen upon her even as she enveloped his flesh with all of mortal passion. “Renn!... You can’t go! — I love you!... I’d die if — if... Come.... Take me away — from this horrible West.... I’ll go to the end of the world — with you!”

Frayne clasped her close, drawing her head to his breast, and bent over her. “You poor child! — Oh, Holly, I tried to spare you this.”

His look, his sudden powerful embrace, the great lift of his heart against her bosom, his tender, sorrowful words — these seemed to pierce and burn into the very core of Holly’s being. He was hers. He loved her. In a rapture that bordered upon loss of consciousness Holly quivered there in his arms. A tremendous storm seemed gathering within her — a whirling maelstrom of thought which love kept from bursting. Then she heard Frayne’s voice, as if far away.

“Gentlemen, I shall not meet Rankin.... As for McCoy’s charge — I am innocent. I demand a fair trial.”

Holly’s stunned faculties suddenly split like a cloud riven by lightning. Shame leaped with a bursting gush of hot blood. This was the crucial moment toward which she had been cruelly dragged through endless days and nights, cast into the depths and anon lifted up.

“Oh, Renn,” she cried, drawing away, “what is it that I have done?”

CHAPTER XIII

BRITT BROKE OUT of his stupefaction to approach them. What indeed had Holly done? Saved or wrecked Frayne! But like the true, wonderful girl of generous heart she was she had showed the range what Renn Frayne meant to her.

“Holly, this heah is a man’s deal,” spoke up Britt, huskily, as he reached her. “You leave it to—”

She silenced him with a flash of her hand.

“Forgive me, Renn,” she implored, gazing up at him en-treatingly. “I was beside myself. I understand now.... I beg of you don’t let me — or my love — hamper you in the least. I trust you. I know you.... Meet these men — as if you had never seen me.”

“Holly,” he choked, as the slackness, the softness passed out of him. For this girl he would have foresworn the hard manhood of the West, and have accepted a stigma without shame and without bitterness. But he could not speak a word of the passion that consumed him.

Holly, still clinging to Frayne’s hand, turned to the gaping cattlemen. Britt stared spellbound. Her loveliness, her race had never shone as then. Out of her proud white face blazed eyes so great, so black, so magnificent that they appeared more than human, flames of a spirit stronger than terror or death. “Hayward, and all of you, listen.... Renn Frayne has been hounded for years by such men as this Rankin. It made him an outlaw. I doubt if he has ever been really bad. But that would not matter to me, since now he is honest. I love him and I am going to marry him. Weigh well your antagonism in this hour. We will never forgive more of your biased opinions. Don Carlos’ Rancho stands or falls by this man.... Sewall McCoy is a contemptible dog. He wanted to marry me. He threatened me with an alliance with Russ Slaughter if I refused him. This trumped-up charge against Frayne is not only prompted by jealousy and revenge, but by fear! He is afraid of Frayne. Because, gentlemen, McCoy is the dark horse in this range mystery. He is the rustler baron.”

“You white-faced, half-breed slut,” burst out McCoy, in ungovernable rage.

“Silence!” yelled Britt, leaping out to crouch. “Another word an’ I’ll kill you! — You dealt this deal. Now, by Gawd, you’ll play oot yore hand.”

“Hold, Britt! — Steady now,” shouted Clements, plainly alive to an unexpected development in the situation. “We’ll all play out our hands in this game.... Miss Ripple, you use strong words. We can make allowance for your — your — for a most tryin’ ordeal. But unless you are beside yourself with fury — you will be called on to prove—”

“Clements,” interrupted Holly, “you are hopelessly in the toils of this rustler who hires poor cowboys to steal for him.

... Do you think that I would lie? Mr. Clements, I have no doubt that in less than an hour you will be put to the painful ordeal of explaining your connection with Sewall McCoy.”

“Thet’ll do, Holly,” spoke up Britt, on edge with the prolongation of this scene. “Go home.... Ann, take Holly home.” Ann came forward hastily while Holly turned to Frayne. “Renn, I’ll expect you up at the house soon,” she said, coolly, with dark proud eyes upon him. Frayne could not answer. Then as Ann led Holly out of the barn door they were confronted by a tall cowboy.

“Brazos!” cried Holly, in amaze and gladness. “Where have you been?”

“Heah,” he rang out.

“Since when? Did you—”

Britt moved to get a good look at Brazos, and did not marvel that Holly faltered.

“I rid in ahaid of the ootfit. Seen yu. An’ I follered yu. I been heah all the time.”

“Oh, I’m so — so glad,” returned Holly, hurriedly, strangely faltering. Did she take Brazos’ white face and terrible eyes as indications of unutterable reproach? Britt did not so interpret Brazos’ mien. There had been hell to pay out there on the range and would be more here. Ann led Holly away with the other girls, who were Mexicans.

“Renn, I’ll go with you,” drawled Brazos. “I shore want to see you bore thet — beady-eyed little cockroach!”

“You stay heah, Brazos,” ordered Britt. “Don’t let a single man leave this bar.”

“Britt, I’ll see to thet,” spoke up Clements, darkly. “Reckon I’d like to see Frayne come back. Otherwise we might never find out who this shady rustler is. Haw! Haw!”

“Thet’ll do, Clements,” yelled Brazos. “Yu’ll hev hell swallerin’ what yu’ve said already. Yu’re on the wrong side, as yu’ll larn damn pronto.”

Britt had to run to keep up with Frayne’s swift strides, and as he kept pace with the outlaw, he revolved in mind a few pertinent things to say.

“Renn, put Holly oot of yore mind,” was the first one.

“No, by God! Do you think any man could beat me to a gun when I remember bow she looked — what she said?”

“Wal, I reckon not.... Loosen yore belt a little.... An’ roll thet gun a few times.... Ah-huh. An’ stick it back sorta light, so it’ll come oot quicker’n greased lightnin’... Will this Rankin expect you?”

“Hardly. He’s got me wrong. I could have killed him back in Kansas, but I let him bluff me. He was half drunk. McCoy, of course, has his axe to grind and has helped Rankin along in his figuring me. McCoy has reason to know me. But he thinks Holly has made me a four-flush!”

“Wal, I’m damn glad there’s goin’ to be some action. I’m shore seein’ red. An’ say, wasn’t Holly jest grand? Did she lay it into Clements an’ McCoy? Whew!... Renn, hev you been practisin’ lately?”

“Day and night, Old Timer. I saw this coming.”

“You’ll hev to marry Holly now.”

“Heavens, yes!” Frayne threw up his head in exultation.

“She disgraced herself — ruined herself! Before them all! — For me! O God, if I could only have gone away!”

“Shore, if you could hev,” agreed the wily Britt. “As it is, though, you’ve got to stay heah an’ prove Holly wasn’t lyin’.... An’ think, Renn, pretty pronto, when this mess is over you’ll be goin’ up to the house to see her. An’ Holly will be waitin’ — all alone. Withoot any pryin’ eyes aboot. She was only a tortured girl, fust off, back there at the barn, an’ then when thet rotten ootfit made her mad, she was a queen. But, cowboy, this next time you meet her! All thet beauty! All thet blazin’ fire — thet sweet love which can never get enough of you — all in yore arms! — Gawd, boy, do you know yore good fortune?”

“Yes, Cap, I know it. No man on earth could know so well!”

“Renn, is this Rankin the real thing?”

“Mean. A scaly rattlesnake. Dangerous if he gets the drop. That’s all.”

They reached the village. Frayne slowed his stride and kept to the middle of the road. A Mexican in a big straw sombrero passed carrying two pails of water, suspended from a pole across his shoulders. Some Indians lounged in front of the post. Two dusty horses stood haltered to the hitching-rail opposite the entrance to the saloon. For the rest the wide street appeared deserted. Britt saw the crudely painted Mexican designs upon the white-washed adobe walls.

Frayne squared himself before the stained wooden doors, then with a powerful thrust opened them to leap inside. Britt popped in as quickly and sheered to one side. The big saloon smelled of stale rum. Britt’s flashing eye gathered in four men before he came to the little man he knew was Rankin. Mean! A scaly rattlesnake! He stood with his back to the bar, his arms stretched along its edge, a position no great gunman would ever have risked while expecting a meeting with a foe.

Britt saw him stiffen in that position. A sombrero shaded his eyes, and that was a circumstance against Frayne, if he needed to read his adversary’s intent. But Frayne did not require that. Britt knew that the instant either of Rankin’s outstretched hands moved Frayne would be drawing.

The only movement in the saloon was a quick, swerve of the bar-tender to dodge out of line and then run to the far end of the bar.

“Rankin,” called Frayne, in cold expectation.

“Howdy. Who air you?” rejoined the other, gruffly.

“You know me. Frayne.”

“Aho.... Frayne, eh? — Wal, I kind of give you up. Fact is I didn’t expect you much.... Wanta tip a bottle with me?”

“No.”

“I see. Heerd you’d sworn off drinkin’. — Air yu thinkin’ of ridin’ away from Dop Carlos’ Rancho?”

“No.”

“Stayin’ on, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Wal, didn’t Hayward invite you to leave the country?”

“He did.”

“An’ didn’t McCoy tell you thet I said fer you to get out?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here.”

“Frayne, I’ll give you till sundown to leave this range,” yelled Rankin, stridently. Anger had succeeded to surprise, but there was no sign of fear in the man. He had grown cunningly conservant of action, increasingly taut of frame. His right hand began to quiver.

“Did I leave Dodge after I shot your stick-fingered pard?” taunted Frayne.

Rankin was game, but he betrayed that he had gotten himself not only into a disadvantageous posture, but into the certainty that he had to meet Frayne alone. Nevertheless he accepted it. He actually bristled. Britt saw his sombrero rise slightly above his opaque, formidable eyes. Swift as light then all his frame jerked in downward action.

Frayne’s draw was too quick for Britt’s sight. But he saw the red spurt — the black burst-then heard the boom.

Rankin’s terrific violence sustained a sudden shock. He sagged inward against the bar. His head dropped so that the wide sombrero hid his face. And his hand fell away from his half-drawn gun. A groan tumbled out of him. He lodged there, a shrunken figure, strangely bereft of his sinister menace.

Britt was not loquacious on the march back to the barn. Nor did he allow either the raw gust of passion or the strong feeling of elation and relief to clog his thinking machine. The situation required more than he believed any one man could give it. Moreover, he was not in a conciliatory mood. Brazos would run amuck. McCoy did not stand the slightest chance of getting away with his life. Obviously the thing to do was to establish proofs of Frayne’s innocence and McCoy’s guilt in front of those obsessed cattlemen, and then avoid a general pitched battle. This seemed unlikely. McCoy had a number of cowboys with him and there were half a dozen with the cattlemen. As Britt remembered it, Holly’s four remaining cowboys were Jim, Skylark, Stinger and Gaines. What had become of Joe Doane and Rebel?

“Frayne, do yu reckon it’ll ever get as far as McCoy’s charge against you?”

“Never. His trump card is Russ Slaughter. And I’ve a hunch Slaughter will never get here.”

“Brazos!”

“Yes. He’s got something up his sleeve.”

“Look! — Down the lane! — Frayne, there’s the ootfit. Shore thet must be what makes Brazos so cocky.”

“It’s likely. Let’s rustle along. They’re coming at a trot, pack-horses an’ all. They might start a fight pronto.”

Britt jogged along behind Frayne. They cut short across the field to the bam, coming through the fence near the door. The relative positions of the several groups had not altered much. McCoy sat sullenly aside from his cowboys. The cattlemen ceased a colloquy at Frayne’s sudden appearance on the runway. Britt whispered to Jim: “Get back an’ be ready fer anythin’.”

“Heah yu air, pard!” rang out Brazos, in his lusty piercing tenor. “These heah conscientious cowmen never expected yu back atall. But I knowed yu’d come.”

McCoy rose to his feet, livid of face, beginning to manifest a subtle change of front. Brazos would have been disconcerting even to an honest man.

“Frayne, you backed out of meetin’ him?” he queried harshly.

The answer he got from Frayne was a piercing, deadly stare. But Britt thought it well to launch a retort.

“McCoy, is yore beady-eyed gun-slinger the best you can trot oot?”

“Dead?” gasped McCoy.

“Bored plumb centre. Hell, he didn’t have a chance.” Brazos reacted to that with a ringing laugh. He dominated the several groups, even Britt and Frayne backing from his restless front. His gun swung low in its sheath. He had a second weapon stuck into the hip pocket of his jeans. Britt smelled gun-powder on him; then made the observation that his belt was half emptied of shells. All the characteristic red had faded from his face and his pallor enhanced the smear of blood under his clustering hair.

Clements coughed nervously and advanced a step.

“McCoy, press your charge now against Frayne, an’ produce your proofs. This deal will begin to look queer if you don’t.”

“Queer, eh?” sneered McCoy. “Look out how queer you make it. I told you Slaughter has the proofs.”

“But you told us you knew them,” protested Clements, dubiously.

“Will you stop raggin’ me an’ wait till Slaughter gets here?” yelled McCoy.

Brazos leaped out in front of them all with a gun in each hand.

“Wal, heah comes Slaughter.... Don’t nobody move a finger.... Yu McCoy hombres, I got eyes in the back of my haid. Somebody is gonna get bored.”

Britt saw Brazos’ outfit turning from the lane into the barnyard. Jackson was on foot leading a pack-animal with what looked like a man hanging face and feet downward from the saddle. Santone, Cherokee, Tex and Mex Southard, rode behind the little negro; and if ever Britt saw a quartet that had been in a fight he saw it then. Black, ragged, dusty, bloody-scarfed, they resembled a crew of pirates. Behind rode Bluegrass, his face like a white splotch, reeling in his saddle.

When this procession neared the runway leading up to the barn door Britt’s startled gaze confirmed the first glances at that object over Jackson’s saddle. It was a dead man, whose blood dripped down upon the flopping hands that dragged in the dirt.

“Pile off, fellars,” called Brazos. “An’ come heah.... Jack, lead thet cayuse up.”

The negro complied. Britt stared in sickening excitement. He could not see the head of the dead man, for that hung on the other side of the horse. But he knew who it was.

“Dump him off, Jack,” ordered Brazos.

The negro laid hold of the man’s hips and boosted him up so that he slid out of the saddle, to flop suddenly upon the barn floor, spattering blood in all directions. When the horse got out of line, Britt confirmed his suspicion as to the dead man. Russ Slaughter presented a hideous spectacle.

“Look, all of yu,” pealed the ruthless showman. “But keep back. Take a good look, yu cowboys an’ cowmen, so yu’ll see what can happen to a cattle-thief.... See! He’s stretched hemp! — This rustlin’ gentleman was shot fust, an’ hanged alive, then pumped full of lead!”

In the horrified silence that transfixed the onlookers Brazos leaped over the dead man to align the ghastly McCoy with his several wooden-faced cowboys.

“Heah, McCoy, heah’s yore Russ Slaughter,” went on Brazos, his voice gaining the high-tensioned ring of cold steel. “He had proofs. Aw, he shore hed. But of yore rotten deals with him! Russ must hev been a hombre who didn’t trust yu or his memory. He jotted down every steer, every calf — every dollar. All in a little book. An’ I got thet book!”

Brazos grew terrible in his cold-blooded fury. His young clear-cut face had the look of an avenging god. “Thet’ll be aboot all fer yu, McCoy,” he hissed. “Heah’s fer yore insult to Holly Ripple!” One gun crashed. McCoy, with an awful scream, spasmodically clapped his hands to his abdomen. “An’ heah’s fer yore old grudge an’ dirty deal to my pard, Renn Frayne!” The second gun crashed. McCoy sank behind the cloud of smoke. Brazos leaped through tbat to present his smoking guns at McCoy’s men. “Get a move on. Pronto! If yu ever meet a Ripple cow-hand again, go fer yore guns!”

He drove them out of the barn.

“Watch ‘em, boys. If they look back — shoot!”

Brazos wheeled to confront the cattlemen, of whom Clements was the one most obviously shaken. He quailed before the fire-eyed cowboy.

“Clements; — yore yellow soul! I cain’t be certain about how crooked yu air. But yore name is in Slaughter’s book. Yu bought cattle of him. How you explain thet?”

“Unbranded stock, Keene — I swear to Gawd!” gasped out the cattleman, ashen-hued behind his beard.

“Aw, yu lie! I can see it in yore eyes. An honest man has nothin’ to fear. But yu ain’t honest. Yu knowed McCoy was crooked.”

“No — I swear — I didn’t!”

“Wal, yu knowed Slaughter was.... Oo t with thet before I bore yu.”

“Yes — yes.... I knew it.”

“An’ you bought Ripple stock from him?”

“I shet my eyes.... All unbranded calves — yearlings.”

“Ah-huh. — Wal, I’ll bore yu jest fer luck.... But if yu hadn’t been mean in yore talk to Miss Ripple, I might hev let yu off.”

“Oh, my Gawd! — Keene — !”

Brazos’ gun crash cut short that impassionate and desperate appeal.

“Rustle, yu conscientious cowmen, before I cut loose. An’ in the act. We got McCoy comin’ an’ goin’. We hev written proofs. We hev Saunders’ confession. Mill over thet, yu wise range galoots.... An’ pack these daid hombres away on their hawses, onless yu want them throwed to the hawgs.”

Half an hour later Brazos stepped to the side of a fresh mettlesome horse that Santone had fetched into the court. A light pack and a canteen were significantly bound upon the saddle. Brazos mounted with his slow, inimitable grace.

“Whoa, Bounce, or I’ll rake yu,” he called, as he pulled the big bay down with iron arm. “So long, Jim, Rebel — all yu sons-of-guns!”

They muttered a farewell that they neither sanctioned nor approved of. Their acquiescence had in it something of Brazos’ detachment. Cowboys had to ride away. They bowed to the fate and the greatness of their comrade.

Britt and Frayne crowded close.

“Brazos, you don’t hev to go,” said Britt, huskily.

“Pard, the man confessed his guilt,” protested Frayne. “Hayward, Spencer — all of us heard him.”

Brazos lighted his cigarette, and flicking away the match he looked down with his slight enigmatical smile. His wonderful eyes lost their piercing blue hardness behind a shadow that might have been pain.

“Wal, I’m kinda tired of Don Carlos’ Rancho,” he drawled, in his slow, cool speech. “Me fer the Pecos an’ the Texas longhorns.”

Britt was silent because he could not speak, while Frayne stared up with mute sorrow and a gathering, dark understanding in his gaze.

“Pard, do me a favour,” went on Brazos, his lean hand going to Frayne’s shoulder. “If yu — an’ Holly ever hev a boy — call him Brazos.”

Then, with a clink of spurs, and a clatter of hoofs, he was off, swift as the wind. They watched him cross the road and stretch out upon the grey range, headed for the pass, and the long, lonely trail to Texas.

Days passed. June warmed into July. Far and wide spread the fame of Holly Ripple’s cowboys. Both factions in the Lincoln County War sought to win them to their side. A month of peace had lulled the riders back into their old lazy ways. They rode, they bet, they played tricks, they watched the cattle, they revelled in their won independence and the respect and aloofness of the range.

Holly’s birthday rolled around, and the event this year was to celebrate her wedding. Only the cowboys and her few neighbour friends were invited.

Britt, who felt himself responsible for this great and happy event, left the restless, primping, whispering cowboys to go up to the ranch-house. There be found Holly radiant at the close of preparations, ready almost to consign herself to Ann and Conchita.

“Oh, Cappy, the girls are going to dress me now,” she cried. “Will Renn like me? We made the dress ourselves.  Dear old padre Augustine is here. Renn swears he wants to marry me twice — the second time by an American preacher. He wants to make sure of me. But my old padre would do for me.”

At that juncture Ride-’Em Jackson came puffing to the living-room door, where he pounded.

“What you want, Jack?” queried Britt.

“Who is it? — Oh, Jackson! You poor fellow! What are you panting about?” exclaimed Holly.

“Missy Ripple — I’se done — powerful — sorry. I sho is,” panted Jackson, solemnly rolling his eyes.

“Sorry! What for?”

“I’se de bearer of turrible sad news.”

“Jack, get out. This is no time to worry Miss Ripple,” protested Britt angrily. The negro was serious and probably had some dismaying news that might just as well be left until some other time.

“Diss message comes fro Massa Renn.”

“Renn! — For goodness sake!” cried Holly, excitedly. “What is it, Jackson?”

“He say to tell yu dat he’s turrible sorry dat he cain’t marry yu to-day.”

“Oh, mercy! — Britt — Ann, did you hear Jackson? — Heavens, what is it now? Oh, I never felt sure of Renn! He’ll ride away — leave me—”

“Nonsense, Holly,” interposed Britt. “Don’t take on so. It cain’t be anythin’ serious. Why, less than an hour ago I saw Renn so locoed he couldn’t heah the boys. Mad aboot you, Holly. I never saw a man so happy.” — ~

“Mad? — Happy! Then why on earth.... Jackson, you staring ebony lunk-head! Why can’t Frayne marry me to-day?”

“‘Cause, Missy, dere’s a raid on de cattle. Santone jest rode in. He tole us. Oot by Grey Hill. Gosh! I nebber seen Massa Renn so mad. He cuss terrible. ‘Hellsfire! Cain’t they give me a day to be married?’”

“But, Jack — he didn’t ride off?” wailed Holly.

“Yassum, he sho did. Wif de whole ootfit all dressed up. An’ I’ll sho hev to rustle to ketch them.”

“Did he say — when he’d come back?” asked Holly faintly. “He say to tell yu he cain’t be sho. Mebbe to-morrow. Mebbe not.”

Holly fell into a magnificent rage — the first Britt had ever seen her exhibit. At first she was so speechless she could only throw things. But soon she burst out: “Oh, damn the cattle! What do I care for cattle?... On my wedding-day! He leaves me to chase rustlers! Oh, to hell with my cattle! — I want to be married. I want my husband!”

“Missy, I sho forgot,” said the negro. “He say fer yu to wave yu scarf — like yo always do. But yu mus hurry befo dey’s oot of sight.”

“No. I won’t. Wave to him — when he deserts me for some miserable cows? I see myself.... Oh, Britt, it must be very bad. A big raid! Renn would not leave me otherwise.... Where’s my scarf? Ann — Conchita. My scarf, you ninnies!”

Holly ran to and fro, weeping, wringing her hands, wild with mingled emotions. Presently she snatched the scarf from Ann and fled precipitously out on the porch. Britt ran after her. Off the porch she leaped, into the open path, her arm aloft, her beautiful eyes strained.

The range was empty. But in the path, not twenty rods down the gentle slope, Holly espied a procession of marching cowboys, with Renn Frayne at their head, looking handsome, foolish and unutterably happy.

Holly backed with a scream until she reached the porch steps, where she sat down suddenly. The scarf fell to the ground. A flash of joy quickly left her face. Britt was transfixed by the black dilated eyes. She was a tragic savage child.

“Hello, Holly,” called out Frayne, as he neared her. “How do I — we look? We’re early. But couldn’t wait.”

“It’s — a trick,” planted Holly.

“Trick? Indeed not. This wedding is the most serious, the most beautiful — the most glorious—”

“Devil!” shrieked Holly.

“What?” gasped Renn, blankly.

“Perfidious wretch!”

At that he could only stare down at her. The smile left his face.

“Villain!”

Frayne appealed to Britt in mute consternation. But for once the foreman was equally mute. He had an almost irresistible desire to imitate Jackson, who was rolling in the grass. All of the other cowboys were beginning to manifest terrific and uncontrolled agitation.

“Cowboy! I can think of no more horrible name to call you.... Cowboy!” cried Holly.

“But, darling, what have I done?” asked the bewildered Frayne, sitting beside her.

“Don’t darling me! I hate you! I’ll never marry you!... Look! Look at your friendly conspirators.”

Frayne did look, to be more mystified than ever. His cowboy comrades, heedless of their best suits, so cleanly brushed and carefully pressed, were rolling over and over in the grass, giving vent to growing sounds of irresistible glee.

“Holly, whatever it is — I am innocent,” declared Frayne.

“Innocent! When you sent that grinning demon of a nigger up here to tell me you couldn’t marry me to-day? — Rustlers! You had to ride off. You couldn’t get back — maybe not tomorrow! — Oh, how could you? Such a horrible trick! Can’t you cowboys tell what is fun — and what is cruel?... It broke my heart. I — I’ll never marry you now.”

“Holly! — Don’t say that. I didn’t know. They played it on me, too. I thought something was afoot. But I was loco. In a trance! Honey, don’t visit their sins upon my poor head.”

“Oh, Frayne! — I warn you. Don’t — don’t lie. That would be too much.”

“Holly, I’ll prove it,” declared Frayne, and he jumped up to give the rolling Jackson a resounding kick. “You black rascal! Come here! — Tell her, on your knees, or I’ll beat you half to death.”

He dragged the convulsed negro to Holly’s feet, where she regarded him with parting lips and startled eyes.

“Good Lud — Miss Holly.... I don’t knowed — dis would fall on my haid. But Brazos made me do it.”

“Brazos?” cried Holly, as if stabbed.

“Yas-sum. Brazos. Dat tow-haided debbil. He done it all before he left, Miss Holly. He planned de trick — swored us all in — an’ made me tink nobody but me could fool you.... I’se turrible sorry. I is.”

“Jackson, get up off your knees,” returned Holly. “I forgive you. But only because Brazos trapped you in one of his infernal tricks.”

“Thank yo, Missy Ripple. I swear I’ll nebber play tricks no mo.”

“Jackson, haven’t you any heart?” went on Holly, overcome by curiosity. “Were you ever about to get married?”

“Yas-sum. I done come orful near such castrophy onct. I sho did. But de good Lud who watches ober niggahs saved me. Dat wench runned off wid a long goose-necked niggah who suttingly got let in bad. An’ she tooked sixty-nine dollars of mah money.”

“Jackson, we will excuse you,” said Holly. “Boys, go into the living-room and have Roseta brush off your clothes.”

They trooped indoors like a lot of schoolboys glad to be let off so easily. Holly leaned her glossy head against Frayne’s shoulder.

“Bless their hearts!” she whispered. “I came very nearly letting them see.”

“What? Don’t tell me you were not furious.”

“I was — at first — wild with rage and disappointment. But when I understood and saw their glee — I wanted to shriek.”

“You did shriek, Holly,” replied Frayne, nodding gravely. “You called me some dreadful names. Didn’t she, Cappy?”

“Wal, I should smile she did.”

“You were tickled, you old reprobate! Renn, once a cowboy always a cowboy!”

As if to corroborate this unique statement, Ride-’Em Jackson appeared at the door, his round black head protruding, his solemn black orbs rolling.

“Missy Ripple, it sho might have happened dat way. It sho might.’Cause me an’ Santone seen some rustlers dis mawnin’. An’ we didn’t say nuffin’ to Mars Frayne aboot it.”

“Cappy, throw something at that black monster!”

Britt complied with alacrity. “Gosh, they’ll shore drive you mad to-night.”

“Cap, they’ve got me buffaloed,” admitted Frayne.

“I don’t care what they do — after—” murmured Holly.

“After what?” asked Frayne, softly, when she left off. But she kept silent. “Holly, I’d feel better if you substituted some nice names for those you called me.”

“Renn!” she whispered.

“That’s fair.”

“Darling!”

“Better. But try again.”

“Sweetheart!”

Frayne appeared overcome with her sweet coquetry, under which breathed a passionate tenderness. He could only press her dusky head to his lips.

Holly sprang up. “I’ll be calling you husband pronto!” she flashed, with a gay laugh of joy, and ran indoors.

Frayne stood up beside Britt to gaze out over the range. The old foreman did not care to voice his feelings then. But he knew that Holly was safe at last. He knew the West and he knew Westerners. There would still be years of rustling and hard-lipped, hard-eyed men would come and go. He doubted that there was one living who could match Renn Frayne. He thought a moment of that fire-eyed, great-hearted cowboy who had ridden away into the lonely melancholy wastes of Texas. Britt’s loyalty embodied in Brazos all that was great on the range. But on the moment he remembered with a pang those cowboys, moulded in the same heroic crucible, who made merry inside Holly Ripple’s house, keen to ride out on the moment, ready to die for her as had their comrades — the wild-spirited knights who slept in unmarked graves, out on the lone prairie.

Twin Sombreros

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 1

THE SUN HUNG gold and red above the snow-tipped ramparts of the Colorado Rockies. On a high bluff across the Purgatory River a group of Indians sat their mustangs watching the slow, winding course of a railroad train climbing toward the foothills, fearful of this clattering, whistling monster on wheels that might spell doom to the red man. Had they not seen train after train loaded with buffalo hides steam eastward across the plains?

A lithe rider, dusty and worn, mounted on a superb bay horse, halted on the south side of the river to watch the Indians.

“Utes, I reckon,” he said, answering to the habit of soliloquy that loneliness had fostered in him. “Like the Kiowas they shore die hard. Doggone me if I don’t feel sorry for them! The beaver an’ the buffalo aboot gone! The white man rangin’ with his cattle wherever grass grows! Wal, Reddies, if yu air wise, yu’ll go way back in some mountain valley an’ stay there.”

“Wal, come to think aboot it,” mused the lone rider, “they’re not so bad off as me — No money. No job. No home! Ridin’ a grub line, an’ half starved. Nothin’ but a hawss an’ a gun.”

He put a slow hand inside his open vest to draw forth a thick letter, its fresh whiteness marred by fingerprints and soiled spots. He had wept over that letter. Marvelling again, with a ghost of the shock which had first attended sight of that beautiful handwriting, he reread the postmark and the address: Lincoln, New Mexico, May 3, 1880. Mr. Brazos Keene, Latimer, Colorado, c/o Two-bar X Ranch. The Latimer postmark read a day later.

“My Gawd, but this heah railroad can fetch a man trouble pronto,” he complained, and he stuck the letter back. “What in the hell made me go into thet post office for? Old cowboy habit! Always lookin’ for letters thet never come. I wish to Gawd this one had been like all the others. But aw no! Holly Ripple remembers me — has still the old faith in me — An’ she named her boy Brazos — after me.”

“Only five years!” mused the rider, with unseeing eyes on the west. “Five years since I rode along heah down the old trail from Don Carlos’s Rancho — An’ what have I done with my life?”

A savage shake of his head was Brazos’s answer to that disturbing query, as also it was a passionate repudiation of memory. He rode on down the river trail toward Las Animas. He did not know how far it was in to town. His horse was lame and weary. This stretch along the Purgatory was not prolific of cow-camps; nevertheless, Brazos hoped to run into one before nightfall.

The trail worked up from the river to an intersection with a road. In the gathering darkness, Brazos’s quick eye caught sight of three horsemen riding out from a clump of dead trees which only partly obscured a dark cabin. The riders wheeled back, apparently thinking Brazos had not seen them.

Brazos heard a sibilant hissing “hold thar!” and a sound that seemed like a gloved hand slapped on metal. A hoarse voice, thick-tongued from liquor, rasped low. Then came a young high-pitched answer: “But, Bard, I’m not risking—” The violent gloved hand cut that speech short. To Brazos the name that had been mentioned sounded like Bard, but it might have been Bart or even Brad.

“Hey, riders,” called Brazos curtly, “I seen yu before yu seen me.”

After a moment of silence, Brazos heard the word “Texan” whispered significantly. Then one of the three rode out.

“What if you did, stranger?” he asked.

“Nothin’. I just wanted yu to know all riders ain’t blind and deaf.”

Brazos’s interrogator’s features were indistinguishable. But Brazos registered the deep matured voice, the sloping shoulders, the bull neck.

“Thar’s been some hold-ups along hyar lately,” he said.

“Ahuh. An’ thet’s why you acted so queer?”

“Queer? Playin’ safe, stranger.”

“Yeah? Wal, if yu took me for a bandit yu’re way off.”

“Glad to hear thet — an’ who might you be?”

“I’m a grub-line-ridin’ cowboy. I’m tired an’ hungry, an’ my hawss is lame.”

“An’ whar you makin’ for?”

“Mister, if I wasn’t hungry, an’ tired I wouldn’t like yore pert questions. I’m not goin’ anywhere in particular. How far to Las Animas?”

“All-night drill for a tired hoss.”

“Any cow camp near?”

“Nope. Nearest ranch is Twin Sombreros, three miles from town.”

“Excuse me for askin’,” went on Brazos with sarcasm, “but do yu fellers belong to an ootfit that’ll feed a hungry cow-puncher?”

“My boss hasn’t any use for grubline riders.”

“Yu don’t say. Wal, I reckon I don’t eat. But would yu tell me if there’s any grass heah-aboots for my hawss?”

“Good grass right hyar, stranger. An’ you can bunk in the old cabin thar.”

“Thanks,” returned Brazos dryly.

The burly rider turned to his silent companions. “Come on, men. If we’re makin’ Lamar to-night we got to rustle.”

The couple joined him and they rode by Brazos too swiftly for him to distinguish anything. They took to the north, soon passing out of sight.

The cabin proved to be close at hand. Brazos peeped in the open door. It was pitch dark inside and smelled dry. He removed saddle and bridle from the bay and turned him loose. Brazos carried his paraphernalia inside and deposited it upon the floor. He felt in his pockets for matches. He had none. Then he groped around until he bumped into a bench made of boughs. This, with his saddle blankets, would furnish a better bed than many to which he had of late been accustomed.

Some time in the night he awoke. Usually a light sleeper he thought nothing of being aroused. But after a moment he felt that this was different. And he attended to outside sensations.

He heard a drip, drip, drip of rain on the floor. Evidently the roof leaked. A low moaning wind swept by under the cabin eaves. Drip — drip — drip — slowly the dropping sounds faded in his consciousness.

Dawn was at hand. Through the window he discerned a faint blue of sky. Apparently the weather had cleared. But all of a sudden — drip — drip — drip! The drops of rain water were slow and heavy. They spattered on the earthen floor. It was now light enough in the cabin to make out a ladder leading up to a loft.

All at once a cold chill crept over his skin. That dank odour, dominating the pungent dry smell of the cabin, assailed his nostrils. Drip — drip — drip! Brazos was wide awake now. In a single action, he slid upright off the bench.

The drip came from the loft just about the centre of the cabin. Brazos could not see the drops, but by their sound, he located them — stretched out his upturned palm. Spat! Despite his steely nerve the heavy wet contact on his hand give him a shock. He strode to the light of the doorway.

“Blood! Cold an’ thick — There’s a daid man up in thet loft. Aha! Them three hombres last night! Brazos, I reckon yu better be rustlin’ oot of heah pronto.”

Hurrying back to the bench, Brazos wiped the blood on his saddle blankets, and carried these with his saddle to the door. Dawn had given way to daylight. And at that moment a clattering roar of hoofs swept up, and a group of riders pulled their horses to a sliding halt before the cabin.

“Ahuh. Jig aboot up! I savvy,” muttered Brazos, and he flung down the saddle and blankets to stand at attention. He needed not to see the rifles to grasp that this was a posse.

“Hands up, cowboy!” came a harsh command.

“They’re up,” replied Brazos laconically, suiting action to words. The levelled guns and grim visages of this outfit showed that they meant business. Most of these riders had the cowboy stripe, but some of them, particularly the harsh-voiced, hard-faced leader, appeared to be matured men.

“Pile off, Stuke, an’ you, Segel,” ordered this leader. Whereupon two riders flung themselves out of their saddles to rush at Brazos from each side. “Grab his guns! Search him. Take everythin’.”

Brazos was quick to recognise real peril. He surveyed the group of horsemen to ascertain that they were all strangers to him. In a moment, he made certain that not one of them had ever seen him. He had not been in that vicinity for six years, which was a long time on the range.

“Bodkin!” called a rider from within the cabin, his voice queer.

“What! You found him?” queried the leader sharply.

“Yes. Up in the loft. Send someone to help us let him down.”

Brazos listened with strained ears to the sounds and husky voices inside the cabin. Presently three of the posse came out, carrying the body, which they deposited upon the grass. Brazos’s startled gaze bent down upon a handsome youth barely twenty, evidently a cowboy from his garb, dark-haired and dark-skinned. He had been shot through the back. All his pockets were turned inside, out.

“Allen Neece!” burst out Bodkin.

“Shot in the back.”

“Robbed!”

“Purty cold-blooded, I’d say.”

“Bod, I reckon we might jest as wal string this hombre up.”

These and other comments greeted Brazos’s ears, and drew from Bodkin the harsh decree: “Cowboy, you’re under arrest.”

“Hell, I’m not blind or deaf,” retorted Brazos. “May I ask who yu air?”

“I’m Deputy Sheriff Bodkin of Las Animas, actin’ under Kiskadden’s orders.”

“An’ what’s yore charge?”

“Murder.”

Brazos laughed outright. “My Gawd, man, air yu loco? Do I look like a hombre who’d shoot a boy in the back, rob him an’ hang aboot waitin’ for an ootfit to come get me?”

“You can’t never tell what a cowboy will do from his looks.”

“Aw, the hell yu cain’t,” replied Brazos, with a piercing glance of scorn flashing from Bodkin to his men. “What kind of Westerners air yu?”

Brazos’s scornful stand, his cool-nerve, obviously impressed some of the riders.

“Bod, you cain’t hang this Texan on such heahsay evidence,” advised a slow-spoken member.

“Why not? Cause you’re a Texan yourself?”

“Wal, as to thet, Texans, whether they’re guilty of crime or not, ain’t very often hanged. Personally, I reckon this cowboy is innocent as I am of this murder. An’ mebbe I’m not the only one. If you hang him, Kiskadden will be sore. An’ if by any chance he ain’t guilty an’ it comes oot — wal, it’d kind of heat up the stink thet hasn’t died oot cold yet.”

During that speech Brazos gauged both men — the sandy-haired, sallow-faced Texan whose looks and words were significant — and the swarthy Bodkin, dark-browed, shifty of gaze, chafing under the other’s cool arraignment of the case, and intense with some feeling hardly justified by the facts presented.

“All right, Inskip,” rejoined Bodkin, with suppressed anger. “We’ll take him before Kiskadden. Prod him to his hoss, men. An’ if he bolts, blow his tow-head off.”

Brazos’s captors shoved him forward. Bay had been found and saddled. Brazos mounted. The body of the boy Neece was lifted over, a saddle and covered with a slicker. The rider of this horse essayed to walk, which gave Brazos the impression that Las Animas was not far distant. Presently the cavalcade started toward the road, with Brazos riding in the centre.

They travelled on, and at length reached a site strangely familiar to Brazos. It was the head of the valley. A long, low, red-roofed, red-walled adobe ranch-house stood upon the north bank of the river, and below it, where cottonwoods trooped into the valley, spread barns and sheds, corrals and racks in picturesque confusion. The droves of horses in the pastures, the squares of alfalfa, and the herds of cattle dotting the valley and the adjacent slopes attested to the prosperity of some cattle baron.

“Doggone!” ejaculated Brazos. “Whose ootfit is thet?”

Inskip, the Texan, riding second on Brazos’s left, book it upon himself to reply: “Twin Sombreros Ranch. Operated now by Raine Surface runnin’ eighty thousand haid of the Twin Sombreros brand. Used to belong to Abe Neece, father of the daid boy we’re packin’ to town. Abe is livin’ still, but a broken man over the loss of thet ranch.”

It so happened that when the cavalcade reached the crossroad to the ranch a sextet of riders, some of them cowboys, rode down from above to halt their mounts at sight of the posse. Brazos espied two young women riders and he burned both inwardly and outwardly at the indignity Bodkin had forced upon him.

“What’s this, Bodkin?” demanded the leader.

“Mornin’, Mr. Surface,” replied Bodkin. “We been out arrestin’ a cowboy. Charged with murder. An’ I’ve got the proofs on him.”

“Murder! You don’t say? Who?”

“No other than Abe Neece’s boy — young Allen Neece.”

For Brazos it was one of those instinctively potent, meetings of which his life on the ranges had been so full. He turned from his long glance at the two girls, the older of whom had hair as red as flame, a strikingly beautiful face, with blue-green eyes just now dilated in horror.

“Who are you?” demanded Surface with intense curiosity.

Brazos gave the rancher a long stare.

“Wal, who I am is share none of yore business,” he replied coldly.

“Cowboy, I’m Raine Surface, an’ I have a good deal to say with the business of this county,” returned the rancher, plainly nettled.

“I reckon. Do you happen to be in cahoots with this four-flush, Deputy Bodkin?”

The sharp query disconcerted Surface and elicited a roar from Bodkin.

“I put Kiskadden in office,” said the rancher stiffly. “I recommended to the Cattlemen’s Association that we appoint deputies to help rid this range of desperadoes an’ rustlers — an’ rowdy cowboys.”

“See heah, Surface,” flashed Brazos, his piercing tenor stiffening his hearers. “I am a Texan an’ one of the breed thet don’t forget insult or injustice. You’re a hell of a fine Westerner to act as an adviser to a Cattlemen’s Association. A real Westerner — a big-hearted cattleman who was on the square — wouldn’t condemn me without askin’ for proofs. You take this Bodkin’s word. If he hasn’t got some queer reason to fasten this crime on me, it’s a shore bet he itches to hang someone. Wal, I happen to be innocent an’ I can prove it. I could choke up an’ spit fire at the idee of my bein’ taken for a low-down skunk who’d shoot a boy in the back to rob him. An’ swallow this, Mister Raine Surface — you’ll rue the day you insulted a ragamuffin of a cowboy who was only huntin’ for a job.”

The silence which followed Brazos’s arraignment was broken by Inskip.

“Surface,” he said caustically, “you’re new to this range. All you Kansas cattlemen need to be reminded thet this is western Colorado. Which is to say, the border of New Mexico. An’ mebbe yore years oot heah air too few for you to know what thet means. All the same, Bodkin an’ you should have given this cowboy the benefit of a doubt.”

At this juncture, when a strong argument seemed imminent, the red-headed girl moved her horse close to Surface and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Dad, don’t say any more,” she implored. “There must be a mistake. You stay out of it. That cowboy never murdered Allen Neece.”

“Lura, don’t interfere here,” snapped her father impatiently.

“Mr. Surface we’ll ride on in,” said Bodkin, and gave his men a peremptory order to move on.

Before the riders closed in on Brazos, he gave the red-headed girl a smile of gratitude. Her big eyes, still wide and dark, appeared to engulf him. Then the cavalcade started.

Before they had ridden many paces a clatter of hoofs behind and a call for Bodkin again halted the riders. The rancher Surface followed.

“A word with you, Bodkin,” he said, reining his mount.

“Sartinly, Mister Surface,” returned the deputy, hastening to fall out of line.

“About that suit of mine against—” he began. But Brazos made quick note of the fact that that was ail he could hear, Bodkin and Surface walked their horses out of hearing.

He met Inskip’s deep grey eyes; in which there flashed a bright, steely glint that could be interpreted in only one way. Brazos’s blood took a hot leap, then receded to leave him cold. This halt boded ill to him. Sight of Bodkin’s grim visage, as he came riding back from his short colloquy with Surface, warned Brazos of the unexpected and the worst.

But Bodkin took the lead of the cavalcade again without a word other than a command to ride. His tenseness seemed to be communicated to all. Inskip took off his heavy coat and laid it back across the cantle of his saddle — an action Bodkin might have taken as thought provoking had he noticed it. Brazos’s reaction revolved around sight of the two big gun butts sticking out of Inskip’s belt. They spoke a language to Brazos as clear as had been the grey lightning in Inskip’s eyes.

The outskirts of Las Animas lay just ahead, beyond a bridge over a brook that brawled down to the Purgatory.

“Stop hyar, men,” ordered Bodkin, wheeling his horse. “Inskip, you ride on in an’ report.”

The Texan made no reply nor any move to act upon the command.

“Segel, you an’ Bill wait hyar with Reece,” went on Bodkin. “The rest of you come with me.”

He turned to ride off the road. “Inskip,” he said, suddenly, halting again. “Are you takin’ orders?”

“Not when it doesn’t suit me,” replied the Texan. “What you up to?”

“I’m goin’ to finish this job right hyar,” rejoined the deputy fiercely. “An’ if you don’t want your Texas pride hurt, you’d better not see what’s comin’ off.”

“Wal, I ain’t so sensitive as all thet,” drawled Inskip.

Brazos realised the game now and what a slim chance he had for his life. That chance was vested in Inskip. An awful instant he fought the shuddering clutch on his vitals, the appalling check to his thought. It was succeeded by desperate will and nerve. There would be one chance for him and when it came he must grasp it with the speed of lightning.

Bodkin led down the west bank of the brook. The trees and rocks broke up the formation of the posse. Brazos’s sharp eye caught the rider behind Bodkin bending forward to untie his lasso from his saddle. They entered a rocky glade dominated by an old cottonwood tree with spreading branches and a dead top.

“Open up,” shouted. Bodkin. “Prod his hoss out hyar.”

“Boss,” spoke up one of the posse, “this deal is too raw for my stomach.”

“Rustle, then. Git out if hyar,” yelled the leader, livid with passion.

“I sure will. Come on, Ben. We didn’t join this outfit to hang a cowboy thet ain’t proved guilty.”

The lean rider addressed detached himself from the group. “Bodkin,” he said forcefully. “You’re too damn keen on this necktie party. Frank an’ me are slopin’.”

“Yellow, huh?” shouted the deputy as the couple rode off “See heah, Bodkin,” interposed Inskip, “did you ride all this way to have yore mind changed by surface?”

“Inskip, you go to hell,” hissed Bodkin, enraged at the sarcastic implication.

Brazos read in Inskip’s eyes what Bodkin failed to see, and it was that intelligence which sustained him. The Texan might have a trump card up his sleeve, but Brazos could only think of two desperate chances, one of which he was sure would be presented.

“Flip thet noose, Barsh,” ordered Bodkin sardonically, addressing a lean rider whose hat shaded his face. He had a coiled rope in his left hand. He gave the coil a toss. The loop spread to fall over Brazos’s head and lodge on his shoulders. Another flip and the noose closed around his neck.

The feel of the hard smooth hemp against Brazos’s bare flesh liberated in him the devil that he had kept leashed. Barsh plainly quailed before Brazos’s steady gaze.

“Pile off, all of you,” shouted Bodkin stridently, dismounting to lean his rifle against the tree. “Barsh, throw the end of your rope over thet branch.”

“Hold on!” This order issued from the Texan, whose hand obstructed Barsh’s arm in his effort to toss up the rope.

“Wha — at?” bawled Bodkin.

Bodkin was the only rider besides Brazos who had not dismounted. The others had laid aside their rifles and shot-guns to crowd back of Barsh, nervously hurrying to get the gruesome job done.

Inskip deliberately rode between them and Brazos. “Bodkin, he might have a mother or sweetheart. An’ he’ll want to send some word.”

“Aw, let him blab it pronto, then.”

“Cowboy, do you want to tell me who you air an’ send some message?” queried Inskip calmly.

“I shore do. But I don’t want this skunk to heah it.”

“Wal, you can tell me.” Inskip pulled his horse toward Brazos.

“Hyah, Inskip — not so close!” shrieked Bodkin.

The Texan leaned toward Brazos to whisper soft and low, “Grab my guns, but don’t kill onless you have to.”

Brazos’s claw-like hands swept out. As he jerked loose the two big guns Inskip spurred his horse to lunge away.

“Freeze! Damn yu!” pealed out Brazos, as he covered Bodkin and the startled posse.

CHAPTER 2

BRAZOS HEARD INSKIP’S horse pound over the rocks and plough the brook. The Texan was racing for town. Bodkin turned a ghastly hue. Barsh gasped and dropped the rope. The others stood stiff.

“Hands up! Turn yore backs!” ordered Brazos, his voice ice-edged. “Bodkin, tell yore men to fork their hawsses. One move for a gun means I’ll kill you first.”

“Fellers — he’s got me — cold,” rejoined the deputy. “Fer Gawd’s sake — lay off your hardware — Climb on.”

While they mounted stiffly, Brazos hauled the lasso in with his left hand and wound it around the pommel.

“Ride oot, you hombres. Yu go last, Bodkin. An’ when we hit the road yell for Segel an’ yore other man to go ahaid.”

When the riders emerged from the grove Bodkin bawled to the couple on guard with the dead man.

“Ride on, you fellers — an’ don’t look back!”

The wide, long main street of Las Animas was familiar to Brazos, despite the many new buildings. The place had doubled its population in five years.

Brazos’s roving gaze caught sight of a sign, ‘Mexican Joe. Hot Tamales’, and his heart leaped. If old Joe happened to come out now, there would be a recognition somewhat disconcerting to Bodkin and his posse. But Joe was not one of the many to see the strange procession ride down the street. Before half a block had been traversed, Brazos saw to his left a building and a sign that had not been there in his day. Both sheriff and jail had come to the cattle town.

“Turn in, yu-all, an’ set tight,” called Brazos.

Men were grouped about and out in front stood a tall bareheaded man in his shirt sleeves. He had a silver star on his black vest. He stood significantly sidewise toward the street, his right hand low. Brazos breasted the hitching-rail to see a broad, lined face, deep, piercing eyes, a thin-lipped, close-shut mouth, and bulging chin. Texas was written all over that visage.

“Air yu Kiskadden?” queried Brazos.

“That’s me,” came the curt reply.

“Did Inskip give yu a hunch aboot this?”

“He told me you’d be likely to ride in, but I’m bound to admit I didn’t expect you.”

“Sheriff, will yu give me a square deal?”

“You can rest assured of thet, cowboy, I’m the law heah.”

“My Gawd, but it’s a relief to pass these over. Heah!” burst out Brazos, and with a dexterous flip of the guns, he turned them in the air to catch them by the barrels and hand them to the sheriff. “Sheriff, I shore haven’t had many deals where I was more justified in throwin’ guns than in this one. But Inskip whispered for me not to shoot unless I had to. So I bluffed yore deputy an’ his posse.”

“Who air you, cowboy?” queried Kiskadden searchingly.

“Thet’ll have to come oot, I reckon,” returned Brazos. “I haven’t been in Las Animas for six years. But there’ll be men heah who’ll vouch for me.”

“Ail right. Get down. Bodkin, you look bustin’ with yore side of this story. Mebbe you’d better hold in—”

“Aw, hell!” interrupted the deputy. “Wait till you hear my side. He’s a slick-tongued feller. I’ll gamble he turns out to be a range-ridin’ desperado. An’ it’s a thousand to one thet he murdered young Neece.”

“Neece! Not Abe Neece’s boy?” exclaimed Kiskadden.

“Yes. Young Allen Neece.”

“Aw, too bad — too bad!” rejoined the sheriff in profound regret. “As if poor Abe had not had enough trouble!”

“Boss, it’ll sure go hard with Allen’s twin sisters. Them gurls thought the world of him.”

“Fetch Neece in,” ended Kiskadden, and, taking Brazos’s arm, he led him into the office.

“An’ see here, Sheriff,” spoke up Brazos. “Will yu have my hawss taken-good care of? An’ Bodkin took my gun, watch, penknife — an’ a personal letter.”

“Cowboy, I’ll be responsible for your hawss an’ your belongs.”

“Thanks. An’ one thing more,” said Brazos, lowering his voice. “I reckon thet letter will prove my innocence. I got it yesterday mawnin’ at Latimer, which you shore know is a hell of a long day’s ride. An’ if I know anythin’ aboot daid men, young Neece was killed durin’ the day. Hold an inquest, sheriff, an’ make shore what hour thet pore boy was murdered. ‘Cause the whole deal has a look of murder.”

A corridor opened from the office. Kiskadden unlocked the first door on the right, to disclose a small room with one barred window and a blanketed couch. Kiskadden escorted Brazos in.

“Cowboy, you don’t seem to concern yourself aboot why I’m lockin’ you up.”

“Concern? Say, I’m tickled to death. You’re a Texan an’ a man. You’ll see through my part in this deal. But when I get oot — Sheriff, I’m askin’ yu — please get my letter an’ don’t let anyone but yu read it. I shore couldn’t stand thet.”

“We’ll see.” The sheriff went out to close and lock the heavy door.

Brazos lay down on the couch.

Next morning the guards brought his breakfast, and the necessary articles with which to wash and shave.

All morning he was left alone. The fact of the omission of his noon-day meal augured further for his release. At last a slow, clinking step in the corridor ended his wait.

The door opened to admit Kiskadden, who closed and locked It.

“Wal, Brazos,” he drawled. “I’m missin’ my dinner to have a confab with you.”

“Yu know my name?”

“Shore. It’s on the back of this letter. Brazos Keene. Wrote small an’ pretty. I’m glad to tell you no one else has seen it. An’ heah it is.”

“My Gawd, Sheriff, but I could die for yu — savin’ me the shame of disgracin’ a girl once loved,” replied Brazos in grateful emotion.

“Wal, we had two doctors make the inquest on young Neece,” went on Kiskadden. “Our Doc Williamson an’ a surgeon from Denver who was on a train. They found young Neece had been killed early in the evenin’ of thet day you rode oot of Latimer. The bullet bole in his back was shot there after Neece was daid. Both doctors agreed that he had been roped — there were abrasions on his arms above his elbows — an’ jerked off his hawss on his haid. Thet caused his death.”

“Wal, my Gawd!” ejaculated Brazos. “I had no rope on my saddle.”

“Brazos, I was convinced of yore innocence yestiddy, an now I know it. But for your good, you better stay for the hearin’. It’ll show Bodkin up an’ I’ll discharge him pronto. Another angle, it leaked oot thet Surface would jest as lief see you hanged, along with all the grubline cowboys thet ride through.”

“Hell, yu say?” queried Brazos. “I shore didn’t take a shine to him.”

“Surface is new heah. Claims to be from Nebraska. But he’s from Kansas. Rich cattleman — an’ has a lot of stock.”

“Ahuh. How’d Surface get thet Twin Sombreros Ranch from Neece?”

“Wal, thet never was cleared up to suit me. Neece was operatin’ big. He had five thousand haid comin’ up from Texas for Surface. The cash for this herd was paid Neece at the Cattleman’s Bank in Dodge. More than fifty thousand dollars. Neece was fetchin’ thet sum over heah to our bank. But he got held up by three masked men an’ robbed. Wal, the queer angle is thet the big herd jest vanished off the range. Neither hoof nor hair of them was ever found.”

“But the cow ootfit!” exclaimed Brazos, aghast.

“Same as the herd. They vanished. Neece made a blunder at Dodge. He hired a foreman thet he didn’t know, let him pick an ootfit, an’ sent them south after the herd.”

“That ootfit was bought off.”

“Wal, there was no proof of anythin’ except the longhorns were gone. Neece couldn’t deliver, an’ he had been robbed of the money. Twin Sombreros was mortgaged an’ the banks wouldn’t advance more. Neece lost all to Surface. He’s a broken man now, livin’ down the Purgatory. An’ the twin gals, Neece’s joy an’ pride, air running a restaurant over by the railroad station.”

“Twin girls?”

“Shore. Eighteen years old — the prettiest gurls in all the West. An’ you cain’t tell them apart — not to save yore life. June an’ Janis, they’re called. Neece sent them to Kansas City to go to school. Thet was ten years ago. An’ he didn’t see them often an’ not at all of late years. He developed this Twin Sombreros Ranch for them. Thet was his brand. Two high — peaked sombreros.”

“Kiskadden, what yu tellin’ me all this for?” suddenly queried Brazos, sharp with suspicion.

“Aw, just range gossip, cowboy,” drawled the Texan with a smile.

“Yeah? Wal, yu don’t strike me as the gossip kind. I figure Inskip’s a friend of yore’s?”

“Yes. We’re pardners in a cattle business, but I’m the silent one. Wal, to come back to yore hearin’, which is set for two o’clock, I’d like you to read thet letter to me.”

“Aw! Sheriff, what for?”

“Brazos, I really don’t have hear it. But it’ll strengthen my conviction, I’m shore. An’ I may have to talk turkey to Surface an’ some of his cattle association. All the same, I’ll respect yore confidence.”

“Shore. I — I’ll read it to yu,” replied Brazos. As he opened the letter his lean brown hands shook slightly.

“‘Don Carlos’s Rancho, Cimarron, N.M., May 2, 1880,’” he read, “‘Dear Brazos: This is the third letter I have written you since you left us five years ago. I am sure the others never reached you else you would have written, This time, however, I know you will receive this one. We have a railroad mail service now, caballero mio; and this epistle should reach your post office in less than two days. So near yet so far, Brazos!

“‘We heard that you had lately ridden down from Wyoming to a job with the Two-bar X outfit. A cattleman neighbour of ours, Calhoun, had just returned from Latimer, and he met Britt at the station. Calhoun told Britt a lot of range gossip, including your latest exploit at Casper, Wyoming (which I did not believe), and poor Britt came home like a man who had seen ghosts.

“‘Since you and your outfit broke up the Slaughter gang and did away with Sewall McCoy, Clements and their tools, we have no rustling on a big scale. Strange to say, we were never drawn into the Lincoln County War. That terrible feud accounted for the lives of three hundred men, surely the bloodiest war the West ever knew. Billy the Kid came out of it alive. He and a few of his desperado allies still actively rustle cattle and find a ready market.

“‘Well, the good, bad old days are over, at least for Don Carlos’s Rancho. We are running over seventy thousand head. The railroad has simplified cattle-raising. The long, hard drives are a thing of the past in this territory.

“‘Brazos, I am wonderfully happy. Renn is a big man on the New Mexico ranges and long ago has lived down that vague hard name that came with him from Dodge and Abilene. My father’s traditions and work have been carried on. We have our darling little boy and — dare I confess it? — expect another little Frayne at no distant date. May it be a girl — Senorita Holly Ripple Frayne? I forgot to tell you that my riders have a share in our cattle business. In fact, Brazos, there is only one drop of bitterness to taint the sweet cup of Don Carlos’s Rancho. And that is your loss, your wandering life, your bitter, fiery spirit, and your fate to throw a gun, your inevitable fall.

“‘Brazos, in this letter you have come to the end of your rope. You will stop your wandering — your drinking. You must find a steady job — if you refuse to return to Don Carlos’s Rancho — and you will be worthy of my faith and Renn’s regard, and the love of these cowboys.

“‘This is the last letter I shall ever write you, my friend. I hope and pray you take it as I have written it, and that you will consider my husband’s proposition, which follows in a postscript. Adios, Senor. Ever yours faithfully, Holly Ripple Frayne.

“‘P.S. Dear Cowboy Old-Timer: I am adding a few words to Holly’s letter, which I have read. But she will not get to see what I write you.

“‘Britt wants you to come back to Don Carlos’s Rancho. So do I. So does the outfit. We are going to need you.

“‘Brazos, Holly’s letter might mislead you about affairs of the range out here. As a matter of fact, the rustling business is as good as the cattle business. There’s a new outfit up in the hills, and Britt doesn’t like the prospects one damn little bit.

“‘The old game is kicking back, as we always expected it to. Not so long ago, the biggest herd of long-horns Britt ever saw drifted up the Cimarron — a gaunted bunch that had seen long and hard travel. The outfit worked them across the valley, avoiding the cow camps, taking scarce enough time to fatten up, and they split the herd and drove to the rail-road, shipping from Maxwell and Hebron to Kansas City.

“‘Britt thought the drive had a queer look and took pains to get these details. They were all the facts obtainable. But somewhere along this trail to the railroad, the name Surface leaked out. It’s a safe bet, Brazos, that this drive was a steal, as big a one as we ever saw come out of Texas. And naturally we’re passing the buck with a hunch to you. Ride down this man Surface, and write to us, Brazos.

“‘And while you’re doing it, consider coming back to be my foreman of the outfit running the Ripple brand. On shares! Yours truly, Renn Frayne.’”

“Brazos,” the sheriff declared finally, “I’m glad I trusted you. If I hadn’t an’ you’d sprung thet letter on me, I’d shore been ashamed. It’s a wonderful letter! And now, it’s aboot time for yore trial,” he added, consulting his watch.

CHAPTER 3

THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE appeared rather cramped with the dozen or more occupants standing and sitting around. Outside, a considerable crowd had collected. With few exceptions, notably Surface and some close associates at his elbow, the assembly was composed of dusty-booted, roughly-clad cattlemen.

“Set there, Keene,” said Kiskadden, indicating one of two chairs back of his desk. Brazos saw his gun and belt, his watch and penknife, lying on some papers. The desk drawer was half open, showing the dark butts of several Colts.

“Let everybody in, if there’s room,”, called the sheriff to the guard at the door. Presently Kiskadden pounded on his desk to stop the talking. “Fellow citizens,” he said, “my mind aboot this case is made up. But I’ll hold a hearin’ so thet you all can get the facts.”

Surface took a step out from the group of ranchmen evidently accompanying him. His mien was arrogant, suggestive of power. His bland face appeared to Brazos to be a mask.

“Sheriff, I move we try this man before twelve jurors. I will serve along with the members of the Cattlemen’s Association. We can pick the others from the businessmen here.”

“What’s the idee of thet?” demanded Kiskadden.

“Your declaration that you had already come to a decision proves the consensus of opinion correct.”

“An’ what’s thet opinion?” queried the sheriff sarcastically.

“You wouldn’t hang a Texas cowboy. This murderer would already have swung but for Inskip, who’s another of your Texas breed.”

“Wal, Surface, thet Texas breed opened up this cattle empire. An’ you seldom heah of one of them gettin’ hanged. Thet might come from their gun-throwin’ proclivity, an’ then again it might be thet few Texans deserve to swing. In this case, I’m refusin’ your offer of a jury. The law of this county is invested in me.”

“Kiskadden, you may rest assured your authority will not last long,” rejoined Surface heatedly.

“All right. The hearin’ ‘s on,” called out Kiskadden loudly. “Deputy Bodkin, step forward.” Bodkin took the oath.

“Now proceed with yore testimony.”

“Wal, sir, it was late after two o’clock, night before last,” began Bodkin, glib with importance. “I’d been playin’ cards an’ had hardly got asleep when I was woke by somebody at my winder. I seen two men. They was strangers. One of them told me they’d watched a cowboy shoot another off his horse, search him, and drag him into the cabin. Thet was the old Hill cabin, six miles west of town.

“My informant told me the cowboy came out of the cabin, unsaddled the horses, an’ turned them loose. Then he went back. It was rainin’. He’d likely stay in the cabin till daybreak. Then the two fellers rustled off in the dark. I heerd their horses. Wal, I got up, dressed, an’ rustled out for a posse. At thet hour, it wasn’t easy. It was near dawn when I’d collected ten men. Inskip come along on his own accord. I didn’t want him.

“Wal, we rode out fast, an’ arrived at the cabin, jest at daybreak. The prisoner thar had just stepped out the door. We held him up, took his gun an’ what he had in his pockets. I seen blood on his hand. I sent men inside to search the cabin. They found the dead man an’ fetched him out. It was Allen Neece. His pockets were turned inside out. I heerd to-day thet Neece won a hundred dollars at faro the afternoon before he rode out of town. He was goin’ to see some girl.

“Wal, the prisoner hyar sure went white an’ sick when the dead boy was carried out an’ laid on the grass. A blind man could have seen thet he’d murdered him. We found one hoss, the prisoner’s. An’ Segel packed the dead boy in on his saddle. All the way in I was debatin’ on hangin’ the murderer. An’ when I got to it, this side of Twin Sombreros Ranch, Inskip crowded in front of us an’ gave the cowboy a chance to grab his two guns. We got held up pronto an’ drove into town. An’ I’m fer arrestin’ Inskip—”

“When Surface called you back, what did he say?” interrupted Kiskadden.

“What?” queried Bodkin. “Surface halted you at his ranch, then followed you an’ stopped you. He drew you out of hearin’ of yore men. This court is powerful interested in what Surface said.”

“Wal — sir,” exploded the deputy, his visage turning yellow, “he advised hangin’ the cowboy right then an’ thar. Said he distrusted this office.”

“Thet will do, Bodkin,” said the sheriff. “Doctor Williamson, will you please step forward an’ make yore report.”

A stout middle-aged man approached the desk.

“Mister Sheriff,” he began, “and gentlemen. My fellow practitioner and I find that young Neece came to his violent death not later than the middle of the afternoon of day before yesterday. Death was caused by a compound fracture of the skull with consequent concussion of the brain. The bullet hole in his back was made long after he was dead. He had been roped and jerked heavily to the ground, probably from a horse.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” replied the sheriff. “Now, gentlemen, let me read you a telegram received heah this mawnin’. It is dated Latimer, Colorado, an’ it reads: ‘Sheriff Steve Kiskadden, Las Animas. The letter addressed to Brazos Keene was delivered to him in person at eight-ten o’clock day before yesterday morning, May fifth. Signed, Postmaster John Hilton.”

“Brazos Keene!” ejaculated Bodkin. A murmur ran through the standing crowd. But it was certain that Raine Surface had never heard the name.

“Yes, Brazos Keene,” drawled the Texas sheriff. “Gentlemen, you all know thet Latimer is a long way from Las Animas. Much too far for the hardest of hard-ridin’ cowboys to get to the Hill cabin in the afternoon — an’ murder an’ rob young Neece. The letter Keene has in his possession absolutely clears him of any implication whatever in this tragedy. It was physically impossible for Keene to be there!”

Kiskadden silenced the uproar that followed. “I’m returning your gun, Brazos,” he drawled, “and offerin’ my apologies.” He turned toward his white-faced deputy. “As my last official act, Bodkin, I’m firin’ yu! An’ then I’m resignin’ as sheriff of this county!”

Kiskadden took off his star and laid it on the desk, and then, arm in arm with Brazos, shouldered his way through the crowd.

Brazos saw a familiar face appear before him. “Hank Bilyen!”

The old man put out his hand enthusiastically. “Say, Brazos, but you’re sure a sight for these old eyes! An’ I’ve got somethin’ to tell you that’ll sure make you want to stay right here and get to work.”

“Uh-huh. Well, suppose we go rob the bank first. Even a grub-line-ridin’ cowboy’s gotta have some money these days.”

At the door they were accosted by a lithe young man in rider’s garb much the worse for wear. He had a clean-cut, youthful face and fine eyes.

“I’d like to shake your hand, Keene,” he said, with a winning smile.

“Shore. An’ who’re yu?” returned Brazos slowly, as he returned the smile.

“Jack Sain. I’ve been pretty friendly with the Neeces. Allen was my pard.”

“Brazos, it was Jack’s friendship for the Neeces thet cost him his job,” Hank Bilyen offered. “He rode fer Surface.”

“Wal, Jack, I’ll be wantin’ to hobnob with yu some,” said Brazos thoughtfully. “Where yu workin’ now?”

“Nowhere. I can’t get a job. Surface is strong in the association an’ he’s queered me.”

“Doggone!” mused Brazos. “Jack, where can I find yu later in the afternoon?”

“Meet me at the Twin Sombreros Restaurant. About supper-time.”

They parted, and Bilyen led Brazos slowly up the wide street. “Fine lad, thet,” Bilyen was saying. “I reckon he didn’t tell you everythin’. Lura Surface was sweet on Jack. She throws herself at every feller who strikes her fancy. But when Jack met June Neece, he went loco. An’ June leans to him a lot, though she’s not a hell of a flirt at all like Janis.”

“My Gawd! Hank, is this a story yu’re readin’ me? The next thing yu’ll tell me these sisters will be pretty an’ sweet an’—”

Bilyen halted in front of a bank and spoke low. “They’ve lost their brother. An’ the beautiful home thet was built fer them. Their father is dyin’ of grief. They’ve been cheated, robbed, ruined. An’ last, young Allen Neece was givin’ his time to ferretin’ out the secret of thet ruin. An’ thet’s why he was murdered!”

“Shore, Hank, I savvy yu,” he answered. “Let’s go in an’ rob the bank. Then yu can take me oot to meet Abe Neece. An’ after thet, I’ll see the twins.”

A few minutes later, Brazos stood outside the bank again, feeling a compact bulge in his pocket not altogether made by his precious letter.

“Hank, I only wanted a little money,” expostulated Brazos. “How’n hell will I ever pay it back?’”

“Holy mackerel, Brazos, ask me an easy one. But I know you will,” rejoined Bilyen. “I can spare thet. Before I went to work fer Neece, I sold my herd to him, an’ I’ve saved my money. I’m takin’ care of the old man now an’ I lent the twins enough to start their restaurant.”

“Wal, you always was a good friend, Hank. Say, who’s this gazabo comin’?”

“Thet’s Sam Mannin’. Still has his store down the street.”

A spare grey Westerner of venerable and kindly aspect came up to them, his lined face breaking into a smile.

“Hello, Brazos,” he said heartily, extending his hand. “Glad to see you again. An’ just about the same!”

“Howdy, Sam. I’m gonna run in pronto an’ buy oot yore store. Have you any of those red silk scarfs Louise used to sell me?”

“Plenty, cowboy. My store an’ business have grown with the years.”

“Hank, let’s duck down an alley. If I meet any more old friends I’ll bust.”

“Stand your ground, cowboy. I got to buy some grub. Haw! Haw! Look who’s spotted you. Has she got eyes? Aw no—”

“Save me, Hank. Who’n hell? I’ll bet it’s thet Surface girl.”

“Right, Brazos. I’ll duck in the store. Hope some of you’ll be left when I come out.”

Brazos had attention only for the stunningly handsome and strikingly attired young woman who bore down upon him, eyes alight. She was taller than she had appeared astride a horse, beautifully-proportioned, and several years beyond her teens.

“I congratulate you, Mr. Brazos Keene,” she said, graciously offering her hand. “I’m very glad indeed. It was a stupid blunder.”

“Wal, thet’s Shore nice of yu, Miss Surface,” replied Brazos as he bowed bareheaded to take her hand. “Considerin’ how keen yore father was to see me hanged, I’m more’n grateful to see yu wasn’t.”

“Oh, Dad is impossible,” she declared. “He seems to suspect every cowboy who rides in from the West.”

“Shore does seem hard on us Western riders,” drawled Brazos, his gaze strong on her. “I was aboot to shake the dust of Las Animas. But now, I just reckon I’ll hang around. Do yu think I might met to see yu again?”

“You might,” she replied, blushing becomingly. “I’d like nothing better.”

“But Mr. Surface wouldn’t like it.”

“There’s Dad down the street,” she returned coolly. “Meet me tomorrow afternoon about three in the grove on the east bank of the brook that runs into the Purgatory about a mile out of town. Can you remember all that?”

“I’ll be there,” promised Brazos.

She rewarded him with a dazzling smile and swept on down the street.

“Brimstone an’ chain lightnin’,” soliloquized Brazos, watching the superb form depart. “Turrible took with herself. Crazy aboot men. An’ I cain’t savvy what else. But doggone it! I like her.”

Bilyen emerged from the store burdened with bags.

“You look kinda sheepish,” he observed. “I’d be some worried if I didn’t know you was goin’ to meet’ June Neece to-day.”

Bilyen had a little ten-acre ranch on the Purgatory. A grey shack faced the rocky, swift-running stream, and the splendid vista of plains to the south and the noble slopes of foothills rising to the Rockies on the west.

“I reckon I’ll buy this place from yu an’ settle down,” drawled Brazos dreamily.

He was leaning over the rocky bank, still dreaming, when Hank came out of the shack accompanied by a man whose lean grey visage denoted the havoc of trouble if not of years. Brazos leaped erect.

“Howdy, Brazos Keene,” was the man’s greeting. “Hank has told me about you.”

“Shore happy to meet you, Mr. Neece.” responded Brazos warmly.

“Cowboy, you’ve got the cut of my son Allen — only you’re older — an’ there’s something proved about you. Allen was reckless, inexperienced.”

“Let’s set down on the bank heah. Nice view.”

Neece sighed and gazed out to the open range. He was not old, nor feeble, but it appeared plain that the shock of disaster had broken him.

“Brazos, is what Bilyen tells me true?” he queried presently. “Hank says you’re goin’ to stay here an’ look into the deal we Neeces have had.”

“Wal, thet’s easy to answer,” declared Brazos coolly. “Bodkin arrested me because he needed to hang the crime on somebody. He thought I was a stranger — a cowboy down on his luck. Surface wanted me hanged. For reasons I’m gonna find oot. If thet wasn’t enough to rile Brazos Keene — wal, this rotten deal handed to you an’ yore kids shore would be. I don’t want to brag, but the ootfit chalked up some bad marks for themselves.”

“You insinuate Surface is in some way connected with Bodkin?”

“Insinuate nothin’. I’m tellin’ you, Mr. Neece.” Brazos took out Holly’s letter; carefully opened and sorted the pages until he came to Renn Frayne’s postscript. The passage that related to Surface he slowly and gravely read.

“No coincidence! That was my herd. It was last seen on the Canadian.”

“Wal. I had thet hunch myself. My idee is thet Frayne has tipped me a hunch damn important to eastern Colorado. Neece, I’ve heahed yore story from Hank. Just now, I only want to put one question. How an’ when did yu lose thet money of Surface’s you got in Dodge?”

“Simple as A. B. C. I wanted cash. Got it, an’ took it on the train in a satchel. The train didn’t get into Las Animas till after midnight. Jerry, my stableboy, met me with the buckboard. We drove out toward the ranch. At the turn of the road, where the brook crosses, I was held up by three men an’ robbed.”

“Ahuh. An’ they shore knew where you’d been an’ what you had. Was there anythin’ familiar aboot them?”

“No. Strangers. They wore masks. But I never forget a voice. One of the three had a young, nervous, high-pitched voice, almost womanish. He called the burly man what sounded like ‘Brad,’ an’ got cussed for doin’ it. They were tough range riders.”

“Brad,” echoed Brazos, with a wild leap of his pulse. “Was thet all you heahed?”

“Yes. One of them batted me on the head. Jerry is not well yet from the beatin’ they gave him.”

“Did yu ever tell thet you heahed the name Brad — spoke by a young, nervous, high-pitched voice?”

“Come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever did, except maybe to Allen. It must have slipped my mind. You excite me so it all comes back clear.”

“Well, thet’s all I want to heah this time. Walk aboot a bit an’ think. Then I’ll ride back to town an’ keep my appointment with Jack Sain. Hank, I’ll be heah in the mawnin’. An’ Mr. Neece, don’t get het up overly aboot this. I might be loco, but I swear we’re on as black an’ bloody a trail as I ever took up. So it behooves us to use our haids. Adios.”

CHAPTER 4

WHEN BRAZOS KEENE arrived at the railroad station it was near the supper hour. The restaurant he sought had been remodelled from an old adobe building. A second storey had been added and the whole given a coat of whitewash The building, the location, and the neat sign were all attractive. A hitching-rail ran along in front.

Brazos dismounted. Tying Bay to the rail, he stalked with his clinking step into the restaurant. But Jack Sain was not there. So far as he could see, the place was empty.

At this juncture, two things happened simultaneously — Brazos remembered the Neece twins, and a door opened to admit a girl. Brazos never figured out what gave him such a shock, but the fact was that never in his life before had any girl produced the effect this one had on him.

She was slight and graceful of form, fair-haired, but not blonde, and her face was white, sweet, sad. It struck Brazos she did not act like a waitress. She approached him, and, putting her hands on the counter, she leaned forward.

“Brazos Keene,” she affirmed.

“Wal, I — I was when I come in heah,” he said, fighting to smile, “but I cain’t say now for shore.”

“I am — June Neece,” she returned, her low voice breaking a little. “We are sorry you were arrested and—”

“Thet was nothin’ at all, Miss Neece,” interrupted Brazos. “Shore I hardly ever ride into a town but somethin’ like thet happens. I’m a marked man. As for the cause this time, wal, I oughtn’t to remind you aboot — but I swear to Gawd I’m innocent—”

“Don’t,” she interposed earnestly. “If you had not been proved innocent, I would have known you were innocent.” And she pressed a warm little hand in Brazos’s upturned palm and left it there while she turned to call: “Jan, come here.”

Then it appeared to the bewildered and thrilled cowboy that another June Neece walked into his heart.

“Jan, this is he,” said the first tawny-eyed vision to the second, and then to him with a little, smile: “My sister, Janis.”

There was absolutely no telling these twin sisters apart. The one called Janis blushed and a bright glow suddenly burned out the shadow in her eyes.

“Brazos Keene? Oh, I am glad to meet you!” she exclaimed, and, repeating her sister’s action, she put her hand in his other as it lay on the counter.

The street door banged suddenly and Jack Sain came tramping in.

“Howdy, Brazos. I see you’ve got acquainted without my help,” he remarked, as the girls withdrew their hands from Brazos’s grip.

“Jack, this Brazos cowboy is not so slow,” said Janis teasingly.

“Slow! Never in this world could you apply that word to Brazos Keene. I see he’s perked you up already. Let’s get our order in before the gang comes rollin’ along.”

“Boys, what will you have?” asked one of the twins. The other had turned to the vanguard of hungry visitors, now flocking from all directions.

While the restaurant rapidly filled and the young waitresses flitted to and fro, Brazos listened to his voluble friend and eagerly watched for June without any hope whatever of being able to tell which of the twins really was June.

When, however, Sam gave Brazos a dig in the ribs with his elbow, Brazos came out of his trance.

“Look behind you — at thet handsome dressed-up dude rancher,” whispered Sam. “At the table.”

“Ahuh. Wal—” replied Brazos, leisurely complying. “Kinda spick and span, at thet. But he’s got a nice face. Who is he?”

“Henry Sisk, an’ he has a nice face, I’m bound to admit. Too damn nice! Women like him a heap.”

“How aboot June an’ Janis heah?”

“June couldn’t see him with a telescope. But I got a hunch Jan likes him. Anyway, it’s Jan he ‘pears to be courtin’.”

“How’n hell does he know which one he’s courtin’?”

“He doesn’t, unless they tell him, you can bet your roll on thet.”

“How do yu tell?” asked Brazos.

Sain reddened perceptibly. “I don’t. Only the girls are decent enough to give me a hunch.”

“Gosh! What’d yu do if they didn’t steer yu?”

“Brazos, I’d be a plumb crazy cowboy, believe me. But don’t get a wrong notion. Both June an’ Janis have been friendly to me. Thet’s all. I never even had nerve enough to hold June’s hand. They’re not the flirtin’ kind.”

“So I see. Wal, how aboot this Henry Sisk? Is he a decent hombre?”

“Yes. I’m jealous, I reckon. Henry is young, good-lookin’, rich, an’ a fine fellow.”

“Wal, I’ll see if I approve of him,” drawled Brazos coolly, as he swung sidewise over the bench. “Jack, yu order apple pie an’ milk for me.”

He took several slow strides over to the table where young Sisk sat glowering at no one in particular. His frank face impressed Brazos favourably.

“Howdy, Sisk?” he said. “My pard heah told me who yu air. I’m Brazos Keene.”

“How do,” returned the young rancher awkwardly. He was surprised, but he put out a hand willingly enough.

“I’m wonderin’ if yu need a rider,” replied Brazos, after the grip.

“I always need a rider who can work.”

“Doggone! Work isn’t my long suit,” drawled Brazos with his captivating smile. “I cain’t rope very wal, an’ I’m no good at all at most cowboy jobs, an’ I’d just starve before I’d dig fence-post holes. But if I do say it myself, I’m pretty fair with guns.”

“Brazos, you’re that thing impossible to find — a modest cowboy,” said Sisk, laughing. “If you’re serious, ride out to see me.”

“Thanks. I’ll do thet some day,” concluded Brazos, and returned to his seat beside young Sain. At this moment one of the girls brought a generous golden slice of apple pie and a large glass of creamy milk. Brazos stared from these to the charming waitress.

“Miss Janis, can I come in heah as often as I want an’ get a gorgeous supper like I’ve had?” asked Brazos.

“Why, certainly — so long as you pay for it,” she replied.

“But I’m broke a good deal. Money slips right through my fingers.”

“This is strictly cash business, Mr. Keene,” she said demurely,

“Mexican Joe trusts me,” importuned Brazos. “Aw, Miss Janis, I shore wouldn’t want to be exclooded from this heah lovely place just on account of bein’ financially embarrassed now an’ then.”

“Have you any references as to — to good credit and character?” she asked mischievously. “If you will bring these, we shall be glad to trust you. And, by the way, I am not Janis, but June.”

“June, I’ll eat myself to death,” he rejoined softly. “When can I see yu again?”

“We are off at ten. I’d like you to meet my aunt. She’s Dad’s sister, and lives with us upstairs.”

A little before ten o’clock, Brazos wended a reluctant and yet impelled way toward the Twin Sombreros Restaurant. He could not have resisted the urge if he had wanted to. And he fought off the presage of calamity. When he arrived at the corner, he espied one of the twins talking to Henry Sisk. Indeed the two were arguing, from which fact Brazos deduced that this was Janis.

Brazos mounted the side stairway leading up to the second storey and knocked on the door, sure of the trepidation and another nameless. sensation obsessing him. The door opened as if someone had heard his step outside. June stood there, in a white dress that had never been made in Las Animas. This apparition smiled upon him and Brazos dated his abject enthrallment from that moment.

“Evenin’, Miss June. I reckon I’m ahaid of time,” he said.

“No. You are late. Come in.”

She ushered Brazos into a cosy little sitting-room. “Auntie, this is our new-found friend, Mr. Brazos Keene,” she said to a grey-haired woman, who sat beside the lamp table. “My Aunt Mattie, Miss Neece — Daddy’s sister.”

“For the land’s sake! June, this nice-looking boy can’t be your terrible Brazos Keene,” exclaimed the aunt.

“Yes, he is, Auntie.”

“Aw, Miss Neece, don’t believe everythin’ yu heah,” implored Brazos. “I’m not turrible atall.”

“I don’t believe’, you are. I’m glad to meet you. Janis filled my old head with nonsense. Said you were a black-browed giant — very fierce to see.”

“Air yu shore it was Janis?”

“Yes, indeed. June has been telling me the — well, I’ll not give her away. But your ears must have burned. Take his hat, June — and hadn’t you better lay aside that cumbersome gun?”

“Wal, lady, I wouldn’t feel dressed proper if I did thet. There, I’ll slip it around so you caint see it.”

“Thank you. I — I guess that’s better,” she replied, rising. “Mr. Keene, you met my brother Abraham?”

“I did an’ I shore like him.”

“Have you any ground to believe Abraham’s loss can be retrieved?” she asked beseechingly.

“I cain’t explain. It’s what a cowboy calls a hunch. I’ve trailed up a good many of my hunches an’ never lost oot on one yet.”

“Only a hunch! Oh, I had prayed you might have really learned something.”

“Miss Neece, I cain’t talk aboot it now. All I can say is for yu to go on hopin’ and prayin’, too.”

“Perhaps Abraham will tell me. Good night, Mr. Brazos Keene. Somehow, you inspire me strangely. June, I’ll leave you young folks alone. Good night.”

Brazos found himself alone with June Neece, and his five endless years of wandering for he knew not what were as it they had never been.

Her face was white and her big eyes shone up at him.

“Brazos Keene! To think I’m alone with him! Oh, I’ve heard who and what you are. It has been on the lips of everybody all day long.”

“Wal, I hope it’s gain’ to be good for yu thet I am Brazos Keene,” returned he mournfully. “But maybe if I was Henry Sisk or Jack Sain I would have more chance for you to like me.”

“We are getting on,” she replied demurely.

“Yu mean we’re gettin’ some place where I’ve no right to be?”

“Come sit here,” she returned, and led him to a little sofa in the corner. They gazed at each other again. There was something vital, compelling, drawing, that made no allowance for short acquaintance.

“June, I’m gonna be honest. Meetin’ yu has thrown me plumb oot of my saddle.”

“It means much to me, Brazos — I don’t know what.”

“Girl, yu cain’t be in love with Jack Sain?”

“Who said I was?” she answered, grinning. “I like Jack. We played together when we were kids.”

“Wal, I was afraid — I reckon I thought you might care more’n thet. Jack is crazy aboot yu.”

“I’m sorry, Brazos. But I didn’t flirt with him as Jan did with Henry Sisk. I’m sorry for Jack. He has had one misfortune after another. And the last is too bad. He had just found a good job after being idle for months, then lost it.”

“How’d he lose it?”

“Al said he was running after Lura Surface. Her father caught them meeting on the road one night. He raised Cain and had Jack discharged.”

“Ahuh. June, I want to ask some questions aboot Allen. Were yu in his confidence?”

“Yes. Allen was afraid to tell Dad what he was doing. And he didn’t even tell Jan.”

“Ahuh. Wal, if I figure Allen correct, he was trackin’ the ootfit thet ruined yore father.”

“He was on the trail of the three men who held Dad up that night and robbed him.”

“Did he tell yu anythin’?”

“Not much. Oh, let me recall it,” she went on excitedly. “They did not belong around Las Animas. But they rode here often. He had nothing to go by except — except the night they robbed Dad, one of them — a boy with a girl’s voice — called another of the three ‘Brad’.”

“Yes, June, your Dad told me. And here’s the funny part of it. One of the three hombres who held me up that night called his pard Brad. By Gawd! Those men murdered Allen. He was on their trail. Did anyone else but yu know Allen was workin’ on yore father’s case?”

“Lura would have heard it, surely.”

“Shore, she’d tell her father, June, can yu remember any more Allen told yu?”

“Let me think. Yes — the night before Allen was killed he had supper with me downstairs. He asked me if I’d seen a handsome, hard-faced cowgirl, small and slim with eyes like black diamonds. She looked the real thing in riders, he said. Then he said she had made up to him in the Happy Days saloon. He seemed curious, yet distrustful. But he didn’t tell me any more.”

“A cowgirl! Wal, now I wonder — An’ thet’s all, June?”

“It’s all I can remember now. Perhaps when I see you again—”

“Thet’ll be in the mawnin’, I reckon. But don’t worry aboot me. I’m takin’ over Allen’s job of huntin’ for the three hombres who robbed yore dad — an’ murdered Allen — an’ held me up. An’ shore as death, one of thet three was a girl with a high-keyed voice!”

CHAPTER 5

BRAZOS ESPIED LURA Surface’s white horse tied among the pine saplings before he turned in off the road. He found her most effectively placed in a green-shaded nook opening upon the bank of the brook. Bareheaded, her red hair flaming, her strange eyes alight, her lissome, full-breasted figure displayed to advantage in her riding-habit she made a picture that struck fire in Brazos; despite his cool preconception.

“Good afternoon, Miss Surface. I shore am sorry to be late,” he drawled, and, throwing aside his sombrero, sat down and slid to his elbow beside her.

“Howdy, Brazos Keene,” she said, with a smile.

“Wal, I do pretty good, considerin’,” returned Brazos. “Cowboys don’t often fall into such luck as this.”

“I came early. But I thought you’d never get hare.”

“Wild hawsses couldn’t have kept me away from yu, Lura.”

“Same old cowboy blarney.”

“Ump-um. If you take me for any other cowboy, wal, we won’t get nowhere atall.”

“Where will we get if I take you as I did yesterday?”

“An’ how was thet?”

“A lonely cowboy, down on his luck, unjustly jailed — and needing a friend.”

“Thet’s takin’ me true, Lura. But I cain’t say I’m without friends altogether.”

“You could always get women friends, Brazos.”

“Shore. Thet’s my trouble. I almost didn’t come to-day.”

“Why?”

“Wal, yu shore took my eye. An’ I knew if I saw yu again I’d go loco.”

“Loco? What’s that?”

“Loco is a weed hawsses eat sometimes an’ go oot of their haids.”

“Humph! I can just see you going loco!” she ejaculated. “Why, you’re the coolest cow boy I ever met. And Lord knows I’ve met some cool ones?”

“Wal, suppose at thet — I did go loco?”

“I’d be delighted. You’re different, Brazos. Oh, I was sorry when I thought they’d hang you! And what a thrill I had yesterday! Scared, too! Brazos Keene — the notorious Brazos Keene! But I’m not so scared now.”

Brazos sat up, and with swift, strong arms he drew her back so that she lay almost flat with her head on his breast.

“Lura, yu shore oughtn’t play at love with a hombre like me.”

“Who says I’m playing?”

“Shore yu air. An’ I’ve got sense enough to see it an’ decency enough to spare yu what many a cowboy I’ve known would take.”

“You think I’m a flirt?”

“Wal, I never call women names, unless they’re nice names. Yu’re powerful seductive, Lura, turrible appealin’, an’ pretty isn’t the word. Yu’ve got a devastatin’ kind of beauty. If I let go of myself now, an’ fell, to kissin’ yu, as I reckon I might do by force, I’d be a gone goslin’. I might fall stark ravin’ mad in love with yu. An’ where’d thet get me? I’m Brazos Keene, only a notch or two behind Billy the Kid in range standin’. Yu’re daughter of Raine Surface, rich rancher, an’ yu’re the belle of this corner of Colorado. Suppose such a wild thing as yore fallin’ in love with me. Yu couldn’t never marry me.”

“You are a queer one. What’d you meet me for, if not to make love? Who ever heard of a cowboy who didn’t?”

“Wal, heah’s one. Lura, could yu get me a job ridin’ for yore dad?”

“Oh, I’d like that. In fact, I said to Father: ‘Why not get this Keene cowboy to ride for us?’ He flouted the idea. ‘That gun-throwing desperado from New Mexico! I guess not!’ And I said: ‘But, Father, you never care how tough cowboys are coming from Dodge or Abilene.’ And he shut me up.”

“Ahuh. He’s got a grudge against Western riders, I reckon.”

“I can’t understand it, Brazos,” she replied as she straightened her dishevelled hair. “Riders like you are not tough or low-down. You may be wild, dangerous, and all that. But Father’s excuse is queer. Why, he has hired rustlers and even outlaws when we ranched outside of Abilene. He had some bad outfits — bad in another sense. That’s why he sold out and came to Colorado.”

“Reckon I savvy thet. Bad ootfits sometimes hurt a cattleman’s reputation,” replied Brazos casually.

“Indeed they do. Father lost friends in Kansas. He had one serious lawsuit during which some pretty raw things were hinted against him. He shot a cattleman named Stearns.”

“Kill him?”

“No. Stearns recovered.”

“Wal, yore dad didn’t strike me as the shootin’ kind.”

“He’s not,” the girl returned, with some note akin to contempt. “Unless he’s got the edge on the other man. Why, he was scared to go into town for fear he’d run into Allen Neece.”

“Neece? Did yu know him, Lura? Did yu know him very well?”

“Yes. I liked him better than any boy I knew.”

“From all I heah, Neece was a nice chap. Did he ever ride for yu?”

“No. Father not only wouldn’t have Allen but ran him out of the job he had.”

“When did yu see Allen last?” asked Brazos, apparently growing interested.

“The very night he was murdered. I was in town: I met him coming out of the Show Down Saloon. He was half drunk. Allen took to drink after the Neeces lost Twin Sombreros. He didn’t see me. And I didn’t stop him for the good reason that he was with a little black-eyed wench in boy’s pants. I had seen her once before somewhere, I think, in Dodge. Not the dance-hall type, but a pretty hard-faced hussy. I think she shad something to do with Allen’s murder. If it hadn’t been for that black-eyed girl my conscience would hurt me.”

“Yore what?” drawled Brazos, with his slow smile.

“I daresay you think I have no conscience or any womanly virtues.”

“Nope. But yu don’t need anythin’ with yore good looks Lura, yu’ve made me doggone interested in young Neece’s case.”

“I mustn’t stay longer, Brazos,” said the girl, consulting her watch. “Father watches me closely. Here we have spent an hour — the last part of which didn’t keep the promise of the first. When shall we meet again?”

“I reckon never, Lura. But when I’m far away, I’ll think I might have kissed yu, an’ kick myself.”

“Oh, don’t go away. Why, I’ve only met you! Tell me when?”

“Wal, maybe some day I’ll meet yu in town an’ weaken. But, lady, yu’ve been warned.”

Brazos watched her ride away with only one regret — that he liked her well enough to be sorry she was innocently involved in a sinister plot that dimly shadowed her father, and which she had unwittingly made clearer.

Brazos rode back to town. When he dismounted at the corral and turned Bay over to the stableboy, he suddenly had an inspiration:

“Pedro, did yu know Allen Neece?”

“Si, senor,” replied the Mexican.

Further queries rewarded Brazos with some significant facts. Allen Neece had come to the stable on the night he was murdered. He was under the influence of drink, though not by any means drunk. He had to wake Pedro to get his horse. It was not until Neece had mounted and ridden off that Pedro had noted a companion — a boy on a black horse, waiting. This last information seemed of tremendous importance to Brazos. That boy was the girl in rider’s garb that Lura Surface had seen with Allen.

That night Brazos haunted the main street and the saloons. The cowboys and cattlemen on the street, the drinkers and bar-tenders in the saloons, the gamblers at the tables and the loungers around, and more than one dark-garbed group who drank by themselves — all heard that Brazos Keene was hunting, for someone.

Brazos’s stalk was no pose, yet he did it deliberately. Nevertheless he had little hope that he would encounter the trio who now loomed large in the mystery of Allen Neece’s murder. They would be out on the range hidden in the hills, or back east in the gambling dens of Dodge or Abilene. They would be in close touch with the man or men who were back of this crime. It might well be that they would be summoned presently to do away with Brazos.

In the Happy Days Saloon he came unexpectedly upon Bodkin. The ex-deputy had just set down his glass on the bar. Sight of Brazos cut short words he was speaking to a companion.

“Hey, Bodkin, heah yu air,” called Brazos, so ringingly that the inmates of the crowded saloon went silent. “Where yu been?”

“I’ve been around town as usual,” replied Bodkin, turning white.

“Like hell yu have. I been lookin’ for yu. Have yu been put back as deputy sheriff of this heah town?”

“No. Kiskadden fired me, an’ then he resigned. The Cattlemen’s Association haven’t made no appointment yet. But I’m expectin’ it.”

“Yu’re expectin’ what?” drawled Brazos with scathing insolence.

“To be elected sheriff.”

“Aw, hell! Elected? Who’s electin’ yu? Not the citizens of this heah town. They won’t be asked. If they would be, yu’d never get a vote, onless from some of yore hired hands. An’ who’s yore Cattlemen’s Association ootside of Raine Surface?

“Miller, Henderson, Sprague — all big cattlemen,” returned Bodkin. “Inskip was one — but he quit.”

“Ahuh. An’ when does this ootflt aim to settle yore appointment — an’ also yore — hash?”

“They meet to-morrow night.”

“Wal, tell them I’ll call an’ cast one vote against yu. An’ while yu’re carryin’ messages from me, take this for yourself. If yu’re appointed sheriff I’m gonna see red. An’ this for yore hired-hand, Barsh. He better keep oot of my way.”

Backing through the swinging doors, Brazos left that saloon to break its silence with a subdued sound of excited voices, and then an angry protesting roar from Bodkin. Brazos had scarcely turned up the street when the doors banged behind him.

“Hold on, Brazos. It’s Hank.” And Bilyen, glinting of eye, joined him. “My Gawd, cowboy, but you burned Bodkin up! What’s the deal?”

“Howdy, Hank. Aw, I was only bluffin’ Bodkin, an’ takin’ thet chance to set the town talkin’ about Surface an’ his Cattlemen’s Association.”

“Brazos, you’ve got goin’,” rejoined Bilyen shrewdly. “You never was one to talk wild. Mebbe you was throwin’ a bluff, but you had somethin’ behind it.”

“Wal, enough to want to rile myself up. Hank, I was wantin’ to see yu. Give me the lowdown on rustlin’ in eastern Colorado.”

“Got thet this very day. Kiskadden an’ Inskip told me. They’re shore interested. Brazos, there ‘pears to be considerable cattle stealin’ in small numbers, takin’ in all the big brands on this range. Too slick an’ bold to be the work of any gang but real rustlers under a smart leader. Kiskadden an’ Inskip lost three hundred haid last month. The Star Brand not so many. Small ootfits down the Purgatory none at all. Henderson’s ootflt rarin’ about a big drive on their Circle Dot Brand. Miller has lost considerable haid. Sprague an’ the big cattlemen up on the slopes hard hit for these times. All this last month, an’ the herds driven over into Kansas an’ shinned east.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Brazos mirthlessly.

“Say, what’s so funny about thet?”

“Struck me funny, the way my hunches work oot,” returned Brazos grimly. “But for some men it’s aboot as funny as death. Hank, will yu meet me oot west of town at sunup in the mawnin’?”

“Yes, I will, cowboy. Where?” answered Bilyen soberly.

“At thet old cabin on the hill — where Allen Neece was murdered,” said Brazos tersely, and abruptly strode away toward Mexican Joe’s place, where he had a room.

Next morning found Brazos at the cabin, waiting far Hank Bilyen. The old cowman arrived in good time and greeted his young friend.

They searched the musty, dry cabin as hunters of treasure might have. “Well, nothin’ heah,” said Brazos. “Let’s go up in the loft.”

The loft had been built of peeled poles laid close together. It shook under their weight. The light was dull up there, but they could distinguish objects. Bilyen concluded that the murderers had climbed the ladder up to a point level with the loft and had shoved the body head-first back upon the poles. A dark smear of blood ran along one of them.

“What’s thet in the corner?” asked Brazos. He found a rope, a lasso, that had evidently been hurriedly flung there without being coiled. He crawled back to Bilyen with it.

Brazos went over every inch of that loft without further discovery. When he got down he found Hank sitting in the door, studying the rope. Brazos knelt to scrutinise with him. They were tense and silent.

“Wal, what you make oot?” queried the Texan gruffly of Brazos.

“Lasso all right. Manilla, wal made. Same as any one of a hundred.”

“Yes, an’ what else, cowboy?”

“It shore never was used on a calf or a cow or a steer.”

“Hell, no, Brazos, it ain’t new. It’s been tied on a saddle fer a long time. A cowboy riata never used by a cowboy! Does thet say anythin’ to you?”

“Ump-umm. Don’t talk so much, Hank. Let’s go all over the ground.”

It appeared to be a scraggy bit of dead and dying limber, extending back a considerable distance. Brazos directed Hank to search there, while he began at the farther end. At the farthest point, under the largest and thickest-foliaged of the trees, he found a bare spot of ground. At sight of hoof tracks and tiny boot tracks his blood leaped. Down he knelt.

“There! My hunch was true.”

Bilyen made a careful inspection of the spot, and then faced Brazos with a curious fire in his eyes. “Cowboy, there’s a girl mixed in this deal.”

“Shore.”

“She come way back heah to be far from thet cabin. An’ she set her hawss for a while. An’ she got off heah — an’ heah she walked to and fro. Nervous! An’ heah she stood still, her heels diggin’ in. Rooted to the spot, heh? An’ there she got on again, light-footed an’ quick — Well, Brazos, I’ll be damned!”

“So will I, Hank,” rejoined Brazos ponderingly. “Get’ me some little sticks so I can measure this track.”

“How you figure her part in this?”

“Plain as print. She an’ her two pards air from oot of town — she’s a good-looker an’ likely enticin’ to cowboys. Allen Neece was easy took in by girls. He liked a drink, too. Wal, this gang of three was after him for reasons that bear strong in this deal. She got to Allen — an’ the rest was easy.”

“I figure aboot like thet, Hank,” added Brazos thoughtfully. “Beside, I know more’n yu. The night Allen was killed he walked down to the barns to get his hawss. Pedro said there was a boy with him — a boy on a black hawse — an’ they hung ootside. They rode away. Now what happened is this: If I remember correct, thet night was nice an’ warm, with a moon an’ the frogs peepin’ — just the night for a rendezvous oot heah. But they never got heah. Thet Brad an’ his other pard roped Allen an’ dragged him off his hawse, The fall killed Allen, but they didn’t know it. They packed him up heah, shot him — an’ left him in the cabin.”

“While the girl waited heah under this tree, nervous an’ sick.”

“Nervous, anyhow. Wal, she had — good reason to be nervous,” declared Brazos darkly. “Just about then I rode into the deal.”

“Brazos, who’s behind all this?”

“Hank, yu’re a curious cuss,” drawled Brazos, carefully depositing in his pocket the little sticks with which he had measured the foot track. “Let’s go back to town an’ have breakfast.”

That night Brazos had his supper at Mexican Joe’s. Afterwards he began the gamut of the saloons, where he pretended to drink. And at nine o’clock, when he mounted the steps to the Odd Fellows Hall, he pounded on the door with the butt of his gun.

“Open up heah!” he shouted.

The door was promptly unlocked, allowing Brazos to enter, a little unsteady on his feet. But seldom had Brazos Keene been any more sober and cool than at this moment.

“Excuse me, gennelmen, for intrudin’ heah. I’ll leave it to yu whether what I say is important or not.”

A dozen or perhaps fifteen men sat around a long table, upon which stood bottles and glasses and a box of cigars. Brazos recognised Henderson and Surface. He had never seen Sprague, but identified him from Bilyen’s description. And lastly, to his surprise, he saw Inskip.

“It’s that cowboy, Brazos Keene,” spoke up one of the men.

“Drunk! Put him out,” called. Surface, rising from his seat.

“Let him have his say, Surface,” advised Henderson, intensely interested.

“Go ahaid, Brazos,” interposed Inskip dryly..

“But the intrusion of a drunken cowboy!” protested Surface.

“Speak up, Keene,” ordered Henderson. “Be brief and to the point.”

Brazos sheathed his gun, though he left his hand on the butt.

“Gentlemen, I picked oot this meetin’ as the proper place an’ time to make a statement shore to be interestin’ to all Colorado cattlemen,” he began Swiftly. “It so happens thet events kinda gravitate to me. An honour I never cared for but was thrust on me! The cattle situation heah on this range is nothin’ new to me. I recall five situations like it. Yu all know what caused the Lincoln County War in New Mexico. Yu-all shore have heahed of the Sewall McCoy combine with Russ Slaughter. On the one hand there was the educated, rich, smooth, cunnin’ gentleman-rancher, an’ on the other the dyed-in-the-wool rustler, hard as flint, an’ leader of as bloody an ootfit of cattle thieves as ever forked hawsses. Yu-all may have heahed, too, what I had to do with trailin’ an’ breakin’ thet double ootfit. I mention it hear, not to brag but to give some importance to what I’m aboot to tell yu.”

Brazos let that sink in.

“Yu cattlemen face the same situation heah on’ this range,” he went on impressively. “An’ if yu don’t break it up there’s no tellin’ how powerful an’ all-embracin’ it’ll grow.. Short an’ sweet, then, gentlemen, there’s a cattleman on this range who’s workin’ like Sewall McCoy. He’s yore friend an’ maybe pardner, I’m not insultin’ any of yu heah or any citizen of Las Animas. ‘Cause what I know cain’t be proved at this tellin’. But it’s the truth yu can gamble on. Thet’s all, gentlemen. Take it for what it’s worth.”

Slowly Brazos backed to the door, limning on his mind’s eye, the strangely contrasting visages there. Then with a leap he was out the door, to bound down the stairs.

CHAPTER 6

AS THE TRAIN whistled for Las Animas the conductor observed Brazos Keene buckling a heavy gun belt around his slim ‘waist.

He picked up his bag and made for the platform. As the train slowed to a halt he espied Bilyen foremost of the waiting bystanders. Before Brazos stepped down he swept the platform with searching gaze.

“Howdy, Hank,” drawled Brazos. “Kinda like old times to see yu packin’ thet gun.”

“Wal, you dressed-up son of a gun,” ejaculated Hank, delighted. “Brazos, you shore look fine.”

“How about things heah?”

“Not so good. I hope you had better luck than me.”

“Hank, I shore learned a heap. But what good it’d do cain’t say. Come with me. I’ve got somethin’ to tell Neece.”

Brazos had no more to say until he and Hank met Neece at the cabin. It pleased Brazos to see that Neece was a changed man. He had pulled out hopelessness. He had gained.

“Wal, Neece, I’ve news thet I shore hope yu’ll find somethin’ in,” began Brazos. “My job at Kansas City, yu know, was to get track of the cattle people Surface ships to. I couldn’t find oot. This may have been regular an’ then again it may have been queer. Their interest is in buyin’ an’ sellin’ beef an’ not in where it comes from. A big per cent of cattle herds shipped there is shore rustled, An’ nobody’s tellin’.

“But I spent three days loafin’ aboot the stockyards, an’ I found oot from the yardmen aboot two big trainloads of longhorns thet was shipped in early spring. Longhorns an’ mixed brands, from New Mexico. One trainload went into the stockyards an’ was drove oot of there in small bunches. The other trainload went east. Yu cain’t track unbranded cattle any more’n yu can cattle wearin’ brands yu don’t know. Shore them big trains carried yore herd. An’ thet herd just faded.

“Wal, on the way back I stopped over at Abilene. I mixed with cowboys, cattlemen, gamblers, an’ town folks. Naturally, yu know, yu never get anywhere askin’ one Westerner aboot another. But I finally met a cowboy who once rode for Surface. He was mum as an oyster.

“Then I met a cattleman who spit fire when I asked aboot Surface. It ‘peared this cattleman was kin to one who had been a pardner of Surface. Stokes, the pardner was. Wal, Stokes an’ Surface operated in cattle. Surface bought an’ Stokes sold. One day they quarrelled an’ Surface shot Stokes. Nobody saw the fight. Surface claimed Stokes drew first. Some people said the trouble was over money, an’ some said Stokes had been heahed to question Surface aboot where he got his cattle. Anyway, Surface left Abilene. Thet was over a year ago. An’ thet’s aboot all.”

“I reckon it’s significant,” declared Neece soberly.

“Luca Surface has left Twin Sombreros, so I heah,” put in Hank. “She’s stayin’ with, a friend, Delia Ross. An’ lettin’ that gambler Howard run around with her.”

“Yu don’t say? Wal!”

“Brazos, did Hank tell you Henderson called on me?” queried Neece. “Though he didn’t mention Surface I took it as an expression of regret an’ sympathy. Henderson is head of the bank that wouldn’t lend me the money to save my ranch.”

“Ahuh. Wal, thet is a hunch. Rustle my hawss, Hank. I’m ridin’ to town.”

Henderson received Brazos with veiled surprise.

“I called to ask a couple of questions, Mr. Henderson, an’ maybe one is in the nature of a favour,” said Brazos.

“Well, shoot, cowboy,” replied the banker with an encouraging smile.

“Do yu know Jack Sain?”

“By sight only.”

“Could yu give him a job ridin’? From all I heah yu need some riders. I’ll stand for Jack.”

“Very well. That is recommendation enough. Send him in.”

“Thet’s fine of yu, Mr. Henderson. My other question is kinda personal an’ I hope yu excuse it. Air you for or against Raine Surface?”

“Is that any business of yours?”

“Not onless yu make it mine. But I’m against him. I’m on Abe Neece’s side in this deal.”

“So that is what Inskip meant?”

“Will yu respect my confidence?”

“Absolutely.”

“Wal, I reckon Raine Surface is another Sewall McCoy.”

“Aha! That was behind your little address to the Cattlemen’s Association? Inskip told me that very thing.”

“Yes, it was an’ is.”

“Ticklish business, even for a Brazos Keene. Surface has many interests, riders galore, and, according to range gossip, a tough outfit up in the hills.”

“All powerful interestin’ to me. If Surface didn’t have them he wouldn’t class with Sewall McCoy. At that I reckon McCoy had what Surface doesn’t show to me: brains. McCoy lasted for years in New Mexico. An’ if It hadn’t been for my suspicion aboot a cowboy rider in my ootfit why, McCoy might be playin’ a high hand yet. But Surface won’t last the month oot. He just doesn’t savvy us.”

“Us? And who are us?”

“Wal, Kiskadden an’ Inskip an’ Neece an’ Bilyen an’ me an’ yu, Mr. Henderson,” drawled Brazos. “I’m obliged to yu for seein’ me an’ more especial for yore bolsterin’ up of my hunch aboot Surface.”

“See here, Keene, I didn’t say — I didn’t intimate—”

“All I needed was to talk to yu a little. I know what yu think. But yu didn’t tell me an’ yu can rest safe in thet assurance. Keep oot of Surface’s way. He might try to bore yu to strengthen his stand.”

That night after supper Brazos began his stalk, as stealthily as if he were deer hunting, though with the wary intensity which accompanied the blood pursuit of man.

Very late, Brazos presented himself at the door of the Neeces’ apartment over the restaurant and knocked solidly. The door opened quickly, to disclose one of the twins in a dressing-gown, most bewitching in the dim lamplight.

“Sorry — but I gotta see June,” announced Brazos with a deep breath.

“Come in. I’ve been waiting. I ‘mew you’d come. Janis and Auntie have gone to bed,” she replied.

June stood before him, turning up the lamp ever so little. She looked at him with dark, wide eyes.

“Brazos!” She came close to catch the lapels of his coat and look up anxiously. “What has happened? I never saw you look like this.”

“Nothin’ happened yet, June. But it’s gonna happen — an’ pronto. There air men in town — I don’t know how many — come to kill me. An’ I just been goin’ the rounds to let them see I won’t be so easy to kill.”

“Oh, mercy! I feared — this,” whispered June unsteadily, and leaned shaking against him.

“June, I reckoned yu’d better heah it from me,” he said earnestly. “‘Cause, no matter if I am Brazos Keene — somethin’ might happen. But I’ve been in a heap tighter place — to come oot safe. An’ so it’ll be this time.”

“And it’s all because you want to help us,” she said eloquently.

“Never mind thet,” he rejoined hastily. “June, it’s shore hard to say the rest. My chest’s cavin’ in. Yu remember the night I left for Kansas City — how I was mad enough to take them — them two kisses yu was mad enough to say yu owed me?”

She lifted her face, flushed and radiant. “Brazos,” she whispered shyly, “I loved you from the very first minute you looked at me.”

“Darlin’ June, I’m turrible unworthy of yu. But, I love yu. An’ I ask yu to — to be my wife.”

“You have my promise,” she said simply, and lifted her face from his shoulder, and then, blushing scarlet — her lips to his.

“There! Ah, no more! Brazos!” she whispered, and slipped shyly from his arms, to close the opened dressing-gown around her neck. “Go now. It’s late. And here I am — forgetting my modesty! But you’ve made me happy. I’m not afraid NOW, Brazos. Adios, my cowboy!”

Next morning Brazos began patrolling Las Animas. It was Saturday, and the influx of cowboys and other ranch folk had noticeably begun. The railroad station platform showed the usual crowd and bustle incident to the arrival of a train.

Inside the station Brazos encountered Lura Surface just turning away from the ticket window. She carried a satchel and evidently the larger bag at her feet belonged to her.

“Mawnin’, Lura Surface. Air yu runnin’ away on me?” drawled Brazos, doffing his sombrero.

“Brazos Keene!” She gave him a glance from superb green eyes that was not particularly flattering. “Yes, I am running away, and for good — if it’s anything to you.”

“Yu don’t say. Aw, I’m sorry. I been wantin’ to see yu powerful bad.”

“Yes, you have,” she rejoined with scorn. “Why didn’t you, then? I wrote you. I wanted to ask you to — to help me. But you never wrote.”

“Lura, thet’s too bad. I never got yore letter. Fact is, I haven’t been to the post office. An’ I’ve been away for weeks.”

“It’s too late, Brazos,” she said, a little bitterly. “I’m going to Denver to marry Hal Howard.”

“Aw! Yu ‘don’t say? Wal, I’m shore congratulatin’ thet hombre.”

“But you don’t congratulate me?”

“Hardly. I just cain’t see yu throwin’ yoreself away on a caird-sharp. Why, Lura, yu got all the girls oot heah skinned to a frazzle.”

“If you thought so — so much of me why did you—” she asked, softening under his warm praise. Her hard green eyes misted over. Then she went on: “Was it because you’d heard things about my love affairs?”

“No, it shore wasn’t,” he replied bluntly, realising that he had met her at a singularly opportune moment.

“Brazos! You were afraid of Dad?”

“No. Not thet, Lura. I’m not afraid of any man. But it was because he was yore father.” She met his piercing gaze with understanding, and a visible shudder.

The train whistled for the stop. Lura designated her bag, which Brazos took up. They went out on the platform. The train halted with squeak and jar. Brazos helped Lura on, found a seat for her, and, depositing her bag, he held out his hand.

“Good-bye an’ good luck,” he said. “Yu’re game, Lura. I’m gonna risk a word of advice. Stop Howard’s caird playin’.”

“He will not need to gamble,” she flashed, with a smile. “One last word, Brazos Keene.” She put her cool lips to his ear, in what certainly was a caress as well as an act of secrecy. “For my sake, spare Dad the rope!”

Brazos could find no answer. He clasped her hand hard. The train was moving. One last glance he took at her eyes, brimming with tears, and dark with pain. Then he wheeled to run back to the platform and jump off. He stood till the train passed by, and then wended a pondering, watchful way down the street.

At the corner where the bank stood an idea struck him. He went in to see Henderson. Without any greeting, Brazos flung a query at the banker.

“Did this heah bank get held up yesterday or maybe day before?”

“By a bandit?” replied Henderson.

“I reckon one man might think thet. A bandit with green eyes an’ red hair.”

“Keene, you beat me all hollow.”

“Wal, come oot with it, then. Didn’t Raine Surface draw a big sum of money?”

“All he had in cash. Close to forty thousand dollars.”

“Doggone! An’ wasn’t Howard with him?”

“Yes. Surface claimed it was a gambling debt.”

“Gamblin’ debt yore eye!” retorted Brazos scornfully. “Henderson, thet was the price of Howard’s silence. The gambler sold oot cheap. But still he got the girl.”

“Lura! Good heavens!” ejaculated the banker. “I begin to see light.”

“Yu been wearin’ blinkers long enough, Henderson.”

“Wait, Keene,” said the other, as Brazos turned to go. “That little matter of putting Bodkin in as sheriff has come up. What’ll I do about it?”

“Air yu still in Surface’s Cattle Association, Henderson?”

“I resigned.”

“Wal, if I was yu, I’d say, pretty pert, thet I was for savin’ the town Bodkin’s burial expenses by not electin’ him sheriff.”

“That’s certainly pert. I’ll do it, Brazos. But let me give you a hunch. They’ll make Bodkin sheriff.”

“Shore they will — if he’s crazy enough to accept it. I guess I better throw a scare into him.”

Passing the open door of the largest store Las Animas could boast of, Brazos had a glimpse of Bodkin holding forth to a group of men. Brazos passed on and halted. What could he make out of an encounter with Bodkin? The man would not draw. But he could be made a target for speech that would sweep over town like fire in prairie grass.

Brazos turned back to enter the store. He assumed a swinging forward crouch and the sullen mien of a cowboy who had been tilting the bottle. The little group spread, leaving Bodkin in the centre and apart. The action was like clockwork.

Bodkin showed no marked effect. As the cowboy had let him off before, he would again. This time, however, the ex-deputy packed a gun at his hip.

“Bodkin, I been lookin’ all over this heah town for yu,” declared Brazos in a surly voice.

“Keene, I haven’t been hidin’,” complained Bodkin. “Wal, yu’re damn hard to find, an yu shore got thet Barsh hombre hid somewhere.”

“He’s out of town.”

“Can yu get word to him?”

“I could if I wanted to.”

“Ahuh. Wal, yu better want to. Yu tell yore ropin’ hombre thet he’d be wise to stay away from heah or else do some tall figgerin’ how he’s gonna keep me from borin’ him.”

“Keene, Barsh wouldn’t dare ‘meet you in an even break. He’s only a boy. He never shot at a man. An’ you wouldn’t shoot him in cold blood.”

“Hell I wouldn’t! Hasn’t there been a lot of shootin’ in cold blood goin’ on aboot heah? I’m sore, Bodkin. I’m spittin’ ‘fire.”

“I’m not worryin’ none,” returned Bodkin, but the fading of his healthy tan attested to another state of mind. The interview had begun to be painful to him.

“Ahuh. I reckon yu got me figgered good. Wal, then, yu’re so damn smart what’s to keep me from shooting Raine Surface’s laig off?”

Bodkin’s start and expression were peculiar, and he did not reply. All the other men stood spellbound.

“Answer thet, Bodkin. Talk, damn yu! Wasn’t yu loud-mouthed when I dropped in on yu?” shouted Brazos in a loud, rasping voice. “What’s to keep me from shootin’ Raine Surface’s laig off?”

“Nothin’, Keene — nothin’,” ejaculated the other, harassed and impotent. “But you couldn’t do it — any more than to Barsh. Mr. Surface is out of your reach. He’s a big man on this range. You’re loco Keene. You’re drunk.”

“Not so drunk as yu reckon, Bodkin. An’ yu’re defendin’ Surface from a likker-soakin’, fire-spittin’, gun-throwin’ cowboy?”

“I’m trying to talk sense. You might as well bust in on Henderson in the bank, or Mr. Jones, here, as Raine Surface. Why, it’s outlandish! Mr. Surface is a big-hearted gentleman, a power in this’ town, a fine citizen who has the best interests of the community—”

“Haw! Haw!” interrupted Brazos in harsh mockery. “Bodkin, yu must be a fool as wal as the other things yu air. I reckon next yu’ll say Surface never did anythin’ against me.”

“Sure he — never did,” panted Bodkin loyally, beginning to sweat.

“Yu lyin’ tool of thet two-faced cattleman!” Brazos fairly hurled the epithet. “An’ next yu’ll be sayin’ thet Surface didn’t beat Abe Neece oot of Twin Sombreros Ranch — he didn’t steal the herd of Texas longhorns thet Neece had comin’ north. Aw, no — not atall! He didn’t have his tools buy off or kill Neece’s ootfit of riders an’ drive thet herd west along the Cimarron, over the Dry Trail, across New Mexico to the railroad? Aw, no — not atall! Surface didn’t have his tools — one of which you air, damn yore yellow skin! He didn’t have them hold Neece up thet night late an’ rob him of the money Neece was takin’ to the bank next mawnin’. Aw, hell, no! Not atall! An’ yore big-hearted, respectable, fine boss didn’t have nothin’ to do with Allen Neece’s murder?”

Brazos ended that ringing denunciation in a silence which could be felt. Bodkin’s terrified visage satisfied Brazos that he had driven his point home. The spectators equally satisfied Brazos that his incredible affront would fly swiftly as the wind on a thousand tongues to every corner of the range. Raine Surface would be a marked if not a ruined man.

For three days Brazos watched Bodkin unobtrusively. The ex-deputy went about with a bold front, but it was evident to Brazos that the man was feeling extreme perturbation. He never went near Twin Sombreros Ranch. Bodkin was waiting for the terrible news to reach Surface’s ears.

On the third night Brazos frightened the proprietor of the hotel where Bodkin stayed into giving him the room next to Bodkin’s. Brazos made sure Bodkin was out, then carefully cut a hole through the partition in a corner where it would not soon be discovered. This done, Brazos sat down to wait. Some time Bodkin would be cornered in that room by Surface, or would confer with the rancher’s men. Brazos meant to hide there, going out only after nightfall, until the developments he expected reached their climax.

But, as Brazos’s luck would always have it, his marvellous patience did not need to be exercised. At midnight, just after the eastbound train had arrived, Bodkin entered his room with two men. Brazos glued his ear to the little hole in the corner.

“Talk low, fellers,” Bodkin said, “I’m scared even of the walls in this town. Keene hasn’t been seen for three days.”

“Sure as God made little apples he’s trailin’ you,” whispered one of them.

“I feel it, Brad. Set down. Hyar’s likker an’ cigars. I sure got a lot on my chest thet I got to get rid of.”

“Panhandle Ruckfall showed yellow clear to his gizzard,” spoke up another voice, thin and low, somehow sibilant. “He turned the job down. I raised the ante to two thousand dollars. Ruckfall gave me the laugh. ‘A hell of a lot of fun I’d get out of ten thousand after meeting Brazos Keene!’ is what he said. He had too much sense to tackle such a deal. He might have killed Keene, but it’s an even bet that Keene would kill him.

“We’re stuck,” whispered Bodkin thickly. “I’ve been keepin’ out of the boss’s way.

“But he corralled me to-day. Gawd Almighty! I reckoned he was goin’ to shoot me.”

“You’re wrong, Bodkin,” rejoined the one with the curt voice. “It’s he who’s stuck. Serves him right. He’s gone too far. That Neece deal was too raw. I told him. Now, if Bard and his girl fail—”

An eloquent silence gave Brazos time to grasp this new connection — so there was a Bard as well as a Brad!

“Did you fetch them?” asked Bodkin.

“Yes. And Orcutt with them. They went to Hailey’s.”

“Now what?” asked the third man.

“We’ll lay low till it’s over, Brad.”

“Listen,” whispered this member of the trio. “It’ll be over pronto. Brazos Keene will see through thet dodge. Bard’s black-eyed wench is a slick one. But I’ll bet she falls hyar.”

“She’s our best bet,” returned Bodkin. “Keene is hot after women. The town is full of talk about him runnin’ after Lura Surface an’ the Neece twins. An’ they’re all good girls. Bess Syvertsen is bad — bad from her mother up. Add to thet, she’s handsome as hell. Keene can’t resist such a combination.”

“The hell’s fire he can’t,” retorted Brad. “Now here’s what I think of your deal. I’m not beholdin’ to any of you. An’ to-morrow I’m lightin’ out of this town an’ ridin’ far. If you’ve got an ounce of sense you’ll do the same.”

“Brad, I can’t pull up stakes hyar. I’m goin’ to be sheriff of this county.”

“You’re goin’ to be a stiff!”

“Not so loud,” put in the third man. “Bodkin, I’m afraid Brad has it figured. I’d say if we had plenty of time we’d have a sure thing with Bess on the job. She’s the most fascinating girl I ever met. But the hell of it is, can we take time? It’s got to be done right now.”

“We’ll have to give her time.”

“Every hour adds to the doubt and suspicion already working.”

“Even with Brazos Keene dead — which is sure a far-fetched conclusion, gentlemen — this town is going to think on. Henderson, Kiskadden, Inskip, Moore, Hadley, Stevens — all these men are getting their heads together. They are going to buck the Cattlemen’s Association. They’ll split it wide open. Most of them are honest cattlemen, you know. They’ve just been fooled. Cattlemen are the easiest of men to fool because they take a little irregularity for granted, even among themselves. But when it comes to being robbed by rustlers — they wake up.”

“Fellers,” said Brad, “I’m pullin’ up stakes. An’ I don’t mind tellin’ you I’d take that bag of gold with me, if I could find it.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Bodkin, sarcastically. Brad was not the only one who had had that ingenious idea.

“Where did he put it?” queried the unknown man. “He must have banked such a large sum.”

“He couldn’t bank it. An’ it’s too soon yet after Neece’s holdup. But it runs in my mind that he’ll keep it close so he’ll be well heeled when he slopes.”

“Does Bard know where that money is?”

“No more than do I. It’s always stuck in his craw — that bag of gold. He an’ Orcutt held Neece up. An’ once I heard Orcutt say, ‘Why did we let that gold get out of our hands?’”

“Same reason that applies to all of us. The stronger will of a crookeder man! Well, he’s run his race. It’s not in the nature of things for all the men he has used to stand around now, waiting to be hanged or shot. How about you, Bod?”

“I’ll stick around,” replied Bodkin.

“Every man for himself from now on, eh?”

“Let’s drink to thet.”

CHAPTER 7

ON EVERY SUNDAY the event of the day was the arrival and departure of the afternoon train. It was about as much of a social gathering as Las Animas saw except at dances and school entertainments. Brazos occupied his old stand against the wall of the station building.

Bess Syvertsen was there with some country folk. Brazos needed only one look to convince himself that none of the four men could be Bard Syvertsen or Orcutt. The fifth was a woman of rather bold and flashy appearance. Brazos studied them with interest.

The train arrived, and the woman, accompanied by the two best-dressed of the men, boarded it. Bess, with the other two, turned away to stroll along the station platform, following the crowd upstreet. Brazos, from under his sombrero brim, looked that trio over as if his eyes were magnifying glasses. The two men he had seen somewhere.

Monday brought back the bustle to the cattle town. Brazos felt that this day he would meet Bess Syvertsen and he was on edge for the event. Wherefore he was all primed and set for the momentous meeting when it came about at the post office.

Bess had dropped out of the sky, apparently, to follow him up to the window where Brazos was asking for mail. She pressed close to Brazos and asked the clerk for a stamp. What a hot gush ran along Brazos’s veins at the sound of that young, high-pitched voice! For the stamp she tendered a hundred-dollar bill, which the clerk pushed back with a laugh.

“What will I do?” she complained.

“I’ll trust you. Go to the bank and get change.”

Brazos promptly produced some coins. “Heah, lady, I’ll oblige yu,” he drawled, handing her the money.

“Oh, thank you,” she replied. She took two cents and paid for her stamp, but she had no letter upon which to put it. Then she turned to Brazos.

“Cowboy, how is it I haven’t seen you?” she asked merrily.

Brazos took off his sombrero.

“Wal, I was just thinkin’ the same about yu,” he drawled, with his slow smile.

“I am Bess Syvertsen,” she said.

Brazos made her a gallant bow. “I shore am happy to meet yu,” he replied, but he did not mention his name.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Aw, I hate to tell yu.”

“You needn’t be afraid,” she said, with a smile. “I can stand a shock.”

“Wal, then, doggone it — I’m thet poor hombre, Brazos Keene.”

“No!” she exclaimed. Despite her deceit she betrayed sincerity as well. “Not that hard-riding, hard-drinking, hard-shooting cowboy?”

“You forget yore West, my girl,” he drawled. “Range talk blames me for a lot thet I’m innocent of.”

“You might be taking a risk. My father has no use for cowboys.”

“Is he heah?”

“Yes. Bard Syvertsen. He’s a cattle buyer. We travel all over. Father has a deal on with Surface and Miller.”

“Wal, it’s just too bad. Always my luck! I ride the ranges an’ I meet girls. Reckon I’m hard to please. I don’t care for town hussies or camp trulls. I caint stand these nice goody-goody spoony little girls, neither. Lura Surface was one to make a cowboy ride high an’ handsome. But she was a flirt. An’ heah I meet yu!”

“Brazos, I might be a flirt — or worse.”

“I don’t savvy yu, Bess. All the same I feel as if yu were fightin’ somethin’ yu didn’t want me to know. Tell me or not, as yu like. But if I strike yu pretty pronto, yu know, an’ bold — it’s because I see no sense in holdin’ back things. I’ve a bad reputation an’ I’m liable to be shot any time. Life is too short for my kind not to live from day to day.”

She clung to his arm during the walk to Hailey’s, where she released it.

“Brazos, I thought I was glad to meet you — at first. But I’m not so sure now.”

“Aw, thet’s not kind. Is it good-bye then?”

“Where will you meet me tomorrow?”

“Heah. Anywhere — any time.”

“Anywhere?” she asked, her eyes piercing him: “How about out of town?”

“Wal, I reckon it’d better be heah,” returned Brazos. And when he said that it seemed a passion wrenched her.

“To-morrow, then. Here, at two o’clock. Adios.”

Next day Bess Syvertsen was late. She came at length, betraying signs of anger, and vouchsafed no explanation. But Brazos did not need one. They spent the afternoon together, walking, sitting in the station.

On the fourth day of this strange relation Bess came an hour late. Her face was colourless and showed other signs of havoc. Behind her stalked two men, one tall, the other short. That they were without vests and gunbelts Brazos’s sharp eye recorded before he paid attention to their features. The little man had a visage that was a map of frontier crime. This should be Orcutt. The tall man then was Bard Syvertsen, and he was a splendid specimen of Norwegian manhood, lofty of stature, fair-haired, with eyes like blue ice, and a handsome craggy face.

“Brazos,” said Bess hurriedly, “meet my father, Bard Syvertsen, and Hen Orcutt.”

“Howdy, gentlemen,” drawled Brazos in his cool voice. At the moment he knew he risked no peril from them, and they had confronted him significantly unarmed. What their idea was, Brazos could not conjecture.

“Howdy, Keene. Glad to meet you,” said Orcutt curtly.

Syvertsen returned Brazos’s greeting in a voice Brazos would have recognised among a thousand voices. If Bard Syvertsen had been armed he would have been close to the death Brazos meant to mete out to him.

“My girl has been spending a good deal of time, with you, cowboy,” he said. “I object to it.”

“Yeah — an’ on what grounds?”

“No insult intended. But it’s common talk about town — you’re a trifler with women. I told Bess, and that she must stop your attentions. She said I could tell you myself.”

“Ahuh. Wal, I’m sorry to say I cain’t take offence. But in this heah case I’m in daid earnest.”

“Keene, I did not believe Bess,” returned Syvertsen. “That accounts for this intrusion. You’ll excuse us.”

They turned into the hotel and Brazos’s keen ear caught a remnant of a curse Orcutt was bestowing upon the other.

“Bess, what’n hell was all thet about?” queried Brazos. The girl seemed to be in distress:

“Come. People are staring,” she answered hurriedly, and drew him away.

If Bess Syvertsen had been a fascinating creature on former days, she was on this occasion vastly more. Only late in the day did Brazos gather that the climax had come — that Bess had been driven by her accomplices to end the farce — or that she was a woman being torn apart by love and an evil power too strong for her. After supper, she leaned her elbows on the table, her face on her hands, and gazed at Brazos with eyes that hid much and expressed more.

“Let’s go,” she said suddenly, her eyes alight with new impulse too soft-to be crafty. They went out upon the street. There was no one in the lobby of Hailey’s hotel.

“Come!” And she drew him with steel hands, and will as steely, up the stairs to the floor above. The corridor was shadowy. Brazos grew wary. Bess unlocked a door and opened it.

“Wal, sayin’ good night early, eh, honey?” he drawled. “See yu to-morrow same time.”

“Yes — but come in — now,” she panted.

“Bess! Air yu loco — askin’ me into yore bedroom?”

“Loco, indeed! Come — don’t be a fool.”

“I’m only human, Bess — an’ I reckon I’d weaken if we was goin’ to marry. But with all yore love talk I cain’t see yu’d marry me.”

“Brazos Keene! Would you marry me?” she whispered passionately.

“My Gawd! What yu take me for? I told yu I was a Texan an’ had respect for a woman I loved.”

She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him, quivering, appearing to stifle speech as well as sobs upon his breast. It was as if a new emotion had consumed a lesser fire within her. The paroxysm ended in a passionate embrace, in sudden wild kisses upon his cheek and lips. She tore at his hair. “Go — go — before I—”

She broke off huskily and, releasing him, shut the door in his face.

Brazos’s morning habit of whipping and rolling his guns — at rare intervals he packed two guns — had infinitely more meaning next morning than the perfunctory practice indulged in by all gunmen. His instinct told him the day had come — the meeting with the murderers of Allen Neece was not far away.

He went down to breakfast, the thin skin on his thumb feeling raw. He was late for this meal, yet he lingered over it, brooding while he watched the street. When he saw Surface drive by in a buckboard he muttered, “Ah-huh. I reckon my hunch was aboot correct.”

At length Brazos stalked out, tense for the climax. He met Kiskadden and Inskip on the street.

“What’s Surface doin’ in town?” he queried bluntly.

“Meetin’ of the Cattlemen’s Association,” replied Inskip. “Surface looked black as a thundercloud.”

“Either of yu know Syvertsen an’ Orcutt when yu see them?”

“I do,” returned Kiskadden. “They ducked in Hall’s to avoid meetin’ me. Somethin’ on their minds, Brazos.”

“Will yu fellers do me a favour? Cross the street heah an’ walk up thet side an’ down on this side. Don’t miss seein’ anybody, but be particular to locate Syvertsen an’ Orcutt. I’ll wait heah.”

Brazos leaned against the wall and watched, while his friends reconnoitred. They seemed to take a long while. Hank Bilyen came along.

“Kiskadden told me you was heah. What’s comin’ off, Brazos?” he queried.

“Go into Hall’s an’ line up at the bar. If Syvertsen an’ Orcutt come oot be shore where they go.”

Bilyen’s uncertainty ceased. Without another word he walked on to enter Hall’s saloon. Inskip was the first of the other two men to get back.

He breathed hard; his grey eyes glinted.

“Brazos, I got a hunch there’ll be hell a-poppin’ pronto,” he announced excitedly. “I seen Surface an’ Bodkin in the doorway of the stairs leadin’ up to the Odd Fellows. Surface was poundin’ his fist in his hand, purple in the face. An’ Bodkin was the colour of sheepskin.”

“Ahuh aboot what time will thet cattlemen’s meetin’ be comin’ off?”

“At two. But I reckon with Surface on the rampage it’ll be late.”

Kiskadden reached Brazos at exactly two o’clock, the time of Brazos’s appointment with Bess. The Texan showed no exterior fire, but Brazos felt him burn.

“Surface just went into Hailey’s. He stopped Bess Syvertsen, who was comin’ oot. I couldn’t heah what Surface said to the girl, but I shore heahed her answer.”

“An’ what was thet?”

“‘No, damn you, Surface! I won’t! Get someone else to do yore dirty work!’”

“Ahuh. Short an’ sweet. I had Bess figured. Anythin’ more?”

“I peeped into Hall’s. Yore men air still there. Watchin’ oot the window.”

“Wal, thet’ll be aboot all. Yu stay heah. An’ when I get into Hall’s yu follow pronto.”

Brazos strode swiftly into the first store, traversed its length, hurried out into the alley, and ran to the side street. Here he slowed up, caught his breath, and went on to Hailey’s hotel, which occupied the corner at its junction with the main street. Brazos stepped into the side entrance.

Surface stood near the door of the hall, his tall form bent over the girl, who was in the act of wrenching free from his clutch. His back was toward Brazos. Bess leaned against the wall as if for support. She looked a defiant, hounded creature, game to the finish.

“You can’t, scare me, Raine Surface,” she said, low and hard. “I wouldn’t be in your boots for all your money.”

Brazos entered the lobby.

CHAPTER 8

“WAL, BESS, AIR yu meanin’ daid men’s boots?” queried Brazos, as he stepped in between them.

“Oh — Brazos!” gasped the girl.

Surface’s visage changed instantly, markedly in colour, monstrously in expression. Unquestionably for an instant he thought his death was imminent.

“What yu raggin’ my girl for?” asked Brazos, with a pretence of jealousy.

“Your — girl?” ejaculated Surface huskily. “She’s deceived you, Keene — same as all of us. She’s Syvertsen’s—”

“Daughter, yu mean?”

The rancher swerved. As his first shocking fear subsided he began to recover his nerve. “Daughter — hell! She’s no more his daughter than mine.”

“So yu say? wal, what is she, then?”

“What could she be, Keene? For a cowboy who’s supposed to be so damned smart you’re sure a fool.”

“That’ll do, Surface,” cut in Bess. “I meant to tell him myself and leave Las Animas. Take care you don’t drive me to tell him what you are!”

Brazos jerked as if stung. “What the hell!” he flashed. “Bess, I don’t like this talk. But I trust yu. Surface, I always thought there was somethin’ queer aboot yu.” Dealing Surface a powerful left-handed blow, Brazos knocked him flat. The rancher, scrambling up, stuttering maledictions, lifted a bloody visage: “You’ll pay for this outrage — you—”

“Come — Brazos,” said Bess, low-voiced, and she touched his arm.

“Doggone it, Bess!” complained Brazos, going with her into the street. “I come pretty near gettin’ sore.”

“You well had reason,” she replied. “I’m sorry you saw me with Surface. You might believe that influenced me — to tell you — what I must.”

“Ump-umm, Bess. But yu don’t have to tell me nothin’.”

“I must — if it’s the last honest thing I ever do.”

“All right, if yu put it thet way.”

“I was a cheat and a liar,” she went on swiftly. “Whatever else I am you can guess. Surface told the truth. Bard Syvertsen is not my father. I never had any parents that I knew of. I was brought up in a home for — for illegitimates. Syvertsen did not ruin me — nor Orcutt. Don’t hold that against them. They were hired to make away with you. I was to work on your well-known weakness for women — entice you to some secluded spot — or my room, where you’d be shot — supposedly by an angry father and lover for attempting to dishonour me. That was the plot. But I give you my word — never once since I met you have I kept faith with them. I double-crossed them. And to-day after I say good — good-bye to you — I’ll tell them—”

“Ump-umm, sweetheart,” returned Brazos enigmatically.

They had almost reached Hall’s saloon. Inskip stood at his post across the street; Kiskadden remained where Brazos had left him; Bilyen had not come out. Brazos laid hold of Bess’s arm with his left hand, so that she could not break away from him.

“Girl, when yu confessed all thet yu proved a lot. Yu won my respect — an’ yu saved yoreself a term in prison, if not yore life!”

With that he swung ‘her with him into the saloon, and sent her whirling, almost falling toward Syvertsen and Orcutt, who were backing away from the window. Brazos leaped back in front of the door, so that he could face them and all the big room.

“Everybody in heah freeze!” he yelled, his voice loud with strident ring.

An instant silence contrasted with the former clink and hum of the saloon. On the moment Kiskadden came sliding in behind Brazos, closely followed by Inskip. Then they backed slowly to Brazos’s left step by step until the tables halted them.

“Yu hell-cat!” burst out Syvertsen. “What does this mean?”.

The girl stiffened as her head swept up and back to the wall, knocking off her sombrero. Then she appeared a white-faced woman at bay.

“I told him!” she cried.

“You told him that — you told him who—” gasped Syvertsen.

“Stop!” thundered Brazos. “Yu’re forgettin’ I’m here. Yu ask me.”

Both Bess’s antagonists had actually forgotten the presence of Brazos Keene. They were rudely reminded of it and that the stiffness of the spectators, the silence, the strange position of the cowboy, bent a little, both brown, powerful hands extended a little low, and quivering — that all these constituted a tremendous menace. Then the significance of Brazos Keene dawned appallingly upon them. He confronted them. There was no escape. And the reputation of this fire-eyed cowboy might as well have been blazoned on the walls.

“You hombres murdered Allen Neece an’ blamed thet job on me,” went on Brazos relentlessly. “Yu murdered him because Surface wanted it done. An’ yu schemed to put me oot of the way because Surface was afraid I’d take Allen Neece’s trail. Wal, yu bet yore life I took it, an’ it ends right heah. Surface beat Abe Neece oot of Twin Sombreros Ranch. Yu men held up Neece thet night an’ robbed him. An’ yu all sicked this girl on me ‘cause none of yu had the nerve to meet me face to face — Wal, thet’s my say. An’ after all, yu’re meetin’ me face to face!”

As Brazos ended he read the desperate intent in Orcutt’s eyes and beat him to a gun. Orcutt’s heart was split even as he pulled trigger and his bullet hissed hotly by Brazos’s ear.

Syvertsen, slow to realise and act, scarcely had his gun free when Brazos shot him through. The bull thudded into the wall. Syvertsen did not fall. He did not lose sight or intent. But his muscular co-ordination had been destroyed. Fire and smoke belched from his wavering gun. His frown of immense surprise, his pale lighted eyes, his incoherent ejaculations of hate were all appalling to see.

The smoke cleared away, disclosing Bess, back against the wall, her arms widespread, with her gaze fixed terribly upon the fallen men.

“He — killed — them?” she panted, as if dazed. “Brazos Keene!”

Suddenly she sprang out from the wall, formidable as a tigress.

“You fooled me — to kill them!”

“Don’t draw, Bess — don’t!” warned Brazos shrilly.

“I’ll kill you!”

As she whipped out her gun Brazos had to be quick to save his life. He took a shot at her arm, high up. The heavy bullet spun her around like a top and sent the little gun flying. Shrieking wildly she collided with the wall, bounced out to fall beyond the two dead men.

As Brazos sheathed his gun and knelt to lift her head she ceased the cry of agony. She gazed up at Brazos, fascinated, suddenly bereft of all hate and passion.

“You’ve killed me — Brazos?”

“I’m terrible scared Bess,” replied Brazos, and he did not lie. He saw that he had hit her in the breast or shoulder, instead of in the arm. Blood was pouring Out. He was afraid to open her blouse.

“Bess, if yu have to go — make it a clean job,” said Brazos earnestly. “Confess. Tell the truth about this deal.”

“The truth?” she whispered.

“Yes. Of Allen Neece’s murder.”

“All right,” she said, smiling. “My right name is Bess Moore. I am not Syvertsen’s wife. We belonged to Raine Surface’s crooked outfit at Abilene. Surface is a man of two sides. One of them is black as hell. We were called here to put Allen Neece out of the way. I got him to drink — coaxed him to ride out of town with me. Orcutt roped him from behind bushes on the road — jerked him off his horse. As he lay on the ground Bard shot him — in the back. They carried him to the Hill cabin — left him in the loft — Then Brazos Keene rode up. Bard had a few words with Brazos — thought he deceived him. He rode back to town and fastened the crime upon Brazos. But our own plot miscarried — and lately — Surface called us again — to do the same job — over—”

“Thet’ll do, Bess. Give me the paper, Kiskadden. Bess, can you sign yore name heah?” importuned Brazos.

Bess signed her name and then fell back fainting. Brazos, with shaking hands, tore open her blouse, shivering at the white, swelling breast. He pulled the blouse down over the blood-stained shoulder to feel for the wound, frantic in fear that it would be too low. But he found it high up, just where the arm met the shoulder, a bad, painful wound, but not in any sense dangerous to life.

“Aw!” Brazos burst out. “She’s not bad hurt at all. She’s only fainted. Hank, get somebody to help carry her to Bailey’s. Call the doctor. I’ll be back pronto.”

Brazos snatched the paper from Bilyen and relinquished the girl to him. Then he stood up, tense and eager.

“It’s aboot all, men, but not quite,” he said as he carefully folded the confession. “Come with me. Yu, too, Kiskadden, an’ fetch somebody with yu.”

At the foot of the Odd Fellows stairway Brazos halted to load his gun.

“Brazos, is yore haid cool?” asked Kiskadden. “I ain’t presumin’ to advise yu. I’m just askin’.”

“Speak oot, old-timer.”

“It might look better to hold yore hand at Surface. Yu know the range — an’ he has friends. Don’t let them call this a gun-man’s spree.”

“Wal, unless he goes for his gun — which he won’t. Only I hope to Gawd he does! Come on an’ step easy.”

Brazos went up the stairs three steps at a time, and his followers strung after him. The door of the hall stood open. Surface was holding forth with resonant voice.

“Gentlemen, all our fellow citizens were invited to participate here. Evidently those who stayed away were satisfied to leave important matters to us. We have all voted, and the result assures Bodkin’s election as sheriff of Las Animas. Formerly he was appointed by the Cattlemen’s Association. That is a distinction with a difference. There remains to invite undesirable loafers, gamblers, dissolute women, suspected cowmen, and at least one notorious cowboy, to leave Las Animas.”

Brazos drew his gun and stepped into the hall. “Wal, Surface,” he called ringingly, “heah’s yore last-named undesirable — to talk for himself.”

No noticeable change showed in the rancher’s pale face. He had begun to weigh this intrusion. Kiskadden, Inskip, and others filed in with grave, grim visages.

“Gentlemen, you come too late to participate in this election,” he rolled out sonorously.

“Ump-umm!” retorted Brazos. “Surface, did yu heah me? I said yore jig was up. I just shot yare ootflt, Bard Syvertsen — Hen Orcutt — an’ Bess!”.

“Dead!”

“Wal, the girl lived to sign her confession.”

Then a startling transformation made Surface another man.

“Yu’re gonna heah thet confession read.”

With left hand, watching the cattleman like a hawk, Brazos extracted the paper from his vest.

“Somebody read this.”

Kiskadden took the paper and with slow, deliberate voice, he read it solemnly. When he had finished Surface seemed actually to have shrunken in stature.

“All right, Surface, I can’t waste time waitin’,” went on Brazos. “March down heah.”

Brazos marched Surface down the stairway to the street, and into the rancher’s buckboard. Brazos climbed into the back seat.

“Drive oot to Neece’s ranch,” he called, loud enough for the gathering bystanders to hear.

“Neece’s ranch! Where’s that?”

“Where do yu reckon, yu robber? Twin Sombreros Ranch!”

In short order the spirited team arrived at the ranch.

“Surface, I want thet bag of gold.”

“What — bag — of gold?”

“Yu know. Syvertsen held Neece up an’ robbed him of it.”

At the point of Brazos’s gun the rancher led the way into the ranch-house and into his roam, where, from under the floor of a closet, he dragged up an extremely heavy satchel.

“Open it,” ordered Brazos eagerly.

Surface complied to expose packs of greenbacks and bags that gave forth a musical clink of precious metal.

“Drive to the station, Surface. Its aboot time for the afternoon train.”

With gun in hand Brazos saw that the deposed rancher bought a ticket to Abilene — saw him stand on the platform, a target for all eyes — saw him mount the platform of the passenger coach of the train. Then he delivered himself of a final word.

“Surface, yu’re gettin’ off turrible lucky. It’s due to yore daughter. Get oot of Colorado, an’ stay oot. If I ever run into yu again I’ll kill yu.”

There were two windows in Bess’s room, letting the sunlight flood in, to show her white, strained face on the pillow. But the fire, the hate, the passion were gone.

Brazos advanced to the bed as he spoke to the woman in attendance. “Leave us alone a little, nurse.”

“Howdy, Brazos Keene,” said the girl, looking up.

“Howdy yoreself, girl,” he replied, and carefully sat down on the bed. “Air yu in Pain?”

“Not so bad now. It did hurt like hell, though.”

“Close shave, Bess. Gosh, I was scared.”

He bent over and kissed her as he might have if she were indeed what she had tried to deceive him into believing.

“Oh, Brazos! What have you done to me!” she cried brokenly, clinging to him.

“Wal, wearin’ yu oot, for one thing,” he replied, gently disengaging himself. “I’ll go now, sweetheart. Yu look most as turrible as when yu lay on the floor at Hall’s an’ I reckoned yu was dyin’ — I’ve excited yu too much.”

“You’ve broken — my heart — and made me bless you — for it — and want to — to live — and be — something again.”

“Wal, think of breakin’ a girl’s heart an’ makin’ her the better for it!” drawled Brazos, and he bent to kiss her again. “Thet’s somethin’ for a hombre like me to remember. I’ll come down to the train an’ see yu off.”

CHAPTER 9

SITTING HIS HORSE, Brazos gazed down into Coglan’s valley. This valley was forty miles up in the foothills from Las Animas, a secluded spot once inhabited by Ute Indians. The tribe had moved on into a more inaccessible spot, driven farther by the advance of their unscrupulous foe — the white man. They were friendly to Coglan, Brazos remembered.

Brazos rode on down into the valley and up to the log cabin among the firs. Two little girls were playing about the door. Presently a buxom, rosy-cheeked young woman looked out.

“Evenin’, lady,” said Brazos, taking off his sombrero. “Is Coglan anywhere aboot?”

“He was. Get down an’ come in, stranger.”

Brazos had scarcely dismounted when Coglan appeared. He was a strapping man, still young, half hunter and half trapper, brown as an Indian.

“Brazos Keene, by Gawd!” ejaculated the mountaineer with a whoop. “You pestiferous, long-legged cowpuncher! Put her thar!” And he nearly crushed Brazos’s hand.

Later, Brazos and Coglan walked down to the corrals.

“Coglan, I want to hang aboot heah for a month or so,” Brazos was saying. “Chop wood an’ hunt an’ loaf. An’ be alone. Yu know!”

“I savvy. Tell me when you feel like it or not at all.”

“Wal, I’ll get it off my chest,” replied Brazos, and briefly related the Las Animas tragedy.

Coglan’s trips to town kept Brazos abreast of the latest developments. He learned that Neece was happily busy with his regained Twin Sombreros Ranch, and had gone into partnership with young Sisk. But he was alarmed to hear that Bodkin had been elected sheriff by popular vote, and that Raine Surface had been killed on the street in Dodge City.

Still Brazos stayed in the valley, until one October night he returned to the cabin to find Coglan back early from a trip.

“Bilyen says you’re stayin’ away too long. Bodkin is braggin’ he will arrest you, if you ever come back.”

“Good Lord!” ejaculated, Brazos.

“There’s a stranger lately dropped into town. Calls himself Knight an’ say’s he’s a cattle buyer for a big Kansas City firm. He an’ Bodkin got thick pronto. Bilyen remembers seein’ this man with Bodkin once last August.”

“Wal, I’ll ride down soon. What else did yu heah, Coglan?”

“Not much. But I met Neece in town. No one would think he’d ever been down an’ out. The Neece-Sisk-Henderson cattle deal went through. They’re runnin’ eighty thousand head.”

“Thet’s a solid combine. Reckon they’re gonna buck the Miller ootfit. I reckon Bilyen is behind thet deal.”

“They’re buildin’ a big barn at the ranch. Hauled in a saw-mill. Hank says it’ll be the biggest in Colorado. They got the roof up an’ the floor down when the twins stopped work with an idea. To give a grand dance.”

“Aw, June wouldn’t give a dance without me!” exclaimed Brazos.

“Girls are queer critters. You’d better rustle, Brazos.”

Next morning Brazos paid vastly more attention to his appearance than was usual with him. “Doggone it! I could look better,” he soliloquized, dissatisfied. “But at thet I’m not so pore.”

When he buttoned up his new grey coat he found that only the tip of his gun sheath, belted high, showed beneath it. That afforded him great satisfaction, but when he went out to ride to Twin Sombreros he left that coat open and hitched the gun sheath to its old place. Brazos rode up to the corrals and barns at the back of the ranch house.

Cowboys watched Brazos’s slow approach. He reined in before them.

“Howdy, cowboys. Is this heah Twin Sombreros Ranch?” he drawled.

“It sure is, cowboy. Get off an’ be at home,” answered one young fellow.

“Where’s them twins? I want to hit them for a job ridin’ heah.”

“Say, cowboy, you can’t fool us. You’re Brazos Keene.”

“Who’n hell said I wasn’t?”

“Hey, Jack, come here,” called Brazos’s first interrogator, sticking his head into the door of the bunkhouse. “You’re wanted.”

Whereupon Jack Sam emerged to look, to stare, to give a whoop and thump clinking off the porch.

“Brazos! What you doin’ on that horse? Git down!” he yelled, leaping to meet Brazos’s outstretched hand.

Then Hank Bilyen appeared on the scene.

“Come on to the house,” said Hank eagerly. “My Gawd! Yu look like Brazos Keene ten years ago — a pink-cheeked, curly haided cowboy of sixteen, which you was when I met yu first at Doan’s Post.”

“Only ten years? I feel turrible old, Hank.” Then a resonant voice, dry and crisp, gave Brazos a thrill.

“By the Lord Harry! It’s Brazos Keene.”

Brazos turned to meet Neece, a transformed man he scarcely recognised.

“Howdy, old-timer,” drawled Brazos.

Sombrero off, Brazos crossed the threshold. One of the twins stood in the centre of the room; the other closed the door behind him. Then they both met in front of him, pale, tremendously excited. Brazos could not tell one from the other.

“Howdy — girls,” he said huskily. “It’s shore good to see yu — heah.”

“Brazos!” The twins were upon him, murmuringly, and soft, cool lips touched his cheek at the same instant that sweeter lips, on fire, met his own.

At that juncture the girls’ aunt entered to welcome Brazos.

June and Janis talked of their dance.

“Now you’re here we can have it! When?” exclaimed June delightedly.

“Everybody is waiting,” Janis exclaimed. “Let’s say Friday night. That’ll give us two days to decorate the barn. And get the supper ready. Dad has a surprise for us. This will be the welcome home he had planned for us.”

“Friday night — two days?” queried June dreamily, her eyes on Brazos. “It will be full moon.”

They marched Brazos back to the house to announce with gay acclaim the date for the dance.

“Son, when will you take charge?” asked Neece.

“Yu mean of yore ootfits? Gosh!”

“I mean of mine. Henderson has his own foreman. An’ Sisk his. But I depend a lot on Bilyen.”

“What’s Hank’s job gonna me?”

“Hank will buy an’ sell cattle.”

“Fine.’ Coglan told me yu was’ runnin’ eighty thousand haid. Is thet so?”

“More by a few thousand.”

“Ahuh. I don’t know as thet is so good,” rejoined Brazos thoughtfully. “Neece, yu’re an old-timer. It’ll mean drawin’ rustlers like molasses draws flies.”

“There won’t be any more wholesale rustlin’. Brazos, I’ll lose loess throwin’ in with my pardners, an’ runnin’ a hundred thousand head, than if I stay out an’ run one-tenth of that number.”

“Sounds sensible. What does Hank think aboot it?”

“Bilyen’s not crazy about it. Says such big herds invite all kinds of range trouble from stealin’ by rival combines and out-an’-out rustlers to corruptin’ cowboys.”

“Wal, Hank is shore right. Heah he comes now, in a buck-board. Gosh, them blacks look kinda familiar!”

“Where you goin’, Hank?” queried the rancher, as Bilyen drove to a halt.

“Town. Got a list longer ‘n yore laig — all for thet darn dance.”

“Hank, I’ve been talkin’ with Neece heah. He says yu’re not keen on his combine an’ the big herd.”

“Wal, air yu, Brazos?”

“Shore I am The more the merrier.” Brazos deliterately contradicted his opinion to Neece for reasons of his own.

“To be honest, I feel all right about it now, ‘cause yu’re heah, Brazos.”

“Ahuh. Wal, what was on on your chest, before I got heah?”

“I got a grudge against Bodkin. An’ I ain’t so damn friendly toward this new cattleman Knight. The talk has it thet Knight is the hombre who shot Surface. Brazos, do yu reckon Bodkin’s bein’ elected sheriff will make him go straight?”

“Not in a million years!”

“Thet will simplify the problem for Neece,” declared Bilyen, And he drove off without another word.

Happily Brazos spent the afternoon balancing precariously on a ladder, putting up the leafy decorations. There came a time when he was alone with June, hidden from the others by a great bower of leaves. Brazos daringly made love to her, crushed her to him despite her murmured objections that the others might see them.

“June!” came the clamouring cry from outside the leafy bower.

She slipped away from Brazos. Dusk was falling. Then the supper bell rang.

A slender form in white stood framed in the darkening doorway of foliage.

“Aw, heah yu air!” whispered Brazos with feeling.

“Oh, I couldn’t see you — they sent me back—”

He gathered her up in his arms and as he kissed her she cried out:

“Oh! — please don’t — Mercy! Ah!” And with that Brazos’s thirsty lips closed hers and he spent his ardour in long, lingering kisses.

“There. Thet shore was comin’ to yu — lady,” panted Brazos, as her head dropped back, her eyes closed under mystic lids.

They opened. “Cowboy devil!” she whispered. “No — more,” she cried frantically, and, surprising Brazos with sudden strength, she freed herself and fled.

Brazos followed, still in a transport. But as he got out of the gloom of the barn into the light he sustained a return of rationality.

“What’d you go back for?” Henry Sisk asked in a low voice.

“What’d you — drag June — away for?” panted the girl, as she reached him.

“I took her for you!” returned Sisk, in anguish.

“Ha! Ha!”

Janis’s sweet laugh not only silenced Sisk but also made a stone image of Brazos. The couple hurried on to catch up with the others down the lane. Brazos stood there in the summer twilight as suddenly stiff and cold as if he had been turned to stone, his consciousness capable of only one thought:

My Gawd, if it wasn’t Jan.

CHAPTER 10

DURING THE REST of that evening Brazos sought the safety of numbers. But just the same, he was conscious of June’s observance of him. And as the evening wore on Brazos began to grow suspicious of the others.

“Wal, folks,” he said at an opportune moment, “I’m gonna say good-night an’ ride back to town.”

“What’s the sense in thet?” spoke up Neece quickly. “This is your home.”

“Why must you go?” pouted June.

“Wal, since yu call my hand,” drawled Brazos, “the fact is there’s a couple of hombres in town thet I forgot aboot shootin’.”

Blank surprise and silence ensued upon Brazos’s reply. They could not tell whether he was in jest or earnest.

“So long. See yu all in the mawnin’,” he concluded, and left the room. Hank Bilyen followed him out on the porch, and one of the twins caught up with them.

“Cowboy, I’ll have yore hawss here in a jiffy,” said Hank.

Brazos had taken a step down, but turned to look at the girl.

“You are — angry?” she asked.

“Not at all — an’ which one of these heah Neece girls are yu?”

“Brazos! I’m June. Don’t look at me like that. We were, only in fun — and they coaxed — nagged me into it.”

“Wal, I shore took Jan for yu, all right,” declared Brazos.

“Oh, Brazos — you — you didn’t—”

“Let yore imagination ‘run high, wide, an’ handsome June, an’ maybe yu’ll get somewhere.”

“Brazos! I’ll bet you were too smart for them. You knew Jan!” exclaimed June hopefully. “You played up to ‘them. Oh, Brazos, I’m horribly jealous, but if you guessed the trick I — I can stand it. Only Jan worries me — Do you forgive me, Brazos?”

“Shore, sweetheart, I’d forgive yu anythin’. But I’m not so shore aboot Jan an’ Jack an’ yore dad.”

“Now you’re my old Brazos again,” murmured June. “I’ll be a match for them next time. Brazos, let’s play a terrible joke on them.”

“I should smile. How aboot elopin’?”

“Oh! Brazos, you’re not serious?” cried June, aghast yet intrigued.

“Shore am. We could slope off in the mawnin’ — get to Dodge City long enough to slip thet bridle on yu — then come back to the dance.”’

“Glorious! But — but—”

“Then it wouldn’t make so much difference whether or not I took yu for Jan,” drawled Brazos dryly.

“Wouldn’t it, though?” flashed June. “Brazos Keene, I agree with Jan. Nobody can be quite sure of you.”

“If yu were my wife, wouldn’t yu feel tolerable safe?”

“Don’t tempt me, Brazos. If we eloped it’d hurt Dad. I — I’d like it! But I mustn’t. Another thing — Jan would never forgive me.”

“For marryin’ me!”

“No. For not telling her. We’ll wait, Brazos dear — if you can be true to me.”

Next day he slept late, and after he awakened he was wonderfully happy, until, booted, spurred, and gun-belted, he walked out up the street of Las Animas.

He had not taken a dozen steps from Mexican Joe’s when a cowboy sauntered out of a doorway..

“Howdy, Keene,” he said. “I been walkin’ the street for an hour watchin’ for you.”

“Howdy, cowboy,” returned Brazos.

“Gimme a match. Make this look natural,” returned the other.

“Ahuh. Heah yu air. Talk fast, stranger.”

“Last night, at Hall’s — heerd two men talkin’ — Brazos Keene in town — Knight swears we’re to git him at any cost — Bodkin rarin’.”

The cowboy raised his young hard visage and turned away.

When Brazos arrived at Twin Sombreros he found a merry, bustling crowd of cowboys.

“Heah, one of yu rollickin’ gazabos,” he called. “Tell Neece an’ Bilyen I want them pronto.”

The rancher was the first to reach Brazos.

“Mornin’, son. You look pretty serious. Scared of bracin’ Dad after last night, eh?”

Brazos had to grin. “Scared as hell, Dad. But thet wasn’t on my mind atall.”

Hank Bilyen joined them at this juncture. “Mawnin’, Brazos,” he said.

“Come heah,” returned Brazos, and drew the two aside. “I’ve got a tip. Cattle gone to forty-three dollars. It’ll be forty-five in less ‘n a week, an’ goin’ up.”

“You don’t say!” ejaculated the rancher. “Hank, my hunch was correct.”

“Wal, I was holdin’ at forty for this fall. But forty-five! Say, Neece, we’re settin’ with a powerful good hand.”

“How many haid can yu drive in an’ ship pronto, inside the week?” queried Brazos, thoughtfully.

“Close to twenty thousand if the railroad can handle them,” replied Neece.

“I saw hundreds of empty stock cars as I rode oot. Neece, yu can beat the other cattlemen to it.”

“I’ll go write telegrams to my buyers an’ order all the stock cars available. Hank, you can ride in with these at once,” said Neece, and hurried away.

“Come oot with it, darn yore pictoors,” demanded Hank gruffly.

“Wal, it’s nothin’ new, but kinda worrisome, considerin’ the mix-up I’m in heah,” answered Brazos, and he gave Hank the information he had received from the cowboy in town.

The Texan swore mightily. “What’n the hell air yu gonna do?”

“Me? Aw, I better lay low.”

“They’d reckon yu was scared an’ rustle the hair off this range.”

“Shore. But they’d hang themselves sooner or later. Las Animas won’t stand it forever.”

“No, I reckon not. All the same, they’re daid slow.”

“Slow? They’re not alive. Hank, I just oughta ride away,” said Brazos tragically. “Only I cain’t.”

“An’ why cain’t yu?”

“It’s not humanly possible for me to leave this girl. If only June would run off with me! We could come back after these hombres peter oot.”

“June? Say, cowboy, we reckoned it was Janis.”

“We? Who’n hell air we?” jerked out Brazos with a start.

“Cowboy, ain’t yu kinda mixed up yoreself aboot which one of the twins yu’re daid set on?”

“Mixed up? I’m standin’ on my haid. I love June, honest an’ true — but — aw! It’s orful — I cain’t tell her from Jan!”

The rustic pine cone lanterns up and down the lane leading from the barn to the ranch-house were lit, as were the oil lanterns in the colourful barn and the big locomotive lamp that had been fastened high on a post. And the moon soared above the black range, full and white and radiant. Then the girls, some in white and most in bright hues, flocked down the lane with gay voices and merry laughter, to meet the eager young men waiting at the barn.

Brazos was surrounded by the glad throng, although none appeared to notice him, and he drew to one side. He was beginning to lose something of the thrill that possessed him, when a soft little hand slipped inside his. Brazos turned to find a vision in white beside him, with lovely face uplifted to his.

“It’s June,” she said. “How do you like my New York gown?”

“Girl — I never knew yu were so beautiful,” replied Brazos rapturously.

“Come. This first dance is yours. I chose a long waltz, because you told me you liked waltzing.”

At midnight supper was served Soon the dancers flocked back to the barn, lured by the strains of music. Brazos watched them from the porch, a little wistfully, wondering when June would hunt him up. Then a white hand slipped under his arm.

“Come, cowboy.”

“Aw, hear yu air!” cried Brazos.

“Quick. They’re after me. Run!” she said, with a giggle, and led him into the pines instead of down the lane. In a moment they were out of sight of the ranch-house.

Then they walked hand in hand. There was no need of talk. The girl stopped to confront Brazos, though she did not let go of his hand.

“Where have you been all these hours?” she asked.

“I’ve been helpin’ make yore party a success. Didn’t think it was in me! Dancin’ with old maids, doin’ the elegant with the wives and mothers, makin’ a waiter oot of myself. But it was fun an’ did me good.”

“Brazos, that was sweet of you.”

“Wal, don’t yu want to reward me?” he drawled softly.

“Yes.” As she spoke that forceful word Brazos caught a hint of something as strange as lovely about her. In the magic of the moonlight all her charm and mystery appeared magnified.

“Tell me yu’ll marry me?” he demanded, suddenly strong and vibrant with released emotion.

“Oh, what will Dad and sister say?”

“Aw! Why, I hate to rush yu, darlin’. But there’s a reason. I’m a marked man in Las Animas. I oughta go away ‘till those hombres forget they wanted to kill me.”

“Brazos!” She roused to passionate life in his arms.

“I told yu, darlin’,” he expostulated.

“Oh, Brazos! I — I will marry you.”

“When? The sooner the better.”

“We’ll elope!” she cried thrillingly. Suddenly she appeared transformed into a little whirlwind, throwing her arms around his neck, and drawing his head down to kiss him with lips of sweet fire. “Oh, Brazos! I’ve been dying for you,” she burst out. “You won me — even though I thought you a devil with girls — a trifler! All the time — all the time I thought it was June you loved!”

CHAPTER 11

BRAZOS, IN HIS realisation of catastrophe, stiffened so violently that he almost crushed the girl in his arms.

“Don’t kill — me,” Janis managed to utter faintly.

“Aw — I’m sorry. I — I just went off my haid,” replied Brazos in a smothered voice, as he released his clasp.

He bent his head over her and again enfolded her slender form, while he gazed unseeingly out into the shadows of the woods.

“Darling, this is perfect,” said Janis, stirring, and trying to look up at him. “It pays me for my anguish. It sustains me — until the next time. But we mustn’t stay longer!”

“No,” agreed Brazos, and stood like a stone.

She pressed back from his breast to look up. “Oh, Brazos! You’re so white! Was it hard to choose between June and me? My poor darling, you could have had me for the asking!”

Brazos wrenched his gaze from the shadows to look down upon her, fully conscious now that he was as weak as guilty, that he loved her the same as June, that she had a devastating power he had never felt in the shy sister.

Then it seemed somehow that this ecstasy waved away and she was soothing his hair.

“I was always crazy to muss your hair like that,” she was murmuring.

“Jan — I’ve kinda — mussed yu too,” he replied hoarsely.

“If you haven’t! Oh, dear, this dress wasn’t made for grizzly bears. Come. I’m as bold as a lioness. But I’d just as lief not meet Henry. This was his dance. I saw you on the porch. I sent him after something. But it was our dance, Brazos. Now we will pay the piper, come what may!”

A voice pierced dimly into Brazos’s sleep: “Wake up, Brazos. It’s four o’clock an’ you’re wanted.”

Brazos opened his eyes to see Jack Sain standing beside his bunk.

“Who wants me?”

“June an’ Jan. They’re waitin’ for you where the trail turns off the lane into the woods.”

“Ahuh. An’ yu have a hunch my life is gonna be harder ‘n hell pronto,” drawled Brazos, sliding his long legs out of bed.

“I’ll bet you get the spurrakin’ of your ridin’ days.”

“Boy, yu shore look like life was kinda hard for yu this mawnin’.”

“I’d just as lief be dead,” returned Sain hopelessly. Then Brazos took a second look at him, and felt remorse gnaw at his own heart.

“What’s’ yore trouble, cowboy?” asked Brazos kindly.

“You know. It’s the same as yours.”

“Ump-um. Mine is double yores. All the same I can help yu.”

“Thanks, Brazos — I just can’t help likin’ you — though you’ve ruined my life.”

“Jack, yu mean June hasn’t been so — so nice to yu since I rode along?”

“Brazos, she al — almost loved me before you came,” replied Sam miserably. “Since then she’s been — Oh, hell! nice an’ kind, yes, but different. It just hurts, Brazos. I’m not sore at you. It’s only—”

“Only what, Jack?”

“I’m afraid to tell you Brazos, but they say you’re playin’ hell with the twins,” replied Sain huskily. “That you’re payin’ them up for their fun — their lettin’ us all take one for the other.”

“Wal, who says thet?”

“All the outfit. Even Neece. He told me it served the girls good and damn right. But, Brazos, I know that’s Jan’s fault. June worships her. She’d give her very soul for Jan.”

“Jack, I kinda had that hunch myself,” replied Brazos, pulling on his boots. His mind seemed to scintillate with the sparks of an inspiration. He stood up, reached for his gun belt and buckled it on.

He turned piercing eyes upon his friend. “Jack, yu’re a good boy. An’ I’m damn sorry I upset yore courtin’. But let me give yu a hunch, boy. Don’t be sick an’ jealous an’ black. Be yore real self to June. Thet girl is gonna rebound into yore arms like a rubber ball off a ‘dobe wall.”

“Oh, Brazos. Don’t lie — don’t rave just to cheer me up.”

“Keep this under yore sombrero, cowboy. I did give the girls a dose of their own medicine. Why, Jack, it was apple pie for me to tell them — one from the other. An’ I let on I couldn’t. Wal, heah’s what no one else but yu will ever know — except Neece, an’ I give yu leave to tell him. I got burned turrible bad in thet little game of makin’ love.”

“June an’ Jan — both!” gasped Jack, suddenly enlightened.

“Boy, yu hit it plumb on the haid.”

“Oh, Lord! But, Brazos, damn it, I’m not glad. I couldn’t stand your — that you didn’t really care!”

“Gosh, Jack, yu’re a heartless hombre,” drawled Brazos. “Wal, I’ll trot along to my little rendezvous.”

He caught sight of them before they saw him. They were waiting in a grove of pines off the lane.

“Mawnin’, girls — aw, I mean good evenin’,” he drawled. “I shore am glad to see yu so — so fresh an’ pretty after thet all-night dance.”

But his conscience smote him as with a terrific mace. Incredible as it seemed, he recognised instantly which girl was June and which was Janis.

“Brazos, Jan — we have some thing serious to ask you,” said June. She was pale, composed surprisingly strong. Brazos divined he was to learn the depth of her. Janis was white as snow and her eyes were great black baleful orbs of fire. She had no reserve. She was ready to burst into flame.

“Brazos,” she whispered hoarsely. “I — I told June about last — night — that you begged me — to elope with you — and I promised.”

“Wal, June, what’d yu say to thet?”

“Brazos! Oh, it’s true — then. I told Jan that I was in love with you — and engaged to marry you.”

“What happened then?”

“We had a terrible quarrel.”

“Brazos Keene, is she telling the truth?” flashed Janis furiously.

“Wal, I figured thet yu an’ June needed a lesson,” said Brazos slowly. But he felt June’s eyes upon him and inwardly he began to weaken in this preposterous deceit. “This game of yores — bein’ one girl when yu air really two girls — thet’s shore not fair to us boys. We never could tell yu apart. An’ yu built yore house of mirth on thet. Yu were havin’ fun at our expense. Yu played tricks on us I reckon thet would have been all right when yu were kids — but yu’re grown girls now — women in face an’ form an’ feelin’, an’ most distractin’ lovely. An’ thet makes yore trick pretty damn low-down. Every cowboy on this range, an’ I’ll gamble a lot of older men, air lovesick over yu two. So little Brazos rode along an’ thought he’d break up yore game.”

“If you hadn’t saved Dad — I’d kill you!” burst out Janis

“Jan, you see,” interposed June gravely. “I always told you it would get us into trouble.”

“It has — ruined me,” sobbed Janis, covering her face. “June — I’m sorry. But it was such fun — until this devil came. He never played any game — for fun. He was deadly earnest — and he m-made me l-love him so — horribly. Maybe he served me right. But that doesn’t help — this — this—”

She suddenly uncovered her convulsed face, to fasten a gaze on Brazos that appeared to blaze through tears.

“You carried your poor joke too far. You’re a heartless villain — a shameless trickster. You disgrace the very name of cowboy.”

Brazos winced under that last jibe, the justice of which he recognised, and he was fighting to keep up his shallow pretence when June confronted him with soul-searching eyes.

“Brazos Keene, you lie! You’re trying to save us — to make us despise you. But you can’t do it.”’

Brazos sat down on a log as if his legs had weakened as had his will. “Shore, I’m — a liar an’ a miserable hombre.”

“Brazos!” Janis darted to him and knelt, one hand on his shoulder. “What did she mean? What do you mean?”

“Aw, Jan, it’s no use. June saw through me. I fell in love with yu both. I cain’t tell you apart. I’ve been honest with June — an’ with yu, too. I did ask her to marry me. An’ when — those times I’ve been alone with yu — I thought yu was June! But now I know yu, it doesn’t make no difference. I love yu just the same — just as turrible. An’ after last night — when yu let yoreself go — Aw! I’m a gone goslin’.”

Janis slipped her other arm around Brazos and embraced him passionately, as if she could never let him go. Then she looked up at her sister in anguish. “June, I forgive him. We — I am most to blame. But I can’t hate him now. I can’t bear to let him go — oh, merciful heaven, what can I do?”

“Jan, you need not give Brazos up,” said June. “You shall marry him.”

Brazos sprang up, almost lifting Janis with him. “What’s thet?” he demanded.

“Jan shall have you, Brazos.”

He stared at her, only conscious that for the first time he was realising the true June Neece.

“I cain’t consent to thet.”

“Nor I,” added Janis. “It wouldn’t be fair. To cheat you of everything? No, no! All my life I have let you put me first. I won’t do it here. But I’m not big enough to give him to you. We must be broken-hearted together.”

“Janis, neither of us needs to be broken-hearted. He shall marry you and we’ll all be happy.”

“But — but—” faltered Janis.

“Brazos, I’d give my very life to make Jan happy. Jan shall be your wife, Brazos — and you can have me, too.”

Brazos seized her shoulders in rough grasp. “What air — yu sayin’,” he demanded huskily.

“I said Jan shall be, your wife — and you can have me, too. We’re twins, almost the same as one girl. I’d never marry. I’d always be true to you, Brazos. No one would ever know.”

CHAPTER 12

HURRIEDLY SADDLING HIS horse, Brazos rode into Las Animas. He felt a need to be away from Twin Sombreros in order to think this thing through.

Brazos started toward Mexican Joe’s, but had gone hardly half a block when he met Inskip. There was something in the Texan’s eyes that gripped Brazos.

“Knight shot Hank Bilyen this mawnin’.”

“Aw!” A rending pang in Brazos yielded to leaping fire. “Hank! Daid?”

“No. Pretty close call, though. Doc says Hank ain’t in danger.”

“Wal, thet’s a relief. This hombre Knight? He shot Surface, yu recollect — What was it all aboot?”

“Hank ain’t tellin’. But Knight has been roarin’ aboot town. He was drunk when he did the shootin’, so. I heahed.”

“Drunk! What’n hell was Hank doin’ all the time?”

“He wasn’t packin’ no gun.”

“Ahuh. An’ what’s this gunslinger Knight roarin’ aboot?”

“Wal, he’s mad, or pretendin’ to be. Tellin’ everywhere he thought Bilyen had a gun an’ was drawin’ it — thet he told Bilyen he was goin’ to hold Neece for cattle Surface owed him — that Bilyen began to curse an’ threaten.”

“Bodkin is the nigger in the woodpile. Inskip, how yu reckon thet crook has lasted so long with Texans?”

“Meanin’ me an’ yu an’ Kiskadden? Wal, Gawd only knows how he’s lasted with yu. But Kis an’ I have responsibilities — business, family. Then Bodkin had a strong followin’, for a while. Sooner or later everybody heah in Las Animas will know he’s crookeder than a rail fence, same as we know now.”

Brazos found his friend Bilyen lying on an improvised bed of blankets on the floor of a room back of Gage’s store. The Texan’s rugged visage lacked colour and was clammy. Brazos knelt by the prostrate man.

“Wal, old-timer, how yu makin’ oot?” he drawled, with deep feeling.

“Me? What’s a gunshot to a Texan? I’m all right. I ducked when he shot, or he’d killed me shore. If ever I seen red murder in a man’s eyes it was Knight’s.”

“Ahuh. Let me see — Right side — Hank, don’t tell me it’s low down?”

“Right under my collarbone an’ clear through. Sorer than a stubbed toe! But it’s nothin’ atall, Brazos.”

“Spit any blood?”

“Nary a drop. Cowboy, I shore won’t rest or sleep till yu shoot the gizzards oot of thet black buzzard.”

“Good. If yu talk short an’ sweet I reckon yu can have a sleep in less ‘n two wags of a lamb’s tail — What was it aboot?”

“Knight braced me. Said he was demandin’ two thousand haid of yearlin’s — from Neece, through me. I gave him the laugh till I seen thet red light come to his eye. Then if I’d only had a gun!”

“Did yu say anythin’?”

“I cussed him right pert. An’ before I seen he meant murder I told him to lay off Neece or he’d have yu to deal with. At thet he gave me the haws laugh. Said he an’ Bodkin (he’s not smart atall Brazos, he gave Bodkin away) knowed yore hands was tied. Thet yore gunnin’ for sheriffs was over!”

“An’ what, did yu say to thet?”

“I told him we knowed he an’ Bodkin was in cahoots — thet yu knowed he was the rustler Brad yu heahed with Bodkin thet night at Hailey’s. Brazos, it was a random shot, but it shore went home.”

“So — I’ll shore know if he’s thet Brad the instant I heah his voice. Not thet it matters. But it sort of dovetails in. An’ he’s what I got on Bodkin.”

“Brazos, this man Brad must have ruled Surface an’ Bodkin both. He struck me strong, cunnin’, vicious. But he’s no gunman. I could have shot him three times runnin’ — But Bodkin. I told yu before to lay off him.”

Inskip interposed here: “Right, Bilyen. Unless Brazos has proof he’d better let Bodkin alone. For he’s an officer of law in this territory.”

“It cain’t be done,” drawled Brazos.

“Have you anythin’ on Bodkin thet’d clear yu in court?”

“I know him.”

“But your word only is not enough, Brazos,” declared Inskip impressively.

“Pard, Inskip is talkin’ sense,” added Bilyen earnestly. “Listen. If — if things oot at Twin Sombreros air the way they seemed to Neece an’ me — an’ the way we hoped — for Gawd’s sake, leave Bodkin alone. He’ll hang himself pronto.”

“It just cain’t be done. I see thet now,” replied Brazos strangely.

“Boy, think of June — if it is June.”

“I am thinkin’ of June — an’ Jan, too,” responded Brazos as he pressed a strong hand upon Bilyen’s. And Brazos knew, if Hank did not, that gesture was one of affection and farewell. “So long, yu Texans.”

Brazos strode out. He halted to one side of the open door.

Half-way between Hall’s saloon and the Happy Days there stood an unoccupied adobe structure, one of the old landmarks of Las Animas. Brazos took his station there in the doorway, from which he could not readily be seen except from a point almost directly opposite. He meant to wait there a little while.

He did not have long to wait before a tall man emerged from Hall’s. He answered to the description Brazos had in mind as fitting Knight. Three men followed him out of the saloon. They talked. And Brazos detected a nervous excitement in the way they stood and spoke.

Then Knight turned his dark face in Brazos’s direction. One of his comrades accompanied him, a lean man in his shirt sleeves. Brazos smiled scornfully at the folly and blind arrogance of a man who packed his gun like that. The lean man took no such chances.

They came on. Brazos stepped out to confront them.

“Howdy, Brad,” he drawled.

If that name did not belong to this man, it certainly had power to halt him with a stiffening jerk.

“My name’s — Knight,” he rasped out.

“Aw, hell!” ejaculated Brazos in cold derision. The voice was the one he expected.

“Who are you?” demanded the other.

The lean man, staring hard at Brazos, said quietly, “It’s Brazos Keene.”

“Good guess, stranger. Slope damn pronto, or I’ll bore yu,” returned Brazos, just as quietly.

The man wheeled as on a pivot and his boots rang on the hard sidewalk.

“Wal, Mr. Knight, yu’ve met up with Brazos Keene at last.”

“Brazos Keene, ah? Ha! Ha! It doesn’t impress me, you bragging cowpuncher.”

“Wal, it’s a-gonna. Brad.”

“Damn you! My name’s Knight.”

Brazos saw the leap of thought in those beady black eyes. It was a steely red glint, a compass needle wavering and fixing — the intent to kill. Brad would attempt to draw on him, Brazos knew, and felt deep amazement at this man’s ignorance of real gunmen.

“Wal, it’s Brad, too. I just heahed Bodkin an’ thet other hombre call yu Brad.

“When and where?” queried Brad heatedly, but he had begun to whiten.

“Thet night at Halley’s. Just after the midnight train had pulled in from the East. I was in the next room an’ had a hole cut in the wall.”

“You meddling cowhand!”

“Shore, Brad. I shore got a hand to draw to — an’ I got one to draw with!”

Knight appeared to be be beyond speech, clamped in his rage. Still he had no fear. But it was rage, not nerve.

“Why, man alive!” went on Brazos in his cold, taunting voice, “I’ve met up’ with some real men in my day. Yu’re nothin’ but a low-down coward that shoots unarmed men—”

With a grating curse Knight jerked for his gun.

Brazos stepped through the drifting pall of smoke to look down upon the fallen man. But he was too late to see Brad die. The rustler boss lay on his back, his right arm pinned under him, clutching his half-drawn gun, his visage distorted in its convulsive change from life to death.

“Atta boy, Brazos!” yelled a lout at the back, and a laugh, nervous, not mirthful, ran through the crowd.

Sheathing his gun, Brazos whirled on his heel to strike rapidly in the direction of the sheriff’s office.

It was locked. Brazos burst into three places before someone told him where to locate Bodkin.

“Seen him go in Twin Sombreros restaurant,” called out this individual.

Brazos laughed. Of all places for Bodkin to be cornered by Brazos Keene! There was a fate that waited upon evil men.

Brazos opened the door of the restaurant, slipped in, then slammed it behind him. On the right side, facing the street, several of the small tables had been placed together, round which sat ten or a dozen men. Brazos’s lightning eye had scanned them to locate his victim.

“Everybody set tight!” yelled Brazos.

He surveyed the men at table. Miller he recognised. His passion was such that even the presence of the banker Henderson occasioned him no surprise. Several other faces were familiar, evidently belonging to new businessmen of Las Animas. The rest were strangers.

The guests at that table rose so hurriedly that half their chairs turned over. They split, some on each side, leaving Bodkin alone at the head, his ox eyes rolling at Brazos.

“Keene, this hyar’s an intrusion — insult to my guests. I—”

“Haw! Haw! Yore guests, huh? Wal, they must be crooked as yu or the damnedest fools in Colorado.”

“Drunk again! Same old Keene! You get out or I’ll clap you in jail.”

Brazos spat like a cat. “Jail? By Gawd, yu make me remember I got thet on yu, too! Wal, Bodkin, my rustlin’ sheriff, yu’ll never clap me in jail again — or any other cowboy!”

“Get out, Keene. You’re drunk an’ blowin’ off. Let me alone. You can’t want anythin’ of me.”

“Hell I cain’t!”

“What you want — then?” demanded Bodkin hoarsely.

“Wal, first off I wanted to tell yu, Bodkin,” drawled Brazos with irritating slowness. “Yore pard Brad is layin’ oot here in the street daid!”

“Brad?”

“Yes, Brad. He calls himself Knight. He’s yore new man. Wal, he’s daid!”

“Who shot him?”

“Some hombre from Texas.”

“You! Well, that’s no great concern of mine You’re one of these even-break gunmen, so I can’t arrest you. I knew him as Knight. Now get out—”

“Aw, Bodkin, yu’re all lie,” flung out Brazos, and in two long strides he reached the table. He lifted his boot against it and shoved powerfully. The laden tables slid and tumbled with a crash, overturning Bodkin and half covering his burly form.

“Come up with yore gun!” ordered Brazos.

Bodkin floundered to his feet, a stark and ghastly terror etched on his face. He made no move for his gun, which swung free without coat to hamper it.

“I’m not fightin’ you — gun slinger,” he panted.

“Yes, yu air — or be the first man I ever bored withoot it.”

“Let me by. If you’re spoilin’ for a fight I’ll find men—”

“Bah, yu chicken-hearted four-flush! Cain’t you make no better stand before yore guests? Cain’t yu die game?”

“Brazos Keene, I’ll not add another notch to your gun handle.”

“Wal, I’ll break my rule an’ cut just one notch for yu, Bodkin. An’ wherever I ride I’ll show it an’ say thet’s for the yellowest skunk I ever shot.”

“I tell you I won’t draw,” shouted Bodkin, desperate in his fear.

Brazos’s gun twinkled blue. Bang! Bodkin screamed like a horse in agony. His leg gave way under him and he would have fallen but for the chair he seized. Brazos’s bullet had penetrated the calf of his leg.

“Air yu gonna take it by inches?” demanded the cowboy.

Bodkin gazed balefully, with wobbling jaw. Horribly plain his love of life, his fear of death! And still it eluded him — the destroying truth of this cowboy.

“Bodkin, yore game is up. Yu’ve dealt yore last hand at cairds. Yore lyin,’ cheatin’, stealin’ days air over. Yore murderin’ days air over. For yu was Surface’s tool in Allen Neece’s murder. Yu tried the same deal when yu sent Bard Syvertsen an’ his girl Bess to murder me. Yu’re a menace to this range. The fools who elected yu sheriff air crazy or crooked.”

“You’re the crazy — one,” gasped Bodkin.

“Listen, man. Cain’t yu see things? I could kill yu on a personal grudge. But I’m gonna kill yu for better reasons.”

“Keene, you can’t prove — you have no case—”

“Hell! I was in the room next to yore’s at Hailey’s. I had a hole cut in the wall. I heahed yu come in at midnight, with two men. One of them this Brad hombre I just shot. An’ I heahed yu talk. About Brad’s failure to get the gunman, Panhandle Ruckfall, to come heah to kill me. Aboot the gold Syvertsen stole from Neece an’ gave to Surface. Aboot how yu reckoned yu would hang on heah an’ get elected sheriff. An’ last, how the third man of yu three thet night — the one whose name I never heahed — how he said the cattlemen on this range was wakin’ up an’ he was gonna slope.”

Damning guilt worked upon the fear and agony in Bodkin’s visage.

“Now will yu go for yore gun?” added Brazos sardonically.

“No — you — hydrophobia-bitten cowhand!”

Crash! Brazos shot the other leg out from under Bodkin. Still the sheriff did not fall, nor did he scream out. He sagged a little, until his knee on the chair upheld him. Then the horrid expression faded, smoothed out of his face, and into it came a vestige of the realisation of death and a dark desire to take his merciless adversary with him. He let go of the chair with his right hand and drew his gun.

Brazos let him swing it upward. Then he leaped aside and shot. Bodkin’s gun boomed so close afterward that the two shots seemed simultaneous.

But Bodkin’s bullet crashed through the window and Brazos’s reached its mark.

Then the cowboy faced the ill-assorted group of men who had assembled there as Bodkin’s guests. They stood as if petrified.

“Henderson, yu’re in bad company,” rang out Brazos, “an’ no matter what yore excuse, it’ll be remembered in Las Animas. Miller, I’m brandin’ yu as hand an’ glove with this Surface ootfit. Yu businessmen an’ yu strangers all know Bodkin now for what he was. An’ I reckon thet’ll be aboot all for Brazos Keene in Colorado.”

CHAPTER 13

HE RODE AWAY at dawn as the sun was reddening the grey landscape, without ever once looking back, as he had done so often in his tumultuous life.

His heading for the south, however, towards Texas, had an air of finality. Thirst for adventure and even for romance had been effectually killed. As Brazos took to the well-worn cattle trail, he felt sick and old and unhappy.

He came at length to Doan’s Crossing, one of the famous old posts of the frontier.

Doan’s Crossing had grown to be a settlement. The huge rambling trading-post appeared the same as the picture in his memory. But it fronted on the corner of a wide street that stretched far between grey flat houses and red-walled buildings.

“Wal, doggone me!” ejaculated, Brazos mildly. “Tom Doan has shore thrown up a metropolis.”

As he slid wearily out of his saddle a lanky young Texan met him with a keen gaze.

“Howdy, rider. Air you stayin’ over?”

“Howdy, young feller. I reckon my hawss is lame. Will you put him up and look after him?”

“Yu bet,” replied the lad.

“Tom Doan heah yet?”

“Shore, Tom’s heah, big as life. Mister, there’s Doan comin’ now.”

Brazos’s glance lighted upon a tall Texan approaching. Same old Tom Doan! Brazos could have picked him out of a hundred Texans, though they all were sandy-haired, sallow-faced, with slits of grey fire for eyes.

“Howdy, stranger. Git down an’ come in,” was the greeting. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

“Tom, I reckon I’m starved and thin and black with this heah dust and beard. But it’s a downright insult for you not to know me,” drawled Brazos.

Doan straightened up from his close scrutiny and broke into a broad smile.

“Wal, talk of the devil an’ heah he is! Brazos Keene!”

“Yep, it’s Keene all right. And how air you. Tom?”

The warm smile, the hard grip, and the hand on his shoulder thrilled some of the weariness out of Brazos.

“I reckon I’m downright glad to see yu, Tom,” he responded hoarsely.

“Say, yu’re spittin’ cotton. Come in, boy, an’ hev a drink.”

“Wal, I need one, Tom. But not red likker.”

Doan led Brazos through a lane of curious riders into the post. The huge interior, its adobe walls decorated with Indian ornaments, the coloured blankets and utensils hanging from the rafters, the counters laden with merchandise, and especially the great open fireplace at the end — all these appeared just the same as if he had seen them yesterday. But there was a wide door that Brazos did not remember. It led in to a saloon full of smoke and noise.

“Tom, what the hell has come off about heah?” asked Brazos, after he had quenched his thirst.

“Brazos, we’ve growed up. Doan’s Crossing is a town.”

“Hell, Tom, I ain’t blind. But how come? There never was nothin’ heah. Wal, nothin’ but buffalo, Injuns, and trail-herd rustlers.”

Doan laughed. “So we used to think, cowboy. But we was blind. There’s rich land heah. Lots of farms, ranches. We’ve got a growin’ town. A dozen stores an’ more, too many saloons, a school an’ a church an’ a doctor. I’ve added a hotel to my post. Two stages a week, herds still trailin’ north, travel heavy. Aw, Doan’s Crossing is boomin’.”

“Wal, doggone! I’m shore glad.”

“Brazos, where yu headin’?”

“West of the Pecos,” replied Keene ponderingly, his gaze averted.

“Aw! Don’t tell me yu are on the dodge, Brazos?”

“Not atall. Tom, I want a room and hot water. Last time I was heah I slept on the counter oot there. Recollect thet?”

“I shore do. An’ you didn’t need no bath, ‘cause yu an’ Herb Ellerslie got piled off in the river.”

“Gosh, Tom, yu do remember heaps. What become of Herb Ellerslie?”

“Shot, Brazos. Shot at Dodge by a gambler named Cardigan?’

“Aw, no! I’m sorry. Cardigan? I’ll remember thet name. How aboot Wess Tanner?”

“Jest fine. Come to think of it, Wess will be along any day now.”

“Wouldn’t I like to see Wess!” ejaculated Brazos dreamily, following his host out of the saloon.

Doan halted at the end of a corridor, which opened into a green and flowery patio. He was ushered into a room that spoke eloquently of the advance Doan’s Crossing had made toward civilisation.

“Doggone! Tom, this heah is mighty stylish for me. Wonder if I can sleep in thet bed.”

“Wal, you look like you needed to,” replied Doan with a laugh. “I’ll send some hot water. You got about a half hour before supper.”

Brazos laid off his sombrero, his gun, spurs, and chaps. Then he opened his saddlebags to take out his last clean shirt scarf and socks, and also his shaving outfit.

“Heigho!” he sighed, and sat down on the bed. “Doan’s Crossing — Jesse Chisholm’s Trail — and I’m a broken old man!”

That night, tired as he was, Brazos could not sleep. The bed felt too soft, too comfortable. He lay awake, thinking. And June and Jan Neece filled his mind.

In the dead of night in the blackness of this room, hundreds of miles from the scene of his downfall, he at last saw, clearly. All the time, it had been June, and June alone. He had worshipped her, and worshipped her still. June had uplifted and inspired him, called so deeply and poignantly to the finer side of him that he had never known really existed. He had thought of June as a girl to work for, to change his nature, to make a home for him and be the mother of his children. All dream! But he saw through it clearly now.

Sleep came very late to Brazos that night. He was awakened by a pounding on his door.

“Hey, Mister Keene, air yu daid?” called a voice Brazos recognised as belonging to the Texas lad.

“Mawnin’, Tex. No, I ain’t daid yet. What’s the row aboot?”

“I been tryin’ to wake you. The Dodge City stage rolled in — with an’ — some old friends of yores rode in with it.” The lad’s voice betrayed excitement.

“Friends?” flashed Brazos, his blood quickening.

“Tanner an’ some of his riders.”

Brazos leaped out of bed. “Tell Wess I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

Brazos washed and dressed swiftly, buckled on his gun belt, and strode into the trading-post.

“Wess! you lean, hungry-lookin’ old trail driver! My Gawd, I’m shore glad to see you!”

“Pard! You damned ole brown-skinned vaquero!” replied Tanner unsteadily, as he met that proffered hand. “Brazos — I never expected to see this day. An’ am I happy?”

They clasped hands and locked glances. It was a meeting between tried and true Texans who had slept and fought and toiled together through unforgettable days:

“Brazos — meet my ootflt,” said Tanner presently.

Brazos was introduced to the riders, most of them striplings. Obviously they were overcome at this meeting.

“Wal, Wess, I reckon you’re ridin’ back to Santone for the winter. No more trail drivin’ this year?”

“Not till spring, Brazos. An’ mebbe not then. Pard, I shore have the grandest ranch bargain there is in all Texas. If I can only raise the backin’.”

“Same old Wess. Always dreamin’ of thet grand ranch. I shore want to heah about it. And I’d kinda like to ride south with you, for a while. It’s been lonely.”

Tanner gave him a keen, kindly glance that baffled Brazos.

“Don’t be hurt, pard. It ain’t likely you’ll want to ride with us. But I’d shore like thet — Brazos, come aside. I’ve news for yu. I’m scared stiff, yet—”

Wess led Brazos to a corner beside a window and faced him there hopefully yet apprehensively, with a pale face full of suppressed agitation that nonplussed Brazos.

Manifestly Wess laboured under some stress that rendered liberation extremely difficult. He lit a cigarette with visibly unsteady fingers and he swallowed, a lump in his throat.

“Hell, man!” exploded Brazos. “You didn’t use to be so damn squeamish — You’ve heahed about thet little Las Animas mess.”

“Shore, Brazos,” agreed Wess, hurriedly. “Only it didn’t seem little to me. Fact is — it was big — big as’ Texas.”

“Yeah? An’ what of it?”

“Wal, for one thing Dodge City took it fine. The mayor hisself said to me, ‘Wess, thet’s the sheriff for Dodge when we need another!’”

“Hell he did? Kind of a compliment, at thet.”

“Mebbe you shouldn’t have rode away from Las Animas so quick.”

“I reckon you think I should have got up a party and swelled around town,” said Brazos sarcastically.

“Nope, not jest thet, though the deal shore called for some redeye. Where’d yu stop an’ soak up a load of likker?”

“Wess, I haven’t taken one dod-blasted drink,” declared Brazos.

“Thet settles it. Yu air crazy. I been afraid of it ever since — since—”

“Since what, you tongue-tied hombre? I’m gonna get sore pretty pronto.”

“Brazos, for the life of me. I cain’t see why. If I was in yore boots I’d be so dod-blasted happy—”

“You been, afraid since what?” flashed Brazos, grasping Wess’s wrist with fingers of steel. There was something wrong about this old friend — something that had to be solved.

“Wal, then — since — since Miss Neece braced me on the street in Dodge.”

“What! Miss Neece?” Brazos’s voice sounded faint in his thrumming ears.

“Shore. Yore fiancee,” replied Wess.

“My — my fiancee? How’d you know — thet?”

“She told me.”

“Good Gawd! Wess, wasn’t she ashamed of thet?”

“Ha! Ha! I should smile she wasn’t.”

“Aw! But what for? How come? Was she visitin’ Dodge with her dad — and heahed you might know me?”

“No, she shore wasn’t visitin’ an’ as for her dad — wal, never mind about him. Miss Neece was hot on yore trail, Brazos.”

At that Brazos began to shake. “Hot on my — trail?” he echoed in a whisper.

“I said hot, pardner. It was this way. I happened to run into the Hotel Dodge to see Jeff — you cain’t have forgot Jeff Davis? Wal, before I could’ say, howdy even, Jeff grabbed me an’ turned to a gurl standin’ there. I went stiff at sight of her. ‘What luck!’ burst out Jeff. ‘Heah he is now — Wess, this is Miss Neece. She has been askin’ if any Texas trail driver might know Brazos Keene. An’ I told her yu — Wess Tanner — was an old pardner of his.’ The gurl’s white face went red, then paled again. ‘Please come,’ she said, and led me off into the parlour.

“‘Yu know Brazos?’ she asked, and she was trembling.

“‘Wal, I used to, Miss,’ I said.

“‘Yu’ve heerd about — what he did at Las Animas?’

“‘Yes, Miss. Thet’s town talk heah. But I never believe range gossip, much lesss about Brazos Keene.”

“‘Oh! But it is all true — and I am his — fiancee.’

“‘Miss Neece, whatever Brazos done it was justified. He is a true-blue Texan, as fine a boy as ever forked a hawss—’ Wal, she thanked me with tears streamin’ down her lovely face. An’ then she told me yu an’ she had had a lovers’ quarrel. She was jealous of her twin sister. Yu had left her an’ gone to town, where yu shot her dad’s enemies, one of them the sheriff. Then yu rode away, thinkin’ yu’d made yoreself an outlaw, which yu hadn’t. She said she knew yu’d ride down into Texas an’ she wanted me to undertake to find yu. I said, ‘Lady, I’ll find Brazos for yu. An’ thet hombre will shoot my laig off for my pains.’ ‘Shoot yu?’ she cried. ‘He’ll bless yu all the rest of his life!’”

“Right you were — Wess,” mumbled Brazos thickly, fighting the wave on wave of emotion that swayed him. How terrible and sweet this news! “I’ll shoot — yore laig off. Damn you! Wasn’t miserable enough? But tell the rest now. What was her crazy idee — coaxin’ you to find me?”

“What do you think, old pard?” queried Wess, drawing a deep breath.

“Think? I cain’t think. Tell me, or I’ll choke it out of you.”

Wess clapped a heavy hand on Brazos’s shoulder. “Pard, Miss Neece’s idee was to come with me — till I found you,” replied Wess, his voice ringing. Brazos could only stare in fearful stupefaction into his friend’s face.

“She’s heah!” rang out Wess. Brazos went blind. His shaking hand groped for Wess, who met it with his own and steadied him.

“Brazos! For the good Lord’s sake!” Wess was saying as he shook Brazos. “What ails yu? Man, yu should be the happiest man in all Texas. Why, I never seen yu like this. An’ how many gurls have I seen yu crazy over? Shore, pard, this is, different. This gurl is the real an’ the last one.”

“Which — one?” whispered Brazos, his eyes closed tight.

“Which one? Say, the boy’s dotty. Which what? Which gurl, yu mean? Why, yu pore locoed ghost of yore old self. It’s yore sweetheart. Yore fiancee. The gurl yu’re engaged to. Brazos, there’s Mrs. Doan,” said Wess. “She’s lookin’ for yu, I’ll bet. Come, pard, yu better get it over.”

Doan introduced Brazos to his wife, a comely, sturdy pioneer type, blonde and buxom. She certainly gave Brazos a looking over before she relaxed into friendliness and sympathy.

“I think you had better see your fiancee at once. She is under a strain. She must care greatly for you.”

“Cowboy, I seen thet an’ I had it figured when she stepped off the stage. Such eyes! Black an’ hungry as a starved Indian’s!” added Doan.

“Wal, friends, she must think a lot of me,” replied Brazos gravely. “It’s too late now for me to worry about not ben’ good enough for her an’ ridin’ away like I did. Take me to her.”

Mrs. Doan led him to a door at the south end of the post. “This is my room, Brazos. You’ll be secluded there. Make it up to’ her. Try to realise your great good fortune.”

In the moment before he stepped into the room, Brazos faced his ultimatum. It was June he loved most and wanted for his wife, but it could never have been June who had the adventurous spirit to follow him. So Jan must never know. And love her he did, too, but not as he did June.

In all humbleness, he told himself that he was lucky to have either of the twins, give up everything to come to him.

Brazos was tense and tingling when he opened the door. He heard a gasp. Then he wheeled.

“Brazos!” She had been standing almost behind the door, waiting, her face white, her eyes wide and dark. Brazos had not expected to see her in a white dress, but of course she had had time to change. Jan would never have let him see her travel-stained or dishevelled. Her face was lovely, despite the havoc he read there.

“Jan! You, sweet devil,” he cried huskily, and held out his arms.

She had been already on the way to him. Apparently his poignant exclamation or the welcome of his gesture suddenly halted her for a moment, while a spasm crossed her face. It passed, and she flew to his arms. She hid her face and clung to him.

“Brazos — darling. I — I had to come,” she said in smothered tone.

“Wal, I couldn’t be shore till I felt yu — like this,” he replied hoarsely, and, he held her tight to his breast, while he bent his head against her rippling hair. On the moment he could not see well. He seemed to float in that room.

“Don’t — hug me — so,” she whispered, “unless you — don’t want me — to breathe. Brazos, you’re not — angry?”

“Angry? No, Jan. I’m sort of buffaloed. My Gawd, it was sweet and good — and bad — of you to trail me heah.”

“Bad?” she queried quickly.

“For you, dear. I’m an outlaw, you know. You’ve disgraced yourself, and all of them.”

“But for you, Brazos, darling?”

“I reckon it’s near heaven again.”

“Oh! Then you forgive me.”

“I probably will — if you kiss me like you did thet turrible night.”

“Same old Brazos! Only you look — Brazos, tell me you won’t send me back,” she importuned softly.

“No, Jan. I cain’t do thet.”

“But you want me?” she flashed.

“Yes. I’m mad about you, Jan. I reckoned I’d got over it. But I hadn’t.”

“Darling! And J-June?”

“Wal, she didn’t trail me, did she?”

Holding her close, Brazos leaned against a table and tried to separate conflicting tides of emotion from tumultuous and overwhelming thoughts.

“Jan, I reckon we — might sit down,” he said huskily, and half lifted her to the couch. But she would not let go of him. Weak and nervous now, she still clung. “You must be kinda tired — all thet long stage ride.”

“No. I wasn’t tired,” she said. “Just overcome at meeting you — scared weak. I was afraid you’d send me back — that you — you love J-June best.”

Brazos took her face between his hands and studied it gravely. The havoc he had seen appeared warmed out and the dark eyes had lost their strain.

“Let us talk — now.” Her voice had quieted. “Brazos — Dad died suddenly, less than a week after you left.”

“Aw! Jan! How awful!” cried Brazos, shocked to his depths. “My Gawd, I’m sorry. Thet fine, upstandin’ Westerner. Aw! but this is a tough one on me. I was turrible fond of yore dad. Jan, I don’t know what to say.”

“Brazos, you’ve said enough. It comforts me. We knew you loved Dad — J-June and I. But Dad is gone. And if I hadn’t had you to think of — to save, I’d have sunk under that blow.”

“Save? Jan, you think I have to be saved?”

“Indeed I do. Thank heaven I caught up with you in time. Brazos, that is the saddest news. But there’s more — not sad — yet it’ll hurt you.”

“Go ahaid, darlin’,” replied Brazos. “I reckon I can stand anythin’ now.”

Jan averted her face. Her breast rose and fell. Her hand tightened on Brazos’s.

“It’s about J — June. She eloped with Henry Sisk — came home married!”

“What’re you tellin’ me, Jan Neece?” ejaculated Brazos fiercely.

“You heard, me, darling.” Her voice was low, but perfectly clear, carrying a note unfamiliar to Brazos.

“Jan, you lie!” Brazos leaped up in a perfect frenzy of amazement and fury.

“What motive could I have in telling you a lie?” she returned proudly. Brazos turned her face around so that he could see it in the light. Its pallor, the proud, dark eyes, that peered straight and unfathomably into his, the set lips, almost stern now — these to Brazos were not eloquent of falsehood.

“Jan, I beg — yore pardon,” he went on haltingly. “But that knocks me cold and sick, to my very gizzard. Worse than when I kill a man! But damn June’s fickle heart! She loved me. She proved it — and then, all in no time — she shows yellow. Sisk? Fine chap, shore, but he was sweet on you, wasn’t he?”

“I thought so. He swore it.”

“So he throwed you down for June?”

“Something like that, darling.”

“Did you care?”

“Yes, I did. It hurt. I’m a vain creature. But I couldn’t marry Henry. On my soul of honour, I couldn’t.”

“Why couldn’t you, Miss Neece?”

“Because I loved you. I never knew how well until you ran away. Oh, Brazos — darling. Can I make up for the loss of June?”

“I reckon. But let me be straight with you, Jan. If June hadn’t turned out faithless — neither you, however sweet and lovely you air, nor all the rest of the girls in the world, could have made up for the loss of her. Can you stand to heah thet?”

“Yes, Brazos, I — I can stand it,” faltered Jan. “Brazos, can you stand another surprise?”

He eyed her askance. But Jan did not look formidable just then or anything to be dubious about. He drew her into his arms, yet held her back, so he could study her face.

“Shoot, Jan. You cain’t knock me out again.”

“I’ll bet I can.” She leaned back, toying with his scarf, hiding her eyes. “Could you stand a sweetheart — and a — a wife — who is very, very rich?”

“Good — Lord!” exploded. Brazos. “What you got up yore sleeve?”

“Brazos, if I’m a very rich girl — that won’t make any difference to you?”

“You’re talkin’ riddles. But I reckon — if you was a very rich girl — I wouldn’t feel turrible bad about it.”

She let out a sweet peal of glad laughter and caught him around the neck. “Brazos, listen. Henry bought my share of Twin Sombreros Ranch and two thousand head of cattle.”

Brazos sat mutely staring at this apparition — this angel of fortune — this living refutation of his vain judgment of women.

“You see, it hasn’t turned out so badly, even if you have lost June.”

“How much?” asked Brazos faintly.

“How much what? Oh, how much I love you? Oh, more than any girl ever loved any man.”

“Jan, my heart is weak. Don’t tease no more. How much did you sell out for?”

“I made a pretty good deal, Hank Bilyen said. For the cattle I got forty dollars a head. Figure that out.”

“I cain’t — darlin’ — I cain’t figger, or add — or anythin’.”

“Well, that comes to eighty thousand dollars. And I sold my half of the ‘ranch for twenty thousand. I brought the money with me.”

“Mercy!” begged Brazos.

“I got a few thousand in cash, and the rest in drafts on the Las Animas bank. Now, Brazos, darling, now what are we going to do?”

“Now, Jan, darlin’, what air we goin’ to do?” mimicked Brazos in consternation.

“You’re not exactly a poor cowboy, down at his heels. You can do things.”

“Jan, I cain’t do nothin’ but love you,” replied Brazos abjectly.

“Well, that’s grand. But I prefer you do a little besides loving me. Brazos, those boys with Wess Tanner were sweet on me. And you know I’m unreliable. You had better put a halter on me while you have the chance. Dad always said that once I was haltered I’d steady down.”

“Jan, at thet I believe you’ve changed — grown. But still the same old sweet devil. Will you take my solemn word?”

“Yes, Brazos, I will.”

“Wal, before I entered thet door I knew I’d ask you to marry me — first, because thet old love came thunderin’ back — second because I would have asked you if I hadn’t loved you, I was struck so deep by yore trailin’ me — and last because I could never let one word of range gossip get started about Jan Neece.”

She appeared enraptured, yet there was a restraint, a doubt about her that puzzled Brazos. He caught his breath and asked her to marry him.

“Yes, darling,” she replied, and hid her face upon his shoulder.

“When?” he flashed, tense and keen.

“Need we wait?” she asked. That indeed betrayed this frank and devilishly sweet Jan Neece at her truest.

“If I had my way we wouldn’t wait atall,” rang out Brazos.

“Your way is my way — and always shall be,” declared the girl eloquently, “If it is possible I will marry you here.”

“Jan! It’s shore possible. Doan told me they had a church heah. Course they’d have to have a minister.”

“Run, darling — and find out. Jan, you know, can change her mind.”

Brazos leaped up, to forget his sombrero, and rush from the room.

Soon after, Brazos ran back to Mrs. Doan’s door, halting when he came to it. He sensed a mysterious portent beyond that threshold. It checked him — held him with bated breath. But he knocked. There was no reply. Uncertain and strangely agitated, he entered the room. Jan was lying face down on the couch.

“Jan, dear, what ails you?”

“Oh, Brazos! I — I can’t go through with it. I’m a little fourflush! I have none of the nerve you — you credited me with,” burst from her in smothered tones.

Brazos’s heart sank like lead. “Darlin’, you cain’t what?” he asked tenderly. “I reckon you mean — marry me?”

“No! No!” she cried frantically, raising her face, to disclose it tear-wet and shamed, with tragic eyes dark upon him. “I’m crazy to to marry you. I’ll die if you won’t have me. And, oh, misery, you’ll hate me now!”

“Ump-umm, honey. I cain’t hate you, no matter what you’ve done, so long as you’re crazy to marry me.”

“Brazos, I was just wild for you. I’d have done anything — anything. But now, you’ve been so sweet — and wonderful — I can’t go through with it.”

“Jan Neece, will you come out with it?” demanded Brazos in desperation. “That’s — just — it. I’m not Jan Neece — I’m June!”

“Lord Almighty! Am I drunk or crazy?” burst out Brazos, tearing his hair and staring incredulously at her. “Who air you?”

“Oh, Brazos! Don’t look so — so awful at me. It’s I! June — June Neece! Not Jan. I couldn’t live without you. It was Jan who eloped with Henry. And I thought you loved her most — that she could do anything with you — and I came here to find you — make you marry me first — then tell you afterward.”

“You damned — devilish little cat!” declared Brazos, astounded beyond passion. “I don’t believe you.”

“Oh — Brazos,” she wailed. “But darling, I am June. I swear to heaven I am. Jan couldn’t have done this rash thing. She hadn’t the nerve. She didn’t love you enough. Why, I’m ashamed to admit, she was on Henry’s neck as soon as you left. Brazos, you must see I’m telling the truth. If I were Jan, intending to get you by hook or crook — would I be betraying my plot now? No! I’d wait till we were — married.”

There was incontestable logic in this passionate confession. Brazos believed her now. Only those kisses had deceived him. She had acted them faithfully enough, though perhaps once June had cast restraint and decorum aside, they had at last expressed her true fervour.

“I cain’t believe you,” said Brazos solemnly. “Not unless you prove you’re June. I have had about all I can stand of taken’ Jan for June — and June for Jan.”

“Prove I’m June?” she echoed. “Of course I can. I am June. My name June is on the drafts for all that money.”

Brazos sagged desperately under that potential proof.

“Aw, you could fool Henderson just as easy as me. Haven’t you fooled everybody under the sun? No, Miss Neece, you gotta prove you’re June.”

“Wait till we’re married,” she pleaded, so sweetly and humbly that Brazos smothered another wild desire to snatch her to his breast. Then an idea flushed into his rapturous mind.

“No. And let me remind you thet pastor with Doan and Wess will be cornin’ pretty pronto.”

“Beloved! Trust me!” she whispered beseechingly. “I would die of shame if they came now.”

“Listen. June Neece had a birthmark like a bluebell — on her laig — didn’t she?”

“Who told you that?”, cried the girl, blushing scarlet.

“I heahed that when I first came to Las Animas. Everybody knew about it. The only way the Neece twins could be told apart! Wal, if you air June you shore have thet birthmark. Now, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I have,” she retorted, at bay. “Will you trust me — until — ?”

“I’ll trust you afterward, forever. I reckon you deserve to suffer a little shame.”

“Shame! I have nothing to be ashamed of unless it’s chasing an unchivalrous cowboy all over the south.”

“Thet’s a heap, I’m bound to admit — There! Girl, I reckon I heahed Wess’s loud laugh out there. They’ve come with the parson. You better rustle or you may lose a husband.”

“Brazos, if you force me I — I won’t have you for a husband,” she cried loftily. She was white of face again and her eyes burned with reproach.

“I’ll risk thet, darlin’. You cain’t get out of marryin’ me now, if only to save yore good name and yore pride.”

“Very well, cowboy! Come over to the light,” she returned, with what seemed a calm disdain.

Brazos followed her haltingly to the window. He felt her gaze upon him and dared not meet it. Moreover, his eyes were glued to her shapely, capable hands as they grasped her gown at each side. She lifted it and her white skirts. Her trim ankles, her slender, graceful legs, her rounded knees and pink garters sharply outlined against her black stockings led Brazos’s fascinated gaze to her white thighs.

“You should know this would be apple pie for Jan,” she said with a suppressed giggle that belied her haughty scorn of this exacting lover. “I’ve forgotten which leg it’s on — the left, I’m sure. Look—”

Merry voices outside preceded knocks on the door. Brazos, with the wonderful swiftness of that right land, snatched her skirts down.

“Aw, darlin’, I was only foolin’,” he whispered.

“Yes, you were,” she taunted. “Did you see it?”

“No. I couldn’t see nothin’. Besides, June, I shore knew you all the time.”

“Liar! I could have fooled you — I wish — oh!”

Louder and more impatient knocks sounded upon the door. June smoothed her ruffled gown.

“Brazos, we’re heah, all ready to make yu the happiest cowboy in Texas,” called Wess, his voice ringing.

“Can we come in?” Doan’s booming voice attested to the joy he felt. “Parson, papers, witnesses, an’ all.”

“Just a minnit more, Tom,” drawled Brazos. “The lady has consented to become Mrs. Keene. But doggone it! She hasn’t proved yet which one of the Twin Sombrero twins she really is!”

THE END

Thirty Thousand on the Hoof

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL CROOK AND his regiment of the Western Division of the U.S. Army were cutting a road through the timber on the rim of the Mogollon Mesa above the Tonto Basin. They had as captives a number of Apache Indians, braves, squaws, and children, whom they were taking to be placed under guard on the reservation.

At sunset they made camp at the head of one of the canyons running away from the rim. It was a park-like oval, a little way down from the edge, rich with silver grass and watered by a crystal brook that wound under the giant pines. The noisy advent of the soldiers and their horses and pack-mules disturbed a troop of deer that trotted down the canyon to stop and look back, long ears erect.

Crook’s campaign was about over and the soldiers were jubilant. They joked with the sombre-eyed Apaches, who sat huddled in a group under guard. Packs and saddles plopped to the grass, the ring of axes echoed through the forest, blue smoke curled up into sunset-flushed pines.

The general, never a stickler for customs of the service, sat with his captain and a sergeant, resting after the hard day, and waiting for supper.

“Wonder how old Geronimo is going to take this?” mused Crook.

“We haven’t heard the last of thet redskin,” replied Willis, emphatically. “He’ll break out sooner or later, and then there’ll be hell to pay.”

“I’m glad we didn’t have to kill any of these Apaches.”

“We were lucky, General. I’ll bet McKinney will burn powder before he stops thet Matazel an’ his braves. Bad youngsters.”

“Do you know Matazel, sergeant?” inquired Crook.

“I’ve seen him. Strappin’ young buck. Only Indian I ever saw with grey eyes. He’s said to be one of Geronimo’s sons.”

“Wal, McKinney won’t stand any monkey business from thet outfit,” added Willis. “He’s collared them by this time. Huett knows the country. He’ll track them to some hole in the woods.”

“Good scout, Logan Huett, for so young a man. He has been invaluable in this campaign. I shall recommend him to my successor.”

“Huett is through with army scout service after this campaign. He’ll be missed if old Geronimo breaks out an’ goes on the warpath. Fine woodsman. Best rifle-shot I ever saw.”

“What is Huett going to do?”

“Told me he wanted to go home to Missouri for a while. He’s got a girl, I reckon. But he’s hipped on the West, an’ will soon be back.”

“He surely will,” added the other officer. “Logan Huett was cut out for a pioneer.”

“The West needs such men more than the Army... Hello, I hear shouts from above.”

“Bet thet’s McKinney now,” said Willis, rising.

“Sure enough. I see horses an’ army blue through the trees,” added the sergeant.

Presently a squad of soldiers rode down into the glade. They had three mounted Indians with them and another on foot, a tall, lithe brave, straight as an arrow, whose bearing was proud. These captives were herded with the others. Sergeant McKinney reported to General Crook that he had secured Matazel and three of his companions. The others got away on foot.

“Any shooting?” queried the general.

“Yes, sir. We couldn’t surprise them an’ they showed fight. We have two men wounded, not serious.”

“I hope you didn’t kill any Indians.”

“We didn’t, to our knowledge.”

“Send Huett to me.”

The scout approached. He was a young man about twenty-three years old, dark of face. In fact he bore somewhat of a resemblance to Matazel, and he was so stalwart and powerfully built that he did not look tall.

“What’s your report, Huett?”

“General, we made sure of getting Matazel alive,” replied the scout, “otherwise none of them would have escaped...I guessed where Matazel’s bunch was headed for. We cut in behind them, chased them into a box canyon, where we cornered them. They had but little ammunition, or we’d had a different story to tell.”

“Don’t dodge the main point, as McKinney did. Were there any Indians killed?”

“We couldn’t find any dead ones.”

“Willis, fetch this Apache to me.”

In a few moments Matazel stood before the general, his arms crossed over his ragged buckskin shirt, his sombre eyes steady and inscrutable.

“You understand white man talk?” queried General Crook.

“No savvy,” replied Matazel, sullenly.

“General, he can understand you an’ speak a little English,” spoke up the sergeant who knew Matazel.

“Did my soldiers kill any of your people?”

The Apache shook his head.

“But you would have killed us,” said the general, severely. Matazel made a magnificent gesture that embraced the forest and the surrounding wilderness.

“White man steal red man’s land,” he said, loudly. “Pen Indian up. No horse. No gun. No hunt.”

General Crook had no ready answer for that retort.

“You Indians will be taken care of,” he said presently. “It’s better for you to stay peaceably on the reservation with plenty to eat.”

“No!” thundered the Apache. “Geronimo say better fight — better die!”

“Take him away,” ordered the general, his face red. “Captain Willis, according to this Apache, it sounds as if old Geronimo will break out all right. You had it figured.”

Before the sergeant led Matazel away the Indian bent a piercing glance upon the scout, Logan Huett, and stretching out a lean red hand he tapped Huett on the breast.

“You no friend Apache.”

“What do you want, redskin?” demanded Huett, surprised and nettled. “I could have shot you. But I didn’t. I obeyed orders, though I think the only good Indian is a dead one.”

“You track Apache like wolf,” said the Indian, bitterly. His eagle eyes burned with a superb and piercing fire. “Matazel live get even!”!

It was autumn before Logan Huett was released from his military duties, once more free to ride where he chose. Leaving the reservation with light pack behind his saddle, he crossed the Cibeque and headed up out of the manzanita, scrub oak and juniper to the cedars and pinons of the Tonto Rim.

The trail climbed gradually. That same day he reached the pines and the road General Crook had cut along the ragged edge of the great basin. Huett renewed his strong interest in this mesa. From the rim, its highest point some eight thousand feet above sea-level, it sloped back sixty miles to the desert. A singular feature about this cliff was, that it sheered abruptly down into the black Tonto Basin on the south, while the canyons that headed within a stone’s throw of the crest all ran north. A few miles from their source there were deep grassy valleys with heavily timbered slopes. The ridges between the canyons bore a growth of pine and spruce, and the open parks and hollow swales had groves of aspen and thickets of maple. The region was a paradise for game. It had been the hunting-grounds of the Apache, and they had burned the grass and brush every year, making the forest open.

Back towards the Cibeque several cattle combines, notably the Hashknife outfit, ran herds of doubtful numbers on the lower slopes. At Pleasant Valley sheepmen and cattlemen were at odds over the grazing. Sooner or later they would clash.

Huett left that country far behind to the east. He travelled leisurely, camping in pretty spots, and on the third night, reached the canyon-head where he had brought Matazel and his Apache comrades to General Crook, which service practically ended the campaign.

He found where the soldiers had built their camp-fires, little heaps of white and lilac ashes in the grass. He thought of the sombre-eyed Matazel and remembered his threat.

At this lonely camp Huett fell back wholly into the content of his pondering dream. He had not enjoyed the military service. The range life he had led before his campaign suited him better. But he had long dreamed of being a cowboy for himself. The hard riding, the camp fare, the perilous work and adventure were much to his liking, but he had revolted against the noisy, bottle-loving, improvident louts with whom he had to ride.

He broiled turkey over the red coals of his dying aspen-wood fire. With salt, a hard biscuit, and a cup of coffee he thought he fared sumptuously. In that still autumn close of day, in the whispering forest, Logan Huett found himself: He might have been aware of the surpassing beauty of the glade, of the giant pines and silver spruce, of the white-and-gold aspen grove on the slope, of the spot of scarlet maple higher up, but he did not think of it that way. He was alone again. Slowly the pondering thought of his long-cherished plan faded into sensorial perceptions. The gusto with which he ate the hot turkey meat, the smell of the wood-smoke, the changing of the coloured shadows all about him, the tinkle of the little stream, the crack of deer or elk horns on a dead branch up the canyon, the whisper in the tips of the spruce, the watching, listening sense of his loneliness — these he felt with singularly sweet and growing vividness, but he did not think of them. He did not know that they accounted for his content. He never established any relation between them and the life of his ancestors or the primitive heritage they had left him.

He slept in his clothes, between his saddle-blankets, with his saddle for a pillow. When the fire burned down, the cold awakened him and he had to get up to replenish it. At dawn crackling white frost covered the grass. Going out to procure firewood, he saw bear-tracks in an open place. These had been made by a cinnamon, as he could tell by the narrow heel. A cinnamon bear was not the most welcome visitor a camper could have in those hills.

Huett made an early start and headed north down the canyon. Deer, elk, coyotes melted up the slopes at his approach. The tips of the pines high on the western ridge-crest turned gold, and gradually that bright hue descended. Not until the sun was on the grass in the canyon did he see any turkeys. After that he came upon flock after flock, one in particular being composed of huge old bronze-and-white gobblers, with red heads and long beards, wild from age and experience.

All this continual sight of game quickened his interest and speculation in a canyon he knew and which he was going to visit. For three years this canyon had been a subject of intensive thought.

He was not certain he could reach it that day, for he had much travel up and down the ridges which lay between. When he had journeyed perhaps a score of miles down from the rim and the canyon was widening and growing shallow, he took to the slope and headed west. Travel then was slow, up through brush and across ridge, around windfalls and down into another canyon. He kept this up for hours. Most of the larger canyons had seldom-ridden trails along the brooks that traversed them.

When the giant silver spruce trees that flourished only at high altitude began to fail Huett knew he was getting down country and perhaps too far north. He swerved more to the west. Dusk found him entering one of the endless little grassy parks. He camped, and found the night appreciably warmer. Next morning he was off at dawn.

About noon, in the full light of sun, Huett came out upon the edge of the canyon that he had run across while hunting three years before and had passed twice since, once in early winter. Compared with many of the great valleys he had crossed, this one was insignificant. But it had peculiar features, no doubt known only to himself, and which made it of extreme interest.

He had never ridden completely around this canyon or from end to end. This part that he had hit upon happened to be towards the south, and it was impossible to ride down into it from where he worked along the rim. He came at length to the great basin with which he was familiar. It had no outlet. The sparkling stream, shining like a ribbon, disappeared in the rocks under the south wall. Huett circumnavigated the basin, which, as far as he could determine, was the largest open pasture in the Mogollon forest. It was oblong in shape, of varying width, and miles long. All around the top ran a rim of grey or yellow limestone, an insignificant wall of rock crumbling, of no particular height, and certainly something few men would have looked at twice.

But for Logan Huett that band of rock possessed marvellous interest. It was a natural fence. Cattle could not climb out of this canyon. Here was a range large enough to run twenty, probably thirty thousand head of stock, without the need of riders. This canyon had haunted Logan Huett. Here his passion to be a cattleman could be realized, and without any particular capital he could build up a fortune.

Huett rode around the south side and up along the west, finding a few breaks that would have to be fenced. Heavy pine forest covered this western slope. Scarcely a mile back in the woods ran the road from. Flagstaff into the little hamlet of Payson, through the rough brakes of the Tonto, down to the Four Peak Range, and out to Phoenix. Settlers looking for ranges to homestead passed that point every summer; never dreaming of what Huett now saw — the most wonderful range in Arizona.

Apaches had once used this beautiful site for a hunting-camp. Huett had found arrow-heads there and bits of flint where some old savage had chipped his points. The brook made several turns between the gradually levelling slopes. Scattered pines trooped down to the deep blue pools. The bench on the east side had waited for ages for the homesteader to throw up his log cabin there. It was a level bit oft ground, above the swift bend of the stream, and marked by a few splendid pine trees. A magnificent spring gushed from the foot of the slope. Deer and elk trails led up through a wide break in the rock wall. This opening, and a larger one at the head of the canyon, were the only breaks in the upper half of the natural fence.

“I’ll come back,” soliloquized Huett, with finality. For so momentous a decision he showed neither passion nor romance. He had a life work set out before him. This was the place. He wasted no more time there, but rode across the flat below the bench, and climbed the west slope. At the summit he turned for one last look. His glance caught the white and bronze of the great sycamore tree shining among the pines. In honour of that tree Huett named his ranch Sycamore Canyon.

The early afternoon hour gave him hope that he could make Mormon Lake before night. The dusty road held to the levels of the dense pine forest, and Huett did not know the country well enough to try a short cut. Trotting his horse, with intervals of restful walk, he made good time.

A new factor suddenly engaged Logan’s mind. He wanted a wife. The life of a lonely ranchman in the wilderness appealed strongly to him, but a capable woman would add immeasurably to his chances of success without interfering with his love of solitude. While he was employing the daylight hours with his labours and his hunting, she would be busy at household tasks and the garden.

Lucinda Baker would be his first choice. She had been sixteen years old when he left Independence, a robust, blooming girl, sensible and clever, and not too pretty. She had told him that she liked him better than any of her other friends. On the strength of that Logan had written her a few times during his absence, and had been promptly answered. Not for six months or more now, however, had he heard from Lucinda. She was teaching school, according to her last letter, and helping her ailing mother with the children. It crossed Logan’s mind that she might have married someone else, or might refuse him; but it never occurred to him that if she accepted him he would be dooming her to a lonely existence in the wilderness.

Thinking of Lucinda Baker reminded Logan that he had not been much in the company of women. However, she had always seemed to understand him. As he rode along through the shady, silent forest, he remembered Lucinda with a warmth of pleasure.

By sunset that day Huett reached the far end of Mormon Lake, a muddy body of surface water, surrounded by stony, wooded bluffs. On the west and north sides there were extensive ranges of grass running arm-like into the forest. The Mormon settler who had given the lake its name had sold out to an Arizonian and his partner from Kansas.

“Wal, we got a good thing hyar,” said the Westerner Holbert. “But what with the timber wolves an’ hard winters we have tough sleddin’. You see, it’s open range an’ pretty high.”

“Any neighbours?” asked Huett.

“None between hyar an’ the Tonto. Jackson runs one of Babbitt’s outfits down on Clear Creek. Thet heads in above Long Valley. Then there’s Jeff an’ Bill Warner, out on the desert. They run a lot of cattle between Clear Creek an’ the Little Colorado. Towards Flagg my nearest neighbour is Dwight Collin. He has a big ranch ten miles in. An’ next is Tim Mooney. Beyond St. Mary’s Lake the settlers thicken up a bit.”

“Any rustlers?”

“Wal, not any out-an’-out rustlers,” replied Holbert evasively. “Rustler gangs have yet to settle in this section of Arizona.”

“Wolves take toll of your calves, eh?”

“Cost me half a hundred head last winter. Did you ever hear of Killer Gray?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Wal, you’d remember thet lofer, if you ever seen him. Big grey timber-wolf with a black ruff. He’s got a small band an’ he ranges this whole country.”

“Why don’t you kill him?”

“Huh! He’s too smart for us. Jest natural cumin’, for a young wolf.”

“I like this Arizona timber-land,” declared Huett, frankly, “And I’m set on a ranch somewhere south of the lake.”

“Wal now, thet’s interestin’. What did you say yore name was?”

“Logan Huett. I rode for several cattle outfits before I worked as scout and hunter for Crook in his Apache campaign.”

“I kinda reckoned you was a soldier,” returned Holbert genially. “Wal, Huett, you’re as welcome out hyar as May flowers. I hope you don’t locate too far south of us. It’s shore lonely, an’ in winter we’re snowed in some seasons for weeks.”

“Thanks. I’ll pick me out a range down in the woods where it’s not so cold...Would you be able to sell me a few cows and heifers, and a bull?”

“I shore would. An’ dirt cheap, too, ‘cause thet’d save me from makin’ a drive to town before winter comes.”

“Much obliged, Holbert. I’ve saved my wages. But they won’t last long. I’ll pick up the cattle on my way back.”

“Good. An’ how soon, Huett?”

“Before the snow flies.”

All the way into Flagg next day Logan’s practical mind resolved a daring query. Why not wire Lucinda to come West to marry him? He resisted this idea, repudiated it, but it returned all the stronger. Logan’s mother had not long survived his father. He had a brother and sister living somewhere in Illinois. Therefore since he had no kindred ties, he did not see why it would not be politic to save the time and expense that it would take to get him to Missouri. He had already bought cattle. He was eager to buy horses, oxen, wagon, tools, guns, and hurry back to Sycamore Canyon. The more time he had in Flagg the better bargains he could find.

Flagg was a cattle and lumber town, important since the advent of the railroad some half-dozen years previously. It had grown since Huett’s last visit. The main block presented a solid front of saloons and gambling-halls — places Logan resolved to give a wide berth. He was no longer a cowboy. Some man directed him to a livery-stable, where he turned over his horse. Next he left his pack at a lodging-house and hunted up a barber-shop. It was dusk when he left there. The first restaurant he encountered was run by a Chinaman and evidently a rendezvous for cowboys, of which the town appeared full. Logan ate and listened.

After supper he strolled down to the railroad station, a rude frame structure in the centre of a square facing the main street. Evidently a train was expected. The station and platform presented a lively scene with cowboys, cattle-men, railroad men, Indians, and Mexicans moving about, Logan’s walk became a lagging one, and ended short of the station-house. It seemed to him that there might be something amiss in telegraphing Lucinda such a blunt and hurried proposal. But he drove this thought away, besides calling upon impatience to bolster up his courage. It could do no harm. If Lucinda refused he would just have to go East after her. Logan bolted into the station and sent Lucinda a telegram asking her to come West to marry him.

When the deed was done irrevocably, Logan felt appalled. He strode up town and tried to forget his brazen audacity in the excitement of the gambling-games. He suppressed a strong inclination towards drink. Liquor had never meant much to Logan, but it was omnipresent here in this hustling, loud cow town, and he felt its influence. Finally he went back to the lodging-house and to bed. He felt tired — something unusual for him — and his mind whirled.

The soft bed was conducive to a long, restful sleep. Logan awoke late, arose leisurely, and dressed for the business of the day. Presently he recalled with a little shock just how important a day it was to be in his life. But he did not rush to the telegraph office. He ate a hearty breakfast, made the acquaintance of a droll Arizona cowboy, and then reluctantly and fearfully went to see if there was any reply to his telegram. The operator grinned at Logan and drawled as he handed out a yellow envelope: “Logan Huett. There shore is a heap of a message for you.”

Logan took the envelope eagerly, as abashed as a schoolboy, and the big brown hands that could hold a rifle steady as a rock shook perceptibly as he tore it open and read the brief message. He gulped and read it again: “Yes! If you come after me — Lucinda.”

An unfamiliar sensation assailed him, as he moved away to a seat. Then he felt immensely grateful to Lucinda. He read her message again. The big thing about the moment seemed the certainty that he was to have a wife — provided he went back to Missouri after her. That he would do. But it flashed across his mind that as Lucinda had accepted him upon such short blunt notice, she really must care a good deal for him, and if she did she would come West to marry him. Under the impulse of the inspiration he went to the window and began a long telegram to Lucinda, warm with gratitude at her acceptance and stressing the value of time, that winter was not far away, the need of economy; the splendid opportunity he had, ending with an earnest appeal for her to come West at once. Logan did not even read the message over, but sent it rushed up town.

“I’ve a hunch — she’ll come — and I’m dog-gone lucky,” he panted.

That day he spent in making a list of the many things he would need and the few he would be able to buy. Rifles, shells, axes, blankets, food supplies and cooking utensils, a wagon and horses, or mules, he had to have. Then he hurried from his lodging-house to make these imperative purchases. Prices were reasonable, which fact encouraged him. During the day he met and made friends with a blacksmith from Missouri named Hardy. Hardy had tried farming, and had fallen back upon his trade. He offered Logan a wagon, a yoke of oxen, some farming tools, and miscellaneous hardware for what Huett thought was a sacrifice. That bargain ended a day that had passed along swiftly.

“My luck’s in,” exulted Logan, and on the strength of that belief he hurried to the railroad station. Again there was a telegram for him. Before he opened it he knew Lucinda would come. Her brief reply was: “Leave to-morrow. Arrive Tuesday. Love. Lucinda.”

“Now, there’s a girl!” ejaculated Huett, in great relief and satisfaction. Then he stared at the word “love.” He had forgotten to include that in either of his telegrams. As a matter of fact the sentiment love had not occurred to him. But still, he reflected, a man would have to be all sorts of a stick not to respond to one such as Lucinda Baker. Logan recalled with strong satisfaction that she had not been very popular with certain boys because she would not spoon. He had liked her for that. All at once his satisfaction and gladness glowed into something strange and perturbing. The fact of her coming to marry him grew real; he must try to think of that as well as the numberless things important towards the future of his ranch.

The next day, Saturday, saw Huett labour strenuous hours between daylight and dark. Sunday at the blacksmith’s he packed and helped his friend rig a canvas cover over the wagon. This would keep the contents dry and serve as a place to sleep during the way down. Monday, finding he still had a couple of hundred dollars left, Logan bought horse and saddle, some tinned goods, and dried fruits, a small medicine-case, some smoking tobacco, and last a large box of candy for his prospective bride.

This present bought him to the very necessary consideration of how and where he could be married. Here the blacksmith again came to his assistance. There was a parson in town who would “hitch you up pronto for a five-dollar gold piece!”

Two overland trains rolled in from the East every day, the first arriving at eight-thirty in the morning, and the second at ten in the evening.. On board one of these to-day would be Lucinda Baker.

“Hope she comes on the early one,” said Logan aloud, when he presented himself at the station far ahead of time. “We can get the ‘hitch pronto,’ as Hardy calls it, and be off to-day.”

It did not take Logan long to discover that the most important daily event in Flagg was the arrival of this morning train. The platform might have been a promenade, to the annoyance of the railroad men. Logan leaned against the hitching-rail and waited. Obstreperous cowboys clanked along with their awkward stride, ogling the girls. Mexicans, with blanketed shoulders, lounged about, their sloe-black eyes watchful, while handsome Navajo braves, with colourful bands around their heads, padded to and fro with their moccasined tread. Lucinda would be much impressed by them, thought Logan.

The train whistled from around the pine-forested bend. Logan felt a queer palpitation that he excused as unusual eagerness and gladness. Small wonder — a fellow’s bride came only once!

Presently Logan saw the dusty brown train, like a long, scaly snake coiling behind a puffing black head, come into sight to straighten out and rapidly draw near. The engine passed with a steaming roar. Logan counted the cars. Then with a grinding of steel on steel the train come to a halt.

CHAPTER TWO

LUCINDA BAKER’S DREAMS of romance and adventure had been secrets no one had ever guessed; but none of them had ever transcended this actual journey of hers to the far West to become the wife of her girlhood sweetheart. Yet it seemed she had been preparing for some incredible adventure ever since Logan had left Independence. How else could she account for having become a school teacher at sixteen, working through the long vacations, her strong application to household duties? She had always known that Logan Huett would never return home again, and that the great unknown West had claimed him. For this reason, if any, she had been training herself to become a pioneer’s wife.

She was thrillingly happy. She had left her family well and comfortable. She was inexpressibly glad to be away from persistent suitors. She was free to be herself — the half-savage, yearning creature she knew under her skin. Steady, plodding, dutiful, unsentimental Lucinda Baker was relegated to the past.

Kansas in autumn was one vast, seared, rolling prairie, dotted with hamlets and towns along the steel highway. Lucinda grew tired watching the endless roll and stretch of barren land. She interested herself in her fellow-passengers and their children, all simple middle-class people like herself, journeying West to take up that beckoning life of the ranges. But what she saw of Colorado before dark, the grey, swelling slopes towards the heave and bulk of dim mountains, gave her an uneasy, awesome premonition of a fearful wildness and ruggedness of Nature much different from the pictures she-had imagined. She awoke in New Mexico, to gaze in rapture at its silver valleys, its dark forests, its sharp peaks white against the blue.

But Arizona, the next day, crowned Lucinda’s magnified expectations. During the night the train had traversed nearly half of this strange, glorious wilderness of purple land. Sunshine, Canyon Diablo were but wayside stations. Were there no towns in this tremendous country? Her query to the porter brought the information that Flagg was the next stop, two hours later. Yet still Lucinda feasted her gaze and tried not to think of Logan. Would he disappoint her? She had loved him since she was a little girl when he had rescued her from some beastly boys who had dragged her into a mud puddle. But not forgetting Logan’s few and practical, letters, she argued that his proposal of marriage was conclusive.

What changes would this hard country have wrought in Logan Huett? What would it do to her? Lucinda gazed with awe and fear out across this purple land, monotonous for leagues on leagues, then startling with magnificent red walls, towering and steep, that wandered away into the dim, mystic blue, and again shooting spear-pointed, black-belted peaks skyward; and once the vista was bisected by a deep, narrow yellow gorge, dreadful to gaze down into and justifying its diabolic name.

After long deliberation Lucinda reasoned that Logan probably would not have changed much from the serious, practical boy to whom action was almost as necessary as breathing. He would own a ranch somewhere close to a town, perhaps near Flagg, and he would have friends among these westerners. In this loyal way Lucinda subdued her qualms and shut her eyes so she could not see the dense, monotonous forest the train had entered. Surrendering to thought of Logan then, she found less concern in how she would react to him than how he would discover her. Lucinda knew that she had grown and changed more after fifteen than was usual in girls. What her friends and family had said about her improvement, and especially the boys who had courted her, was far more flattering than justified, she felt. But perhaps it might be enough to make Logan fail to recognize her.

A shrill whistle disrupted Lucinda’s meditation. The train was now clattering down-grade and emerging from the green into a clearing. A trainman opened the coach-door to call out in sing-song voice: “Flagg. Stop five minutes.”

Lucinda’s eyes dimmed. She wiped them so that she could see out. The forest had given place to a ghastly area of bleached and burned stumps of trees. That led to a huge, hideous structure with blue smoke belching from a great boiler-like chimney. Around it and beyond were piles of yellow lumber as high as houses. This was a sawmill. Lucinda preferred the forest to this crude and raw evidence of man’s labours. Beyond were scattered little cabins made of slabs and shacks, all dreary and drab, unrelieved by any green.

As the train slowed down with a grind of wheels there was a noisy bustle in the coach. Many passengers were getting off here. Lucinda marked several young girls, one of them pretty with snapping eyes, who were excited beyond due. What would they have shown had they Lucinda’s cue for feeling? She felt a growing tumult within, but outwardly she was composed.

When the train jarred to a stop, Lucinda lifted her two grips on to the seat and crossed the aisle to look out on that side. She saw up above the track a long block of queer, high, board-fronted buildings all adjoining. They fitted her first impression of Flagg. Above the town block loomed a grand mountain, black and white in its magnificent aloof distance. Lucinda gasped at the grandeur of it. Then the moving and colourful throng on the platform claimed her quick attention.

First she saw Indians of a different type, slender, lithe, with cord bands around their black hair. They had lean, clear-cut faces, sombre as masks. Mexicans in huge sombreros lolled in the background.

Then Lucinda’s swift gaze alighted upon a broad-shouldered, powerfully built young man, in his shirt sleeves and with his blue jeans tucked in high boots. Logan! She sustained a combined shock and thrill. She would have known that strong, tanned face anywhere. He stood bareheaded, with piercing eyes on the alighting passengers. Lucinda felt a rush of pride. The boy she knew had grown into a man, hard, stern, even in that expectant moment. But he was more than merely handsome. There appeared to be something proven about him.

Lucinda suddenly realized she must follow the porter, who took her grips, out of the coach. She could not resist a pat to her hair and a readjustment of her hat. Then she went out.

The porter was not quick enough to help her down the steep steps. That act was performed gallantly by a strange, youthful individual, no less than Lucinda’s first cowboy, red-haired, keen-faced, with a blue dancing devil in his eyes. He squeezed her arm.

“Lady, air yu meetin’ anyone?” he queried, as if his life depended on her answer.

Lucinda looked over his head as if he had not been there. But she liked him. Leaving her grips where the porter had set them, she walked up the platform, passing less than ten feet from Logan. He did not recognize her. That failure both delighted and frightened her. She would return and give him another chance.

She walked a few rods up the platform, and when she turned back she was revelling in the situation. Logan Huett had sent for his bride, and did not know her when she looked point-blank at him. He had left his post at the rail. She located him coming up the platform. A moment later she found herself an object of undisguised speculation by three cowboys, one of whom was the red-head.

Lucinda slowed her pace. It would be fun to accost Logan before these bold westerners. This was an unfortunate impulse, as through it she heard remarks that made her neck and face burn.

Logan had halted just beyond the red-haired cowboy. His grey glance took Lucinda in from head to foot and back again — a swift, questioning, baffled look. Then Lucinda swept by the cowboys and spoke:

“Logan, don’t you know me?”

“Ah! — no, you can’t be her,” he blurted out. “Lucinda! It is you!”

“Yes, Logan. I knew you from the train.”

He made a lunge for her, eager and clumsy, and kissed her heartily, missing her lips. “To think I didn’t know my old sweetheart!” His grey eyes, that had been like bits of ice glistening in the sun, shaded and softened with a warm, glad light that satisfied Lucinda’s yearning heart.

“Have I changed so much?” she asked, happily, and that nameless dread broke and vanished in the released tumult within her breast.

“Well, I should smile you have,” he said. “Yet, somehow you’re coming back...Lucinda, the fact is I didn’t expect so — so strapping and handsome a girl.”

“That’s a doubtful compliment, Logan,” she replied with a laugh. “But I hope you like me.”

“I’m afraid I do — powerful much,” he admitted. “But I’m sort of taken back to see you grown up into a lady, stylish and dignified.”

“Wouldn’t you expect that from a school teacher?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what to expect. But in a way, out here, your school teaching may come in handy.”

“We have to get acquainted and find out all about each other,” she said, naively.

“I should smile — and get married in the bargain, all in one day.”

“All to-day?”

“Lucinda, I’m in a hurry to go,” he replied, anxiously. “I’ve bought my outfit and we’ll leave town — soon as we get it over.”

“Well...of course we must be married at once. But to rush away...It isn’t far — is it — your ranch? I hope near town.”

“Pretty far,” he rejoined. “Four days, maybe five with oxen and cattle.”

“Is it out there — in the — the...? she asked, faintly, with a slight gesture towards the range.

“South sixty miles. Nice drive most of the way, after we leave town.”

“Forest — like that the train came through?”

“Most of the way. But there are lakes, sage flats, desert. Wonderful country.”

“Logan, of course you’re located — near a town?” she faltered.

“Flagg is the closest,” he answered, patiently, as if she were a child.

Lucinda bit her lips to hold back an exclamation of dismay. Her strong, capable hands trembled slightly as she opened her pocket-book. “Here are my checks. I brought a trunk and a chest. My hand-baggage is there.”

“Trunk and chest! Golly, where’ll I put them? We’ll have a wagon-load,” he exclaimed, and taking the checks he hailed an express-man outside the rail. He gave him instructions, pointing out the two bags on the platform, then returned to Lucinda.

“Dear! You’re quite pale,” he said anxiously. “Tired from the long ride?”

“I’m afraid so. But I’ll be — all right...Take me somewhere.”

“That I will. To Babbitts’, where you can buy anything from a needle to a piano. You’ll be surprised to see a bigger store than there is in Kansas City.”

“I want to get some things I hadn’t time for.”

“Fine. After we buy the wedding-ring. The parson told me not to forget that.”

Lucinda kept pace with his stride up town. But on the moment she did not evince her former interest in cowboys and westerners in general, nor the huge, barnlike store he dragged her into. She picked out a plain wedding-ring and left it on her finger as if she was afraid to remove it. Logan’s earnest face touched her. For his sake she fought the poignant and sickening sensations that seemed to daze her.

“Give me an hour here — then come after me,” she said.

“So long! Why, for goodness’ sake?”

“I have to buy a lot of woman’s things.”

“Lucinda, my money’s about gone,” he said, perturbed. “It just melted away. I put aside some to pay Holbert for cattle I bought at Mormon Lake.”

“I have plenty, Logan. I saved my salary,” she returned, smilingly. But she did not mention the five hundred dollars her uncle had given her for a wedding-present. Lucinda had a premonition she would need that money.

“Good! Lucinda, you always were a saving girl...Come, let’s get married pronto. Then you come back here while I repack that wagon.” He slipped his arm under hers and hustled her along. How powerful he was, and what great strides he took! Lucinda wanted to cry out for a little time to adjust herself to this astounding situation. But he hurried her out of the store and up the street, talking earnestly. “Here’s a list of the stuff I bought for our new home. Doesn’t that sound good? Aw, I’m just tickled...Read it over. Maybe you’ll think of things I couldn’t. You see, we’ll camp out while we’re throwing up our log cabin. We’ll live in my big canvas-covered wagon — a regular prairie-schooner — till we get the cabin up. We’ll have to hustle, too, to get that done before the snow flies...It’s going to be fun — and heaps of work — this start of mine at ranching. Oh, but I’m glad you’re such a strapping girl!...Lucinda, I’m lucky. I mustn’t forget to tell you how happy you’ve made me. I’ll work for you. Some day I’ll be able to give you all your heart could desire.”

“So we spend our honeymoon in a prairie-schooner!” she exclaimed, with a weak laugh.

“Honeymoon? — So we do. I never thought of that. But many a pioneer girl has done so...Lucinda, if I remember right, you used to drive horses. Your Dad’s team?”

“Logan, I drove the buggy,” she rejoined, aghast at what she divined was coming.

“Same thing. You drove me home from church once. And I put my arm around you. Remember?”

“I must — since I am here.”

“You can watch me drive the oxen, and learn on the way to Mormon Lake. There I have to take to the saddle and rustle my cattle through. You’ll handle the wagon.”

“What! — Drive a yoke of oxen? Me!”

“Sure. Lucinda, you might as well start right in. You’ll be my partner. And I’ve a hunch no pioneer ever had a better one. We’ve got the wonderfullest range in Arizona. Wait till you see it! Some day we’ll run thirty thousand head of cattle there...Ah, here’s the parson’s house. I darn near overrode it. Come, Lucinda. If you don’t back out pronto it’ll be too late.”

“Logan — I’ll never — back out,” she whispered, huskily. She felt herself drawn into the presence of kindly people who made much over her, and before she could realize what was actually happening she was made the wife of Logan Huett. Then Logan, accompanied by the black-bearded blacksmith Hardy, dragged her away to see her prairie-schooner home. Lucinda recovered somewhat on the way. There would not have been any sense in rebelling even if she wanted to. Logan’s grave elation kept her from complete collapse. There was no denying his looks and actions of pride in his possession of her.

At sight of the canvas-covered wagon Lucinda shrieked with hysterical laughter, which Logan took for mirth. It looked like a collapsed circus-tent hooped over a long box on wheels. When she tiptoed to peep into the wagon a wave of strongly contrasted feeling flooded over her. The look, the smell of the jumbled wagon-load brought Lucinda rudely and thrillingly to the other side of the question. That wagon reeked with an atmosphere of pioneer enterprise, of adventure, of struggle with the soil and the elements.

“How perfectly wonderful!” she cried, surrendering to that other self. “But Logan, after you pack my baggage in here — where will we sleep?”

“Doggone it! We’ll sure be loaded, ‘specially if you buy a lot more. But I’ll manage some way till we get into camp. Oh, I tell you, wife, nothing can stump me!...I’ll make room for you in there, and I’ll sleep on the ground.”

“Haw! haw!” roared the black-bearded giant. “Thet’s the pioneer spirit.”

“Logan, I daresay you’ll arrange it comfortably for me, at least,” said Lucinda, blushing. “I’ll run back to the store now. Will you pick me up there? You must give me plenty of time and be prepared to pack a lot more.”

“Better send it out here,” replied Logan scratching his chin thoughtfully.

“Mrs. Huett, you’ll change your clothes before you go?” inquired the blacksmith’s comely wife. “That dress won’t do for campin’ oot on this desert. You’ll spoil its an’ freeze in the bargain.”

“You bet she’ll change,” interposed Logan, with a grin. “I’d never forget that...Lucinda, dig out your old clothes before I pack these bags.”

“I didn’t bring any old clothes,” retorted Lucinda.

“And you going to drive oxen, cook over a wood fire, sleep on hay, and a thousand other pioneer jobs?...Well, while you’re at that buying don’t forget jeans and socks and boots — a flannel shirt and heavy coat — and a sombrero to protect your pretty white face from the sun. And heavy gloves, my dear, and a silk scarf to keep the dust from choking you.”

“Oh, is that all?” queried Lucinda, soberly. “You may be sure I’ll get them.”

Hours later Lucinda surveyed herself before Mrs. Hardy’s little mirror, and could not believe the evidence of her own eyes. But the blacksmith’s good wife expressed pleasure enough to assure Lucinda that from her own point of view she was a sight to behold. Yet when had she ever felt so comfortable as in this cowboy garb?

“How’ll I ever go out before those men?” exclaimed Lucinda, in dismay. A little crowd had collected round the prairie-schooner, to the back of which Logan appeared to be haltering his horses.

“My dear child, all women oot heah wear pants an’ ride straddle,” said Mrs. Hardy, with mild humour. “I’ll admit you look more fetchin’ than most gurls. But you’ll get used to it.”

“Fetching?” repeated Lucinda, dubiously. Then she packed away the travelling-dress, wondering if or when she would ever wear it again. The western woman read her mind.

“Settlers oot on the range don’t get to town often,” she vouchsafed, with a smile. “But they do come, an’ like it all the better. Be brave now, an’ take your medicine, as we westerners say. Yore man will make a great rancher, so Hardy says. Never forget thet the woman settler does the bigger share of the work, an’ never gets the credit due her.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hardy,” replied Lucinda, grateful for sympathy anti advice. “I begin to get a glimmering. But I’ll go through with it...Good-bye.”

Lucinda went out, carrying her bag, and she tried to walk naturally when she had a mad desire to run.

“Whoopee!” yelled Logan.

If they had been alone that startling tribute to her attire would have pleased Lucinda. Anything to rouse enthusiasm or excitement in this strange, serious husband! But to call attention to her before other men, and worse, before some wild, ragged little imps — that was signally embarrassing.

“Hey, lady,” piped up one of the boys, “fer cripes’ sake, don’t ya stoop over in them pants!”

That sally elicited a yell of mirth from Logan. The other men turned their backs with hasty and suspicious convulsions. Lucinda hurried on with burning face.

“Jiminy, she’ll make a hot tenderfoot cowgirl,” called out another youngster.

Lucinda gained the wagon without loss of dignity, except for her blush, which she hoped the wide-brimmed sombrero would hide. She stowed her bag under the seat and stepped up on the hub of the wheel. When she essayed another hasty step, from the hub to the high rim of the wheel, she failed and nearly fell. Her blue jeans were too tight. Then Logan gave her a tremendous boost. She landed on the high seat, awkwardly but safely, amid the cheers of the watchers. From this vantage-point Lucinda’s adventurous spirit and sense of humour routed her confusion and fury. She looked down upon her glad-eyed husband and the smiling westerners, and then at those devilish little imps.

“You were all tenderfeet once,” she said to the men, with a laugh, and then shook her finger at the urchins. “I’ve spanked many boys as big as you.”

Logan climbed up on the other side to seize a short stick, with a long leather thong:

“Hardy, how do you drive these oxen?” called Logan, as if remembering an important item at the last moment.

“Wal, Logan, thar’s nothin’ to thet but gadep, gee, whoa, an’ haw,” replied the blacksmith, with a grin. “Easy as pie. They’re a fine trained brace.”

“Adios, folks. See you next spring,” called Logan, and cracked the whip with a yell: “Gidap!”

The oxen swung their huge heads together and moved. The heavy wagon rolled easily. Lucinda waved to the blacksmith’s wife, and then at the boys. Their freckled faces expressed glee and excitement. The departure of that wagon meant something they felt but did not understand. One of them cupped his hands round his mouth to shrill a last word to Lucinda.

“All right, lady. Yu can be our schoolmarm an’ spank us if you wear them pants!”

Lucinda turned quickly to the front. “Oh, the nerve of that little rascal!...Logan, what’s the matter with my blue-jeans — pants — that boys should talk so?”

“Nothing. They’re just great. Blue-jeans are as common out here as flapjacks. But I never saw such a — a revealing pair as yours.”

The oxen plodded along, the canvas-covered wagon rolled down the side street. It must have been an ordinary sight in Flagg, because the few passers-by did not look twice at it. Lucinda felt relieved at escaping more curiosity and ridicule. What would that trio of cowboys have said? Logan drove across the railroad, on over a rattling wooden bridge, by the cottages and cabins, and at last by the black-and-yellow sawmill.

“Darling, we’re off!” exclaimed Logan, quite suddenly, and he placed a powerful hand over hers. With the whip he pointed south beyond the hideous slash of forest, to the dim blur of range beyond. His voice sang deep and rich with emotion. “We’re on our way to my ranch — to our home in Sycamore Canyon.”

“Yes, Logan. I gathered something of the kind...I’m very happy,” she replied, softly, surprised and moved by his term of endearment and the manifestation of strong feeling.

“I’ve just lived for this. It’s what I worked for — saved my money for. Down there hides my canyon — the grandest range for cattle — grass and water — all fenced. And here’s my outfit all paid for. And, last and best, the finest little woman who ever came out to help build up the West!”

Lucinda settled back happily. She had misjudged Logan’s appreciation of her and her sacrifice, if not his absorption in his passion for the cattle-range. But she could forgive that, respect it, and cleave to him with joy now that she knew he loved her.

The road wound through the denuded forest-land, dry but not dusty, and down-grade enough to make an easy pull for the oxen. A sweet, musty fragrance came on the slight, warm breeze. It grew from pleasant to exhilarating, and Lucinda asked her husband what it was. Dry Arizona, he replied — a mixture of sage, cedar, pinon, and pine. Lucinda liked it, which was all she did like on that six-mile drive out to the forest. Here the cabins and pastures, with their crude fences of poles, appeared to end. Driving into the forest was like entering a green-canopied, brown-pillared tunnel. It was still, shadowed, lighted by golden shafts, and strangely haunting. Lucinda was affected by a peculiar feeling she could not define. It had to do with a strange sense of familiarity when she had never before been in a forest.

Before sunset Logan drove into a wide-open place. “We’ll camp on the far side,” he said. “Water and grass. And firewood — well, Lucinda, we’ll never be in want for firewood.”

They halted under great pines that stood out from the wall of forest. Wrecks of trees that Logan called windfalls lay about, some yellow and splintered still, others old and grey, falling to decay. Logan leaped down, and when Lucinda essayed to follow, he lifted her down with a hug. “Now, tenderfoot wife, tight pants and all, you can begin!” he said, gaily. But he did not tell her what to begin, and Lucinda stood there stupidly while he unyoked the oxen, turned them loose, then started to lift bags and boxes out of the wagon. He lifted her trunk down with such ease that Lucinda marvelled, remembering how her father had to have help in moving it.

“That’ll go under the wagon,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll cover it. But the rains are past, Lucinda. What we get next will be snow. Whew! Does it snow and blow!”

“Logan, I hate wind and I don’t like snow.”

“I daresay. You’ll get over that in Arizona...Now, Lucinda, you watch me and learn.” He spread a heavy canvas on the grass. Then from a box he took canvas bags of varying sizes, which he set down side by side. He emptied a burlap sack of jangling things that proved to be funny little iron kettles with lids, coffee-pot, skillet, pans and plates, cups of tin, and other utensils. Then he loosened several buckets that fitted one into the other. These he plunged into the brook, to swing out brimming full of water. All his movements were quick, vigorous, yet deft. It was wonderful to watch him ply an axe. Chips and splinters and billets flew. as if by magic. He built a roaring fire, explaining that it must burn down to a bed of red coals. Next, like a juggler, he produced washbasin, soap, and towel, and thoroughly washed his hands...”Most important of all,” he said with a grin. “Now watch me mix sourdough biscuits.” She did watch the procedure with intense interest. Here was her husband encroaching on the preserves of a housewife. But she was fascinated. He was efficient, he was really wonderful to a tenderfoot girl. To see that brawny-shouldered young man on his knees before a pan of flour and water, to watch his big brown hands skilfully mix the dough was a revelation to Lucinda. With the further preparation of the meal he was equally skilful. She sat down cross-legged, despite the tight breeches, and most heartily enjoyed her first supper in Arizona. She was famished. Logan had forgotten to take her to lunch. Ham and eggs, biscuits and coffee, with canned peaches for dessert, and finally the big box of candy that Logan produced from somewhere, as an especial present on that day — these certainly satisfied more than hunger for Lucinda.

“Logan, you amaze me. You’re a splendid cook,” she said. “It’s just fine to think I won’t have to cook and bake.”

“Ha! ha! No you won’t at all!” he ejaculated, gaily. “But I’m gad you see I can do it...Now we’ll clear up. I’ll wash, and you dry.”

After these chores were finished Logan went into the woods with an axe, to come forth burdened under an immense load of green, fragrant boughs. This he threw down beside the wagon. Then he unrolled a canvas to take out blankets.

“There’s hardly enough room in the wagon for you to sleep, let alone me,” he said. “I’ll make my bed on the ground. If skunks and coyotes, scorpions, tarantulas, and sidewinders come around, they’ll get me first. Ha! ha! But really they’re not to be laughed at. I won’t take any risk of you being bitten, especially by a hydrophobia skunk. You’re too doggone precious. I’d never find another woman like you.”

Lucinda said nothing. His words, like his actions, were so natural, so inevitable. Yet he showed fine feeling. She was a bride, and this was her wedding-night. Dusk came trooping out of the forest. She heard a sough of wind in the pines, an uneasy, breathing, melancholy sound. How lonely! She shivered a little. Logan’s observations were keen. He fetched her heavy coat. Then he threw a bundle of the green pine foliage into the wagon, and some blankets, and climbed in the door after them. Lucinda heard him rummaging around at a great rate. Presently he leaped out, his hair rumpled.

“There! All you got to do is use your coat for a pillow, take off your boots, crawl under the blankets, and you’ll be jake...Well, the day is done. Our first day!...Now for a smoke. Lucinda, better stretch your legs a little before we turn in.”

She walked under the pines, along the brook, out into the open. But she did not go far. The windfalls, the clumps of sage might harbour some of the varmints Logan feared. She looked back to see he had replenished the camp fire. He stood beside it, a tall, dark, stalwart figure, singularly fitting this unfamiliar scene. There appeared to be something wild and raw, yet thrilling about it. The flames lighted up the exquisite lacy foliage of the pines. Sparks flew upwards. The great white wagon loomed like a spectre. Black always depressed Lucinda, but white frightened her. Logan stood there spreading his hands...He was splendid, she thought. She could well transfer the love she had given him as a boy to the grown man, for Logan had matured beyond his years. In repose his face showed fine, stern lines. He had suffered pain, hardship, if not grief. Lucinda’s fears of Logan vanished like the columns of smoke blowing away into the darkness. She had vague fears of this West, and she divined they would be magnified and multiplied, but never would there be a fear of Logan Huett. Whatever it would cost her, she was glad she had answered to his call for a mate, and she would try to make herself a worthy one.

She returned to the fire and warmed her hands over the blaze. How quickly the air had chilled!

“I never knew how good fire could feel,” she said, laughing.

“Ha! You said a lot.” Then he drew her to a seat on the log near by. He removed his pipe and knocked the ashes from it. “Lucinda,’ I’m not much of a fellow to talk,” he said, earnestly, with the light from the fire playing on his dark strong face and in his clear grey eyes. “Sure, I’ll talk your head off about cattle and range, bears and cougars, Indians and all that’s wild. But I mean the — the deep things — the things here — —” and he tapped his broad breast. “I’ve got them here, only they’re hard to say...Anyway, words would never tell how I appreciate your leaving your people, your friends and civilized comforts, to come out to this wild Arizona range. To be my wife — my pardner I It’s almost too good to be true. And I love you for it...I reckon I was selfish to make you come to me and rush you at that. But you’ll forgive me when you see our ranch — the work that’s to be done — and winter coming fast...You’re only a young girl, Lucinda. Only eighteen! And I feel shame to think what you must have overcome — before you accepted. But, my dear, don’t fear I’ll rush you into real wifehood — you know, like I did into marriage. All in good time, Lucinda, when you feel you know me as I am now, and love me, and want to come to me...That’s all, little girl. Kiss me good night and go to your bed in our prairie-schooner.”

Lucinda did as she was bidden, relieved and comforted as she had not thought possible except after long trial. She peeped out to see Logan in the flickering firelight. Then she crawled under the warm woollen blankets. How strange! How marvellous to be there! She would not have exchanged that bed, and the canvas roof with its moving weird shadows, for the palace of a princess. But the wind moaned through the pines — moaned of the terrible loneliness, the distance, the wildness of this West.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCINDA AWAKENED SOME time in the night, coming out of a dream of a strange, pale place, where she wandered down empty, echoing streets, fearful lest she should be seen in her boy’s garb. The night was pitch dark and silent as the grave. The crickets, the wind, the brook had all but ceased their sounds. She was cold despite the blankets. She lay there shivering while the black canopy of the canvas changed to grey. Soon she heard sharp, weird, piercing yelps, wild and haunting.

Dawn came. The ring of an axe and splitting of wood told her that Logan had begun his work. Lucinda sat up with an impulse to go out and join him. But the keen air made her change her mind. When she heard a fire crackling, however, she threw back the blankets and hunted for her boots. By the time she had the second one laced her little fingers were numb. She donned her coat, took her little bag and crawled out.

Logan was not in sight. Lucinda made for the fire. If it had felt good the night before, what did it feel now? She had not known the blessing of heat. While she warmed her hands she gazed about. The grass was grey-white with frost; tar across the open Logan appeared astride one of the horses, driving in the oxen. The sky in the east was ruddy, but the all-encompassing wall of pines appeared cold, forbidding. Logan had been thoughtful to put on a bucket of water to heat. Before he arrived at the camp Lucinda had washed her face and hands and combed her hair. This morning she braided it and let it hang.

“Howdy, settler,” she called to Logan.

“Well! Hello, red-cheeks! Say, but you’re good to see this morning...How’d you rest?”

“Slept like a log. Awoke once, after a queer dream. I was in a deserted town wandering about in these pants. What made those barks I heard?”

“Coyotes. I like to hear them. But wolves make me shiver. I saw the track of a big lofer out there.”

“Lofer?”

“That’s local for wolf. Perhaps that track was made by Killer Gray. He’s got a black ruff, Lucinda. I’ll shoot him and cure his hide for a rug. We must live off the land.”

Lucinda helped him prepare breakfast. Afterwards, while Logan hitched the oxen to the wagon, Lucinda went after the second horse. He was not easy to catch, and the best she could do, was to drive him into camp, where Logan secured him. The exercise made her blood tingle, but she was glad to warm hands and feet at the fire. The red in the east paled and sun arose steely. Logan, remarking that the day was not going to be so good, advised Lucinda to procure her gloves and put a blanket on the seat.

Presently the oxen were swinging on, tirelessly, their great heads nodding in unison. Lucinda marvelled at them. How patient, how plodding were these gentle beasts of burden! She had her first inkling of the value of such animals to the settlers in the wilderness. Thick woods swallowed up the wagon and claimed it for hours. But Lucinda was more at ease because the cold wind was shut off and the sun shone now and then.

“Move over here and take your lesson,” said Logan, at length, and put the whip in Lucinda’s hands.

“What’ll I do?” she asked, breathlessly.

“Drive,” he replied, laconically.

Before she realized it, Lucinda was piloting a prairie-schooner. The oxen went along as well for her as for Logan. But what would she do when he left the wagon to handle the cattle?

“It’s easy,” said Logan— “much easier than driving a team.”

“But suppose they do something,” protested Lucinda.

“Yell ‘whoa’ when you want them to stop, ‘gee’ when you want to go to the right, ‘haw’ to the left, and when you start up — a crack of the whip and ‘gidap,’” replied Logan, with suppressed mirth.

“It’s not so funny,” said Lucinda petulantly. “It looks too easy. They do go right along — but it’s straight road. What if a herd of buffalo or band of Indians broke out of the woods...”

“That sure wouldn’t be funny. But the buffalo are gone, Lucinda, and we put the Apaches on the reservation. Reminds me of Matazel.”

“Who was he?” asked Lucinda, a little fearfully.

“Young Apache buck. Said to be one of old Geronimo’s sons. He sure didn’t favour that ugly old devil. Matazel looks a noble red man if ever an Indian gave reason for such a fool idea. Lucinda, the Navajo braves caught your fancy. Matazel would have done that and more. He had grey eyes — the most wonderful eyes! Wild, bright, fierce! I’ll never forget the look in them when he tapped me on the breast and said: ‘Matazel live — get even!’”

“My word! Logan, whatever did you do to incur his hatred?”

“Huh. I did a lot. I was one of General Crook’s scouts. Crook sent me out with some soldiers to round up Matazel and his braves. I trailed them across the mesa and cornered them. We had a skirmish. Nobody killed. We captured Matazel and sent him back to the reservation with the rest of Jeronimo’s outfit. They’ll break out some day.”

“Won’t that be bad for the settlers?”

“I reckon it will. But no danger for us. We are a long way from the Cibeque.”

The wind increased until it began to blow the dust. This, added to the cold, induced Lucinda to crawl back over the eat and wrap herself in the blankets. Lucinda propped herself against the packs and gazed out, thinking wearily of the women who had crossed the plains in caravans. What incredible hardship and privation they must have endured! The dim, dark forest, with its threshing foliage, the open range with its flying dust, the lowering sky, the slow steady roll of wheels, the dry permeating pitchy odour that filled her nostrils-=these held Lucinda’s senses until she fell asleep.

When she awakened, Logan informed her that the lake was in sight. Cramped and stiff, Lucinda crawled back on the seat with Logan. Grey pastures fringed by pine led to a wide sheet of water, dark as the clouds. She saw fences running tip to cabins on the shore. The west side of the lake sheered up in a bold bronze bluff, while the road ran along the east shore, a ragged, rocky slope, desolate and uninviting to Lucinda’s gaze.

“Will these settlers want to take us in?” she asked.

“Sure. We’ll eat with them, but we’ll’ sleep same as last night. They’re crowded in those log shacks. You’ll be more comfortable in the wagon.”

“I’d like that better,” said Lucinda, with a sense of relief.

Lucinda found herself welcomed by Holbert and his womenfolk. If she had not been so cold and hungry and miserable, she might have regarded that poor cabin and its plain inmates in some such way as she had the long day and the hard country. But she realized that what counted were protection and nourishment, and the kind hearts that furnished them. Holbert’s wife, two daughters, and a sister lived there with him. She gathered that one of the daughters was married and lived in an adjoining cabin. They seemed to take Lucinda’s advent as a matter of course. The married daughter was younger than Lucinda and had a baby. None of them had been to Flagg since spring — six months — and they were hungry for the news that was easy for Lucinda to furnish.

Presently the son-in-law came in, accompanied by a grey-furred, wild-looking dog. He at once joined Holbert and Logan in a discussion of cattle.

“What a strange dog!” exclaimed Lucinda, who loved dogs. “Is he a shepherd?”

“Half shepherd an’ half wolf,” replied the settler’s wife. “Her mother is John’s best cattle-dog.”

“How interesting! Half wolf? I never saw a wolf. What’s her name?”

“Reckon she hasn’t none. She’s no good, because she won’t run cattle, an’ fights the other dogs. John would be glad toil get rid of her.”

“Logan,” asked Lucinda, eagerly interrupting the trio of, men, “may I have this dog, if Mr. Holbert will give her to me?”

“Why, sure. How about it, Holbert?”

“You’re welcome, if you can get her to go with you,” replied the settler.

Lucinda made overtures to the unwanted wolf-dog, and they were accepted. When presently Lucinda grew so drowsy from the hot fire that she could scarcely keep her eyes open, Logan came to her rescue. They bade their new friends goodnight and left for their wagon. The dog came readily with Lucinda.

“Rustle up to bed before you freeze again,” said Logan, helping her along. “And here’s your dog. I like his looks. I’ll bet he sticks to you.”

“It’s a she, Logan. What’ll I call her?...Come, doggie, you can sleep right here at my feet.”

“A good name always comes...Luce, I’ll go back and finish my deal with Holbert. He’ll sell me some stock very cheap and give me more on credit. The drawback is there’s no one here to help me drive the cattle. But by gosh! if you’ll drive the oxen I’ll drive all the cattle Holbert will let me have.”

“I’ll try,” rejoined Lucinda, suppressing her fears because of his eager hope.

“There’s an old homestead half-way to our place. If we can make that to-morrow night and turn the stock inside the fence we’ll be jake. Next night we’ll be home!”

Lucinda pulled off her boots, and folding, her coat for a pillow, crawled under the blankets. The dog nestled close to her. Outside, the wind was blowing a gale. As Logan had laced up the front flaps of the wagon, Lucinda was protected. But to hear it was enough. It whistled hauntingly around the canvas and roared through the trees overhead and swept away, scattering the pebbles and propelling the dust along the road. Finally Lucinda’s drowsy spell ended in sleep.

Logan’s voice penetrated Lucinda’s deep slumbers. “Daybreak, Luce! Pile out and get going...Did your dog stay with you?...Well, she did, by gosh! No man or varmint who ever pleased you would quit.”

“Compliment so early? — Oh, Logan, I can’t get up. It’s so nice and warm in here. Ugh!...I guess I’m a tenderfoot.”

“Well, Luce dear, you won’t be one by nightfall, that’s a good bet,” replied Huett, grimly. “I’m going to start you out with the oxen and follow you with the stock. Then I’ll be close to you. So you can’t stop to pick flowers by the roadside.”

The day promised better than yesterday. Clouds were wanting in the brightening sky and the wind had abated. Still Lucinda’s fingers ached again when she had laced her boots. After breakfast the womenfolk detained Lucinda for a little, while Holbert accompanied Logan out to the wagon. But Lucinda soon followed, promising to stop on her first trip into Flagg.

“Hope thet’ll be soon. But winter’s comin’,” called Mrs. Holbert after her. “Don’t get in front of thet bull John sold your man. He’s wilder’n a skeered jack-rabbit!”

Lucinda’s breast felt as if it had suddenly been crushed. She was glad the Holberts could not see her face as she ran off, with the dog leaping at her side. Her husband and Holbert were not in sight, but she heard a halloaing over in the corral. Presently Logan appeared riding one horse and leading another.

“Climb aboard, Luce,” he said briskly, in a matter-of-fact tone. “Better keep the dog with you. Here, coyote — say! there’s a name for her.”

“Coyote? Oh, it’s pretty,” replied Lucinda, as she climbed up. “Here, lift her up...Well! She doesn’t need to be packed. Logan, I believe she won’t have to be tied.”

Huett leaped up to the seat and yelled: “Gadep!” The oxen moved away with the wagon creaking. “Gee! gee!” They turned into the main road. “Now, Luce, it’s all plain sailing, without a turn-off for fifteen miles — to the old homestead. We’ve got to make it before dark...Put on your gloves...Gosh! if we make it with all my stock — one brindle bull, a mean cuss, eight cows, six two-year-old steers, and five heifers — oh! I’ll feel rich. But I’ll have to ride some.”

With outward composure Lucinda took the whip he tendered her, and averted her face. Was the man stark mad to set her this task? Or was he paying her the tribute due the women of the Oregon Trail? She chose not to let him guess her perturbation. Logan leaped off while the wagon was moving.

“Good luck, old girl!” he called, happily. “If this isn’t great? Luce Huett, ox-driver of the Arizona range! Whoopee!”

Lucinda failed completely to share his enthusiasm, although she was glad to find that a really momentous occasion could pierce his practicality. She was left alone on that high driver’s seat, too high to leap off without risking life and limb. Coyote regarded her with intelligent eyes, as if she understood Lucinda’s predicament. Lucinda held the whip with nerveless hand. The wagging beasts plodded on unmindful of her tightly oppressed breast and staring dyes. Ahead the road followed the lake-shore for miles, as far as she could see. Her ponderous steeds could not turn to the left; but supposed they turned to the right? The wagon and she, with her trunks of pretty clothes and her chest full of even more precious and perishable belongings, and Logan’s utensils and supplies for his great enterprise — these must all go toppling down into the lake. But while Lucinda watched with uncertain breath the oxen travelled along, slowly and steadily, ponderously, as they had done the day before. Probably they were not even aware that a woman-driver now held the whip. Lucinda hugged that comforting thought to her heart. She determined not to yell “Gee,” “Haw,” or “Whoa” until necessity compelled it; and gradually her fears subsided. She could look at the slope and out upon the lake, and far ahead with a growing sense of something beside the risk of the situation. She was doing an unprecedented thing: driving a prairie-schooner drawn by oxen! Here was an amazing fact that should have indulged her primitive side to the full. But that part of her seemed in abeyance.

“I had an idea school-teaching was hard,” she soliloquized. “But this pioneer game!...Oh, I do love Logan!”

The sun came up glaringly hot. Lucinda removed her heavy coat. When she looked back she thought she saw the dust-obscured cattle running the other way, and before she realized disloyalty to Logan, she hoped they were.

The time came, however, when she realized her mistake. A breeze from behind brought a smell of dust, then the sound of hoofs. Peering back, Lucinda saw that Logan’s stock was not far behind. Then through the dust she espied him, and on the moment he appeared to be throwing stones with a violence that suggested impotent fury. Lucinda had it in her to laugh. “Serves him right-’the cowboy cattleman husband who does not have time even for a honeymoon!”

Almost before she realized it she had reached the end of the lake, where the road turned across a bare flat to enter the forest. The oxen apparently saw nothing save the road, and they kept on it, oblivious of the cattle behind. Lucinda also made the surprising discovery that the sun stood nearly overhead. She was hot and thirsty, and she could not find the canteen that Logan had stuck somewhere under the seat.

As the wagon rolled around a bend in the road Lucinda looked back. The cattle were strung out. On the moment Logan was chasing some wild heifers that had swerved far off the course. The cows looked dusty and tired. Then Lucinda saw the bull. In fact, he bellowed on the instant. She had to see him. So close behind that he had driven the haltered horse right on the wheels of the wagon! A dusty beast with wide horns and a huge head with eyes of green fire and a red tongue hanging out! Lucinda conceived the fearful idea that he would frighten the horse, charge the wagon, and perhaps gore the oxen into a stampede.

This direful catastrophe failed to materialize. The oxen gained the woods, where the wide canvas top brushed the foliage on each side.

Meanwhile the hours had been passing. Soon the character of the woods gave way to scaly ground covered with brush and scattered oaks, then a large oval open grey with sage, and centred in a depression which had at one time held water. Lucinda’s quick eyes caught sight of a band of fleet, grey-rumped, graceful animals fleeing behind a coal-black leader. They flashed into the forest on the far side.

Some time in the afternoon Logan passed her to the left, making a cut off across the sage. He was at full gallop in pursuit of some of his stock. He rounded them up and turned them back with the others. After a while, far in the distance, Lucinda espied an old cabin and a fence. Logan drew far ahead. She saw him drive his stock through the fence or around it.

Lucinda was half an hour covering the intervening space. She needed all that time to recover her equanimity. But she need not have concerned herself about Logan. It transpired that at sunset, when she drove up to the old cabin, and yelled “Whoa!”, she came upon Logan sitting on a log, grimy with dust and sweat, red as fire where he wiped the black off, and manifestly possessed by an elation that had just banished a very ignoble rage.

“How’d you make it — when I wasn’t close?” he asked. “Just fine. But that bull gave me a scare.”

“I reckon. I’ll kill him yet. Of all the damn, ornery, muddleheaded beasts I ever had to do with — he’s the worst...Wife, I worried myself sick about you, all for nothing.”

“Yes, you did,” scoffed Lucinda, secretly pleased. She got off, with Coyote leaping down after her. The ground felt queer — or else her legs were insensible. “Where do we camp? And where’s the water?”

“Holbert said there’s a spring behind the cabin. Reckon we’ll camp right here.”

Lucinda untied the swinging buckets and with two of them started to hunt for water. Disillusion and weariness hung on her like wet blankets; nevertheless some feeling antagonistic to them worked upon her. A few plaintive flowers, primrose and dahlia, growing out of the weeds beside the cabin, eloquently told Lucinda that a woman had tended their parent roots there once upon a time. Perhaps a tenderfoot woman like herself! There was tragedy in the vacant, eye-like windows. She was crossing a level grassy place when Coyote sprang back with a bark. Bsszaz! A loud buzzing rattle sent Lucinda’s nerves tingling.

“That’s a rattler. Look out!” shouted Logan, from behind. He came on a heavy run. “There! See him? A timber rattlesnake.”

Lucinda saw a thick snake, black and yellow, scaly and ugly, glide under the cabin. “That’s all right,” she said to the perturbed Logan. “I’m not afraid of snakes.”

“Well, don’t go kicking one of those boys in the grass...Here’s a trail.”

They discovered the clear, bubbling spring of cold water, which made the difference, Logan stated, between a good and a poor camp. On the way back Lucinda, peeping into the log-cabin, became virtually obsessed by wonder and dread. The littered earthen floor, the blackened fireplace, the rude shelves and the bedstead of poles, told a story that saddened and shocked her. What had happened there? How little Eastern people realized the crude living of those who set their faces West! Lucinda did not want Logan to find out how strongly she felt. She asked him if he had seen the beautiful black-horned animal leading the white and tan ones across the open.

“Sure did. Golly, I wanted my rifle. That was a black antelope, king of that herd. Holbert has seen him for years.”

“Logan, you wouldn’t kill him, would you?” she asked, gazing at him in horror.

“Reckon I would. Wild animals sort of excite me. I like to hunt. I’ll bet we make the acquaintance of Gray, that black-ruffed lofer.”

“I hope not, if you must murder everything,” returned Lucinda sharply.

Logan stared at her, then stamped away with a puzzled frown on his face. Lucinda remembered how she used to fight her brothers and their comrades for chasing chipmunks along the rail-fences. How they would yell and run, wild as any young savages! But she must conquer her disgust at Logan’s passion to kill, she knew, regardless of her own feeling in the matter.

Supper was soon over and the chores finished. The lonely night clamped down upon the forest. Lucinda was glad to crawl into her wagon-bed and stretch out — glad that weariness inhibited thought. Her slumbers were punctuated by dreams of an enormous bull and a huge snake. Logan routed her out in the grey of dawn. Before sunrise the wagon was packed and the oxen ready for Lucinda.

“I’ll follow, same as yesterday,” said Logan, imperturbably, as she climbed up to the seat. “I’m not sure about all the road. But it’s most as good as that we’ve come over. There’s a long downhill stretch through the woods. When you hit that you’ll be getting near home. But I’ll be on your heels before we get there. Good luck.”

“Let me try to start them,” said Lucinda, after she had helped Coyote up. She uncoiled the long whip and tried to crack it. She did make a noise, but that was the end of the leather thong lashing her back.

“Gadep!” she shouted, at the top of her lungs. The oxen obeyed at once, to her surprise, and relief, and the wagon’ was on its way.

“Turn left,” called Logan. He waved his hat.

“Haw!...Haw!” yelled Lucinda. They wagged to the left and straightened out on the road, headed south.

“Say,” shouted Logan, gleefully, “let me drive the oxen and you drive that bull!”

“I should say not!” retorted Lucinda, refusing to allow her husband’s flattery to inflate her egotism. Something was bound to happen — she just knew it.

The morning was warm, compared with the others before it. There was no frost. When she drove into the forest she had an agreeable surprise. Jays were screeching, squirrels were chattering, grey deer with white tails up bounded away from the road. Presently Lucinda came upon a flock of wild turkeys, scratching in the grass under the pine saplings. Those near the road ran with a “Put-put, put-put-put.” But most of them let the wagon go by without taking flight. The sight greatly pleased Lucinda.

As the day progressed, the heat poured down from the sun and rose like transparent veils of smoke from the ground. Lucinda grew unbearably hot and wet. Then she ran into the stretch of dust that Logan had mentioned. It appeared to be half a foot deep on the road, and every step of the oxen sent up great yellow puffs, thick and dry, that rolled back upon Lucinda. Her clothes became as yellow as the roadside; the dust ran off her sombrero; her gloves filled; she gasped and choked and nearly suffocated. “Whoa!” she finally yelled in desperation to her oxen. They stopped, as if glad of a respite. The dust-pall rolled back, so that Lucinda could breathe. Her nostrils were clogged. She could smell no longer. Then she remembered the silk scarf which Logan had advised for this very emergency. She tied the ends around her neck and drew the wide fold up over her nose. This was stifling, yet not so unendurable as the dust. At her call the oxen lurched on, and again she was enveloped. Then followed an almost insupportable period, the length of which could only be computed by slow, hateful miles. The tears that Lucinda shed saved her from being blinded.

Presently the oxen floundered into the dust that was so suffocating that they halted of their own accord. Lucinda coughed and choked miserably. Would this horrible day never end? She felt that she could not bear it longer. The afternoon must be waning, and when the air cleared somewhat, she looked around for the position of the sun. It was low in the sky and shone dark red through the pall. Their destination could not be far off now, but, despite her misery, she hoped that Logan’s Canyon was not located in this terrible country. Where was Logan? Suddenly a distant yell quickened Lucinda’s pulse. She looked back. Dust-clouds far behind!

“Gadep!” she called. But the oxen did not budge. She called louder. Then she yelled. But the gentle, long-suffering beasts of burden had rebelled at last. Lucinda did not blame them. She looked back. That terrible bull was coming at a gallop. Swift terror shook Lucinda. Suppose he ran into us, she thought wildly. She yelled hoarsely and cracked the whip, but the drooping oxen never swung an inch under the wooden yoke.

A bawl and pound of hoofs behind elicited sharp barks from the dog. Coyote leaped to the ground and dashed back. Lucinda thanked her stars that she was high up on the wagon seat. The bull, his hide as yellow as the road, dashed about the wagon, his huge head lowered at the snapping dog. He lunged this way and that. Coyote nipped him on the nose. Then with a bellow he charged and in blind fury or by accident ran into the oxen with a terrific crash. The shock nearly upset the wagon. Lucinda screamed. The bull sprawled as the oxen, leaping ahead, struck him with the yoke. Down the road the oxen galloped madly, Lucinda holding on to the seat, terrified. They were running off, going faster every moment. The wagon rolled and swayed, but careened along fast enough to keep ahead of the great stream of dust which rolled from under the oxen’s ponderous hoofs.

Lucinda realized she must leap for her life. Sooner or later the oxen would run off the road into a log or a ditch; but every time she essayed to get a hold and a footing which would enable her to spring clear a bump would throw her back. The yellow road flashed under her; the trees blurred; the ground appeared like moving sheets of grey. A heavy, clattering thud of hoofs mingled with the rolling, creaking roar of the wagon. Alas for her trunks and Logan’s treasured possessions!

The oxen sheered off the road towards brush and trees. They were slowing down of their own accord, or the soft going retarded them. Lucinda made up her mind to leap into the brush. She stood up, leaning out, holding desperately to the canvas-covered hoop. But before she could jump, the oxen plunged into a wash, the wheels hit a bank with a tremendous shock, and Lucinda shot as if from a catapult far out into the brush. Thick branches broke her fall. Still, she landed on the ground hard enough to make her see a shower of sparks.

She struggled to her feet, dizzy, scratched, torn, but sound in limb. A few rods beyond, the wagon stood upright, with the heaving oxen halted by the brush. The extra horse that had been haltered was missing. Lucinda staggered out to a log at the edge, and there she sank down, panting, scarcely able to believe her good fortune, suddenly freed of mingled terror and anger.

Then she saw that Coyote had stopped the bull a short distance up the valley. Logan appeared beyond, urging on the spent, straggling bunch of cattle. He chased the bull in among them, and, riding from one side to the other, shunted them off the road on Lucinda’s side, passed her with a wild shout, and drove them into the woods. Because of that move, Lucinda knew gratefully they had not far to go.

She rested, endeavouring to remove some of the travel-stains and the blood on her wrists where the brush had scratched her. Coyote sought Lucinda out and sank to the ground, her red tongue protruding and her heavy coat yellow with dust. Presently Lucinda espied the horse that had been tethered behind the wagon. She secured it and led it back to the oxen. Oppression from her exertion and fright weighed heavily upon her.

At length Logan rode back to her; black as a coal-heaver; yet nothing could have hidden his triumphant air, his grim mastery, his gay possession of success.

“Done!” he cried, ringingly. “Not a hoof lost! But oh, what a hell of a drive!...What happened to you, Luce?”

“Oh, nothing — much,” she answered, calling upon a sense of humour that eluded her.

“But you look queer. And the wagon there — in the brush! But say, Luce, your face — it’s all scratched.”

“That awful bull! He butted into the oxen. They ran off. Down here they turned off the road, hit a bank and pitched me into the brush.”

Logan leaped off to approach her with earnest solicitude. “You poor kid! I was afraid something had happened. I shouldn’t have left you so far ahead. But are you hurt, dear?”

“No. Only a scratch or two.”

“Thank God for that!” He shook his head in wonderment. “I can’t get over how my luck holds.” He ran to the wagon, then examined wheels and tongue and the oxen. Evidently no damage had been done, for he mounted the seat and with yells drove the oxen out of the brush.

“All right. Come on, honey. Get up while I tie the horses behind...It won’t be long now, Luce! Sycamore Canyon! My range! Our home!”

Lucinda had lost her hopes and what little curiosity she might have had. Logan drove into the woods, along what appeared to have once been a road. Oxen and wagon jarred heavily over saplings. After about a mile or less Lucinda saw a light space through the woods. The green failed, and far beyond and above appeared again, only dimmer. There was an opening and a valley — a canyon, Logan had said — just ahead. On the left side of the road a rocky ledge rose. Logan drove through a gap between the ledge and a brushy bank, halted and dismounted to carry poles and small logs with which to improvise a gate closing the opening. How energetic he was and tireless! There seemed a growing passion within him. Lastly he hauled a log that two men might well have found burdensome, which he placed across the gap.

“Luce girl,” he said, intensely, as he mounted beside her. “Our stock is down in the canyon. Fenced in, all save a few holes in the rock rim they’ll never find before I close them. Aha!...I’ll show you pronto.” A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulders.

Lucinda could not look just yet. She watched Logan jump off the wagon, untie the horses at the back and drive them past the wagon, down what appeared a narrow, overgrown road. She saw him take an axe and chop down a small pine as thick at the base as his thigh. The whole bushy tree, by prodigious effort, he dragged behind the wagon and secured with a chain.

“What’s that for?” she asked him as he returned.

“Just a drag to hold us back. Pretty steep. Hold on now and look. You’ll see the greatest valley in all the West!”

In spite of herself, Lucinda was compelled to gaze. A long, winding, apparently bottomless gorge yawned beneath them. As the wagon lurched down the grade, this thing Logan called a canyon gradually became visible. It struck Lucinda with appalling force: a grey, granite-walled abyss widening to the south, yawning up at her as if to swallow her. It appeared narrow just below, but it was not narrow. As all this deceitful West, it was not what it appeared. A ribbon of water and waste of white sand wound through the centre of it, to disappear round a bend; beyond, the canyon widened out into a great basin enclosed by yellow slopes and pine-fringed rims.

Lucinda had to hold on tightly to keep from being thrown off the seat. As the wagon rolled deeper into the declivity, brush on one side and bluff on the other obscured Lucinda’s view. The grade steepened. Screeching brakes and crunching wheels increased their clamour. Despite the oxen holding back and the drag of the pine tree behind, the wagon rolled and bumped too fast for safety. Lucinda held on to her seat, although she wondered bitterly why she clung to it so dearly. Then suddenly the pine tree behind broke or pulled loose; the wagon rolled down upon the oxen, forcing them into a dead run, and swaying dangerously one side to the other. Barely in time for safety it rattled out upon the level open of the canyon floor and came to a jarring stop. Manifestly unable to control his elation, Logan drove across a flat of seared, bleached grass, across a shallow brook and bar of sand, up a considerable grade to a flat where big pines stood far apart and a white-barked tree shone among them.

“Whoa!” he yelled, in stentorian voice of finality, that echoed from the black, looming slope above. He threw away his whip and, giving Lucinda a grimy, sweat-laden embrace, leaped to the ground, and held out his arms to help her down.

“Sycamore Canyon, sweetheart!” he said, with husky emotion. “Here’s where we homestead.”

But Lucinda did not move nor respond on the moment. She gazed about spellbound, aghast. The drab, silent rocks, the lonely pines, shouted doom at her. The brook babbled in mockery. There was no view, no outlook except down the grey, monotonous canyon, with its terrible, forbidding walls. Savage wilderness encompassed her on all sides. Solitude reigned there. No sound, no brightness, no life! She would be shut in always. A pioneer wife chained irrevocably to her toil and her cabin! A low, strange murmuring — the mysterious voice of the wild — breathed out of the forest. The wind in the pines! It seemed foreboding, inevitable, awful, whispering death to girlish hopes and dreams.

CHAPTER FOUR

HUETT, SELDOM PREY to strong feeling, expected Lucinda to share his joy at their safe arrival in the canyon which they were to homestead, but he was somewhat taken back by his wife’s pale face and the strange gaze that seemed to see beyond the pines. When she had no word to say, he divined that his vague fear of her reaction to Sycamore Canyon had been justified. But, he reflected, women were queer, and beyond men’s understanding. What difference did it really make where they began to live their lives together? The essential thing was that they were together, mated, facing the great project. He stifled his disappointment.

“Come down and let’s rustle,” he said, and helped her out of the wagon, aware that she was heavy on her feet. “Rest a bit. Or better walk about. I’ll throw supper together in a jiffy.”

As she walked slowly away, not looking, Logan felt sorry for her. But what had he done that was amiss? This was the finest place he had ever seen. He threw off his coat and filled all the water-pails. What a wonderful spring — cold as ice, straight from granite rock, soft as silk, and even now, late in the fall, flowing a hundred gallons a minute! That spring was priceless. As Logan carried the pails, he gazed about for firewood. Up the canyon on the slope stood an aspen grove, burning vivid gold in the sunset. There would be dead aspen wood there — a wood next best to dead oak for a corking fire. He fared forth with an axe and dragged down some long poles. He noted with pleasure that beaver had been cutting the live aspens, and he wondered where their dam was. He built a fire with pine, and split the aspen to burn afterwards. Lucinda had not come back.

While Logan was rushing the supper, Lucinda returned, carrying a handful of flowers.

“Purple asters!” she exclaimed, her pale features animated for the first time. “My favourite flowers! These are wild — so much larger and lovelier than cultivated ones.”

“Lots of wild flowers in these woods,” he replied. “I like best that yellow one, like a bell in shape, that nods at you in the creek bottoms.”

“I saw golden rod along the road. That’s something,” she said thoughtfully. She helped him get supper, ate without appetite, and wiped the utensils after he washed them.

Logan felt full of thoughts and feelings. He was not given to voluble expression, but if she had encouraged him now he might have formed the nucleus of a habit to talk. But she said only that it was much warmer down in the canyon. This night she did not put on her heavy coat, nor stand eagerly by the fire.

“I’ll make your bed before it gets too dark,” he said.

“What will we use for lights?” she asked, curiously.

“Camp-fire. I can get some pine knots presently. There’s a box of candles to use in the cabin, when we throw that up:’ When Logan emerged from his task in the wagon, Lucinda was standing with her dog watching the afterglow fade in the west. He made his own bed under the great pine near-by. Dusk fell, and then began the gloaming hour Logan liked best. He lighted his pipe. Lucinda came back presently.

“I’m tired,” she said. “I’ll be — all right to-morrow. Good night, Logan.”

“Good night, dear. You’ve sure been game.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly with his hand, but did not attempt to kiss her.

Night closed down upon the canyon. Logan sat smoking. He saw the fading red embers of his fire, the great looming pines, the black, shadowy wall; he smelled the smoke and the tang of the forest; he heard the sough of the wind, the brawl of the brook, the wail of coyotes. But he did not waste thought on these external manifestations which measured his contentment. He had made the drive from Flagg in three days, with a heavy load, the latter half of the distance with a score and more of cattle, and a wild bull. That stock, his oxen, and horses were safe in the canyon. It seemed incredible. Even with less than that he would have had a splendid start. His ranch was an established fact, and his range would be the envy of cattlemen some day. Yet he did not dream; he had no illusions. He was assured of the fact that he would have a great herd. Holbert had had trouble with a grasshopper plague one year, but such a contingency did not worry Logan here.

He looked impartially towards success in the long run. As he would not require cowboys for many years, he could manage the ranch himself. Lucinda would cook and take care of the children when they came. He would do the thousand and one tasks that fell to a homesteader’s lot. For the immediate present he had the log cabin to throw up speedily — a job for one man; then the gaps to close in his natural fences around the canyon; and after that the winter’s supply of firewood and meat. He would never have to kill any beef — not in this forest. Such a reflection afforded him double satisfaction. He would be able to indulge in his one and only pleasure, and, besides that, save many calves and yearlings.

It did not occur to Huett, as he stretched out under the blankets, that he was a happy man. Nevertheless he felt a great sense of accomplishment — to have won Lucinda Baker for a wife, to have driven safely into Sycamore Canyon with supplies and stock sufficient for the long task ahead — this seemed as much of a miracle as he ever dared hope for. The rest depended upon him, and he was positive that he was equal to the task. He had never tested his powers, but he felt that they were unlimited. Sleep glued his eyelids the instant he closed them.

At dawn he was up, wading through the dewy grass to ‘fetch in his horse. He saw deer with the cattle, and wished he had brought along his rifle. Venison was tasty after the first frosts and would keep if hung up in the shade. Returning to camp, he put his heaviest saddle on Buck and left him standing bridle down. Logan next applied himself to putting up a tarpaulin shelter in a convenient place. He had a camp-chair somewhere in the wagon. This and a box for a table would do for Lucinda.

The sun struck down early into Sycamore — another of the many desirable features of this canyon. In summer it would be hot, but in winter the more sun the better. Huett anticipated much from those ample south slopes and walls, Which, would not only melt snow off promptly, but reflect heap down-upon the level. What corn, beans, cabbage, hay, grapes, peaches, he would raise! While mixing the biscuit dough that morning Logan located certain spots for gardens and fields.

Lucinda appeared, her face sunburned and slightly swollen.

“Mawnin’, settler,” she said, with a brightness that he was quick to grasp.

“How are you, Luce?” he greeted her, heartily.

“Fine. Only burnt to a crisp, lame in one leg, and sore from sundry scratches,” she replied wryly. She had brushed her hair and left it to hang in a braid, a way that made her look more girlish, and pleased Logan. “I’m afraid to wash my face, it’s so sore.”

“Don’t. Be chary of water in this country till you’re broken in.”

“Heaven! — What’ll we do for a bath?”

“There’s the brook.”

“Be sensible, Logan. Besides, I felt that water last night. Cold — why, it made me jump! Can’t you fix a place for us?”

“Sure I can. And I’ll do it pronto. The brook will be good enough for me yet awhile.”

“Where’s my dog?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

“She went out before daylight.”

“Coyotes! By gum! I hope she doesn’t run true to form. Them half-wolf dogs are queer. She might go back to her kind; for she’s more wolf than shepherd.”

Lucinda made a face. “Oh dear! — I suppose I mustn’t let myself love anything out here, because I can’t keep it.”

“I reckon, Luce. Nothing except me,” he replied, not realizing the jest.

“You? Why — er — of course, Logan. But can’t I keep pets?”

“Sure. But I won’t swear how long. You can have bear-cubs, fawns — anything I can catch for you.”

“A bear-cub? Oh, how darling! I’d love that.”

While they sat at breakfast Coyote came back, her long fur full of burrs, her tongue hanging out. Lucinda was delighted at her return, while Logan was manifestly not displeased. The dog had evidently been chasing some wild animal, but apparently knew when to return home.

“Well, Luce, you clean up while I tackle the big job,” drawled Logan finally.

“What?”

“Our cabin.”

“How thrilling! Let me help.”

“I should smile you will help.”

“Where’ll we put it? How big?”

“Right there, in the centre of the bench. I reckon those pines are good to stand a hundred more years. How big? — Doggone, that stumps me. I guess I can manage twenty-four-foot logs, if they’re not too big around.”

“Twenty-four feet! How many rooms?”

“One. We’ll have to live in one room. After a time, as our needs grow, we can add a section.”

“But, Logan, that Holbert cabin was awful,” cried Lucinda impetuously. “Small, dark — no floor, no porch...”

“Don’t worry, Luce. I’ve thought of that,” Logan assured her. “We’ll have a floor and a flat stone hearth. I’ll extend the roof beyond the cabin wall — say twenty more feet...like this,” he drew a rude plan on the ground, “with posts to hold it up at the corners. And a loft to store things.”

“Logan, can you do all this alone?” she queried, as if suddenly appreciating the enormity of his undertaking. “Sure can. You’ll have to help, though. Our tough jo! will be to lift logs one above the other, after we get so high. But I’ll cut a forked sapling, heave up an end of the log in that. You’ll hold the sapling while I tend to the other end.” “But suppose the log should slip,” suggested Lucinda fearfully.

“I won’t let it. Shall I move your things under the shelter? I’ve a chair and a box. Then you can find something to do until I come back.”

“Yes, please. I’ve plenty of sewing.”

“Good. Can you knit, Luce?”

“That is one of my few accomplishments.”

“I’ll bet you have a lot of them,” Logan declared pridefully. Then, having moved her belongings and the boxes to the shelter, he took his axe, and, mounting Buck, rode up the canyon. Round the bend and conveniently half-way up the slope stood a dense grove of pines which Logan had remembered from a former trip. He could drag what he needed downhill all the way, a factor saving of labour and time.

It took less than half an hour to cut and trim the first log for snaking down to camp. How deep the heavy axe had bitten into the pine, and how satisfying the feel of swinging it! Logan took a half-hitch with his rope round the log’s end and, mounting, looped the pommel and started at a long angle downhill. The lop slipped along as if greased. As he neared camp the dog barked, and Lucinda ceased her work to watch him. It was something deeply exhilarating tor Logan to see her there.

“Making out fine, Luce,” he called in a cheery tone, as he dragged the log into camp. “What have you been doing?”

“Chastening my spirit, Logan,” she returned cryptically.

Riding back up the canyon, he wondered what Lucinda bad meant. But he did not ponder long over her complexity.

In the following hour Logan snaked down the three other logs, and by the time Lucinda called him to eat ‘he had the four foundation sides of his cabin squared, levelled, and blocked up with flat stones.

“I’ll cut logs this afternoon and to-morrow,” he told Lucinda. “Maybe it’ll take another day. Fine crop of small pines to choose from. But the shakes have me stumped.”

“Shakes?” inquired his wife.

“Yes. Shingles for the roof. They’re called shakes in the West. You split them out of a big pine log. It’s got to be straight grain, and not too sappy. Maybe I can find a lightning-struck pine. Ought to, for lighting sure strikes in this forest.”

“Thunderstorms, you mean?” asked Lucinda fearfully. “I’ll say. Terrible electric storms. Trees crashing all around you — rain, wind...”

“I’m afraid of storms,” said Lucinda in a troubled voice. “When I was a child, Mother used to shut me up in a dark hall.”

“Don’t worry, Luce. It’s too late for that kind of storm.” He glanced at the sky, shaking his dark head. “Lord, I hope the snow holds off till we’re under a roof. But the weather here is fine till Thanksgiving, mostly.”

When Logan finished his work, supper was almost ready and would have been earlier, Lucinda explained, but for the biscuits. She had burnt the first batch.

“Luce, it’s no easy job,” said Logan, hastening to excuse her. “Did you remember to heat the lid while you wen heating the oven?”

“No. But I put a shovelful of coals on the lid.”

“Always heat it first...Well, this has been a doggone good day. Only too short.”

“It was long for me — and lonesome,” she replied wistfully. “You’ll always be at work, won’t you?”

Logan nodded gravely. “I reckon so, Luce, come to think of it. But I like work. That’s what I want. And presently you will be so busy the days will fly.”

Lucinda did not seem to share his optimism. The thought struck Logan that he must be kind and attentive to her. He helped her with the work after supper, talked about the cabin, and afterwards persuaded her to walk with him along the brook. He felt affection and solicitude, and warm yearning; but he was clumsy about expressing such feeling. Still his presence and his attention had a brightening effect upon her that he was glad to see. Lastly he kissed her good night, and was amazed at her wet eyes, shining in the firelight.

Before sunrise next morning Logan shot and dressed a deer, cut and stacked firewood, and had breakfast ready when Lucinda arose. He then put in a prodigious day with the logs, cutting and trimming fifty, and peeling most of them. He did not know where the hours went, but that one spent with Lucinda after supper seemed to bring them closer. She was beginning to display interest in his work, to ask about the future. Yet she seemed to have a dread of being left alone, and she hated the cold. Logan vowed he would make their cabin snug and warm; and as if the daylight hours were not enough, working by firelight, he notched and laid the second square of logs.

“But there’s a space between,” protested Lucinda when she noticed their arrangement.

“Sure. We can’t get the logs perfectly flat one on another.”

“What will we do, then? The rain and wind would blow in.”

“Tenderfoot! What’s dobe mud for if not to fill in the chinks? This kind here in Arizona sets like mortar.”

“I used to build mud houses — and now I’m to live in one,” said Lucinda dreamily, then, “But where’ll the doors be?”

“Only one door. Opening on the porch to the east. Storms usually blow from the south-west. I’ll strain a point, and put in a window for you — in the south wall. That’ll let in sun and light.”

Without any help, the following day Logan notched and lifted and squared four sections of logs on top of the two already laid. This, he told Lucinda, was getting somewhere, but he would need her assistance from then on. His mode of procedure might not have been original, but it was effective. He leaned a forked sapling against the cabin wall and lifted the end of a log to rest in it. Then Lucinda held the sapling while he performed a like service with the other end of the log. He managed to hold it, too, while he climbed up on the wall. Then he set his notched end in place, after which he crossed to Lucinda’s side and placed hers. Logan was delighted with his ingenuity, and could not see why his wife was not the same.

The fifth day bade fair to be the hardest and most trying of all. Log after log Logan notched and set in place, one on, top of the other. The fragrant yellow wall went up. Once Lucinda came near to disaster. A log slipped at Logan’s end while he was climbing and holding at the same time. It fell. Only by remarkable strength for a girl did Lucinda hold here prop in place.

For once Logan lost his characteristic reserve.

“Luce girl, are you all right?” he cried anxiously as he swung down from the ladder. “My God! If that had come down to hit you...” He could not finish the sentence.

After the log had slipped into place, Lucinda leaned against the wall, her face white. “I’m all right — I guess,” she said.

“Lord! what a jackass I am! After this I’ll use the rope and haul my end up!” exclaimed Logan fervently. “But, then you haven’t got those square shoulders and round arms for nothing.” Coincidentally his pride in her grew.

They worked late that night and completed the walls. Log was jubilant. He relieved the weary Lucinda from the supper task and laughed at her sore hands, although he tenderly picked the splinters from them. Then he gave her a good night embrace and sat up long beside the fire pondering the problem of the roof. Before he went to bed he solved it; and the following morning, putting the simple plan into effect, had flattened poles, laying them across from wall to wall, giving him a foothold from which to erect the roof structure. He wanted a high peak for two reasons: first to make a steep slant from which the snow would slide, and secondly to give the loft room for a man to stand.

That brought Logan to another problem — to find a suitable pine, cut it down and split out the shakes. But, his good fortune attended him further. He found a fallen pine, riven at the top by lightning. It lay at the edge of the pines above the cabin. Another downhill haul!

Logan’s first few bundles of shakes would make excellent firewood and no more. Presently, however, he got the knack of it and made up for lost time by putting on extra muscle. Packing the shakes down proved a harder job than he had expected. His initial attempt was to drag down a bundle in a canvas. This proved a poor way. Then he tried packing bundles on Buck, an equally ineffectual task, because Buck was a poor pack-horse and displayed temper. By using a burlap bag as a pad on his shoulders, Logan carried a bundle of a hundred or more shakes down at a trip. The climb up was short, and unburdened he made it quickly. Sunset of that day saw his roofing piled neatly beside the cabin.

The weather had been fine, even too hot in the afternoons, but on the last day a change threatened. A haze overspread the sky. The golden Indian summer was at an end. The wind moaned in the pines; November was at hand.

That night Logan was awakened by dull, rumbling thunder away to the south-west. He groaned. Then he swore. Pattering rain fell upon his canvas. The first fall storm always began in that way: usually it rained a little, turned into snow, and then into a blizzard. It would be serious indeed if Lucinda and he were caught without their cabin completed.

Morning came, drab, raw, with misty cold rain falling. Logan built a fire, cooked breakfast, and then carried firewood for Lucinda to burn while he worked. It heartened him that she still preserved a cheerful spirit.

Logan tackled his job grimly. He placed bundles of shakes along the wall, so that he could heave them up with a rope. Lucinda slipped the noose under the bundles as fast as he could loft them. He laid as many along the rafters as he thought he would need on that side, then, while Lucinda repaired to her shelter to get warm and dry, he set to work.

With the cold rain falling, the slippery rafters hard to straddle, and the nailing to be accomplished with benumbed hands, Logan had as grievous a job as even he wanted. But he stuck doggedly at it without time wasted at noonday. Lucinda called him, but he kept on. Every shake meant so much. Another few inches of roof! About mid-afternoon the rain ceased, to Logan’s grateful surprise, the clouds broke up a little, and a pale sun shone through. Logan finished a whole side of the roof by evening in a tremendous burst of energy. Then, wet and starved and half-frozen, he clambered down the pole ladder to a warm fire and a hot supper.

“Logan, you are wonderful,” said Lucinda with enthusiasm. “But, giant though you are, I fear you’ll kill yourself.”

“Ha! Work never hurt any man...I don’t know, though. If I’m not tired I’m damn near froze!...Golly! Venison and mashed potatoes. And gravy! Whoopee!...Luce, I’ll have a roof over us by to-morrow night.”

On the morrow the sun shone again, and before it set Logan made good his boast.

“There! She’ll shed — water,” he panted, huskily, as he came down, a flame in his grey eyes. “Our homestead cabin is up — and roofed. Now let’s move in.”

“I see,” replied Lucinda. “But Logan, how do we move in? There’s no door — no window.”

Logan stared. His jaw dropped. “Holy mavericks!” he exclaimed in consternation verging on mirth. “I’m a son-of-a-gun if I didn’t forget to cut either...Luce, I guess we don’t move in to-night, after all.”

Huett kept up his mighty pace of labour. He began his floor from the foundation log of the cabin. Here his proficiency with an axe asserted itself. To rough-hew logs and lay them close and flat, with level sides uppermost, called out all his skill. He laid the floor in two days, leaving a large open square against the north wall for the stone hearth and fireplace.

Logan built a bough bedstead in the corner, framing it so it would hold a goodly mattress of evergreen foliage. He wanted to use balsam for this, but he did not believe that species of evergreen could be obtained as low down from the rim as Sycamore Canyon. Therefore he chose fir, which was as springy as balsam, if not so sweet-smelling. He packed huge bundles of fir boughs down from the slope, and cut them, using only the tips, in short lengths. When he had a sufficient quantity he carried it in. He folded a piece of canvas and laid that over the bed. “Here, wife, is a job for you,” he said cheerfully, and he showed her how to lay the tips of fir with the butts down, one, upon another, in layer after layer. While she laboured at this task Logan spread the blankets in the warm sun, then sat down for the first daytime rest. This was not through weariness — he never acknowledged such a weakness as that — but because he became conscious of something no longer possible to put aside. Once released, it surged over Logan, warm, imperious, staggering... his love for his wife and his need of her. Of late she had appeared less strange and no longer aloof. She had worked willingly at whatever task he gave her, and sometimes she laughed. This isolation, he could see, was tremendously hard for her, being used to family and friends, to the social life of a town; but he believed she would grow used to solitude and become engrossed in their great task. Strong emotion, so seldom actuating Logan, and never before like this, came over him. He had been considerate of Lucinda, far more than most husbands would have been, and during these days of toil he felt that she had grown dearer for his restraint. He packed in the warm woolly blankets and threw them in a bundle at Lucinda’s feet.

In the subdued light of the cabin she looked pale, and her dark eyes met his questioningly. Logan took her in his arms. “Dear wife,” he said, “I love you — and I want you. Will you make our bed — and let me come to you — to-night?”

“Why, Logan! Of course,” she answered, shyly. “I’m your wife. And I — I love you, too.”

If Huett had been happy before he was happier now. The still, smoky, warm days persisted. He laid his hearthstones and built’ his fireplace and chimney. It was a serviceable job, though wanting the finish he had been able to put upon his carpentry. But he was not a mason. When he found that his chimney would draw, and not fill the cabin with smoke, he whooped his delight. Then with boards he had brought in the wagon he built shelves and a table. He drove pegs in the logs upon which to hang utensils. In his mind’s eye he saw a fine head of elk antlers on the wall for his rifles. In an opposite corner he constructed shelves for his ammunition, of which he had a large amount, and his few personal belongings. For Lucinda he built a wardrobe with a canvas curtain, and a box-like affair she could use as a bureau. Above this he hung a little mirror.

The hour came when Logan fared out on horseback to attack another important job — the fencing of the gaps on his canyon walls. It took him a week of arduous labour, but labour in which he revelled for many reasons, not the least of which was the sight of deer and elk, and lion tracks and flocks of wild turkeys, and his cattle grazing below. One day he sighted a newly born calf, and thought of that as a herald and a promise of the great herd to come.

His anxiety over the possibility that snow would come before he had rolled and snaked down sufficient firewood for winter was without warrant. November days stayed clear and warm with pale sun. Dead aspen wood by the cord, hard as iron, lay, already felled by the beaver. Huett had but to drag it to the cabin — cut, split, and stack it on the windward side of the wide porch. Dead oak he snaked down from the woods above. And he sawed many sections of pine, to roll them down the slope. Before he completed the cutting, however, the weather changed. The pale sun faded behind gathering cloud, the air lost its warmth, the wind sang the knell of Indian summer. A cold fine rain began to fall.

“Luce, she’s coming, and we almost got her beat,” announced Logan, stamping in at noon that day...

“Who’s she?” interrogated Lucinda, in mild surprise. “Winter, by gosh! Just let me hang up some meat to freeze — then we’re jake.”

The drizzle turned to sleet, and when Logan awoke during the night he heard its soft patter and seep upon the cabin. How good it felt to be housed, snug in this strong abode made by his own hands, warm under the woollen blankets beside his young and hot-blooded wife! Logan had no fear of wind or snow or cold. But before he went to sleep he heard the wild bay of hunting wolves. That was different. Wolves were the bane of settlers.

In the morning there was a thin sheet of snow on the ground and white flakes were falling scantily. His horses favoured the lee side of the canyon, where, under the high shelving wall, neither wind nor snow reached them. Logan saddled Buck and, rifle in hand, rode up the canyon. “Well, varmints,” he said to the tracks in the snow, “you better keep off my range.” Before Logan had ridden two miles up the draw he crossed tracks of beaver, fox, marten, deer, and cat, but none of cougar or wolf. While building the fences at the upper end of his range he had barred two elk trails, with the satisfaction of realizing that the elk which had come down could not get back. At length Logan came upon a small herd, feeding in one of the offshoots of the canyon. They were as tame as cattle, but Logan had no compunction about shooting a fine bull. He hung it up from a strong branch, dressed it, and cut off the antlered head. This he stuck safely in the crotch of a sapling. The carcass he loaded over his saddle. Buck snorted under the heavy load, and packed it unwillingly back to the cabin.

Logan chose the big pine nearest the cabin, and therefore unexposed to sunshine, upon which to hang this meat. He skinned the carcass first, and nailed the fine hide to the wall of the cabin. Then he cut out the haunches and hung the several parts high over a branch, out of the reach of all beasts but the cat family.

Lucinda fried elk liver for Logan that night for supper. She, had learned how to bake fine sourdough biscuits. Logan thought he fared sumptuously, and he told Lucinda so.

“I’ll hang up a couple of deer to freeze and some wild turkeys,” he went on. “Then, if I can only track a fat bear that hasn’t holed up, we’ll be jake. Bear-fat renders fine grease and oil. Best to cook with. As good as butter. And a bear rib roasted — umm umm!”

As luck would have it, Huett shot his complement of game without travelling three miles from his cabin. The brakes in the lower end of the canyon appeared to be winter quarters for all kinds of animals. These ravines were choked with splintered cliffs and windfalls and thickets of oak. Buck came in for some hard packing before Logan brought all the meat home.

On the last trip, late one grey November afternoon, Logan came upon the half-eaten remains of one of his heifers. Cougar tracks in the thin snow! Logan sustained a strong shock: This was an abrupt break in the happy and fortunate sequence of events. The big cat had rolled the skin back and eaten the liver, taking hardly any more. Coyotes had consumed about half the carcass.

Logan vented his rage vehemently to the leaden skies. It was his first set-back. No doubt the cougar had killed other heifers and calves. Logan had no time that night to search, but he swore he would trail that cougar to its lair.

It was dark when he returned to the cabin. He unpacked and unsaddled Buck, to turn him loose. The load of meat he lifted up on the wood pile. Then he burst into the cabin, where for the first time a bright blaze of faggots in the fire, and steaming pots on the hearth, and Lucinda’s pale, pretty face warming at his entrance, failed to elicit a glad shout.

“Wife, what do you think?” he began, his face red and heated. “I found a cougar kill. One of our heifers! Damn cat ate only the liver. I’ll bet he’s killed others...Why in hell don’t cougars stick to deer meat? But when the snow flies they want beef...By God, I’ll kill him! Here’s a chance to use your dog. Coyote will trail that varmint if I can’t...Luce, wolves and lions are the curse of cattlemen on wild ranges. I knew that, yet I overruled the warning...But, I see now — and it’s war on the meat-eaters!”

Lucinda looked at him with what seemed surprise and compassion.

“My dear husband! Has it taken that to show you the terrific truth of your trial? I have known it since we got here. All the time I’ve known it...Don’t be discouraged by this loss, or by what it threatens. You will conquer all obstacles.”

“Why — bless your heart!” exclaimed Huett, turning his big cold hands to the fire. He felt amazed, ashamed, and something else he did not quite grasp. “Sure, you’re right. It’s nothing...But how good to feel the fire — to smell that stew — to see you here!”

CHAPTER FIVE

LUCINDA WATCHED THE drifting snow. It was late in the afternoon of a winter day. A steely brightness showed where the sun hung over the western fringe of the canyon, and black patches stood out on the south slopes where the snow had melted. The dry, scattered flakes swirled down; ceaselessly the wind moaned in the pines. During these winter months that ghostly wind had been the cruellest of Lucinda’s trials. She hated it. She feared it. For ever it haunted her with the spectre of loneliness and isolation. When the storm-king raged out of the north, sometimes it drove her frantic. In the dead of night, when Logan slept beside her like a log, it was endurable, but she could not refrain from listening. There would come a lull, and then a faint moan far off. It would grow and swell, and sweep through the forest, mounting to a tremendous roar. She could feel the cabin move over the roots of the great swaying pines. The roar would move on, dying to a moan.

Twilight was creeping out from under the walls. It would soon be dark. When Logan did not come home by nightfall she would fall prey to uneasy worry. It was nearly time to begin supper. The fire was red, the kettle beginning to sing.

The months had dragged by. Logan Huett was not only a natural hunter, but also a rancher who had conceived a passion to kill predatory beasts. Day after day he left Lucinda by herself in the cabin. At first she nearly died of loneliness, but she never let her husband see that. She had her housework, her sewing, and her knitting — tasks she left numberless times to look out, as she was gazing now, unseeingly across the cold, white, black-tipped ridge to the outside world. Logan had killed nine cougars, and many coyotes. The wolves, however, had so far been too keen for him.

His herd, his poor little herd of cattle, had dwindled to the brindle bull and three cows. Calves, heifers, steers all gone, except the furry bags of bones! That had been heart-rending for Logan. He dreaded this would defeat his cherished hopes, yet he was a man whom nothing could stop. His one consolation was the growth of Lucinda’s respect and love for him. In many ways Huett was wanting. He was neither callous nor selfish nor indifferent, but his great fault was his blindness to the martyrdom that he had nailed upon his wife. Long since, however, Lucinda had given herself to his project, and nothing could have swerved her from it now. She had resolved to make herself the helpmate of the pioneer. She had every qualification, but her one weakness was her sensitive mind, her emotional nature.

Hours on end she had pondered over the lives of the women who had come before her to this devastating West. What had happened to them? If they had been delicately organized as she was, they had become hardened to meet the callousness and brutality of the wilderness; or else they had died.

Lucinda was heavy with child now in this last winter month, and the feeling of life within her had been the best resistance to the morbidness of the early weeks of that season. She had always loved children. She longed for some of her own. She wanted passionately to give Logan the sons he would need in this long fight to success, but giving birth to them in this desolate hole in the forest appalled her as nothing else ever had. The nursing and caring for them as babies did not loom so terribly; nevertheless, it struck her deeply. When they grew old enough for her to teach — that would be her happy task; and when they were lads, big enough to ride and shoot and plant and chop, to do all Logan talked so fondly of — that would be wonderful.

She fought loyally against the tragedy that seemed inevitable, against the disillusionment which hung in the balance, against the magnifying fears that beset her.

Down across the pale track of daylight upon the snow Lucinda made out the dark figure of Huett, bowed under a burden, with the dog trotting beside him. Turning away from the window, she threw wood on the wire, lighted a pine cone, and set about her neglected supper task. Presently she heard a crunching of snow and pattering sounds, then the thud of a heavy pack upon the porch. The door opened, letting in a cold blast of air and flying snow. Logan came stamping in, virile and forceful, followed by the whining dog.

“You’re late, Logan,” said Lucinda, “so I thought I’d better wait till you came before getting supper.”

“Hello, girl! — Late nothing. I’m early to what I expected,” he replied, cheerfully. “Luce, this dog of yours will trail a cougar — any kind of cat, and bear, too. But she won’t take a wolf track.”

“Blood tells, you know. What did you do to-day?”

“Lord, let me see. What didn’t I do?...First off Coyote chased a lioness up a tree — the biggest cat I’ve killed. After I skinned her out I visited my traps. Had a mink, marten, or beaver in each one of them. I skinned those out. Then I shot and hung a buck. We’ll have fresh meat again. Coming home I had a look at the place we drove down to get in here. Snow all off. Think I’ll begin work on that road we need so bad — I can cut trees and brush away, build a fence and a gate where I piled those poles, and be ready when the ground gets soft to grade a road out.”

“How soon will that be, Logan?”

“I reckon pretty soon, if signs can be trusted. We must be well into March. Funny I couldn’t find that calendar. I stuck it some place...It’s getting time we should keep track of days on your account.”

“Logan, I told you the baby would come in July.”

“No, you didn’t...Maybe I forgot. Anyway, I’m glad it’ll be midsummer.”

“You must have the doctor from Flagg for me.”

“Well, I will if it’s possible. But I’ll sure have some woman to see you through it...Pour me a basin of hot water, Luce, and rustle supper.”

Day by day the sun grew higher and warmer. The snow, except that which lay under the walls facing north, melted away, yet it seemed to Lucinda that spring came all at once. The turkey gobblers must have thought the same, because one day they began to gobble from every hilltop. It was a chorus Lucinda never tired of hearing.

The brook ran bank-full of smoky snow-water; the jays came back to squall in the trees; the warm winds began to dry up the boggy places.

“Got the road all graded out tip-top,” said Huett, one evening. “Reckon to-morrow I’ll mend harness and grease the wagon.”

“You’ll be leaving for town soon?” queried Lucinda, anxiously. She would be left alone — the bitterest test of the pioneer’s wife.

“Not very soon, much as I’d like to,” replied the homesteader, seriously...”We’re most out of supplies. Holbert told me the road would be good here a month sooner than up beyond Mormon Lake. But there’s a heap of work. I’ll plot out the fields and gardens — clear them up and get ready to plough. My! what rich soil we have, Luce. We can live while we’re starting that herd.”

“Have you any money, Logan?”

“Not much. But my credit is good. Besides, I’ve got a pack of pelts to sell. If I’d known last fall what I know now, I’d have trapped a wagon-load of furs. That’s a dodge I’ll work next winter.”

All too soon for Lucinda the time arrived that Huett had set to leave for Flagg. If he had been less practical and less engrossed with his important journey, the condition of roads, the prices of cattle and merchandise, he could not have failed to see Lucinda’s vain effort to hide her agitation at this first parting; but he took his leaving as a matter of course, and evidently thought she did also. After he had gone Lucinda wept nearly the whole day. When night came she barred herself in the cabin, and stayed up late, busying herself at various tasks in the dim light. Coyote slept by the hearth. At times, involuntarily, Lucinda stopped her work to listen. At night it never rested — that awful wilderness, wind. It rustled along the ground outside, moaned under the eaves, mourned in the pines. After she went to bed it kept her awake until she buried her head under the blanket.

Compared with the night, the day was blessed relief, yet even the light had its drawbacks. She could see the frightening loneliness then — the long, winding, grey-walled canyon without a sign of life. She wanted some hunter or settler to happen along, although she feared even that. She worked the long hours away.

Doggedly she kept count of the days. On the afternoon of the tenth she heard the grind of iron wheels upon stone, and then Logan’s trenchant call to the oxen. The dog flew out of the open door. Lucinda thrilled to her depths. She saw Logan driving down to the level, and felt that at last all was well with her once more.

Logan was clean-shaven. How handsome his tanned, lean face! His dark eyes beamed upon her. Lucinda felt weak with her relief, her happiness, her sense of utter dependence upon this man.

“Oh, Logan — I’m so glad — you’re back!” She almost wept with relief of the strain that had burdened her.

“Hello, wife! You and home look mighty sweet to me...Six months’ mail for you. Heaps of it. And a whole canvas pack of bundles. Got all on your list, and added some on my own hook...How’d you manage without me?”

“I worked far better — and slept less,” she said with an attempt at levity as she received the heavy pack he handed down.

“Any hombres show up round here?” he queried, halting in his task to fasten intent eyes on her.

“I haven’t seen man nor beast since you left. Darling, I would have welcomed an Indian — or even a grizzly bear.”

“Well, maybe...Here, I better lift this pack down. It weighs a ton.” He balanced the long bundle on the wagon-wheel and, leaping down, carried it into the cabin. “Luce, I had some durn good luck. That explains the big load. You know those pelts I had and how you complained last winter because I killed and trapped the poor dear beasts? Well, I got eight dollars for beaver hides, five for mink and three for marten. What do you say to that? Saved me from going into debt! I’ve got supplies to last till fall, corn and beans and potatoes to plant. No end of seeds. And some much-needed farm tools. Best of all, I bought another little bunch of cows and heifers from Holbert. I’ll have to rustle after them some’, day soon...All paid for, Luce!”

“That’s wonderful, dear. I’m so glad you didn’t need to go in debt,” exclaimed Lucinda.

“We’ll begin all over again. Believe me, I wasn’t the only rancher south of Flagg to lose stock last winter. Bad winter for varmints! That grey wolf ran amuck up Holbert’s way...Lots of other news, but I’m not much of a hand to remember things. Reckon it’ll come to me bit by bit...but one thing I do recall — old Geronimo broke out of the reservation with his braves, and made south for Mexico, killing and burning. By God, Crook should have hanged that old devil. I reckon my redskin friend Matazel was one of them.”

“Matazel! You mean that grey-eyed Apache who swore he’d live to get even with you?” queried Lucinda, her face paling. “But isn’t he dangerous?”

“You needn’t be afraid, Luce,” Logan assured her. “I’d; love to have a bat with him, but General Miles with a regiment of soldiers are hot-footing it on the track of the Apaches.’ They’ll get Geronimo eventually. It’ll be a long, hard, bloody, chase, though. Apaches are light steppers and they cover ground.”

“But wasn’t this forest once their hunting-ground?”

“They ranged all through the Mongollons and the Matazels once upon a time. But that is past. We needn’t worry about them, dear...Well, you read your mail while I unpack.”

Lucinda felt an inexplicable reluctance to open her letters and bridge the measureless gap between the present and the past. But after the poignant plunge, she gained some nameless solace and strength. Life had gone on without any particular changes to her loved ones. It was an interesting and awesome thing to read the gossip of old friends. She received a melancholy pleasure in hearing about the vicissitudes of the teacher who had succeeded her with that unruly class. Lucinda’s sister, having attained the mature age of sixteen, wrote that she would be happy to come West and marry a pioneer like Logan — if Lucinda would find him for her. Lucinda whispered, “God forbid!” under her breath and then felt amazement and shame. Had she come to such intolerance as that? But she decided she would nip in the bud any such growing sentiment. One Baker girl sacrificed to the vast empire of the West was enough! Altogether, then, Lucinda’s letters re-established relations and renewed memories that were good for her.

Lucinda was glad to get outdoors with Logan. She found that being penned indoors for months had contributed much to her inclination towards morbid thought. Her energy came back, and with it something of enthusiasm. At least, she found some satisfaction in her yielding to work in the open. She laboured steadily at the planting, though not violently, and appeared to grow less heavy and loggy for the exertion.

To plant things in the earth seemed to Lucinda a happier and safer way to expend labour than to use it on the raising of cattle. In the main, the soil was sure. Lucinda loved the smell of the freshly tilled loam. She loved to get her hands in it.

Logan’s especial pride was in the cornfield. Only a man of such enormous strength and endurance as he possessed could have ploughed and planted such a big field, alone and in such short time. Besides that, with Lucinda’s help he put in an acre of beans, a large plot of potatoes and many rows of cabbage, and lastly a considerable area of turnips. He had a leaning towards produce that could be fed to stock.

Lucinda planted sunflowers and golden-glow on the porch side of the cabin. These homely flowers would be reminders of her mother, with whom they were favourites.

Huett’s estimate of the fertility of that canyon soil had not been without warrant. There was one section rich with black leaf-mould, where seeds sprouted as if by magic, and potatoes and cabbage came up almost over-night. Corn and beans followed as if loath to be left behind in the race for fecundity. Logan raved to his wife that Sycamore Canyon was a land of milk and honey.

However, he had reckoned without his host! The crows and gophers began at once to contest with Logan his right to the soil. Once more he became a hunter. Lucinda heard a carbine popping all day long. He planted props with old coats and hats all around the fields. He made scarecrows of dead crows, and it was only by the greatest vigilance that he saved his crops.

In June he took two days off to ride to Mormon Lake and drive back the new stock he had purchased from Holbert. When he turned these cows and heifers loose in the canyon no one would have guessed that he had suffered a grievous loss. Lucinda heard him laugh and whistle as he had while building the cabin. Then presently she heard him swear as never before. When his corns and beans attracted the deer, his rage knew no bounds. He did not want to shoot the deer; and every dawn and every dusk he and Coyote had to chase the four-footed destroyers out of the fields.

As Lucinda’s time drew nearer she fell prey to the morbid old fears. Logan had assured her that Mother Holbert had brought forth a troop of children, counting her own and her daughters’, and that she would come the instant Logan rode after her. Holbert had a light buggy in which the trip back could be made in four hours. Nevertheless neither Logan nor this experienced old mother could still the voice that whispered to Lucinda. It was like the voice in the pine-tops, that whisper of tidings from the unknown. Lucinda had all the yearnings, the hallowed anticipations of a mother, the vague feelings of fulfilment to come; and these were beautiful, all-satisfying, strong and sweet and rewarding. Nevertheless they did not preclude the dark forebodings nor the instinctive blind terror of child-birth. All these distressed her despite Logan’s assurances that a woman would be with her. A presentiment that she would be left alone filled her with uneasiness.

Huett did not see this. He was kind, even loving, but he was stupid. Lucinda felt that she wanted to fly into a rage and flout him with his preoccupation in his practical tasks. Here she was about to go down into the valley of the shadow for him, for his offspring, and he felt no concern.

Logan rose at daybreak and rushed out to shout and shoot the deer out of the fields. All day he toiled in the fields; at night he ate like a wolf, smoked a pipe, and if he conversed at all, it was about his new-born calves, or his corn. He then tumbled into bed to sleep the sleep of honest toil. In the darkness of night, while Lucinda lay awake, helpless in the loneliness he had failed to break through, she almost hated him. Then when day came again she would reproach herself for such black thoughts. This burden was something a woman must bear alone.

Then one day she sustained a pang which instinctively warned her that the crucial time had come.

“Logan! — Go after Mrs. Holbert! Make haste!” she implored.

Her husband gave her one comprehending look and rushed out. A few minutes later Lucinda heard iron-shod hoofs cracking the rocks on the road. She sat down, composing herself with the courage of despair. Logan could be depended upon to return with someone in six hours or less. But that might be too late. She was but a woman whose intelligence grasped the inevitableness of the time, whose delicately sensitive nature shrank in terror from a repetition of that terrific first pang. It did not do any good to try to think how she would meet the situation alone. She felt the slow ascendancy of the animal. She was in the clutches of Nature. The pang recurred, to be prolonged into a paroxysm of agony. At its conclusion Lucinda heard voices and footsteps and Logan entered with a man and two women.

“Luce! talk about — luck,” panted Logan. “I run plumb — into these good folks...Tom Warnock — his wife and mother — travelling south...They’ll see us — through this.”

Lucinda smiled a welcome to the kind-faced, eager women. Then she was seized again — dragged down to the primitive verge, where her last conscious thought was that she did not care for sympathy or help, or even for her life that was begetting life.

The Warnocks stayed three days at Sycamore Canyon, until Lucinda’s condition was satisfactory to the womenfolk, and then they drove away, leaving Lucinda immeasurably grateful, and Logan a prey to doubt and gloom. He told Lucinda that Warnock, a rancher and cattleman of long experience, thought that this natural-fenced canyon was a delusion and a snare. True, it would keep cattle from straying and it was wonderfully fertile, but that was all the good the could say for it. He advised Logan to homestead some other range.

“What would you do, Luce?” he asked, appealingly.

Lucinda was sure Logan would never give up his canyon. He had dreamed of it for years; he had set his heart upon it, and no matter what the obstacles were he would rise superior to them. She knew that her part was to encourage and sustain.

“What do you care for Warnock’s opinion?” she said sharply. “He was either envious or mistaken. He admitted you had a fenced range and a fertile one. Your strength and industry will make up for the drawbacks.”

She had never before seen her husband respond so markedly to words from her. He brightened and cast off his pondering dark mood.

“Right! I should have come to you sooner,” he declared. “I have my homestead, my cattle range. My dear wife and son! Surely I can work to deserve them.”

The baby made a vast and inexplicable difference to Lucinda. When she recovered her strength, so that she could go about her duties, she was as happy as she had been miserable. Logan named his son George Washington Huett, and worshipped him. Lucinda could never have been convinced that her husband had it in him to waste time over an infant in a basket. But eventually she divined that this tiny son was Huett’s self repeated, his perpetuation. Huett might be thinking that George would grow into a sturdy son to help conquer this wilderness. Whatever it was that went through the father’s mind, it made Lucinda rejoice.

The canyon took on a transformation in Lucinda’s eyes. Daily it grew in her sight until the long, grey sweep of range, the sloping, black-fringed walls were bearable. The great tall pines, never silent, always mournful, began to whisper a different language to her. The brook sang by day and the crickets by night that she must find herself and content her heart there. Such possibility had come with the baby.

In six weeks she was working with Logan in the fields. Many times they were driven indoors by the sudden electrical storms. As the days grew more sultry these storms increased in frequency and intensity. The sky would be azure blue, with cloud-ships of white sailing across. Then some would show with darkening, mushrooming centres, followed by an inky pall. Jagged forked lightning and splitting thunderbolts, peculiarly Arizonian in their intensity and power, awakened Lucinda’s old fear of storms. And it grew in proportion to the vastly sharper and more numerous zigzag flashes and the looming, thundering volume of sound. The splitting shock and the crash of a struck pine added materially to the threat of the storm, as well as the hollow slamming of echoes from wall to wall. The smell of brimstone always preceded the smell of electrically burned wood. Rain poured in torrents upon the cabin roof.

“Nothing to be afraid of, wife,” Logan said stolidly, as he watched from the open door. “Lightning never strikes down in a canyon. That’s another good feature about our homestead.”

This period of storm lasted less than a month. For Logan its worst feature was that it beat down his corn and washed the soil from the roots of his beans. It was followed by hot weather. Day after day grew hotter. The heat reflected from the stone walls and proved that Logan had planted his corn and beans in the wrong place, and had made no provision for a blasting torrid spell. His patch of beans burned up; his half-matured cabbage wilted as if under the blast of a furnace; his turnips withered, and at last the ten acres of corn, over which he had toiled early and late and which had been his pride, drooped sear and brown, leaf and ear dead on the stalk.

Huett took this sickening destruction of his crops bitterly to heart. It hurt him as had the depredations upon his cattle. His first herd — his first season’s planting — all for naught!

“But, husband dear, look at our baby. Look at little George Washington!” exclaimed Lucinda, praying to say the right thing, to renew the courage of this headstrong defeated man.

Huett shouted, as if to the skies. “It was nothing. Only a lesson!...George and you are all that count — bless your hearts!”

CHAPTER SIX

SEPTEMBER CAME, WITH its fringe of golden rod and its clumps of purple asters. The hot spell slowly surrendered to the cooling nights.

Holbert had brought Lucinda a neighbourly gift in the shape of a setting-hen and a dozen eggs, which he vowed were worth their weight in gold on the range. Lucinda diligently watched the hen, and when the twelve little fluffy chicks hatched out, her delight was unconfined. She had developed a deep satisfaction in the birth of living things. The hen was a great pet, and kept her brood round the cabin. Lucinda feared the prowlers of the night, and shut up her little feathered family carefully at sundown.

Towards the end of September, when the chickens had grown to a respectable size, Lucinda missed one, then another, both of which disappeared during the daytime. Logan took the matter seriously. It seemed that whatever they attempted was destined to failure. He told Lucinda that he believed a coyote or fox was to blame for the depredations. Lucinda’s chickens continued to vanish, and she was unable to discover the source of their disappearance until one day she heard the mother hen squawking at a great rate. She hurried to the door just in time to see a wide-winged hawk flying towards the tree-tops with a struggling pullet in its talons. Then, if never before in her life, Lucinda experienced the blood lust mounting dangerously within her. She watched the hawk fly to a dead limb and there calmly begin to rend and devour the chicken. Logan was close at hand, working on a fence with which he intended to enclose a large area under the opposite wall. At Lucinda’s call he came running.

“Logan! It’s a murderous hawk,” she cried, in rage, pointing at the bird of prey. “It’s eating my chicken — right before my eyes. Kill it!”

“Hen-hawk,” muttered Logan. He dashed indoors to emerge with his rifle. “If he sets there a second longer it’s Katy, bar the door!”

Logan elevated the rifle and appeared to freeze into a statue. Lucinda clapped her hands over her ears, but she watched. At the sharp crack of the rifle she saw a puff of red-brown feathers drift away on the wind, and the hawk, releasing its prey, pitched off its perch to sail heavily downwards.

“He’s hard hit, Luce,” said Logan, grimly. “But we won’t take any chances.” As the hawk came along overhead, sagging, Logan shot again to bring it hurtling to the ground across the brook. He went to fetch it, while Lucinda returned to the cabin a little surprised at the fierceness of her feeling and its weakening reaction. It was a death-dealing place, this awful wilderness of pine ridge and grassy canyon. Now she clearly saw that it was well that Logan possessed as unerring an aim as he did and an unrelenting heart. Not for days did she recover completely from the sickening spectacle of that hawk calmly devouring her pullet alive. Logan had told her that both wolves and cougars loved hot blood — to tear down their prey and glut themselves while the deer or heifer was dying. Before, this would have shocked her, but gradually she was growing insensible to all but the most devastating crises.

October came with a promise of the quiet, purple, smoky days of autumn. The leaves appeared to be slow in colouring. Logan said there had been slight frosts, and that if rain came with the equinox, which was late that fall, there would be a riot of gold and scarlet and purple.

Every day Lucinda carried the baby in his basket across to where Logan was at work, and while he slept in the shade she helped her husband. He was on a big job which he hoped to complete soon so that he could drive to Flagg for winter supplies. He was building a fence of Toles, high enough to shut out any beast but a cougar, and here he meant to keep the seven calves born the past summer. Shed and corral had already been completed under the wall.

After Logan finished the fence he began to cut the unmatured corn. It would make good fodder, he said. Lucinda laid the stocks in bundles, as they were too short to stack. Logan hauled two wagon-loads to the shed and stored them for winter.

“Won’t you take me to Flagg with you?” she asked pleadingly, one evening, after their field work was done.

“And take the baby?” he asked, in surprise.

“Of course. I couldn’t leave him here.”

“Wouldn’t it be hard on the kid?”

“That is what has worried me. Would it be — very?”

“Would it? Well, I guess. Hard on you both. You’ve forgotten how rough that road is. I’ll have a big load coming back. Reckon you better not risk it.”

Lucinda did not quite understand the gravity of her desire to visit Flagg, but she did not press Logan further. She wanted to, go to town, see people, make purchases with which Logan could not be trusted; she hated the thought of being left alone again — but none of these reasons accounted wholly for her intense wish to accompany him. At length she reluctantly decided to remain at home, and kept to herself one of her vague, queer intimations.

“I’ll have heaps of work when I get back,” Logan said. “If we should have an early winter, I’d just be out of luck. And I’m afraid we will. I see birds dropping down here on their way south, and every varmint I’ve run across has thicker fur than last year. That’s good, because I’m going to trap a lot of fur this winter. The acorns have thick hulls and they’re falling already...By gosh, I was p sick about the corn and beans and cabbage that I forgot about the potatoes. Reckon they never grew at all. But that patch was planted in the black soil. Never saw such rich ground...”

“I’ll look, and if there are any I’ll dig them,” rejoined Lucinda.

“Good. You’ll find sacks in the shed...But doggone, I kind of hate to go this trip.” He scratched his head. “No money. Six months of supplies. I need traps, and so many other things I haven’t even counted them...Heigho. I’ll need my credit this trip sure.”

“Why do you dislike taking credit?”

“I don’t. All farmers and ranchers live on it. But they have crops and herds coming on. My crop failed, and it’ll be long before I raise any cattle. I must depend on the pelts I can trap. Last fall, when I was hunting over across the ridge, I ran on to a beaver dam that was a humdinger. Lake as big as this bench. Lots of beaver there. I’ll work it this winter, till the snow gets too deep on top.”

Still Logan lingered on at the ranch, finding odd jobs to do. One of these was deflecting the outlet of the spring to run it down close by the cabin, a task that could well have been left, but Lucinda had found it handy to fill a bucket right at her door. About mid-October, when the weather was at its best, she advised Logan to go. She resisted sending for things she thought she needed, although she had begun to realize how she could do without almost everything. What she could not improvise, she dispensed with. Clothes, medicines, luxuries — these she had forgotten. And when she remembered, she thought of her trunk full of bride’s dresses and flimsy garments. How useless here on the range! But she vowed she would not give up yet and grow old and never care about her appearance.

It dawned upon Lucinda after a day longer that Logan wanted to ask her for money, but was ashamed. She thought it best to keep that five-hundred-dollar marriage gift intact, for there would come a time when she would need it more than now.. So she pretended not to guess his feeling, and when he finally asked her outright, she evaded both consent and denial. Nevertheless Logan left in a huff, perhaps because he had weakened to ask her. How sure she was that he would be glad some day for her strength!

As the weather had cooled, Lucinda’s energy had returned full tide. She felt that she would develop into a fit mate for Huett, if she could only learn to subjugate her thoughts to the practical tasks that confronted settlers. But she always thought and felt too acutely.

The morning of Logan’s departure, she left Coyote to guard the baby, and she went up the canyon to gather wild grapes. This was the first time she had ever been round the bend. Here the canyon did not have the characteristics that marked it below. The walls were hidden; the forest covered slope and floor; the brook poured out from a green-gold bank to leap over a ledge; the aspens blazed in golden glory and the maples burned scarlet. The grape-vines hung from oak trees along the brook, and their mingled foliage of bronze and russet added to the prevailing colour. The pines were scattered, allowing the sun to shine through in broad rays. Lucinda stopped to gaze in surprise and what was almost consternation. It was lovely there. She had never until that moment accorded any beauty to Sycamore Canyon. She had seen it first at the drab end of autumn, when her receptiveness had been blunted by her terrible disappointment.

A flock of wild turkeys scattered as she approached the grape-vines. The big birds had been feeding there. Lucinda heard the “Put-put-put” of a hen calling young ones. She felt an affinity with that mother. Lucinda filled her basket in short order. The large purple grapes made those with which she was familiar in Missouri look insignificant.

She rested several times on the way back to the cabin. The basket was heavy. And she kept looking back. The wildness and loneliness of the solitude did not prohibit beauty. Really they enhanced it, as Lucinda saw with clearer eyes. Logan’s ruthless axe had not desecrated here.

Lucinda resolved to go back often to that coloured glen. It grew upon her. Whatever had enlightened her or removed, the scales from her eyes, she must trust and cultivate. She had found melancholy happiness in the tending of her sunflowers; surely there was a relation between that and this new-found pleasure in the woodland. Since the coming of the baby she divined that it was a deeper and more motivating power than she had felt before. Huett’s salvation depended upon lusty sons.

Upon arriving at the cabin again, Lucinda set the basket of grapes upon the porch and curiously looked down the canyon. It appeared that she looked through a transformed medium. Grey field and winding brook, forbidding walls of stone and yellow, red-spotted slopes, high ravines choked with wild growth, and black-fringed ridges against the blue sky — all had become invested with a glamour as real as the purple haze that hung over everything like smoke.

“Oh, if this — this only lasts!” cried Lucinda, and turned’ to her work. It was to find that her task did not prohibit visual and mental study of the changed wilderness.

She built a fire outdoors and put the large iron kettle upon it. How vividly this outdoor fire, the smell of smoke, and the kettle, recalled the autumn days at home when her mother made, peach jam and apple butter to preserve for winter! And hard on that succeeded the poignant pinch of her poverty. She’ had nothing to preserve for winter except the wild grapes she had stolen from the turkeys.

While these grapes were stewing Lucinda happened to think of the potato crop, long given up by Logan as a failure. She took the forked spade from among Logan’s few tools, and hurried out across the canyon to the shaded swale of black soil. It was a long, narrow acre lined by some big pine trees. The shrivelled potato-plants were hardly to be found in the grass and weeds, but the outline of the long rows could be discerned.

Lucinda shoved the spade deep under some dead vines and pried upwards. The spade stuck in something hard. Pulling it out, she uncovered the hill, to expose great brown potatoes, one of which showed the wet marks where the fork had pierced. Lucinda fell upon her knees in virtual rapture to dig energetically with her hands. Potatoes! Could she be dreaming? In that single hill she unearthed nineteen, all solid, perfect, and some as large as quart measures. Missouri could not boast of such potatoes as these. That black soil — mast, Logan called it, a mould of leaf and pine needle — accounted for such growth. But Lucinda could not trust to this one hill. She dug up another, to exhume half a dozen enormous ones. Then she tried a hill in another row, and then another, with a like result. Evidently they had matured early in the rich soil before the hot spell came.

“Oh, it isn’t all bad — Logan’s luck!” she exclaimed, gladly. “What a pity he didn’t find out before he left! He could have hauled a whole wagon-load to Flagg.”

She carried some of the potatoes back to the cabin, thinking that she would endeavour to dig and sick the crop before Logan’s return. By mid-afternoon she had filled all her crocks with the grape-jam. Then she milked the two cows Logan had put in the pen, after which she got her supper.

Sunset blazed gold and red down in the canyon, and when it faded the cool wind breathed down from the heights.

At dusk Lucinda barred herself in the cabin. Coyote had been her only companion before, but now she had the bright-eyed, crowing baby. The mother side of her felt like a lioness; there remained, however, that stifled but resurging nature of Lucinda Baker which she feared would never grow callous to loneliness, to solitude, to dread of elemental things and the worse ones of the imagination.

The wind did not rise and no wild beasts prowled about the cabin. Lucinda went to sleep and did not awaken until the hungry baby proclaimed his wants. When the smoky, still morning came, and Lucinda saw the white on the grass and the blanket of fog far down the canyon, she thought she had gained a victory over herself.

That day, in addition to her other tasks, Lucinda dug three rows of potatoes, and spread them out to dry. Before she stopped she found it back-breaking toil. Yet it had made her happy as cooking and washing and mending never had. The dank odour of the black soil, the feel of the potatoes, the hot sun pouring down, and the sweat on her brow — all proof that she had the vigour and the will, that she was indisputably a pioneer wife — these raw sensations, added to the uplifting ones of yesterday, made her perceive her lot in a stronger, clearer light, made her begin to build against the outrageous shocks that she knew must ensue.

Hour after hour Lucinda laboured in the field. If she halted occasionally to catch her breath or straighten her aching back, she gazed out at the ever-changing canyon scene. Sometimes she saw Logan’s cattle down the grey stretch; often deer and turkeys watched her without fleeing; once a herd of elk, some with great antlered heads, rolled and cracked the stones on the slope. And every day the smoky veil of autumn deepened, the stillness grew more pronounced, the colours took on more fiery hues, the plaintive notes of birds heading south accentuated the silence. A living, breathing presence in the great forest seemed to hang suspended over them, waiting for a voice.

At last, on the eighth day, Lucinda sacked the final pile of potatoes; and she viewed the field with more than satisfaction. Huett’s amaze and gladness would be divided between sight of this abounding yield of potatoes and realization of his wife’s prodigious labours.

Lucinda finished strongly, but ruefully looked at her calloused palms and the capable, hands that had once been tender. She would never again see them white and soft, even if the dirt could be scrubbed out of the blistered skin. Her round arms were as brown as the oak leaves, and her tanned face had become impervious to the sun. The little wall-mirror told Lucinda that she was a handsomer woman than she had been a girl. But who was there to see her now? Logan never looked at her that way. Lucinda experienced a poignant return of the old yearning for friendly faces, gay voices, for the life that she had been brought up in. The old revolt against loneliness, against this bitter, forsaken range where she had blindly expected to find neighbours, women, close at hand, lifted its hydra-head and had to be cudgelled down. Neighbourly settlement of this land would never come in her day. She must resign that longing, she must make work, baby, and Logan fill her life. There was always compensation for loss. She believed in time she would find consolation in toil such as she had just ended.

That afternoon the sun had faded under a grey haze. Lucinda marked the change only at sunset, when she missed the rose and gold colours. She feared it might mean a change in the weather. Wet, heavy roads would slow Huett, if not detain him. Probably he was far on his way home now. She refused to be depressed by the untoward sign, did her chores as usual, and went to bed early.

Sooner or later Lucinda awakened. Apparently no sound had disturbed her rest. The child was asleep beside her. Coyote did not move. She listened. And she became aware of such silence as had never before lain upon that cabin. She could not tell where the window was, which proved that the night outside was as black as pitch. The air felt appreciably warmer.

After a prolonged moment of suspense and uncertainty; a low rumble, almost indistinguishable, came up out of the south-west. It sounded far away. Lucinda wondered if it was a landslide somewhere in one of the canyons. Avalanches were heard infrequently, though they occurred in the spring or rainy season.

Moments dragged on. It came again — a faint rumble, as if made by a rolling rock. Then a long interval ensued before the next disturbance, which seemed closer, louder, and was unmistakably thunder. Could it be a belated thunderstorm, at the end of October? Then she remembered Logan’s telling her that some of the worst storms known to the canyon country of Arizona slipped up at night heralded by a few insignificant rumbles of thunder.

Ah! Her arch-enemy, the wind! A long, strange sigh seemed to sift through the forest, on over the cabin, and down the canyon. It ceased. Lucinda strained her sensitive ears. Even the tips of the pines were silent. Then the still, oppressive heaviness and impenetrable blackness warned Lucinda that she had not sensed these before. Dread clamped down upon her.

Suddenly, lightning flared, weird and pale outside the window, to be followed almost instantly by an angry short clap of thunder. Lucinda gathered her endurance to withstand more; but there was no continued flash of lightning and roll of splitting clouds.

Instead the wind gained strength in volume. Its soft, low moan swelled to a steady wail that grew, seemed swallowed up in an oncoming roar. Lucinda trembled under her blankets. This storm could be no less than the belated equinoctial disturbance — in that latitude a dreadful onslaught of the elements.

A mighty roar of gale swooped over the canyon. Lucinda could sense that the fiercer stratum of wind passed over her cabin, missing all but the tops of the lofty pines. Above the tumult, up on the ridges, crash after crash split the din, witness to the fact that old and dead pines were falling like leaves before the blast.

But Lucinda knew that the autumnal hurricane was no respecter of pines, even like those in the prime of life which surrounded the canyon. She heard them creak, she felt their sway in the lift of the cabin. That one giant with the blasted top — she was positive that one would crash. What was happening up on the ridge-tops was now of no moment to her. The menace was close at hand.

A terrible splitting crack that drowned the uproar ended in an earth-jarring crash. Stones rattled down from the chimney. The cabin settled down from its leap, and the wind roared on as before, high up, with its steady whine punctuated by more shocks low down in the canyon. Then the flood-gates of the black sky opened to add a roaring deluge of rain to the frenzy of the wind.

All the rest of the night Lucinda lay there stiffly, clutching her baby to her breast, until she was deaf and numb, insensible to pain and terror; the storm raged by and grey dawn broke.

Arising wearily, she uncovered the red coals of her fire and replenished it with chips and cones. She made breakfast and fed the baby before gathering courage enough to look out. She heard the sullen chafe of the flooded brook. When she unbarred and opened her door the sun had arisen, bright and steely.

Lucinda gazed out upon a changed canyon. The great pine had fallen so close to the cabin that some tips of its branches had broken against the wall. The other trees adjacent had withstood the gale. High up on the slopes windfalls were scattered about. The brook was a yellow river, swirling down the canyon, its muddy surface covered with driftwood and leaves. She would not be able to cross to milk the cows that day; and if Logan returned he would be compelled to camp on the other side. The glorious golden groves of aspen, the scarlet ravines, the patches of sumach, the thickets of oak and maple, only yesterday a mosaic of bronze and russet and purple, all appeared devastated of beauty and stood shrunken and drab under the cruel morning light. The drenched pines loomed dark, their foliage thinned of all their lacy brown. It was as if a blight had passed over the wilderness. Something was gone. The wind moaned its requiem in the tips of the pines. The still, warm, smoky, glamorous days, that seemed always afternoon, were as irretrievable as the fallen leaves.

Lucinda did not see how the sun could shine so brightly. The elements of Nature were as relentless as the beasts that clawed and ripped live flesh. Another season had come, the herald of winter. These changes had to be. The days and weeks and months rolled on in their inscrutable cycle. Life also had to go on; and human beings were like leaves tossed about in the turgid flood. A nameless, imponderable force lay heavy upon her.

Her depression wore away during the day, like the flooded brook, which gradually ran down to normal. With her endless tasks before her and the prospect of Logan’s return nearing, Lucinda recovered from the shock. Every vicissitude was leaving her stronger. She began to divine that there was a lesson to be taught through all this, if only she could find the courage and necessary intelligence to absorb it. Still she feared blindly that she might be beaten down into the submissiveness and lethargy of an ox, although her common sense repudiated this.

Next morning the brook had fallen low enough for Lucinda to ford it and milk the cows. At noon the sun was bright and warm. She emptied the sacks of potatoes and spread them to dry. Every few minutes she would halt in her task to gaze yearningly at the road to see if Logan was coming. He was long overdue. There was scarcely anything left to eat in the cabin...

That night she slept poorly and was restless when awake. The dawning of a fine, clear day usually cheered Lucinda, but this morning she seemed distraught. Her work did not take her mind off Logan’s failure to arrive. From anxiety she passed to dread.

He would be coming soon; she felt that. But she surrendered to an impulse to climb from the canyon to watch along the road.

She did not mind the journey, although little George was growing heavy. When she reached the top and drew out on the main road she sank to rest on the same log where she had waited for Logan that day the oxen ran away with her. The spot appeared unfamiliar. After gazing about, she decided a better view could be obtained up on the rocky bluff above the canyon road. Pantingly she climbed the short distance.

From this location she could see the yellow road winding along the edge of the forest, and several miles beyond where it cut up over a bare ridge. As she watched, a moving white spot appeared. It was a prairie-schooner. The slow, snail-like movement attested to the team of oxen.

“Oh! it’s Logan!” she cried, breathless with relief and joy. “Baby, here comes your daddy now!”

All at once Lucinda’s queer, undefined dread vanished like a shadow over which the sun rose. How glad she was that she had come up to see him before he could reach home! It would be an hour yet before he turned off to descend into the canyon, and with so heavy a load he might be longer.

“But he mustn’t see me here!” exclaimed Lucinda; suddenly confronted by her childish anxiety. She hurried down the bluff and into the weedy road. Coyote had gone off chasing some animal. She called, but the dog did not return. As Lucinda went on; leaving the gate open, she wondered what Logan would say to the great fallen pine that had so nearly crushed the cabin? Probably he would take it practically, as he did nearly everything: “Gosh! that equinox laid a winter’s firewood right at my door!” None the less, Lucinda felt that all was well again. It would be six months before he could leave her in the spring. Six long months without the dreaded lonely oppressiveness that had weighed upon her so heavily.

She felt young and happy again, and her love for Logan welled up from an overflowing heart.

When she surmounted the bench to the cabin she espied the numerous piles of huge potatoes shining out there in the sun. That unexpected stroke of good fortune, as well as her work, must fetch something really extravagant in the way of compliments from Logan Huett.

Hot and panting, Lucinda went indoors to lay the sleepy baby in his basket.

Suddenly she heard a sound outside. A padded step! Could that be Coyote? She would have run to the door, but something hindered swift movement. From the threshold she saw several ragged ponies. Two of them bore riders. Lean, dark, wild! They were Indians. And on the instant a tall savage strode from one side to confront her.

Lucinda saw a handsome, sombre visage lighted by, piercing eyes of grey. Before her mind worked beyond sensation the Indian shoved her back into the cabin. He spat across the threshold and entered.

“Me Matazel!” he announced, impressively, and he struck his beaded breast with a sinewy brown hand.

That Apache! Lucinda was rooted to the floor. Logan’s mortal enemy, the Apache who had sworn to get even — he was here! She seemed to grasp his lithe, magnificent presence, his ragged buckskin garb, though his eyes held hers with the hypnotic power of a snake. They were grey eyes, something like Logan’s, and as they swept her body they grew terrible with a hot, searing blaze.

“What do you want?” she cried.

“Matazel get even! Matazel take Huett squaw!” he hissed, snatching at her. “Say no, me kill — burn cabin!”

Suddenly Lucinda heard the shrill squeaking of wheels on Logan’s wagon, coming down the steep road beyond the corrals. The Apache heard, too. With a piercing look at her, Matazel wheeled and strode silently from the cabin. Lucinda saw him join the Apaches. Avoiding the trail, they rode up the canyon, quickly out of sight.

Lucinda’s legs wobbled under her and she almost sank in collapse. Logan, the woodsman, would surely see the tell-tale signs of the Apache’s visit. He would take up his rifle and trail Matazel. The Apaches had heard Logan. They would ambush and kill him. Logan must never know. As she heard the oxen splashing through the brook, Lucinda grasped a broom to run out and sweep away the moccasin tracks on the hearth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HUETT WENT OUT in the grey of dawn, glad to feel a light sifting snow almost damp in his face. That meant moderation of the bitter cold. The hard winter, with deep snows on the ridge-tops, had ruined his cherished plan of trapping abundant beaver and other animals. He had cleaned out his canyon of valuable fur. Deep snows had driven an old cougar down into the protected places, and Huett’s little herd had suffered severely.

With his milk-pail Huett strode for the cowsheds. In the pale gloom the brook made a black belt down the white canyon. Only in the most severe weather did the water freeze. He was thinking that a thaw would be most welcome. His hay was all gone and the fodder would not last another month. The cows and heifers, and the three calves he still had left, must soon be turned out in the pasture. There was abundant feed on the south slopes, but the risk in the open canyon was greater.

“Welt, I don’t know,” pondered the homesteader. “That old Tom cougar has come right into my pen to kill stock. Reckon it’s about six for one and half a dozen for the other. But by jiminy! I’ve got to kill that cunning old cat. But for him I’d come through the winter with little loss.”

He carried a bundle of fodder to Bossy and threw it under the shed. He was about to sit down on his box-seat, preparatory to milking Bossy, when he heard a thumping of hoofs and the bawl of cows in the far pen.

“That cougar — I’ll bet!” muttered Huett, and he stood up to listen. Then followed a scratching of claws on the high fence, a soft thump and a growl, followed by a strangled cry of a calf, suddenly cut short.

Huett looked about for a weapon. Foolishly he had forgotten his gun. There was a pitchfork in the stall, but close at hand he espied a spade, which he caught up as he ran to the gate of the next pen. He was in time to see a dark, convulsive blur on the snow, to hear a rending of flesh, and a gasping intake of air. The next instant a big cougar, grey in the dim light of dawn, left the calf and bounded for the fence.

Huett yelled and ran, brandishing the spade. The cougar leaped, catching the fence about two-thirds up. Then he climbed like any cat. The beast hooked his fore-paws over the top and was drawing his body up when Huett, with terrific sweep of the spade, knocked him off the fence. The blow was so powerful that it propelled the cougar almost twenty feet into a corner of the pen. It disabled him also, as Huett was quick to see.

The homesteader leaped to take advantage of this opportunity, hoping to put in a telling blow before the giant cat recovered. He was an instant too late. The cougar spun round, sending the snow flying, and backed into the corner, crouched to spring, spitting explosively, his eyes blazing balls of green fire.

“Aha, I got you now!” roared Huett, swinging the spade. “You bloody calf-eater! You’ll never eat another calf of mine...I’ll split your head!”

The cougar sprang. Huett met that onslaught with a vigorous thrust of the spade. He hit straight into the open mouth at the beast. The cracking of teeth was followed by a snarling roar, then a grind of bone on steel. Huett wrenched the spade free and struck the cougar another blow that sent it sprawling again into the fence-corner.

“Fightin’ cornered cougar, huh?” shouted Huett, fierce in his anger. “You’ve got a man to deal with now, cat...Take that — damn your yellow hide!...Spit — roar...I’ll separate those sneaking eyes!”

Beaten down, the cougar rolled up on its back, emitting frightful hisses, snapping at the spade, clawing with four striking paws. Huett swung the spade edgewise and the blade caught in the fence. In the next instant the cougar whirled to seize Huett’s left arm in its jaws. Luckily the heavy leather sleeve saved his arm from being crushed. Wrenching out the spade, he struck savagely at the eyes of green fire. The blade glanced off the skull, but one of the terrible eyes went out like a light extinguished. The spade broke, leaving the handle in Huett’s grasp. With that he beat the beast over the head until the wood flew into bits. But he had freed his arm. With lightning speed he seized the big cat around the throat and brought to bear all his wonderful strength. A fiery elation ran along his veins. He muttered grimly at the clawing beast. Insensible to the rip and tear of claws, he lifted the animal high, crashed its head on the fence and choked it until it sagged limp in his grip.

Huett held it a moment, gloating with the sheer savagery of his victory. Then he let it fall and staggered back to lean against the fence and look about with glazed eyes. Daylight had come. The snow had ceased. The corner of the pen displayed a ploughed area of bloodstained snow. Huett’s left arm and his legs down to his boots had withstood the clawing attack of the cougar, but his sleeve and jeans were torn to shreds and soaked with blood.

Realising that he was seriously clawed and bitten, Huett hurried back to the cabin, Lucinda was up, bending over the fire, which was burning brightly.

“Logan! — What’s happened?” she cried, standing up pale and staring.

“Don’t worry. I’m all right. Just had a hell of a fight with a cougar. That old Tom! And I killed him, too...But he cut me up bad!”

Lucinda could only gasp as he threw off his coat, the left sleeve of which hung in ribbons. Then he took off his shirt.

“Luce, don’t look so scared,” he said, with grim humour. “You should see old Tom!...We’ll want hot water and some clean linen...They tell me a cat bite in this hospitable land is most as bad as that of a hydrophobia skunk. Danger of blood-poisoning. Have we anything to put on — any medicine or strong salve?”

“No. I used the last...There’s some turpentine. But you can’t use that.”

“Just the stuff. Get the basin, Luce. Let’s see...Water not too hot...Now, wash off the blood. Make a clean job of it, Luce. When I was scout for Crook I used to watch the Doc fix up cuts and gunshot wounds. To wash ’em clean was the trick...Yow I there’s where Kitty got me with a big canine tooth! Reckon I broke off the other with the spade. If I hadn’t had my leather coat on — whew!”

“Does it hurt, Logan?”

“Hurt? No. I was just thinking over what he might have done to me...Get some bandages before using the turpentine...He scratched this arm pretty bad...All right. Now!...Auggh!...Get some in that, bite. Deep.”

Logan thought he sweat blood during the application of the fiery turpentine, but he would have undergone it again to get rid of such a flesh-eater as the cougar. After Lucinda had bound his arm, she examined his leg, to find long deep scratches, but little laceration of flesh. When all of them were treated and bandaged Logan felt immersed in a bath of fire. He paced the floor restlessly, his grey eyes gleaming, while Lucinda turned her hand to breakfast. The dog Coyote sat on the hearth, grave-eyed and watchful.

“Luce, that tom-cat was our worst enemy,” said Logan, with strong relief in his tones. “With him out of the way I can raise some calves...That reminds me, I didn’t look to see if he’d had time to kill the calf.”

Throwing a blanket around his shoulders, Logan went out. Snow was falling again. The air felt raw and damp. He found the calf dead. Judging by the tracks, which were printed words to Logan, the cougar had leaped nearly twenty feet on his last jump, and, landing on the calf, had buried his fangs in the back of its neck and with both paws had pulled its head back, thus breaking its neck.

“He was a killer!...Dammit, that means I’ll have to butcher this calf,” Logan mumbled to himself. Then he turned his attention to the cougar. He had sliced off one side of its head, taking an eye and an ear. Other wounds did not show...”Here’s a hide I won’t sell...Biggest cougar I’ve seen. This was a good morning’s work, in spite of losing a calf.”

Logan returned to the cabin, dragging the cougar over the snow, and indoors, much to Lucinda’s disgust. “Here’s the son-of-a-gun, Luce,” he exclaimed. “Isn’t he a beauty! I’ll make a rug out of that hide...Back, Coyote. If you’d been a real dog you’d have smelled this cat, and saved me God knows what.”

After breakfast Logan skinned the cougar, and nailed the hide up on the wall outside. Then he went out to butcher the calf. He felt extreme dizziness, and such pain from the burning turpentine and wounds that it made him weak. His movements lacked their customary vigour and speed. He was long at the task, but finally got the calf hung up to a rafter. Then he returned to the cabin.

“Luce, I can’t milk this morning,” he said, sinking into a chair. “You’ll have to do it.”

“All right, Logan...You must be suffering torture. You’re white and drawn.”

“Reckon I feel pretty bad. Loss of blood — and this damned burn...Be careful how you walk, dear. It’s slippery this morning and you’re getting heavy again.” He shook his head mournfully. “I’m afraid I’ll be laid up a bit...And you with child doing all the work! We don’t have much good luck, Luce.”

“It could be worse. We’ll manage, Logan. If only you weren’t in such pain!”

“I reckon that’ll wear off presently,” he replied, heavily. However, it did not wear off, but grew worse. Logan endured the most agonizing night of his life. Morning found him feverish, with swollen, throbbing limbs. The burn from the turpentine, however, had abated.

Logan lay awake in the grey of dawn. Always a slow thinker, he was additionally inhibited by his condition, but he realized that the situation called for extreme measures. His faithful wife must not have thrust upon her, all the work from cabin to corrals. She had not been well for months, if to be strange, brooding, wholly unlike her old self, were ill. It was the new child. For him to succumb to his wounds, to be victim of blood-poisoning, to lie useless for weeks and more — these were absolutely impossible. At this juncture he began his fight.

Logan did not go out of his head. His will compared markedly with his great physical strength. Many times during the next three days, especially in the dark of night, he was forced to sit up to keep his senses. Even then the darkness, the silence, rolled over him like demons. He endured the pain without betraying it to Lucinda, although her constant attention and solicitude gave him cause for concern. Three long days and three ghastly nights he fought to get off his back. All the while he was aware that Lucinda cared for his wounds and tried to ease his sufferings. She was required to chop wood because, owing to the unusually cold winter, the supply had been exhausted. This labour galled Logan to exasperation and passionate maledictions concerning his neglect, but stoically she went about her tasks, ignoring his protests. While breakfast was cooking she fed the baby, now a lusty and growing boy. During the day there was no rest from her unending toil. This evening and the succeeding one she kept the fire burning all night: winter was dying hard.

On the fourth day Logan forced himself to get up. He staggered. It seemed his strength had vanished completely. He could not use his left arm nor scarcely move his left leg; but doggedly he chopped wood, built a fire, carried water, milked the cows, packed the fodder to the corrals. Silent, plodding, unbeatable, he refused to allow his muscles to cease their unremitting labour.

Gradually the hard days and awful nights passed. Logan well knew when the fever left him. A dark and terrible force at work upon his mind, a slow boil of his blood, a dizziness and constant dancing spots before his eyes, the hot fire in his flesh — these fled with the endless days, and he was on the mend.

Logan could not remember a spring so welcome. The snow faded off the ridges, the turkeys began to gobble, the bluebells to nod under the pines; jays returned to squall and the squirrels to chatter, bear-tracks showed in the open spots, and the sun shone daily warmer — these portents of summer could not be denied: they were a fulfilment of prophecy. Lucinda had quoted a familiar phrase one early winter day. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” Lo! here it hail, come, and Logan’s doubts fled. He would soon be himself; he would beat this pioneer game; soon he would have sons to help him ride and drive and shoot and chop with him. He envisioned the day in the years to come when his canyon and the one below would be full of grazing cattle — the thirty thousand head these magnificent grassy valleys could support.

That spring Logan did not go to Flagg. Lucinda begged him to wait until after the baby came, so that she could ride in with him. How sombrely she had vowed she would never stay alone at Sycamore Canyon again! But Logan was tolerant with her. She could well be excused during the burden and travail of child-bringing. She was a wonderful helpmate. Her uncomplaining, steadfast loyalty did not escape him. Lucinda Baker could have married a better man than he — one who could have given her the comforts which she had been brought up to expect. Logan Huett never forgot that. It was a spur to goad him on.

Logan’s horses stayed in the vicinity of the cabin, always hanging around for a little hay, or the measure of grain he doled out to them. He had acquired the habit of training horses while with the soldiers. No rider ever needed to follow the tracks of a trained horse. His oxen, however, he kept with the cattle down the canyon. Logan found six steers and the bull. Again his herd had dwindled. Instead of feeling badly about more loss, Logan was glad it was so small.

The frost thawed out of the soil and the water dried up. Logan began his spring ploughing. It was slow work because of the snail-like pace of the oxen. Some day he would buy a good farm team. His poverty did not interfere with his old dreams and plans. He knew his tremendous assets — his strength, his endurance, his unquenchable optimism. No range could destroy these forces. Besides, it was to the future that he looked for results; and only his slow beginning filled him with dogged wrath at the seasons and the obstacles.

He ploughed all the ground he had farmed the year before, even the sandy ten acres he had planted in corn. For the hayfield he chose a plot lower down, near the brook, where the grass grew abundantly. He trebled the area for potatoes. He would sell two hundred bushels that fall.

Planting was labour he loved best of all, with the exception of work pertaining to cattle. Mistakes indulged in during the preceding year he carefully avoided. From dawn until dark he sowed, planted, waded through the rich, dark soil, but when he arrived at the cornfield he had scarce begun sowing when the flight of crows arrived. A black crowd of cawing crows!

“All the damn crows in Arizona!” ejaculated Logan, in a rage. “You black buzzards; why don’t a few of you call on some other farmer?”

This spring he gave up killing them. All the corn he laid that first day they ate behind him. Next day he covered the precious kernels, and so outwitted them. Crows were not diggers, at least.

“If it gets dry this summer, I’ll irrigate,” soliloquized Logan, surveying the land, and its relation to the brook. By going up the canyon he could dam the stream and run water all over his farmland. He scarcely gave a thought to the prodigious labour involved. After planting the cornfield he set to work with the beans. In a country where beans were supposed to flourish he had failed signally. He had one sack left, which was enough for a dozen long rows. He had no turnip seed.

One morning at breakfast Lucinda said: “Logan, it is July.”

“July? — Well! — How do you know?”

“I’ve kept track of the months...My time is near.”

“Aw! I almost forgot, dear. I wish I could stand it for you...Another boy! Gosh, I hope he comes on the Fourth of July. Anyway, I’ll name him Abraham Lincoln Huett.”

“Husband, we should wait until we get him.” Lucinda’s tone was strange and far away, but Logan failed to notice it.

“Hadn’t you better take it easy, Luce?” he asked earnestly. “You’re on your feet all the time, even when you’re not helping me.”

“I feel strong — restless. I don’t get tired. If I’m idle, I brood.”

“I know so little about such things...Can you tell any-ways near when?”

“Not very closely. But when the hour comes a woman knows...You must be ready to hurry after Mrs. Holbert.”

“I can get her here in five hours.”

“That’s reasonably quick, I’m sure. But it might be all over in far less time than that. We’ll hope not...only you must have your horse ready.”

“I’ll keep Buck in the’ corral. Don’t worry, dear. It’ll be all right. I’ll be within call any time.”

“Logan, you forget I’m alive while you’re at work,” she said, sombrely.

Several days went by with Logan ever thoughtful of Lucinda, neglecting his work to make frequent trips back to the cabin, and never going far away. However, she went about her tasks as usual, and gradually his anxiety lessened. He expected another word from her to prepare him.

There was a long, narrow ravine opening down into the canyon, a favourite place for cattle to stray in hot weather. It was shady, and the grazing was green. Logan had not fenced the upper end of this, as he had never tracked any cattle that far. One afternoon, however, happening along near this spot, he found to his dismay that several of his steers had worked out on to the ridge above. He discovered them up an aspen swale and drove them back, carrying poles and logs to obstruct the opening for the time being. When he had completed this job and started home, he saw that the afternoon was spent. The shade of the deep ravine where he had worked had failed to warn him of the approach of sunset and dusk.

Darkness had settled down by the time he reached the fields. The night hawks were flying about with their weird cries, the insects had begun their buzzing chorus, and the drowsy summer warmth of the day had begun to cool. Logan was surprised not to see a light in the cabin. He hurried on, a sudden fear assailing him. Reaching the open door, he found the cabin dark.

“Luce,” he called, anxiously. She did not answer. He went in, repeating his call, this time sharply. She was not in the cabin. He rushed out to shout. If she had gone out for wood or water she could hear him; but there was no answer. The only other place she could possibly be was at the cowshed. His neglect to come back early to milk the cows might have induced her to do those chores herself — she was queer about such little things.

Logan strode down the path. Stars had begun to twinkle. He heard a pattering on the ground, and the dog came running to him, leaping up and whining. Coyote would not be far from Lucinda. Nevertheless Logan’s sense of something amiss did not leave him.

He hurried to the sheds. All dark! Still, it was nothing for Lucinda to finish milking after nightfall. Logan heard the rustle and munching of hay. Coyote had left him, but he noticed that Bossy was in her stall.

“Lucinda — are you there?” called Logan hesitantly, peering into the darkness. Fear knifed him with a swift, sharp pang.

“Here — I am,” Lucinda replied, in a voice from which it seemed all life had drained.

Logan felt his way to the next stall. It had been used to store hay, of which only a lower layer was left. He called again huskily.

“Here,” she replied, almost under his feet.

“Luce — girl!” he cried, falling on his knees to feel around for her. “What has happened?”

“I wanted — to milk — before dark...But I never got to it...my time came...Your son, Abraham Lincoln, has just — been born...He was in a hurry to — come into this world.”

“Son! Abraham — oh, my God!...Luce, this is awful...what shall I do?”

“Leave me here...Go for Mrs. Holbert.”

“Let me carry you up to the cabin.”

“It wouldn’t be safe...You’d better go...and hurry!...The baby is alive.”

Logan struck a match with shaking hands. The light flared up. He saw Lucinda lying on the hay, white as a corpse. Her face appeared small — shrunken — her eyes too large — somehow terrible. Tucked under her arm, half covered, lay a strange little mite with a mop of black hair.

“Well! — Howdy there — Abe!” he said, in a strangled voice.

But he did not look at his wife again. He extinguished the match with fingers which did not feel the burn.

“Luce, I hate to leave you. But I’m helpless...If only I — —”

“Go, Logan. Don’t waste time.”

Huett left her with a husky utterance, and running clumsily in the dark to the corral, saddled and bridled Buck with hands that shook in spite of his intense efforts to control them. Mounting, he was off up the hill. He found that Buck was not a racer, but was strong and tireless and could lope indefinitely. Except on the grades where Logan was forced to walk or trot, the homesteader kept his horse in open gait.

The hard action gradually steadied Logan, but he could not remember having known such agitation before. However, his practical habit of thinking out obstacles soon enabled him to apply all his faculties towards the ride through the forest. Where the pines grew dense it was darker and the road was full of pits and roots; but in the open stretches Logan made better time. Vigilant and intense in his concentration over the lay of the land, Logan hardly realized the passing of time. At last he swung out of the deep wood and into the open where the south end of Mormon Lake gleamed under the stars. In less than half an hour he hauled Buck up in front of Holbert’s ranch.

The rancher and his womenfolk were astounded at Logan’s onslaught upon their door; particularly his panting relief at finding them at home, and his frantic appeal for help.

“Hitch up pronto, John,” said the older woman calmly. “Mary, you come help me get ready...Don’t worry, Huett. It’ll be all right. There was once a great and good man born in a manger.”

Logan unsaddled Buck and turned him into the pasture. Then he ran to the barn, where Holbert was readying the wagon by the light of a lantern.

“Won’t take a jiffy,” announced the rancher. “Bill went after the hosses. I had them in to water no more than hour ago...It’s a downhill pull. You can drive it in three hours. My wife is an old hand at birthday parties. Don’t be upset, Huett. This is kinda common in the lives of settlers.”

Logan had a fleeting idea that he lacked something theses pioneers like Holbert possessed, but their assurance and kindliness heartened him in this extremity. For the first time he echoed Lucinda’s wish that they might have had near neighbours. Presently Holbert drove the buck-board up to the cabin, Logan following with the son-in-law, Bill, who was solicitous and helpful. When they arrived at the cabin, the women were emerging.

“We’ll take the lantern,” Mrs. Holbert was saying. “But put it out. Give Huett some matches. Put some blankets under the seat...Mary, have I forgotten anything?”

“I reckon not, maw.”

They climbed into the back seat. Holbert gave the reins over to Logan and jumped down. “Easy team to drive, Huett. Hold them to a fast trot, except on the grades...Good hick!”

“I’m much obliged, Holbert,” said Logan, gratefully. He drove out and turned south on the main road. A half moon had risen over the black forest and gleamed softly on the lake. That would be a help, he thought. The women wrapped blankets around their knees and lapsed into a silence welcome to Logan. He attended to the road, forcing into abeyance his acute anxiety, while his sense of dragging time eased away under the influence of swift movement. Holbert had spoken modestly of this team: they trotted on tirelessly, rolling the light buckboard; the lake passed, the moon soared, and the sections of black forest gradually grew longer as the miles went by.

Before Logan thought such a thing possible he reached Long. Valley, and was soon clattering down into moonlit Sycamore Canyon.

Halting at the corrals, he leaped out to dash towards the cow-stalls. He could dimly see Lucinda lying on the hay. The moment was exceedingly poignant. His voice almost failed him, but she heard and answered.

“Aw!” he exclaimed, fervently. “They’re here, Luce.” And he ran back to the buckboard. “She’s alive, Mrs. Holbert!” he cried, boyishly. “She spoke!”

“Shore she’s alive. What was you thinkin’, man? Light the lantern an’ hand out thet bundle.”

Logan heard the cheery pioneer woman talking solicitously to Lucinda. He halted the team near the corral fence to pace the moonlit path. After an endless interval the younger woman sought him.

“Maw says to tell you it’s a strappin’ boy an’ favours you,” she said. “Both doin’ fine. In the mawnin’ they can be moved to the house. We’ll stay heah with them...An’ you can go to bed.”

Logan mumbled his profound gratitude to her and to something more of which he was only vaguely conscious. He unhitched the horses and turned them loose to graze. Then he went up to the cabin and sat down outside the open door, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. The silent canyon with its silver winding ribbon seemed to rebuke him.

“Reckon there was something I didn’t figure on,” he soliloquized, grimly. “And that’s been Luce’s part in this lousy cattle-range deal of mine. My idee of a husky mate and some strappin’ sons!...I reckon now I sure see the cost to a woman.”

Logan worked in the fields. Before August was out Lucinda was helping him with the harvest. The rain and heat for summer season held to normal; Logan raised no bumper crop, but he was satisfied with a yield that looked great compared with the failure of the years before. He sacked more potatoes than he would be able to haul to town in one load. The corn did not mature well, but there would be enough to take care of the young stock he wanted to keep enclosed during the winter. By mid-September the harvesting was finished. Then Logan was eager to make his fall trip to Flagg. Upon his return October would be well advanced — the one season he had any leisure to roam the woods with his gun.

Lucinda kept to her vow regarding the next trip to Flagg. She went, despite the heavy load, and carried the baby on her lap, letting George hang on as best he could. They camped the first night at Turkey Flat, and late the next afternoon made Mormon Lake, where the Holberts welcomed them.

“Abe Lincoln Huett, huh?” ejaculated the rancher, as the baby was placed on his knee. “Wal, if he ain’t a kid! Got your eyes, Huett, only a little darker.”

Logan slept under the wagon with Coyote. At breakfast the following morning Holbert asked more questions about Sycamore Canyon.

“Thet’s a good place, if you ever get started,” he said, thoughtfully. “My herd is growin’ fast. I’m drivin’ a hundred head to the railroad next month. Don’t forget to find out the latest price.”

“I won’t. Holbert, I’m wondering if you could spare me some stock this fall and let me pay you when I do get started.”

“Shore glad to oblige you, Huett...Have you proved up on your homestead yet?”

“Not till next year.”

“Wal, I’d make application for a patent to the land. Government’s awful slow. When the land’s yours, wal, it’s different. You’ll own your homestead allotment an’ have right of way over a big range. But in case you cain’t make it go down there, I’d advise your locatin’ over here north of me. There’s a fine range thet some feller will locate sooner or later. An’ he might not be a good neighbour. We got to expect rustlin’ in this wild country.”

“Rustling! You mean cattle-thieves?”

“Shore do. Wait till more settlers drift in an’ we all raise enough stock. Then we’ll ketch it hot, I’ll bet.”

“Last thing I’d ever thought of,” replied Huett, sombrely.

Soon he was driving on, with Lucinda beside him, more animated than she had been for months. Logan decided that in the future, when he went to town, it would be the right thing to do to take his wife along.

“Wife, we’ll stay a couple of days,” said Logan, upon their arrival at Flagg. “I haven’t any money. But I’ll trade in this load of potatoes and arrange for credit this time.”

“Logan, are we forced to go in debt?” asked Lucinda.

“I reckon so. But not much.”

“A little is too much...I’ll lend you a hundred dollars.”

“Luce! — Say, have you got that much money? — Well, you just spend it on yourself and the children.”

Babbitt’s gave Logan a dollar a bushel for his potatoes and claimed they were the finest ever brought into that store. This pleased Logan and made him thoughtful, although he did not deviate in his ambition to be a cattleman, not a farmer. Nevertheless, he saw clearly the value of good crops while his herd was growing. Logan purchased food supplies, seed, tools, and clothes and boots for himself, of which necessities he was sadly in need. He renewed old acquaintances and made new ones. Flagg, a wide-open frontier town, had begun to grow rapidly, especially in undesirable citizens. Hard characters from New Mexico and Colorado had come to Arizona, and were drifting about looking for a place to lodge. Logan hardly saw his wife that day. They took supper at the blacksmith’s, where Logan scarcely recognized the new, gayer Lucinda. Next morning he packed his supplies, leaving a space under the seat for Lucinda’s purchases, but it developed that he had not left enough room for her numerous bundles. He had to tie many of them on the wagon-side; and about a few Lucinda was both particular and mysterious, refusing to allow him to handle them. Then she surprised him by announcing that if he was ready she would be glad to start for home.

“I’ve had a wonderful time,” she said gaily. “Everybody was nice — and crazy about the babies. I’m ready if you are. We mustn’t waste money. And if I stay another hour I’ll spend...Well, it’s time to go home, Logan.”

Logan opined she had meant that she might spend money she did not have, as he had done. He had further cause to appreciate this wonderful wife.

Logan had reason to rejoice for more than good credit in Flagg and at the prospect of an addition to his herd. Lucinda appeared to have changed, to have lost a sombreness that had come so gradually that Logan had scarcely perceived it. She was more like her old self. The ride into Sycamore Canyon after Logan had arranged with Holbert for the new stock was almost as thrilling for her, it appeared, as her first one had been. The golden rod and the purple asters had bloomed during their absence. The canyon was beginning to blaze with scarlet and gold and purple.

“I’m glad to get back,” Lucinda announced as if telling herself something new and exciting. “After all, it’s home!”

Three weeks later Holbert’s sons drove in the score and more of lately purchased cows and heifers. All too soon, then, Logan’s short fall season for hunting ended with deep snows up on the ridges. Again he was disappointed that he could not trap beaver. He must wait for an open winter. When he completed hanging up the winter supply of meat, he attacked the firewood job. This he made a long and hard one, goaded by the unforgettable fact that Lucinda had been forced to chop wood during her delicate condition while he lay helpless in bed from the cougar wounds.

Day by day the snows crept down into the canyon, limiting Logan’s activities to chores and the killing Or frightening away of the predatory beasts that preyed on his herd. The winter passed swiftly, giving way to an early spring and a warm summer. Lucinda persuaded Logan to wait until fall for the trip to town. Their third boy, whom Logan named Grant Huett, after General Grant, was born at Flagg in October. When they again returned to their ranch the snows were whitening the forest ridge-tops.

Logan toiled early and late. He had a growing trio of youngsters now — the lusty boys he had prayed for — and prosperity still held aloof. The Government finally gave Logan patent for his homestead, and now the land was his as well as the rights of water, grass, and timber for all the canyon area. But Logan’s draught of sweetness was rendered bitter by Holbert’s demanding a mortgage on the property for the cattle he had advanced — the little herd which, instead of increasing in number towards the long-deferred fulfilment, had dwindled to a quarter. In spite of his dreams, Huett was a better farmer than a cattle-raiser. But he never faltered, never lost sight of his vision; and while he toiled, his giant frame bent over plough or furrow or axe, the months and years rolled on.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ONE EARLY FALL afternoon Logan returned from down the canyon with a pale cast of countenance and fire in his grey eyes. He did not vouchsafe any explanation, and Lucinda thought she had better not question him.

She knew something unusual had happened, but without betraying any curiosity, she managed to observe things that sent the slow, icy constriction to her veins. There was blood on Logan’s hands and a bullet-hole in his shirt! He left almost at once, carrying his rifle, aid climbed the ridge into the woods instead of returning down the canyon. As she knew it was impossible to stop him, she felt a little less concern about his going that way rather than in the open.

“Logan has been shot!” she reasoned, with a sudden sensation of faintness that she thrust off with an effort. An intuition dark and ominous quickly flashed over her...”That Apache!...Matazel!”

She was as certain that it was the Indian as if she had witnessed the actual deed. Very probably Logan had not seen his assailant, but considering that he had no other enemy, would he not suspect Matazel? Lucinda spent uneasy, anxious hours until Logan returned, some time after dark.

After this incident Lucinda observed that Logan carried his rifle with him whenever he went out, even if only to milk the cows. He grew silent, sombre, watchful and preoccupied. Lucinda did not intrude her great fear upon him. Despite it, she had great confidence in her husband. He had been a scout in the Apache round-up years before; he was a woodsman and a hunter; he had been forewarned against peril and he had answered it with extreme caution.

The smoky, warm, languorous days passed. The leaves began to carpet the grass with gold and brown. Again the purple asters bloomed along the path to the brook. The wind moaned of the coming of winter. The sun sloped farther towards the south.

Lucinda lived in constant dread. Always when Logan was absent she had expected another visit from Matazel; she imagined she had heard his stealthy moccasined step on the path. But now added to this was the fear that Logan might not come back from one of his hunting trips.

“How is it you don’t bring in any game?” she asked him.

“Too early. Not cold enough. But soon,” he replied, gruffly.

He was indeed roaming the forest, canvassing the game trails, but he was not hunting any four-footed beast. One evening he returned with all his strain and tenseness gone. Lucinda saw drops of sweat on his dark brow. For once his appetite was poor. When she inquired anxiously if he were sick, he replied: “Kinda off my feed at that.” But he smoked a pipe before the fire — something he had not indulged in a great deal formerly. Afterwards Logan was his old self, chopping wood with cheerful vigour, stamping in and out of the cabin, breaking his silence. Soon after that the snow whitened the ridges and he began to pack down game-meat for winter use. At last the drifting curtain of white trailed down into the canyon. Lucinda rejoiced, her fear somehow mysteriously abated. They were isolated now for months.

With two growing youngsters and a baby, Lucinda had her hands full, irrespective of cooking and baking and sewing. But when she did not think, she touched happiness again. What a difference the children made! George was getting big enough to teach. In fact, his father had already begun to interest the boy in guns, knives, tracks, and all pertaining to his wilderness home. Huett’s sons would be hunters — Lucinda could not gainsay that, and at length she decided it was well. On her side, however, she made up her mind to give them a good education.

Late the following spring Lucinda took her children as far as Holbert’s with the intention of leaving them there while she accompanied Logan on into Flagg.

Already Holbert had been south to Payson that spring, and he was full of news. Lucinda seldom gave heed to the conversation of the men, because it invariably had to do with range, cattle, grass, calves, and all pertaining to ranch life. At the very outset, however, Holbert sent a chill shock to her heart.

“Huett, you knew thet Apache runaway, didn’t you?” he queried.

“Which one?” asked Logan, and Lucinda felt his wariness, if he did not show it to the others.

“Thet one said to be old Geronimo’s son. He used to hang around Payson. His name was Matazel.”

“Sure. I remember him. Helped round him up when I was scout for Crook...What about Matazel?”

“Wal, some Tonto Basin deer-hunters found him daid last fall. Down below your canyon somewhere. He’d been caught behind a pine too small to cover him an’ he’d been shot to pieces. Put up a fight, though, they said. Empty shells layin’ all around his body!”

“Well!...So that was the end of Matazel,” ejaculated Huett.

“Folks down Payson way was plumb glad. Thet Apache had a bad name. He’d escaped from the reservation several times. Shore hated white people.”

“Who’d he fight with?”

“Nobody knows. But it was hinted thet the Horner boys might have an idee. Their sister fought off an Indian once, when she was alone at home. An’ they had a hunch he was the Apache.”

“Good riddance, I’d say,” replied Huett, forcibly.

“Yes. Thar’s varmints enough around without renegade Indians...How’d you come off with the lofers?”

“Wolves, you mean? — They didn’t kill any of my stock last winter.”

“Wish I could say thet. Our old friend Gray shore did us dirt. He’s got a pack now, an’ they shore left a bloody trail across this range.”

“I got most of the cougars cleaned out down at Sycamore. All the same, I can’t raise calves.”

“Man alive! If you cain’t, you’ll never be a cattle-raiser.”

“I’m not licked yet,” said Huett, doggedly.

Lucinda, in bed and wakeful, was now sure of two tremendous facts. Logan had killed the Apache. The other was that she seemed to have been freed from an awful burden; a haunting uncertainty that she had never named to her consciousness but which was now dissolved for ever before the dawn of another and a happier day.

On the way to Flagg they passed several wagons that bore semblance to the old prairie-schooner. What a thrill they gave Lucinda!

“Settlers going south,” explained Logan exuberantly. “Holbert told me there was a lot more travel on the road this spring. Some Mormons and a few Texans. That’s good. We need settlers.”

That visit to town was one for Lucinda to store up and remember for many a month. She felt so happy again, excited at being near people, at the stores displaying their spring goods, that she spent half of her long-saved money before she realized what she was doing. But she could not regret it. Most of, her purchases were for the children. She treated herself to one luxury — a long-wished-for lamp, which would enable her to sew at night, and to a necessity almost as greatly needed — a case of jars to put up preserves.

Back at Sycamore Canyon once more, Lucinda saw the lonely, log-walled home with clarifying eyes.

Logan’s toil claimed half the days, and there were not hours enough left, even after dark, for her own. Yet her healthy, precocious children would have been compensation and joy for any toiling mother. The habit of work grew so strong, so necessary and satisfying that Lucinda would not have been without it. Years had been required to mould her into a pioneer wife, but she had’ achieved that height.

Lucinda loved her children, but in time she seemed to realize that the dark-haired, grey-eyed Abraham was her favourite. She had suffered most carrying and giving him birth; she had kept him at her breast far too long, Mrs. Holbert said; and he was the handsome one of the trio.

“Dandy bunch of boys, wife,” said Logan, one night, as he played with the blond baby. “Wherever did Grant get that fair hair? Well, I don’t wish he was a girl, but I wish we had a girl...But, Luce, three is enough. God has sure been good to me.”

The hot summer, with its sudden black storms, the still autumn with its blue haze and lingering sadness, the grey days and then the white months — these passed as if time were not. Then again spring, summer, autumn rolled around.

The ragged, sun-browned urchins were at once the despair and the joy of Lucinda’s full days. It was utterly impossible for her to keep track of them. George had a propensity for falling into the brook, but though some of the pools were quite deep, he seemed to bear a charmed life. Abe was fond of slipping out of his garb, which was scant enough, to hide naked among the sunflowers or the willow-patches. Grant did not appear to have any annoying traits, except to imitate his elder brothers when they were mischievous. However, at that time he was only two years old.

One trying fall day, when things simply would not go right for Lucinda, she quite forgot the children — a matter of self-preservation. However, she had never before neglected them for hours on end; when she finally remembered them and they did not return at her call, she went out to look for them.

The spots where they usually played were vacant. Logan had gone off with the dog somewhere down the canyon. Lucinda called frantically: “Abe!...George! Come here this minute!”, wholly unconscious of the fact of calling Abraham first. She stifled alarm and hurried down across the brook, following the little barefoot tracks in the dust. Among the many pioneer accomplishments she had mastered was the art of trailing. She read a record of their play along the sandy brook, around the corrals and in the sheds, and at last up the road towards the gate. Before this time they had never appeared so big, although they certainly were enterprising enough to leave the canyon. However, it appeared that now they had grown sufficiently large to try such an adventure. Still Lucinda did not become thoroughly alarmed until she tracked them to the spot where they had crawled under the gate and gone on. Then she gave way to her fears.

It was a good quarter of a mile from the gate up to the level. Lucinda pushed on, calling out whenever she gained enough breath. Sunset was not far away. Visions of her children lost in the dark woods tormented the distracted mother.

“Abe — the little savage — he’s to blame — for this!” panted Lucinda. “Won’t he catch it!”

Ahead of Lucinda the road curved out of the scattered pines on to the open grassy ground. Suddenly she espied the youngsters scattered around, and on top of the very log upon which she had once sat years before waiting in despair for Logan. But what had that despair been to this pang she had just sustained? Overjoyed at finding them safe, she quite forgot the punishment she had intended to mete out to Abraham. Suddenly she halted to rub her eyes. Could she be seeing aright? There were four children!

Lucinda hurried on. “Boys, what are you up to? And who’s this?” she demanded. The fourth member of that quartet, to her utter astonishment, was a little flaxen-haired girl about the same age as Grant. Her dress was ragged and dirty, but of a fine texture. She wore shoes, also, which further removed her in garb from her companions.

“George, where did you find this little girl?” asked Lucinda, attempting to suppress her excitement.

“I dunno. Abe found her.”

“Abe, you tell me,” ordered Lucinda, sternly.

“She was by the road — cryin’,” replied Abraham, his hazel-grey eyes solemnly uplifted.

Lucinda was profoundly struck by something she did not understand.

“But isn’t there a wagon somewhere?” she queried, and stepping up on the log, assayed a better view of the road and the long, green open. There was neither wagon nor camp in sight.

“I saw wheel-tracks,” said Abe blandly.

“Didn’t you see anybody?”

“Nobody ‘cept her.”

Lucinda hurried out to the road. She found fresh horse and wagon tracks in the dust pointed south. She could see a mile down in that direction, but there was no sign of cart, horse, nor man! The sun had gone down behind the forest.

“Strange,” she muttered. “There must be a wagon near, of course. Perhaps driven back off the road to camp...The child must have strayed.”

Lucinda returned to the log, and sitting down on it she said: “Come here, little girl.” The child turned beautiful violet eyes. She was very pretty and well-nourished. After a moment of hesitation she came shyly to Lucinda.

“Little girl, what’s your name?” asked Lucinda, softly, taking the child’s hand.

“Barb’ra,” she lisped.

Lucinda could not extract another word from her. Seeing that the child began to appear frightened, Lucinda desisted from further inquiry, still pondering as to what to do with her.

Meanwhile the last gold of sunset faded off the pine crests and dusk came trooping out of the forest. The stillness of the hour was such that Lucinda could have heard a voice, the thud of a hoof, or especially an axe a very long way off; but she heard only a melancholy bird note and the wail of a distant coyote.

Soon the boys began to get hungry, and were not backward about voicing it. At last Lucinda took the little girl’s hand and, sending the boys ahead, walked slowly homeward. The canyon had become dark, but she could see the road without difficulty. Once again Lucinda questioned the little girl as to her identity and where she had left her mother, but received no answer.

A light in the cabin assured her of Logan’s return. The boys ran in ahead, clamouring. Logan whooped at them. When Lucinda appeared he said: “Where you been? Milking late?...Supper’s most...But say...Who’s that?”

Lucinda told of her hunt for the boys and the result. Logan was amazed.

“Sure there was no wagon close?”

“No wagon, nor, camp anywhere near. I went out to the road, looked up and down. Then I sat on that log for a while. It was very quiet. I could have heard voices or camp sounds for a mile.”

“Well, I’ll be damned...but that’s funny. If there was any one looking for her he’d never get down here after dark...Abe, come here...where’d you find this kid?”

“By the road, Paw.”

“What you mean, by the road? Talk sense now, boy. This is important.”

“She wuz sittin’ in the grass, cryin’. I heard her first.”

“Where? How far from our road?”

“Way off.”

“Ahuh. Up or down the road?”

“I dunno.”

“You do know. Tell me or I’ll lick you.”

“Up by that windfall where you chased the rabbit for me.”

“Way up there! Luce, I reckoned as much. The youngsters went a mile from our road...Don’t worry any more. I’ll find her folks in the morning.”

“Oughtn’t you to go to-night? Think how distressed I was that night till you found Abe the first time he ran off.”

“Well, so I should. Rustle supper while I milk the cows...Say, isn’t she a pretty, shy little thing?”

“Indeed she is. Says her name’s ‘Barb’ra.’ I couldn’t get another word out of her.”

“Little girl lost! — Seems strange, but it’s simple enough. Wagons go by often now,” replied Logan, and, banging his pails, he stamped out.

Lucinda ordered George and Abe to wash themselves. She performed this task for Grant and the newcomer. When the tear-stains and dirt had been removed from Barbara’s face she turned out to be the loveliest little girl Lucinda had ever seen. Lucinda left them to their play while she hurried supper. By the time she had it ready Logan returned, his buckets full of foamy milk. Logan bolted his own supper, and, taking his rifle and a lantern, and calling the dog, went out to try to locate the camp.

Grant fought sleep valiantly, but it overcame him. George and Abe had to be driven to bed. Barbara fell asleep on Lucinda’s lap. Fashioning a little bed beside the boys’ in the corner of the cabin, Lucinda tenderly laid the little girl in it, and then went thoughtfully about her tasks, listening for Logan’s footsteps.

He was gone more than two hours. When he returned, treading softly, his eyes flashed keen and bright in the firelight. Lucinda sensed before he spoke that he had found nothing. He laid his Winchester across the elk antlers on the wall and extinguished tie lantern.

“Luce, this has a queer look,” he announced, shaking his shaggy head.

“Queer?” echoed Lucinda.

“It sure has. I went down the road a mile, then back up, clear to the end of the open. Not a sign! No wagon or camp. Then I took to the road to see what I could make out of tracks. Dust just right for tracking. Two wagons, one hauled by horses, passed here some time after midday...You say it was way in the afternoon when you missed the kids?”

“Yes. They might have been gone a couple of hours. Less than that out of the canyon, because I saw where they had played all around and inside the corrals.”

“Then Abe run across the kid late in the day, that’s certain...Well, I trailed Abe up the road to the windfall. Then he sheered off. A good ways beyond that windfall, where he said he went, I hit upon signs of the little girl...Don’t miss the significance of what I say — you know tracks are like printed words to a hunter...She had fallen down in the dust, right on the wheel-tracks of the second wagon. She must have lain there a bit, probably exhausted, because she crawled off into the grass. No more tracks down the road. Those leading up from where she fell were running tracks. The kid had run after that wagon!”

“Why, Logan! Of all things!” cried Lucinda.

“She must have run several hundred yards before she fell. I forgot to tell you that the horses were trotting. Little downgrade there, you know. A kid could not keep up long with a trotting team...I found the tracks where she had been let down off the wagon, on to her feet. She didn’t fall or climb off. She was dropped off by someone holding her. Two little standing footprints in the dust! That’s all. From these she broke into a run. After the wagon!”

“Logan, what in the world do you make of all this?”

“Someone wanted to get rid of the kid. He saw Abe and maybe our other kids. Figured there was a settler near by. Lonesome country. Just the place!”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Lucinda, aghast. “Who’d ever want to get rid of such a lovely child?”

“Human nature has a queer look sometimes,” replied Logan, grimly. “Probably I’m wrong. But that’s what the tracks say to-night. I’ll try again to-morrow in the daylight...You put her to bed with the boys?”

“Right next to them. See.” Lucinda lifted the lamp and carried it over to disperse the gloom of the cabin corner. Four curly heads all in a row! Abe’s dark and striking, against the fair hair and pale face of little Barbara. They scarcely took up four feet of the cabin. But what a precious treasure! They were for her the difference between happiness and misery, between death and life; for Logan they meant the balance separating achievement and frustration, between something to work for and endless vain oblation. No man could realize failure looking upon such children.

“I wonder!” he ejaculated, his eyes bright. “We wanted a girl. There she is...Luce, all we’ve gone through is nothing.”

“Not quite, for me, darling. But they are wonderful recompense...Isn’t the little girl lovely?...Oh, if we could keep her! But we are silly, Logan. You’ll find her mother to-morrow, I hope and pray.”

Logan saddled his horse at dawn and did not return until night. Not only had he worked out the problem of the little footprints even more plausibly than on the evening before, but he had followed the wheel tracks clear down over the Rim to Payson. Two wagons lad passed through Payson in the dead of night — an unprecedented occurrence, according to Logan’s informants. It was this news which caused Logan to keep silent as to his motive. Let him who owned the child return and trail her as he had!

However, Lucinda took exception to this, and they had their first argument, almost approaching a quarrel.

“Luce, you’re thinking of her mother,” declared Logan, with finality. “I say she hasn’t got any mother. She hasn’t had one for so long she can’t remember. Well, let’s accept gratefully what God puts in our way.”

“Logan, I thought that to-night, when the child went to sleep on my lap...Poor little dear! — I just can’t get over it, nor the conviction that someone will come after her. But if no one does...we shall keep her.”

No one came. In a few days Barbara was a happy, provocative little sister to the boys. The summer passed. Logan put the boys to work with him and Lucinda at the harvest of beans and potatoes, of which he had a large yield. It was all Grant could do to carry some of the largest potatoes. The boys, except Abe, treated the work as play. Abe was willing and obedient, but his heart was not in such pastimes. He watched the birds, the hawks, the crows, the chipmunks; and Lucinda noted more strongly than ever Abe’s leaning towards the woods and wild creatures. Barbara had her share in the general work, of her own free will.

When fall arrived, George and Abe had their first hunt in the woods with their father. That night George was much excited, proudly showing where the gun had kicked a black-and-blue spot on his arm and gleefully exclaiming how it had knocked him flat. Abe was quiet, but his great eyes were luminous and haunted. He could not sleep that night.

“Might as well start them early,” said Logan through () Lucinda’s complaint. “You know this’ll be our life here till these boys are grown men. Lucinda, I want them to be hunters, woodsmen like their father. They’ll make all the better cowboys. We’ve got to live off the land and fight, Luce, fight!...You teach them to read and write — to be fine — to love and obey their parents — to respect women — to believe in God. Leave the rest to me!”

Lucinda surely felt she could trust him with that. When the snow came again, and the homestead was shut in for another half year, Lucinda began her teaching of the two eldest boys. George was quick, intelligent; Abe slow to take up anything mental. But he was sweet, patient, plodding, and he would do anything for his mother. Grant and Barbara played the long winter away on the floor of the cabin.

“But the groundhog saw his shadow and we’ll have six more weeks of winter,” remarked Logan pessimistically, late in the season.

“Logan, that old folk adage may do for Missouri or back East, where they have groundhogs,” replied Lucinda. “But we’ve got gophers, skunks, and a lot of other varmints that have holes. I can show them to you. We’re not through with winter.”

Convinced of this aphorism, the homesteader kept his young stock in the corrals, feeding them the fodder he had saved from earlier months. Then one night in early March, true to his prediction, the storm-king roared down through the forest. When dawn came a blinding blizzard was raging. It snowed all that day and the next night, then cleared off to zero weather, freezing a crust over the deep snow. Logan had to shovel paths to the cowsheds and corrals.

“Heard wolves baying last night,” announced Logan, noncommittally, when he came stamping in, white-booted, to pull off his woollen mitts and spread his hands to the hot fire. “Bet they’ve been on the rampage with my cattle. Soon as I eat a bite I’ll go see.”

“Paw, you gonna take your gun?” asked George, eagerly. “‘Cause if you are I wanta go.”

“Course, you ninny!” ejaculated Abe scornfully. “Paw, you take me. I’ll track them.”

“Not this time, my brave buckaroos. Snow’s over your heads,” replied Huett.

“But it’s froze. It’d hold me up,” added Abe.

“Luce, don’t worry if I’m not back soon. Slow job. But I reckon I’ll find easy going under the wall.”

The short, belated winter day soon passed. A cold white moon followed the sunset. Several times Lucinda looked out to see if Logan was coming — the stock had to be fed and the cows milked. Finally she bundled George and Abe in their warm woollens, to their great glee, and quitted the cabin with them, jangling the buckets. She had to drive Grant and Barbara back and scold them for leaving the door open.

The cold moon had just tipped the black-fringed wall to flood the canyon with silver light. Weird shadows gloomed under the cliffs. Never had the solitude and isolation of Sycamore Canyon seemed more encompassing and terrible. The black pines sheered up to the cold, blinking, pitiless stars; a moan breathed through their branches. The air held a bitter, ripping tang.

“Boys, you carry fodder while I milk,” said Lucinda, taking the buckets.

“Listen, Maw,” spoke up Abe, tensely.

“What do you hear, Abe?” she asked, quickly, suddenly fearful.

“Sounds like Mr. Holbert’s hounds bellarin’. Paw says thet’s the way wolves howl,” replied the lad, his wondering eyes shining as he pointed down the moon-blanched canyon. “They’re way down.”

“Heavens, I hope your father is safe,” exclaimed Lucinda, anxiously turning her face in order to listen.

“Aw, he’s safe, you bet. Paw can lick all the lofers in Arizona.”

“Abe — I hear them!” cried Lucinda, with a cold chill knifing her. The sounds were indeed like the baying of hounds, but deeper, wilder, more prolonged and blood-curdling. Then they ceased, to her immense relief. She admonished the boys to hurry with the fodder and she hastened to her task of milking. She tried desperately not to listen while she milked, attempted also to entertain Abe’s opinion of his father’s prowess. When she had filled one bucket and had begun the other, Abe, white-faced, came running into the shed.

“Maw, come! Them wolves — all around!” he shrieked fearfully, tugging at her.

“Oh, my God — no I Abe, you’re...” She was stricken mute by the sound of a rush of swiftly pattering feet outside the shed. Leaping to her feet, she seized a pitchfork and, with one hand grasping Abe, ran for the corral. The calves and heifers began to bawl and thud about against the fence. She heard George screeching with terror. At that instant, she became a lioness.

“Where are you?” she screamed wildly.

“George’s up there,” yelled Abe.

Lucinda saw the boy then, straddling the high pole fence, his chubby face grey with horror. She reached the open gate a moment before the rush of soft-thudding feet rounded the corral. Abe darted inside, Lucinda after him. Frantically she shoved the gate. It swung — scraped in the snow — caught, leaving an aperture a foot wide. At that instant grey, furry beasts padded up, swiftly scattering the snow. They resembled dirty white dogs, bounding, leaping, like silent ghosts.

“Shut it, Abe!...Shove!”

A gaunt beast with green-fire eyes leaped at the opening, breaking half-way through before Lucinda thrust the pitchfork into him. With a vicious snarl and a grind of teeth on the implement he fell backwards. The shock of his onslaught almost upset Lucinda, but she righted and braced herself when another beast leaped. She gave this one a powerful stab which caused him to let out a mad howl. But Abe was not strong enough to close the gate. Lucinda, leaned her shoulder against it, still holding the pitchfork low, and shoved with all her might. The gate jarred shut except for the handle of the pitchfork. Then a bigger brute, furry grey with a black collar, leaped up, snapping at George. The boy screamed and fell off into the corral. At that moment Lucinda withdrew her weapon and barred the gate.

On the instant, as she sagged there, she panted audibly: “Thank God — Logan built — this fence!”

Grey forms sped to and fro, bounding with incredible agility, circled the corral, but farther away, and presently thronged into a pack to run up the canyon.

“Maw, they’re gone,” cried Abe. “You sure stuck a couple of ‘em.”

“Oh! — are you — sure?” gasped Lucinda, ready to collapse if the peril was over.

Abe peeped between the poles. “Maw! — they’re across the brook!...Runnin’ round the cabin.” The lad must have had eyes as sharp as the wolves’. “Shore Grant left the door open!”

“Oh, my God!...Grant! Barbara!” screamed Lucinda, dragging the gate open.

“Wait, Maw — they’re runnin’ by — up the hill...up that break where Paw slides down our wood.”

“George, are you hurt?” queried Lucinda, relaxing for an instant, as the other boy came to her.

“I dunno. I felt his teeth — on my foot.”

“Listen, Maw,” called Abe, shrilly.

From the black-and-silver ridge floated down the wild, mournful bay of a hungry wolf. It was answered by a deeper one, prolonged, haunting — a weird beast-sound that fitted the wilderness canyon.

“They might come back,” said Lucinda, fearfully. “Boys, let’s run for the cabin. Hurry!”

They dashed ahead of her, without looking back. Thought of Grant and Barbara lent wings to Lucinda’s feet. She ran as never before. To her horror the cabin door stood wide open; the bright fire blazed in the fireplace. Lucinda staggered transfixed in the doorway with Abe and George clinging to her skirt. Playthings were scattered before the hearth. A chair lay overturned. Dirty wet tracks on the floor! With awful suspension of heart, Lucinda’s terrible glance swept the cabin. Empty! Those grey demons had carried the children away!

“Hey, Maw,” piped up Grant’s treble voice, from the loft, “Barb’ra an’ me run back an’ clumb up here!”

CHAPTER NINE

ONE WARM, SUNNY day afterwards, when the snow was melting swiftly, Logan was nailing the grey wolf hide up on the wall of the cabin.

George was not interested. He had had enough of wolves. But Abe stood by with shining eyes.

“Paw, where’d you hit him?” asked the lad, sticking his finger in a hole in the raw skin.

“Not there, son. That’s where your mother stuck him with the pitchfork. Here’s where I hit him, Abe.”

“Plumb centre,” marvelled Abe. He never forgot any words his father used pertaining to guns, animals, and the forest.

“Sure, son. But it wasn’t a running shot, and your mother had crippled him. So I don’t deserve a lot of credit...Now we’ll rub some salt on...Luce, fetch me a cup full of salt.”

Lucinda came out, followed by the younger children. “Wife, you broke my only pitchfork on this hombre,” complained Logan.

“Did I?” shuddered Lucinda. She had only begun to recover from the devastating horror of the wolves’ attack.

“Look ahere, Paw,” spoke up Abe, who always took his mother’s side. “Maw kept two of ’em from gettin’ in the corral. They’d et all your calves.”

“I reckon, son. And chewed you up besides. That bunch was starved all right...Luce, this hide, will make a fine rug. We’ll have to get use out of it. Old Gray cost us dearly. He and his pack cleaned out our herd, except the bull, and our young stock in the corrals.”

“Oh, Logan! That is a terrible misfortune. I’m afraid we can never start a herd in this wild canyon.”

“Yes, we can — and we will,” he replied grimly, then...”Youngsters, I’m sorry to say Coyote went off with the pack.”

They were grieved and amazed. Abe said: “What’d she do thet for, Paw?”

“Well, she’s half-wolf anyway. I always distrusted her, but I took her with me three mornings before daylight. I hid in the pines and watched. About daylight this morning I heard them. They’d killed something. They came out of a side canyon — must have got Coyote’s scent Anyway, they stopped to nose around...Then’s when I shot old Gray. I crippled another before the rest got out of sight. There were only six left. I reckon we’ve seen the last of them...Coyote double-crossed you, youngsters. She ran out to where old Gray lay, and then she went kind of wild, and let out the queerest yelps. She trailed the pack, looked back at me. I yelled. But she went on...And that’s the end of your pet.”

Barbara wept. Abe tried to console her by averring he would catch her another pet.

“It’s too bad,” said Lucinda, with a sigh. “I always felt easier when Coyote was with the children.”

“Things happen. We’ve got to make the best of it,” said Logan imperturbably. “I’ll get another dog...and some more cattle.”

“Where and how, Logan?” asked Lucinda.

“Ha! — We’ll see.”

In a few more days the snow was gone. The brook again ran bank full, and Logan was forced to fell another tree to make a higher bridge. Spring was at hand, with its manifold tasks.’ The wild turkeys began to gobble from the ridges. Logan took Abe, and with his rifle climbed the slope. When they returned, Abe packed a turkey larger than himself, holding its feet over his shoulder and dragging it behind, head and wings on the ground. Barbara had an eye for the beautiful bronze-and-black feathers. Grant remembered turkey from the preceding fall, and whooped: “Maw, can I have the drum-stick?”

Another day Logan trudged down the hill with a little bear cub under each arm. Then there was pandemonium in Sycamore Canyon. The children went wild with delight.

“Doggone!” ejaculated Logan. “I didn’t know they loved pets so well. That’s one thing I can get them.”

“Such dear little black shiny things! Not at all afraid!” exclaimed Lucinda. “They can’t be very old.”

“I should smile not. You’ll have to feed them with a bottle.”

“And their mother?” asked Lucinda, with a ghost of that old shock which would not wholly vanish.

“She’s up on the hill. I’ll go back up there, skin out some meat, and pack it down. Hide’s not so good.”

Not long after that Lucinda at her work heard the children talking about their kittens. At first she thought Barbara and Grant meant the little bears. But she soon ascertained that they did not. When Logan came in from the fields she told him. It was noonday, and the two youngsters were not in sight...

“Little imps! They’re up to something...Abe, what about these kittens? Your mother heard Grant and Barbara talking.”

“I know, Paw. But I’m not gonna tell,” replied Abe.

“Well! I’ll be damned,” ejaculated the nonplussed father. Whereupon he set off up the canyon in search of the two youngsters.

Lucinda observed that Abe watched with great interest, and this stimulated her own. “They’re comin’, Maw,” he said, intensely. “An’ Paw’s got ‘em.”

It developed that Abe did not mean Barbara and Grant. They came ahead, running, babbling, too excited to be coherent. Logan followed carrying two furry tan-coloured little cats.

“For heaven’s sake, what now?” ejaculated Lucinda mildly.

“Cougar kittens, Luce! — The-kids are making friends with my bitterest enemies,” replied Logan, in grim humour. “Barbara said Abe found them in a cave. He took her and Grant up there. They’ve been playing with these kittens every day. While the old cougar mother sat up on the ledge above and watched them. I saw her tracks.”

“Why, Logan! I think that’s wonderful. She wouldn’t harm our children because they didn’t harm hers.”

“Yeah. It’s wonderful how quick they’ll grow up and eat my calves. I’ll have to kill their maw. But we’ll keep the kittens for a while...Never heard of cougar pets.”

He built a pen for the little cats. These pets, added to bear cubs, interfered with work and lessons, but Lucinda had not the heart to refuse the children. What else had they to play with? A few primitive bits of stone, some pine cones, and queer knots.

Logan must have reacted in the same way, to Barbara’s and Grant’s rapture, for from that day onwards he kept bringing home pets from the woods. Lucinda suspected that he went purposely to hunt for wild creatures, taking Abe with him. Before hot weather set in two baby chipmunks, a black squirrel, a white-spotted fawn, and a blinking little grey owl had been added to the menagerie.

Having but little stock to tend, Logan put most of his labours into the fields, cultivating more land. This season he tried alfalfa. It seemed to Lucinda that her husband worked harder than ever, if such a thing was possible, but without the old cheer and all-satisfying hope for the future. Without cattle his precious ambition languished. He deferred the trip to town until fall. Holbert drove back with him, and it took little perspicuity for Lucinda to see that the rancher was interested in Sycamore Canyon. He appeared friendly as usual, but he bluntly told Huett that in the spring he would require the amount of money he held as a mortgage or he would be compelled to take over the property.

“Luce, the alfalfa crop is what fetched him,” said Logan, after the neighbour had gone. “He sees the possibilities in this ranch. And he’d like to get it...I’d just about croak to lose this place. And I can’t see how in hell I can save it.”

“Well, I can,” returned Lucinda, vigorously. “There was a time when I’d have been glad to lose it. But not any more. It’s home. The children love it. They will grow up somehow all the more wonderful for this lonely place...Don’t worry, Logan.”

Logan shook his head grimly. “I owe Holbert three hundred dollars. He’s been decent about it, although when I took the cattle I had an idea he’d give me all the time I needed to pay.”

“He was amazed at your alfalfa and potato crops,” said Lucinda, thoughtfully. “What did Babbitt say?”

“Humph! A lot. He’d take a hundred tons of alfalfa and all the potatoes I could raise. Big talk. But he might as well ask me to cut and haul the lumber off my range.”

“Nevertheless we do have an asset here.”

“We do. I always saw it. We can live off the land. We can make money on our farm products. We can raise and run thirty thousand head of stock here.”

“But, Logan, admitting this may be true, we are farther away from that than when we started.”

“So far as cattle are concerned. Why, if I ever get a wedge in here, my herd will double — quadruple — multiply beyond calculation.”

“You have convinced me,” said Lucinda. “But without capital and help you have undertaken the impossible...Logan, we must approach the problem from another angle.”

“Angle? Wife, what do you mean?” he asked, with dubious interest.

“I don’t know that I can answer yet. But my mind is working. The facts are simple. We have the land and water and grass. We will not starve. Our boys are growing like weeds....It’s something like a problem I used to give my school class.”

“Luce, I never was any good at arithmetic.”

“You let me do the figuring,” she suggested.

Lucinda pondered over their situation for days. Holbert’s wanting their ranch inspired her as it had alarmed Logan. One night, after the tired children had gone to bed, and she and Logan were sitting out on the porch in the soft simmer night, Lucinda broached the subject that had become so important to her.

“Logan, I’ve worked it out.”

“What?” he queried.

“Our problem. But let me ask a question or so before I tell you. How long can you keep alfalfa?”

“I reckon as long as I could keep it dry.”

“How much can you raise a summer?”

“I don’t know. Two cuttings, sure. I’m beginning to see that alfalfa does amazing good here, same as your potatoes.”

“We can’t haul alfalfa to town, not in quantity to pay us. But we can haul enough potatoes to trade for the flour, sugar, dried fruit — all that we need to live on. Our wants will grow as the children grow. We must have clothes, and shoes, books, and many things.”

“Luce, don’t forget guns, ponies, and saddles. We’ve got to have them soon.”

“Oh, I never thought of them. Indeed the boys are growing up...But is there immediate need for those things?”

“No. Only the sooner the better. Abe can ride bareback like an Indian now. And George’s not so bad.”

“Perhaps an open winter, such as you’ve been hoping for, will give you good luck with the beaver hides.”

“It would help out wonderful.”

“Let’s hope for that. Now here’s my plan. You’ve got ten acres of alfalfa in, almost ready to cut. And room in the cowsheds to store it. Build a large shed — just a peaked roof on posts. Something you can store tons and tons of alfalfa in.”

“Wife, that’s a great idea,” replied Logan, enthusiastically. “With George and Abe, and a little help from you, I can throw that up in a week...Well, go on.”

“Run a high pole fence out from that deep break in the wall below the road, just two lines of fence meeting across the brook. That will enclose four or five acres of pasture.”

“I can do that before the snow flies. But what for? I don’t need it.”

“You will need it. Let us begin to raise our calves to save them. Let’s keep them penned in till they are grown. Feed alfalfa as well as fodder in the winter. In summer have the boys graze them like Indian boys do flocks of sheep. All to start a herd while you’re killing off these cougars and wolves. In a few years we can turn them loose in the canyon.”

“Wife, that’s another good idea,” declared Logan, thoughtfully. “But so much work — so slow in results!”

“Logan, you’re in too much of a hurry. Remember the fable of the hare and the tortoise. We really don’t need a big herd of cattle until the boys are old enough to ride with you.”

“That’s so. Never occurred to me...If I had five thousand head, say in ten years, when George is eighteen, why in five years more I’d have my thirty thousand head.”

“Yes. Meanwhile we’d be living. By then the children will have as good an education as I can give them. They’d be growing up with our herd...It all means prodigious labour, much poverty, perhaps some hard setbacks, but in the end success...Logan, that is absolutely the only way we can attain it here in Sycamore.”

“Years — years — years!” ejaculated Logan, hollowly, shaking his shaggy head.

“We can count on them. The rest depends upon our preparation and our unremitting toil...Now as to Holbert’s lien on our property. I have the money to pay that off.”

“Lucinda!” he exclaimed, hoarsely. By that she saw how this debt had dogged him.

“Yes. It’ll take almost all of the money I saved out of my wedding-gift. We’ll get rid of it all in one swoop...I’ll go to town with you this fall, taking the children. We’ll pay Holbert on the way. Then buy things for the children and myself — we’re sadly in need, and so are you, for that matter. Come home and never go in debt again!”

“Lucinda, you’re a pioneer wife!” he burst out huskily, as if that was the greatest compliment he could pay her, and with this rare exhibition of feeling, he left her. Lucinda made a mental note of the fact that he had not promised never to go in debt again.

She sat there in the darkness, listening to the babble of the brook, the chirp of crickets, the weird cries of the nighthawks — sounds that seemed to have become a part of her. The stars burned white in the velvety-dark sky. All around, the black fringe of pines on the rims loomed protestingly. The white Sycamore that had given the canyon its name gleamed like wan marble in the starlight. From the great forest breathed down the leagues on leagues of pine and spruce — the warm, sweet, dry tang of the evergreens. How strange for Lucinda to realize that her horror of the wilderness had vanished! Only one dread, one threatening, haunting drawback to this pioneer life remained to vex her, and that was winter — the storm-demon who roared in the pines and brought the terror of a white change to the wilderness, the drifting palls of snow, the cold, ghastly windrows down the canyon.

The days went by, too short by hours for the tasks of the housewife of the pioneer, the helper in the fields, the milkmaid and the teacher. Winter fled apace and the seasons rolled on.

Lucinda’s vision of the unremitting toil and the setbacks, with their consequent poverty, had been a true presagement of the future. But the toil and the privation did not obscure the rest of that vision — the crown of success in the years to come, the reward and the blessing of the boys and the girl.

Huett lost sight of that. Like a galley-slave he toiled at his round of endless tasks. The bitter pill for him was that he had become a farmer, living from hand to mouth, when his heart was set on cattle. If he had any happiness, it was in the way his boys took to hunting, woodcraft, riding. Lucinda always felt glad for Logan when the fall season rolled around, and he could follow the game trails with the boys.

For three autumns Logan had upward of fifty head of stock in the fenced pasture — cows, steers, heifers, calves; and as many times that fair start towards a herd had been ruined by the cougars, deep snows and cold of this inhospitable wilderness. Always after a setback like one of these, it took time to make another beginning. During another instance a sudden thaw and spring flood depleted his herd of their calves. He deserted that pasture and enclosed another on higher ground, taking up acres of slope where browsing on the oak thickets was good all winter.

Still, no matter what he gained in bitter experience, no matter how unflaggingly he carried on, Lucinda saw the hard years wresting the heart of hope out of his life. Once a year he went to Flagg, traded his produce for supplies, and returned sick and brooding for days over the progress of the Arizona ranges, the influx of new settlers.

Then followed several years — just as swift, but harder than ever — which tried Lucinda’s soul. Towards the close of that period they had no flour, no sugar, and very few of the necessities of life. They lived on meat and beans — the stable product of that wilderness when all else, even the potato yield, failed. The boys went barefoot in all seasons except winter, when they wore moccasins. In fringed buckskin Barbara was a delight to Lucinda’s eyes. She grew up strong, brown, beautiful despite poverty, happy at study as at work, loving the boys she believed to be her brothers, and worshipping the dark, silent, grey-eyed Abe, who had become straight and lithe; handsome as a young pine. They were all of the woodland, and they loved and kept wilderness pets, as they had when they were children. Lucinda’s compensation lay in the fact that she had been Able to give them an elementary education, to instil in them ideals and loyalties, and belief in God. No poverty, no suffering, not even a permanent failure of Huett, could have robbed Lucinda of that joy. She had given them of herself, of her mind and heart. For the rest, for that physical prowess Logan put such store in, their infinite labours from childhood to youth, Lucinda thrilled to her depths at what she saw they would grow to be.

But Huett sustained a growing bitterness as great as his pride, and it was that he could not give this wonderful family the bare necessities of life, let alone the pretty things a girl loved, and the implements, the guns, the equipment that boys should have had in wild country.

Lucinda watched Logan with misgivings that she had to fight with all her courage and intelligence. She feared the iron that might enter his soul. She saw the hair whiten over his temples. She saw his great frame, grown heavier with the years, begin to bow a little across the broad shoulders. She saw him sit beside the hearth without the pipe of tobacco that had been his one extravagance, and ponder everlastingly over the problem of his cattle.

His vigour and his will seemed to withstand all inroads of, toil and defeat. With the boys he planted more corn, more potatoes, more alfalfa, more beans each succeeding summer. Lucinda had worked with him until the boys laughingly, yet imperiously, had sent her, back to her manifold tasks at the homestead.

Still she saw Logan at his work. She saw him from afar, and when he came stamping in at sunset, smelling of the earth and wiping the sweat from his furrowed brow, she was there to greet him. She often carried his lunch into the forest where it appeared he could cut wood faster than his sons could drag and stack it behind the cabin. The flashing axe, the ring of steel, the odorous, flying chips, the stalwart backwoodsman at his best — these, with the grey windfalls all around, the brown, fragrant mats under the junipers, the giant pines towering black-stemmed to spread into a canopy of green far overhead, the patches of gold-and-white aspens, and the scarlet maples — how these at last satisfied a nameless longing in Lucinda’s heart! This wilderness was Logan’s place. He fitted it. And he would have been happy save for that obsession of the cattle herd.

Lucinda at last faced a winter which daunted even her fortitude. Logan’s load of potatoes went to apply on a past debt and future credit was denied. He had come home without the supplies so necessary to any semblance of good living. She really worried more about her husband’s gloom that time than about the lack of food and other supplies. A long, hard winter would reduce the Huetts to wretched condition.

But Logan went into the woods with his rifle and returned to say there were signs foretelling a mild and open winter. That night, while talking to the boys, he seemed changed, more like he used to be. Lucinda took heart. Her prayers, her hopes, her visions could not be utterly futile.

Indian summer held on long, a lovely interval, with frost at night and warm sun all day — the still, dreamy, smoky autumn time that Lucinda loved. Snow did not whiten the ridges until Christmas. And there was a merry Christmas at last for the Huetts! Logan and the boys had already tacked up a hundred beaver hides on the cabin walls, and marten, mink, and skunk hides too numerous to count. These already assured Huett of money to pay his debts and have some left over. Then there was the prospect of still better hunting and trapping during the balance of the winter.

That belated stroke of good fortune carried on to great fulfilment. The wilderness yielded much to Logan Huett that mild winter. It paid him back in fur for much of his loss. In the spring, before the road was dry, he started for Flagg on the last trip for the faithful old oxen. He returned driving a new team of sturdy farm horses, drawing a new wagon loaded and piled high, with three mustangs haltered behind. His weather-beaten face wore the happiest mien Lucinda had seen there since the day she married him.

The boys, whom he had not taken with him to Flagg, stood around the wagon wide-eyed, staring at the shaggy mustangs, fat and woolly from a winter pasture. Barbara forgot herself in awe and joy over the ponies she had heard the boys talk about for years. And Lucinda could have wept.

“Well, you moon-eyed Huetts,” said Logan, “from this day on you’re cowboys!”

“Aw, Paw, which is mine?” queried Grant, eagerly.

“Grant, yours is the buckskin. And that’s his name...Abe, the wild sorrel there, rarin’ back on that rope, is yours...George, the bay belongs to you — if you can ride him.”

“Huh! I’ll ride him all right,” declared George, raptly. Abe did not have anything to say, but the look in his grey eyes was enough.

“Tie them to the fence, there, and help me unpack this wagon,” went on Logan, practically.

Presently Logan lifted a huge pack, sewed up in burlap, and threw it at Lucinda’s feet.

“For you and Barbara. Every item on your list — and every doggone thing I could think of!”

Barbara squealed with delight and pounced upon the pack, but she could not even budge it. Lucinda was not speechless so much from surprise and pleasure as she was at the unusual feeling exhibited by her husband. She watched him.

“Saddles and bridles and spurs and chaps — all Mexican. Navajo saddle-blankets. Manila ropes. Rifle-sheaths and gun-belts...Here, cowboys, lift down this heavy one. Shells, plenty! I haven’t seen so many since I was Indian scout for General Crook...Look at these. Colts. Forty-fives!...And here. Ha! ha! — Winchester rifles! — Forty-fours! Light, hard-shooting, easy to pack on a saddle!...Now, cowboys first and hunters second, the Huett outfit starts this day. And it’s a bad day for varmints of this range. Cougars, lofers, grizzlies, cinnamons, take notice!...And Outfit, listen to this news from Flagg. Rustlers have come in from New Mexico. Cattle-thieves! They’re working the ranges east of Flagg. And rustling will grow in Arizona as the cattle increase. It’s hard lines. Something I never reckoned on. I’ve fought the four-footed meat-eaters all these years. And snow and ice and blizzards and heat and drought and flood. But now comes the worst enemy of the cattlemen. The maverick hunter — the calf thief...Let that sink in deep, sons. But rustlers won’t stop us. We’ve got this walled range, and grass and water. Nothing shall ever stop us from raising that thirty thousand head!”

CHAPTER TEN

LOGAN HUETT TOOK no stock of the passing years. He did not count them, but he saw his sons grow into tall, broad-shouldered, small-hipped, round-limbed riders, lean-jawed men, with intent clear eyes and still, tanned faces. He saw them grow into the hunters and cowboys he had vowed to make them when they were little boys tumbling about the green bench with their pets. George was the born cattleman, Abe the woodsman, the keenest tracker, the best shot in that section of Arizona. Grant became the cowboy, the hardest rider, the most unerring roper from the Cibeque to the railroad.

Likewise, and with almost as great satisfaction, Huett saw his little band of carefully guarded and nourished cattle grow into the nucleus of a herd. He counted them from calving time to the snows, and from the first white fall to the thaw in spring — jealously, morosely, sorrowfully in lean years, hopefully in those seasons that favoured him.

In the same terms he saw and counted the new homesteaders, the settlers that drifted in, the cattlemen who opened up the wide range from Mormon Lake to Flagg, the squatters who located at a spring or water-hole, to eke out a bare, miserable existence in log shacks, always looking towards making a stake out of their water-rights. Nor did Huett miss any of the men who drifted in to make their homes back in the great forest. They lived on meat and beans, holed up in the winter, rode the trails in other seasons, and idled away fruitless hours in a few little hamlets that sprang up across the vast rangeland.

Huett’s failure for so many years was due to a one-man fight against too many obstacles. As his sons grew up, this condition imperceptibly diminished until it was overcome. If any one factor more than another contributed to this victory, it was the winter trapping of fur-bearing animals. But Huett developed his farm. This and the sale of pelts provided them with a living while his herd slowly grew.

His habits of restless energy and indomitable purpose were transmitted to his sons. They were Logan Huett all over again. And as the bitter ordeal of the past years gradually faded and he saw the physical manifestations of his vision take shape before his eyes, he touched happiness almost as great as his pride in his boys.

One late afternoon in the early spring Huett returned from the corrals to the cabin. His wife and Barbara had put the dining-table out on the porch for the first time that season, perhaps a little too early, considering the cool evenings But Huett liked to eat out where he could see the gar. den, the alfalfa, the pasture, and the cattle dotting the long valley.

Abe had just come down from the rim, and stood leaning on his rifle talking to George and Grant. In buckskins, compared to the blue-jeaned, high-booted garb of his brothers, he appeared shorter, but the fact was that he equalled them in lithe six-foot manhood.

“Dad, here’s good news,” spoke up’ George, his intent eyes alight. “Abe trailed that bunch of wild horses down into the head of Three Spring Draw.”

“Ahuh. Well, he’s always trailing something,” replied Huett, with a laugh. “But what of it?”

“We can drive them down into the canyon.”

“Trap them,” added Grant, eagerly.

“It could be done, if they’re in that draw. I reckon, though, during the night they’ll work out.”

Abe said he did not think so. Below the brakes of that ravine it opened out into a sunny park where the snow melted off early, and the young shoots of grass had come up rich and green. Abe recalled that once before he had seen wild horses down there.

“How many of them?” asked Huett, becoming fired with possibilities.

“Big drove. I saw a hundred head. Some fine stock. There’s a blue roan stallion in that bunch I’d like to catch.”

“Well, I reckon if we trapped them we’d have a hell of a time catching them.”

“But, Dad, they could never climb out of the canyon. And it’ll be a long time before our herd grows so big as to need all the grass.”

“Dad, it’s sure a windfall of luck,” put in George. “We need horses. We could cut out some of the best, catch them, break them. Breed them, too.”

“What’s your plan, Abe?” asked Huett, convinced.

“You go down the canyon in the morning, at daybreak, and tear down that pole fence half-way up the draw. We’ll ride on top, spread out and roll rocks off the rim. Then we’ll pile down the several trails, yelling and shooting. I’ll bet the whole bunch will break for the canyon.”

“Supper’s waiting, father,” called Barbara, who stood by the table listening.

“All right, Barbara, I’ll be there pronto,” he called gaily. “Fetch me a little hot water. I’ve got axle-grease on my hands.”

She brought it and stood by while he washed his hands. “Father, that’s great — Abe’s tracking wild horses into the draw, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Barbara, it sure is. I reckon our luck has changed. A bunch of fine horses, all at once — almost too good to be true.”

“Buck is old and lame now,” went on Barbara. “He ought to be turned loose for good.”

“He’s sure earned it...Barbara, I reckon what makes your eyes so bright is the chance for a new horse for you, eh?”

“Oh, yes, I’d love to have one of my own,” replied Barbara.

Her earnest feeling touched Huett in that old sore spot — the poignant fact of his failure to give his loved ones the comforts, the pleasures, the rare luxuries which made life so much easier and happier. He had known some of these when a boy. Lucinda had never been without them until she came to him. And he had always shared her conviction that Barbara had come of fine stock, whatever the fatality and tragedy of her childhood.

“Abe, this girl Barbara is raving about a wild mustang broken for her,” he said, a little huskily.

“Barbara, you shall have two and take your pick,” replied Abe, with a warm, soft glow in his grey eyes.

“Oh, grand!” she cried, ecstatically. “May I go with you to drive the wild horses down?”

“Aw now, ask me an easy one,” said Abe, regretfully. “Babs, you’re good on a horse, but this drive will take awful hard riding. Suppose you go with Dad. You can help him tear down the fence, then, get back out of the way and watch those wild horses pile by out into the canyon. Watch for that blue roan stallion!”

“Come to supper,” called Lucinda, impatiently. “It’s get; Ling cold.”

Logan straddled the crude deerskin-covered bench and sat down to the table that was likewise the work of his hands, It was laden with good wholesome food. He and his sons were too hungry to talk. The shades of the spring dusk fell upon them there.

Before daylight the next morning Logan arose, scraped the red coals out of the ashes and started a fire. He put the kettle on. Then he called Barbara.

“I’ll be right down,” she replied. “I heard you get up.”

“Boil some coffee. And butter sow biscuits. We might not get back in time for breakfast. I’ll go milk — then saddle up.”

It was dark outside and coyotes were wailing over the ridge. The lofty pines stood up black and still. Logan heard the boys coming in with the horses. He went out, to find Buck and his steed saddled and haltered to the corral fence. Faint streaks of grey shone in the east, while the morning air was cold and raw. He could hear wild turkeys calling sleepily from their roost up in the forest. Returning, Logan found the boys had preceded him to the cabin. Barbara, clad in overalls and boots, looking like a lithe, sturdy boy with a pretty brown face, was serving them with coffee and biscuits.

“Good! I reckoned you’d better have a snack of grub,” said Logan, as they greeted him. “What’s the deal, sons?”

“Dad, you’d better rustle,” replied Abe. “We’ll be at the head of Three Springs by sunrise.”

“Don’t worry, Abraham. We’ll have a hole in that fence.”

It was grey dawn when Logan set out riding down the canyon with Barbara. Five miles down the walled valley spread widest and then began to close in again. The walls grew more rugged and opened up with intersecting canyons’ — or draws, the boys called them. The gorge called Three’ Springs Draw was as deceiving as any ramification of this strange valley. Its opening appeared like a shallow cove in the east wall, but the inside soon spread out into a large area of grassy parks, groves of pine and maple, and thickets of oak. The fence of poles crossed the narrow neck between the open oval valley and the rough-timbered, rock-strewn gorge beyond.

“Reckon this is a good place,” said Logan, dismounting. “Barbara, pile off and tie Buck back-a-ways. Wild horses have a peculiar effect upon tame horses. Abe says a tame horse gone wild is almost impossible to catch...You climb on that fiat rock. You can see everything from there and be safe.”

“All right, that’ll be jake,” returned Barbara. “But can’t I help you take down the fence?”

“Sure, and let’s rustle. Abe will be letting out that Indian yell of his pronto. That’ll be their signal.”

Barbara did not have her, wide shoulders and strong arms for nothing. She had done her share of the Huett labours. Logan found a strong satisfaction in watching her. How well he remembered Lucinda’s pride in Barbara’s good looks, which some time got the better of Lucinda’s need of help. Barbara always wore gloves for heavy work, and Lucinda worried too much about sun and dirt. Logan was always amused at these evidences of Lucinda’s lingering vanity. For his part he thought Barbara a pretty girl, and what was better, good, obedient, and lovable, who would make some settler as wonderful a wife as was Lucinda. But that last thought always worried Logan. He did not want to lose Barbara.

The pole fence was a makeshift affair, strong enough, but neither nailed nor wired, and it was so easily pushed over that Logan quickly saw the need of a new one.

“Oh — listen!” cried Barbara, suddenly, dropping the pole she had carried to one side.

On the instant a piercing yell rang down from the heights. It was Abe’s call which he always used when they were hunting the canyons. In the early, still morning, with the air cold and clear, the prolonged bugle note pealed down, to rebound with a clapping sound from wall to wall, to wind across the canyon and die in hollow echo.

“Wonderful!” cried Barbara. “Hasn’t Abe a voice?”

“Yells like an Indian,” replied Logan, with enthusiasm. “Get up on your rock now. I’ll answer. Then you’ll hear some thunder.”

Logan cupped his hands round his mouth, drew a deer breath, and expelled it in a stentorian: “Wa — hoo-o!”

His yell let loose a thousand weird and hollow echoes. Logan went back to have another look at the haltered horses; then he returned to mount the rock beside Barbara. He had scarcely sat down when from high up and far away a rock crashed from the rim, to start a rattling slide. It had scarcely ceased when a like sound came from the other side of the canyon.

“If I remember right there’s a rocky weathered wall just at the head of Three Springs,” said Logan. “A big rock rolled there will start an avalanche. The boys do that when they hunt bears. You bet if there are any bears below they come piling out...By golly! I forgot my rifle. It wouldn’t be so much fun if an old grizzly got routed out up there and came rumbling down here.”

“I’ll shinny up that tree,” replied Barbara, gaily.

“Daughter, I’m a little heavy to run or shinny up trees...There!”

“Oh my!” shrilled Barbara.

Thunder had burst under the rim. A sliding rattle soon drowned heavy crashes and thuds, until it swelled into a deep booming roar that filled the canyon. It was a tremendous sound that took moments to lose its power to lessen and end in rattling slides and cracking rocks.

“Golly! Wasn’t that a noise!!” ejaculated Logan.

“Terrible. But oh, so thrilling!”

“Barbara, every four-legged animal up that draw will run wild down here. The boys won’t need to waste their ammunition shooting or their voices either...Look! Deer coming.”

“Oh! How strangely they bound! As if on springs. But so graceful...There’s a fawn...”

“Barbara, I hear the trample of hoofs. Stampede! That’s the sound to thrill me. Horses or cattle it’s all the same.”

“Look, Dad! — Flashing through the brush — under the trees — white, red, brown, black!...Look! Wild horses!”

Logan saw them burst out of the timber and yelled his delight. A wild, shaggy drove of mustangs, long manes and tails flying, poured out of the draw like a flood. The vanguard passed Logan and Barbara in a cloud of dust, so swiftly as to be obscured from clear view, but this body was followed by strings of horses and then stragglers that could be seen distinctly. Logan discerned many a clean-limbed, racy mustang that if well-broken would sell at a good price. His thrifty, eager mind grasped at that. But Barbara was squealing over the beauty of this sorrel and that bay or buckskin. Suddenly Ale tugged at Logan.

“Look, Dad, look! Abe’s blue stallion!...Did you ever see such a beautiful horse. ‘Wild! Oh, he could never be tamed.”

“Gosh, but he’s a thoroughbred,” returned Logan. “Lamed himself a little. Reckon that accounts for him being behind...Bab, I’m afraid there’s a horse Abe wouldn’t give you.”

“Abe would give me anything in the world,” cried Barbara, her voice rich and sweet. “They’re gone, Dad, out into the canyon. How many altogether?”

“Eighty or a hundred head. And I’ll bet half of them good for something. This is not a bad morning’s work!”

“Isn’t that a bear?” queried Barbara, pointing up “On the ledge — above the clump of firs...Yes, it’s a nice big shiny black bear.”

“Sure is. Wish I had my gun.”

“I don’t. Dad, I never forgot my bear cubs. Oh, why did they have to grow up, to be nuisances to you? Never to me!”

“Bab, your bears got too big. But it sure was interesting — the way they refused at first to go back to the wild and kept coming home...That fellow, though, never belonged to you. He’s part cinnamon. See the red shine on him in the sun...Wow! the boys are shooting at him. Listen to the bullets crack on the rocks. Must be shooting at long range.”

“Oh, I hope he gets away,” cried Barbara.

“There he piles off the ledge, out of sight in the brush. When a bear runs downhill like that he’s safe, Bab, even from as wonderful a shot as Abe.”

Logan got off the rock to begin putting up the fence. While he was at this task George and Grant rode out of the draw, and came trotting up to Barbara, gay and excited over their successful venture.

“Hello, Babs,” called Grant, as he leaped off, to brush the pine needles and bits of wood from his person. “Did you hear the rocks rolling? Wasn’t that slide Abe started a humdinger of a roar? — Did you see the wild horses?”

“Grant, it was all wonderful,” replied Barbara, her eyes fixed eagerly upon the draw.

The boys set to work helping Logan with the fence. By the time Abe rode out of the timber they had completed the job, at least to Logan’s satisfaction.

“Paw, it’s not high enough,” said Abe. “Some of those wild horses would jump it. We’ll cut some more poles and snake out some stumps. Build up the low places. Then we’ll have them corralled.”

“Abe, it was a slick job,” said Logan, admiringly. “Talk about a windfall!”

“Funny how I hated to start that big slide. Guess I got soft-hearted at the last...Barbara, what do you think?”

“Abe, those wild horses will be safer, happier, shut up in our canyon...And I picked out two...Oh, we saw your blue stallion. He was a little lame. Prettiest horse I ever saw, Abe.”

“Do you want him?” asked Abe, his eyes shining on her.

“I wouldn’t be mean enough to take him,” she replied.

George rode into the timber to drag out stumps. Grant walked off with the axe. Abe sat his horse watching Barbara with that slight pensive smile upon his tanned face. Logan found a seat to rest upon while the boys fetched more materials to raise the fence. He felt unusually exhilarated. Abe had solved the horse problem for some time to come. Nearer and nearer crept the actuality of that vision of years.

“Sons,” said Logan Huett, to his boys, “our hay is cut and stored. The corn and beans can wait. We’ve a hundred sacks of potatoes to haul to town. That leaves us the big job. Driving cattle in to sell! — The first time in twenty years I — By God, I can’t believe it!”

“Dad, we could have sold quite a bunch last year, but you wouldn’t,” rejoined George.

“I hadn’t the nerve...Boys, we’ll cut out all our old cows that haven’t calved, and the steers, and throw them into the pasture to-night...Your mother and Barbara will go with me on the wagon. We’ll leave at daybreak. I’ll wait for you at Turkey Flat. Next day we’ll camp from there.”

Two hours later the boys had Huett’s herd bunched under the wall in the west side of the canyon. Those several hundred head of cattle, that had appeared so few down on the wide range, now, When bunched and milling, raising the dust and bawling, appeared to Huett an imposing and all-satisfying spectacle. They were the beginning of a great herd.

He rode out to meet the boys and have his share in the roundup. Lucinda came out to watch. Barbara, astride her spirited little buckskin mustang, flashed here and there to drive stragglers back into the bunch.

“Logan Huett, you’re holding a round-up,” soliloquized the rancher. “Kick yourself and wake up. The most important move on a cattleman’s range is about to take place for the first time in Sycamore Canyon.”

He reined his horse beside the corral fence upon which Lucinda had climbed to see.

“Luce, look at your sons. Cowboys!” he exclaimed, with a thrill that was communicated to his voice. “Isn’t that a grand sight?”

“Dear, I — I can’t see very well,” faltered his wife.

“What you crying for, Luce? Didn’t I always tell you the day would come?...Look at Barbara ride!”

“She’ll kill herself on that wild pony...Oh, Logan, need she be like the boys?”

“Lucinda, she can’t be anything but what you made her — the finest girl west of the Rockies.”

“Logan!” He saw her eyes shine through her tears. “Do you really mean that?”

“I sure do, wife. Let her ride.”

He joined his sons and lent his big voice and his tireless energy to this task — the happiest and most important that had ever been undertaken on his range.

Yet, buoyant as they all were, they addressed themselves to that task with intense seriousness.

The herd was not by any means tame. Crowded into the triangle under the wall, with one corral fence preventing escape from the other side, they milled around like a maelstrom, bawling loudly, knocking heads and horns together. Barbara had the swiftest riding to do, as her job was to overtake those that ran out of the circle, and drive them inside the pasture gate. Logan helped Abe cut out the cows and steers designated by George, whose job of selection was the one of great responsibility. Grant had to rope the cattle that could not be cut out of the herd, and drag them from the melee. He was left-handed, but extraordinarily unerring with a lasso. He could pitch a small loop over the horns of a steer that was fenced all about by a forest of horns, as well as throw clear across the herd and fasten it to a steer plunging out on the opposite side.

Logan revelled in the round-up. The sharp calls of the boys, Barbara’s high-pitched cry, the pound of hoofs and grind of horns, the coarse bawls of the steers, the swaying, straining mill of the whole herd, the dry, acrid smell of rising dust, and the swift horses, running in, halting on a pivot, to wheel and hold hard — these were music and sweetness and incense to the longing ambition of Logan Huett.

At length George called the count.

“Eighty-seven — and that’s aplenty,” he announced. “Dad, cattle were selling at thirty dollars on the hoof last spring. They’ll fetch more now. What’ll you do with all that money?”

“Lord — son,” panted Logan, wiping his grimy face, “after I square myself with your mother and you all, not forgetting Barbara, I’ll not have enough left to pay my debts...But, by thunder, once in our lives we’ll ride high and handsome.”

“Whoopee!” yelled George and Grant in unison. Abe bent thoughtful eyes upon the glowing Barbara.

“Luce, now supper and to bed,” shouted Logan. “We’ll be on our way before sun-up.”

The snail’s-pace drive was not too slow for Logan. It could have been slower and yet have given him joy. Every windfall along the dusty road, every big pine and rock, swale and flat, in fact every landmark so well known to him that he could locate them in the dark, each and all seemed to greet him. “Wal, old timer, drivin’ to the railroad at last!”

Holbert, at Mormon Lake, was frankly glad to see Huett come along at last with cattle to sell. He was full of news, much of it bad. At the peak of his cattle-raising, the year before, his son-in-law had thrown in with a band of rustlers and had driven ten thousand head of stock out of the territory before Holbert knew a hoof was moving.

“Look out down your way, Huett,” he advised, morosely. “When you begin to sell cattle you’re a marked man. There’ll be hell to pay on this range, in five years.”

Holbert’s pessimism, which was corroborated by his neighbour Collier, in no wise dampened Huett’s ardour. He had his heavy boot on the neck of the hydra-headed giant that had kept him poor for twenty years. That trip to Flagg, for him and his family, far outdid the one years before, when his beaver pelts had brought their first happy Christmas. He spent lavishly. He bought secret gifts for the Christmas soon to come. He paid his pressing debts and saw himself at last on the road to success.

The drive back home, with a second wagon and team, was in the nature of a jubilee. More than once Lucinda had Logan stop the wagon so that she could get out and gather purple asters and golden rod. She talked of their honeymoon ride through that dreary, desolate forest. And before they got home Lucinda talked of other things — particularly about Barbara.

“Logan, you’re blind as a bat to all except cattle,” she said, tersely. “You never saw how the men at Flagg, young and old, flocked around Barbara. That girl could be the belle of Arizona. She could marry any one of them. Take her pick.”

“Good Lord, Luce!” ejaculated Logan, surprised and stung. “Our Barbara leaving? Not to be thought of!”

“How can we help it? — But for Barbara’s singular loyalty to us — her love for the boys — she would be having suitors now.”

“Luce, you trouble me.”

“No wonder. I’m troubled myself. Barbara loves George and Grant. And she worships Abe. But she doesn’t know it. She thinks she’s just a fond sister. Nature will out, Logan! — She’s no kin of ours. She’s not their sister...And my trouble is this. Since she must marry — do her part for our West — she should marry one of our boys!”

“My God, Lucinda! you’d have to tell her you’re not her mother. I’m not her Dad. Who could we tell her she is? We don’t even know her name...Aw, Luce, let’s keep it secret long as we can. Not to break that sweet girl’s heart!”

“There’s the rub, Logan dear,” returned Lucinda, soberly. “But the thing can’t be overlooked for ever.”

Another autumn came. It was different from all the autumns, except one, that Huett remembered. It followed a hot summer remarkable for short, dry, electric storms. What little rain fell was up on the bluffs and the high rims. Not a drop descended in Sycamore Canyon.

That spring and summer the grass in the canyon had been thicker and richer than usual. Huett had dammed the brook into a small lake and had run many branches from it through the meadows, until it sank into the ground. The gardens, orchards, and alfalfa fields, having abundant water from the irrigation ditches, did not suffer from the scorching sun and dry wind.

Indian summer held off.

One day Abe met two cowboys out on the road, riding to Payson. They reported the worst grasshopper plague ever known in that section of Arizona. Ranchers all the way down had sent word along the line for Collier, Holbert, and Huett to look out for a river of grasshoppers flowing over the best of the range land.

When Abe reported that news to his father it was received seriously, but not in any anxiety. Sycamore was a deep hole in the forest, and unlikely to be visited by a plague.

George Huett, the most studious and keenest of the Huetts, took a pessimistic view of the possibilities.

“But, Dad, suppose the grasshoppers did happen to light down in Sycamore,” he said, in reply to Logan’s sanguine convictions. “They would absolutely eat us up, clean us out, ruin us.”

“Son! How do you figure that?”

“Because our canyon is a narrow strip compared to the open range. They’d sweep right through, eating everything to the roots.”

“But our stock can live on browse.”

“In normal years, yes. But this is not normal. No slopes, and very little leafage.”

“Then it is serious,” returned Logan, quickly troubled. “Just when’ our prospects are so bright!...God must be against me!”

“Nature is, that’s sure.”

“What can we do?”

“Dad, that’s the hell of it. We can’t do anything but hope and pray.”

“Would you cut the alfalfa?”

“Sure, if we had time. But you know what a job that is. Usually we take a week to cut, dry, rake, and haul. And here those grasshoppers are right on top of us.”

“You don’t say?” Huett swore under his breath.

“Abe said he’d not worry you till he had to. He rode up the canyon, meaning to climb out and scout back towards the open range. You see, our canyon is almost in a direct line with that flight of grasshoppers. The open country east of Mormon Lake sticks a spike down into this forest. And the point of it is not very far from the head of Sycamore. Grassy draws through the woods all the way. And, Dad, these damn grasshoppers don’t hop! They fly.”

“Sure grasshoppers can fly. I’ve seen the wild turkeys chase them. It’s always good hunting when the turks are feeding on them...Son, what you mean? Grasshoppers can’t eat while they fly.”

“No. But all the same, that’s how they cover ground so fast. I’ve read in the Bible of the locust flights in Egypt. And I’ve heard, of grasshoppers’ flights in Kansas. Much the same, I reckon.”

Huett and his two sons waited anxiously for Abe’s return. He rode in presently, dark of face and sombre of eye.

“Bad news, son?” queried the cattleman.

“Dad, it couldn’t be no worse,” replied Abe, sliding out of his saddle, his glance like grey fire. “They’re in the canyon.”

“No! — Not our canyon?”

“Yes, our canyon. Half-way down. A mile or two of grasshoppers, like a yellow carpet rolling down the grass. They leave the ground as bare as if it’d been burned...Thousands, millions, billions...Barbara,” he called to the listening wide-eyed girl, “what’s next after billions?”

“Trillions, you stupid boy!”

“Well, trillions of yellow-legged hoppers. They’ll be on us pronto...I’m so mad I’m sick. If we could only do something.”

“My — God!” gasped Huett. “I can’t feed our stock a month this winter, even if we had the corn and alfalfa cut.”

Lucinda heard from the door. Her face appeared to Logan to take on again the old sad cast. But she returned indoors without speaking. Barbara, however, vented enough amaze, disgust, and anger for the whole family.

“Bab, swear all you want,” said Grant solemnly. “It won’t do us any good. We’re going to be ruined by a mob of bugs!”

“Oh no! You men can do something,” she cried.

“What?”

“Set fire to the grass!”

“By golly, that’s an idea, Dad,” spoke up George.

“We can meet them with fire. That’ll do the trick, but...” Abe broke off with a sombre shake of his dark sleek head.

“Not to be thought of!” boomed Huett. “We’d set the forest afire, burn all the timber and grass in the country...But let’s think of some other way.”

“Dad, just wait till you see the air full of buzzing grasshoppers and the ground yellow with them — then you’ll savvy we can’t do a thing,” averred Abe, tragically.

“Well, I won’t see it till I have to,” averred Logan, gruffly, as he got up. “But no Huett ever showed yellow. And we won’t, even with a yellow plague upon us! — Come, sons, we’ll cut the alfalfa.”

George and Grant followed him to the barn to get scythes and rakes. But Abe sat looking at Barbara. Presently he mounted his horse and rode up the canyon. Huett went ploddingly at the labour, his sombre gaze bent upon the rich green hay that he was mowing.

“Say!” called Grant, suddenly. “What’n hell can be chasing Abe?”

“Dad — look!” shouted George.

Then Logan looked up to see Abe riding swiftly by the cabin. He waved and shouted to Barbara as he passed. He headed his lean mustang across the gardens and came tearing up to Logan, scattering dust all over him.

“Dad — we’re saved!” he panted hoarsely, his dark face alight, his eyes piercingly bright. “What you — think?...You’d never guess — in a thousand years.”

“I reckon not — if you come ararin’ at me like this. What ails you, son?”

“He’s loco, sure as our rotten luck!” declared George, which assertion corroborated Logan’s. Abe was not the kind to show excitement in any event, let alone the intensity which radiated from him now.

“We haven’t got rotten luck,” he cried. “But the most — marvellous luck — in the world...We’re not going to be cleaned out...I tell you — we’re saved!”

“Son, I heard you the first time,” replied Huett, soberly, not daring to accept Abe’s strange, excited statements. “If you’re not crazy — tell me how we’re saved.”

“By God, you’ll never believe me,” declared Abe, with a deep laugh. “I couldn’t believe my own eyes. But dang it — come and see...Dad, I hope to die if I didn’t see thousands of wild turkeys come flapping, sailing, running down out of the woods upon that swarm of grasshoppers.”

“Wild turkeys!” burst out Huett, suddenly dazzled.

“Sure as you’re alive,” replied Abe, eagerly. “The regular fall round-up, you know, when the turks band together to come up-country for the pine nuts and acorns.”

“Of all the miracles!” exclaimed George, beamingly. “Dad, one big gobbler fan eat a bushel of hoppers!”

“I reckon I was wrong to say God had deserted me,” declared Huett, in august self-reproach.

“Sight of my life,” declared Abe. “Come on. You’ve got to see it. Maw and Bab, too...But we must walk — slip along under the trees — so those turks won’t catch a glimpse of us. I reckon, though, that wouldn’t make no difference to-day...Come, we’ll take a short cut.”

Soon all the Huetts were following Abe through the woods. Barbara slipped her hand into Logan’s and ran to keep up with him. Abe hushed their exuberant talk. They crossed the timbered slope above the cabin, keeping to the left, climbing the rocky, vine-covered ledges above the falls, and went rapidly through the thick belt of timber beyond. Abe led across the brook. Soon Logan saw through the scattering trees the brown open canyon again. Perhaps half a mile beyond Abe halted.

“Listen! Did you ever hear the like of that?” he queried.

A strange sound filled Logan’s ears. Indeed, he could not compare it to anything he had ever heard. It was a loud, buzzing, seething hum mixed with a thumping, flapping roar.

“I’ll be doggoned!” ejaculated Logan. “Hear it, Barbara?”

“Do I? Oh, what music! Come, let’s hurry, Abe, so we can see!”

Abe led them to the edge of the woods. Out there in the grassy open of the canyon, under a dust-cloud, was being enacted a one-sided war — a massacre — a carnage. Clear across the flat stretched a wide, shifting, bronze, white, and black belt of wild turkeys in swift and ruthless action. Logan made no estimate of that huge flock. But in that country of wild turkeys, where he had seen large flocks for twenty years, this one surpassed all. Beyond the dust-cloud, up the canyon, moved a yellow, glassy mass in the air. It waved up and down. Behind it under the dust thumped and picked and darted the army of huge, gay-plumaged birds. They moved forward in a stretched formation, yet dozens of great gobblers left the line to run back after grasshoppers that tried to escape to the rear. They were big, fat, slow grasshoppers and they could not fly far. Not one escaped to the rear.

“Oh, Dad, isn’t it grand?” cried Barbara, excitedly as she clung to him and they hurried along at the edge of the timber to keep up with the moving spectacle.

Manifestly Huett was entranced, enraptured by the scene. This was, if anything, the strange miracle of destiny prophesying his success. Nothing could halt him now.

“Wonderful, Barbara! I never saw the like,” he said with a voice that shook. “Abe was right...We’re saved. And never so long as I live will I kill another turkey.”

“Dad, it’s all day with that bunch of grasshoppers,” said George. “The turkeys will stick to them until they’ve gobbled every darned one. You know a gobbler likes a fat juicy hopper about the same as Abe does apple pie.”

“In that case, good-bye to the hoppers!” laughed Barbara. They came to where a point of the forest-land projected out into the open. Abe halted, there.

“I reckon this is far enough,” he said, as they joined him. “Some of those wary old gobblers have begun to look back. It won’t do to scare that bunch...Isn’t it a mess, Paw? Aren’t those turks doing a great job for us?”

“So great, son, that I’ll hang here a while longer,” replied Huett, fervently. “Go back, all of you. Mother looks tired. We’ve come a couple, of miles. All to watch a flock of wild turkeys!”

“Logan, nothing is ever as terrible as it seems — at first,” returned Lucinda, and giving him a sweet smile she started back with Barbara, followed by the boys.

Abe halted and turned with one of his rare smiles: “Paw, would you like turkey for supper?”

Logan waved him on. Soon they passed out of sight under the pines. Then Logan once more turned his attention to the massacre of the grasshoppers. The action did not change. The cloud of insects kept flying and hopping up the canyon, while the turkeys ran, thumping up the dust, pouncing and picking as before. But the sight grew somehow magnificent to Logan. It was nothing in raw nature but an incident. But to Logan it had vast significance.

The dust-cloud moved along behind the yellow stream. And the coloured throng of turkeys, their bronze backs bent, or their red heads high, with chequered wings flapping and feet pounding, kept surging, massing, disintegrating, running up the canyon. The loud seethe and buzz, with the roar of the feathered jackals, gradually diminished to a hum.

Logan watched them out of sight and sound. And then he lingered there in the dreaming, silent forest. This unexpected and unparalleled accident that meant so much to him seemed inexplicable as a mere happening on the cattle range. Logan’s pondering thought was not equal to the subtle intimations. What was his long toil, his ceaseless energy, reserved for? Had not Lucinda meant that this should be a lesson to him — that he had been too self-centred, too grimly fettered to his one task, too prone to doubt and fear? Something nameless and inevitable waited upon his years. A mournful stir in the great forest, a breath of the soul of that wilderness, had a counterpart in his emotion, a whisper, the meaning of which eluded him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LUCINDA ALLOWED HERSELF to be persuaded again by Barbara and Grant to attend a dance at Pine.

These occasions had been few and far between as the years flew by. In that country they were the only social gatherings of any kind, and were attended by all the scant populace for fifty miles around, irrespective of character.

Whatever Lucinda’s qualities — which Logan so often maintained, with solid pride, were perfect for a pioneer’s wife — she had never favoured these country affairs until the children, grew far beyond the age of the other young people who gave themselves so avidly to this one pleasure. Dances were the only means by which the older folk got acquainted and the youngsters had a chance to court each other. The drawbacks, from Lucinda’s point of view, were the invariable and often serious fights among the young backwoodsmen, and the cowboys, not to mention the men of doubtful prestige.

So the time had come when Lucinda was reluctantly compelled to attend an occasional one of these functions. Logan enjoyed them immensely. He talked cattle to the other ranchers, and watched the young folk dance. It did not seem to worry him that the young bucks fought over Barbara. She was the prettiest and most popular girl between Flagg and the Matazels. Logan took vast pride in that. Nevertheless he did not encourage young men to call at Sycamore Canyon. He still clung jealously to the secret and the dream of his isolated range.

But Lucinda saw things differently. She had forestalled the courting of Barbara until the girl was older than most young mothers of that region. She would have put it off altogether, or indefinitely, if either had been possible.

A very beautiful relationship existed between Barbara and Abe. If they thought about it at all they probably regarded it as sister and brother love, but Lucinda believed their worship was deeper than they had conceived. Abe had paid little attention to other girls, while Barbara would have been content always to dance, ride, work, and talk with Abe.

The respect and devotion Grant held for Barbara were a joy to Lucinda, although they were purely of a brotherly nature. Grant held no favourite among the country belles, although he interested himself in many of them. George, however, was different. He made no secret of his affection for Barbara, but his interest in other women was more violent and possessive than either of his brothers’.

Lucinda pondered over these things all morning of the November day when the Huetts were preparing to drive to Pine for the Thanksgiving turkey shoot and dance. Logan was intent on loading more produce to sell in Pine than one wagon would contain. Barbara laboured between ecstasy and despair over the white gown Lucinda had given her. Grant and George decked themselves out in all the cowboy finery they possessed. Abe came in dressed in buckskin, carrying his rifle.

“Abe Huett!” exclaimed Barbara. “You’re not going to this dance in buckskin?”

“Bab, I’m going to a turkey shoot,” replied Abe, mildly. “But you promised to come to the dance...Abe, I won’t have any fun without you.”

“Sure I’ll come. You don’t think I’d leave you to that pack of hombres, do you?...But I don’t want to wear pants and boots when I can be comfortable in buckskin. Barbara, I’m going to win that turkey shoot.”

“Win! Of course you’ll win. But, Abe, please dress up, and look like — like somebody. You can’t dance in moccasins.”

“I can’t dance in boots or shoes either.”

“You can too.”

“I never get much chance to dance with you, anyway.”

“You shall to-night. I promise. Please, Abe.”

“Say, you don’t have to coax me. I’m tickled to death. But, darn it, Barbara, I’m no good as a dancer.”

“You’re not so bad, Abe. Sure, you’re no dancing dude him George.”

George took the sly dig as a compliment. Lucinda divined something untoward was brewing here. Barbara was not jealous of George’s attentions to his other friends, but she took exception to a great many of them. Lucinda thought this an opportune moment to bring matters to a head.

“George, you’re not going to take that Mil Campbell to this dance?” hazarded Lucinda, with pretended assurance.

“Why, yes, Maw — I’d thought of it,” drawled George, as he carefully adjusted his scarf.

“No!...Not really?”

“Yes, really,” retorted George, the red leaping to his cheek. “Mil can dance rings round that outfit. It’s a mixed crowd, you know...and why shouldn’t I?”

“I shouldn’t think you’d need to be told,” returned Lucinda, coldly.

“Now, Ma!”

“Brother, the reason you shouldn’t take that hussy is because Ma and I will be there,” spoke up Barbara, her eyes blazing.

“Aw, I don’t see it!” ejaculated George. But he was aware of it, and he was angry.

Abe eyed him ‘penetratingly. “Say, don’t look for me to help you fight that Campbell outfit again.”

“You can all go to the devil,” shouted George, furiously.

“If we did we’d meet you there, George Washington Huett,” said Barbara, cuttingly. “But don’t misunderstand me...George, it’s really none of my business whom you take — or what you do. Only I’ve blinded myself to your actions. Mil Campbell is handsome, and I’ll bet she’s lots of fun. She certainly can start fights among her beaux. But, you know, she’s hardly a — a person to flaunt in front of Mother and me...Don’t expect me to speak to you, let alone dance with you.”

George’s tanned face turned white and his eyes held a passionate reproach. But he strode out silently, his head up.

“Aw, Bab, you raked him over pretty hard,” said Grant. “After all, blood is thicker than water.”

“Served the lady-killer just right,” added Abe. “George has got some sense, but he doesn’t use it until he’s waked up by a jar...And, Bab, don’t you feel sorry. That Campbell outfit hate George because Mil is crazy about him. There’ll be a fight. And George will come sloping home sure ashamed of himself and probably licked bad.”

Lucinda reproached herself for this issue, yet could not but feel that good would come of it. No doubt George was more deeply involved with the Campbell girl than they had suspected.

“Say, the stuck-up hombre rode off by himself,” said Abe, from the door. “Maw, I’ll put my good clothes in the wagon and change down there...Bab, I’ll bet you’ll just dazzle them to-night...Sorry you won’t be there in time to see me win that turkey shoot.”

“Abe, you couldn’t lose.”

“All the crack shots of the Tonto will be there,” he rejoined dubiously. “I’ll have to do some tall shooting.”

“Here,” flashed Barbara, leaping up from her box of finery to tie a bit of bright ribbon upon his buckskin coat. “There, Abe Huett, you dare to lose now.”

“Thanks, Bab...I reckon It’d be kinda bad for some hombre if I was shooting at him.”

Barbara watched them ride away up the canyon road.

“Ma, if I could only meet some fellow like Abe!” murmured Barbara.

“Abe is a real man, Barbara,” replied Lucinda pridefully. At that moment the impulse welled up within her to reveal the truth about Barbara’s past to the girl, but another more disturbing emotion thrust it back. Eventually Barbara must know the fact of her adoption, but Lucinda still dreaded the time when she would have to tell her.

“Well, I’ll never marry till I do find someone like him,” said Barbara, as if to herself.

Logan rushed them in order to be ready for the drive down to Pine before noonday. It was quite far, but downhill all the way, and they accomplished the journey by sunset. Logan let them out at the log schoolhouse in the woods just on the edge of the little hamlet.

Already a number of families had arrived. Children were making merry around a big fire, while women were carrying utensils and packs from the wagons. Lucinda and Barbara deposited their heavy donations on the rough clapboard table that looked as if it had done duty for many years of weathering. Then while Lucinda made herself agreeable to old and new acquaintances, Barbara, with her precious box, ran into the cabin to change, along with other young women who had journeyed far for this night’s pleasure.

While the sun set and dusk gathered, one by one horsemen arrived, singly and in couples and groups, buckboards and wagons. The Holberts and Colliers had travelled sixty and seventy miles to attend this dance. Lucinda met several new families, now calling themselves neighbours, who had homesteaded between Mormon Lake and Sycamore Canyon. All of Pine and most of Payson were represented, and many from the Verdi and Tonto.

They thronged around the fires and tables, eating and talking and laughing, until the fiddler arrived. He was a lean old man who had played one tune on his instrument for thirty years. The only other variation in music the dancers received were the tones struck from another violin by the accompanist who beat rhythmically and monotonously on it with little pine sticks while the fiddler sawed with his squeaky bow.

Lamps at each end of the schoolroom shed a yellow glare upon the circling dancers. As before, Lucinda looked on curiously, wonderingly, not quite understandingly. How seriously these young people took their dancing! It might almost have been a solemn occasion. No smiles, no whispers, no coquettish glances nor lover-like embraces! There were pretty girls there, as well-dressed as Barbara, but none of them could equal her grace. She danced first with Grant, while Lucinda kept her eyes fastened upon them.

After a dance the young people would stream Gut into the firelight, some to slip off into the woods, the majority crowding first around the tables, then the fixes. The big blazes Were kept roaring by attendants. The November night was still, clear, cold. Between dances the older folk sauntered through the schoolroom, gossiping and meeting neighbours they had not seen for months. The children romped here, there, and everywhere until they fell of sheer exhaustion and were put to bed behind the stove, where a generous space was allotted them. Thus the young people grew up in celebration.

Presently Abe approached Lucinda. She hardly knew his lithe, powerful figure in the unaccustomed garb. How handsome he was! Lucinda thrilled at his clear, fine, tanned face, dark almost as an Indian’s, at his shining eyes. He put his arm around her.

“Maw, I won the turkey shoot,” he announced, proudly. “Best shooting I ever did. But I sure had to.”

“I’m glad, Abe. What’d you win?”

“All three shoots, Three gobblers and fifty-odd dollars.”

“So much! — Have you told Dad?”

“Yes, he’s bragging around. But I haven’t told Barbara. She’s been so corralled I couldn’t even see her...Awl there she comes. She saw me...Maw, she’s just too lovely.”

Barbara came running, her dark eyes beaming upon Abe.

“Oh Abe! I heard. It’s just wonderful. But I knew you’d win,” she cried, and embraced him shyly.

“Wal, if you ask me, this is what made me win,” Abe drawled, touching a bit of ribbon in his buttonhole. “What do I get for winning? ‘Cause sure I’ll spend most of that prize money on you?”

“What do you want, Abe?” she asked, wistfully.

“I reckon seeing you like this is enough.”

“But Abe! You’ll dance with me?”

“Sure...Bab, I ran plump into George with his lady. Doggone, but she’s handsome! Made eyes at me! But I didn’t speak. I’ll bet George will raise hell with me.”

“Neither did I, Abe,” replied Barbara. “George has danced only with her so far.”

“Gosh, the fool is loco: That Campbell outfit will break loose pronto.”

Lucinda intervened, troubled by these disclosures, and she begged Abe to warn George to avoid a fight.

“All right, Maw, I’ll try,” said Abe dubiously. “But it won’t be no use. George is riding high, and he’s due for a spill...Come, Barbara, see if you can make me dance as well as you made me shoot.”

Affairs of this kind lasted all night, to break up at daylight. As the hours wore on the dancers grew more and more obsessed with something that Lucinda thought for most of them was physical contact. They swayed to the music, but it was only a means to an end. The young men outnumbered the young women, and, as a result, the latter had little rest during the evening. The best girl dancer, in the estimation of the majority of men, was the one who could dance all the men down. Mil Campbell had enjoyed such reputation before she had become infatuated with George Huett. She was a strongly built, wiry young woman in her twenties, with a bold, flashing kind of beauty and allurement that went to the heads of young swains like wine.

For that matter, few indeed were the boys who did not drink as the dance wore on. A local liquor, called white mule, distilled by moonshiners down in the wild Tonto, was far from being conducive to the peaceful continuance of the dance. On rare occasions Logan had indulged in a drink or two of this fiery liquid that was so disarmingly named. Lucinda thought it had rather an amusing and relaxing effect upon her husband. Grant became exuberant under its influence. Abe never touched it, nor any other kind of drink. Fortunately for George and his family, dances and other festive occasions were rare, for he was fond of the sorghum juice, and it always acted subtly and oppositely on his genial temperament.

These reflections had passed through Lucinda’s mind, and had been forgotten, at least for the period of agreeable intercourse with some new women acquaintances. But not all the conversations Lucinda happened upon, or could not avoid hearing, were agreeable. There were cliques in that section of Arizona — homesteaders, squatters, pioneers, cattlemen, ranchers, Mormons, and others of whom it was not safe to speak.

Lucinda heard a swarthy woman say, “Thet stuck-up Huett outfit,” which remark gave violent check to her friendly feelings of the moment. When later her ears burned at inuendoes that could not have concerned anyone else but George and the Campbell girl, Lucinda thought her hopes of enjoying one dance without distress were futile.

There were few intermissions between dances. The fiddler and his accompanist played through long intervals, only stopping to wet their throats before beginning again. When, however, there was excitement outside, those who were dancing and watching would rush madly from the cabin.

This inevitable circumstance held off so long that Lucinda’s fears began to wane. They were revived quickly, however, when she encountered Barbara at the wide front door, attempting to drag Grant inside. Barbara was pale and her eyes were purple blazes.

“Now!” ejaculated Lucinda, her heart sinking like lead.

“Mother — don’t go out,” panted Barbara. “There’s a fight — about — —”

“What’s happened?” interrupted Lucinda, aghast.

“Oh, if it hadn’t been one thing it’d have been another. But they had to drag me into it...All George’s fault!...Jack Campbell just asked me to dance. He wasn’t drunk. And he was decent about it. Said I might stop a fight if I’d dance with him. But I was confused — angry, and I said no...Oh, I should have danced with him whether Abe liked it or not!”

“You did right to refuse him. How can that start a fight?”

“I don’t know. But it will. He said so.”

“You stay with Grant. I’ll go out and get Abe. We’ll go home.”

“Maw, we can’t do that,” objected Grant, sharply. “George is a jackass. But Abe won’t leave him here alone to be half beaten to death by that Campbell outfit. And neither will I.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He went off to town with Holbert.”

Lucinda pushed through the crowded door, followed by Grant and Barbara. The excitement of the jostling couples could have been felt even if it had been suppressed. Brush had been thrown upon the fires, and flames with great sparks leaped high towards the black pines. In the open space before the cabin it was as light as day. A circle of men and women extended from one fire to the other. The dancers were craning their necks to see, climbing up on tables, and stumps in the background, trying to edge through the cordon.

Lucinda scorched her gown squeezing near the fire into the circle. In the full glare of the twin blazes George stood confronted by the dark, long-haired, uncouth-appearing Jack Campbell. Behind them Mil Campbell was struggling with her other two brothers to keep from being dragged into the crowd. On the instant she broke loose to run and take hold of Jack, who fiercely shoved her back. Lucinda had the same impulse, but Abe, who came from behind, laid powerful hold on her.

“Too late, Maw,” he whispered, tensely. “Just as well they have it out.”

What Lucinda hated most at that instant was not to see George standing there, pale, with gimlet eyes of fire, plainly at the end of his tether, but the tension of the onlookers, the suspended whispers of eager speculation and passion that rail through them, the raw something in their gleaming faces. Dance, drink, and fight were the only emotional outlets these backwoods and cattle people enjoyed in their lonely, elemental lives.

“I told you to leave Mil to her own outfit,” rasped out Campbell.

“Sure. But you’re a damn fool! She didn’t want that,” replied George, hotly.

“All Mil wants is to make trouble. An’ all you want, Huett, is to play fast an’ loose with her. Wal, I’m callin’ you right heah an’ now.”

“Holler your head off. It won’t stop me. But if you had and decency you wouldn’t drag your sister’s name in the dirt, rejoined George, scornfully. He was roused to wrath, probably inflamed by drink, but hard, calculating, holding himself in check. On the other hand, Jack Campbell appeared to be under the influence of the liquor as well as a malignant purpose which he would not see thwarted. His swaggering, bold front attested to an issue long desired. He had at last hounded this son of the exclusive Huetts into the open.

“George Huett, I’m gonna mess up yore dude clothes an’ mash yore pretty mug,” declared Campbell, with robust satisfaction.

“Like hell you are! But if you pick a fight with me, I’m telling everybody it’s just hate. You’ve no cause.”

“Didn’t I accuse you of playin’ fast an’ loose with Mil?” demanded Campbell.

“That’s a lie, Jack. And I can prove it.”

“Bah, you cain’t prove nothin’ to me.”

“Ask Mil. Only to-night I told her I’d marry her if she’d turn her back on your rotten outfit.”

Campbell wheeled in amaze and fury. “Mil, is thet so?”

“Yes, it’s so,” cried the young woman, wildly, divided between shame and fright. Her flashing dark beauty gained from genuine distress and the play of the firelight upon her face. “Jack, this — this deal is outrageous...For my sake—”

“Aha. You can declare yourself, Mil Campbell, right heah an’ now. Are you playin’ fast an’ loose with Huett?”

“No — I’m not,” she panted.

“Wal, how aboot Rich Harvey? You’re thick with him. You was gonna marry him till this dude Huett—”

“Shut your dirty mouth!” screamed his sister, in her rage and evident guilt. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m sober enough to see through you, Mil Campbell. You’re dishin’ my pard Rich for this Huett guy. Wal, I’m givin’ you away to him.”

Mil hissed like a snake at her brother and, turning to flee, she almost ran across the fire, in her madness to escape.

“Huett, I’m tellin’ you,” went on Campbell, sombrely. “If Mil dishes Rich Harvey it won’t change the fact thet she ought to marry him.”

“Campbell, I wouldn’t believe a word you said,” declared George.

“Huett, mebbe you’ll believe this,” launched Campbell, craning his black, ragged head at George. “I jest asked yore sister to dance with me. She said no! an’ she drew back her white duds as if she might dirty them if they touched me.”

“Campbell, I can believe that last. But you leave her name out of this,” retorted George, subtly transformed.

“She’s no better than Mil,” burst out Campbell, surrendering to the passion he knew would break Huett’s restraint. “Some folks down heah hints she’s unnatural fond of her brothers — —”

George leaped to swing a terrific blow upon Campbell’s mouth. Loosened teeth rattled on the leaves as he fell. The men onlookers shouted lustily; some of the women screamed. Lucinda pressed behind Abe, against Barbara, who was clinging to Grant. But Lucinda’s instinct was only to get out of the open. A burning within her burst all bounds.

Campbell bounded up and with lowered head plunged at George like a bull. He swung both fists wildly. Then came a furious exchange of blows, finishing with a sodden thump upon Campbell’s nose that spattered blood and upset him. The backwoodsman plumped down ridiculously, to the hoarse guffaws of the men. He snarled like a beast, and, leaping up, tried again to beat down Huett’s defence. But he was outmatched. His opponent’s longer reach and cooler method put Campbell at a disadvantage. The break in his confidence was manifest to all and it transformed him into a savage.

“Look out, George!” yelled Abe, piercingly. “Knife!”

Lucinda saw the bright glitter of a blade in the firelight. She staggered back upon Grant, crying out: “For God’s sake stop them!” A husky acclaim from men and screams from women gave way to a strained silence.

“Huett, I’ll cut yore heart out,” hissed Campbell, crouching with his right hand low.

“Jack, thet ain’t fair play,” yelled some man from the crowd.

Huett appeared cornered between his assailant and the nearer fire. Campbell had so manoeuvred as to be facing both George and Abe.

“George, if he swings, grab his arm,” whispered Abe, in a silence so deep that all heard. Then Abe turned to call caustically: “Somebody pass me a gun — if you’re not ail Campbells!”

“Jim — Sandy,” shouted Campbell, manifestly to his brothers. “Copper any more there...This’s my deal, an’ I shore got a hand!”

The white-faced George swayed a little to and fro in his intense wariness. Then Campbell leaped, whirling the blade so swiftly that only its glitter could be seen. He evidently cut George’s right arm, for it fell limp. Then his next move was a downward stab that wrenched a cry of agony from George. But with left hand he held Campbell’s wrist momentarily.

On that instant Abe sprang in to deal Campbell a blow that resounded suddenly through the woods, lifting Campbell clear from his feet and knocking him into the fire. Screeching horribly, the man rolled out, his clothes blazing, his visage ghastly, his hands beating like broken wings. The knife was gone. The nearest onlookers broke out of their trance to drag Campbell away from the fire. Then the hoarse cries and lamentations were suddenly hushed as Abe Huett flung himself upon Jack Campbell’s brothers.

A battle began that drew wild delight from the watching men and turned the women’s faces white and tense. Lucinda had almost fainted when George was stabbed, but she revived to an appalling interest in Abe’s onslaught upon the other two. The three combatants moved so swiftly that Lucinda could not tell who was who, until one of them went down. But Abe was not that one. The crowd stilled to the heavy blows, the tearing of garments, the deep curses and pants of the fighting men. Then the smaller of the Campbells stumbled, and fell flat on his back. Groggily he staggered half-way to his knees, when a powerful kick under his chin flattened him again. This coup left Abe engaged with the larger Campbell, who, unable to keep his feet before his agile and ‘powerful opponent, resorted to the backwoods rough-and-tumble fight, which went obviously, from the first, against Campbell. His wrestling, his beating grew less fierce, until it was plain he had been bested. But when he bawled enough, Abe dragged him up to his knees and struck one final blow at the distorted visage. Campbell’s head struck the ground with a thud, and he lay prone like his brother.

The dance sustained a longer intermission than usual. There was a woman among the guests who professed skill with wounds, and who bound up George’s gashes. The cut on his arm was nothing to be concerned about, but the stab high on his breast had just escaped the lung. It would be painful, but not necessarily serious. According to talk in the cabin, Jack Campbell had been hauled away to the village, terribly burned, and in a critical condition.

After some of the men carried George to the Huett wagon the old musician began fiddling more engagingly than ever, and the dance went on as if nothing had happened. When Lucinda expressed wonder at this, one of her women listeners replied: “Shucks, there’s been more’n one dancer carried oot of heah feet first!”

Lucinda had not heard from Abe since the fight, but Barbara, pale and distraught, told her that she had seen him run to bend over George, and that he had arisen to say: “Not bad knifed. Tie him up and send him home.”

“But Abe...wasn’t he hurt?” queried Lucinda, poignantly.

“Hurt? I couldn’t tell,” replied the girl, tragically. “But he slipped away — from me. Oh, he was all rags, mud, blood!”

Logan soon appeared on the scene. He had heard all about the fight. Lucinda had always feared what his wrath might be, yet here, as always, he was calm, practical, apparently unfeeling.

“Come, Luce, we’ll go home,” he said. “Barbara, stay with Grant if you want. The dance has hardly begun.”

“Thanks, but I’ll go with mother,” declared Barbara, constrainedly. “No more Tonto dances for me!”

“Abe’s horse is gone,” said Grant, when they reached the wagon. “I reckon I’ll fork mine and amble along.”

George came out of his dazed state to ask from his bed in the wagon, “Dad, where’s Abe?”

“Gone home, I reckon, which is where we’re going pronto.”

“Was he bad hurt?”

“Not so you’d notice it, Grant said,” drawled Huett. “Ben Holbert saw the fight. According to Ben that Campbell outfit made a mistake to jump you when Abe was around.”

“Abe saved my life. Aw, Dad, I’ve been such a — a fool.”

“Well, son, they say you had cause, with that handsome, black-eyed cat throwing herself at you. Let it be a lesson. Keep quiet now...Lucinda, are you ready to leave?”

“Yes, unless Barbara wants to change her dress.”

“I’ll ride as I am. Give me a blanket,” said the girl, and she climbed into the wagon upon the hay beside George. Grant rode behind, leading George’s horse.

Lucinda thought she would never forget the bonfires, blazing up anew, the square log cabin with its gleaming lights, the pioneers standing around discussing the fight, the young couples coming out of the dark woods to join the dancers, the monotonous squeak of the fiddle and the strange, intense, rhythmic tread of feet. How weird were the tall black pines! They reminded Lucinda of those she had seen first in Arizona, a score and more of years ago.

Logan wrapped a blanket around her and clucked to the horses.

“Well, home by sun-up,” he said, cheerfully. “Maw, I tell you I made a good deal to-night. Holbert put me on to it. Pretty decent of him. But he’s in no shape to take up any deal. Besides, he couldn’t find the browse. That’s where Sycamore Canyon has all these ranges beat. My oak thickets, my maple thickets with all their browsing leafage — they’ll sure make my fortune yet!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE FIRST SNOW had fallen, making ample amends in its white drifts and blanched trees for the tardiness of its arrival.

Just when the wintry twilight began to steal down from the rims, Grant came stamping into the cabin with brimming pails of milk.

“Dad and Abe not home yet?” he stopped whistling to ask. “When did they ever come back early from a hunt? And the first this fall!” returned his mother.

“Doggone it! Let’s not wait supper for them. What say, George?”

The eldest son sat near the wall close to the red fire, which shone ruddily on his thin cheek. He was mending from his wounds.

“Not very long, anyhow,” he said.

“Where are your ears — you?” interposed Barbara. “I can hear Dad’s deep voice.”

Lucinda had often heard this welcome sound with gladness and relief. How many, many times! She could tell that Logan had had good hunting. Heavy footfalls on the porch preceded the opening of the door. Logan entered to set his rifle against the wall and throw off his snow-covered coat. His broad visage wore a bright smile of satisfaction at sight of them all and the cheery fire and steaming pots. Abe followed, burly in his buckskins, soft of step and still-faced, with glad eyes for Barbara and his mother. They brought cold air and the piney breath of the forest with them.

“What luck, Dad?” asked Grant, eagerly.

“Four-point buck and two turks for me,” replied his father, with immense gratification in the telling. “Ask Abe what he got.”

“I couldn’t hit a flock of barns to-day,” replied Abe ruefully. “But, Dad, I really didn’t have a good shot.”

“Ha! ha! You had the same as I — at the buck, anyway.”

“Take care, father,” taunted Barbara. “You know it’s happened that you and Abe shot at the same buck at the same time — and you thought you hit when really you missed.”

“By thunder, you’re right, Bab. I forgot...It sure was fine up on top to-day. ‘Pears I can’t walk as I used to. Abe had my tongue hanging out...Luce, it’s good to get home. Something smells awful good. My mouth has begun to water. What you got for supper?”

“Beef and potato stew, for one thing,” replied Lucinda. “If you and Abe wash up a bit, supper will be ready.”

“Maw, how about that apple pie you promised if I’d drag Dad home before dark?” queried Abe, gaily.

“Barbara baked one for you.”

“Bab, you’re just an old darling!”

“Whose darling?” asked the girl, wistfully.

“Well, the Huetts’ yet, thank heaven!”

Lucinda saw her husband and their sons and Barbara sit down to a lavish supper. They were a happy family. George’s dereliction had been forgiven, if not forgotten. And as soon as he frankly confessed his shame and regret, as Lucinda knew he would do, they would forget that one unfortunate episode. The hunters ate like men of the open after long abstinence. George and Grant did not show failing appetites.

“Abe, are you going to give me a piece of that pie?” asked the latter.

“Couldn’t think of it.”

“Well, you doggone stingy hawg!” asserted Grant, half in jest and half in earnest.

“Why, Grant, of course he’ll give you a piece,” expostulated Barbara. “Here, I’ll cut it.”

“Make it a small piece, lady,” said Abe, grudgingly. Supper over, Abe washed the dishes and utensils, while Lucinda and Barbara wiped them.

“Grant, fetch in a couple of chunks of oak and some pine cones,” spoke up Logan, as he reached for his pipe and pouch. He filled it, lighted it with a red coal, and sat down in his big home-made armchair with a sigh. “Doggone! — Snow at last and winter set in. Holed up till spring! Never before felt so good about that. Reckon the deal with Widow Steadman to feed her herd on half shares has a lot to do with it.”

“Dad, you’ll have to brand her calves,” said George.

“Only half of them, son.”

Abe sat down Indian fashion on the hearth and stretched his wet moccasins to the fire. They began to steam. Barbara, from the bench by the table in the background, watched him with eyes unconscious of their worship. George got down the little box with his tame baby chipmunks, scarcely larger than his thumbs, and, like a boy, in great glee let them run over his lap.

“I reckon that was a good business deal, Dad,” went on, George. “It ensures you of two dozen and more calves next spring. Costs nothing. Double the calf count the following year. Sure does mount up when you get going...What can stop us now?”

“Once I swore nothing could. But the years have made me leery...I reckon only rustlers could.”

“Rustlers! — Say, Dad, you’re not long-headed. It’d take a mighty big and bold band of cattle-thieves to cost us much here.”

“I hear you, son. Powerful sweet talk. But how do you figure?”

“No rustlers would have the nerve to drive up the road here, right tinder our very noses. They’d have to make a hole in one of the fenced gaps. No fun driving steers out that way. It just almost couldn’t be done. But if they did — well, Abe could track them. That’d be a bad deal for them, Dad.”

“I reckon,” returned Logan, soberly. “Mebbe bad for us, too.”

“Can’t see it that way. We’d track them to a camp or a cabin, make sure they had our cattle — then shoot before we talked...Dad, I’ve heard some dark hints about the Campbells. You know where there’s smoke in these woods there’s bound to be fire...I’d told you before — only I — well, I was loco about Mil Campbell. I’d have been fool enough to go the whole way with her, if Jack hadn’t squealed on her.”

“Son, you got out of that lucky. The Campbells are on the wrong trail. We’ll hear from them some day.”

Abe looked up to speak: “Did I tell you I met a cowboy on the road last Wednesday — no, it was day before yesterday, Tuesday? He’s one of Collier’s riders. Told me Jack was burned bad, but lost nothing ‘cept hair and hide. He was up and around.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said George, with a ring in his voice. “When I meet Jack next I want him to have both eyes.”

“George, you’ll have to look pretty hard to see him before I do,” rejoined Abe.

“Sons, we’ll never look for trouble,” interposed Huett. “But that outfit had better steer clear of us. Come to think of it, though, we’ve worse outfits to watch.”

Lucinda sat across the hearth from Logan in the other armchair, her neglected knitting in her lap, her gaze on the glowing red coals of the fire. For once such conversation from her militant husband and sons failed to rouse her. The rising wind outside in the pines, the soft seeping of snow against the cabin, the crackle and sparkle of embers — these seemed to take more hold upon her imagination than the hard words she heard. These familiar sounds took her back through the long years to the time of which she was thinking.

“Barbara, come here. Sit by me,” she said, sweetly.

The girl rose obediently from the shadow to recline on the bearskin rug at Lucinda’s feet.

“Aw, now — Luce,” protested Logan, in a strangled voice.

“I have something to tell Barbara and the boys,” rejoined Lucinda, stroking the glossy flaxen head resting on her knee.

“But what’s your hurry?” expostulated Logan.

“It should have been told long ago,” answered Lucinda, sadly.

Logan sank back sighing, and puffed moodily at a pipe which had gone out.

“Barbara, what I have to confess will amaze and grieve you,” began Lucinda, with grave tenderness. “But it is best for your happiness, for the future that I see can be yours. And surely best for all of us Huetts. It has taken me years — years to come to this decision — to break one aspect of our happy home life here for a possible fuller and better one.”

“Why, Mother!” exclaimed the girl in astonishment. She rose to her knees before Lucinda.

“That is just — the — the secret,” Lucinda faltered. “Barbara, I am not your mother. You are not a sister to Abe and George and Grant. You are no relation to us at all.”

For a moment Barbara was stunned.

“Ah!...how dreadful! Oh, mercy — what am I — who am I?” cried Barbara, in anguish.

“The first is easy to answer,” replied Lucinda, gaining strength to go on. “You are the sweetest and best girl I ever knew. You are as good as you are beautiful. But who you are is a mystery. You came of gentlefolk, surely. But what they were and where they came from we never found out.”

“Oh — dear God! Then I’m a waif — a nameless—”

“Listen, Barbara. It is a tragedy, yes, but nothing to be heartbroken about.”

“Then why did y-you ever — tell me?” sobbed the girl.

“Because it is the only way we can ever keep you with us always.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let me talk, dear...My eyes were opened at the dance last month. You were the belle of that dance. Many of these Arizonians are in love with you. And despite the fact that you don’t care for any particular one of them — and that you’ve been happy with my sons — you will be forced to marry some day. Someone will pack you off and make you his wife whether you like it or not. That is western.”

“But I wouldn’t — I wouldn’t!” burst out Barbara, incredulously.

“Well, darling, I don’t know exactly how it would happen. But a pretty and healthy girl can’t stay unmarried out here. She just can’t.”

“Then — how are you going to keep me — with you?” queried Barbara, in wistful misery.

“Let that rest for a moment. I want to tell you how you came to us.”

“Oh do — do — even though it’ll hurt so terribly.”

“Barbara, it’s almost unbelievable. But it was seventeen years ago. You are a young woman of twenty, yet the years have gone so swiftly, so brightly, so happily that to us you are still a child...George was four years old, Abe was three, and Grant two. At that immature age, Barbara, these youngsters were as bad as little boys can be. Abe was the naughtiest. I’ve always been glad since that he was, because if he hadn’t been disobedient, a little savage who liked to run off and hunt in the woods — we might never have known an’ loved you. For it was Abe who found you, Barbara, a little lost babe in the woods...Let me tell you. Seventeen years, ago last October — the fourteenth — I shall never forget it — the boys ran away from the cabin. I was busy and upset. I forgot about the boys until I went outside for something and they were gone. I called. No answer. — I left off work and ran to find them. At the corrals I came upon their tracks. Abe’s barefoot prints led up the road, where I had expressly fort bidden the boys to go. George and Grant followed him. It was nearing sunset. I ran, calling and panting — up the road, through the gate, on through the woods. By this time I was distracted. When I came upon them playing by some logs that have rotted away long ago, instead of three children there were four. The little stranger was a girl — flaxen-haired, with eyes of violet. She was shy and sweet. When I asked her who she was she said: ‘Barb’ra’...And to this day we have never known more. Her dress was of fine material. She wore pretty little shoes, but no stockings. I have saved those things all these years, and I shall give them to you...Abe had found you crying along the road. Wagons had passed there that day, and in some strange way you had become lost from one of them. I looked for a camp and listened for voices. But darkness was close, and as there appeared to be no camp near, I brought you back here with the boys. Logan said there must be a camp out on the road. He went to look, but in vain. Next day he trailed the wagons down to Payson, making sure you had become lost from one of them, and that you would be hunted. But here is the most astounding and inexplicable part of the story. These wagons did not stop at Payson. They went through at night. No one ever heard of a little girl being lost. No one ever came back to hunt for you!...That’s all, Barbara. And it’s all we’ll ever know. Logan and I adopted you as our own. The boys from that day to this have loved you more than any sister anyone could have had.”

When Lucinda ceased, the girl’s flaxen head drooped and she wept unrestrainedly. Logan laid aside his pipe with a cough, and gazed at Barbara with wet eyes. Abe sat transfixed and rapt. Grant’s tanned face was one ruddy beam in the firelight. George looked a stricken man. Lucinda saw amaze, incredulity, sudden joy, and then a shame of realization flash across his pale, mobile face. He realized that in losing a sister he had not gained a sweetheart.

Barbara raised her head. “I’ll always call you mother...You’ve been so — so good to me...Oh, I must have been a — a child nobody wanted.”

Logan spoke up huskily: “My dear, don’t think that again. It’s only torture. Maybe such a thought is all wrong. My idea from the first night was that your parents were dead...But we wanted you. I remember that night, when you lay in the corner there, asleep, your curly head close to Abe’s, how I had a feeling you had come to us — to bless us with the daughter we wanted. I told Lucinda so...We wanted you, Barbara. And we’ve always wanted you...What you’ve missed we can never tell. Perhaps riches, fine parents — all that go with them. But never love, Barbara. You have not missed that.”

“Oh, Dad, I’d gladly have missed all them to have what you’ve given me. It’s not that — that...I’m shocked...Never to know who I am!”

“But you are Barbara Huett,” added Logan, with loving finality.

Then Grant came out of his spell. “Bab, I think it’s just great...Suppose you’d been found by that Jack Campbell, or some hombre like him! Think how much worse off you’d been. You sure had luck to fall in with Maw. Where’d you or any kid have found as grand a mother?...It was swell to have you for a sister, Barbara. But this — this is just wonderful...For now you can marry us!”

That naive remark broke the tragic strain, at least, and brought a faint blush to Barbara’s cheek.

“My son, wonderful as that might be, it’s impossible for Barbara to marry you all,” interposed Lucinda, with a smile that rivalled Logan’s. What a burden seemed lifted from her conscience! After all, now that the secret was out, it was not so terrible, so devastating. The absolute certainty of her place in that family had sustained Barbara. In time the grief would pass, and perhaps even the memory of it.

“That’d be Mormonism on the woman’s side,” declared Grant, gaily. “I’d stand for that, Bab. Sure you can take your pick. But I’m beating Abe and George to it.”

“Grant, you’re a very wonderful boy, not yet grown up — and I’ll always be a sister to you,” replied Barbara, in a demure voice not quite compatible with her wet eyes.

“Ow — ow!” wailed Grant. “All right, Bab. You’re a poor picker. But I’ll always love you just the same.”

“Barbara, we will never let you get away from us.” spoke up George, gallantly, but his pale, tense face betrayed emotion he tried to hide. A fugitive hope was fading before realization. “If I’d only known you were not my sister — then all that fool gallivanting of mine would never have been. But I always — —”

“Let her be, you sudden hombres,” interrupted Abe, his voice strong and vibrant. “Here she’s just learned a sad fact about her life — and you hound her to bestow herself upon one of you. Let her be...Some day, sure, she’ll take the one of us she loves best. But give her a long time. She’s been a sister too many years to become a sweetheart pronto...Barbara, it’ll all come right. Don’t let Grant or George rile you. We’ve all got a long hard job to raise that thirty thousand head of cattle Dad’s heart is set on. I know I can work harder, and become a better man, in the hope I may win you sometime...I found you that day so far back. But I remember, Barbara, honest I remember your skinned knees, your dusty dress, your tear-wet cheeks, and, sorrowful eyes. And I was only three...Dear, don’t feel unhappy. This must have been meant to be. Maybe you came to save the Huetts.”

Lucinda’s heart welled painfully in her breast. How she thrilled as the silent Abe, for once so eloquent, expressed his manliness, his fairness, his deep loyalty to Barbara and to all of them! He made it so easy for Lucinda to bless her intuition. Always she had known that Abe was the one for Barbara; always that had been her most secret cherished dream. And she read in Barbara’s fascinated eyes, in the quickening and dilating changes in a marvellously soft and lovely glow, that the girl realized now how and why she had worshipped Abe all her life.

The only difference in Barbara that was manifest to Lucinda seemed to be a brooding pathos at times and a conscious realization that her status with the boys had vastly changed and heightened. The former gradually wore away and a deeper, less girlish happiness prevailed.

Abe changed the least under this new order of life at Sycamore Canyon. It was evident that Barbara’s possible attainment simply added bewilderingly to his affection. He showed no sign of having an advantage over his brothers with Barbara because he had found her and no doubt had saved her from wild animals or starvation. Lucinda particularly noted that if Abe was more kind, he was less demonstrative. He never teased nor playfully fought with her, as had been his wont. He had realized her sex, her desirability, and they were sacred. This seemed the more complete to Lucinda because Barbara was the only girl Abe had ever really known. What little leisure he had enjoyed he spent in the woods.

But this new relation of Barbara’s changed the lives of the other brothers.

All at once, it seemed to Lucinda, Grant developed into a man. He had, fortunately, no serious faults nor weaknesses nor vices to correct. He lost nothing of his sunny temperament, his love of banter, his propensity to tease, his habit of sharing whatever he had with Barbara. But he openly and persistently courted her.

George exhibited more serious and profound evidence of a dividing line in his life. That winter he was confined to the cabin a good deal owing to danger of pneumonia that the wound in his breast occasioned. He read and studied, and discussed the cattle problem for hours ‘with Huett. When spring came again and he regained his old strength he plunged into work as never before. He did not ride to Pine or Payson. He gave up drinking. A dance at Holbert’s, failed to tempt him, though Barbara went with Grant. Even a rodeo at Flagg on the Fourth of July failed to drag him back to the competitions and thrills of cowboy life.

Once George said to his mother: “I reckon I’ve no chance to win Bab now. Not with this handsome Indian Abe around and that lovable guy Grant! But I love her, and I’ll never stop trying to prove she’s made a man of me...And it won’t make any difference if she picks Abe or Grant.”

Early in the fall George prevailed upon his father to round up another bunch of cattle and drive them to the railroad.

“But, Dad, it’s the thing to do now,” he persuaded patiently. “If we cut out and sell the old stock, buy young stock with the money, or part of it, our herd will grow faster. You hang on too long. Besides, we need repairs, new tools, supplies. And, Dad, we must get a car. Some of these other ranchers are getting the jump on us. A few of them have cars, and some of them have trucks. Times are changing. We’ve gone to seed down here in our lonely canyon. We’re old-fashioned. If we had a truck this fall we could haul five hundred sacks of potatoes to Flagg in a couple of trips.”

The idea did not appeal to Huett. He hated the stinking, dangerous, horseless vehicles that had begun to make unbelievable changes in the country. George argued that their use made the territory provide better roads and that the time saved more than the expense. Huett agreed to a limited sale of cattle, but vetoed the car idea.

“All right. I’ll buy one with my own money,” declared George stubbornly. “And I’ll bet you see.”

Wherefore George did not return home from Flagg with his father and Grant. When he did come back, however, his advent was proclaimed by rattling, cracking noises long before he got down the hill. Lucinda heard Logan guffaw loudly, and Grant yell a wild “Whoopee!” Then Barbara screamed in glee, which brought Lucinda out with an exclamation: “For the land’s sake!”

She stared, first in wonder, then in fright. George was driving down the hill in a black automobile that sounded rickety, if it did not look so.

The Huetts were nothing if not spellbound. But George made the grade without running off the road, and came whirling across the flat, to come to a halt before the cabin with a bang.

“Howdy, folks,” he drawled, as he surveyed them all, with fire in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

“George Huett! — Where’d you get that contraption?” demanded his father.

“Bought it. Second-hand. Never mind how much...And have I had a hell of a time getting here? Well, I guess!”

“When’d you leave Flagg?”

“Before noon.”

“Not to-day?”

“Sure to-day. Say, this car of mine isn’t Buck — though by gosh! it bucked on me some...Hop in, Dad. Let me give you a little spin.”

“Not much,” declared Huett.

“Take me, George,” begged Barbara, her face eager and daring.

“Well, I guess. Pile in here.”

George drove her around the bench and down across the brook, sending up great sheets of muddy water, out on the flat, and back again, in a cloud of dust. Barbara leaped out radiant and breathless.

“Oh — grand!” she cried. “You go so fast...But I was — scared.”

“Doggone these young people nowadays,” complained Huett to Lucinda. “Our old way — too slow, too slow!...Reckon I’ll come to it if these cars ever get safe.”

George did not succeed in convincing his father that automobiles were to be trusted, but before winter came he proved they were marvellous to cover distance, to save time, to add wonderfully to the comfort and efficiency of a housewife, to bring mail and supplies quickly to the ranches. “You’ve been a pioneer for twenty-five years. From now on you’re a rancher.”

The driving of this new stock, the repairing of fences, the toil early and late in the fields, and the other manifold tasks of the growing ranch made days and seasons fly by on wings. The boys stacked a hundred tons of alfalfa and sold as many bushels of potatoes before the frosts hurried them to the game trails with their guns. Lucinda and Barbara were rushed with their labours — putting up endless jars of pears and peaches, of pickles and tomatoes, of apple-butter and mincemeat. Logan stored away in the cellar a load of the finest cabbages he had ever seen.

“Ha, Luce!” he exclaimed, heartily. “Remember when I used to say we’ll not starve, anyhow?...Things are pretty good...Well, well, it’s been long coming.”

While the seasons sped by, Huett’s bead of cattle had doubled, trebled, quadrupled. How amazingly they multiplied now! The calves came as if by magic. Widow Steadman died without any kin to whom to leave her cattle and her several thousand head gravitated to Huett.

George hit upon a plan to cut a track beyond Three Springs Wash to the canyon below and enclose that. It resembled Sycamore somewhat, but was larger and revealed more gaps to fence. George demonstrated, against his father’s remonstrances, how two canyons rich in acorns and oak browse would raise a larger herd of stock more quickly than one; and Huett finally succumbed to facts and figures.

“But rustlers can steal from us down there very much easier than they have been able to in Sycamore,” replied Huett, still the over-cautious and long-suffering cattleman.

“We’ll risk that. Besides, we’ll let what’s left of our wild horses drift down there. Those broom-tails eat a lot, Dad.”

Lucinda divined anew how Logan had so inspired them all with his great idea, his driving passion, that long habit of work, of sacrifice had left them unable to slow down, to begin to see the prosperity that had really come. But what were ten thousand head of stock to Huett? He limited the sale to less than a thousand a year. He kept out of debt and bought more cattle.

But Lucinda did not fail to see their happiness. They were as busy as honey-storing bees. They were sufficient unto themselves. Several times a year Lucinda and Barbara went to town, finding more pleasure in these trips for their infrequency.

Seldom did Lucinda broach the subject of marriage to Barbara, and she finally stopped altogether after Barbara said:

“Oh, Mother, I am afraid Abe will ask me some day, and if he does I — I can’t beg him to wait longer — I love him so...But George loves me too — and Grant. I think Abe hates to hurt them...We’re all so happy. Why can’t we go on this way longer?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LOGAN HUETT LIVED to learn that he did not yet know the West.

Like wildfire in a wide-swept prairie the dramatic killing of Tim Mooney travelled over the range. Before the shock of his neighbours and fellow-ranchers had passed, the Mooney family left the locality and Dwight Collier sold out to Holbert to ride away. He was not backward in telling that of late he had suspected Mooney of deals in which he had not part. The range did not believe this, but they were quick to accept the rumour that Mooney’s son drew a large amount from the bank at Flagg.

Then little by little, as cowboys compared notes and cattlemen found time and freedom to talk, the guilt of Tim Mooney stood out indisputably. None of them patted Logan Huett on the back for his service in ridding the range of this crooked cattleman, but they exonerated him from any suspicion whatever. They called the fight an even break in which the better and the honest man came out on top. The good it did manifestly served to scare off any other lone and butchering rustler who might have followed in Mooney’s footsteps. However, the harm it created was the tendency to focus attention of the predatory cattle interests — the rustlers and their queer ramifications — upon the fact that there were rich pickings in the Mogollons and from the Little Colorado to the Tonto Rim.

Huett’s sons did not suffer any blight of spirit because their father had joined the ranks of Arizona killers. George and Grant grew a little harder, and Abe a little more silent. But Lucinda and Barbara did not leave the canyon, even to visit their nearest neighbour, for over a year. When they did return to Flagg, they found that the incident had been swallowed up in the past, during which plenty of dark and considerably sterner deeds had transpired. No bar sinister or ban of ignominy had extended to their names during this period of seclusion. Their friends, the real born pioneers, amazed them with a warmer welcome and absolute reticence; as a result Lucinda and Barbara were not long in recovering from the shock.

Logan alone knew what havoc Mooney’s killing had wrought in him. The great fear that he had given his sons a name they would never live down, that the success of his enterprise had been disrupted, if not set back for many years, and the genuine horror and remorse he had endured — all these futile apprehensions had been a senseless waste of mental strength, of nights of sleep and days of labour. He lived to discover this fact too late. Of the numberless vicissitudes of life by which he had been burdened, the killing of Mooney cost him the most anguish and left the hardest mark. To survive and to grow in that country required more than a great ambition, with commensurate strength, endurance, honesty, — and indomitable pluck: a cattleman needed all these qualities and more to gain foothold and means; even when he had finally raised herds of cattle and many horses, it took vastly more courage to keep them. A prosperous cattle-country had always developed or drawn the rustler, and as long as cattle were raised it would continue to do so. Wide, unfenced ranges, the wilderness of forest and canyon, would never see the day that cattle were not easy to steal and men of that ilk present who would not profit by it.

The ensuing period multiplied Huett’s cattle and the labours incident to their care. He was keen enough to see that the habits ingrained by the long years of toil and poverty could not change on short notice, if they ever could at all. He was glad of this. He had brought his family up modestly, to know the value of money, to be happy working towards a definite end, to be little influenced by the outside world. Cars and magazines found their way down into Sycamore Canyon, to open the eyes of the wilderness-loving Huetts, to force upon them the progress of the modern world, but they did not change Huett’s idea of cattle-raising, nor the eighteen-hour day of the cowboy Huetts, nor the economy and industry of the women. The future had come almost to mean nothing: the present was full, all-satisfying.

The time came when the spider-shaped Sycamore Canyon, with its ten miles in length and its vast acreage in grass and browse, supported fifteen thousand head. It was a well-fenced range, protected from storms and cold and heat and drought, and impractical for the operations of rustlers. Only wandering riders butchered a beef occasionally as they passed through. But Turkey Canyon, with twice the acreage, with its numberless rich grassy offshoots, became the bane of Huett’s life. Sycamore should have been enough to look after for one man and his three sons, but they had undertaken the task and they would not falter. Despite the continuous stealing of stock by rustlers, horse-thieves, riders with no known homes or occupations, the Turkey Canyon herd increased. A few straggling steers driven off in the woods, a bunch of young stock cut out — and stolen at night through one of the outlets impossible to close, or a daylight raid by a band of determined rustlers who operated when the Huetts were miles away — these kept the Turkey herd from climbing by leaps and bounds to equal that of Sycamore. And it wore on Huett year by year, until he grew implacable towards the thieves who kept him from his cherished goal.

“Dad, you’re cussed short-sighted and bull-headed,” averred George repeatedly. “Let’s sell the Turkey herd.”

“Not yet,” declared Huett doggedly, for the hundredth time.

“Well, then, let’s pay no more attention to these two-bit thieves, let’s lay for the real rustlers, who raid Turkey once or so a year. They’re about due now. Last time they got three hundred head...They grab a bigger bunch every time.”

“Sense in that,” agreed Huett, gruffly. “What’s your plan?”

“Abe says we’ll camp down there, hide out and watch.”

“And leave Lucinda and Barbara alone? Nope to that.”

“One of us will go home every night.”

“I reckon that’ll do. But what of the other work?”

“It’ll have to go till we drive this outfit away for good, or kill them!”

“Ha! We’ve got to catch them first.”

“Abe swears they keep a lookout on one of the high points or along the rim. They watch us. Then when we’re gone they pull the raid.”

“What’s the use to camp near Turkey, then? A better plan will be for you boys to pretend to drive to town, but come back after dark, and next day before sun-up we’ll sneak down to Turkey.”

Even this plan failed to trap the keen rustlers, as did also the hiding-out down in Turkey Canyon. No sooner had the Huetts returned to the necessary harvesting than the rustlers made off with the largest steal Huett had ever sustained. Abe reported the loss, which he estimated two days later from a broad cattle-track heading down towards the Tonto.

“Sell that Turkey herd or see it fade before your very eyes,” warned George Huett to the raging rancher.

“Dad, I’ve a hunch that outfit will come back,” said Abe, ponderingly. “They must have a safe sale for stock.”

“Safe! If we trailed them and recognized every stolen steer, what could we do?” retorted George. “We have no brand. We’re an easy mark for those buzzards.”

“Boys, time was when our losses were less than what it’d have cost to hire a dozen riders. But that day has passed. My method never stood the test of years — I’m bound to admit that. All the same, I won’t change.”

“It’d be wiser to weaken. Sell out or hire cowboys,” advised George.

“Weaken? Hell no!...Grant, do you side with George?”

“I sure do, Dad. I hate to go against you. None of us ever did before. But this is getting too tough to stand. Maybe it never occurred to you to think how we boys need money. You never give us any money. And we’ve sure earned wages, if no more...Well, you could sell that Turkey bunch for twenty dollars a head. Nigh on to ten thousand head. Almost two hundred thousand dollars!...We’d all be rich, and you’d still have the Sycamore herd.”

The amazing stand from the youngest son, heretofore the least asserting one of the Huetts, hurt Logan deeply and precipitated one of the few quarrels he had ever had with them. The argument did not end there. George and Grant took it to their mother and Barbara. When, to Logan’s consternation, his women-folk promptly and vigorously took issue against him, for the first time in any serious stand, he discovered grievous doubts of himself, of his unchangeable passion and will. He argued, stormed, raged, all to no avail. He was wrong. Then, as a last straw, Barbara appealed to the silent Abe and won him over. The Huetts’ house was divided against itself.

The truth overcame his rage with himself and vexation with them. He sat down in his big chair and leaned his head on his hands. Lucinda came to touch his shoulder with sympathy.

“Folks,” he said, laboriously, “allowing you’re right, you don’t see it from my side of the fence. I’ve spent my life — the best of it — fighting odds in this canyon...Lack of money and help first — then the meat-eaters, and cold, wet, heat, drought, ignorance of farming — I had to learn — and a thousand other troubles, the last and worst of which is the cattle-thief. For nearly thirty years I’ve fought these odds — and now I’m rich in stock — with my life’s ambition in sight... You ask me — and I acknowledge its justice — to quit now, to weaken in the face of a few lousy rustlers. I won’t do it! Dammit, I’d lose every head of stock in Turkey Canyon rather than show yellow...But this is what I will do. As soon as I can count thirty thousand head, I’ll sell, divide the money equally among you, and go back to civilization to live...That’s all. I’m boss here. And what I say goes.”

Huett did not sell a single head that year, and thus avoided leaving the Turkey Canyon herd unprotected. He sent Grant, with Lucinda and Barbara, to town for supplies. They took their time about this trip. Upon their return Huett marvelled anew at what a little visit outside would 48 for women. He did not need civilization, and in fact was better in mind without contacts with men. The times had changed, but he did not change. Lucinda looked rested and averred that it had been good to go, but better to come home. Barbara returned rosy and fresh, handsomer than ever, raving about airplanes and motion-pictures. Logan had never seen either, and was amazed. He asked Grant one question: “What’s the price of cattle?”

“By golly, Dad. I — I forgot. I sure forgot to ask,” replied Grant, mortified at his laxness.

“For the land’s sake! What did you do all the while?”

“I bought all on your list,” replied Grant, stoutly.

“Well, I’ll see. The wagon looks loaded all right.”

Abe looked with affectionate regard from Barbara’s radiant face to Grant’s. “Wal, Dad,” he drawled, “reckon I’d better go next time — or lose my girl.”

Barbara joined in the laugh, but she blushed becomingly. Huett made the mental reservation that she should be marrying one of his sons soon; and he could not see, as Lucinda averred, that Abe had the inside track. Pity there were not three Barbaras!

October was in its last golden decline. With November came the first snows, and the movement of cattle ceased. Huett and Abe took to the woods and the game trails. Of late years game had gradually grown harder to find. There were plenty of deer and turkey far back in the forest, when once Sycamore Canyon and its adjacent ridges had been overrun with them. Hunters from the railroad towns had grown in number from year to year. Huett and Abe encountered some of these that season, roaming around, shooting at every rustle in the brush.

“Son,” he said to Abe, as they rested on a log, “I reckon I’m unreasonable. But I don’t like the new order of things. All these tenderfoot hunters banging around. Elk protected by law. Open season for deer and turkey one month. Forest under Government supervision.”

“Dad, you think only of your one object in life,” replied Abe. “The President of the United States was thinking of our children’s children when he made this a forest reserve. It’s a good thing. We don’t obey the laws any more than the Stillmans or the other backwoods people. We kill meat when we want it. But these laws were not made for natives who, live in the woods.”

“Humph! Why didn’t he make laws against rustlers?”

“There are plenty of laws to govern cattle-thieves, but who can enforce them way out here in this canyon country? It’s up to us, Dad.”

“Reckon I’ve owned these woods too long,” said Logan, as he gazed lovingly down the timbered swale, where the noon-day sun shone on patches of snow coloured with russet oak leaves and scarlet maple. The great silver spruces vied with the yellow pines for supremacy over the forest glade. The aspens, almost wholly denuded of their golden, fluttering leaves, stood out white-trunked against the dark-green background. Windfalls massed on the ridge, and there was down timber everywhere. The air was cold, though the sun felt warm upon Logan’s bare head; the old forest tang of pine was thick in his nostrils. The truth came to Logan that he hated to share this wilderness with anyone but his own.

“I reckon it’ll last during my day,” replied Abe, thoughtfully.

“Abe, you know we’re going to live in town eventually. I wonder now.”

“That’ll be fine for the women, and for Barbara, when she has youngsters. But I’ll spend half my time in these woods. When you sell our stock, Dad, keep Sycamore for me.”

“For you and me, son.”

They picked up their turkeys and venison, and went on down the ridge towards home. Huett had a strange thought that troubled him. More than twenty-five years ago he had taken Abe on his first hunt up that ridge. They had never missed a year since; but there would come a hunt together, perhaps this present one, that must be the last. Huett threw off the vague, sad presage.

The Turkey Canyon herd had got beyond handling by so few riders. It had multiplied exceedingly. Every spring rustlers tore down the fences to let the cattle stray into ravines and work out on top. That fall it would have taken an army of cowboys to prevent the theft of straggling steers and yearlings, but such loss’ was so insignificant that Huett could only guess at it; his sons never told him.

One night Abe did not come home from his scouting. It was not unusual for him to stay away overnight during the hunting season, but this was early October. Logan was concerned, not for Abe’s safety, because he knew that Abe had no equal in the Arizona woods, but for fear of the long-expected cattle raid.

“Where’d you see Abe last?” asked Huett.

“He waved to me from the rim above Turkey Wash. The sound point,” replied Grant. “He made signs. The most I could make of them was that he’d got track of something down Turkey. His last signal I took to mean he’d come home.”

“But suppose he doesn’t return?” queried Logan.

George and Grant pondered for a while, and at length were in accord about the wisdom of waiting until the next day, and if Abe did not return then, of taking up his trail froth the point where Grant had last seen him. Lucinda and Barbara grew worried and would not go to bed. Finally, late in the evening Huett went outside with his sons and listened. The autumn night was solemnly quiet; them George, keen-eared, voiced a warning whisper. The group froze stone-like. Presently soft, padded footsteps caught Huett’s ear — he knew that quick tread. In another moment Abe loomed up on the porch...

“Howdy. Stayed awake late for me, huh? Just as well, for I shore would have rustled you out.”

“Yes, we’re up, son, and what else is up?” rejoined Huett, again his relieved and confident self.

“I reckon you’ll think hell is up,” said Abe frankly. “Cattle raid?”

“Nope, not yet. But we’re in for a humdinger.”

“Forewarned is forearmed, you know. Come out with it,” replied Huett, gruffly.

“Dad, Jim Stillman and his brother, with Tobe Campbell, and two more men I didn’t know, are going to raid us.”

“Five of them, eh? Well, not if we see them first!” Logan replied grimly.

“All my hiding out for them wasted time!” ejaculated Abe, in disgust. “They didn’t come down through the woods. They came up the road from Pine, and made no bones about piling right down into Turkey. I sneaked up as close as I could get. They camped in an open spot and weren’t afraid of a bright fire, but at that I heard a little and guessed a lot...Would it surprise you to learn Tobe Campbell was Hillbrand’s right-hand man?”

“Wal, son, nothing can surprise me about that coyote,” Logan drawled.

“It’s so, and Campbell had taken hold of that Stillman outfit. Tobe is the meanest and the slickest of that Campbell bunch...Tobe had to give it away that he was Hillbrand’s man. I heard him. Jim didn’t have the guts to hold out against this, and they got together right then and there. I heard your name, Dad, and mine, and something about Sycamore. Tobe drew a map on the ground. I jumped at conclusions, and made up my mind about their deal hours before I found out. They sat there talking till long after midnight — didn’t drink anything but coffee. Anybody could have told there was a big deal on...Sure, Jim Stillman shook like a leaf...They were all excited except Tobe. He was cool and bright, like a coiled, greasy rattler.”

“Ahuh. And what’s his big deal?” queried Logan, sharply. “Campbell aims to drive Sycamore.”

“Sycamore!” exploded Huett. George smacked a hard fist in his palm, and Grant, who seldom used expletives, swore lustily. Then Logan found his tongue.

“Abe, if you’re not loco, that Campbell hombre is. Drive Sycamore? I never thought of such a thing. It couldn’t be done.”

“Yes, it could. Bold deal, you bet — but practical to a rustler like Hillbrand. Slow drive up Sycamore before dawn. Some rider will go up and open our gate. They’d have two thousand head climbing out before we got you...You know, it’s quite far to where our road starts up the slope. They figured we might not hear a slow drive. When we did come out — as Tobe is figuring — they’d smoke us up from the slope, and once on top with all the cattle they could drive, they’d be jake. They’d have all the advantage. A couple of men could hold us back and kill us if we tried to get out up the road. The others would drive the cattle hell bent on, once down in the Tonto...And, Paw, we could never prove those unbranded tattle belonged to us.”

“My God! Just like that,” ejaculated Huett, with a snap of his fingers.

“It might have been just like that, Dad,” retorted Abe, cool and hard. “But I got on to them. Tobe Campbell will sever turn that trick. And some of them won’t get out of Sycamore.”

“George, how’ll we meet this deal?” queried Huett.

“Dad, this Tobe Campbell always was a crafty hombre. If he put a couple of his outfit close to the cabin here they could kill us or drive us back while the rest stole the cattle.”

“I thought of that,” spoke up Abe, quietly. “We won’t be in there when it gets light enough to see. But Maw and Barbara will. And when the fight begins they can shoot out the window as fast as they can pull the trigger.”

Huett nodded his shaggy head in approval of that. Plenty of rifle shots would help. “And do you reckon we ought to hide out — let them make the drive up here?...I don’t like that plan.”

“Neither do I — so damned much. But what’re we gonna do better?” rejoined Abe, dubiously.

“It won’t do to waste time. After all, my objection to your plan must be the idea of my stock being driven up here. Campbell’s outfit will be behind them, and might make a drive up the road in spite of us.”

“Dad, they’ll walk the tattle, two riders behind, two on each side of the herd, and one — who you can gamble will be Tobe Campbell — out in front. He’ll open the gate.”

“Foxy Tobe!” ejaculated George, scornfully. “If we should happen to wake up he’d be out of gunshot.”

“Abe, figure the deal quick,” said Huett, realizing the imperative need of prompt decision.

“All right,” replied Abe, in quick eagerness, showing that he was ready. “Dad, you stay here in the cabin with Mother and Bab. Keep your eyes peeled. Have your rifles and six-guns loaded, with plenty of shells on hand. When the ball opens, shoot, whether you’re in range or not...George, you and Grant hide in the cow-shed. Don’t let the cattle be started up the road. Don’t wait for me to shoot. I’ll go up, chain that gate so it can’t be opened pronto. Then I’ll work down on the rocky point that sticks farthest out in the canyon. I can cover every place from there. If they drive up under the west wall, well, the ball will be over without any of you getting a dance. But they’ll probably drive up the centre. That means a thousand-yard shot for me — pretty far for a moving target. My main object in taking that stand, though, is to make sure Campbell doesn’t climb the slope below the road. You know there’s only one place. He’s sharp enough to know it...I reckon that’s all.”

George and Grant went round the cabin to their quarters. Huett did not speak to Abe before they returned, rifles in hand, buckling on gun-belts. In the cool starlight they appeared formidable.

“Paw, it’s been comin’ a long time,” said Abe significantly. The three tall forms vanished in the gloom of the corrals.

A dull, fiery pang gnawed at Huett’s vitals. After the many stealings of the rustlers, the consequent pursuits, the running encounters, brushes, and escapes, there was to be a crucial fight. Huett had always longed to get it over with, but now that the hour had come he had a dreadful premonition that one or more of them might be killed. He felt this the darkest hour in his spiritual life as well as: — his physical career as a cattleman. Huett gazed down the weird, opaque canyon and cursed it with all the passion a strong, man could feel in a moment of intense bitterness and regret. He had loved this wilderness valley, he had spent more than the better half of his life there; his early dream, his ambition, his love of Lucinda, and the days of toil and defeat, the coming one by one of his sons, the blessed gift of little Barbara, the years of rain and shine, of struggle and victory — all were inextricably, hopelessly woven of these complex, fateful fibres.

Then, almost magically it seemed, his old practical habit reasserted itself — the habit of facing an obstacle: so powerful had it grown that this rustler raid and the ruts that had seemed so fearful were discounted. Logan paced to and fro until a faint grey showed over the black forest to the east. Dawn was not far away. No doubt the rustlers were already on the move. He went back into the cabin.

“Luce — Bab, wake up,” he called.

They were asleep, having lain down fully dressed, and both voiced the same query.

“Abe’s all right. He got home long ago. We’re in for a fight with that Stillman outfit. Tobe Campbell has thrown in with them. They’re going to try to drive Sycamore.”

Logan was to learn what a pioneer’s daughter could say in the hour of greatest stress. He thrilled to his marrow.

“Tobe Campbell!” exclaimed Barbara, in hot amazement. “Why, that hombre made violent love to me — called his brother Jack a low-down, worthless backwoods loafer — begged me to marry him. And now he sneaks up here with those outcast Stillmans to rob us!...The damned rotten lousy Tonto villain! I hope Abe shoots one of his pop-eyes out!”

“You’ll get that chance yourself, maybe,” he replied. “I’ll want you and Luce to do some shooting when they come. Abe’s idea is for us to shoot as much as we can whether we see any rustlers or not.”

“I hope we come right close,” snapped Barbara, viciously. “Dad, it’s just hideous to think that after all we’ve endured — now when we’ve earned peace and rest, we must fight for our cattle and our very lives.”

“Hideous is right, Barbara...No, Luce, don’t strike a light. It’s daybreak now. We’ll be able to see pronto.”

The open door and window let in the grey gloom. Logan placed a table under the window, and piled it high with firearms and ammunition. He made sure the guns were loaded.

“Stand here and don’t talk,” whispered Logan, taking his rifle. “I’ll watch from the door.”

He peered out. The rims of the canyon were black, the space between grey, with outlines of trees and walls dimly showing. Straining his ears, Logan listened for sounds. At last he heard a light thud up in the woods, probably the fall of a pine cone. It quickened his sense. There was a strange, oppressive silence mantling the forest. By looking back at the east he could discern the almost imperceptible brightening and spreading of the light.

Then the indistinct shapes began to take form and familiarity — the path, the bridge and brook, the tall pines to their right, the blur of corrals and sheds, the bulge of slope.

A whistle! It had a low, piercing, human quality. No bird or animal ever emitted a note like that. Barbara, peering out of the window, heard it, for she whispered something. Logan turned to reply: “Must have been George. Abe’s too far away...Reckon they hear the drive!”

Logan listened more calmly. As the hour approached its climax his mind and senses seemed to fix. The grey gloom perceptibly lifted or disintegrated. He saw the corrals, and the cow-barn, where George and Grant waited, and the pale-yellow road leading up the slope. A blue jay broke the silence, heralding the dawn. Faint and far away sounded the chatter of a black squirrel. Then Logan heard another faint noise which he could not identify.

The ruddy colour appeared over the eastern pine-fringed rim. A stone rattled down over the ledge opposite the cabin, giving Logan a start. It was not an unusual sound. Weathering of the cliffs was always going on. He peered up the trail, through the gap in the ledge. It was light enough now for him to see that the gate of peeled poles was open. Seldom of late had it been closed, but now it seemed an oversight. Still, cattle running up the canyon would never find that small, steep opening. He turned towards the canyon.

A curtain of fog hung over the upper part, silvering in the light of breaking day. The ground was white with frost. On the moment he saw a dark moving line come from behind the jutting corner of wall.

“Dad — there!” whispered the sharp-eyed Barbara.

Logan did not reply nor turn. He had felt the gush of hot blood, the leap of passion, the stringing of his nerves. Doubt ceased. What brazen boldness these cattle-thieves showed! To raid a rancher’s herd in front of his door! It seemed incredible; but there moved the dark line, ragged with heads and horns, not a half-mile away; and a faint sound of hoofs thudded on the still air. Logan shut his eyes and tried to simulate sleep, to find if that faint trample would wake him. But it was hard to hear even now when he was awake. The cunning Tobe Campbell had learned much from Hillbrand. Cattlemen in that country lived too far apart; they were too indifferent to their neighbours, too jealously intent upon their own business; they made no concerted effort to get rid of rustlers — and this was the result.

“Oh, Dad, they’re driving all our herd!” whispered Barbara, indignantly.

“No. But they’re sure not stingy with this raid...Barbara, you and Luce keep your nerve now. Hell will be popping pronto. I’ll miss my guess, though, if it lasts long.”

He watched. When he saw horsemen at each side of the herd and behind, his thoughts ceased whirling and settled into the one cold, hard business at hand. The rustlers drove straight up the canyon, on the right of the brook, over the deeper grass. They had not missed any asset to help them in this raid. No hoof cracked a rock or made a thud in that grass.

Logan counted eight riders. Abe had missed some. The herd drove easily. They were tame. They passed opposite Abe’s stand surely out of rifle range — still Logan listened grimly for a shot. How little these rustlers dreamed that the most unerring rifleman in Arizona had sharp, cold eyes upon them!

“Folks, get ready...” ordered Huett, turning to look at his family.

Barbara stood with her rifle over the window-sill, which was almost up to her shoulder. Her pale face, flashing eyes and compressed lips showed resolute defiance and courage. Strangely Huett remembered her the first time he had ever seen her — a curly-haired, big-eyed little tot. Lucinda held her gun ready, locked in sombre expectancy, as if she could see dreadful issues beyond Huett’s ken.

A ringing rifle-shot broke the silent canyon. It came from the wall beyond the corrals. Abe! Huett wheeled to gaze. He almost stepped outside in his eagerness. The herd was across the brook nearing the turn; riders were galloping up on both sides, swinging guns aloft, while hoarse shouts startled the cattle into a run. Another sharp crack from the cliff; it brought puffs of white smoke from the mounted men. The crack of their guns right over the heads of the herd stampeded the cattle. Rapid rifle-fire burst from the sheds. Men appeared swallowed up in a trampling roar and cloud of dust.

Huett levelled his rifle at the melee and waited for a rider to break through the dust. A horse plunged into view, but it was riderless. As Huett stepped out on the porch, peering low, he saw a burst of red flame from the ledge above the cabin, and then simultaneously with a banging gunshot came a violent shock, a burning blow from a bullet that knocked him back against the wall.

“Get away — from window!” he shouted to the women inside. He raised himself on his elbow. Two riders, guns in hands, yelling like Indians, rode down at breakneck pace, and reaching a level, began to shoot. Bang-bang-bang! Bullets thudded into the logs of the cabin. As the two turned towards the corrals and galloped by, a stream of red fire burst from the cabin window. Huett dropped flat as Barbara’s thirty barked spitefully. The foremost horse broke his fast pace, leaped high with horrid snorts, and plunged down, unseating his rider, but as the horse lunged, the rustler hung on grimly to the pommel. He made a magnificent leap from flying feet and just missed the saddle. The crippled horse, mad with pain and fright, dragged him across the brook and kicked free to race among the bellowing, scattering herd.

Barbara ran out of the cabin, working the lever of her rifle. She fired at the second horseman. He emitted a piercing yell of agony and, sagging in his saddle, managed to guide his horse down the canyon on the left side of the brook.

Huett lurched upright from his knees, staggering, and seized hold of the porch post. Just then Barbara wheeled, her face like ashes, her eyes bright with a brilliant light.

“Dad! You’re hurt!” she cried, piercingly, and rushed to support him.

“I don’t know...reckon so,” he replied, thickly. His senses were not clear. As she helped him over the high door-jam, Lucinda gave him one horrified look and collapsed on the floor. Logan felt hot blood streaming down his face and neck. Barbara helped him to his big chair, and then dashed back to the door, working the lever of her rifle. She peered out.

“What’s doing, Bab?” called Logan, hoarsely.

“Oh, I — can’t tell,” she panted. “Yes...cattle on the rim — down canyon...Stampede!...I see riders — scattered...horses running hard...Oh, Dad! I believe we’ve driven the rustlers off!”

“I’ll bet we have — those that could ride!...Bab, come here...Run your finger in this hole over my ear.”

“Dad! I — I can’t! Oh, the blood is pouring,” cried Barbara, suddenly weak.

“Then I’ll have to...Augh! Talk about fire! — Aw, that hombre just creased me!”

“Dad, you’re not — bad hurt?” faltered Barbara.

“I’m not hurt at all. Bullet ditched my scalp. Gosh, it burns! I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. Well, if the boys get off this easy we’re jake...Lucinda’s only fainted, I reckon.”

“She’s coming to,” cried Barbara, gladly. Then she ran to the door, and gazing out she cried: “George! He’s crippled. Can’t see the other boys...Oh, mercy, if they’re only safe!”

Barbara bathed Lucinda’s face, brought her back to consciousness and helped her to the bed. Logan averted his bloody face, and stood up with an effort. “Luce, I’m all right.” He stamped out on to the porch to encounter George, dragging his leg. The healthy tan was gone from his face. At sight of his father he halted short with a grimace.

“Just nicked over the ear, George,” announced Logan. “Aw, that’s good. You sure look a sight to scare one into creeps...I stopped a slug, worse luck.”

“Grant?”

“God!...I’m afraid, Dad. I saw him get hit — fall — then jump up. Four or five of those thieves bolted for the road. Grant ran out to hold them back. They were using Colts. With his Winchester, Grant had the best of them. I ran out, too. That’s when I got stung, from the other direction. I ducked behind the corral — had two shots at the other two. Didn’t miss, either, but they got away...Dad, I counted eight men altogether.”

“Eight? — Yes, so did I. There’s Abe. He’s holding Grant up. They’re coming. If he can walk at all he’s not hard hit...Aw, thank God!...I reckoned my lot could be no worse, but it could! George, tell the women we’re jake, while I wash off this gore.”

Logan took a survey of the canyon. The dust had settled. All down the grassy stretch cattle had begun to graze. In the square before the corrals Logan espied two prone figures, one of which moved. Half-way up the road there lay another. Far down under the west wall he saw a crippled horse dragging its bridle.

Striding to the bench, Huett washed the blood from his head. He felt the hot, stinging furrow over his ear. What a narrow escape! Still, an inch or even less was as good as a mile — the Huetts had weathered another vicissitude of pioneer life. The terrible remorse that had clamped him before the fight came back with new strength, but it could not stand before his exultation at the successful repulse of this rustler raid. With this gang split and depleted, if merely of its leaders, there would nevertheless be a let-up in rustling for a long time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT WAS AN evening in fall when the warmth of the Indian summer day and the pervading melancholy stillness of the season lingered long after darkness mantled the canyon.

George and Grant had returned from Flagg bursting with news of the war in Europe, which was now beginning its third year. At first it had hardly touched them, remote in their canyon. But as time went on and America seemed to become more and more involved, they discussed it with quickening interest.

Lucinda could not quite grasp why a war in far-off Europe held such interest for her sons and husband.

“It’s because they’re men, Barbara,” she said to the listening young woman, who stood with great eyes like midnight gulfs fixed upon Abe. “It’s even got Abe fascinated...Men would rather fight than eat.”

“But listen, Mother,” replied Barbara.

Huett looked up from the newspaper he had spread over his knees. His grey eyes had the old keen flash. Lucinda noted that it was not the front page of the paper which had interested him.

“Cattle, wheat, cotton, corn — all keep going up,” he boomed.

“Well, as to that, I’d forgotten,” replied George. “Business all over the U.S. has had a tremendous boom. If the war keeps on we’ll all get rich.”

“Keeps on? Humph, when it started we thought it would last a few months, and now it’s in its third year...Cattle at twenty-two dollars! Big price. What’re the Babbitts doing?”

“They’re holding on, Dad. Running eighty thousand head.”

“That’s what I’ll do,” declared the rancher, ponderingly.

“You’d have to, even if you wanted to sell. Too late this fall, Paw,” said George, shortly, as if the matter of cattle was a secondary consideration. “Take a look at the front page of that paper.”

“I don’t read so well as I used to, son. And the war itself doesn’t interest me. I reckon they’re all crazy.”

Grant interposed earnestly: “But, Dad, it’s spreading. It might involve the whole world. Even America!”

“Shucks! That’s ridiculous. Let ’em kill each other off over there. But the U.S. must keep out of it.”

“Suppose Germany sinks American ships with her submarines?”

That query arrested Huett.

“Tell us more, George,” put in Abe, quietly. He showed no excitement, but he was sombre.

“The Germans have got the bit between their teeth,” declared George, with pale face and flashing eyes. “And you bet they’ll keep coming. It looks bad for France and England.”

“Suppose Germany licks France and England. What’ll she do then?” asked Abe.

“God only knows. But that outfit would sure be swelled...If they tried to make a clean sweep, and tackled the U.S. — —”

“Hell! You boys are loco. That’s not conceivable,” interrupted Huett.

“There are a lot of brainy men who say it is possible,” said Grant.

“Bab, I’ve a piece of news that will flabbergast you,” went on George.

She did not encourage him. Evidently Barbara had come across a thought she could not surmount or get around.

“You know how loco Joe Hardy was over airplanes. First it was: cars and then planes. Joe sure was a rotten horseman. Well, Joe has left for France, where he’s going in the air service.”

“Doggone!” ejaculated Huett. “I’ve seen the day I’d have jumped at that. I was in the army three years.”

“I’d want mine on foot,” said Abe. “Never savvied what held those airplanes up.”

“They don’t all stay up, so I read,” rejoined George. “Dad, I wish you’d been in town. You’d have found out there are more places in the world than Sycamore. And more things to think about than we ever dreamed of. I declare I felt like a hick. Mr. Little said if Teddy Roosevelt had been President he’d kept Europe from going to war. And the Kaiser warns the United States that if we send contraband goods abroad he’ll sink the ships.”

“That would be right,” spoke up Abe, stoutly.

“Sure! But what if these grafters had power to get their contraband on passenger ships? And the Germans sunk them with Americans on board? What a hell of a mess that would make!”

“Americans should stay home,” interposed Huett, with finality.

“Dad, haven’t you taken sides yet?” asked Grant.

“No, I haven’t. But if you press me I am for England. And France fought for the United States during the Revolution. That shouldn’t be forgotten.”

Lucinda went back to the neglected housework, but Barbara stood behind Abe; her hand on his shoulder, and listened. It was a new and strange kind of talk in that cabin. It troubled Lucinda. She tried to dismiss the vague unrest with an acceptance of Logan’s failure to see aught for them to worry about, but she could not do it. Logan’s thoughts revolved around cattle. Her sons were backwoods cowboys, but they had intelligence, education, and intense patriotism. Logan had patriotism, too; Lucinda used to think it the only religion he had. But during the long years of his struggle that had been relegated to oblivion. It would take a shock to wake up Logan. The boys, however, were quick to grasp how a great war, even far beyond the Atlantic shores, must affect all Americans. That was the realization which troubled Lucinda. Her — consciousness refused to face the thought that had darkened Barbara’s beautiful eyes. She hoped that with the hunting season nearer, and winter to follow, there would be no more news about war, and her loved ones would forget.

But when this most desirable thing had almost happened, Logan and Abe met a party of hunters just in from town, and they stirred anew the curious fire of interest. Snow fell in early December, assuring a white Christmas. Owing to increased automobile traffic from Flagg and Winslow to Phoenix: — and points south, the road was kept open. Occasionally one of the Huetts ran into travellers to hear more news. There came a respite, however, during the later months of winter and early spring. Lucinda’s menfolk heard no more to augment their excitement, and it gradually subsided.

But the nameless something that had troubled Lucinda did not subside. It seemed to be a shadow without substance, a premonition of a vague and undefined trial of the future. She drove it away, but it continually returned. Lucinda feared the years of toil and worry had made her morbid. She divined, however, that this intangible recurring emotion was not morbidness. It was deep, primitive, mystic — a something inherited from the mother of the race, a whisper from the beyond.

Logan was reluctant to start for Flagg that spring. Lucinda and Barbara backed him up, overcoming the eagerness of the young men. They decided, however, that when they did go George would drive the car with Lucinda and Barbara, while Logan would go in the wagon with Abe and Grant. Logan wanted to finish a stone-walled corral before they left. It had long been his intention to utilize the hundreds of rocks that had rolled down from the bluff on the west side of the canyon. They lay everywhere near the corrals and the shed for horses and cattle to stumble over.

“Dad, it’s too big a job,” complained George, when they had one wall half laid. “We’ll never get it done.”

Huett shook his shaggy grey head obstinately. “We’ve more time now that we don’t have to guard the cattle.”

One sunny spring day, when the wet slopes Were drying up and the turkeys had begun to gobble, Lucinda went out with Barbara to see the men. Abe had prevailed upon Barbara to coax Lucinda to make Logan leave off the stone-wall work and go to town.

“We’ll go,” declared Lucinda. “A little more of this uncertain dread will finish me.”

“Mother! What uncertain dread?” asked Barbara anxiously.

“I don’t know.” Lucinda untied her apron and laid it aside.

As she left the cabin with Barbara she saw the sunflowers sprouting green from the brown soil and bladed grass showing along the log wall. How many years had she tended that garden with its homely flowers! Some association full of sweet and pervading melancholy attended the observance.

When they arrived at the scene of Logan’s new enterprise, George and Grant were loading a sled with rocks from the slope, and Abe and Logan were working on the wall.

“Look who’s here!” boomed Logan, and Abe, after a steady glance at Barbara, slowly laid down the stone he had been about to set in place.

“Logan, we want to start at once for town,” announced Lucinda.

“Doggone my pictures! George and Grant have pestered me. And now you womenfolk! Now what’s...”

“Hello! — Riders coming lickitty cut down the road,” interrupted Abe. “Luke Flesher and that cowboy who used to ride for Mooney.”

“Yes, that’s Luke...Something is up,” rejoined Logan.

The horsemen reached the corral and reined their sweaty mounts. Lucinda knew Flesher to be a neighbour down the road. He doffed his sombrero to her and Barbara. The cowboy hung back a little, shy and silent.

“Howdy, Huett, an’ you fellers,” called Flesher, with flashing, tawny eyes upon them. His sallow visage showed strong excitement “Bet you my house you haven’t heahed the news.”

“Howdy, Luke...What makes you reckon we haven’t heard the news?” returned Huett, curiously.

Abe leaned over the wall. George and Grant came striding up.

“Wal, if you had you’d shore not be layin’ that wall,” retorted Flesher, with a short laugh.

“No? It takes a heap to throw me off a job.”

“Huett, cattle are sellin’ at forty dollars on the hoof, an’ going up.”

“What?” boomed the rancher, his tanned face suddenly going red.

“Yes, what! But that ain’t nothin’ at all...United States has declared war on Germany!”

In the blank pregnant silence that ensued Flesher lighted a cigarette, while his keen, hard eyes studied the effect of his terrible announcement. For an instant Lucinda was concerned with a blinding shock to her consciousness. Then she saw Logan sit back utterly confounded. Under Abe’s dark, clear skin worked a miracle of change. George greeted the news with a ringing whoop. Grant stood transfixed and quivering. Barbara’s strong, sweet face turned pearly white.

“That was three days ago,” went on Flesher. “I was in town before the wires came. Course everybody was het-up about the Boches sinkin’ the Lusitania with hundreds of Americans on board. France is licked. England is licked. An’ if the good old U.S. don’t step in, to hell with democracy an’ freedom! Germany shore has her eye on America. All the same, when the news came, Flagg went loco. Arizona is buzzin’ like a nest of mad yellow-jackets. The draft is cumin’ for able-bodied young men between twenty-one and thirty.”

“Draft!...What’s that?” queried Logan, huskily.

“Government order forcin’ all fit young men to train for war...But a good many cowboys an’ other fellers are not waitin’ on the draft. They’re enlistin’. Jack Campbell was the first.”

That information appeared to sting Logan. He might as well have boomed out that if his sons had known, they would have been the first.

“My sons will not wait for the draft,” he said stiffly.

“Good! There’ll shore be a hell of a lot of speculation on how many Huns yore Abe will bore. Haw! haw! haw!...Arizona will send a regiment of riders an’ shots that couldn’t be beat nowhere...Wal, Huett, heah’s the papers I was commissioned to give you. I’ve been ridin’ all over to the outlyin’ ranchers in the woods. Don’t like the job. Shore falls tough on women. I’m sorry, Mrs. Huett, to have to tell you an’ Miss Barbara. But it strikes into every home...We must be mozyin’ on.”

“Wait,” called Logan, as Flesher gathered up his reins.

“Are the Babbitts holding on to their stock?”

“They are not — an’ cussin’ themselves blue in the face. Sold out for thirty-three dollars a haid.”

“Well! — Who’s buying?”

“Stockmen in Kansas City and Chicago. Speculators. Big cattle barons. Stock movin’ this last ten days. Santa Fe have wired for all available freight cars. Everybody figurin’ that the Government will begin to buy beef an’ hides.”

“They’ll shove the price up?”

“Sky-high, Huett. You want to be in on this. How much stock you runnin’?”

“I reckon — thirty thousand head,” returned Logan, swallowing hard.

“Dad, the count will be more this spring,” interposed George.

“My Gawd!” ejaculated the astonished Flesher. “Ain’t you settin’ pretty? Hang on, Huett, but not too long.”

Then the visitors wheeled their horses and made off up the road at a gallop. The Huetts did not soon rouse out of their trance. Lucinda felt herself to be a part of the stone wall upon which she leaned, numb, halted, dead except in her consciousness which was a maelstrom of conflicting thoughts.

Logan tumbled the stone off his knee that he had forgotten was there.

“Sons, we’ll never finish this corral,” he said, loud and clear. “We leave for town at once...George, get out your car. Luce, you and Bab pack pronto. Abe, you and Grant rustle with the wagon.”

Grant ran off with thudding boots. But Abe had not heard. He fixed a strained, soft gaze from his wonderful grey eyes upon Barbara. She saw only him.

“Bab, will you — marry me — at once?” he asked trenchantly.

“Oh — yes — Abe!” she cried. A radiant transfixed face attested to joy that overcame grief. Abe took her hand and put an arm around her. They forgot the others. Lucinda walked behind, leaving Logan by his unfinished stone corral.

Lucinda’s perceptions magnified to startling clear and vivid reactions. She saw that a profound and tremendous excitement had seized upon her family, stultifying, inhibiting, blinding them to the incredible and insupportable truth. Her husband, after thirty years of the poverty and toil of a galley-slave, saw suddenly the grand rainbow of his dreams looming before him in an arch of gold. His sons would not wait to be drafted! Those sons, reared in the wilderness, red-blooded and virile as savages, to whom the world and cities and ships and armies had been but names, had rudely been shocked into a passion of patriotism, had had flashed before their serene vision the kaleidoscopic train of great scenes, of brilliant images, of the glory of adventure, of the romance of war. As for Barbara, she had been staggered, and before her sensitive soul had grasped the significance of this catastrophe, love with its fulfilment, with the wifehood delayed so long, closed her mind for the time to all but the tumultuous truth.

But upon Lucinda descended the doom of the mother. She thought of her sons. She remembered the travail of their birth. She saw them from the beautiful moment to this fatal hour. They were a part of her flesh and blood, of her spirit; the inexplicable dread that had weighed upon her for months gathered strength, yet never clarified its sinister meaning. The tall pines, black and old, moaned with the old voice that had been a bane to her all her life there; the looming walls, grey and silent, looked down upon her in pitiless knowledge of her plight.

Presently entering the cabin with this burden, Lucinda was plunged into the vortex of her family’s wild excitement. Logan was a young man again. George and Grant raved like two boys upset by prospect of an adventure too grand to grasp. Abe had got no farther than his marriage to Barbara. And Barbara, her eyes like stars, her thought and emotion meeting those of her lifelong playmate and sweetheart, ran and packed and laughed without realizing her eyes were wet with tears.

“Folks, pack all your things and throw them into the wagon,” said Logan. “We’re leaving Sycamore for good. I’ll keep the ranch...We’ll come back for a visit every fall, when the leaves colour and the deer take on their blue coats...At last — by God!...Thirty thousand head and more!...Forty dollars and going up!”

George drove the old Ford at a speed that would have appalled Lucinda during a less poignant time. She sat in the front seat with Barbara and held on tightly. The back of the car was loaded full with their baggage.

Every familiar landmark along the road gave Lucinda a pang. Barbara laughed at every bump. She saw something beautiful, but not along the road. It never crossed George’s absorbed mind that he might be passing the entrance to Sycamore Canyon for the last time, and Turkey Flat and Cedar Ridge. He never saw them at all.

For once the Huetts did not stop at Mormon Lake. Lucinda saw with pity the run-down ranch of the Holberts, and she thought sadly of their disintegration, and the old man still living there, waiting for the prodigal son who would never come back.

It was dark when George ended the drive with a grand rattling flourish in front of Wetherington’s Hotel. He engaged rooms, stored the baggage, and took Lucinda and Barbara to supper. Afterwards they went out. The main street was bright with lights and thronged with people. Cowboys in groups jangled their spurs along the sidewalks. They had heated faces and eyes that flashed.

“Kinda like July Fourth, circus day, fiesta, and Saturday night all messed up,” said George. “Everybody going some place but don’t know where!”

“Take us to the motion-pictures,” entreated Barbara.

They went. The big, barnlike hall was crowded with a noisy, motley crowd of cowboys and lumbermen. When Lucinda’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light she saw a sprinkling of girls all over the theatre. It seemed full of a charged atmosphere. Before the regular picture came on there were shown comic features, and then a kind of bulletin of war news and Government propaganda, the first of which elicited roars of mirth from the audience, and the second drew a fearful din of stamping boots, shrill whistles, and wild whoops. Lucinda felt the surge of feeling that was rampant. She wept over a screen drama which at a normal hour would have been as nauseous as sawdust.

After the show they squeezed out of the theatre, merging with the stream of excited humanity. Cowboys sidled up to Barbara and made bold advances. One of them said: “Sweetheart, I’m goin’ to fight the Huns for you. Come out an’ play with me.” Barbara appeared bewildered, but not angry. George laughed at the cowboys, and placed Barbara between him and Lucinda.

“Town wide open. Everything goes. Bab, I reckon you’d better not run around alone.”

“Oh, I can take care of myself. I like it.”

But Lucinda probed deeper. She guessed a laxity, a levity, a hurried, audacious, haunting something in the crowd of young people. She had never known there were so many girls in and around Flagg. She had never seen them so unreserved, so silly, giggling, flirting, brazen. The old-time western girls, except the dance-hall type and the street-walkers, had been noted for their poise, their dignity, but these virtues seemed gone. Something had let loose. The rows of saloons fronting the railroad were thronged with cowboys. Lucinda was relieved and Barbara disappointed when George took them back to the hotel. Lucinda closed weary eyes on Barbara preening herself before the mirror, listening to the strange hum in the street.

Next morning Lucinda awoke to the tasks at hand. After breakfast she and Barbara called upon Mrs. Hardy to ask about a furnished house to rent. That worthy friend did not know of one and could not help them. She talked volubly about her son Joe, who had gone to France and was flying an airplane in the famed Lafayette Escadrille. Lucinda could not understand the woman’s pride, or Barbara’s shining-eyed wonder!

Mr. Al Doyle, an old friend of Logan’s whom they met on the street, directed them to a house that was to be had for renting. It had just become vacant, but would not be so for long, The town was full, the landlord said. Lucinda took it, mainly for the cosy sitting-room with open fireplace, which she knew Logan would like when the cold nights came. Flagg stood at a high altitude and had bitter winters.

Lucinda sent Barbara down town to purchase many needed things for the house, while she set to work to clean the place and make it comfortable. George came presently with the baggage.

“This shack will do for the present, Maw,” he said. “But when Dad sells out you can afford the swellest house in town.”

Lucinda could not accustom herself to the idea that they were rich and could afford everything. George moved furniture about, stowed the baggage where Lucinda wanted it, then drove down town for Barbara’s purchases. By nightfall they were comfortable, but George dragged them down town to supper, and again to the movies. This was a Saturday night, and for noise, crowd, hilarity, and a wild clinging of young men and women, eclipsed anything Lucinda had ever seen.

“When will Abe get in?” asked Barbara, for the hundredth time.

“I reckon to-morrow sure, maybe early,” replied George.

“Hope so...Mother,” he hesitated a moment. “Did I tell you I — I passed A Number One?”

“Passed! What?”

“Why, the army examination for soldiers.”

“Ah — I see,” murmured Lucinda, so low she was scarcely heard.

“Grant is as fit as I am,” went on George. “And, of course, Abe could pass anything...Grant and I want to go into the Cavalry or, if not that, the Light Artillery. Anything with horses!

“What’ll Abe go in for?” asked Barbara, tensely.

“He wants to be a sharpshooter, like Dad’s father was in the Civil War...God help the Huns that Abe draws a bead on!”

Lucinda thought there would be many beside the Germans in need of God’s help. Mothers — Wives — sweethearts deserted! Men had always, from the remote aboriginal days, loved to fight. But it was the women who bore sons, and therefore the brunt of war. In that moment Lucinda regretted the lapse of her religion after her marriage to Logan. She had to face her soul now, and perhaps some day the final sacrifice of a mother, and she needed God.

Late on Sunday afternoon Logan arrived with Abe and Grant, having made a record trip from Sycamore. George, who hurried to the house to tell his mother and Barbara, declared: “Dad is hipped with his cattle prospects. Grant is crazy about war. Abe is sold on marriage...Son-of-a-gun rushed off to fix it up with the pastor. Guess we’re leaving to-morrow —— Bab, I think you should wait until we come back from the war.”

“Why?” interrupted Lucinda, softly.

“Aw, looks like Abe wanted to cinch her before he goes,” declared George, not without bitterness. “Suppose he came back with a leg shot off? Bab would be tied to half a man all her life.”

“I’d rather be tied to half of Abe than to the whole world of men.”

“Bab! Forgive me. I reckon it still hurts. But I hope and pray Abe will come back and you’ll be happy.”

“Thank you, George,” replied Barbara, with emotion. “You’ll see us married?”

“Sure. I’ll be game, Bab. So long as I can’t have you, I’m glad it’s that lucky hombre, Abe...I wish I had an anchor like you. My God, it seems a soldier needs one! I’m finding that out. These cowboys are loco. And the girls — clean out of their heads!”

Presently Abe strode in to fold both Lucinda and Barbara in a bearish hug. Rough-clad, unshaven, smelling of horses and dust and hay — how splendidly virile he was! A devoted spirit shone from his eyes.

“Darling, we’re to be married at seven,” he said, fervently. “Gosh, it’s too wonderful to be true!...Mr. Haskell, the new pastor, can get a licence for us, even if it is Sunday. You’ve got just an hour to make yourself the loveliest bride that ever was. I’ll change at the hotel and be back pronto.”

He was gone. Lucinda saw through dim eyes how Barbara faced the door by which he had left, with her quivering hands half outstretched.

“Hurry, dear,” admonished Lucinda. “It’s well you have everything ready to put on. I must rustle, too.”

Logan did not appear. Lucinda thought impatiently that the man was so insane over his cattle project that he could not remember his wife or his children. Abe came, shining of face, his eyes bright as stars, with a white flower in the lapel of his dark coat. Barbara could well worship that young giant of the woods. He was like a superb pine. Lucinda lived over again in anguish the conception, the birth, the growth of this her favourite son, and at last, in that supreme moment, loved him so greatly she would not have had his life otherwise.

Grant arrived, gay and handsome.

“Oh, Bab, but you’re sweet! You’re a peach! How can’ Abe ever leave you? I couldn’t.”

Then George followed, pale, dark of eye, gallant of speech, the unaccepted lover who had come through the fires of relinquishment. But Logan did not come. They waited until seven; then Abe led Barbara out, followed by Lucinda with George and Grant. It was but a short walk to the pastor’s house. How pleased Lucinda was to learn that Abe had thought of being married in church! Mr. Haskell’s wife and sister accompanied the party. The church was brightly lighted, and Abe had thought to have flowers at the altar. The minister’s deep voice, quavering a little, broke the silence. How quick the ceremony! Lucinda wanted it to be long. She scarcely heard the solemn queries of the pastor, Abe’s deep affirmative, and Barbara’s low and eloquent promises. The scene at the altar seemed to fade. Lucinda saw envisioned a little ragged boy leading a curly-haired girl along the lonely road. So long ago and far away! So appallingly sweet this picture. So tragic the reality of Abe bending to kiss the bride!

George snatched her away with a gay cry and leaned to kiss her. “One for me, Bab — one for Abe — and one for you...God bless you and bring him back!”

Grant took his turn. “Barbara, you’re a Huett at last.” Then Lucinda embraced Barbara, and held her close for a mute, convulsive moment.

They went down town for dinner. No one would have thought that it was Sunday. The saloons, the dance-halls, the gambling halls, the theatres and restaurants were wide open. Among the stream of cowboys with their girls moved beaded and brick-coloured Indians, dark of visage, sombre of eye.

“Bunch of Navajos from the Painted Desert in town to enlist,” announced George, as the wedding-party found seats reserved for them in the restaurant. “Won’t wait for the draft any more than we would! I call that just great. And say, won’t there be hell among the German front when these Navvies slip out of the trenches at night to throw bombs? They’ll just eat that job up...Redskins, niggers, greasers, all enlisting! Are they Americans? Well, I guess!”

“Brother, that’ll do you,” said Abe, shaking a brown fist at George. “Barbara and I have just been married. We don’t know there’s a war. To-morrow is a thousand years away for us. Let us be happy at our wedding-dinner. Let us think of Sycamore and the old days that will never return.”

Logan came at last to join them, regretful, impressive in his felicitations to the bride and groom — a Logan Huett who had evidently found himself to be one of the State’s big cattlemen. It seemed as if he had left off a plodding and unsuccessful character with his old clothes. Barbara beamed upon him. Lucinda forced her subtle and clairvoyant divinations into the background of her consciousness. She would be happy with them all this last time. And they all were happy, if to be happy was to rise above and forget their agony, to eat and talk and laugh, to tease the bride with reminiscences of the past, to speak lovingly of Sycamore and the days that were no more.

Lucinda lay awake long hours that night, praying to bear up, hoping the dawn would never arrive. But it did come — a grey, cold breaking of day at the window.

She heard trotting horses and whistling cowboys go by, and the creak of wagon wheels and hum of motors. The business of the world did not halt for heart-broken mothers.

At breakfast Logan talked about the cattle market. Lucinda at last, in desperation, turned upon him.

“Logan Huett, are you mad about cattle?...Good God, man, don’t you realize your sons are leaving to-day for the war?”

“Why, Luce!...What the hell?...Aw, don’t be so cut up. Sure the boys are going to enlist. And it’s the proudest day of my life. But it doesn’t faze me, wife. You women jump at conclusions. America will never get in this war. Once our army reaches Europe, if it ever does, those Germans will quit like yellow dogs. They’re licked right now. Well, then, what of that? Our boys will get some military work — a good thing in itself — they’ll see some of the U.S. if not France, and they’ll come back all the better for service. We’ll have our new house then, and a couple of nice girls picked out for George and Grant.”

Thus the practical cattleman dismissed the dreadful thing, which, like a poisonous lichen, was eating into Lucinda’s heart. For a while after Logan was gone, Lucinda attended to the housework, and she derived some comfort from his deductions. But this did not last long under the pitiless light of her intuition. She was a woman — a mother — and she could not explain what she knew. There seemed to be a sixth sense in her, an intelligence that had not yet clarified for her its subtlety.

Barbara came at noon, transformed into a woman, her face lovely with its pale pearl colour, her eyes shadowed, the exquisite violet dark and dim.

“Mother — he — they leave at two,” she sobbed. “It’s a special train — westbound...They go to some place in Washington State — a training camp for soldiers...I’ve had my last moment alone with Abe. He’s rushed to get through. But they accepted him pronto...Dad is down there bragging about how many Germans my — my husband will kill...Yes, Dad is, Mother. He’s smoking a big cigar, his chest swelled out, his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. Oh, it’s disgusting!...It’s terrible! Dad can’t see. George is drinking and doesn’t care. Grant is on fire with some strange passion that I think is false...But Abe, he is different — his heart is breaking, too.”

“Then why does he go?” asked Lucinda, stern in her judgment.

“He’d have to go, anyway. But Abe wants to. Down street he pointed out a war poster on the billboard. It was a picture of a gorilla making off with a white woman. It said in big black letters: ‘Save your sweetheart from the Huns!’ Abe wants to go because of that. Oh, Mother, I — I can’t endure it!” She seemed on the verge of collapse.

“You must, Barbara. At least until after they go. We must not let them carry away memories of miserable faces. Our woman’s lot is harder. Men fight and women weep, you know.”

At two o’clock that day, when the special train pulled into the station, all the people of Flagg and its environs were present. Banners and flags waved from the windows. Young faces, keen, tanned, somehow raw and primitive, flashed upon the spectators. These young men joked and made witty remarks to the girls present.

Lucinda’s little party was only one of a dozen such groups. They could not be alone, even if they thought of such a thing. The crowd was loud in its good cheer, its well-wishing, its farewell to its youthful champions. All along the front of that line Lucinda saw the wet eyes of women. They were all mothers, all sisters, all sweethearts of these boys going away to war. That light of glory in their eyes, dimmed by tears, told the secret of that sacrifice. This woman acclaim of the soldier was in the race.

“All aboard!” yelled the conductor.

Grant put his arms around Barbara and Lucinda. Tears coursed down his cheeks.

“Good-bye, Bab...Good-bye, Mother...Don’t take it — hard. Ten to one we’ll never get to France...So long, Dad! Good luck with the herd!” He snatched up his luggage and ran to board the train.

Abe stood aside to let George at Barbara. The parting had sobered him. His farewell was a kiss and a gallant smile. “Barbara, if I make a good soldier, I’ll owe it to you.” And he turned to Lucinda: “Mother!” That was all he said, but he clasped her close. As he kissed her, Lucinda suffered the ghastly illumination of her dark forebodings. George would never come back to her. But he, young, physical, elemental, never divined that awful truth. He broke from her, wrung Logan’s hand, and rushed away. The train was moving. Abe let go of his mother, pressed Barbara’s rapt face to his breast, then followed his brothers. Logan ran along the car-step from which Abe was waving.

“Son,” he shouted huskily, “you gotta be at that turkey shootin’ at Pine!”

The long, sustained cheer of the watchers died into a strange sobbing breath as the train pulled out and left them standing there.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HUETT MET HIS old friend Al Doyle in the bank. As a young man Al had helped build the Union Pacific Railroad and the Santa Fe. He had been pioneer, cattleman, lumberman, teamster, and guide. If there was one Arizonian who knew the West it was Doyle. Of late years Doyle had been guiding geologists and archaeologists into the canyon country, and hunters down over the Tonto Rim.

“Howdy, Al,” said Huett.

“Wal, hullo, old-timer,” replied Doyle. “What do you hear from your sons?”

“Not much lately. Letters few and far between, and all cut up. Makes me tired. Abe’s at the front. They shoved him along pronto. George and Grant among the reserves.”

“They’ll smoke up that Boche outfit before the snow flies. Hell of a war, Logan! We got in just in time to save France and England. With Hindenburg falling back and the Yanks arriving by shiploads it won’t be long now.”

“Al, I haven’t sold out my cattle yet.”

“Say, old timer, you don’t have to tell me that. You’ve ootfiggered all the big blokes who reckoned they was smart. But, Logan, don’t be a hawg. Don’t wait too long. There’s bound to be a slump when winter sets in. On the q.t. I’ll give you a tip from Charteris. The Government has ordered cattle from the Argentine.”

“You don’t say!” ejaculated Huett, astonished and impressed.

“If the war ended in November, say, you fellows who’re hanging on to your cattle would be left holding the sack. After the war the bottom will drop out of everything. I went through the Civil War, Logan; I know. If we had hard times after that Civil War, what’ll we have after this World War?”

“Hard times! Why, Al, that’s not conceivable. Take Flagg. The place is lousy with money. You see money sticking round loose. No one would stop to pick up a greenback from the gutter.”

“Shore. And that’s just why, Logan. This war has made the U.S. enormously rich. Seventeen thousand new millionaires! Everybody is rich. The value of money has been lost sight of. An orgy of spending, gambling, wasting will follow this. And then just you wait!”

“Al, are you giving me a tip or a hunch?” queried Logan, good-humouredly, though he began to take the old westerner seriously.

“Both...How’s your stock making oot? It’s a dry season.”

“They’re okay. I sent some cowboys down last month to keep tab on them. If everything wasn’t jake I’d have heard.”

“Best canyon ranges in Arizona. And you’re running thirty thousand head?”

“Thereabouts. Some over that, George counted.”

“Huett, are you getting dotty in your old age? Cattle selling now at forty dollars on the hoof! Good God, what do you want?”

“I been holding out. Was offered forty-two a while back. Reckon I can get more from Mitchell, the Government buyer.”

“Wal, Logan, if I was you I’d take what I could get while the army is shelling oot greenbacks by the car-load. It won’t last. Not in the face of Argentine cattle! Shore, the price might and probably will go up. But don’t take the risk. Anyway, you and your family will have more money than you can spend all the rest of your lives...Logan, yours has been a long, hard, uphill pull. You’ve done great...It’s thirty-three years ago since I met you at Payson, while you were soldiering with Crook, and tipped you off about Sycamore Canyon. Remember?”

“You bet I do, Al. And there’s been a hundred times in that thirty-three years when I wanted to murder you.”

“Ha! ha!...Wal, all’s well that ends well. I shore gave you a good hunch. Thirty thousand head at forty or over?...Lord, I can’t figure it up.”

“One good hunch deserves another. Maybe I can return it some day.”

“Huett, have you reckoned what a hell of a mess Mitchell will make of that drive up from Sycamore?” queried Al, seriously.

“Have I? Well, I should smile. But I reckon I can make this deal without delivery at the railroad.”

“All the same you don’t want a thousand head lamed and lost. Mitchell will make some kind of a count.”

“That’s what George advised. I’d better have some say in the drive.”

“You want a lot of say. Those cattle will be fat. They mustn’t be drove hard. You’re lucky that no herds have come up from the Tonto all summer. Grass will be enough, Water scarce. Drive ten days — six miles a day. And fifty good cowboys, old timer, red rookies from the camp. There were a lot turned down. Failed to qualify. And that’s funny, Logan.. Where’s the cowboy who never broke a bone?”

“Damn if I know. Al, what’ll I do about such a big outfit?”

“Wal, reckon we’d better get my son Lee on the job. Mitchell won’t swiggle at five dollars a day. And that’ll be easy picking for a lot of boys. Let me see. Joe Arbell, Jack Ray, Hal McDonald, Con Sullivan, Bill Smith, all the Rider boys, except Al, who went to France. And Wetherill would let his son fetch a bunch of Navajos...Logan, that ootfit, with some other riders thrown in, can do the job okay.”

“Fine...Al, by gosh, I reckon you’ve pushed me off. I was tilting on the fence. Will you make an offer to Lee for me?”

“Shore will. I can almost guarantee it a go.”

“I’ll look you up to-night...Now, what’n hell did I come in here for?”

“Money, same as me, I’ll bet. There’s still some left. While we’ve been talking here I’ve seen stacks of long-green pass out that window. Beats me where it comes from...So long, Logan. Don’t get weak-kneed now. Sell!”

Logan finally remembered that his errand in the bank was to draw money for Lucinda and Barbara. He wrote out a cheque and noted the amount of his balance had dropped below ten thousand dollars. He had had much more than that, the accumulation from years of sales of small herds. Where had so much money gone? Cashing the cheque Logan wended his way home.

All through late spring and summer, since the boys had gone, Lucinda and Barbara had worried Logan more and more. Lucinda had altered, broken, greatly. She suffered under a hallucination that her sons would never come back from the war. She was queer sometimes. She wept at night when she thought he lay asleep. Barbara, mentally at least, appeared to be worse than Lucinda. Losing Abe with no certainty of his return had proved a terrific strain. Logan could only judge of her state of mind by her pale face, her great burning eyes, her courage, her restless energy and insatiate passion for all forms of war relief service.

Both she and Lucinda had plunged into work with all the other women of Flagg, and particularly those who had sons, brothers, sweethearts, cousins, friends who had gone to France, or to the training-camps. They organized bazaars, concerts, socials, knitting-circles. They were persistent and relentless about raising money for their soldier boys, for relief work, particularly the Red Cross. Logan swore he had contributed a pretty penny to that cause. He had come to fume a little about all this crazy obsession. From morning till late at night his womenfolk ran and worked and harangued themselves until they were so tired, so nervous, so upset that they could not sleep.

But when Logan got home to lunch, to see Lucinda’s sad face and Barbara’s strained eyes, he reproached himself for his impatience and irritation. When all was said, his women were the least carried away by this infernal war mania. At least Lucinda did not quite make a fool of herself and Barbara did not forget that she was the wife of Abe Huett.

“Any news, Dad?” asked Barbara.

“About the same, Bab. The bulletin said ‘All quiet on the Western Front.’”

“All quiet! Oh, the liars! I get so sick reading that line.”

“Why sick, my dear?”

“Because it’s false. Just think how hideous! You read that down town — and Mrs. Hardy reads a wire from Washington that Joe has been killed in action. Crashed over the German lines! Cited for bravery!...Oh-h! — poor Joe! That boy, who loved machines...He couldn’t fight!”

“Aw!...That’s a punch below the belt...That’s real...I’m sorry — awful sorry, I’ll drop in to see Mrs. Hardy.”

“Logan, did you remember to get the money?”

“Yes, Luce, I did — finally. Here...Folks, we’ve been spending a lot of money somehow.”

“Money doesn’t mean anything these days,” said Lucinda.

“I reckon not. But it took a long time to earn some...I’m not kicking, Maw. I was just telling you.”

“Dad, could you let me have a — a hundred?” asked Barbara, hesitatingly.

“I reckon so — if you promise to rest once in a while, and stop that damned knitting. Every time I come home, even at meals, you knit, knit, knit. It’s getting on my nerves, honey.”

“It’s not the knitting, Dad. But I’ll have to quit for a while. My fingers are raw.”

“Well, after all, I have got some news,” declared Logan, sitting down and slapping a big hand on each knee. “I reckon I’ll sell out.”

“Your cattle?” cried Barbara eagerly.

“Logan, how often you’ve said that,” added his wife incredulously.

“I reckon I’ll sell at forty. Might get more, if I stuck it out. But Al Doyle called me a hawg, and darn me if he wasn’t near right.”

“Daddy! Sell at forty! And you have thirty thousand head?...Why, that’s over a million!”

“Sure. And if I waited to get one dollar more a head — why, that’d be five thousand more for each of the Huetts. Can you see now why I’ve hung on so tight?”

“Oh, Dad! — It’s too good to be true!”

“Not much. It is true...Set out some lunch, Luce, and the sooner I’ll mozy down town while I’m in this humour.”

“Mother, think how we can help the Red Cross,” murmured Barbara.

Logan grunted forcibly. “Yes, my girl, but there’ll be a limit. The war has got you both hipped.”

Mitchell, buyer for the Government, suavely welcomed Logan into his office and moved a chair for him. Mitchell was a man over forty, with stern, smooth face and shrewd, cold eyes.

“Good day, Huett. You certainly have taken your time about giving me an answer.”

Logan returned his greeting and drawled: “I’m never in a hurry with cattle deals.”

“You’d have done well if you had been in a hurry,” returned Mitchell, curtly. “The price of cattle went up. You cattlemen lost your heads. You could have sold once for forty dollars a head — then thirty-eight. When it was thirty-two I warned you — advised you to close. But you knew it all. Yesterday I bought the last of Babbitt’s for twenty-eight. To-day I wouldn’t give you twenty-five.”

Huett took that for a crafty, greedy bluff. Nevertheless it added to his concern. Doyle had been right — he had waited too long.

“I can sell to Kansas City buyers for more than that.”

“Go out and try it. The stockyards there are flooded.”

Huett got up slowly and clapped on his sombrero. “Good day, Mitchell,” he said gruffly, and stamped out.

Mitchell called after him: “Your family will suffer for your pig-headedness!”

That surprising sally added anger to Huett’s amazed concern. It happened to hit an extremely sore spot. In the next hour he was to learn that the market for cattle had closed, so far as it pertained to Flagg. Babbitt, Charteris, Wilson, Little, all the cattle barons confirmed this, and admitted frankly that they had gambled for too high stakes. But Huett could not be convinced. A man who had thirty thousand head of cattle to sell held a fortune in his hands. The boom might be past, but beef and hides represented gold more or less. He wired to Kansas City for an offer, and then hunted up Doyle.

“Let’s have a drink, old-timer,” suggested Al. “We need it.”

“Don’t care if I do...Mitchell turned me down cold. Wouldn’t give me twenty-five!”

“Logan, I don’t like that girl-chasin’ dude,” replied the old Arizonian, bluntly. “I just had a talk with my son Lee. He was keen about your offer, and he can get a dozen or more good cowboys and fifty Navvies.”

“Humph! If I can’t sell I can’t drive.”

“Sell? Of course you can sell. It’s tough to come down, but you must reckon on the large number of cattle in your herd. The three thousand head sold here since early May averaged only twenty dollars a head. Some went for thirty and most of them for fifteen or less.”

“So I reckoned. Just wired to Kansas City.”

“Logan, Lee thinks this buyer is hot after Barbara. It’s pretty well known, Lee says, among the young people. Mitchell has been playing high jinks among the Flagg girls. But Barbara snubbed him, which made him mad about her.”

“Most young men and older ones too fall for Barbara. She had to give up the dances because of the fights over her.”

“Shore. But this is different, Logan,” rejoined Al, seriously. “In war-time women are not responsible. Or else they’re inspired about somethin’. I remember during the Civil War that officers in uniform just played hell with women. It’s worse now, for this is a hell of a war.”

“But Al...my God, Barbara is—”

“Just like all the other young women, thrown off her balance. My daughter is only fifteen, but she’s loco. She despises cowboys that were not accepted for draft. To sum it up, women are not themselves nowadays. Wal, war plays hell with men, too...The hunch I want to make about Barbara is this. You can’t keep her out of this war-relief work, but you can keep her away from Mitchell.”

“I sure can, if it’s necessary,” returned Logan, his surprise succeeding to grimness.

“Mitchell thinks he has you in a corner now. His refusal to buy was a bluff. He might be low-down enough to work on Barbara with this cattle deal.”

“Ah-huh. I wouldn’t put it above him. Thanks, Al,” replied Logan, soberly, and went his way.

From that hour he meant to take interest in what was going on in Flagg. But he resisted his desire to interrogate Lucinda and Barbara. Next day he received an answer to his telegram. His Kansas buyer offered ten dollars on the hoof. That did not interest Logan. But he accepted the fact of a slump in the market price of cattle and that he had lost considerably by holding on. That was the gamble of cattle-raising. The gamble still applied. He had a week or two yet that he k could wait, and still make the cattle drive that fall. Meanwhile he walked the streets, talked war and cattle, read the bulletins and the papers, and had a keen eye for all forms of relief work.

One night Barbara presented herself late at the supper table, most becomingly dressed, very handsome indeed. Logan particularly noted the red spots in her white cheeks and the brilliancy of her eyes.

“Bab, you sure look good for sore eyes...Where are you going all togged up?”

“I have a date with Mr. Mitchell,” replied Barbara, frankly. “Some bazaar or Red Cross affair?”

“No. He wants me to see a war picture at the theatre.”

“Ever go with him before?”

“No. He never asked me.”

“Barbara, it’s all over town that Mitchell is hot after you,” said Logan, gravely.

“Oh, Dad!” she cried. “I didn’t think you listened to gossip!”

“I didn’t until lately...Has Mitchell made love to you?”

“He tried. He’s gallant, like a romantic soldier. Likes all the girls, and they like him. But since I told him I was married he’s been very — nice.”

“Has he mentioned my cattle to you?”

“Yes. He intimated you were a greedy old cowman who’d hang on to his cattle and let his family starve. He predicts that cattle and hides will have no value after the war. I told him I could persuade you to sell. Indeed, I was going to talk to you presently.”

“My girl, has this slick hombre hinted that he’d buy my cattle if you were very — nice to him?”

“What do you mean?” asked Barbara hotly.

“Bab, I knew you were an innocent, unworldly girl, but I didn’t think you could be so green.”

“Father! You’ve insulted Mr. Mitchell, and now you insult me,” protested Barbara, hotly.

“No, honey. And I swear I think more of you for your innocence. But don’t be a little fool, Bab.”

“Oh, I can’t believe what you hint about Mr. Mitchell.”

“Barbara, you women couldn’t see the devil himself if he had on a uniform...Now you take my word for it until you see for yourself...Let’s slip one over on this fellow, as the saying goes here. You go to the movies with him, but come home pronto. Be sweet to the lady-killer. Give him a dose of his own medicine. Tell him you are afraid your Dad will go broke hanging on to his cattle herd. Tell him if he’ll only buy it you’ll be very — very nice to him.”

“Logan Huett!” burst out Lucinda, red in the face. “Dad, I’m surprised,” added Barbara, hotly.

“You’ll be a damn sight more surprised if you do as I ask,” declared Logan, bluntly.

“I’ll do it and I’ll — I’ll mean it,” returned Barbara, spiritedly. “I think you’re suspicious, unjust, old-fashioned. I think you’re—”

“Never mind what I am,” interrupted Logan, in the first stern tone he had ever used to her. “I know what you mean by being nice. You’d be yourself. Mitchell will take it another way. But after to-night you are never to go anywhere with him again, or ask him in here if he calls, or lay yourself open to any occasion with him alone. Do you understand me, young lady?”

“I — I couldn’t help it.”

“You’ll obey me?”

“Yes, Father.”

That ended the discussion, though not the confusion and resentment Logan’s women-folk felt. As for Logan, he had taken pains to find out all about Mitchell, and he felt not only justified, but quite elated. He attended that motion-picture, to his regret. The scenes of marching soldiers and embarking marines, the long lines of moving artillery, the endless streams of trucks, the soldiers, miserable and begrimed in muddy trenches, the tanks belching fire, and the cannons puffing smoke, the great holes blown in the ground by bursting shells — all these scenes purported to have actually been filmed at the front made Logan sick and dazed.

“So that’s war!” he muttered, jostling through the noisy crowd emerging into the street. “And I sent my sons into that...Good God! I reckoned they’d have a chance. Man to man, with rifles, behind trees and rocks, where the sharp eye and crack shot would prove who was best! But that — God Almighty — what would you call that?”

Logan went home to find Lucinda out, as usual. He lighted the lamp and building a fire in the open fireplace, he composed himself to his pipe when Barbara entered quickly. Her beautiful face was white instead of pale, and her great eyes appeared to flare lightnings.

“Hello, Bab. Glad you got home so early. What upset you?”

“Dad, I don’t know which was the worse, Mr. Mitchell or that ghastly motion-picture,” she replied, with suppressed agitation.

“Humph. That picture was pretty damn bad. It made me sick.”

Barbara threw off her coat and hat, and stood in the open door of her room, facing Logan. He had never seen her as she was now, and he felt a surge of elation.

“Dad, I apologize,” she said, her dark eyes on him. “You were right about Mitchell. I started out to be very sweet and nice, as I had bragged to you I’d be...I’m afraid I overdid it. On the way home, just now, he — he...Well, I’d have been happier and safer With Jack Campbell...But I got away from your lady-killer without destroying his illusion that he’d made an easy conquest of the simple little country-jake. Which I was!”

“Ha! ha! Well, I’ll be doggoned...I hope he didn’t insult you, Bab. It takes me off my feed for weeks to kill a man.”

“Hush, Dad. He insulted me, but he didn’t guess that. I reckon he thinks it his charming, masterly way with women.”

“Humph. I’m not so stuck on that — . Did Mitchell mention cattle?”

“He did. He’ll send for you to-morrow. And he’ll buy. It’s up to you now, Dad. I’ll never let him come near me again.”

Logan sat up, smoking, and waiting for Lucinda to come in. He would sell his thirty thousand head. Then what? Wait for the boys to come home. He would miss the brown game trails and the lovely coloured woods this fall. What strange inexplicable creatures women were! But wonderful, good, faithful — most of them! And men? He was not learning so much to make him proud of his sex these days. War, greed, lust — they seemed to go together.

Next morning Logan had a stroke of good fortune in the shape of an offer from a Chicago firm, through its local buyer who had arrived in Flagg, of twenty-five dollars a head for his cattle, delivered at the company’s cost at the railroad. When, therefore, Logan received a verbal message to call upon the Government official he felt pretty self-assured. He would get more than twenty-five, and anything more he felt was a windfall.

Mitchell was cool, calculating, business-like when Logan entered his presence. Logan’s last vestige of respect fled before this smooth, mask-faced man who had only the night before insulted his daughter. Logan sensed something he had never encountered before in his deals with men, and it baffled him. But he divined what an infinitesimal figure he cut in the machinations of this suave gentleman. It affected Logan exceedingly.

“Morning, Huett. I hear Blair made you an offer.”

“Yep. He came across pretty good.”

“Twenty-five a head and expenses of delivery. He told me Al Doyle had prompted the offer and that you’d accept.”

“Wal, that was fine of Al. But I couldn’t think of it.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” retorted Mitchell tartly. “What do you want this morning?”

Logan conceived the idea that Mitchell really did not care what the cattle cost, once he made up his mind to buy. It was an unusual deduction for Logan to make, and he shrewdly thought he would test it out by asking a high figure from which he could come down considerably and still make a big deal.

“I want expense for the drive and full charge of it. Thirty-five dollars a head, paid on delivery at the railroad — in cash.”

“In cash?” repeated Mitchell in amazement.

“Yes, in cash. I might have to wait on a bank draft for so much money. It’ll take two weeks or more to drive. That’d give you plenty of time to get the cash.”

Mitchell waved a deprecatory hand, which meant that it was no matter of importance how the debt was paid. But before he averted his eyes, Logan caught a fleeting glimpse of an extraordinarily steely flash. Also the man crushed a piece of paper that he held in his hand. These evidences of feeling puzzled Logan until Mitchell turned with a light on his face. Then Logan imagined the singular reaction had to do with Barbara.

“Expenses and management of delivery okay,” said Mitchell, blandly. “But thirty-five dollars is too high. I can’t pay it.”

They argued. Logan certainly felt the buyer’s flinty edge, yet he did not seem to grasp sincerity. Logan distrusted his own deductions. He had made too many blunders. Here he meant to hold out a little, then capitulate for anything above twenty-five.

“Twenty-eight dollars on the hoof!” launched Mitchell, out of a doubtful sky.

Logan shook at the tigerish leap of hot blood. After all his stern resistance and the flex and reflex of prices, to call so soon was balm to his wounded pride, gratification to his greed.

“Sold!” he boomed, and extended a great horny hand. But the army official was writing and appeared not to notice the gesture.

“Logan Huett. Flagg, Arizona. Thirty thousand on the hoof. Twenty-eight dollars a head. Pay in cash on delivery. Expense to drive extra,” he droned crisply, while he wrote rapidly. He shoved the paper back and his sleek head came erect with a hawk-like swiftness. “Huett, the deal is on. Drive under your personal supervision. Get a move on!”

At high noon, five days later, Huett stood on an elevated part of the rim at the confluence of Turkey and Sycamore Canyons.

The resonant yells of cowboys floated up to his tingling ears; the weird, wild cries of Indians whipped back in echo from wall to wall.

“Sight of your life, old-timer!” called Doyle, hoarsely in Huett’s ear.

“It is, Al, and thirty-three years’ wait makes it sweeter.”

Far as eye could see, across the floor of Turkey Canyon and up its six-mile length, spread a living, restless mosaic of cattle. The yells that pealed from cowboy to cowboy and Indian to Indian were the relays down to Huett. His answering shout was to start the drive. The cowboys had taken three days moving the cattle in Turkey over to Sycamore. Huett’s arrival on the rim was the signal that Lee Doyle and Jess Smith waited for.

“Blow your horn, Gabriel,” said Al, with gusto.

Huett began to draw in breath, to fill his wide lungs and expand his deep chest; and when he was full to bursting, he expelled it all in one stupendous stentorian explosion. “Waahoo-oo!”

Abe’s old hunting-call, augmented to grand volume by Huett’s passion, boomed across the canyon and banged back. All the hope and failure, the ambition and discouragement, the endless toil and unceasing trouble, all Huett’s life as a cattleman, the terrible years at last crowned with victory, success, wealth, pealed out in that long, wonderful yell. Before echoes ceased the Indians below on each side of the herd relayed the signal one to another up the canyon until their voices were lost in the distance. The head of that magnificent herd was out of sight round the bend, probably far beyond the cabin.

Huett watched in silence. He could hear his heart beating. At last, far up the canyon, the mass of cattle began to move. Like a turgid current of stream, congested by tossing driftwood and roots of stumps, the movement came on down slowly through the herd until all the cattle were on the move.

“The drive’s on, old timer,” shouted Al, waving his sombrero. “Good-bye, old bulls and long-horns — good-bye to Sycamore.”

Huett lingered. The herd moved at a slow walk, gradually going faster as the forward mass broke into free action. The old cattleman waved to them a farewell to Sycamore. There was a lump in his throat. His eyes grew dim so that the red and white and black chequered carpet of cows and steers blurred in his sight. This was the most exceedingly full, the greatest moment of Logan Huett’s life.

“Wal — Al, they’re off,” he said, in husky accents. “My cup is almost full...If only my sons could see!”

They left the rim, climbed over the rough ledges to the open woods, and out to the road and the waiting car. Huett had the driver run the six miles up to Long Valley, and stop at the forks of the road, where the branch led down to his ranch. But instead of going down to a vantage-point on the wall below, Huett, this time alone, climbed the steep bluff and got out on the edge above his cabin. He gazed, and an irresistible yell escaped his panting lips.

His cabin appeared to be a little moss-roofed, green-logged island in a river of many colours and jostling waves and milling eddies. The narrow construction of the canyon here was packed solidly with wagging, bawling cattle. “Whoopee!...Ki-yi-ki-yi!” rang up the piercing yells a the cowboys. Their echoes mingled with the sing-song chant of the Navajo riders. The trample of thousands of hoofs made a low, subdued roar. Dust rose in puffs and patches, rolling back on the light breeze to merge into a cloud that obscured the wide mass of the herd below.

This scene was intimate and beautiful. Huett could smell the cattle, the manure, the dust, the hoof-ploughed earth of his corn and alfalfa fields. What of his great patch of potatoes? He could see the burly bulls, the wide-horned cows, the thick-necked steers, the yearlings and heifers, crowding along the corrals, obliterating the brook, colouring the bench, surrounding the cabin, passing on under the pines. Huett thought he revelled in bliss, but there was a pang in his breast. His cattle were going. Something was passing. It seemed almost like the end of life.

Soon the vast volume of animals down around the corner in the wide stretch from wall to wall by their very momentum forced those ahead in the constricted neck of the canyon into a lumbering gallop. And then the trample grew deafening, the dust rose to hide the motley stream. Huett stood a while longer above the ranch he could not see and the cattle that thundered by under a yellow pall. Then he retraced his steps back down off the bluff and out to the road where Doyle and the driver awaited him.

“Makes me think of the old buffalo days,” said AL “Hope that run doesn’t develop into a stampede.”

“Nothing to — worry us,” panted Huett. “They’re crowding — through that narrow neck...She opens out soon. Before sunset they’ll be — up on the range.”

They drove up to the end of Long Valley, and leaving the road, bumped and swayed over rough going through the woods until compelled to stop. Then they dismounted and walked. Two chuck-wagons, widely separated, awaited the drivers at the point where the open range sent a grey wedge into the woods. Huett and Doyle were not far ahead of the vanguard of the herd. For three hours Huett sat on a chuck-wagon seat, watching his cattle flow like a magic colourful river out of the forest and spread across the wide corner of range. Those hours might have been minutes.

Before sunset the entire herd was up on the level and halted for the night. Cowboys came swinging in on dust-caked horses. Soon Lee, Bill, Jack Ray, Con Sullivan, and other drivers rode up to pay their happy respect to the cattleman. They were all as black as the nigger Johnson, but not so shiny of face.

“Mr. Huett — Dad,” called Lee, cheerfully, as with a scarf he wiped his begrimed face to show it red and wet, “it was easy as duck-soup.”

“Wal, old-timer,” drawled Bill Smith, with the dust rolling off him in little streams, “we shore piled along high, wide, and handsome.”

“Mister Huett, it waz graa-ndd,” boomed the Irishman.

Johnson’s eyes rolled to show their contrasting whites. “Boss, we done it. Yas, suh, we sho did.”

“From now on,” said Jack Ray, “it’ll be sing an’ roll on, little dogies.”

When Huett got a chance he shouted: “I’d rather be a cowboy than President!”

“Come an’ git it before I pitch it out!” yelled the cook.

During the drive Logan went three times from Flagg to cheer the boys and feed his insatiate love of all which pertained to cattle. As luck would have it, the good fall weather persisted, and on the afternoon of the tenth day the herd rolled, tired and slow, but in fine condition, into the railroad pastures. Lee Doyle and Bill Smith, astride their horses, one on each side of the gate, counted the cattle. Lee gave the number to be thirty-one thousand and sixth odd.

A counter for Mitchell did not attend, much to Huett’s dissatisfaction. The erstwhile suave Government buyer struck Huett as being sore under the collar. Barbara, upon being questioned, made the reason perfectly clear to Huett; the man, so far as women were concerned, was brazen, unscrupulous, and extraordinarily vain.

Five hundred and more cattle-cars cluttered up the side track and yards of the Santa Fe. For the first several days Mitchell loaded and shipped an average of fifteen hundred head every twenty-four hours. After that, with cowboys and railroad men working in double shifts, he shipped three trainloads every day until the great herd was gone. At his office that night he informed the waiting cowboys and Indians that he would pay off next morning. For some reason or other he was inaccessible to Huett.

Sleep did not soon visit Huett’s eyelids that night. The November wind sang paeans under the eaves. And the morning sunlight danced for the rancher’s magnifying eyes. He was prodigal in promises to his wife and daughter. And he went down street with boots ringing on the frosty sidewalks. Mitchell, urging press of settling his affairs, put him off until two o’clock.

It was a Saturday afternoon — a half-holiday for the bank. Huett had hoped to bank his cash upon receipt of it. Nevertheless nothing could concern him this day. On the sunny sidewalk he waited the Government man’s pleasure. Holbert and Doyle were with him, loyal, proud, excited. They both took some share of credit for Huett’s dramatic finish with the cattle.

“Al, did I ever tell you about Abe’s shooting at the training camp?” asked Logan, fully aware of other listeners.

“Not that I recollect,” replied Al.

“Wal, it was sure great...The first day when Abe was marched out on the shooting range with a lot of green recruits a red-headed cuss of a sergeant shoved Abe up to the mark, and handed him a thirty Government rifle: ‘Hey, long legs, do you know one end of this from the other?’...Abe said he reckoned he did. ‘All right, then take your turn. Shoot,’ ordered the drill sergeant. ‘What at?’ asked Abe. ‘At the target, you dumb head!’...Then Abe saw a lot of white targets with black centre and rings. Fifty yards, a hundred, two hundred, and so on up to a thousand. Abe asked which one he should shoot at. ‘Rooky, look here. Can you shoot?’ yelled the sergeant, and Abe modestly replied that he reckoned he could not shoot very well. ‘But I wouldn’t want to shoot at this first target,’ added Abe...Then he threw up the rifle. Gosh! It always was wonderful to see Abe get set and aim. When he was a little boy he took to guns...Well, Abe took five shots at the thousand-yard target, off hand. The flag man waved back three bull’s-eyes and two shots inside the first circle...Ha! That red-headed sergeant got red in the face. ‘Hell, you said you couldn’t shoot.’ And Abe kind of kidded him cool and easy: ‘my ole man says I can’t.’”

Mitchell finally called Huett into his office. Another official in khaki sat on the other side of a table containing a few papers and two large, neatly wrapped packages, identical in size and appearance.

“Huett, my man’s count was thirty thousand nine hundred,” began Mitchell, cold of voice and mien.

“All right. That’s near enough.”

“Sign here,” went on the buyer, indicating a dotted line on an official-looking document. Huett bent over the table, and taking the proffered pen wrote his name with a fine flourish. “Witness his signature, Lieutenant.”

When the official had done this, Mitchell folded the document and put it in his pocket. Then he handed one of the packages to Huett.

“Here’s your money,” he said, brusquely, and shoved it into Huett’s hands as if it burned him. “I don’t need to tell an old westerner like you that the town’s full of bums, redskins, greasers...Good day.”

Huett found himself out in the street, light-headed with a heavy, compellingly pregnant parcel under his arm.

“Let’s have a drink,” he said, gaily to Holbert and Doyle.

They went into the corner saloon and sat at a table. Huett placed his parcel between his knees out of sight. They drank. Huett would not hear of his friend’s returning the compliment — not on that day of days. Then he ordered another drink. Scarcely had they set down their glasses when Mitchell, accompanied by a stranger in civilian garb, entered the saloon. Mitchell espied Huett and his friends, and with a direct gesture and an elated laugh he drew the attention of his companion to them. They turned abruptly on their heels and went out.

“Them Eastern army men are queer hombres,” remarked Holbert.

“Wal, if you ask me,” drawled the shrewd Doyle, “that swelled-up galoot got took in by a plain westerner and snubbed by his daughter.”

“Let’s have another drink,” said Huett, chuckling with a deep grin.

Holbert and Doyle were the first to make a move. One on each side of Huett, they steered him through the crowd. The short fall day had almost closed. Cold wind slipped down from the dark peaks and the dust swirled. Huett’s comrades made sure no one was following them. They left him at the gate.

“Wal, old-timer, cache that little windfall to-night and sleep with one eye open,” advised Doyle.

“An’ have yore guns layin’ around,” added Holbert. “Some hombre might have seen you comin’ out of that office.”

Logan went in and locked the door. The sitting-room was cheerful with lighted lamp and fire. A smell of ham and coffee was wafted in from the kitchen. Lucinda appeared wiping her hands on her apron and Barbara ran from her room.

“Wal, Bab, have you seen your soldier admirer to-day?” asked Logan, cheerily, as he laid the parcel on the table.

“Have I? Dad, not half an hour ago he sneered at me and laughed in my face. I didn’t know what to make of it.’

“Luce, pull down the blinds — and shut the kitchen door...I’ve something to show you.”

His big hands shook as he stripped the tight rubber bands from the heavy parcel. “Thirty thousand nine hundred at twenty-eight!” he whispered tensely.

“Oh Dad — hurry...I feel...”

Logan rasped the stiff paper covers flat. A neat pile of cut newspaper and tinfoil pieces spread out over the table.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IT WAS DUSK when Huett stamped out of the cottage, deaf to Lucinda’s entreaties and Barbara’s cries, his big fist tight about a ragged wad of bogus paper money, his mind blocked at what he thought could be only a stupendous joke.

Yet his breast seemed to be crushed with a paralysing fear. The night watchman was lighting the street lamps. Huett strode on faster. He found Mitchell’s office empty and vacated. Then he remembered that the cattle-buyer and his associate in the saloon had been carrying hand baggage. They were leaving Flagg. Then on the moment he heard a distant shrill whistle of the East-bound train. Whereupon Huett, who had not run for years, broke into a dash for the station. He arrived there strangled for breath, his great chest heaving like a bellows. In the waiting-room he found a woman at the ticket window. He stamped through to the platform.

The usual loungers were there, and hurrying station-men, and waiting passengers. Down the railroad track shone the headlight of the train entering Flagg. Huett rushed on. At last, under one of the yellow street lamps, he espied Mitchell, the lieutenant who had been in the office, and two other men, and several young women. Huett broke into the circle to confront Mitchell.

“You — you...What do you mean?” exploded Huett, in a husky almost incoherent voice, and he extended the big fist still clutching the cut papers.

“Hello, Huett,” replied the Government man, in cool irritation. “No time for you. I’m saying good-bye to friends.”

“By God — you’ve time — for me!...That package you — gave me...Cut newspaper and tin foil...Not money!...Damn poor joke.”

“Man, you must be drunk,” flashed Mitchell, his piercing eyes like cold steel.

“Drunk?...Hellsfire!” thundered Huett. “You gave me paper — instead of cash...Look!”

Huett opened his huge fist to disclose pieces of shiny tin foil and crumpled cuts of paper. Some of them fell to the platform.

“You’re either drunk or crazy,” replied Mitchell, sharply. “I paid you in cash. I have your receipt. Lieutenant Caddell witnessed your signature. We warned you to be careful with all that cash. But you didn’t heed. We saw you drinking in that dive.”

Huett stood transfixed and mute, his spread hand still out-held, the fingers shaking, while Mitchell looked to his Lieutenant for confirmation of his claims.

“That’s right, Huett,” declared Mitchell’s companion, crisply. “I saw Mr. Mitchell pay you cash. I saw you take the money and sign the receipt, and I witnessed it. Later I understand you were drinking with your cronies in the worst joint in town. But what happened to you after, you left our office with the money is no concern of ours. That’s all.”

“Mistake — wrong package!” gasped Huett, suffocatingly.

Caddell made a gesture of scornful dismissal. Mitchell turned to the black-eyed, staring girl who held his arm. The train rumbled into the station, with puffing engine and grinding wheels. Baggage and mail-cars passed on down the platform. Then with a jerk the train stopped.

Huett’s mind cleared. A terrible flash of truth swept away the fog of stupefaction. This man had cheated him. Like an imbecile he had walked into a hellishly clever trap inspired by his demand for payment in cash.

This swift deduction gave way to a slow metamorphosis in Huett’s feeling. Violent release of dammed-up blood forced spasmodic expansion and movement of muscles. As he stood there, with that great hand outstretched, the quivering, calloused fingers like a claw, he felt the rise of a maelstrom of fury. In all his life Huett had never been subjected to a full storm of passion. It transformed him. An expulsion of breath whistled through his teeth. His sight filmed with a tinge of red, colouring the pretty faces of the young women, the paling visage of Caddell, and the averted one of Mitchell. Disjointed thoughts blocked Huett’s mind...to rend — to beat down these baffling foes — to kill — to tear from them his money, which surely they had.

He shut that spread hand into a ponderous fist. His bellow brought Mitchell around just in time to meet a blow like that from a battering-ram. Blood squirted as Mitchell went down, dragging two of the screaming girls with him. Caddell shouted lustily for help, and leaped to avoid Huett’s fist. The other two men seized Huett from behind. He threw them sprawling and lunged upon the prostrate Mitchell, to half strip him of clothing. Then a crowd of men dragged Huett off his victim, back from the platform to the road. At length Huett stopped surging like a lassoed bull, and stood quiet in the grip of many hands, to see Mitchell carried on the train and his baggage thrown on after him. Caddell stood on the car-step, trying to rid himself of the clinging, hysterical young women. The train started with a jerk, gathered momentum and passed on out of the station. Then the excitement of the crowd centred upon, Huett.

“Let go of me,” he rumbled.

“All right, men,” called the sheriff. “Huett, you don’t ‘pear to be drunk. What’n hell was the matter? Who was you tryin’ to kill? I didn’t get here in time to see.”

“Mitchell, the Government cattle-buyer. I sold him thirty thousand and nine hundred head...He was to pay me in cash...Gave me a package. Got my receipt...I didn’t open that package at once. Had some drinks with Doyle and Holbert...When I got home — I opened it — found I’d been swindled...My cash was cut newspaper and tin foil!”

“For cripe’s sake!” ejaculated the sheriff, while the circle of men gave vent to like exclamations. “Huett, are you out of your haid?”

“I was there, for a little...I’d have killed him. Glad you pulled me off.”

“You look queer, but I guess you’re not loco. Huett, can you prove what you say? I’ll wire Slocum at Holbrook and have him stop that train an’ arrest Mitchell. We mustn’t let him get out of the State.”

“Prove it?” laboured Huett, ponderingly. “I’ve that package — and all the bogus money — except the handful I grabbed.”

“But somebody else who was on to this cash pay-off might have switched packages on you...Let’s go see Mr. Little. This deal has a damn queer look, but it’s too big for me to buck alone.”

Huett passed through the murmuring crowd with the sheriff and up town towards where the lawyer lived. They found him at supper. This time Huett told the story of the hoax more lucidly and in detail. Little’s black eyes snapped.

“Wire Holbrook to stop that train and hold both men,” he ordered.

“I’ll do that pronto,” replied the sheriff and hurried away. “Huett, this story of yours confirms suspicions I got to-day,” went on the lawyer. “Mitchell has been buying horses and cattle for the Government. Charteris, who did some of his banking, told me Mitchell paid so much for stock and padded his report to the Government. If we can stop him we’ll sure make him sweat. But this is war-time, Huett, rampant with greed, graft, crookedness. Mitchell has pulled a slick one on you. Good God, man, why did you demand cash?”

“I didn’t want to wait for my money. Charteris said a Government draft would be good, but there wasn’t that much cash in his bank. He’d have to wait for the money.”

“Eight hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars! Whew! A fortune! Huett, I’m damned sorry, while I could cuss you for being such a fool. Certainly we ought to get that money. The case is flagrant enough. But these times!...Your drinking with Al and Holbert would hold against you. It’s serious...Go home now. Don’t make the mistake of drinking any more. If we can get Mitchell back here to-morrow, we want you sober.”

Huett went home in a daze. Little’s evident concern put him right back where he had been before he was sure of the trick. But his consciousness would not harbour any doubt of his securing payment for his cattle. He told Lucinda and Barbara what had transpired at the railroad station. Lucinda wept. “I never — thought — we’d get all — that money,” she said. But Barbara reacted differently. “You bet your life we’ll get it,” she cried, hotly, and flared into a passionate denunciation of Mitchell.

Huett paced the floor for hours, went out into the night to plod up and down the walk, and when at last he went to bed, it was not to sleep. Morning came, cold and drab, with wind moaning in the trees presaging winter. Huett built the fires. The women arose to get breakfast. He forced down a little food and a drink of coffee, then went down town.

That day Huett was to learn that the Holbrook officers had flagged the train designated, but Mitchell could not be found aboard. Lawyer Little took this news with grave disquiet.

“Why did you let the man get on that train?” he demanded.

“Hell! I knocked him flat. I had his clothes half torn off when they dragged me away. If I’d been packing a gun I’d have shot him. And that’d have been better.”

“Yes, it would. The man’s a crook, and if we had him here, dead or alive, we could prove it...Now we’ll have to resort to the slow offices of the law.”

Impatient days and weeks of waiting destined Huett to realize the law’s delay. But Mr. Little was nothing if not energetic and persistent in his efforts to get some court action. In this he laboured in vain, so far as Flagg was concerned. Then he went to Prescott, the capital, in Huett’s interest, and finally got the State congressman at Washington interested in the case.

Meanwhile Flagg settled down and holed-in, as the old-timers called it, to a real Arizona winter at high altitude. Huett spent most of his daylight hours chopping wood, and the rest sitting before a warm fire. He received some meagre comfort out of this, as it brought back so much of his life that had been spent gazing into the heart of a log fire. When he spread his broad hands to the heat, something soothing and quieting happened to him. But he never enjoyed his strong-smelling black pipe after this loss, and finally ceased smoking altogether.

The war went on, now of secondary interest to Huett. He had three sons at the front, and that was doing more than his share towards whipping Germany. His whole thought was taken up by this treachery of the Government cattle-buyer and the recovery of his money. When Barbara received a letter — and she haunted the post-office — Huett would lift out of his gloom to listen to her reading it. This letter would be from Abe, and it would be most exasperatingly censored and cut. Huett always cursed at this. “Since I’ve got three boys over there, why the hell can’t I hear what they’re doing? I declare I’m getting queer notions about this Government.”

Lucinda’s letters would be from George and Grant, and they came regularly once or twice a month. If it were needed, those epistles always spurred Huett’s women-folk to greater efforts in the war relief work. They were not needed to acquaint Lucinda and Barbara with the havoc the war was doing to American boys. Lucinda grew sombre and calm. Barbara became a pale ghost of her old self, with haunted eyes and nerves at high tension.

Huett did not give up. All this might have made more impression upon him but for his obsession with what the Government owed him. Thus far in his life of vicissitudes he had not yet been beaten down by adversity. He kept waiting, hoping, fighting on.

Late in January his lawyer received an important letter from Washington. Through the Arizona congressman the matter of a purchase of one Logan Huett’s cattle had been thoroughly investigated. The sum of money for cattle had been paid in cash by the Government buyer, Mitchell, and that transfer of cash, and the signature of the seller, had been witnessed by Lieutenant Caddell. The receipt was in the Government’s hands, along with information that said Logan Huett was addicted to the bottle and questionably associated.

“I feared it;” declared Little, hoarsely, white of face. “They’ve got us nailed. Only one chance in a million, and that is to carry the case to Washington. But I can’t give up my work here. And, Logan, you can’t afford a trial there. With the U.S. Government at war! My God! It’d be worse than folly.”

“All the same, I’ll go,” declared Huett, and bidding Little write out all suggestions as to how he should proceed, he went home to tell Lucinda and Barbara. His wife thought it a forlorn hope. “If we were only back at Sycamore!” she exclaimed. But Barbara was keen to have him go and begged to be taken along. “Mother, you can forward Abe’s letters. Oh, Dad, take me!” she cried.

“No, I reckon you’d better stay here with Maw,” replied Huett, ponderingly.

“Barbara, have you forgotten that you’re with child?” queried Lucinda, in amazement.

“Oh! I had forgotten,” replied Barbara, her white face flaming scarlet. “I’m ashamed...this war has almost driven me mad.”

So it came about that Logan Huett went to Washington, D.C.

As a young man Huett had been to Chicago, and at that period he had lived in Kansas City. But Washington was a magnificent city, the Nation capital, and at this time of the war it struck Huett as being bedlam.

He forgot what he had come for, and when he remembered he realized sickeningly that his hope was no more than a drop of rain in a storm. The city’ was thronged with civilians, soldiers, and strangers of many nations. A ceaseless stream of automobiles passed up and down t the streets. Huett came to a dozen huge hotels before he found one that he thought of entering. Having secured a room, he went out again, and before he knew what was happening he had been shoved aboard a sight-seeing bus.

During that ride Huett’s love and pride of country welled up again. The impressive Government buildings, the Capitol, the White House, the Soldiers’ Monument filled him with awe and delight. His sons were fighting for what they represented.

Once more on his feet in the crowds, Huett came down to earth. Accosted by beggars, hawk-eyed men, and suave strangers who offered to pilot him around, Huett came to see with chagrin that he was as much of a tenderfoot as any one of them would have been in his country. Then the loss of his watch awakened him to another aspect of the great city. He buttoned his wallet inside his vest and resolved to have his eyes about him.

About mid-afternoon Huett found the Army Building. It was immense. Men in uniform and civilian dress buzzed in and out like bees. Cars whizzed by. Overhead, airplanes droned about like monstrous bees. Despite Huett’s grim strength, he had his first glimmering of the futility of his errand there. Uniformed attendants listened to him courteously and put him off with excuses. At length he was forced to leave the building without having seen a single army official.

Outside, in the rush of the closing hour, the traffic astonished and alienated Huett. A city was no place for him. And it seemed to him that across a dirty, snow-piled park he passed there came a vision of his clean, sweet, silent Arizona forest. A sick longing such as he had never before experienced overwhelmed him. What was he doing there, just a miserable outsider among this swarm of grabbing humanity? It was long after dark when Huett, after getting lost twice, found his hotel. The hard pavements made his legs weak, he found his nostrils clogged with dirt, and he marvelled that people could breathe and live in such an atmosphere. Night was as hideous to him as day had been: the roar of automobiles and electric cars murdered sleep.

For days Huett haunted the Army Building. He had patience and stubbornness. He resented being taken for a crank, for an old geezer from the West, for a lunatic who raved about thirty thousand head of cattle. But such was Huett’s persistence that at last he was ushered through one office after another into the presence of some army official connected with the commissary department.

“My name is Logan Huett,” replied Huett, in answer to a curt query as to what was his business. “I’m a cattleman from Flagg, Arizona, I sold thirty thousand head of cattle to your buyer, named Mitchell. He cheated me out of that money.”

“How did he cheat you?” asked the official.

“I asked for cash. He got me to sign the receipt, had it witnessed by his man Caddell, then gave me a package of bogus money.”

“Well, Mr. Huett, I can do nothing for you. It will be necessary for you to take court action against the Government and prove your claim. Good day, sir.”

Huett went out, a slow fire of wrath burning deep within him. He began to appreciate what a wall obstructed him in his just hopes and demands. Then, in reading over Little’s instructions, he found that he had forgotten an important one — to call on the congressman from Arizona. At once Huett set out up that mission. He was told that Senator Spellman had left the city, during the adjournment of Congress, and would not be back for some weeks.

Thus baffled at every turn, Huett set out to put his case in the hands of a lawyer. Little’s advice in this regard was to engage some reliable lawyer recommended by Spellman. Upon inquiry Huett discovered that Washington was full of lawyers of every degree. He took the bull by the horns, making a blind choice of counsel.

A retainer’s fee of five thousand dollars was asked. Huett could not pay that, unless his money was recovered. The deal was compromised on half that sum. Huett left the office of the high-sounding firm, Highgate and Stanfield, cheered by a promise to recover his money soon, and worried over the fact that his bank account in Flagg had dwindled to less than two thousand dollars.

Then began a test of Huett’s patience. He had to wait. And while waiting he read the war news, walked the streets, sat on park benches. Only his dogged indomitable spirit sustained him.

Huett received disturbing letters from Lucinda and Barbara. His wife begged him to come home, without giving any reason, and Barbara wrote pitifully that they had not had any word from the boys in over a month.

Spring came early in Washington, D.C. Huett sat on a park bench, listening to the sparrows, feeling the welcome warmth of the sun, watching the slow green tinge the grass and trees.

Every day he called at his lawyer’s office to inquire if his suit had begun. The last time he distinctly heard himself announced as “that farmer from Arizona,” and when an answer was brought to him by the girl that his suit would be delayed until September, then Huett became a victim of helpless rage and bewilderment. September! If he stayed in Washington that long he would go crazy. Still — his money — his fortune — payment for his thirty thousand cattle and his years of toil — he could not abandon that.

Then Senator Spellman returned. He received Huett warmly. He was western; he had been a cattleman himself; he heard Huett’s long story with strong feeling, at the conclusion of which he emitted some genuine Arizona range profanity.

“Huett, I regret to say your case is hopeless. Absolutely hopeless,” he went on. “Little should have made that clear to you. He has not the slightest doubt that you have been robbed. Bilked!...Nor have I. The whole country is rampant with graft and crooked work. Your case is one in a thousand. According to these buyers, you signed for the cash. You received it, and were seen drinking in an Arizona joint. You’d stand no chance in court.”

“I’ve started a suit already,” replied Huett, heavily. “Paid two thousand five hundred as a fee.”

“My word! Huett, you sure are a Western lamb among Eastern wolves. Who gipped you out of that much money?”

“Gipped?”

“Yes. You’re a sucker. Washington is full of shyster lawyers. It’s a hundred to one you fell into the hands of some of them. Who?”

“Highgate and Stanfield. Here’s their card. One of them — I don’t know which — guaranteed recovery of my money. I’ve been waiting weeks. Yesterday I was told the suit had been delayed until September.”

“Humph,” grunted the Senator, and taking the card, he resorted to the telephone. He called one number after another. Huett did not listen. He was too sick and dazed to listen. Finally Senator Spellman hung up the receiver and took up his cigar.

“That firm is not rated among Washington’s reliable lawyers. And no suit has been registered under your name. You’ve been duped again.”

“Ahuh...I’d begun to feel a hunch.”

“Huett, this is a hell of a break. It’d kill most men. But you’re a Westerner. One of Arizona’s old hard pioneers! It won’t kill you. It’s just another knock — the toughest of your life, sure. But it involves only loss of cattle. That’s nothing to an Arizona range man. Go back to your range and your cows. Cattle prices will climb sky-high. A few good seasons of rain and grass — and you’re jake, old-timer!”

After the blow fell, Huett felt calm and strange. “Luce was right,” he soliloquized, as he sat down on a park bench. “We’re ruined.”

“Boss, could you stake me to a nickel?” came in an oily voice from a man beside him. Logan turned to see a ragged tramp sitting there. His hard blue eyes expressed a humorous curiosity.

“Nickel? How much’s that?” asked Huett, fingering in his vest pocket.

“Five cents. But if you don’t happen to have it I’ll take a dime.”

“Two-bits. Smallest I’ve got, friend,” replied Huett, handing the beggar a quarter.

“Thanks. Two-bits, eh?...Then you’re from the West?” he returned, curiously.

“Arizona.”

“You’re kinder than you look, mister. Are you sick or in trouble?”

“Wal, so help me Gawd!” exclaimed Huett. “Somebody down here has seen that at last!...Here’s a dollar, my friend. If you come to Arizona I’ll give you a job.”

“I’ll bet you would at that...What’s ailing you, Mister?”

But Logan had left.

He went back to his hotel, beginning a desperate fight against his stubborn bulldog desire to stay in Washington and never give up his demand for that money owed him. There was a telegram on the floor of his room just inside the door. He took it to the window, the better to see, and tore it open. The message was from Flagg and read:

“GEORGE AND GRANT KILLED IN ACTION ABE MISSING. LUCINDA.”

Huett watched the dark hours pale and the dawn break with soft rosy greyness behind the grand spire of the Soldiers’ Monument.

He hated the light of day. Beaten down, crushed by an unexpected blow that dwarfed the sum of all his life’s calamities, he had paced the endless black hours away at last to sink on a park bench, realizing that as he had forsaken God in his wild youth, now God had forsaken him in his troubled age.

The flush of sunrise, clear and bright with spring radiance, grew like the illumination of his mind.

In the very beginning of that Western range career he had started with a driving passion, a single selfish purpose to which all else was subservient. He had sacrificed his wife, his sons, and Barbara. This tragedy, this devastation of his life in one crushing blow, must have been just punishment, just retribution. He confessed it with anguish, and an exceeding bitterness flooded his soul.

That noble spire of stone, sunrise-flushed, rising sheer against the rosy sky; an imperishable monument of honour to a nation’s dead — how empty and futile its meaning to Logan Huett in that hour? It was a symbol of the great Government. Of the man of zealots, of patriots like himself, blinded by the leaders of powerful cliques and parties, who played politics as Westerners played poker, who fostered war because their war lords wanted war. Huett saw that the men who furnished the money to waste and the young men for gun-fodder were patriotic fools like himself. These boys had flashed up like fire, virile, trenchant, wonderful, imbued with the glory of fighting for their country. They had been misled. War in modern times held no glory for the boys who faced the firing line.

All these weeks in Washington, watching, listening, reading, had been working imperceptibly on Huett’s mind, summing up incredible and bewildering changes in his thoughts that did not clarify until this rending bolt of death.

His strong heart broke.

The scene before his eyes strangely altered. The lofty, shiny shaft, the faint tinge of foliage, the wide park and the gleam of water, the early cats and pedestrians that had begun to appear — these all faded. And in their place shone a stonewalled, pine-rimmed canyon, with winding ribbon of stream and herds of browsing cattle, and a grey, moss-roofed log cabin nestling on the wooded bench, all dim and unreal like the remembered scenes of a dream.

Nevertheless it was home. And his pang of agony was appalling. He should have lived for his family, and not for cattle. His great ambition had been a blunder. His greed had broken him. He had been clubbed down in the prime of his marvellous physical manhood. And as his vision sharpened he saw three dirty-faced, ragged little boys playing beside the brook. And he cried out in his soul: Oh, my sons, my sons! Would God I had died for you! Oh, my sons, my sons!

Huett had telegraphed his wife the day he would arrive in Flagg, which no doubt accounted for his being met at the train by Al Doyle, Holbert, Hardy, and other friends. But Lucinda did not come. No observer could have discerned from their greeting that they thought the world had come to an end for Logan Huett. Arizonians took hard knocks as incidents of range experience. They did not mention the loss of Huett’s three sons.

“Old-timer, how’d you make out in Washington?” asked Al, hopefully.

“No good, Al,” replied Huett, wearily. “Senator Spellman said my case against the Government was useless. When I signed that receipt and took that package I ruined myself...Some shyster lawyer down there said he could recover my money, and he fleeced me out of twenty-five hundred.”

“By God, Logan, I was agin thet trip East,” said Holbert glumly.

“It’s over — and I’m done,” said Logan, aware of their close scrutiny of his face.

“Wal, you reckon so now,” returned Doyle, sagely wagging his grey head, “but a cowman who has bucked the Tonto for thirty years gets habits that can’t be changed overnight.”

“How are my women-folk?” asked Huett.

“Lucinda shows surprisin’ strength. She must have known it was comin’. But I heah Barbara took it bad.”

“Aghh!” grunted Huett, clearing his throat, and moved to leave the platform. Doyle and Holbert walked up street with him.

“Logan, what you reckon about this?” queried Holbert. “None of us, an’ shore not one of the cattle-buyers, had the prices of beef on the hoof figgered. Cattle are up to forty dollars a haid, an’ goin’ up.”

“What did I say?” exclaimed Huett, stung out of his apathy. “I had it figured. I wanted to hold on for another year. My Gawd, if I only had!”

“Too late. But heh’s somethin’. Cattle prices will not go down for years.”

“Ha! Too late for me, in more ways than one.”

“Aw no! Why, Logan, you’re far younger’n me, an’ I’m hangin’ on,” said Holbert, earnestly. “You know the cattle game. Twenty-five years ago I was rich. Then I was poor for twenty years. Now with these high prices an’ a growin’ herd I’m sittin’ pretty.”

“Quien sabe, Logan?” added Al. “You can never tell. But I reckon how cattle gossip makes you sick. So we’ll cut it.”

“Thanks, Al. There are some words I never want to hear again, so long as I live. They are cattle, money, Government, war.”

“Wal, then, you’ll have to get back into the woods again. For this burg is full of war news. It’s been hard hit, Logan...Last Tonto cowboy to go was Jack Campbell. He crawled up on a nest-hole of machine-guns, an’ threw a bomb in on the Boches, just as they riddled him. That was jack’s finish. We’re all forgettin’ what once was his bad name.”

“Well we may!” sighed Huett.

At the gate of Huett’s yard Al and Holbert bade him good day and hurried away. Logan went in slowly, like a man walking a narrow log over a deep gulch, and who dreaded the opposite side. He mounted the porch, and as he hesitated, wiping his clammy face, the door opened to disclose Lucinda.

“Luce!” he cried, with tremendous relief and gladness that she did not look as he expected. And he staggered in, dropping his bag to reach for her. Lucinda closed the door and then took him in her arms.

“Poor old darling Logan!” she murmured, and held him close and kissed him and wept over him.

“Wife,” he replied, huskily, as he held her away to gaze into her face. It was like marble, thinner, showing traces of havoc, sad and marvellously strong. Huett found home, love, Understanding, mother, in her deep, dark eyes. “I — I don’t know just how I expected to see you, but not like this.”

“Logan dear, I always knew. It was a relief of torture when the news came...No other word about Abe. Missing. That was all.”

“Missing! What does it mean?”

“Almost hopeless. They say it means a soldier might be blown to bits, or buried in a trench, or lost in a river.”

“Ah!...No chance of having been made a prisoner?”

“In that case we’d have known long since.”

“Where’s Barbara? — Al said it went bad with her.”

“Wait, dear, a little...It’s hard to tell.”

Logan sat down heavily and averted his eyes from Lucinda’s intense and pitiful gaze. She came close and pressed his head against her. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said. “There is something serious to talk over...Would you take us back to Sycamore?”

A keen blade could not have made Logan wince more violently. How terribly the question hurt! But Logan let it sink in before he asked her why.

“There are a number of reasons. We can earn our living there. We’ll be away from this hot-pressed war news day and night...Back in our quiet canyon!...I can garden again. And you can farm. It’s not so cold down there. We nearly froze here...I think Barbara might get better there. And the baby would thrive.”

“Baby!”

“Yes. Barbara’s baby. A lovely boy like Abe. But not so dark, and he has Barbara’s eyes.”

“Ah. I forgot about Bab. I forgot...Abe’s boy! Well, now, isn’t that just fine?...Luce, it makes me a grandfather.”

“Logan, I’m afraid it was high time...Will you take us back?”

“Sure I will, Lucinda,” returned Huett, his mind halting ponderingly at practical ideas. “It’s a good idea. We got to stay somewhere...Mebbe it wouldn’t hurt for long — going back to Sycamore...Let’s see. Hardy has my wagon. My horses are running in Doyle’s pasture. We can pack the stuff here that’s ours. And buy what we need along with supplies...Supplies! My Gawd, what does that make you think of, Luce?...How about money?”

“I have over a thousand of what you left me.”

Huett took out his cheque book and looked at his balance. “I’ve about the same. Ha! That’s a fortune for us homesteaders. When shall we — —”

A piercingly sweet, droning little song interrupted Huett. “Is that — the new baby?” he whispered, with a thrill.

“No, dear. That is Barbara. She sings a good deal of the time...You see — she has lost her mind!”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LUCINDA WAS NO less shocked at Logan’s aberration of mind than at his changed appearance. He appeared a ghost of his old stalwart, virile, giant self. And he forgot even the errands she sent him on. When he came home from down town she smelled liquor on his breath. She realized then, in deep alarm, that Logan had cracked. All his life he had leaned too far over on one side; now in this major catastrophe of his life he had toppled over the other way to collapse.

She had divined something of this upon his return, and had at once appealed to him to take her and Barbara back to Sycamore. If anything could save Logan it was action — something to do with his hands — some labours to draw his mind back to the old channels of habit. Before this blow, despite his sixty years, he had been at the peak of a magnificent physical life. If he stayed in Flagg, to idle away the hours in saloons and on corners, to sit blankly staring at nothing, he would not live out the year.

When the days had passed into weeks without his having done anything in regard to their return to Sycamore, she resolved to make the arrangements herself. She got Hardy to have a look at the big wagon, to grease the axles and repair the harness; and she hired a negro to drive in the team and put them on grain.

Then she set about the dubious task of supplies and utensils. Al Doyle, who was as keen as Lucinda to get Logan out in the open again, declared vehemently: “There won’t be one single damn thing left on that ranch. Logan forgot to leave a man on the place. All the tools, and furniture left in the cabin, will be gone. Stole!”

“Oh dear me! Al, it’s beginning to pioneer all over again!”

“It shore is. But that’s good, Lucinda, ‘cause it’ll raise Logan out of this bog he’s in...I advise you to take two wagon-loads. I’ll borrow one for you, and hire a driver, an’ I’ll buy all the necessary tools, an’ have them packed. The grub supply is easy to figure out. We’ll put our heads together on the cabin an’ the needs of you women-folk...Don’t worry, Lucinda. It’ll all be jake. The thing to do is to be arustlin’.”

Only once did Lucinda’s heart faint within her, and that was when she came home to ‘find Logan and Barbara in the sitting-room, with little Abe crawling half naked and dirty around the floor. Logan was trying again to get some coherent response from Barbara. And she sat hunched in a chair, her great dark eyes the windows of a clouded mind. They struck terribly at Lucinda’s heart.

She could not endure to stay there on the moment, so she went into the kitchen, where she grappled with fear and doubt. Was she mad to take these two broken wrecks back to the wilderness? Possible illness, accident, loneliness, Barbara’s obsession to wander around, would be infinitely more difficult to combat down in the canyon than in town. Here she could call in women neighbours or the doctor. Despite the strong appeal of reason supporting her fears, she succumbed to her first intuition. If there were any hopes left for Barbara and Logan, not to say bringing up the child, they might rise down in Sycamore Canyon. The labour did not appal Lucinda. Well she knew that upon the pioneer wife and mother fell the greater burdens. A strange subtle voice cried down her misgivings. And with resurging heart she plunged into the immediate tasks of getting ready.

They left Flagg with two wagons next morning before sunrise. Only faithful old Al Doyle saw them off. His last words were — and they were the last they ever heard him speak— “Wal, old-timer, it’s the long road again an’ the canyon in the woods. That’s good. Adios!”

Lucinda rode on the driver’s seat with Logan. Barbara and the boy had a little place behind, under the canvas. Evidently the movement, the grind of wheels and clip-clop of heavy hoofs had excited Barbara, who knelt on the hay to peer out with strained eyes no mortal could have read. The second wagon, driven by the negro, contained the farm tools, furniture, and utensils.

After a while Lucinda’s eyes cleared so that she could see. She was glad to get out of Flagg. The black stumps, the grey flats, the green lines of pines and blue bluffs in the distance seemed to welcome her. They had not quite reached the timber belt six miles from town when Lucinda sustained a thrilling relief and joy in Logan’s response to the winding road, the reins once more in his hands, the team of big horses, the rolling wheels, and the beckoning range. These had been so great a part of his life that only insanity or paralysis or death could have wholly eradicated them. They began to call upon old associations. Lucinda’s loving divination had been god-sent. Logan’s heart and spirit had been broken, and the splendid rush of his life at maturity had been stemmed, stagnated, sunk in the sands of grief and hopelessness. Her great task was to keep him physically busy until this ghastly climax of tragedy wore into the past. Life held strange recompense for the plodder.

Logan spoke at intervals, especially when they passed old camp-sites, now homesteads and ranches. Cedar Ridge, Turkey Flat, Rock Waterhole still existed in their pristine loneliness. Logan halted at the Waterhole for lunch and to rest the horses. Then he drove on till sunset, to stop at a small brook which drained into Mormon Lake.

They camped. The negro turned out to be a helpful fellow, and between him and Logan, with Lucinda cooking, they soon had camp made and supper ready. Barbara walked around, her staring dark eyes as groping as her actions. She ate, fed the boy, and helped Lucinda. Sometimes she broke out into soft, hurried speech, half coherent, and again she stood gazing into the pine forest. Logan sat beside the camp-fire, but he did not smoke. Lucinda spread her blankets under a tarpaulin pegged down from the wagon-top and lay down with weary, aching body. The camp-fire sputtered, the wind blew — then while she was fearing the old lonely sounds, her eyelids closed as if with glue and she faded into oblivion.

Next day Logan made another long drive, to the deserted cabin half-way between the south end of Mormon Lake and Sycamore Canyon. Logan might not have even thought of their nearness to the old ranch, but Lucinda, during the supper tasks and afterwards, kept talking and asking questions until he became aroused.

Before noon the next day Logan turned off the main road at the end of Long Valley and drove down through the forest towards Sycamore.

What stinging beautiful emotions flashed over her as they passed the open glade where she had first seen Barbara play’ ing with the boys! From then on she was blinded by tears. They struck the down-grade. The old gate had not been closed since the cattle-drive. Logan emitted a strange hard cough, almost like a sob. He drove on, applying the brake. The wheels squeaked, the heavy wagon pushed the horses on. And then they reached a level.

“Same as always, Luce — just the same!” exclaimed Logan, huskily. “Only we are changed.”

Lucinda wiped her eyes so that she could see to get off.

“Drive up to the cabin, Logan,” she said, “and spread a blanket in the shade for Barbara and the baby...What shall I tell the teamster to do with his load?”

“Unload it, I reckon, here by the barn,” rejoined Logan,’ whipping his reins. “Gedap there!”

The negro arrived while Lucinda was looking around. The barn was stripped, proving how wise Al Doyle had been to advise a new outfit. Lucinda directed the driver to unload the farming equipment and pack it into the barn, then come on up to the cabin with the furniture.

That done, Lucinda turned to the old hollow-worn path. Her feet seemed leaden. There was a pang in her breast and a constriction in her throat. The joy she had anticipated failed to come at once. But she knew something would break the deadlock.

The brook was bank-full of snow-fed water, the old log bridge as it had been. Then she espied Logan. He had halted the wagon and was looking across at the unfinished stone corral. One look at his tortured visage was enough. The very stone Lucinda remembered seeing Logan put down on the wall sat there, mute yet trenchant with memory of the three sons who had helped build that wall with Logan, and who could not finish it because they had gone to war.

Logan drove on up to the cabin. Lucinda, lagging behind, fighting her own anguish, came to the long row of her sunflowers. They were blooming, great golden-leaved, brown-centred flowers, facing the sun. With sight of them the joy of home-coming flooded her being. She caressed the big blossoms and pressed them to her breast; then she found early golden rod and purple asters along the path. She gazed down the canyon for the first time. The high walls, the black ruins, seemed to gaze down protectingly upon her. Home! They assured her of that and they gave austere and solemn promise of the future.

Lucinda found the baby rolling and crawling on a blanket; Barbara, wildly excited by familiar scenes and objects that must have pierced close to reason, was running around in and out of the cabin. Logan was inside.

The flat flagstone lay under the hollowed log threshold. Lucinda knew both as well as her right hand. Wan bluebells smiled up at her out of the grassy margins. She peered into the cabin conscious of a clogged breast and pounding heart. Her emotions had not prepared her for practical facts. That cabin, hallowed by so much of sad and beautiful life, was a dingy, dusty, spider-webbed barn. The rude table and bench-seats and the old rustic armchair, relics of Logan’s master hand so many years ago, were the only articles left inside. The bough-bed had been torn apart, no doubt for firewood; all the deer and elk horns and skins were gone from the walls. In places the yellow stones of the fireplace were crumbling. An Indian or some cowboy artist had drawn crude but striking images on the smooth surfaces.

Logan was cursing, which sounds for once Lucinda heard with delight.

“... ——  —— dirty hole not fit for cattle. This here home of ours has been a camp for low-down hunters and loafers, and later a den for skunks, wildcats, coyotes, and Lord knows what else!...There’s a hole in the shingles. Some of the chinks are out between the logs. That door is hanging loose and won’t shut. And dirt! Say, it’s dirtier than all outdoors. Just one hell of a dump!”

“Yes, Logan — but home,” rejoined Lucinda softly, as much overcome by his practical reaction as by the fact she expressed. “Huh!...Home? — Aw, thet’s so, Luce.”

“I’ll be practical, too, husband,” said Lucinda, inspired to action. “Get out the broom and mop. And water buckets. And soap. We’ll sweep and brush and scrape and scrub...Mend the hinge on the door. Have the driver put a canvas over the hole in the roof. Have him cut a lot of spruce boughs. After that’s done you can unpack and carry everything in. After that, Logan, if you’re able to, see if you can chop some wood.”

“Hell! I can chop wood,” declared Logan, in gruff resentment.

Lucinda set to work, and she kept the two men, and Barbara also, busy at various tasks. When Logan flagged and Barbara drifted off into space, Lucinda prompted them again. They could not apply themselves for long. When sunset came, and at that season of early summer the golden rays shone through door and window, Lucinda surveyed the interior of the cabin with incredulous eyes and swelling heart. The den of hunters and beasts had been transformed. It was home once more, and more comfortable and colourful than ever before. Barbara had her old corner, where she sat on her bed with vague gaze trying to pierce a veil of mystery. Little Abe crawled around delighted with this new abode. Logan sat in his old chair, watching the fire, apparently lost to any of the grateful and beautiful feelings that stirred Lucinda.

Darkness stole up the canyon while she prepared supper. The night-hawks and the insects began their familiar choruses. A glorious rose and gold after-glow slowly paled above the western rim. The brook babbled as of old. Nature had not changed. Lucinda recalled the prayers of her youth. Her task was infinite, almost insurmountable, but her faith grew stronger. When night came, while she lay awake by Logan’s side, with Barbara’s corner silent as the grave, and the old wind-song mourning in the tips of the pines, then she seemed divided between hope and terror. In the hours when she wooed slumber she became prey to the past, to her early years here, to memory of her awakening to real love for her pioneer husband, to the coming of their first-born, to that terrible and fascinating Matazel, to Abe’s birth in a cow-manger, and so on through all the succeeding years of trial down to this agonizing end for the Huetts.

However, when morning came and the sun shone and the canyon smiled in its early summer dress, Lucinda did not fall prey to such memories. Her hope for the future battled with realism, with the thought of age and poverty, of her insupportable task with Logan and Barbara.

Night and day then for a week her mind worked from the sombre to the bright, from the material fact to the spiritual belief, before she noted a gain for the latter. She grasped something to her soul that she could not explain. She no longer pondered over the inscrutable ways of God. She forgot the horror of war and the crawling maggots of men who fostered it. Her work lay here in this wild canyon and was still a long way from being finished.

Lucinda soon began her labours in the garden. About the only thing she could keep Logan steadily at was chopping wood. He seemed to enjoy that, and his swing of axe had much of its old vigour; but when she sent him to the pasture to bring in one of the horses, saddle and snake down dead aspen and oak to chop, he seldom materialized unless she hunted him up. Manifestly this was what she must do! Mostly she found Logan beside the old unfinished ‘stone corral. At these sad times she hated to break in on his reveries, and some days she could not bring herself to this cruelty, and she left him alone with his memories. Nevertheless it was forced on her to see that she must keep him working.

With Barbara she had less trouble. Barbara would obey as long as the idea of work lingered in her mind, but when sooner or later it faded, she would wander away. She always wanted to go into the woods. There seemed to be something beckoning to her off under the dark pines. She would sit by the door on the old porch bench and watch the canyon trail, a habit appearing to Lucinda to be the one nearest rationality. It had to do, Lucinda thought, with vague mind-pictures of Abe riding up the canyon. It was heart-rending to watch, but Lucinda found some inexplicable grain of hope in it.

Little Abe had improved and grew like a weed. Sometimes Barbara neglected to nurse him, but he never forgot when he was hungry. When Lucinda told Logan that they must have a milk cow very soon, Logan agreed, and almost instantly let the need slip from his mind.

Lucinda, with some help from Logan and Barbara, succeeded in planting her garden patch by the end of June. This time, in a normal season, was not too late to ensure a crop before the severe frosts came, and with their supplies and the meat she hoped Logan would provide they could live well through even a fairly severe winter.

“Logan,” she said one night as he sat by the fire, “summer is getting along. You must snake down a lot of firewood and chop it for winter.”

“Plenty of time, wife,” he said. “Why, it can’t be June yet.”

“June has passed, husband,” she replied patiently. “You should have all the wood cut and stowed before Indian-summer comes.”

“Why ought I?”

“Because at that season you roam around the forest locating the game. Getting ready for your fall hunt! You forget. There never was anything you’d let interfere with that. We must have plenty of venison hung up and frozen, a lot of turkeys, an elk haunch or two — and some of those nice juicy bear-ribs that always pleased you.”

She did not betray her intense hope for his reception of these suggestions. Long she had refrained from urging them. If he showed no interest — if he failed to respond...She dared not follow out her train of thought.

“Huntin’ season! — By gosh, I never thought of that,” he ejaculated, lifting his shaggy head with a flare of grey-stone eyes. She had struck fire from him and was overjoyed. Next instant he sagged back. “Aw hell! — Huntin’ without Abe? — I don’t know...I reckon I couldn’t.”

“Logan, you must feed Abe’s boy so that he can grow up fast and hunt with you,” replied Lucinda, sagely.

“My Gawd, Luce, do you expect me to live that long?” he asked, haggardly.

“Of course I do.”

“Humph. I reckon I don’t want to,” he said gloomily. But he seemed to be disturbed and haunted by the idea. “Wal, there won’t be any game when little Abe gets big enough to pack a gun.”

“You once said there would always be turkey and deer in the breaks of the canyons.”

“That’s so, Luce. I’ll think it over...Have you seen my rifles?”

“Yes. I rolled them in canvas. And Al bought a new stock of shells.”

“Ahuh...Doggone me!” he added mildly.

Lucinda wept that night while Logan slept heavily beside her. It was not from exhaustion and pain, although after she lay down she could not move, and her raw, blistered hands and aching limbs hurt her excruciatingly, that Lucinda shed slow, hot tears. They were tears of joy at some little reward to her prayers for Logan.

But Logan never unrolled the canvas bundles of rifles which Lucinda leaned against the fireplace, nor did he take down the pipe and tobacco which she placed in plain sight on the jutting corner of the chimney, where he had always kept them.

Lucinda toiled on, unquenchable in faith that Logan would rise out of his gloom of despondency, and that Barbara was not permanently deprived of her sanity. If there were not daily almost imperceptible things to keep this hope alive in her, then she suffered under a delusion. Work was a blessing. It sustained Lucinda in this period which tried her soul.

One summer morning, towards noon, when the great forest was so still that a dropping pine-cone could be heard far away, Lucinda bent over her work at the table under the back window of the cabin.

Occasionally she looked out to peer down the brook at Logan, who sat beside the unfinished stone wall staring at space. He made a pathetic figure. All about him expressed the catastrophe in which the labour of a lifetime, fortune, comfort, his sons, his patriotism, his faith in man and God, had vanished.

Lucinda sighed. She had moments of despair, in which she had to fight like a tigress for her young. It was ever-present, the stark, naked fact; against which she had only mother love, an ineradicable faith, and a nameless, groundless hope. Yet in the last analysis of her terrible predicament she had the profoundest of all reasons to fight and never to yield, never to lose faith — the task of bringing up Abe’s son. When gloom lay thick upon her soul she was carried ahead by that duty.

Barbara was outside on the porch, in her favourite place facing the canyon and the trail, and the fact that she was humming a little song to the boy indicated that she was in one of her placid states of apathy.

All at once Lucinda ceased her work to gaze out up the forested canyon. No differing sounds had caused this. She was puzzled. The brook murmured on, the soft wind moaned on, a stillness pervaded the canyon. The sun was directly overhead, as she ascertained by the shadows of the pines. Something had checked her actions, stopped her train of thought. It did not come from outside.

Suddenly a stentorian yell burst the silence.

“Waa-hoo-oo!”

That was Logan’s hunting-yell. Had he gone mad? Lucinda became rooted to the spot. Then her ears strung to the swift, hard hoof-beats of a running horse. Who was riding in? What had happened? Logan’s whoop to a visiting cowboy? It seemed unnatural. The charged moment augmented unnaturally. How that horse was running! His hoofs rang on the hard trail up the bench. A grind of iron on stone, a sliding scrape and a pattering of gravel — then a thud of jangling boots!

“Bab, old girl — here I am!” called a trenchant voice, deep and rich and sweet.

Lucinda recognized it; and her frightened heart leaped pulsingly to her throat.

Barbara’s piercing shriek followed. It had the same wild note that had characterized Logan’s, and above and beyond 434 a high-keyed exquisite rapture which could only have burst from recognition.

“Abe!...Abe!”

“Yes, darling. It’s Abe. Alive and well. Didn’t you get my telegram from New York?...My God, I — I expected to see you...but not — not so thin, so white. Dad must be okay — the way he yelled. And...Aw, my boy!...So this is little Abe? He has your eyes, Barbara...Brace up, honey. I’m home. It’ll all be jake pronto.”

“Abe!...You’ve come back — to me,” cried Barbara, in solemn bewilderment.

Lucinda heard Abe’s kisses, but not his incoherent words. She lost all sensation from her head down. Her body seemed stone. She could not move. Abe had come home, and the shock had restored Barbara’s mind. Lucinda felt that she was dying: joy had saved, but joy could also kill.

“Mother!” cried Abe. “Come out!”

If Lucinda had been on the verge of death itself his call at that moment would have drawn her back, imbued her through arid through with revivifying life. She rushed out. There stood Abe in uniform, splendid as she had never seen him, bronzed and changed, with one arm clasping Barbara and the boy, the other outstretched for her, and his grey eyes marvellously alight.

“Doggone! Here we are again,” Logan kept saying.

It was an hour later. The incredible and insupportable transport of the reunion had yielded to some semblance of deep, calm joy. Logan seemed utterly carried out of his apathetic self. Barbara had recovered her reason; there was no doubt of that. Spent and white, she lay back against Abe, but her eyes shone with a wondrous love and gratitude and intelligence. Lucinda knew herself to be the weakest of the four. She had just escaped collapse. The hope of this resurrection, though she had not divined it, had been upholding her for weeks.

“Some day — not soon — I’ll tell you about George and Grant,” Abe was saying gently. “When you hear what they did — what their buddies and officers thought of them — you won’t feel their loss so terribly...My case was simple. I had shell-shock and lay weeks in the hospital unidentified. When I came to my senses I proved who I was and got invalided home. I was in bad shape then. Once started homeward I got well pronto. That’s all. The Germans are licked. They’ll never last another winter.”

“Abe, I reckon you smoked ’em up,” said Logan, intensely.

“Dad — I knew you’d ask me that,” replied Abe, a grey convulsion distorting his face, ageing and changing it horribly. “Yes, I did. At first I had a savage joy in my skill...It was sheer murder for me to shoot at those poor devils. A hard-nosed thirty Government bullet would get right through their metal helmets...But in time I grew sick of it...And now — well, let’s bury it for ever.”

“Sorry, son. Just the same, it’s good for me to know. I’m holding on by an eyelash.”

“Abe, did anyone in Flagg or on the way out tell you what happened to your father?” asked Lucinda.

“No. I got in late, borrowed a horse and came araring...What happened?”

“He sold out to the army cattle-buyers. Thirty thousand and nine hundred, at twenty-eight dollars a head...They swindled him. Not one dollar did he ever receive of that money.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Abe, furiously.

It was for Logan then to confess shamefacedly his monstrous carelessness and trust.

“Aw, Dad! — Then we’re back in the old rut again?”

“Poor as Job’s turkey, son,” replied Logan, huskily.

“I don’t care on my own account,” said Abe, dubiously. “But for mother and Bab — it’ll be tough to begin all over again.”

“Darling, I needed only you,” whispered Barbara.

“Dad, I forgot to tell you,” went on Abe, brightening. “You’ll never believe it. Cattle are selling at fifty dollars a head, and going up.”

“For the land’s sake!...Who’s buying?”

“Kansas City and Chicago.”

“Did I ever hear the like of that!...My Gawd, why didn’t I wait!” ejaculated Logan, with a spasm working his visage.

“Never mind, Dad,” returned Abe, slowly. “We’re not licked yet.”

Abe’s return acted miraculously not alone upon Barbara. Logan hung around him as if fascinated; as if he could not believe the evidence of his senses. Lucinda knew they were all saved. The war had not impaired Abe physically. And spiritually she thought he was finer, stronger. Abe was of the wilderness. The old potent loneliness and solitude, the trails and trees, the cliff walls, and home with Barbara and his boy — these would soon blot out whatever horror it was that haunted him.

The family sat together for hours until late afternoon.

“By gum, I forgot to unsaddle that nag,” said Abe. “Bab, if you’ll let go of me for a spell I’ll ride down the old trail a ways.”

“Abe, are you really home?” she asked, eloquently. “What do you say, sweet?”

“This is not a dream? You are not among the missing?” Abe stood upright to swing her aloft and clasp her endearingly.

“Bab, I’ve caught you looking at me — I believe you’ve been a little loco. Dad seems kind of daffy, too. But I am home. I’m well. I’m so happy I — I — ...there’s no words to express how I feel.”

He strode across the garden to the field where the horse was grazing, dragging its bridle; and mounting with the old incomparable cowboy step into the saddle he rode down the canyon.

They all watched him disappear around the jutting corner. “Gosh, Luce,” ejaculated Logan, coming out of a trance, “must rustle some firewood. I don’t want Abe knowing...” He shook his head ponderingly and slowly made for the empty space around the chopping-block.

“Hurry. I must get supper. Abe will be starved,” called Lucinda.

“Just as little Abe is this moment,” declared Barbara, as she took up the crying boy.

Verily, thought Lucinda with fervent thanksgiving, the return of the lost soldier had reclaimed that family.

Barbara watched for Abe from her old waiting-place on the porch. The afternoon waned, the sun set in golden splendour, the purple shadows fell, and twilight came with its lingering after-glow.

“He’s coming, Mother,” Barbara called joyfully from outside, and she ran down the path to meet him. Presently they came in, with arms around each other. Barbara’s face was flushed and rosy.

“Maw, I’m starved,” yelped Abe, at sight of the steaming Pots.

“Come and get it, boy,” she replied happily.

“Dad, just wait till I eat, and I’ll sure take a fall out of you,” declared Abe, as he straddled the bench. “I’ve a swell joke on you.”

“You have, huh?” said Logan. “Wal, son, if you can make anythin’ in this God-forsaken world of mine look like a joke, come out with it pronto.”

“Wal, I shore can, old-timer,” drawled Abe.

It was not a bountiful supper, to Lucinda’s regret; she had been caught unprepared. But never wider that cabin roof, where Abe had grown to manhood, where he had sat hundreds of times after a gruelling drive or two days’ hunt, had he eaten so ravenously. Lucinda waited on him, Barbara hung over him, Logan watched him, and they all forgot their own suppers. Their feelings transcended happiness.

“How about that joke?” demanded Logan, impatiently.

“I’m afraid I’m too full to talk,” declared Abe, as he threw off the snug-fitting khaki jacket and unloosened his belt. His powerful shoulders had lost their brawn. “Dad, you were telling me this afternoon how poor we are. One team, one wagon, a few tools, no horses, no help — and only a little money left. Wasn’t that it?”

“Yes, son. I wish to heaven I didn’t have to confess it. But we’re as bad off as ever in our lives.”

“Dad, you sure are a rotten cattleman,” went on Abe, with a smile and a fine flash of eyes upon his father.

Logan took that amiss. Manifestly it hurt him deeply, for I he crushed his big hands between his knees and almost rocked double. That was one of the moments when Lucinda could not look at him.

“Dad!...I was talking in fun. That’s my joke,” cried Abe, contritely.

“Wal, I can’t see it — son.”

“Listen. And you will darned pronto...Do you remember Three Spring Wash?”

“I reckon so. Why?” rejoined Logan, lifting his head.

“Do you remember the time we trapped the wild horses there?”

“Sure do.”

“Oh, Abe, I remember that,” cried Barbara, wonderingly.

“Well, Dad, do you remember we had a bunch of cattle running in there before the big drive?”

“I reckon we had, same as in those other side canyons.”

“Do you remember that Grant and I, with the help of some Indians, had the job of tearing down that fence in Three Springs and driving the cattle out into the main herd?”

“I remember that, too,” declared Logan.

“We didn’t tear it down.”

“Huh!” grunted Logan, stupidly.

“Grant forgot, and I missed that job on purpose. I knew there were more than thirty thousand head in the main canyons. So I left that bunch in Three Springs. We never tore the fence down. Nobody tore it down for that drive. It has not been torn down since.”

“My Gawd, son — what you — sayin’?”

“Dad, the fence is there still...And I counted around fifteen hundred head of cattle, all fine and fat. And you can bet that’s a short count, for I didn’t ride up in the oak draws and pine swales.”

Logan’s big square jaw wobbled and dropped over a query he could not enunciate.

“That’s my joke on you, Dad. And I think it’s a peach.”

“Abe!” cried Barbara.

“You sure are a locoed old cattleman. Here you’ve been moping around Sycamore, heart-broke and pocket-broke, when you’ve got sixteen or eighteen hundred head of cattle worth fifty dollars a head.”

“For God’s sake, son, you wouldn’t play a joke — like that — on your poor old Dad?” implored Logan.

“I wouldn’t if it were a lie, Dad, but this is true. Absolutely true. I’ll show you to-morrow.”

It seemed to Lucinda that while she watched with beating heart and bated breath, a slow change worked in her husband. He stared into the fire. A rumbling cough issued from his broad breast. Then he stood up, apparently seeing straight through the cabin wall. He expanded. His shoulders squared. His grey eyes began to kindle and gleam, and all the slack lines and leaden shades vanished ruddily from his visage. When Logan reached for the old black pipe and the little buckskin bag, and’ began to stuff tobacco in the bowl, then Lucinda realized she was witness to a miracle. She stifled a sob which only Barbara heard, for she came swiftly to Lucinda, whispering the very truth that seemed so beautiful and so distracting. Logan bent down to pick up a half-burnt ember, which he placed upon his pipe. Then he puffed huge clouds of smoke, out of which presently stood his shaggy, erect head, his shining face, his eagle look. Lucinda saw her old Logan Huett with something infinite and indescribable added.

“Wal, son,” he drawled in his old, cool, easy way. “You Can’t never tell about this here cattle business. Quien sabe? as Al used to say...I reckon I was kinda sick in my gizzard...Now let me see. A few cattle makes a hell of a difference. Say we got fifteen or sixteen hundred head. All right. You’ll rustle some cowboys and cut out all except the youngest stock. I reckon that’d be half, say eight hundred head. You’ll drive them to Flagg and sell...Eight hundred at fifty? — Forty thousand dollars, son!...You’ll bank that money. You’ll buy a truck and a car — and all you can think of — and Luce can think of — and Bab can think of — and new guns for me. Aghh!...Then you rustle the cars and all that stuff home...Abe, we’ll begin cattle-raising again. And we’ll bring little Abe up to know the game. We’ll never make the mistakes I Made...The ways of God are inscrutable. I reckon I’ll never forget again...And after all I’ll never miss that thirty thousand head.”

THE END

The Wilderness Trek

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 1

ACROSS THE BLUE Tasman Sea, smooth and heaving on that last day, the American adventurers eagerly watched the Australian horizon line grow bold and rugged.

“Red, it’s land — land,” said Sterl, his gray eyes dim from watching and remembrance of other land like that, from which he must forever be an exile. “The mate told me that was Sydney Heads over there.”

“Shore, pard, I seen it long ago,” replied Red. “This heah sea gettin’ level an’ that sight just about saved my life...Sterl, no more ridin’ ships for Red Krehl.”

“But Red, I begged you not to come,” replied Hazelton.

“What kind of talk is thet? Do you think I’d ever let you go to hell alone? Pard, this heah Australia begins to loom up kinda big, at thet. But it’s English — an’ whoever heerd of an English gurl lookin’ at a cowboy?”

“Red, someday you’ll get enough girl to do you for good and all, as I got.”

“Shore I can stand a lot, Sterl...Say, if I’d had a bottle on this ship I wouldn’t be near daid now...Sterl, let’s have one orful drunk before we hunt for jobs.”

“Sounds good, but it’s no sense.”

“But we never had no sense nohow,” protested Red. “You takin’ the blame for thet gunplay! An’ me fool enough to let you!”

This time Sterling Hazelton did not reprove his friend. — The pang was still there in his breast. — Nan Halbert had loved him as well as his cousin, Ross Haight — Ross, lovable and sweet-tempered except in his cups, the only child of an ailing father with lands and herds to bequeath — Ross, who had shot a man who certainly deserved it. Sterl had taken upon himself that guilt, which to him was not guilt. His family had been gone so long that he hardly remembered them, except his schoolteacher mother who had loved and taught him. There had been only Nan. And what could he have done for her, compared with what Ross could do? It all rolled back in poignant memory to the scene where Ross had confronted him and Red that last night.

“But Sterl!” he had rung out, “Nan will believe you killed this man!...And everybody else. How can I stand that?”

“For her sake! She loves you best...Go straight, Ross...Good-by!”

And Sterl had raced away into the blackness of the Arizona night, followed by the loyal Red.

“Red, you remember the package that Ross forced upon you to give me?” Hazelton said suddenly.

“Shore I remember,” replied Red, looking up with interest. “I had a hunch it was money...”

“Yes — money. Ten thousand dollars!”

“Holy mavericks!” ejaculated Red, astounded. “Where’d Ross get it?”

“Must have told his father. Red, I’m asking you to take half of this money and go back home.”

“Yeah! The hell you air?” retorted Red.

“Yes, pard, I’m begging you.”

“An’ why for?” queried Red. “‘Cause you don’t want me with you?”

“No — no. It’d be grand to have you — but for your sake!”

“Wal, if it’s for my sake don’t insult me no more. Would you leave me if you was me an’ I you? Honest Injun, Sterl? Wal, what’s eatin’ you then?”

“All right, I apologize. Stay with me, Red. God knows I’ll need you...Boy, we’re getting somewhere. Look. There’s a big ship steaming along under the left wall, from the west.”

“Gosh, they shore look grand. I never seen ships atall till we got to Frisco...This Sydney must be a real man-sized burg, huh?”

“Big city, Red, and I’m going to take you out of it ‘muy pronto.’”

“Suits me, pard. But what air we gonna do? We don’t know nuthin’ but hosses, guns an’ cattle.”

“I read that Australia is going to be a big cattle country.”

“If thet’s a fact we’re ridin’ pretty,” returned Red, with satisfaction.

They lapsed into one of their frequent silences while the ship sailed on, her yards and booms creaking. Soon the mile-wide gateway to Australia offered the sailing ship a lonely entrance. Australia’s far-famed harbor opened up to Sterl’s sight, a long curving bay with many arms cutting into the land. Miles inland, around a broad turn where ships rode at anchor, the city of Sydney stood revealed, foreign and stately, gray-walled, red-roofed.

While Sterl and Red packed their bags, the ship eased alongside a dock, and tied up. From the dock, they were led into a shed, and after a brief examination were free. One of the stevedores directed them to an inn, where soon they had a room.

It was early in the afternoon. Krehl voted for seeing the sights. But Sterl disapproved, for that meant looking upon drink.

“Pard, we must get our bearings and rustle for the open range,” he said.

Whereupon they set out to ask two cardinally important questions — where was the cattle country and how could they get there?

“Outback,” replied more than one person, waving a hand, that like an Indian’s gesture signified vague and remote distance. At last a big man looked them up and down and smiled when he asked, “Yankees?”

“Yes. It must be written all over us,” admitted Sterl, with an answering smile. “Are you drovers?”

“Drovers?” echoed Sterl.

“Horsemen — drivers of cattle.”

“Oh! You bet. Plain Arizona and Texas cowboys. We eat up hard work. Where can we get jobs?”

“Any station owner will hire you. But I advise you to go to Queensland. Big cattle mustering there.”

“Where and how far?” queried Sterl, eagerly.

“Five hundred miles up the coast and inland three or four hundred more. Board the freighter ‘Merrvvale’ down at the dock. Sails at six today. Brisbane is your stop. Good luck, cowboys.”

Sterl led his comrade down the waterfront to where the big freighter was tied up in the center of busy shipping activities and bought passage to Brisbane. Next morning they awoke to find the sea calm, with the steamer tearing along not five miles out from a picturesque shoreline. And as the partners leaned over the rail of this steamer to gaze at a white-wreathed shoreline, extending for leagues on leagues to north and south, at the rolling green ridges rising on and upward to the high ranges, Sterl felt that beyond these calling, dim mountains there might await him the greatest adventure of his life.

“Dog-gone-it!” Red was drawling. “I wanta be mad as hell, but I jest cain’t. Gosh, pard, it’s grand country! I hate to knuckle to it, but even Texas cain’t beat thet!”

The sailors were friendly and talkative. On the second afternoon, the skipper, a fine old seadog, invited them to come up on the bridge. Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to tell him their plans.

“Boys, you’ve a fine opening, if you can stand the heat, the dust, the drought, the blacks, the floods, the fires, besides harder work than galley slaves,” he said.

“Captain, driving cattle on the Texas plain wasn’t just a picnic,” replied Sterl.

“You’ll think so after droving upcountry here.”

“Boss, I reckon we’ve been up agin’ all you said ‘cept the blacks. Jest what air these blacks?” inquired Red, deeply interested.

“The natives of Australia. Aborigines.”

“You mean niggers?”

“Some people call them niggers. They’re not Negroes. But they are black as coal.”

“Bad medicine, mebbe?” inquired Red.

“Cannibals. They eat you.”

“Boss,” said Red, “I’ve had my fill of fightin’ greasers, rustlers, robbers an’ redskins on the Texas trails, but gosh! all of them put together cain’t be as wuss as black men — cannibals who eat you.”

“Captain,” said Sterl, “you’re sure putting the wind up us, as you Australians say. But tell us a little about cattle, and ranches — you call them stations.”

“I’ve only a general bit of knowledge,” returned the skipper. “There are stations up and down New South Wales, and eastern and central Queensland. Gradually cattlemen are working outback. I’ve heard of the terrible times they had. No drovers have yet gone into the unknown interior — called the Never-never Land by the few explorers who did not leave their bones to be picked by the black men.”

“Pard, thet’s kind hard to believe,” said Red, shaking his head. “No places I ever heard about was as bad as they was painted.”

“You are in for an adventure at any rate,” went on the skipper. “There’s some big movement on from Brisbane. We have consignments of flour, harness, wagons, on board that prove it.”

The “Merryvale” docked at dawn. After breakfast Sterl and Red labored ashore, dragging their burdens of baggage, curious and eager as boys half their age. Brisbane did not impress them with its bigness, but it sparkled under a bright sun, and appeared alive and bustling.

They found a hotel, and sallied forth on the second lap of their adventure. They were directed to a merchandise store which was filling orders for a company of drovers making ready to leave Downsville in Central Queensland for points unknown.

Sterl got hold of the manager, a weather-beaten man who had seen service in the open.

“Is there any chance for jobs outback?” he said.

“Chance? Young man, they’ll welcome you with open arms. Report is that the drovers can’t find men enough to start. Bing Slyter is here with his teamsters. He’s one of the drovers and he’s buying supplies for the Danns. I’ll find him for you.”

In a moment they faced a big man whose wide shoulders made his height appear moderate. If he was an Australian cattleman, Sterl thought, he surely liked the type. Slyter had a strong face cast in bronze, a square chin, and eyes that pierced like daggers.

“Good day, young men,” he said, in a voice that matched his size. “Watson here tells me you’re American cowboys looking for jobs.”

“Yes, sir. I’m Sterling Hazelton, from Arizona, and this is Red Krehl, from Texas. I’m twenty-five, and he’s a year younger. We were born to the saddle and have driven cattle all our lives. We rode the Chisholm Trail for three years. That’s our recommendation.”

“It’s enough, after looking you over,” returned Slyter, in booming gladness. “We Australians have heard of the Chisholm Trail. You drove mobs of cattle across Texas north to new markets in Kansas?”

“Yes, sir. Five hundred miles of hard going. Sand, bad rivers, buffalo stampedes, electric storms, hailstones, Indians and rustlers.”

“Rustlers? We call them bushrangers. Cattle thieves just beginning to make themselves felt. I’ll give you jobs. What wages do you ask?”

“Whatever you want to pay will satisfy us,” replied Sterl. “We want hard riding in a new country.”

“Settled. If it’s hard riding you want you’ll get it. We drovers are undertaking the greatest trek in Australian history. Seven or eight thousand cattle three thousand miles across the Never-never!”

“Mr. Slyter,” burst out Sterl, “such a drive is unheard of. Three thousand Texas longhorns made hell on earth for a dozen cowboys. But this herd — this mob, as you call it — across that Never-never Land, if it’s unknown and as terrible as they say...Why, man, the drive is impossible.”

“Hazelton, we can do it, and you’re going to be a great help. I was discouraged before I left home. But my daughter Leslie said: ‘Dad, don’t give up. You’ll find men!’ Leslie’s a grand kid.”

“You’re taking your family on this trek?” queried Sterl, aghast.

“Yes. And there’ll be at least one other family.”

“You Australians don’t lack nerve,” smiled Sterl.

“Do you need money to outfit?”

“No, sir. But we need to know what to buy.”

“Buy rifles, and all the ammunition you can afford. Tents, blankets, and mosquito nets, clothes, extra boots, socks, some tools, a medicine kit, bandages, gloves — a dozen pair, some bottles of whisky, and about a ton, more or less, of tobacco. That goes furthest with the blacks. You needn’t stint on account of room. We’ll have wagons and drays.”

“But, Mr. Slyter,” exclaimed Sterl in amaze, “we don’t want to stock a store!”

“Boys,” laughed the drover, “this great trek will take two years. Two years droving across the Never-never Land to the Kimberleys!”

“It will be never!” cried Sterl, staggered at the import.

“Whoopee!” yelled Red.

CHAPTER 2

THE REMAINDER OF that stimulating day Sterl and Red spent in the big merchandise store, making purchases for a two-year’s trip beyond the frontier. Investment in English saddles, two fine English rifles to supplement Sterl’s Winchester .44 and thousands of cartridges broke the ice of old accustomed frugality, and introduced an orgy of spending.

It took a dray to transport their outfit to the yard on the outskirts of town, to which they had been directed. Late in the afternoon they had all their purchases stowed away in the front of one of the big new wagons, with their baggage on top, and the woolen blankets spread. Before that, however, they had changed their traveling clothes to the worn and comfortable garb of cowboys. Sterl had not felt so good for weeks. It was all settled. No turning back! That time of contending tides of trouble was past. He would be happy, presently, and forget.

They had scraped acquaintance with one of Slyter’s teamsters, a hulking, craggy-visaged chap some years their senior, who announced that his name was Roland Tewksbury Jones. Red’s reaction to that cognomen was characteristic.

“Yeah? Have a cigar,” he said, producing one with a grand flourish. “My handle is Red. Seein’ as how I couldn’t remember yore turrible name I’ll call you Rol, for short. On the Texas trails I knowed a lot of Joneses, in particular Buffalo Jones, Dirty Face Jones and Wrong-Wheel Jones.”

Roland evinced a calm speculation as to what manner of man this Yankee cowboy was. He accepted Sterl’s invitation to have dinner with them, and invited them to go to a pub for a drink. Returning to their wagon, they found a fire blazing and the other teamsters busily loading the supplies. Spreading their canvas and blankets under the wagon, as they had done thousands of times, the cowboys turned in. Sterl slept infinitely sounder out in the open, on the hard ground, than he had for two months, on soft beds. Indeed, the sun was shining brightly when the cowboys awoke. Teamsters were leading horses out of the paddock; others were tying tarpaulins over the wagons. Jones addressed Red: “You have time for breakfast if you move as fast as you said you did in Texas.”

Returning to the outfit, Sterl saw that they were about ready to start, two teams to a wagon. He had an appreciative eye for the powerful horses. He found a seat beside the driver, while Red propped himself up behind. Inquiry about Mr. Slyster elicited the information that the head drover had left at daylight in his light two-horse rig. Jones took up the reins and led the procession of drays and wagons out into the road.

Soon the town was left behind. A few farms and gardens lined the road for several miles. Then the yellow grass-centered road led into a jungle of green and gold and bronze. They had ten days or more to drive, mostly on a level road, said Jones, with good camp sites, plenty of water and grass, meat for the killing, mosquitoes in millions, and bad snakes.

“Bad snakes?” echoed Sterl, in dismay. He happened to be not over-afraid of snakes, and he had stepped on too many a rattler to jump out of his. boots, but the information was not welcome.

“Say, Rol, I heahed you,” interposed Red, who feared neither man nor beast nor savage, but was in mortal terror of snakes. “Thet’s orful bad news. What kind of snakes?”

Sterl sensed Jones’s rising to the occasion. “Black and brown snakes most common, and grow to eight feet. Hit you hard and are not too poisonous. Tiger snakes mean and aggressive. If you hear a sharp hiss turn to stone right where you are. Death adders are the most dangerous. They are short, thick, sluggish beggers and rank poison. The pythons and boas are not so plentiful. But you meet them. They grow to twenty feet and can give you quite a hug.”

“Aw, is thet all?” queried Red, who evidently was impressively scared, despite his natural skepticism.

The thick golden-green grass grew as high as the flanks of a horse; cabbage trees and a stunted brushy palm stood up conspicuously; and the gum trees, or eucalyptus, grew in profusion. Shell-barked and smooth, some of them resembled the bronze and opal sycamores of America, and others beeches and laurels. Here and there stood up a lofty spotted gum, branchless for a hundred feet, and then spreading great, curved limbs above the other trees to terminate in fine, thin-leaved, steely-green foliage.

As they penetrated inland, birds began to attract Sterl. A crow with a dismal and guttural caw took him back to the creek bottoms of Texas. Another crow, black with white spotted wings, Jones called Australia’s commonest bird, the magpie. It appeared curious and friendly, and had a melodious note that grew upon Sterl. It was deep and rich — a lovely sound — cur-ra-wong — cur-ra-wong.

“See you like birds. So do I,” said Jones to Sterl. “Australians ought to, for we have hundreds of wonderful kinds. The lyrebird in the bush can imitate any song or sound he hears. Leslie Slyter loves them. She knows where they stay, too. Perhaps she’ll take you at daybreak to hear them.”

Here Red Krehl pricked up his ears to attention. Anything in the world that could be relegated in the slightest to femininity, Red clasped to his breast.

Presently the road led out of the jungle into a big area of ground cleared of all except the largest trees. On a knoll stood a house made of corrugated iron. Jones called it a cattle station. Sterl looked for cattle in vain. Red said. “Shines out like a dollar in a fog.”

Grass and brush densely covered the undulating hills. Sterl concluded that Australian cattle were equally browsers and grazers. The road wound to and fro between the hills, keeping to a level, eventually to enter thick bush again. Sterl made the acquaintance of flocks of colored parrots — galahs the driver called them — that flew swiftly as bullets across the road; and then a flock of white cockatoos that squawked in loud protest at the invasion of their domain. When they sailed above the wagon, wide wings spread, Sterl caught a faint tinge of yellow. When they crossed the first brook, a clear swift little stream that passed on gleaming and glancing under the wide-spreading foliage, a blue heron and a white crane took lumbering flight.

They came into a wide valley, rich in wavy grass, and studded with bunches of cattle and horses. “Ha! Some hosses,” quoth Red. As Jones slowed up along a bank higher than the wagon bed, Sterl heard solid thumping thuds, then a swish of grass, and Red’s stentorian, “WHOOPEE!”

He wheeled in time to see three great, strange, furry animals leaping clear over the wagon. They had long ears and enormous tails. He recognized them in the middle of their prodigious leap, but could not remember their names. They cleared the road, to bound away as if on springs.

“Whoa!” yelled Red. “What’n’ll was thet?...Did you see what I see? Lord! there ain’t no such critters!”

“Kangaroos,” said the teamster. “And that biggest one is an old man roo all right.”

“Oh, what a sight!” exclaimed Sterl. “Kangaroos — of course...One of them almost red. Jones, it struck me they sprang off their tails.”

“Kangaroos do use their tails. Wait till you get smacked with one.”

The trio of queer beasts stopped some hundred rods off and sat up to gaze at the wagon.

“Air they good to eat?” queried the practical Red.

“We like kangaroo meat when we can’t get beef or turkey or fowl. But that isn’t often.”

“What’s that?” shouted Sterl, suddenly, espying a small gray animal hopping across the road.

“Wallaby. A small species of kangaroo.”

More interesting miles, that seemed swift, brought them to an open flat crossed by a stream bordered with full-foliaged yellow-blossoming trees, which Jones called wattles. Jones made a halt there to rest and water the horses, and to let the other wagons catch up. Red began to make friends with the other teamsters, always an easy task for the friendly, loquacious cowboy. They appeared to belong to a larger, brawnier type than the American outdoor men, and certainly were different from the lean, lithe, narrow-hipped cowboy. They build a fire and set about making tea, “boiling the billy,” Jones called it. Sterl sampled the beverage and being strange even to American tea he said: “Now I savvy why you English are so strong.”

“I should smile,” drawled Red, making a wry face. “I shore could ride days on thet drink.”

Under a huge gum tree, in another green valley, on the bank of a creek, Jones drove into a cleared space and called a halt for camp.

“Wal, Rol, what air there for me an’ my pard to do?” queried the genial Red.

“That depends. What can you Yankees do?” replied Jones, simply, as if really asking for information.

Red cocked a blazing blue eye at the teamster and drawled: “Wal, it’d take a lot less time if you’d ask what we cain’t do. Outside of possessin’ all the cowboy traits such as ridin’, ropin’, shootin’, we can hunt, butcher, cook, bake sourdough biscuits an’ cake, shoe hosses, mend saddle cinches, plait ropes, chop wood, build fires in wet weather, bandage wounds an’ mend broken bones, smoke, drink, play poker, an’ fight.”

“You forgot one thing, I’ve observed, Red, and that is — you can talk,” replied Jones, still sober-faced as a judge.

“Yeah?...But fun aside, what ought we do?”

“Anything you can lay a hand to,” answered the driver, cheerily.

One by one the other wagons rolled up. These teamsters were efficient and long used to camp tasks. The one who evidently was cook knew his business. “Easy when you have everything,” he said to Sterl. “But when we get out on trek, with nothing but meat and tea, and damper, then no cook is good.”

After supper Sterl got out his rifle and, loading it, strolled away from camp along the edge of the creek. The sun was setting gold, lighting the shiny-barked gums and burnishing the long green leaves. He came upon a giant tree fern where high over his head the graceful lacy leaves dropped down. The great gum was by far the most magnificent tree Sterl had ever seen. It stood over two hundred feet high, with no branches for half that distance; then they spread wide, as large in themselves as ordinary trees. The color was a pale green — with round pieces of red-brown bark sloughing off.

All at once Sterl’s keen eye caught the movement of something. It was a small, round, furry animal, gray in color, with blunt head and tiny ears. It was clinging to a branch, peering comically down at him, afraid. Then Sterl espied another one, farther up, another far out on the same branch, and at last a fourth, swinging upon a swaying tip. Sterl yelled lustily for Red and Jones.

“Look, Red! Jones, what are those queer little animals?”

“Koala bears,” said the teamster, “Queensland bush is alive with them.”

“Pard, pass me yore gun,” said Red.

“Ump-umm, you bloodthirsty cowboy!...They look tame.”

“They are tame,” rejoined Jones. “Friendly little fellows. Leslie has some for pets.”

Night made the campfire pleasant. The teamsters, through for the day, sat around smoking and talking. Campfires in Australia seemed to have the same cheer, the same opal hearts and flying sparks, the same drawing together of kindred spirits, that they had on the ranges of America. But the great Southern Cross, an aloof and marvelous constellation, proved to Sterl that he was an exile. A dismal chorus of wild barks sounded from the darkness.

“Dingoes,” said a teamster.

“Dingoes. Haw! Haw!” laughed Red, “Another funny one.”

“Wild dogs. They overrun Australia. Hunt in packs. When hungry, which is often, they’re dangerous.”

“Listen,” said Sterl. “Isn’t that a dismal sound? Not a yelp in it. Nor any of that long, wailing sharp cry of the coyote which we range riders love so well.”

“A little too cool tonight to be bothered with mosquitoes,” remarked Jones. “We’ll run into some farther outback. They can bite through two pair of socks.”

“Gee!” said Red. “But thet’s nothin’ atall, Rol. We have muskeeters in Texas — wal, I heahed about one cowboy who was alone when a flock of em’ flew down on him. Smoke an’ fire didn’t help none. By golly, he had to crawl under a copper kettle thet the cook had. Wal, the sons-of-guns bored through the kettle. The cowboy took his gun an’ rivited their bills on the inside. An’ damn me if them skeeters didn’t fly away with the kettle!”

Red’s listeners remained mute under the onslaught of that story, no doubt beginning a reversal of serious acceptance of all the cowboy said. Sterl followed Red toward their tent.

The crackling of fire without awoke him. Dark, moving shadows on the yellow tent wall told that the teamsters were stirring.

He parted the tent flaps and went out to find it dark as pitch beyond the blazing fires, air cold, stars like great white lanterns through the branches, active teamsters whistling as they hitched up the teams, fragrance of ham and tea wafting strong.

“Morning, Hazelton,” was Jones’s cheery greeting. “Was just going to yell that cowboy call, ‘Come and get it!’...We’ll have a good early start.” Sterl could not recall when he had faced a day with such exuberance.

A long gradual ascent through thick bush offered no view, but the melodious carol of magpies, the squall of the cockatoos, the sweet songs of thrush, were worth the early rising. Topping a long ascent Jones drove out of the bush into the open. “Kangaroo Flat,” said the teamster. “Thirty miles. Good road. We’ll camp at the other end tonight.”

“Aw, thet’s fine...Holy Mackeli, pard, air you seein’ what I see?” exclaimed Red.

Sterl was indeed, and quite speechless. A soft hazed valley, so long that the far end appeared lost in purple vagueness, stretched out beneath them, like a sea burnished with golden fire. It was so fresh, so pure, so marvelously vivid in sunrise tones! The enchanted distances struck Sterl anew. Australia was prodigal with its endless leagues. As the sun came up above the low bushland a wave of flame stirred the long grass and spread on and on. The cool air blew sweet and odorous into his face, reminding him of the purple sage uplands of Utah.

Down on a level again their view was restricted to space near at hand. A band of dingoes gave them a parting chorus where the bush met the flat. Rabbits began to scurry through the short gray-green grass and run ahead along the road, and they increased in numbers until there appeared to be thousands.

“One of Australia’s great pests,” said Jones.

“Yeah? Wal, in thet case I gotta take some pegs,” replied Red, and he proceeded to raise the small caliber rifle and to shoot at running targets. This little rifle and full store of cartridges had been gifts from Sterl. Red did not hit any of the rabbits. Deadly with a handgun, as were so many cowboys, he shot only indifferently well with a rifle. Sterl’s unerring aim, however, applied to both weapons.

Kangaroos made their appearance, sticking their heads out of the grass, long ears erect, standing at gaze watching the wagon go by, or hopping along ahead with their awkward yet easy gait. In some places they slowed the trotting team to a walk.

The sky was dotted with waterfowl. Jones explained there were watercourses through the flat, and a small lake in the center, where birds congregated by the thousands. Sterl’s quick eye caught a broken’ column of smoke rising from the bushland in the rear.

“By golly! Red, look at that!”

“Shore I was wonderin’. How about it, Rol?”

“Black men signaling across the flat. Look over here. They know all about us twenty miles ahead. The aborigines talk with smoke.”

“All the same Indian stuff,” ejaculated Red.

“Stanley Dann, who’s mustering this big trek, says the abo’s will be our worst obstacle,” volunteered Jones.

“Has Dann made a trek before?”

“No. This will be new to all the drovers.”

“Do they believe there’s safety in numbers?”

“That is one reason for the large muster of men and cattle.”

“Like our wagon trains crossing the Great Plains. But driving cattle is a different thing. The Texas trail drivers found out that ten or twelve cowboys and up to three thousand head of longhorns moved faster, had fewer stampedes and lost fewer cattle than a greater number.”

After a short rest the cavalcade proceeded onward across the rippling sea of colored grass. Herons were not new to Sterl, but white ibis, spoonbills, egrets, jabiru, and other wading fowl afforded him lasting wonder and appreciation. The storks particularly caught his eye. Their number seemed incredible. They were mostly gray in color, huge cranelike birds, tall as a man; they had red on their heads, and huge bills. Sterl exchanged places with Red, and drowsy from excessive looking, went to sleep.

He was awakened by yells. Sitting up he found Red waving wildly.

“Ostriches!...Black ostriches!” yelled Red, beside himself...”Whoever’d thunk it?...Dog-gone my pictures!...Sterl, wake up. You’re missin’ somethin’.”

Sterl did not need Red’s extended arm to sight a line of huge black bird creatures, long-necked and long-legged, racing across the road.

“Emu,” said the teamster, laconically. “You run over them outback.”

“As I’m a born sinner heah comes a bunch of hosses!” exclaimed Red, pointing. On the range Red had been noted, even among hawk-eyed riders and vanqueros, for his keen sight.

“Brumbies,” declared Tones.

“What? — What you say?” shouted Red. “If they’re not wild horses. I’ll eat ‘em.”

“Wild, surely. But they’re brumbies,” said the Australian.

Red emitted a disgusted snort. “Brumbies! Who in the hell ever heahed of callin’ wild hosses such an orful name?”

“Red, it is a silly name,” responded Jones, with his rare grin. “I suggest we have an interchange and understanding of names, so you won’t have to lick me.”

“Wal, I reckon I couldn’t lick you, at thet,” retorted Red, quick as a flash to meet friendliness. “You’re an orful big chap, Rol, an’ could probably beat hell out of me pronto. So I’ll take you up.”

“What does pronto mean?”

“Quick. Right now...I heahed you say ‘pad.’ In my country a pad is what you put under a saddle. What is it heah?”

“A pad is a path through the bush. A narrow single track.”

“Ahuh. But thet’s a trail, Rol. Say, you’re gonna have fun ediccatin’ us. Sterl heah had a mother who was a schoolteacher, an’ he’s one smart hombre.”

The sun slanted toward the far horizon, the brightness changed to gold and rose. It was some time short of twilight when Jones hauled up at the edge of the bush, which had beckoned for so many hours. A bare spot on the bank of a narrow slow-moving stream attested to many campfires.

“Look!” interposed Sterl, pointing at forms across the stream. They were natives, of course, but a first actual sight was disconcerting.

“Black man, with gin and lubra, and some kids,” said Jones.

“Holy Mackeli!” ejaculated Red. “They look human — but—”

Sterl’s comrade, with his usual perspicuity, had hit it. The group of natives stood just at the edge of the bush. Sterl saw six figures out in the open, but he had a glimpse of others. The man was exceedingly tall, thin, black as coal, almost naked. He held a spear, upright, and it stood far above his shaggy head. A scant beard fuzzed the lower part of his face. His big, bold, somber eyes glared a moment, then with a long stride he went back into the bush. The women lingered curiously. The older, the “gin,” was hideous to behold. The lubra, a young girl, appeared sturdy and voluptuous. Both were naked except for short grass skirts. The children were wholly nude. A harsh voice sent them scurrying into the bush.

“Gosh! I’d hate to meet thet long-laiged hombre in the dark,” said Red.

“Hope some of them come around our campfire,” added Sterl, with zest.

He had his wish. After supper, about dusk, the black man appeared, a towering unreal figure. He did not have the long spear. The cook gave him something to eat; and the native, making quick despatch of that, accosted Jones in a low voice.

“Him sit down alonga fire,” replied Jones, pointing to Sterl.

The black man slowly approached the fire, then stood motionless on the edge of the circle of light. Presently he came up to Sterl.

“Tobac?” he asked, in a low deep voice.

“Yes,” replied Sterl, and offered what he had taken the precaution to get from his pack. At the exchange Sterl caught a good look at the native’s hands, to find them surprisingly supple and shapely. He next caught a strong body odor, which was unpleasant.

“Sit down, chief,” said Sterl, making appropriate signs. The black man, folding his long legs under him, appeared to sit on them. A cigar Sterl had given him was evidently a new one on the native. But as Sterl was smoking one, he quickly caught on. Sterl, adopting the method cowboys always used when plains Indians visited the campfires, manifested a silent dignity. The black man was old — no one could have told how old. There was gray in his shaggy locks, and his visage was a map of lines that portrayed the havoc of elemental strife. Sterl divined thought and feeling in this savage, and he felt intensely curious.

Jones left the other teamsters, to come over and speak to the native.

“Any black fella close us?” he asked.

“Might be,” was the terse reply.

“Me watchem smokes all alonga bush.”

But the aborigine returned silence to that remark. Presently he arose and stalked away in the gloom.

“Queer duck,” said Red, reflectively.

“He sure interested me,” replied Sterl. “All except the smell of him. Rol, do all these blacks smell that bad?”

“Some worse, some not at all. It’s something they grease themselves with.”

On the fifth day, they reached the blue hills that had beckoned to Sterl. The wagon road wound into a region of numerous creeks and fertile valleys where parrots and parakeets abounded. They passed by one station that day and through one little sleepy hamlet of a few houses and a store, with outlying paddocks where Sterl espied some fine horses. Camp that night offered a new experience to the cowboys. The cook was out of beef, and Jones took them hunting. They did not have to go far to find kangaroo, or shoot often. The meat had a flavour that Sterl thought would grow on him, and Red avowed it was equal to porterhouse steak or buffalo rump.

Two noons later Jones drove out of the jungle to the edge of a long slope that afforded a view of Slyter’s valley.

“That road goes on to Downsville,” said Jones, pointing, “a good few miles. This road leads to Slyter’s station. Water and grass for a reasonable sized mob of cattle. But Bing has big ideas.”

Presently Slyter’s gray-walled, tin-roofed house came into sight, picturesquely located on a green bench with a background of huge eucalyptus trees, and half hidden in a bower of golden wattle. The hills on each side spread wider and wider, to where the valley opened into the range, and numberless cattle dotted the grassy land.

Along the brook, farther down, bare-poled fences of corrals came into sight, and then a long, low, log barn, with a roof of earth and green grass and yellow flowers, instead of the ugly galvanized iron.

“Home!” sang out Jones. “Eight days’ drive! Not so bad. If we just didn’t have that impossible trek to face!”

“Wal, Rollie Tewkesbury Jones!” declared Red, gayly. “You air human after all. Fust time I’ve heahed you croak.”

Sterl leaped down to stretch his cramped legs. Red called for him to pick out a camp site up from the low ground a little, while he helped the teamsters unhitch. Sterl walked on, intending to find a place for the tent under those yellow-blooming wattles. He heard rapid footfalls coming from somewhere. As he passed the corner of the barn, his face turned the other way, trying to locate whoever was running, someone collided violently with him, almost upsetting him.

He turned to see that this individual had been knocked almost flat. He thought that it was a boy because of the boots and blue pants. But a cloud of chestnut hair, tossed aside, disclosed the tanned face and flashing, hazel eyes of a girl. She raised herself, hands propped on the ground, to lean back and look up at him. Spots of red came into her clear cheeks. Lips of the same hue curled in a smile, disclosing even, white teeth.

“Oh, miss! I’m sorry,” burst out Sterl, in dismay. “I wasn’t looking...You ran plump into me.”

“Rath-thur!” she replied. “Dad always said I’d run into something someday. I did...I’m Leslie.”

CHAPTER 3

THE GIRL LEAPED erect, showing herself to be above medium height, lithe and strong, yet with a rounded form no boy’s garb could hide.

“You’re Dad’s Yankee cowboy — not the redheaded one?”

“I’m Sterl Hazelton,” returned Sterl. “Glad to meet you, Miss Leslie.”

“Thanks, I’m glad, too. Dad has been home four days, and I could hardly wait.” She looked up at him with wonderful clear eyes that took him in from head to foot.

“I came up here to find a place for our tent. All right to put it there, under this tree?”

“Of course. But we have a spare room in the house.”

“No, thank you. whisky and I couldn’t sleep indoors.”

“Let us go down. I want to meet whisky. Did you have a good trek outback?”

“It was simply great. I never looked so hard and long before.”

“Oh, now nice! You’re going to like Australia?”

“I do already. And whisky can’t hide from me how he likes it, too.”

It chanced that they came upon whisky when his back was turned, as he was lifting bags out of the wagons.

“Red, a lady to meet you.” Sterl saw him start, grow rigid, then slowly turn, to disclose a flushing, amazed face. “Miss Slyter, this is my pard, Red Krehl...Red, our boss’s daughter, Miss Leslie.”

At this juncture Slyter, stalwart and vital in his range garb, stamped down upon them. “Roland, you made a fine drive. So, cowboys, here you are. Welcome to Australia’s outback! We saw you coming, and I sent Leslie to meet you. How are you, and did you like the short ride out?”

“Mr. Slyter, I never had a finer ride in my life,” averred Sterl.

“Boss, it shore was grand,” addwhisky. “But short? Ump-umm. It was orful long. I see right heah we gotta get so we can savvy each other’s lingo.”

“That will come in time, Krehl. I’m just back from Downsville. Allan Hathaway leaves tomorrow with six drovers and a mob of fifteen hundred cattle. Woolcott has mustered twelve hundred and will follow. Stanley and Eric Dann go next day with ten drovers and thirty-five hundred head. We are to catch up with them. Ormiston has three drovers and eight hundred head. He wants to drove with us. I don’t know Ormiston and I’m not keen about joining him. But what can I do? Stanley Dann is our leader. Our own mob is about mustered. Now all that’s left to do it pack and start.”

“Oh, Dad! I’m on pins and needles!” cried Leslie, jumping up and down, and clapping her hands.

“Slyter, how many riders — drovers have you?” queried Sterl.

“Four, not counting you cowboys. Here’s Leslie, who’s as good as any drover. I’ll drive our covered wagon and Bill Williams, our cook, will drive one dray. Roland, you’ll have the other.”

“Seven riders, counting Miss Leslie,” pondered Sterl.

“I see you think that’s not enough,” spoke up Slyster. “Hazelton, it’ll have to do. I can’t hire any more in this country.”

“Boss, how about yore remuda?” interposwhisky, anxiously.

“Remuda?”

“Excoose me, boss. Thet’s Texas lingo for hosses. How many hosses will you take?”

“We’ve mustered the best of my stock. About a hundred. The rest I’ve sold in Downville.”

“Dad has the finest horses in Queensland,” interrupted Leslie.

“Well, men, I’m glad to get that off my mind,” concluded Slyter, with a laugh. “Roland, send Bill up to get supper. Hazelton, you boys come up when you’ve unpacked. Leslie, let’s go back to Mum.”

Sterl labored up the grassy bench, conscious of a queer little sensation of pleasure, the origin of which he thought he had better not analyze. He dropped the heavy canvas roll in the likeliest spot, and sat down in the golden glow from the wattle. The adventure he had fallen upon seemed unbelievable. But here was this golden-green valley, with purple sunset-gilded ranges in the distance; there was bowleggwhisky staggering up the gentle slope with his burdens. He reached Sterl, wiped the sweat from his red face, and said:

“Queer deal, eh pard?”

“I should snicker to snort, as you say sometimes.”

“Pard, I’ve a hunch these fine Australian men have no idee what they’re up agin’. They’re takin’ their familees. Leastways Slyter is, an’ this Stanley Dann. One fine hombre, accordin’ to Jones. Takin’ his only daughter, too. Beryl Dann. Wal, it’d be hard enough an’ tough enough for us without a couple of girls...This Leslie kid. About sixteen, I’d say. But a woman, an’ full of all a woman has to make men trouble.”

Just before dusk, they were called to supper. They entered a big plain living room, where a fire burned in a rude stone fireplace, and a long table with steaming, savory foods invited keen relish. Mrs. Slyter was a buxom, pleasant woman. Leslie inherited her fine physique. However, when the girl came in, Sterl hardly recognized her in a dress. Her frank, winning gaiety offset the mother’s silence. Red brought a smile to Mrs. Slyter’s face, however, by saying that such a supper would be something to remember when he was hungry way out on the Never-never.

“Boys, in the morning first thing I want you to look over the horses,” said Slyter. “After that we’ll ride over to town. Dann is keen to talk with you.”

“Miss Leslie, what was thet you said about yore Dad’s horses?” askwhisky.

“Dad breeds the finest stock in Australia,” she replied. “That’s where his heart is. And mine, too. The chief reason Dad wants to cross the Never-never is because he has learned that in the far northwest, in the country of the Kimberley’s there is a perfect climate, grass and water beyond a drover’s dreams.”

“Sounds sweet. What air the Kimberleys?”

“Mountain ranges. Stanley Dann’s brother Eric has seen them. He says they are paradise. He trekked to the Kimberleys several years ago. But that trek did not cross the Never-never.”

“I savvy. Then thet three thousand mile drive we’re undertakin’ is jest a short cut?”

“It is, really. The whole idea thrills me through and through.”

“Shore. I can see why for a boy. But for a girl—”

“I’m tired of that Downsville school. Then I couldn’t let Mum and Dad go without me.”

“Yeah? But can you ride, Miss Leslie?” went on Red, drawling, quizzically.

“Please don’t call me miss...Ride? I’ll give you a go any day, Mister Cowboy.”

“Please don’t call me mister...’Course I wouldn’t race you. No girl in the world could beat a Texas cowboy.”

“I wouldn’t risk any guesses or wagers,” said Sterl.

“You’d better not. My horses are the finest in Queensland. We’ll miss the races this fall. I’m sorry about that. All the fun we ever have here is racing.”

“Yore hosses. You mean yore Dad’s?” inquired Red.

“No, my own. I have ten. I’m just waiting to show you!”

When the cowboys said good night and walked toward their camp, Red inquired: “Pard, did you look Leslie over tonight?”

“I saw her, but I didn’t look twice.”

“Shore a fine looker in thet blue dress. She was born on a hoss all right. Did you notice she was a little less free with you than with me?”

“No, pard, I didn’t.”

“Wal, she was. But thet isn’t goin’ to keep me from takin’ my chance. Aw, I don’t entertain no big hope of cuttin’ you out. I never could win any girl when you was around.”

“Red, you can have them all,” declared Sterl.

At day-break they were off for the paddock, laden with saddles, bridles and blankets. Another barn marked the opening of the level valley. Cattle were bawling, horses whistling, thrushes singing. A heavy dew glistened upon grass and brush. Down the lane, riders mounted bareback were driving a string of horses into a corral.

Presently Sterl and Red were perched upon the top bar of the corral fence, as they had been perhaps thousands of times on western ranches, directing keen and experienced eyes at the drove of dusty, shaggy horses. They proved to be fat, full of fire and dash, superb in every requirement. They came of a rangier, heavier, more powerful stock than the ordinary western horses, and in these particulars were markedly superior to the plains cayuse.

“Gosh-durn-it! I never seen their beat. Did we have to come way out heah to see English stock beat the socks off ours?” said Red.

“But, Red, good horses have to have speed and stamina,” returned Sterl, weakly.

“Hell, you can see thet in every line. Hosses gotta be the same all over. We never knowed any but ornery-eyed, kickin’, bitin’ cayuses.”

“Red, I remember a few that you couldn’t call that. Baldy, Whiteface, Spot — and you couldn’t forget Dusty — that broke his heart and died on his feet for you.”

“Shet up! I wasn’t meanin’ a hoss in at thousand. Lord, could I forget the day Dusty outrun them Comanches?”

Jones sauntered over, accompanied by a brawny young man whom he introduced as Larry. “Boss’s orders are for you each to pick out five horses. Hurry now!”

“Wal, Rol, they look so darn good I don’t see any sense in pickin’ atall. But it’s fun...Sterl, toss you for first pick.”

Red won, and his choice was the very black that Sterl had set his heart on. Still in a moment, he burst out with enthusiasm, “There’s a chestnut. Gosh, what a hoss! I pick him...”

“Here’s a sorrel for me. I’ll name him after you, Red. But I don’t see a black like that one you beat me to.”

Leslie’s rich contralto rang out from behind. “What’s that about a black?”

“Hello. I wondered about you,” replied Sterl.

“Mawnin’, Leslie,” drawled Red. “I kinda like you better in them ridin’ togs. Not so dangerous lookin’ to a pore cowboy...Looks like you been ridin’ some, at thet.”

Indeed she did, thought Sterl, and could not recall any ranch girl who equaled her. Leather worn thin, shiny metal spurs that showed bits of horsehair, ragged trousers stuffed in high boots, gray blouse and colorful scarf, her chestnut hair in a braid down her back — these charmed Sterl, entirely aside from her gold-tan cheeks with their spots of red, her curved lips, like cherries, and her flashing eyes.

“Red got first pick on me,” explained Sterl. “Snitched that black.”

“Not too bad, you cowboys,” returned Leslie, her glance taking in their choice.

“You Yankees are the queerest talking people!” said Leslie when the cowboys had finished their horse-choosing contest. “But I believe you’ll be good cobbers. Come now, I’ll show you some real Australian horses.”

Sterl had prepared himself for a treat to a horse lover’s eyes, but when he looked through the fence of a corral adjoining the shed he could hardly credit his sight. He beheld the finest horses he had ever seen in one bunch in his whole range experience. These were not shaggy, dusty, range-free animals, but well-groomed, sleek and shiny thoroughbreds in the pink of condition.

“Leslie — who takes such grand care of these horses?” gasped Sterl.

“I do — a little. But Friday does most of it. He’s my black man. Dad sent him uptown...You might say something.”

“I can’t, child,” returned Sterl, feelingly. “Horses have been the most important things in my life. And these of yours! But are they really yours, Leslie?”

“Indeed they are. Mine! I haven’t anything else. Hardly a new dress to my name. A few books.”

“Leslie, haven’t you any beaus?” asked Sterl lightly.

“I had. But Dad shut down on them lately,” replied the girl, seriously. “Not that I cared much. Only I’ve been lonesome.”

“Wal, young lady,” drawled Red, “you ain’t gonna be so lonesome from now on, if my hunch is correct.”

“That black horse—” spoke up Sterl, pointing to a noble, rangy beast.

“That’s King. He’s five years old. Bred from Dad’s great dam. King has won all his races the last two years. Oh, he’s swift! He threw me last race. But we won.”

“So you were up on him? Well!” rejoined Sterl, in wonder and admiration.

“Yes, I can ride him. But Dad says no more. At least not in races. He’s too strong. Has a mouth like iron. And once running against other horses, he’s terrific.”

“I’ll have to put my hands on him,” said Sterl.

“You’re going to ride him, cowboy,” replied the girl. “Let’s go inside the paddock.”

Red had straddled the top bar of the fence, and his silence was eloquent. Leslie led the way inside. She called and whistled. All the horses threw up their heads, and some of them started for her. Then they trooped forward, fine heads up, manes flying. Still they halted some yards from the fence, eager, whinnying, but not trustful of the strangers.

“Come up heah, pard,” called Red. “They’re skeered of you. Instinct! They know you’re a hard-ridin’ hombre from Arizonie.”

Leslie walked away from the fence somewhat, and coaxed. A spotted iron-gray animal, clean-cut in build, was the first to come to the girl.

“Jester,” she called to him, and got hold of his mane to lead him back to the fence. “One of my best. He’s tricky — full of the devil, but fast, tireless...Red, would you like to have him on the trek? It would please me. I think you’d be clever enough to match him.”

“Would I? — Aw, Leslie, that’s too good of you. Why, he took my eye fust thing. But I oughtn’t take him!”

“Done! He’s yours. Get down and make friends with him.”

Red complied with alacrity. Sterl watched as he saw the cowboy’s lean brown hand, slow and sure, creep out to touch the arching, glossy neck. “Jester, you dog-done lucky hoss! Why, I’m the kindest rider that ever threw his laig over a saddle.”

“King, come here,” called Leslie to the magnificent black. But it was a beautiful bay that approached at the girl’s bidding. “Lady Jane, you know I’m going to ride you this morning, now don’t you?” She petted the sniffing muzzle, and laid her cheek against the trim black mane. Then most of the others except King came begging for her favor. She introduced them to the cowboys as if they were persons of rank — Duke, a great rangy sorrel, almost red, pride and power in every line; Duchess, a long-tailed white mare, an aristocrat whose name was felicitous; Lord Chester, a trim gray stallion, hard to overlook even in that band.

The black still hung behind; Leslie had to go for him.

Closer at hand, his magnificent physical qualities appeared more striking.

“King,” said Leslie, impressively, “this is an American cowboy, Sterl Hazelton, who is going to ride you — ride you, I said, you big devil — on our great trek.”

Sterl had feared this very thing. “Leslie, don’t ask me to take him — your favorite!” he protested.

“But he’s not my favorite! I don’t love him — well, not so much — since he threw me. Please, Sterl!”

“I only wanted to be coaxed,” rejoined Sterl, lamely. “Thanks, Leslie. It’s just too good to be true...I had a horse once...”

“Lead him out,” said Leslie, then with surprising ease she leaped upon the bare back of Lady Jane. Red followed with Jester, and Sterl gently urged the black to join them.

“King, let’s look each other over,” said Sterl, as he let go of the mane and squared away in front of the horse. King threw up his noble head, and his black eyes had a piercing curiosity. But he was not in the least afraid. Sterl put out a confident hand to rub his nose.

“Saddle up, boys,” said Leslie, slipping off. “Let’s get this trip to town over. I don’t mind showing you to the girls, because they’ll be left behind, except Beryl Dann. And I just hate to present you to her.”

Sterl did not voice his surprise, but Red blurted out. “An’ ‘cause why, Leslie?”

“I’ll be jealous,” laughed the girl, frankly. “I’d like you both for my cavaliers. Oh, Beryl is lovely, even if she is spoiled and proud. Her father is lord of the manor, so to speak.”

In short order they were mounted in the unfamiliar English saddles, and ready to ride away. King pranced a little. Sterl sensed his tremendous, latent power.

One branch of the road turned back past the house; the other, which Leslie took, crossed the creek and wound up the slope into the bush. Wattle trees sent a golden shade down upon them, singing cur-ra-wongs followed them.

“Bell magpies,” said Leslie. “I love them almost as well as the kookaburras. That reminds me. Dad won’t let me take all my pets.”

They rode on. Thick bush began to thin out; another mile brought open country, green rolling hills and vales that looked overgrazed. Presently Sterl saw horses and cattle, and columns of smoke, and at length a big white house with great tin water tanks under the eaves. He had not observed this around Slyter’s house, but he had grasped that most of these Australian station owners had to catch their water in the dry season. This was the Dann station, just outside of town.

“There she is — Beryl,” said Leslie, and waving a gauntleted hand she called. Sterl saw a fair-faced, fair-haired girl, distinguished by grace even in what was evidently the workaday dress of the moment.

“Pard, don’t you reckon I oughta pull leather oot of heah?” said Red, in perturbation.

“I should smile you should,” returned Sterl. “And me too!”

“Stand to your colors, men,” retorted Leslie. Presently Sterl was doffing his sombrero, and gallantly bowing to a handsome girl, some years Leslie’s senior, whose poise permitted graciousness, yet hid curiosity.

Sterl made a pleasant little speech and Red cut in with his southern drawn, “Wal, Miss Dann, I shore am glad to meet another Australian girl. My pard heah, Sterl an’ me, have been sorta worried over this long trek an’ thought of backin’ out. But not no more.”

Beryl Dann was neither too dignified nor too grown up not to be pleased and flattered by what Sterl divined was an extraordinary speech to her.

As Sterl rode on with Leslie, he observed without looking back that Red did not accompany them.

“Did you like her?” queried Leslie, a dark flash of her hazel eyes on Sterl. She was a woman; still Sterl could not react to the situation with playful duplicity, as one impulse prompted him to.

“Yes, of course,” he said, frankly. “Pretty and gracious, if a little haughty. I wonder — has she lived out here long?”

“Yes. The Danns have been here all of five years. But Beryl went to school in Sydney. She visits there often. She’s lovely! All the young men court her...Didn’t you fall in love with her at first sight?”

“My child, I did not.”

“Don’t call me child,” she flashed, quickly. “I’m grown up. Old enough to get married!”

“You don’t say. I wouldn’t have thought it,” replied Sterl teasingly.

“Yes. Dad thought so. He wanted to give me to a station man over here. But I wouldn’t...Red has not escaped Beryl — that’s obvious. Look back.”

Sterl did so, to see the cowboy still leaning over his saddle gazing down upon the fair-haired girl.

“Sterl, I like Red,” went on Leslie, confidentially. “But I’d never let him see it. I don’t know cowboys, of course. But I know young men who are devils after women. And he’s one. I could feel it...But I guess you’re different. Sterl, I’m crazy to take this trek. But I’m frightened. There will be twenty young men with us. I know how they can be, even trekking in to Brisbane. Eight days! My mother, Stanley Dann’s sister, Beryl and I the only women!...”

“Leslie, your fathers never should take you.”

“But I want to go. Beryl does, too. It means new homes, new friends, new lives...Sterl, I hope you’ll be a big brother to me. Will you?”

“Thank you. I’ll try,” responded Sterl, sincerely. The girl’s frank wistfulness touched him deeply. “But I’m a stranger. I might be what Red calls no good atall.”

“You might be, but I don’t believe it...I like you, Sterl. I’m not afraid of you. Mum says I’m a hoyden. But I’m sensitive. These outback men court you on sight — hug and kiss you — or try to. Outback it’s a fight for love, women, cattle — for life itself.”

“Leslie, it’s much like that on the western ranges where I come from. I understand a little how a young girl feels.”

“You are going to be a comfort, Sterl,” she said, happily. “Here we are, right in town. And there comes Red, putting Jester to a canter...There’s where I went to school...Oh, I forgot something I wanted to tell you. Do you remember Dad mentioning a drover, Ashley Ormiston?”

“Yes. He is the man Mr. Dann wants your Dad to throw in with.”

“Sterl, I don’t like the idea at all. Mr. Ormiston is new to Downsville. You’ll meet him today, so I don’t need to describe him. But he has been very much in evidence since the races. I met him that day, and to be honest I was fascinated. Sterl; he — he insulted me that very first night. I’ve tried to avoid him ever since.”

“Have you told your father?” queried Sterl.

“I dare not,” she replied, simply.

At that moment Red caught up with them.

“Let’s tie up here,” Leslie said, halting. “Now boys, you hunt up Dad. He’ll be somewhere, waiting for you. Stanley Dann wants to meet you. Be good. Don’t drink — or forget you’re my cowboys.”

They turned a corner to reach a point opposite a large store, in front of which had collected a crowd, mostly men, all trying to get out of the way of a conflict of some kind. Then Sterl saw a white man kick an aborigine into the street. He heard a woman cry out that it was Slyter’s black man, Friday.

Sterl stepped out of the crowd and off from the pavement. Then a white man, agile and powerful, leaped into the street to kick the black viciously, knocking him flat.

Striding over, Sterl placed a hard hand against the aggressor and shoved him back, far from gently.

The man straightened up. He was a dark-browed, handsome fellow of about thirty, garbed as a drover.

“What business — of yours?” he panted, hoarsely.

“I just thought you’d kicked that black enough,” declared Sterl, deliberately.

“Who are — you?” demanded the other, his dark eyes burning. Sterl caught a strong odor of whisky.

“No matter. I’m a newcomer.”

“Damned, meddling, Yankee blighter,” shouted the Australian, and with a backhanded sweep he struck Sterl a blow across the mouth that staggered him.

Recovering his balance, Sterl leaped forward, and gave his antagonist a sudden blow low down, then swung his right fist hard and fierce at those malignant eyes, and felled him like a bullock under the ax.

Red lined up alongside his comrade. The buzzing circle crowded into the street. Sterl, to his dismay, espied Leslie’s pale face. Then her father dragged her back and strode out, accompanied by a tawny-haired giant, leonine in build and mien.

Slyter gazed at the prostrate man, who was stirring, and from him to the black. “Friday! Who hit you?”

“Boss, that one fella,” replied the black, and pointed to his brutal attacker.

“Dann, it’s Ash Ormiston!” ejaculated Slyter.

“I see. Looks as if a horse kicked him...Here you, what does this mean?” boomed the giant, wheeling upon Sterl.

Red intervened, cool and wary. “Watch thet hombre, pard. He might have a gun.”

“Krehl!” exclaimed Slyter. “Did you slug, Ormiston?”

“No, Sterl did thet. But I’d have liked to.”

“Stanley, these are my two American cowboys, Krehl and Hazelton.”

“Drunk and rowing, eh?” queried Dann. Sterl confronted Dann, and he was not in a humor to be conciliatory.

“No, I’m not drunk,” he rang out. “It’s your country-man who is that. I came upon him kicking this black man, Friday. Kicking him in the face and chest! I interfered. He called me a damned, meddling Yankee blighter and hit me. Then I soaked him.”

“Friday, what you do alonga Ormiston?” asked Slyter, gruffly.

“Black fella tellum bimeby,” replied Friday, and stalked into the crowd, where Sterl saw Leslie try to stop him and fail.

Meanwhile Ormiston staggered to his unsteady feet, one of his eyes beginning to puff.

“Where’s that —— Yankee who hit me?” he bit out.

Dann laid a restraining hand on him. “Man, you’re drunk.”

Sterl confronted him. “Go for your gun if you’ve got one.”

Ormiston violently threw Dann off.

Dann waved the crowd back. “Get off the street!” he roared.

CHAPTER 4

IF ORMISTON HAD a gun concealed on his person, he made no move to draw it. Sterl’s hand dropped back to his side.

“I’ll not exchange shots — with a Yankee tramp,” panted Ormiston.

“No. But you’re not above kicking a poor black when he’s down,” replied Sterl.

Red again slouched over to Sterl’s side. “Haw! Haw!” His hard, mirthless laugh rang with scorn. “Orful particular, ain’t you, Mr. Ormiston, about who you throw a gun on? Wal, you got some sense, at thet.”

“Dann, you’re magistrate here!” shouted Ormiston. “Order these Yankees out of town.”

“You’re drunk, I told you,” replied Dann. “You started a fight, then failed to go through with it.”

“No, I didn’t. I only kicked that snooping black. This Yankee started it...I’ll not engage in a gun fight with a foreign adventurer,” replied Ormiston in hoarse haste.

“Mister, why don’t you pull thet gun I see inside yore coat?” drawled Red.

“Dann, order these Yankees to leave,” repeated Ormiston, stridently.

“No. You’re making a fool of yourself,” declared Dann. “Slyter has hired these cowboys to help him on the trek.”

“Slyter, is that true — you’re taking these cowboys?”

“Yes, I’ve hired them.”

“Will you discharge them?”

“No, I certainly will not.”

“Then I refuse to take my drovers and my mob of cattle on Dann’s trek.”

“Ormiston, I don’t care a damn what you do,” said Slyter.

Ormiston made a forceful and passionate gesture, then shouldered his way through the crowd to disappear.

Slyter lost no time in getting to Sterl and Red and dragged them with him across the pavement into a store. Dann strode after them. And there the four men faced each other.

“Gentlemen, I’m terribly sorry,” began Sterl. “It’s just too bad that I had to mess up your plans at the last moment. But I couldn’t stand for such dirty, low-down brutality.”

“Pard,” drawled Red, coolly rolling a cigarette. “If you hadn’t been so damn quick I’d have busted Ormiston myself.”

Dann stroked his golden beard with a massive hand, and his penetrating eyes studied the cowboys.

“It was unfortunate,” he began, “Ormiston had been drinking. But I’ll swear the black absolutely did not deserve that kicking. Friday is the best native I ever knew. He’s honest, loyal, devoted to Leslie, who was good to his gin when she lay dying.”

Red eased forward a step, in his slow way. “Mr. Dann, I’d like to ask you, without meanin’ offense, if there ain’t Englishmen heah an’ there who’s jest no good atall?”

Dann let out a deep laugh that was convincing. “There are, cowboy, and you can lay to that.”

“Wal, I’m glad to heah you admit it. If I ever met a low-down hombre thet Ormiston is one. Mebbe it wouldn’t have been so easy to see through — him but for the drink. No, Ormiston is jest no good atall — an’ he come damn near bein’ a daid one.”

“Tell me, Hazelton,” spoke up Dann, his amber eyes full of little, dancing glints, “if Ormiston had moved to draw his revolver — what would you have done?”

“I’d have killed the fool,” declared Sterl.

“Indeed! — Did you see that Ormiston was armed?”

“No. But I knew it...Now, Slyter, I think the thing for Red and me to do is to leave town at once.”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” rejoined Slyter, stoutly.

“Boys, it’s not to be thought of,” added Dann. “Ormiston was bluffing. He won’t quit us. Like all of us he sees a way to wealth. And we need him with us. The more drovers, the more cattle, the better our chances for success.”

“Mr. Dann, I see the necessity for you. But if Red and I go — we’ll clash with Ormiston.”

“Listen, you young gamecocks,” went on Dann, persuasively. “Outback there will be too much clash with the elements and the blacks for us drovers to fight among ourselves. We’ll all be brothers before we reach the Never-never. Isn’t that so, Bing?”

“It has been proved by other treks,” replied Slyter, earnestly. “If you boys are concerned about me or Leslie — just forget that and take the risk.”

“Boss, we’ll never throw you down,” said Red.

“We will go,” added Sterl, and his tone was a pledge. “But have you ever driven cattle into a hard wilderness, months on end, against all the hard knocks a desolate country can deal you?”

“No, Hazelton, we have never been on a real trek,” Dann replied. “But my brother Eric has. He slights the hardships either because he is callous, unfeeling, or because he doesn’t want me to know. In fact, Eric has failed after several starts in Queensland.”

“Do you want my advice?”

Dann nodded his leonine head. “Indeed yes! It’s too late now, even if I would back out. Hazelton, perhaps Providence sent you rangemen to help us. To get down to fundamentals, tell us just what kind of range you have driven mobs of cattle over — how far — what kind of obstacles — how you worked.”

“That’s easy, gentlemen, and you can believe what I tell you,” replied Sterl. “Some years ago, just after the Civil War, Texas was overrun with millions of longhorn cattle. The ranchers had no home market. A rancher named Chisholm conceived the idea of driving herds of cattle from southern Texas across the plains to Kansas. Chisholm started out with over three thousand head of cattle and twelve riders. He made it — five hundred miles — in something over ninety days, losing four cowboys and two thousand head of cattle. But he sold what was left at a huge profit. His Chisholm Trail inaugurated trail driving in Texas.

“As for hardships — in that early day fifty million buffalo ranged from the Gulf to the Dakotas. For years stampedes of buffalo were the worst obstacles the trail drivers had to overcome. Next to that were the attacks and raids of savage Indians. There were rivers to ford, some of them big and wide, often in flood. In dry years there were long drives from water to water. Thunderstorms often stampeded herds. Dust storms, sandstorms were terrible to drive against. In the fall and winter, the Del Notre, the freezing gale that blew out of a clear sky, was something the riders hated and feared. Lastly there came rustling — the era of the cattle thieves, which is in its heyday right now.”

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” exclaimed Dann, his eyes shining. “Jesse Chisholm was a man after my heart. A savior of Texas, yes?”

“Indeed he saved Texas and built the cattle empire.”

Red emitted a cloud of smoke, and drawled: “Boss, I rode for Jesse once. He was a great hombre. Harder than the hinges on the gates of hell! Sometime I’ll tell you stories about him, one thing special, his jingle-bob brand, thet was so famous.”

“Boys, I’ll enjoy your stories, when time permits,” boomed the drover. “I thank the good Lord for sending you to Australia! Hazelton, one thing more. How did you drive your mobs?”

“We rounded them up into a great triangle, with the apex pointing in the direction we had to go. ‘Pointing the herd,’ that was called. Two of the nerviest cowboys had the lead at the point. The mass of cattle would follow the leads. Two cowboys on each side at the center of the herd, the rest at the broad base where stragglers and deserters— ‘drags’ we called them — had to be watched and driven.”

“Were you one of those cowboys who rode at the head?” queried Dann.

“No, but Red was, always. I was a good hand after the drags.”

“Shake hands with me, cowboys,” bellowed Dann. “Slyter, I’ll order my drovers to start my mob tomorrow, positively. I’ll tell Ormiston to go or stay, as he chooses...Meet us soon out on the trek. Good-by.”

Sterl became aware that the store was full of inquisitive people. He and Red were the cynosure of all eyes. Red enjoyed such attention, but Sterl hated it, especially, as had happened so often, when he had just engaged in a fight. He shivered when he thought how closely he had come to shooting Ormiston. He had hoped Australia had not bred the type of bad man among whom he had been compelled to work.

Leslie met him outside with her arms full of packages. Sterl and Red promptly relieved her of them. After one look at Leslie’s white face and eyes blazing almost black, Sterl felt too dismayed to speak. She had witnessed his encounter with Ormiston. As she walked along between him and Red, she had a hand on Sterl’s arm. They came to a point opposite the horses.

“Heah we air, Jester, agonna make a pack hoss out of you fust thing,” spoke up Red, and Sterl knew that the cowboy was talking to ease the situation.

“Leslie, have you finished your buying?” asked Sterl.

“Not quite. But I’ll not stay longer — in town,” she replied in thick unsteady tone. She mounted her horse as Sterl remembered seeing Comanches mount. “Let me have some of the parcels.”

Handing these to her, Sterl looked up into her face.

“Leslie — you were there?” he asked.

“Yes. I saw it — all.”

“I’m sorry. Bad luck like that always hounds me.”

“Who said it was bad luck?” she retorted. “But Sterl — you jumped at that chance to hit Ormiston — on my account?”

“Well — Friday’s first — and then yours. Still I’d have interfered if I’d never heard of either of you. I’m built that way, Leslie.”

“You’re built greatly, then...A thrill hardly does justice to what I felt — when you hit him...But, afterward — when it looked like shooting — I nearly fainted.”

“So that’s why you’re so pale?” rejoined Sterl, endeavoring to speak lightly, as he mounted. Red rode a tactful distance ahead.

“Am I pale?” she asked.

“Not so much now. But a few minutes back you were white as a sheet.”

“Sterl, I ran into Ormiston.”

“And what did he say?”

“I don’t remember everything. One thing, though, was what you called him.”

“That’s not calculated to make Ormiston love me any better.”

“Do you think he’ll make good his threat not to go on the trek?”

“I do not,” said the girl, positively. “Ash Ormiston couldn’t be kept from going. I wouldn’t say wholly because he’s so keen after Beryl Dann and me.”

“Beryl too? Well!...He’s what Red would call an enterprising agent.”

“He’s deep, Sterl. I distrust his attitude toward the trek.”

“Leslie, what had he against your black man?”

“He had enough. I should have told you that...Once when Mum and Dad were in town, Ormiston found me in my hammock. He made violent love to me. I was scared, Sterl. He...I...I fought him — and Friday ran up with his spear. It was all I could do to keep him from killing Ormiston.”

“Is Friday going on the trek?”

“Dad wants him. To track lost horses. The blacks are marvelous trackers. But Friday says no. Maybe you can persuade him, Sterl. A black never forgets a wrong or fails to return a service.”

“I sure will try. What a lot I could learn!”

They rode on at a canter and halted at the paddock. “Come up later for tea — oh, yes, and to see my pets,” said Leslie, as they dismounted and gathered up her bundles.

Left to his own devices, Sterl went among his string of horses, which Roland had tethered in the shed, and while he set about the slow and pleasing task of making friends with them, he mused over the momentous journey from Brisbane. He could no more keep things from happening to him than he could stop breathing. But he recalled only one man, out of the many rustlers and hard characters who had crossed his trail, who had incited as quick a hatred in him, as had this man Ormiston. If possible, he must keep out of the man’s way. Offsetting that was the inspiring personality of Stanley Dann. Here was a man. And Sterl did not pass by the fair-haired Beryl, with her dark-blue eyes and the proud poise of her head. Leslie was appealing in many ways, but the charm she had, which he found vaguely sweet and disquieting, was the fact of his apparent appeal of her, of which she was wholly unconscious. Well, he was in the open again, already in contact with raw nature, about to ride out on this incredible trek. That was all left him in life — this strenuous action of the natural man. Sterl discounted any lasting relation with these good white folk who needed him.

When he returned to the tent, Sterl found Red sitting before the flap, profoundly thoughtful and solemn. He had not even heard Sterl’s approach.

“Pard, did you heah anythin’?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

“Hear? — When?”

“Jest about a minnit ago — mebbe longer. I don’t know. I’m dotty...Did I have any drinks uptown?”

“You sure didn’t.”

“Gosh, I’m shore I’ve got the willies...Sterl, I was in the tent heah, when somebody busted out in a laugh — snortinest hosslaugh you ever heahed. ‘Who’n hell’s laughin’ at me’?’ I said, an’ I was mad. Wal, pard, you never in yore life heahed such a loud brayin’-ass laugh. When the smart alec got through I come out to bust him. Seen nobody. Then I seen a big brown an’ white bird, sittin’ right there on thet branch. Stuck his haid on one side an’ looked out of his devilish black eyes at me, as if to say, ‘Heah’s one of them Yankee blighters.’...If thet bird didn’t give me thet hosslaugh, then yore pard has gone plumb stark ravin’ crazy.”

“Let’s go up and ask Leslie.”

On the way up the path under the wattles they met her. Red burst into the narrative of his perplexing experience. Leslie burst into uncontrollable mirth.

“Oh — Oh! It was — Jack,” she choked out. “Jack who?”

“My pet kookaburra — Oh, Red! — my laughing jackass!”

“Wal, I figgered he was a laughin’ hyena, all right! But thet pet kooka somethin’ — thet has me beat.”

“Jack is our most famous bird. He is a kind of giant kingfisher. I’m taking him on the trek, but I can’t take my little bears. It breaks my heart — Come in to tea.” At the door Leslie whispered to Sterl. “I didn’t tell Mum about what happened uptown.”

Slyter had not returned, nor did his wife expect him. “I’m too terribly busy to chat,” she said, after serving them, and drinking a cup of tea. “Les, I wanted Friday to carry things down to the wagon. Have you seen him?”

“I’ll find him, Mum.”

“Mrs. Slyter,” said Sterl when the party settled down. “I’d like a look at your wagon while it’s empty. We must make a boat out of it, so that it can be floated across the rivers.”

“How thoughtful of you! That had not occurred to Bingham.”

“We’ll fix up a little room in the front of your wagon, behind the seat,” went on Sterl. “I’ve done that before. A wagon can be made really comfortable, considering all your baggage...”

Suddenly they were interrupted by a discordant, concatenated, rollicking laugh from outside.

“Jack saucing other kookaburras,” declared Leslie. “Come and see him.”

They went outdoors. The black man Friday stood under one of the gum trees, looking up into the branches, and holding out a queer stick with a white oval end. In his other hand he held out a long spear.

“Friday has his wommera — the stick he uses to throw his spear,” said Leslie, gravely. “That doesn’t look so good for Ormiston.”

Just then a large brown and white bird fluttered down from the tree to alight on the black’s spear. “There’s Jack,” cried Leslie. He was a rather short bird, built heavily forward, with a big head and strong bill.

Sterl’s attention shifted to the black man. He was well over six feet tall, slender, muscular, black as ebony. He wore a crude garment around his loins. His dark visage held an inscrutable dignity.

Sterl went up to Friday, tapped him on his deep breast and asked, “Friday no hurt bad?” The native understood, for he grinned and shook his head.

“Leslie, you ask him to go with us on the trek.”

“Friday, white man wantum you go with him, far, far that way,” said Leslie, making a slow gesture which indicated immeasurable distance toward the outback. Friday fastened great, black unfathomable eyes upon Sterl.

“White man come from far country, away cross big water,” said Sterl, pointing toward the east, and speaking as if to an Indian. “He need Friday — track horse — kill meat — fight — tell where pads go.”

“Black fella go alonga you,” replied Friday.

Leslie clapped her hands. “Good-o! I was sure he’d go, if you asked him,” she cried. “Dad will be happy!”

Red slouched over to Friday and handed him a cigar.

“You close up boss?” asked the black, looking from one to the other.

“Shore, Friday,” replied Red.

“You um fadder?”

“Fadder? Hell no!...Gosh, do I look thet old? Him my brudder, Friday.

“Black fella im brudder your brudder,” declared Friday, loftily, and stalked away.

CHAPTER 5

IT TURNED OUT that Leslie’s freeing of her native bear pets was merely a matter of saying good-by to them, for they were not confined. They lived in the trees of a small eucalyptus grove back of the house. Sterl enjoyed the sensation of holding some of them, of feeling their sharp, strong, abnormally large claws cling to his coat. The one that pleased Sterl most was a mother that carried her baby in a pouch. The little one had his head stuck out, and his bright black eyes said that he wanted to see all there was to see.

Gently but firmly Leslie drew the little bear from the pouch and placed it on the mother’s back, where it stuck like a burr and appeared perfectly comfortable. Sterl never saw a prettier animal sight, and said so emphatically.

“Marsupials!” said Leslie. “All sorts of them down under, from kangaroos to a little blind mole no longer than my finger.”

“Well I’m a son of a gun!” exclaimed Red. “What’s a marsupial?”

This started Leslie on a lecture concerning Australian mammals and birds. When she finished with marsupials, which carry their babies in a pouch, and came to the unbelievable platypus which wears fur, suckles its young, lays eggs and has a bill like a duck and web feet fastened on backward, she stretched Red’s credulity to the breaking point.

“How can you stand there, a sweet pictoor of honest girlhood, and be such an orful liar? How about thet liar bird Jones said you could show us? — the wonderfulest bird in Australia!”

“Rightho! Boys, if you’ll get up early, I’ll promise you shall hear a lyrebird, and maybe see one.”

“It’s a date, Leslie, tomorrow mawnin’. Right heah. Hey, pard?”

“You bet.” said Sterl, “And now let’s get to work making that wagon.”

The wagon, which Slyter intended for his womenfolk and all their personal effects, was big and sturdy, with wide-tired wheels, high sides, and a roomy canvas top stretched over hoops. Sterl examined it carefully.

“How about in water an’ sand?” queried Red, dubiously.

“In deep water she’ll float — when we fix her. Red, dig up a couple of chisels and hammers while I get something to calk these seams.”

In short order they had the wagon bed so that it would not leak. Then, while Red began the same job on the other wagon, Sterl devoted himself to fixing up some approach to a prairie-schooner tent dwelling. Sterl had Leslie designate the bags and trunks which would be needed en route; with these he packed the forward half of the wagon bed two feet deep. Then he transformed the rear half into a bedroom.

Slyter arrived with the dray, and climbed off the driver’s seat to begin unhitching. His face was dark, his brow lined and pondering.

“Roland, pack all the flour on top of this load and tie on a cover,” said Slyter. “Hazelton, how’s the work progressing?”

“We’re about done. Hope nothing more came off uptown?”

“Testy day. Just my personal business...You’ll be interested in this. Ormiston sobered up and tried to get back into our good graces. Stanley Dann accepted his apologies.”

“Then Ormiston will go on the trek?”

“Yes. He said to tell you he had been half drunk, and would speak to you when opportunity afforded. But he asked me if you cowboys had any references!”

“I was surprised that you did not ask for any.”

“I didn’t need any. Nor did Stanley Dann. Ormiston was trying to sow seeds of discord.”

“Thank you, Slyter. I’m sure you’ll never regret your kindness.”

“Hathaway and Woolcott left about midday,” went on Slyter. “Some of their drovers were drunk. The Danns are all ready to leave at dawn. We’ll start tomorrow sometime.”

“How about waterholes?”

“No fear. We’ve had a few good rains lately. There’ll be plenty of water — maybe too much — and grass all the way out of Queensland. Stanley Dann and his brother Eric had another hot argument. Eric was one of the drovers who made that Gulf trek. He wants to stick to that route. But Stanley argues we should leave it beyond the Diamantina River and head northwest more directly across the Never-never. I agree with him.”

It was dim gray morning when, keeping their engagement with Leslie, the Americans mounted the shadowy aisle leading up to the house.

They found her waiting with Friday. “Aren’t you ashamed? You’re late...Come. Don’t talk. Don’t make the slightest sound.”

They followed Friday, a shadow in the gray gloom. The east was brightening. Presently, Friday glided noiselessly into the bush. Gradually it grew lighter. Soft mist hung low under the pale-trunked trees. They came to a glade that led down into a ravine where water tinkled. It opened out wide upon a scene of veiled enchantment. Small trees, pyramid shape, pointed up to the brightening sky, and shone as white as if covered by frost. Great fern trees spread long, lacy, exquisite leaves from a symmetrical head almost to the ground. Huge eucalyptus sent marble-like pillars aloft. Their fragrance attacked Sterl’s nostrils with an acute, strangling sensation. A bell-like note struck lingeringly upon his ear. Friday halted. As he lifted his hand with the gesture of an Indian, Sterl heard the lovely call of a thrush near at hand. Leslie put her lips right on Sterl’s ear. “It is the lyrebird!” Then it seemed to Sterl that his tingling ears caught the songs of other birds, intermingled with that of the thrush. Suddenly a bursting cur-ra-wong, cur-ra-wong shot through Sterl.

Could that, too be the lyrebird? The note was repeated again and again, so full of wild melody that it made Sterl ache. It was followed by caw, caw, caw, the most dismal and raucous note of a crow.

“Don’t you understand, boys?” whispered Leslie, bending her head between them. “The lyrebird is a mocker. He can imitate any sound.”

That sweet concatenation of various bird notes was disrupted by what seemed to be the bawling of a cow.

From off in the woods sounded a mournful, rich note, like the dong of a bell.

“Another! Oh, but we’re lucky!” whispered Leslie.

Across a little leafy glade, Sterl noticed low foliage move and part to admit a dark brown bird, half the size of a hen turkey. It had a sleek, delicate head. As it stepped daintily out from under the foliage, its tail, erect and exquisite, described the perfect shape of a lyre. Long, slender, fernlike feathers rose and spread from the two central feathers — broad, dark velvety brown, barred in shiny white or gray, with graceful curling tips that bowed and dipped as it passed out of sight into the bush.

“Wal,” said Red, “yore lyrebird has our mockers skinned to a frazzle.”

“That must mean something!” returned Leslie, giggling. “Come. We’ll be late and Dad will row. Let’s run.”

When they went in to breakfast, Roland and Larry were leaving, sober as judges. Bill Williams, the cook, was banging pots and pans with unnecessary force. Slyter looked as if he were going to a funeral, and his wife was weeping. Leslie’s smile vanished. She served the cowboys, who made short work of that meal.

“Boss, what’s the order for today?” queried Sterl, shortly.

“Drake’s mustering for the trek,” replied Slyter, gruffly.

Leslie followed them out. “I’ll catch up somewhere. I’d go with you now, but Mum...Ride King and Jester, won’t you?”

Sterl found difficulty in expressing his sympathy. The girl was brave, though deeply affected by her mother’s grief. It really was a terrible thing to do — this forsaking a comfortable home in a beautiful valley, to ride out into the unknown and forbidding wilderness.

King surprised Sterl with his willingness to be saddled and bridled. He knew he was leaving the paddock, and liked it. Sterl tied on the slicker and canteen, and slipped into his worn leather chaps, conscious of a quickening of his pulse. He took up his rifle and walked around in front of the horse. “Are you gun shy, King?” The black apparently knew a rifle, and showing no fear, stood without a quiver while Sterl shoved it into the saddle sheath.

“Say, air you a mud hen, thet you go duckin’ jest ‘cause I’ve got a gun?” Red was complaining to his horse.

In another moment they were in the unfamiliar English saddles. Joining Larry, they rode out into the open valley. Ahead of them, about a mile out of the widening valley, a herd of grazing horses, and beyond them Slyter’s cattle, added the last link to the certainty of the trek.

Waiting this side of the horses were three riders, superbly mounted. Their garb, and the trappings of the horses, appeared markedly different from those of the Americans. Sterl had made up his mind about these riders of Slyter’s; still he gave each a keen scrutiny. Drake was middle-aged, honest and forcible of aspect, strong of build. The other two, Benson and Heald, were sturdy young men not out of their teens, and sat their saddles as if used to them.

“Drake, we have Slyter’s orders to report to you,” added Sterl, after the introductions.

“I’ve sent Monkton on ahead to let down the bars,” replied Drake. “We fenced the valley ahead there where it narrows. I’ll join him. You men bring up the rear.”

“No particular formation?”

“Just let the mob graze along at a walk. We’ll keep right on till Slyter halts us, probably at Blue Gum.”

Drake said no more, and rode away to the left, accompanied by Heald, while Benson trotted off to the right.

“Huh! Short an’ sweet. All in the day’s work,” complained Red.

“Red, you ought to be in front,” said Sterl, “but, no doubt, that’ll come in time.”

In another moment Sterl was alone. He lighted a cigarette. King pranced a little and wanted to go. Sterl patted the arched neck, and fell at once into his old habit of talking to his horse. “King, we don’t know each other yet. But if you’re as good as you look, we’ll be pards. Take it easy. I see you’re too well trained to graze with a bridle on. You can unlearn that, King.”

He was to ride across a whole unknown continent, from which journey, even it he survived it, he would never return. Sterl faced the east. And he could not keep back a farewell whisper: “Good-by, Nan...Good-by!” which seemed final and irrevocable.

When he turned again, prompted by the keen King, the long line of cattle was on the move. The great trek had begun. The valley was filled with a rich, thick, amber light. Fleecy white clouds sailed above the green line of bush. The gold of wattles and the scarlet of eucalyptus stood out vividly even in the brilliance of the sun-drenched foliage. A faint and failing column of smoke rose above the forsaken farmhouse, that seemed to have gone to sleep among the wattles. A glancing gleam of tranquil, reed-bordered pond caught Sterl’s sight. All this pastoral beauty, this land of flowers and grass and blossoming trees, this land of milk and honey, was being abandoned for the chimera of the pioneer!

CHAPTER 6

FIRST CAMP! A huge dead gum tree, bleached and gnarled, marking a sunset-flushed stream; outcropping rock and jungle beyond; to the right lanes of open country opening into the bush. Cattle and horses made for the creek and spread along its low bank for a mile. When they had drunk their fill some of the cattle fell to grazing, while many or them lay down to rest. The horses, which had fed all day behind the cattle, trooped back to their grazing. In Sterl’s judgment both would require little night guarding on such pasture as that.

He watered King, then rode down the creek into camp. Pungent wood smoke brought back other camp scenes. But no other camp site he could remember had possessed such an imposing landmark as the great dead blue gum tree. On its spreading branches Sterl identified herons, parrots, a hawk perched on a topmost tip, kookaburras low down. The wagons were spaced conveniently, though not close together. Locating his own, Sterl dismounted to strip King and let him go. He was unrolling his tent when Leslie approached.

“Well, so here you are? I wondered if you’d ever catch up,” said Sterl.

“I hadn’t the heart to leave Mum today. I...I...I would have been all right, but for her.”

“Why you’re all right anyhow, Leslie. Don’t look back — don’t think back!...Our first camp’s dandy...Where’re Friday and your Dad?”

“Friday walked all the way. I rode a little. Mum came out of it all at once. Dad is all fit. He and Drake just had a drop from a bottle...And here come Red and Larry.”

Sterl with Leslie crossed over to the center of camp, where Friday was carrying water. Slyter, after rummaging under seat of his wagon, brought a book to Leslie.

“Les, one of your jobs is keeping our journal. Record date, distance trekked, weather, incident, everything.”

“Whew! what a job!” exclaimed Leslie. “But I’ll love it...How far today?”

“A long trek. Sixteen miles?” asked Slyter, dubiously.

“And then some,” interposed Sterl. “Ask Red. He’s a wonderful judge of distance...Now, boss, how about night guard?”

“Three changes. Two men on for three hours each. Eight to eleven, eleven to two, two till five. Which watch would you and Krehl like?”

“The late one, boss. We’re used to the wee small hours.”

“You’ll have our black man, Friday. Hazelton, you’ll find him a tower of help.”

The thud of horses hoofs awoke Sterl before Larry called into the tent: “Two o’clock, boys. Roll out.”

Ready to go, the cowboys repaired to the fire for the tea Larry had poured for them. It was scalding hot and strong as acid. The band of horses was huddled between camps and the mob of cattle. They were quiet, only a few grazing. The cattle had bedded down.

“What’ll we do, Sterl? Circle or stand guard?”

“Circle, Red, till we get the lay of the herd.”

Red rode on into the bright starlight, and the cold wind brought back the smoke of his cigarette. Sterl turned to walk his horse in the other direction. Old sensorial habits reasserted themselves — the keen ear, the keen eye, the keen nose and the feel of air, wind, cold. The cattle and the horses were quiet. Strange, discordant barks of dingoes lent unreality to the wild. Wide-winged birds or flying foxes passed over his head with silky swish.

In half an hour Sterl heard Red’s horse before he sighted it, a moving, ghostly white in the brilliant gloom.

“Fine setup, pard,” said Red. “A lazy cowboy job!”

“All well on my side. Go halfway round and stand watch.”

“Air kinda penetratin’, pard. I reckon I’ll mosey to an’ fro,” returned Red, and rode on.

When Sterl reached the end of a half circle, came the voice of Friday, “Cheeky black fella close up,” he said, and vanished.

Sterl swept his gaze in wary half circles. Further outback, this night watch might be a perilous duty. But nothing happened. Friday did not return, although Sterl had a feeling that the black was close. Slowly, mysteriously, the dreaming darkest hour passed.

At the first faint lighting in the east the cattle began to stir. Sterl circled around to meet Red. “Mawnin’,” said that worthy. “J’ever see such a tame bunch of cattle? How’d you make out?”

“Just killed time. This sort of work will spoil us. It’s after five. Let’s ride in.”

Breakfast was awaiting them. Two of the wagons were already hitched up. Leslie stood by the fire, drinking tea. Larry came riding up, leading three saddled horses, one of which was Duchess, Leslie’s favorite.

Red saw the girl swing up into her saddle with one hand, and said, “Pard, I gotta hand it to thet kid. If Beryl is like her, wal, it’s all day with me.”

When they rode out on fresh horses the sun had just burst over the eastern bush, and the downs were as if aflame. Drake had the mob ready. Leslie and Larry were driving the straggling horses. Red loped across the wide flank to take up his position on the far right. Friday came along with giant strides, carrying his spears and wommera in his left hand and a boomerang in the other. Leslie rode loping back to turn on the line even with Sterl. Then the four rear riders, pressing forward, drove the horses upon the heels of the cattle, and the day’s drive was on. The bustle and hurry before the start seemed to come to an abrupt end in the slow, natural walk of grazing cattle and horses.

Three times before afternoon, Leslie rode over to Sterl on some pretext or other, the last of which was an offer to share a bit of lunch she had brought.

“No thanks, Leslie. A cowboy learns to go without. And on this trek in particular, I’m going to emulate your black men.”

“I suppose you cowboys live without fun, food or — love?” she queried, flippantly.

“We do indeed.”

“Like hob you do,” she flashed. “Oh, well maybe you do. This is the third time you’ve snubbed me so far today. You’re an old crosspatch.”

Sterl laughed, though he felt a little nettled. The girl interrupted the even, almost unconscious ebb and flow of his sensorial perceptions.

“I’ve been called worse than that, by sentimental young ladies,” replied Sterl, satirically. “Would you expect me to babble poetry to you or listen to your silly chatter?”

“Oh-h!” cried Leslie, outraged, reddening from neck to brow. And she wheeled her horse to lope far along the line toward Red. “That should hold her awhile,” murmured Sterl, regretfully. “Too bad I’ve got to be mean to her! But...”

Slyter halted for camp at the foot of a ridge running out like a spur from the rougher bushland. Manifestly a stream came from around that ridge. It was no later than midafternoon with the sun still warm. A short trek, Sterl thought. Cattle and horses made for the stream, which turned out to be a river that could not be forded with wagons at this point.

Sterl was pitching his tent when Red and Leslie rode in. The girl rode by him as if he had not been there.

Red slid out of his saddle in his old inimitable way, and with slap on flank, sent his horse scampering.

“About ten miles, I’d say,” he drawled. “Slick camp an’ a hefty river...Say, pard, what’n’ll did you do to the kid? Leslie was all broke up.”

“She bothers me, Red.”

“Ahuh. I savvy. I’m feared she likes you an’ hasn’t no idee at all about it.”

Sterl remained silent, revolving in his mind a realization prompted by Red’s talk — that he had felt a distinct throb of pleasure. This would never do!

The cowboys finished their chores, then strolled over to Slyter. Leslie sat near, writing in her journal.

On impulse, Sterl turned to the girl. “Leslie, where is Friday?” As she did not appear to hear, he asked her again. Then she looked up. “Please do not annoy me, Mr. Hazelton. I’m composing poetry,” she said coldly.

CHAPTER 7

THE LATE AFTERNOON hour arrived at length when Slyter caught up with the Dann brothers and their partners. From here the drovers would push on together to the end.

Slyter led his mob to the left and hauled up on the wide curve of a stream. In the center, half a mile from Slyter, the Dann encampment, with its ten wagons, and drays, its canvas tents bright against the green, its blue smokes and active figures, made an imposing sight, to Sterl’s eyes like a plains caravan. Farther to the right showed the camp of Hathaway and Woolcott. Hundreds of horses grazed in between. Across the river flamed the enormous mob of cattle which the drovers had evidently thrown together — twice as much stock as Sterl had ever seen at one time.

With Slyter’s mob and remuda placed to rest and graze, the drivers made toward camp by divers routes. Sterl arrived first. The black horse, King, had completed his conquest over the cowboy. They had taken to each other. King recognized a gentle, firm and expert master; Sterl reluctantly crowned the black for spirit, tirelessness and speed, and for remarkable power in the water. After a first ford over slippery rocks Sterl had iron shoes put on him, and that made him invincible.

While Sterl was unrolling the tent, Red and Leslie rode in. Exposure and sun had given the girl a golden tan, which magnified her charm. After that tiff the second day out, she had persistently ignored Sterl.

“Pile off, Red, and go through the motions,” called Sterl, and soon his comrade was helping, markedly reticent for him.

“Well, what’s on your chest?” queried Sterl.

“Wal, this nice long easy drive is over. It’ll be hell from now on. Sterl, what you think? — Leslie has commissioned me to beg you to forgive her for being catty.”

“Yeah? — Red, you can tell Leslie to ask me herself. I was deliberately rude to her. And I’m sorry. She’s worried, now that we’ve caught up with the big outfit.”

“Shore is. An’ so’m I. But once I get mad, I’ll be good-o, as Leslie says.”

“Rightho, as Leslie says.”

Before sundown of that important day, supper had been disposed of, and Slyter had stridden off to visit Dann, accompanied by Drake, and calling upon Sterl and Red to follow.

“Boss, take Red, and let me stay in camp,” suggested Sterl.

“No. I may need you. Stanley will ask for you. As for Ormiston — the sooner you meet him the better. I ask you to meet him.”

“Thanks, Slyter. I’ll come.”

“Dad, please let me come with the boys? I want to see Beryl,” entreated Leslie.

“Of course, my dear. I’d forgotten you.”

“Red, you run along with Leslie,” put in Sterl. “I want to shave. Be with you in a jiffy.”

Beside the grandest monarch of all these eucalyptus trees, he came upon the wagon and camp of Dann’s sister and his daughter Beryl. Leslie was talking excitedly with the girl, while Red stood, sombrero in hand, listening. Sterl was introduced and greeted cordially. Beryl wore boy’s garb, more attractive and not so worn as Leslie’s.

“Doesn’t it seem long since we all met, way back there in Downsville?” she asked. “I nearly died of homesickness for days. But now it’s not too bad. I intend to be a drover, like Leslie.”

“Wal,” interposed Red, “we shore need another trail driver.”

“How queerly you cowboys carry your pistols!” exclaimed Beryl, indicating the low-hanging sheaths, well down the right thighs. “Dad’s drovers stick them in their hip pockets, or under a belt.”

“Wal, Miss Dann,” drawled Red, “you see us cowboys gotta throw a gun quick sometimes, an’ it needs to be handy.”

“Where do you throw it?” she asked, curiously.

“Aw, at jack rabbits, or any ole varmint thet happens along.”

“Miss Beryl, Red is teasing you,” chimed in Sterl. “To throw a gun means to jerk it out, quickly — like this.”

“How strange!...Oh, so you can shoot quickly at your antagonists?”

“Exactly. And the cowboy who throws his quickest has the best chance to survive. Please excuse us, Miss Beryl. Our boss wants us in on the conference over there.”

A little group of men stood in a half circle back of Stanley Dann, who sat before a box doing duty as a table. Here the cowboys met the leader’s partners. Eric Dann, the younger of the two brothers, was short and strongly built, but rather stern, dark features. Hathaway was tall and florid, apparently under fifty years. Woolcott appeared fully sixty, a bearded man, with deep-set eyes and gloomy mien.

“All of you have a look at this map,” spoke up Dann, indicating a paper on the box. “Eric drew it from memory. And of course it isn’t accurate as to distance or points. Still, it will give you a general idea of the country at the headwaters of the rivers that run into the Gulf of Carpentaria...This line marks the road we’re on, and which we can trek fairly well. This dark line, way up in Queensland, is the Diamantina River, an important obstacle. This open space represents the Never-never — some two thousand miles across, perhaps. Beyond to the northwest, are the Kimberleys, our destination — please God! You observe that they run northwest...Hello, Ormiston, you’re just in time to give your opinion...Well, my brother wants to follow this old wagon trek beyond the headwaters of the Diamantina River and the Warburton, on north across the Gulf rivers, and then west to Wyndham and the Kimberleys. There’s no telling how much farther this route will be, probably a thousand miles. Too far! And just as hard; its only good feature is that it has been traveled. Striking west beyond the Diamantina to the Warburton, following that to its headwaters, and then striking straight west again, will be a short cut and save us, Lord only knows how much! I call for a vote from each man present except Drake. And I include these American cowboys, with your permission, because they have had extensive experience in droving cattle.”

The vote ended in a deadlock, Slyter, Sterl and Red arraying themselves upon Stanley Dann’s side; the others standing by Eric. The leader showed no feeling whatsoever, but Eric Dann and Ormiston argued vigorously for the longer and once-traveled route.

Sterl listened and bent piercing eyes upon this quartet, and at length his deductions were clear-cut, and he would have sworn by them. Eric Dann feared to take the great trek into the unknown. Ormiston had some personal reason for standing by Eric Dann, and he had influenced Hathaway and Woolcott.

“Very well. It hangs fire for the present,” concluded Stanley Dann. “Perhaps the months to come will bring at least one of you gentlemen to reason.”

If Ormiston tried to conceal his satisfaction he failed to hide it from Sterl.

“Hazelton,” said Stanley Dann, “I’m curious to know what you think, if you’ll commit yourself.”

“Are there black men all over this Never-never Land?” countered Sterl.

“Yes, according to our few explorers.”

“If they can be propitiated, perhaps we could learn from them, as the pathfinders in my country have learned from the Indians.”

“Good idea!” boomed the leader.

“These niggers are a mean, lying, unscrupulous race,” put in Ormiston, contemptuously.

“Perhaps because of the treatment white men have given them,” spoke up Slyter.

Ormiston for the moment let well enough alone. Sterl espied Leslie and Beryl, accompanied by a frank-featured blond young giant, nearing the group. He accosted Red.

“Krehl, good day. Glad to see you again,” he said, agreeably, as he extended a hand.

“Howdy yoreself,” drawled Red, with guile meeting guile. And he shook hands.

“Sorry you are on the wrong side of the fence. But you’re a stranger in Australia. I venture to predict you’re too experienced an outdoor man to be long deceived by mirages.”

“Hell no. I cain’t be deceived forever. But this heah country is so grand, I jest don’t believe in your Never-never.”

“It’s a fact, however, and I hope you don’t learn from bitter experience.”

“Yeah? Wal, you’re orful kind.”

At this juncture, Leslie with her companions came up to Slyter and Dann. Sterl knew absolutely that Ormiston had timed for their benefit whatever he meant to do, and he burned under his cool exterior.

“Hello, Hazelton,” called the drover, in pleasant and resounding tones. “I’ve wanted to meet you again, to tell you I regret the unpleasantness of our meeting at Downsville.”

“I’m sure you regret it, Ormiston,” replied Sterl, ignoring the proffered hand, and his piercing gaze met the drover’s dark, veiled eyes.

“I didn’t regret it because I booted that black,” rejoined Ormiston, slowly withdrawing his hand.

“That was perfectly obvious,” retorted Sterl, not without contempt.

“Why do you think I regret it?” flashed the drover.

“Because you ran into the wrong man and got shown up,” flashed Sterl, just as quickly.

“No. I regretted it because I was drunk.”

“Drunk or sober you’d be about the same, Ormiston.”

Slyter had approached to within a few steps, and Dann, with the girls hanging to him, started and dismayed, halted beside him, while the others stood back.

“Nonsense,” burst out Ormiston. “No man is responsible when he’s drunk.”

“Righto. That’s why you gave yourself away,” retorted Sterl.

Ormiston threw up his hands with a gesture indicating the hopelessness of placating this hard headed American. But under the surface was a mastered fury.

“Cowboy, I approached you to express my regret — to apologize — to prevent discord!”

“If you’re so keen on preventing discord, why did you excite it and foment it between our leader and his other partner?” Sterling’s tone was contemptuous. As he ended he completed his few slow steps to one side. To any westerner it would have been plain that Sterl wanted to get Ormiston out of line with the others. But the drover did not show that he realized that.

“I’m not exciting discord,” returned Ormiston, hotly. “I come from North Queensland. I know something of the Gulf country. Eric Dann is right and Stanley Dann is wrong. It’s the safer route.”

“Ormiston, how do you know it’s safer?” queried Sterl, sharply.

“Eric Dann knows. Hathaway and Woolcott are convinced of it. That’s enough.”

“Not by a damn sight! Not enough for you to split this outfit,” declared Sterl deliberately.

“You insolent, cocksure Yankee...”

“Careful!” interrupted Sterl. “Ormiston, you’re not on the level. You’ve got something up your sleeve. You’ll never get away with it.”

Ormiston wheeled to the other men. “Dann, you heard him. This intolerable riffraff — this Yankee...”

“Ormiston, you started this,” boomed the leader, as the drover choked. “It’s between you and him.”

“Miss Dann — I appeal to you,” went on Ormiston, his voice shaking. “Your father has been — taken in by this — this interloper. Won’t you speak up for me?”

“Dad! It’s an outrage,” cried Beryl, white of face and angry of eye. “Will you permit this crude, lowbred American to insult Ashley so vilely — to threaten him?”

“Girl, go to your tent,” ordered Dann, sternly. “If you must take sides you should take mine. Go — it’s no place for you!”

“But Dad!” cried the spirited girl. “It is. We’re all in it!”

“Yes, and it appears I shouldn’t have brought you. At least try not to make it harder.”

Beryl bent a withering glance upon Sterl. “Mr. Cowboy, do not speak to me again.”

“Suits me fine, Miss Dann,” replied Sterl curtly. “I’m bound to help and defend your father. Certainly not to concern myself with a girl who’s been made a fool of by a coward and a cheat!”

Miss Dann gave Sterl a stinging slap on his cheek. Then she drew back, gasping, as if realizing to what limit her temper had led her. With red burning out the white of her face, she ran toward her wagon. Ormiston wheeled to three waiting men, evidently his drovers, and stormed away with them, violently gesticulating.

Sterl watched them intently for a moment, then turned away toward Slyter’s camp. Stanley Dann called him to wait, but Sterl hurried on. Red did not catch up with him until he had almost reached the tent. Then both discovered that Stanley Dann, Slyter and Leslie had followed them.

“Hazelton, don’t run away from me when I call you,” complained Dann, as he caught up.

“I’m sorry, boss. I lost my temper.”

“Then you fooled me, because I thought you deliberately invited a quarrel with Ormiston.”

“Oh, he couldn’t rouse my temper. It was Miss Beryl. I shouldn’t have spoken as I did to her.”

They found seats on a log; except Leslie, who significantly stood close to Sterl, her youthful face grave, her hazel eyes, darkly dilated, fastened upon him.

“Les, you better run over to Mum,” said Slyter.

“Not much, Dad. If Beryl is going to share the fights, and everything else, I am too.”

“Good-o, Leslie,” declared Dann, heartily.

“You stay here. I’m going to need all the championship possible...Hazelton, you spoke right from the shoulder. Man to man! I can’t understand why Ormiston stood it. What concerns me is this. Have you any justification for the serious insinuations and open accusations you visited upon Ormiston?”

“Boss, they’re all a matter of instinct. I’ve been years on the frontier. I have met hundreds of bad men. I have had to suspect some of them, outguess them, be too quick for them — or get shot myself. Ormiston might have fooled me for awhile, if it had not been for the accident of his kicking Friday. But not for long! He’s playing a deep game — what, I can’t figure out — yet.”

“Hazelton, you impress me,” pondered the leader. “I had only one feeling. You were opposing him in my interest. It seems incredible — what you insinuated about him. Yet you might possess some insight denied to me and my partners. This trek looms appallingly. That does not change me — frighten me in the least. But now I begin to see opposition, intrigue, perhaps treachery, blood and death.”

“Boss, you can be sure of all of them,” rejoined Sterl, earnestly. “And you can be as sure that my opposition to Ormiston is on your behalf.”

Dann nodded his shaggy golden mane like a sleepy lion.

“Krehl, suppose you give me your view, unbiased by your friend’s,” he said, presently.

“Well, boss, when Ormiston rushed me like a bull, I wouldn’t have risked my precious right hand on his mug, like Sterl did. I’d jest have bored him, had a coupla drinks of red likker, an’ forgot all about him. We say Ormiston is no good. You give him the benefit of the doubt, an’ leave it to me an’ Sterl to find him out.”

“Reason, intelligence, courage,” boomed the drover. “These I respect above all other qualities. You have my consent. Go slow. Be sure. That’s all I ask. Slyter, can you add anything to that?”

“No, Stanley. That says all.”

“Yes, and nothing shall deter us...Hazelton, I was surprised and sorry indeed at the way Beryl took Ormiston’s part. She is a headstrong, passionate child. Beryl has been pleading with me to make the trek by way of the Gulf.”

Silent acceptance of that statement attested to its significance. Red dropped his gaze to the ground, and Sterl saw his lean brown hand clutch until the knuckles shone white.

“Not that it influences me in the least,” continued Dann, rising.

Slyter arose also, shaking his head. “As if droving a mob of eight thousand cattle wasn’t enough!”

Leslie walked a few steps with him, then returned.

“Dog-gone you, cain’t you leave me an’ Sterl alone atall?” complained Red, but a child could see that he did not mean that.

Leslie looked from him to Sterl with troubled, grateful eyes.

“Boys,” she said, breathing hard, “if Beryl is in it, so am I. And she is! She’s on Ash Ormiston’s side. He has been making love to her all along. Besides I know her. She had all the boys at home in love with her. She likes it. Cedric, that boy today. He came on this trek solely, because of Beryl. Ormiston — Oh, he is two-faced! Neither her father nor my Dad can see that.”

“Wal, my dear, we can see it,” returned Red, persuasively. “I’m not as all-fired stuck on Beryl as I was, at thet. But let’s give her a chance.”

“Sterl...won’t you see me...later?” implored Leslie. “I know you’ve been angry with me for days. I deserve it. I’m sorry. I told Red to tell you I’d been a cat. Sterl, I couldn’t bear to have you despise me longer.”

“Leslie, how silly! I never despised you!” replied Sterl, with a smile. “I’ll come to see you later.”

A light illumined her troubled face. She wheeled to bound away like a deer.

“Pard, shore you see how it is with Leslie?” queried Red.

“I’m afraid I do,” reluctantly admitted Sterl.

“Red, what’s Ormiston’s game?”

“Easy to say, far as the girls air concerned. Shore, he didn’t mean marriage with her. But he might with Beryl. If Dann gets to the Kimberleys with half his cattle he’ll be rich, an’ richer pronto.”

“It’s a cinch he’ll never end this trek with us.”

“I’ve a hunch he doesn’t mean to.”

Sterl gave Red a searching gaze, comprehending, and indicative of swiftly revolving thoughts. “We’re up against the deepest, hardest game we ever struck. Listen, let’s try a trick that has worked before. Tip off Slyter and Stanley Dann that you and I will pretend to quarrel — fall out — and you’ll drink and hobnob with Ormiston’s drivers, in order to spy on Ormiston.”

“Thet’ll queer me with Beryl. Not thet I care about it now.”

“No, it’ll make a hero out of you, if through this you save her father.”

“Dog-gone!” ejaculated Red, his face lighting. “You always could outfigger me. Settled, pard, an’ the cards air stacked. Tomorrow night you an’ me will have a helluva fight, savvy? Only be careful where an’ how you sock me.”

“Righto. There’s Friday. Red, I’m going to try to make that black understand our game.”

“Go ahaid. Another good idee. I’ll tell Slyter, an’ then talk to Leslie a bit.”

Friday and Sterl stood on the brink of the river. “Friday, you sit down alonga me,” said Sterl. “Me bad here. Trouble,” he went on, touching his forehead. With a map drawn in the sand, in the argot which Friday understood, he set forth the difference of opinion regarding routes to the Kimberleys.

“Me savvy,” replied the black, and tracing the gulf-line on the sand he shook his head vehemently, then tracing a line along the big river and across the big land he nodded just as vehemently.

“Good, Friday,” rejoined Sterl, strongly stirred. “You know country up alonga here?”

The aborigine shook his head. “Might be black fella tellum.”

“Friday get black fella tell?”

“Might be. Some black fella good — some bad.”

“Some white fella bad,” went on Sterl, intensely. “Ormiston bad. Him wanta go this way. No good. Him make some white fella afraid. Savvy, Friday?”

The native nodded. He encouraged Sterl greatly. If he understood, then it did not matter that he could talk only a little.

“Ormiston bad along missy,” continued Sterl. “Alonga big boss missy, too. Friday, watchum all time. Me watchum all time. Savvy, Friday?”

The aborigine nodded his black head instantly, with the mien of an Indian chief damning an enemy to destruction. “Friday savvy. Friday watchum. Friday no afraid!”

Sterl forgot to call for Leslie, but when she stole upon him it was certain that she had not forgotten, and that with the moonlight on her rippling hair, and sweet grave face, she was lovely.

“I waited and waited, but you didn’t come,” she said, taking his arm and leaning on him.

“Leslie, the talk I just had with Friday would make anyone forget. I’m sorry.”

He looked down upon her with stirring of his pulse. In another year Leslie would be a beautiful woman, and irresistible.

“You’ve forgiven me?”

“Really, Leslie, I didn’t have anything to forgive.”

“Oh, but I think you had. I don’t know what was the matter with me that day. Or now, for that matter. Today has been a little too much for your cowgirl. Red told me about cowgirls. Oh, he’s the finest, strangest boy I ever knew. I adore him, Sterl.”

“Well, I’m not so sure I’ll allow you to adore Red,” rejoined Sterl. “And see here, Leslie, now that we’ve made up, and you’re my charge on this trek...”

“How did you guess I longed for that?” she interposed frankly.

“I didn’t. But as you seemed upset this afternoon and put such store on my friendship, why I decided to sort of boss you.”

“I need it. Since we got to this camp, and I saw Ormiston again — I’m just scared out of my wits. Silly of me!”

“Well, outside of Ormiston, I reckon there’s plenty to be scared about. Ormiston, though — you needn’t fear him personally, any more. Keep out of his way. Always ride within sight of us. Never lose sight of me in a jam or any kind. Don’t go to Dann’s camp unless with us or your dad.”

“Dad would take me, and forget me. Sterl, won’t you please let me be with you often like this? I couldn’t have slept tonight if you hadn’t.”

“Yes, you can be with me all you want,” promised Sterl, helpless in the current. “But Red and I must go to bed early. Remember I have to ride herd after two o’clock. That means you’re slated for bed right now.”

“Oh, you darling,” she cried, happily, and kissing him soundly she ran toward her wagon.

CHAPTER 8

SLYTER WANTED TO keep his mob of cattle intact, so that it would not be lost in the larger mob. It was inevitable, Sterl told him, that sooner or later there would be only one mob. All the cattle except Woolcott’s were unbranded.

Stanley Dann had foreseen this contingency, and his idea was to count the stock of each partner, as accurately as possible, and when they arrived at their destination let him take his percentage.

Discussion of this detail was held at the end of the next day’s trek, in a widening part of the valley, where the stream formed a large pool. Ormiston objected to the idea of percentage; and when Stanley Dann put it to a vote, Red Krehl sided with Ormiston.

“Red Krehl, I’m ashamed of you,” Leslie burst out, when Red approached the Slyter campfire that night.

“You air. Wal, thet’s turrible,” drawled Red in a voice which would have angered anyone.

“I saw you, after we halted today. You were with Ormiston’s drovers. Very jolly! And after that conference at Dann’s you were basking in Beryl’s smiles. She has won you over for Ormiston.”

“Les, you’re a sweet kid, but kinda hothaided an’ dotty.”

“I’m nothing of the kind.”

“Me an’ Sterl don’t agree on some things.”

“Oh, you’ve been drinking. Drink changes men. I ran from Ormiston when he’d been drinking.”

“You’d better run from me, pronto, or I’ll spank the daylights out of you.”

“You — you!...” Leslie was too amazed and furious to find words. She looked around to see how her parents took this offense. Mrs. Slyter called for Leslie to leave the campfire. Leslie found her voice, and her dignity. “Mr. Krehl, some things are evident, and one is that you’re no gentleman. You leave my campfire, or I will!”

Red did not show up at Slyter’s camp next morning until time to drive the herd across the stream. The wagons crossed only hub deep at a bar below camp. But the cattle were put to the deep water. The take-off was steep, and many of the steers leaped, to go under. Splashing, cracking horns, bawling, the mob swam across the river, waded out. The horses, following in the deep trough which the cattle had cut into the bank, trooped down to take their plunge.

It was well Sterl had an oilskin cover over his rifle as King went in, up to his neck. The black loved the water. Leslie came last. She bestrode Duke, who hated a wetting but showed that he could not be left behind. He pranced, he reared.

“Come on, Les,” called Sterl cheerily. “Give him the steel.”

“Okay,” trilled the girl, spirited and sure, and Sterl smiled at the thought that she was absorbing American dialect. She spurred the big sorrel, and he plunged to go clear under. She kept her seat. The sorrel came up with a snort and swam powerfully across.

At last the sun rose high enough to be warm, and to dry wet garments. At noon it was hot. By the almost imperceptible increase in temperature and the changing nature of the verdure, Sterl became aware of the tropics. He saw strange trees and flowering shrubs along with those he already knew. No mile passed that he did not observe a beautifully plumaged bird that was new.

Leslie rode over to offer Sterl a wet biscuit. She had recovered from her shyness, or else in the broad sunlight and mounted on a horse that would jump at a touch, she had something of audacity. Presently he chased her back toward her station. Her eyes were flashing back and her hat swinging.

He would play square with this kid, he thought, but he had grown more aware of her captivating charm and freshness as the nights and days passed. He had no illusion about any cowboy, even himself. Yet he was disgusted with himself for being wooed so easily from a lamentable love affair. He should hate all women.

Sunset had come and passed when the main mob ceased to move, indicating that the drovers on the right had halted for camp. Slyter loped in behind his comrades. By the wagon Red sat his horse, waiting.

“Pard,” he said, low-voiced, as Sterl halted close, “I’ll eat with thet other outfit tonight. Meet you at the big campfire after supper. Spring the dodge then.”

“Depends on how mean you get,” replied Sterl, with a mirthless laugh. “Red, honest Injun, I don’t like the dodge.”

“Hell no! But, pard, it’s for them, an’ us too,” returned Red, sharply. “It’s our deal an’ I’ve stacked the cairds. Play the game, you!” And Red rode away at a swinging canter. Darkness descended and the cook pounded a kettle to call all to supper.

Stanley Dann’s community campfire blazed brightly in the center of a circle of bronzed faces. Dann had barbecued a beef. It hung revolving over a pit full of red-hot coals. Sterl appeared purposely late, his soft step inaudible as he came up behind Ormiston to hear him say, “But Leslie, my sweet girl, surely you cannot hold that against me?”

Sterl smothered an impulse to kick the man with all his might. Probably Red’s arrival, more than his restraint, checked the precipitation of an issue that was bound to come. There were two drovers with Red, trying to hold him back, as he wrestled good-naturedly with them, and broke out in loud, lazy voice: “Dog-gone-it, fellers. Lemme be. Wasser masser with you? I’m a ladies’ man — I am — an’ I’ve been some punkins in my day.”

His companions let him go, and kept back out of the circle of light. Sterl nerved himself for the prearranged split. Red shouldered Ormiston aside, to bend over Leslie.

“Les, I been huntin’ you all over this heah dog-gone camp,” said Red, with a gallant bow.

“I’ve been here, Red,” replied Leslie, quickly, evidently glad to welcome him, drunk or sober. “Come, sit down.”

“You shore air my sweet lir girl frien’,” returned Red.

What his next move might have been did not transpire, for Ormiston confronted him belligerently. Sterl’s alert eye had caught the drover scrutinizing Red, doubtless for the gun usually in plain sight. Tonight it was absent. Ormiston shoved Red violently. “You drunken Yankee pup! This is an Australian girl, not one of your trail drabs to mouth over!”

Sterl did not risk Red’s reaction to that. He leaped between them, facing Ormiston. “Careful, you fool!” he called, piercingly. “Haven’t you any sense? Krehl has killed men for less.”

“He’s drunk,” rejoined the drover. “His familiarity with Leslie is insufferable.”

“Yeah, it is, and I’ll handle him,” retorted Sterl.

“Here, men,” boomed Dann, striding over. “Can’t we have one little hour free from work and fighting?”

“Boss, there’ll not be any fight,” returned Sterl. “And Ormiston is not to blame this time, for more than one of his two-faced cracks — It’s Red.”

“Boss, I wasn’t huntin’ trouble,” interposed Red, sulkily. “Shore I’ve had a couple drinks. But whassar masser with thet? I ain’t drunk. I jest say a playful word to Leslie, an’ I gets insulted by Ormiston heah, an’ then my pard. Dog-gone, thet’s too much.”

“Red, I’m disgusted with you,” declared Sterl, angrily. “This is the second time. I warned you.”

“What’n’ll do I care? You make me sick with yore preachin’. I ain’t agonna stand it no more.”

“Cowboy, you’d gone to hell long ago but for me.”

“Shore. But I’m on my way again. We’ll all be on our way, if we stick to the big boss’s idee, an’ trek off into thet Never-never.”

Sterl simulated a man working himself into a rage. Laying a powerful left hand on Red’s collar he jerked him so hard that the cowboy’s head shot forward and back. “Why you double-crossing lowdown greaser!” raged Sterl. “You fail us for a few drinks!”

“Wal, it shore looks like I got the decidin’ vote,” rang out the cowboy, with convincing elation.

Sterl let out a fierce cry of wrath. And he knocked Red flat. Despite his promise not to hit too hard, he feared he had done so.

Beryl Dann leaped up to run and drop upon her knees beside Red. “Oh, he’s terrible hurt!” She glanced up at Sterl, face and eyes flaming in the light. “You! — You are the discord — the villain on this trek!”

Sterl bowed scornfully and left the campfire for his own tent. Lighting a cigarette Sterl settled down to smoke and think and listen, when rapid footfalls told that someone was coming. He turned round to see Leslie running out of the darkness. At that moment she appeared most distractingly pretty and desirable.

“Can’t you ever walk, like a lady should?” queried Sterl gruffly.

“I can — but not in — the dark — with Ormiston at large,” she panted.

“After you again?”

“Yes, he is. Barefaced as — as anything.”

“You have encouraged him.”

“I — have not!”

“Leslie, I don’t believe you,” returned Sterl, quite brutally. Somehow that little incident beside Dann’s campfire had roused unreasonable jealousy.

A dark wave of color changed the paleness of her face.

“Sterl, I lied to Mum — and Dad about Ormiston. I was scared. But I’d not lie to you.”

“Very well then, I apologize!”

“Sterl, Red said something today...that I didn’t know it and you didn’t know it — but I — I was your girl.”

“The rattlebrain! Leslie, don’t let him bamboozle you.”

“What’s bamboozle?”

“Make a little fool of you.”

“Oh! then it isn’t — true?” she whispered, plaintively.

“Of course it’s true, in a way, for this trek,” he replied, trying to keep from putting his arm around her, rather than carefully choosing his words.

“Then I can be happy, in spite of your brutality to Red,” she rejoined most earnestly, hanging to his arm and devouring his face with eyes of wonder and sorrow. “Why didn’t you hit Ormiston instead of your friend?”

“I was angry, Leslie. What happened after I left?”

“Beryl has a tender heart for anyone hurt. And Red was hurt. She bent over him and almost cried. I bent over him, too, and I could see that Red was not only hurt but glorying in it. Then it happened. Ormiston dragged us away. He was perfectly white in the face. Why, the madman thinks he can have us both! Then poor dear Red sat up, his hand to his face, and said: ‘Leslie, tell thet pard of mine thet I’ll get even for the sock he gave me.’ Others were coming, so I ran off.”

“Leslie,” flashed Sterl, “you’re no kid any more, despite what Red says. You’ve got to be a woman — to use your wits to help us to be cunning. Listen, can I trust you?”

She looked up wonderingly. “Yes, Sterl.”

“That fight with Red was all pretense. Red wasn’t drunk. Our plan is for him to make it look like he’s split with me — to hobnob with those drovers, and find out what the hombre has up his sleeve! I’m confiding in you because I won’t have you believing me a brute.”

“Who thought you a brute? Oh, so Red wasn’t drunk? How glad I am! Will Beryl be in the secret?”

“No indeed! Only your Dad, Stanley Dann, and you.”

“So that was it,” mused the girl.

“That was what?”

“Beryl’s sweetness toward Red. The cat! Ormiston has twisted her round his little finger, and now she thinks Red has gone over to Ormiston’s side.”

“Righto, Leslie. Now you hide those perfectly human feelings and practice deceit yourself. Be a ninny. Be the little softy who looks up to the proud Miss Dann. But be cunning, and find out through her all that is possible about Ormiston.”

“So that’s my part? Ohhh! But it’s for Dad, for Mum, for Mr. Dann, for you. Yes, I can do it.”

“Good-o! Run! Here comes Red. From the way he walks, I’d gamble he’s mad!”

Red stalked into the firelight, his eyes like daggers, his hand to his mouth. He removed it to expose a swollen lip.

“Wal, you — liar!” he said. “You promised not to sock me hard, an’ look what you did!”

“I’m sorry, pard,” replied Sterl, stifling a laugh. “Honestly, I didn’t mean to. When I swung, you dumbhead, you ducked into it.”

“Pard, I heah somebody comin’. Let’s go in our tent an’ hit the hay. Then I’ll talk.”

Sterl had to strain his eyes to make out Friday’s prone form under the low-drooping wattle branches. Somehow he had come to liken the black to a watchdog. He felt how infinitely keener the aborigine was than any white man, and most likely far keener than any Indian scout he had ever known.

Thirty-one days later — according to Leslie’s journal on the twenty-ninth of June — after a prodigious trek through a jungle pass, Stanley Dann called a halt for a rest and repairs to equipment and drovers and mob.

Ormiston, with the two partners and drovers whom he dominated, broke out of the pass into the open, after a three-mile trek which took more than half a day. The Danns followed on his heels. Styler’s cattle and riders found the grass and brush trampled, the tree ferns and sassafras knocked down, the creek banks cut into lanes, making it an easy trek except for the grades.

An hour’s rest on the flat of his back, a bath, a shave, a change of clothes, restored Sterl to some semblance of his former self. He had a short talk with Styler, cheerful and energetic again. Mrs. Styler appeared none the worse for the long wagon rides and the many camps with their incessant tasks. But Leslie showed the wear of six weeks and more of hard riding.

“Howdy, ragamuffin,” said Sterl, coming to her calls.

“I am, aren’t I?” she replied, ruefully, surveying herself. “I’ve two other suits, but I’ll mend these rags and make them go as far as possible. How spic and span you look! Very handsome, Sterl!”

“That goes for you, Les,” he rejoined, heartily. “How prettily you tan!”

“Flatterer! I’ve had to ride myself nearly to death to extract that compliment from you. Oh, what a trek! Sterl, you must help me with my journal.”

“Sure will. Let’s see.” It was then that Sterl discovered they had trekked thirty-one days through these mountain ranges for an aggregate of only one hundred and seventy-eight miles. “Not so good.”

“My journal? You don’t help me!”

“I was referring to our trek, not your journal. It’s very neat. Only there’s so little. I saw Beryl’s journal the other night. It has yours skinned to a frazzle.”

“Yeah? She writes in the wagon. And Red helps her at night. That was another thing which made Ormiston jealous.”

“Well, add a long footnote here. I can remember the important things. Of course you would record your loss of Duchess.”

“Oh, Sterl, that broke my heart.”

“She’ll trail us, if she wasn’t crippled or stolen by blacks. Put this down. Slyter lost two horses, and some twenty-odd head of cattle. Bad crossing at the ford you called Wattle Rapids. Flooded a wagon there, but no damage. Visited by only few blacks. Growing unfriendly. Mosquitoes terrible at the Forks. Big tree ferns. Grand mountain-ash trees. Bad going last few days. Short treks. Wagons need repairs and grease. Leslie about stripped to rags and lost say five pounds.”

“Umpumm, cowboy! I don’t record that!”

Supper, as usual on short day treks, came early — this time, as had happened often, without Red in attendance. Members of Slyter’s group were always too hungry to mind the sameness of fare. Beef, alternated with game, was the prime factor. Damper, tea, dried fruits and beans were the other essentials, and on occasion Bill, the cook, managed some surprising pastry. Cowboys, Sterl realized, drank too much coffee, sometimes ten cups a day. Sterl and Red had learned to like tea, but they confined drinking it to two meals a day.

“We haven’t talked with Stanley for ten days,” said Slyter after supper, “Come along with me, Hazelton.”

The Dann camp was bustling. One wagon had been jacked up, while the hubs were being greased; hammers rapped vigorously on another, which had been partly unpacked; tents were in process of erection; a brawny drover was splitting firewood. Red sat on the ground beside a hammock, in which Beryl lay, writing in her journal.

Dann, the blond, golden-bearded giant, greeted Slyter and Sterl in booming welcome.

“Heard my order that we hold up here a week?” he queried.

“Yes. Heald brought it. I’m glad. A good few days will put us right again. Sterl agrees.”

“Just had words with Ormiston. He disagrees. Says one day is rest enough. I told him he had my order. He replied that he’d go on with Woolcott and Hathaway. At that I put my foot down. He left in high dudgeon.”

“Why does he try to block everything?” Sterl queried. “Why? Any fool would know the cattle need rest. Let’s ask Red.” Sterl called over the happily engaged cowboy, informed him of Ormiston’s defection and asked if he could throw any light on it.

“Boss, I cain’t give any reason for Ormiston’s angle, except he’s a mean cuss.”

“Immaterial to me whether he does or not. He’d surely wait for us to catch up.”

Dann and Slyter withdrew, leaving Red, accompanied by Sterl, to return to Beryl. She received Sterl with a rather distant hauteur. If anything, Beryl had gained on the trek, in a golden tan, in a little weight, and certainly in beauty. Sterl took advantage of the moment to tell her so. Her answering pleasure betrayed the vain jewel of her soul. Even if she hated a man she could not help responding to a tribute to her beauty.

Sterl returned to Slyter’s camp, for he had an engagement with Leslie to climb to the saddle of the ridge and view the country. Letting her carry his rifle, he secured a long stout stick, and they set out. Along their route, knee-high grass had not been trampled, and Sterl kept an eye out for snakes. Presently a movement of grass and a sibilant hiss startled them into jumping back. Then with the long stick Sterl located the snake. Jones had informed Sterl that this species was very poisonous and during the mating season would attack a man.

“Isn’t he pretty? Tan, almost gold, with dark bars. Hasn’t got a triangular shaped head as our bad snakes have.”

“Step back, Sterl. Let me shoot his head off,” demanded Leslie, who manifestly was not sentimental over snakes.

“Umpumm. What for? He might be a gentleman like our rattler, who won’t strike unless you step on him.”

“This tiger is no gentleman. You’re very tenderhearted over snakes, aren’t you?” said Leslie, with a subtlety into which Sterl thought he had better not inquire. As they surmounted the ridge, they looked down into the magnificent mountain pass through which they had come. From behind the sun shone golden and red. In places the shining ribbon of stream wound through verdure. On the far flat, flame trees were mounds of burning foliage, and the wedge-shaped sassafras trees glistened as with golden frost. But most striking of all was a waterfall which Sterl had not seen on the way through, a lacy, downward-smoking cascade leaping fall after fall in golden glory from the mountainside.

“Sterl, not there — here!” cried Leslie, tugging to wheel him around. “That is pretty — reminds me of home. But this purple land we are trekking into...”

From the height where they stood the glistening, grassy slope with tufts of flowers like bits of fire descended gradually to the camp, where tents and canvas wagon tops shone white, columns of blue smoke curled and great gum trees towered, their smooth trunks opal-hued, up to the immense spread and sweep of hoary branches, their leaves thin glints of green against the golden sky.

These spreading gums were like pillars of a wide portal opening down into a softly colored vale, from which swells of land, covered with flowering trees, rose and fell away into a plain spotted with flame — trees and wattles, which lured the gaze on over timbered ridges, on and on with dimming gold into the luminous purple that intensified and darkened until it blended with the never ending vastness.

He became aware that Leslie was pressing close to his side, clinging to him, gazing up with darkly shining eyes.

“My Australia!” she murmured. “Isn’t it glorious? Don’t you love it? Aren’t you glad you came?”

“Yes, Leslie — yes,” he said, his emotion naturally shifting to the sense of her beauty and nearness.

“You will never leave Australia?”

“No child — never,” he replied, with sadness in his voice.

“You are my dearest friend?”

“I hope so. I’m trying hard to be — your friend.”

“And my big brother?”

Suddenly there came a convulsion within his breast, a hot rush of blood that swiftly followed his surrender to her sweetness, to her appeal. “Not your big brother, Leslie!” he said, thickly, as he clasped her tight. “You’re a woman — sweet. No man could resist...And you torment me.” He kissed her passionately, again and again until her cool quivering lips grew hot and responsive — again and again! until she lay relaxed and acquiescent on his breast.

“My God! Now I’ve done it,” he exclaimed, remorsefully.

“Sterl!” She drew back to gaze up with wondering eyes and flaming face. Then with a cry she turned and fled down the slope.

“Cowboy, that’s what Australia had done to you,” he said and bent to pick up his rifle.

CHAPTER 9

DAY AFTER DAY the great trek crept across the wilderness that Leslie had called the purple land. Day after day the smoke signals of the aborigines arose and drifted away over the horizon. Friday grew mysterious and reticent, answering queries with a puzzling: “Might be.” Sterl, grown wise from his long experience with the American Indians, knew better than to question the black about his people.

Stanley Dann had no fear of blacks or endless trek or flood or heat or drought. As the difficulties imperceptibly increased so did his cheer and courage and faith. On Sundays he held a short religious service which all were importuned to attend. Sterl noted, as the spell of the wilderness worked upon the minds of the trekkers, that the attendance gradually decreased. Faith had not failed Stanley Dann, but it had lost its hold on the others, who retrograded toward the primitive.

Sterl saw all this, understood it only vaguely. Ormiston had already succumbed to this backward step in evolution. Red would succumb to it unless a genuine love for Beryl Dann proved too strong for this life in the raw. All the drovers were being affected, and Sterl felt that not many of them would turn out gods.

Beryl responded slowly but surely to this urge. And in her, its first effect was a growth of her natural instinct for acquisition of admirers. Every night at Dann’s camp a half dozen or more young drovers vied with Ormiston and Red for her smiles. Red played his game differently from his rivals. He confined his efforts to serving Beryl, so that the girl seemed to rely upon him while being piqued that he was not at her feet. Ormiston’s inordinate jealousy grew.

Leslie, being the youngest in the trek, and a girl of red blood and spirit, traveled more rapidly than the rest of them in her relegation to the physical. For weeks after that sunset hour in the gateway of the pass, she had avoided being alone with Sterl. But her shyness gradually fell away from her, and as the trek went on through austere days and nights of time and distance, she warmed anew to him.

But Sterl had never transgressed again, as at that mad and unrestrained sunset climax, though there were times when he desired it almost overwhelmingly. Nevertheless love had come to him once more. Yet he never let himself dwell upon a future. For many of Stanley Dann’s troop, and very possibly for him, there would be none.

“Plenty smoke,” said Friday one afternoon when camp had been made on a dry stream bed, with only a few waterholes.

Sterl and Slyter, together at the campfire when Friday spoke, scanned the horizon where at the moment all was clear.

“Friday, what you mean?” queried Slyter, anxiously, “We come far.” He held up three fingers. “Moons — three moons. Plenty smokes. No black man. All same alonga tomorrow?”

“Black fella close up. Plenty black fella. Come more. Bimeby no more smokes. Spear cattle — steal!”

“How long, Friday? When?”

“Mebbe soon — mebbe bimeby.”

Slyter looked apprehensively at Sterl, and threw up his hands.

“Let’s go tell Stanley.”

They found their leader, as had happened before, patiently listening to Ormiston. Sterl’s keen eyes noted a graying of Dann’s hair over his temples.

Slyter broke the news. Dann stroked his golden beard.

“At last, eh? We are grateful for this long respite,” he said, his eyes lighting as if with good news.

“I asked Friday what to do? He said, ‘Watchum close up! Killum!’” concluded Slyter.

“Well! For a black to advise that!” exclaimed the leader, ponderingly. “But I do not advise bloodshed.”

“I do,” declared Ormiston, bluntly. “If we don’t, this nigger mob will grow beyond our power to cope with it. They will hang on our trek, spearing cattle at a distance.”

Sterl wondered what was working in this man’s mind to influence him thus. But it seemed wise advice. “Boss, I agree with Ormiston,” he spoke up.

“What’s your opinion, Slyter?” asked Dann.

“If the blacks spear our cattle and menace us, then I say kill.”

Dann nodded his huge head in sad realization. “We will take things as they come. Merge all the cattle into one mob...”

“I told you I’d not agree to that,” interrupted Ormiston.

“Don’t regard it as my order. I ask you to help me to that extent,” returned the leader, with patient persuasion.

“Ormiston, listen,” interposed Sterl. “I’ve had to do with a good many cattle drives, trek you call them. After a stampede or a flood or a terrible storm, things that are bound to happen to us, cattle can never be driven separately again.”

“That I do not believe.”

“Yeah? All right,” snapped Sterl, “what you believe doesn’t count so damn much on this trek!”

Ormiston gazed away across the purple distance, his square jaw set, his eyes smoldering, his mien one of relentless opposition.

“Our differences are not the important issue now,” he said finally. “That is this danger of blacks.” And without looking at his partners he stalked away.

“Slyter, we’ll put double guards on watch tonight. Merge your cattle with my mob,” ordered Dann.

Before dusk fell this order had been carried out. Ormiston’s mob, including Woolcott’s and Hathaway’s grazed across the stream bed a mile distant.

Supper at Slyter’s camp was late that night, and Red Krehl the last rider to come in. He sat cross-legged between Leslie and Sterl. His dry, droll humor was lacking. It gave Sterl concern, but Leslie betrayed no sign that she noticed it. However, after supper, she teased him about Beryl.

“Les, you’re a cold, fishy, soulless girl, no good atall,” finally retaliated Red.

“Fishy? I don’t know about that. Sterl, should I box his ears?”

“Well, fishy is okay if he means angelfish.”

“Red, do you mean I’m an angelfish?”

“I should snicker I don’t. Back in Texas there’s a little catfish. And can he sting?”

“Red, I’d rather have you in a fighting mood. Three times before this you’ve been the way you are tonight — and something has happened.”

“Wal...Ormiston ordered me out of his camp just before I rode in heah.”

“What for?” asked Sterl, sharply.

“I ain’t shore, Beryl has been kinda sweet to me lately, in front of Ormiston. It ain’t foolin’ me none. But it’s got him. Another thing. Her Dad makes no bones about likin’ me. Ormiston hates thet. I reckon he sees I’m someone to worry about.”

“You are, Red. But I’ve a hunch your attention to Beryl has kept you from getting a line on Ormiston.”

“Mebbe it has. All the same, shore as you’re knee-high to a grasshopper, Beryl will give him away yet, or let out somethin’ thet I can savvy.”

“Is Beryl in love with him?” asked Sterl.

“Hell, yes,” replied Red, gloomily.

“Les, what do you think?”

“Hell, yes,” repeated Leslie, imitating Red’s laconic disgust. “Beryl has had a lot of love affairs. But this one is worse.”

“You’re both wrong,” rejoined Sterl. “Beryl is fascinated by a no-good, snaky man. She’s a natural-born flirt. But I think she has depth. Wait till she’s had real hell!”

Friday loomed out of the shadow. He carried his wommera and bundle of long spears. “Plenty black fella close up. Corroboree!”

“Listen!” cried Leslie.

On the instant a wild dog howled. It seemed a mournful and monstrous sound, accentuating the white-starred, melancholy night. Then a low, weird chanting of many savage voices, almost drowned by the native dogs baying the dingoes, rose high on the still air into a piercing wail, to die away.

“Bimeby plenty black fella. Spear cattle — steal ebrytink,” volunteered Friday.

“Will these black men try to kill us?” queried Sterl.

“Might be, bimeby. Watchum close.”

Slyter came to the fire, holding up a hand for silence. The howling, the barking, the chanting, transcended any wild sound Sterl had ever heard. The staccato concatenated barks of coyotes, the lonely mourn of bloodthirsty wolves, the roo-roo-rooooo of mating buffalo, the stamping, yelling war dance of the Indians — were hardly to be compared to this Australian bushland chant. Sterl entertained a queer thought that the incalculable difference might be cannibalism.

“Cowboys, how does that strike you?” asked Slyter, grimly. “Daughter, would you like to be home again? Mum has her hands clapped over her ears.”

The girl gave him a wan, brave smile. “No. We’re on the trek. We’ll fight.”

“Righto!” ejaculated Slyter. “Les, you have a rifle. If you see a black man spear a horse — kill him!”

It struck Sterl significantly that Slyter thought of his horses, not his cattle.

“Get some sleep,” he concluded. “Don’t risk your tent tonight. Black men seldom or ever attack before dawn, but sleep under your wagon.”

The cowboys piled packs and bundles outside of the wheels of their wagon. Then they crept under to stretch out on their blankets without removing coat or boots. Friday lay just outside of the wheels. When they rolled out, dressed to ride, rifles in hand, Larry was saddling horses, Drake and his three drovers drinking tea.

“How was the guard?” asked Sterl.

“Mob quiet. Horses resting. No sign of blacks. But we heard them on and off. Look sharp just before and at daylight.”

“Boys,” said Larry, when they reached the herd, “I’ll drove the far end.”

Sterl passed Dann’s horses, patrolled by one rider, and a mile further down came upon another horseman, who turned out to be Cedric. He had been on guard for an hour and reported all well. Sterl rode back.

At intervals low blasts of the corroboree waved out across the plain. The campfires of the aborigines still glimmered. Dogs and dingoes had ceased their howling. Sterl recalled the first time he had stood guard on the Texas range when Comanches were expected to raid. They had done it, too, matchless and fleet riders, swooping down upon the remuda to stampede it and drive off the horses, leaving one dead Indian on the ground, victim of his rifle. He was sixteen years old then and that was his first blood spilling.

Every half hour of thereabouts he rode back to have a word with Red. The only time he accosted Friday the black held up his hand, “Bimeby!”

Now the chanting of the aborigines ceased, and the corroboree fires glimmered fainter and fainter to die out. The cattle slept. The silence seemed uncanny. The first streaks of gray in the east heralded a rumble of hoofs, like distant thunder. The mob of cattle belonging to Ormiston and his companions was on the run. Sterl galloped over to Red. Friday joined them.

“They’re runnin’, pard, but not stampeded,” said Red, his lean head bent, his ear to the east.

“Slowing down, Red,” returned Sterl, straining his hearing, “Friday, what happen alonga there?”

“Black fella spearum cattle,” was the reply.

“Not so bad, thet. But a stampede of this unholy mob would be orful,” declared Red. “Listen, Sterl, they’re rollin’ again, back the other way.”

“Saw a gun flash!” cried Sterl, and then a dull report reached them.

“Wal, the ball’s opened,” said Red, coolly. “Take yore pardners.”

Flashes and reports came from several points, widely separated.

“Aw, hell! Our cattle are wakin’ up, pard. Heah comes Larry.”

The young drover came tearing up, to haul his mount back onto sliding haunches. “Boys, our mob — is about to — break,” he panted.

“Umpumm, Larry,” replied Red. “They’re jest oneasy.”

Sterl calculated that a thousand or more cattle were in motion, less than a third of Ormiston’s mob. The rumble of hoofs began to diminish in volume as the gunshots became desultory. But the lowing of Dann’s mob, the cracking of horns, caused Sterl great concern, in spite of Red’s assurance. The center of disturbance appeared to be back along the sector from which Larry had just come.

“Sterl, I’ll go with Larry,” said Red, wheeling Jester. “Jest in case. If we don’t get back pronto come arunnin’.”

Presently, when he halted King to listen, Sterl found that — the dull trampling from across the flat was dying out, and that the ominous restlessness of Dann’s mob was doing likewise. A rapid thud of hoofs proved to be Red, riding back.

“Lost my matches. Gimme some,” said the cowboy, as he reined in beside Sterl. Lighting a cigarette relieved Sterl. “They was movin’ out up there, but easy to stop. This mob of Dann’s fooled me. They’ve been so tame, you know, not atall like longhorns, thet I reckoned it’d take a hell of a lot to stampede them. But umpumm! — Say, I’ll bet two pesos we’ll be interested in what came off over there.”

“Yes. All quiet now, though. And it’s daylight.”

At sunrise they rode back to camp. Slyter listened intently to Larry’s report, which plainly relieved him.

They had just finished breakfast when Cedric dashed up to inform Slyter that Dann wanted him and the cowboys at once.

“What has happened?” queried Slyter.

“Trouble with the blacks at Ormiston’s camp,” replied Cedric, then loped away.

Slyter himself was the only one who showed surprise. Dominated by Stanley Dann, he just could not believe in calamity.

“That’s bad, I wonder who...Boys, come on.”

“Friday, run alonga me,” said Sterl to the black.

At the larger camp. Stanley Dann and Eric, with Cedric and another drover, were mounted, waiting for them. Beryl was watching them with big troubled eyes.

“Bingham,” spoke up the giant, calmly, “Ormiston just sent word that Woolcott has been speared by the blacks.”

“Woolcott! Cedric didn’t tell us — I thought — Stanley, this is terrible. When — what?...”

“No other word. I daresay if Ormiston had wanted us he’d have said so. But by all means I should go.”

“We all should go,” rejoined Slyter.

“Wal, I should smile,” drawled Red, in a peculiar tone that only Sterl understood.

The tall Hathaway, bewhiskered now and no longer florid, met Dann’s group as they reined in near the wagons.

“A terrible tragedy, Stanley,” he said, huskily. “Woolcott insisted on doing guard duty, in spite of Ormiston’s advice. The blacks attacked at dawn this morning...Killed Woolcott and his horse!”

“Where is he?” asked Dann.

Hathaway led them beyond the campfire, to a quartet of men beside a wagon. Ormiston, haggard of face, turned to meet the visitors. Two of the group had shovels, and had evidently just dug a grave.

“Dann, it’s a gruesome business I’d hoped to spare you,” said Ormiston, not without harshness. “Woolcott heard the blacks, and he went on guard. I advised him particularly to stay in. But he went — and got killed.”

Woolcott lay limp as a sack, with a spear through his middle. Only the side of his gray visage was exposed, but it was enough to show the convulsions of torture that had attended his death.

“Where’s his horse?” asked Dann.

“Out there,” replied Ormiston, with a motion of his hand toward a low ridge. “We have the saddle and bridle. This won’t delay us, Stanley. We’ll bury Woolcott, mark his grave, and catch up with you.”

“Bury him without any service?”

“You needn’t wait to do that. If you wish I’ll read a Psalm out of his Bible, and bury it with him.”

“I’d like that. We can do no less.”

“Wait, boss,” called Sterl, “I want to see just what this black man spear work looks like.” He slipped out of his saddle, and motioned Friday to come from behind the horses.

“Me too,” drawled Red, coolly, as he swung his long leg and stepped down.

Sterl, stepping slowing out from the horses, made it a point to be looking at Ormiston when the drover espied Friday. Evil and forceful as Ormiston undoubtedly was, he was not great. Sterl had seen a hundred outlaws and rustlers who could have hidden what this man failed to hide — a fleeting glimpse of fear.

Friday stepped close to Woolcott’s prostrate body, and with sinewy black hand, wonderful in its familiarity with that aboriginal weapon, laid hold of the spear.

Ormiston burst out: “All blacks look the same to me!” And with murder in his protruding eyes he pulled a gun. Sterl, ready and quick as light, shot it out of Ormiston’s hand.

The horses, snorting, plunging, kept the riders busy for a moment. Friday backed away. Sterl stepped back a little, smoking gun extended, lining up the shocked Ormiston with his drovers, Bedford and Jack. Red was at Sterl’s side. Stanley Dann bellowed an order from behind.

“Ormiston, you and I will have real trouble over Friday yet,” rang out Sterl. The bullet had evidently hit the gun, to send it spinning away. Ormiston held his stung hand with his left.

“Next time you throw your gun, do it at me,” added Sterl, scornfully. “You’d have killed this black man.”

“Yes — I would — and I’ll do it — yet,” shouted Ormiston, now purple in the face.

“Ormiston, you’re blacker at heart than Friday is outside.”

Stanley urged his big charger near to the belligerents.

“What revolt is this?” he demanded.

Sterl explained in few words. Ormiston contended that sight of the black had incited him to frenzy.

“Let that do,” boomed the leader. “Isn’t Woolcott’s death lesson enough? We must squash this dissension amongs us. Ormiston, I blame you most. Back to camp, all!”

Dann, with Slyter and his brother Cedric, rode away. “Mosey along, pard,” said Red, curtly, “but don’t turn yore back.”

Sterl had not taken two backward steps before he bumped into King. The cowboys mounted and soon overtook the long-striding Friday. Slowing down to accommodate the black, they rode a beeline for their own camp.

“Sorry, boss,” said Sterl to Slyter. “I’m always deepening those furrows in your brow. But you must have seen that Ormiston would have shot Friday. Anyway you heard him say so.”

“I heard,” declared Slyter. “I tried to convince Stanley that Ormiston has always meant to murder my black.”

Leslie bounced out from somewhere. “Dad! You heard what?” she cried, flashing-eyed and keen, not to be denied.

“Oh, Lord!” groaned her father.

“Leslie, put this down in your little book,” said Sterl, and he made a concise report of the incident.

She flamed even more readily than usual. “He would have shot Friday!” Then she swore, the first time Sterl had ever heard her use a word of the profanity so prevalent in camp. When her father looked shocked and helpless, Leslie went on, “The louse! The dirty low-down hombre!”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” rang out Red’s laugh. “Les, you’re shore learning to talk cowboy!”

“Boss,” spoke up Sterl, while he fastened the clinches on his rangy sorrel. “Red and I will start out on the trek. But after Ormiston is on the move, we’ll go back there with Friday to look over the ground. Red and I can read tracks. And if it’s too much for us, maybe Friday can see something. We’ll catch up pronto.”

A few pieces of lumber lay scattered about Woolcott’s grave: Sterl and Friday carry stones to cover it. Then they erected a makeshift cross. That done, they set out on foot, leading their horses. Half a mile out on the grassy flat, at the edge of rising, sandy ground, Friday located a dead horse.

It was a bay, lying on its side, with a spear sticking up high. “Look heah,” said Red, presently, pointing to a slash of dried blood running from the ear on the under side of the head.

The black had pulled out a long spear and was scrutinizing it.

“Boss,” he said to Sterl, “killum horse like white man.” And Friday made one of his impressive gestures back toward Woolcott’s grave.

“How, Friday?” queried Sterl.

The black fitted the bloody spear to his wommera, and made ready as if to throw.

“No wommera. No black fella spearum white man! No black fella killum horse!”

“By Gawd!” ejaculated Red, not in horror, but in confirmation of something that had been sensed.

“How then?” cried Sterl.

“Spear pushum in white man. Pushum in horse. No black fella do!” And Friday took the long spear, to shove it deliberately into the horse.

“Heah, help me turn this hoss over,” said Red. The three of them managed it, not without dint of effort. Red thrust his bare hand into the bloody ear. Suddenly he grew tense.

“Shot!” hissed the cowboy. Then again he bend over to move his hand. “Got my finger in a bullet hole. Somebody shoved a gun in this hoss’s ear an’ shot him! Look heah!” As he pulled out his hand there were black stains merged with blood on his forefinger. “Powder! Burnt powder!”

Red wiped his hand on the sand and grass, then completed the job with his handkerchief. He stood up, and searching his pocket for tobacco and matches sat down to roll a cigarette.

Sterl addressed the watchful black. “Friday, look — see tracks — black fella tracks all around?” Sterl himself could not see a single one except Friday’s. Naturally there were boot tracks all around, in every sandy spot. Then he sat down heavily.

“Murder!”

“Pard, as shore as Gawd made little apples!” replied Red. “Hell, we shouldn’t be surprised. We knowed it all the time — only we was afraid to think!”

Red let out as if in relief a long string of vile names — the worse that the western range afforded.

“Why — why?” queried Sterl, passionately.

“What the hell why?” flashed Red, getting up. “It is! We don’t care why!”

“Could we prove murder to those drovers, if we fetched them back here?”

“Mebbe, if they’d come. But Dann wouldn’t come. Pard, I’m afraid he’s leanin’ to a belief we Yankees air too hardhearted an’ suspicious.”

“Red, you’re figuring we’d better look out for our own scalps, and let these drovers find things out?”

“I reckon I am, pard, thought I ain’t had time to figger much.”

“Maybe you’re right, Red. There’s Leslie to think of — and Beryl. And Ormiston’s a tiger!”

“Leslie is yore lookout, pard, an’ Beryl is mine.”

Friday interrupted to say: “Boss, no black fella tracks alonga here.”

They followed Friday further into the bush, past dead campfires, merely a few charred sticks crossed, and then to a trampled, blackened, sandy patch where a large fire had been burned. A steer’s skull marked the spot where there had been an aboriginal feast. What amazed Sterl was the completeness of it. No hide nor hoofs left! — Only a few bones divested of their marrow! From that spot foot tracks of a horde of natives led on in the direction of the trek.

CHAPTER 10

THAT DAY’S TREK, owing to the larger mob of cattle becoming infused with the excitement which dominated Ormiston’s, proved to be the longest so far. At camp, Sterl had little inclination and not much opportunity to add to Slyter’s worries by telling him that Woolcott had been murdered. But Slyter confided in Sterl and Red that he had learned from the Danns of Ormiston’s claiming Woolcott’s fifteen hundred head of cattle for a gambling debt. Sterl was staggered, and the fluent Red for the moment rendered speechless.

“Hathaway verified it,” went on Slyter. “Told me Ormiston, Woolcott, and those drovers Bedford and Jack, gambled every night.”

When Slyter went about his tasks Red came out of his dumb shell. “Pard, thet ain’t so. It’s another of Ormiston’s lies. Hathaway might believe it. He always went to bed with the chickens. For months, almost, either I have seen Ormiston with Beryl, or I have been with Jack an’ Bedford. Cairds was never mentioned to me an’ you know I had a roll thet would have choked a cow.”

That night Leslie, in picking up a bundle of firewood, neglected to put on her gloves, and was severely bitten by a red-back spider. She made light of it, especially after Friday returned to paste some herb concoction of his own upon the swelling hand. Sterl had found a better remedy for snakebite than whisky. He plied the girl with coffee, and walked her up and down for hours, keeping her awake until she fell asleep in his arms from exhaustion. Then he carried her to the wagon and laid her on her bed.

Then when they called Red to ride herd, it was to discover that he was ill with chills and fever, the like of which had never before befallen that cowboy. But he refused to stay in bed. By breakfast time, he was so ill he could not sit his horse. Stanley Dann declared that his ailment was intestinal and came from something he had eaten. Red swore and asked for whisky. He traveled that day on the dray, high on top of the great load of flour sacks, where he went to sleep.

Leslie should not have ridden at all, but neither her father nor Sterl could dissuade her. “Shucks,” she said, “I’m all right. I won’t give in to thet pesky old red-back!” She was absorbing the cowboy vocabulary.

Sterl rode close to her that day, during which she fell twice out of her saddle. But she did not lose her sense of humor.

“Red said I’m gonna be a genuine cowgirl, didn’t he?” she said when she slid out of her saddle the second time. “Dog-gone it, Sterl, if I fall off again treat me to some of that — that medicine you gave me back at Purple Land camp.”

Two days of laborious travel followed. Before sunset of the first, the expedition stalled on the banks of a considerable stream with steep banks. Even when the mob, driven across in advance, had trampled out crude roads, it required eight horses to drag each wagon across. Leslie was still too weak to brave the treacherous current and Sterl, mounted on King, carried her across in his arms. Mid-current, she looked up and said softly:

“I’d like to ride all the rest of way like this.”

“Yeah? Three thousand miles?” responded Sterl. And he registered this little occurrence as one of the dangerous incidents — if not misfortunes — that were multiplying.

A dry camp that afternoon awakened Sterl anew to the alarming probability that lack of water headed Stanley Dann’s list of obstacles to the trek. Friday anticipated a native corroboree that night, and it was forthcoming, with its accompaniment of dingo choruses and dog howls. Dann’s order was to let the aborigines alone, unless they stole into camp to attack. Morning disclosed no evidence that the blacks had killed cattle, but Slyter shrewdly declared that their leader could have found out had he put Friday and the cowboys to hunting tracks.

All day the smoke signals rose far ahead, the sun burned hotter, the tiny flies swarmed invisibly around the riders’ and drovers’ heads. At dusk flying foxes, like vampire bats, swished and whirred over the camps; opposums and porcupines had to be thrust out of the way. Every piece of firewood hid a horde of ants, and as they crawled frantically away, Bill the cook scooped them back into the fire with a shovel.

Then there was a large insect which came out of decayed wood — blue-black, over an inch long — which was not a biter like the fierce ants, but decidedly more annoying in the vile odor it gave off when discovered. Snakes, too became more common in this bush. Sterl espied a death adder under his lifted foot and stepped on it before he could jump. After that he and Red did not take off their chaps at the end of the day’s trek; and Sterl cut down an extra pair of his for Leslie to wear. The girl’s extraordinary delight in them was equaled by the picturesque exaggeration of her charm.

For weeks after Woolcott’s death Ormiston had kept mostly to his camp. He had even somewhat neglected Beryl, a circumstance Red had made the most of. Stanley Dann remarked that Ormiston had taken the Woolcott tragedy very grievously. Dann had been gratified by the drover’s throwing his cattle in with the main mob. The strained relation was certainly no worse, if it had not grown better. But Sterl was not deceived by Ormiston. Red had abandoned his plan of intimacy with Ormiston’s drovers. He bided his time. He still clung to his belief that Beryl Dann would — be instrumental in exposing Ormiston in his true colors.

One night, Red returned to camp rather earlier than usual; and his look prepared Sterl for a disclosure.

“Pard, I jest happened to heah somethin’,” he whispered, impressively, leaning his falcon-shaped red head to Sterl. “I was after a bucket of water for Beryl, kinda under cover of the bank where the brook was clean. Ormiston with Jack an’ Bedford came along above. I heahed low voices, kinda sharp, before they got to me. Then right above Ormiston spit out: ‘No, I told you. Not till we get to the haidwaters of the Diamantina.’”

Sterl echoed his last four words. “Red, what do you figure from that?”

“Wal, it’s plain as print so far. Whatever Ormiston has in mind it’s to come off thar. I figure that those two hombres want to pull off the deal sooner.”

“You used to have brains. Cain’t you help me figgerin’ what the hell?”

“I’ll try. Suppose I analyze this. Then you give me your old cowboy American slant.”

“Hop to it, pard.”

“Ormiston wants to be a partner of Stanley Dann’s after the trek. Or to get control of a big mob of cattle, and marry Beryl. He is working his deal so that when he threatens to split out from this drive, Dann will give almost anything to keep him. Ormiston’s drovers want a showdown for their labors or a speed-up of the break.”

“You ain’t calculatin’, anythin’ atall on our idee thet Woolcott was murdered?”

“That is a stickler, I admit, but I am trying to find a more credible motive for those other Australians.”

“Pard, listen to a little plain sense from a Texas hombre who’s knowed a thousand bad eggs...Ormiston is a drover, mebbe, a cattleman, mebbe. He’s after cattle, all he can steal!...It’s a cinch he killed Woolcott, or had one of his outfit do it. Woolcott probably bucked. Wanted to go back to Dann. An’ he got Woolcott’s cattle, didn’t he? The gamblin’ debt can be discounted. Ormiston is workin’ to persuade some of Dann’s riders to side with him. I know thet. They jest damn near approached me! Wal, muss thet all up an’ figger. Ormiston has control of three thousand haid. He’ll get hold of more, by hook or crook. An’ he’ll split with Dann at the haidwaters of thet river, take Beryl with him by persuasion or force, an’ light out for some place he is figgerin’ on...Thet, my son, is what Old Dudley Texas says!”

“All same just another bloody rustler!”

“All same jest another bloody cow thief, like hundreds we’ve knowed an’ some we’ve hanged.”

“Stanley Dann will never believe that until too late.”

“Reckon not. But we might talk Slyter into findin’ out he was alive...Queer dee, ain’t it?”

“Queer — sure!” returned Sterl.

“Red, we can’t let it go on — come to a head.”

“We jest can,” retorted Red. “For the present.

“Somethin’ will happen one of these days, jest like thet crack of Ormiston’s I heahed today, an’ always there’s the chance Beryl will put us wise to Ormiston. I’m layin’ low, Sterl. We’ve been in some tough places. This is shore the toughest. Let’s not let it get the best of us.”

“Red Krehl, did I have to come way out here to Australia to appreciate you?” demanded Sterl. “You sense things beyond my powers...But, old timer, I swear I’ll rise to this thing as you have risen. And I’ll take a long hitch in my patience.”

CHAPTER 11

THE TREK PLODDED on, day after day. And more and more Sterl felt himself back to the level of the unconscious savage as represented so strikingly in the black man Friday, who had mental processes it was true, but was almost wholly guided by his instincts and his emotions. It was a good thing, he reflected. It made for survival. Thrown against the background of the live and inanimate forces of the earth, man had to go back. He discussed his mood sometimes with his companions of his campfires. Slyter laughed, “We call it ‘gone bush.’ I would say it denoted weak mentality!” Leslie gave proof to his theory by flashing, “Sterl, you make me think. And I don’t want to think!” Stanley Dann said, “Undoubtedly a trek like this would be a throwback for most white men; unless they found their strength in God.” Well, he himself had a job to do — to deal with Ormiston. When that was finished, he could revert to the savage!

Stanley Dann eventually arrived at the conclusion that any one of several streams they had crossed might have been Cooper Creek, famed in the annals of exploration. But he admitted that he had expected a goodly stream of running water. Long ago, Sterl thought, Dann should have been warned by a sun growing almost imperceptibly hotter that water would grow scarcer. Still, always in the blue distance, mountain ranges lent hope. Through this bush, the endless monotony of which wore so strangely on the trekkers that desert country would have been welcome, they never made an average of five miles a day. Dry camps occurred more and more often; two-day stays at waterholes further added to the delay.

In October the expedition at last worked out of that “Always-always-all-same-land,” as Red Krehl named it, to the gradual slope of open grass leading down to what appeared to be a boundless valley to the west with purple mountains to the north. Water would come down out of them. A thread of darker green promised a river or stream. They were three days in reaching it — none too soon to save the cattle.

The mob got out of hand; its rush dammed the stream. Many of the cattle drowned; others were mired in the mud; a few were trampled to death. The horses fared badly, though not to the point of loss.

“Make camp for days,” was Stanley Dann’s order, when mob and remuda had been droved out upon the green. The night watch was omitted. Horses and cattle and trekkers rested from nightfall until sunrise.

Day disclosed the loveliest site for a camp, the freest from flies and insects, the richest in color and music of innumerable birds, the liveliest in game that the drovers had experienced. But ill luck still dogged the trek. Next morning, Larry reported that horses were missing from the remuda.

“Sterl,” said Slyter, “I suppose that you, being a cowboy, can track a horse?”

“Used to be pretty good,” said Sterl. He got his rifle, and started.

But he only lost himself in the deep bush, and continued to be lost for three days. Afterward, he looked back on his adventure with mixed feelings of chagrin and of glory in the experience. The chagrin rose from the fact that in an obscure stretch of jungle he mistook the faint tracks of a band of cassowaries for those of King’s shod hoofs, nor realized it until he came upon a flock of these great, whiskyard, ostrich-like birds staring at him with protruding, solemn eyes.

The rest, he remembered afterward only in snatches.

An open space where foliage and a cascade of the stream caught an exquisite, diffused golden light breaking through blue rifts in the green dome overhead. Tiny flying insects, like sparks from a fire, vied with wide-winged butterflies in a fascinated fluttering over a pool that mirrored them, and the great opal-hued branches above, and the network of a huge-leafed vines, and the spears of lacy foliage. Flycatchers, birds, too beautiful to be murderers, were feeding upon the darting, winged insects.

A splash in a pool, and a movement of something live, distracted Sterl’s attention from the tree tent he was examining. He saw a strange animal slide or crawl out on the bank. It had a squatty body that might have resembled a flat pig, but for the thick fur on its back. It had a long head, which took the shape, when Sterl located the eyes, of an abnormal and monstrous bill of a duck. Sterl stared, disputing his own eyesight. But the thing was an animal and alive. It had front feet with long cruel claws. Its back feet and tail were hidden in the grass. All of a sudden Sterl realized that he was staring at the strangest creature in this strange Australia, perhaps in the world, no less than Leslie’s much-vaunted duck-billed platypus.

Morning after a cool, wet night on the ground. Light ahead and open sky prepared Sterl for a change in the topography of the bush. And a low hum of falling water was the voice of a waterfall. Out from under giant trees he stepped to the brink of a precipice and to a blue sun-streaked abyss that brought him to a standstill.

The sun, gloriously red and blazing, appeared again to be in the wrong place. Sterl had to reconcile himself that this burst of morning light came from the east. Yet no matter how badly a man was lost he dared not deny the sunrise. The abyss at his feet had the extraordinary beauty, if not the colossal dimensions, of the Arizona canyons he had known from boyhood. Up from his right sounded a low, thunderous roar. By craning his neck he saw where the stream leaped off, turning from shining green to lacy white. It fell a thousand feet, struck a ledge of broken wall, cascaded over and through huge rocks, to leap from a second precipice, from which purple depths no murmur arose. Walls opposite where Sterl stood, rust-stained and lichened, dropped down precipitously into shadow. On his own side the sun tipped the ramparts with rose and gold, and blazed the great wall halfway down.

A bird, so beautiful in appearance and astounding in action that it halted him in his tracks. The spot was open to a little sunlight, carpeted with fine brown needles like those from a pine tree. The bird espied Sterl, but that did not change its strange and playful antics. It was bright with many colors, not quite so large as an American robin or meadow-lark. This fairy creature of the bush skipped and hopped around so friskily that Sterl had to look sharp and long to perceive all its lovely hue; but the most pronounced was a golden yellow. There was brown, too, marked with white, and a lovely sheen of greenish-olive, like that on a hummingbird, and the under part appeared to be gray. Its exquisite daintiness and sprightliness gave the bird some elfin quality, some spirit of the lonely bush. It seemed to Sterl that the lovely creature’s dancing movements were a sort of playing with leaves and twigs. It saw him, assuredly, out of bright dark eyes, and was not afraid. It might have been the incarnation of joy and life in that bushland. Then again he remembered Leslie’s lecture on Australian wild life. It was the golden bowerbird.

At noon of the third day, Sterl felt his powers waning. He needed a long rest. Gathering a store of wood for several fires, he lay down in an open space near water and almost at once went to sleep.

He was roused by a voice and a hand shaking his shoulder. A black visage, beaded with sweat, bent over him.

“Friday!” cried Sterl, in a husky voice, and he struggled to sit up. “You found — me?”

“Yes, boss. Black fella tinkit boss sit down quick.”

“No. Boss fool!”

Friday had his wommera and spears in one hand, a small bag in the other. “Meat,” he said, and opened it for Sterl. Inside were thick strips of beef, cooked and salted, some hard damper, and a quantity of dried fruit. When had meat ever tasted so good!

“How far camp, Friday?” Sterl asked, between periods of mastication.

“Close up.” And the black made circles with his finger in the mat of brown needles, to indicate how Sterl had traveled round and round.

“Horses close up alonga water,” volunteered Friday. “Black fella findum.” This was such a relief to Sterl that it assuaged his mortification.

So at ten o’clock that night Sterl limped behind Friday into sight of a welcome campfire, where Slyter and his wife, Leslie and Red and Larry, kept a vigil that had only to be seen to realize their anxiety. The moment was more poignant that Sterl would have anticipated. Red, the sharp-eared fox, heard them coming, and as he saw them emerge from the gloom he let out his stentorian, “Whoopee!” Slyter burst out in agitation that surprised Sterl: “It’s Sterl! Bless our black man!” Leslie flew at Sterl, met him before he reached the fire, enveloped him with eager arms, crying out indistinguishable, broken words.

CHAPTER 12

THE LATE OCTOBER halt, after Sterl had come safely out of the jungle, seemed more than ordinarily marked by pleasant relations among the trekkers. But there was one exception. Sterl, going to the stream for a bucket of water, encountered Ormiston and Beryl some rods away from the camp. The girl had a hand on Ormiston’s shoulder, who stood leaning against the log and facing Sterl. She had not seen the cowboy.

“Hazelton,” spoke up Ormiston, “I’d never be afraid of being tracked by you!”

Sterl passed on without a word, though he flashed a searching glance at the drover. He heard Beryl ask: “Ash, whatever made you say that?” If Ormiston replied to that query Sterl did not hear.

Back in camp Sterl related the incident to Red. The cowboy swore long and loud. “Thet’s what’s on the — — ‘s mind. He’s gonna slope sooner or later.”

“Righto. But since he’s secretive and close-mouthed, as we know, why did he make that crack?”

“Pard, it was a slip.”

“Yeah? There’s going to be a reason for us to track him!”

“Beryl had a hand on Ormiston’s shoulder,” added Sterl, casually.

“Hell, thet ain’t nothin’,” returned the cowboy, gloomily.

“No? Well, spring it, pard!” shot back Sterl.

Red appeared bitter ashamed, but he did not avoid Sterl’s gaze. “I’ve seen Beryl in his arms — an’ kissin’ him back to beat hell.”

“Where?”

“By thet big tree where you jest met him. You see since the Danns throwed together with Ormiston an’ Hathaway in one camp, Beryl and Ormiston have been thick as hops. I got sore an’ jealous, an’ I sneaked up on them at night. An’ I’m gonna keep on doin’ it.”

“Red, has Beryl ever kissed you?” asked Sterl, seriously.

“Want me to kiss an’ tell?”

“Nonsense! This is different. Red, has she?”

“Wal, yes, a coupla times,” admitted Red. “Not the devourin’ kind she gave Ormiston. All the same it was enough to make me leave home. Sterl, don’t blame the girl. Hell, you know girls, an’ what this wild livin’ does to them. Ormiston is a handsome cuss.”

“Yes. But I can’t forgive Beryl,” returned Sterl, with passion. “Listen, pard, I can pick a quarrel with Ormiston. Any day. It’d be a fight. And he’d be out of the way, Lord knows, that might save the Danns.”

“Righto, Sterl,” rejoined Red, cool of voice and dark of brow. “But shore as Gawd made little apples, if either of us bored Ormiston it’d queer us with these drovers. Let him hang himself. I’ll go on spyin’. If Beryl doesn’t give him away, he will himself.”

Stanley Dann had decided to break camp at dawn next day and continue the trek; and he called a conference at his campfire. All the invited were present except Larry, Cedric and Henley, the latter one of Ormiston’s drovers, who were on guard with the mob. Stanley Dann got up from his table with a paper in his hand, his eagle eyes alight, his goldness, his magnificence and virility, impressively outstanding.

“Well, here we are, family and partners and drovers,” he began, in his rich resounding voice, “at this pleasant camp, and it is an occasion to thank God, to take stock of the present, and renew hope for the future. We are one hundred and fifty-seven days and nearly six hundred miles on our great trek. Barring the tragic loss of our partner, Woolcott, we have been wonderfully blessed and guided by Providence. We have lost only fourteen horses — a remarkable showing — and two hundred head of cattle, including, of course, those we used for beef. Let me say this company upholds the prestige of Australians as meat eaters!”

Dann consulted the paper in his hand, and went on: “We have consumed one fourth of our flour. Too much, but it cannot be put down to extravagance or wastefulness. Tea — an abundance left. Also salt and sugar. One fifth of our stock of dried fruits is gone, and this is our worst showing. There is a ton or more of tinned goods left. In view of our good luck so far, I think it well to have everyone present say how he feels about the trek. Now, Sister Emily, will you be the first to speak out?”

One by one all the women — Miss Dann, a spinster of forty, Mrs. Slyter of the weather-beaten face, Leslie with her wonderful eyes flashing, Beryl whose beauty graced the occasion — expressed their hope for the future, their determination not to turn back. The tall Hathaway had a tribute for their leader. Slyter spoke brief, eloquent words about their progress and the surety of success. Eric Dann said: “It has been far better than I believed possible. I have been wavering on my plan to stick to the old Gulf trek.”

Stanley Dann let out a roar of approval and called lustily upon Ormiston.

“Friends, I have not yet recovered from the loss of our partner Woolcott,” he said, in a deep voice. “But still I see our marvelous success — so far. I may be hard put to make a decision when we come to the headwaters of the Diamantina. Yet there should be one voice of warning. It is absolutely certain that this incredible good luck will not last.”

Red Krehl nudged Sterl as if to confirm the thought that formed in Sterl’s mind.

“Hazelton, you, being an American trail driver, long versed in this business of cattle and horses and men against the cruel and rugged ranges, you should have something unforgettable and inspiring to say to us novices at the game.”

“I hope I have,” rang out Sterl. “Stanley Dann, you are the great leader to make this great trek. On to the Kimberleys! No heat, no drought, no flood, no desert — no man can stop us!”

Of all those who had spoken thus far only Sterl appeared to strike fire from their leader. Then he called to Red:

“You — cowboy!”

“Dog-gone-it, boss,” drawled Red, “I had a helluva nifty speech, but I’ve clean forgot it. I’ve the same hunch as my pard heah. We cain’t be licked. The thing’s too big. It means too much to Australia. Fork yore hosses, and ride!”

Four weeks later Sterl and Red discussing the situation as they rode herd, were divided between a suspicion that Ormiston plotted to go on with Eric and Hathaway, if he could engineer the split with Stanley, in order to get possession of all their stock, or cut off from all his partners and drove on alone to some unknown destination. The former was Red’s opinion, and latter Sterl’s.

All this time, they had been traversing an increasingly dry country with a blazing brassy sky by day and a pitiless, starlit sky by night. Several series of two — and three-day treks without water marked the approach to the Diamantina River. The cattle did not suffer dangerously from thirst until the last arid spell. Then with two hot dry days and no prospect of relief, the adventurers faced their most serious predicament.

That second night all the drovers rode herd. Sterl had observed the absence of game and bird life, always an indication of the lack of water. Friday encouraged Sterl with a hopeful, “Might be water close up.” But close up for the black could have a wide range. A full moon was rising. The cattle were restless, bawling, milling; Sterl approached Red.

“Pard, what do you say to my riding ahead on a scout? If I find anything wet around twenty miles, I’ll advise Dann to trek clear through tomorrow and tomorrow night.”

“Wal, it’s a hell of a good idee,” declared the cowboy. “Go ahaid. Thet is, if you reckon you can find yore way back!”

Red had never ceased to plague Sterl about getting lost. “Say, you could joke on your grandmother’s grave!” retorted Sterl. “I’ve a notion to bat you one!”

“I reckon we’re workin’ out on a plateau,” said Red, changing the subject. “Not one stream bed today. Rustle, pard!”

Sterl turned away toward the remuda to change horses. He wanted to save King. The horses had been in need of water, but always after dark, when the dew was wet on the grass, they had slaked acute thirst. Sterl transferred saddle and bridle to the big rangy sorrel, an animal he had not yet been able to tire. Then he set out, taking his direction from the Southern Cross.

Heat still radiated from the ground. But the night was pleasant. For two weeks and more the trek had been through open country. The heave of the land suggested a last mighty roll toward the interminable level of the interior. Sterl rode through bleached grass, silver in the moonlight. Stunted gum trees reared spectral heads; there were dark clumps of mulga scrub and bare moon-blanched spaces, across which rabbits scurried. When at length the glimmer of campfires failed to pierce the darkness, Sterl halted his horse for a moment.

Two hours of steady riding brought Sterl to the edge of an escarpment which fortunately presented no steep drop from the level. Declivities always meant difficulties for the trail driver, especially when they were not discovered until too late.

The void beneath him appeared majestic in its immensity. Apparently land and sky never met. Far below, a shining ribbon of a river catching the moonlight, made his heart leap. This could not be sand or a strip of glass or rock. It was water, and surely the long-hoped-for Diamantina River. But how far? In that rarefied atmosphere, under a soaring full moon, it might be a few miles away, and it could be a score. But surely it was within, reach of a twenty-four-hour trek.

At daybreak, the drovers came riding in by threes to get breakfast. Sterl lost no time in telling Slyter the good news. He and Red accompanied him to Dann’s camp.

“Boss, I rode ahead last night. Found water,” announced Sterl, bluntly.

“You did? Good-o, Hazelton,” boomed Stanley Dann.

“It’s a big river. Surely the Daimantina. I couldn’t tell how far. Twenty miles, maybe less.”

“Twenty miles? Two days’ trek!” ejaculated Eric Dann, disheartened. “We’ll have a big loss.”

Ormiston cursed roundly apparently venting his rage on Sterl, as if he could be blamed for a dire calamity. Sterl did not deign to notice him, and addressed their leader: “We can make it in one trek.”

Ormiston headed a furious opposition, in which, however, Stanley Dann did not concur. Sterl endeavoured to convince the disgruntled and almost hopeless drovers, silencing all except Ormiston.

“You’re a disorganizer,” flashed Sterl, steely and cold. “You’re glad of anything that hinders us! You shut up, or I’ll shut you up.”

Ormiston took the threat sullenly.

“How should we make this long trek to water?” inquired Stanley Dann.

“Take it slow all day, ease the mob along careful during the hottest hours. Then, after sunset push them. When the dew falls they can travel without breaking down.”

“You heard Hazelton,” thundered Dann. “His plan is sound. Wagons go ahead and make camp! Trek through to water!”

On Sterl’s return to Styler’s camp Red appeared supremely elated. “Pard, did you see Beryl?”

“No. Was she there?”

“Sure she was. All eyes. Jest as if she never seen you before. Sterl, she’d like you if it wasn’t for Ormiston. Mebbe, she does anyhow. But she’s scared of that geezer.”

“Red, will that showdown with him ever come?”

“It’ll come! Be shore you have eyes in the back of yore haid.”

Leslie was at her morning chore of feeding her pets. Jack, the kookaburra, was jealous of new birds and Cocky squalled from the top of the wagon.

Sterl told her of his trip during the night and his report to Dann. “You go with the wagons,” he concluded.

“Umpumm. I’m good for twenty-four hours.”

“But I’d rather you’d take it easy whenever possible. You go with your Dad!”

“Are you my boss, Sterl Hazelton?” she retorted, rebelliously.

“Not yet. But considering the remote possibility of my becoming that — and your cantankerous disposition — don’t you think it’d be a good idea to get some practice?”

Her smooth nut-brown face slowly grew suffused with a coursing red blood, and her wide eyes fell. She was tongue-tied. Her breast was swelling. And she fled, leaving her pets in noisy clamor.

They rode back to Dann. “Boss, something I forgot to tell you,” said Sterl. “When you reach the river be sure to drive the cattle to either side of the trek for camp, because this mob are liable to stampede when they smell water.”

At sunset that day Sterl sat astride King on the rim of the plateau, not far from where he had seen the valley by moonlight. Close at hand the front of the great mob of cattle, like a dust-clouded flood, was pouring wearily over the brink. As Sterl had hoped and predicted, they had ended the day’s trek with something to spare. Down grade, in the night, with the dew falling, the beasts could plod and sway on until the scent of water energized them. And if they were at all like cattle of the western ranges they might stampede. Sterl had seen ten thousand buffalo pile into a river, to enact a spectacle he had never forgotten. If the mob and remuda had belonged solely to him he could not have taken their safety and well-being more to heart.

The cowboys rode together down the slope as red dusk mantled the scene. Then as night fell they drifted apart, yet within calling distance. Friday for once had ridden on a wagon. Larry was ahead, at the left of the mob, and Drake behind Sterl. The moon came up to lighten the shadows.

Down grade, through thick grass, dew laden, the mob labored and the trekkers followed. By midnight the slope had begun to level out. Kangaroos, wallabies, rabbits, emus were roused from their beds, to scamper away. King jumped out of his tracks more than once at the hiss of a snake. The tedium wore on Sterl. There was nothing to do but sit his saddle. King did not need direction or urge. He had become like a shepherd dog. Often Sterl fell asleep for a few moments. Two nights without rest or sleep reminded him of the Texas cattle trail when the rivers were up.

At daybreak, Sterl huddled in his saddle, half alseep, his eyes closed, his mind almost a blank. A yell from Red, however, the old Comanche war whoop, brought him erect and startled. Red was waving his sombrero and pointing toward the river — nearby, marked by a line of timber.

“Look, pard! Leslie ridin’ down on us hell-bent for election! Larry’s meetin’ her.”

CHAPTER 13

LESLIE PULLED LADY Jane to a halt beside Sterl. The horse was dripping water in little streams. Leslie was wet to her waist. Her eyes glowed dark with excitement.

“Girl, you didn’t swim that river for fun?” demanded Sterl.

“Dad sent — me,” panted Leslie.

“We couldn’t cross. River too deep — with steep banks. Dad said we’d have a job. Stanley Dann’s orders are to hold the mob on this side — to drove them that way — two miles up — where the banks are not so steep.”

“Leslie, you should have met us five miles out, at least,” rejoined Sterl, seriously. “These cattle are thirsty. They’re tired and cross. If they smell water...”

“When they smell it,” interrupted Red. “Rustle, Sterl. We gotta be quick. Come, Larry. We’ll try to turn the leaders upstream.”

Urging King into a gallop to the rear, Sterl, with Leslie racing beside him, yelled Dann’s orders to the drovers in a warning voice.

Between the larger mob and Ormiston’s there were four drovers, two on each side, far up the wide lane. The cattle still plodded along with heads down, as if every step would be their last. Sterl caught their odor. He rode over to the partners, with Drake and Leslie at his heels.

“We’ve orders from Dann. Cattle must be bunched and turned upstream. River deep. High banks. Get your drovers out from between.”

Ormiston added a dark frown to his forbidding expression. “We don’t have our mob mixing with Dann’s.”

“You can’t help it,” declared Sterl, curtly.

“That’s what you say, Mr. Cowboy. We will keep them separated.”

“Hathaway, you have some sense, if this man hasn’t,” barked Sterl. “The cattle are parched. When they smell water they can’t be held or turned. They’ll stampede!”

Roland came galloping up, red-faced, sweating, calling on Ormiston to drove his mob to the east.

“Mind your own business,” shouted Ormiston.

“You will like hell!” returned Sterl. “Rollie, ride through and warn Dann’s drovers to rustle out of there. Back this way!”

Sterl wheeled King and was away like the wind. Leslie and Drake came along. Halfway round the bigger mob, Sterl waved the drovers on that side to ride up toward the front. They strung out after Drake. Soon Sterl, accompanied by Leslie, came up with Larry and Red.

“Stubborn as mules!” shouted Red.

“No wonder. But we’ve got to push them.”

“Ormiston doesn’t know cattle. He said he wouldn’t let his mob mix with Dann’s.”

“This’s gonna be about as funny as death for them drovers between!”

Sterl stood up in his stirrups to gaze across the mob. “They’re riding out. The last two of Ormiston’s men. But that fellow up front...”

“We cain’t wait, pard,” yelled Red, pulling his gun. “Leslie, keep back a little.”

Then Red rode up to the herd, gun high over his head, to yell and shout. Larry took his cue and followed suit. Cedric and Drake, with the drovers farther back, let loose with guns and lungs.

The front of the great mob, like the sharp end of a wedge, roused, lunged, headed away from a direct line toward the river. That relieved Sterl exceedingly. The turn was not enough, but it had started. Cattle, like sheep, blindly follow the leaders. The trampling of many hoofs, the knocking of horns, the increase in hoarse bawling, indicated the start of the milling that Sterl was so keen to accomplish. Something like a current ran all the way back to the rear. Then he looked ahead. They had the apex of the mob quartering away from a direct line to the river. But the river took a bend to the eastward, and looked less than two miles away!

Suddenly from the far side of the herd sounded a trampling roar that drowned yells and gunshots. Sterl’s piercing yell was a whisper in his ears. He had heard that kind of roar. Icy chills chased up his spine. Ormiston’s mob was charging straight ahead to meet the milling front of that vast wedge of cattle!

Then Sterl espied the one drover trapped in the swiftly narrowing space. The man saw his peril, but made the mistake of dashing to the fore, hoping to get out of the closing gap. His calculation, however, did not allow for the curving front of the larger mob, and the speed of the smaller one. He was headed off, hemmed in. A moment later there was a terrific impact — a head-on collision of these two fronts. Sterl saw the white horse and its rider go down in a sea of horns, heads, dust. A rattling crash of Ormiston’s mob, colliding with Dann’s all down the line, drowned the trample of hoofs. Still, only the head of Dann’s mob, and the far edge, appeared to be affected. A smashup like that did not necessarily mean a stampede. Sterl thought derisively of the bull-headed Ormiston. If the mob stampeded, he was the one who would suffer most. His branded cattle would be the first to tumble over the river embankment. It would serve him right, thought Sterl, but what a pity so many cattle must be drowned and trampled!

Then it came to him that Ormiston’s mob, to windward, had caught the fatal scent. After three days of heat and dust, without a drink, they smelled the river and were off, hell-bent. Water. If they had the scent in their dry nostrils, Dann’s herd would catch it soon.

But despite Sterl’s readiness for the inevitable shock, when Dann’s mob leaped into swift action and an appalling thunder boomed and the ground shook as if in earthquake, he screamed with all his might and never heard his own voice. Mushrooming yellow clouds of dust rolled back over the mob, moving as one animal, covering them, swallowing them up.

Sterl’s quick eyes were the first to see that a spur of the herd had shot out below him, between him and the other riders, and swung wide in a swift, enveloping sweep. Red and Larry had gone on; but Leslie! They were cutting her off. Sterl had to get to her in quick time. With the thought, he had King racing down the line. Lady Jane was fast, Sterl had no fear that she could not outrun the wildest of cattle. But being a mare of great spirit she might act up at the crucial moment.

This was the first time that Sterl had ever extended King. Fleet? He was like the wind. Fortunately Leslie saw him coming, and then saw the spur of cattle. She did not lose her head. Quick as a flash she jerked Lady Jane away from that frightful, oncoming rush of hoofs, heads, horns. Plunging under the surprise and pain of the spurs, Lady Jane leaped like an arrow from a bow.

At this juncture King caught up with her. Sterl pointed to Leslie’s stirrups. She was quick to grasp his meaning — to slip her feet almost out, and ride on her toes, so that in case Sterl saw fit he could lift her out of the saddle. Sterl’s terror left him. The girl could ride and she could be trusted.

Sterl urged King to the fore again, with the object of turning the leaders of that spur to the right. The black, magnificent in action, drove right to the front. A lean, rangy steer, red-eyed and wild, led that mutiny. Sterl drew and fired. The great steer plunged, to plow the earth. The others overran him, leaped and swerved. Larry and Red came up with flaming guns. The drovers behind were lost in dust. The three turned that spur back and in less than a quarter of a mile the mutineers had joined the main mob. To the left, scarcely farther than that, Sterl saw the timber belt and the shining river. It was wide, and the opposite bank looked steep and high. Farther upstream, it appeared to slope gradually. As the mob was headed quarteringly up the river there was some hope that a major catastrophe had been averted. All that could possibly be done by Sterl and his comrades and the drovers sweeping from behind, had been accomplished — and it was a good job that saved thousands of cattle.

Sterl, never forgetting Leslie, gazed back to espy her trotting Lady Jane at a goodly distance behind. Red was riding ahead toward a ridge under which the stampede was rolling. Sterl, and all the others, joined him on this vantage point.

Just under the watchers swept a mighty torrent of beef, indistinct through the streaming dust. Following that flood forward, Sterl’s sight came to the front of the mob. It swept on, swallowing up the green, headed for the bend of the river!

The vanguard rolled out of sight, to reappear in splitting around trees, to plunge over the bank in one long cascade that hit the water with a tremendous splash. The bank had a drop of twenty feet. There ensued a threshing melee. The foremost had no chance to rise under the shock of following lines. But presently out of the spouting, muddy splashes heads of swimming cattle appeared. They milled around in bewilderment while the ghastly downpour of heavy bodies continued. Some struck out for the opposite shore. The roar lessened in volume, changed into another sound — the long-drawn bawl of frenzied cattle.

The imperturbable Red was the first to recover. He lighted a cigarette.

“Not too bad! Gawd A’mighty shore is on Stanley Dann’s side! I wouldn’t have given a handful of Mexican pesos for thet herd. An’ la an’ behold heah they air, most of them, swimmin’ acrost, wadin’ out.”

“Men,” ejaculated Drake, “a bridge of cattle saved our mob!”

“Yes! And that bridge was Ormiston’s! He wasn’t going to let his mob mix with Dann’s!”

“Haw! Haw!” rolled out Red in caustic mirth, “Wal, fellers, Ormiston’s cattle got the start! An’ am I tickled!”

Again Sterl surveyed the river. “Let me have Larry, Red and Cedric. There’s a good many crazy cattle swimming downstream. And in the middle there’s an unholy mess milling around. We’ll turn them upstream. Some of them are going to drown, Drake. You see that. Take the rest of the men and rustle up to where the cattle can wade out.”

“Fellers, I see Ormiston’s outfit up there,” interposed Red, pointing his cigarette. “Trailin’ up his mob! I’d like to heah him when he sees thet animal bridge of cattle wearin’ his brand.”

Presently Sterl found a ravine that opened at the edge of the water. “Leslie, this will be work. Won’t you go back to camp?”

“Of course, if you say so. But mayn’t I help? Sterl, you are always trying to save me from — from everything. I want to ‘take my medicine,’ as Red calls it.”

“Righto,” declared Sterl, heartily. “You’ve got more sense than I have. And I’ve more sentiment than you.”

“So you say, cowboy.”

They reached the river where the ravine ended level with the water. “Load your guns, boys,” advised Sterl, suiting action to words. “Shooting in front of a steer or cow will save swimming your horses.”

King did not need to be urged into the river, as did the other horses. Red called the black a duck. Sterl surveyed the wide channel where just above them thousands of cattle were swimming.

“Red, I don’t like this,” he called. “It’s a long swim. If a horse gave out it’d be good night for the horse. Leslie, stick close to me.”

They headed up the river, in the face of as remarkable a conglomeration of animals as Sterl had ever seen. Yells and shots of their riders, soon had all the stragglers headed in the right direction. Sterl made a hasty judgment that there were five thousand cattle in the river. A long string were wading out above. The danger point appeared to be less than a quarter of a mile beyond — a mass of cattle twisting, plunging, in an intricate tangle.

“Sterl, look on the bank,” shrieked Leslie.

Then Sterl espied Ormiston, with Hathaway and his drovers on the shore above the yellow, trampled slope which the cattle had cut through the bank. Below them stretched a long line of dead and dying cattle — the bridge of death. Ormiston, on foot, raged to and fro, flinging his arms, stamping. Sterl cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled in stentorian voice: “HEY, YOU DUMBHEAD! KILL THE DYING CATTLE!” Ormiston heard, for he roared curses back. Some of the drovers with Ormiston heeded Sterl’s humane suggestion, and began to shoot. Sterl made for a strip of sandy bank, beyond the bend and on the far side. King gave a huge heave, and then appeared to breathe normally again. Sterl rode to a point even with the upper edge of the mob, and surveyed the scene. The river was full of cattle so closely packed that steers and cows would lunge up on others, and sink them. Across, nearer the other side, Red and his two comrades had their contingent of stragglers headed out. On second glance Sterl saw that the dozen or more drovers strung out behind the great mob, shooting, yelling, making splashes, had turned the tide in that quarter. The rear and center areas of cattle were headed across, but could not make much headway owing to the eddying mass of animals in midstream.

Sterl clucked to King, and soon he was swimming gallantly to join the other horses. Red, mounted on Jester, had untied his lasso. Cedric and Larry, who followed him closely, had exchanged their guns for ropes. When he reached the center of the milling mob, Red whirled the loop around his head, with the old, trenchant cry: “Ki-yi! Yippi-yip!” and let it fly to rope a big steer around the horns. Turning Jester toward the bank. Red literally dragged that steer out of the wheeling circle. It made a break. And a break like that was a crucial thing for a herd of stampeded cattle. Larry and Cedric followed suit. Then one steer and cow and another and another got into those openings, until the wheel of twisting horns and snouts broke and a stream of cattle, like oil, flowed away from the mob. In less time than it had taken for Red and his followers to break the milling mass, the whole mob was on the move across the river.

Sterl experienced a vast relief when he, the last of the drovers to mount the far bank of the Diamantina and go through the trampled muddy belt of brush and timber, saw the great mob quietly grazing as if no untoward event had come to pass.

“This cain’t be the place to ford the wagons,” observed Red when Sterl caught up.

“Farther up,” returned Sterl. “I see low banks and bars. It’ll take time, but be easy. It’s afternoon already and Dann will hardly order us to cross today.”

They recrossed the river without incident, to be met by Leslie. Stanley Dann called them over to where the leaders stood grouped. Ormiston, despite his tan, showed an unusual pallor. Sterl felt that this queer composite of fool and villain would have blamed the stampede upon his partners and their drovers, if there had been any possible excuse.

“Men, it is our first major disaster,” boomed Stanley Dann. “That stampede could not have been avoided. I commend you all for heroic work — Hazelton particularly, with Krehl, and Larry and Cedric. You save the main mob twice, first when you turned the head up this way, and secondly when you got them out of that animated whirlpool. I never saw the like.”

“Thanks, boss. Thet last was jest a little mill. All in the day’s ride,” said Red.

“Dann, we lost one man,” added Sterl.

“Yes. Ormiston’s drover, Henry Ward. He was warned. But he was overbold and befuddled. Poor fellow!”

“Who warned him?” queried Sterl, bluntly.

“Why, Ormiston sent a drover, he said,” returned the leader.

“Ormiston did nothing of the kind,” denied Sterl. “When we rode around to the rear of the herd, to give your orders, Ormiston grew furious. He said he wouldn’t let his mob mix with yours. I told him he couldn’t help it. He told me to mind my own business. It was Drake who sent Roland to ride between your mob and Ormiston’s to warn the drovers to come out. Roland, back me up here.”

“Yes, sir. Hazelton is right,” replied Jones, frankly.

“Ormiston, this report hardly agrees with what you said,” declared Dann. “If it is true, you are responsible for Ward’s death.”

“What do I care for these lie-mongers?” stormed Ormiston, his bold eyes popping. “I gave you my version. Believe it or not!”

Roland Jones thrust forward a reddening visage. “See here, Mr. Ormiston, don’t you call me a liar.”

“Bah, you big lout! What are you going to do about it?”

“Men, the situation is bad enough already,” said Stanley Dann, calmly. “I’ll not permit fighting. We’ve had a trying day, and we’re upset.”

They all heeded the patient leader’s wisdom, except Ormiston. Not improbably he saw opportunity to flay without risk to himself, or else at times his temper was ungovernable.

“Dann, these riffraff drovers of yours haven’t a pound to their names. They can’t pay for the loss of my cattle. I demand that of you!”

“Very well. I’ll be glad to make up for your loss. It was my gain. Your cattle saved mine,” boomed the leader.

Red Krehl let out a sibilant hiss. Ormiston’s rolling eyes lighted avariciously. Sterl interrupted his reply to Dann. He spurred King into a jump to confront the drover.

“Ormiston, you go to hell!” said Sterl, with a stinging cold contempt that a whole volley of epithets could never have equaled. For once Ormiston’s ready retort failed. With a gesture to his lieutenants, Bedford and Jack, he wheeled his horse and rode toward camp.

“Pard, Dann’s gonna ask you to make a count of the daid cattle,” whispered Red. “An’ you lie like a trooper.”

Sterl made no reply, though he received that suggestion most sympathetically. He turned to Leslie.

“Les, it’ll be a dirty bloody mess. Don’t go.”

“Why not, Sterl?”

“Why? Heavens, you’re a girl! Not a hard, callous, blood-spilling man, used to death!”

“Yeah?” she said, flippant on cracking ice and airing her cowboy vocabulary, “Well, I’ve a hunch there’ll be another bloody death around here pronto — and I’ll be tickled pink.”

Stanley Dann rode the hoof-torn slant of recently plowed earth, gazing down at the mashed bloody bodies of cattle, all the grotesque horned heads pointing to the sky, mouths open, tongues sticking out, staring dead eyes.

“Sterl, what is your count?” he asked, tersely.

“Boss, I’d rather not say,” replied Sterl, with a deprecatory spread of his hands. “I’m only fair on the count. Red has always been the most accurate and reliable counter of stock we ever had on our ranges.”

“Very well, Red. I’m sure you could have no higher recommendation. I’ll rely upon you. How many?”

“Wal, boss, I’m shore surprised,” returned Red, with an air of perfect sincerity, “I was afeared we’d lost a damn sight more’n we really have. Thet water was shallow all along heah. I seen the cattle pitchin’ up the mud. But they’re layin’ only about three deep heah. Yes, sir! We’re darned lucky. I been countin’ all along, an’ my tally is just three hundred an’ thirteen. Preecislee. An’ I’ll gamble on thet.”

“Is it possible?” boomed the drover, elated. “I am poor in calculation. I thought we had lsot a thousand head.”

“No, indeedee, boss,” returned Red, emphatically. “You take my tally. I’m kinda proud of my gift.”

“Righto. It’s settled. How fortunate we are, after all! I have been blessed with my faith in divine guidance!”

CHAPTER 14

GUARD DUTY WAS split that night, half the drovers riding herd from dark till midnight, and the other half from then till sunrise. It was a needless precaution, for, as Sterl told Slyter, the cattle were almost too tired to graze.

Next morning Friday greeted Sterl with an enigmatic: “Black fella close up.”

“Bad black fella, Friday?”

“Might be some. Plenty black fella.”

“How do you know?” queried Sterl, curiously.

“Lubra tellum.”

Sterl told Slyter, who burst out that it was about time. “Except once,” he went on, “we’ve had no trouble with abo’s. And we expected that to be the worst of our troubles.”

“All same plenty bimeby,” put in Friday with his air of mystery.

“What’re the orders, Slyter?” asked Sterl. “Transport wagons over the river.”

“Wal, it’ll be one sweet job. Whereabouts?” asked Red.

“Somewhat above where we droved the mob yesterday.”

“Look aheah, boss. Thet’s an orful place. No ford atall. We oughta go up the river a ways. This is just a big pond. It’s towards the end of the dry season, and shore as shootin’ this river ain’t runnin’. I’ll bet we could find shallow fords.”

“Dann’s orders, Red. And he’s mad this morning.”

“Mad? Good heavens! Fust time or I’ll eat my sombrero. Gosh, I’m glad he’s human, ain’t you, Sterl? What about?”

“I’m not certain, but I think it’s Ormiston.”

“Slyter, does Dann really expect to get across today with this outfit?” asked Sterl, skeptically.

“By noon, he says!”

By a half hour after sunrise Dann had all the wagons packed. They started, with Slyter’s remuda following in charge of Larry and the cowboys. Dann, who drove the leading wagon, halted on the bank of the river some distance above where the stampede had crossed the day before. He sent for Sterl, who found him arguing with Eric. Ormiston stood by, taciturn and brooding.

“Hazelton,” boomed the leader. “This is the place where we’re going to cross. Eric is against my judgment. Ormiston swears he’ll drove his mob back to this side. Will you take charge?”

“Yes, sir. It can’t all be done today,” answered Sterl, earnestly. “But all goods must be crossed before dark because the abo’s will be here by night. It’s a pack job. Give me twenty riders. Five changes of horses. We’ll empty the wagons and drays. Each rider will carry over what he can carry safely and keep dry. Provisions to go first.”

“Men,” boomed the leader, “you all heard Hazelton. Take orders from him. Let’s unhitch and get at it!”

“Dann, I want a word in edgewise,” demanded Ormiston.

“Ashley, I heard you. No more! I forgot to tell you that I ordered your brand burned on three hundred odd of my cattle, as soon as we cross.”

Red had already made for Roland’s wagon, and dismounted there to begin unloading. Sterl joined him. Leslie was putting her pets into cages, much to their vociferous disgust.

“Sterl, I’ve a hunch Stanley Dann will ride roughshod over our friend Ormiston one of these days,” said the cowboy.

“You haven’t a corner on all the hunches,” retorted Sterl. “I had that figured long ago. Beryl now is the last connecting link.”

“Bet yore life, pard. An’ I’ll bust thet!”

“All right. Go over to Beryl and tell her I sent you to pack her and her treasures across the river. Savvy?”

“Dog-gone yore pictoors!” ejaculated Red, rapturously. “I never thought of thet. Watch me!” And he strode away.

When again Sterl encountered Red, never had he seen that cowboy in such a transport.

“Pard, bless yore heart. Beryl’s jest about eatin’ out of my hand,” whispered Red, huskily. “She’d been cryin’. I reckon her Dad must have hopped her. What do you think she said— ‘Sterl is a big help to Dad. He’d be a good sort if he wasn’t hipped over thet chestnut-haired kid!’ Beryl wanted to know how I’d get her across, an’ I said I’d pack her in my arms if she was afraid to ride. She said thet would make her look a little coward, which she swore she was. An’ she said she’d ride if I came along close to her. I reckon I’ll take her and Miss Dann together.”

“Righto. I’ll send Friday across to watch the stuff.”

In short order Sterl had twenty riders, not including Leslie and himself, swimming their horses across the river with packs in front and on their shoulders. Friday grasped King’s long tail and held on, to be dragged over. On the return, Sterl met Ormiston and Hathaway in midstream, and farther on, the Danns.

It required twenty trips for each rider to unload Slyter’s wagon to the extent where it would be safe to ferry it across. Then ten men lifted the half-loaded wagon-bed off the wheels, carried it down to the river and set it in the water. It floated. It was a boat. It did not leak. With the use of long ropes and a team of horses on the far bank the start was made. There was no mishap. The heavy wheels, dragged along by ropes, gave a good deal more trouble. But they were soon across and up the bank. In a few more minutes the wagon was set up and reloaded. Leslie was as happy as her birds, and they squawked their glee.

“You were fine, kid,” complimented Sterl. “That’ll do for you. This hot sun will dry you pronto.”

“Plenty smokes, boss,” said Friday, who sat in the shade whittling a new boomerang. Sterl saw them far off on the horizon.

“Watchum close, Friday.”

This fording supplies and belongings across the Diamantina began as a colorful, noisy, mirthful, splashing procession. But by noontide the labor ceased to be fun. By midafternoon the riders were sagging in their saddles, soaked with sweat and water, dirty, unkempt. The other drays and wagons were not calked; they had to be fully unloaded. That was a harder job. Sunset found the drovers with most of their outfit on the right bank of the river, but half a dozen wagons, with harness and tools, were still left behind.

As the cowboys rode herd that night, big fires burned on the other shore, and hordes of blacks murdered silence with their corroboree over the dead cattle.

“Gosh, what a fiesta, pard,” said Red. “If them cannibals don’t eat themselves to death they’ll foller us till hell freezes over, an’ thet ain’t gonna be soon in this heah hot country.”

With all hands, and the partners doing their share, the toilsome job of crossing was completed by midafternoon. Ormiston, reversing himself, chose to stay on Dann’s side of the river. The leader ordered one day’s halt in the new camp, to rest and dry things out. He said to Sterl, “Hazelton, I know more about cattle rushes and crossing rivers, thanks to you.”

Sterl wondered why Eric Dann did not remember this river, though on his former trek he had undoubtedly crossed it — surely farther up. He strolled out in the open late that day, to take a “look-see,” as the Indians used to call it, and stretch his cramped and bruised legs. Across the river he saw hundreds of blacks, like a swarm of ants, noisy and wild.

Sterl was impressed by the river-bottom valley. Despite the heat and the dry season, grass was abundant and luxuriant. Waterfowl swept by in flocks, and the sandbars were dotted with white and blue herons. When he went to bed, which was early after dark, he heard them flying overhead, uttering dismal croaks.

Next day the sky was black with buzzards, flocks of which spiraled down to share the feast with the aborigines. Kangaroos, wallabies, emus, rabbits were more abundant than at any other camp for weeks. They were tame and approached to within a few rods of the wagons. Parrots and cockatoos colored the gum trees along the river-banks.

At this Diamantina camp Leslie noted in her journal, “Flies something terrible!” And so they were. Used as Sterl had gotten to the invisible little demons and the whirling dervishes, here they drove him crazy if he did not cover his face. In the heat, that was vastly uncomfortable. But it was the trekkers’ misfortune to fall afoul of a bigger and meaner fly — a bold black green-winged fellow that could bite through shirts. Red had been the first to discover this species, to which Slyter could not give a name. Friday said: “Bite like hellum.”

Off again, roughly following the old trail of some former trek up the Diamantina. Travel was slow, but easy. Red had been right in his opinion that the river had gone dry. Two miles above the first camp the trekkers could have crossed without wetting their feet.

Ten days along this river bed of waterholes and dry stretches tallied about a hundred miles, not good going to the cowboys, but satisfactory to their serene leader. The grass did not fail. In some deep cuts verdure of tropical luxuriance marked further advance toward eternal summer. But when the sun grew hot and the myriads of flies appeared, the trek became a matter of grim endurance. Sterl covered his face with his scarf and let King or Sorrel or Duke or Baldy graze along behind the remuda at will. Hours on end without one word spoken! Friday stalking along carrying his weapons, tireless on bare feet, ever watching the telltale smoke signals on the horizon! Red, slumped in his saddle or riding sidewise, smoking innumerable cigarettes, lost in his unthinking enchantment! The wagons rolling along, creeping like white-spotted snakes, far to the fore! The mob of cattle grazing on contentedly! The drovers, lost in habit now, nailed to their saddles, indifferent to leagues and distances!

Sterl marveled at Leslie Slyter. She rode with the drovers all the way. So sun-browned now that the contrast made her hair golden. She was the most wide-awake, though she sometimes took catnaps as they trekked on. How many times Sterl saw her face flash in his direction! Ever she turned to him, to see if he was there, absorbed in her dream.

The long, hot days wore on to the solemn starry nights, packed with dread of the unknown and the possible, separated from unreality and dream by the howls of wild dogs and the strange wailing chant of the aborigines. The waterholes in the Diamantina failed gradually. But the myriads of birds and hordes of beasts multiplied because there were fewer watering places for them. One night, at a camp Leslie had named “Oleander,” Sterl strolled with her to the bank of the river, where it was narrow and the bed full of water. When dusk fell and the endless string of kangaroos silhouetted black against the gold of the horizon had passed by, there began a corroboree of the aborigines on the opposite bank. It was the closest these natives had been to a camp. By the light of their bonfires Sterl and Leslie could see the wild ceremony.

The cat-eyed Red came along the bank, walking as easily as if it had been day. He propped down on a log beside them, indulged in a little cowboy persiflage, before he came to the point. “I been spyin’ as usual. Hasn’t been much good lately, till tonight. But I always keep sayin’ it’ll come some day. An’ we got nothin’ but time on our hands. Gosh, Leslie, what date is it, anyhow?”

“My journal says December fourth.”

“Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!” ejaculated Red. “Near Christmas!”

“Maybe it’ll please you to know that this Christmas I can remember last Christmas — and be far happier,” said Sterl.

“Please me? Wal! All I can think of now is Gawd bless Leslie!”

“Me! Why should God bless me?” inquired Leslie. Intuitively she divined that she had taken the place of another woman.

Red gave her no satisfaction. Then seriously: “Sterl, I was snoopin’ about early after supper, an’ I heahed Ormiston talkin’ low to Bedford. Near as I can remember heah’s their talk word for word. Ormiston first: ‘Tom, I tell you I won’t go any farther with Dann than the forks of this river.’ An’ Bedford asked, ‘Why not?’ An’ Ormiston said: ‘Because I don’t know the country across toward the Warburton River. It’s two hundred odd miles from the head of the Diamantina through the mountains to my station. If the rains don’t come we’ll lose all my cattle.’ An’ Bedford said: ‘Why not go on with Dann till we make sure of Hathaway’s mob? An’ also till the rains do come?’

“‘I’ll have his mob an’ some of Dann’s — you can lay to thet,’ says Ormiston.

“‘In thet case it’s all right. Jack an’ Morse have been kickin’. They want to make sure of more cattle. They came in on this because of a stake worthwhile — somethin’ thet they could end this bush-rangin’ on.’ Then Ormiston stopped him for fear somebody was listenin’. He left, an’ I seen him later with Beryl. How do you figger it?”

Sterl’s speech flowed like running water. “Ormiston and his drovers have been rustling, in a two-bit way, until this Dann trek. Now they’re playing for big stakes. Ormiston is the boss. He fooled the Danns. His drovers are all in it, aiming to lead some of Dann’s men to their side. Old stuff. You remember how cheap, easygoing cowboys used to fall. How many have we seen hanged? They murdered Woolcott, got his mob. They have Hathaway’s, and will do for him, sure as I know rustlers. Ormiston has a range somewhere over the mountains east of the head of the Diamantina. The pot will boil over up at the forks of this river. Ormiston means to get more cattle by hook or crook and then shake us. Damn it, the thing looms bad!”

“Pard, I should snicker to snort. We’ve never met its equal, let alone its beat. Bet you haven’t figgered Beryl. Where’s she comin’ in?”

“Thunder and blazes! I forgot Beryl,”

“Yeah. But I haven’t. An’ I say she’s the pivot on which this deal turns. Ormiston’s outfit haven’t that hunch yet, I reckon. But we have.”

“You bet. Red, that hombre will persuade Beryl to go with him — or he’ll take her anyway.”

“Do you reckon he can persuade her?”

“I hate to think so — but I do.”

Red’s voice sank to a whisper. “Hey — I see someone comin’!” He peered like a nighthawk into the gloom up the riverbank. “Holy Mackeli, talk about the devil! It’s Beryl an’ Ormiston. Let’s hide. Heah, this way!”

In another moment Red had himself and comrades under the bank, where a ledge ran out a few feet, and some long plumed grasses obscured it from sight above.

A rustle of weeds above, a footfall, and then Beryl’s rich voice: “Here, Ash, this is far enough. I’d like to hear the corroboree.”

“Yes, you like those damned niggers. I smell cigarette smoke! Somebody has been here,” came in Ormiston’s voice, guarded and low.

“Well, they’re gone. And all I smell is cooking meat.”

“Hazelton has been here with that damned little baggage,” growled Ormiston.

“Hazelton is no good. Like as not he’s one of those American gunmen. A killer! Jack saw six notches cut on his revolver. That means the blighter has killed six men, at least. I’d be a fool to provoke him further.”

“Indeed you — would be, Ash,” she said. “He has made himself valuable. Dad has come to rely upon him.”

“The Yankee is a help, I’m bound to admit that. But, Beryl, I can’t stand your praising him. I see him watching you. He is as fascinated by your beauty as that redheaded churn of his. Their eyes just gloat over you. Beryl, you are so lovely! I’m mad over you. I love you beyond reason!”

“Oh, Ash — do you, darling?” she murmured. “Ash — you! — must not...” she remonstrated, but it was the remonstrance of love, that invites rather than repels. That next tense moment, with its murmurings, must have been a dreadful ordeal for Red Krehl. Sterl’s heart was heavy for his comrade.

“Ash, darling, we came away to talk seriously,” said Beryl, evidently regaining composure. “I must not stay much longer. Tell me.”

“Yes, we must settle it,” he rejoined, in a deep low voice, without a trace of hesitation. “Beryl, I’m leaving this trek at the forks of this river, not many days from here.”

“Ashley! Not going? — Oh!”

“No. We can’t get along. Your father will never cross the Never-never! He will be lost.”

“We dared that risk,” replied the girl. “Somehow Father has imbued me with his wonderful faith. We’ll win through.”

“I doubt it. I almost know it. This interior outback grows impossible west of the Warburton. I’m no pioneer — no empire builder.”

“Ash, I promised to marry you. I will. But come with us to the Kimberleys. Make a home there.”

“No. You come with me. Stanley Dann will go on that interior trek without his brother and Hathaway and me. Beryl, come!”

“Oh-h Ash! How I would love to! But I will not betray my father. I will go on, even if they all desert him.”

“They will, sooner or later.”

“Never! Not Hazelton! Not that droll Red Krehl! Not Leslie, or her family. They will go. And I will go, Ash!”

Her voice had begun low and rich with emotion, then gathering power and passion, ended with the ring of a bell.

“But Beryl — you love me!” he cried huskily.

“Yes, I do. I do! But Ash, I beseech you — give up this selfish blind purpose of yours. For my sake, Ash, reconsider!”

“Darling, I will, despite my better judgment,” Ormiston made haste to reply. Presently she was whispering brokenly, won over anew, if not to complaisance then surely to belief. They moved away from the log.

Red sat with drooping head. He heaved a long sigh.

“Pard, in the pinch heah she saved me my belief in her honor,” he said, his voice trembling.

“She did, Red, she did, and I feel like a coyote — like a low-down greaser, spying on her.”

“Me, too. But my hunch was true. Sterl, Leslie, if it wasn’t for you both, an’ a hellbent somethin’, I’d walk right in this heah river!”

But Leslie was in no condition to answer. She clung to Sterl, weeping convulsively.

CHAPTER 15

ON THE MORNING of December twenty-fourth, the day before Christmas, Stanley Dann’s trek toiled and limped into camp at the forks of the Daimantina, there to be stranded until after the rainy season.

Owing to waterholes lying in deep cuts almost inaccessible to the cattle, dragging sand and terrific heat, the last fifty miles of that trek turned out to be all but insurmountable. Smoke signals still preceded the drovers and aborigines still followed them.

Dann selected his permanent camp site on the west side of the main river, above the junction of the several branches, which were steep-banked, deep, dry beds of rock and sand, with waterholes dispersed at widely separated points. The heat was fast absorbing the water. Animals and birds ringed the pools in incredible numbers. They would be dry in a few weeks. But below this junction the main waterhole was a mile-long, narrow, partly shaded pool that would last until the next rainy season. Except in sandy patches, grass grew abundantly. Dann was assured of the cardinal necessities for man and beast for as long a spell as they were compelled to wait there.

Dann picked a camp site on the left bank, in a eucalyptus grove, standing far apart in stately aloofness. The pitching of this camp registered for the trekkers an immense relief and joy. Ormiston, however, refused to camp on that side of the river. He drove his cattle and Hathaway’s which together constituted a mob of about three thousand head, across the dry stream beds. As a bird flew, the distance between the two camps was scarcely a quarter of a mile.

Sterl and Red pitched their tent in a circle of pandanus trees whose tops commingled, forming a dense canopy. The great seeds, somewhat resembling small pineapples, clustered aloft amid the foliage. Leaves covered with a ground canvas, furnished a thick and soft carpet for the tent. Their nets promised protection from mosquitoes and flies. But nothing could save them from the heat. They worked naked to the waist. Friday built himself a bark shack back of the tent. Slyter’s wagon, some fifty rods or more distant, was sheltered by the largest gum. Near at hand Bill established a comfortable cooking unit. The camps of the Danns were lower down, nearer the river-bank, and most picturesquely located among the gums.

Not until late in the afternoon did Sterl feel free to wash up and change his wet and dirty garments. Then he turned to the never failing black, who was always there when wanted. “Come, Friday. Let’s go look-see.”

They crossed the grassy flat back of camp, and climbed a low ridge. From this point Sterl expected to get in his mind’s eye the lay of this upper Diamantina land. But the blazing sunset and the appalling grandeur of that country drove from his mind at first any thought of topography.

“Good camp place, Friday?” he asked.

“Plenty wood, plenty water, plenty meat. All same bad,” replied the black.

“Why all same bad?”

“Plenty black fella, plenty lubra, plenty fly. Eatum up alive. No rain long time. Big water bimeby.”

“One thing at a time, Friday. Why plenty black fella bad?”

“Some black fella good. No good alonga here. Eat — steal. More come all time. Eat — steal. White fella like lubra. That bad.”

“What black fella do about lubra?”

“Mebbe stickum white fella spear.”

“Not so good. But I hope our friend Ormiston runs true to type, and gets speared,” muttered Sterl, half to himself.

“Friday spearum imm bimeby.”

The black had said that once before, months back. Gazing up at him, Sterl thought his native ally was not one to forget.

“Friday, what you mean, no rain long time?”

“Black fella tell all about,” replied Friday, making one of his eloquent gestures. It seemed to include the sun, the land, the growths, the living things within its compass. “Why bad when rain comes bimeby? Big water. All alonga. Cattle stuck.”

Sterl shaded his eyes and feasted them. A sheen of gold illuminated the sky and enveloped the land. The three forks of the Diamantina, dry watercourses, white and glaring by day, now wound away like rivers of golden fire. That afterglow of sunset left the league-wide areas of green grass faintly suffused with its hue, but the river beds of rocks and sand took on a phenomenal and supernatural intensity of color. There was a deeper tinge of gold on the canvas wagon tops, the tents; and a flock of white cockatoos, covering the branches of a dead gum tree, appeared transformed birds of paradise. Below camp to the right, where the water of the river gleamed through the trees, there was a flickering, twinkling myriad of golden facets.

“Never-never Land!” said Friday.

Red sat with his back against a tree, his hands spread listlessly. The cowboy was too tired to care about anything.

“Pard, I seen you up there, like an Apache scout. Pretty nifty, huh?” he drawled, lazily.

“Red, I’ve no regrets, any more.”

“Wal! Not atall?”

“Not atall, old friend.”

“Thet’s dog-gone good! Neither have I, Sterl. Couldn’t we jest be happy but for thet bastard?”

Leslie approached, for once not running nor even showing any of her usual energy. She had changed her rider’s ragged garb for a light cotton dress. “Do you boys know what day tomorrow is?” she asked wistfully.

Sterl knew, but he remained thoughtfully silent.

“It’s Christmas. I’m going over to see the Danns. Mum is there. Won’t you come?”

“Les, I’m too dog-gone daid tired even to see Beryl, or to care whether it’s Christmas or the Fourth, days thet used to be red letters in my life.”

“Me, too, Leslie. You see, we’ve let down. I did have the strength to climb the hill back here. And that was all!”

When Leslie left, Sterl sat down heavily beside his comrade.

“Red, you remember that day in Brisbane when we spent so much money?”

“Hell, yes. But it seems years ago.”

“Well, I flatter myself I’m a pretty wise hombre, if I do say it myself. I bought Christmas presents for you and myself. And as we heard there were to be ladies with us, I took a chance and bought some for them.”

“Aw, pard!” wailed Red. “I never thought of thet. What a pore muddle-haided cowboy I am!”

“Umpumm, Red, you haven’t missed it. I bought enough for you to give too.”

“What kind of presents?” ejaculated Red, elated.

“Candy, for one thing.”

“Naw, not candy! Why, pard, you’re loco. Heah we been trekkin’ a thousand miles under this hot sun! Candy would melt.”

“No, it’s hard candy packed in tin boxes. Then I bought some pretty handkerchiefs and sewing kits. Lastly, two leather cases full of toilet articles — you know the kind of things girls like. Imported from England, mind you! Tomorrow morning we’ll unpack the stuff and plan our surprise.”

Breakfast was called at sunrise. “Dann wants us all present after breakfast,” announced Slyter. Sterl and Red went to their tent and reappeared, mysteriously, each carrying a canvas knapsack on his shoulder. They were the last to arrive at the Dann encampment. All of the trekking party were present except Ormiston’s drovers and several of Dann’s. Stanley Dann stood up, bareheaded, to read a passage from the Bible. After that he offered up a general prayer, commemorating the meaning of Christmas of peace on earth and good will to man, and ended with a specific thanksgiving to God for their good fortune.

Beryl, looking lovely in a blue gown that had evidently been donned for this occasion, was holding a little court all her own in the shade of a tree near her wagon.

“Tip off your mother an’ dad to rustle over heah pronto,” whispered Red to Leslie.

They approached Beryl. Cedric, Larry and the younger drovers were offering felicitations of the day. Ormiston, shaven and in clean garb, occupied what looked like a privileged place close to Beryl.

Suddenly Beryl espied Sterl and Red. Her eyes sparkled with delight and anticipation when the cowboys unlimbered their knapsacks, to set them down with a flourish.

“Folks, me an’ Sterl heah air playin’ Santa Claus,” drawled Red, with the smile that made him boyishly good to look at. “But he is a modest gazabo, so I have to do the honors.”

Beryl let out a shriek of delight. Leslie, blind to the issue until that moment, flushed with amaze and rapture. The Danns and their company looked on, smiling.

Then Red and Sterl reached into the knapsack with the air of magicians, to fish out a small box of cigars for Dann and his partner, some brightly wrapped gifts for Miss Dann and Mrs. Slyter.

“My word!” boomed Stanley Dann. “I haven’t had a good smoke for months. Well, well, to think these Yankees could outdo English people in memory of Christmas!”

The donors gave Beryl and Leslie handy little sewing kits which were received with deep appreciation. Then came the two handsome leather cases which evoked cries of delight.

“Out here in the Never-never!” exclaimed Beryl, incredulously.

“Sterl Hazelton,” cried Leslie, with glad eyes upon him, “when all my things are gone or worn out — Aladdin!”

“Girls, thet ain’t nothin’ atall,” beamed Red. “Come on, pard, all together.”

Then in slow deliberation, purposely tantalizing to the quivering girls, each cowboy produced two boxes, one of goodly size, the other small, both wrapped in shiny paper and tied with colored ribbons.

“What in the world?” cried Beryl, her eyes shining in purple eagerness.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” burst out Leslie, reaching brown hands for her boxes. “What? Oh, what?”

“Candy!” shouted Sterl, triumphantly.

“Red Krehl! You mean sweets? Not ever!” whispered Beryl.

Evidently Leslie had been rendered mute, but she bestowed upon Sterl’s cheek a kiss that left no doubt of her unspoken delight.

Beryl scrambled up, holding all her presents in her arms.

“Leslie, you shall not outdo me in thanks,” she cried, with spirit. “Red Krehl, come here! I would knight you if I were a queen. I am glad somebody remembered me on Christmas Day!” And as the whiskyard cowboy, impelled beyond his will, stumbled to his knees before the girl, she lifted a lovely rosy face and kissed him.

Sterl, glancing at Ormiston, saw his face grow ashy and a glare of jealous hate light his prominent eves. Then Ormiston turned on his heel and strode away, an erect, violent, forbidding figure.

He did not return the next day or the next. Beryl palpably chafed and worried at this evidence of his resentment, but so far as Sterl could see, her pride upheld her. His conviction was now that Ormiston, having arrived at the scene of his intended split with Dann, had an arrow to his bow besides persuasion.

A different kind of fight had begun for Stanley Dann’s trekkers; a fight not against distance and time, rough land, treacherous water, but against heat and flies and, what was worst of all, the peril of idleness, of waiting, and of their effect on the mind. Each day — between the blazing sun and the thirst of thousands of cattle — saw the water in the long waterhole recede inches down the sand and rock. One night from Ormiston’s side of the river gunshots and shrill yells of aborigines startled the campers on Dann’s side. There was no corroboree that night.

Next morning a drover reported to Dann that Ormiston’s men had shot five blacks. No reason was given. Stanley Dann was overheard to express the opinion that his surly partner had sought to drive thieving natives away from camp. But Sterl, after talking with Friday, came to the conclusion that Ormiston wanted to drive the aborigines across the river. At any rate that was what had happened. The several hundred blacks had congregated in a grove at the lower end of the long waterhole.

By way of reparation and kindness Dann ordered crippled cattle shot and dragged down to the aborigine camp. Blacks, lubras, gins, pickaninnies deserted their camp while this restitution took place. But later, after Friday had visited them, they gradually approached nearer and nearer to Dann’s camp. Dann argued for pursuing any course that would keep the blacks friendly and Slyter agreed with him. Friday, Sterl thought, might have influenced Dann toward this attitude, but their leader, in any case, could be generous and kind. When Sterl asked Friday what he had told Dann and Slyter the black replied:

“Plenty black fella good. Mebbe steal bimeby. No fightum.”

“Wal, I’d rather stand for thet,” asserted Red, “than rile them into slitherin’ spears around.”

Beryl weakened in the end, and sent a note by one of the drovers across the way to Ormiston, who came to see her that evening. Thereafter he appeared at Dann’s camp every evening. Beryl Dann would need a terrible lesson before she began to react from her infatuation and then it might come too late.

The trekkers settled down to suffer and to wait. The second hour after sunset usually brought a night breeze that gave a little welcome respite from the torrid heat of the day, but the hours from daylight until an hour or more after breakfast were the most supportable. Sterl made use of this time, often with Leslie or Friday. The middle of the day was intolerable in the sun and just endurable in the shade. The cattle, needing no watch then, sought the shade of the trees where they lay down or stood resting. In these hours, the ever-increasing flies made existence well-nigh unbearable and all the trekkers kept under cover of tents and mosquito nets. The constant humming and buzzing outside, like that of a great hive of bees, made this protection so welcome that the stifling heat was endurable.

So the days wore on endlessly, each one hotter than the last. The small waterholes dried up and living creatures were dependent upon the lone one. No cloud appeared in the sky. At midday rocks were so hot that they blistered a naked hand, the cattle ceased to bawl, the birds to scream, the aborigines to move about. Sterl had always thriven on hot weather; likewise Red. They could sleep, but they would wake wringing wet and with sweat. However, when the mercury rose to a hundred and ten degrees, even the cowboys were hard put to endure it.

When Friday was asked if the rains were ever coming he could reply:

“Might be, bimeby!”

But the bearable hours always renewed interest in things of the moment and hope for the future.

Sterl never tired of the aborigines nor of his efforts to observe and understand them. These blacks seemed far below Friday in development. Friday could not name their tribe, but he understood their language well enough to interpret, and it was through him that the overtures of Stanley Dann and Sterl counteracted the fright and hostility for which Ormiston and his drovers were responsible.

Sterl learned that when a death occurred in a camp of theirs, they moved away at once. They went stark naked except for a breechcloth of woven grass or hair. The men were tall, large heads covered by a mop of tangled black hair. The troops of pot-bellied youngsters, upon being approached, at first scattered like a flock of frightened quail. The mature women, or gins were such monstrosities that Sterl had to force himself to glance at them. For the most part the lubras were not good to look at. A few of them, however, were prepossessing and far from averse to making eyes at the younger drovers.

The problem of the aboriginal was to eat, and he ate everything from dirt to grass and seeds and fruit to all living creatures, including ants — and his own species. He was a hunter. He made his own weapons, very few in number, and these he carried. Friday told Sterl that these people caught live fish under water with their hands. Sterl saw some of them, at Dann’s camp, swim under water, drag ducks down beneath the surface. He saw them eat every last vestige of a bullock, meat, entrails, and even the smashed-up bones. He found lubras and children out on the plain, digging for roots, herbs, lizards, eggs, and one of their reptile luxuries, the goanna.

One morning Red accompanied Sterl and Leslie, with the inseparable Friday, on a visit to the aborigines. They came upon two blacks, both mature men, tall and lean, who fastened ghoulish eyes upon Leslie’s supple and brown bare legs, and then shifted their black gaze to the cowboy’s red head. One of them held a most striking posture. He stood on one long leg, leaning on his spear, while his other leg was bent at right angles, with his foot flat against the inside of his thigh. Yet he stood at ease.

“What’n’ll is the matter with this gazabo?” inquired Red.

“Nothing. He’s just resting. I see a good many blacks stand like that,” replied Sterl.

The abo, evidently impressed by Red, spoke to him in his native jargon.

“Yeah?” drawled Red, and then added sonorously: “Holy Mackeli — Kalamazoo — Ras pa tas — Mugg’s Landin’ — You one-laiged black giraffe!”

Whereupon the aborigine, tremendously impressed, let out a flow of speech that in volume certainly matched Red’s.

“Ahuh? Thet didn’t sound so good to me. Friday, what he say?”

Friday indicated Krehl’s red head and replied: “Makeum fun alonga you.”

“Hell he did?” roared Red. “Hey, you! I’m from Texas, an’ I’m liable to shoot thet one laig out from under you.”

Upon their return to the Dann encampment Slyter called Red and Sterl to him, and informed them that Stanley Dann wanted to see them promptly.

“Now, what’s up?” queried Sterl, impatiently, quick to catch Slyter’s sober mood.

“I’d rather Dann told you,” returned the drover. “There’s been a fight, and the drovers are upset.”

“Yeah? Wal, if you ask me thet ain’t nothin’ new these days,” drawled Red, with a bite in his tone.

Slyter accompanied them the few rods under the trees to the bright campfire, where Stanley stalked to and fro. He was bareheaded, in his shirt sleeves, a deep-eyed giant standing erect under obvious burdens. Beryl was in the background, with her aunt and Mrs. Slyter. A group of men, just visible near one of the tents, stood conversing in low tones.

“You sent for us, sir,” spoke up Sterl, quickly.

“Yes, I regret to say. Harry Spence has been shot. The drovers just fetched him in. He died without regaining consciousness.”

“Spence? That is regrettable, sir, but it can hardly have anything to do with us,” returned Sterl. He had not thought much of Spence, and several others of the rougher element among Dann’s drovers.

“Only indirectly,” rejoined Dann, hastily.

“Boss, who shot Spence?” interposed Red, coolly.

“Ormiston’s drover, Bedford. Tom Bedford. He was badly wounded in the fight, but should recover.”

“Wal, beggin’ yore pardon, boss, an’ if you ask me, there ain’t much love lost in Spence’s case, an’ if Bedford croaked it’d be a damn good night’s job,” replied Red, in cold deliberation.

“I’m not asking for your judgments, Krehl,” said the leader, tersely.

“I’m sorry, boss, but you gotta take them jest the same.”

Sterl put a placating and persuasive hand on Red’s shoulder. But he was glad that the cowboy had spoken out. He, too, was sick of subterfuge and concealment.

“Sir, why did you send for us?” repeated Sterl, quietly.

“Boys, it is only that I preferred to tell you myself, rather than have you hear it from others. I want to persuade you to see it my way. I have come to rely upon you both. I have come to have a personal regard for you. Can I exact a promise from you both — not to shed blood, except in some drastic necessity of self-defense?”

“Yes, sir, you can from me,” declared Sterl, instantly rallying to his sympathy for this great and trouble-besieged man. “Red, you’ll promise, too, won’t you?”

“Boss,” said Red, “you ain’t goin’ to ask me to make a promise like thet, an’ keep it forever?”

“Krehl, don’t misunderstand me,” returned Dann, in haste. “I would not presume to have you deny your creed, your honor. I beg this promise only for the present, because I still hope we can go through this trek without more bloodshed.”

“Wal, boss, as I see it, you won’t,” flashed Red. “It wouldn’t be natural. You’ve got some low-down hombres mixed up with you on this trek. All the same, I’ll give you my promise thet I won’t raise a hand against Ormiston, or anyone, except in self-defense — or to save somebody’s life.”

“Thank you, Krehl,” replied Dann. “Now, for the detail that will be as offensive to you as it was to me. This morning a new contingent of blacks arrived. It seems there were some unusually comely lubras among them. Ormiston propitiated them with gifts — an action Slyter and I are strongly opposed to. But Ormiston did it, and took several to work around his camp. Spence and Bedford quarreled over one of them. It was obvious that all the drovers had been drinking. The two men fought, with the result I told you. Ormiston sent the report to me. And I at once ordered him here. I took him to task. We had bitter words, that might have led to worse but for Beryl. She came between us; and in part, when Ormiston maligned you boys, she took his side. She believes him. I do not.”

“Thanks, boss. But spill it. What has Ormiston said now?” retorted Sterl, harshly.

“He ridiculed my offense at the idea of his drovers making up to the lubras. And the part applicable to you is this, in his own words: ‘Look at your Yankee cowboys — Hazelton, posing as a gentleman, and Krehl as a comedian — to please the ladies! They go from their soft speeches to Beryl and Leslie to the embraces of these nigger lubras!’”

If Stanley Dann expected the cowboys to arise in rage to disclaim against their traducer, he reckoned without his host. Nothing Ormiston might do or say could surprise them any more.

As fate would have it Leslie had followed them over, and Beryl with the two older women, evidently wishing to intercept her, had all come within range of Dann’s stern voice. Sterl threw up his hands. What was the use?

Red did not fortify himself with knowledge and bitterness, as Sterl had done. But his innate chivalry permitted of no intimation that these girls could believe such vile slander.

“Beryl, you needn’t look so orful bad,” he said, gently. “Leastways not on my account. I jest promised your Dad I wouldn’t throw a gun on Ormiston for what he said.”

“You don’t deny it, Red Krehl?” cried Beryl, passionately, beside herself.

“What you mean — I don’t deny?”

“Ormiston’s accusation that you cowboys go from me and Leslie — to — to those nigger lubras,” rang out the outraged girl. She was pale under her tan and her big eyes strained with horror.

Red twitched as if he were about to draw a gun. His visage lost its ruddiness then. “My deny thet? Hell no! I’m a Texan, Miss Dann. You English never heahed of Texas, let alone know what a Texan stands for in regard to women. What you’ve got in your mind, Beryl Dann, what you think of me, is what’s true of your rotten lover. An’ by Gawd, someday you’ll go on your knees to me for thet!”

The girl recoiled. She gasped. Her eyes dilated. But she could not cope with passion and jealousy and hate — those primitive emotions that this trek had increased by leaps and bounds. She let Red stalk away without another word.

“Sterl! — Sterl!” burst out Leslie, wildly. “You deny — that — that — or I’ll hate you!”

“Leslie, it is a matter of supreme indifference to me what you believe,” returned Sterl, cold and aloof. Then he addressed the parents of the girls. “Dann, Slyter, and you, Mrs. Slyter, you all can’t fail to see what your wilderness outback has done, to your precious offspring. Next, they’ll condone, in Ormiston and his bunch, the very thing they insult us with now!”

CHAPTER 16

LESLIE MET STERL next morning at breakfast as if awakening from a nightmare; she appeared stunned to bewilderment that he did not notice her. Sterl felt that she, the same as Beryl, must learn her bitter lesson. Until that time she would not exist for him, so far as intimacy and friendly contact were concerned. He was deeply hurt, but not resentful. She was only a sentimental young girl, placed in a terrible situation. Sterl felt sorry for her. Little by little his love had grown until it had almost made him forget that he was an outlaw who, if he considered marriage, must find himself in a grave plight. Sterl had been hurt before by love. He could not kill this new love but he put it aside. Krehl’s love affair with Beryl, however, had a fair chance to survive, if the girl herself proved strong enough to survive. Sterl seemed to feel something deep and latent in this Dann girl. She was blindly in love with this dark-browed bushranger. But when she learned the truth about Ormiston, as must inevitably happen, it was Sterl’s opinion that the girl would hate him more than she had loved him.

January blazed to its end, but the rains did not come. They might skip a year. The heat and the flies had become insupportable. Yet human life lived on, though in each and every person there were signs, even in himself, revealing to Sterl’s keen eyes that white people could not live there for long. The days were terrible; the sky a vast copper dome close to the earth; the night hot even till dawn. Work and meals were undertaken before sunrise and after sunset. The mob of cattle grazed slowly by night and rested by day. The flies were harder on them than the sun. Hundreds of calves were born. Stanley Dann had now more cattle than when he had left Downsville.

Bedford, being a tough and phlegmatic man, recovered from his serious wound. Hathaway came down with some kind of a fever which neither Ormiston nor Dann could alleviate. Stanley Dann’s sister was a woman along in years, unused to life in the open, and despite what had appeared at first a certain robustness she began to fail. It was mental, Sterl thought, more than physical. She simply dried up into a shadow of her former self, and met death with a wan and pathetic gladness.

Eric Dann presented a problem to Sterl. The man had something on his mind, either a cowardice he could not beat, a gnawing indecision about splitting with his brother, or something secret. Sterl had seen criminals not big enough to stand up under the adversity that tried men’s souls; and it seemed to him there was a furtive similarity between their moods and Eric’s. Ormiston had turned gaunt of visage, hollow-eyed. But for that matter, all the drovers lost flesh, hardened, tanned almost as black as Friday, and if they ever smiled, Sterl did not see it. It was in Ormiston’s eyes, however, that the difference lay. He never met Sterl’s scornful gaze. He ceased to eat at Dann’s table, but at sunset and dusk he haunted Beryl, and kept her up late. Beryl Dann could not lose her grace of form or beauty of profile, but she grew thin, and her large violet eyes had a wild look.

Leslie bore up surprisingly well. She lost but little weight. The sun burned her very dark. She grew quieter, less cheerful, more considerate and helpful. She approached Sterl endlessly with subterfuges, innocent advances, unthinking expectations which were never realized and which left her pondering and sad.

Stanley Dann proved to be the great physical and spiritual leader Sterl had imagined he would be. He remained imperturbable, cheerful, confident. But he seldom talked to his brother, he never voluntarily addressed Ormiston, though he often came to Slyter’s camp to smoke and talk.

Always when Sterl watched these people he ended by going back to study Friday, the aborigine, who day by day loomed greater in his sight. Here was a man. His color mattered little. He was always on night guard with Sterl and Red. He had made their lives his life. He asked nothing for his allegiance. Separated from them by inestimable ages, by aboriginal mystery and darkness of mind, he yet felt for them, for their trials and sorrows and terrors.

“Bimeby rain come. All good,” he said, on several nights. And once, as if the question of rain was not altogether the trenchant thing, he wagged his black head, and gazed at Sterl, his great black eyes unfathomable, “Ormiston tinkit he get cattle, Missy Dann, eberyting. But no, boss Hazel, nebber!”

On Friday, February thirteenth, the limit of heat was reached — a hundred and twenty-five in the shade. In had to be the limit because Dann’s thermometer burst as if the mercury had boiled. Red said it was a good thing. They all had been asking how hot it was, watching the instrument, wondering how much hotter it would get. But now there would be no way to learn. The noonday sun would have burned the eyeballs sightless. Sterl and Red waded into the river a dozen times without bothering to remove their garments. The birds and beasts and reptiles Sterl encountered in his early morning walk did not trouble to move out of the way. Almost he could pet the gray old kangaroos; the wild fowl pecked at him, but did not fly.

Hathaway’s death, coming one night when he was unattended, shocked everyone, even the cowboys, out of their abnormal unfeeling states. For days he had been delirious and burning up with fever. They buried him beside Emily Dann, and erected another cross. Stanley Dann, in his faltering prayer, committed his soul to rest and freedom from the plague of unsatisfied life.

Sterl wondered if the leader was breaking. But that very night, when Ormiston, who had not attended the funeral, presented himself at Dann’s camp, professing grief for the loss of his friend, the leader delivered himself of a significant speech.

“Ormiston,” he boomed in his sonorous voice, “you need not demean yourself to tell me that you won Hathaway’s cattle at cards, or that he otherwise owed you money.”

That staggered the bushranger for a moment, perhaps because both the cowboys and Beryl were present. His dark gaze, scarcely veiling malignance, would have warned a man less noble than Stanley Dann. He dropped his head and went his way.

“Dad!” exclaimed Beryl, petulantly. “Anyone would think you doubted Hathaway owed Ash money. I knew it ages ago.”

“Yes, daughter, anyone who hadn’t a mind would think that,” returned her father, and left her. The cowboy sat staring into the fire, enduring its smoke to insure a relief from the pest of mosquitoes that had been recently added to the tribulations of the forks.

Sterl revolved Dann’s caustic speech in his mind. Their leader was not so guileless after all. He was merely greater than most men! When would this giant stamp upon the viper?

Sometime during that night Sterl opened his eyes, wide awake instantly. It was pitch dark, stifling hot, still as the grave, yet in a flash his consciousness told him that he had been awakened by something unusual. Despite the heat and his own burning sweat, a queer little chill ran over him.

Suddenly the painful silence broke in a long low rolling rumble. Thunder! Was he dreaming? It sounded again, like the distant roar of stampeding buffalo. Yes, it was thunder!

Sterl sat up. His heart thumped audibly. He had a dry mouth and a constriction in his throat.

“Red — Red!” he panted, huskily.

“Hell, pard. I heahed it!”

There came Friday’s voice.

“Boss, bimeby rain!”

They pulled on their boots, crawled from under their mosquito nets, and out of the tent. There was starlight enough to see Friday’s tall black image, the pale wagons, the spectral trees. The air was sultry, oppressive, heavy, yet strangely different. Then a flare of lightning ran along the eastern horizon. How exceedingly beautiful, beneficent, overwhelming! With bated breath Sterl waited for the thunder, to assure himself, to enable him to judge how far distant. Would it never come? That storm was far away.

“How far — when?” Sterl asked Friday. “Rain mebbe soon — mebbe no!”

Slyter came stamping from the direction of his wagon. Leslie’s rich, glad voice rang out. Stanley Dann boomed to his brother. The drovers were calling one to another. Across the river lights flashed at Ormiston’s camp. They had all heard. They were all astir.

Slyter’s thought was for his horses. Dann boomed to his drovers that thunder and lightning, after so long a dry spell, might stampede the mob. In short order all were mounted and on guard.

But that storm passed by to the southward. Soon, however, the disappointed trekkers thrilled to more thunder. In due course that storm, too, passed by the forks, but closer, heavier, longer.

But just the same the sun rose fiery red — molten steel. The birds and wild fowl came in to water. The slopes and flats were black with kangaroos and wallabies. Again the heat blazed down; again the internal horde of whirling, humming, biting, bloodsucking flies settled down around man and beast.

After breakfast Stanley Dann called all his trekkers to his camp.

“Friends, countrymen, my brother, my daughter,” he boomed, “my prayers have been answered. The wet season is at hand. We are saved, and we lift up our voices in thanksgiving to Him, in Whom we have never lost faith. When the rains cease, or when it has rained enough to fill the rivers and creeks, we shall proceed on our trek. But with this change: we will go by the Gulf route, and on to Darwin, and from there to the Kimberleys. A year longer — but that is better than to divide our party, our cattle, our strength, our harmony. Ormiston, you who have been even more stubborn than my brother in refusal to cross the Never-never, you can rejoice now that I have changed my mind.”

A loud hurrah from a half dozen lusty-throated drovers broke up the silence following Dann’s address. The leader waited, naturally anticipating a response from Ormiston. But none came. The drover turned away his dark face. Beryl dropped her head as if stupefied and made for her wagon. Eric Dann, however, received the news with a blank visage, then a gradually breaking expression which Sterl interposed as consternation.

Leslie, in the stress of the hour, forgot the estrangement she had caused between herself and Sterl and met him with eyes darkly excited, to grasp his arm with the old familiar intimacy.

“Oh, Sterl! I’m glad — glad in a way. But I did want to cross the Never-never. Didn’t you?”

The answer that sprang to Sterl’s lips was both cruel and insulting, but somehow he could not hold back the words: “Yes,” he said caustically, “I sure hate the idea of having to spend a year longer in the society of two shallow, mindless girls like you and Beryl.”

Her face burned red, her eyes blazed, and there was little doubt that but for Red’s intervention she would have struck him. He went on his way, deeply disturbed by the encounter. Red caught up with him.

“Say, pard, the kid would have smacked the daylights out of you but for me,” he said.

“That didn’t escape me, Red.”

“I left her cryin’. That was a mean kind of speech you gave her, Sterl.”

“Agree with you,” Sterl snapped. Then after a pause, “Did you look at Beryl?”

“Shore. Beryl was surprised. Mebbe she’s not so strong for them noble idees of bein’ true to her Dad. Mebbe she’s been talked into elopin’ with Ormiston.”

“Ah, I had that thought, too. I hoped I was wrong. Red, Eric Dann was sunk at his brother’s decision. Sunk!”

“He oughta be overjoyed. If he ain’t — why ain’t he? He always struck me as kinda phony — weak or somethin’. Gosh, ain’t it hot again? Thet false alarm last night made us expect this gosh-awful sun wouldn’t shine no more.”

“But the air feels different.”

There was an infinitesimal humidity in the atmosphere that morning. That afternoon white clouds, like ships at sea, sailed over the ranges to the northeast. They were good to see. Before they crossed the zenith the heat had dissipated them. The sunset was ruddy, dusky, smoky. The cattle lowed. There was an uneasy activity among the birds and kangaroos. Friday talked to the old men among the aborigines, and returned uncommunicative.

After supper, Sterl was reading by firelight when Red nudged him. In the gloaming distance — Ormiston and Beryl!

“Watch awhile, pard. It won’t be long now!” said Red, getting up to glide off like an Indian.

Out of the corner of his eve Sterl watched Leslie, and knew she would approach him. At last she did.

“Red has followed them — Ormiston and Beryl. What’s he going to do? Kill that blighter?”

Sterl did not answer.

“Eric Dann has got the willies, whatever Red means by them,” went on Leslie, restlessly, edging closer. “And he was drinking whisky. In this heat!”

“How do you know?”

“I saw him. I smelled it. Sterl, the rains will come?”

“Friday says bimeby. Mebbe soon. Mebbe no.”

“I thought I’d die last night, hoping, waiting. It’ll never rain. We’ll all dry up and blow away.”

Leslie came closer, and suddenly, desperate, sat down beside Sterl.

“You hateful, callous, unforgiving cowboy!” she whispered, huskily.

“Leslie, how very unflattering!” he rejoined, mildly.

“I hate you!” she burst out.

“That is only natural, Leslie. Your are a headstrong child.”

“Headstrong, yes, but I’m not even a girl any more. I’m old. I’ll be like these gins, presently.”

“Very well, then, you’re old. What of it?”

“Oh, I don’t care. Nobody cares. You don’t. I — I wish I’d thrown myself away on Ormiston.”

“Yeah? Is it too late?”

“Don’t be a damn fool,” she flashed. “It’s bad enough for you to be a monster of indifference. A man of rock! I’m sick. I’m wild. I’m scared. I’m full of — of—”

“You must be full of tea, darling,” interposed Sterl, lightly.

“Sterl Hazelton, don’t you dare call me that — that — when you’re making fun of me. I’m so miserable. And it’s not all about myself.”

“Who then?”

“Beryl. She’s strange. She was lovely to me for awhile. Now she’s changed. She’s — numb. Sterl, you must do something, or she’ll go away with him!”

“Les, hadn’t you better go to bed?” he queried, gently.

“Yes. I’m weak as a cat and wet as water. But before I go I want to tell you something I heard Mum say to Dad. Mum said: ‘I see Hazelton doesn’t go to the lubras any more.’ And Dad replied: ‘I hadn’t noticed. But it’s none of your business, woman.’ Then Mum snapped: ‘Bingham Slyter, I didn’t hold it against Sterl. I’d do it myself, if I were a man! In this horrible hole, where God only knows what keeps us from going mad!’”

“Well, well!” ejaculated Sterl, taken aback, and flustered. “Then what did your dad say?”

“He swore terribly at Mum.”

Sterl relaxed into the flimsy protection of silence. All these good people might be forgiven for anything. It was a diabolical maelstrom — this trek.

“That — distressed me — Sterl,” went on Leslie, falteringly. “I’m as crazy as Mum, or any of them. I — I lied when I said I hated you. It hurt me that about you — and the lubras. But I forgive you. I — I don’t care. There! I’ve told you. Maybe now I can sleep.”

She ran off sobbing. It was well, he reflected, that she did. A kind word, a tender touch from him at that crucial moment would have brought the distracted girl into his arms. There could never be anything between them. He could keep the secret that had made him a man without a country.

Sterl sat there a long time. The fire died down and Friday crossed a couple of sticks over the ashes. Mosquitoes began to snarl. Red returned, dragged his feet, his gait like that of a whipped cur. A furious flame of passion waved over Sterl. That this cowboy, as keen as flint, a man who had laughed and drawled in the very face of death — that he should crawl back to the firelight, ashamed and abased, crushed at the weakness or perfidy of a girl, was too revolting to withstand. Sterl leaped up muttering, “I won’t endure it!” Then a deep low roll of thunder brought him to himself.

CHAPTER 17

THUNDER! DEEP, DETONATING, long-rolling! Krehl approached the burned-out campfire, his head lifting like that of a listening deer. Again the heart-shaking rumble!

“You heah, pard?” he queried.

“You bet. Deeper, heavier tonight, Red.”

Friday loomed out of nowhere, soft-stepping, black as the night. He replenished the fire with two sticks laid crosswise, squatted down, rested his weapons, and became a statue like black marble. Friday could sleep in any position, at any time. Sterl had caught him asleep standing on one leg, like a sandhill crane.

Back inside the tent, pulling off his boots, Sterl said, “What kicked you in the middle, pard?”

Red heaved a sigh. “Somethin’ wuss tonight, Sterl. I had my gun out to kill Ormiston when that first clap of thunder fetched me to my senses.”

Sterl cursed his friend lustily. It silenced Red and relieved his own overwrought feelings. Then he stretched out on the hot blankets to rest if not to sleep. As on the night before, this thundering forerunner of the season’s storms passed by the forks, booming on, rolling on to rumble and mutter and die away in the distance. Day broke. And when the sun rose, fire again possessed the sky and earth.

At breakfast Larry told how three thunderstorms had passed by about midnight; the last had gone to the west of the forks.

“We’ll get socked right in the eye tonight,” he said, cheerfully.

“Folks, am I gettin’ balmy or is it hot sooner an’ wusser than yestiddy mawnin’?” inquired Red.

Slyter interposed to inform them that the last day of a hot spell was the hottest. The temperature this day would top one hundred and thirty degrees. If the forks had been a dusty place, with hot gales blowing, life would have been impossible.

“As long as your face is wet, you’re all right,” he said. “But if it gets dry and hot, look out. Keep in the shade with a pail of water and bathe your head.”

When Sterl followed Red to their tent, Friday pointed to Eric Dann crossing the main fork of the dry river bed toward Ormiston’s camp. Sterl got his field glass from under a flap of the tent.

“From what I heard last night,” said Red. “He’s carryin’ a message from the big boss. He’s gonna persuade Ormiston to drive his herd back on this side, before the river rises. Haw! Haw! Like hell—”

“Here by this log,” interrupted Sterl. “Nobody can see us.” He adjusted the glass. At first glance he saw that Ormiston’s camp was a busy place considering the torrid heat. Drovers naked to the waist were carrying things from one wagon to another. Ormiston paced under a shelter of palm and pandanus leaves. His right-hand man, Bedford, sat on the ground mending harness. They saw Eric Dann plodding up the sand of the river slope, and their remarks must surely have fitted their malevolent looks. But in a moment more the drover was again the smiling Ormiston, greeting his visitor agreeably. They talked, and Sterl did not need to hear them to know that Eric Dann ever delivered his brother’s message.

“Lemme have a look, you hawg,” spoke up Red. He glued his eyes to the glass and remained rigid for a long time.

“Wal, thet’s over, whatever it was,” he said, presently. “Dann is comin’ back. He’s carryin’ the world on his shoulders, if I know a sucker when I see one. He doesn’t know Ormiston is goin’ to double-cross him, any more than does Stanley Dann. Gosh, I can hardly wait to bore thet beady-eyed bastard! There he goes, back to thet wagon they’re packin’.”

His ice-blue eyes glinted as he faced Sterl. “All over but the rain — an’ the shootin,’ pard,” he rang out.

“Well, dammit, suppose we go over there and do the shooting before it rains,” snapped Sterl.

“Now! There ain’t no good motive yet thet’d go far with — Stanley Dann. We gotta have thet. What we been waitin’ for all these months? Use yore haid, pard.”

“Red, oughtn’t we tell Stanley?”

“Hell no! Not before, an’ ruin our chance to bore that hombre. Afterward we won’t have to talk. Ormiston will raid the boss’s mob an’ remuda, shore as yore born.”

“Okay then. But where does Beryl come in?”

“Pard, thet stumps me, too. Beryl thinks Ormiston will take the Gulf road, now thet Stanley has given in. But Ormiston isn’t takin’ it, as we know. An’ I’m about shore there’s no hope of Ormiston persuadin’ Beryl to elope. He ain’t the kind of a man who’d risk much for a woman. Shore you’ve seen how Beryl has failed lately. She’d be a burden. What he wants air hosses an’ cattle.”

“Red, you’re overshooting here,” declared Sterl. “Beryl’s physical condition wouldn’t deter him one single whit, if he wants her. He has to travel with wagons. She can be packed like a bag of flour. If she dies on the way, what the hell?”

“Wal,” cut in Red, wearily, “let’s wait for the show-down. It’s a cinch Ormiston will try to steal some of Dann’s hosses an’ cattle. Mebbe some of Slyter’s too. But if he’s as pore a bushranger as he is everythin’ else, why, hell, it’ll make us laugh!”

Stanley Dann sent orders by Cedric for all to lie quiet that day, protected from the direct rays of the sun. Before that, the cattle had strung out in the shade of the trees along the river-banks. Kangaroos kept to the brush. The whirling hordes of flies were out early, but they soon vanished. The sun was too hot for them. The younger blacks stayed in or by the water; the older ones did not move from their shelters.

Sterl and Red found the inside of the tent unendurable. Almost naked they lay under their wagon on the grass. Friday lay in the shade of a big gum tree. That was the only time Sterl ever saw him incapacitated. He, too, although as perfect an engine to resist the elements as evolution had ever turned out, had to fight for his life.

The sun set at last. That awful odor of the blast furnace closed. In the west colossal thunderhead clouds loomed halfway to the zenith. Low down over the horizon their base was a dusky purple, but as they billowed and mushroomed upward, the darker hues changed to rose and gold, and their rounded tops were pearl white.

Friday appeared stalking under the gum trees. He came directly to them.

“Howdy,” he said, using the cowboy greeting Sterl had taught him. And accompanying it was a transfiguration in the black visage that Sterl recognized as Friday’s exceedingly rare smile.

“Boss, rain come,” he said, as if he were a chief addressing a multitude of aborigines.

“Bimeby?” asked Sterl, huskily.

“Alonga soon night. Rain like hell.”

A call to supper disrupted this conversation. While the cowboys forced themselves to partake of the eternal damper, meat and tea, the magnificent panorama of pillared cloud pageant lifted perceptibly higher. The bases closed the gaps between and turned to inky black. The purple deepened and encroached upon the gold, blotting it out until the sculptured, scalloped crowns lost their pearl and white. Slyter heard the good news and ran across the way to tell the Danns. Red whooped and hobbled after him, evidently to inform Beryl.

“I’m going to ride herd tonight,” announced Leslie, brightly, approaching Sterl.

Her face showed the havoc of these torrid weeks less than that of anyone else, Sterl observed, but the change was enough to give him a pang.

“Yeah? You look like it,” he rejoined, dubiously.

“How do I look?” she retorted, hastily.

“Terrible.”

“So do you. If I look terrible you should see Beryl! What do you mean by terrible?”

“Eyes hollow, lines you didn’t use to have.”

“Oh, Sterl! Am I pretty no longer?”

“You couldn’t help being pretty, Leslie!” replied Sterl, yielding as always to the appeal which destroyed his relentlessness.

“Then I’m not to ride herd with you tonight?”

“I didn’t say so.”

“But you’re my boss.

“Long ago, Leslie, before this trek had made me old and you a little savage — then I called myself your boss. But no more!”

“What if I am a little savage?” she asked, wistfully.

Red and Slyter returned from the Dann camp, and Slyter said: “Saddle up, all hands. Stanley wants the mob driven into that basin out there, and surrounded.”

Sterl went on with Red. The afterglow of sunset shone over the land. The vast mass of merging clouds shut out the northeast. The two seemed to be in conflict.

“I seen Beryl,” Red was saying, his voice deep with pain. “She lay on her bed under the wagon. When I called she didn’t answer. I stepped up on the wheel, so I could look down at her. I spoke an’ she whispered, ‘Bury me out on — the lone prairie!’ You know I used to sing thet to her — before Ormiston...Sterl, could Beryl Dann look at me like thet, smile like thet, say thet to me if she meant to run off with this black-faced rustler?”

“Red, give me something easy,” replied Sterl, grimly. “Back home I’d swear to God she couldn’t. But out here, after what we’ve gone through, I say hell yes, she could! Take your pick.”

“Pard, if you was me, would you watch Beryl’s wagon tonight, instead of guardin’ herd?”

“No! — Red, you might kill Ormiston, and kill him too soon. Let these Danns find out what we know. Then you can break loose an’ I’ll be with you. Man alive, she can’t get away — Ormiston can’t get away — not with her or his stolen cattle or his life. If he took Beryl on horseback we’d run him down. Red, old man, come to your senses!”

“Thanks, pard. Reckon I — I was kinda queer. Mebbe the heat — Heah’s the hosses.”

“What’ll you ride?” asked Sterl, as he, looked the remuda over. King whinnied and thudded toward him.

“Leslie’s Duke. He’s a big water dog. An’ mebbe there’ll be a flood. Them clouds all same Red River color, pard.”

Mounted, the cowboys headed for the grassy basin already half covered with cattle. Slyter, pounding along to join the cowboys, expressed anxiety for his horses. Red said he was sure that they would stand, unless run down by a frightened mob. The peril lay with the cattle.

Stanley Dann rode around the mob, hauling up last where Sterl and Red had been joined by Larry and Roland. “Station yourselves at regular intervals. Concentrate on the river and camp sides,” said Dann. “Probably the mob won’t rush. If they do, keep out of their way. They won’t run far. From the looks of it we are in for a real storm.”

“Let’s stick pretty close together,” suggested Sterl to Red.

“You can’t lose me, pard!”

“The air’s stirring. Smells dusty!”

“But it’s them low clouds thet holds the storm. Gosh, but they’re black!”

Then the first deep, detonating thunder rolled toward the waiting drovers. The tired, heat-dulled cattle gave no sign of uneasiness.

“Bet you they won’t stampede,” called Red, some yards to Sterl’s right.

“They’re English cattle. They can’t be scared, maybe,” returned Sterl, jocularly.

Thunder boomed over the battlements of the ranges north and east. Flashes of lightning flared from behind them. Puffs of moving air struck Sterl in the face, hot like the breath of fire. The lacy foliage of the eucalyptus trees began to toss against a sky still clear. Heavy thunderclaps turned Sterl’s gaze back to the storm. The front of it had rolled over the ranges.

“Whoopee!” yelled Red. “She’s acomin’, an’ a humdinger!”

A hot gale struck Sterl. He turned his back, and felt that he was shriveling up like leather in a flame. The gum trees bent away from its force; streaks of dusty light sped along the ground; the afterglow faded into a gloaming that was a moving curtain before the wind. Leaves and grass and bits of bark whipped by, and King’s mane and tail stood straight out.

All at once Sterl’s senses awoke to a startling fact. The hot furnace blast had gone on the wind! The air was cool — damp! Red’s wild yell came, splitting Sterl’s ear. And with it a roar, steady, gaining, tremendous — the roar of rain.

The pall bore down upon them, steel-gray in the blazes of white fire, to swallow up earth and night and lightning and thunder. He could not see a hand before his face. But how he reveled in that drenching!

It swallowed up time, too, and he almost forgot the great mob of cattle. But to think of them was futile. Sterl shut his eyes, bent his head, and thanked heaven for every drop of that endless torrent. Stanley Dann’s faith and prayers were justified; the trek was saved! Then a rough hand on his shoulder roused him. He opened his eyes. The lightning flashes were far to the west, and the thunder rolled with them. The rain was pouring down, but not in a solid sheet. He could see indistinctly.

“Pard!” yelled Red, close to his ear. “Stampede! Feel the ground shakin’!”

CHAPTER 18

“LET’S FIND THE break!” shouted Red. “You ride back. I’ll ride ahaid.”

Turned away from the pelting rain, Sterl could distinguish the darker line of cattle against the white grass. They were not moving on this side. He rode forward and checked King to listen again. There was a decided roar of hoofs, but it was lessening in volume.

He pulled King to a walk. Perhaps a spur of cattle had broken out of the main mob. Then, in a lull of the heavy downpour he caught gunshots! Turning to peer back he saw dim flashes far across the herd. Dann’s drovers on that side were trying to hold the mob.

Presently Sterl made out the dark shape of a horseman. Riding close he shouted and got an answer. It was Roland.

“They’re quiet here,” yelled the drover. “They’ll hold now. If they were going to rush over there, it’s strange they didn’t when the storm was worst.”

“Strange at that,” replied Sterl. “Where’s your next guard?”

“Not far along. Drake. He told me Slyter was fussing about his horses.”

“Small wonder. I’ll ride back to Red.”

The rain still poured down, with intermittent heavier bursts. He had sent Friday back to the camp before the break of the storm, and he did not feel sure just where he and Red had parted. He halted and on the last stop found the cattle jostling and pressing one another. The roar seemed to have grown louder. In the gray gloom the mob moved and swayed as if from irresistible pressure at its center.

Sterl trotted King a hundred yards farther around the herd. Two riders emerged from the impenetrable black.

“Heah you air,” shouted Red, as the three met.

“All jake down the line on this side,” reported Sterl.

Larry told him that Dann’s drovers on that side of the herd were all gone.

“Cattle rarin’ to slope around there,” interposed Red. “It ain’t safe, but we might stop a stampede.”

“But those guards will be back unless...”

Red interrupted: “Like hell they will! Pard, we had it figgered. Some of them drovers, in cahoots with Ormiston, have cut out a bunch of cattle. It wasn’t no stampede. But there will be one if we don’t watch out. Let’s mosey.”

The three riders loped their mounts through the driving rain and lashing grass.

“Ride up an’ down heah,” shouted Red. “Blaze away with yore guns. If there’s a break anywhere, run for yore lives.”

They separated. Sterl rode back firing, along the way they had come. Close to the herd he felt their unrest and heard their bawling. Along Sterl’s line of progress the restive cattle finally settled down and stood. But in the other direction Red and Larry were encountering extreme difficulty. Sterl joined them at the crucial point. For a few moments it seemed vain to attempt blocking the cattle. But the intrepid riders, at the expense of practically all their ammunition, finally held the animals in check. The excited fringe of the mob quieted down.

“Jest luck!” panted Red, as the three reined to together.

“Boys,” said Larry, “I’ll tell the Danns who saved their mob. New work to me, and my heart was in my throat half the time...Where are those drovers?”

“Haw! Haw! Yes, shore, where in the hell air they? Heah! Listen... What’s thet roar?”

“My God, they’re on the rampage again!”

“No, boys,” yelled Red. “Thet’s not cattle! I know thet noise! It’s the river!”

Sterl marveled that he had not been as quick as Red to recognize that steady, increasing roar. All in a flash he was back along the Cimarron, the Purgatory, the Red, the Brazos — all those western rivers that he had known and battled in flood.

“Fellers, thet big dry wash has been raisin’ all the time. This is flood!”

“Red, we’d better pull leather out of here.”

“I should smile. It’s good the camp is on thet high bench...Gosh, do you heah her comin’?”

A seething, crashing, bumping roar bore down from the black night. The riders loped their horses toward higher ground. They encountered a two-foot wall of water rushing in at that end. Somewhere above the basin an overflow from a tributary had met the main flood head on. They waded their horses through to the rising slope.

Gray dawn broke. The rain had ceased except for a drizzle, but the overcast sky predicted continuous downpour. The mob of cattle stood heads down, knee-deep in the overflow. The stream that had half filled the basin had dwindled to a ribbon. Across the basin and the flat beyond, the mainstream raced full from bank to bank. Green trees and logs floated swiftly by. In the middle of the river huge waves curled up to break back upon themselves.

“Red, give us a count,” said Sterl, grimly.

“Wall, I was jest about to,” replied the cowboy. “About four thousand haid there now. Ormiston an’ his bushrangers have sloped with half of our cattle!”

“Bushrangers!” yelled Larry. “Good grief!”

“Shore, bushrangers! Let’s go to camp. All the rest of the drovers have rid in for tea, or they’re drowned — or gone.”

Friday met them and took Sterl’s horse. The aborigine’s blank visage and his silence were ominous. Bill had a fire going, with tea brewing. No womenfolk were in sight. Over at Dann’s camp there was less activity, but a group of drovers stood as if stunned.

Slyter paced to and fro like a maniac confined in a cell. Some of Leslie’s race horses were gone, including Lady Jane and Jester.

“What the hell you beefin’ about, boss?” queried Red, curtly. “Thet ain’t nothin’ atall. Wait till you get the load.”

Sterl, still silent, hurried to change into dry clothes, refill his belt with cartridges, and get out his rifle. He made sure that the oilskin cover was tight. Red cursed Slyter through his teeth. “What you think, Sterl? Thet hossmad geezer doesn’t even know about the loss of the cattle. An’ damn little he’d care if he did. It’s a cinch Ormiston stole those race hosses.”

“Rustler!” rasped Sterl. “We’ve got a job. And my God, am I ready for it!”

They hurried out to the fire and ate standing, eyes alert, thinking hard. Larry came running whiskyardly on his bow-legs. His face was gray, and his eyes popped.

“Hey, wait a minnit, you!” ordered Red, sharply. “Get yore breath, Slyter, come heah.”

The drover, gloomy-faced and disheveled, stamped to the fire, almost belligerently.

“How many hosses missin’?” asked Red. “Five! Leslie’s! We can’t track those racers, not after this deluge. And I’ll lose them. It’ll about kill Leslie.”

“Yore hosses were stole, Slyter.”

“Who — Who?” gasped Slyter, staggered. “By thet bushranger you an’ Dann have been harborin’.”

Sterl broke his silence. “Keep it from Leslie, boss, if you can. Bill, rustle me some meat and bread.”

“Wal, Larry, if you can talk now come out with it,” said Red.

“Two thousand head and five drovers gone! Eric Dann gone! Beryl gone!”

“Ahuh. How about Ormiston’s wagons?”

“Gone too, so Drake said. Mob not in sight.”

“Come, Friday,” called Sterl.

They hurried toward Dann’s camp, followed by the others. The leader turned from the group of drovers.

“Bad doing, boss,” said Sterl. “What’s your angle?”

“There was a rush during the storm. My drovers followed, but they are not in sight. Eric and Beryl must have crossed to Ormiston’s camp last night and been stormbound.”

“How do you account for five of Slyter’s thoroughbreds being gone?”

“That is more news to me. They must have run away in the storm.”

“Mr. Dann, it is our opinion that they were stolen,” returned Sterl, bluntly.

Dann took that as Sterl imagined he would have taken a blow in the face — without the bat of an eyelash. “Stolen? Preposterous! What black would steal horses when there are cattle to eat?”

Red Krehl had listened attentively to this interview, while his blue eyes, clear and piercing, covered the camp. They flashed back to fix upon the leader.

“Dann, I’m orful sorry I have to hurt yore feeling’s,” he bit out, cool and bitter. “You been too friendly with a bushranger who turns out to be a slicker hombre than we savvied. Name of Ormiston, which I reckon ain’t his real name by a damn sight. He stole Slyter’s racers. He corrupted yore drovers an’ raided yore mob. He made a sucker out of yore weak-minded brother. He...”

“You blasphemous Yankee lout — to whom not even blood relationship is sacred!” boomed the leader.

“Save yore wind, boss,” snapped Red. “I’m pretty —— riled myself! Mebbe it might help for you to see thet your brother’s wagon is gone.”

It was indeed. Only his dray was there, its cover dripping with rain. But that discovery did not by any means convince Stanley Dann.

“Dann, there’s a lot to tell when I got time,” went on Red. “I heahed Ormiston say he was a bushranger. An’ Jack an’ thet hombre Bedford were his right-hand men. I knowed they all were rustlers before I’d been a month on this trek. Sterl, heah, knowed it, too.”

“Suspicion I don’t listen to,” thundered Dann. “If you had facts why didn’t you produce them?”

“Hellsfire, Dann! No man could tell you some things! But you gotta heah this. Ormiston is gone! An’ yore daughter went with him, — an’ so help me Gawd I still reckon it was by force!”

“Proofs, man proofs!” raged the giant.

“Come on out along the river,” retorted Krehl. He mounted in one long step. “Come, pard, fetch the black man. Drake, Slyter, all of you get in on this.”

Across the river, under the trees, Sterl espied one wagon, from the blackened and dismantled top of which thin smoke rose aloft in spite of the drizzle. Pieces of canvas lapping from branches, boxes and bales littered around attested to a hastily abandoned camp. Sterl did not even look for cattle.

A mile up the river Red halted his horse to wait for the others to come up. At this point there was a break in the border of trees. Above, a constriction in the river bed marked the rough center of the current.

As Sterl and the others reined in to line up back of the cowboy, he swept a fierce hand at a deep, miry trough newly cut in the bank. It extended fully a hundred yards up the river. A big herd of cattle, densely packed, had been run along this course, to go over the bank. Across the flood the opposite bank was sloping, and the center of its sandy incline showed a deep, broad trail of tracks. A novice at the cowboy game could have read that tale. Someone had seized a timely period during the storm to cut out a couple of thousand head, and cross them before the flood rose.

“Mr. Dann,” spoke up Drake, hollow-voiced. “I never trusted Ormiston and his drovers. They weren’t friendly with us. They had a set plan, and it must have worked out as they plotted it.”

All eyes turned to Stanley Dann. “It could have been a rush,” he boomed, “a rush in the storm! My drovers are with them.”

“You shore die hard,” drawled Red, halfway between admiration and contempt. “I gotta hand it to you for thet! Only look heah — down the track aways. There’s a daid hoss, an’ a daid drover. I’ve a hunch it’s Cedric.”

Red dismounted beside the prone drover. He did not recognize the horse, but he knew that wavy, tawny hair, even though it was sodden with blood and sand.

“Pard, it’s Cedric, all right, pore brave devil,” said Red, as he knelt beside the prone figure. “Herd ran him down. Trampled to a pulp, all except his haid. Look aheah! — So help me Gawd! — Sterl, heah’s a bullet hole!”

Sterl knelt to verify Red’s diagnosis. He saw plainly the hole in the back of the young drover’s head: His passion burned out the nausea caused by the ghastly remains of the fine boy. Then he espied the butt of a revolver almost concealed under Cedric’s side. He pulled it out, shook off the sand, opened the chamber. Six empty cartridge shells dropped out.

At this juncture the others, surrounding Dann, arrived.

“Aye, Cedric it is, poor boy!” burst out Dann, his sonorous voice full of grief. “The mob rushed over him. He died on guard!”

“Dann, a blind man could see thet,” drawled Red, whose habit was to grow cooler and deadlier as a hard situation tensely worked to its close. “It’s a cinch Cedric died on guard. But he was shot in the back of his haid — murdered — before the herd run over him.”

“Dann, it’s true,” put in Sterl, sternly. “There’s the bullet hole.”

“Larry, you examine thet hole,” suggested Red, as he arose, drew out a scarf and wiped his gory hands. “I don’t want no one heah to take my word. Nor Sterl’s.”

Larry, Drake and Slyter in turn minutely studied the wound in Cedric’s skull, and solemnly agreed. Stanley Dann, with corded brow and clouded eyes, listened to them; but he maintained that it must have been an accident, that Cedric and the other drovers had been firing to hold the cattle back, that in the blackness of the storm anything could have happened.

Red Krehl eyed the leader with amazing tolerance and respect for that hard cowboy to exhibit at a hard time.

“Dann, from yore side of thet fence thet is good figgerin’,” he said. “But I know Ormiston either shot Cedric or put somebody up to it. Let’s don’t argue any more. We’re wastin’ time, an’ we’ll know for shore pronto.”

“Men, fetch shovels and a ground-cloth,” ordered Dann. “We’ll bury poor Cedric here on the spot of his brave stand. Keep it from the women!”

A shrill aboriginal yell startled the group. Friday appeared on the highest part of the bank, gesticulating violently.

“What the hell?” muttered Red. Then he mounted a fraction of a second behind Sterl. They raced for the black man, the drovers pounding behind.

With a long arm and a spear Friday pointed across the river. Sterl located an object crawling down a slight sandy slope.

“Man! White fella! Boss’s brudder!” called Friday, dramatically.

Sterl wiped his eyes with steady hand.

“Look, pard. Make sure,” he said, coolly. His faculties were swiftly settling for action.

“Friday’s right,” declared Red. “It’s Eric Dann. Bad hurt from the way he moves!”

The man across the river flopped down a sandy slope, crawled, got to his knees to wave weakly.

“Ormiston has done for him,” said Red.

“Red, strip King’s saddle,” flashed Sterl, leaping down to sit flat, and tear off spurs and boots. “I can land here, somewhere if you rope me.”

“I could rope yore cigarette. Rustle.”

“Hazelton, what do you intend doing?” boomed Stanley Dann.

Sterl had no time for the leader then. Leaping upon King he seized the bridle and wheeled the black up the river. At a hard gallop he covered the few hundred yards of open bank and hauled up. The flood here came swirling to the edge of the bank. The muddy torrent appeared crisscrossed with debris, logs and brush.

King champed his bit and snorted. He knew what he was in for and wanted to go at it. The drovers, led by Red, arrived at this juncture.

Stanley Dann thundered, “Hazelton, don’t throw your life away. This is suicide!”

“Now!” pealed out Red Krehl, who had been watching the current for a favorable moment.

Sterl released his strain on the bridle and thumped King hard in the flanks. The black sprang into action and took off in three jumps. As they hit the current Sterl turned King downstream, quartering for a point far down on the opposite shore. Again and again, the backlash of the waves crashed over the heads of horse and rider. They were strangled, submerged, tossed. Logs grazed them, a huge piece of drift rolled over them, a great gum tree bore down on them, upending now its blunt trunk and now its roots. But just as it was about to fall, the roots caught momentarily on the river bottom and the stouthearted King swam on. Two hundred yards of this, and King struck the bottom. With a tremendous heave and snort, he waded out.

When King emerged from the river to shake himself like a huge dog, Sterl did not at once see the wounded man. Red’s piercing yell and outstretched arm gave him a clue, and presently he saw Dann sprawled upon the sand. Sterl dismounted and ran to him.

Eric Dann lay flat on his back, arms wide, eyes open. That part of his face not covered with dirt and blood was ashen white and clammy. His hair, matted with blood, failed to hide a wound — probably from a blow with the barrel of a gun, Sterl reflected.

“Dann, you’ve been beaten up,” cried Sterl, anxiously. “Have you been shot, too?”

“Not that — I know of,” replied Dann, in faint, hoarse tones. “Must have — been unconscious some time.”

“Ormiston’s work?”

“Yes, Bedford, too — set upon me.”

“When?”

“About daylight.”

Lifting the drover to his feet, Sterl found that he could not walk even when supported. So Sterl heaved him up to straddle the horse, and holding him there urged King up the river. The bed of this fork of the river widened upstream, with a correspondingly flatter bank. Sterl turned to look across. Red sat his horse in the middle of the open space where the cattle had run. He waved his lasso. Surveying the scene, Sterl knew that King could cross again, if there was no accident. He waded the black into the shallow water up to his haunches.

“Slide off, Eric. I don’t want double weight on the horse. I’ll drag you.”

“Can you?”

“If you drown, so will I,” said Sterl. “But we’ll make it. All in a day’s work.”

He helped Eric to slide off feet first, then took hold of his shirt high up in front. He had to keep Dann’s head out of the water when that was possible. Even with good fortune and management it would be submerged to the suffocating limit. Then he watched the river for a slatch, and urged King into deep water. Resting Dann’s head on his leg he floated him along on the downstream side of the horse. King breasted the flood, held his black nose high, parted the mass of debris, and striking the current broadside on, sheered into the crested waves, magnificently powerful. The last of the heavy driftwood, in front of the open space, caught him and bore him on, submerged him, almost rolled him over. Then they were in the thick of the crashing turmoil, as wave on wave curled back to bury Sterl beneath its yellow crest. For the first time he hauled on the bridle. King responded and swam out of the rough water. Eric Dann hung limp, like a sack, in Sterl’s grasp.

A ringing yell — Red was riding Duke at the water’s edge, swinging a loop of the lasso round his head. They were fifty feet from the shore, drifting swiftly toward the lower end of a bare place.

“He’s founderin’, Sterl,” yelled Red, at the top of his lungs. “Beat him on! Only a little farther!”

King had spent himself. Sterl knew he never needed to beat that horse. But he bent low and screamed, “You can make it. Only a little farther! Oh, King!”

The gallant horse responded. A last violent spurt, a last plunge, his head rose high — then the lasso whipped out and spread, to hiss and tighten with a crack round horse and rider. Red and the drovers dragged them ashore. Strong hands pulled Sterl and his burden up on the bank. Red released Sterl from the noose.

Dann had almost drowned. But rubbing and manipulating brought him to. Then a drover put a black bottle to his lips.

“Boss, he’s been beaten on the head — with a gun,” said Sterl, panting for breath. “Told me Ormiston and Bedford did it — about daylight. Then they left.”

“Boss, get his story,” cut in Red, cool and hard. “Let him talk before he croaks or goes out of his haid.”

“But now that his life is saved—” remonstrated the leader.

“Hells fire!” flashed the cowboy. “We’re goin’ after Ormiston. Hurry. Let him talk. Help us thet much.”

“Eric, tell me,” interposed Sterl. “It may help. When did you drive your wagon across to Ormiston’s camp?”

“Last night — at dusk — before the storm broke,” whispered Dann.

“What for?”

“I wanted to be — on that side — to go with Ormiston.”

“Did you know he didn’t want you?”

“Not till daylight. Then I realized — what he was. Bushranger! — Ash Pell! That’s his real name. Notorious Queensland bushranger! We’ve heard of him. I heard Jack and Bedford call him by his name. I found out they had rushed — our mob — stolen our horses. I confronted him — then they hit me!”

“Did you know he had Beryl there?”

“He told me. She had come willingly. — When I came to — my senses — they were gone. I crawled down — to the bank.”

Stanley Dann swayed like a great tree uprooted.

“God forgive my ignorance — my stubbornness! God forgive me for all except my faith in man! Shall that fail because some men are evil? Oh, my little Beryl!”

“Dann, we’ll fetch her back,” said Sterl. “Red, see if King’s all right.”

“Me go along you,” said Friday, simply.

“Good. — Red, we’ve got some meat and bread. Dried fruit, too. They’ll get wet, but no matter. Dann, how many of your drovers carry rifles on their saddles?”

“Not one of those drovers who — who deserted me — turned bushrangers — perverted by that villain’s promises.”

“Red, I remember Ormiston had rifles in his wagon.”

“Yes. Small bore. An’ he couldn’t hit a barn door!”

“Sterl, let me go,” entreated Larry. “They murdered my friend — Let me go.”

“You bet,” retorted Sterl. Larry might never have ridden on a deadly chase, but he had a light in his hawk eyes that was sufficient for Sterl.

Drake addressed himself to their leader. “Mr. Dann, I couldn’t let these boys go alone. What Hazelton does we can do — or try.”

“Drake, you’re on,” rang out Sterl. “One more man. Rollie, are you game? There’ll be some hard riding — and a little gunplay.”

“Hazelton, I was about to ask you,” returned Roland, pale and resolute.

“Here, fellows!” ejaculated Sterl, as the other drovers chimed in eagerly. “Three men are plenty. Thanks though. You’re real pards. Mr. Dann, I’d advise packing your brother back to camp.”

Dann gave the order to his drover. Then he addressed the cowboys, not with his usual direct assurance.

“If you come up with Ormiston and his drovers then — there will be violence?” went on Dann, swallowing hard. He was on strange ground here.

“For cripe’s sake, boss!” burst out the cowboy, “Ormiston has damn near croaked yore brother! He has killed one of our drovers and corrupted a lot of yours an’ raided yore cattle! An’ as for Beryl — I swear to you it’s wuss than if she did elope with him. Hell no! There won’t be any violence! We’ll pay our respects, drink some tea with him, an’...” Here Red lost his voice.

“What will you do?” thundered Dann, roused by the cowboy’s stinging irony.

Sterl, having got his boots and spurs on, rose to face their leader. He was cool as Red had been hot.

“Dann, we will hang Ormiston if possible. But kill him in any event! And his right-hand men! Your drovers will make a run for it — which may save them. With Beryl to care for we can’t chase a lot of white-livered suckers all over the place. You may expect us back with Beryl by nightfall, or tomorrow at the latest.”

“My God! You petrify me, Hazelton. But you have never failed me. Nor has Krehl! Go! Bring back Beryl. I leave the decision to you!”

He stalked away, leading his horse.

CHAPTER 19

THE FIVE WHITE avengers, picking a relatively calm stretch, swam their horses across the river. Friday crossed by holding onto King’s tail and floating behind. Ormiston, Sterl reflected, had probably assumed that the flooded river was an insurmountable barrier to pursuit. There came a slight change in the temperature, the cool air moderating, and the drizzle increasing to rain. The gray overcast sky darkened. The water level had risen another foot. Owing to the rain, Dann’s wagon had not burned up completely, but the canvas cover was partly destroyed, and some of the contents. Half of the load had evidently been carried away. There was no sign of team or harness.

“Ormiston was kinda rarin’ to go, huh?” drawled Red.

They rode out of the timber. Broad wheel tracks curved away to the east.

“Three wagons,” said Red, thinking aloud. “All loaded heavy. Ten or twelve miles a day over this ground is about all they could do. Three drivers, which I reckon will be Ormiston, Jack, an’ Bedford. They’ll drive ahaid of the cattle.”

“Righto, Red. Say they left camp an hour or so after daybreak,” rejoined Sterl. “Anybody got the time?”

“Half after nine,” replied Drake.

Sterl and his riders set off at a lope, with the aborigine running along easily. He had a marvelous stride and he covered ground as smoothly as an Indian. Red followed the wheel tracks for a mile, until they disappeared under the trampling hoofmarks of the cattle. Presently the broad, heavy track of the herd that had been raided across the river joined the main mob.

“One of them there little ridges ahaid will...Look heah!” Red leaped out of his saddle and bent to pick up something. It was one of the handkerchiefs Red had given Beryl for Christmas. When he carefully stowed the handkerchief away inside his leather coat Sterl thought he would not have been in that bushranger’s boots for anything in the whole world.

They rode on to where the mob track curved to the left away from the first ridge. Once beyond that, the country was open bushland, grassy plains, patches of scrub, scattered gum trees with rolling country beyond.

Sterl took note of their three Australian companions. Drake was the only one who was not overexcited. Being a mature man, he had probably seen some hard days. But Larry and Rollie, stalwart young outdoor men though they were, had certainly never shot a man in their lives. Sterl knew how they felt. Red Krehl was always one to be cool and provocative in the face of a fight, but now he looked fierce and relentless.

The rain had let up to a fine mist when the posse climbed another rocky edge. Distance, heights, lowlands preserved their gray-green monotony, but all were magnified. And in the center of a long valley the mob of cattle stood out strikingly clear for so dark a day. The pursuers gazed in silence, each occupied with his own thoughts, until Red spoke:

“Four or five miles, mebbe. I figger they’re pushin’ the herd — not grazin’ atall.”

“I can’t see any wagons,” added Larry. “Too far.”

Friday touched Sterl’s arm. He extended his bundle of long spears.

“Wagons. Alonga dere,” he pointed.

“Ahuh! How far, pard?” And Sterl thought surely that was the only instance in Red Krehl’s life when the Texan had called a black man his partner.

“Close up,” replied the black.

“Red, the wagons are in front of the cattle,” interposed Sterl.

“Jest too bad. Mister Bushranger Ormiston shore figgers things good for us,” returned the cowboy. Then he bent a keen calculating gaze upon the herd of cattle in its relation of landmarks on each side. “Reckon there’s plenty of cover all along heah to the left. Come on, fellers. It’s gettin’ kinda hot.”

They descended the ridge on its steep side.

Here Red told Friday to get up behind Sterl.

The black understood, but he shook his head.

“Come, Friday,” called Sterl, and extended his hand. “Look out! — For cripe’s sake don’t stick me with your spears!” He helped the aborigine to a place astride King behind the saddle. “Hang on to me,” he concluded.

Red led off, heading due west from that ridge. They crossed the flat to find a pass between two low ridges, then turned east again. It was thicker bushland, through which the cowboy led in a zigzag course. Five miles, more or less, of this; then he halted to the left of another ridge.

“Reckon this heah is ahaid of the herd an’ drovers. You can all wait heah while I take a look-see.”

He took a slanting course up the ridge. Friday had slid off King at once, and if his dark visage could have expressed distaste it would have done so then.

“Me tinkit hoss no good,” he said.

Sterl’s grimness broke at this, but the perturbed drovers did not even crack a smile.

“What will we do next?” asked Larry, his voice not quite natural.

“I don’t know what Red will advise. Depends on the lay of the land. But if there’s any chance for a fight he’ll have us in it pronto.”

“We — we’ll attack them?” queried Rollie. “I rather think so!”

Red appeared, riding back. As he reined Duke in, as was characteristic of him, he lighted a cigarette before he spoke.

“Jest couldn’t be better. Herd about a couple miles below us, close to this side of the valley. Bunch of hosses behind. All the six drovers ridin’ behind, bunched close, as if they had lots to talk about, an’ they’re goin’ to pass less’n a hundred yards from a patch of brush right around this corner of the ridge.”

He paused, puffed clouds of smoke that obscured his lean, red face and fire-blue eyes, and presently resumed, this time cooler and sharper.

“Heah’s the deal. This setup will be duck soup. Sterl an’ me, with Friday, will ride ahaid, hell-bent for election, an’ get in front of the wagons. Drake, you take Larry an’ Rollie, ride around this corner, then lead yore horses back to the thicket you’ll see. Keep out of sight. Crawl through the brush to the edge, wait for the herd to pass by, an’ the drovers to come up even with you, I reckon thet’s about all.”

“All right, Krehl. We’ll do it,” declared Drake, firmly. “Looks a good deal luckier than I hoped for.”

“You’ll have to give us the time it takes for the herd an’ drovers to come up. We gotta rustle. Let’s don’t argue. Sterl, what say?”

“Made to order for us,” returned Sterl, darkly.

Larry burst out: “Let’s not waste time. We’ll do it, Krehl!”

This young man had never shot at more than a kangaroo. Now he realized that he was going out to shoot at his fellow men, and be shot at. He was trembling but courageous.

“Wait!” ejaculated Rollie, hoarsely. “What will we do?”

Red eyed the big drover in supreme disdain. Then he spoke with a deadly softness. “Wal, Rollie, you might wave yore scarf an’ call, Woo-hoo!”

“Don’t cast aspersions upon me, you cowboy blighter!” retorted Rollie, angrily.

“Hellsfire, then! Come out of yore trance. This is a man hunt. These drovers you’ve hobnobbed with, mebbe, air murderin’ traitors — cattle an’ hoss thieves! I’ve had to help hang more’n one cowboy friend that I reckoned was a clean honest chap, when he’d come to be a low-down rustler. Same, mebbe, between you boys an’ Dann’s drovers. It’ll be tough. But it’s gotta be done.”

“Krehl, I can take orders. Stop ranting in your lingo, and give them.”

“Short an’ sweet. Think of yore pard Cedric. Think of Beryl Dann, who’s in Ormiston’s hands. Cut loose with yore rifles an’ kill them drovers. If you cain’t down ’em pronto, fork yore hosses an’ ride them down.”

“Thanks. I understand you a little better,” returned Rollie, gray of face.

“Sterl, I had to rake them, but I reckon now they’ll give a good account of themselves,” said Red, as he watched the three Australians ride away. “Rustle now. Get Friday up an’ hang onto him.”

Unwilling or not the black had to get up behind Sterl. “Hold those spears low, like that,” shouted Sterl, and he reached around with his right arm to clasp Friday. “Okay, pard, see if you can run away from King.”

The cowboy led off, and Sterl knew what he had suspected would be a fact — that he and Friday were in for a ride. Another hard downpour, right in their faces, made accurate vision difficult. Red Krehl ran Duke on the open stretches, loped him through the brush, jumped him over logs. Friday had a bear clutch on Sterl, yet the black all but fell off several times. The slapping of wet branches and the crackling of saplings added to the pain and discomfort, if no more. Then Red pulled Duke to a slower gait and headed to the right. They had come into bushland again. Red did not halt until he got to the edge of the timber. The three wagons were in plain sight out upon the open, the first about a mile distant, and the other two farther out, but still separated.

“Haidin’ almost straight for us,” soliloquized Red.

Friday fell off from behind Sterl, undoubtedly pretty much mauled. He rubbed his lean wet legs.

“Tinkit hoss bad!” he remarked.

Then, straightening up, he took a long look at the three wagons and pointed.

“Ormiston wagon dere farder. Hoses alonga ‘imm,” he said.

“Thet hombre last, huh? Come on, Sterl.”

Red turned back into the bush, somewhat away from the course he decided the first wagon driver would take. The rain lessened again. Perhaps two miles back from the open, Red halted.

“Far enough, I reckon, pard,” he said, “now...Say, where in the hell did Friday go to?”

“I never noticed. But he won’t cramp us, Red. Don’t worry.”

“All I’m worryin’ about is thet he’ll get to Ormiston before I do,” ground out Red. “Hurry. What’s your plan?”

“I’ll ride back aways. Let the first wagon go by me, onless it should happen to be Ormiston. You wait about heah someplace. An’ when thet wagon comes up introduce yoreself either to Jack or Bedford...Then you better rustle back after me.”

“You’ll time it to meet that second wagon just about when the first one gets up to me?”

“I reckon. But it’s all over ‘cept the fireworks.”

Red rode off under the dripping gums, keeping to the left of the expected wagon line, and soon disappeared in the gray-green bush. Sterl chose as cover some gum saplings, close together and leafy enough to make a comparatively safe hiding place. He dismounted, and drawing his rifle from its saddle sheath removed the oilskin cover and put it in his pocket. Then he leaned the rifle against the largest sapling, and with a quieting hand on King peered back through the drenched bushland.

With a tense wait like this, it was almost impossible not to think. He had, he reflected, no dislike for this job and no compunction. He would not shoot from ambush, although he had retaliated upon redskins by that very act. But here he wanted to face Jack or Bedford.

Naturally, however, he had concern for his comrade. Sterl would have preferred to be with Red, for more than one reason. Beryl’s life might be at stake. Because of that, Red could be capable of any rash act, even to a sacrifice of himself. Then again, Sterl wanted powerfully to see Ormiston meet the cowboy.

King suddenly vibrated slightly and shot up his ears. He had heard something.

“Quiet!” whispered Sterl, and patted the wet neck. “Want to spoil the party?”

More moments passed before Sterl’s alert ear caught a creaking of wheels. King threw up his head. He had been well trained, but not to stand still and keep silent. Sterl stepped to his head and held him. A thud of hoofs sounded through the silent bush. At last a sight of four horses plodding along, then a canvas-topped wagon, then a burly driver, reins and whip in hands. It was Jack. A slight cold chill quivered over Sterl. But he thought fast. He would wait until the team had come almost opposite him, then step out, confront Jack and force him to draw.

A distant gunshot rang out, spiteful, ripping asunder the bushland silence. Red’s .45 Colt speaking. Almost at once a duller heavier shot.

The drover Jack hauled his four horses to a dead stop, and dropped the reins. He was in the clear, with the wagon on level and bare ground. Sterl saw the man sweep out a hand to grasp a rifle, then peer all around.

At this instant King let out a loud neigh, and the other horses answered. Jack’s gaze fixed upon King. Quick as thought he leaped out of the wagon. As Sterl plunged to get low down behind a log the drover fired from behind the left front wheel. The bullet whistled closer to King than it did to Sterl. Fearful that Jack might kill the horse, Sterl took a snap shot at the only part of the wheel he could see — the under rim and a section of spokes. His bullet struck with a thud, to spang away into the bush. It must have stung the drover’s foot, or come too close, for he leaped away to the rear end of the wagon. His boots were in plain sight down between the two right wheels. And Sterl’s second shot hit one of them. The drover flopped down like a crippled chicken, bawling frightfully, and crawled behind the only gum tree near. The trunk was not broad enough wholly to protect his body. But he knelt low, risking that. He had Sterl marked but could not see him. Sterl tried a ruse as old as wars. He stuck up his sombrero. Jack fired, once and again. His second shot knocked Sterl’s sombrero flat. Then the drover rashly stood up and stuck his rifle, his shoulder, and half of his head out from behind the tree. Sterl drew a careful bead on the one baleful eye visible, like a hole in a mask, and fired. Jack pitched to one side of the tree and his rifle flew to the other.

Sterl worked the lever of his rifle, waited a moment, then snatched up his sombrero and leaped on King. The excited horse was hard to hold. Sterl rode by the wagon. A glance at the drover lying on his back, one eye blank and the other set hideously, and Sterl took up the wheel tracks and raced through the bushland.

It grew more open. In less than half a mile he sighted another wagon, standing still, the foremost team of horses plunging. Sterl drew closer and was pulling King to a slower gait when again he heard gunshots, and not far away. Two revolvers of different caliber! No rifle shot! Throwing caution to the winds he struck the steel into King’s flanks. As the black tore on at top speed, and reached the leading wagon, Sterl saw the drover Bedford hanging head first over the right wheel. His feet had caught somewhere. In the middle of his broad back his gray shirt showed a huge bloody patch. Red had shot him through from front to back.

The third and last wagon! It had been pulled half broadside across the line of wheel tracks. Horses tethered to the rear were plunging. Even at that distance and through a drizzling rain, Sterl recognized Jester.

The driver’s seat was vacant. No one in sight! But another shot cracked. The cowboy was alive! Sterl drove King down upon the wagon with tremendous speed.

Suddenly to Sterl’s right and ahead, he caught the gleam of something white, something red, something black. There was a bare glade close ahead — a huge gum towering over the wagon — a low branch sweeping down. Through the thin foliage that white thing moved. And a woman’s scream, high-pitched, piercing, rent the air.

Sterl lay back with all his might upon the bridle. King plunged to slide on his haunches into the glade.

Red, his temple bloody, was lying in the middle of the bare spot, raised on his left elbow, his gun extended, his posture unnatural. In a flash Sterl was out of his saddle.

The white thing was Beryl Dann, half nude, in the grasp of Ormiston. A black blanket had slipped to her knees. Ormiston crouched behind her, left arm around her middle. In his right he had a gun leveled at Red. As he fired, the girl threw up his arm. She shrieked in terror, in fury. And she fought the drover like a panther. The red thing near them was Leslie’s horse Sorrel, saddled and bridled. Ormiston had tried to get away on that horse.

“Kill him — Red — Don’t mind me!” panted the girl, wildly.

CHAPTER 20

STERL LEVELED A cocked gun, but dared not risk firing. Only a portion of Ormiston’s body projected from behind the desperately struggling girl.

She hung onto Ormiston’s rigid arm as he lifted her in his effort to align his gun upon Krehl. He fired. Dust and gravel flew up into the cowboy’s face. Red rolled convulsively over and over, as if struck. Sterl just barely held himself back from a rash onslaught at the drover. But Red came out of that roll to lie flat with his gun forward.

“Hurry, St — erl!” shrieked the girl, frantically.

Then the drover espied Sterl, and struggled to aim at him. Sterl leaped to dive behind a rock. On his knees he thrust his gun over the top.

He had time to see Beryl’s last frenzied struggle to destroy the bushranger’s aim. Then she collapsed, arms, head and shoulders hanging down, supported by Ormiston’s clutching clasp. Ormiston’s stooping caused him to bend his left leg, and his knee became exposed. Red’s gun cracked. Sterl heard the bullet thud into flesh. That shot of Red’s had broken his aim. Cursing savagely the bushranger gathered his forces for another attempt.

Sterl’s finger quivered on the trigger, in the act of imperiling Beryl’s life to save Red’s. Then behind him a strange, tussling sound checking his firing. Whizz! A dark streak flashed across his line of vision, Chuck! Sterl’s taut senses registered the sickening thud of something rending flesh.

Ormiston uttered a strangling, inhuman yell and sprang up as if galvanized. His gun went flying to the ground. Beryl dropped from his hold like an empty sack. His hands went up, clutching as a drowning man might at straws. An aborigine spear stuck out two feet beyond his throat. Its long end still quivered. Ormiston’s hand tore at it, broke the shaft square off.

“Friday!” yelled Sterl, as he leaped from behind the rock. “Look, Red, look! Friday has done for him!”

Red got up, bloody-faced and grim as death. Blood flowed from a shot in his head and his left shoulder. But he showed no weakness. As he strode toward the whirling Ormiston, swift footfalls thudded behind Sterl, and Friday came leaping into the open. He held a long spear low down.

“Hold on, Friday!” yelled Red, blocking the aborigine. “No go with thet. You’re gonna help me with a little necktie party!”

Sterl could not turn his sight from the spectacle of the doomed Ormiston. He reeled and swayed like a drunken man, his hands still tearing at the spearhead. A red-tinged froth issued from his mouth. He fell, to bound up again with marvelous vitality. Sterl ran over and kicked Ormiston’s gun into the grass. And again his trigger finger pressed quiveringly as the bushranger made ghastly inarticulate sounds and plunged like a wounded bull.

Red’s jangling footfalls sounded behind Sterl, just as Ormiston’s protruding eyes fell upon Beryl. She was on her knees trying to pluck up the blanket over her bare shoulders. He made at her, insane to drag even her to perdition. But before Sterl could shoot, a hissing lasso shot out. The noose fell over Ormiston’s head. Red gave the rope a tremendous pull. Ormiston lunged backward, to fall face upward, his arms upflung, and that queer vociferation ended abruptly.

“Lend a hand, Friday,” shouted the cowboy. “Don’t forget how this white trash treated you!”

The black leaped to Red’s assistance. They dragged the bushranger under the spreading arm of the huge gum tree. The cowboy paused there to gaze down at his victim.

“Rustler, you swing! Jest the same as any cattle thief in my country! But bad as they came, I never seen one as low down as you!”

Red threw the free end of his lasso up over a low branch and caught it as it fell.

“Git in an’ help me, Friday! Pull, you black man who’s shore no nigger! All my life I’ll love you for this day’s work. Ha! There you air, Ormiston! Swing an’ kick!”

Sterl wrenched his gaze from the gruesome spectacle and wheeled to Beryl. She was on her knees, the blanket slack in her nerveless hands, her big blue eyes fixed in horror.

“Beryl! Don’t look!” cried Sterl, sheathing his gun and rushing to her. “Shut your eyes, Beryl. It’s — all over. You’re saved. And he...It’s justice, no matter...”

But he realized that she had fainted. He carried her to the wagon, laid her in the seat out of the rain and tucked the blanket around her bare feet. Her eyes fluttered open. “Okay now?” inquired Sterl. She nodded, “Then lie here awhile until you get yourself together. No more danger.” And he drew away.

A jingling step, and he turned to see Red approaching. Beyond, Friday appeared, gazing fixedly up at the limp figure in dark relief against the gray sky.

“Close shave, pard,” said Red, just a little huskily, as he wiped his bloody hands with his scarf, and glanced up to see Beryl’s pale, quiet face. Sterl indicated by a gesture that the cowboy should leave her alone.

“Gosh! I don’t recall a closer shave!” ejaculated Red. “But wasn’t Beryl the game kid? She kept him from borin’ me a second time. She fainted! I’m glad she didn’t see the end of it.”

“But she did, Red. She did! She saw it all, believe me!”

“Aw, thet’s too bad. But, pard, did you get it? Beryl had on only her nightgown. Thet hombre stole her from her bed. She didn’t run off with him!”

“Yes, I savvied that, Red, and I never was any gladder in my life... But you’re all shot up. Let me see!”

“They’d have to be a hell of a lot wuss than they air to croak me now. Let me tell you. When I ran down on Bedford he saw me comin’, an’ he was ready for me. I bored him, but damn if he didn’t hit me heah in this shoulder. Ormiston was trying to get away with Beryl on the sorrel there when I run in on him. Beryl was fightin’ him. But for her I’d shore have bored him before he got in thet first shot. It knocked me flat. Better look these bullet holes over an’ tie them up. This one on my haid hurts like hell.”

Examination disclosed in Red’s head a groove that cut through the scalp, but had not touched the skull, and another in his left shoulder, high up. The bullet had lodged just under the skin on the far side. It would have to be cut out, but Sterl left that operation for camp, and bound his scarf tightly around the wound.

“We’d better leave the other one open,” he said. “Hello, what’s that?”

Red rose up to listen. “Fag end of a stampede, I’d say. Look out for Beryl. I’ll wrangle the horses. Come, Friday.”

The black ran off under the gums to get Duke, while Sterl drew King and the sorrel back away from the open. A bobbing line of cattle hove in sight down through the brush, loping along wearily.

“Wal, they might have started wild, but they’re bein’ chased now,” said Red. “Get the rifles heah, pard, an’ if it happens to be any of Ormiston’s outfit, they’ll never get nowhere.”

On a front so wide that Sterl could just make out the far end, a herd of cattle came loping past, scattered and bawling, almost ready to drop.

“Coupla thousand haid, shore as you’re born,” said Red when they had passed. “Thet’s sort of queer. I recognized that bull. Pard, thet was the bunch raided out of Dann’s last night!”

“Might be.”

“Heah comes some riders. Two! Thet’s Larry’s hoss. An’ Rollie too. But Drake ain’t with them.”

From some hundred paces away the riders espied the bushranger swinging with horrible significance, and this brought them to a quick halt. Then they rode slowly up, their eyes gleaming, their lips tight.

“Beryl?” queried Larry, hopefully.

“She’s up theah, on the seat, comin’ out of a daid faint.”

Larry slumped out of his saddle to sit down like a man whose legs were wobbly. Sterl did not like the look of either of the drovers.

“Where’s Drake?”

“He wouldn’t shoot barefaced from ambush,” replied Larry, tragically. “Rol and I didn’t know it though, till right at the last, he ran out, yelled at Anderson and Henley. They drew their revolvers and he shot them both off their horses. I — I killed Buckley. Herdman and Smith had begun to shoot. It was Herdman, I think, who hit Drake and did for him. Rol’s horse was shot from under him. The mob rushed, ran us back into the brush. Herdman and Smith had to ride hard. But they got around them and headed off to the east. We couldn’t chase them until the cattle had run by. Then it was too late.”

“Ahuh. Too bad about Drake. Air you shore he was daid?”

“There was no doubt of that.”

“It’s orful tough, Larry. I reckon Sterl an’ me feel for you. But the fact is, we got off lucky.”

“Jack and — Bedford?”

“They beat Ormiston to hell pretty considerable.”

“There’s only one thing to do now,” said Sterl. “Take Beryl back to camp pronto. You’re all shot up, too. We’ve got to cross that infernal river before dark.”

Stanley Dann, the Slyters, with Heald and Monkton, and one of Dann’s drovers stood on the east bank, awaited their landing, visibly laboring under extreme excitement and fear.

“My — daughter?” asked Dann, almost voiceless.

“Safe,” replied Sterl, not looking at him, and leaped to the ground. He waved his sombrero to Red and Larry. Then as they waded in, Sterl untied his lasso.

“Get your rope ready,” he said to Rollie.

Sterl had been aware of Leslie’s presence close beside him and a little behind. One she touched him with a timid hand, as though to see if he were really back in the flesh. They were all talking except Leslie. Finally she spoke in her deep contralto: “Sterl!...Sterl!”

Then he looked around and down upon her, meaning to be kind, trying to smile as he said: “Hello, kid!” but she instinctively recoiled from his face. Sterl did not marvel at that. It had happened before to girls who, approached him after a hard job. But however could he help it? Men had to kill other men! The wonder in him was that it made any difference in his face and look.

Sterl turned to watch the swimming horses as they entered the current. Sorrel, and Leslie’s other horses, hesitated but finally followed. “Rollie, go below me...Everybody get back so I can swing this rope.”

Red and Larry were ten feet apart, heading evenly into the current. The lean noses came on abreast, and the shoulders of the riders rose into plain sight. The onlookers watched, tense and breathless, while the horses swept down with the current, at last to forge out of it, and come straight for the bank. A cheer of released emotions rent the air. Duke, as powerful as if he had not already performed miracles that day, waded out in King’s tracks. To make sure, Sterl roped him and hauled lustily to help him pound up the bank. Rollie helped Larry. No one thought of Leslie’s four horses, now making for shore.

Stanley Dann crowded close, his bearded jaw wobbling, his great arms outstretched. With one shaking hand, Red unfolded the dripping slicker over Beryl and let it fall away from her white face. If her eyes had not been wide open, she would have looked like a drowned girl.

Red lifted her and bent down to yield her to her father’s eager arms.

“Dann, heah’s yore girl — safe — an’ sound,” said Red, in a queer voice Sterl had never heard before. “An’ thet lets me out!”

What did the fool cowboy mean by that speech, wondered Sterl? Red had settled some debt to himself, not to anyone else.

“Ormiston?” boomed the drover.

“Wal, the last we seen of thet bushranger, he was dancin’. Yep, dancin’ on thin air!” And with that, passion appeared to have spent its forces as well as Red’s strength. “Where the hell air — you — pard?” he went on, in a strangely altered tone. “I — cain’t — see you...Aw, I — get it...Heah’s where — I cash!”

His staring blue eyes, as blank as dead furnaces, told their own story. He swayed and fell into Sterl’s arms.

CHAPTER 21

LARRY HELPED STERL carry Red across to Slyter’s camp, and into their tent. For Sterl all this slow walk was fraught with icy panic. It might well be that Red had been more severely wounded than a superficial examination had shown. How like Red Krehl to have such a finish! The fool cowboy would have died at Beryl’s feet, to give the vain beauty everlasting remorse and grief.

“Get hot water — Larry,” he ordered. They undressed Red, rubbed him dry, forced whisky between his teeth. Then Sterl unbound the wounds, washed them thoroughly, ruthlessly cut open the one on his back, and extracted the heavy bullet. It had gone under his collarbone, to stop just beneath the surface. Sterl dressed the shoulder injury, bandaged it, and went on with steadying hands to that bullet groove in Red’s scalp. Sterl could not be fearful over either wound. He had seen the cowboy laugh at scratches like this. But Sterl found evidence that Red had bled freely all during the ride back to the river. The water had washed him clean, but one of his boots was half full of diluted blood. There lay the danger!

Sterl took a long pull at the flask Larry offered. It burned the coldness out of his vitals. Then he rubbed himself thoroughly and got into dry clothes.

“I’d feel all right, if only Red...” he choked over the hope. He went on. It was almost dark and the rain still fell steadily. Under Bill’s shelter, a bright blaze gleamed with shining rays through the rain. Bill had steaming vessels upon the gridiron.

“Eat and drink, lad,” said Slyter. “We have to go on, you know...How is Red?”

“Bad. Bled almost to death...But I hope — I — I believe he’ll recover...How did the kid take the return of her horses?”

“Sterl, you wouldn’t believe it — the way that girl cried over them...But it was a breakdown, after all this day’s strain, and the tremendous relief of your return.”

“Of course! Leslie is not one to crack easily.”

“My son, I very much fear Leslie is in love with you.”

“Slyter, I fear that, too,” replied Sterl, ponderingly, a little bitterly. “I hope, though, that it isn’t quite so bad as what happened to Beryl.”

“My wife says it’s good. We have trusted you, Hazelton.”

“Thanks, my friend. That’ll help some.”

The return of Slyter’s womenfolk put an end to that intimate talk. Much to Sterl’s relief. They threw off wet coats and stood before the fire, Leslie with her back turned and her head down.

“Leslie, how is Beryl?” asked Sterl.

“I don’t know. She — she frightened me,” replied the girl, strangely.

“How is your friend Red? He looked terribly the worse for this day’s work,” interrupted Mrs. Slyter.

Sterl briefly told them his hopes for Red, omitting his fears. But that sharp-eyed psychic, Leslie, did not believe him. When Sterl looked at her she averted her piercing gaze.

“Who shot him?” rang out Leslie, suddenly.

“Yes, you’ll have to be told about it all, I suppose,” returned Sterl, in sober thoughtfulness. “Bedford shot Red first in the shoulder — and then Ormiston nicked his head. Not serious wounds for a cowboy. But Red lost so much blood!”

“I heard Red say to Mr. Dann — that about Ormiston dancing on thin air. I know...But Bedford?”

Slyter interposed: “Leslie, wait until tomorrow. Sterl is worn to a frazzle.”

Sterl wanted to get part of it over with and he bluntly told Leslie that Red had killed Bedford.

“What did you do?” queried this incorrigible young woman, unflinchingly.

“Well, I was there when it happened.” That seemed to be all the satisfaction Sterl could accord the girl at the time.

“Thanks, Sterl. Please forgive my curiosity. But I must tell you that I asked Friday.”

“Oh, no...Leslie!” exclaimed Sterl, taken aback.

“Yes. I asked him what happened to Ormiston. He said: ‘Friday spearum. Red shootum. Me alonga Red hangum neck...Ormiston kick like hellum...Then imm die!’”

It was not so much Friday’s graphic and raw words that shocked Sterl as the girl’s betrayal of the element.

“Retribution!” added Mrs. Slyter, in a moment. “He stole Beryl from her bed. I’ll never forgive myself for believing she ran off with him!”

“Neither will I, Mrs. Slyter,” said Sterl, in poignant regret.

“I was afraid of it,” put in the girl, frankly.

“Sterl, Dann will want to see you. Let us go now, before Les and Mum loosen up,” suggested Slyter.

Glad to escape, though with a feeling for Leslie that he did not wish to analyze, Sterl accompanied the drover through the dark and rain. They found Dann at his table under a lighted shelter. Before him lay papers, watches, guns, money and money belts.

“Hazelton, do I need to thank you?” asked Dann, his rich voice thick.

“No, boss. All I pray for is Red’s recovery.”

“Please God, that wonderful cowboy lives! Slyter, our erstwhile partner had thousands of pounds, some of which I recognize as belonging to Woolcott and Hathaway and put aside for their heirs. I appropriated from Ormiston’s money what I consider fair for my loss. Do you agree that the rest should go to the cowboys, and Larry, and Roland?”

“I do, most heartily,” rang out Slyter.

“Not any for me, friends,” interposed Sterl. “But I’ll take it for Red. He deserves it. He uncovered this bushranger. He made our plan today, saved Beryl — and hanged Ormiston.”

“Terrible, yet — yet...I’ll want your story presently. I’ve heard that of Larry and Roland. Poor Drake! Too brave, too rash! You may not know that Drake was friendly with both Anderson and Henley. That may account — what a pity he had to find them unworthy — to see them seduced by a notorious bushranger — and kill them! Yet how magnificent!”

“Boss, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have Ormiston’s gun,” said Sterl, restrainedly.

“You’re welcome to it. Now for your story, Sterl.”

Sterl told it as briefly as possible. Dann took the narrative as one who at last understood the villainy of evil men and the righteous and terrible wrath of hard avengers.

“I’m not one to rail at the dispensation of Providence,” said the leader, at length. “How singularly fortunate we have been! I’ve a mind to let well enough alone, except to try to save the mob that rushed to its old grazing ground across the river.”

“That can be done, Dann, as soon as the river drops. But I think you’re wise not to attempt mustering the cattle that stampeded by us up there. Those two drovers will escape with one wagon and some of Ormiston’s horses. Let them go, Dann. We have more cattle now than we can handle. And fewer drovers!”

“Righto, Hazelton. But I’ll send Larry and four men up there tomorrow, to fetch back the other two wagons. Later, we’ll gather in that mob which obligingly rushed back to us. They won’t leave that fine grazing over there.”

Sterl and Slyter left the chief, to return to their camp. “He was hit below the belt, Hazelton,” said Slyter, “but never a word! I wonder what will happen next?”

“All our troubles are not over, boss. Red would say, ‘Wal, the wurst is yet to come!’ By the way, how is Eric Dann?”

“He’ll be around in a few days. Good night. It has been a day. Never mind guard duty while Krehl needs attention.”

Friday loomed up in the dark.

“Has he been quiet, Friday?”

“All same imm like dead. But imm strong, like black fella. No die.”

Sterl struck a match in the darkness of his tent, and lighted his candle. Indeed Red looked like a corpse, but he was breathing and his heart beat steadily. “If he only hangs on till tomorrow!” whispered Sterl, fervently, and that was indeed a prayer. Sterl undressed, which was a luxury that had been difficult of late; and when he was stretched out he felt as if he would never move again. His last act was to reach for the candle and blow it out.

Stress of emotion, no doubt, had more to do with his prostration than the sleepless night and strenuous day. He caught himself listening for Red’s breathing. But sleepy as he was, he could not arrive at the point of oblivion. That speech of the cowboy’s, when he delivered Beryl into her father’s arms, haunted Sterl. It meant, he deduced, that Red had withstood love and shame and insult and humiliation and torture for willful and vain Beryl Dann; in the face of opposition and antagonism he had killed Ormiston to save the girl. And that had let Red out! Yet Red was tenderhearted to a fault, and never had Sterl, in their twelve years of trail driving, seen him so terribly in love before...Outworn nature conquered at last.

When Sterl awakened day had broken and the rain had ceased temporarily. In the gloom he saw Red lying exactly as he had seen him hours ago. He crawled out of bed to bend over his friend, and his acute sensibilities registered a stronger heartbeat. But now pneumonia must be reckoned with — a disease likely to fasten upon a man so wounded and exposed.

Sterl got out in time to see five horsemen across the river riding at a brisk trot to the east — the drovers Dann had sent after the wagons and horses, of course.

While he ate breakfast with Slyter, Mrs. Slyter approached from Beryl’s wagon. Her usual brightness was lacking.

“Mum, you don’t look reassuring,” said Slyter, anxiously. “At midnight, Leslie said Beryl was sleeping.”

“Beryl has been shocked beyond her strength — any sensitive woman’s strength,” returned Mrs. Slyter, gravely. “She’s violently delirious. I fear she’ll go insane or die.”

Leslie, pale but composed, arrived in time to hear this.

“What do you think, Sterl?” she asked.

“Well, it’s a cold gray dawn after two terrible nights with an awful day between. We can at least think clearly. Of course I don’t know what Beryl had to endure before we appeared on the scene, but what happened afterward was enough to tax any girl’s strength.” Here Sterl described, sparing no detail, Beryl’s fight with the bushranger, to keep him from killing Red, and the gruesome aftermath.

“Beryl was game and she went the limit,” he added. “If she had fainted when Friday speared Ormiston, it would not have been so bad for her. But she saw Ormiston plunge around, like a crazy bull...She saw — all the rest. I ran to shut out that sight. And it was only then that she fainted.”

“Mercy!” gasped Mrs. Slyter.

“I’d like to have been there,” declared Leslie Slyter, with an unnatural calm that was belied by the piercing glint in her hazel eyes.

“Talk sense, you wild creature!” returned her mother.

Sterl had not at all intended such a disclosure, and felt at a loss to understand why he had yielded to the impulse. If it was to see Leslie’s reaction, however, he had been strangely justified.

Toward what would have been sunset if there had been any sun, Sterl admitted Dann to the tent. The leader bent over the cowboy, listened to his breathing and — heart, studied his stone-cold face. Then he said: “I’ve played many parts in my time, including both Wesleyan clergyman and amateur physician. Be at peace, Sterl. He will live.”

They went out, to be followed by Friday. Rain had set in again, and the air was muggy. Sterl sighted a large wagon, which he recognized as Ormiston’s, rolling into the timber toward the old camp across the river. Four riders were driving a bunch of horses down to the shore. Larry led off into the river, with the four drovers behind urging and whipping the loose horses ahead of them. The flood had dropped, and neither riders nor unsaddled horses required any help at the landing.

“Well done, Larry,” said Dann, as the young drover rode up to make his report.

“We got them all, I think,” was the reply. “The — the two who got away — took four teams, but only one wagon. They either buried Jack and Bedford or took them away. Ormiston’s wagon had been fired, but its load was so wet that it wouldn’t burn...We erected a cross over Drake’s grave.”

“That was well,” replied Dann, as Larry hesitated. “But what about Ormiston?”

“They left him hanging. So did we.”

There was flint in Larry’s eyes and words. Stanley Dann, seldom at a loss for words, found none to say here.

That night at supper there was a release of tension as to Red’s condition, but not as to Beryl’s. She had fallen into a lethargy that preceded the sinking spell Mrs. Slyter feared. Eric Dann, too, according to Slyter, was either a very sick man or pretended to be.

At daybreak, Red came out of his stupor and whispered almost inaudibly for whisky.

“You son-of-a-gun!” cried Sterl in delight, as he dove for a flask. “Easy, now, old-timer!”

Red did not heed Sterl’s advice. A tinge of color showed in his gray cheeks.

“How — long?” he asked, in a husky whisper.

“This is the third day.”

“Get anythin’ — back from?...”

“One wagon, Ormiston’s, twenty odd horses — and this.” Here Sterl picked up Ormiston’s bulky belt to shove it in front of Red. “He sure was heeled, pard. Dann took out what was due him, with Woolcott’s and Hathaway’s money and shares for the boys. The rest is yours. Wages justly earned, the boss said.”

“Hell — he did...How much?”

“I only took a peep. But plenty mazuma, pard.”

“I’m gonna — get drunk. Never be sober — again.”

“Is that so?”

“Gimme a cigarette.”

“No. But I’ll see what Mrs. Slyter advises in the way of grub.”

Still the sky stayed drab and gloomy, shedding copious rains at slowly widening intervals. On the fifth day there came a break in Red’s fever and a lessening of his pain. The river had fallen low enough for the drover to pack Ormiston’s supplies and wagon across, piece by piece. And in the next day or so the cattle on that side were to be swum across. Eric Dann was up and about, moody and strange. That day, however, showed no improvement in Beryl’s condition. Red continued to mend. He was a tough as wire, young and resilient, and as soon as his depleted blood began to renew itself, his complete recovery was only a matter of days. But not even of the persistent and sentimental Leslie did he ever ask about Beryl.

During the last few days of this period, it still rained, but far less frequently. The flat, dull sky broke at intervals, showing the first rifts of blue sky for over weeks. Bird life with its color and melody predicted a return of good weather; kangaroos and wallabies, emus and aboriginals appeared in increasing numbers. The last, Friday asserted, were different black fellas from those who had crowded at the forks before the flood. The great triangle of grassland, which had its apex at the junction of the river forks, waved away incredibly rich with new grass. Larry and Sterl reported that the trek could be resumed, rain or shine. But the patient Dann stroked his golden beard and said: “We’ll wait for the sun. Eric is not sure about the road. He thinks it’d be more difficult to find in wet weather.”

“Then you’ll keep to this Gulf road, if we find it?” queried Sterl, quietly.

“Yes, I shall not change my mind because Ormiston is gone.”

“Mr. Dann,” ventured Larry, with hesitation, “the creeks, waterholes, springs will be full for months.”

“I am aware of that. But Eric has importuned me and I have decided.”

Dann might have been actuated to delay because that would be better for Beryl. She had come to herself, and only time and care were necessary to build up the flesh and strength she had lost.

When one night the stars came out, Dann said, “That rainbow today is God’s promise. The wet season is over. Tomorrow the sun will shine. We go on and on again with our trek!”

CHAPTER 22

SUNRISE NEXT MORNING was a glorious burst of golden light.

The joyous welcome accorded this onetime daily event seemed in proportion to that of the Laplanders after their six months of midnight. Even Beryl Dann, from under the uprolled cover of her wagon, gazed out with sad eyes gladdened. Breakfast was almost a festival. The drovers whistled while they hitched up the teams to the packed wagons; they sang as they mustered the mob for the trek.

Sterl, mounted on King, and as eager as the horse, waited with Friday for the wagons to get under way. But Slyter was detained by Leslie’s pets. At the last moment Cocky had betrayed that his freedom at this long camp was too much for him. Leslie had not even clipped his wings. And when he flew up to join flock of screeching white cockatoos he became one too many. Laughing Jack, the tame kookaburra, also turned traitor. He sat on the branch of a dead gum with three of his kind, bobbed up and down, ruffled his feathers, and laughed hoarsely at the mistress who had been so kind to him. Both had tasted the sweetness of freedom.

“I — I always lose everything I love,” wailed Leslie, and mounting Lady Jane she rode out under the trees and did not look back.

Sterl was the last to leave the forks. He was glad to go, because that was imperative, yet he felt a strong regret as he rode over the grazed and trampled grass to his old position at the left of the mob. Many cattle and horses, several wagons, fourteen dead men and one dead woman had been left behind. Only Slyter’s five drovers, not including him and Red, and four of Dann’s remained to get the mob, three hundred horses and six heavily laden wagons across the endless leagues.

The sky was deep azure, floating a few silver-white clouds. The sun appeared no relation to that molten copper disk of a few weeks past. King’s mane and smooth hide were a dead black, yet somehow they shone. Friday, stalking beside Sterl with his spears and wommera, naked except for his loincloth, presented another kind of black, a glistening ebony. The mob of cattle appeared to consist of a hundred hues, yet there were really only very few. It was the variation of them that gave the living mosaic effect. They looked as clean and bright as if they had been freshly scrubbed.

Compared to one of the trail driver’s herds in Texas, these long-horned, moss-backed, red-eyed devils that were the bane of cowboys’ lives, this herd of five thousand bulls and steers and cows and calves were tame, lazy, fat pets. The slow trek, the frightening situations and the kindness of the drovers accounted for this.

Ahead of the leisurely moving mob, the grass resembled that of the Great Plains in thickness and height, but in its richness of color and multitude of flowers it could have no comparison. In the distance all around loomed purple, bush-crowned hills, and to the north, far beyond, lilac ranges hung to the fleecy clouds like mirages right side up. If there could be enchantment on earth, here Sterl rode amidst it. That he seemed not the only one under its spell he proved by glancing at his companions on the trek. Every one of them rode alone, except Friday, who stalked lost in his own lonely, impenetrable thought. The drovers sat their horses and gazed, no doubt, at things that were only true in dreams. Red Krehl had forgotten his cigarette. Leslie rode far behind, lost in, her world.

At the wattle-bordered stream beside which they camped, Stanley Dann inaugurated a new arrangement whereby everything was consolidated into one camp. The exhilaration of the morning had carried through to evening.

“Pard, it’s kinda good to be alive at thet,” drawled Red.

“Red, you’ve never fooled me about your indifference to beautiful places any more than to girls,” replied Sterl, satirically.

“Yeah? Wal, mebbe Les was right when she said once thet I wore my heart on my sleeve.”

“Red Krehl,” spoke up Leslie, “if you have a heart it’s an old burlap bag stuffed with grass, and what not.”

Leslie had come over to where Sterl sat writing in the journal — he had long ago relieved her of that duty — and Red was smoking. Friday, as usual, had made a little fire.

“Gosh, am I thet bad?” rejoined Red, mildly.

“Why wouldn’t you come with me to see Beryl when I asked you before supper?”

“Wal, I reckon I didn’t want to see Beryl.”

“But she begged to see you. And I was embarrassed. I lied to her.”

“Shore, you always was a turrible liar.”

“I was not. Red, you’re so queer. You never were hard before. Why, you’ve stood positive cruelty from that girl! Now, she needs to be cheered, fussed over — loved.”

“Would you mind shettin’ up, onless you want me to go out an’ commune with the kangaroos?”

“You mean the abo’s, Red Krehl,” returned Leslie, spitefully.

“Wal, I would at thet if there was any about.”

Leslie plumped down beside Sterl and pretended to peep at the journal, which he believed was only a ruse to get near to him.

“I’m busy, Leslie. Way behind. Will you slope off to bed, or somewhere?”

“No, I won’t slope off to bed — or to hell, as you hint so courteously,” she retorted petulantly, but she left them.

“Pard, what’d she mean by that crack about abo’s?” asked Red.

“I think it was a dirty crack. But don’t ever overlook this, old pard. Every dirty crack a woman makes, every terrible blunder, like Beryl’s for instance, can be blamed on some man.”

“Aw hell! You’ve said thet before. It ain’t so. What did you ever say or do to make Nan Halbert double-cross you, an’ send us off to this turrible Australia?”

That blunt query pierced like a blade in Sterl’s heart. The sudden opening of a healed wound flayed him. Still it drove him to be honest.

“Red, I flirted with Nan’s best friend — that damned little black-eyed hussy who wouldn’t let any man alone.”

“Hell you say! You mean Flo, of course. Wal, so did I! Thet ain’t nothin’ atall.”

“Well, it was enough to make Nan furious. Then to hurt me she went hotfoot after Ross Haight. And there she made her terrible blunder. It was my fault.”

“But, you locoed two-faced Romeo, you never told me thet. You swore Nan liked Ross best.”

“I lied, Red,” returned Sterl, somberly, closing the journal.

“Wal, I’m a son of a sea cook!...If you’d told me thet back home, Ross Haight could have gone to jail for his little gunplay. An’ we wouldn’t be heah!”

“For me, Red, it is better so. Only I grieve for what I led you into.”

“Funny how things came about. But you needn’t grieve too hard. I’m not sorry.”

“Honest, Red?” appealed Sterl, earnestly.

“Honest to Gawd. This trek is right down my grub-line trail. ‘Course I’ve had an orful blow in the gizzard. But if I get over it, an’ we get through...”

“Red, Leslie’s hurt that you wouldn’t go with her to see Beryl. You used to be kind to anyone sick, even a horse.”

“Mebbe I was. Mebbe I’ve changed a lot,” rejoined Red, bitterly. “I wouldn’t want to see Beryl if she was like she used to be before thet hot spell, but let alone now, after...”

“Red! You’re hard,” exclaimed Sterl, sharply.

“Shore. Harder than the hinges on the gates of hell. But if you cain’t see thet I’ve had aplenty to make me hard, wal, you’re as blind as a bat!”

“Red Krehl,” flashed Sterl, “are you keeping something secret from me?”

“Hellsfire, man, you can think, cain’t you?” cut out Red, with that icy edge in his voice. “An let’s change the subject.”

The trek fell back into its old, leisurely, time effacing stride. One day was like another, though every league of that lonely land had infinite variety as well as endless monotony Sterl had his surfeit of loveliness. It had passed into his being. At last seas of green and golden grass, islands of flowers, kangaroo-dotted plains, flamboyant bush-land, myriads of birds, flocks of emus, mile-wide ponds where the mob splashed across, scattering the flocks of water fowl, winding tiny brooks and still reed-bordered streams, and always, every hour of the long day, that illusive beckoning haunting purple mountain range — at last Sterl Hazelton’s soul was everlastingly filled to the brim with these physical things which he divined were rewards in themselves.

Seventeen days, to where the headwaters of the middle fork sprang from the tropic verdure of the foothills. “Camp here two days,” boomed Stanley Dann. “We will rest the stock, make repairs, and scout for this Gulf road. Eric has not found it yet.” Leslie named the place Well-spring. It was felicitous, because the splendid volume of water sprang as from a well, deep under the shadow of a bold, dark green foothill. Bill, with Scotty, the other cook, prepared the best meal they could devise, in honor of Beryl Dann’s first attendance at supper for many weeks.

While they waited at their tent, Sterl had had some words with his friend.

“Pard, you will be decent to Beryl? You have not spoken to her since — since that mess!”

“Umpumm,” drawled Red.

“Say, do you see that?” rang out Sterl, extending a big fist.

“Shore, I ain’ blind.”

“You know where it used to hurt you to be hit?”

“Ahuh. My belly. An’ I ain’t recovered yet, either.”

“That’s dinkum. If you don’t swear to be nice to Beryl, I’ll lam into you right now. And I’m not fooling.”

“Yeah? Wal, I choose the wusser of two evils. I’ll speak to Beryl an’ be as — as nice as I can. It’s gotta be done sometime, jest for appearances. An’ after all what the hell do I care?”

Then Leslie arrived; once again, after so long an interval, clad in feminine apparel, a flowered gown in which she looked extremely pretty.

“Red, you’ll — come?” she asked falteringly.

“No, Les,” he said, contriving to wink at Sterl. “Umpumm, nix come the weasel!”

That he could jest at such a moment, certainly poignant and important to Leslie, called to all that was spirited in her.

“You ornery, bullheaded, low-down...” she burst out, choking over the last two words, which, like those preceding, were from Red’s vocabulary. Then as quickly as the flare-up of her temper, she broke into sobs.

“Aw now, Leslie, don’t bawl, please,” begged the cowboy, who could not bear to see a girl cry. “Don’t you see I’m all spruced up? I’ll go with you an’ do the elegant.”

“Hon-nest, Red? You’re such a — a brute. You might be — teasing.”

“No, I mean it. Thet is I’ll go if you stop cryin’. Why, the idee! Spoilin’ thet happy face!”

Beryl rose from her father’s knees to greet her visitors. Her blue gown hung loosely upon her slender form, yet not at the expense of grace. Every vestige of the golden tan had vanished from her face, the whiteness of which accentuated the loveliness of her violet eyes and fair hair. Her beauty struck Sterl with great force, and suddenly he understood both Ormiston and Krehl. Leslie ran to Beryl. “Oh, it’s dinkum to see you out again!”

Beryl returned her kiss and greeting, then offered her two hands to Sterl. “Now, Mr. Cowboy, what do you think of me, up and well — and rarin’ to go?”

“Great!” responded Sterl, heartily, as he took her hands. “Beryl, you just look beautiful!”

But she did not even hear that last. Red had stepped out from behind Sterl, and Sterl saw with a pang what a terrible moment this was for both of them.

“Beryl — I — I’m shore dog-gone glad to see you out again,” said Red, huskily, and he was both gallant and self-possessed. One of his long strides bridged the distance between them. Her eyes dilated and turned black.

“Red — Red!” she whispered, as she put out quivering hands. They groped, missed his, to clutch his blouse. She fell against him with a grasp, and fainted in his arms.

“She is not so strong as she thought,” said Dann. He took her from Krehl and sat her gently down in the one chair. “Mrs. Slyter — Leslie!” he called.

Sterl could not withdraw his gaze from Beryl’s face. Her eyes were closed, long fair lashes on her white cheeks. He turned to Red, and forgot his concern for Beryl in the dumb misery of his friend. Dann’s hearty voice attested to the fact that Beryl had regained consciousness.

“I fainted,” she said, weakly. “How stupid! I’m all right now. Why, Leslie, you are as white as a sheet.”

“No wonder! Beryl, I thought you’d gone to join the angels.”

“No such luck for me! Boys, come back. I promise you I won’t be such a weakling again.”

Sterl, with his arm through Red’s, dragged the hesitant cowboy to the small circle, of which Beryl was the center. She had color in her cheeks. The cowboys found seats. Mrs. Slyter insisted that Beryl sip a cup of tea. Leslie hovered over her.

“Red, perhaps I fainted because sight of you brought you back — as you looked when I last saw you — how long ago?...Ages ago?”

“I forget. It shore was an orful long time,” drawled Red. “An’ about thet faintin’ — I knowed a girl once who could faint — or let on — whenever she wanted to knock the daylights out of a feller. So you see, Beryl, I been educated.”

“Did that girl faint in your arms?” asked Beryl, her speaking eyes on him.

“Wal, thet was one way she had of gettin’ into’ em. An’ once she got there, she’d come to orful quick.”

Presently Beryl’s nurses, despite her protests, led her away to her wagon and bed. The look she gave Red as she bade him good night was not lost upon Sterl.

At this juncture Eric Dann entered the shelter, greeted the cowboys and drank with Stanley. He had a livid scar on his forehead, a mark that he would carry to his grave.

Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to question him: “Dann, if I remember correctly we lost the Gulf road halfway or more down the Diamantina from the forks?”

“Somewhere back there. It didn’t concern me then because I expected to come across it any day,” returned Eric.

“We haven’t crossed it. I’ve kept a sharp lookout for wheel tracks. On level ground half a dozen wagons would leave a rut that would last for years.”

“Surely. We have just missed them, unless, of course, they have washed out.”

“Did you take this route on your back track?” went on Sterl.

“Part way. I don’t recall just where we made short cuts.”

“Some of these landmarks along here, if you ever saw them, you couldn’t forget.”

“Landmarks meant very little to me.”

“Hmm, it’s unfortunate you did not have an instinct for such things,” said Stanley. “You said you knew the way, Eric.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times that I thought I did,” replied Eric, impatiently.

Sterl made note of the shifty eyes and of the beads of sweat coming out on Eric’s brow, under the livid scar, and his dubious conjectures became definite doubts. Sterl could never swallow his relation to Ormiston.

Red fixed his piercing eyes upon Eric. “Dann, if you don’t know this country atall you oughta tell us damn pronto.”

“But I do know it, in general. I’ve recognized a good many places we passed at a distance from this trek. I’d like it understood that I’ll not be put on the witness stand by you Americans,” declared Dann, with signs of nervousness and heat.

“Wal, we Americans ain’t puttin’ you on nothin’, except yore word,” rejoined Red, coolly. Then he asked bluntly. “Have you ever been through this Diamantina country?”

Dann made what appeared to be a powerful effort to control unstable nerves. Nevertheless he did not reply to Red’s query.

“Wal, heah’s one you can answer, Mr. Dann, onless...” Red did not complete his dubious inference. “This heah range we’ve come to an’ have seen for so many days — there’s a pass in it thet nobody could miss seein’. If yore trek or any other trek traveled north from Cooper Creek up the Diamantina, you or they’d have to go through this pass. Ain’t thet figgerin’ reasonable?”

“Yes, it is, Krehl. They’d have to,” replied Dann, readily.

“All right. Then what kind of country will we find on the other side of this range?”

“It will be practically the same as this.”

“Thanks, Dann. We’ll remember thet,” returned Red, caustically. Then he addressed Sterl: “Pard, do you reckon I oughta shet up now or relieve my mind to the boss?”

“By all means, Krehl,” boomed Stanley.

“Wal, I wouldn’t presume to advise you heah. I’m no Australian. But I’ve known open wilderness country since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. This heah country has been changin’. It’s altogether different from the forks. Grass shorter an’ not so rich, trees fewer an’ smaller. An’ when you cross that range, you’ll find plenty trouble. Thet’s my hunch, boss. Take it or leave it.”

Turning on a jangling heel Red stalked away from the Danns with a mien that left little to the imagination. Dann, so seldom perturbed, was bewildered by what was evidently a new aspect to him.

“Incredible!” he ejaculated. “We should be still hundreds of miles from the watershed that ends its streams into the Gulf. Eric, you substantiate this, do you not?”

“Absolutely,” answered Eric Dann. “Northeast of this range, when we pass it, we will reach the headwaters of the Warburton River. That runs westward. Beyond that we will come to the headwaters of rivers emptying into the Gulf.”

“That agrees with our map. I am sure Krehl has miscalculated. What do you think, Hazelton?”

“All I say is, I’m sorry we are not trekking west.”

“If we should make a blunder now — and go the wrong way...” Sterl heard the leader’s voice ring and break but he made it his business to be watching Eric Dann. Either he was prejudiced against this man’s vacillation and incompetence, or he saw through him with Red Krehl’s lynx eyes!

CHAPTER 23

ANOTHER CONFERENCE OF Stanley Dann’s. A few days out of Wellspring camp, they had approached a break in the foothills, apparently leading to the pass through the range. Eric Dann asserted that he was sure he had been through that notch, going or coming, and so the mob was driven into its narrow defiles. Larry had reported dubious ground ahead; Red Krehl had climbed to a hilltop to reconnoiter. Upon his return he said to Dann in no uncertain terms, “Cain’t see far. But no country to drive cattle, let alone wagons!”

“No hurry, friends,” Stanley told his associates. “We’ll climb to look the ground over. Krehl should know where and where not to drove a mob.”

But Eric Dann leaped from his wagon-seat to confront his brother in a terrific fury.

“First it was Hazelton! Now it’s Krehl — Krehl — KREHL! I’m tired of having my judgment overruled!”

“Eric, you’ve lost your temper,” replied Stanley, severely. “Calm yourself. These cowboys have been a help to me, not a detriment. As others — and you — have been!”

Eric Dann’s visage grew purple.

“By God, I’ll turn back!” he shouted.

“But that wagon and team are mine,” rejoined Stanley Dann, controlling evident heat.

“I don’t care. I’ll take them. I’ve earned them on this infernal trek!”

Red Krehl slid off his horse.

“Bah! It’s a bluff, boss. He hasn’t got the nerve.”

“Wait, Krehl,” ordered Stanley Dann. “Eric, what is it you want?”

“You brought me on this trek as partner and guide,” hoarsely shouted Eric.

“Yes, I did.”

“Then hold to that contract or I’ll leave you!”

“Eric, I was not aware that I had broken it. Very well, I will hold to it — come what may,” returned the leader.

“It’s understood that I am the guide?”

“Yes. But you must guide us. Once more, for the last time, do you know this country?”

“Yes, I do,” rasped Eric, passionately, yet he gulped as if something had stuck in his throat. “In a general way, I mean. This is an enormously vast country...”

“Yeah, an’ you know it?” interrupted Red, with stinging scorn.

“Yes, I know it, you — you—” burst out the goaded drover, foaming at the mouth.

“Dann, you’re a —— liar! Go for yore gun — if you got the guts!”

“KREHL!” thundered the leader.

“Too late, boss. Stay where you air. Come on, Mr. Eric Dann, throw yore gun!”

Pale-faced instead of red now, gasping and speechless, Eric Dann turned to spread wide his hands, appealing to the leader.

“Let this end here!” commanded Dann.

“All right, boss, it’s ended,” replied Red, curtly. “But I’ll bet you live to see the day you wish it’d ended my way!”

And they trekked into the hills. Days without end before what seemed to be the pass; Sterl lost track of days. By now, Slyter, beating down the opposition of Eric Dann, had insisted that the wagons go ahead; for in places they had actually to improvise roads. Sometimes three miles a day were good going. The cattle found little grass and took to browsing. Many of them strayed. The drovers rode herd at night in five-hour shifts. Slyter’s second wagon, with Roland driving, went over a steep bank. He escaped, but the horses had to be shot. Often at night Sterl and Red could find no level place to pitch their tent. They would drop on the ground, cover their heads against mosquitoes and sleep like logs nevertheless. More and more, Sterl inclined to the truth of Red’s caustic forecast.

The nightmare days up a V-shaped valley which led to the deceiving pass. And then the trek seemed halted for good. Eric and Larry and Slyter returned in defeat from their scouting. But Friday, last to get back, galvanized their low spirits and energies.

“Go alonga me,” he said, and the black had never failed them yet.

They hitched six horses to a wagon, and with a drover on each side, pulling with a lasso, and whipping the teams, hauled over the “saddle” which had blocked them. It took all the rest of that day to get the other wagons over. The mob had to be left behind in the valley until the morrow.

Riding across that saddle, Sterl groaned his disappointment at the apparently impenetrable labyrinth of jungle and rock-ribbed confines ahead. Ten miles or more of incredibly rough going stretched ahead — a distance that might as well have been ten times that — and then a gap and a blue void. And then — another conference.

“We will go on,” declared Stanley Dann. “We can’t get through,” averred Slyter. “I’ve missed the — the way,” added Eric Dann, falteringly.

No one paid any attention to him.

“Larry, Bligh, what do you say?” queried the leader.

They replied practically in unison that it looked very bad, well-nigh impassable. “Hazelton?” he boomed.

“Boss, we can’t go back,” said Sterl. “Krehl, what do you think?”

“Me? Wal, I ain’t thinkin’ atall,” drawled the cowboy.

“Don’t bandy ridicule with me!” roared Stanley Dann.

“All right, boss. Excoose me. I ain’t no mule-haid. I think we must find a way out thet we cain’t see from heah.”

“Right! Men, look for a place where we can camp.”

They camped on the right side of the saddle at the base of a rugged slope. Firewood and water had to be carried up, a job Red and Sterl took upon themselves. There were no idle hands any more. Even Beryl helped Mrs. Slyter and Bill.

“You’ve only begun to pick up,” said Sterl to her that evening. “Please rest.”

“Sterl, I’ll do my bit,” replied Beryl, smiling up at him. She might not have realized that she was telling him she had begun to learn a great lesson of life. How frail she looked, yet her sad face seemed lovelier than ever! She had courage — that thing Sterl respected more than all else in man or woman. If she lived she would come through this fire pure gold.

He went out along the saddle to look for Leslie. He met her climbing the slope on foot, in the track of the wagons, lithe and supple, clear-eyed as a falcon, her drover’s garb ragged and soiled.

“Howdy, Sterl. Been worrying about me?” she panted.

“No, Les. Only King and the remuda.”

“King, Jester, Duke, Lady Jane, all tiptop. Sorrel is lame. Count is fagged out. Sterl, will we ever, ever get through this pass?”

“I don’t know — and don’t care much.”

“Sterl! — that’s not like you. Oh, dear boy, you’re worn out!”

“Les, you and Beryl make me feel a little ashamed,” replied Sterl.

“Sterl, you and Red all through this terrible year have filled my heart, and Beryl’s, and Mum’s with courage to carry on. Small wonder that you lag a little now! But don’t fail me, Sterl. And don’t let Red fail Beryl. It is he who has saved her — who is changing her very soul...Sterl, would you mind — holding me a bit — as you used to?”

But Sterl evaded that, despite the warmth she stirred in his heart, and made excuses, and talking kindly to her he led her to camp. Darkness fell upon silent trekkers, some going to their beds and others about their jobs, and all with spirits bowed but not broken.

It took all the next morning to drove the mob over the “saddle.” Friday had returned from a scout. To Stanley Dann he spread his wonderful, sinewy black hands, fingers wide. “Boss, might be cattle go alonga dere,” he said, and manifestly he meant they should separate and streak through various channels to whatever lay at the end of that green maze. So like a great waterfall the mob poured off the “saddle,” to roll and clatter down, to disappear almost at will in the jungle.

Then began the feverish and ceaseless labor of fourteen men to chop and build a road for six wagons through ten miles of wilderness jungle.

It dwarfed all their former labors. After five days of digging, chopping, carrying rocks, packing supplies, wading in mud and water and grass, all the toilers except Stanley Dann and Slyter forgot about the cattle and horses. Every day Friday, whose duty it was to report on the mob would say: “Cattle along dere farder,” and that day when he said: “Cattle gone!” not one of the trekkers betrayed anxiety. It was now a battle for their lives.

In daylight, the flies were almost as fierce as at the forks, and at night the mosquitoes were so thick and bloodthirsty that they would have killed an unprotected man. The second cook practically died on his feet, sticking it out with fever and dysentery, and then collapsing. Monkton was bitten by a death adder and for days his life was despaired of.

In the middle of that jungle Eric Dann made a startling proposal.

“We should abandon the wagons and pack out!”

Stanley Dann, soiled and sweaty and bedraggled, gazed at this blood kin of his with great, amber eyes that had not lost their magnificent light.

“What about the women?” he asked.

“They can ride horseback. I asked Beryl. She said she could,” returned Eric, eagerly.

“We are two thousand miles from anywhere. Beryl would die.”

“If she gave out — we could carry her!” exclaimed this extraordinary man.

The giant shook his shaggy golden head, wearily, as if it was useless to listen to his brother.

“We can’t get through,” bawled Eric Dann, his voice rising. “I climbed up to see. We’re not halfway! Man, would you sacrifice us all for your worthless daughter?”

Red Krehl leaped upon Dann and felled him. He would have kicked the man, too, but for a sharp cry. Beryl and Leslie had heard and seen. But it could not silence him.

“Dann, I’m gonna kill this brother of yores yet,” bitterly predicted the cowboy.

“Red, don’t kill Uncle Eric. Not for me!” cried Beryl, passionately. “I’m not worth it. I was a fool. I was vain, brazen, mad! But Uncle Eric only knows the half. I planned with Ash Ormiston — that he should seem to steal me from my bed. He meant to kill anyone who opposed him — especially to kill Uncle Eric, with whom he had plotted. I agreed to go with him, to save Uncle Eric’s life, to save Dad from ruin, if not worse. But Ormiston betrayed me. He stole Dad’s cattle. He would have murdered Uncle Eric but for me. He — He...”

She broke down then. Leslie led her away from the stunned group of men. Eric Dann slunk away under the trees. Of all present, Sterl thought, his friend Red seemed the most staggered by Beryl’s revelation. It was not in his case, as in that of the others, that Beryl’s participation in Ormiston’s plot had come to light. Red had known that! He had kept it secret even from Sterl. But now he knew why the girl had betrayed him and her father and all of them.

After what seemed a long silence Stanley Dann said: “Men, we are being sorely tried, but let us not lose our faith in God and in each other. Krehl, I thank you, but I disagree, with my daughter. She is worth — all she declared she was not.”

“Wal, boss, if you ask me, I kinda reckon so myself,” returned Red Krehl, ponderingly.

“All of you back to work. We are goin’ through!” boomed the leader.

Sterl bent for his shovel and whispered to his friend: “Pard, now my job is to keep you from being shot in the back!”

Before many more hours passed that break in their toil, with its resurgence of lulled passions, was forgotten in sheer physical exhaustion.

But at last, and when the trekkers were sunk to their lowest ebb, Friday found a gateway for them out into the open. They faced vastly different country from that which Eric Dann had pictured to them. A few miles below a gentle green slope, out upon a velvet green down, Stanley Dann’s mob of cattle grazed in a great colorful patch. Beyond them spread endless other downs dotted with clumps of pandanuses and palms, streaked by black fringes of trees, bisected from league to league by shining threads of water, and bordered by limitless purple horizon. They were all so overjoyed to get clear of that awful jungle that no one of them asked audibly where they were. Only Sterl thought of what Eric Dann had sworn — that the country beyond the range would be the same as that at the headwaters of the Diamantina.

CHAPTER 24

DAYS OF LEISURELY and comfortable going now, over level downs with grass and water abundant but firewood so scarce that whenever they found any deadwood Bill collected it for the next camp. But one jarring fact — in a week’s trekking they reached a point opposite the flattening out of that range whose crossing had cost them so many supplies, so much toil and life. By a week’s detour, they could have gone round it. Six weeks more than lost!

Late one afternoon, the black, ragged line that had gradually grown for days turned out to be a good-sized river. It flowed north. It presented a problem, not only to cross, but because the water, flowing the wrong way, upset their calculations. The Warburton, for which Dann thought he was trekking, would have flowed due west. According to the leader’s rude map, when they crossed it they would be headed north to a point between the Never-never Land and the Gulf and would cross the headwaters of all the streams flowing into the Gulf. At Dann’s conference, the first for a long time, Eric Dann asserted positively. “This is the Flinders River. Probably we are two or three hundred miles from the Gulf.”

“Flinders River? Gulf?” echoed Stanley, aghast. “That means salt water, crocodiles and cannibal abo’s!”

“Gosh!” ejaculated Red Krehl. “Boss, of course, hunches mean nothin’ atall to you. But let’s follow mine an’ rustle back onto dry land.”

Any suggestion of the cowboy’s was to Eric Dann like a red flag to a bull.

“Stanley, it’s along the fringe of the Never-never that bad blacks are to be encountered,” he said, impressively.

“How do you know that?” demanded the leader intensely.

“I know it,” returned Eric, stubbornly. “What is your objective?”

“Southeast of Port Darwin,” answered the brother, glibly, “there are fertile ranges. We can choose to stop there, if you like, and send in to Darwin for supplies. I think you will decide for this site instead of the Kimberleys.”

“Yes, true enough,” mused the leader. “We have that information from more than one reliable source. I could always move on to the Kimberleys. Eric, you have made mistakes — this last one, terrible! But in your heart are you speaking honestly?”

Before that stern and just leader, the hawk-eyed cowboys, and the dubious Slyter with his drovers, Eric Dann solemnly asserted his truth. What — Sterl wondered — was his game?

The river, which Leslie called the Muddy, appeared to be fresh water, though it had a weedy taste, and the middle channel had to be swum. Neither accident nor injury marked the crossing of the wagons and the herd, though it took four days of persistent labor.

Leslie and Beryl, with Friday, had been left for the last. Stanley Dann sent the cowboys Larry and Rollie back for them.

“Where’s a horse for me to ride?” demanded Beryl, as the bedraggled riders waded their horses out to the bank.

“Boss’s order is for us to pack you over,” replied Larry, uneasily.

To Sterl’s surprise, and certainly to Red’s, Beryl acquiesced without further remark.

“Red, I’d feel safer with you on Duke. He’s so big,” said Beryl, casually. “Besides you have carried me already.”

Sterl leaped off to help Beryl up in front of Red. Red put his left arm around her, and Beryl put her right arm around his neck. Anyway Sterl looked at the position it was an embrace, reluctant on Red’s part, subtly willing on Beryl’s. She laid her head back and looked up at him.

“Red, it won’t take long,” said Sterl, in cheery significance. But he did not mean to trip across.

“I don’t care how long it takes — if only...” murmured Beryl, with a hint of her old audacity.

Red’s reaction was as natural as his sincerity was hidden. “Slope along, Duke,” he drawled. “Pick out that deep hole, fall in, an’ never come up!”

Red entered the river with Larry close on one side and Rollie on the other. Leslie waited for Sterl, who watched the trio ahead for a moment before he started. Then he became aware of Leslie’s poignant joy at sight of Beryl in the cowboy’s arms.

“Oh, Sterl! Isn’t love wonderful?” she sighed, dreamily.

“It must be. I can’t speak from personal experience, as evidently you can. But real love must be wonderful.”

“That’s true, you devil!” flashed Leslie, disrupted from her sweet trance, and rode ahead of him, splashing the water in great sheets.

Sterl idled along, reflecting sadly that this little byplay had been the first pleasantry, the first lessening of the raw tension, for many a week.

Dann’s caravan covered in five days some fifty miles of green downs, not one long or short stretch differing noticeably from any other. Its beauty palled, its sameness irritated the nerves; its monotony grew unbearable.

But on that fifth day darker and apparently, higher ground broke the level horizon. Two more days’ travel proved that it consisted of low ridges and round areas covered with dense but scrubby timber. No blue foothills, however, loomed above the wandering black line of scrub. And the day came when Sterl, gazing backward, could no longer see the shadowy, purple ranges. They kept on to the northwest, traveling by compass.

“Slyter,” said Sterl, at Blue Grass camp, “if we are trekking through this country to get to the headwaters of the Warburton — it’s all right. But if we’re trekking deeper into these downs...”

“Red says if we follow this four-flusher Eric Dann much farther we’ll be lost.”

“We’re the same as lost now, Sterl. But I won’t nag Stanley any more. He’s set. We’re going through, he swears. Says to remember the bad times before — how we always came out.”

Days and days and days! And dark cool dewy nights, when the stars blazed white, the bitterns boomed from the reed-bordered lakes and streams, and the owls hooted dismally in the pandanus scrub! The moon soared in the sky, blanching the endless downs. Solitude reigned. Sterl fought a feeling that they had reached the end of the world. Insupportably slowly the trek went on into this forbidding land of grass.

They came at length into a stranger, blacker, wilder country.

The dense growth of bush denoted a river — a river somewhere beyond the dark fringe of giant ash trees and bloodwoods and enormous trees with multiple trunks grotesque and gnarled. They camped where a huge wide-spreading banyan afforded a thick green canopy for the whole caravan. A boiling spring of sweet water ran away from the bank of bushland, forming a little stream that meandered away toward a pale lake, black and white with waterfowl. Kookaburras flew under the trees, perched on branches to watch the intruders, but they were silent. And that strange feature alone affected the morbid trekkers. The sun slanted in what appeared the wrong direction. Sterl was completely turned around. Red wearily said he did not give a damn and that he wished what was going to happen would come pronto.

Friday appeared at suppertime. There was that in his mien to induce awe. All the trekkers mutely interrogated him; then the leader asked, “What ho, Friday?”

“Plenty bad black fella along dere. Big ribber. Plenty croc. Plenty salt.”

They were crushed. Stanley Dann sat with his elbows on his knees, his broad hands over his golden beard. The corded veins stood out upon his bronzed brow.

“Lost!” he ejaculated, in a hollow voice. “Hundreds of miles out of our way.”

“Salt water!” burst out Slyter, appalled.

“It must be the Flinders River,” croaked Eric Dann.

“Wha-at?” roared the giant. “According to you we crossed the Flinders weeks back!”

“But afterward I remembered it was not. This is the Flinders. Near its source. Once across we will find higher ground.”

He seemed so fired with inspired certainty that most of his listeners, grasping at straws, felt a renewal of hope. But Red and Sterl eyed him with suspicion.

The sun rose on the wrong side.

“Spread along the river to find a place to cross,” ordered Stanley Dann to his drovers.

Below camp some distance, Sterl, Red and Larry found an opening in the bush where the mob could be driven to the river, and where a road could be opened for the wagons.

“Look dere,” called Friday, who strode beside Sterl, and he pointed to smoke signals rising beyond the break in the bush. “Imm black fella know.”

They rode through the opening, with Friday in the lead, scaring the tiger snakes out of his path with his long spear, and presently emerged upon the low bank of a wide river. Slopes of yellow mud ran a hundred yards out to meet the turgid channel of about the same width, and the opposite slope ran up to the bush.

“Tide running out. Swift too,” observed Larry.

“Gosh, you mean this heah is tidewater?” queried Red.

“It must be. Friday said it was salt water.”

“Friday, go alonga see how deep mud,” said Sterl.

Ankle-deep the black waded some rods out, and then began to sink in deeper and deeper until he was over his knees.

“Even with the tide in full the mob would have to wade a bit, at least close to shore,” observed Larry, seriously. “And the wagons. What a job to cross them here!”

“Righto. But it can be done,” averred Red.

“We’d cut poles and brush to make a road. Thet channel buffaloes me, though. What say, Sterl?”

“Boys, without the menace of crocodiles, which Friday mentioned, we’d have a killing job here. Larry, how big do these Gulf crocodiles grow?”

“Up to twenty-five feet, I’ve heard. They can break a man’s leg with one whack of their tails.”

“Red, how will we get the girls across?”

“Aw, thet’s a slicker. I was thinkin’ about it. If we only had a boat! Mebbe we could build a raft. In a pinch we might use the bed of our wagon. But I wonder — should we go across?”

They rode back to camp. The other drovers who had ranged still farther up the river reported no practical crossing.

“Boss, there’s a ford below. But it looks awful tough,” said Sterl.

“Mr. Dann, cain’t we get out of tacklin’ this heah river?” queried Red, anxiously.

“Krehl,” returned the chief, patiently, “as we cannot go back we must cross.”

“Hell no! We can go back aways, an’ thet’d save an orful job, a lot of cattle, an’ somebody’s life shore as Gawd made little apples! Dann, yore a cattleman as big as all this heah outdoors. But a dry land drover.”

But Eric Dann’s abnormal and malignant obsession again protruded its hydra head.

“Krehl is afraid,” he shouted, hoarsely. “Once and for all, I demand to be heard! No foreigner is going to upset my plans — to make me ridiculous.”

“Brother,” rejoined the leader, “I ask you once more — do you know what you’re doing when you advise us to cross this river?”

“Yes, I know. I know too that Krehl is afraid. Ask him yourself. I’ll ask him! See here, cowboy, are you man enough to confess the truth — that you are afraid?”

Red Krehl gave the drover a long, uncomprehending gaze. Dann was indeed a new one for the Texan. Then he spoke: “Hell yes. I shore am afraid of this river, the crocs an’ the abo’s. But I reckon I oughta be more afraid of you, Mr. Dann. Because you’re a queer mixture of fool, liar an’ crook.”

Sterl restrained himself until this argument ended, then he addressed the leader.

“Dann, I want you to know — and to remember — that I strongly advise against the attempt to cross this river here.”

“Sorry, Hazelton. But we cross!”

But the river and the tide had something to say about that, and when they were right, as near as the drovers thought they could be, then the cattle had the last word. This mob had been extraordinarily docile and easily managed, as the cowboys knew cattle. Many of the calves and cows that had distinguishing marks or habits that brought them into the daily notice, had become veritable pets. Toward the end of that day, however, they manifested evidences of a contrary disposition. About midafternoon Friday reported that they stopped grazing and became uneasy. Slyter went out to observe for himself. Upon his return he announced: “For some reason or other they dislike this place.”

“Then, we may be in for a night of it. I wouldn’t care to try to stop a rush in this bush.”

“Might be smellum crocs,” said Friday.

Flying foxes had appeared during the afternoon, great, wide-winged, grotesque bats, swishing out of the brush over the cattle, and their number increased toward sunset.

“Shore, it’s them dinged bats thet have the herd buffaloed, an’ they’re gonna get us, too,” said Red Krehl.

Here was one camp where a fire did not flame brightly, cheerily. The wood burned as if it were wet, and the smoke was acrid. Night settled down black, with the stars obscured by the foliage on three sides.

Supper had been eaten and five drovers had ridden out on guard when all left in camp were startled by a weird, droning sound off in the bush, apparently across the river.

“Black fella corroboree. Imm no good,” said Friday, his long black arm aloft.

Suddenly — a trampling roar of hoofs. The cowboys were as quick to leap up as Larry and Rollie. Slyter came thudding from his wagon. Eric Dann lifted a pale and haggard face. “A rush!” cried Stanley Dann.

“Aw, I knowed it,” said Red, grimly. “Come, Sterl. Let’s rustle our hosses.”

“Wait, you cowboys,” ordered Dann. “Some of us must guard camp. Larry, Roland. Call Benson and join the drovers out there.”

Slyter made off with the hurrying drovers, shouting something about his horses. Friday, at the edge of the circle of light, turned to the others and yelled, “Tinkit mob run alonga here!”

“My God!” boomed Stanley Dann.

“Stand ready all! If the mob comes this way, take to the trees!”

The increasing roar, the quaking ground, held all those listeners fraught with suspense and panic for an endless moment.

“Stampede’ll miss us!” yelled Red Krehl. Then Friday stooped to make violent motions with his right arm, indicating that the herd was rushing in the direction of the river. Gun-shots banged faintly above the din.

“All right! We’re safe!” yelled Sterl, and then felt himself sag under the release of tension. It had been a few moments of terrible uncertainty.

Then a crashing augmented the trampling roar. The stampede, now evidently pointed up the river, had run into the bush. The noise lasted for minutes before it began to lessen in volume.

“Providence saved us again,” rang out Stanley Dann, in immense relief. “But this rush will be bad for the mob.”

“Dog-gone bad for the drovers, too, I’d say,” declared Red.

“You may well think so. But usually a mob does not rush long. I am hopeful.”

“They might stampede into the river,” interposed Sterl.

Eric Dann sat down again and bent his gaze upon the ruddy fire embers. It was necessary to sit close to the heat and smoke to be even reasonably safe from mosquitoes. Eric Dann, however, sat back in the shadow. Not improbably he had too much on his mind to feel bites. Presently Slyter returned to camp.

“Horses all right,” he was saying to Dann as they approached the fire. “The rush was bad. But half the mob were not affected.”

“That was strange. Usually, cattle follow the leaders, like sheep. Uncanny sort of a place.”

“Righto. I jolly well wish we were out of it. Hello, Mum. You and Les should be in bed.”

“I see ourselves, with the mob threatening to run us down. And Stanley calling us to climb trees!” retorted his good wife. “But we’ll go now.”

“Beryl, that would be a good idea for you,” said her father.

“I’m afraid to go to bed,” replied the girl, petulantly.

“Me too,” added Leslie. “These sneaky, furry bats give me the creeps. I just found one in our wagon. Ugh!”

“Well, as long as Sterl and Red have to sit up, I suppose it’s all right for you girls. But it’s not a very cheerful place for courting.”

Beryl let out a scornful little laugh. “Courting! Whom on earth with?”

“Sometime back it was royalty condescending. Now it’s how the mighty have fallen!” returned Mrs. Slyter, subtly, and left them.

“Leslie, whatever did your mother mean by that cryptic speech?” asked Beryl, annoyed.

“Oh, Mum’s got softening of the brain,” returned Leslie, and she dropped down on the log very close to Sterl. Red, who sat across the fire from them, looked up at Beryl, who was standing.

“Say, all you women have softenin’ of the brain,” he drawled.

“Yeah?” queried Leslie.

“Is that so, Mr. Krehl?” added Beryl.

“Yes, it’s so. Take that crack of Leslie’s mother, for instance. Les’s Ma an’ you girls air of one mind, I reckon. The idee is to collar a man, any man temporarily, till you meet up with one you aim to corral for keeps.”

“That is true, Red. Disgustingly true,” admitted Beryl, suddenly frank and earnest. “But Les and I are not to blame for being born women.”

“I reckon not, Beryl,” returned Red, conciliated by her sincerity.

“Go on, Red. You were going to say something,” went on Beryl.

“I was,” rejoined the cowboy. “It seemed to me kind of farfetched an’ silly — thet sentimental yearnin’ of yores, if it was thet. Heah we air lost in this Gawd-forsaken land. Aw, I know Eric there swears we ain’t lost, but thet doesn’t fool me, an’ this hole is as spooky an’ nasty a place as I ever camped. It’s more. It’s a darned dangerous one. We jest escaped somethin’ tough. An’ thet’s why I jest wondered at you womenfolks, feelin’ thet soft, sweet mushy sentiment in the face of hell.”

“Red Krehl, that’s the wonder of it — that we can feel and need such things at such a time,” returned Beryl, eloquently. “I left such things behind, to come with my father. I could have gone to live in Sydney. But I came with Dad. And you’ve seen something of what I’ve suffered. This hard experience has not wholly destroyed my sensitivities, my former habits. I can see why Sterl thinks we’re going bush. I can see that we’ll turn into abo’s, if we’re stuck here forever. But just now, I’m a dual nature. By day I’m courageous, by night I’m cowardly. I can’t sleep. I’m afraid of noises. I lie with the cold chills creeping over me. I can’t forget what — what has already happened to me. Red Krehl, you said you wonder at me. But I say it’s a wonder you cannot see how I’d welcome any kindness, any attention, any affection, to keep me from thinking!”

It was a long speech, though quickly spoken, one that Sterl took to his heart in shame and self-reproach. He was intensely curious to see how Red would take it, and somehow he had faith in the cowboy’s greatness of soul.

“Come heah, girl,” said Red, gently, and held out his hand. Beryl stepped to him and leaned, as if compelled. He drew her to a place beside him on the narrow pack, and he put his arm around her to draw her close. “I’m sorry I made all them hard cracks about this place. Only I’m glad, ‘cause I understand you better. But Beryl, I reckon you can’t figger me out. When all was goin’ fine back on this trek you gave me some pretty bad times. So, even if I wanted to be sweet an’ soft about you, which I shore don’t after the way you treated me, I couldn’t be on account of what this damn trek has done to me. I’ve saved yore life a coupla times, an’ I reckon I’ll have to do thet a heap more. If I wasn’t a hard-ridin, hard-shootin’ cowboy, a killer, grim an’ mean, I couldn’t do thet much for you. Thet ought to make you see me clear.”

“Oh, Red,” Beryl cried, poignantly, “I don’t want you any different!”

The thud of hoofs disrupted this scene, and Larry rode up. Friday came running to throw brush upon the blaze.

“Larry, you’re all bloody!” exclaimed Sterl.

“No, Just ran — into a snag,” panted the drover. “Let me — sit down.”

Dann arrived to bend over Larry. “Bad scalp cut. Girls, fetch water and linen. Larry, are you all right?”

“Yes, sir — except played out.”

“Where are the other drovers?”

“Back with what — was left of the mob. That rush got — away, sir.”

“How many?”

“Benson said one-third of the mob. They rushed into the bush. They were a crazy lot of cattle. They crashed through the bush — some into the river. So we yelled to come together — then rode back. That mob will work out of the bush by morning.”

Meanwhile Dann had unwound the scarf from Larry’s head and began to dress the wound. Slyter told the girls to go to bed, and this time they obeyed. Red was sent off to take Larry’s place with the drovers and Sterl ordered to stay in camp.

When toward dawn Red and Rollie came in, relieved by two of Dann’s drovers, Sterl lay down beside Red. The sun was up when Friday called them.

“Where black fella, Friday?”

“Alonga dere. No good. Hidum about. Watchum white man.”

“Sterl, these abo’s up heah ‘pear to be a different breed. All same Comanche Injuns,” said Red.

They found the drovers straggling in. Benson reported two-thirds of the mob intact. Their ragged garb, scratched hands, bruised faces gave evidence of their strenuous effort to head that rush.

“We stopped it, five miles west,” reported Bligh, wearily. “They’re out in the open, not many on their feet. Dehorned, crippled, snagged — a sorry mess!”

Friday appeared, carrying a kangaroo that he had speared.

“Plenty roo,” he said. “Ribber full up. Plenty croc.”

“Friday, see any blacks?” asked Sterl.

“Black fella imm conga bush. Bimeby.”

“Men, eat and drink all you can hold,” said Stanley Dann. “We’ll leave those cattle that started the rush last night until the last. If they scatter, we’ll abandon them. Our mob has been too large. We’ll break camp now. Move all the wagons and horses to the open break in the bush below. Then drove the main mob closer. Two guards on and off for two hours. We’ll ford the river with the wagons, divide our party and camp on both sides until the last job, which will be to drove the mob across.”

It was a bold and masterly plan, Sterl conceded. The execution remained to be an inspiration of genius and a heroic job. They mounted and rode away.

The river! The drovers, even their leader, had only to go within sight of that reed-bordered, mud-sloped yellow swirling tide to be confronted by seeming impossibilities.

“Friday, where are the crocodiles?” boomed Dann.

“Alonga dere,” replied the black, his spear indicating the river and the margins of reeds.

“Slyter, do they hide in the grass?”

“Yes, indeed. These big crocs live on animals. This water is brackish. Kangaroos, wild, cattle, brumbies would drink it. I’ve been told how the crocs lie in wait and with one lash of their tails knock a large animal or an aborigine into the water.”

“They may not be plentiful. But all of you use your eyes. Have your guns ready. Slyter, you will drive your wagon in first. Send a drover ahead to test the bottom. Make haste, while the tide is in.”

They all watched Heald wade his sturdy horse into the river. After perhaps a hundred steps, he returned to say: “Mud bottom. Soft. But not quicksand. If you keep your horse moving you can make it.”

“What will a heavy wagon do?” queried Slyter, dubiously.

“It’ll stick, but not sink,” declared Dann. “We have heavy ropes and strong horses. We can pull out.” In a moment more Slyter, accompanied by Dann and six drovers, had driven his big teams into the river.

Slyter had not got quite so far out as Heald had waded when the wheels stuck. Two drovers leaped out of their saddles to unhitch the teams. Bligh and Hood dragged the teams out. Rollie, with a bag in front of him and a cracking stockwhip in hand, kept abreast of the teams. Soon they were swimming. Four drovers followed carrying packs. Slyter stood up in his wagon, rifle in hand, watching vigilantly.

“Crocs over dere all alonga,” cried Friday, pointing.

Sterl saw the reeds shake and part. “Grab your rifle, Red,” he shouted.

Suddenly on the opposite bank there was a loud rush in the reeds, then a zoom, as a huge reptile leaped off the bank and slid upon the narrow strip of mud. But it was not quick enough to escape Red’s shot.

Sterl heard the bullet thud, and then the huge reptile flopped up and flashed into convulsions. Sterl let out a yell as he drew a bead upon it and pulled the trigger. The distance was nothing to a marksman. His bullet, too, found its mark.

Another! Four shots left that reptile rolling in the mud. Its back seemed broken.

“Dere, alonga dere!” shrilled Friday, pointing below.

Slyter was shooting at another one, smaller and nimbler. But there was another rush and zoom as a big one catapulted off the bank to meet a hail of lead. Crippled and slow, he crawled into the river.

Stanley Dann’s horse appeared, wading out. The drovers dragged and yelled at the teams, while Rollie cracked his long whip from behind. They got across at last and climbed the bank to deposit the packs and find a place to land the wagon. Then they piled into the river pell-mell, keeping close together, some of them with drawn guns held high.

Slyter yelled, “Make all the commotion possible.”

They crossed in short order and, loading heavily, turned back in haste, crossed again. Suddenly Friday screeched out something aboriginal. Then Slyter roared unintelligibly, and began to pump lead into the water. A thumping splash followed, then a vicious churning of the surface, yellow and red mixing.

“I got him!” shouted Slyter, peering down. “Right on top of me — longer than the wagon! Never saw him till he came up!”

When the drovers arrived at the wagon again, Stanley Dann called out lustily: “Boys, that was splendid work. I heard your big bullets hit. It’s not so bad having Yankee gunmen with us!”

During nine more trips, while the cowboys, with Slyter, Larry and the black kept vigil from several points, nothing untoward happened. Dann, with three of the drovers, then remained on the far side with the teams backed out into the shallow water, while the other three, dragging tackle and ropes, swam their horses back to make fast to the wagon.

Bligh slid off his horse, and waist-deep groped about with his feet to find the wagon tongue. To watch him thus exposed made the cold sweat ooze out all over Sterl. Bligh found it, and went clear under to lift it up. In a moment more the heavy tackle was fast. He yelled and waved to Dann. The two teams sagged down and dug in; the drovers in front of the wagon laid hold of the thick rope. Slyter lifted his arms on high, swung his rifle, and added his yell to that of the others. A moment of strain and splash — then the empty wagon lurched, moved, half floated. Slyter stood up on the driver’s seat, balancing himself, still peering into the water for crocodiles. The two teams and the six single horses did not slow up until the wheels touched bottom. In a very few moments the wagon was safely up on the bank. Despite the crocodiles the achievement augured well for the success of the operation.

CHAPTER 25

ALL THIS TIME the tide was slowly going out. The channel split wide bare stretches of mud. Sterl observed that a big crocodile which he had thought surely killed had disappeared from the bank opposite. The one Slyter had shot lay on its back, clawlike feet above the shallow water.

Some of Dann’s party cut poles and brush to lay lengthwise on the mud over the plowed-up tracks of wheels and horses. Bill set about erecting a canvas shelter to work under; Sterl, Red and Friday hurried at camp tasks the crossing had halted. Presently Slyter and Dann’s drovers, all except Roland, who had been left on the far side of the river, arrived muddy and wet, noisy and triumphant, back in camp.

“Volunteer wanted to drive the small dray,” called the leader.

They all wanted that job. Dann chose Benson, the eldest. Six men cut brushy trees while two riders snaked these down to the river. Dann and Slyter built the corduroy road. Eric Dann lent a hand, like one in a trance. Friday pointed to aborigine smoke signals far back in the bush, and shook his shaggy head.

Many energetic hands made short work of the road on the camp side of the river. It was significant that Slyter covered his dead crocodile with brush. Then Benson drove the one-team off the bank. The brush road upheld both horses and wheels as long as they moved. But it stuck in the channel and, before it crossed, the drovers had to unload it and carry its contents to the far bank. By this time the afternoon was far spent, and Bill had supper ready. Benson volunteered to pack supper across to Roland and Bligh, left on guard, and remain over there with them.

The drovers, bedraggled, slimy from the river mud, ate like wolves, but were too tired to talk. Sterl and Red went out on duty with the mob.

Again the night was silent, except for the bark of dingoes and the silken swish of flying foxes. But the mob appeared to be free from the fears of the night before. Sterl and Red kept together, and after a few hours, one of them watched while the other slept. But Sterl, in his wakeful intervals, could not rid himself of misgivings. His mind conjured up fateful events for which there seemed no reason.

At last the dawn came, from gray to daylight, and then a ruddiness in the east. He awakened Red from his hard bed on the grass. They rounded up the remuda, and changed their mounts for King and Duke.

“Red, it’s dirty business to risk Leslie’s horses in that river,” said Sterl, as they rode campward.

“Wal, I was thinkin’ thet same. We won’t do it, ‘cept to cross them. We’ll fork two of these draft hosses. But, Holy Mackeli, they cain’t keep one of them crocs away! I swear, pard, I never had my gizzard freeze like it does at thet thought.”

“Nerve and luck, Red!”

“Them drovers shore had it yestiddy.” Breakfast was over at sunrise, Friday approached the fire to get his fare.

“Crocs alonga eberywhere,” he announced.

That silenced the trekkers like a clap of thunder. Slyter, the cowboys, and the drovers followed the striding Dann out to view the stream. A dead steer floated by in mid-channel, gripped by several crocodiles. Downstream a cow or steer had stranded in the shallow water. Around it ugly snouts and notched tails showed above the muddy water. Upstream on the far side a third cow, stuck in the mud, was surrounded by the reptiles.

Larry explained, “Night before last a number of cattle rushed into the river. We heard them bawling and plunging.”

Slyter said, “Blood scent in the river will have every croc for miles down upon us.”

“It may not be so bad as it looks,” replied the leader with his usual optimism. “Let’s cross Bill’s dray at once. Tell Bill to keep out food and tea for today and tomorrow. One of you to put tucker on the dray for the boys across there. A kettle of hot tea! Who’ll drive Bill’s dray?”

Red Krehl elected himself for that job. But Dann preferred to have the cowboy on shore, rifle in hand, and selected Heald. He drove in until the water came almost to the platform of the wagon. Then the procedure of the day before was carried out with even more celerity. It struck Sterl that in their hurry the drovers were forgetting about the crocodiles, which might have been just as well. The big job done the drovers took time out for a cup of tea. That inevitable rite amused Sterl.

“Ormiston’s wagon next,” shouted Stanley Dann. “That duty falls to Eric.”

The drovers hitched two teams to this wagon, while others, at the leader’s order, unpacked half of its contents. Flour in special burlap sacks and other food supplies came to light.

At the take-off the leading team balked, and upon being urged and whipped they plunged, and Eric laid on the stockwhip. No doubt a scent of the dead crocodiles came to them. Stanley Dann boomed orders that Eric did not hear or could not obey. About a hundred steps out was as far as either of the other vehicles had been driven. But Eric drove until the teams balked, with the leaders submerged to their shoulders. This was extremely bad, because it was evident that they were sinking in the mud. Half a dozen drovers urged plunging horses to the rescue.

At that critical moment Friday let out a wild yell. Sterl saw a dead steer, surrounded by crocodiles, drifting down upon the teams.

“Back, Heald! Back, Hood!” shouted Sterl, at the top of his lungs. “Crocs!”

Snorting, lunging, the horses wheeled and sent mountains of water flying. They reached the shore just as the dead steer drifted upon the teams and lodged. Stanley Dann was yelling for his brother to climb back over the wagon and leap for his life. Eric might have heard, but his gaze was glued to the melee under him.

The dead steer drifted in between the two teams to lodge against the wagon tongue, and the great reptiles attacked the horses. The snap of huge jaws, the crack of teeth, could be heard amid the roar of water and the clamor of the drovers.

Eric pulled his gun and shot. Not improbably he hit the horses instead of the crocodiles. The left front horse reared high with a crocodile hanging to its nose. Sterl sent a bullet into its head, but it did not let go. It pulled the horse under. The right front horse was in the clutches of two crocodiles. The rifle cracked. Sterl shot to kill a horse if he missed a crocodile. The second team had been attacked by half a dozen of the leviathans.

And at that awful moment for Eric Dann, horses and wagon were pulled into deep water. The wagon sank above its bed and floated. Eric leaped to the driver’s seat and held on. As he turned to those on shore his visage appeared scarcely human. The wagon drifted down the river.

“Fellers, fork yore hosses!” yelled Red. Leaping on Duke, his rifle aloft, he raced into the bush downstream. Sterl was quick to follow, and he heard the thud and crash of the drovers at his heels. When he broke out into the clear, a low bank afforded access to the river, which made a bend there. He came out at the edge of the mud. Red had Duke wading out. The wagon had lodged in shallow water. A horrible fight was going on there. Beyond it several other crocodiles were tearing at a horse that had been cut adrift. Eric Dann still clung to the driver’s seat.

Stanley Dann and his followers arrived. For once, the leader’s booming voice was silent at a crisis.

Red threw aside his rifle. He held his revolver in his left hand and his lariat in his right. At that moment, a lean, black-jawed crocodile stuck his snout and shoulders out of the water, and, reaching over the wagonbed, snapped at Eric. He missed by more than two feet.

The horses had ceased to struggle. What with the tugging and floundering of the crocodiles the wagon appeared about to tilt over. It would all be over with Eric Dann if the reptiles did not tear the horses free.

Red sent his grand horse plunging into the water. Duke’s ears stood up, his piercing snorts made the other horses neigh wildly. Red was taking a chance that the crocodiles would be too busy to see him. When Duke was up to his flanks and the curdled, foamy maelstrom scarcely a lasso’s length distant, Red yelled piercingly, “Stand up, Eric!”

The man heard, and tried to obey. But he must have been paralyzed with horror.

“Stick our yore laig — yore arm!” shrieked Red, in a fury, and he shot the outside crocodile, sliding into view.

But Eric was beyond helping himself. Again that ugly brute lunged out and up, his corrugated jaws wide, and as they snapped they missed by only a few inches.

Then the lasso shot out, and the noose cracked over Eric’s head and shoulders. Red whirled the big horse and spurred him shoreward. Eric was jerked off the wagon, over the very backs of the threshing crocodiles. Red dragged him free, through the shallow water, up on the mud. He leaped off, to run and loosen the noose. Eric’s head had been dragged through the mud. Stanley and two drovers lifted the half-dead man, and carried him ashore. Sterl sat on his horse with his throat constricted. He had not cared much about Eric Dann, but the mad risk that intrepid cowboy had run!...

“He ain’t — hurt none,” Red panted, coiling the muddy rope. “I was afraid — I’d get the noose— ‘round his neck. But it was a damn narrow shave! Pard, that’s one hoss — in a million. By Gawd, I was scared he — wouldn’t do it. But he did — he did!”

They laid Eric Dann on the bank to let him recover. Sterl dismounted, and every time a head or a body lunged up he met it with a bullet. But the angle was bad. Most of the bullets glanced singingly across the river. One by one the horses were torn loose from the traces, and dragged away, until they disappeared under the deep water.

The heavy wagon had remained upright, with the back end and wheels submerged. The tide was falling.

“Miraculous, any way you look at it!” exclaimed Stanley Dann. “Red Krehl, as if my debt to you had not been great enough!”

“Hell, boss. We’ve all been around yestiddy an’ today, when things came off,” drawled the cowboy.

At low tide Ormiston’s wagon was hauled out and back to camp. The girls clamored for the story. Red laughed at them, but Sterl told it, not wholly without elaboration. He wanted to see Beryl Dann’s eyes betray her quick and profound emotions.

“For my uncle! Red — when he hated you!”

“Beryl, all in a day’s ride,” drawled Red. “Now if you was only like Duke!”

“Red, I am not a horse. I am a woman,” she rejoined with no response to his humor.

“Shore, I know thet. I mean a hoss, if he’s great like Duke an’ cottons to a feller why he’ll do anythin’ for you.” Red also had turned serious. “Beryl, I’d die for him, an’ shore he’d die for me.”

“I’d like you to feel that way for me, Red Krehl,” she returned, vibrantly. “I would die for you!”

“Wal, yore wants, like yore eyes an’ yore heart, air too big for you, Beryl.”

Leslie let go of Duke’s neck to face Red.

“Red, I give Duke to you. And you can return Jester to me,” she said.

“Wal! Dog-gone-it, Les, you hit me below the belt!”

“It’ll make my happy. And Beryl too.” Stanley Dann broke in upon them with his booming order:

“Cut more poles. We’ll relay the road and cross my wagon before this day is done.”

While his drovers worked like beavers, he had Beryl’s bed and baggage unloaded. Stanley drove his big wagon across. Friday sighted crocodiles, but none came near. Load and wagon were crossed in record time, after which six drovers carried Beryl’s belongings across in two trips.

The sun set red and evilly. The trekkers ate, and tried to be oblivious of the abo signals, the uncanny bats, the howls of the dingoes and the unseen menace that hovered over this somber camp. Stanley Dann roused them all in the gray of dawn. It was wet and chill. Dingoes bayed dismally in the bush. The cowboys found two of Dann’s drovers mustering horses for the day. The cowboys bridled Duke, King and Lady Jane, and drove the rest of Leslie’s horses into camp. Stanley Dann’s hearty voice, his spirit, the drab gray dawn lighting ruddily, the hot breakfast — all seemed to work against the gripping, somber spell.

“Men, this is our important day,” boomed the leader. “Roland’s wagon first. Unload all the heavy articles. Pack these bags of dried fruit Ormiston had — unknown to me. Slyter, will you drive Roland’s wagon?”

“Yes,” replied Slyter. “Mum, you ride with me.”

“With Beryl and Leslie that will be a load!” said Dann.

“Dad, I won’t cross in the wagon,” spoke up his daughter decidedly.

Leslie interposed to say, “I’m riding Lady Jane.”

The leader gazed at these pioneer daughters with great luminous eyes, and made no further comment. He hurried the unpacking, and the hitching of two big draft horses to Roland’s wagon. The sun came up gloriously bright. When Slyter mounted the high wagon seat, shouts from across the river told him that the drovers over there were ready. Roland straddled one of the lead horses of the teams. The tide was on the make, wanting a foot in height and a dozen yards up the mud bank to fill the river bed.

“Friday! Everybody watch the river for crocs,” ordered the leader.

Leslie sat her horse, pale and resolute. She knew the peril. At this juncture Beryl emerged from the tent, slim in her rider’s garb. She carried a small black bag.

“Red, will you carry me across?” she asked, simply. Her darkly dilated eyes betrayed her terror.

“Shore, Beryl, but why for?” drawled the cowboy.

“I’d feel safer — and — and—”

“Wal, dog-gone! There. Put yore foot on my stirrup. Up you come! No, I cain’t hold you that way, Beryl. You’ve gotta fork Duke. Slip down in front of me. Sterl, how about slopin’?”

“Friday grins good-o,” replied Sterl, grimly. “Les, keep above me close. Larry, keep upstream from Red. Idea is to move pronto!”

They plunged in, passed Slyter’s teams and the drovers, reached the deeper water, breasted the channel.

“Fellers, get ready for gunplay!” shouted the hawk-eyed Red. “Shet yore eyes, Beryl!”

Across the river from the reedy bank above Roland’s position came a crackling rush, a waving of reeds, then a zoom, as a big crocodile took to the water. The guns of Roland’s group banged; mud splattered all around the reptile.

Farther upstream, muddy-backed crocodiles, as huge as logs, piled into the river. The drovers were clamoring in fright and excitement. Slyter had driven his teams in up to their flanks. One drover was unfastening the traces, while two others were ready to drag the teams into the channel. Sterl spared only a glance for them. Roland and his men came pounding through the shallow water. Halfway across — two-thirds! Bligh’s horse was lunging into the channel above Larry, carrying the tackle and rope for the wagon.

Suddenly, almost in line with them, an open-jawed, yellow-fanged monster spread the reeds, and zoomed off the bank. Red, Sterl, Larry, Roland, were shooting. But the crocodile came on, got over his depth, and disappeared.

“Watch for the wake!” called Red. “Thet feller is mean. Heah he comes! See them little knobs. That’s his haid!”

Sterl espied them. He regretted having left his rifle in the wagon.

“Drop behind me, Leslie,” he called. “Don’t weaken. We’ll get by him.”

Sterl did not fire because he did not want to drive the brute under water again. Evidently Red had the same thought. He headed Duke quarteringly away from the long ripple, and leaned far forward, gun extended. His left arm held the drooping girl. At the right instant he spurred Duke. Just then Duke struck bottom, and lunged. The crocodile was less than six feet distant when Red turned his gun loose. The bullets splashed and thudded, but they did not glance. With a tremendous swirl the reptile lurched partly out of the water, a ghastly spectacle. Sterl sent two leaden slugs into it. Falling back, the monster began to roll over and over, his ten-foot tail beating the water into foam.

Red waded Duke past the teams and waiting drovers, out onto the bank. The drovers cheered. Ster, with Leslie behind him, followed Red up to the new camp. Red slid off and laid his gun on the grass. Beryl swayed, her eyes tight shut.

“Beryl, come out of it,” shouted Red. Her arms fell weakly.

“I won’t — faint! I won’t,” she cried with passion still left in her weak voice.

“Who said you would?” drawled Red, as he helped her off.

Leslie dismounted and came to Beryl. They clung together — a gesture more eloquent than any words.

“Come, pard. Let’s slope out there,” called Red.

When they rode out on the mud flat again Sterl was amazed to see Friday dragging what evidently was the monster crocodile into shallow water. A long spear sticking in the reptile spoke for itself. A splashing melee distracted Sterl. The two teams were straining on the ropes, plowing through the mud. Between them and the wagon the drovers were yelling and hauling. Sterl observed that this wagon, the one in which he had calked the seams, floated almost flat. Mrs. Slyter stood behind her husband hanging on the seat while he made ready for the waiting teams. Once the wagon was in shallow water they unfastened the ropes and tackles, hitched the two teams and gave Slyter the word to drive out.

Sterl and Red followed the muddy procession up the bank.

Friday said to Sterl and Slyter, “Tinkit more better boss wait alonga sun. Crocs bad!”

“We can’t stop Dann now,” Slyter said, grimly. “Come, all who’re going back.”

“Wal, if you ask me we oughta load our guns,” drawled Red.

CHAPTER 26

FIVE DROVERS CROSSED the river with Sterl and Red. Dann met them like a general greeting a victorious army.

“We’ve time to drove Slyter’s horses across, and carry these loose supplies,” he said. “Tomorrow we will muster the cattle that rushed and drove the mob.”

When next morning the drovers had the big herd lengthened out to perhaps half a mile, at a signal from Dann they opened fire with their guns and charged. The fifty-yard wide belt of cattle headed for the river and piled over the low bank. Across the river crocodiles basked in the sun, their odor thick on the air. The leading cattle took fright and balked. Then it was too late. The pushing, bawling lines behind forced them. Some of them were bogged, to be trampled under. But almost miraculously the mob were driven into the mud before they could attempt a rush back.

The point of least resistance lay to the fore. The leaders had to gravitate that way. From the opposite bank crocodiles slid down and shot across the mud into the shallow water. Released from a wall in front, the mass behind piled frantically into the river. As if by a miracle, thousands of horned heads breasted the channel. In several spot swirling, churning battles ensued, almost at once to be overridden by swimming cattle. As the front line struck bottom, the stench of the crocodiles and their furious attack precipitated a rush that was obscured in flying spray.

“Come on, pard!” yelled Red, from below. “We wanta be close behind that stampede or the crocs will get us!”

All the other drovers were in the mud, some at the heels of the mob, others shooting crippled and smashed cattle. The horse herd, driven in the wake of the mob, excited by the roar, made frantic efforts to get ahead. When they found bottom again, and plunged on into shallow water, Sterl looked up.

A sea of bobbing backs sloped up to a fringe of bobbing horns. The long belt of cattle was moving with amazing speed. Sterl gazed back. Mired cattle dotted the river. Squirming crocodiles attested to the trampling they had received. Only one horse was down, and it had appeared to be struggling to rise.

“Laig broke!” yelled Red, close to Sterl’s ear. “Saddled too! By Gawd, pard, that’s Eric Dann’s hoss! An’ if he ain’t lyin’ there on the mud, my eyes air pore!”

Stanley Dann reached the prostrate man and horse ahead of Bligh and Heald. Sterl and Red got there as the drovers were dismounting, to sink ankle-deep in the mud.

“It’s Eric!” boomed the leader, as he leaned over. “Dead — or — no! He’s still alive.”

“Horse’s front legs broken,” reported Bligh, tensely.

“Shoot it! And help me — two of you.”

They lifted him across Bligh’s saddle. How limp he hung! What a slimy, broken wreck of a man!

“Hazelton, you and Krehl and Heald follow the mob,” ordered the leader, harshly. “That rush will end soon.”

From the height of the bank Sterl looked over bushland and green downs which led to higher and denser bush. In the foreground, the mob of cattle had halted.

“All the stampede is out of them,” said Red.

“Crocodile stampede. New one on us, Red,” rejoined Sterl.

“Cost Dann and Slyter plenty. Hundreds of cattle down, daid an’ dyin’. Sterl, about Dann’s drovers — after this last shuffle, what’s the deal gonna be?”

“You mean if Eric Dann holds up the trek?”

“I shore mean that little thing.”

“Damn serious, pard.”

“Serious? If Bligh an’ Hood an’ the others stick it out, I’d say it’ll be a damn sight more than any Americans would do. ‘Cept a couple of dumb-haid, lovesick suckers like us!”

When the cowboys arrived, the cattle had begun to lie down, too exhausted even to bawl. The horses had scattered off to the left toward camp. Sterl and Red helped muster them and drove them within sight of the wagons.

“What held up Stanley Dann?” inquired Bligh, as the drovers collected again. Bligh was a young man, under thirty, gray-eyed and still-faced, a man on whom the other drovers leaned.

“Eric’s injured. Legs broken I think,” replied Sterl.

Bligh exchanged apprehensive glances with his intimates. He turned back to Sterl: “If the boss’s brother is unable to travel, it’ll precipitate a most serious situation.”

“We appreciate that. Let’s hope it’s not so bad he cannot be moved in a wagon.”

“Yes. You hope so, but you don’t believe it,” said Bligh, brusquely.

“Righto.”

“Hazelton, we think you and Krehl are wonderful drovers, and what is more, right good cobbers,” said Bligh, feelingly.

“Thanks, Bligh,” returned Sterl, heartily. “Red and I sure return the compliment.”

“For us this trek seems to have run into a forlorn hope.”

“Well, Bligh, I’m bound to agree with you. But it’s not a lost cause yet.”

The drover shook his shaggy head, and ran skinned, dirty fingers through his scant beard. “Friends, it’s different with you cowboys, on account of the girls — if you’ll excuse my saying so.”

Neither Beryl nor Leslie put in an appearance at supper. Dann seemed for once an unapproachable figure. Slyter conversed in low tones with his wife, and once Sterl saw him throw up his hands in a singular gesture for him. Red stayed in the tent. The seven young drovers remained in a group at the other side of camp, where Bligh appeared to be haranguing them.

Suddenly Bligh, leading Derrick, Hood and Heald, rose and started toward Stanley Dann’s shelter. Pale despite their tan, resolute despite their fear! It did not seem a coincidence that Beryl and Leslie appeared from nowhere; that Slyter came out, his hair ruffled, his gaze fixed; that Red emerged from his tent, his lean hawklike head poised; that Friday hove in sight, lending to the scene the stark reality of the aborigine.

Under Dann’s shelter it was still light. Mrs. Slyter stood beside the stretcher where Eric Dann lay, his head and shoulders propped up on pillows, fully conscious and ghastly pale. His legs were covered with a blanket. Stanley Dann sat with bowed head. The drovers halted just outside of the shelter. Bligh took a further step.

“Mr. Dann, is it true Eric is injured?” burst out Bligh, as if forced.

Dann rose to his full height to stare at his visitors. He stalked out then like a man who faced death.

“Bligh, I grieve to inform you that he is,” he said.

“We are — very sorry for him — and you,” rejoined Bligh huskily.

“I’m sure of that, Bligh.”

“Will it be possible to move him? In a wagon, you know, to carry on our trek?”

“No! Even with proper setting of the bones he may be a cripple for life. To move him now — over rough ground — would be inhuman.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Stay here until he is mended enough to travel.”

“That would take weeks, sir. Perhaps more...”

“Yes. Weeks. There is no alternative.”

Bligh made a gesture of inexpressible regret. He choked. He cleared his throat. “Mr. Dann, we — we feared this very thing...We talked it over. We can’t we won’t — go on with this wild-goose trek. You started all right. Then Ormiston and your brother...No sense in crying over spilled milk! We’ve stuck to the breaking point. We four have decided to trek back home.”

“Bligh — you too!” boomed the leader. Sterl saw him change as if he had shriveled up inside.

“Yes, me!” rang out Bligh. “You ask too much of young men. We built our hopes on your promises. Hood has a wife and child. Derrick is sick of this...We are going home.”

“Bligh, I have exacted too much of you all,” returned Dann. “I’m sorry. If I had it to do over again...You are welcome to go, and God speed you...Take two teams for Ormiston’s wagon. It is half full of food supplies. Bill will give you a box of tea. And if you can muster the cattle that rushed up the river — you are welcome to them.”

“Boss — that is big and fine — of you,” returned Bligh, haltingly. “Honestly, sir...”

“Don’t thank me, Bligh. I am in your debt.”

Eric Dann called piercingly from under the shelter. “Bligh — tell him — tell him!”

“No Eric,” returned Bligh, sorrowfully. “I’ve nothing to tell.”

“Tell me what?” boomed the leader, like an angry lion aroused. “Bligh, what have you to tell me?”

“Nothing, sir. Eric is out of his head.”

“No, I’m not,” yelled Eric, and his attempt to push himself higher on the stretcher ended in a shriek of pain. But he did sit up, and Mrs. Slyter supported him.

“Eric, what could Bligh tell me?” queried Stanley Dann, hoarsely.

There ensued a silence that seemed insupportable to Sterl. Every moment added to the torment of coming terrible disclosures. Eric Dann must have been wrenched by physical pain and mental anguish to a point beyond resistance. “Stanley — we are lost!” he groaned.

“Lost?” echoed the giant, blankly.

“Yes — yes. Lost!” cried Eric wildly. “We’ve been lost all the way! I didn’t know this bushland...I’ve never been on a trek through outback Queensland!”

“Merciful heaven!” boomed the leader, his great arms going aloft. “Your plans? Your assurances? Your map!”

“Lies! All lies!” wailed Eric Dann. “I never was inland — from the coast. I met Ormiston. He talked cattle. He inflamed me about a fabulous range in the Northern Territory — west of the Gulf. Gave me the map we’ve trekked by. I planned with him to persuade you to muster a great mob of cattle...I didn’t know that he was the bushranger Pell. That map is false. I couldn’t confess — I couldn’t — I kept on blindly...We’re lost — Bligh knows that. Ormiston could not corrupt him. Yet he wouldn’t betray me to you. We’re lost — irretrievably lost. And I’m damned — to hell!”

Stanley Dann expelled a great breath and sat down on a pack as if his legs had been chopped from under him.

“Lost! Yea, God has forsaken me,” he whispered.

Bligh was the first to move after a stricken silence. “Mr. Dann, you’ve got to hear that I didn’t know all Eric confessed.”

“Bligh, that is easy to believe, thank heaven,” said Stanley, presently, his voice gaining timbre. “We’ll thresh it all out right now...Somebody light a fire to dispel this hateful gloom. Let me think a moment.” And he paced somberly to and fro outside the shelter. Presently Stanley Dann faced them and the light; once more himself.

“Listen, all of you,” he began, and again his voice had that wonderful deep roll. “I cannot desert my brother. Whoever does stay here with me must carry on with the trek when we are able to continue. I have exacted too much of you all. I grieve that I have been wrong, self-centered, dominating. Beryl, my daughter, will you stay?”

“Dad, I’ll stay!” There was no hesitation in Beryl’s reply, and to Sterl she seemed at last of her father’s blood and spirit. “Don’t despair, Dad. We shall not all betray you!”

A beautiful light warmed his grave visage as he turned to Leslie. “Child, you have been forced into womanhood. I doubt if your parents should influence your decision here.”

“I would not go back to marry a royal duke!” replied Leslie.

“Mrs. Slyter, your girl has indeed grown up on this trek,” went on Dann. “But she will need a mother. Will you stay?”

“Need you ask, Stanley? I don’t believe whatever lies in store for us could be so bad as what we’ve lived through,” rejoined the woman, calmly.

“Slyter?”

“Stanley, I started the race and I’ll make the good fight.”

“Hazelton!” demanded Dann, without a trace of doubt. His exclamation was not a query.

“I am keen to go on,” answered Sterl. “Krehl!”

The cowboy was lighting a cigarette, a little clumsily, because Beryl was hanging onto his arm. He puffed a cloud of smoke which hid his face.

“Wal, boss,” he drawled, “it’s shore a great privilege you’ve given me. Jest a chance to know an’ fight for a man!”

Larry, Rollie, and Benson, almost in unison, hastened to align themselves under Red’s banner.

Bill, the cook, stepped forward and unhesitatingly spoke: “Boss, I’ve had enough. I’m getting old. I’ll go home with Bligh.”

“Bingham, put it up to our black man Friday,” said Dann.

Slyter spoke briefly in that jargon which the black understood.

Friday leaned on his long spear and regarded the speakers with his huge, unfathomable eyes. Then he swerved them to Sterl and Red, to Beryl, to Leslie, and tapped his broad black breast with a slender black hand: “Imm no fadder, no mudder, no brudder, no gin, no lubra,” he said, in slow, laborious dignity. “Tinkit go bush alonga white fella cowboy pards!”

At another time Sterl would have shouted his gladness, but here he only hugged the black man. And Red clapped him on the back.

Suddenly a heavy gunshot boomed hollowly under the shelter, paralysing speech and action. The odor of burnt powder permeated the air. There followed a queer, faint tapping sound — a shuddering quiver of hand or foot of a man in his death throes. Sterl had heard that too often to be deceived. Stanley Dann broke out of his rigidity to wave a shaking hand, “Go in — somebody — see!” he whispered.

Benson and Bligh went slowly and hesitatingly under the shelter. Sterl saw them over Eric Dann on the stretcher. They straightened up. Bligh drew a blanket up over the man’s face. That pale blot vanished under the dark covering. The drovers stalked out. Bligh accosted the leader in hushed voice: “Prepare for a shock, sir.”

Benson added gruffly: “He blew out his brains!”

Red Krehl was the first to speak, as he drew Beryl away from that dark shelter. “Pard,” he ejaculated, “he’s paid! By Gawd, he’s shot himself — only good thing he’s done on this trek! Squares him with me!”

CHAPTER 27

NO MAN EVER again looked upon the face of Eric Dann. The agony of his last moment after the confession of the deceit which plunged his brother and the drovers into tragic catastrophe was cloaked in the blanket thrown over him. An hour after the deed which was great in proportion to his weakness, he lay in his grave. Sterl helped dig it by the light of a torch which Friday held.

They were called to a late supper. Bill, actuated by a strange sentiment at variance with his abandonment of the trek, excelled himself on this last meal. The leader did not attend it.

No orders to guard the mob were issued that night. But Sterl heard Bligh tell his men they would share their last watch. The girls, wide-eyed and sleepless, haunted the bright fire. They did not want to be alone. Sterl and Red sought their own tent.

“Hard lines, pard,” said Red, with a sigh, as he lay down. “It’s turrible to worry over the other people. But mebbe this steel trap on our gizzards will loosen now that Eric at last made a clean job of it. You never can tell about what a man will do...An’ as for a woman — didn’t yore heart jest flop over when Beryl answered for her dad?”

“Red, it sure did!”

“Bingham, we break camp at once,” said Stanley Dann as he met Slyter at breakfast. “What do you say to trekking west along this river?”

“I say good-o,” replied the drover. “Why not divide the load on the second dray? There’s room on the wagons. That dray is worn out. Leave it here.”

“I agree,” returned the leader. Already the tremendous incentive of starting a new trek, in the right direction, had seized upon them all.

“My wife can drive my wagon. So can Leslie, where it’s not overrough. We’ll be shy of drovers, Stanley.”

“Plenty bad black fella close up,” Friday broke in.

Rollie tramped up to report that the mob was still resting, but that the larger herd of horses had been scattered.

“We found one horse speared and cut up. Abo work,” added Rollie.

“Could these savages prefer horseflesh to beef?” queried Dann, incredulous.

“Some tribes do, I’ve been told. Bligh heard blacks early this morning,” asserted Slyter. “We cannot get away any too soon now.”

Bligh and his three dissenters drove a string of horses across the river. Bill, the cook, had slipped down the bank, under cover of the brush, to straddle one of those horses. He did not say good-by nor look back but followed the drovers down the path, and into the river.

“Queer deal that,” spoke up the ever vigilant Red, who sat by the fire oiling his rifle. “Bligh was sweet on Beryl at first. You’d reckon he’d say good-by an’ good luck to her, if not the old man.”

“Red, I’ll bet you two-bits Bligh comes back.”

“Gosh, I hope he does. I jest feel sorry for him, as I shore do for the other geezers who got turribly stuck on Beryl Dann...”

“Uh — oh!” warned Sterl, too late.

Beryl had passed Red, to hear the last of his scornful remark to Sterl.

“You’re sorry for whom, Red Krehl?”

“Beryl, I was sorry for Bligh,” drawled Red, coolly. “Me an’ Sterl air gamblin’ on his sayin’ good-by to you. I’m bettin’ thet if he’s smart he won’t try. Sterl bets he will.”

“And if Bligh’s smart why won’t he try to say good-by to me?” retorted Beryl.

“Wal, he’ll get froze for his pains.”

“He will indeed — the coward! And now what about the other geezers who’re stuck on Beryl Dann?”

“Aw, just natoorally I feel sorry for them.”

“Why — Why! You-all-of-a-sudden noble person!” she flashed, furiously.

“Wal, Miss Dann, it so happens thet I’m one of them unfortunate geezers who got turribly stuck on you,” returned the cowboy.

All in one moment, Beryl was transformed from a desperately hurt woman, passionately furious, to one amazed, bluntly told the truth that she had yearned for and ever doubted, robbed at once of all her blaze, to be left pale as pearl.

“Mr. Krehl, it’s a pity — you never told me,” she cried. “Perhaps the geezer who’s so terrible stuck on me might have found out he’s not really so unfortunate, after all.”

“Come out of it, kids,” whispered Sterl. “Here comes Bligh, and I win the bet.”

The young drover faced Sterl to remove his sombrero and bow. Water dripped off him from the waist down.

“Beryl, I dislike to go — like this,” he said huskily. “But when I came on this trek I had hopes — of — of — of — you know what. I pray your Dad gets safely through — and I wish you happiness. If it is as we — we all guess, then the best man has won!”

“Oh, Bob, how sweet of you!” cried Beryl, radiantly, and all the pride and scorn of her were as if they had never been. “I’m sorry for all — that you must go...Kiss me good-by!” And giving him her hands she leaned to him and lifted a scarlet face. Bligh kissed her heartily, but not on the lips. Then releasing her he turned to Sterl and Red.

“Hazelton, Krehl, it’s been dinkum to know you,” he said, extending his hand. “Good-by and good luck.” Then Bligh espied Dann coming from his wagon, and strode to intercept him. At that instant Red leaped like a panther. “Injuns!” he yelled. “Duck!”

Sterl ducked, his swift gaze taking the direction of Red’s leveling rifle. He was in time to see a naked savage on the ridge in the very action of throwing a spear. Then Red’s rifle cracked. The abo fell back out of sight on the ridge.

Sterl heard, too, almost simultaneously, the chucking thud of a spear entering flesh. Wheeling he saw the long shaft quivering in the middle of Bligh’s broad back.

“Get down behind something!” yelled Sterl, at the top of his lungs. And he ran for the rifle against a wagon wheel.

“Plenty black fella — close up,” panted Friday, and pointed to the low rise of brushy ground just back of camp.

Red’s rifle cracked again. There was a hideous screech of agony. Dann and Slyter had taken refuge behind Slyter’s wagon. A drover was hurrying the women inside it. “Lie down!” Slyter commanded. “Stanley, here’s one of my rifles...Watch sharp! Along that bit of bush!”

Yells of alarm from the drovers across the river drew from Dann a booming order: “Stay over there! Ride! Abo attack!”

Sterl swept his glance around in search of Red. It passed over Bligh, who was lying on his side, in a last convulsive writhing.

“Pard,” shouted Red, from behind the dray a dozen steps away, “they sneaked on us from the left. They’ll work back that way an’ I seen Larry an’ Ben riding’ hell-bent for the river bank. We’ll heah them open the ball pronto...”

Red’s rifle spoke ringingly. “Ha! These abo’s ain’t so careful as redskins.”

“Where’s Rollie?”

“To my right heah, back of the log. But he’s only got his six-gun. Pard, put yore hat on somethin’ an’ stick it up, all same old times.”

The ruse drew whistling spears. One struck the wagon seat; the other pierced Sterl’s hat and jerked it away.

Again Red shot. “I got that bird, pard. Seen him throw. Aw, no, these blacks cain’t throw a spear atall!”

Then the drovers across the river entered the engagement, and Larry and Benson began to shoot.

“They must be slopin’, pard, but I cain’t see any,” called Red.

The firing ceased. One of the drovers across the river hailed Dann: “They broke and ran. A hundred or so.”

“Which way?”

“Back over the downs.”

“You drovers get on!” yelled Dann. “Clear out! Bligh’s done for!”

Friday appeared, darting from tree to tree, and disappeared. Red came running to join Sterl. “All over most before it started,” he said. “Did you bore one, pard?”

“I’m afraid not. But I made one yell.”

“Wal, I made up for thet. They was great tall fellers, Sterl, an’ not black atall. Kinda a cross between brown an’ yaller.”

Presently Friday strode back into camp, his arms full of spears and wommeras. The cowboys met him, and Slyter and Dann followed in haste. Rollie was next to arrive.

“Black fella run alonga dere,” said Friday. “All afraid guns. Come back bimeby.”

Red gazed down at the dead drover. “My gawd, ain’t thet tough? Jest a second quicker an’ I’d saved him! I saw somethin’ out the corner of my eye. Too late!”

“Bligh stepped in front of me in time to save my life,” rolled Dann, tragically. “That black was after me! Friday, will those abo’s track us?” queried Dann.

“Might be. Pretty cheeky.”

“Pack! Hazelton, you and Krehl go with Larry and Benson. Drove the mob up the river. We’ll follow behind the horses. Slyter, you and Friday help me bury this poor fellow.”

Riding out with the drovers, the cowboys had a look at the dead aborigines. The savage who had murdered Bligh lay in the grass on the open ridge where Red had espied him. The abo did not resemble Friday in any particular. He was taller, more slender, more marvelously formed. The color appeared to be a cast between brown and red. His visage was brutish and wild, scarcely human. Red was wrathful over the fine horse the abo’s had slaughtered and cut up. “Hossmeat eaters! When there was live beef an’ daid beef for the takin’!”

The mob had moved upriver of its own volition. The drovers caught up in short order. The ground on this side of the river made better going than that on the other. The surface was hard and level, the grass luxuriant, and clumps of brushland widened away to the north. The sky was black with circling, dropping birds of prey. The large gum trees were white with birds. Ahead of the mob, kangaroos dotted the rippling downs.

Friday, trotting along beside Sterl’s horse, spears and wommera in hand, often gazed back over his shoulder. It was not possible to believe they had seen the last of this strange and warlike tribe of aborigines. According to Slyter, a daylight attack was extremely rare. The earliest dawn hour had always been the most favorable for the blacks to attack and perhaps the worst for the drovers, since tired guards are likely to fall asleep.

Toward sundown Slyter left his wife to drive his wagon and mounting a horse rode ahead, obviously to pick a camp site. Besides grass, water and firewood, there was now imperative need of a camp which the aborigines could not approach under cover. Sunset had come when Slyter finally called a halt. Three gum trees marked the spot. Off toward the river a hundred rods grew a dense copse fringed by isolated bushes. The rest was level, grassy downs.

“From now on everyone does two men’s work,” boomed Dann. “Mrs. Slyter and the girls take charge of rations and cooking. We men will supply firewood, and wash dishes.”

“It’s important to sleep away from the fire and the wagons,” asserted Slyter. “Keep a fire burning all night. Blacks often spear men while they are asleep.”

“Old stuff for me an’ Sterl, boss,” drawled Red. “We’re used to sleepin’ with one eye open. An’ heah — why we can heah a grasshopper scratch his nose!”

But none of the trekkers laughed any more, nor smiled.

The cowboys helped Dann and Slyter carry ground cloths, blankets and nets over to the fringe of brush near the copse. That appeared to be an impenetrable thorny brake, a favorable place, thought Sterl. Beds were laid under the brush. The three women were to sleep between Dann and Slyter. The greedy mosquitoes had become a secondary trial.

The men returned to the fire.

“It will be bright moonlight presently,” Dann said. “That’s in our favor, Benson, take Larry and Roland on guard. I needn’t tell you to be vigilant. Stay off your horses unless there’s a rush, or something unusual. Come in after midnight to wake Hazelton and Krehl.”

“Hazelton, where will you sleep?” asked Benson.

“What do you say, Red?” returned Sterl.

“Somewhere pretty close to these trees, on the side away from the open. We’ll heah you when you call.”

When a gentle hand fell on his shoulder and Friday’s voice followed, Sterl felt that he had not had his eyes closed longer than a moment.

“All well, Friday?” he asked.

“Eberytink good. But bimeby bad,” replied the black.

Red had sat up putting on the coat he has used for a pillow. Everything was wet with dew. The moon had soared beyond the zenith and blazed down with supernatural whiteness. The downs resembled a snowy range. A ghastly stillness reigned over the wilderness. Even the mosquitoes had gone.

At the campfire the three drovers whom they were to relieve sat drinking tea.

“How was tricks, Ben?” asked Red.

“Mob bedded down. Horses quiet. Not a move. Not a sound.”

The mob was like a checkerboard on the silvery downs. They passed the two herds of horses, the larger of which, Dann’s, were grouped between the cattle and the camp.

Red chose a position near a single tree on that side from which they could see both the mob and the remuda. They remained on foot. Friday made off into the ghostly brightness, returned to squat under the tree. His silence seemed encouraging.

“Let’s take turns dozin’,” suggested Red, and proceeded to put that idea into execution.

Sterl marked a gradual slanting of the moon and a diminishing of the radiance. He fell into half slumber. When he awakened the moon was far down and weird. The hour before dawn was close at hand.

“Pard, there’s no change in the herd, but Dann’s horses have worked off a bit, an’ Slyter’s air almost in camp,” said Red.

“Ssh!” hissed the black. If he had heard anything he did not indicate what or whence. Rifles in hands, the cowboys stood motionlessly in the shadows of the tree. Several times Friday laid his ear to the ground, an action remarkably similar to that of Indian scouts they had worked with. The gray gloom made the campfire fade into a ghostly flicker.

“Smellum black fella!” whispered Friday suddenly. Like a hound, his keenest sense was in his nose. An aboriginal himself, he smelled the approach of his species on the downs.

“What do?” whispered Sterl, hoarsely, leaning to Friday’s ear.

“Tinkit more better alonga here.”

“Pard, I cain’t smell a damn thing,” whispered Red.

“I’m glad I cain’t. If we could — these abo’s would be close...Red, it’s far worse to stand than a Comanche stalk.”

“Sssh!” The black added a hand to his caution. Again the cowboys became statues.

“Obber dere,” whispered Friday. And to Sterl’s great relief he pointed away from camp. But though Sterl strained his ears to the extent of pain he could not hear a sound.

Suddenly the speaking and sinister silence broke to a thud of hoofs. Sterl jerked up as if galvanized.

“Skeered hoss. But not bad. Reckon he got a scent, like Friday,” whispered Red.

Another little run of hoofs on soft ground!

“I heahed a hoss wicker,” whispered Red, intensely. Friday held up his hand. Events were about to break, and Sterl greeted the fact with a release of tension.

Whang! On the still air sped a strange sound, familiar, though Sterl could not identify it. Instantly there followed the peculiar thud of missile entering flesh! It could not have been a bullet, for no report followed. Hard on that sound came the shrill, horrid unearthly scream of a horse in mortal agony. A pounding of hoofs — and a heavy body thudding the ground. The herd took fright, snorting and whistling.

“You savvy wommera?” asked Friday, in a whisper.

“I shore did. An’ you bet I shivered in my boots,” replied Red.

Then the strange sound, almost a twang, became clear to Sterl’s mind.

“Black fella spearum hoss,” added Friday.

Red broke into curses. “They’re cuttin’ up one of our hosses...I can heah the rip of hide! Let’s sneak over an’ shoot the gizzards out of them!”

CHAPTER 28

STERL GAVE GRIM acquiescence to Red’s bold suggestion. But Friday whispered: “More better black fella go alonga bush corroboree.”

“Pard, he talks sense,” said Red. “It’s better we let the abo’s gorge themselves on horse meat, than for us to run the littlest risk.”

“Righto, Red. But it galls me,” rejoined Sterl, and lapsed into silence again. New, faint sounds reached their ears — what must have been a rending of bones. Splashing sounds succeeded; then the keenest listening was in vain. At daylight Red said he would ride out and see what signs the marauding abo’s might have left. Sterl returned to camp.

All the men were up and Slyter was helping his wife get breakfast. His eyes questioned Sterl in mute anxiety. But upon hearing Sterl’s report he was far from mute. Dann, too, ground his teeth.

“We could spare a bullock, but a good horse—”

“Boss,” said Red, as he rode into camp, “I found where them abo’s had killed an’ butchered yore boss. Nary hide nor hair nor hoof left! Must have been a hundred abo’s in the outfit!”

For ten nights that band of aboriginals, reinforced at every camp, hung on the tracks of the trekkers. Nothing was ever seen of them but their haunting smoke magic. The silence, the mystery, the inevitable attack on the horses in the gray dawn, wore increasingly upon the drovers. The savages never killed a beef. The horrible fear they impressed upon the pursued was that when they tired of horseflesh they would try to obtain human flesh. For Slyter averred that they were cannibals. Friday, when anyone mentioned this dire possibility, looked blank.

Now the trekkers approached the end of the downs. The river had diminished to a creek. Day by day the patches and fringes of bush had encroached more upon the green, shining monotony. Vague blue tracery of higher ground hung over the horizon. The waterfowl, except for cranes and egrets, had given way to a variable and colorful parrot life.

“Makes no difference if we do pass the happy huntin’ ground of this breed of abo’s,” said Red, one night. “We’ll only run into more. This heah bunch has got me buffaloed. You cain’t see them. A coupla more hosses butchered will put me on the warpath, boss or no boss! I figger that killin’ some of them would stop their doggin’ us. Thet used to be the case with the plains redskins.”

As the bush encroached more upon the downs, corroborees were held nightly by the aborigines. The wild revels and the weird chantings murdered sleep for the trekkers. Always over them hovered the evil portent of what the cannibals had been known to do in the remote Australian wilderness.

One gray morning dawned with bad news for the Slyters. Leslie’s thoroughbred, a gray roan stallion of great promise, which the girl called Lord Chester, was missing from the band. Red ran across the spot where he had been killed and butchered. Upon their return to camp, Leslie was waiting in distress.

“Les, we cain’t find him,” confessed Red. “An’ I jest reckon he’s gone the way of so many of Dann’s hosses.” She broke down and wept bitterly.

“Say, cain’t you take yore medicine?” queried Red, always prone to hide his softer side under a cloak of bitterness or scorn. “This heah trek ain’t no circus parade. What’s another hoss, even if he is one of yore thoroughbreds?”

“Red Krehl!” she cried in passionate amaze at his apparent callousness. “I’ve lost horses — But Chester! — It’s too much — I loved him — almost as I do — Jane.”

“Shore you did. I felt thet way once over a hoss. It’s tough. But don’t be a baby.”

“Baby? I’m no baby, Red Krehl! It’s Dann and Dad — and you — all of you who’ve lost your nerve! If you and Sterl — and Larry and Rol — if you had any man in you — you’d kill these abo’s!”

The girl’s passion, her rich voice stinging with scorn, appeared to lash the cowboy.

“By gosh, Leslie,” he replied. “I shore deserved thet. No excuse for me, or any of us, onless we’re jest plain worn to a frazzle.”

“Red Krehl, what do you mean by that speech?” demanded Beryl.

“Never mind what I meant. Leslie hit me one below the belt.”

“That is no reason for you to concoct some blood reprisal of revenge. Leslie is a grand girl. She has proved that to me. But she’s like you — a savage. She forgets.”

“Yeah? Forgets what?” drawled the cowboy.

“That her loss was only a horse. If you and Sterl and Larry and Rollie should be killed or badly wounded — our trek is doomed.”

“Beryl,” returned Red, “you’re smarter than any of us. But Leslie’s ravin’ is more sense that yore intelligence. It’s a hard nut to crack...”

A hundred times that day Sterl saw Red turn in his saddle to look for the smoke signals of the aboriginals rising above the bush horizon to the north. Toward noon of that day they vanished. But that night in camp, when Larry, Rollie and Benson were about to go on guard, Friday held up his hand. “Corroboree!” They listened. From the darkness wailed a chant as of lost souls.

“How far away, Friday?” asked Red, tersely.

“Close up.”

“How many?”

“Plenty black fella. No gin. No lubra.”

Red swept a blue-fire glance all around to see that he would not be overheard by the women. “Fellers, it’s a hunch. Grab yore rifles an’ extra cartridges. We’ll give these abo’s a mess of lead.”

Friday led the way beyond camp. As they neared the bush the chant swelled to a pitch indicating many voices. Soon, dark, dancing forms grotesquely crossed the firelight. Friday led a zigzag way through the bush and brush.

They were halted by a stream or pond.

“About as far as we can get,” whispered Red. “Let’s take a peep. Careful now!”

Silently the five rose from behind the fringe of brush, to peer over the top. Sterl was surprised to see a wide stretch of water, mirroring three fires and fantastic figures of abo’s dancing in strange gyrations. The distance was about a hundred yards.

“Plenty black fella,” whispered Friday, in tense excitement. “Big corroboree! Full debbil along hoss meat! Bimeby bad!”

“I should snicker to snort,” whispered Red. “Mebbe he means thet horseflesh has gone stale. They want long-pig! Let’s frame it thet way.”

“It’s a cinch they’ll roast us next!” said Sterl.

“All right,” whispered Red, tensely. “Make shore of yore first shot. Then empty yore rifles pronto, reload, an’ slope. Pard Sterl, forget yore Injun-lovin’ weakness, an’ shoot like you could if one of us was in there roastin’ on the coals.”

They cocked and raised their rifles. Sterl drew down upon a dense group of dark figures, huddled together, swaying in unison.

“One — two — three — shoot!” hissed Red.

The rifles cracked. Pandemonium broke loose. The abo’s knocked against each other in their mad rush. And a merciless fire poured into them. When Sterl paused to reload he peered through the smoke. Red was still shooting. From the circle of light, gliding black forms vanished. But around the fires lay prone abo’s and many writhing, and shrieking.

“Slope — fellers,” ordered Red, huskily, and then turned away on the run. At length the cowboys halted from exhaustion.

“Reckon we’re out of — reach of — them spears,” he gasped. “I ain’t used — to runnin’ — Wal, did it work?”

“Work? It was a — massacre,” declared Benson, in hoarse, broken accents.

“Let’s rustle — for camp,” added Red. “They’ll all be — scared stiff.”

His premonition had ample vindication. When Red called out, they all appeared from under the wagon.

“What the hell?” boomed Dann, as he stalked out, rifle in hand.

“Were you attacked?” queried Slyter, sharply.

Beryl ran straight into Red, to throw her arms around him, then sink limply upon his breast. She was beyond thinking of what her actions betrayed.

“Boss,” he said, “we went after them. It jest had to be done.”

“Well — what happened?” demanded the leader, his breath whistling.

“We blasted hell out of them,” declared Benson. “And it was a good thing.”

“Hazelton, are you dumb?” queried Slyter, testily.

“Wholesale murder, boss,” replied Sterl. “But justifiable. Friday intimated that we might be roasting next on their spits.”

“Oh, Red!” cried Beryl. “I thought you had — broken your promise — that you might be—”

“Umpumm, Beryl,” returned Red, visibly moved, as he released himself and steadied her on her feet. “We was shore crazy, but took no chances. Beryl, you an’ Leslie can feel shore thet bunch of abo’s won’t hound us again.”

Red’s prediction turned out to be true. There were no more raids on the horses — no more smoke signals on the horizon. But days had to pass before the drovers believed in their deliverance.

They trekked off the down into mulga and spinifex country, covered with good grass, fairly well watered and dotted with dwarf gums and fig and pandanus trees. The ground was gradually rising. They came next into a region of anthills. Many a field of these queer earthen habitations had they passed through. But this one gave unparalleled and remarkable evidence of the fecundity and energy of the wood — and leaf-eating ants. Gray and yellow in the sunlight, they were of every size, up to the height of three tall men. At night they shone ghostly in the starlight. Sterl found that every dead log he cut into was only a shell — that the interior had been eaten away. And from every dead branch or tree poured forth an army of ants, furious at the invasion of their homes.

At last Sterl understood the reason for Australia’s magnificent eucalyptus trees. In the ages past, nature had developed the gum tree with its many variations, all secreting eucalyptus oil, as defensive a characteristic as the spines on a cactus.

Then they camped on a range of low hills, with a water-course which gave them an easy grade. Followed to its source, that stream led to a divide. Water here ran toward the west. That was such a tremendous circumstance, so significant in its power to stir almost dead hopes, that Dann called a halt to rest, to recuperate, to make much needed repairs.

“It is that unknown country beyond outback Australia!” exclaimed Slyter.

Friday made a slow gesture which seemed symbolic of the infinite. Indeed this abyss resembled the void of the sky. The early morning was hot, clear, windless. Beneath and beyond him rolled what seemed a thousand leagues of green-patched, white-striped slope, leading down, down to a nothingness that seemed to flaunt a changeless inhospitality in the face of man. It was the other half of the world. It dreamed and brooded under the hot sun. On and on forever it spread and sloped and waved away into infinitude.

“Never-never Land!” gasped Slyter.

“White fella go alonga dere nebber come back!” said Friday.

Turning away from that spectacle, the men returned down the hill. At camp Slyter reported simply and truthfully that the trek had passed on to the border of the Never-never Land. No need to repeat the aborigine’s warning.

“Good-o!” boomed Stanley Dann. “The Promised Land at last! Roll along, you trekkers!”

Midsummer caught Dann’s trek out in the arid interior. They knew it was midsummer by the heat and drought, but in no other ways for Dann and Sterl had long since tired of recording labor, misery, fight and death.

They had followed a stream bed for weeks Here and there, miles apart, they found clear pools in rocky places. The bleached grass had grown scant, but it was nutritious. If the cattle could drink every day or two they would survive. But many of the weak dropped by the wayside. Cows with newly born calves had been driven from the waterholes; and when the calves failed the mothers refused to leave them. Some mornings the trek would be held up because of strayed horses. Some were lost. Dann would not spare the time to track them. The heat was growing intense.

The trek had become almost chaotic when the drovers reached a zone where rock formations held a succession of pools of clear water including one that amounted to a pond.

“Manna in the wilderness!” sang out Stanley Dann, joyfully. “We will camp here until the rains come again!”

To the girls that meant survival. To the drovers it was exceedingly joyous news. The water was a saving factor, just in the nick of time. For everywhere were evidences of a long cessation of rain in these parts. In good seasons the stream must have been a fair little river, and during flood time it had spread all over the flat. Birds and animals had apparently deserted the locality. The grass was bleached white; plants had been burned sere by the sun; trees appeared to be withering.

Dann said philosophically to Slyter: “We have water enough and meat and salt enough to exist here for five years.” That showed his trend of thought. Sterl heard Slyter reply that the supply of water would not last half as long as that. “We’ll have to build a strong brush roof over that pond, in case the dust storms begin,” he added.

The most welcome feature of this camp was the cessation of haste. For days and weeks and months the drovers had been working beyond their strength. Here they could make up for that. The horses and cattle, after a long dry trek, would not leave this sweet water. Very little guarding would they need.

Sterl and Red, helped by Friday, leisurely set about selecting a site, pitching their tent; making things comfortable for a long stay. Working at these tasks took up the whole first day. Everyone else had been busy likewise. At supper Sterl gazed around to appreciate a homelike camp. But if, or when, it grew windy in this open desert, he imagined, they would have more to endure than even the scorching heat of the camp al the forks.

Mrs. Slyter laid out the same old food and drink, but almost unrecognizable because of her skill in cooking and serving. As for Beryl and Leslie, Red summed it up: “Wal, doggone it, I reckon a cowboy could stand a grubline forever with two such pretty waitresses...Heah you air, girls, thin as bean poles an’ burned brown as autumn leaves.”

“We’re not as thin as bean poles!” asserted Leslie. This epithet of Red’s was not wholly true — yet how slim and frail Beryl was, and how slender the once sturdy Leslie!

The womenfolk, having served the supper, joined the drovers at the table. After Larry and Rollie cleared away and washed the dishes. The drovers sat and smoked awhile, conversing desultorily.

“No flies or mosquitoes here,” said Dann.

“Flies will come bye and bye,” replied Slyter.

“There’ll be a good few calves dropped here.”

“And colts foaled, too. But we have lost so many!”

“Boss, where do you figger we air?” asked Red.

“Somewhere out in the Never-never Land. Five hundred miles outback, more or less.”

“Dann, I’ll catch up with my journal now,” interposed Sterl. “I can recall main events, but not dates.”

“Small matter now. Keep on with your journal, if you choose. But I — I don’t care to recall things. No one would ever believe we endured so much. And I would not want to discourage future drovers.”

Red puffed a cloud of smoke to hide his face, while he drawled: “Girls, you’re gonna be old maids shore as shore can be, if we ever get out alive.”

“You bet we are, Red Krehl, if help for such calamity ever depended on Yankee blighters we know,” cried Leslie, with spirit.

Beryl’s response was surprising and significant. “We are old maids now, Leslie dear,” she murmured, dreamily. “I remember how I used to wonder about that. And to — to pine for a husband...But it doesn’t seem to matter now.”

“But it would be well if we could!”

Stanley Dann said: “God gave us thoughts and vocal powers but we use them, often, uselessly and foolishly. You young people express too many silly ideas...You girls are not going to be old maids, nor are you cowboys ever going to be old bachelors. We are going through.”

“Shore we air, boss,” flashed Red. “But if we all could forget — an’ face this hell like you — an’ also be silly an’ funny once in awhile, we’d go through a damn sight better!”

Dann slapped his knee with a great broad hand. “Righto! I deserve the rebuke — I am too obsessed — too self-centered. But I do appreciate what I owe you all. Relax, if you can. Forget! Play jokes. Have fun! Make love, God bless you!”

As Dann stamped away, Sterl remarked that there was gray in the gold over his temples — that his frame was not so upright and magnificent as it had once been. And that saddened Sterl. How all the dead must haunt him!

The abrupt change from excessive labor, from sleeplessness and fear to rest, ease, and a sense of safety, reacted on all the trekkers. They had one brief spell of exquisite tranquillity before the void shut down on them with its limitless horizon lines, its invisible confines, its heat by day, its appalling solitude by night, its sense that this raw nature had to be fought.

Nothing happened, however, that for the time being justified such fortification of soul and body. If the sun grew imperceptibly hotter, that could be gauged only by the touch of bare flesh upon metal. The scarcity of living creatures of the wild grew to be an absolute barrenness, as far as the trekkers knew. A gum tree blossomed all scarlet one morning, and the girls announced that to be Christmas Day. Sterl and Red found the last of the gifts they had brought on the trek. At supper presentations followed. The result was not in Sterl’s or Red’s calculations. From vociferous delight Beryl fell to hysterical weeping, which even Red could not assuage. And Leslie ate so much of the stale candy that she grew ill.

One day Friday sighted smoke signals on the horizon. “Black fella close up!” he said.

At once the camp was plunged into despair. Dann ordered fortifications thrown up on two sides. Then Friday called the leader’s attention to a strange procession filing in from the desert. Human beings that did not appear human! They came on, halted, edged closer and closer, halted again, paralyzed with fear yet driven by a stronger impulse. First came a score or less of males, excessively thin, gaunt, black as ebony and practically naked. They all carried spears, but appeared the opposite of formidable. The gins were monstrosities. There were only a few lubras, scarcely less hideous than the gins. A troop of naked children hung back behind them, wild as wild beasts, ragged of head, pot-bellied.

Friday advanced to meet them. Sterl heard his voice, as well as low replies. But sign language predominated in that brief conference. The black came running back.

“Black fella starbbin deff,” he announced. “Plenty sit down die. Tinkit good feedum.”

“Oh, good indeed, Friday,” boomed Dann, gladly. “Go tell them white men friends.”

“By jove!” ejaculated Slyter. “Poor starved wretches! We have crippled cattle that it will be just as well to slaughter.”

Benson had butchered a steer that day, only a haunch had been brought to camp. The rest hung on a branch of a tree a little way from camp down the river course. Head, entrails, hide and legs still lay on the rocks, ready to be burned or buried. Dann instructed Friday to lead the aborigines to the meat. They gave the camp a wide, fearful berth. Slyter brought a small bag of salt. Larry and Rollie built a line of fires. Sterl and Red, with the girls, went close enough to see distinctly. The abo’s watched the drovers with ravenous eyes. Larry pointed to a knife and cleaver on a log. All of them expected a corroboree. But this tribe of abo’s had passed beyond ceremony. They did not, however, act like a pack of wolves. One tall black, possibly a leader, began to hack up the beef into pieces and pass them out. The abo’s sat down to devour the beef, raw. When presently the blacks attacked the entrails, Beryl and Leslie fled.

When darkness fell the little campfires flickered under the trees, and dark forms crossed them, but there was no sound, no chant. Next day discovered the fact that the abo’s had devoured the entire carcass, and lay around under the trees asleep. More abo’s arrived that morning as famished as the first ones.

Friday had some information to impart that night. These aborigines had for two years of drought been a vanishing race. The birds and beasts, the snakes and lizards, had all departed beyond the hills to a lake where this weak tribe dared not go because they would be eaten by giant men of their own color. Friday said that the old abo’s expected the rains to come after a season of wind and dust storms.

The drovers took that last information with dismay, and appealed to their black man for some grain of hope.

“Blow dust like hellum bimeby!” he ejaculated, solemnly.

Days passed, growing uncomfortably hot during the noon hours, when the trekkers kept to their shelters.

The aborigines turned out to be good people. Day after day the men went out to hunt game, and the gins to dig weeds and roots. Dann supplied them with meat and the scraps from the camp table. Presently it became manifest they had recovered and were faring well. The suspicion of the drovers that they might reward good deeds with evil thefts had so far been wholly unjustified. They never came into the encampment.

One night the sharp-eyed Leslie called attention to a dim circle around the moon. Next morning the sun arose overcast, with a peculiar red haze.

A light wind, the very first at that camp which had been named Rock Pools by Leslie, sprang up to fan the hot faces of the anxious watchers, and presently came laden with fine invisible particles and a dry, pungent odor of dust.

CHAPTER 29

“ANY OF YOU folks ever been in a dust or sandstorm?” asked Red Krehl, at breakfast.

The general experience in that line had been negative, and information meager. “Bushwhackers have told me that dust storms in the outback were uncomfortable,” vouchsafed Slyter.

“Wal, I’d say they’d be hell on wheels. This heah country is open, flat an’ dry for a thousand miles.”

“Are they frequent on your western ranges?” queried Dann.

From the cowboys there followed a long dissertation, with anecdotes, on the dust and sandstorms which, in season, were the bane of cattle drives in their own American Southwest.

“Boys, I’ve never heard that we had anything similar to your storms here in Australia,” said Dann, when they had finished.

“Wal, boss, I’ll bet you two-bits — one bob — you have wuss than ours,” drawled Red.

“Very well. We are forewarned. By all means let us fortify ourselves. We have already roofed the rock pool. What else?”

Without more ado Sterl and Red put into execution a plan they had previously decided upon. They emptied their tent and repitched it on the lee side of Slyter’s big wagon. Then while they were covering the wheels as a windbreak, Beryl and Leslie approached, very curious.

“Red, why this noble look on your sweaty brow?” asked Beryl.

“Don’t be funny, Beryl Dann. This heah is one hell of a sacrifice. Dig up all yore belongin’s an’ yore beds, an’ put them in this tent.”

“Why?” queried Beryl, incredulously.

“‘Cause you’re gonna bunk in heah an’ stay in heah till this comin’ dust storm is over.”

“Yeah? Who says so?”

“I do. An’, young woman, when I’m mad I’m quite capable of usin’ force.”

“I’ll just love that. But it’s one of your bluffs.”

Beryl stood before Red in her slim boy’s garb, hands on her hips, her fair head to one side, her purple eyes full of defiance and something else, fascinating as it was unfathomable.

“I’ll muss yore nice clothes all up,” insisted Red. “But they gotta go in this tent an’ so do you.”

“Red Krehl, you are a tyrant. I’m trained to be meek and submissive, but I’m not your slave yet!”

“You bet you’re not an’ you never will be,” said Red, hot instead of cool. “You meek an’ submissive? — My Gawd!”

“Red, I could be both,” she returned, sweetly.

“Yeah? Wal, it jest wouldn’t be natural. Beryl, listen heah.” Red evidently had reacted to this situation with an inspiration. “I’m doin’ this for yore sake. Yore face, Beryl — thet lovely gold skin of yores, smooth as satin, an’ jest lovely. A dry dust storm will shrivel it up into wrinkles! You girls will have to stay in heah while the dust blows. All day long! At night it usually quiets down — at least where I come from...Please now, Beryl.”

“All for my good looks!” murmured Beryl, with great, dubious eyes upon him. “Red, I’m afraid I don’t care so much about them as I used to.”

“But I care,” rejoined Red.

“Then I’ll obey you,” she said. “You are very sweet to me. And I’m a cat!”

The cowboys helped the girls move their beds, blankets, and heavy pieces into the tent. For their own protection, they packed their belongings under the wagon, then folded and tied canvas all around it, and weighted down the edges. They advised the drovers to do likewise which advice was followed. Sterl, going to the rock pool for water, saw that the abo’s were erecting little windbreaks and shelters.

There seemed to be fine invisible fire embers in a wind that had perceptibly strengthened. Transparent smoke appeared to be rising up over the sun. A dry, acrid odor, a fragrance of eucalyptus and a pungence of dust, seemed to stick in the nostrils.

“There she comes, pard, rollin’ along,” drawled the Texan, pointing northeast, over the low ground where the bleached stream bed meandered.

At first, Sterl saw a rolling, tumbling, mushrooming cloud, rather white than gray in color, moving toward them over the land. With incredible speed it blotted out the sun, spread gloom over the earth, bore down in convolutions. Like smoke expelled with tremendous force the front bellied and bulged and billowed, whirling upon itself and threw out great rounded masses of white streaked by yellow, like colossal roses.

They ran back to camp, aware of thick streams of dust racing ahead of them. They wet two sheets and fastened one over the door of the girls’ tent.

“Air you in there, girls?” shouted Red.

“Yes, our lords and masters, we’re here. What’s that roar?” replied Beryl.

“It’s a storm, an’ a humdinger. Don’t forget when the dust seeps in bad to breathe through wet silk handkerchiefs. If you haven’t handkerchiefs use some of them folderol silk things of Beryl’s thet I seen once.”

“Well! You hear that, Leslie? Red Krehl, I’ll wager you have seen a good deal that you shouldn’t have.”

“Shore, Beryl. Turrible bad for me, too. Adios now, for I have no idee how long.”

Sterl’s last glimpse, as he crawled under the wagon, was the striated, bulging front of the dust cloud, almost upon them.

“And now to wait it out,” he said, with a sigh as he lay down on his bed. “We have a lot to be thankful for. Suppose we were out in it?”

“Suppose thet mob rushes? There wouldn’t be no sense in goin’ out to stop them.”

They settled down to endure. It was pretty hot inside. After awhile invisible dust penetrated the pores and cracks in the canvas. Red had covered his face with a wet scarf, and Sterl followed suit. After sunset the wind lulled. The cowboys went out. An opaque gloom cloaked the scene. The dust was settling. The drovers were astir; the Slyters getting supper.

By evening the air had cleared a good deal and cooled off. After supper, Sterl and Red went out with the drovers to look for the horses and cattle. They had not strayed, but Dann ordered guard duty that night in three shifts. When they returned, Friday sat by the fire with a meat bone in one hand and a piece of damper in the other.

“How long storm last?” asked Red.

“Old black fella say bery long.”

“Friday, I wish the hell you’d be wrong once in awhile,” complained Red.

“Bimeby,” said the black.

Sterl kept a smooth-barked piece of eucalyptus in his tent, and for every day that the dust blew and the heat grew more intense he cut a notch. And then one day he forgot, and another he did not care, and after that he thought it was no use to keep track of anything because everybody was going to be smothered.

Yet they still carried on. Just when one of the trekkers was going to give up trying to breathe the wind would lull for a night. Every morsel they ate gritted on the teeth. The drovers nightly circled the mob and horses; and butchered a bullock now and then for themselves and the abo’s. Fortunately their drinking water remained pure and cool, which was the one factor that kept them from utter despair.

Leslie, being the youngest, and singularly resistant in spirit, stood the ordeal longest before beginning to go downhill. But Beryl seemed to be dying. On clear nights they carried her out of the tent, and laid her on a stretcher. At last only Red could get her to eat. Sterl considered it marvelous that she had not passed away long ago. But how tenaciously she had clung to love and life! Red had become silent, grim, in his grief over Beryl.

One night, after a scorching day that had been only intermittently windy, the air cleared enough to let a wan spectral moon shine down upon the camp. There was a difference in the atmosphere which Sterl imagined to be only another lying mirage of his brain. Friday pointed up at the strange moon with its almost indistinguishable ring, and said: “Bimeby!”

In the pale moonlight Beryl lay on her stretcher, a shadow of her old self, her dark little face lighted by luminous lovely eyes that must have seen into the infinite. She was conscious. Dann, in his indestructible faith, knelt beside her to pray. Red sat at her head while the others moved to and fro silently, like ghosts.

“Red — don’t take it — so hard,” whispered Beryl, almost inaudibly.

“Beryl — don’t give up — don’t fade away!” implored Red, huskily.

“Red — you’d never — marry me — because of...”

“No! But not because of thet...I’m not good enough to wipe yore feet!”

“You are as great — as my Dad.”

Sterl led the weeping Leslie away. He could endure no more himself. Red would keep vigil beside Beryl until she breathed her last. He had no feeling left when he put the clinging Leslie from him and slunk back to his prison under the wagon, to crawl in like an animal that hid in the thicket to die. And he fell asleep.

He awoke in the night. The moan of wind, the rustle of leaves, the swish of branches were strangely absent. The stillness, the blackness, were like death.

Then he heard a faint almost imperceptible pattering upon the canvas. Oh! That lying trick of his fantasy! That phantom memory of trail nights on the home ranges, when he lay snug under canvas to hear the patter of sleet, or snow, or rain! He had dreamed of it, here in this accursed Never-never Land!

But he heard the jingle of spurs outside, and the soft pad of Friday’s bare feet.

“Pard! — Pard! Wake — up!”

That was Red’s voice, broken, sobbing.

“I’m awake, old-timer,” replied Sterl.

“It’s rainin’ — pard! — Beryl’s gonna live!”

For nineteen days it rained — at first, steadily. Before half that time was over the dry stream bed was a little river running swiftly. After the steadiest downpour had ceased, the rains continued part of every day and every night. On the morning of the twentieth day since the dust storm, the drovers arose to greet the sun again, and a gloriously changed land.

“On with the trek!” boomed Stanley Dann.

He gave the aborigines a bullock, and steel implements that could be spared. When the trek moved out of Rock Pools these black people, no longer scarecrows, lined up stolidly to watch the white men pass out of their lives. But it was impossible not to believe them grateful.

The grass waved green and abundant, knee-high to a horse; flowers born of the rain bloomed everywhere; gum trees burst into scarlet flame, and the wattles turned gold; kangaroos and emus appeared in troops upon the plain. Water lay in league-wide lakes, with the luxuriant grass standing fresh and succulent out of it. Streams ran bankfull and clear, with flowers and flags bending over the water.

The Never-never Land stretched out on all sides, boundlessly. It was level brushland, barren in dry seasons, rich now after the rains. Eternal spring might have dwelt there.

CHAPTER 30

ONLY THE BLACK man Friday could tell how the trekkers ever reached the oasis from the camp where Beryl came so near dying in the dust storm and his limited vocabulary did not permit of detailed description.

“Many moons,” repeated the black perplexedly. “Come alonga dere.” And he pointed east and drew a line on the ground, very long, very irregular.

“No black fella, no kangaroo, no goanna. This fella country no good. Plenty sun. Hot like hell. White fella tinkit he die. Boss an’ Redhead fightum. Cattle no drink, fall down. Plenty hosses go. White fella sit down. No water. Friday find water. One day two day along dis. Imm waterbag. Go back. Makeum come.”

That was a long dissertation for the black. Sterl pieced it together and filled in the interstices. His mind seemed to be a labyrinthine maze of vague pictures and sensations made up of hot sun and arid wastes, of wheels rolling, rolling, rolling on, of camps all the same, of ghostly mirages, the infernal monotony of distances, and finally fading faces, fading voices, fading images, a horrible burning thirst and a mania for water.

He had come to his senses in a stream of clear, cool running water. Gray stone ledges towered to the blue sky. There were green grass, full-foliaged trees blossoming gold, and birds in noisy flocks. Once more the melodious cur-ra-wong of the magpie pealed in his dulled ears.

“God and our black man have delivered us once more. Let us pray instead of think what has passed,” said Stanley Dann, through thick, split lips from which the blood ran. All seemed said in that.

As great a miracle as the lucky star that had guided the trekkers here was their recovery through sweet fresh cool water. Even its music seemed healing. It gurgled and bubbled from under the ledges to unite and form a goodly stream that sang away through the trees to the west. That was the birth of a river which ran toward the Indian Ocean. For Sterl, and surely all of them, it was the rebirth of hope, of life, of the sense of beauty. On the second morning Leslie staggered up to gaze about, thin as a wafer. She cried: “Oh, how lovely! Paradise Oasis!”

Beryl could not walk unaided, but she shared Leslie’s joy. How frail a body now housed this chastened soul! Hammocks were strung for them in the shade, and they lay back on pillows, wide-eyed.

Wild berries and fruit, fresh meat and fish, bread from the last sack of flour, added their wholesome nourishment to the magic of the sweet crystal water.

“Let me stay here forever,” pleaded Beryl. And Leslie added: “Oh, Sterl, let us never leave!”

One morning Friday sought out Sterl. “Boss, come alonga me.”

“What see, Friday?” queried Sterl.

The black tapped his broad breast with his virile hand. “Black fella tinkit see Kimberleys!”

“My — God!” gasped Sterl, suddenly pierced through with vibrating thrills. “Take me!”

They scaled a gray escarpment. Far across a warm and colorful plain an upflung range rolled and billowed along the western horizon.

Turning toward camp and looking down, Sterl cupped his hands and loosed a stentorian yell that pealed in echo from hill to hill. He waved his sombrero. The girls waved something white in return. Then Sterl ran down the hill, distancing the barefooted black.

Leslie ran to meet him, her heart in her eyes. But Sterl saved his speech for that gaunt, golden-bearded leader. The moment was so great that he heard his voice as a whisper.

“Sir — I report — I sighted — the Kimberleys!”

Ten days down the stream from that unforgettable Paradise Oasis the trek came out of a brushland into more open plains where rocks and trees and washes were remarkable for their scarcity. The trekkers had been reduced to a ration of meat and salt with one cup of tea, and one of stewed fruit each day. They throve and gathered strength upon it, but Sterl felt certain that the reaction came as much from the looming purple range, beckoning them on. Twenty-two hundred strong, the mob had improved since they struck good water, and every day calves were born, as well as colts. No smoke signals on the horizon!

One day Sterl rested a lame foot by leaving his saddle for Slyter’s driver seat. Slyter’s good wife lay alseep back under the canvas, her worn face betraying the trouble that her will and spirit had hidden while she was awake. Sterl talked to Slyter about the Kimberleys, the finding of suitable stations, the settling, all of which led up to what was in his mind — the future.

“Slyter, would it interest you to learn something about me?” asked Sterl.

“Indeed it would, if you wish to tell,” returned the drover.

“Thanks boss. It’s only that I’d feel freer — and happier if you knew,” rejoined Sterl, and told Slyter why he and Red had come to Australia.

“And we’ll never go back,” he concluded.

“After this awful trek, you can’t still like Australia!”

“I’m mad about it, Slyter!”

“You tell me your story because of Leslie?”

“Yes, mostly. But if there had been no Leslie, probably I’d have told you anyhow.”

“She loves you.”

“Yes. And I love her, too. Only I have never told her that — nor the story you’ve just heard.”

“Sterl, I could ask little more of the future than to give my daughter to such a man as you, or Krehl. We have been through the fire together...As for you, young man, Australia will take you to its heart, and the past will be as if it had never been.”

“I’m happy and fortunate to be able to cast my lot with you!”

“Righto! And here comes sharp-eyed Leslie. Sterl, I think I’ll get off and straddle a horse for awhile. You drive and talk to Leslie.”

Almost before the heavy-footed drover was on the ground, Leslie was out of her saddle to throw him her bridle reins.

“How jolly!” she cried in gay voice, as she leaped to a seat beside Sterl. “Months, isn’t it, Sterl, since I rode beside you like this?”

“Years, I think.”

“Oh, that long agony! — But I’m forgetting it. Sterl, what were you talking to Dad about? Both of you so serious!”

“I was telling him what made me an outcast — drove me to Australia.”

“Outcast? Oh, Sterl! I always wondered. Red, too, was so strange. But I don’t care what you’ve ever been in the past. It’s what you are that — that made me...”

When she choked up, Sterl repeated the story of his life and its fatality.

“How terrible! Sterl, was — was Nan very pretty? Did you love her very much?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Love is a terrible thing!”

“Les, that gives me an idee, as Red says. Let’s get the best of this old terrible love.”

“Sterl, it can’t be done. I know.”

“Les, it can. Listen. You get hold of Red the very first chance — tonight in camp. Tell him that Beryl is dying of love of him — that she dreams of him — babbles in her sleep — that she can’t live without him...And anything more you can make up!”

“Sterl Hazelton, I wouldn’t have to lie. That is all absolutely true,” returned Leslie.

“You don’t say? That bad? Then all the better. Leslie, I’ll tell Beryl what a state Red is in over her.”

“Is it true? Does Red care that much?” queried Leslie.

“Yes. I don’t think it’s possible to exaggerate Red’s love for that girl. But he feels he is a no-good cowboy, as he calls it.”

“You bet I’ll help!” she flashed. “But — but who is going to — to tell you — about me?”

“Oh, that? Well, darling, if you think it’s necessary you can tell me yourself.”

She fell against him, quivering, her eyelids closed. He wrapped his arm round her and drew her close. At this juncture Mrs. Slyter’s voice came to them wildly.

“I’ve been listening to some very interesting conversation.”

“Oh — Mum!” faltered Leslie, aghast, starting up.

But Sterl held her all the closer. Presently he said: “Well, then — Mum — we have your blessing, or you would have interrupted long ago.”

Sterl had contrived to get Red and the girls for a walk along the stream, and there at a murmuring waterfall, he led Beryl away from their companions.

“I’m terribly fond of you, Beryl.”

“I am of you, too, Sterl. But you — and Red will be leaving us to become wanderers again — seeking adventure. I wish I were a man.”

“Who told you we’d be doing that?”

“Red.”

They paused beside a rock, upon which Sterl lifted Beryl to a seat, and he leaned against it to face her.

“So that geezer has been hurting you again? Dog-gone him! Beryl, I’m going to double-cross him, give him away.”

“You mean betray him? — Don’t Sterl!”

“Ummpumm. We’re not — leaving,” he said. “I wouldn’t leave Leslie and...”

“Oh, Sterl! Then — then—”

“Yes, then! And Red would never leave me. For why?”

Here Sterl related for the third time that day the story of his exile.

“How very wonderful of Red! Sterl, this Aussie lass will make up for all you’ve lost.”

“Beryl, I’d be happier than I ever was if you and Red...”

“If only he could see!” she interrupted, passionately. “If only he could forgive and forget Ormiston — what I — what — he...”

Sterl grasped her slim shoulders and drew her down until her face was close.

“Hush! Don’t say that — don’t ever think of that again!” he said, sternly. “That is absolutely the only obstacle between you. The jealous fool in his bad hours thinks you regret...I won’t say it, Beryl Dann. And for Red’s sake and yours and ours, Les’s and mine, forget. Forget! Because Red Krehl worships you. Don’t grieve another single hour. Don’t believe in his indifference. Break down his armor. Oh, child, a woman can, you know. Why — why Beryl...”

She slid off the rock into his arms, blind, weeping, torn asunder, her slender hands clutching him. “No — more,” she sobbed. “You break — my heart — with joy. I — I had — despaired. Twice I have — nearly died. I knew — the next time...But this — this will save me.”

Day after day the purple range loomed closer. The scouts saw at last that the stream they had followed for so long was presently going to join a river. That green and gold line disappeared round the northern end of the range. And the next day the leader of the drovers, for once actuated by haste, made for the junction. Blue smoke rose about the big trees. It must come from aboriginals, but it was not hostile.

“Boss, I ben tinkit no black fella,” said Friday to Sterl. Sterl rode ahead to tell Dann.

“Aye, my boy, I guessed that,” he cried. “We have fought the good fight. With His guidance! Look around you, Sterl — richest, finest land I ever saw! Ha! A road — a ford!” and Dann pointed. He had indeed come to a road that sloped down under the giant trees to the shallow stream. His followers all saw, but none could believe his eyes.

Three white men came out into the open, halting to stare. They pointed. They gesticulated. They saw Dann’s wagons, the women on the drivers’ seats, the mounted drovers, the big band of horses, the great mob and ran to meet the trekkers. Dann halted his four horses, and Slyter stopped beside him. The mounted drovers lined up, a lean ragged crew, with Leslie conspicuous among them, unmistakably a girl, bronzed and beautiful.

“Good day, cobbers!” called Dann.

“Who may you be?” replied one of the three, a stalwart man with clean-shaven, rugged face and keen, intelligent eyes.

“Are those mountains the Kimberleys?” asked Dann, intensely.

“Yes. The eastern Kimberleys. Drover, you can’t be Stanley Dann?”

“It really seems I can’t be. But I am!” declared Dann.

“Great Scott! Dann was lost two years and more ago, according to reports at Darwin. It has taken you two years and five months to get here!”

“But death visited and dogged our trek, alas!” said Dann. “We trekked almost to the Gulf and then across the Never-never Land. And we lost several drovers, five thousand head of cattle, and a hundred horses on the way.”

“My word! What great news for western Australia! I see you have a mob of cattle left. I’m glad to be the first to tell you good news.”

“Good news?” boomed Dann, in echo.

“Well, rather. Dann, cattle are worth unheard-of prices. Horses the same. Reason is that gold has been discovered in the Kimberleys!”

“GOLD!”

“Yes, gold! There’s been a rush-in for months. Mines south of here. Trekkers coming in from Perth and Fremantle. Settlers by ship to Darwin and Wyndham. I have been freighting supplies in to the gold fields. My name is Horton.”

“Do you hear, all?” boomed Dann. “The beginning of the empire I envisioned.”

“We all hear, Stanley, and our hearts are full,” replied Slyter.

“What river is this?” queried Dann, shaking off his bedazzlement, to point to the shining water through the trees.

“That is the Ord. You have come down the Elivre,” replied Horton. “Dennison Plains are in sight to the south. The finest country, the finest grazing for stock in the world!”

“Aye, friend. It looks so. But this road? Where does it lead and how far?”

“Follows the Ord to the seaport. Wyndham, a good few miles less than two hundred. You are in the nick of time, Dann. The government will sell this land to you so cheap it is unbelievable!”

“Ha! This land?” called Dann, his voice rolling, “Dann’s Station! This will be our range!”

“Stanley, we must send at once for supplies,” said Slyter, rousing.

“Horton, do we look like starving trekkers?”

“Indeed you do. I never saw such a peak-faced, ragamuffin lot of drovers. Or ladies so charming despite all!”

“They have lived for days now wholly on meat.”

“Forgive me, Dann, for not thinking of that! Sam, run and boil the billy. Dann, I can let you have tea, fruit, sugar, tinned milk...”

“Enough, man! Do not overwhelm us! Slyter, what shall we do next — that is, after that cup of tea?”

“Stanley, we should thank heaven, pitch camp, and plan to send both wagons to Wyndham for supplies.”

“Wal, air you gonna ask us to get down an’ come in?” drawled Red. “I reckon I can stand tea.”

“American!” called out Horton, with twinkling eyes.

“Savvied again. The name is Krehl. An’ heah’s my pard, Hazelton.”

After supper, Beryl and Leslie went into conference over the innumerable things they wanted bought. Sterl and Red sat beside a box and racked their brains to think of necessities to purchase from town.

“Strange, Red, just think!” ejaculated Sterl. “We don’t really need anything. We have lost the sense of need.”

“Yeah! How about toothbrushes, powder, soap, towels, iodine, glycerine, combs, shears to cut hair — an’ socks?”

“On account of the girls we must get over all these savage habits, I suppose...Have you made up your mind about Beryl?” Sterl asked, averting his eyes.

“Pard, she cares more about me than I deserve — than I ever had a girl care for me before. An’ lately, I don’t know how long long. She’s been different. All that misery gone! She’s forgot Ormiston an’ every damn bit of thet — thet...An’s she’s been happy. Jest the sweetest, softest, lovingest, most unselfish creature under the sun! An’ I’d be loco if I didn’t see it’s because of me — that she takes it for granted...”

“I should think you’d be the happiest man in the world,” declared Sterl, feelingly. “I am.”

“I reckon I’d be too, if I’d jest give up.”

“Red! Then right this minute — do it!”

“Holy Mackeli! Don’t knock me down. All right, old pard, I knuckle. I show yellow! But there’s a queer twist in my mind. She always got the best of me. If I could jest think up one more way to get the best of her before, or mebbe better when I tell her how I want her — then I’d match you for who’s the luckiest an’ happiest man.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Have you looked over this range? Grandest I ever seen! Wal, think! I’ve got more money in my kick than I ever earned in my life. An’ you had a small fortune when I see yore belt last.”

“I have it all, packed in my bag.”

“Good! Wal, bright prospect, huh?”

By the eighth day, on which Benson and Roland were expected to return with the wagons and supplies, Sterl and Red had progressed well with their cabin building. The site was the Ord River side of the wooded point, high up on a grassy, flower-spangled bank, shaded by great trees from the morning sun, and facing the Kimberleys.

The cabin was to have thatched roof and walls, for which Friday scouted out a wide-leaved palm, perhaps a species of pandanus. Slyter designed the framework, which consisted of long round poles carefully fitted. Larry, who was a good carpenter, often lent a helping hand. The girls, enthusiastic over its beauty, visited the site several times a day. Red, who was now unusually mild and sweet, made one characteristic remark.

“Say, anybody would think you girls expected to live over heah with us fellers!”

That sally precipitated blushes, a rout, and from a little distance, very audible giggles.

“Red, that was a dig,” remonstrated Sterl. “You are a mean cuss. If you would only take a tumble to yourself the girls could come over here to live.”

“Hell! I’ve shore tumbled. What do you want for two-bits? Canary birds? An’ why don’t you figger out thet trick for me to play on Beryl? I cain’t last much longer. Why, when she comes near me I go plumb loco.”

“Whoopee! That’s talking! I’ve got the deal planned!”

“Yeah?”

“It’s clever. Even Dann thought so. He agreed. And he was tickled!”

“You double-crossin’ two-faced Arizonie geezer!” ejaculated Red. “You told Dann before you told me?”

“Sure. I had to get his consent. Listen, pard...”

Excited cries broke in upon their colloquy. The girls appeared off at the edge of the grove. Leslie cupped her hands to her lips and shrieked: “Boys, wagon’s back! Come!”

They raced like boys, to draw up abreast and panting before two bulging, canvas-covered wagons, and their excited comrades.

“Mr. Dann,” Benson was saying. “Ten days going and coming. Fair to middling road. One wagon loaded with food supplies, milk, sugar, vegetables, fruit, everything. Other full of personal articles... Four freight wagons following us with lumber, galvanized roofing, tools, utensils, hardware, harness, mattresses, staples — the biggest order ever filled in Wyndham!”

While the big wagons were being unpacked, while the cowboys whooped and the girls squealed, a steady, voluminous stream of questions poured into the bewildered ears of Benson and Roland, who had been to town, to a seaport, who had heard news of the world, and of the old home.

Gold had indeed been discovered in the south and west of the Kimberleys. Ships and prospectors, sheepmen and drovers, trekkers and adventurers were coming north from Perth and Fremantle and points far to the south. Ships plied regularly to Darwin. Stanley Dann’s trek across the Never-never Land was the wonder of two busy seaports.

There were letters for all the company except Sterl and Red. Somehow that silenced the drawling Red and struck a pang to Sterl’s heart. Stanley Dann read aloud in his booming voice a communication from Heald. He had got out safely with his comrades and the mob of cattle Dann had given them. They worked out toward the coast into fine grazing country where he and his partners established a station. Ormiston’s three escaping bushrangers had been murdered by aborigines. A rumor that Dann’s trekkers had perished on the Never-never had preceded Heald’s return to Queensland. But he never credited it and chanced a letter. The government had offered to sell hundred-mile-square tracts of land in the outback for what seemed little money.

“Gosh! A hundred-mile-square ranch!” drawled Red. “I reckon I gotta buy myself a couple of them.”

They settled themselves in the pleasant shade. Mrs. Slyter and Leslie served tea. Beryl sat pensive and abstracted. On that auspicious morning, when all had been gay, Red had not deigned to give her even a smile. What a capital actor Dann was! To all save Sterl and Red he appeared only the great leader, glad and beaming.

Presently Dann produced a little black book, worn of back and yellow of leaf. He opened it meditatively.

“Beryl, will you please come here,” he said, casually. “In this new and unsettled country I think I may be useful in other ways besides being a cattleman. I shall need practice to acquire a seemly dignity, and a clarity of voice.”

He continued to mull over the yellow pages. Sterl saw the big fingers quiver ever so slightly. Beryl, used to her father’s moods, came obediently to stand before him.

“What, Dad?” she inquired, curiously.

“Sterl, come here and stand up with Beryl,” he called. “No, let Krehl come. He might be more fitting.”

Red strolled forward, his spurs jingling, his demeanour as cool and nonchalant as it ever had been.

“I’ve observed you holding my daughter’s hand a good few times on this trek,” Dann said, mildly. “Please take her hand now.”

As Red reached for Beryl’s hand she looked up at him with a wondering smile and her color deepened. Then Dann stood up to lift his head and expose his bronze-gold face, which appeared a profound mask, except for the golden lightning in his amber eyes.

“What’s the idea, boss?” drawled Red.

“Yes, Dad, what is — all this?” faltered Beryl, confused.

“Listen, child and you Krehl,” replied Dann. “This should be fun for you, and surely for the others. Please watch me. Criticize my ministerial manner and voice. Trekking does not improve even the civilized and necessary graces. Well, here we are...”

And in a swift resonant voice he ran over the opening passages of the marriage service. Then, more slowly and impressively, he addressed Red.

“James Krehl, do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife... to have and to hold...to love and to cherish...until death do you part?”

“I do!” replied Red, ringingly.

The leader turned to his daughter. “Beryl Dann, do you take this man to your lawful wedded husband...to have and to hold...to love, cherish and obey until death do you part?”

“I — I — I do!” gasped Beryl, faintly.

Dann added sonorously: “I pronounce you man and wife. Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder!”

Beryl stared up at him, visibly a prey to conflicting tides of emotions. It had been a play, of course, but the mere recital of the vows, the counterfeit solemnity, had torn her serenity asunder. When her father embraced her, thick-voiced and loving, she appeared further bewildered.

“Daddy, what a — a strange thing — for you to practice that — on me!”

“Beryl, it is the most beautiful thing of the ages...Krehl, I congratulate you with all my heart. I feel that she is safe at last.”

Sterl dragged the astounded and backward Leslie up to the couple. “Red, old pard, put it there!” he cried, wringing Red’s free hand. “Beryl, let me be the first to kiss the bride!” Leslie could only stare, her lips wide.

“But — but it was only a play!” flashed Beryl. Then Red kissed her lips with a passion of tenderness and violence commingled.

“Wal, wife, it was about time,” drawled Red.

That word unstrung Beryl. “Wife?” she echoed, almost inaudibly. “Red! You — you married me — really? Father! Have I been made a — fool of?” cried Beryl, tragically.

“My daughter, compose yourself,” returned Dann. “We thought to have a little fun at your expense. I am still an ordained clergyman. But you are Mrs. Krehl! I’ll have marriage certificates somewhere in my luggage!”

She swayed back to Red. She could not stand without support. She lifted frail brown hands that could not cling to Red’s sleeves.

“Red! — You never asked me!”

“Wal, honey, the fact was I didn’t have the nerve. So Sterl an’ I went to yore Dad an’ fixed it up. Beryl, he’s one grand guy.” He snatched the swaying girl to his breast. Her eyelids had fallen.

“Beryl!” he shouted, in fear and remorse. “Don’t you dare faint! Not heah an’ now of all times in our lives! I did it thet way because I’ve always been dyin’ of love for you. Since thet — thet orful time I’ve been shore you cared for me, but I never risked you outwittin’ me. I swore I’d fool you once an’ go on my knees to you the rest of my life!”

Suddenly she was shot through and through with revivified life. She did not see any others there. And when she lifted her lips to Red’s, it was something — the look of both of them then — that dimmed Sterl’s eyes.

“Come, Sterl and Leslie,” boomed Dann. “I require more practice. Here, before me, and join hands. Our bride and groom there may stand as witnesses.” And almost before Sterl was sensible of anything except the shy and bedazzled girl beside him, clutching his hand, he was married!

Friday wrung Sterl’s hand. No intelligence could have exaggerated what shone in his eyes.

“Me stotum alonga you an’ missy. Me be good black fella. No home, no fadder, no mudder, no brudder, no lubra. Imm stay alonga you, boss.”

Sterl and Red walked by the river alone.

“Pard, it’s done,” said Red. “We’re Australians. Who would ever have thunk it? But it’s great. All this for two no-good gunslingin’ cowboys!”

“Red, it is almost too wonderful to be true!”

It was as Stanley Dann had said of them all: “We have fought the good fight.” In that moment Sterl saw with marvelous clarity. It had taken a far country and an incomparable adventure with hardy souls to make men out of two wild cowboys.

THE END

Valley of Wild Horses

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE PANHANDLE WAS a lonely purple range land, unfenced and wind swept. Bill Smith, cattleman, threw up a cabin and looked at the future with hopeful eyes. One day while plowing almost out of sight of his little home — which that morning he had left apprehensively owing to an impending event — he espied his wife Margaret coming along the edge of the plowed field. She had brought his lunch this day, despite his order to the contrary. Bill dropped the loop of his driving reins over the plow handle and strode toward her. Presently she halted wearily and sat down where the dark rich overturned earth met the line of bleached grass. Bill meant to scold Margaret for bringing his lunch, but it developed she had brought him something more. A son!

This boy was born on the fragrant fresh soil, out on the open prairie, under the steely sun and the cool wind from off the Llano Estacado. He came into the world protesting against this primitive manner of his birth. Bill often related that the youngster arrived squalling and showed that his lung capacity fitted his unusual size. Despite the mother’s protestations, Bill insisted on calling the lad Panhandle.

Panhandle’s first memory was of climbing into the big cupboard in the cabin, falling out upon his head and getting blood all over his white dress. His next adventurous experience was that of chewing tobacco he found in his father’s coat. This made him very sick. His mother thought he was poisoned, and as Bill was away, she ran to the nearest neighbors for help. By the time she returned with the experienced neighbor woman Panhandle had gotten rid of the tobacco and was bent upon further conquest.

Another day Panhandle manifested a growing tendency toward self-assertion. He ran away from home. Owing to his short legs and scant breath he did not get very far down over the slope. His will and intention were tremendous. Did the dim desert call to the child? His parents had often seen him stand gazing into the purple distance. But Panhandle on this runaway occasion fell asleep on the dry grassy bottom of an irrigation ditch. Bye and bye he was missed, and father and mother, and the farm hands ran hither and thither in wild search for him. No one, however, found him. In the haste of the search some one left his work at the irrigation dam, and the water running down rudely awoke the child out of his dreams. Wet and bedraggled, squalling at the top of his lungs, Panhandle trudged back home to the relief of a distracted mother.

“Doggone it,” ejaculated Bill to his neighbors. “That kid’s goin’ to be just like me. I never could stay home.”

A year later Bill Smith sold his farm and moved farther west in Texas, where he took up a homestead, and divided his time between that and work on a big irrigating canal which was being constructed.

Panhandle now lived on a ranch and it was far lonelier than his first home, because his father was away so much of the time. At first the nearest neighbor was Panhandle’s uncle, who lived two long prairie miles away. His house was a black dot on the horizon, not unattainable, it seemed to Panhandle, but very far away. He would have risked the distance, save for his mother, who was very timid in this country so new to her. Panhandle would never forget how she was frightened at a crazy wanderer who happened to come along, and another time by some drunken Mexican laborers.

Panhandle undoubtedly had an adventuring soul. One day he discovered that a skunk had dug a hole under the front porch and had given birth to her kittens there. Panhandle was not afraid of them, and neither hurt nor frightened them. After a time he made playmates of them, and was one day hugely enjoying himself with them when his mother found him. She was frightened, enraged and horrified all at once. She entreated Panhandle to let the dirty little skunks alone. Panhandle would promise and then forget. His mother punished him, all to no avail. Then she adopted harsher measures.

Homesteaders had located near by and Mrs. Smith called on them, in the hope that she could hire a cowboy or ranch hand to come over and destroy the skunks. It chanced there was no one but a Mrs. Hardman and her only boy. His name was Dick. He was seven years old, large for his age, a bold handsome lad with red hair. Mrs. Smith made a bargain with Dick, and led him back with her.

Here Panhandle took violent exception to having his pets killed or routed out by this boy he had never before seen. He did not like his looks anyway. But Dick paid little heed to Panhandle, except once when Mrs. Smith went into the house, and then he knocked Panhandle down. For once Panhandle did not squall. He got up, round eyed, pale, with his hands clenched. He never said a word. Something was born in the depths of his gentle soul then.

Dick tore a hole in the little wall of rocks that supported the porch, and with a lighted torch on a stick he wormed his way in to rout out the skunks.

Panhandle suddenly was thrilled and frightened by a bellowing from Dick. The boy came hurriedly backing out of the hole. He fetched an odor with him that nearly suffocated Panhandle, so strange and raw and terrible was it. Dick’s eyes were shut. For the time being he had been blinded. He bounced around like a chicken with its head cut off, bawling wildly.

What had happened Panhandle did not know, but it certainly suited him. “Goody! Goody!” he shouted, holding his nose, and edging away from the lad.

Then Panhandle saw smoke issuing from the hole under the porch. The mother skunk and her kittens scampered out into the weeds. He heard the crackle of flames. That boy had dropped his torch under the porch. Screaming, Panhandle ran to alarm his mother. But it was too late. There were no men near at hand, so nothing could be done. Panhandle stood crying beside his mother, watching their little home burn to the ground. Somehow in his mind the boy, Dick, had been to blame. Panhandle peered round to find him, but he was gone. Never would Panhandle forget that boy.

They walked to the uncle’s house and spent the night there. Soon another home was under construction on the same site. It was more of a shack than a house, for building materials were scarce, and the near approach of winter made hasty construction imperative. Winter came soon, and Panhandle and his mother were alone. It was cold and they huddled over the little wood fire. They had plenty to eat, but were very uncomfortable in the one-room shack. Bill Smith came home but seldom. That fall the valley had been overrun with homesteaders, “nesters,” they were called, and these newcomers passed by often from the town drunk and rough.

Panhandle used to lie awake a good deal. During these lonely hours the moan of the prairie wind, the mourn of wolves and yelp of coyotes became part of his existence. He understood why his mother barred and blocked the one door, placed the ax by the bed and the gun under her pillow. Even then he longed for the time when he would be old and big enough to protect her.

The lonely winter, with its innumerable hours of solitude for Mrs. Smith and the boy, had incalculable influence upon his character. She taught him much, ways and things, words and feelings that became an integral part of his life.

At last the long winter ended. With spring came the gales of wind which, though no longer cold, were terrible in their violence. Many a night Panhandle lay awake, shrinking beside his mother, fearing the shack would blow away over their heads. Many a day the sun was obscured, and nothing could be cooked, no work done while the dust storm raged.

As spring advanced, with a lessening of the tornadoes, a new and fascinating game came into Panhandle’s life. It was to sit at the one little window and watch the cowboys ride by. How he came to worship them! They were on their way to the spring roundups. His father had told him all about them. Panhandle would strain his eyes to get a first glimpse of them, to count the shaggy prancing horses, the lithe supple riders with their great sombreros, their bright scarfs, guns and chaps, and boots and spurs. Their lassos! How they fascinated Panhandle! Ropes to whirl and throw at a running steer! That was a game he resolved to play when he grew up. And his mother, discovering his interest, made him a little reata and taught him how to throw it, how to make loops and knots. She told him how her people had owned horses, thrown lassos, run cattle.

Panhandle was always watching for the cowboys. When they passed by he would run to the other side of the shack where there was a knothole stuffed with a rag, and through this he would peep until he was blinded by dust. These were full days for the lad, rousing in him wonder and awe, eagerness and fear — strange longings for he knew not what.

Then one day his father brought home a black pony with three white feet and a white spot on his face. Panhandle was in rapture. For him! He could have burst for very joy, but he could not speak. It developed that his mother would not let him ride the pony except when she led it. This roused as great a grief as possession was joy. A beautiful little pony he could not ride! Ideas formed in his mind, scintillated and grew into dark purpose.

One day he stole Curly, and led him out of sight behind the barn, and mounting him rode down to the spring. Panhandle found himself alone. He was free. He was on the back of a horse. Mighty and incalculable fact!

Curly felt the spirit of that occasion. After drinking at the spring he broke into a lope. Panhandle stuck on somehow and turned the pony toward the house. Curly loped faster. Panhandle felt the wind in his hair. He bounced up and down. Squealing with delight he twisted his hands in the flowing mane and held on. At the top of the hill his joy became divided by fear. Curly kept on loping down the hill toward the house. Faster and faster! Panhandle bounced higher and higher, up on his neck, back on his haunches, until suddenly his hold broke and he was thrown. Down he went with a thud. It jarred him so he could hardly get up, and he reeled dizzily. There stood his mother, white of face, reproachful of eye. “Oh mama — I ain’t hurt!” he cried.

Bill Smith was approached about this and listened, stroking his lean chin, while the mother eloquently enlarged upon the lad’s guilt.

“Wal, wife, let the boy ride,” he replied. “He’s a nervy kid. I named him well. He’ll make a great cowboy. Panhandle Smith. Pan, for short!”

Pan heard that and his heart beat high. How he loved his dad then! “Cowboy” meant one of the great riders of the range. He would be one. Thereafter he lived on the back of Curly. He learned to ride, to stick on like a burr, to keep his seat on the bare back of the pony, to move with him as he moved. One day Pan was riding home from his uncle’s, and coming to a level stretch of ground he urged Curly to his topmost speed. The wind stung him, the motion exhilarated him, controlling the pony awoke and fixed some strange feeling in him. He was a cowboy. Suddenly Curly put a speeding foot into a prairie-dog hole. Something happened. Pan felt himself jerked loose and shot through the air. He struck the ground and all went black. When he came to, he found he had plowed the soft earth with his face, skinned nose and chin, but was not badly hurt. That was his first great spill. It sobered him. Curly waited for him a little way farther on and he was lame. Pan knew he could not hide the evidences of his rashness, so he decided to tell the truth.

Pan encountered his father at the barn.

“Say, you bloody cowpuncher,” demanded his parent, “did he pitch with you?”

“No, Dad,” replied Pan, with effort. “I runned him fast.”

“Ah — huh, so I see,” went on the father; and after a searching look over the boy he fell to examining the pony.

Pan emboldened by what his father had called him went straight to his mother. She screamed at sight of him, and that struck Pan to the heart. “Aw, mama, it ain’t nuthin’. I’m just a bloody cowpuncher.”

Pan was not quite six years old when he rode to his first roundup, which occurred that summer early in June. His glory in the experience was marred by shame because he had to appear before all these cowboys without a saddle on his horse. He had feared just exactly what happened.

“Wal, heah comes the Ridin’ Kid from Loco Range,” said one, edging near to Pan, with a smile on his shining red face.

“Sonny, yo’re forkin’ a grand hoss, but you forgot to saddle him,” remarked another, with a twinkle of gray eyes.

“Fellars, this heah is Panhandle Smith, kid of the homesteader, over by the river. I heerd Pan’s a trick bareback rider.”

These genial fiery young men, lithe and tall and round limbed, breathing the life and spirit of the range, crowded round Pan, proving that there never was a cowboy who did not like youngsters.

“Say kid, I’ll swap saddles with you,” spoke up the one who had first addressed him.

Pan’s heart was palpitating. How could they know how beautiful and wonderful they looked to him? If it had not been that he was riding Curly bareback! They were making fun of him. Tears were not far from his eyes.

“Young fellar, I’ll bet this nag of yourn can’t run fast enough to ketch cold,” spoke up another.

“I’ll bet he kin,” added a third.

“Pan, do this to them,” put in the cowboy who appeared to know him, and suiting act to word he placed his thumb to his nose and twiddled his finger. “Do that, Pan. That’ll shore shut them up.”

Pan found himself impelled to do as he was bidden, which action raised a howl of mirth from the cowboys.

And so at that early age Panhandle Smith was initiated into the hilarity and trickery and spirit common to these carefree riders of the ranges.

When the roundup began he found that he was far from forgotten.

“Come on, Pan,” shouted one. “Ride in heah an’ help me...Turn ’em back, kid.”

Pan rode like the wind, breathless and radiant, beside himself with bliss.

Then another rider would yell to him: “Charge him, cowboy. Fetch him back.”

And Pan, scarcely knowing what he was doing, saw with wild eyes how the yearling or calf would seem to be driven by him. There was always a cowboy near him, riding fast, yet close, yelling to him, making him a part of the roundup.

At the noon hour an older man, no doubt the rancher who owned the cattle, called off the work. A lusty voice from somewhere yelled: “Come an’ git it!”

The rancher, espying Pan, rode over to him and said: “Stranger, did you fetch your chuck with you?”

“No — sir,” faltered Pan. “My mama — said for me to hurry back.”

“Wal, you stay an’ eat with me,” replied the man, kindly. “Shore them varmints might stampede an’ we’d need you powerful bad.”

Pan sat next this big black-eyed man, in the circle of hungry cowboys. They made no more fun of Pan. He was one of them. Hard indeed was it for him to sit cross-legged, after the fashion of cowboys, with a steady plate upon his knees. But he had no trouble disposing of the juicy beefsteak and boiled potatoes and beans and hot biscuits that Tex, the boss, piled upon his plate.

After dinner the cowboys resumed work.

“Stand heah by the fire, kid,” said Tex.

Then Pan saw a calf being dragged across the ground. A mounted cowboy held the rope.

“The brand!” he yelled.

Pan stood there trembling while one of the flankers went down the tight rope to catch the bawling, leaping calf. Its eyes stood out, it foamed at the mouth. The flanker threw it over his leg on its back with feet sticking up. A brander with white iron leaped close. The calf bellowed. There was a sizzling of hair, a white smoke, the odor of burned hide, all of which sickened Pan.

Then one of the cowboys came to him: “Reckon thet’s yore mammy come for you.”

He lifted Pan up on Curly and led the pony away from the roundup, out in the open where Pan espied his mother, eager and anxious with her big dark eyes strained.

“Beg pardon, lady,” spoke up the cowboy, touching his sombrero. “It’s our fault yore boy stayed so long. We’re sorry if you worried. Please don’t blame him. He’s shore a game kid an’ will make a grand cowboy some day.”

CHAPTER TWO

SO THIS WAS how Panhandle Smith, at the mature age of five, received the stimulus that set the current of his life in one strong channel. He called himself “Tex.” If his mother forgot to use this thrilling name he was offended. He adopted Tex’s way of walking, riding, talking. And all the hours of daylight, outdoors or indoors, he played roundup. Stones, chips, nails — anything served for cattle — and he had a special wooden image of himself and horse. Much of this time he spent on the back of Curly, in the corral or the field, rounding up an imaginary herd. At night his dreams were full of cowboys, chuck wagons, pitching horses and bawling steers.

Every new sight of a snaky slim cowpuncher on a racy horse intensified this impression in Pan’s mind, stamped the future more vividly on his heart. It was what he had been born to.

One by one pioneers came in their covered wagons to this promising range and took up homesteads of one hundred and sixty acres each. Some of these men, like Pan’s father, had to work part of the time away from home, to earn much-needed money.

Jim Blake, the latest of these incoming settlers, had chosen a site down in a deep swale that Pan always crossed when he went to visit his uncle. It was a pretty place, with grass and cottonwoods, and a thin stream of water, a lonesome and hidden spot which other homesteaders had passed by.

Pan met Jim one day and rode with him. He was a young man, pleasant and jolly, a farmer and would-be rancher, without any of the signs of cowboy about him. Pan thought this a great detriment, but he managed to like Jim and loftily acquainted him with his achievements on Curly.

One day Pan saw Jim’s wife, a pretty blonde girl, strong and healthy and rosy cheeked. Her sleeves were rolled up showing round bare arms. Her smile won Pan, yet he was too shy to go in and take the cookies she offered.

Autumn days came, dull and gray, with cold wind sweeping the plain, and threatening clouds lodging against the mountain peaks. Another winter was coming. Pan hated the thought. Snow, ice, piercing winds would prevent him from riding Curly. With this fact pressing closer he rode as much as his mother would let him and some more besides.

His father and mother wanted him to go with them to the settlement one Saturday. They were taking the wagon in for winter supplies. Pan’s yearning for adventure almost persuaded him, but he preferred to stay with Curly. His mother demurred, but his father said he might remain at home.

“Pan, you can ride over to Uncle George’s with some things. But be careful not to get caught in a storm.”

Thus it came about that Pan found himself alone for the first time in his life, master of himself, free to act as he chose. And he did not choose to go at once to Uncle George’s. His uncle was nice, but did not accord Pan the freedom that he craved. So what with one and another of his important cowboy tasks the hours flew and it was late before he got started across the prairie toward his uncle’s homestead.

Pan never needed an excuse to ride fast, but now he had one that justified him. The two miles would not take long. He would have to hurry back, for indeed it looked as if a storm were sweeping down from the black peaks. Pan realized that he should have gotten his errand done earlier in the day.

The cold wind stung his face and made his eyes water. Curly loped at his easy swift stride over the well-trodden trail. The bleached grass waved, the tumbleweeds rolled along the brown ground. There was no sun. All the west was draped in drab clouds. Soon Pan was riding down into the swale where Blake lived. The cottonwoods were almost bare. Only a few yellow leaves clung to the branches, and every moment a leaf fluttered down. Here in this swale Pan caught the autumn smells, dank and woody.

Once across the swale he put his pony to a gallop and soon reached Uncle George’s homestead. No one at home! The horse and wagon were gone. Pan left his package and turned back. As he trotted past the Blake gate Pan heard a faint call. It startled him. Reining in Curly he listened and looked. Blake’s cabin stood back out of sight among the Cottonwoods. The barn, however, with its low open-sided shed, stood just inside the gate. The cows had been brought in for milking. A lusty calf was trying to steal milk from its mother. Chickens were going to roost. Pan did not believe that any of these had made the call. He was about to ride on by when suddenly he again caught a strange cry that appeared to come from the barn or shed. It excited rather than frightened him. Sliding off Curly he pushed open the big board gate and ran in.

Under the open shed he found Mrs. Blake lying on some hay which evidently she had just pulled down from the loft. When she saw Pan her pale convulsed face changed somehow. “Oh — thank God!” she cried.

“Are you hurted?” asked Pan in hurried sympathy. “Did you fall out of the haymow?”

“No, but I’m in terrible pain.”

“Aw — you’re sick?”

“Yes. And I’m alone. Will you please — go for your mother?”

“Mama an’ Daddy went to town,” replied Pan in distress. “An’ nobody’s home at Uncle George’s.”

“Then you must be a brave little man and help me.”

Bill Smith hurrying homeward with his wife and Jim Blake were belated by the storm. It was midnight when they arrived at Bill’s house. They found Curly with bridle hanging, standing in the snow beside the barn. Mrs. Smith was distracted. Bill and Jim, though worried, did not fear the worst. But with lanterns they set out upon the tracks Curly had left in the snow. Bill’s wife would not remain behind.

Soon they arrived at Blake’s homestead, though the pony tracks became difficult to follow and found Pan wide awake, huddled beside the cow, true to the trust that had been given him. Mrs. Blake was not in bad condition, considering the circumstances, nor was the baby. It was a girl, whom Jim named Lucy right then and there, after his wife.

The men carried the mother and her babe up to the house, while Mrs. Smith followed with the now sleepy Pan. They built fires in the open grate, and in the kitchen stove, and left Mrs. Smith to attend to the mother. Both women heard the men talking. But Pan never heard, for he had been put to bed in a corner, rolled in blankets.

“Doggone my hide!” exclaimed Bill. “Never seen the beat of that kid of mine!”

“Mebbe Pan saved both their lives, God bless him,” replied Blake with emotion.

“Quien sabe? It might be...Wal, strange things happen. Jim, that kid of mine was born right out on the plowed field. An’ here comes your kid — born in the cowshed on the hay!”

“It is strange,” mused Blake, “though we ought to look for such happenin’s out in this great west.”

“Wal, Pan an’ Lucy couldn’t have a better birthright. It ought to settle them two kids for life.”

“You mean grow up an’ marry some day? Now that would be fine. Shake on it, Bill.”

Pan asleep in the corner of the other room and Lucy wailing at her mother’s breast were pledged to each other by their fathers.

The winter passed for Pan much as had the preceding one, except that he had more comfort to play his everlasting game of roundup.

“When will Lucy be big enough to play with me?” he often asked. The strange little baby girl had never passed from his mind, though he had never seen her. She seemed to form the third link in his memory of the forging of his life. Curly — the cowboys — and Lucy! He did not know how to reconcile her with the other two. But those three events stood out above the blur of the past.

At last the snow melted, the prairie took on a sheen of green, the tree burst into bud, and birds returned to sing once more. All of this was beautiful, but insignificant beside Curly. He was fatter and friskier than ever.

Pan’s father came home once or twice a month that spring, always arriving late and leaving at an early hour. How Pan longed for his father’s coming!

Then there came the fourth epoch in Pan’s life. His father brought him a saddle. It was far from new, of Mexican make, covered with rawhide, and had an enormous shiny horn. Pan loved it almost as much as he loved Curly; and when it was not on the pony it adorned the fence or a chair, always with Pan astride it, acting like Tex.

The fifth, and surely the greatest event in Pan’s rapidly developing career, though he did not know it then, was when his mother took him over to see his baby, Lucy Blake. It appeared that the parents in both homesteads playfully called her “Pan’s baby.” That did not displease Pan, but it made him singularly shy. So it was long before his mother could get him to make the acquaintance of his protégée.

Pan’s first sight of Lucy was when she crawled over the floor to get to him. How vastly different she really was from the picture he recalled of a moving bundle wrapped in a towel! She was quite big and very wonderful. She was dressed in a little white dress. Her feet and legs were chubby. She had tiny pink hands. Her face was like a wild rose dotted with two violets for eyes. And her hair was spun gold. Marvelous as were all these things they were as nothing to the light of her smile. Pan’s shyness vanished, and he sat on the floor to play with her. He produced little chips and pebbles, and stones, with which he played roundup. Lucy grew most gratifyingly interested in Pan’s game, but she made it hard for him to play it, and also embarrassing, by clinging with most tenacious and unshakable grip to his finger.

Every Sunday that summer the Smiths visited at the homestead of the Blakes. They became fast friends. Bill and Jim discussed the cattle business. The mothers sewed and talked hopefully of the future. Pan never missed one of these Sunday visits, and the time came when he rode over on his own account. Lucy was the most satisfactory cowgirl in all the world. She did not object to his being Tex. She tried her best to call him Tex. And she crawled after him and toddled after him with unfailing worship. The grown folks looked on and smiled.

Meanwhile the weeks and months passed, the number of homesteaders increased, more and more cattle dotted the range. When winter came some of the homesteaders, including Pan and his mother, moved into Littleton to send their children to school.

Pan’s first teacher was Emma Jones. He liked her immediately which was when she called to take him to school. Pan was not used to strangers. The men in the streets, the grown boys all bothered him. Cowboys were scarce, and that was a great disappointment to Pan. It lowered Littleton in his estimation.

It developed that Pan was left handed. Now Miss Jones considered it wrong for anyone to write with his left hand so she tied Pan’s fast to the desk, and made him practice letters with his right. What a dreary unprofitable time Pan had of it! So many little boys and girls confused him, though he was not backward in making acquaintance. But he wanted Curly and the prairie. He would rather be with Lucy. Most of all he wanted the cowboys.

Dick Hardman came again into Pan’s life, fatefully, inevitably, as if the future had settled something inscrutable and sinister, and childhood days, school days, days of youth and manhood had been inextricably planned before they were born. Dick was in a higher grade and made the fact known to Pan. He had grown into a large boy, handsomer, bolder, with a mop of red hair that shone like a flame. He called Pan “the little skunk tamer,” and incited other boys to ridicule. So the buried resentment in Pan’s depths smoldered and burst into blaze again, and found fuel to burn it into hate. He told his mother what Dick had got the boys to call him. Then he was indeed surprised to see his sweet soft-eyed mother give way to quick-flashing passion. Somehow this leap of her temper strengthened Pan in his resentment. He had her blood, her fire, her pride, though he was only a child.

Then the endless school days were over for a while. Summer had come. Pan moved back to the beloved homestead, to the open ranges, to Curly and Lucy. Only she had changed. She could stand at his knee and call him Tex. He resumed his old games with her, and in time graduated her to a seat on the back of Curly. If she had not already unconsciously filled his heart that picture of her laughing and unafraid would have done so.

Another uncle had moved into the country to take up a homestead. Pan now had a second place to ride to, farther away, over a wilder bit of range, and much to his liking. He saw cowboys every time he rode there.

One day while Pan was at this new uncle’s, a dreadful thing happened — his first real tragedy. Some cowboy left the slide door of the granary open. Curly got in there at the wheat. Before it became known he ate enormously and then drank copiously. It foundered him. It killed him.

When Pan came out of his stupefaction to realize his actual loss he was heartbroken. He could not be consoled. Hours he spent crying over his saddle. Not for a long time did he go to see little Lucy. His father could not afford to buy him another horse then and indeed it was a long time before he did get one.

Days and weeks passed, and fall came, then winter with more school, tedious and wearing, and again spring and summer. Cowboys were plentiful now in the growing range, but Pan avoided them, ashamed and sick because he could not approach them without Curly. He never got over grieving for his pony, though he reached a stage where any horse would have freed him from his melancholy. He played alone, or with Lucy. She was the one bright spot in all that gray prairie. Lucy was growing fast now; her golden curly head seemed to spring up at him.

That autumn the homesteaders erected a schoolhouse of their own. It was scarcely three miles from Pan’s home.

“Pan, can you walk it?” asked Bill Smith with his keen eye on the lad. “Yes Daddy — but — but,” replied Pan, unable to finish with the thought so dear to his heart.

“Ah — huh. An’ before long Lucy will be old enough to go too,” added his father. “Reckon you’ll take her?”

“Yes, Daddy.” And for Pan there was real gladness in that promise.

“Wal, you’re a good boy,” declared the father. “An’ you won’t have to walk to school. I’ve traded for two horses for you.”

“Two!” screamed Pan, wild with joy. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

In due time the new horses arrived at the Smith homestead. Their names were Pelter and Pilldarlick. Pelter was a pinto, snappy and pretty, though he had a wicked eye. Pilldarlick was not showy, but he was small and strong, easy gaited and gentle. Pan thought he was going to like Pelter best, although Pilldarlick was surely a cowboy name and therefore all satisfying. It turned out, however, that Pan could not ride Pelter. He was locoed. He bucked Pan off every time. Pilldarlick was really much better than he looked, and soon filled the void in Pan’s heart.

The first time he rode Pilldarlick to the new school marked another red-letter day in the life of Panhandle Smith, cowboy. There were many boys and a few girls who had come to attend the school, only a few of whom had horses to ride. Pan was the proud cynosure of all eyes as he rode Pilldarlick round the yard for the edification of his schoolmates. It was the happiest day of Pan’s life — up until Dick Hardman arrived on a spirited little black mustang.

“Hey, where’d you git that nag?” yelled Dick, when he sighted Pan. “An’ say, your saddle ain’t nothin’ but rawhide on a stump.”

“You’re a liar!” shouted Pan, fiercely tumbling off Pilldarlick.

The red-headed lad pitched out of his saddle and made for Pan. They began to fight. Instinct was Pan’s guide. He hit and scratched and kicked. But Dick being the larger began to get the better of the battle, and soon was beating Pan badly when the new teacher came out to his rescue.

“Stop it,” she ordered, separating the belligerents. “Only cats and dogs fight.”

“So — do — cowboys!” panted Pan.

“Not nice ones. Only bad cowboys,” she replied, leading Pan away.

“I’ll lick you next time,” yelled Dick, evilly. “You stuck-up little snot!”

CHAPTER THREE

MISS AMANDA HILL, the teacher, rang the bell, calling all her scholars in, and school began once more.

Dick Hardman sat across the room from Pan and behind the teacher’s back he made ugly faces at Pan and, more than that, put his nose to his thumb. Pan understood that, and quick as a flash, he returned the compliment.

Recess came. Before half the scholars were out of the room Dick and Pan had run to the barn, out of the teacher’s sight, and here they fell upon each other like wildcats. It did not take Dick long to give Pan the first real beating of his life. Cut lip, bloody nose, black eye, dirty face, torn blouse — these things betrayed Pan at least to Miss Hill. She kept him in after school, and instead of scolding she talked sweetly and kindly. Pan came out of his sullenness, and felt love for her rouse in him. But somehow he could not promise not to fight again.

“S’pose Dick Hardman does that all over again!” expostulated Pan in despair. He did not realize what he felt. He wanted to please and obey this sweet little woman, but there was a revolt in him. “What’ll my — my daddy — say when he hears I got licked!” he sobbed.

She compromised finally by accepting Pan’s willing promise not to pick a fight with Dick.

Despite the unpleasant proximity of Dick Hardman, that winter at school promised to be happy and helpful to Pan. There were three large boys, already cowboys, who attended Miss Hill’s school. Pan gravitated at once to them, and to his great satisfaction they accepted him.

Later his old cowboy friend of the roundup arrived on the range with a trail herd of cattle from Texas. Their brand was an O X, a new one to Pan. He kept a record of all the brands he had seen, and practiced drawing them on paper. Moore and three of his cowboys came to board at Pan’s home, and kept their string of horses there. Pan’s cup was full. The days flew by. Snow and cold were nothing to him. Not even study, and the ever-malicious Dick Hardman could daunt his spirit. Moore meant to winter his herd there, and wait for spring before he drove it farther north.

The cowboys’ nickname for Moore was Pug, and another fellow whose real name Pan never heard was called Slats. They taught Pan all the cowboy songs from “Ti yi oop oop ya ya” to “Bury me on the Lone Prairie.” Every night Pan listened to them sing by the fire in their bunkhouse, and many times he had to be called to do his chores.

Another of the cowboys was called Hookey. His nose resembled that of a parrot and he had the disposition of a locoed coyote, according to Pug and Slats. Hookey took a dislike to Pan, and always sought to arouse the boy’s temper. These cowboys were always gone in the morning before Pan got up, but by the time he arrived home from school on Pilldarlick they were usually there.

Slats, who wanted to be a lady killer, would say: “Wal, Button, what did your school marm say about me today?” And Hookey would make fun of Pilldarlick, which ridicule had more power to hurt Pan than anything else. One day Pan gave way to fury, and with flying rocks he chased Hookey into the cellar, and every time Hookey poked up his head Pan would fling a stone with menacing accuracy. That time his mother came to the rescue of the cowboy. After that Hookey bought a new saddle and gave Pan his old one. That settled hostilities. Pan had a change of heart. No matter how Hookey teased or tormented him he could never again make him angry. Pan saw Hookey with different eyes.

He was unutterably happy now with a horse and saddle too, and went about singing: “My trade is cinchin’ saddles an’ pullin’ bridle reins.”

One day two strange men arrived at the Smith homestead. They had still hard faces, intent gray eyes; they packed guns, and one of them wore a bright star on his vest. These men took Hookey away with them. And after they were gone the cowboys told Pan that Hookey was wanted for horse stealing. Young as Pan was he understood the enormity of that crime in the eyes of cowboys. He felt terribly hurt and betrayed. Long indeed was it before he forgot Hookey.

Swiftly that winter passed. Pan had a happy growing time of it. Study had not seemed so irksome, perhaps owing to the fact that he had a horse and saddle; he could ride to and fro; he often stopped to see Lucy who was now big enough to want to go to school herself; and the teacher had won his love. Pan kept out of fights with Dick Hardman until one recess when Dick called him “teacher’s pet.” That inflamed Pan, as much because of the truth of it as the shame. So this time, though he had hardly picked a fight, he was the first to strike. With surprising suddenness he hit the big Dick square on the nose. When Dick got up howling and swearing, his face was hideous with dirt and blood. Then began a battle that dwarfed the one in the barn. Pan had grown considerably. He was quick and strong, and when once his mother’s fighting blood burned in him he was as fierce as a young savage. But again Dick whipped him.

Miss Hill, grieved and sorrowful, sent Pan home with a note. It chanced that both his father and mother were at home when he arrived. They stood aghast at his appearance.

“You dirty ragged bloody boy!” cried his mother, horrified.

“Huh! You oughta see Dick Hardman!” ejaculated Pan.

The lad thought he had ruined himself forever with Miss Amanda Hill. But to his amaze and joy he had not. Next day she kept him in after school, cried over him, kissed him, talked long and earnestly. All that Pan remembered was: “Something terrible will come of your hate for Dick Hardman if you don’t root it out of your heart.”

“Teacher — why don’t you — talk to Dick this way?” faltered Pan, always won by her tenderness.

“Because Dick is a different kind of a boy,” she replied, but never explained what she meant.

At Christmas time the parents of the school children gave a party at the schoolhouse. Every one on the range for miles around was there. Pan for once had his fill of seeing cowboys. Miss Amanda was an attraction no cowboys could resist. That night Pan spoke his first piece entitled: “Sugar-tooth Dick for sweeties was sick.”

To Pan it seemed a silly piece, but he spoke it to please Miss Amanda, and because it was a hit at Dick Hardman. To his surprise he received a roar of applause. After the supper, dancing began. Some of the cowboys got drunk. There were fights, two of which Pan saw, to his thrilling fear and awe. It was long past midnight when he yielded to the intense drowsiness that overcame him. When he awoke at dawn they were still dancing.

Winter passed. Spring came with roundups too numerous for Pan to keep track of. And a swift happy summer sped by.

That fall a third uncle settled in the valley. He was an older brother of Pan’s father, whom they called Old Uncle Ike. He was a queer old bachelor, lived alone, and did not invite friendliness. Pan was told to stay away from him. Old Uncle Ike was crabby and hard; when a boy, his heart had been broken by an unfaithful sweetheart; he had shot her lover and run away to war. After serving through the Civil War he fought Indians, and had lived an otherwise wild life.

But Pan was only the keener to see and know Old Uncle Ike. He went boldly to make his acquaintance. He found a sad-faced, gray old man, sitting alone.

Pan said bravely: “Uncle, I’m Pan Smith, your brother Bill’s boy, an’ I’ve come to see you because I’m sure I’ll like you.”

He did not find the old man unfriendly. Pan was welcome, and soon they became fast friends. Every Saturday Pan rode over to Uncle Ike’s place, stealing some of the time he was supposed to be spending with Lucy. The little girl pouted and cried and railed at Pan for such base desertion, but he only laughed at her. Any time he wanted he could have Lucy. She grew sweeter and more lovable as she grew older, facts Pan took to his heart, but he chose the old man’s stories of war and Indians in preference to Lucy’s society.

Months passed, and Pan grew tall and supple, with promise of developing the true horseman’s build. Then the spring when he was twelve years old arrived and his father consented to let him ride for wages at the roundup.

He joined a big outfit. There were over fifty cowboys, two bed wagons, two chuck wagons, and strings of horses too numerous to count. A new horse to ride twice a day! This work was as near paradise as Pan felt he had ever been. But for one circumstance, it would have been absolutely perfect, and that was that he had no boots. A fast-riding cowboy without boots!

In the heat of action, amid the whirling loop of bawling calves and cows, when the dry dust rose to stop up Pan’s nostrils and cake on his hot sweaty face, when the ropes were whistling, the cowboys yelling, the brand iron sizzling, all he felt was the wild delight of it, the thrill of the risk, the excitement, the constant stirring life and motion. During leisure hours, however, he was always confronted with his lack of rider’s equipment.

“Say, kid, who built them top boots of yourn?” asked one cowboy.

“Shore, I’ll trade spurs with you,” drawled another.

“Whar’s yore fur chaps there, cowboy?” queried a third.

And so it went always and forever. The cowboys could not help that. It was born in them, born of the atmosphere and spirit of the singular life they lived. Nevertheless Pan loved them, and they were good to him.

His best friends in this outfit were Si and Slick, both horse wranglers, whose real names Pan never learned.

That roundup was prolific of wonderful experiences. One night when a storm threatened the foreman called to the cowboys not on duty; “Talk to ’em low, boys, fer they’re gettin’ ready.”

He meant that the herd of cattle was likely to stampede. And when the thunder and rain burst the herd broke away with a trampling roar. Pan got soaked to the skin and lost in the rain. When he returned to camp only the cook and wagons were there. Next morning the cowboys straggled in in bunches, each driving part of the stampeded herd.

At breakfast one morning Pan heard a yell. “Ride him, cowboy!”

“Whoopee! Look at that outlaw comin’ high, wide an’ handsome!”

Pan just had time to see a terribly pitching red horse come tearing into the circle of cowboys. His rider went shooting over his head to alight among them. Then what a scattering! That red fiend spoiled the breakfast and cleaned out the camp. How the cowboys reviled the poor fellow who had been thrown!

“Huh! Broke yore collar bone?” yelled one. “Why you dod-blasted son of a sea cook, he oughta hev broke yore neck!”

And Si, the horse wrangler said: “Charlie, I reckon it’s onconsiderate of you to exercise yore pet hoss on our stummicks.”

One of the amazing things that happened during the winter was the elopement of Miss Amanda Hill with a cowboy. Pan did not like this fellow very well, but the incident heightened his already magnificent opinion of cowboys.

Pan never forgot Lucy’s first day of school when he rode over with her sitting astride behind him, “ringin’ his neck,” as a cowboy remarked. Pan had not particularly been aware of that part of the performance for he was used to having Lucy cling to him. That embarrassed him. He dropped her off rather unceremoniously at the door, and went to put his horse in the corral. She was little and he was big, which fact further bore upon his consciousness, through the giggles of the girls and gibes of the boys. But they did not make any change in his attitude toward Lucy. All winter he took her to and from school on his horse. The summer following, he worked for his Uncle Ike.

As Pan grew older time seemed so much shorter than when he was little. There was so much to do. And all at once he was fifteen years old. His mother gave him a party on that birthday, which was marked on his memory by the attention his boy friends paid to Lucy. She was by far the prettiest girl in the valley. He did not know exactly what to make of his resentment, nor of the queer attitude of proprietorship he had assumed over her.

He was destined to learn more about his state of mind. It happened the next day at school during the noon hour. That late November, a spell of Indian summer weather had lingered, and the pupils ate their lunches out under the trees.

Suddenly Lucy came running up to Pan, who as usual was having a care for his horse. Her golden hair was flying, disheveled. She was weeping. Her big violet eyes streamed with tears. She was wiping her face with most expressive disgust.

“Pan — you go right off — and thrash Dick Hardman,” she cried, passionately.

“Lucy! — What’s he done?” queried Pan, after a sudden sense of inward shock.

“He’s always worrying me — when you’re not around. I never told ‘cause I knew you’d fight...But now he’s done it. He grabbed me and kissed me! Before all the boys!”

Pan looked steadily at her tear-wet face, seeing Lucy differently. She was not a baby any more. For some strange reason beyond his understanding he was furious with her. Pushing her aside he strode toward the group of boys, leering close by.

Dick Hardman, a strapping big lad now, edged back into the crowd. Pan violently burst into it, forcing the boys back, until he confronted his adversary. On Dick’s sallow face the brown freckles stood out prominently. Something in the look and advance of Pan had intimidated him. But he blustered, he snarled.

“You’re a skunk,” said Pan fiercely, and struck out with all his might.

One hour from that moment they were still fighting. They had fought from the grove to the schoolyard, from there down the road and back again. Bloody, ragged, black, they beat, tore, hit, bit and clawed each other. The teacher, wringing her hands, called upon the other boys to separate the belligerents. They had tried, but in vain, and only got kicked for their pains. The girls, most of them, screamed and cried. But not Lucy! White faced and with dilated eyes she watched that struggle. All the spectators, even the youngest, seemed to recognize it as a different kind of a fight from any that had ever occurred before. At last the teacher sent some of the children for help from the nearest farmhouse.

Dick would lower his head and lunge at Pan, trying to butt him in the abdomen. Twice he had bowled Pan over, to his distinct advantage. But the crafty Pan, timing another and last attack of this kind, swung up his knee with terrific force, square into Dick’s face.

Down Dick plumped, rolled over on his back, yelling loudly. Suddenly he ceased, he raised up on one elbow, he spat blood, and something that rattled on the gravel. A tooth! His grimy hand went trembling to his blood-stained mouth. He felt of his front teeth. One was gone, others were loose. Vanity, Dick’s distinguishing characteristic, suffered a terrible blow. Staggering to his feet, fetching a stone with him, he glared at Pan: “I’ll — kill — you!”

He flung the stone with deadly intent. But Pan dodged it and leaped at him. Dick ran hard toward the schoolhouse, stooping to snatch up stones, and turning to fling them at Pan. The yelling boys scattered, the frightened girls fled. Pan was not to be outdone at any kind of fight. He returned stone for stone, the last of which struck Dick low down in the leg. Like a crippled beast Dick shrieked and plunged into the schoolhouse, slamming shut the door. But Pan, rushing after, grabbed up a rock and flung it so powerfully that it split the door and knocked it off the hinges.

Pan rushed in to receive full in the face a long, thick teacher’s ruler thrown by Dick. It knocked him flat. Picking it up Pan brandished it and charged his enemy. Dick ran along the blackboard, and jerking up one eraser after another he threw them. His aim was poor. His strength waning. His courage had gone. As for Pan it was as if the long fight had only inspired him to renewed ferocity and might. The truth was that a hot dancing fire in Pan’s blood had burned to white intensity, unquenchable and devastating.

Suddenly Dick made for the teacher’s table. An idea, an inspiration showed in his renewed speed. Pan divined its purpose. Leaping upon the desks he endeavored to head Dick off. Too late! When Pan sprang off the last desk to the platform Dick had turned — with the teacher’s long paper knife in his hand and baleful hate in his prominent eyes.

Later, when the children outside dared to peep into the schoolroom they neither saw nor heard anything of the fighters. But fearing they were just hiding behind the benches, ready for a renewed fusillade, not one of the pupils dared go in. The teacher had hurried down the road to meet the men some of the boys had fetched.

And these men were Jim Blake and Bill Smith who had been riding home from the range. When they entered the schoolroom with the teacher fearfully following, and only Lucy of all the scholars daring to come too, they found the fight was over.

Dick lay unconscious on the floor with a bloody forehead. Pan sat crouched on the platform, haggard and sullen, with face, shirt, hands all bloody.

“Ah-uh! Reckon you’ve been fightin’ like a cowboy for shore this time,” said Pan’s father in his matter of fact way. “Stand up. Let’s look at you...Jim, take a look at that lad on the floor.”

While Pan painfully endeavored to get up, Blake knelt beside Dick.

“Bill, this heah rooster has had a wallop,” said Blake.

“You little cowpunchin’ ruffian,” exploded Smith angrily, reaching a large arm for Pan. “Now then...What the hell?...Boy, you’ve been stabbed!”

“Yes — Dad — he stuck me — with teacher’s knife,” replied Pan faintly. He tottered on his feet, and his right hand was pressed tight to his left shoulder, high up, where the broken haft of the paper knife showed between his red-stained fingers.

Bill Smith’s anger vanished in alarm, and something stern and grim took its place. Just then Lucy broke away from the teacher and confronted him.

“Oh — please don’t punish him, Mr. Smith,” she burst out poignantly. “It was all my fault. I — I stuck up my nose at Dick. He said things that — that weren’t nice...I slapped him. Then he grabbed me, kissed me...I ran to Pan — and — and told him...Oh, that made Pan fight.”

Smith looked gravely down into the white little face with the distended violet eyes, slowly losing their passion. He seemed to be struck with something that he had never seen before.

“Wal, Lucy, I’ll not punish Pan,” he said, slowly. “I think more of him for fightin’ for you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THEY DID NOT meet again during the winter. It was a hard winter. Pan left school and stayed close to home, working for his mother, and playing less than any time before.

“I heard Dick say he’d kill you someday,” said one cowboy seriously. “An’ take it from me, kid, he’s a bad hombre.”

“Ah-uh!” was all the reply Pan vouchsafed, as he walked away. He did not like to be reminded of Dick. It sent an electric spark to the deep-seated smoldering mine in his breast.

When springtime came Pan joined the roundup in earnest, for part of the cattle and outfit now belonged to his father. Out on the range the forty riders waited for the wagons. There were five cowboys from Big Sandy in Pan’s bunch and several more arrived from the Crow Roost country. Old Dutch John, a famous range character, was driving the chuck wagon. At one time he had been a crony of Pan’s father, and that attracted Pan to the profane old grizzled cook. He could not talk without swearing and, if he replied to a question that needed only yes or no, he would supplement it with a string of oaths.

Next day the outfit rode the west side of Dobe Creek, rounding up perhaps a thousand cattle. Pete Blaine and Hookey roped calves while Pan helped hold up.

On the following day the riders circled Blue Lakes, where cattle swarmed. Old John had yelled to the boys: “Hey, punchers, heave at them today. You gotta throw an awful mess of ’em heah.”

These two lakes were always dry, except during the spring; and now they were full, with green grass blanketing the range as far as eye could see. By Monday long lines of cattle moved with flying dust down to the spot chosen for the roundup. As the herds closed in, the green range itself seemed to be moving. When thrown together all these cattle formed a sea of red and white, from which roared an incessant bawling. It looked impossible to separate cows and calves from the others. But dozens of fearless cowboys, riding in here and in there, soon began to cut out the cows and calves.

It was a spectacle that inspired Pan as never before. The wagons were lined up near the lake, their big white canvas tops shining in the afternoon sun, and higher on a bench stood the “hoodelum” or bed wagon, so stocked with bedrolls that it resembled a haystack. Beyond the margin of the lake, four hundred fine saddle horses grazed and kicked and bit at one another. Beyond the saddle horses grazed the day herd of cattle. And over on the other side dinned the melee over the main herd, the incessant riding, yelling of the cowboys and the bawling of the cows.

When all the cows and calves were cut out, a rider of each outfit owning cattle on that range would go through to claim those belonging to his brand. Next the herd of bulls and steers, old cows and yearlings, would be driven back out upon the range.

Fires were started, and as there was no wood on that range, buffalo chips were used instead. It took many cowboys to collect sufficient for their needs.

At sunset, when the branding of calves was finished, each cowboy caught a horse for night duty. Pan got one he called Old Paint.

“Say, kid,” called one of the Crow Nest cowboys, “ain’t you tyin’ up a pretty fancy hoss fer night work?”

“Oh, I guess not,” laughed Pan.

“Come heah, Blowy,” called the cowboy to another. “See what I found.”

A long lanky red-faced rider detached himself from the others, and strode with jingling spurs over to look at Pan’s horse.

“Wal, I’ll go to hell, Ben Bolt, if it ain’t ol’ Calico!” he ejaculated, in amaze and pleasure. “Kid, whar’d you ever git him?”

“Dad made a trade,” replied Pan.

“Kid, look a heah. Don’t ever tie that hoss to a stake pin. He’s the best cow hoss I ever slung a leg over. The puncher who broke him an’ reached him all he knows was my pard, long ago. An’ he’s daid. Kid, he’d roll over in his grave if he knowed ol’ Cal was tied to a picket pin.”

“Aw, is that so?” replied Pan. “Fact is, I don’t know much about him. We called him Old Paint. Haven’t forked him yet. Dad got him from a lady last winter. She was trying to work him to a cart. But he balked. She said she poured some hot water on...”

“Lady, hell!” shouted the cowboy, growing redder of face. “She wasn’t no lady if she treated that grand hoss that way...See heah, kid, I’ll stake you to a good night hoss. Turn Ol’ Cal loose, an’ whenever you need to do some real fancy separatin’ jest set your frusky on ol’ Cal. Better tie to your stirrups if you’re perticler aboot keepin’ your seat, ‘cause ‘at ol’ pony can sure git from under a cowhand.”

“All right, I’ll turn Old Calico loose,” replied Pan. “And I’ll remember what you said about him.”

Blowy pointed out one of his horses. “Kid, screw your wood to thet Jasper, an’ you’ll never be walkin’.”

“Thanks, but I got lots of horses,” said Pan.

“Aw go on — lots of horses. Why bunkie, I got more mean horses than I can start to keep gentle. I just fetched thet one to stake my friends.”

Pan saddled up the horse indicated, and found him the best he had ever mounted. That experience led to his acquaintance with Blowy. He was a ceaseless talker, hence his name, but beloved by all the outfit. Pan learned something from every cowboy he met and it was not all for the best.

That roundup was Pan’s real introduction to the raw range. When the time came for the outfit to break up, with each unit taking its own cattle, the boss said to Pan, “Come ride fer me.”

Pan, flushed and pleased, mumbled his thanks, but he had to work for his father. Then he and the boy with him, Joe Crawley, bade their comrades good-by, especially loath to part with Old Dutch, and started home with their cows and calves. They crossed the old Indian battlefield where Colonel Shivington gave the famous order to his soldiers: “Kill ’em all. Nits make lice!”

Pan and Joe set out from there for Limestone Creek with their small herd and extra horses. Pan wanted to bring Old Calico, but he had drifted off to the range.

“Heel flies are workin’, kid,” said Joe, who was older and more experienced. “We’re shore goin’ to be on the mud fer the next month.”

There was something in the air, storm perhaps, or such conditions that have strange effect upon beasts. Pan and Joe fought their cattle and horses all that day, and most of the night. They could not make them travel. Halting where they were they kept guard till dawn, then tried to drive their outfit on. But not for several hours could they move them. At length, however, the stock began to get dry, and string out and travel.

Late in the afternoon the boys reached Limestone. They found three old cows stuck in the mud, up to their eyes, with only their horns and faces showing. It took long hard work to get them out. They made camp there, turning the cows and calves loose, as this was their range.

The following morning Pan and Joe rode up to the next boghole. They found seventeen mired cattle.

“Nice an’ deep,” said Joe. “Damn these heah cows, allus pickin’ out quicksand!”

It took until noon to pull them out. Another boghole showed twenty-four more in deep.

“How many more bogholes on Limestone?” asked Pan.

“Only four an’ the wust ones,” replied Joe, groaning. “If they’re boggin’ as good up there in them big holes, your dad will sure have to ship more cattle in soon.”

There were six thousand cattle watering along that stream. When the water was low, as it was then, the cattle mired by the hundreds.

“Looks bad, Pan,” remarked the older cowboy. “We’re goin’ to need help.”

They returned to camp, got their supper, took fresh horses, and worked half the night pulling cows out of the mud.

By sunrise the next morning the boys were at work again. Some of the mired cattle had died, others had kinks in their necks and had to be killed. Farther up the creek conditions grew worse, and the biggest pool on the range looked from a distance like a small lake dotted with ducks.

“I’m cussin’ the world by sections,” growled Joe. “Wal, kid, you g’on up the crick, and get as near a count as you can. I’m ridin’ in after men an’ wagons. We’ll move the camp up heah. It’s the wust I ever seen, an’ we’ll lose a heap of stock. There’s a loblolly of blue gumbo mud an’ no bottom. An’ by thunder we’re stuck heah for Lord knows how long.”

That fall Jim Blake sold his farm, and took his family to New Mexico. He had not been prospering in the valley, and things had gone from bad to worse. Pan did not get home in time to say good-by to Lucy — something that hurt in an indefinable way. He had not forgotten Lucy for in his mind she had become a steadfast factor in his home life. She left a little note of farewell, simple and loyal, hopeful, yet somehow stultified. Not so childish as former notes! Time flew by and Lucy might be growing up.

The Hardmans had also moved away from the valley, where, none of the neighbors appeared to know. But Pan was assured of two facts concerning them; firstly that Dick had gotten into a serious shooting scrape in which he had wounded a rancher’s son, and secondly that from some unexpected and unknown source the Hardmans had acquired or been left some money.

Pan promptly forgot his boyhood enemy. This winter was the last that he spent at home. He rode the Limestone range that summer, and according to cowboys’ gossip was fast developing all the qualities that pertained to the best riders of the day.

Upon returning home he found that his father had made unwise deals and was not getting along very well. Grasping settlers had closed in on the range. Rustlers had ridden down from the north, raiding the valley. During Pan’s absence a little sister was born, which was indeed joyful news for him. And as he played with the baby he was reminded of Lucy. What had become of her? It occurred to Pan that sooner or later he must hunt her up.

Pan decided that he could not remain idle during the winter. He could have had plenty to do at home, working without wages, but that was no longer to be thought of. So he decided to join two other adventurous cowboys who had planned to go south, and in the spring come back with some of the great herds being driven north.

But Pan liked the vast ranges of the Lone Star State, and he rode there for two years, inevitably drifting into the wild free life of the cowboys. Sometimes he sent money home to his mother, but that was seldom, because he was always in debt. She wrote him regularly, which fact was the only link between him and the old home memories. Thought of Lucy returned now and then, on the lonely rides on night watches, and it seemed like a sweet melancholy dream. Never a word did he hear of her.

Spring had come again when he rode into the Panhandle, and as luck would have it he fell in with an outfit who were driving cattle to Montana, a job that would take until late fall. To his chagrin stories of his wildness had preceded him. Ill rumor travels swiftly. Pan was the more liked and respected by these riders. But he feared that gossip of the southern ranges would reach his mother. He would go home that fall to reassure her of his well-being, and that he was not one of those “bad, gun-throwing cowboys.”

But late fall found him cheated of his long summer’s wages, without money and job. He would not ride a “grub line” home, so he found a place with a rancher in Montana. He learned to hate the bleak ranges of that northern state, the piercing blasts of wind, the ice and snow. Spring saw him riding south toward his old stamping grounds. But always he was drifting, with the swift months flying by as fleet as the mustangs he rode, and he did not reach home. The Cimarron, the Platte, the Arkansas ranges came to know the tracks of his horses; and after he had drifted on, to remember him as few cowboys were remembered.

At twenty years of age Panhandle Smith looked older — looked the hard life, the hard fare, the hard companionship that had been his lot as an American cowboy. He had absorbed all the virtues of that remarkable character, and most of the vices. But he had always kept aloof from women. His comrades gave many forceful and humorous reasons for his apparent fear of the sex, but they never understood him. Pan never lost the reverence for women his mother had instilled in him, nor his first and only love for Lucy Blake.

One summer night Pan was standing night-guard duty for his cowboy comrade, who was enamored of the daughter of the rancher for whom they worked. Jim was terribly in love, and closely pressed by a rival from another outfit. This night was to be the crucial one.

Pan had to laugh at his friend. He was funny, he was pathetic, so prone to be cast down one moment and the next raised aloft to the skies, according to the whim of the capricious young lady. Many times Pan had ridden and worked with a boy afflicted with a similar malady.

This night, however, Pan had been conscious of encroaching melancholy. Perhaps it was a yearning for something he did not know how to define.

The night was strange, a sultry oppressive one, silent except for the uneasy lowing of the herd, a rumble of thunder from the dark rolling clouds. A weird yellow moon hung just above the horizon. The range spread away dark, lonely and wild. No wind stirred. The wolves and coyotes were quiet. All at once to Pan the whole world seemed empty. It was an unaccountable feeling. The open range, the solitude, the herd of cattle in his charge, the comrades asleep, the horses grazing round their pickets — these always sufficient things suddenly lost their magic potency. He divined at length that he was homesick. And by the time the lay watch was ended he had determined to quit his job and ride home.

CHAPTER FIVE

ON HIS WAY home Panhandle Smith rode across the old Limestone range that had been the scene of his first cowboy activities. It had not changed, although the cattle were not so numerous. Familiar as yesterday were the bogholes, where he and his partner — what was that cow-puncher’s name? — had spent so many toilsome days and nights.

Pan made camp on the rocky ford where a brook joined the Limestone. It was thirty miles to Littleton, farther to Las Animas, and his pack horse was tired. He cooked his meager meal, and unrolled his bed, and as on many a hundred other nights he lay down under the open sky. But his wakefulness was new. He could not get to sleep for long. The nearer he got home the stranger and deeper his thoughts.

Moving on next day he kept sharp lookout among the cattle for his father’s brand. But he saw no sign of it. At length, toward sunset, after passing thousands of cattle, he concluded in surprise that his father’s stock no longer ran this range. Too many homesteads and fences! He reached Littleton at dark. It had grown to be a sizable settlement. Pan treated himself to a room at the new hotel, and after supper went out to find somebody he knew. It was Saturday night and the town was full of riders and ranchers. He expected to meet an old acquaintance any moment, but to his further surprise he did not. Finally he went to Campbell’s store, long a fixture in the settlement of that country. John Campbell, huge of build, with his long beard and ruddy face, appeared exactly the same as when he used to give Pan a stick of candy. It did seem a long time, now. Campbell did not recognize him.

“Howdy, stranger, reckon you’ve got the best of me,” he replied to Pan’s question, and he sized up the tall lithe rider with curious and appreciating eyes.

“Now, John, you used to give me a stick of candy, every time I came to town,” said Pan, with a laugh.

“Wal, I done that for every Tom, Dick an’ Harry of a kid in this heah country,” returned the old man, stroking his beard. “But durn if I recollect you.”

“Panhandle Smith,” announced Pan, with just a little diffidence. Perhaps if he was not remembered personally he might have the good luck to be unknown in reputation.

“Wal — Pan, if ‘t ain’t you, by gosh!” ejaculated Campbell, cordially, and there was unmistakable welcome in his grip. “But no one here will ever recognize you. Say, you’ve sprung up. We’ve heerd a lot about you — nothin’ of late years, though, now I tax myself...Cowboy, you’ve seen some range life, if talk is true.”

“You mustn’t believe all you hear, Mr. Campbell,” replied Pan, with a smile. “I’d like to know about my dad and mother.”

“Wal, haven’t you heerd?” queried Campbell, hesitatingly.

“What?” flashed Pan, noting the other’s sudden change to gravity. “It’s two years and more since I got a letter from Mother. I wrote a couple of times, but she never answered.”

“You ought to have come home long ago,” said Campbell. “Your father lost his cattle. Old deal with Hardman that stood for years. Mebbe you never knowed about it. There are ranchers around here who swear Hardman drove sharp deals. Wal, your father sold the homestead an’ left. Reckon it’s been over a year.”

“Where’d they go?”

“Your pa never told me where, but I heerd afterward that he hit Hardman’s trail an’ went to western New Mexico. Marco is the name of the place. New country up there. Gold an’ silver minin’, some cattle outfits goin’ in, an lately I heerd of some big wild-hoss deals on.”

“Well,” exclaimed Pan, in profound amaze and sorrow at this news.

“It’s a wide-open frontier place, all right,” declared Campbell. “Some cowpuncher rode through here an’ talked about Marco. He said they stepped high, wide an’ handsome up there.”

“Why did Dad go?” asked Pan in wonder.

“Reckon I couldn’t say fer sure. But he was sore at Hardman, an’ the funny thing is he wasn’t sore till some time after Hardman left these parts. Mebbe he learned somethin’. An’ you can learn whatever it was if you hunt up them ranchers who once got stung by Hardman.”

“Ah-uh!” muttered Pan, thoughtfully. “Don’t know as I care to learn. Dad will tell me...Jim Blake, now, what become of him?”

“Jim, a while back, I reckon some years though after you left home, was foreman for Hardman’s outfit. An’ he went to Marco first. Reckon Hardman sent him up there to scout around.”

“Did Jim take his family along?” inquired Pan, pondering.

“No. But they left soon after. In fact, now I tax myself, several homesteaders from hereabouts went. There’s a boom over west, Pan, an’ this here country is gettin’ crowded.”

“Marco. How do you get there?”

“Wal, it’s on the old road to Californy.”

Pan went to the seclusion of his room, and there in the dark, sleepless, he knew the pangs of remorse. Without realizing the flight of years, always meaning to return home, to help father, mother, little sister, to take up again with his never-forgotten Lucy — he had allowed the wild life of the range to hold him too long. Excuses were futile. Suppose he had failed to save money — suppose he had become numbered among those whom his old schoolteacher had called “bad cowboys”! Pride, neglect, love of the range and new country, new adventure had kept him from doing his duty by his parents. That hour was indeed dark and shameful for Panhandle Smith. Instead of drowning his grief in drink, as would have been natural for a cowboy, he let it work its will upon him. He deserved the pangs of self-reproach, the futile wondering, the revived memories that roused longings stronger than that which had turned him on the homeward trail.

Next day Pan sold his outfit except the few belongings he cherished, and boarded a west-bound stage. Once on the way he recovered from his brooding mood and gradually awakened to the fact that he was riding to a new country, a new adventure — the biggest of his life — in which he must make amends to his mother, and to Lucy. Quite naturally he included Lucy in the little circle of beloved ones — Lucy, whom he had deserted for the open range, for pitching horses and running steers, for the dust and turmoil of the roundup, for the long day ride and the lonely night watch, for the gaming table, the bottle, the gun — for all that made life so thrilling to the American cowboy.

Riding by stage was not new to Pan, though he had never before taken more than a day’s journey. The stage driver, Jim Wells, was an old-timer. He had been a pony-express rider, miner, teamster and freighter, and now, grizzled and scarred he liked to perch upon the driver’s seat of the stage, chew tobacco and talk. His keen eyes took Pan’s measure in one glance.

“Pitch your bag up, cowboy, an’ climb aboard,” he said. “An’ what might your handle be?”

“Panhandle Smith,” replied Pan nonchalantly, “late of Sycamore Bend.”

“Wal, now, whar’d I hear thet name? I got a plumb good memory fer names an’ faces. ‘Pears I heerd thet name in Cheyenne, last summer...I got it. Cowpuncher named Panhandle rode down street draggin’ a bolt of red calico thet unwound an’ stampeded all the hosses. Might thet lad have happened to be you?”

“I reckon it might,” replied Pan, with a grin. “But if you know any more about me keep it under your sombrero, old-timer.”

“Haw! Haw!” roared Wells, slapping his knee. “By golly, I will if I can. There’s a funny old lady inside what’s powerful afeerd of bandits, an’ there’s a gurl. I seen her takin’ in your size an’ spurs, an’ thet gun you pack sort of comfortable like. An’ there’s a gambler, too, if I ever seen one. Reckon I’m agoin’ to enjoy this ride.”

After the next stop, where the travelers got dinner, Pan returned to the stage to find a young lady perched upon the driver’s seat. She had serious gray eyes and pale cheeks.

“I took your seat,” she said, shyly, “but there’s enough room.”

“Thanks, I’ll ride inside,” replied Pan.

“But if you don’t sit here — someone else might — and I — he—” she faltered, flushing a little.

“Oh, in that case, I’ll be glad to,” interrupted Pan, and climbed to the seat beside her. He had become aware of the appearance of a flashily dressed, hawk-eyed individual about to enter the stage. “Are you traveling alone?”

“No, thank you. Father is with me, but he never sees anything. I have been annoyed,” she replied.

The stage driver arrived, and surveyed the couple on the seat with a wink and a grin and a knowing look that quite embarrassed the young lady.

“Wal, now, this here stage drivin’ is gettin’ to be mighty fine,” he said, as he clambered up to the seat, and unwound the reins from the brake handle. “Lady, I reckon I seen you didn’t like ridin’ inside. Wal, you’ll shore be all right ridin’ between me an’ my young friend Panhandle Smith.”

“I think I will,” replied the girl, dimpling prettily. “My name is Emily Newman. I’m on my way with my father to visit relatives in California.”

Pan soon found it needful to make conversation, in order to keep the loquacious old stage driver from talking too much. He had told Miss Newman about Pan’s escapade with the red calico, and had launched upon another story about him, not funny at all to Pan, but one calculated to make conquest of a romancing young girl. Pan managed to shut Wells up, but too late. Miss Newman turned bright eyes upon Pan.

“Oh, of course, I saw you were a cowboy,” she said, dimpling again. “Those enormous spurs you wear! I wondered how you could walk.”

“These spurs? They’re nothing. I sleep in them,” replied Pan.

“Indeed. You’re not serious...Was that true about your riding round Cheyenne dragging yards and yards of red calico behind your horse?”

“Yes. It was silly of me. I fear I had been looking upon something beside calico that was red.”

“Oh, you mean red liquor?...You were — under its influence!”

“A little,” replied Pan laughing, yet not liking the turn of the conversation.

“I wouldn’t have guessed that you—” she added, without concluding what she meant to say. But her tone, her look, and the intimation conveyed a subtle flattery to Pan. It seemed that whenever he approached young women he always received similar impressions. That was seldom, for his encounters with girls were few and far between. He could not help feeling pleased, somehow embarrassed, and rather vaguely elated. He divined danger for him in these potent impressions. Without ever understanding why he had avoided friendships with girls.

“Miss Newman, cowboys as a rule aren’t worth much,” rejoined Pan, submerging his annoyance in good humor. “But at that they are not terrible liars like most of the stage drivers you meet.”

“Haw! Haw!” roared Jim Wells, cracking his long whip, as the stage bowled over the road. “He’s a modest young fellar, Miss, a most extraordinary kind of a cowboy.”

And so they bandied words and laughs from one to another, while the long white road stretched ahead, and rolled behind under the wheels. The girl was plainly curious, interested, fascinated. Old Jim, after the manner of westerners, was bent on making a conquest for Pan. And Pan, trying hard to make himself appear only an ordinary and quite worthless cowboy, succeeded only in giving an opposite impression.

The little lady rode three whole days on the driver’s seat between Pan and Wells. She made the hours flee. When the stage reached Las Vegas, she got off with her father and turned in the crowd to wave good-by. Her eyes were wistful with what might have been. They haunted Pan for days, over the mountain uplands and on and on. Pan cherished the experience. To him it had been just a chance meeting with a nice girl, but somehow it opened his eyes to what he had missed. The way of cowboys with girls was the one way in which he had been totally unfamiliar. What he had missed was not the dancing and flirting and courting that cowboys loved so well, but something he could not quite grasp. It belonged to the never-fading influence of his mother; and likewise it had some inscrutable association with little Lucy Blake. Little? Surely she could not be little now. She was a grown girl, a young woman like this Emily Newman, beautiful perhaps, with all the nameless charms women had for men. Pan grew conscious of a mounting eagerness to see Lucy, and each day during the ride across the desert the feeling augmented, and with it a bewilderment equally incomprehensible to him.

New Mexico was strange and new. He saw the desert through eyes intensified by emotion. He knew the plains from Montana to Texas. But this was different country, with its stretches of valley, its walls of red and yellow, its strange shafts of rock, its amber ranges, and far away on every horizon the dim purple and white of great peaks were magnificent.

The Mormon ranches were scattered along the few green valleys. Cattle were scarce, only a few herds dotting the endless sweeps of green sage and bleached grass. As he traveled farther westward, however, the numbers of wild horses increased until they ran into the thousands.

Horses had meant more to Pan than anything. In his wanderings up and down the western slope of the prairie land east of the Rockies he had often encountered wild horses, and had enjoyed many a chase after them. Every cowboy was a wild horse hunter, on occasions. If he had ridden these desert ranges, he would inevitably have become permanently a hunter and lover of wild horses. Moreover, Pan did not see why there would not be vastly more money in it than in punching cows. He grew charmed with the idea.

Western New Mexico at last! It appeared a continuation and a magnifying of all the color and wildness and vastness. Sand dunes and wastes of black lava, dry lake beds and cone-shaped extinct volcanoes, with the ragged crater mouths gaping, low ranges of yellow cedar-dotted hills, valleys of purple, and green forests on the mountain slopes — all these in endless variety were new to the cowboy of the plains. Water was conspicuous for its absence, though at long intervals of travel he crossed a stream. The homesteader, that hopeful and lonely pioneer, was as scarce as the streams.

One night, hours after dark, the stage rolled into Marco, with Pan one of five passengers. Sunset had overtaken them miles from their destination. At that time Pan thought the country wild and beautiful in the extreme. Darkness had soon blotted out the strange formations of colored rocks, the endless sweep of valley, the cold white peaks in the far distance.

Marco! How unusual the swelling of his heart! The long three-week ride had ended. The stage had rolled down a main street the like of which Pan had never even imagined. It was crude, rough, garish with lights and stark board fronts of buildings, and a motley jostling crowd of men; women, too, were not wanting in the throngs streaming up and down. Again it was Saturday night. Always it appeared Pan hit town on this of all nights. Noise and dust filled the air. Pan pulled down his bag, and mounted the board steps of the hotel the stage driver had announced.

If Pan had not been keenly strung, after long weeks, with the thought of soon seeing his mother, father, his little sister and Lucy, he would yet have been excited over this adventure beyond the Rockies.

Contrary to his usual habit of throwing his money to the winds like most cowboys, he had exercised rigid economy on this trip. Indeed, it was the first time he had ever done such a thing. He had between four and five hundred dollars, consisting of wages he had saved and the proceeds from the sale of his horses and outfit. There was no telling in what difficulties he might find his father and what need there might be for his money. So Pan took cheap lodgings, and patronized a restaurant kept by a Chinaman.

He chose a table at which sat a young man whose face and hands and clothes told of rough life in the open in contact with elemental things. Pan could catch such significance as quickly as he could the points of a horse. He belonged to that fraternity himself.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked, indicating the vacant chair.

“Help yourself, stranger,” was the reply, accompanied by an appraising glance from level quiet eyes.

“I’m sure hungry. How’s the chuck here?” went on Pan, seating himself.

“The Chink is a first rate cook an’ clean...Just come to town?”

“Yes,” replied Pan, and after giving his order to a boy waiter he turned to his companion across the table and continued. “And it took a darn long ride to get here. From Texas.”

“That so? Well, I come from western Kansas, just across the Texas line.”

“Been here long?”

“Reckon a matter of six months.”

“What’s your work, if you’ll excuse curiosity. I’m green, you see, and want to know.”

“I’ve been workin’ a minin’ claim. Gold.”

“Ah-huh!” replied Pan with quickened interest. “Sounds awful good to me. I never saw any gold but a few gold eagles, and they’ve sure been scarce enough.”

Pan’s frankness, and that something simple and careless about him, combined with his appearance, always created the best of impressions upon men.

His companion grinned across the table, as if he had shared Pan’s experience. “Reckon you needn’t tell me you’re a cowpuncher. I heard you comin’ before I saw you...My name’s Brown.”

“Howdy, glad to meet you,” replied Pan, and then with evident hesitation. “Mine is Smith.”

“Panhandle Smith?” queried the other, quickly.

“Why, sure,” returned Pan with a laugh.

“Shake,” was all the reply Brown made, except to extend a lean strong hand.

“I’m most as lucky as I am unlucky,” said Pan warmly. “It’s a small world...Now tell me, Brown, have you seen or heard anything of my dad, Bill Smith?”

“No, sorry to say. But I haven’t mingled much. Been layin’ pretty low, because the fact is I think I’ve struck a rich claim. An’ it’s made me cautious.”

“Ah-uh. Pretty wide open town, I’ll bet. I appreciate your confidence in me.”

“To tell you the truth I’m darn glad to run into some one from near home. Lord, I wish you could have brought word from my wife an’ baby.”

“Married, and got a kid. That’s fine. Boy or girl?”

“It’s a girl. I never saw her, as she was born after I left home. My wife wasn’t very well when she wrote last. She wants to come out here, but I can’t see that yet a while.”

“Well, wish I could have brought you news. It must be tough to be separated from your family. I’m not married, but I know what a little girl means...Say, Brown, did you ever run into a man out here named Jim Blake?”

“No.”

“Or a man named Hardman? Jard Hardman?”

“Hardman! Now you’re talkin’, Panhandle. I should smile I have,” replied Brown, with a flash of quiet eyes that Pan had learned to recognize as dangerous in men. His own pulse heightened. It was like coming suddenly on a track for which he had long been searching. The one word Hardman had struck fire from this young miner.

“What’s Hardman doing?” asked Pan quietly.

“Everythin’ an’ between you an’ me, he’s doin’ everybody. Jard Hardman is in everythin’. Minin’, ranchin’, an’ I’ve heard he’s gone in for this wild horse chasin’. That’s the newest boom around Marco. But Hardman has big interests here in town. It’s rumored he’s back of the Yellow Mine, the biggest saloon an’ gamblin’ hell in town.”

“Well, I’ll be doggoned,” ejaculated Pan thoughtfully. “Things turn out funny. You can show me that place presently. Does Hardman hang out here in Marco?”

“Part of the time. He travels to Frisco, Salt Lake, an’ St. Louis where he sells cattle an’ horses. He has a big ranch out here in the valley, an’ stays there some. His son runs the outfit.”

“His son?” queried Pan, suddenly hot with a flash of memory.

“Yes, his son,” declared Brown eyeing Pan earnestly. “Reckon you must know Dick Hardman?”

“I used to — long ago,” replied Pan, pondering. How far in the past that seemed! How vivid now in memory!

“Old Hardman makes the money an’ Dick blows it in,” went on Brown, with something of contempt in his voice. “Dick plays, an’ they say he’s a rotten gambler. He drinks like a fish, too. I don’t run around much in this burg, believe me, but I see Dick often. I heard he’d fetched a girl here from Frisco.”

“Ah-uh! Well, that’s enough about my old schoolmate, thank you,” rejoined Pan. “Tell me, Brown, what’s this Marco town anyway?”

“Well, it’s both old an’ new,” replied the other. “That’s about all, I reckon. Findin’ gold an’ silver out in the hills has made a boom this last year or so. That’s what fetched me. The town is twice the size it was when I saw it first, an’ many times more people. There’s a lot of these people, riffraff, that work these minin’ towns. Gamblers, sharks, claim jumpers, outlaws, adventurers, tramps, an’ of course the kind of women that go along with them. A good many cow outfits make this their headquarters now. An’ last, this horse tradin’, an’ wild horse catchin’. Sellin’ an’ shippin’ has attracted lots of men. Every day or so a new fellar, like you, drops in from east of the Rockies. There are some big mining men investigatin’ the claims. An’ if good mineral is found Marco will be solid, an’ not just a mushroom town.”

“Any law?” inquired Pan thoughtfully.

“Not so you’d notice it much, especially when you need it,” asserted Brown grimly. “Matthews is the town marshal. Self-elected so far as I could see. An’ he’s hand an’ glove with Hardman. He’s mayor, magistrate, sheriff, an’ the whole caboodle, includin’ the court. But there are substantial men here, who sooner or later will organize an’ do things. They’re too darned busy now workin’, gettin’ on their feet.”

“Ah-uh. I savvy. I reckon you’re giving me a hunch that in your private opinion Matthews isn’t exactly straight where some interests are concerned. Hardman’s for instance. I’ve run across that sort of deal in half a dozen towns.”

“You got me,” replied Brown, soberly. “But please regard that as my confidential opinion. I couldn’t prove it. This town hasn’t grown up to political corruption an’ graft. But it’s headed that way.”

“Well, I was lucky to run into you,” said Pan with satisfaction. “I’ll tell you why some other time. I’m pretty sure to stick here...Now let’s go out and see the town, especially the Yellow Mine.”

Pan had not strolled the length of the main street before he realized that there was an atmosphere here strangely unfamiliar to him. Yet he had visited some fairly wild and wide-open towns. But they had owed their wildness and excitement and atmosphere to the range and the omnipresent cowboy. Old-timers had told him stories of Abilene and Dodge, when they were in their heyday. He had gambled in the hells of Juárez, across the Texas border where there was no law. Some of the Montana cattle towns were far from slow, in cowboy vernacular. But here he sensed a new element. And soon he grasped it as the fever of the rush for gold. The excitement of it took hold of him, so that he had to reason with himself to shake it off.

The town appeared about a mile long, spread out on two sides of the main street, graduating from the big buildings of stone and wood in the center to flimsy frame structures and tents along the outskirts. Pan estimated that he must have passed three thousand people during his stroll, up one side of the street and down the other. Even if these made up the whole population it was enough to insure a good-sized town. There were no street lamps. And the many yellow lights from open doors and windows fell upon the throngs moving to and fro, in the street as well as on the sidewalks.

Pan’s guide eventually led him into the Yellow Mine.

He saw a long wide room full of moving figures, thin wreaths of blue smoke that floated in the glaring yellow lights. A bar ran the whole length of this room, and drinkers were crowded in front of it. The clink of glass, the clink of gold, the incessant murmur of hoarse voices almost drowned faint strains of music from another room that opened from this one.

The thousand and one saloons and gambling dives that Pan had seen could not in any sense compare with this one. This was on a big scale without restraint of law or order. Piles of gold and greenbacks littered the tables where roulette, faro, poker were in progress. Black garbed, pale hard-faced gamblers sat with long mobile hands on the tables. Bearded men, lean-faced youths bent with intent gaze over their cards. Sloe-eyed Mexicans in their high-peaked sombreros and gaudy trappings lounged here and there, watching, waiting — for what did not seem clear to Pan. Drunken miners in their shirt sleeves stamped through the open door, to or from the bar. An odor of whisky mingled with that of tobacco smoke. Young women with bare arms and necks and painted faces were in evidence, some alone, most of them attended by men.

The gambling games attracted Pan. Like all cowboys he had felt the fascination of games of chance. He watched the roulette wheel, then the faro games. In one corner of the big room, almost an alcove, Pan espied a large round table at which were seated six players engrossed in a game of poker. He saw thousands of dollars in gold and notes on that table. A pretty flashy girl with bold eyes and a lazy sleepy smile hung over the shoulder of one of the gamblers.

Pan’s comrade nudged him in the side.

“What? Where?” whispered Pan answering quickly to the suggestion and his glance swept everywhere.

Brown was gazing with gleaming eyes at the young card player over whose shoulder the white-armed girl hung.

Then Pan saw a face that was strangely familiar — a handsome face of a complexion between red and white, with large sensual mouth, bold eyes, and a broad low brow. The young gambler was Dick Hardman.

Pan knew him. The recognition meant nothing, yet it gave Pan a start, a twinge, and then sent a slow heat along his veins. He laughed to find the boyishness of old still alive in him. After eight years of hard life on the ranges! By that sudden resurging of long forgotten emotion Pan judged the nature of what the years had made him. It would be interesting to see how Dick Hardman met him.

But it was the girl who first seemed drawn by Pan’s piercing gaze. She caught it — then looked a second time. Sliding off the arms of Hardman’s chair she moved with undulating motion of her slender form, and with bright eyes, round the table toward Pan. And at that moment Dick Hardman looked up from his cards and watched her.

CHAPTER SIX

“HELLO, COWBOY. HOW’D I ever miss you?” she queried roguishly, running her bright eyes from his face down to his spurs and back again.

“Good evening, Lady,” replied Pan, removing his sombrero and bowing, with his genial smile. “I just come to town.”

She hesitated as if struck by a deference she was not accustomed to. Then she took his hands in hers and dragged him out a little away from Brown, whom she gave a curt nod. Again she looked Pan up and down.

“Did you take off that big hat because you know you’re mighty good to look at?” she asked, archly.

“Well, no, hardly,” answered Pan.

“What for then?”

“It’s a habit I have when I meet a pretty girl.”

“Thank you. Does she have to be pretty?”

“Reckon not. Any girl, Miss.”

“You are a stranger in Marco. Look out somebody doesn’t shoot a hole in that hat when you doff it.”

While she smiled up at him, losing something of the hawklike, possession-taking manner that had at first characterized her, Pan could see Dick Hardman staring hard across the table. Before Pan could find a reply for the girl one of the gamesters, an unshaven scowling fellow, addressed Hardman.

“Say, air you playin’ cairds or watchin’ your dame make up to that big hat an’ high boots?”

Pan grasped the opportunity, though he never would have let that remark pass under any circumstances. He disengaged his right hand from the girl’s, and stepping up to the table, drawing her with him, he bent a glance upon the disgruntled gambler.

“Excuse me, Mister,” he began in the slow easy cool speech of a cowboy, “but did you mean me?”

His tone, his presence, drew the attention of all at the table, especially the one he addressed, and Hardman. The former laid down his cards. Shrewd eyes took Pan’s measure, surely not missing the gun at his hip.

“Suppose I did mean you?” demanded the gambler, curiously.

“Well, if you did I’d have to break up your game,” replied Pan, apologetically. “You see, Mister, it hurts my feelings to have anyone make fun of my clothes.”

“All right, cowboy, no offense meant,” returned the other, at which everyone except Hardman, let out a laugh. “But you’ll break up our game anyhow, if you don’t trot off with Louise there.”

His further remark, dryly sarcastic, mostly directed at Hardman did not help the situation, so far as Pan was concerned. It was, however, exactly what Pan wanted. Dick stared insolently and fixedly at Pan. He appeared as much puzzled as annoyed. Manifestly he was trying to place Pan, and did not succeed. Pan had hardly expected to be recognized, though he stood there a moment, head uncovered, under the light, giving his old enemy eye for eye. In fact his steady gaze disconcerted Dick, who turned his glance on the amused girl. Then his face darkened and he spat out his cigar to utter harshly: “Go on, you cat! And don’t purr round me any more!”

Insolently she laughed in his face. “You forget I can scratch.” Then she drew Pan away from the table, beckoning for Brown to come also. Halting presently near the wide opening into the dance hall she said:

“I’m always starting fights. What might your name be, cowboy?”

“Well, it might be Tinkerdam, but it isn’t,” replied Pan nonchalantly.

“Aren’t you funny?” she queried, half-inclined to be affronted. But she thought better of it, and turned to Brown. “I know your face.”

“Sure you do, Miss Louise,” said Brown, easily. “I’m a miner. Was here when you came to town, an’ I often drop in to see the fun.”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Charley Brown, an’ that’s straight.”

“Thanks, Charley. Now tell me who’s this big good-looking pard of yours? I just want to know. You can’t fool me about men. He doffs his hat to me. He talks nice and low, and smiles as no men smile at me. Then he bluffs the toughest nut in this town...Who is he?”

“All right, I’ll introduce you,” drawled Brown. “Meet Panhandle Smith, from Texas.”

“Well,” she mused, fastening her hands in the lapels of his coat. “I thought you’d have a high-sounding handle...Will you dance with me?”

“Sure, but I’m afraid I step pretty high and wide.”

They entered another garish room, around which a throng of couples spun and wagged and tramped and romped. Pan danced with the girl, and despite the jostling of the heavy-footed miners acquitted himself in a manner he thought was creditable for him. He had not been one of the dancing cowboys.

“That was a treat after those clodhoppers,” she said, when the dance ended. “You’re a modest boy, Panhandle. You’ve got me guessing. I’m not used to your kind — out here...Let’s go have a drink. I’ve got to have whisky.”

That jarred somewhat upon Pan and, as she led him back to Brown and then both of them to an empty table, he began to grasp the significance of these bare-armed white-faced girls with their dark-hollowed eyes and scarlet lips.

She drank straight whisky, and it was liquor that burned Pan like fire. Brown, too, made a wry face.

“Panhandle, are you going to stay here in Marco?” she inquired, leaning on her white round arms.

“Yes, if I find my folks,” he replied simply. “They lost all they had — ranch, cattle, horses — and moved out here. I never knew until I went back home. Makes me feel pretty mean. But Dad was doing well when I left home.”

“Mother — sister, too?”

“Yes. And my sister Alice must be quite a girl now,” mused Pan.

“And you’re going to help them?” she asked softly.

“I should smile,” said Pan feelingly.

“Then, you mustn’t buy drinks for me — or run after me — as I was going to make you do.”

Pan was at a loss for a reply to that frank statement. And as he gazed at her, conscious of a subtle change, someone pounded him on the back and then fell on his neck.

“My Gawd — if heah ain’t Panhandle!” burst out a husky voice.

Pan got up as best he could, and pulled free from the fellow. The voice had prepared Pan for an old acquaintance, and when he saw that lean red face and blue eyes he knew them.

“Well, I’ll be darned. Blinky Moran! You son of a gun! Drunk — the same as when I saw you last.”

“Aw, Pan, I ain’t jes drunk,” he replied. “Mebbe I was — but shein’ you — ole pard — my Gawd! It’s like cold sweet water on my hot face.”

“Blink, I’m sure glad to see you, drunk or sober,” replied Pan warmly. “What’re you doing out here?”

Moran braced himself, not without the help of his hold upon Pan, and it was evident that this meeting had roused him.

“Pan, meet my pard heah,” he began, indicating a stalwart young man in overalls and high boots. “Gus Hans, puncher of Montana.”

Pan shook hands with the grinning cowboy.

“Pard, yore shakin’ the paw of Panhandle Smith,” announced Moran in solemn emotion. “This heah’s the boy, frens. You’ve heerd me rave many’s the time. He was my pard, my bunkmate, my brother. We rode the Cimarron together, an’ the Arkansaw, an’ we was the only straight punchers in the Long Bar C outfit that was drove out of Wyomin’...His beat never forked a hoss or coiled a rope. An’ shorer’n hell, pard, I’d been a rustler but fer Panhandle. More’n onct he throwed his gun fer me an—”

“Say, Blink, I’ll have to choke you,” interrupted Pan, laughing. “Now, you meet my friends here, Miss Louise — and Charley Brown.”

Pan did not miss the effect the bright-eyed red-lipped girl made upon the cowboys, especially Moran who, he remembered, had always succumbed easily to feminine charms.

“Blinky, you’ve been drinking too much to dance with a lady,” presently remarked Louise.

“Wal, now, Miss, I’m as sober as Panhandle there,” replied Moran ardently.

She shook her curly head smilingly and, rising from the table, went round to Pan and leaned up to him with both wistfulness and recklessness in her face.

“Panhandle Smith, I’ll leave you to your friends,” she said. “But don’t you drift in here again — for if you do — I’ll forget my sacrifice for little Alice...There!”

She kissed him square on the lips and ran off without a backward glance.

Blinky fell into a chair, overcome with some unusual kind of emotion. He stared comically at Pan.

“Say, ole pard, you used to be shy of skirts!” he expostulated.

“Reckon I am yet, for all the evidence,” retorted Pan, half amused and half angry at the unexpected move of the girl.

Charley Brown joined in the mirth at Pan’s expense.

“Guess the drinks are on me,” he said. “And they’ll be the last.”

“Pan, thet there girl is Louie Melliss!” ejaculated Moran.

“Is it? Well, who in the deuce is she?”

“Say, cowboy, quit your foolin’!”

“Honest, I never saw or heard of the young lady till a few minutes ago. Ask Brown.”

“That’s a fact,” corroborated Brown, thus appealed to. “She’s the belle of this hell. Sure, Smith, you savvy that?”

“No,” rejoined Pan bluntly. He began to fear he had been rather thickheaded. “I’ve holed up in a few gambling hells where drinks and scraps went pretty lively. But this is the first one for me where there were a lot of half-naked girls.”

“You’re west of the Rockies, now,” replied Brown, grimly. “An’ you’ll soon find that out in more ways than one...Louie Melliss is straight from Frisco, an’ chain-lightnin’ to her fingertips, so they say. Been some bad messes over her. But they say too, she’s as white an’ square as any good woman.”

“Aw!...Reckon I’m pretty much of a tenderfoot,” returned Pan. His regret was for the pretty audacious girl whose boldness of approach he had not understood.

“For Gawd’s sake, pard,” began Moran, recovering from his shock. “Don’t you come ridin’ around heah fer thet little devil to get stuck on you. She’s shore agoin’ to give young Hardman a bootiful trimmin’. An’ let her do it!”

“Oh. So you don’t care much about young Hardman?” inquired Pan with interest. He certainly felt that he was falling into news.

“I’d like to throw a gun on him an’ onct I damn near done it,” declared Moran.

“What for?”

“He an’ another fellar jumped the only claim I ever struck thet showed any color,” went on the cowboy with an earnestness that showed excitement had sobered him. “I went back one mawnin’ an’ there was Hardman an’ a miner named Purcell. They ran me off, swore it was their claim. Purcell said he’d worked it before an’ sold it to Jard Hardman. Thet’s young Hardman’s dad, an’ he wouldn’t fit in any square hole. I went to Matthews an’ raised a holler. But I couldn’t prove nothin’...An’ by Gawd, Pan, thet claim is a mine now, payin’ well.”

“Tough luck, Blink. You always did have the darndest luck...Say, Brown, is that sort of deal worked often?”

“Common as dirt, in the early days of a find,” replied Brown. “I haven’t heard of any claim jumpin’ just lately, though. It’s somethin’ like rustlin’ cattle. You know most every cowman now and then picks up some unbranded stock that he knows isn’t his. But he takes it along. Now claim jumpin’ is somethin’ like that. If a fellar leaves his claim for a day or a week he’s liable to come back an’ find some one has jumped it. I never leave mine in the daytime, an’ I have witnesses to that.”

“Blinky, I came out here to find my dad,” said Pan. “Have you ever run across him?”

“Nope. Never heerd of him. I’d shore have asked aboot you.”

“How am I going to find out quick if Dad is here, and where?”

“Easy as pie. Go to the stage office, where they get the mail an’ express. Matty Smith has been handlin’ thet since this heah burg was a kid in short dresses.”

“Good. I’ll go the first thing in the morning...Now, you little knock-kneed, bow-legged two-bit cowpuncher! What’re you doing with those things on your boots?”

“Huh! What things?” queried Moran.

“Why, those long shiny things that jingle when you walk.”

“Haw! Haw!...Say, Pan, I might ask you the same. What you travel with them spurs on your boots fer?”

“I tried traveling without them, but I couldn’t feel that I was moving.”

“Wal, by gum, I been needin’ mine. Ask Gus there. We’ve been wranglin’ wild hosses. Broomtails they calls them heah. We’ve been doin’ pretty good. Hardman an’ Wiggate pay twelve dollars an’ four bits a hoss on the hoof. Right heah in Marco. We could get more if we could risk shippin’ to St. Louis. But thet’s a hell of a job. Long ways to the railroad, an’ say, mebbe drivin’ them broomies isn’t tough! Then two of us anyhow would have to go on the freight train with the hosses. Shore we cain’t figger it thet way now. But later when we ketch a thousand haid we may try it.”

“A thousand head! Blinky, are you still on the ground? You’re talkin’ fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Shore. An’ I’m tellin’ you, Pan, thet we can make it. But ketchin’ these wild hosses in any number hasn’t been done yet. Hardman has an outfit ridin’. But them fellars couldn’t get away from their own dust. We’re not so blame swift, either. S’pose you throw in with us, Pan. You’ve chased wild hosses.”

“Not such an awful lot, Blink. That game depends on the lay of the land.”

“Shore. An’ it lays bad in these parts. Will you throw in with us? An’ have you got any money?”

“Yes to both questions, old-timer. But I’ve got to find Dad before I get careless with my money. Where are you boys staying?”

“We got a camp just out of town. We eat at the Chink’s when we’re heah, an’ thet’s every few days. We got lots of room an’ welcome for you, but no bedroll.”

“I’ll buy an outfit in the morning and throw in with you...Hello, there’s shooting. Gun play. Let’s get out of this place where there’s more room and air.”

With that they, and many others, left the hall and joined the moving crowd in the street. The night was delightfully cool. Stars shone white in a velvet sky. The dry wind from mountain and desert blew in their faces. Pan halted at the steps of the hotel.

“Blink, I’m going to turn in. Call for me in the morning. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I ran into you boys. And you, too, Brown. I’d like to see more of you.”

They shook hands and parted. Pan entered the hotel, and sat a while in the bare smoky lobby, where sharp-eyed men and women passed him by with one look at his cowboy attire. They were seeking bigger game. Pan experienced a strange excitation in the hour, in the place.

When he went to his room he was not sleepy. “Lucky to meet those boys,” he soliloquized, as he undressed. “Now to find Dad — Mother — Alice! Lord, I hope all’s well with them. But I’ve a feeling it isn’t...And Lucy! I wonder will she be here too. Will she recognize me? I’ll bet a million she does. Funny about Dick Hardman. Never knew me. Didn’t he look, though?...And that girl Louise. She had to laugh and talk all the time to hide the sadness of her face...At that, she’s too good for Dick Hardman...I’ll bet another million he and I clash again.”

Pan was up bright and early, enjoying the keen desert air, and the vast difference between Marco at night and at dawn. The little spell of morbid doubt and worry that had settled upon him did not abide in the clear rosy light of day. Hope and thrill resurged in him.

Blinky and his partner soon appeared, and quarreled over which should carry Pan’s baggage out to their quarters. Pan decidedly preferred the locality to that he had just left. The boys had a big tent set up on a framework of wood, an open shed which they used as a kitchen, and a big corral. The site was up on a gradual slope, somewhat above the town, and rendered attractive by a small brook and straggling cedars. They had a Mexican cook who was known everywhere as Lying Juan. Pan grasped at once that he would have a lot of fun with Juan.

The boys talked so fast they almost neglected to eat their breakfast. They were full of enthusiasm, which fact Pan could not but see was owing to his arrival. It amused him. Moran, like many other cowboys, had always attributed to Pan a prowess and character he felt sure were undeserved. Yet it touched him.

“Wal, ole-timer, we’ll rustle now,” finally said Moran. “We’ve got aboot fifty broomies out heah in a canyon. We’ll drive ’em in today, an’ also some saddle hosses for you.”

“I’ll buy a horse,” interposed Pan.

“You’ll do nothin’ of the sort,” declared Blinky stoutly. “Ain’t we got a string of hosses, an’ there shore might be one of them good enough even for Panhandle Smith. But you want a saddle. There’s one in Black’s store. It’s Mexican, an’ a blamed good one. Cheap, too.”

Gus came trotting up on a spirited sorrel, leading two other well-pointed horses, saddled, champing their bits. Sight of them was good for Pan’s eyes. He would never long have been happy away from horses. Moran leaped astride one of them, and then said, hesitatingly:

“Pard, shore hope you hev good luck findin’ your dad.”

Pan watched them ride away down the slope to the road, and around a bend out of sight. It was wonderful country that faced him, cedar, piñon and sage, colored hills and flats, walls of yellow rock stretch away, and dim purple mountains all around. If his keen eyes did not deceive him there was a bunch of wild horses grazing on top of the first hill.

“Juan, are there lots of wild horses?” he asked the Mexican cook. And presently he came into knowledge of the justice of the name “Lying Juan.” Pan had met some great liars in his life on the range, but if Juan could do any better than this he would be the champion of them all.

Pan shaved, put on a clean flannel shirt and new scarf, and leaving his coat behind he strode off toward the town. The business of the day had begun, and there was considerable bustle. Certainly Marco showed no similarity to a cattle town. Somebody directed him to the stage and express office, a plain board building off the main street. Three men lounged before it, one on the steps, and the others against the hitching-rail. Pan took them in before they paid any particular attention to him.

“Morning, gents,” he said, easily. “Is the agent Smith around?”

“Howdy, stranger,” replied one of them, looking Pan over. “Smith just stepped over to the bank. He’ll be back pronto.”

Another of the group straightened up to run a hard gray eye from Pan’s spurs to his sombrero, and back for a second glance at his low hanging gun. He was a tall man, in loose tan garments, trousers stuffed in his boots. He had a big sandy mustache. He moved to face Pan, and either by accident or design the flap of his coat fell back to expose a bright silver shield on his vest.

“Reckon you’re new in these parts?” he queried.

“Yep. Just rode in,” replied Pan cheerfully.

“See you’re packin’ hardware,” went on the other, with significant glance at Pan’s gun.

Pan at once took this man to be Matthews, the town marshal mentioned by Charley Brown. He had not needed Brown’s hint; he had encountered many sheriffs of like stripe. Pan, usually the kindliest and most genial of cowboys, returned the sheriff’s curious scrutiny with a cool stare.

“Am I packing a gun?” rejoined Pan, with pretended surprise, as he looked down at his hip. “Sure, so I am. Clean forgot it, Mister. Habit of mine.”

“What’s a habit?” snapped the other.

Pan now shot a straight level gaze into the hard gray eyes of the sheriff. He knew he was going to have dealings with this man, and the sooner they began the better.

“Why, my packing a gun — when I’m in bad company,” said Pan.

“Pretty strong talk, cowboy, west of the Rockies...I’m Matthews, the town marshal.”

“I knew that, and I’m right glad to meet you,” rejoined Pan pertly. He made no move to meet the half-proffered hand, and his steady gaze disconcerted the marshal.

Another man came briskly up, carrying papers in his hand.

“Are you the agent, Mr. Smith?” asked Pan.

“I am thet air, young fellar.”

“Can I see you a moment, on business?”

“Come right in.” He ushered Pan into his office and shut the door.

“My name’s Smith,” began Pan hurriedly. “I’m hunting for my dad...Bill Smith. Do you know him — if he’s in Marco?”

“Bill Smith’s cowboy! Wal, put her thar,” burst out the other, heartily, shoving out a big hand. His surprise and pleasure were marked. “Know Bill? Wal, I should smile. We’re neighbors an’ good friends.”

Pan was so overcome by relief and sudden joy that he could not speak for a moment, but he wrung the agent’s hand.

“Wal, now, sort of hit you in the gizzard, hey?” he queried, with humor and sympathy. He released his hand and put it on Pan’s shoulder. “I’ve heard all about you, cowboy. Bill always talked a lot — until lately. Reckon he’s deep hurt thet you never wrote.”

“I’ve been pretty low-down,” replied Pan with agitation. “But I never meant to be...I just drifted along...Always I was going back home soon. But I didn’t. And I haven’t written home for two years.”

“Wal, forget thet now, son,” said the agent kindly. “Boys will be boys, especially cowboys. You’ve been a wild one, if reports comin’ to Bill was true...But you’ve come home to make up to him. Lord knows he needs you, boy.”

“Yes — I’ll make it — up,” replied Pan, trying to swallow his emotion. “Tell me.”

“Wal, I wish I had better news to tell,” replied Smith, gravely shaking his head. “Your dad’s had tough luck. He lost his ranch in Texas, as I reckon you know, an’ he follered — the man who’d done him out here to try to make him square up. Bill only got a worse deal. Then he got started again pretty good an’ lost out because of a dry year. Now he’s workin’ in Carter’s Wagon Shop. He’s a first-rate carpenter. But his wages are small, an’ he can’t never get no where. He’s talked some of wild-hoss wranglin’. But thet takes an outfit, which he ain’t got. I’ll give you a hunch, son. If you can stake your dad to an outfit an’ throw in with him you might give him another start.”

Pan had on his tongue an enthusiastic reply to that, but the entrance of the curious Matthews halted him.

“Thank you, Mr. Smith,” he said, eagerly. “Where’ll I find Carter’s Wagon Shop?”

“Other end of town. Right down Main Street. You can’t miss it.”

Pan hurried out, and through the door he heard Matthews’ loud voice:

“Carter’s Wagon Shop!...By thunder, I’ve got the hunch! That cowboy is Panhandle Smith!”

Pan smiled grimly to himself, as he passed on out of hearing. The name and fame that had meant so little to him back on the prairie ranges might stand him in good stead out here west of the Rockies. He strode swiftly, his thought reverting to his father. He wanted to run. Remorse knocked at his heart. Desertion! He had gone off, like so many cowboys, forgetting home, father, mother, duty. They had suffered. Never a word of it had come to him.

The way appeared long, and the line of stone houses and board shacks, never ending. At last he reached the outskirts of Marco and espied the building and sign he was so eagerly seeking. Resounding hammer strokes came from the shop. Outward coolness, an achievement habitual with him when excitement mounted to a certain stage, came with effort and he paused a moment to gaze at the sweeping country, green and purple, dotted by gray rocks, rising to hills gold with autumn colors. His long journey was at an end. In a moment more anxiety would be a thing of the past. Let him only see his father actually in the flesh!

Pan entered the shop. It was open, like any other wagon shop with wood scattered about, shavings everywhere, a long bench laden with tools, a forge. Then he espied a man wielding a hammer on a wheel. His back was turned. But Pan knew him. Knew that back, that shaggy head beginning to turn gray, knew even the swing of arm! He approached leisurely. The moment seemed big, splendid.

“Howdy, Dad,” he called, at the end of one of the hammer strokes.

His father’s lax figure stiffened. He dropped the wheel, then the hammer. But not on the instant did he turn. His posture was strained, doubtful. Then he sprang erect, and whirled. Pan saw his father greatly changed, but how it was impossible to grasp because his seamed face was suddenly transformed.

“For the good — Lord’s sake — if it ain’t Pan!” he gasped.

“It sure is, Dad. Are you glad to see me?”

“Glad!...Reckon this’ll save your mother’s life!” and to Pan’s amaze he felt himself crushed in his father’s arms. That sort of thing had never been Bill Smith’s way. He thrilled to it, and tried again to beat back the remorse mounting higher. His father released him, and drew back, as if suddenly ashamed of his emotion. His face, which he had been trying to control, smoothed out.

“Wal, Pan, you come back now — after long ago I gave up hopin’?” he queried, haltingly.

“Yes, Dad,” began Pan with swift rush of words. “I’m sorry. I always meant to come home. But one thing and another prevented. Then I never heard of your troubles. I never knew you needed me. You didn’t write. Why didn’t you tell me?...But forget that. I rode the ranges — drifted with the cowboys — till I got homesick. Now I’ve found you — and well, I want to make up to you and mother.”

“Ah-huh! Sounds like music to me,” replied Smith, growing slow and cool. He eyed Pan up and down, walked round him twice. Then he suddenly burst out, “Wal, you long-legged strappin’ son of a gun! If sight of you ain’t good for sore eyes!...Ah-huh! Look where he packs that gun!”

With slow strange action he reached down to draw Pan’s gun from its holster. It was long and heavy, blue, with a deadly look. The father’s intent gaze moved from it up to the face of the son. Pan realized what his father knew, what he thought. The moment was sickening for Pan. A cold shadow, forgotten for long, seemed to pass through his mind.

“Pan, I’ve kept tab on you for years,” spoke his father slowly, “but I’d have heard, even if I hadn’t took pains to learn...Panhandle Smith! You damned hard-ridin’, gun-throwin’ son of mine!...Once my heart broke because you drifted with the wild cowpunchers — but now — by God, I believe I’m glad.”

“Dad, never mind range talk. You know how cowboys brag and blow...I’m not ashamed to face you and mother. I’ve come clean, Dad.”

“But, son, you’ve — you’ve used that gun!” whispered Smith, hoarsely.

“Sure I have. On some two-legged coyotes an’ skunks...And maybe greasers. I forget.”

“Panhandle Smith!” ejaculated his father, refusing to take the matter in Pan’s light vein. “They know here in Marco...You’re known, Pan, here west of the Rockies.”

“Well, what of it?” flashed Pan, suddenly gripped again by that strange cold emotion in the depths of him. “I should think you’d be glad. Reckon it was all good practice for what I’ll have to do out here.”

“Don’t talk that way. You’ve read my mind,” replied Smith, huskily. “I’m afraid. I’m almost sorry you came. Yet, right now I feel more of a man than for years.”

“Dad, you can tell me everything some other time,” rejoined Pan, throwing off the sinister spell. “Now, I only want to know about Mother and Alice.”

“They’re well an’ fine, son, though your mother grieves for you. She never got over that. An’ Alice, she’s a big girl, goin’ to school an’ helpin’ with work...An’ Pan, you’ve got a baby brother nearly two years old.”

“Jumping cowbells!” shouted Pan, in delight. “Where are they? Tell me quick.”

“We live on a farm a mile or so out. I rent it for most nothin’. Hall, who owns it, has a big ranch. I’ve got an option on this farm, an’ it shore is a bargain. Hundred an’ ten acres, most of it cultivated. Good water, pasture, barn, an’ nice little cabin. I work here mornin’s, an’ out there afternoons. You’ll—”

“Stop talking about it. I’ll buy the farm,” interrupted Pan. “But where is it?”

“Keep right out this road. Second farmhouse,” said his father, pointing to the west. “I’d go with you, but I promised some work. But I’ll be home at noon...Hey, hold on. There’s more to tell. You’ll get a — a jolt. Wait.”

But Pan rushed on out of the shop, and took to the road with the stride of a giant. To be compelled to walk, when if he had had his horse he could ride that mile in two minutes! His heart was beating high. Mother! Grieving for me. Alice a big girl. And a baby boy! This is too good for a prodigal like me.

All else he had forgotten for the moment. Shadows of memories overhung his consciousness, striving for entrance, but he denied them. How shaken his father had been at sight of him! Poor old Dad! And then what was the significance of all that talk about his range name, Panhandle Smith, and his father’s strange fascinated handling of Pan’s gun? Would his mother know him at first glance? Oh! no doubt of that! But Alice would not; she had been a child; and he had grown, changed.

While his thoughts raced he kept gazing near and far. The farm land showed a fair degree of cultivation. Grassy hills shone in the bright morning sun; high up, flares of gold spoke eloquently of aspen thickets tinged by the frost; purple belts crossing the mountains told of forests. The wall of rock that he had observed from Moran’s camp wound away over the eastern horizon. A new country it was, a fair and wild country, rugged and hard on the uplands, suitable for pasture and cultivation in the lowlands.

Pan passed the first farmhouse. Beyond that he could make out only a green patch, where he judged lay the home he was hunting. His buoyant step swallowed up the rods. Cattle and horses grazed in a pasture. The road turned to the right, round the slope of a low hill. Pan’s quick eye caught a column of curling blue smoke that rose from a grove of trees. The house would be in there. Pasture, orchard, cornfield, ragged and uncut, a grove of low trees with thick foliage, barns and corrals he noted with appreciative enthusiasm. The place did not have the bareness characteristic of a ranch.

At last Pan reached the wagon gate that led into the farm. It bordered an orchard of fair-sized trees, the leaves of which were colored. He cut across the orchard so as to reach the house more quickly. It was still mostly hidden among the trees. Smell of hay, of fruit, of the barnyard assailed his nostrils. And then the fragrance of wood smoke and burning leaves! His heart swelled full high in his breast. He could never meet his mother with his usual cool easy nonchalance.

Suddenly he espied a woman through the trees. She was quite close. He almost ran. No, it could not be his mother. This was a girl, lithe, tall, swift stepping. His mother had been rather short and stout. Could this girl be his sister Alice? The swift supposition was absurd, because Alice was only about ten, and this girl was grown. She had a grace of motion that struck Pan. He hurried around some trees to intercept her, losing sight of her for a moment.

Suddenly he came out of the shade to confront her, face to face in the open sunlight. She uttered a cry and dropped something she had been carrying.

“Don’t be scared, Miss,” he said, happily. “I’m no tramp, though I did rant in like a trespasser. I want to find Mrs. Bill Smith. I’m—”

But Pan got no farther. The girl had reason to be scared, but should her hands fly to her bosom like that, and press there as if she had been hurt. He must have frightened her. And he was about to stammer his apologies and make himself known, when the expression on her face struck him mute. Her healthy golden skin turned white. Her lips quivered, opened. Then her eyes — their color was violet and something about them seemed to stab Pan. His mind went into a deadlock — seemed to whirl — and to flash again into magnified thoughts.

“Pan! Pan!” she cried, and moved toward him, her eyes widening, shining with a light he had never seen in another woman’s.

“Pan! Don’t you — know me?”

“Sure — but I don’t know who you are,” Pan muttered in bewilderment.

“I’m Lucy!...Oh, Pan — you’ve come back,” she burst out, huskily, with a deep break in her voice.

She seemed to leap toward him — into the arms he flung wide, as with tremendous shock he recognized her name, her voice, her eyes. It was a moment beyond reason...He was crushing her to his breast, kissing her in a frenzy of sudden realization of love. Lucy! Lucy! Little Lucy Blake, his baby, his child sweetheart, his schoolmate! And the hunger of the long lonely years, never realized, leaped to his lips now.

She flung her arms round his neck, and for a few moments gave him kiss for kiss. Then suddenly she shivered and her head fell forward on his breast.

Pan held her closely, striving for self-control. And he gazed out into the trees with blurred eyes. What a home-coming! Lucy, grown into a tall beautiful girl who had never forgotten him. He was shaken to his depths by the revelation that now came to him. He had always loved Lucy! Never anyone else, never knowing until this precious moment! What a glorious trick for life to play him. He held her, wrapped her closer, bent his face to her fragrant hair. It was dull gold now. Once it had been bright, shiny, light as the color of grass on the hill. He kissed it, conscious of unutterable gratitude and exaltation.

She stirred, put her hands to his breast and broke away from him, tragic eyed, strange.

“Pan, I — I was beside myself,” she whispered. “Forgive me...Oh, the joy of seeing you. It was too much...Go to your mother. She — will—”

“Yes, presently, but Lucy, don’t feel badly about this — about my not recognizing you at once,” he interrupted, in glad swift eagerness. “How you have grown! Changed!...Lucy, your hair is gold now. My little white-headed kid! Oh, I remember. I never forgot you that way. But you’re so changed — so — so — Lucy, you’re beautiful...I’ve come back to you. I always loved you. I didn’t know it as I do now, but I’ve been true to you. Lucy, I swear...I’m Panhandle Smith and as wild as any of that prairie outfit. But, darling, I’ve been true to you — true...And I’ve come back to love you, to make up for absence, to take care of you — marry you. Oh, darling, I know you’ve been true to me — you’ve waited for me.”

Rapture and agony both seemed to be struggling for the mastery over Lucy. Pan suddenly divined that this was the meaning of her emotion.

“My God!” she whispered, finally, warding him off. “Don’t you know — haven’t you heard?”

“Nothing. Dad didn’t mention you,” replied Pan hoarsely, fighting an icy sickening fear. “What’s wrong?”

“Go to your mother. Don’t let her wait. I’ll see you later.”

“But Lucy-”

“Go. Give me a little while to — to get hold of myself.”

“Are — are you married?” he faltered.

“No-no — but—”

“Don’t you love me?”

She made no reply, except to cover her face with shaking hands. They could not hide the betraying scarlet.

“Lucy, you must love me,” he rushed on, almost incoherently. “You gave yourself away...It lifted me — changed me. All my life I’ve loved you, though I never realized it...Your kisses — they made me know myself...But, my God, say that you love me!”

“Yes, Pan, I do love you,” she replied, quietly, lifting her eyes to his. Again the rich color fled.

“Then, nothing else matters,” cried Pan. “Whatever’s wrong, I’ll make right. Don’t forget that. I’ve much to make up for...Forgive me for this — this — whatever has hurt you so. I’ll go now to Mother and see you later. You’ll stay?”

“I live here with your people,” replied Lucy and walked away through the trees.

“Something wrong!” muttered Pan, as he watched her go. But the black fear of he knew not what could not stand before his consciousness of finding Lucy, of seeing her betray her love. Doubt lingered, but his glad heart downed that too. He was home. What surprise and joy to learn that it was also Lucy’s home! He stifled his intense curiosity and longing. He composed himself. He walked a little under the trees. He thought of the happiness he would bring his mother, and Alice. In a few moments he would make the acquaintance of his baby brother.

Flowers that he recognized as the favorites of his mother bordered the sandy path around the cabin. The house had been constructed of logs and later improved with a frame addition, unpainted, weather stained, covered with vines. A cozy little porch, with wide eaves and a windbreak of vines, faced the south. A rude homemade rocking chair sat on the porch; a child’s wooden toys also attested to a carpenter’s skill Pan well remembered. He heard a child singing, then a woman’s mellow voice.

Pan drew a long breath and took off his sombrero. It had come — the moment he had long dreamed of. He stepped loudly upon the porch, so that his spurs jangled musically, and he knocked upon the door frame.

“Who’s there?” called the voice again. It made Pan’s heart beat fast. In deep husky tones he replied:

“Just a poor starved cowboy, Ma’am, beggin’ a little grub.”

“Gracious me!” she exclaimed, and her footsteps thudded on the floor inside.

Pan knew his words would fetch her. Then he saw her come to the door. Years, trouble, pain had wrought their havoc, but he would have known her at first sight among a thousand women.

“Mother!” he called, poignantly, and stepped toward her, with his arms out.

She seemed stricken. The kindly eyes changed, rolled. Her mouth opened wide. She gasped and fainted in his arms.

A little while later, when she had recovered from the shock and the rapture of Pan’s return, they sat in the neat little room.

“Bobby, don’t you know your big brother?” Pan was repeating to the big-eyed boy who regarded him so solemnly. Bobby was fascinated by this stranger, and at last was induced to approach his knee.

“Mother, I reckon you’ll never let Bobby be a cowboy,” teased Pan, with a smile.

“Never,” she murmured fervently.

“Well, he might do worse,” went on Pan thoughtfully. “But we’ll make a plain rancher of him, with a leaning to horses. How’s that?”

“I’d like it, but not in a wild country like this,” she replied.

“Reckon we’d do well to figure on a permanent home in Arizona, where both summers and winters are pleasant. I’ve heard a lot about Arizona. It’s a land of wonderful grass and sage ranges, fine forests, canyons. We’ll go there, some day.”

“Then, Pan, you’ve come home to stay?” she asked, with agitation.

“Yes, Mother,” he assured her, squeezing the worn hand that kept reaching to touch him, as if to see if he were real. Then Bobby engaged his attention. “Hey, you rascal, let go. That’s my gun...Bad sign, Mother. Bobby’s as keen about a gun as I was over a horse...There, Bobby, now it’s safe to play with...Mother, there’s a million things to talk about. But we’ll let most of them go for the present. You say Alice is in school. When will she be home?”

“Late this afternoon. Pan,” she went on, hesitatingly, “Lucy Blake lives with us now.”

“Yes, I met Lucy outside,” replied Pan, drawing a deep breath. “But first about Dad. I didn’t take time to talk much with him. I wanted to see you...Is Dad well in health?”

“He’s well enough. Really he does two men’s work. Worry drags him down.”

“We’ll cheer him up. At Littleton I heard a little about Dad’s bad luck. Now you tell me everything.”

“There’s little to tell,” she replied, sadly. “Your father made foolish deals back in Texas, the last and biggest of which was with Jard Hardman. There came a bad year — anno seco, the Mexicans call it. Failure of crops left your father ruined. He lost the farm. He found later that Hardman had cheated him out of his cattle. We followed Hardman out here. Our neighbors, the Blakes had come ahead of us. Hardman not only wouldn’t be square about the cattle deal but he knocked your father out again, just as he had another start. In my mind it was worse than the cattle deal. We bought a homestead from a man named Sprague. His wife wanted to go home to Missouri. This homestead had water, good soil, some timber, and an undeveloped mining claim that turned out well. Then along comes Jard Hardman with claims, papers, witnesses, and law back of him. He claimed to have gotten possession of the homestead from the original owner. It was all a lie. But they put us off...Then your father tried several things that did not pan out. Now we’re here — and he has to work in the wagon shop to pay the rent.”

“Ah-huh!” replied Pan, relieving his oppressed breast with an effort. “And now about Lucy. How does it come she’s living with you?”

“She had no home, poor girl,” replied his mother, hastily. “She came out here with her father and uncle. Her mother died soon after you left us. Jim Blake had interests with Hardman back in Texas. He talked big — and drank a good deal. He and Hardman quarreled. It was the same big deal that ruined your father. But Jim came to New Mexico with Hardman. They were getting along all right when we arrived. But, trouble soon arose — and that over Lucy...Young Dick Hardman — you certainly ought to remember him, Pan — fell madly in love with Lucy. Dick always was a wild boy. Here in Marco he went the pace. Well, bad as Jard Hardman is he loves that boy and would move heaven and earth for him. Lucy despised Dick. The more he ran after her the more she despised him. Also the more she flouted Dick the wilder he drank and gambled. Now here comes the pitiful part of it. Jim Blake went utterly to the bad, so your father says, though Lucy hopes and believes she can save him. I do too. Jim was only weak. Jard Hardman ruined him. Finally Dick enlisted his father in his cause and they forced Jim to try to make Lucy marry Dick. She refused. She left her father’s place and went to live with her Uncle Bill, who was an honest fine man. But he was shot in the Yellow Mine. By accident, they gave out, but your father scouts that idea...Oh, those dreadful gambling hells! Life is cheap here...Lucy came to live with us. She taught the school. But she had to give that up. Dick Hardman and other wild young fellows made her life wretched. Besides she was never safe. We persuaded her to give it up. And then the — the worst happened.”

Mrs. Smith paused, wiping her wet eyes, and appeared to dread further disclosure. She lifted an appealing hand to Pan.

“What — what was it, Mother?” he asked, fearfully.

“Didn’t — she — Lucy tell you anything?” faltered his mother.

“Yes — the greatest thing in the world — that she loved me,” burst out Pan with exultant passion.

“Oh, how terrible!”

“No, Mother, not that, but beautiful, wonderful, glorious...Go on.”

“Then — then they put Jim Blake in jail,” began Mrs. Smith.

“What for?” flashed Pan.

“To hold him there, pending action back in Texas. Jim Blake was a cattle thief. There’s little doubt of that, your father says. You know there’s law back east, at least now in some districts. Well, Jard Hardman is holding Jim in jail. It seems Hardman will waive trial, provided — provided...Oh, how can I tell you!”

“My God! I see!” cried Pan, leaping in fierce passion. “They will try to force Lucy to marry Dick to save her father.”

“Yes. That’s it...and Pan, my son...she has consented!”

“So that was what made her act so strange!...Poor Lucy! Dick Hardman was a skunk when he was a kid. Now he’s a skunk-bitten coyote. Oh, but this is a mess!”

“Pan, what can you do?” implored his mother.

“Lucy hasn’t married him yet? Tell me quick,” cried Pan suddenly.

“Oh, no. She has only promised. She doesn’t trust those men. She wants papers signed to clear her father. They laugh at her. But Lucy is no fool. When she sacrifices herself it’ll not be for nothing.”

Pan slowly sank down into the chair, and his brooding gaze fastened on the big blue gun with which Bobby was playing. It fascinated Pan. Sight of it brought the strange cold sensation that seemed like a wind through his being.

“Mother, how old is Lucy?” he asked, forcing himself to be calm.

“She’s nearly seventeen, but looks older.”

“Not of age yet. Yes, she looks twenty. She’s a woman, Mother.”

“What did Lucy do and say when she saw you?” asked his mother, with a woman’s intense curiosity.

“Ha! She did and said enough,” replied Pan radiantly. “I didn’t recognize her. Think of that, Mother.”

“Tell me, son,” implored Mrs. Smith.

“Mother, she ran right into my arms...We just met, Mother, and the old love leaped.”

“Mercy, what a terrible situation for you both, especially for Lucy...Pan, what can you do?”

“Mother, I don’t know, I can’t think. It’s too sudden. But I’ll never let her marry Dick Hardman. Why, only last night I saw a painted little hussy hanging over him. Bad as that poor girl must be, she’s too good for him...He doesn’t worry me, nor his schemes to get Lucy. But how to save Jim Blake.”

“Pan, you think it can be done?”

“My dear Mother, I know it. Only I can’t think now. I’m new here. And handicapped by concern for you, for Lucy, for Dad...Lord, if I was back in the Cimarron — it’d be easy!”

“My boy, don’t be too concerned about Lucy, or me or your dad,” replied his mother with surprising coolness. “I mean don’t let concern for us balk you. Thank God you have come home to us. I feel a different woman. I am frightened, yes. For — for I’ve heard of you. What a name for my boy!”

“Well, you’re game, Mother,” said Pan, with a laugh, as he embraced her. “That’ll help a lot. If only Lucy will be like you.”

“She has a heart of fire. Only save her father, Pan, and you will be blessed with such woman’s love as you never dreamed of. It may be hard, though, for you to change her mind.”

“I won’t try, Mother.”

“Go to her, then, and fill her with the hope you’ve given me.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

FROM A THICK clump of trees Pan had watched Lucy, spied upon her with only love, tenderness, pity in his heart. But he did not know her. It seemed incredible that he could confess to himself he loved her. Had the love he had cherished for a child suddenly, as if by magic, leaped into love for a woman? What then was this storm within him, this outward bodily trembling from the tumult within?

Lucy stood like a statue, gazing into nothingness. Then she paced to and fro, her hands clenched on her breast. This was a secluded nook, where a bench had been built between two low-branching trees, on the bank of the stream. Pan stealthily slipped closer, so he could get clearer sight of her face. Was her love for him the cause of her emotion?

Presently he halted, at a point close to one end of her walk, and crouched down. It did not occur to him that he was trespassing upon her privacy. She was a stranger whom he loved because she was Lucy Blake, grown from child to woman. He was concerned with finding himself, so that when he faced her again he would know what to do, to say.

Pan had not encountered a great many girls in the years he had ridden the ranges. But he had seen enough to recognize beauty when it was thrust upon him. And Lucy had that. As she paced away from him the small gold head, the heavy braid of hair, the fine build of her, not robust, yet strong and full, answered then and there the wondering query of his admiration. Then she turned to pace back. This would be an ordeal for him. She was in trouble, and he could not hide there much longer. Yet he wanted to watch her, to grasp from this agitation fuel for his kindling passion. She had been weeping, yet her face was white. Indeed she did look older than her seventeen years. Closer she came. Then Pan’s gaze got as far as her eyes and fixed there. Unmasked now, true to the strife of her soul, they betrayed to Pan the thing he yearned so to know. Not only her love but her revolt!

That was enough for him. In a few seconds his feelings underwent a tremendous gamut of change, at last to set with the certainty of a man’s love for his one woman. This conviction seemed consciously backed by the stern fact of his cool reckless spirit. He was what the cowboys’ range of that period had made him. Perhaps only such a man could cope with the lawless circumstances in which Lucy had become enmeshed. By the time she had paced her beat again and was once more approaching his covert, he knew what the situation would demand and how he would meet it. But he would listen to Lucy, to his mother, to his father, in the hope that they might extricate her from her dilemma. He believed, however, that only extreme measures would ever free her and her father. Pan knew men of the Hardman and Matthews stripe.

He stepped out to confront Lucy, smiling and cool.

“Howdy, Lucy,” he drawled, with the cowboy sang-froid she must know well.

“Oh!” she cried, startled, and drawing back. Then she recovered. But there was a single instant when Pan saw her unguarded self expressed in her face.

“I was hiding behind there,” he said, indicating the trees and bushes.

“What for?”

“I wanted to see you really, without you knowing.”

“Well?” she queried, gravely.

“As I remember little Lucy Blake she never had any promise of growing so — so lovely as you are now.”

“Pan, don’t tease — don’t flatter me now,” she implored.

“Reckon I was just stating a fact. Let’s sit down on the seat there, and get acquainted.”

He put her in the corner of the bench so she would have to face him, and he began to talk as if there were no black trouble between them. He wanted her to know the story of his life from the time she had seen him last; and he had two reasons for this, first to bridge that gap in their acquaintance, and secondly to let her know what the range had made him. It took him two hours in the telling, surely the sweetest hours he had ever spent, for he watched her warm to intense interest, forget herself, live over with him the lonely days and nights on the range, and glow radiant at his adventures, and pale and trembling over those bloody encounters that were as much a part of his experience as any others.

“That’s my story, Lucy,” he said, in conclusion. “I’d have come back to you and home long ago, if I’d known. But I was always broke. Then there was the talk about me. Panhandle Smith! So the years sped by. It’s over now, and I’ve found you and my people all well, thank God. Nothing else mattered to me. And your trouble and Dad’s bad luck do not scare me...Now tell me your story.”

He had reached her. It had been wise for him to go back to the school days, and spare nothing of his experience. She began at the time she saw him last — she remembered the day, the date, the clothes he wore, the horse he rode — and she told the story of those lonely years when his few letters were epochs, and the effect it had when they ceased. So, with simple directness, she went on to relate the downfall of her father and how the disgrace and heartbreak had killed her mother. When she finished her story she was crying.

“Lucy, don’t cry. Just think — here we are!” he exclaimed, as she ended.

“That’s what — makes me cry,” she replied brokenly.

“Very well. Here. Cry on my shoulder,” he said forcefully, and despite her resistance he drew her into his arms and her head to his breast. There he held her, feeling the strain of her muscles slowly relax. She did not weep violently, but in a heartbroken way that yet seemed relief.

“Pan, this is — is foolish,” she said, presently stirring. “I mean my crying here in your arms, as if it were a refuge. But, oh! I — I have needed someone — something so terribly.”

“I don’t see where it’s foolish. Reckon it’s very sweet and wonderful for me...Lucy, let’s not rush right into arguments. We’re bound to disagree. But let’s put that off...I’m so darned glad to see you, know you, that I’m the foolish one.”

“You’re a boy, for all your size. How can we help but talk of my troubles?...Of this horrible fix I’m in!...How can I lay my head on your shoulder?...I didn’t. You forced me to.”

“Well, if you want to deny me such happiness, you can,” replied Pan.

“Is it happiness for you — knowing it’s wrong — and can never be again?” she whispered.

“Pure heaven!” he said. “Lucy, don’t say this is wrong. You belong to me. My mother told me once you’d never have lived but for me.”

“Yes, my mother told me the same thing...Oh, how sad it is!”

“Sad, nothing! It was beautiful. And I tell you that you do belong to me.”

“My soul does, yes,” she returned, dreamily. And then as if reminded of her bodily weakness she moved away from him to the corner of the bench.

“All right, Lucy. Have it your way now. But you’ll only have all the more to make up to me later,” said Pan, with resigned good nature.

“Pan, you don’t seem to recognize anything but your own will,” she returned, pondering. “I’ve got to save my father...There’s only one way.”

“Don’t talk such rot to me,” he flashed, sharply. “I’d hoped you would let us get acquainted first. But if you won’t, all right...You’ve been frightened into a deal that is terrible for you. No wonder. But you’re only a kid yet. What do you know of men? These Hardmans are crooked. They pulled out of Texas because they were crooked. Matthews, magistrate or marshal, whatever he calls himself, he’s crooked too. I know such men. I’ve met a hundred of them. Slowly they’ve been forced farther west, beyond the Rockies. And here they work their will. But it can’t last. Why, Lucy, I’m amazed that some miner or cowboy or gun-fighter hasn’t stopped them long ago.”

“Pan, you must be wrong,” she declared, earnestly. “Hardman cheated Dad, yes. But that was only Dad’s fault. His blindness in business. Hardman is a power here. And Matthews, too. You talk like a — a wild cowboy.”

“Sure,” replied Pan, with a grim laugh. “And it’ll take just a wild cowboy to clean up this mess...Now Lucy, don’t go white and sick. I promise you I’ll listen to Dad and you before I make a move. I’ll go to see your father. And I’ll call on Hardman. I’ll talk sense and reason, and business to these men. I know it’ll not amount to beans, but I’ll do it just to show you I can be deliberate and sane.”

“Thank you — you frightened me so,” she murmured. “Pan, there was something terrible about you — then.”

“Listen, Lucy,” he began, more seriously. “I’ve been here in Marco only a few hours. But this country is no place for us to settle down to live. It’s mostly a mining country. I’ve heard a lot about Arizona. I’m going to take you all down there. Dad and Mother will love the idea. I’ll get your father out of jail—”

“Pan, are you dreaming?” she interrupted, in distress. “Dad is a rustler. He admits it. Back in Texas he can be jailed for years. All Hardman has to do is to send for officers to come take Dad. And I’ve got to marry Dick Hardman to save him.”

“You poor little girl!...Now Lucy, let me tell you something funny. This will stagger you. Because it’s gospel truth, I swear...Rustler you call your dad. What’s that? It means a cowman who has appropriated cattle not his own. He has driven off unbranded stock and branded it. There’s no difference. Lucy, my dad rustled cattle. So have all the ranchers I ever rode for.”

“Pan!” she gasped, with dilating eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I’m trying to tell you one of the queer facts about the ranges,” replied Pan. “I’ve known cowmen to shoot rustlers. Cowmen who had themselves branded cattle not their own. This was a practice. They didn’t think it crooked. They all did it. But it was crooked, when you come down to truth. And though that may not be legally as criminal as the stealing of branded cattle, to my mind it is just as bad. Your father began that way, Hardman caught him, and perhaps forced him into worse practice.”

“Pan, are you trying to give me some hope?”

“Reckon I am. Things are not so bad. My Lord, suppose I’d been a month later!”

Lucy shook her head despondently. “It’s worse now for me than if you had come—”

“Why?” interrupted Pan. She would say the things that hurt.

“Because to see you — be with you like this — before I’m — if I have to be married — is perfectly terrible...Afterward, when it would be too late and I had lost something — self-respect or more — then I might not care.”

That not only made Pan lose patience but it also angered him. The hot blood rushed to his face. He bit his tongue and struggled to control himself.

“Lucy! Haven’t I told you that you’re not going to marry Dick Hardman,” he burst out.

“Oh, but I’ll have to,” she replied, stubbornly, with a sad little shake of her head.

“No!”

“I must save Dad. You might indeed get him out of jail some way. But that would not save him.”

“Certainly it would,” rejoined Pan, curtly. “In another state he would be perfectly safe.”

“They’ll trail him anywhere. No, that won’t do. We haven’t time. Dick is pressing me hard to marry him at once, or his father will prosecute Dad. I promised...And today — this morning — Dick is coming here to get me to set the day.”

“What?” cried Pan, passionately.

His word, swift as a bullet, made her jump, but she repeated what she had said almost word for word.

“And your answer?” queried Pan, in hot scorn.

“Sooner the — better,” she replied, mournfully. “I can’t stand — this — you — oh, anything would be — easier than your hope...your — love making!”

“Lucy Blake, have you gone down hill like your father?” asked Pan, hoarsely. “What kind of a woman are you? If you love me, it’s a crime to marry him. Women do these things, I know — sell themselves. But they kill their souls. If you could save your father from being hanged, it would still be wrong. Suppose he did go to jail for a few years. What’s that compared to hell for you all your life? You’re out of your head. You’ve lost your sense of proportion...You must care for this damned skunk Dick Hardman.”

“Care for him!” she cried, shamefaced and furious. “I hate him.”

“Then if you marry him you’ll be crooked. To yourself! To me!...Why, in my eyes you’d be worse than that little hussy down at the Yellow Mine.”

“Pan!” she whispered. “How can you? How dare you?”

“Hard facts deserve hard names. You make me say such things. Why, you’d drive me mad if I listened — if I believed you. Don’t you dare say again you’ll marry Dick.”

“I will — I must—”

“Lucy!” he thundered. It was no use to reason with this girl. She had been trapped like a wild thing and could not see any way out. He shot out a strong hand and clutched her shoulder and with one heave he drew her to him, so her face was under his. It went pale. The telltale eyes dilated in sudden fear. She beat at him with weak fluttering hands.

“Say you love me!”

He shook her roughly, then held her tight. “I don’t maul any other man’s woman,” he went on, fiercely. “But if you love me — that’s different. You said it a little while ago. Was it true? Are you a liar?”

“No — No — Pan,” she whispered, in distress. “I — I do.”

“Do what?”

“I — I love you,” she said, the scarlet blood mounting to her pale face. She was weakening — sinking toward him. Her eyes held a sort of dark spell.

“How do you love me?” he queried relentlessly, with his heart mounting high.

“Always I’ve loved you — since I was a baby.”

“As a brother?”

“Yes.”

“But we’re man and woman now. This is my one chance for happiness. I don’t want you — I wouldn’t have you unless you love me as I do you. Be honest with me. Be square. Do you love me now as I do you?”

“God help me — yes,” she replied, almost inaudibly, with eyes of remorse and love and agony on his.

Pan could not withstand this. He crushed her to him, and lifted her arms round his neck, and fell to kissing her with all the starved hunger of his lonely loveless years on the ranges. She was not proof against this. It lifted her out of her weakness, of her abasement to a response that swept away all fears, doubts, troubles. For the moment, at least, love conquered her.

Pan was wrenched out of the ecstasy of that moment by the pound of hoofs and the crashing of brush. He could not disengage himself before a horse and rider were upon them. Nevertheless Pan recognized the intruder and leaped away from the bench with the instinctive swiftness for defense that had been ingrained in him.

Dick Hardman showed the most abject astonishment. His eyes stuck out, his jaw dropped. No other emotion seemed yet to have dawned in him. He stared from Lucy to Pan and back again. A slow dull red began to creep into his cheeks. He ejaculated something incoherent. His amaze swiftly grew into horror. He had caught his fiancée in the arms of another man. Black fury suddenly possessed him.

“You — you—” he yelled stridently, moving to dismount.

“Stay on your horse,” commanded Pan.

“Who the hell are you?” bellowed Hardman, sliding back in the saddle.

“Howdy, Skunk Hardman,” rejoined Pan, with cool impudence. “Reckon you ought to know me.”

“Pan Smith!” gasped the other, hoarsely, and he turned lividly white. “By God, I knew you last night. But I couldn’t place you.”

“Well, Mr. Dick Hardman, I knew you the instant I set eyes on you — sitting there gambling — with the pretty bare-armed girl on your chair,” returned Pan, with slow deliberate sarcasm.

“Yes, and you got that little —— over to you about as quick,” shouted Hardman.

“Be careful of your language. There’s a lady present,” replied Pan, menacingly.

“Of all the nerve! You — you damned cowpuncher,” raved Hardman in a fury. “It didn’t take you long to get to her, either, did it? Now you make tracks out of here or I’ll — I’ll — it’ll be the worse for you, Pan Smith...Lucy Blake is as good as married to me.”

“Nope, you’re wrong, Dick,” snapped Pan insolently. “I got here just in time to save her from that doubtful honor.”

“You’d break her engagement to me?” rasped Hardman huskily, and he actually shook in his saddle.

“I have broken it.”

“Lucy, tell me he lies!” begged Hardman, turning to her in poignant distress. If he had any good in him it showed then.

Lucy came out from the shade of the tree into the sunlight. She was pale, but composed.

“Dick, it’s true,” she said, steadily. “I’ve broken my word. I can’t marry you...I love Pan. I’ve loved him always. It would be a sin to marry you now.”

“Hellsfire!” shrieked Hardman. His face grew frightful to see — beastly with rage. “You’re as bad as that hussy who threw me down for him. I’ll fix you, Lucy Blake. And I’ll put your cow-thief father behind the bars for life.”

Pan leaped at Hardman and struck him a body blow that sent him tumbling out of his saddle to thud on the ground. The frightened horse ran down the path toward the gate.

“You dirty-mouthed cur,” said Pan. “Get up, and if you’ve got a gun — throw it.”

Hardman laboriously got to his feet. The breath had been partly knocked out of him. Baleful eyes rolled at Pan. Instinctive wrath, however, had been given a setback. Hardman had been forced to think of something beside the frustration of his imperious will.

“I’m — not — packing — my gun,” he panted, heavily. “You saw — that — Pan Smith.”

“Well, you’d better pack it after this,” replied Pan with contempt. “Because I’m liable to throw on you at sight.”

“I’ll have — you — run — out of this country,” replied Dick huskily.

“Bah! don’t waste your breath. Run me out of this country? Me! Reckon you never heard of Panhandle Smith. You’re so thickheaded you couldn’t take a hunch. Well, I’ll give you one, anyway. You and your crooked father, and your two bit of a sheriff pardner would do well to leave this country. Savvy that! Now get out of here pronto.”

Hardman gave Pan a ghastly stare and wheeled away to stride down the path. Once he turned to flash his convulsed face at Lucy. Then he passed out of sight among the trees in search of his horse.

Pan stood gazing down the green aisle. He had acted true to himself. How impossible to meet this situation in any other way! It meant the spilling of blood. He knew it — accepted it — and made no attempt to change the cold passion deep within him. Lucy — his mother and father would suffer. But wouldn’t they suffer more if he did not confront this conflict as his hard training dictated? He was almost afraid to turn and look at Lucy. Just a little while before he had promised her forbearance. So his amaze was great when she faced him, violet eyes ablaze, to clasp him, and creep close to him, with lingering traces of fear giving way to woman’s admiration and love.

“Panhandle Smith!” she whispered, gazing up into his face. “I heard your story. It thrilled me...But I never understood — till you faced Dick Hardman...Oh, what have you done for me?...Oh, Pan, you have saved me from ruin.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

PAN AND LUCY did not realize the passing of time until they were called to dinner. As they stepped upon the little porch, Lucy tried to withdraw her hand from Pan’s, but did not succeed.

“See here,” said he, very seriously, yielding to an urge he could not resist. “Wouldn’t it be wise for us to — to get married at once?”

Lucy blushed furiously. “Pan Smith! Are you crazy?”

“Reckon I am,” he replied, ruefully. “But I got to thinking how I’ll be out after wild horses...And I’m afraid something might happen. Please marry me this afternoon?”

“Pan! You’re — you’re terrible,” cried Lucy, and snatching away her hand, scarlet of face she rushed into the house ahead of him.

He followed, to find Lucy gone. His father was smiling, and his mother had wide-open hopeful eyes. A slim young girl, with freckles, grave sweet eyes and curly hair was standing by a window. She turned and devoured him with those shy eyes. From that look he knew who she was.

“Alice! Little sister!” he exclaimed, meeting her. “Well, by golly, this is great.”

It did not take long for Pan to grasp that a subtle change had come over his mother and father. Not the excitement of his presence nor the wonder about Lucy accounted for it, but a difference, a lessening of strain, a relief. Pan sensed a reliance upon him that they were not yet conscious of.

“Son, what was the matter with Lucy?” inquired his father, shrewdly.

“Why nothing to speak of,” replied Pan, nonchalantly. “Reckon she was a little flustered because I wanted her to marry me this afternoon.”

“Good gracious!” cried his mother. “You are a cowboy. Lucy marry you when she’s engaged to another man!”

“Mother, dear, that’s broken off. Don’t remind me of it. I want to look pleasant, so you’ll all be glad I’m home.”

“Glad!” his mother laughed, with a catch in her voice. “My prayers have been answered...Come now to dinner. Remember, Pan, when you used to yell, ‘Come an’ get it before I throw it out’?”

Bobby left Pan’s knee and made a beeline for the kitchen. Alice raced after him.

“Pan, I met Dick Hardman on the road. He looked like hell, and was sure punishin’ his horse. I said when I seen him I’d bet he’s run into Pan. How about it?”

“Reckon he did,” laughed Pan. “It was pretty tough on him, I’m bound to admit. He rode down the path and caught me — well, the truth is, Dad, I was kissing the young lady he imagined belonged to him.”

“You range ridin’ son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated his father, in unmitigated admiration and gladness. “What come off?”

“I’ll tell you after dinner. Gee, I smell applesauce!...Dad, I never forgot Mother’s cooking.”

They went into the little whitewashed kitchen, where Pan had to stoop to avoid the ceiling, and took seats at the table. Pan feasted his eyes. His mother had not been idle during the hours that he was out in the orchard with Lucy, nor had she forgotten the things that he had always liked. Alice acted as waitress, and Bobby sat in a high chair beaming upon Pan. At that juncture Lucy came in. She had changed her gray blouse to one of white, with wide collar that was cut a little low and showed the golden contour of her superb neck. She had put her hair up. Pan could not take his eyes off her. In hers he saw a dancing subdued light, and a beautiful rose color in her cheeks.

“Well, I’ve got to eat,” said Pan, as if by way of explanation and excuse for removing his gaze from this radiant picture.

Thus his home coming proved to be a happier event than he had ever dared to hope for. Lucy was quiet and ate but little. At times Pan caught her stealing a glimpse at him, and each time she blushed. She could not meet his eyes again. Alice too stole shy glances at him, wondering, loving. Bobby was hungry, but he did not forget that Pan sat across from him. Mrs. Smith watched Pan with an expression that would have pained him had he allowed remorse to come back then. And his father was funny. He tried to be natural, to meet Pan on a plane of the old western insouciance, but it was impossible. No doubt such happiness had not reigned in that household for years.

“Dad, let’s go out and have a talk,” proposed Pan, after dinner.

As they walked down toward the corrals Pan’s father was silent, yet it was clear he labored with suppressed feeling.

“All right, fire away,” he burst out at last, “but first tell me, for Gawd’s sake, how’d you do it?”

“What?” queried Pan, looking round from his survey of the farm land.

“Mother! She’s well. She wasn’t well at all,” exclaimed the older man, breathing hard. “An’ that girl! Did you ever see such eyes?”

“Reckon I never did,” replied Pan, with joyous bluntness.

“This mornin’ I left Lucy crushed. Her eyes were like lead. An’ now!...Pan, I’m thankin’ God for them. But tell me how’d you do it?”

“Dad, I don’t know women very well, but I reckon they live by their hearts. You can bet that happiness for them means a lot to me. I felt pretty low down. That’s gone. I could crow like Bobby...but, Dad, I’ve a big job on my hands, and I think I’m equal to it. Are you going to oppose me?”

“Hell, no!” spat out his father, losing his pipe in his vehemence. “Son, I lost my cattle, my ranch. An’ then my nerve. I’m not makin’ excuses. I just fell down...but I’m not too old to make another start with you to steer me.”

“Good!” replied Pan with strong feeling, and he laid a hand on his father’s shoulder. They halted by the open corral. “Then let’s get right down to straight poker.”

“Play your game, Pan. I’m sure curious.”

“First off then — we don’t want to settle in this country.”

“Pan, you’ve called me right on the first hand,” declared his father, cracking his fist on the corral gate. “I know this’s no country for the Smiths. But I followed Jard Hardman here, I hoped to — —”

“Never mind explanations, Dad,” interrupted Pan. “We’re looking to the future. We won’t settle here. We’ll go to Arizona. I had a pard who came from Arizona. All day long and half the night that broncho buster would rave about Arizona. Well, he won me over. Arizona must be wonderful.”

“But Pan, isn’t it desert country?”

“Arizona is every kind of country,” replied Pan earnestly. “It’s a big territory, Dad. Pretty wild yet, too, but not like these mining claim countries, with their Yellow Mines. Arizona is getting settlers in the valleys where there’s water and grass. Lots of fine pine timber that will be valuable some day. I know just where we’ll strike for. But we needn’t waste time talking about that now. If it suits you the thing is settled. We go to Arizona.”

“Fine, Pan,” said his father rubbing his hands. Pan had struck fire from him. “When will we go?”

“That’s to decide,” answered Pan, thoughtfully. “I’ve got some money. Not much. But we could get there and start on it. I believe, though, that we’d do better to stay here — this fall anyway — and round up a bunch of these wild horses. Five hundred horses, a thousand at twelve dollars a head — why, Dad, it would start us in a big way.”

“Son, I should smile it would,” returned Smith, with fiery enthusiasm. “But can you do it?”

“Dad, if these broomies are as thick as I hear they are I sure can make a stake. Last night I fell in with two cowboys — Blinky Moran and Gus Hans. They’re chasing wild horses, and want me to throw in with them. Now with you and maybe a couple of more riders we can make a big drive. You’ve got to know the tricks. I learned a heap from a Mormon wild-horse wrangler. If these broomtails are thick here — well, I don’t want to set your hopes too high. But wait till I show you.”

“Pan, there’s ten thousand wild horses in that one valley across the mountain there. Hot Springs Valley they call it.”

“Then, by George, we’ve got to take the risk,” declared Pan decisively.

“Risk of what?”

“Trouble with that Hardman outfit. It can’t be avoided. I’d have to bluff them out or fight them down, right off. Dick is a yellow skunk. Jard Hardman is a bad man in any pinch. But not on an even break. I don’t mean that. If that were all. But he’s treacherous. And his henchman, this two bit of a sheriff, he’s no man to face you on the square. I’ll swear he can be bluffed. Has he any reputation as a gun thrower?”

“Matthews? I never heard of it, if he had. But he brags a lot. He’s been in several fracases here, with drunken miners an’ Mexicans. He’s killed a couple of men since I’ve been here.”

“Ah-huh, just what I thought,” declared Pan, in cool contempt. “I’ll bet a hundred he elected himself town marshal, as he calls it. I’ll bet he hasn’t any law papers from the territory, or government, either...Jard Hardman will be the hard nut to crack. Now, Dad, back in Littleton I learned what he did to you. And Lucy’s story gave me another angle on that. It’s pretty hard to overlook. I’m not swearing I can do so. But I’d like to know how you feel about it.”

“Son, I’d be scared to tell you,” replied Smith in husky voice, dropping his head.

“You needn’t, Dad. We’ll stay here till we catch and sell a bunch of horses,” said Pan curtly. “Can you quit your job at the wagon shop?”

“Any time — an’ Lord, won’t I be glad to do it,” returned Smith fervently.

“Well, you quit just then,” remarked Pan dryly. “So much is settled...Dad, I’ve got to get Jim Blake out of that jail.”

“I reckon so. It might be a job an’ then again it mightn’t. Depends on Jim. An’ between you an’ me, Pan, I’ve no confidence in Jim.”

“That doesn’t make any difference. I’ve got to get him out and send him away. Head him for Arizona where we’re going...Is it a real jail?”

“Dobe mud an’ stones,” replied his father. “An Indian or a real man could break out of there any night. There are three guards, who change off every eight hours. One of them is a tough customer. Name’s Hill. He used to be an outlaw. The other two are lazy loafers round town.

“Anybody but Jim in just now?”

“I don’t know. Matthews jailed a woman not long ago. He arrests somebody every day or so.”

“Where is this calaboose belonging to Mr. Matthews?”

“You passed it on the way out, Pan. Off the road. Gray flat buildin’. Let’s see. It’s the third place from the wagon shop, same side.”

“All right, Dad,” said Pan with cheerful finality. “Let’s go back to the house and talk Arizona to Lucy and Mother for a little. Then I’ll rustle along toward town. Tomorrow you come over to the boys’ camp. It’s on the other side of town, in a cedar flat, up that slope. We’ve got horses to try out and saddles to buy.”

CHAPTER NINE

AS PAN STRODE back along the road toward Marco the whole world seemed to have changed.

For a few moments he indulged his old joy in range and mountain, stretching, rising on his right, away into the purple distance. Something had heightened its beauty. How softly gray the rolling range land — how black the timbered slopes! The town before him sat like a hideous blotch on a fair landscape. It forced his gaze over and beyond toward the west, where the late afternoon sun had begun to mellow and redden, edging the clouds with exquisite light. To the southward lay Arizona, land of painted mesas and storied canyon walls, of thundering streams and wild pine forests, of purple-saged valleys and grassy parks, set like mosaics between the stark desert mountains.

But his mind soon reverted to the business at hand. It was much to his liking. Many a time he had gone to extremes, reckless and fun loving, in the interest of some cowboy who had gotten into durance vile. It was the way of his class. A few were strong and many were weak, but all of them held a constancy of purpose as to their calling. As they hated wire fences so they hated notoriety-seeking sheriffs and unlicensed jails. No doubt Jard Hardman, who backed the Yellow Mine, was also behind the jail. At least Matthews pocketed the ill-gotten gains from offenders of the peace as constituted by himself.

Pan felt that now for the first time in his life he had a mighty incentive, something tremendous and calling, to bring out that spirit of fire common to the daredevils of the range. He had touched only the last fringe of the cowboy regime. Dodge and Abilene, the old Chisholm Trail, the hard-drinking hard-shooting days of an earlier Cimarron had gone. Life then had been but the chance of a card, the wink of an eye, the flip of a quirt. But Pan had ridden and slept with men who had seen those days. He had absorbed from them, and to him had come a later period, not comparable in any sense, yet rough, free, untamed and still bloody. He knew how to play his cards against such men as these. The more boldly he faced them, the more menacingly he went out of his way to meet them, the greater would be his advantage. If Matthews were another Hickok the situation would have been vastly different. If there were any real fighting men on Hardman’s side Pan would recognize them in a single glance. He was an unknown quantity to them, that most irritating of newcomers to a wild place, the man with a name preceding him.

Pan came abreast of the building that he was seeking. It was part stone and part adobe, heavily and crudely built, with no windows on the side facing him. Approaching it, and turning the corner, he saw a wide-arched door leading into a small stone-floored room. He heard voices. In a couple of long strides Pan crossed the flat threshold. Two men were playing cards with a greasy deck, a bottle of liquor and small glasses on the table between them. The one whose back was turned to Pan did not see him, but the other man jerked up from his bench, then sagged back with strangely altering expression. He was young, dark, coarse, and he had a bullet hole in his chin.

Pan’s recognition did not lag behind the other’s. This was Handy Mac New, late of Montana, a cowboy who had drifted beyond the pale. He was one of that innumerable band whom Pan had helped in some way or other. Handy had become a horse thief and a suspected murderer in the year following Pan’s acquaintance with him.

“Howdy, men,” Pan greeted them, giving no sign that he had recognized Mac New. “Which one of you is on guard here?”

“Me,” replied Mac New, choking over the word. Slowly he got to his feet.

“You’ve got a prisoner in there named Blake,” went on Pan. “I once lived near him. He used to play horse with me and ride me on his back. Will you let me talk to him?”

“Why, shore, stranger,” replied Mac New, with nervous haste, and producing a key, he inserted it in the lock of a heavy whitewashed door.

Pan found himself ushered into a large room with small iron-barred windows on the west side. His experience of frontier jails had been limited, but those he had seen had been bare, empty, squalid cells. This, however, was evidently a luxurious kind of a prison house. There were Indian blankets and rugs on the floor, an open fireplace with cheerful blaze, a table littered with books and papers, a washstand, a comfortable bed upon which reclined a man smoking and reading.

“Somebody to see you, Blake,” called the guard, and he went out, shutting the door behind him.

Blake sat up. As he did so, moving his bootless feet, Pan’s keen eye espied a bottle on the floor.

Pan approached leisurely, his swift thoughts revolving around a situation that looked peculiar to him. Blake was very much better cared for there than could have been expected. Why?

“Howdy, Blake. Do you remember me?” asked Pan halting beside the table.

He did not in the least remember Lucy’s father in this heavy blond man, lax of body and sodden of face.

“Somethin’ familiar aboot you,” replied Blake, studying Pan intently. “But I reckon you’ve got the best of me.”

“Pan Smith,” said Pan shortly.

“Wal!” he ejaculated, as if shocked into memory, and slowly he rose to hold out a shaking hand. “Bill’s kid — the little boy who stuck by my wife — when Lucy was born.”

“Same boy, and he’s damn sorry to find you in this fix,” responded Pan, forcefully. “And he’s here to get you out.”

Blake sagged back as slowly as he had arisen. His face changed like that of a man suddenly stabbed. And he dropped his head. In that moment Pan saw enough to make him glad. Manifestly the good in him had not been wholly killed by evil. Jim Blake might yet be reclaimed or at least led away from evil life.

“Mr. Blake, I’ve been to see Lucy,” went on Pan, and swiftly he talked of the girl, her unhappiness, and the faith she still held in her father. “I’ve come to get you out of here, for Lucy’s sake. We’re all going to Arizona. You and Dad can make a new start in life.”

“My God, if I only could,” groaned the man.

Pan reached out with quick hand and shook him. “Listen,” he said, low and eagerly. “How long is this guard Mac New on duty?”

“Mac New? The fellow outside is called Hurd. He’s on till midnight.”

“All right, my mistake,” went on Pan, swiftly. “I’ll be here tonight about eleven. I’ll have a horse for you, blanket, grub, gun, and money. I’ll hold up this guard Hurd — get you out some way or other. You’re to ride away. Take the road south. There are other mining camps. You’ll not be followed. Make for Siccane, Arizona.”

“Siccane, Arizona,” echoed Blake, as a man in a dream of freedom.

“Yes, Siccane. Don’t forget it. Stay there till we all come.”

Pan straightened up, with deep expulsion of breath, and tingling nerves. He had reached Blake. Whatever his doubts of the man, and they had been many, Pan divined that he could stir him, rouse him out of the lethargy of sordid indifference and forgetfulness. He would free him from this jail, and the shackles of Hardman in any case, but to find that it was possible to influence him gladdened Pan’s heart. What would this not mean to Lucy!

The door opened behind Pan.

“Wal, stranger, reckon yore time’s up,” called the jailer.

Pan gave the stunned Blake a meaning look, and then without a word, he left the room. The guard closed and locked the door. Then he looked up, with cunning, yet not wholly without pleasure. His companion at the card game had gone.

“Panhandle Smith!” whispered the guard, half stretching out his hand, then withdrawing it.

“Shake, Mac,” said Pan in a low voice. “It’s a small world.”

“By Gord, it shore is,” replied Mac New, wringing Pan’s hand. “I’m known here as Hurd.”

“Ah-huh...Well, Hurd, I’m not a talking man. But I want to remind you that you owe me a good turn.”

“You shore don’t have to remind me of thet,” returned the other.

“It pays to do good turns...I’m lucky, old timer.”

“I savvy, Panhandle Smith,” said Hurd, with gleaming eyes, and he crooked a stubby thumb toward the door of Blake’s jail.

“All right, cowboy,” returned Pan, with a meaning smile. “I’ll drop around tonight about eleven.”

Pan slowed up in his stride when he reached the business section of the town, and strolled along as if he were looking for someone. He was. He meant to have eyes in the back of his head henceforth. But he did not meet anyone he knew or see anyone who glanced twice at him.

He went into Black’s general merchandise store to look at the saddle Moran had recommended. It was a bargain and Pan purchased it on sight. Proof indeed was this that there were not many cowboys in and around Marco. While he was there, Pan bought a Winchester carbine and a saddle sheath for it. Thus burdened he walked out to the camp.

Lying Juan had supper about ready and the boys were noisy up at the corral. Some of their language was indicative of trouble and mean horses. Pan found a seat by the fire very welcome. Emotion had power to exhaust him far beyond physical exertion. Darkness had just about merged from dusk when the boys dragged themselves in, smelling of dust and horses. They went into the water basins like ducks. Pan lighted the lantern and put it on the table. Then the boys came straddling the bench like cowboys mounting horses. Their faces were red and shiny, their wet hair was pasted down.

“Wal, if heah ain’t ole Pan Smith,” announced Blinky, vociferously. “Gus, take a peep at him. I’ll bet he’s got hold of a grand hoss. Nothing else could make him look like thet.”

“No. I just got back my girl,” replied Pan gaily.

“Gurl! Say, cowboy,” began Blinky, in consternation. “You didn’t run foul of thet little Yellow Mine kid?”

“Eat your supper, you hungry-looking galoot,” replied Pan. “And you too, Gus...Because if I begin to shoot off my chin now you’ll forget the grub.”

Thus admonished, and with curious glances at Pan, the cowboys took his advice and attacked the generous meal Juan had set before them. Their appetites further attested to a strenuous day. Pan did not seem to be hungry, which fact caused Juan much concern.

“Ahuh! It’s the way a fellar gets when he’s in love with a gurl,” observed the keen Blinky. “I been there.”

After supper they got together before the stove and rolled their cigarettes. The cold night wind, with its tang of mountain heights, made the fire most agreeable. Pan spread his palms to the heat.

“Wal, pard, throw it off your chest before you bust,” advised Blinky shrewdly.

“What kind of a day did you boys have?” countered Pan with a laugh.

“Good an’ bad,” replied Gus, while Blinky shook his head. “Some hoss thieves have been runnin’ off our stock. We had some fine hosses, not broke yet. Some we wanted to keep.”

“What’s the good news?” queried Pan, as Hans hesitated.

“Pan, I’ll be doggoned if we didn’t see a million broomies today,” burst out Blinky.

“No. Now, Blink, talk sense,” remonstrated Pan. “You mean you saw a thousand?”

“Wal, shore a million is stretchin’ it some,” acknowledged the cowboy. “But ten thousand wouldn’t be nothin’. We tracked some of our hosses twenty miles an’ more over heah, farther’n we’d been yet. An’ climbed a high ridge we looked down into the purtiest valley I ever seen. Twice as big as Hot Springs Valley. Gee, it lay there gray an’ green with hosses as thick as greasewood bushes on the desert. Thet valley hasn’t been drove yet. It’s purty rough gettin’ up to where you can see. An’ there’s lots of hosses closer to town. Thet accounts.”

“Blinky, is this talk of yours a leaf out of Lying Juan’s book?” asked Pan incredulously. “It’s too good to be true.”

“Pan, I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles,” protested Blinky. “Ask Gus. He seen them.”

“For onct Blinky ain’t out of his haid,” corroborated Hans. “Never saw so many wild hosses. An’ if we can find a way to ketch some of them we’ll be rich.”

“Boys, you told me you’d been trapping horses at the water holes,” said Pan.

“Shore, we’ve been moonshinin’ them,” replied Blinky. “We build a corral round a water hole. Make a wide gate we can shut quick. Then we lay out on moonlight nights waitin’ for ’em to come in to drink. We’ve done purty darn good at it, too.”

“That’s fun, but it’s a two-bit way to catch wild horses,” rejoined Pan.

“Wal, they’re all doin’ it thet way. Hardman’s outfit, an’ a couple more besides us. I figgered myself it was purty slow, but no better way come to me. Do you know one?”

“Do I? Well, I should smile. I know more than one that’ll beat your moonshining. Back on the prairie where it’s all wide and bare there’s no chance for a small outfit. But this is high country, valleys, canyons, cedars. Boys, we can make one big stake before the other outfits get on to us.”

“By gosh, one’s enough for us,” declared Blinky. “Then we can shake this gold-claim country where they steal your empty tin cans an’ broken shovels.”

“One haul will do me, too,” agreed Pan. “Then Arizona for me.”

“Ah-uh!...Pan, how aboot this gurl?”

Briefly then Pan told his story, and the situation as it looked to him at the moment. The response of these cowboys was what he had expected. He knew them. Warmhearted, simple, elemental, they responded in different ways, but with the same fire. Gus Hans looked his championship while Blinky raved and swore.

“Then you’re both with me?” asked Pan, tersely. “Mind, it’s no fair deal, my getting your support here for helping you with a wild horse drive.”

“Fair, hell!” returned Blinky, forcibly. “It ain’t like you to insult cowboys.”

“I’m begging your pardon,” replied Pan, hastily. “But we’d never been pardners and I hesitated to draw you into a scrap that’ll almost sure go to gun throwing.”

“Wal, we’re your pardners now, an’ damn proud of it, Panhandle Smith.”

Silently and grimly they all shook hands on it. Not half a dozen times in his range life had Pan been party to a compact like that.

“This Blake fellar, now,” began Blinky, as he lighted another cigarette. “What’s your idea of gettin’ him out?”

“I want a horse, a blanket, some grub and a gun. I’m to take them down to the jail at eleven o’clock.”

“Huh! Goin’ to hold up the guard?” queried Blinky.

“That was my intention,” replied Pan, “but I know that fellow Hurd, who’ll be on guard then. I’ll not have to hold him up.”

“Hurd? I know him. Hard nut, but I think he’s square.”

“Reckon Hurd will lose his job,” said Pan reflectively. “If he does, let’s take him with us on the wild horse deal.”

“Suits me. An’ he’ll shore love thet job. Hurd hasn’t any use for Matthews.”

“Blinky, do you know another man we can hire or get to throw in with us? We’ve got five now counting my dad, and we’ll need at least six.”

“Why so many? It’ll cut out profits.”

“No, it’ll increase them. One good rider means a great deal to us.”

“Then let’s get thet miner, Charley Brown.”

“But he’s working a gold claim.”

“Wal, if I know anythin’ he’ll not be workin’ it any longer than findin’ blue dirt. Gus an’ me seen Jard Hardman with two men ridin’ out thet way this mawnin’.”

“Ah!...So Hardman is here now. — We’ll hunt up Brown and see what he says. Suppose we walk downtown now.”

“All right, but let me get a hoss up for Blake,” replied Blinky. “Gus, you find thet old saddle of mine, an’ a blanket. There’s an old canvas saddlebag an’ water bottle heah somewheres. Ask Juan. An’ get him to pack the grub.”

The night of the sabbath was no barrier to the habitués of the Yellow Mine. But early in the evening it was not yet in full swing. The dance was on with a few heavy-footed miners and their gaudy partners, and several of the gambling tables were surrounded.

Pan stalked about alone. His new-found cowboy friends had been instructed to follow him unobtrusively. Pan did not wish to give an impression that he had taken up with allies. He was looking for Charley Brown, but he had a keen roving eye for every man in sight. It was doubtful if Hardman or Matthews could have espied Pan first, unless they were hidden somewhere. He took up a position, presently, behind one of the poker games, with his back to the wall, so that he had command of the room. A stiff game was in progress, which Pan watched casually. Blinky and Gus lounged around, with apparently no more aim than other idle drinking visitors of the place.

Gradually more men came in, the gaming tables filled up, and the white-armed girls appeared to mingle with the guests.

Pan espied the girl Louise before she had become aware of his presence. She appeared to be more decently clad, a circumstance that greatly added to her charm, in his opinion. Curiously he studied her. Women represented more to Pan than to most men he had had opportunity to meet or observe. He never forgot that they belonged to the same sex as his mother. So it was natural he had compassion for this unsexed dance-hall, gambling-lure girl. She was pretty in a wild sort of way, dissolute, abandoned, yet not in any sense weak. A terrible havoc showed in her face for anyone with eyes to see beneath the surface. Pan noted a strange restlessness in her that at first he imagined was the seeking instinct of women of her class. But it was only that she could not sit or stand still. Her hawklike eyes did not miss anyone there, and finally they located him. She came around the tables up to Pan, and took hold of his arm.

“Howdy, Handsome,” she said, smiling up at him.

Pan doffed his sombrero and bade her good evening.

“Don’t do that,” she said. “It irritates me.”

“But, Louise, I can’t break a habit just to please you,” he replied smiling.

“You could stay out of here. Didn’t I warn you not to come back?

“Yes, but I thought you were only fooling. Besides I had to come.”

“Why? You don’t fit here. You’ve got too clean a look.”

Pan gazed down at her, feeling in her words and presence something that prompted him to more than kindliness and good nature.

“Louise, I can return the compliment. You don’t fit here.”

“Damn you!” she flashed. “I’ll fall in love with you.”

“Well, if you did, I’d sure drag you out of this hell,” replied Pan, bluntly.

“Come away from these gamblers,” she demanded, and drew him from behind the circle to seats at an empty table. “I won’t ask you to drink or dance. But I’m curious. I’ve been hearing about you.”

“That so? Who told you?”

“I overheard Dick Hardman tonight, just before supper. He has a room next to mine in the hotel here, when he stays in town. He was telling his father about you. Such cussing I never heard. I’m giving you a hunch. They’ll do away with you.”

“Thanks. Reckon it’s pretty fine of you to put me on my guard.”

“I only meant behind your back. — What has Dick against you?”

“We were kids together back in Texas. Just natural rivals and enemies. But I hadn’t seen him for years till last night. Then he didn’t know me.”

“He knows you now all right. He ran into you today?”

“I reckon he did,” replied Pan, with a grim laugh.

“Panhandle, this is getting sort of warm,” she said, leaning across the table to him. “I’m not prying into your affairs. But I could be your friend. God knows I like a man.”

“That’s the second compliment you’ve paid me tonight. What’re you up to, Louise?”

“See here, cowboy, when I pay any two-legged hombre compliments you can gamble they are sincere.”

“All right, no offense meant.”

“Do you resent my curiosity?”

“No.”

“I’ve got you figured right when I say you’re in trouble. You’re looking for someone?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it,” she retorted, snapping her fingers. “And that’s Hardman and his outfit...I didn’t hear all Dick said. When he talked loud he cussed. But I heard enough to tie up Panhandle Smith with this girl Lucy and the Hardman outfit.”

Pan eyed her steadily. She was encroaching upon sacred ground. But her feeling was genuine, and undoubtedly she had some connection with a situation which began to look complex. The same instinct that operated so often with Pan in his relation to men of the open now subtly prompted him. Regardless of circumstances he knew when to grasp an opportunity.

“Louise, you show that you’d risk taking a chance on me — a stranger,” he replied, with quick decision. “I return that compliment.”

The smile she gave him was really a reward. It gave him a glimpse of the depths of her.

“Who’s this girl, Lucy?” she queried.

“She’s my sweetheart, ever since we were kids,” returned Pan with emotion. “I went to riding the ranges, and well, like so many cowboys, I didn’t go back home. When I did go Lucy was gone, my family was gone. I trailed them here — to find that Dick Hardman was about to force Lucy to marry him.”

“The ——  ——  —— !” she burst out. Then after her excitement cooled: “How’d he aim to force her?”

Quickly Pan explained the situation as related to Jim Blake.

“Aha! Easy to savvy. That’s where Jard Hardman and Matthews come in...Panhandle, they’re a dirty outfit — and the dirtiest of them is Dick Hardman!”

“What’s he to you, Louise?” inquired Pan gravely. “You’ll excuse me if I say I can’t see you in love with him.”

“In love with Dick Hardman?” she whispered, hotly. “My God! I wouldn’t soil even my hands on him — if I didn’t have to...He met me in Frisco. He brought me to this damned stinking rough hole. He made me promises he never kept. Not to marry me. Don’t get the wrong hunch. He has double-crossed me. And I had to sink to this!...Drunk? Yes, sure I was drunk. Don’t you understand I have to be drunk to stand this life? I’m not drunk now because you got here early...Something deep must be behind my meeting you, Panhandle Smith.”

“I hope to heaven it will be to your good — as I know meeting you will be to mine,” replied Pan fervently.

“We’re off the track,” she broke in, and Pan imagined he saw a deeper red under her artificial color. “I despise Dick Hardman. He’s stingy, conceited, selfish. He’s low down, and he’s sinking to worse.”

“His father ruined mine,” Pan told her. “That’s what brought Dad out here — to try to get something back from Jard Hardman. No use. He only got another hard deal.”

“That cowboy who was in here with you last night — Blinky Moran. His claim was jumped by Hardman.”

“Louise, how’d you know that?” asked Pan in surprise.

“Don’t give me away. Blinky told me. He’s one of my friends and he’s a white man if I ever saw one...He has been in love with me. Wanted me to marry him! Poor crazy boy! I sure had to fight — and get drunker — to keep from more than liking him. He spent all his money on me and I had to make him quit.”

“Well, that little bow-legged cowboy liar! He’s as deep as the sea.”

“Keep it secret, Panhandle,” she responded seriously. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings...To get back to the Hardmans. They’ve taken strong hold here. The old man owns half of Marco. He’s in everything. But it’s my hunch I’m giving you — that he’s in the straight deals only to cover the crooked ones. That’s where the money is.”

“Yet Jard Hardman will not square up with Dad!” exclaimed Pan.

“Now tell me why you come into the Yellow Mine. Is it to court trouble? You’re taking an awful chance. Every night or so some tipsy miner gets robbed or knifed, or shot.”

“Louise, in dealing with men of really dangerous quality your only chance is to face them with precisely the same thing. As for the four-flushers like Matthews and men of the Hardman stamp, the one thing they can’t stand is nerve. They haven’t got it. They don’t understand it. They fear it. It works on their consciousness. They begin to figure on what the nervy man means to do before they do anything...If I did not show myself in the street, and here, the Hardman outfit would soon run true to their deals. So by appearing to invite and seek a fight I really avoid one.”

“So that’s why they call you Panhandle Smith?” queried the girl, meditatively. “I mean with the tone old man Hardman used. They call me Angel. But that doesn’t mean what it sounds, does it?”

“I can’t figure you, Louise,” replied Pan dubiously.

“I’m glad you can’t...Hello, there’s Blinky and his pard Gus. What’re they up to?”

“They are looking pretty hard, but it can’t be for you and me. They saw us long ago.”

“There! Hardman and Matthews, coming from behind the bar. There’s a private office in behind. You can see the door...Panhandle, let me tell you Hardman seldom shows up here.”

Pan leisurely got to his feet. His eye quickly caught Matthews’ black sombrero, then the big ham of a face, with its drooping mustache. Pan could not see anyone with him until they got out from behind the crowded bar. Then Pan perceived that Matthews’ companion was a stout man, bearded, dressed like a prosperous rancher.

“Louise, is that man with Matthews the gentleman we have been discussing?” asked Pan.

“That’s the rich fat bloated ——  ——  —— ,” replied the girl with eyes like a hawk. “You don’t talk straight, Panhandle.”

“I’m not quite so free as you are with bad language,” replied Pan, smiling down on her. Then with deft movement he hitched his belt round farther forward on his hip. It was careless, it might have been accidental, but it was neither. And the girl grasped its meaning. She turned white under her paint, and the eyes that searched Pan were just then like any other woman’s.

“Cowboy, what’re you going to do?” she whispered, reaching for him.

“I don’t know exactly. You can never tell how actions are going to be taken. But I mean well.”

“Stop!” she called low after him. “You smiling devil!”

Pan moved leisurely in among the tables toward the bar and the two men standing rather apart from the crowd. He maneuvered so that Matthews’ roving glance fell upon him. Then Pan advanced straight. He saw the sheriff start, then speak hurriedly to Hardman.

Pan halted within six feet of both men. He might never have seen Jard Hardman so far as any recognition was concerned. He faced a man of about fifty years of age, rather florid of complexion, well fed and used to strong drink.

“Excuse me,” spoke Pan, with most consummate coolness, addressing the shorter man. Apparently he did not see Matthews. “Are you Jard Hardman?”

“Reckon I am, if that’s any of your business,” came a gruff reply. Light, hard, speculative eyes took Pan in from head to feet.

“Do you recognize me?” asked Pan, in the same tone.

“No, Sir, I never saw you in my life,” retorted Hardman, his bearded chin working up and down with the vehemence of his speech. And he turned away.

Pan made a step. His long arm shot out, and his hand, striking hard Ml Hardman’s shoulder, whirled him round.

“My name’s Smith,” called Pan, in vibrant loud voice that stilled the room. “Panhandle Smith!”

“I don’t know you, Sir,” replied Hardman, aghast and amazed. He began to redden. He turned to Matthews, as if in wonder that this individual permitted him to be thus affronted.

“Well, you knew my dad — to his loss,” declared Pan. “And that’s my business with you.”

“You’ve no business with me,” fumed Hardman.

“Reckon you’re mistaken,” went on Pan, slowly and easily. “I’m Bill Smith’s boy. And I mean to have an accounting with you on that Texas cattle deal.”

These deliberate words, heard by all within earshot, caused little less than a deadlock throughout the room. The bartenders quit, the drinkers poised glasses in the air, the voices suddenly hushed. Pan had an open space behind him, a fact he was responsible for. He faced Matthews, Hardman, and then the length of the bar. He left the gamblers behind to Blinky and Gus, who stood to one side. Pan had invited an argument with the owner of the Yellow Mine and his sheriff ally. Every westerner in the room understood its meaning.

“You upstart cowpuncher!” presently shouted Hardman. “Get out of here or I’ll have you arrested.”

“Arrest me! What for? I’m only asking you for an honest deal. I can prove you cheated my father out of cattle. You can’t arrest me for that.”

Hardman guffawed boisterously. “Get out of here with your insolent talk about cattle deals.”

“I won’t get out. You can’t put me out, even if you do own the place.”

“I’ll — I’ll—” choked Hardman, his body leaping with rage, his face growing purple under his beard. Then he turned to Matthews. “Throw this drunken cowboy out.”

That focused attention upon the sheriff. Pan read in Matthews’ eyes the very things he had suspected. And as he relaxed the mental and muscular strain under which he had waited, he laughed in Matthews’ face.

“Bah! Hardman, you’re backed by the wrong man. And at last you’ve run into the wrong man. Haven’t you sense enough to see that?...You cheated my father. Now you’re going to make it good.”

Hardman, furious and imperious, never grasped the significance that had frozen Matthews. He was thick, arrogant. He had long been a power wherever he went. Yielding to rage he yelled at Pan.

“Bill Smith sicked his cowpuncher on me, hey? Like father, like son! You’re a rustler breed. I’ll drive you—”

Pan leaped like a tiger and struck Hardman a terrible blow in the face. Like something thrown from a catapult he went into the crowd next the bar, and despite this barrier and the hands grasping at his flying arms he crashed to the floor. But before he fell Pan had leaped back in the same position he had held in front of Matthews.

“He lied,” cried Pan. “My dad, Bill Smith, was as honest a cattleman as ever lived...Mr. Sheriff, do you share that slur cast on him?”

“I don’t know Bill Smith,” replied Matthews hastily. “Reckon I’m not talkin’ agin men I don’t know...An’ as I’m not armed I can’t argue with a gun-packin’ cowboy.”

Thus he saved his face with the majority of those present. But he did have a gun. Pan knew that as well as if he had seen it. Matthews was not the “even break” stripe of sheriff.

“Ah-huh!” ejaculated Pan sardonically. “All right. Then I’ll be looking for you to arrest me next time we meet.”

“I’ll arrest you, Panhandle Smith, you can gamble on thet,” declared Matthews harshly.

“Arrest nothing,” replied Pan with ringing scorn. “You’re a four-flush sheriff. I’ll gamble you elected yourself. I know your kind, Matthews. And I’ll gamble some more that you don’t last long in Marco.”

This was, as Pan deliberately intended, raw talk that any man not a coward could not swallow. But Matthews was a coward. That appeared patent to all onlookers, in their whispers and nodding heads. Whatever prestige he had held there in that rough mining community was gone, until he came out to face this fiery cowboy with a gun. White and shaking he turned to the group of men who had gotten Hardman to his feet. They led him out the open door and Matthews followed.

Pan strode back to the table where Louise sat tense and wide eyed. The hum of voices began again, the clatter of glasses, the clink of coin. The incident had passed.

“Well, little girl, I had them figured, didn’t I?” asked Pan, calling a smile to break his tight cold face.

“I don’t — know what — ails me,” she said, breathlessly. “I see fights every night. And I’ve seen men killed — dragged out. But this got my nerve.”

“It wasn’t much to be excited about. I didn’t expect any fight.”

“Your idea was to show up Hardman and Matthews before the crowd. You sure did. The crowd was with you. And so am I, Panhandle Smith.” She held out a slim hand. “I’ve got to dance. Good night.”

CHAPTER TEN

PAN’S EXIT FROM the Yellow Mine was remarkable for the generous space accorded him by its occupants.

Outside he laughed a little, as he stood under the flare of yellow light and rolled a cigarette. Knots of men stood on the corners of the street. But the area in front of the saloon was significantly vacant.

“Now if Dad had only been there,” soliloquized Pan. “That might have put some life in him.”

He sauntered down into the street, and as he went he heard the jangle of spurs behind him. Blinky and Gus covering his rear! Presently, beyond the circle of yellow light, they joined him, one on each side.

“Wal, Pan, I was shore in on thet,” said Blink, gripping Pan’s arm.

“Say, you called ’em flat. Made ’em swaller a hell of a lot,” added Gus, with a hard note in his voice. “When it come down to hard pan they wasn’t there.”

“Pan, you remember me tellin’ you aboot Purcell, who jumped my claim with young Hardman?” queried Blinky. “Wal, Purcell was there, settin’ some tables back of where you made your stand. I seen him when we first went in. Course everybody quit playin’ cards when you called old Hardman. An’ I made it my particular biz to get close to Purcell. He was pullin’ his gun under the table when I kicked him. An’ when he looked up he seen somethin’, you can bet on thet...Wal, Purcell is one man in Hardman’s outfit we’ll have to kill...Gus will back me up on thet.”

“I shore will. Purcell’s a Nevada claim jumper, accordin’ to talk. Somebody hinted he belonged to thet Plummer gang thet was cleaned out at Bannock years ago. He’s no spring chicken, thet’s shore.”

“Point Purcell out to me the first chance you get,” replied Pan. “Don’t figure I expect to bluff everybody. It can’t be done. Somebody will try me out — if only to see what I can do. That’s the game, you know.”

“Hell, yes. An’ all you got to do, Pan, is to be there first.”

“Reckon tomorrow will be shore interestin’,” remarked Gus.

“That girl Louise gave me a hunch,” said Pan thoughtfully. “Struck me she was square. — Blink, you’ve talked to her, of course?”

“Me?...Aw! — Couple of times. I reckon. Bought her drinks. She won’t look at me unless she’s drunk,” replied Blink, both confused and gloomy.

“You’ve got Louise figured wrong, cowboy,” returned Pan. “I’ll prove it to you sometime...Now let’s get down to business, and plan Blake’s release from jail. I want to lead the horse round about, so I won’t be seen by anybody.”

“Shore, thet’ll be easy,” replied Blinky. “I’ll go with you. We can keep to the slope a ways an’ then go down an’ come up on the other side of town. No roads an’ no houses.”

They returned to camp, and replenishing the fire sat around it talking of the wild-horse drive.

About ten o’clock Blinky went to the corral, saddled a horse, and led him back to the tent. There they put on the blanket and saddlebags. Blinky produced a gun he could spare, and then thoughtfully added a small bag of grain for the horse.

“It’s darker’n the milltail of Hades,” announced Blinky, “an’ thet’s good fer this kind of work. I’ll go ahaid, pickin’ out the way, an’ you lead the hoss.”

So they set out into the black night, working along the base of the slope. No stars showed, and the raw wind hinted of rain or snow. The lights of the town shone dimly. Keen on the breeze floated the discordant music and revelry, from the Yellow Mine and other like dives, in full blast.

Descending the slope required careful slow work. The incline was steep, of soft earth and loose shale. But Blinky knew where to feel his way, and eventually they reached the flat, to find easier progress. Blinky made a detour, and finally, as they gradually approached several lamplights, far apart, he whispered: “You wait heah. I ain’t so darn shore which one of them lights comes from the jail.”

Pan waited what seemed a long while. At last he heard steps, then made out an object blacker than the black background.

“Found the jail easy, but got off comin’ back. Pronto now. Must be near eleven.”

Pan kept the dark silent moving form in sight. The dim light grew larger. Then the low flat building loomed up faintly in the dense gloom.

“Go ahead,” whispered Blinky. “I’ll hold the hoss.”

Pan went swiftly up to the wall, and thence along it to the corner. The light came from an open door. He listened. There was no sound. Luckily Hurd was alone. Pan slipped round the corner and entered. Hurd sat at the table in the flare of a lamp, turned down low.

“Ha! Was waitin’ fer you, an’ beginnin’ to worry,” he said, in hoarse whisper.

“Plenty of time, if Blake’s all ready,” replied Pan.

“I’m givin’ you a hunch. He’s damn queer fer a fellar who expects to break jail.”

“No matter. Let’s get at it, pronto.”

Hurd got up, and laid his gun on the table. Then he turned over the bench, threw papers on the floor. “Thar’s the key, an’ heah’s a rope. Hawg-tie me.”

With that he turned his back. Swiftly Pan bound him securely, and let him down upon the floor. Then he unlocked the door, opened it. Pitch darkness inside and no sound! He called in low voice. Blake did not reply. Muttering in surprise, Pan took the lamp and went into the room. He found Blake asleep, though fully dressed. Pan jerked him roughly out of that indifferent slumber.

“It’s Smith,” he said, bluntly. “You sure must want to get out...Damn you, Blake, this whole deal looks fishy to me!...Come on.”

Leaving the lamp there, Pan dragged the man out, through the dark entrance room, into the night. In another moment they had reached the horse and Blinky.

“Here’s money and a gun,” whispered Pan, swiftly. “You’ll find grub, blanket, grain on your saddle. Get on!” Pan had to half lift Blake upon the horse. He felt of the stirrups. “They’re all right...The road is that way, about fifty yards. Turn to the left and ride. Remember, Siccane.”

Blake rode away into the darkness without a word. Pan watched and listened. Presently he heard the hard clip-clop of hoofs on the road, making to the left.

“Good! He’ll ride past where Lucy’s sleeping. I wish she could know,” muttered Pan.

“Was he drunk?” queried Blinky, in a hoarse whisper. “Shore funny fer a sober man.”

“He didn’t breathe like he was drunk,” replied Pan. “But he flabbergasted me. Found him asleep! And he never said a darned word...Blink, it sticks in my craw. Reckon he didn’t want to leave that nice warm bed.”

“Ahuh! Wal, let’s rustle back to our warm beds,” said the cowboy gruffly.

Pan awakened during the latter part of the night. Rain was pattering on the tent. The wind moaned. He thought of Blake, not clad for bad weather and in unfit condition for a long ride, facing the storm. Even then a vague doubt penetrated his drowsy mind.

Morning dawned bright and sparkling after the rain. The air was keen and crisp. The cedars glistened as if decked with diamonds. Pan felt the sweet scent of the damp dust, and it gave him a thrill and a longing for the saddle and the open country.

“Wal, reckon this heah’ll be our busy day,” drawled Blinky, after making a hearty breakfast of bacon and flapjacks. “Pan, what’s first on the ticket?”

“Show me a horse, you bow-legged grub destroyer,” replied Pan eagerly.

“Come out to the corral. We got a sorrel as is a real shore enough hoss if you can ride him.”

There were a dozen or more horses in the corral. Pan, glancing over them with appraising eye, decided the cowboys had not spoken of them with the degree of satisfaction that they really merited.

“Fine string, Blinky,” said Pan, with glistening eyes. “Is that sorrel the one I can’t ride?”

“Yep, thet’s him. Ain’t he a real hoss?”

“Best of the bunch, at first sight. Blinky, are you sure you’re not giving me your own horse?”

“Me? I don’t care nothin’ aboot him,” declared Blinky, lying glibly. “Shore he’s the orfullest pitchin’ son-of-a-gun I ever forked. But mebbe you can ride him.”

It developed presently that Pan could ride the sorrel, and that Blinky had done the horse a great injustice. How good to be back in the saddle! Pan wanted to ride down at once to show Lucy his first mount west of the Rockies. Indeed he was possessed of a strong yearning desire to hurry to see Lucy, a feeling that he had to dispel. If all went well he could go to his mother’s for dinner. Meanwhile he must meet the exigencies here in Marco.

“Wal, what’s next on the ticket?” queried Blinky, who appeared to be rather jerky this morning.

“I’m going downtown,” replied Pan.

“Ahuh! I want to trail along with you.”

“No, I’ll go alone. I’ll make my bluff strong, Blinky, or draw Matthews out. Honest, I don’t think he’ll show.”

“Thet yellow dawg? He won’t face you, Pan. But he’s in thet Hardman outfit, an’ one of them — mebbe Purcell — might take a shot at you from a winder. It’s been done heah. Let me go with you.”

“Well, if they’re that low down your being with me wouldn’t help much,” replied Pan, pondering the matter. “I’ll tell you, Blink. Here’s how I figure. Marco is a pretty big place. It’s full of men. And western men are much alike anywhere. Matthews is no fool. He couldn’t risk murdering me in broad daylight, from ambush.”

“I’m not trustin’ him,” said Blinky, somberly. “But I admit the chances are he won’t do thet.”

“You and Gus pack up for the wild-horse drive,” went on Pan briskly. “We ought to get off in the morning. One of you ride out to see if Charley Brown will throw in with us. I’ll see Dad at dinner. He’ll need horse and outfit. It may turn out we can get our jailer friend, Hurd. Wonder if he lost his job...Ha! Ha! Well, boys, I’ll know more when I see you again.”

Pan strolled down toward the town. A familiar unpleasant mental strain dominated his consciousness. His slow, cool, easy nonchalance was all outward. He had done this thing before, but that seemed long ago. His father, Lucy, his mother, somehow made an immense difference between the cowboy reactions of long ago and this stern duty he had set himself today. He hated what his actions meant, what might well ensue from them, yet he was glad it was in him to meet the issue in this way of the West.

By the time he had reached a point opposite the stage office all reflections had passed out of his mind to give place to something sinister.

His alert faculties of observation belied the leisurely manner of his approach to the main street. He was a keen-strung, watching, listening machine. The lighting and smoking of a cigarette was mechanical pretense — he did not want to smoke.

Two men stood in front of the stage office. One was Smith, the agent. Pan approached them, leaned on the hitching rail. But he favored his right side and he faced the street.

“Mornin’, cowboy,” Smith greeted him, not without nervousness. “See you’re down early to git arrested.”

“Howdy, Smith. Can you give me a drink?” returned Pan.

“Sorry, but I haven’t a drop.”

The other man was an old fellow, though evidently he was still active, for his boots and clothes showed the stain and wear of mining.

“Tell you, cowboy,” he spoke up, dryly, “you might buy a bottle at the Yellow Mine.”

Pan made no reply, and presently the old man shambled away while Smith entered his office. Pan kept his vigil there, watching, waiting. He was seen by dozens of passing men, but none of them crossed toward the stage office. Down the street straggling pedestrians halted to form little groups. In an hour the business of Marco had apparently halted.

Its citizens, the miners who had started to work, the teamsters, Mexicans, cowboys who happened upon the street, suddenly struck attitudes of curious attention, with faces turned toward Pan. They too were waiting, watching.

The porch of the Yellow Mine was in plain sight, standing out on a corner, scarcely more than a hundred yards down the street. Pan saw Hardman and Matthews come out of the hotel. They could not fail to observe the quiet, the absence of movement, the waiting knots of men.

This was the climax of strain for Pan. Leisurely he strolled away from the hitching rail, out into the middle of the street, and down. The closer groups of watchers vanished.

Hardman could be seen gesticulating, stamping as if in rage; and then he went into the hotel, leaving Matthews standing alone. Other men, in the background disappeared. The sheriff stood a moment irresolute, sagging, with his pale hamlike face gleaming. Then he wheeled to enter the hotel.

He had damned himself. He had refused the even break, the man-to-man, the unwritten edict of westerners.

Pan saw this evasion with grim relief. The next move was one easier to perform, though fraught with great peril. Every man in Marco now knew that Pan had come out to meet the men he had denounced. They had been aware of his intention. They had seen him sauntering down the middle of the street. And they had showed what the West called yellow. But they had not showed their claws, if they had any. Pan could well have ended his quest then and there. But to follow it up, to beard the jackals in their den — that was the last word.

As Pan proceeded slowly down the middle of the street the little groups of spectators disintegrated, and slipped out of sight into the stores and saloons. Those farthest from him moved on to halt again. And when any neared the Yellow Mine, they scurried completely out of sight. Pan had the main street to himself. For a few moments not a single man showed himself. Then they began to reappear behind him out of range, slowly following him.

At the entrance to the Yellow Mine, Pan threw away his cigarette, and mounted the steps. He was gambling his life on the code of the westerners. The big hall-like saloon was vacant except for the two bartenders behind the bar, and a Mexican sweeping out the sawdust. Pan had heard subdued voices, the shuffle of feet, the closing of doors. Every muscle in his body was cramped with tension, ready to leap like lightning into action. Advancing to the bar he called for a drink.

“On the house this mawnin’,” replied the nearest bartender, smiling. He showed a little nervousness with his hands, otherwise he was composed, and his offer to treat expressed his sentiment. Pan took the bottle with his left hand, poured out some liquor, set the bottle down, and lifted the glass. He had his drink. His tension relaxed.

“Sort of quiet this morning,” he said.

“Reckon it is, just now,” replied the bartender, significantly.

“Is this Sunday?” went on Pan casually.

“No. Yestiddy was Sunday, so this must be Monday.”

“Reckon I might as well move along,” remarked Pan, but he did not stir. The bartender went on cleaning glasses. Sounds of footsteps came from outside. Presently Pan walked back through the open door, then halted a moment, to light another cigarette. His back was turned to the bar and the doors. That seemed the climax of his effrontery. It was deliberate, the utter recklessness of the cowboy who had been trained in a hard school. But all that happened was the silence breaking to a gay wild sweet voice: “Call again, cowboy, when there’s somebody home!”

Louise had been watching him through some secret peephole. That had been her tribute to him and her scorn of his opponents. It about closed the incident, Pan concluded. Men were now coming along the street in both directions, though not yet close. Some wag yelled from a distance: “Thar ain’t no sheriff, Panhandle.”

Pan retraced his steps up the street, finding, as before, a clear passage. Men hailed him from doorways, from windows, from behind obstructions. He did not need to be told that they were with him. Marco had been treated to precisely what it wanted. Pan was quick to grasp the mood of these residents who had been so keen about his endeavor to draw out Hardman and Matthews. That hour saw the beginning of the end for these dominant factors in the evil doings of Marco. What deep gratification it afforded Pan! They might thrive for a time, but their heyday had passed. Matthews would be the laughing stock of the town. He could never retrieve. He had been proclaimed only another in the long list of self-appointed officers of the law.

By the time Pan got back to camp his mood actually harmonized with his leisurely, free and careless movements. Still he was hiding something, for he wanted to yell. Blinky saw him coming and yelled for him.

The cowboy was beside himself with a frenzy of delight. It had been hard for him to stay there in camp. He cursed radiantly.

“How’s the pack job? All done?” queried Pan, when he could get a word in.

“Pack hell! We plumb forgot,” replied Blinky. “What you think — you — you—”

Blinky failed to find adequate words to express his sentiments. Gus was quiet as usual, but he too showed relaxation from a severe ordeal.

“Well, let’s get at it now,” suggested Pan. “I’ll start you boys on it, then ride down to Mother’s.”

In the succeeding hour, leading to noon, what with sundry trips down to the store, the trio learned some news that afforded much satisfaction. Jim Blake had assaulted a guard and broken jail. No doubt he must have had outside assistance. According to rumor Matthews accused Hurd, the guard, of being party to the escape, and had discharged him. Sentiment in town was not equally divided. Most everybody, according to the informers, was glad Blake had escaped. It developed that the jail was not a civic institution. Already there had been talk of the permanent citizens getting together.

All this was exceedingly welcome to Pan. He could hardly wait till noon to saddle the sorrel, to ride over to his mother’s.

“Aw, cowboy, hug thet gurl fer me!” sang Blinky, with ecstatic upward gaze. “Shore she’s put the devil in you. An’ this heah outfit is steppin’ high!”

On the way out to the farm, halfway beyond the outskirts of town, Pan met his father rushing up the road. At sight of Pan he almost collapsed.

“Just — heard — the news,” he panted, as Pan reined in the sorrel.

“What news, Dad?” queried Pan, gazing down with both thrill and anxiety at that haggard face, slowly warming out of its havoc.

“Bill Dolan an’ his — boys — stopped at the ranch to — tell me,” Smith, wiping his clammy face. “They just left town...Bill saw you take that walk down main street.”

“Well, what’s that to be all set up about?”

“Reckon I was scared wild...Bill says to me, ‘Bill, you oughtn’t show yellow like thet. You shore don’t savvy thet boy of yours.’...I thought I did, son, but when it come to a showdown I was chicken-hearted. Your comin’ home was a Godsend to Mother an’ Lucy. An’ more to me! Then to think you might get shot right off...Wal, it was too much for my stomach.”

“Dad, I bluffed them — that’s all. I braced them quick and hard, before they could figure. It worked, and I believe I got most of the town with me.”

“Pan, is it true that you accused Jard Hardman of robbin’ me — an’ you knocked him flat?”

“Sure it’s true.”

“Lord, but I’d like to have seen that,” declared Smith vehemently. “An’ son, you got Jim Blake out of jail. Bill didn’t hint you had anythin’ to do with that. But I knew. It was sure great. If only Jim does his part!”

“You doubt that, Dad?”

“Shore do. But I’ll tell you, Pan. If we could be with Jim all the time we could pull him up.”

“Let’s hope he’s far on the way to Siccane by now...Does Lucy know? I hope you didn’t tell her about my meeting with Hardman and Matthews?”

“I didn’t. But Bill shore did,” replied his father. “Reckon I would have squealed, though. Mother an’ Lucy have a lot more nerve than me. Fact is, though, Bill didn’t give ’em time to go to pieces. He just busted out with news of Blake’s escape. Say, boy, you should have seen Lucy.”

“I will see her pronto,” replied Pan eagerly. “Come on. What’re you holding me up for, anyhow?”

Pan walked the horse while his father kept pace alongside.

“Some more news I most forgot,” Smith went on. “Bill told about a shootin’ scrape out in Cedar Gulch. Them claim jumpers drove a miner named Brown off his claim. They had to fight for it. Brown said he wounded one of ‘em. They chased him clean to Satlee’s ranch. Shore wanted to kill him or scare him off for good.”

“I know Brown,” replied Pan. “And from what he told me I’ve a hunch I know the claim jumpers.”

“Wal, that’d be hard to prove. In the early days of a minin’ boom there’s a lot of trouble. A miner is a crazy fellar often. He’ll dig a hole, then move on to dig another. Then if some other prospector comes along to find gold on his last diggin’s he yells claim jumpin’. As a matter of fact most of them haven’t a real claim till they find gold. An’ all that makes the trouble.”

“I’ll hunt Brown up and persuade him to make the wild-horse drive with us. He’s—”

“By George, I forgot some more,” interrupted Smith, slapping his leg. “Bill said Wiggate broke with Jard Hardman. Wiggate started this wild-hoss buyin’ an’ shippin’ east. Hardman had to get his finger in the pie. Now Wiggate is a big man an’ he has plenty of money. I always heard him well spoken of. Now I’ll gamble your callin’ Jard Hardman the way you did had a lot to do with Wiggate’s break with him.”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” rejoined Pan. “And it’s darned good luck for us. The boys ran across a valley full of wild horses over here about twenty miles. Dad, I believe I can trap several thousand wild horses.”

“No!” ejaculated his father, incredulously.

“If the boys aren’t loco, I sure can,” declared Pan positively.

“I can vouch for numbers myself,” replied Smith. “An’ I’ve not a doubt in the world but that there valley’s not yet hunted. But to ketch the darned scooters, that’s the hell of it! Pan, even a thousand head would give me a new start somewhere.”

“It’s as good as done. Before the snow flies we will be on the way south to Siccane.”

“Lord! I’m a younger man than I was a few days ago. Before the snow flies? That’s hardly another month. Pan, how’ll we travel?”

“Wagons and horseback. We can buy wagon outfits for next to nothing. There’s a corral full of them at Black’s. Second hand, but good enough.”

“Mother an’ Lucy will be glad. They hate this country. I don’t mind wind if it’s not too cold.”

“There! Isn’t that Lucy at the gate now?” suddenly queried Pan, with piercing gaze ahead.

“Reckon it is,” replied his father. “Ride ahead, son. I’ll take my time.”

Pan urged the sorrel into a lope, then a gallop, and from that to a run. In just a few rods Pan took the measure of this splendid horse. Swift, strong, sure footed and easy gaited, and betraying no sign of a mean spirit, the sorrel won Pan. What a liar Blinky was! He had lied to be generous.

Lucy waved to Pan as he came clattering down the road. Then she disappeared in the green foliage. Arriving at the gate he dismounted and went in. He expected to see her. But she had disappeared. Leading his horse he hurried in toward the house, looking everywhere. The girl, however, was not to be seen.

Bobby was occupied with little wooden playthings on the porch. Pan’s gay shout to him brought forth his mother, but no Lucy.

He dropped his bridle, and mounted the porch to embrace his mother, who met him with suppressed emotions. Her hands were more expressive than her words.

“Oh, I’m all here, Mother,” he laughed. “Where’s Lucy? She was at the gate. Waved to me.”

“Lucy ran through the house like a whirlwind,” replied his mother, with a smile. “The truth is, my son, she has been quite beside herself since she heard of her father’s release from jail. She knew you got him out. She stared at me with her eyes black and wide. ‘Mother, he laughed at me — at my fears. He said it’d be easy to free Dad.’...So she knows, Pan, and I rather think she didn’t want us to see her when she meets you. You’ll find her in the orchard or down by the brook.”

“All right, Mother, I’ll find her,” replied Pan happily. “We’ll be in to dinner pronto. There’s a lot to talk about. Dad will tell you.”

Pan did not seek Lucy in the orchard. Leaping upon the sorrel he loped down the sandy hard-packed path toward the brook and the shady tree with its bench. Pan knew she would be there. Dodging the overhanging branches he kept peering through the aisles of green for a glimpse of white or a golden head. Suddenly he was rewarded. Lucy stood in the middle of the sunny glade.

Pan rode to her side and leaped from the saddle. Her face was pale, and wet with tears. But her eyes were now dry, wide and purple, radiant with unutterable gladness. She rushed into his arms.

Dinner that day appeared to be something only Bobby and Pan had thought or need of. Mrs. Smith and Lucy, learning they might have to leave in two weeks, surely in four, became so deeply involved in discussion of practical details of preparation, of food supplies for a long wagon trip, of sewing and packing, that they did not indulge in the expression of their joy.

“Dad is hopeless,” said Pan, with a grin. “He’s worse than a kid. I’ll have to pack his outfit, if he has anything. What he hasn’t got, we’ll buy. So, Mother, you trot out his clothes, boots, some bedding, a gun, chaps, spurs, everything there is, and let me pick what’s worth taking.”

It was indeed a scant and sad array of articles that Pan had to choose from.

“No saddle, no tarp, no chaps, no spurs, no gun!” ejaculated Pan, scratching his head. “Poor Dad! I begin to have a hunch how he felt.”

It developed that all his father possessed made a small bundle that Pan could easily carry into town on his saddle.

“We’ll buy Dad’s outfit,” said Pan briskly. “Mother, here’s some money. Use it for what you need. Work now, you and Lucy. You see we want to get out of Marco pronto. The very day Dad and I get back with the horses. Maybe we can sell the horses out there. I’d take less money. It’ll be a big job driving a bunch of wild horses in to Marco. Anyway, we’ll leave here pronto.”

To Lucy he bade a fond but not anxious good-by. “We won’t be away long. And you’ll be busy. Don’t go into town! Not on any account. Send Alice. Or Mother can go when necessary. But you stay home.”

“Very well, boss, I promise,” replied Lucy roguishly.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BEFORE DARK THAT night Pan had most of his preparations made, so that next morning there would be nothing to do but eat, pack the horses, saddle up and ride.

At suppertime Charley Brown and Mac New, alias Hurd, called at the camp. The latter was a little the worse for the bottle. Charley was sober, hard, gloomy.

“Howdy, boys. Help yourself to chuck. Then we’ll talk,” said Pan.

The outcome of that visit was the hiring of both men to go on the wild-horse drive. Brown’s claim had been jumped by strangers. It could not be gotten back without a fight. Brown had two horses and a complete outfit; Mac New had only the clothes on his back.

“Fired me ‘thout payin’ my wages,” he said, sullenly.

“Who fired you, Mac?” inquired Pan.

“Hardman, the ——  ——  —— !” replied Mac New.

“Well! That’s strange. Does he own the jail?”

“Huh! Hardman owns this heah whole damn burg.”

“Nix,” spoke up Blinky. “Don’t fool yourself there, pardner. Jard Hardman has a long string on Marco, I’ll admit, but somebody’s goin’ to cut it.”

Brown had an interesting account to give of his meeting with Dick Hardman down at Yellow Mine. The young scion of the would-be dictator of Marco fortunes had been drunk enough to rave about what he would do to Panhandle Smith. Some of his maudlin threats, as related by Brown, caused a good deal of merriment in camp, except to Blinky, who grew perfectly furious.

“Hey, cowboy, are you goin’ to stand fer thet?” he queried, belligerently.

Pan tried to laugh it off, but Blinky manifestly had seen red at the mention of Dick Hardman’s name. He was going over to the Yellow Mine and pick a fight. Pan, finding Blinky stubborn and strange, adopted other tactics. Drawing the irate cowboy aside he inquired kindly and firmly: “It’s because of Louise?”

“What’s because?” returned Blinky, blusteringly.

“That you want to pick a fight with Dick?”

“Naw,” replied Blinky, averting his face.

“Don’t you lie to me, Blinky,” went on Pan earnestly, shaking the cowboy. “I’ve guessed your trouble and I’m your friend.”

“Wal, Pan, I’m darn glad an’ lucky if you’re my friend,” said Blinky, won out of his sullenness. “But what trouble are you hintin’ aboot?”

Pan whispered: “You’re in love with Louise.”

“What if I am?” hissed Blinky, in fierce shame. “Are you holdin’ thet agin me?”

“No, I’m damned if I don’t like you better for it.”

That was too much for Blinky. He gazed mutely up at Pan, as a dog at his master. Pan never saw such eyes of misery.

“Blinky, that girl is wicked,” went on Pan. “She’s full of hellfire. But that’s only the drink. She couldn’t carry on that life without being drunk. She told me so. There’s something great about that little girl. I felt it, Blink. I liked her. I told her she didn’t belong there. I believe she could be made a good woman. Why don’t you try it? I’ll help you. She likes you. She told me that, too.”

“But Louise won’t ever see me unless she’s drunk,” protested Blinky sorrowfully.

“That’s proof. She doesn’t want you wasting your time and money at the Yellow Mine. She thinks you’re too good for that — when she’s sober...Talk straight now, Blink. You do love her, bad as she is?”

“So help me I do!” burst out the cowboy abjectly. “It’s purty near killed me. The more I see of her the more I care. I’m so sorry fer her I cain’t stand it...Dick Hardman fetched her out heah from Frisco. Aw! She must have been bad before thet, I know. But she wasn’t low down. Thet dive has done it. Wal, he never cared nothin’ fer her an’ she hates him. She swears she’ll cut his heart out. An’ I’m afraid she’ll do it. Thet’s why I’d like to stick a gun into his belly.”

“Marry Louise. Take her away. Come south with us to Arizona,” replied Pan persuasively.

“My Gawd, pardner, you’re too swift fer me,” whispered Blinky huskily, and he clutched Pan. “Would you let us go with you?”

“Sure. Why not? Lucy and my mother know nothing about Louise. Even if they did they wouldn’t despise a poor girl you and I believe is good at heart and has been unfortunate. I’d rather not tell them, but I wouldn’t be afraid to.”

“But Louise won’t marry me.”

“If we can’t talk her into it when she’s sober, by heaven we’ll get her drunk...Now Blink, it’s settled. Let’s stay away from there tonight. Forget it. We’ll go out and do the hard riding stunt of our lives. We’ll sell horses. With some money we can figure on homes far from this bitter country — homes, cowboy, do you savvy that? With cattle and horses — some fine open grassy rolling country — where nobody ever heard of Blinky Moran and Panhandle Smith.”

“Pard, it ain’t — my — right name, either,” mumbled Blinky, leaning against Pan. He was crying.

“No difference,” replied Pan, holding the boy tight a moment. “Brace up, now, Blink. It’s all settled. Go to bed now, I’ll help Gus with the horses.”

Pan left the cowboy there in the darkness, and returned to camp. His conscience questioned him, but he had only satisfaction, even gladness in reply. Blinky had been one of the wild cowboys, and had been going from bad to worse. If an overpowering love gripped him, a yielding to it in a right way might make a better man of him. Pan could not see anything else. He had known more than one good-for-nothing cowboy, drinking and gambling himself straight to hell, who had fooled his detractors and had taken the narrow trail for a woman others deemed worthless. There was something about this kind of fight that appealed to Pan. As for the girl, Louise Melliss, and her reaction to such a desperate climax, Pan had only his strange faith that it might create a revolution in her soul. At least he was absolutely sure she would never return to such a life, and she was young.

Pan sought his blankets very late, and it seemed he scarcely had closed his eyes when Juan called him. It was pitch dark outside. The boys were stirring, the horses pounding, the campfire crackling. He pulled on his boots with a will. Glad he was to return to the life of camps, horses, cold dawns, hard fare and hard riding. He smelled the frying ham, the steaming coffee.

“Mawnin’, pardner,” drawled Blinky. “Shore thought you was daid. Grab a pan of grub heah...An’ say, cowboy, from now on you can call me Somers — Frank Somers. I’m proud of the name, but I reckon it was ashamed of me.”

“Ah-huh! All right, Blink Somers,” replied Pan cheerfully. “You’ll always be Blink to me.”

They ate standing and sitting before the campfire, in the chill blackness just beginning to turn gray. Then swift hands and lean strong arms went at beds and packs, horses and saddles. When dawn broke the hunters were on their way, far up the cedar slope.

Pan gazed back and down upon Marco, a ragged one-street town of motley appearance, its white tents, its adobe huts, its stone buildings, and high board fronts, mute and still in the morning grayness. What greed, what raw wild life slept there!

Far beyond the town he saw the green-patched farm, the little gray cabin where his mother and Lucy slept, no doubt dreaming of the hopes he had fostered in them. Some doubt, some fear, intangible and inexplicable, passed over him as he looked. Would all be well with Lucy? There was indeed much to be feared, and he could never give happiness full rein until he had her safe away from Marco.

Once out of sight of the town Pan forced himself to the job ahead. And as always, to ride a good-gaited horse with open country ahead lulled his mind into content.

Blinky was first, leading a pack horse. Pan followed next, and the other four men strung out behind, with bobbing pack horses between. This ridge was the high ground between Marco Valley and Hot Springs Valley. Soon the trail led down, and it was dusty. The rising sun killed the chill in the air, and by the time the hunters had reached level ground again it was hot. There was alkali dust to breathe, always an abomination. From above, Pan had espied a green spot fifteen miles or more down the valley. A number of dust devils were whirling around it.

“What’s that, Blink?” Pan had asked, pointing.

“Thet’s Hot Springs, an’ the dust comes from wild hosses comin’ to drink.”

They rode across the valley, which appeared to be five or six miles wide, to begin ascending another slope. The pack horses lagged and had to be driven. Up and up the hunters climbed, once more into the cedars. Pan had another view of Hot Springs and the droves of wild horses. He was surprised at their numbers.

“Blink, there must be lots of horses water there.”

“Yep. Three thousand or more at this time of year. Many more later, when the droves get run out of the high country by man. An’ you see Hardman’s outfit has been chasin’ them hosses fer two months. They’ve shore purty well boggered.”

“Are many of them branded?”

“Darn few,” replied Blinky. “Not more’n five or six in a hundred. The Mexicans call them Arenajos. These wild hosses haven’t been worth ketchin’ until lately. Most all broomtails. But now an’ then you shore see a bunch of dandy mustangs, with a high-steppin’ stallion.”

“Ah, now, cowboy, you’re talking,” declared Pan. “You’re singing to me. It’ll be darn hard for me to sell horses like that.”

“Pard, I reckon we won’t sell ‘em,” replied Blinky. “Cain’t we use a few strings of real hosses down there in Arizonie?”

“I should smile,” replied Pan.

They climbed and crossed that ridge, which could have been called a foothill if there had been any mountains near. Another valley, narrow and rough, not so low as the last, lay between this ridge and the next one, a cedared rise of rock and yellow earth that promised hard going. Beyond it rose the range of mountains, black and purple, and higher still, white peaked into the blue. They called to Pan. This was wild country, and even to see it in the distance was all satisfying.

This narrow valley also showed some wild-horse bands, but not many, for there appeared to be scant grass and water. These horses were going or coming, all on a trot, but when they sighted the hunters they would halt stock-still. Soon a stallion trotted out a hundred paces or more, snorted and whistled, then taking to his heels he led his band away in a cloud of dust. Some of these bands would run a long way; others would halt soon to look back.

The water which they had come to drink was not very good, according to Pan’s taste. His sorrel did not like it. This was Pan’s first experience with hot alkali water. It came out almost boiling, too hot to drink, but a few rods from the spring it cooled off.

The spring was surrounded by low trees still green, though many of the leaves had turned yellow. While the hunters watered there, Pan espied another herd of wild horses that trooped in below, and drank from the stream. He counted ten horses, mostly blacks and bays. The leader was a buckskin, and Pan would not have minded owning him. The others were not bad looking, of fair size, weighing around a thousand pounds, but they showed inbreeding. After they had drunk their fill they pawed the mud and rolled in the water, to come up most unsightly beasts. Pan let out a loud yell. Swift as antelopes the horses swept away.

“Shore they left there!” drawled Blinky. Then talking to his own horse, which he slapped with his sombrero, he said: “Now you smelled them broomies, didn’t you? Want to run right off an’ turn wild, huh! Wal, I’ll shore keep a durn sharp eye on you, an’ hobble you too.”

All the saddle horses, and even some of the pack animals, were affected by the scent of the wild herd. Freedom still lived deep down in their hearts. That was why a broken horse, no matter how gentle, became the wildest of the wild when he got free.

Pan had been right in his judgment of the lay of the land on the next ridge. Climbing it was difficult.

“When we ketch the wild hosses we can drive them down the valley an’ round to the road,” said Blinky, evidently by way of excuse. “It’ll be longer, but easy travelin’. Shore we couldn’t drive any broomtails heah.”

The summit of this ridge was covered with piñons and cedars, growing in heavy clumps around outcropping of ledges. Pan espied the blue flash of deer, through the gray and green. Deer sign was plentiful, a fact he observed with pleasure, for he liked venison better than beef.

It was rather a wide-topped ridge, and not until Pan had reached an open break on the far side could he see what kind of country lay beyond.

“Wal, there she is, my wild hoss valley,” said Blinky, who sat his horse alongside of Pan. “An’ by golly, thet’s the name for her — Wild Hoss Valley. Hey, pard?”

Pan nodded his acquiescence. In truth he had been rendered quite speechless by the wildness and beauty of the scene below and beyond him. A valley that had some of the characteristics of a canyon yawned beneath, so deep and wide that it appeared like a blue lake, so long that he could only see the north end, which notched under a rugged mountain slope, green and black and golden and white according to the successive steps toward the heights.

The height upon which he stood was the last of the ridges, for the elevation that lay directly across was a noble range of foothills, timbered, canyoned, apparently insurmountable for horses. Gray cliffs stood out of the green, crags of yellow rock mounted like castles.

But it was the blue floor of the valley that longest held Pan’s enraptured gaze. It looked level, though to an experienced eye that was deceitful. Grass and sage! What were the innumerable colored rocks or bushes or dots that covered the whole floor of the valley? Pan wondered. Then he did not need to ask. They were wild horses!

“Aw, Blink! This’ll be hard to leave!” he expostulated, as if his friend were to blame for this unexpected and bewildering spectacle.

“You bet your sweet life it will,” agreed Blinky. “But we cain’t hang up heah, moon eyed an’ ravin’. We’re holdin’ up the outfit an’ it’s a long way down to water.”

“Have you picked out a place where we’ll be away — out of sight?” queried Pan quickly.

“Wal, pard, I’m no wild hoss wrangler like you say you are, but I’ve got hoss sense,” drawled Blinky, as he urged his animal back into the yellow trail.

Pan dismounted to walk, a habit he had always conformed to on steep trails, when his horse needed freeing of a burden, and his own legs were the better for action. At times he got a glimpse of the valley through a hole in the trees, but for the most part he could not see downward at all. Then he gazed across the open gulf to the mountains. These were not like the Rockies he knew so well by sight, the great white-crowned sky-piercing peaks of Montana. These belonged more to the desert, were wilder, with more color, not so lofty, and as ragged as jagged rock and fringed timber could make them. Gradually, as he descended the trail, this range dropped back out of his sight.

At near the sunset hour, when the journey was ended, Pan had to compliment Blinky on the beautiful place to which he had guided them. It was isolated, and singularly fitted to their requirements. The slope they had descended ran out into an immense buttress jutting far into the valley. A low brushy arm of the incline extended out a half mile to turn toward the main slope and to break off short, leaving a narrow opening out into the valley. The place was not only ideal for a hidden camp site, with plenty of water, grass, wood, but also for such a wild-horse trap as Pan had in mind. What astonished Pan was that manifestly Blinky had not seen the possibilities of this peculiar formation of slope as a trap into which wild horses could be chased.

“How wide is that gap?” asked Pan.

“Reckon it cain’t be more’n the length of two lassoes,” replied Blinky.

“Rope it off high, boys, and turn the stock loose. This corral was made for us,” said Pan, enthusiastically.

They set to work, each with self-assumed tasks that soon accomplished the whole business of pitching camp. Suppertime found them a cheerful, hungry, hopeful little band. Pan’s optimism dominated them. He believed in his luck, and they believed in him.

Dusk settled down into this neck of the great valley. Coyotes barked out in the open. From the heights pealed down the mournful blood-curdling, yet beautiful, bay of a wolf. The rosy afterglow of sunset lingered a long time. The place was shut in, closed about by brushy steeps, redolent of sage. A tiny stream of swift water sang faintly down over rocks. And before darkness had time to enfold hollow and slope and horizon, the moon slid up to defeat the encroaching night and blanch the hills with silvery light.

Interrogation by Pan brought out the fact that Blinky had never been down this trail at all. It was only a wild horse trail anyway. Blinky had viewed the country from the heights above, and this marvelously secluded arm of the valley had been as unknown to him as to Pan.

“Luck!” burst out Pan when the circumstance became clear. “Say, Blink, if your horse would jump you off a cliff you’d come up with Queen Victoria on your arm!”

Lying Juan sometimes broke into the conversation, very often by reason of his defective hearing and his appalling habit of falsehood, bringing his companions to the verge of hysterics.

“Yes, yes, I was over to her place two, tree times,” began Juan, brightening with each word. “I drive en to many horse to her ranch. You bet I sell some damn good horse to Queen Victorie. I can tell you myself Queen Victorie is a fine little woman I ever seen on my life. She make big a dance for me when I never seen so much supper on my life. I dance with her myself an’ she ata me an’ say, ‘Juanie, I never dance lika this en my life till I dance with you,’ yes, that’s sure what she tell me to my own face an’ eyes.”

Pan was the only one of Juan’s listeners who had power of speech left, and he asked: “Juan, did you play any monte or poker with the queen?”

“You bet. She playa best game of poker I ever seen on my life an’ she won tree hunred dollars from me.”

Whereupon Pan succumbed to the riotous mirth. This laughter tickled Lying Juan’s supreme vanity. He was a veritable child in mentality, though he spoke English better than most Mexican laborers. Blinky was the only one who ever tried to match wits with Lying Juan.

“Juan, thet shore reminds me of somethin’,” began Blinky impressively. “Yea, hit shore does. Onct I almost got hitched up with Victorie. I was sort of figgerin’ on marryin’ her, but she got leary o’ my little desert farm back in Missourie. She got sorter skeered o’ coyotes an’ Injins. Now, I ain’t got no use fer a woman like her an’ thet’s why me an’ Queen Victorie ain’t no longer friends.”

Most of the talk, however, invariably switched back to the burning question of the hour — wild horses. Pan had to attempt to answer a hundred queries, many of which were not explicit to his companions or satisfactory to himself. Finally he lost patience.

“Say, you long-eared jackasses,” he exploded. “I tell you it all depends on the lay of the land. I mean the success of a big drive. If round the corner here there’s good running ground — well, it’ll be great for us. We’ll look the ground over and size up the valley for horses. Find where they water and graze. If we decide to use this place as a trap to drive into we’ll throw up two blind corrals just inside that gateway out there. Then we’ll throw a fence of cedars as far across the valley as we can drag cedars. The farther the better. It’ll have to be a fence too thick and high for horses to break through or jump over. That means work, my buckaroos, work! When that’s done we’ll go up the valley, get behind the wild horses and drive them down.”

Loud indeed were the commendations showered upon Pan’s plan.

Blinky, who alone had not voiced his approval, cast an admiring eye upon Pan.

“Shore I’ve got dobe mud in my haid fer brains,” he said, with disgust. “Simple as apple pie, an’ I never onct thought of ketchin’ wild hosses thet a way.”

“Blink, that’s because you never figured on a wholesale catch,” replied Pan. “Moonshining wild horses, as you called it, and roping, and creasing with a rifle bullet, never answered for numbers. It wouldn’t pay us to try those methods. We want at least a thousand head in one drive.”

“Aw! Aw! Pan, don’t work my hopes to believin’ thet,” implored Blinky, throwing up his hands.

“Son, I’m cryin’ for mercy too,” added Pan’s father. “An’ I’m goin’ to turn in on that one.”

Lying Juan, either from design or accident, found this an admirable opening.

“My father was big Don in Mexico. He hada tree tousand vacqueros on our rancho. We chase wild horse many days, more horse than I ever see on my life. I helpa lass more horse than I ever see on my life. I make tree tousand peso by my father’s rancho.”

“Juan, I pass,” declared Pan. “You’ve got my hand beat. Boys, let’s unroll the tarps. It has been a sure enough riding day.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

PAN’S FATHER WAS an early riser, and next morning he routed everybody out before the clear white morning star had gone down in the velvet blue sky.

Before breakfast, while the others were wrangling horses, packing wood and water, he climbed the steep end of the bluff between camp and the valley. Upon his return he was so excited over the number of wild horses which he claimed to have seen that Pan feared he had fallen victim to Lying Juan’s malady.

“I hope Dad’s not loco,” said Pan. “But our luck is running heavy. Let’s play it for all we’re worth. I’ll climb that bluff, too, and see for myself. Then we’ll ride out into the valley, get the lay of the land, and find the best place for our trap.”

Blinky accompanied Pan to the ridge which they climbed at a point opposite camp. Probably it was four or five hundred feet high, and provided a splendid prospect of the valley. Pan could scarcely believe his eyes. He saw wild horses — so many that for the time being he forgot the other important details. He counted thirty bands in a section of the valley no more than fifteen miles long and less than half as wide. These were individual bands, keeping to themselves, each undoubtedly having a leader.

Blinky swore lustily in his enthusiasm, evidently thinking of the money thus represented. “ ——  ——  —— who’d ever think of these heah broomies turnin’ into a gold mine?” he ended his tribute to the scene.

But to Pan it meant much more than fortune; indeed at first he had no mercenary thought whatsoever. Horses had been the passion of his life. Cattle had been only beef, hoofs, horns to him. Horses he loved. Naturally then wild horses would appeal to him with more thrill and transport than those that acknowledged the mastery of man.

Cowboys were of an infinite variety of types, yet they all fell under two classes: Those who were brutal with horses and those who were gentle. The bronco, the outlaw, the wild horse had to be broken to be ridden. Many of them hated the saddle, the bit, the rider, and would not tolerate them except when mastered. These horses had to be hurt to be subdued. Then there were cowboys, great horsemen, who never wanted any kind of a horse save one that would kick, bite, pitch. It was a kind of cowboy vanity. Panhandle Smith did not have it. He had broken bad horses and he had ridden outlaws, but because of his humanity he was not so great a horseman as he might have been. In almost every outfit where Pan had worked there had always been one cowboy, sometimes more, who could beat him riding.

Because of this genuine love for horses, the beautiful wild-horse panorama beneath Pan swelled his heart. He gazed and gazed. From near to far the bands dotted the green-gray valley. Far away this valley floor shaded into blue. Near at hand the colors were easily distinguishable. Blacks and bays, whites and chestnuts, pintos that resembled zebras dotted this wild pasture land. The closest band to where Pan and Blinky stood could not have been more than a mile distant, in a straight line. A shiny black stallion was the leader of this herd. He was acting strangely, too, trotting forward and halting, tossing his head and long black mane.

“Stallion!” exclaimed Pan, pointing. “What a jim-dandy horse! Blink, he has spotted us, sure as you’re born. Talk about eyesight!”

“Wal, the broomtailed son-of-a-bronc!” drawled Blinky, tapping a cigarette against his palm. “Reckon, by gosh, you’re correct.”

“Blink, that’s a wild stallion — a wonderful horse. I’ll bet he’s game and fast,” protested Pan.

“Wal, you’re safe to gamble on his bein’ fast, anyways.”

“Didn’t you ever really care for a horse?” queried Pan.

“Me? Hell no! I’ve been kicked in the stummick — bit on the ear — piled onto the mud — drug in the dust too darn often.”

“You’ll admit, though, that there are some fine horses among these?” asked Pan earnestly.

“Wal, Pan, to stop kiddin’ you, now an’ then a fellar sees a real hoss among them broomies. But shore them boys are the hard ones to ketch.”

The last of Blinky’s remark forced Pan’s observation upon the cardinally important point — the lay of the land. A million wild horses in sight would be of no marketable value if they could not be trapped. So he bent his keen gaze here and there, up and down the valley, across to the far side, and upon the steep wall near by.

“Blink, see that deep wash running down the valley? It looks a good deal closer to the far side. That’s a break in the valley floor all right. It may be a wonderful help to us, and it may ruin our chances.”

“Reckon we cain’t tell much from heah. Thet’s where the water runs, when there is any. Bet it’s plumb dry now.”

“We’ll ride out presently and see. But I’m almost sure it’s a deep wide wash, with steep walls. Impassable! And by golly, if that’s so — you’re a rich cowboy.”

“Haw! Haw! Gosh, the way you sling words around.”

“Now let’s work along this ridge, down to the point where Dad went. Wasn’t he funny?”

“He’s shore full of ginger. Wal, I reckon he’s perked up since you come.”

Brush and cactus, jumbles of sharp rocks, thickets of scrub oak and dumps of dwarf cedars, all matted along the narrow hog-back, as Blinky called it, made progress slow and tedious. No cowboy ever climbed and walked so well as he rode. At length, however, Pan and Blinky arrived at the extreme end of the capelike bluff. It stood higher than their first lookout.

Pan, who arrived at a vantage point ahead of Blinky, let out a stentorian yell. Whereupon his companion came running.

“Hey, what’s eatin’ you?” he panted. “Rattlesnakes or wild hosses?”

“Look!” exclaimed Pan, waving his hand impressively.

The steep yellow slope opposite them, very close at the point where the bluff curved in, stretched away almost to the other side of the valley. Indeed it constituted the southern wall of the valley, and was broken only by the narrow pass below where the cowboys stood, and another wider break at the far end. From this point the wash that had puzzled Pan proved to be almost a canyon in dimensions. It kept to the lowest part of the valley floor and turned to run parallel with the slope.

“Blink, suppose we run a fence of cedars from the slope straight out to the wash. Reckon that’s two miles and more. Then close up any gaps along this side of the valley. What would happen?” suggested Pan, with bright eyes on his comrade.

Blinky spat out his cigarette, a sign of unusual emotion for him.

“You doggone wild-hoss wrangler!” he ejaculated, with starting eyes and healthy grin. “Shore I begin to get your hunch. Honest, I never till this heah minnit thought so damn much of your idee. You shore gotta excuse me. A blind man could figger this deal heah...Big corrals hid behind the gate under us — long fence out there to the wash — close up any holes on this side of valley — then make a humdinger of a drive...Cowboy, shore’s you’re born I’m seein’ my Arizona ranch right this minnit!”

“Reckon I’m seeing things too,” agreed Pan in suppressed excitement. “I said once before it’s too good to be true. Dad wasn’t loco. No wonder he raved...Blink, is there any mistake?”

“What about?”

“The market for wild horses.”

“Absolutely, no,” declared Blinky vehemently. “It’s new. Only started last summer. Wiggate made money. He said so. Thet’s what fetched the Hardmans nosin’ into the game. Mebbe this summer will kill the bizness, but right now we’re safe. We can sell all the hosses we can ketch, right heah on the hoof, without breakin’ or drivin’. It’s only a day’s ride from Marco, less than thet over the hills the way we come. We can sell at Marco or we can drive to the railroad. I’d say sell at ten dollars a haid right heah an’ whoop.”

“I should smile,” replied Pan. “It’ll take us ten days or more, working like beavers to cut and drag the cedars to build that fence. More time if there are gaps to close along this side. Then all we’ve got to do is drive the valley. One day will do it. Why, I never saw or heard of such a trap. You can bet it will be driven only once. The wild horses we don’t catch will steer clear of this valley. But breaking a big drove, or driving them to Marco — that’d be a job I’d rather dodge. It’d take a month, even with a small herd.”

“Hardman an’ Wiggate have several outfits working, mebbe fifty riders all told. They’ve been handlin’ hosses. Reckon Wiggate would jump at buyin’ up a thousand haid, all he could get. He’s from St. Louis an’ what he knows aboot wild hosses ain’t a hell of a lot. I’ve talked with him.”

“Blinky, old-timer, we’ve got the broomies sold. Now let’s figure on catching them,” replied Pan joyfully. “And we’ll cut out a few of the best for ourselves.”

“An’ a couple fer our lady friends, hey, pard!” added Blinky, with violence of gesture and speech.

Down the steep slope, through brush and thickets, they slid like a couple of youngsters on a lark. Pan found the gateway between bluff and slope even more adaptable to his purposes than it had appeared from a distance. The whole lay of the land was miraculously advantageous to the drive and the proposed trap.

“Oh, it’s too darn good,” cried Pan, incredulously. “It’ll be too easy. It makes me afraid.”

“Thet somethin’ unforeseen will happen, huh?” queried Blink, shrewdly. “I had the same idee.”

“But what could happen?” asked Pan, darkly speculative.

“Wal, to figger the way things run fer me an’ Gus out heah I’d say this,” replied Blinky, with profound seriousness. “We’ll do all the cuttin’ an’ draggin’ an’ buildin’. We close up any gaps. We’ll work our selves till we’re daid in our boots. Then we’ll drive — drive them wild hosses as hosses was never drove before.”

“Well, what then?” queried Pan sharply.

“Drive ’em right in heah where Hardman’s outfit will be waitin’!”

“My God, man,” flashed Pan hotly. “Such a thing couldn’t happen.”

“Wal, it just could,” drawled Blinky, “an’ we couldn’t do a damn thing but fight.”

“Fight?” repeated Pan passionately. The very thought of a contingency such as Blinky had suggested made the hot red blood film his eyes.

“Thet’s what I said, pard,” replied his comrade coolly. “An’ it would be one hell of a fight, with all the best of numbers an’ guns on Hardman’s side. We’ve got only three rifles besides our guns, an’ not much ammunition. I fetched all we had an’ sent Gus for more. But Black didn’t send thet over an’ I forgot to go after it.”

“We can send somebody back to Marco,” said Pan broodingly. “Say, you’ve given me a shock. I never thought of such a possibility. I see now it could happen, but the chances are a thousand to one against it.”

“Shore. It’s hardly worth guessin’ aboot. But there’s thet one chance. An’ we’re both afeared of somethin’ strange. All we can do, Pan, is gamble.”

On the way back to camp, Pan, pondering very gravely over the question, at last decided that such a bold raid was a remote possibility, and that his and Blinky’s subtle reaction to the thought came from their highly excited imaginations. The days of rustling cattle and stealing horses on a grand scale were gone into the past. Hardman’s machinations back there in Marco were those of a crooked man who played safe. There was nothing big or bold about him, none of the earmarks of the old frontier rustler. Matthews was still less of a character to fear. Dick Hardman was a dissolute and depraved youth, scarcely to be considered. Purcell, perhaps, or others of like ilk, might have to be drawn upon sooner or later, but that being a personal encounter caused Pan no anxiety. Thus he allayed the doubts and misgivings that had been roused over Blinky’s supposition.

“Let’s see,” he asked when he reached camp. “How many horses have we, all told?”

“Thirty-one, countin’ the pack hosses, an’ thet outlaw sorrel of yours,” replied Blinky.

“Reckon we’ll have to ride them all. Dragging cedars pulls a horse down.”

“Some of ’em we cain’t ride, leastways I cain’t.”

“Grab some ropes and nose bags, everybody, and we’ll fetch the string into camp,” ordered Pan.

In due time all the horses were ridden and driven back to camp, where a temporary corral had been roped off in a niche of the slope.

“Wal, fellars, it’s find a hoss you haven’t rid before,” sang out Blinky, “an’ everyone fer himself.”

There was a stout, round-barreled buckskin that Pan’s father had his eye on.

“Don’t like his looks, Dad,” warned Pan. “Say, Blink, how about this wormy-looking buck?”

“Wal, he’s hell to get on, but there never was a better hoss wrapped up in thet much hide.”

Pan caught him and led him out of the corral. Just as the horse stepped over the rope fence, which Pan held down, he plunged and made a break to get loose, dragging Pan at the end of a thirty-foot lasso. There was a lively tussle, which Pan finally won.

“Whoa, you bean-headed jasper,” he yelled. “I’ll ride you myself.”

His father caught a brown bald-faced horse, nothing much to look at, that acted gentle enough until he was mounted. Then! — He arched his back, jumped up stiff legged, and began to pitch. Evidently Smith had been a horseman in his day. He stayed on.

“Hang on, Dad,” yelled Pan in delight.

“Ride him, cowboy,” shrieked Blinky.

Fortunately for Smith, the horse was not one of the fiery devilish species that would not be ridden. He straightened out presently and calmed down.

“He was goin’ to pile me — shore,” declared Smith.

Charley Brown caught a blue-gray, fine-looking horse, whose appearance, no doubt had attracted the miner; but he turned out to be a counterfeit, and Charley “bit the dust,” as Blinky called it. Whereupon Charley had recourse to the animal he had ridden from Marco. Hurd showed he was a judge of horses and could ride. Blinky evidently was laboring under the urge that caused so much disaster among riders — he wanted to try a new horse. So he caught a jug-headed bay that did not look as if he could move out of his own way.

“Blink, you must be figuring on sleeping some?” inquired Pan.

“Humph! he’ll walk back,” snorted Gus. “I tried thet pack animal. He’s hell fer breakfast.”

“Gus, if I was goin’ to walk I’d leave my saddle heah in camp,” drawled Blinky.

“Blink, I’ll let you ride in behind me,” added Pan.

As a matter of fact, Pan was not having much luck propitiating the horse he had selected. Every time Pan would reach under for the cinch the horse would kick at him and throw off the saddle.

“Hey, Blink, come here,” called Pan impatiently. “Hold this nice kind horse. What’d you call him?”

“Dunny,” replied Blink. “An’ he’s a right shore enough good hoss...I’ll hold him.”

Blinky grasped the cars of the horse but that did not work, so Pan roped his front feet. Blinky held the beast while Pan put the saddle on, but when he gave the cinch a pull Dunny stood up with a wild shriek and fell over backwards. He would have struck square on the saddle if Blinky had not pulled him sideways. Fortunately for Pan the horse rolled over to the right.

“Pan, turn that thing loose an’ catch a horse you can get on,” called his father.

“Don’t worry, Dad. I’m ararin’ to ride this bird.”

“Pard, Dunny will be nice after you buckle down thet saddle an’ get forked on him good,” drawled Blinky, with his deceitful grin. “He’s shore a broomie-chasin’ devil.”

Pan said: “Blink, I’ll fool you in a minute...Hold him down now. Step on his nose.” Pulling the right stirrup out from under the horse Pan drew the cinch a couple of holes tighter, and then straddled him.

“Let him up, Blink.”

“All right, pard. Tell us where you want to be buried,” replied Blinky, loosing the lasso and jumping free.

With a blast of rage Dunny got up. But he cunningly got up with his back first, head down between his legs, and stiff as a poker. He scattered the horses and whooping men, bucked over the campfire and the beds; then with long high leaps, he tore for the open.

“High, wide an’ handsome,” yelled Blinky, in a spasm of glee. “Ride him, you Texas cowpunchin’ galoot! You’ll shore be the first one who ever forked him fer keeps.”

“Blink — if he — piles me — I’ll lick you!” yelled back Pan.

“Lick nothin’,” bawled Blinky, “you’ll need a doctor.”

But Pan stayed on that horse, which turned out to be the meanest and most violent bucker he had ever bestrode. Less powerful horses had thrown him. Eventually the plunging animal stopped, and Pan turned him back to camp.

“Wal, you son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Blinky, in genuine admiration. “How’d you ever keep company with him?”

“Grin, you idiot,” panted Pan, good humoredly. “Now men — we’re ready to look the valley over. I’ll take Dad with me. Blink, you and Gus turn the corner here and keep close under the slope all the way up the valley. Look out for places where the wild horses might climb out. Charley, you and Mac New cross to the other side of the valley, if you can. Look the ground over along that western wall. And everybody keep eyes peeled for wild horses, so we can get a line on numbers.”

They rode out through the gateway into the valley, where they separated into pairs. Pan, with his father, headed south along the slope. He found distances somewhat greater than he had estimated from the bluff, and obstacles that he had not noted at all. But by traveling farther down he discovered a low ledge of rock, quite a wall in places, that zigzagged out from the slope for a goodly distance. It had breaks here and there which could easily be closed up with brush. This wall would serve very well for part of the fence, and from the end of it out to the wash there was comparatively level ground. Half a mile up the slope the cedars grew thickly, so that the material for the fence was easily accessible.

The wash proved to be a perpendicularly walled gorge fifty or more feet deep with a sandy dry floor. It wound somewhat west by north up the valley, and as far as he could see did not greatly differ in proportion from the point where the fence was to touch.

“Dad, there are likely to be side washes, or cuts up toward the head, where horses could get down,” said Pan. “We’ll fence right across here. So if we do chase any horses into the wash we’ll stop them here. Sure, this long hole would make a great trap.”

From that point they rode up the wash and gradually out into the middle of the valley. Bands of wild horses trooped away in the distance. Clouds of moving dust beyond the rolling ridges of the valley told of others in motion. They were pretty wild, considering that they had never been chased. At length Pan decided that many of these herds had come into this valley from other points nearer to Marco. Some bands stood on ridge tops, with heads erect, manes flying, wild and ragged, watching the two riders move along the wash.

Pan did not observe any evidence of water, but he hardly expected to find any in that wash. A very perceptible ascent in that direction explained the greater number of horses. The sage was stubby and rather scant near at hand, yet it lent the beautiful color that was so appreciable from a distance.

Intersecting washes were few and so deep and steep-walled that there need be no fear of horses going down them into the main wash. Out-croppings of rock were rare; the zone of cactus failed as the valley floor lost its desert properties; jack rabbits bounded away before the approach of the horses; a few lean gray coyotes trotted up to rises of ground, there to watch the intruders.

Pan had been deceived in his estimate of the size of the valley. They rode ten miles west before they began to get into rougher ground, scaly with broken rock, and gradually failing in vegetation. The notch of the west end loomed up, ragged and brushy, evidently a wild jumble of cliffs, ledges, timber and brush. The green patch at the foot meant water and willows. Pan left his father to watch from a high point while he rode on five miles farther. The ascent of the valley was like a bowl. The time came when he gazed back and down over the whole valley. Before him lines and dots of green, widely scattered, told of more places where water ran. Strings of horses moved to and fro, so far away that they were scarcely distinguishable. Beyond these points no horses could be seen. The wash wound like a black ribbon out of sight. The vast sloping lines of valley swept majestically down from the wooded bluff-like sides. It was an austere, gray hollow of the earth, with all depressions and ridges blending beautifully into the soft gray-green dotted surface.

Pan rode back to join his father.

“It’s a big place, and we’ve got a big job on our hands,” he remarked.

“While you was gone a band of two hundred or more run right under me, comin’ from this side,” replied Smith with beaming face. “Broomtails an’ willowtails they may be, as those boys call them, but I’ll tell you, son, some of them are mighty fine stock. The leader of this bunch had a brand on his flank. He was white an’ I saw it plain. I’d shore like to own him.”

“Dad, I’ll bet we catch some good ones to take with us to Arizona. If we only had more time!”

“Pan, it’d pay us to work here all winter.”

“You bet. But Dad, I — I want to take Lucy away from Marco,” replied Pan hesitatingly. “When I let myself think, I’m worried. She’s only a kid, and she might be scared or driven.”

“Right, son,” said Smith, soberly. “Those Hardmans would try anythin’.”

“We’ll stick to the original plan, and that’s to make a quick hard drive — then rustle out of New Mexico.”

When they rode into the gateway the day was far spent, and the west was darkly ablaze with subdued fire.

Pan’s father showed his unfamiliarity with long horseback rides and he made sundry remarks, mirth provoking to his son.

“I’ll make a cowboy and horse wrangler of you again,” threatened Pan.

By the time Lying Juan had supper ready Blinky and Gus rode in camp.

“Hungrier’n a wolf,” said Blinky.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” asked Pan with a smile.

“Wuss an’ more of it,” drawled Blinky. “We seen most five thousand hosses, an’ I’ll be doggoned if I don’t believe we’ll ketch them all.”

“You found this side of the valley a regular hole-proof wing for our trap, I’ll bet,” asserted Pan.

“Wal, there’s places where hosses could climb out easy, but they won’t try it,” replied Blinky. “The valley slopes up long an’ easy to the wall. But when we drive them hosses they’ll keep down in the center, between the risin’ ground an’ thet wash. They’ll run far past them places where they could climb out. I shore lose my breath whenever I think of what’s comin’ off. I reckon the valley is a made-to-order corral.”

“Blink, you have some intelligence after all,” replied Pan, chaffingly. “Did you see any sign of Brown and Mac New?”

“Not after we separated this mawnin’,” returned Blinky. “An’ thet reminds me, pard, I’ve got somethin’ to tell you. This fellar Hurd — or Mac New as you call him — has a pocketful of gold coin.”

“How do you know?” queried Pan bluntly.

“Gus kicked his coat this mawnin’, over there where Mac New had his bed, an’ a pile of gold eagles rolled out. Just by accident. Gus wanted somethin’ or other. He was plumb surprised, an’ he said Mac New was plumb flustered. Now what you make of thet?”

“By golly, Blink, I don’t know. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t have some money, yet it strikes me queer. How much gold?”

“Aw, two or three hundred easy,” rejoined Blinky. “It struck me sort of queer, too. I recollected thet he told us he’d only been doin’ guard duty at the jail fer a couple of months. An’ Gus recollected how not long before Mac New went to work he’d been a regular grub-line runner. We fed him heah, or Juan did. Now, pard, it may be all right an’ then again it mayn’t. Are you shore aboot him?”

“Blink, you make me see how I answer to some feeling that’s not practical,” returned Pan, much perturbed. “Mac was an outlaw in Montana. Maybe worse. Anyway I saved him one day from being strung up. That was on the Powder River, when I was riding for Hurley’s X Y Z outfit. They were a hard lot. And Mac’s guilt wasn’t clear to me. Anyway, I got him out of a bad mess, on condition he’d leave the country.”

“Ahuh! Wal, I see. But it’s a shore gamble he’s one of Hardman’s outfit now, same as Purcell.”

“Reckon he was. But he got fired.”

“Thet’s what he says.”

“Blink, you advise me not to trust Mac New?” queried Pan dubiously.

“I ain’t advisin’ nobody. If you want my opinion, I’d say, now I know what you done fer Mac New, thet he wouldn’t double-cross you. When it comes down under the skin there ain’t much difference between outlaws an’ other range men in a deal like thet.”

“Well, I’ll trust him just because of that feeling I can’t explain,” returned Pan.

He did not, however, forget the possible implication, and it hovered in his mind. It was after dark when Mac New and Brown rode into camp. Pan and the others were eating their supper.

“We had to ride clean to the end of the valley to cross that wash,” said Brown. “It’s rough country. Horses all down low. Didn’t see so many, at that, until we rimmed around way up on this side.”

“Fine. You couldn’t have pleased me more,” declared Pan. “Now Mac, what do you say?”

“About this heah hoss huntin’?” queried Mac New.

“Yes. Our prospects, I mean. You’ve chased wild horses.”

“It’ll be most as bad as stealin’ hosses,” replied the outlaw, laconically. “Easy work an’ easy money.”

“Say, you won’t think it’s easy work when you get to dragging cedars down that hill in the hot sun all day. I don’t know anything harder.”

Early next morning the labor began and proceeded with the utmost dispatch. The slope resounded with the ring of axes. Pan’s father was a capital hand at chopping down trees, and he kept two horsemen dragging cedars at a lively rate. The work progressed rapidly, but the fence did not seem to grow in proportion.

As Pan dragged trees out to the sloping valley floor, raising a cloud of dust, he espied a stallion standing on the nearest ridge, half a mile away. How wild and curious!

“You better look sharp, you raw-boned sage eater!” called Pan.

Twice more this same horse evinced intelligent curiosity. Pan could not see any signs of a band with him. But other wild horses showed at different points, none however so close as this gray black-spotted stallion. Blinky was sure this horse had not always been wild. Manifestly he knew the ways of his archenemy, man.

With three cutters and three riders dragging cedars, allowing for a rest of an hour at noon the fence grew to a length of a quarter of a mile from the slope.

“Not so good,” declared Pan, when they left off work for the day. “But that fence is high and thick. It will take an old stallion like that gray to break through it.”

“Wal, my idee is thet we did grand,” replied Blinky, wiping his sweaty face. “Besides all the choppin’ and haulin’ Gus found time to kill a deer.”

It was a tired, sweaty and dust-begrimed party of hunters that descended upon Lying Juan for supper. After their hearty meal they gathered round the campfire to smoke and talk. This night Mac New joined the group, and though he had nothing to say he listened attentively and appeared to fit in more. Pan was aware of how the former outlaw watched him. The conversation, of course, centered round the plan and execution of work, and especially the wonderful drive they expected to make. If they could have at once started the drive, it would have been over and done with before their interest had time to grow intense. But the tremendous task of preparation ahead augmented the anticipation and thrill of that one day when they must ride like the wind.

Next day they did not go back to the fence, but worked at the gateway on the blind corrals. Pan constructed the opening to resemble a narrow aisle of scrub oak. Material for this they cut from the bluff and slid it down to the level. By sunset one corral had been almost completed. It was large enough to hold a thousand horses. One third of it was fenced by the bluff.

Two more days were required to build the second blind corral, which was larger, and though it opened from the first it did not run along the bluff. As this one was intended for chasing and roping horses, as well as simply holding them, the fence was made an almost impenetrable mass of thick foliaged cedars reinforced, where necessary, with stuffings of scrub-oak brush. Pan was so particular that he tried to construct a barrier which did not have sharp projecting spikes of dead branches sticking out to cut a horse.

“By gum, I shore don’t believe you ever was a regular cowpuncher,” declared Blinky testily, after having been ordered to do additional labor on a portion of the fence.

“Blink, we’re dealing with horses, not cows,” answered Pan.

“But, good Lord, man, a cow is as feelin’ as a hoss any day,” protested Blinky.

“You’ll be swearing you love cows next,” laughed Pan. “Nope. We’ll do our work well. Then the chances are we won’t spike any of those thoroughbreds we want to break for Arizona.”

“Say, I’ll bet two bits you won’t let us sell a single gosh-darned broomie,” added Blinky.

“Go to bed, Blink,” rejoined Pan, in pretended compassion. “You’re all in. This isn’t moonshining wild horses.”

In the succeeding days Pan paced up the work, from dawn until dark. A week more saw the long fence completed. It was an obstacle few horses could leap. Pan thought he would love to see the stallion that could do it.

Following the completion of the fence, they built a barrier across the wash. And then to make doubly sure Pan divided his party into three couples, each with instructions to close all possible exits along the branches of the wash, and the sides of the slope.

During the latter part of this work, the bands of wild horses moved farther westward. But as far as Pan could tell, none left the valley. They had appeared curious and wary, then had moved out of sight over the ridges in the center of the great oval.

The night that they finished, with two weeks of unremitting toil in dust and heat behind them, was one for explosive satisfaction.

“Fellars, my pard Panhandle is one to tie to,” declared Blinky, “but excoose me from ridin’ any range where he was foreman.”

“Blink, you’ll soon be cowboy, foreman, boss — the whole outfit on your own Arizona ranch.”

“Pard, I’ll shore drink to thet, if anybody’s got any licker.”

If there were any other bottles in the camp, Mac New’s was the only one that came to light. It was passed around.

“Now, men, listen,” began Pan when they had found comfortable seats around the campfire. “It’s all over but the shouting — and the riding. You listen too, Juan, for you’ve got to fork a horse and drive with us. As soon as it’s light enough to see, we’ll take the fresh horses we’ve been saving and ride across the valley. It’s pretty long around, but I want to come up behind all these bands of wild horses. Pack your guns and all the shells you’ve got. We’ll take stands at the best place, which we’ll decide from the location of the horses. Reckon that’ll be about ten miles west. You’ll all see when we get there how the neck of the valley narrows down till it’s not very wide. Maybe a matter of two miles of level ground, with breaks running toward each slope. We’ll string across this, equal distances apart and begin our drive. If we start well and don’t let any horses break our line, we’ll soon get them going and then each band will drive with us. Ride like hell, shoot and yell your head off to turn back any horses that charge to get between us. Soon as we get a few hundred moving, whistling, trampling and raising the dust, that’ll frighten the bands ahead. They’ll begin to move before they see us. Naturally as the valley widens we’ve got to spread. But if we once get a wide scattering string of horses running ahead of us we needn’t worry about being separated. When we get them going strong, there’ll be a stampede. Sure a lot of horses will fool us one way or another, but we ought to chase half the number on this side of the valley clear to our fence. That’ll turn them toward the gate to the blind corrals. We’ll close in there, and that’ll take riding, my buckaroos!”

Blinky was the most obstreperously responsive to Pan’s long harangue. Pan thought he understood the secret of the cowboy’s strange elation. After all, what did Blinky care for horses or money? He had been a homeless wandering range rider, a hard-drinking reckless fellow with few friends, and those only for the hour of the length of a job. The success of this venture, if it turned out so, meant that Blinky would do the one big act of his life. He would take the girl Louise from her surroundings, give her a name that was honest and a love that was great, and rise or fall with her. Pan had belief in human nature. In endless ways his little acts of faith had borne fruit.

The hunters stayed up later than usual, and had to be reminded twice by Pan of the strenuous morrow.

When Pan made for his own bed Mac New followed him in the darkness.

“Smith, I’d like a word with you,” said the outlaw, under his breath. His eyes gleamed out of his dark face.

“Sure, Mac, glad to hear you,” replied Pan, not without a little shock.

“I’ve stuck on heah, haven’t I?” queried Mac New.

“You sure have. I wouldn’t ask a better worker. And if the drive is all I hope for, I’ll double your money.”

“Wal, I didn’t come with you on my own hook,” rejoined the other, hurriedly. “Leastways it wasn’t my idee. Hardman got wind of your hoss-trappin’ scheme. Thet was after he’d fired me without my wages. Then he sent fer me, an’ he offered me gold to get a job with you an’ keep him posted if you ketched any big bunch of hosses.”

Here the outlaw clinked the gold coin in his coat pocket.

“I took the gold, an’ said I’d do it,” went on Mac New deliberately. “But I never meant to double-cross you, an’ I haven’t. Reckon I might have told you before. It jest didn’t come, though, till tonight.”

“Thanks, Mac,” returned Pan, extending his hand to the outlaw. “I wasn’t afraid to trust you...Hardman’s playing a high hand, then?”

“Reckon he is, an’ thet’s a hunch.”

“All right, Mac. I’m thinking you’re square with me,” replied Pan.

After the outlaw left, Pan sat on his bed pondering this latest aspect of the situation. Mac New’s revelation was what Pan would have expected of such a character. Bad as he was, he seemed a white man compared with this underhanded greedy Hardman. Even granting Hardman’s gradual degeneration, Pan could not bring himself to believe the man would attempt any open crooked deal. Still this attempt to bribe Mac New had a dubious look. Pan did not like it. If his wild horse expedition had not reached the last day he would have sent Blinky back to Marco or have gone himself to see if Hardman’s riders could be located. But it was too late. Pan would not postpone the drive, come what might.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AT LAST THE cold night wind reminded Pan that he had not yet rolled in his blankets, which he had intended to do until Mac New’s significant statement had roused somber misgiving. He went to bed, yet despite the exertions of the long day, slumber was a contrary thing that he could not woo.

He lay under the transparent roof of a makeshift shelter of boughs through which the stars showed white and brilliant. For ten years and more he had lain out on most nights under the open sky, with wind and rain and snow working their will on him, and the bright stars, like strange eyes, watching him. During the early years of his range life he used to watch the stars in return and wonder what was their message. And now, since his return home, he seemed so much closer to his beloved boyhood. Tonight the stars haunted him. Over the ridge tops a few miles, they were shining in the window of Lucy’s tiny room, perhaps lighting her fair face. It seemed that these stars were telling him all was not well in Lucy’s mind and heart. He could not shake the insidious vague haunting thought, and longed for dawn, so that in the sunlight he could dispel all morbid doubts and the shadows that came in the night.

So for hours he lay there, absorbed in mind. It was not so silent a night as usual. The horses were restless, as if some animal were prowling about. He could hear the sudden trampling of hoofs as a number of horses swiftly changed their location. The coyotes were in full chorus out in the valley. A cold wind fitfully stirred the branches, whipped across his face. One of his comrades, Blinky he thought, was snoring heavily.

Pan grew unaccountably full of dread of unknown things. His sensitive mind had magnified the menace hinted at by Mac New. It was a matter of feeling which no intelligent reasoning could dispel. Midnight came before he finally dropped into restless slumber.

At four o’clock Lying Juan called the men to get up. He had breakfast almost ready. With groans and grunts and curses the hunters rolled out, heavy with sleep, stiff of joints, vacant of mind. Blinky required two calls.

They ate in the cold gray dawn, silent and glum. A hot breakfast acted favorably upon their mental and physical make-ups, and some brisk action in catching and saddling horses brought them back to normal. Still there was not much time for talk.

The morning star was going down in an intense dark blue sky when the seven men rode out upon their long-planned drive. The valley was a great obscure void, gray, silent, betraying nothing of its treasure to the hunters. They crossed the wash below the fence, where they had dug entrance and exit, and turned west at a brisk trot. Daylight came lingeringly. The valley cleared of opaque light. Like a gentle rolling sea it swept away to west and north, divided by its thin dark line, and faintly dotted by bands of wild horses.

In the eastern sky, over the far low gap where the valley failed, the pink light deepened to rose, and then to red. A disk of golden fire tipped the bleak horizon. The whole country became transformed as if with life. The sun had risen on this memorable day for Pan Smith and his father, and for Blinky Somers. Nothing of the black shadows and doubts and fears of night! Pan could have laughed at himself in scorn. Here was the sunrise. How beautiful the valley! There were the wild horses grazing near and far, innumerable hundreds and thousands of them. The thought of the wonderful drive gripped Pan in thrilling fascination. Horses! Horses! Horses! The time, the scene, the impending ride called to him as nothing ever had. The thrilling capture of wild horses would alone have raised him to the heights. How much more tremendous, then, an issue that meant a chance of happiness for all his loved ones.

It was seven o’clock when Pan and his men reached the western elevation of the valley, something over a dozen miles from their fence and trap. From this vantage point Pan could sweep the whole country with far-sighted eyes. What he saw made them glisten.

Wild horses everywhere, like dots of brush on a bare green rolling prairie!

“Boys, we’ll ride down the valley now and pick a place where we split to begin the drive,” said Pan.

“Hosses way down there look to me like they was movin’ this way,” observed Blinky, who had eyes like a hawk.

Pan had keen eyes, too, but he did not believe his could compare with Blinky’s. That worthy had the finest of all instruments of human vision — clear light-gray eyes, like that of an eagle. Dark eyes were not as far-seeing on range and desert as the gray or blue. And it was a fact that Pan had to ride down the valley a mile or more before he could detect a movement of wild horses toward him.

“Wal, reckon mebbe thet don’t mean nothin’,” said Blinky. “An’ then agin mebbe it does. Hosses run around a lot of their own accord. An’ agin they get scared of somethin’. If we run into some bunches haidin’ this way we’ll turn them back an’ thet’s work for us.”

Pan called a halt there, and after sweeping his gaze over all the valley ahead, he said: “We split here...Mac, you and Brown ride straight toward the slope. Mac, take a stand a half mile or so out. Brown, you go clear to the slope and build a fire so we can see your smoke. Give us five minutes, say, to see your smoke, and then start the drive. Reckon we’ll hold our line all right till they get to charging us. And when we close in down there by the gate it’ll be every man for himself. I’ll bet it’ll be a stampede.”

Pan sent Lying Juan to take up a stand a mile or more outside of Mac New. Gus and Blinky were instructed to place equal distances between themselves and Juan. Pan’s father left with them and rode to a ridge top in plain sight a mile away. Pan remained where he had reined his horse.

“Sort of work for them, even to Dad,” soliloquized Pan, half amused at his own tremendous boyish eagerness. All his life he had dreamed of some such great experience with horses.

He could see about half of the valley floor which was to be driven. The other half lay over the rolling ridges and obscured by the haze and yellow clouds of dust rising here and there. Those dust clouds had not appeared until the last quarter of an hour or so, and they caused Pan curiosity that almost amounted to anxiety. Surely bands of horses were running.

Suddenly a shot rang out over to Pan’s left. His father was waving hat and gun. Far over against the green background of slope curled up a thin column of blue smoke. Brown’s signal! In a few moments the drive would be on.

Pan got off to tighten cinches.

“Well, Sorrel, old boy, you look fit for the drive,” said Pan, patting the glossy neck. “But I’ll bet you’ll not be so slick and fat tonight.”

When he got astride again he saw his father and the next driver heading their horses south. So he started Sorrel and the drive had begun. He waved his sombrero at his father. And he waved it in the direction of home, with a message to Lucy.

Pan rode at a trot. It was not easy to hold in Sorrel. He wanted to go. He scented the wild horses. He knew there was something afoot, and he had been given a long rest. Soon Pan was riding down into one of the shallow depressions, the hollows that gave the valley its resemblance to a ridged sea. Thus he lost sight of the foreground. When, half a mile below, he reached a wave crest of ground he saw bands of wild horses, enough to make a broken line half across the valley, traveling toward him. They had their heads north, and were moving prettily, probably a couple of miles distant. Beyond them other bands scattered and indistinct, but all in motion, convinced Pan that something had startled the horses, or they had sensed the drive.

“No difference now,” shouted Pan aloud. “We’re going to run your legs off, and catch a lot of you.”

The long black line of horses did not keep intact. It broke into sections, and then into bands, most of which sheered to the left. But one herd of about twenty kept on toward Pan. He halted Sorrel. They came within a hundred yards before they stopped as if frozen. How plump and shiny they were! The lean wild heads and ears all stood up.

A mouse-colored mare was leading this bunch. She whistled shrilly, and then a big roan stallion trotted out from behind. He jumped as if he had been struck, and taking the lead swung to Pan’s left, manifestly to get by him. But they had to run up hill while Pan had only to keep to a level. He turned them before they got halfway to a point even with the next driver. Away they swept, running wild, a beautiful sight, the roan and mare leading, with the others massed behind, manes and tails flying, dust rolling from under their clattering hoofs.

Then Pan turned ahead again, working back toward his place in the driving line. He had a better view here. He saw his father and Gus and Blinky ride toward each other to head off a scattered string of horses. The leaders were too swift for the drivers and got through the line, but most of the several herds were headed and turned. Gun shots helped to send them scurrying down the valley.

Two small bands of horses appeared coming west along the wash. Pan loped Sorrel across to intercept them. They were ragged and motley, altogether a score or more of the broomtails that had earned that unflattering epithet. They had no leader and showed it in their indecision. They were as wild as jack rabbits, and upon sighting Pan they wheeled in their tracks and fled like the wind, down the valley. Pan saw them turn a larger darker-colored herd. This feature was what he had mainly relied upon. Wonderful luck of this kind might attend the drive: even a broken line running the right way would sweep the valley from wash to slope. But that was too much for even Pan’s most extravagant hopes.

Again he lost sight of the horses and his comrades, as he rode down a long swell of the valley sea. The slope ahead was long and gradual, and it mounted fairly high. Pan was keen to see the field from that vantage point. Still he did not hurry. Any moment a band of horses might appear, and he wanted always to have plenty of spare room to ride across to left or right. Once they got the lead of him or even with him it would be almost impossible to turn them.

Not, however, until he had surmounted the next ridge did he catch sight of any more wild horses. Then he faced several miles of almost level valley, with the only perceptible slope toward the left. For the first time he saw all the drivers. They were holding a fairly straight line. As Pan had anticipated, the drive was slowly leading away from the wash, diagonally toward the great basin that constituted the bottom of the valley floor. Bands of horses were running south, bobbing under the dust clouds. There were none within a mile of Pan. The other men, beyond the position of Pan’s father, would soon be called upon to do some riding.

As Pan kept on at a fast trot, he watched in all directions, expecting to see horses come up out of a hollow or over a ridge; also he took a quick glance every now and then in the direction of his comrades. They were working ahead of him, more and more to the left. Therefore a wide gap soon separated Pan from his father.

This occasioned him uneasiness because they would soon be down on a level, where palls of dust threatened to close over the whole valley, and it would be impossible to see any considerable distance. If the wild horses then took a notion to wheel and run back up the valley the drive would yield great results.

Suddenly, way over close to the wash Pan espied a string of horses emerging from the thin haze of dust. He galloped down and across to intercept them. As he drew closer he was surprised to see they were in a dead run. These horses were unusually wild, as if they had been frightened. They appeared bent on running Pan down, and he had to resort to firing his gun to turn them. It was a heavy forty-five caliber, the report of which was loud. Then after they had veered, he had to race back across a good deal more than his territory to keep them from going round him.

At last they headed back into the dusty-curtained, black-streaked zone which constituted the bowl of the valley. This little race had warmed Sorrel. He had entered into the spirit of the drive. Pan found that the horse sighted wild horses more quickly than he, and wanted to chase them all.

Pan rode a mile to the left, somewhat up hill and also forward. He caught sight of his father, and two other riders, rather far ahead, riding, shooting either behind or in front of a waving pall of dust. The ground down there was dry, and though covered with grass and sage, it had equally as much bare surface, from which the plunging hoofs kicked up the yellow smoke.

Pan had a front of two miles and more to guard, and the distance was increasing every moment. The drive swept down to the left, massing toward the apex where the fence and slope met. This was still miles away. Pan could see landmarks he recognized, high up on the horizon. Many bands of horses were now in motion. They streaked to and fro across lighter places in the dust cloud. Pan wanted to stay out in the clear, so that he could see distinctly, but he was already behind his comrades. No horses were running up the wash. So he worked over toward where he had last observed his father, and gave up any attempt at further orderly driving.

It was plain that his comrades had soon broken the line. Probably in such a case, where so many horses were running, it was not possible to keep a uniform front. But Pan thought they could have done better. He saw strings of horses passing him to the left. They had broken through. This was to be expected. No doubt the main solid mass was now on a stampede toward the south.

Pan let stragglers and small bunches go by him. There were, however, no large bands of horses running back, at least that he could see. He rode to and fro, at a fast clip, across this dust-clouded basin, heading what horses happened to come near him. The melee of dust and animals thickened. He now heard the clip-clop of hoofs, here, there, everywhere, with the mass of sound to the fore. Presently he appeared surrounded by circles of dust and stringing horses. It was like a huge corral full of frightened animals running wild through dust so thick that they could not be seen a hundred feet distant. Pan turned horses back, but he could not tell how quickly they would wheel again and elude him.

Once he thought he saw a rider on a white mount, yet could not be sure. Then he decided he was mistaken, for none of Blinky’s horses were white.

This melee down in the dusty basin was bad. Driving was hampered by the obscurity. Pan could only hope the main line of wild horses was sweeping on as it had started.

After a long patrol in the dust and heat of that valley flat, Pan emerged, it seemed, into clearer atmosphere. He was working up. Horses were everywhere, and it was ridiculous to try to drive all those he encountered. At length there were none running back. All were heading across, to and fro, or down the valley. And when Pan reached the long ascent of that bowl he saw a magnificent spectacle.

A long black mass of horses was sweeping onward toward the gateway to the corrals, and to the fence. Dust columns, like smoke, curled up from behind them and swung low on the breeze. Pan saw riders behind them, and to the left. He had perhaps been the only one to go through that valley bowl. The many bands of horses, now converged into one great herd, had no doubt crossed it. They were fully four miles distant. Pan saw his opportunity to cut across and down to the right toward where the fence met the wash. If the horses swerved, as surely some or all of them would do, he could head them off. To that end he gave Sorrel free rein and had a splendid run of several miles to the point halfway between the fence and the wash.

Here from a high point of ground he observed the moving pace of dust and saw the black wheel-shaped mass of horses sweep down the valley like a storm. The spectacle was worth all the toil and time he had given, even if not one beast was captured. But Pan, with swelling heart and beaming eye, felt assured of greater success than he had hoped for. There were five thousand horses in that band, more by ten times than he had ever before seen driven. They could not all get through that narrow gateway to the corrals. Pan wondered how his few riders could have done so well. Luck! The topography of the valley! The wild horses took the lanes of least resistance; and the level or downhill ground favored a broad direct line toward the fence trap Pan and his men had contrived.

“Looks like Dad and all the rest of them have swung round on this side,” soliloquized Pan, straining his eyes.

That was good, but Pan could not understand how they had ever accomplished it. Perhaps they had been keen enough to see that the wild horses would now have to go through the gateway or turn south along the fence.

Pan watched eagerly. Whatever was going to happen must come very soon, as swiftly as those fast wild horses could run another mile. He saw them sweep down on the bluff and round it, and then begin to spread, to disintegrate. Again dust clouds settled over one place. It was in the apex. What a vortex of furious horses must be there! Pan lost sight of them for some moments. Then out of the yellow curtain streaked black strings, traveling down the fence toward Pan, across the valley, back up the way they had come. Pan let out a stentorian yell of victory. He knew the action indicated that the horses had poured in a mass into the apex between bluff and fence.

“Whoopee!” yelled Pan, to relieve his surcharged emotions. “It’s a sure bet we’ve got a bunch!”

Then he spurred Sorrel to meet the horses fleeing down along the fence. They came in bunches, in lines, stringing for a mile or more along the barrier of cedars.

Pan met them with yells and shouts. Frantic now, the animals wheeled back. But few of them ran up out of the winding shallow ground along which the fence had been cunningly built. He drove them back, up over the slow ascent, toward the great dusty swarm of horses that ran helter-skelter under the dust haze.

Suddenly Pan espied a black stallion racing toward him. He remembered the horse. And the desire to capture this individual took strong hold upon him. The advantage lay all with Pan. So he held back to stop this stallion.

At the most favorable moment Pan spurred Sorrel to intercept the stallion. But the black, maddened with terror and instinct to rage, would not swerve out of Pan’s way. On he came, swift as the wind, lean black head out, mane flying, a wild creature at once beautiful and fearful. Pan had to jerk Sorrel out of his way. Then Pan, having the black between himself and the fence, turned Sorrel loose. The race began — with Pan still holding the advantage. It did not, however, last long that way. The black ran away from Pan. He wanted to shoot but thought it best not to use his last shells. What a stride! He was a big horse, too, ragged, rangy, with action and power that delighted Pan. Knowing he could not catch the black Pan cut across toward the wash. Then the stallion, seeing the yawning gulf ahead, turned toward the fence, and quickening that marvelous stride he made a magnificent leap right at the top of the obstruction. He cleared the heavy wood and crashed through the branches to freedom.

“You black son-of-a-gun!” yelled Pan in sheer admiration, and halting the sorrel he watched the stallion disappear.

Dust begrimed and wet, Pan once more headed toward the goal. His horse was tired and so was he. Far as he could view in a fan-shaped spread, wild horses were running back up the valley. Pan estimated he saw thousands, but there were no heavy black masses, no sweeping stormlike clouds of horses, such as had borne down on that corner of the valley.

He was weary, but he could have sung for very joy. Happily his thoughts reverted to Lucy and the future. He would pick out a couple of beautiful ponies for her, and break them gently. He would find some swift sturdy horses for himself. Then, as many thousands of times, he thought of his first horse Curly. None could ever take his place. But how he would have loved to own the black stallion!

“I’m just as glad, though, he got away,” mused Pan.

The afternoon was half gone and hazy, owing to the drifting clouds of dust that had risen from the valley. As Pan neared the end of the fence, which was still a goodly distance from the gateway, he was surprised that he did not see any horses or men. The wide brush gates had been closed. Beyond them and over the bluff he saw clouds of dust, like smoke, rising lazily, as if just stirred.

“Horses in the corrals!” he exclaimed. “I’ll bet they’re full...Gee! now comes the problem. But we could hold a thousand head there for a week — maybe ten days. There’s water and grass. Reckon, though, I’ll sell tomorrow.”

He would have hurried on but for the fact that Sorrel had begun to limp. Pan remembered going over a steep soft bank where the horse had stumbled. Dismounting, Pan walked the rest of the way to the bluff, beginning to think it strange he did not see or hear any of his comrades. No doubt they were back revelling in the corrals full of wild horses.

“It’s been a great day. If only I could get word to Lucy!”

Pan opened the small gate, and led Sorrel into the lane. Still he did not see anything of the men. He did hear, however, a snorting, trampling of many horses, over in the direction of the farther corral.

At the end of the bluff, where the line of slope curved in deep, Pan suddenly saw a number of saddled horses, without riders.

With a violent start he halted.

There were men, strange men, standing in groups, lounging on the rocks, sitting down, all as if waiting.

A little to the left of these Pan’s lightning swift gaze took in another group. His men! Not lounging, not conversing, but aloof from each other, lax and abject, or strung motionless!

Bewildered, shocked, Pan swept his eyes back upon the strangers.

“Hardman! Purcell!” he gasped, starting back as if struck.

Then his mind leaped to conclusions. He did not need to see Blinky approach him with hard sullen face. Hardman and outfit had timed the wild-horse drive. No doubt they had participated in it, and meant to profit by that, or worse, they meant to claim the drive, and by superior numbers force that issue.

Such a terrible fury possessed Pan that he burned and shook all over. He dropped his bridle and made a dragging step to meet Blinky. But so great was his emotion that he had no physical control. He waited. After that bursting of his heart, he slowly changed. This then was the strange untoward thing that had haunted him. All the time fate had held this horrible crisis in abeyance, waiting to crush at the last moment his marvelous good fortune. That had been the doubt, the misgiving, the inscrutable something which had opposed all Pan’s optimism, his hope, his love. An icy sickening misery convulsed him for a moment. But that could not exist in the white heat of his wrath.

Blinky did not stride up to Pan. He hated this necessity. His will was forcing his steps, and they were slow.

“Blink — Blink,” whispered Pan, hoarsely. “It’s come! That damned hunch we feared, but wouldn’t believe!”

“By Gawd, I — I couldn’t hev told you,” replied Blinky, just as hoarsely. “An’ it couldn’t be worse.”

“Blink — then we made a good haul?”

“Cowboy, nobody ever heerd of such a haul. We could moonshine wild hosses fer a hundred years an’ never ketch as many.”

“How — many?” queried Pan, sharply, his voice breaking clear.

“Reckon we don’t agree on figgerin’ thet. I say fifteen hundred haid. Your dad, who’s aboot crazy, reckons two thousand. An’ the other fellars come in between.”

“Fifteen hundred horses!” ejaculated Pan intensely. “Heavens, but it’s great!”

“Pan, I wish to Gawd we hadn’t ketched any,” declared Blinky, in hard fierce voice.

That brought Pan back to earth.

“What’s their game?” he asked swiftly, indicating the watching whispering group.

“I had only a few words with Hardman. Your dad went out of his haid. Reckon he’d have done fer Hardman with his bare hands, if Purcell hadn’t knocked him down with the butt of a gun.”

Again there was a violent leap of Pan’s blood. It jerked his whole frame.

“Blink, did that big brute?—” asked Pan hoarsely, suddenly breaking off.

“He shore did. Your dad’s got a nasty knock over the eye...No, I hadn’t any chance to talk to Hardman. But his game’s as plain as that big nose of his.”

“Well, what is it?” snapped Pan.

“Shore he’ll grab our hosses, or most of them,” returned Blinky.

“You mean straight horse stealing?”

“Shore, thet’s what it’ll be. But the hell of it is, Hardman’s outfit helped make the drive.”

“No!”

“You bet they did. Thet’s what galls me. Either they was layin’ fer the day or just happened to ride up on us, an’ figgered it out. Mebbe thet’s where Mac New comes in.”

“Blink, I don’t believe he’s double-crossed us,” declared Pan stoutly.

“Wal, he’s an outlaw.”

“No difference. I just don’t believe it. But we’ll find out...So you think Hardman will claim most of our horses or take them all?”

“I shore do.”

“Blink, if he gets one of our horses it’ll be over my dead body. You fellows sure showed yellow clear through — to let them ride in here without a fight.”

“Hellsfire!” cried Blinky, as if stung. “What you think?...There wasn’t a one of us thet had a single lead left fer our guns. Thet’s where the rub comes in. We played their game. Wasted a lot of shells on them damn broomies! So how could we fight?”

“Ah-huh!” groaned Pan, appalled at the fatality of the whole incident.

“Pan, I reckon you’d better swaller the dose, bitter as it is, an’ bluff Hardman into leavin’ us a share of the hosses.”

“Say, man, are you drunk or loco?” flashed Pan scornfully.

With that he whirled on his heel and strode toward where Hardman, Purcell, and another man stood somewhat apart from the lounging riders.

Slowly Blinky followed in Pan’s footsteps, and then Mac New left the group in the shade of the wall, and shuffled out into the sunlight. His action was that of a forceful man, dangerous to encounter.

In the dozen rods or more that Pan traversed to get to Hardman he had reverted to the old wild spirit of the Cimarron. That cold dark wind which had at times swept his soul returned with his realization of the only recourse here. When he had walked the streets of Marco waiting for Matthews to prove his mettle or show his cowardice, he had gambled on the latter. He had an uncanny certainty that he had only to bluff the sheriff. Here was a different proposition. It would take bloodshed to halt this gang.

As Pan approached, Purcell swung around square with his hands low, a significant posture. Hardman evinced signs of extreme nervous tension. The third man walked apart from them. All the others suddenly abandoned their lounging attitude.

“Hardman, what’s your game?” queried Pan bluntly, as he halted.

The words, the pause manifestly relieved Hardman, for he swallowed hard and braced himself.

“Game?” he parried gruffly. “There’s no game about drivin’ a million wild hosses through the dust. It was work.”

“Don’t try to twist words with me,” replied Pan fiercely. “What’s your game? Do you mean a straight out and out horse-thief deal? Or a share and share divvy on the strength of your riding in where you weren’t asked?”

“Young man, I’m warnin’ you not to call me a hoss thief,” shouted Hardman, growing red under his beard.

“I’ll call you one, damn quick, if you don’t tell your game.”

“We made the drive, Smith,” returned Hardman. “You’d never made it without us. An’ that gives us the biggest share. Say two-thirds, I’ll buy your third at ten dollars a head.”

“Hardman, that’s a rotten deal,” burst out Pan. “Haven’t you any sense? If you could make it, you’d be outlawed in this country. Men won’t stand for such things. You may be strong in Marco but I tell you even there you can’t go too far. We planned this trap. We worked like dogs. And we made the drive. You might account for more horses trapped, but no difference. You had no business here. We can prove it.”

“Wal, if I’ve got the hosses I don’t care what you say,” retorted Hardman, finding bravado as the interview progressed.

It was no use to try to appeal to any sense of fairness in this man. Pan saw that and his passionate eloquence died in his throat. Coldly he eyed Hardman and then the greasy dust-caked face of Purcell. He could catch only the steely speculation in Purcell’s evil eyes. He read there that, if the man had possessed the nerve, he would have drawn on him at the first.

Meanwhile Blinky had come up beside Pan and a moment later Mac New. Neither had anything to say but their actions, especially Mac New’s, were not to be misunderstood. The situation became intense. Hardman suddenly showed the strain.

Pan’s demeanor, however, might have been deceiving, except to the keenest of men, long versed in such encounters.

“Jard Hardman, you’re a low-down horse thief,” said Pan deliberately.

The taunt, thrown in Hardman’s face, added to the tension of the moment. He had lost the ruddy color under his beard. His eyes stood out. He recognized at last something beyond his power to change or stop.

“Smith, reckon you’ve cause for temper,” he said, huskily. “I’ll take half the hosses — an’ buy your half.”

“No! Not one damn broomtail do you get,” returned Pan in a voice that cut. “Look out, Hardman! I can prove you hatched up this deal to rob me.”

“How, I’d like to know?” blustered the rancher, relaxing again.

“Mac New can prove it.”

“Who’s he?”

“Hurd here. His real name is Mac New. You hired him to get in with me — to keep you posted on my movements.”

Again Hardman showed his kind of fiber under extreme provocation:

“Yes, I hired him — an’ he’s double-crossed you as well as me.”

“Did he? Well, now you prove that,” flashed Pan who had read the furious falseness of the man.

“Purcell here,” replied Hardman hoarsely, “he’s been camped below. Hurd met him at night — kept him posted on your work. Then, when all was ready for the drive Purcell sent for me. Ask him yourself.”

Pan did not answer to the suggestion. “Mac, what do you say to that?” he queried, sharply, but he never took his eyes off Purcell.

“Hardman, you’re a liar!” roared Mac New, sonorously. If ever Pan heard menace in a voice, it was then.

“Take it back!” went on the outlaw, now with a hiss. “Square me with Panhandle Smith!”

“Mac, he doesn’t have to square you. Anyone could see he’s a liar,” called Pan derisively.

“Hurd, I — I’ll have you shot — I’ll shoot you myself,” burst out Hardman, wrestling his arm toward his hip.

A thundering report close beside Pan almost deafened him. Hardman uttered a loud gasp. His eyes rolled — fixed in awful stony stare. Then like a flung sack he fell heavily.

“Thar, Jard Hardman,” declared the outlaw, “I had one bullet left.” And he threw his empty gun with violence at the prostrate body.

Purcell’s long taut body jerked into swift action. His gun spurted red as it leaped out. Pan, quick as he drew and shot, was too late to save Mac New. Both men fell without a cry, their heads almost meeting.

“Blink, grab their guns!” yelled Pan piercingly, and leaping over the bodies he confronted the stricken group of men with leveled weapon.

“Hands up! Quick, damn you!” he ordered, fiercely.

His swiftness, his tremendous passion, following instantly upon tragedy, had shocked Hardman’s men. Up went their hands.

Then Blinky ran in with a gun in each hand, and his wild aspect most powerfully supplemented Pan’s furious energy and menace.

“Fork them hosses, you ——  ——  —— !” yelled Blinky. Death for more of them quivered in the balance. As one man, Hardman’s riders rushed with thudding boots and tinkling spurs to mount their horses. Several did not wait for further orders, but plunged away down the lane toward the outlet.

“Rustle, hoss thieves,” added Blinky, with something of the old drawl in his voice, that yet seemed the more deadly for it. With quick strides he had gotten behind most of the riders. “Get out of heah!”

With shuffling, creaking of leather, and suddenly cracking hoofs the order was obeyed. The riders soon disappeared around the corner of the bluff.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE TWO HORSES left, belonging to Hardman and Purcell, neighed loudly at being left behind, and pulled on their halters.

Pan’s quick eye caught sight of a rifle in a sheath on one of the saddles. He ran to get it, but had to halt and approach the horse warily. But he secured the rifle — a Winchester — fully loaded.

Blinky, observing Pan’s act, repeated it with the other horse.

“Pard, I ain’t figgerin’ they’ll fight, even from cover,” said Blinky. “By gosh, this hoss must have been Purcell’s. Shore. Stirrups too long for Hardman. An’ the saddle bag is full of shells.”

“Slip along the fence and see where they went,” replied Pan.

“Aw, I can lick the whole outfit now,” declared Blinky, recklessly.

“You keep out of sight,” ordered Pan.

Whereupon Blinky, growling something, crashed a way through the cedar fence and disappeared.

Pan hurriedly sheathed his gun, and with the rifle in hand, ran back to the overhanging bluff, where he began to climb through the brush. Fierce action was necessary to him then. He did not spare himself. Forever he half-expected some kind of attack from the men who had been driven away. Soon he had reached a point where he could work round to the side of the bluff. When he looked out upon the valley he espied Hardman’s outfit two miles down the slope, beyond the cedar fence. They had set fire to the cedars. A column of yellow smoke rolled way across the valley.

“Ah-huh! They’re rustling — all right,” panted Pan. “Wonder what — kind of a story — they’ll tell. Looks to me — like they’d better keep clear of Marco.”

Then a reaction set in upon Pan. He crawled into the shade of some brush and stretched out, letting his tight muscles relax. The terrible something released its hold on mind and heart. He was sick. He fought with himself until the spasm passed.

When he got back to his men, Blinky had just returned.

“Did you see them shakin’ up the dust?” queried Blinky.

“Yes, they’re gone. Reckon we’ve no more to fear from them.”

“Huh! We never had nothin’. Shore was a yellow outfit. They set fire to our fence, the ——  ——  —— !”

It took some effort for Pan to approach his father. The feeling deep within him was inexplicable. But, then, he had never before been compelled to face his father after a fight. Pan’s relation to him seemed of long ago.

“How are you, Dad?” he asked with constraint.

“Little shaky — I guess — son,” came the husky reply. But Smith got up and removed his hand from the bloody wound on his forehead. It was more of a bruise than a cut, but the flesh was broken and swollen.

“Nasty bump, Dad. I’ll bet you’ll have a headache. Go to camp and bathe it in cold water. Then get Juan to bandage it.”

“All right,” replied his father. He forced himself to look up at Pan. His eyes were warming out of deep strange shadows of pain, of horror. “Son, I — I was kind of dazed when — when you — the fight come off...I heard the shots, but I didn’t see...Was it you who — who killed Jard Hardman?”

“No, Dad,” replied Pan, placing a steady hand on his father’s shoulder. Indeed he seemed more than physically shaken. “But I meant to.”

“Then how — who?—” choked Smith.

“Mac New shot him,” replied Pan, hurriedly. “Hardman accused him of double-crossing me. Mac called him. I think Hardman tried to draw. But Mac killed him...I got Purcell too late to save Mac.”

“Awful!” replied Smith, hoarsely.

“Pan, I seen Purcell’s eyes,” spoke up Blinky. “Shore he meant to drop Mac an’ you in two shots. But he wasn’t quite previous enough.”

“I was — too slow myself,” rejoined Pan haltingly. “Mac New was an outlaw, but he was white compared to Hardman.”

“Wal, it’s all over. Let’s kinda get set back in our saddles,” drawled Blinky. “What’ll we do with them stiffs?”

“By George, that’s a stumper,” replied Pan, sitting down in the shade.

“Huh! Reckon you figger we ought to pack them back to Marco an’ give them church services,” said Blinky, in disgust. “Jest a couple of two-bit rustlers!”

“Somebody will come out here after their bodies, surely. Dick Hardman would want to—”

“Mebbe someone will, but not thet hombre,” declared Blinky. “But I’m gamblin’ Hardman’s outfit won’t break their necks tellin’ aboot this. Now you jest see.”

“Well, let’s wait, then,” replied Pan. “Wrap them up in tarps and lay them here in the shade.”

The trapped wild horses, cracking their hoofs and whistling in the huge corrals, did not at the moment attract Pan or wean him away from the deep unsettled condition of mind. As he passed the corral on the way to the camp the horses moved with a trampling roar. The sound helped him toward gaining a hold on his normal self.

The hour now was near sunset and the heat of day had passed. A cool light breeze made soft low sound in the trees.

Pan found his father sitting with bandaged head beside the campfire, apparently recovering somewhat.

“Did you take a peep at our hosses?” he asked.

“No, not yet,” replied Pan. “I reckon I will, though, before it gets dark.”

“We’ve got a big job ahead.”

“That depends, Dad. If we can sell them here we haven’t any job to speak of. How about it, Blink?”

“How aboot what?” inquired the cowboy, who had just come up.

“Dad’s worrying over what he thinks will be a big job. Handling the horses we’ve caught.”

“Shore thet all depends. If we sell heah, fine an’ dandy. The other fellar will have the hell. Reckon, though, we want to cut out a string of the best hosses fer ourselves. Thet’s work, when you’ve got a big drove millin’ round. Shore is lucky we built thet mile-round corral. There’s water an’ feed enough to last them broomies a week, or longer on a pinch.”

While they were talking Gus and Charley Brown returned to camp. They were leading the horses that had been ridden by Hardman and Purcell.

“Turn them loose, boys,” directed Pan, to whom they looked for instructions.

Presently Gus handed Pan a heavy leather wallet and a huge roll of greenbacks.

“Found the wallet on Purcell an’ the roll on Hardman,” said Gus.

“Wal, they shore was well heeled,” drawled Blinky.

“But what’ll I do with all this?” queried Pan blankly.

“Pan, as you seem to forget, Hardman owed your dad money, reckon you might rustle an’ hunt up Dick Hardman an’ give it to him. Say, Dick’ll own the Yellow Mine now. Gee! He could spend all this in his own joint.”

“Dad, you never told me how much Hardman did you out of,” Pan.

“Ten thousand in cash, an’ Lord only knows how many cattle.”

“So much! I’d imagined...Say, Dad, will you take this money?”

“Yes, if it’s honest an’ regular for me to do so,” replied Smith stoutly.

“Regular? There’s no law in Marco. We’ve got to make our own laws. Let it be a matter of conscience. Boys, this man Hardman ruined my father. I heard that from a reliable source at Littleton before I ever got here. Don’t you think it honest for Dad to take this money?”

“Shore, it’s more than thet,” replied Blinky. “I’d call it justice. If you turned thet money over to law in Marco it’d go to Matthews. An’ you can bet your socks he’d keep it.”

The consensus of opinion did not differ materially from Blinky’s.

“Dad, it’s a long trail that has no turning,” said Pan, tossing both wallet and roll to his father. “Here’s to your new ranch in Arizona!”

Lying Juan soon called them to supper. It was not the usual cheery meal, though Juan told an unusually atrocious lie, and Blinky made several attempts to be funny. The sudden terrible catastrophe of the day did not quickly release its somber grip.

After supper, however, there seemed to be a lessening of restraint, with the conversation turning to the corrals full of wild horses.

“Wal, let’s go an’ look ’em over,” proposed Blinky.

Pan was glad to see his father able and eager to accompany them, but he did not go himself.

“Come on, you wild-hoss trapper,” called Blinky. “We want to bet on how rich we are.”

“I’ll come, presently,” replied Pan.

He did not join them, however, but made his way along the north slope to a high point where he could look down into the second corral. It was indeed a sight to fill his heart — that wide mile-round grassy pasture so colorful with its droves of wild horses. Black predominated, but there were countless whites, reds, bays, grays, pintos. He saw a blue roan that shone among the duller horses, too far away to enable Pan to judge of his other points. Pan gazed with stern restraint, trying to estimate the numbers without wild guess of enthusiasm.

“More than fifteen hundred,” he soliloquized at last, breathing hard. “Too good to be true! Yet there they are...If only that...well, no matter. I didn’t force it. I wasn’t to blame...Maybe we can keep it from mother and Lucy.”

Pan did not start back to camp until after nightfall, when he heard Blinky call.

“Say, you make a fellar nervous,” declared Blinky, in relief, as Pan approached the bright campfire. “Wal, did you take a peep at ‘em?”

“Yes. It’s sure a roundup,” replied Pan. “I’d say between fifteen and sixteen hundred head.”

“Aw, you’re just as locoed as any of us.”

Whereupon they fell into a great argument about the number of horses; and though Pan had little part in it he gradually conceived an idea that he had underestimated them.

“Say, fellows,” he said, breaking up the discussion, “if Hardman’s gang raises a row in Marco we’ll know tomorrow.”

“Shore, but I tell you they won’t,” returned Blinky doggedly.

“We’ll look for trouble anyway. And meanwhile we’ll go right on with our job. That’ll be roping and hobbling the horses we want to keep. We’ll turn them loose here, or build another corral. Hey, Blink? — How about a string for your ranch in Arizona?”

“Whoopee!” yelled the cowboy. Pan had heard Blinky yell that way before. He clapped his hands over his ears, for no more mighty pealing human sound than Blinky’s famous yell ever rose to the skies. When Pan took his hands away from his cars he caught the clapping echoes, ringing, prolonged, back from bluff to slope, winding away, to mellow, to soften, to die in beautiful concatenation far up in the wild breaks of the hills.

Pan lay awake in his blankets. He had retired early leaving his companions continuing their arguments, their conjectures and speculations. The campfire flared up and died down, according to the addition of new fuel. The light flickered on the trees in fantastic and weird shadows. At length there was only a dull red glow left, and quiet reigned. The men had sought their beds.

Then the solemn wilderness shut down on Pan, with the loneliness and solitude and silence that he loved. But this night there were burdens. He could not sleep. He could not keep his eyes shut. What question shone down in the pitiless stars? Something strange and inscrutable weighed upon him. Was it a regurgitation of his early moods, when first he became victim to the wildness of the ranges? Was it new-born conscience, stirred by his return to his mother, by his love for Lucy? He seemed to be haunted. Reason told him that it was well he had come to fight for his father. He could not be blamed for the machinations of evil men. He suffered no regret, no remorse. Yet there was something that he could not understand. It was a physical sensation that gave him a chill creeping of his flesh. It was also a spiritual shrinking, a withdrawing from what he knew not. He had to succumb to a power of the unseen.

Other times he had felt the encroachment of this insidious thing, but vague and raw. Whisky had been a cure. Temptation was now strong upon him to seek his companions and dull his faculties with strong drink. But he could not yield to that. Not now, with Lucy’s face like a wraith floating in the starlight! He was conscious of a larger growth. He had accepted responsibilities that long ago he should have taken up. He now dreamed of love, home, children. Yet beautiful as was that dream it could not be realized in these days without the deadly spirit and violence to which he had just answered. That was the bitter anomaly.

Next morning, in the sweet cedar-tanged air and the rosy-gold of the sunrise, Pan was himself again, keen for the day.

“Pard, you get first pick of the wild hosses,” announced Blinky.

“No, we’ll share even,” declared Pan.

“Say, boy, reckon we’d not had any hosses this mawnin’ but fer you,” rejoined his comrade. “An’ some of us might not hev been so lively an’ full of joy. Look at your dad! Shore you’d never think thet yestiddy he had his haid broke an’ his heart, too. Now just would you?”

“Well, Blink, now you call my attention to it, Dad does look quite chipper,” observed Pan calmly. But he felt a deep gladness for this fact he so lightly mentioned.

Blinky bent to his ear: “Pard, it was the money thet perked him up,” whispered the cowboy.

Pan reflected that his father’s loss and continued poverty had certainly weakened him, dragged him down.

“Listen, Blink,” said Pan earnestly. “I don’t want to be a kill-joy. Things do look wonderful for us. But I haven’t dared yet to let myself go. You’re a happy-go-lucky devil and Dad is past the age of fight. It won’t stay before his mind. But I feel fight. And I can’t be gay because something tells me the fight isn’t over.”

“Wal, pard,” drawled Blinky, with his rare grin, “the way I feel aboot fight is thet I ain’t worryin’ none if you’re around...All the same, old pard, I’ll take your hunch, an’ you can bet your life I’ll be watchin’ like a hawk till we shake the dirty dust of Marco.”

“Good, Blinky, that will help me. We’ll both keep our eyes open today so we can’t be surprised by anybody.”

Pan’s father approached briskly, his face shining. He was indeed a different man. “Boys, are we goin’ to loaf round camp all day?”

“No, Dad, we’re going to rope the best of the broomtails. I’ll get a chance to see you sling a lasso.”

“Say, I’d tackle it at that,” laughed his father.

“Blinky, trapping these wild horses and handling them are two different things,” remarked Pan thoughtfully. “Reckon I’ll have to pass the buck to you.”

“Wal, pard, I’m shore there. We’ll chase all the hosses into the big corral. Then we’ll pick out one at a time, an’ if we cain’t rope him without scarin’ the bunch too bad we’ll chase him into the small corral.”

“Ah-uh! All right. But I’ll miss my guess if we don’t have a hot dusty old time,” replied Pan.

“Fellars,” called Blinky, “come ararin’ now, an’ don’t any of you fergit your guns.”

“How about hobbles?” inquired Pan.

“I’ve got a lot of soft rope, an’ some burlap strips.”

Gus and Brown brought in the saddle horses, and soon the men were riding down to the corrals. This was a most satisfactory incident for all concerned, and there were none not keen and excited to see the wild horses, to pick and choose, and begin the day’s work.

Upon their entrance to the first and smaller corral a string of lean, ragged, wild-eyed mustangs trooped with a clattering roar back into the larger corral.

“Wal, boys, the show begins,” drawled Blinky. “Mr. Smith, you an’ Charley take your stands by the gate, to open it when you see us comin’ with a broomie we want to rope. An’ Pan, you an’ me an’ Gus will ride around easy like, not pushin’ the herd at all. They’ll scatter an’ mill around till they’re tired. Then they’ll bunch. When we see one we want we’ll cut him out, an’ shore rope him if we get close enough. But I reckon it’d be better to drive the one we want into the small corral, rope an’ hobble him, an’ turn him out into the pasture.”

The larger corral was not by any means round or level, and it was so big that the mass of horses in a far corner did not appear to cover a hundredth part of the whole space. There were horses all over the corral, along the fences especially, but the main bunch were as far away as they could get from their captors, and all faced forward, wild and expectant.

It was a magnificent sight. Whether or not there was much fine stock among them or even any, the fact remained that hundreds of wild horses together in one drove, captive and knowing it, were collected in this great trap. The intense vitality of them, the vivid coloring, the beautiful action of many and the statuesque immobility of the majority, were thrilling and all satisfying to the hearts of the captors.

Pan and Blinky and Gus spread out to trot their mounts across the intervening space. The wild horses moved away along the fence, and halted to face about again. They let the riders approach to a hundred yards, then, with a trampling roar, they burst into action. Wild pointed noses, ears, heads, manes and flying hoofs and tails seemed to spread from a dark compact mass.

They ran to the other side of the corral, where the horsemen leisurely followed them. Again they broke into mighty concerted action and into thunder of hoofs. They performed this maneuver several times before the riders succeeded in scattering them all over the pasture. Then with wild horses running, trotting, walking, standing everywhere it was easy to distinguish one from another.

“Regular lot of broomtails,” yelled Blinky to Pan. “Ain’t seen any yet I’d give two bits fer. Reckon, as always, the good hosses got away.”

But Pan inclined to the opinion that among so many there were surely a few fine animals. And so it proved. Pan’s first choice was a blue roan, a rare combination of color, build and speed. The horse was a mare and had a good head. She had a brand on her left flank. Pan rode around after her, here, there, all over the field, but without help he could not turn her where he wished.

He had to watch her closely to keep from losing sight of her among so many moving horses, and he expected any moment that the boys would come to his assistance. But they did not. Whereupon Pan faced about, just in time to see a wonderful-looking animal shoot through the open gate into the smaller corral. Blinky and Gus rode after him.

The gate was closed, and then began a chase round the corral. The wild horse was at a disadvantage. He could not break through the fence or leap over it, and presently two lassoes caught him at once, one round his neck, the other his feet. As he went down, Pan heard the piercing shriek. The two cowboys were out of their saddles in a twinkling, and while Gus held the horse down Blinky hobbled his front feet. Then they let him get up. Charley Brown ran to open another gate, that led out into the unfenced pasture. This animal was a big chestnut, with tawny mane. He leaped prodigiously, though fettered by the hobbles. Then he plunged and fell and rolled over. He got up to try again. He was savage, grotesque, awkward. The boys drove him through the gate.

“Whoopee!” pealed out Blinky’s yell.

“Reckon those boys know their business,” soliloquized Pan, and then he yelled for them to come and help him.

It took some time for Pan to find his roan, but when he espied her, and pointed her out to Blinky and Gus the chase began. It was a leisurely performance. Pan did not run Sorrel once. They headed the roan off, hedged her in a triangle, cut her out from the other horses, and toward the open gate. When the mare saw this avenue of escape she bolted through it.

Pan, being the farthest from the gate, was the last to follow. And when he rode in, to head off the furiously running roan, Gus made a beautiful throw with his lasso, a whirling wide loop that seemed to shoot perpendicularly across in front of her. She ran into it, and the violent check brought her down. Blinky was almost waiting to kneel on her head. And Gus, leaping off, hobbled her front feet. Snorting wildly she got up and tried to leap. But she only fell. The boys roped her again and dragged her out into the pasture.

“Aw, I don’t know,” sang Blinky, happily. “Two horses in two minutes! We ain’t so bad, fer cowboys out of a job.”

Warming to the work they went back among the circling animals. But it was an hour before they cut out the next choice, a dark bay horse, inconspicuous among so many, but one that proved on close inspection to be the best yet. Gus had the credit of first espying this one.

After that the picked horses came faster, until by noon they had ten hobbled in the open pasture. Two of these were Pan’s. He had been hard to please.

“Wal, we’ll rest the hosses an’ go get some chuck,” suggested Blinky.

Early afternoon found them again hard at their task. The wild horses had not only grown tired from trooping around the corral, but also somewhat used to the riders. That made choosing and driving and cutting out considerably easier. Pan helped the boys with their choices, but he had bad luck with his own. He had espied several beautiful horses only to lose them in the throng of moving beasts. Sometimes, among a large bunch of galloping horses, the dust made vision difficult. But at length, more by good luck than management, Pan found one of those he wanted badly. It was a black stallion, medium size, with white face, and splendid proportions. Then he had to chase him, and do some hard riding to keep track of him. No doubt about his speed! Without heading him off or tricking him, not one of the riders could stay near him.

“Aw, I’m sick eatin’ his dust,” shouted Blinky, savagely.

Whereupon both Pan and Gus, inspired by Blinky, cut loose in dead earnest. They drove him, they relayed him, they cornered him, and then as he bolted to get between Gus and Pan, Blinky wheeled his horse and by a mighty effort headed him with a lasso. That time both wild stallion and lassoer bit the dust. Gus was on the spot in a twinkling, and as the animal heaved to his feet, it was only to fall into another loop. Then the relentless cowboys stretched him out and hobbled him.

“Heah, now, you fire-eyed — air-pawin’ hoss — go an’ get gentle,” panted Blinky.

By the time the hunters had caught three others, which achievement was more a matter of patience than violence, the herd had become pretty well wearied and tamed. They crowded into a mass and moved in a mass. It took some clever riding at considerable risk to spread them. Fine horses were few and far between.

“Let’s call it off,” shouted Pan. “I’m satisfied if you are.”

“Aw, just one more, pard,” implored Blinky. “I’ve had my eye on a little bay mare with four white feet. She’s got a V bar brand, and she’s not so wild.”

They had to break up the bunch a dozen times before they could locate the horse Blinky desired. And when Pan espied the bay he did not blame Blinky, and from that moment, as the chase went on, he grew more and more covetous. What a horse for Lucy! Pan had been satisfied with the blue roan for her but after he saw the little bay he changed his mind.

The little animal was cunning. She relied more on crowding in among the other horses than in running free, and therefore she was hard to get out into the open. Blinky’s mount went lame; Gus’s grew so weary that he could not keep up; but Pan’s Sorrel showed wonderful powers of endurance. In fact he got better all the time. It began to dawn upon Pan what a treasure he had in Sorrel.

“Aw, let the darn little smart filly go,” exclaimed Blinky, giving up in disgust. “I never wanted her nohow.”

“Cowboy, she’s been my horse ever since you showed her to me,” replied Pan. “But you didn’t know it.”

“Wal, you hoss-stealin’ son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Blinky with pleasure. “If you want her, we shore will run her legs off.”

In the end they got Little Bay — as Pan had already named her — into the roping corral, along with two other horses that ran in with her. And there Pan chased her into a corner and threw a noose round her neck. She reared and snorted, but did not bolt.

“Hey, pard,” called Blinky, who was close behind. “Shore as you’re born she knows what a rope is. See! She ain’t fightin’ it. I’ll bet you my shirt she’s not been loose long. Thet bar V brand now. New outfit on me. Get off an’ haul up to her.”

Pan did not need a second suggestion. He was enraptured with the beauty of the little bay. She was glossy in spite of long hair and dust and sweat. Her nostrils were distended, her eyes wild, but she did not impress Pan as being ready to kill him. He took time. He talked to her. With infinite patience he closed up on her, inch by inch. And at last he got a hand on her neck. She flinched, she appeared about to plunge, but Pan’s gentle hand, his soothing voice kept her still. The brand on her flank was old. Pan had no way to guess how long she had been free, but he concluded not a great while, because she was not wild. He loosened the noose of his lasso on her neck. It required more patience and dexterity to hobble her.

“Pard, this little bay is fer your gurl, huh?” queried Blinky, leaning in his saddle.

“You guessed right, Blink,” answered Pan. “Little Bay! that’s her name.”

“Wal, now you got thet off your chest s’pose you climb on your hoss an’ look heah,” added Blinky.

The tone of his voice, the way he pointed over the cedar fence to the slope, caused Pan to leap into his saddle. In a moment his sweeping gaze caught horsemen and pack animals zigzagging down the trail.

“If it’s Hardman’s outfit, by Gawd, they’re comin’ back with nerve,” said Blinky. “But I never figgered they’d come.”

Pan cursed under his breath. How maddening to have his happy thoughts so rudely broken! In a flash he was hard and stern.

“Ride, Blink,” he replied briefly.

They called the others and hurriedly got out of the corral into the open.

“Reckon camp’s the best place to meet thet outfit, if they’re goin’ to meet us,” declared Blinky.

Pan’s father exploded in amazed fury.

“Cool off, Dad,” advised Pan. “No good to cuss. We’re in for something. And whatever it is, let’s be ready.”

They made their way back to camp with eyes ever on the zigzag trail where in openings among the cedars the horsemen could occasionally be seen.

“Looks like a long string,” muttered Pan.

“Shore, but they’re stretched out,” added Gus. “‘Pears to me if they meant bad for us they wouldn’t come pilin’ right down thet way.”

“Depends on how many in the outfit and what they know,” said Pan. “Hardman’s men sure knew we weren’t well heeled for a shooting scrape.”

“Pard, are you goin’ to let them ride right into camp?” queried Blinky, hard faced and keen.

“I guess not,” replied Pan bluntly. “Rifle shot is near enough. They might pretend to be friendly till they got to us. But we’ll sure fool them.”

Not much more was spoken until the approaching horsemen emerged from the cedars at the foot of the slope. They rode straight toward the camp.

“How many?” asked Pan. “I count six riders.”

“Seven fer me, an’ aboot as many pack horses...Wal, I’ll be damned! Thet’s all of them.”

“Mebbe there’s a bunch up on the slope,” suggested Charley Brown.

After a long interval fraught with anxiety and suspense, during which the horsemen approached steadily, growing more distinct, Blinky suddenly burst out: “Fellars, shore as you’re born it’s Wiggate.”

“The horse dealer from St. Louis!” ejaculated Pan in tremendous relief. “Blink, I believe you’re right. I never saw one of those men before, or the horses either.”

“It’s Wiggate, son,” corroborated Pan’s father. “I met him once. He’s a broad heavy man with a thin gray chin beard. That’s him.”

“Aw, hell!” exclaimed Blinky, regretfully. “There won’t be any fight after all.”

The approaching horsemen halted within earshot.

“Hi, there, camp,” called the leader, whose appearance tallied with Smith’s description.

“Hello,” replied Pan, striding out.

“Who’s boss here?”

“Reckon I am.”

“My name’s Wiggate,” replied the other loudly.

“All right, Mr. Wiggate,” returned Pan just as loud voiced. “What’s your business?”

“Friendly. Give my word. I want to talk horses.”

“Come on up, then.”

Whereupon the group of horsemen advanced, and presently rode in under the trees into camp. The foremost was a large man, rather florid, with deep-set eyes and scant gray beard. His skin, sunburned red instead of brown, did not suggest the westerner.

“Are you the younger Smith?” he asked, rather nervously eyeing Pan.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re in charge here?”

Pan nodded shortly. He sensed antagonism at least, in this man’s bluff front, but it might not have been animosity.

“Word come to me this morning that you’d trapped a large number of horses,” went on Wiggate. “I see that’s a fact. It’s a wonderful sight. Of course you expect to make a deal for them?”

“Yes. No trading. No percentage. I want cash. They’re a shade better stock than you’ve been buying around Marco. Better grass here, and they’ve not been chased lean.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. We disagree as to numbers. But I say close to fifteen hundred head.”

“Good Lord!” boomed the big man. “It’s a haul indeed...I’ll give you our regular price, twelve fifty, delivered in Marco.”

“No, thanks,” replied Pan.

“Thirteen.”

Pan shook his head.

“Well, young man, that’s the best offer made so far. What do you want?”

“I’ll sell for ten dollars a head, cash, and count and deliver them here tomorrow.”

“Sold!” snapped out Wiggate. “I can pay you tomorrow, but it’ll take another day to get my men out here.”

“Thank you — Mr. Wiggate,” replied Pan, suddenly rather halting in speech. “That’ll suit us.”

“May we pitch camp here?”

“Sure. Get down and come in. Plenty of water and wood. Turn your horses loose. They can’t get out.”

Pan had to get away then for a while from his father and the exuberant Blinky. How could they forget the dead men over there still unburied? Pan had read in Wiggate’s look and speech and in the faces of his men, that they had been told of the killing, and surely to the discredit of Pan and his followers. Pan vowed he would put Wiggate in possession of the facts. He gave himself some tasks, all the while trying to realize the truth. Fortune had smiled upon him and Blinky. Rich in one drive — at one fell swoop! It was unbelievable. The retrieving of his father’s losses, the new ranches in sunny Arizona, comfort and happiness for his mother, for Bobby and Alice — and for Lucy all that any reasonable woman could desire — these beautiful and sweet dreams had become possibilities. All the loneliness and privation of his hard life on the ranges had been made up for in a few short days. Pan’s eyes dimmed, and for a moment he was not quite sure of himself.

Later he mingled again with the men round the campfire. Some of the restraint had disappeared, at least in regard to Wiggate and his men toward everybody except Pan. That nettled him and at an opportune moment he confronted the horse buyer.

“How’d you learn about this drive of ours?” he asked, briefly.

“Hardman’s men rode in to Marco this morning,” replied Wiggate, coldly.

“Ah-uh! And they told a cock-and-bull story about what happened out here!” flashed Pan hotly.

“It placed you in a bad light, young man.”

“I reckon. Well, if you or any of your outfit or anybody else calls me a horse thief he wants to go for his gun. Do you understand that?”

“It’s pretty plain English,” replied Wiggate, manifestly concerned.

“And here’s some more. Jard Hardman was a horse thief,” went on Pan in rising passion. “He was a low-down yellow horse thief. He hired men to steal for him. And by God, he wasn’t half as white as the outlaw who killed him!”

“Outlaw? I declare — we — I — Do you mean you’re an—” floundered Wiggate. “We understood you killed Hardman.”

“Hell, no!” shouted Blinky, aflame with fury, bursting into the argument. “We was all there. We saw—”

“Blink, you keep out of this till I ask you to talk,” ordered Pan.

“Smith, I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

“Wiggate, you listen to me first,” rejoined Pan, with no lessening his intensity. “There are three dead men across the field, not yet buried. Hardman, his man Purcell, and the outlaw Mac New. He called himself Hurd. He was one of Hardman’s jailers there in Marco. But I knew Hurd as Mac New, back in Montana. I saved him from being hanged.”

Pan moistened lips too dry and too hot for his swift utterance, and then he told in stern brevity the true details of that triple killing. After concluding, with white face and sharp gesture, he indicated to his men that they were to corroborate his statement.

“Mr. Wiggate, it’s God’s truth,” spoke up Pan’s father, earnestly. “It was just retribution. Hardman robbed me years ago.”

“Wal, Mr. Wiggate, my say is thet it’ll be damned onhealthy fer anybody who doesn’t believe my pard,” added Blinky, in slow dark menace.

Gus stepped forward without any show of the excitement that characterized the others.

“If you need evidence other than our word, it’s easy to find,” he said. “Mac New’s gun was not the same caliber as Pan’s. An’ as the bullet thet killed Hardman is still in his body it can be found.”

“Gentlemen, that isn’t necessary,” replied Wiggate, hastily, with a shudder. “Not for me. But my men can substantiate it. That might sound well in Marco. For I believe that your young leader — Panhandle Smith, they call him — is not so black as he has been painted.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, while Pan was away for a few hours deer hunting, Wiggate’s men, accompanied by Blinky, attended to the gruesome detail of burying the dead men.

Upon Pan’s return he learned of this and experienced relief that Wiggate had taken the responsibility. Wiggate had addressed him several times, civilly enough, but there was a restraint that Pan sensed often in his encounter with men. They were usually men who did not understand westerners like himself.

Wiggate had all his men, except the one he had sent back to Marco, with several of Pan’s engaged in counting the captured wild horses. It was a difficult task and could hardly be accurate in short time.

“Anxious to get back to Marco?” queried Wiggate, not unkindly as he saw Pan’s restlessness.

“Yes, I am, now the job’s done,” replied Pan heartily.

“Well, I wouldn’t be in any hurry, if I were you,” said the horse dealer, bluntly.

“What do you mean?” queried Pan.

“Young Hardman is to be reckoned with.”

“Bah!” burst out Pan in a scorn that was rude, though he meant it for Hardman. “That pop-eyed skunk! What do I care for him?”

“Excuse me, I would not presume to advise you,” returned Wiggate stiffly.

“Aw, I beg your pardon, Mr. Wiggate,” apologized Pan. “I know you mean well. And I sure thank you.”

Wiggate did not answer, but he took something from his vest pocket, It was a lead bullet, slightly flattened.

“Let me see your gun?” he asked.

Pan handed the weapon to him, butt first. Wiggate took it gingerly, and tried to fit the bullet in a chamber of the cylinder, and then in the barrel. It was too large to go in.

“This is the bullet that killed Hardman,” said Wiggate gravely. “It was never fired from your gun. I shall take pains to make this evident in Marco.”

“I don’t know that it matters but I’m sure much obliged,” returned Pan with warmth.

“Well, I’ll do it anyhow. I’ve been fooled by Hardman and, if you want to know it, cheated too. That’s why I broke with him.”

“Hope you didn’t have any other association with him — besides horse buying.”

“No, but I’m lucky I didn’t.”

“Hardman had his finger in a lot of things in Marco. I wonder who’ll take them up. Say, for instance some of the gold claims he jumped.”

“Well! I knew Hardman had mining interests, but I thought they were legitimate. It’s such a queer mixed-up business, this locating, working, and selling claims. I want none of it.”

“Hardman’s men, either at his instigation or Dick’s, deliberately ran two of my men out of their claims. They’ll tell you so.”

“I’m astonished. I certainly am astonished,” replied Wiggate, and he looked it.

“Marco is the hardest town I ever rode into,” declared Pan. “And I thought some of the prairie towns were bad. But I see now that a few wild cowboys, going on a spree, and shooting up a saloon, or shooting each other occasionally, was tame beside Marco.”

“You’re right. Marco is a hard place, and getting worse. There’s considerable gold. The new Eldorado idea, you know. It draws lawless men and women from places that are beginning to wake up. And they prey upon honest men.”

“Did the Yellow Mine belong to Hardman?” asked Pan curiously.

“Him and Matthews. Young Hardman claims it. He’s already clashed with Matthews, so I heard.”

“He’ll do more than clash with Matthews, if he isn’t careful. He’ll cash!” declared Pan grimly. “Matthews is a four-flush sheriff. He wouldn’t face a dangerous man. But he’d make short work of Dick Hardman.”

“If I’m not inquisitive in asking — would you mind telling me, do you mean to meet Matthews and young Hardman?” inquired Wiggate, hesitatingly.

“I’ll avoid them if possible,” rejoined Pan. “Dad and I will get out of Marco pretty pronto. We’re going to Arizona and homestead.”

“That’s sensible. You’ll have money enough to start ranching. I wish you luck. I shall make this my last horse deal out here. It’s profitable, but Marco is a little too — too raw for my blood.”

According to figures that the counters agreed upon there were fourteen hundred and eighty-six wild horses in the trap.

Wiggate paid cash upon the spot. He had some bills of large denomination, but most of the money was in rather small bills. Pan made haste to get rid of all except his share. He doubled the wages of those who had been hired. Then he divided what was left with Blinky.

“My — Gawd!” gasped that worthy, gazing with distended eyes at the enormous roll of bills. “My Gawd!...How much heah?”

“Count it, you wild-eyed cowpuncher,” replied Pan happily. “It’s your half.”

“But, pard, it’s too much,” appealed Blinky. “Shore I’m robbin’ you. This was your drive.”

“Yes, and it was your outfit,” returned Pan. “You furnished the packs, horses, location, and I furnished the execution. Looks like a square deal, share and share alike.”

“All right, pard,” replied Blinky, swallowing hard. “If you reckon thet way...But will you keep this heah roll fer me?”

“Keep it yourself, you Indian.”

“But, pard, I’ll get drunk an’ go on a tear. An’ you know how bad I am when I get lickered up.”

“Blink, you’re not going to drink, unless in that one deal I hinted about,” said Pan meaningly. “Hope we can avoid it.”

“Aw, we’re turnin’ over a new leaf, huh?” queried the cowboy in strangest voice.

“You are, Blink,” replied Pan with a frank, serious smile. “I’ve been a respectable sober cowboy for some time. You’ve been terrible bad.’

“Who said so?” retorted Blinky, aggressively.

“I heard it at the Yellow Mine.”

That name, and the implication conveyed by Pan made Blinky drop his head. But his somber shame quickly fled.

“Wal, pard, I’ll stay sober as long as you. Shake on it.”

Pan made his plans to leave next morning as early as the wild horses they had hobbled could be gotten into shape to travel. Wiggate expected the riders he had sent for to arrive before noon the next day; and it was his opinion that he would have all the horses he had purchased out of there in a week. Pan and Blinky did not share this opinion.

Wiggate and his men were invited to try one of Lying Juan’s suppers, which was so good that Juan had the offer of a new job. Upon being urged by Pan to accept it, he did so.

“I can recommend Lying Juan as the best cook and most truthful man I ever knew,” remarked Pan.

Blinky rolled on the ground.

“Haw! Haw! Wait till Lyin’ Juan tells you one of his whoppers.”

“Lying Juan! I see. I was wondering about such a queer name for a most honest man,” replied Wiggate. “I know he’s a capital cook. And I guess I can risk the rest.”

After supper Pan and Blinky took great pains cutting and fixing the ropes which they intended to use on the wild horses that were to be taken along with them.

“Wal, now thet’s done, an’ I reckon I’d write to my sweetheart, only I don’t know nothin’ to write aboot,” said Blinky.

“Go to bed,” ordered Pan. “We’ve got to be up and at those horses by daylight. You ought to know that tieing the feet of wild horses is sure enough work.”

Next morning it was not yet daylight when Blinky drawled: “Wal, cowboys, we’ve rolled out, wrangled the hosses, swallered some chuck, an’ now fer the hell!”

In the gray of dawn when the kindling east had begun to dwarf the glory of the morning star, the cowboys drove all the hobbled horses into the smaller corral. There they roped off a corner and hung a white tarpaulin over the rope. This was an improvised second corral where they would put the horses, one by one, as they tied up their feet.

Blinky and Gus made one unit to work together, and Pan, his father, and Brown constituted another.

Blinky, as usual, got in the first throw, and the hungry loop of his lasso circled the front feet of the plunging roan. He stood on his head, fell on his side, and struggled vainly to get up. But he was in the iron hands of masters of horses. Every time the roan half rose, Blinky would jerk him down. Presently Gus flopped down on his head and, while the horse gave up for a moment, Blinky slipped the noose off one foot and tied the other foot up with it. They let the roan rise. On three feet he gave a wonderful exhibition of bucking. When he slowed down they drove him behind the rope corral.

“The night’s gone, the day’s come, the work’s begun,” sang out Blinky. “Eat dust, you buckaroos.”

Pan chose the little bay to tie up first. But after he had roped her and got up to her there did not appear to be any urgent reason for such stringent measure. Little Bay was spirited, frightened, but not wild.

“I’ll risk it,” said Pan, and led her to the rope corral.

The sun rose hot and, likewise, the dust. The cowboys did not slacken their pace! It took two hours of exceedingly strenuous labor to tie up all the wild horses. Each horse had presented a new fight. Then came the quick job of packing their outfits, which Juan had gotten together. Everyone of the men had been kicked, pulled, knocked down, and so coated with sweat and dust that they now resembled Negroes. Their hands were fairly cooked from the hot ropes’ sizzling when the horses plunged. And at nine o’clock they were ready for the momentous twenty-five mile drive to Marco.

“All ready for the parade!” yelled Blinky. “Go ahaid, you fellars. Open the gate, an’ leave it fer me to close.”

Pan and the others were to ride in front, while Blinky drove the horses. The need for men was in front, not behind. As they started down the wing of the trap to open the gate the roped wild horses began a terrific plunging, kicking, bucking and falling down. Some of them bit the rope on their feet. But little by little Blinky drove them out into the open. Pan and his father dropped back to each side, keeping the horses in a close bunch. That left Gus and Brown in front to run down those that tried to escape. The white-footed stallion was the first to make a break. He ran almost as well on three feet as on four, and it took hard riding to catch him, turn him and get him back in the bunch. The next was Pan’s roan. He gave a great deal of trouble.

“Haw! Haw! Thet’s Pan’s hoss. Kill him! I guess mebbe Pan cain’t pick out the runners.”

When the wild horses got out of the narrow gateway between bluff and slope they tried to scatter. The riders had their hands full. Riding, shooting, yelling, swinging their ropes, they moved the horses forward and kept them together. They were learning to run on three feet and tried hard to escape. Just when the melee grew worst they reached the cedar fence, only half of which had been burned by the resentful Hardman outfit, and this obstruction was of signal help to the riders. Once more in a compact bunch, the wild horses grew less difficult to handle.

As Pan rode up the ridge leading out of the valley he turned to have a last look at this memorable place. To his amaze and delight he saw almost as many wild horses as before the drive.

“Gee, I’m greedy,” he muttered. “Lucky as I’ve been, I want to stay and make another drive.”

“Wal, pard, I’m readin’ your mind,” drawled Blinky. “But don’t feel bad. If we tried thet drive again we might ketch a few. But you cain’t fool them broomies twice the same way.”

Another difficulty soon presented itself. Several of the wild horses could not learn to travel well on three feet.

“Reckon they’ve had long enough trial. We gotta cut them loose,” said Blinky.

“We’ll lose them sure,” complained Pan.

“Mebbe so. But we cain’t do nothin’ else. It’s mighty strange, the difference in hosses. Same as people, come to think aboot it. Some hosses learn quick, an’ now an’ then there’s one like thet stallion. He can run like hell. Most wild hosses fight an’ worry themselves, an’ quick as they learn to get along on three feet they make the best of it. Some have to be cut loose. Fact is, pard, we’ve got a mighty fine bunch, an’ we’re comin’ along better’n I expected...Loose your lasso now, cowboy, for you’ll shore need it.”

The need of that scarcely had to be dwelt on, for the instant Gus and Blinky cut loose a poor traveler, he made a wild dash for liberty. But he ran right into a hateful lasso. This one let out a piercing whistle.

All the time the riders were moving the bunch forward down into flat country between gray brushy hills. Evidently this wide pass opened into a larger valley. The travel was mostly over level ground, which facilitated the progress.

It took two men to lasso a horse, hold his ears, cut the rope round his legs, release the noose on his neck and let him go. They could not afford to lose any precious second over this job. Time was too badly needed.

The parade, as Blinky had called it, made only a few miles an hour, and sometimes this advance was not wholly in the right direction. Nevertheless the hours seemed to fly. There was no rest for horses or men. The afternoon had begun to wane before the horses had all made up their minds that fighting and plunging was of no avail. Weary, exhausted, suffering from the bound up legs, they at last surrendered. Whereupon Blinky and Gus cut their feet loose. Sometimes the whole bunch would have to be held up for one horse that, upon release, could not use his freed foot. Pan had an idea the horses did not want that tried on them twice. They showed intelligence. This method was not breeding the horses for saddle and bridle, which was of course the main consideration to come, but it certainly tamed them. It was a little too cruel for Pan to favor.

“Wal, we’ll shore be lucky if we make Snyder’s pasture tonight,” remarked Blinky. “No hope of makin’ Marco.”

Pan had never expected to do so, and therefore was not disappointed. His heart seemed so full and buoyant that he would not have minded more delay. Indeed he rode in the clouds.

The pass proved to be longer than it looked, but at last the drove of horses was headed into the wide flat country toward the west. And soon trail grew into road. The sunset dusk mantled the sweeping prairielike valley, and soon night fell, cool and windy. The wild horses slowed to a walk and had to be driven to do that. Pan felt that he shared their thirst.

When at about ten o’clock, Blinky espied through the gloom landmarks that indicated the pasture he was seeking, it was none too soon for Pan.

“Water an’ grass heah, but no firewood handy,” announced Blinky, as they turned the horses into the pasture. “Fellar named Snyder used to ranch heah. It didn’t pay. This little pasture is lucky fer us. I was heah not long ago. Good fence, an’ we can round up the bunch easy in the mawnin’.”

The weary riders unpacked the outfit, took a long deep drink of the cold water, and unrolling their tarps went supperless to bed. Pan’s eyes closed as if with glue and his thoughts wavered, faded.

Pan’s father was the first to get up, but already the sun was before him. Pan saw him limp around, and leave the pasture to return with an armful of fire wood.

“Pile out!” he yelled. “It’s Siccane, Arizona, or bust!”

One by one the boys rolled from their beds. Pan was the only one who had to pull on his boots. Somebody found soap and towel, which they fought over. The towel had not been clean before this onslaught. Afterward it was unrecognizable. Gus cooked breakfast which, judged from the attack upon it, was creditable to him.

“Wal, our hosses are heah,” said Blinky, cheerfully. “Reckon I was afeared they’d jump the fence. We may have a little hell on the start.”

“Blink, you don’t aim to tie up their feet again, do you?” inquired Pan anxiously.

“Nope. They had all they wanted of thet. Mebbe they’ll try to bust away first off. But our hosses are fresh, too. I’m gamblin’ in three hours we’ll have them in your dad’s corral.”

“Then we don’t have to drive through Marco?”

“Shore not. We’re on the main road thet passes your dad’s. Reckon it’s aboot eight miles or so.”

“Say, Blink, do we take this road on our way south to Siccane?”

“Yep. It’s the only road. You come in on it by stage. It runs north and south. Not very good road this way out of Marco.”

“Then, by golly, we can leave our new horses here,” exclaimed Pan gladly.

“Wal, I’ll be goldarned. Where’s my haid? Shore we can. It’s a first-rate pasture, plenty of water, an’ fair grass. But I’ll have to go in town, thet’s damn shore, you know. An’ we cain’t leave these hosses heah unguarded.”

“Gus, will you and Brown stay here? We’ll leave grub and outfit.”

Brown had to refuse, and explained that he was keen to get back to his mining claim, which he believed now he would be able to work.

“I’ll stay,” said Gus. “It’s a good idee. Workin’ with these hosses a day or two will get ’em fit to travel. An’ I reckon I’d like a job with you, far as Siccane anyway.”

“You’ve got it, and after we reach Siccane, too, if you want one,” replied Pan quickly.

The deal was settled to the satisfaction of all concerned.

“How aboot our pack hosses?” asked Blinky. “Course Charley will have to take his, but will we need ours? I mean will we have to pack them from heah?”

“No, all that stuff can go in the wagons,” replied Pan. “We’ll need three wagons, anyhow. Maybe more. Dad, how much of an outfit have you at home?”

“You saw it, son,” said Smith, with a laugh. “Mine would go in a saddlebag. But I reckon the women folks will have a wagon load.”

“Rustle. I’m ararin’ to go,” yelled Pan, striding out into the pasture to catch his horse. In the exuberance of the moment Pan would have liked to try conclusions with the white-footed stallion or the blue roan, but he could not spare the time. He led Sorrel back to camp and saddled him. Blinky and Pan’s father were also saddling their mounts.

“I’ll take it easy,” explained Charley Brown, who had made no move. “My claim is over here in the hills not very far.”

“Brown, I’m sorry you won’t go south with us,” said Pan warmly, as he shook hands with the miner. “You’ve sure been a help. And I’m glad we’ve — well, had something to do with removing the claim jumpers.”

As Pan rode out that morning on the sorrel, to face north on the road to Marco, he found it hard to contain himself. This hour was the very first in which he could let himself think of the glorious fulfillment of his dream.

His father was too lame to ride fast and Pan, much as he longed to rush, did not want to leave him behind. But it was utterly impossible for Pan to enter into the animated conversation carried on by his father and Blinky. They were talking wagons, teams, harness, grain, homesteads and what not. Pan rode alone, a little ahead of them.

Almost, he loved this wild and rugged land. But that was the ecstasy of the moment. This iron country was too cut up by mountains, with valleys too bare and waterless, to suit Pan. Not to include the rough and violent element of men attracted by gold!

Nevertheless on this bright autumn morning there was a glamour over valley and ridge, black slope and snowy peak, and the dim distant ranges. The sky was as blue as the inside of a columbine, a rich and beautiful light of gold gilded the wall of rock that boldly cropped out of the mountainside; and the wide sweeping expanse of sage lost itself in a deep purple horizon. Ravens and magpies crossed Pan’s glad eyesight. Jack rabbits bounded down the aisles between the sage bushes. Far out on the plain he descried antelope, moving away with their telltale white rumps. The air was sweet, intoxicating, full of cedar fragrance and the cool breath from off the heights.

While he saw and felt all this his mind scintillated with thoughts of Lucy Blake. He would see her presently, have the joy of surprising her into betrayal of love. He fancied her wide eyes of changing dark blue, and the swift flame of scarlet that so readily stained her neck and cheek.

He would tell her about the great good fortune that had befallen him; and about the beautiful mare, Little Bay, he had captured for her; and now they could talk and plan endlessly, all the way down to Siccane.

When would Lucy marry him? That was a staggering question. His heart swelled to bursting. Had he the courage to ask her at once? He tried to see the matter from Lucy’s point of view, but without much success.

Dreaming thus, Pan rode along without being aware of the time or distance.

“Hey, pard,” called Blinky, in loud banter. “Are you goin’ to ride past where your gurl lives?”

With a violent start Pan wheeled his horse. He saw that he had indeed ridden beyond the entrance to a farm, which upon second look he recognized. It was, however, an angle with which he had not been familiar. The corrals and barn and house were hidden in trees.

“I’m loco, all right,” he replied with a little laugh.

Through gate and lane they galloped, on to the corral, and round that to the barn. This was only a short distance to the house. Pan leaped from his horse and ran.

With an uplift of his heart that was almost pain, he rushed round the corner of the house to the vine-covered porch.

The door was shut. Stealthily he tiptoed across the porch to knock. No answer! He tried the door. Locked! A quiver ran through him.

“Strange,” he muttered, “not home this early.”

He peered through the window, to see on floor and table ample evidence of recent packing. That gave check to a creeping blankness which was benumbing Pan. He went on to look into his mother’s bedroom. The bed looked as if it had been used during the night and had not been made up. Perhaps his mother and Lucy had gone into Marco to purchase necessities.

“But — didn’t I tell Lucy not to go?” he queried, in bewilderment.

Resolutely he cast out doubtful speculations. There could hardly be anything wrong. Hurriedly he returned to the barn.

“Wal, I’ll tell you,” Blinky was holding forth blandly, “this heah grubbin’ around without a home an’ a woman ain’t no good. I’m shore through. I’m agoin’—”

“Nobody home,” interrupted Pan.

“Well, that’s nothin’ to make you pale round the gills,” returned his father. “They’re gone to town. Mother had a lot of buyin’ to do.”

“But I particularly told Lucy to stay here.”

“S’pose you did,” interposed Blinky. “Thet’s nothin’. You don’t expect this heah gurl to mind you.”

“No time for joking, Blink,” said Pan curtly. “It just doesn’t set right on my chest. I’ve got to find Lucy pronto. But where to go!”

With a single step he reached his stirrup and swung into his saddle.

“Pan, Lucy an’ the wife will be in one of the stores. Don’t worry about them. Why, they did all our buyin’.”

“I tell you I don’t like it,” snapped Pan. “It’s not what I think, but what I feel. All the same, wherever they are it doesn’t change our plans. I’ll sure find them, and tell them we’re packing to leave pronto....Now, Dad, buy three wagons and teams, grain, grub, and whatever else we need for two weeks or more on the road. Soon as I find Lucy and Mother I’ll meet you and help you with the buying.”

“I ought to talk it over with Ma before I buy grub,” replied his father, perplexedly scratching his head. “I wish they was home.”

“Come on, Blink,” called Pan, as he rode out.

Blinky joined him out in the road.

“Pard, I don’t get your hunch, but I can see you’re oneasy.”

“I’m just loco, that’s all,” returned Pan, forcing himself. “It’s — such — such a disappointment not to see — her...Made me nervous. Makes me think how anything might happen. I never trusted Jim Blake. And Lucy is only a kid in years.”

“Ahuh,” said Blinky, quietly. “Reckon I savvy. You wouldn’t feel thet way fer nothin’.”

“Blink, I’m damn glad you’re with me,” rejoined Pan feelingly, turning to face his comrade. “No use to bluff with you. I wish to heaven I could say otherwise, but I’m afraid there’s something wrong.”

“Shore. Wal, we’ll find out pronto,” replied Blinky, with his cool hard spirit, “an’ if there is, we’ll damn soon make it right.”

They rode rapidly until they reached the outskirts of town, when Blinky called Pan to a halt.

“Reckon you’d better not ride through Main Street,” he said significantly.

They tied their horses behind a clump of trees between two deserted shacks. Pan removed his ragged chaps, more however to be freer of movement than because they were disreputable.

“Now, Blink, we’ll know pronto if the town is friendly to us,” he said seriously.

“Huh! I ain’t carin’ a whoop, but I’ll gamble we could own the town. This fake minin’, ranchin’, hoss-dealin’ Hardman was a hunk of bad cheese. Pard, are you goin’ to deny you killed him? Fer shore they’ve been told thet.”

“No. Wiggate can do the telling. All I want is to find Lucy and send her back home, then buy our outfit and rustle.”

“Sounds pretty. But I begin to feel hunchy myself. Let’s have a drink, Pan.”

“We’re not drinking, cowboy,” retorted Pan.

“Ain’t we? Excuse me. Shore I figgered a good stiff drink would help some. I tell you I’ve begun to get hunches.”

“What kind?”

“No kind at all. Just feel that all’s not goin’ the way we hope. But it’s your fault. It’s the look you got. I’d hate to see you hurt deep, pard.”

They passed the wagon shop where Pan’s father had been employed, then a vacant lot on one side of the street and framed tents on the other. Presently they could see down the whole of Main Street. It presented the usual morning atmosphere and color, though Pan fancied there was more activity than usual. That might have been owing to the fact that both the incoming and outgoing stages were visible far up at the end of the street.

Pan strained his eyes at people near and far, seeking first some sign of Lucy, and secondly someone he could interrogate. Soon he would reach the first store. But before he got there he saw his mother emerge, drag Bobby, who evidently wanted to stay. Then Alice followed. Both she and her mother were carrying bundles. Pan’s heart made ready for a second and greater leap — in anticipation of Lucy’s appearance. But she did not come.

“Hello, heah’s your folks, pard, figgerin’ from looks,” said Blinky. “What a cute kid!...Look there!”

Pan, striding ahead of Blinky saw his mother turn white and reel as if about to faint. Pan got to her in time.

“Mother! Why, Mother,” he cried, in mingled gladness and distress. “It’s me. I’m all right. What’d you think?...Hello, Bobby, old dirty face...Alice, don’t stare at me. I’m here in the flesh.”

His mother clung to him with hands like steel. Her face and eyes were both terrible and wonderful to see. “Pan! Pan! You’re alive? Oh, thank God! They told us you’d been shot.”

“Me? Well, I guess not. I’m better than ever, and full of good news,” went on Pan hurriedly. “Brace up, Mother. People are looking. There...Dad is out home. We’ve got a lot to do. Where’s Lucy?”

“Oh, God — my son, my son!” cried Mrs. Smith, her eyes rolling.

“Hush!” burst out Pan, with a shock as if a blade had pierced his heart. He shook her not gently. “Where is Lucy?”

His mother seemed impelled by his spirit, and she wheeled to point up the street.

“Lucy! There — in that stage — leaving Marco!”

“For God’s — sake!” gasped Pan. “What’s this? Lucy! Where’s she going?”

“Ask her yourself,” she cried passionately.

Something terrible seemed to crash inside Pan. Catastrophe! It was here. His mother’s dark eyes held love, pity, and passion, which last was not for him.

“Mother, go home at once,” he said swiftly. “Tell Dad to rush buying those wagons. You and Alice pack. We shake the dust of this damned town. Don’t worry. Lucy will leave with us!”

Then Pan broke into long springy strides, almost a run. Indeed Blinky had to run to keep up with him. “I told you, pard,” said his comrade. huskily. “Hell to pay! ——  —— the luck!”

Pan had only one conscious thought — to see Lucy. All else seemed damming behind flood gates.

People rushed into the street to get out of the way of the cowboys. Others stared and made gestures. Booted men on the porch of the Yellow Mine stamped noisily as they trooped to get inside. Voices of alarm and mirth rang out. Pan took only a fleeting glance into the wide doorway. He saw nothing, thought nothing. His stride quickened as he passed Black’s store, where more men crowded to get inside.

“Save your — wind, pard,” warned Blinky. “You might — need it.”

They reached the end of the street and across the wide square stood the outgoing stage, before the express office. There was no driver on the front seat. Smith, the agent, was emerging from the office with mailbags.

“Slow up, pard,” whispered Blinky, at Pan’s elbow.

Pan did as he was advised, though his stride still retained speed. Impossible to go slowly! There were passengers in the stagecoach. When Pan reached the middle of the street he saw the gleam of golden hair that he knew. Lucy! Her back was turned to him. And as he recognized her, realized he had found her, there burst forth in his mind a thundering clamor of questioning voices.

A few more strides took him round the stage. Men backed away from him. The door was open.

“Lucy!” he called, and his voice seemed to come piercingly from a far-off place.

She turned a strange face, but he knew her eyes, saw the swift transition, the darkening, widening. How white she turned! What was this! Agony in recognition! A swift unuttered blaze of joy that changed terror. He saw her lips frame his name, but no sound came.

“Lucy!” he cried. “What does this mean? Where are you going?”

She could not speak. But under her pallor the red of shame began to burn. Pan saw it, and he recognized it. Mutely he gazed at the girl as her head slowly sank. Then he asked hoarsely: “What’s it mean?”

“Pard, take a peep round heah,” drawled Blinky in slow cool speech that seemed somehow to carry menace.

Pan wheeled. He had the shock of his life. He received it before his whirling thoughts recorded the reason. It was as if he had to look twice. Dick Hardman! Fashionably and wonderfully attired! Pan got no farther than sight of the frock coat, elaborate vest, flowing tie, and high hat. Then for a second he went blind.

When the red film cleared he saw Hardman pass him, saw the pallor of his cheek, the quivering of muscle, the strained protruding of his eye.

He got one foot on the stage step when Pan found release for his voice.

“Hardman!”

That halted the youth, as if it had been a rope, but he never turned his head. The shuffling of feet inside the coach hinted of more than restlessness. There was a scattering of men from behind Pan.

He leaped at Hardman and spun him round.

“Where are you going?”

“Frisco, if it’s — any of your business,” replied Hardman incoherently.

“Looks like I’ll make it my business,” returned Pan menacingly. He could not be himself here. The shock had been too great. His mind seemed stultified.

“Hardman — do you mean — do you think — you’re taking her — away?” queried Pan, as if strangling.

“Ha!” returned Hardman with an upfling of head, arrogant, vain for all his fear. “I know it...She’s my wife!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

DESTRUCTION, DEATH ITSELF seemed to overthrow Panhandle Smith’s intensity of life. He reeled on his feet. For a moment all seemed opaque, with blurred images. There was a crash, crash, crash of something beating at his ears.

How long this terrible oblivion possessed Pan he did not know. But at Hardman’s move to enter the stage, he came back a million times more alive than ever he had been — possessed of devils.

With one powerful lunge he jerked Hardman back and flung him sprawling into the dust.

“There! Once more!...” cried Pan, panting. “Remember — the schoolhouse? That fight over Lucy Blake! Damn your skunk soul!...Get up, if you’ve got a gun!”

Hardman leaned on his hand. His high hat had rolled away. His broadcloth suit was covered with dust. But he did not note these details of his abasement. Like a craven thing fascinated by a snake he had his starting eyes fixed upon Pan, and his face was something no man could bear to see.

“Get up — if you’ve got a gun!” ordered Pan.

“I’ve no — gun—” he replied, in husky accents.

“Talk, then. Maybe I can keep from killing you.”

“For God’s sake — don’t shoot me. I’ll tell you anything.”

“Hardman, you say you — you married my — this girl?” rasped out Pan, choking over his words as if they were poison, unable to speak of Lucy as he had thought of her all his life.

“Yes — I married her.”

“Who married you?”

“A parson from Salt Lake. Matthews got him here.”

“Ah-uh! — Matthews. How did you force her?”

“I swear to God she was willing,” went on Hardman. “Her father wanted her to.”

“What? Jim Blake left here for Arizona. I sent him away.”

“But he never went — I — I mean he got caught — put in jail again. Matthews sent for the officers. They came. And they said they’d put Blake away for ten years. But I got him off...Then Lucy was willing to marry me — and she did. There’s no help for it now...too late.”

“Liar!” hissed Pan. “You frightened her — tortured her.”

“No, I — I didn’t do anything. It was her father. He persuaded her.”

“Drove her, you mean. And you paid him. Admit it or I’ll—” Pan’s move was threatening.

“Yes — yes, I did,” jerked out Hardman in a hoarser, lower voice. Something about his lifelong foe appalled him. He was abject. No confession of his guilt was needed.

“Go get yourself a gun. You’ll have to kill me before you start out on your honeymoon. Reckon I think you’re going to hell...Get up...Go get yourself a gun...”

Hardman staggered to his feet, brushing the dirt from his person while he gazed strickenly at Pan.

“My God, I can’t fight you,” he said. “You won’t murder me in cold blood...Smith, I’m Lucy’s husband...She’s my wife.”

“And what is Louise Melliss?” whipped out Pan. “What does she say about your marriage? You ruined her. You brought her here to Marco. You tired of her. You abandoned her to that hellhole owned by your father. He got his just deserts and you’ll get yours.”

Hardman had no answer. Like a dog under the lash he cringed at Pan’s words.

“Get out of my sight,” cried Pan, at the end of his endurance. “And remember the next time I see you, I’ll begin to shoot.”

Pan struck him, shoved him out into the street. Hardman staggered on, forgetting his high hat that lay in the dust. He got to going faster until he broke into an uneven half-run. He kept to the middle of the street until he reached the Yellow Mine, where he ran up the steps and disappeared.

Pan backed slowly, step by step. He was coming out of his clamped obsession. His movement was now that of a man gripped by terror. In reality Pan could have faced any peril, any horror, any physical rending of flesh far more easily than this girl who had ruined him.

She had left the stage and she stood alone. She spoke his name. In the single low word he divined fear. How long had she been that dog’s wife? When had she married him? Yesterday, or the day before — a week, what did it matter?

“You — you!” he burst out helplessly in the grip of deadly hate and agony. He hated her then — hated her beauty — and the betrayal of her fear for him. What was life to him now? Oh, the insupportable bitterness!

“Go back to my mother,” he ordered harshly, and averted his face.

Then he seemed to forget her. He saw Blinky close to him, deeply shaken, yet composed and grim. He heard the movement of many feet, the stamping of hoofs.

“All aboard for Salt Lake,” called the stage driver. Smith the agent passed Pan with more mailbags. The strain all about him had broken.

“Pard,” Pan said, laying a hand on Blinky. “Go with her — take her to my mother...And leave me alone.”

“No, by Gawd!” replied Blinky sullenly. “You forget this heah is my deal too. There’s Louise...An’ Lucy took her bag an’ hurried away. There, she’s runnin’ past the Yellow Mine.”

“Blink, did she hear what I said to Hardman about Louise?” asked Pan bitterly.

“Reckon not. She’d keeled over aboot then. I shore kept my eye on her. An’ I tell you, pard—”

“Never mind,” interrupted Pan. “What’s the difference? Hellsfire! Whisky! Let’s get a drink. It’s whisky I want.”

“Shore. I told you thet a while back. Come on, pard. It’s red-eye fer us!”

They crossed to the corner saloon, a low dive kept by a Chinaman and frequented by Mexicans and Indians. These poured out pellmell as the cowboys jangled up to the bar. Jard Hardman’s outfit coming to town had prepared the way for this.

“Howdy,” was Blinky’s greeting to the black bottle that was thumped upon the counter. “You look mighty natural...heah’s to Panhandle Smith!”

Pan drank. The fiery liquor burned down to meet and coalesce round that gnawing knot in his internals. It augmented while it soothed. It burned as it cooled. It inflamed, but did not intoxicate.

“Pard, heah’s to the old Cimarron,” said Blinky, as they drank again.

Pan had no response. Memory of the Cimarron only guided his flying mind over the ranges to Las Animas. They drank and drank. Blinky’s tongue grew looser.

“Hold your tongue, damn you,” said Pan.

“Imposshiblity. Lesh have another.”

“One more then. You’re drunk, cowboy.”

“Me drunk? No shir, pard. I’m just tongue-tied...Now, by Gawd, heah’s to Louise Melliss!”

“I drink to that,” flashed Pan, as he drained his glass.

The afternoon had waned. Matthews lay dead in the street. He lay in front of the Yellow Mine, from which he had been driven by men who would no longer stand the strain.

The street was deserted except for that black figure, lying face down with a gun in his right hand. His black sombrero lay flat. The wind had blown a high hat down the street until it had stopped near the sombrero. Those who peeped out from behind doors or from windows espied these sinister objects.

Pan had patrolled the street. He had made a house-to-house canvass, searching for Jim Blake. He had entered every place except the Yellow Mine. That he reserved for the last. But he did not find Blake. He encountered, however, a slight pale man in clerical garb.

“Are you the parson Matthews brought to Marco?” demanded Pan harshly.

“Yes, Sir,” came the reply.

“Did you marry young Hardman to — to—” Pan could not end the query.

The minister likewise found speech difficult, but his affirmative was not necessary.

“Man, you may be innocent of evil intent. But you’ve ruined my — girl...and me! You’ve sent me to hell. I ought to kill you.”

“Pard, shore we mushn’t kill thish heah parson just yet,” drawled Blinky, thickly. “He’ll come in handy.”

“Ahuh! Right you are, Blinky,” returned Pan, with a ghastly pretense of gaiety. “Parson, stay right here till we come for you. — Maybe you make up a little for the wrong you did one girl.”

The Yellow Mine stood with glass uplifted and card unplayed.

Pan had entered from the dance hall entrance. Blinky, unsteady on his feet, came in from the street. After a tense moment the poker players went on with their game, and the drinkers emptied their glasses. But voices were low, glances were furtive.

Pan had seen every man there before he had been seen himself. Only one interested him — that was Jim Blake. What to do to this man or with him Pan found it hard to decide. Blake had indeed fallen low. But Pan gave him the benefit of one doubt — that he had been wholly dominated by Hardman. Yet there was the matter of accepting money for his part in forcing Lucy to marry Dick.

The nearer end of the bar had almost imperceptibly been vacated by drinkers sliding down toward the other rear end. Pan took the foremost end of the vacated position. He called for drink. As fast as he had drunk, the fiery effects had as swiftly passed away. Yet each drink for the moment kept up that unnatural stimulus.

Pan beckoned for Blinky. That worthy caused a stir, then a silence, by going round about the tables, so as not to come between Pan and any men there.

“Blink, do you know where Louise’s room is?” queried Pan.

“Shore. Down thish hall — third door on left,” replied Blinky.

“Well, you go over there to Blake and tell him I want to talk to him. Then you go to Louise’s room. I’ll follow directly.”

Blake received the message, but he did not act promptly. Pan caught his suspicious eye, baleful, gleaming. Possibly the man was worse than weak. Presently he left the poker game which he had been watching and shuffled up to Pan. He appeared to be enough under the influence of liquor to be leeringly bold.

“Howdy,” he said.

“Blake, today I got from Hardman the truth about the deal you gave me and Lucy,” returned Pan, and then in cold deliberate tones he called the man every infamous name known to the ranges. Under this onslaught, Blake sank into something akin to abasement.

“Reckon you think,” concluded Pan, “that because you’re Lucy’s father I can’t take a shot at you. Don’t fool yourself. You’ve killed her soul — and mine. So why shouldn’t I kill you?...Well, there isn’t any reason except that away from Hardman’s influence you might brace up. I’ll take the chance. You’re done in Marco. Jard Hardman is dead and Dick’s chances of seeing the sun rise are damn thin...Now you rustle out that door and out of Marco. When you make a man of yourself come to Siccane, Arizona.”

Blake lurched himself erect, and met Pan’s glance with astonished bewildered eyes; then he wheeled to march out of the saloon.

Pan turned into the hallway leading into the hotel part of the building, and soon encountered Blinky leaning against the wall.

“Blink, isn’t she in?” asked Pan, low voiced and eager.

“Shore, but she won’t open the door,” replied Blinky dejectedly.

Pan knocked and called low: “Louise, let us in.”

There was a long wait, then came a low voice: “No.”

“Please, it’s very important.”

“Who are you?”

“It’s Panhandle Smith,” replied Pan.

“That cowboy’s drunk and I — no — I’m sorry.”

“Louise I’m not drunk, but I am in bad temper. I ask as a friend. Don’t cross me here. I can easy shove in this door.”

He heard soft steps, a breathless exclamation, then a key turned in the lock, and the door opened. The lamplight was not bright, Louise stood there half dressed, her bare arms and bosom gleaming. Pan entered, dragging Blinky with him, and closed the door all but tight.

“Louise, it wasn’t kind of you to do that,” said Pan reproachfully. “Have you any better friends than Blinky or me?”

“God knows — I haven’t,” faltered the girl. “But I’ve been ill — in bed — and am just getting out. I — I — heard about you — today — and Blink being with you — drunk.”

Pan stepped to the red-shaded lamp on a small table beside the bed, and turned up the light. The room had more comfort and color than any Pan had seen for many a day.

He bent searching eyes upon Louise. She did look ill — white, with great dark shadows under her eyes, but she seemed really beautiful. What a tragic face it was, betrayed now by lack of paint! Pan had never seen her like this. If he had needed it, this would have warmed his heart to her.

“What do you want of me?” she asked, with a nervous twisting of hands she tried to hide.

Pan took her hands and pulled her a little toward him.

“Louise, you like me, don’t you, as a friend or brother?” he asked gently.

“Yes, when I’m sober,” she replied wanly.

“And you like Blinky, here, don’t you — like him a lot?”

“I did. I couldn’t help it, the damn faithful little cowboy,” she returned. “But I hate him when he’s drunk, and he hates me when I’m drunk.”

“Blink, go out and fetch back a bottle — presently. We’ll all get drunk.”

The cowboy stared like a solemn owl, then very quietly went out.

“Louise, put something over your shoulders. You’ll catch cold. Here,” said Pan and he picked a robe off the bed and wrapped it round her. “I didn’t know you were so pretty. No wonder poor Blink worships you.”

She drew away from him and sat upon the bed, dark eyes questioning, suspicious. Yet she seemed fascinated. Pan caught a slight quivering of her frame. Where was the audacity, the boldness of this girl? But he did not know her, and he had her word that drink alone enabled her to carry on. He had surprised her. Yet could that account for something different, something quite beyond his power to grasp? Surely this girl could not fear him. Suddenly he remembered that Hardman had fled to this house — was hidden there now. Pan’s nerves tautened.

“Louise,” he began, taking her hand again, and launching directly into the reason for this interview he had sought, “we’ve had a great drive. Blink and I have had luck. Oh, such luck! We sold over fifteen hundred horses...Well, we’re going to Arizona, to a sunny open country, not like this...Now Blink and I want you to go with us.”

“What! Go away with you? How, in God’s name?” she gasped in utter amaze.

“Why, as Blink’s wife, of course. And I’ll be your big brother,” replied Pan, not without agitation. It was a pregnant moment. She stared a second, white and still, with great solemn searching eyes on his. Pan felt strangely embarrassed, yet somehow happy that he had dared to approach her with such a proposition.

Suddenly she kissed him, she clung to him, she buried her face on his shoulder and he heard her murmur incoherently something about “honest-to-God men.”

“What do you say, little girl?” he went on. “It’s a chance for you to be good again. It’ll save that wild cowboy, who never had a decent ambition till he met you. He loves you. He worships you. He hates what you have to suffer here. He—”

“So this is Panhandle Smith?” she interrupted, looking up at him with eyes like dark stars. “No! No! No! I wouldn’t degrade even a worthless cowboy.”

“You’re wrong. He’ll not be worthless, if you repay his faith. Louise, don’t turn your back on hope, on love, on a home.”

“No!” she flashed, passionately.

“Why?” he returned, in sharp appeal.

“Because he’s too good for me. Because I don’t deserve your friendship. But so help me God I’ll love you both all the rest of my miserable life — which won’t be long.”

He took her in his arms, as if to add force to argument. “But, you poor child, this is no place for you. You’ll only go to hell — commit suicide or be killed in a drunken brawl.”

“Panhandle, I may end even worse,” she replied, in bitter mockery. “I might marry Dick Hardman. He talks of it — when he’s drunk.”

Pan released her, and leaned back to see her face. “Marry you! Dick Hardman talks of that?” he burst out incredulously.

“Yes, he does. And I might let him when I’m drunk. I’d do anything then.”

At that moment the door opened noiselessly and Blinky entered carrying a bottle and glasses.

“Good, Blink, old pard,” said Pan, breathing heavily. “Louise and I have just made up our minds to get drunk together. Blink, you stay sober.”

“I cain’t stay what I ain’t,” retorted Blinky. “An’ I won’t stay heah, either, to see her drink. I hate her then.”

She poured the dark red liquor out into the glasses. “Boy, I want you to hate me. I’ll make you hate me...Here’s to Panhandle Smith!”

While she drank Blinky moved backwards to the door, eyes glinting brightly into Pan’s and then he was gone.

In the mood under which Pan labored, liquor had no effect upon him but to act as fire to body and mind. The girl, however, was transformed into another creature. Bright red spots glowed in her cheeks, her eyes danced and dilated, her whole body answered to the stimulus. One drink led to another. She could not resist the insidious appetite thus created. She did not see whether Pan drank or not. She grew funny, then sentimental, and finally lost herself in that stage of unnatural abandon for which, when sober, she frankly confessed she drank.

Pan decided that presently he would wrap a blanket around her, pick her up and pack her out. Blinky would shoot out the lights in the saloon, and the rest would be easy. If she knew that Hardman was in the house, as Pan had suspected, she had now no memory of it.

“You big handsome devil,” she called Pan. “I told you — to keep away from me.”

“Louise, don’t make love to me,” replied Pan.

“Why not? Men are all alike.”

“No, you’re wrong. You forget what you said a little while ago. I’ve lost my sweetheart, and my heart is broken.”

She leered at him, and offered him another drink. Pan took the glass away from her. It was possible he might overdo his part.

“So you’re liable to marry young Hardman?” he asked deliberately.

The question, the name, gave her pause, as if they had startled her memory.

“Sure I am.”

“But, Louise, how can you marry Hardman when he already has a wife?” asked Pan.

She grasped that import only slowly, by degrees.

“You lie, you gun-slinging cowboy!” she cried.

“No, Louise. He told me so himself.”

“He did!...When?” she whispered, very low.

“Today. He was at the stage office. He meant to leave today. He was all togged up, frock coat, high hat...Oh, God — Louise, I know, I know, because it — was — my — sweetheart — he married.”

Pan ended gaspingly. What agony to speak that aloud — to make his own soul hear that aloud!

“Your sweetheart?...Little Lucy — of your boyhood — you told me about?”

Pan was confronted now by something terrible. He had sought to make this girl betray herself, if she had anything to betray. But this Medusa face! Those awful eyes!

“Yes, Lucy, I told you,” he said, reaching for her. “He forced her to marry him. They had Lucy’s father in jail. Dick got him out. Oh, it was all a scheme to work on the poor girl. She thought it was to save her father...Why, Dick paid her father. I made him tell me...yes, Dick Hardman in his frock coat and high hat! But when I drove him out to get his gun, he forgot that high hat.”

“Ah! His high hat!”

“Yes, it’s out in the street now. The wind blew it over where I killed Matthews. Funny!...And Louise, I’m going to kill Dick Hardman, too.”

“Like hell you are!” she hissed, and leaped swiftly to snatch something from under the pillow.

Pan started back, thinking that she meant to attack him. How tigerishly she bounded! Her white arm swept aside red curtains. They hid a shallow closet. It seemed her white shape flashed in and out. A hard choking gasp! Could that have come from her? Pan did not see her drawn lips move. Something hard dropped to the floor with metallic sound.

The hall door opened with a single sweep. Blinky stood framed there, wild eyed. And the next instant Dick Hardman staggered from that closet. He had both hands pressed to his abdomen. Blood poured out in a stream. Pan heard strange watery sounds. Hardman reeled out into the hall, groaning. He slipped along the wall. Pan leaped, to see him slide down into a widening pool of blood.

It was a paralyzing moment. But Pan recovered first. The girl swayed with naked arms outstretched against the wall. On her white wrist showed a crimson blot. Pan looked no more. Snatching a blanket off the bed he threw it round her, wrapped it tight, and lifted her in his arms.

“Blink, go ahead,” he whispered, as he went into the hall. “Hurry! Shoot out the lights! Go through the dance hall!”

The cowboy seemed galvanized into action. He leaped over Hardman’s body, huddled and lax, and down the hall, pulling his guns.

Pan edged round the body on the floor. He saw a ghastly face — protruding eyes. And on the instant, like lightning, came the thought that Lucy was free. Almost immediately thundering shots filled the saloon. Crash! Crash! Crash! The lights faded, darkened, went out. Yells and scraping chairs and overturned tables, breaking glass, pounding boots merged in a pandemonium of sound.

Pan hurried through the dance hall, where the windows gave dim light, found the doorway, gained the side entrance to the street. Blinky waited there, smoking guns in his hands.

“Heah — this — way,” he directed in a panting whisper, as he sheathed the guns, and took the lead. Pan followed in the shadow of the houses.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE STREET DOWN that way was dark, with but few lights showing. Blinky kept looking back in the direction of the slowly subsiding tumult. Pan carried Louise at rapid pace, as if she made no burden at all. In the middle of the next block Blinky slowed up, carefully scrutinizing the entrances to the buildings. They came to an open hallway, dimly lighted. Pan read a sign he remembered. This was the lodging house.

“Go in, Blink,” directed Pan quickly. “If you find our parson chase everybody but him and call me pronto.”

Blinky ran into the place. Pan let Louise down on her feet. She could not stand alone.

“Cowboy — smozzer me,” she giggled, pulling at the fold of blanket round her face.

Pan rearranged the blanket over her bare shoulders, and folded it round more like a coat. He feared she might collapse before they could accomplish their design. The plight of this girl struck deeply into his heart.

“Whaz — mazzer, cowboy?” she asked. “Somebody’s raid us?”

“Hush, Louie,” whispered Pan shaking her. “There’ll be a gang after us.”

“Hell with gang...Shay, Pan, whaz become of Dick?”

She was so drunk she did not remember. Pan thanked God for that! How white the tragic face! Her big eyes resembled bottomless gulfs. Her hair hung disheveled round her.

A low whistle made Pan jump. Blinky stood inside in a flare of light from an open door. He beckoned. Pan lifted the girl and carried her in.

Five minutes later they came out, one on each side of Louise, trying to keep her quiet. She was gay, maudlin. But once outside again, the rush of cold mountain air aided them. They hurried down the dark street, almost carrying the girl between them. A few people passed, fortunately on the other side. These pedestrians were hurrying in the other direction. Some excitement uptown, Pan thought grimly! Soon they passed the outskirts of Marco and gained the open country. Pan cast off what seemed a weight of responsibility for Blinky and Louise. Once he got them out of town they were safe.

Suddenly Blinky reached behind the girl and gave Pan a punch. Turning, Pan saw his comrade point back. A dull red flare lighted up the sky. Fire! Pan’s heart gave a leap. The Yellow Mine was burning. The crowd of drinkers and gamblers had fled before Blinky’s guns. Pan was hoping that only he and Blinky would ever know who had killed Dick Hardman.

From time to time Pan glanced back over his shoulder. The flare of red light grew brighter and higher. One corner of Marco would surely be wiped out.

The road curved. Soon a dark patch of trees, and a flickering light, told Pan they had reached his father’s place. It gave him a shock. He had forgotten his parents. They entered the lane and cut off through the dew-wet grass of the orchard to the barn. Pan caught the round pale gleam of canvas-covered wagons.

“Good! Dad sure rustled,” said Pan with satisfaction. “If he got the horses, too, we can leave tomorrow.”

“Shore, we will anyhow,” replied Blinky, who was now sober and serious.

They found three large wagons and one smaller, with a square canvas top.

“Blink, hold her, till I get some hay,” said Pan.

He hurried into the open side of the barn. It was fairly dark but he knew where to go. He heard horses munching grain. That meant his father had bought the teams. Pan got an armful of hay, and carrying it out to the wagon, he threw it in, and spread it out for a bed.

“Reckon we’d better put Louise here,” said Pan, stepping down off the wheel. “I’ll get some blankets from Dad.”

Blinky was standing there in the starlight holding the girl in his arms. His head was bowed over her wan face.

They lifted Louise into the wagon and laid her down upon the hay.

“Whish you — gennelmanz my hushband?” she asked thickly.

Pan had to laugh at that, but Blinky stood gazing intently down upon the pale gleam of face. Pan left him there and strode toward the house. Though the distance was short, he ran the whole gamut of emotions before he stopped at a lighted window. He heard his father’s voice.

“Dad,” he called, tapping on the window. Then he saw his mother and Alice. They had started up from packing. One glance at the suffering expressed in his mother’s face was enough to steady Pan. The door opened with a jerk.

“That you — Pan?” called his father, with agitation.

“Nobody else, Dad,” replied Pan, trying to calm his voice. “Tell Mother I’m here safe and sound.”

His mother heard and answered with a low cry of relief.

“Dad, come out...Shut the door,” returned Pan sharply.

Once outside his father saw the great flare of light above the town.

“Look! What’s that? Must be fire!” he burst out.

“Reckon it is fire,” returned Pan shortly. “Blinky shot out the lamps in the Yellow Mine. Fire must have caught from that.”

“Yellow Mine!” echoed Smith, staring in momentary stupefaction.

Pan laid a heavy hand on him. It was involuntary, an expression of a sudden passion rising in Pan. He had a question to put that almost stifled him.

“Lucy!...Did she — come home?” he forced out.

“Sure. Didn’t you know? She was home when I got here at noon. Son, I bought all our outfit in no time.”

“What did Lucy tell you?”

“Nothin’ much,” replied his father, in earnest wonder. “She was in an awful state. Said she couldn’t go because you were not dead...poor girl! She had hysterics. But mother got her quieted down by suppertime.”

“Where is she now?”

“In bed, I reckon. Leastways she’s in her room.”

“Dad, does she know? But of course she couldn’t...nor could you!”

“Son, I know aplenty,” replied his father, solemnly. “Lucy told mother when she saw you come to the stagecoach that it nearly killed her. They believed you dead — mother an’ Lucy...She told how you threw Hardman out of the stage on to the street. Said she almost fainted then. But she came to in time to see you kick him — drive him off.”

“Is that all she knows?” queried Pan.

“Reckon it is. I know more, but I didn’t tell her,” replied Smith, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I heard about them drivin’ Matthews out to meet you...McCormick told me you hadn’t lost any friends.”

“Ah-huh!” ejaculated Pan somberly. “Well, better tell Lucy at once...Reckon that’s best — the sooner the better.”

“Tell Lucy what?” asked Smith anxiously.

“That she’s a widow.”

“It — is Dick Hardman dead — too?” gasped out Smith.

“Yes.”

“My God! Son — did — did you—”

“Dad, I didn’t kill him,” interrupted Pan. “Dick Hardman was — was knocked out — just before Blinky shot out the lights. Reckon it’s a good bet no one will ever know. He sure was burned up in that fire.”

“Alive?” whispered Smith.

“He might still have been alive, but he was far gone — unconscious when I passed him in the hall. You needn’t tell Lucy that. Just tell her Hardman is dead and that I didn’t kill him.”

“All right, I’ll go right an’ do it,” replied his father huskily.

“Before you do it fetch me a roll of blankets. We haven’t any beds. And Blinky’s wife is with us.”

“Wife? I didn’t know Blinky had one. Fetch her in. We’ll make room somewhere.”

“No, we’ve already fixed a place for her in that wagon with the square top,” went on Pan. “She’s been sick. Rustle, Dad. Fetch me the blankets.”

“Got them right inside. We bought new ones,” said Smith, opening the door to hurry in.

“Mother,” called Pan, “everything’s all right. We’ll be leaving early tomorrow.”

Then his father reappeared with a roll of blankets. Pan found Blinky exactly as he had left him, leaning over the wagon.

“Blink, put a couple of these blankets over her,” directed Pan.

“She went right off, asleep, like she was daid,” whispered the cowboy, and he took the blankets and stepped up on the wheel hub to lay the blankets softly over the quiet form Pan saw dimly in the starlight.

“Come here, cowboy,” called Pan.

And when Blinky got down and approached, Pan laid hold of him with powerful hand.

“Listen, pard,” he began, in low voice. “We’re playing a deep game, and by God, it’s an honest game, even though we have to lie...Louise will never remember she cut that traitor’s heart out. She was too crazy. If it half returns to her we’ll lie — you understand — lie...Nobody will ever know who did kill Hardman, I’ll gamble. I intended to, and all Marco must have known that. If he burned up they can’t ever be sure. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. It’s our women folks we’ve got to think of. I told Dad you’d brought your wife — that she’d been sick. He’ll tell Mother and Lucy. They don’t know, and they never will know what kind of a girl Louise has been...Savvy, pard?”

“Reckon I do,” replied Blinky, in hoarse trembling accents. “But won’t we have hell with Louise — when she wakes up sober?”

“Cowboy, you bet we will,” returned Pan grimly. “But we’ll be far on our way when she wakes up. You can drive this wagon. We’ll keep watch on her. And, well — leave it to me, Blink.”

“Pan, we feel the same aboot Louie? Shore I don’t mean thet you love her. Reckon it’s hard fer me to find words.”

“I understand, Blink,” replied Pan, earnestly, hoping to dispel the groping and doubt of his comrade’s soul. “For you and me Louie’s past is dead. We’re gambling on life. And whatever way you put it, whatever the future brings, we’re better for what happened tonight.”

Pan strode off in the starlight, across the orchard, down along the murmuring stream to the cottonwood tree with the bench.

It was useless for him to try to sleep. To and fro he paced in the starlight. Alone now, with the urgent activities past for the time, he reverted to the grim and hateful introspection that had haunted his mind.

This once, however, the sinister strife in his soul, that strange icy clutch on his senses — the aftermath of instinctive horror following the death of a man by his hand — wore away before the mounting of a passion that had only waited.

It did not leap upon him unawares, like an enemy out of ambush. It grew as he walked, as his whirling thoughts straightened in a single line to — Lucy. She had betrayed him. She had broken his heart. What if she had thought him dead — sacrificed herself to save her father? — She had given herself to that dog Hardman. The thought was insupportable. “I hate her,” he whispered. “She’s made me hate her.”

The hours passed, the stars moved across the heavens, the night wind ceased, the crickets grew silent, and the murmuring stream flowed on at Pan’s feet. Spent and beaten he sat upon the bench. His love for Lucy had not been killed. It lived, it had grown, it was tremendous — and both pity and reason clamored that he be above jealousy and hate. After all there was excuse for Lucy. She was young, she had been driven by grief over his supposed death and fear for her father. But oh! The pity of it — of this hard truth against the sweetness and purity of his dream! Life and love were not what he had dreamed them as he had ridden the lonely ranges. He must suffer because he had left Lucy to fight her battles.

“I’ll try to forget,” he whispered huskily. “I’ve got to. But not yet. I can’t do it yet...We’ll leave this country far behind. And some day we can go on with — with all we planned.”

Pan went back to the barn and threw himself upon the hay, where exhausted brain and body sank to sleep and rest. It seemed that a voice and a rude hand tore away the sweet oblivion.

“Pard, are you daid?” came Blinky’s voice, keen and full with newer note. “Sunup an’ time to rustle. Your dad’s heah an’ he says breakfast is waitin’.”

Pan rose and stretched. His muscles ached as though he had been beaten. How bright the sun! Night was gone and with it something dreadful.

“Pan, shore you’re a tough lookin’ cowboy this mawnin’,” said Blinky. “Wash an’ shave yourself like I did. Heah’s my razor. There’s a basin an’ water up under the kitchen porch.”

“Howdy, bridegroom,” returned Pan with appreciative eyes on Blinky’s shiny face and slick hair. “How’s your wife?”

“Daid to the world,” whispered Blinky, blushing red as a rose. “I took a peep. Gee! Pard, I hope she sleeps all day an’ all night. Shore I’m scared fer her to wake.”

“I don’t blame you, cowboy. It’ll be funny when she finds out she’s got a boss.”

“Pard, if we was away from this heah town I’d be happy, I swear. Wouldn’t you?” returned Blinky shyly.

“Why, Blink, I believe I would,” said Pan, and strode off toward the house.

He made himself presentable before anyone saw him. Then he waited for his father and Blinky, whom he heard talking. When they came up he joined them. Wild horses could not have dragged him into the house alone. As they entered the kitchen Bobby let out a yell and made for him. That loosened a strain for Pan and he picked up the lad. When he faced his mother it was with composure that belied the state of his feelings. She appeared to be in a blaze of excitement, and at once he realized that all she had needed was his return, safe and sound. Then he heard Alice’s voice and Lucy’s in reply. As he set Bobby down, thrilling all over, the girls entered the kitchen. Alice’s reply to his greeting was at once bright and shy. Lucy halted in the doorway, with a hand on her breast. Her smile, slow and wistful, seemed to blot out traces of havoc in her face. But her eyes were dark purple, a sign of strong emotion. Pan’s slight inclination, unaccompanied by word of greeting, was as black a pretense as he had ever been guilty of. Sight of her had shot him through and through with pangs of bitter mocking joy. But he gave no sign. During the meal he did not look at her again.

“Dad, have you got everything we’ll need?” queried Pan presently.

“I guess so,” replied Smith. “You can start loadin’ the wagons. An’ by the time two of them are done we’ll have everythin’ packed.”

“Blink can drive one wagon, you another, and I’ll take the third till we get out to Snyder’s. Then we’ll need another driver, for it’ll take two of us to handle the wild horses.”

“No, we won’t,” replied his father. “Your mother an’ Lucy can drive as well as I. Son, I reckon we don’t want anybody except our own outfit.”

“I’d like that myself,” admitted Pan thoughtfully. “If you’ve got good gentle teams maybe Mother an’ Lucy can take turns. We’ll try it, anyhow.”

“I’ll help you hitch up,” said Smith, following Pan out. “Son, do you look for any trouble this mornin’?”

“Lord no. I’m not looking for trouble,” replied Pan. “I’ve sure had enough.”

“Huh!” ejaculated Blinky. “Your dad means any backfire from Marco. Wal, I say there’ll be nothin’. All the same we want to move, pronto.”

“I’d like to hear what happened after we left,” said Pan.

“Somebody will tell us,” returned Smith.

They had reached the end of the arbor when Lucy’s voice called after them: “Pan — please wait.”

He turned to see her coming, twisting her apron in nervous hands. Pan’s father and Blinky kept on toward the barn. Lucy came hurriedly, unevenly, pale, with parted lips, and eyes that held him.

“Mother said you knew but — I must tell you — myself,” she said brokenly, as she halted close to him. “Day before yesterday — those men brought word you’d been — killed in a fight over wild horses. It broke my heart...I’d have taken my own life but for my father. I didn’t care what happened...Dick pressed me hard. Father begged me to save him from prison...So I — I married Dick.”

“Yes, I know — I figured it out that way,” returned Pan in strange thick utterance. “You didn’t need to tell me.”

“Why, Pan, you — you seem different,” she said, as if bewildered. “Your look — your voice...oh, dear. I know yesterday was awful. It must have driven you mad.”

“By heaven, it did!” muttered Pan under his breath.

“But you — you forgive me?” she faltered, reaching to touch him with a shaking hand. The gesture, so supplicating, so tender, the dark soft hunger of her eyes, the sweetness of her then roused a tumult in him. How could she look at him like that? How dared she have such love light in her eyes?

“Forgive you for?—” he cried in fierce passion. But he could not put into words what she had done. “I meant to kill that dog, Dick Hardman. But I didn’t...Forgive you—” he broke off, unable to go on.

She was slow to grasp his intimation, though not his fury. Suddenly her eyes dilated in horror. Then a great wave of scarlet blood swept over her white neck and face. Pan saw in it the emblem of her shame. With a rending of his heart he swung away and left her.

He plunged into the work at hand, and during the next couple of hours recovered from the shock of resisting Lucy’s appeal. He hated himself for the passion he could not subdue. When, however, it had slunk away for the time being, he began to wonder at her innocence and simplicity. He could not understand her.

Presently his father and Blinky hunted him up with news of strong purport plain in their faces.

“Son, Marco is with you to a man!”

“Pard, I guess mebbe I didn’t hev them hombres figgered?”

“What happened? Out with it,” replied Pan sharply.

“Evans drove out bringin’ stuff I bought yesterday,” returned his father. “He was full as a tick of news. By some miracle, only the Yellow Mine burned. It was gutted, but the bucket brigade saved the houses on each side...Hardman’s body was found burned to a crisp. It was identified by a ring. An’ his dance-hall girl was found dead too, burned most as bad as he...Accordin’ to Evans most everybody in Marco wants to shake hands with Panhandle Smith.”

The covered wagons wound slowly down the hill toward Snyder’s pasture. Pan, leading Blink’s horse, held to the rear. The day, in some respects, had been as torturing to him as yesterday — but with Marco far behind and the open road ahead, calling, beckoning, the strain began to lessen.

At the pasture gate the drivers halted the wagon teams, waiting for Pan to come up. Gus had opened the wide-barred gate, and now stood there with a grin of relief and gladness.

“Drive in,” shouted Pan from behind. “We’ll camp here tonight.”

“Howdy thar, you ole wild-hoss night wrangler,” yelled Blinky to Gus.

“Howdy, yourself,” was the reply. “You can bet your roll that I never expected to see you agin. What’d you do to Marco?”

They drove in along the west fence, where a row of trees shaded the still hot sun.

“Gus, I see our wild horses are still keeping you company,” remarked Pan, as he loosened the cinch of his saddle.

“Shore. But they ain’t so wild no more. I’ve fooled around with them for two days now,” replied Gus.

Pan smacked Sorrel on the flank: “There! Go take a look at your rival, Whitefoot.” But the sorrel hung around camp. He had been spoiled by an occasional nose bag of grain. Pan lent a hand all around, and took note of the fact that Blinky lingered long around his wagon. Pan peeped over the wagon side. Louise lay on her side with face exposed. It was pale, with eyelids tight. In sleep her features betrayed how life had wronged her.

“Reckon you’re wise, Blink, to keep your wagon away from the others like this,” said Pan. “Because when your wife wakes up there’s liable to be hell. Call me pronto.”

“Pard, you’re shore she ain’t in a stupor or somethin’?” queried Blinky, apprehensively.

“Blink, you know she was ill for ten days. Then she drank a lot. Reckon she’s knocked out. But there’s nothing to worry about, except she’ll jump the traces when she comes to.”

“You mean when she finds out — I — she — we’re married?”

“That’s what, Pard Blink. I wish you didn’t have to tell her.”

“Me? My Gawd, I cain’t tell her,” replied Blinky, in consternation. “Shore you gotta do that.”

“All right, Blink. I’ll save what little hair you have left,” returned Pan, good humoredly.

He walked out to take a look at the horses, which were scattered on the far side of the pasture. They could not be closely approached, yet were not nearly so wild as he had expected them to be. The saddle and wagon horses grazed among them. The blue roan looked vastly better for two days’ rest. Whitefoot was a noble stallion. Sight of Little Bay brought keen pain to Pan. What boundless difference between his state of mind when he had caught that beautiful little horse and what it was now!

Pan went back to the campfire. Supper was in progress, with the capable Mrs. Smith bustling about. Lucy and Alice were assisting. Pan stole a glance at Lucy. Her face was flushed from the wind and sun; she wore a white apron; her sleeves were rolled up to show round strong arms. Bobby and his two puppies were much in the way.

“Pan, how is Mrs. Somers?” inquired his mother solicitously.

“Who?” queried Pan, puzzled.

“Why, your partner’s wife.”

“Oh, Blinky!...Gee, I’d clean forgot his right name,” laughed Pan, mentally kicking himself. “She’s still sound asleep. I told Blinky not to wake her. She looked white and worn out.”

“But she’ll starve,” interposed Lucy, with questioning eyes on Pan. Indeed their meaning had no relation to her words. “You men don’t know anything. Won’t you let me wake her?”

“Thanks. Better let her alone till tomorrow,” replied Pan briefly.

Presently there came the call to supper, which had been laid upon a new tarpaulin spread on the ground. The men flopped down, and sat cross-legged, each with silent or vociferous appreciation of that generous repast.

“Shades of the grub line!” ejaculated Blinky. “Am I ridin’ or dreamin’?”

“Mother, this is heaven for a cowboy. And think, we’ll be three weeks on the road,” added Pan.

“But, son, our good things to eat won’t last that long,” she replied, much gratified by his compliment.

“Aw, the good Lord shore remembered me when he throwed me in with this outfit,” declared the usually reticent Gus.

Pan observed that both Alice and his mother strictly avoided serving him with those things that had to be carried hot from the campfire. They let Lucy do it. Pan did not look up at her, and murmured his thanks in monosyllables. Once her hand touched his and the contact was like a galvanizing current. For the moment he could not go on eating.

During the sunset hour Pan helped grease the wagon wheels, something that had been neglected, and had retarded their progress. Other tasks used up the time until dark. Bobby got himself spanked by falling out of the wagon after he had been put to bed.

It was after nightfall when Pan heard Blinky’s call. He hurried over to the wagon, where he found his comrade tremendously excited.

“Pard, she’s waked up,” he whispered.

Pan strode to the wagon. There was enough light for him to see the girl sitting up, with hands pressed to her head.

“Hello, Louie,” he said gently.

“Where the hell am I?” she replied huskily, dropping her hands to stare at him.

“On the way to Arizona.”

“Well, if it isn’t handsome Panhandle...and Blinky!”

“Howdy — Louie,” said Blinky fearfully.

“I’ve been drunk?” she queried.

“Reckon you have — a little,” replied Pan.

“And you boys have kidnapped me?” she went on.

“I’m afraid that’s so, Louie.”

“Get me a drink. Not water! My head’s bursting. And help me out of this haymow.”

She threw aside the blanket that partially covered her and got to her knees. Pan lifted her out of the wagon. Then he ran off toward camp to get a flask. Upon returning he found Blinky trying to put a blanket round Louise’s shoulders. She threw it off.

“Wait till I cool off,” she said. “Panhandle, did you get it? — I’m shaky, all right...Thanks. Some day I’ll take my last drink.”

“Louie, I hope that will be soon,” rejoined Pan.

“You know I hate whisky...Oh, my head! — And my legs are cramped. Let me walk a little.”

Pan drew Blinky aside in the gloom. “She hasn’t begun to think yet. Reckon you’d better stay away from her. Let her come back to the wagon.”

“Pard, shore she took our kidnappin’ her all right,” whispered Blinky, hopefully.

“Blink, I’ll bet a million she’ll be glad — after it all comes out,” responded Pan.

Presently Louise interrupted their whispered colloquy. “Help me up. I’m sick — and weak.”

They lifted her back into the wagon and covered her. In the pale starlight her eyes looked unnaturally big and black.

“No use — to lie,” she said drowsily, her head rolling. “I’m glad to leave — Marco...Take me anywhere.”

Then her eyes closed. Again Pan drew Blinky away into the gloom.

“It’s the way I figured,” whispered Pan swiftly. “She’ll never remember what happened.”

“Thank Gawd fer thet,” breathed Blinky.

They found the campfire deserted except for Gus and Pan’s father. Evidently Pan’s advent interrupted a story that had been most exciting to Gus.

“Son, I — I was just tellin’ Gus all I know about what come off yesterday,” explained Smith, frankly, though with some haste. “But there are some points I’d sure like cleared up for myself.”

Pan had expected this, and had fortified himself against the inevitable.

“Well, get it over then once and for all,” he replied, not too civilly.

“You come damn near buttin’ right into the weddin’!” ejaculated Smith, with a sense of what dramatic possibility had just been missed.

Pan, whose back had been turned to the campfire light, suddenly whirled as if on a pivot.

“What?” he cried. Then there seemed to be a cessation of all his faculties.

“Why, son, you needn’t jump out of your boots,” returned the father, somewhat offended. “Lucy was married to Hardman in the stage office just before you got there. Fact was, she’d just walked out to get in the stage when you came...Now, I was only sayin’ how funny it’d been if you had got there sooner.”

“Who — told — you — that?”

“Lucy told me. An’ she said tonight she didn’t believe you knew,” returned his father.

There was a blank silence. Pan slowly turned away from the light.

“No. I had an idea — she’d been married — days,” replied Pan in queer strangled voice.

“You should have asked some questions,” said Smith bluntly. “It was a damn unfortunate affair, but it mustn’t be made worse for Lucy than it actually was...She was Dick Hardman’s wife for less than five minutes before you arrived.”

Without another word Pan stalked away into the darkness. He heard his father say: “Bet that’s what ailed him — the darned idiot!”

Pan gained the pasture fence under the dark trees, and he grasped it tightly as if his hold on life had been shaken. The shock of incredulous amaze passed away, leaving him in the grip of joy and gratitude and remorse. How vastly different was this vigil under the stars!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

IT WAS PAN who routed out the campers next morning when the first rose of dawn flushed the clear-cut horizon line.

He had the firewood collected, and the saddle horses in for their grain before Blinky presented himself. Wild eyed, indeed, was the cowboy.

“Pard,” he whispered, huskily, dragging Pan aside some paces, “the cyclone’s busted.”

“Yes?” queried Pan in both mirth and concern.

“I was pullin’ on my boots when Louise pokes her head above the wagon an’ says: ‘Hey, you bow-legged gurl snatcher, where’s my clothes?’

“‘What clothes?’ I answers. An’ she snaps out, ‘Mine. Didn’t you fetch my clothes?’

“‘Louie,’ I says, ‘we shore forgot them an’ they burned up with all the rest of the Yellow Mine. An’ if you want to know, my dear, I’m darn glad of it.’

“Then, Pan, she began to cuss me, an’ I jumps up mad, but right dignified an’ says, ‘Mrs. Somers, I’ll require you to stop usin’ profanity.’

“‘Mrs. Somers!’ she whispers, her eyes poppin’. ‘Are you crazy?’ An’ I told her I shore wasn’t crazy an’ I shore was sober. An’ thet my name wasn’t Moran, but Somers.

“She gave a gasp an’ fell back in the wagon. An’ you bet I run fer you. Now, pard, for Gawd’s sake, what’ll I do?” finished Blinky with a groan.

“Cowboy, you’ve done noble,” replied Pan in great satisfaction.

“Wha-at! — Say, Pan, you look queer this mawnin’. Sort of shiny eyed an’ light-footed. You don’t look drunk or loco. So what ails you?”

“Blink, I’m as crazy as you,” responded Pan, almost hugging his friend. “But don’t worry another minute. I swear I can fix it up with Louise. I swear I can fix anything.”

With that, Pan strode across the dew-wet grass to the trees under which stood Blinky’s wagon. There was no sign of the girl. Pan breasted the wagon side to look down. She was there, wide-eyed, with arms under her head, staring at the colored leaves.

“Morning, Louie, how are you?” he began cheerfully, smiling down upon her.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

“Well, you look better, that’s sure.”

“Pan, am I that cowboy’s wife?” she queried, gravely.

“Yes,” he replied, just as gravely.

“Did he force me to marry him when I was drunk?”

“No. Blink is innocent of all except loving you, Louie,” answered Pan, deliberately choosing his words. He had planned all he meant to say. Last night under the trees, in the dark, many truths had come to him. “It was I who forced you to marry him.”

She covered her eyes with her hands and pressed hard as if to make clear her bewildering thoughts. “Oh, I — I can’t remember.”

“Louie, don’t distress yourself,” he said, soothingly. “You bet I can remember, and I’ll tell you.”

“Wait. I want to get up. But you forgot my clothes. I can’t go round in a blanket.”

“By golly, I never thought of that. But we didn’t have much time...See here, Louise, I can fix it. You’re about the same height as Lucy. I’ll borrow some of her clothes for you.”

“Lucy?” she echoed, staring at him.

“Yes, Lucy,” he replied, easily. “And while I’m at it, I’ll fetch a basin of hot water — and everything.”

Whereupon he hurried over to the campfire, where he found Mrs. Smith busy and cheerful. “Lucy up yet?” he asked briskly.

“Yes, Pan,” she replied with hurried glad smile. “She’s brushing her hair there, by the wagon.”

Pan strode up to Lucy where she stood before the wagon, a mass of golden hair hanging down her back, to which she was vigorously applying a brush.

“Hello, Lucy,” he said coolly.

“Oh — how you startled — me!” she exclaimed, turning with a blush.

“Say, won’t you help us out?” he went on, not so coolly. “The other night, in the excitement we forgot to fetch Louise’s clothes...Fact is, we grabbed her up out of a sick bed, with only a dressing gown and a blanket. Won’t you lend her some clothes, shoes, stockings — and — everything?”

“Indeed I will,” responded Lucy and with alacrity she climbed into the covered wagon.

Pan waited, and presently began to pace to and fro. He was restless, eager, buoyant. He could not stand still. His thoughts whirled away from the issue at hand, back to Lucy and the glory that had been restored to him.

“Here, Pan,” called Lucy, reappearing with a large bundle. “Here’s all she’ll need, I think. Lucky I bought some new things. Alice and I can get along with one mirror, brush and comb.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It was lucky...Sure our luck has changed.”

“Don’t forget some warm water,” added Lucy practically, calling after him.

Thus burdened, Pan hurried back to Louise’s wagon and deposited the basin on the seat, and the bundle beside her. “There you are, pioneer girl,” he said cheerily, and with swift hands he let down the canvas curtains of the wagon, shutting her in.

“Come on, Blink,” he called to the cowboy watching from behind the trees. “Let’s wrangle the teams.”

“Gus an’ your dad are comin’ in with them now,” replied Blinky joining him and presently, when they got away from the wagon he whispered: “How aboot it?”

“Blink, I swear it’ll go through fine,” declared Pan earnestly. “She knows she’s your wife — that I got her drunk and forced her into it. She doesn’t remember. I’m hoping she’ll not remember anything, but even if she does I’ll fix it.”

“Shore — you’re Panhandle Smith — all right,” returned Blinky unsteadily.

At this juncture they were called to breakfast. Pan needed only one glance at his father, his mother and Lucy to gather that bewilderment and worry had vanished. They knew that he knew. It seemed to Pan that the bursting sun knew the dark world had been transformed to a shining one. Yet he played with his happiness like a cat with a mouse.

“Mrs. Smith,” begged Blinky presently, “please fix me up some breakfast fer Louise. She’s better this mawnin’ an’ I reckon in a day or so will be helpin’ you an’ Lucy.”

Pan set himself some camp tasks for the moment, and annoyed his mother and embarrassed Lucy by plunging into duties they considered theirs.

“Mother, don’t you and Lucy realize we are going to a far country?” he queried. “We must rustle...There’s the open road. Ho for Siccane — for sunny Arizonaland!”

When he presented himself before Louise he scarcely recognized her in the prim, comely change of apparel. The atmosphere of the Yellow Mine had vanished. She had managed to eat some breakfast. Blinky discreetly found a task that took him away.

“We’ve a little time to talk now, Louie,” said Pan. “They’ll be packing the wagons.”

He led her under the cottonwoods to the pasture fence where he found a seat for her.

“Pan, why did you do this thing?” she asked.

That was the very question he had hoped she would put first.

“Because my friend loves you and you told me you tried to keep him away from you — that if you didn’t you would like him too well,” answered Pan. “Blink had never been any good in the past. Just a wild reckless hard-drinking cowpuncher. But his heart was big. Then you were going straight to hell. You’d have been knifed or shot in some brawl, or have killed yourself with drink. A few more months of the Yellow Mine would have been your end...Well, I thought, here’s an opportunity to make a man out of my friend, and save the soul of a girl who hasn’t had a chance. I never hesitated about taking advantage of you. That was only a means to an end. So I planned it and did it.”

“But, Pan — how impossible!” she replied brokenly.

“Why, I’d like to know?”

“I am — degraded.”

“No! I’ve a different notion. You were not when you were sober. But even so, that is past.”

“Blink might have been what you said, but still I — I’m no fit wife for him.”

“You can be,” went on Pan with strong feeling. “Just blot out the past. Begin now. Blink will make a good man, a successful rancher. He has money enough to start with. He’ll never drink again. No matter what you call yourself, you’re the only girl he ever loved. You’re the only one who can make him earnest. Blink saw as well as I the pity of it — your miserable existence there in that gambling hell.”

“Pan, you talk — like — oh, you make me think of what might have been,” she cried. “But I’ll not consent. I’ll not give men the right to point their fingers at Blink...I’ll run away — or — or kill myself.”

“Louie, that is silly talk,” censured Pan sharply. “Don’t make me regret my interest in you — my affection. You are judging this thing with your mind on the past. You’re not considering the rough wild raw life we cowboys have lived. We must make way for the pioneers and become pioneers ourselves. In fifty years, when the West is settled, who will ever recall such as you and Blinky? These are hard days. You can do as much for the future of the West as any woman, Louise Melliss!”

“Pan, I understand — I — I could — I know, if I dared to bury it all. But I want to play square.”

“Could you come to love my friend — in time — I mean? That’s the great thing.”

“I believe I love him now,” she murmured. “That’s why I can’t risk it. — Someone who knew me would turn up. To disgrace my husband — and — and children, if I had any.”

“Not one chance in a million,” flashed Pan, feeling that she could not withstand him. “We’re going far — into another country...Besides, everyone in Marco believes you lost your life in the fire.”

“What — fire?”

“The Yellow Mine burned. It must have caught — when we shot out the lamps...Dick Hardman was burned, and a girl they took for you.”

Suddenly Louise leaped up, ghastly pale.

“I remember now...Blink came to my room,” she said hoarsely. “I wouldn’t let him in. Then you came...oh, I remember now. I let you in when all the time Dick Hardman was hiding in my closet.”

“I knew you had him hidden,” rejoined Pan.

“You meant to kill him! The yellow dog!...He came to me when I was sick in bed. He begged me to hide him. And I did...Then you talked to me, as you’re talking now...Blink came with the whisky. Oh, I see it all now!”

“Sure. And Louie — what did I tell you about Hardman?” returned Pan, sure of his ground now and stern in his forcefulness.

“I don’t remember.”

“You told me Hardman said he’d marry you, and that some day when you were drunk you’d do it.”

“Yes, he said that, and I might have agreed, but I don’t remember telling you.”

“Well, you did. And then I told you Hardman had forced my sweetheart, Lucy, to marry him.”

“What? He did that?”

“Reckon he did. I got there too late. But I drove him off to get a gun. Then he hid there with you.”

“So that was why?” she pondered, as if trying to penetrate the cloudiness of her mind. “Something comes like a horrible dream.”

“Sure,” he hurried on. “Let me get it over...I told you he couldn’t marry you when he already had a wife. You went crazy then. You betrayed Hardman...He came rushing out of the closet. Pretty nasty, he was, Louie...well, I left him lying in the hall! I grabbed you — wrapped you in a blanket — and ran out. Blink was waiting. He shot out the lights in the saloon. We got away. The place burned up, with some girl they took for you — and Hardman—”

“My God! Burned alive?”

“No,” replied Pan hoarsely.

“Pan — you — you avenged me — and your Lucy — you?—” she whispered, clinging to him.

“Hush! Don’t speak it! Don’t ever think it again,” he said sternly. “That’s our secret. Rumor has it he fled from me to hide with you, and you were both burned up.”

“But Lucy — your mother!” she cried.

“They know nothing except that you’re my friend’s wife — that you’ve been ill,” he replied. “They’re all kindness and sympathy. Dad never saw you, and Gus will keep his mouth shut. Play your part now, Louise. You and Blink make up your past. Just a few simple statements...Then bury the past forever.”

“Oh — I’m slipping — slipping—” she whispered, bursting into tears. “Help me — back to the wagon.”

She walked a few rods with Pan’s arm supporting her. Then she collapsed. He had to carry her to the wagon, where he deposited her, sobbing and limp behind the canvas curtains. Pan pitied her with all his heart, yet he was glad indeed she had broken down. It had been easier than he had anticipated.

Then he espied Blinky coming in manifest concern.

“Pard,” said Pan in his ear, “you’ve a pat hand. Play it for all you’re worth.”

The wagons rolled down the long winding open road.

For the shortest, fullest eight hours Pan had ever experienced he matched his wits against the wild horses that he and Gus had to drive. It was a down grade and the wagons rolled thirty miles before Pan picked a camp site in the mouth of a little grassy canyon where the wild horses could be corralled. Jack rabbits, deer, coyotes ranged away from the noisy invasion of their solitude. It was wild country. Marco was distant forty miles up the sweeping ridges — far behind — gone into the past.

As the wagons rolled one by one up to the camping place. Pan observed that Blinky, the last to arrive, had a companion on the driver’s seat beside him. Pan waved a glad hand. It was Louise who waved in return. Wind and sun had warmed the pallor out of her face.

Four days on the way to Siccane! The wild horses were no longer wild. The travelers to the far country had become like one big family. They all had their tasks. Even Bobby sat on his father’s knee and drove the team down the open road toward the homestead where he was to grow into a pioneer lad.

So far Pan had carried on his pretense of aloofness from Lucy, apparently blind to the wondering appeal in her eyes. Long ago he had forgiven her. Yet he waited, divining surely that some day or night when an opportune moment came, she would voice the question in her eyes. He thought he could hold out longer than she could.

That very evening when he went to fetch water she waylaid him, surprised him.

“Panhandle Smith, you are killing me!” she said, with great eyes of accusation.

“How so?” he asked weakly.

“You know,” she retorted. “And I won’t stand it longer.”

“What is it you won’t stand?” teased Pan.

But suddenly Lucy broke down. “Don’t. Don’t keep it up,” she cried desperately. “I know it was a terrible thing to do. But I told you why...I couldn’t have gone away with him — after I’d seen you.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I was mad enough to think you might — even care for him.”

“Pan, I love only you. All my life it’s been only you.”

“Lucy!...Tomorrow we ride into Green River. Will you marry me there?”

“Yes — if you — love me,” she whispered, going close to him.

Pan dropped both of the buckets, splashing water everywhere.

Arizonaland!

It was not only a far country attained, but another, strange and beautiful. Siccane lay a white and green dot far over the purple sage. The golden-walled mesas stood up, black fringed against the blue. In the bold notches burned the red of autumn foliage. Valleys spread between the tablelands. There was room for a hundred homesteads. Pan’s keen eye sighted only a few and they were farther on, green squares in the gray. Down toward Siccane cattle made tiny specks on the vast expanse. Square miles of bleached grass contended with the surrounding slopes of sage, sweeping with slow graceful rise up to the bases of the walls and mesas.

“Water! Grass! No fences!” exclaimed Pan’s father, with a glad note of renewed youth.

“Dad. Lucy. Look,” replied Pan, pointing across the valley. “See that first big notch in the wall? Thick with bright green? There’s water. And see the open canyon with the cedars scattered? What a place for a ranch! It has been waiting for us all these years...That’s where we’ll homestead.”

“Wal, pard, an’ you, Louie — look over heah aways,” drawled Blinky, with long arm outstretched. “See the red circle wall, with the brook shinin’ down like a ribbon. Lookin’ to the south! Warm in winter — cool in summer. Shore’s I was born in the West thet’s the homestead fer me.”

The wagons rolled on behind wild horses that needed little driving. Down the long winding open road across the valley! And so on into the rich grass where no wheel track showed — on into the sage toward the lonely beckoning walls.

THE END

Maverick Queen

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER I

IT WAS ALMOST dark, that day in early June, when the stage rolled down off the Wind River Mountains into the notorious mining town of South Pass, Wyoming. Lincoln Bradway, a cowboy more at home on a horse than in a vehicle, alighted stiff and cramped from his long ride, glad indeed to reach his destination. He had not liked either the curious male passengers or the hard-featured women. With his heavy bag he stepped down upon the board sidewalk, and asked a passer-by if there was a hotel in town.

“South Pass brags of twenty hotels, stranger, with a saloon to match each one of ’em. Take your choice,” returned the man, with a laugh that derided Bradway’s ignorance.

Bradway looked down a long wide street, lined by two straggling rows of dim yellow lights. He heard the tramp and shuffle of many boots, the murmur of voices, loud laughs, the clink of glasses and coins, the whirr of roulette wheels. The sidewalks were crowded. The visitor sensed an atmosphere similar to that of the Kansas border towns, to Abiline and Hays City. They had passed their wild prime, but South Pass was in its heyday. The newcomer went by a number of hotel signs garish on high board fronts, and finally found a lodginghouse away from the center of town. The proprietor was a pleasant-faced and hospitable woman who asked for her fee in advance. The clean little room, smelling of fresh-cut pine lumber, satisfied Lincoln, and he paid for a week’s rent. The keen-eyed woman observed his roll of greenbacks and favored him with a more attentive look.

“Where you hail from, cowboy?” she asked.

“Nebraska. How’re things here?”

“Humph! Lively enough without any more fire-eyed cowboys. You want work?”

“Not much.”

“I reckoned that. Cowboys with a roll like you just flashed usually don’t want work till the roll’s gone, and in South Pass that’ll not take long. I advise you to keep it hid.”

“Thanks for the hunch, lady, but I can look out for myself.”

“I didn’t miss the way you pack that big gun of yours.”

“Gosh! you have sharp eyes, lady, and handsome ones, too,” he replied mildly. “I’m a starved hombre. Where’ll I eat?”

The landlady looked pleased. “Try the Chink, half a block in town,” she offered. “He can cook, and cowboys patronize him. China Bar, he calls his shack, but he doesn’t sell any hard liquor.”

“Many of my kind hereabouts, lady?” continued the tall Nebraskan, casually.

“Not of your kind, cowboy,” she retorted, and both words and look appeared to be complimentary. “But there are a plenty of cowboys in western Wyoming. Outfits all down the Sweetwater River, a few big, and lots of little ones. It’s the coming cattle country.”

“So I was told.... Lady, did you ever hear of a cowboy named Jimmy Weston?”

“I should say so, stranger! Jimmy used to stay with me. A mighty nice boy. Pity he... say, who might you happen to be?”

“Well, I might happen to be anybody. But it’s enough to say that Jimmy was my pard.”

“Pard?... Could you be the pard he was always bragging about? Linc something?” she queried, without troubling to hide her keen interest.

“I am the pard, lady, Lincoln Bradway. And I’ve come out here to find out what happened to Jimmy.”

“He’s dead.”

“Yes, I know that. Word came to us back in Nebraska. But I’m not satisfied with what I heard.”

“If you’re smart, stranger, you’ll keep quiet about your curiosity,” she rejoined, her tone and manner altering subtly.

“Thanks, lady. I don’t aim to make any sudden noise. But when I do it’ll be loud.... Were you a friend of Jimmy’s? Can you tell me anything?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m sorry. You spoke sort of kindly of him. I had a feeling...”

“Stranger, I liked Jimmy Weston. He was just about the salt of the earth, and it was hard for me to believe he was shot in a card game, for cheating.”

Bradway made a swift, angry gesture that silenced the woman. He leaned toward her. “Lady, that is a damned lie. Jimmy Weston never turned a crooked card in his life. I know it. His friends back there would swear to it, and I’m out here to get at the bottom of this deal, whatever it is.”

“Everybody in South Pass believes the — the talk,” said the woman nervously.

“Did you?”

Her hurried nod did not deceive her lodger. He left her then, convinced that she knew more than she cared to divulge. It might be well to cultivate her and win her confidence. He was playing in luck. Here at his very arrival in South Pass he had hit upon something that concerned his old friend, in whose interest he had journeyed so far. Lincoln Bradway was not too surprised, however. In countless previous situations, where he had been deeply concerned, things had gravitated his way, right from the start. Many a time he and Jimmy Weston in the old days had played their hunches and pressed their luck together. Now Jimmy, wild youngster that he had been, was gone. Bradway looked away from the silent woman, out of the window. Slowly his face hardened and a shadow seemed to darken his gray eyes. He had a job to do. Jim Weston’s name had to be cleared. And someone had to answer for his death. Well, time was awasting.

Bradway found the Chinaman’s place, a tiny restaurant with a counter and a bench, and several tables covered with oilcloth. Three cowboys were emerging as the Nebraskan approached the door. Lincoln stepped aside into the shadow as they came out. They smelled of horses and dust and rum, mixed with an odor that it took a moment for him to recognize. It was the aroma of sage. The third and last cowboy was tall, lean and set of face, tawny- haired, a ragged, genuine gun-packing range rider, if Linc had ever seen one.

“Aw, Mel, you’re a sorehaid,” growled one of his companions, a short bow-legged youth, somewhat unsteady from an oversupply of liquor. “Lucy gave you a raw deal, and no wonder. But ‘cause of that an’ you bein’ sore ain’t no reason why Monty heah an’ me cain’t open our mouths.”

“Hell, it ain’t!” flashed the cowboy called Mel, fiercely. “Blab all you want, Smeade, but not about that. Not heah in town!”

“An’ why’n the hell not? Jest among ourselves. You make me sick. Even if it’s never been admitted among us where an’ for why them mavericks went, we know, an’ you know damn wal, Mel Thatcher, that they...”

“No! I never admitted it,” interrupted Thatcher, “There’s some things you can’t talk about on this range. Go on, you fool, and you’ll get what Jimmy Weston got!”

They passed on down the sidewalk, leaving Lincoln standing there in the shadow, transfixed at the mention of Jimmy’s name. He would recognize Mel Thatcher when he met him again.

Profoundly thoughtful, the Nebraskan went into the restaurant. While waiting for his meal he tried to separate into detail the things he had heard. The name Lucy? That name had occurred more than once in Jimmy’s infrequent letters. Whoever that girl was, his old pard had been sweet on her. And somehow she had given this cowboy Thatcher a raw deal. Perhaps she had given Jimmy the same. Why? Maybe she was no good. That was one of the things he would have to investigate. Then there was the implied peril of speaking out loud concerning a certain something on that range? — Something to do with mavericks! — It so happened that an unbranded calf had been one of Jimmy’s weaknesses. Like most open range riders he had been convinced that a maverick was any man’s property. As a matter of fact that was true according to range custom everywhere; but it was a law that only cowmen and cowboys who owned cattle could burn their brand on a maverick. If they did not own any stock the appropriation of mavericks made them cattle thieves. Lincoln had heard that the ranchers of western Wyoming, hoping to induce rustlers to give their ranges a wide berth, had adopted the ruthless practice of hanging a cattle thief without formality.

Bradway concluded that it was possible, though improbable, that Weston might have had something to do with mavericks. In such case, however, it was hardly conceivable that he would have been shot while sitting at a card table. The report had been spread, he surmised, to cover murder. Thatcher’s warning to his companion, Smeade, that he would get what Jimmy Weston got! — There was something ominous about that warning. To the man from Nebraska that warning was the clue to the mystery he had come to South Pass to solve.

After having appeased his hunger and made a fruitless effort to be friendly with the far from loquacious Chinaman, Bradway got up, paid for his meal and went out into the street. It was quite dark and the air was thin and cold, with a tang of mountain snow. Lincoln remembered how Jimmy had raved about the Wind River Mountains, and how he himself had watched from the stage to see them appear as if by magic out of the haze of distance, and grow and grow during two days of travel until the jagged white peaks, magnificent and aloof, pierced the blue sky. Little as he had seen of this western Wyoming country, he could easily have been captivated by it but for the grim mission which had brought him from his home.

He walked up through and beyond the center of the wide-open town. Then, crossing the street, he started back on the other side. This time he heard the babbling of a brook which evidently passed behind and paralleled the row of unpainted houses on that side. Lincoln peered into every open door. He scrutinized every passer-by that he encountered. Miners in red shirts, black- frocked and wide-hatted gamblers, flashily dressed women, cowboys and ranchers, teamsters and sheepmen, well-dressed travelers and ragged tramps, all made up that passing throng. A few Indians lolled in the shadows, smoking the white man’s cigarettes. Stores and hotels appeared busy with customers, and the saloons were thronged with noisy crowds. Once a gunshot penetrated the din, but nobody in that milling crowd seemed to pay any attention to it.

Bradway’s careful observation confirmed his earlier opinion that South Pass was indeed a wide-open mining town at the height of its prosperity and youth, as raw and violent as Hays City, as flush as Benton, the mushroom town that flourished during the building of the Union Pacific. He had seen both of these border towns in all their frontier turbulences and color. He did not need to be told that law and order had not yet come to South Pass, that gold was to be had for the digging, or stealing, or gambling for, that vice was rampant and life held cheap.

After his survey of the town Bradway began methodically to enter each public place, from the canvas dens at the foot of the street, to the stores and saloons and gambling halls that bordered the sidewalk. He spent an hour of most diligent search before he again came upon Mel Thatcher and his two pals. Thatcher was standing beside a table where his two friends were playing cards with two other cowboys. There was more liquor on the table than money. Smeade appeared the worse for drink and his luck clearly was bad.

Thatcher’s lean visage wore a worried look, but it showed none of the heat of dissipation that was reflected in the faces of the others. Lincoln watched them a while. He knew cowboys. He had known a thousand in his time. They were all more or less alike, yet there were exceptions. Thatcher seemed to be one of these. The Nebraskan liked his looks. Thatcher was too young to have had experience that matched his own, but it was evident that he was no novice at anything pertaining to cowboy life. He packed a gun, but did not wear it below his hip, as was the practice of most gun-throwers.

When Lincoln approached this cowboy he was yielding to an instinct, deep and inevitable, for something had told him that here was a hombre who might supply the answers to some of his questions.

“Howdy, Thatcher,” he said, coolly, as the other wheeled at his touch. “I’ve been looking for you particular hard.”

“Hell you say?” returned Thatcher, with angry insolence. “And for why, mister smart-aleck?”

“I reckon you better return the compliment before you go shooting off your chin.”

“Yeah?” The cowboy straightened up, turned squarely to face the stranger beside him. Then he said: “Never saw you in my life. I’d have remembered. So you must be looking up the wrong man.”

“Maybe so. I hope not. Come aside for a minute,” replied Lincoln, and he led the curious cowboy away from the players who did not seem to be aware of the interruption. “No offense, Thatcher,” continued the Nebraskan, in a low and earnest voice. “I’m from over Nebraska way. Name is Linc Bradway. Ever hear it?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Do you remember coming out of the Chinaman’s restaurant an hour or more ago?”

“Yes,” said Thatcher, with a visible start. “But what the hell business is that of yours?” he wanted to know.

“I was just about to go in the Chink’s when two of your tipsy pals busted out. I stepped back in the shadow.... I heard every word you and Smeade said.”

Thatcher’s red face seemed to pale a bit in the lamplight. “Ahuh.. . and what if you did?”

“One crack you made I’m calling on you to explain.”

“Say, I don’t explain nothing to nobody, especially to strangers,” retorted Thatcher.

“I heard you tell your loud-mouthed pard that if he didn’t stop gabbing... he would get what Jimmy Weston got!”

Thatcher gulped. “Cowboy, I never said no such thing,” he declared, defiantly. But he looked as if he had suddenly been hit in the midriff with the hind foot of a mule.

“Don’t make me call you a liar,” retorted Bradway. “I heard you. I couldn’t be mistaken, because I was Jimmy Weston’s pard for years. We rode trail together and bunked with a dozen outfits. I loved that boy.... He got in trouble back in Nebraska — lit out for Wyoming. He wrote me some queer things about a girl named Lucy, for instance, and another man....”

“Judas!” muttered Thatcher, grabbing Linc Bradway’s arm. “If you know what’s good for you you’ll shut up altogether.”

“Thatcher, I can’t be shut up. Of course, I’ve no way to make you talk, but if you’re honest — if you were no enemy of Jimmy Weston’s. . .”

“I swear I wasn’t his enemy,” replied Thatcher, hoarsely, “He was as likable a feller as I ever met. But that’s all I can tell you.”

“Do you believe what they say that my pard was shot in a gambling den for cheating?”

“Man, you can’t hold me responsible for what’s claimed in South Pass,” protested the cowboy. His tenseness, his apparent concern amazed the Nebraskan, and confirmed his growing impression that there was something menacing as well as mysterious in connection with the death of Jimmy Weston.

“I’m not holding you responsible,” argued Bradway. “I can’t shoot a man for believing loose talk. But I’ve a hunch that you know damn well Jimmy wasn’t shot for cheating at cards.”

“A hunch is nothing. Naturally you take your pard’s part. You can’t prove he wasn’t.”

“The hell’s fire I can’t. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Then my hunch to you is, beat it hell for leather off this range while the getting’s good!”

“Thatcher, you’re advising me to do what you wouldn’t do yourself,” asserted Lincoln. “Isn’t that the truth?”

“I’m not saying what I’d do.”

“Well, are you coming clean with what you know — or are you lining up with the dirty coward who shot my pardner?”

“I can’t tell you — I don’t know any more,” returned Thatcher, his eyes on the sawdust on the floor.

“You’re feeling pretty low-down to have to lie like that,” said Bradway. “Thatcher, I’m on the trail of something rotten. Your warning to Smeade proves it. All right. Make a friend or enemy of me, as you choose. But I’m a bad hombre to enemies, as you’re going to damn soon find out.”

Thatcher, apparently torn between a powerful and resistless inhibition, and what might have been an effort to give an honest answer to an appeal to his true self, met Bradway’s level gray eyes for a fleeting instant, then turned back to his gambling comrades. Smeade was glowering at him, and not too drunk not to be suspicious.

Lincoln turned on his heel, burning within, cold without, and stalked from the noisy saloon into the street. The sensible thing to do was to go back to his room and calmly to think through the information he had gathered during the past few hours. But he could not bring himself to do it — not quite yet. He might fall afoul of something more that would dovetail with what he already had learned. He never failed to yield to such an urge as compelled him now. Besides, the driving passion that had brought him to Wyoming, demanded action rather than contemplation.

In a little shop down the street he bought a cigar from a young man who seemed to be of a friendly sort. “Been in this hole long?” asked Lincoln in a conversational tone, as he lighted the cigar.

“Most a year. Too long. South Pass is gettin’ too rough for an honest businessman. I was held up an’ robbed twice in one night not long ago,” replied the young store proprietor.

“Huh. I rolled in only today and gathered that very idea myself. Don’t you keep a gun handy?”

“Shore. But I was lookin’ into one when it happened.”

“I reckon that gunplay here is pretty common.”

“There wasn’t so much when I first came. But lately you’re lucky to dodge bullets.”

“Did you happen to know a cowboy by the name of Jimmy Weston?”

“Shore did. Liked Jimmy a lot. Did you know him?”

“Yes, back Nebraska way. I asked for him here, and heard he’d been shot.”

“Too bad, if you were friends.”

“Where was Jimmy killed?” queried Bradway, from behind a cloud of smoke.

“Emery’s place. Biggest gamblin’ hell in town. Used to be named Take It or Leave It. Mean’ gold, of course. Someone painted out the first three words. Now it’s called the Leave It. Shore’s appropriate. Rumor had it that Jimmy Weston rode his horse under that big sign, stood up on his saddle, an’ climbed up to do that paintin’! Anyway he was shot in a card game, for palmin’ aces in a big jackpot — or so they said. No one except the gamblers saw the fight, or know who shot Jimmy. Sort of a queer deal all around, I thought. But that was the talk.”

“Ahuh. Big poker games at this Emery’s joint, I reckon?”

“You bet. Sky limit. No game for a cowboy, stranger.”

“Thanks for the hunch. All the same before I leave town I’ll take a fly at Emery’s Leave It.”

“That’s just like Jimmy. No two-bit game for him! But if you do, you’re not as smart as you look. Emery is a cardsharp. An’ his right-hand man McKeever is a gambler to steer clear of. He’ll shoot at the drop of a card. Jerks a little gun from inside his vest.”

“Gosh, must be interesting people! Any women hang around Emery’s?”

“There’s one, an’ she shore is plumb interestin’. Kit Bandon, the Maverick Queen, they call her. Handsome as hell, an’ when she cocks her eye at a man he’s a goner. Better not let her see you, stranger, ‘cause you’re shore the finest-lookin’ cowboy who ever struck South Pass.”

“You are flattering, my friend. I reckon you filled poor Jimmy with such guff. He was a vain gazabo.... But this Kit Bandon — what is she?”

“Runs a big cattle ranch down on the Sweetwater. Leans to mavericks. Her brand is K I T.”

“Mavericks — well, you don’t say! Reckon she runs a two- bit outfit?”

“You might call it that — comin’ from Nebraska. Kit hires cowboys for short spells, to round up and drive. Last fall she sent a thousand head of two-year olds to Rock Springs.... Excuse me. What’ll you have, gentlemen?”

A couple of new customers diverted the garrulous cigar salesman from Bradway. He yawned and left the store. Once more he mingled with the sidewalk throngs, his mind active, his eyes scanning the lettered signs on the buildings. Presently across the street he espied a white two-story frame structure. It had an ornate balcony along the second story. Over the wide doorway below shone the brightest lights on the street. Above on a high board front stood out garishly a crude splotch of red, where words had been obliterated, and to the right he saw what remained of the name: Leave It in large black letters in relief against the white!

“By thunder!” muttered the Nebraskan. “I bet that clerk was right! That’s the very stunt Jimmy would have pulled when he was feeling sort of reckless — and ornery.”

Lincoln crossed the street and entered, to find himself in the largest hall he had ever seen. The room was deep and wide, with a low ceiling. A bar ran its entire length, and it accommodated two rows of drinkers. Lincoln stepped back to get a better perspective of the crowd.

After all, there seemed little here of raw frontier life that he had not already seen in Benton and the Kansas cattle towns. It might have a newer note. Sweat and smoke and sawdust and rum and leather and sage gave the noisy room an atmosphere characteristic of all boom towns of the West. There were a dozen or more games of chance all crowded with players, among whom he noticed several women. Could one of them possibly be the woman he was so curious to see? He had heard of cattle queens, but had never had the good or bad fortune to meet one of them. He shared the rather general opinion of cattlemen that women should not stick their noses into the cattle business.

Then in an alcove under the stairs he espied a circle of eagerly watching men who were undoubtedly intent upon a big game. Bradway made his way through the arch and gradually, without being obtrusive, he penetrated the circle until he could see over a man’s shoulder to a card table, covered with gold and greenbacks, in front of six gamblers. Instantly he realized that this was the establishment’s big game and that these were the individuals he wanted to watch. One was a handsome, dark young woman of perhaps twenty-five years. She wore a diamond as big as a gooseberry, and she was dressed in some black material becomingly relieved at the yoke and the waist by touches of red. A couple of newcomers probed their way in behind Lincoln. “That’s her,” whispered one of the men excitedly. “Ther’s Kit Bandon, Queen of the Mavericks. She’s ahaid of the game, too, as usual.” The other of the two exclaimed under his breath, “Glory in the mornin’, look at that stack of yellows! An’ ain’t she a pippin for looks?”

The Nebraskan found himself staring at the lovely, reckless, excited face of the Maverick Queen. Even though she did not glance in his direction Lincoln Bradway felt the impelling lure she seemed to exercise over every man in that excited group. Suddenly, one of the players directly in front of him threw down his cards.

“I’m cleaned. You’re all too good for me,” he said, shaking his head dolefully.

“What do you mean by ‘good’?” asked the russet-bearded gamester sitting next to the woman. He had thin blue lips and piercing gray eyes, cold as ice. Lincoln’s critical eye flashed from the gambler’s soft white hands to his open flowered vest. Could the little bulge on the left side possibly represent a gun?

“Sorry, you can take that ‘good’ any way you like,” bitterly replied the loser, getting up from his chair.

The gambler snarled and made a sudden movement, only to be restrained by the strikingly dressed woman beside him. “Emery, let him alone,” she commanded in a voice that was low-pitched but clear as a bell. “He’s got a right to feel sore. He dropped two thousand dollars, didn’t he?”

“No man can hint like that to me—”

“Let’s go on with the game,” interrupted another player, evidently a rancher judging from his garb and deeply bronzed face. He had a direct clear gaze, and a strong chin under his drooping mustache. The remaining two players, one of them obviously another gambler and the last a burly miner, seconded that motion. Then the disgruntled loser pushed by Lincoln and was lost in the crowd. Almost simultaneously the watchers about the table exhaled a breath that expressed their relief.

Without a word the Nebraskan slipped into the vacated seat, and leaning back he put a slow hand inside his coat. His heavy gun sheath had bumped the table, upsetting some of the stacks of yellow coin.

“Folks, I’m setting in,” he announced coolly. His look, his manner, his quick action turned every eye in that group upon him. He was suddenly conscious that the Maverick Queen’s dark, smoldering eyes were fixed upon his face.

“This is no game for two-bit cowboys,” spoke up Emery, sharply. It was plain that he did not care for contact with range riders of Lincoln’s type.

“Money talks, doesn’t it, in this shack, same as in the gambling halls of Dodge and Abiline?” drawled Lincoln, and pulling out a tight roll of bills he dropped it on the table, exposing a one-hundred-dollar bill on the outside.

“Yes, money talks here, but not for everybody,” snapped Emery.

“Is there anything offensive about me, lady?” asked Bradway, courteously, as he turned an intent and smiling gaze upon her.

“There certainly isn’t. You’re welcome to play,” replied the woman, turning her back upon Emery and half nodding and smiling in Lincoln’s direction. With difficulty, the cowboy turned his glance away from the strangely disturbing eyes of the Maverick Queen.

“Thank you.... Mister Emery, I’ll take up your insult later. .. . Is it a table-stakes or limit game?”

“Five dollar limit,” said the rancher, “except in jackpots. Make your own limit then.... My name’s Lee.”

“Glad to meet you, Colonel. Mine’s Bradway.”

The next man, McKeever, sneered, exposing yellow teeth like those of a wolf, but for a gambler his gaze was furtive. Bradway felt an instinctive distrust of him that was even sharper than his feeling for Emery. The red-shirted miner nodded his approval and the game began.

Bradway was gambling with more than cards, for something even more important than gold. He felt capable of matching these men, unless he had a run of poor cards, for like most cowboys he was keen and shrewd at poker, and when luck was with him he was well- nigh unbeatable. But he had to watch Emery and the wolf-toothed man especially closely. They might be in cahoots. He studied his opponents with unobtrusive scrutiny, well aware of the fact that they were studying him in turn. But the rancher Lee, the miner, and Kit Bandon were not cold or insolent — nor calculating about it. The woman was interested in the newcomer and clearly showed it. Bradway could see right away that her actions were displeasing to Emery.

The first hand of note was a jackpot which the dealer took for fifty dollars. Lincoln’s eyes watched the swift, dexterous hands of the gambler. Everybody present was aware of his scrutiny. He made no effort to disguise his watchfulness. The onlookers wondered if the cowboy would catch the gambler in a crooked deal, and what would happen if he did.

The hands were dealt, and Kit Bandon promptly opened for the size of the ante. Lee stayed, likewise the miner. Lincoln had four hearts, a hand to raise on, but he merely stayed, wanting to see what McKeever and Emery would do. The former raised it to one hundred dollars. Emery studied his hand a while, then stayed, and the Maverick Queen followed suit. Lee dropped out, and the miner put in his hundred dollars. Without hesitation, Bradway doubled that sum in his raise. Gamblers never reveal their feelings, yet Lincoln divined that this raise roused conjecture, to say the least. They all stayed, and cards were drawn. Kit Bandon’s opening bet was a hundred, which the miner saw. The cowboy also called, but both McKeever and Emery raised and she raised them in turn. Lee manifested a curious hard expression in his eyes as he watched the tall stranger. Probably he was thinking what Lincoln was certain of — that Kit Bandon and her gambler friends were tilting the bets with the old purpose of driving an odd player out. But the Nebraskan kept calling until finally he forced them to quit raising. There was over a thousand dollars in the pot.

“Opened on three queens,” said Kit, with a dazzling smile.

“Well, counting you that makes four queens,” replied the cowboy, smiling back at her. “Almost unbeatable, but the hand is no good.”

McKeever dropped his cards upon the deck.

“I called you. Show your cards,” demanded Lincoln, curtly. Then as the gambler made no move Lincoln overturned the hand to expose a pair of tens.

“More than I figured you for,” said Lincoln, sarcastically. “Emery, what you got?”

The chief of the Leave It laid down a pair of aces, and Lincoln showed them a flush. As he raked in the gold and bills he drawled: “This isn’t bad for a small-town gambling joint!”

Emery rasped. “Feller, I don’t like your talk.”

“Gambler, I don’t like your tone either. If you address me again try to be civil.”

It was evident then to the gamblers of the Leave It that they had caught a tartar. Kit Bandon seemed amused and intrigued by this steel-nerved stranger. Lee did not hide his admiration, and even the miner’s bleak visage expanded in a broad smile. McKeever’s face was sullen and dark; his smoldering gaze was downcast. Emery’s cold gray eyes rested without expression upon the fingernails of his left hand.

“My deal,” announced Kit, cheerfully. “Your ante, Lee.... Cowboy, thanks for showing us some real poker.”

And real poker it turned out to be, for Bradway. The cards ran in his direction with phenomenal good luck. He drew in nearly every hand, and almost always filled when he raised before the draw. Kit Bandon and the two gamblers pitted their united skill, and as much trickery as they could get away with against Bradway, only to be beaten at every turn. The miner went broke, and declined the money Lincoln offered him as a stake. Lee seesawed between breaking even and a little money ahead. He was enjoying this game. The crowd that had been augmented to twice its original size watched with bated breath. There was a charged atmosphere around that table. Everyone of the watchers could see it in the woman player. Kit Bandon was a sport, a good loser, a fascinating creature who thrived on excitement and danger. Her color was high, her eyes sparkled, under her breath she hummed a little tune. And the glances she shot in the direction of the stranger conveyed more and more interest in his person than in his poker game.

Linc had met and played against greater gamblers than Emery and McKeever in his time, but none in whom he had encountered as much open hostility. Evidently they were determined to break the newcomer’s luck who so blandly and coolly matched every bet and won nearly every pot. When their stake was gone they borrowed from Kit, who kept a goodly sum in front of her. Finally Emery lost all his money, including what he had borrowed from his woman companion.

“Lady, you sure are a banker,” drawled Bradway. “I hope when I get broke here in South Pass that you’ll stake me to a few bits the way you have these local gents.”

“You can bet on that,” she countered sweetly.

“With your luck — and peculiar style of play you can’t ever go broke,” snarled Emery, with emphasis on the “peculiar.”

“Sure, I’m lucky at cards,” drawled the stranger, “but all- fired unlucky at love,” and he smiled at Kit as he spoke.

“Cowboy, I just can’t believe that last,” she returned. Perhaps her arch look and warm tone accounted for the ill- concealed glint of hatred in Emery’s gaze.

“Gentlemen, and Miss Bandon, the game has slowed up,” continued Bradway, exasperatingly. “Too much talk. And talk appears cheap in this town — I reckon almost as cheap as life.”

“If that’s one of your smart cracks, it just happens to be true,” snapped Emery.

“In case there’s anything personal in that remark, Mister Gambler, I reckon you-all haven’t figured that the outfit who makes mine cheap will be biting sawdust ahead of me,” drawled Linc.

“Who in hell are you?” demanded Emery, in an effort to be sarcastic. But there was curiosity in his voice.

“Linc Bradway. Hail from Missouri, more recently from Nebraska — nephew of Cole Younger, if that means anything to you.”

“Suppose we play one more jack,” suggested Lee, manifestly nervous over the turn the conversation had taken. He sensed the direction events were taking and wanted to get out of the game before things got too tense.

“What a lot of cheap fourflushers!” exclaimed Kit. “But all right, one more jack. Only Mr. Cole Younger’s nephew, I’ll want satisfaction.”

“That’ll be a pleasure, ma’am. I’m sorry, but this will have to be the last game I’ll sit in with your gambler partners,” drawled Linc, deliberately. Apparently these worthies wanted a peg to hang suspicion or accusation upon, and Lincoln was willing to let them have it. It was plain to see that Emery was a snake in the grass. The silent McKeever might be the more dangerous one of the two, after all. Neither, however, made any reply to Linc Bradway’s deliberate insult. The hands were dealt, the pot opened, raised, and cards called for. Linc stayed on a pair of deuces and for once failed to add to the strength of his hand. Betting was light. They were afraid of the stranger’s luck. When he raised the limit of the money in front of Emery that individual followed the lead of the others and threw his cards down in disgust. Then Lincoln, with a queer little smile, laid down his pair of deuces.

“Jess, he stole it!” Kit cried, and it almost appeared as if she were pleased with the gamblers’ discomfiture. “You and Mac took this cowboy for a tenderfoot, and he has cleaned you.”

Lee laughed. “He cleaned us all, and if I know poker he pulled as straight a game as I’ll gamble he can shoot.”

“Thanks, Colonel, that’s Texas talk if I know folks from the South,” returned Linc. “And now, Mister Emery, you can eat that hint about my peculiar play.”

The circle of spectators shifted uneasily and there was a perceptible sway toward the alcove portal. But there was too much uncertainty, too great an undercurrent of excitement for the crowd to bolt yet. Emery, however, no longer labored under his misapprehension.

“Bradway, no insult intended,” he said.

“So you are willing to crawl?... Emery, every look and word of yours to me has been insulting.... I’m calling you.”

“Cowboy, you must be looking for trouble.”

“Yes, and I’ve found it. But not much trouble for a hombre like me. Come on!”

Kit Bandon suddenly interposed in the tense situation. “Bradway, these friends of mine often forget there’s a lady present. But you’re a gentleman.”

“Thanks, I haven’t overlooked the fact that you’re a thoroughbred in bad company.”

“I reckon I can stick it out,” she returned flatly. She did not show the least fear of Bradway or concern for her friends. “Jess, it looks as though you and Mac have riled the wrong cowboy.”

“Kit, you forget what happened to the last cowboy you took a shine to,” flashed the gambler, angrily. If these two, the gambler and the girl, despite the obvious close relationship between them, did not hate each other, then Bradway was a poor judge of character.

“Hell no, I haven’t,” she returned, just as angrily.

Linc, after pocketing his winnings, pounded the table with his left hand. His right was significantly not in sight. “Cut it, Miss Bandon, begging your pardon. Let Emery talk to me.”

At this juncture Lee and the miner quietly vacated their chairs. “Lemme out,” demanded the red-shirted giant. “If I know this stripe of feller there’ll be hell poppin’ here pronto.” His remark started an exodus. Still the morbid remained.

“Bradway, you’re unreasonable,” shouted Emery, shrilly. “I can’t crawfish for something I may have said unintentionally.”

“Crawfish — hell! Your liver is as white as your face.... Lady, kindly get up and out of this.”

Kit Bandon neither flinched nor moved. She appeared fascinated by this drama in which a young and personable stranger was forcing the issue against her friends.

“Emery, you’re a cheap gambler — a poor loser — a damned liar.... Stop! Keep your hand out of that vest!”

The remaining watchers broke pell-mell to get out and for a moment there was a mingling of whistling breaths, and the trampling scuffles of hurried feet.

Emery’s white hand sank twitching back to the table. Out of the corner of one eye Bradway caught McKeever’s hand slipping inside his vest. Then the cowboy gave the table a tremendous shove and sprang erect, his gun leaping out.

CHAPTER II

KIT BANDON, WHO had half risen just as the heavy table caught her, fell and rolled clear out of the alcove. The gamblers both went down, with Emery under the overturned table. But McKeever slid free and as he sat up, propped on his left hand, he reached for the gun in his vest. It gleamed brightly. Lincoln’s shot broke that draw, and evidently the gambler’s arm, for it flopped down, and the gun went spinning across the floor. McKeever let out a hoarse cry of fury and agony.

Linc, smoking gun in hand, swung the table off Emery, who then slowly labored erect, his features livid and contorted. Kit joined him, her face red with rage, and stood brushing the sawdust off her black dress.

“Damned fools! I told you,” she burst out, furiously. “Did he — kill Mac?”

“Looks that — way,” muttered Emery, hoarsely.

“No, I just winged him,” spoke up Bradway. “Miss Bandon, I’m sorry I had to mess up your party, but it could have been a lot worse. You’ll please excuse my rough manner.”

“I excuse you, Mr. Bradway,” she said, in a low voice, her dark eyes meeting his gaze. Whatever she felt, it hardly seemed to be anger for the cowboy from Nebraska.

“Emery, you made a crack to this lady a minute ago about what happened to the last cowboy she took a shine to,” flashed Lincoln to the gambler. “Wasn’t that cowboy Jimmy Weston?”

Amazement and fear held the gambler mute, and Kit Bandon stared at Lincoln, startled, her red lips parted, the rich color fading out of her cheeks.

“Weston was my pard,” went on Bradway. “I’ve letters of his that give me a hunch as to what happened to him, and I came here to prove it.... Get out, Emery.” Lincoln made a move with the still smoking gun that sent the gambler hurrying out into the crowd which was edging back again toward the alcove.

“Mac, are you bad hurt?” asked the woman, kneeling beside him.

“Arm busted. High up,” rejoined McKeever, weakly. “I’m bleeding bad.”

“Don’t move. I’ll get someone to look after you.”

Linc picked up the little gun and examined it. The weapon was a derringer and it had a large bore for such a small gun. He put it in his pocket.

“Mac, you better pack a real gun next time you meet me,” said Bradway, and started to go out. By this time Kit Bandon had arisen. She stood before him, visibly agitated, and was about to speak when he asked her: “How come such a fine girl as you could be hooked up with hombres as low-down as these?”

“Mac is Emery’s friend, not mine,” she whispered hurriedly. “Jess and I... we have cattle deals. I own part of this place. It goes back to a long time ago... Bradway, I must see you — talk with you....”

As he stood there close to this girl whom they called the Maverick Queen, Bradway felt himself drawn by her beauty and personality, just as she was clearly moved by the courage of this stranger. Linc saw the unmasked emotion in her dark eyes. She must have had a deep cue for passion, and he divined that it had its origin in his reference to Jimmy Weston. Remembrance of his friend and the part which this woman may have played in Jimmy’s death brought Linc back to his senses.

“Well, this is not the time nor place,” he replied coldly, and left her. The crowd opened to let him pass through and out into the street, where he sheathed his gun, and joined the stream of pedestrians on the wooden sidewalk of South Pass’s main street.

Linc kept looking back to see if he was being followed. He could not be positive until he had cleared the center of town. He passed the last pedestrians on his side, and then crossed the street. He caught sight of two men whose actions were kind of suspicious. Quickly he squared around, gun in hand. They made a quick retreat down a dark alleyway. This enabled him to gain his lodginghouse before his pursuers could tell where he had gone. The cowboy found his room, barred the door and lighted a kerosene lamp. Then for the first time in an hour he drew a breath of profound relief, and threw off his coat, its pockets heavy with gold coins and bulging with rolls of bills. The room had a window, but it was too high up for anyone on the outside to see in. Walls and doors were strongly built. For the time being he felt safe. But just how permanent his safety was depended upon how strong and bold the gamblers were in South Pass. He had made two treacherous men his bitter enemies. Moreover he had now in his possession between five and six thousand dollars, a fortune to Bradway, whatever it might be to them. As for Kit Bandon, the way she flashed money and bet it and lent it augured that it must come to her as easily as it went.

As he thought over the events of the evening he exclaimed under his breath. “But maybe it’s bad luck. That outfit will do for me if they can. As for Kit Bandon — either I’m loco or she cottoned to me pronto. Did she turn white when I came out with Jimmy Weston’s name? My hunch must have been right. Whatever happened to Jimmy, the Maverick Queen had something to do with it. And whatever it was I’ve got to find out!”

He turned out all the rolls and wads of bills, and the many gold coins upon the bed. That pile of money amounted to more than Lincoln had ever seen in his life, let alone owned. He had won it fairly. And he was going to hang on to it! No more gambling. He would not need to ride trail or drive cattle while he was solving the riddle of Jimmy Weston’s death. He had not a doubt, however, that his problem would have been far easier and less perilous if he had not gambled and shot one of the players, thus bringing himself into prominence in South Pass. And yet, as a result of his forcing things tonight, he had learned some facts that might save him some time — if his luck still held.

Lincoln kept an old money belt in his bag. He took it out, stowing away in it all the bills of large denomination. The others and the coin he would exchange tomorrow. After that was done he thought of Jimmy’s letters, and taking them out he reread them with mingled emotions. Poor Jim had had no conception when he wrote these lines of the tragedy stalking him. There were several mentions of a girl named Lucy, and evidently she was someone of whom he thought a great deal. The fifth letter bore signs of labored writing. Jimmy was not himself. It was written in lead pencil, and some of it was hard to decipher. But so much was poignantly plain: “This dam black-eyed female I lost my haid over has queered me with Lucy. Honest, pard Linc, I didn’t mean to be that yellow. But you know what likker does to me an’ this woman made me forget all the decency I ever knew. I’ll get even with her. I’ll be as yellow to her as she made me be to the kid... .” No doubt the kid referred to was the girl, Lucy.

Evidently the girl lived in or near South Pass, because Thatcher had mentioned her. And she was the one person Lincoln wanted to see next, before Kit Bandon, or anyone else.

Linc undressed and, turning out the light, he went to bed. But he was far from sleep. Over and over again he tried to piece all these details into a logical sequence. Each time he found that Kit Bandon seemed to be the nucleus of the plot. There could be no doubt that she was the “black-eyed female” Jimmy had referred to in his letter. Linc had a premonition, as he sat there in his pine-boarded room, that the “black-eyed female,” whom he had heard called the Maverick Queen, was going to play an important part in his own life during the coming weeks in South Pass.

He lay there in the dark thinking, and before he went to sleep he came to the conclusion that he must not let his feelings run away with his intelligence. He must imagine less and learn more. As for the menace to himself — that was certain. In the morning, when he was clear-headed again, he would give some thought to plans for his own self-preservation. Afterward, he would have patience and wait, and be as cunning as a fox. The incentive was great. Yet there was more to it than his love for his old friend and the firm resolve to avenge his death. There were some facets to this problem that intrigued him and whetted his curiosity. Who was this Lucy? And the dazzling, seductive Kit Bandon? Lincoln suddenly realized that he must be on his guard against succumbing as easily to her wiles as had Jimmy. There was passion and temptation in those sultry dark eyes. As sleep began to overpower him, his last conscious thoughts were of the Maverick Queen — the color and vividness — the fragrance that emanated from her — the symmetry of her form, and the provocation in her black eyes.

Linc Bradway was awakened by a yellow ray of sunshine that streaked through his little window. He was cold and glad to get up and dress. With daylight his mind again worked clearly. The possibility that he would have to fight for his life bothered him not at all. All these mushrooming gold towns were noted for bloodshed; it was hardly to be expected that he would meet an even break at gunplay in South Pass. His risk, he thought, lay in being shot from ambush. It would be known that he carried a large sum of money. Robbers and bandits would be as eager for that as Emery and his partner. Night would be the time for extreme caution, although he realized that he would have to move with care even during the day.

Lincoln went out on the street to have his first glimpse of South Pass in the light of day. He was most agreeably surprised. It spread along the bed of a narrow valley, and despite its new raw atmosphere of pine-board buildings and canvas tents, it seemed the most picturesque mining town he had ever seen. Early though the hour, there was already color and bustle in the streets. Heavy-booted miners, packing tools, were passing along the wooden sidewalks; stores were open; the saloons were being swept out; and Linc heard the rattling whirr of roulette wheels that never stopped. Over the hill east of the town hung clouds of yellow and black smoke from the gold mills. The western hillside was dotted with prospectors’ tunnels, where they had dug for traces of the precious metal. Beyond the hill that rose to the north, white peaks of snow glistened in the sunlight. Cold and white, they notified the watcher where this nipping air came from. They marked the southern end of the Wind River Range, where it opened out into the Pass that Jim Bridger had discovered in the early days, and through which ran the famed Oregon Trail.

Entering the restaurant Lincoln found a few early birds, too hungry to pay any particular attention to him. The Chinese proprietor did not appear. A serving girl waited upon Lincoln. He ordered a good meal of ham and eggs that would last him the whole day and longer if necessary. Then, with a hitch to his belt, Lincoln went out upon the street again, his gaze as restless as a compass needle.

South Pass, by this time, had definitely awakened for the day. Miners and other workmen had increased in numbers; ranch vehicles and horsemen were in evidence; a chuck wagon was being loaded with supplies in front of the big store at the intersection of the two main streets. Cowboys’ saddled horses stood bridles down before the saloons. Lincoln crossed to the opposite corner, where he encountered Thatcher coming out of the store. The cowboy jerked up his head and stared.

“Ahuh. You must be more’n one feller,” he said.

“Good morning, Mel. I saw you first,” replied Linc, cheerfully.

“Yes, I’ll bet that’s your way.”

“Look here, Thatcher, you got me wrong. I’m not such a bad hombre, if I like you.”

“Mebbe you’re not at that.... I was in the Leave It last night when you called them gamblers. I’m bound to admit it looked pretty good to me, and others.”

“Mel, now you’re being more friendly. I won a little coin. Is there a bank in this place?”

“Up this side street. That low stone building... only stone building in town. So you won a little coin? Lordy, what would you call a lot? But, cowboy, you don’t need a bank. You need a morgue of which we have none here.”

“You reckon they’ll lay me out?”

“Sure do. You bucked the wrong tiger last night. I think I’m giving you a good hunch when I advise you to take the eight o’clock stage and vamoose with your little coin.”

“Thanks. You’re right kind, or else you want to see the last of me around here.”

“So do we all,” replied Thatcher, with a smile that disarmed his words.

“But for what reason?”

“One reason is you’re sure a handsome stranger. And we only have a few women in these diggings that a feller can be serious about.”

“Can’t you be sport enough to introduce me?”

“Well, you didn’t need no one last night.”

“Is Kit Bandon one of these few women you’re bragging about?”

“Nope. She’s not in the class I mean. She’s in one all by herself.”

“Struck me deep, that lady did. Does she specialize in cowboys same as mavericks?”

“You’ll have to find out for yourself,” returned Thatcher, significantly.

“Where you bound for? I see you’re packing out supplies.”

At this moment Thatcher’s comrades of the preceding night showed up, clean-shaven and bright of eye. They responded to the cowboy’s civil greeting.

“Boys, when I go broke I’d like to ride on your outfit,” he said.

“You could get on, all right,” said Thatcher. “I’m foreman for Lee. You met him last night. Any cowboy who calls him Colonel is riding high right then.”

“Mr. Lee, eh? Nice man. No fool at cards, either. But that outfit seesawed him broke.... So long, boys. I’ll be riding out to see you some day.”

“Doggone it! I reckon I’d be glad to see you.... Bradway, you won’t listen to no good advice from us cowboys?”

“Not if you’re advising me to move on,” concluded Lincoln, and turned up the cross street. Those boys were not half-bad fellows. They just had some secret or were in some fix that they preferred a stranger not to know about. Linc began to think that perhaps he had been too precipitous in mentioning his connection with Jimmy Weston.

The street ended at the bank, a low, squat building made of irregular-sized bareheads. Entering, Lincoln presented himself at the counter and asked if he could exchange some gold and small currency for large bills. It was evident that word of his little to-do at the Leave It the preceding night had not reached the bank official, who proved to be most agreeable and businesslike. Perhaps such a gambling flare-up was no rarity in South Pass. He was not invited to open an account. Other customers stamped in, some of them rough miners with sacks of gold dust. There was a scale on the counter. Linc lingered long enough to observe that gold, too, was far from rare in this camp.

A path led along the hillside back of the buildings on the main street. Linc followed this path around the slope from which vantage point he could view the northern side of the town. The narrow valley widened here, and from it a rocky gully led up to the noisy, smoking mill. The street crossed below the mouth of the gully, and followed it up to where the big rusty structure stood dark against the sky. Houses spread all over this area; and back of them, on the slope, clung rough little shacks and huts, their crude chimneys or stovepipes told of permanency, and that the winters were severe. The brook brawled down from the mountains, and all along it for a mile, until it disappeared in a green-timbered gorge where huge banks of sand and gravel indicated an extensive placer mining operation on each side of the rushing stream.

South Pass was the only town near the center of the Sweetwater Valley, already alive with cattle. Some traveler had told Bradway that there already were several hundred thousand head of cattle between Independence Rock and the end of the valley where the Sweetwater flowed from its source in the mountains.

Lincoln walked up to the mill, conversing with any miner he met who would talk. The mill turned out to be a huge structure filled with noise and smoke. He was not permitted to enter. The guard pointed to a small building on one side of the works, and here the Nebraskan found an office with busy clerks. He hung around until he was able to see the superintendent, a robust, bluff man of thirty.

“They threw me out down there,” complained Linc. “I didn’t have any idea of holding up the place.”

“What did you want? A job?” inquired the man, quizzically, directing a sharp gaze of recognition upon his visitor.

“I might buy your gold mill,” drawled Linc, in reply to the mill man’s look.

“Didn’t I see you in Emery’s saloon last night?”

“You must of, if you were in there early,” replied the cowboy. “Hope you’re not a friend of Emery’s.”

“No, indeed. As far as I’m concerned personally, I think you let them off too easily.... Excuse me for being inquisitive, but are you any person in particular, or just a wandering cowboy, quick of temper and trigger?”

“Well, I reckon I’m just a wandering cowboy, and I’m not offended. Now let me ask one. Who in hell in this mining dump will talk?”

“Talk! — What about?”

“Oh, everything in general, and in particular that outfit I bucked last night, especially the Bandon woman.”

“I doubt if there is anyone here who will talk about Kit Bandon,” rejoined the superintendent, coldly.

“Ahuh. All stuck on her or scared to talk,” said Linc, with heavy sarcasm.

“Hardly that. Couldn’t you see for yourself that she is a good sport, a thoroughbred gambler, square as they come on this frontier, and friendly with everybody?”

“Sure, I saw all that, and a heap more. But that isn’t enough.”

“Sorry I can’t oblige you, cowboy,” returned the mill boss, curtly.

Linc stalked out, a little nettled until he reflected that suspicion, even hostility, here in this town were all he had any right to expect. He must curb his impatience and proceed more slowly. On the way back to town he saw a livery stable and made for it with quicker step. Anyone who earned his living with horses was a potential friend of Linc Bradway. He found in charge of the stable a cheerful red-bearded man of the miner type, who limped as he came out to meet Lincoln.

“Howdy, cowboy,” was his laconic greeting.

“Howdy, miner. How come you’re dealing with horses?”

“Wal, son, when I had this laig broke I bought out Jeff Smith, an’ hyar I am, not doin’ so bad either for a miner.”

“Say, anything to do with horses is good. I’m from back Nebraska way. Name is Bradway.”

“Mine is Bill Headly. Glad to make yore acquaintance.”

“Same to you. Bill, I want to buy a horse, and have someone to take care of him while I’m in town. Only he’s got to be the best horse in these hills. ‘Cause I might be chased!”

“No! Not really? Son, I’d never took you for that kind of a cowboy.”

“Well, Bill, I’m not crooked, and if I am chased it’ll be by men who are. Savvy that?”

“Don’t savvy exactly, but you sound convincin’.... In any case, howsomever, I have not only one, but two horses hyar thet can’t be beat in the Sweetwater Valley. Just happened I got them. Yestiddy, a cowboy down on his luck — fired off his range — come to town. Red likker an’ cyards. You know. An’ he sold his horses to me. He’s due hyar at ten o’clock to get his money.”

“How much?”

“Wal, I shore hate to tell you. Shows me up. But he done it. I’m no horse buyer. I had to borrow the hundred dollars.”

“Only one hundred for two good horses? Bill, you are a swindler... . But here, take two hundred. I’m buying that cowboy’s ponies.”

“Without seein’ them?” queried Headly, dazzled at the sight of the two greenbacks thrust into his hands.

“I take your word.”

“Wal, I took the cowboy’s. Let’s see — his name?... Vince somethin’. But he’ll be hyar in a minnit. Set down, Bradway. I’ll fetch them out.”

Presently the man led out a sorrel, and a white-faced bay. Both were superb, the sorrel having a shade the better of it. But that glossy bay, deep-chested, strong-limbed, would have thrilled any cowboy, even one more critical than Bradway. He decided not to put a hand on either animal until an idea of his had a chance to work out.

“Hyar comes Vince now,” spoke up Headly. “Comin’ to his funeral!.. . Bradway, wouldn’t thet wring yore heart?”

A sturdy, bow-legged cowboy appeared shuffling slowly toward the livery stable, his sombrero in his hand, his towhead bowed.

“Headly, don’t mention the sale right off,” suggested Linc. How many times had he seen cowboys come or go like this! Grief, shame, despair could not have been better exemplified, not to Linc Bradway’s keen eyes. Inexplicably he liked this down-on-his- luck cowboy without ever having seen his face. A moment later, when the young man arrived and showed his face, Linc saw a homely, sun-tanned young countenance, darkly shadowed by two days’ growth of beard.

“Mawnin’, Bill. Heah I am, an’ I hope to die.”... Then the speaker espied Linc, who stepped out from behind the horses.

“Howdy, Vince,” spoke up Headly. “Meet this young feller who jest called on me. Linc Bradway — Vince — I didn’t get yore other handle.”

“Vince is enough, I reckon.... How do, cowboy.... What you lookin’ over my horses for?” asked Vince. He was sober, but a little surly.

“Glad to meet you, Vince. I’m a cowboy on the loose. Asked for a horse and Bill here showed me yours. That sorrel is mighty nice. And the bay, well, he’d suit me.... Which one do you fancy most?”

“Fancy? — Hell, I raised ’em both from colts. Brick is the best horse on the Sweetwater, bar none. An’ Bay is all horse too. Only I could stand to lose him.”

“Vince, I just bought both your horses,” said Lincoln, quietly.

“Aw!... Then it’s too late? Bill, I was goin’ back on sellin’ Brick. I jest couldn’t. I’m sober this mawnin’.”

“Sorry, Vince. I been paid for them, an’ hyar’s yore hundred dollars,” interposed Headly, regretfully.

Vince’s reception of the disaster and the money thrust upon him brought about one of Linc’s quick reactions. At that moment he thought he saw through the cowboy. He remembered that Jimmy had been weak, too, and prone to make mistakes and regret them afterward.

“Vince, I happen to have a weakness for good horses, too,” he said. “I bought Brick, but I’m giving him back to you.”

“What the hell!... Givin’ him back?...” The cowboy burst out incredulously, and though disbelief leaped to his face, so did a dazzling light of hope.

“Straight goods. Just a little present from a flush cowboy to one down on his luck.”

“Flush!... By thunder! Then you could be the feller who cleaned out Emery’s joint last night an’ shot thet hatchet-faced McKeever?”

“Yes, Vince, I’m that hombre. Did you happen to be there?”

“No, wuss luck. My Gawd, I’d like to have seen thet mixup.... But, what’s up yore sleeve? Shore you’re flush. You must be a millionaire. An’ I savvy what a cowboy can do. I was damn near thet big myself once.”

“Vince, there’s nothing up my sleeve, as far as you’re concerned,” replied Lincoln, earnestly. “I felt sorry you had to sell your horses. That you had been fired. And I like your looks.”

“Bradway, I shore like yore’s. But ain’t you got no other reason at all?”

“None, except I’m a lonesome cowboy in a strange country, a long way from home, and I’ve made enemies.”

“Wal, you’ve made a friend, too. One who’ll stick to you till hell freezes over, if you want him.” The cowboy’s voice shook and there was fire in his blue eyes. “Things happen powerful strange, don’t they? I was jest thinkin’ downtown, when I heerd about you, how I’d like to meet you. An’ it shore was worthwhile!... But, Bradway, you an’ Bill please excuse me for ten minutes.... I sold my horses to get money I’d borrowed from a woman. An’ I could kill myself runnin’ to pay it back!”

Vince hurriedly made off. His earnestness was manifest in his effort, but one could see he had not been used to foot races.

When he disappeared Bill turned to Linc with a queer expression, which Linc could not quite solve, though he read in it approbation of his conduct over the horse deal, and something that might have been a better understanding of Vince. He did not care to inquire how the ex-miner felt. Again he had stumbled upon an incident, if not fateful, certainly one that was pregnant with possibilities important to him.

“Bill, I wonder who was the woman Vince rushed off to pay so quick?” queried Linc, thoughtfully.

“Wal, it couldn’t be no one else but Kit Bandon,” returned the livery man. “She stakes cowboys an’ shore holds them to strict account. Howsomever, I reckon no cowboy would want to cheat Kit. She’s as square as Calamity Jane. Why, any lone rider, or cowboy on a grub line, or tramp, is always welcome at her ranch.”

“Stands ace-high with the cowboys?” asked Lincoln, his question an assertion.

“You bet. But Kit an’ the cattlemen don’t seem to hit it thet way. I reckon because most of them have tried to marry her one time or another.”

“Does that cardsharp Emery have the inside track with Miss Bandon?”

“Wal, when she’s in town week ends. But out on the range it’s another story, so they say. Emery never goes there.”

“Just life. Like any other cattle country. Same old things underneath the surface....”

The talk became desultory after that, until they saw Vince returning. The cowboy who approached now might have been someone else, so changed was he. This boy had recaptured his self- respect. He beamed upon Headly, and in his attitude toward Bradway there seemed the birth of something big.

“Pard, if I may call you thet, you’ll never know how I feel,” he said.

“Gosh, Vince, how come paying some dame fifty bucks can brighten you up so?” asked Linc, casually.

“It wasn’t just payin’ thet debt. It was endin’ somethin’, by Gawd, forever!” He spoke with finality and his dignity at the moment permitted of no inquisitiveness. Linc registered that subtle expression in his mind as one to ponder over later.

“Where’s your gun, cowboy?” he asked. “Or don’t you pack one?”

“Yes, I pack hardware, an’ I can use it, too, as I’ll bet you discover,” Vince replied, spiritedly. “But mine’s in hock. I’ll get it out somehow.”

“You can’t trail around with me without being heeled,” said Bradway, quietly.

“Am I goin’ to trail with you?” the cowboy asked, eagerly.

“Didn’t you make an exaggerated statement a little while back about sticking to me?”

“Shore, but thet was more hintin’ than sayin’. If you want it straight, no feller I ever met hit me so deep an’ hard as you. It was the time, I reckon. Someday, mebbe, I can tell you.”

“Vince, you hit me plumb center, too. Part ‘cause you were in trouble, but most because you’re like an old pard I lost.”

“Daid?”

“Yes,” returned Linc, looking down. To think of anyone taking Jimmy’s place was strange, almost unbelievable. Yet life had to go on and he needed a friend.

“Aw, thet’s hell. I’m sorry.”

“Before we shake hands let me warn you that trouble and gunplay and blood seem to trail me everywhere.”

“All in the day’s ride for me! Let me tell you thet I’m a ruined cowboy on this range.”

“Ruined? You mean there’s no outfit you can ride with any more?”

“I reckon not — thet is, not in the valley. I cain’t tell you, pard.... Mebbe, some day—”

“Tell me nothing. I don’t want to know. I’ve pulled crazy deals myself. I take you for what you are to me.... Let’s mosey down the street and reclaim your gun. And you’re a pretty ragged cowboy, I notice. Just about walking on your bare feet. I’ve done that, too.... Bill, take better care of Brick and Bay from now on.”

They walked down the street wrapped in an eloquent silence. Linc had an idea this chance meeting might prove to be even more fortunate for him than for Vince. Just before they reached the main thoroughfare, he passed some greenbacks to Vince. “Get your gun out and strap it on. Then meet me in front of that big outfitting store on the corner.”

“Would you kick me one in the pants jest to prove this ain’t no dream?” asked Vince.

“Cowboy, it’ll be a nightmare pronto. Rustle now.”

Bradway strolled along, close to the buildings on his side, watching everything that went on in the street with hawk eyes. He halted every little while to back up to a wall and lean there just as though he were in no hurry at all, the better to appraise what was going on. It was a busy street, and it bore evidence that South Pass was the supply center for a wide area. Freighters were unloading. One big wagon was full of kegs which spoke eloquently of the favorite beverage South Pass consumed. The cowboys and chuck wagon he had seen in the early morning were gone. An overland stage was just rolling in from the West, down the dusty hill road, its four lathered horses breathing hard. Several canvas-covered prairie schooners were laboring up the same slope, headed westward on the Oregon Trail. The tall Nebraskan ambled on down to the store. It was a lively corner. Some boys were playing dangerously close to the busy street, and a spirited team hitched to a buckboard came within a few inches of running them down. The youngsters were scrambling on the board sidewalk, and one of them, the oldest evidently, had bent over to pick up something.

“Hey, kid, you’re too big to be sprawling in front of horses,” said Linc, severely. He made a grab at the youngster, but he dodged and piled headfirst into the three smaller ones and down they went in a heap.

The lad Linc had tried to seize leaped up with amazing agility and whirled as quickly. The cowboy looked into the scarlet face and blazing eyes of a girl dressed in boy’s clothes. As if by magic the youngster in gray blouse and blue jeans was transformed into a slim feminine creature, burning with fury.

“What do you mean?” she blazed, swinging a gauntleted hand which just grazed Linc’s cheek.

He drew back thunderstruck, staring incredulously, his hand going to his face.

“Oh! a girl — excuse me — miss,” faltered the tall cowboy. “I — I thought you were a boy old enough to set these little tykes a better example—” He stopped in confusion as he saw the girl’s pretty face with its eyes of blue fire.

“You did — like hob!” she retorted, and her scornful glance raked him up and down. “I’m used to fresh hombres trying to introduce themselves in this town but I’ll thank you, Mr. Cowboy, to keep your hands off me!”

Clinking spurs and quick footsteps announced the presence of Vince, who stepped between the fiery girl and the stammering Nebraskan.

“Whoa girl, what you doin’?” he burst out, in alarm, as he held her.

“Oh, Vince! — Shoot this cowboy for me,” she cried.

“Aw! — There’s some mistake,” exclaimed Vince.

“Mistake, nothing. This — this hombre insulted me. He tried to grab me—” The younger children were standing by, speechless, watching the action. Linc was looking for a hole to fall through.

“Aw, no! Not this cowboy.”

“Yes, this cowboy. You punch him, Vince, if you haven’t nerve to shoot him, or I’ll get someone else.”

“Insulted — you! I jest cain’t believe that, Lucy. This cowboy is my pardner.”

“I told you, didn’t I?... He — he attacked me — when I was just — just — trying to stop the boys fighting—”

“Attacked you?... My Gawd! You must — why, Lordy, he jest ain’t — why—”

Suddenly Linc came out of his trance. “Yes, she’s right, I did, Vince. It’s unforgivable — but I took him — her — for a boy — too close to the street. But what he — I mean she — says about attacking her was only — I just tried to hold her — I mean restrain her. Vince, you’ll have to believe me, I don’t strike girls even when I think they’re&mdash She won’t listen to me, Vince. You seem to know the young lady. Tell her I’m sorry for what she says I did.”

“He apologizes, Lucy,” interposed Vince, most earnestly. “He’s my friend, he’s not drunk — or one of these — you know — kind of cowboys... . Lucy, this is Linc Bradway, from Nebraska. Speak up, Linc, square yoreself.”

But Linc had been struck dumb by that name, Lucy — by the remarkable change he noted in the girl’s expression.

“Oh, Vince — did you — did you say — Linc Bradway?” she faltered, her face paling, her eyes growing large and dark.

“Shore I said Linc Bradway,” declared Vince, puzzled. “Cain’t you folks heah?”

Suddenly the girl’s two gauntleted hands seized Linc’s arm and she leaned impulsively toward him, gazing pleadingly into his eyes. Lincoln caught his breath. He actually thought she meant to kiss him.

“Linc Bradway?...” she breathed. “Oh, what a way for us to meet!... Indeed I know you very well.... I was Jimmy Weston’s girl — Lucy Bandon!”

CHAPTER III

JUST THEN ONE of the ragged boys, a freckled- face imp, tugged at Linc’s coat, and shrilled: “Hey, ya big cowpoke! You spoiled our holdup!”

The Nebraskan, without taking his eyes from the girl’s face, reached into his pocket and gave the lad a silver dollar. With a whoop the three youthful bandits ran off.

“Lucy Bandon! Jimmy Weston’s girl!” stammered Lincoln, dismay mingled with his bewilderment. “You can’t be.... Excuse me, miss, but I’m sure loco, I reckon. Jim wrote me about you. I came as soon as I heard that he — that I — Honest, Lucy, but I’m not the dumbhead you must think I am.”

They stared at each other, oblivious of the gaping Vince. For Linc it was a profoundly moving moment. Jimmy Weston’s girl — the Lucy he had written about so eloquently! A slender girl, scarcely eighteen, a pretty tanned face, paled now, blue eyes set wide apart, dark with excitement, red lips, sweet and tragic, a small bare head covered with golden curls, a lithe form typically western and capable in boy’s garb, yet compellingly feminine — a girl who was clinging to him as though he were a brother. As Linc looked down at this sweet-faced girl, he suddenly found himself wishing that she would cling to him all his life. Mr. Lincoln Bradway of Nebraska was finding it very difficult to keep his wits.

“Lucy!... You are the one person I wanted most to meet,” he cried.

“Linc! I can say that, too.... Jimmy told me all about you. He worshiped you. I’ve heard a thousand tales about you.”

“Poor Jim!... Oh, it’s hard to hear that.... You were engaged to him?”

“No, it never went that far.”

“But, you were in love with him?”

“Hardly that. I liked him very much. I — I guess he was in love with me — until — Perhaps I’d have fallen in love with him some day. But, it — it happened, and—”

“You mean he was shot?”

“No, I don’t mean that.... But I can’t talk to you — not here in the street.”

Bradway came to his senses. “Forgive me. I could talk to you anywhere.... Lucy, I must see you. Please give me an opportunity.”

“I want to see you, too. But it won’t do here in town.... I’m driving out home at once. Alone. Aunt Kit is terribly upset. She is staying here. She sent me home. Please follow me on horseback. West on the trail. That’s the road up there. Catch up with me on the hill.”

Then she was gone, leaving Lincoln standing there as one in a trance. Vince nudged him. “Say, pard, you’d be easy meat for some gent with shootin’ on his mind jest about now. Come out of it.”

“Right, Vince. Thanks. I’m damned if I didn’t clear forget where I am. But, Lordy! What is it that has happened?”

“‘Pears like a lot. So you are Jim Weston’s pard? By golly, this is jest like a story. I knowed Jim, not close, but the same as other cowpokes you meet in town.”

“You seem to know Lucy?”

“I should smile, we was always good friends.”

“That girl couldn’t be — what I almost thought,” muttered Linc, as if accusing himself. “What a low-down suspicious hombre I am! Why Jim never gave me half an idea what a wonderful person she is!”

“Pard, I’ve no idea what you almost thought, but I’ll tell you that Lucy Bandon is as clean and sweet as a desert flower — as different from her aunt Kit Bandon as day is from night,” declared Vince, fervently.

“So Kit Bandon is her aunt!”

“Yep... say! Linc, you an’ Lucy jest about fell into each other’s arms.”

“Nonsense. But it got me. Jim’s girl — Kit Bandon’s niece! — she asked me to follow her. We’ll have to get a move on. We’ll go back to Bill’s and saddle the horses. Ride out of town up the brook, and hit the road over the hill. But not together. You trail me a couple of miles back.... Come, let’s rustle.”

Vince was out of breath and panting hard when they reached the livery stable. “Wal — if you — ain’t — a walkin’ cowboy!” he gasped. “I’ll never — keep up — with you — on my feet.”

“Fact is, I always could outwalk most any cowboy. But my wind isn’t so good — especially here in South Pass. Every time I get it back, something happens to knock it out of me again.”

In a few minutes Linc was mounted on the bay, with saddle and stirrups that fit him. It felt good to hear the creak of leather again. But it wasn’t only because he was in the saddle again that made him want to whoop and holler. “Watch me, Vince, and when I top the ridge ahead, you come on. And if you got eyes keep them peeled from this moment.”

“All right, boss, I shore have eyes. But what’m I supposed to look for?”

“How do I know, you dumbhead. Look for everything.”

With that none-too-explicit command Linc rode out and on across the flat between the slope of the hill and the edge of the town. Long before he got to the brook beyond the last house he espied Lucy, seated in a buckboard driving two black horses, climbing the winding road that led to the west. He watched her until she drove out of sight. The Nebraskan was deep in thought. Riding along between the brook and the high placer-mined bank Linc looked for a ford. When he found one he crossed the stream and rode along the other bank among the willows until he gained the open. The slope was gradual, here and there, indented by gullies choked with brush and dwarf pine trees. Lincoln took a zigzag route up to the road, and from there soon reached the summit of the Pass. The Pass was a fairly level saddle, probably four miles wide, stretched from north to south. Beyond this, outcroppings of rock ledges, strips and thickets of pine, and increasing areas of gray sage led to the low-spreading foothills, which gradually reached higher and higher to black-belted mountains that in turn rose to form the base of the snow-clad peaks, glittering in the sun, towering into the blue sky. Southward Lincoln could not see where the Pass ended in that direction. But far beyond the undulating gray prairie, dark foothills heaved up in the distance, and tips of white appeared remote and unsubstantial.

“Big country beyond this Pass,” he soliloquized, and realized that he was eager to get his first glimpse of the famed Sweetwater Valley. “Well, here I am, forking a horse on the old Oregon Trail. And if I can believe my eyes, there roll some prairie schooners westward bound! But what’s become of Lucy’s buckboard?”

He already was half through the Pass without having caught sight of Lucy Bandon’s team of blacks. He lost interest in the landscape as he wondered how he could have missed her. He put Bay from trot to pace to lope, finding each gait easy, yet ground- gaining, and he spared a moment to delight in his new horse.

Suddenly he swung round a rocky outcropping and he saw Lucy. She had slowed down. Even at a distance he saw her looking back. He raised his hand. Again he felt the mounting wave of excitement and emotion that had held him tongue-tied an hour ago. As he gained on the buckboard he realized that he was not going to be able to remain calm and self-contained. His object had been to meet this girl simply to learn from her all he could about what had happened to Jim Weston. But that motive had taken second place now to his interest in the girl herself. A few moments later when he reined Bay in abreast of the girl, he still was far from being calm and collected.

“Oh, I thought something might have stopped you,” cried the smiling girl on the seat of the buckboard. “And when I did see you at last, I thought you’d never catch me.”

“Lucy, I can’t tell you what I thought. But, all this seems too — too good to be true,” he said as he dismounted and came over, hat in hand, and stood by the front wheel of the rig.

“Isn’t it? But it is happening.... Oh, Linc, I’m so embarrassed over the way I treated you — down in the village — in front of Vince—”

“I deserve it, Lucy. But I want to see you again — often — there’s so much I want to say. How far to your home?”

“Twelve miles from the hill. Halfway across the valley.”

“Only that far? I can never say all I want to say in twelve miles. And I hope you’ll want to say something, too! Won’t you stop a while?”

“I have all day to get home. Perhaps it’ll take that long for me to — to...”

Linc interrupted her gently. “Lucy, I reckon you know why I came out here. I had to come when I heard about him — what they were saying about him. It was a job I have to do. I was going to find out what I could and pay a few visits.... I was going to pay a debt and maybe get killed in paying it. I was going to hunt you up and ask some questions....” He paused. “But, Lucy, I never was prepared for anything like, like—”

“Like what?”

“Like you. Of course I knew from Jimmy’s letters that there was a Lucy — a sweet kid. But I hardly took him seriously. I’m afraid my impressions were not flattering to you.”

“Jim made you his hero — and I’m afraid you became mine, too,” she said simply, gazing straight ahead.

“I’m afraid that I did not appear very heroic in your eyes this morning,” he replied.

“I’m terribly ashamed of the way I acted toward you, Linc,” said Lucy looking down at the reins she was holding in her hands.

Bradway longed to place his hands over those little hands. He felt himself caught up by an almost irresistible tide. It did not seem to matter any longer that this girl there before him had been Jim’s girl, that she was the niece of the Maverick Queen, that she might be connected in some way with his partner’s mysterious death, that he knew almost nothing about her except the few references to a girl named Lucy that Jim had made in his letters. Nothing mattered except that, as he watched Lucy’s hands twisting and untwisting the reins, he felt a great tenderness for her and a sureness that somehow, someway, their fates were bound together. After a long silence that was broken by the shrill nicker of one of the blacks, Linc spoke.

“Suppose I tell you some things about myself that Jimmy never knew?” said the cowboy softly. And at her smiling eagerness he proceeded. He was twenty-three, but much older than his years. He had been born in Missouri somewhere, and his father, whom he had never seen, had been a brother or cousin to the notorious Cole Younger, the elder, a guerrilla after the war, and later a notorious desperado. In fact, Linc had never known either of his parents. A kindly neighbor named Bradway had raised him, and sent him to school. He had taken Bradway for his name. At fourteen he had been thrown upon the world, which for him meant the cattle range. By the time he was sixteen he had landed in Nebraska. There he had become Jim Weston’s partner and there he had ridden the ranges until the news filtered back of Jim’s death and he had pulled up stakes and headed for Wyoming.

“It’s been a hard life, Lucy. And I have had my share of hard knocks. I’ve stopped lead a few times, and there are not many bones in my body that haven’t been broken by horses. I never was much on drinking, though I would get drunk with the cowpokes on occasions. It was my tough luck when I was eighteen to meet a bad hombre — a gun-slinging half-breed — and kill him on the main street of Abiline, in an even break. That wasn’t good for me. It established my status as a killer. Well, I was pretty slick with guns....” He sighed. “Did Jim ever tell you I — I had shot a lot of men?”

“Ten or a dozen, if I remember correctly,” she returned, solemnly. “But don’t look so blue, Linc. Your fights never bothered me, but your love affairs...”

“Lucy!... Jimmy must have exaggerated,” expostulated Linc. “It wasn’t ten or a dozen men I stopped. Not half that many, and I should remember.... Lucy, every time I ever drew on a man it was to save my own life. That I swear.”

“I’m happy to get that straight. But your hundreds of love affairs!” she rejoined teasingly. “That’s a little hard for me to overlook.”

“That’s even worse. I never had any — Oh, maybe one or two which might or might not have become serious. But there was so little time — so few of the right kind of girls. And I was never keen about the dance-hall women.”

“You’re very modest. Jimmy said that was one of your charms.”

“Lucy, please take me seriously,” he begged. “I give you my word. Jim had a fancy for telling tales. And he liked to hear ’em, too. I used to make up affairs just to feed his love of romance.”

“Very well, I will take you seriously,” she returned, but there was still a gleam of humor in her eyes. “We’ll cut off the road here — over to that point where you see the rocks and trees. There’s the finest view of Sweetwater Valley that I know of.”

As they followed an unused road through the sage to some tall gray rocks and a clump of pines, Linc looked back over the road he had come. Even before they reached the spot Bradway could see that the land fell away sharply. Presently, however, the view was obstructed by the trees. Lucy drew up behind a thicket, where the horses and buckboard were not visible from the road. Lincoln dismounted to tie Bay to a sapling.

“Were you expecting someone?” the girl inquired. “I saw you looking back.”

“I told Vince to follow me,” he said.

“We’ll watch for him.... Come. It makes me excited and happy to think of showing you my Wyoming.”

“Wait a moment, please,” said Linc, taking her hand and holding her back. She stared up at him, but did not withdraw her hand. “Now it’s your turn to tell me about yourself. That’s more important than all the scenery in the world.”

“Is it?... My story is almost as filled with loneliness as yours.... I don’t remember any mother, only my aunt. She took me when her sister died. That was in Kentucky. I went to school in Louisville for five years. I was twelve when we came west. In a prairie schooner. Oh, I loved it.... First we lived on a ranch near Cheyenne.... Then some man followed Kit.... She shot him! She’s ‘most as bad with a gun as you are! She’s killed two other men since we came to South Pass several years ago. A gambler and a cattleman.”

“Kit Bandon!” exclaimed Lincoln. “That handsome-looking girl a killer?”

“She looks twenty-five, but Aunt Kit is older. You’d better not mention her age to her face.”

“Well!... I guess there are times when you just have to use a gun,” he said. “But enough of Miss Bandon; I want to know more about you.”

“There isn’t much more.... Aunt Kit’s a strange woman. But she was always good and loving to me until we came to South Pass. She suddenly got interested in gambling. She really owns the Leave It, you know. Then she bought a ranch out on the Sweetwater, and took to cattle raising. Naturally that brought cowboys. I was the only girl around. They seemed to like me. She would have none of that.... Then Jimmy came. I met him by accident, same as you, only he wasn’t so rude!...” Lucy smiled mischievously. “After that we met often enough to get to like each other before Aunt Kit found out. She was terribly angry. She forbade me seeing Jimmy. But I couldn’t keep him from waylaying me out on the ranch or there in town. In spite of his feeling for me, though, Jim became as infatuated with Aunt Kit as all the other cowboys were. We quarreled. He took to gambling and drinking. He grew strange and morose, no more the happy-go-lucky cowboy I had grown to like. We made up. I forgave him because he swore not... he swore to keep a promise to me. And he broke it. I never saw him again. Soon after that he — he was shot.... Sort of a pitiful little story, isn’t it?”

“Pitiful and tragic,” replied Lincoln, with constricted throat. “Poor Lucy! And poor Jim! If I had only come out here with him! But that’s spilled milk now.... Thanks for confiding in me, Lucy. Now come. Show me your valley.”

She led him between two rocks to the rim of a bluff that sloped precipitously down into a gray gulf.

Bradway, still thinking of Lucy’s unhappy story, was not at all prepared for what he saw. The colorful valley seemed to leap up at him, confounding his senses. The girl was watching him, anxious that he share her enthusiasm for her Wyoming.

The scaly slope on which they stood fell away a thousand feet or more to a gray sage floor that spread for miles to the west. A winding green line of trees traced the course of the river which snaked the length of the valley. The stream which here and there glinted in the sunlight must be the Sweetwater. Lincoln followed its meandering course down the valley as far as eyes could see until it became lost in gray-purple obscurity. South of this dim line he knew spread a limitless red desert.

The cowboy brought his gaze back to the rim of the precipice. Beyond the rim stretched leagues and leagues of sage that rolled to the far side of the valley. The western rampart of the vast Sweetwater Valley rose blue-gray and mauve against the distant sky. As far as he could see to north and south the near wall of the valley was broken by rocky capes and bold palisades which cast their deep shadows on the valley floor. There were no trees to soften the stern majesty of the valley wall that stretched before his eyes for perhaps a hundred miles.

At first sight Lincoln had failed to notice several ranches dotting the valley along the Sweetwater directly in his line of vision. A white house stood out distinctly in the midst of a vast green patch; and beyond that, at long intervals, other dark spots and dots indicated other ranches down the valley. On this side of the river thousands of cattle speckled the sage.

The whole effect was magnificent in the extreme. Lincoln was at a loss for words as he stood there in the presence of the girl, who was quietly waiting for him to speak. Almost any locality in the West might have been as vivid and striking. But this valley appealed to him strongly beyond any point inspired by sentiment. Lincoln would have to live in this country for a good while before he could fully appreciate why it silenced and inspired him. But the great open range, bare under the blue sky and bright sun, the winding ribbon of green and silver, the endless carpet of sage, the mosaic of colors, the somber grandeur of the carved escarpments, and the snow-white peaks far beyond, rising like sky specters — all these combined to fill the man who was seeing them for the first time with a deep feeling of loneliness. Long and silently he gazed into that enchanting valley sculptured out of the rugged range. Almost reluctantly he turned away from it to face Lucy’s wistful gaze.

“Do you like it?” she asked hesitatingly.

“I feel bewitched,” he replied. “As I was looking across that valley I thought what a pity such a beautiful place with such a pretty name must harbor hate, greed, bloodshed!”

“I have thought that often. But it is men, not nature,” said Lucy, bitterly.

“Don’t blame it all on the men. Women are usually around too, where there’s trouble.”

“Linc, I should have said women and men. God knows, I’ve no reason to be proud of my sex.”

“Lucy, I was just poking fun,” protested the cowboy. He already had noted how swift were her changes of mood. She looked happy only when she smiled. And she had not laughed once. “Which ranch is yours?”

“Follow the road straight down. The white ranch house. It’s pretty from here, but nothing to brag of down there. Logs and mud and whitewash.”

“Have you comfortable quarters?”

“Oh, yes, except in winter, when I almost sit in my open fireplace. It’s cold on this range. Fifty below zero sometimes. And colder up here on the Pass. Men have been found frozen to death.”

“I’ll bet a blizzard here would be hell.... Lucy, this sight does me good. It must be wonderful up where that river starts in the mountains.”

“Glorious. I’ve been there twice, the last time in June, just about this time of the month. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to build a cabin and live there always.”

“Why?”

“Oh, it had everything I love. Far away, lonesome, only a few Shoshone Indians — elk and deer, moose and antelope tame as cows. Birds and flowers. Meadows of sage and grass — little patches of forest — then the foothills, the belts of black timber, beyond them the great country of rocks and cliffs and canyons. And last, the wonderful peaks, always snow-white.”

“Sounds just about ideal. But you didn’t mention fish.”

“Oh, you are a fisherman, too! I’ll bet I can beat you. The Sweetwater is full of trout up there. Long as your arm, some of them. And fight!...”

“Listen, child. The girl doesn’t live in all this West who can beat me fishing.”

“It’s a challenge. Only I haven’t much to bet.”

“You have all that any man would want to ride a chariot race for.”

“You are a new kind of cowboy to me. Pretty speeches. But I like them —— But — Oh! I forgot! I forgot!”

“What?” he asked, alarmed by her tone of distress.

“We won’t be able to ride together — or go fishing — or anything.”

“And why not?”

She was silent a moment, then turned to him, suddenly older, more constrained, with the sweet lips set sternly and her eyes veiled. Suddenly her tone was serious.

“Lincoln, you said this morning that you had come on a rather grim errand. How did you know where to come?”

“Jimmy’s letters. I’ll let you read them. News of his death. And the stigma left on his name.... Jimmy was weak, but he was honest. He couldn’t cheat. Drunk or sober he never had a crooked thought. He might have been shot in a brawl at a card table. But never for cheating. I’m as sure as I stand here that he was murdered. And I’ve come out here to find out — to clear his name, at least.”

“Jim said if anything happened to him you would come out here and kill everyone who...”

“Lucy, what would you think if I allowed Jim’s murderer to go scot free?” he demanded.

“Revenge can’t bring Jim back.”

“No! — But I’d have no self-respect left if I didn’t avenge my partner. I grew up in a hard school. I loved Jim. I’ll always regret that I didn’t come with him. He might be alive today if I had. All I can do now is get even.”

“They will kill you,” she cried, with a catch in her voice.

“Who are they?”

“Emery and his outfit. They’ll do it while you sleep.”

“Lucy, I don’t sleep when someone’s gunning for me,” he said, quietly.

“But, you have to sleep,” she protested. “I’m from the West. I understand. You might be another Wild Bill, as no doubt you really are another Cole Younger. I heard what you did last night. But these men will not meet you openly. They’ll assassinate you, Lincoln. There are I don’t know how many low-down dogs at Emery’s beck and call. They would knife or shoot you for two bits.”

Lincoln was amazed by her eloquence, by the dark fire in her eyes and the pallor of her cheeks. “Why do you feel so deeply?” he asked.

“You were Jim’s friend and therefore you are mine. I — I don’t want you to be killed.”

“Well, that makes my life doubly precious,” said Bradway. “And it was fairly precious before.... But why do you think Emery’s outfit is on my trail? Because I cleaned him at cards?”

“Oh, it has happened before, with far less reason.... Lincoln, I must tell you all I da — all I can.... Last night at the hotel, I heard Aunt Kit cursing Emery. They were in her room, which was next to mine. McKeever is being cared for there. He has a broken shoulder.... Well, my aunt and Emery had been talking too low for me to tell what they said, until they began to quarrel. Kit said: ‘I won’t let you shoot Bradway!’ and Emery swore: ‘You can go to hell, Kit. This cowboy is dangerous. He’s got to be put out of the way. The letters he bragged about — from Weston. We can’t afford to have him on this range with those letters in his possession. You ought to have sense enough to see that!’ and my aunt swore back at him. ‘. . . I have. And I’ll get those letters. You leave Bradway to me....’ ‘By God!’ burst out Emery, in a fury. ‘You’ve cocked your eye at another cowboy. What the hell do you care for Weston or letters or anything when there’s a handsome new cowboy to tickle your miserable vanity? I tell you we’ve got to kill Bradway!’?”

Lincoln was more concerned with the girl’s sweet voice, her earnestness, her beauty, the anxiety which her face betrayed, than with the foreboding conversation which she had overheard and just now repeated.

“So, that’s why?... Lucy, it might barely have been possible for you to persuade me to run away. But not now.”

“And why not now?” she wanted to know.

Linc looked out into the gray-blue void, without seeing any of the features that before had enthralled him. Suddenly he realized what it had cost this western girl to tell him what she had. She had cast her lot with him, a stranger, just as surely as he had already involved his life with hers.

“Lucy, suppose I fell in love with you at first sight?” he asked, simply.

She gave a little cry, and suddenly sat down, as if her limbs had grown weak. Linc expected protestation, even ridicule, anything but silence.

Probably this revelation of his was nothing new to her — a pretty girl in this world of men must be able to read a man’s mind.

“Same old story, eh?” he asked.

“Yes, always the same — with cowboys. It seems so easy for a man to say — and do,” she replied sadly. “With a girl — it’s different.”

“I’ll admit that it couldn’t be as easy for you to fall in love with me as it was for me to fall in love with you. Is it a crime to fall in love, Lucy?”

“I thought you were different,” said the girl, looking down at her hands.

“I am a man.”

“But you are — you came to kill a man. You—”

“After all, I am only human, Lucy. I have known you only a few hours except for Jim’s letters. But is there any reason why I shouldn’t fall in love with you?”

“Forgive me, Lincoln. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Only it hurts me to think — to think you take love so — so lightly — as lightly as you take a human life.... Even if it were true — that — that you care — it will not keep you from—”

“From what?” he interrupted, turning to lift her erect. His hands gripped her arms; his sudden intensity startled her.

“Why, from what a girl hates,” she burst out, her lovely face becoming suffused with red from neck to temple.

“You don’t mean gambling, drinking, or even throwing a gun in self-defense or in a good cause? You have something else in mind. Tell me! What have I done or what am I doing that a girl like you hates, Lucy?” He released her arms and caught the lapels of her jacket, to draw her closer.

“It wouldn’t keep you from her. It didn’t keep Jim,” she returned, with bitterness.

“From whom?” he demanded mercilessly.

“Oh, you know! From her!”

“Do you really hate her, Lucy, your aunt?” he asked gently. “There must be a good reason for a sweet girl like you to hate another woman.”

“Oh, I do — I do!... I used to love her. She was good and kind to me until we came to this wild country. She can be so lovely. She is so fascinating. No one can help loving her.... But when she took Jimmy — ruined him — I — I just had to hate her.”

“All right. Granted Kit Bandon is an irresistible woman. You can keep me from her. Do you want to?”

She swayed for a moment into his arms then and her head found his shoulder. But she resisted her weakness and stood back to gaze up at him, tears giving her eyes a soft and tender light. “Yes, I want to, Linc, more than anything ever in my life, before. Even more than I wanted to save Jimmy!... But a girl can’t give her trust or her love the way she’d give her glove — Oh, I feel how it’d be with me. And if you failed me, too, as he did — that would kill me.... Lincoln, I’m so weak, and she’s so strong. She just has to crook her finger. And the men — she’ll want to use you the same way.” She had her hands up to her face, crying bitterly.

“You’ve had a rotten deal, Lucy. But I’m going to try to make up for it. Here you are, my dear. Wipe your tears on this handkerchief, the only white handkerchief I could find in the store this morning. I’m pretty disgusted with myself for upsetting you the way I have. I’m not very clever with girls.” To marshal his confused senses he said quickly, “Here, wait, while I go look for Vince.”

Lincoln strode away, his thoughts in a whirl. Jimmy must indeed have made this girl believe in him, and her disappointment over the cowboy’s dereliction had left her at once defenseless and disillusioned in regard to men. He must not take advantage of her willingness to trust him, at least until he was sure of himself, sure he could do something worthy of her admiration, even — of her love.

Outside the zone of rocks and trees Lincoln scanned the gray expanse back toward South Pass. There was no horseman in sight. Vince probably was loitering along below the crest of the ridge. Hurrying back to Lucy he found her sitting on a low rock ledge staring down into the valley.

“Lucy, have I upset you? Please tell me.” Linc was on tenterhooks.

“I’m afraid you have,” she said. “You disturb me so I can’t think.”

“So I’m a disturbing person?”

“You are, indeed.”

“Gosh, I didn’t know I was as disagreeable as that,” he replied ruefully.

“Did I say — disagreeable?” She averted her face and stood up, drawing on her worn gauntlets.

“Lucy, you’ve been seeing only the dark, hard side of everything,” he said, earnestly. “Really there is a brighter one. This is a tough time for you — and for me. Probably things’ll grow worse before they can get better. But you’re a spunky girl — as you very plainly showed me down in South Pass this morning. You don’t have to stay with your aunt if it’s hard for you—”

“Oh, Lincoln, somehow you give me hope... even if I haven’t told you everything—”

“Sure. I savvied that. You have a sense of duty and honor if some other people haven’t. Vince is in the same fix. He couldn’t tell me much either. Well, you needn’t tell me anything you think oughtn’t be told. I’ll find out what I can for myself.... You’re no tenderfoot. You’re a real game western girl. If I had come out here before Jim — before it was too late, I’d have fought his battle and yours. Now I have only yours.”

“I — I think I’ll go now, Linc — before I make a baby of myself.”

“You’ll see me again?” he asked, almost pleadingly.

“Yes. Any time and any place. She can’t stop me this time.”

“Of course you ride often?”

“Half the time. We have no cowboys right now. I ride around a good deal, trying to keep track of stock. But it drifts all over the valley.”

“Well! A cowgirl! I’ll bet you’re the real thing.... You can meet me without trouble, then. Could you see smoke signals from this point?”

“Yes, easily on clear days.”

“Say on the third morning from this. That will be Wednesday. Look for smoke after breakfast. But don’t take any risks.... I might not be able to come. There’s much for me to do.”

“I drive Aunt Kit to town every Saturday morning. Usually she sends me back home, like today. Then she comes back on the stage, or with someone, on Monday. So really I lead a free and lonesome life.”

“No cowboys waylaying you?” he demanded.

“Oh, that happens. But I have sharp eyes. And the only horse in the valley that can catch me is Vince’s Brick.”

“Golly, I should have kept him instead of Bay.... Well, I’ll see you on Wednesday, or if not, then in town next Saturday. It’s a long time for me to wait. I hope you’ll know by then whether you — like me or not. But don’t worry, I can wait and I can take care of myself. And I’ve a thousand times more to live for now than ever.”

Lucy played with the fringe on one of her gauntlets. The color slowly mounted, leaving her face pink under her tan. “I’ll be looking for smoke on Wednesday,” she said.

They returned to the buckboard. Lincoln untied the horses while Lucy climbed over the high wheel to take up the reins. Then the Nebraskan’s roving eye caught sight of Vince loping his horse along the road. Linc let out a shrill yip, and as he strode from behind a clump of mesquite the cowboy espied him, and turned off the road.

“Wait up a minute, Lucy,” called Lincoln, as he watched the cowboy ride swiftly toward them across the sage. “That sorrel is a real horse.”

“Brick is a beauty. I’ve ridden him, Linc,” said Lucy. “You know what I’ll bet? Vince borrowed money on his horses and you bought them back.”

At that moment Vince reined the sorrel before him. Linc greeted him, “Howdy, Vince. Anything on your mind?”

“Wagon just turned off the main road on to this one,” replied Vince. Then he doffed his sombrero to Lucy. “Wal, who’s got rosy cheeks an’ shy eyes? Lucy, I never seen you look so pretty.”

“You look sort of pert yourself,” she retorted. “Must be the company we keep.”

“Lucy, hadn’t you better rustle ahead and get out of sight over the hill before someone comes along the road.... Good-by. Don’t forget!”

“Don’t you forget!” she returned, and with a flash of her blue eyes and a wave of her arm, she drove the team into the sage. In a few moments she had reached the road and turned to the left waving a gauntleted hand as the buckboard dipped below the crest of the hill.

The moment Lucy disappeared, Lincoln sat down on a rock and wiped the sweat from his face.

“Vince, my breastbone feels like it had taken a beating, especially on the left side,” he said. “I put up a strong front before Lucy, but it was all nerve.”

“Pard, down there in South Pass this mawnin’ I reckoned you was in one hell of a mess, and I was about to advise you to pass up this range while you had the mazuma an’ a whole skin. But not now! Not after the way Lucy Bandon looked at you!”

“How’d she look at me?”

“Wal, you must be blind.... Linc, if Lucy had looked at me thet way, a year ago, I wouldn’t be a done-for cowboy now.”

“The way a girl looks don’t mean anything,” the Nebraskan protested.

“The hell it don’t!”

“Lucy has seen a lot of men thet was no damn good at all. She’s had to fight off the whole kit an’ caboodle of them. But it sorta looks as though in you she sees one of another breed. An’ if she falls tumble in love with you, for the Lord’s sake, pard, don’t let her down!”

“I won’t... but you exaggerate — and how about you — you bow-legged little cowpoke! Are you going to help her by not failing me? I haven’t the deal figured out yet. It’s too big, there are too many things I don’t know — and which no one seems to want to tell. Lucy knows a lot that she wouldn’t tell me, too, but I’ll have to find out in my own way. That gambling outfit is as crooked as hell. Kit Bandon seems to be mixed up in it. Lucy suspects it, of course, but that is not the big secret — the terrible deal I’ve got to tackle alone.”

“Pard, it’s shore turrible,” replied Vince, hoarsely, swallowing hard. “But I can’t tell you no more. There’s somethin’ a man owes to himself, though after all you done for me, I feel like a coyote for holdin’ back what I know.”

“I savvy, pard. Sorry I distressed you,” said Bradway, contritely. He would have been blind indeed not to have noticed Vince’s deep struggle with himself. “I’m a good judge of cowboys, and despite all you seem to be hinting about, I say you’re a man to tie to.”

“Much obliged, Linc. Thet’ll be about all I need,” returned Vince, in great relief. “I’ll say you’re on the right trail to find out about yore pard. But I wouldn’t be surprised if his part in this mystery was little enough. As little as mine — Yet follerin’ Jim Weston’s trail may lead to somethin’ big enough to expose the boss of some operations thet’ll stun all Wyomin’.”

“Operations? Can those gamblers be the head of a big rustler business?”

“I don’t know, pard. Only there’s nothin’ but two-bit cattle stealin’ in this country yet. Thet’s all to come. I’ve a hunch the cattlemen reckon it’s comin’ an’ want to stave it off. Anyway, Linc, I’m with you, an’ when the deal busts wide open I’ll be in there blastin’ away.”

“What more could a man ask of his pardner?... Let’s ride back to town.”

It developed that Vince was the kind of comrade who had an instinctive sense of when was the right time to keep silent. They walked their horses across the road, over the hill so as to avoid any oncoming wagons, over ridge and down draw for three miles without conversation. Vince smoked cigarettes and appeared to be doing some pondering himself. As they rode along Linc set his mind to work in earnest, trying to anticipate every possible event which he might be called upon to face. Soon they reached the placer diggings above town, and there Lincoln halted his horse and addressed his companion.

“Vince, listen,” he began. “First we’ll shut Bill Headly’s mouth. Then maybe it’ll be better for us not to be seen together too openly. Your job is to loaf around town, or ride out to the valley, just as a good-natured cowboy would do who’s on the loose. But be as sharp as a whip — to see, to listen, to spy, to find out everything, especially what angle Emery’s outfit will take toward me. Of course we have an idea. You’re no fool, Vince, and I know that with none of the local gentry suspecting you, there will be plenty of information you can get for me. I’m counting on you, boy.”

“Pard, I’ll eat thet job up,” replied Vince, grimly. “It’s just my kind of a deal. Reckon I’d better not spruce up yet a while, so I’ll hold off on buyin’ new clothes. Meet you tonight jest after dark at Bill’s. So long.”

CHAPTER IV

BRADWAY DISMOUNTED TO wait by the jack pines and the brawling brook. Bay, with loose bridle and free of his bit, grazed on the fresh green grass. Lincoln saw several big trout rise in a pool, and was reminded of Lucy’s description of the headwaters of the Sweetwater. He supposed that the inhabitants of South Pass, almost to a man, were so greedily bent on earning or stealing some of the lush gold thereabouts that they never thought of fishing. But Linc could think of fishing, even with men seeking to kill him. He had been a woodsboy in Missouri, and it would take an Indian to surprise him.

“This job is going to take everything I’ve got — maybe more,” he told himself, as he stood there by the stream. “I must discount everything, except Lucy. She’s scared stiff of me.... Of what she might let herself betray. Yet she liked me!... If I didn’t have such a stubborn streak I’d take her away from here while I have all this money. We could both make a fresh start. But I can’t give Jimmy a deal like that, though he’d be the one to advise it. Besides I’ve never been so keyed-up over anything in my life. So hell-bent! But what’s to be done first?... When I walk back into this rotten town, where they all have been bitten by the goldbug, I’ve got to be the hardest hombre that ever winked into a gun barrel.”

It was late in the afternoon when Linc Bradway rode into Headly’s place. He was greeted by the ex-miner in a manner that indicated to him that Vince had said the right things about him. But Linc added his own two cents’ worth. And Bill seemed to see things his way.

The street was so crowded at this hour that the Nebraskan felt reasonably safe. Near the Four Corners he ran into Lee.

“Howdy, Colonel,” drawled Linc, at the southerner’s cordial greeting, and he shook his proffered hand. Then, as Lee appeared anxious to hold him in conversation, the cowboy backed against a store window in order to be able to have a clear view up and down the street.

“I’ve been looking for you all day,” began Lee.

“Well, I made myself kind of scarce,” replied Lincoln.

“You showed your good sense. But you’d be wiser still to leave town. I can give you a job down in the valley, Bradway.”

“Thanks, Colonel. But I’m through riding the range for a spell. I got a job to do here.”

“Bradway, you’re looking for someone. You have that restless eye that never stays quiet. I’m a Texan, you know.”

“Well, you guessed it, and I’m sure glad you talk so friendly.”

“I’d like to be your friend. You won my respect last night, not to say more. Come and have supper with me. We can talk.”

“Colonel, that might be a risk to you. I’m expecting gunplay from any quarter any time now.”

“Yes, and you’ll get it, too, but hardly in the open.... Bradway, I’ll hunt you up when next I come to town. The job I want you to take is to boss a bunch of range riders. I’m organizing a secret outfit, something like the California Vigilantes. You’d be just the man to lead them.”

“Thanks, Colonel. That’s mighty interesting. Vigilantes, eh! — What for? There don’t appear to be any big rustlers working these parts yet.”

“That’s all you know, young man,” returned Lee, harshly. “At least about western Wyoming. I’d like to give you a responsible position for several reasons. One in particular! Think it over, Bradway. I’ll see you next week.”

The newcomer remained standing there pondering Lee’s information and offer. He might accept it later, when he had settled his deal, and gotten the lay of the land. Lee puzzled him. But there was no doubt about the Texan’s forceful and forthright character. Something was rankling in him, you could see that! And he was no man to antagonize, let alone do him wrong. Try as the cowboy might, he could not figure out what particular reason prompted him to offer a stranger such an important job.

Presently Linc approached the little street stand where he had purchased the cigar and made the acquaintance of its engaging young proprietor. This time Lincoln bought two cigars and gave one to the dealer. They stood and chatted a moment.

“Just had a job offered me,” said Lincoln. “Rancher named Lee. Know him?”

“Yes. Big cattle buyer from Texas. Stands well here. Like all the rest of the men here he had a go at Kit Bandon. Had a clash with Emery over her. It’s my hunch Lee will have to shoot Emery one of these fine days.”

“I want to be around,” drawled Lincoln. “Bet I’ve seen a hundred Texans throw guns.... By the way, have you heard how McKeever is?”

“Not so well. Lost too much blood before they got old Doc Williamson waked up, and down to the Leave It.”

“So you’ve a doctor here? Reckon I’ll look him up. Where’ll I find him?”

“Doc’s shingle is around the corner there — over the store. Side stairway.”

A few minutes later Linc located the doctor’s hand-painted sign and climbed up to find the office. It appeared to be part of a loft, and not any too spacious for the heavy ponderous man who occupied it.

“Good day, sir. Are you Dr. Williamson?” asked Linc.

“I am that, worse luck. What can I do for you?” replied the doctor. He had a heavy countenance, lighted by cavernous eyes and equipped with a bulbous red nose. “Strikes me you appear a pretty healthy cowboy.”

“Doc, how’s that gambler gent I shot — Mac Somebody?” asked Lincoln.

“So, you’re the possible accessory after the fact.... McKeever is not a very robust man. You gave him a compound fracture of the shoulder joint. Not a bad injury, but he won’t provoke you or anyone else again for some time to come.”

“Gosh! So I busted his shoulder? I must be losing my eyesight. I aimed to break his arm.... But, Doc, that wasn’t what I called for. How’d you like to make a hundred dollars?”

“Young man, there’s very little in this sorry town I wouldn’t do for that much — inside or out of my profession.”

“Do you remember when Jimmy Weston was shot here in South Pass?”

“Yes. I keep track of deaths. We don’t have any births. Ha! Ha!... Weston was killed something over two months ago. I have the date.”

“Do you know where he’s buried?”

“I could find his grave for you. I know the fellow who buried him.”

“Doc, get that fellow to — to dig Weston up — and you find out if he was shot with a gun like this,” said Lincoln, and he produced the little derringer.

“It’s a strange request, cowboy,” returned the doctor, stroking his beard. “But I’ll do it for the sum offered — in advance. You’ll excuse me. Here in South Pass people seem to neglect a physician’s bills — also the unimportant fact that he has to live as well as anybody else.”

“Certainly, Doctor. Here you are. When can I call for your report?”

“By this time tomorrow I’ll have the job done.”

Lincoln left the office and made his way down to the street again, feeling a little sick. But he had to know! He couldn’t afford to leave any possible clue untried.

The hour was sunset, when nature should be at her best, but the little heap of shacks and houses separated by their sprawling, tawdry street appeared an eyesore in a landscape of exceeding loveliness. The sage hills were gold, and the white peaks glowed with a rosy effulgence. In the west a purple mountain rose somberly against the golden rays of the sun. Bradway stood idly against the wooden wall of a building and turned his attention to the pedestrians. It amazed him, the number of men who passed before him, all intent on something. As he watched them the westbound stage rolled by with a full complement of passengers. Two eager-faced young women peered out of one of the small windows. What errand, he wondered, could be bringing them to South Pass! For all he could determine, not one passer-by was paying any attention to him.

Presently Lincoln turned the corner of the street, and set out on a roundabout way to his lodgings. He reached his little room without meeting anyone; here he leisurely washed, shaved, and changed his shirt and scarf. He also buckled on a second gun. He disliked the weight of this extra weapon, but he might need it, and it might make some trigger-happy hombre think twice before starting anything. On the way out he encountered his landlady.

“Say, cowboy, you don’t look very happy,” she said, dryly. “Don’t know as I blame you.”

“Well, the fact is, I don’t feel happy, though I reckon I ought to.... Hope you’re not going to turn me out.”

“Not me. I’ve kinda taken a fancy to you. It’s all right with me if you shoot up the town, so long as you don’t do it here.... Did you really win ten thousand dollars at Emery’s last night like they say?”

“Nope. But I won some.”

“You look mighty sharp-eyed and pert. Cowboys usually get drunk after makin’ a lot of money. Easy come, easy go. I’m glad you’re different.”

“How’d you hear about my little party last night?” inquired Lincoln, curiously.

“At the store where I deal.”

“Reckon I’m a pretty low-down cowboy, eh?”

“I didn’t hear that, and I don’t believe anyone thinks it.”

“Thanks, lady, I kinda like you, too. Good night.”

It was almost dark when Lincoln stepped into the street. He went first to the Chinese restaurant for his supper. Vince was there eating at the little counter but he appeared not to notice Lincoln. Three other men sat singly at tables. Vince did not linger long after Lincoln entered, but as he passed by he gave the Nebraskan a glance of grim intelligence. It was enough to cause Linc to make haste with his own supper.

Linc started down the street, suddenly to be startled by Vince appearing apparently from behind a board fence.

“Hey, don’t do that!” he said nervously, his arm relaxing. “I might have plugged you.”

“Like Wild Bill, huh? He killed two of his friends thet way, comin’ around corners. One was reachin’ for a cigar an’ the other pullin’ out his handkerchief.... But you was lookin’ for me, shore?”

“Yes, but not popping out of nowhere like that.... What’s on your mind?”

“Pard, the opposition, whoever in the hell they are, have made the first move. They figure you’re like all cowboys. You cain’t stay from cyard games while you’ve got money. An’ if you stay away Kit Bandon will lure you back. Reckon they want yore money first an’ then yore life.”

“Kit Bandon doesn’t want me shot — not right away, at least,” murmured Lincoln, thoughtfully. “Lucy heard her quarreling with Emery about that very thing.”

“Wal, mebbe the Queen has some particular reason to want you alive for a spell. Don’t trust thet dame, pard, even if she gets stuck on you, which she shore will. Anyway, you’re slated to buck the tiger again. An’ a gun-slinger from Atlantic, the other minin’ town, is heah to beat you to a gun.”

“Vince, it strikes me that if this is true Emery isn’t being very smart. That’s a poor way to try to get rid of me.”

“What the hell does he care? He’d try every chance ‘cept that of meetin’ you himself. South Pass isn’t old enough yet to have its eyeteeth cut. There’s never been a real gunman heah yet, onless you’re him. An’ I’ve a hunch you are. Thet gamblin’ outfit could hire men to kill for two bits, let alone inflamin’ them with the idee of big money.”

“Reckon my deal is to see them first,” muttered Lincoln.

“Wal, so long as you’re hell-bent in goin’ ahead with yore deal, another crack at them will make you all the stronger. But I want to be there when it comes off. You can gamble on this, pard. There’ll be one or more of thet outfit hangin’ back somewhere, aimin’ to plug you from where it’s safe.”

“How’d you get this information?”

“Bill tipped me off first. Thet hombre from Atlantic rode over hossback. Answers to the handle Gun Haskel. Funny, but they do call names appropriate. Wal, he was a big whiskered gent, double loaded with artillery, an’ Bill said he was a loud-mouthed feller who made no bones of claimin’ he was sent for to put some slick cowboy out of the way. Then I saw Haskel in the Gold Bar Hotel: I followed him in an’ out of three other saloons. He wasn’t drinkin’ none or shootin’ off his lip. I reckon he’s the makin’s of a hard customer. So I rustled to the Chink’s place, hopin’ to see you there. Now I figger thet Haskel had his orders even before he got heah.”

“Wonder what his plan is?”

“Easy as pie to figger. Fust locate you — size you up — insult you or somethin’ accordin’ to the lay of the ground, an’ then set across from you in thet cyard game at Emery’s.”

“Vince, you’re not so slow. You’ll be a mighty helpful pard, especially if you can handle that gun.”

“Say, Brad, I’ll bet you I can beat you shootin’ at jack rabbits an’ coyotes.”

“I never shoot at them unless they’re running. But we’re talking about coyotes who’ll be trying to beat you to a gun.”

“Wal, I cain’t beat you there. All the same I’ll bet I give a good account of myself.”

“We’ve got the cards. Let’s play. Keep a ways ahead of me. Go in Emery’s place and look around. If you locate Haskel, or any other suspicious hombre, be in sight when I step in. If you’re not in sight, I won’t look for action pronto.”

“I savvy, pard. An’ it’ll be my particular job to bore any hombre who acts queer behind yore back.”

Linc watched his friend trudge off in the direction of the Leave It. Then the Nebraskan, slowly following him down the center of the street — which he shared with many other pedestrians who had been crowded off the narrow board sidewalk — saw Vince saunter through the wide portal of Emery’s brightly lighted emporium of cards and rum. He, himself, passed on down the street to where it turned up the hill, waited on the corner for a while, then crossed to the other side and faced back.

This deliberate hunting for trouble was a new experience for him. But his mood, usually cool, began to take on a feeling of excitement. As he stepped into the bright, garish hall, Vince stalked past him. Out of the corner of his mouth he whispered: “Rustle back!”

At the same instant he became aware of a white figure standing at the foot of a stairway just to the right of the entrance. Kit Bandon ran to catch his arm, her usually florid face as white as her dress.

“Linc Bradway — Wait! Don’t go in there. Come with me!”

Steeled to draw a gun and kill an enemy, Bradway felt helpless before the compelling power of this beautiful woman. She drew her bare arm under his, and pulling him close to her fragrant and bewildering person, almost dragged him up the narrow stairway. Lincoln felt sure that an intense sincerity actuated Kit Bandon. She simply could not be leading him to slaughter.

The ceiling above the landing was so low that Lincoln had to bend his head. There was an open door leading into a little parlor where a lamp under a colored shade gave a subdued rosy light. Kit Bandon drew the bewildered cowboy into this room and closed the door behind her.

Then for the first time Linc turned to look at her. The white gown augmented her lush beauty. He caught a glint of diamonds. But the Nebraskan was only half conscious of these details; it was her face that transfixed him. He had never looked into such a passionate and alluring face as the Maverick Queen’s. But in the dark, soft beauty of her eyes he could see both fear and courage reflected. As she stood before him in that little room, Linc became aware that a red mark marred the whiteness of her forehead.

The cowboy pointed toward the ugly welt. Then he asked: “Who did that?”

“Emery. Just a few moments ago. He knocked me down — on your account.” The woman paused to note the effect of this surprising announcement on Bradway.

“Why?”

“I had spoiled — his plans.... He accused me — of falling in love — with you.... I admitted it — laughed in his face.”

“What plans of his?”

“He sent for Gun Haskel — to meet you. But his original plan — was to have you slugged — at the card table — robbed and murdered.”

“Why are you telling me all of this, Miss Bandon?” the Nebraskan demanded.

“Because — because you are a man, Linc Bradway. I’ve met many men in my time, but none who had ever made me forget my own self-interests in favor of yours. Men are cheap out this way — but they’ll have to kill me first before they get at you.”

Lincoln had no doubt of the truth of her statements. She radiated it. There was something damnably false about her, yet he knew that this time she was telling the truth.

“But you can’t stop it for long.”

“I could — if you’ll go out to my ranch with me. The gamblers swear you can’t keep away from cards. They bank on that. But even if they’re wrong, Haskel will force a meeting.”

“Lady, he won’t have to force it.”

“Don’t call me that,” she cried.

“Very well, Miss Bandon,” he replied with a smile.

“That’s better, but I’d prefer Kit.”

“Was your motive in dragging me up here wholly unselfish?”

“I’ll say not. It was one for you and two for me.”

“All right. What are the two?”

“You’re the only — decent man I’ve met out here since I came.... And I — I like you.... The other thing concerns those letters you said you got from Jimmy Weston.”

Lincoln studied her, through eyes that were expressionless. Her eyes, wide and dark, seemed to search his very soul. Whatever the varied emotions were that moved her at this moment, the dominant one was terror. This fear seemed so all-engrossing that this once it prevented her infallible woman’s intuition from reading his mind. He was thinking that once Jimmy Weston had learned her secret and his learning it had cost him his life. He was thinking, too, that some day he, also, would learn her secret and that her life, not his, would be forfeit.

“Yes, I have Jimmy’s letters,” admitted Lincoln, warily, playing for time. He wanted to learn all that he possibly could before this keen woman divined that there was nothing in Jimmy’s letters that might endanger her.

“What did he — he write about me?” she whispered. Her sultry smile could not conceal her intenseness as she leaned close to Linc and caught his sleeves between hands that trembled.

“Not so much — about you,” replied the cowboy slowly. “He admired you, ma’am, but most he seemed to say in his letters was about a girl he liked.”

“Was her name Lucy?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you — I had wronged him?”

“Why, yes, ma’am. He said you had queered him with her — and he was going to get even — said he had to be yellow...”

“Weston told me that, but he didn’t — live — long — enough,” returned Kit, huskily. Suddenly, without warning, Kit Bandon threw her white arms about the cowboy’s neck. It was at once a gesture of abandon and, as Linc felt, of relief. It was as though she had been released from a fearful strain. Was it possible that after all she had read his mind? Did she realize somehow that whatever she had feared now would never come to pass? That Weston had never betrayed her?

“Kit, I don’t savvy.... Still, you can hardly have cause to — to—”

“Haven’t I, though?” she interrupted, with a deep-throated laugh, and she raised a face, while wet with tears, that was almost radiant with relief and sudden freedom from anxiety. But she kept her arms about his neck. “Linc, it’s all right now. I thought Weston had made you hate me.... You don’t, do you?”

“A man would find it mighty difficult — hating you,” he said haltingly. Any man would find it mighty difficult, as Linc, himself, had said, hanging on to his reason while this amazing creature was embracing him with such abandon.

“Then — kiss me,” she whispered.

It was as if fire had taken the place of blood in his veins. His knees seemed to have turned to water. Still he released himself from her arms. Afterward he was never able to recall where he found the strength to resist those enticing lips, those hungry arms. But resist them he did.

“That’ll be about all — Kit,” he said, hoarsely.

“But it was a great deal, wasn’t it?” she replied, softly. “Linc, will you come out to my ranch?”

“What for?” he parried.

“To get away from this deal to put you out of the way.”

“I can’t do that, Kit. I’m not the kind to run from anyone.”

“Then meet this Haskel. Outside in the street.... You don’t have any fear for yourself — do you?”

“Hardly.”

“Haskel is a notoriety-seeking trigger-happy lout,” she went on, with contempt in her tone. “He has been in shooting scrapes. But to meet you in an even break he knows would be suicide.... I dared Emery to meet you like a man.”

“You did?... Kit Bandon, you’re beyond me,” exclaimed Lincoln, half-admiringly.

“I’m what you would call a fickle woman,” she said, with her dazzling smile. “But I tell you I never before met a cowboy like you. Or such a really dangerous man... that I could love!”

“Listen, lady. Before you start winding me around your little finger, as you must have done with many a man, including Jimmy Weston, I can save you some time and trouble. I just don’t rope easy, Kit.”

“I’m not trying to. I’m in earnest. When I fall for a man I have the courage to say so. What’s wrong about that? You don’t believe me? I don’t care. It’s true. It’s in me to move mountains for the man I love. I don’t trust myself any more where you are concerned.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lincoln.

“I’ve saved your life twice already. Oh, yes, I have! Usually I don’t go out of my way to save the lives of strangers.... Bradway, if this thing is honest, if it’s not just infatuation, such as I’ve felt for a hundred cowboys, then I’m a woman come into her own. And I’d destroy these black-hearted men to save you. I’d be like that ancient woman Semiramis, who burned down cities and fought battles for the man she loved.”

“Kit, I’d be glad for you to turn your back on Emery and his kind. But leave out the Semiramis part of it.”

“Cowboy, I’m spoiled. I’ve never had to plead for any man’s favor!”

“Favor? That’s an elastic term. If you mean love, which seems preposterous, then I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck.”

“Linc Bradway!” she cried, with a passion that amazed him. This woman was a tigress. Again she threw herself upon him, but this time Linc coolly took her arms from about his neck, and stepped back.

“Kit, please don’t make a damn fool of yourself nor of me either. You’ve had your little scene, as you must have many a time before. You’ve only seen me twice — only been with me once. I’m one cowboy who don’t tie easy, don’t fool easy and don’t kill easy. Don’t make me think any worse of you, than you are.”

“No man would dare say so if he did think it.” Her voice which a moment ago had been so warm, was now cold with the anger of the woman scorned.

“I’d tell you, if I believed that.”

“Then I’d kill you.”

“You couldn’t.”

She had suffered a repulse, obviously something wholly unprecedented in her experience. Yet she fought down the anger that possessed her, for the sake of her self-respect, perhaps even because she loved this man who had resisted all her blandishments.

“You will make me love you,” she cried, almost desperately.

“Kit, I won’t make you do anything but behave reasonably,” he declared, soberly. “Let’s get this over. Thanks for keeping me from butting into more than I’d figured on.”

“What are you going to do?”

“First look up this man Haskel.”

“That suits me. I want to see you meet him, but not inside here. Let me go down with you. Even these dogs wouldn’t shoot you while you’re with me.” She opened the door and went out on the landing. It struck Linc that Emery’s place was unusually quiet. Kit looked down over the banisters, then she motioned Lincoln to come out.

The Nebraskan followed Kit Bandon as far as the landing. Letting go with a shrill cowboy yell, so harsh and earsplitting that it silenced the hum below, Lincoln vaulted the stair railing, to land on the floor of the flimsily-built house with a jar that shook the glasses off the shelves behind the bar.

As he stalked toward the alcove there was not a movement among the dozen or more men present, except the furtive glances of their eyes. There were five at Emery’s table, including a burly- shouldered, heavy-whiskered individual, who sat across from a vacant chair. Emery’s white hands dropped flat on his cards, no doubt to conceal their shaking. Two miners and a well-dressed man, evidently a traveler, completed the quintet.

Lincoln waved a greeting with a quick left hand. His right appeared tense at his hip. “You fellows are in bad company,” he said curtly. “Don’t you know it?”

Vince suddenly appeared staggering through the alcove, giving a realistic performance as a drunken cowboy.

“Whas goin’ on in here?” he asked, and he lurched to a point behind Emery, where he backed against the wall.

The younger of the two miners, thick-browed and hard-featured, spoke up: “Cowboy, it’s none of yore bizness unless you want to set in with us.”

The traveler, paling, pocketed the little money before him and rose hurriedly. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid this is no place for me.”

He went out amid a tense silence. Linc broke it by pointing to the bewhiskered man and saying, “Emery, is this big clown your man Haskel?”

“Yes, that’s Gun Haskel,” replied Emery, in a low, uncomfortable tone.

“You looking for me, Gun Haskel, by any chance?” demanded Lincoln, looking squarely at the badman from Atlantic.

“Who’re you?” snarled the other.

“I’m Linc Bradway. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Nothin’ at all. Never heard of you till today.”

“Ever been in Dodge or Hays City or Abiline?” queried the cowboy.

“Nope. I hail from Montana.”

“Well, if you ever had seen one of those towns you’d have thought twice before riding over here to scare decent folks with your little peashooter.”

That taunt stiffened Haskel. He fastened his dubious gaze upon Emery, and failing to get whatever assurance he might have expected from that worthy, he slammed down his cards. “Bradway, I was lookin’ for you, but you don’t ‘pear to be the little runt of a hell-bent cowboy Emery here made you out to be.”

“That’s your tough luck! What did you want with me?”

“Wal, in particular I wanted some of yore game.”

“Not with guns!”

“Fact is, I heerd you was a hot gambler who’d won a big stake. An’ I was layin’ to git my share of it.”

“You’re a liar! You bragged in every saloon in town of what you had ridden in here to do. Everybody in South Pass knows it. And now you’re suddenly not so keen for gunplay as you thought you were. Could it be you’re yellow, Gun Haskel?”

“Is thet so?” blustered Haskel. He did not like the situation. Probably the last thing he wanted was to be bearded in this den and taunted by some cowboy who had been misrepresented to him.

“Yes, it’s so. I know your kind,” flashed Bradway. “You’re one of these cheap fourflushers. Gun Haskel? — What a joke! Do you pack a gun? Or do you carry a little toy pistol like your cheating cardsharp Emery here?”

The giant let out a rather hollow laugh and looked around to see how the crowd was taking it. He was caught in a trap. Perhaps it was not so much cowardice as anger that inhibited him.

“No, I ain’t packin’ any toy pistol,” he muttered, and his right hand edged slowly off the table.

“Pull it out if you’re game!” the Nebraskan demanded, suddenly taut as a wire.

Haskel did not react to that demand. His hand came away from his hip. Bradway waited a long moment, then he relaxed.

“Haskel, you might be a cut above the low-down dirty job they imposed upon you,” said Linc. “But if they fooled you, that’s no excuse. I called you and you crawled. You’re smart enough to save your life. But you’re stupid to mix with this rattlesnake outfit here. You’ll be hooted out of every saloon in this town, and given the laugh when you get home. But if that’s the way you want it, why that’s the way you can have it.”

Lincoln backed out through the alcove into the barroom which was now comparatively empty. As he passed through the barroom, Haskel could be heard pounding the table and bellowing at Emery. The Atlantic gunman was being answered by the taunts of the gamblers. Kit Bandon stood at the foot of the stairs. She met Lincoln at the door with a smile and look that almost any man but the Nebraskan would have given all he owned to receive. It was plain to see that she certainly had expected him to return through the alcove alive.

“Linc, it was as good as a show. Only why didn’t you bore him? You’ll have to eventually. They’ll nag and egg him on to a draw or fill him with rum until he goes after you. Come with me.”

“No. I’ve got to walk the street.”

“All right. I’ll walk with you.”

“My God, what manner of woman are you anyway?” cried Bradway in amazement. “Can’t you lock yourself in your room and go to bed?”

“Me go to bed!... Linc Bradway, that’s funny. I wouldn’t miss seeing you shoot that fool’s white liver out for anything. And wild horses couldn’t keep me from being here when you call Emery.”

Lincoln stalked out into the street, in a hurry to escape from the Maverick Queen’s distracting person and speech. This woman was a revelation to him. It began to seem as if she had a man’s nerve and courage in a woman’s form.

The crowd in front of the Leave It opened to let the cowboy through. He felt aware of a multitude of eyes, as he began his stalk up and down the street. This was the custom of the West. And the public always favored the man who waited for his enemy.

In a quarter of an hour practically all of South Pass knew there was a fight imminent. The stream of pedestrians passing Emery’s gaudy door thinned out and finally ceased; watchers lined up on each side of the street at a safe distance.

As soon as Bradway had passed by the Leave It he crossed to the opposite side of the wide street, where fewer lights permitted deeper patches of shadow. His alert eye had caught the opening of a door on the little balcony above the Leave It doorway. It remained open though no one appeared. From that moment Lincoln shortened his promenade so that he could keep his eyes on the second floor of Emery’s saloon.

He was therefore prepared for the muffled bang of a gun and to see a man stagger out on the balcony. His hands were upraised. From one of them dropped a rifle that clanged to the street below, and after it hurtled the body of its late owner, landing like a sack of potatoes on the sidewalk.

Hoarse cries rose from the spectators on the other side of the street. No doubt they believed the motionless body to be that of Gun Haskel, but it was not. It was Bradway’s calculation that one of Emery’s henchmen had stolen aloft to the upper floor, where he had stood back in the dark with a rifle. Vince had accounted for him. The cowboy’s boast had been justified.

Outside the saloon the crowd suddenly became quiet, and no one moved. But inside loud, furious voices and taunting laughs were evidence that they still were goading Haskel. They were driving him to fierce resentment, to rum, and therefore to his death.

Suddenly the white form of Kit Bandon emerged from the door. She stood in the bright glare of the light searching for someone in the shadows, presenting a striking picture, wholly out of keeping with the place and the hour. She waved a white handkerchief down the street. She might have seen Linc standing erect against the shadowy building. Could she be warning him?

Suddenly the Nebraskan saw her step aside from the lighted doorway just as the giant Haskel came plunging out across the walk. His coat was missing; his shaggy bearded head was lowered, and he had a gun in each hand.

“Haskel! Better go back! If you’re raring to shoot someone make it that snake Emery!” called out Bradway from the sidewalk. His warning voice was cool but insistent. He had no stomach for shooting down this rum-crazed man who had been goaded to frenzy by Emery and his friends.

Haskel stumbled over the prostrate body on the walk and kicked the rifle into the street.

“Whar are you, cowboy?” roared the giant.

The swift clatter of boots on the wooden walk proved that not all of the watchers had the nerve to see the meeting through.

“Far enough, Haskel!” Lincoln warned. His gun glinted in the light of a store window.

The giant gave no heed to Linc’s shout of warning. He sighted his adversary, and lurched across the dusty street, both guns swinging to cover the motionless Nebraskan.

“Nothin’ agin’ you, cowboy, ‘cept yore sharp tongue. But I’m aimin’ to kill you....”

Two shots going off almost together, halted Haskel’s stumbling advance. He uttered a loud yell of pain and dismay. His guns fell on each side of him, exploding as they struck the ground; clapping his hands to his big paunch he sank to his knees, swayed and slowly collapsed a few yards from the sidewalk.

Bradway ran quickly to where the bearded giant lay and bent over him.

“Come here, somebody,” he shouted to the line of watchers. “Anybody who has the nerve!”

This taunt brought two bystanders running into the street. One was a young rider in boots and spurs, the other the well-dressed traveler who had left the poker game at Lincoln’s suggestion.

“Haskel... Haskel!” cried Linc, bending over the giant. But there was no answer. “You’re bored clean through. No chance!... Did Emery put you up to this?”

The giant’s ox eyes rolled, and his beard and chin wobbled from side to side as Linc tried to lift him to a sitting position.

“Sealover... came after — me... offered me — thousand... Emery’s — hand — back...”

Haskel’s mouth remained open, but he said no more. His clutching hands fell away from his big belly, allowing his insides to spill out upon the street.

“Men, you heard?” queried Lincoln, of the two beside him.

“Wal, we shore did,” replied the cowboy. The other witness nodded his head, while he mopped his brow.

As Bradway straightened to face about, Kit Bandon came hurrying into the street. Behind her were some of the Leave It customers. Reaching the group, the Maverick Queen looked down upon the dying man. She held her white dress away from the blood-soaked dust. Haskel presented a horrible sight at which most women would have fainted but the face of this incredible woman was without expression. Linc lowered the body of the dead man to the street, arose and started striding across to the door of the Leave It. With a sudden cry Kit caught his arm, only to be shaken off. She had to run to keep up with him, holding on to his sleeve, then his pocket, while all the time she talked excitedly.

“Awful mess you made of him. Why’d you shoot him in the belly? Oh, I savvy! Wanted to ask him something. I saw you. What’d he say?... Linc, I had nothing to do with this dead man who was shot off the balcony. You have to believe me, Linc. You have a dark horse, Mr. Bradway!... You’ll need him more and more! Emery will be worse than ever unless you kill him!”

This last she whispered, close at Lincoln’s side. But the Nebraskan did not seem to hear. All of his faculties were intent on the next move in this brutal drama.

Emery, with half a dozen other men, one of them a white- aproned bartender, stood under the bright light, in a half- circle. The gambler’s eyes burned out of a face that was ash white. As he saw Bradway advancing with Kit clinging to his arm he backed hurriedly toward the door, only to bump into one of the men, who promptly shoved him forward. Linc saw that the man behind Emery was Vince. Now it was too late for the gambler to get away. He probably realized he might be the next victim, but his jealous rage had overcome his terror. His eyes, blazing into hatred, were upon the woman and not the man.

“Bandon, let go of that cowboy,” he shouted, and his hard tone implied an accustomed mastery over her. At least, she obeyed him. “Anyone would think to see you hanging on to that stranger, that you were on his side.”

“I am, but he’ll never believe me,” she retorted. “He’s one cowboy against this whole cut-throat outfit. You see: I told you.”

“Shut up, you man-crazy hellcat!” There was murder in his low voice. Then Bradway confronted him, gun still smoking, over the dead man on the sidewalk. The Nebraskan touched the prostrate figure with the toe of his boot; but he did not lower his eyes from those of the man before him.

“Is this man Sealover?” he asked.

“No. His name is Mike something or other.... Whatever he had in mind he was on his own.”

“Yes, and you’ll claim that Sealover rode over to Atlantic after Haskel on his own, too,” sneered Linc, shaking himself free from the woman’s clinging arm. “But no use to lie. Haskel told me you were behind this. I have two witnesses to his statement. An’ they’re right here.”

With a sweep of his gun Lincoln indicated the cowboy and the traveler who had left the spot where Haskel had fallen and now stood on the sidewalk. It was the cowboy who spoke:

“Thet’s true, Mr. Emery. I heard him.”

The traveler, pale of face, and obviously reluctant to be drawn into the vortex of this fight, nevertheless corroborated the cowboy’s testimony.

Emery met this proof of his implication with a gambler’s nerve. He barely glanced in the direction of the two witnesses, then turned again toward the Maverick Queen, his voice charged with sarcastic politeness.

“Miss Bandon, if you step in line with these two witnesses I suppose Bradway will force me to meet him. In that case I’ll ask for time to give him a little information he will be glad to know about you.”

A blow in her face could hardly have had more effect upon Kit Bandon than the gambler’s veiled threat. For an instant the smooth beauty of her white face seemed to shrivel. Suddenly she looked old. Then the spasm of sheer terror passed and she was herself again.

“Jess, I didn’t hear what Haskel said,” she said, sharply. “My interest in this cowboy was only in fair play. You know me.”

“Ha! I should say I do!” snarled Emery— “where cowboys are concerned....”

Bradway interrupted. “See here, Emery! Leave the woman out of this. She had absolutely nothing to do with it.... Threatening and browbeating a woman who seems to be in your power isn’t going to save you from answering to me. Emery, you slimy, yellow snake, your hand is called.... But for one thing — just one thing — I’d bore you where you stand.”

“Just one thing I suppose I’m to be grateful for?” snarled Emery sarcastically. “Could it be, by any chance — that one thing might be this frail and lovely creature who seems to have fallen for another cowboy?” In his slight gesture toward Kit Bandon he clearly intimated a contempt that matched his speech.

“No!” roared Bradway. “That one thing is to see you hanged!”

The gambler stared. His amazement overpowered all his other emotions. Hanging had not yet come as far west as South Pass. Emery tried to step back from the tall Nebraskan, but Vince pushed him forward again.

“Bradway — you must be crazy,” he declared, uneasily.

“Yeah? — Stretching hemp may seem farfetched to you, but I’ve a hunch I’m going to live to see you do it.”

“Who’s going to do it?” blustered the gambler; yet for all his effort he seemed shaken by the cowboy’s calm conviction.

“That’s one you can ask yourself,” replied Bradway, “and I’ll be glad to help you find the answer.” Wheeling abruptly Linc slipped into the shadow beyond the lighted doorway and strode swiftly away behind the crowd that had gathered. Knowing Vince would follow, he made straight for the livery stable. Headly was not in his little office, but the door was open and a rickety armchair stood on the veranda outside. Lincoln sank into it, meaning to wait a short while for Vince, then backtrack to his lodging.

It was too soon for the inevitable feeling of sickness and reaction that always followed the killing of a man. Excitement and anger still gripped him. He smoked a cigarette and sought some semblance of calmness.

“Let’s see. What came off?” he soliloquized, and reviewed the swift-moving events of that evening. “Got by lucky. Had to force the action — and it worked! These low-down hombres have been used to having their own way in making their own deals work out.... Still, I was lucky — in more ways than one. It wouldn’t have come off so well without Vince there to back me up....”

But was he any nearer a solution to his problem? It did not seem so. The plot to get rid of Emery by fair means or foul had failed so far. South Pass would be agog over this latest development. The gambler had more guts than Linc had given him credit for. And what was his sinister hold on Kit Bandon? She was unquestionably guilty also. But of what? Emery knew, but was he the only one who did? Lincoln could not kill him until he, too, knew the truth about her. The belief slowly established itself in his groping mind that both Emery and Kit Bandon were connected with Jimmy Weston’s death. She evidently was a person of fiercely changing moods. It was easy to see that she hated Emery. But she might have loved him once, might still be allied with him in carrying out his shady deals. But that she loved him no longer, he was certain. Had she not suggested that Bradway kill him? Dead men could tell no tales of past events. Evidently she would feel more secure with the gambler out of the way.

A dark form appeared coming down the street! He could not mistake that awkward horseman’s gait. Presently Vince arrived out of breath. It was too dark to see the expression on his face.

“Linc! Heah you are.... My Gawd, I had one stiff drink, but it ain’t done me no good yet,” he said huskily, and sat down, back to the wall.

“Swallow your gizzard,” advised Bradway, “and fight the thing. It never is a pleasure to kill a man. It’ll be worse the next time... . I reckon you saved my life.”

“Ha! I know damn well I did, pard, an’ I gotta think of thet.”

“I’ll never forget it. You made good the first move.... How come you bored that hombre Mike?”

“Jest as you left, I seen him sneakin’ upstairs with thet rifle. I follered him. He didn’t go in the parlor where Kit took you, but into the front room, an’ he left the door open. I couldn’t see till he opened the door out to the balcony. I watched — slipped up closer. When he raised the rifle — I — I bored him.”

“Slick work, pard. And what else?”

“You was in all the rest, ‘cept when you left Emery scared yellow. Thet hangin’ idee got him where it hurt. He turned on Kit again like a bitin’ rattlesnake. But what he said he whispered. They went upstairs. I had my drink at the bar. Pretty soon games started up again. But Emery an’ his Queen failed to show up. Pard, my hunch is he’ll kill her onless she beats him to it. An’ I’ll gamble the little lady has thet in her mind right this heah minnit.”

“She has, Vince. She wanted me to bore him.”

“Hell you say? Wal, thet’s a sticker. But mebbe it ain’t. I’m jest kinda thick-haided.”

“Vince, she’s afraid of him. Why?”

No answer came from the squatting figure beside his chair. Presently Vince went on: “When I come out some of the help was packin’ Mike in. But Haskel lay where you left him in the middle of the street. Daid, an’ shore an appallin’ sight, if I ever seen one. Not a damn man near! I reckon, though, everybody seen him.”

“Have you spotted Sealover yet?”

“No. I’ll get a line on him tomorrer. What’ll we do to thet bird?”

“It will depend on him. If he’ll talk, well and good. If not...”

“Pard, you got plenty of coin. Let’s bribe Sealover to talk, if proddin’ a cocked gun in his ribs won’t do it. These low-down geezers have been doin’ Emery’s biddin’ for a few bits. Let’s try some real money on them.”

“Another slick idea, Vince. We’ll try it. Say, pard, I hired Doc Williamson to have Weston’s body dug up and examined. I want to know what kind of a bullet killed him.”

“I’ll be damned! But, pard, you can’t look at Jimmy?”

“Yes, I could, if it’d help me to find out who shot him, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Vince, it’s been a long, long day. Let’s turn in.”

“Good. I’m dawg-tired. I’ll hit the hay heah in Headly’s barn.”

“Do you know where to find me in case you want to?”

“Yep. I marked the house. Mrs. Dill’s. I know her.... Good night, pard, an’ go the back way. From now on you an’ me must be Injuns.”

Linc felt as exhausted as if he had been in the saddle since dawn, cutting and branding calves. South Pass social life, such as it was, was still going full blast, as he stole through town by the back way. A few minutes later, barred in his little room, he stretched out in the dark, feeling he would never move again.

But despite his weariness, he could not sleep. That terrible hour had come in which he had to fight the physical and mental effects of being driven to take a human life. This time what saved him from the mood of black mental sickness was the thought of Kit Bandon. He recalled every act and look and word of hers, since first he had met her. She had made no effort to conceal her feelings for him. Even his rebuff of all her advances had not seemed to destroy her self-confidence, possibly because she was one of those strange vain creatures who had never before failed to make men mad for her. Was a woman such as Kit Bandon really capable of unselfish love for a man — say, for instance, as a girl like Lucy would be? If he did not know that a girl such as Lucy existed, would he have been able to resist the lure and passion of the Maverick Queen? In all honesty, he couldn’t be sure.

He had had very little opportunity since boyhood to learn the ways of women. He had never experienced a serious love affair with any girl, let alone with a fascinating willful, unscrupulous woman such as Kit Bandon. He could not help pitying her. As he remembered it now, her passionate kiss, calculated and demanding as it had seemed at the time, now in retrospect seemed warm and sweet. He realized that similar kisses had been given to other cowboys — to Jimmy Weston — setting their blood on fire and leading inevitably to their destruction. He had a feeling that were it not for the debt of vengeance he had come to pay and for a memory of the look of hurt in a pair of blue eyes that he, too, would have yielded to the strange enchantment of Kit Bandon.

As Linc Bradway lay there in his boxlike room he found his thoughts turning away from the Maverick Queen. He swore to himself that he would find the strength to resist her. And he thanked God that he had met Lucy Bandon — was it only that morning? So much had happened since she had waved good-by to him from her buckboard on the road to Sweetwater Valley. He recalled her lovely face, her boyish figure in the old blue jeans, her bitter outburst against her aunt who had killed her love for Jimmy Weston even before it was born, her gallant refusal to betray the secret of Sweetwater Valley.

How could he even think of the Maverick Queen when this lovely, brave, unhappy girl was waiting beyond the Pass? He realized now that he loved her, that he would save her from her unhappy situation if she would let him. He longed for the night to pass so that he could ride over the Pass to tell Lucy that he loved her, that if she would place her faith in him, he would never give her cause to regret it.

He wished desperately now that he had planned to meet Lucy tomorrow. He clung to the thought of his love for her as a drowning sailor clutches a spar; and at last when slumber came, Lucy’s sweet wistful face hovered in the shadows of his darkening consciousness.

CHAPTER V

AWAKENING LATE, BRADWAY found the same somber mood of last night settling down upon him again. “Ahuh! I reckon I was hunting for trouble. And it’s piled up on me,” he muttered, as he went out. It was noon in South Pass, the quietest hour of the twenty-four. Passing the center of town he found an eating place where he had himself a late breakfast. From there he went on to Headly’s stable. Vince had been gone for some time, the liveryman said. Lincoln holed up in the tiny office, watching the street and the queer variety of passers-by. A stage stopped for an exchange of horses.

“What’s the news over Lander way?” asked Headly, of a cattleman who had stepped out of the stage.

“Wal, with summer here some of us are drivin’ stock over into the Sweetwater range.”

“You’re all welcome. It’s boom time around South Pass these days. Plenty room, plenty grass, plenty gold.”

“Yes, an’ plenty shootin’, if all I hear is true.”

“Shootin’ frays are perkin’ up, at thet,” drawled Headly, with a touch of pride.

Some time after the stage had departed Vince limped up the street on his high heels to the livery stable, and was just asking for his partner when he espied him.

“Gosh, I didn’t run into you nowhere,” he complained. “Finally jest had to go to yore bunkhouse. Mrs. Dill said you went out about midday, black as a thundercloud.... Wal, I hoofed it some today, an’ you can ask my pore feet.”

“Vince, you’re bursting with news,” said Linc, impatiently. “Come out with it.”

“Wal, I been everywhere I could get in, an’ picked up some talk thet you can take for what it’s worth.... There’s news afoot thet ranchers in the valley air formin’ a secret band of night riders. News from Rock Springs thet cattle are up two dollars a haid. Rustlers workin’ down the valley near Red Desert. I heerd thet if Kit Bandon breaks with Emery he will get run out of South Pass. She left this mawnin’ early for her ranch. By hossback, an’ kinda in a hurry. I seen her ride off an’ she looked like a mighty troubled woman. ‘Pears she had rooms at Aldham’s — thet’s the best hotel. She has a room also at the Leave It, as you remember. Later I had a look at Emery. He was mad as a hornet. He was with a nervous dark-complected little feller who I took for Sealover. An’ I found afterward thet my hunch was correct. An’ last it ‘pears thet Emery is thought damn pore of about town. O’ course he always was, as I know, but this fracas with you an’ the dirty bizness it brought to light, has hurt him with the decent town folks, of which there are quite some few. Altogether, pard, it ain’t been a bad forty-eight hours for us.”

“Right. If I can only lay low and go slow!... But that’s almost impossible in this kind of a deal.”

“Shore. The thing for you is to get away from heah often, an’ relax from this watchin’ game. Steady work as thet will get on yore nerves.”

“Where’ll I go? I promised to meet Lucy tomorrow. I wish it was today. After that — I don’t know.... Right now, I’ve an appointment with Doc Williamson. Meet me at this first little restaurant down the street, just about dark.”

“Okay, pard. Keep yore eyes peeled. There’s some stink brewin’, but I can’t tell the turn yet.”

Lincoln cut across the slope to the street which led down from the bank, and approached Williamson’s office that way. He found the doctor in, and evidently awaiting him.

“Evening, Bradway. I see you are on time,” was his greeting.

“Have you any — any word for me?” queried Lincoln, grimly.

“Yes,” returned the doctor, a curious gleam in his eyes. “Bradway, your friend Weston was shot with a light caliber gun — a thirty-eight, and from the front.”

A little later Bradway asked the doctor to take him to see McKeever.

“This little gun I showed you belongs to him,” said Lincoln. “I had the notion that it or one similar had been used on Weston.”

“Come along,” replied Williamson. “I haven’t had time to call on McKeever today.”

They went out. The afternoon was waning, but it was still too early for lights to be burning. Williamson led Bradway upstairs in the Aldham hotel and, without the formality of knocking, pushed open the door to McKeever’s room. Linc followed. It was a corner room with two windows; McKeever, his thin face pale and drawn, sat propped up by pillows. A dark-visaged little man arose hastily as the two men entered.

“Howdy, Mac,” said Williamson, then testily to the little man: “Sealover, I told you to stay away from my patient. You upset him.”

Linc stepped from behind the portly doctor. “Ahuh. So this is Mr. Sealover. I’ve a word with you, if you don’t mind.”

“Who’re you?” demanded Sealover, warily, as if he suspected the identity of this visitor.

“You know damn well who I am.”

“Sealover, thet’s Bradway, the cowboy who shot me,” spoke up McKeever, and it was evident that interest if not pleasure attended the introduction.

“Sealover, I’ve been looking for you,” said Linc quietly.

“Well, you’ve found me,” said the little man. “And what do you want with me?”

“I want an explanation of your part in the Haskel deal.”

The beady-eyed little man had a bold front which did not deceive the Nebraskan. Here was evidently another accomplice of Emery’s who did not strike Lincoln as one to respect.

“What do you mean by the Haskel deal?”

“Don’t try to put me off. You got him over here to kill me, one way or another.”

“I did no such thing. I told Haskel there was a wild gun- toting cowboy over here who had won a pile of money. Haskel said that was just his meat.”

“But Haskel told me before he died that you came after him, and that Emery was behind it,” said Lincoln.

“Well, he lied, that’s all,” returned Sealover, pale to his thin lips.

“Men like Haskel don’t lie when they are dying, unless loyalty is involved. It seems he had no compunction about implicating you and Emery.... You’re the one who’s lying.”

“Bradway, I’m not an armed man,” protested Sealover. “A fact which you seem to take advantage of.”

“Yeah? Listen, you shifty-eyed little skunk,” said the cowboy contemptuously. “Make sure you pack a gun next time you run into me. Because I’m sure going for mine. Now get out pronto!”

Sealover, haggard and worried, hastily left the room, banging the door behind him.

“My word, Bradway, but you’re an outspoken fellow!” said Williamson, admiringly.

“Bradway, you’re no friend of mine,” spoke up McKeever, with a red spot on each of his cheeks, “but I’ve got to thank you for scaring the liver out of Sealover. I enjoyed it.”

“Humph! Then Sealover isn’t a friend of yours, either?” returned Lincoln.

“I’ve never been so hard up for friends as to need him.”

“Who is he, anyway?”

“Outside of being a four-flush gambler, that’s another question.”

“Oh, I see.... Here’s your little gun, McKeever, that you were fool enough to draw on me the other night. It’s not loaded, so don’t make the mistake a second time,” said Linc, and laid the little derringer on the table beside McKeever’s bed.

“I’m not liable to,” replied the gambler, constrainedly. “Did you expect to find Sealover here? Or what brought you?”

“No. Meeting him was just some of my luck. I brought your gun back, and I wanted to apologize.”

“To me! — For what?” asked McKeever, in amazement.

“I thought you might have killed my friend Weston with that little gun. Found out you hadn’t.”

“Weston? Oh, I see!... No, I’m glad to say I didn’t kill him.”

“Do you know who did?”

“If I did I wouldn’t tell you. But as a matter of fact I don’t.”

Bradway pondered a moment, then sat down near a window. “Doc, you attend to your patient, and then please leave me alone with him for a few minutes.”

“Well, I reckon that’ll be all right, considering,” returned the doctor. “Mac, you seem to be doing fine. Let me look you over once more.”

Bradway gazed out of the window at the street below. The sun had set. Above the town the hills were bathed in golden light and the peaks were rosy red. South Pass had ended the day’s toil, and was ready for what the night might bring. Presently Dr. Williamson appeared ready to depart, but before he left he asked Lincoln not to excite his patient. When he was gone Lincoln stood up.

“McKeever, you tried to pull a gun on me and I shot you. I’m sure you won’t try that again, because you know what another attempt would cost you. So we are quits — if you want to leave it so.”

“Thank you, Bradway, I’d prefer it to be quits.”

“Fine. Calling it quits means one less enemy for me, and it means a better chance of your dying a natural death.... Of course, I figure you belong to Emery’s outfit here, whatever it is. I’d like to ask you a few questions, in spite of that.”

“Go ahead. But you’ll be wasting your breath,” replied McKeever, apparently intrigued in spite of his resentment.

“Is there any particular reason for you to be loyal to this coyote Emery?”

“None whatever. Rather the contrary. But a gambler’s honor, you know.”

“Is there any particular reason for you to be loyal to Kit Bandon?”

“Hell no! She made a fool of me,” rejoined the gambler, not without heat. “Same as she did of Lee, and other of his cattlemen friends, as she is doing to Emery, and will probably do to you.. . . Still and all...”

He made a slight gesture with his thin white hand. His eyes were dark and unfathomable.

“You are forearming me, McKeever,” went on Lincoln. “I take it Kit Bandon likes men, likes to gamble with them and their gold — and their lives. And she is a little on the fickle side.”

“You said a heap, cowboy. I hope to enjoy seeing her face when I repeat that to her.”

“I find her an interesting woman, McKeever.... Would you — for a price — tell me a few things about her?”

“No. Not for all the gold in South Pass.”

“Why not? Are you afraid?”

“Men don’t betray Kit Bandon — and live,” returned the gambler, quietly.

“Which is equivalent to admitting there is something to betray,” said Bradway, quickly. “Thanks for letting that slip.... But does your code of honor apply equally to Emery?”

“What do you want to know?” queried McKeever, curiously.

“His relation to Kit Bandon?”

“Ask her.... She’s the only person who can tell what her relations are to anybody.”

“I see. The observer might be all wrong.... But — do you know that Emery did not shoot Weston?”

“No!”

“Weston was shot by someone else!” flashed Lincoln.

“I can’t say. All I know is that Weston was shot by somebody for cheating at cards.”

“Somebody! I’m looking for that somebody.... That somebody hauled Weston to South Pass in a wagon — dead!”

It was a random shot, inspired by Bradway’s suspicion that his friend might not have been killed in the Leave It. McKeever’s astonishment was clear evidence that he knew Weston had not been murdered there.

“Who told you that?”

“That’s my business.... McKeever, I see you know more than you care to divulge. I hold it against you.”

“If you know so damn much why do you pester me with questions?”

“I’m determined to get to the bottom of this murder. The safest thing for you to do is come clean with what you know.”

“Bradway, I swear to God I don’t know who killed Weston — or how it was done,” protested McKeever, weakly, and it was obvious that he was telling the truth.

“All right. I believe you that far,” concluded Bradway. “But you know something which would give me a clue.”

“Hell, man, what do you take me for? Suppose I do? I’m not beholden to you.”

“No, but you’re beholden to your life! Think that over, before I find some excuse to draw on you again.”

Lincoln rose and left the room without bothering to say good- by. The corridor outside was quite dark. He felt his way to the stairway, his gun out, peering into all corners as he crept cautiously down the bare wooden stairs. Reaching the street without incident, he crossed to the other side, making his way toward the rendezvous with Vince. It was early and the restaurant was empty. While Linc waited outside in the shadow for Vince he thought over the events of the afternoon. His visit to McKeever had been vastly worthwhile, could deduce from this encounter was further substantiation of Kit Bandon’s power to hold the loyalty of men. In view of her acknowledged treatment of them, this loyalty seemed extraordinary. Emery was the only one who had hinted at her double dealing, yet even he had withheld something that might have discredited her. A threat was one thing; but betrayal another. Kit Bandon cast an incredible spell over men; nevertheless Linc felt certain that someone of them would, sooner or later, betray whatever there was to reveal concerning her strange actions.

Vince came along to find Linc still turning matters over in his mind. “Kinda ponderin’ myself, pard,” he said soberly, after a look of understanding at his friend. “Let’s go feed. Mebbe thet’ll help.”

“Lordy! I clean forgot I was hungry,” laughed Lincoln. They repaired to the little restaurant up the street, ordered their supper and finished it almost in silence. Fifteen minutes later they were outside again.

“What’s yores, pard?” queried Vince, gruffly.

“My what?”

“Wal, I’m no mind reader. But you shore seem to have aplenty to think about.”

“Ha! — Let’s mosey out of this parade.... A man can’t think and watch a hundred gun hands at the same time.”

A cold night wind whipped down from the mountains; the roar of the brook vied with the hum of the town; the throng thinned as they climbed to the outskirts.

As they left the town behind, Linc told Vince of Doc Williamson’s disclosure.

Vince grunted, “By gun!... Pard, I reckon thet jest about settles it!”

“Then I went with Doc to see McKeever,” continued Bradway, “and he told of the meeting with Sealover, and the subsequent talk with the gambler.”

“Wal, it’s one step more, but a step in the dark. This shore is the underhandedest deal I was ever in.... Pard, I picked up a speck of information while you were havin’ yore seance with Sealover.”

“Yeah? — Every little bit helps.”

“I run into Bill Haynes,” continued Vince, after taking a slow deep breath. “Bill is a big hombre, broad as a wagon end. Red- faced an’ one-eyed. You’ll know him when you see him. He hit it rich up at the diggin’s, an’ then bought cattle. His ranch is about twelve miles down this creek. I did Bill a good turn once an’ he’s a friend of mine. Wal, he gave me what he said was good advice to rustle out of this neck of the woods.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. But I reckon there’s something afoot thet’d make it healthier for me to leave.”

“Vince, have you made any enemies among the cattlemen?”

“Ahuh.”

“You been cutting your eyeteeth as a rustler?”

“How’d you guess it, pard?” queried Vince, bitterly.

“What’s more, you have been stealing mavericks,” accused Linc.

Vince did not reply.

“I had that figured pretty pronto.... Could you pay for those mavericks and square yourself?”

“Lord no, not even if I wanted to! An’ I’d go to hell first.”

“Can they prove you rustled mavericks?”

“Ketched me red-handed, thet is, one rancher did.”

“That’s bad. In fact, it’s mighty serious. Why did he let you off?”

“Wal, out heah in Wyomin’ the cattlemen haven’t come to hangin’ rustlers yet. But they’re comin’ to it pronto.”

“Perhaps you’d better show this range your dust.”

“Nope. I’m standin’ by you, pard. Besides, I’m good an’ sore.”

“At whom?”

“Wal, I’ll let you figger thet out yoreself, seein’ how smart you are.... Bill give me some other news thet I reckon he went out of his way to tell. Lee fired his foreman Thatcher. You met Thatcher.... Bill didn’t make anythin’ much of this. Mebbe he reckoned I’d see through it. An’ you bet I did. It shore hints of a hell of a mess thet’s brewin’ round South Pass.”

“Thatcher? — Fine type of cowboy, I thought,” declared Lincoln.

“They don’t come any better. Lee knows thet.”

“Could it be that Thatcher side-stepped a little over some mavericks?”

“Hell! It could be, only it ain’t. Lee fired Thatcher for refusin’ to belong to thet secret rider outfit he’s organizin’.”

“Are you sure of that?” cut in Bradway, snapping his fingers.

“I could swear to it. An’ it proves jest what I was thinkin’, pard. Lee jest cain’t raise no band of night-ridin’ cowboys on this range.”

“Lee struck me as a strong and resourceful cattleman. He’s a Texan. I’ll bet he does raise that vigilante bunch.”

“Umpumm, pard. Anywhere else in Wyomin’ mebbe, but shore not heah.”

“Vince, do you realize what a — a strange — what a hell of a statement that is?” demanded Linc.

“It’s a hell of a country, pard,” returned his comrade, evasively. “But neither it nor anyone in it can fool you very long.... Tomorrer you’re gonna see Lucy. Wal, thet’s fine. Give her my love. An’ make hay while the sun shines! I’ll set tight an’ have more to tell you when you come back. Be orful careful, pard. Good night.”

They parted, each going in a different direction. The June night was cold, and Linc almost wished he had brought his sheepskin-lined jacket. He reached his lodging room unobserved.

“This mess grows stickier and stickier,” he muttered as he undressed. “But it’ll be coming to a boil pronto, if I figure things right.... So Vince was a maverick rustler? Caught but not punished, except to go jobless in the future on this range. Queer as hell! But why should they be so hard on Vince? Every cowboy who ever forked a horse has stolen a calf or two.... By thunder! I’ve got it — or I’m close to it. Vince sold his stolen mavericks to Kit Bandon... and so have other cowboys!”

Linc was only thinking in the dark. But it made sense. Cowboys were a canny lot. They would stick together, and some who were not guilty would protect those who were. Thatcher cautioning Smeade that night was an example. Smeade, of course, had been doing the same as Vince.

“Only a two-bit rustling at that,” muttered Bradway, as he crawled wearily into bed. “Only flea bites to cattlemen like these, running stock in the thousands.... But if all the cowboys on the range took to maverick stealing — Lordy, that would be something!... Still, couldn’t that beautiful woman work a hundred cowboys as easily as a few?”

The Nebraskan resolved to go down into the valley in order to find out. It meant riding and keeping out at night, camping in secluded spots, scout work with which he had plenty of experience.

“But if this cowboy-maverick angle is what I figure it, could that be what’s behind Lee’s organization of vigilantes?” After a moment he answered his own question: “Hell no! Cattlemen would be crazy to organize a secret band of cowboys to spy on other cowboys. It’d mean a war.... No, that’s something else. More cattle stealing has been going on than has been admitted or more is expected. Lee wants to clean up something pronto. I should think he’d get the other ranchers in with him. Still, he’s a Texan.... Tomorrow I’ll ask Lucy.... Maybe she has heard about it.”

Thoughts of Lucy and their rendezvous tomorrow drove everything else out of the cowboy’s mind. As he lay there in the dark, he determined not to waste any time in courting Lucy. He would sweep her off her feet. The very suddenness of it might be in his favor. Lucy had indicated that she liked him; by her own confession she had made a hero of him. Well and good, he would not only let her continue to believe that, but he would try to do something to warrant it. He found himself dreading another meeting with Kit Bandon as keenly as he longed for the next opportunity to be with Lucy. Lincoln did not doubt his honesty as a man or his quickly-born love for this lonely girl who had been loved by his best friend. What he doubted was the power to continue to be steel and flint to this seductive Bandon woman if she flung herself at him again. What if Kit Bandon actually had fallen in love with him! It was possible, and might actually be true because he was one cowboy who — apparently — had not been overwhelmed by her beauty and charm. As he drifted off to sleep it was with the realization that it would be very foolish to take Kit Bandon’s outspoken flattery to heart. And it was with the determination that hereafter he would keep Kit Bandon at a distance.

Early next morning Lincoln bolted a hurried but hearty breakfast, then went over to the merchandise store, where he purchased saddlebags, a rubber-lined blanket, and a small stock of supplies. Any night now he might be kept out in the open, and he wanted to be prepared. At the livery stable he found his saddle, bridle, and a bag of grain, thoughtfully placed within easy reach by Vince. He led Bay from the stall and fed him. After saddling, he adjusted the saddlebags and packed them. It was still early morning when Bay and his rider took the trail west out of South Pass.

The sun rose behind him as he topped the gray rise of land. Once out of sight of town the silence and austerity of the vast open sage country enveloped him. A band of antelope stood with twitching ears to watch him pass. He descried deer down in the brushy draws; coyotes skulked through the sage, and jack rabbits darted across the trail. The sunrise-flushed peaks of the Wind River Range rose, grandly aloof in their beauty and isolation. It was a glorious June morning. And it was good to be on the trail again.

In due course he arrived at the rocky point with its fringe of dwarf pines where he was to meet Lucy. As he paused a hawk sailed above in the clear blue sky peering down for its prey. Dismounting behind the cover of the trees, he tethered Bay and set about collecting wood for his signal fire. He kindled it a few feet from the rim, throwing on several armfuls of green brush to make a smoke. Then he went to the spot where Lucy had shown him the valley of the Sweetwater.

Weeks, even months, might have passed since he had been here with Lucy. In tense action, in ceaseless vigilance, in stern thought, and in the resistless emotion of love that grew with leaps and bounds it seemed to Linc that he had lived that much time.

“Lordy! I never felt this way before,” mused the Nebraskan, falling into his old habit of talking to himself. “Trying to dodge Kit’s advances and to court Lucy’s love would just about make a man balmy if it wasn’t that I’ve got the fight of my life on my hands.”

Fight indeed, for his own life, for his friend’s good name, for love that called with all the tenderness and insistence and fire-filmed enchantment of this valley. The surroundings seemed as boundless as his emotions. In the clear air of early morning, the mountains, range upon range, to the farthest snowy peak stood out sharp in the distance. The rose-tinted peaks two hundred miles away seemed to loom just beyond the valley rampart; the carpet of sage seemed to stretch on endlessly. The wavering line of the river bed and the dots that were ranch houses accentuated the valley’s vastness. No veil of purple haze obscured the cowboy’s sight at this early hour. He wished that the future might be spread as clearly before his gaze as that valley in the clear morning light.

Several times he replenished the fire. Column after column of gray smoke he sent aloft in the signal agreed upon with Lucy. He wondered whether the girl had seen his signal fire from her aunt’s ranch house below. Was she having trouble in getting away? Had Kit Bandon unexpectedly come home?

As midmorning arrived he became aware of activity down below. His range eyes caught the telltale clouds of dust, the movement of countless black objects that meant that a roundup of cattle was in progress on the ranch belonging to Kit Bandon. There were herds of cattle on other ranches, as far as the eye could see. Linc wished he had brought his field glasses. He would like to have a closer view of the Bandon ranch.

Time passed. The noon-day hour was at hand. The sun stood straight overhead. Lincoln paced to and fro, growing definitely worried over the girl’s delay. What could have detained Lucy? She had said positively that nothing could keep her from seeing him. Apparently something had, and he felt the beautiful spell that had been building up in his inner consciousness begin to fade away. Suddenly Lincoln knew that she was not coming. His first reaction was one of bitter disappointment. Then he began to wonder whether Lucy really ever had intended to come. He remembered the scene on the sidewalk in South Pass. But he remembered, too, the honesty in her level gaze, the genuineness of her emotions when he had told her he must see her again. No, little as he knew of women, he would stake his life on that blue- eyed girl. Her failure to keep her tryst with him was not just a young girl’s whimsy. There was something sinister behind her absence. Perhaps her aunt had found out. Perhaps it all had to do with the mystery of her strange tangled loyalties which had sealed her lips when she had so obviously wanted to confide in him. He shook his head hopelessly. Again he was up against that same blank wall that had confronted him ever since he had come to Wyoming.

Lincoln extinguished the fire, and mounting Bay turned back toward the road. Soon he was descending the bluff, around long zigzags and winding turns. He found, presently, that from the base of the bluff, the road led in a gradual descent out into the gray sage. Its tangy fragrance filled his nostrils, and the seemingly endless expanse of the gray-green floor of the valley stirred his senses. But Lincoln bore a troubled mind. His perplexity and anxiety grew as Bay’s gentle pace covered distance and brought the belt of golden-green willows closer and closer. Cattle began to appear in increasing numbers on each side of the road, but none close enough for him to distinguish their brands. He rode on, conscious of an unaccountable foreboding pervading his heart. Had Kit Bandon bragged to Lucy of her conquest of Lincoln in South Pass? Once she had discovered his friendship with Lucy she would fight it with all the tremendous force and unscrupulous cunning of her dual nature. Lucy had experienced a cowboy’s faithlessness with Jim Weston. It would not take too much persuasion on the part of Kit to make the girl believe that he, Jim’s partner, was just another opportunist! But he would find a way to prove his love, no matter how completely Kit had prevailed upon the girl.

Nearing the willows and the river he decided to leave the road, and not go directly to the Bandon ranch until he had formed some definite plan of procedure. To this end he took a trail leading off to the left which approached the willows at an angle. Presently the trail leading toward the willow-bordered Sweetwater showed the tracks where antelopes had crossed it on their way to water. The presence of game in such profusion reminded Lincoln that he had not brought a rifle, almost a necessity if he expected to travel about the range, camping at night. Rabbits and other small furry animals fled before him. The river was evidently still some distance ahead. Many of the ancient willows were as large as cottonwoods. Following the well-worn trail, which wound in and out among the trees, the cowboy presently smelled smoke. Halting Bay, Lincoln slid out of the saddle and led the horse by the reins. It was soft loam and the shod hoofs gave forth no sound. Lincoln heard the gurgle of swift water some distance ahead of him. The smell of smoke grew stronger. There was a camp, or at least a smoldering fire, not far away. The trees thinned out and suddenly Lincoln found himself in a clearing that bordered a swift-running, amber-colored stream. Beyond shone the bright gray sage, but close to the stream the cowboy could see tarpaulin stretched on poles, some camp duffle and a burned-out fire with skillet and coffeepot upon it.

Suddenly Bay’s long ears shot up. Lincoln’s restraining hand prevented him from snorting. Then a rustle in a treetop to the right of him drew Lincoln’s swift gaze. High up in a giant lone willow he espied a man with a leveled telescope pointed toward the sage in the direction of the Bandon ranch. Stepping aside from his horse Lincoln drew his gun and called out: “Hey you! up in the tree! — What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

CHAPTER VI

THE MAN HANDLING the spyglass was so startled by Lincoln’s terse call that he all but lost his balance and fell out of the tree. He stared. He saw the gun. His jaw sagged and his eyes popped.

“Well, pile down out of there in a hurry! I might take you for a squirrel,” ordered Lincoln, truculently. “I don’t hold with spying on folks!”

The man came scrambling and sliding down the rough tree trunk, at the expense of his worn garments. Once upon the ground he appeared to be a squat middle-aged individual, mild of eye and homely of face. He approached Lincoln with hesitation, but after a moment with more confidence.

“Ain’t you that cowboy, Bradway?” he queried.

“Never mind who I am. The thing is who are you?”

“My name’s Bloom Burton. I have part interest in Jim Hargrove’s cattle.”

“Hargrove? Where’s his ranch?”

“Twenty miles, I reckon, below Lee’s.”

“And where’s Lee’s?”

“His range joins Kit Bandon’s, about ten miles down the river.”

“How’d you come to take me for Bradway?”

“Wal, I’ve heerd about the look of you.”

“And why aren’t you so scared as you were, when you first saw me?”

“Hargrove told us you was one cowboy who’d be on our side.”

“Our side! Who’s your side?”

“Wal, we’re the cattlemen of Sweetwater Valley.”

“Ahuh. I begin to savvy. What were you doing up in that tree?”

“Did I look like I was pickin’ flowers?” retorted Burton, coolly.

“You looked like a spy.”

“I reckon thet’s what I was.”

“On your own account? Or under orders?”

“Wal, I reckon I’d better say my own.”

“Suppose I walk you over to Kit Bandon’s and tell her what I caught you doing?” demanded Lincoln.

“My Gawd — don’t do thet, Bradway!... She’s packin’ a gun and she can throw it. She’d kill me as quick as you could say ‘maverick.’?”

“All the same, Burton, I think that’s what I’ll do.”

“You got the advantage, Bradway.... I’m shore damn disappointed. I reckon Lee was right about you bein’ taken with Kit Bandon. An’ Hargrove was wrong.”

“What did Hargrove think that was wrong?”

“He saw you meet Gun Haskel, an’ then call Emery to his face, an’ most damn plain, Hargrove swears, you turned yore back on thet woman, an’ he took from thet you are one cowboy she won’t bamboozle.”

“Hargrove is right. I’m no friend of Kit Bandon’s. And I’m dead set against Emery’s outfit. All the same, it’s to my interest to turn you over to Bandon.”

“Yore interest! — How? I cain’t see how gettin’ me shot will benefit you.”

“All right. If you’ll consent to do some talking I won’t give you away.”

“Talk? Say, I’ve already shot my mouth plenty — thet is, about myself an’ my pardners.”

“What I want you to tell me is all you know about Jimmy Weston’s death.”

“An’ thet’s all?”

“Yes. You don’t need to tell me why you were up in that willow spying upon Kit Bandon’s roundup. You were taking a count of cattle — probably calves and yearlings that were mavericks a little while back.... But you spill all you know about Weston’s death right now and quick — or I’ll walk you over to the Maverick Queen’s.”

“I honestly don’t know much, Bradway,” returned the cattleman, plainly disturbed and turning pale.

“Wasn’t he murdered?”

“We ranchers reckon he was.”

“Ranchers! — What do the cowboys think?”

“Nobody knows. They are close-mouthed as hell about thet.”

“Weston was killed out here on the range?” ventured Lincoln.

“Yes. He was drove to South Pass in the daid of night.”

“From where?”

“Out heah in the valley someplace. A cowboy named Hank Miller was teamster for Hirsh, my neighbor down the valley. He hadn’t been long heah. But he drove Hirsh’s wagon to town thet night — an’ nobody never seen him again. The wagon was left in town, an’ Weston’s Stetson was found in it. Course thet doesn’t prove Weston was murdered, or drove from the valley into town, or shot in a card game at Emery’s late thet night. But the wagon part in it, an’ Miller’s disappearance, looked queer to us out heah.”

“Hank Miller? — Did you ever see him? Describe him.”

“Strappin’ cowboy. Young. Nice face an’ sleepy eyes. He was seen in Rock Springs two days ago by Jeff Slocum, driver of the eastbound stage. Thet news I got today — from a visitor I had. . .. An’ thet’s all I know positive about the Weston case.”

“Thanks — Burton,” returned Lincoln, almost gently. “It’s a good deal.”

“You was Weston’s pard, I heah?”

“Yes, his best friend. And I let him run away out here to be murdered!”

“Jim was a great rider an’ a likable boy. He rode for me once.”

“Did you — let him go?”

“No. He quit. He wanted to be near Bandon’s ranch.”

“Why?”

“Wal, he was sweet on Lucy, first off — an’ then he went the way of most cowboys on this range.”

“Kit Bandon’s way, you mean?”

But the squat man turned away to his smoldering campfire, without replying.

“How long will you stay here?” asked Lincoln.

“Reckon I’ll leave soon as thet roundup is over. Pretty pronto.”

Burton’s information, uncertain as it was, had rekindled Bradway’s smoldering flame of vengeance. He swore he would see this thing through unless he found that by persisting in his search he would lose Lucy. She had been right — to kill Weston’s murderers, even to clear his name, would not bring their friend back. Nevertheless, it would take a great deal to turn him aside from the task he had sworn to fulfill.

“Burton, tell your partner Hargrove, that I’ll be calling on him before long,” said Lincoln, as he kicked the stirrup around so that he could step up in it. He mounted. Burton was gazing up at him, evidently withholding speech with difficulty. There was a glint in his eye.

“Shore. I’ll tell him. But I reckon my meetin’ you heah won’t please him none. I was to hide my movements.”

“Well, on second thought, then, don’t tell him I caught you in the act. That won’t do any good. I can drop in to see him without sending word.”

“Thanks, Bradway. Thet suits me plumb better,” rejoined the other, considerably relieved. “But I won’t be expectin’ you so positive.”

“Yeah? I said I’d come, didn’t I?”

“Shore. You said so. But judgin’ by thet spark in yore eye I’d say you was huntin’ trouble. An’ you’ll get it over there, mebbe.”

“Where?”

“At thet roundup.”

“Thanks for tipping me off. Do you know any of the outfit I’ll run into?”

“Not a damn one. But them riders jest don’t belong to this Sweetwater range.”

“Ahuh. Outsiders. Well, in that case I won’t be so sensitive about stepping on their toes,” drawled Lincoln.

“Bradway, you’re a cool ‘un!” declared the little cattleman. “Naturally I distrust your bizness out heah. You cain’t be offended at thet. But doggone it, I like you, an’ I’m goin’ to tell the members of our — er, my neighbors so.”

“That’ll be fine. But wait a while.”

“Shore, I’ll do thet.... Are you ridin’ right into Bandon an’ her outfit?”

“Yes. I’m powerful interested in what’s going on over there.”

“Man, I cain’t help but think you’re...”

“I’m what?” interrupted Lincoln, tersely, as the other hesitated.

“Wal, ya don’t seem to be a feller thet it’d be safe to tell yore mind to.”

“I savvy, Burton. You figure I’m like all the other cowboys — loco about this Bandon woman?”

“Wal, that’s gone over the range — an’ it wouldn’t be no surprise to nobody.”

“I see, and your personal angle is that you’re damn sorry?” queried Lincoln, with a grin.

“Eggsactly,” replied Burton, also with a grin.

“How do you feel in regard to the destroying angel in question?”

“Wal, the fact is I never knowed what to think,” returned Burton, seriously. “I’ve seen Kit Bandon a lot of times — talked to her a few. When I was close to her I jest couldn’t think at all! — But then I’m a lonely man. I never had no woman. An’ I reckon in Gawd’s sight thet ain’t natural or good. So any woman affects me queer. I jest ain’t no jedge of woman. But as for Kit — wal, it’s my notion thet you called her proper. She’s a destroyin’ angel.”

“So long, Burton,” concluded Lincoln, soberly, after a long look at the earnest little man. “Hope to see you soon. And if you’re friendly, don’t worry about me.”

“Well, I’m friendly, Bradway. I cain’t help it. Hell, I oughta know men an’ cowboys an’ horses, even if I don’t know women. Else I’ve lived twenty years on the range for nothin’.... So long. Good luck.” He let Lincoln turn away to leave the clearing, then called after him: “Them riders are bad medicine if you rile them. But they’re Mormons an’ chances are they’ll be straight.”

Lincoln might not have heard this strange and parting sally, for all the response he made. Nevertheless, it surprised and startled him. Mormon riders were something absolutely new to him. After a moment’s thought, however, he believed he would have less to fear from them than from the valley cowboys who were involved in more or less degree with the mysterious doings of this Maverick Queen.

The ride back through the willow brake to the sage seemed very short, owing to his preoccupation of mind. But once on the road he began to realize that he was nearing the home of Lucy, and what was even more disturbing, the presence of Kit Bandon. What if he were to meet them together? How he would conduct himself in such event he had no idea.

He saw the lane where the road bisected the willow brake, at that point not nearly so wide. And at last he came to the river and the ford. The amber water ran clear and shallow over a gravel bottom. Bay could not pass through it without drinking. Presently Lincoln surmounted the high bank to find he was close to a long white log cabin that stood out in the open. The mental picture he had of Kit Bandon’s home, given him by Lucy, did not fit this pretty and picturesque place. Boldly Lincoln rode into the grassy yard, and dismounting, he knocked on the door with his heart in his throat. But there was no response. He repeated the knock, louder. But if there were anyone in the house, there was no evidence of it. No doubt Kit and her niece would be out with the roundup. That would be better, Lincoln thought. Nevertheless, to face both of them, even before a bunch of curious cowboys, would be an ordeal Lincoln had to steel himself to undertake.

Mounting Bay he rode out to where he could see the clouds of dust marking the roundup. He located them beyond some corrals and sheds back of the house. Kit Bandon’s home appeared to be more of a farm than a ranch: chickens overran the yard, which reminded Lincoln of the Missouri farmland of his boyhood. Fenced pasture ran all the way back to the river bank, within which some fine horses grazed. He sighted, too, some cows and calves far down near the willows. The barn was a substantial structure, constructed to provide for severe winters and to shelter at least a score of horses. Beyond that a long shed extended, open in the front, but with a long manger running along the sheltered side, evidently intended to house cattle in cold weather. Linc examined everything with keen interest as he rode past to turn into the sage.

The dust cloud hung over a roll in the sageland a mile or more from the corrals. Lincoln espied stray cattle all over the range, but did not catch sight of the main herd until he reached the ridge top. He was somewhat surprised to see perhaps two thousand head. As he approached, his sharp eye detected four riders. They were circling the herd, cutting a large bunch of yearlings and calves out to one side. The cattle seemed rather tame. Many cows and a few steers, all full grown, bore the brand K I T and as the roundup showed no indication of branding work he supposed the younger cattle had also been similarly marked. He was sighted by one of the riders the moment he topped the ridge.

By the time he was within five hundred yards, all the riders were together, three of them dismounted. Lincoln felt it might prove ticklish business, this bold approach. But there was no help for it, and he knew that boldness was the only logical attitude he dared show. After sighting several hundred yearlings in a single bunch, he concentrated his attention upon the riders.

Lincoln hardly expected to be held up, although the fact that neither Kit Bandon nor her niece was in sight made the situation rather uncomfortable, especially if these riders were the kind to resent intrusion. They all packed guns; that he could see even at this distance. He caught the glint of a rifle on one saddle. They were lean, rangy, ragged riders like almost any other cowboys, but at closer view he saw that they were young and wore short, fuzzy beards. They had still, intent eyes, hard to look into under their worn sombreros.

Leisurely riding up to them, the Nebraskan reined in Bay and slipped out of his saddle. He did not want to risk gunplay mounted on a strange horse.

“Howdy,” he drawled, dropping his bridle and stepping clear of Bay. Then he felt comparatively easy.

“Howdy yourself,” replied the nearest cowpoke, gruffly.

In build and feature they appeared to be brothers. Their attitude was one of intense curiosity, but little if any friendliness.

“Miss Bandon offered me a job,” said Linc, blandly. “I rode out to see whether I’d like it or not. But if she was home she didn’t answer my knock.”

“Which Miss Bandon?” queried the spokesman of the quartet.

“Is there more than one? It was Miss Kit Bandon.”

“She’s gone to Rock Springs with her niece, Lucy.”

At this information Lincoln’s heart skipped a few beats, and a strange feeling of relief flooded over him. This would account for Lucy’s failure to meet him.

“When did they go?” he asked, in apparent disappointment.

“They left on the morning stage.”

“And when will they get back?”

“Not very soon. It’ll take us several days to drive to Rock Springs.”

“Ahuh. Cutting out a big bunch, I see. All yearlings and calves. Nearly five hundred head, if I know my cowboy business.”

“There will be six hundred, if it’s any of your business,” returned the rider, curtly.

“Well, it’s a hell of a lot of my business, if you want to know,” flashed Lincoln, suddenly changing his approach. “Where did Kit Bandon get so many calves?”

To this blunt query the rider answered readily. “That’s not our worry. We’re hired to drive them to the railroad.”

“You’re all Mormons, I understand.”

Their silence manifestly affirmed that assertion. Presently the Nebraskan spoke again: “Even if you are Mormons you’ve no call to act so suspicious of a Gentile.”

“Aren’t you the gunman Bradway?”

“Yes, I’m Bradway, but packing a gun and shooting up some low- down hombres doesn’t make me a gunman.”

“We don’t make friends over here, even with cowboys,” returned the spokesman, shortly.

“That’s not hard to see. Is it because you are just naturally hostile — or are you taking orders from Kit Bandon?”

That query seemed a shrewd guess, and though it was answered briefly in the negative, Linc could see that falsehood was distasteful to this Mormon. He concluded that if there were anything shady in this deal the fault was the woman’s responsibility.

“What’s your name?” asked Lincoln.

“Luke Mathews.”

“Well, Luke, you probably think me a low-down meddling cowhand. But if I look that way to you, you’re mistaken. My best friend, Jim Weston, was murdered out here, and I’m on the trail of the hombre who did it. I’d be right friendly with you if you’d let me. I liked your looks as soon as I saw you. I don’t know what sort of a deal you cowpokes are in with the Bandon woman. But you’re probably willing to take the risk.”

“How so? It’s legitimate work. We get paid and ask no questions.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you to ask yourself where these calves and yearlings come from?”

“Yes, we’ve been curious, but it’s none of our business.”

“They were all mavericks and you burned that brand on them.”

“No, we didn’t. And we had no idea they were mavericks,” declared Mathews, positively.

“Ahuh. Well, I’ll be damned. I’m not so smart as I thought I was.. . . Somebody branded those calves and it’s got the appearance of hurried bungling work, as you can see.... Luke, I’ll ask one more question. Have you ever heard them call Kit Bandon the Maverick Queen on this range?”

“No. We never heard that.”

“Well, that would seem to let you out. But take a hunch from a Nebraska cowman who knows tricks of the range you Mormons never heard of. Make this your last drive!”

With these words of advice Linc stepped astride his horse and turned back toward the ranch. A glance over his shoulder showed Mathews standing in profound thought, and the other riders still motionless and staring after the Nebraskan.

“If they tell Kit Bandon, she’ll scalp me alive. But hell! What else could I do? I have to find out whether they were in this thing with the Maverick Queen.” And he fell again into his old habit of self-examination. What would be the legal status of the case if Kit Bandon were really inducing cowboys to steal mavericks from the ranchers and selling them to her? There could not be any legal status on a new range where there was no law. It was a question that undoubtedly was keeping the ranchers awake at night, now that they had begun to suspect what was going on. Linc was convinced they did suspect it and that it was the reason behind Burton’s actions and Lee’s offer of a job leading the vigilantes. On a vast new range where hundreds of thousands of cattle were grazing, and more arriving every day, where more and more cowboys into whose past history the ranchers had no time to inquire, were an absolute necessity, it seemed to the Nebraskan that the black-eyed Maverick Queen had selected a profitable deal. She could claim that she did not know nor care where the mavericks came from. What a unique and clever and almost foolproof way to amass a herd of cattle! People could suspect, but proof was difficult to obtain. Then there was the personal element. Kit Bandon would have had the best of the cattlemen even if she had been a homely unattractive woman, but beautiful as she was, to whom conquest was a passion, she could keep them all at her heels. You don’t question too closely the motives and acts of the woman you want to marry! Yet Linc knew, through his experience with Texans like Lee, that if Kit Bandon kept on riding this range in her ruthless and unscrupulous fashion, if she continued to break the hearts of cowboys upon whom she depended for the building up of her herd, and to ride roughshod over the desires of matured and lonely cattlemen, in the end she must come to grief. But she was as cunning as she was bold. There was a possibility that before things went too far she would marry one of them, or a cowboy, and leave the range with her fortune, or settle down to honest cattle raising.

Reaching the corrals, the Nebraskan deliberately rode around inspecting them. Presently, down a lane between two fences of peeled poles, and hidden behind the long shed, he found what his inquisitive, suspicious mind had hoped to find. A smaller corral had been built against the back of the shed. It was empty, so far as livestock was concerned. In a corner he found a neatly stacked pile of wood, carefully split into small pieces. With such wood a cowboy could kindle a hot fire in a few minutes! Under the eaves of the shed was a shelf upon which lay branding tools. Lincoln’s restless eye espied the remains of little fires scattered all over the ground in the little corral. He dismounted to examine the heaps of ashes. One of them had been built within the last forty-eight hours. Another was scarcely four days old. Many calves had been branded in this hidden corral, and probably all of them at night by the light of the little fires.

Here again, however, was nothing that constituted damning evidence against Kit Bandon. Many ranchers branded calves in corrals instead of on the open range. Yet in Linc’s mind’s eye he envisioned a cowboy riding into that corral in the dead of night, dragging or packing a maverick, quickly building a little fire and hurriedly heating an iron to burn a brand.

“But why the hurry?” pondered Lincoln. He knew cowboys. Many of the bold and callous type would do that work leisurely and effectively, smoking a cigarette during the process, perhaps with a sardonic grin on his lips. “Those brands I saw out there were botched. All done in a hurry!... Scared of being caught? Hell no!” Lincoln planned to spend a night or two hiding in the shed, watching until he caught one of these cowboys red-handed. There was a chance it might mean gunplay, but he had to know.

Having learned everything it was possible to discover for the time being, Linc headed Bay back on the road toward South Pass. The afternoon was far gone, with sunset not an hour away. The air already was getting cool. Snow clouds hung over the peaks and their dark veils streamed down to the foothills. The loneliness of the waste of gray sage fitted in with the mood of the cowboy as he started back to South Pass.

“Well, horse, let’s see what you’ve got,” he said to Bay. It developed, presently, that Bay owned a long, easy, swinging lope like that of an Indian mustang. It was a fine gait and a ground- gainer.

Lincoln’s thoughts revolved around his plan to take the stage next day for Rock Springs and find Lucy Bandon if he could not locate the man whom Burton had called Hank Miller. He scarcely noted the passing of time. At sunset he reached the bluff, and looked up to see the rim rock where he had stood with Lucy. He let Bay choose his own gait up the zigzag road. The deep-chested horse seemed tireless and never once halted of his own accord. Once on top Lincoln rested him while he turned to watch the sunset, a marvelous pageant of painted clouds in long stripes and streamers, red, yellow and mauve. Soon he rode on again deep in thought, pondering how he could achieve a meeting with Lucy Bandon, in spite of her aunt.

Soon after dark Lincoln arrived at Headly’s livery stable, where he turned over his horse and inquired for Vince. That worthy had not been in evidence all day according to Bill. Lincoln hoped to find his partner at the Chinese restaurant, but again was disappointed. He began to feel a bit anxious. He had his supper and went outside to wait. But Vince did not show up. Finally Linc went to his lodging and to bed, worn out more from worry about Lucy and now Vince than from the day’s activity.

In the morning he was up early. He gave unusual attention to his appearance, as he did not want to meet Lucy Bandon without looking his best. He had never found it so hard to choose a scarf. He decided to wear a coat with large pockets in which he deposited articles indispensable to himself on this particular trip. Vince failed to show up again either at the restaurant or the stable. Lincoln left a message with Bill to the effect that if he did not return from Rock Springs within a week Vince was to follow and hunt him up.

When the westbound stage rolled out of South Pass Lincoln was on the seat with the driver, an ex-teamster named Slocum. He was the kind of westerner that Lincoln regarded as the salt of the earth. Raw-boned, rugged of build, with a leathery visage and eyes like slits of gray fire, he showed his years of hard contacts with the frontier. There were eight passengers inside the coach, and a full complement of baggage and express. Before starting, Slocum had been loquacious with his passengers, especially two young women from the East. While waiting at the hotel he had given Bradway an appraising glance, and later, after someone no doubt had acquainted him with the cowboy’s status there, he deliberately looked the Nebraskan over to make his own estimate. Linc knew he would not have to open a conversation. But they had surmounted the long grade out of South Pass and were bowling along through the sage before Slocum spoke.

“Bradway, whar you hail from — Deadwood or Abiline?” he drawled.

“Nebraska. I was born in Missouri. But I know both those towns,” returned Lincoln, in an agreeable tone.

“Wal, you have the look of them range-ridin’ fire-eaters I’m thinkin’ of. Boy, you’re out of your latitude hyar.”

“How so?”

“Ain’t it kinda slow fer you?”

“I haven’t noticed it.”

“From Missoury, eh? So’m I. I was born in Westfork before they called it Kansas City. Never was a cowboy, but I been everythin’ else. Scout, soldier, pony-express rider, teamster. Seen a sight of western life, in my time.”

“Which is telling me you know western men,” rejoined Lincoln.

“Wal, I ought to. The Dakotas, Montana, Wyomin’ are open books to me, knowed all the desperados. Been friends with Wild Bill and Calamity Jane, an’ all the gunmen of their day.... Anythin’ you want to know about Wyomin’, son?”

“What makes you think I might want to know something?” inquired Bradway.

“Wal, you rode with me on this stage from Lander. You had thet look. An’ I’ve heerd what you done to them fourflushers in South Pass.... Son, you’re lookin’ for someone.”

“Slocum, you hit it plumb center,” admitted his passenger. “Did you happen to know a cowpoke named Jimmy Weston?”

“Not personal. But he’s daid.”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here.”

“I see. Weston was yore pard, I reckon. You figger there’s somethin’ queer about his death?”

“I figured that before I came out here. Now I know it.”

“Wal, it looked queer to me. That is to say — it didn’t ‘pear all open an’ simple, like the run-o’-the-range deaths of cowboys, whether by violence or bein’ piled off a hoss. But I don’t know anythin’.”

“Did you happen to see Hank Miller in Rock Springs?”

“I shore did. How’d you know he was there?” asked Slocum, in surprise.

“Heard it down in the valley yesterday.”

“Yes, I seen Hank. He interest you?”

“Yes, he does, a little,” returned Lincoln, with a short laugh.

“You lookin’ for Hank?”

“Yes. Rather.”

“Somethin’ agin him?”

“I’ve never seen the man. I haven’t a thing against him — that I can prove. All the same I’ll kill him if he doesn’t come clean with how and why he hauled my dead friend from somewhere in the valley to Emery’s joint in South Pass.”

Slocum slapped his long reins and urged his four horses to a somewhat brisker trot. His leathery visage betrayed nothing, but there was a thoughtful look in his bleak eyes. Linc saw where the main road turned away from the head of the Sweetwater Valley. Bold bare mountains heaved up in the west. A herd of antelope crossed the road and turned to gaze, long ears erect.

“Son, I reckon you know more’n I do about thet deal,” spoke up Slocum. “Thet is, about whatever is gossip in South Pass. Yesterday I dropped mail back at the forks we jest passed. One of Hargrove’s riders. An’ I told him I’d seen Hank Miller in Rock Springs. But I didn’t tell him what I’m goin’ to tell you. An’ I’m tellin’ you because I had a pard once, close as a brother.”

“Go on!” urged the cowboy, as the driver paused and seemed to lapse into thought.

“Three days ago Hank Miller came to me in Rock Springs,” continued Slocum. “He’d been soakin’ up consid’able red likker. An’ he looked mighty mean. He asked me if Kit Bandon had come on my stage. I told him no. An’ he bit out: ‘You tell her when you git back to the Pass thet by Gawd she’d better meet me hyar pronto, as she agreed!’?”

“Well!” exclaimed the Nebraskan. “I wonder what Miller meant by that.” Here was news of tremendous significance, if he could fit it in with what he already knew.

“I couldn’t git thet message to Kit by word of mouth,” went on Slocum. “She wasn’t in town.”

“Kit’s Mormon riders told me yesterday that she had taken the stage for Rock Springs.”

“Missed me by a coupla days, by Judas! Wal, mebbe it’s jest as wal I didn’t git thet message to her. She’d kill Miller.”

“If she doesn’t, I will — unless he talks.”

“Wal, you can kill him, but thet won’t make him talk. I’d go slow if I was you. The cowboys out hyar ‘pear a queer breed.... Bradway, how you figger thet message of Miller’s to the Bandon woman?”

“How do you?”

“Wal, since I spilled it to you... but no! you tell me, an’ if I agree, I’ll say so.”

“Fair enough.... I figure that if Miller actually hauled Weston’s dead body from somewhere in the valley to South Pass, then Kit Bandon had something to do with it.”

“No doubt at all, son... an’ I’ll be damned!”

“Slocum, you’re thinking that it’s a long lane that has no turning.”

“Nope. I was thinkin’ how the pitcher thet keeps goin’ to the well always gets broke in the end.”

Lincoln snapped his fingers in the air with that peculiar characteristic of his when something that had puzzled him suddenly cleared itself up in his mind, or when one of his uncertain ideas was definitely falling into place.

“Slocum, you’re the first man I’ve met in Wyoming who has had the courage to meet me even halfway in respect to my opinion of this Bandon woman.”

The stagecoach driver coughed and replied, almost apologetically: “Wal, Bradway, mebbe I’m one man who doesn’t feel inclined or obliged to knuckle down to Kit Bandon. An’ again, mebbe it’s because you’re like my old pard of the Injun days.”

“Plenty reason, and thanks,” returned Lincoln, feeling depressed. He discovered that despite all the damning evidence against the woman he had come upon he yet did not want to find Kit Bandon to be guilty. He could not explain it. In his heart he knew that the Maverick Queen in some way was implicated in the death of his best friend. Yet, such was the magnetism of this beautiful outlaw woman that he wanted to think her guiltless. Was it because she had shown him so plainly that she loved him? It was something hard for a man to resist — even when he knows that she has revealed her passion to a dozen other men.

Slocum’s seatmate lapsed into silence, brooding over this new angle to his problem. Fortunately, there was a chance of finding Miller, and he counted on the teamster in Rock Springs to supply him with the proof he needed to avenge Jimmy Weston’s murder. And while he brooded the stage rolled on over a good road through a lonely country of gray-green sage bounded on all horizons by gray escarpments and scalloped slopes above which the white and black ranges rose in their ageless majesty. In the distance he saw a browsing herd of elk. And the sage was dotted with white-rumped antelope. The hours passed, the passengers slept as the wheels revolved and the steady clip-clop of rhythmic hoofs ate up the distance. The rich sage and grassland gradually gave way to barrens and dry lake beds, and a rougher country generally. They forded several amber streams of swift-flowing water. Lincoln saw many signs of beavers in the willow thickets.

The time came when Slocum roused himself from the silence that apparently he had thought his passenger preferred to keep. And he began to talk of interesting events that had taken place in the old days and more recently in the country they were passing through. Not until late in the day did they pass a ranch house, a lonely little cabin, bravely facing the vast range. But after that ranches appeared few and far between, until around about sunset when they arrived at a post where they were to spend the night. Linc avoided as best he could contacts with the well- meaning and affable passengers. After supper he paced a lonely windswept road and soon sought the bed provided, anxious over the events of tomorrow when the stage reached Rock Springs, and restless over the thought that tomorrow he would be seeing Lucy.

Rock Springs appeared to be much more of a town than South Pass. It was an important station on the Union Pacific Railroad, and the center of a soft-coal mining district. As such, it seemed to have the orderliness and stability of a permanent town. South Pass was like a mushroom. It had come up in a night and if the mines played out it could vanish almost as quickly.

Nevertheless as Linc walked down the main street, early in the afternoon, he saw that saloons and gambling halls were not conspicuous for their scarcity. While there was no rush of pedestrians as in South Pass, there were plenty of ranchers, farmers, and cowboys in town on business.

The Elk Hotel, to which Slocum had directed the Nebraskan, was a large and commodious frame building facing the railroad station. He went in to inquire if the Misses Bandon were registered there. The clerk replied in the affirmative, and the knowledge that Lucy was being sheltered in that same building set his nerves tingling. Not often had he written his name so illegibly. He had a room assigned to him and then asked where he could find the best clothing store in town. Upon being informed he hurried out, desiring to change his cowboy garb before he met the Bandons.

The suits available in the store did not greatly impress the suddenly hard-to-please Nebraskan. There were plenty of them made of fine material, but too plain to appeal to his present mood. An elaborate black broadcloth gambler’s outfit, with flowered vest and ruffled white shirt, wide-brimmed sombrero and high-top boots, all of the richest quality, went a bit to the other extreme, but in the end Lincoln purchased a suit of rather extreme cut that fit him as though it had been tailored for him. He returned to the hotel and to his room on the second floor without meeting the two women he feared yet longed to see, and it was with great relief that he threw his new purchases on the bed. Beads of sweat dampened his brow.

“Lordy!” he muttered. “What would Jimmy have thought of me? Vince will think I’ve gone loco.... And so I have!... But I’ve got it pretty bad! I guess I’d wear an Indian war bonnet if I thought it would impress Lucy Bandon!”

Whenever Linc was not in action he was deep in thought. What on earth, he wondered, was he going to say when he met them? Fortunately he could go slowly. The Bandons would stay in Rock Springs until the herd of young cattle arrived. Kit Bandon would sell or ship by railroad before leaving town. Leisurely Lincoln bathed and shaved, and arrayed himself in his handsome new outfit. Then he surveyed himself with grim amusement. He discovered that he really was vain of his good looks — something he had always felt was a point where he differed from other cowboys. He scarcely recognized himself in his city garb, as he turned this way and that to observe himself in the wavy mirror. He would miss his guess if he did not give Lucy Bandon the surprise of her life. And he had to laugh when he remembered Kit Bandon. If she had liked him in his old range outfit, what would she think of him now?

The big guns belted on bulged the frock coat a little at the hips. Gravely he made sure that they could be drawn quickly in case of need. The mirror showed the butts plainly, glinting darkly against the black fabric of his clothes.

As Linc viewed the somber apparition in the mirror he could not restrain a queer feeling of satisfaction at the thought of Lucy Bandon. After all, this masquerade was for her. Suddenly he espied his spurs. He always wore them except when he slept, and often even then, when he was out on the range. At length he decided that he would not feel himself unless he wore at least these accouterments of his trade. Leisurely he buckled them on. Long, with huge rowels, worn bright from long use, the Spanish silver spurs looked most effective against the fine black leather of his boots. And as the cowboy stepped they jangled musically.

Then Bradway extracted a roll of greenbacks from his jeans, and with another glance at his stern image in the mirror, left the room to go downstairs.

It amazed him to find that his preoccupation had been so great that the day had passed and lights were bright in the hotel lobby. The lobby appeared to be noisy and active with people; loud voices and the clink of glasses came from a bar near at hand. He could look through the parlor into the dining room, where guests were entering.

The Nebraskan stood back at ease and watched for the two women he expected to see sooner or later. He was aware of the attention his presence created, and felt utterly indifferent to it. Outwardly cold, burning within, he awaited a meeting he divined would be a crucial one. Ready for he knew not what, he felt equal to any situation.

A handsome stripling of a cowboy slouched into the lobby. He answered the description given Lincoln by Bloom Burton, except that his actual presence bore a vitality and a cool demeanor that Lincoln had learned to associate with cowboys of the hard and reckless school. He packed a gun and wore it low. Lincoln did not get a full look at his face.

The cowboy was looking for someone with an impatience and boldness that kept him on the move. Linc had just about made up his mind to accost him when he disappeared into a corridor that evidently led to the bar. He had a pretty good hunch that it was Hank Miller, and that he was here to meet the Bandons. The Nebraskan kept his eye on the lobby where Kit Bandon and Lucy would have to enter from the floor above, and he had scarcely returned to his point of vantage when they appeared at the head of the broad stairway.

Lucy was holding her aunt’s arm, evidently trying to detain her. But Kit descended, step by step, until Lincoln could see her great black eyes searching the lobby. The two women had dressed for dinner. The Nebraskan’s gaze devoured the slim girl, attractively clad in blue. But she was only a pale shadow beside the colorful Kit. They reached the bottom of the stairway and paused under the bright cluster of oil lamps.

Linc watched them with intense curiosity, restraining his eagerness to approach. Lucy had not ceased her importunities. Her pretty face betrayed repressed agitation; her eyes shone darkly. Her aunt’s beautiful face, too, wore a troubled look. Without her smile, the play of her features, and her customary animation, she appeared older. He muttered to himself: “You bet you’re in trouble old girl — a hell of a lot deeper than you know!”

At that moment the handsome cowboy put in an appearance. Linc saw only his back as he entered the scene. He moved with grace and assurance. Bradway thought he could read in Kit Bandon’s dark eyes as she glanced up at the cowboy a fleeting suspicion and fear, and at the same time a look of anger which she made no effort to conceal. If the cowboy were Miller he was evidently on her black list. But something the newcomer must have said seemed to mollify her. Then the cowboy turned to Lucy; his manner toward the girl was one of bold admiration and he held her hand so long that a fire of jealousy was kindled in Bradway. So this was the way the wind blew! Kit stood by laughing at them. Evidently she was enjoying the little byplay, but Linc did not share her enjoyment. He regained his cool equilibrium only when Lucy pulled her hand free. It was a deliberate move, expressive of annoyance if not disgust, as was the look she gave the smiling cowboy. The tight hot band around Lincoln’s heart fell away.

He approached the trio. Kit’s attention was on the cowboy, whose back was turned to Linc. But as the Nebraskan drew close Lucy recognized him. He bowed, but she only stared, her lips parted. Suddenly she gave a violent start and turned pale. Then the Nebraskan spoke to Kit.

“Miss Bandon, here I am, late, I’m sorry to say,” he remarked, smiling coolly. Kit wheeled at the sound of a voice that was familiar. But for an instant she did not recognize him. With a magnificent flash of her eyes she swept him up and down, and back again! Lincoln removed his new Stetson to make her a gallant bow. As he straightened up he saw Lucy stiffen. The cowboy turned as on a pivot. Then Kit recognized Bradway. What followed was infinitely more than Linc had counted on. As if by magic the troubled face of the Maverick Queen was transformed. Amazement, incredulity, wonder — and something even more revealing, a lovely light flashing in her smile — flooded her expressive and lovely face, leaving him anything but sure of himself. She was obviously overjoyed, overcome at the sight of him. And as Linc looked into those melting, eager, dark eyes he seemed to forget all about the younger woman beside her.

“Linc Bradway! — You — you—” she cried, her voice rich and full, breaking with emotion. “You followed me? Dressed like a flash gambler! You fooled even me!... Oh, you dear boy!”

She caught his outstretched hand and shook it with an unrestrained fever of delight. Her fervor seemed considerably greater than he had anticipated. His nerve and wit did not desert him, but he felt as if he suddenly had been enveloped by a burning wind. He suffered a moment of helpless inability to cope with the effusiveness and fire of her greeting. Then she was presenting him to the others.

“Lucy, this is the cowboy friend I told you about — Linc Bradway. It appears he is also a gambler and actor. Lord only knows what else!”

As Linc met the level blue eyes of the young girl he tried to send with his gaze a message expressing joy at their reunion and a plea for understanding. She acknowledged the introduction with a slight bow and averted glance.

“Linc, this is a cowboy friend of ours — Hank Miller,” went on Kit, happily. “Hank, shake hands with Linc Bradway.”

But Miller did not offer his hand. If he had done so Linc would have ignored it. He was concerned with the fact that he was meeting Miller face to face, and the moment was pregnant with many possibilities. Perhaps the instinct so powerful in Lincoln had communicated itself to Miller.

“How do, Mr. Bradway. Reckon I wouldn’t take you for a cowboy,” he drawled, insolently.

“Howdy, Hank Miller,” retorted Lincoln, curtly. “Same for me. I’d take you for a teamster.”

“Teamster?” echoed Miller, taken off his guard.

“Sure. Teamster, you know. A hombre who drives wagons!” As he spoke Lincoln disengaged his arm from Kit’s, and stepped aside. This man was no unknown quantity to him. Miller was the rank poison type of cowboy. His handsome tanned face blazed scarlet, and a look of hatred and suspicion burned in his eyes. They were not smiling now, nor sleepy.

“Bradway, thet crack calls for an explanation,” he muttered.

“Aw, you don’t have to be told in kindergarten language. You’re a bright fellow.” He had rubbed Miller the wrong way, on a raw spot. And he had gauged him correctly almost at first sight. He felt that merciless instinct, that surge of icy rage, which rose in him when he divined that he had to kill a man.

“Say, you jealous roosters!” broke in Kit Bandon. “Don’t make us a scene here in the hotel. Have you no manners?” And she grasped Miller’s arm and held on to it.

Bradway eased his posture and said: “Sorry, ladies; I guess your friend didn’t like my remark. I’m a careless person.... Miller, I apologize.”

“Yaass! Well, I never swallow my words.... You can go to hell!”

“Thanks. There’s a pretty fair possibility that you will beat me there.”

“Hank, cut it!” flashed Kit, as the cowboy opened his tight lips to reply. “Linc, will you join us at dinner?”

“Delighted, provided the dinner is on me,” he replied.

“Lucy, take charge of him, and for heaven’s sake keep him quiet,” ordered Kit, leading Miller off toward the dining room. She hung on the cowboy’s arm, while she obviously was delivering herself of some strong and angry language. Linc took advantage of the moment to bend toward Lucy and whisper: “Lucy, don’t look like that! For God’s sake, don’t believe anything she told you!”

“You hypocrite!” whispered Lucy, gazing straight ahead.

“Lucy, I beg of you...” protested Lincoln, unhappily.

“You handsome flash gambler! Cowboy?” She let out a little scornful trill of laughter, cold as ice. “Jimmy Weston was a liar!... I was crazy to believe a word he said!”

“Certainly you were. And I ought to have my head examined for falling in love with you!” Linc’s quick retort ended Lucy’s defiance and the whispered colloquy, carried on behind Kit’s back. She led them into a corner of the dining room, where a table had been reserved. When Kit designated where they were to sit Lincoln said apologetically: “Miss Bandon, would you mind if I sat where I could face the room?” And he moved to the chair in the corner. Kit sat down to his right and Lucy to his left. Miller laughed. “I’m not afraid to turn my back on anyone.... No one’s lookin’ for me!”

“Miller, I venture to guess you are mistaken,” said Lincoln.

This exchange of words angered Kit.

“Can’t you two gamecocks be gentlemen long enough for us to eat?.. . After dinner, if you must keep picking at each other go out into the street.”

“Wal, thet suits me. I’m pretty hungry,” rejoined Miller, and he smiled at Lucy. His presence, minus the insolent tone and look, was singularly attractive. Lincoln made the reservation that Miller might be a dangerous rival for the girl, as well as being a hard man to draw against.

“Miss Bandon, do they serve champagne in this two-bit burg?” asked the Nebraskan.

“Indeed they do,” replied Kit, beaming upon him. “I have already ordered dinner for us. But you can order the champagne.”

Miller spent a long moment in keen and speculative scrutiny of Bradway. Probably no man could intimidate this hombre. He belonged to the breed of cowboys who would fight upon the slightest provocation. For the moment Linc dismissed a draw with him from his mind. With the ordering of dinner and wine the situation eased. Linc Bradway found Lucy’s foot touching his, but when he attempted to return the pressure, she moved it away. Twice more this happened, even while Miller talked softly to her, his eyes hungrily fixed upon her. Lincoln listened quietly to Kit’s talk. She was evidently trying to shake off the apprehension or the trouble she had betrayed earlier. At last Lincoln succeeded in pressing the toe of his boot against Lucy’s foot. This time she made no effort to pull away. The contact, slight as it was, heartened Lincoln and lifted the feeling of despair that had fastened itself upon him. He tried to think of some way that he could devise that would enable him to talk with her privately. He knew how she must feel about her aunt’s greeting and of Kit’s air of possession so clearly shown toward him. He longed to reassure her. But she seemed greatly interested in what Miller was saying to her. He turned back to Kit Bandon.

“You were expecting someone to meet you in the lobby?” he inquired in a casual tone.

“Yes. I had an appointment — about a deal for cattle,” she returned, evasively.

“Your herd will be in tomorrow, I hear,” continued the Nebraskan.

“How do you know that?” asked Kit, obviously surprised.

“I rode out to your ranch day before yesterday. Your Mormon riders were about ready to start the drive.”

“You saw them — talked with them?”

“Surely. They interested me. Luke Mathews particularly.”

“You interest yourself a good deal in other people’s business?” she retorted, in a tone she had never before used with him. This information, his apparently casual speech, his inscrutability, and perhaps something that she felt lay behind his words seemed to perturb her a good deal. Quickly she tried to conceal her perturbation behind a gay laugh. But even so, Lincoln felt a chill. It was not dissimilar to one he had felt many times at the thought of death — at the imminence of death. How strange that this beautiful willful woman, all glamour and fire, should arouse such a feeling of foreboding in him.

The serving of dinner interrupted conversation. It was an excellent meal for a hotel in a border town. Bradway did not know good wine from bad, but he partook scantily of the champagne. Miller and Kit were not so chary. Lincoln watched Lucy as she hesitatingly touched her lips to her glass. It was evident that she was not accustomed to much drinking. Their eyes met over their glasses, and she made a slight move of distaste. Linc swore anew to himself that if his life were spared during this hard task imposed upon him he would devote the remainder of it to this sweet girl’s happiness, if she would let him.

The champagne, apparently, had cheered Kit out of her distraught mood. She reached forward to pat Linc’s hand where it rested on the table just as a bellboy brought her a note. He watched her read it, and saw her brow become clouded.

“Hank, our — my party is waiting outside,” she said. Then she spoke to Bradway. “Linc, we must leave you for a little while. I’m sorry, but it’s important. Where will you wait?”

“There’s some champagne left,” drawled Linc. “Perhaps I can persuade Lucy to have another glass.”

“No, not here,” Kit replied, hastily. She seemed to be thinking swiftly. Lincoln grasped that she did not want him or Lucy to see the person she and Miller were to meet. “Come, Hank, we must go... . I’ll tell you, Linc. There’s a parlor at the head of the stairs. Wait there for us. We shouldn’t be long.”

“Don’t hurry on our account,” rejoined Lincoln, meeting Miller’s dark and speculative eyes. “I’m sure I shall be pleasantly engaged.”

“Ahuh. I get you, Bradway,” retorted the cowboy, sullenly. And he turned to Kit, who had arisen from the table. “You go meet thet feller. I’ll stay here.”

“You fool!” snapped Kit. The look she gave Miller was freighted with hate and menace. “You come with me.” She seized his arm and almost dragged him away, turning once to beckon Lucy and Lincoln. They followed, with Lincoln a little behind the girl. This was his chance and he could hardly contain himself. He was afraid Kit Bandon might see his obvious exultation, but she did not look back again.

Lincoln led Lucy up the wide stairway. Her eyes were averted, her chin up, her slender form erect and stiff. His heavy gun bumped against her as they reached the landing. He turned to look down into the lobby; Kit and Miller were talking with a tall man who possessed the weather-beaten complexion and the cut of a cattleman. Miller was gazing up at Lincoln and Lucy with baleful and frustrated eyes; he was still gazing when Kit drew him out of Bradway’s line of vision.

CHAPTER VII

LINC TURNED TO the curtained doorway and peered inside. The parlor was illuminated by a lamp with a red shade. He flung the curtains aside and turned to Lucy. “Come,” he said. It was an invitation, not a command.

She was reluctant to enter but finally brushed past him without looking up and walked across the room to one of the open windows. Lincoln slowly followed, going to the opposite window and looking out into the night. What seemed to be a small park with grass and trees lay between the street and the railroad yards. Beyond the tracks a sharp bluff loomed above the town. Far beyond, he knew, were the Wasatch Mountains, dark and somber against the moonlit sky.

Lincoln stepped back from the window and said: “Lucy, we have only a few minutes to talk, and I for one don’t want to take all this valuable time quarreling with you about what someone has told you about me.”

“What someone told me!” she retorted. The suppressed anger in her low voice startled Lincoln.

“That’s what I said,” he replied. “Kit Bandon has told you something about me. Will you tell me what it was?”

“It was too sickening for me to repeat.”

“Well, it isn’t true, whatever she might have said. Possibly it was something in reference to the fact that I found her to be just as fascinating as did the other cowboys.... Well, I did find her fascinating. She is an incredibly glamorous and alluring woman. I don’t suppose it’s entirely honorable of me to tell on a woman who — who has gone out of her way to be agreeable to me, but I’m bound to let you know that I think she was sincere. Nevertheless I still believe there must have been some other reason prompting her besides merely wanting to collect another cowboy’s scalp.”

“Please stop,” whispered Lucy. “It’s unbearable.”

“That’s only because you are thinking wrong.”

“How could I be thinking wrong — you admit it.”

“I admit nothing that is shameful. Whatever she may have told you, Lucy, this is God’s truth. She called me up to her parlor in the Leave It to warn me.... She put her arms around — my neck — and — and kissed me.... Honestly, Lucy, I thought I was struck by lightning. You see I haven’t been kissed often — never by such as her. She seemed to take it for granted that I had succumbed to her charm — I suppose she is used to that. But I hadn’t — not with my mind. I should have repulsed her, I know, but I doubt if the man lives who could resist her when taken by surprise that way. I don’t know what she thought — but no matter what she thought, I did not fall for her blandishment. That’s all that happened, Lucy, I swear it.”

“Evidently you can lie as well as you can shoot people in cold blood.”

“I’m not lying,” flashed Linc, cut to the quick by the girl’s accusation.

“Oh, you’re just another slick-tongued cowboy trying to make game of me — like they all do.”

“Don’t insult me, Lucy,” he said bitterly, attempting to control himself. “You’ll say something before long that you’ll be sorry for all the rest of your life. I know this looks bad to you, but for God’s sake try to trust me. It’s tremendously important for both of us!”

He took hold of her arm and tried to draw her from the window. She repulsed him, turning her face away. Angered, he reached around to grasp her shoulders and twist her about to face him. She was pale and her eyes were full of scorn. Futilely she tried to avert them from his searching gaze.

“Look at me!” he cried.

She wrenched one hand free and slapped him soundly on the cheek. Suddenly enraged despite himself, Lincoln slapped her back.

“You damned little spitfire! Haven’t you any sense whatsoever?”

The red leaped to her cheek, contrasting with her paleness. He saw that he must have hurt her. Her hand flew to her face, and the tears flooded her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, but you’ve been so bull-headed and unreasonable.” He grasped her arms powerfully again and held her despite her weak efforts to free herself.

“Oh, you are such a liar,” she cried.

“I’m not a liar, Lucy.”

“You’re just like all the rest of them. I hate cowboys. I’ve liked a lot of them and I — I — could have loved Jimmy... and what did I get for it? Deceit — treachery! All of them lost their heads over my aunt. That wouldn’t have been so bad but they...”

She bit her lip, evidently realizing what she was about to betray, and for a moment she was pale and silent. Lincoln quickly lost his anger with the realization that he must convince her — that he had right and love on his side.

“Please believe me — trust me, Lucy,” he said, simply.

“Oh, if I only could,” she cried. “But it would be so weak, so foolish of me. You’re just like the others — only you’re more clever, more convincing....”

“The honest truth, Lucy, is that I fell in love with you at first sight and every moment since I’ve loved you more.”

“I — I don’t believe you,” she murmured, on the verge of tears.

Instead of shaking her again he pulled her into his arms and held her close.

“Let me go!” she cried, furiously, yet he could feel that she was weakening.

“Not until you come to your senses.”

She struggled but was powerless to break his hold. Straining from him she bent her face backward, her lips parted, her eyes dark, her color mounting. It was almost impossible for Lincoln to restrain himself from kissing her.

“You not only are a liar but a brute! Suppose my aunt should come and see you now?”

“Lucy, I give you my word, I’m not afraid of it.”

“She — she would kill you!”

“Oh, she would?” he queried, sharply. “That confirms other things I’ve heard.... But I’m not so easy to kill, even for a man.... I am mightily interested in this aunt of yours. And my interest has nothing to do with her charm or magnetic personality. Lucy, you will have to take me on trust just as I seem to have to take a great deal on trust. I wish that you would take back what you called me — liar and brute.”

“I won’t do it.”

“All right. Then take this from a liar and a brute....” He crushed her in his arms and pulled her face close to his. She gasped and uttered a little indistinct cry. Then he released her and she stood facing him silently, her cheeks flaming, her eyes blazing, her lips trembling. With a quick movement she turned her back toward him and with nervous fingers began fumbling with her disheveled hair.

“I wouldn’t kiss a girl who could think me as low-down as you do, even when I’m mad about her.... So forget that for the time being. I went to our meeting place on the rim that morning. I waited hours for you. I never saw anything as lovely as your valley in the morning light. As I waited by my signal fire I had wonderful plans and thoughts about you and me when the job that brought me here was finished. It dawned on me after those long hours of waiting that you were not going to come. Since you had promised to come, I began to worry that something had happened to you. I rode down into the valley to hunt you up. When I came to the belt of timber I turned off the road and took the trail through the willows. I wanted to have a look at the ranch before I rode in. Well, I stayed in the willows until I could hear the river. Then I smelled smoke. I knew there was a camp near, so I slipped along cautiously until I came into a clearing on the banks of the river. There was a little camp with a smoldering fire. In a tall willow I saw a man with a telescope looking over the Bandon ranch...”

“Oh,” she replied, hurriedly, evidently perturbed. “Then what did you do?”

“I called him down out of the tree pronto. Since you are so firmly convinced that I’m a liar and a cheat, I won’t supply you with any material for additional accusations, but I will tell you that interrupting this little piece of spy work made things look bad for Kit Bandon.”

“It could look bad for your man, too,” retorted Lucy. “What you saw could be misunderstood. I’m afraid — Lincoln, you must tell me what he said.”

“Perhaps,” replied the Nebraskan. Then he continued: “I rode out of the willows, crossed the river and went to the ranch house. You know, of course, there wasn’t anybody home nor any message from you explaining why you hadn’t met me. I decided to ride out to the roundup which the spy had been watching with his telescope. The roundup was a mile or so from the corrals and when I rode up to those Mormon cowpokes I thought I was in for a fight. I guess they were more scared than I was but certainly not as curious. I learned a good deal more from them than they learned from me.”

“But what did you find out?” she whispered, nervously.

“Lucy, I know honest cattlemen when I see them. Those Mormons were good boys — and they do not know anything about Kit Bandon. Except that she pays them big money!”

“What could they know about my aunt?”

“What do you think?” he said watching her closely. “I can see, Lucy, that you know a good deal more than you’re going to tell me now,” he replied in a tone of resignation. “I can be patient. As soon as you realize I’m honest — that I love you — that I’m going to fight your battle, as well as Jim’s and mine, you will confide in me.”

“If you are against my aunt, you also will be against me,” she cried.

“I’m not her enemy yet and I never will be yours.”

“But I would be your enemy if you were hers,” she said, so quietly that he could scarcely hear what she had said.

“Just a few moments ago you accused me of being her lover. You’re unreasonable, girl. I know this is a hard situation for you. But try to realize how difficult it is for me.... Well, after talking with the Mormons I rode back to South Pass and took the stage early next morning and here I am.”

“Did you follow us?”

“Yes, but what mainly brought me here was to meet Hank Miller.”

A look of dread came into the girl’s blue eyes.

“You must be seeking him — because you’ve heard of something — something — concerning Jimmy?”

“Yes, that is true, Lucy. However, I didn’t expect to find him such a tough hombre. He would have been a bad customer to meet anyhow but he seems to have some claim on you and that’s going to make it worse.”

“But he hasn’t any claim on me,” she denied vehemently, her cheeks blazing. “It’s only that Aunt Kit—” Then again she closed her lips tightly.

“Lucy, it was easy to see he was in love with you — and almighty jealous.”

“Yes,” admitted Lucy, “but I am not in love with him.”

“No? Then who are you in love with?”

“Not with any cowboy! No cowboy will ever hurt me again!”

“You don’t imagine you’re hurt,” said Lincoln, gently. “But one word more about this Miller. I’m afraid I’m not avoiding tangling with him. But if he tells me what I want to know and unless he’s particularly ornery and mean, I’ll try to for your sake. Only if he’s the kind of hombre I think he is, he’ll pull a gun at the drop of a hat, and I’m simply warning you that I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You will be in danger, Lincoln?” she asked falteringly.

She turned away to the window again and pressed her face and hands against the pane. He saw the constriction in her throat. Suddenly he had an inspiration.

“Wait a minute, Lucy,” he whispered, huskily.

He went to the door and out on the landing. Descending a few steps of the stairway he bent down to look into the lobby below. There was no sign of Kit Bandon and her companions. Then he hurried back to Lucy.

“Don’t you want to believe in me, Lucy?” he implored.

“More than anything in the world,” she answered, softly.

“All right, I can prove to you that what I said is true.”

“Words are cheap. You could make black look white,” she said wearily.

“Yes, but actions are truer than words.”

“What do you mean by action?” she asked.

“I will marry you right this hour — if you’ll have me?”

She turned to him, incredulous, as if she had not heard aright.

“Lucy,” he went on, “up there on the Pass you led me to think that you respected me — that perhaps you could love me. I think you even were willing to forget that I have led a rough life in a rough country. I’m no different now than I was that day I met you. Won’t you believe that?”

“I — I can conceive of such a thing... but the idea of marrying you is preposterous — mad. You — we — it isn’t possible.”

“It might be,” he pleaded. “This town is big enough to have a parson. Let me go out and see?”

“No, no. You’re mad.”

“I may be mad, but I love you. And I think that’s the way to save us both.”

“It wouldn’t save us,” she cried, wildly. “She’d kill us both! I didn’t tell you before because I was afraid to, but Kit is truly and sincerely in love with you. She says you are the man she’s been waiting for. She regrets the love affairs she’s had with other men. She is counting upon marrying you. And when she makes up her mind to something, nothing can stand in her way.... That is why it would mean ruin for us.”

That was Lincoln’s moment. He seized her hands and drew her to him. “Lucy, that sweet and beautiful love you had for me couldn’t have died in a moment, could it?”

“Oh, no, no, it hasn’t — I tried to destroy it but I couldn’t. It has tortured me—”

His lips closing on hers halted the sentence. He felt her trembling.

“Let me go,” she pleaded.

“No, Lucy darling, I’ll never let you go now.” He kissed her again.

“Please, Lincoln — this is madness.”

“My darling, say you will marry me?” he whispered and without giving her time to answer he crushed her in his arms. She struggled, but it was only a half-hearted effort. Her eyes were opened wide now and staring up into his. And as he looked down into those eyes which could never dissemble or conceal the truth, he knew. His heart leaped joyously.

“Don’t hold — me — so tight,” she whispered. “I can’t breathe... Lincoln, please — let — me — go.”

Her strength had gone and she was clinging to him, trembling.

“My dearest,” he whispered.

Her head fell forward then on his breast. She had yielded. He could feel it in her fingers clutching his coat, in her little inarticulate cry of surrender.

“Bless you, Lucy,” he whispered, taking her two hands in one of his and holding them against his breast. “I swear to you, my darling, that never as long as you live, will you regret this moment.”

“Oh, Lincoln, hurry before I lose my courage,” she cried.

He rushed out of the room and halfway down the stairway. Then reason and caution returned to him and he made his way down the rest of the stairs and through the lobby. Kit Bandon and her companions were nowhere in sight. Lincoln went out. It was quite dark. Only a few yellow lights glimmered weakly here and there, when he turned down the street. He seemed to be treading on air. At the next corner he crossed the street, and entering a store he inquired if there were a parson in Rock Springs. He was informed that there was a Reverend Smith who was on his way to Oregon and who temporarily was holding meetings at the church right next to the depot. He found himself running the block and a half to the frame, steepleless building which served all denominations in Rock Springs. The church door was open, a small oil lantern flickering over the entrance. Lincoln caught the strains of an organ: evidently it was nearing time for some kind of service. His knock was answered by a boy who informed the hard-breathing cowboy that the preacher lived in the small frame house next door. A little round-faced, smiling man wearing the black garb of a churchman, greeted Lincoln with a smile.

“Are you the minister?” Lincoln managed to blurt out.

“I am, my good sir. What can I do for you?”

“I want to get married,” panted Lincoln.

“Well, where’s the bride?” inquired the minister, looking behind the eager bridegroom.

“I can get her here in five minutes. What will I have to have?”

“A ring and the lady’s consent. I can supply everything else.”

“I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Lincoln rushed back the way he had come. Happening to pass a shop with a tray of jewelry in the window Lincoln dashed in breathlessly and purchased a diamond ring and a wedding ring that would go on his little finger. He did not wait for the change, but left the amazed clerk staring at him wide-eyed.

“So far, so good,” he whispered. Then, for the first time, as he neared the hotel he slowed down. A quick glance showed that the Maverick Queen and her visitors still were absent from the lobby. He bounded up the stairway three steps at a time and burst into the parlor, half-fearing Lucy might have lost heart and run away. But she was still there. He was so out of breath that he could not speak clearly; in the dim light the girl looked up at him with eloquent and frightened eyes. He kissed her and pressed her hand reassuringly. Then he led her out of the room and down the stairs. By the time they had reached the street the pounding of his heart had subsided enough so that he was able to say, “Lucy — I found — a parson. I have the — it’s really true — it’s going — to happen.”

The darkness enveloped them like a cloak. Never had Lincoln known night to be so sweet and welcome.

“Oh, I’m so terribly afraid.”

“I’m not afraid now of being stopped. And I’m not even thinking about what they can do to us — afterward.”

He hurried her along the street.

“Don’t look back, Lucy.... Thank God I had the courage to ask you. And that you found the trust to come with me.”

He strode so swiftly that she was almost forced to run to keep up with him. When they reached the little house beside the church the door was open and a bright light shone cheerfully through the front window. At Lincoln’s knock the minister appeared and quietly asked them in. As the preacher closed the door behind them Bradway’s relief was so great that he felt his legs weakening under him.

“Well, you made it in less than five minutes,” said the parson, beaming upon them. “This is my wife,” he continued, indicating the comely, placid-faced woman standing near.

She replied, “I am very happy to meet you.”

“What is your name?” asked the parson.

“Lincoln — Bradway.”

“And the lady’s name?”

“Lucy — Bandon,” faltered Lucy.

“Oh indeed, are you related to the famous Kit Bandon I’ve heard so much about?”

“Yes. I’m her niece.”

“What is your business?” The minister asked somewhat doubtfully, looking Lincoln over from head to foot.

“Don’t mind this rig, parson. I’m not a gambler. I bought this outfit because I wanted to surprise Lucy. I am a cowboy.”

“Well, if you’re in such a great hurry, we might as well get it over,” said the parson producing his worn Bible.

As if in a trance Lincoln listened and made answers that he could scarcely hear. Lucy’s voice likewise was almost inaudible. The cowboy’s hands trembled so he could hardly slip the little ring on her finger. Then, in a moment it was all over and they were signing their names.

The parson handed the paper to Lincoln and said, “Well, Bradway, you have been married quickly but nonetheless surely.”

Linc turned to Lucy. “Lucy, it’s done. We’re married,” he whispered.

“It doesn’t seem possible,” she answered. “We — we are almost — strangers. I never thought it would be like this.”

The cowboy’s heart was full to overflowing as he kissed her. The minister’s wife congratulated them and also kissed Lucy.

Linc pulled himself together. The miraculous had happened. He brought out his wallet and presented a hundred dollar bill to the parson: “You have made me the happiest and most fortunate man in the world,” he said earnestly.

The minister’s eyes grew round when he saw the greenback.

“Young man, it looks as if you’ll be as happy as you are generous.”

“Would it be asking you too much to keep this secret a little while?”

“Oh, please do,” implored Lucy. “I — we — it would be best for us that it should not be known at once.”

“Why, not at all,” replied the minister heartily. “I’ve been out west long enough to know that the main thing when you marry young folks is not to worry about the particulars.”

The Nebraskan put his fingers in his vest pocket.

“I forgot something, Lucy,” he said, smiling, as he produced a diamond ring which burned white and gold in the lamp light. He put it on Lucy’s finger alongside her wedding ring. She stared at it, mute and rapt.

“Now you’re not only married, Mrs. Bradway, but consider yourself engaged, as well,” he said. “But we must hurry back. I will never forget you good folks. Someday I will see you again. Good-by.”

The parson opened the door and let them out.

“Good luck. God be with you.”

They hurried out of the light into the darkness again and crossed the street. This time it was Lucy who was almost running as she clutched her husband’s arm.

“Darling,” he remonstrated. “What’s the big rush? We’re married. No one can stop us now!”

“Oh, Lincoln, I’m so glad that you took the bit in your teeth, made me marry you. I’m terribly happy and frightened, too. But we can’t let them know yet!”

“Not at this time!” agreed Lincoln. “But it won’t do for me to run into your admirer Hank Miller while I’m in such a wild-eyed state as this.... Lucy, you mustn’t forget to take off those rings and hide them.”

“Yes, yes. But, where will I keep them?”

“Put them on a string around your neck.”

“No, that wouldn’t be safe. Wait,” she said, clutching his arm.

In the dim light from a store window she removed the rings and folding them in a little handkerchief she tucked them inside the bodice of her dress.

“When I get a chance I’ll pin them in safely.”

They hurried on, and quickly reached the hotel.

“I wonder if we ought to go in separately?” Lucy said.

“No, that will hardly do,” replied Lincoln, thoughtfully. “That would look sort of funny — if they happened to be in the lobby. We can say we got tired waiting and went out for a little walk. . .. It’s too late for them to get the best of us now.”

They went up the steps and into the lobby. It was aglow with light, and filled with noise and cigar smoke. The Nebraskan’s keen eyes swiftly covered the men inside focusing finally upon Hank Miller.

“Aha! there’s Miller,” whispered Lincoln. “He sees us, he’s coming.... Lucy, keep up your courage.”

She showed surprising coolness, he thought; and she replied to his warning in a perfectly controlled voice by asking him if he had seen her aunt anywhere.

Bradway said, “No, she doesn’t seem to be back yet.”

Then Miller stood before them. His face was dark with anger and suspicion, and he showed signs of having been drinking steadily since dinner. He reached for one of Lucy’s arms and jerked her rudely away from Linc’s side.

“Where the hell have you been?” he snarled.

Lucy drew back from him, but there was no fear in the manner with which she confronted him.

“Hank, please let go of my arm. You’re hurting me.”

“Where have you been?” he repeated.

“If it’s any of your business we’ve been out for a walk. We got tired waiting. I asked Mr. Bradway to go.”

“Oh, you did, huh? I wouldn’t put that beyond you and more besides.”

Then Miller’s sullen gaze drifted toward Lucy’s escort. As he met Miller’s hot red-rimmed eyes, a curious little cold stillness came over Lincoln. He knew then, beyond any further doubt, that he was going to have to kill this man.

“Where is Miss Bandon?” he asked, coolly.

“She’s in there driving a hard bargain with thet cattleman.... So, Bradway, you got away with it.”

“With what?”

“Making a play for my girl. I saw it in your eyes.”

“Yes. Well, all’s fair in love and war, Miller,” retorted Lincoln.

He derived some pleasure out of the baffled fury in the good- looking cowboy’s eye. But he saw that Miller was determined to force a showdown.

“Lucy, you go upstairs,” he said.

Miller added to that: “Yes, you damn little fickle she-cat, get out of here, now. But I’ll see you later.”

“Miller, that isn’t a very gentlemanly way to address a lady,” drawled Lincoln in a slow, cool, tantalizing tone. “Much less the one you claim to honor with your regard.”

Lucy gave them both a quick look and turning, she hurriedly mounted the stairway without a backward look.

“I don’t like you, Bradway.”

“The feeling is mutual, I assure you,” Lincoln replied.

“I think you’re a liar. I suspect there’s something shady about you too.”

“I return the compliment as to who’s a liar,” said Lincoln, “and I know you’re shady.”

“The hell you say!” exploded Miller. Again that questioning look came into his face. He wondered what this tall stranger knew. “You talk big, gambler. You flash a couple of holster guns besides that outfit you’re wearing. Somebody is liable to take your stake away from you here in Rock Springs.”

Despite Miller’s surly temper Linc could see that he was mightily curious about the man in the store clothes. He led the way toward a quieter and less brightly lighted section of the room.

“Miller, it might interest you to know that I came to Rock Springs to find you.”

“Is that so? Now, you’ve found me, what are you going to do about it?”

“First off I’m going to take up that little matter of you calling Lucy names. I should have done it then,” said Linc with a disarming casualness.

“You’ll find it a bigger bite than maybe you can chew.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied the Nebraskan, smilingly.

“All right, Mister Bradway. What do you propose to do?”

“This!”

With action as swift as the word, Lincoln swung his right arm in a haymaker that landed on Miller’s mouth with terrific force, knocking him over backward. For an instant he strove to recover his balance, then fell over some vacant chairs and slipped to the floor where he lay still.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CRASH OF falling chairs and the sodden thud of Miller’s body landing on the floor brought from those near by in the lobby excited exclamations followed by silence. Lincoln waited to see if Miller was going to rise, but evidently he was stunned. He lay sprawled on the floor, his head and shoulders up against the wainscoting. Blood had begun to trickle from his mouth. Lincoln relaxed his tense posture. He massaged his right hand with his left as he watched the man on the floor. He realized that there would be little if any reaction from Miller for some time to come.

A tall, sallow man with a drooping mustache and sharp eyes stepped forward from the crowd and said to Bradway, “Wal, young man, you hit him pretty hard.”

Linc turned. Prominent on the newcomer’s vest was a silver badge.

“Yes, Sheriff, I hit him all right,” he replied, grimly.

“What was it for?”

“He insulted a young lady who just came in with me.”

“I saw her, the young Bandon girl. In thet case I reckon I won’t do anything but offer you some advice.”

“I’d like that pretty pronto,” replied the Nebraskan.

“Do you know the man you’ve hit?”

“Saw him and met him tonight at dinner, but I don’t know anything about him except that he’s mean. I’m afraid I’m in for it.”

“You sure are,” drawled the sheriff. “Miller hails from Calispel. I met cattlemen who knew him in Montana where he had a hard name. Hot-headed and quick on the draw.”

The crowd of bystanders began to open up a passage to let Kit Bandon come hurriedly through. Her mysterious black eyes took in Lincoln with the sheriff, then the prostrate Miller as she approached. But there was no expression of surprise, concern or fear in her glance.

“Sheriff,” he whispered, swiftly, turning to the officer, “arrest me or take me in charge.”

“Wal, I reckon I savvy,” muttered the law man, and he laid a hand on Lincoln’s arm.

Kit Bandon now stood before them, her dark eyes smoldering.

“Linc Bradway, how come you are down here? Where’s Lucy? What have you and Hank been up to?”

“Lucy grew tired of waiting and asked me to take her for a little walk,” replied Lincoln. “We went about two blocks. When we came in again Miller was here and he tried to take the girl’s arm. He was sore and suspicious. Lucy jerked away from him. They had a few words, then Miller turned to me. I told Lucy to go upstairs, then Miller insulted her. We exchanged a few words after that and then I hit him.”

“Insulted Lucy?” she exclaimed. “Why the dirty pup! He hasn’t any claim on Lucy. Why did you want to dirty your hands with him? Why didn’t you throw your gun on him?”

“I did think of it but here in the crowded lobby—”

“You’ll have to do it anyhow now,” flashed Kit. “Miller told me he was going to badger you into a fight.”

“Wal, Miss Bandon,” interposed the sheriff, “I reckon you’re right, but we ought to appreciate this young man’s consideration for others.”

“Sheriff Haught, that’s funny talk for a Texan,” retorted Kit, scornfully.

At that moment it was easy for Linc to read her thoughts. She had a reason for wanting him to kill Miller. Since it now seemed important to the Maverick Queen to have the young man dead and out of the way, Linc was certainly glad the meeting with Miller had not come to a fatal issue. There was something he wanted to ask the cowboy when he met him again face to face.

“Wal, we won’t argue about thet now. Come with me, young feller. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say,” replied Linc. “But it’s Lincoln Bradway.”

“Sheriff, are you going to run him in?” Kit queried, sharply.

“No, I reckon I won’t do thet, but I’ll get him out of here. There’s likely to be a rumpus when Miller comes to.”

“Sheriff, that is ridiculous. I’ll take care of him.”

“Sorry, Miss Bandon, but I reckon I’ll take him along.”

He led Bradway toward the door. Miller had begun to show signs of recovering consciousness. One of the men approached and knelt beside him. Kit Bandon went over to stare angrily down at the recumbent cowboy. As Linc backed out the door, he could see over the heads of the crowd Lucy standing white-faced and anxious-eyed on the stairway.

Outside the sheriff led the Nebraskan down the lighted street.

“Reckon you’d like a drink?” suggested the sheriff.

“I would, but I’ve sworn off.”

“Thet’s never a bad idea. Bradway, I don’t take you for an out-and-out gambler. You haven’t the look.”

“No, I’m not,” said Lincoln. “My cowboy clothes are old and soiled and I wanted to buy something fancier, and this rig was all I could find here in town.”

“Wanted to impress the ladies?” drawled the Texan.

“Well, yes, one of them.”

“Bradway, I know this Bandon woman pretty well, and I met the niece several times. She’s a mighty sweet little filly. Excuse me for being curious, but is it Kit or Lucy that you are sweet on?”

“Sheriff, I don’t suppose you’ll believe it but it is only Lucy.”

“It’s hard to savvy at that, which ain’t saying that Lucy Bandon is not a sweet and pretty girl. But that aunt of hers makes every girl pale in front of her. I’d like to ask you some more about them ladies, Bradway, and what they’re doin’ here in Rock Springs, but thet’s enough for the present.”

“Please hold it confidential, Sheriff,” replied Lincoln.

“Young feller, I don’t suppose it will do the least bit of good but I advise you to get out of Rock Springs tonight.”

“Sheriff, I can’t run away from any man, let alone a hombre like Miller.”

“Then you’ll have to meet him tomorrow. And if I know hard customers you’ll have to shoot mighty quick and mighty straight. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t want to mess up things while the ladies are in town.”

“I’ll have to overlook that. You heard Kit Bandon. She’d like to see me throw a gun on Miller.”

“You bet your life I didn’t miss thet,” quickly replied the Texan. “Wal, my advice is this: I’ll take you to a little hotel down this street. You go to your room and tomorrow stay inside until I come down and tip you off how the land lies.”

“You will do that, Sheriff?” asked Lincoln.

“Glad to. It wouldn’t do any good much to arrest Miller tonight. I couldn’t hold him and so long as you intend to stay in town I think a meeting can’t be avoided. I hope it will be you I’ll have to arrest afterward.”

“You can bet on that, Sheriff.”

He halted Bradway in the middle of the next block. They entered a quiet little hotel where the sheriff made arrangements for Lincoln’s lodgings and bade him good night. The Nebraskan was shown to his room on the first floor, and after bolting the door and pulling down the blind he sat down on the bed to think over all the things that had happened during this most eventful evening of his life. It seemed impossible to believe Lucy really was his wife! By what miracle had this wonderful thing happened to him? Out loud he repeated several times “Lucy Bradway, Lucy Bradway.” It was the sweetest name in all the world.

His thoughts drifted to the dark, surly cowboy whom he would have to meet; he must plan what he was going to say to the cowboy — if he had a chance before the shooting began. But suppose they met, and he had a chance to find out what the cowboy knew? Suppose he came through unscathed. What about Kit Bandon? Now that he was Lucy’s husband, must he keep off Kit’s trail which every day was growing more tangled? And what would be Kit’s own reaction when she found out he had married Lucy? She would be a desperate woman to cross, but the hope persisted that he or Lucy would not betray their secret until he had cleared up the mystery surrounding Jimmy Weston’s murder. Then, perhaps he and Lucy might ride away before Kit could discover the truth about them. Fate was drawing tight lines about her, and it was possible that she had come to realize this also. Why did she want to have Miller killed? There was only one answer to that! Miller must be aware of that something which Kit wanted so desperately to be kept secret. Did it concern Jimmy Weston, and the manner in which he had been killed? That was the dark truth to which Lincoln had committed himself to uncover. It was a strange and tragic mystery, all the more baffling and poignant because of the probable implication of both of the Bandons. Even Lucy, his own wife, knew more than she would tell.

Presently Lincoln stood up and began to undress. He wanted sleep and rest in order to have a clear brain and steady nerve for tomorrow’s crucial problems. Before he went to sleep, however, he worked out in his mind the needed details: he must see Miller first, try to force him to disclose his guilty knowledge if there was time, then if he was satisfied in his mind that the cowboy was implicated in Jim Weston’s murder, it was just a question of beating Miller to his gun. That was the last resolve Bradway kept in his consciousness before he lost himself in slumber.

He slept rather late, remaining in bed until the sun was high. He dressed slowly and went out for his breakfast in the small dining room connected with the hotel. The slowness of the service suited Lincoln’s plans. During the meal he occupied himself with a newspaper from behind which he occasionally peered when he heard a footstep. He made a leisurely meal of it. Several other customers came in but paid no attention to him. At ten o’clock sharp Sheriff Haught entered and immediately approached the lounging Nebraskan.

“Mawnin’, cowboy,” said the Texan cheerfully, as he seated himself.

“Howdy, Sheriff. I was afraid you weren’t going to show up.”

“Wal, the stage is all set.”

“Yes? Then you’ve seen Miller.”

“Thet’s the truth.”

“Is he rarin’ around town looking for me?”

“Thet’s how I figured, but it didn’t turn out thet way. Miller is at the hotel, clean-shaven, sober as ice, and none the worse for wear. I had the luck to see him with Kit Bandon just a little while ago. They were havin’ a hot argument. My hunch is thet Bandon was not persuadin’ him to avoid you. It might have been the other way around. I stopped on the stairway to light a cigar and stayed there as long as I dared hopin’ to hear somethin’ interestin’. Later I passed Miller in the lobby. He was as het up as a wild stallion at the sight of his first rope. I saw him pace up and down the lobby and every little bit go out into the street. He’s lookin’ for you, or my name ain’t Haught.”

“Then he won’t have to wait long,” replied Lincoln, curtly rising from the table. “Sheriff, I’m mightily obliged to you.”

“Not at all. All I want is for you to have an even break. Now you walk up on the other side of the street and keep your eyes peeled. I’ll be hangin’ around thet hotel corner and if there’s any need to give you a tip I’ll do it. Wait a few minutes after I’ve gone and then you follow. I don’t have to tell you what you’re up against.”

The sheriff turned on his heel and left the dining room. Lincoln ordered another cup of coffee but did not drink it. Presently he arose, gave the waiter a bill and went out. It was a beautiful sunny morning, clear and crisp; many people already were about; several wagons creaked down the street between groups of mounted horsemen. The Nebraskan crossed to the other side and headed east toward the principal hotel. This was the main thoroughfare. It was a long block up to the hotel. He kept close to the buildings; the presence of the pedestrians, he concluded, being enough of a screen to prevent his being seen before he reached the corner. Here he halted and removed his long frock coat, draping it over his left arm. Passers-by stopped, turned to stare at him in mild amazement. There were several loungers standing outside of the hotel and Lincoln could see that the lobby was filled with people. Something drew his gaze up to an open window in the second story of the hotel. Standing back from the opening he could see Kit Bandon, tense and expectant, her dark eyes fixed on the street below. Quickly Bradway lowered his eyes to the sidewalk. At that moment Miller emerged from the hotel. His advent was a signal for several men to bolt from the building by a side entrance. Evidently Miller had spied Lincoln from inside the hotel.

Holding his hands low and away from his hips, the cowboy slowly descended the steps and continued even more deliberately across the street. With a slight movement with his right hand he motioned Linc off the sidewalk. This slight action and the way Miller wore his gun convinced the Nebraskan that he was left- handed. Dropping his coat over a railing Lincoln edged sideways into the street facing the cowboy. Miller was cautious, yet bold: evidently he was not going to make a hasty issue of this meeting. He appeared to be as curious about the situation as Lincoln.

They were still the width of the side street apart. Warily they crossed the dusty street almost as far as the railroad park. Miller was the first to stop. Lincoln immediately halted in his tracks. The two men were about twenty steps apart. Linc welcomed the chance for a close scrutiny of his antagonist’s face.

“The deal’s on, cowboy,” said Miller in a voice that sounded strained and high-pitched, “but I’m sure curious. Where are you from?”

“Nebraska. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not a damn thing,” flashed Miller.... “You another one of this woman’s maverick hunters?”

“Not on your life,” retorted Lincoln.

“She told me you were.”

“She lied.”

“She said she was going to marry you.”

“I can’t help what she thinks. Maybe she doesn’t know that I’ve got a wife.”

“Makin’ up to Kit — playin’ with Lucy — and all the time you’re married?”

“It might look like that but you’re wrong. That all you want to say to me?”

“I don’t savvy your game.”

“You will pronto.”

Miller betrayed an intense anger that could have been inspired and inflamed only by the Bandon woman.

But despite the anger and violent emotion that blazed in the cowboy’s face, Linc could see that Miller was consumed with an intense curiosity. And he recognized that this was the moment: the advantage was his. He could break this hard cowboy’s nerve. Quickly he said, “Kit couldn’t have meant what she doesn’t know — that Lucy is my wife!”

For an instant Miller seemed incapable of speech. Then he roared hoarsely, “I don’t believe it!” He forgot completely that he had challenged a man to a gun duel. He shook his head bewilderedly. He turned back to look at the hotel. Then he muttered:

“That accounts for it. Lucy didn’t act like herself. But, hell, stranger, Kit Bandon said—”

“Wrong, Miller,” interrupted Linc. “That is not what Kit Bandon meant.”

“Hell’s fire, man, what else?”

“I’m Jimmy Weston’s friend. That’s what brought me to Wyoming.”

“Wha — at! The hell you say!”

“I know, Miller, that you hauled him away from Kit Bandon’s ranch alive or dead.”

“Not alive — dead!” burst out Miller as he jerked for his gun.

Lincoln saw over the spouting flame of his own weapon the belching red of Miller’s, but the Nebraskan’s bullet reached its mark a fraction of a second before Miller’s. Then a stunning blow high up on his body staggered Lincoln; a searing pain ran through his shoulder.

Miller’s gun dropped and his lax arm fell to his side. A blank look slowly spread over the face which a moment before had worn a grimace of bitter hatred, and he fell face forward to lay still on the hard-packed dirt of the street.

Lincoln took several steps toward the fallen man waiting for some sign of movement. There was none. He heard loud voices and the footsteps of running men; then suddenly dizzy and blind he wavered to his knees, but he did not fall or lose consciousness. He heard a woman’s piercing scream; then someone laid hands upon him and helped him to his feet. As his mind cleared momentarily he saw that Sheriff Haught was supporting him.

“Are you bad hurt, Bradway?” asked the sheriff.

“I don’t — know. I guess not,” replied Lincoln, haltingly.

The sheriff took his gun. There were men bending over Miller who manifestly was stone dead.

“Where did he hit you?” asked the sheriff.

“Somewhere — high up.”

“Do you taste any blood?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Here, let’s see,” said Haught, tearing at Lincoln’s shirt. Blood was running down Lincoln’s left breast. Haught felt the bullet hole, from which blood was slowly seeping.

“Not bad. Too high to catch the lung,” he said with relief.

The sheriff folded a scarf and placed it on Lincoln’s shoulder.

“It was a narrow shave, Bradway.... Here, somebody help me with him,” he said to the bystanders.

A citizen came to the other side of Linc and supported him. A third followed with the wounded man’s coat. They walked, half carrying him across the street. At that instant Kit Bandon came running down the steps, lips parted, her eyes wide and dark, her face expressing fear and concern. She stopped before the trio and looked searchingly into Bradway’s drawn face.

“Is — is it bad, Lincoln?” she whispered huskily.

“It’s — it’s — nothing,” he replied faintly.

“Miss Bandon, he’s all right,” said the sheriff. “I’ll take him down to my place and call the doctor.”

She moved along with him and the crowd followed. In some way she had been able to get hold of one of his hands. By the time they had gone half a block or more Lincoln began to feel that consciousness was slipping away from him. Before everything went completely black, he felt himself being lifted and carried.

When he recovered consciousness he found himself on a couch in a stone-walled room with barred windows. Someone was working over him. He smelled strong antiseptics. Someone he recognized to be Kit sat on the other side of the bed watching him anxiously. Sheriff Haught, with his coat off and sleeves rolled up, evidently was helping the doctor.

“How is it, Doc?” he heard Haught ask.

“Clean as a whistle,” replied the doctor. “Went clear through. Never touched the collar bone.”

Kit stood up and laid her cool hand on the wounded man’s forehead. “Are you in much pain?” she asked.

Linc shook his head. His eyes seemed to be searching the room for someone.

“Where’s Lucy?” he whispered.

Kit Bandon did not reply.

“Doc, how about giving him a slug of whisky?” asked Haught.

“It might be a good idea. Got any handy?”

They lifted Bradway’s head and helped him to drink. He felt liquor surging through his numb body. He tried to sit up. Kit sprang to place a pillow under his injured shoulder.

“Now, Kit,” said the sheriff. “He’s all right.... Mustn’t be excited. I think you had better leave him with me. My housekeeper and I will take turns keeping watch over him.”

“Of course I will go,” said the Bandon woman, “but you must keep me posted on how he is.”

She bent over the Nebraskan and kissed him on the forehead. “You’re all right, Linc. Lie still and bear it.” Then she hurried out.

Haught began carefully to remove the injured man’s boots. They had cut away the bloody top of his shirt. In a few moments the doctor had finished his bandaging.

“Did it hurt?” he asked the cowboy.

“When you stuck that thing through — it sure did.”

The doctor rose and went into a little anteroom where Linc could hear him washing his hands in a sink.

“Sheriff,” he called, “I’ll look in tonight unless you send for me before that. I don’t anticipate any aftereffects. He’ll be up in three days walking around. This youngster could stand half a dozen bullet holes like that. Keep him quiet. I’ll leave something for you to give him if he gets restless.”

He returned to pick up his coat and put it on, then packed his instruments and medicines. Sheriff Haught stood looking down upon the cowboy with a smile.

“I sure was scared, Bradway. Must be gettin’ chicken-hearted about gunfire. I’ve seen a deal of fightin’, but there was somethin’ different about this — must have been the women.... Miller was one mean hombre. If I’d known how fast you were with a gun I wouldn’t have been as concerned. Curious about him, Bradway?”

Lincoln shook his head faintly. He fastened somber eyes upon the sheriff.

“You beat him to it, but not very much. Your bullet took him right in the center of the left vest pocket and it was a right good job. All the same I had to arrest you.”

“Then I’m — in jail?” asked Lincoln.

“Sure are, but we’ll call it a hospital.”

“Could — could I send a message to my — to Miss Bandon at the hotel?” he asked.

His eyes fell shut and he could not distinguish what the sheriff was saying. Presently he slipped into a stupor. When he awakened after a while, he became aware of a throbbing pain. He heard footsteps now and then and low voices. Evidently the afternoon was waning, for the room slowly darkened. He became aware that a comely Mexican woman was watching over him. When he asked in a whisper for water, she gave him a drink from a tin dipper. Then she lighted a lamp on the table back of his bed. Soon afterward he was visited by the doctor and Haught. After a cursory examination the doctor said, “I reckon you’ll have some pain tonight, Bradway, but I’m not going to give you anything to put you to sleep.”

“How about anything to eat or drink?” asked Haught.

“He can have water, of course. The only thing to watch is restlessness or possibly a delirious spell in which case we wouldn’t want him to wrestle about.”

The doctor bade them good night and Haught dismissed the woman.

“Bradway, go to sleep if you can. I’ll read and take catnaps until Marie calls me.”

The Nebraskan had been wounded more than once and a good deal more seriously than this. The pain and the feverishness were not unbearable, but what he dreaded was that grim black reaction that inevitably followed taking a man’s life in anger. He forced his thoughts from the realization that he had killed a man. How would Lucy feel? Once she had called him a killer. Why did Lucy not come to see him? Kit had come. Was Kit keeping his wife from coming? He fell into a fitful sleep, but was awake near midnight, when the woman came in to relieve Haught. Those wakeful hours of pain, which grew longer and longer until they seemed unbearable, slowly passed. At last, toward dawn, he fell asleep and when he awoke the sun was shining through the barred window. He felt much better, except for the throbbing in his shoulder. He did not have a fever. When Haught returned he said, “Good morning.”

The sheriff replied cheerfully telling him that he had made a good night of it and that there was little to worry about.

“Sheriff, don’t let anybody see me today, not even — not even Miss Bandon. I can get up and move around if I have to. I don’t want anything but cold water.”

“I know how you feel, Bradway. I’ve shot some bad hombres myself in my day. It isn’t pleasant the morning after, but from what I hear and from what Kit Bandon tells me you ought to have a medal.”

“You’re a peculiar sheriff,” whispered Lincoln with a wan smile.

“Thet is kind of funny considerin’ I’ve run you in and have to keep you here for a while.”

“I’d rather be here than anywhere else, just now. But why do you have to keep me? It was an even draw.”

“I’ll tell you in good time. I don’t want to get you excited.”

“That woman!”

“Which one?” said the sheriff quizzically.

“Kit Bandon, of course. I’ve a hunch she wants me kept in here. Well, I’m glad.... Sheriff, will you go to the hotel and bring back my bag and clothes?”

“What’ll I tell the women?” asked the sheriff.

“Tell Kit I’m terribly bad, but when you see Lucy tell her the truth.”

“Oho!” said the sheriff, laughing. “I’ll be doggoned! This is goin’ to turn out to be the most interestin’ shootin’-bee I’ve had in a long time. You were asking for Miss Bandon, last night, when you were a bit delirious, but I never dreamed it was the filly you wanted.”

He stamped out noisily and in an hour or so returned with the cowboy’s belongings. This time he moved quietly and left without speaking. Linc heard the key grate in the lock.

Bradway pulled himself upright to attempt walking around the room. A throbbing pain seared his shoulder and left him dizzy. But if necessary, he could have mounted a horse and ridden away. He paced the room, lay down again only to come to his feet restlessly and move around once more. There were blinds over the windows which he pulled down to keep out the glare of daylight. Then he made no further effort to avoid the ghastly reaction. He settled down to a grim and dark fight. The day passed with the spell hard upon him; when night had fallen he was gradually recovering from its somber grip and eventually he was able to sleep again.

Next morning Lincoln was himself again. The bullet wound still made him twinge, but his mind was at peace once more. He shaved himself and donned a clean white shirt, but since he could not leave the prison he went back to bed. Marie stolidly brought him breakfast from the hotel, the meal being accompanied by flowers. Lincoln had a fair idea who sent them.

The prisoner had scarcely finished his breakfast when Sheriff Haught entered with the doctor and Kit Bandon. She was dressed in white and appeared as gay as the flowers she admitted having sent him. The doctor’s examination was brief. At its conclusion he said, “Sheriff, you can let him out of here today.”

“Oh no, I cain’t. He’s under arrest.”

“Well,” said the doctor, “my work is done. Young man, when they release you come and see me.”

“Thank you, doctor. I’ll be coming pronto.”

Kit sat down on the bed beside him, and began stroking his forehead with a soft hand.

“You look fine, Lincoln. All clean-shaven and white-shirted! You must have expected — someone.... Are you in any pain?”

“Not to speak of — physically,” he replied, regarding her steadily.

As he looked up into those tender dark eyes and felt the soothing administrations of the annoying woman’s almost hypnotic hands, he recalled that Lucy had told him about Kit’s being madly infatuated with him. Soon she must learn the truth about Lucy and him. There would be hell pronto. He knew that Lucy would keep their secret, but he, himself, would have to tell her if she — didn’t leave him alone.

“Where’s Lucy?” asked Lincoln, with an effort at casualness.

“She wouldn’t come. She’s been very nervous since yesterday. Poor kid, she seems to think all this was on her account.”

“So it was, wasn’t it?”

“Not on your life, darling.”

“Did Lucy see me — the meeting?”

“No, I’m glad to say she didn’t. But I did.... I got the thrill of my life until I saw you were hit and staggered and almost fell. I almost died then, Linc! You see, I knew that Miller was quick as lightning and a dead shot and I thought he had outdrawn you in spite of the fury I aroused in him before he went out to meet you. Oh, it was terrible! I never suffered like that before, Lincoln, though I’m afraid you must think me hard and unfeeling.”

“Well, Kit, seein’ three’s a crowd and thet Bradway doesn’t need me now, I’ll take myself off,” Haught broke in, gazing down upon his prisoner, and as he looked, he winked one of his shrewd gray Texas eyes, in a message of understanding and warning. Then he went out, his heavy foot treads ringing on the board floor.

To Linc’s amazement and dismay, he suddenly felt his companion pressing against him. Her arms slipped about his neck, and her warm fragrant lips were pressed to his own. Lincoln felt her full breast throb against his. She was quivering slightly.

“Kit, this — is — very sweet and sympathetic of you,” labored Lincoln awkwardly, “but you’re rather heavy — leaning on me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Linc,” she cried. “That was a moment when I seemed fully to lose that awful fear that nailed me yesterday and which I could not get rid of.... But sympathetic! You’ve got me wrong, cowboy. What I feel is ten million times more wonderful than sympathy. When you get a little better — well, never mind.”

“How long is this sheriff going to keep me here?”

“I don’t know,” replied Kit hesitatingly. “A week perhaps.”

“But why?” asked Lincoln.

“He said something about the magistrate having gone to Salt Lake. He has to make some pretense of enforcing the law.”

“Well, I’d just as soon be here as anywhere so long as I have to take it easy. I suppose you and Lucy will be going back to the ranch?”

“No. My cattle deal has missed fire. Besides I wouldn’t think of going until you are out.... Linc, hasn’t it occurred to you yet that I might have some very serious ideas in my head?”

“I daresay,” replied Lincoln constrainedly.

“What do you think is behind all this — this interest I’ve taken in you?”

“I hadn’t thought very much about it. You have the reputation of showing interest in — cowboys, especially new ones to the country.”

“That ought to prove to you how really sincere I am now,” replied Kit broodingly. “Did — did you hear some talk about me in South Pass?”

“It would be rather hard to avoid hearing things about you.... You’re the main topic of conversation on that range.”

The woman’s face flared red and her eyes blazed, but she kept control of her temper.

“A good deal of it is true, Lincoln,” she finally said soberly. “How much depends on what has been said! When I get hold of myself I will confess more than I ever have to anyone in my whole life before.... Lincoln, this is my confession — there’s something in you I’m not used to finding in men. I never realized it about any other man that I took a liking to... perhaps I’m letting my heart run away with my head.”

“Kit, you couldn’t expect me to believe your — well — feeling for me is any different from — well, from what you felt for all the others?”

She bowed her head for a moment. Then she whispered:

“Linc, with all my heart I want you to believe that.”

“Well, I don’t,” replied Lincoln bluntly. “I don’t want to brag, Kit, but you may find me a little different than the others.”

“That’s just it, I’m afraid. You do have more education than most men I’ve known — certainly you must come from a good family. But above all, you’re clean and fine — I sensed that in you when I first met you. Cowboys live hard lives, and when off duty many of them get drunk, bat around, go for dance-hall girls and all the slatterns that infest these towns. But you’re not that kind of a cowboy, Lincoln. Perhaps that has something to do with my sudden — liking for you. I don’t know. But I’m inclined to think that if you had been the toughest cowboy on the range, I would have fallen for you just the same.”

Lincoln laughed shortly. “Well, I hope, my dear, that you get over it pronto. As a matter of fact, Kit, you’ll have to!”

She fastened dark unfathomable eyes upon him. She seemed suddenly to sense that here was a will as strong or even stronger than her own. The flush left her cheek and she grew pale; her eyes burned darker by contrast. She bit her lip.

“Lincoln, I shall have to convince you of many things. I am willing to make many sacrifices. I am willing, too, to fight for the man I love,” she cried with a proud look.

“Kit, you surprise me each time we meet. I don’t know what’s in your mind — I don’t suppose anyone could ever divine that, but there are reasons why such confidences as you are making should not go any further.”

“Lincoln! Why — ?” she exclaimed.

The wounded man silently shook his head.

“You don’t care anything about me — ?” she cried in amazement.

“I couldn’t say that,” replied Lincoln gravely. “Any man you interest yourself in would be bound to care in some way. You are a beautiful, dangerous, mysterious woman. Does that mean anything to you?”

“I take it as a compliment,” she replied, smiling. “If I’m mysterious dangerous, beautiful already, I don’t see that I have much to worry about. All that I have to do is turn my back on the past.”

“Kit, either I’m loco or you are,” he retorted, trying to keep his tone light. “I think we’ve said enough about it today.”

“I still want to talk to you — about your meeting with Miller.”

“I’d rather not say anything about that either,” replied Lincoln coldly.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to,” she said, simply. “You have something on your mind. I want it cleared away. Do you realize that but for me — for my upsetting Miller, it would have been one of those even breaks in which both men die?”

“That has crossed my mind,” said Lincoln. “You riled him, unnerved him, made him meet me without that cold nerve which he surely would have had. But I said something to him that upset him even more. Wouldn’t you like to know what it was?”

Kit looked startled for a moment. Then she went on: “I tried to persuade him to avoid meeting you. Of course, that was a pretense. I told him you would beat him to a gun. I lied to him about you and Lucy. And I sent him out there to ask you something that he had to ask before he killed you.”

“You wanted Miller killed, didn’t you?” he queried.

“Yes, I did. He was a bad hombre. He was driving Lucy crazy. He wanted money out of me. But these things weren’t important, Lincoln. I wanted you to kill him so that he couldn’t kill you.” She was earnest and persuasive, but he divined that she was not telling the whole truth. Something dark and furtive hid behind her show of tremendous sincerity.

“Was he trying to blackmail you?”

“Yes, but it was a bluff. Bad as Hank was, he wouldn’t say anything against me — even if he knew it.” An incredible egotism and faith in her own powers were manifest in her tone and in her words.

“Miller asked where I was from, down there in the street.”

“Yes, he wanted to know who the hell you were and I didn’t tell him. But did you tell him?”

“I wracked my brain for something that would give me the edge.... I told him — that I was Lucy Bandon’s husband!”

Kit Bandon’s icy little laugh rang out, but there was no amusement in the laugh. “Well, if you aren’t an inventive cuss. So that was it!... I know just when you said that. What did he say?”

“Well,” replied Linc, “he seemed to take it rather hard.”

“Then what did you say?” burst out Kit, in a voice that was husky with eagerness.

“Kit, my gun did the rest of the talking,” he answered, simply.

She arose and paced the floor, fighting for command of her feelings yet for some reason apparently immeasurably relieved. Lincoln was relieved also. He had deliberately exaggerated Miller’s reaction to his revelation about Lucy because he did not want Kit to know what that last terrible exchange of words between him and Miller had been about.

Presently Kit turned away from the window, once more composed although her dark eyes still revealed her deep emotion.

“Lincoln, I’m glad it’s all over now and that I understand. I must say you are as clever with your wits as you are swift with a gun.... I have troubled you, Lincoln. Forgive me. I’ll go now and come back sometime later.”

She bent to kiss him, but there was no ardor now. A moment later Sheriff Haught was letting her out of the door, and locking it behind her.

Long after Kit had left the sheriff’s jailhouse Linc Bradway lay on his bed deep in thought. He had wanted to put this tragic problem out of his mind a little while longer but it was no use. What was the truth? Kit Bandon knew something about Jimmy Weston’s death, but had she anything to do with it? The possibility haunted him. If Jimmy had met his death at the Bandon ranch, that would be damning proof of her complicity. Guilt he had seen in Miller’s eyes but it was guilt without fear: no murderer could have watched the cowboy’s expression on the brink of dealing death and perhaps meeting it himself. Despite his guilt, those last furious words of Miller’s seemed to ring with inherent truth. Miller might have killed Jimmy but Lincoln doubted it. Miller was not the man to kill cold-bloodedly without having betrayed his duplicity to Lincoln during their encounter. At that dark moment Lincoln felt as far from the solution of the mystery as ever.

CHAPTER IX

LINCOLN WAS LEFT alone until noon, when the waiter brought his lunch from the hotel. It was a lavish spread for a cowboy, and included wine. Noticing the wine, Haught, who had just entered, remarked dryly, “You’re putting on a lot of style, young feller. The daintiest of grub and wine on the side! — Of course, you’re not payin’ for this?”

“No, I’m not. I suppose, of course, it must be Kit Bandon.”

“Yes, she told me she’d take care of your meals,” replied Haught.

“Well, if you hang around you can share some of this wine with me.”

“I sure will hang around all right,” said the sheriff amiably, seating himself comfortably on the bed.

“Sheriff, how long are you going to keep me in the calaboose?”

“I thought you wanted me to keep you locked up for a while?”

While Lincoln busily applied himself to the food Haught studied him shrewdly.

“Yes, I did say that,” replied Lincoln. “But I’m O.K. now and the little embarrassment that I expected to meet is passed. Frankly, I’d like to get out.” This was not strictly truthful, for he was very well pleased where he was. However, he really wanted to find out why he was being detained.

“Well, son, I spread it around about thet it was a matter of law — but it isn’t thet.”

“All right. I’m glad of that. But I want to know what’s behind it.”

“This is strictly confidential, Bradway. The Bandon woman is behind it. She wants you kept here for a while.”

“That was plain to see. But why? Are there any pards of Miller’s around town that she’s afraid I’d clash with?”

“No. Thet hombre was a lone wolf. She swore out a warrant, and I didn’t have no choice in the matter at all.”

“Thunderation then!” exclaimed Lincoln. “Why does she want to keep me locked up? Is she afraid I’ll interfere with some shady deal of hers?”

“It’s beyond me. I figured hard on it. Either there’s someone here that she don’t want you to meet or she wants to keep you away from her niece or she just wants to keep you for herself.”

“Have you seen her with anyone?”

“Cattleman I don’t know,” replied Haught. “He’s from Utah. Didn’t strike me as bein’ a Mormon. I made friendly advances to him which he certainly didn’t meet. I know thet she is sellin’ a big bunch of mavericks and some other stuff which is bein’ driven to Rock Springs. The stock arrived yesterday and I went down and had a look at it.”

“How many head?” asked Lincoln.

“Not a big herd. Something short of three hundred. But there was a remarkable lot of yearlings in the bunch.”

They exchanged penetrating glances, each attempting to read the other’s hidden thoughts. The prisoner had divined that the sheriff was very curious, but that he really knew very little about Kit Bandon. He had been markedly friendly to Lincoln and it did not seem that he could be unduly influenced in her favor.

“Sheriff, let me rest your mind on one thing. I am not in love with Kit Bandon nor mixed up with her in any way.”

“Well, I wondered about that. I’m glad you came clean because I didn’t want to step on your toes. I reckon if you were a little sweet on the girl thet would explain how the wind blows. Son, you’re skating on thin ice.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“If this Kit isn’t loco about you, I’ve lost my way of figurin’. She’s chain lightnin’, that woman is! I wouldn’t want her daid set on me unless I shared her feelin’s.”

The sheriff left the room with the tray but either intentionally or accidentally did not lock the door this time. Bradway was left alone but the hours now moved more swiftly as his wound had ceased to bother him; also there was much to keep his mind occupied. Late in the afternoon Kit Bandon visited him again, and brought flowers and candy.

“Kit, are you bent on spoiling me?” he asked with a smile.

“I sure am,” responded Kit soberly. “I never yet met the man who couldn’t be spoiled.”

“But what’s the idea?”

“Lincoln, you’re not as dense as you make out to be.” She sat beside him but refrained from making any other demonstration. There was a look of hunger in her dark eyes and a suggestion of a sad droop in her red lips. She regretted that her stay would have to be short — that she was laboring through an irritating business deal with a cattleman — that there were other petty difficulties bothering her. The cowboy ventured to say, “Why didn’t you fetch Lucy over? Sometimes I get pretty lonesome.”

“I asked her to come,” replied Kit a trifle evasively, it seemed to Linc, “but she wouldn’t do it.”

“Well, perhaps seeing me might be rather dismaying.”

“No, it isn’t that at all,” said Kit. “It’s her vanity. Lucy is buying a new gown and hat and for some reason or other she just can’t be satisfied. I never saw her so contrary. As a matter of fact, I gave her a hundred dollars and told her to spend it on clothes. The girl lost her head. I suspect I’ve been pretty selfish. I always wore the best clothes that money could buy without any thought of Lucy. She really is a pretty girl and ought to wear clothes that become her. Sometimes I think I’ve been jealous of her good looks and sweetness.”

“Jealous?” he questioned, as if surprised.

“It’s one of my many faults. I always was jealous of anyone young and attractive.”

“But you needn’t be.”

“I needn’t have been a lot of things, Lincoln. But I must leave you now. Good-by until tomorrow.”

He lay there revolving in his mind the many puzzling and disquieting facts he knew about Kit. Again he wondered if the strong unrest she manifested could really be due to an awakening of conscience. Somehow, he did not think so. He believed that up to this time in her life Kit Bandon never had bothered with such a thing as conscience. Perhaps this recent perturbation was due more to the wounding of her inordinate vanity — because, in effect, he had not succumbed to her charm and power to dominate men. She would brook no opposition to her will, and his resistance would only make her more dangerous to deal with.

Presently Lincoln heard voices outside in the sheriff’s office, and those sometimes drawling, sometimes curt, familiar tones brought him up with a start. It was undoubtedly Vince. An argument appeared to be taking place. It grew louder and more heated. “What do you want for two bits? Shall I go out an’ get pinched to be put in yore old jail? I tell you Bradway will see me if you tell him his pard is here. The name is Vince.”

“It’s O.K., Sheriff,” shouted his prisoner. “Bring him in, will you?”

At length Haught grumblingly consented; his footsteps were accompanied by the slow tinkling footfalls that Lincoln recognized. The door opened to admit Haught escorting in a most disreputable little figure. Vince was ragged, dirty, haggard and unshaven. His face was hollow-eyed and gaunt. “Hello, pard. Say, what in hell’s the matter with this law man? He wasn’t goin’ to let me in.”

“Bradway, I wasn’t taking any chances, for he certainly was a tough-lookin’ little hombre — inclined to be too cocky for his own good. Is he a friend of yours as he claims to be?”

“I should say he is. He must have gotten into some kind of a mess to look this way.... Vince, shake hands with Sheriff Haught.”

“Sorry, I am sure, cowboy,” replied the sheriff, as he complied with the request. “I reckon I’d be glad to meet any of Bradway’s friends.” He left the two together.

Linc called out: “Lock the door, Sheriff, and don’t let anybody in, especially Miss Bandon if she should happen to return.”

Vince strode over to the cot and sat down upon it to grasp Lincoln’s hand in both his.

“Vince, you look like a scarecrow,” said the Nebraskan, grinning. “No wonder the sheriff didn’t want to let you in. You’ve been riding hard, hanging out in brush, going hungry and sleepless. What has happened to you? How did you know where to find me, pard?”

“Hell! Plenty’s happened. But never mind about me. What has happened to you?”

“More than plenty, Vince. I think I’ve got you topped. Didn’t you hear anything down the street?”

“We heard a lot of stories — all different.”

“Who’s we?” asked Lincoln.

“Mel Thatcher an’ me. He come over with me.”

“How come?” queried Lincoln in surprise.

“Wal, me and Thatcher got pretty thick. He’s true blue, an’ I shore think he’s had a rotten deal. He was broke and couldn’t get any kind of a job. Wuss fix than me. Lee tried to drive him out of South Pass and out of the country fer thet matter. I reckon I kept Mel from mixin’ in a bad fight. He shore was seein’ red. I dragged him up to my place at the livery stable an’ kept him there till he cooled down. We got to be pards. Always did think a heap of Thatcher anyhow. He was at his wit’s end an’ I think he’d hev gone to smash if I hadn’t taken him in hand. I questioned him about you an’ I found he’s fer you all the way. Sooner or later, pard, you’ll be wantin’ riders to ride fer you and fight fer you too, an’ I recommend Mel Thatcher.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Lincoln. “Well, Thatcher made a good impression on me, too. Will he talk?”

“Close-lipped as an Injun dummy. Same as me. But thet don’t say thet he’ll always be thet way.... I’ll tell you afterwards what happened to me an’ Mel, but when we got here we heerd in the furst saloon we went in about yore run-in with Miller. We was plumb upset. After thet everywhere we asked questions the story grew wuss. We run plumb into Kit Bandon an’ if looks could kill, Mel an’ me shore would hev been daid long ago, but we ducked out of her way an’ hunted up the jail. When this Texas sheriff told us you was all right I never was so glad of anythin’ in my life.”

“How do you think I look?” asked Linc.

“Hell! You look to me like a geezer who was on his honeymoon.”

Lincoln laughed. “Well, it takes two to make a proper honeymoon, but I’m feeling pretty fine, thanks.”

“Where did you get plugged?” asked Vince, feeling gently around Lincoln’s bandage.

“Under the collar bone. Clean as a whistle. I’m rarin’ to go right now.”

“Wal, what’s keepin’ you here? It was an even break. This sheriff hasn’t got no case against you.”

“That’s true. Haught admitted it. But it seems Kit swore out a warrant and wants me kept here for a while for some mysterious reason. I thought I’d not make a break just yet. I have several good reasons.”

Vince looked around at the vase of flowers, the box of candy on the table, the plate of cake and then met Lincoln’s gaze with a quizzical look. “Pard, I’m not shore yit whether you are the onluckiest cuss in the world or not. Comin’ back to Miller, he gave you a run fer yore money, eh?”

“I’ll say he did. I made a couple of cracks that upset him and that gave me the edge on the draw.”

“Ahuh. What was the cracks, pard?”

“Vince, they had to do with Jimmy Weston.”

Vince whistled under his breath. “You nagged Miller into tellin’ you somethin’ jest at the moment of meetin’ him?”

“I’ll tell you later,” responded Linc. “But I’ve got some news, Vince, that I can’t keep any longer.”

“Yea? Wal, you kinda look like you was bustin’ with somethin’.”

“The first day I got here,” began Lincoln swiftly, “I ran into Kit and Lucy with this fellow Miller.” The Nebraskan went on to relate the events leading up to his marriage to Lucy.

“Wha — a — t!” stuttered Vince incredulously, “You, married to Lucy?”

“I did that, pard,” said Lincoln. “It sounds like a dream but it happened.”

Vince stared at his friend. “An’ all the time Kit Bandon has lost her haid over you — the fust time in her life!”

“I don’t know about that, Vince, but she comes in here and acts and talks like it.”

Vince threw up his hands and began to pace the floor. He was the picture of consternation and dismay. He actually wrung his hands. His distress was too genuine to be laughed at.

“Lord amighty, pard. Yore as good as daid right now,” he finally burst out, stopping before Lincoln. “You’ve signed yore own death warrant. You might as well cash in right now. Haven’t you got no sense? Couldn’t you wait? Didn’t you hev any hunch about what kind of a woman this she-cat is?... She’ll kill you, man, as shore as yore the onluckiest cuss who ever breathed. An’ like as not, she’ll kill pore Lucy too.”

“But, Vince, she doesn’t know it yet! Besides, you don’t think I’m going to sit idly by if Lucy is in danger!”

“But she’ll find it out,” expostulated Vince. “The longer she’s fooled the wuss she’ll be.... Pard, didn’t you know Kit Bandon had personally killed two or three men? More, for all I know.”

“I heard that but I hardly believed it.”

“Wal, I believe it. She certainly come awful damn close to givin’ it to me.”

“That’s a confession, Vince. You’ll have to tell me about that.”

“Did you fix the parson so he won’t tell?” queried Vince.

“I’m sure it won’t leak out there.”

“Who else knows?”

“Only Lucy — and I told Miller that last second before he died.”

“Lordy! Yore a cold-blooded hombre.... Lucy ought to know Kit well enough to keep her mouth shet but it won’t hurt none to scare her half to death. And how about you, Mr. Bridegroom? Can you keep from shootin’ off yore chin?”

“I don’t know, Vince. Sometimes I’m afraid I can’t. If she drives me too far—”

“Nuff said,” interposed Vince. “I can guess the rest. Now fer Lord Amighty’s sake, listen to me. Explain this to Lucy no matter what risk you run and let Kit make all the fuss she wants over you even if it kills you. It’d be better to stand fer that, wouldn’t it, than to be daid?”

“Vince, I can’t let Kit make a fool of herself,” protested Lincoln.

“Why cain’t you?” queried Vince angrily.

“I can’t — because, well, I just don’t trust myself where that woman is concerned,” retorted Lincoln desperately. “I know she’s playing a deep game, and may be implicated in Jimmy’s murder. But in spite of all that I can’t hate her for it. I couldn’t love her, but — neither can I hate her....”

“She’s got hell’s fire in her veins,” interrupted Vince. “Take my hunch, pard, keep thet secret until you an’ Lucy can run away or till somethin’ happens, an’ you can bet yore life somethin’ is goin’ to happen.”

“What do you mean, Vince?” demanded the Nebraskan.

“I don’t know. I don’t know any more than you. But, man, in the very nature of things out here on this Wyomin’ border where there ain’t no law or morality, where the times is hard an’ men are desprit, I jest cain’t believe thet even a woman, beautiful as she is, can go on forever makin’ fools of men an’ bein’ a law onto herself.”

“All right, Vince. I’ll keep the secret if I can prevail upon Lucy to trust me.”

“It’ll be tough, but yore married to her an’ Kit cain’t take thet away.... Now, listen to what I’ve got to tell you. There’s been some high old goin’s on in South Pass since you left. The cowboys is upset because of the rumor thet the cattlemen in the Sweetwater Valley are goin’ to fire them in a bunch an’ go to Caspar an’ Cheyenne to hire other hands. I reckon thet’s only a rumor. It’s too farfetched to be true. There’s more’n 80,000 head of stock in the valley an’ you know thet takes aplenty of outfits to run. The cattlemen cain’t afford to do thet. But the upset among the cattlemen is shore a real fact. Lee is the ringleader of the ranchers. He’s a Texan an’ powerful full of spunk. Some say he’s crazy about Kit Bandon and others say he hates her. I reckon he does both, because Kit made a fool out of him same’s the rest. Hargrove, Burton, Nesbit, Seymour, MacNeil, all the cattlemen down the river were in town fer two days. They had a secrut meetin’. Mel an’ I sneaked round back of the hall an’ got chased away fer our pains. Nobody knows what went on at thet meetin’. It had to do with these cattlemen bandin’ themselves together to put a united front against any and all kinds of rustlin’. These cattlemen hev been slow to wrath. There’s a reason fer thet which you might guess. But it’s settled now — they’re as mad as hornets an’ it’s goin’ to go hard with anyone they ketch stealin’ cattle.”

“Well, Vince, that was in the air when I was in South Pass.”

“Yes, but it hadn’t come to a haid yet. The day after thet meetin’ Thatcher heerd from Bill Haines thet a cowboy had been caught red-handed an’ was bein’ held down in the river bottom by the riders who had caught him. Later me and Mel got ahold of Haines and scared him into the middle of next week. He’s a good friend of Thatcher’s an’ we finally forced him to confess where the cowboy was bein’ held. Thet night after dark Thatcher an’ me rode out of South Pass packin’ some grub an’ blankets an’ we made a beeline fer the river bottom. When we got to Hargrove’s ranch about midnight we scouted all around lookin’ fer a campfire. Couldn’t find nothin’ so we made camp ourselves.

“Next day we kept out of sight but we watched the trails. Thatcher went one way an’ I went another. Long in the afternoon late Thatcher came back an’ said he had spotted buckboards an’ saddle hosses on the Hargrove road. We sneaked out along the edge of the willows until we caught sight of them an’ then we hid an’ let them pass. Then we followed them. They stopped at Hargrove’s ranch. This was along about sunset. A little later we saw a man come out of the willows below us, look all around as if he didn’t want to be seen, an’ then run across the road into the ranch yard. We figgered thet he was goin’ to inform these cattlemen where the prisoner thet had been reported caught was bein’ held. We figgered we were gettin’ pretty hot. We found a trail enterin’ in the brush jest below us an’ we hid close to it.

“Wal, to make a long story short, as soon as it was dark a bunch of men took thet trail single-file behind their guides and went into the brush. Me an’ Thatcher followed but not too close. Half a mile in we saw a light in a clearin’ an’ we planned to sneak off the trail one on each side an’ get as close as possible. An’ we arranged to meet at our campin’ place later. I didn’t hev to go very far on my side before I came up to the edge of the thicket an’ saw the campfire a hundred steps or more away. I lay low an’ watched an’ listened. Someone threw brush on the campfire an’ it blazed up bright.

“There was thirteen men in thet bunch not countin’ a young feller they had tied to a saplin’. I couldn’t see his face well but it was familiar. I recognized Lee, Hargrove, Burton, Nesbit, and Summers in the firelight. There wasn’t any doubt about who they was. They meant business. It was jest like a hangin’ party. Lee and Hargrove did the talkin’ but I couldn’t ketch what they said. But I distinctly heerd the cowboy say no. He said it several times an’ shook his head violently. Then they ripped off his coat an’ shirt and beat him over the bare back. Lee was the fust to use the whip. Purty soon he stopped and asked the cowboy again some question. He cursed somethin’ awful. It was plain to me then thet Lee wanted him to confess somethin’. I heerd Hargrove say, ‘But they caught you rustlin’ calves.’ An’ the cowboy yelled: ‘Hang me and be damned!’

“They tried beatin’ him again in which several of the cattlemen took a hand. They were a pretty hard bunch, at their rope’s end. They had been drinkin’ too in South Pass. But they didn’t hang him. Mebbe they thought they could make him give up later. Anyway they untied him and led him away. I waited until they was gone and then slipped out in the open and made my way to our camp. Thatcher did not come back fer two hours. I told him what I’d seen and waited fer him to spill what he had seen. But he didn’t do it. All he said was: ‘Wait!’ He seemed kind of dazed. Long after I rolled in my blanket I saw him sittin’ by the campfire. In the mornin’ early we rode back to South Pass in time to get the stage.”

Lincoln maintained a long silence. “Vince, as if I didn’t have enough to think about without worrying about you!... Suppose you shave yourself and put on one of my clean shirts. By the way, is Thatcher as tough looking a hombre as you are?”

“No, he ain’t, pard. But he’s pretty seedy at thet.”

“And of course you’re both broke.”

“Wal, I had jest enough money left of thet you gave me to get here.”

“Well, I’ll dig up some more. Now clean yourself up and rustle out of here.”

While Vince made haste to wash and render himself more presentable, Linc lay back on the bed and thought over what the cowpoke had told him. What significance had this story of Vince with all that had preceded it? Common sense would indicate that any drastic movement in Sweetwater Valley had significance for Bradway and his problem. He went over Vince’s story again. The Nebraskan had experienced many an uprising of the cattlemen, but this was the first time he had ever known it to be a war to be waged upon cowboys. Vince discharged; Thatcher, a valuable and trusted cowhand, disgraced and threatened; some unknown cowboy made prisoner and beaten — these were indeed events that hinted of even worse to come. The next thing these irate cattlemen would do would be to kill a cowboy or worse, hang him. But what for? The answer was too easy. Rustling! But Lincoln could not persuade himself to believe that was all. Why did they beat the unknown cowboy? He had been caught red-handed stealing calves — but they would not beat him for that. Obviously they wanted him to talk, to betray someone else, to reveal to them what he was going to do with the stolen calves. The cowboy had refused to talk. Stripped and beaten, yet he resolutely clung to his secret, whatever it was. “Hang me and be damned!” Certainly such defiance as that must be in protection of a mighty important cause. A cowboy would have to possess great nerve and incentive to taunt a bunch of angry cattlemen in such circumstances. Lincoln cudgeled his brain over possible motives. From whatever angle he approached the mystery, every trail led in the same direction — toward the Maverick Queen — Kit Bandon.

The deduction was inevitable. It pointed to a grave and complex situation in the valley; it involved Kit Bandon’s machinations, whatever they were; a good many of the cowboys, perhaps all of them; and probably more than one rancher. What was this vigilante band of cattlemen really aiming to accomplish? To stop the rustling? Or was it something else? He must hurry back to South Pass in order to find out. Hanging the unknown cowboy would precipitate a most unusual and dangerous situation. Unquestionably it would be followed by further bloodshed. Lincoln had never quite liked that little cold deadly glint in Vince’s eyes. If the other cowboys, whether they were guilty of anything crooked or not, were treated in such a manner, they would rise in a body for vengeance, organize into a full-scale rustler band or start a war. They would not betray Kit Bandon. It was the code of most cowboys, gallant and sentimental, perhaps, but one to which they all adhered, never by word or deed to say or do anything that could be detrimental to a woman.

“Wal, boss, how do I look?” spoke up Vince, approaching his partner.

“Very much better, cowboy. Now you take this money and join Thatcher, get him to make himself look decent, catch yourselves something to eat. Then keep your eyes peeled and your wits about you. No more red liquor, no bucking the tiger, and avoid the Bandons. Savvy that?”

“O.K., boss. I’m shore Mel will be glad yore takin’ him on.”

“All right. That’s fine. Bring him to see me early in the morning.”

Vince met Sheriff Haught in the corridor. “Wal, cowboy, you don’t look quite so disreputable. Stick that gun you’re packin’ round under your coat so it don’t show so plain.”

“Much obliged, Sheriff. I kinda think you might be a regular feller after all. But when are you goin’ to let my pard out of jail?”

“Well, I reckon it’ll be a few days yet,” returned the sheriff. Leaving the door open he approached Lincoln. “Bradway, I went out and had a talk with thet other cowboy and I’m bound to say that I liked him. Fine upstandin’ cowpuncher, and plenty intelligent. He’s pretty close-lipped. I know the rancher Lee that he worked for. There’s hell brewin’ over there in that valley. Now I want to know if you’re on the right side.”

“I think so, Sheriff. I’m sure of it,” replied the Nebraskan thoughtfully.

“Well, that’s good. Both of these cowboys who came here to see you are on the dividing line between goin’ to hell and goin’ straight. Not thet I think they haven’t gone straight but somethin’ has rubbed them the wrong way. Somethin’ mighty dangerous. I’ve seen Texas cowboys like thet and I know ’em like a book. Are those boys goin’ to work for you?”

“Yes they are, Sheriff, and I’m pretty sure I can control them.”

“I’ll feel better about thet when you leave here.”

“When will that be?”

“Well, I reckon you’re at liberty to go most anytime now.”

“Fine. But I’ll hang around a few days longer, Sheriff. There’re reasons.”

“I should smile there’s reasons!” replied the sheriff. “Today when I was down street a stunnin’ lookin’ girl came up to me. It took me a little bit to recognize Lucy Bandon. She was all dressed up in blue, happy, excited, and she asked me about my prisoner — meaning you, of course. I told her that you were a little weak from the loss of blood but you would be all right soon. I asked her to come down and call on you. She said, ‘Oh, I wish I dared. Maybe in a day or two if my aunt goes to Salt Lake. Will you give — a — Mr. — a — Bradway my — my best wishes?’ Told her I shore would. Now, Bradway, I haven’t known you a great while but I’ve taken a likin’ to you. But even if I hadn’t, the fact that a purty girl like Lucy Bandon’s sweet on you, would be bound to influence me.”

A melodious voice could be heard outside in the corridor. “Ahuh,” continued the sheriff, “speaking of angels or would you say the opposite — I think you have callers, Linc.” After he had stamped noisily out, Lincoln recognized the two feminine voices in reply to the sheriff’s greeting. Kit Bandon entered, followed by Lucy and Haught. Haught stopped in the doorway to speak to someone else outside. The Nebraskan forgot all caution. His glance passed by Kit, and for a moment his eyes met the blue eyes of Lucy Bradway. Almost imperceptibly she shook her head. He turned quickly to face Kit Bandon, who evidently had missed the exchange between the two.

“Hello, Linc,” said Kit. “I thought I would run up a few minutes, and I finally prevailed on Lucy to come with me.”

“How do you do, Lucy?” said Lincoln.

“Good evening,” replied Lucy composedly. She walked up to the couch and gazed down upon him. She was quite pale in the dim light and her eyes shone darkly. “And how are you?”

“Just fine — for a cripple,” replied Lincoln. “It is very good of you to come and see me.”

At that juncture a waiter appeared bearing a white-covered tray which he deposited upon a little table by Bradway’s couch.

“Bring it in, boy,” called Kit to someone outside. A boy entered, carrying a large lamp. “Lincoln, I brought something to light up this dismal place.” In a moment the place changed from a dingy cell to a warm and comfortable room. “There, isn’t that cheerful? And here are newspapers, and a couple of books.”

“Thanks,” replied Lincoln. “You’re awfully good to me — but I’m not going to stay in here forever.”

“No, of course not,” said Kit. “But you had better start in on your supper before it gets cold. Sheriff, will you take Lucy into your office while I talk over some business with Mr. Bradway?”

Sitting up, Linc caught Lucy’s eyes again and he made a slight motion with his head, which he hoped she would interpret correctly. Then he said: “You talk, Kit, while I eat.”

She waited until the sheriff had ushered Lucy out of the room and into his office across the corridor. Lincoln noticed that the girl was not as radiant as she had been when she came in a few moments before. She was quiet and tense, and her eyes were dark and sad.

“You’ll have to do most of the talking, cowboy. I want to know some mighty important things.”

“What about?” he asked. He was not perturbed; he held the advantage over Kit Bandon in every way, except in regard to Lucy. Kit pulled a chair close to where Linc now was sitting at the table.

“Lincoln, I just ran plumb into Mel Thatcher and that ex- cowboy Vince,” she announced. “Do you know them?”

“I met Thatcher in South Pass and I’m quite well acquainted with Vince.”

“Could they by any chance be here to see you?”

“They could, and they are,” replied the Nebraskan coolly.

“I guessed it then,” retorted Kit with a snap of her fingers. “What is their relation to you?”

“Well, I’d say Vince had the makings of a real pard. According to him, Thatcher will stack up about the same way.”

“How did this come about?” queried Kit.

“I ran into Vince in South Pass. He was down on his luck, broke and hungry, and I cottoned to him, that’s all. According to Vince, this cowboy, Thatcher, is pretty bad off too. Lee fired him. He can’t get anybody to give him a job on the range, and naturally he was pretty desperate. Vince brought him over here to see if I wouldn’t have him throw in with us.”

“Kind of a Good Samaritan, eh?” inquired Kit with a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

“Kit, maybe it’s a weakness, but I am pretty liable to take the part of the underdog, especially when he happens to be somebody I’m fond of. I like Thatcher and I think a heap of Vince.”

“What do you aim to do with them?”

“Well, I’ve got plenty of money, as you know, and I’ll let them trail around with me for a while.”

Kit half rose from her chair. “You can’t do that,” she said, her voice rising.

“Beg pardon?” inquired Bradway, politely.

“I said you can’t do that,” repeated Kit.

“And why not?”

“Because I won’t stand for it.”

Linc laughed. “Excuse me, lady, but what I do, what friends I choose to make, and what cowboys I put on my payroll have nothing at all to do with you.”

“Lincoln!” she cried incredulously. He quickly perceived that she had completely overestimated her power over him.

“Kit, you have been flattering enough to express your interest in me and you’ve certainly been very kind to me since I got shot up. I’m grateful, of course, but you must know that I can’t take orders from you.”

She turned perfectly white, her eyes turned like glittering daggers upon him. The cowboy could see that it was with great difficulty that she was retaining her composure. Quick as a panther she arose and the sound she uttered was like a hiss. For a moment she stood looking down at Linc, her dark eyes mere slits. Then she walked to the window, her face twisted and tense.

He calmly went on eating his supper, but inwardly he was completely alert. In a few moments she came back to him again, her venomous mood gone as suddenly as it had seized her.

“Linc, listen. Both Thatcher and Vince are bitter enemies of mine. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” There was a note of appeal in her voice.

“I don’t believe that,” he retorted. “At least they haven’t confided in me. But if it’s true — why should two cowpokes be Kit Bandon’s enemies?”

“I liked them. I felt sentimental about them as I have about so many cowboys, but when they began getting jealous and insistent I soon tired of them.”

“Reason enough,” said Lincoln shortly.

“Reason?” she queried. “For what?”

“Why, it’s a woman’s privilege to shed herself of a man when she is tired of him. Are you sure that you didn’t overdo your — let’s say sentimental interest in them?”

It was evident that she was unused to this kind of indifference from any man. She controlled her anger with an effort.

“Lincoln, I have made some great plans — which involve you.”

“You are very good, but don’t you think you should consult me before making plans which involve me?”

“I want to sell out my cattle and my ranch and move down the Sweetwater into new country.... I’m going to Salt Lake tomorrow to see my banker and make a deal for my property. I will have a pretty big stake when the deal is settled. Will you leave this part of Wyoming with me?”

“In what capacity?” asked Lincoln curiously.

“Partner.”

“Kit, I couldn’t make a deal like that with you.”

“Why not?” she flashed quickly.

“Well, there are several good reasons. I still have some unfinished business to settle around South Pass, and I would not let down Thatcher and Vince. I don’t like the way things are shaping up in the Sweetwater Valley, and I would not want to share in any way with your other partner, Emery.”

“I’ll get rid of Emery,” she said shortly.

“Well, that’s something — but still...”

“What do you mean by things shaping up in the valley?” she interrupted, sharply.

“Thatcher and Vince brought me some very disquieting news. Looks like a cowboy and cattleman war is brewing over along the Sweetwater.”

“I’ve seen that coming for a long while,” she replied, without losing her composure. “That’s one reason why I want to get out before it comes to a head. But those cattlemen are slow to act.... Too many of them distrust each other. I question if they would hold together if it came to a showdown.”

“I don’t share that opinion, Kit,” replied Lincoln, coldly. “I am anxious to go back to South Pass and find out for myself. I think there have been some developments in the last few days. It might be of more interest to you than you think.”

“What might be?” asked Kit.

“Why, just what these cattlemen are up to over there. From what I gather, they don’t like you. Some of them wanted to marry you and got scorned for their pains. And there are some other reasons which you probably know better than I do. Lee, Hargrove, and for all I know, others might share a good deal of animosity toward you.”

“That might well be,” replied Kit, thoughtfully. “In fact I know it’s true. But what can they do to me?” Her voice expressed pride, arrogance, and conviction. “We’ll go back home the day after I return from Salt Lake. I’ll say good-by.”

Linc arose from the table. “Kit, I don’t promise that I’ll be here when you return.” He did not mean this remark, but he was curious to see what her reaction to it would be. She appeared startled; her restraint broke and she came close to him manifestly agitated, and at that moment more appealing to him than she ever had been. Suddenly she threw her arms about him and kissed him passionately.

“Lincoln, I’m crushed by your indifference. Perhaps I’ve been too rash in revealing to you how I feel. I’ve always had my way. But surely... well, never mind about that, now. Just kiss me good-by.”

The Nebraskan forgot his promise to Vince; it was as if he were being carried along by an irresistible current. Kit’s face took on a rosy flush. She laughed happily and broke from him and ran toward the door. Linc heard her gaily call to the sheriff and Lucy. Gloomily he wondered if they could leave without the girl saying good-by. When they had gone without a word of farewell, he returned to his supper minus his appetite. From the window he watched the sheriff and Kit quit the hotel, with Lucy behind them. His heart sank; would not Lucy even turn back to wave her hand to him? But yes, she had turned to look for him through the bars of the window. Warily, even timidly, she stopped to touch her hand to her lips in a token kiss. Her action brought comfort to the prisoner. But it also brought shame for his weakness of a few moments before.

CHAPTER X

LUCY BANDON’S SHY but eloquent gesture held Lincoln at the window for some time. Finally he returned to his big chair, happiness for the first time crowding out the somberness of his former mood. Perhaps it was not too much for him to hope for a happy culmination of their love.

Next morning he awoke at dawn. While dressing he noticed the sunrise flush upon the snow of the Utah peaks. From the other window in the distance he could see the familiar features of the Wyoming foothills, glorious in the clear morning light. The morning was fresh and cold. Through the rarefied atmosphere the slopes and swales and hills and ranges appeared magnified. Beyond Rock Springs the purple slopes of sage spread for miles and miles, gently rising, spotted with clumps of aspen and pine with here and there an outcropping of gray rocks. They led up to where thickets and patches of timber showed dark against the rangeland. Beyond began the open country of capes and rounded escarpments growing steeper and higher and dimmer as distance augmented the effect of loneliness and solitude so characteristic of the Wyoming foothills. Valleys cut through these foothills, but they were in deep shadow. At an angle a little north of east, like a great backdrop, reared the Wind River Mountains, magnificently high and clear, peaks and notches burning with a snow-fired glory. This was the southerly end of the range. Somewhere down under that mighty upheaval of the earth’s crust lay the little mining hamlet of South Pass; over to the left, the unseen valley led up to the source of the Sweetwater in the uplands. He could well understand Lucy’s fondness for her favorite wilderness at the head of the little river. At this hour of the morning the brilliant light and varied color were almost unbelievably beautiful.

With a rush Linc felt his love and appreciation of this cleansing wilderness returning. He had come to avenge a crime and had found his true mate here in these hills. He knew that this love of Wyoming was permanent and ineradicable and that somewhere under the shadow of these peaks he would make his home.

Haught came bustling in, cheery and friendly.

“Sheriff, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was giving up your hospitable quarters in a day or two,” Lincoln said. “Your jailhouse wasn’t a jail at all. Most of the jails I’ve been locked up in were dirty and lousy, and the jailer often didn’t bother to feed his prisoners. In fact, it’s really worthwhile getting arrested over here in Rock Springs.... Perhaps when I come back I’ll do something that will set you after me again.”

“Don’t make such rash boasts, son. I’m glad you liked it here. As long as I’m sheriff this is goin’ to be the cosiest little jail in the West. But as a matter of fact I have another cabin where I lock up hombres thet are really tough.”

After a brief conversation Lincoln’s breakfast arrived, followed soon after by Vince and Thatcher. The two cowboys were clad in clean jeans and showed the good effects of sleep and rest. Sheriff Haught stood by the door as they came in.

“Good mawnin’, boys. I hope durin’ your sojourn in Rock Springs I won’t have to escort you here officially.” He went out, his little eyes twinkling merrily, and closed the door.

“You’re just in time for a cup of coffee and maybe something else besides. The hotel waiter usually brings me a good deal more than I can eat.”

“We had our breakfast,” said Vince, “but I reckon another cup of coffee wouldn’t go so bad.”

“Vince, I think I want you to go back to South Pass today.”

“O.K. by me,” replied Vince. “Any orders, boss?”

“Wait,” returned Lincoln. “Thatcher, how would you like to throw in with us?”

“I’d sure be glad and powerful lucky. Things have broke out bad for me in the valley.”

“So Vince told me. Just now I don’t know what we will be up against but we may have some serious work to do. I’m on the trail of something big here in Wyoming. You may have guessed what, or Vince may already have told you. Later, if we’re lucky I’ll get me a bunch of cattle and a ranch and we’ll go partners. I still have the money, and all we need is the luck. Now, Thatcher, I appreciate that you were in some mess similar to Vince’s. But I assure you I’m not going to be curious. Tell me what you like or nothing at all, as you see fit — the important thing is, are you willing to throw in with us?”

“Here’s my hand, Bradway,” said the cowboy, thrusting out a lean brown paw. “I think you’re a square shooter. I’ve been on the ragged edge for a few days but this offer of yours gives me a new start.”

The Nebraskan returned the strong handclasp and watched the warm light that shone in Thatcher’s eyes. He knew cowboys, and these two would be fit partners to tie to. “Good,” he responded heartily, “that settles that.”

“Bradway, I’ll get this off my chest pronto. Did you come here to meet Hank Miller?” queried Thatcher.

“Partly. But really I reckon I was following Lucy Bandon. Has Vince told you how it is with her and me?”

“No, Vince didn’t say much — but I guessed it.”

“Lucy agreed to meet me at the Pass and when she failed to show up I became worried and thought it best to follow her. I was afraid that Kit was trying to make Lucy think her aunt had me roped and tied.”

Thatcher let out a short laugh. “Ha! Kit could do that little thing, pronto — Now about Miller. He forced you to draw on him?”

“He sure did.”

“Bradway, it strikes me you fellows wouldn’t draw without a word with each other.”

“No, we had quite a few words,” replied Lincoln grimly.

“Were you aiming to find out anything?”

“Yes,” replied Lincoln.

“He didn’t know you — never had heard of you?”

“No, I was a stranger to him. Hadn’t the slightest suspicion that I was Jimmy Weston’s friend.”

“Then you asked him — something about Jimmy?” queried Thatcher, a little huskily.

“Yes, I told him plenty. I said: ‘I know that you hauled him away from Kit Bandon’s ranch dead or alive.’... And Miller replied, ‘Not alive — dead!’?”

“Pard, Miller would seem to have insinuated there that he had killed your friend. But as a matter of fact he didn’t kill Jimmy.”

Vince emitted a prolonged low whistle. Linc stared. He wondered about Thatcher’s agitation.

“As a matter of fact I really didn’t suspect Miller of killing Jimmy,” Lincoln continued. “In the last moment he showed guilt of some kind but not that kind of guilt.”

“Never mind how I come to know, but that’s the truth,” concluded Mel hurriedly, snatching up his cup and gulping its contents.

The Nebraskan dropped his eyes to his plate. He did not want to reveal more just then. Mel had added another thought-provoking angle to this mystery. It was conceivable, Bradway thought, that he might know who actually had killed Jimmy, but the fact that Thatcher, through his own choice, did not go further in untangling the plot seemed to be a proof that somehow Kit Bandon was involved in it.

“Thanks, Mel,” he said thoughtfully. “That’s something. Let’s not talk about it any more now.”

Suddenly Vince spoke up. “Boss, excuse me, but I think this is the time to ask you somethin’. Not fer my sake, or fer Mel’s, but fer Lucy’s! Now thet she is a part of this thing, you jest cain’t handle the deal as you were goin’ to before.”

“All right, Vince, come out with it.”

“Don’t hold this agin me pard, but wouldn’t it — jest wouldn’t it be a good idee fer Lucy’s sake to fergit about this Jimmy Weston deal?”

“What are you talking about, Vince? How can I overlook it — even for Lucy’s sake?” expostulated Lincoln.

“Wal, I see it thet way, thet’s all. Is it fair to Lucy fer you to go on diggin’ up this lousy deal? Yore pretty shore to hev more gunplay and you cain’t be so damn shore thet yore goin’ to go on bein’ lucky.”

“Vince, I appreciate how you feel, old timer, but I can’t give up this deal. I suppose I am bull-headed enough — conceited enough perhaps — to believe I can avenge Jimmy’s murder and still get out of it with a whole skin.”

“Thet’s fair talk, pard. One way or another Mel and I are bound to trail with you.”

“All right. Let’s get back to business. Here’s some money. You and Mel take the morning stage back to South Pass. I’ll be there in two or three days — maybe sooner. I want to know more about the activity of the cattlemen there. Use your own heads and smoke out all you can. If you go down in the valley leave word at the livery stable with Bill Headly where you’re going and where I can find you. I’ll trail you pronto. I don’t need to remind you any more to lay off the drink — We’ve got to have clear heads.”

“Bradway, I must tell you,” interposed Thatcher, “something that I’ve kept from Vince. I wanted to think more about it. I recognized the cowboy who was beaten that night. His name is Bud Harkness. I knew him pretty well. Just as fine a cowpuncher as ever forked a horse. Now, I’ll tell you something else. If they don’t hang him, Harkness will kill Hargrove because while Lee is evidently the leader of these vigilantes, Hargrove and his hired men are responsible for tripping Harkness up.”

“That only makes things worse,” said Lincoln. “There’ll be a cowboy-cattleman war over there as sure as I’m sitting here.”

“That’s exactly what’ll happen if the cattlemen don’t lay off the cowboys,” broke in Vince.

“But beating a cowboy over his bare back for stealing calves! There’s more to it than that,” exclaimed the Nebraskan.

“Maybe they didn’t beat him for stealing calves!” said Thatcher, darkly.

“They wanted to make him talk,” declared Linc.

“Sure,” admitted Thatcher. “And Harkness won’t ever talk.”

Vince spoke up. “Boss, we’ll hev to rustle if we ketch thet stage. We’ll hev more to tell you when you get to South Pass. I reckon you better try to get set to come along pronto.”

“I think so,” replied Lincoln soberly. “Look for me day after tomorrow. Good-by and good luck.”

After their departure Lincoln sat for a few moments in deep thought. And out of his conjectures he was able to reach one definite decision — that he would leave for South Pass on tomorrow, whether the Bandons returned or not.

He had not dared to hope that Lucy would come to see him today. Still, there was a possibility. Quite probably Kit would not wish to take Lucy with her to Salt Lake.

At that very moment Lincoln heard the sheriff’s deep voice greeting someone in the outer room. It was followed by an excited little laugh, quickly recognizable as Lucy’s. He leaped to his feet, upsetting the chair in his haste. The door swung open and Haught stuck his head in, his gray eyes twinkling.

“Bradway, can you spare time to see a young lady who says she wants to pass the time of day?” he drawled.

“Haught, bring her in or I’ll — I’ll—”

The sheriff shoved open the door to reveal Lucy, clad in a new becoming blue costume with a small bunch of flowers adorning her coat. To Lincoln it seemed that he had never seen anything so beautiful as the blue of her eyes or the flush that tinged her cheek.

“Go on in, lady,” said the sheriff. “He looks kinda like he might want to see you after all.... Wal, young folks, I’ll lock this gate and stand guard.” He closed the door, chuckling to himself. For an instant they stood looking into each other’s eyes; then she literally ran into his arms....

“Lincoln, oh my poor darling!” she whispered.

Lincoln strained her to him, kissing her flushed cheeks and closed eyes and at last her parted lips. For a moment her ardor equaled his own; then she drew back, protesting, “Oh, Lincoln — I can’t breathe.” When he loosened his embrace she whispered, “But Lincoln — is there anybody — who could see us?”

“No, my darling wife, no one can see us. It has been so hard to be so near yet so far away from you. Yesterday—”

“Oh, Linc, it has been terrible! Especially after I knew about you and Hank, when I knew you were wounded.”

“It’s really true, then?” he queried, tenderly.

“Is what true?” she asked, tremulously.

“That you really love me?”

“Do I? Oh, wonderfully, terribly, Lincoln. But since that night — not so despairingly.”

“Oh, Lucy,” cried Linc, “when your aunt said she was leaving for Salt Lake City, I hoped that you might come—”

“Kit was undecided whether to take me or not, but when I said I’d rather wait for her here she decided not to. She won’t be back till night, and then in the morning we take the stage for home.”

“Lucy, I’ll be on that stage.”

“Oh, wonderful. But will the sheriff let you go?”

“He can’t keep me any longer. There really was no case against me. And my shoulder is fit as a fiddle. Put your head against it and see for yourself,” he urged.

Lucy followed instructions and found it very fit indeed.

“I can’t stay as long as you want me,” murmured Lucy. “You see, my dear — husband — I have a lot of packing to do. I’m afraid I can stay only till lunch time. Will that be long enough?”

“That depends on how sweet and wifelike you can be,” he said, and again he gave way to his joy and rapture to overwhelm her with his hunger for the sweet fire of her lips. For a space they wholly forgot themselves as they clung to each other in their close embrace. Then Lucy drew away from him to remove the hat he had disarranged and the flowers that he had crushed.

“Lincoln, you’re almost a savage,” she said, archly. “But oh, darling, I’m going to spend my whole life taming you! Not too tame, lover, but tame enough so that I won’t have to go to jail to see you whenever I want to tell you that I love you.”

“Where are your rings?” asked Lincoln.

“Here,” she replied as with shining eyes and with unsteady fingers she turned back the collar of her dress revealing the white, graceful curve of her breast and a little folded silk handkerchief which was pinned to the cloth of her bodice. “Here they are,” she whispered. “I wear them pinned inside my dress. I’ve acquired such a habit of putting my hand to feel if they are safe that Kit already has remarked about it. She asked me if I’d caught cold or if anything ailed me. I try to be more careful now.”

“You must be, Lucy. A great deal depends on that. Never forget for a minute that our secret must not be discovered.... That brings me to something I must get off my chest pronto.” Lincoln hesitated, then plunged on. “I don’t like to admit — but I’m afraid Kit really has a case on me. Evidently she still believes that no man can resist her. And that’s where I am in a predicament. She seems to have no conscience about revealing her feelings and I’m afraid modesty was completely left out of her make-up.”

“But, Lincoln, it wouldn’t do for you to — to show your true feelings — until — until we—” He kissed her faltering lips. She understood and he was glad.

“So I promised Vince... that no matter what she did I would not upset the chuck wagon. In other words, for the time being, until we know where we stand in this deal, I’ve got to play along her way. Are you sure this won’t make you unhappy — make you jealous — make you distrust me?”

“I’ll never distrust you again, Lincoln. I’m not so sure about not being jealous, but I’m your wife. What will sustain me is that before long we will get away on our own. I can stand anything as long as I am sure of that. Only, when Kit makes so — so much over you, please don’t tell me.”

“Lucy, you are a thoroughbred. That was the only thing that I was afraid of. I think I can handle the rest of it.”

“Do you think we can get clear away from all this hateful situation soon?”

“Probably we’ll have to. But not until my job here is done.”

Lucy averted her face and made no comment.

“Lucy, when you and I do make our getaway, I don’t want to go too far away from this part of Wyoming,” he continued. “I love it here. It’s a beautiful country, rich in land and water and grass and game. There are many good ranches from which a man can choose. I’ve got the money to make a start. Once let us get out of this mess and we can begin making a home for ourselves.”

“Lincoln, there is one spot that I want you to see. It’s on the headwaters of the Sweetwater — the valley I told you about, where my friend the old trapper lives. He has homesteaded some acreage up there, and just above it is the loveliest country in the world.”

“I’m afraid that’s a little close to South Pass, but tell me about it.”

“It is close,” replied Lucy thoughtfully. “About twenty miles over the hills and a little less from our ranch. There’s a good trail. I can ride it in two hours, but of course that is going at a pretty good clip.”

“Are you free to ride up there whenever you choose?”

“Yes. That’s one place Kit does not object to my going. You see, it’s out of the way, no roads to cross, no cattle or cowboys, seldom any Indians. I never go in hunting season. I’ve met bears and bull moose and elk on that trail that were as tame as cows.”

“All right. But tell me what it’s like—”

“Well, the Sweetwater winds through a narrow valley of willows and aspens and oaks for perhaps twelve or fourteen miles... climbing all the time but just enough to make pretty swift water and rapids. Some day someone’s going to find out that this stream has the finest trout fishing in Wyoming. After the valley opens out it is crisscrossed by a succession of canyons that lead up to the great bulk of the mountains. At the top there’s a belt of black timber that stretches for miles, then beyond are the gray and white peaks reaching high into the sky. The trapper has his cabin pretty close up under the valley wall. He has never had to leave that valley to trap all the beaver and martin and fox that he could take care of. It’s a paradise for game.”

“Sounds pretty exciting, Lucy,” responded Lincoln. “But tell me more of the spot you picked particularly.”

“It’s about halfway up this valley and fairly high up on a terrace from which you can see the sun rise and set. It looks down on the Sweetwater winding in and out among the willows. The white water shines and there are still pools in the bends. There are hundreds and hundreds of square miles of wonderful pasture land, and from that spot you can see a waterfall that drops half a thousand feet down the mountainside. This bench or terrace where I dreamed that someday I would build a home was made for someone who loved beauty. It is one of those carved and curved benches that you see all over this country, covered with purple sage, and at the back rocky ground rises in short steps. A beautiful stream comes rushing down off these rocks onto the terrace which is surrounded by pines and aspen trees. There are perhaps ten acres of level ground on top of my terrace, most of it good soil in which you could grow almost anything. There is plenty of room for barns and corrals and pastures under the lee of the rocks protected from the northwest wind that blows so fiercely here in winter. I was up there once in October and I was just spellbound by the marvelous coloring. Ben Thorpe tells me that the snow never lies deep down in there. Perhaps the only drawback I could find was that it would take a good deal of work and expense to build a wagon road.”

“Well!” exclaimed Linc, with a long breath. “If we live anywhere in Wyoming, that’s the spot!”

“. . . But Lincoln, the most difficult thing is settled,” she said with a smile. “The rest is only a matter of time and work.”

“And what’s that?” he asked.

“Don’t you remember what you and I said to the preacher that night — ?”

“Oh, you mean you’ve corralled me?” he drawled. “And I thought it was the other way ‘round.”

“We’re both in the same corral, darling,” replied Lucy, seriously. “Oh, I wish the suspense and waiting and anxiety were over so that I could show you our home-to-be.”

The hours flew by, while the lovers dreamed and planned, gazing out of the window toward the mountains that hid the valley of the Sweetwater, quite oblivious to the fact that they were in the town jail and that Linc was still a prisoner. The noon hour arrived before they were aware of it, and reluctantly Lucy told Lincoln that she must leave.

“I’ll leave these poor crushed flowers with you, darling,” she said.

“I’ll keep a couple of these mangled buds,” responded the cowboy, gallantly, taking her in his arms, “just to remember the first kiss I gave you.”

“You make pretty speeches, Lincoln, and I would love to stay longer to hear you make more of them, but I must go. Is there anything we have forgotten?”

“We haven’t planned to meet again.”

“Well — how about one week from today?”

“But that seems so long!”

“It won’t be long, dear, with all we have to do. I’ll plan to ride up the river in the early morning one week from today, Wednesday. When you wish to meet me, leave South Pass early in the morning — at sunrise, ride up the stream to the head of the canyon, climb straight to the top and head west. Four or five miles across you can see down into the Sweetwater. It’ll be rough going down the slope but you can grade down without any trouble and find the trail. I’ll be waiting for you either at the trapper’s cabin or up on our terrace.”

“I’ll be there, darling,” he replied. He rapped upon the door to call Sheriff Haught. In another moment Lucy’s heels were clicking down the corridor, bearing her away from him.

The subsequent night was long and wearying for Lincoln, owing to frequent wakeful spells, but with the dawn he arose early, glad that the time had come that he was to leave Rock Springs. He packed the black gambler’s suit, thinking as he did so that its success had hardly justified its expense. That first meeting with Lucy, however, when she had scarcely recognized him, was something to remember. He shaved rather carefully. Then he donned his worn cowboy jeans, boots and spurs, and checkered blouse. For a necktie he used a red scarf. The short jacket of this suit revealed his gun hanging very much in evidence below his hip. A few minutes before he was packed and ready to go Sheriff Haught entered.

“Well, son, you’re goin’ to leave me, I see.”

“It’s about time,” replied Lincoln. “I owe you a lot of good will and gratitude. How about board money?”

“What for?” asked the sheriff.

“Well, you’ve served me nothing but the best. Or else you may want to fine me for disturbing the peace.”

“No thanks, Bradway. I cashed in plenty on your sojourn heah,” he replied with a smile. “I sure have enjoyed knowin’ you.”

“Haught, you’re the best sheriff I ever knew, and that’s saying a lot. I won’t forget your tipping me off about this man Miller. It could be that I owe you my life. Good-by and may we meet again.”

Haught walked with him down the corridor to the door with one hand on his shoulder. “One last word, son. Watch your step with Kit Bandon. I’ve a hunch she’ll go haywire when she finds out about you and your Lucy.”

“I’ve lost considerable sleep over that myself, Sheriff. Good- by.”

Lincoln went to a restaurant on a side street and while disposing of his breakfast had the woman put him up a lunch. As he was leaving the eating house he remembered that the doctor had expected to see him once more, but as he felt perfectly fit again, there seemed no necessity for another examination. He asked directions to the stagecoach stop and went directly there. Presently the stage rolled up and he was pleased to note that the only other passengers were the two Bandons and that Kit made no effort to conceal her surprise and chagrin over his presence. Lucy sat on the driver’s seat, clad in a long gray ulster with a veil wound around her hat. Her eyes passed over Lincoln roguishly, with an air of possession, although she merely acknowledged his greeting with a nod. The driver, a stalwart man whom Lincoln did not know, helped him with his baggage and told him to climb inside. Inside Kit had recovered from her surprise and was leaning forward eagerly to greet him. She too wore a long dark coat, and appeared rather worn and tired, but her eyes were bright enough and her smile something to conjure with.

“Hello, Kit,” he replied to her greeting. “Looks like we’re not going to have any company.”

“Yes, aren’t we lucky? It will be the first time I ever rode home without being crowded.”

“A little nippy this morning,” observed the cowboy. “I wish I had a sheep-lined coat.”

“I have a shawl there which you can use if you get cold.... Lincoln, did you remember to get some lunch?”

“Yes. I had the woman put up some sandwiches and chicken.”

Presently the stage heaved and creaked as the driver climbed to his seat. Soon it was rolling out of town behind two fresh teams. Linc put his head out the window and raised his voice above the clatter of hoofs, the rumbling of the wheels, the clink of chains to call: “Lucy, you’re going to get pretty cold up there and dusty too.”

“Well, I’m no tenderfoot like some I could name,” replied Lucy saucily. “I’m going to ride outside if we run into a cyclone.”

“She’s not very flattering,” said the Nebraskan, turning to Kit. “She doesn’t seem to want to ride inside with us.”

“Three’s a crowd,” replied Kit. “But what with all these bags, and boxes we won’t have any too much room as it is. I did a good deal of buying this trip.”

“Going home broke, then, I suppose?” queried Lincoln lightly.

“Not much. I drew out my cash at the bank and I have the check for my cattle deal, so I’m pretty well heeled, cowboy. If we get held up by any road agents mind you do some pretty quick shooting.”

“We’re not likely to get held up on this route.”

“I’m dead tired and sleepy,” said Kit. “I couldn’t sleep on the train and I imagine I won’t be very good company today.”

She sank down against Lincoln and before they were well out upon the prairie she was asleep. They were occupying the front seat of the stagecoach. When Lincoln stuck his long arm out the window he managed to touch Lucy and eventually take hold of her hand. The soft pressure of her fingers was comforting, but he wished he could be up there with her on the driver’s seat.

The long hours passed swiftly. Traveling back in the opposite direction he found the land looked familiar; the gray sage reaches rolled by him endlessly. Looking ahead he could see the curved hills and the ravines choked with green and occasionally a stream winding away toward the south. Before they had traveled many miles Lincoln’s keen eye began to locate wild game. Antelope were abundant, and in the swales he could see jack rabbits and coyotes and deer too numerous to count. In some stretches he could view far horizons but no mountains. The road was smooth with very little grade, and the horses made fast time. Several hours out, the driver halted in a grove of trees through which a brook ran.

“Here’s where we rest a bit and have a snack of grub,” he called out cheerily.

Lucy clambered down over the big wheel and peered in the window to see Lincoln trying to rouse Kit. “All out for refreshment, Kit,” he said, gently shaking her. She awoke finally and sat up sleepy-eyed. “Where are we, driver?” she asked, looking out.

“Halfway to West Fork,” he replied. “This is the only good place to stop to rest the horses and camp for a while.”

“Driver, it looks as though we are going to have some weather,” announced the Nebraskan.

“Yes, it’s clouding up. Snow squall coming down from the hills.”

“I’ll eat my lunch inside,” Kit decided.

“Cowboy, you build a fire,” suggested the driver, “while I take care of the horses. Then I’ll make some coffee.”

“And I’ll stretch my legs,” said Lucy, swinging off under the trees. When she returned coffee and sandwiches were being served and Lincoln observed that Lucy warmed her hands by the little fire. The wind blew chill, rustling through the trees and presently as the sun paled and then disappeared altogether, it grew quite cold.

“Lincoln, who sold you this tough chicken?” asked Kit in a petulant tone.

“Why, I was just going to say it tasted pretty good,” replied Lincoln. “And I notice Lucy is doing very well with hers.” Then silence fell on the little group.

“Wal, I think we might as well be movin’ along,” announced the driver. “And Miss, you ride inside this afternoon. It’s goin’ to be squally.”

“How long to West Fork?” asked Lincoln.

“Oh, it won’t take us long,” replied the driver. “All downhill. We’ll make it easy before dark. But you folks want to cover up well.”

Once more in the coach, Linc found himself seated across from Lucy. Kit was not slow to make herself comfortable, appropriating Lincoln’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

“Cover me up well,” she ordered sleepily.

What with a blanket and a heavy robe they were reasonably well protected from the drafty stagecoach. Lucy stretched out, her feet coming in contact with those of her husband. She gave Lincoln a sly little smile before she closed her eyes. Kit was the first to drift off to sleep, and Lucy quickly followed suit. The first snow squall enveloped the stage and scurried by, the hard pellets of ice and snow rattling against the closed windows. At length Bradway was forced to let down the curtains on the windy side, but swathed by the heavy robe and with Kit heavily asleep on his side he did not feel the cold. The gray leaden sky and the intermittent snow squalls were not conducive to watchfulness and at length Lincoln too fell asleep.

When he was awakened by a sudden jar of the stage he found that the afternoon was far gone and they had reached West Fork, where they were to spend the night. The storm had passed, but the late afternoon air was cold for June. The inn was very comfortable, with a huge open fire and many oil lamps. After seeing the two women safely inside with their baggage, the cowboy went outside to stretch his cramped legs. It had cleared off crisply but in the west, dark storm clouds still loomed. The Nebraskan walked out as far as a little pine grove and back again, glad indeed that the ride was half over. Inside the post supper was ready, and with the innkeeper and his family there were several other travelers at the table. From their talk he judged that they were waiting for the westbound stage. After supper Kit and Lucy did not remain long in front of the hot fire, but the Nebraskan conquered his feeling of drowsiness in order to listen to the conversation. At length he accosted some of the westbound travelers, inquiring about affairs at South Pass. Learning little of particular interest, he finally sought the little room assigned to him and went to sleep.

When he awoke shortly after dawn he found the inn already bustling with the morning’s activities. Dressing quickly, the cowboy went into the dining room to find Lucy ready and breakfast on the table. A moment later Kit came in, brisk and cheerful, evidently having completely recovered from her exhaustion of the day before. After breakfast, they stepped outside the post to find a glorious sunshiny June morning awaiting them in which to embark on the final stage of their journey.

When they pulled out of West Fork, Linc discovered that they still had the coach to themselves. Lucy rode on top with the driver; and Kit blithely informed Lincoln that she would make up that day for her dullness of yesterday. She quizzed her traveling mate concerning Vince and Thatcher and also asked about Sheriff Haught and what he had told him about her, if anything. “Did he give me away?” she asked archly.

“What do you mean?” queried the cowboy.

“Did he tell you that I hired him to keep you in jail?” she went on mischievously.

“Well, he hinted it,” he replied. “What was your idea in doing that?”

“Oh, I wanted you well taken care of where I could see you alone. That didn’t get me very far, did it?”

“I think you went plenty far,” he replied.

“Tell me,” she said simply, “what seems to be the difficulty between us?”

“Between us?” he echoed. “Why should there be? There’s nothing between us.”

“I mean obstacles,” she explained.

“Obstacles? — Obstacles to what?”

“Don’t be a blockhead, Linc. You know what I mean. You know what is the matter with me. You know what I’m going to do.”

“Well, I’m afraid there are a few obstacles, Kit. One in particular is that I don’t seem to feel the way you are trying to make me think you feel.”

“I gathered that. It’s a sad blow to my vanity. Serves me right, though. But that is no obstacle to me, as you will discover, cowboy. Name some of the other ones.”

“Excuse me, Kit. I’d rather not hurt your feelings.”

“But you have already hurt me terribly,” she protested. “A little more or less won’t make any difference.”

“No!”

“Is it my partner, Emery?” she persisted.

“Well, his relation to you is none of my business, but as a matter of fact I thought it was pretty low-down for you to be associated with a rat of a gambler in that dive.”

“Yes,” she admitted frankly. “But if I realized it before, I didn’t care. Now I do care. I’m not the same Kit Bandon. Just the same, this one thing you must believe, Linc. I have been mixed up with Emery in the Leave It but that’s all. Usually I have never cared what one man thought about my relation to another man — but I want you to know that he was not my lover.”

Lincoln did not venture any reply to her plea to be understood.

“Lincoln, you believe me, don’t you?” she demanded.

“Yes, I believe you,” replied Lincoln, slowly.

“Thank you.... Then is it the gossip you heard about me in South Pass? My name being linked with Lee and Hargrove and other cattlemen?”

“That meant nothing to me,” rejoined Lincoln, truthfully.

“They all ran after me, made love to me in their clumsy ways — the old goats,” she said, scornfully. “I’ll admit I did play around with Lee, perhaps too much. A couple of years ago I thought I might even marry him. It might have been a good idea.... As a matter of fact, it would have been much better for me if I had — but I didn’t know it then. Lincoln, you don’t seem to be the jealous type; but just the same, men are alike. I want you to know that I went around with Lee off and on because I really liked him... is that clear to you?”

“Perfectly clear, Kit.”

“You won’t have any queer ideas about Lee and me now that I’ve set you straight?”

“Queer? Hardly that. I suppose it’s a woman’s privilege to lead any man on if she wants to, but it isn’t very honorable.”

“You really have heard a lot about me, haven’t you?”

“Kit, you don’t seem to realize that a colorful person like yourself is bound to be talked about. Every move you make makes gossip — good or bad.”

She was silent a while resting her cheek against his shoulder and clinging tightly to his arm. “Then it is as I have feared,” she murmured, not at all displeased, it seemed to Linc. “It’s the gossip about me and all these cowboys.”

Lincoln had no ready answer for that. Presently he said: “Kit, I — I never paid much attention to gossip. One lone beautiful woman out among a group of cattlemen is bound to be talked about. Naturally I was interested in you more because of the unique and attractive place you occupy out here. But the only thing I ever actually heard was that you were, well — not fair in your sentimental dealing with cowboys.”

“What did Jimmy tell you?” she whispered.

“He wrote me that you took him away from Lucy — and the words he used were hardly fit to quote to you.”

Her head sank a little on his shoulder. He felt her fingers tighten then relax. Mention of Jimmy Weston’s name always seemed to stir her. Would he ever discover what the true relationship between those two had been? He was more than curious to hear what she would say. Yet he felt convinced that she would not tell him the truth, although why he could not quite understand. Presently she spoke, quite composedly: “Lincoln, I did come between Lucy and Jimmy. She was taken with him and I was afraid she would overdo it. I’m bound to admit that I liked him myself pretty well. He was good-looking, gay, full of mischief — the best company ever, but he was as unstable as water, absolutely unreliable, impossible for me to accept as Lucy’s husband.”

Lincoln at length replied somewhat huskily: “In that case probably you were justified in separating them. But not by making him care for you. I am speaking frankly. Kit, because Jimmy was my best friend.”

“That has always been my weakness,” she rejoined, simply. “That is my weakness now and it’s ten thousand times stronger than it ever was.”

“Jimmy wrote me a wild, disconnected letter probably under the influence of despair or liquor and I did not take that part of it as absolutely reliable. But I’d appreciate it if you would let the subject of Jimmy drop between us.”

“That’s all right with me,” she replied in quick relief. “As for the other cowboys, you must remember that I am a rancher; dealing in cattle is my business. I’ve hired dozens of cowboys in the valley. I’ve befriended them — gotten them out of jail, redeemed their saddles and guns that they had pawned, lent them money — in fact, had a sort of motherly feeling for all of them. Then, you must remember again, I am a young woman — and even if you never seemed to be aware of it, they have told me repeatedly that I am rather attractive.”

Bradway laughed at this. “Yes,” he said coolly. “Even if I never let you wind me around your little finger, Kit, it wasn’t because you were hard to look at.”

“Please don’t joke at a moment like this, Lincoln. I’m going out of my way to try to establish my true character in your mind. The fact that good-looking cowboys fell in love with me from time to time never troubled me until you came to South Pass. I’ll admit, I even encouraged them to.... Now all I want you to understand is that this cowboy nonsense and foolishness is behind me. I’m through. You can give yourself the credit for that.”

“Thanks, Kit, but I’m a cowboy, too.”

“Yes, but if you must split hairs, I was speaking of those thoughtless friendships, trifling and of no consequence....”

“Kit, all this confidence of yours is interesting but it’s a little embarrassing. I don’t know what you’re driving at.”

“You’ll find out pretty quick. My vanity has been bleeding to death for days... but I know what has happened to me and I have lived with it, slept with it, dreamed of it till it has taken possession of me!” She fell silent then. Presently her left hand slipped around back of his head and touched his cheek and neck with an exquisite softness. Her mood seemed to shift again; she leaned against him, in one of her abrupt changes which he recognized and tried to steel himself against. Suddenly the woman beside him had become warm, quivering, vibrant, radiating a charm that Linc again found to be almost irresistible. Her physical beauty was only a small part of her charm, lovely as were her dusky eyes, her soft skin, her youthful body. But there was more, a great deal more. He decided then, in a moment when his perceptions were deeply sensitive, that her great power was a singularly vital and compelling zest for life, which drove her into adventure for the pure love of adventure. She had the recklessness of a man which, added to her all-too-conscious attractiveness for men, made her power completely transcendent.

“Lincoln,” she said after an interval of silence, “please listen. If I ever spoke the truth I’m telling it now. If good can ever overcome selfishness and love of power in a woman then it has done that to me. I always feared this thing would happen to me. It is perhaps no different from what other women have experienced but in me it is a thousand times stronger.... All that life — all that has happened since I came to the Sweetwater is passed — gone forever. I can even conceive of praying to God eventually to let me forget that old life. I intend to sell my ranch and I want to move somewhere else in Wyoming far away where no one ever heard of me. I love you, Linc, as no other woman ever loved in this world. If you ask me why, I’d say it was retribution. I have held love lightly. Now it holds me in a grip which I wouldn’t loosen if I could. At this moment, Lincoln, I’m so humble in my love that I would be willing to plead with you to take it. I will be happy with anything you can give. Linc, you don’t realize what it means that the once proud woman whom they call the Maverick Queen is on her knees before you. With all my heart and soul I swear my change of heart.... Lincoln, will you go away with me?”

“Kit — I can’t,” he replied huskily.

“Is it because you don’t care for me?”

“No.”

“Is it because you don’t care enough?”

“No.”

“Is it because you still doubt — ?”

“No, it’s not that either. Kit, I don’t know that it would make any difference to a man whether he had any doubts about a beautiful woman like you if he knew he wanted her to be his wife. I think the only thing that would count with a man would be what his heart told him. You are a gallant lady, Kit Bandon. Life would be an adventure with you that a million men would give their souls to undertake with you. But it is impossible to go away with you, Kit.”

“Tell me why,” she whispered patiently.

“You wouldn’t understand the reasons I gave you,” he replied hurriedly. “The main reason — is that I’ve already got a wife!”

Startled and amazed, she jerked up from his breast, clutched his arms with fierce hands. The eyes that blazed into his were those of a cornered puma.

“Good God! Linc, what are you saying? A wife!”

“That’s — what I said — Kit,” he replied haltingly.

“Are you separated from her?”

He uttered a grim little laugh. “Separated. I should smile I am.”

“Could you get rid of her?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t.”

“Well. That is the only thing I didn’t think of,” she replied, still obviously shaken. “I don’t know that it makes so much difference to me at the moment. Of course I wanted to be your wife and by the high heavens, I swear I will be!... I will go right on making my plans. All that matters to me is that you don’t despise me — that you care a little for me. The rest will all come in time.... But what you have told me has shocked all the plans I had made right out of my head.”

“Kit, if you think that this was easy for me either you are very much mistaken.” Putting his head out of the window, Lincoln called up to the driver to stop. When the stage rolled to a standstill Lincoln called: “Lucy, climb down. I want to change places with you.”

Laughingly she complied. “All right with me,” she said. “I’m about blown to pieces. Did you notice how fast we went down that last hill?”

“No,” replied Lincoln, giving her a long significant look, “I’m afraid I didn’t know whether I was riding or walking.”

“Indeed you must have been preoccupied. I drove that last ten miles myself. Look at my gloves. If the teams didn’t run away with me, I’m missing my guess.”

“I’d like to drive some myself,” said Lincoln, as he climbed up over the wheel.

“Sure, son, go ahead. Saves me the trouble,” the driver said good-naturedly.

Lucy entered the stagecoach and slammed the door. The stage lunged on again.

“Must have been making good time, driver,” said the cowboy.

“Wal, where hev you been anyhow?” he chuckled. “Here’s the head of Sweetwater Valley, that is, this west fork. Thirty miles more or less to the Bandon ranch. We’ll be there in two hours or more.”

“Doggone!” ejaculated Lincoln. “You sure have been traveling.”

For an hour the Nebraskan devoted himself to piloting the spirited teams. They pulled so hard on his arms that he was forced to brace his feet powerfully on the dashboard. Now and then he had to use the brake. With this physical exertion and his attention to the horses and the condition of the road he was fully occupied, and when he relinquished the reins to the driver he was thoroughly tired, his seething and conflicting emotions quieted. He was now within sight of the Sweetwater Valley. He gazed down that purple expanse with infinite appreciation of its beauty and a perplexing wonder as to what it had in store for him. The sun, halfway down in the west, had begun to lose its brightness and mantled the lower reaches of the valley with a dark rosy haze. Lincoln tried to pick out the escarpment with a clump of pines which had been his rendezvous with Lucy, but the distance was too great. He confined himself to admiration of the southern end of the Wind River Range and to wondering what was taking place between the two women in the stage behind him. Somewhere up under those sunset-flushed peaks was the wild and fertile valley with which Lucy had intrigued him. But thought of making a home there seemed as far away from reality as it was in the purple distance.

It developed that Kit had not left any word with her foreman as to the time he could expect her return, so the driver good- naturedly turned off the main road and took the valley thoroughfare down to the Bandon ranch. Lincoln noticed the picturesque bridge and river and ranch house again with poignant feelings. Beautiful as the spot was, it was haunted for Lincoln; something had taken place there that he might never discover and which he ofttimes almost hoped would remain forever a secret. The stage rolled up to the gate with dragging brakes.

“Wal, hyar we are,” the driver called down cheerily.

A lame man, old and gray, appeared from around the house. A woman, evidently the housekeeper, appeared in the kitchen door, turned back, and a moment later opened the door that led out onto the porch. Linc wondered absently where they had been the day he had called. Then he leaped down and, hoisting the baggage that the driver handed to him, carried it onto the porch.

“Here, Linc,” said Kit, “is the rest of our stuff.”

She dismounted from the stage, followed by Lucy. Lucy removed the long coat and veil and shook the dust from them.

“That bag and package belong to Mr. Bradway,” said Kit. They were replaced in the stage.

Lucy turned toward the house, and from the porch called back at him, archly: “Adios, Mr. Bradway. I enjoyed your company very much — what little I saw of you.” Then she picked up two of the bags and entered the house.

“Well, what kind of a speech was that?” queried Kit. “What’s the matter with the girl? Jealous, I suppose.”

“Didn’t strike me that way,” returned the cowboy. “I think she was poking fun at me.”

“All aboard,” called the driver, now a little impatiently, taking up his reins. “We’ve got to get to South Pass before dark.”

“Lincoln, it was a sort of wonderful trip — wasn’t it?”

“I should smile it was,” replied Lincoln. “Good-by, Kit.”

“Good-by. Will you come down to see me soon or shall I have to come to South Pass to find you?” she asked with a sharp glance which revealed that she had not yet recovered from the shock of the cowboy’s revelation.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” replied Lincoln evasively. “I’ve got lots to do. Let’s not be in too much of a hurry about seeing each other again.”

“This is Thursday,” said Kit. “I’ll be over in town not later than Saturday. I’ve got business to settle up there in connection with the sale of the place. Don’t forget what I told you about Emery.”

The driver snapped his whip and once more the stagecoach rolled on. Lincoln looked back vainly to see if Lucy was visible. Kit stood in front of the ranch house, burdened by her parcels and coats, her great eyes shining darkly from her unsmiling face. They passed over the bridge and Lincoln looked no more.

It was sunset by the time they reached the slope of the escarpment. When the long zigzag slope had been surmounted, Lincoln looked back. This was his first view of the Sweetwater Valley at sunset. It was as if he had never seen it before: dusky red and orange banners reached out over the sage; the winding reaches of the river caught some of the last gleams from the dying sun; down in the valley the windows of the ranch houses reflected the level beams with a golden light; above the hills in the west the flattened orb was almost a sinister red. Lincoln suddenly discovered that in these last few hours he had subtly changed. He would never want to live in the valley of the Sweetwater now — not as long as Kit Bandon lived there.

From there on the horses made fast time over the hard road. It was dark when they reached the slope leading down into South Pass, and all over the valley lights were twinkling. The driver trotted his team down across the brawling brook, turning into the main street illuminated by oil lamps, to make his scheduled stop at the hotel. Lincoln climbed down stiffly with his bag and packages, peering about him to see if Thatcher and Vince were awaiting him. They were not in sight. It was the early evening hour but the street was already thronged, and the discordant hum of the mining camp’s night activity had begun. The Nebraskan hurried away toward his lodginghouse. The landlady let him in with a welcoming word and he hurried to his little room to light the lamp.

“Glad to get back, lady,” said Linc. “Seems like I’ve been gone for ages.”

“Well, Mr. Bradway, you weren’t gone so long that word didn’t have time to come back to South Pass about your doings.”

“Yes,” Linc replied. “This place is not the only place where things can happen.”

“Have you talked to anybody?” she asked.

“Not a word with anyone.”

“It’s been tolerable lively here today,” she said crisply. “Bud Harkness rode in on the warpath.”

“Oh, he did?” queried Bradway with quickened interest.

“I didn’t see him, but I talked with those who did. He rode in without saddle or bridle and he didn’t have a coat or a shirt to his back. And I hear that his back was a sight to see! Hargrove and Nesbit were in town with some other cattlemen. I heard they had a secret important meeting and then went out and got drunk. They were having a big gambling game at Emery’s, when Harkness suddenly appeared on a new horse. He had found some clothes and he went into Emery’s holding a gun in each hand. I heard the row from here. Don’t know how many shots. According to reports he ran afoul of Emery and his henchmen, one of whom he killed. I don’t know which. Then he broke up that poker game, crippling Nesbit, and killing Hargrove. After that Harkness was seen to ride out of town up the hill road toward Caspar.”

CHAPTER XI

DEEP IN THOUGHT, Bradway left his lodginghouse and warily walked toward the main street, keeping in the shadow of the buildings. He went around the back way and up to the livery stable. There was a light in Headly’s little office but he did not seem to be in. Lincoln had taken only a few steps in that direction when Vince and Thatcher appeared out of the shadows.

“Howdy, boss,” Vince greeted him. “Shore am glad to see you. I was waitin’ when the stage come in, but I didn’t want to show myself.”

“Hello, Bradway,” spoke up Mel Thatcher. “Reckon I’m just as glad as Vince to see you.”

“What’s all this I hear?” queried Lincoln sharply, but in a low voice. “My landlady tells me there’s been hell a’poppin’ today.”

“There shore was,” said Vince. “Boss, come back in here where we won’t be seen.”

They went into the hay-scented gloom of the livery stable. Vince extinguished his cigarette with his fingertips.

“I hope you fellows didn’t get mixed up in it,” said Lincoln.

“Not so anyone would notice it,” replied Vince. “Mel an’ I was downtown all day snoopin’ around — an’ shore it’s been an important day — an’ we seen Harkness ride in acrost the brook. He was bareback and half-naked. You could see the red stripes all over him. He rode up the hill as far as here. Figgerin’ there was hell to pay, Mel an’ me split up. He stayed downtown an’ I hurried up to Headly’s the back way. I found Harkness up here foamin’ at the mouth. He had learned from Headly about Hargrove and his rancher pards bein’ in town an’ whoopin’ it up. ‘Vince,’ he said, ‘I’m on my way, but I’ve got a little job to do before I slope. I’ve got to hev a gun an’ a hoss an’ some clothes.’ I told him thet he’d come to the right guy. I gave him my shirt an’ my old coat an’ thet new gun you got me an’ the old one you left here an’ I also gave him all the money I had. He made a deal with Headly for a saddle hoss an’ saddle, an’ I’m bound to say Headly was a friend in need. I asked Bud what he was goin’ to do. Boss, you never seen a man burn an’ spit fire like that hombre did. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idee to wait till after dark?’ I asked him. ‘Wait nothin’. I’m rarin’ to go.’ Then I said, ‘Bud, I guess it’s all right fer me to tell you thet me and Thatcher, soon as we found out about yore bein’ taken prisoner, rode hell fer leather down into the valley an’ were lucky enough to find thet camp near Hargrove’s ranch. We saw them men lead you into the brush and we follered. We sneaked up on the campfire where they had you tied an’ I hate to tell it, Bud, but we saw them beat you.’ ‘The hell you did!’ said Harkness, amazed. ‘Wal, I reckon I couldn’t hev had better witnesses for thet dirty deal. But thet wasn’t nothin’, Vince. They tied me up in a cellar an’ starved me to make me talk. About noon today I slugged a guard an’ ran away, luckily freein’ my hands. I caught a hoss an’ hyar I am.... I’m goin’ to slope. If I stayed hyar I’d lead a bunch of cowboys against them cattlemen an’ you know, Vince, thet would drag you an’ Thatcher in with me. Much obliged fer the good turn yore doin’ fer me. I hope to God somebody will do the same fer you someday. Don’t follow me now an’ get yoreself in trouble.’ He forked his hoss an’ went pilin’ down the street. I reckon thet I’d better take his advice an’ stay out of sight.”

“Are you sure, Vince, that your helping hand in this will not come to light?” asked Linc anxiously.

“Shore I am,” replied Vince. “No one seen me, an’ Headly won’t tell.”

“It’d be a bad thing for us to get mixed up in this,” said Lincoln seriously. “Come on — what happened then?”

Thatcher took up the story. “I was standing in front of Emery’s with some other hombres when Bud came riding down,” he said. “He scattered the gravel all over us as he halted the horse. And if a cowboy ever looked dangerous Harkness sure did then. He pulled two guns and bolted into the hall. The other fellows ran but I had to see what was going to happen next. It seems that Emery and that big black-bearded man of his, Bannister, is his name, were standing right there. I figured afterward that they were keeping curious people out of the gambling den where the big game was going on. ‘Get out of here, cowboy,’ yelled Emery. Bud told him to move pronto. Emery used poor judgment here because evidently he took Bud for a drunken cowboy throwing a bluff and he ordered Bannister to throw him out. That cost Bannister his life and Emery, waking up a little late, ran to the door just in time to save his own life. I learned afterward that Bud’s bullet took him in the rump, making a nasty but not a dangerous wound. The gun shots stopped all the noise in the place and Bud ran into the gambling alcove. I was taking a risk but I had to see that too, so I stuck my head around the door jamb. Harkness yelled at them like a mad man. There were six men in the game and the table was loaded with liquor and money. ‘Hargrove, you —— ! I wouldn’t talk for you before but I’ll talk now,’ cut out Harkness fiercely. ‘If I did steal a few mavericks from you I shore didn’t deserve the outrage you brought upon me. Ranchers like you will have all the cowboys in the valley up in arms. Bad as I was you were worse. When this thing comes out as it is bound to do you and Lee won’t stand very well in this country. Now take this for your part of the dirty work!’ And he shot Hargrove through the heart.”

“So help me heaven, Thatcher, Bud called the turn!” exclaimed Lincoln. “It looks like war!”

“Yes, and that is nothing to what is going to happen,” went on Mel huskily. “Hargrove is a heavy man and he fell over on the table, uptipping it. Glass and money and chips slid off with a crash. The other gamblers made a mad scramble to get away. But Nesbit, as he got up, pulled his gun. That was all he could do before Bud filled him full of lead. They say he hasn’t got very much chance for his life. Then Harkness ran out, mounted his horse and rode out of town.”

“Well, he got even, didn’t he?” exclaimed Bradway, darkly. “I wouldn’t be one to judge him, but you know what this will precipitate, don’t you, Mel?”

“It means war unless the cattlemen lay off the cowboys.”

“Come on, men. Let’s go down and get supper. I’m starved,” said Linc.

They went down the dark cross street, passed the infrequent yellow lights to the restaurant where they usually ate. They ordered huge beefsteaks.

“Vince,” said the Nebraskan, speaking low, “we’ll have to be a little careful about how we get some more hardware for you.”

“I was thinkin’ of thet,” said Vince.

“Guns are easy to buy in this town,” spoke up Thatcher. “All we need is the mazuma.”

“Tomorrow is time enough,” returned Lincoln.

“Boss, heven’t you anything to tell us?” asked Vince.

“Nothing much. The ride over from the Springs passed without incident. At least, the passengers seemed to behave themselves,” added Lincoln with a short laugh.

Conversation was interrupted then by the arrival of their supper. After they had eaten heartily Lincoln said: “I’ve been feeding pretty well lately, and I’m spoiled.”

“What are we going to do now?” asked Thatcher.

“Split up and walk around town and keep our eyes and ears open. What was that cattleman meeting about, do you suppose?”

“I couldn’t find out,” replied Thatcher. “I’ve a hunch the cattlemen have not been having an easy time deciding what steps they are going to take. Some of them would be on the cowboys’ side if they dared open their mouths. Lee is the hardest shelled one of the outfit. It’s a good thing he wasn’t here today or he would have got his, too. That leaves him boss of the rebel cattlemen. There are not enough of them to run the cowboys out of the country. This mess today will make them leery of mistreating any more cowboys. In my opinion a good many of the cattlemen will want to back out now if Lee will let them. It’s a good bet though, that any more meetings they hold will be down in the brush.”

“Well, I’ll sleep on it,” spoke Lincoln thoughtfully. “But I’m inclined to believe that the solution to our own problem is down there in the thick of it.”

“After this row kicked up today a feller’s life won’t be worth two bits if they ketch him snoopin’ around down there,” said Vince.

“We won’t make any false moves. Now you two hombres go around and hear what you can hear. I’ll take a look for myself. In the morning I’ll meet you and we’ll have breakfast. Then I’ll buy some more guns and shells. Here’s some money, Vince: use your head now. This trail is getting pretty hot.”

They went outside and separated. Bradway began to make his way toward the main part of the town. He walked slowly and gave attentive eye and ear to everyone he passed. When he gained the center of the town he backed up in a shadow of a wall and looked about him. The lights from the stores and saloons cast a dim yellow glare over the thoroughfare and upon the crowd surging up and down the street. From where Lincoln stood he could see at least a dozen small groups of men engaged in what appeared to be animated conversation. There was a distinct feeling of excitement and expectation in the air along the street. Pulling his Stetson down over his face and turning up his collar, Lincoln set out to try to learn what they were talking about. A group of men lounged on the hotel steps just above where he stood. Lincoln made his way unobtrusively toward them and when close by paused and stooped to light a cigarette.

“Never been anything like it here,” spoke up one man. “I, for one, think the ranchers have gone too far and gone the wrong way about it.”

“But I tell you, John,” replied another, “all the cattlemen are not in this by a long shot.”

“You can’t tell,” spoke up the third. “Maybe they’re all in it.”

Lincoln strolled on as far as the corner where three more men stood close together talking. He halted again and lazily went through the motions of lighting another cigarette.

“Doc told me he dug a handful of lead out of Nesbit,” said one. “And he said he’d be damned if he didn’t think the man might live.”

“I was told by a witness that Nesbit made a fool move to draw a gun. That hell-bent cowboy,” replied the other, “was addressing himself to Hargrove. Everyone in town is buzzing over that cowboy’s strange talk.”

“Hold it,” whispered the third man, “there’s a cowboy now.”

Bradway kept his back turned and sauntered on. He had been right in his conjecture about the subject of the whole town’s conversation. If the cowboys were not actually in disfavor they certainly were being avoided. Across the street another group of five had congregated — miners and workhands — none with the cut of cattleman about him.

“But what was it all about?” asked one man.

“Didn’t you hear?” spoke up another. “Cowboy run amuck. They say he rode through town without any coat and his back was all bloody where he’d been whipped.”

“Never heard of the like of that. If the ranchers beat him up, what was it for?”

“There’s a lot of things being whispered about town but not out loud.”

The Nebraskan went on, his ears tingling. The killing of a couple of men by a wild cowboy was no unusual procedure any more than was any other shooting event. It was the unprecedented ride of the half-naked cowboy through the town where he was seen by a hundred people that had aroused the wide attention and had given rise to the excited comment.

The next group that Linc came upon stood in front of a lighted window. One of them was a cowboy, red-faced and grim.

“I can’t tell you any more than that,” he rasped out.

“But do you really believe these cattlemen beat that fellow Harkness with whips?”

“You can’t prove it by me,” replied the cowboy curtly and he disengaged himself from the group and walked away.

“That’s the third cowpuncher I’ve heard tonight,” said one of the men. “None of them know anything, but they’re a sore-haided bunch.”

“Wal, hyar’s another,” he said, espying Lincoln. “Say, cowboy, was you around when it come off?”

“No, but I heard about it,” replied Lincoln coldly.

“What’s caused the bad blood between the cowboys and the cowmen?”

“What do you think?” queried Lincoln, curtly.

“I’d be afeered to tell you, cowboy. So mosey along.”

In the street which crossed the center block where Emery’s gambling hall was situated, he listened to learn what he could from half a dozen other groups. There was an intense curiosity and eagerness manifest in the questions asked. But the replies did not confirm anything. The fact of a prominent rancher having been killed and another perhaps mortally wounded apparently did not elicit the sympathies of the town people. Life was cheap and there was a shooting scrape every day or so. The invariable speculation had to do with why that cowboy had been beaten — not with his summary revenge upon the ranchers. Dire punishment for rustling had come slowly into the Sweetwater Valley. The threat had gone abroad that the cattlemen were going to end up by hanging maverick thieves; but here was a cowboy, assertedly caught red-handed in the act of rustling, beaten with whips until the blood ran down his back. What for? What else was behind this affair seemed to be the persistent and unanswered question.

In front of Emery’s place there was a crowd of two dozen or more. Lincoln backed up against the wall where the light could not strike him, and listened. There was a good deal of talk among individuals who seemed to have interests other than cattle running. One burly fellow with a white apron, evidently a barkeeper, was holding forth at a great rate.

“Bannister just croaked a few minutes ago,” he said. “He was conscious till the last. He cussed Emery somethin’ awful for sickin’ him on that cowboy. Emery is in there cussin’ just as bad ‘cause the doctor hadn’t had time to get to him. He’s not shot up much but he bled like a stuck pig. He’ll have to do his gamblin’ standin’ up for a while.”

“Four men shot,” added another speaker. “Looks as if Emery is the only one who’ll pull through and he’s the one that should have got it.”

“That’s sure right,” said another. “Emery is about played out in this man’s town.”

“Did anybody hear what made this cowboy run hell-bent for election?”

“Reckon it was just plain bad whisky.”

“I’ve had a heap to do with cowboys in my day and this feller’s work did not bear the earmarks of likker,” said a bald- headed man. “Bert Adams was comin’ out of the saloon when the cowboy run into him. His guns were smokin’. Bert said he never seen such eyes in any human bein’. He sure wasn’t drunk. You can always tell when a feller’s under the influence of drink. That cowboy was under the influence of somethin’ pretty damn awful.”

“I wonder what will come of it?”

They continued talking, and presently Lincoln left his post and entered the building. He peered into the saloon and discovered that business was going on as usual. Groups of drinkers were lined up at the bar; a gambling session was going full blast in the room where the shooting had taken place. In the large room the roulette and monte tables were also occupied. Linc strolled to the wide saloon door and entered. He noticed five cattlemen drinking at the far end, and simulating a man rather the worse for liquor, slid along the bar until he drew reasonably close to them. He called for a drink. One of the cattlemen looked as though he had seen the Nebraskan before but could not place him; all of them evidently were laboring under suppressed emotion. Lincoln heard one whisper hoarsely: “We’ve gone about it in a wrong way. Lee was right. These thieving, murdering cowboys need to be handled openly.”

A second, whose back was turned toward Lincoln, said, “Another deal like Hargrove’s and there’ll be war!”

“Wal, why not? The cowboys on this here range are ruined forever. Let’s drive them out of the country.”

“Men,” spoke up a tall rancher, “we’re split on that from the beginning. I lean toward Lee’s idea. There won’t be many of us, but we’ll mean business and if we carry out Lee’s plan this cursed festering sore down in the Sweetwater will be cured forever.”

“Impossible,” whispered another cattleman with a violent gesture. “That way’s unthinkable. I am from the South.”

“So is Lee from the South and he says it’s absolutely the only thing that can be done.”

“We doubt it. I’ll gamble he can’t get a score of cattlemen in the whole valley to see it his way.”

“If the cowboys got wise to that they’d clean us out. I tell you every cowboy in this valley is rank poison.”

“Well, one way or another it’s a bloody mess. Let’s wait until Lee calls his secret meeting next week. This shooting of Hargrove and Nesbit has brought the pot to a boil.”

The cattlemen filed out past Linc who was hunched over the bar. He left his liquor untouched and presently made his way outside. Once out of the Leave It he was careful to keep in the shadows and to give the cattlemen a wide berth.

Crossing the street he took the back way and then hurried up to the livery stable. There was no sign of anyone. The light in Headly’s little office was out. He heard the thumping of horses in the stalls. The cowboy seated himself to think and wait. All that he had heard was interesting, but only the last conversation was of any significance. The cattlemen had worked out some drastic move against the cowboys or some other plan calculated to end the trouble in the valley. It seemed that they wished to stop the stealing cowboys but did not know how to do so unless they resorted to direct violence. Knowing cattlemen well, Lincoln concluded that was what would come to pass, yet there were other baffling angles to the situation. All the ranchers in the valley were suffering from these rustler depredations but why could not Lee get them together in one band? One rancher had said, “Impossible! Unthinkable!” and he had added, “I am from the South!” Lincoln pondered long over this. But Lee was from the South also. Yet evidently Lee had stronger feelings about the movement he had instigated than any of the others. Again Lincoln’s thoughts turned to Kit Bandon. She had been the nucleus of this cowboy-cattlemen feud; it might be that Lee wanted to arrest her, disgrace her by somehow blaming this maverick stealing upon her. But how was he going to prove it? Hargrove’s fiasco and tragic death proved the futility of trying to exact any proof from the cowboys.

That evening Bradway came to the decision that he would ride to the Bandon ranch, hide in the brush and watch at night to see if he could unveil the mystery that he was sure centered about that part of the valley. Apparently the situation concerned a matter of honor with these cowboys involving principles that they would die before betraying. Yet he felt somewhat guilty at the idea of spying on Kit Bandon. If he failed to uncover any vital information then he must in some way induce Lucy to tell him all she knew, even if it necessitated his swearing to her that he would take no action, no matter whom her confession involved. He had five days before his momentous appointment with Lucy; during that time he should be able to find out a great deal. He debated the idea of bringing Vince and Thatcher with him, but concluded that it would be better if he went alone this time. If the cattlemen should happen to run across Thatcher and Vince down among the willows they would suspect something was afoot among the cowboys. He did not think he ran any great risk in attempting it by himself, even though any cowboy, local or strange, would be under suspicion if caught riding down by the river. His cogitations were interrupted by the return of Vince and Mel. They did not see him until he spoke.

“Howdy, gents. What’s the good word?”

“It wasn’t so good,” replied Vince. “Lot of talk by different people who were in the dark about what come off. All of them speculatin’ on a fight between the cowboys an’ the cowmen.”

“Didn’t you hear a word of speculation as to why the cattlemen beat up Harkness?” queried Lincoln.

Vince said no, but his boss was not too sure that he was telling the truth.

“How about you, Mel? What did you run across?” asked Bradway.

“Lot of gab — no sense to it at all,” replied Thatcher, shortly.

“A lot of help you hombres are,” retorted the Nebraskan, and as they both fell silent he reproached himself for insinuating they were not being loyal. No doubt in the same situation he would have been quite as evasive and tight-lipped. Still his impatience was such that he vented one sarcastic protest. “You cowpokes must all have thought a hell of a lot of Kit Bandon.”

Vince spat out his cigar and sat down without a word.

“Don’t you?” queried Thatcher quietly.

Linc cracked his fist in his palm. “By God, I deserved that one! I did and I do.... I guess we’ve all got something we’re keeping under our hats.”

“All O.K., boss. We savvy what a tough place this is fer you. We ask you again to git Lucy and ride with us to hell out of this damn country.”

“We can’t do it. For one thing I’m locoed on this Wyoming country. And I don’t expect to see Lucy till next Wednesday. You hombres are going with me. She wants to show me the most beautiful ranch site in the West. It’s a valley up at the source of the Sweetwater.”

“Boss, you don’t mean to say yore goin’ to settle down hyar permanently?” asked Vince.

“Yes, and by golly, you fellows are going to be here with me,” retorted Bradway. Then he reported to them in detail the conversations he had heard along the street. They made no comment until he included the conversation among the cattlemen in the saloon. At that Vince leaped to his feet with an oath.

“By God, Mel! I had a hunch about thet,” he said hoarsely. “I had figgered thet all along.”

Thatcher’s response was a quick nod of affirmation.

“I reckon I gotta go bore Lee an’ do it quick,” muttered Vince fiercely.

Linc jumped to his feet and confronted the two angry cowboys.

“What’n the hell has got into you fellows? What kind of talk is this? I don’t care what you’ve got up your sleeve, but I won’t let you make outlaws of yourselves like Harkness did. You promised to throw in with me — to stick with me. I like you both. I see big cattle prospects for us in this valley. No matter what your reason, you couldn’t be justified in shooting Lee. Now I want a showdown from both of you.”

Thatcher spoke up first. “It’s not so easy to do, Bradway — but I give you my word of honor that I’ll try to see this thing your way.”

“Wal, me too, boss,” added Vince, somewhat mollified. “I lost my temper. I see thet this man Lee is goin’ to pull a low-down trick an’ I saw red. Jest overlook it, pard. I will be all right.”

“Much obliged, boys. You had me worried for a minute,” said their boss, sitting down again. “Now let me figure a minute. I’ll be gone tomorrow and maybe Saturday and Sunday. But I’ll see you in the morning and we’ll buy that hardware. You hombres stay in town and keep out of mischief. Kit Bandon will be in town Saturday and, between you and me, she’s going to break with Emery. You might be lucky enough to hear what comes off. Well, I’m pretty tired and I think I’ll hit the hay.”

The cowboys bade him good night and, lighting cigarettes, they sat down on the steps, evidently for further talk. Lincoln returned to his lodgings by the back way and was soon in bed and asleep.

Next morning he found his friends waiting for him at the Chinese restaurant. They were cheerful and talkative but refrained from alluding to the topics of yesterday. After breakfast the three men went to the general store and while Lincoln stocked up on needed supplies for himself he gave the others money to buy what they needed. Vince had given his coat to Harkness and he was well satisfied to get a new and better one. They made careful selection of guns. Lincoln told them not to forget any of his instructions of the night before and then he took his leave. Returning to his lodgings, Lincoln considered his next action. He had planned to go down to the valley that night and scout around. To that end he had bought dried fruit, some sliced beef, biscuits, and a good-sized sack of oats. His plan had been to fill his saddlebags, pack his blanket and the sack of oats, to facilitate his staying there for a couple of days in reasonable comfort.

By midafternoon his plans were set. Headly was at the livery stable when he arrived, but his cowboy friends were not in evidence. For the first time in his life Linc Bradway was baffled by a feeling of indecision. Something seemed to be holding him back from this venture, yet something more powerful seemed to be urging him on. After packing and saddling his horse he was assailed by another spell of doubt as to the wisdom and the correctness of his plan. Finally in a fit of angry wonder at himself he mounted his horse and set out across the open lots toward the creek.

It was approaching dusk; sunset waved red banners across the grassy slopes of the pass and turned the snow peaks to gold. By the time Lincoln had topped the long slopes that led to the pass the road that zigzagged into the valley was in darkness. He rode more and more slowly as he approached the edge of the plateau. After a quick glance down into the black gulf below he halted, abruptly.

“Lordy, I must have the jitters or something,” he muttered. “Am I losing my nerve? I’m not afraid of those cowpokes and cattlemen. What’s wrong with me, then?”

Dismounting, he stood there staring down into the mysterious depths of that great valley. Here and there he perceived pin points of light, flickering vaguely, enhancing the silence and the loneliness, rather than relieving them. One of those faraway lights was the Bandon ranch. Bay nickered gently and rubbed his nose against the cowboy’s sleeve. He seemed to feel the loneliness and the mysterious spell, too. And as Linc stood there his doubts and his indecision disappeared. Something stronger than a hunch had brought him on this errand. He no longer felt that he was pursuing a doubtful course. Some force, wiser, stronger, truer was impelling him forward. Quickly he mounted and spurred his horse down the road.

When he reached the level he put Bay into a long, swinging lope. It was not long before he discerned the black strip of timber against the dark sage. Less than a mile from the bridge which led to the Bandon homestead he came to the willows and searched carefully for a spot to tether Bay, one which he could find quickly upon his return. Then he took off his spurs and set out toward the ranch house on foot.

He knew then that he was certain as to his motive. When he reached the open again he skirted the edge of the willows near the ranch. Every few paces he would stop to listen. Coyotes were barking in the distance. Now and then he heard an owl in the willows, and presently the rush of the swiftly running river. It would be moonlight shortly; and by that time he wanted to be safely hidden near the maverick corral. He listened for the sound of wheels or the clip-clop of horses’ hoofs, but no close sound broke the cool stillness of the night. Warily he crossed the bridge and, keeping to the shadow of the trees along the river, made a wide detour that brought him up behind the corrals. He shortened his step, straining his keen faculties to hear sounds that would tell him of the activities he wanted to know. When he reached the long line of sheds, the moon topped the valley wall and shone upon the roof of the white homestead. Lincoln cautiously moved on in the shadows until he came to the shed that opened out upon the maverick corral. Waiting until his eyes could discern objects in the darkness, he entered the shed. He made sure of his location by peering out of the window. He recognized the bleached pole fence and high gate, and beyond him he searched for the neatly stacked pile of firewood. At first he could not find it, but presently he discerned it, dismayed to realize that it had shrunk to half its bulk. Part of that pile had been used; fires had been built; mavericks had been branded since he had been there!

It grew light enough in the shed for Linc to make his way about. He found a seat close to the wall in the deepest shadow where he could not be seen, yet could watch any activities that might be taking place. Then with a sigh he settled back to wait. Lincoln tried hard not to let his thoughts wander. He wanted all his mind objectively riveted upon the issue at hand. He could have gambled everything he owned that something startling and significant would come to pass before many hours were gone. He made no effort to explain to himself this certainty. Ever since that moment when he had stood looking down into the darkness of the valley below he had known that it would happen.

The minutes passed by. Time dragged. Somewhere near at hand horses thumped in their stalls; coyotes ranged across the sage with their hue and cry; otherwise the dreaming silence of the night continued. Perhaps an hour passed by, though it seemed an age. Suddenly the watcher’s keen senses became conscious of a sound. What was it that he had heard? Then again it stopped his pulse and he recognized the sound of horses’ hoofs. Then they ceased. It might have been an animal in the corral or over in the pasture but his sharp perceptions told him otherwise. Presently he heard another slight sound which he recognized to be the faint metallic clink of a spur. Linc listened, scarcely breathing. Then he heard the squeaking, complaining noise of wood rubbing against wood — the opening of the corral gate. Peering out, Lincoln espied a shadowy figure letting a calf into the corral. Breathing heavily, the man halted a moment in the open gate. Bradway heard the snaky sound of a lasso being dragged along the ground; then the calf jumped to find he was free and gave an exhausted little bawl. The man cursed under his breath, then went out, closed the gate behind him, and disappeared. Linc traced his faint footsteps by the tinkle of spurs. Then they, too, ceased.

The watcher relaxed from his tense strain. His suspicions were being confirmed; here was a cowboy with a stolen maverick and he had gone to exact his tribute from the Maverick Queen. What would he do when the cowboy came back? Perhaps he could risk holding the cowboy up, catch him red-handed, as he was, in his guilt. But the Nebraskan reasoned that he would be just like all other cowboys: he would fight before he would talk. Linc did not want to risk a possible killing in Kit Bandon’s corral.

As the moments dragged by he broke out in a cold sweat. In spite of his self-control, he wanted that cowboy back quickly — at once — right now! To his unutterable relief, the cowboy was returning, but this time he was cursing under his breath and making no effort to walk noiselessly. He jerked open the door of the corral. Lincoln heard the slap of a coiled lasso against the fence. Then the rustler froze in his tracks.

“Well, I’ll be —— !” he muttered.

The hoofbeats of another horse sounded softly on the ground. Lincoln heard the tussling of a half-choked calf that was evidently being dragged toward the corral. Then came the crunch of boots pounding hard on the gravel.

“Hello, Bert,” called the first cowboy in a harsh and not by any means restrained voice.

“That you, Monte?” came the sharp reply from the darkness.

“You know it’s me.”

“What the hell are you doin’ heah? You said you’d be gone long before midnight.”

“I said a lot of things that didn’t happen,” growled Monte.

The next moment the man called Bert loomed in the silver moonlight dragging a calf over the ground. He stopped at the gate and, loosening his lasso, kicked the calf into the corral.

“Wal, Monte, reckon we’ll have to cut the cards for who goes in first.”

“Nope. I’ve been.... Bert, the fire’s out.”

“Watcha mean? You haven’t started any fire heah.”

“Nah, I didn’t. I mean the fire’s out as far at Kit Bandon’s concerned.”

“Cowboy, are you drunk or loco?”

“I ain’t nothin’ but plain sore. I ain’t so damn sure thet I wasn’t seen tonight with thet calf. All for nothin’. Kit turned me down. I’m bound to admit she was nice and kind, but she’s through. She won’t take no more mavericks.”

“Wal, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Bert. “That’s a sticker. What’s she got agin you, Monte?”

“Nothin’ at all. She was jest as sweet as pie lettin’ me down. She wasn’t sore at me. She’s jest changed her mind about buyin’ doggies.”

“Hang around a little bit,” retorted the other. “I’ll betcha two bits she won’t turn me down.”

“Say, Bert Rawlins, you shore do hate yoreself. I’ll bet you my saddle and gun and spurs she does turn you down.”

“Yore on, Monte. Don’t get tired waitin’ for me neither.” And with that he strode off into the silvery gloom.

After a moment or so Monte began to roll a cigarette. “It’d be funny if Bert was right,” muttered the cowboy in tones perfectly audible to Bradway. “I always thought Kit didn’t fancy me too much. And Bert is a handsome dog and has a way with women, damn him!”

He closed the gate and leaned against it smoking. The calves that had evidently been dragged around considerably were beginning to recover and be active. Lincoln lay there almost afraid to breathe. He was feeling considerable relief over developments. Almost he had been ready to believe that Kit Bandon had lied to him. Now if the second rustler returned with her refusal to accept any more stolen livestock then he would know that she had told him the truth. The moments seemed interminably long. He did not want to count on Kit Bandon’s regeneration through love, if in another moment it might be dispelled. His suspense came to an end abruptly. Suddenly the other cowboy loomed up.

“Got a smoke, pard?” he asked, huskily.

“Got the makin’s heah.... Bert, you didn’t stay very long.”

“Ha! Why should I? She came at my first call. She told me the deal for mavericks was off. I argued with her. She was reasonable and patient with me, tried to make me think she regretted our deals in the past. Thanked me for what I’d done for her but thet kinda talk didn’t go with me. Then I got sore. ‘That may be all right, Kit,’ I said, ‘but I’ve done my part. You pay me now!’ .. . By God! she said ‘No!’ and believe me, Monte, thet was wuss’n a slap in my face. I cussed her good and then she flashed a gun on me. I saw it shine in the moonlight. ‘I owe you nothing, Bert Rawlins. I paid you for every cow you ever stole. Run along now or I’ll shoot your leg off.’ And I shore ran.”

The cowboy ended out of breath and with a broken, uncertain little laugh that hinted of inexplicable defeat.

“Can you beat thet? Bert, are you goin’ to crawfish on our bet?”

“Hell, no. I’ll throw in my hoss if you want it,” returned Bert dejectedly.

“No, I don’t want your hoss nor the bet either. But for Judas’ sake, what’s happened to Kit Bandon all of a sudden?”

“Monte, I didn’t know that woman any more. She looked like an angel in the moonlight and her voice was jest as sweet as an angel’s until I made her mad.... But, lordy, what will become of me now? I jest lived on the hope of seein’ this woman — of hearin’ her voice — of—”

“Wal, pard, you ain’t holdin’ the sack all by yoreself. Come on, let’s rustle out of heah.”

“What’ll we do with the calves?”

“Leave the gate open. They’ll wander out into the sage.”

CHAPTER XII

THE NEBRASKAN AROSE from his cramped position and stretched himself. Emerging from the shed he stood in the shadow, resolving to himself to put what happened out of his mind for the time being. Now should he let well enough alone or venture further with the solution of the greater mystery? While considering his next move he gazed about him. The full moon was bright. Shadows from the eastern side of the corral were beginning to lose their length. Passing along the shed he came to the ranch fence which reached from the corrals to the house. Suddenly a wild idea flashed into his mind: why not call Kit out himself? He dismissed the mad impulse but it returned more insistently than ever. He remembered that one of his cowboy gifts, which had stood him in good stead many a time, was the power to disguise his voice. Why not impersonate a third cowboy and see for himself what Kit’s reaction would be? If she refused to deal with him, then he would be certain that she had put her unscrupulous past behind her. He paused a moment to estimate the risk. If Lucy heard him she would not know him from some other cowboy. If he could give a convincing performance, the chances were that he would not give himself away.

He decided to stay inside the fence and go around the house on the inside. Like a skulking Indian he made sure that the coast was clear, then glided stealthily along the fence to the yard. The gate was open; he passed through and in a short moment reached the deep shadow of the ranch house. Here he paused again to listen. The night was very still; stars were sinking in the west; Lincoln heard the soft murmur of the river and the sad song of insects and the beating of his own heart. To a man inured to excitement as he was, this incident should have seemed trivial. But it loomed tremendously in his imagination; he could not understand why. He glided along the house again, presently gaining an open window no higher than his head. He gave a start as his sharp eyes recognized Lucy’s sombrero and scarf on the window sill. Acting upon sudden impulse without analyzing his reasons for it, he made up his mind to awaken Lucy, but by calling Kit’s name. Putting his head over the sill, and not forgetting to disguise his voice, he called low: “Kit, wake up!”

He heard a sudden movement, then a low, angry, voice. “Go away, cowboy. This is not Kit’s room.”

It was Lucy’s voice. He whispered: “Lucy, it’s Lincoln. Come here to the window.”

He heard a gasp, then the flinging aside of bed covers and the soft pad of bare feet on the floor. In a moment more she appeared at the window. Dark as it was on that side he could distinguish her pale face, her eyes looking big and dark, her hair falling over the white of her gown.

“Am I dreaming or plain crazy?” she whispered. “Is it you, Lincoln?”

“Yes. Don’t be frightened, Lucy. It’s all right.”

She sank on her knees and leaned out of the window.

“Oh, but what in the world are you doing here?”

“Wait. Where’s Kit’s room?” he asked.

“It’s on the other side of the house. The living room is between hers and mine.”

“Good!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t want her to catch me.” He took hold of Lucy’s trembling hands. “I tell you, don’t be scared. It’s all right. This is my lucky night. I came out here to do a little reconnoitering. I hid inside the shed behind that maverick corral. I stayed there until I had found out what I wanted to know — that Kit Bandon wasn’t going to buy any more stolen mavericks. I decided to call Kit myself and pretend to be another cowboy, bringing a stolen maverick. I want to be certain that she has had a change of heart. I want to have that proof in case I ever have to defend her against the cattlemen.”

“Oh, Lincoln, I know she has changed,” murmured Lucy excitedly. “It’s too good to be true. She has been sweet and lovely to me ever since we got back from the Springs. She talks of leaving the Sweetwater Valley soon.”

“That’s wonderful,” whispered Bradway. “Oh, I hope it isn’t too late and that her past catches up with her before she can get away. Now, Lucy, I will go round on the other side and call her the same as those other cowboys did. I’ll disguise my voice and pretend to be another cowpoke who’s a stranger to her. I’ll say I stole a calf and brought it to her. I’ll argue and insist and demand. Then we’ll see.”

“Lincoln, be terribly careful. If she learns who you are and thinks you were spying on her she’ll shoot to kill.”

“I will. But I’m in no hurry. It’s sweet to be here with you like this,” he whispered. “I’d almost forgotten that you were my sweetheart, say nothing about being my wife.” And pulling her face down he kissed her.

She was breathless, but far from unresponsive in her return of his caress. Suddenly Lincoln was seized with a mounting madness.

“Lucy,” he whispered.

“Yes?” she answered.

“You’re my lawful wife, you know. I have a right to come in there. Would you let me?”

“Mercy!” gasped Lucy. “If she caught us she would kill us both.”

“You darling! I was only pretending.... But some day, I warn you, I won’t be satisfied to whisper to my wife through windows. Don’t worry about me. And don’t forget our date next Wednesday up on the Sweetwater.”

Tearing himself away from her clinging arms he slipped silently away among the shadows. Then the thought crossed his mind that Lucy had been most reluctant to allow him to awaken Kit. Probably if he had stayed longer she might have said something or persuaded him not to go. At the end of the house under the shade of the trees he halted to compose himself. This was risky business he was embarked upon, but he felt confident that he could carry it through. He stole soundlessly around the end of the house, halting at the corner. There was only one window on that side, half-obscured by the shade of a tree a couple of steps outside the wall. It was open. Lincoln went to the edge of the window and called in: “Kit Bandon!”

He heard her stir in her bed. “What? Who?” she asked. “Is that you back again, Bert Rawlins?... You’ve got a nerve to come back here, cowboy.”

“No, it ain’t Rawlins,” drawled Lincoln. “Come over to the winder.” He stepped back into the shadow of the tree, hiding his face with his sombrero. She was slow to reach the window and lean out. He heard the thump of a gun on the window sill. He realized that a man took perilous chances in trifling with this woman.

“Who are you?” she called, peering hard at him. In the partial moonlight he could see her distinctly — a startling and beautiful apparition in night clothes.

“I’m a stranger,” replied the Nebraskan, slowly nerving himself to the ordeal. “Cowpoke. Name is Orville Stone lately come to Sweetwater. Ridin’ fer Perkins down the river.”

“Yes, and what do you want?” demanded Kit. “What do you mean by coming to my home in the middle of the night and awakening me from my sleep.”

“I was tipped off by a cowboy friend.”

“Did you meet any other cowboys ‘round here?”

“Yes. Two of them, but they didn’t see me.”

“Well, hurry and state your business.”

“I’ve brought you a maverick.”

“I don’t want it,” replied Kit sharply.

“Why not? I was given to understand—”

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not taking any more mavericks from cowboys.”

“But lady, I heard diff’runt. I’ve took a damn big risk an’ gone to a lot of trouble packin’ this calf in my arms over twenty miles. I wisht you could make an exception in this case,” he pleaded.

“Oh, I don’t blame you. It’s a rotten deal. Did I ever see you?”

“No, but I’ve seen you three times an’ I’m afraid them three times has jest about throwed me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean — well, this here is the fourth time I’ve seen you an’ I’d like fer you to let me come acourtin’ now an’ again. I’ve fallen purty hard fer a cowpoke, ma’am.”

“That is worse and more of it,” replied Kit with a note of weary regret. “I’m to blame for this. I’m sorry. Whoever told you was honest enough. He thought I would take your livestock, cowboy. Won’t you let me off this deal?”

“I don’t see why I should. It’s a deal jest as much as if you asked me to come hyah.”

“Oh, I realize that’s true. But you see, I’ve gone out of this business. I won’t make any more rustlers out of cowboys. I won’t take another maverick from any cowboy.”

“But why, Miss Bandon?” the man in the shadows whispered eagerly. “I acted in good faith. The way I see it you owe it to me to take this maverick off my hands.”

“Why?” she flashed angrily, and her white and black beauty blazed in the moonlight. “You don’t know it, but I’ve prayed God to forgive me for enticing you boys to steal mavericks. Something has happened to me which has changed my heart and soul and mind... . Now, cowboy, that’s sayin’ a lot to a stranger. You talk like a gentleman. Be one and spare me—”

“Woman,” interrupted the cowboy in a nasty tone. “Will you keep your word?”

“No, damn you! Not even if I have to kill another man.”

Bradway stood in silence for a moment thrilled with the knowledge that the Maverick Queen had renounced her throne. What he had hoped and prayed for was true. Then speaking once more in his natural voice, he said: “Kit, be careful what you do with that gun.”

“My God! — who are you?”

“It’s Linc Bradway, Kit. Forgive me for playing this trick on you, lady.”

She dropped the gun outside the window and fell forward against the sill to bow her head. Her long black hair fell around her shoulders.

“Oh, Lincoln, you’ve — found me — out,” she whispered heartbrokenly.

Lincoln stepped forward and recovered the gun. He stood up close to her.

“But not too late, Kit,” he whispered.

She raised herself up and rested her chin on her bare arms. In the moonlight she seemed transcendentally beautiful. Her face was as white as her nightgown. Her great dark eyes were wide and tragic.

“Lincoln, you spied upon me?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do it for?”

“I had several reasons,” he replied. “The main one was to catch you in the act—”

“What — act?” she interposed.

“Why, of buying those stolen mavericks from cowboys,” he replied. “I wanted to catch you in the act and then try to persuade you to save yourself and Lucy by stopping it. But, as it happened, I didn’t catch you. I hid out there in the shed back of the corral. Monte came with a stolen calf, then Bert Rawlins came with another, and I lay there listening and presently when they got together I heard them talking about the amazing change in you. They couldn’t understand it. But I do. After they left I conceived the idea of seeing for myself just how you had changed. I came and I fooled you, Kit. It has distressed you but it has made me happy.”

“I don’t seem to be able to forgive you, Linc. I didn’t want you ever — ever to find out that I was a — a — a maverick thief. I wanted to get away with you before you found out — and that I’ve been the death of more than one cowboy.”

“I know, Kit, but the way I feel toward you now should make you forget some of the shame and suffering.”

“What do you feel for me — now?” she demanded wonderingly.

“I feel a great respect for a woman who can do what you have done.”

“But how could you? I’ve done all the things you suspected me of, Linc.”

“Because you are a changed woman and I am glad.... Kit, I didn’t fall for your seductive charms. The only reason was that I did not love you — that was hard for you to believe. But now, Kit, I respect you for the strong—”

“Oh, Lincoln, respect is something — but even a little love would be—” and she reached for him with her bare white arms.

Lincoln did not resist her embrace.

“Darling, if you could love me, even a little — would you leave this country with me?”

“I can’t, Kit. I told you. I’m a married man.”

“But you have saved my soul,” she protested.

“Kit, listen,” he began earnestly, releasing the white clinging arms. “That’s all very well about saving your soul. I hope to God it is true, but I want to save your good name — you and your niece from disgrace — and hope of happiness — certainly your freedom and perhaps your life.”

She was startled. She drew away from him wildly. “My — my life!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe that is an exaggeration,” went on Lincoln hurriedly, “but I’m worried. A terrible flare-up between the cowboys and the cattlemen has broken out. It’s on your account. Kit. Your rustlers have gotten out of hand. They can’t do anything to the cowboys. The ranchers have found that out. The beating of Harkness was a crazy blunder. The murder of Hargrove and desperate wounding of Nesbit have proved that. The cattlemen do not present a united front. They’ve split. But there’s one faction that is for revenge. I don’t know who they are but Lee is at the head of it. Lee is one of your conquests, and you should know that he’s dangerous when he has been crossed. You mocked him, flouted him, made his name a laughingstock in the valley. I know cattlemen of his type. Only his infatuation for you kept him from sending you to jail — or worse. Lee has enough on you to hang you. These are hard times on the range.”

“But Lincoln, it can’t go on. I’m through. I will never steal mavericks again. This turndown of Monte and Rawlins will spread over the valley like wildfire.”

“But my dear, it may be too late,” he whispered.

“Oh, no, Lincoln, I’m sure you’re wrong. I can handle the situation. I’ll make amends in whatever way I can. I’ll break with Emery. I’ll find some way of placating these bitter enemies of mine.”

“All that takes time, Kit,” said Bradway earnestly.

“I will be in town tomorrow or Sunday,” said Kit. “Oh, I can’t take seriously what you say, but I’ll try to think of everything. Go now, Lincoln, so that you’ll get back to town before daylight. I wouldn’t want it known that you had been here.”

She kissed him good-by and pushed him away from the window. He laid her gun on the sill. He could not refrain from taking a last look at her in the moonlight: white shoulders, white arms, white face standing out against the ebony of her loosened hair. Then he wheeled and ran out under the trees to the road.

Now that he had left Lucy and Kit behind him all that had been lonesome in the valley seemed accentuated: only the faraway howling of wolves broke the unearthly silence. As the cowboy strode through the sage he soon lost the sucking, gurgling sound of the river. He reached the edge of the willows where he had tethered his horse.

He found Bay asleep with the nosebag still hanging over one ear. The sight of his faithful horse gave Linc a warm feeling of security. He mounted and was soon out upon the valley bottom. The sage was thick and tall and the ground was full of burrows, which made traveling painfully slow. He had purposely turned off the trail because it was too close to the ranch house. As he rode he tried to recapture the glow that his short whispered conversation with Lucy had stirred in him, also the new feeling of respect and admiration for the Maverick Queen. That she had satisfied him that the change in her way of life was to be permanent pleased him, but that she refused to leave the country without him, however, presented an almost insurmountable problem. When the time came to go away it would be Lucy, not Kit, who would ride with him. That time had not yet come. There still were some things he had to know. In that respect the night’s adventure had not been completely successful. Jim Weston’s murder had taken place on this very ranch. Kit had not admitted it, but she had admitted to the responsibility for “several cowboys’ deaths.” Then the time would come when Kit would have to be told about his and Lucy’s marriage. Meanwhile, he was still reluctant to leave the beautiful, fragrant, colorful, verdant Wyoming country. If the land at the headwaters of the Sweetwater was all Lucy claimed it to be, he wanted above all to make a home for her there. It was perhaps too close to South Pass and the valley where Jim had met his death, but it was far enough away so that they never would need to visit it again.

When Bradway reached the road, he urged Bay to a swift, ground-gaining lope. At the base of the escarpment he slowed Bay to a walk, and the horse easily climbed the zigzag road to the summit. Lincoln did not look back. The moon had gone; its light had dimmed to the darkness that precedes the gray of dawn. Once more the cowboy urged his mount to a lope and soon covered the distance to the mining camp. He approached by the roundabout way, reaching the livery stable before daylight and without being seen. Putting Bay away in his stall he hurried to his lodgings and went to bed.

The next day Linc did not venture out until evening. He did not meet his friends at the restaurant nor on the street afterward. He remained clear of the stores and saloons. He avoided the vicinity of Emery’s hall because he did not want to risk meeting Kit Bandon there. He walked the streets until he was tired; then again he returned to his lodgings.

It was late Sunday morning before he left his room again. It was the usual noisy, busy day, little different from any other day in this mining town. At noon he visited the Chinese restaurant, hoping to meet Vince or Thatcher there. The waiter informed him that they had been in early that morning. The Nebraskan lingered nearby for some time, hoping his partners would return, but by three in the afternoon there was still no sign of them. Then he lost no time getting back to the livery stable. Headly was in his office and told him, “They hain’t been back since early mornin’. Did you notice thet the town is full of cowboys?”

“No, I didn’t,” replied Lincoln. “What does that mean?”

“I’ll be switched if I can call the turn on that,” said Headly, shaking his shaggy head. “There are too blamed many of them for a Sunday off. No doubt thet mess-up the other day in Emery’s place has brought things to a head.”

“Are there any more cattlemen in town than usual?” asked Lincoln, curiously.

“Wal, I should smile. Whar are yore eyes, cowboy? I’ve got five buckboards and two spring wagons in the backyard now, and hain’t got room for no more teams.”

“Did you see Kit Bandon’s buckboard?”

“Nope. I reckon she hain’t come along yet.”

Lincoln sat down to wait. He wanted very much to go back downtown, yet he wanted to avoid tangling with Emery’s crowd for the present. He would wait until the boys arrived. They strayed in at last, their faces tight-lipped and set. Bradway inquired rather impatiently where the hell they had been.

“Boss,” explained Vince, “we expected to run into you downtown any minute.”

Thatcher spoke up: “We didn’t think you would be holed up here.”

“Well, all right. Better late than never,” grumbled Lincoln. “I suppose you fellows are hungry as usual?”

“Starved to death,” vowed Vince. “We were too busy to think of dinner.”

“Busy at what?” queried Linc.

“Wal, we was tryin’ to find out what the hell was goin’ on down there.”

“All these cowboys and cattlemen got you kind of lathered up, eh?”

“It’s pretty interestin’, boss. Mel has his idee an’ I hev mine. We’ll let you do yore own figgerin’.”

“All right. Let’s go eat,” replied Bradway shortly.

They went downtown. Linc had not seen so many pedestrians, so many saddle horses, or so many vehicles since he had come to South Pass. They found the restaurant with more customers than usual, but fortunately their table was vacant. Ordering dinner, they ate in silence. At length Thatcher, bending over to light a cigarette, puffed a huge cloud of smoke and spoke from behind it.

“Bradway, I’ve got one thing to report—”

“Don’t call me Bradway,” interrupted Lincoln irritably.

“All right, boss. Vince and I have been snooping around for two whole days and nights. I had the luck to find myself sitting pretty with a dance-hall girl, one of several just come to South Pass, and I was upstairs in the little parlor with her when Emery came limping along the hall with Kit Bandon. That was today about one o’clock. I could see from behind the curtain. Kit was white and steaming like she was about to erupt.... ‘I tell you, Kit,’ said Emery, ‘I won’t oppose your splitting with me here but I can’t pay you for your share.’

“‘And why not?’ snapped Kit.

“‘I haven’t got the money.’

“‘You’re a liar,’ said Kit.

“‘To tell you the truth, Kit, I’m in bad here in South Pass. I only found it out since these cattlemen have been in town. I’ve been forced to pay debts. Some of the men I owed money to living right here in town talked damn queer. One of them said he might show up the irregularities of my gambling hall. Another said I had to be careful or I’d be run out of town. That’s honest, Kit. These men have all been heavy losers at my game and they’re sore.’

“‘I’m sore too,’ Kit replied. ‘Dig up part of the money anyhow to pay me for what I invested in your gambling deal!’

“Emery looked much surprised and worried. ‘You putting on the pressure too, Kit Bandon!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll do my best to oblige you. But does that mean you want to split on our cattle business down in the valley also?’

“‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Kit said. ‘But never mind that until later.’

“‘Well, you’ll find me tough on that proposition,’ he retorted angrily. ‘You’ve been treating me mean enough lately and now you make up your mind in five minutes to quit me cold. You act as though I was contaminated. Well, I won’t do it! You’re bright enough, Kit Bandon, to know that I have a pretty good hold on you!’

“‘Yes, I’m bright enough to know that you’ve always been a double-crosser. Furthermore, you have no hold on me!’

“‘Listen, Kit. This place is getting hot for you as well as for me. Suppose I talked?’

“‘I’ve shot men for less than that. There’s a saying that dead men tell no tales, Emery. Think it over. We split right here.’?”

Thatcher paused for breath. Then he said:

“Boys, you should have seen her look at him. If eyes could kill he would have been done for right then. Then she left him and ran downstairs. Emery limped back to his room and I wouldn’t be surprised if sooner or later they find Emery very neatly bored through the middle.”

“Well!” exclaimed the Nebraskan under his breath. “That is news. Particularly about Emery being forced to pay his bad debts. There sure is something doing in this mining camp.”

“Aha!” ejaculated Vince. “You only said the half.”

“Boys, I’m glad to know about this Emery business,” said Linc earnestly, leaning toward them, “for I know that Kit Bandon is going straight. Never mind how I know she’s turning her back on the old life and her old crowd. This break with Emery is the fourth proof I have of it.... She will never take any more stolen mavericks from rustling cowboys.”

Vince stared up at him with questioning eyes. His cigarette dropped from his lips, but Thatcher, hardly less impressed than his comrade, replied in a breathless whisper:

“By God! You know, I’m not surprised. Kit could do that! Boss, I’ll gamble that you had something to do with the Bandon woman’s change of heart!”

Vince shook his head. “Pard, I’ll believe thet when I see it. I’m not sayin’ anythin’ about Kit Bandon’s spots but if she’s changed them it’s a miracle, ‘cause some of them go purty deep.”

“Boys, I’ll have more to tell you by and by,” went on Lincoln. “What I want to do now is find out what all these cowboys are doing in town.”

“Boss, they’re just talking among themselves,” said Thatcher.

“About what?” asked Lincoln.

“I don’t know. But I can guess.”

Vince leaned over and whispered: “Pard, the cowboys are talkin’ about what the cattlemen are up to.”

“Will these cowboys talk to me?” the Nebraskan asked.

“Not likely, but you can try,” replied Mel.

“I’ll tell you, boss, if they don’t ride out tonight it means they’ve quit their jobs and that’s jest one hell of a thing. Cowpokes on the loose are jest so much dynamite.”

“We’ll have to have a try,” said Linc. “I suggest we split up. We’ll approach every cowboy that we can get to. If we can fill one full of liquor he may talk.”

“Sure, boss,” replied Thatcher, “but the queer deal is that these cowboys are not drinking a single damn drop.”

Vince suggested, “Pard, we might find one cowboy who’s goin’ to slope who’d give the deal away if we paid him enough. Thet is if he really knows what they’re goin’ to do. I don’t believe anyone knows.”

“Vince, you ought to know if anybody knows,” said Lincoln, looking at him sternly.

“Shore, I ought. But I’m afeerd to believe what I think.”

“Afraid!” exclaimed Lincoln, unbelievingly. “What are you afraid of?”

“Figger thet one out for yoreself,” declared Vince truculently. “Come on, let’s mosey along. We’re wastin’ time.”

The two cowboys started in one direction, while Linc set out by himself. He spent three or four hours that night approaching one cowboy group after another. He found them in the main civil, good-natured, and reserved. They recognized him to be one of their own kind, but when he tried to get them to talk they showed an impassive and stony aloofness in regard to their presence in town. The Nebraskan stayed out of Emery’s gambling hall. He was more than satisfied with Thatcher’s report of Kit Bandon’s ultimatum to Emery. About midnight he went back to his lodgings, baffled and not a little worried. He was annoyed with himself to find that he was becoming more interested in what would happen to Kit in the event of a range war than in the mystery which he had come West to solve. Then, too, there was the attitude of his two partners. They knew what was going on, but told him only as much as they wanted him to know. He was convinced that however they were bound by their own peculiar cowboy creed, if there were any real danger for Kit they would acquaint him with it. It was a long time before he fell asleep.

Next morning he found his friends at the restaurant waiting for him.

“Anything to tell me, boys?” he inquired.

“Yep. We got a good deal as far as it goes,” replied Vince.

“Leastways, Mel has, ‘cause I wasn’t with him last night.”

“Boss, this is what come off: Last night the cattlemen, at least some of them, held a secret meeting in the bank in the dark. They must have gone up there by ones and twos and around about, and after they got off the street they wore masks.”

“Ahuh. How the devil did you find all this out?” queried Bradway.

“No more about that for the present,” replied Thatcher with an odd curtness. “It’s my hunch, boys, that the cattlemen will be slipping out of town today and that sure will be interestin’ to the cowboys.”

Later in the morning Linc ran into two clean-cut young riders whose looks he liked.

“Howdy, boys. Will you have a drink this morning?” he asked cheerily.

“Well, we don’t care if we do,” one of them replied, surprisingly. The Nebraskan took them into a saloon and bought a round of drinks.

“You boys want to talk turkey to me this morning about business?”

“About what business?” asked one, glancing quickly at his partner.

“I’m going to start raising cattle,” replied Lincoln, “and I want some good riders. I’ve located a range about twenty miles out of town, not down in the valley, and I want to put two or three men to work at once. My name is Bradway. Just getting started in this part of Wyoming.”

“Sounds good to me ‘cause I quit my job on the Sweetwater,” replied the one with the tawny hair. “Have you got the money, and what will the job pay?”

“Yes, I’m pretty well heeled and I’ll pay you ten dollars a month more than you’ve been getting.”

“I’m on, mister. Name is Slim Morris. Been ridin’ for Higgins in the valley. Gimme a couple of days or so to ride down to the ranch and get my other horse and what stuff I’ve got.”

“Fine, Slim,” responded Lincoln heartily. “Be at Headly’s livery stable some time Thursday.”

“Tom, don’t you want to ring in on this, too?” asked Morris turning to his companion.

“I can’t, gosh dern it,” replied the other. “I’ve overdrawn a couple of months’ wages and I cain’t quit Sam Blake till I’ve worked it out.”

“Will it square you with Blake if you pay him?” asked Lincoln.

“Well, I reckon it would,” rejoined Tom with a smile. “None of Blake’s riders have quit on account of this mess-up in this end of the valley.”

When he found out from the cowboy what he owed the rancher, Linc handed the amount over to Tom and told him to come back Thursday with Morris.

“Boys, I feel I’ve made myself a good deal in getting you to ride for me. And I think you will find that you’ve done likewise. Now tell me one thing. Haven’t most of the cowboys in this locality quit their jobs?”

“That’s correct, Bradway. All the cowboys north of the forks on the river have quit their jobs. You can hire as many riders as you want.”

“Thanks. That is good news. I’ll look around and see if I can find any I like as well as I do you boys.”

Their new employer bade them good-by and went on up the street. He made the rounds of the stores and the saloons and approached perhaps half a dozen more cowboys. He really did not want to hire any more hands, but he used the pretext as an excuse for making himself acquainted. All this took time and kept him indoors a good deal of the time. In the afternoon, however, when he headed up the street toward the livery stable he noted for the first time that there were no buckboards in sight or any other kind of vehicle. At Headly’s livery stable all the conveyances that the ranchers had left there were gone. Headly said curiously: “They sure sloped out of town mighty sudden.”

As soon as Vince and Thatcher arrived they talked at length about this sudden departure.

“Suits me just as well,” said Mel enigmatically.

Linc spoke up quickly. “You mean they’ve split — couldn’t agree — don’t know what they’re going to do — perhaps weakening on whatever they had in mind?”

“Reckon thet applies to most of ’em,” said Vince, but Thatcher made no comment.

Linc told them about the two cowboys whom he had hired to ride for him and named them.

“I know Slim Morris,” said Mel. “Comes from way down the river. Salt of the earth. Blake’s riders are still farther south. They’re really out of this mess. I don’t know the one you called Tom.”

Vince said, “Wal, let’s go hunt them up and get acquainted.”

Linc felt the constraint in them and was agreeable about letting them go off by themselves. He had supper alone that night and went to his room early. Having ascertained that Kit Bandon had gone home, he could have gone into Emery’s place or anywhere else feeling perfectly free, but he decided against it. He was about tired of this endless spying that seemed to get him nowhere. The only bright spot in the picture was his meeting with Lucy day after tomorrow. Reverting to thoughts of finding her in her mountain paradise, he found the hours passing swiftly with the pleasure of dreams and hopes and plans.

The following day he did not find his comrades until late.

“Boss, hev you noticed anythin’ in particular?” asked Vince.

“Not this morning. I’ve been too busy thinking about tomorrow,” replied the Nebraskan, smiling.

“Wal, we’re the only cowboys left in this whole damn town.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Lincoln. “I’ll be doggoned. You Wyoming critters are the queerest I ever knew. Well, you boys are leaving town, too. I’m going to take you with me over to the head of the Sweetwater. You needn’t pack anything except a little grub, for we will be coming back tomorrow night. I want to leave about sunrise. We’ll head up Rock Creek and go through the miners’ diggings to the slope just before the canyon boxes and climb out there. What I particularly aim at is laying out a grade where we can build a road.”

“Wal, you can see from hyar,” said Vince. “I could drive a wagon up thet slope without any road.”

“It does look pretty good going,” replied Linc squinting up the sage slope. “But it may be pretty rough over the hill.”

“What do you aim to do?” asked Thatcher.

“Find the easiest way we can to get in and out of that valley over there.”

“How far is it?”

“It’s eighteen miles or so from the Bandon ranch up the river, but I calculate it’s farther than that from here. Anyway we want to cut across the pass and work along the western rim just far enough so we see that we can cut a road down to the valley.”

“That sure will be fine,” declared Thatcher. “New job all by ourselves, a lot of pioneer work, plenty of game to hunt, log cabins to run up — I sure like the prospect.”

“I’ll be glad to quit this loafing spell, myself,” replied Bradway.

CHAPTER XIII

AT SUNRISE THE next morning Lincoln and his two comrades climbed the slope from South Pass to the summit of the hill. The day promised to be fair. The early morning air was cold and fresh, and there was just a touch of white frost on the sage. Once on top the eagle-eyed Vince pointed to a buckboard pulled by four horses winding up the road out of town toward the west.

“Wonder who that is?” queried Lincoln. “Hitting it up pretty fast on the grade.”

“I’ve seen thet buckboard before,” said Vince thoughtfully.

They rode on, finding the going fairly easy on top, with a slight upgrade, and straggling bits of brush and pine scattered over the terrain. Clumps of aspen and oak could be seen in the distance. The frosty sage took on a tinge of red, and the black stands of timber and the walls of gray rock and the long white slopes leading to the distant peaks all played a varicolored tribute to the sunrise. Lincoln found to his satisfaction that to make a road across the pass would require comparatively little labor. They kept to a course quartering away from a direct route across the pass. The thickets and the little groves of aspens and oaks increased with the altitude. A ride of perhaps five or six miles brought them to the narrow valley of the Sweetwater, which here was merely a wide ravine with shallow slopes choked with green timber so thick that the noisy river could be heard but not seen.

“Well, it’s easy enough to grade a road down here,” said Bradway. “I’ll tell you what, boys, I’ll go down and take the trail so as to save time. You work along this slope till you come to the valley, then look over the lay of the land and pick out the most suitable place westward to cut the road up to the level.”

“Pretty far, I’d say,” replied Vince. “I cain’t see the valley from hyah.”

“Well, you can figure on me riding up out of the valley some time this afternoon. You can keep your eyes peeled for me and I’ll do the same for you.”

The Nebraskan bade them good-by and urged his horse down the slope and into the brush. It was easy going underfoot but he had to twist and lay low in the saddle to keep from being brushed off by the low branches. As he descended, the thickets grew more and more open; presently he reached the level that he had calculated was several hundred yards across to the other slope. Groves of willows lined the bank of the sparkling and swift-flowing river. He rode out into a well-defined trail, in which he espied fresh pony tracks made no longer ago than that morning. They gave Lincoln an exuberant feeling of happiness. Assuredly these tracks had been made by Lucy’s pony swinging along at a good fast lope. He put Bay to a like gait and soon was flying along the cool, shady trail. The ravine grew more picturesque as he rode along, the trail twisting along a serpentine course, fording the river often over gravelly bars. There appeared to be a scarcity of birds, but deer, rabbits, and other small game were constantly springing across the clearings into the brush as he went by. On the rim of the slopes he saw antelope silhouetted against the blue sky and occasionally coyotes standing boldly watching him.

Presently the trail rounded a higher eminence on the valley slope, from which Linc was suddenly confronted by a breath-taking view of the length and breadth of Lucy’s wonderful valley. He stopped his horse, gazing spellbound out over the most beautiful valley he had ever seen in his life. He was eager to find Lucy, yet the scenic wonder of the vista before him compelled him to linger. He looked this way and that up the length of the long valley and across its wide breadth, along the precipitous walls. His quick eye saw slopes along which a road could be dug up to the top. The valley slopes on each side were gray and purple with sage with a fringe of golden willow at the base. Here and there were outcroppings of craggy rocks and vine-covered cliffs crowned with patches of green pine. A belt of bright green aspens with their white stems alternating with a rough border of oaks ran along the top of the farther wall. The sheltered valley under the looming mountains was of a deceptive size and dimension which Linc tried to estimate. He felt sure that it was at least four or five miles wide in the center and perhaps twice that long. Its floor was a level area of gold and green, along which meandered a stream shining like a ribbon bordered by willows and low bushes. As far as he could see the valley’s steep western slope consisted of gray sage and glistening rock forming cape after cape and scallop after scallop until they emerged in one magnificent escarpment which seemed to run up under the brow of the mountain. Now and again he caught glimpses of waterfalls, like white plumes against the blue and gray of the distant palisade.

With one last lingering look Linc set off up the trail again. As he rode along this lonely and beautiful valley he kept a sharp lookout for Lucy. It was several miles, however, before he caught a glimpse of her. The trail had borne somewhat to the left along a long bench leading down from the great escarpment. There was something familiar about this plateau above the river, and then it came to him that this was the homesite Lucy had described to him so enthusiastically. As he gazed upward at the bench his quick eye sighted something red glinting in the sunlight. In another instant he made out Lucy standing out on a rocky eminence waving her red scarf at him. As he spurred Bay along the trail at a reckless pace he seized his Stetson and waved it with boyish exhilaration. He found a fairly steep trail with two long zigzags leading up to the level bench. Reaching the level ground he halted Bay there, and as he leaped off he saw Lucy running toward him, her bare fair head shining in the sunlight, the red scarf streaming out behind. She was wearing her riding garb and looked like a slender graceful boy bounding forward to meet him. Her face was rosy, laughing, inexpressively sweet.

“Oh, Lincoln,” she screamed. “Here you are! In my valley! I saw you — all the way — from the entrance.”

He took her in his arms and held her, murmuring over and over again, “My wife, my darling Lucy.”

“Tell me quick,” she pleaded pantingly. “What do you think — of my — of our valley?”

“I haven’t had a good look yet,” replied Lincoln, “but from what little I saw it tops any place I ever saw.”

“Hurry then and take a hundred looks,” she commanded laughingly. “Stop looking at me. I want to know — if this is to be our home.”

“Lucy, I don’t have to see any more to decide that. Thatcher and Vince are on the other side somewhere, farther down from here, looking for a place to build a road.”

“Oh, we’ve got all that settled!” she exclaimed.

“We? Who’s we?”

“My old trapper friend, Ben Thorpe. His cabin is up here a ways. We’ll ride up to see him presently. He has trapped twenty- two hundred beaver skins this winter.”

“That’s something!” exclaimed her husband, though he hadn’t heard a word, so entranced was he looking at Lucy’s happy countenance. “I saw beaver dams down below.”

“The valley and the streams that run into it are thick with them.”

“Perhaps we’d do better trapping than ranching.”

“I don’t approve of trapping,” said Lucy. “Come, let me show you where we can build our homestead. If you ever saw a more beautiful location I won’t believe you. See, this bench is level and has about ten or a dozen acres. It’s steep in front and on the side you enter, but the other slope has a gradual slant where we can grade a wagon road. It will run straight across the valley from here and up through the only outlet except the gateway through which you entered. Ben says if we fence that gateway, not a head of stock can ever climb out. What do you think of that?”

“I think it grows more wonderful all the time,” responded Lincoln.

“Now come this way,” she said, eagerly dragging him by one arm. “Did anyone ever have such a backyard as we are going to have? Look! There’s where our brook comes tumbling out over the rocks and runs around in a circle. Back here it forms a beautiful pool that’s actually so cram-jammed with big trout that there’s barely room for us to swim in it, even if the water were warm enough, and then it runs across the bench to cascade off the rocks just where you see the pines out there.” She finished out of breath, and Linc seized his advantage and kissed her again.

She led him several hundred yards back over the green sage and flower-dotted plateau. The rocky wall extended up rather high from that point in successive ledges and low vine-covered cliffs, over which an amber stream came tumbling down, skirted by tiny aspen thickets and clumps of oak, to enter the circle and pool Lucy had described. Then it emerged, plunged over a little waterfall, and took its merry and melodious way as a narrow stream that murmured gently out across the bench.

“Look!” exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands and pointing like a little girl. “Look at that big trout! The pool is full of them. Ben says there are even more in this stream up above and down below the falls than in any other branch of the Sweetwater.”

“Say!” ejaculated Linc. “This just ain’t so. This is a dream.”

“Yes, it’s a dream come true, Lincoln. If only we can have the luck — Never mind, I just know everything’s going to turn out happily. Now look over here. Do you see those clouds of white steam? No, this way. About five hundred yards back and a little higher than we’re standing.”

“Oh, yes, I see it now,” replied Lincoln. “What’s that from? A geyser?”

“No, but it’s a spring of hot water, boiling water in fact, clean and pure without alkali or sulphur that can be piped right down to the house.”

“Well!” exclaimed Lincoln. “All made to order for us.”

“Think what boiling hot water will mean to a pioneer wife in the winter time.”

“Great!” agreed Lincoln.

“And Ben Thorpe says this valley is protected in winter,” continued Lucy. “It never gets terribly cold as it does out on the pass. We can put in a big garden here, irrigate it with cold or warm water, and grow more things to eat than anywhere else in this country.”

“You’ve had that all figured out a long time, haven’t you, Lucy?” queried her husband, with a gentle smile.

“Yes, I have. Oh, Lincoln, it’s been such great happiness to dream and plan.”

“Did you figure on any special kind of a pioneer to share this paradise with you?” he asked.

Lucy blushed. “I used to have visions of a husband,” she admitted, “but they sort of faded until — quite miraculously, I just stumbled onto one.... I think you know him! Oh, Lincoln, when do you think we can come up here and start making a home?”

“Lord, I don’t know. But soon — I hope soon. We might run off and leave an explanation for Kit, put some men to work here, and then come back. What could she do then, what can she do now? — We’re married and we have the certificate to prove it. Lucy, I think the time has come — not to run away, but to face your aunt with the truth and get it over with. After all, you’re my job now, not solving a mystery which had better remain unsolved.”

“Don’t ask me. When I think of what she’ll do when she finds out — Oh, Lincoln, let’s not think about it now. Kit is selling the ranch and the stock she has on hand and she’s determined to leave Wyoming. She still thinks you are going with her.”

“Not any longer does she think so! I told her I was a married man, Lucy.”

“Oh, you didn’t!” she cried, terrified.

“I didn’t tell her to whom I was married,” he reassured her with a grin.

“Lincoln, if we have a honeymoon, I want it to be up here.”

“That suits me fine! We could live in a tent while we were building a cabin. By the way, that cabin is going to be no pioneer shack, but big, with living room and open fireplace, bedroom, storeroom, kitchen and a wide porch running all along the southern and western exposures....” And so they talked for hours, arms about each other, as they walked to and fro over the bench, blissfully oblivious of everything save their cherished hopes and plans for the future.

Finally Lucy said, “Lincoln, I have one more sight to show you: the one I’ve reserved for the last. But first we must ride up to see Ben Thorpe.”

Linc secured Bay, and mounting, met her at the upper end of the bench. Once off the level they turned a corner of the bulging stone rampart and there before them the upper part of the valley lay spread out before their view. The valley rounded to an apex which was formed by a sheer black mass of rock, split in the middle, and through the cleft between the sheer slopes fringed with timber tumbled a magnificent waterfall between five hundred and a thousand feet high. Sliding out of a V-shaped notch to fall downward, the water was feathered by the wind into white lace and iridescent spray, later striking a great ledge of rock, sheering outward and down like a colossal snowy mushroom. Below, the stream spread in many little rivulets to foam down the stony slopes beyond the timber and converge with the source of the Sweetwater.

“Glorious!” exclaimed Lincoln, his voice filled with awe. “Lucy, I took you at your word, but I was not prepared for this.”

He was so struck through and through with the grandeur of this unspoiled wonderland that he had no fitting words for another and smaller waterfall across the valley, for the numerous beaver dams at the head of the stream, the enormous herd of elk that he saw down the slope, or the natural amphitheater which circled the head of the valley and sent its perpendicular walls aloft almost to the sky. Snowy canyons and black ridges led up to the far peaks where all was pure glistening white.

In a sheltered place now close at hand Lucy pointed out the trapper’s little cabin. They rode up to it and dismounted, at the open door. It was a crude but comfortable little habitation, the front of which was adorned with the bleached antlers of elk. At one side a roofed structure housed bundles of beaver hides. A column of blue smoke rose from the stone chimney; at Lucy’s gay call a black dog came bounding toward her and the spare form of the buckskin-clad trapper emerged from the doorway. His shaggy head bore a great shock of silver and tawny hair, but unlike most trappers, he wore no beard. His visage was lined and weather- beaten, with the clear gray eyes of the wilderness man.

“Ben, you did not really think I was serious, yesterday,” Lucy said laughingly. “But he did come. This is my husband, Lincoln Bradway... Lincoln, my friend, Ben Thorpe.”

They shook hands with each other and exchanged greetings. The Nebraskan was impressed by the trapper’s striking appearance. He was not a young man by any means, but he did not seem old. It was easy to discern the affection he held for Lucy. Before they seated themselves on the rude bench, Linc peered into the comfortable cabin and the shed full of beaver hides.

“Wal, young man, is it true you are goin’ to throw up a cabin an’ homestead this valley?”

Lincoln laughed happily. “Ha! My mind was made up before I ever saw this valley and now I’m ten thousand times more set on it. Will you be glad to have company?”

“I shore will be,” replied the trapper puffing at his pipe. “It didn’t used to be so lonesome but I guess I’m growin’ old an’ have a hankerin’ for human voices an’ faces. This is only a day’s long ride from South Pass but from one year’s end to another I never see any but a few Shoshone Injuns. You see, there’s so much game in this country that in the fall hunters don’t have to go a mile from South Pass to kill all the deer an’ elk they could pack.”

“Well,” said Lincoln, “let’s get down to business. How about a road into this valley? Lucy tells me you have it all figured out.”

“Right across there,” replied the trapper, rising and pointing. “See that break? We can grade out a road there in a few days. Not so easy out on top but a roundabout road through the rocks and trees would not be more than thirty miles from South Pass.”

“How about your working for me?” asked Lincoln. “I’ve got four cowboys hired. We can build the road, then two of you can haul in supplies while the others cut and snake down timber for the cabins and corrals. It will take until the snow flies for me to build what I want. I will pay good wages.”

“Never mind the wages, son. I’ve got four good horses that I’ve packed for years, but they’re broke to a wagon.”

“Have you got a wagon and tools?” asked Lincoln.

“No wagon and I’m about out of tools,” said Thorpe apologetically. “Son, it’ll take a good deal of money to do this thing the way I reckon you would want to.”

“I have plenty of money,” replied Lincoln cheerfully. “When can you begin?”

“Right away,” said the trapper. “Can’t start too soon for me. I’ll wrangle my horses, pack my beaver skins to town, ship them to Cheyenne and be ready to haul anything back you want.”

“That’s fine,” responded Lincoln giving Lucy’s arm a squeeze. “I’ll look for you in town in two or three days. We’ll buy two wagons and all the tools they’ll hold. Also camp outfits and supplies. We’ll work in from the other direction. My four men under your directions can cut the road down the hill and across the valley while I pack in tents, grub, and whatever Lucy and I will need to start our homesteading, because we certainly are going to be here to boss this job.”

“That’s a big order, son,” said Thorpe thoughtfully, “But I reckon we’ll be up to it.”

“Then it’s settled!” exclaimed Lincoln. He stood up and shook hands heartily with the trapper. “Sorry we can’t make a longer visit, Ben. There’s too much to see and talk over, besides I want Lucy to get home before dark.”

“Wal, I reckon so. I haven’t anything to offer you to eat except elk meat, and I’m out of flour and coffee.”

“We’ve got a bit of lunch with us,” said Lucy rising. “But just think, I will be up here next week for good! Good-by till then, Ben.”

Mounting their horses, they rode back toward the bench. Lucy appeared to be in a seventh heaven. But now that the plans were made, Lincoln suffered a sinking sensation in his breast. It now seemed possible that their beautiful plan would work out, but he could no longer put off the inevitable showdown with Lucy’s aunt. Why should he want to? He knew his own mind and his own heart. And now that he no longer felt the paramount importance of avenging his friend’s murder, there was no longer any need to propitiate that beautiful woman. It galled him to think of how he had kept Kit Bandon dangling. It made his and Lucy’s love seem almost stealthy and ashamed. He would —

“Dearest,” complained Lucy suddenly, “you aren’t listening to me.”

“No, I wasn’t. I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was talking about the furniture and fixings for our cabin. They will have to be ordered.”

“That’s easy, darling. I’ll get a catalogue at the store in town first thing, and then you’ll be busy.”

“But I still want to show you that wonderful place I was telling you about — my place, where I used to hope and dream about the future... and lately my dreams there all have been about you, dearest. It’s a perfect spot to have our lunch. And I’m hungry — even though I am in love!”

They rode along the bench until they came to a grassy promontory overlooking the valley. Lincoln made a seat for Lucy with his coat and while she spread the lunch, still talking excitedly like a happy child, he took his first look at the valley from that point.

From the great waterfall leaping through the cleft down to the narrow green-choked gateway below their valley lay spread before them. Never had Linc seen in one place such a panorama of natural scenery, such a variety of color, in which green and gold and purple were predominant, and with the pool and stream mirroring the azure sky and white fleecy clouds. He became aware that Lucy was tugging at his leg.

“Sit down and eat,” she begged. “I made this lunch especially for you.”

He, too, discovered that he had an appetite after all and while he relished the tasty meal his wife had prepared he could not help gazing speechlessly from time to time upon the beauty of this valley of paradise. Lucy watched him, happy that he was so thrilled by her beloved spot. The towering mountain range loomed sublime and awe-inspiring in the distance; but the canyons and belts of timber, the waterfalls and stained, weather-beaten cliffs did not seem so aloof; near at hand there were more pastoral scenes: green meadows dotted by elk and moose where he envisioned one day his herd of cattle would be grazing. Following the line he had made with his eye across the valley, the Nebraskan made out a narrow rocky ledge where the stream took its final white plunge into the valley floor below. At this point the gully could be bridged and thus a dry road made across the valley directly from the one outlet to the bench on this side, where the range house was to stand. To a prospective cattleman such as Bradway felt himself to be, the valley below him offered many square miles of magnificent pasturage where thousands of cattle could be raised and fattened and cared for at a minimum of expense.

Lucy, reveling in Lincoln’s rapture over her chosen homestead, ceased to talk and watched him with her heart in her eyes. After a time he became aware of other familiar pleasant sensations that began to register their impression in his consciousness. It was easy to locate the musical rhythm of softly falling water but that was not the only sound which brought exquisite memories back to him. Golden pine needles drifting down from above reminded him that a forest of pines was near. The wind in the pines! It was a soft, sad sound which he had been used to during all his years in the West. How many times had he been lulled to sleep on the high lonely ranges by this wilderness murmur. There would probably never be a moment when the wind would not be working in those pine tops; it would range from this gentle sweet summer zephyr he now was hearing to the fierce winter gales when the legions of the storm kings were crashing through those branches. Still, this was not all that intrigued him: there was no sound in nature like the fluttering of the quaking asps. Softly, almost silently, every leaf was quivering on its stem and the millions of leaves in that little grove united into a song that was gay on a day like this one, but sad on a day that was cloudy and cold. The sun had moved around to the west; flecks of gold touched Lucy’s hair and the gray rock and the mats of pine needles. The poet has said that “The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” Lincoln Bradway’s thoughts, inspired by the beauty that surrounded him, ranged far and wide — from the days of his boyhood in Missouri down through the rough and lonely years to the sweet security of this moment. A warm tide of thankfulness swept over him.

A little hand crept into his, and suddenly he descended from the clouds. With a start he turned to look at Lucy’s sweet face. A warm flush was added to its tan; her gold-flecked short curly hair tumbled rebelliously about her forehead and temples. Having appeased her hunger she was wiping the crumbs from her lips, and her laughter rang out as she saw the expression on Linc’s face. This man beside her was her husband, a stranger no longer. She was unutterably happy. She could not have asked for more in this world. The days of her unhappiness, of her insecurity were past. This man, whose hand she held, was her happiness and her security now. For a little space she met his embraces and caresses with an unrestrained fervor and joy, but her ardor and strength were nothing compared to his. Holding her close in his arms he was taking his last toll of those warm lips and cheeks when he heard a tinkle of a spur. For a moment he thought it might be one of his or Lucy’s, but suddenly his sharp ears caught another sound. He drew back from Lucy’s lips, suddenly freezing as immobile as stone. He sensed something that was not explained by the switching of an aspen branch. He sat bolt upright, and with his hand on his gun turned his eyes toward the aspens. At the same instant he heard what sounded as though it might be the sharp intake of someone’s breath. There before him he saw Kit Bandon, standing not twenty steps away, holding herself rigid between two aspen saplings.

CHAPTER XIV

LUCY MUST HAVE felt her companion’s violent shock and sudden immobility, for she cried quickly, “What is it, Linc?”

Lincoln stared. His scattered wits began to function. “Ah — Kit,” he said hoarsely.

Kit Bandon’s face was that of a rattlesnake about to strike. Linc could see that the two little saplings to which she clung were trembling in her grasp. When she let go of them they came together with a violent swish that set the leaves to quaking and dancing. It was as if they were alive.

Kit moved forward slowly as if some great weight were holding her back. She was garbed in a black riding habit which made her look slim and somber. There was a gun in her belt sheath. She was bare-headed, her face white as paste, and her eyes resembled black banked furnaces. He scarcely knew her. It was as though she were wearing a mask.

“Why — Kit,” began Lincoln haltingly, “where did you — come from?”

“I knew you were here,” she replied in a cold, even tone. “Emery came out this morning. He saw you climbing the ridge out of South Pass. Then later he saw Lucy riding up the Sweetwater trail. But I never thought to find this — this.”

Lucy uttered a little strangled cry and scrambled to her knees. A burning scarlet wave swept over her face from neck to brow. Her eyes shone with terror.

Lincoln hastily got up, spurs clinking, boots scraping. He noticed then that Kit wore gauntlets and carried a whip in her hand. She was peering past the cowboy at the kneeling girl.

“You double-crossing little cat,” she snarled, her lips writhing.

“Oh,” cried Lucy, as if stunned.

“Look here, Kit,” expostulated Lincoln. “No more of that talk, please. Don’t blame Lucy. This is my doing!”

Kit stepped aside from Lincoln to confront Lucy. “So you’re the fine decent little girl who wouldn’t kiss the cowboys,” taunted Kit, her cold, even voice rising. “Look at your face! Look at your hair! Look at your blouse! You — who were so — so damned prudish and proper and horrified when Jimmy Weston—”

“You — you — are mistaken, Aunt Kit,” faltered Lucy, her hands going to her open blouse.

“I should smile. I was mistaken about you, you little alleycat, you—” spat out the raging woman. “Is this the thanks I get for bringing you up, for giving you a home, for—” Suddenly she raised her arm and lashed Lucy across the face with the whip.

Then Lincoln, emerging from his paralysis, reached forward and snatched the whip so violently from Kit that her glove came away with it.

“Have you gone completely mad?” cried Lincoln.

Kit paid no heed to him. She still faced the cowering girl. She was trembling as if suffering from an attack of ague.

“You wouldn’t take a lover from your cowboy friends,” snarled Kit, her voice gathering passion. “You always threw yourself at mine... now you’ve made a fool out of the only man I ever cared for.”

“It’s a lie,” cried Lucy rising, white and furious, from her knees. “Everything you said is a lie. I never — Linc and I—”

“You know what I mean, Lucy Bandon. Your innocence! I wonder that I could be so blind. No woman can blame a man, but you—”

Lucy stepped forward to confront her aunt, one hand on the red welt across her cheek. “Kit, I didn’t betray you. Lincoln Bradway doesn’t care anything for you. He never did! Tell her the truth, Lincoln.”

“You brazen little bitch!” burst out Kit, all control now gone.

“Enough of this, Kit,” interrupted Lincoln harshly. “I won’t have you abusing my, my — I think it’s my turn to talk now.”

“Listen, you double-crossing sneaking spy! I’ll talk to you when I get through with her.”

“That’s right, take it out on me if you want, but leave Lucy alone.” He put his arm protectingly around his wife, who now was weeping bitterly.

“Leave her alone!” shrilled Kit, beside herself. “Why the dirty little—”

Lincoln slapped her so hard across the lips that it brought blood. The blow staggered her. He took care to keep close to her. His quick action had liberated him from the strange inhibition that had bound him during the powerful scene. Now he was cool and capable of coping with the situation.

“You struck me — for her?”

“Yes, and I’m liable to hurt you worse if you keep on screaming like a madwoman. Lucy is honest. She’s done nothing wrong. If there’s any blame it’s mine.”

“Hear the loyal champion. You’re as rotten as she is.”

“I did come to feel great respect for you, Kit, but I never loved you. I couldn’t help it if you imagined things.”

“You talk just like every cowboy caught in the act.”

“I tell you I had no love for you such as I feel for Lucy.”

“You fling it in my teeth?” shrieked Kit.

Bradway realized that there was no further possibility of keeping the truth from her. The time had come to end this wretched secrecy and dissemblance. He took Lucy’s hand and together they faced the hate-contorted Maverick Queen.

“I’m sorry, Kit,” he said, “that you have to learn the news in this wise. Lucy and I are married. Lucy is my wife!”

She regarded him as if she had not heard aright or as if he were crazy. “What?” she demanded, utterly incredulous.

“Yes, Kit Bandon,” interposed Lucy, passionately, “ever since that first day in Rock Springs — when you were so busy with Hank Miller that you left us alone.”

“You’re both liars,” shrieked Kit.

“No, Kit, it’s the truth. Look here,” cried Lincoln hurriedly. And producing their marriage certificate, which he had always carried, he thrust it before Kit’s eyes, which looked suddenly old and beaten.

She saw it, read it, then gasped. “How? When?”

“Kit, it was early in the evening just about dark while you were so busy with that cattleman,” replied Lincoln.

“Was that — the first time — you met?”

“No. I bumped into Lucy in the street the first day I was in South Pass and fell in love with her at first sight.”

“And you — Lucy Bandon?”

“It was the same with me.”

“Oh, I see,” returned Kit trembling in every muscle. “But you never told me.”

“I asked Lucy to keep it quiet for my sake. It would have been easy to pick up our feet and leave for Nebraska without saying a word to anyone. But I had a job to finish before I could go—”

Kit still faced her niece. “You let me fall in love with this man knowing he was yours. You might have saved me from letting me make a shameless fool of myself. I can never forgive you for that. You have both wronged me.”

“We did not,” cried Lucy. “It was your monstrous vanity. It was the same vanity that made you take Jimmy Weston away from me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kit,” interposed Lincoln giving way to anger. He was afraid of what was forming in her mind. “It is you who have made the blunders. And the worst blunder you made was what you did to Weston.”

“Don’t throw that lovesick simpleton in my face.”

“If he was lovesick you made him so,” retorted Lucy. “He did care for me. And you, Kit Bandon, are the one who knows what it cost him.”

“All right, girl. You know there’s no turning back on this trail.”

“Yes, I know,” responded Lucy. “But I’m no longer afraid of you, Kit Bandon. I can tell you right in front of Lincoln — that Jimmy was bad — that he was faithless — that he deserved punishment — but not a disgraceful cowardly death while he was drunk and asleep.”

Kit uttered an inarticulate cry and with face distorted by fear and rage she drew her gun with lightning swiftness. But quick as she was she was not quick enough for the tall Nebraskan. With a sudden lunge he seized the hand that held the gleaming gun and wrenched it upward so that the belching discharge passed harmlessly over Lucy’s head. Lincoln, with both hands on her wrist and the gun, held her arm above her head. She was as strong as a panther. She fought like one. She struck with her free hand. She kicked. She writhed and twisted in his grasp. She bit him on the back of the hand.

“I’ll kill you, Lucy Bandon, for that,” she screamed. “And you, Linc Bradway — I’ll blow your guts out!”

“For God’s sake, Kit, come to your senses,” implored Lincoln. “Drop that gun. Let me have it. Would you murder your own flesh and blood?... Kit!”

“I’ll kill you! You two can’t live on the earth with me!”

She reached for the gun with her other hand and was straining, panting, writhing with extraordinary and insane strength to tear it away from Lincoln. He could feel her muscular body strain and swell and thrash against him. In that moment Kit Bandon revealed her true self. She once had shown him her better nature, but now she was a killer! He gave her gun hand a quick backward twist. She screamed with agony and helpless rage. The gun went spinning beyond over the rock. She fell away from him against the tree and then slid to the ground. She did not move.

“God!” whispered Lincoln. “I guess it was the wrong time — to tell her.... Lucy, she would have murdered us both.”

“I told you, Lincoln! I know — Kit Bandon,” replied Lucy, her face white and drawn. “Is — is she breathing?”

“If she’s dead it was done when her head hit the tree....”

Lucy knelt beside the still form and slipped her hand inside Kit’s blouse. “Oh, she’s alive. Thank heaven, Lincoln. I wouldn’t want you to be the cause of her death — Get some water in your sombrero.”

He snatched up his sombrero and strode to the brook. As he filled the sombrero he noticed how his hands were shaking. No wonder! If he had not suspected her and kept close to her he and Lucy would at that moment be lying dead on the promontory. What kind of a story would Kit have sent abroad about such a tragedy? Probably it would have been made to look like murder and suicide. He hurried back with the water. Lucy began to bathe her aunt’s face with the icy water while Lincoln at Lucy’s instigation began to chafe her wrists. Their joint activities brought Kit to. At first her great dark eyes stared blankly up at Lucy and Linc; then as she recognized them, her color came flooding back into her cheeks.

“What — happened?” she asked, faintly, as her eyes went from one to the other.

“We had a fight, Kit, and I had to disarm you,” returned Lincoln. “You struck your head when you fell and lost your senses.”

“What was I — going to do?”

“Never mind. We want to forget it.”

Kit gave a long, heart-rending sigh. “I remember... you and Lucy — love at first sight — never told me — married at Rock Springs.... Now what is to become of me?” and she broke into an uncontrollable fit of weeping.

Her hysteria was so prolonged and her sobbing so violent that Linc thought she would do herself some injury, but she could not be comforted. Lucy put Kit’s head in her lap and held her and spoke soothingly to the distracted woman. It seemed to Linc that the Maverick Queen had aged ten years in the past half hour. Her secret was out. Her hope of finding love was forever gone. She had come within one frantic instant of murdering in the heat of passion the only two people she ever had loved. As Linc looked down at her he scarcely recognized the woman that was Kit Bandon. She looked old, and sick, and beaten. She sat up presently, and Lucy helped her to her feet.

“It’s getting late,” said Lincoln, taking one of her arms. “Kit, do you think you can ride?”

“Yes, I guess I’m all right now,” she replied, quietly.

“I’ll get your horse. And yours, too, Lucy,” said Lincoln. And he hurried away to find them.

Kit’s horse had wandered off the bench and required a few moments to locate. Upon returning to the grove with the two horses he found both women composed.

“Lincoln — Lucy,” Kit Bandon spoke in a flat, dead tone of voice, “it could have been worse. But that was not to be. I’m glad — I don’t know just what you said and what I admitted, but I ask you to forget it. Would that be too much?”

“There, there, Kit,” replied Bradway earnestly. “Whatever was spoken, or whatever was done here today, shall be forgotten by Lucy and by me.”

“Oh, yes,” replied Lucy in a low voice. “It is all forgotten — and forgiven. It was an hour of madness.”

“Are you sure you can ride?” asked Lincoln.

“I think so. Where’s my horse? Let me try.” She did not mount so readily, but she appeared to be steady in the saddle and Lincoln calculated that she would be all right.

“Take her home, Lucy,” said the Nebraskan. “As long as she’s all right I’d rather not go. I’ll ride across the valley and climb out on top where I expect to meet the cowboys. I’ll be seeing you in a day or two.... Good-by, Lucy — Don’t take it so hard, Kit. After all it was a bad place for you. Good-by.”

He watched them ride across the bench and down the trail. Soon they broke from a trot to a lope, assuring Lincoln that they would reach home safely.

“Well!” he soliloquized. “I thought that was my finish... but somehow I just can’t feel as happy as I want to feel.”

He climbed down over the rocks and securing Kit’s gun put it in his pocket and returned to the level. The day was far spent. The sun had gone down behind the peaks in the west. Hurrying to his horse, he mounted and rode down off the bench. He found a trail there that led straight across the valley. Crossing the valley in a lope, he reached the summit of the slope and found Thatcher and Vince waiting for him.

“Wal, boss,” drawled Vince with a grin, “you didn’t ‘pear to be a hombre thet would punish hoss flesh thet way. I reckon Mel and I figgered the devil was after you.”

“By George, you’re right. I didn’t realize I was pushing the horse.” Linc found that Bay was wet with lather and breathing heavily. “Slip his saddle, Vince. We’ll rest a little.”

Bradway sat down with his back to a tree and wiped his hot face. Then he espied a lean-to made of pine boughs, several blankets thrown over the bushes, a little campfire burning with a coffeepot boiling, and a skillet heating up. A parcel of food was spread on the ground.

“So you’ve made camp?” queried Lincoln.

“Shore,” replied Vince. “It wasn’t no trouble to pack this little stuff an’ you never can tell.”

“Good idea!” exclaimed the Nebraskan. “We’ll stay here all night.”

“That’ll be best, Linc,” put in Thatcher. “It’ll be dark pretty pronto and we want to map out your road from this point. You’ll be surprised to learn this is the only place along this eastern side of the valley where we can build a road.”

“Shore is the greatest corral for stock I ever seen,” added Vince. “All you hev to do is to fence the opening where you come in and build a little fence and a gate down heah where you see it so narrow an’ you’ll be jake.”

“Linc, if you can throw a few cattle in there you’ll get rich,” said Thatcher, thoughtfully.

“You’re wrong, boys,” responded Linc. “I can throw a big herd of cattle in here and we’ll all get rich.”

“Doggone! Darned if I don’t believe you, pard!” ejaculated Vince. “Now you talk to Mel while I toss together some grub.”

Thatcher seated himself cross-legged beside Bradway. “Most wonderful place, boss. Of course all this western part of Wyoming is wonderful, but this has any country I ever saw beat. We moseyed along slow, getting off our horses now and then to take a look. That field glass we bought the other day is a great help. We couldn’t begin to count the head of game we saw. There are several score of cattle down there that might be as wild as the elk.”

“The elk aren’t wild, Mel,” returned the Nebraskan. “Only the big bulls showed any disposition to get out of my way. Only the moose down there are wild.”

“It’ll be many a long year before this country will lack game to any extent.” Mel leaned over and began to scratch up a little pile of pine needles. “I reckon we’ve got to tell you.... Several hours after you left us we spotted Kit Bandon riding hell for leather up the trail. It was a sure bet she was trailing Lucy.... Vince and I knew that she must have caught up with you long before you got up the hill yonder.”

Vince, kneeling at the campfire with his back turned, moved his head slightly and stiffened.

“Ha!” Lincoln expelled a deep breath. “Did she catch us? She almost caught us for good!”

There was an eloquent little silence, which presently Vince broke. “Wal, you seem to hev got back to us without bein’ full of holes.”

“Yes, by luck or the grace of God!” muttered Lincoln. “Fellows, Kit knew nothing whatever about Lucy and me. We had forgotten the world and Kit slipped up on us and caught Lucy in my arms.”

“Whoops!” yelled Vince. His loud exclamation was not expressive of his feelings.

“How in hell did you ever get out of that?” asked Thatcher, bursting with excitement.

“I was lucky, I tell you. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had it in her mind to kill us, she was plenty mad. But you know how women are.... Afterward she broke down and then came to her senses when she found that she had a new good-looking nephew-in- law like me. You boys must know the good side of Kit Bandon.”

“Big and fine as all outdoors,” said Thatcher. “But Linc, we thought we heard a shot.”

The Nebraskan laughed. “Kit shot at a gopher and then she felt better. She lets off steam that way, I reckon.”

Vince turned around from the fire, his face red, his eyes piercing. “Pard, you mean to stand there and say thet you got away with it? Thet Kit let you off?”

“Yes, that is what I mean,” replied Bradway thoughtfully. “What is more, she seemed to be resigned to the fact of my marriage to Lucy — and, in short, although it seems a miracle, I believe she’ll be our friend.”

“Shore she will,” returned Vince. “An’ it’ll behoove you to be a friend of hers in the bad time thet is comin’ pronto.”

“I will be,” returned the Nebraskan. “But let’s don’t talk any more about Kit now. I want to talk about homesteading this valley, and get your advice and angle on what’s to be done.”

“Wal, we’ll be darned glad to give thet,” said Vince heartily.

“‘Nother thing I ought to tell you, Linc,” spoke up Thatcher with evident embarrassment. “I have a sweetheart back in Cheyenne. Haven’t heard from her for a long time, but if she has stuck to me I’ll want to settle down for keeps. Would that be all right with you?”

“Right? It’s perfect!” responded Lincoln enthusiastically. “That will please Lucy. Vince, couldn’t you dig up a girl?”

“Wal, I could dig up one of them dance-hall girls I met the other night,” replied Vince seriously.

“I’ve known cowboys who married dance-hall girls who turned out to make fine wives,” said Linc, “so that wouldn’t be so bad either.”

“It’d be kinda fine at thet,” returned Vince, and then once more applied himself to the preparation of supper.

Presently Lincoln was sitting cowboy-fashion with his two comrades to enjoy their frugal meal. The setting was one he had never seen equaled. While they were eating, the afterglow of sunset turned from gold to red, burnishing the whole valley in shades of flame color. As dusk came on, they made plans concerning their future ranch in the valley until the fire burned low and the stars came out and it was time to turn in.

When the three cowboys awoke, the early sun had colored the peaks a soft rose, the pine needles were drifting down on the breeze, and the valley and the lake and the streams below them were shining with the glory of the dawn. To the tall Nebraskan the tragic events of the day before seemed already to have faded into the past. Yet as he lay there for a moment watching Vince and Mel stretch, pull on their boots, rub their eyes and fold their blankets, he wondered how it was with Lucy in the Bandon ranch house. Had he been wise to let the girl accompany her aunt home after Kit’s attempt to kill her?

They broke camp early and set off eastward, searching out the best route for a road among the rocks and the thickets which grew along the hillside toward the Pass. They slowly made their way, leading their horses, blazing the trees to indicate their route, cutting brush, and marking thickets through which the road would pass. It took them all morning to work down from the rim of the valley to the point where the timber thinned out and failed. From then on the going was less rough down a gradual slope over fairly even ground. Toward the middle of the afternoon they reached the bluff overlooking South Pass. The town, bustling as usual, appeared hazy with the smoke from the smelter. The last miles, leading down the long slope across the brook, they rode; and from their unaccustomed footwork, they were thoroughly tired when they reached Headly’s stables.

“Wal,” suggested Vince, “let’s wash up an’ mosey down to set an’ see what’s come off since we’ve been gone.”

“O.K., boys,” agreed Lincoln, “but it’s early yet. So let’s head for the big store and buy ’em out. I forgot to tell you about Ben Thorpe, the trapper over in Lucy’s valley. He’s got two teams of horses and he’s going to work for us. We’ll leave the harness for him to pick out. I’ll buy a couple of big wagons and you hombres select all the ranch tools that we’ll need. It’s good that this is a big store with a full line of hardware. And, Mel, don’t forget plenty of carpenter’s tools.”

“Huh. Talks like he had a gold mine,” said Vince. “Thet stuff is goin’ to cost a heap of money.”

“We’ve got plenty, pards, and maybe I’m not glad I saved it! Pile in now and let’s do the best trading we can!”

At the restaurant two hours later, Bradway spread out the checked lists and read the items aloud. “Not bad for so short a time,” he said with satisfaction. “Tomorrow we’ll finish and order what Dockery Brothers did not have in stock. We’ll have those two wagons packed before Thorpe gets here.”

“Boss, we’re forgettin’ tents, beddin’, stoves, stovepipes and a lot of things beside the grubstake we’ll need to start the work on.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything, boys,” responded Linc. “We’ll hire somebody with a small wagon to go along with Thorpe and we’ll build our road, camping as we go, right down into the valley.”

“It’s a right pert job and strikes me where I live,” said Vince with a faraway look in his eyes. “I wonder—” The arrival of their supper prevented him from uttering what he had been about to say.

After supper they emerged from the restaurant to find it dark and the lights lit in all the windows. They sauntered down the crowded street, looking — as was their habit — for cowboys and cattlemen; but only miners, and the typical disreputable town hangers-on seemed to be in evidence.

“Hey, look there,” said Vince, pointing down the street. “Somethin’s come off. Biggest crowd I ever seen in front of Emery’s.”

“That reminds me,” returned the Nebraskan. “Emery left South Pass yesterday morning. He saw us climb the hill a little after sunrise. You remember pointing out the buckboard going at a pretty good clip? Well, he saw Lucy riding up the Sweetwater trail and putting two and two together he tipped Kit off to where we were going.”

“Emery leavin’ to go down the valley must mean a whole lot,” said Vince, thoughtfully. “Let’s find out.”

“All right,” agreed Lincoln. “Let’s split up and ask a few questions; we’ll meet later and compare notes.”

The South Pass gentry seemed to be distinctly cold to cowboys that evening. One of the men, a mining foreman at the mill, recognized Bradway and made a significant remark: “You ought to know more than we do about what’s come off. You belong to that outfit.”

“I only asked a civil question,” returned the Nebraskan sharply. “What outfit do you mean?”

“That Emery-Bandon outfit, cowboy. That’s what I mean.”

“I won’t call you a liar, because you’re probably only peddling gossip, but if you mention again that the Emery-Bandon outfit is my outfit, then I’ll have to call you, pronto.”

The miner, catching the glint in the cowboy’s eyes and his low-swinging guns, subsided quickly, and Linc pushed his way inside the saloon. It was more crowded and noisy than he had ever seen it; gamblers occupied every table, with others awaiting their turn. In the other room a line crowded the bar three deep, drinking and waiting to be served. Bradway noticed that none of the employees of the Leave It seemed familiar to him. Finally he found two miners inclined to be somewhat loose-tongued and mellow from drink, who appeared to be willing to talk. According to the gossip that was going the rounds, they said, Emery’s creditors, big cattlemen from down the valley, one of whom was Kit Bandon, had taken the gambling hall away from him and run him out of town. In a rage at being dispossessed, according to what they had heard, Emery had sworn vengeance on somebody whose name they didn’t know. The rumor persisted that on account of certain shady cattle deals in which he was implicated it might be wise for Emery to quit the valley while the going was good.

After gleaning from his tipsy informants all that was possible, Lincoln went outside to wait for his two partners. He did not have to linger long for Thatcher. The Nebraskan lost no time informing the cowboy of all he had learned.

“I got just about the same story,” said Mel. “Emery always was a crooked gambler and it was well known that he ran a crooked house, but he couldn’t be held for that because in this territory gambling isn’t legal. It’s a wonder he had not been shot long ago. But he stood in with the other gamblers and shared his profits with them. It just happened that no cowboy had been cheated and riled enough to draw on him. But, boss, the people now feel pretty sure that Emery has been in crooked cattle deals with Kit Bandon. That’s a horse of another color. I don’t like it. These cattlemen who are seein’ red might get a hold on Kit through her known association with Emery.”

“I don’t like it either,” responded Linc, gravely. “Kit has been careless about her reputation. Why did she ever tie in with a crook like Emery? He must have had some hold on her. What can we do?”

“I reckon we ought to think about our own hides,” returned Thatcher, tersely.

“Lordy, we ought to be able to do something to help Kit and still save our hides. That is, if she will accept our help.”

“There isn’t a cowboy in the valley who would not help Kit Bandon. But I question the wisdom of our mixing any deeper in this mess. You’re married to a fine girl and you are ready to settle down homesteading and ranching it. And there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. And I’ll tell you, pard, I’d like to get out from under, make up with my girl, and start straight with you in the cattle business.”

“You’re sure talking sense, Mel,” admitted Lincoln. “But — but I just can’t help it. I want to save Kit Bandon from her own mistakes.”

“That’s the way Vince feels. That’s the way with all the cowboys who have fallen under her ill-starred influence, but I’ve finally got some sense and I think you have, too. I’m telling you to let well enough alone. You were damn lucky that Kit Bandon let you off yesterday, when sure as hell I thought she was out to kill you.”

“That’s one reason why I’d risk a lot to save her.”

“All right. I’m with you,” returned Thatcher soberly. “Said I’d stick and I meant it. What do you aim to do?”

“That’s where I’m stumped. I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until we find out what is threatening Kit.”

“No! Wait nothing. You’d better want to help her before anything threatens.”

“But if I don’t find out what’s threatening her I can’t persuade her to leave the valley while there’s still time.”

“Bradway, I can find out what might happen to Kit Bandon,” rejoined Mel, his voice low.

“Mel, if you can find out and will help me I will—”

“O.K., I’m off,” said Thatcher quietly. “I wouldn’t tell Vince if I were you because he’ll trail me, and I’ll tell you that hombre is bad medicine.” With that Mel gave Lincoln’s arm a squeeze and strode off down the street to disappear among the pedestrians.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” muttered the Nebraskan, just as Vince came shuffling up.

“Hello, boss,” he said. “Where’s Mel?”

Linc felt that no matter what the risk, he would have to be honest with Vince. “I told Thatcher that I wanted to know exactly what was threatening Kit Bandon. He said he could find out and he went off almost on the run.”

“Hell’s fire!” ejaculated Vince in an injured tone. “I knew Mel was double-crossin’ me. He hasn’t told me everythin’.”

“Well, there’s nothing for us to do, Vince, but wait till he comes back.... Did you get any angles on Emery being driven out of town?”

“There’s plenty of talk,” replied Vince. “An’ I suppose you got about the same as me. But don’t you savvy, boss, thet these miners an’ townspeople hevn’t any idee what’s behind all this.”

“I think I begin to savvy,” replied the Nebraskan.

They walked up and down the street with Bradway doing most of the talking and Vince growing more somber and noncommittal as the time went by. When the hour grew late he tried to get Vince to share his lodgings that night.

“Nope. Thanks, pard, I want to wait up for Thatcher,” and bidding his partner good night Vince went his way. Linc went to his room and to bed.

The next morning to his dismay the two cowboys did not meet him for breakfast. He went up to Headly’s stables to find that sometime during the night they had saddled their horses and left town. Headly did not know whether or not they had left together. He now was becoming greatly perturbed. He had no idea what direction they had taken or on what errand they were bound. He wished he had not allowed Mel to become implicated in this deal with Kit, and he reluctantly compelled himself to wait. The hours passed slowly. Occasionally he stalked the streets, looking for his friends, but they did not come. Having omitted his lunch, he spent the afternoon with the merchant with whom he had placed his order the day before, and finally rounded out his necessary orders for supplies to his complete satisfaction, obtaining a generous discount on his bill of goods. He had supper alone, afterward walking the streets again from one gambling hall to another, hoping to meet Thatcher or Vince, but in vain. At midnight he returned to his lodgings. His range instinct prompted him to be ready for an emergency. He removed only his gun belt, boots and coat. Despite his worry, somehow he soon went to sleep. He seemed only to have closed his eyes when a loud pounding on the door roused him. He leaped off the bed. “Who is it?” he called, seizing the bar.

“It’s Thatcher,” came the swift, hoarse whisper. “Let me in. There’s hell to pay.”

Linc removed the bar and opened the door.

“Hello, Mel,” he said. “Strike a match and make a light. You’ll find a candle on the stand there.”

“Couldn’t get here sooner,” replied Thatcher. The candlelight flared up, revealing his pale, set face.

The Nebraskan sat down upon the bed to pull on his boots. “Where’s Vince?” he asked.

“I didn’t run into him but I have an idea that he was looking for me.”

“What time is it?” asked Linc.

“It’s an hour or two before dawn. We’ve got to do some fast riding, pard — and even then I’m afraid we’ll be too late.”

“I felt that same way lately somehow,” replied Bradway. He got up and buckled on his gun belt. Then he got into his coat. “Where did I leave my sombrero? Hold up the candle, Mel.” He found it on the floor.

“It’s good you didn’t undress,” said Thatcher. “We’ve got to rustle. I had to change horses so I saddled Bay while I was at the stables.”

They went out together in the chill gloom. A few lamps were still burning along the main street; the resort that had been Emery’s was still blazing with light. Two horses were standing in the street, tossing their heads and champing their bits. Lincoln tried the cinch on Bay, then he turned to whisper hoarsely to Mel.

“If we’ve got to ride, we won’t be able to talk. Gimme a hunch quick what you found out.”

“Never mind how I found out, boss, I still have friends down there.... There’s an outfit of cattlemen — not many — hard and brutal men, sick with how they’ve been imposed upon and mad as hell at the cowboys, and those ranchers are out to get Emery and Kit.”

“What are they going to do?” asked Linc.

“Lord only knows, but I reckon they are prepared to take the law into their own hands.”

“Do the cowboys know?”

“Not many. They’ve been thrown off the scent. Vince knew all the time. It’s a sure bet he will turn up with some of them.”

“I can guess the rest,” returned the Nebraskan grimly. “Let’s ride.”

They mounted and headed down the street toward the creek, splashed across, then urged their mounts up the long slope that led to the pass. Thatcher led the way. Once on the road, they broke into a swinging lope. They crossed the pass in perhaps a quarter of an hour and were heading down the winding road on the valley side.

“Look there!” cried Thatcher excited, reining in. “A bonfire!”

“I see it,” replied Linc, reining in beside him. “That may mean we’re too late. Let’s rustle. Once we’re off this hill we’ve got straight clear road for ten or twelve miles.”

Down the zigzag slope they saved their horses, and reaching the level they dismounted to tighten their cinches. Mounting again, they were off riding at a ground-eating lope. Lincoln allowed Thatcher to set the pace, and the way he handled his horse indicated the tenseness of the occasion. A long swinging lope led to a gallop, then to a dead run. The horses were fresh and fast. The night was cold, and the wind nipped Lincoln’s nose and ears. The road could be seen dimly, a pale streak leading off into the gloom. After covering several miles Thatcher reduced their gait to a trot but he did not give the horses a long stretch of rest. Soon the horses were going full speed through the night which was at that darkest hour which precedes the dawn. Three times Mel changed gaits and at the end of the last run the big bonfire seemed less than a mile away. He brought his horse sharply to a standstill, with Lincoln following suit.

“Reckon this is — far enough,” panted Thatcher. “We sure made fast time. Now take a good look, Linc, and see what you can see.”

Bradway already was peering through the darkness. “I can see the bonfire. Believe it’s located near some big trees at the edge of the timber.... There! I can make out some dark forms passing in front of the fire.”

“Same here,” replied Thatcher. “That must be the outfit. It’s a sure bet the cowboys wouldn’t make any fire. Do you think we ought to get a closer look?”

“Let’s cut off the road, keep out of sight and hearing, tie our horses in the willows, and sneak up on that outfit.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to ride down on them?” queried Thatcher. “If they mean business we haven’t got a lot of time.”

“If it’s too late it’s too late,” said the Nebraskan somberly, “but I’ve been on some of these vigilante rides. They keep moving after dark and aim to do their work at daylight. We’ll take a chance.”

“O.K. We’re probably outnumbered ten to one. So let’s keep our eyes peeled,” concluded Mel.

They turned their heaving horses into the sage. Dawn was dose at hand. Already there were gray streaks in the east and the stars had dimmed. It was not long before the riders saw the low, dark line of timber encroaching upon the valley floor. When they had reached to within a couple of hundred yards of the fire they dismounted, both with the same thought, and stole forward, eyes and ears keen to detect any movement of horse or man. Reaching the willows, they led their horses some distance before tying them to convenient branches. They stepped into the open again. Thatcher suddenly gripped Bradway’s arm.

“Hold it!” he whispered in Lincoln’s ear. “Listen.”

They heard horses moving, then low voices. Mel glided ahead noiselessly, a couple of steps ahead of Linc. There were openings in the thicket and lanes spreading between the trees. Into one of these open places vanished Mel. Lincoln crept forward more cautiously until he caught up with Thatcher again. As they paused there in the shadow they heard the hoofbeats of several horses and low voices passing by.

“Bunch of cowboys,” whispered Thatcher excitedly. “Let’s follow along. Don’t make any noise, Linc.”

They reached the edge of the timber just as half a dozen horsemen were vanishing into the gray gloom. Apparently the bonfire had died down somewhat or else the brightening sky seemed to have dimmed its light. Keeping under cover of the trees Thatcher led his companion in swift pursuit. Linc did not look up. He watched where he was going so that he would not break a stick or step in a hole. Presently Mel stopped him and drew him into the shelter of some underbrush; they waited a while seeing and hearing nothing. After a tense moment of silence they heard the thud of hoofs moving forward again. Once more Thatcher glided forward with the Nebraskan at his heels. And again the two silent men came to a sudden halt. A group of riderless horses could be distinguished blackly etched between them and the dull glow of the firelight. The moving figures beyond appeared to be men pacing in front of the fire.

“What’s become of those cowboys who passed us?” whispered Thatcher, worriedly. “I can’t hear them. Maybe they worked their way inside the willows. Let’s go.”

Another tense interval of cautious advance brought them to a point where they could make out the dim shapes of moving horsemen.

“Look,” whispered Mel. “There’s more of them than when we saw them first. Nine or ten.”

“Not enough if they mean to ambush the cattlemen,” whispered Linc.

“I don’t know. They might be crazy enough to do anything. But they’ll wait to see how many are in the vigilante bunch. What do you figure, Linc?”

“I’m figuring hard but haven’t got anywhere,” replied Lincoln tensely. “It’s getting light. See that red in the sky up there?”

“Pard, I reckon it’s a very appropriate color,” replied Thatcher ominously.

“Meaning this bunch of cowboys are going to spill blood?”

“It’s a safe bet. Don’t overlook the fact that Vince is in that bunch and it’s a hundred to one he’s leading them.”

“Then we’ll go on following them. We can keep inside the willows all the way.”

“All right. Let’s mosey on a little while longer, then have ourselves another look.”

They confined themselves now to a slow, stealthy advance through the willows. They walked silently, carefully parting the brush and branches to be sure that they did not break any dead snags and constantly peering ahead cautiously, as they drew closer to the blazing fire. Linc recognized the spot: the big trees standing out in the open he had passed under so very recently. He tugged Mel’s sleeve and whispered to him that they were not more than a mile from the Bandon ranch.

“One more spell like this last one and we’ll be getting somewhere,” returned Thatcher. “Take it easy now. I reckon we don’t want to be caught by these cowboys. When the fireworks start they won’t pay any attention to us, but we want to make damn sure we don’t get caught between their lines of fire.”

According to the way Linc figured it they would soon be passing the spot where the cowboys ought to be, and it behooved them to be exceedingly cautious. When again they approached the edge of the thicket, the sky was light, though it still was dusky in the willow grove. The fire still glowed but not one of the men grouped about it made a move to throw on any more fuel. Linc looked back across the valley and noted that the sun had not yet risen above the farther wall.

“Let’s get a little closer,” whispered Mel.

They crossed a projecting neck of the timbered bottom to come out almost at the spot where the group of cattlemen waited. They were a little too close for comfort. One of the group was pointing in the direction of the Bandon ranch. All of the men showed sudden animation, as another of the men started for the place where the horses were tethered.

Suddenly Thatcher seized Linc’s arm in a grasp so tight that he winced with pain. “Godamighty!” he gasped. “Look, pard — look!”

A group of horsemen in a half-circle were bringing two bare- headed riders, with hands bound behind them, across the flat toward the three big trees and the waiting men. “By Judas priest,” Linc whispered hoarsely. “That’s Kit — and Emery.”

“Yes, and it looks bad, Linc.”

The Nebraskan had seen many a posse of riders move along in that sinister, businesslike manner half surrounding their prisoners. He knew what it meant — the law of the range once more was being fulfilled.

“Pard, it wouldn’t have done any good if we’d gotten here sooner,” whispered Mel. “This outfit of cowmen are hell-bent on execution.”

Linc knew that Mel was right. It was hard to believe that these desperate men could drive themselves to execute a woman. Emery, yes, but a woman — ! His heart sank.

But the practical Thatcher was less moved. “We can get closer presently. Pretty soon these cowmen will be so intent on their dirty job that they won’t hear us.... I’m just wondering what Vince and those hombres back yonder in the willows will do. If I know him and them they’ll ride right up on this bunch.”

Lincoln had no heart to reply. There were ten men in the party approaching. That made twenty-three of the vigilantes in all. Each of them wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes. Blue handkerchiefs masked the lower part of their faces. Lincoln’s keen sight did not miss the fact that they were all heavily armed. They moved forward silently with almost mechanical precision, and halted under the biggest trees just beyond the pile of embers that had been the fire, where they were met by the cowmen, now mounted, who had been waiting for them. The two watchers were conscious of sounds off to their left in the willows. Mel pointed over his shoulder. “Those fool cowboys are going to rush the cowmen’s party. They’re going to get themselves killed for their pains,” he muttered.

Now the two groups of cattlemen had come together, and under cover of the confusion Linc and Mel crawled closer to a point where they were only fifty paces from this sinister company and easily within hearing. Some of the vigilantes were already on foot and several of the men dismounted to meet them. A tall man with the shape and movement of the rancher Lee appeared to be the leader.

“Are we all here?” he asked sharply.

“All here, Captain, but there’s a few riders prowling around.”

“We can’t let them hold us up now,” returned the leader. “Now Emery, it’s time for you to talk.” He turned away from the two mounted prisoners and said, “Men, I promised the gambler freedom if he’d tell us what we want to know. We want the proofs.”

“Let’s rustle, boss, and get it over with,” spoke up another gruffer voice.

The Nebraskan did not want to look but he was forced to against his will. The two prisoners were in plain sight. The sun had risen and gold and red light bathed the valley in its mellow glow. The sage rippled with the morning breeze. Lincoln saw Emery astride his horse, his hands bound behind him, his dark face haggard and drawn. The other rider was Kit Bandon. She wore a long black coat, evidently hastily thrown over her sleeping gown. Her white bare feet dangled above the stirrups which she could not reach. Her white face and black hair made a striking contrast in the morning light. Her eyes appeared like great black wells that emphasized her pallor. Lincoln’s gaze could discern no terror, no cringing in her appearance. Her white face with its scornful eyes was averted from the terrified man beside her.

“Emery, come out with your evidence,” rasped the leader, stridently.

“I was her partner in plenty of cattle deals,” replied the gambler, his voice little louder than a hoarse whisper.

“He’s a low-down liar,” cried Kit scornfully. “I had no partner in my cattle deals.”

“She corrupted — the cowboys! She ruined them,” cried Emery desperately, his voice cracking. “She got them to steal for her. She paid them with money — and — and in other ways. Her bargain was the same with all. She sold herself!”

“Kit Bandon, what have you to say to that?” queried the leader.

“I have given you my answer. You can believe what you wish,” was her cold rejoinder, uttered between clenched teeth.

“Men, you’ve heard. We have the proofs. We’re justified.... Somebody cut Emery’s arms loose and let him go.”

Two stalwart men approached Emery and freed him from his bonds. One of them gave the horse a resounding smack on the flank.

“Rustle, you skunk, before we change our minds,” called one of the men.

Emery, with convulsed visage and trembling jaw, reined his horse from the group confronting him, and had just gotten beyond the farthest of the three trees when he was met there by the charging cowboys. They barred his escape. Then things began to happen.

Linc caught a look of surprise on several of the faces of the cattlemen. Then he heard the whistle of a rope and a dull crack as the noose pulled tight about Emery’s neck. His sudden scream of terror was cut short. His body jerked backward off his horse and fell to the earth. At the same instant the cowboy with the lasso flicked the other end over the spreading branch of a willow. As he did so he shouted some command to his companions. Linc recognized that voice. It was the voice of his partner Vince. Three cowboys were out of their saddles in a twinkling. They grasped the dangling rope and with a violent tug jerked the body of the gambler five feet off the ground. Just as quickly and silently they made the end of the lasso fast to a sapling and then leaped into their saddles again.

The vigilantes, as though paralyzed by the speed of the action that had taken place before their eyes, gaped at the grotesque figure of the gambler. They made no move to interfere with what was going on. Perhaps they thought, as did Linc and Mel, that only justice was being meted out under that willow tree.

The cowboys were strangely silent. They watched Emery jerk spasmodically, shrugging off the black overcoat he had been wearing. The convulsive movements must have lasted several moments. Then the body was still, stretched limp, moving to and fro with the swaying branch. The slanting beams of the early sunlight touched the dark face of the dead man, adding a touch of horror to the stark scene. Bradway turned his eyes away from the dead man to the calm figure of the other prisoner. If she had witnessed Emery’s brutal hanging, there was no evidence of it on her countenance. Her eyes blazed straight ahead in that white mask that was her face.

At that moment the harsh voice of the leader of the cattlemen rang out.

“Kit Bandon, we condemn you to hang for your proven crimes!”

The words of doom seemed still to be trembling in the still morning air when there was a sudden movement behind the group of cattlemen. Linc had torn himself free from Thatcher’s restraining grasp and was stumbling forward in the direction of the half- circle of vigilantes.

“Wait, men! Wait! You can’t do this!” he cried as he ran forward, his empty hands held high.

There was a stir among the men and several exclamations and muttered threats. Now Linc was facing the leader.

“You men don’t know what you are doing,” he said in a clear, steady voice which all could hear. “You represent law and order in this country. You can’t hang a woman in cold blood. Some of you have wives and daughters. If this woman has plotted with these reckless, simple-minded cowpokes to steal your stock, then she deserves to be punished. But you don’t have to turn yourselves into beasts to exact your punishment. You can’t hang a woman — a neighbor — like a — like a dog,” he pleaded earnestly.

Some of the men were beginning to nod their heads as they listened to the stranger’s plea. One of them spoke out: “Boss, this hombre is right. I say we turn her over to the law. I don’t feel right about stringing up a woman.”

Linc took advantage of the interruption. “Men, you’ll regret such a deed of violence all the rest of your lives,” he urged. “I don’t know whether she’s guilty or innocent. It’s none of my business. I’m not interceding — If you are satisfied that she has stolen your mavericks—”

Another voice growled: “Me, too, chief. Count me out on this deal. If my wife knew I had my hand in hangin’ a woman—”

The leader spat into the dust as though to rid himself of some burning poison. “You yellow-bellied fools,” he rasped. “Don’t you men realize that if we take this woman away to prison she’ll wriggle herself out of it — and then come back and do the same thing all over again?”

The Nebraskan moved closer to the man he now definitely recognized to be the Texan, Lee. He started to renew his appeal.

“No use, Linc,” cried Kit Bandon, her voice deep and full. “God bless you for trying to save me from this man’s jealous hatred. It isn’t a matter of being punished for stolen mavericks with Lee.” Her voice grew scornful. “He’s a Texan, Linc. A woman has to know her place down there.” Then her voice grew softer again. “It’s too late now, Linc. Everything’s too late — except for you and Lucy. And now that it’s too late I’m going to tell you what I never wanted you to know — that I killed your pal, Jimmy Weston — God have mercy on me, I killed him!”

“That will be enough,” snarled Lee. “Get back there, Bradway, or I’ll bore you.... This woman hangs!” He dismounted, stepped forward, and tossed a noose over Kit Bandon’s neck. Then he pulled the rope tight about the slender white throat and threw the end of the lariat over the branch of the tree just above her head.

As he stepped back a terrible cry rang out, a hoarse bellow of hatred and defiance. A horseman dashed into the circle about the Texan and his prisoner, dismounted and confronted the cowmen’s leader. It was Vince, and now for the first time Linc heard him raise his voice above his accustomed drawl.

“She’s called the turn on you, cowman!” he shouted. “It’s yore hate — wuss than thet, yore jealousy — thet makes you pull this low-down deal.”

“Keep your mouth shut, cowboy,” Lee snarled.

“I’m sayin’ all I’m goin’ to say, Lee,” he spoke more quietly. “An’, by God, I say you’ll hev no share in this hangin’.” As Vince spoke his gun exploded twice, and Lee stopped, looked surprised, swayed and fell face downward under his horse.

Bradway had time only to cry “Vince” when a volley rang out. The cowpoke whirled and fell. The next moment Linc saw his partner lying on his back in the dust, one arm beneath him, one arm outstretched. A dozen bullets had entered his body.

Linc felt himself pushed aside. He heard a hoarse shout from one of the vigilantes, “Hyar, men! Lay hold hyar an’ swing this devil-woman before some more of us stop lead. No one of us is safe as long as she’s breathin’.”

The Nebraskan turned away. He felt suddenly sick. He saw Thatcher beside him. He heard the trampling sound made by many boots, the sound of many strong bodies in concerted action, the sound of a tree branch violently shaken, the sound of a strangled cry. As he stood there supporting himself against a tree he waited for the sound he knew must follow, a volley from the six- guns of the cowboys. But it was not forthcoming. The sudden silence was unbearable. Slowly he opened his eyes. The sight he expected to see met his eyes. Kit Bandon’s slender body, clad only in her night-dress, was slowly turning under the swaying branch. Her dark hair had loosened and covered her features. Then a gunshot rang out. Lincoln heard the dull thud of a bullet striking flesh. A cowboy’s merciful bullet had put an end to the hanging and the suffering of the Maverick Queen.

There followed the sound of many voices, of tinkling spurs, of the creak of saddle leather, of clattering hoofbeats. Two men ran forward with a riderless horse. They lifted the body of Lee and hung it over the saddle. Then mounting their own horses, they rode away across the sunlit sage, leading the dead man’s horse by its reins. As the sound of their horses’ hoofs died away in the distance, Linc became conscious that the cowboys had come for Vince’s body. The range war was over. Vince was dead. Lee was dead. Kit Bandon was dead. Emery was dead. And Jimmy Weston was dead. They were all dead and nothing was settled.

Mel Thatcher was shaking him gently.

“Don’t look, pard. It’s all over. Leave the rest to us. Rustle for your horse and ride like hell to tell Lucy. But don’t tell her how Kit died, Linc. You’ll know what to say. Take Lucy away with you. Stay out of South Pass until this all blows over. Leave the rest to me.”

Linc heard his partner’s words as though they were spoken in a dream. He was conscious of the other cowboys gathering about the body of Vince. As they passed him where he stood by the tree he could see that they were staring at him curiously. He shook himself and broke the strange spell that had bound him since the moment of his tragic failure to save Kit Bandon. The feeling of lassitude and futility was passing. There was work to be done. He walked over to the group of cowpokes gathered around his dead friend whose body seemed poignantly lonely and forsaken there on the valley floor.

“Boys, Mel here will tell you that Vince was our partner, his and mine,” he said. “I wish you would take him to a spot Mel will show you, and bury him there. And if there’s any expense I’ll pay it.”

Then he walked over to the willow where Kit’s pathetic figure swayed in the unnatural radiance of the June morning, looking more like a slim girl than a mature, hardened woman who had died with a sneer of defiance for her executors upon her lovely face. Taking out his clasp knife he cut the dead woman down. Covering her body with her cloak, Linc stood there for a moment, remembering all of the vitality and animation and passion and love that once had been present in that one tiny body.

The cowboys were watching him as he returned. Mel Thatcher spoke up: “We’ll take care of that, too, pard. No cowpoke in this valley will ever say we didn’t give Kit Bandon a decent burial. She used some of us a little rough, and Vince isn’t the only one who stopped lead because of her, but nobody in this part of Wyoming, long after we boys are gone, will forget the Maverick Queen. I guess the Lord busted His mold when he made Kit Bandon. There will never be another like her in Wyoming.”

“Thank you, Mel,” said Linc, “for those words. Nobody, saint or sinner, could have a better send-off than you gave her.”

Then silently the Nebraskan shook hands with Thatcher and with the other cowboys, took one last look at Vince and walked slowly with clinking spurs in the direction of the place where long years ago, as it seemed to him now, he had tethered his horse.

Mounting Bay, he rode through the dew-dampened sage to the road. Then he urged the eager horse to a sharp gallop toward the Bandon ranch house. As he crossed the bridge he saw movement under the trees before the house. The lame hired man was limping through the gate looking down the road. As Bay brought him rapidly nearer, Linc caught a glimpse of someone in the shadow of the porch. The tumult in his breast told him who it was. At the gate he pulled Bay to his haunches, scattering the gravel as he leaped off.

“Simpson,” he said to the hired man, “you’ve probably guessed it — your mistress is dead. Hitch up the buckboard pronto. I’m taking Miss Lucy away. You stay here until you get further orders. My partner is taking care of the — of Kit Bandon.”

Then he turned toward the porch. A white-faced girl with her bright golden hair streaming over her shoulders was running to meet him.

“Linc — Linc, please tell me,” she cried, “what have they done with Aunt Kit?”

Tenderly the tall Nebraskan took the stricken girl in his arms. Her tear-stained face was tight against his breast. One of his hands was stroking her hair.

“Listen, my dear,” he was saying, in a voice that was husky with tenderness and love. “It’s all over. Kit and Emery — have paid — the penalty.... I’m taking you away for a little while.... Just pack up some clothes and some few things you will need. Thatcher will take care of Kit’s things, and will close up the house. I don’t think either of us will ever want to come back to this ranch again.”

Lucy’s head made a movement of negation against his breast.

“When we come back,” Linc continued, “we will start all over again — up there in our valley.” As he finished speaking Lucy raised her head from her husband’s shoulder, and as one, they turned to face the dark patch against the distant hills which marked the valley that one day would be their home.

The Baseball Stories

Olentangy Park, Columbus, Ohio, c. 1910 — Grey played summer baseball for the Columbus Capitols, with aspirations of becoming a major leaguer. The Capitals’ ballpark was located in Olentangy Park, on North High Street in Columbus.

Zane Grey at the University of Pennsylvania, 1895

The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine today

The Shortstop

Initially published in 1909, this is the first of Grey’s three baseball books.  The Shortstop tells the story of Chase Alloway, a factory worker in the early 1900’s, who dedicates himself to taking care of his widowed mother and nurtures a driving desire to pursue a professional career in baseball. At a critical point in his life, he makes a decision to leave the factory and play professional baseball, finding a place on a minor league team in Ohio. The trials and tribulations Chase endures to realise his dream are daunting, but his hard knocks at the start are followed by the success that honest sportsmanship, courage and honesty deserve to win. The story is clearly written by someone intimately acquainted with the game he so dearly loved.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

The first edition

CHAPTER 1

PERSUADING MOTHER

CHASE ALLOWAY HURRIED out of the factory door and bent his steps homeward. He wore a thoughtful, anxious look, as of one who expected trouble. Yet there was a briskness in his stride that showed the excitement under which he labored was not altogether unpleasant.

In truth, he had done a strange and momentous thing; he had asked the foreman for higher wages, and being peremptorily refused, had thrown up his place and was now on his way home to tell his mother.

He crossed the railroad tracks to make a short cut, and threaded his way through a maze of smoke-blackened buildings, to come into narrow street lined with frame houses. He entered a yard that could not boast of a fence, and approached a house as unprepossessing as its neighbors.

Chase hesitated on the steps, then opened the door. There was no one in the small, bare, clean kitchen. With a swing which had something of an air of finality about it, he threw his dinner-pail into a corner. “There!” He said grimly, as if he had done with it. “Mother, where are you?”

Mrs. Alloway came in, a slight little woman, pale, with marks of care on her patient face. She greeted him with a smile, which faded quickly in surprise and dismay.

“You’re home early, Chase,” she said anxiously.

“Mother, I told you I was going to ask for more money. Well, I did. The foreman laughed at me and refused. So I threw up my job.”

“My boy! My boy!” faltered Mrs. Alloway

Chase was the only bread-winner in their household of three. His brother, a bright, studious boy of fifteen, was a cripple. Mrs. Alloway helped all she could with her needle, but earned little enough. The winter had been a hard one, and had left them with debts that must be paid. It was no wonder she gazed up at him in distressed silence.

“I’ve been sick of this job for a long time,” went on Chase. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. There’s no chance for me in the factory. I’m not quick enough to catch the hang of mechanics. Here I am over seventeen and big and strong, and I’m making six dollars a week. Think of it! Why, if I had a chance — See here, mother, haven’t I studied nights ever since I left school to go to work? I’m no dummy. I can make something of myself. I want to get into business — business for myself, where I can buy and sell.”

“My son, it takes money to go into business. Where on earth can you get any?”

“I’ll make it,” replied Chase, eagerly. A flush reddened his cheek. He would have been handsome then, but for his one defect, a crooked eye. “I’ll make it. I need money quick — and I’ve hit on the way to make it. I—”

“How?”

The short query drew him up sharply, chilling his enthusiasm. He paced the kitchen, and then, with a visible effort, turned to his mother.

“I am going to be a baseball player.” The murder was out now and he felt relief. His mother sat down with a little gasp. He waited quietly for her refusal, her reproach, her arguments, ready to answer them one by one.

“I won’t let you be a ball player.”

“Mother, since father left us to shift for ourselves I’ve been the head of the house. I never disobeyed you before, but now — I’ve thought it out. I’ve made my plan.”

“Bah. Players are good-for-nothing loafers, rowdies. I won’t have my son associate with them.”

“They’ve a bad name, I’ll admit; but, mother, I don’t think it’s deserved. I’m not sure, but I believe they’re not so black as they are painted. Anyway, even if they are, it won’t hurt me. I’ve an idea that a young man can be square and successful in baseball as in anything else. I’d rather take any other chance, but there isn’t any.”

“Oh! the disgrace of it! Your father would—”

“Now, see here, mother, you’re wrong. It’s no disgrace. Why, it’s a thousand times better than being a bartender, and I’d be that to help along. As for father,” his voice grew bitter, “if he’d been the right sort we wouldn’t be here in this hovel. You’d have what you were once used to, and I’d be in school.”

“You’re not strong enough; you would get hurt,” protested the mother.

“Why, I’m as strong as a horse. I’m not afraid of being hurt. Ever since last summer when I made such a good record with the factory nine this idea has been growing. They say I’m one of the fastest boys in Akron, and this summer the big nine at the round-house wants me. It’s opened my eyes. With a little more experience I could get on a salaried team some where.”

“You wouldn’t go away?”

“I’ll have to. And, another, I want to go at once.”

Mrs. Alloway felt the ground slipping from under her. She opened her lips to make further remonstrance, but Chase kissed them shut, and keeping his arm around her, led her into the sitting-room. A pale youth, slight, like his mother, sat reading by a window.

“Will,” said Chase, “I’ve some news for you. Can you get through school, say in a year or less, and prepare for college?”

The younger boy looked up with a slight smile, such as he was wont to use in warding off Chase’s persistent optimism. The smile said sadly that he knew he would never go to college. But something in Chase’s straight eye startled him, then his mother’s white, agitated face told him this was different. He rose and limped a couple of steps toward them, a warm color suddenly tingeing his cheeks.

“What do you mean?” he questioned.

Then Chase told him. In conclusion he said: “Will, there’s big money in it. Three thousand a season is common, five for a great player. Who knows? Any way, there’s from fifty to a hundred a month even in these Ohio and Michigan teams, and that’ll do to start with. You just take this from me: there’ll be a comfortable home for mother, you’ll go to college, and later I’ll get into business. It’s all settled. What do you think of it?”

“It’s great!” exclaimed Will, slamming down his book. There was a flame in his eyes.

Mrs. Alloway dropped her hands. She was persuaded. That from Will was the last straw. Tears began to fall.

“Mother, don’t be unhappy,” said Chase. “I am suited for something better than factory work. There’s a big chance for me here. Mind you, I’m only seventeen. Suppose I play ball for a few years: I’ll save my money, and when I’m twenty-two or twenty-five I can start a business of my own. It looks good to me!”

“But, my boy — if it — ruins you!”

“I don’t like to see Chase leave us,” said Will, “but I’m not afraid of that.”

Mrs. Alloway dried her eyes, called up her smile, and told them she was not afraid of it either. Thereafter her composure did not leave her, though her sensitive lips quivered when she saw Chase packing a small grip.

“I don’t want to take much,” he mused, “and most of all I’ll want my glove and ball-shoes. Will, isn’t it lucky about the shoes that college man gave me? They’re full of spikes. I’ve never played in them, but I tried them on, and I’ll bet I can run like a streak in them.”

It was not long after that when he kissed his mother as she followed him to the doorway. Will limped after him a little way down the path and shook hands for the tenth time. His eyes were wet as his mother’s, but Chase’s were bright and had a bold look.

“Chase, I never saw any one who could run and throw like you, and I believe you’ll make the greatest player in the whole country. Don’t forget. It’ll be hard at first. But you hang on! Hang on! There! Good luck! Good- bye!”

Chase turned at the corner of the street and waved to them. There was a lump in his throat which was difficult to swallow. But it was too late to go back, so he struck out bravely.

CHAPTER 2

RIDING AWAY

THE FACT THAT Chase had no objective point in mind did not detract from the new and absorbing charm of his situation. No more would he breathe the dust- laden air nor hear the din of the factory. He was free; free to go where he listed, to see new people and places, to find his fortune. He crushed back the pain in his throat; he reconciled himself to the parting from his mother and brother by the assurance that so he could serve them best.

It was twilight when he reached the railroad tracks, where he stopped momentarily. Would he go to the left or to the right? A moment only did he tarry undecided; after all, there was only one course for him to start on and keep to, whether of direction or purpose, and that was to the right.

Darkness had settled down by the time he came to the outskirts of the town, and now secure in the belief that he would not be seen, he stopped to wait for a train. It was out of the question for him to think of riding in a passenger train. That cost money; and he must save what little he had. On Saturdays, before he left school, he had ridden on freight trains; and what he had done for fun he would now do in earnest. Some of the railroads running into town forbade riding, others did not care; and Chase took his stand by the track of one of the generous roads.

The electric lights shot up brightly, like popping stars out of the darkness, and white glow arched itself over the town. Soon the shrill screech of a locomotive split the silence, then a rumbling and puffing told of an outward bound freight. The gleam of a headlight streaked along the rails. Chase saw with satisfaction that the train was on his track, but he had an uneasy feeling that it was running too fast to be boarded. The huge black engine, like a one-eyed demon, roared by, shaking the earth. Chase watched the cars rattle by and tried to gauge their speed. It was so dark he could scarcely see, but he knew the train was running too fast to catch with safety. Still he did not hesitate. He waited a moment for an oil-car, and as one came abreast he dashed with it down the track. Reaching up with his left hand, he grasped a handle- bar. Instantly he was swung upward and slapped against the car. But Chase knew that swing, and it did not break his hold. As he dropped back to an upright position he felt for the foot-step, found it, and was safe.

He climbed aboard and sat against the oil-tank, placing his grip beside him. He laughed as he wiped the sweat from his brow. That was a time when the fun of boarding a freight did not appear. The blackness was all about him now; fields and woods and hills blurring by. The wind sang in his ears and cooled his face. The stars blinked above. The rasp and creak of the cars, the rhythmic click of the rails, the roar and rumble, were music to him, for they sang of the passing miles between him and wherever he was going.

Lights of villages twinkled by like Jack-o’-lanterns. These were succeeded after a while by the blank dim level of open country, that to Chase swept by monotonously for hours. Then a whistle enlivened him. He felt the engineer put on the air-brake, then the bumping and jarring of cars, and the grinding of wheels.

As the train slowed up Chase made ready to jump off. He did so presently, expecting to see the lights of a town, but there were none. He saw the shadow of a block-signal house against the dark sky, and concluded the engineer had stopped for orders at a junction-crossing. Chase hurried along the tracks, found an open box-car, and climbed in.

It was an empty car with a layer of hay on the floor. He groped his way in the gloom, found a corner, and lay down with his head on his grip. It was warm and comfortable there; he felt tired, a drowsiness overcame the novelty of his situation, and he was falling asleep when he heard voices. Then followed the shuffling and scrambling noise made by several men climbing into the car. They went into another corner.

For a while he could not make out the meaning of their low, hoarse whispering; but as it grew louder he caught the drift. The men were thieves; they had robbed someone and were quarreling over the spoils. One was a negro, judging by his sullen, thick voice, and it was evident the other two were leagued against him.

The train started up with a rattle and clatter, gathered headway, and rolled on with steady roar. From time to time Chase heard angry voices even above the din of the wheels. He was thankful for the dark and the noise. What they might do if they discovered him, caused him to grow cold with fear. He shrank into the corner and listened.

Whether it was after a few minutes or a long hour he had no idea, but when the whistle shrieked out again and the train slackened for another stop, he realized the thieves were fighting. Hoarse cries and sodden blows, curses, and a deep groan told of a deed of violence.

“Let’s beat it,” whispered one, in the sudden silence. “Here comes a brake.”

The train had stopped. Footsteps grated outside, and streaks of light flickered into the car. Chase saw two men jump from the door and heard a brake man accost them. He lay there trembling. What if the brakeman flashed his light into the car? What would be seen in the other corner? But the footsteps died away. Before he noticed it the train got in motion again; and he lay there wavering till the speed became so great that he dared not jump off.

To ride with a dead thief was not so frightful as to ride with a live one, thought Chase, but it was bad enough. His mind began to focus on one point, that he must get out of the car, and the more he thought the more fearful grew his state. While he lay there the train rolled on and the time flew by. All at once it appeared the blackness had given way to gray shadow. It grew lighter and lighter. He rose and went to the door. Day was dawning.

The train was approaching a hamlet, and ran parallel with a dusty road. Without a second’s hesitation Chase leaped from the car. Through a rush of wind he alighted on his feet, bounced high, to fall heavily and roll over and over in the dust.

CHAPTER 3

FAME

CHASE WOULD HAVE sustained worse bruises than he got to rid himself of the atmosphere of that car. When he was once free of it, however, he fell to wondering if the negro were really killed. Perhaps he had only been wounded and was in need of assistance that Chase could have rendered. This thought cut him, but he dismissed it from mind, and addressed himself once more to his problem.

The village consisted of a few cottages; there was no railroad station, and on a siding stood a car marked T. & O. C. Chase sat in the grass beside the track, and did not know whether to walk on or wait for another train. Meanwhile the sun rose warm and bright, shining on the bursting green leaves; meadowlarks sang in a field near by, and flocks of blackbirds winged irregular flight overhead.

That May morning was full of life and hope for Chase, but even so, when two hours passed by with no train or even person putting in appearance, he began to grow restless and presently made a remarkable discovery. He was hungry. He had not given a thought to such a thing as eating. It was rather discomfiting to awaken to the fact that even in quest of fortune meals were necessary.

A column of blue smoke was curling lazily from one of the cottages, and thither Chase made his way. He knocked on the kitchen door, which was opened by a woman.

“Good-morning,” said Chase. “May I have a bite to eat?”

“You ain’t a tramp?” queried she, eying him shrewdly.

“No, indeed. I can pay.”

“I thought not. Tramps don’t say ‘Good-mornin’’. I reckon you kin hev somethin’. Sit on the bench there.”

She brought him milk, and bread and butter, and a generous slice of ham. While he was eating, a boy came out to gaze at him with round eyes, and later a lanky man with pointed beard walked up the path, his boots wet with dew.

“Mornin’,” he said cheerily, “be yew travelin’ fur?”

“Quite far, I guess,” replied Chase. “How far is Columbus, or the first big place?”

“Wal, now, Columbus is a mighty long way, much as fifty miles, I calkilate. An’ the nearest town to hum here is Jacktown, cross fields some five miles. It’s a right pert place. It’ll be lively today, by gum!”

“Why?” said Chase, with his mouth full of ham.

“Wal, Jacktown an’ Brownsville hev it out today, an’ I’ll bet it’ll be the dog-gondest ball game as ever was.”

“Ball game!”

“You bet. Jacktown ain’t ever been beat, an’ nuther has Brownsville. They’ve been some time gittin’ together, but today’s the day. An’ I’ll be there.”

“I’m going, too,” said Chase, quietly. “I’m a ball player.”

After Chase had crossed this Rubicon he felt more confident. He knew he would have to say it often, and he wanted practice. And the importance of his declaration was at once manifest in the demeanor of the man and the boy.

“Wal, I swan! You be, be you? I might hev knowed it, a strappin’ young feller like you.”

The boy’s round eyes grew rounder and took on the solemn rapture of hero worship.

“How might I find my way to Jacktown?” Inquired Chase.

“You might wait an’ ride with me. Thet road leads over, round about. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you, I shan’t wait. I’ll walk over. Good-day.” Chase headed into the grassy lane without knowing exactly why. The word “game” had attracted him, as well as the respective merits of the two teams; but it was mostly that he wanted to play. After consideration, it struck him that he would do well to get into a few games before he made application to a salaried team.

He spent the morning lounging along, the green lane, sitting under a tree, and on a mossy bank of a brook, and killing time in pretty places, so that when he reached Jacktown it was noon.

At the little tavern where he had lunch the air was charged with the electricity of a coming storm. The place was crowded with youths and men of homely aspect; all were wildly excited over the baseball game. He was regarded with an extraordinary amount of interest; and finally, when a tall individual asked him if he were a ball player, to be answered affirmatively, there was a general outburst.

“He’s a ringer! Brownsville knowed they ‘d git beat with their home team, so they’ve loaded up!”

That was the burden of their refrain, and all Chase’s stout denials in no wise mitigated their suspicion. He was a “ringer.” To them he was an object of scorn and fear, for he had come from somewhere out of the vast unknown to wrest their laurels from them.

Outside little groups had congregated on corners and in the street, and suddenly, as by one impulse, they gathered in a crowd before the tavern. Ample reason there was for this, because some scout had sighted the approach of the visiting team. Chase gathered that Brownsville was an adjoining country town, and, since time out of mind, a hated rival.

Wagons and buggies, vehicles of all kinds and descriptions, filed by on the way to the ball-grounds; and a hay-wagon with a single layer of hay and a full load of husky young men, stopped before the tavern. The crowd inspected the load of young men with an anxiety most manifest, and soon remarks were heard testifying that the opposing team had grace enough to come with but one ringer.

The excitement, enthusiasm, and hubbub were amusing to Chase. He knew nothing of the importance of a game of ball between two country towns. While he was standing there a slim, clean-faced young man came up to him.

“My name’s Hutchinson,” he said. “I’m the school-teacher over at Brownsville, and I’m here to catch the game for our fellows. Now, it appears there’s some fuss about you being a ringer. We don’t know you, and we don’t care what Jacktown thinks. But the fact is, our pitcher hurt his arm and can’t play. Either we play or forfeit the game. If you can pitch we’ll be glad to have you. How about it?”

Chase assented readily, and moved to the hay-wagon with Hutchinson, while the crowd hooted and yelled. Small boys kept up a running pace with the wagon, and were not above flinging pebbles along with shouts of defiance. At the end of the village opened up a broad green meadow, upon which was the playground. There was a barn to one side, where the wagon emptied its load; and here the young men went within to put on their uniforms.

The uniform handed to Chase was the one belonging to the disabled pitcher, who must have been a worthy son of Ajax. For Chase was no stripling, yet he was lost in its reach and girth. The color of it stunned him. Brightest of bright red flannel, trimmed with white stripes, with white cotton stockings, this gorgeous suit voiced the rustic lads’ enthusiasm for the great national game.

But when Chase went outside and saw the uniforms decorating the proud persons of the Jacktown nine he could hardly suppress a wild burst of mirth. For they wore blue caps, pink shirts, green trousers, and red stockings. Most of them were minus shoes, and judging from their activity were as well off without them.

What was most striking to Chase, after the uniforms, was the deadly earnestness of the players of both teams. This attitude toward the game extended to the spectators crowding on the field. Chase did not need to be told that the whole of Jacktown was present and much of Brownsville.

Hutchinson came up to Chase then, tossed a ball to him, and said they had better have a little practice. After Chase had warmed up he began throwing the ball with greater speed and giving it a certain twist which made it curve. This was something he had recently learned. At first Hutchinson was plainly mystified he could not get his hands on the ball. It would hit him on the fingers or wrists, and finally a swift in-shoot struck him in the stomach. Wherefore he came up to Chase and said:

“I never saw a ball jump like that. What’d you do to it?”

“I’m throwing curves.”

A light broke over the school-master’s face, and it was one of pleasure.

“I’ve read about it. You are throwing the new way. But these lads never heard of a curve. They’ll break their backs trying to hit the ball. Now tell me how I shall know when you are going to throw a curve.”

“You sign for what you want. When you kneel back of the batter sign to me, one finger for fastball, two fingers for a curve.”

“Good!” cried Hutchinson.

After a little more practice he managed with the aid of his lately acquired knowledge to get in front of Chase’s curves and to stop them. Presently a pompous individual wearing the Jacktown uniform came up to Chase and Hutchinson.

“Battin’ order,” he said, waving his pencil.

Hutchinson gave the names of his players, and when he mentioned Chase’s the Jacktown man either misunderstood or was inclined to be facetious.

“Chaseaway? Is thet his name? Darn me, if he won’t chase away to the tall timber.”

He was the captain, and with a great show of authority called both teams round the home plate for the purpose of being admonished, lectured, and told how to play the game by the umpire. Chase had not seen this official, and when he did see him his jaw dropped. The umpire wore skin-tight velveteen knee- trousers, black stockings, and low shoes with buckles. His striped shirt was arranged in a full blouse, and on the side of his head was stuck very wonderfully a small, jaunty cap. He addressed the players as if he were the arbiter of fate, and he lifted his voice so that the audience could receive the benefit of his eloquence and understand perfectly the irrevocable nature of the decision he was about to render. In conclusion, he recited a number of baseball rules in general and ground-rules in particular, most remarkable in themselves and most glaringly designed to favor the home team. Chase extracted from the complexity of one of these rules that on a passed ball behind the catcher, or an overthrow at first, when Jacktown was at bat the player could have all the bases he could make; and when Brownsville was at bat, for some inscrutable reason, this same rule did not hold.

Then this master of ceremonies ordered the Jacktown team into the field, tripped like a ballet-dancer to his position behind the catcher, and sang out in a veritable clarion blast: “P-l-a-e-y B-a-w-l!”

Chase could scarcely remove his gaze from the umpire, but as his turn to bat came in the first inning he directed his attention to the Jacktown pitcher. He remembered that some one had said this important member of the Jacktowns was the village blacksmith.

After one glance, Chase did not doubt it. The pitcher was a man of enormous build and his bared right arm looked like a branch of a rugged oak- tree. The first ball he shot toward the home-plate resembled a thin white streak.

“O-n-e S-t r-i-e-k-e!” shrieked the umpire.

Two more balls similar to the first retired the batter, and three more performed the same office for the second batter. It was Chase’s turn next. He was a natural hitter, and had perfect confidence. But as the first ball zipped past him, looking about the size of a pea, he knew he had never before faced such terrific speed.

Nor did he have power to see in that farmer blacksmith one of the greatest pitchers the game was ever to produce. Chase struck at the next two balls and was called out. Then the Jacktown players trooped in, to the wild clamor of their supporters.

When Chase saw some of the big Jacktown fellows swing their bats he knew he would have an easy time with them, for they stood with their feet wide apart, and held their bats with the left hand over the right, which made a clean, straight swing impossible. He struck out the first three batters on nine pitched balls.

For several innings it went on in that manner, each club blanking the other. When Brownsville came in for their fifth inning at bat, Chase got Hutchinson to call all the players round him in a bunch.

“Boys,” he said, “we can hit this Jacktown pitcher. He throws a straight ball, almost always waist-high. Now, you all swing too hard. Let’s choke the bat, hold it half-way up instead of by the handle, and poke at the ball. Just meet it.”

The first player up, acting on Chase’s advice, placed a stinging hit into right field. Whereupon the Brownsville contingent on the side-lines rose in a body and roared their appreciation of this feat. The second batter hit a ground ball at the short-stop, who fielded it perfectly, but threw wild to the base- man. And the third hitter sent up a very high fly. The whole Jacktown team made a rush to try to catch the ball when it came down. It went so high that it took sometime to drop, all of which time the Brownsville runners were going like mad round the bases. When the ball returned to earth, so many hands were raised to clutch it that it bounced away to the ground. One runner had scored, and two were left, on second and third bases respectively.

Chase walked to the plate with determination. He allowed the first ball to go by, but watched it closely, gauging its speed and height. The next one he met squarely with a solid crack. It shot out over second base, went up and up, far beyond the fielder. Amid the delirious joy of the Brownsville partisans the two runners scored ahead of Chase, and before the ball could be found he too reached home.

The Jacktown players went to pieces after that, and fumbled so outrageously and threw so erratically that Brownsville scored three more runs before the inning was over.

Plain it was that when Jacktown came in for their bat nothing short of murder was impossible for them. They were wild-eyed, and hopped along the baselines like Indians on the war-path. But yell and rage and strive all they knew how, it made no difference. They simply could not get their bats to connect with Chase’s curves. They did not know what was wrong.

Chase delivered a slow, easy ball that apparently came sailing like a balloon straight for the plate, and just as the batter swung his bat the ball suddenly swerved so that he hit nothing but the air. Some of them spun around, so viciously did they swing, but not one of them so much as touched the ball.

The giant pitcher grunted like an ox when he made his bat whistle through the air; and every time he swung at one of the slow, tantalizing balls to miss it, he frothed at the mouth in his fury. His reputation as a great hitter was undone that day and he died hard.

In the eighth inning, with the score 11 to 0, matters were serious when the Jacktown team came in for their turn at bat. They whispered mysteriously and argued aloud, and acted altogether like persons possessed. When the first batter faced Chase the other players crowded behind the plate, where already a good part of the audience was standing.

“It’s his eye, his crooked eye,” said one player, pointing an angry finger. “See thet! You watch him, an’ you think he’s goin’ to pitch the ball one way, an’ it comes another, it’s his crooked eye, I tell you!”

A sympathetic murmur from the other players and the crowd attested to the value of this remarkable statement. The first batter struck futilely at the balls, getting slower and more exasperating, and when he had missed three he slammed his bat on the ground and actually jumped up and down in his anger. The second batter aimed at a slow coming ball and swung with all his might, only to hit a hole in the air.

With that the umpire tripped lightly before the plate, and standing on his tiptoes, waved his hand to the spectators. His eyes were staring with excitement, and on his cheek blazed the hue of righteous indignation.

“Ga-me cal-led!” he yelled in his penetrating tenor. “Game called, 9 to 0, favor Jacktown! BROWNSVILLE PITCHER THROWS A CROOKED BALL!”

Pandemonium broke loose among the spectators. They massed on the field in inextricable confusion. The noise was deafening. Hats were in the air, and coats, and everything available for throwing up.

Hutchinson fought his way through the crazy crowd, and grasping Chase pulled him with no gentle hand from the mob in the direction of the barn. Once out of the tumult he said:

“Hurry and change. I don’t like the looks of things. These Jacktown fellows are rough. I think we’d better hurry out of town.”

It was all so amusing to Chase that he could not help laughing, but soon Hutchinson’s sober aspect, and the wild anger of the other Brownsville players, who poured noisily into the barn, put a different coloring on the affair. What had been pure fun for him was plainly a life-and-death matter to these rustics. They divided their expression in mauling Chase with fervid congratulations and declarations of love, and passionate denunciations of the umpire and the whole Jacktown outfit.

Suddenly, as loud shouts sounded outside the barn, Hutchinson ran out, to return at once with a startled look.

“You’ve got to run for it!” he cried. “They’re after you; they’re in a devil of a temper. They’ll ride you on a fence-rail, or tar and feather you. Hurry! You can’t reason with them now. Run for it. You can’t wait to dress.”

One look down the field was sufficient for Chase. The Jacktown players were marching toward the barn. The blacksmith led the way, and over his shoulder hung a long fence-rail. Behind them the crowd came yelling.

“Run for it!” cried Hutchinson, greatly excited. “I’ll fetch your clothes.” Chase had removed all his uniform except stockings and shoes, and he had put on his shirt. Grabbing up his hat, trousers, and coat, he bounded out of the door and broke down the field like a scared deer.

When the crowd saw him they let out a roar that lent wings to his feet. It frightened him so that he dropped his trousers, and did not dare stop to recover them. Over his shoulder he saw the Jacktown players, with the huge pitcher in the lead, start after him.

The race was close only for a few moments. Chase possessed a fleetness of foot that now served him in good stead, and undoubtedly had never appeared to such advantage.

With his hair flying in the wind, with his shirt-tails standing straight out behind him, he sped down the field, drawing so rapidly away that his pursuers seemed not to be running at all.

CHAPTER 4

VICISSITUDE

NOT UNTIL HE had leaped fences and crossed half a dozen fields did Chase venture to look back. When he did so, he saw with immense relief that he had distanced his pursuers. Several were straggling along in front of the others, but all stopped running presently, to send after him a last threatening shout.

It made Chase as angry as a wet hornet. With all the power of his lungs he yelled back at them: “Hayseeds! Hayseeds!”

Then at sight of his bare knees he took to laughing till he nearly cried. What would his brother Will have thought of that run? What would his mother have thought? This last sobered him instantly. Whenever he remembered her, the spirit of adventure fled, leaving him with only the uncertainty of his situation.

“It won’t do to think of mother,” he soliloquized, “for then I’ll lose my nerve. Now what’ll I do if those dunder-headed hayseeds steal my pants? I’ll be in a bad fix.”

He climbed a knoll which stood about a mile from the ball-grounds, and from which he could see the surrounding country. The sun slowly sank in the west. Chase watched and watched and strained his eyes, but he could not see any one coming. The sun went down, leaving a red glow behind the hills; twilight, like a gray shadow seemed to steal toward him from the fields.

He had noted a haystack at the foot of the knoll, and after one more hopeless glance over the darkening meadows, he went down to it. He had visited farms in the country often enough to know that haystacks left to the cattle usually had caves in them; and he found this one with a deep cavern, dry, sheltered, and sweetly odorous of musty hay.

“If things keep up the way they’ve started for me I’m likely to find worse beds than this,” he muttered. He discovered he was very tired, and that the soft hay was conducive to a gradual relaxing of his muscles. But his mind whirled round and round. Would Hutchinson come? What had happened to the other Brownsville players? A savage bunch of Indians, that Jacktown-nine! How easy it had been to fool them with a simple, slow outcurve!

“It’s his crooked eye! He looks one way an’ pitches another!” That jaunty umpire with his dainty shoes and velvet knickerbockers, — wherever on earth did he come from?

So Chase played the game over in his mind, once more ran his desperate race, to come back to his predicament and the fear that he might not recover his trousers. At length sleep put an end to his worry.

In the night he awoke, and seeing a bright star, which only accentuated the darkness, and smelling the fragrant hay, and hearing a strange sound, he did not realize where he was, and a chill terror crept over him. This soon passed. Still the low sound bothered him. Stretching forth his hand, he encountered a furry coat and heaving warm body. A cow had sought the shelter of the haystack and lay beside him chewing her cud.

“Hello, bossy!” said Chase. “I’d certainly rather sleep with a nice, gentle cow like you than a dead bad nigger.”

The strangeness of it all kept him awake for a while. The night was very quiet, the silence being unbroken save for the “peep, peep,” of spring frogs and the low munch beside him. He asked himself if he were afraid, and said “No,” but was not sure. Things seemed different in the dark and loneliness of night. Then his brother’s words, “Hang on!” rang out of the silence, and repeating these in his heart, he treasured up strength for the future, and once more fell asleep.

The sun was rosy red on the horizon when he awakened. His gentle friend stood browsing on the grass near at hand, and by way of beginning the day well he said, “Good-morning” to her.

“Now what to do!” he said, seriously. “There’s no use to expect any one now, and no use to go back to look for my trousers.”

The problem seemed unsolvable, when he saw a farmer in the field, evidently come out to drive up the cows. Chase covered his nakedness as well as possible with his coat, and hailed him. The farmer came up, slapped his knee with a big hand, and guffawed.

“Gol darn my buttons, if it ain’t thet Chaseaway fellar! Say, I was over there yestiddy, an’ seen the whole show. Best thing I ever seen, b’gosh! I’m a Brownsville boy, I am. Now you come along with me. I’ll git a pair of overalls fer you an’ a bite to eat. But you must light out quicker’n you’d say ‘Jack Robinson,’ fer two of my farmhands played yestiddy, an’ they’re hoppin’ mad.”

The kind-hearted farmer hid Chase in a wood-shed near his house and presently brought him a pair of overalls and some breakfast. Chase right gladly covered his chilly legs. Once more he felt his spirits rise. Fortunately his pocket-book had been in his coat, so it was not lost. When he offered to pay the farmer that worthy refused to accept any money, and said he and everybody who was ever born in Brownsville were everlastingly bound to be grateful to a lad called Chaseaway.

Then, under direction from the farmer, Chase started cross-country with the intention of finding the railroad and making for Columbus. When he reached the railroad he had to take the spikes off his baseball shoes, for they hurt his feet. He started westward along the track. Freight trains passed him going too fast for him to board, so he walked all day. Nightfall found him at a village, where after waiting an hour he caught a westbound freight, and reached Columbus at ten o’clock. He stumbled round over the tracks in the yards, climbed over trains, and made his way into the city. He secured a room in a cheap lodging-house and went to bed.

In the morning he got up bright and early, had breakfast, and bought a copy of the Ohio State Journal. He knew Columbus had a baseball team in the Tri- State League, and he wanted to read the news. The very first column he saw on the baseball page contained in flaring headlines, the words:

“CHASEAWAY, THE CROOKED-EYE WONDER, HOODOOS THE GREAT JACKTOWN NINE!”

He could not believe his eyes. But the words were there, and they must have reference to him. With feverish haste he read the detailed account that followed the headlines. He gathered that the game had been telephoned to the baseball editor of the journal, who, entirely overlooking Jacktown’s tragical point of view, had written the game up in a spirit of fun. He had written it so well, and had drawn such a vivid picture of the Jacktown players, and especially of his own “chase away” with his shirt-tails flying, that Chase laughed despite his mortification and chagrin.

He gloomily tore out the notice, put it in his pocket, and started off to put Columbus far behind him. The allusion to his crooked eye hurt his feelings, and he resolved never to pitch another game of ball. There were other positions he could play better. It was Chase’s destiny to learn that wherever he went his fame had preceded him.

In Black Lick he was told he might get a rail ride there; at Newark the wise boy fans recognized him at once and hooted him off the ground before he could see the manager of the team; the Mansfield captain yelled for him to take himself and his hoodoo off into the woods; Galion players laughed in his face; Upper Sandusky wags advised him to go back to scaring crows in the cornfields.

Every small town in Ohio, as well as every large one, supported a baseball club, and Chase dragged himself and the hoodoo that haunted him from place to place.

The Niles team played him in right field one day, and, losing the game, promptly set him adrift. He got a chance on the Warren nine and here again his hoodoo worked. Lima had a weak aggregation, and readily gave him opportunity to make good. He was nervous and overstrained, and made five errors, losing the game.

He drifted to Toledo, to Cleveland, thence back to Toledo and over into Michigan. It seemed that fortune favored him with opportunities that he could not grasp. Adrian, Jackson, Lansing, Owosso, Flint, — all the clubs that took him on for a game lost it, and further spread the fame of his hoodoo.

Chase’s money had long since departed from him. His clothes became ragged and unclean. Small boys called him “Hobo,” and indeed in all except heart he was that. For he rode on coal-trains and cattle-trains, and begged his few and scanty meals at the back doors of farm-houses.

In every town he came to he would search out the baseball grounds, waylay the manager or captain, say that he was a player and ask for a chance. Toward the end of this time of vicissitude no one had interest enough in him to admit him to the grounds.

Back he worked into Ohio, growing more weary, more down-hearted, till black despair fixed on his heart. One morning he awoke stiff and sore in a fence-corner outside of a town. He asked a woman who gave him bread to eat, what the name of the town was, and she said Findlay.

Chase thought bitterly of how useless it would be to approach the manager of that team, for Findlay was in the league, and moreover, had been for two years the crack team of Ohio. He did not even have any intention of trying. There was nothing left for him but to go back home and beg to be taken into the factory at his old job and poor wages. They did not seem so bad now, after all his experience. Alas for his dreams!

It occurred to him in wonder that he had persisted for a long time in the face of adverse circumstances. It was now June, though he did not know the date, and he had started out in May. Why had he kept on? For weeks he had not thought of his mother and brother, and now, quite suddenly, they both flashed into his mind. Then he knew why he had persisted, and he knew more, — that he would never give up.

He saw her smile, and the warm light of faith in Will’s eyes, and he heard his last words: “Hang on, Chase. Hang on!”

CHAPTER 5

THE CRACK TEAM OF OHIO

IN THE AFTERNOON of that day Chase was one of the forerunners of the crowd making towards the Findlay ballpark.

Most ball-parks were situated in the outskirts of towns; Findlay, however, being a red-hot baseball center, had its grounds right in town on a prominent street. They were inclosed with a high board fence, above which the roof of a fine grandstand was to be seen. Before the gates the irrepressible small boy was much in evidence.

As Chase came up he saw a ball fly over the stand fall to the street and bound away, with the small boys in a wild scramble after it. To secure the ball meant admission to the grounds. Quick as a flash Chase saw his opportunity and dashed across the street. He got the ball, to the infinite disgust of the small boys. The gatekeeper took it and passed Chase in.

Players in gray uniforms marked “Kenton” were practicing, some out in the field, others on the diamond. Chase had never seen such a smooth baseball ground. The diamond was bare; all the rest of the field was green, level sward, closely cropped. Chase thought a fellow who could not play well there was not worth much. As the noisy crowd poured in, filling the bleachers, and more slowly the grandstand, he thrilled to think what it would mean to him to play there.

Then when the thought came of what little chance he had, the old heartsickness weighed him down again. By and by he would ask to see the manager, but for the moment he wanted to put off the inevitable.

He stood in the aisle between the grandstand and bleachers, leaning over the fence to watch the players. A loud voice attracted him. He turned to see a very large, florid man, wearing a big diamond, addressing a small man whose suit of clothes was as loud as the other fellow’s voice.

“Hey, Mac, what’s the matter with this bunch of dead ones you’ve got? Eleven straight games lost! You’re now in third place, and dropping fast, after starting out to set the pace. Findlay won’t stand for it.”

The little man bit savagely at the cigar, tilting it up in line with his stub nose; and the way he frowned lowered the brim of his hat. “Shure, it’s a slump, Mr. Beekman,” he said, in conciliating tones. “Now, you know the game; you’re up; you’re up on the fine points. You ain’t like most of them wooden- headed directors. The boys ain’t been hittin’. Castorious is my only pitcher whose arm ain’t gone lame this cold spell. I’ve been weak at short-stop all this Spring. But we’ll come round, now you just take that from me, Mr. Beekman.”

The pompous director growled something and went on up to the grandstand steps. Then a very tall fellow with wide, sloping shoulders and red hair accosted the little man.

“Say Mac, what was he beefing about? I heard him speak my name. Did he have his hammer out?”

“Hello, Cas. No, Beekman ain’t knockin’ you. He was knockin’ me. Sore on me, because we’re losin’.”

“If some of those stiffs would stay away from the grounds and stop telling us how to play the game we’d sooner break our bad streak. Are you going to work me today?”

“How’s your arm?”

“Good. It’s getting strong. What I need is work. When I get my speed I’ll make these puff-hitters lay down their bats.”

With that Castorious swaggered into the dressing-room under the grandstand, followed by the little manager. Chase left his post, went to the door, hesitated when he saw the place full of ball players in the various stages of dressing, and then entered and walked straight up to the manager.

“I heard you say you needed a shortstop. Will you give me a chance?”

He spoke distinctly, so that every one in the room heard him. The manager looked up to speak when Castorious bawled out:

“Fellows, here he is! He’s been camping on our trail. I said somebody had Jonahed us. It’s the crooked-eyed hoodoo!”

Ball players are superstitious, and are like sheep, inasmuch that they follow one another. The uproar that succeeded upon Castorious’s discovery showed two characteristic traits — the unfailing propensity of the players to make game of any one, and the real anxiety with which they regarded any of the signs or omens traditionally disastrous. How well they recognized Chase showed the manner in which they followed anything written about baseball.

“Hello, there, Chaseaway!”

“Where’s your pants?”

“Hoodoo!”

“Jonah!”

“Don’t look at me with that eye.”

“To the woods for yours!”

Chase stood there bravely, with the red mantling his face, waiting for the manager to speak. Once or twice Mac attempted to make himself heard, and failing, turned on his gibing players and ordered them to shut up. Then he said:

“Are you really the fellow they’re guyin’?”

“Yes.”

“But he was a pitcher. You said you could play short.”

“I can play anywhere.”

“Let me see your mitts; stick out your hands.”

Chase’s hands were broad, heavy, with long, powerful fingers.

“You’re pretty young, ain’t you? Where have you played?”

Chase told his age and briefly outlined his late experience.

“Name ‘Hoodoo’ followed you, eh? Been up against it hard?”

“Yes.”

Mac laughed and said he knew how that was, then thoughtfully pulled on his cigar. Now it chanced that he was not only an astute manager, but a born trainer of ball players as well. He never overlooked an opportunity. He had seen seedier-looking fellows than Chase develop into stars that set the baseball world afire. Nevertheless, having played the game himself, he was not exempt from its little peculiarities and superstitions. If his team had been winning he certainly would have thrown any slant-eyed applicant out of the grounds.

His small, shrewd eyes studied Chase intently.

“I’ll play you at short today. Barnes, get this fellow a suit.”

Barnes, the ground keeper, opened a locker and threw a uniform on the floor at Chase’s feet. His surly action was significant of how thoroughly he had assimilated his baseball education. But he did not say anything nor did the players, for at that moment there was a stern decision about the little manager which brooked no interference.

Ordinarily Mac was the easiest-going fellow in the world, overrun and ruled by his players; sometimes, however, he showed an iron hand. But when he had left the dressing-room a storm burst over poor Chase’s head.

“You blank-eyed idiot! What do you want to queer the team for?”

“This is a championship club, sonny.”

“Don’t look at me with your bum lamp!”

“I want my notice. I’m through with Findlay.”

“Now for the toboggan! Last place for ours!”

Used as Chase had become to the manner of badinage directed at him, he had never encountered it like this. The players spoke good-naturedly, and a laugh followed each particular sally; nevertheless they were in deadly earnest, and seemed to consider his advent a calamity which he could have spared them. He dressed in silence, and avoided looking at them, as if indeed their conviction was becoming truth to him, and went out on the grounds.

He got through the few moments of practice creditably, but when the gong rang calling the players in for the game to begin, a sudden nervousness and nausea made him weak, blind, trembling. The crowded grandstand blurred indistinctly in his sight. The players moved in a sort of haze, and what he heard sounded far off.

Chase started into that game with a nightmare. When at the bat he scarcely saw the ball, and was utterly at the mercy of the Kenton pitcher. In the field he wobbled when the ball came toward him; it bounded at him like a rabbit; it was illusive and teasing, and seemed to lure him to where it was not; it popped out of his hands, and slipped like oil between his legs; it had a fiendish propensity for his shins, and though it struck sharply seemed to leave no pain.

On the solitary occasion when he did get his hands squarely on the ball he threw it far over the first-baseman’s head, far over the right-field bleachers.

He was dimly conscious that the game was a rout; that the Findlay players, rattled by his presence, sore at his misplays, went to pieces and let Kenton make a farce out of it. He heard the growls of disapproval from the grandstand, the roar from the bleachers — the hooting and tin-canning from the small boys.

And when the game ended he sneaked off the field, glad it was all over, and entered the dressing-room in a sick and settled hopelessness.

Roar on roar greeted him. He fell on a bench and bowed his head in his hands. The scorn, invective, anger, and caustic wit broke about his deadened ears.

Presently Castorious stalked into the room, followed by Mac and several directors of the club. Cas was frothing at the mouth; big brown freckles shone through his pale skin; his jaw set like a bulldog’s. With the demeanor of a haughty chieftain approaching a captive bound to the stake, he went up to Chase and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Say! did anybody, did anybody, did anybody ever tell you you could play ball?”

Chase lifted his face from his hands and looked at Cas.

“Yes,” he said, with a wan smile, “but I guess they were mistaken.”

Cas opened his lips to say something further, but the words never came. He took a long look at Chase, then went to his locker, sat down, and with serious, thoughtful brow began changing his clothes.

Mac’s sharp voice suddenly stilled the babel in the room. “Gentlemen, either I run this team my own way, or not at all. That’s it. I’m ready to resign now.”

“Here, here, Mac, cool down!” said one. “We’re perfectly satisfied with you. We know we couldn’t fill your place. Beekman was a little hasty. He’s a hard loser, you know. So never mind what’s been said. Pull the team out of this rut, that’s all we want. We’ve got confidence in you, and whatever you say goes. If you want money to get a new player or two to strengthen up, why speak out. Findlay must be in front.”

“Gentlemen, I don’t need any money. I’m carryin’ sixteen players now, an’ I’ve got the best team in this league. All I want is a little luck.”

“Well, here’s hoping you get it.” The directors shook hands with Mac and filed out of the dressing-room. When they were out of hearing the little manager turned to his players. He seemed to expand, to grow tall; his face went white, his small eyes snapped.

“Morris, go to the office an’ get your money,” he said. “Stanhope, you’ve got ten days’ notice. Ziegler, the bench for yours without pay till you can hold your tongue. Now, if any of the rest of you fellows have some ideas about runnin’ this team, sing ’em out!”

He stamped up and down the room before them, waiting with blazing eyes for their replies, but none came.

“Cas!” he shouted, confronting that individual. “Are you a liar?”

“Wha-at?” demanded Cas, throwing his head forward like a striking hawk.

“Are you a liar?”

“No, I’m not. Who says so? I’ll take a punch—”

“Did you try to pitch today?”

“I had no steam; couldn’t break a pane of glass,” replied Cas, evasively.

“Stow that talk. Did you try?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Cas, sullenly.

“Now, ain’t that a fine thing for you to do? You, the best pitcher in this league, with more ‘n one big manager watchin’ your work! Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”

Cas did not say so, but he looked it.

“I’ve got somethin’ to say to the rest of you muckers. Of all the rotten quitters you are the worst I ever seen. That exhibition you gave today would have made a dead one out of a five thousand-volt storage battery. Here you are, a bunch of stickers that the likes of ain’t in the rest of the league — and you fall down before a measly little slow ball, a floater that babies could hit! You put the boots on every grounder in sight! You let fly balls bounce off your head! You pegged the ball in the air or at some body’s shins! It just takes a bad spell of luck to show some fellows’ yellow streaks. Saffron ain’t one-two-six to the color of some of you.”

As Mac paused for breath some one grumbled: “Hoodooed!”

“Bah’ You make me sick,” cried Mac. “Suppose we’ve been hoodooed? Suppose we’ve fallen into a losin’ streak? It’s time to bust somethin’, ain’t it?” Then his manner altered, his voice became soft and persuasive.

“Boys, we’ve got to break our slump. Now, there’s Cas, you all know what a great twirler he is. An’ he throwed us down. Look at the out-field. Where’s one outside of the big leagues thet can rank with mine? An’ they played today with two wooden legs. Look at Benny an’ Meade — why, today they were tied to posts. Look at reliable old Hicks behind the plate — today he missed third strikes, overthrew the bases, an’ had eight passed balls. An’ say, did any of you steady up this youngster as I was givin’ a chance? Did any of you remember when you was makin’ your first bid for fast company? Now, I ain’t got no more to say to you, except we’re goin’ to brace an’ we’re goin’ through this league like sand through a sieve!”

With that he turned to Chase, who had listened and now was ready to get his summary dismissal.

“Didn’t make nothin’ of the chance you asked for, did you?” he said, brusquely.

Chase shook his head.

“Lost your nerve at the critical time, when you had a chance to make good. Here I need a short-stop who is fast, an can hit an’ throw; an’ you come along trailin’ a hoodoo an’ muss up the game. Put my team on the bum!”

Then there was a silence, in which Mac walked to and fro before Chase, who still sat with head bowed.

“Now you see what losin’ your nerve means. You’re fast as lightnin’ on your feet, you’ve got a great arm, an’ you stand up like a hitter. But you lost your nerve. A ball player mustn’t never lose his nerve. See what a chance you had? I’m weak at short. Now, after I turn you down you won’t never get such a chance again.”

He kept pacing slowly before Chase, watching him narrowly; and when Chase at last lifted his pale, sombre face from his hands, Mac came to a sudden stop. With some deliberation he put his hand into his coat pocket and brought forth a book and papers. Then in a different voice, in the same soft tones with which he had ended his talk to the other players, he said to Chase:

“Here’s twenty-five dollars advance, an’ your contract. It’s made out, so all you need to do is sign it. A hundred per month for yours! Don’t stare at me like thet. Take your contract. You’re on! An’ as sure as my name’s Mac Sandy I’ll make a star of you!”

CHAPTER 6

FIRST INNINGS

WHEN CHASE LEFT the grounds his eyesight was still as blurred as it had been during the game, only now from a different source. His misery fell from him like a discarded cloak. He kept his hand deep in his right trousers’ pocket, clutching the twenty-five dollars as if it were the only solid substance to give actuality to his dream of bliss. First he thought he would send all the money to his mother; then he reflected that as he resembled the most ragged species of tramp he must spend something for at least respectable clothing. He entered a second-hand store, where he purchased for the sum of five dollars a complete outfit, even down to shoes and hat.

It was not much on style, Chase thought, but clean and without a rip or hole. With this precious bundle under his arm he set out to find the address given him by Mac, where he could obtain board and lodging at a reasonable rate. After some inquiry he found the street and eventually the house, which, because of a much more pretentious appearance than he had supposed it would have, made him hesitate.

But following a blindly grateful resolve to do anything and everything that Mac had told him, he knocked on the door. It opened at once to show a stout matron of kindly aspect, who started somewhat as she saw him.

Chase said he had been sent there by Mac, and told his errand, whereupon the woman looked relieved.

“Exkoose me,” she replied, “come righdt in. I haf one rooms, a putty nice one, four thalers a weeg.”

She showed Chase a large room with four windows, a big white bed, a table and bureau, and chairs and a lounge; and with some difficulty managed to convey to him that he might have it and board for the sum of four dollars weekly. When he was certain she had not made a mistake he lost no time in paying her for a week is advance. Good fortune was still such a stranger to him that he wanted to insure himself against moments of doubt.

He washed and dressed himself with pleasure that had not been his for many a day. Quite diligently did he apply the comb and brush Mrs. Obenwasser had so kindly procured. His hair was long and a mass of tangles, and it was full of cinders, which reminded him grimly of his dearly earned proficiency as a nightrider on fast mail trains and slow freights.

“That’s all over, thank Heaven!” breathed Chase. “I hope I can forget it.”

But he knew he never would. When he backed away from the mirror and surveyed his clean face and neat suit, and saw therein a new Chase, the last vanishing gleam of his doubt and unhappiness left him. The supper bell, ringing at that moment, seemed to have a music of hope; and he went downstairs hungry and happy. Several young men at the table made themselves agreeable to him, introduced themselves as clerks employed down town, and incidentally dyed-in- the-wool baseball fans. Chase gathered that Mrs. Obenwasser was a widow of some means and kept boarders more out of the goodness of her heart and pride in her table than from any real necessity.

Chase ate like a famished wolf. Never had meat and biscuits and milk and pie been so good. And it was shame that made him finally desist, not satisfied appetite.

After supper he got paper, pen, and ink from his landlady and went to his room to write home. It came to him with a sudden shock that he had never written since he left. What could they have thought? But he hastened to write, for he had good news. He told Will everything, though he skimmed over it lightly, as if his vicissitudes were but incidents in the rise of a ball player. He wrote to his mother, telling her of his good fortune, of the promise of the future, of his good health and spirits. Then he enclosed all his money, except a dollar or so in silver, in the letter and sealed it. Try as hard as he might, Chase could not prevent his tears from falling on that letter and they were sealed up with it.

Then he sallied forth to look for the post-office and incidentally to see something of Findlay. He was surprised to find it a larger and more prosperous place than he had supposed. Main Street was broad and had many handsome buildings. The avenues leading from it were macadamized and lined with maple- trees. Chase strolled round a block and saw many fine brick residences and substantial frame houses with vine-covered, roomy porches and large lawns. Back on Main Street again he walked along without aim. There was a hotel on the next corner, and a number of young men were sitting outside with chairs tilted back against the window, and also on the edge of the sidewalk.

Chase had sauntered into the ken of his fellow players.

“Say, fellars, will you get onto thet!”

“It’s Chaseaway!”

“Hello, Chase, old sport, come an’ have a drink.”

“Dude Thatches; we can see your finish. Our new short-stop is some on the dress himself. He’ll show you up!”

“Would you mind droppin’ your lid over thet lame blinker? I don’t want to have the willies to-night.”

Then an incident diverted their attack on Chase. Some one kicked a leg of Enoch Winter’s chair, and being already tipped far back, it overbalanced and let Enoch sprawl in the gutter. Whereupon the group howled in glee.

“Cap’n, wasser masser?” Inquired Benny, trying to help Enoch to his feet and falling over him instead. Benny was drunk. Slowly Enoch separated himself from Benny and righted his chair and seated himself.

“Now, ain’t it funny?” said he.

His slow, easy manner of speaking, without a trace of resentment, made Chase look at him. Enoch was captain of the team and a man long past his boyhood. Yet there remained something boyish about him. He had a round face and a round bullet head, cropped close; round gray eyes, wise as an owl’s, and he had a round lump on his right cheek. As this lump moved up and down, Chase presently divined that it was only a puffed-out cheek over a quid of tobacco. He instinctively liked his captain, and when asked to sit down in a vacant chair near at hand he did so, with the pleasant thought that at last he was one of them.

Chase sat there for over an hour, intensely interested in all of them, in what they said and did. He felt sorry for Benny, for the second-baseman was much under the influence of liquor, had a haggard face and unkempt appearance. The fellow called Dude Thatcher was a tall youth, good looking, very quiet, and very well dressed. Chase saw him flick dust off his shiny shoes, and more than once adjust his spotless cuffs. Meade was a typical ball player, under twenty, a rugged and bronzed fellow of jovial aspect. Hicks would never see thirty again; there was gray hair over his temples; he was robust of build and his hands resembled eagles’ claws. He was a catcher, and many a jammed and broken finger had been his lot.

What surprised Chase more than anything was the fact that baseball was not once mentioned by this group. They were extremely voluble, too, and talked on every subject under the sun except the one that concerned their occupation. Under every remark lay a subtle inflection of humor. Mild sarcasm and sharp retort and ready wit flashed back and forth.

The left-fielder of the team, Frank Havil by name, a tall, thin fellow with a pale, sanctimonious face, strolled out of the hotel lobby and seated himself near Chase. And with his arrival came a series of most peculiar happenings to Chase. At first he thought mosquitoes or flies were bothering him; then he imagined a wasp or hornet was butting into his ear; next he made sure of one thing only, that something was hitting the side of his face and head. Whatever it was he had no idea. It came at regular intervals and began to sting more and more. He took a sidelong glance at Havil, but that young man’s calm, serious face disarmed any suspicion. But when Havil got up and moved away the strange fact that the stinging sensation ceased to come caused Chase to associate it somehow with the quiet left fielder.

“Chase, did you feel anythin’ queer when Havil was sittin’ alongside of you?” asked Winters.

“I certainly did. What was it?”

“Havil is a queer duck. He goes round with his mouth full of number ten shot, an’ he works one out on the end of his tongue, an’ flips it off his front teeth. Why, the blame fool can knock your eye out. I’ve seen him make old baldheaded men crazy by sittin’ behind them en’ shootin’ shot onto the bald spots. An’ he never cracks a smile. He can look anybody in the eye, an’ they can’t tell he’s doin’ it, but they can feel it blamed well. He sure is a queer duck, an’ — you look out for your one good eye.”

“Thank you, I will. But I have two good eyes. I can see very well out — out of the twisted one.”

Chase went to his room and to bed. Sleep did not soon come. His mind was too full; too much had happened; the bed was too soft. He dozed off, to start suddenly up with the bump of a freight train in his ears. But when he did get to sleep it was in a deep, dreamless slumber that lasted until ten o’clock the next morning. After breakfast, which Mrs. Obenwasser had kept waiting for him, he walked out to the ball-grounds to find the gates locked. So with morning practice out of the question he returned to Main Street and walked toward the hotel.

He saw Castorious sitting in the lobby. “Hello, Chase, now wouldn’t this jar you?” he said, in friendly tones, offering a copy of the Findlay Chronicle.

Could this be the stalking monster that had roared at him yesterday, and scared about the last bit of courage out of him? Cas laid a big freckled hand on the newspaper and pointed out a column.

“Mac gave Morris his walking-papers yesterday and Stanhope his notice. This is a good move, as these players caused dissension in the club. Now we can look for the brace. Findlay has been laying down lately. Castorious’s work yesterday is an example. We would advise him not to play that dodge any more. The new short-stop, Chaseaway, put the boots on everything that came his way, but for all that we like his style. He is fast as lightning and has a grand whip. He stands up like Brouthers, and if we’re any judge of ball players — here we want to say we’ve always called the turn-this new youngster will put the kibosh on a few and ‘chase’ the Dude for batting honors.”

Chase read it over twice and it brought the hot blood to his face. After that miserable showing of his in the game — how kind of the reporter to speak well of him! Chase’s heart swelled. He had been wrong — there were lots of good fellows in the world.

“Make a fellow sick, wouldn’t it?” said Cas, in disgust. “Accused me of laying down! Say, come and walk over to the hotel where the Kenton fellows are staying.”

Chase felt very proud to be seen with the great pitcher, for whom all passers-by had a nod or a word. They stopped at another hotel, in the lobby of which lounged a dozen broad-shouldered, red-faced young men.

“Say,” said Cas, with a swing of his head, “I just dropped in to tell you guys that I’m going to pitch today, and I’m going to let you down with two hits. See!” A variety of answers were flung at him, but he made no reply and walked out. All the way up the street Chase heard him growling to himself.

The afternoon could not come soon enough for Chase. He went out to the grounds in high spirits. When he entered the dressing-room he encountered the same derisive clamor that had characterized the players’ manner toward him the day before. And it stunned him. He looked at them aghast. Every one of them, except Cas, had a scowl and hard word for him. Benny, not quite sober yet, was brutal, and Meade made himself particularly offensive. Even Winters, who had been so friendly the night before, now said he would put out Chase’s other lamp if he played poorly today. They were totally different from what they had been off the field. A frenzy of some kind possessed them. Roars of laughter following attacks on him, and for that matter on each other, detracted little, in Chase’s mind, from the impression of unnatural sarcasm.

He hurriedly put on his uniform and got out of the room. He did not want to lose his nerve again. Cas sat on the end of the bleachers, pounding the boards with his bat.

“Say, I was waiting for you,” he said in a whisper to Chase. “I’m going to put you wise when I get a chance to talk. All I want to say now is, I’ll show up this Kenton outfit today. They can’t hit my speed, and they always hit my slow ball to left-field, through short. Now you lay for them. Play deep and get the ball away quick. You’ve got the arm for it.”

This was Cas’s way of showing his friendship, and it surprised Chase as much as it pleased him. Mac came along then, and at once said “Howdy, boys. Cas, what are you dressed for?”

“I want to work today.”

“You do? What for?”

“Well, I’m sore about yesterday, and I’m sore on — Kenton, and if you’ll work me today I’ll shut them out.”

“You ‘re on, Cas, you’re on,” said Mac, rubbing his hands in delight. “Thet’s the way I want to hear you talk. We’ll break our losin’ streak to- day.”

Then Mac pulled Chase aside, out of earshot of the players pouring from the dressing-room, and said, “Lad, are you goin’ to take coachin’?”

“I’ll try to do everything you tell me,” replied Chase.

“Shure, thet’s good. Listen. I’m goin’ to teach you the game. Don’t ever lose your nerve again. Got thet?”

“Yes.”

“When you’re in the field with a runner on any base make up your mind before the ball’s hit what to do with it if it should happen to come to you. Got thet?”

“Yes.”

“Play a deep short unless you’re called in. Come in fast on slow hit balls; use a underhand snap throw to second or first base when you haven’t lots of time. Got thet?”

“Yes.”

“When the ball is hit or thrown to any base-man, run with it to back up the player. Got thet?”

“Yes.

“All right. So far so good. Now as to hittin’. I like the way you stand up. You ‘re a natural-born hitter, so stand your own way. Don’t budge an inch for the speediest pitcher as ever threw a ball. Learn to dodge wild pitches. Wait, watch the ball. Let him pitch. Don’t be anxious. Always take a strike if you’re first up. Try to draw a base on balls. If there’s runners on the bases look for a sign from me on the bench. If you see my score-card stickin’ anywhere in sight, hit the first ball pitched. If you don’t see it — wait. Turn round, easy like, you know, an’ take a glance my way after every pitched ball, an’ when you get the sign — hit. We play the hit-an’-run game. If you’re on first or any base, look for the same sign from me. Then you’ll know what the batter is up to an’ you’ll be ready. Hit an’ run. Got thet?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, don’t get rattled even if you do make a mistake, an’ never, never mind errors. Go after everythin’ an’ dig it out of the dust if you can, but never mind errors!”

“An’ Chase, wait,” called Mac, as the eager youngster made for the field. Then in a whisper, as if he were half afraid some of the other players would hear, he went on: “Don’t sass the umpire. Don’t ever speak to no umpire. If you get a rotten deal on strikes, slam your bat down, puff up, look mad, do anythin’ to make a bluff, but don’t sass the umpire. See!”

“I never will,” declared Chase.

The Findlay team came on the grounds showing the effects of the shake-up. They were an aggressive, stormy aggregation. Epithets the farthest remove from complimentary flew thick and fast as the passing balls. A spirit of rivalry pervaded every action. In batting practice he who failed to send out a clean hard hit received a volley of abuse. In fielding practice he who fumbled a ball or threw too high or too low was scornfully told to go out on the lots and play with the kids. It was a merciless warfare, every player for himself, no quarter asked or given!

Chase fielded everything that came his way and threw perfectly to the bases, but even so, the players, especially Meade, vented their peculiar spleen on him as well as on others who made misplays. All of which did not affect Chase in the least. He was on his mettle; his blood was up.

The faith Mac had shown in him should be justified, that he vowed with all the intensity of feeling of which he was capable. The gong sounded for the game to start, and Castorious held forth in this wise:

“Fellows, I’ve got everything today. Speed — well say! it’s come back. And my floater — why, you can count the stitches! You stiffs get in the game. If you’re not a lot of cigar-signs there won’t be anything to it.”

Big and awkward as Cas was in citizen dress, in baseball harness he made an admirable figure. The crowds in the stands had heard of his threat to the Kentons — for of all gossip that in baseball circles flies the swiftest — and were out in force and loud in enthusiasm. The bleachers idolized him.

As the players went for their positions Cas whispered a parting word to Chase: “When you see my floater go up get on your toes!”

The umpire called play, threw out a white ball, and stood in expectant posture.

As Cas faced the first Kenton player he said in low voice: “Look out for your coco!” Then he doubled up like a contortionist and undoubled to finish his motion with an easy, graceful swing. With wonderful swiftness the white ball traveled straight for the batter’s head. Down he fell flat, jumped up with red face and yelled at Cas. The big pitcher smiled derisively, received the ball from the catcher, and with the same violent effort delivered another ball, but with not half the speed of the first. The batter had instinctively stepped back. The umpire called the ball a strike.

“‘Fraid to stand up, hey?” Inquired Cas, in the same low, tantalizing voice. When he got the ball again he faced the batter, slowly lifted his long left leg, and seemed to turn with a prodigious step toward third base, at the same instant delivering the ball to the plate. The ball evidently wanted to do anything but reach its destination. Slowly it sailed, soared, floated, for it was one of Cas’s floaters.

The batter half swung his bat, pulled it back, then poked at the ball helplessly. The result was an easy grounder to Chase, who threw the runner out.

It was soon manifest to Chase that Cas worked differently from any pitcher he had ever seen. Instead of trying to strike out any batters, Cas made them hit the ball. He never threw the same kind of a ball twice. He seemed to have a hundred different ways for the ball to go. But always he vented his scorn on his opponents in the low sarcasm which may have been heard by the umpire, but was inaudible to the audience.

At the commencement of the third inning neither side had yet scored. It was Chase’s first time up, and as he bent over the bats trying to pick out a suitable one, Cas said to him:

“Say, Kid, this guy’ll be easy for you. Wait him out now. Let his curve ball go.”

Chase felt perfectly cool when he went up. The crowd gave him a great hand, which surprised but did not disconcert him. He stood square up to the plate, his left foot a little in advance. He watched the Kenton pitcher with keen eyes; he watched the motion, and he watched the ball as it sped towards him rather high and close to his face. He watched another, a wide curve, go by. The next was a strike, the next a ball, and then following, another strike. Chase had not moved a muscle.

The bleachers yelled: “Good eye, old man! hit her out now!”

With three and two Chase lay back and hit the next one squarely. It rang off the bat, a beautiful liner that struck the right-field fence a few feet from the top. Chase reached third base, overran it, to be flung back by Cas.

The crowd roared. Winters, the captain, came running out and sent Cas to the bench. Then he began to coach.

“Look out, Chase! Hold your base on an infield hit! Play it safe! Play it safe! Here’s where we make a run, here’s where we make a run! Here’s where we make a run! Hey, there, pitcher, you’re up in the air already! Oh! What we won’t do to you! Steady, Chase, now you’re off. Hit it out, old man! That’s the eye! Make it good! Mugg’s Landing! Irish stew! Lace curtains! Ras-pa-tas! Oh my—” Bawling at the top of his voice, spitting tobacco juice everywhere, with wild eyes and sweaty face, Winters hopped up and down the coaching line. When Benny put up a little fly back of second Winters started Chase for the plate and ran with him. The ball dropped safe and the run scored easily.

When Chase went panting to the bench Mac screwed up his stubby cigar and gazed at his new find with enraptured eyes. “I guess maybe thet hit didn’t bust our losin’ streak!”

Whatever Chase’s triple had to do with it, the fact was that the Findlay players suddenly recovered their batting form. For two weeks they had been hitting atrociously, as Mac said, and now every player seemed to find hits in his bat. Thatcher tore off three singles; Cas got two and a double; and the others hit in proportion.

Chase rapped another against the rightfield fence, hitting a painted advertisement that gave a pair of shoes to every player performing the feat; and to the delirious joy of the bleachers and stands, at his last time up, he put the ball over the fence for a home run.

It was a happy custom of the oil-men of Findlay, who devoted themselves to the game, to throw silver dollars out of the stand at the player making a home run. A bright shower of this kind completely bewildered Chase. He picked up ten, and Cas handed him seven more that had rolled in the dust.

“A suit of clothes goes with that hit, me boy,” sang out Cas.

It was plainly a day for Chase and Cas. The Kenton players were at the mercy of the growling pitcher. When they did connect with the ball, sharp fielding prevented safe hits. Chase had eleven chances, some difficult, one particularly being a hard bounder over second base, all of which he fielded perfectly. But on two occasions fast, tricky base runners deceived him, bewildered him, so that instead of throwing the ball he held it. These plays gave Kenton the two lonely runs chalked up to their credit against seventeen for Findlay.

“Well, we’ll give you those tallies,” said Cas, swaggering off the field. He had more than kept his threat, for Kenton made but one safe hit.

“Wheeling to-morrow, boys,” he yelled in the dressing-room. “We’ll take three straight. Say! Did any of you cheap-skates see my friend Chase hit today? Did you see him? Oh! I guess he didn’t put the wood on a few! I guess not! Over the fence and far away! That one is going yet!”

Chase was dumfounded to hear every player speak to him in glowing terms. He thought they had bitterly resented his arrival, and they had; yet here was each one warmly praising his work. And in the next breath they were fighting among themselves. Truly these young men were puzzles to Chase. He gave up trying to understand them.

A loud uproar caused him to turn. The players were holding their sides with laughter, and Cas was doing a Highland fling in the middle of the floor. Mac looked rather white and sick. This struck Chase as remarkable after the decisive victory, and he asked the nearest player what was wrong.

“Oh! nuthin’ much! Mac only swallowed his cigar stub!” It was true, as could be plainly seen from Mac’s expression. When the noise subsided he said:

“Shure, I did. Was it any wonder? Seein’ this dead bunch come back to life was enough to make me swallow my umbrella. Boys,” here a smile lighted up his smug face, “now we’ve got thet hole plugged at short the pennant is ours. We’ve got ’em skinned to a frazzle!”

CHAPTER 7

MITTIE-MARU

“CHASE, YOU HUNG bells on ’em yes-tiddy.”

Among the many greetings Chase received from the youngsters swarming out to the grounds to see their heroes whip Wheeling, this one struck him as most original and amusing. It was given him by Mittie-Maru, the diminutive hunchback who had constituted himself mascot of the team. Chase had heard of the boy, and had seen him on the day before but not to take any particular notice.

“Let me carry yer bat.”

Chase looked down upon a sad and strange little figure. Mittie-Maru did not much exceed a yard in height; he was all misshapen and twisted, with a large head, which was set deep into the hump on his shoulders. He was only a boy, yet he had an almost useless body aid the face of an old man.

Chase hurriedly lifted his gaze, thinking with a pang of self-reproach how trifling was his crooked eye compared to the hideous deformity of this lad.

“Three straight from Wheelin’ is all we want,” went on Mittie-Maru.

“We’ll skin the coal diggers all right, all right. An’ we’ll be out in front trailin’ a merry ‘Ha! Ha!’ fer Columbus. They’re leadin’ now, an’ of all the swelled bunches I ever seen! Put it to us fer three straight when they was here last. But we got a bad start. There I got sick an’ couldn’t report, an’ somehow the team can’t win without me. Yestiddy was my first day fer — I don’t know how long, — since Columbus trimmed us.”

“What was the matter with you?” asked Chase.

“Aw! Nuthin’. Jest didn’t feel good,” replied the boy. “But I got out yestiddy, an’ see what you done to Kenton! Say, Chase, you takes mighty long steps. It ain’t much wonder you can cover ground.”

Chase modified his pace to suit that of his companion, and he wanted to take the bat, but Mittie-Maru carried it with such pride and conscious superiority over the envious small boys who trooped along with them that Chase could not bring himself to ask for it. As they entered the grounds and approached the door of the club-house Mac came out. He wore a troubled look.

“Howdy, Mittie; howdy, Chase,” he said, in a loud voice. Then as he hurried by he whispered close to Chase’s ear, “Look out for yourself!”

This surprised Chase so that he hesitated. Mittie-Maru reached the dressing room first and turning to Chase he said; “Somethin’ doin’, all right, all right!” This was soon manifest, for as Chase crossed the threshold a chorus of yells met him.

“Here he is — now say it to his face!”

“Salver!”

“Jollier!”

“You mushy soft-soaper!”

Then terms of opprobrium fell about his ears so thickly that he could scarcely distinguish them. And he certainly could not understand why they were made. He went to his locker, opened it, took out his uniform, and began to undress. Mittie-Maru came and sat beside him. Chase looked about him to see Winters lacing up his shoes and taking no part in the vilification. Benny was drunk. Meade’s flushed face and thick speech showed that he, too, had been drinking. Even Havil made a sneering remark in Chase’s direction. Chase made note of the fact that Thatcher, Cas, and Speer, one of the pitchers, were not present.

“You’re a Molly!” yelled Meade. “Been makin’ up to the reporters, haven’t you? Fixin’ it all right for yourself, eh? Playin’ for the newspapers? Well you’ll last about a week with Findlay.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Chase.

“Go wan!” shouted the first base man.

“As if you hadn’t seen the Chronicle!”

“I haven’t,” said Chase.

“Flash it on him,” cried Meade.

Some one threw a newspaper at Chase, and upon opening it to the baseball page he discovered his name in large letters. And he read an account of yesterday’s game, which, excepting to mention Cas’s fine pitching, made it seem that Chase had played the whole game himself. It was extravagant praise. Chase felt himself grew warm under it, and then guilty at the absence of mention of other players who were worthy of credit. “I don’t deserve all that,” said he to Meade, “and I don’t know how it came to be there.”

“You’ve been salvin’ the reporter, jollyin’ him.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You ‘re a liar!”

A hot flame leaped to life inside Chase. He had never been called that name. Quickly he sprang up, feeling the blood in his face. Then as he looked at Meade, he remembered the fellow’s condition, and what he owed to Mac, and others far away, with the quieting affect that he sat down without a word.

A moment later Benny swaggered up to him and shook a fist in his face.

“I’m a-goin’ t’ take a bing at yer one skylight an’ shut ‘t for ye.”

Chase easily evaded the blow and arose to his feet. “Benny, you’re drunk.”

Matters might have become serious then, for Chase, undecided for the moment what to do, would not have overlooked a blow, but the gong ringing for practice put an end to the trouble. The players filed out.

Mittie-Maru plucked at Chase’s trousers and whispered, “You ought to ‘ve handed ’em one!”

Chase’s work that afternoon was characterized by the same snap and dash which had won him the applause of the audience in the Kenton games. And he capped it with two timely hits that had much to do with Findlay’s victory. But three times during the game, to his consternation, Mac took him to task about certain plays. Chase ran hard back of second and knocked down a base-hit, but which he could not recover in time to throw the runner out. It was a splendid play, for which the stands gave him thundering applause. Nevertheless, as he came in to the bench Mac severely reprimanded him for not getting his man. “You’ve got to move faster ‘n thet,” said the little manager, testily. “You’re slow as an ice-wagon.”

And after the game Mac came into the dressing-room, where Chase received a good share of his displeasure.

“Didn’t you say you knew the game? Well, you’re very much on the pizzaz today. Now the next time you hit up a fly-ball, don’t look to see where it’s goin’, but run! Keep on runnin’. Fielders muff flies occasionally, an’ some day runnin’ one out will win a game. An’ when you make a base-hit, don’t keep on runnin’ out to the foul-flag just because it’s a single. Always turn for second base, an’ take advantage of any little chance to get there. If you make any more dumb plays like thet they’ll cost you five each. Got thet?”

Chase was mystified, and in no happy frame of mind when he left the grounds. Evidently what the crowd thought good playing was quite removed from the manager’s consideration of such.

“Hol’ on, Chase,” called Mittie-Maru from behind.

Chase turned to see the little mascot trying to catch up with him. It suddenly dawned on Chase that the popular idol of the players had taken a fancy to him.

“Say, Cas tol’ me to tell you to come to his room at the hotel after supper.”

“I wonder what he wants. Did he say?”

“No. But it’s to put you wise, all right, all right. Cas is a good feller. Me an’ him has been friends. I heard him say to Mac not to roast you the way he did. An’ I wants to put you wise to somethin’ myself. Mac’s stuck on you. He can’t keep a smile off his face when you walk up to the plate, an’ when you cut loose to peg one acrost he jest stutters. Oh! he’s stuck on you, all right, all right! ‘Boys, will you look at thet wing?’ he keeps sayin’. An’ when you come in he says you’re rotten to yer face. Don’t mind Mac’s roasts.”

All of which bewildered Chase only the more. Mittie-Maru chattered about baseball and the players, but he was extremely reticent in regard to himself, this latter fact, in conjunction with his shabby appearance, made Chase think that all was not so well with the lad as it might have been. He found himself returning Mittie-Maru’s regard.

“Good-bye,” said Mittie-Maru at a cross street. “I go down here. See you to-morrer.”

After supper Chase went to the hotel, and seeing that Cas was not among the players in the lobby, he found his room number, and with no little curiosity mounted the stairs.

“Come in,” said Cas, in answer to his knock.

The big pitcher sat in his shirt sleeves blowing rings of smoke out of the open window.

“Hello, Chase; was waiting for you. Have a cigar. Don’t smoke? Throw yourself round comfortable — but say, lock the door first. I don’t want any one butting in.”

Chase found considerable relief and pleasure in the friendly manner of Findlay’s star pitcher.

“I want to have a talk with you, Chase. First, you won’t mind a couple of questions.”

“Not at all. Fire away.”

“You’re in dead earnest about this baseball business?”

“I should say I am.”

“You are dead set on making it a success?”

“I’ve got to.” Chase told Cas briefly what depended on his efforts.

“I thought as much. Well, you’ll find more than one fellow trying the same. Baseball is full of fellows taking care of mothers and fathers and orphans, too. People who pay to see the game and keep us fellows going don’t know just how much good they are doing. Well, Chase, it takes more than speed, a good eye, and a good arm and head to make success.”

“How so?”

“It’s learning how to get along with managers and players. I’ve been in the game ten years. Most every player who has been through the mill will let the youngster find out for himself, let him sink or swim. Even managers will not tell you everything. It’s baseball ethics. I’m overstepping it because — well, because I want to. I don’t mind saying that you ‘re the most promising youngster I ever saw. Mac is crazy about you. All the same, you won’t last two weeks on the Findlay team, or a season in fast company, unless you change.”

“Change? How?”

“Now, Chase, don’t get sore. You ‘re a little too soft for this business. You ‘re too nice. Lots of boys are that way, but they don’t keep so and stay in baseball. Do you understand me?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, baseball is a funny game. It’s like nothing else. You’ve noticed how different the players are off the field. They’ll treat you white away from the grounds, but once in uniform, lookout! When a professional puts on his uniform he puts on his armor. And it’s got to be bullet-proof and spike-proof. The players on your own team will get after you, abuse you, roast you, blame you for everything, make you miserable, and finally put you off the team. This may seem to you a mean thing. But it’s a way of the game. When a new player is signed everybody gets after him, and if he makes a hit with the crowd, and particularly with the newspapers, the players get after him all the harder. In a way, that’s a kind of professional jealousy. But the main point I want to make clear to you is the aggressive spirit of the players who hold their own. On the field ball-playing is a fight all the time. It’s good-natured and it’s bitter-earnest. Every man for himself! Survival of the fittest! Dog eat dog!”

“Then I must talk back, strike back, fight back?”

“Exactly. Else you will never succeed in this business. Now, don’t take a bad view of it. Baseball is all right; so are the players. The best thing is that the game is square — absolutely square. Once on the inside, you’ll find it peculiar, and you’ve got to adapt yourself.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“You must show your teeth, my boy, that’s all. The team is after your scalp. Apart from this peculiarity of the players to be eternally after someone, I’m sure they like you. Winters said you’d make a star if you had any sand. Thatcher said if you lasted you ‘d make his batting average look sick. One of them, I think, has it in for you just because he’s that sort of a guy. But I mention no names. I’m not a knocker, and let me tell you this — never knock any lad in the business. The thing for you to do, the sooner the better, is to walk into the dressing-room and take a punch at somebody. And then declare yourself strong. Say you’ll punch the block off any one who opens his trap to you again.”

“And after that?”

“You’ll find it different. They’ll all respect you; you’ll get on better for it. Then you’ll be one of us. Play hard, learn the game, keep sober — and return word for word, name for name, blow for blow. After a little this chewing the rag becomes no more to you than the putting on of your uniform. It’s part of the game. It keeps the life and ginger in you.”

“All right. If I must — I must,” replied Chase, and as he spoke the set of his jaw boded ill to some one.

“Good. I knew you had the right stuff in you. Now, one thing more. Look out for the players on the other teams. They’ll spike you, knee you, put you out, if they can. Don’t ever slide to a base head first, as you did today. Some second-baseman will jump up and come down on you with both feet, and break something, or cut you all up. Don’t let any player think you are afraid of him, either.”

“I’m much obliged to you, Cas. What you’ve told me explains a lot. I suppose every business has something about it a fellow don’t like. I’ll do the best I can, and hope I’ll make good, as Mittie-Maru says.”

“There’s a kid with nerve!” exclaimed Cas, enthusiastically. “Best fan I ever knew. He knows the game, too. Poor little beggar!”

“Tell me about him,” said Chase.

“I don’t know much. He turned up here last season, and cottoned to the team at once. Some one found out that he ran off from a poor-house, or home for incurables or bad boys or something. There was a fellow here from Columbus looking for Mittie, but never found him. He has no home, and I don’t know where he lives. I’ll bet it’s in a garret somewhere. He sells papers and shines shoes. And he’s as proud as he’s game — you can’t give him anything. Baseball he’s crazy over.”

“So is my brother, and he’s a cripple too.”

“Every boy likes baseball, and if he doesn’t, he’s not a boy.”

Chase left Castorious then and went downstairs, for he expected to meet several of the young men who boarded with him, and who had invited him to spend the evening with them. They came presently and carried him off to an entertainment in one of the halls. Here his new friends, Harris, Drake, and Mandle, led him from one group of boys and girls to another, and introduced him with evident pride in their opportunity. It was a church fair and well attended. Chase had never seen so many pretty girls.

Being rather backward, he did not very soon notice what was patent to all — that he was the young man of the hour — and when he did see he felt as if he wanted to run away. Facing Mac and the players was easier than trying to talk to these gracious ladies and whispering, arch-eyed girls. Ice- cream was the order of the evening, and as long as Chase could eat he managed to conceal his poverty of speech; but when he absolutely could not swallow another spoonful he made certain he must get away.

When four girls in white vivaciously appropriated him and whirled him off somewhere, his confusion knew no bounds. His young men friends basely deserted him and went to different parts of the hall. He was lost, and he gave up. From booth to booth they paraded with him, all chattering at once. He became vaguely aware that he was spending money, and attaching to himself various articles; he caught himself saying he would like very much to have this and that, which he did not want at all.

The evening passed very quickly and like a dream. Chase found himself out of the bright lights in the cool darkness of the night. He walked two blocks past his corner. He reached his room at length, struck a light, and saw that he had an armful of small bundles and papers. He made the startling discovery that he had purchased four lace-fringed pin-cushions, a number of hand-painted doilies, one sewing-basket, one apron, two match-scratchers, one gorgeous necktie, and one other article that he could not name.

Discomfited as he was, Chase had to laugh. It was too utterly ridiculous. Then more soberly he began to count the money he had, in order to find out what he had spent. The sum total of his rash expenditures amounted to a little over five dollars.

“Five dollars!” ejaculated Chase.

“For this truck and about a gallon of ice-cream. That’s how I save my money. Confound those girls!”

But Chase did not mean that about the girls. He knew the evening had been the pleasantest one he could remember. He tried to recollect the names of the girls and how they looked. This was impossible. Nothing of that wonderful night stood out clearly: as a whole, it left a confused impression of music and laughter, bright eyes and golden hair, smiles and white dresses.

Next morning he wrote to his mother and told her all about it, adding that she must not take the expenditure of his money so much as an instance of reckless extravagance as it was a case of highway robbery.

In the afternoon on the way to the ball-park he met Mittie-Maru, and relating last night’s adventure, asked him if he could use a pin-cushion or two.

“Not on yer life!” cried Mittie-Maru. “Sorry I didn’t put you wise to them church sociables. They jobbed you, Chase. Sold you a lot of bricks. You want to fight shy of thet bunch, all right, all right.”

“Don’t you ever go to church?”

“I went to Sunday school last Fall. Miss Marjory, she was in the school, got me to come. She’s a peach. Sweeter ‘n a basket of red monkeys. She was all right, all right, but I couldn’t stand fer the preacher, an’ some others, so I quit. An’ every time I see Miss Marjory I dodge or hit it up out of sight.”

“What was wrong with the preacher?”

“He’s young, an’ I think preachers oughter be old. He fusses the wimmen folks too hard. He speaks soft an’ prays to beat the band, an’ everybody thinks he’s an angel. But — oh, I ain’t a knocker.”

“Wait for me after the game.”

“Shure. An’ say, Chase, are you goin’ to stand fer the things Meade calls you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t stand it much longer.”

If anything, Chase’s reception in the dressing-room was more violent than it had been the day before. Nevertheless he dressed without exchanging a word with any one. This time, however, he was keenly alert to all that was said and to who said it. All sense of personal affront or injustice, such as had pained him yesterday, was now absent. He felt himself immeasurably older; he coolly weighed this harangue at him with the stern necessity of his success, and found it nothing.

And when he went out upon the field he was conscious of a difference in his feelings. The mist that had bothered him did not now come to his eyes; nor did the contraction bind his throat; nor did the nameless uncertainty and dread oppress his breast. He felt a rigidity of muscle, a deadliness of determination, a sharp, cold confidence.

The joy of playing the game, as he had played it ever since he was big enough to throw a ball, had gone. It was not fun, not play before him, but work, — work that called for strength, courage, endurance.

Chase gritted his teeth when the umpire called: “Play ball!” and he gritted them throughout the game. He staked himself and all he hoped to do for those he loved, against his own team, the opposing team, and the baseball world. He saw his one chance, a fighting chance, and he meant to fight.

When the ball got into action he ran all over the field like a flash. He was everywhere. He anticipated every hit near him, and scooped up the ball and shot it from him, with the speed of a bullet. He threw with a straight, powerful overhand motion and the ball sailed low, with terrific swiftness, and held its speed. He grabbed up a hit that caromed off Winter’s leg, and though far back of third base, threw the runner out with time to spare. He caught a foul fly against the left-field bleachers. He threw two runners out at the plate, and that from deep short field.

He beat out an in-field hit; he got a clean single into right field; and for the third time in three days he sent out a liner that by fast running he stretched into a three-bagger. Findlay had clinched the game before this hit, which sent in two runners, but for all that, the stands and bleachers rose in a body and cheered. The day before Chase had doffed his cap in appreciation of their applause. Today he did not look at them. He put the audience out of his mind.

But with all his effort, speed, and good luck he made an unfortunate play. It came at the close of the eighth inning. Wheeling got runners on second and third, with only one out. The next man hit a sharp bouncer to Chase. He fielded the ball, and expecting the runner on third to dash for home he made ready to throw him out. But this runner held his base. Chase turned to try to get the batter going down to first, when the runner on second ran right before him toward third. Chase closed in behind him, and as the fellow slowed up tried to catch him. Then the runner on third bolted for home. Chase saw him and threw to head him off, but was too late.

In the dressing-room after the game the players howled about this one run that Chase’s stupidity had given Wheeling. They called him “wooden head,” “sap- head,” “sponge-head,” “dead-head.” Then Mac came in and delivered himself.

“Put the ball in your pocket! Put the ball in your pocket, didn’t you? Countin’ your money, wasn’t you? Thinkin’ about the girls you was with last night, hey? Thet play costs you five. See! Got thet? You’re fined. After this when you get the ball an’ some runner is hittin’ up the dust, throw it. Got thet? Throw the ball! Don’t keep it! Throw it!”

When the players’ shout of delight died away, Chase turned on the little manager.

“What d’ you want for fifteen cents — canary birds?” he yelled, in a voice that rattled the windows. He flung his bat down with a crash, and as it skipped along the bench more than one player fell over himself to get out of its way.

“Didn’t I say I had to learn the game? Didn’t you say you’d show me? I never had that play before. I didn’t know what to do with the ball. What d’ you want, I say? Didn’t I accept nine chances today?”

Mac looked dumfounded. This young lamb of his had suddenly roused into a lion.

“Shure you needn’t holler about it. I was only tellin’ you.” Then he strode out amid a silence that showed the surprise of his players. Winters recovered first, and turned his round red face and began to bob and shake with laughter.

“What — did he — want for fifteen cents — canary birds? Haw! Haw; Haw!” In another moment the other players were roaring with him.

CHAPTER 8

ALONG THE RIVER

CASTORIOUS BLANKED THE Wheeling club next day, and the following day Speer won his game. Findlay players had returned to their old form and were getting into a fast stride, so the Chronicle said. Three straight from Columbus, was the slogan! Mac had signed a new pitcher, a left-hander named Poke, from a nearby country village, and was going to develop him. He was also trying out a popular player from the high-school team.

Mac had ordered morning practice for the Columbus series of games. The players hated morning practice, “drill” they called it, and presented themselves with visible displeasure. And when they were all on the grounds Mac appeared with a bat over his shoulder, and with his two new players in tow.

Poke was long and lanky, a sunburned rustic who did not know what to do with his hands and feet.

“Battin’ practice,” called out Mac, sharply, ordering Poke to the pitcher’s box.

Poke peeled off his sweater, showing bare arms that must have had a long and intimate acquaintance with axe and rail-pile.

“Better warm up first,” said Mac. It developed that Poke did not need any warming. When he got ready he wound himself up, and going through some remarkable twist that made him resemble a cartwheel, delivered the ball towards the plate. Thatcher just dodged in time to save his head.

“Speed! Whew! Wow!” exclaimed the players.

“Speed!” echoed Thatcher. “Wait till you, get up there!”

Poke drove Thatcher away from the plate and struck Meade out.

“Put ’em over,” said Benny, as he came up.

The first ball delivered hit Benny on the foot, and roaring, he threw down his bat. “You Rube! You wild Indian! I’ll git you fer thet!”

Enoch Winters was the next batter. “Say, you lean, hungry-lookin’ rubberneck, if you hit me!” warned Enoch, in his soft voice.

Poke struck Enoch out and retired Chase on a little pop-up fly. Then Cas sauntered up with his wagon-tongue bat and a black scowl on his face.

“Steady up, steady up,” said he. “Put ’em over. Don’t use all your steam.”

“Mister, I ain’t commenced yit to throw hard,” replied Poke.

“Wha-at?” Yelled Cas. “Are you kidding me? Slam the ball! Break your arm, then!”

The rustic whirled a little farther round, unwound himself a little quicker, and swung his arm. Cas made an ineffectual attempt to hit what looked like a white cord stretched between him and the pitcher. The next ball started the same way, but took an upward jump and shot under Cas’s chin.

Cas, who had a mortal dread of being hit, fell back from the plate and glared at Poke.

“You’ve got his alley, Poke!” Cried the amiable players. “Keep ’em under his chin!” Cas retired in disgust as Mac came trotting up from the field, where he had been coaching the high-school player.

“What’s he got?” asked Mac, eagerly. “What’s he got!” yelled nine voices in unison.

“Oh! nothing!”

“Step up an’ take a turn,” said Mac to his new player. “No, don’t stand so far back. Here, let me show you. Gimme the bat.”

Mac took a position well up to the plate, and began illustrating his idea of the act of hitting.

“You see, I get well back on my right foot, ready to step forward with my left. I’ll step just before he delivers the ball. I’ll keep my bat over my shoulder an’ hit a little late, so as to hit to right field. Thet’s best for the hit-an’-run gam. Now, watch. See. Step an’ set; step an’ set. The advantage of gettin’ set this way is the pitcher can’t fool you, can’t hit you. You needn’t never be afraid of bein’ hit after you learn how to get set. No pitcher could hit me.” Then raising his voice, Mac shouted to Poke, “Hey, poke up a couple. Speed em over, now!”

Poke evidently recognized the cardinal necessity of making an impression, for he went through more wonderful gyrations than ever. Then he lunged forward with the swing he used in getting the ball away. Nobody saw the ball.

BUMB! A sound not unlike a suddenly struck base-drum electrified the watching players. Then the ball appeared rolling down from Mac’s shrinking person. The little manager seemed to be slowly settling to the ground. He turned an agonized face and uttered a long moan.

“My ribs I my ribs! — he hit me,” gasped Mac.

Chase, Poke, and the new man were the only persons who did not roll over and over on the ground. That incident put an end to the morning “drill.” After dressing, Chase decided to try to find Mittie-Maru. The mascot had not been at the last two games, and this fact determined him to seek the lad. So he passed down the street where he had often left Mittie, and asked questions on the way. Everybody knew the hunchback, but nobody knew where he lived.

Chase went on until he passed the line of houses and got into the outskirts of the town, where carpenter-shops, oil refineries, and brick-yards abounded. Several workmen he questioned said they saw the boy almost every day, and that he kept on down the street toward the open country. Chase had about decided to give up his quest, when he came to the meadows and saw across them the green of a line of willows. This he knew marked a brook or river, along which a stroll would be pleasant.

When he reached the river he saw Mittie-Maru sitting on a log patiently holding a long crooked fish-pole. “Any luck?” he shouted.

Mittie-Maru turned with a start, and seeing Chase cried out, “You ole son- of-a-gun! Trailed me, didn’t you? What yer doin’ out here?”

“I’m looking for you, Mittie.”

“What fer?”

Chase leaped down the bank and seated himself on the log beside the boy. “Well, you haven’t been out to the grounds lately. Why?”

“Aw! nuthin’,” replied Mittie, savagely.

“See here, you can’t string me,” said Chase, earnestly. “Things aren’t right with you, Mittie, and you can’t bluff it out on me. So I’ve been hunting you. We’re going to be pards, you know.”

“Are we?”

Chase then saw Mittie’s eyes for the first time, and learned they were bright, soft, and beautiful, giving his face an entirely different look. “Sure. And that’s why I wanted to find you — where you lived — and if you were sick again.”

“It’s my back, Chase,” replied Mittie, reluctantly. “Sometimes it — hurts worse.”

“Then it pains you all the time?” asked Chase, voicing a suspicion that had come to him from watching the boy.

“Yes. But it ain’t bad today. Sometimes — hol’ on! I got a bite. See! It’s a whopper — Thunder! I missed him!”

Mittie-Maru rebaited his hook and cast it into the stream.

“Fishin’ fer mine, when I can’t git to the ball-grounds. Do you like fishin’, Chase?”

“Love it. You must let me come out and fish with you.”

“Sure. There’s good fishin’ fer catfish an’ suckers, an’ once in a while a bass. I never fished any before I came here, an’ I missed a lot. You see, movin’ round ain’t easy fer me. Gee! I can walk, but I mean playin’ ball or any games the kids play ain’t fer me. So I take mine out in fishin’. I’ve got so I like sittin’ in the sun with it all lonely aroun’, ‘cept the birds an’ ripples. I used to be sore — about — about my back an’ things, but fishin’ has showed me I could be worse off. I can see an’ hear as well as anybody. There! I got bite again!”

Mittie-Maru pulled out a sunfish that wriggled and shone like gold in the sunlight.

“Thet’s enough fer today. I ain’t no fish-hog. Chase, if I show you where I live you won’t squeal? Of course you won’t.”

Chase assured him he would observe absolute secrecy; and together they mounted the bank and walked up stream. The meadows were bright with early June daisies and buttercups; the dew had not yet dried from the clover; blackbirds alighted in the willows and larks fluttered up from the grass. They came presently to an abandoned brickyard, where piles of broken brick lay scattered round, and two mound-like kilns stood amid the ruins of some frame structures.

“Here we are,” said Mittie-Maru, marching up to one of the kilns and throwing open a rudely contrived door. A dark aperture revealed the entrance to this singular abode.

“You don’t mean you live in this oven?” ejaculated Chase.

“Sure. An’ I’ve lived in worse places. Come in, an’ make yourself to home.”

Mittie-Maru crawled into the hole, and Chase followed him. It was roomy inside. Light came in from the chimney hole in the roof, and also on one side where there was a crack in the bricks. The floor was clean and of smooth sand. A pile of straw and some blankets made Mittie-Maru’s bed. A fireplace of bricks, a few cooking utensils, and a box cupboard told that he was his own housekeeper.

“This’s not bad. How long have you lived in here?”

“Aw, I fooled round town fer a while last Summer, spendin’ my money fer swell lodgin’s, an’ then I found this place. Makes a hit with me.”

“But when you’re sick, Mittie, what do you — how do you manage?”

“Out of sight, an’ I ain’t no bother to no one.”

And that was all Mittie-Maru would vouchsafe concerning himself. They came out after a while and Chase wanted to walk farther on up the river. Rolling meadows stretched away to the hills; there was a grove of maples not far off.

“It’s so pretty up that way. Can’t we go farther on and strike another road into town?”

“Sure. But them meadows an’ groves is private property,” said Mittie, dubiously. “I used to fish up thet way, till I threw Miss Marjory down, then I quit. She lives in one of them grove houses. We ain’t likely to meet no one, though, so come on.”

They crossed several fields to enter the grove. The river was narrow there and shaded by big trees. Violets peeped out of the grass. A white house gleamed in the distance.

Suddenly they came round a huge spreading tree to a green embankment. A boat rode in the water, one end lightly touching the sand. And in the boat was a girl. Her eyes were closed; her head rested on her arm, which hung over the side. A mass of violets lay in her lap. All about the boat was deep shade, but a gleam of sunshine, filtering through the leaves, turned the girl’s hair to gold.

Mittie-Maru uttered a suppressed exclamation and bolted behind some bushes.

Chase took a step to follow suit, when the girl opened her eyes and saw him. She gave a little cry, which rooted Chase to the spot.

Then because of the movement of the girl the boat left the sand and drifted into the stream. Whereupon Mittie-Maru returned valiantly to the scene. “Miss Marjory! Don’t be scart. It’s all right. We’ll get you in. Where’s the oars? Chase, you’ll hev to wade in. The water ain’t deep. Come here, the boat’s goin’ close to this sand-bar.”

Chase became animated at Mittie’s words, and hurriedly slipping off his shoes and stockings, he jumped to the sand below and waded out. Deeper and deeper the water grew, till he was far over his knees. Still the boat was out of reach. He could tell by feeling with his foot that another step would plunge him over his head, and was about to swim, when Mittie came to the rescue.

He threw a long pole down to Chase. “There! let her grab that, an’ pull her in.”

Chase extended the pole, and as the girl caught it he saw her eyes. They were dark blue and smiled into his.

“Careful!” shouted the pilot above. “Don’t pull so hard, Chase, this ain’t no tug-o’-war. There! All right.”

When Chase moored the boat Miss Marjory gathered up the violets and lightly stepped ashore. Then an obvious constraint affected the three. She murmured a low “Thank you,” and stood, picking the flowers; Chase bent over his shoes and stockings with a very flushed face, and Mittie-Maru labored with sudden and painful emotions.

“Miss Marjory, it ‘peared like we pushed the boat out, me an’ Chase, but thet ain’t so. We was walkin’ this way — he wanted to go in the grove — an’ all to onct we spied you, an’ I ducked behind the bushes.”

“Why? Are you afraid of me, Mittie-Maru?” she asked.

“Yes — no — it ain’t thet, Miss Marjory. Well, no use lyin’. I’ve been keepin’ out of your way fer a long time now, ‘cause I know you’d have me in Sunday school.”

“Now you will come back, won’t you?”

“I s’pose so,” he said with resignation, then looked at Chase. “Miss Marjory, this’s my friend Chase, Findlay’s new short-stop.”

“I met the — new short-stop last week,” was the demure reply.

“Miss Marjory, you didn’t sell Chase none of them gold bricks at the church sociable?”

“No, Mittie, but I sold him five plates of ice-cream,” she answered, with a merry laugh. “Your friend has forgotten me.”

Mittie-Maru regarded Chase with a fine contempt. Chase was tongue-tied. Somewhere he had indeed seen those deep blue eyes; they were like the memory of a dream.

“Miss — Miss—” stammered Chase.

“Miss Dean, Marjory Dean.”

“I met — so many girls — I didn’t really have time to get to know anybody well.”

Mittie-Maru watched them with bright, sharp eyes, and laughed when Chase broke into embarrassed speech again.

“Finest time I ever had. I told Mittie about it, how they sold me a lot of old maid’s things. I sent some of them to my mother. And I asked Mittie if he could use a pin-cushion or two. I’ve been hunting Mittie all morning. Found him fishing down here. He’s got the cutest little den in a kiln at the old brickyard below. He lives there. It’s the cosiest place.”

Mittie had administered to Chase a series of violent kicks, the last of which had brought him to his senses.

“Chase, you peached on me. You give me away, an’ you said you wouldn’t!”

“Oh! Mittie, I’m sorry — I didn’t think,” cried Chase in contrition.

“Is it true?” asked Marjory, with grave eyes.

“Sure. An’ I don’t mind yer knowin’. Really I don’t, if you’ll promise not to tell a soul.”

“I promise. Will you let me come to see you?”

“I’d be tickled to death. You an’ Chase come to call on me. I’ll ketch you a mess of fish. Won’t thet be fine?”

Marjory’s long lashes fell. The sound of a bell came ringing through the grove.

“That’s for me. I must be going. Good-bye.”

Chase and Mittie watched the slight blue-clad figure flit along the path, in and out among the trees, to disappear in the green.

“An I promised to go to Sunday school again,” muttered Mittie-Maru.

CHAPTER 9

ON THE ROAD

AT SIX O’CLOCK on the twelfth of June the Findlay baseball club, fifteen strong, was assembled at the railroad station to begin a two weeks’ trip on the road. Having taken three games from Columbus, and being now but a few points behind that team, they were an exceedingly lively company of young men. They were so exuberant with joy that they made life a burden for everybody, particularly for Mac. The little manager had trouble enough at home, but it was on the road that he got his gray hairs. “Shure, Cas, you ain’t after takin’ thet dog again?” asked Mac.

Castorious had a vicious-looking beast, all head and jaws, under his arm. “Dog!” roared Cas, insulted. “This’s a blooded bull-terrier pup. Course I’m going to take him. We can’t win the pennant without Algy.”

“Algy? Is thet his name?” burst out Mac, who had already exhausted his patience. “Thet’s a fine name for a mongrel brute. He’s uglier than a mud fence.”

As Mac concluded, a rat ran across the platform. Algy saw it, and with a howl wriggled out of his master’s arms and gave chase. The platform was crowded with people, of whom ladies made up the greater part. Algy chased the rat from under the trucks and between the trunks right into the crowd. Instantly a scene of great excitement prevailed. Women screamed and rushed frantically into each others’ arms; some fell over their grips; several climbed upon trunks; all of them evinced a terror that must have had its origin in the movements of the escaping rat, not the pursuing pup. And the course of both animals could be marked by a zigzag line of violent commotion in the crowd.

Presently a woman shrieked and seemed to sit down upon a moving object only to slip to the floor. Algy appeared then with the rat between his jaws. “It was a cinch he’d get it,” yelled Cas. He gathered up the pup and hid him under his coat.

“Line up! Line up!” shouted Mac, as the train whistled.

The players stepped into a compact, wedge-shaped formation; and when the train stopped in the station they moved in orderly mass through the jostling mob. Ball players value a rest to tired legs too much to risk standing up, and even in the most crowded stations always board the train first.

“Through to the Pullman!” yelled Mac.

Chase was in the seventh heaven of delight. He had long been looking forward to what the players called “on the road.” and the luxurious Pullman suited his dreams of travel. He and Winters took a seat opposite a very stout old lady who gazed somewhat sourly at them. Havil and Thatcher were on the other side of the aisle; Cas had a seat in the forward end; Mac was behind; and the others were scattered about. There were some half-dozen passengers besides, notable among whom was a very tall, thin, bald-headed man sitting in front of Havil. Chase knew his fellow-players too well by this time to expect them to settle down calmly. “On the road” was luxury for ball players. Fast trains, the best hotels, all expenses paid, these for a winning baseball team were things to appreciate. Chase settled back in the soft cushioned seat to watch, to see, to enjoy every move and word of his companions.

“Where will we sleep?” he asked Winters.

“Never on a sleeper?”

Chase smiled and shook his head. Then Enoch began to elaborate on the beds that were let down from the ceiling of the car, and how difficult they were to get into and out of, especially the latter in case of fire, which broke out very frequently on Pullmans.

“An’ if anybody yells ‘Fire!’ you skedaddle to the fire-escape,” concluded Enoch.

“Fire-escape? On a train? Where is it?” queried Chase, wonderingly.

“Don’t you know where the fire-escape is?” asked Enoch, in innocent surprise. His round owl eyes regarded Chase in a most kindly light.

“Well, you ask the porter. He’ll take an’ show you.”

Straightway Chase forgot it in the interest of other things. The train was now in smooth, rapid motion; the fields and groves and farms flashed by. He saw the conductor enter the car and stand by Cas. Cas looked up, and then went on calmly reading his paper.

“Tickets,” said the conductor, sharply. Cas paid not the slightest attention to him.

“Tickets,” repeated the conductor, getting red in the face. He tapped Cas not lightly on the shoulder.

“Wha-at?” demanded Cas. “Your ticket! I don’t wish to be kept waiting. Produce your ticket.”

“I don’t need a ticket to ride on this bum road.”

The conductor looked apoplectic. He reached up to grasp the bell-cord.

“Your ticket, or I’ll stop the train and put you off.”

“Put me off! I’d like to have a tintype of your whole crew trying to put me off this train.”

Mac came into the car, and divining how matters stood, hurried forward to produce his party ticket. The conductor, still in high dudgeon, passed on down the aisle.

“Good-evenin’, Mr. Conductor, this’s fine weather for travelin’,” said Enoch, in his soft voice. The conductor glanced keenly at him, but evidently disarmed by the placid round face and kind round eyes, replied in gracious affirmation.

Enoch whispered in Chase’s ear, “Wait till the crew finds Cas’s bulldog Don’t miss thet!”

Some thirty miles out of Findlay the train stopped at a junction. A number of farmers were lounging round the small station. Enoch raised the window and called one of them.

“Hey! What’s the name of this place?” he asked of the one who approached, an angular, stolid rustic in overalls and top boots.

“Brookville, mister,” was the civil reply.

“Brookville! Wal, I swan! You don’t say! Fellow named Perkins live here?”

“Yep. Hiram Perkins.”

“Hiram — Hiram Perkins, my ole friend.” Enoch’s round face beamed with an expression of benign gratitude, as if he would, were it possible, reward the fellow for his information. “Tell Hiram his ole friend Si Hayrick was passin’ through an’ sends regards. Wal, how’s things? Ploughin’ all done? You don’t say! An’ corn all planted? Do tell! An’ the ham-trees grown’ all right?”

“Whet?” questioned the farmer, plainly mystified, leaning forward.

“How’s yer ham-trees?”

“Never heerd of sich.”

“Wal, dog-gone me! Why, over in Indianer our ham-trees is sproutin’ powerful. An’ how about bee’s knees? Got any bee’s knees this Spring?”

The rustic stretched his long neck. Then as the train started off Enoch put his head out of the window and called: “Rubber-neck! Rubber-neck!”

The stout lady in the opposite seat plainly sniffed her disgust at these proceedings on the part of a grown man. His innocent round stare in no wise deceived her. She gave him one withering glance, adjusted her eye-glass, and went on reading. Several times following that, she raised a hand to her face, as if to brush off a fly. But there was no fly. She became restless, laid aside her magazine, and rang for the porter.

“Porter, close the window above. Cinders are flying in on me.”

“Window’s closed, ma’am,” returned the porter.

“Something is most annoying. I am being stung in the face by something sharp,” she declared testily.

“Beggin’ yo pahdon, ma’am, yo sho is mistaken. There’s no flies or muskeeters in my car.”

“Don’t I know when I’m stung?”

The porter, tired and crushed, wearily went his way. The stout lady fumed and fussed, and fanned herself with a magazine. Chase knew what was going on and was at great pains to contain himself. Enoch’s solemn owl face was blank, and Havil, who was shooting shot and causing the lady’s distress, bent a pale, ministerial countenance over his paper. Chase watched him closely, saw him raise his head at intervals when he turned a leaf of his paper, but could see no movement of his lips. He became aware, presently, when Havil changed his position, that the attack was now to be directed upon the bald-headed man in the forward seat.

That individual three times caressed the white spot on his head, and then looking in the air all about him, rang for the porter.

“Porter, drive the flies out of the car.”

“They ain’t no flies, suh.”

“Don’t talk back to me. I’m from Georgia. Blacks don’t talk back to me where I live.”

“Yo mought be from a hotter place than Georgia, suh, fer all I care,” replied the porter, turning at the last, like a trodden worm.

“I am annoyed, annoyed. Something has been dropping on my head. Maybe it’s water. It comes dot, dot, like that.”

“Spect yo’se dotty, suh!” said the negro, moving off. “An’ yo sho ain’t the only dotty passenger this trip.”

The bald-headed man resumed his seat. Unfortunately he was so tall that his head reached above the seat, affording a most alluring target for Havil. Chase, watching closely, saw the muscle along Havil’s jaw contract, and then he heard a tiny thump as the shot struck much harder than usual. The gentleman from Georgia jumped up, purple in the face, and trembled so that his newspaper rustled in his hand.

“You hit me with something,” he shouted, looking at Thatcher, for the reason, no doubt, that no one could associate Havil’s sanctimonious expression with an untoward act.

Thatcher looked up in great astonishment from the book in which he had been deeply interested. The by-play had passed unnoticed so far as he was concerned. Besides, he was ignorant of Havil’s genius in the shot-shooting line, and he was a quiet fellow, anyway, but quick in temper.

“No, I didn’t,” he replied.

The Southerner repeated his accusation.

“No, I didn’t, but I will jolt you one,” returned Thatcher, with some heat.

“Gentlemen, this is unseemly, especially in the presence of ladies,” interposed Havil, rising with the dignity of one whose calling he appeared to represent.

“Most unseemly! My dear sir, calm yourself. No one is throwing things at you. It is only your imagination. I have heard of such cases, and fortunately my study of medicine enables me to explain. Sometimes on a heated car a person’s blood will rise to the brain and, probably because of the motion, beat so as to produce the effect of being lightly struck. This is most often the case in persons whose hirsute decoration is slightly worn off — er, in the middle, you know.”

The gentleman from the South sputtered in impotent rage and stamped off toward the smoking-car.

“Dinner served in the dining-car ahead,” called out a white-clad waiter; and this announcement hurried off the passengers, leaving the car to the players, who had dined before boarding the train.

Time lagged then. The porter lit the lights, for it was growing dark; four of the boys went into the smoker to play cards, and the others quieted down. After a while the passengers returned from the diner, and with them the porter, who began making up the berths. Chase watched him with interest.

“Let’s turn in,” said Enoch. “It’s a long ride and we’ll be tired enough. Some of us must double up, an’ I’m glad we ‘re skinny.” Enoch boosted Chase into the upper berth and swung himself up.

“Take off your outer clothes,” said Enoch, “an’ be comfortable.”

Chase found it very snug up there, and he lay back listening to the smooth rush of the train as it sped on into the night. And before long he fell asleep. When he awakened the car was dark, though a faint gray light came through the window above him. He heard somebody walking softly down the aisle and wondered who it could be. The steps stopped.

Chase heard a sound at his feet, and rose to see an arm withdrawn between the curtains. He promptly punched Enoch in the side. Enoch groaned and rolled over.

“Some of the boys stealing our shoes,” whispered Chase.

“It’s the porter wantin’ ’em to shine,” said Enoch sleepily. Then he raised his head and listened. “Yep, it’s the porter. I’m glad you woke me. Now, listen an’ you’ll hear somethin’ funny. Cas always smuggles his bull-pup into the car, an’ hides him from the porter, an’ then puts him to sleep at the foot of the berth. Thet porter will be after Cas’s shoes pretty soon.”

At intervals of every few moments the porter’s soft slipshod footsteps could be plainly heard. He was making toward the upper end of the car.

“It’s comin’ to him,” whispered Enoch, tensely.

A loud, savage, gurgling growl burst out in the stillness, and then yells of terror. A terrific uproar followed. Bumpings and bangings of a heavy body in the aisle; sharp whacks and blows; steady, persistent growling; screams of fright from the awakened women; wild peals of delight from the ball players; above all, the yelling of the porter, these sounds united to make a din that would have put a good-sized menagerie to the blush.

It ended with the unlucky negro making his escape, and Cas coaxing his determined protector back into the berth. By and by silence once more reigned in the Pullman.

Chase, having had his sleep, lay there as long as he could, and seeing it was broad daylight, decided he would crawl over Enoch and get out of the berth. By dint of some extraordinary exertions he got into his clothes and shoes. Climbing over Enoch was no difficult matter, though he did not accomplish it without awakening him. Then Chase parted the curtains, put his feet out, turned and grasped the curtain-pole, and balanced himself momentarily, preparatory to leaping down. The position was awkward for him, and as he loosened his knee- hold he slipped and fell. One of his feet went down hard into a very large, soft substance that suddenly heaved like a swelling wave. As Chase rolled into the aisle screams rent the air.

“Help! Help! Thieves! Murder! Murder! Murder!”

He had fallen on the fat woman in the lower berth. Chase saw a string of heads bobbing out of the curtains above and below, and he heard a mighty clamor that made the former one shrink by comparison.

The conductor, brakeman, and porter rushed in. Chase tried to explain, but what with the wails of the outraged lady and the howls of the players it was impossible to make himself heard. He went away and hid in the smoking-car till the train stopped near Stubenville, where they were to change for Wheeling. When the Findlay team had all stepped off the Pullman, leaving the porter enriched and smiling his surprise, it was plain to Chase that he had risen in the regard of his fellow-players.

“Say, Chase, you’re coming on!”

“You’ll do, old man!”

“It was the best ever!”

“The fire-escape, my lad, is not in a lady’s berth!”

“Go wan! What you giving us? You kicked her in the stomach jest by accident? Go wan!”

Chase found it impossible to make the boys believe that he had fallen from the upper berth and had stepped on the poor lady unintentionally. The run along the Ohio to Wheeling was a beautiful one, which Chase thoroughly enjoyed. It was his first sight of a majestic river. During the ride Mac sat beside him and descanted on baseball in general and base-running in particular.

“Chase, a lad as fast as you ought to make all these catchers crawl under the bench. Now, listen to me. To get away quick is the secret. It’s all in the start. Of course, depend some on coachin’, but use your head. Don’t take too big a lead off the base. Fool the pitcher an’ catcher. Make ’em think you ain’t goin’ down. Watch the pitcher an’ learn his motion. Then get your start jest as he begins to move. Before he moves is the time, but it takes practice. Run like a deer, watch the baseman, an’ hit the dirt feet first an’ twist out of his way. But pick out the right time. Of course when you get the hit-an’-run sign you’ve got to go. Don’t take chances in a close game. I say, don’t as a rule. Sometimes a darin’ steal wins a game. But there’s time to take chances an’ times not to. Got thet?”

“Mac, where’s the bat-sack?” asked one of the players, when they arrived at Wheeling.

“Shure, I forgot it,” said Mac, blankly. “I’ll have to buy some bats.”

“You ought to be in a bush-league,” said one.

“How do you expect us to hit without our bats?” asked another.

“Did you forget my sticks?” cried Thatcher, champion-hitter, utterly lost without his favorite bats.

Player after player loomed up over the little manager and threatened him in a way that would have convinced outsiders he had actually stolen the bats. Mac threw up his hands, and in wordless disgust climbed into the waiting bus.

To Chase, riding to the hotel, having dinner, dressing for the game, and then a long bus-ride out to the island grounds were details of further enjoyment. Findlay was a great drawing-card and the stands were crowded. Chase was surprised to hear players spoken of familiarly, as if they were members of the home team.

“That’s Castorious, the great pitcher.”

“There’s old man Hicks, but say! he can catch some.”

“See, that’s good old Enoch, the coacher.”

“Where’s the new short-stop? The papers say he’s a wonder.”

Chase moved out of hearing then and began picking over the new bats Mac had bought. Enoch came up and looked them over, too.

“Bum lot of sticks,” he commented. “Say, Chase, Wheeling is a swell town to play in. The fans here like a good game an’ don’t care who wins. The kids are bad, though. Look out for them. This’s a good ground to hit on. You ought to lambaste a couple today. If Finnegan pitches, you wait for his slow ball and hit it over the fence.”

Findlay won the game 6 to 1. Castorious was invincible. Dude Thatcher hit one over the right-field fence, and Chase hit one over the left-field fence. The crowd cheered lustily after each of these long drives.

When the players piled into the bus to ride back to the hotel Chase saw them bundling up their heads in sweaters, and soon divined the cause. His enlightenment came in the shape of a swiftly flying pebble that struck his head and made him see stars. As the bus rolled out of the grounds Chase saw a long lane lined with small boys.

“Whip up your horses, you yayhoo!” yelled Cas.

“We ‘re off!” shouted another.

“Duck yer nuts! Low bridge! Down with yer noodles!”

Then a shower of stones, mud, apples, and tin cans flew from all sides at the bus. The players fell on the floor and piled upon one another, in every way trying to hide their faces. Chase fell with them and squeezed down as well as he could to avoid the missiles. It was a veritable running of the gantlet, and lasted till the plunging bus had passed the lines and distanced the pursuers. Then came the strenuous efforts imperative to untangle a dozen or more youths of supple bodies. Only the fortunate players who had been quick enough to throw themselves to the floor first, had escaped bruises or splotched uniforms, and they were hardly better off because of the smashing they had received.

“Gee! I got a lump on my head, all right,” said Chase.

“Thet was sweet as ridin’ to slow music. Wait, wait till we strike Kenton.”

That evening after supper, while Chase was sitting in front of the hotel, Cas whispered to him to look out for tricks. He spent the evening in and around the lobby and kept his eyes open. Nothing happened, and at ten o’clock he went upstairs to find his room. He unlocked the door and opened it, to be deluged by a flood of water from overhead. Next a bucket fell on him and almost knocked him down. Shivering and thoroughly drenched, he fumbled on the bureau, finally found matches and struck a light. A bucket, two sticks, and a string lay on the floor in a great pool of water.

“One of the t-tricks,” muttered Chase, with chattering teeth.

He locked his door, closed and fastened his transom, plugged the keyhole and then felt reasonably safe. For a long time there were mysterious goings on in that part of the hotel. Soft steps and subdued voices, snickerings, with occasionally a loud, angry noise, attested to the activity of those who were playing the tricks.

Chase finally got to sleep and had a good night’s rest. In the morning as he came out from breakfast he found most of his team assembled as usual in the lobby.

“Hev a good night, Chase?” asked several.

“Fine. Little wet, though, early in the evening,” replied Chase, joining in the general laugh.

“Watch for Brill. Don’t miss it,” said somebody.

Brill was one of the pitchers, a good player, quiet in his demeanor, and rather an unknown quantity. He was a slow, easy-going Virginian. Presently he appeared on the stairs, came down, and with pale face and deliberate steps he approached the players.

“Mawnin’, boys,” he said, in his Southern drawl. “I shore hev somethin’ to say to yo’ all. I don’t mind about the ice-water, an’ I don’t mind about the piller somebody hit me with, but I tell yo’ all right hyar, the fellar who — put — thet — there — leap-frog — in — mah — bed — is — goin’ to — git licked!”

But Brill never found out who put the leap-frog in his bed. Wild horses could not have dragged the secret from his comrades.

That evening, when the players were sitting in front of the hotel with their chairs tipped back, a slight, shabbily dressed woman with a dark shawl over her head approached and timidly asked for Mr. Castorious.

“Here I am, ma’am. What can I do for you?” replied the pitcher, rising.

“My husband sent me, sir. Jim Ayers he is, sir, an’ used to work in Findlay, where he knew you,” she said in a low voice. “He wants to know if you’ll help him — lend him a little money. We’re bad in need, sir, — an’ I’ve a baby. Jim, he’s been out of work an’ only got a job last week, an’ the second day he was run over by a team—”

“I read it in the paper,” interrupted Cas. “Yes, I remember Jim.”

“He said you’d remember him,” she went on eagerly. “Jim, he had friends in Ohio. He oughtn’t never to have left there. He hasn’t done well here — but Jim’s the best fellow — he’s been good to me — an’ never drinks except when he’s down on his luck.”

Cas gently turned her toward the light. She was only a girl, pale, worn, sad. “Sure, I remember Jim,” said Cas, hurriedly. “Fine fellow, Jim was, when he left off drinking. I’ll lend Jim some money, Mrs. Ayers, if you’ll promise to spend it on yourself and baby.”

The young woman hesitated, then with a wan, grateful smile murmured, “Thank you, sir, I will.”

“Now, you just go around the corner and wait.” Castorious led her a few steps toward the corner.

When she had gotten out of sight he took a roll of bills from his pocket, and detaching one, put it in his hat. “Dig up,” he said, thrusting the hat under Mac’s snub nose.

“Cas, you’re easy. You remember Ayers, don’t you?” replied Mac.

“I do. He was strictly N.G., a booze fighter, an all-around scamp. I wouldn’t give him the price of a drink. But that girl, his wife — did you see her face?”

“I did,” growled Mac, with his hand moving slowly toward his pocket.

“Dig up, then.”

Mac dug, and generously. The tall pitcher loomed over Thatcher. “Can you spare the price of a few neckties to aid a poor woman?” he asked, sarcastically.

“I can,” instantly replied the Dude throwing a bill into Cas’s hat.

Ball players fight out rivalries even in their charities. Cas glanced grandly down on the Dude, and then passed to Havil.

“The pot’s opened for five,” he said to Havil. Next to shooting shot, Havil liked best a game of poker. In a flash he had contributed to the growing fund.

“I’m in, and it costs two more to play,” he replied.

“Hicks, come on.”

“Cas, I’m broke, an’ Mac won’t give me a cent till Saturday night,” answered Hicks.

“Borrow, then,” rejoined Cas, curtly. He threw his roll of bills into the catcher’s lap.

Chase and several of the other players were ready for Cas, and so escaped calumny. Enoch mildly expostulated. “I’m gettin’ tired of bein’ buncoed this way,” he remarked.

“Produce. Ain’t you the captain? Don’t you draw the biggest salary? Produce,” went on the inexorable Cas.

“But, Cas, you’re always helpin’ some beggar or other.”

“Wha-at!” demanded Cas hotly. “It was only last week you touched the team for a nigger hobo. Produce!”

Enoch meekly produced.

“Wha’s the matter?” Inquired Benny, lounging out of the hotel door. As usual he was under the influence of drink.

“Hol’ on, Cas — gee! Wha’s all the dough for? Lemme in.”

“Never mind, Benny,” replied Cas. “Just raising a little collection for Jim Ayers’ wife. Remember Jim?”

“Got drunk with Jim many a time — hol’ on there. Wha’s the matter? Is my money counterfeit?”

Benny was the most improvident of fellows. He seldom had any money. And his bad habit excluded him from many of the plans and pleasures of his comrades.

“Say, Benny, this isn’t a matter of the price of a beer,” replied Cas, moving toward the corner.

Benny straightened up. “You’re only kiddin’ me — if I thought you meant that for an insult — say! I’m just as much a sport an’ gennelman as you, any day.”

Thereupon Benny soberly thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out a bill and some silver, soberly turned the pocket inside out to get the small change, and with great dignity dropped all the money into Cas’s hat.

CHAPTER 10

MARJORY AND POND-LILIES

IT WAS JULY second, and Chase was happy. Many things had occurred to make him so; summed up, they made a great beautiful whole. The team had won fourteen straight victories before dropping a game to Columbus, and had come home in first place. He had kept up his good work, especially at the bat.

Friends he had made everywhere. What a rousing welcome Findlay had given its team on home-coming! On the first of the month he had drawn one hundred dollars and had sent it home to his mother. While in Columbus Mac had taken him to see a surgeon, a wonderful specialist, who had injected something into the corner of his crooked eye, had cut a muscle or ligament, and then bound a little black cap over the eye, cautioning him to wear it till a certain time. Chase had managed to play with only one eye, but now the time was up. That morning he had temporarily slipped off the black cap to find he did not recognize the straight glanced, clear-eyed person in the mirror.

Then there was another thing, which, though he would hardly admit it to his own consciousness, had more than all else added a brightness to his day. An exceptionally large and enthusiastic audience had attended yesterday’s game, and in the grandstand, sitting among a merry crowd of young people, he had seen golden hair and blue eyes that he knew. He looked again to make sure. It was Marjory. And the whole grandstand seemed to grow gayer and brighter, the shrill cries of excited rooters had a joyous ring, the very sky and field took on a warmer color. The wonder of wonders was, that at a critical stage of the game, when by fast sprinting he scored a run, and was passing by the stand, he looked up to catch wonderfully, in all that sea of faces and waving hats, a smile meant for him.

Even the abuse of his fellow-players, renewed doubly since the home- coming, had no power to affect him after that smile. And a significant remark of Mittie-Maru’s had further enhanced the spell.

“I’ve fixed it fer you, all right, all right. You mosey out along the river. See!”

Chase had turned hot and cold at Mittie’s speech, had lamely questioned him further, but nothing more, except elaborate winks, could be elicited from the mascot.

And all this was why Chase was happy and roaming wild in the meadows. It was a soft, warm summer morning. The larks were turning their black-spotted yellow breasts to the sun and singing their sweet songs. Chase tramped and tramped, and ever resolutely tried to turn away from the maple-grove along the river. But every circle led that way, and he found himself at last in the shade of the trees. Through the bushes he caught a glance of the cool river, and then he saw a boat and a glimpse of blue and a gleam of gold. He tried to run away, but could not. His steps led him down the sandy path to the huge old maple.

“Good-morning, Mr. Chase. Why, aren’t you lost?” Marjory’s blue eyes regarded him in laughing surprise.

Chase had a vague thought that somehow he was lost, but all he could think of to say was that the weather was fine for the time of year.

“It is — lovely,” she said.

Then he had a brilliant thought, and he wondered why it had not come sooner. “Were — you going to — row?”

“Oh, yes. I always row every morning.”

“Might I — would you — I — I like to row.”

“You do? How nice! Then you must row me up to the meadow-pond where the lilies grow.”

Chase awkwardly got into the boat. Whatever was wrong with his hands and feet? When he had seated himself and straightened the oars he began to row. She was very close to him. He had not looked up, but he saw her little feet and the blue hem of her gown.

“You ‘re rowing into the bank,” she said.

“Why — so I am.” Hastily he turned out and then was careful to row straight. The boat glided smoothly and silently. The little river meandered between high green banks. Tall trees cast shadows on the water. Here were dark patches of shade, there golden spaces of sunshine. Birds were flitting and singing.

“Have you seen Mittie-Maru?” asked Chase.

“Yes, indeed. Lots of times. I’ve seen his den and fished with him and we’ve rowed after pond-lilies and had fine times together.”

What was there in her simple, kind words to make him feel so strangely toward Mittie? Of course he was glad she had been with Mittie, but somehow the gladness was an entirely new thing. All at once he discovered he was sorry that the Findlay team had to play games on the road. If it had not been for that he could have helped her give Mittie a good time.

“Here’s the pond,” said Marjory.

“It’s very shallow, so you must be careful or we’ll stick in the mud.” Chase saw that the river widened out into a large basin. There were islands, and bogs, and piles of driftwood. The green and gold and white of pond-lilies sparkled on all sides. The place was alive with birds and water denizens. Kingfishers resented the invasion; water-wagtails skimmed the surface and screamed plaintive cries. Turtles splashed off stumps and frogs plunked under the lily pads. Snakes sunned themselves in bright places. And a great gray crane stood solemnly on one leg and watched.

“I want a pink one,” said Marjory, after Chase had gathered a mass of dripping lilies. He rowed around the pond, and at last located a lily of the desired color, but could not reach it from the boat. He stepped out upon a log and stretched as far as he could reach.

“Oh! You’ll fall in!” cried Marjory, in sweet solicitude.

Chase slipped off the log and went in with a great splash. The water came up to his waist. He managed by grasping a branch to avert a worse disaster, and securing the coveted pink lily, climbed back upon the log and so got into the boat.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

“It’s nothing. I’ll dry in a little while.”

Then they both laughed. Chase rowed back to the bank and placed the boat so that Marjory was in the shade of an overhanging grape-vine, and he sat out in the sun. Somehow her merry laughter had given him courage, so he raised his glance to look at her. She had been only pretty before. Now! But the blue of her eyes meeting his drove away his thoughts.

“When will you be able to — to take off that eye-shield?” she asked.

“Why — how did you know?” he asked, breathlessly.

“I heard, and I read the baseball notes every day.”

“You do?” exclaimed Chase. Then he took off the shield and threw it away.

“Oh! I’m glad. But — but are you sure it’s time.”

“Yes. I only waited because — well that is — I — I wanted you to see me first.”

This appeared to be an unfortunate remark, for Marjory colored a soft rose under her white cheeks, and began diligently to sort the lilies.

“Mittie-Maru will be glad,” said Chase.

“If only he could be cured, too!” she replied. “Do you know he suffers all the time, and sometimes dreadfully, yet he never says a word?”

“Yes, I know. Poor Mittie!” Chase found it much easier to talk, now she avoided looking at him. “You were at the game yesterday. Do you like baseball?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. I like the running, and I love to see the ball flying, but I don’t understand much of the game.”

“Won’t you let me teach you?”

“Thank you, that would be nice, but I’m so stupid.”

“Stupid! You?” Chase laughed at the hint of such an impossibility. A blue flitting gleam flashed upon him from under the long lashes.

“Oh, I am. Now what is a bingo?”

“A bingo? Why that’s baseball talk for a safe hit, a ball knocked safely out of the reach of a fielder.”

“What does Captain Winters mean when he hops round the base and yells ‘Mugg’s Landing! Irish stew! Ras-patas’?”

“He’s coaching then, saying any old thing to try to rattle the pitcher.”

“Oh, is that it? What do you do with a base after you steal it?”

“Stealing a base means to run from first to second, or from second to third, without being put out. It really means stealing the distance, not the base.”

“What’s a foul?”

“A ball hit any way back of the white lines running from home-plate to first and third base.”

“What’s a knocker? A fellow who gives the ball a knock?”

“That’s more baseball talk. A fellow who speaks ill of another is a knocker.”

“Oh, but doesn’t he play the game too? I heard Mr. Winters say he was captain and first knocker. I’m surprised about him. He has such a nice face.”

“Captain Winters meant he was the first batter.”

“Then why did he say he was first knocker? Oh! — you see I’m stupid. I knew you’d see it.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“You have. You as much as said so. I won’t go to any more games.” The flash of reproachful fire and the glimpse of a petulant face that accompanied the words caused a sinking of Chase’s heart. What in the world had he said?

“Marjory—” he cried. Then at the sound of his voice, at his boldness in so addressing her, he halted and began to fumble over his wet shoes and squeeze the water out of his coat. There was a long silence. He dared not look up. How quiet she was! How angry she must be!

“We had better row home,” she said, at last.

He squared his shoulders and pulled hard on the oars. The little red boat flew over the placid water, leaving a troubled wake. Fast as he rowed he thought it a long way to the maple landing. All the way he never looked up or spoke. He could not think very connectedly; he only knew a terrible calamity had befallen him. He moored the boat and turned to help her out.

Marjory glanced at him over a great load of pond-lilies which she held with both arms. At the very top of the load, just under her lips, lay the pink lily. “Take it,” she said.

“W — h — what?” stammered Chase.

“The pink one.”

“Then — it’s all right” cried Chase, taking the lily. “We ‘re — you’re not angry?”

“Because you said I was stupid? Oh, no.”

“I didn’t say so. But I meant — about the—”

“You’re the stupid one.” She tripped up the bank and turned again with her blue gaze shining above the lilies. “I’m having a little party to-morrow night. Will you come?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll come — thank you.”

“Good-bye.”

Then the blue eyes and blue dress were gone. Chase had nothing to prove that they had been there except the pink lily which he clasped close to make sure of its reality. She had told him to take it, and she meant it to be his. Keep it? Forever!

He tramped the meadows like one possessed. The sunlight dazzled him; the river shone like silver; the meadows gleamed white and gold. A glamour lay upon the world. The winds blew sweet in his face. The blue sky came down to meet the horizon like a deep azure curtain. Overhead, all around, sounded a low, soft, steady hum. To him it was music. He ran through the clover field and burst upon Mittie-Maru at his dinner-task.

“Mittie, I never was so glad to see you. I’ve been on the river — been boating — pond-lilies. See, this pink one. Isn’t it lovely? I fell in trying to reach it. She gave it to me — isn’t that great? And we had a quarrel — I called her Marjory, or stupid, or something — we didn’t speak for an age — I was sick. Then she gave me this, bless her! And Mittie, she’s asked me to her party — it’s to-morrow night — she really asked me. Oh!—”

“Say!” yelled Mittie, with all his might. “Cut it out, will you? Hev’ I been pluggin’ yer game with her fer two weeks jest to be mushed over like this? I knew you had it bad, but I’ll be dinged if I thought you’d go dotty. You’re up in the air. Steady up! Steady up, old man! If you get rattled this way in the first inning what’ll you do when they tie the score along about the fifth? Miss Marjory’s got a raft of fellars, as ain’t no wonder. An’ thet preacher guy I don’t like is settin’ the pace. Come down out of the air, Chase, me Romeo. Keep cool, play hard, an’ along about the eighth hit one over the fence an’ put the game on ice. Now, hev some dinner with yer Uncle Dudley.”

CHAPTER 11

INSIDE BALL

FINDLAY LOST THE second game to Toledo, and according to Mac, largely through the weird playing by Chase. The Chronicle gave the excuse that Chase had not had time to accustom himself to the new arrangement of his eyesight, hence his errors. Mac, however, was not disposed to be generous, and after the game, told Chase he might expect a “call” when there was time to give it. And the players had heaped such terms of reproach upon Chase that he was well nigh distracted. He felt the cardinal necessity of acting on Castorious’s advice, yet was loath to bring matters to such an issue.

On the day following, when he presented himself at the grounds he met Mittie-Maru at the dressing-room entrance. It was evident that Mittie wanted to speak to him, but had only time for a warning glance before the explosion came from the players.

Chase walked to his locker through a storm of billingsgate, and somehow he sensed this was the climax. He turned his back, hurriedly got out his suit, and began to dress. If it must come to a fight he preferred to fight in his uniform. He listened to the storm, and for moments could scarcely distinguish any particular player’s voice or epithet. Then suddenly he heard mention of a boat and a girl in such manner that his blood leaped through him like a flame.

The moment had come. He was on his feet trembling.

“Hold on!” he yelled. “I know you’re after me. But come now, one at a time — unless you’re cowards!”

A blank silence followed his words. Castorious slowly separated himself from the others. Enoch glanced keenly at Chase and said, “I’m called, sonny. I was only kiddin’.”

Chase eyed the next player, who happened to be Havil.

“Me, too,” he said.

“I only said you ‘re a swelled-up mutt,” put in Thatcher, with a disarming smile.

“Aw, you’re gittin’ too exclusive since thet hoodoo lamp was fixed; too handsome, by far,” said Ziegler.

“Go wan, Molly!”

“You make me sick!”

“Willie-off-the-yacht!”

Meade was the next player upon whom Chase fixed his flashing eyes. The first-baseman evidently enjoyed the situation for he sneered and took a couple of steps in Chase’s direction. He looked mean.

“Throwin’ a bluff, eh? Well, you can’t bluff me. You ‘re a pie-faced tow head, that’s what you are. Been shuttin’ your eyes an’ gettin’ a few lucky hits — then swell up. See! Mama’s little baby boy! Too nice to smoke a cigar or take a drink, eh? But you mush the girls, you lallygagger! Boat-ridin’, eh? I know the girl, all right. She’s one of your dyin’-duck-in-a-thunder-storm kind. She’s—”

Chase struck out with all his strength. Meade crashed down into a corner, rolled over, twisted his body, but could not rise. Chase stood over him a moment, then turned round to encounter Benny. As usual, the second-baseman was partially drunk, and being a friend of Meade’s, he leered threateningly at Chase and raised his arm. Chase promptly slapped him. Benny staggered, lost his balance, and tumbled over a chair. Then he set up a howl. Cas ran to him and helped him to his feet and held on to him.

“Cas, lemme — go. I ben hit,” howled Benny.

“No, you haven’t. But you will git hit in a minute if you don’t look out,” said Cas.

At that moment Mac came into the dressing-room. Some of the boys were helping Meade to rise, and once up he presented a sorry spectacle. His lip was puffed out and bloody. Benny was now in tears, and crying he had no “frens.”

“What’s all this — a scrap?” questioned Mac.

Chase briefly told him the circumstances, and concluded in this wise.

“Stood it as long as I could. And I want to say right here — if anybody gets after me again he’ll be sorry!”

“Shure, it was about time you broke out,” growled Mac. “Meade, you got what was comin’ to you, an’ from the looks of your mug you got it good. You can take thet uniform off. I’m sorry to turn you down, but business is business. You don’t fit in with Findlay. I think you might get on with Wheeling, for they like your work down there. You’ve overdrawn, but let it go et thet.”

“An’ say, Meade, take a tip from me,” chirped in Mittie-Maru. “You’re a crack fielder an’ a fair sticker, an’ you know the game. But you’re a knocker. Get wise! Get wise!”

Meade lost no time in getting out of his suit. To the other players his release was but an incident in baseball experience; they all said a good word to him as he was passing out, and then straightway forgot him. Cas was remonstrating with Benny. It appeared Benny could not get over the idea that he must fight Chase.

“But, Benny, you’ll get all beat up,” protested Cas.” Because if you lick Chase, which isn’t likely, I’ll have to lick you myself.”

This put an entirely different light on the subject. Benny began to cry again, and said, “Everybody but me hash frens.”

“Cut it out! You’re half full, I tell you. Brace up, or Mac will be letting you go, too. I’m your friend. So’s Chase. Here, Chase, shake hands with Benny. He thinks you’ve got it in for him.”

Chase readily offered his hand, which Benny grasped and worked as if it were a pump-handle. He seemed as anxious to be friends as he had been to fight.

“Benny,” said Mac, “you’re shaky today. I want you to cut this boozin’ out. Mind, I’ll let you go if you don’t. Now, take a little sleep before the game.” Ford, the local player whom Mac was training, now came in for a talk from the manager.

“Here, Ford, an’ you, Chase. It won’t hurt you to listen. Ford, most of the balls thrown in any game go to first-base, an’ you must always be there. Practise gettin’ back to the base fast. The farther you can play off the base an’ still get back, the better you’ll be.

“Play deep when there’s no one on the bases. Let the pitcher cover the base sometimes when you’re fieldin’ a hard chance, an’ snap the ball to him underhand. With a runner on first, keep your eye peeled on the hitter. If he bunts down the first-base line, you dig for the ball an peg it to second, an’ then hustle back to your base. A fast man gets in double plays thet way. Think sharp, throw quick!

“Now, on handlin’ low throws, if you practise so you can pick up any kind of a bad throw, you will save many a game, an’ you will steady up the other in- fielders. Nothin’ helps a fielder so much as to know he can cut loose an’ thet you’ll get any kind of a throw. You’ve got a long reach, so don’t leave the base in reachin’ for wild throws till you have to. Keep both feet before the base, so as to be able to touch it with either foot. An’ reach toward the ball as far as you can. The sooner you catch it, the sooner the runner is out. Got thet?

“Now, Chase, a word with you. Thet was a weird game you put up yestiddy. Mind wasn’t on the game. See! You was countin’ your money, or somethin’ like. Mebbe this talk about your bein’ spooney has somethin’ in it. Anyway, you brace! Mind, you’re the keystone of the diamond. If you fall down-smash! You’ve got to play second an’ third as well as short. You’ve got to think before the play comes off. You’ve got to take many balls on the run. The particular thing yestiddy was your failure to catch the signals between Hicks an’ Benny. Twice you’d have saved runs if you’d caught the signal. Now, today, when Hicks signs Benny thet he’s goin’ to try to catch the runner off second, you back up the play. Got thet?”

Mac then turned to the others of his team.

“Say, Indians, I’m goin’ to pitch Poke today, an’ I want you all to get up an’ dust.”

“Wha-at?” roared Castorious, with his under-lip protruding. “I’m going to work today.”

“Shure, Cas, you can’t pitch all the ‘games. I want to save you. There’s the mornin’ game on the Fourth with Kenton. We have to go over to Kenton for thet, an’ we want to win it. We come back here for the afternoon game, an’ I think Speer’s good for it. What’s agin tryin’ Poke today?”

“He’s crazy.”

“Don’t put the Rube in.”

“He’s wilder than a Texas steer.”

These and sundry other remarks expressed the players’ opinion as to Mac’s new find.

“Well, he goes in, all right,” returned Mac. “An’ say, you fellars listen to this. Don’t any of you lay down. We want thet pennant. The directors have promised us a banquet, a purse, an’ a benefit game if we land the flag. Got thet?”

A chorus of exclamations greeted Mac’s news.

“An’ say, Beekman has put up an extra hundred for the leadin’ hitter. Got thet?” Another howl from the players answered him.

“An’ say, King has put up an extra hundred for the leadin’ fielder. Got thet?” This time there was a louder howl.” An’ say, Guggenheimer & Co. have put up an extra hundred for the leadin’ pitcher. Got thet?”

Cas began to dance and sing.

“Dodiddle-de-dum-dum-do-diddle-de. Oh! I don’t know. I guess maybe I haven’t that extra hundred in my inside pocket right now.”

“An’ say, if we land the buntin’ this season we’ll all have to get new trunks to carry away the suits an’ hats an’ shoes thet’s promised. Got thet?”

Cas, Benny, Enoch, and the others formed a ring around Poke and danced in Indian fashion.

“Hey! you rail-splitter, if you lose today we’ll kill you!”

“Sonny, get them hayseeds out of your eyes!”

“Listen to this, fellows,” yelled Cas, breaking up the ring.

“Reuben, Reuben, we’ve been thinking That we’ll put the kibosh on you If today you don’t put ’em over, And cut the plate right in two.”

Chase found himself joining lustily in the song. There was a scene of wild excitement, which for no apparent reason centered about poor bewildered Poke. The boys sang and yelled at him and slapped him on the back till they were all out of breath.

“Rube, you’re on.”

“Git in the game, now, you long, lanky, scared-lookin’ beanpole!”

On the way out, Chase, dazed at himself, not understanding why he had joined in the unanimous attack on Poke, slipped up to him and whispered, “Don’t mind it. We mean well. Keep your nerve and pitch hard.”

The bleachers showed a disposition to resent Mac’s choice in such an important game, and were not slow in voicing their feelings. “Mac, where did you get it?”

“Lock the gate! Lock the gate!”

“Get some straw for the calves of its legs!”

“Help! Help! Help! Help!”

“Well! Well! Well!”

Poke undoubtedly showed nervousness when he faced the first Toledo batter, and he was wild. He drove the batter back from the plate, and then gave him his base on balls. The bleachers broke out in a roar. But the Findlay players then showed one of the beautiful features of baseball, a thing that makes the game what it is.

Hicks walked toward the pitcher, and handing him the ball said: “Ease up! Ease up! Pitch fer my mitt! Take more time!” Then from all the players came soft, aggressive encouragement.

“Make ’em hit, sonny,” said Enoch, “Remember there’s seven men back here playin’ with you.”

“Don’t let any more walk, old man,” said Ford.

“There’s a stone wall behind you, Pokie, so put ’em over,” said Benny.

“Let them hit to me,” said Chase. From the out-field came low calls of similar import.

Poke’s heart swelled in his throat, as could be seen by the way he swallowed. He was white and dripping with sweat. His perturbation was so manifest that the Toledo players jeered at him. His situation then was the most important and painful stage in the evolution of a pitcher. Much depended on how he would meet it. He threw the ball toward the next batter, who hit it back at him. Poke made a good stop of the ball, dropped it, recovered it, and then stood helpless. Both runners were safe. The Toledo players yelled; the bleachers roared; Poke’s chance shone a little dimmer.

Again the Findlay players voiced their characteristic inspiriting calls. Poke threw off his cap and again faced a batter.

“Stay with ’em till your hair blows out!” called Enoch.

The batter hit the next ball sharply to Chase. He was on it with a leap, picked it up cleanly, touched second-base on the run, and whipped it to first, making a double play. The runner on second had of course reached third.

“Two down, old man!”

“Play the hitter!”

“Make him hit!”

Toledo’s man drove up a long fly in Thatcher’s direction. As he ran to get under it, the bleachers yelled: “In the well! In the well!” Past experience had taught them what fate to expect of a fly-ball hit to the Dude.

For Findlay, Enoch went out on a foul to the catcher; Thatcher had two strikes called, missed the next, and retired in disgust. Chase, now batting third, worked a base on balls. A passed ball sent him to second. Then Havil hit sharply through short field.

Chase started for third with all his speed. The play was for him to score. When he reached third he was going like the wind. As he circled round the base, Budd, the Toledo third-baseman, stuck out his hip. Chase collided with it, went hurtling through the air, and rolled over and over. He felt a severe pain, and the field whirled round. He could not make a move before Budd got the ball and touched him out.

Mac and Enoch came running, and the former spoke some hot words to Budd.

“Wot you givin’ us?” said that individual.

“Didn’t he run agin me? Go soak your head!”

Enoch was bending over Chase. Mittie ran out with a cup of water, and other players surrounded them.

“I’m not hurt much, I guess,” said Chase. “I’m only dizzy. Wait a minute. What did he do to me?”

“Call time,” yelled Mac to the umpire. “Chase, I told you to look out for Budd. Thet’s his old trick. He gave you the hip. Stuck out his hip an’ spilled you all over the field. It’s a dirty trick, an’ a bad thing for a fast man to run agin. I hope you ain’t hurt. Shure, you did tumble — won’t forgit thet in a hurry.”

“Say, Budd, why don’t you ever try that on me?” demanded Cas.

“Bah!” replied Budd, and walked toward the bench.

Chase was considerably shaken up and bruised, but able to go on with the game.

He did not say another word about it, only he made a mental reservation that he would surprise Mr. Budd the next time he rounded third base.

Some snappy fielding saved Poke again in the second inning, and in the third Toledo made a run on a base on balls, a hit and a fly to the out-field. Then the long pitcher seemed to settle down and lose his nervousness. Thereafter he mowed the Toledo batters down as if they had been cornstalks on his farm. The harder he worked, the swifter he threw, the steadier he became. He was ungainly, he did not know how to pitch, but what speed he had! The fickle bleachers atoned for their derision, the grandstands showed their delight; and the Findlay players, one and all, kept talking to him, lauding him to the skies, and belittling the hitters who faced him.

“Oh! I don’t know! Pretty poor, I guess not!”

“Poke ’em over, Poke!”

“Speed! Oh, no! You can’t see ‘em!”

“Grand, Rube, grand!”

In the eighth inning, when Findlay came in for their bat, Chase ran into the dressing-room and searched for a horseshoe nail that he remembered seeing. He put it in his pocket. There was one man out when he came to the bat, and he determined to get his base. As luck would have it he placed a hot single in right field. As soon as he reached first and stopped he took the horseshoe nail out of his pocket and held it firmly in his left hand, point exposed.

One glance toward the bench gave him the sign. Mac’s score card was in sight, which meant to run on the first ball pitched. Chase watched the Toledo pitcher with hawk-like eyes. He got up on his toes and as the pitcher started to swing, Chase started for second base. He heard the crack of a ball as Havil hit it, and he saw it shoot out over short to bound between the running fielders.

He ran as he had never run before, turned second, raced for third, and gripped his horseshoe nail. Budd was leisurely backing into third base trickily, to get there just at the right instant. Chase sped onward, with his eye on that muscular hip. He saw it suddenly, like a gray flash, protrude in his path, and using all his force he swung upward with the horseshoe nail.

Budd sprang spasmodically into the air. “Aa-gh!” A hoarse yell escaped him. The crowd in the stands and bleachers did not know what Chase had done, but as he easily scored, while Budd walked Spanish, they divined the triumph of retaliation, and howled with all the might of fair-minded lovers of sport.

But the Findlay players and the Toledo players knew how the little youngster Chase had “got back” at the veteran Budd. It was a play such as every ball player reveled in. It embodied the great spirit of the game. And to a man they broke out and pranced over the field in unbridled joy. For a time the game was interrupted.

And the best part of the incident was when, after Findlay had won 7 to 3, Budd went into the Findlay dressing-room and said to Chase:

“Kid, shake hands. I’ve been lookin’ fer thet fer years.”

CHAPTER 12

POPULARITY

SMALL BOYS USHERED in the Fourth of July with a bang. The noise began at daybreak, and at nine o’clock when the ball team left for Kenton, it was in full blast. A train-load of happy enthusiasts accompanied the team. Small boys without tickets hid under the seats, with determination in their hearts and hearts in their throats. And the conductor, being a boy himself that morning, with a wager on Findlay, saw nothing.

“Five hundred strong we’re goin’ Over,” said Mac, rubbing his hands.

“Shure we’ll draw down a big slice of gate-money today.”

“Rotten arrangement, this mornin’ game at Kenton,” growled his players. “Kenton is bad enough on any day. But the Fourth! Oh, Lord! What they’ll do to us!”

“We can’t win,” continued Cas, pessimistically. “We’ll be dodgin’ giant firecrackers, mark what I say!”

When they bowled into the Kenton grounds and poured out of the bus, an enormous shirt-sleeved crowd roared a welcome that was defiance. Then waiting showers of red fire-crackers began to fly, and the scene became a smoke clouded battlefield. Small guns popped incessantly and artillery worked strenuously. When this explosion subsided and the smoke rolled away, the Findlay team stood covered with little red and yellow pieces of paper and sniffing the brimstone in the air.

“Git in an’ scrap today, boys,” cried Enoch, and for once his voice was not soft.

“There’s nothing to it,” said Cas, forgetting his prophecy.

“A short, hard practice now,” added Mac. “Start the dust! Dig ’em up an’ peg ‘em! Keep lively an’ noisy!”

Kenton was very different from Wheeling, being one of those baseball towns where the patrons of the game could not see a point, or appreciate a play, or applaud a game unless it was won by their own team. This operated to the poor showing of their team, because when opposing teams visited Kenton they were driven to desperation by the criticism and taunts and atmosphere of an unsportsman-like crowd, and they fought the games to the last ditch.

Mac particularly warned his players not to question a single decision of the umpire. That official, “Silk” O’Connor, base-ballically reported to be as smooth as silk, was to be in the points that day. Silk was the best umpire in the league. But he was not especially beloved in Kenton. He had officiated in too many games lost by one run. And Silk had an irritating habit of adding a caustic comment to some of his rulings, a kind of wit that did not inspire the players to silence. Further, which seemed unreasonable, he never allowed a player to talk back to him.

“Lookout for Silk today, boys,” concluded Mac. “He’s up agin it here, same as we are. Don’t expect no close decisions. Don’t even look at him. Jest drive these Kenton pitchers to the woods. Make the game one-sided.”

“Play ball!” called Silk.

Enoch had scarcely reached the batter’s box when the Kenton pitcher delivered the ball. “Strike!” called Silk, then in low voice, “Foggy eye.” Another ball came speeding up. “Strike two!-up late last night?” Enoch’s round face grew red, and the lump in his cheek swelled out. He slammed at the next ball and sent it safely past the third-baseman. Thatcher hurried up and took his position on the left side of the plate.

“Strike!” called Silk. “Hair brushed fine, Dude!”

Thatcher bunted the next ball and dashed for first. The pitcher fielded the ball and overthrew, letting Enoch go to third and Thatcher to second.

“Don’t wait!” Whispered Mac to Chase. “Bing the first good one!”

Chase did bing one, and that with a vengeance. He had the ability to line the ball. This particular hit seemed to be going straight into the hands of the center-fielder, but just before reaching him it sailed up and shot over his head.

“Oh — h!” yelled Cas, on the coaching line. “Take your time, Enoch. Slow down, Dude, it’s easy. Oh, my! I guess it wasn’t a beaut. Come on! Come on! Come on! Slide, Chase, slide. That’s the way to hit the ground.”

Havil batted up a high fly to an outfielder. Chase leaned forward and watched the ball till it landed in the fielder’s hands, then he darted for the plate. The fielder threw quickly, making a fine race between ball and runner. But Chase had never yet been thrown out on such a play. He slid over the plate just as the ball sped into the catcher’s hands.

The game progressed. Kenton came in for their inning and failed to score. Castorious was in rare form; on a hot day his arm was like India rubber. Findlay added one run in the second and again blanked their opponents. In the third Chase got his second hit, and three hits following his, coupled with a base on balls and two errors, netted three more runs. Again Cas foiled the Kenton batters, and the impatient crowd stamped. In the fifth, two Kenton players hit safely with one out.

The crowd began to howl. Hicks snapped the ball to Benny, who tagged the runner trying to get back to second. “Out!” called Silk.

The Kenton players ran in a body for the umpire. The grandstand raged; the bleachers rose as one man.

“He’s safe! He’s safe!”

“Robber! Robber!”

“Kill him! Kill him!”

Silk ordered the players back to the bench. Cas struck out the next two batters, and elicited another storm from the bleachers. Some one threw a huge fire-cracker at Cas.

“Boom!” It exploded like a bursting cannon. Cas shook his fist at the bleachers, and that brought forth a rain of smaller fire-crackers.

Enoch went up and had a strike called on him. He looked at Silk and made a motion with his hand to indicate the ball had passed wide of the plate.

“Strike two!” called Silk, imperturbably. Enoch glared at him.

“Strike three!” called Silk, more imperturbably. “You’re out!”

Enoch leaned gracefully on his bat, spat tobacco juice about six yards, and said in his soft voice:

“Do you know a ball when you see it?”

“That costs you five dollars,” sang out Silk.

“Make it ten, you mullet!”

“Why, Enoch, how sweet you talk! Ten it is!”

“Make it fifteen, pin-head!”

“Dear me, the older you get the more you gab! Fifteen it is!”

“Make it twenty, you web-footed bat!”

“Twenty it is, and out of the game. The bench for yours!”

Enoch roared something in inarticulate rage.

“Get out of the grounds!” ordered Silk. And he held his watch till Enoch shouldered his bat and left the field. Mac threw up his hands as if he knew the game was all over then.

But even without their captain and third-baseman, Findlay kept blanking Kenton. In the eighth Cas went to the bat. A silence ensued that seemed to presage some striking event. It came in the shape of a huge red fire-cracker, that tumbled over and over in the air, and dropping behind Cas, exploded with a terrific report, tearing the seat out of his trousers.

Cas jumped about eight feet, and then, transformed into a veritable demon, brandishing his bat and roaring like mad bull, he made for the bleachers.

If Mac and several policemen had not intercepted him, the scene might have passed from comedy to tragedy. As it was, all Cas could do was to wave his fist at the hooting bleachers and yell:

“I can lick the man who threw that!”

“Boo! Boo! Redhead! Redhead!”

“I can lick you all,” bawled Cas, foaming at the mouth.

In the prevailing excitement the Findlay supporters naturally and foolishly poured out of the stands upon the field. Silk promptly called the game 9 to 0 in Kenton’s favor. Then began one of those familiar scenes common to a baseball crowd on the glorious Fourth. Like water the Kenton spectators spilled themselves into the melee.

What with the angry altercations between partisans of the teams, and yells and horn blowing and shooting of the winners, and pushing, jostling, crowding of both sides, the affair bid well to degenerate into a real fight. But this did not happen. It almost never happens. Great rivalry, great provocation, never yet spoiled the fair spirit of the game.

But the Findlay players ran a not-soon-to-be-forgotten gantlet to the railroad station. Sore were they, particularly Cas, who was not able to sit down on the way home; and threatening were the supporters, but by the time the gong rang for the afternoon game in Findlay, resentment vanished in present enjoyment.

For the attendance was very large, the afternoon perfect, and the game a spirited and thrilling one. Only a single misplay marred the brilliant fielding.

Both pitchers kept the hitting down. The final score was 2 to 1 in Findlay’s favor. Chase’s star rose higher; and if there were any who did not admit his popularity before the game, there were none after. For at the right time, at the one great absorbing climax, at the moment when eyes flashed, hands clenched, and hearts almost stopped beating, he performed the unexpected feat, the one thing absolutely glorious to the hoping, despairing audience — drove the ball far over the fence.

That hit settled it. Never had there been one like it save Dan Brouthers’ great and memorable drive of years gone by. Mac threw up his hands and stared in rapture at his star. The crowd carried Chase off the field.

When a player became the idol of the fans it meant something; but when a player made fans out of staid business men, and young society men, and girls in school, and women prominent in town and church affairs, then it meant a great deal. It meant money in the box-office, support for the team, willing, eager, working baseball champions.

And such a wave carried the Findlay team to the top of popularity, with Chase on the very crest. He was the recipient of more presents in the way of suits, hats, shoes, canes, umbrellas, than he knew what to do with. He received a beautiful gold watch, with his monogram engraved on it. He was asked to luncheon with prominent businessmen; he was invited everywhere. And last, a photographer lured him into his den, there took his picture, and reproducing it on small buttons, sold them by the hundreds. Every youngster and almost every girl in town proudly wore Chase’s picture. He was public property.

This latter fact became a source of pain to Chase. One day Mittie-Maru, having met Marjory by the river, had enlarged upon this matter of the picture buttons, with the result that he had interesting news for Chase.

“She wouldn’t hev one! Wot do you think of thet? Said you were conceited to allow ’em sold. Somehow she blamed you fer it. An’ when I asked her if ‘t wasn’t nice to see all the girls a-wearin’ ’em — wot you think she said? ‘Sickenin’,’ thet’s wot,— ‘sickenin’!’ Now, I’m wise ‘bout girls, an’ I up an’ tol’ her she was a victim of the green-eyed monster. Then wot you think she said? ‘Mittie-Maru, you needn’t speak to me ever any more.’ Queered myself pluggin’ yer game along, thet’s wot I did.”

Thereafter whenever Chase saw one of the buttons decorating the front of a school-girl’s blouse, he had a moment of chagrin, and called himself names for ever going into that picture-gallery. And when he saw Marjory he learned what she thought of the selling of his pictures all over town for ten cents each.

“But, Marjory,” said Chase, “even if they do sell so cheap it’s good business. It advertises the team, and I get a percentage.”

“Every girl in town can have your picture,” replied Marjory, severely.

Evidently the possibilities of the case weighed more with Marjory than the notoriety.

Mac, too, showed concern because of the popularity of his short-stop. More than once he hinted to Chase the necessity of a ball-player’s duty not to be carried away by praise and entertainment. There would come a time, Mac averred, when he would strike a spell of bad form, when the tide of popular favor would ebb, and then he would wish he had not let himself be made so much of.

And one day towards the close of July Mac sought Chase out in the evening. He seemed eager and excited, yet anxious. He chewed on his cigar stub and talked and held to Chase. “Got a date again to-night?” he asked for the twentieth time.

“Yes,” said Chase.

“I’ll let you go in a minute. There’s somethin’ I want to say. Chase, are you shure you won’t go up in the air, if I tell you? It’s great.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, I’ve been a little scairt of all this hobnobbin’ an’ fussin’ of yours. You’re only a kid, Chase. An’ mebbe only another puff or so ‘ll blow you out of sight.”

“Haven’t I listened to you always and kept both feet on the ground?”

“Shure, Chase, shure you have. I never trained a lad who took to things as you.”

“You needn’t worry about me, Mac. I’m having a great time here, there’s no doubt about it. I like everybody. I’m not missing anything. But what they say or think about my playing hasn’t anything to do with it, one way or another. On the surface it all looks easy, like real play. But you know how I’ve worked and am working to learn the game. I’ve got to succeed.”

“Good! Thet’s the spirit. Now listen. Ranney, the manager of Cincinnati, wrote me about you, an’ today Burke, manager of Detroit, was here, in the grandstand watchin’ your work. None of us knew it till after the game. He sneaked in foxy-like. It’s jest as well, because mebbe you ‘d been nervous. As it was, you put up your usual hard, fast game. He sez to me jest now — I walked to the station with him — he sez, ‘Thet’s a fast lad; can he hit?’ An’ I sez, ‘Can he? Well, he’s been rippin’ the boards off the fence all season.’ Then he sez, ‘Send me his battin’ average, an’ give me first say on him when the season’s over.’”

Mac spit out his cigar, moistened his lips, and producing papers from his pocket went on:

“I asked Mannin’ of the Chronicle to make out the averages. Here they are. You’re hittin’ 398, an’ leadin’ the Dude by a mile. It’s hard to believe, Chase, but there’s the figgers. You keep puttin’ the wood on ‘em, an’ besides you work a good many bases on balls. Thet tells. Now get this an’ keep it under your hat. If you can hang on with thet kind of stick work I’ll sell you for big money when the season’s over. An’ if you make it an even 400 I’ll give you one- third of the purchase price. Got thet!”

“Do I? Mac, I’ll tear the legs off all the third-basemen in the league from now on,” replied Chase, with fire in his eye. He saw the tired face of his mother and her toil-worn hands, and he saw the pale, thoughtful features of his brother. That afternoon he got two triples and a home-run out of five times at bat.

“Shure nothin’ can stop him now!” choked Mac, from the bench.

And what spoke well for Chase and his future was his popularity with the team. The “course of sprouts” had long since been gone through. Poke and Ford were now the butts of the players. Cas adored him, Enoch called him “Sonny,” now with fatherly friendliness, the Dude and Havil sought his society, and Benny hung to him like a leech.

“Cut out the drinking and come with me,” Chase had said one evening. And he had taken Benny from among the hangers-on round the hotel, the young, sports who liked to buy drinks, the rich oil-men who had nothing but money. Benny was ashamed and backward, but he enjoyed the evening. And Chase took him again and came to like him.

“How much do you draw, Benny, if you don’t mind telling?” asked Chase.

“One-fifty.”

“What do you do with it all?”

“Blow it in.”

“Don’t you save any?”

“How can a man save an’ skate with thet fly crowd? What doesn’t go for booze goes for poker. Sometimes I manage to send a ten-spot home.”

“I send money home every month.”

“I ought to,” Benny bowed his head.

“Folks need it?”

“Lord! They ‘re poor, sometimes awful poor when the governor is laid up with rheumatiz. There’s mother, she’s well an’ strong, but my sister’s most always ailin’. I never let myself think of them when I’m sober, an’ can’t when I’m drunk.”

“Benny, you’d be the best second-baseman in this league if you didn’t drink. Think how much you could help your folks, even now, let alone what you might do if you worked up to a bigger job.”

“I don’t care so much for the booze. There’s always somebody jollyin’ me,” said Benny.

It happened that Chase knew a Molly McCoy, a saucy, sparkling-eyed girl, who admired Benny and wanted to meet him. So Chase, when he had worn off Benny’s rough edges and made him manifest some interest in his appearance, took him to see Molly. The little lady fell in with Chase’s deep-laid plot, perhaps more from the eternal feminine than from any other reason, and she made her sparkling eyes complete Chase’s good beginning. She attached Benny to herself. And he, unable to comprehend, quite overcome, stuttered to Chase about it, and said most foolish and irrelevant things.

Wise Chase! He pretended there was nothing remarkable about the matter. To be sure, Molly was simply delightful. Of course she had wonderfully lovely eyes. He took care to hint to Benny that there were any number of young men in town who thought so and tried to tell Molly so. And vastly Chase said, as if it were a thing Benny did not need to be told, as if it were a simple conclusion: “It wouldn’t do to drink if any fellow wanted to go with Molly.”

Benny bought gorgeous neckties regularly after that, looked mysterious when his player friends chaffed him, and wore cool towards his former boon companions. The hotel bar-rooms seldom saw him, and it was noticeable that the heated flush faded out of his face. And when some misguided ball player hit a ball anywhere in the vicinity of second-base the bleachers sang: “Benny’s barred the door!”

During the latter half of July, Findlay kept the lead over Columbus by a small margin. And when that team presented itself for a series of three games the excitement waxed keen.

After the first game, which Findlay won, Chase met a very agreeable, smoothfaced, quiet-looking man. Chase had seen him about town somewhere, and was under the impression that Cas or Mac had said he was one of the many gamblers known in the oil-belt. He talked baseball and appeared friendly, so Chase treated him civilly. The next day he met him again. They sat in the lobby of the hotel and talked a while. It appeared the man had an engagement with Speer and was waiting for him. Some time later Chase saw the stranger with Speer and noticed that the latter had been drinking. This occasioned Chase some surprise, because Mac expected to pitch Speer in the next game, and Mac’s rules in regard to drink were stringent.

On Saturday, when Chase passed the small park near his boarding house, he encountered the agreeable gentleman sitting on one of the park benches. “Hello, Chase. Fine hot day for the game. Sit down. I’ve been enjoying the shade.”

Chase took a seat, more from his habit of pleasantry than from any desire to converse with the man. He was aware of a close scrutiny, but being used to that sort of thing took little heed of it.

“How about the game today?” asked the fellow.

“We’ll win. We’ve got to have two out of three.”

“Think there’s any chance to win some money?”

“I never advise bets.”

The gentleman adjusted his cuffs, picked a. thread off his coat sleeve, and flicked the dust from his patent leather boots. Then quite casually he glanced all around the park. “Have you seen Speer this morning?” he asked.

“No.”

“Hum! I — he said he expected to see you. Mebbe he will yet.”

Then he took a roll of bills from his pocket, snapped off a rubber and unrolled them, showing tens and twenties, rolled them up again and snapped on the band He was most deliberate. His next move was to hand the roll to Chase. “Stick that in your pocket.”

Chase would have been more surprised if he had not already been the recipient of so many presents; still this seemed out of all proportion. He could not imagine why a big sum of money should be handed him by a total stranger, and he said so.

“You’re wise. If not, Speer will put you wise,” replied the man, again adjusting his cuffs.

“Is this money for me?”

“Sure.”

“What for?”

“Aren’t you wise?”

“I certainly am not.”

“Well, I got a chance to win a few thousand this afternoon—”

“Here, I won’t try to place any money for you.”

“That bundle’s for you, and you’ll get another like it — if I win.”

“Do you mean you are going to bet on Findlay and give me this money to make me play all the harder? Because, if you do, take it back. I couldn’t play any harder for ten thousand dollars.”

“Not exactly. You see I’m betting on Columbus.”

“Oh-h!”

Then the man shook off his slow, deliberate manner, rose to his feet, and glanced at Chase with keen, hard eyes.

“You’re wise now, aren’t you?”

“Not exactly,” said Chase, slowly.

“It’s a cinch. You’re going to pull off a couple of hundred. It’s like finding money. I’ve got Speer fixed. Now all you need to do is to fall over a couple of grounders this afternoon or make a wild throw at a critical time. See!”

“You’re asking me to—”

“Lay down, be off your form—”

“You’re trying to buy me to throw the game?” Chase rose unsteadily.

“Hum! Call it so if you like, but—”

In blind rage Chase threw the money in the gambler’s face and pushed him violently with his left hand. The gambler staggered against the bench. Then Chase swung his right arm with all the power he could summon. Gambler and bench went down together.

“You hound!” cried Chase, quivering. “I’ll have you run out of town for this.” On the instant Chase wheeled and hurried down the avenue to the hotel. He went directly to Speer’s room, to find the pitcher lying on his bed looking rather sick.

“Speer! What’s this I hear?” demanded Chase, and he breathlessly described the proposition that had just been made him.

“Ain’t it rotten of me? He bought me, Chase. But I was drunk,” said Speer, in tears. “I’m sober enough now to know what a deal it was.”

“Sure you were drunk!” exclaimed Chase. “But I won’t peach, old man. You just forget it and cut out drinking with strangers after this.” Chase bolted downstairs to collide with Mac, Cas, Enoch, and Thatcher, all going in to lunch. “Fellows, I just punched a man who tried to buy me to throw the game. Flashed a hundred on me. Tried to put it in my pocket.”

“Wha-at?” roared Cas.

“Where is he?” Mac swore.

“Smooth-faced guy, well dressed, big blinker in his necktie? I saw him hangin’ round. What we won’t do to him—”

“Come on!” roared Cas.

“Wait; get the gang!” shouted Enoch. But the smooth-tongued, smooth-faced gentleman could not be found.

Several passengers at the station testified to seeing a gentleman answering that description — except that he had a badly swelled and discolored eye — going north along the tracks.

That night the story was town talk and Chase was a hero.

CHAPTER 13

SUNDAY BALL

“SAY, SHURE I got somethin’ to tell you Indians thet I ain’t stuck on,” said Mac. “The directors hev decided to play Sunday ball!”

The boys could not have made a more passionate and angry outbreak if they had heard they were to be hanged.

“Beef! Beef!” shouted Mac, red as a lobster. “Haven’t I been agin it? You puff-in-front-of-the-hotel stiffs talk as if I was to blame.”

“Wha-at?” roared Castorious.

“Gimme my release!” cried Benny, who had recently taken to attending a certain church. Benny never did anything by halves.

The Dude flung his bat through a window, carrying away glass and sash. All except Chase were violent in word and action, and he was too greatly surprised to move or speak. Mac’s position often assumed exasperating phases. This was one of them. He tried reason on the most choleric of his players with about as much success as if they had been brass mules. They persisted in venting their spleen on him. Then he lost his temper.

“Flannel-mouths! Hev you all swallowed red-hot bricks? Cheese it now, cheese it! The guy thet doesn’t report here Sunday gets let down, an’ fined besides. Got thet?”

Chase left the grounds in some distress of mind. The past four weeks had been so perfect that he had forgotten things could go wrong. Sunday ball! It had never even occurred to him. To give up his place on the team and all the bright promise of the future he could not consider for a moment. He would have to reconcile himself to the inevitable. But what would his mother say? He might keep it from her, he did not need to tell her; she would never find it out. No! The temptation lasted only a moment. He would not deceive her.

And then a further consideration weighed upon him. If he played baseball on the Sabbath in order to attain a future success, would that success be an honest one? He was afraid it would not. He had been trained to respect the Sabbath. If he kept faith with his training he must confess Sunday games were wrong. Nevertheless he could not harbor the idea of resigning his place. This made him feel he was wilfully doing wrong. And he plunged into bitterness of spirit.

It was with no little curiosity that Chase went out upon the field on Sunday. The grandstand looked as usual; many familiar faces were there. The bleachers were packed, and a line of men and boys, twenty deep, extended along to the right and left of the diamond. Chase had never seen such a crowd in the grounds. Nor had he ever seen such enthusiasm.

All at once it occurred to him that here were hundreds and thousands of boys and men who worked every hour of daylight six days in the week. They were new to him, and he saw that he was as new to them. They had never seen him play. They had never before had a chance to see a ball game in Findlay.

A question came naturally to Chase’s quick mind. Had they played the game when mere tots on the commons and learned to love it, as had he? A blind man would have answered in the affirmative. They were wild and bubbling over from sheer joy. If they loved the game and had only one day to go, albeit that day was Sunday, were they doing harm? Chase could not answer that. But he knew whatever it was for them applied also to him.

Findlay won the first Sunday game. A greater and noisier crowd had never before been in attendance. Noise! the field was a howling bedlam. The boys ran like unleashed colts; the men cheered their own players, roared at their opponents, and at each other.

In his heart Chase was trying desperately hard to justify his own part in it, and because of that he saw much and found food for reflection. Well he knew the pallor of these boys; it came from the dark, sunless foundries. The hundreds of men present had a yellowish, oily look; they were the diggers and refiners, the laborers from the oil-fields. At first Chase thought their unbridled mirth, their coarse jests at the umpire, at the players, and themselves, their unremitting wild, hoarse yells, as unnatural as strident.

Then suddenly a smile here, a laugh of delight there, told him all this was only natural. These men and boys had found expression for their pent-up feelings, for a short delight in contrast to the long day. This was their hour of freedom.

“Yell! That’s right, yell!” muttered Chase through his teeth as he went up to bat. He felt for them, but could not quite understand. He drove one of his famous liners against the fence. “Yell for that!” he said to himself. A long screeching, swelling howl of rapture rose from the field and stands. It rang in Chase’s ears as he sped round the bases, and when, after sliding into third, he stood up, he saw a sight he never forgot. The crowd was one leaping, tossing, waving, Crazy mass.

With Chase, to get the track of anything, was to trail it to the end. The faces and actions of that crowd made him think; their frenzied glee made him sad, because it reminded him of his old longing for freedom, and its very violence bespoke the bottled-up love of play. These men and boys wanted to play, and circumstances had made it so they could not. They loved to play, As they had mothers, sisters, brothers, children, to support, they had no time to play. As the next best thing they loved to see some one else play. And they had only one day — Sunday.

“It’s this way,” said Chase to himself. “If these men and boys spend their Sundays at home and in church, then Sunday ball is wrong. If they spend it otherwise, then Sunday ball is not wrong.”

Chase was tenacious and stubborn. He found he had loved the game as a boy because of the play in it; now he loved it because of what it was doing for him, because he believed in it. And he set himself to find out what it might be doing for others. He could not write to his mother till he had decided the question. So he spent much of his leisure time going the rounds of the foundries, factories, refineries, brick-yards, and he took care to drop into all the saloons, the beer-gardens, and dance-halls. Everywhere he was known and welcomed. He asked questions, he listened, and he watched.

When another Sunday had passed he was in possession of all he needed to know. With immeasurable relief he decided that, while he would rather not have played Sunday ball, it was not wrong for him to do so. He even decided he was doing good. Thus he settled the perplexing question forever in his own conscience. He would tell his mother how he had arrived at his conclusion, and as for others it did not matter what they thought.

All this time Chase had not been blind to certain indications of coolness on the part of people who had hitherto been pleased to be courteous and affable And as these indications had come solely from chance meetings in the streets, he began to wonder how much deeper this coldness would go, provided he sought the society of these persons. That thought alone kept him away from Marjory for over a week. He believed she would understand, and still be his friend. But instinctively he feared her mother; and he had a momentary twinge when he called to mind the young minister so welcome in the Dean household.

One evening when a party of ladies coolly snubbed him, Chase could stand the suspense no longer. So he presented himself at Marjory’s home, and much to his relief found her on the porch alone. “Chase, mama has forbidden me to see you,” she said, with her blue eyes on him.

Chase gulped when he saw the eyes were unchanged, still warm and bright.

“No? Oh, Marjory, it’s not so bad as that?”

“Yes. But, Chase, you just give up the Sunday games, and then everything will be all right again.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? Let them play without you.”

“It’s no use, Marjory. Either I play on Sundays or give up the game. And it means a good deal to me. Does your mother say it’s wrong?”

“She says it’s awful. And Mr. Marsden held up his hand in holy horror when he heard it. He’s going to work against it — stop it.”

“Do you think it’s so terribly wrong?”

“Oh, Chase, for you to ask me that! Don’t you know it?”

“No, I don’t,” replied Chase, stubbornly.

“Then you won’t give it up?”

“No.”

“Not — not even to please me?”

“I would if I could — but I can’t. Marjory, please—”

“Then — good-bye.”

“Oh!” cried Chase, sharply. He looked at her; the long lashes were down. “You said that as if I were — Look here, Marjory Dean! I’m working for my mother. I’ve seen her faint when she came home at night. I’ve seen her hands bleed. If every day were Sunday and baseball bad — which it’s not I’d play. What do I care for Mr. Marsden? He’s so dry he rattles like a beanstalk. I don’t care what your mother thinks. She’s — I don’t care — what — what you think, either. Good-bye!” He strode off the porch.

A low, tremulous “Chase!” did not halt him. He was bitterly hurt, angry, and sick. He went to his room, fought out his bad hour alone in the dark, and then came forth feeling himself older and resigned.

But he was more determined than ever to stand by the game. Sunday another great throng yelled itself hoarse at the grounds, and went home in shirt- sleeves, sweaty, tired, and happy.

Chase dressed, went to dinner, and then strolled round to the hotel. All the boys were there lounging in familiar groups. He thought they all seemed rather quiet and looked queerly at him. Before he could learn what was in the air a policeman whom he knew well stepped up reluctantly.

“Chase, I’ve got a warrant for you.” The blood round Chase’s heart seemed to freeze. He stared, unable to speak. “My pardner has gone to arrest Mac,” continued the officer.

“Here’s the warrant.” The printed words blurred in Chase’s sight, but his own name in writing, and the term “Sunday baseball,” and the Rev. Mr. Marsden’s name told him the meaning of the arrest.

“I’m sorry, Chase. I hate to run you in. But I’ve my duty,” said the officer, and whispered lower, “We’ll try to get word to Mayor Duff, so you can get bail and not be locked up.”

“Bail? Locked up?” echoed Chase, stupidly.

Mac appeared with another officer. The little manager was pale but com- posed. “Shure, we’re pinched, Chase,” he said and as the players crowded round he continued : “Fade away now, or you’ll put people wise. Somebody hunt up King an’ Beekman an’ send them to the station. Cas, you dig for Mayor Duff’s house an’ ask him to come to take bail for us. Lord! I hope he’s home. If not, the law puts us in a cell to-night. Shure somebody has done us dirt. Them warrants might have been made out for to-morrow.”

“Mac, you an’ Chase walk round to the station alone,” said one of the officers. “We’ll go another way.”

“Thanks, shure you’re all right,” replied Mac.

“Come on, Chase. Don’t look so peaked.”

“Isn’t the whole team arrested?” queried Chase.

“Shure, an’ the whole team ‘ll be on trial, but the warrants read for manager and, one player. It’d been more regular to hev pinched Enoch, as he is captain. Don’t know why they picked out you.”

“Is playing on Sunday against the law?”

“Naw. Not any more’n drivin’ a team; but these moss-backed people twist things an’ call us ‘nuisances’ an’ ‘immoral’ an’ Lord knows what. Here we are at the station, it’s pretty tough on you, kid, but don’t quit. This won’t hurt you any.”

The two officers met them, unlocked the station-house doors, and ushered them into the mayor’s office. Presently Beekman strode in, big and important, and said it was not necessary to call in King, for he would go bail for both.

“If Duff’s in town he’ll come,” continued Beekman. Presently the sounds of a fast trotting horse and flying wheels drew an officer to the window. “The mayor’s here,” he said.

Mac settled back with a deep breath. “Good!” he exclaimed.

A tall man with a gray beard came in hurriedly, followed by Castorious. He nodded to all, threw his gloves on the desk, and took the warrants held out to him. In a few moments he had made the necessary recording of the arrests and of accepted bail. Then he shook hands with Mac and Chase.

“Glad I happened to run across Castorious. Was driving out into the country. You’ll get your hearing to-morrow morning, and if you wish I’ll set the trial for Wednesday or Thursday morning.”

“The sooner the better,” replied Mac. Then the mayor bowed pleasantly and left. Chase followed the others out. He could scarcely realize that he had been arrested; and leaving his friends in earnest conversation, he went to his room and to bed. He did not have a very restful night.

The morning papers were full of the particulars of the arrest and the consideration of Sunday ball; and the subject was the absorbing topic of conversation everywhere. All the directors of the team were present at the hearing, and afterwards repaired to judge Meggs’s office to discuss the matter of defence.

Meggs was a shrewd old lawyer, and incidentally an admirer of the game of baseball. While in office he had been known to adjourn court because he wanted to see Findlay “wallop” their rivals. Therefore it was felt that with the case in his hands the team would escape imprisonment and fine even if Sunday ball were discontinued.

Beekman and King had visited practically all the men of business in Findlay and stating their case, that the Sunday game was conducted in an orderly manner, that no drinks were sold at or near the grounds, that it was played at the earnest request of thousands of working men and boys, had gotten a long list of signatures to their petition favoring the game.

During the discussion as to the defence one of the directors had mentioned the fact that certain members of the laboring class were better off in summer for the playing of the game.

“Can we prove that?” asked judge Meggs.

“I know it’s true,” spoke up Chase.

“How do you know?” returned the lawyer.

Somewhat incoherently, but with the eager earnestness of conviction, Chase told what he knew. Then the judge questioned him in regard to his motive, drew him out to tell what baseball meant to him and to others like him, with the result that he presently said to the directors:

“Gentlemen, we have our defence and you may take my word for it, we shall win.” He asked Chase to call at his office an hour before the time fixed upon for the trial next day.

Findlay lost the ball game that afternoon. They played listlessly, and plainly showed the effects of the cloud hanging over them. On Wednesday Chase went to judge Meggs’s office at the appointed time.

“Now, Chase, if you are a star of the diamond you ought to shine just as brightly in the court-room. This morning when I call on you I want you to get up and tell the court what you told me about yourself and baseball. Be simple, earnest, and straightforward. You have here the opportunity to vindicate yourself and your fellow-players, so make the best of it.”

Chase went to the court-room with the judge. It was crowded with people. The Findlay team and the team visiting town at that time occupied front seats. All the directors and many business men were present. There was a plentiful sprinkling of ladies in the background. Mayor Duff opened proceedings as soon as the judge arrived with Chase. The prosecuting minister did not appear. His representative, a young lawyer, rose and expatiated on the evils of the Findlay team in general and of Sunday ball in particular.

These young men set bad examples, engendered idleness and love of play, they were opposed to work, they enticed boys from school to see a useless and sometimes dangerous sport, they fostered the spirit of rivalry, of gambling.

Baseball on Sunday was an abomination, it was a desecration of the Sabbath, it added to the undermining of the church, it opposed the teachings of the Bible, it kept the boys and girls from Sunday school. Sunday was a day of rest, of prayer, of quiet communion, not a day for playing, howling, yelling, mobbing, carousing. The permitting of the game was a disgrace to the decent name of Findlay, a shame to her respectable citizens, and a sin to her churches.

The prosecution examined witnesses, who swore to endless streams of passing men on the streets; of yelling that made the afternoon a hideous nightmare; of brawls on corners and mob violence in the ball-grounds; of hoodlums accosting women. And there the prosecution rested.

Judge Meggs read the petition and names, of the men who had signed it; and he said there could be little doubt of the great benefit Findlay had derived in a business way from the advertising given to it by the baseball team.

“Your Honor,” he concluded, impressively, “I will now have one of the defendants tell his experience of baseball.”

At a word from judge Meggs, Chase stepped forward. His face was white, his eyes dark from excitement, but he appeared entirely self-possessed.

“Your Honor, I am eighteen years old, and have played baseball as long as I can remember. I learned in the streets and on the lots of Akron. When twelve years old I left school to work to support my mother and a crippled brother. I sold papers, did odd jobs, anything that offered. I had a crooked eye then, and it was hard for me to get a place. People didn’t like my looks. At fourteen I went to work in the moulding department of a factory. I studied at night to try to get some education. When I had been there a year I earned five dollars a week. After four years I was earning six dollars. I did not advance fast.”

“Last Summer I played ball on the factory team. This Spring I decided to be a ball player. My mother opposed me, but I persuaded her. I started out to find a place on a team. My crooked eye was against chances of success. I became a tramp, and beat my way from town to town. I starved — but I hung on.”

“One morning I awoke in a fence corner. A woman I spoke to said the town near by was Findlay. I hunted up the ball-grounds and the manager. He didn’t see my ragged clothes or my crooked eye. He gave me a chance. I played a wretched game. I expected to be thrown from the grounds. He gave me money, said he would keep me, would teach me the game. I tried hard and I made good.”

“I have been very happy here in Findlay. I never knew what friends meant. Everybody has been kind to me. I have dreamed of one day being a business man here. But best for me was what I could do for my mother and brother. She does not take in washing any more or sew herself blind late into the nights. My brother has had treatment for his hip; he has the books he needed, and he will get the education he longs for.”

“When I learned we were to play Sunday ball I was stunned. I never thought of that. My mother gave me Christian teaching, and I kept the Sabbath day. I was sick with doubt. I felt that I was going to do wrong. I concluded that it would be wrong, but I had no mind to sacrifice my place on the team. That had been too dearly bought. It meant too much to me.”

“My mother had to be told, and there lay the reason of my seeking for some excuse. It came to me in the first Sunday game. There were five hundred men and boys who had never attended one of our games. No one ever saw a wilder crowd. It was as if they had been let out of an asylum. They were crazy, but it was with happiness. They screamed like Indians, but it was for freedom. I saw men smash their hats, boys throw their coats; and both yell with tears in their eyes. Why?”

“Your Honor, I will tell you why. I know what it means to work from daylight to night, year in, year out, with no chance, no hope for the natural play every man and especially every boy loves. It is very easy for ministers and teachers to tell us working-men how to spend the one free day, and no doubt they mean well, but they miss the point. On Sunday those shrieking, boisterous diggers, cappers, puddlers, refiners, had gone back to their boyhood. They played the game for us with their hearts, their throats, their tears.

“The night after that game I had a change of feeling. I began to think perhaps after all it was not so bad for me to Play ball on Sunday. I began to see things I had never seen before. If I could satisfy myself that the hundreds of men and boys were better off at a Sunday game than elsewhere, then I was justified in playing for their amusement.”

“So I began to go round and ask questions. At first this searching for the truth was because of what I must tell my mother; afterwards the thing itself interested me. I went to the foundries and factories, to the big refineries, to the brick-yards — everywhere. And I found everybody knew me; everybody had a word for me; everybody’s eyes shone at the mention of the next Sunday game. I talked to little boys and girls carrying dinner to their fathers, and I went home with them and talked to their mothers. One and all, these mothers welcomed the game.”

“I visited the saloons and beer-gardens, the road houses and the dance- halls. I found them bitterly opposed to Sunday ball. Their Sunday business was ruined. Two big gardens closed up after the second Sunday. I had seen some of these places when in full blast on a busy Sunday. The beer ran in streams and the air reeked.”

“It seems to me those who make the laws would learn something if they would become mere hard-working men. When their eyes burned in their heads, and their backs ached, and they never saw the sky, and grew dull and weary, they would see differently. They wouldn’t ask any man to sit in church and be told how to be good and happy. A man or a boy penned up all the week needs some kind of a fling. Your Honor, I wrote my mother that I was not doing wrong when I played Sunday ball. I am not ashamed of it. We players are not a disgrace to Findlay.”

Chase sat down. Judge Meggs stroked his chin and watched His Honor, while the crowd roared their applause. Finally Mayor Duff rapped on his desk.

“I am sitting in judgment on this case as Mayor of Findlay, as a deacon of the church bringing the action, and as a director of the Findlay Baseball Association. I am rather submerged in the deep sea between the two sides. But I am happy to say that as mayor, church member, and director I have solved the problem.”

“I do not want to go on record as agreeing entirely with Alloway. Still, so far as he is concerned, I uphold him. More than that, he has given us something to think about. I have long had my eye on those halls and gardens he spoke of, and now they shall be closed on Sundays.

“During the last few days I have visited every prominent business concern in Findlay, and I have laid before each this baseball situation. In substance, I said I would permit Sunday ball unless they gave their employees a half- holiday on Saturdays. I have spoken of Findlay’s prosperity, and that no small factor in the activity of business for the last few years has been the advertisement of our crack baseball team. I have gone to the different leaders of the churches and of society, and I have solicited their co-operation, assuring them if they would join forces with me for the good of Findlay and the laboring classes and the base ball people, there need be no Sunday ball.”

“I am happy to say that I have been entirely successful. There will be no Sunday ball. There will be no open shops or factories or mills on Saturday afternoons. We, all of us, working people, church people, everybody concerned, will profit by this. How much better it is for the baseball team to have the undivided support of Findlay! That is what it will now have. Findlay is proud of its baseball team. And it is proud of some other things, — its prosperity, its good name, its old-fashioned institutions. We want still to have the quiet, serene Sundays our fathers and mothers had.”

“I think it is to the credit of Findlay that we can meet this question and settle it to everybody’s satisfaction. I am sure the matter has been wholesome for us as a city and as individuals.”

“So, I am happy to dismiss the case, assuring the prosecution and the defence that they both have won, and that their victory is in every way an advance, a betterment, for the commonwealth of Findlay.”

CHAPTER 14

WAITING IT OUT

IT WAS A good thing for Chase and his batting average that right after the trial, the Findlay team took their usual monthly trip on the road. Chase’s hitting had been slowly dropping off, except for an occasional vicious double or triple during the last two weeks; but once away from home he returned rapidly to form. The team broke even on the trip a satisfactory showing to Mac.

“Shure, we ‘re restin’ up fer the break into the stretch,” he said.

They came home to find the town more stirred up than ever. The faction that had opposed the game now printed editorials, sent circulars and petitions, preached sermons, and worked indefatigably for Mac and his players, and therefore created all the more interest.

The directors came out with an announcement that, owing to the increased patronage, it was necessary to have more seating capacity, and they erected another open stand.

Chase was all the more popular, and more sought after than ever, but he could not take the pleasure in it that he had derived before his arrest. He was quiet and preoccupied, and haunted the ball-grounds on mornings and practiced batting till Mac drove him out. “You Indian, you’ll go stale!” Cried Mac. “Besides, you’re battin’ all my practice balls over the fence for the kids to steal.”

Chase thought that a thousand persons beaming upon him could not make up for the coldly averted look of one individual. He fondly imagined that the few whom he met at long intervals, who passed him by as if he were nothing, were the occasion of his gloom. He began to revel in a species of self-pity. It remained for him to learn a good deal from his stanch friend, Mittie-Maru.

“Down in the mouth agin? Didn’t I once hear you ask Mac, ‘Wot you want fer fifteen cents — canary birds?’ Chase, me old college chum, you’ve got the pip. You couldn’t see tru a mill-stone wid a hole in it. Ain’t you ‘It’ round these diggin’s? Sure as yer born, one of the big teams’ll cop you out this Fall. Thet ‘ll mean two thousand next season. An’ here you go mopin’ round like a dead one. Wot t’ ‘ll’s the matter wid you?”

“I’m just a little off my feed, Mittie, I guess.”

“I reckon it’s not thet. You’ve got the dingest case I ever seen, Chase. A pair of sky-blue eyes hev been yer finish. It’s a case of shut out! No hit game! Not a look in! Marjory’s folks hev trun you down, an’ now everything you see is pea-green.”

“Mittie-Maru—”

“Go wan! Yer insulted? Perfeckly rude, ain’t I? Say, I wanter beat some sense into yer block. You can’t string me. I know, an’ I wanter put in my oar. See! Fust thing you know, you’ll be hevin’ a slump, an’ yer fine record’ll go to bally-hoo. Listen, I’ve been with Miss Marjory most every day while the team was away, an’ I hed my troubles cheerin’ her up. You ain’t one-two-six to Miss Marjory fer a dead one!”

Chase gave a start, turned wildly to Mittie, and stuttered, “Is-s-s — she s-sorry?”

“Tho’t you’d come to. Sorry! Say, Marjory’s washed all the sky-blue out ‘en her eyes cryin’. She can’t cry except when she’s with me, so thet’s how I git it in the neck, as usual.”

“W — what — did she — s-say?”

“She don’t say much ‘cept, ‘Mittie, he’s angry with me. — Is he angry with me? — Will he stay angry with me?’ An’ then she weeps some more.”

“Angel!” murmured Chase.

“Say, Chase, if you’ve any regard fer my friendship — cut thet out! An’ yer wrong about Miss Marjory’s bein’ an angel. She’s a little devil. I tell you, I bet she makes the fire fly for thet bunch as was after yer scalp. She won’t go to church, or Sunday school. She’s sore on her mother an’ won’t speak to the old man. She showed yer speech, thet you made at the trial, an’ was printed in the Chronicle, to Mr. Marsden, an’ sez it was better ‘n any sermon he ever preached. An’ she won’t see him any more. She says they all make her tired. Oh! Marjory’s got her back up an’ she’s gamer ‘n a red monkey. So all you’ve got to do is slip out to the river with me an’ the rest’s easy.”

“No! No! No!” cried Chase. “Then her folks would have something against me.”

“Wot?”

“I can’t do it, Mittie, and yet I want to see her—”

“Are you goin’ to quit, lay down, throw the game?”

Chase struggled with his temptation and overcame it. “It wouldn’t be right, Mittie.”

“Well, I’ll be dinged! Wot’s wrong about fightin’ yer own battles? Ain’t Miss Marjory a girl? She don’t know she’s wild over you, but she is. All this knockin’ of you has put the last crimp in her little romance. Her folks might hev hod sense enough to see thet. The more they say agin you the more she’ll be fer you. But darn her folks! I’m thinkin’ about her. Presently she’ll git wise to her own feelin’s. An’ there you are, standin’ off like thet Greek feller on a monument. You want to be near home-base when Miss Marjory gets wise to herself, an’ then, if you run hard an’ make a good slide, you’ll score! If you’re not there she’ll freeze. Girls is girls. Darn the old folks! They preach a lot, an’ go round tellin’ wot angels they was onct. It’s dollars to doughnuts they half lie an’ half forgit—”

“Mittie, will you shut up?” demanded Chase, in distraction.

“Wot? Of all ungrateful dubbs! But hol’ on, my feelin’s ain’t hurt. You’re got to listen! I’ve been savin’ my best hit fer the last innin’. it’s a corker, a homer all right, all right! Miss Marjory’s bought all the buttons with yer picture on thet she could find. She’s wearin’ ’em fer badges an’ medals, an’ shirt-waist buttons, an’ sleeve-buttons, an’ I’m dinged if I know what else. Now wot do you think of her?”

But Chase fled without answering, nor turned at Mittie-Maru’s shrill yell.

The gloom that shrouded him rolled away. Something seemed to sing to him that all would end well; something whispered for him to wait. His mother had always told him to wait when in anger or doubt. And he applied her advice to temptation, to fear and trembling, to wonderful vague hopes.

After the game that day Mittie-Maru sidled up to Chase, searched his face with a gleaming glance, and said:

“I won’t kid any more, Chase. You can trust me to say the right thing to Miss Marjory. I see her every mornin’, an’ she wants to know a lot. An’ I’m a good liar. But — wot’s yer game?”

“Waiting it out!” replied Chase, with a smile.

The little hunchback nodded gravely and walked away with his slow, labored steps. Chase found a note at his boarding house. It was from judge Meggs, asking him to call in the evening on a matter of some importance. After supper he hurried to the judge’s home. It was magnificent house, one of the finest in Findlay. Chase felt proud of being invited to call there. A maid admitted him and showed him into the library.

“Hello, Chase, have a chair,” greeted the judge. “How’s the game today? Was busy late and couldn’t get out.”

“Mansfield was easy for us, 11 to 3. But they’re weak, in last place.”

“Did you get any hits today?”

“Four, but two of them were Texas leaguers.”

“Four hits! You certainly are keeping it up. And what are Texas-league hits?”

“Little measly flies that drop just over the head of an in-fielder. I hate them. I like to feel the bat spring and hear the ball ring off. To ‘hang a bell on ‘em,’ as Mittie-Maru says.”

“You ‘re growing heavier, Chase. You’re filling out.”

“Yes, what do you think? I weigh nearly a hundred and seventy now. It’s funny I’m getting fat, when I perspire so much.”

“What was the feature of today’s game?”

“Cas’s bulldog. He certainly made things hum. Now you know just before play is called every game, Mittie-Maru puts the club colors on Algy -that’s the bulldog’s name — and runs him around the diamond. Just for luck, you know. Well, Algy surely is proud of that job. Today as he was coming in the stretch, a little, sassy, ugly pup ran out of the grandstand.

“Algy saw it and must have taken it for a rat — he’s death on rats — for he bolted after it. Mittie tried to grab him and Cas yelled like mad. I guess Cas knew what was coming off. Algy chased the little dog up into the grandstand. There was a big crowd — lots of women. Well, it was funny. I never saw such a muss in my life. Of all the screaming you ever heard! The women stood on the chairs and fell all over the men. Some of them got on the railing and were pushed off into the field. You know the wire screen in front of the grandstand back of the home-plate? Well, in the crush to get out of Algy’s way some women jumped on the railing and of course fell up against the screen. It sagged out and dropped down in a sort of bag, and there the women were like fish in a net, kicking and floundering round. Mac said it beat a bargain sale in loongeree, whatever that is. Cas finally got hold of Algy, and it surely was time enough!”

“There’s always something new and funny at a ball game,” said the judge, with his hearty laugh. “Now, Chase, let’s talk business. I’ve got a proposition to make to you. Have you planned anything for the Winter?”

“No.”

“Is there any reason why you could not have your mother and brother come to live in Findlay?”

“Why, I guess not.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I’ve got a job for you, seventy-five a month to start with. Meggs & Co. — you know my brother’s big store, groceries, wholesale and retail, hardware, oil-men’s supplies, etc. I’m a member of the firm. We are investing heavily in new oil-fields, branching out. You’ll be busy in the store and keeping time of the men. You’ll have a chance to learn things. This job will be ready for you soon. In the meantime you can hang around in the mornings and get on to your work. How does the idea strike you?”

“Thank you — why — it’s simply bully. Only — does that mean I must give up baseball?”

“Certainly not. It’s a winter s work for you. You must stick to baseball till you’ve made some money. But I take it you won’t loaf between seasons. I just thought I’d throw this in your way. We need a young man. And as I hinted, there might turn up something of future value to you.”

“I accept — thank you very much.”

“Now here’s another idea. There’s a cottage and a plot of ground, ten acres, I think, on Elm Street, just on the out skirts of town. It’s a pretty place and for sale cheap. A little money on repairs would make it a nice home. There’s an orchard, a grove of maples, and the river runs along the edge of it. This place would be a good investment at twice the price asked for it. I know. I am interested in a real-estate deal with some men here. King’s one, so’s Mayor Duff. We’re going to develop a good bit of ground to the north of town. Prices will go up out that way. I can get this place on any terms you want. You can buy it for less than rent. You run out there the first thing to-morrow, and if you like the place, come to my office and we’ll close the deal. Now let’s have a game of billiards.”

Chase left the judge and went to his room with his mind too full of plans to permit of sleep till late in the night. He awakened early, and breakfast being entirely superfluous, he hurried north to Elm Street and thence to the outskirts of town.

There was no mistaking the cottage, because it was the only one. Chase felt it was altogether out of the question for him to own such a place. The cottage sat back from the road on a little hill. It was low, many-gabled, vine- covered, and had a porch all the way round. A giant maple shaded the western side. Chase went in. The first room was long, had a deep seat in a bay-window and an open fire place. He saw in fancy a fire blazing there on a winter’s evening. There were a dining-room, and kitchen, and a cosy pantry. Upstairs were four bed-rooms. The west one, all bay windows and bright, would be for his mother; the adjoining one would be Will’s, and a little room in the back, from which he saw the grove and the river, would be his.

Then he punched himself and said, “I’m dreaming again.” He looked into the well in the backyard and straightway began singing “The Old Oaken Bucket.” He flew through the orchard and ran into the grove of maples. The trees, the fence, the hill sloped down to the river. There was a little fall and a deep pool and a great mossy stone.

“I’ve got to hurry back to the judge’s and be waked out of this,” muttered Chase. “What would Mittie think? He’d say there’d never be any hope of my coming down after this ascension.”

Chase started for town. He would run a little way, then check himself, only to break out into another dash. He got to judge Meggs’s office before opening hours and sat down to wait. The time dragged. One moment he would call himself a fool and the next he remembered the judge’s kindly eyes.

“Well, well, good-morning, Chase. The early bird catches the worm. Come in, come in. And how’d you like the cottage?”

Chase stuttered and broke out into unintelligible speech. Then he grew more confused and bewildered. He heard the kind voice and felt the kind hand on his shoulder. He remembered running breathlessly to the bank and drawing a sum of money. He signed his name to stamped papers. And then the judge was telling him that the property was his.

Chase finished this wonderful morning of mornings in his room. After a long time he got a logical idea of things. He had bought a property for eighteen hundred dollars, two hundred down and twenty each month until the debt was cancelled. The deeds were signed and stamped. And most strange and remarkable of all was to read the name of the former owner — Silas Meggs.

Chase spent another morning consulting carpenters, plasterer’s, paper hangers; and the next he presented himself at the store of Meggs & Co. He was told to spend his time for the present in the different oil-fields, familiarizing himself with men, conditions, and machinery. And the senior member of the firm added significantly: “You need not mention your connection with us for a while yet. Just be looking round casually. But be sharp as a steel trap. You may learn things of interest to us.”

Chase wondered what next would happen to him. There was certainly a thrill in the prospect before him. Such men as judge Meggs and his brother would not stoop to the employing of a spy, but they might well have use for a detective. Chase had heard strange stories from the oil-fields.

The oil-belt was a scene of great activity that Summer. Strikes, unprecedented in the history of boring wells, had been made. All over the belt rose a forest of wooden derricks, with their ladders, and queer wheels, and enormous pump-handles ceaselessly working up and down. Pipes ran in all directions; huge tanks loomed up everywhere; puffs of smoke marked the pumping- engines sheltered in little huts; the ground was black and oily, and the smell of oil overpowering.

“Crude oil seventy cents a barrel!” ejaculated Chase, as he watched the great comical-looking handles bobbing up, some of them pumping a hundred barrels a day. “These oil-men get rich while they sleep!”

Chase found that as he was known in the factories and brick-yards, so was he known in the oil-fields. All gates opened to him. Every grimy workman found time to stop and have a word with him. The governor of Ohio could not have commanded the interest, to say nothing of the friendliness, accorded to the boy baseball player. It was not long before Chase appreciated his usefulness to Meggs & Co. He had a pleasant word for every worker. “Hello! I’m out looking over the oil-field. Say! That’s interesting work of yours. Tell me about it.”

Then a grimy face would break into a smile. “Howdy, Chase. I were jest thinkin’ about the team. Close race, ain’t it? But we’ll put it all over Columbus next week. I’ll be there Saturday an’ hope you knock the socks off one. Work, this’s rotten work I’m on here. Don’t need to be done at all.” And the baseball fan would tell the baseball player details of work that a superintendent could not have dragged from him. Every engineer and prospector and driller cared to rest and talk to Chase. The boy was bright and pleasant; but the magic halo of a ball-player’s fame was the secret of his reception. So it was that he learned things, and surprised the senior member, and won an approving word from the judge.

Chase did not visit the same part of the oil-fields twice. The wide belt extended a hundred miles toward Lima and beyond; it would have required months to go over it all. One morning he went out to see a new well, called “The Geyser,” just struck, and reported to be the biggest well in the fields. He found a scene of great excitement. Embankments had been thrown up three feet all around the well to catch the jet of oil.

There was a lake of oil three feet deep; in some places it broke over the embankment. With more than his usual luck he met an Irishman who had come to him during one of the games and tried to give him part of a wager he had won on Findlay.

“Hello, Pat. Somebody’s struck a dandy, eh?”

“Shure it’s the ould man hisself. Coom round, let me show you. He blowed the bloomin’ derrick a mile, but we got him under control now.”

“Who are the owners?”

“Dean & Pitman Co.,” replied Pat.

Chase pricked up his ears. He knew that this Dean was Marjory’s father. He had learned the firm was in a bad financial strait, having repeatedly backed unproductive ventures. When he saw the lake of oil he had a warm glow of pleasure; he was glad for Marjory’s sake.

“What’s the flow? Must be a regular river.”

“Flow? He’ll flow a hundred thousand barrels a day fer a while, an’ thet without a pump.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Chase.

“It’s too bad, too bad! Sich a grand well!” said Pat.

“But he’ll niver last.”

“Why not?”

Pat winked mysteriously, but offered no explanation. Chase left him and talked with the other men. He found that the land on which the well had been struck belonged to Findlay farmers, and a lease of it had been sought by one of the greatest oil companies in the world. Chase’s next move was to find out from the farmers thereabouts if there was any unleased land adjoining. There was one plot of ground, hilly, rocky, unpractical for boring, that stood close to the field of “The Geyser,” and which had just been leased by a large company.

Chase strolled over the field and to his great surprise was ordered off. Then a man evidently in authority recognized Chase and countermanded the order, giving as excuse some trifling remark about thieves. Chase did not believe the man. He sauntered round, as if he were killing time, talked baseball with the men, and remained only a short while.

But once out of sight he started to run, and he never stopped till he reached the trolley-line. He boarded a car, rode into town, leaped off, and again began running. At the office of Dean & Pitman a boy said Mr. Pitman was out of town and Mr. Dean at lunch. Then Chase once again took to his heels.

Breathlessly he dashed upon the porch and knocked on the door of the Dean house. Marjory opened it and uttered a cry at sight of Chase.

“Where’s — your — father?” he demanded.

Marjory turned white and began to tremble. The blue eyes widened.

“P-papa — is — is at lunch. Oh — Chase!”

“Tell him I want to see him quick — quick!” His sharp voice rang clearly through the house. A chair scraped and hurried steps preceded the appearance of Mr. Dean, a little weather-beaten man, of mild aspect.

“What’s this?”

“Mr. Dean, I’ve been out to the oil-well. The field next to yours has been leased by the Monarch Co. They are drilling day and night, and they know they can’t strike oil there. It’s a plot to ruin ‘The Geyser.’ They’ll sink a thousand pounds of dynamite, explode it, and forever ruin your well. Come on. You haven’t much time. They’re nearly ready. I saw everything. It’s a cold fact. But you can hold them up. We’ll get Wilson, the expert, and an officer, and stop the work. Come on! Come on!”

CHAPTER 15

THE GREAT GAME

ON THE THIRD day of the last series between Columbus and Findlay, the percentage of games won favored the former team by several points. If Columbus won the deciding game, which was the last on their schedule, they would win the pennant. If Findlay won, the percentage would go to a tie; but having three more games with the tail-end Mansfield team they were practically sure of capturing the flag.

The excitement in and about Findlay was intense. Stores and shops and fields closed before noon that Saturday. The pride of Findlay rose in arms. Class was forgotten in loyalty to the common cause.

The Pastime Ball Park opened at one o’clock and closed at two-thirty packed to its utmost capacity. Hundreds of people were left clamoring outside. The grandstand made a brave picture.

Quality was out in force today. The mass of white and blue of the ladies, and their bright moving fans and soft murmuring laughter lent the scene that last charm which made it softly gay. Out on the bleachers and in the roped off side-lines was a dense, hilarious, coatless, and vestless mob. Peanuts flew like hail in a storm. From one end of the grounds to the other passed a long ripple of unrestrained happiness. The sky shone blue, the field gleamed green, the hour of play was at hand. The practice of both teams received more applause than average games; and the batting order, at last posted on the huge blackboard, elicited an extra roar.

Findlay

Columbus

Winters

3B

Welch

LF

Thatcher

CF

Kelly

SS

Chase

SS

Horn

C

Havil

LF

Wilson

3B

Benny

2B

Harvey

CF

Ford

1B

O’Rourke

RF

Speer

RF

Starke

2B

Hicks

C

Hains

1B

Castorious

P

Ward

P

Umpire: O’Connor

Mac threw up his hands when he saw the name of the umpire. The truth of the matter was that Mac was in a highly nervous state. Managing a ball-team was only one point less trying than governing an army in the field. The long campaign had worn Mac out. “Silk!” he exclaimed. “I wired the president to send any umpire but Silk. He’s after us!”

Then Cas put on Algy’s coat of white and blue and sent him out. Algy knew his business. As the gong called the Columbus players in from practice, Algy pranced round the diamond. When he reached the plate Cas, who had stepped from the bench, called sharply to him. Algy promptly stood up on his hind legs.

“That’s for Findlay!” yelled Cas to the stands.

Then Algy made a ludicrous but valiant effort to stand on his head.

“That’s for Columbus!” yelled Cas. The long laughing roar of the delighted crowd attested to the popular regard for the great pitcher and his dog.

“What’ll we take, the field or bat?” asked Mac, beginning to fidget.

“Hev you lost your nut?” Inquired Enoch, softly. “Bat! the bat! Now, fellers, git in the game. We’re all on edge. Ward has always been hard for us to beat, but if we can once git him started it’s all off.”

“Chase, come here,” said Mac; then he whispered, “I can’t keep it. Burke, the Detroit manager, is up in the stand. For Lord’s sake, break loose today. Mannin’ sez to me jest a minute ago thet if you git two hits in this game your average’ll go over 400. I oughtn’t to tell you, but I can’t help it.”

“I’m glad you did,” replied Chase, with his fingers clenching into his bat. “Ward’s got steam today,” growled Mittie-Maru. “You guys want’er perk up!”

“Play ball!” called Silk. The crowd shouted one quick welcoming cry and then subsided into watchful waiting suspense.

Enoch hit a fly to Kelly, and Thatcher went out, Wilson to Hains. Chase sent a slow grounder towards short. Wilson fielded the ball as quickly as possible and made a good throw, but Chase, running like a deer, beat the ball to first. The eager crowd opened up. Havil, however, fell a victim to Ward’s curves.

For Columbus Welch hit safely, Kelly sacrificed, sending the fleet left- fielder to second. On the next play he stole third and scored on Horn’s long fly to Havil. Wilson fouled out. Findlay 0, Columbus 1.

Mac began to fidget worse than ever and greeted Cas with a long face.

“Wot’s the matter with you? Ball doesn’t seem to hev any speed.” Cas deigned not to notice the little manager.

When Benny got a base on balls Mac nudged the player next to him and brightened up. “Bunt, Ford,” he said, and when Ford laid down a neat sacrifice Mac nudged the player on the other side. “Thet’s good; thet’s good!” Speer hit safely, scoring Benny. Thereupon Mac jammed his elbow into Enoch’s ribs and bubbled over.

“Makin’ sausage agin?” inquired the genial captain, with soft sarcasm. All the players had sore ribs from these jabs of Mac’s elbows. He had the most singular way, when the team was winning, of slipping from one end of the bench to the other, jabbing his appreciation of good plays into the anatomy of his long-suffering team. Cas never sat on the bench and Enoch, always forgetful, usually came in for most of the jabs.

Hicks made a good bid for a hit, but, being slow, could not get to first ahead of the ball. Speer went to third. Cas got a double along the left foul line, Enoch walked on balls, and Thatcher’s hit scored Cas. The Columbus second- baseman caught Enoch trying to get a lead off second. Findlay 3, Columbus 1.

All the while the crowd roared, and all the while Mac on the bench was going through his peculiar evolutions. “A bingo! Good!” — jab and jab— “Will you look at thet?” — jab and jab—” Keep after ‘em” — jab and jab— “Oh! Oh! run, you Indian, run.” — jab, jab, jab.

Neither team scored in the third; Findlay failed again in the fourth, but Columbus tied the score. The game began to get warm.

With one man out Chase opened the fifth with a hard hit to right. He believed he could stretch it into a double and strained every nerve. He saw the second-baseman brace himself, and without slackening his speed he leaped feet first into the air. He struck the ground and shot through the dust to the base. Just an instant after he felt the baseman tag him sharply with the ball. Lying there, Chase looked for the umpire. Silk came racing down, swept his right hand toward the side-lines and said:

“You made a grand slide — but you ‘re out!”

It seemed then that Chase’s every vein burst with the mad riot of hot blood. He sprang to his feet.

“Out? Out? Why, he never touched me till after I hit the bag.”

“Don’t show off before Burke,” called Silk. “You’re out! Perambulate!”

Chase stamped in his fury, but the mention of Burke cooled him. As he walked off the whole Findlay team, led by Mac, made for the umpire with angry eyes.

“Go back! Go back!” yelled Silk. “To the bench! I’m running this game. To the bench or I’ll flash my watch!”

The uproar in the stands and bleachers gave place to an uproar back of center-field. A portion of fence suddenly crashed forward, and through the gap poured a black stream of yelling boys and men.

That one bad decision had served to upset Mac’s equilibrium, and he was now raging. Enoch reasoned with him, Cas swore at him, some of the other players gave him sharp answers. Mac was plainly not himself. He showed it in that inning when he discarded the usual signs and told the team to go ahead on its own hook. Havil and Benny failed to get on base, and once more the Columbus team trotted in to bat.

Then the unexpected, the terrible, happened. By sharp hitting Columbus scored five runs. Cas labored in the box, but he could not stem the torrent of base hits. A fast double play by Chase and Benny and a good catch by Havil retired the side. Findlay 3, Columbus 8. A profound gloom settled over the field. The bleachers groaned and a murmur ran through the grandstand. Cas walked up to the bench and confronted Mac.

“I’m done,” said the great pitcher, simply. “My speed’s gone. I strained my arm the last game. You’d better put Poke in. He’s left-handed, and his speed will likely fool Columbus after my floaters. But say, I won’t go out till I get a chance to get after Silk. He needs a little jacking up. He wouldn’t give me the corners. I’ll make him sick. And, fellows, don’t quit.”

“Oh! we’re licked! We’re licked!” cried Mac. Any one to have seen his face would have known how hard he had worked and what the pennant meant to him. But his players evidently were not of the same mind. They were mostly silent with knitted brows and compressed lips. Mittie-Maru never wavered in his crisp, curt encouragement.

“Wot do we care fer five runs? A couple of bingoes an’ Ward’s in the air. We kin win with two out in the ninth, an’ here we got enough time left to win two games. Stick at ‘em! Don’t quit! Keep the yellow down! We’ll put this game on ice, all right, all right!”

Cas slowly walked up to the plate. The great crowd had not hope enough to cheer. When the umpire called the first ball, which was pretty well up to Cas’s chin, a strike, the crowd yelled. Cas turned square round and glared long at Silk. That worthy called another strike while Cas’s back was turned to the pitcher. He did right, of course, but the crowd did not know it or think so. And they yelled louder. Cas made no effort to hit at the next ball, which also was a strike.

“Out!” called Silk, adjusting his indicator.

Cas turned upon the umpire. No tragedian ever put forth a greater effect of outraged scorn and injustice.

“Wha-at?” he roared in a voice that penetrated to the remotest corners of the field.

“Three strikes and out!” repeated Silk.

“It was wide,” yelled Cas, grandly.

“Batter up,” called Silk.

“Say, haven’t I a right to speak a word?” demanded Cas. He deliberately walked up to Silk. It was Cas’s ruse, a trick as old as baseball, to make a fierce stand in order to influence the umpire on future close decisions. Poor umpires theirs was the thankless task, the difficult task, and they were only human.

“You’re way off today, Silk,” went on Cas. “You’re rotten. You wouldn’t give me the corners, but you give them ‘to Ward.”

“Back to the bench,” ordered Silk.

“Can’t I say a word?”

“Not to me.”

“You ‘re rotten!”

“Costs you twenty-five!”

“Ha! Now you ‘re going some! Queered my pitching, struck me out, and now you fine me. We’ve got a grand show with you calling the plays. Make it fifty, you robber!”

“Fifty it is!” replied Silk.

“Put me out of the game! You’re from Columbus! Go ahead! put me out of the game!”

“Out you go!” shouted Silk.

The crowd heard and rose with a roar of rage. Cas was their idol, and they were with him to a man. They stamped, yelled, and hissed their disapproval. It began to be a tight place for Silk, and he knew it. Right was on his side but under trying circumstances such as these, right did not always triumph.

“Put me off the grounds!” bawled Cas.

“Off you go!” yelled Silk, white in the face.

Then Cas showed his understanding of the crowd and the serious nature of the situation. He had turned his trick; now to avert real disaster. It would not have been wise for an umpire to call the game in the face of that angry grandstand and crazy bleachers. Not one umpire in a hundred would have had the nerve. But it was evident that Cas thought Silk might, for he was not afraid of anything. So Cas waved his long arms to the crowds, motioning for them to sit down.

“All right, Silk, out for mine.” Cas ran for the bench and grabbed his sweater. He shook his big fist in Poke’s face. “Now, Rube, at ‘em! Fast and over the pan! Mittie, you roast this bunch of deaders back to life.”

Mac was sitting with his head bowed in his hands. At Cas’s last words he raised a heartbroken face, and began to rail at the umpire, at Cas for having a glass arm, and at all his players. When Enoch got hit by a pitched ball and thereby sent to his base, with Thatcher up, Mac senselessly yelled to him and tried to start the hit-and-run game, which he had a few moments before discarded.

Enoch and Thatcher got confused, and finally when Thatcher hit into second both were easy outs in a double play. Then the players, sore and disgusted, told Mac a few things. The little manager looked sick.

“I’m runnin’ this team,” he howled. Chase suddenly confronted him with blazing eyes.

“No, you’re not running the team. You’re queering our chances. You’ve lost your head. Go soak it! Climb under the bench! Crawl through the fence! Anything — only get out!”

Mac fell back a beaten man. His eyes bulged, his lips moved, but no sound came forth. It was plain that he could not believe what he had heard. Chase, his find, his idol, his star, had risen against him.

“We’ll win this game yet. Go hide somewhere, so we can’t see your face. Mittie will run the team.”

“Mittie?” echoed Mac. Then a spark of Chase’s inspiration touched his smouldering baseball sense. Managers and players often do strange things; they follow blind leads and believe in queer omens. They are as superstitious as Indians. Without a word Mac yielded to his impulse and left the bench.

Mittie-Maru jumped up into the vacated seat. A glow lighted his pale face; his beautiful eyes had a piercing, steely flash. “Rube,” he said to Poke, “cut the inside corner. Keep ’em high an’ speed em up!”

The big knots stood out and rippled on the rail-splitter’s arms. He was not lost to his opportunity. And there were friends and admirers from his native town there to see, to glory in his glory. He struck out three successive Columbus hitters and the hopeless crowd took a little heart.

“What’ll I do, Mittie?” asked Chase, picking out his bat.

“They’re playing deep fer you. Dump one down third.”

Chase placed a slow teasing bunt down the third-base line and raced with all his speed for first. The play was not even close. It was his third hit. Havil looked at Mittie. The new manager said, “Bunt towards first.” The second ball pitched, Havil laid down as if by hand along the first-base line. Two on bases, no one out! The crowd awoke.

“Now fer mine, Mittie?” asked Benny. “We’ll try a double steal. It’s not good baseball, but we’ll try it. Swing wild on the ball an’ balk the catcher. If the play goes through jest tap the next ball down in the infield.”

Benny fell all over himself and all over the catcher. Chase dove into third and Havil reached second. The bleachers began to yell and stamp. As Ward got into motion with his swing Chase started home. It happened that the ball was a slow one, and Chase seemed to be beating it to the plate. Everybody gasped. Then Benny tapped the ball down in the in-field and broke for first. The play bewildered the pitcher, catcher, and third-baseman. Chase scored, Havil went to third, and Benny reached first.

Then the shrill cries, the whistles, the tin horns and clapping hands showed that the crowd had awakened fully to possibilities. Ford hit into deep short, who threw to second to catch Benny. The play was a close one, and Silk’s decision favored the runner. Havil scored. Two runs scored, two men on bases, and nobody out! Roar on roar!

Through it all the little ragged hunchback sat coldly impervious. His fire raged deep. The years of pain and hopeless longing, the boyish hopes never to be fulfilled, had their recompense in that hour of glory. For victory shone in his piercing eyes. To a man, the players now believed in him, as boy, as manager, as genius, as baseball luck.

Speer bunted better than he hit, a fact of which Mittie took advantage. “Lay one down to Wilson.” Wilson divined the play, came rushing in, picked up the bunt with one hand, and made a splendid throw. One out, runners on second and third! Hicks was a poor hitter in a pinch, another fact Mittie remembered.

“Work a base on balls. Work hard, now!”

The contortions old man Hicks went through would have disconcerted most pitchers. Ward threw three balls for Hicks, then two strikes, and the next one, straight over, seemed a little high. Everybody gasped again.

“Four balls!” called Silk. The crowd broke out afresh. One out, three runners on bases! Ziegler, batting for Castorious, hit a mean, twisting grounder between short and third. Both men went after it, knocked it down between them, but too late to catch the hitter. Another run scored, and the bases full! How the bleachers screamed!

“Bing one, Cap!” said Mittie, from the heights.

Enoch met the first ball squarely. It sailed fast and true into the second-baseman’s hands. The runners had no chance to move. “O-h-h! Hard luck!” moaned the crowd.

“Never mind thet. Stick at ‘em!” cried Mittie, jumping down from his perch. “A couple more hits an’ the game’s on ice. Dude, poke one to left. Don’t swing. Jest poke one over the in-field.”

Thatcher went to bat while Enoch ran to the coacher’s box and began to yell and screech, to tear up the grass with his spikes, to give every indication of insanity. Thatcher was remorselessly unanxious. He made Ward split the plate, and at last with three and two he placed a short fly back of third. Another runner scored.

Two out, bases full, one run to tie! Mittie-Maru suddenly lost all his quiet; he jumped at Chase and clasped him with small, claw-like hands; his eyes shone on Chase with a power that was hypnotic. And through that gleam of power beamed his friendship and hope and faith.

“Chase, somethin’ tol’ me it would hang fire fer you! Now! Now! My Star of the Diamond, it’s up to you. If ever in yer life you put the wood on do it now!” When Chase hurried up to the plate, the great crowd rose and shouted one long sharp cry, and sank into intense silence. The situation was too critical for anything but suspended breath.

Enoch’s coaching pealed over the field.

“Oh! My! Mugg’s Landin’! Irish stew! Lace curtains! Ras-pa-tas! We’re a- goin’ to do it! We can’t be stopped now. Oh My! They’re takin’ him out! They need another pitcher!”

The Columbus captain sent Ward to the bench and ordered out Henson, a left-hander. As he nervously rubbed the ball, Enoch broke loose again.

“Henson, look who’s at the bat!” he yelled, in terrible tones. “It’s Chase! He’s leadin’ the league! ‘Oh! Oh! My! Mugg’s Landin’ — !”

If ever Chase felt like flint, the time was then. He heard nothing. He saw nothing but the pitcher. It seemed he called upon all his faculties to help his eyesight. His whole inner being swelled with emotions that he subordinated to deadly assurance. Henson took his swing and sent up a fast ball. Chase watched it speed by. “Ball!” called Silk.

Henson swung again. Chase got the range of the ball, stepped forward, and, with his straight, clean, powerful sweep, met it fairly. “Bing!” It rang off like a bell.

The crowd burst into thunder. When Chase’s liners started off so, only the fence stopped them. This one shot for the corner behind center-field. For one instant everybody thought the ball was going over, but it hit a bill-board and bounced back.

What a long, booming, hoarse and thrilling roar rent the air! Two runners scored, and Thatcher was coming fast. Then in the wild moment all grasped that Chase, with his wonderful fleetness, was gaining on Thatcher. His fair hair streamed in the wind; his beautiful stride swallowed up the distance. The center-fielder got the ball and threw to Starke, who had run out to receive the throw. As Chase, now close to Thatcher, turned third, Starke lined the ball home. Every heart was bursting; every eye was staring.

The women were screaming, “Run, boy! Run, boy! Oh! run!-. run! run!” yet could not hear their own voices. The men were roaring, “On! On! On! A-h-h!”

The Findlay players leaped like warriors round a stake. Mittie-Maru ran toward the plate. Starke’s great throw sped on! Thatcher scored!

“Slide, Chase, slide!” In one blended roar the whole crowd voiced a fear, awful at the moment.

Chase slid in a flash of dust across the plate, a fraction of time ahead of the ball. It bounded low, glanced off the catcher’s glove, and struck Mittie, who whirled late, fairly on his hump. Poor Mittie went down as if he had been shot, spun round like a top, and lay still.

But few on the field saw this accident. The crowd had gone into a sort of baseball delirium tremens. Chase had made a home run inside the grounds, scoring four more runs! A thunderbolt out of the clear sky would have passed unnoticed.

Somebody carried Mittie into the dressing-room. The game went on. Poke blanked the Columbus players inning after inning. The heart was taken out of them. Findlay won. Before a weak, voiceless, shaken, disheveled, happy crowd the score went up.

Findlay 11, Columbus 8.

Inside the dressing-room the players grouped silently, with pale faces, around a space where a doctor worked over Mittie-Maru. A cold hand gripped their hearts. The doctor kept shaking his head and working, working; still the little misshapen form lay huddled in a small heap, the pale, distorted face showed no sign of life.

“Ah!” breathed the doctor, in sudden relief.

Mittie-Maru began to stir. He twisted, his narrow breast heaved, he moaned in pain, he broke into incoherent speech. Then, as consciousness fully returned, he lived over the last play he had seen.

“Steady — Chase, ole man — eagle-eye, now ole boy — lay back an’ bing the next one — Oh-h! Run, Chase! Up On yer toes! Now yer flyin’ — make it a triple! Come on! — Come on! Come on — on — on! it’s a homer! It’s a homey! it’s a homer!”

CHAPTER 16

LAST INNINGS

IT WAS WEDNESDAY following the great Saturday game. Chase hurried to his room where he had taken Mittie after the accident. He found the lad sitting up, a little wan, but bright and expectant.

“All over, Mittie!” shouted Chase. “The season’s over; the championship is ours; today was the last game, and the directors made it a benefit for the team. Bully of them, wasn’t it?”

“No more ‘n square. The team’s made barrels of money. Wot’d you do today.”

“Oh, made Mac sore, as usual.”

“How?”

“Well, we smothered Mansfield in an inning or so, and then Mac wanted us to lay down, strike out, make the game short. Now I’d have to try to bing one, even if my life were threatened. So I caught one on the nose, and, by George! Mittie, I hit it over the fence, and the ball broke a window in Mrs. Magee’s house. Mac’ll have to pay damages. Say, but wasn’t he sore!”

“Thet makes six homers fer you, Chase, on our own grounds. An’ you’ve had fourteen triples, an’ only three doubles. It’s strange ‘bout thet. Most fellars git more doubles. But you’re so dinged fast on yer feet thet you ‘d stretch most any double into a triple. Gimme them long liner triples fer mine!”

“Mittie, how’re you feeling? How about the banquet to-night?”

“I’ll go, you bet. I’d be out home long ago, if you hedn’t made me promise to stay here.”

“Mittie, I’ve had some ideas working in my mind the last few days, and now everything’s settled. You’re going to live with me.”

“Am I — ?” began Mittie, rebelliously.

“Yes.”

“I’ve got a tin-type of myself spongin’ on you here—”

“Not here, Mittie. I have bought that white cottage in the maple grove by the River. And I’ve had it all fixed up. It’s now ready for the furnishings. In a few days I’ll write to mother and Will to pack their duds and come on. Maybe we won’t surprise them! You’ll come out there to live with us. There’s a dandy little room next to mine and it’ll be yours. You’ll like Will, and you’ll love mother. She’s the sweetest—”

“I ain’t a-goin’ to do it,” cried Mittie, in a queer, strangled voice. The old, resolute strength had gone from it.

“Yes, you are. I’m big enough to carry you out there and tie you if necessary. Then I’ve got another idea. You know that little alcove next to King’s store? Well, there’s one there. I’ve had a carpenter measure it, and he’s going to build a wee little stand there. You and I are going into business, cigars, tobacco, candy, etc. I furnish capital, you manage affairs, we divide profits. Why, it’s a gold mine! There’s not a place of that kind in town. Everybody knows you, everybody wants to do something for you. Didn’t you ever think of selling things? There’s money in it.”

“Chase; it’d — be — grand,” said Mittie. “I’ll do it — I’ll — Chase, if you ain’t the best ever! But haven’t you — any idees fer yerself?”

Then Mittie-Maru, the defiant, the Spartan lad, the sufficient-unto- himself, the scorner of emotions, the dweller in lonesome places, covered his face and sobbed as might any of the boys whom he ridiculed. But his weakness did not last long.

“Chase, I’ll be dinged if thet soak I got in the game Saturday hasn’t give me softenin’ of the brain,” he said, and smiled through his tears.

Chase had seen the light of that smile in his mother’s eyes; and in the eyes of another of whom he must not think. For a moment a warm wave thrilled over him and he felt himself sway beneath its influence. He had done his best for his mother; he had done right by Marjory; he had waited and waited. So he made himself think of other things, of the new home, of peace for his mother, of ambition for Will, of companionship with Mittie, of his opening career.

“Come, Mittie, we must fix up in style for the dinner to-night, and it’s time we were at it.”

When they reached the hotel Mac made a grab for Chase and beamed on him.

“Chase, old boy, shure things are comin’ great. Cas goes to Cleveland fer a try-out. I’ve sold Benny to Cincinnati an’ you to Detroit. Burke offered twelve hundred fer you on Saturday, but I held out fer fifteen. An’ I got the check to-night. I promised you one-third if you hit 400, an’ you’ve gone an’ hit 416. Chase, thet’s awful fer a first season. You lead the league. An’ tomorrow you git yer five hundred bucks. Burke wrote me to tell you he’d send the contract. He offers two thousand. So you’re on, an’ I’m tickled to death. I’ve made you a star an’ you’ve made me a manager.”

Somebody else made a grab for Chase. It was judge Meggs, who congratulated him warmly. Then Chase, with Mittie-Maru hanging to his coat sleeve, was deluged in a storm of felicitations.

The banquet-room, with its long decorated table, brought a yell from the hungry ball players. The waiters began moving swiftly to and fro; the glasses clinked musically; the noisy hum of conversation and jest grew steadily louder and gayer. There were fourteen courses and every player ate every course, except Benny, who got stalled on the unlucky thirteenth. Then chairs were shoved back and cigars lighted.

Judge Meggs, who was toastmaster, rose and spoke for a few moments, congratulating Findlay on her great ball-team, and the directors on their prosperous season, and the players on having won the championship. At the close he ended with a neat presentation speech.

Then before each player was placed a large colored box with a fitting inscription on the lid. Chase’s was “416.” Enoch’s was “Mugg’s Landing.” Benny’s was “My Molly O.” On Cas’s was a terrible representation of a bulldog, with the name “Algy” above, and below Cas’s well-known “Wha-at?” And so on it went down the line.

Inside the boxes were the purses, shares of benefit, presents from directors, and from individuals. Chase won both hitting and base-stealing purses, Cas the pitcher’s, Enoch the fielder’s. Each got a silver watch, a gold scarf-pin, and link cuff-buttons. Each got cards calling for an umbrella, a hat, a Morris chair, a box of candy. All received different presents from personal friends and admirers. Chase was almost overcome to find that judge Meggs and other friends had that very morning furnished his cottage completely.

Then the toastmaster interrupted the happy buzzings and called on Mac. The little manager bounced up with shiny face; he lauded Findlay and its generous citizens; he raved about the baseball team; he spouted over Cas and Benny, and almost ended in tears over Chase.

“Gentlemen,” said judge Meggs, impressively, “we have with us to-night a remarkable ball-player and good fellow. He has captained the team with excellent judgment; he has been a great factor in our victory. We have expected much of him and have not been disappointed. We expect much of him to-night. For surely a man with his wonderful command of language, his startling originality of expression, and his powers of uninterrupted, flowing speech, such as we are all so happily familiar with, will give us a farewell word to cheer our hearts through the long winter to come. Gentlemen, Mr. Enoch Winters.”

Enoch rose as if some subterranean force had propelled him. His round red face and round owl eyes had their habitual expression of placid wisdom. But Enoch had difficulty with his vocalization. “Gennelmen,” he began, and then it was evident his voice frightened him. “I — this — y’see,” he stammered, rolled up his tongue into his cheek to find his never-failing quid this time failing him. “Great honor — sure — I — we ‘preciate—”

Then the voluble coacher, the bane of pitchers and umpires, the terror of the inexperienced, stammered that something was “too full fer words” and sat down. Whether he said “stomach” or “heart” no one knew, but all assumed he meant the latter and roared their applause. Judge Meggs, with a few fitting words, called upon Castorious; and Cas, he of the iron arm, iron heart and voice, could not establish relations between his mind and his speech.

Judge Meggs said: “Gentlemen, we want to hear from our great second baseman, who, we are sorry to say and happy also, will not be with us next season. For he is going higher up. We have heard of a yet better stroke of fortune that has befallen him. In brief, we understand he has won from our midst one of Findlay’s sweetest and best girls, and that the happy fulfillment of such good fortune is to be celebrated upon a day in the near future. We think he owes us something. Gentlemen, Mr. Benny Ross.”

“No one ever had such friends!” cried Benny, dramatically. “No one ever had such friends!” And that was all he could say.

“Gentlemen,” said judge Meggs, “we have with us to-night a lad who came to Findlay empty-handed, yet who brought much. We shall watch his future as we have watched him develop here. And when he returns to Findlay to become one of her solid, substantial business men, we shall not forget when he was a Star of the Diamond. Gentlemen, Mr. Chase Alloway.”

Chase managed to rise to his feet, but was utterly unable to respond. Emotion made him speechless. He smiled helplessly at judge Meggs and sat down. The judge called upon several other players, and they too might as well have been dumb.

Then Mittie-Maru laboriously climbed upon his chair, and raised his strange, shrunken figure. He put his right hand to his breast and beamed upon the company. “Mr. Toastmaster an’ friends,” began Mittie, “my worthy captain an’ fellow players are too full fer utterance. Mebbe the sparklin’ stuff in the long-stemmed glasses hes tongue-tied ‘em. Somebody must thank all you gentlemen fer this banquet, an’ it’s up to me. If the bases was full now we could feel sure of gittin’ a hit, fer we’re sure long on hits an’ short on speeches.

“Fer the team I wanter say thet this is a gran’ an’ glorious occasion, thet Findlay is the finest town in the U. S., thet the directors an’ supporters of the team are real sports an’ good fellows, the best ever! This hes been a great Summer fer us all, an’ we’ve been happy. We’re sorry it’s over. Baseball players hev to go from town to town an’ part from each other an’ kind friends. An’ I’m sure none of us will ever forgit the fight we made fer the pennant an’ the friends we made in good old Findlay.”

Right warmly did all join in applause. Then, after a parting word from the judge, good-nights were spoken, and the banquet to the championship team was over.

Before Chase went home he wrote a letter to his mother, and told her, as he was still boss of the family, and disposed to become more so in the future, she and Will were to come to Findlay. They were to dispense with all the old useless furniture and belongings, that would only have reminded them of past dark hours, and to come prepared for a surprise and future brightness.

Chase slept poorly that night, and kept Mittie-Maru awake, and in the morning got him out at an early hour to see the cottage. It seemed that a fairy’s hand had been at work during the last forty-eight hours. The cottage was furnished from one end to the other, not poorly nor yet lavishly, but in a manner that showed the taste of a woman and the hand of a man. Chase felt that some one had read his mind. Who had guessed which was to be his mother’s room, and Will’s, and his own, and therein placed such articles as would best please each? So Chase learned in another way that the needs of the human heart are alike in every one.

That day he and Mittie loaded the pantry with all manner of groceries. Then while Mittie went out to his old home in the brick-kiln to fetch the few things he owned, Chase fitted up the little room next to his. When Mittie saw it he screwed up his face and sat gingerly on the little, white bed. “I’ll be dinged if it ain’t swell!”

After this, Chase would have it that Mittie should go with him to a store and purchase a suit. Mittie submitted gracefully, and after a trying time in the store he produced a dilapidated pocket-book and began to count out the price marked on the tag of the selected suit.

“No, you don’t,” said Chase, “this is on me.”

“Mebbe you tho’t I was busted,” replied Mittie, with a smile. “I ain’t on my uppers yet, me boy. Never was much fer style, but, now when the time comes, I can produce.”

Chase and Mittie were arguing the question when the storekeeper said they must regard the suit as a present, and refused to be paid.

“Wot t’ ‘ll!” exclaimed Mittie. “Hev I ben hittin’ the pipe?”

The afternoon and evening were very long to Chase. He slept that night from sheer exhaustion. He was up with the sun, woke Mittie, whistled, sang, and consulted his watch every few moments. The train he expected his mother and Will on was due at ten o’clock. He packed his effects, and sent Mittie for a wagon to take them to the cottage. Then he went, hours before train-time, to the station where he paced the platform. What an age it seemed! At last he heard the train whistle, and he trembled. He ran to and fro. Suppose they did not come? With a puffing and rumbling the engine slowed up and came to a stop.

Only two passengers got off, and upon these Chase swooped down like a hawk. He gathered the little woman up in his arms and smothered all her voice except “my Chase.”

“Hello, Will! How about college, old boy.”

“You great, brown giant!”

And that was all. Chase bundled them into a hack, and telling the driver where to go, he looked at his mother and brother, so as really to see them. How changed they were! His mother’s face had lost its weary shade. She was actually young and pretty again. And Will-he was not the same at all. Bells of joy rang in Chase’s heart. Then he began to talk and he talked like a babbling brook. Baseball, the championship, his leading the league, his sale to Detroit, his many friends, about the certainty of Will’s going to college-everything but where they were going. Then the hack stopped. Chase helped them out, and turning to the hackman, thanked him and held up a dollar.

“This’s my treat,” said the hackman, tipping his hat.

“Say, isn’t my money any good round here?” demanded Chase.

“Your money’s same as counterfeit in Findlay. Good luck!” With a smile, the hackman turned his team and drove away.

“Chase, what a pretty place!” said his mother.

“Do you board here?”

“Well, not yet. But I hope to.”

Chase opened the front door and ushered them in. A bright fire crackled in the open grate.

“Mother, this is home.”

Then for a brief space the three mingled tears with their happiness. And at last the mother raised her face with a flush.

“How I have worried — for nothing!”

Chase called up the stairway. “Mittie! Come down. We’ve company.”

Then he whispered to them, “Mittie is my little friend of whom I wrote. He’s a hunchback. If you look at his eyes you will never think of his deformity.”

Mittie came down without reluctance, yet shyly. The new suit considerably altered his appearance: nevertheless, as always, he made a strange and pathetic little figure. He advanced a few steps, stopped and waited, with his fine eyes fixed gravely and steadily upon them.

“I am very glad indeed to meet my son’s friend Mittie,” said Chase’s mother. “My name’s Mitchel Malone,” answered Mittie, “an’ I’m happy to know you an Chase’s brother.”

“Mittie-Maru, he’ll always be to me,” said Chase. “Mother, he is going to live with us.”

“I hev no home,” replied Mittie, to Mrs. Alloway’s kind questioning look.

“My parents are dead. I never saw them.”

Then followed the pleasant task of showing the cottage and grounds. The day passed like a happy dream. At sunset Chase slipped away from them and went down through the grove to the river.

He was rejoicing in the happiness of others. Yet now that his hopes were realities an unaccountable weight suddenly lay heavy as lead on his heart. He had succeeded beyond his wildest fancy. There was the cottage, and it contained his friend Mittie-Maru, and Will, with the clear light of joy in his eyes, and his mother, well, and happier than he had ever seen her. These were blessings such as he was sure he did not deserve, but humble and thankful as they made him, he was not entirely content. Suddenly the glamour of all he had been working to accomplish paled in the moment of its achievement.

The swift-flowing river murmured over stones and glided along the brown banks toward the setting sun. The song of the water was all the sound to break the silence. Silver clouds and golden light lay reflected in the river, and slowly shaded as the sun sank. This hour with its diminishing brightness, its slow approach of gray twilight, its faint murmuring river-song, sadder than any stillness, singularly fitted Chase’s mood.

A shout from Mittie-Maru brought Chase out of the depths. He answered and turned toward the grove. Mittie came hobbling with a celerity that threatened peril to the frail limbs so unaccustomed to such effort.

“Lock the gate!” he called out, waving a letter at Chase.

“Wonder who’s writing me?” asked Chase, failing to note Mittie’s agitation.

“Thet’s Miss Marjory’s writin’.”

Chase’s hands trembled slightly. Mittie’s eyes were gloriously bright.

“Last innin’s!” Sang out the lad. “You waited it out, Chase. An’ now’s the time to dig. Git up on yer toes an’ run, Chase, — run as yer never run turnin’ third in yer life, an’ when yer reach home base an’ Miss Marjory, an’ score-why — why just give her one fer Mittie, who umpired yer game.”

Chase scarcely heard his little friend, and did not see him hurry away toward the cottage, for his eyes were now fixed on the opened letter.

“This letter is as difficult to write now as it has been to keep from writing sooner. I have so much to tell you. Ever since you saved the Geyser well father has been on my side, and I persuaded him to take me to see that last Columbus Findlay game. “He had forgotten he used to play ball when a boy, and it came back to him. First he grew excited, then red in the face, and he shouted till he lost his voice. Before the game was half over he turned purple. When you made that wonderful, wonderful hit he smashed a hole right through his hat.”

“Such a state as he was in when we got home! His hat was a wreck, his coat mussed, his collar wilted, and his face all crimson. But I never saw him so happy, and even mother’s disgust at his appearance made no difference.”

“I think — I am sure — we made life miserable for her. She said you might come to see me. And — I say come soon.

“Marjory.”

THE END

The Young Pitcher

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER I

THE VARSITY CAPTAIN

KEN WARD HAD not been at the big university many days before he realized the miserable lot of a freshman.

At first he was sorely puzzled. College was so different from what he had expected. At the high school of his home town, which, being the capital of the State, was no village, he had been somebody. Then his summer in Arizona, with its wild adventures, had given him a self-appreciation which made his present situation humiliating.

There were more than four thousand students at the university. Ken felt himself the youngest, the smallest, the one of least consequence. He was lost in a shuffle of superior youths. In the forestry department he was a mere boy; and he soon realized that a freshman there was the same as anywhere. The fact that he weighed nearly one hundred and sixty pounds, and was no stripling, despite his youth, made not one whit of difference.

Unfortunately, his first overture of what he considered good-fellowship had been made to an upper-classman, and had been a grievous mistake. Ken had not yet recovered from its reception. He grew careful after that, then shy, and finally began to struggle against disappointment and loneliness.

Outside of his department, on the campus and everywhere he ventured, he found things still worse. There was something wrong with him, with his fresh complexion, with his hair, with the way he wore his tie, with the cut of his clothes. In fact, there was nothing right about him. He had been so beset that he could not think of anything but himself. One day, while sauntering along a campus path, with his hands in his pockets, he met two students coming toward him. They went to right and left, and, jerking his hands from his pockets, roared in each ear, “How dare you walk with your hands in your pockets!”

Another day, on the library step, he encountered a handsome bareheaded youth with a fine, clean-cut face and keen eyes, who showed the true stamp of the great university.

“Here,” he said, sharply, “aren’t you a freshman?”

“Why — yes,” confessed Ken.

“I see you have your trousers turned up at the bottom.”

“Yes — so I have.” For the life of him Ken could not understand why that simple fact seemed a crime, but so it was.

“Turn them down!” ordered the student.

Ken looked into the stern face and flashing eyes of his tormentor, and then meekly did as he had been commanded.

“Boy, I’ve saved your life. We murder freshmen here for that,” said the student, and then passed on up the steps.

In the beginning it was such incidents as these that had bewildered Ken. He passed from surprise to anger, and vowed he would have something to say to these upper-classmen. But when the opportunity came Ken always felt so little and mean that he could not retaliate. This made him furious. He had not been in college two weeks before he could distinguish the sophomores from the seniors by the look on their faces. He hated the sneering “Sophs,” and felt rising in him the desire to fight. But he both feared and admired seniors. They seemed so aloof, so far above him. He was in awe of them, and had a hopeless longing to be like them. And as for the freshmen, it took no second glance for Ken to pick them out. They were of two kinds — those who banded together in crowds and went about yelling, and running away from the Sophs, and those who sneaked about alone with timid step and furtive glance.

Ken was one of these lonesome freshmen. He was pining for companionship, but he was afraid to open his lips. Once he had dared to go into Carlton Hall, the magnificent club-house which had been given to the university by a famous graduate. The club was for all students — Ken had read that on the card sent to him, and also in the papers. But manifestly the upper-classmen had a different point of view. Ken had gotten a glimpse into the immense reading-room with its open fireplace and huge chairs, its air of quiet study and repose; he had peeped into the brilliant billiard-hall and the gymnasium; and he had been so impressed and delighted with the marble swimming-tank that he had forgotten himself and walked too near the pool. Several students accidentally bumped him into it. It appeared the students were so eager to help him out that they crowded him in again. When Ken finally got out he learned the remarkable fact that he was the sixteenth freshman who had been accidentally pushed into the tank that day.

So Ken Ward was in a state of revolt. He was homesick; he was lonely for a friend; he was constantly on the lookout for some trick; his confidence in himself had fled; his opinion of himself had suffered a damaging change; he hardly dared call his soul his own.

But that part of his time spent in study or attending lectures more than made up for the other. Ken loved his subject and was eager to learn. He had a free hour in the afternoon, and often he passed this in the library, sometimes in the different exhibition halls. He wanted to go into Carlton Club again, but his experience there made him refrain.

One afternoon at this hour Ken happened to glance into a lecture-room. It was a large amphitheatre full of noisy students. The benches were arranged in a circle running up from a small pit. Seeing safety in the number of students who were passing in, Ken went along. He thought he might hear an interesting lecture. It did not occur to him that he did not belong there. The university had many departments and he felt that any lecture-room was open to him. Still, caution had become a habit with him, and he stepped down the steep aisle looking for an empty bench.

How steep the aisle was! The benches appeared to be on the side of a hill. Ken slipped into an empty one. There was something warm and pleasant in the close contact of so many students, in the ripple of laughter and the murmur of voices. Ken looked about him with a feeling that he was glad to be there.

It struck him, suddenly, that the room had grown strangely silent. Even the shuffling steps of the incoming students had ceased. Ken gazed upward with a queer sense of foreboding. Perhaps he only imagined that all the students above were looking down at him. Hurriedly he glanced below. A sea of faces, in circular rows, was turned his way.

There was no mistake about it. He was the attraction. At the same instant when he prayed to sink through the bench out of sight a burning anger filled his breast. What on earth had he done now? He knew it was something; he felt it. That quiet moment seemed an age. Then the waiting silence burst.

“Fresh on fifth!” yelled a student in one of the lower benches.

“FRESH ON FIFTH!” bawled another at the top of his lungs.

Ken’s muddled brain could make little of the matter. He saw he was in the fifth row of benches, and that all the way around on either side of him the row was empty. The four lower rows were packed, and above him students were scattered all over. He had the fifth row of benches to himself.

“Fresh on fifth!”

Again the call rang up from below. It was repeated, now from the left of the pit and then from the right. A student yelled it from the first row and another from the fourth. It banged back and forth. Not a word came from the upper part of the room.

Ken sat up straight with a very red face. It was his intention to leave the bench, but embarrassment that was developing into resentment held him fast. What a senseless lot these students were! Why could they not leave him in peace? How foolish of him to go wandering about in strange lecture-rooms!

A hand pressed Ken’s shoulder. He looked back to see a student bending down toward him.

“Hang, Freshie!” this fellow whispered.

“What’s it all about?” asked Ken. “What have I done, anyway? I never was in here before.”

“All Sophs down there. They don’t allow freshmen to go below the sixth row. There’ve been several rushes this term. And the big one’s coming. Hang, Freshie! We’re all with you.”

“Fresh on fifth!” The tenor of the cry had subtly changed. Good-humored warning had changed to challenge. It pealed up from many lusty throats, and became general all along the four packed rows.

“Hang, Freshie!” bellowed a freshman from the topmost row. It was acceptance of the challenge, the battle-cry flung down to the Sophs. A roar arose from the pit. The freshmen, outnumbering the sophomores, drowned the roar in a hoarser one. Then both sides settled back in ominous waiting.

Ken thrilled in all his being. The freshmen were with him! That roar told him of united strength. All in a moment he had found comrades, and he clenched his fingers into the bench, vowing he would hang there until hauled away.

“Fresh on fifth!” shouted a Soph in ringing voice. He stood up in the pit and stepped to the back of the second bench. “Fresh on fifth! Watch me throw him out!”

He was a sturdily built young fellow and balanced himself gracefully on the backs of the benches, stepping up from one to the other. There was a bold gleam in his eyes and a smile on his face. He showed good-natured contempt for a freshman and an assurance that was close to authority.

Ken sat glued to his seat in mingled fear and wrath. Was he to be the butt of those overbearing sophomores? He thought he could do nothing but hang on with all his might. The ascending student jumped upon the fourth bench and, reaching up, laid hold of Ken with no gentle hands. His grip was so hard that Ken had difficulty in stifling a cry of pain. This, however, served to dispel his panic and make him angry clear through.

The sophomore pulled and tugged with all his strength, yet he could not dislodge Ken. The freshmen howled gleefully for him to “Hang! hang!”

Then two more sophomores leaped up to help the leader. A blank silence followed this move, and all the freshmen leaned forward breathlessly. There was a sharp ripping of cloth. Half of Ken’s coat appeared in the hands of one of his assailants.

Suddenly Ken let go his hold, pushed one fellow violently, then swung his fists. It might have been unfair, for the sophomores were beneath him and balancing themselves on the steep benches, but Ken was too angry to think of that. The fellow he pushed fell into the arms of the students below, the second slid out of sight, and the third, who had started the fray, plunged with a crash into the pit.

The freshmen greeted this with a wild yell; the sophomores answered likewise. Like climbing, tumbling apes the two classes spilled themselves up and down the benches, and those nearest Ken laid hold of him, pulling him in opposite directions.

Then began a fierce fight for possession of luckless Ken. Both sides were linked together by gripping hands. Ken was absolutely powerless. His clothes were torn to tatters in a twinkling; they were soon torn completely off, leaving only his shoes and socks. Not only was he in danger of being seriously injured, but students of both sides were handled as fiercely. A heavy trampling roar shook the amphitheatre. As they surged up and down the steep room benches were split. In the beginning the sophomores had the advantage and the tug-of-war raged near the pit and all about it. But the superior numbers of the freshmen began to tell. The web of close-locked bodies slowly mounted up the room, smashing the benches, swaying downward now and then, yet irresistibly gaining ground. The yells of the freshmen increased with the assurance of victory. There was one more prolonged, straining struggle, then Ken was pulled away from the sophomores. The wide, swinging doors of the room were knocked flat to let out the stream of wild freshmen. They howled like fiends; it was first blood for the freshman class; the first tug won that year.

Ken Ward came to his senses out in the corridor surrounded by an excited, beaming, and disreputable crowd of freshmen. Badly as he was hurt, he had to laugh. Some of them looked happy in nothing but torn underclothes. Others resembled a lot of ragamuffins. Coats were minus sleeves, vests were split, shirts were collarless. Blood and bruises were much in evidence.

Some one helped Ken into a long ulster.

“Say, it was great,” said this worthy. “Do you know who that fellow was — the first one who tried to throw you out of number five?”

“I haven’t any idea,” replied Ken. In fact, he felt that his ideas were as scarce just then as his clothes.

“That was the president of the Sophs. He’s the varsity baseball captain, too. You slugged him!... Great!”

Ken’s spirit, low as it was, sank still lower. What miserable luck he had! His one great ambition, next to getting his diploma, had been to make the varsity baseball team.

CHAPTER II

A GREAT ARM

THE SHOCK OF that battle, more than the bruising he had received, confined Ken to his room for a week. When he emerged it was to find he was a marked man; marked by the freshmen with a great and friendly distinction; by the sophomores for revenge. If it had not been for the loss of his baseball hopes, he would have welcomed the chance to become popular with his classmates. But for him it was not pleasant to be reminded that he had “slugged” the Sophs’ most honored member.

It took only two or three meetings with the revengeful sophomores to teach Ken that discretion was the better part of valor. He learned that the sophomores of all departments were looking for him with deadly intent. So far luck had enabled him to escape all but a wordy bullying. Ken became an expert at dodging. He gave the corridors and campus a wide berth. He relinquished his desire to live in one of the dormitories, and rented a room out in the city. He timed his arrival at the university and his departure. His movements were governed entirely by painfully acquired knowledge of the whereabouts of his enemies.

So for weeks Ken Ward lived like a recluse. He was not one with his college mates. He felt that he was not the only freshman who had gotten a bad start in college. Sometimes when he sat near a sad-faced classmate, he knew instinctively that here was a fellow equally in need of friendship. Still these freshmen were as backward as he was, and nothing ever came of such feelings.

The days flew by and the weeks made months, and all Ken did was attend lectures and study. He read everything he could find in the library that had any bearing on forestry. He mastered his text-books before the Christmas holidays. About the vacation he had long been undecided; at length he made up his mind not to go home. It was a hard decision to reach. But his college life so far had been a disappointment; he was bitter about it, and he did not want his father to know. Judge Ward was a graduate of the university. Often and long he had talked to Ken about university life, the lasting benefit of associations and friendships. He would probably think that his son had barred himself out by some reckless or foolish act. Ken was not sure what was to blame; he knew he had fallen in his own estimation, and that the less he thought of himself the more he hated the Sophs.

On Christmas day he went to Carlton Hall. It was a chance he did not want to miss, for very few students would be there. As it turned out he spent some pleasant hours. But before he left the club his steps led him into the athletic trophy room, and there he was plunged into grief. The place was all ablaze with flags and pennants, silver cups and gold medals, pictures of teams and individuals. There were mounted sculls and oars, footballs and baseballs. The long and proud record of the university was there to be read. All her famous athletes were pictured there, and every one who had fought for his college. Ken realized that here for the first time he was in the atmosphere of college spirit for which the university was famed. What would he not have given for a permanent place in that gallery! But it was too late. He had humiliated the captain of the baseball team. Ken sought out the picture of the last season’s varsity. What a stocky lot of young chaps, all consciously proud of the big letter on their shirts! Dale, the captain and pitcher, was in the centre of the group. Ken knew his record, and it was a splendid one. Ken took another look at Dale, another at the famous trainer, Murray, and the professional coach, Arthurs — men under whom it had been his dream to play — and then he left the room, broken-hearted.

When the Christmas recess was over he went back to his lectures resigned to the thought that the athletic side of college life was not for him. He studied harder than ever, and even planned to take a course of lectures in another department. Also his adeptness in dodging was called upon more and more. The Sophs were bound to get him sooner or later. But he did not grow resigned to that; every dodge and flight increased his resentment. Presently he knew he would stop and take what they had to give, and retaliate as best he could. Only, what would they do to him when they did catch him? He remembered his watch, his money, and clothes, never recovered after that memorable tug-of-war. He minded the loss of his watch most; that gift could never be replaced. It seemed to him that he had been the greater sufferer.

One Saturday in January Ken hurried from his class-room. He was always in a hurry and particularly on Saturdays, for that being a short day for most of the departments, there were usually many students passing to and fro. A runaway team clattering down the avenue distracted him from his usual caution, and he cut across the campus. Some one stopped the horses, and a crowd collected. When Ken got there many students were turning away. Ken came face to face with a tall, bronze-haired, freckle-faced sophomore, whom he had dodged more than once. There was now no use to dodge; he had to run or stand his ground.

“Boys, here’s that slugging Freshie!” yelled the Soph. “We’ve got him now.”

He might have been an Indian chief so wild was the whoop that answered him.

“Lead us to him!”

“Oh, what we won’t do to that Freshie!”

“Come on, boys!”

Ken heard these yells, saw a number of boys dash at him, then he broke and ran as if for his life. The Sophs, a dozen strong, yelling loudly, strung out after him. Ken headed across the campus. He was fleet of foot, and gained on his pursuers. But the yells brought more Sophs on the scene, and they turned Ken to the right. He spurted for Carlton Hall, and almost ran into the arms of still more sophomores. Turning tail, he fled toward the library. When he looked back it was to see the bronze-haired leader within a hundred yards, and back of him a long line of shouting students.

If there was a place to hide round that library Ken could not find it. In this circuit he lost ground. Moreover, he discovered he had not used good judgment in choosing that direction. All along the campus was a high iron fence. Ken thought desperately hard for an instant, then with renewed speed he bounded straight for College Hall.

This was the stronghold of the sophomores. As Ken sped up the gravel walk his pursuers split their throats.

“Run, you Freshie!” yelled one.

“The more you run—” yelled another.

“The more we’ll skin you!” finished a third.

Ken ran into the passageway leading through College Hall.

It was full of Sophs hurrying toward the door to see where the yells came from. When Ken plunged into their midst some one recognized him and burst out with the intelligence. At the same moment Ken’s pursuers banged through the swinging doors.

A yell arose then in the constricted passageway that seemed to Ken to raise College Hall from its foundation. It terrified him. Like an eel he slipped through reaching arms and darted forward. Ken was heavy and fast on his feet, and with fear lending him wings he made a run through College Hall that would have been a delight to the football coach. For Ken was not dodging any sophomores now. He had played his humiliating part of dodger long enough. He knocked them right and left, and many a surprised Soph he tumbled over. Reaching the farther door, he went through out into the open.

The path before him was clear now, and he made straight for the avenue. It was several hundred yards distant, and he got a good start toward it before the Sophs rolled like a roaring stream from the passage. Ken saw other students running, and also men and boys out on the avenue; but as they could not head him off he kept to his course. On that side of the campus a high, narrow stairway, lined by railings, led up to the sidewalk. When Ken reached it he found the steps covered with ice. He slipped and fell three times in the ascent, while his frantic pursuers gained rapidly.

Ken mounted to the sidewalk, gave vent to a gasp of relief, and, wheeling sharply, he stumbled over two boys carrying a bushel basket of potatoes. When he saw the large, round potatoes a daring inspiration flashed into his mind. Taking the basket from the boys he turned to the head of the stairway.

The bronze-haired Soph was half-way up the steps. His followers, twelve or more, were climbing after him. Then a line of others stretched all the way to College Hall.

With a grim certainty of his mastery of the situation Ken threw a huge potato at his leading pursuer. Fair and square on the bronze head it struck with a sharp crack. Like a tenpin the Soph went down. He plumped into the next two fellows, knocking them off their slippery footing. The three fell helplessly and piled up their comrades in a dense wedge half-way down the steps. If the Sophs had been yelling before, it was strange to note how they were yelling now.

Deliberately Ken fired the heavy missiles. They struck with sodden thuds against the bodies of the struggling sophomores. A poor thrower could not very well have missed that mark, and Ken Ward was remarkably accurate. He had a powerful overhand swing, and the potatoes flew like bullets. One wild-eyed Soph slipped out of the tangle to leap up the steps. Ken, throwing rather low, hit him on the shin. He buckled and dropped down with a blood-curdling yell. Another shook himself loose and faced upward. A better-aimed shot took him in the shoulder. He gave an exhibition of a high and lofty somersault. Then two more started up abreast. The first Ken hit over the eye with a very small potato, which popped like an explosive bullet and flew into bits. As far as effect was concerned a Martini could not have caused a more beautiful fall. Ken landed on the second fellow in the pit of the stomach with a very large potato. There was a sound as of a suddenly struck bass-drum. The Soph crumpled up over the railing, slid down, and fell among his comrades, effectually blocking the stairway.

For the moment Ken had stopped the advance. The sophomores had been checked by one wild freshman. There was scarcely any doubt about Ken’s wildness. He had lost his hat; his dishevelled hair stood up like a mane; every time he hurled a potato he yelled. But there was nothing wild about his aim.

All at once he turned his battery on the students gathering below the crush, trying to find a way through the kicking, slipping mass on the narrow stairs. He scattered them as if they had been quail. Some ran out of range. Others dove for cover and tried to dodge. This dodging brought gleeful howls from Ken.

“Dodge, you Indian!” yelled Ken, as he threw. And seldom it was that dodging was of any use. Then, coming to the end of his ammunition, he surveyed the battle-field beneath him and, turning, ran across the avenue and down a street. At the corner of the block he looked back. There was one man coming, but he did not look like a student. So Ken slackened his pace and bent his steps toward his boarding-house.

“By George! I stole those potatoes!” he exclaimed, presently. “I wonder how I can make that good.”

Several times as he turned to look over his shoulder he saw the man he had noticed at first. But that did not trouble him, for he was sure no one else was following him. Ken reached his room exhausted by exertion and excitement. He flung himself upon his bed to rest and calm his mind so that he could think. If he had been in a bad light before, what was his position now? Beyond all reasoning with, however, was the spirit that gloried in his last stand.

“By George!” he kept saying. “I wouldn’t have missed that — not for anything. They made my life a nightmare. I’ll have to leave college — go somewhere else — but I don’t care.”

Later, after dinner as he sat reading, he heard a door-bell ring, a man’s voice, then footsteps in the hall. Some one tapped on his door. Ken felt a strange, cold sensation, which soon passed, and he spoke:

“Come in.”

The door opened to admit a short man with little, bright eyes sharp as knives.

“Hello, Kid,” he said. Then he leisurely removed his hat and overcoat and laid them on the bed.

Ken’s fear of he knew not what changed to amazement. At least his visitor did not belong to the faculty. There was something familiar about the man, yet Ken could not place him.

“Well up in your studies?” he asked, cordially. Then he seated himself, put a hand on each knee, and deliberately and curiously studied Ken.

“Why, yes, pretty well up,” replied Ken. He did not know how to take the man. There was a kindliness about him which relieved Ken, yet there was also a hard scrutiny that was embarrassing.

“All by your lonely here,” he said.

“It is lonely,” replied Ken, “but — but I don’t get on very well with the students.”

“Small wonder. Most of ’em are crazy.”

He was unmistakably friendly. Ken kept wondering where he had seen him. Presently the man arose, and, with a wide smile on his face, reached over and grasped Ken’s right arm.

“How’s the whip?”

“What?” asked Ken.

“The wing — your arm, Kid, your arm.”

“Oh — Why, it’s all right.”

“It’s not sore — not after peggin’ a bushel of potatoes on a cold day?”

Ken laughed and raised his arm up and down. “It’s weak to-night, but not sore.”

“These boys with their India-rubber arms! It’s youth, Kid, it’s youth. Say, how old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“What! No more than that?”

“No.”

“How much do you weigh?”

“About one hundred and fifty-six.”

“I thought you had some beef back of that stunt of yours to-day. Say, Kid, it was the funniest and the best thing I’ve seen at the university in ten years — and I’ve seen some fresh boys do some stunts, I have. Well... Kid, you’ve a grand whip — a great arm — and we’re goin’ to do some stunts with it.”

Ken felt something keen and significant in the very air.

“A great arm! For what?... who are you?”

“Say, I thought every boy in college knew me. I’m Arthurs.”

“The baseball coach! Are you the baseball coach?” exclaimed Ken, jumping up with his heart in his throat.

“That’s me, my boy; and I’m lookin’ you up.”

Ken suddenly choked with thronging emotions and sat down as limp as a rag.

“Yes, Kid, I’m after you strong. The way you pegged ’em to-day got me. You’ve a great arm!”

CHAPTER III

PRISONER OF THE SOPHS

“BUT IF — it’s really true — that I’ve a great arm,” faltered Ken, “it won’t ever do me any good. I could never get on the varsity.”

“Why not?” demanded the coach. “I’ll make a star of a youngster like you, if you’ll take coachin’. Why not?”

“Oh, you don’t know,” returned Ken, with a long face.

“Say, you haven’t struck me as a kid with no nerve. What’s wrong with you?”

“It was I who slugged Captain Dale and caused that big rush between the freshmen and sophomores. I’ve lived like a hermit ever since.”

“So it was you who hit Dale. Well — that’s bad,” replied Arthurs. He got up with sober face and began to walk the floor. “I remember the eye he had. It was a sight... But Dale’s a good fellow. He’ll—”

“I’d do anything on earth to make up for that,” burst out Ken.

“Good! I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Arthurs, his face brightening. “We’ll go right down to Dale’s room now. I’ll fix it up with him somehow. The sooner the better. I’m goin’ to call the baseball candidates to the cage soon.”

They put on coats and hats and went out. Evidently the coach was thinking hard, for he had nothing to say, but he kept a reassuring hand on Ken’s arm. They crossed the campus along the very path where Ken had fled from the sophomores. The great circle of dormitories loomed up beyond with lights shining in many windows. Arthurs led Ken through a court-yard and into a wide, bright hallway. Their steps sounded with hollow click upon the tiled floor. They climbed three flights of stairs, and then Arthurs knocked at a door. Ken’s heart palpitated. It was all so sudden; he did not know what he was going to say or do. He did not care what happened to him if Arthurs could only, somehow, put him right with the captain.

A merry voice bade them enter. The coach opened the door and led Ken across the threshold. Ken felt the glow of a warm, bright room, colorful with pennants and posters, and cozy in its disorder. Then he saw Dale and, behind him, several other students. There was a moment’s silence in which Ken heard his heart beat.

Dale rose slowly from his seat, the look on his frank face changing from welcome to intense amazement and then wild elation.

“Whoop!” he shouted. “Lock the door! Worry Arthurs, this’s your best bet ever!”

Dale dashed at the coach, hugged him frantically, then put his head out of the door to bawl: “Sophs! Sophs! Sophs! Hurry call! Number nine!... Oh, my!”

Then he faced about, holding the door partially open. He positively beamed upon the coach.

“Say, Cap, what’s eatin’ you?” asked Arthurs. He looked dumfounded. Ken hung to him desperately; he thought he knew what was coming. There were hurried footsteps in the corridor and excited voices.

“Worry, it’s bully of you to bring this freshman here,” decla...ain.

“Well, what of it?” demanded the coach. “I looked him up to-night. He’s got a great arm, and will be good material for the team. He told me about the little scrap you had in the lecture-room. He lost his temper, and no wonder. Anyway, he’s sorry, Cap, and I fetched him around to see if you couldn’t make it up. How about it, Kid?”

“I’m sorry — awfully sorry, Captain Dale,” blurted out Ken. “I was mad and scared, too — then you fellows hurt me. So I hit right out... But I’ll take my medicine.”

“So — oh!” ejaculated Dale. “Well, this beats the deuce! That’s why you’re here?”

The door opened wide to admit half a dozen eager-faced youths.

“Fellows, here’s a surprise,” said Dale. “Young Ward, the freshman! the elusive slugging freshman, fast on his feet, and, as Worry here says, a lad with a great arm!”

“WARD!” roared the Sophs in unison.

“Hold on, fellows — wait — no rough-house yet — wait,” ordered Dale. “Ward’s here of his own free will!”

Silence ensued after the captain spoke. While he turned to lock the door the Sophs stared open-mouthed at Ken. Arthurs had a worried look, and he kept his hand on Ken. Dale went to a table and began filling his pipe. Then he fixed sharp, thoughtful eyes upon his visitors.

“Worry, you say you brought this freshman here to talk baseball?” he asked.

“Sure I did,” blustered Arthurs. It was plain now where he got the name that Dale called him. “What’s in the wind, anyhow?”

Dale then gravely spoke to Ken. “So you came here to see me? Sorry you slugged me once? Want to make up for it somehow, because you think you’ve a chance for the team, and don’t want me to be sore on you? That it?”

“Not exactly,” replied Ken. “I’d want to let you get square with me even if you weren’t the varsity captain.”

“Well, you’ve more than squared yourself with me — by coming here. You’ll realize that presently. But don’t you know what’s happened, what the freshmen have done?”

“No; I don’t.”

“You haven’t been near the university since this afternoon when you pulled off the potato stunt?”

“I should say I haven’t.”

This brought a laugh from the Sophs.

“You were pretty wise,” went on Dale. “The Sophs didn’t love you then. But they’re going to — understand?”

Ken shook his head, too bewildered and mystified to reply.

“Well, now, here’s Giraffe Boswick. Look what you did to him!”

Ken’s glance followed the wave of Dale’s hand and took in the tall, bronze-haired so... had led the chase that afternoon. Boswick wore a huge discolored bruise over his left eye. It was hideous. Ken was further sickened to recollect that Boswick was one of the varsity pitchers. But the fellow was smiling amiably at Ken, as amiably as one eye would permit. The plot thickened about Ken. He felt his legs trembling under him.

“Boswick, you forgive Ward, don’t you — now?” continued Dale, with a smile.

“With all my heart!” exclaimed the pitcher. “To see him here would make me forgive anything.”

Coach Arthurs was ill at ease. He evidently knew students, and he did not relish the mystery, the hidden meaning.

“Say, you wise guys make me sick,” he called out, gruffly. “Here’s a kid that comes right among you. He’s on the level, and more’n that, he’s game! Now, Cap, I fetched him here, and I won’t stand for a whole lot. Get up on your toes! Get it over!”

“Sit down Worry, here’s a cigar — light up,” said Dale, soothingly. “It’s all coming right, lovely, I say. Ward was game to hunt me up, a thousand times gamer than he knows... See here, Ward, where are you from?”

“I live a good long day’s travel from the university,” answered Ken, evasively.

“I thought so. Did you ever hear of the bowl-fight, the great event of the year here at Wayne University?”

“Yes, I’ve heard — read a little about it. But I don’t know what it is.”

“I’ll tell you,” went on Dale. “There are a number of yearly rushes and scrapes between the freshmen and sophomores, but the bowl-fight is the one big meeting, the time-honored event. It has been celebrated here for many years. It takes place on a fixed date. Briefly, here’s what comes off: The freshmen have the bowl in their keeping this year because they won it in the last fight. They are to select one of their number, always a scrappy fellow, and one honored by the class, and they call him the bowl-man. A week before the fight, on a certain date, the freshmen hide this bowl-man or protect him from the sophomores until the day of the fight, when they all march to Grant field in fighting-togs. Should the sophomores chance to find him and hold him prisoner until after the date of the bowl-fight they win the bowl. The same applies also in case the bowl is in possession of the sophomores. But for ten years neither class has captured the other’s bowl-man. So they have fought it out on the field until the bowl was won.”

“Well, what has all that got to do with me?” asked Ken. He felt curiously light-headed.

“It has a little to do with you — hasn’t it, fellows?” said Dale, in slow, tantalizing voice.

Worry Arthurs lost his worried look and began to smile and rub his hands.

“Ward, look here,” added Dale, now speaking sharply. “You’ve been picked for the bowl-man!”

“Me — me?” stammered Ken.

“No other. The freshmen were late in choosing a man this year. To-day, after your stunt — holding up that bunch of sophomores — they had a meeting in Carlton Club and picked you. Most of them didn’t even know your name. I’ll bet the whole freshman class is hunting for you right now.”

“What for?” queried Ken, weakly.

“... you. The bowl-fight is only a week off — and here you are. And here you’ll stay until that date’s past!”

Ken drew a quick breath. He began to comprehend. The sudden huzzahs of Dale’s companions gave him further enlightenment.

“But, Captain Dale,” he said, breathlessly, “if it’s so — if my class has picked me — I can’t throw them down. I don’t know a soul in my class. I haven’t a friend. But I won’t throw them down — not to be forever free of dodging Sophs — not even to square myself with you.”

“Ward, you’re all right!” shouted Dale, his eyes shining.

In the quiet moment that followed, with all the sophomores watching him intently, Ken Ward instinctively felt that his measure had been taken.

“I won’t stay here,” said Ken, and for the first time his voice rang.

“Oh yes, you will,” replied Dale, laughing.

Quick as a cat Ken leaped for the door and got it unlocked and half open before some one clutched him. Then Dale was on him close and hard. Ken began to struggle. He was all muscle, and twice he broke from them.

“His legs! Grab his legs! He’s a young bull!”

“We’ll trim you now, Freshie!”

“You potato-masher!”

“Go for his wind!”

Fighting and wrestling with all his might Ken went down under a half dozen sophomores. Then Dale was astride his chest, and others were sitting on his hands and feet.

“Boys, don’t hurt that arm!” yelled Worry Arthurs.

“Ward, will you be good now and stop scrapping or shall we tie you?” asked Dale. “You can’t get away. The thing to do is to give your word not to try. We want to make this easy for you. Your word of honor, now?”

“Never!” cried Ken.

“I knew you wouldn’t,” said Dale. “We’ll have to keep you under guard.”

They let him get up. He was panting, and his nose was bleeding, and one of his knuckles was skinned. That short struggle had been no joke. The Sophs certainly meant to keep him prisoner. Still, he was made to feel at ease. They could not do enough for him.

“It’s tough luck, Ward, that you should have fallen into our hands this way,” said Dale. “But you couldn’t help it. You will be kept in my rooms until after the fifteenth. Meals will be brought you, and your books; everything will be done for your comfort. Your whereabouts, of course, will be a secret, and you will be closely watched. Worry, remember you are bound to silence. And Ward, perhaps it wasn’t an ill wind that blew you here. You’ve had your last scrap with a Soph, that’s sure. As for what brought you here — it’s more than square; and I’ll say this: if you can play ball as well as you can scrap, old Wayne has got a star.”

CHAPTER IV

THE CALL FOR CANDIDATES

THERE WERE FIVE rooms in Dale’s suite in the dormitory, and three other sophomores shared them with him. They confined Ken in the end room, where he was safely locked and guarded from any possible chance to escape.

For the first day or two it was irksome for Ken; but as he and his captors grew better acquainted the strain eased up, and Ken began to enjoy himself as he had not since coming to the university.

He could not have been better provided for. His books were at hand, and even notes of the lectures he was missing were brought to him. The college papers and magazines interested him, and finally he was much amused by an account of his mysterious disappearance. All in a day he found himself famous. Then Dale and his room-mates were so friendly and jolly that if his captivity had not meant the disgrace of the freshman class, Ken would have rejoiced in it. He began to thaw out, though he did not lose his backwardness. The life of the great university began to be real to him. Almost the whole sophomore class, in squads of twos and threes and sixes, visited Dale’s rooms during that week. No Soph wanted to miss a sight of a captive bowl-man. Ken felt so callow and fresh in their presence that he scarcely responded to their jokes. Worry Arthur’s nickname of “Kid” vied with another the coach conferred on Ken, and that was “Peg.” It was significant slang expressing the little baseball man’s baseball notion of Ken’s throwing power.

The evening was the most interesting time for Ken. There was always something lively going on. He wondered when the boys studied. When some of the outside students dropped in there were banjo and guitar playing, college songs, and college gossip.

“Come on, Peg, be a good fellow,” they said, and laughed at his refusal to smoke or drink beer.

“Molly!” mocked one.

“Willy-boy!” added another.

Ken was callow, young, and backward; but he had a temper, and this kind of banter roused it easily. The red flamed into his cheeks.

“I promised my mother I wouldn’t smoke or drink or gamble while I was in college,” he retorted, struggling with shame and anger. “And I — I won’t.”

Dale stopped the good-natured chaff. “Fellows, stop guying Ward; cut it out, I tell you. He’s only a kid freshman, but he’s liable to hand you a punch, and if he does you’ll remember it. Besides, he’s right... Look here, Ward, you stick to that promise. It’s a good promise to stick to, and if you’re going in for athletics it’s the best ever.”

Worry Arthurs happened to be present on this evening, and he seconded Dale in more forceful speech. “There’s too much boozin’ and smokin’ of them coffin nails goin’ on in this college. It’s none of my affair except with the boys I’m coachin’, and if I ketch any one breakin’ my rules after we go to the trainin’-table he’ll sit on the bench. There’s Murray; why, he says there are fellows in college who could break records if they’d train. Half of sprintin’ or baseball or football is condition.”

“Oh, Worry, you and Mac always make a long face over things. Wayne has won a few championships, hasn’t she?”

“The varsity ball team will be a frost this year, that’s sure,” replied Arthurs, gloomily.

“How do you make that out?” demanded Dale, plainly nettled. “You’ve hinted it before to me. Why won’t we be stronger than last season? Didn’t we have a crackerjack team, the fastest that ever represented old Wayne? Didn’t we smother the small college teams and beat Place twice, shut out Herne the first game, and play for a tie the second?”

“You’ll see, all right, all right,” replied Arthurs, gloomier than ever; and he took his hat and went out.

Dale slammed his cards down on the table.

“Fellows, is it any wonder we call him Worry? Already he’s begun to fuss over the team. Ever since he’s been here he has driven the baseball captains and managers crazy. It’s only his way, but it’s so irritating. He’s a magnificent coach, and Wayne owes her great baseball teams to him. But he’s hard on captains. I see my troubles. The idea of this year’s team being a frost — with all the old stars back in college — with only two positions to fill! And there are half a dozen cracks in college to fight for these two positions — fellows I played against on the summer nines last year. Worry’s idea is ridiculous.”

This bit of baseball talk showed Ken the obstacles in the way of a freshman making the varsity team. What a small chance there would be for him...got a good deal of comfort out of Arthurs’ interest in him, and felt that he would be happy to play substitute this season, and make the varsity in his sophomore year.

The day of the bowl-fight passed, and Ken’s captivity became history. The biggest honor of the sophomore year went to Dale and his room-mates. Ken returned to his department, where he was made much of, as he had brought fame to a new and small branch of the great university. It was a pleasure to walk the campus without fear of being pounced upon. Ken’s dodging and loneliness — perhaps necessary and curbing nightmares in the life of a freshman — were things of the past. He made acquaintances, slowly lost his backwardness, and presently found college life opening to him bright and beautiful. Ken felt strongly about things. And as his self-enforced exile had been lonely and bitter, so now his feeling that he was really a part of the great university seemed almost too good to be true. He began to get a glimmering of the meaning of his father’s love for the old college. Students and professors underwent some vague change in his mind. He could not tell what, he did not think much about it, but there was a warmer touch, a sense of something nearer to him.

Then suddenly a blow fell upon the whole undergraduate body. It was a thunderbolt. It affected every student, but Ken imagined it concerned his own college fortunes more intimately. The athletic faculty barred every member of the varsity baseball team! The year before the faculty had advised and requested the players not to become members of the summer baseball nines. Their wishes had not been heeded. Captain Dale and his fast players had been much in demand by the famous summer nines. Some of them went to the Orange Athletic Club, others to Richfield Springs, others to Cape May, and Dale himself had captained the Atlantic City team.

The action of the faculty was commended by the college magazine. Even the students, though chafing under it, could not but acknowledge its justice. The other universities had adopted such a rule, and Wayne must fall in line. The objections to summer ball-playing were not few, and the particular one was that it affected the amateur standing of the college player. He became open to charges of professionalism. At least, all his expenses were paid, and it was charged that usually he was paid for his services.

Ken’s first feeling when he learned this news was one of blank dismay. The great varsity team wiped off the slate! How Place and Herne would humble old Wayne this year! Then the long, hard schedule, embracing thirty games, at least one with every good team in the East — how would an untried green team fare against that formidable array? Then Ken suddenly felt ashamed of a selfish glee, for he was now sure of a place on the varsity.

For several days nothing else was talked about by the students. Whenever Dale or his players appeared at Carlton Hall they were at once surrounded by a sympathetic crowd. If it was a bitter blow to the undergraduates, what was it to the members of the varsity? Their feeling showed in pale, stern faces. It was reported about the campus that Murray and Arthurs and Dale, with the whole team, went to the directors of the athletic faculty and besought them to change or modify the decision. Both the trainer and the coach, who had brought such glory to the university, threatened to resign their places. The disgrace of a pitiably weak team of freshmen being annihilated by minor colleges was eloquently put before the directors. But the decision was final.

One evening early in February Worry Arthurs called upon Ken. His face was long, and his mustache drooped.

“Kid, what do you think of ’em fat-heads on the faculty queerin’ my team?” he asked. “Best team I ever developed. Say, but the way they could work the hit-and-run game! Any man on the team could hit to right field when there was a runner goin’ down from first.”

“Maybe things will turn out all right,” suggested Ken, hopefully.

Worry regarded his youthful sympathizer with scorn.

“It takes two years to teach most college kids the rudiments of baseball. Look at this year’s schedule.” Worry produced a card and waved it at Ken. “The hardest schedule Wayne ever had! And I’ve got to play a kid team.”

Ken was afraid to utter any more of his hopes, and indeed he felt them to be visionary.

“The call for candidates goes out to-morrow,” went on the coach. “I’ll bet there’ll be a mob at the cage. Every fool kid in the university will think he’s sure of a place. Now, Ward, what have you played?”

“Everywhere; but infield mostly.”

“Every kid has played the whole game. What position have you played most?”

“Third base.”

“Good! You’ve the arm for that. Well, I’m anxious to see you work, but don’t exert yourself in the cage. This is a tip. See! I’ll be busy weedin’ out the bunch, and won’t have time until we get out on the field. You can run around the track every day, get your wind and your legs right, hold in on your arm. The cage is cold. I’ve seen many a good wing go to the bad there. But your chance looks good. College baseball is different from any other kind. You might say it’s played with the heart. I’ve seen youngsters go in through grit and spirit, love of playin’ for their college, and beat out fellows who were their superiors physically. Well, good-night... Say, there’s one more thing. I forgot it. Are you up in your subjects?”

“I surely am,” replied Ken. “I’ve had four months of nothing but study.”

“The reason I ask is this: That faculty has made another rule, the one-year residence rule, they call it. You have to pass your exams, get your first year over, before you can represent any athletic club. So, in case I can use you on the team, you would have to go up for your exams two months or more ahead of time. That scare you?”

“Not a bit. I could pass mine right now,” answered Ken, confidently.

“Kid, you and me are goin’ to get along... Well, good-night, and don’t forget what I said.”

Ken was too full for utterance; he could scarcely mumble good-night to the coach. He ran up-stairs three steps to the jump, and when he reached his room he did a war dance and ended by standing on his head. When he had gotten rid of his exuberance he sat down at once to write to his brother Hal about it, and also his forest-ranger friend, Dick Leslie, with whom he had spent an adventurous time the last summer.

At Carlton Hall, next day, Ken saw a crowd of students before the bulletin-board and, edging in, he read the following notice:

BASEBALL!

CALL FOR CANDIDATES FOR THE VARSITY BASEBALL TEAM

The Athletic Directors of the University earnestly request every student who can play ball, or who thinks he can, to present himself to Coach Arthurs at the Cage on Feb. 3rd.

There will be no freshman team this year, and a new team entirely will be chosen for the varsity. Every student will have a chance. Applicants are requested to familiarize themselves with the new eligibility rules.

CHAPTER V

THE CAGE

KEN WARD DUG down into his trunk for his old baseball suit and donned it with strange elation. It was dirty and torn, and the shoes that went with it were worn out, but Ken was thinking of what hard ball-playing they represented. He put his overcoat on over his sweater, took up his glove and sallied forth.

A thin coating of ice and snow covered the streets. Winter still whistled i...To Ken in his eagerness spring seemed a long way off. On his way across the campus he saw strings of uniformed boys making for Grant Field, and many wearing sweaters over their every-day clothes. The cage was situated at one end of the field apart from the other training-quarters. When Ken got there he found a mob of players crowding to enter the door of the big barn-like structure. Others were hurrying away. Near the door a man was taking up tickets like a doorkeeper of a circus, and he kept shouting: “Get your certificates from the doctor. Every player must pass a physical examination. Get your certificates.”

<...hat in disgust at so much red tape and he jostled into a little fellow, almost knocking him over.

“Wull! Why don’t you fall all over me?” growled this amiable individual. “For two cents I’d hand you one.”

The apology on Ken’s lips seemed to halt of its own accord.

“Sorry I haven’t any change in these clothes,” returned Ken. He saw a wiry chap, older than he was, but much smaller, and of most aggressive front. He had round staring eyes, a protruding jaw, and his mouth turned down at the corners. He wore a disreputable uniform and a small green cap over one ear.

“Aw! don’t get funny!” he replied.

Ken moved away muttering to himself: “That fellow’s a grouch.” Much to his amazement, when he got to the training-house, Ken found that he could not get inside because so many players were there ahead of him. After waiting an hour or more he decided he could not have his physical examination at that time, and he went back to the cage. The wide door was still blocked with players, but at the other end of the building Ken found an entrance. He squeezed into a crowd of students and worked forward until stopped by a railing.

Ken was all eyes and breathless with interest. The cage was a huge, open, airy room, lighted by many windows, and, with the exception of the platform where he stood, it was entirely enclosed by heavy netting. The floor was of bare ground well raked and loosened to make it soft. This immense hall was full of a motley crowd of aspiring ball-players.

...p>Worry Arthurs, with his head sunk in the collar of his overcoat, and his shoulders hunched up as if he was about to spring upon something, paced up and down the rear end of the cage. Behind him a hundred or more players in line slowly marched toward the slab of rubber which marked the batting position. Ken remembered that the celebrated coach always tried out new players at the bat first. It was his belief that batting won games.

“Bunt one and hit one!” he yelled to the batters.

From the pitcher’s box a lanky individual was trying to locate the plate. Ken did not need a second glance to see th... pitcher.

“Stop posin’, and pitch!” yelled Arthurs.

One by one the batters faced the plate, swung valiantly or wildly at balls and essayed bunts. Few hit the ball out and none made a creditable bunt. After their turn at bat they were ordered to the other end of the cage, where they fell over one another trying to stop the balls that were hit. Every few moments the coach would yell for one of them, any one, to take a turn at pitching. Ken noticed that Arthurs gave a sharp glance at each new batter, and one appeared to be sufficient. More and more ambitious players crowded into the cage, until there were so many that batted balls rarely missed hitting some one.

Presently Ken Ward awoke from his thrilling absorption in the scene to note another side of it. The students around him were making game of the players.

“What a bunch!”

“Look at that fuzzy gosling with the yellow pants!”

“Keep your shanks out of the way, Freshie!”

“Couldn’t hit a balloon!”

Whenever a batter hit a ball into the crowd of dodging players down the cage these students howled with glee. Ken discovered that he was standing near Captain Dale and other members of the barred varsity.

“Say, Dale, how do the candidates shape up?” asked a student.

“This is a disgrace to Wayne,” declared Dale, bitterly. “I never saw such a mob of spindle-legged kids in my life. Look at them! Scared to death! That fellow never swung at a ball before — that one never heard of a bunt — they throw like girls — Oh! this is sickening, fellows. I see where Worry goes to his grave this year and old Wayne gets humbled by one-horse colleges.”

Ken took one surprised glance at the captain he had admired so much and then he slipped farther over in the crowd. Perhaps Dale had spoken truth, yet somehow it jarred upon Ken’s sensitive nature. The thing that affected Ken most was the earnestness of the uniformed boys trying their best to do well before the great coach. Some were timid, uncertain; others were rash and over-zealous. Many a ball cracked off a player’s knee or wr...han once Ken saw a bloody finger. It was cold in the cage. Even an ordinarily hit ball must have stung the hands, and the way a hard grounder cracked was enough to excite sympathy among those scornful spectators, if nothing more. But they yelled in delight at every fumble, at everything that happened. Ken kept whispering to himself: “I can’t see the fun in it. I can’t!”

Arthurs dispensed with the bunting and ordered one hit each for the batters. “Step up and hit!” he ordered, hoarsely. “Don’t be afraid — never mind that crowd — step into the ball and swing natural... Next! Hurry, boys!”

Suddenly a deep-chested student yelled out with a voice that drowned every other sound.

“Hard luck, Worry! No use! You’ll never find a hitter among those misfits!”

The coach actually leaped up in his anger and his face went from crimson to white. Ken thought it was likely that he recognized the voice.

“You knocker! You knocker!” he cried. “That’s a fine college spirit, ain’t it? You’re a fine lot of students, I don’t think. Now shut up, every one of you, or I’ll fire you out of the cage... And right here at the start you knockers take this from me — I’ll find more than one hitter among those kids!”

A little silence fell while the coach faced that antagonistic crowd of spectators. Ken was amazed the second time, and now because of the intensity of feeling that seemed to hang in the air. Ken felt a warm rush go over him, and that moment added greatly to his already strong liking for Worry Arthurs.

Then the coach turned to his work, the batting began again, and the crack of the ball, the rush of feet, the sharp cries of the players mingled once more with the laughter and caustic wit of the unsympathetic audience.

Ken Ward went back to his room without having removed his overcoat. He was thoughtful that night and rebellious against the attitude of the student body. A morning paper announced the fact that over three hundred candidates had presented themselves to Coach Arthurs. It went on to say that the baseball material represented was not worth considering an... old Wayne’s varsity team must be ranked with those of the fifth-rate colleges. This, following Ken’s experience at the cage on the first day, made him angry and then depressed. The glamour of the thing seemed to fade away. Ken lost the glow, the exhilaration of his first feelings. Everybody took a hopeless view of Wayne’s baseball prospects. Ken Ward, however, was not one to stay discouraged long, and when he came out of his gloom it was with his fighting spirit roused. Once and for all he made up his mind to work heart and soul for his college, to be loyal to Arthurs, to hope and believe in t... the new varsity, whether or not he was lucky enough to win a place upon it.

Next day, going early to the training-quarters, he took his place in a squad waiting for the physical examination. It was a wearisome experience. At length Ken’s turn came with two other players, one of whom he recognized as the sour-complexioned fellow of the day before.

“Wull, you’re pretty fresh,” he said to Ken as they went in. He had a most exasperating manner.

“Say, I don’t like you a whole lot,” retorted Ken.

Then a...shered them into a large room in which were several men. The boys were stripped to the waist.

“Come here, Murray,” said the doctor. “There’s some use in looking these boys over, particularly this husky youngster.”

A tall man in a white sweater towered over Ken. It was the famous trainer. He ran his hands over Ken’s smooth skin and felt of the muscles.

“Can you run?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Ken.

“Are you fast?”

“Yes.”

Further inquiries brought from Ken his name, age, weight, that he had never been ill, had never used tobacco or intoxicating drinks.

“Ward, eh? ‘Peg’ Ward,” said Murray, smiling. “Worry Arthurs has the call on you — else, my boy, I’d whisper football in your ear. Mebbe I will, anyhow, if you keep up in your studies. That’ll do for you.”

Ken’s companions also won praise from the trainer. They gave their names as Raymond and Weir. The former weighed only one hundred and twenty-two, but he was a knot of muscles. The other stood only five feet, but he was very broad and heavy, his remarkably compact build giving an impression of great strength. Both replied in the negative to the inquiries as to use of tobacco or spirits.

“Boys, that’s what we like to hear,” said the doctor. “You three ought to pull together.”

Ken wondered what the doctor would have said if he had seen the way these three boys glared at each other in the dressing-room. And he wondered, too, what was the reason for such open hostility. The answer came to him in the thought that perhaps they were both trying for the position he wanted on the varsity. Most likely they had the same idea about him. That was the secret of little Raymond’s pugnacious front and Weir’s pompous air; and Ken realized that the same reason accounted for his own attitude toward them. He wanted very much to tell Raymond that he was a little grouch and Weir that he looked like a puffed-up toad. All the same Ken was not blind to Weir’s handsome appearance. The sturdy youngster had an immense head, a great shock of bright brown hair, flashing gray eyes, and a clear bronz...”They’ll both make the team, I’ll bet,” thought Ken. “They look it. I hope I don’t have to buck against them.” Then as they walked toward the cage Ken forced himself to ask genially: “Raymond, what’re you trying for? And you, Weir?”

“Wull, if it’s any of your fresh business, I’m not trying for any place. I’m going to play infield. You can carry my bat,” replied Raymond, sarcastically.

“Much obliged,” retorted Ken, “I’m not going to substitute. I’ve a corner on that varsity infield myself.”

Weir glanced at them with undisguised disdain. “You can save yourselves useless work by not trying for my position. I intend to play infield.”

“Wull, puff-up, now, puff-up!” growled Raymond.

Thus the three self-appointed stars of the varsity bandied words among themselves as they crossed the field. At the cage door they became separated to mingle with the pushing crowd of excited boys in uniforms.

By dint of much squeezing and shoulder-work Ken got inside the cage. He joined the squad in the upper end and got in line for the batting. Worry Arthurs paced wildly to and fro yelling for the boys to hit. A dense crowd of students thronged the platform and laughed, jeered, and stormed at the players. The cage was in such an uproar that Arthurs could scarcely be heard. Watching from the line Ken saw Weir come to bat and stand aggressively and hit the ball hard. It scattered the flock of fielders. Then Raymond came along, and, batting left-handed, did likewise. Arthurs stepped forward and said something to both. After Ken’s turn at bat the coach said to him: “Get out of here. Go run round the track. Do it every day. Don’t come back until Monday.”

As Ken hurried out he saw and felt the distinction with which he was regarded by the many players whom he crowded among in passing. When he reached the track he saw Weir, Raymond, and half a dozen other fellows going round at a jog-trot. Weir was in the lead, setting the pace. Ken fell in behind.

The track was the famous quarter-mile track upon which Murray trained his sprinters. When Ken felt the spring of the cinder-path in his f...on of buoyancy, the eager wildfire pride that flamed over him, he wanted to break into headlong flight. The first turn around the track was delight; the second pleasure in his easy stride; the third brought a realization of distance. When Ken had trotted a mile he was not tired, he still ran easily, but he began to appreciate that his legs were not wings. The end of the second mile found him sweating freely and panting.

Two miles were enough for the first day. Ken knew it and he began to wonder why the others, especially Weir, did not know it. But Weir jogged on, his head up, his hair flying, as if he had not yet completed his first quarter. The other players stretched out behind him. Ken saw Raymond’s funny little green cap bobbing up and down, and it made him angry. Why could not the grouch get a decent cap, anyway?

At the end of the third mile Ken began to labor. His feet began to feel weighted, his legs to ache, his side to hurt. He was wringing wet; his skin burned; his breath whistled. But he kept doggedly on. It had become a contest now. Ken felt instinctively that every runner would not admit he had less staying power than the others. Ken declared to himself that he could be as bull-headed as any of them. Still to see Weir jogging on steady and strong put a kind of despair on Ken. For every lap of the fourth mile a runner dropped out, and at the half of the fifth only Weir, Raymond, and Ken kept to the track.

Ken hung on gasping at every stride. He was afraid his heart would burst. The pain in his side was as keen as a knife thrust. His feet were lead. Every rod he felt must be his last, yet spurred on desperately, and he managed to keep at the heels of the others. It might kill him, but he would not stop until he dropped. Raymond was wagging along ready to fall any moment, and Weir was trotting slowly with head down. On the last lap of the fifth mile they all stopped as by one accord. Raymond fell on the grass; Ken staggered to a bench, and Weir leaned hard against the fence. They were all blowing like porpoises and regarded each other as mortal enemies. Weir gazed grandly at the other two; Raymond glowered...ely at him and then at Ken; and Ken in turn gave them withering glances. Without a word the three contestants for a place on the varsity then went their several ways.

CHAPTER VI

OUT ON THE FIELD

WHEN KEN PRESENTED himself at the cage on the following Monday it was to find that Arthurs had weeded out all but fifty of the candidates. Every afternoon for a week the coach put these players through batting and sliding practice, then ordered them out to run around the track. On the next Monday only twenty-five players were left, and as the number narrowed down the work grew more strenuous, the rivalry keener, and the tempers of the boys more irascible.

Ken discovered it was work and not by any means pleasant work. He fortified himself by the thought that the pleasure and glory, the real play, was all to come as a reward. Worry Arthurs drove them relentlessly. Nothing suited him; not a player knew how to hold a bat, to stand at the plate, to slide right, or to block a ground ball.

“Don’t hit with your left hand on top — unless you’re left-handed. Don’t grip the end of the bat. There! Hold steady now, step out and into the ball, and swing clean and level. If you’re afraid of bein’ hit by the ball, get out of here!”

It was plain to Ken that not the least of Arthurs’ troubles was the incessant gibing of the students on the platform. There was always a crowd watching the practice, noisy, scornful, abusive. They would never recover from the shock of having that seasoned champion varsity barred out of athletics. Every once in a while one of them would yell out: “Wait, Worry! oh! Worry, wait till the old varsity plays your yanigans!” And every time the coach’s face would burn. But he had ceased to talk back to the students. Besides, the athletic directors were always present. They mingled with the candidates and talked baseball to them and talked to Arthurs. Some of them might have played ball once, but they did not talk like it. Their advice and interference served only to make the coach’s task harder.

Another Monday found only twenty players in the squad. That day Arthurs tried out catchers, pitchers, and infielders. He had them all throwing, running, fielding, working like Trojans. They would jump at his yell, dive after the ball, fall over it, throw it anywhere but in the right direction, run wild, and fight among themselves. The ever-flowing ridicule from the audience was anything but a stimulus. So much of it coming from the varsity and their adherents kept continually in the minds of the candidates their lack of skill, their unworthiness to represent the great university in such a popular sport as baseball. So that even if there were latent ability in any of the candidates no one but the coach could see it. And often he could not conceal his disgust and hopelessness.

“Battin’ practice!” he ordered, sharply. “Two hits and a bunt to-day. Get a start on the bunt and dig for first. Hustle now!”

He placed one player to pitch to the hitters, another to catch, and as soon as the hitters had their turn they took to fielding. Two turns for each at bat left the coach more than dissatisfied.

“You’re all afraid of the ball,” he yelled. “This ain’t no dodgin’ game. Duck your nut if the ball’s goin’ to hit you, but stop lookin’ for it. Forget it. Another turn now. I’m goin’ to umpire. Let’s see if you know the difference between a ball and a strike.”

He changed the catcher and, ordering Ken to the pitcher’s box, he stepped over behind him. “Peg,” he said, speaking low, “you’re not tryin’ for pitcher, I know, but you’ve got speed and control and I want you to peg ’em a few. Mind now, easy with your arm. By that I mean hold in, don’t whip it. And you peg ’em as near where I say as you can; see?”

As the players, one after another, faced the box, the coach kept saying to Ken: “Drive that fellow away from the plate... give this one a low ball... now straight over the pan. Say, Peg, you’ve got a nice ball there... put a fast one under this fellow’s chin.”

“Another turn, now, boys!” he yelled. “I tell you — stand up to the plate!” Then he whispered to Ken. “Hit every one of ‘em! Peg ’em now, any place.”

“Hit them?” asked Ken, amazed.

“That’s what I said.”

“But — Mr. Arthurs—”

“See here, Peg. Don’t talk back to me. Do as I say. We’ll peg a little nerve into this bunch. Now I’ll go back of the plate and make a bluff.”

Arthurs went near to the catcher’s position. Then he said: “Now, fellows, Ward’s pretty wild and I’ve told him to speed up a few. Stand right up and step into ‘em.”

The first batter was Weir. Ken swung easily and let drive. Straight as a string the ball sped for the batter. Like a flash he dropped flat in the dust and the ball just grazed him. It was a narrow escape. Weir jumped up, his face flaring, his hair on end, and he gazed hard at Ken before picking up the bat.

“Batter up!” ordered the coach. “Do you think this’s a tea-party?”

Weir managed by quick contortions to get through his time at bat without being hit. Three players following him were not so lucky.

“Didn’t I say he was wild?” yelled the coach. “Batter up, now!”

The next was little Raymond. He came forward cautiously, eying Ken with disapproval. Ken could not resist putting on a little more steam, and the wind of the first ball whipped off Raymond’s green cap. Raymond looked scared and edged away from the plate, and as the second ball came up he stepped wide with his left foot.

“Step into the ball,” said the coach. “Don’t pull away. Step in or you’ll never hit.”

The third ball cracked low down on Raymond’s leg.

“Oh! — Oh! — Oh!” he howled, beginning to hop and hobble about the cage.

“Next batter!” called out Arthurs.

And so it went on until the most promising player in the cage came to bat. This was Graves, a light-haired fellow, tall, built like a wedge. He had more confidence than any player in the squad and showed up well in all departments of the game. Moreover, he was talky, aggressive, and more inclined to be heard and felt. He stepped up and swung his bat at Ken.

“You wild freshman! If you hit me!” he cried.

Ken Ward had not fallen in love with any of his rivals for places on the team, but he especially did not like Graves. He did not stop to consider the reason of it at the moment, still he remembered several tricks Graves had played, and he was not altogether sorry for the coach’s order. Swinging a little harder, Ken threw straight at Graves.

“Wham!” The ball struck him fair on the hip. Limping away from the plate he shook his fist at Ken.

“Batter up!” yelled Arthurs. “A little more speed now, Peg. You see it ain’t nothin’ to get hit. Why, that’s in the game. It don’t hurt much. I never cared when I used to get hit. Batter up!”

Ken sent up a very fast ball, on the outside of the plate. The batter swung wide, and the ball, tipping the bat, glanced to one side and struck Arthurs in the stomach with a deep sound.

Arthurs’ round face went red; he gurgled and gasped for breath; he was sinking to his knees when the yelling and crowing of the students on the platform straightened him up. He walked about a few minutes, then ordered sliding practice.

The sliding-board was brought out. It was almost four feet wide and twenty long and covered with carpet.

“Run hard, boys, and don’t let up just before you slide. Keep your speed and dive. Now at it!”

A line of players formed down the cage. The first one dashed forward and plunged at the board, hitting it with a bang. The carpet was slippery and he slid off and rolled in the dust. The second player leaped forward and, sliding too soon, barely reached the board. One by one the others followed.

“Run fast now!” yelled the coach. “Don’t flinch... Go down hard and slide... light on your hands... keep your heads up... slide!”

This feature of cage-work caused merriment among the onlookers. That sliding-board was a wonderful and treacherous thing. Most players slid off it as swift as a rocket. Arthurs kept them running so fast and so close together that at times one would shoot off the board just as the next would strike it. They sprawled on the ground, rolled over, and rooted in the dust. One skinned his nose on the carpet; another slid the length of the board on his ear. All the time they kept running and sliding, the coach shouted to them, and the audience roared with laughter. But it was no fun for the sliders. Raymond made a beautiful slide, and Graves was good, but all the others were ludicrous.

It was a happy day for Ken, and for all the candidates, when the coach ordered them out on the field. This was early in March. The sun was bright, the frost all out of the ground, and a breath of spring was in the air. How different it was from the cold, gloomy cage! Then the mocking students, although more in evidence than before, were confined to the stands and bleachers, and could not so easily be heard. But the presence of the regular varsity team, practising at the far end of Grant Field, had its effect on the untried players.

The coach divided his players into two nines and had them practise batting first, then fielding, and finally started them in a game, with each candidate playing the position he hoped to make on the varsity.

It was a weird game. The majority of the twenty candidates displayed little knowledge of baseball. School-boys on the commons could have beaten them. They were hooted and hissed by the students, and before half the innings were played the bleachers and stands were empty. That was what old Wayne’s students thought of Arthurs’ candidates.

In sharp contrast to most of them, Weir, Raymond, and Graves showed they had played the game somewhere. Weir at short-stop covered ground well, but he could not locate first base. Raymond darted here and there quick as a flash, and pounced upon the ball like a huge frog. Nothing got past...e juggled the ball. Graves was a finished and beautiful fielder; he was easy, sure, yet fast, and his throw from third to first went true as a line.

Graves’s fine work accounted for Ken Ward’s poor showing. Both were trying for third base, and when Ken once saw his rival play out on the field he not only lost heart and became confused, but he instinctively acknowledged that Graves was far his superior. After all his hopes and the kind interest of the coach it was a most bitter blow. Ken had never played so poor a game. The ball blurred in his tear-wet eyes and looked double. He did not field a grounder. He muffed foul flies and missed thrown balls. It did not occur to him that almost all of the players around him were in the same boat. He could think of nothing but the dashing away of his hopes. What was the use of trying? But he kept trying, and the harder he tried the worse he played. At the bat he struck out, fouled out, never hit the ball square at all. Graves got two well-placed hits to right field. Then when Ken was in the field Graves would come down the coaching line and talk to him in a voice no one else could hear.

“You’ve got a swell chance to make this team, you have, not! Third base is my job, Freshie. Why, you tow-head, you couldn’t play marbles. You butter-finger, can’t you stop anything? You can’t even play sub on this team. Remember, Ward, I said I’d get you for hitting me that day. You hit me with a potato once, too. I’ll chase you off this team.”

For once Ken’s spirit was so crushed and humbled that he could not say a word to his rival. He even felt he deserved it all. When the practice ended, and he was walking off the field with hanging head, trying to bear up under the blow, he met Arthurs.

“Hello! Peg,” said the coach, “I’m going your way.”

Ken walked along feeling Arthurs’ glance upon him, but he was ashamed to raise his head.

“Peg, you were up in the air to-day — way off — you lost your nut.”

He spoke kindly and put his hand on Ken’s arm. Ken looked up to see that the coach’s face was pale and tired, with the characteristic worried look more marked than usual.

“Yes, I was,” replied Ken, impulsively. “I can play better than I did to-day — but — Mr. Arthurs, I’m not in Graves’s class as a third-baseman. I know it.”

Ken said it bravely, though there was a catch in his voice. The coach looked closely at him.

“So you’re sayin’ a good word for Graves, pluggin’ his game.”

“I’d love to make the team, but old Wayne must have the best players you can get.”

“Peg, I said once you and me were goin’ to get along. I said also that college baseball is played with the heart. You lost your heart. So did most of the kids. Well, it ain’t no wonder. This’s a tryin’ time. I’m playin’ them against each other, and no fellow knows where he’s at. Now, I’ve seen all along that you weren’t a natural infielder. I played you at third to-day to get that idea out of your head. To-morrow I’ll try you in the outfield. You ain’t no quitter, Peg.”

Ken hurried to his room under the stress of a complete revulsion of feeling. His liking for the coach began to grow into something more. It was strange to Ken what power a few words from Arthurs had to renew his will and hope and daring. How different Arthurs was when not on the field. There he was stern and sharp. Ken could not study that night, and he slept poorly. His revival of hope did not dispel his nervous excitement.

He went out into Grant Field next day fighting himself. When in the practice Arthurs assigned him to a right-field position, he had scarcely taken his place when he became conscious of a queer inclination to swallow often, of a numbing tight band round his chest. He could not stand still; his hands trembled; there was a mist before his eyes. His mind was fixed upon himself and upon the other five outfielders trying to make the team. He saw the players in the infield pace their positions restlessly, run without aim when the ball was hit or thrown, collide with each other, let the ball go between their hands and legs, throw wildly, and sometimes stand as if transfixed when they ought to have been in action. But all this was not significant to Ken. He saw everything that happened, but he thought only that he must make a good showing; he must not miss any flies, or let a ball go beyond him. He absolutely must do the right thing. The air of Grant Field was charged with intensity of feeling, and Ken thought it was all his own. His baseball fortune was at stake, and he worked himself in such a frenzy that if a ball had been batted in his direction he might not have seen it at all. Fortunately none came his way.

The first time at bat he struck out ignominiously, poking weakly at the pitcher’s out-curves. The second time he popped up a little fly. On the next trial the umpire called him out on strikes. At his last chance Ken was desperate. He knew the coach placed batting before any other department of the game. Almost sick with the torture of the conflicting feelings, Ken went up to the plate and swung blindly. To his amaze he cracked a hard fly to left-centre, far between the fielders. Like a startled deer Ken broke into a run. He turned first base and saw that he might stretch the hit into a three-bagger. He knew he could run, and never had he so exerted himself. Second base sailed under him, and he turned in line for the third. Watching Graves, he saw him run for the base and stand ready to catch the throw-in.

Without slacking his speed in the least Ken leaped into the air headlong for the base. He heard the crack of the ball as it hit Graves’s glove. Then with swift scrape on hands and breast he was sliding in the dust. He stopped suddenly as if blocked by a stone wall. Something hard struck him on the head. A blinding light within his brain seemed to explode into glittering slivers. A piercing pain shot through him. Then from darkness and a great distance sounded a voice:

“Ward, I said I’d get you!”

CHAPTER VII

ANNIHILATION

THAT INCIDENT PUT Ken out of the practice for three days. He had a bruise over his ear as large as a small apple. Ken did not mind the pain nor the players’ remarks that he had a swelled head anyway, but he remembered with slow-gathering wrath Graves’s words: “I said I’d get you!”

He remembered also Graves’s reply to a question put by the coach. “I was only tagging him. I didn’t mean to hurt him.” That rankled inside Ken. He kept his counsel, however, even evading a sharp query put by Arthurs, and as much as it was possible he avoided the third-baseman.

Hard practice was the order of every day, and most of it was batting. The coach kept at the candidates everlastingly, and always his cry was: “Toe the plate, left foot a little forward, step into the ball and swing!” At the bat Ken made favorable progress because the coach was always there behind him with encouraging words; in the field, however, he made a mess of it, and grew steadily worse.

The directors of the Athletic Association had called upon the old varsity to go out and coach the new aspirants for college fame. The varsity had refused. Even the players of preceding years, what few were in or near the city, had declined to help develop Wayne’s stripling team. But some of the older graduates, among them several of the athletic directors, appeared on the field. When Arthurs saw them he threw up his hands in rage and despair. That afternoon Ken had three well-meaning but old-fashioned ball-players coach him in the outfield. He had them one at a time, which was all that saved him from utter distraction. One told him to judge a fly by the sound when the ball was hit. Another told him to play in close, and when the ball was batted to turn and run with it. The third said he must play deep and sprint in for the fly. Then each had different ideas as to how batters should be judged, about throwing to bases, about backing up the other fielders. Ken’s bewilderment grew greater and greater. He had never heard of things they advocated, and he began to think he did not know anything about the game. And what made his condition of mind border on imbecility was a hurried whisper from Arthurs between innings: “Peg, don’t pay the slightest attention to ’em fat-head grad. coaches.”

Practice days succeeding that were worse nightmares to Ken Ward than the days he had spent in constant fear of the sophomores. It was a terribly feverish time of batting balls, chasing balls, and of having dinned into his ears thousands of orders, rules of play, talks on college spirit in athletics — all of which conflicted so that it was meaningless to him. During this dark time one ray of light was the fact that Arthurs never spoke a sharp word to him. Ken felt vaguely that he was whirling in some kind of a college athletic chaos, out of which he would presently emerge.

Toward the close of March the weather grew warm, the practice field dried up, and baseball should have been a joy to Ken. But it was not. At times he had a shameful wish to quit the field for good, but he had not the courage to tell the coach. The twenty-fifth, the day scheduled for the game with the disgraced varsity team, loomed closer and closer. Its approach was a fearful thing for Ken. Every day he cast furtive glances down the field to where the varsity held practice. Ken had nothing to say; he was as glum as most of the other candidates, but he had heard gossip in the lecture-rooms, in the halls, on the street, everywhere, and it concerned this game. What would the old varsity do to Arthurs’ new team? Curiosity ran as high as the feeling toward the athletic directors. Resentment flowed from every source. Ken somehow got the impression that he was blamable for being a member of the coach’s green squad. So Ken Ward fluctuated between two fears, one as bad as the other — that he would not be selected to play, and the other that he would be selected. It made no difference. He would be miserable if not chosen, and if he was — how on earth would he be able to keep his knees from wobbling? Then the awful day dawned.

Coach Arthurs met all his candidates at the cage. He came late, he explained, because he wanted to keep them off the field until time for practice. To-day he appeared more grave than worried, and where the boys expected a severe lecture, he simply said: “I’ll play as many of you as I can. Do your best, that’s all. Don’t mind what these old players say. They were kids once, though they seem to have forgotten it. Try to learn from them.”

It was the first time the candidates had been taken upon the regular diamond of Grant Field. Ken had peeped in there once to be impressed by the beautiful level playground, and especially the magnificent turreted grand-stand and the great sweeping stretches of bleachers. Then they had been empty; now, with four thousand noisy students and thousands of other spectators besides, they stunned him. He had never imagined a crowd coming to see the game.

Perhaps Arthurs had not expected it either, for Ken heard him mutter grimly to himself. He ordered practice at once, and called off the names of those he had chosen to start the game. As one in a trance Ken Ward found himself trotting out to right field.

A long-rolling murmur that was half laugh, half taunt, rose from the stands. Then it quickly subsided. From his position Ken looked for the players of the old varsity, but they had not yet come upon the field. Of the few balls batted to Ken in practice he muffed only one, and he was just beginning to feel that he might acquit himself creditably when the coach called the team in. Arthurs had hardly given his new players time enough to warm up, but likewise they had not had time to make any fumbles.

All at once a hoarse roar rose from the stands, then a thundering clatter of thousands of feet as the students greeted the appearance of the old varsity. It was applause that had in it all the feeling of the undergraduates for the championship team, many of whom they considered had been unjustly barred by the directors. Love, loyalty, sympathy, resentment — all pealed up to the skies in that acclaim. It rolled out over the heads of Arthurs’ shrinking boys as they huddled together on the bench.

Ken Ward, for one, was flushing and thrilling. In that moment he lost his gloom. He watched the varsity come trotting across the field, a doughty band of baseball warriors. Each wore a sweater with the huge white “W” shining like a star. Many of those players had worn that honored varsity letter for three years. It did seem a shame to bar them from this season’s team. Ken found himself thinking of the matter from their point of view, and his sympathy was theirs.

More than that, he gloried in the look of them, in the trained, springy strides, in the lithe, erect forms, in the assurance in every move. Every detail of that practice photographed itself upon Ken Ward’s memory, and he knew he would never forget.

There was Dale, veteran player, captain and pitcher of the nine, hero of victories over Place and Herne. There was Hogan, catcher for three seasons, a muscular fellow, famed for his snap-throw to the bases and his fiendish chasing of foul flies. There was Hickle, the great first-baseman, whom the professional leagues were trying to get. What a reach he had; how easily he scooped in the ball; low, high, wide, it made no difference to him. There was Canton at second, Hollis at short, Burns at third, who had been picked for the last year’s All-American College Team. Then there was Dreer, brightest star of all, the fleet, hard-hitting centre-fielder. This player particularly fascinated Ken. It was a beautiful sight to see him run. The ground seemed to fly behind him. When the ball was hit high he wheeled with his back to the diamond and raced out, suddenly to turn with unerring judgment — and the ball dropped into his hands. On low line hits he showed his fleetness, for he was like a gleam of light in his forward dash; and, however the ball presented, shoulder high, low by his knees, or on a short bound, he caught it. Ken Ward saw with despairing admiration what it meant to be a great outfielder.

Then Arthurs called “Play ball!” giving the old varsity the field.

With a violent start Ken Ward came out of his rhapsody. He saw a white ball tossed on the diamond. Dale received it from one of the fielders and took his position in the pitcher’s box. The uniform set off his powerful form; there was something surly and grimly determined in his face. He glanced about to his players, as if from long habit, and called out gruffly: “Get in the game, fellows! No runs for this scrub outfit!” Then, with long-practised swing, he delivered the ball. It travelled plateward swift as the flight of a white swallow. The umpire called it a strike on Weir; the same on the next pitch; the third was wide. Weir missed the fourth and was out. Raymond followed on the batting list. To-day, as he slowly stepped toward the plate, seemingly smaller and glummer than ever, it was plain he was afraid. The bleachers howled at the little green cap sticking over his ear. Raymond did not swing at the ball; he sort of reached out his bat at the first three pitches, stepping back from the plate each time. The yell that greeted his weak attempt seemed to shrivel him up. Also it had its effect on the youngsters huddling around Arthurs. Graves went up and hit a feeble grounder to Dale and was thrown out at first.

Ken knew the half-inning was over; he saw the varsity players throw aside their gloves and trot in. But either he could not rise or he was glued to the bench. Then Arthurs pulled him up, saying, “Watch sharp, Peg, these fellows are right-field hitters!” At the words all Ken’s blood turned to ice. He ran out into the field fighting the coldest, most sickening sensation he ever had in his life. The ice in his veins all went to the pit of his stomach and there formed into a heavy lump. Other times when he had been frightened flitted through his mind. It had been bad when he fought with Greaser, and worse when he ran with the outlaws in pursuit, and the forest fire was appalling. But Ken felt he would gladly have changed places at that moment. He dreaded the mocking bleachers.

Of the candidates chosen to play against the varsity Ken knew McCord at first, Raymond at second, Weir at short, Graves at third. He did not know even the names of the others. All of them, except Graves, appeared too young to play in that game.

Dreer was first up for the varsity, and Ken shivered all over when the lithe centre-fielder stepped to the left side of the plate. Ken went out deeper, for he knew most hard-hitting left-handers hit to right field. But Dreer bunted the first ball teasingly down the third-base line. Fleet as a deer, he was across the bag before the infielder reached the ball. Hollis was next up. On the first pitch, as Dreer got a fast start for second, Hollis bunted down the first-base line. Pitcher and baseman ran for the bunt; Hollis was safe, and the sprinting Dreer went to third without even drawing a throw. A long pealing yell rolled over the bleachers. Dale sent coaches to the coaching lines. Hickle, big and formidable, hurried to the plate, swinging a long bat. He swung it as if he intended to knock the ball out of the field. When the pitcher lifted his arm Dreer dashed for home-base, and seemed beating the ball. But Hickle deftly dumped it down the line and broke for first while Dreer scored. This bunt was not fielded at all. How the bleachers roared! Then followed bunts in rapid succession, dashes for first, and slides into the bag. The pitcher interfered with the third-baseman, and the first-baseman ran up the line, and the pitcher failed to cover the bag, and the catcher fell all over the ball. Every varsity man bunted, but in just the place where it was not expected. They raced around the bases. They made long runs from first to third. They were like flashes of light, slippery as eels. The bewildered infielders knew they were being played with. The taunting “boo-hoos” and screams of delight from the bleachers were as demoralizing as the illusively daring runners. Closer and closer the infielders edged in until they were right on top of the batters. Then Dale and his men began to bunt little infield flies over the heads of their opponents. The merry audience cheered wildly. But Graves and Raymond ran back and caught three of these little pop flies, thus retiring the side. The old varsity had made six runs on nothing but deliberate bunts and daring dashes around the bases.

Ken hurried in to the bench and heard some one call out, “Ward up!”

He had forgotten he would have to bat. Stepping to the plate was like facing a cannon. One of the players yelled: “Here he is, Dale! Here’s the potato-pegger! Knock his block off!”

The cry was taken up by other players. “Peg him, Dale! Peg him, Dale!” And then the bleachers got it. Ken’s dry tongue seemed pasted to the roof of his mouth. This Dale in baseball clothes with the lowering frown was not like the Dale Ken had known. Suddenly he swung his arm. Ken’s quick eye caught the dark, shooting gleam of the ball. Involuntarily he ducked. “Strike,” called the umpire. Then Dale had not tried to hit him. Ken stepped up again. The pitcher whirled slowly this time, turning with long, easy motion, and threw underhand. The ball sailed, floated, soared. Long before it reached Ken it had fooled him completely. He chopped at it vainly. The next ball pitched came up swifter, but just before it crossed the plate it seemed to stop, as if pulled back by a string, and then dropped down. Ken fell to his knees trying to hit it.

The next batter’s attempts were not as awkward as Ken’s, still they were as futile. As Ken sat wearily down upon the bench he happened to get next to coach Arthurs. He expected some sharp words from the coach, he thought he deserved anything, but they were not forthcoming. The coach put his hand on Ken’s knee. When the third batter fouled to Hickle, and Ken got up to go out to the field, he summoned courage to look at Arthurs. Something in his face told Ken what an ordeal this was. He divined that it was vastly more than business with Worry Arthurs.

“Peg, watch out this time,” whispered the coach. “They’ll line ’em at you this inning — like bullets. Now try hard, won’t you? Just try!”

Ken knew from Arthurs’ look more than his words that trying was all that was left for the youngsters. The varsity had come out early in the spring, and they had practised to get into condition to annihilate this new team practically chosen by the athletic directors. And they had set out to make the game a farce. But Arthurs meant that all the victory was not in winning the game. It was left for his boys to try in the face of certain defeat, to try with all their hearts, to try with unquenchable spirit. It was the spirit that counted, not the result. The old varsity had received a bitter blow; they were aggressive and relentless. The students and supporters of old Wayne, idolizing the great team, always bearing in mind the hot rivalry with Place and Herne, were unforgiving and intolerant of an undeveloped varsity. Perhaps neither could be much blamed. But it was for the new players to show what it meant to them. The greater the prospect of defeat, the greater the indifference or hostility shown them, the more splendid their opportunity. For it was theirs to try for old Wayne, to try, to fight, and never to give up.

Ken caught fire with the flame of that spirit.

“Boys, come on!” he cried, in his piercing tenor. “They can’t beat us trying!”

As he ran out into the field members of the varsity spoke to him. “You green-backed freshman! Shut up! You scrub!”

“I’m not a varsity has-been!” retorted Ken, hurrying out to his position.

The first man up, a left-hander, rapped a hard twisting liner to right field. Ken ran toward deep centre with all his might. The ball kept twisting and curving. It struck squarely in Ken’s hands and bounced out and rolled far. When he recovered it the runner was on third base. Before Ken got back to his position the second batter hit hard through the infield toward right. The ball came skipping like a fiendish rabbit. Ken gritted his teeth and went down on his knees, to get the bounding ball full in his breast. But he stopped it, scrambled for it, and made the throw in. Dale likewise hit in his direction, a slow low fly, difficult to judge. Ken over-ran it, and the hit gave Dale two bases. Ken realized that the varsity was now executing Worry Arthurs’ famous right-field hitting. The sudden knowledge seemed to give Ken the blind-staggers. The field was in a haze; the players blurred in his sight. He heard the crack of the ball and saw Raymond dash over and plunge down. Then the ball seemed to streak out of the grass toward him, and, as he bent over, it missed his hands and cracked on his shin. Again he fumbled wildly for it and made the throw in. The pain roused his rage. He bit his lips and called to himself: “I’ll stop them if it kills me!”

Dreer lined the ball over his head for a home-run. Hollis made a bid for a three-bagger, but Ken, by another hard sprint, knocked the ball down. Hickle then batted up a tremendously high fly. It went far beyond Ken and he ran and ran. It looked like a small pin-point of black up in the sky. Then he tried to judge it, to get under it. The white sky suddenly glazed over and the ball wavered this way and that. Ken lost it in the sun, found it again, and kept on running. Would it never come down? He had not reached it, he had run beyond it. In an agony he lunged out, and the ball fell into his hands and jumped out.

Then followed a fusillade of hits, all between second base and first, and all vicious-bounding grounders. To and fro Ken ran, managing somehow to get some portion of his anatomy in front of the ball. It had become a demon to him now and he hated it. His tongue was hanging out, his breast was bursting, his hands were numb, yet he held before him the one idea to keep fiercely trying.

He lost count of the runs after eleven had been scored. He saw McCord and Raymond trying to stem the torrent of right-field hits, but those they knocked down gave him no time to recover. He blocked the grass-cutters with his knees or his body and pounced upon the ball and got it away from him as quickly as possible. Would this rapid fire of uncertain-bounding balls never stop? Ken was in a kind of frenzy. If he only had time to catch his breath!

Then Dreer was at bat again. He fouled the first two balls over the grand-stand. Some one threw out a brand-new ball. Farther and farther Ken edged into deep right. He knew what was coming. “Let him — hit it!” he panted. “I’ll try to get it! This day settles me. I’m no outfielder. But I’ll try!”

The tired pitcher threw the ball and Dreer seemed to swing and bound at once with the ringing crack. The hit was one of his famous drives close to the right-field foul-line.

Ken was off with all the speed left in him. He strained every nerve and was going fast when he passed the foul-flag. The bleachers loomed up indistinct in his sight. But he thought only of meeting the ball. The hit was a savage liner, curving away from him. Cinders under his flying feet were a warning that he did not heed. He was on the track. He leaped into the air, left hand outstretched, and felt the ball strike in his glove.

Then all was dark in a stunning, blinding crash —

CHAPTER VIII

EXAMINATIONS

WHEN KEN WARD came fully to his senses he was being half carried and half led across the diamond to the players’ bench. He heard Worry Arthurs say: “He ain’t hurt much — only butted into the fence.”

Ken tried manfully to entertain Worry’s idea about it, but he was too dazed and weak to stand alone. He imagined he had broken every bone in his body.

“Did I make the catch — hang to the ball?” he asked.

“No, Peg, you didn’t,” replied the coach, kindly. “But you made a grand try for it.”

He felt worse over failing to hold the ball than he felt over half killing himself against the bleachers. He spent the remainder of that never-to-be-forgotten game sitting on the bench. But to watch his fellow-players try to play was almost as frightful as being back there in right field. It was no consolation for Ken to see his successor chasing long hits, misjudging flies, failing weakly on wicked grounders. Even Graves weakened toward the close and spoiled his good beginning by miserable fumbles and throws. It was complete and disgraceful rout. The varsity never let up until the last man was out. The team could not have played harder against Place or Herne. Arthurs called the game at the end of the sixth inning with the score 41 to 0.

Many beaten and despondent players had dragged themselves off Grant Field in bygone years. But none had ever been so humiliated, so crushed. No player spoke a word or looked at another. They walked off with bowed heads. Ken lagged behind the others; he was still stunned and lame. Presently Arthurs came back to help him along, and did not speak until they were clear of the campus and going down Ken’s street.

“I’m glad that’s over,” said Worry. “I kicked against havin’ the game, but ’em fat-head directors would have it. Now we’ll be let alone. There won’t be no students comin’ out to the field, and I’m blamed glad.”

Ken was sick and smarting with pain, and half crying.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Arthurs,” he faltered, “we were — so — so — rotten!”

“See here, Peg,” was the quick reply, “that cuts no ice with me. It was sure the rottenest exhibition I ever seen in my life. But there’s excuses, and you can just gamble I’m the old boy who knows. You kids were scared to death. What hurts me, Peg, is the throw-down we got from my old team and from the students. We’re not to blame for rules made by fat-head directors. I was surprised at Dale. He was mean, and so were Hollis and Hickle — all of ‘em. They didn’t need to disgrace us like that.”

“Oh, Mr. Arthurs, what players they are!” exclaimed Ken. “I never saw such running, such hitting. You said they’d hit to right field like bullets, but it was worse than bullets. And Dreer!... When he came up my heart just stopped beating.”

“Peg, listen,” said Worry. “Three years ago when Dreer came out on the field he was greener than you, and hadn’t half the spunk. I made him what he is, and I made all of ’em — I made that team, and I can make another.”

“You are just saying that to — to encourage me,” replied Ken, hopelessly. “I can’t play ball. I thought I could, but I know now. I’ll never go out on the field again.”

“Peg, are you goin’ to throw me down, too?”

“Mr. Arthurs! I — I—”

“Listen, Peg. Cut out the dumps. Get over ‘em. You made the varsity to-day. Understand? You earned your big W. You needn’t mention it, but I’ve picked you to play somewhere. You weren’t a natural infielder, and you didn’t make much of a showin’ in the outfield. But it’s the spirit I want. To-day was a bad day for a youngster. There’s always lots of feelin’ about college athletics, but here at Wayne this year the strain’s awful. And you fought yourself and stage-fright and the ridicule of ’em quitter students. You tried, Peg! I never saw a gamer try. You didn’t fail me. And after you made that desperate run and tried to smash the bleachers with your face the students shut up their guyin’. It made a difference, Peg. Even the varsity was a little ashamed. Cheer up, now!”

Ken was almost speechless; he managed to mumble something, at which the coach smiled in reply and then walked rapidly away. Ken limped to his room and took off his baseball suit. The skin had been peeled from his elbow, and his body showed several dark spots that Ken knew would soon be black-and-blue bruises. His legs from his knees down bore huge lumps so sore to the touch that Ken winced even at gentle rubbing. But he did not mind the pain. All the darkness seemed to have blown away from his mind.

“What a fine fellow Worry is!” said Ken. “How I’ll work for him! I must write to brother Hal and Dick Leslie, to tell them I’ve made the varsity... No, not yet; Worry said not to mention it... And now to plug. I’ll have to take my exams before the first college game, April 8th, and that’s not long.”

In the succeeding days Ken was very busy with attendance at college in the mornings, baseball practice in the afternoons, and study at night.

If Worry had picked any more players for the varsity, Ken could not tell who they were. Of course Graves would make the team, and Weir and Raymond were pretty sure of places. There were sixteen players for the other five positions, and picking them was only guesswork. It seemed to Ken that some of the players showed streaks of fast playing at times, and then as soon as they were opposed to one another in the practice game they became erratic. His own progress was slow. One thing he could do that brought warm praise from the coach — he could line the ball home from deep outfield with wonderful speed and accuracy.

After the varsity had annihilated Worry’s “kids,” as they had come to be known, the students showed no further interest. When they ceased to appear on the field the new players were able to go at their practice without being ridiculed. Already an improvement had been noticeable. But rivalry was so keen for places, and the coach’s choice so deep a mystery, that the contestants played under too great a tension, and school-boys could have done better.

It was on the first of April that Arthurs took Ken up into College Hall to get permission for him to present himself to the different professors for the early examinations. While Ken sat waiting in the office he heard Arthurs talking to men he instantly took to be the heads of the Athletic Association. They were in an adjoining room with the door open, and their voices were very distinct, so that Ken could not help hearing.

“Gentlemen, I want my answer to-day,” said the coach.

“Is there so great a hurry? Wait a little,” was the rejoinder.

“I’m sorry, but this is April 1st, and I’ll wait no longer. I’m ready to send some of my boys up for early exams, and I want to know where I stand.”

“Arthurs, what is it exactly that...Things have been in an awful mess, ...r case and we’ll try to give you a definite answer.”

“I want full charge of the coachin’ — the handlin’ of the team, as I always had before. I don’t want any grad coaches. The directors seem divided, one half want this, the other half that. They’ve cut out the trainin’ quarters. I’ve had no help from Murray; no baths or rub-downs or trainin’ for my candidates. Here’s openin’ day a week off and I haven’t picked my team. I want to take them to the trainin’-table and have them under my eye all the time. If I can’t have what I want I’ll resign. If I can I’ll take the whole responsibility of the team on my own shoulders.”

“Very well, Arthurs, we’ll let you go ahead and have full charge. There has been talk this year of abolishing a private training-house and table for this green varsity. But rather than have you resign we’ll waive that. You can rest assured from now on you will not be interfered with. Give us the best team you can under the circumstances. There has been much dissension among the directors and faculty because of our new eligibility rules. It has stirred everybody up, and the students are sore. Then there has been talk of not having a professional coach this year, but we overruled that in last night’s meeting. We’re going to see what you can do. I may add, Arthurs, if you shape up a varsity this year that makes any kind of a showing against Place and Herne you will win the eternal gratitude of the directors who have fostered this change in athletics. Otherwise I’m afraid the balance of opinion will favor the idea of dispensing with professional coaches in the future.”

Ken saw that Arthurs was white in the face when he left the room. They went out together, and Worry handed Ken a card that read for him to take his examinations at once.

“Are you up on ‘em?” asked the coach, anxiously.

“I — I think so,” replied Ken.

“Well, Peg, good luck to you! Go at ’em like you went at Dreer’s hit.”

Much to his amazement it was for Ken to discover that, now the time had come for him to face his examinations, he was not at all sanguine. He began to worry. He forg...ooks he had mastered in his room during the long winter when he feared to venture out because of the sophomores. It was not very long till he had worked himself into a state somewhat akin to his trepidation in the varsity ball game. Then he decided to go up at once and have it done with. His whole freshman year had been one long agony. What a relief to have it ended!

Ken passed four examinations in one morning, passed them swimmingly, smilingly, splendidly, and left College Hall in an ecstasy. Things were working out fine. But he had another examination, and it was in a subject he had voluntarily included in his course. Whatever on earth he had done it for he could not now tell. The old doctor who held the chair in that department had thirty years before earned the name of Crab. And slowly in the succeeding years he had grown crabbier, crustier, so student rumor had it. Ken had rather liked the dry old fellow, and had been much absorbed in his complex lectures, but he had never been near him, and now the prospect changed color. Foolishly Ken asked a sophomore in what light old Crab might regard a student who was ambitious to pass his exams early. The picture painted by that sophomore would have made a flaming-mouthed dragon appear tame. Nerving himself to the ordeal, Ken took his card and presented himself one evening at the doctor’s house.

A maid ushered him into the presence of a venerable old man who did not look at all, even in Ken’s distorted sight, like a crab or a dragon. His ponderous brow seemed as if it had all the thought in the world behind it. He looked over huge spectacles at Ken’s card and then spoke in a dry, quavering voice.

“Um-m. Sit down, Mr. Ward.”

Ken found his breath and strangely lost his fear and trembling. The doctor dryly asked him why he thought he knew more than the other students, who were satisfied to wait months longer before examination. Ken hastened to explain that it was no desire of his; that, although he had studied hard and had not missed many lectures, he knew he was unprepared. Then he went on to tell about the baseball situation and why he had been sent up.

...” The professor held a glass paperweight up before Ken and asked a question about it. Next he held out a ruler and asked something about that, and also a bottle of ink. Following this he put a few queries about specific gravity, atomic weight, and the like. Then he sat thrumming his desk and appeared far away in thought. After a while he turned to Ken with a smile that made his withered, parchment-like face vastly different.

“Where do you play?” he asked.

“S-sir?” stammered Ken.

“In baseball, I mean. What place do you play? Catch? Thrower? I don’t know the names much.”

Ken replied eagerly, and then it seemed he was telling this stern old man all about baseball. He wanted to know what fouls were, and how to steal bases, and he was nonplussed by such terms as “hit-and-run.” Ken discoursed eloquently on his favorite sport, and it was like a kind of dream to be there. Strange things were always happening to him.

“I’ve never seen a game,” said the professor. “I used to play myself long ago, when we had a yarn ball and pitched underhand. I’ll have to come out to the field some day. President Halstead, why, he likes baseball, he’s a — a — what do you call it?”

“A fan — a rooter?” replied Ken, smiling.

“Um-m. I guess that’s it. Well, Mr. Ward, I’m glad to meet you. You may go now.”

Ken got up blushing like a girl. “But, Doctor, you were to — I was to be examined.”

“I’ve examined you,” he drawled, with a dry chuckle, and he looked over his huge spectacles at Ken. “I’ll give you a passing mark. But, Mr. Ward, you know a heap more about baseball than you know about physics.”

As Ken went out he trod upon air. What a splendid old fellow! The sophomore had lied. For that matter, when had a sophomore ever been known to tell the truth? But, he suddenly exclaimed, he himself was no longer a freshman. He pondered happily on the rosy lining to his old cloud of gloom. How different things appeared after a little time. That old doctor’s smile would linger long in Ken’s memory. He felt deep remorse that he had ever misjudged him. He...ed on to Worry Arthurs’ house to tell him the good news. And as he walked his mind was full with the wonder of it all — his lonely, wretched freshman days, now forever past; the slow change from hatred; the dawning of some strange feeling for the college and his teachers; and, last, the freedom, the delight, the quickening stir in the present.

CHAPTER IX

PRESIDENT HALSTEAD ON COLLEGE SPIRIT

WAYNE’S OPENING GAME was not at all what Ken had dreamed it would be. The opposing team from Hudson School was as ill-assorted an aggregation as Ken had ever seen. They brought with them a small but noisy company of cheering supporters who, to the shame of Ken and his fellows, had the bleachers all to themselves. If any Wayne students were present they either cheered for Hudson or remained silent.

Hudson won, 9 to 2. It was a game that made Arthurs sag a little lower on the bench. Graves got Wayne’s two tallies. Raymond at second played about all the game from the fielding standpoint. Ken distinguished himself by trying wildly and accomplishing nothing. When he went to his room that night he had switched back to his former spirits, and was disgusted with Wayne’s ball team, himself most of all.

That was on a Wednesday. The next day rain prevented practice, and on Friday the boys were out on the field again. Arthurs shifted the players around, trying resignedly to discover certain positions that might fit certain players. It seemed to Ken that all the candidates, except one or two, were good at fielding and throwing, but when they came to play a game they immediately went into a trance.

Travers College was scheduled for Saturday. They had always turned out a good minor team, but had never been known to beat Wayne. They shut Arthurs’ team out without a run. A handful of Wayne students sat in the bleachers mocking their own team. Arthurs used the two pitchers he had been trying hard to develop, and when they did locate the plate they were hit hard. Ken played or essayed to play right field for a while, but he ran around like a chicken with its head off, as a Travers player expressed it, and then Arthurs told him that he had better grace the bench the rest of the game. Ashamed as Ken was to be put out, he was yet more ashamed to feel that he was glad of it. Hardest of all to bear was the arrogant air put on by the Travers College players. Wayne had indeed been relegated to the fifth rank of college baseball teams.

On Monday announcements were made in all the lecture-rooms and departments of the university, and bulletins were posted to the effect, that President Halstead wished to address the undergraduates in the Wayne auditorium on Tuesday at five o’clock.

Rumor flew about the campus and Carlton Club, everywhere, that the president’s subject would be “College Spirit,” and it was believed he would have something to say about the present condition of athletics. Ken Ward hurried to the hall as soon as he got through his practice. He found the immense auditorium packed from pit to dome, and he squeezed into a seat on the steps.

The students, as always, were exchanging volleys of paper-balls, matching wits, singing songs, and passing time merrily. When President Halstead entered, with two of his associates, he was greeted by a thunder of tongues, hands, and heels of the standing students. He was the best-beloved member of the university faculty, a distinguished, scholarly looking man, well-stricken in years.

He opened his address by declaring the need of college spirit in college life. He defined it as the vital thing, the heart of a great educational institution, and he went on to speak of its dangers, its fluctuations. Then he made direct reference to athletics in its relation to both college spirit and college life.

“Sport is too much with us. Of late years I have observed a great increase in the number of athletic students, and a great decrease in scholarship. The fame of the half-back and the short-stop and the stroke-oar has grown out of proportion to their real worth. The freshman is dazzled by it. The great majority of college men cannot shine in sport, which is the best thing that could be. The student’s ideal, instead of being the highest scholarship, the best attainment for his career, is apt to be influenced by the honors and friendships that are heaped upon the great athlete. This is false to university life. You are here to prepare yourselves for the battle with the world, and I want to state that that battle is becoming more and more intellectual. The student who slights his studies for athletic glory may find himself, when that glory is long past, distanced in the race for success by a student who had not trained to run the hundred in ten seconds.

“But, gentlemen, to keep well up in your studies and then go in for athletics — that is entirely another question. It is not likely that any student who keeps to the front in any of the university courses will have too much time for football or baseball. I am, as you all know, heartily in favor of all branches of college sport. And that brings me to the point I want to make to-day. Baseball is my favorite game, and I have always been proud of Wayne’s teams. The new eligibility rules, with which you are all familiar, were brought to me, and after thoroughly going over the situation I approved of them. Certainly it is obvious to you all that a university ball-player making himself famous here, and then playing during the summer months at a resort, is laying himself open to suspicion. I have no doubt that many players are innocent of the taint of professionalism, but unfortunately they have become members of these summer teams after being first requested, then warned, not to do so.

“Wayne’s varsity players of last year have been barred by the directors. They made their choice, and so should abide by it. They have had their day, and so should welcome the opportunity of younger players. But I am constrained to acknowledge that neither they nor the great body of undergraduates welcomed the change. This, more than anything, proves to me the evil of championship teams. The football men, the baseball men, the crew men, and all the student supporters want to win all the games all the time. I would like to ask you young gentlemen if you can take a beating? If you cannot, I would like to add that you are not yet fitted to go out into life. A good beating, occasionally, is a wholesome thing.

“Well, to come to the point now: I find, after studying the situation, that the old varsity players and undergraduates of this university have been lacking in — let us be generous and say, college spirit. I do not need to go into detail; suffice it to say that I know. I will admit, however, that I attended the game between the old varsity and the new candidates. I sat unobserved in a corner, and a more unhappy time I never spent in this university. I confess that my sympathies were with the inexperienced, undeveloped boys who were trying to learn to play ball. Put yourselves in their places. Say you are mostly freshmen, and you make yourselves candidates for the team because you love the game, and because you would love to bring honor to your college. You go out and try. You meet, the first day, an implacable team of skilled veterans who show their scorn of your poor ability, their hatred of your opportunity, and ride roughshod — I should say, run with spiked shoes — over you. You hear the roar of four thousand students applauding these hero veterans. You hear your classmates, your fellow-students in Wayne, howl with ridicule at your weak attempts to compete with better, stronger players... Gentlemen, how would you feel?

“I said before that college spirit fluctuates. If I did not know students well I would be deeply grieved at the spirit shown that day. I know that the tide will turn... And, gentlemen, would not you and the old varsity be rather in an embarrassing position if — if these raw recruits should happen to develop into a team strong enough to cope with Place and Herne? Stranger things have happened. I am rather strong for the new players, not because of their playing, which is poor indeed, but for the way they tried under peculiarly adverse conditions.

“That young fellow Ward — what torture that inning of successive hard hits to his territory! I was near him in that end of the bleachers, and I watched him closely. Every attempt he made was a failure — that is, failure from the point of view of properly fielding the ball. But, gentlemen, that day was not a failure for young Ward. It was a grand success. Some one said his playing was the poorest exhibition ever seen on Grant Field. That may be. I want to say that to my mind it was also the most splendid effort ever made on Grant Field. For it was made against defeat, fear, ridicule. It was elimination of self. It was made for his coach, his fellow-players, his college — that is to say, for the students who shamed themselves by scorn for his trial.

“Young men of Wayne, give us a little more of such college spirit!”

CHAPTER X

NEW PLAYERS

WHEN PRACTICE TIME rolled around for Ken next day, he went upon the field once more with his hopes renewed and bright.

“I certainly do die hard,” he laughed to himself. “But I can never go down and out now — never!”

Something seemed to ring in Ken’s ears like peals of bells. In spite of his awkwardness Coach Arthurs had made him a varsity man; in spite of his unpreparedness old Crab had given him a passing mark; in spite of his unworthiness President Halstead had made him famous.

“I surely am the lucky one,” said Ken, for the hundredth time. “And now I’m going to force my luck.” Ken had lately revolved in his mind a persis...hat he meant to propound to the coach.

Ken arrived on the field a little later than usual, to find Arthurs for once minus his worried look. He was actually smiling, and Ken soon saw the reas...able change was the presence of a new player out in centre field.

“Hello, Peg! things are lookin’ up,” said the coach, beaming. “That’s Homans out there in centre — Roy Homans, a senior and a crackerjack ball-player. I tried to get him to come out for the team last year, but he wouldn’t spare the time. But he’s goin’ to play this season — said the president’s little talk got him. He’s a fast, heady, scientific player, just the one to steady you kids.”

Before Ken could reply his attention was attracted from Homans to another new player in uniform now walking up to Arthurs. He was tall, graceful, powerful, had red hair, keen dark eyes, a clean-cut profile and square jaw.

“I’ve come out to try for the team,” he said, quietly, to the coach.

“You’re a little late, ain’t you?” asked Worry, gruffly; but he ran a shrewd glance over the lithe form.

“Yes.”

“Must have been stirred up by that talk of President Halstead’s, wasn’t you?”

“Yes.” There was something quiet and easy about the stranger, and Ken liked him at once.

“Where do you play?” went on Worry.

“Left.”

“Can you hit? Talk sense now, and mebbe you’ll save me work. Can you hit?”

“Yes.”

“Can you throw?”

“Yes.” He spoke with quiet assurance.

“Can you run?” almost shouted Worry. He was nervous and irritable those days, and it annoyed him for unknown youths to speak calmly of such things.

“Run? Yes, a little. I did the hundred last year in nine and four-fifths.”

“What! You can’t kid me! Who are you?” cried Worry, getting red in the face. “I’ve seen you somewhere.”

“My name’s Ray.”

“Say! Not Ray, the intercollegiate champion?”

“I’m the fellow. I talked it over with Murray. He kicked, but I didn’t mind that. I promised to try to keep in shape to win the sprints at the intercollegiate meet.”

“Say! Get out there in left field! Quick!” shouted Worry... “Peg, hit him some flies. Lam ’em a mile! That fellow’s a sprinter, Peg. What luck it would be if he can play...im!”

Ken took the ball Worry tossed him, and, picking up a bat, began to knock flies out to Ray. The first few he made easy for the outfielder, and then he hit balls harder and off to the right or left. Without appearing to exert himself Ray got under them. Ken watched him, and also kept the tail of his eye on Worry. The coach appeared to be getting excited, and he ordered Ken to hit the balls high and far away. Ken complied, but he could not hit a ball over Ray’s head. He tried with all his strength. He had never seen a champion sprinter, and now he marvelled at the wonderful stride.

“Oh! but his running is beautiful!” exclaimed Ken.

“That’s enough! Come in here!” yelled Worry to Ray... “Peg, he makes Dreer look slow. I never saw as fast fieldin’ as that.”

When Ray came trotting in without seeming to be even warmed up, Worry blurted out: “You ain’t winded — after all that? Must be in shape?”

“I’m always in shape,” replied Ray.

“Pick up a bat!” shouted Worry. “Here, Duncan, pitch this fellow a few. Speed ‘em, curve ‘em, strike him out, hit him — anything!”

Ray was left-handed, and he stood up to the plate perfectly erect, with his bat resting quietly on his shoulder. He stepped straight, swung with an even, powerful swing, and he hit the first ball clear over the right-field bleachers. It greatly distanced Dreer’s hit.

“What a drive!” gasped Ken.

“Oh!” choked Worry. “That’s enough! You needn’t lose my balls. Bunt one, now.”

Ray took the same position, and as the ball came up he appeared to drop the bat upon it and dart away at the same instant.

Worry seemed to be trying to control violent emotion. “Next batter up!” he called, hoarsely, and sat down on the bench. He was breathing hard, and beads of sweat stood out on his brow.

Ken went up to Worry, feeling that now was the time to acquaint the coach with his new idea. Eager as Ken was he had to force himself to take this step. All...d, nervousness and determination of the weeks of practice seemed to accumulate in that moment. He stamm..., grew speechless, and then as Worry looked up in kind surprise, Ken suddenly grew cool and earnest.

“Mr. Arthurs, will you try me in the box?”

“What’s that, Peg?” queried the coach, sharply.

“Will you give me a trial in the box? I’ve wanted one all along. You put me in once when we were in the cage, but you made me hit the batters.”

“Pitch? you, Peg? Why not? Why didn’t I think of it? I’m sure gettin’ to be like ’em fat-head directors. You’ve got steam, Peg, but can you curve a ball? Let’s see your fingers.”

“Yes, I can curve a ball round a corner. Please give me a trial, Mr. Arthurs. I failed in the infield, and I’m little good in the outfield. But I kno...

The coach gave Ken one searching glance. Then he called all the candidates in to the plate, and ordered Dean, the stocky little catcher, to don his breast-protector, mask, and mitt.

“Peg,” said the coach, “Dean will sign you — one finger for a straight ball, two for a curve.”

When Ken walked to the box all his muscles seemed quivering and tense, and he had a contraction in his throat. This was his opportunity. He was not unnerved as he had been when he was trying for the other positions. All Ken’s life he had been accustomed to throwing. At his home he had been the only boy who could throw a stone across the river; the only one who could get a ball over the high-school tower. A favorite pastime had always been the throwing of small apples, or walnuts, or stones, and he had acquired an accuracy that made it futile for his boy comrades to compete with him. Curving a ball had come natural to him, and he would have pitched all his high-school games had it not been for the fact that no one could catch him, and, moreover, none of the boys had found any fun in batting against him.

When Ken faced the first batter a feeling came over him that he had never before had on the ball field. He was hot, trembling, hurried, but this new feeling was apart from these. His feet...ound, and his arm felt as it had always in those throwing contests where he had so easily won. He seemed t... from McCord’s position at the plate what to throw him.

Ken took his swing. It was slow, easy, natural. But the ball travelled with much greater speed than the batter expected from such motion. McCord let the first two balls go by, and Arthurs called them both strikes. Then Ken pitched an out-curve which McCord fanned at helplessly. Arthurs sent Trace up next. Ken saw that the coach was sending up the weaker hitters first. Trace could not even make a foul. Raymond was third up, and Ken had to smile at the scowling second-baseman. Remembering his weakness for pulling away from the plate, Ken threw Raymond two fast curves on the outside, and then a slow wide curve, far out. Raymond could not have hit the fi....and the third lured him irresistibly out of position and made him look ridiculous. He slammed his bat down and slouched to the bench. Duncan turned out to be the next easy victim. Four batters had not so much as fouled Ken. And Ken knew he was holding himself in — that, in fact, he had not let out half his speed. Blake, the next player, hit up a little fly that Ken caught, and Schoonover made the fifth man to strike out.

Then Weir stood over the plate, and he was a short, sturdy batter, hard to pitch to. He looked as if he might be able to hit any kind of a ball. Ken tried him first with a straight fast one over the middle of the plate. Weir hit it hard, but it went foul. And through Ken’s mind flashed the thought that he would pitch no more speed to Weir or players who swung as he did. Accordingly Ken tried the slow curve that had baffled Raymond. Weir popped it up and retired in disgust.

The following batter was Graves, who strode up smiling, confident, sarcastic, as if he knew he could do more than the others. Ken imagined what the third-baseman would have said if the coach had not been present. Graves always ruffled Ken the wrong way.

“I’ll strike him out if I break my arm!” muttered Ken to himself. He faced Graves deliberately and eyed his position at bat. Graves...d...ely laughed at him.

“Pitch up, pitch up!” he called out.

“Right over the pan!” retorted Ken, as quick as an echo. He went hot as fire all over. This fellow Graves had some strange power of infuriating him.

Ken took a different swing, which got more of his weight in motion, and let his arm out. Like a white bullet the ball shot plateward, rising a little so that Graves hit vainly under it. The ball surprised Dean, knocked his hands apart as if they had been paper, and resounded from his breast-protector. Ken pitched the second ball in the same place with a like result, except that Dean held on to it. Graves had lost his smile and wore an expression of sickly surprise. The third ball travelled by him and cracked in Dean’s mitt, and Arthurs called it a strike.

“Easy there — tha.... coach. “Come in here, Peg. Out on the field now, boys.”

Homans stopped Ken as they were passing each other, and Ken felt himself under the scrutiny of clear gray eyes.

“Youngster, you look good to me,” said Homans.

Ken also felt himself regarded with astonishment by many of the candidates; and Ray ran a keen, intuitive glance over him from head to foot. But it was the coach’s manner that struck Ken most forcibly. Worry was utterly unlike himself.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before — you — you—” he yelled, red as a beet in the face. He grasped Ken with both hands, then he let him go, and picking up a ball and a mitt he grasped him again. Without a word he led Ken across the field and to a secluded corner behind the bleachers. Ken felt for all the world as if he was being led to execution.

Worry took off his coat and vest and collar. He arranged a block of wood for a plate and stepped off so many paces and placed another piece of wood to mark the pitcher’s box. Then he donned the mitt.

“Peg, somethin’s comin’ off. I know it. I never make mistakes in sizin’ up pitchers. But I’ve had such hard luck this season that I can’t believe my own eyes. We’ve got to prove it. Now you go out there and pitch to me. Just natural like at first.”

Ken pitched a dozen balls or more, some in-curves, some out-curves. Then he threw what he called his drop, which he executed by a straight overhand swing.

“Oh — a beauty!” yelled Worry. “Where, Peg, where did you learn that? Another, lower now.”

Worry fell over trying to stop the glancing drop.

“Try straight ones now, Peg, right over the middle. See how many you can pitch.”

One after another, with free, easy motion, Ken shot balls squarely over the plate. Worry counted them, and suddenly, after the fourteenth pitch, he stood up and glared at Ken.

“Are you goin’ to keep puttin’ ’em over this pan all day that way?”

“Mr. Arthurs, I couldn’t miss that plate if I pitched a week,” replied Ken.

“Stop callin’ me Mister!” yelled Worry..., put ’em where I hold my hands — inside corner... outside corner... again... inside now, low... another... a fast one over, now... high, inside. Oh, Peg, this ain’t right. I ain’t seein’ straight. I think I’m dreamin’. Come on with ‘em!”

Fast and true Ken sped the balls into Worry’s mitt. Seldom did the coach have to move his hands at all.

“Peg Ward, did you know that pitchin’ was all control, puttin’ the ball where you wanted to?” asked Worry, stopping once more.

“No, I didn’t,” replied Ken.

“How did you learn to peg a ball as straight as this?”

Ken told him how he had thrown at marks all his life.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Worry seemed not to be able to get over Ken’s backwardness. “Look at the sleepless nights and the gray hairs you could have saved me.” He stamped around as if furious, yet underneath the surface Ken saw that the coach was trying to hide his elation. “Here now,” he shouted, suddenly, “a few more, and peg ‘em! See? Cut loose and let me see what steam you’ve got!”

Ken whirled with all his might and delivered the ball with all his weight in the swing. The ball seemed to diminish in size, it went so swiftly. Near the plate it took an upward jump, and it knocked Worry’s mitt off his hand.

Worry yelled out, then he looked carefully at Ken, but he made no effort to go after the ball or pick up the mitt.

“Did I say for you to knock my block off?... Come here, Peg. You’re only a youngster. Do you think you can keep that? Are you goin’ to let me teach you to pitch? Have you got any nerve? Are you up in the air at the thought of Place and Herne?”

Then he actually hugged Ken, and kept hold of him as if he might get away. He was panting and sweating. All at once he sat down on one of the braces of the bleachers and began mopping his face. He seemed to cool down, to undergo a subtle change.

“Peg,” he said, quietly, “I’m as bad as some of ’em fat-head directors... You see I didn’t have no kind of a pitcher to work on this spring. I kept on hopin’. Strange why I didn’t quit. And now — my boy, you’re a kid, but you’re a natural born pitcher.”

CHAPTER XI

STATE UNIVERSITY GAME

ARTHURS RETURNED TO the diamond and called the squad around him. He might have been another coach from the change that was manifest in him.

“Boys, I’ve picked the varsity, and sorry I am to say you all can’t be on it. Ward, Dean, McCord, Raymond, Weir, Graves, Ray, Homans, Trace, Duncan, and Schoonover — these men will report at once to Trainer Murray and obey his orders. Then pack your trunks and report to me at 36 Spring Street to-night. That’s all — up on your toes now... The rest of you boys will each get his uniform and sweater, but, of course, I can’t give you the varsity letter. You’ve all tried hard and done your best. I’m much obliged to you, and hope you’ll try again next year.”

Led by Arthurs, the players trotted across the field to Murray’s quarters. Ken used all his eyes as he went in. This was the sacred precinct of the chosen athletes, and it was not open to any others. He saw a small gymnasium, and adjoining it a large, bright room with painted windows that let in the light, but could not be seen through. Around the room on two sides were arranged huge box-like bins with holes in the lids and behind them along the wall were steam-pipes. On the other two sides were little zinc-lined rooms, with different kinds of pipes, which Ken concluded were used for shower baths. Murray, the trainer, was there, and two grinning negroes with towels over their shoulders, and a little dried-up Scotchman who was all one smile.

“Murray, here’s my bunch. Look ’em over, and to-morrow start ’em in for keeps,” said Arthurs.

“Well, Worry, they’re not a bad-looking lot. Slim and trim. We won’t have to take off any beef. Here’s Reddy Ray. I let you have him this year, Worry, but the track team will miss him. And here’s Peg Ward. I was sure you’d pick him, Worry. And this is Homans, isn’t it? I remember you in the freshmen games. The rest of you boys I’ll have to g...ed with. They say I’m a pretty hard fellow, but that’s on the outside. Now, hustle out of your suits, and we’ll give you all a good stew and a rub-down.”

What the stew was soon appeared plain to Ken. He was the first player undressed, and Murray, lifting up one of the box-lids, pushed Ken inside.

“Sit down and put your feet in that pan,” he directed. “When I drop the lid let your head come out the hole. There!” Then he wrapped a huge towel around Ken’s neck, being careful to tuck it close and tight. With that he reached round to the back of the box and turned on the steam.

Ken felt like a jack-in-the-box. The warm steam was pleasant. He looked about him to see the other boys being placed in like posi... the box on one side, and Reddy Ray the one on the other.

“It’s great,” said Ray, smiling at Ken. “You’ll like it.”

Raymond looked scared. Ken wondered if the fellow ever got any enjoyment out of things. Then Ken found himself attending to his own sensations. The steam was pouring out of the pipe inside the box, and it was growing wetter, thicker, and hotter. The pleasant warmth and tickling changed to a burning sensation. Ken found himself bathed in a heavy sweat. Then he began to smart in different places, and he was hard put to it to keep rubbing them. The steam grew hotter; his body was afire; his breath labored in great heaves. Ken felt that he must cry out. He heard exclamations, then yells, from some of the other boxed-up players, and he glanced quickly around. Reddy Ray was smiling, and did not look at all uncomfortable. But Raymond was scarlet in the face, and he squirmed his head to and fro.

“Ough!” he bawled. “Let me out of here!”

One of the negro attendants lifted the lid and helped Raymond out. He danced about as if on hot bricks. His body was the color of a boiled lobster. The attendant put him under one of the showers and turned the water on. Raymond uttered one deep, low, “O-o-o-o!” Then McCord begged to be let out; Weir’s big head, with its shock of hair, resembled that of an angry lion; little Trace screamed, and Duncan yelled.

“Peg, how’re you?” asked Murray, walking up to Ken. “It’s always pretty hot the first few times. But afterward it’s fine. Look at Reddy.”

“Murray, give Peg a good stewin’,” put in Arthurs. “He’s got a great arm, and we must take care of it.”

Ken saw the other boys, except Ray, let out, and he simply could not endure the steam any longer.

“I’ve got — enough,” he stammered.

“Scotty, turn on a little more stew,” ordered Murray, cheerfully; then he rubbed his hand over Ken’s face. “You’re not hot yet.”

Scotty turned on more steam, and Ken felt it as a wet flame. He was being flayed alive.

“Please — please — let me out!” he implored.

With a laugh Murra...nd Ken hopped out. He was as red as anything red he had ever seen. Then Scotty shoved him under a shower, and as the icy water came down in a deluge Ken lost his breath, his chest caved in, and he gasped. Scotty led him out into the room, dried him with a towel, rubbed him down, and then, resting Ken’s arm on his shoulder, began to pat and beat and massage it. In a few moments Ken thought his arm was a piece of live India rubber. He had never been in such a glow. When he had dressed he felt as light as air, strong, fresh, and keen for action.

“Hustle now, Peg,” said Arthurs. “Get your things packed. Supper to-night at the trainin’-house.”

It was after dark when Ken got an expressman to haul his trunk to the address on Spring Street. The house was situated about the middle of a four-storied block, and within sight of Grant Field. Worry answered his ring.

“Here you are, Peg, the last one. I was beginnin’ to worry about you. Have your trunk taken right up, third floor back. Hurry down, for dinner will be ready soon.”

Ken followed at the heels of the expressman up to his room. He was surprised and somewhat taken back to find Raymond sitting upon the bed.

“Hello! excuse me,” said Ken. “Guess I’ve got the wrong place.”

“The coach said you and I were to room together,” returned Raymond.

“Us? Room-mates?” ejaculated Ken.

Raymond took offence at this.

“Wull, I guess I can stand it,” he growled.

“I hope I can,” was Ken’s short reply. It was Ken’s failing that he could not help retaliating. But he was also as repentant as he was quick-tempered. “Oh, I didn’t mean that See here, Raymond, if we’ve got to be room-mates—”

Ken paused in embarrassment.

“Wull, we’re both on the varsity,” said Raymond.

“That’s so,” rejoined Ken, brightening. “It makes a whole lot of difference, doesn’t it?”

Raymond got off the bed and looked at Ken.

“What’s your first name?” queried he. “I don’t like ‘Peg.’”

“Kenneth. Ken, for short. What’s yours?”

“Mine’s Kel. Wull, Ken — ...Having gotten so far Raymond hesitated, and it was Ken who first offered his hand. Raymond eagerly grasped it. That broke the ice.

“Kel, I haven’t liked your looks at all,” said Ken, apologetically.

“Ken, I’ve been going to lick you all spring.”

They went down-stairs arm in arm.

It was with great interest and curiosity that Ken looked about the cozy and comfortable rooms. The walls were adorned with pictures of varsity teams and players, and the college colors were much in evidence. College magazines and papers littered the table in the reading-room.

“Boys, we’ll be pretty snug and nice here when things get to runnin’ smooth. The grub will be plain, but plenty of it.”

There were twelve in all at the table, with the coach seated at the head. The boys were hungry, and besides, as they had as yet had no chance to become acquainted, the conversation lagged. The newness and strangeness, however, did not hide the general air of suppressed gratification. After dinner Worry called them all together in the reading-room.

“Well, boys, here we are together like one big family, and we’re shut in for two months. Now, I know you’ve all been fightin’ for places on the team, and have had no chance to be friendly. It’s always that way in the beginnin’, and I dare say there’ll be some scraps among you before things straighten out. We’ll have more to say about that later. The thing now is you’re all varsity men, and I’m puttin’ you on your word of honor. Your word is good enough for me. Here’s my rules, and I’m more than usually particular this year, for reasons I’ll tell later.

“You’re not to break tra...inin’. You’re not to eat anything anywhere but here. You’re to cut out cigarettes and drinks. You’re to be in bed at ten o’clock. And I advise, although I ain’t insistin’, that if you have any leisure time you’ll spend most of it here. That’s all.”

For Ken the three days following passed as so many hours. He did not in the least dread the approaching game with State University, but his mind held scarcely anything outside of Arthurs’ coaching. The practice of the pl...had been wholly different. It was as if they had been freed from some binding spell. Worry kept them at fielding and batting for four full hours every afternoon. Ken, after pitching to Dean for a while, batted to the infield and so had opportunity to see the improvement. Graves was brilliant at third, Weir was steady and sure at short, Raymond seemed to have springs in his legs and pounced upon the ball with wonderful quickness, and McCord fielded all his chances successfully.

On the afternoon of the game Worry waited at the training-house until all the players came down-stairs in uniform.

“Boys, what’s happened in the past doesn’t count. We start over to-day. I’m not goin’ to say much or confuse you with complex team coachin’. But I’m hopeful. I sort of think there’s a nigger in the woodpile. I’ll tell you to-night if I’m right. Think of how you have been roasted by the students. Play like tigers. Put out of your mind everything but tryin’. Nothin’ counts for you, boys. Errors are nothin’; mistakes are nothin’. Play the game as one man. Don’t think of yourselves. You all know when you ought to hit or bunt or run. I’m trustin’ you. I won’t say a word from the bench. And don’t underrate our chances. Remember that I think it’s possible we may have somethin’ up our sleeves. That’s all from me till after the game.”

Worry walked to Grant Field with Ken. He talked as they went along, but not on baseball. The State team was already out and practising. Worry kept Ken near him on the bench and closely watched the visitors in practice. When the gong rang to call them in he sent his players out, with a remark to Ken to take his warming-up easily. Ken thought he had hardly warmed up at all before the coach called him in.

“Peg, listen!” he whispered. His gaze seemed to hypnotize Ken. “Do you have any idea what you’ll do to this bunch from State?”

“Why — no — I—”

“Listen! I tell you I know they won’t be able to touch you... Size up batters in your own way. If they look as if they’d pull or chop on a curve, hand it up. If not, peg ’em a straight one over the inside corner, high. If you get in a hole with runners on bases use that fast jump ball, as hard as you can drive it, right over the pan... Go in with perfect confidence. I wouldn’t say that to you, Peg, if I didn’t feel it myself, honestly. I’d say for you to do your best. But I’ve sized up these State fellows, and they won’t be able to touch you. Remember what I say. That’s all.”

“I’ll remember,” said Ken, soberly.

When the umpire called the game there were perhaps fifty students in the bleachers and a few spectators in the grand-stand, so poor an attendance that the State players loudly voiced their derision.

“Hey! boys,” yelled one, “we drew a crowd last year, and look at that!”

“It’s Wayne’s dub team,” replied another. They ran upon the field as if the result of the game was a foregone conclusion. Their pitcher, a lanky individual, handled the ball with assurance.

Homans led off for Wayne. He stood left-handed at the plate, and held his bat almost in the middle. He did not swing, but poked at the first ball pitched and placed a short hit over third. Raymond, also left-handed, came next, and, letting two balls go, he bunted the third. Running fast, he slid into first base and beat the throw. Homans kept swiftly on toward third, drew the throw, and, sliding, was also safe. It was fast work, and the Wayne players seemed to rise off the bench with the significance of the play. Worry Arthurs looked on from under the brim of his hat, and spoke no word. Then Reddy Ray stepped up.

“They’re all left-handed!” shouted a State player. The pitcher looked at Reddy, then motioned for his outfielders to play deeper. With that he delivered the ball, which the umpire called a strike. Reddy stood still and straight while two more balls sped by, then he swung on the next. A vicious low hit cut out over first base and skipped in great bounds to the fence. Homans scored. Raymond turned second, going fast. But it was Ray’s speed that electrified the watching players. They jumped up cheering.

“Oh, see him run!” yelled Ken.

He was on third before Raymond reached the plate. Weir lifted a high fly to left field, and when the ball dropped into the fielder’s hands Ray ran home on the throw-in. Three runs had been scored in a twinkling. It amazed the State team. They were not slow in bandying remarks among themselves. “Fast! Who’s that red-head? Is this your dub team? Get in the game, boys!” They began to think more of playing ball and less of their own superiority. Graves, however, and McCord following him, went out upon plays to the infield.

As Ken walked out toward the pitcher’s box Homans put a hand on his arm, and said: “Kid, put them all over. Don’t waste any. Make every batter hit. Keep your nerve. We’re back of you out here.” Then Reddy Ray, in passing, spoke with a cool, quiet faith that thrilled Ken, “Peg, we’ve got enough runs now to win.”

Ken faced the plate all in a white glow. He was far from calmness, but it was a restless, fiery hurry for the action of the game. He remembered the look in Worry’s eyes, and every word that he had spoken rang in his ears. Receiving the ball from the umpire, he stepped upon the slab with a sudden, strange, deep tremor. It passed as quickly, and then he was eying the first batter. He drew a long breath, standing motionless, with all the significance of Worry’s hope flashing before him, and then he whirled and delivered the ball. The batter struck at it after it had passed him, and it cracked in Dean’s mitt.

“Speed!” called the State captain. “Quick eye, there!”

The batter growled some unintelligible reply. Then he fouled the second ball, missed the next, and was out. The succeeding State player hit an easy fly to Homans, and the next had two strikes called upon him, and swung vainly at the third.

Dean got a base on balls for Wayne, Trace went out trying to bunt, and Ken hit into short, forcing Dean at second. Homans lined to third, retiring the side. The best that the State players could do in their half was for one man to send a weak grounder to Raymond, one to fly out, and the other to fail on strikes. Wayne went to bat again, and Raymond got his base by being hit by a pitched ball. Reddy Ray bunted and was safe. Weir struck out. Graves rapped a safety through short, scoring Raymond, and sending Ray to third. Then McCord fouled out to the catcher. Again, in State’s inning, they failed to get on base, being unable to hit Ken effectively.

So the game progressed, State slowly losing its aggressive playing, and Wayne gaining what its opponents had lost. In the sixth Homans reached his base on an error, stole second, went to third on Raymond’s sacrifice, and scored on Reddy’s drive to right. State flashed up in their half, getting two men to first on misplays of McCord and Weir, and scored a run on a slow hit to Graves.

With the bases full, Ken let his arm out and pitched the fast ball at the limit of his speed. The State batters were helpless before it, but they scored two runs on passed strikes by Dean. The little catcher had a hard time judging Ken’s jump ball. That ended the run-getting for State, though they came near scoring again on more fumbling in the infield. In the eighth Ken landed a safe fly over second, and tallied on a double by Homans.

Before Ken knew the game was half over it had ended — Wayne 6, State 3. His players crowded around him and some one called for the Wayne yell. It was given with wild vehemence.

From that moment until dinner was over at the training-house Ken appeared to be the centre of a humming circle. What was said and done he never remembered. Then the coach stopped the excitement.

“Boys, now for a heart-to-heart talk,” he said, with a smile both happy and grave. “We won to-day, as I predicted. State had a fairly strong team, but if Ward had received perfect support they would not have got a man beyond second. That’s the only personal mention I’ll make. Now, listen...”

He paused, with his eyes glinting brightly and his jaw quivering.

“I expected to win, but before the game I never dreamed of our possibilities. I got a glimpse now of what hard work and a demon spirit to play together might make this team. I’ve had an inspiration. We are goin’ to beat Herne and play Place to a standstill.”

Not a boy moved an eyelash as Arthurs made this statement, and the sound of a pin dropping could have been heard.

“To do that we must pull together as no boys ever pulled together before. We must be all one heart. We must be actuated by one spirit. Listen! If you will stick together and to me, I’ll make a team that will be a wonder. Never the hittin’ team as good as last year’s varsity, but a faster team, a finer machine. Think of that! Think of how we have been treated this year! For that we’ll win all the greater glory. It’s worth all there is in you, boys. You would have the proudest record of any team that ever played for old Wayne.

“I love the old college, boys, and I’ve given it the best years of my life. If it’s anything to you, why, understand that if I fail to build up a good team this year I shall be let go by those directors who have made the change in athletics. I could stand that, but — I’ve a boy of my own who’s preparin’ for Wayne, and my heart is set on seein’ him enter — and he said he never will if they let me go. So, you youngsters and me — we’ve much to gain. Go to your rooms now and think, think as you never did before, until the spirit of this thing, the possibility of it, grips you as it has me.”

CHAPTER XII

KEN CLASHES WITH GRAVES

TWO WEEKS AFTER the contest with State University four more games with minor colleges had been played and won by Wayne. Hour by hour the coach had drilled the players; day by day the grilling practice told in quickening grasp of team-play, in gradual correction of erratic fielding and wild throwing. Every game a few more students attended, reluctantly, in half-hearted manner.

“We’re comin’ with a rush,” said Worry to Ken. “Say, but Dale and the old gang have a surprise in store for ‘em! And the students — they’re goin’ to drop dead pretty soon... Peg, Murray tells me he’s puttin’ weight on you.”

“Why, yes, it’s the funniest thing,” replied Ken. “To-day I weighed one hundred and sixty-four. Worry, I’m afraid I’m getting fat.”

“Fat, nothin’,” snorted Worry. “It’s muscle. I told Murray to put beef on you all he can. Pretty soon you’ll be able to peg a ball through the back-stop. Dean’s too light, Peg. He’s plucky and will make a catcher, but he’s too light. You’re batterin’ him all up.”

Worry shook his head seriously.

“Oh, he’s fine!” exclaimed Ken. “I’m not afraid any more. He digs my drop out of the dust, and I can’t get a curve away from him. He’s weak only on the jump ball, and I don’t throw that often, only when I let drive.”

“You’ll be usin’ that often enough against Herne and Place. I’m dependin’ on that for those games. Peg, are you worryin’ any, losin’ any sleep, over those games?”

“Indeed I’m not,” replied Ken, laughing.

“Say, I wish you’d have a balloon ascension, and have it quick. It ain’t natural, Peg, for you not to get a case of rattles. It’s comin’ to you, and I don’t want it in any of the big games.”

“I don’t want it either. But Worry, pitching is all a matter of control, you say so often. I don’t believe I could get wild and lose my control if I tried.”

“Peg, you sure have the best control of any pitcher I ever coached. It’s your success. It’ll make a great pitcher out of you. All you’ve got to learn is where to pitch ’em to Herne and Place.”

“How am I to learn that?”

“Listen!” Worry whispered. “I’m goin’ to send you to Washington next week to see Place and Herne play Georgetown. You’ll pay your little money and sit in the grand-stand right behind the catcher. You’ll have a pencil and a score card, and you’ll be enjoyin’ the game. But, Peg, you’ll also be usin’ your head, and when you see one of ’em players pull away on a curve, or hit weak on a drop, or miss a high fast one, or slug a low ball, you will jot it down on your card. You’ll watch Place’s hard hitters with hawk eyes, my boy, and a pitcher’s memory. And when they come along to Grant Field you’ll have ’em pretty well sized up.”

“That’s fine, Worry, but is it fair?” queried Ken.

“Fair? Why, of course. They all do it. We saw Place’s captain in the grand-stand here last spring.”

The coach made no secret of his pride and faith in Ken. It was this, perhaps, as much as anything, which kept Ken keyed up. For Ken was really pitching better ball than he knew how to pitch. He would have broken his arm for Worry; he believed absolutely in what the coach told him; he did not think of himself at all.

Worry, however, had plenty of enthusiasm for his other players. Every evening after dinner he would call them all about him and talk for an hour. Sometimes he would tell funny baseball stories; again, he told of famous Wayne-Place games, and how they had been won or lost; then at other times he dwelt on the merits and faults of his own team. In speaking of the swift development of this year’s varsity he said it was as remarkable as it had been unforeseen. He claimed it would be a bewildering surprise to Wayne students and to the big college teams. He was working toward the perfection of a fast run-getting machine. In the five games already played and won a good idea could be gotten of Wayne’s team, individually and collectively. Homans was a scientific short-field hitter and remarkably sure. Raymond could not bat, but he had developed into a wonder in reaching first base, by bunt or base on balls, or being hit. Reddy Ray was a hard and timely batter, and when he got on base his wonderful fleetness made him almost sure to score. Of the other players Graves batted the best; but taking the team as a whole, and comparing them with Place or Herne, it appeared that Reddy and Homans were the only great hitters, and the two of them, of course, could not make a great hitting team. In fielding, however, the coach said he had never seen the like. They were all fast, and Homans was perfect in judgment on fly balls, and Raymond was quick as lightning to knock down base hits, and as to the intercollegiate sprinter in left field, it was simply a breath-taking event to see him run after a ball. Last of all was Ken Ward with his great arm. It was a strangely assorted team, Worry said, one impossible to judge at the moment, but it was one to watch.

“Boys, we’re comin’ with a rush,” he went on to say. “But somethin’s holdin’ us back a little. There’s no lack of harmony, yet there’s a drag. In spite of the spirit you’ve shown — and I want to say it’s been great — the team doesn’t work together as one man all the time. I advise you all to stick closer together. Stay away from the club, and everywhere except lectures. We’ve got to be closer ‘n brothers. It’ll all work out right before we go up against Herne in June. That game’s comin’, boys, and by that time the old college will be crazy. It’ll be our turn then.”

Worry’s talks always sank deeply into Ken’s mind and set him to thinking and revolving over and over the gist of them so that he could remember to his profit.

He knew that some of the boys had broken training, and he pondered if that was what caused the drag Worry mentioned. Ken had come to feel the life and fortunes of the varsity so keenly that he realized how the simplest deviations from honor might affect the smooth running of the team. It must be perfectly smooth. And to make it so every player must be of one mind.

Ken proved to himself how lack of the highest spirit on the part of one or two of the team tended toward the lowering of the general spirit. For he began to worry, and almost at once it influenced his playing. He found himself growing watchful of his comrades and fearful of what they might be doing. He caught himself being ashamed of his suspicions. He would as lief have cut off his hand as break his promise to the coach. Perhaps, however, he exaggerated his feeling and sense of duty. He remembered the scene in Dale’s room the night he refused to smoke and drink; how Dale had commended his refusal. Nevertheless, he gathered from Dale’s remark to Worry that breaking training was not unusual or particularly harmful.

“With Dale’s team it might not have been so bad,” thought Ken. “But it’s different with us. We’ve got to make up in spirit what we lack in ability.”

Weir and McCord occupied the room next to Ken’s, and Graves and Trace, rooming together, were also on that floor. Ken had tried with all his might to feel friendly toward the third-baseman. He had caught Graves carrying cake and pie to his room and smoking cigarettes with the window open. One night Graves took cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Kel, Trace, and Ken, who all happened to be in Ken’s room at the time. Trace readily accepted; Kel demurred at first, but finally took one. Graves then tossed the pack to Ken.

“No, I don’t smoke. Besides, it’s breaking training,” said Ken.

“You make me sick, Ward,” retorted Graves. “You’re a wet blanket. Do you think we’re going to be as sissy as that? It’s hard enough to stand the grub we get here, without giving up a little smoke.”

Ken made no reply, but he found it difficult to smother a hot riot in his breast. When the other boys had gone to their rooms Ken took Kel to task about his wrong-doing.

“Do you think that’s the right sort of thing? What would Worry say?”

“Ken, I don’t care about it, not a bit,” replied Kel, flinging his cigarette out of the window. “But Graves is always asking me to do things — I hate to refuse. It seems so—”

“Kel, if Worry finds it out you’ll lose your place on the team.”

“No!” exclaimed Raymond, staring.

“Mark what I say. I wish you’d stop letting Graves coax you into things.”

“Ken, he’s always smuggling pie and cake and candy into his room. I’ve had some of it. Trace said he’d brought in something to drink, too.”

“It’s a shame,” cried Ken, in anger. “I never liked him and I’ve tried hard to change it. Now I’m glad I couldn’t.”

“He doesn’t have any use for you,” replied Kel. “He’s always running you down to the other boys. What’d you ever do to him, Ken?”

“Oh, it was that potato stunt of mine last fall. He’s a Soph, and I hit him, I guess.”

“I think it’s more than that,” went on Raymond. “Anyway, you look out for him, because he’s aching to spoil your face.”

“He is, is he?” snapped Ken.

Ken was too angry to talk any more, and so the boys went to bed. The next few days Ken discovered that either out of shame or growing estrangement Raymond avoided him, and he was bitterly hurt. He had come to like the little second-baseman, and had hoped they would be good friends. It was easy to see that Graves became daily bolder, and more lax in training, and his influence upon several of the boys grew stronger. And when Dean, Schoonover, and Duncan appeared to be joining the clique, Ken decided he would have to talk to some one, so he went up to see Ray and Homans.

The sprinter was alone, sitting by his lamp, with books and notes spread before him.

“Hello, Peg! come in. You look a little glum. What’s wrong?”

Reddy Ray seemed like an elder brother to Ken, and he found himself blurting out his trouble. Ray looked thoughtful, and after a moment he replied in his quiet way:

“Peg, it’s new to you, but it’s an old story to me. The track and crew men seldom break training, which is more than can be said of the other athletes. It seems to me baseball fellows are the most careless. They really don’t have to train so conscientiously. It’s only a kind of form.”

“But it’s different this year,” burst out Ken. “You know what Worry said, and how he trusts us.”

“You’re right, Peg, only you mustn’t take it so hard. Things will work out all right. Homans and I were talking about that to-day. You see, Worry wants the boys to elect a captain soon. But perhaps he has not confided in you youngsters. He will suggest that you elect Homans or me. Well, I won’t run for the place, so it’ll be Homans. He’s the man to captain us, that’s certain. Graves thinks, though, that he can pull the wires and be elected captain. He’s way off. Besides, Peg, he’s making a big mistake. Worry doesn’t like him, and when he finds out about this break in training we’ll have a new third-baseman. No doubt Blake will play the bag. Graves is the only drag in Worry’s baseball machine now, and he’ll not last... So, Peg, don’t think any more about it. Mind you, the whole team circles round you. You’re the pivot, and as sure as you’re born you’ll be Wayne’s captain next year. That’s something for you to keep in mind and work for. If Graves keeps after you — hand him one! That’s not against rules. Punch him! If Worry knew the truth he would pat you on the back for slugging Graves. Cheer up, Peg! Even if Graves has got all the kids on his side, which I doubt, Homans and I are with you. And you can just bet that Worry Arthurs will side with us... Now run along, for I must study.”

This conversation was most illuminating to Ken. He left Reddy’s room all in a quiver of warm pleasure and friendliness at the great sprinter’s quiet praise and advice. To make such a friend was worth losing a hundred friends like Graves. He dismissed the third-baseman and his scheming from mind, and believed Reddy as he had believed Arthurs. But Ken thought much of what he divined was a glimmering of the inside workings of a college baseball team. He had one wild start of rapture at the idea of becoming captain of Wayne’s varsity next year, and then he dared think no more of that.

The day dawned for Ken to go to Washington, and he was so perturbed at his responsibilities that he quite forgot to worry about the game Wayne had to play in his absence. Arthurs intended to pitch Schoonover in that game, and had no doubt as to its outcome. The coach went to the station with Ken, once more repeated his instructions, and saw him upon the train. Certainly there was no more important personage on board that Washington Limited than Ken Ward. In fact, Ken was so full of importance and responsibility that he quite divided his time between foolish pride in his being chosen to “size up” the great college teams and fearful conjecture as to his ability.

At any rate, the time flew by, the trip seemed short, and soon he was on the Georgetown field. It was lucky that he arrived early and got a seat in the middle of the grand-stand, for there was a throng in attendance when the players came on the diamond. The noisy bleachers, the merry laughter, the flashing colors, and especially the bright gowns and pretty faces of the girls gave Ken pleasurable consciousness of what it would mean to play before such a crowd. At Wayne he had pitched to empty seats. Remembering Worry’s prophecy, however, he was content to wait.

From that moment his duty absorbed him. He found it exceedingly fascinating to study the batters, and utterly forgot his responsibility. Not only did he jot down on his card his idea of the weakness and strength of the different hitters, but he compared what he would have pitched to them with what was actually pitched. Of course, he had no test of his comparison, but he felt intuitively that he had the better of it. Watching so closely, Ken had forced home to him Arthurs’ repeated assertion that control of the ball made a pitcher. Both pitchers in this game were wild. Locating the plate with them was more a matter of luck than ability. The Herne pitcher kept wasting balls and getting himself in the hole, and then the heavy Georgetown players would know when he had to throw a strike, if he could, and accordingly they hit hard. They beat Herne badly.

The next day in the game with Place it was a different story. Ken realized he was watching a great team. They reminded him of Dale’s varsity, though they did not play that fiendish right-field-hitting game. Ken had a numbness come over him at the idea of facing this Place team. It soon passed, for they had their vulnerable places. It was not so much that they hit hard on speed and curves, for they got them where they wanted them. Keene flied out on high fast balls over the inside corner; Starke bit on low drops; Martin was weak on a slow ball; MacNeff, the captain, could not touch speed under his chin, and he always struck at it. On the other hand, he killed a low ball. Prince was the only man who, in Ken’s judgment, seemed to have no weakness. These men represented the batting strength of Place, and Ken, though he did not in the least underestimate them, had no fear. He would have liked to pitch against them right there.

“It’s all in control of the ball,” thought Ken. “Here are seventeen bases on balls in two games — four pitchers. They’re wild... But suppose I got wild, too?”

The idea made Ken shiver.

He travelled all night, sleeping on the train, and got home to the training-house about nine the next morning. Worry was out, Scotty said, and the boys had all gone over to college. Ken went up-stairs and found Raymond in bed.

“Why, Kel, what’s the matter?” asked Ken.

“I’m sick,” replied Kel. He was pale and appeared to be in distress.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Can’t I do something? Get you some medicine? Call Murray?”

“Ken, don’t call anybody, unless you want to see me disgraced. Worry got out this morning before he noticed my absence from breakfast. I was scared to death.”

“Scared? Disgraced?”

“Ken, I drank a little last night. It always makes me sick. You know I’ve a weak stomach.”

“Kel, you didn’t drink, say you didn’t!” implored Ken, sitting miserably down on the bed.

“Yes, I did. I believe I was half drunk. I can’t stand anything. I’m sick, sick of myself, too, this morning. And I hate Graves.”

Ken jumped up with kindling eyes.

“Kel, you’ve gone back on me — we’d started to be such friends — I tried to persuade you—”

“I know. I’m sorry, Ken. But I really liked you best. I was — you know how it is, Ken. If only Worry don’t find it out!”

“Tell him,” said Ken, quickly.

“What?” groaned Kel, in fright.

“Tell him. Let me tell him for you.”

“No — no — no. He’d fire me off the team, and I couldn’t stand that.”

“I’ll bet Worry wouldn’t do anything of the kind. Maybe he knows more than you think.”

“I’m afraid to tell him, Ken. I just can’t tell him.”

“But you gave your word of honor not to break training. The only thing left is to confess.”

“I won’t tell, Ken. It’s not so much my own place on the team — there are the other fellows.”

Ken saw that it was no use to argue with Raymond while he was so sick and discouraged, so he wisely left off talking and did his best to make him comfortable. Raymond dropped asleep after a little, and when he awakened just before lunch-time he appeared better.

“I won’t be able to practise to-day,” he said; “but I’ll go down to lunch.”

As he was dressing the boys began to come in from college and ran whistling up the stairs.

Graves bustled into the room with rather anxious haste.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked.

“Pretty rocky. Graves — I told Ward about it,” said Raymond.

Upon his hurried entrance Graves had not observed Ken.

“What did you want to do that for?” he demanded, arrogantly.

Raymond looked at him, but made no reply.

“Ward, I suppose you’ll squeal,” said Graves, sneeringly. “That’ll about be your speed.”

Ken rose and, not trusting himself to speak, remained silent.

“You sissy!” cried Graves, hotly. “Will you peach on us to Arthurs?”

“No. But if you don’t get out of my room I’ll hand you one,” replied Ken, his voice growing thick.

Graves’s face became red as fire.

“What? Why, you white-faced, white-haired freshman! I’ve been aching to punch you!”

“Well, why don’t you commence?”

With the first retort Ken had felt a hot trembling go over him, and having yielded to his anger he did not care what happened.

“Ken — Graves,” pleaded Raymond, white as a sheet. “Don’t — please!” He turned from one to the other. “Don’t scrap!”

“Graves, it’s up to some one to call you, and I’m going to do it,” said Ken, passionately. “You’ve been after me all season, but I wouldn’t care for that. It’s your rotten influence on Kel and the other boys that makes me wild. You are the drag in this baseball team. You are a crack ball-player, but you don’t know what college spirit means. You’re a mucker!”

“I’ll lick you for that!” raved Graves, shaking his fists.

“You can’t lick me!”

“Come outdoors. I dare you to come outdoors. I dare you!”

Ken strode out of the room and started down the hall. “Come on!” he called, grimly, and ran down the stairs. Graves hesitated a moment, then followed.

Raymond suddenly called after them:

“Give it to him, Ken! Slug him! Beat him all up!”

CHAPTER XIII

FRIENDSHIP

A HALF-HOUR OR less afterward Ken entered the training-house. It chanced that the boys, having come in, were at the moment passing through the hall to the dining-room, and with them was Worry Arthurs.

“Hello! you back? What’s the matter with you?” demanded the coach.

Ken’s lips were puffed and bleeding, and his chin was bloody. Sundry red and dark marks disfigured his usually clear complexion. His eyes were blazing, and his hair rumpled down over his brow.

“You’ve been in a scrap,” declared Worry.

“I know it,” said Ken. “Let me go up and wash.”

Worry had planted himself at the foot of the stairway in front of Ken. The boys stood silent and aghast. Suddenly there came thumps upon the stairs, and Raymond appeared, jumping down three steps at a time. He dodged under Worry’s arm and plunged at Ken to hold him with both hands.

“Ken! You’re all bloody!” he exclaimed, in great excitement. “He didn’t lick you? Say he didn’t! He’s got to fight me, too! You’re all bunged up!”

“Wait till you see him!” muttered Ken.

“A-huh!” said Worry. “Been scrappin’ with Graves! What for?”

“It’s a personal matter,” replied Ken.

“Come, no monkey-biz with me,” said the coach, sharply. “Out with it!”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Mr. Arthurs, it’s my fault,” burst out Raymond, flushed and eager. “Ken was fighting on my account.”

“It wasn’t anything of the kind,” retorted Ken, vehemently.

“Yes it was,” cried Raymond, “and I’m going to tell why.”

The hall door opened to admit Graves. He was dishevelled, dirty, battered, and covered with blood. When he saw the group in the hall he made as if to dodge out.

“Here, come on! Take your medicine,” called Worry, tersely.

Graves shuffled in, cast down and sheepish, a very different fellow from his usual vaunting self.

“Now, Raymond, what’s this all about?” demanded Worry.

Raymond changed color, but he did not hesitate an instant.

“Ken came in this morning and found me sick in bed. I told him I had been half drunk last night — and that Graves had gotten me to drink. Then Graves came in. He and Ken had hard words. They went outdoors to fight.”

“Would you have told me?” roared the coach in fury. “Would you have come to me with this if I hadn’t caught Peg?”

Raymond faced him without flinching.

“At first I thought not — when Ken begged me to confess I just couldn’t. But now I know I would.”

At that Worry lost his sudden heat, and then he turned to the stricken Graves.

“Mebbe it’ll surprise you, Graves, to learn that I knew a little of what you’ve been doin’. I told Homans to go to you in a quiet way and tip off your mistake. I hoped you’d see it. But you didn’t. Then you’ve been knockin’ Ward all season, for no reason I could discover but jealousy. Now, listen! Peg Ward has done a lot for me already this year, and he’ll do more. But even if he beats Place, it won’t mean any more to me than the beatin’ he’s given you. Now, you pack your things and get out of here. There’s no position for you on this varsity.”

Without a word in reply and amid intense silence Graves went slowly up-stairs. When he disappeared Worry sank into a chair, and looked as if he was about to collapse. Little Trace walked hesitatingly forward with the manner of one propelled against his will.

“Mr. Arthurs, I — I,” he stammered— “I’m guilty, too. I broke training. I want to—”

The coach waved him back. “I don’t want to hear it, not another word — from anybody. It’s made me sick. I can’t stand any more. Only I see I’ve got to change my rules. There won’t be any rules any more. You can all do as you like. I’d rather have you all go stale than practise deceit on me. I cut out the trainin’ rules.”

“No!” The team rose up as one man and flung the refusal at the coach.

“Worry, we won’t stand for that,” spoke up Reddy Ray. His smooth, cool voice was like oil on troubled waters. “I think Homans and I can answer for the kids from now on. Graves was a disorganizer — that’s the least I’ll say of him. We’ll elect Homans captain of the team, and then we’ll cut loose like a lot of demons. It’s been a long, hard drill for you, Worry, but we’re in the stretch now and going to finish fast. We’ve been a kind of misfit team all spring. You’ve had a blind faith that something could be made out of us. Homans has waked up to our hidden strength. And I go further than that. I’ve played ball for years. I know the game. I held down left field for two seasons on the greatest college team ever developed out West. That’s new to you. Well, it gives me license to talk a little. I want to tell you that I can feel what’s in this team. It’s like the feeling I have when I’m running against a fast man in the sprints. From now on we’ll be a family of brothers with one idea. And that’ll be to play Place off their feet.”

Coach Arthurs sat up as if he had been given the elixir of life. Likewise the members of the team appeared to be under the spell of a powerful stimulus. The sprinter’s words struck fire from all present.

Homans’ clear gray eyes were like live coals. “Boys! One rousing cheer for Worry Arthurs and for Wayne!”

Lusty, strained throats let out the cheer with a deafening roar.

It was strange and significant at that moment to see Graves, white-faced and sullen, come down the stairs and pass through the hall and out of the door. It was as if discord, selfishness, and wavering passed out with him. Arthurs and Homans and Ray could not have hoped for a more striking lesson to the young players.

Dave, the colored waiter, appeared in the doorway of the dining-room. “Mr. Arthurs, I done call yo’ all. Lunch is sho’ gittin’ cold.”

That afternoon Wayne played the strong Hornell University nine.

Blake, new at third base for Wayne, was a revelation. He was all legs and arms. Weir accepted eight chances. Raymond, sick or not, was all over the infield, knocking down grounders, backing up every play. To McCord, balls in the air or at his feet were all the same. Trace caught a foul fly right off the bleachers. Homans fielded with as much speed as the old varsity’s centre and with better judgment. Besides, he made four hits and four runs. Reddy Ray drove one ball into the bleachers, and on a line-drive to left field he circled the bases in time that Murray said was wonderful. Dean stood up valiantly to his battering, and for the first game had no passed balls. And Ken Ward whirled tirelessly in the box, and one after another he shot fast balls over the plate. He made the Hornell players hit; he had no need to extend himself to the use of the long swing and whip of his arm that produced the jump ball; and he shut them out without a run, and gave them only two safe hits. All through the game Worry Arthurs sat on the bench without giving an order or a sign. His worried look had vanished with the crude playing of his team.

That night the Hornell captain, a veteran player of unquestionable ability, was entertained at Carlton Club by Wayne friends, and he expressed himself forcibly: “We came over to beat Wayne’s weak team. It’ll be some time till we discover what happened. Young Ward has the most magnificent control and speed. He’s absolutely relentless. And that frog-legged second-baseman — oh, say, can’t he cover ground! Homans is an all-round star. Then, your red-headed Ray, the sprinter — he’s a marvel. Ward, Homans, Ray — they’re demons, and they’re making demons of the kids. I can’t understand why Wayne students don’t support their team. It’s strange.”

What the Hornell captain said went from lip to lip throughout the club, and then it spread, like a flame in wind-blown grass, from club to dormitory, and thus over all the university.

“Boys, the college is wakin’ up,” said Worry, rubbing his hands. “Yesterday’s game jarred ‘em. They can’t believe their own ears. Why, Hornell almost beat Dale’s team last spring. Now, kids, look out. We’ll stand for no fussin’ over us. We don’t want any jollyin’. We’ve waited long for encouragement. It didn’t come, and now we’ll play out the string alone. There’ll be a rush to Grant Field. It cuts no ice with us. Let ’em come to see the boys they hissed and guyed early in the spring. We’ll show ’em a few things. We’ll make ’em speechless. We’ll make ’em so ashamed they won’t know what to do. We’ll repay all their slights by beatin’ Place.”

Worry was as excited as on the day he discovered that Ken was a pitcher.

“One more word, boys,” he went on. “Keep together now. Run back here to your rooms as quick as you get leave from college. Be civil when you are approached by students, but don’t mingle, not yet. Keep to yourselves. Your reward is comin’. It’ll be great. Only wait!”

And that was the last touch of fire which moulded Worry’s players into a family of brothers. Close and warm and fine was the culmination of their friendship. On the field they were dominated by one impulse, almost savage in its intensity. When they were off the field the springs of youth burst forth to flood the hours with fun.

In the mornings when the mail-man came there was always a wild scramble for letters. And it developed that Weir received more than his share. He got mail every day, and his good-fortune could not escape the lynx eyes of his comrades. Nor could the size and shape of the envelope and the neat, small handwriting fail to be noticed. Weir always stole off by himself to read his daily letter, trying to escape a merry chorus of tantalizing remarks.

“Oh! Sugar!”

“Dreamy Eyes!”

“Gawge, the pink letter has come!”

Weir’s reception of these sallies earned him the name of Puff.

One morning, for some unaccountable reason, Weir did not get down-stairs when the mail arrived. Duncan got the pink letter, scrutinized the writing closely, and put the letter in his coat. Presently Weir came bustling down.

“Who’s got the mail?” he asked, quickly.

“No letters this morning,” replied some one.

“Is this Sunday?” asked Weir, rather stupidly.

“Nope. I meant no letters for you.”

Weir looked blank, then stunned, then crestfallen. Duncan handed out the pink envelope. The boys roared, and Weir strode off in high dudgeon.

That day Duncan purchased a box of pink envelopes, and being expert with a pen, he imitated the neat handwriting and addressed pink envelopes to every boy in the training-house. Next morning no one except Weir seemed in a hurry to answer the postman’s ring. He came in with the letters and his jaw dropping. It so happened that his letter was the very last one, and when he got to it the truth flashed over him. Then the peculiar appropriateness of the nickname Puff was plainly manifest. One by one the boys slid off their chairs to the floor, and at last Weir had to join in the laugh on him.

Each of the boys in turn became the victim of some prank. Raymond betrayed Ken’s abhorrence of any kind of perfume, and straightway there was a stealthy colloquy. Cheap perfume of a most penetrating and paralyzing odor was liberally purchased. In Ken’s absence from his room all the clothing that he did not have on his back was saturated. Then the conspirators waited for him to come up the stoop, and from their hiding-place in a window of the second floor they dropped an extra quart upon him.

Ken vowed vengeance that would satisfy him thrice over, and he bided his time until he learned who had perpetrated the outrage.

One day after practice his opportunity came. Raymond, Weir, and Trace, the guilty ones, went with Ken to the training quarters to take the steam bath that Murray insisted upon at least once every week. It so turned out that the four were the only players there that afternoon. While the others were undressing, Ken bribed Scotty to go out on an errand, and he let Murray into his scheme. Now, Murray not only had acquired a strong liking for Ken, but he was exceedingly fond of a joke.

“All I want to know,” whispered Ken, “is if I might stew them too much — really scald them, you know?”

“No danger,” whispered Murray. “That’ll be the fun of it. You can’t hurt them. But they’ll think they’re dying.”

He hustled Raymond, Weir, and Trace into the tanks and fastened the lids, and carefully tucked towels round their necks to keep in the steam.

“Lots of stew to-day,” he said, turning the handles. “Hello! Where’s Scotty?... Peg, will you watch these boys a minute while I step out?”

“You bet I will,” called Ken to the already disappearing Murray.

The three cooped-in boys looked askance at Ken.

“Wull, I’m not much stuck—” Raymond began glibly enough, and then, becoming conscious that he might betray an opportunity to Ken, he swallowed his tongue.

“What’d you say?” asked Ken, pretending curiosity. Suddenly he began to jump up and down. “Oh, my! Hullabelee! Schoodoorady! What a chance! You gave it away!”

“Look what he’s doing!” yelled Trace.

“Hyar!” added Weir.

“Keep away from those pipes!” chimed in Raymond.

“Boys, I’ve been laying for you, but I never thought I’d get a chance like this. If Murray only stays out three minutes — just three minutes!”

“Three minutes! You idiot, you won’t keep us in here that long?” asked Weir, in alarm.

“Oh no, not at all... Puff, I think you can stand a little more steam.”

Ken turned the handle on full.

“Kel, a first-rate stewing will be good for your daily grouch.”

To the accompaniment of Raymond’s threats he turned the second handle.

“Trace, you little poll-parrot, you will throw perfume on me? Now roast!”

The heads of the imprisoned boys began to jerk and bob around, and their faces to take on a flush. Ken leisurely surveyed them and then did an Indian war-dance in the middle of the room.

“Here, let me out! Ken, you know how delicate I am,” implored Raymond.

“I couldn’t entertain the idea for a second,” replied Ken.

“I’ll lick you!” yelled Raymond.

“My lad, you’ve got a brain-storm,” returned Ken, in grieved tones. “Not in the wildest flights of your nightmares have you ever said anything so impossible as that.”

“Ken, dear Ken, dear old Peggie,” cried Trace, “you know I’ve got a skinned place on my hip where I slid yesterday. Steam isn’t good for that, Worry says. He’ll be sore. You must let me out.”

“I intend to see, Willie, that you’ll be sore too, and skinned all over,” replied Ken.

“Open this lid! At once!” roared Weir, in sudden anger. His big eyes rolled.

“Bah!” taunted Ken.

Then all three began to roar at Ken at once. “Brute! Devil! Help! Help! Help! We’ll fix you for this!... It’s hotter! it’s fire! Aghh! Ouch! Oh! Ah-h-h!... O-o-o-o!... Murder! MURDER-R!”

At this juncture Murray ran in.

“What on earth! Peg, what did you do?”

“I only turned on the steam full tilt,” replied Ken, innocently.

“Why, you shouldn’t have done that,” said Murray, in pained astonishment.

“Stop talking about it! Let me out!” shrieked Raymond.

Ken discreetly put on his coat and ran from the room.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HERNE GAME

ON THE MORNING of the first of June, the day scheduled for the opening game with Herne, Worry Arthurs had Ken Ward closeted with Homans and Reddy Ray. Worry was trying his best to be soberly calculating in regard to the outcome of the game. He was always trying to impress Ken with the uncertainty of baseball. But a much younger and less observing boy than Ken could have seen through the coach. Worry was dead sure of the result, certain that the day would see a great gathering of Wayne students, and he could not hide his happiness. And the more he betrayed himself the more he growled at Ken.

“Well, we ain’t goin’ to have that balloon-ascension to-day, are we?” he demanded. “Here we’ve got down to the big games, and you haven’t been up in the air yet. I tell you it ain’t right.”

“But, Worry, I couldn’t go off my head and get rattled just to please you, could I?” implored Ken. To Ken this strain of the coach’s had grown to be as serious as it was funny.

“Aw! talk sense,” said Worry. “Why, you haven’t pitched to a college crowd yet. Wait! Wait till you see that crowd over to Place next week! Thousands of students crazier ‘n Indians, and a flock of girls that’ll make you bite your tongue off. Ten thousand yellin’ all at once.”

“Let them yell,” replied Ken; “I’m aching to pitch before a crowd. It has been pretty lonesome at Grant Field all season.”

“Let ’em yell, eh?” retorted Worry. “All right, my boy, it’s comin’ to you. And if you lose your nut and get slammed all over the lot, don’t come to me for sympathy.”

“I wouldn’t. I can take a licking. Why, Worry, you talk as if — as if I’d done something terrible. What’s the matter with me? I’ve done every single thing you wanted — just as well as I could do it. What are you afraid of?”

“You’re gettin’ swelled on yourself,” said the coach, deliberately.

The blood rushed to Ken’s face until it was scarlet. He was so astounded and hurt that he could not speak. Worry looked at him once, then turning hastily away, he walked to the window.

“Peg, it ain’t much wonder,” he went on, smoothly, “and I’m not holdin’ it against you. But I want you to forget yourself—”

“I’ve never had a thought of myself,” retorted Ken, hotly.

“I want you to go in to-day like — like an automatic machine,” went on Worry, as if Ken had not spoken. “There’ll be a crowd out, the first of the season. Mebbe they’ll throw a fit. Anyway, it’s our first big game. As far as the university goes, this is our trial. The students are up in the air; they don’t know what to think. Mebbe there won’t be a cheer at first... But, Peg, if we beat Herne to-day they’ll tear down the bleachers.”

“Well, all I’ve got to say is that you can order new lumber for the bleachers — because we’re going to win,” replied Ken, with a smouldering fire in his eyes.

“There you go again! If you’re not stuck on yourself, it’s too much confidence. You won’t be so chipper about three this afternoon, mebbe. Listen! The Herne players got into town last night, and some of them talked a little. It’s just as well you didn’t see the morning papers. It came to me straight that Gallagher, the captain, and Stern, the first-baseman, said you were pretty good for a kid freshman, but a little too swelled to stand the gaff in a big game. They expect you to explode before the third innin’. I wasn’t goin’ to tell you, Peg, but you’re so—”

“They said that, did they?” cried Ken. He jumped up with paling cheek and blazing eye, and the big hand he shoved under Worry’s nose trembled like a shaking leaf. “What I won’t do to them will be funny! Swelled! Explode! Stand the gaff! Look here, Worry, maybe it’s true, but I don’t believe it... I’ll beat this Herne team! Do you get that?”

“Now you’re talkin’,” replied Worry, with an entire change of manner. “You saw the Herne bunch play. They can field, but how about hittin’?”

“Gallagher, Stern, Hill, and Burr are the veterans of last year’s varsity,” went on Ken, rapidly, as one who knew his subject. “They can hit — if they get what they like.”

“Now you’re talkin’. How about Gallagher?”

“He hits speed. He couldn’t hit a slow ball with a paddle.”

“Now you’re talkin’. There’s Stern, how’d you size him?”

“He’s weak on a low curve, in or out, or a drop.”

“Peg, you’re talkin’ some now. How about Hill?”

“Hill is a bunter. A high ball in close, speedy, would tie him in a knot.”

“Come on, hurry! There’s Burr.”

“Burr’s the best of the lot, a good waiter and hard hitter, but he invariably hits a high curve up in the air.”

“All right. So far so good. How about the rest of the team?”

“I’ll hand them up a straight, easy ball and let them hit. I tell you I’ve got Herne beaten, and if Gallagher or any one else begins to guy me I’ll laugh in his face.”

“Oh, you will?... Say, you go down to your room now, and stay there till time for lunch. Study or read. Don’t think another minute about this game.”

Ken strode soberly out of the room.

It was well for Ken that he did not see what happened immediately after his exit. Worry and Homans fell into each other’s arms.

“Say, fellows, how I hated to do it!” Worry choked with laughter and contrition. “It was the hardest task I ever had. But, Cap, you know we had to make Peg sore. He’s too blamed good-natured. Oh, but didn’t he take fire! He’ll make some of those Herne guys play low-bridge to-day. Wouldn’t it be great if he gave Gallagher the laugh?”

“Worry, don’t you worry about that,” said Homans. “And it would please me, too, for Gallagher is about as wordy and pompous as any captain I’ve seen.”

“I think you were a little hard on Ken,” put in Reddy. His quiet voice drew Worry and Homans from their elation. “Of course, it was necessary to rouse Ken’s fighting blood, but you didn’t choose the right way. You hurt his feelings. You know, Worry, that the boy is not in the least swelled.”

“‘Course I know it, Reddy. Why, Peg’s too modest. But I want him to be dead in earnest to-day. Mind you, I’m thinkin’ of Place. He’ll beat Herne to a standstill. I worked on his feelin’s just to get him all stirred up. You know there’s always the chance of rattles in any young player, especially a pitcher. If he’s mad he won’t be so likely to get ‘em. So I hurt his feelin’s. I’ll make it up to him, don’t you fear for that, Reddy.”

“I wish you had waited till we go over to Place next week,” replied Ray. “You can’t treat him that way twice. Over there’s where I would look for his weakening. But it may be he won’t ever weaken. If he ever does it’ll be because of the crowd and not the players.”

“I think so, too. A yellin’ mob will be new to Peg. But, fellows, I’m only askin’ one game from Herne and one, or a good close game, from Place. That’ll give Wayne the best record ever made. Look at our standin’ now. Why, the newspapers are havin’ a fit. Since I picked the varsity we haven’t lost a game. Think of that! Those early games don’t count. We’ve had an unbroken string of victories, Peg pitchin’ twelve, and Schoonover four. And if wet grounds and other things hadn’t cancelled other games we’d have won more.”

“Yes, we’re in the stretch now, Worry, and running strong. We’ll win three out of these four big games,” rejoined Reddy.

“Oh, say, that’d be too much! I couldn’t stand it! Oh, say, Cap, don’t you think Reddy, for once, is talkin’ about as swift as he sprints?”

“I’m afraid to tell you, Worry,” replied Homans, earnestly. “When I look back at our work I can’t realize it. But it’s time to wake up. The students over at college are waking up. They will be out to-day. You are the one to judge whether we’re a great team or not. We keep on making runs. It’s runs that count. I think, honestly, Worry, that after to-day we’ll be in the lead for championship honors. And I hold my breath when I tell you.”

It was remarkably quiet about the training-house all that morning. The coach sent a light lunch to the boys in their rooms. They had orders to be dressed, and to report in the reading-room at one-thirty.

Raymond came down promptly on time.

“Where’s Peg?” asked Worry.

“Why, I thought he was here, ahead of me,” replied Raymond, in surprise.

A quick survey of the uniformed players proved the absence of Ken Ward and Reddy Ray. Worry appeared startled out of speech, and looked helplessly at Homans. Then Ray came down-stairs, bat in one hand, shoes and glove in the other. He seated himself upon the last step and leisurely proceeded to put on his shoes.

“Reddy, did you see Peg?” asked Worry, anxiously.

“Sure, I saw him,” replied the sprinter.

“Well?” growled the coach. “Where is he? Sulkin’ because I called him?”

“Not so you’d notice it,” answered Reddy, in his slow, careless manner. “I just woke him up.”

“What!” yelled Arthurs.

“Peg came to my room after lunch and went to sleep. I woke him just now. He’ll be down in a minute.”

Worry evidently could not reply at the moment, but he began to beam.

“What would Gallagher say to that?” asked Captain Homans, with a smile. “Wayne’s varsity pitcher asleep before a Herne game! Oh no, I guess that’s not pretty good! Worry, could you ask any more?”

“Cap, I’ll never open my face to him again,” blurted out the coach.

Ken appeared at the head of the stairs and had started down, when the door-bell rang. Worry opened the door to admit Murray, the trainer; Dale, the old varsity captain, and the magnificently built Stevens, guard and captain of the football team.

“Hello! Worry,” called out Murray, cheerily. “How’re the kids? Boys, you look good to me. Trim and fit, and all cool and quiet-like. Reddy, be careful of your ankles and legs to-day. After the meet next week you can cut loose and run bases like a blue streak.”

Dale stepped forward, earnest and somewhat concerned, but with a winning frankness.

“Worry, will you let Stevens and me sit on the bench with the boys to-day?”

Worry’s face took on the color of a thunder-cloud. “I’m not the captain,” he replied. “Ask Homans.”

“How about it, Roy?” queried Dale.

Homans was visibly affected by surprise, pleasure, and something more. While he hesitated, perhaps not trusting himself to reply quickly, Stevens took a giant stride to the fore.

“Homans, we’ve got a hunch that Wayne’s going to win,” he said, in a deep-bass voice. “A few of us have been tipped off, and we got it straight. But the students don’t know it yet. So Dale and I thought we’d like them to see how we feel about it — before this game. You’ve had a rotten deal from the students this year. But they’ll more than make it up when you beat Herne. The whole college is waiting and restless.”

Homans, recovering himself, faced the two captains courteously and gratefully, and with a certain cool dignity.

“Thank you, fellows! It’s fine of you to offer to sit with us on the bench. I thank you on behalf of the varsity. But — not to-day. All season we’ve worked and fought without support, and now we’re going to beat Herne without support. When we’ve done that you and Dale — all the college — can’t come too quick to suit us.”

“I think I’d say the same thing, if I were in your place,” said Dale. “And I’ll tell you right here that when I was captain I never plugged any harder to win than I’ll plug to-day.”

Then these two famous captains of championship teams turned to Homans’ players and eyed them keenly, their faces working, hands clenched, their powerful frames vibrating with the feeling of the moment. That moment was silent, eloquent. It linked Homans’ team to the great athletic fame of the university. It radiated the spirit to conquer, the glory of past victories, the strength of honorable defeats. Then Dale and Stevens went out, leaving behind them a charged atmosphere.

“I ain’t got a word to say,” announced Worry to the players.

“And I’ve very little,” added Captain Homans. “We’re all on edge, and being drawn down so fine we may be over-eager. Force that back. It doesn’t matter if we make misplays. We’ve made many this season, but we’ve won all the same. At the bat, remember to keep a sharp eye on the base-runner, and when he signs he is going down, bunt or hit to advance him. That’s all.”

Ken Ward walked to the field between Worry Arthurs and Reddy Ray. Worry had no word to say, but he kept a tight grip on Ken’s arm.

“Peg, I’ve won many a sprint by not underestimating my opponent,” said Reddy, quietly. “Now you go at Herne for all you’re worth from the start.”

When they entered the field there were more spectators in the stands than had attended all the other games together. In a far corner the Herne players in dark-blue uniforms were practising batting. Upon the moment the gong called them in for their turn at field practice. The Wayne team batted and bunted a few balls, and then Homans led them to the bench.

Upon near view the grand-stand and bleachers seemed a strange sight to Ken Ward. He took one long look at the black-and-white mass of students behind the back-stop, at the straggling lines leading to the gates, at the rapidly filling rows to right and left, and then he looked no more. Already an immense crowd was present. Still it was not a typical college baseball audience. Ken realized that at once. It was quiet, orderly, expectant, and watchful. Very few girls were there. The students as a body had warmed to curiosity and interest, but not to the extent of bringing the girls. After that one glance Ken resolutely kept his eyes upon the ground. He was conscious of a feeling that he wanted to spring up and leap at something. And he brought all his will to force back his over-eagerness. He heard the crack of the ball, the shouts of the Herne players, the hum of voices in the grand-stand, and the occasional cheers of Herne rooters. There were no Wayne cheers.

“Warm up a little,” said Worry, in his ear.

Ken peeled off his sweater and walked out with Dean. A long murmur ran throughout the stands. Ken heard many things said of him, curiously, wonderingly, doubtfully, and he tried not to hear more. Then he commenced to pitch to Dean. Worry stood near him and kept whispering to hold in his speed and just to use his arm easily. It was difficult, for Ken felt that his arm wanted to be cracked like a buggy-whip.

“That’ll do,” whispered Worry. “We’re only takin’ five minutes’ practice... Say, but there’s a crowd! Are you all right, Peg — cool-like and determined?... Good! Say — but Peg, you’d better look these fellows over.”

“I remember them all,” replied Ken. “That’s Gallagher on the end of the bench; Burr is third from him; Stern’s fussing over the bats, and there’s Hill, the light-headed fellow, looking this way. There’s—”

“That’ll do,” said Worry. “There goes the gong. It’s all off now. Homans has chosen to take the field. I guess mebbe you won’t show ’em how to pitch a new white ball! Get at ’em now!” Then he called Ken back as if impelled, and whispered to him in a husky voice: “It’s been tough for you and for me. Listen! Here’s where it begins to be sweet.”

Ken trotted out to the box, to the encouraging voices of the infield, and he even caught Reddy Ray’s low, thrilling call from the far outfield.

“Play!” With the ringing order, which quieted the audience, the umpire tossed a white ball to Ken.

For a single instant Ken trembled ever so slightly in all his limbs, and the stands seemed a revolving black-and-white band. Then the emotion was as if it had never been. He stepped upon the slab, keen-sighted, cool, and with his pitching game outlined in his mind.

Burr, the curly-haired leader of Herne’s batting list, took his position to the left of the plate. Ken threw him an underhand curve, sweeping high and over the inside corner. Burr hit a lofty fly to Homans. Hill, the bunter, was next. For him Ken shot one straight over the plate. Hill let it go by, and it was a strike. Ken put another in the same place, and Hill, attempting to bunt, fouled a little fly, which Dean caught. Gallagher strode third to bat. He used a heavy club, stood right-handed over the plate, and looked aggressive. Ken gave the captain a long study and then swung slowly, sending up a ball that floated like a feather. Gallagher missed it. On the second pitch he swung heavily at a slow curve far off the outside. For a third Ken tried the speedy drop, and the captain, letting it go, was out on strikes.

The sides changed. Worry threw a sweater around Ken.

“The ice’s broke, Peg, and you’ve got your control. That settles it.”

Homans went up, to a wavering ripple of applause. He drew two balls and then a strike from Murphy, and hit the next hard into short field. Frick fumbled the ball, recovered it, and threw beautifully, but too late to catch Homans. Raymond sacrificed, sending his captain to second. Murphy could not locate the plate for Reddy Ray and let him get to first on four balls. Weir came next. Homans signed he was going to run on the first pitch. Weir, hitting with the runner, sent a double into right field, and Homans and Ray scored. The bleachers cheered. Homans ran down to third base to the coaching lines, and Ray went to first base. Both began to coach the runner. Dean hit into short field, and was thrown out, while Weir reached third on the play.

“Two out, now! Hit!” yelled Homans to Blake.

Blake hit safely over second, scoring Weir. Then Trace flied out to left field.

“Three runs!” called Homans. “Boys, that’s a start! Three more runs and this game’s ours! Now, Peg, now!”

Ken did not need that trenchant thrilling now. The look in Worry’s eyes had been enough. He threw speed to Halloway, and on the third ball retired him, Raymond to McCord. Stern came second to bat. In Ken’s mind this player was recorded with a weakness on low curves. And Ken found it with two balls pitched. Stern popped up to Blake. Frick, a new player to Ken, let a strike go by, and missed a drop and a fast ball.

“They can’t touch you, Ken,” called Raymond, as he tossed aside his glove.

Faint cheers rose from scattered parts of the grand-stand, and here and there shouts and yells. The audience appeared to stir, to become animated, and the Herne players settled down to more sober action on the field.

McCord made a bid for a hit, but failed because of fast work by Stern. Ken went up, eager to get to first in any way. He let Murphy pitch, and at last, after fouling several good ones, he earned his base on balls. Once there, he gave Homans the sign that he would run on the first pitch, and he got a fair start. He heard the crack of the ball and saw it glinting between short and third. Running hard, he beat the throw-in to third. With two runners on bases, Raymond hit to deep short. Ken went out trying to reach home. Again Reddy Ray came up and got a base on balls, filling the bases. The crowd began to show excitement, and seemed to be stifling cheers in suspense. Weir hurried to bat, his shock of hair waving at every step. He swung hard on the first ball, and, missing it, whirled down, bothering the catcher. Homans raced home on a half-passed ball. Then Weir went out on a fly to centre.

“Peg, keep at them!” called Reddy Ray. “We’ve got Murphy’s measure.”

It cost Ken an effort to deliberate in the box, to think before he pitched. He had to fight his eagerness. But he wasted few balls, and struck Mercer out. Van Sant hit to Weir, who threw wild to first, allowing the runner to reach third. Murphy, batting next, hit one which Ken put straight over the plate, and it went safe through second, scoring Van Sant. The Herne rooters broke out in loud acclaim. Burr came up, choking his bat up short. Again Ken gave him the high, wide curve. He let it pass and the umpire called it a strike. Ken threw another, a little outside this time. Evidently Burr was trying out Ken’s control.

“He can’t put them over!” yelled Gallagher, from the coaching line. “Here’s where he goes up! Wait him out, Burr. Good eye, old man! Here’s where we explode the freshman!”

Ken glanced at Gallagher and laughed. Then he sped up another high curve, which the umpire called a strike.

“That’s the place, Peg! Put another there!” floated from Reddy in the outfield.

Burr swung viciously, hitting a bounder toward second base. Raymond darted over, went down with his bird-like quickness, came up with the ball, and then he touched the bag and threw to first. It was a play in which he excelled. The umpire called both runners out, retiring the side. A short, sharp yell, like a bark, burst from the bleachers.

Worry was smilingly thoughtful as his boys trotted in to bat.

“Say, if you get a couple of runs this time we’ll be It. Look at the students. Ready to fall out of the stands... Peg, I’m glad Herne got a run. Now we won’t think of a shut-out. That’ll steady us up. And, boys, break loose now, for the game’s ours.”

Dean started off with a clean single. On the first pitch he broke for second, and had to slide to make it, as Blake missed the strike. Then Blake went out to first. Trace walked. McCord poked a little fly over the infield, scoring Dean. Ken fouled out. The unerring Homans again hit safely, sending Trace in. With two out and McCord on third and Homans on second, Raymond laid down a beautiful bunt, tallying McCord. And when the Herne catcher tried to head Homans from making third Raymond kept on toward second. It was a daring dash, and he dove to the bag with a long slide, but the decision was against him.

The coach called Homans, Ward, and Ray to him and gathered them close together.

“Boys, listen!” he said, low and tense. “MacNeff and Prince, of Place, are in the grand-stand just behind the plate. They’re up there to get a line on Peg. We’ll fool ‘em, and make ’em sick in the bargain. Peg, you let out this innin’ and show up the first three hitters. Then I’ll take you out and let Schoonover finish the game. See?”

“Take me — out?” echoed Ken.

“That’s it, if you make these next three hitters look like monkeys. Don’t you see? We’ve got the Herne game cinched. We don’t need to use our star twirler. See? That’ll be a bone for Place to chew on. How about it, Cap? What do you think, Reddy?”

“Oh, Worry, if we dared to do it!” Homans exclaimed, under his breath. “Herne would never get over it. And it would scare Place to death... But, Worry, Reddy, dare we risk it?”

“It’s playin’ into our very hands,” replied Worry. His hazel eyes were afire with inspiration.

Reddy Ray’s lean jaw bulged.

“Homans, it’s the trick, and we can turn it.”

“What’s the score — 7 to 1?” muttered Homans. It was a tight place for him, and he seemed tortured between ambition and doubt.

“That fellow Murphy hasn’t got one in my groove yet,” said Reddy. “I’m due to lace one. We’re good for more runs.”

That decided Homans. He patted Ken on the shoulder and led him out to the box, but he never spoke a word.

Ken felt like a wild colt just let loose. He faced Hill with a smile, and then, taking his long, overhand swing, he delivered the jump ball. Hill made no move. The umpire called strike. The crowd roared. Ken duplicated the feat. Then Hill missed the third strike. Gallagher walked up doggedly, and Ken smiled at him, too. Then using three wicked, darting drops, Ken struck Gallagher out.

“That’s twice!” called Reddy’s penetrating voice from the outfield. “Give him a paddle!”

Halloway drew two balls and then three strikes.

Ken ran for the bench amid an uproar most strange and startling to his untried ear. The long, tardy, and stubborn students had broken their silence.

Dale leaped out of the grand-stand to lead the cheering. The giant Stevens came piling out of the bleachers to perform a like office. And then they were followed by Bryan, captain of the crew, and Hilbrandt, captain of the track team. Four captains of Wayne teams inspiriting and directing the cheering! Ken’s bewildered ears drank in one long, thundering “Ward! Ward! Ward!” and then his hearing seemed drowned. The whole mass of students and spectators rose as one, and the deafening stamp of feet only equalled the roar of voices. But now the volume of sound was regular and rhythmic. It was like the approach of a terrible army. For minutes, while the umpire held play suspended, the Wayne supporters in hoarse and stamping tumult came into their own again. It was a wild burst of applause, and as it had been long delayed, so now it was prolonged fiercely to the limit of endurance.

When those waves of sound had rolled away Ken Ward felt a difference in Grant Field, in the varsity, in himself. A different color shone from the sky.

Ken saw Reddy Ray go to bat and drive the ball against the right-field fence. Then as the sprinter got into his wonderful stride once more the whole audience rose in yelling, crashing clamor. And when on Weir’s fly to the outfield Reddy raced in to the plate, making the throw-in look feeble, again the din was terrific.

As one in a glorious dream, Ken Ward crouched upon the bench and watched the remainder of that game. He grasped it all as if baseball was all that made life worth living, and as if every moment was his last. He never thought of himself. He was only a part of the team, and that team, every moment, grew sharper, faster, fiercer. He revelled in the game. Schoonover was hit hard, but fast play by Raymond and Weir kept Herne’s score down. The little second-baseman was here, there, everywhere, like a glint of light. Herne made runs, but Wayne also kept adding runs. Blake caught a foul fly off the bleachers; Trace made a beautiful catch; McCord was like a tower at first base, and little Dean went through the last stages of development that made him a star.

Once in the eighth inning Ken became aware that Worry was punching him in the back and muttering:

“Look out, Peg! Listen! Murphy’ll get one in Reddy’s groove this time... Oh-h!”

The crack of the ball, as well as Worry’s yell, told Ken what had happened. Besides, he could see, and as the ball lined away for the fence, and the sprinter leaped into action, Ken jumped up and screamed:

“Oh, Reddy, it’s over — over! No! Run! Run! Oh-h-h!”

In the shrill, piercing strife of sound Ken’s scream seemed only a breath at his ears. He held to it, almost splitting his throat, while the sprinter twinkled round third base and came home like a thunderbolt.

Another inning passed, a confusion of hits, throws, runs, and plays to Ken, and then Worry was pounding him again.

“Dig for the trainin’-house!” yelled Worry, mouth on his ear. “The students are crazy! They’ll eat us alive! They’re tearin’ the bleachers down! Run for it, Peg!”

CHAPTER XV

A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE

KEN FOUND HIMSELF running across Grant Field, pursued by a happy, roaring mob of students. They might have been Indians, judging from the way Ken and his fellow-players fled before them. The trained athletes distanced their well-meaning but violent pursuers and gained the gate, but it was a close shave. The boys bounded up the street into the training-house and locked the door till the puffing Arthurs arrived. They let him in and locked the door again.

In another moment the street resounded with the rush of many feet and the yells of frantic students. Murray, the trainer, forced a way through the crowd and up the stoop. He closed and barred the outside door, and then pounded upon the inside door for admittance. Worry let him in.

“They’d make a bowl-fight or a football rush look tame,” panted Murray. “Hey! Scotty — lock up tight down in the basement. For Heaven’s sake don’t let that push get in on us! Lock the windows in the front.”

“Who’s that poundin’ on the door?” yelled Worry. He had to yell, for the swelling racket outside made ordinary conversation impossible.

“Don’t open it!” shouted Murray. “What do we care for team-captains, college professors, athletic directors, or students? They’re all out there, and they’re crazy, I tell you. I never saw the like. It’d be more than I want to get in that jam. And it’d never do for the varsity. Somebody would get crippled sure. I’m training this baseball team.”

Murray, in his zealous care of his athletes, was somewhat overshooting the mark, for not one of the boys had the slightest desire to be trusted to the mob outside. In fact, Ken looked dazed, and Raymond scared to the point of trembling; Trace was pale; and all the others, except Homans and Reddy Ray, showed perturbation. Nor were the captain and sprinter deaf to the purport of that hour; only in their faces shone a kindling glow and flush.

By-and-by the boys slipped to their rooms, removed their uniforms, dressed and crept down-stairs like burglars and went in to dinner. Outside the uproar, instead of abating, gathered strength as time went by. At the dinner-table the boys had to yell in each other’s ears. They had to force what they ate. No one was hungry. When Worry rose from the table they all flocked after him.

It was growing dark outside, and a red glow, brightening upon the windows, showed the students had lighted bonfires.

“They’re goin’ to make a night of it,” yelled Worry.

“How’ll my boys be able to sleep?” shouted Murray. Both coach and trainer were as excited as any of the boys.

“The street’s packed solid. Listen!”

The tramp, tramp, tramp of thousands of feet keeping time was like the heavy tread of a marching multitude. Then the tramp died away in a piercing cheer, “Wayne!” nine times, clear and sustained — a long, beautiful college cheer. In the breathing spell that followed, the steady tramp of feet went on. One by one, at intervals, the university yells were given, the broken rattling rally, the floating melodious crew cheer, and the hoarse, smashing boom of football. Then again the inspiriting “Wayne!” nine times. After that came shrill calls for the varsity, for Homans, Reddy Ray, Raymond, and Peggie Ward.

“Come up-stairs to the windows, boys!” shouted Worry. “We’ve got to show ourselves.”

Worry threw up the windows in Weir’s room, and the boys gingerly poked their heads out. A roar greeted their appearance. The heads all popped in as if they had been struck.

“Homans, you’ll have to make a speech,” cried the coach.

“I will not!”

“You’ve got to say somethin’. We can’t have this crazy gang out here all night.”

Then Worry and Murray coaxed and led Homans to the window. The captain leaned out and said something that was unintelligible in the hubbub without. The crowd cheered him and called for Reddy, Ward, and Raymond. Worry grasped the second-baseman and shoved him half over the sill. Raymond would have fallen out but for the coach’s strong hold.

“Come on, Peg!” yelled Worry.

“Not on your life!” cried Ken, in affright. He ran away from the coach, and dived under the bed. But Reddy Ray dragged him out and to the window, and held him up in the bright bonfire glare. Then he lifted a hand to silence the roaring crowd.

“Fellows, here he is — Worry’s demon, Wayne’s pitcher!” called Reddy, in ringing, far-reaching voice. “Listen! Peggie didn’t lose his nerve when he faced Herne to-day, but he’s lost it now. He’s lost his voice, too. But he says for you to go away and save your cheers for this day two weeks, when we meet Place. Then, he says, you’ll have something to cheer for!”

The crafty sprinter knew how to appeal to the students. All of voice and strength and enthusiasm left in them went up in a mighty bawl that rattled the windows and shook the house. They finished with nine “Waynes!” and a long, rousing “Peggie Ward!” and then they went away.

“By George! look here, Peg,” said Reddy, earnestly, “they gave you Wayne’s Nine! Wayne’s Nine! Do you hear? I never knew a freshman varsity man to get that cheer.”

“You’ve got to beat Place now, after tellin’ ’em you’d do it,” added Worry.

“But, Worry, I didn’t say a word — it was Reddy,” replied Ken, in distress.

“Same thing,” rejoined the coach. “Now, boys, let’s quiet down and talk over the game. I won’t waste any time jollyin’ you. I couldn’t praise you enough if I spent the rest of the season tryin’ to. One and all, by yourselves and in a bunch, you played Herne off their feet. I’ll bet MacNeff and Prince are dizzy figurin’ what’ll happen Saturday week. As to the score, why, scores don’t mean much to us—”

“What was the score, anyway?” asked Ken.

The boys greeted this with shouts of doubtful laughter, and Worry glanced with disapproval at his star.

“Peg, you keep me guessin’ a lot. But not to know how much we beat Herne would be more ‘n I could stand. On the level, now, don’t you know the score?”

“Fair and square, I don’t, Worry. You never would let me think of how many runs we had or needed. I can count seven — yes, and one more, that was Reddy’s home-run.”

“Peg, you must have been up in the air a little; 14 to 4, that’s it. And we didn’t take our bat in the last of the ninth.”

Then followed Worry’s critical account of the game, and a discussion in which the boys went over certain plays. During the evening many visitors called, but did not gain admission. The next morning, however, Worry himself brought in the newspapers, which heretofore he had forbidden the players to read, and he told them they were now free to have any callers or to go where they liked. There was a merry scramble for the papers, and presently the reading-room was as quiet as a church.

The account that held Ken Ward in rapt perusal was the Morning Times-Star’s. At first the print blurred in Ken’s sight. Then he read it over again. He liked the glowing praise given the team, and was shamefully conscious of the delight in his name in large letters. A third time he read it, guiltily this time, for he did not dream that his comrades were engrossed in like indulgence.

WAYNE OUTCLASSES HERNE

ARTHURS DEVELOPS ANOTHER GREAT TEAM. PEGGIE WARD AND REDDY RAY STARS.

Wayne defeated Herne yesterday 14 to 4, and thereby leaped into the limelight. It was a surprise to every one, Herne most of all. Owing to the stringent eligibility rules now in force at Wayne, and the barring of the old varsity, nothing was expected of this season’s team. Arthurs, the famous coach, has built a wonderful nine out of green material, and again establishes the advisability of professional coaches for the big universities.

With one or two exceptions Wayne’s varsity is made up of players developed this year. Homans, the captain, was well known about town as an amateur player of ability. But Arthurs has made him into a great field captain and a base-getter of remarkable skill. An unofficial computing gives him the batting average of .536. No captain or any other player of any big college team in the East ever approached such percentage as that. It is so high that it must be a mistake.

Reddy Ray, the intercollegiate champion in the sprints, is the other seasoned player of the varsity, and it is safe to say that he is the star of all the college teams. A wonderful fielder, a sure and heavy hitter, and like a flash on the bases, he alone makes Homans’ team formidable.

Then there is Peg Ward, Worry Arthurs’ demon pitcher, of freshman bowl-fight fame. This lad has been arriving since spring, and now he has arrived. He is powerful, and has a great arm. He seems to pitch without effort, has twice the speed of Dale, and is as cool in the box as a veteran. But it is his marvellous control of the ball that puts him in a class by himself. In the fourth inning of yesterday’s game he extended himself, probably on orders from Coach Arthurs, and struck out Herne’s three best hitters on eleven pitched balls. Then he was taken out and Schoonover put in. This white-headed lad is no slouch of a pitcher, by-the-way. But it must have been a bitter pill for Herne to swallow. The proud Herne varsity have been used to knocking pitchers out of the box, instead of seeing them removed because they were too good. Also, MacNeff and Prince, of Place, who saw the game, must have had food for reflection. They did not get much of a line on young Ward, and what they saw will not give them pleasant dreams. We pick Ward to beat the heavy-hitting Place team.

Other youngsters of Arthurs’ nine show up well, particularly Raymond and Weir, who have springs in their feet and arms like whips. Altogether Arthurs’ varsity is a strangely assorted, a wonderfully chosen group of players. We might liken them to the mechanism of a fine watch, with Ward as the mainspring, and the others with big or little parts to perform, but each dependent upon the other. Wayne’s greatest baseball team!

Ken read it all thirstily, wonderingly, and recorded it deep in the deepest well of his memory. It seemed a hundred times as sweet for all the misery and longing and fear and toil which it had cost to gain.

And each succeeding day grew fuller and richer with its meed of reward. All the boys of the varsity were sought by the students, Ken most of all. Everywhere he went he was greeted with a regard that made him still more bashful and ashamed. If he stepped into Carlton Club, it was to be surrounded by a frankly admiring circle of students. He could not get a moment alone in the library. Professors had a smile for him and often stopped to chat. The proudest moment of his college year was when President Halstead met him in the promenade, and before hundreds of students turned to walk a little way with him. There seemed not to be a single student of the university or any one connected with it, who did not recognize him. Bryan took him to watch the crew practise; Stevens played billiards with him at the club; Dale openly sought his society. Then the fraternities began to vie with one another for Ken. In all his life he had not imagined a fellow could be treated so well. It was an open secret that Ken Ward was extremely desired in the best fraternities. He could not have counted his friends. Through it all, by thinking of Worry and the big games coming, he managed to stay on his feet.

One morning, when he was at the height of this enjoyable popularity, he read a baseball note that set him to thinking hard. The newspaper, commenting on the splendid results following Wayne’s new athletic rules, interpreted one rule in a way astounding to Ken. It was something to the effect that all players who had been on a team which paid any player or any expenses of any player were therefore ineligible. Interpretation of the rules had never been of any serious moment to Ken. He had never played on any but boy teams. But suddenly he remembered that during a visit to the mountains with his mother he had gone to a place called Eagle’s Nest, a summer hotel colony. It boasted of a good ball team and had a rival in the Glenwoods, a team from an adjoining resort. Ken had been in the habit of chasing flies for the players in practice. One day Eagle’s Nest journeyed over to Glenwood to play, and being short one player they took Ken to fill in. He had scarcely started in the game when the regular player appeared, thus relieving him. The incident had completely slipped Ken’s mind until recalled by the newspaper note.

Whereupon Ken began to ponder. He scouted the idea of that innocent little thing endangering his eligibility at Wayne. But the rule, thus made clear, stood out in startlingly black-and-white relief. Eagle’s Nest supported a team by subscription among the hotel guests. Ken had ridden ten miles in a ‘bus with the team, and had worn one of the uniforms for some few minutes. Therefore, upon a technicality, perhaps, he had been on a summer nine, and had no right to play for Wayne.

Ken went to Homans and told him the circumstance. The captain looked exceedingly grave, then getting more particulars he relaxed.

“You’re safe, Peg. You’re perfectly innocent. But don’t mention it to any one else, especially Worry. He’d have a fit. What a scare you’d throw into the varsity camp! Forget the few minutes you wore that Eagle’s Nest suit.”

For the time being this reassured Ken, but after a while his anxiety returned. Homans had said not to mention it, and that bothered Ken. He lay awake half of one night thinking about the thing. It angered him and pricked his conscience and roused him. He wanted to feel absolutely sure of his position, for his own sake first of all. So next morning he cornered Worry and blurted out the secret.

“Peg, what’re you givin’ me!” he ejaculated.

Ken repeated his story, somewhat more clearly and at greater length. Worry turned as white as a ghost.

“Good gracious, Peg, you haven’t told anybody?”

“No one but Homans.”

Worry gave a long sigh of relief, and his face regained some of its usual florid color.

“Well, that’s all right then... Say, didn’t I tell you once that I had a weak heart? Peg, of course you’re an amateur, or there never was one. But ’em fat-head directors! Why, I wouldn’t have ’em find that out for a million dollars. They’re idiots enough to make a shinin’ example of you right before the Place games. Keep it under your hat, see!”

This last was in the nature of a command, and Ken had always religiously obeyed Worry. He went to his room feeling that the matter had been decided for him. Relief, however, did not long abide with him. He began to be torn between loyalty to Worry and duty to himself. He felt guiltless, but he was not sure of it, and until he was sure he could not be free in mind. Suddenly he thought of being actually barred from the varsity, and was miserable. That he could not bear. Strong temptation now assailed Ken and found him weak. A hundred times he reconciled himself to Worry’s command, to Homan’s point of view, yet every time something rose within him and rebelled. But despite the rebellion Ken almost gave in. He fought off thought of his new sweet popularity, of the glory of being Wayne’s athletic star. He fought to look the thing fairly in the face. To him it loomed up a hundredfold larger than an incident of his baseball career. And so he got strength to do the thing that would ease the voice of conscience. He went straight to the coach.

“Worry, I’ve got to go to the directors and tell them. I — I’m sorry, but I’ve got to do it.”

He expected a storm of rage from Worry, but never had the coach been so suave, so kindly, so magnetic. He called Homans and Raymond and Weir and others who were in the house at the moment and stated Ken’s case. His speech flowed smooth and rapid. The matter under his deft argument lost serious proportions. But it seemed to Ken that Worry did not tell the boys the whole truth, or they would not have laughed at the thing and made him out over-sensitive. And Ken was now growing too discouraged and bewildered to tell them. Moreover, he was getting stubborn. The thing was far from a joke. The cunning of the coach proved that. Worry wound the boys round his little finger.

At this juncture Reddy Ray entered the training-house.

More than once Ken had gone to the great sprinter with confidences and troubles, and now he began impulsively, hurriedly, incoherently, to tell the story.

“And Reddy,” concluded Ken, “I’ve got to tell the directors. It’s something — hard for me to explain. I couldn’t pitch another game with this hanging over me. I must — tell them — and take my medicine.”

“Sure. It’s a matter of principle,” replied Reddy, in his soft, slow voice. His keen eyes left Ken’s pale face and met the coach’s. “Worry, I’ll take Peg up to see the athletic faculty. I know Andrews, the president, and he’s the one to hear Peg’s story.”

Worry groaned and sank into a chair crushed and beaten. Then he swore, something unusual in him. Then he began to rave at the fat-headed directors. Then he yelled that he would never coach another ball team so long as he lived.

Ken followed Reddy out of the training-house and along the street. The fact that the sprinter did not say a word showed Ken he was understood, and he felt immeasurably grateful. They crossed the campus and entered College Hall, to climb the winding stairway. To Ken that was a long, hateful climb. Andrews, and another of the directors whom Ken knew by sight, were in the office. They greeted the visitors with cordial warmth.

“Gentlemen,” began Reddy, “Ward thinks he has violated one of the eligibility rules.”

There was no beating about the bush with Reddy Ray, no shading of fact, no distortion of the truth. Coolly he stated the case. But, strangely to Ken, the very truth, told by Reddy in this way, somehow lost its terrors. Ken’s shoulders seemed unburdened of a terrible weight.

Andrews and his colleague laughed heartily.

“You see — I — I forgot all about it,” said Ken.

“Yes, and since he remembered he’s been worrying himself sick,” resumed Reddy. “Couldn’t rest till he’d come over here.”

“Ward, it’s much to your credit that you should confide something there was never any chance of becoming known,” said the president of the athletic faculty. “We appreciate it. You may relieve your mind of misgivings as to your eligibility. Even if we tried I doubt if we could twist a rule to affect your standing. And you may rest assured we wouldn’t try in the case of so fine a young fellow and so splendid a pitcher for Wayne.”

Then Andrews courteously shook hands with Ken and Reddy and bowed them out. Ken danced half-way down the stairway and slid the rest on the bannister.

“Reddy, wasn’t he just fine?” cried Ken, all palpitating with joy.

“Well, Peg, Andrews is a nice old thing if you approach him right,” replied Reddy, dryly. “You wouldn’t believe me, would you, if I said I had my heart in my throat when we went in?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” replied Ken, bluntly.

“I thought not,” said Reddy. Then the gravity that had suddenly perplexed Ken cleared from the sprinter’s face. “Peg, let’s have some fun with Worry and the boys.”

“I’m in for anything now.”

“We’ll go back to the training-house with long faces. When we get in you run up-stairs as if you couldn’t face any one, but be sure to sneak back to the head of the stairs to see and hear the fun. I’ll fix Worry all right. Now, don’t flunk. It’s a chance.”

Ken could not manage to keep a straight face as they went in, so he hid it and rushed up-stairs. He bumped into Raymond, knocking him flat.

“Running to a fire again?” growled Raymond. “Got a fire-medal, haven’t you? Always falling over people.”

Ken tried to simulate ungovernable rage and impotent distress at once. He waved one fist and tore his hair with the other hand.

“Get out of my way!” roared Ken. “What’ll you say when I tell you I’m barred from the varsity!”

“Oh! Ken! No, no — don’t say it,” faltered Raymond, all sympathy in an instant.

Ken ran into his room, closed the door and then peeped out. He saw Raymond slowly sag down-stairs as if his heart was broken. Then Ken slipped out and crawled down the hall till he could see into the reading-room. All the boys were there, with anxious faces, crowded round the coach. Worry was livid. Reddy Ray seemed the only calm person in the room and he had tragedy written all over him.

“Out with it!” shouted Worry. “Don’t stand there like a mournful preacher. What did ’em fat-heads say?”

Reddy threw up his hands with a significant gesture.

“I knew it!” howled Worry, jumping up and down. “I knew it! Why did you take the kid over there? Why didn’t you let me and Homans handle this thing? You red-headed, iron-jawed, cold-blooded wind-chaser! You’ve done it now, haven’t you? I — Oh—”

Worry began to flounder helplessly.

“They said a few more things,” went on Reddy. “Peg is barred, Raymond is barred, I am barred. I told them about my baseball career out West. The directors said some pretty plain things about you, Worry, I’m sorry to tell. You’re a rotten coach. In fact, you ought to be a coach at an undertaker’s. Homans gets the credit for the work of the team. They claim you are too hard on the boys, too exacting, too brutal, in fact. Andrews recited a record of your taking sandwiches from us and aiding and abetting Murray in our slow starvation. The directors will favor your dismissal and urge the appointment of Professor Rhodes, who as coach will at least feed us properly.”

Reddy stopped to catch his breath and gain time for more invention. Of all the unhappy mortals on earth Worry Arthurs looked the unhappiest. He believed every word as if it had been gospel. And that about Professor Rhodes was the last straw.

Ken could stand the deception no longer. He marvelled at Reddy’s consummate lying and how he could ever stand that look on Worry’s face. Bounding down-stairs four steps at a jump, Ken burst like a bomb upon the sad-faced group.

“Oh, Worry, it’s all a joke!”

CHAPTER XVI

THE FIRST PLACE GAME

RAIN PREVENTED THE second Herne game, which was to have been played on the Herne grounds. It rained steadily all day Friday and Saturday, to the disappointment of Wayne’s varsity. The coach, however, admitted that he was satisfied to see the second contest with Herne go by the board.

“I don’t like big games away from home,” said Worry. “It’s hard on new teams. Besides, we beat Herne to death over here. Mebbe we couldn’t do it over there, though I ain’t doubtin’. But it’s Place we’re after, and if we’d had that game at Herne we couldn’t have kept Place from gettin’ a line on us. So I’m glad it rained.”

The two Place games fell during a busy week at Wayne. Wednesday was the beginning of the commencement exercises and only a comparatively few students could make the trip to Place. But the night before the team left, the students, four thousand strong, went to the training-house and filled a half-hour with college songs and cheers.

Next morning Dale and Stevens, heading a small band of Wayne athletes and graduates, met the team at the railroad station and boarded the train with them. Worry and Homans welcomed them, and soon every Wayne player had two or more for company. Either by accident or design, Ken could not tell which, Dale and Stevens singled him out for their especial charge. The football captain filled one seat with his huge bulk and faced Ken, and Dale sat with a hand on Ken’s shoulder.

“Peg, we’re backing you for all we’re worth,” said Stevens. “But this is your first big game away from home. It’s really the toughest game of the season. Place is a hard nut to crack any time. And her players on their own backyard are scrappers who can take a lot of beating and still win out. Then there’s another thing that’s no small factor in their strength: They are idolized by the students, and rooting at Place is a science. They have a yell that beats anything you ever heard. It’ll paralyze a fellow at a critical stage. But that yell is peculiar in that it rises out of circumstances leading to almost certain victory. That is, Place has to make a strong bid for a close, hard game to work up that yell. So if it comes to-day you be ready for it. Have your ears stuffed with cotton, and don’t let that yell blow you up in the air.”

Dale was even more earnest than Stevens.

“Peg, Place beat me over here last year, beat me 6-3. They hit me harder than I ever was hit before, I guess. You went down to Washington, Worry said, to look them over. Tell me what you think — how you sized them up.”

Dale listened attentively while Ken recited his impressions.

“You’ve got Prince and MacNeff figured exactly right,” replied Dale. “Prince is the football captain, by-the-way. Be careful how you run into second base. If you ever slide into him head first — good-bye! He’s a great player, and he can hit any kind of a ball. MacNeff now, just as you said, is weak on a high ball close in, and he kills a low ball. Kills is the word! He hits them a mile. But, Peg, I think you’re a little off on Keene, Starke, and Martin, the other Place cracks. They’re veterans, hard to pitch to; they make you cut the plate; they are as apt to bunt as hit, and they are fast. They keep a fellow guessing. I think Starke pulls a little on a curve, but the others have no weakness I ever discovered. But, Peg, I expect you to do more with them than I did. My control was never any too good, and you can throw almost as straight as a fellow could shoot a rifle. Then your high fast ball, that one you get with the long swing, it would beat any team. Only I’m wondering, I’m asking — can you use it right along, in the face of such coaching and yelling and hitting as you’ll run against to-day? I’m asking deliberately, because I want to give you confidence.”

“Why, yes, Dale, I think I can. I’m pretty sure of it. That ball comes easily, only a little longer swing and more snap, and honestly, Dale, I hardly ever think about the plate. I know where it is, and I could shut my eyes and throw strikes.”

“Peg, you’re a wonder,” replied Dale, warmly. “If you can do that — and hang me if I doubt it — you will make Place look like a lot of dubs. We’re sure to make a few runs. Homans and Ray will hit Salisbury hard. There’s no fence on Place Field, and every ball Reddy hits past a fielder will be a home-run. You can gamble on that. So set a fast clip when you start in, and hang.”

Some time later, when Ken had changed seats and was talking to Raymond, he heard Worry say to somebody:

“Well, if Peg don’t explode to-day he never will. I almost wish he would. He’d be better for it, afterward.”

This surprised Ken, annoyed him, and straightway he became thoughtful. Why this persistent harping on the chance of his getting excited from one cause or another, losing his control and thereby the game? Ken had not felt in the least nervous about the game. He would get so, presently, if his advisers did not stop hinting. Then Worry’s wish that he might “explode” was puzzling. A little shade of gloom crept over the bright horizon of Ken’s hopes. Almost unconsciously vague doubts of himself fastened upon him. For the first time he found himself looking forward to a baseball game with less eagerness than uncertainty. Stubbornly he fought off the mood.

Place was situated in an old college town famed for its ancient trees and quaint churches and inns. The Wayne varsity, arriving late, put on their uniforms at the St. George, a tavern that seemed never to have been in any way acquainted with a college baseball team. It was very quiet and apparently deserted. For that matter the town itself appeared deserted. The boys dressed hurriedly, in silence, with frowning brows and compressed lips. Worry Arthurs remained down-stairs while they dressed. Homans looked the team over and then said:

“Boys, come on! To-day’s our hardest game.”

It was only a short walk along the shady street to the outskirts of the town and the athletic field. The huge stands blocked the view from the back and side. Homans led the team under the bleachers, through a narrow walled-in aisle, to the side entrance, and there gave the word for the varsity to run out upon the field. A hearty roar of applause greeted their appearance.

Ken saw a beautiful green field, level as a floor, with a great half-circle of stands and bleachers at one end. One glance was sufficient to make Ken’s breathing an effort. He saw a glittering mass, a broad, moving band of color. Everywhere waved Place flags, bright gold and blue. White faces gleamed like daisies on a golden slope. In the bleachers close to the first base massed a shirt-sleeved crowd of students, row on row of them, thousands in number. Ken experienced a little chill as he attached the famous Place yell to that significant placing of rooters. A soft breeze blew across the field, and it carried low laughter and voices of girls, a merry hum, and subdued murmur, and an occasional clear shout. The whole field seemed keenly alive.

From the bench Ken turned curious, eager eyes upon the practising Place men. Never had he regarded players with as sharp an interest, curiosity being mingled with admiration, and confidence with doubt. MacNeff, the captain, at first base, veteran of three years, was a tall, powerful fellow, bold and decisive in action. Prince, Place’s star on both gridiron and diamond, played at second base. He was very short, broad and heavy, and looked as if he would have made three of little Raymond. Martin, at short-stop, was of slim, muscular build. Keene and Starke, in centre and left, were big men. Salisbury looked all of six feet, and every inch a pitcher. He also played end on the football varsity. Ken had to indulge in a laugh at the contrast in height and weight of Wayne when compared to Place. The laugh was good for him, because it seemed to loosen something hard and tight within his breast. Besides, Worry saw him laugh and looked pleased, and that pleased Ken.

“Husky lot of stiffs, eh, Peg?” said Worry, reading Ken’s thought. “But, say! this ain’t no football game. We’ll make these heavyweights look like ice-wagons. I never was much on beefy ball-players. Aha! there goes the gong. Place’s takin’ the field. That suits me... Peg, listen! The game’s on. I’ve only one word to say to you. Try to keep solid on your feet!”

A short cheer, electrifying in its force, pealed out like a blast.

Then Homans stepped to the plate amid generous hand-clapping. The Place adherents had their favorites, but they always showed a sportsmanlike appreciation of opponents. Salisbury wound up, took an enormous stride, and pitched the ball. He had speed. Homans seldom hit on the first pitch, and this was a strike. But he rapped the next like a bullet at Griffith, the third-baseman. Griffith blocked the ball, and, quickly reaching it, he used a snap underhand throw to first, catching Homans by a narrow margin. It was a fine play and the crowd let out another blast.

Raymond, coming up, began his old trick of trying to work the pitcher for a base. He was small and he crouched down until a wag in the bleachers yelled that this was no kindergarten game. Raymond was exceedingly hard to pitch to. He was always edging over the plate, trying to get hit. If anybody touched him in practice he would roar like a mad bull, but in a game he would cheerfully have stopped cannon-balls. He got in front of Salisbury’s third pitch, and, dropping his bat, started for first base. The umpire called him back. Thereupon Raymond fouled balls and went through contortions at the plate till he was out on strikes.

When Reddy Ray took his position at bat audible remarks passed like a wave through the audience. Then a long, hearty cheer greeted the great sprinter. When roar once again subsided into waiting suspense a strong-lunged Wayne rooter yelled, “Watch him run!”

The outfielders edged out deeper and deeper. MacNeff called low to Salisbury: “Don’t let this fellow walk! Keep them high and make him hit!” It was evident that Place had gotten a line on one Wayne player.

Salisbury delivered the ball and Reddy whirled with his level swing. There was a sharp crack.

Up started the crowd with sudden explosive: “Oh!”

Straight as a bee-line the ball sped to Keene in deep centre, and Reddy was out.

Wayne players went running out and Place players came trotting in. Ken, however, at Worry’s order, walked slowly and leisurely to the pitcher’s box. He received an ovation from the audience that completely surprised him and which stirred him to warm gratefulness. Then, receiving the ball, he drew one quick breath, and faced the stern issue of the day.

As always, he had his pitching plan clearly defined in mind, and no little part of it was cool deliberation, study of the batter to the point of irritating him, and then boldness of action. He had learned that he was not afraid to put the ball over the plate, and the knowledge had made him bold, and boldness increased his effectiveness.

For Keene, first batter up, Ken pitched his fast ball with all his power. Like a glancing streak it shot over. A low whistling ran through the bleachers. For the second pitch Ken took the same long motion, ending in the sudden swing, but this time he threw a slow, wide, tantalizing curve that floated and waved and circled around across the plate. It also was a strike. Keene had not offered to hit either. In those two balls, perfectly controlled, Ken deliberately showed the Place team the wide extremes of his pitching game.

“Keene, he don’t waste any. Hit!” ordered MacNeff from the bench. The next ball, a high curve, Keene hit on the fly to Homans.

The flaxen-haired Prince trotted up with little, short steps. Ken did not need the wild outburst from the crowd to appreciate this sturdy hero of many gridiron and diamond battles. He was so enormously wide, almost as wide as he was long, that he would have been funny to Ken but for the reputation that went with the great shoulders and stumpy legs.

“Ward, give me a good one,” said Prince, in a low, pleasant voice. He handled his heavy bat as if it had been light as a yardstick.

It was with more boldness than intention of gratifying Prince that Ken complied, using the same kind of ball he had tried first on Keene. Prince missed it. The next, a low curve, he cracked hard to the left of Raymond. The second-baseman darted over, fielded the ball cleanly, and threw Prince out.

Then the long, rangy MacNeff, home-run hitter for Place, faced Ken. His position at bat bothered Ken, for he stood almost on the plate. Remembering MacNeff’s weakness, Ken lost no time putting a swift in-shoot under his chin. The Place captain lunged round at it, grunting with his swing. If he had hit the ball it would have been with the handle of his bat. So Ken, knowing his control, and sure that he could pitch high shoots all day over the incomer of the plate, had no more fear of the Place slugger. And it took only three more pitches to strike him out.

From that on the game see-sawed inning by inning, Ken outpitching Salisbury, but neither team scored. At intervals cheers marked the good plays of both teams, and time and again the work of the pitchers earned applause. The crowd seemed to be holding back, and while they waited for the unexpected the short, sharp innings slipped by.

Trace for Wayne led off in the seventh with a safe fly over short. Ken, attempting to sacrifice, rolled a little bunt down the third-base line and beat the throw. With no one out and the head of the batting list up, the Wayne players awoke to possibilities. The same fiery intensity that had characterized their play all season now manifested itself. They were all on their feet, and Weir and McCord on the coaching lines were yelling hoarsely at Salisbury, tearing up the grass with their spikes, dashing to and fro, shouting advice to the runners.

“Here’s where we score! Oh! you pitcher! We’re due to trim you now! Steady, boys, play it safe, play it safe! — don’t let them double you!”

Up by the bench Homans was selecting a bat.

“Worry, I’d better dump one,” he whispered.

“That’s the trick,” replied the coach. “Advance them at any cost. There’s Reddy to follow.”

The reliable Salisbury rolled the ball in his hands, feinted to throw to the bases, and showed his steadiness under fire. He put one square over for Homans and followed it upon the run. Homans made a perfect bunt, but instead of going along either base line, it went straight into the pitcher’s hands. Salisbury whirled and threw to Prince, who covered the bag, and forced Trace. One out and still two runners on bases. The crowd uttered a yell and then quickly quieted down. Raymond bent low over the plate and watched Salisbury’s slightest move. He bunted the first ball, and it went foul over the third-base line. He twisted the second toward first base, and it, too, rolled foul. And still he bent low as if to bunt again. The infield slowly edged in closer. But Raymond straightened up on Salisbury’s next pitch and lined the ball out. Prince leaped into the air and caught the ball in his gloved hand. Homans dove back into first base; likewise Ken into second, just making it in the nick of time, for Martin was on the run to complete a possible double play. A shout at once hoarse and shrill went up, and heavy clattering thunder rolled along the floor of the bleachers. Two out and still two men on bases.

If there was a calm person on Place Field at that moment it was Reddy Ray, but his eyes glinted like sparks as he glanced at the coach.

“Worry, I’ll lace one this time,” he said, and strode for the plate.

Weir and McCord were shrieking: “Oh, look who’s up! Oh-h! Oh-h! Play it safe, boys!”

“Watch him run!”

That came from the same deep-chested individual who had before hinted of the sprinter’s fleetness, and this time the Wayne players recognized the voice of Murray. How hopeful and thrilling the suggestion was, coming from him!

The Place infield trotted to deep short-field; the outfielders moved out and swung around far to the right. Salisbury settled down in the box and appeared to put on extra effort as he delivered the ball. It was wide. The next also went off the outside of the plate. It looked as if Salisbury meant to pass Reddy to first. Then those on the bench saw a glance and a nod pass between Reddy Ray and Coach Arthurs. Again Salisbury pitched somewhat to the outside of the plate, but this time Reddy stepped forward and swung.

Crack!

Swift as an arrow and close to the ground the ball shot to left field. Starke leaped frantically to head it off, and as it took a wicked bound he dove forward head first, hands outstretched, and knocked it down. But the ball rolled a few yards, and Starke had to recover from his magnificent effort.

No one on the field saw Ward and Homans running for the plate. All eyes were on the gray, flitting shadow of a sprinter. One voice only, and that was Murray’s, boomed out in the silence. When Reddy turned second base Starke reached the ball and threw for third. It was a beautiful race between ball and runner for the bag. As Reddy stretched into the air in a long slide the ball struck and shot off the ground with a glancing bound. They reached the base at the same time. But Griffith, trying to block the runner, went spinning down, and the ball rolled toward the bleachers. Reddy was up and racing plateward so quickly that it seemed he had not been momentarily checked. The few Wayne rooters went wild.

“Three runs!” yelled the delirious coaches. Weir was so overcome that he did not know it was his turn at bat. When called in he hurried to the plate and drove a line fly to centre that Keene caught only after a hard run.

Ken Ward rose from the bench to go out on the diamond. The voices of his comrades sounded far away, as voices in a dream.

“Three to the good now, Ward! It’s yours!” said Captain Homans.

“Only nine more batters! Peg, keep your feet leaded!” called Reddy Ray.

“It’s the seventh, and Place hasn’t made a safe hit! Oh, Ken!” came from Raymond.

So all the boys vented their hope and trust in their pitcher.

There was a mist before Ken’s eyes that he could not rub away. The field blurred at times. For five innings after the first he had fought some unaccountable thing. He had kept his speed, his control, his memory of batters, and he had pitched magnificently. But something had hovered over him, and had grown more tangible as the game progressed. There was a shadow always before his sight.

In the last of the seventh, with Keene at bat, Ken faced the plate with a strange unsteadiness and a shrinking for which he hated himself. What was wrong with him? Had he been taken suddenly ill? Anger came to his rescue, and he flung himself into his pitching with fierce ardor. He quivered with a savage hope when Keene swung ineffectually at the high in-shoot. He pitched another and another, and struck out the batter. But now it meant little to see him slam down his bat in a rage. For Ken had a foreboding that he could not do it again. When Prince came up Ken found he was having difficulty in keeping the ball where he wanted it. Prince batted a hot grounder to Blake, who fumbled. MacNeff had three balls and one strike called upon him before he hit hard over second base. But Raymond pounced upon the ball like a tiger, dashed over the bag and threw to first, getting both runners.

“Wull, Ken, make them hit to me,” growled Raymond.

Ken sat down upon the bench far from the coach. He shunned Worry in that moment. The warm praise of his fellow-players was meaningless to him. Something was terribly wrong. He knew he shrank from going into the box again, yet dared not admit it to himself. He tried to think clearly, and found his mind in a whirl. When the Wayne batters went out in one, two, three order, and it was time for Ken to pitch again, he felt ice form in his veins.

“Only six more hitters!” called Reddy’s warning voice. It meant cheer and praise from Reddy, but to Ken it seemed a knell.

“Am I weakening?” muttered Ken. “Am I going up in the air? What is wrong with me?”

He was nervous now and could not stand still and he felt himself trembling. The ball was wet from the sweat in his hands; his hair hung damp over his brow and he continually blew it out of his eyes. With all his spirit he crushed back the almost overwhelming desire to hurry, hurry, hurry. Once more, in a kind of passion, he fought off the dreaded unknown weakness.

With two balls pitched to Starke he realized that he had lost control of his curve. He was not frightened for the loss of his curve, but he went stiff with fear that he might lose control of his fast ball, his best and last resort. Grimly he swung and let drive. Starke lined the ball to left. The crowd lifted itself with a solid roar, and when Homans caught the hit near the foul flag, subsided with a long groan. Ken set his teeth. He knew he was not right, but did any one else know it? He was getting magnificent support and luck was still with him.

“Over the pan, Peg! Don’t waste one!” floated from Reddy, warningly.

Then Ken felt sure that Reddy had seen or divined his panic. How soon would the Place players find it out? With his throat swelling and his mouth dry and his whole body in a ferment Ken pitched to Martin. The short-stop hit to Weir, who made a superb stop and throw. Two out!

From all about Ken on the diamond came the low encouraging calls of his comrades. Horton, a burly left-hander, stepped forward, swinging a wagon-tongue. Ken could no longer steady himself and he pitched hurriedly. One ball, two balls, one strike, three balls — how the big looming Horton stood waiting over the plate! Almost in despair Ken threw again, and Horton smote the ball with a solid rap. It was a low bounder. Raymond pitched forward full length toward first base and the ball struck in his glove with a crack, and stuck there. Raymond got up and tossed it to McCord. A thunder of applause greeted this star play of the game.

The relief was so great that Ken fairly tottered as he went in to the bench. Worry did not look at him. He scarcely heard what the boys said; he felt them patting him on the back. Then to his amaze, and slowly mounting certainty of disaster, the side was out, and it was again his turn to pitch.

“Only three more, Peg! The tail end of the batting list. Hang on!” said Reddy, as he trotted out.

Ken’s old speed and control momentarily came back to him. Yet he felt he pitched rather by instinct than intent. He struck Griffith out.

“Only two more, Peg!” called Reddy.

The great audience sat in depressed, straining silence. Long since the few Wayne rooters had lost their vocal powers.

Conroy hit a high fly to McCord.

“Oh, Peg, only one more!” came the thrilling cry. No other Wayne player could speak a word then.

With Salisbury up, Ken had a momentary flash of his old spirit and he sent a straight ball over the plate, meaning it to be hit. Salisbury did hit it, and safely, through short. The long silent, long waiting crowd opened up with yells and stamping feet.

A horrible, cold, deadly sickness seized upon Ken as he faced the fleet, sure-hitting Keene. He lost his speed, he lost his control. Before he knew what had happened he had given Keene a base on balls. Two on bases and two out!

The Place players began to leap and fling up their arms and scream. When out of their midst Prince ran to the plate a piercing, ear-splitting sound pealed up from the stands. As in a haze Ken saw the long lines of white-sleeved students become violently agitated and move up and down to strange, crashing yells.

Then Ken Ward knew. That was the famed Place cheer for victory at the last stand. It was the trumpet-call of Ken’s ordeal. His mind was as full of flashes of thought as there were streaks and blurs before his eyes. He understood Worry now. He knew now what was wrong with him, what had been coming all through that terrible game. The whole line of stands and bleachers wavered before him, and the bright colors blended in one mottled band.

Still it was in him to fight to the last gasp. The pain in his breast, and the nausea in his stomach, and the whirling fury in his mind did not make him give up, though they robbed him of strength. The balls he threw to Prince were wide of the plate and had nothing of his old speed. Prince, also, took his base on balls.

Bases full and two out!

MacNeff, the captain, fronted the plate, and shook his big bat at Ken. Of all the Place hitters Ken feared him the least. He had struck MacNeff out twice, and deep down in his heart stirred a last desperate rally. He had only to keep the ball high and in close to win this game. Oh! for the control that had been his pride!

The field and stands seemed to swim round Ken and all he saw with his half-blinded eyes was the white plate, the batter, and Dean and the umpire. Then he took his swing and delivered the ball.

It went true. MacNeff missed it.

Ken pitched again. The umpire held up one finger of each hand. One ball and one strike. Two more rapid pitches, one high and one wide. Two strikes and two balls.

Ken felt his head bursting and there were glints of red before his eyes. He bit his tongue to keep it from lolling out. He was almost done. That ceaseless, infernal din had benumbed his being. With a wrenching of his shoulder Ken flung up another ball. MacNeff leaned over it, then let it go by.

Three and two!

It was torture for Ken. He had the game in his hands, yet could not grasp it. He braced himself for the pitch and gave it all he had left in him.

“Too low!” he moaned. MacNeff killed low balls.

The big captain leaped forward with a terrific swing and hit the ball. It lined over short, then began to rise, shot over Homans, and soared far beyond, to drop and roll and roll.

Through darkening sight Ken Ward saw runner after runner score, and saw Homans pick up the ball as MacNeff crossed the plate with the winning run. In Ken’s ears seemed a sound of the end of the world.

He thought himself the centre of a flying wheel. It was the boys crowding around him. He saw their lips move but caught no words. Then choking and tottering, upheld by Reddy Ray’s strong arm, the young pitcher walked off the field.

CHAPTER XVII

KEN’S DAY

THE SLOW RETURN to the tavern, dressing and going to the station, the ride home, the arrival at the training-house, the close-pressing, silent companionship of Reddy Ray, Worry, and Raymond — these were dim details of that day of calamity. Ken Ward’s mind was dead — locked on that fatal moment when he pitched a low ball to MacNeff. His friends left him in the darkness of his room, knowing instinctively that it was best for him to be alone.

Ken undressed and crawled wearily into bed and stretched out as if he knew and was glad he would never move his limbs again. The silence and the darkness seemed to hide him from himself. His mind was a whirling riot of fire, and in it was a lurid picture of that moment with MacNeff at bat. Over and over and over he lived it in helpless misery. His ears were muffled with that huge tide of sound. Again and again and again he pitched the last ball, to feel his heart stop beating, to see the big captain lunge at the ball, to watch it line and rise and soar.

But gradually exhaustion subdued his mental strife, and he wandered in mind and drifted into sleep. When he woke it was with a cold, unhappy shrinking from the day. His clock told the noon hour; he had slept long. Outside the June sunlight turned the maple leaves to gold. Was it possible, Ken wondered dully, for the sun ever to shine again? Then Scotty came bustling in.

“Mr. Wau-rd, won’t ye be hovin’ breakfast?” he asked, anxiously.

“Scotty, I’ll never eat again,” replied Ken.

There were quick steps upon the stairs and Worry burst in, rustling a newspaper.

“Hello, old man!” he called, cheerily. “Say! Look at this!”

He thrust the paper before Ken’s eyes and pointed to a column:

Place Beat Wayne by a Lucky Drive. Young Ward Pitched the Greatest Game Ever Pitched on Place Field and Lost It in the Ninth, with Two Men Out and Three and Two on MacNeff

Ken’s dull, gloom-steeped mind underwent a change, but he could not speak. He sat up in bed, clutching the paper, and gazing from it to the coach. Raymond came in, followed by Homans, and, last, Reddy Ray, who sat down upon the bed. They were all smiling, and that seemed horrible to Ken.

“But, Worry — Reddy — I — I lost the game — threw it away!” faltered Ken.

“Oh no, Peg. You pitched a grand game. Only in the stretch you got one ball too low,” said Reddy.

“Peg, you started to go up early in the game,” added Worry, with a smile, as if the fact was amusing. “You made your first balloon-ascension in the seventh. And in the ninth you exploded. I never seen a better case of up-in-the-air. But, Peg, in spite of it you pitched a wonderful game. You had me guessin’. I couldn’t take you out of the box. Darn me if I didn’t think you’d shut Place out in spite of your rattles!”

“Then — after all — it’s not so terrible?” Ken asked, breathlessly.

“Why, boy, it’s all right. We can lose a game, and to lose one like that — it’s as good as winnin’. Say! I’m a liar if I didn’t see ’em Place hitters turnin’ gray-headed! Listen! That game over there was tough on all the kids, you most of all, of course. But you all stood the gaff. You’ve fought out a grillin’ big game away from home. That’s over. You’ll never go through that again. But it was the makin’ of you... Here, look this over! Mebbe it’ll cheer you up.”

He took something from Raymond and tossed it upon the bed. It looked like a round, red, woolly bundle. Ken unfolded it, to disclose a beautiful sweater, with a great white “W” in the centre.

“The boys all got ’em this mornin’,” added Worry.

It was then that the tragedy of the Place game lost its hold on Ken, and retreated until it stood only dimly in outline.

“I’ll — I’ll be down to lunch,” said Ken, irrelevantly.

His smiling friends took the hint and left the room.

Ken hugged the sweater while reading the Times-Star’s account of the game. Whoever the writer was, Ken loved him. Then he hid his face in the pillow, and though he denied to himself that he was crying, when he arose it was certain that the pillow was wet.

An hour later Ken presented himself at lunch, once more his old amiable self. The boys freely discussed baseball — in fact, for weeks they had breathed and dreamed baseball — but Ken noted, for the first time, where superiority was now added to the old confidence. The Wayne varsity had found itself. It outclassed Herne; it was faster than Place; it stood in line for championship honors.

“Peg, you needn’t put on your uniform to-day,” said the coach. “You rest up. But go over to Murray and have your arm rubbed. Is it sore or stiff?”

“Not at all. I could work again to-day,” replied Ken.

That afternoon, alone in his room, he worked out his pitching plan for Saturday’s game. It did not differ materially from former plans. But for a working basis he had self-acquired knowledge of the Place hitters. It had been purchased at dear cost. He feared none of them except Prince. He decided to use a high curve ball over the plate and let Prince hit, trusting to luck and the players behind him. Ken remembered how the Place men had rapped hard balls at Raymond. Most of them were right-field hitters. Ken decided to ask Homans to play Reddy Ray in right field. Also he would arrange a sign with Reddy and Raymond and McCord so they would know when he intended to pitch speed on the outside corner of the plate. For both his curve and fast ball so pitched were invariably hit toward right field. When it came to MacNeff, Ken knew from the hot rankling deep down in him that he would foil that hitter. He intended to make the others hit, pitching them always, to the best of his judgment and skill, those balls they were least likely to hit safely, yet which would cut the corners of the plate if let go. No bases on balls this game, that he vowed grimly. And if he got in a pinch he would fall back upon his last resort, the fast jump ball; and now that he had gone through his baptism of fire he knew he was not likely to lose his control. So after outlining his plan he believed beyond reasonable doubt that he could win the game.

The evening of that day he confided his plan to Reddy Ray and had the gratification of hearing it warmly commended. While Ken was with Reddy the coach sent word up to all rooms that the boys were to “cut” baseball talk. They were to occupy their minds with reading, study, or games.

“It’s pretty slow,” said Reddy. “Peg, let’s have some fun with somebody.”

“I’m in. What’ll we do?”

“Can’t you think? You’re always leaving schemes to me. Use your brains, boy.”

Ken pondered a moment and then leaped up in great glee.

“Reddy, I’ve got something out of sight,” he cried.

“Spring it, then.”

“Well, it’s this: Kel Raymond is perfectly crazy about his new sweater. He moons over it and he carries it around everywhere. Now it happens that Kel is a deep sleeper. He’s hard to wake up. I’ve always had to shake him and kick him to wake him every morning. I’m sure we could get him in that sweater without waking him. So to-morrow morning you come down early, before seven, and help me put the sweater on Kel. We’ll have Worry and the boys posted and we’ll call them in to see Kel, and then we’ll wake him and swear he slept in his sweater.”

“Peg, you’ve a diabolical bent of mind. That’ll be great. I’ll be on the job bright and early.”

Ken knew he could rely on the chattering of the sparrows in the woodbine round his window. They always woke him, and this morning was no exception. It was after six and a soft, balmy breeze blew in. Ken got up noiselessly and dressed. Raymond snored in blissful ignorance of the conspiracy. Presently a gentle tapping upon the door told Ken that Reddy was in the hall. Ken let him in and they held a whispered consultation.

“Let’s see,” said Reddy, picking up the sweater. “It’s going to be an all-fired hard job. This sweater’s tight. We’ll wake him.”

“Not on your life!” exclaimed Ken. “Not if we’re quick. Now you roll up the sweater so — and stretch it on your hands — so — and when I lift Kel up you slip it over his head. It’ll be like pie.”

The operation was deftly though breathlessly performed, and all it brought from Raymond was a sleepy: “Aw — lemme sleep,” and then he was gone again.

Ken and Reddy called all the boys, most of whom were in their pajamas, and Worry and Scotty and Murray, and got them all up-stairs in Raymond’s room. Raymond lay in bed very innocently asleep, and no one would have suspected that he had not slept in his sweater.

“Well, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Worry, laughing till he cried. Murray was hugely delighted. These men were as much boys as the boys they trained.

The roar of laughter awakened Raymond, and he came out of sleep very languid and drowsy.

“Aw, Ken, lemme sleep s’more.”

He opened his eyes and, seeing the room full of boys and men, he looked bewildered, then suspicious.

“Wull, what do all you guys want?”

“We only came in to see you asleep in your new varsity sweater,” replied Ken, with charming candor.

At this Raymond discovered the sweater and he leaped out of bed.

“It’s a lie! I never slept in it! Somebody jobbed me! I’ll lick him!... It’s a lie, I say!”

He began to hop up and down in a black fury. The upper half of him was swathed in the red sweater; beneath that flapped the end of his short nightgown; and out of that stuck his thin legs, all knotted and spotted with honorable bruises won in fielding hard-batted balls. He made so ludicrous a sight that his visitors roared with laughter. Raymond threw books, shoes, everything he could lay his hands upon, and drove them out in confusion.

Saturday seemed a long time in arriving, but at last it came. All morning the boys kept close under cover of the training-house. Some one sent them a package of placards. These were round, in the shape of baseballs. They were in the college colors, the background of which was a bright red, and across this had been printed in white the words: “Peg Ward’s Day!”

“What do you think of that?” cried the boys, with glistening eyes. But Ken was silent.

Worry came in for lunch and reported that the whole west end of the city had been placarded.

“The students have had millions of ’em cards printed,” said Worry. “They’re everywhere. Murray told me there was a hundred students tackin’ ’em up on the stands and bleachers. They’ve got ’em on sticks of wood for pennants for the girls... ‘Peg Ward’s Day!’ Well, I guess!”

At two-thirty o’clock the varsity ran upon the field, to the welcoming though somewhat discordant music of the university band. What the music lacked in harmony it made up in volume, and as noise appeared to be the order of the day, it was most appropriate. However, a great booming cheer from the crowded stands drowned the band.

It was a bright summer day, with the warm air swimming in the thick, golden light of June, with white clouds sailing across the blue sky. Grant Field resembled a beautiful crater with short, sloping sides of white and gold and great splashes of red and dots of black all encircling a round lake of emerald. Flashes of gray darted across the green, and these were the Place players in practice. Everywhere waved and twinkled and gleamed the red-and-white Wayne placards. And the front of the stands bore wide-reaching bands of these colored cards. The grand-stand, with its pretty girls and gowns, and waving pennants, and dark-coated students, resembled a huge mosaic of many colors, moving and flashing in the sunlight. One stand set apart for the Place supporters was a solid mass of blue and gold. And opposite to it, in vivid contrast, was a long circle of bleachers, where five thousand red-placarded, red-ribboned Wayne students sat waiting to tear the air into shreds with cheers. Dale and Stevens and Bryan, wearing their varsity sweaters, strode to and fro on the cinder-path, and each carried a megaphone. Cheers seemed to lurk in the very atmosphere. A soft, happy, subdued roar swept around the field. Fun and good-nature and fair-play and love of college pervaded that hum of many voices. Yet underneath it all lay a suppressed spirit, a hidden energy, waiting for the battle.

When Wayne had finished a brief, snappy practice, Kern, a National League umpire, called the game, with Place at bat. Ken Ward walked to the pitcher’s slab amid a prolonged outburst, and ten thousand red cards bearing his name flashed like mirrors against the sunlight. Then the crashing Place yell replied in defiance.

Ken surveyed his fellow-players, from whom came low, inspiriting words; then, facing the batter, Keene, he eyed him in cool speculation, and swung into supple action.

The game started with a rush. Keene dumped the ball down the third-base line. Blake, anticipating the play, came rapidly in, and bending while in motion picked up the ball and made a perfect snap-throw to McCord, beating Keene by a foot. Prince drove a hot grass-cutter through the infield, and the Place stand let out shrill, exultant yells. MacNeff swung powerfully on the first ball, which streaked like a flitting wing close under his chin. Prince, with a good lead, had darted for second. It was wonderful how his little, short legs carried him so swiftly. And his slide was what might have been expected of a famous football player. He hit the ground and shot into the bag just as Raymond got Dean’s unerring throw too late. Again the Place rooters howled. MacNeff watched his second strike go by. The third pitch, remorselessly true to that fatal place, retired him on strikes; and a roll of thunder pealed from under the Wayne bleachers. Starke struck at the first ball given him. The Place waiters were not waiting on Ken to-day; evidently the word had gone out to hit. Ken’s beautiful, speedy ball, breast high, was certainly a temptation. Starke lifted a long, lofty fly far beyond Homans, who ran and ran, and turned to get it gracefully at his breast.

Worry Arthurs sat stern and intent upon the Wayne bench. “Get that hit back and go them a run better!” was his sharp order.

The big, loose-jointed Salisbury, digging his foot into the dirt, settled down and swung laboriously. Homans waited. The pitch was a strike, and so was the next. But strikes were small matters for the patient Homans. He drew three balls after that, and then on the next he hit one of his short, punky safeties through the left side of the infield. The Wayne crowd accepted it with vigor of hands and feet. Raymond trotted up, aggressive and crafty. He intended to bunt, and the Place infield knew it and drew in closer. Raymond fouled one, then another, making two strikes. But he dumped the next and raced for the base. Salisbury, big and slow as he was, got the ball and threw Raymond out. Homans over-ran second, intending to go on, but, halted by Weir’s hoarse coaching, he ran back.

When Reddy Ray stepped out it was to meet a rousing cheer, and then the thousands of feet went crash! crash! crash! Reddy fouled the first ball over the grand-stand. Umpire Kern threw out a new one, gleaming white. The next two pitches were wide; the following one Reddy met with the short poke he used when hitting to left field. The ball went over Martin’s head, scoring Homans with the first run of the game. That allowed the confident Wayne crowd to get up and yell long and loud. Weir fouled out upon the first ball pitched, and Blake, following him, forced Reddy out at second on an infield hit.

Place tied the score in the second inning on Weir’s fumble of Martin’s difficult grounder, a sacrifice by Horton, and Griffith’s safe fly back of second.

With the score tied, the teams blanked inning after inning until the fifth. Wayne found Salisbury easy to bat, but a Place player was always in front of the hit. And Place found Peg Ward unsolvable when hits meant runs. Ken kept up his tireless, swift cannonading over the plate, making his opponents hit, and when they got a runner on base he extended himself with the fast raise ball. In the first of the fifth, with two out, Prince met one of Ken’s straight ones hard and fair and drove the ball into the bleachers for a home-run. That solid blue-and-gold square of Place supporters suddenly became an insane tossing, screeching mÛlÚe.

The great hit also seemed to unleash the fiery spirit which had waited its chance. The Wayne players came in for their turn like angry bees. Trace got a base on balls. Dean sacrificed. Ken also essayed to bunt and fouled himself out on strikes. Again Homans hit safely, but the crafty Keene, playing close, held Trace at third.

“We want the score!” Crash! crash! crash! went the bleachers.

With Raymond up and two out, the chance appeared slim, for he was not strong at batting. But he was great at trying, and this time, as luck would have it, he hit clean through second. Trace scored, and Homans, taking desperate risk, tried to reach home on the hit and failed. It was fast, exciting work, and the crowd waxed hotter and hotter.

For Place the lumbering Horton hit a twisting grounder to McCord, who batted it down with his mitt, jumped for it, turned and fell on the base, but too late to get his man. Griffith swung on Ken’s straight ball and, quite by accident, blocked a little bunt out of reach of both Dean and Ken. It was a safe hit. Conroy stepped into Ken’s fast ball, which ticked his shirt, and the umpire sent him down to first amid the vociferous objections of the Wayne rooters.

Three runners on bases and no one out. How the Place students bawled and beat their seats and kicked the floor!

Ken took a longer moment of deliberation. He showed no sign that the critical situation unnerved him. But his supple shoulders knit closer, and his long arm whipped harder as he delivered the ball.

Salisbury, a poor batter, apparently shut his eyes and swung with all his might. All present heard the ringing crack of the bat, but few saw the ball. Raymond leaped lengthwise to the left and flashed out his glove. There was another crack, of different sound. Then Raymond bounded over second base, kicking the bag, and with fiendish quickness sped the ball to first. Kern, the umpire, waved both arms wide. Then to the gasping audience the play became clear. Raymond had caught Salisbury’s line hit in one hand, enabling him to make a triple play. A mighty shout shook the stands. Then strong, rhythmic, lusty cheers held the field in thrall for the moment, while the teams changed sides.

In Wayne’s half of the sixth both Weir and McCord hit safely, but sharp fielding by Place held them on base.

Again the formidable head of Place’s batting order was up. Keene lined to right field, a superb hit that looked good for a triple, but it had not the speed to get beyond the fleet sprinter.

Ken eyed the curly-haired Prince as if he was saying to himself: “I’m putting them over to-day. Hit if you can!”

Prince appeared to jump up and chop Ken’s first pitch. The ball struck on fair ground and bounded very high, and was a safe hit. Prince took a long lead off first base, and three times slid back to the bag when Ken tried to catch him. The fast football man intended to steal; Ken saw it, Dean saw it; everybody saw it. Whereupon Ken delivered a swift ball outside of the plate. As Prince went down little Dean caught the pitch and got the ball away quick as lightning. Raymond caught it directly in the base-line, and then, from the impact of the sliding Prince, he went hurtling down. Runner, baseman, and ball disappeared in a cloud of dust. Kern ran nimbly down the field and waved Prince off.

But Raymond did not get up. The umpire called time. Worry Arthurs ran out, and he and Weir carried Raymond to the bench, where they bathed his head and wiped the blood from his face.

Presently Raymond opened his eyes.

“Wull, what struck me?” he asked.

“Oh, nothin’. There was a trolley loose in the field,” replied Worry. “Can you get up? Why did you try to block that football rusher?”

Raymond shook his head.

“Did I tag the big fat devil?” he queried, earnestly. “Is he out?”

“You got him a mile,” replied Worry.

After a few moments Raymond was able to stand upon his feet, but he was so shaky that Worry sent Schoonover to second.

Then the cheering leaders before the bleachers bellowed through their megaphones, and the students, rising to their feet, pealed out nine ringing “Waynes!” and added a roaring “Raymond!” to the end.

With two out, Kern called play.

Once again MacNeff was at bat. He had not made a foul in his two times up. He was at Ken’s mercy, and the Wayne rooters were equally merciless.

“Ho! the slugging captain comes!”

“Get him a board!”

“Fluke hitter!”

“Mac, that was a lucky stab of yours Wednesday! Hit one now!”

No spectator of that game missed Ken’s fierce impetuosity when he faced MacNeff. He was as keen strung as a wire when he stood erect in the box, and when he got into motion he whirled far around, swung back bent, like a spring, and seemed to throw his whole body with the ball. One — two — three strikes that waved up in their velocity, and MacNeff for the third time went out.

Clatter and smash came from the bleachers, long stamping of feet, whistle and bang, for voices had become weak.

A hit, an error, a double play, another hit, a steal, and a forced out — these told Wayne’s dogged, unsuccessful trial for the winning run.

But Worry Arthurs had curtly said to his pitcher: “Peg, cut loose!” and man after man for Place failed to do anything with his terrific speed. It was as if Ken had reserved himself wholly for the finish.

In the last of the eighth Dean hit one that caromed off Griffith’s shin, and by hard running the little catcher made second. Ken sent him to third on a fielder’s choice. It was then the run seemed forthcoming. Salisbury toiled in the box to coax the wary Homans. The Wayne captain waited until he got a ball to his liking. Martin trapped the hit and shot the ball home to catch Dean. It was another close decision, as Dean slid with the ball, but the umpire decided against the runner.

“Peg, lam them over now!” called Reddy Ray.

It was the first of the ninth, with the weak end of Place’s hitting strength to face Ken. Griffith, Conroy, Salisbury went down before him as grass before a scythe. To every hitter Ken seemed to bring more effort, more relentless purpose to baffle them, more wonderful speed and control of his fast ball.

Through the stands and bleachers the word went freely that the game would go to ten innings, eleven innings, twelve innings, with the chances against the tiring Salisbury.

But on the Wayne bench there was a different order of conviction. Worry sparkled like flint. Homans, for once not phlegmatic, faced the coaching line at third. Raymond leaned pale and still against the bench. Ken was radiant.

Reddy Ray bent over the row of bats and singled out his own. His strong, freckled hands clenched the bat and whipped it through the air. His eyes were on fire when he looked at the stricken Raymond.

“Kel, something may happen yet before I get up to the plate,” he said. “But if it doesn’t—”

Then he strode out, knocked the dirt from his spikes, and stepped into position. Something about Reddy at that moment, or something potent in the unforeseen play to come, quieted the huge crowd.

Salisbury might have sensed it. He fussed with the ball and took a long while to pitch. Reddy’s lithe form whirled around and seemed to get into running motion with the crack of the ball. Martin made a beautiful pick-up of the sharply bounding ball, but he might as well have saved himself the exertion. The championship sprinter beat the throw by yards.

Suddenly the whole Wayne contingent arose in a body, a tribute to what they expected of Reddy, and rent Grant Field with one tremendous outburst.

As it ceased a hoarse voice of stentorian volume rose and swelled on the air.

“Wayne wins! WATCH HIM RUN!”

It came from Murray, who loved his great sprinter.

Thrice Salisbury threw to MacNeff to hold Reddy close to first base, but he only wasted his strength. Then he turned toward the batter, and he had scarcely twitched a muscle in the beginning of his swing, when the keen sprinter was gone like a flash. His running gave the impression of something demon-like forced by the wind. He had covered the ground and was standing on the bag when Prince caught Conroy’s throw.

Pandemonium broke out in the stands and bleachers, and a piercing, continuous scream. The sprinter could not be stopped. That was plain. He crouched low, watching Salisbury. Again and again the pitcher tried to keep Reddy near second base, but as soon as Martin or Prince returned the ball Reddy took his lead off the bag. He meant to run on the first pitch; he was on his toes. And the audience went wild, and the Place varsity showed a hurried, nervous strain. They yelled to Salisbury, but neither he nor any one else could have heard a thunderbolt in that moment.

Again Salisbury toed the rubber, and he hesitated, with his face turned toward second. But he had to pitch the ball, and as his elbow trembled the sprinter shot out of his tracks with the start that had made him famous. His red hair streaked in the wind like a waving flame. His beautiful stride swallowed distance. Then he sailed low and slid into the base as the ball struck Griffith’s hands.

Reddy was on third now, with no one out, with two balls upon Weir and no strikes. In the fury of sound runner and batter exchanged a glance that was a sign.

The sprinter crouched low, watching Salisbury. For the third time, as the pitcher vibrated with the nervous force preceding his delivery, Reddy got his start. He was actually running before the ball left Salisbury’s hand. Almost it seemed that with his marvellous fleetness he was beating the ball to the plate. But as the watchers choked in agony of suspense Weir bunted the ball, and Reddy Ray flashed across the plate with the winning run.

Then all that seemed cheering, din, and stamping roar deadened in an earth-shaking sound like an avalanche.

The students piled out of the bleachers in streams and poured on the field. An irresistible, hungry, clamoring flood, they submerged the players.

Up went Ken upon sturdy shoulders, and up went Reddy Ray and Kel and Homans and Dean — all the team, and last the red-faced Worry Arthurs. Then began the triumphant march about Grant Field and to the training-house.

It was a Wayne day, a day for the varsity, for Homans and Raymond, and for the great sprinter, but most of all it was Peg Ward’s day.

CHAPTER XVIII

BREAKING TRAINING

THE WAYNE VARSITY was a much-handled, storm-tossed team before it finally escaped the clutches of the students. Every player had a ringing in his ears and a swelling in his heart. When the baseball uniforms came off they were carefully packed in the bottoms of trunks, and twelve varsity sweaters received as tender care as if they were the flimsy finery dear to the boys’ sisters.

At six the players were assembled in the big reading-room, and there was a babel of exultant conversation. Worry suddenly came in, shouting to persons without, who manifestly wanted to enter. “Nothin’ doin’ yet! I’ll turn the boys over to you in one hour!” Then he banged the door and locked it.

Worry was a sight to behold. His collar was unbuttoned, and his necktie disarranged. He had no hat. His hair was damp and rumpled, and his red face worked spasmodically.

“Where’s Peg?” he yelled, and his little bright eyes blinked at his players. It was plain that Worry could not see very well then. Some one pushed Ken out, and Worry fell on his neck. He hugged him close and hard. Then he dived at Reddy and mauled him. Next he fell all over little crippled Raymond, who sat propped up in an arm-chair. For once Raymond never murmured for being jumped on. Upon every player, and even the substitutes, Worry expressed his joy in violent manner, and then he fell down himself, perspiring, beaming, utterly exhausted. This man was not the cold, caustic coach of the cage-days, nor the stern, hard ruler from the bench, nor the smooth worker on his players’ feelings. This was Worry Arthurs with his varsity at the close of a championship season. No one but the boys who had fought at his bidding for Wayne ever saw him like that.

“Oh, Peg, it was glorious! This game gives us the record and the championship. Say, Peg, this was the great game for you to win. For you made Place hit, and then when they got runners on bases you shut down on ‘em. You made MacNeff look like a dub. You gave that home-run to Prince.”

“I sure was after MacNeff’s scalp,” replied Ken. “And I put the ball over for Prince to hit. What else could I do? Why, that little chunky cuss has an eye, and he can sting the ball — he’s almost as good as Reddy. But, Worry, you mustn’t give me the credit. Reddy won the game, you know.”

“You talk like a kid,” replied Reddy, for once not cool and easy. “I cut loose and ran some; but, Peg, you and Raymond won the game.”

“Wull, you make me sick,” retorted Raymond, threatening to get up. “There wasn’t anything to this day but Peg Ward.”

Ken replied with more heat than dignity, and quick as a flash he and Reddy and Raymond were involved in a wordy war, trying to place the credit for winning the game. They dragged some of the other boys into the fierce argument.

Worry laughed and laughed; then, as this loyal bunch of players threatened to come to blows, he got angry.

“Shut up!” he roared. “I never seen such a lot of hot-headed kids. Shut up, and let me tell you who won this Place game. It’ll go down on record as a famous game, so you’ll do well to have it straight. Listen! The Wayne varsity won this game. Homans, your captain, won it, because he directed the team and followed orders. He hit and run some, too. Reddy Ray won this game by bein’ a blue streak of chain lightnin’ on the bases. Raymond won it by makin’ a hit when we all expected him to fall dead. He won it twice, the second time with the greatest fieldin’ play ever pulled off on Grant Field. Dean won the game by goin’ up and hangin’ onto Peg’s jump ball. McCord won it by diggin’ low throws out of the dirt. Weir was around when it happened, wasn’t he — and Blake and Trace? Then there was Peg himself. He won the game a little. Say! he had Place trimmed when he stepped on the slab in the first innin’. So you all won the big Wayne-Place game.”

Then Worry advanced impressively to the table, put his hand in his breast pocket and brought forth a paper.

“You’ve won this for me, boys,” he said, spreading the paper out.

“What is it?” they asked, wonderingly.

“Nothin’ of much importance to you boys as compared with winnin’ the game, but some to Worry Arthurs.” He paused with a little choke. “It’s a five-year contract to coach Wayne’s baseball teams.”

A thundering cheer attested to the importance of that document to the boys.

“Oh, Worry, but I’m glad!” cried Ken. “Then your son Harry will be in college next year — will be on the team?”

“Say, he’ll have to go some to make next year’s varsity, with only two or three vacancies to fill. Now, fellows, I want to know things. Sit down now and listen.”

They all took seats, leaving the coach standing at the table.

“Homans, is there any hope of your comin’ back to college next year?”

“None, I’m sorry to say,” replied the captain. “Father intends to put me in charge of his business.”

“Reddy, how about a post-graduate course for you? You need that P.G.”

“Worry, come to think of it, I really believe my college education would not be complete without that P.G.,” replied Reddy, with the old cool speech, and a merry twinkle in his eye.

At this the boys howled like Indians, and Worry himself did a little war-dance.

“Raymond, you’ll come back?” went on the coach.

The second-baseman appeared highly insulted. “Come back? Wull, what do you take me for? I’d like to see the guy who can beat me out of my place next season.”

This brought another hearty cheer.

Further questioning made clear that all the varsity except Homans, Blake, and McCord would surely return to college.

“Fine! Fine! Fine!” exclaimed Worry.

Then he began to question each player as to what he intended to do through the summer months, and asked him to promise not to play ball on any summer nines.

“Peg, you’re the one I’m scared about,” said Worry, earnestly. “These crack teams at the seashore and in the mountains will be hot after you. They’ve got coin too, Peg, and they’ll spend it to get you.”

“All I’ve got to say is they’ll waste their breath talking to me,” replied Ken, with a short laugh.

“What are you goin’ to do all summer?” asked Worry, curiously. “Where will you be?”

“I expect to go to Arizona.”

“Arizona? What in the deuce are you goin’ way out there for?”

Ken paused, and then when about to reply Raymond burst out.

“Worry, he says it’s forestry, but he only took up that fool subject because he likes to chase around in the woods. He’s nutty about trees and bears and mustangs. He was in Arizona last summer. You ought to hear some of the stories he’s told me. Why, if they’re true he’s got Frank Nelson and Jim Hawkins skinned to a frazzle.”

“For instance?” asked Worry, very much surprised and interested.

“Why stories about how he was chased and captured by outlaws, and lassoed bears, and had scraps with Mexicans, and was in wild caves and forest fires, and lots about a Texas ranger who always carried two big guns. I’ve had the nightmare ever since we’ve been in the training-house. Oh, Ken can tell stories all right. He’s as much imagination as he’s got speed with a ball. And say, Worry, he’s got the nerve to tell me that this summer he expects to help an old hunter lasso mountain-lions out there in Arizona. What do you think of that?”

“It’s straight goods!” protested Ken, solemnly facing the bright-eyed boys.

“We want to go along!” yelled everybody.

“Say, Peg, I ain’t stuck on that idee, not a little bit,” replied the coach, dubiously.

“Worry has begun to worry about next season. He’s afraid Peg will get that arm chewed off,” put in Reddy.

“Well, if I’ve got to choose between lettin’ Peg chase mountain-lions and seein’ him chased by ’em fat-head directors, I’ll take my chances with the lions.”

Then all in a moment Worry became serious.

“Boys, it’s time to break trainin’. I ain’t got much to say. You’re the best team I ever developed. Let it go at that. In a few minutes you are free to go out to the banquets and receptions, to all that’s waitin’ for you. And it will be great. To-morrow you will be sayin’ good-bye to me and to each other and scatterin’ to your homes. But let’s not forget each other and how we plugged this year. Sure, it was only baseball, but, after all, I think good, hard play, on the square and against long odds, will do as much for you as your studies. Let the old baseball coach assure you of that.”

He paused, paced a few steps to and fro, hands behind his back, thoughtful and somewhat sad.

The members of the varsity sat pale and still, faces straight before them, eyes shining with memory of that long up-hill struggle, and glistening, too, with the thought that the time had come for parting.

“Homans, will you please see to the election of the new captain?” said Worry.

Homans stepped out briskly and placed a hat, twelve folded slips of paper, and a pencil upon the table.

“Fellows, you will follow me in our regular batting order,” directed Homans. “Each man is to write his name on one side of a slip of paper and his choice for captain on the other side. Drop the paper in the hat.”

Homans seated himself at the table and quickly cast his vote. Raymond hobbled up next. Reddy Ray followed him. And so, in silence, and with a certain grave dignity of manner that had yet a suggestion of pleasure, the members of the varsity voted.

When they had resumed their seats Homans turned the slips out of the hat and unfolded them.

“These votes will be given to the athletic directors and kept on record,” he said. “But we will never see but one side of them. That is Wayne’s rule in electing captains, so the players will not know how each voted. But this is an occasion I am happy to see when we shall all know who voted for who. It shall be a little secret of which we will never speak.”

He paused while he arranged the slips neatly together.

“There are here twelve votes. Eleven have been cast for one player — one for another player! Will you all please step forward and look?”

In an intense stillness the varsity surrounded the table. There was a sudden sharp gasp from one of them.

With a frank, glad smile Homans held out his hand.

“CAPTAIN WARD!”

THE END

The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories

CONTENTS

THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD

THE RUBE

THE RUBE’S PENNANT

THE RUBE’S HONEYMOON

THE RUBE’S WATERLOO

BREAKING INTO FAST COMPANY

THE KNOCKER

THE WINNING BALL

FALSE COLORS

THE MANAGER OF MADDEN’S HILL

OLD WELL-WELL

THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD

THERE WAS DELANEY’S red-haired trio — Red Gilbat, left fielder; Reddy Clammer, right fielder, and Reddie Ray, center fielder, composing the most remarkable outfield ever developed in minor league baseball. It was Delaney’s pride, as it was also his trouble.

Red Gilbat was nutty — and his batting average was .371. Any student of baseball could weigh these two facts against each other and understand something of Delaney’s trouble. It was not possible to camp on Red Gilbat’s trail. The man was a jack-o’-lantern, a will-o’-the-wisp, a weird, long-legged, long-armed, red-haired illusive phantom. When the gong rang at the ball grounds there were ten chances to one that Red would not be present. He had been discovered with small boys peeping through knotholes at the vacant left field he was supposed to inhabit during play.

Of course what Red did off the ball grounds was not so important as what he did on. And there was absolutely no telling what under the sun he might do then except once out of every three times at bat he could be counted on to knock the cover off the ball.

Reddy Clammer was a grand-stand player — the kind all managers hated — and he was hitting .305. He made circus catches, circus stops, circus throws, circus steals — but particularly circus catches. That is to say, he made easy plays appear difficult. He was always strutting, posing, talking, arguing, quarreling — when he was not engaged in making a grand-stand play. Reddy Clammer used every possible incident and artifice to bring himself into the limelight.

Reddie Ray had been the intercollegiate champion in the sprints and a famous college ball player. After a few months of professional ball he was hitting over .400 and leading the league both at bat and on the bases. It was a beautiful and a thrilling sight to see him run. He was so quick to start, so marvelously swift, so keen of judgment, that neither Delaney nor any player could ever tell the hit that he was not going to get. That was why Reddie Ray was a whole game in himself.

Delaney’s Rochester Stars and the Providence Grays were tied for first place. Of the present series each team had won a game. Rivalry had always been keen, and as the teams were about to enter the long homestretch for the pennant there was battle in the New England air.

The September day was perfect. The stands were half full and the bleachers packed with a white-sleeved mass. And the field was beautifully level and green. The Grays were practicing and the Stars were on their bench.

“We’re up against it,” Delaney was saying. “This new umpire, Fuller, hasn’t got it in for us. Oh, no, not at all! Believe me, he’s a robber. But Scott is pitchin’ well. Won his last three games. He’ll bother ‘em. And the three Reds have broken loose. They’re on the rampage. They’ll burn up this place today.”

Somebody noted the absence of Gilbat.

Delaney gave a sudden start. “Why, Gil was here,” he said slowly. “Lord! — he’s about due for a nutty stunt.”

Whereupon Delaney sent boys and players scurrying about to find Gilbat, and Delaney went himself to ask the Providence manager to hold back the gong for a few minutes.

Presently somebody brought Delaney a telephone message that Red Gilbat was playing ball with some boys in a lot four blocks down the street. When at length a couple of players marched up to the bench with Red in tow Delaney uttered an immense sigh of relief and then, after a close scrutiny of Red’s face, he whispered, “Lock the gates!”

Then the gong rang. The Grays trooped in. The Stars ran out, except Gilbat, who ambled like a giraffe. The hum of conversation in the grand stand quickened for a moment with the scraping of chairs, and then grew quiet. The bleachers sent up the rollicking cry of expectancy. The umpire threw out a white ball with his stentorian “Play!” and Blake of the Grays strode to the plate.

Hitting safely, he started the game with a rush. With Dorr up, the Star infield played for a bunt. Like clockwork Dorr dumped the first ball as Blake got his flying start for second base. Morrissey tore in for the ball, got it on the run and snapped it underhand to Healy, beating the runner by an inch. The fast Blake, with a long slide, made third base. The stands stamped. The bleachers howled. White, next man up, batted a high fly to left field. This was a sun field and the hardest to play in the league. Red Gilbat was the only man who ever played it well. He judged the fly, waited under it, took a step hack, then forward, and deliberately caught the ball in his gloved hand. A throw-in to catch the runner scoring from third base would have been futile, but it was not like Red Gilbat to fail to try. He tossed the ball to O’Brien. And Blake scored amid applause.

“What do you know about that?” ejaculated Delaney, wiping his moist face. “I never before saw our nutty Redhead pull off a play like that.”

Some of the players yelled at Red, “This is a two-handed league, you bat!”

The first five players on the list for the Grays were left-handed batters, and against a right-handed pitcher whose most effective ball for them was a high fast one over the outer corner they would naturally hit toward left field. It was no surprise to see Hanley bat a skyscraper out to left. Red had to run to get under it. He braced himself rather unusually for a fielder. He tried to catch the ball in his bare right hand and muffed it, Hanley got to second on the play while the audience roared. When they got through there was some roaring among the Rochester players. Scott and Captain Healy roared at Red, and Red roared back at them.

“It’s all off. Red never did that before,” cried Delaney in despair. “He’s gone clean bughouse now.”

Babcock was the next man up and he likewise hit to left. It was a low, twisting ball — half fly, half liner — and a difficult one to field. Gilbat ran with great bounds, and though he might have got two hands on the ball he did not try, but this time caught it in his right, retiring the side.

The Stars trotted in, Scott and Healy and Kane, all veterans, looking like thunderclouds. Red ambled in the last and he seemed very nonchalant.

“By Gosh, I’d ‘a’ ketched that one I muffed if I’d had time to change hands,” he said with a grin, and he exposed a handful of peanuts. He had refused to drop the peanuts to make the catch with two hands. That explained the mystery. It was funny, yet nobody laughed. There was that run chalked up against the Stars, and this game had to be won.

“Red, I — I want to take the team home in the lead,” said Delaney, and it was plain that he suppressed strong feeling. “You didn’t play the game, you know.”

Red appeared mightily ashamed.

“Del, I’ll git that run back,” he said.

Then he strode to the plate, swinging his wagon-tongue bat. For all his awkward position in the box he looked what he was — a formidable hitter. He seemed to tower over the pitcher — Red was six feet one — and he scowled and shook his bat at Wehying and called, “Put one over — you wienerwurst!” Wehying was anything but red-headed, and he wasted so many balls on Red that it looked as if he might pass him. He would have passed him, too, if Red had not stepped over on the fourth ball and swung on it. White at second base leaped high for the stinging hit, and failed to reach it. The ball struck and bounded for the fence. When Babcock fielded it in, Red was standing on third base, and the bleachers groaned.

Whereupon Chesty Reddy Clammer proceeded to draw attention to himself, and incidentally delay the game, by assorting the bats as if the audience and the game might gladly wait years to see him make a choice.

“Git in the game!” yelled Delaney.

“Aw, take my bat, Duke of the Abrubsky!” sarcastically said Dump Kane. When the grouchy Kane offered to lend his bat matters were critical in the Star camp.

Other retorts followed, which Reddy Clammer deigned not to notice. At last he got a bat that suited him — and then, importantly, dramatically, with his cap jauntily riding his red locks, he marched to the plate.

Some wag in the bleachers yelled into the silence, “Oh, Maggie, your lover has come!”

Not improbably Clammer was thinking first of his presence before the multitude, secondly of his batting average and thirdly of the run to be scored. In this instance he waited and feinted at balls and fouled strikes at length to work his base. When he got to first base suddenly he bolted for second, and in the surprise of the unlooked-for play he made it by a spread-eagle slide. It was a circus steal.

Delaney snorted. Then the look of profound disgust vanished in a flash of light. His huge face beamed.

Reddie Ray was striding to the plate.

There was something about Reddie Ray that pleased all the senses. His lithe form seemed instinct with life; any sudden movement was suggestive of stored lightning. His position at the plate was on the left side, and he stood perfectly motionless, with just a hint of tense waiting alertness. Dorr, Blake and Babcock, the outfielders for the Grays, trotted round to the right of their usual position. Delaney smiled derisively, as if he knew how futile it was to tell what field Reddie Ray might hit into. Wehying, the old fox, warily eyed the youngster, and threw him a high curve, close in. It grazed Reddie’s shirt, but he never moved a hair. Then Wehying, after the manner of many veteran pitchers when trying out a new and menacing batter, drove a straight fast ball at Reddie’s head. Reddie ducked, neither too slow nor too quick, just right to show what an eye he had, how hard it was to pitch to. The next was a strike. And on the next he appeared to step and swing in one action. There was a ringing rap, and the ball shot toward right, curving down, a vicious, headed hit. Mallory, at first base, snatched at it and found only the air. Babcock had only time to take a few sharp steps, and then he plunged down, blocked the hit and fought the twisting ball. Reddie turned first base, flitted on toward second, went headlong in the dust, and shot to the base before White got the throw-in from Babcock. Then, as White wheeled and lined the ball home to catch the scoring Clammer, Reddie Ray leaped up, got his sprinter’s start and, like a rocket, was off for third. This time he dove behind the base, sliding in a half circle, and as Hanley caught Strickland’s perfect throw and whirled with the ball, Reddie’s hand slid to the bag.

Reddie got to his feet amid a rather breathless silence. Even the coachers were quiet. There was a moment of relaxation, then Wehying received the ball from Hanley and faced the batter.

This was Dump Kane. There was a sign of some kind, almost imperceptible, between Kane and Reddie. As Wehying half turned in his swing to pitch, Reddie Ray bounded homeward. It was not so much the boldness of his action as the amazing swiftness of it that held the audience spellbound. Like a thunderbolt Reddie came down the line, almost beating Wehying’s pitch to the plate. But Kane’s bat intercepted the ball, laying it down, and Reddie scored without sliding. Dorr, by sharp work, just managed to throw Kane out.

Three runs so quick it was hard to tell how they had come. Not in the major league could there have been faster work. And the ball had been fielded perfectly and thrown perfectly.

“There you are,” said Delaney, hoarsely. “Can you beat it? If you’ve been wonderin’ how the cripped Stars won so many games just put what you’ve seen in your pipe and smoke it. Red Gilbat gets on — Reddy Clammer gets on — and then Reddie Ray drives them home or chases them home.”

The game went on, and though it did not exactly drag it slowed down considerably. Morrissey and Healy were retired on infield plays. And the sides changed. For the Grays, O’Brien made a scratch hit, went to second on Strickland’s sacrifice, stole third and scored on Mallory’s infield out. Wehying missed three strikes. In the Stars’ turn the three end players on the batting list were easily disposed of. In the third inning the clever Blake, aided by a base on balls and a hit following, tied the score, and once more struck fire and brimstone from the impatient bleachers. Providence was a town that had to have its team win.

“Git at ‘em, Reds!” said Delaney gruffly.

“Batter up!” called Umpire Fuller, sharply.

“Where’s Red? Where’s the bug? Where’s the nut? Delaney, did you lock the gates? Look under the bench!” These and other remarks, not exactly elegant, attested to the mental processes of some of the Stars. Red Gilbat did not appear to be forthcoming. There was an anxious delay Capt. Healy searched for the missing player. Delaney did not say any more.

Suddenly a door under the grand stand opened and Red Gilbat appeared. He hurried for his bat and then up to the plate. And he never offered to hit one of the balls Wehying shot over. When Fuller had called the third strike Red hurried back to the door and disappeared.

“Somethin’ doin’,” whispered Delaney.

Lord Chesterfield Clammer paraded to the batter’s box and, after gradually surveying the field, as if picking out the exact place he meant to drive the ball, he stepped to the plate. Then a roar from the bleachers surprised him.

“Well, I’ll be dog-goned!” exclaimed Delaney. “Red stole that sure as shootin’.”

Red Gilbat was pushing a brand-new baby carriage toward the batter’s box. There was a tittering in the grand stand; another roar from the bleachers. Clammer’s face turned as red as his hair. Gilbat shoved the baby carriage upon the plate, spread wide his long arms, made a short presentation speech and an elaborate bow, then backed away.

All eyes were centered on Clammer. If he had taken it right the incident might have passed without undue hilarity. But Clammer became absolutely wild with rage. It was well known that he was unmarried. Equally well was it seen that Gilbat had executed one of his famous tricks. Ball players were inclined to be dignified about the presentation of gifts upon the field, and Clammer, the dude, the swell, the lady’s man, the favorite of the baseball gods — in his own estimation — so far lost control of himself that he threw his bat at his retreating tormentor. Red jumped high and the bat skipped along the ground toward the bench. The players sidestepped and leaped and, of course, the bat cracked one of Delaney’s big shins. His eyes popped with pain, but he could not stop laughing. One by one the players lay down and rolled over and yelled. The superior Clammer was not overliked by his co-players.

From the grand stand floated the laughter of ladies and gentlemen. And from the bleachers — that throne of the biting, ironic, scornful fans — pealed up a howl of delight. It lasted for a full minute. Then, as quiet ensued, some boy blew a blast of one of those infernal little instruments of pipe and rubber balloon, and over the field wailed out a shrill, high-keyed cry, an excellent imitation of a baby. Whereupon the whole audience roared, and in discomfiture Reddy Clammer went in search of his bat.

To make his chagrin all the worse he ingloriously struck out. And then he strode away under the lea of the grand-stand wall toward right field.

Reddie Ray went to bat and, with the infield playing deep and the outfield swung still farther round to the right, he bunted a little teasing ball down the third-base line. Like a flash of light he had crossed first base before Hanley got his hands on the ball. Then Kane hit into second base, forcing Reddie out.

Again the game assumed less spectacular and more ordinary play. Both Scott and Wehying held the batters safely and allowed no runs. But in the fifth inning, with the Stars at bat and two out, Red Gilbat again electrified the field. He sprang up from somewhere and walked to the plate, his long shape enfolded in a full-length linen duster. The color and style of this garment might not have been especially striking, but upon Red it had a weird and wonderful effect. Evidently Red intended to bat while arrayed in his long coat, for he stepped into the box and faced the pitcher. Capt. Healy yelled for him to take the duster off. Likewise did the Grays yell.

The bleachers shrieked their disapproval. To say the least, Red Gilbat’s crazy assurance was dampening to the ardor of the most blindly confident fans. At length Umpire Fuller waved his hand, enjoining silence and calling time.

“Take it off or I’ll fine you.”

From his lofty height Gilbat gazed down upon the little umpire, and it was plain what he thought.

“What do I care for money!” replied Red.

“That costs you twenty-five,” said Fuller.

“Cigarette change!” yelled Red.

“Costs you fifty.”

“Bah! Go to an eye doctor,” roared Red.

“Seventy-five,” added Fuller, imperturbably.

“Make it a hundred!”

“It’s two hundred.”

“ROB-B-BER!” bawled Red.

Fuller showed willingness to overlook Red’s back talk as well as costume, and he called, “Play!”

There was a mounting sensation of prophetic certainty. Old fox Wehying appeared nervous. He wasted two balls on Red; then he put one over the plate, and then he wasted another. Three balls and one strike! That was a bad place for a pitcher, and with Red Gilbat up it was worse. Wehying swung longer and harder to get all his left behind the throw and let drive. Red lunged and cracked the ball. It went up and up and kept going up and farther out, and as the murmuring audience was slowly transfixed into late realization the ball soared to its height and dropped beyond the left-field fence. A home run!

Red Gilbat gathered up the tails of his duster, after the manner of a neat woman crossing a muddy street, and ambled down to first base and on to second, making prodigious jumps upon the bags, and round third, to come down the home-stretch wagging his red head. Then he stood on the plate, and, as if to exact revenge from the audience for the fun they made of him, he threw back his shoulders and bellowed: “HAW! HAW! HAW!”

Not a handclap greeted him, but some mindless, exceedingly adventurous fan yelled: “Redhead! Redhead! Redhead!”

That was the one thing calculated to rouse Red Gilbat. He seemed to flare, to bristle, and he paced for the bleachers.

Delaney looked as if he might have a stroke. “Grab him! Soak him with a bat! Somebody grab him!”

But none of the Stars was risking so much, and Gilbat, to the howling derision of the gleeful fans, reached the bleachers. He stretched his long arms up to the fence and prepared to vault over. “Where’s the guy who called me redhead?” he yelled.

That was heaping fuel on the fire. From all over the bleachers, from everywhere, came the obnoxious word. Red heaved himself over the fence and piled into the fans. Then followed the roar of many voices, the tramping of many feet, the pressing forward of line after line of shirt-sleeved men and boys. That bleacher stand suddenly assumed the maelstrom appearance of a surging mob round an agitated center. In a moment all the players rushed down the field, and confusion reigned.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” moaned Delaney.

However, the game had to go on. Delaney, no doubt, felt all was over. Nevertheless there were games occasionally that seemed an unending series of unprecedented events. This one had begun admirably to break a record. And the Providence fans, like all other fans, had cultivated an appetite as the game proceeded. They were wild to put the other redheads out of the field or at least out for the inning, wild to tie the score, wild to win and wilder than all for more excitement. Clammer hit safely. But when Reddie Ray lined to the second baseman, Clammer, having taken a lead, was doubled up in the play.

Of course, the sixth inning opened with the Stars playing only eight men. There was another delay. Probably everybody except Delaney and perhaps Healy had forgotten the Stars were short a man. Fuller called time. The impatient bleachers barked for action.

Capt. White came over to Delaney and courteously offered to lend a player for the remaining innings. Then a pompous individual came out of the door leading from the press boxes — he was a director Delaney disliked.

“Guess you’d better let Fuller call the game,” he said brusquely.

“If you want to — as the score stands now in our favor,” replied Delaney.

“Not on your life! It’ll be ours or else we’ll play it out and beat you to death.”

He departed in high dudgeon.

“Tell Reddie to swing over a little toward left,” was Delaney’s order to Healy. Fire gleamed in the manager’s eye.

Fuller called play then, with Reddy Clammer and Reddie Ray composing the Star outfield. And the Grays evidently prepared to do great execution through the wide lanes thus opened up. At that stage it would not have been like matured ball players to try to crop hits down into the infield.

White sent a long fly back of Clammer. Reddy had no time to loaf on this hit. It was all he could do to reach it and he made a splendid catch, for which the crowd roundly applauded him. That applause was wine to Reddy Clammer. He began to prance on his toes and sing out to Scott: “Make ’em hit to me, old man! Make ’em hit to me!” Whether Scott desired that or not was scarcely possible to say; at any rate, Hanley pounded a hit through the infield. And Clammer, prancing high in the air like a check-reined horse, ran to intercept the ball. He could have received it in his hands, but that would never have served Reddy Clammer. He timed the hit to a nicety, went down with his old grand-stand play and blocked the ball with his anatomy. Delaney swore. And the bleachers, now warm toward the gallant outfielder, lustily cheered him. Babcock hit down the right-field foul line, giving Clammer a long run. Hanley was scoring and Babcock was sprinting for third base when Reddy got the ball. He had a fine arm and he made a hard and accurate throw, catching his man in a close play.

Perhaps even Delaney could not have found any fault with that play. But the aftermath spoiled the thing. Clammer now rode the air; he soared; he was in the clouds; it was his inning and he had utterly forgotten his team mates, except inasmuch as they were performing mere little automatic movements to direct the great machinery in his direction for his sole achievement and glory.

There is fate in baseball as well as in other walks of life. O’Brien was a strapping fellow and he lifted another ball into Clammer’s wide territory. The hit was of the high and far-away variety. Clammer started to run with it, not like a grim outfielder, but like one thinking of himself, his style, his opportunity, his inevitable success. Certain it was that in thinking of himself the outfielder forgot his surroundings. He ran across the foul line, head up, hair flying, unheeding the warning cry from Healy. And, reaching up to make his crowning circus play, he smashed face forward into the bleachers fence. Then, limp as a rag, he dropped. The audience sent forth a long groan of sympathy.

“That wasn’t one of his stage falls,” said Delaney. “I’ll bet he’s dead.... Poor Reddy! And I want him to bust his face!”

Clammer was carried off the field into the dressing room and a physician was summoned out of the audience.

“Cap., what’d it — do to him?” asked Delaney.

“Aw, spoiled his pretty mug, that’s all,” replied Healy, scornfully. “Mebee he’ll listen to me now.”

Delaney’s change was characteristic of the man. “Well, if it didn’t kill him I’m blamed glad he got it.... Cap, we can trim ’em yet. Reddie Ray’ll play the whole outfield. Give Reddie a chance to run! Tell the boy to cut loose. And all of you git in the game. Win or lose, I won’t forget it. I’ve a hunch. Once in a while I can tell what’s comin’ off. Some queer game this! And we’re goin’ to win. Gilbat lost the game; Clammer throwed it away again, and now Reddie Ray’s due to win it.... I’m all in, but I wouldn’t miss the finish to save my life.”

Delaney’s deep presaging sense of baseball events was never put to a greater test. And the seven Stars, with the score tied, exhibited the temper and timber of a championship team in the last ditch. It was so splendid that almost instantly it caught the antagonistic bleachers.

Wherever the tired Scott found renewed strength and speed was a mystery. But he struck out the hard-hitting Providence catcher and that made the third out. The Stars could not score in their half of the inning. Likewise the seventh inning passed without a run for either side; only the infield work of the Stars was something superb. When the eighth inning ended, without a tally for either team, the excitement grew tense. There was Reddy Ray playing outfield alone, and the Grays with all their desperate endeavors had not lifted the ball out of the infield.

But in the ninth, Blake, the first man up, lined low toward right center. The hit was safe and looked good for three bases. No one looking, however, had calculated on Reddie’s Ray’s fleetness. He covered ground and dove for the bounding ball and knocked it down. Blake did not get beyond first base. The crowd cheered the play equally with the prospect of a run. Dorr bunted and beat the throw. White hit one of the high fast balls Scott was serving and sent it close to the left-field foul line. The running Reddie Ray made on that play held White at second base. But two runs had scored with no one out.

Hanley, the fourth left-handed hitter, came up and Scott pitched to him as he had to the others — high fast balls over the inside corner of the plate. Reddy Ray’s position was some fifty yards behind deep short, and a little toward center field. He stood sideways, facing two-thirds of that vacant outfield. In spite of Scott’s skill, Hanley swung the ball far round into right field, but he hit it high, and almost before he actually hit it the great sprinter was speeding across the green.

The suspense grew almost unbearable as the ball soared in its parabolic flight and the red-haired runner streaked dark across the green. The ball seemed never to be coming down. And when it began to descend and reached a point perhaps fifty feet above the ground there appeared more distance between where it would alight and where Reddie was than anything human could cover. It dropped and dropped, and then dropped into Reddie Ray’s outstretched hands. He had made the catch look easy. But the fact that White scored from second base on the play showed what the catch really was.

There was no movement or restlessness of the audience such as usually indicated the beginning of the exodus. Scott struck Babcock out. The game still had fire. The Grays never let up a moment on their coaching. And the hoarse voices of the Stars were grimmer than ever. Reddie Ray was the only one of the seven who kept silent. And he crouched like a tiger.

The teams changed sides with the Grays three runs in the lead. Morrissey, for the Stars, opened with a clean drive to right. Then Healy slashed a ground ball to Hanley and nearly knocked him down. When old Burns, by a hard rap to short, advanced the runners a base and made a desperate, though unsuccessful, effort to reach first the Providence crowd awoke to a strange and inspiring appreciation. They began that most rare feature in baseball audiences — a strong and trenchant call for the visiting team to win.

The play had gone fast and furious. Wehying, sweaty and disheveled, worked violently. All the Grays were on uneasy tiptoes. And the Stars were seven Indians on the warpath. Halloran fouled down the right-field line; then he fouled over the left-field fence. Wehying tried to make him too anxious, but it was in vain. Halloran was implacable. With two strikes and three balls he hit straight down to white, and was out. The ball had been so sharp that neither runner on base had a chance to advance.

Two men out, two on base, Stars wanting three runs to tie, Scott, a weak batter, at the plate! The situation was disheartening. Yet there sat Delaney, shot through and through with some vital compelling force. He saw only victory. And when the very first ball pitched to Scott hit him on the leg, giving him his base, Delaney got to his feet, unsteady and hoarse.

Bases full, Reddie Ray up, three runs to tie!

Delaney looked at Reddie. And Reddie looked at Delaney. The manager’s face was pale, intent, with a little smile. The player had eyes of fire, a lean, bulging jaw and the hands he reached for his bat clutched like talons.

“Reddie, I knew it was waitin’ for you,” said Delaney, his voice ringing. “Break up the game!”

After all this was only a baseball game, and perhaps from the fans’ viewpoint a poor game at that. But the moment when that lithe, redhaired athlete toed the plate was a beautiful one. The long crash from the bleachers, the steady cheer from the grand stand, proved that it was not so much the game that mattered.

Wehying had shot his bolt; he was tired. Yet he made ready for a final effort. It seemed that passing Reddie Ray on balls would have been a wise play at that juncture. But no pitcher, probably, would have done it with the bases crowded and chances, of course, against the batter.

Clean and swift, Reddie leaped at the first pitched ball. Ping! For a second no one saw the hit. Then it gleamed, a terrific drive, low along the ground, like a bounding bullet, straight at Babcock in right field. It struck his hands and glanced viciously away to roll toward the fence.

Thunder broke loose from the stands. Reddie Ray was turning first base. Beyond first base he got into his wonderful stride. Some runners run with a consistent speed, the best they can make for a given distance. But this trained sprinter gathered speed as he ran. He was no short-stepping runner. His strides were long. They gave an impression of strength combined with fleetness. He had the speed of a race horse, but the trimness, the raciness, the delicate legs were not characteristic of him. Like the wind he turned second, so powerful that his turn was short. All at once there came a difference in his running. It was no longer beautiful. The grace was gone. It was now fierce, violent. His momentum was running him off his legs. He whirled around third base and came hurtling down the homestretch. His face was convulsed, his eyes were wild. His arms and legs worked in a marvelous muscular velocity. He seemed a demon — a flying streak. He overtook and ran down the laboring Scott, who had almost reached the plate.

The park seemed full of shrill, piercing strife. It swelled, reached a highest pitch, sustained that for a long moment, and then declined.

“My Gawd!” exclaimed Delaney, as he fell back. “Wasn’t that a finish? Didn’t I tell you to watch them redheads!”

THE RUBE

IT WAS THE most critical time I had yet experienced in my career as a baseball manager. And there was more than the usual reason why I must pull the team out. A chance for a business deal depended upon the good-will of the stockholders of the Worcester club. On the outskirts of the town was a little cottage that I wanted to buy, and this depended upon the business deal. My whole future happiness depended upon the little girl I hoped to install in that cottage.

Coming to the Worcester Eastern League team, I had found a strong aggregation and an enthusiastic following. I really had a team with pennant possibilities. Providence was a strong rival, but I beat them three straight in the opening series, set a fast pace, and likewise set Worcester baseball mad. The Eastern League clubs were pretty evenly matched; still I continued to hold the lead until misfortune overtook me.

Gregg smashed an umpire and had to be laid off. Mullaney got spiked while sliding and was out of the game. Ashwell sprained his ankle and Hirsch broke a finger. Radbourne, my great pitcher, hurt his arm on a cold day and he could not get up his old speed. Stringer, who had batted three hundred and seventy-one and led the league the year before, struck a bad spell and could not hit a barn door handed up to him.

Then came the slump. The team suddenly let down; went to pieces; played ball that would have disgraced an amateur nine. It was a trying time. Here was a great team, strong everywhere. A little hard luck had dug up a slump — and now! Day by day the team dropped in the race. When we reached the second division the newspapers flayed us. Worcester would never stand for a second division team. Baseball admirers, reporters, fans — especially the fans — are fickle. The admirers quit, the reporters grilled us, and the fans, though they stuck to the games with that barnacle-like tenacity peculiar to them, made life miserable for all of us. I saw the pennant slowly fading, and the successful season, and the business deal, and the cottage, and Milly ——

But when I thought of her I just could not see failure. Something must be done, but what? I was at the end of my wits. When Jersey City beat us that Saturday, eleven to two, shoving us down to fifth place with only a few percentage points above the Fall River team, I grew desperate, and locking my players in the dressing room I went after them. They had lain down on me and needed a jar. I told them so straight and flat, and being bitter, I did not pick and choose my words.

“And fellows,” I concluded, “you’ve got to brace. A little more of this and we can’t pull out. I tell you you’re a championship team. We had that pennant cinched. A few cuts and sprains and hard luck — and you all quit! You lay down! I’ve been patient. I’ve plugged for you. Never a man have I fined or thrown down. But now I’m at the end of my string. I’m out to fine you now, and I’ll release the first man who shows the least yellow. I play no more substitutes. Crippled or not, you guys have got to get in the game.”

I waited to catch my breath and expected some such outburst as managers usually get from criticized players. But not a word! Then I addressed some of them personally.

“Gregg, your lay-off ends today. You play Monday. Mullaney, you’ve drawn your salary for two weeks with that spiked foot. If you can’t run on it — well, all right, but I put it up to your good faith. I’ve played the game and I know it’s hard to run on a sore foot. But you can do it. Ashwell, your ankle is lame, I know — now, can you run?”

“Sure I can. I’m not a quitter. I’m ready to go in,” replied Ashwell.

“Raddy, how about you?” I said, turning to my star twirler.

“Connelly, I’ve seen as fast a team in as bad a rut and yet pull out,” returned Radbourne. “We’re about due for the brace. When it comes — look out! As for me, well, my arm isn’t right, but it’s acting these warm days in a way that tells me it will be soon. It’s been worked too hard. Can’t you get another pitcher? I’m not knocking Herne or Cairns. They’re good for their turn, but we need a new man to help out. And he must be a crackerjack if we’re to get back to the lead.”

“Where on earth can I find such a pitcher?” I shouted, almost distracted.

“Well, that’s up to you,” replied Radbourne.

Up to me it certainly was, and I cudgeled my brains for inspiration. After I had given up in hopelessness it came in the shape of a notice I read in one of the papers. It was a brief mention of an amateur Worcester ball team being shut out in a game with a Rickettsville nine. Rickettsville played Sunday ball, which gave me an opportunity to look them over.

It took some train riding and then a journey by coach to get to Rickettsville. I mingled with the crowd of talking rustics. There was only one little “bleachers” and this was loaded to the danger point with the feminine adherents of the teams. Most of the crowd centered alongside and back of the catcher’s box. I edged in and got a position just behind the stone that served as home plate.

Hunting up a player in this way was no new thing to me. I was too wise to make myself known before I had sized up the merits of my man. So, before the players came upon the field I amused myself watching the rustic fans and listening to them. Then a roar announced the appearance of the Rickettsville team and their opponents, who wore the name of Spatsburg on their Canton flannel shirts. The uniforms of these country amateurs would have put a Philadelphia Mummer’s parade to the blush, at least for bright colors. But after one amused glance I got down to the stern business of the day, and that was to discover a pitcher, and failing that, baseball talent of any kind.

Never shall I forget my first glimpse of the Rickettsville twirler. He was far over six feet tall and as lean as a fence rail. He had a great shock of light hair, a sunburned, sharp-featured face, wide, sloping shoulders, and arms enormously long. He was about as graceful and had about as much of a baseball walk as a crippled cow.

“He’s a rube!” I ejaculated, in disgust and disappointment.

But when I had seen him throw one ball to his catcher I grew as keen as a fox on a scent. What speed he had! I got round closer to him and watched him with sharp, eager eyes. He was a giant. To be sure, he was lean, rawboned as a horse, but powerful. What won me at once was his natural, easy swing. He got the ball away with scarcely any effort. I wondered what he could do when he brought the motion of his body into play.

“Bub, what might be the pitcher’s name?” I asked of a boy.

“Huh, mister, his name might be Dennis, but it ain’t. Huh!” replied this country youngster. Evidently my question had thrown some implication upon this particular player.

“I reckon you be a stranger in these parts,” said a pleasant old fellow. “His name’s Hurtle — Whitaker Hurtle. Whit fer short. He hain’t lost a gol-darned game this summer. No sir-ee! Never pitched any before, nuther.”

Hurtle! What a remarkably fitting name!

Rickettsville chose the field and the game began. Hurtle swung with his easy motion. The ball shot across like a white bullet. It was a strike, and so was the next, and the one succeeding. He could not throw anything but strikes, and it seemed the Spatsburg players could not make even a foul.

Outside of Hurtle’s work the game meant little to me. And I was so fascinated by what I saw in him that I could hardly contain myself. After the first few innings I no longer tried to. I yelled with the Rickettsville rooters. The man was a wonder. A blind baseball manager could have seen that. He had a straight ball, shoulder high, level as a stretched string, and fast. He had a jump ball, which he evidently worked by putting on a little more steam, and it was the speediest thing I ever saw in the way of a shoot. He had a wide-sweeping outcurve, wide as the blade of a mowing scythe. And he had a drop — an unhittable drop. He did not use it often, for it made his catcher dig too hard into the dirt. But whenever he did I glowed all over. Once or twice he used an underhand motion and sent in a ball that fairly swooped up. It could not have been hit with a board. And best of all, dearest to the manager’s heart, he had control. Every ball he threw went over the plate. He could not miss it. To him that plate was as big as a house.

What a find! Already I had visions of the long-looked-for brace of my team, and of the pennant, and the little cottage, and the happy light of a pair of blue eyes. What he meant to me, that country pitcher Hurtle! He shut out the Spatsburg team without a run or a hit or even a scratch. Then I went after him. I collared him and his manager, and there, surrounded by the gaping players, I bought him and signed him before any of them knew exactly what I was about. I did not haggle. I asked the manager what he wanted and produced the cash; I asked Hurtle what he wanted, doubled his ridiculously modest demand, paid him in advance, and got his name to the contract. Then I breathed a long, deep breath; the first one for weeks. Something told me that with Hurtle’s signature in my pocket I had the Eastern League pennant. Then I invited all concerned down to the Rickettsville hotel.

We made connections at the railroad junction and reached Worcester at midnight in time for a good sleep. I took the silent and backward pitcher to my hotel. In the morning we had breakfast together. I showed him about Worcester and then carried him off to the ball grounds.

I had ordered morning practice, and as morning practice is not conducive to the cheerfulness of ball players, I wanted to reach the dressing room a little late. When we arrived, all the players had dressed and were out on the field. I had some difficulty in fitting Hurtle with a uniform, and when I did get him dressed he resembled a two-legged giraffe decked out in white shirt, gray trousers and maroon stockings.

Spears, my veteran first baseman and captain of the team, was the first to see us.

“Sufferin’ umpires!” yelled Spears. “Here, you Micks! Look at this Con’s got with him!”

What a yell burst from that sore and disgruntled bunch of ball tossers! My players were a grouchy set in practice anyway, and today they were in their meanest mood.

“Hey, beanpole!”

“Get on to the stilts!”

“Con, where did you find that?”

I cut short their chaffing with a sharp order for batting practice.

“Regular line-up, now no monkey biz,” I went on. “Take two cracks and a bunt. Here, Hurtle,” I said, drawing him toward the pitcher’s box, “don’t pay any attention to their talk. That’s only the fun of ball players. Go in now and practice a little. Lam a few over.”

Hurtle’s big freckled hands closed nervously over the ball. I thought it best not to say more to him, for he had a rather wild look. I remembered my own stage fright upon my first appearance in fast company. Besides I knew what my amiable players would say to him. I had a secret hope and belief that presently they would yell upon the other side of the fence.

McCall, my speedy little left fielder, led off at bat. He was full of ginger, chipper as a squirrel, sarcastic as only a tried ball player can be.

“Put ’em over, Slats, put ’em over,” he called, viciously swinging his ash.

Hurtle stood stiff and awkward in the box and seemed to be rolling something in his mouth. Then he moved his arm. We all saw the ball dart down straight — that is, all of us except McCall, because if he had seen it he might have jumped out of the way. Crack! The ball hit him on the shin.

McCall shrieked. We all groaned. That crack hurt all of us. Any baseball player knows how it hurts to be hit on the shinbone. McCall waved his bat madly.

“Rube! Rube! Rube!” he yelled.

Then and there Hurtle got the name that was to cling to him all his baseball days.

McCall went back to the plate, red in the face, mad as a hornet, and he sidestepped every time Rube pitched a ball. He never even ticked one and retired in disgust, limping and swearing. Ashwell was next. He did not show much alacrity. On Rube’s first pitch down went Ashwell flat in the dust. The ball whipped the hair of his head. Rube was wild and I began to get worried. Ashwell hit a couple of measly punks, but when he assayed a bunt the gang yelled derisively at him.

“What’s he got?” The old familiar cry of batters when facing a new pitcher!

Stringer went up, bold and formidable. That was what made him the great hitter he was. He loved to bat; he would have faced anybody; he would have faced even a cannon. New curves were a fascination to him. And speed for him, in his own words, was “apple pie.” In this instance, surprise was in store for Stringer. Rube shot up the straight one, then the wide curve, then the drop. Stringer missed them all, struck out, fell down ignominiously. It was the first time he had fanned that season and he looked dazed. We had to haul him away.

I called off the practice, somewhat worried about Rube’s showing, and undecided whether or not to try him in the game that day. So I went to Radbourne, who had quietly watched Rube while on the field. Raddy was an old pitcher and had seen the rise of a hundred stars. I told him about the game at Rickettsville and what I thought of Rube, and frankly asked his opinion.

“Con, you’ve made the find of your life,” said Raddy, quietly and deliberately.

This from Radbourne was not only comforting; it was relief, hope, assurance. I avoided Spears, for it would hardly be possible for him to regard the Rube favorably, and I kept under cover until time to show up at the grounds.

Buffalo was on the ticket for that afternoon, and the Bisons were leading the race and playing in topnotch form. I went into the dressing room while the players were changing suits, because there was a little unpleasantness that I wanted to spring on them before we got on the field.

“Boys,” I said, curtly, “Hurtle works today. Cut loose, now, and back him up.”

I had to grab a bat and pound on the wall to stop the uproar.

“Did you mutts hear what I said? Well, it goes. Not a word, now. I’m handling this team. We’re in bad, I know, but it’s my judgment to pitch Hurtle, rube or no rube, and it’s up to you to back us. That’s the baseball of it.”

Grumbling and muttering, they passed out of the dressing room. I knew ball players. If Hurtle should happen to show good form they would turn in a flash. Rube tagged reluctantly in their rear. He looked like a man in a trance. I wanted to speak encouragingly to him, but Raddy told me to keep quiet.

It was inspiring to see my team practice that afternoon. There had come a subtle change. I foresaw one of those baseball climaxes that can be felt and seen, but not explained. Whether it was a hint of the hoped-for brace, or only another flash of form before the final let-down, I had no means to tell. But I was on edge.

Carter, the umpire, called out the batteries, and I sent my team into the field. When that long, lanky, awkward rustic started for the pitcher’s box, I thought the bleachers would make him drop in his tracks. The fans were sore on any one those days, and a new pitcher was bound to hear from them.

“Where! Oh, where! Oh, where!”

“Connelly’s found another dead one!”

“Scarecrow!”

“Look at his pants!”

“Pad his legs!”

Then the inning began, and things happened. Rube had marvelous speed, but he could not find the plate. He threw the ball the second he got it; he hit men, walked men, and fell all over himself trying to field bunts. The crowd stormed and railed and hissed. The Bisons pranced round the bases and yelled like Indians. Finally they retired with eight runs.

Eight runs! Enough to win two games! I could not have told how it happened. I was sick and all but crushed. Still I had a blind, dogged faith in the big rustic. I believed he had not got started right. It was a trying situation. I called Spears and Raddy to my side and talked fast.

“It’s all off now. Let the dinged rube take his medicine,” growled Spears.

“Don’t take him out,” said Raddy. “He’s not shown at all what’s in him. The blamed hayseed is up in the air. He’s crazy. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. I tell you, Con, he may be scared to death, but he’s dead in earnest.”

Suddenly I recalled the advice of the pleasant old fellow at Rickettsville.

“Spears, you’re the captain,” I said, sharply. “Go after the rube. Wake him up. Tell him he can’t pitch. Call him ‘Pogie!’ That’s a name that stirs him up.”

“Well, I’ll be dinged! He looks it,” replied Spears. “Here, Rube, get off the bench. Come here.”

Rube lurched toward us. He seemed to be walking in his sleep. His breast was laboring and he was dripping with sweat.

“Who ever told you that you could pitch?” asked Spears genially. He was master at baseball ridicule. I had never yet seen the youngster who could stand his badinage. He said a few things, then wound up with: “Come now, you cross between a hayrack and a wagon tongue, get sore and do something. Pitch if you can. Show us! Do you hear, you tow-headed Pogie!”

Rube jumped as if he had been struck. His face flamed red and his little eyes turned black. He shoved his big fist under Capt. Spears’ nose.

“Mister, I’ll lick you fer thet — after the game! And I’ll show you dog-goned well how I can pitch.”

“Good!” exclaimed Raddy; and I echoed his word. Then I went to the bench and turned my attention to the game. Some one told me that McCall had made a couple of fouls, and after waiting for two strikes and three balls had struck out. Ashwell had beat out a bunt in his old swift style, and Stringer was walking up to the plate on the moment. It was interesting, even in a losing game, to see Stringer go to bat. We all watched him, as we had been watching him for weeks, expecting him to break his slump with one of the drives that had made him famous. Stringer stood to the left side of the plate, and I could see the bulge of his closely locked jaw. He swung on the first pitched ball. With the solid rap we all rose to watch that hit. The ball lined first, then soared and did not begin to drop till it was far beyond the right-field fence. For an instant we were all still, so were the bleachers. Stringer had broken his slump with the longest drive ever made on the grounds. The crowd cheered as he trotted around the bases behind Ashwell. Two runs.

“Con, how’d you like that drive?” he asked me, with a bright gleam in his eyes.

“O-h-! — a beaut!” I replied, incoherently. The players on the bench were all as glad as I was. Henley flew out to left. Mullaney smashed a two-bagger to right. Then Gregg hit safely, but Mullaney, in trying to score on the play, was out at the plate.

“Four hits! I tell you fellows, something’s coming off,” said Raddy. “Now, if only Rube — —”

What a difference there was in that long rustic! He stalked into the box, unmindful of the hooting crowd and grimly faced Schultz, the first batter up for the Bisons. This time Rube was deliberate. And where he had not swung before he now got his body and arm into full motion. The ball came in like a glint of light. Schultz looked surprised. The umpire called “Strike!”

“Wow!” yelled the Buffalo coacher. Rube sped up the sidewheeler and Schultz reached wide to meet it and failed. The third was the lightning drop, straight over the plate. The batter poked weakly at it. Then Carl struck out and Manning following, did likewise. Three of the best hitters in the Eastern retired on nine strikes! That was no fluke. I knew what it meant, and I sat there hugging myself with the hum of something joyous in my ears.

Gregg had a glow on his sweaty face. “Oh, but say, boys, take a tip from me! The Rube’s a world beater! Raddy knew it; he sized up that swing, and now I know it. Get wise, you its!”

When old Spears pasted a single through shortstop, the Buffalo manager took Clary out of the box and put in Vane, their best pitcher. Bogart advanced the runner to second, but was thrown out on the play. Then Rube came up. He swung a huge bat and loomed over the Bison’s twirler. Rube had the look of a hitter. He seemed to be holding himself back from walking right into the ball. And he hit one high and far away. The fast Carl could not get under it, though he made a valiant effort. Spears scored and Rube’s long strides carried him to third. The cold crowd in the stands came to life; even the sore bleachers opened up. McCall dumped a slow teaser down the line, a hit that would easily have scored Rube, but he ran a little way, then stopped, tried to get back, and was easily touched out. Ashwell’s hard chance gave the Bison’s shortstop an error, and Stringer came up with two men on bases. Stringer hit a foul over the right-field fence and the crowd howled. Then he hit a hard long drive straight into the centerfielder’s hands.

“Con, I don’t know what to think, but ding me if we ain’t hittin’ the ball,” said Spears. Then to his players: “A little more of that and we’re back in our old shape. All in a minute — at ’em now! Rube, you dinged old Pogie, pitch!”

Rube toed the rubber, wrapped his long brown fingers round the ball, stepped out as he swung and — zing! That inning he unloosed a few more kinks in his arm and he tried some new balls upon the Bisons. But whatever he used and wherever he put them the result was the same — they cut the plate and the Bisons were powerless.

That inning marked the change in my team. They had come hack. The hoodoo had vanished. The championship Worcester team was itself again.

The Bisons were fighting, too, but Rube had them helpless. When they did hit a ball one of my infielders snapped it up. No chances went to the outfield. I sat there listening to my men, and reveled in a moment that I had long prayed for.

“Now you’re pitching some, Rube. Another strike! Get him a board!” called Ashwell.

“Ding ‘em, Rube, ding ‘em!” came from Capt. Spears.

“Speed? Oh-no!” yelled Bogart at third base.

“It’s all off, Rube! It’s all off — all off!”

So, with the wonderful pitching of an angry rube, the Worcester team came into its own again. I sat through it all without another word; without giving a signal. In a way I realized the awakening of the bleachers, and heard the pound of feet and the crash, but it was the spirit of my team that thrilled me. Next to that the work of my new find absorbed me. I gloated over his easy, deceiving swing. I rose out of my seat when he threw that straight fast ball, swift as a bullet, true as a plumb line. And when those hard-hitting, sure bunting Bisons chopped in vain at the wonderful drop, I choked back a wild yell. For Rube meant the world to me that day.

In the eighth the score was 8 to 6. The Bisons had one scratch hit to their credit, but not a runner had got beyond first base. Again Rube held them safely, one man striking out, another fouling out, and the third going out on a little fly.

Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash! The bleachers were making up for many games in which they could not express their riotous feelings.

“It’s a cinch we’ll win!” yelled a fan with a voice. Rube was the first man up in our half of the ninth and his big bat lammed the first ball safe over second base. The crowd, hungry for victory, got to their feet and stayed upon their feet, calling, cheering for runs. It was the moment for me to get in the game, and I leaped up, strung like a wire, and white hot with inspiration. I sent Spears to the coaching box with orders to make Rube run on the first ball. I gripped McCall with hands that made him wince.

Then I dropped back on the bench spent and panting. It was only a game, yet it meant so much! Little McCall was dark as a thunder cloud, and his fiery eyes snapped. He was the fastest man in the league, and could have bunted an arrow from a bow. The foxy Bison third baseman edged in. Mac feinted to bunt toward him then turned his bat inward and dumped a teasing curving ball down the first base line. Rube ran as if in seven-league boots. Mac’s short legs twinkled; he went like the wind; he leaped into first base with his long slide, and beat the throw.

The stands and bleachers seemed to be tumbling down. For a moment the air was full of deafening sound. Then came the pause, the dying away of clatter and roar, the close waiting, suspended quiet. Spears’ clear voice, as he coached Rube, in its keen note seemed inevitable of another run.

Ashwell took his stand. He was another left-hand hitter, and against a right-hand pitcher, in such circumstances as these, the most dangerous of men. Vane knew it. Ellis, the Bison captain knew it, as showed plainly in his signal to catch Rube at second. But Spears’ warning held or frightened Rube on the bag.

Vane wasted a ball, then another. Ashwell could not be coaxed. Wearily Vane swung; the shortstop raced out to get in line for a possible hit through the wide space to his right, and the second baseman got on his toes as both base runners started.

Crack! The old story of the hit and run game! Ashwell’s hit crossed sharply where a moment before the shortstop had been standing. With gigantic strides Rube rounded the corner and scored. McCall flitted through second, and diving into third with a cloud of dust, got the umpire’s decision. When Stringer hurried up with Mac on third and Ash on first the whole field seemed racked in a deafening storm. Again it subsided quickly. The hopes of the Worcester fans had been crushed too often of late for them to be fearless.

But I had no fear. I only wanted the suspense ended. I was like a man clamped in a vise. Stringer stood motionless. Mac bent low with the sprinters’ stoop; Ash watched the pitcher’s arm and slowly edged off first. Stringer waited for one strike and two balls, then he hit the next. It hugged the first base line, bounced fiercely past the bag and skipped over the grass to bump hard into the fence. McCall romped home, and lame Ashwell beat any run he ever made to the plate. Rolling, swelling, crashing roar of frenzied feet could not down the high piercing sustained yell of the fans. It was great. Three weeks of submerged bottled baseball joy exploded in one mad outburst! The fans, too, had come into their own again.

We scored no more. But the Bisons were beaten. Their spirit was broken. This did not make the Rube let up in their last half inning. Grim and pale he faced them. At every long step and swing he tossed his shock of light hair. At the end he was even stronger than at the beginning. He still had the glancing, floating airy quality that baseball players call speed. And he struck out the last three batters.

In the tumult that burst over my ears I sat staring at the dots on my score card. Fourteen strike outs! one scratch hit! No base on balls since the first inning! That told the story which deadened senses doubted. There was a roar in my ears. Some one was pounding me. As I struggled to get into the dressing room the crowd mobbed me. But I did not hear what they yelled. I had a kind of misty veil before my eyes, in which I saw that lanky Rube magnified into a glorious figure. I saw the pennant waving, and the gleam of a white cottage through the trees, and a trim figure waiting at the gate. Then I rolled into the dressing room.

Somehow it seemed strange to me. Most of the players were stretched out in peculiar convulsions. Old Spears sat with drooping head. Then a wild flaming-eyed giant swooped upon me. With a voice of thunder he announced:

“I’m a-goin’ to lick you, too!”

After that we never called him any name except Rube.

THE RUBE’S PENNANT

“FELLOWS, IT’S THIS way. You’ve got to win today’s game. It’s the last of the season and means the pennant for Worcester. One more hard scrap and we’re done! Of all the up-hill fights any bunch ever made to land the flag, our has been the best. You’re the best team I ever managed, the gamest gang of ball players that ever stepped in spikes. We’ve played in the hardest kind of luck all season, except that short trip we called the Rube’s Honeymoon. We got a bad start, and sore arms and busted fingers, all kinds of injuries, every accident calculated to hurt a team’s chances, came our way. But in spite of it all we got the lead and we’ve held it, and today we’re still a few points ahead of Buffalo.”

I paused to catch my breath, and looked round on the grim, tired faces of my players. They made a stern group. The close of the season found them almost played out. What a hard chance it was, after their extraordinary efforts, to bring the issue of the pennant down to this last game!

“If we lose today, Buffalo, with three games more to play at home, will pull the bunting,” I went on. “But they’re not going to win! I’m putting it up to you that way. I know Spears is all in; Raddy’s arm is gone; Ash is playing on one leg; you’re all crippled. But you’ve got one more game in you, I know. These last few weeks the Rube has been pitching out of turn and he’s about all in, too. He’s kept us in the lead. If he wins today it’ll be Rube’s Pennant. But that might apply to all of you. Now, shall we talk over the play today? Any tricks to pull off? Any inside work?”

“Con, you’re pretty much upset an’ nervous,” replied Spears, soberly. “It ain’t no wonder. This has been one corker of a season. I want to suggest that you let me run the team today. I’ve talked over the play with the fellers. We ain’t goin’ to lose this game, Con. Buffalo has been comin’ with a rush lately, an’ they’re confident. But we’ve been holdin’ in, restin’ up as much as we dared an’ still keep our lead. Mebbee it’ll surprise you to know we’ve bet every dollar we could get hold of on this game. Why, Buffalo money is everywhere.”

“All right, Spears, I’ll turn the team over to you. We’ve got the banner crowd of the year out there right now, a great crowd to play before. I’m more fussed up over this game than any I remember. But I have a sort of blind faith in my team.... I guess that’s all I want to say.”

Spears led the silent players out of the dressing room and I followed; and while they began to toss balls to and fro, to limber up cold, dead arms, I sat on the bench.

The Bisons were prancing about the diamond, and their swaggering assurance was not conducive to hope for the Worcesters. I wondered how many of that vast, noisy audience, intent on the day’s sport, even had a thought of what pain and toil it meant to my players. The Buffalo men were in good shape; they had been lucky; they were at the top of their stride, and that made all the difference.

At any rate, there were a few faithful little women in the grand stand — Milly and Nan and Rose Stringer and Kate Bogart — who sat with compressed lips and hoped and prayed for that game to begin and end.

The gong called off the practice, and Spears, taking the field, yelled gruff encouragement to his men. Umpire Carter brushed off the plate and tossed a white ball to Rube and called: “Play!” The bleachers set up an exultant, satisfied shout and sat down to wait.

Schultz toed the plate and watched the Rube pitch a couple. There seemed to be no diminution of the great pitcher’s speed and both balls cut the plate. Schultz clipped the next one down the third-base Line. Bogart trapped it close to the bag, and got it away underhand, beating the speedy runner by a nose. It was a pretty play to start with, and the spectators were not close-mouthed in appreciation. The short, stocky Carl ambled up to bat, and I heard him call the Rube something. It was not a friendly contest, this deciding game between Buffalo and Worcester.

“Bing one close to his swelled nut!” growled Spears to the Rube.

Carl chopped a bouncing grounder through short and Ash was after it like a tiger, but it was a hit. The Buffalo contingent opened up. Then Manning faced the Rube, and he, too, vented sarcasm. It might not have been heard by the slow, imperturbable pitcher for all the notice he took. Carl edged off first, slid back twice, got a third start, and on the Rube’s pitch was off for second base with the lead that always made him dangerous. Manning swung vainly, and Gregg snapped a throw to Mullaney. Ball and runner got to the bag apparently simultaneously; the umpire called Carl out, and the crowd uttered a quick roar of delight.

The next pitch to Manning was a strike. Rube was not wasting any balls, a point I noted with mingled fear and satisfaction. For he might have felt that he had no strength to spare that day and so could not try to work the batters. Again he swung, and Manning rapped a long line fly over McCall. As the little left fielder turned at the sound of the hit and sprinted out, his lameness was certainly not in evidence. He was the swiftest runner in the league and always when he got going the crowd rose in wild clamor to watch him. Mac took that fly right off the foul flag in deep left, and the bleachers dinned their pleasure.

The teams changed positions. “Fellers,” said Spears, savagely, “we may be a bunged-up lot of stiffs, but, say! We can hit! If you love your old captain — sting the ball!”

Vane, the Bison pitcher, surely had his work cut out for him. For one sympathetic moment I saw his part through his eyes. My Worcester veterans, long used to being under fire, were relentlessly bent on taking that game. It showed in many ways, particularly in their silence, because they were seldom a silent team. McCall hesitated a moment over his bats. Then, as he picked up the lightest one, I saw his jaw set, and I knew he intended to bunt. He was lame, yet he meant to beat out an infield hit. He went up scowling.

Vane had an old head, and he had a varied assortment of balls. For Mac he used an under hand curve, rising at the plate and curving in to the left-hander. Mac stepped back and let it go.

“That’s the place, Bo,” cried the Buffalo infielders. “Keep ’em close on the Crab.” Eager and fierce as McCall was, he let pitch after pitch go by till he had three balls and two strikes. Still the heady Vane sent up another pitch similar to the others. Mac stepped forward in the box, dropped his bat on the ball, and leaped down the line toward first base. Vane came rushing in for the bunt, got it and threw. But as the speeding ball neared the baseman, Mac stretched out into the air and shot for the bag. By a fraction of a second he beat the ball. It was one of his demon-slides. He knew that the chances favored his being crippled; we all knew that some day Mac would slide recklessly once too often. But that, too, is all in the game and in the spirit of a great player.

“We’re on,” said Spears; “now keep with him.”

By that the captain meant that Mac would go down, and Ashwell would hit with the run.

When Vane pitched, little McCall was flitting toward second. The Bison shortstop started for the bag, and Ash hit square through his tracks. A rolling cheer burst from the bleachers, and swelled till McCall overran third base and was thrown back by the coacher. Stringer hurried forward with his big bat.

“Oh! My!” yelled a fan, and he voiced my sentiments exactly. Here we would score, and be one run closer to that dearly bought pennant.

How well my men worked together! As the pitcher let the ball go, Ash was digging for second and Mac was shooting plateward. They played on the chance of Stringer’s hitting. Stringer swung, the bat cracked, we heard a thud somewhere, and then Manning, half knocked over, was fumbling for the ball. He had knocked down a terrific drive with his mitt, and he got the ball in time to put Stringer out. But Mac scored and Ash drew a throw to third base and beat it. He had a bad ankle, but no one noticed it in that daring run.

“Watch me paste one!” said Captain Spears, as he spat several yards. He batted out a fly so long and high and far that, slow as he was, he had nearly run to second base when Carl made the catch. Ash easily scored on the throw-in. Then Bogart sent one skipping over second, and Treadwell, scooping it on the run, completed a play that showed why he was considered the star of the Bison infield.

“Two runs, fellers!” said Spears. “That’s some! Push ’em over, Rube.”

The second inning somewhat quickened the pace. Even the Rube worked a little faster. Ellis lined to Cairns in right; Treadwell fouled two balls and had a called strike, and was out; McKnight hit a low fly over short, then Bud Wiler sent one between Spears and Mullaney. Spears went for it while the Rube with giant strides ran to cover first base. Between them they got Bud, but it was only because he was heavy and slow on his feet.

In our half of that inning Mullaney, Gregg and Cairns went out in one, two, three order.

With Pannell up, I saw that the Rube held in on his speed, or else he was tiring. Pannell hit the second slow ball for two bases. Vane sacrificed, and then the redoubtable Schultz came up. He appeared to be in no hurry to bat. Then I saw that the foxy Buffalo players were working to tire the Rube. They had the situation figured. But they were no wiser than old Spears.

“Make ’em hit, Rube. Push ’em straight over. Never mind the corners. We don’t care for a few runs. We’ll hit this game out.”

Shultz flied to Mac, who made a beautiful throw to the plate too late to catch Pannell. Carl deliberately bunted to the right of the Rube and it cost the big pitcher strenuous effort to catch his man.

“We got the Rube waggin’!” yelled a Buffalo player.

Manning tripled down the left foul line — a hit the bleachers called a screamer. When Ellis came up, it looked like a tie score, and when the Rube pitched it was plain that he was tired. The Bisons yelled their assurance of this and the audience settled into quiet. Ellis batted a scorcher that looked good for a hit. But the fast Ashwell was moving with the ball, and he plunged lengthwise to get it square in his glove. The hit had been so sharp that he had time to get up and make the throw to beat the runner. The bleachers thundered at the play.

“You’re up, Rube,” called Spears. “Lam one out of the lot!”

The Rube was an uncertain batter. There was never any telling what he might do, for he had spells of good and bad hitting. But when he did get his bat on the ball it meant a chase for some fielder. He went up swinging his huge club, and he hit a fly that would have been an easy home run for a fast man. But the best Rube could do was to reach third base. This was certainly good enough, as the bleachers loudly proclaimed, and another tally for us seemed sure.

McCall bunted toward third, another of his teasers. The Rube would surely have scored had he started with the ball, but he did not try and missed a chance. Wiler, of course, held the ball, and Mac got to first without special effort. He went down on the first pitch. Then Ash lined to Carl. The Rube waited till the ball was caught and started for home. The crowd screamed, the Rube ran for all he was worth and Carl’s throw to the plate shot in low and true. Ellis blocked the Rube and tagged him out.

It looked to the bleachers as if Ellis had been unnecessarily rough, and they hissed and stormed disapproval. As for me, I knew the Bisons were losing no chance to wear out my pitcher. Stringer fouled out with Mac on third, and it made him so angry that he threw his bat toward the bench, making some of the boys skip lively.

The next three innings, as far as scoring was concerned, were all for Buffalo. But the Worcester infield played magnificent ball, holding their opponents to one run each inning.

That made the score 4 to 2 in favor of Buffalo.

In the last half of the sixth, with Ash on first base and two men out, old Spears hit another of his lofty flies, and this one went over the fence and tied the score. How the bleachers roared! It was full two minutes before they quieted down. To make it all the more exciting, Bogart hit safely, ran like a deer to third on Mullaney’s grounder, which Wiler knocked down, and scored on a passed ball. Gregg ended the inning by striking out.

“Get at the Rube!” boomed Ellis, the Bison captain. “We’ll have him up in the air soon. Get in the game now, you stickers!”

Before I knew what had happened, the Bisons had again tied the score. They were indomitable. They grew stronger all the time. A stroke of good luck now would clinch the game for them. The Rube was beginning to labor in the box; Ashwell was limping; Spears looked as if he would drop any moment; McCall could scarcely walk. But if the ball came his way he could still run. Nevertheless, I never saw any finer fielding than these cripped players executed that inning.

“Ash — Mac — can you hold out?” I asked, when they limped in. I received glances of scorn for my question. Spears, however, was not sanguine.

“I’ll stick pretty much if somethin’ doesn’t happen,” he said; “but I’m all in. I’ll need a runner if I get to first this time.”

Spears lumbered down to first base on an infield hit and the heavy Manning gave him the hip. Old Spears went down, and I for one knew he was out in more ways than that signified by Carter’s sharp: “Out!”

The old war-horse gathered himself up slowly and painfully, and with his arms folded and his jaw protruding, he limped toward the umpire.

“Did you call me out?” he asked, in a voice plainly audible to any one on the field.

“Yes,” snapped Carter.

“What for? I beat the ball, an’ Mannin’ played dirty with me — gave me the hip.”

“I called you out.”

“But I wasn’t out!”

“Shut up now! Get off the diamond!” ordered Carter, peremptorily.

“What? Me? Say, I’m captain of this team. Can’t I question a decision?”

“Not mine. Spears, you’re delaying the game.”

“I tell you it was a rotten decision,” yelled Spears. The bleachers agreed with him.

Carter grew red in the face. He and Spears had before then met in field squabbles, and he showed it.

“Fifty dollars!”

“More! You cheap-skate you piker! More!”

“It’s a hundred!”

“Put me out of the game!” roared Spears.

“You bet! Hurry now — skedaddle!”

“Rob-b-ber!” bawled Spears.

Then he labored slowly toward the bench, all red, and yet with perspiration, his demeanor one of outraged dignity. The great crowd, as one man, stood up and yelled hoarsely at Carter, and hissed and railed at him. When Spears got to the bench he sat down beside me as if in pain, but he was smiling.

“Con, I was all in, an’ knowin’ I couldn’t play any longer, thought I’d try to scare Carter. Say, he was white in the face. If we play into a close decision now, he’ll give it to us.”

Bogart and Mullaney batted out in short order, and once more the aggressive Bisons hurried in for their turn. Spears sent Cairns to first base and Jones to right. The Rube lobbed up his slow ball. In that tight pinch he showed his splendid nerve. Two Buffalo players, over-anxious, popped up flies. The Rube kept on pitching the slow curve until it was hit safely. Then heaving his shoulders with all his might he got all the motion possible into his swing and let drive. He had almost all of his old speed, but it hurt me to see him work with such desperate effort. He struck Wiler out.

He came stooping into the bench, apparently deaf to the stunning round of applause. Every player on the team had a word for the Rube. There was no quitting in that bunch, and if I ever saw victory on the stern faces of ball players it was in that moment.

“We haven’t opened up yet. Mebbee this is the innin’. If it ain’t, the next is,” said Spears.

With the weak end of the batting list up, there seemed little hope of getting a run on Vane that inning. He had so much confidence that he put the ball over for Gregg, who hit out of the reach of the infield. Again Vane sent up his straight ball, no doubt expecting Cairns to hit into a double play. But Cairns surprised Vane and everybody else by poking a safety past first base. The fans began to howl and pound and whistle.

The Rube strode to bat. The infield closed in for a bunt, but the Rube had no orders for that style of play. Spears had said nothing to him. Vane lost his nonchalance and settled down. He cut loose with all his speed. Rube stepped out, suddenly whirled, then tried to dodge, but the ball hit him fair in the back. Rube sagged in his tracks, then straightened up, and walked slowly to first base. Score 5 to 5, bases full, no outs, McCall at bat. I sat dumb on the bench, thrilling and shivering. McCall! Ashwell! Stringer to bat!

“Play it safe! Hold the bags!” yelled the coacher.

McCall fairly spouted defiance as he faced Vane.

“Pitch! It’s all off! An’ you know it!”

If Vane knew that, he showed no evidence of it. His face was cold, unsmiling, rigid. He had to pitch to McCall, the fastest man in the league; to Ashwell, the best bunter; to Stringer, the champion batter. It was a supreme test for a great pitcher. There was only one kind of a ball that McCall was not sure to hit, and that was a high curve, in close. Vane threw it with all his power. Carter called it a strike. Again Vane swung and his arm fairly cracked. Mac fouled the ball. The third was wide. Slowly, with lifting breast, Vane got ready, whirled savagely and shot up the ball. McCall struck out.

As the Buffalo players crowed and the audience groaned it was worthy of note that little McCall showed no temper. Yet he had failed to grasp a great opportunity.

“Ash, I couldn’t see ‘em,” he said, as he passed to the bench. “Speed, whew! look out for it. He’s been savin’ up. Hit quick, an’ you’ll get him.”

Ashwell bent over the plate and glowered at Vane.

“Pitch! It’s all off! An’ you know it!” he hissed, using Mac’s words.

Ashwell, too, was left-handed; he, too, was extremely hard to pitch to; and if he had a weakness that any of us ever discovered, it was a slow curve and change of pace. But I doubted if Vane would dare to use slow balls to Ash at that critical moment. I had yet to learn something of Vane. He gave Ash a slow, wide-sweeping sidewheeler, that curved round over the plate. Ash always took a strike, so this did not matter. Then Vane used his deceptive change of pace, sending up a curve that just missed Ash’s bat as he swung.

“Oh! A-h-h! hit!” wailed the bleachers.

Vane doubled up like a contortionist, and shot up a lightning-swift drop that fooled Ash completely. Again the crowd groaned. Score tied, bases full, two out, Stringer at bat!

“It’s up to you, String,” called Ash, stepping aside.

Stringer did not call out to Vane. That was not his way. He stood tense and alert, bat on his shoulder, his powerful form braced, and he waited. The outfielders trotted over toward right field, and the infielders played deep, calling out warnings and encouragement to the pitcher. Stringer had no weakness, and Vane knew this. Nevertheless he did not manifest any uneasiness, and pitched the first ball without any extra motion. Carter called it a strike. I saw Stringer sink down slightly and grow tenser all over. I believe that moment was longer for me than for either the pitcher or the batter. Vane took his time, watched the base runners, feinted to throw to catch them, and then delivered the ball toward the plate with the limit of his power.

Stringer hit the ball. As long as I live, I will see that glancing low liner. Shultz, by a wonderful play in deep center, blocked the ball and thereby saved it from being a home run. But when Stringer stopped on second base, all the runners had scored.

A shrill, shrieking, high-pitched yell! The bleachers threatened to destroy the stands and also their throats in one long revel of baseball madness.

Jones, batting in place of Spears, had gone up and fouled out before the uproar had subsided.

“Fellers, I reckon I feel easier,” said the Rube. It was the only time I had ever heard him speak to the players at such a stage.

“Only six batters, Rube,” called out Spears. “Boys, it’s a grand game, an’ it’s our’n!”

The Rube had enough that inning to dispose of the lower half of the Buffalo list without any alarming bids for a run. And in our half, Bogart and Mullaney hit vicious ground balls that gave Treadwell and Wiler opportunities for superb plays. Carl, likewise, made a beautiful running catch of Gregg’s line fly. The Bisons were still in the game, still capable of pulling it out at the last moment.

When Shultz stalked up to the plate I shut my eyes a moment, and so still was it that the field and stands might have been empty. Yet, though I tried, I could not keep my eyes closed. I opened them to watch the Rube. I knew Spears felt the same as I, for he was blowing like a porpoise and muttering to himself: “Mebee the Rube won’t last an’ I’ve no one to put in!”

The Rube pitched with heavy, violent effort. He had still enough speed to be dangerous. But after the manner of ball players Shultz and the coachers mocked him.

“Take all you can,” called Ellis to Shultz.

Every pitch lessened the Rube’s strength and these wise opponents knew it. Likewise the Rube himself knew, and never had he shown better head work than in this inning. If he were to win, he must be quick. So he wasted not a ball. The first pitch and the second, delivered breast high and fairly over the plate, beautiful balls to hit, Shultz watched speed by. He swung hard on the third and the crippled Ashwell dove for it in a cloud of dust, got a hand in front of it, but uselessly, for the hit was safe. The crowd cheered that splendid effort.

Carl marched to bat, and he swung his club over the plate as if he knew what to expect. “Come on, Rube!” he shouted. Wearily, doggedly, the Rube whirled, and whipped his arm. The ball had all his old glancing speed and it was a strike. The Rube was making a tremendous effort. Again he got his body in convulsive motion — two strikes! Shultz had made no move to run, nor had Carl made any move to hit. These veterans were waiting. The Rube had pitched five strikes — could he last?

“Now, Carl!” yelled Ellis, with startling suddenness, as the Rube pitched again.

Crack! Carl placed that hit as safely through short as if he had thrown it. McCall’s little legs twinkled as he dashed over the grass. He had to head off that hit and he ran like a streak. Down and forward he pitched, as if in one of his fierce slides, and he got his body in front of the ball, blocking it, and then he rolled over and over. But he jumped up and lined the ball to Bogart, almost catching Shultz at third-base. Then, as Mac tried to walk, his lame leg buckled under him, and down he went, and out.

“Call time,” I called to Carter. “McCall is done.... Myers, you go to left an’ for Lord’s sake play ball!”

Stringer and Bogart hurried to Mac and, lifting him up and supporting him between them with his arms around their shoulders, they led him off amid cheers from the stands. Mac was white with pain.

“Naw, I won’t go off the field. Leave me on the bench,” he said. “Fight ’em now. It’s our game. Never mind a couple of runs.”

The boys ran back to their positions and Carter called play. Perhaps a little delay had been helpful to the Rube. Slowly he stepped into the box and watched Shultz at third and Carl at second. There was not much probability of his throwing to catch them off the base, but enough of a possibility to make them careful, so he held them close.

The Rube pitched a strike to Manning, then another. That made eight strikes square over the plate that inning. What magnificent control! It was equaled by the implacable patience of those veteran Bisons. Manning hit the next ball as hard as Carl had hit his. But Mullaney plunged down, came up with the ball, feinted to fool Carl, then let drive to Gregg to catch the fleeting Shultz. The throw went wide, but Gregg got it, and, leaping lengthwise, tagged Shultz out a yard from the plate.

One out. Two runners on bases. The bleachers rose and split their throats. Would the inning never end?

Spears kept telling himself: “They’ll score, but we’ll win. It’s our game!”

I had a sickening fear that the strange confidence that obsessed the Worcester players had been blind, unreasoning vanity.

“Carl will steal,” muttered Spears. “He can’t be stopped.”

Spears had called the play. The Rube tried to hold the little base-stealer close to second, but, after one attempt, wisely turned to his hard task of making the Bisons hit and hit quickly. Ellis let the ball pass; Gregg made a perfect throw to third; Bogart caught the ball and moved like a flash, but Carl slid under his hands to the bag. Manning ran down to second. The Rube pitched again, and this was his tenth ball over the plate. Even the Buffalo players evinced eloquent appreciation of the Rube’s defence at this last stand.

Then Ellis sent a clean hit to right, scoring both Carl and Manning. I breathed easier, for it seemed with those two runners in, the Rube had a better chance. Treadwell also took those two runners in, the Rube had a way those Bisons waited. They had their reward, for the Rube’s speed left him. When he pitched again the ball had control, but no shoot. Treadwell hit it with all his strength. Like a huge cat Ashwell pounced upon it, ran over second base, forcing Ellis, and his speedy snap to first almost caught Treadwell.

Score 8 to 7. Two out. Runner on first. One run to tie.

In my hazy, dimmed vision I saw the Rube’s pennant waving from the flag-pole.

“It’s our game!” howled Spears in my ear, for the noise from the stands was deafening. “It’s our pennant!”

The formidable batting strength of the Bisons had been met, not without disaster, but without defeat. McKnight came up for Buffalo and the Rube took his weary swing. The batter made a terrific lunge and hit the ball with a solid crack It lined for center.

Suddenly electrified into action, I leaped up. That hit! It froze me with horror. It was a home-run. I saw Stringer fly toward left center. He ran like something wild. I saw the heavy Treadwell lumbering round the bases. I saw Ashwell run out into center field.

“Ah-h!” The whole audience relieved its terror in that expulsion of suspended breath. Stringer had leaped high to knock down the ball, saving a sure home-run and the game. He recovered himself, dashed back for the ball and shot it to Ash.

When Ash turned toward the plate, Treadwell was rounding third base. A tie score appeared inevitable. I saw Ash’s arm whip and the ball shoot forward, leveled, glancing, beautiful in its flight. The crowd saw it, and the silence broke to a yell that rose and rose as the ball sped in. That yell swelled to a splitting shriek, and Treadwell slid in the dust, and the ball shot into Gregg’s hands all at the same instant.

Carter waved both arms upwards. It was the umpire’s action when his decision went against the base-runner. The audience rolled up one great stentorian cry.

“Out!”

I collapsed and sank back upon the bench. My confused senses received a dull roar of pounding feet and dinning voices as the herald of victory. I felt myself thinking how pleased Milly would be. I had a distinct picture in my mind of a white cottage on a hill, no longer a dream, but a reality, made possible for me by the Rube’s winning of the pennant.

THE RUBE’S HONEYMOON

“HE’S GOT A new manager. Watch him pitch now!” That was what Nan Brown said to me about Rube Hurtle, my great pitcher, and I took it as her way of announcing her engagement.

My baseball career held some proud moments, but this one, wherein I realized the success of my matchmaking plans, was certainly the proudest one. So, entirely outside of the honest pleasure I got out of the Rube’s happiness, there was reason for me to congratulate myself. He was a transformed man, so absolutely renewed, so wild with joy, that on the strength of it, I decided the pennant for Worcester was a foregone conclusion, and, sure of the money promised me by the directors, Milly and I began to make plans for the cottage upon the hill.

The Rube insisted on pitching Monday’s game against the Torontos, and although poor fielding gave them a couple of runs, they never had a chance. They could not see the ball. The Rube wrapped it around their necks and between their wrists and straight over the plate with such incredible speed that they might just as well have tried to bat rifle bullets.

That night I was happy. Spears, my veteran captain, was one huge smile; Radbourne quietly assured me that all was over now but the shouting; all the boys were happy.

And the Rube was the happiest of all. At the hotel he burst out with his exceeding good fortune. He and Nan were to be married upon the Fourth of July!

After the noisy congratulations were over and the Rube had gone, Spears looked at me and I looked at him.

“Con,” said he soberly, “we just can’t let him get married on the Fourth.”

“Why not? Sure we can. We’ll help him get married. I tell you it’ll save the pennant for us. Look how he pitched today! Nan Brown is our salvation!”

“See here, Con, you’ve got softenin’ of the brain, too. Where’s your baseball sense? We’ve got a pennant to win. By July Fourth we’ll be close to the lead again, an’ there’s that three weeks’ trip on the road, the longest an’ hardest of the season. We’ve just got to break even on that trip. You know what that means. If the Rube marries Nan — what are we goin’ to do? We can’t leave him behind. If he takes Nan with us — why it’ll be a honeymoon! An’ half the gang is stuck on Nan Brown! An’ Nan Brown would flirt in her bridal veil! ... Why Con, we’re up against a worse proposition than ever.”

“Good Heavens! Cap. You’re right,” I groaned. “I never thought of that. We’ve got to postpone the wedding.... How on earth can we? I’ve heard her tell Milly that. She’ll never consent to it. Say, this’ll drive me to drink.”

“All I got to say is this, Con. If the Rube takes his wife on that trip it’s goin’ to be an all-fired hummer. Don’t you forget that.”

“I’m not likely to. But, Spears, the point is this — will the Rube win his games?”

“Figurin’ from his work today, I’d gamble he’ll never lose another game. It ain’t that. I’m thinkin’ of what the gang will do to him an’ Nan on the cars an’ at the hotels. Oh! Lord, Con, it ain’t possible to stand for that honeymoon trip! Just think!”

“If the worst comes to the worst, Cap, I don’t care for anything but the games. If we get in the lead and stay there I’ll stand for anything.... Couldn’t the gang be coaxed or bought off to let the Rube and Nan alone?”

“Not on your life! There ain’t enough love or money on earth to stop them. It’ll be awful. Mind, I’m not responsible. Don’t you go holdin’ me responsible. In all my years of baseball I never went on a trip with a bride in the game. That’s new on me, an’ I never heard of it. I’d be bad enough if he wasn’t a rube an’ if she wasn’t a crazy girl-fan an’ a flirt to boot, an’ with half the boys in love with her, but as it is — —”

Spears gave up and, gravely shaking his head, he left me. I spent a little while in sober reflection, and finally came to the conclusion that, in my desperate ambition to win the pennant, I would have taken half a dozen rube pitchers and their baseball-made brides on the trip, if by so doing I could increase the percentage of games won. Nevertheless, I wanted to postpone the Rube’s wedding if it was possible, and I went out to see Milly and asked her to help us. But for once in her life Milly turned traitor.

“Connie, you don’t want to postpone it. Why, how perfectly lovely! ... Mrs. Stringer will go on that trip and Mrs. Bogart.... Connie, I’m going too!”

She actually jumped up and down in glee. That was the woman in her. It takes a wedding to get a woman. I remonstrated and pleaded and commanded, all to no purpose. Milly intended to go on that trip to see the games, and the fun, and the honeymoon.

She coaxed so hard that I yielded. Thereupon she called up Mrs. Stringer on the telephone, and of course found that young woman just as eager as she was. For my part, I threw anxiety and care to the four winds, and decided to be as happy as any of them. The pennant was mine! Something kept ringing that in my ears. With the Rube working his iron arm for the edification of his proud Nancy Brown, there was extreme likelihood of divers shut-outs and humiliating defeats for some Eastern League teams.

How well I calculated became a matter of baseball history during that last week of June. We won six straight games, three of which fell to the Rube’s credit. His opponents scored four runs in the three games, against the nineteen we made. Upon July 1, Radbourne beat Providence and Cairns won the second game. We now had a string of eight victories. Sunday we rested, and Monday was the Fourth, with morning and afternoon games with Buffalo.

Upon the morning of the Fourth, I looked for the Rube at the hotel, but could not find him. He did not show up at the grounds when the other boys did, and I began to worry. It was the Rube’s turn to pitch and we were neck and neck with Buffalo for first place. If we won both games we would go ahead of our rivals. So I was all on edge, and kept going to the dressing-room to see if the Rube had arrived. He came, finally, when all the boys were dressed, and about to go out for practice. He had on a new suit, a tailor-made suit at that, and he looked fine. There was about him a kind of strange radiance. He stated simply that he had arrived late because he had just been married. Before congratulations were out of our mouths, he turned to me.

“Con, I want to pitch both games today,” he said.

“What! Say, Whit, Buffalo is on the card today and we are only three points behind them. If we win both we’ll be leading the league once more. I don’t know about pitching you both games.”

“I reckon we’ll be in the lead tonight then,” he replied, “for I’ll win them both.”

I was about to reply when Dave, the ground-keeper, called me to the door, saying there was a man to see me. I went out, and there stood Morrisey, manager of the Chicago American League team. We knew each other well and exchanged greetings.

“Con, I dropped off to see you about this new pitcher of yours, the one they call the Rube. I want to see him work. I’ve heard he’s pretty fast. How about it?”

“Wait — till you see him pitch,” I replied. I could scarcely get that much out, for Morrisey’s presence meant a great deal and I did not want to betray my elation.

“Any strings on him?” queried the big league manager, sharply.

“Well, Morrisey, not exactly. I can give you the first call. You’ll have to bid high, though. Just wait till you see him work.”

“I’m glad to hear that. My scout was over here watching him pitch and says he’s a wonder.”

What luck it was that Morrisey should have come upon this day! I could hardly contain myself. Almost I began to spend the money I would get for selling the Rube to the big league manager. We took seats in the grand stand, as Morrisey did not want to be seen by any players, and I stayed there with him until the gong sounded. There was a big attendance. I looked all over the stand for Nan, but she was lost in the gay crowd. But when I went down to the bench I saw her up in my private box with Milly. It took no second glance to see that Nan Brown was a bride and glorying in the fact.

Then, in the absorption of the game, I became oblivious to Milly and Nan; the noisy crowd; the giant fire-crackers and the smoke; to the presence of Morrisey; to all except the Rube and my team and their opponents. Fortunately for my hopes, the game opened with characteristic Worcester dash. Little McCall doubled, Ashwell drew his base on four wide pitches, and Stringer drove the ball over the right-field fence — three runs!

Three runs were enough to win that game. Of all the exhibitions of pitching with which the Rube had favored us, this one was the finest. It was perhaps not so much his marvelous speed and unhittable curves that made the game one memorable in the annals of pitching; it was his perfect control in the placing of balls, in the cutting of corners; in his absolute implacable mastery of the situation. Buffalo was unable to find him at all. The game was swift short, decisive, with the score 5 to 0 in our favor. But the score did not tell all of the Rube’s work that morning. He shut out Buffalo without a hit, or a scratch, the first no-hit, no-run game of the year. He gave no base on balls; not a Buffalo player got to first base; only one fly went to the outfield.

For once I forgot Milly after a game, and I hurried to find Morrisey, and carried him off to have dinner with me.

“Your rube is a wonder, and that’s a fact,” he said to me several times. “Where on earth did you get him? Connelly, he’s my meat. Do you understand? Can you let me have him right now?”

“No, Morrisey, I’ve got the pennant to win first. Then I’ll sell him.”

“How much? Do you hear? How much?” Morrisey hammered the table with his fist and his eyes gleamed.

Carried away as I was by his vehemence, I was yet able to calculate shrewdly, and I decided to name a very high price, from which I could come down and still make a splendid deal.

“How much?” demanded Morrisey.

“Five thousand dollars,” I replied, and gulped when I got the words out.

Morrisey never batted an eye.

“Waiter, quick, pen and ink and paper!”

Presently my hand, none too firm, was signing my name to a contract whereby I was to sell my pitcher for five thousand dollars at the close of the current season. I never saw a man look so pleased as Morrisey when he folded that contract and put it in his pocket. He bade me good-bye and hurried off to catch a train, and he never knew the Rube had pitched the great game on his wedding day.

That afternoon before a crowd that had to be roped off the diamond, I put the Rube against the Bisons. How well he showed the baseball knowledge he had assimilated! He changed his style in that second game. He used a slow ball and wide curves and took things easy. He made Buffalo hit the ball and when runners got on bases once more let out his speed and held them down. He relied upon the players behind him and they were equal to the occasion.

It was a totally different game from that of the morning, and perhaps one more suited to the pleasure of the audience. There was plenty of hard hitting, sharp fielding and good base running, and the game was close and exciting up to the eighth, when Mullaney’s triple gave us two runs, and a lead that was not headed. To the deafening roar of the bleachers the Rube walked off the field, having pitched Worcester into first place in the pennant race.

That night the boys planned their first job on the Rube. We had ordered a special Pullman for travel to Toronto, and when I got to the depot in the morning, the Pullman was a white fluttering mass of satin ribbons. Also, there was a brass band, and thousands of baseball fans, and barrels of old foot-gear. The Rube and Nan arrived in a cab and were immediately mobbed. The crowd roared, the band played, the engine whistled, the bell clanged; and the air was full of confetti and slippers, and showers of rice like hail pattered everywhere. A somewhat dishevelled bride and groom boarded the Pullman and breathlessly hid in a state room. The train started, and the crowd gave one last rousing cheer. Old Spears yelled from the back platform:

“Fellers, an’ fans, you needn’t worry none about leavin’ the Rube an’ his bride to the tender mercies of the gang. A hundred years from now people will talk about this honeymoon baseball trip. Wait till we come back — an’ say, jest to put you wise, no matter what else happens, we’re comin’ back in first place!”

It was surely a merry party in that Pullman. The bridal couple emerged from their hiding place and held a sort of reception in which the Rube appeared shy and frightened, and Nan resembled a joyous, fluttering bird in gray. I did not see if she kissed every man on the team, but she kissed me as if she had been wanting to do it for ages. Milly kissed the Rube, and so did the other women, to his infinite embarrassment. Nan’s effect upon that crowd was most singular. She was sweetness and caprice and joy personified.

We settled down presently to something approaching order, and I, for one, with very keen ears and alert eyes, because I did not want to miss anything.

“I see the lambs a-gambolin’,” observed McCall, in a voice louder than was necessary to convey his meaning to Mullaney, his partner in the seat.

“Yes, it do seem as if there was joy aboundin’ hereabouts,” replied Mul with fervor.

“It’s more spring-time than summer,” said Ashwell, “an’ everything in nature is runnin’ in pairs. There are the sheep an’ the cattle an’ the birds. I see two kingfishers fishin’ over here. An’ there’s a couple of honey-bees makin’ honey. Oh, honey, an’ by George, if there ain’t two butterflies foldin’ their wings round each other. See the dandelions kissin’ in the field!”

Then the staid Captain Spears spoke up with an appearance of sincerity and a tone that was nothing short of remarkable.

“Reggie, see the sunshine asleep upon yon bank. Ain’t it lovely? An’ that white cloud sailin’ thither amid the blue — how spontaneous! Joy is a-broad o’er all this boo-tiful land today — Oh, yes! An’ love’s wings hover o ‘er the little lambs an’ the bullfrogs in the pond an’ the dicky birds in the trees. What sweetness to lie in the grass, the lap of bounteous earth, eatin’ apples in the Garden of Eden, an’ chasin’ away the snakes an’ dreamin’ of Thee, Sweet-h-e-a-r-t — —”

Spears was singing when he got so far and there was no telling what he might have done if Mullaney, unable to stand the agony, had not jabbed a pin in him. But that only made way for the efforts of the other boys, each of whom tried to outdo the other in poking fun at the Rube and Nan. The big pitcher was too gloriously happy to note much of what went on around him, but when it dawned upon him he grew red and white by turns.

Nan, however, was more than equal to the occasion. Presently she smiled at Spears, such a smile! The captain looked as if he had just partaken of an intoxicating wine. With a heightened color in her cheeks and a dangerous flash in her roguish eyes, Nan favored McCall with a look, which was as much as to say that she remembered him with a dear sadness. She made eyes at every fellow in the car, and then bringing back her gaze to the Rube, as if glorying in comparison, she nestled her curly black head on his shoulder. He gently tried to move her; but it was not possible. Nan knew how to meet the ridicule of half a dozen old lovers. One by one they buried themselves in newspapers, and finally McCall, for once utterly beaten, showed a white feather, and sank back out of sight behind his seat.

The boys did not recover from that shock until late in the afternoon. As it was a physical impossibility for Nan to rest her head all day upon her husband’s broad shoulder, the boys toward dinner time came out of their jealous trance. I heard them plotting something. When dinner was called, about half of my party, including the bride and groom, went at once into the dining-car. Time there flew by swiftly. And later, when we were once more in our Pullman, and I had gotten interested in a game of cards with Milly and Stringer and his wife, the Rube came marching up to me with a very red face.

“Con, I reckon some of the boys have stolen my — our grips,” said he.

“What?” I asked, blankly.

He explained that during his absence in the dining-car someone had entered his stateroom and stolen his grip and Nan’s. I hastened at once to aid the Rube in his search. The boys swore by everything under and beyond the sun they had not seen the grips; they appeared very much grieved at the loss and pretended to help in searching the Pullman. At last, with the assistance of a porter, we discovered the missing grips in an upper berth. The Rube carried them off to his stateroom and we knew soon from his uncomplimentary remarks that the contents of the suitcases had been mixed and manhandled. But he did not hunt for the jokers.

We arrived at Toronto before daylight next morning, and remained in the Pullman until seven o’clock. When we got out, it was discovered that the Rube and Nan had stolen a march upon us. We traced them to the hotel, and found them at breakfast. After breakfast we formed a merry sight-seeing party and rode all over the city.

That afternoon, when Raddy let Toronto down with three hits and the boys played a magnificent game behind him, and we won 7 to 2, I knew at last and for certain that the Worcester team had come into its own again. Then next day Cairns won a close, exciting game, and following that, on the third day, the matchless Rube toyed with the Torontos. Eleven straight games won! I was in the clouds, and never had I seen so beautiful a light as shone in Milly’s eyes.

From that day The Honeymoon Trip of the Worcester Baseball Club, as the newspapers heralded it — was a triumphant march. We won two out of three games at Montreal, broke even with the hard-fighting Bisons, took three straight from Rochester, and won one and tied one out of three with Hartford. It would have been wonderful ball playing for a team to play on home grounds and we were doing the full circuit of the league.

Spears had called the turn when he said the trip would be a hummer. Nan Hurtle had brought us wonderful luck.

But the tricks they played on Whit and his girl-fan bride!

Ashwell, who was a capital actor, disguised himself as a conductor and pretended to try to eject Whit and Nan from the train, urging that love-making was not permitted. Some of the team hired a clever young woman to hunt the Rube up at the hotel, and claim old acquaintance with him. Poor Whit almost collapsed when the young woman threw her arms about his neck just as Nan entered the parlor. Upon the instant Nan became wild as a little tigress, and it took much explanation and eloquence to reinstate Whit in her affections.

Another time Spears, the wily old fox, succeeded in detaining Nan on the way to the station, and the two missed the train. At first the Rube laughed with the others, but when Stringer remarked that he had noticed a growing attachment between Nan and Spears, my great pitcher experienced the first pangs of the green-eyed monster. We had to hold him to keep him from jumping from the train, and it took Milly and Mrs. Stringer to soothe him. I had to wire back to Rochester for a special train for Spears and Nan, and even then we had to play half a game without the services of our captain.

So far upon our trip I had been fortunate in securing comfortable rooms and the best of transportation for my party. At Hartford, however, I encountered difficulties. I could not get a special Pullman, and the sleeper we entered already had a number of occupants. After the ladies of my party had been assigned to berths, it was necessary for some of the boys to sleep double in upper berths.

It was late when we got aboard, the berths were already made up, and soon we had all retired. In the morning very early I was awakened by a disturbance. It sounded like a squeal. I heard an astonished exclamation, another squeal, the pattering of little feet, then hoarse uproar of laughter from the ball players in the upper berths. Following that came low, excited conversation between the porter and somebody, then an angry snort from the Rube and the thud of his heavy feet in the aisle. What took place after that was guess-work for me. But I gathered from the roars and bawls that the Rube was after some of the boys. I poked my head between the curtains and saw him digging into the berths.

“Where’s McCall?” he yelled.

Mac was nowhere in that sleeper, judging from the vehement denials. But the Rube kept on digging and prodding in the upper berths.

“I’m a-goin’ to lick you, Mac, so I reckon you’d better show up,” shouted the Rube.

The big fellow was mad as a hornet. When he got to me he grasped me with his great fence-rail splitting hands and I cried out with pain.

“Say! Whit, let up! Mac’s not here.... What’s wrong?”

“I’ll show you when I find him.” And the Rube stalked on down the aisle, a tragically comic figure in his pajamas. In his search for Mac he pried into several upper berths that contained occupants who were not ball players, and these protested in affright. Then the Rube began to investigate the lower berths. A row of heads protruded in a bobbing line from between the curtains of the upper berths.

“Here, you Indian! Don’t you look in there! That’s my wife’s berth!” yelled Stringer.

Bogart, too, evinced great excitement.

“Hurtle, keep out of lower eight or I’ll kill you,” he shouted.

What the Rube might have done there was no telling, but as he grasped a curtain, he was interrupted by a shriek from some woman assuredly not of our party.

“Get out! you horrid wretch! Help! Porter! Help! Conductor!”

Instantly there was a deafening tumult in the car. When it had subsided somewhat, and I considered I would be safe, I descended from my berth and made my way to the dressing room. Sprawled over the leather seat was the Rube pommelling McCall with hearty good will. I would have interfered, had it not been for Mac’s demeanor. He was half frightened, half angry, and utterly unable to defend himself or even resist, because he was laughing, too.

“Dog-gone it! Whit — I didn’t — do it! I swear it was Spears! Stop thumpin’ me now — or I’ll get sore.... You hear me! It wasn’t me, I tell you. Cheese it!”

For all his protesting Mac received a good thumping, and I doubted not in the least that he deserved it. The wonder of the affair, however, was the fact that no one appeared to know what had made the Rube so furious. The porter would not tell, and Mac was strangely reticent, though his smile was one to make a fellow exceedingly sure something out of the ordinary had befallen. It was not until I was having breakfast in Providence that I learned the true cause of Rube’s conduct, and Milly confided it to me, insisting on strict confidence.

“I promised not to tell,” she said. “Now you promise you’ll never tell.”

“Well, Connie,” went on Milly, when I had promised, “it was the funniest thing yet, but it was horrid of McCall. You see, the Rube had upper seven and Nan had lower seven. Early this morning, about daylight, Nan awoke very thirsty and got up to get a drink. During her absence, probably, but any way some time last night, McCall changed the number on her curtain, and when Nan came back to number seven of course she almost got in the wrong berth.”

“No wonder the Rube punched him!” I declared. “I wish we were safe home. Something’ll happen yet on this trip.”

I was faithful to my promise to Milly, but the secret leaked out somewhere; perhaps Mac told it, and before the game that day all the players knew it. The Rube, having recovered his good humor, minded it not in the least. He could not have felt ill-will for any length of time. Everything seemed to get back into smooth running order, and the Honeymoon Trip bade fair to wind up beautifully.

But, somehow or other, and about something unknown to the rest of us, the Rube and Nan quarreled. It was their first quarrel. Milly and I tried to patch it up but failed.

We lost the first game to Providence and won the second. The next day, a Saturday, was the last game of the trip, and it was Rube’s turn to pitch. Several times during the first two days the Rube and Nan about half made up their quarrel, only in the end to fall deeper into it. Then the last straw came in a foolish move on the part of wilful Nan. She happened to meet Henderson, her former admirer, and in a flash she took up her flirtation with him where she had left off.

“Don’t go to the game with him, Nan,” I pleaded. “It’s a silly thing for you to do. Of course you don’t mean anything, except to torment Whit. But cut it out. The gang will make him miserable and we’ll lose the game. There’s no telling what might happen.”

“I’m supremely indifferent to what happens,” she replied, with a rebellious toss of her black head. “I hope Whit gets beaten.”

She went to the game with Henderson and sat in the grand stand, and the boys spied them out and told the Rube. He did not believe it at first, but finally saw them, looked deeply hurt and offended, and then grew angry. But the gong, sounding at that moment, drew his attention to his business of the day, to pitch.

His work that day reminded me of the first game he ever pitched for me, upon which occasion Captain Spears got the best out of him by making him angry. For several innings Providence was helpless before his delivery. Then something happened that showed me a crisis was near. A wag of a fan yelled from the bleachers.

“Honeymoon Rube!”

This cry was taken up by the delighted fans and it rolled around the field. But the Rube pitched on, harder than ever. Then the knowing bleacherite who had started the cry changed it somewhat.

“Nanny’s Rube!” he yelled.

This, too, went the rounds, and still the Rube, though red in the face, preserved his temper and his pitching control. All would have been well if Bud Wiler, comedian of the Providence team, had not hit upon a way to rattle Rube.

“Nanny’s Goat!” he shouted from the coaching lines. Every Providence player took it up.

The Rube was not proof against that. He yelled so fiercely at them, and glared so furiously, and towered so formidably, that they ceased for the moment. Then he let drive with his fast straight ball and hit the first Providence batter in the ribs. His comrades had to help him to the bench. The Rube hit the next batter on the leg, and judging from the crack of the ball, I fancied that player would walk lame for several days. The Rube tried to hit the next batter and sent him to first on balls. Thereafter it became a dodging contest with honors about equal between pitcher and batters. The Providence players stormed and the bleachers roared. But I would not take the Rube out and the game went on with the Rube forcing in runs.

With the score a tie, and three men on bases one of the players on the bench again yelled “Nanny’s Goat!”

Straight as a string the Rube shot the ball at this fellow and bounded after it. The crowd rose in an uproar. The base runners began to score. I left my bench and ran across the space, but not in time to catch the Rube. I saw him hit two or three of the Providence men. Then the policemen got to him, and a real fight brought the big audience into the stamping melee. Before the Rube was collared I saw at least four blue-coats on the grass.

The game broke up, and the crowd spilled itself in streams over the field. Excitement ran high. I tried to force my way into the mass to get at the Rube and the officers, but this was impossible. I feared the Rube would be taken from the officers and treated with violence, so I waited with the surging crowd, endeavoring to get nearer. Soon we were in the street, and it seemed as if all the stands had emptied their yelling occupants.

A trolley car came along down the street, splitting the mass of people and driving them back. A dozen policemen summarily bundled the Rube upon the rear end of the car. Some of these officers boarded the car, and some remained in the street to beat off the vengeful fans.

I saw some one thrust forward a frantic young woman. The officers stopped her, then suddenly helped her on the car, just as I started. I recognized Nan. She gripped the Rube with both hands and turned a white, fearful face upon the angry crowd.

The Rube stood in the grasp of his wife and the policemen, and he looked like a ruffled lion. He shook his big fist and bawled in far-reaching voice:

“I can lick you all!”

To my infinite relief, the trolley gathered momentum and safely passed out of danger. The last thing I made out was Nan pressing close to the Rube’s side. That moment saw their reconciliation and my joy that it was the end of the Rube’s Honeymoon.

THE RUBE’S WATERLOO

IT WAS ABOUT the sixth inning that I suspected the Rube of weakening. For that matter he had not pitched anything resembling his usual brand of baseball. But the Rube had developed into such a wonder in the box that it took time for his let-down to dawn upon me. Also it took a tip from Raddy, who sat with me on the bench.

“Con, the Rube isn’t himself today,” said Radbourne. “His mind’s not on the game. He seems hurried and flustered, too. If he doesn’t explode presently, I’m a dub at callin’ the turn.”

Raddy was the best judge of a pitcher’s condition, physical or mental, in the Eastern League. It was a Saturday and we were on the road and finishing up a series with the Rochesters. Each team had won and lost a game, and, as I was climbing close to the leaders in the pennant race, I wanted the third and deciding game of that Rochester series. The usual big Saturday crowd was in attendance, noisy, demonstrative and exacting.

In this sixth inning the first man up for Rochester had flied to McCall. Then had come the two plays significant of Rube’s weakening. He had hit one batter and walked another. This was sufficient, considering the score was three to one in our favor, to bring the audience to its feet with a howling, stamping demand for runs.

“Spears is wise all right,” said Raddy.

I watched the foxy old captain walk over to the Rube and talk to him while he rested, a reassuring hand on the pitcher’s shoulder. The crowd yelled its disapproval and Umpire Bates called out sharply:

“Spears, get back to the bag!”

“Now, Mister Umpire, ain’t I hurrin’ all I can?” queried Spears as he leisurely ambled back to first.

The Rube tossed a long, damp welt of hair back from his big brow and nervously toed the rubber. I noted that he seemed to forget the runners on bases and delivered the ball without glancing at either bag. Of course this resulted in a double steal. The ball went wild — almost a wild pitch.

“Steady up, old man,” called Gregg between the yells of the bleachers. He held his mitt square over the plate for the Rube to pitch to. Again the long twirler took his swing, and again the ball went wild. Clancy had the Rube in the hole now and the situation began to grow serious. The Rube did not take half his usual deliberation, and of the next two pitches one of them was a ball and the other a strike by grace of the umpire’s generosity. Clancy rapped the next one, an absurdly slow pitch for the Rube to use, and both runners scored to the shrill tune of the happy bleachers.

I saw Spears shake his head and look toward the bench. It was plain what that meant.

“Raddy, I ought to take the Rube out,” I said, “but whom can I put in? You worked yesterday — Cairns’ arm is sore. It’s got to be nursed. And Henderson, that ladies’ man I just signed, is not in uniform.”

“I’ll go in,” replied Raddy, instantly.

“Not on your life.” I had as hard a time keeping Radbourne from overworking as I had in getting enough work out of some other players. “I guess I’ll let the Rube take his medicine. I hate to lose this game, but if we have to, we can stand it. I’m curious, anyway, to see what’s the matter with the Rube. Maybe he’ll settle down presently.”

I made no sign that I had noticed Spears’ appeal to the bench. And my aggressive players, no doubt seeing the situation as I saw it, sang out their various calls of cheer to the Rube and of defiance to their antagonists. Clancy stole off first base so far that the Rube, catching somebody’s warning too late, made a balk and the umpire sent the runner on to second. The Rube now plainly showed painful evidences of being rattled.

He could not locate the plate without slowing up and when he did that a Rochester player walloped the ball. Pretty soon he pitched as if he did not care, and but for the fast fielding of the team behind him the Rochesters would have scored more than the eight runs it got. When the Rube came in to the bench I asked him if he was sick and at first he said he was and then that he was not. So I let him pitch the remaining innings, as the game was lost anyhow, and we walked off the field a badly beaten team.

That night we had to hurry from the hotel to catch a train for Worcester and we had dinner in the dining-car. Several of my players’ wives had come over from Worcester to meet us, and were in the dining-car when I entered. I observed a pretty girl sitting at one of the tables with my new pitcher, Henderson.

“Say, Mac,” I said to McCall, who was with me, “is Henderson married?”

“Naw, but he looks like he wanted to be. He was in the grand stand today with that girl.”

“Who is she? Oh! a little peach!”

A second glance at Henderson’s companion brought this compliment from me involuntarily.

“Con, you’ll get it as bad as the rest of this mushy bunch of ball players. We’re all stuck on that kid. But since Henderson came she’s been a frost to all of us. An’ it’s put the Rube in the dumps.”

“Who’s the girl?”

“That’s Nan Brown. She lives in Worcester an’ is the craziest girl fan I ever seen. Flirt! Well, she’s got them all beat. Somebody introduced the Rube to her. He has been mooney ever since.”

That was enough to whet my curiosity, and I favored Miss Brown with more than one glance during dinner. When we returned to the parlor car I took advantage of the opportunity and remarked to Henderson that he might introduce his manager. He complied, but not with amiable grace.

So I chatted with Nan Brown, and studied her. She was a pretty, laughing, coquettish little minx and quite baseball mad. I had met many girl fans, but none so enthusiastic as Nan. But she was wholesome and sincere, and I liked her.

Before turning in I sat down beside the Rube. He was very quiet and his face did not encourage company. But that did not stop me.

“Hello, Whit; have a smoke before you go to bed?” I asked cheerfully.

He scarcely heard me and made no move to take the proffered cigar. All at once it struck me that the rustic simplicity which had characterized him had vanished.

“Whit, old fellow, what was wrong today?” I asked, quietly, with my hand on his arm.

“Mr. Connelly, I want my release, I want to go back to Rickettsville,” he replied hurriedly.

For the space of a few seconds I did some tall thinking. The situation suddenly became grave. I saw the pennant for the Worcesters fading, dimming.

“You want to go home?” I began slowly. “Why, Whit, I can’t keep you. I wouldn’t try if you didn’t want to stay. But I’ll tell you confidentially, if you leave me at this stage I’m ruined.”

“How’s that?” he inquired, keenly looking at me.

“Well, I can’t win the pennant without you. If I do win it there’s a big bonus for me. I can buy the house I want and get married this fall if I capture the flag. You’ve met Milly. You can imagine what your pitching means to me this year. That’s all.”

He averted his face and looked out of the window. His big jaw quivered.

“If it’s that — why, I’ll stay, I reckon,” he said huskily.

That moment bound Whit Hurtle and Frank Connelly into a far closer relation than the one between player and manager. I sat silent for a while, listening to the drowsy talk of the other players and the rush and roar of the train as it sped on into the night.

“Thank you, old chap,” I replied. “It wouldn’t have been like you to throw me down at this stage. Whit, you’re in trouble?”

“Yes.”

“Can I help you — in any way?”’

“I reckon not.”

“Don’t be too sure of that. I’m a pretty wise guy, if I do say it myself. I might be able to do as much for you as you’re going to do for me.”

The sight of his face convinced me that I had taken a wrong tack. It also showed me how deep Whit’s trouble really was. I bade him good night and went to my berth, where sleep did not soon visit me. A saucy, sparkling-eyed woman barred Whit Hurtle’s baseball career at its threshold.

Women are just as fatal to ball players as to men in any other walk of life. I had seen a strong athlete grow palsied just at a scornful slight. It’s a great world, and the women run it. So I lay awake racking my brains to outwit a pretty disorganizer; and I plotted for her sake. Married, she would be out of mischief. For Whit’s sake, for Milly’s sake, for mine, all of which collectively meant for the sake of the pennant, this would be the solution of the problem.

I decided to take Milly into my confidence, and finally on the strength of that I got to sleep. In the morning I went to my hotel, had breakfast, attended to my mail, and then boarded a car to go out to Milly’s house. She was waiting for me on the porch, dressed as I liked to see her, in blue and white, and she wore violets that matched the color of her eyes.

“Hello, Connie. I haven’t seen a morning paper, but I know from your face that you lost the Rochester series,” said Milly, with a gay laugh.

“I guess yes. The Rube blew up, and if we don’t play a pretty smooth game, young lady, he’ll never come down.”

Then I told her.

“Why, Connie, I knew long ago. Haven’t you seen the change in him before this?”

“What change?” I asked blankly.

“You are a man. Well, he was a gawky, slouchy, shy farmer boy when he came to us. Of course the city life and popularity began to influence him. Then he met Nan. She made the Rube a worshipper. I first noticed a change in his clothes. He blossomed out in a new suit, white negligee, neat tie and a stylish straw hat. Then it was evident he was making heroic struggles to overcome his awkwardness. It was plain he was studying and copying the other boys. He’s wonderfully improved, but still shy. He’ll always be shy. Connie, Whit’s a fine fellow, too good for Nan Brown.”

“But, Milly,” I interrupted, “the Rube’s hard hit. Why is he too good for her?”

“Nan is a natural-born flirt,” Milly replied. “She can’t help it. I’m afraid Whit has a slim chance. Nan may not see deep enough to learn his fine qualities. I fancy Nan tired quickly of him, though the one time I saw them together she appeared to like him very well. This new pitcher of yours, Henderson, is a handsome fellow and smooth. Whit is losing to him. Nan likes flash, flattery, excitement.”

“McCall told me the Rube had been down in the mouth ever since Henderson joined the team. Milly, I don’t like Henderson a whole lot. He’s not in the Rube’s class as a pitcher. What am I going to do? Lose the pennant and a big slice of purse money just for a pretty little flirt?”

“Oh, Connie, it’s not so bad as that. Whit will come around all right.”

“He won’t unless we can pull some wires. I’ve got to help him win Nan Brown. What do you think of that for a manager’s job? I guess maybe winning pennants doesn’t call for diplomatic genius and cunning! But I’ll hand them a few tricks before I lose. My first move will be to give Henderson his release.”

I left Milly, as always, once more able to make light of discouragements and difficulties.

Monday I gave Henderson his unconditional release. He celebrated the occasion by verifying certain rumors I had heard from other managers. He got drunk. But he did not leave town, and I heard that he was negotiating with Providence for a place on that team.

Radbourne pitched one of his gilt-edged games that afternoon against Hartford and we won. And Milly sat in the grand stand, having contrived by cleverness to get a seat next to Nan Brown. Milly and I were playing a vastly deeper game than baseball — a game with hearts. But we were playing it with honest motive, for the good of all concerned, we believed, and on the square. I sneaked a look now and then up into the grand stand. Milly and Nan appeared to be getting on famously. It was certain that Nan was flushed and excited, no doubt consciously proud of being seen with my affianced. After the game I chanced to meet them on their way out. Milly winked at me, which was her sign that all was working beautifully.

I hunted up the Rube and bundled him off to the hotel to take dinner with me. At first he was glum, but after a while he brightened up somewhat to my persistent cheer and friendliness. Then we went out on the hotel balcony to smoke, and there I made my play.

“Whit, I’m pulling a stroke for you. Now listen and don’t be offended. I know what’s put you off your feed, because I was the same way when Milly had me guessing. You’ve lost your head over Nan Brown. That’s not so terrible, though I daresay you think it’s a catastrophe. Because you’ve quit. You’ve shown a yellow streak. You’ve lain down.

“My boy, that isn’t the way to win a girl. You’ve got to scrap. Milly told me yesterday how she had watched your love affairs with Nan, and how she thought you had given up just when things might have come your way. Nan is a little flirt, but she’s all right. What’s more, she was getting fond of you. Nan is meanest to the man she likes best. The way to handle her, Whit, is to master her. Play high and mighty. Get tragical. Then grab her up in your arms. I tell you, Whit, it’ll all come your way if you only keep your nerve. I’m your friend and so is Milly. We’re going out to her house presently — and Nan will be there.”

The Rube drew a long, deep breath and held out his hand. I sensed another stage in the evolution of Whit Hurtle.

“I reckon I’ve taken baseball coachin’,” he said presently, “an’ I don’t see why I can’t take some other kind. I’m only a rube, an’ things come hard for me, but I’m a-learnin’.”

It was about dark when we arrived at the house.

“Hello, Connie. You’re late. Good evening, Mr. Hurtle. Come right in. You’ve met Miss Nan Brown? Oh, of course; how stupid of me!”

It was a trying moment for Milly and me. A little pallor showed under the Rube’s tan, but he was more composed than I had expected. Nan got up from the piano. She was all in white and deliciously pretty. She gave a quick, glad start of surprise. What a relief that was to my troubled mind! Everything had depended upon a real honest liking for Whit, and she had it.

More than once I had been proud of Milly’s cleverness, but this night as hostess and an accomplice she won my everlasting admiration. She contrived to give the impression that Whit was a frequent visitor at her home and very welcome. She brought out his best points, and in her skillful hands he lost embarrassment and awkwardness. Before the evening was over Nan regarded Whit with different eyes, and she never dreamed that everything had not come about naturally. Then Milly somehow got me out on the porch, leaving Nan and Whit together.

“Milly, you’re a marvel, the best and sweetest ever,” I whispered. “We’re going to win. It’s a cinch.”

“Well, Connie, not that — exactly,” she whispered back demurely. “But it looks hopeful.”

I could not help hearing what was said in the parlor.

“Now I can roast you,” Nan was saying, archly. She had switched back to her favorite baseball vernacular. “You pitched a swell game last Saturday in Rochester, didn’t you? Not! You had no steam, no control, and you couldn’t have curved a saucer.”

“Nan, what could you expect?” was the cool reply. “You sat up in the stand with your handsome friend. I reckon I couldn’t pitch. I just gave the game away.”

“Whit! — Whit! — —”

Then I whispered to Milly that it might be discreet for us to move a little way from the vicinity.

It was on the second day afterward that I got a chance to talk to Nan. She reached the grounds early, before Milly arrived, and I found her in the grand stand. The Rube was down on the card to pitch and when he started to warm up Nan said confidently that he would shut out Hartford that afternoon.

“I’m sorry, Nan, but you’re way off. We’d do well to win at all, let alone get a shutout.”

“You’re a fine manager!” she retorted, hotly. “Why won’t we win?”

“Well, the Rube’s not in good form. The Rube — —”

“Stop calling him that horrid name.”

“Whit’s not in shape. He’s not right. He’s ill or something is wrong. I’m worried sick about him.”

“Why — Mr. Connelly!” exclaimed Nan. She turned quickly toward me.

I crowded on full canvas of gloom to my already long face.

“I’m serious, Nan. The lad’s off, somehow. He’s in magnificent physical trim, but he can’t keep his mind on the game. He has lost his head. I’ve talked with him, reasoned with him, all to no good. He only goes down deeper in the dumps. Something is terribly wrong with him, and if he doesn’t brace, I’ll have to release — —”

Miss Nan Brown suddenly lost a little of her rich bloom. “Oh! you wouldn’t — you couldn’t release him!”

“I’ll have to if he doesn’t brace. It means a lot to me, Nan, for of course I can’t win the pennant this year without Whit being in shape. But I believe I wouldn’t mind the loss of that any more than to see him fall down. The boy is a magnificent pitcher. If he can only be brought around he’ll go to the big league next year and develop into one of the greatest pitchers the game has ever produced. But somehow or other he has lost heart. He’s quit. And I’ve done my best for him. He’s beyond me now. What a shame it is! For he’s the making of such a splendid man outside of baseball. Milly thinks the world of him. Well, well; there are disappointments — we can’t help them. There goes the gong. I must leave you. Nan, I’ll bet you a box of candy Whit loses today. Is it a go?”

“It is,” replied Nan, with fire in her eyes. “You go to Whit Hurtle and tell him I said if he wins today’s game I’ll kiss him!”

I nearly broke my neck over benches and bats getting to Whit with that message. He gulped once.

Then he tightened his belt and shut out Hartford with two scratch singles. It was a great exhibition of pitching. I had no means to tell whether or not the Rube got his reward that night, but I was so happy that I hugged Milly within an inch of her life.

But it turned out that I had been a little premature in my elation. In two days the Rube went down into the depths again, this time clear to China, and Nan was sitting in the grand stand with Henderson. The Rube lost his next game, pitching like a schoolboy scared out of his wits. Henderson followed Nan like a shadow, so that I had no chance to talk to her. The Rube lost his next game and then another. We were pushed out of second place.

If we kept up that losing streak a little longer, our hopes for the pennant were gone. I had begun to despair of the Rube. For some occult reason he scarcely spoke to me. Nan flirted worse than ever. It seemed to me she flaunted her conquest of Henderson in poor Whit’s face.

The Providence ball team came to town and promptly signed Henderson and announced him for Saturday’s game. Cairns won the first of the series and Radbourne lost the second. It was Rube’s turn to pitch the Saturday game and I resolved to make one more effort to put the love-sick swain in something like his old fettle. So I called upon Nan.

She was surprised to see me, but received me graciously. I fancied her face was not quite so glowing as usual. I came bluntly out with my mission. She tried to freeze me but I would not freeze. I was out to win or lose and not to be lightly laughed aside or coldly denied. I played to make her angry, knowing the real truth of her feelings would show under stress.

For once in my life I became a knocker and said some unpleasant things — albeit they were true — about Henderson. She championed Henderson royally, and when, as a last card, I compared Whit’s fine record with Henderson’s, not only as a ball player, but as a man, particularly in his reverence for women, she flashed at me:

“What do you know about it? Mr. Henderson asked me to marry him. Can a man do more to show his respect? Your friend never so much as hinted such honorable intentions. What’s more — he insulted me!” The blaze in Nan’s black eyes softened with a film of tears. She looked hurt. Her pride had encountered a fall.

“Oh, no, Nan, Whit couldn’t insult a lady,” I protested.

“Couldn’t he? That’s all you know about him. You know I — I promised to kiss him if he beat Hartford that day. So when he came I — I did. Then the big savage began to rave and he grabbed me up in his arms. He smothered me; almost crushed the life out of me. He frightened me terribly. When I got away from him — the monster stood there and coolly said I belonged to him. I ran out of the room and wouldn’t see him any more. At first I might have forgiven him if he had apologized — said he was sorry, but never a word. Now I never will forgive him.”

I had to make a strenuous effort to conceal my agitation. The Rube had most carefully taken my fool advice in the matter of wooing a woman.

When I had got a hold upon myself, I turned to Nan white-hot with eloquence. Now I was talking not wholly for myself or the pennant, but for this boy and girl who were at odds in that strangest game of life — love.

What I said I never knew, but Nan lost her resentment, and then her scorn and indifference. Slowly she thawed and warmed to my reason, praise, whatever it was, and when I stopped she was again the radiant bewildering Nan of old.

“Take another message to Whit for me,” she said, audaciously. “Tell him I adore ball players, especially pitchers. Tell him I’m going to the game today to choose the best one. If he loses the game — —”

She left the sentence unfinished. In my state of mind I doubted not in the least that she meant to marry the pitcher who won the game, and so I told the Rube. He made one wild upheaval of his arms and shoulders, like an erupting volcano, which proved to me that he believed it, too.

When I got to the bench that afternoon I was tired. There was a big crowd to see the game; the weather was perfect; Milly sat up in the box and waved her score card at me; Raddy and Spears declared we had the game; the Rube stalked to and fro like an implacable Indian chief — but I was not happy in mind. Calamity breathed in the very air.

The game began. McCall beat out a bunt; Ashwell sacrificed and Stringer laced one of his beautiful triples against the fence. Then he scored on a high fly. Two runs! Worcester trotted out into the field. The Rube was white with determination; he had the speed of a bullet and perfect control of his jump ball and drop. But Providence hit and had the luck. Ashwell fumbled, Gregg threw wild. Providence tied the score.

The game progressed, growing more and more of a nightmare to me. It was not Worcester’s day. The umpire could not see straight; the boys grumbled and fought among themselves; Spears roasted the umpire and was sent to the bench; Bogart tripped, hurting his sore ankle, and had to be taken out. Henderson’s slow, easy ball baffled my players, and when he used speed they lined it straight at a Providence fielder.

In the sixth, after a desperate rally, we crowded the bases with only one out. Then Mullaney’s hard rap to left, seemingly good for three bases, was pulled down by Stone with one hand. It was a wonderful catch and he doubled up a runner at second. Again in the seventh we had a chance to score, only to fail on another double play, this time by the infield.

When the Providence players were at bat their luck not only held good but trebled and quadrupled. The little Texas-league hits dropped safely just out of reach of the infielders. My boys had an off day in fielding. What horror that of all days in a season this should be the one for them to make errors!

But they were game, and the Rube was the gamest of all. He did not seem to know what hard luck was, or discouragement, or poor support. He kept everlastingly hammering the ball at those lucky Providence hitters. What speed he had! The ball streaked in, and somebody would shut his eyes and make a safety. But the Rube pitched, on, tireless, irresistibly, hopeful, not forgetting to call a word of cheer to his fielders.

It was one of those strange games that could not be bettered by any labor or daring or skill. I saw it was lost from the second inning, yet so deeply was I concerned, so tantalizingly did the plays reel themselves off, that I groveled there on the bench unable to abide by my baseball sense.

The ninth inning proved beyond a shadow of doubt how baseball fate, in common with other fates, loved to balance the chances, to lift up one, then the other, to lend a deceitful hope only to dash it away.

Providence had almost three times enough to win. The team let up in that inning or grew over-confident or careless, and before we knew what had happened some scratch hits, and bases on balls, and errors, gave us three runs and left two runners on bases. The disgusted bleachers came out of their gloom and began to whistle and thump. The Rube hit safely, sending another run over the plate. McCall worked his old trick, beating out a slow bunt.

Bases full, three runs to tie! With Ashwell up and one out, the noise in the bleachers mounted to a high-pitched, shrill, continuous sound. I got up and yelled with all my might and could not hear my voice. Ashwell was a dangerous man in a pinch. The game was not lost yet. A hit, anything to get Ash to first — and then Stringer!

Ash laughed at Henderson, taunted him, shook his bat at him and dared him to put one over. Henderson did not stand under fire. The ball he pitched had no steam. Ash cracked it — square on the line into the shortstop’s hands. The bleachers ceased yelling.

Then Stringer strode grimly to the plate. It was a hundred to one, in that instance, that he would lose the ball. The bleachers let out one deafening roar, then hushed. I would rather have had Stringer at the bat than any other player in the world, and I thought of the Rube and Nan and Milly — and hope would not die.

Stringer swung mightily on the first pitch and struck the ball with a sharp, solid bing! It shot toward center, low, level, exceedingly swift, and like a dark streak went straight into the fielder’s hands. A rod to right or left would have made it a home run. The crowd strangled a victorious yell. I came out of my trance, for the game was over and lost. It was the Rube’s Waterloo.

I hurried him into the dressing room and kept close to him. He looked like a man who had lost the one thing worth while in his life. I turned a deaf ear to my players, to everybody, and hustled the Rube out and to the hotel. I wanted to be near him that night.

To my amaze we met Milly and Nan as we entered the lobby. Milly wore a sweet, sympathetic smile. Nan shone more radiant than ever. I simply stared. It was Milly who got us all through the corridor into the parlor. I heard Nan talking.

“Whit, you pitched a bad game but—” there was the old teasing, arch, coquettishness— “but you are the best pitcher!”

“Nan!”

“Yes!”

BREAKING INTO FAST COMPANY

THEY MAY SAY baseball is the same in the minor leagues that it is in the big leagues, but any old ball player or manager knows better. Where the difference comes in, however, is in the greater excellence and unity of the major players, a speed, a daring, a finish that can be acquired only in competition with one another.

I thought of this when I led my party into Morrisey’s private box in the grand stand of the Chicago American League grounds. We had come to see the Rube’s break into fast company. My great pitcher, Whittaker Hurtle, the Rube, as we called him, had won the Eastern League Pennant for me that season, and Morrisey, the Chicago magnate, had bought him. Milly, my affianced, was with me, looking as happy as she was pretty, and she was chaperoned by her mother, Mrs. Nelson.

With me, also, were two veterans of my team, McCall and Spears, who lived in Chicago, and who would have traveled a few miles to see the Rube pitch. And the other member of my party was Mrs. Hurtle, the Rube’s wife, as saucy and as sparkling-eyed as when she had been Nan Brown. Today she wore a new tailor-made gown, new bonnet, new gloves — she said she had decorated herself in a manner befitting the wife of a major league pitcher.

Morrisey’s box was very comfortable, and, as I was pleased to note, so situated that we had a fine view of the field and stands, and yet were comparatively secluded. The bleachers were filling. Some of the Chicago players were on the field tossing and batting balls; the Rube, however, had not yet appeared.

A moment later a metallic sound was heard on the stairs leading up into the box. I knew it for baseball spiked shoes clanking on the wood.

The Rube, looking enormous in his uniform, stalked into the box, knocking over two chairs as he entered. He carried a fielder’s glove in one huge freckled hand, and a big black bat in the other.

Nan, with much dignity and a very manifest pride, introduced him to Mrs. Nelson.

There was a little chatting, and then, upon the arrival of Manager Morrisey, we men retired to the back of the box to talk baseball.

Chicago was in fourth place in the league race, and had a fighting chance to beat Detroit out for the third position. Philadelphia was scheduled for that day, and Philadelphia had a great team. It was leading the race, and almost beyond all question would land the flag. In truth, only one more victory was needed to clinch the pennant. The team had three games to play in Chicago and it was to wind up the season with three in Washington. Six games to play and only one imperatively important to win! But baseball is uncertain, and until the Philadelphians won that game they would be a band of fiends.

“Well, Whit, this is where you break in,” I said. “Now, tip us straight. You’ve had more than a week’s rest. How’s that arm?”

“Grand, Con, grand!” replied the Rube with his frank smile. “I was a little anxious till I warmed up. But say! I’ve got more up my sleeve today than I ever had.”

“That’ll do for me,” said Morrisey, rubbing his hands. “I’ll spring something on these swelled Quakers today. Now, Connelly, give Hurtle one of your old talks — the last one — and then I’ll ring the gong.”

I added some words of encouragement, not forgetting my old ruse to incite the Rube by rousing his temper. And then, as the gong rang and the Rube was departing, Nan stepped forward for her say. There was a little white under the tan on her cheek, and her eyes had a darkling flash.

“Whit, it’s a magnificent sight — that beautiful green field and the stands. What a crowd of fans! Why, I never saw a real baseball crowd before. There are twenty thousand here. And there’s a difference in the feeling. It’s sharper — new to me. It’s big league baseball. Not a soul in that crowd ever heard of you, but, I believe, tomorrow the whole baseball world will have heard of you. Mr. Morrisey knows. I saw it in his face. Captain Spears knows. Connie knows. I know.”

Then she lifted her face and, pulling him down within reach, she kissed him. Nan took her husband’s work in dead earnest; she gloried in it, and perhaps she had as much to do with making him a great pitcher as any of us.

The Rube left the box, and I found a seat between Nan and Milly. The field was a splendid sight. Those bleachers made me glow with managerial satisfaction. On the field both teams pranced and danced and bounced around in practice.

In spite of the absolutely last degree of egotism manifested by the Philadelphia players, I could not but admire such a splendid body of men.

“So these are the champions of last season and of this season, too,” commented Milly. “I don’t wonder. How swiftly and cleanly they play! They appear not to exert themselves, yet they always get the ball in perfect time. It all reminds me of — of the rhythm of music. And that champion batter and runner — that Lane in center — isn’t he just beautiful? He walks and runs like a blue-ribbon winner at the horse show. I tell you one thing, Connie, these Quakers are on dress parade.”

“Oh, these Quakers hate themselves, I don’t think!” retorted Nan. Being a rabid girl-fan it was, of course, impossible for Nan to speak baseball convictions or gossip without characteristic baseball slang. “Stuck on themselves! I never saw the like in my life. That fellow Lane is so swelled that he can’t get down off his toes. But he’s a wonder, I must admit that. They’re a bunch of stars. Easy, fast, trained — they’re machines, and I’ll bet they’re Indians to fight. I can see it sticking out all over them. This will certainly be some game with Whit handing up that jump ball of his to this gang of champs. But, Connie, I’ll go you Whit beats them.”

I laughed and refused to gamble.

The gong rang; the crowd seemed to hum and rustle softly to quiet attention; Umpire McClung called the names of the batteries; then the familiar “Play!”

There was the usual applause from the grand stand and welcome cheers from the bleachers. The Rube was the last player to go out. Morrisey was a manager who always played to the stands, and no doubt he held the Rube back for effect. If so, he ought to have been gratified. That moment reminded me of my own team and audience upon the occasion of the Rube’s debut. It was the same only here it happened in the big league, before a championship team and twenty thousand fans.

The roar that went up from the bleachers might well have scared an unseasoned pitcher out of his wits. And the Quakers lined up before their bench and gazed at this newcomer who had the nerve to walk out there to the box. Cogswell stood on the coaching line, looked at the Rube and then held up both arms and turned toward the Chicago bench as if to ask Morrisey: “Where did you get that?”

Nan, quick as a flash to catch a point, leaned over the box-rail and looked at the champions with fire in her eye. “Oh, you just wait! wait!” she bit out between her teeth.

Certain it was that there was no one who knew the Rube as well as I; and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the hour before me would see brightening of a great star pitcher on the big league horizon. It was bound to be a full hour for me. I had much reason to be grateful to Whit Hurtle. He had pulled my team out of a rut and won me the pennant, and the five thousand dollars I got for his release bought the little cottage on the hill for Milly and me. Then there was my pride in having developed him. And all that I needed to calm me, settle me down into assurance and keen criticism of the game, was to see the Rube pitch a few balls with his old incomparable speed and control.

Berne, first batter for the Quakers, walked up to the plate. He was another Billy Hamilton, built like a wedge. I saw him laugh at the long pitcher.

Whit swayed back, coiled and uncoiled. Something thin, white, glancing, shot at Berne. He ducked, escaping the ball by a smaller margin than appeared good for his confidence. He spoke low to the Rube, and what he said was probably not flavored with the milk of friendly sweetness.

“Wild! What’d you look for?” called out Cogswell scornfully. “He’s from the woods!”

The Rube swung his enormously long arm, took an enormous stride toward third base, and pitched again. It was one of his queer deliveries. The ball cut the plate.

“Ho! Ho!” yelled the Quakers.

The Rube’s next one was his out curve. It broke toward the corner of the plate and would have been a strike had not Berne popped it up.

Callopy, the second hitter, faced the Rube, and he, too, after the manner of ball players, made some remark meant only for the Rube’s ears. Callopy was a famous waiter. He drove more pitchers mad with his implacable patience than any hitter in the league. The first one of the Rube’s he waited on crossed the in-corner; the second crossed the out-corner and the third was Rube’s wide, slow, tantalizing “stitch-ball,” as we call it, for the reason that it came so slow a batter could count the stitches. I believe Callopy waited on that curve, decided to hit it, changed his mind and waited some more, and finally the ball maddened him and he had to poke at it, the result being a weak grounder.

Then the graceful, powerful Lane, champion batter, champion base runner, stepped to the plate. How a baseball crowd, any crowd, anywhere, loves the champion batter! The ovation Lane received made me wonder, with this impressive reception in a hostile camp, what could be the manner of it on his home field? Any boy ball-player from the lots seeing Lane knock the dirt out of his spikes and step into position would have known he was a 400 hitter.

I was curious to see what the Rube would pitch Lane. It must have been a new and significant moment for Hurtle. Some pitchers actually wilt when facing a hitter of Lane’s reputation. But he, on his baseball side, was peculiarly unemotional. Undoubtedly he could get furious, but that only increased his effectiveness. To my amazement the Rube pitched Lane a little easy ball, not in any sense like his floater or stitch-ball, but just a little toss that any youngster might have tossed. Of all possible balls, Lane was not expecting such as that, and he let it go. If the nerve of it amazed me, what did it not do to Lane? I saw his face go fiery red. The grand stand murmured; let out one short yelp of pleasure; the Quaker players chaffed Lane.

The pitch was a strike. I was gripping my chair now, and for the next pitch I prophesied the Rube’s wonderful jump ball, which he had not yet used. He swung long, and at the end of his swing seemed to jerk tensely. I scarcely saw the ball. It had marvelous speed. Lane did not offer to hit it, and it was a strike. He looked at the Rube, then at Cogswell. That veteran appeared amused. The bleachers, happy and surprised to be able to yell at Lane, yelled heartily.

Again I took it upon myself to interpret the Rube’s pitching mind. He had another ball that he had not used, a drop, an unhittable drop. I thought he would use that next. He did, and though Lane reached it with the bat, the hit was a feeble one. He had been fooled and the side was out.

Poole, the best of the Quaker’s pitching staff, walked out to the slab. He was a left-hander, and Chicago, having so many players who batted left-handed, always found a southpaw a hard nut to crack. Cogswell, field manager and captain of the Quakers, kicked up the dust around first base and yelled to his men: “Git in the game!”

Staats hit Poole’s speed ball into deep short and was out; Mitchell flew out to Berne; Rand grounded to second.

While the teams again changed sides the fans cheered, and then indulged in the first stretch of the game. I calculated that they would be stretching their necks presently, trying to keep track of the Rube’s work. Nan leaned on the railing absorbed in her own hope and faith. Milly chattered about this and that, people in the boxes, and the chances of the game.

My own interest, while it did not wholly preclude the fortunes of the Chicago players at the bat, was mostly concerned with the Rube’s fortunes in the field.

In the Rube’s half inning he retired Bannister and Blandy on feeble infield grounders, and worked Cogswell into hitting a wide curve high in the air.

Poole meant to win for the Quakers if his good arm and cunning did not fail him, and his pitching was masterly. McCloskey fanned, Hutchinson fouled out, Brewster got a short safe fly just out of reach, and Hoffner hit to second, forcing Brewster.

With Dugan up for the Quakers in the third inning, Cogswell and Bannister, from the coaching lines, began to talk to the Rube. My ears, keen from long practice, caught some of the remarks in spite of the noisy bleachers.

“Say, busher, you ‘ve lasted longer’n we expected, but you don’t know it!”

“Gol darn you city ball tossers! Now you jest let me alone!”

“We’re comin’ through the rye!”

“My top-heavy rustic friend, you’ll need an airship presently, when you go up!”

All the badinage was good-natured, which was sure proof that the Quakers had not arrived at anything like real appreciation of the Rube. They were accustomed to observe the trying out of many youngsters, of whom ninety-nine out of a hundred failed to make good.

Dugan chopped at three strikes and slammed his bat down. Hucker hit a slow fly to Hoffer. Three men out on five pitched balls! Cogswell, old war horse that he was, stood a full moment and watched the Rube as he walked in to the bench. An idea had penetrated Cogswell’s brain, and I would have given something to know what it was. Cogswell was a great baseball general, and though he had a preference for matured ball-players he could, when pressed, see the quality in a youngster. He picked up his mitt and took his position at first with a gruff word to his players.

Rand for Chicago opened with a hit, and the bleachers, ready to strike fire, began to cheer and stamp. When McCloskey, in an attempt to sacrifice, beat out his bunt the crowd roared. Rand, being slow on his feet, had not attempted to make third on the play. Hutchinson sacrificed, neatly advancing the runners. Then the bleachers played the long rolling drum of clattering feet with shrill whistling accompaniment. Brewster batted a wicked ground ball to Blandy. He dove into the dust, came up with the ball, and feinting to throw home he wheeled and shot the ball to Cogswell, who in turn shot it to the plate to head Rand. Runner and ball got there apparently together, but Umpire McClung’s decision went against Rand. It was fine, fast work, but how the bleachers stormed at McClung!

“Rob-b-ber!”

Again the head of the Quakers’ formidable list was up. I knew from the way that Cogswell paced the coaching box that the word had gone out to look the Rube over seriously. There were possibilities even in rubes.

Berne carefully stepped into the batter’s box, as if he wanted to be certain to the breadth of a hair how close he was to the plate. He was there this time to watch the Rube pitch, to work him out, to see what was what. He crouched low, and it would have been extremely hard to guess what he was up to. His great play, however, was his ability to dump the ball and beat out the throw to first. It developed presently, that this was now his intention and that the Rube knew it and pitched him the one ball which is almost impossible to bunt — a high incurve, over the inside corner. There was no mistaking the Rube’s magnificent control. True as a plumb line he shot up the ball — once, twice, and Berne fouled both — two strikes. Grudgingly he waited on the next, but it, too, was over the corner, and Berne went out on strikes. The great crowd did not, of course, grasp the finesse of the play, but Berne had struck out — that was enough for them.

Callopy, the famous spiker, who had put many a player out of the game for weeks at a time, strode into the batter’s place, and he, too, was not at the moment making any funny remarks. The Rube delivered a ball that all but hit Callopy fair on the head. It was the second narrow escape for him, and the roar he let out showed how he resented being threatened with a little of his own medicine. As might have been expected, and very likely as the Rube intended, Callopy hit the next ball, a sweeping curve, up over the infield.

I was trying to see all the intricate details of the motive and action on the field, and it was not easy to watch several players at once. But while Berne and Callopy were having their troubles with the Rube, I kept the tail of my eye on Cogswell. He was prowling up and down the third-base line.

He was missing no signs, no indications, no probabilities, no possibilities. But he was in doubt. Like a hawk he was watching the Rube, and, as well, the crafty batters. The inning might not tell the truth as to the Rube’s luck, though it would test his control. The Rube’s speed and curves, without any head work, would have made him a pitcher of no mean ability, but was this remarkable placing of balls just accident? That was the question.

When Berne walked to the bench I distinctly heard him say: “Come out of it, you dubs. I say you can’t work him or wait him. He’s peggin’ ’em out of a gun!”

Several of the Quakers were standing out from the bench, all intent on the Rube. He had stirred them up. First it was humor; then ridicule, curiosity, suspicion, doubt. And I knew it would grow to wonder and certainty, then fierce attack from both tongues and bats, and lastly — for ball players are generous — unstinted admiration.

Somehow, not only the first climaxes of a game but the decisions, the convictions, the reputations of pitchers and fielders evolve around the great hitter. Plain it was that the vast throng of spectators, eager to believe in a new find, wild to welcome a new star, yet loath to trust to their own impulsive judgments, held themselves in check until once more the great Lane had faced the Rube.

The field grew tolerably quiet just then. The Rube did not exert himself. The critical stage had no concern for him. He pitched Lane a high curve, over the plate, but in close, a ball meant to be hit and a ball hard to hit safely. Lane knew that as well as any hitter in the world, so he let two of the curves go by — two strikes. Again the Rube relentlessly gave him the same ball; and Lane, hitting viciously, spitefully, because he did not want to hit that kind of a ball, sent up a fly that Rand easily captured.

“Oh, I don’t know! Pretty fair, I guess!” yelled a tenor-voiced fan; and he struck the key-note. And the bleachers rose to their feet and gave the Rube the rousing cheer of the brotherhood of fans.

Hoffer walked to first on a base on balls. Sweeney advanced him. The Rube sent up a giant fly to Callopy. Then Staats hit safely, scoring the first run of the game. Hoffer crossed the plate amid vociferous applause. Mitchell ended the inning with a fly to Blandy.

What a change had come over the spirit of that Quaker aggregation! It was something to make a man thrill with admiration and, if he happened to favor Chicago, to fire all his fighting blood. The players poured upon the Rube a continuous stream of scathing abuse. They would have made a raging devil of a mild-mannered clergyman. Some of them were skilled in caustic wit, most of them were possessed of forked tongues; and Cogswell, he of a thousand baseball battles, had a genius for inflaming anyone he tormented. This was mostly beyond the ken of the audience, and behind the back of the umpire, but it was perfectly plain to me. The Quakers were trying to rattle the Rube, a trick of the game as fair for one side as for the other. I sat there tight in my seat, grimly glorying in the way the Rube refused to be disturbed. But the lion in him was rampant. Fortunately, it was his strange gift to pitch better the angrier he got; and the more the Quakers flayed him, the more he let himself out to their crushing humiliation.

The innings swiftly passed to the eighth with Chicago failing to score again, with Philadelphia failing to score at all. One scratch hit and a single, gifts to the weak end of the batting list, were all the lank pitcher allowed them. Long since the bleachers had crowned the Rube. He was theirs and they were his; and their voices had the peculiar strangled hoarseness due to over-exertion. The grand stand, slower to understand and approve, arrived later; but it got there about the seventh, and ladies’ gloves and men’s hats were sacrificed.

In the eighth the Quakers reluctantly yielded their meed of praise, showing it by a cessation of their savage wordy attacks on the Rube. It was a kind of sullen respect, wrung from the bosom of great foes.

Then the ninth inning was at hand. As the sides changed I remembered to look at the feminine group in our box. Milly was in a most beautiful glow of happiness and excitement. Nan sat rigid, leaning over the rail, her face white and drawn, and she kept saying in a low voice: “Will it never end? Will it never end?” Mrs. Nelson stared wearily.

It was the Quakers’ last stand. They faced it as a team that had won many a game in the ninth with two men out. Dugan could do nothing with the Rube’s unhittable drop, for a drop curve was his weakness, and he struck out. Hucker hit to Hoffer, who fumbled, making the first error of the game. Poole dumped the ball, as evidently the Rube desired, for he handed up a straight one, but the bunt rolled teasingly and the Rube, being big and tall, failed to field it in time.

Suddenly the whole field grew quiet. For the first time Cogswell’s coaching was clearly heard.

“One out! Take a lead! Take a lead! Go through this time. Go through!”

Could it be possible, I wondered, that after such a wonderful exhibition of pitching the Rube would lose out in the ninth?

There were two Quakers on base, one out, and two of the best hitters in the league on deck, with a chance of Lane getting up.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” moaned Nan.

I put my hand on hers. “Don’t quit, Nan. You’ll never forgive yourself if you quit. Take it from me, Whit will pull out of this hole!”

What a hole that was for the Rube on the day of his break into fast company! I measured it by his remarkable deliberation. He took a long time to get ready to pitch to Berne, and when he let drive it was as if he had been trifling all before in that game. I could think of no way to figure it except that when the ball left him there was scarcely any appreciable interval of time before it cracked in Sweeney’s mitt. It was the Rube’s drop, which I believed unhittable. Berne let it go by, shaking his head as McClung called it a strike. Another followed, which Berne chopped at vainly. Then with the same upheaval of his giant frame, the same flinging of long arms and lunging forward, the Rube delivered a third drop. And Berne failed to hit it.

The voiceless bleachers stamped on the benches and the grand stand likewise thundered.

Callopy showed his craft by stepping back and lining Rube’s high pitch to left. Hoffer leaped across and plunged down, getting his gloved hand in front of the ball. The hit was safe, but Hoffer’s valiant effort saved a tie score.

Lane up! Three men on bases! Two out!

Not improbably there were many thousand spectators of that thrilling moment who pitied the Rube for the fate which placed Lane at the bat then. But I was not one of them. Nevertheless my throat was clogged, my mouth dry, and my ears full of bells. I could have done something terrible to Hurtle for his deliberation, yet I knew he was proving himself what I had always tried to train him to be.

Then he swung, stepped out, and threw his body with the ball. This was his rarely used pitch, his last resort, his fast rise ball that jumped up a little at the plate. Lane struck under it. How significant on the instant to see old Cogswell’s hands go up! Again the Rube pitched, and this time Lane watched the ball go by. Two strikes!

That whole audience leaped to its feet, whispering, yelling, screaming, roaring, bawling.

The Rube received the ball from Sweeney and quick as lightning he sped it plateward. The great Lane struck out! The game was over — Chicago, 1; Philadelphia, 0.

In that whirling moment when the crowd went mad and Milly was hugging me, and Nan pounding holes in my hat, I had a queer sort of blankness, a section of time when my sensations were deadlocked.

“Oh! Connie, look!” cried Nan. I saw Lane and Cogswell warmly shaking hands with the Rube. Then the hungry clamoring fans tumbled upon the field and swarmed about the players.

Whereupon Nan kissed me and Milly, and then kissed Mrs. Nelson. In that radiant moment Nan was all sweetness.

“It is the Rube’s break into fast company,” she said.

THE KNOCKER

“YES, CARROLL, I got my notice. Maybe it’s no surprise to you. And there’s one more thing I want to say. You’re ‘it’ on this team. You’re the topnotch catcher in the Western League and one of the best ball players in the game — but you’re a knocker!”

Madge Ellston heard young Sheldon speak. She saw the flash in his gray eyes and the heat of his bronzed face as he looked intently at the big catcher.

“Fade away, sonny. Back to the bush-league for yours!” replied Carroll, derisively. “You’re not fast enough for Kansas City. You look pretty good in a uniform and you’re swift on your feet, but you can’t hit. You’ve got a glass arm and you run bases like an ostrich trying to side. That notice was coming to you. Go learn the game!”

Then a crowd of players trooped noisily out of the hotel lobby and swept Sheldon and Carroll down the porch steps toward the waiting omnibus.

Madge’s uncle owned the Kansas City club. She had lived most of her nineteen years in a baseball atmosphere, but accustomed as she was to baseball talk and the peculiar banterings and bickerings of the players, there were times when it seemed all Greek. If a player got his “notice” it meant he would be released in ten days. A “knocker” was a ball player who spoke ill of his fellow players. This scrap of conversation, however, had an unusual interest because Carroll had paid court to her for a year, and Sheldon, coming to the team that spring, had fallen desperately in love with her. She liked Sheldon pretty well, but Carroll fascinated her. She began to wonder if there were bad feelings between the rivals — to compare them — to get away from herself and judge them impersonally.

When Pat Donahue, the veteran manager of the team came out, Madge greeted him with a smile. She had always gotten on famously with Pat, notwithstanding her imperious desire to handle the managerial reins herself upon occasions. Pat beamed all over his round ruddy face.

“Miss Madge, you weren’t to the park yesterday an’ we lost without our pretty mascot. We shure needed you. Denver’s playin’ at a fast clip.”

“I’m coming out today,” replied Miss Ellston, thoughtfully. “Pat, what’s a knocker?”

“Now, Miss Madge, are you askin’ me that after I’ve been coachin’ you in baseball for years?” questioned Pat, in distress.

“I know what a knocker is, as everybody else does. But I want to know the real meaning, the inside-ball of it, to use your favorite saying.”

Studying her grave face with shrewd eyes Donahue slowly lost his smile.

“The inside-ball of it, eh? Come, let’s sit over here a bit — the sun’s shure warm today.... Miss Madge, a knocker is the strangest man known in the game, the hardest to deal with an’ what every baseball manager hates most.”

Donahue told her that he believed the term “knocker” came originally from baseball; that in general it typified the player who strengthened his own standing by belittling the ability of his team-mates, and by enlarging upon his own superior qualities. But there were many phases of this peculiar type. Some players were natural born knockers; others acquired the name in their later years in the game when younger men threatened to win their places. Some of the best players ever produced by baseball had the habit in its most violent form. There were players of ridiculously poor ability who held their jobs on the strength of this one trait. It was a mystery how they misled magnates and managers alike; how for months they held their places, weakening a team, often keeping a good team down in the race; all from sheer bold suggestion of their own worth and other players’ worthlessness. Strangest of all was the knockers’ power to disorganize; to engender a bad spirit between management and team and among the players. The team which was without one of the parasites of the game generally stood well up in the race for the pennant, though there had been championship teams noted for great knockers as well as great players.

“It’s shure strange, Miss Madge,” said Pat in conclusion, shaking his gray head. “I’ve played hundreds of knockers, an’ released them, too. Knockers always get it in the end, but they go on foolin’ me and workin’ me just the same as if I was a youngster with my first team. They’re part an’ parcel of the game.”

“Do you like these men off the field — outside of baseball, I mean?”

“No, I shure don’t, an’ I never seen one yet that wasn’t the same off the field as he was on.”

“Thank you, Pat. I think I understand now. And — oh, yes, there’s another thing I want to ask you. What’s the matter with Billie Sheldon? Uncle George said he was falling off in his game. Then I’ve read the papers. Billie started out well in the spring.”

“Didn’t he? I was sure thinkin’ I had a find in Billie. Well, he’s lost his nerve. He’s in a bad slump. It’s worried me for days. I’m goin’ to release Billie. The team needs a shake-up. That’s where Billie gets the worst of it, for he’s really the makin’ of a star; but he’s slumped, an’ now knockin’ has made him let down. There, Miss Madge, that’s an example of what I’ve just been tellin’ you. An’ you can see that a manager has his troubles. These hulkin’ athletes are a lot of spoiled babies an’ I often get sick of my job.”

That afternoon Miss Ellston was in a brown study all the way out to the baseball park. She arrived rather earlier than usual to find the grand-stand empty. The Denver team had just come upon the field, and the Kansas City players were practising batting at the left of the diamond. Madge walked down the aisle of the grand stand and out along the reporters’ boxes. She asked one of the youngsters on the field to tell Mr. Sheldon that she would like to speak with him a moment.

Billie eagerly hurried from the players’ bench with a look of surprise and expectancy on his sun-tanned face. Madge experienced for the first time a sudden sense of shyness at his coming. His lithe form and his nimble step somehow gave her a pleasure that seemed old yet was new. When he neared her, and, lifting his cap, spoke her name, the shade of gloom in his eyes and lines of trouble on his face dispelled her confusion.

“Billie, Pat tells me he’s given you ten days’ notice,” she said.

“It’s true.”

“What’s wrong with you, Billie?”

“Oh, I’ve struck a bad streak — can’t hit or throw.”

“Are you a quitter?”

“No, I’m not,” he answered quickly, flushing a dark red.

“You started off this spring with a rush. You played brilliantly and for a while led the team in batting. Uncle George thought so well of you. Then came this spell of bad form. But, Billie, it’s only a slump; you can brace.”

“I don’t know,” he replied, despondently. “Awhile back I got my mind off the game. Then — people who don’t like me have taken advantage of my slump to — —”

“To knock,” interrupted Miss Ellston.

“I’m not saying that,” he said, looking away from her.

“But I’m saying it. See here, Billie Sheldon, my uncle owns this team and Pat Donahue is manager. I think they both like me a little. Now I don’t want to see you lose your place. Perhaps — —”

“Madge, that’s fine of you — but I think — I guess it’d be best for me to leave Kansas City.”

“Why?”

“You know,” he said huskily. “I’ve lost my head — I’m in love — I can’t think of baseball — I’m crazy about you.”

Miss Ellston’s sweet face grew rosy, clear to the tips of her ears.

“Billie Sheldon,” she replied, spiritedly. “You’re talking nonsense. Even if you were were that way, it’d be no reason to play poor ball. Don’t throw the game, as Pat would say. Make a brace! Get up on your toes! Tear things! Rip the boards off the fence! Don’t quit!”

She exhausted her vocabulary of baseball language if not her enthusiasm, and paused in blushing confusion.

“Madge!”

“Will you brace up?”

“Will I — will I!” he exclaimed, breathlessly.

Madge murmured a hurried good-bye and, turning away, went up the stairs. Her uncle’s private box was upon the top of the grand stand and she reached it in a somewhat bewildered state of mind. She had a confused sense of having appeared to encourage Billie, and did not know whether she felt happy or guilty. The flame in his eyes had warmed all her blood. Then, as she glanced over the railing to see the powerful Burns Carroll, there rose in her breast a panic at strange variance with her other feelings.

Many times had Madge Ellston viewed the field and stands and the outlying country from this high vantage point; but never with the same mingling emotions, nor had the sunshine ever been so golden, the woods and meadows so green, the diamond so smooth and velvety, the whole scene so gaily bright.

Denver had always been a good drawing card, and having won the first game of the present series, bade fair to draw a record attendance. The long lines of bleachers, already packed with the familiar mottled crowd, sent forth a merry, rattling hum. Soon a steady stream of well-dressed men and women poured in the gates and up the grand-stand stairs. The soft murmur of many voices in light conversation and laughter filled the air. The peanut venders and score-card sellers kept up their insistent shrill cries. The baseball park was alive now and restless; the atmosphere seemed charged with freedom and pleasure. The players romped like skittish colts, the fans shrieked their witticisms — all sound and movements suggested play.

Madge Ellston was somehow relieved to see her uncle sitting in one of the lower boxes. During this game she wanted to be alone, and she believed she would be, for the President of the League and directors of the Kansas City team were with her uncle. When the bell rang to call the Denver team in from practice the stands could hold no more, and the roped-off side lines were filling up with noisy men and boys. From her seat Madge could see right down upon the players’ bench, and when she caught both Sheldon and Carroll gazing upward she drew back with sharply contrasted thrills.

Then the bell rang again, the bleachers rolled out their welcoming acclaim, and play was called with Kansas City at the bat.

Right off the reel Hunt hit a short fly safely over second. The ten thousand spectators burst into a roar. A good start liberated applause and marked the feeling for the day.

Madge was surprised and glad to see Billie Sheldon start next for the plate. All season, until lately, he had been the second batter. During his slump he had been relegated to the last place on the batting list. Perhaps he had asked Pat to try him once more at the top. The bleachers voiced their unstinted appreciation of this return, showing that Billie still had a strong hold on their hearts.

As for Madge, her breast heaved and she had difficulty in breathing. This was going to be a hard game for her. The intensity of her desire to see Billie brace up to his old form amazed her. And Carroll’s rude words beat thick in her ears. Never before had Billie appeared so instinct with life, so intent and strung as when he faced Keene, the Denver pitcher. That worthy tied himself up in a knot, and then, unlimbering a long arm, delivered the brand new ball.

Billie seemed to leap forward and throw his bat at it. There was a sharp ringing crack — and the ball was like a white string marvelously stretching out over the players, over the green field beyond, and then, sailing, soaring, over the right-field fence. For a moment the stands, even the bleachers, were stone quiet. No player had ever hit a ball over that fence. It had been deemed impossible, as was attested to by the many painted “ads” offering prizes for such a feat. Suddenly the far end of the bleachers exploded and the swelling roar rolled up to engulf the grand stand in thunder. Billie ran round the bases to applause never before vented on that field. But he gave no sign that it affected him; he did not even doff his cap. White-faced and stern, he hurried to the bench, where Pat fell all over him and many of the players grasped his hands.

Up in her box Madge was crushing her score-card and whispering: “Oh! Billie, I could hug you for that!”

Two runs on two pitched balls! That was an opening to stir an exacting audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. The Denver manager peremptorily called Keene off the diamond and sent in Steele, a south-paw, who had always bothered Pat’s left-handed hitters. That move showed his astute judgment, for Steele struck out McReady and retired Curtis and Mahew on easy chances.

It was Dalgren’s turn to pitch and though he had shown promise in several games he had not yet been tried out on a team of Denver’s strength. The bleachers gave him a good cheering as he walked into the box, but for all that they whistled their wonder at Pat’s assurance in putting him against the Cowboys in an important game.

The lad was visibly nervous and the hard-hitting and loud-coaching Denver players went after him as if they meant to drive him out of the game. Crane stung one to left center for a base, Moody was out on a liner to short, almost doubling up Crane; the fleet-footed Bluett bunted and beat the throw to first; Langly drove to left for what seemed a three-bagger, but Curtis, after a hard run, caught the ball almost off the left-field bleachers. Crane and Bluett advanced a base on the throw-in. Then Kane batted up a high foul-fly. Burns Carroll, the Kansas City catcher, had the reputation of being a fiend for chasing foul flies, and he dashed at this one with a speed that threatened a hard fall over the players’ bench or a collision with the fence. Carroll caught the ball and crashed against the grand stand, but leaped back with an agility that showed that if there was any harm done it had not been to him.

Thus the sharp inning ended with a magnificent play. It electrified the spectators into a fierce energy of applause. With one accord, by baseball instinct, the stands and bleachers and roped-in-sidelines realized it was to be a game of games and they answered to the stimulus with a savage enthusiasm that inspired ballplayers to great plays.

In the first half of the second inning, Steele’s will to do and his arm to execute were very like his name. Kansas City could not score. In their half the Denver team made one run by clean hitting.

Then the closely fought advantage see-sawed from one team to the other. It was not a pitchers’ battle, though both men worked to the limit of skill and endurance. They were hit hard. Dazzling plays kept the score down and the innings short. Over the fields hung the portent of something to come, every player, every spectator felt the subtle baseball chance; each inning seemed to lead closer and more thrillingly up to the climax. But at the end of the seventh, with the score tied six and six, with daring steals, hard hits and splendid plays, enough to have made memorable several games, it seemed that the great portentous moment was still in abeyance.

The head of the batting list for Kansas City was up. Hunt caught the first pitched ball squarely on the end of his bat. It was a mighty drive and as the ball soared and soared over the center-field Hunt raced down the base line, and the winged-footed Crane sped outward, the bleachers split their throats. The hit looked good for a home run, but Crane leaped up and caught the ball in his gloved hand. The sudden silence and then the long groan which racked the bleachers was greater tribute to Crane’s play than any applause.

Billie Sheldon then faced Steele. The fans roared hoarsely, for Billie had hit safely three times out of four. Steele used his curve ball, but he could not get the batter to go after it. When he had wasted three balls, the never-despairing bleachers howled: “Now, Billie, in your groove! Sting the next one!” But Billie waited. One strike! Two strikes! Steele cut the plate. That was a test which proved Sheldon’s caliber.

With seven innings of exciting play passed, with both teams on edge, with the bleachers wild and the grand stands keyed up to the breaking point, with everything making deliberation almost impossible, Billie Sheldon had remorselessly waited for three balls and two strikes.

“Now! ... Now! ... Now!” shrieked the bleachers.

Steele had not tired nor lost his cunning. With hands before him he grimly studied Billie, then whirling hard to get more weight into his motion, he threw the ball.

Billie swung perfectly and cut a curving liner between the first baseman and the base. Like a shot it skipped over the grass out along the foul-line into right field. Amid tremendous uproar Billie stretched the hit into a triple, and when he got up out of the dust after his slide into third the noise seemed to be the crashing down of the bleachers. It died out with the choking gurgling yell of the most leather-lunged fan.

“O-o-o-o-you-Billie-e!”

McReady marched up and promptly hit a long fly to the redoubtable Crane. Billie crouched in a sprinter’s position with his eye on the graceful fielder, waiting confidently for the ball to drop. As if there had not already been sufficient heart-rending moments, the chance that governed baseball meted out this play; one of the keenest, most trying known to the game. Players waited, spectators waited, and the instant of that dropping ball was interminably long. Everybody knew Crane would catch it; everybody thought of the wonderful throwing arm that had made him famous. Was it possible for Billie Sheldon to beat the throw to the plate?

Crane made the catch and got the ball away at the same instant Sheldon leaped from the base and dashed for home. Then all eyes were on the ball. It seemed incredible that a ball thrown by human strength could speed plateward so low, so straight, so swift. But it lost its force and slanted down to bound into the catcher’s hands just as Billie slid over the plate.

By the time the bleachers had stopped stamping and bawling, Curtis ended the inning with a difficult grounder to the infield.

Once more the Kansas City players took the field and Burns Carroll sang out in his lusty voice: “Keep lively, boys! Play hard! Dig ’em up an’ get ‘em!” Indeed the big catcher was the main-stay of the home team. The bulk of the work fell upon his shoulders. Dalgren was wild and kept his catcher continually blocking low pitches and wide curves and poorly controlled high fast balls. But they were all alike to Carroll. Despite his weight, he was as nimble on his feet as a goat, and if he once got his hands on the ball he never missed it. It was his encouragement that steadied Dalgren; his judgment of hitters that carried the young pitcher through dangerous places; his lightning swift grasp of points that directed the machine-like work of his team.

In this inning Carroll exhibited another of his demon chases after a foul fly; he threw the base-stealing Crane out at second, and by a remarkable leap and stop of McReady’s throw, he blocked a runner who would have tied the score.

The Cowboys blanked their opponents in the first half of the ninth, and trotted in for their turn needing one run to tie, two runs to win.

There had scarcely been a breathing spell for the onlookers in this rapid-fire game. Every inning had held them, one moment breathless, the next wildly clamorous, and another waiting in numb fear. What did these last few moments hold in store? The only answer to that was the dogged plugging optimism of the Denver players. To listen to them, to watch them, was to gather the impression that baseball fortune always favored them in the end.

“Only three more, Dal. Steady boys, it’s our game,” rolled out Carroll’s deep bass. How virile he was! What a tower of strength to the weakening pitcher!

But valiantly as Dalgren tried to respond, he failed. The grind — the strain had been too severe. When he finally did locate the plate Bluett hit safely. Langley bunted along the base line and beat the ball.

A blank, dead quiet settled down over the bleachers and stands. Something fearful threatened. What might not come to pass, even at the last moment of this nerve-racking game? There was a runner on first and a runner on second. That was bad. Exceedingly bad was it that these runners were on base with nobody out. Worst of all was the fact that Kane was up. Kane, the best bunter, the fastest man to first, the hardest hitter in the league! That he would fail to advance those two runners was scarcely worth consideration. Once advanced, a fly to the outfield, a scratch, anything almost, would tie the score. So this was the climax presaged so many times earlier in the game. Dalgren seemed to wilt under it.

Kane swung his ash viciously and called on Dalgren to put one over. Dalgren looked in toward the bench as if he wanted and expected to be taken out. But Pat Donahue made no sign. Pat had trained many a pitcher by forcing him to take his medicine. Then Carroll, mask under his arm, rolling his big hand in his mitt, sauntered down to the pitcher’s box. The sharp order of the umpire in no wise disconcerted him. He said something to Dalgren, vehemently nodding his head the while. Players and audience alike supposed he was trying to put a little heart into Dalgren, and liked him the better, notwithstanding the opposition to the umpire.

Carroll sauntered back to his position. He adjusted his breast protector, and put on his mask, deliberately taking his time. Then he stepped behind the plate, and after signing for the pitch, he slowly moved his right hand up to his mask.

Dalgren wound up, took his swing, and let drive. Even as he delivered the ball Carroll bounded away from his position, flinging off the mask as he jumped. For a single fleeting instant, the catcher’s position was vacated. But that instant was long enough to make the audience gasp. Kane bunted beautifully down the third base line, and there Carroll stood, fifteen feet from the plate, agile as a huge monkey. He whipped the ball to Mahew at third. Mahew wheeled quick as thought and lined the ball to second. Sheldon came tearing for the bag, caught the ball on the run, and with a violent stop and wrench threw it like a bullet to first base. Fast as Kane was, the ball beat him ten feet. A triple play!

The players of both teams cheered, but the audience, slower to grasp the complex and intricate points, needed a long moment to realize what had happened. They needed another to divine that Carroll had anticipated Kane’s intention to bunt, had left his position as the ball was pitched, had planned all, risked all, played all on Kane’s sure eye; and so he had retired the side and won the game by creating and executing the rarest play in baseball.

Then the audience rose in a body to greet the great catcher. What a hoarse thundering roar shook the stands and waved in a blast over the field! Carroll stood bowing his acknowledgment, and then swaggered a little with the sun shining on his handsome heated face. Like a conqueror conscious of full blown power he stalked away to the clubhouse.

Madge Ellston came out of her trance and viewed the ragged score-card, her torn parasol, her battered gloves and flying hair, her generally disheveled state with a little start of dismay, but when she got into the thick and press of the moving crowd she found all the women more or less disheveled. And they seemed all the prettier and friendlier for that. It was a happy crowd and voices were conspicuously hoarse.

When Madge entered the hotel parlor that evening she found her uncle with guests and among them was Burns Carroll. The presence of the handsome giant affected Madge more impellingly than ever before, yet in some inexplicably different way. She found herself trembling; she sensed a crisis in her feelings for this man and it frightened her. She became conscious suddenly that she had always been afraid of him. Watching Carroll receive the congratulations of many of those present, she saw that he dominated them as he had her. His magnetism was over-powering; his great stature seemed to fill the room; his easy careless assurance emanated from superior strength. When he spoke lightly of the game, of Crane’s marvelous catch, of Dalgren’s pitching and of his own triple play, it seemed these looming features retreated in perspective — somehow lost their vital significance because he slighted them.

In the light of Carroll’s illuminating talk, in the remembrance of Sheldon’s bitter denunciation, in the knowledge of Pat Donahue’s estimate of a peculiar type of ball-player, Madge Ellston found herself judging the man — bravely trying to resist his charm, to be fair to him and to herself.

Carroll soon made his way to her side and greeted her with his old familiar manner of possession. However irritating it might be to Madge when alone, now it held her bound.

Carroll possessed the elemental attributes of a conqueror. When with him Madge whimsically feared that he would snatch her up in his arms and carry her bodily off, as the warriors of old did with the women they wanted. But she began to believe that the fascination he exercised upon her was merely physical. That gave her pause. Not only was Burns Carroll on trial, but also a very foolish fluttering little moth — herself. It was time enough, however, to be stern with herself after she had tried him.

“Wasn’t that a splendid catch of Crane’s today?” she asked.

“A lucky stab! Crane has a habit of running round like an ostrich and sticking out a hand to catch a ball. It’s a grand-stand play. Why, a good outfielder would have been waiting under that fly.”

“Dalgren did fine work in the box, don’t you think?”

“Oh, the kid’s all right with an old head back of the plate. He’s wild, though, and will never make good in fast company. I won his game today. He wouldn’t have lasted an inning without me. It was dead wrong for Pat to pitch him. Dalgren simply can’t pitch and he hasn’t sand enough to learn.”

A hot retort trembled upon Madge Ellston’s lips, but she withheld it and quietly watched Carroll. How complacent he was, how utterly self-contained!

“And Billie Sheldon — wasn’t it good to see him brace? What hitting! . .. That home run!”

“Sheldon flashed up today. That’s the worst of such players. This talk of his slump is all rot. When he joined the team he made some lucky hits and the papers lauded him as a comer, but he soon got down to his real form. Why, to break into a game now and then, to shut his eyes and hit a couple on the nose — that’s not baseball. Pat’s given him ten days’ notice, and his release will be a good move for the team. Sheldon’s not fast enough for this league.”

“I’m sorry. He seemed so promising,” replied Madge. “I liked Billy — pretty well.”

“Yes, that was evident,” said Carroll, firing up. “I never could understand what you saw in him. Why, Sheldon’s no good. He — —”

Madge turned a white face that silenced Carroll. She excused herself and returned to the parlor, where she had last seen her uncle. Not finding him there, she went into the long corridor and met Sheldon, Dalgren and two more of the players. Madge congratulated the young pitcher and the other players on their brilliant work; and they, not to be outdone, gallantly attributed the day’s victory to her presence at the game. Then, without knowing in the least how it came about, she presently found herself alone with Billy, and they were strolling into the music-room.

“Madge, did I brace up?”

The girl risked one quick look at him. How boyish he seemed, how eager! What an altogether different Billie! But was the difference all in him! Somehow, despite a conscious shyness in the moment she felt natural and free, without the uncertainty and restraint that had always troubled her while with him.

“Oh, Billie, that glorious home run!”

“Madge, wasn’t that hit a dandy? How I made it is a mystery, but the bat felt like a feather. I thought of you. Tell me — what did you think when I hit that ball over the fence?”

“Billie, I’ll never, never tell you.”

“Yes — please — I want to know. Didn’t you think something — nice of me?”

The pink spots in Madge’s cheeks widened to crimson flames.

“Billie, are you still — crazy about me? Now, don’t come so close. Can’t you behave yourself? And don’t break my fingers with you terrible baseball hands.... Well, when you made that hit I just collapsed and I said — —”

“Say it! Say it!” implored Billie.

She lowered her face and then bravely raised it.

“I said, ‘Billie, I could hug you for that!’ ... Billie, let me go! Oh, you mustn’t! — please!”

Quite a little while afterward Madge remembered to tell Billie that she had been seeking her uncle. They met him and Pat Donahue, coming out of the parlor.

“Where have you been all evening?” demanded Mr. Ellston.

“Shure it looks as if she’s signed a new manager,” said Pat, his shrewd eyes twinkling.

The soft glow in Madge’s cheeks deepened into tell-tale scarlet; Billie resembled a schoolboy stricken in guilt.

“Aha! so that’s it?” queried her uncle.

“Ellston,” said Pat. “Billie’s home-run drive today recalled his notice an’ if I don’t miss guess it won him another game — the best game in life.”

“By George!” exclaimed Mr. Ellston. “I was afraid it was Carroll!”

He led Madge away and Pat followed with Billie.

“Shure, it was good to see you brace, Billie,” said the manager, with a kindly hand on the young man’s arm. “I’m tickled to death. That ten days’ notice doesn’t go. See? I’ve had to shake up the team but your job is good. I released McReady outright an’ traded Carroll to Denver for a catcher and a fielder. Some of the directors hollered murder, an’ I expect the fans will roar, but I’m running this team, I’ll have harmony among my players. Carroll is a great catcher, but he’s a knocker.”

THE WINNING BALL

ONE DAY IN July our Rochester club, leader in the Eastern League, had returned to the hotel after winning a double-header from the Syracuse club. For some occult reason there was to be a lay-off next day and then on the following another double-header. These double-headers we hated next to exhibition games. Still a lay-off for twenty-four hours, at that stage of the race, was a Godsend, and we received the news with exclamations of pleasure.

After dinner we were all sitting and smoking comfortably in front of the hotel when our manager, Merritt, came hurriedly out of the lobby. It struck me that he appeared a little flustered.

“Say, you fellars,” he said brusquely. “Pack your suits and be ready for the bus at seven-thirty.”

For a moment there was a blank, ominous silence, while we assimilated the meaning of his terse speech.

“I’ve got a good thing on for tomorrow,” continued the manager. “Sixty per cent gate receipts if we win. That Guelph team is hot stuff, though.”

“Guelph!” exclaimed some of the players suspiciously. “Where’s Guelph?”

“It’s in Canada. We’ll take the night express an’ get there tomorrow in time for the game. An’ we’ll hev to hustle.”

Upon Merritt then rained a multiplicity of excuses. Gillinger was not well, and ought to have that day’s rest. Snead’s eyes would profit by a lay-off. Deerfoot Browning was leading the league in base running, and as his legs were all bruised and scraped by sliding, a manager who was not an idiot would have a care of such valuable runmakers for his team. Lake had “Charley-horse.” Hathaway’s arm was sore. Bane’s stomach threatened gastritis. Spike Doran’s finger needed a chance to heal. I was stale, and the other players, three pitchers, swore their arms should be in the hospital.

“Cut it out!” said Merritt, getting exasperated. “You’d all lay down on me — now, wouldn’t you? Well, listen to this: McDougal pitched today; he doesn’t go. Blake works Friday, he doesn’t go. But the rest of you puffed-up, high-salaried stiffs pack your grips quick. See? It’ll cost any fresh fellar fifty for missin’ the train.”

So that was how eleven of the Rochester team found themselves moodily boarding a Pullman en route for Buffalo and Canada. We went to bed early and arose late.

Guelph lay somewhere in the interior of Canada, and we did not expect to get there until 1 o’clock.

As it turned out, the train was late; we had to dress hurriedly in the smoking room, pack our citizen clothes in our grips and leave the train to go direct to the ball grounds without time for lunch.

It was a tired, dusty-eyed, peevish crowd of ball players that climbed into a waiting bus at the little station.

We had never heard of Guelph; we did not care anything about Rube baseball teams. Baseball was not play to us; it was the hardest kind of work, and of all things an exhibition game was an abomination.

The Guelph players, strapping lads, met us with every mark of respect and courtesy and escorted us to the field with a brass band that was loud in welcome, if not harmonious in tune.

Some 500 men and boys trotted curiously along with us, for all the world as if the bus were a circus parade cage filled with striped tigers. What a rustic, motley crowd massed about in and on that ball ground. There must have been 10,000.

The audience was strange to us. The Indians, half-breeds, French-Canadians; the huge, hulking, bearded farmers or traders, or trappers, whatever they were, were new to our baseball experience.

The players themselves, however, earned the largest share of our attention. By the time they had practiced a few moments we looked at Merritt and Merritt looked at us.

These long, powerful, big-handed lads evidently did not know the difference between lacrosse and baseball; but they were quick as cats on their feet, and they scooped up the ball in a way wonderful to see. And throw! — it made a professional’s heart swell just to see them line the ball across the diamond.

“Lord! what whips these lads have!” exclaimed Merritt. “Hope we’re not up against it. If this team should beat us we wouldn’t draw a handful at Toronto. We can’t afford to be beaten. Jump around and cinch the game quick. If we get in a bad place, I’ll sneak in the ‘rabbit.’”

The “rabbit” was a baseball similar in appearance to the ordinary league ball; under its horse-hide cover, however, it was remarkably different.

An ingenious fan, a friend of Merritt, had removed the covers from a number of league balls and sewed them on rubber balls of his own making. They could not be distinguished from the regular article, not even by an experienced professional — until they were hit. Then! The fact that after every bounce one of these rubber balls bounded swifter and higher had given it the name of the “rabbit.”

Many a game had the “rabbit” won for us at critical stages. Of course it was against the rules of the league, and of course every player in the league knew about it; still, when it was judiciously and cleverly brought into a close game, the “rabbit” would be in play, and very probably over the fence, before the opposing captain could learn of it, let alone appeal to the umpire.

“Fellars, look at that guy who’s goin’ to pitch,” suddenly spoke up one of the team.

Many as were the country players whom we seasoned and traveled professionals had run across, this twirler outclassed them for remarkable appearance. Moreover, what put an entirely different tinge to our momentary humor was the discovery that he was as wild as a March hare and could throw a ball so fast that it resembled a pea shot from a boy’s air gun.

Deerfoot led our batting list, and after the first pitched ball, which he did not see, and the second, which ticked his shirt as it shot past, he turned to us with an expression that made us groan inwardly.

When Deerfoot looked that way it meant the pitcher was dangerous. Deerfoot made no effort to swing at the next ball, and was promptly called out on strikes.

I was second at bat, and went up with some reluctance. I happened to be leading the league in both long distance and safe hitting, and I doted on speed. But having stopped many mean in-shoots with various parts of my anatomy, I was rather squeamish about facing backwoods yaps who had no control.

When I had watched a couple of his pitches, which the umpire called strikes, I gave him credit for as much speed as Rusie. These balls were as straight as a string, singularly without curve, jump, or variation of any kind. I lined the next one so hard at the shortstop that it cracked like a pistol as it struck his hands and whirled him half off his feet. Still he hung to the ball and gave opportunity for the first crash of applause.

“Boys, he’s a trifle wild,” I said to my team-mates, “but he has the most beautiful ball to hit you ever saw. I don’t believe he uses a curve, and when we once time that speed we’ll kill it.”

Next inning, after old man Hathaway had baffled the Canadians with his wide, tantalizing curves, my predictions began to be verified. Snead rapped one high and far to deep right field. To our infinite surprise, however, the right fielder ran with fleetness that made our own Deerfoot seem slow, and he got under the ball and caught it.

Doran sent a sizzling grasscutter down toward left. The lanky third baseman darted over, dived down, and, coming up with the ball, exhibited the power of a throwing arm that made as all green with envy.

Then, when the catcher chased a foul fly somewhere back in the crowd and caught it, we began to take notice.

“Lucky stabs!” said Merritt cheerfully. “They can’t keep that up. We’ll drive him to the woods next time.”

But they did keep it up; moreover, they became more brilliant as the game progressed. What with Hathaway’s heady pitching we soon disposed of them when at the bat; our turns, however, owing to the wonderful fielding of these backwoodsmen, were also fruitless.

Merritt, with his mind ever on the slice of gate money coming if we won, began to fidget and fume and find fault.

“You’re a swell lot of champions, now, ain’t you?” he observed between innings.

All baseball players like to bat, and nothing pleases them so much as base hits; on the other hand, nothing is quite so painful as to send out hard liners only to see them caught. And it seemed as if every man on our team connected with that lanky twirler’s fast high ball and hit with the force that made the bat spring only to have one of these rubes get his big hands upon it.

Considering that we were in no angelic frame of mind before the game started, and in view of Merritt’s persistently increasing ill humor, this failure of ours to hit a ball safely gradually worked us into a kind of frenzy. From indifference we passed to determination, and from that to sheer passionate purpose.

Luck appeared to be turning in the sixth inning. With one out, Lake hit a beauty to right. Doran beat an infield grounder and reached first. Hathaway struck out.

With Browning up and me next, the situation looked rather precarious for the Canadians.

“Say, Deerfoot,” whispered Merritt, “dump one down the third-base line. He’s playin’ deep. It’s a pipe. Then the bases will be full an’ Reddy’ll clean up.”

In a stage like that Browning was a man absolutely to depend upon. He placed a slow bunt in the grass toward third and sprinted for first. The third baseman fielded the ball, but, being confused, did not know where to throw it.

“Stick it in your basket,” yelled Merritt, in a delight that showed how hard he was pulling for the gate money, and his beaming smile as he turned to me was inspiring. “Now, Reddy, it’s up to you! I’m not worrying about what’s happened so far. I know, with you at bat in a pinch, it’s all off!”

Merritt’s compliment was pleasing, but it did not augment my purpose, for that already had reached the highest mark. Love of hitting, if no other thing, gave me the thrilling fire to arise to the opportunity. Selecting my light bat, I went up and faced the rustic twirler and softly said things to him.

He delivered the ball, and I could have yelled aloud, so fast, so straight, so true it sped toward me. Then I hit it harder than I had ever hit a ball in my life. The bat sprung, as if it were whalebone. And the ball took a bullet course between center and left. So beautiful a hit was it that I watched as I ran.

Out of the tail of my eye I saw the center fielder running. When I rounded first base I got a good look at this fielder, and though I had seen the greatest outfielders the game ever produced, I never saw one that covered ground so swiftly as he.

On the ball soared, and began to drop; on the fielder sped, and began to disappear over a little hill back of his position. Then he reached up with a long arm and marvelously caught the ball in one hand. He went out of sight as I touched second base, and the heterogeneous crowd knew about a great play to make more noise than a herd of charging buffalo.

In the next half inning our opponents, by clean drives, scored two runs and we in our turn again went out ignominiously. When the first of the eighth came we were desperate and clamored for the “rabbit.”

“I’ve sneaked it in,” said Merritt, with a low voice. “Got it to the umpire on the last passed ball. See, the pitcher’s got it now. Boys, it’s all off but the fireworks! Now, break loose!”

A peculiarity about the “rabbit” was the fact that though it felt as light as the regulation league ball it could not be thrown with the same speed and to curve it was an impossibility.

Bane hit the first delivery from our hoosier stumbling block. The ball struck the ground and began to bound toward short. With every bound it went swifter, longer and higher, and it bounced clear over the shortstop’s head. Lake chopped one in front of the plate, and it rebounded from the ground straight up so high that both runners were safe before it came down.

Doran hit to the pitcher. The ball caromed his leg, scooted fiendishly at the second baseman, and tried to run up all over him like a tame squirrel. Bases full!

Hathaway got a safe fly over the infield and two runs tallied. The pitcher, in spite of the help of the umpire, could not locate the plate for Balknap, and gave him a base on balls. Bases full again!

Deerfoot slammed a hot liner straight at the second baseman, which, striking squarely in his hands, recoiled as sharply as if it had struck a wall. Doran scored, and still the bases were filled.

The laboring pitcher began to get rattled; he could not find his usual speed; he knew it, but evidently could not account for it.

When I came to bat, indications were not wanting that the Canadian team would soon be up in the air. The long pitcher delivered the “rabbit,” and got it low down by my knees, which was an unfortunate thing for him. I swung on that one, and trotted round the bases behind the runners while the center and left fielders chased the ball.

Gillinger weighed nearly two hundred pounds, and he got all his weight under the “rabbit.” It went so high that we could scarcely see it. All the infielders rushed in, and after staggering around, with heads bent back, one of them, the shortstop, managed to get under it. The “rabbit” bounded forty feet out of his hands!

When Snead’s grounder nearly tore the third baseman’s leg off; when Bane’s hit proved as elusive as a flitting shadow; when Lake’s liner knocked the pitcher flat, and Doran’s fly leaped high out of the center fielder’s glove — then those earnest, simple, country ballplayers realized something was wrong. But they imagined it was in themselves, and after a short spell of rattles, they steadied up and tried harder than ever. The motions they went through trying to stop that jumping jackrabbit of a ball were ludicrous in the extreme.

Finally, through a foul, a short fly, and a scratch hit to first, they retired the side and we went into the field with the score 14 to 2 in our favor.

But Merritt had not found it possible to get the “rabbit” out of play!

We spent a fatefully anxious few moments squabbling with the umpire and captain over the “rabbit.” At the idea of letting those herculean railsplitters have a chance to hit the rubber ball we felt our blood run cold.

“But this ball has a rip in it,” blustered Gillinger. He lied atrociously. A microscope could not have discovered as much as a scratch in that smooth leather.

“Sure it has,” supplemented Merritt, in the suave tones of a stage villain. “We’re used to playing with good balls.”

“Why did you ring this one in on us?” asked the captain. “We never threw out this ball. We want a chance to hit it.”

That was just the one thing we did not want them to have. But fate played against us.

“Get up on your toes, now an’ dust,” said Merritt. “Take your medicine, you lazy sit-in-front-of-the-hotel stiffs! Think of pay day!”

Not improbably we all entertained the identical thought that old man Hathaway was the last pitcher under the sun calculated to be effective with the “rabbit.” He never relied on speed; in fact, Merritt often scornfully accused him of being unable to break a pane of glass; he used principally what we called floaters and a change of pace. Both styles were absolutely impractical with the “rabbit.”

“It’s comin’ to us, all right, all right!” yelled Deerfoot to me, across the intervening grass. I was of the opinion that it did not take any genius to make Deerfoot’s ominous prophecy.

Old man Hathaway gazed at Merritt on the bench as if he wished the manager could hear what he was calling him and then at his fellow-players as if both to warn and beseech them. Then he pitched the “rabbit.”

Crack!

The big lumbering Canadian rapped the ball at Crab Bane. I did not see it, because it went so fast, but I gathered from Crab’s actions that it must have been hit in his direction. At any rate, one of his legs flopped out sidewise as if it had been suddenly jerked, and he fell in a heap. The ball, a veritable “rabbit” in its wild jumps, headed on for Deerfoot, who contrived to stop it with his knees.

The next batter resembled the first one, and the hit likewise, only it leaped wickedly at Doran and went through his hands as if they had been paper. The third man batted up a very high fly to Gillinger. He clutched at it with his huge shovel hands, but he could not hold it. The way he pounced upon the ball, dug it out of the grass, and hurled it at Hathaway, showed his anger.

Obviously Hathaway had to stop the throw, for he could not get out of the road, and he spoke to his captain in what I knew were no complimentary terms.

Thus began retribution. Those husky lads continued to hammer the “rabbit” at the infielders and as it bounced harder at every bounce so they batted harder at every bat.

Another singular feature about the “rabbit” was the seeming impossibility for professionals to hold it. Their familiarity with it, their understanding of its vagaries and inconsistencies, their mortal dread made fielding it a much more difficult thing than for their opponents.

By way of variety, the lambasting Canadians commenced to lambast a few over the hills and far away, which chased Deerfoot and me until our tongues lolled out.

Every time a run crossed the plate the motley crowd howled, roared, danced and threw up their hats. The members of the batting team pranced up and down the side lines, giving a splendid imitation of cannibals celebrating the occasion of a feast.

Once Snead stooped down to trap the “rabbit,” and it slipped through his legs, for which his comrades jeered him unmercifully. Then a brawny batter sent up a tremendously high fly between short and third.

“You take it!” yelled Gillinger to Bane.

“You take it!” replied the Crab, and actually walked backward. That ball went a mile high. The sky was hazy, gray, the most perplexing in which to judge a fly ball. An ordinary fly gave trouble enough in the gauging.

Gillinger wandered around under the ball for what seemed an age. It dropped as swiftly as a rocket shoots upward. Gillinger went forward in a circle, then sidestepped, and threw up his broad hands. He misjudged the ball, and it hit him fairly on the head and bounced almost to where Doran stood at second.

Our big captain wilted. Time was called. But Gillinger, when he came to, refused to leave the game and went back to third with a lump on his head as large as a goose egg.

Every one of his teammates was sorry, yet every one howled in glee. To be hit on the head was the unpardonable sin for a professional.

Old man Hathaway gradually lost what little speed he had, and with it his nerve. Every time he pitched the “rabbit” he dodged. That was about the funniest and strangest thing ever seen on a ball field. Yet it had an element of tragedy.

Hathaway’s expert contortions saved his head and body on divers occasions, but presently a low bounder glanced off the grass and manifested an affinity for his leg.

We all knew from the crack and the way the pitcher went down that the “rabbit” had put him out of the game. The umpire called time, and Merritt came running on the diamond.

“Hard luck, old man,” said the manager. “That’ll make a green and yellow spot all right. Boys, we’re still two runs to the good. There’s one out, an’ we can win yet. Deerfoot, you’re as badly crippled as Hathaway. The bench for yours. Hooker will go to center, an’ I’ll pitch.”

Merritt’s idea did not strike us as a bad one. He could pitch, and he always kept his arm in prime condition. We welcomed him into the fray for two reasons — because he might win the game, and because he might be overtaken by the baseball Nemesis.

While Merritt was putting on Hathaway’s baseball shoes, some of us endeavored to get the “rabbit” away from the umpire, but he was too wise.

Merritt received the innocent-looking ball with a look of mingled disgust and fear, and he summarily ordered us to our positions.

Not far had we gone, however, when we were electrified by the umpire’s sharp words:

“Naw! Naw, you don’t. I saw you change the ball I gave you fer one in your pocket! Naw! You don’t come enny of your American dodges on us! Gimmee thet ball, an’ you use the other, or I’ll stop the game.”

Wherewith the shrewd umpire took the ball from Merritt’s hand and fished the “rabbit” from his pocket. Our thwarted manager stuttered his wrath. “Y-you be-be-wh-whiskered y-yap! I’ll g-g-give — —”

What dire threat he had in mind never materialized, for he became speechless. He glowered upon the cool little umpire, and then turned grandly toward the plate.

It may have been imagination, yet I made sure Merritt seemed to shrink and grow smaller before he pitched a ball. For one thing the plate was uphill from the pitcher’s box, and then the fellow standing there loomed up like a hill and swung a bat that would have served as a wagon tongue. No wonder Merritt evinced nervousness. Presently he whirled and delivered the ball.

Bing!

A dark streak and a white puff of dust over second base showed how safe that hit was. By dint of manful body work, Hooker contrived to stop the “rabbit” in mid-center. Another run scored. Human nature was proof against this temptation, and Merritt’s players tendered him manifold congratulations and dissertations.

“Grand, you old skinflint, grand!”

“There was a two-dollar bill stickin’ on thet hit. Why didn’t you stop it?”

“Say, Merritt, what little brains you’ve got will presently be ridin’ on the ‘rabbit.’”

“You will chase up these exhibition games!”

“Take your medicine now. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

After these merciless taunts, and particularly after the next slashing hit that tied the score, Merritt looked appreciably smaller and humbler.

He threw up another ball, and actually shied as it neared the plate.

The giant who was waiting to slug it evidently thought better of his eagerness as far as that pitch was concerned, for he let it go by.

Merritt got the next ball higher. With a mighty swing, the batsman hit a terrific liner right at the pitcher.

Quick as lightning, Merritt wheeled, and the ball struck him with the sound of two boards brought heavily together with a smack.

Merritt did not fall; he melted to the ground and writhed while the runners scored with more tallies than they needed to win.

What did we care! Justice had been done us, and we were unutterably happy. Crabe Bane stood on his head; Gillinger began a war dance; old man Hathaway hobbled out to the side lines and whooped like an Indian; Snead rolled over and over in the grass. All of us broke out into typical expressions of baseball frenzy, and individual ones illustrating our particular moods.

Merritt got up and made a dive for the ball. With face positively flaming he flung it far beyond the merry crowd, over into a swamp. Then he limped for the bench. Which throw ended the most memorable game ever recorded to the credit of the “rabbit.”

FALSE COLORS

“FATE HAS DECREED more bad luck for Salisbury in Saturday’s game with Bellville. It has leaked out that our rivals will come over strengthened by a ‘ringer,’ no less than Yale’s star pitcher, Wayne. We saw him shut Princeton out in June, in the last game of the college year, and we are not optimistic in our predictions as to what Salisbury can do with him. This appears a rather unfair procedure for Bellville to resort to. Why couldn’t they come over with their regular team? They have won a game, and so have we; both games were close and brilliant; the deciding game has roused unusual interest. We are inclined to resent Bellville’s methods as unsportsmanlike. All our players can do is to go into this game on Saturday and try the harder to win.”

Wayne laid down the Salisbury Gazette, with a little laugh of amusement, yet feeling a vague, disquieting sense of something akin to regret.

“Pretty decent of that chap not to roast me,” he soliloquized.

Somewhere he had heard that Salisbury maintained an unsalaried team. It was notorious among college athletes that the Bellville Club paid for the services of distinguished players. And this in itself rather inclined Wayne to sympathize with Salisbury. He knew something of the struggles of a strictly amateur club to cope with its semi-professional rivals.

As he was sitting there, idly tipped back in a comfortable chair, dreaming over some of the baseball disasters he had survived before his college career, he saw a young man enter the lobby of the hotel, speak to the clerk, and then turn and come directly toward the window where Wayne was sitting.

“Are yon Mr. Wayne, the Yale pitcher?” he asked eagerly. He was a fair-haired, clean-cut young fellow, and his voice rang pleasantly.

“Guilty,” replied Wayne.

“My name’s Huling. I’m captain of the Salisbury nine. Just learned you were in town and are going to pitch against us tomorrow. Won’t you walk out into the grounds with me now? You might want to warm up a little.”

“Thank you, yes, I will. Guess I won’t need my suit. I’ll just limber up, and give my arm a good rub.”

It struck Wayne before they had walked far that Huling was an amiable and likable chap. As the captain of the Salisbury nine, he certainly had no reason to be agreeable to the Morristown “ringer,” even though Wayne did happen to be a famous Yale pitcher.

The field was an oval, green as an emerald, level as a billiard table and had no fences or stands to obstruct the open view of the surrounding wooded country. On each side of the diamond were rows of wooden benches, and at one end of the field stood a little clubhouse.

Wayne took off his coat, and tossed a ball for a while to an ambitious youngster, and then went into the clubhouse, where Huling introduced him to several of his players. After a good rubdown, Wayne thanked Huling for his courtesy, and started out, intending to go back to town.

“Why not stay to see us practice?” asked the captain. “We’re not afraid you’ll size up our weaknesses. As a matter of fact, we don’t look forward to any hitting stunts tomorrow, eh, Burns? Burns, here, is our leading hitter, and he’s been unusually noncommittal since he heard who was going to pitch for Bellville.”

“Well, I wouldn’t give a whole lot for my prospects of a home run tomorrow,” said Burns, with a laugh.

Wayne went outside, and found a seat in the shade. A number of urchins had trooped upon the green field, and carriages and motors were already in evidence. By the time the players came out of the dressing room, ready for practice, there was quite a little crowd in attendance.

Despite Wayne’s hesitation, Huling insisted upon introducing him to friends, and finally hauled him up to a big touring car full of girls. Wayne, being a Yale pitcher, had seen several thousand pretty girls, but the group in that automobile fairly dazzled him. And the last one to whom Huling presented him — with the words: “Dorothy, this is Mr. Wayne, the Yale pitcher, who is to play with Bellville tomorrow; Mr. Wayne, my sister” — was the girl he had known he would meet some day.

“Climb up, Mr. Wayne. We can make room,” invited Miss Huling.

Wayne thought the awkwardness with which he found a seat beside her was unbecoming to a Yale senior. But, considering she was the girl he had been expecting to discover for years, his clumsiness bespoke the importance of the event. The merry laughter of the girls rang in his ears. Presently, a voice detached itself from the others, and came floating softly to him.

“Mr. Wayne, so you’re going to wrest our laurels from us?” asked Miss Huling.

“I don’t know — I’m not infallible — I’ve been beaten.”

“When? Not this season?” she inquired quickly, betraying a knowledge of his record that surprised and pleased him. “Mr. Wayne, I was at the Polo Grounds on June fifteenth.”

Her white hand lightly touched the Princeton pin at her neck. Wayne roused suddenly out of his trance. The girl was a Princeton girl! The gleam of her golden hair, the flash of her blue eyes, became clear in sight.

“I’m very pleased to hear it,” he replied.

“It was a great game, Mr. Wayne, and you may well be proud of your part in winning it. I shouldn’t be surprised if you treated the Salisbury team to the same coat of whitewash. We girls are up in arms. Our boys stood a fair chance to win this game, but now there’s a doubt. By the way, are you acquainted in Bellville?”

“No. I met Reed, the Bellville captain, in New York this week. He had already gotten an extra pitcher — another ringer — for this game, but he said he preferred me, if it could be arranged.”

While conversing, Wayne made note of the fact that the other girls studiously left him to Miss Huling. If the avoidance had not been so marked, he would never have thought of it.

“Mr. Wayne, if your word is not involved — will you change your mind and pitch tomorrow’s game for us instead of Bellville?”

Quite amazed, Wayne turned squarely to look at Miss Huling. Instead of disarming his quick suspicion, her cool, sweet voice, and brave, blue eyes confirmed it. The charms of the captain’s sister were to be used to win him away from the Bellville nine. He knew the trick; it had been played upon him before.

But never had any other such occasion given him a feeling of regret. This case was different. She was the girl. And she meant to flirt with him, to use her eyes for all they were worth to encompass the Waterloo of the rival team.

No, he had made a mistake, after all — she was not the real girl. Suddenly conscious of a little shock of pain, he dismissed that dream girl from his mind, and determined to meet Miss Huling half way in her game. He could not flirt as well as he could pitch; still, he was no novice.

“Well, Miss Huling, my word certainly is not involved. But as to pitching for Salisbury — that depends.”

“Upon what?”

“Upon what there is in it.”

“Mr. Wayne, you mean — money? Oh, I know. My brother Rex told me how you college men are paid big sums. Our association will not give a dollar, and, besides, my brother knows nothing of this. But we girls are heart and soul on winning this game. We’ll — —”

“Miss Huling, I didn’t mean remuneration in sordid cash,” interrupted Wayne, in a tone that heightened the color in her cheeks.

Wayne eyed her keenly with mingled emotions. Was that rose-leaf flush in her cheeks natural? Some girls could blush at will. Were the wistful eyes, the earnest lips, only shamming? It cost him some bitterness to decide that they were. Her beauty fascinated, while it hardened him. Eternally, the beauty of women meant the undoing of men, whether they played the simple, inconsequential game of baseball, or the great, absorbing, mutable game of life.

The shame of the situation for him was increasingly annoying, inasmuch as this lovely girl should stoop to flirtation with a stranger, and the same time draw him, allure him, despite the apparent insincerity.

“Miss Huling, I’ll pitch your game for two things,” he continued.

“Name them.”

“Wear Yale blue in place of that orange-and-black Princeton pin.”

“I will.” She said it with a shyness, a look in her eyes that made Wayne wince. What a perfect little actress! But there seemed just a chance that this was not deceit. For an instant he wavered, held back by subtle, finer intuition; then he beat down the mounting influence of truth in those dark-blue eyes, and spoke deliberately:

“The other thing is — if I win the game — a kiss.”

Dorothy Huling’s face flamed scarlet. But this did not affect Wayne so deeply, though it showed him his mistake, as the darkening shadow of disappointment in her eyes. If she had been a flirt, she would have been prepared for rudeness. He began casting about in his mind for some apology, some mitigation of his offense; but as he was about to speak, the sudden fading of her color, leaving her pale, and the look in her proud, dark eyes disconcerted him out of utterance.

“Certainly, Mr. Wayne. I agree to your price if you win the game.”

But how immeasurable was the distance between the shy consent to wear Yale blue, and the pale, surprised agreement to his second proposal! Wayne experienced a strange sensation of personal loss.

While he endeavored to find his tongue, Miss Huling spoke to one of the boys standing near, and he started off on a run for the field. Presently Huling and the other players broke for the car, soon surrounding it in breathless anticipation.

“Wayne, is it straight? You’ll pitch for us tomorrow?” demanded the captain, with shining eyes.

“Surely I will. Bellville don’t need me. They’ve got Mackay, of Georgetown,” replied Wayne.

Accustomed as he was to being mobbed by enthusiastic students and admiring friends, Wayne could not but feel extreme embarrassment at the reception accorded him now. He felt that he was sailing under false colors. The boys mauled him, the girls fluttered about him with glad laughter. He had to tear himself away; and when he finally reached his hotel, he went to his room, with his mind in a tumult.

Wayne cursed himself roundly; then he fell into deep thought. He began to hope he could retrieve the blunder. He would win the game; he would explain to her the truth; he would ask for an opportunity to prove he was worthy of her friendship; he would not mention the kiss. This last thought called up the soft curve of her red lips and that it was possible for him to kiss her made the temptation strong.

His sleep that night was not peaceful and dreamless. He awakened late, had breakfast sent to his room, and then took a long walk out into the country. After lunch he dodged the crowd in the hotel lobby, and hurried upstairs, where he put on his baseball suit. The first person he met upon going down was Reed, the Bellville man.

“What’s this I hear, Wayne, about your pitching for Salisbury today? I got your telegram.”

“Straight goods,” replied Wayne.

“But I thought you intended to pitch for us?”

“I didn’t promise, did I?”

“No. Still, it looks fishy to me.”

“You’ve got Mackay, haven’t you?”

“Yes. The truth is, I intended to use you both.”

“Well, I’ll try to win for Salisbury. Hope there’s no hard feeling.”

“Not at all. Only if I didn’t have the Georgetown crack, I’d yell murder. As it is, we’ll trim Salisbury anyway.”

“Maybe,” answered Wayne, laughing. “It’s a hot day, and my arm feels good.”

When Wayne reached the ball grounds, he thought he had never seen a more inspiring sight. The bright green oval was surrounded by a glittering mass of white and blue and black. Out along the foul lines were carriages, motors, and tally-hos, brilliant with waving fans and flags. Over the field murmured the low hum of many voices.

“Here you are!” cried Huling, making a grab for Wayne. “Where were you this morning? We couldn’t find you. Come! We’ve got a minute before the practice whistle blows, and I promised to exhibit you.”

He hustled Wayne down the first-base line, past the cheering crowd, out among the motors, to the same touring car that he remembered. A bevy of white-gowned girls rose like a covey of ptarmigans, and whirled flags of maroon and gray.

Dorothy Huling wore a bow of Yale blue upon her breast, and Wayne saw it and her face through a blur.

“Hurry, girls; get it over. We’ve got to practice,” said the captain.

In the merry melee some one tied a knot of ribbon upon Wayne. Who it was he did not know; he saw only the averted face of Dorothy Huling. And as he returned to the field with a dull pang, he determined he would make her indifference disappear with the gladness of a victory for her team.

The practice was short, but long enough for Wayne to locate the glaring weakness of Salisbury at shortstop and third base. In fact, most of the players of his team showed rather poor form; they were overstrained, and plainly lacked experience necessary for steadiness in an important game.

Burns, the catcher, however, gave Wayne confidence. He was a short, sturdy youngster, with all the earmarks of a coming star. Huling, the captain, handled himself well at first base. The Bellville players were more matured, and some of them were former college cracks. Wayne saw that he had his work cut out for him.

The whistle blew. The Bellville team trotted to their position in the field; the umpire called play, and tossed a ball to Mackay, the long, lean Georgetown pitcher.

Wells, the first batter, fouled out; Stamford hit an easy bounce to the pitcher, and Clews put up a little Texas leaguer — all going out, one, two, three, on three pitched balls.

The teams changed from bat to field. Wayne faced the plate amid vociferous cheering. He felt that he could beat this team even without good support. He was in the finest condition, and his arm had been resting for ten days. He knew that if he had control of his high inshoot, these Bellville players would feel the whiz of some speed under their chins.

He struck Moore out, retired Reed on a measly fly, and made Clark hit a weak grounder to second; and he walked in to the bench assured of the outcome. On some days he had poor control; on others his drop ball refused to work properly; but, as luck would have it, he had never had greater speed or accuracy, or a more bewildering fast curve than on this day, when he meant to win a game for a girl.

“Boys, I’ve got everything,” he said to his fellow-players, calling them around him. “A couple of runs will win for us. Now, listen, I know Mackay. He hasn’t any speed, or much of a curve. All he’s got is a teasing slow ball and a foxy head. Don’t be too anxious to hit. Make him put ’em over.”

But the Salisbury players were not proof against the tempting slow balls that Mackay delivered. They hit at wide curves far off the plate and when they did connect with the ball it was only to send an easy chance to the infielders.

The game seesawed along, inning after inning; it was a pitcher’s battle that looked as if the first run scored would win the game. Mackay toyed with the Salisbury boys; it was his pleasure to toss up twisting, floating balls that could scarcely be hit out of the diamond. Wayne had the Bellville players utterly at his mercy; he mixed up his high jump and fast drop so cleverly, with his sweeping out-curve, that his opponents were unable to gauge his delivery at all.

In the first of the seventh, Barr for Bellville hit a ball which the third baseman should have fielded. But he fumbled. The second batter sent a fly to shortstop, who muffed it. The third hitter reached his base on another error by an infielder. Here the bases were crowded, and the situation had become critical all in a moment. Wayne believed the infield would go to pieces, and lose the game, then and there, if another hit went to short or third.

“Steady up, boys,” called Wayne, and beckoned for his catcher.

“Burns, it’s up to you and me,” he said, in a low tone. “I’ve got to fan the rest of these hitters. You’re doing splendidly. Now, watch close for my drop. Be ready to go down on your knees. When I let myself out, the ball generally hits the ground just back of the plate.”

“Speed ’em over!” said Burns, his sweaty face grim and determined. “I’ll get in front of ‘em.”

The head of the batting list was up for Bellville, and the whole Bellville contingent on the side lines rose and yelled and cheered.

Moore was a left handed hitter, who choked his bat up short, and poked at the ball. He was a good bunter, and swift on his feet. Wayne had taken his measure, as he had that of the other players, earlier in the game; and he knew it was good pitching to keep the ball in close to Moore’s hands, so that if he did hit it, the chances were it would not go safe.

Summoning all his strength, Wayne took his long swing and shot the ball over the inside corner with terrific speed.

One strike!

Wayne knew it would not do to waste any balls if he wished to maintain that speed, so he put the second one in the same place. Moore struck too late.

Two strikes!

Then Burns signed for the last drop. Wayne delivered it with trepidation, for it was a hard curve to handle. Moore fell all over himself trying to hit it. Little Burns dropped to his knees to block the vicious curve. It struck the ground, and, glancing, boomed deep on the breast protector.

How the Salisbury supporters roared their approval! One man out — the bases full — with Reed, the slugging captain, at bat!

If Reed had a weakness, Wayne had not discovered it yet, although Reed had not hit safely. The captain stood somewhat back from the plate, a fact that induced Wayne to try him with the speedy outcurve. Reed lunged with a powerful swing, pulling away from the plate, and he missed the curve by a foot.

Wayne did not need to know any more. Reed had made his reputation slugging straight balls from heedless pitchers. He chopped the air twice more, and flung his bat savagely to the ground.

“Two out — play the hitter!” called Wayne to his team.

Clark, the third man up, was the surest batter on the Bellville team. He looked dangerous. He had made the only hit so far to the credit of his team. Wayne tried to work him on a high, fast ball close in. Clark swung freely and cracked a ripping liner to left. Half the crowd roared, and then groaned, for the beautiful hit went foul by several yards. Wayne wisely decided to risk all on his fast drop. Clark missed the first, fouled the second.

Two strikes!

Then he waited. He cooly let one, two, three of the fast drops go by without attempting to hit them. Burns valiantly got his body in front of them. These balls were all over the plate, but too low to be called strikes. With two strikes, and three balls, and the bases full, Clark had the advantage.

Tight as the place was, Wayne did not flinch. The game depended practically upon the next ball delivered. Wayne craftily and daringly decided to use another fast drop, for of all his assortment that would be the one least expected by Clark. But it must be started higher, so that in case Clark made no effort to swing, it would still be a strike.

Gripping the ball with a clinched hand, Wayne swung sharply, and drove it home with the limit of his power. It sped like a bullet, waist high, and just before reaching the plate darted downward, as if it had glanced on an invisible barrier.

Clark was fooled completely and struck futilely. But the ball caromed from the hard ground, hit Burns with a resounding thud, and bounced away. Clark broke for first, and Moore dashed for home. Like a tiger the little catcher pounced upon the ball, and, leaping back into line, blocked the sliding Moore three feet from the plate.

Pandemonium burst loose among the Salisbury adherents. The men bawled, the women screamed, the boys shrieked, and all waved their hats and flags, and jumped up and down, and manifested symptoms of baseball insanity.

In the first of the eighth inning, Mackay sailed up the balls like balloons, and disposed of three batters on the same old weak hits to his clever fielders. In the last of the eighth, Wayne struck out three more Bellville players.

“Burns, you’re up,” said Wayne, who, in his earnestness to win, kept cheering his comrades. “Do something. Get your base any way you can. Get in front of one. We must score this inning.”

Faithful, battered Burns cunningly imposed his hip over the plate and received another bruise in the interests of his team. The opposing players furiously stormed at the umpire for giving him his base, but Burns’ trick went through. Burnett bunted skilfully, sending Burns to second. Cole hit a fly to center. Then Huling singled between short and third.

It became necessary for the umpire to delay the game while he put the madly leaping boys back off the coaching lines. The shrill, hilarious cheering gradually died out, and the field settled into a forced quiet.

Wayne hurried up to the plate and took his position. He had always been a timely hitter, and he gritted his teeth in his resolve to settle this game. Mackay whirled his long arm, wheeled, took his long stride, and pitched a slow, tantalizing ball that seemed never to get anywhere. But Wayne waited, timed it perfectly, and met it squarely.

The ball flew safely over short, and but for a fine sprint and stop by the left fielder, would have resulted in a triple, possibly a home run. As it was, Burns and Huling scored; and Wayne, by a slide, reached second base. When he arose and saw the disorderly riot, and heard the noise of that well-dressed audience, he had a moment of exultation. Then Wells flew out to center ending the chances for more runs.

As Wayne received the ball in the pitcher’s box, he paused and looked out across the field toward a white-crowned motor car, and he caught a gleam of Dorothy Huling’s golden hair, and wondered if she were glad.

For nothing short of the miraculous could snatch this game from him now. Burns had withstood a severe pounding, but he would last out the inning, and Wayne did not take into account the rest of the team. He opened up with no slackening of his terrific speed, and he struck out the three remaining batters on eleven pitched balls. Then in the rising din he ran for Burns and gave him a mighty hug.

“You made the gamest stand of any catcher I ever pitched to,” he said warmly.

Burns looked at his quivering, puffed, and bleeding hands, and smiled as if to say that this was praise to remember, and reward enough. Then the crowd swooped down on them, and they were swallowed up in the clamor and surge of victory. When Wayne got out of the thick and press of it, he made a bee line for his hotel, and by running a gauntlet managed to escape.

Resting, dressing, and dining were matters which he went through mechanically, with his mind ever on one thing. Later, he found a dark corner of the porch and sat there waiting, thinking. There was to be a dance given in honor of the team that evening at the hotel. He watched the boys and girls pass up the steps. When the music commenced, he arose and went into the hall. It was bright with white gowns, and gay with movement.

“There he is. Grab him, somebody,” yelled Huling.

“Do something for me, quick,” implored Wayne of the captain, as he saw the young people wave toward him.

“Salisbury is yours tonight,” replied Huling

“Ask your sister to save me one dance.”

Then he gave himself up. He took his meed of praise and flattery, and he withstood the battery of arch eyes modestly, as became the winner of many fields. But even the reception after the Princeton game paled in comparison with this impromptu dance.

She was here. Always it seemed, while he listened or talked or danced, his eyes were drawn to a slender, graceful form, and a fair face crowned with golden hair. Then he was making his way to where she stood near one of the open windows.

He never knew what he said to her, nor what reply she made, but she put her arm in his, and presently they were gliding over the polished floor. To Wayne the dance was a dream. He led her through the hall and out upon the balcony, where composure strangely came to him.

“Mr. Wayne, I have to thank you for saving the day for us. You pitched magnificently.”

“I would have broken my arm to win that game,” burst out Wayne. “Miss Huling, I made a blunder yesterday. I thought there was a conspiracy to persuade me to throw down Bellville. I’ve known of such things, and I resented it. You understand what I thought. I humbly offer my apologies, and beg that you forget the rude obligation I forced upon you.”

How cold she was! How unattainable in that moment! He caught his breath, and rushed on.

“Your brother and the management of the club have asked me to pitch for Salisbury the remainder of the season. I shall be happy to — if — —”

“If what?” She was all alive now, flushing warmly, dark eyes alight, the girl of his dreams.

“If you will forgive me — if you will let me be your friend — if — Miss Huling, you will again wear that bit of Yale blue.”

“If, Mr. Wayne, you had very sharp eyes you would have noticed that I still wear it!”

THE MANAGER OF MADDEN’S HILL

WILLIE HOWARTH LOVED baseball. He loved it all the more because he was a cripple. The game was more beautiful and wonderful to him because he would never be able to play it. For Willie had been born with one leg shorter than the other; he could not run and at 11 years of age it was all he could do to walk with a crutch.

Nevertheless Willie knew more about baseball than any other boy on Madden’s Hill. An uncle of his had once been a ballplayer and he had taught Willie the fine points of the game. And this uncle’s ballplayer friends, who occasionally visited him, had imparted to Willie the vernacular of the game. So that Willie’s knowledge of players and play, and particularly of the strange talk, the wild and whirling words on the lips of the real baseball men, made him the envy of every boy on Madden’s Hill, and a mine of information. Willie never missed attending the games played on the lots, and he could tell why they were won or lost.

Willie suffered considerable pain, mostly at night, and this had given him a habit of lying awake in the dark hours, grieving over that crooked leg that forever shut him out of the heritage of youth. He had kept his secret well; he was accounted shy because he was quiet and had never been able to mingle with the boys in their activity. No one except his mother dreamed of the fire and hunger and pain within his breast. His school-mates called him “Daddy.” It was a name given for his bent shoulders, his labored gait and his thoughtful face, too old for his years. And no one, not even his mother, guessed how that name hurt Willie.

It was a source of growing unhappiness with Willie that the Madden’s Hill boys were always beaten by the other teams of the town. He really came to lose his sadness over his own misfortune in pondering on the wretched play of the Madden’s Hill baseball club. He had all a boy’s pride in the locality where he lived. And when the Bogg’s Farm team administered a crushing defeat to Madden’s Hill, Willie grew desperate.

Monday he met Lane Griffith, the captain of the Madden’s Hill nine.

“Hello, Daddy,” said Lane. He was a big, aggressive boy, and in a way had a fondness for Willie.

“Lane, you got an orful trimmin’ up on the Boggs. What ‘d you wanter let them country jakes beat you for?”

“Aw, Daddy, they was lucky. Umpire had hay-seed in his eyes! Robbed us! He couldn’t see straight. We’ll trim them down here Saturday.”

“No, you won’t — not without team work. Lane, you’ve got to have a manager.”

“Durn it! Where ‘re we goin’ to get one?” Lane blurted out.

“You can sign me. I can’t play, but I know the game. Let me coach the boys.”

The idea seemed to strike Capt. Griffith favorably. He prevailed upon all the boys living on Madden’s Hill to come out for practice after school. Then he presented them to the managing coach. The boys were inclined to poke fun at Daddy Howarth and ridicule him; but the idea was a novel one and they were in such a state of subjection from many beatings that they welcomed any change. Willie sat on a bench improvised from a soap box and put them through a drill of batting and fielding. The next day in his coaching he included bunting and sliding. He played his men in different positions and for three more days he drove them unmercifully.

When Saturday came, the day for the game with Bogg’s Farm, a wild protest went up from the boys. Willie experienced his first bitterness as a manager. Out of forty aspirants for the Madden’s Hill team he could choose but nine to play the game. And as a conscientious manager he could use no favorites. Willie picked the best players and assigned them to positions that, in his judgment, were the best suited to them. Bob Irvine wanted to play first base and he was down for right field. Sam Wickhart thought he was the fastest fielder, and Willie had him slated to catch. Tom Lindsay’s feelings were hurt because he was not to play in the infield. Eddie Curtis suffered a fall in pride when he discovered he was not down to play second base. Jake Thomas, Tay-Tay Mohler and Brick Grace all wanted to pitch. The manager had chosen Frank Price for that important position, and Frank’s one ambition was to be a shortstop.

So there was a deadlock. For a while there seemed no possibility of a game. Willie sat on the bench, the center of a crowd of discontented, quarreling boys. Some were jealous, some were outraged, some tried to pacify and persuade the others. All were noisy. Lane Griffith stood by his manager and stoutly declared the players should play the positions to which they had been assigned or not at all. And he was entering into a hot argument with Tom Lindsay when the Bogg’s Farm team arrogantly put in an appearance.

The way that team from the country walked out upon the field made a great difference. The spirit of Madden’s Hill roused to battle. The game began swiftly and went on wildly. It ended almost before the Hill boys realized it had commenced. They did not know how they had won but they gave Daddy Howarth credit for it. They had a bonfire that night to celebrate the victory and they talked baseball until their parents became alarmed and hunted them up.

Madden’s Hill practiced all that next week and on Saturday beat the Seventh Ward team. In four more weeks they had added half a dozen more victories to their record. Their reputation went abroad. They got uniforms, and baseball shoes with spikes, and bats and balls and gloves. They got a mask, but Sam Wickhart refused to catch with it.

“Sam, one of these days you’ll be stoppin’ a high inshoot with your eye,” sagely remarked Daddy Howarth. “An’ then where’ll I get a catcher for the Natchez game?”

Natchez was the one name on the lips of every Madden’s Hill boy. For Natchez had the great team of the town and, roused by the growing repute of the Hill club, had condescended to arrange a game. When that game was scheduled for July Fourth Daddy Howarth set to driving his men. Early and late he had them out. This manager, in keeping with all other famous managers, believed that batting was the thing which won games. He developed a hard-hitting team. He kept everlastingly at them to hit and run, hit and run.

On the Saturday before the Fourth, Madden’s Hill had a game to play that did not worry Daddy and he left his team in charge of the captain.

“Fellers, I’m goin’ down to the Round House to see Natchez play. I’ll size up their game,” said Daddy.

When he returned he was glad to find that his team had won its ninth straight victory, but he was not communicative in regard to the playing of the Natchez club. He appeared more than usually thoughtful.

The Fourth fell on Tuesday. Daddy had the boys out Monday and he let them take only a short, sharp practice. Then he sent them home. In his own mind, Daddy did not have much hope of beating Natchez. He had been greatly impressed by their playing, and one inning toward the close of the Round House game they had astonished him with the way they suddenly seemed to break loose and deluge their opponents in a flood of hits and runs. He could not understand this streak of theirs — for they did the same thing every time they played — and he was too good a baseball student to call it luck.

He had never wanted anything in his life, not even to have two good legs, as much as he wanted to beat Natchez. For the Madden’s Hill boys had come to believe him infallible. He was their idol. They imagined they had only to hit and run, to fight and never give up, and Daddy would make them win. There was not a boy on the team who believed that Natchez had a chance. They had grown proud and tenacious of their dearly won reputation. First of all, Daddy thought of his team and their loyalty to him; then he thought of the glory lately come to Madden’s Hill, and lastly of what it meant to him to have risen from a lonely watcher of the game — a cripple who could not even carry a bat — to manager of the famous Hill team. It might go hard with the boys to lose this game, but it would break his heart.

From time out of mind there had always been rivalry between Madden’s Hill and Natchez. And there is no rivalry so bitter as that between boys. So Daddy, as he lay awake at night planning the system of play he wanted to use, left out of all account any possibility of a peaceful game. It was comforting to think that if it came to a fight Sam and Lane could hold their own with Bo Stranathan and Slugger Blandy.

In the managing of his players Daddy observed strict discipline. It was no unusual thing for him to fine them. On practice days and off the field they implicitly obeyed him. During actual play, however, they had evinced a tendency to jump over the traces. It had been his order for them not to report at the field Tuesday until 2 o’clock. He found it extremely difficult to curb his own inclination to start before the set time. And only the stern duty of a man to be an example to his players kept Daddy at home.

He lived near the ball grounds, yet on this day, as he hobbled along on his crutch, he thought the distance interminably long, and for the first time in weeks the old sickening resentment at his useless leg knocked at his heart. Manfully Daddy refused admittance to that old gloomy visitor. He found comfort and forgetfulness in the thought that no strong and swift-legged boy of his acquaintance could do what he could do.

Upon arriving at the field Daddy was amazed to see such a large crowd. It appeared that all the boys and girls in the whole town were in attendance, and, besides, there was a sprinkling of grown-up people interspersed here and there around the diamond. Applause greeted Daddy’s appearance and members of his team escorted him to the soap-box bench.

Daddy cast a sharp eye over the Natchez players practicing on the field. Bo Stranathan had out his strongest team. They were not a prepossessing nine. They wore soiled uniforms that did not match in cut or color. But they pranced and swaggered and strutted! They were boastful and boisterous. It was a trial for any Madden’s Hill boy just to watch them.

“Wot a swelled bunch!” exclaimed Tom Lindsay.

“Fellers, if Slugger Blandy tries to pull any stunt on me today he’ll get a swelleder nut,” growled Lane Griffith.

“T-t-t-t-t-te-te-tell him t-t-t-to keep out of m-m-m-my way an’ not b-b-b-b-bl-block me,” stuttered Tay-Tay Mohler.

“We’re a-goin’ to skin ‘em,” said Eddie Curtis.

“Cheese it, you kids, till we git in the game,” ordered Daddy. “Now, Madden’s Hill, hang round an’ listen. I had to sign articles with Natchez — had to let them have their umpire. So we’re up against it. But we’ll hit this pitcher Muckle Harris. He ain’t got any steam. An’ he ain’t got much nerve. Now every feller who goes up to bat wants to talk to Muck. Call him a big swelled stiff. Tell him he can’t break a pane of glass — tell him he can’t put one over the pan — tell him it he does you’ll slam it down in the sand bank. Bluff the whole team. Keep scrappy all the time. See! That’s my game today. This Natchez bunch needs to be gone after. Holler at the umpire. Act like you want to fight.”

Then Daddy sent his men out for practice.

“Boss, enny ground rules?” inquired Bo Stranathan. He was a big, bushy-haired boy with a grin and protruding teeth. “How many bases on wild throws over first base an’ hits over the sand bank?”

“All you can get,” replied Daddy, with a magnanimous wave of hand.

“Huh! Lemmee see your ball?”

Daddy produced the ball that he had Lane had made for the game.

“Huh! Watcher think? We ain ‘t goin’ to play with no mush ball like thet,” protested Bo. “We play with a hard ball. Looka here! We’ll trow up the ball.”

Daddy remembered what he had heard about the singular generosity of the Natchez team to supply the balls for the games they played.

“We don’t hev to pay nothin’ fer them balls. A man down at the Round House makes them for us. They ain’t no balls as good,” explained Bo, with pride.

However, as Bo did not appear eager to pass over the balls for examination Daddy simply reached out and took them. They were small, perfectly round and as hard as bullets. They had no covers. The yarn had been closely and tightly wrapped and then stitched over with fine bees-waxed thread. Daddy fancied he detected a difference in the weight of the ball, but Bo took them back before Daddy could be sure of that point.

“You don’t have to fan about it. I know a ball when I see one,” observed Daddy. “But we’re on our own grounds an’ we’ll use our own ball. Thanks all the same to you, Stranathan.”

“Huh! All I gotta say is we’ll play with my ball er there won’t be no game,” said Bo suddenly.

Daddy shrewdly eyed the Natchez captain. Bo did not look like a fellow wearing himself thin from generosity. It struck Daddy that Bo’s habit of supplying the ball for the game might have some relation to the fact that he always carried along his own umpire. There was a strange feature about this umpire business and it was that Bo’s man had earned a reputation for being particularly fair. No boy ever had any real reason to object to Umpire Gale’s decisions. When Gale umpired away from the Natchez grounds his close decisions always favored the other team, rather than his own. It all made Daddy keen and thoughtful.

“Stranathan, up here on Madden’s Hill we know how to treat visitors. We’ll play with your ball.... Now keep your gang of rooters from crowdin’ on the diamond.”

“Boss, it’s your grounds. Fire ’em off if they don’t suit you.... Come on, let’s git in the game. Watcher want — field er bat?”

“Field,” replied Daddy briefly.

Billy Gale called “Play,” and the game began with Slugger Blandy at bat. The formidable way in which he swung his club did not appear to have any effect on Frank Price or the player back of him. Frank’s most successful pitch was a slow, tantalizing curve, and he used it. Blandy lunged at the ball, missed it and grunted.

“Frank, you got his alley,” called Lane.

Slugger fouled the next one high in the air back of the plate. Sam Wickhart, the stocky bowlegged catcher, was a fiend for running after foul flies, and now he plunged into the crowd of boys, knocking them right and left, and he caught the ball. Whisner came up and hit safely over Griffith, whereupon the Natchez supporters began to howl. Kelly sent a grounder to Grace at short stop. Daddy’s weak player made a poor throw to first base, so the runner was safe. Then Bo Stranathan batted a stinging ball through the infield, scoring Whisner.

“Play the batter! Play the batter!” sharply called Daddy from the bench.

Then Frank struck out Molloy and retired Dundon on an easy fly.

“Fellers, git in the game now,” ordered Daddy, as his players eagerly trotted in. “Say things to that Muckle Harris! We’ll walk through this game like sand through a sieve.”

Bob Irvin ran to the plate waving his bat at Harris.

“Put one over, you freckleface! I ‘ve been dyin’ fer this chanst. You’re on Madden’s Hill now.”

Muckle evidently was not the kind of pitcher to stand coolly under such bantering. Obviously he was not used to it. His face grew red and his hair waved up. Swinging hard, he threw the ball straight at Bob’s head. Quick as a cat, Bob dropped flat.

“Never touched me!” he chirped, jumping up and pounding the plate with his bat. “You couldn’t hit a barn door. Come on. I’ll paste one a mile!”

Bob did not get an opportunity to hit, for Harris could not locate the plate and passed him to first on four balls.

“Dump the first one,” whispered Daddy in Grace’s ear. Then he gave Bob a signal to run on the first pitch.

Grace tried to bunt the first ball, but he missed it. His attempt, however, was so violent that he fell over in front of the catcher, who could not recover in time to throw, and Bob got to second base. At this juncture, the Madden’s Hill band of loyal supporters opened up with a mingling of shrill yells and whistles and jangling of tin cans filled with pebbles. Grace hit the next ball into second base and, while he was being thrown out, Bob raced to third. With Sam Wickhart up it looked good for a score, and the crowd yelled louder. Sam was awkward yet efficient, and he batted a long fly to right field. The fielder muffed the ball. Bob scored, Sam reached second base, and the crowd yelled still louder. Then Lane struck out and Mohler hit to shortstop, retiring the side.

Natchez scored a run on a hit, a base on balls, and another error by Grace. Every time a ball went toward Grace at short Daddy groaned. In their half of the inning Madden’s Hill made two runs, increasing the score 3 to 2.

The Madden’s Hill boys began to show the strain of such a close contest. If Daddy had voiced aloud his fear it would have been: “They’ll blow up in a minnit!” Frank Price alone was slow and cool, and he pitched in masterly style. Natchez could not beat him. On the other hand, Madden’s Hill hit Muck Harris hard, but superb fielding kept runners off the bases. As Daddy’s team became more tense and excited Bo Stranathan’s players grew steadier and more arrogantly confident. Daddy saw it with distress, and he could not realize just where Natchez had license for such confidence. Daddy watched the game with the eyes of a hawk.

As the Natchez players trooped in for their sixth inning at bat, Daddy observed a marked change in their demeanor. Suddenly they seemed to have been let loose; they were like a band of Indians. Daddy saw everything. He did not miss seeing Umpire Gale take a ball from his pocket and toss it to Frank, and Daddy wondered if that was the ball which had been in the play. Straightway, however, he forgot that in the interest of the game.

Bo Stranathan bawled: “Wull, Injuns, hyar’s were we do ‘em. We’ve jest ben loafin’ along. Git ready to tear the air, you rooters!”

Kelly hit a wonderfully swift ball through the infield. Bo batted out a single. Malloy got up in the way of one of Frank’s pitches, and was passed to first base. Then, as the Natchez crowd opened up in shrill clamor, the impending disaster fell. Dundon hit a bounder down into the infield. The ball appeared to be endowed with life. It bounded low, then high and, cracking into Grace’s hands, bounced out and rolled away. The runners raced around the bases.

Pickens sent up a tremendous fly, the highest ever batted on Madden’s Hill. It went over Tom Lindsay in center field, and Tom ran and ran. The ball went so far up that Tom had time to cover the ground, but he could not judge it. He ran round in a little circle, with hands up in bewilderment. And when the ball dropped it hit him on the head and bounded away.

“Run, you Injun, run!” bawled Bo. “What’d I tell you? We ain’t got ’em goin’, oh, no! Hittin’ ’em on the head!”

Bill dropped a slow, teasing ball down the third-base line. Jake Thomas ran desperately for it, and the ball appeared to strike his hands and run up his arms and caress his nose and wrap itself round his neck and then roll gently away. All the while, the Natchez runners tore wildly about the bases and the Natchez supporters screamed and whistled. Muck Harris could not bat, yet he hit the first ball and it shot like a bullet over the infield. Then Slugger Blandy came to the plate.

The ball he sent out knocked Grace’s leg from under him as if it were a ten-pin. Whisner popped a fly over Tay Tay Mohler’s head. Now Tay Tay was fat and slow, but he was a sure catch. He got under the ball. It struck his hands and jumped back twenty feet up into the air. It was a strangely live ball. Kelly again hit to shortstop, and the ball appeared to start slow, to gather speed with every bound and at last to dart low and shoot between Grace’s legs.

“Haw! Haw!” roared Bo. “They’ve got a hole at short. Hit fer the hole, fellers. Watch me! Jest watch me!”

And he swung hard on the first pitch. The ball glanced like a streak straight at Grace, took a vicious jump, and seemed to flirt with the infielder’s hands, only to evade them.

Malloy fouled a pitch and the ball hit Sam Wickhart square over the eye. Sam’s eye popped out and assumed the proportions and color of a huge plum.

“Hey!” yelled Blandy, the rival catcher. “Air you ketchin’ with yer mug?”

Sam would not delay the game nor would he don the mask.

Daddy sat hunched on his soap-box, and, as in a hateful dream, he saw his famous team go to pieces. He put his hands over his ears to shut out some of the uproar. And he watched that little yarn ball fly and shoot and bound and roll to crush his fondest hopes. Not one of his players appeared able to hold it. And Grace had holes in his hands and legs and body. The ball went right through him. He might as well have been so much water. Instead of being a shortstop he was simply a hole. After every hit Daddy saw that ball more and more as something alive. It sported with his infielders. It bounded like a huge jack-rabbit, and went swifter and higher at every bound. It was here, there, everywhere.

And it became an infernal ball. It became endowed with a fiendish propensity to run up a player’s leg and all about him, as if trying to hide in his pocket. Grace’s efforts to find it were heartbreaking to watch. Every time it bounded out to center field, which was of frequent occurrence, Tom would fall on it and hug it as if he were trying to capture a fleeing squirrel. Tay Tay Mohler could stop the ball, but that was no great credit to him, for his hands took no part in the achievement. Tay Tay was fat and the ball seemed to like him. It boomed into his stomach and banged against his stout legs. When Tay saw it coming he dropped on his knees and valorously sacrificed his anatomy to the cause of the game.

Daddy tried not to notice the scoring of runs by his opponents. But he had to see them and he had to count. Ten runs were as ten blows! After that each run scored was like a stab in his heart. The play went on, a terrible fusilade of wicked ground balls that baffled any attempt to field them. Then, with nineteen runs scored, Natchez appeared to tire. Sam caught a foul fly, and Tay Tay, by obtruding his wide person to the path of infield hits, managed to stop them, and throw out the runners.

Score — Natchez, 21; Madden Hill, 3.

Daddy’s boys slouched and limped wearily in.

“Wot kind of a ball’s that?” panted Tom, as he showed his head with a bruise as large as a goose-egg.

“T-t-t-t-ta-ta-tay-tay-tay-tay — —” began Mohler, in great excitement, but as he could not finish what he wanted to say no one caught his meaning.

Daddy’s watchful eye had never left that wonderful, infernal little yarn ball. Daddy was crushed under defeat, but his baseball brains still continued to work. He saw Umpire Gale leisurely step into the pitcher’s box, and leisurely pick up the ball and start to make a motion to put it in his pocket.

Suddenly fire flashed all over Daddy.

“Hyar! Don’t hide that ball!” he yelled, in his piercing tenor.

He jumped up quickly, forgetting his crutch, and fell headlong. Lane and Sam got him upright and handed the crutch to him. Daddy began to hobble out to the pitcher’s box.

“Don’t you hide that ball. See! I’ve got my eye on this game. That ball was in play, an’ you can’t use the other.”

Umpire Gale looked sheepish, and his eyes did not meet Daddy’s. Then Bo came trotting up.

“What’s wrong, boss?” he asked.

“Aw, nuthin’. You’re tryin’ to switch balls on me. That’s all. You can’t pull off any stunts on Madden’s Hill.”

“Why, boss, thet ball’s all right. What you hollerin’ about?”

“Sure that ball’s all right,” replied Daddy. “It’s a fine ball. An’ we want a chanst to hit it! See?”

Bo flared up and tried to bluster, but Daddy cut him short.

“Give us our innin’ — let us git a whack at that ball, or I’ll run you off Madden’s Hill.”

Bo suddenly looked a little pale and sick.

“Course youse can git a whack at it,” he said, in a weak attempt to be natural and dignified.

Daddy tossed the ball to Harris, and as he hobbled off the field he heard Bo calling out low and cautiously to his players. Then Daddy was certain he had discovered a trick. He called his players around him.

“This game ain’t over yet. It ain’t any more’n begun. I’ll tell you what. Last innin’ Bo’s umpire switched balls on us. That ball was lively. An’ they tried to switch back on me. But nix! We’re goin’ to git a chanst to hit that lively ball, An’ they’re goin’ to git a dose of their own medicine. Now, you dead ones — come back to life! Show me some hittin’ an’ runnin’.”

“Daddy, you mean they run in a trick on us?” demanded Lane, with flashing eyes.

“Funny about Natchez’s strong finishes!” replied Daddy, coolly, as he eyed his angry players.

They let out a roar, and then ran for the bats.

The crowd, quick to sense what was in the air, thronged to the diamond and manifested alarming signs of outbreak.

Sam Wickhart leaped to the plate and brandished his club.

“Sam, let him pitch a couple,” called Daddy from the bench. “Mebbe we’ll git wise then.”

Harris had pitched only twice when the fact became plain that he could not throw this ball with the same speed as the other. The ball was heavier; besides Harris was also growing tired. The next pitch Sam hit far out over the center fielder’s head for a home run. It was a longer hit than any Madden’s Hill boy had ever made. The crowd shrieked its delight. Sam crossed the plate and then fell on the bench beside Daddy.

“Say! that ball nearly knocked the bat out of my hands,” panted Sam. “It made the bat spring!”

“Fellers, don’t wait,” ordered Daddy. “Don’t give the umpire a chanst to roast us now. Slam the first ball!”

The aggressive captain lined the ball at Bo Stranathan. The Natchez shortstop had a fine opportunity to make the catch, but he made an inglorious muff. Tay Tay hurried to bat. Umpire Gale called the first pitch a strike. Tay slammed down his club. “T-t-t-t-to-to-twasn’t over,” he cried. “T-t-t-tay — —”

“Shut up,” yelled Daddy. “We want to git this game over today.”

Tay Tay was fat and he was also strong, so that when beef and muscle both went hard against the ball it traveled. It looked as if it were going a mile straight up. All the infielders ran to get under it. They got into a tangle, into which the ball descended. No one caught it, and thereupon the Natchez players began to rail at one another. Bo stormed at them, and they talked back to him. Then when Tom Lindsay hit a little slow grounder into the infield it seemed that a just retribution had overtaken the great Natchez team.

Ordinarily this grounder of Tom’s would have been easy for a novice to field. But this peculiar grounder, after it has hit the ground once, seemed to wake up and feel lively. It lost its leisurely action and began to have celerity. When it reached Dundon it had the strange, jerky speed so characteristic of the grounders that had confused the Madden’s Hill team. Dundon got his hands on the ball and it would not stay in them. When finally he trapped it Tom had crossed first base and another runner had scored. Eddie Curtis cracked another at Bo. The Natchez captain dove for it, made a good stop, bounced after the rolling ball, and then threw to Kelly at first. The ball knocked Kelly’s hands apart as if they had been paper. Jake Thomas batted left handed and he swung hard on a slow pitch and sent the ball far into right field. Runners scored. Jake’s hit was a three-bagger. Then Frank Price hit up an infield fly. Bo yelled for Dundon to take it and Dundon yelled for Harris. They were all afraid to try for it. It dropped safely while Jake ran home.

With the heavy batters up the excitement increased. A continuous scream and incessant rattle of tin cans made it impossible to hear what the umpire called out. But that was not important, for he seldom had a chance to call either ball or strike. Harris had lost his speed and nearly every ball he pitched was hit by the Madden’s Hill boys. Irvine cracked one down between short and third. Bo and Pickens ran for it and collided while the ball jauntily skipped out to left field and, deftly evading Bell, went on and on. Bob reached third. Grace hit another at Dundon, who appeared actually to stop it four times before he could pick it up, and then he was too late. The doughty bow-legged Sam, with his huge black eye, hung over the plate and howled at Muckle. In the din no one heard what he said, but evidently Muck divined it. For he roused to the spirit of a pitcher who would die of shame if he could not fool a one-eyed batter. But Sam swooped down and upon the first ball and drove it back toward the pitcher. Muck could not get out of the way and the ball made his leg buckle under him. Then that hit glanced off to begin a marvelous exhibition of high and erratic bounding about the infield.

Daddy hunched over his soap-box bench and hugged himself. He was farsighted and he saw victory. Again he watched the queer antics of that little yarn ball, but now with different feelings. Every hit seemed to lift him to the skies. He kept silent, though every time the ball fooled a Natchez player Daddy wanted to yell. And when it started for Bo and, as if in revenge, bounded wickeder at every bounce to skip off the grass and make Bo look ridiculous, then Daddy experienced the happiest moments of his baseball career. Every time a tally crossed the plate he would chalk it down on his soap box.

But when Madden’s Hill scored the nineteenth run without a player being put out, then Daddy lost count. He gave himself up to revel. He sat motionless and silent; nevertheless his whole internal being was in the state of wild tumult. It was as if he was being rewarded in joy for all the misery he had suffered because he was a cripple. He could never play baseball, but he had baseball brains. He had been too wise for the tricky Stranathan. He was the coach and manager and general of the great Madden’s Hill nine. If ever he had to lie awake at night again he would not mourn over his lameness; he would have something to think about. To him would be given the glory of beating the invincible Natchez team. So Daddy felt the last bitterness leave him. And he watched that strange little yarn ball, with its wonderful skips and darts and curves. The longer the game progressed and the wearier Harris grew, the harder the Madden’s Hill boys batted the ball and the crazier it bounced at Bo and his sick players. Finally, Tay Tay Mohler hit a teasing grounder down to Bo.

Then it was as if the ball, realizing a climax, made ready for a final spurt. When Bo reached for the ball it was somewhere else. Dundon could not locate it. And Kelly, rushing down to the chase, fell all over himself and his teammates trying to grasp the illusive ball, and all the time Tay Tay was running. He never stopped. But as he was heavy and fat he did not make fast time on the bases. Frantically the outfielders ran in to head off the bouncing ball, and when they had succeeded Tay Tay had performed the remarkable feat of making a home run on a ball batted into the infield.

That broke Natchez’s spirit. They quit. They hurried for their bats. Only Bo remained behind a moment to try to get his yarn ball. But Sam had pounced upon it and given it safely to Daddy. Bo made one sullen demand for it.

“Funny about them fast finishes of yours!” said Daddy scornfully. “Say! the ball’s our’n. The winnin’ team gits the ball. Go home an’ look up the rules of the game!”

Bo slouched off the field to a shrill hooting and tin canning.

“Fellers, what was the score?” asked Daddy.

Nobody knew the exact number of runs made by Madden’s Hill.

“Gimme a knife, somebody,” said the manager.

When it had been produced Daddy laid down the yarn ball and cut into it. The blade entered readily for a inch and then stopped. Daddy cut all around the ball, and removed the cover of tightly wrapped yarn. Inside was a solid ball of India rubber.

“Say! it ain’t so funny now — how that ball bounced,” remarked Daddy.

“Wot you think of that!” exclaimed Tom, feeling the lump on his head.

“T-t-t-t-t-t-t-ta-tr — —” began Tay Tay Mohler.

“Say it! Say it!” interrupted Daddy.

“Ta-ta-ta-tr-trimmed them wa-wa-wa-wa-with their own b-b-b-b-b-ba-ba-ball,” finished Tay.

OLD WELL-WELL

HE BOUGHT A ticket at the 25-cent window, and edging his huge bulk through the turnstile, laboriously followed the noisy crowd toward the bleachers. I could not have been mistaken. He was Old Well-Well, famous from Boston to Baltimore as the greatest baseball fan in the East. His singular yell had pealed into the ears of five hundred thousand worshippers of the national game and would never be forgotten.

At sight of him I recalled a friend’s baseball talk. “You remember Old Well-Well? He’s all in — dying, poor old fellow! It seems young Burt, whom the Phillies are trying out this spring, is Old Well-Well’s nephew and protege. Used to play on the Murray Hill team; a speedy youngster. When the Philadelphia team was here last, Manager Crestline announced his intention to play Burt in center field. Old Well-Well was too ill to see the lad get his tryout. He was heart-broken and said: ‘If I could only see one more game!’”

The recollection of this random baseball gossip and the fact that Philadelphia was scheduled to play New York that very day, gave me a sudden desire to see the game with Old Well-Well. I did not know him, but where on earth were introductions as superfluous as on the bleachers? It was a very easy matter to catch up with him. He walked slowly, leaning hard on a cane and his wide shoulders sagged as he puffed along. I was about to make some pleasant remark concerning the prospects of a fine game, when the sight of his face shocked me and I drew back. If ever I had seen shadow of pain and shade of death they hovered darkly around Old Well-Well.

No one accompanied him; no one seemed to recognize him. The majority of that merry crowd of boys and men would have jumped up wild with pleasure to hear his well-remembered yell. Not much longer than a year before, I had seen ten thousand fans rise as one man and roar a greeting to him that shook the stands. So I was confronted by a situation strikingly calculated to rouse my curiosity and sympathy.

He found an end seat on a row at about the middle of the right-field bleachers and I chose one across the aisle and somewhat behind him. No players were yet in sight. The stands were filling up and streams of men were filing into the aisles of the bleachers and piling over the benches. Old Well-Well settled himself comfortably in his seat and gazed about him with animation. There had come a change to his massive features. The hard lines had softened; the patches of gray were no longer visible; his cheeks were ruddy; something akin to a smile shone on his face as he looked around, missing no detail of the familiar scene.

During the practice of the home team Old Well-Well sat still with his big hands on his knees; but when the gong rang for the Phillies, he grew restless, squirming in his seat and half rose several times. I divined the importuning of his old habit to greet his team with the yell that had made him famous. I expected him to get up; I waited for it. Gradually, however, he became quiet as a man governed by severe self-restraint and directed his attention to the Philadelphia center fielder.

At a glance I saw that the player was new to me and answered the newspaper description of young Burt. What a lively looking athlete! He was tall, lithe, yet sturdy. He did not need to chase more than two fly balls to win me. His graceful, fast style reminded me of the great Curt Welch. Old Well-Well’s face wore a rapt expression. I discovered myself hoping Burt would make good; wishing he would rip the boards off the fence; praying he would break up the game.

It was Saturday, and by the time the gong sounded for the game to begin the grand stand and bleachers were packed. The scene was glittering, colorful, a delight to the eye. Around the circle of bright faces rippled a low, merry murmur. The umpire, grotesquely padded in front by his chest protector, announced the batteries, dusted the plate, and throwing out a white ball, sang the open sesame of the game: “Play!”

Then Old Well-Well arose as if pushed from his seat by some strong propelling force. It had been his wont always when play was ordered or in a moment of silent suspense, or a lull in the applause, or a dramatic pause when hearts heat high and lips were mute, to bawl out over the listening, waiting multitude his terrific blast: “Well-Well-Well!”

Twice he opened his mouth, gurgled and choked, and then resumed his seat with a very red, agitated face; something had deterred him from his purpose, or he had been physically incapable of yelling.

The game opened with White’s sharp bounder to the infield. Wesley had three strikes called on him, and Kelly fouled out to third base. The Phillies did no better, being retired in one, two, three order. The second inning was short and no tallies were chalked up. Brain hit safely in the third and went to second on a sacrifice. The bleachers began to stamp and cheer. He reached third on an infield hit that the Philadelphia short-stop knocked down but could not cover in time to catch either runner. The cheer in the grand stand was drowned by the roar in the bleachers. Brain scored on a fly-ball to left. A double along the right foul line brought the second runner home. Following that the next batter went out on strikes.

In the Philadelphia half of the inning young Burt was the first man up. He stood left-handed at the plate and looked formidable. Duveen, the wary old pitcher for New York, to whom this new player was an unknown quantity, eyed his easy position as if reckoning on a possible weakness. Then he took his swing and threw the ball. Burt never moved a muscle and the umpire called strike. The next was a ball, the next a strike; still Burt had not moved.

“Somebody wake him up!” yelled a wag in the bleachers. “He’s from Slumbertown, all right, all right!” shouted another.

Duveen sent up another ball, high and swift. Burt hit straight over the first baseman, a line drive that struck the front of the right-field bleachers.

“Peacherino!” howled a fan.

Here the promise of Burt’s speed was fulfilled. Run! He was fleet as a deer. He cut through first like the wind, settled to a driving strides rounded second, and by a good, long slide beat the throw in to third. The crowd, who went to games to see long hits and daring runs, gave him a generous hand-clapping.

Old Well-Well appeared on the verge of apoplexy. His ruddy face turned purple, then black; he rose in his seat; he gave vent to smothered gasps; then he straightened up and clutched his hands into his knees.

Burt scored his run on a hit to deep short, an infielder’s choice, with the chances against retiring a runner at the plate. Philadelphia could not tally again that inning. New York blanked in the first of the next. For their opponents, an error, a close decision at second favoring the runner, and a single to right tied the score. Bell of New York got a clean hit in the opening of the fifth. With no one out and chances for a run, the impatient fans let loose. Four subway trains in collision would not have equalled the yell and stamp in the bleachers. Maloney was next to bat and he essayed a bunt. This the fans derided with hoots and hisses. No team work, no inside ball for them.

“Hit it out!” yelled a hundred in unison.

“Home run!” screamed a worshipper of long hits.

As if actuated by the sentiments of his admirers Maloney lined the ball over short. It looked good for a double; it certainly would advance Bell to third; maybe home. But no one calculated on Burt. His fleetness enabled him to head the bounding ball. He picked it up cleanly, and checking his headlong run, threw toward third base. Bell was half way there. The ball shot straight and low with terrific force and beat the runner to the bag.

“What a great arm!” I exclaimed, deep in my throat. “It’s the lad’s day! He can’t be stopped.”

The keen newsboy sitting below us broke the amazed silence in the bleachers.

“Wot d’ye tink o’ that?”

Old Well-Well writhed in his seat. To him if was a one-man game, as it had come to be for me. I thrilled with him; I gloried in the making good of his protege; it got to be an effort on my part to look at the old man, so keenly did his emotion communicate itself to me.

The game went on, a close, exciting, brilliantly fought battle. Both pitchers were at their best. The batters batted out long flies, low liners, and sharp grounders; the fielders fielded these difficult chances without misplay. Opportunities came for runs, but no runs were scored for several innings. Hopes were raised to the highest pitch only to be dashed astonishingly away. The crowd in the grand stand swayed to every pitched ball; the bleachers tossed like surf in a storm.

To start the eighth, Stranathan of New York tripled along the left foul line. Thunder burst from the fans and rolled swellingly around the field. Before the hoarse yelling, the shrill hooting, the hollow stamping had ceased Stranathan made home on an infield hit. Then bedlam broke loose. It calmed down quickly, for the fans sensed trouble between Binghamton, who had been thrown out in the play, and the umpire who was waving him back to the bench.

“You dizzy-eyed old woman, you can’t see straight!” called Binghamton.

The umpire’s reply was lost, but it was evident that the offending player had been ordered out of the grounds.

Binghamton swaggered along the bleachers while the umpire slowly returned to his post. The fans took exception to the player’s objection and were not slow in expressing it. Various witty enconiums, not to be misunderstood, attested to the bleachers’ love of fair play and their disgust at a player’s getting himself put out of the game at a critical stage.

The game proceeded. A second batter had been thrown out. Then two hits in succession looked good for another run. White, the next batter, sent a single over second base. Burt scooped the ball on the first bounce and let drive for the plate. It was another extraordinary throw. Whether ball or runner reached home base first was most difficult to decide. The umpire made his sweeping wave of hand and the breathless crowd caught his decision.

“Out!”

In action and sound the circle of bleachers resembled a long curved beach with a mounting breaker thundering turbulently high.

“Rob — b — ber — r!” bawled the outraged fans, betraying their marvelous inconsistency.

Old Well-Well breathed hard. Again the wrestling of his body signified an inward strife. I began to feel sure that the man was in a mingled torment of joy and pain, that he fought the maddening desire to yell because he knew he had not the strength to stand it. Surely, in all the years of his long following of baseball he had never had the incentive to express himself in his peculiar way that rioted him now. Surely, before the game ended he would split the winds with his wonderful yell.

Duveen’s only base on balls, with the help of a bunt, a steal, and a scratch hit, resulted in a run for Philadelphia, again tying the score. How the fans raged at Fuller for failing to field the lucky scratch.

“We had the game on ice!” one cried.

“Get him a basket!”

New York men got on bases in the ninth and made strenuous efforts to cross the plate, but it was not to be. Philadelphia opened up with two scorching hits and then a double steal. Burt came up with runners on second and third. Half the crowd cheered in fair appreciation of the way fate was starring the ambitious young outfielder; the other half, dyed-in-the-wool home-team fans, bent forward in a waiting silent gloom of fear. Burt knocked the dirt out of his spikes and faced Duveen. The second ball pitched he met fairly and it rang like a bell.

No one in the stands saw where it went. But they heard the crack, saw the New York shortstop stagger and then pounce forward to pick up the ball and speed it toward the plate. The catcher was quick to tag the incoming runner, and then snap the ball to first base, completing a double play.

When the crowd fully grasped this, which was after an instant of bewilderment, a hoarse crashing roar rolled out across the field to bellow back in loud echo from Coogan’s Bluff. The grand stand resembled a colored corn field waving in a violent wind; the bleachers lost all semblance of anything. Frenzied, flinging action — wild chaos — shrieking cries — manifested sheer insanity of joy.

When the noise subsided, one fan, evidently a little longer-winded than his comrades, cried out hysterically:

“O-h! I don’t care what becomes of me — now-w!”

Score tied, three to three, game must go ten innings — that was the shibboleth; that was the overmastering truth. The game did go ten innings — eleven — twelve, every one marked by masterly pitching, full of magnificent catches, stops and throws, replete with reckless base-running and slides like flashes in the dust. But they were unproductive of runs. Three to three! Thirteen innings!

“Unlucky thirteenth,” wailed a superstitious fan.

I had got down to plugging, and for the first time, not for my home team. I wanted Philadelphia to win, because Burt was on the team. With Old Well-Well sitting there so rigid in his seat, so obsessed by the playing of the lad, I turned traitor to New York.

White cut a high twisting bounder inside the third base, and before the ball could be returned he stood safely on second. The fans howled with what husky voice they had left. The second hitter batted a tremendously high fly toward center field. Burt wheeled with the crack of the ball and raced for the ropes. Onward the ball soared like a sailing swallow; the fleet fielder ran with his back to the stands. What an age that ball stayed in the air! Then it lost its speed, gracefully curved and began to fall. Burt lunged forward and upwards; the ball lit in his hands and stuck there as he plunged over the ropes into the crowd. White had leisurely trotted half way to third; he saw the catch, ran back to touch second and then easily made third on the throw-in. The applause that greeted Burt proved the splendid spirit of the game. Bell placed a safe little hit over short, scoring White. Heaving, bobbing bleachers — wild, broken, roar on roar!

Score four to three — only one half inning left for Philadelphia to play — how the fans rooted for another run! A swift double-play, however, ended the inning.

Philadelphia’s first hitter had three strikes called on him.

“Asleep at the switch!” yelled a delighted fan.

The next batter went out on a weak pop-up fly to second.

“Nothin’ to it!”

“Oh, I hate to take this money!”

“All-l o-over!”

Two men at least of all that vast assemblage had not given up victory for Philadelphia. I had not dared to look at Old Well-Well for a long, while. I dreaded the nest portentious moment. I felt deep within me something like clairvoyant force, an intangible belief fostered by hope.

Magoon, the slugger of the Phillies, slugged one against the left field bleachers, but, being heavy and slow, he could not get beyond second base. Cless swung with all his might at the first pitched ball, and instead of hitting it a mile as he had tried, he scratched a mean, slow, teasing grounder down the third base line. It was as safe as if it had been shot out of a cannon. Magoon went to third.

The crowd suddenly awoke to ominous possibilities; sharp commands came from the players’ bench. The Philadelphia team were bowling and hopping on the side lines, and had to be put down by the umpire.

An inbreathing silence fell upon stands and field, quiet, like a lull before a storm.

When I saw young Burt start for the plate and realized it was his turn at bat, I jumped as if I had been shot. Putting my hand on Old Well-Well’s shoulder I whispered: “Burt’s at bat: He’ll break up this game! I know he’s going to lose one!”

The old fellow did not feel my touch; he did not hear my voice; he was gazing toward the field with an expression on his face to which no human speech could render justice. He knew what was coming. It could not be denied him in that moment.

How confidently young Burt stood up to the plate! None except a natural hitter could have had his position. He might have been Wagner for all he showed of the tight suspense of that crisis. Yet there was a tense alert poise to his head and shoulders which proved he was alive to his opportunity.

Duveen plainly showed he was tired. Twice he shook his head to his catcher, as if he did not want to pitch a certain kind of ball. He had to use extra motion to get his old speed, and he delivered a high straight ball that Burt fouled over the grand stand. The second ball met a similar fate. All the time the crowd maintained that strange waiting silence. The umpire threw out a glistening white ball, which Duveen rubbed in the dust and spat upon. Then he wound himself up into a knot, slowly unwound, and swinging with effort, threw for the plate.

Burt’s lithe shoulders swung powerfully. The meeting of ball and bat fairly cracked. The low driving hit lined over second a rising glittering streak, and went far beyond the center fielder.

Bleachers and stands uttered one short cry, almost a groan, and then stared at the speeding runners. For an instant, approaching doom could not have been more dreaded. Magoon scored. Cless was rounding second when the ball lit. If Burt was running swiftly when he turned first he had only got started, for then his long sprinter’s stride lengthened and quickened. At second he was flying; beyond second he seemed to merge into a gray flitting shadow.

I gripped my seat strangling the uproar within me. Where was the applause? The fans were silent, choked as I was, but from a different cause. Cless crossed the plate with the score that defeated New York; still the tension never laxed until Burt beat the ball home in as beautiful a run as ever thrilled an audience.

In the bleak dead pause of amazed disappointment Old Well-Well lifted his hulking figure and loomed, towered over the bleachers. His wide shoulders spread, his broad chest expanded, his breath whistled as he drew it in. One fleeting instant his transfigured face shone with a glorious light. Then, as he threw back his head and opened his lips, his face turned purple, the muscles of his cheeks and jaw rippled and strung, the veins on his forehead swelled into bulging ridges. Even the back of his neck grew red.

“Well! — Well! — Well!!!”

Ear-splitting stentorian blast! For a moment I was deafened. But I heard the echo ringing from the cliff, a pealing clarion call, beautiful and wonderful, winding away in hollow reverberation, then breaking out anew from building to building in clear concatenation.

A sea of faces whirled in the direction of that long unheard yell. Burt had stopped statue-like as if stricken in his tracks; then he came running, darting among the spectators who had leaped the fence.

Old Well-Well stood a moment with slow glance lingering on the tumult of emptying bleachers, on the moving mingling colors in the grand stand, across the green field to the gray-clad players. He staggered forward and fell.

Before I could move, a noisy crowd swarmed about him, some solicitous, many facetious. Young Burt leaped the fence and forced his way into the circle. Then they were carrying the old man down to the field and toward the clubhouse. I waited until the bleachers and field were empty. When I finally went out there was a crowd at the gate surrounding an ambulance. I caught a glimpse of Old Well-Well. He lay white and still, but his eyes were open, smiling intently. Young Burt hung over him with a pale and agitated face. Then a bell clanged and the ambulance clattered away.

Adventure Novels

Canoes on the river at Hawk’s Nest, New York — After graduating, Grey established his dental practice in New York City in 1896. It was a competitive area, but he wanted to be close to publishers. He often went camping with his brother, where they fished in the upper Delaware River. When canoeing in 1900, Grey met seventeen year-old Dolly, who was to become his wife and loyal supporter.

Tales of Lonely Trails

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER I

NONNEZOSHE

JOHN WETHERILL, ONE of the famous Wetherill brothers and trader at Kayenta, Arizona, is the man who discovered Nonnezoshe, which is probably the most beautiful and wonderful natural phenomenon in the world. Wetherill owes the credit to his wife, who, through her influence with the Indians finally after years succeeded in getting the secret of the great bridge.

After three trips to Marsh Pass and Kayenta with my old guide, Al Doyle of Flagstaff, I finally succeeded in getting Wetherill to take me in to Nonnezoshe. This was in the spring of 1913 and my party was the second one, not scientific, to make the trip. Later this same year Wetherill took in the Roosevelt party and after that the Kolb brothers. It is a safe thing to say that this trip is one of the most beautiful in the West. It is a hard one and not for everybody. There is no guide except Wetherill, who knows how to get there. And after Doyle and I came out we admitted that we would not care to try to return over our back trail. We doubted if we could find the way. This is the only place I have ever visited which I am not sure I could find again alone.

My trip to Nonnezoshe gave me the opportunity to see also Monument Valley, and the mysterious and labyrinthine Canyon Segi with its great prehistoric cliff-dwellings.

The desert beyond Kayenta spread out impressively, bare red flats and plains of sage leading to the rugged vividly-colored and wind-sculptured sandstone heights typical of the Painted Desert of Arizona. Laguna Creek, at that season, became flooded after every thunderstorm; and it was a treacherous red-mired quicksand where I convinced myself we would have stuck forever had it not been for Wetherill’s Navajos.

We rode all day, for the most part closed in by ridges and bluffs, so that no extended view was possible. It was hot, too, and the sand blew and the dust rose. Travel in northern Arizona is never easy, and this grew harder and steeper. There was one long slope of heavy sand that I made sure would prove too much for Wetherill’s pack mules. But they surmounted it apparently less breathless than I was. Toward sunset a storm gathered ahead of us to the north with a promise of cooling and sultry air.

At length we turned into a long canyon with straight rugged red walls, and a sandy floor with quite a perceptible ascent. It appeared endless. Far ahead I could see the black storm-clouds; and by and bye began to hear the rumble of thunder. Darkness had overtaken us by the time we had reached the head of this canyon; and my first sight of Monument Valley came with a dazzling flash of lightning. It revealed a vast valley, a strange world of colossal shafts and buttes of rock, magnificently sculptored, standing isolated and aloof, dark, weird, lonely. When the sheet lightning flared across the sky showing the monuments silhouetted black against that strange horizon the effect was marvelously beautiful. I watched until the storm died away.

Dawn, with the desert sunrise, changed Monument Valley, bereft it of its night gloom and weird shadow, and showed it in another aspect of beauty. It was hard for me to realize that those monuments were not the works of man. The great valley must once have been a plateau of red rock from which the softer strata had eroded, leaving the gentle league-long slopes marked here and there by upstanding pillars and columns of singular shape and beauty. I rode down the sweet-scented sage-slopes under the shadow of the lofty Mittens, and around and across the valley, and back again to the height of land. And when I had completed the ride a story had woven itself into my mind; and the spot where I stood was to be the place where Lin Slone taught Lucy Bostil to ride the great stallion Wildfire.

Two days’ ride took us across country to the Segi. With this wonderful canyon I was familiar, that is, as familiar as several visits could make a man with such a bewildering place. In fact I had named it Deception Pass. The Segi had innumerable branches, all more or less the same size, and sometimes it was difficult to tell the main canyon from one of its tributaries. The walls were rugged and crumbling, of a red or yellow hue, upward of a thousand feet in height, and indented by spruce-sided notches.

There were a number of ruined cliff-dwellings, the most accessible of which was Keet Seel. I could imagine no more picturesque spot. A huge wind-worn cavern with a vast slanted stained wall held upon a projecting ledge or shelf the long line of cliff-dwellings. These silent little stone houses with their vacant black eye-like windows had strange power to make me ponder, and then dream.

Next day, upon resuming our journey, it pleased me to try to find the trail to Betatakin, the most noted, and surely the most wonderful and beautiful ruin in all the West. In many places there was no trail at all, and I encountered difficulties, but in the end without much loss of time I entered the narrow rugged entrance of the canyon I had named Surprise Valley. Sight of the great dark cave thrilled me as I thought it might have thrilled Bess and Venters, who had lived for me their imagined lives of loneliness here in this wild spot. With the sight of those lofty walls and the scent of the dry sweet sage there rushed over me a strange feeling that “Riders of the Purple Sage” was true. My dream people of romance had really lived there once upon a time. I climbed high upon the huge stones, and along the smooth red walls where Pay Larkin once had glided with swift sure steps, and I entered the musty cliff-dwellings, and called out to hear the weird and sonorous echoes, and I wandered through the thickets and upon the grassy spruce-shaded benches, never for a moment free of the story I had conceived there. Something of awe and sadness abided with me. I could not enter into the merry pranks and investigations of my party. Surprise Valley seemed a part of my past, my dreams, my very self. I left it, haunted by its loneliness and silence and beauty, by the story it had given me.

That night we camped at Bubbling Spring, which once had been a geyser of considerable power. Wetherill told a story of an old Navajo who had lived there. For a long time, according to the Indian tale, the old chief resided there without complaining of this geyser that was wont to inundate his fields. But one season the unreliable waterspout made great and persistent endeavor to drown him and his people and horses. Whereupon the old Navajo took his gun and shot repeatedly at the geyser, and thundered aloud his anger to the Great Spirit. The geyser ebbed away, and from that day never burst forth again.

Somewhere under the great bulge of Navajo Mountain I calculated that we were coming to the edge of the plateau. The white bobbing pack-horses disappeared and then our extra mustangs. It is no unusual thing for a man to use three mounts on this trip. Then two of our Indians disappeared. But Wetherill waited for us and so did Nas ta Bega, the Piute who first took Wetherill down into Nonnezoshe Boco. As I came up I thought we had indeed reached the end of the world.

“It’s down in there,” said Wetherill, with a laugh.

Nas ta Bega made a slow sweeping gesture. There is always something so significant and impressive about an Indian when he points anywhere. It is as if he says, “There, way beyond, over the ranges, is a place I know, and it is far.” The fact was that I looked at the Piute’s dark, inscrutable face before I looked out into the void.

My gaze then seemed impelled and held by things afar, a vast yellow and purple corrugated world of distance, apparently now on a level with my eyes. I was drawn by the beauty and grandeur of that scene; and then I was transfixed, almost by fear, by the realization that I dared to venture down into this wild and upflung fastness. I kept looking afar, sweeping the three-quarter circle of horizon till my judgment of distance was confounded and my sense of proportion dwarfed one moment and magnified the next.

Wetherill was pointing and explaining, but I had not grasped all he said.

“You can see two hundred miles into Utah,” he went on. “That bright rough surface, like a washboard, is wind-worn rock. Those little lines of cleavage are canyons. There are a thousand canyons down there, and only a few have we been in. That long purple ragged line is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. And there, that blue fork in the red, that’s where the San Juan comes in. And there’s Escalante Canyon.”

I had to adopt the Indian’s method of studying unlimited spaces in the desert — to look with slow contracted eyes from near to far.

The pack-train and the drivers had begun to zigzag down a long slope, bare of rock, with scant strips of green, and here and there a cedar. Half a mile down, the slope merged in what seemed a green level. But I knew it was not level. This level was a rolling plain, growing darker green, with lines of ravines and thin, undefined spaces that might be mirage. Miles and miles it swept and rolled and heaved, to lose its waves in apparent darker level. Round red rocks stood isolated. They resembled huge grazing cattle. But as I gazed these rocks were strangely magnified. They grew and grew into mounds, castles, domes, crags, great red wind-carved buttes. One by one they drew my gaze to the wall of upflung rock. I seemed to see a thousand domes of a thousand shapes and colors, and among them a thousand blue clefts, each of which was a canyon.

Beyond this wide area of curved lines rose another wall, dwarfing the lower; dark red, horizon-long, magnificent in frowning boldness, and because of its limitless deceiving surfaces incomprehensible to the gaze of man. Away to the eastward began a winding ragged blue line, looping back upon itself, and then winding away again, growing wider and bluer. This line was San Juan Canyon. I followed that blue line all its length, a hundred miles, down toward the west where it joined a dark purple shadowy cleft. And this was the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. My eye swept along with that winding mark, farther and farther to the west, until the cleft, growing larger and closer, revealed itself as a wild and winding canyon. Still farther westward it split a vast plateau of red peaks and yellow mesas. Here the canyon was full of purple smoke. It turned, it closed, it gaped, it lost itself and showed again in that chaos of a million cliffs. And then it faded, a mere purple line, into deceiving distance.

I imagined there was no scene in all the world to equal this. The tranquillity of lesser spaces was here not manifest. This happened to be a place where so much of the desert could be seen and the effect was stupendous Sound, movement, life seemed to have no fitness here. Ruin was there and desolation and decay. The meaning of the ages was flung at me. A man became nothing. But when I gazed across that sublime and majestic wilderness, in which the Grand Canyon was only a dim line, I strangely lost my terror and something came to me across the shining spaces.

Then Nas ta Bega and Wetherill began the descent of the slope, and the rest of us followed. No sign of a trail showed where the base of the slope rolled out to meet the green plain. There was a level bench a mile wide, then a ravine, and then an ascent, and after that, rounded ridge and ravine, one after the other, like huge swells of a monstrous sea. Indian paint brush vied in its scarlet hue with the deep magenta of cactus. There was no sage. Soap weed and meager grass and a bunch of cactus here and there lent the green to that barren, and it was green only at a distance.

Nas ta Bega kept on at a steady gait. The sun climbed. The wind rose and whipped dust from under the mustangs. There is seldom much talk on a ride of this nature. It is hard work and everybody for himself. Besides, it is enough just to see; and that country is conducive to silence. I looked back often, and the farther out on the plain we rode the higher loomed the plateau we had descended; and as I faced ahead again, the lower sank the red-domed and castled horizon to the fore.

It was a wild place we were approaching. I saw piñon patches under the circled walls. I ceased to feel the dry wind in my face. We were already in the lee of a wall. I saw the rock squirrels scampering to their holes. Then the Indians disappeared between two rounded corners of cliff.

I rode round the corner into a widening space thick with cedars. It ended in a bare slope of smooth rock. Here we dismounted to begin the ascent. It was smooth and hard, though not slippery. There was not a crack. I did not see a broken piece of stone. Nas ta Bega and Wetherill climbed straight up for a while and then wound round a swell, to turn this way and that, always going up. I began to see similar mounds of rock all around me, of every shape that could be called a curve. There were yellow domes far above and small red domes far below. Ridges ran from one hill of rock to another. There were no abrupt breaks, but holes and pits and caves were everywhere, and occasionally deep down, an amphitheater green with cedar and piñon. We found no vestige of trail on those bare slopes.

Our guides led to the top of the wall, only to disclose to us another wall beyond, with a ridged, bare, and scalloped depression between. Here footing began to be precarious for both man and beast. Our mustangs were not shod and it was wonderful to see their slow, short, careful steps. They knew a great deal better than we what the danger was. It has been such experiences as this that have made me see in horses something besides beasts of burden. In the ascent of the second slope it was necessary to zigzag up, slowly and carefully, taking advantage of every bulge and depression.

Then before us twisted and dropped and curved the most dangerous slopes I had ever seen. We had reached the height of the divide and many of the drops on this side were perpendicular and too steep for us to see the bottom.

At one bad place Wetherill and Nas ta Bega, with Joe Lee, a Mormon cowboy with us, were helping one of the pack-horses named Chub. On the steepest part of this slope Chub fell and began to slide. His momentum jerked the rope from the hands of Wetherill and the Indian. But Joe Lee held on. Joe was a giant and being a Mormon he could not let go of anything he had. He began to slide with the horse, holding back with all his might.

It seemed that both man and beast must slide down to where the slope ended in a yawning precipice. Chub was snorting or screaming in terror. Our mustangs were frightened and rearing. It was not a place to have trouble with horses.

I had a moment of horrified fascination, in which Chub turned clear over. Then he slid into a little depression that, with Joe’s hold on the lasso, momentarily checked his descent. Quick as thought Joe ran sidewise and down to the bulge of rock, and yelled for help. I got to him a little ahead of Wetherill and Nas ta Bega; and together we pulled Chub up out of danger. At first we thought he had been choked to death. But he came to, and got up, a bloody, skinned horse, but alive and safe. I have never seen a more magnificent effort than Joe Lee’s. Those fellows are built that way. Wetherill has lost horses on those treacherous slopes, and that risk is the only thing about the trip which is not splendid.

We got over that bad place without further incident, and presently came to a long swell of naked stone that led down to a narrow green split. This one had straight walls and wound away out of sight. It was the head of a canyon.

“Nonnezoshe Boco,” said the Indian.

This then was the Canyon of the Rainbow Bridge. When we got down into it we were a happy crowd. The mode of travel here was a selection of the best levels, the best places to cross the brook, the best places to climb, and it was a process of continual repetition. There was no trail ahead of us, but we certainly left one behind. And as Wetherill picked out the course and the mustangs followed him I had all freedom to see and feel the beauty, color, wildness and changing character of Nonnezoshe Boco.

My experiences in the desert did not count much in the trip down this strange, beautiful lost canyon. All canyons are not alike. This one did not widen, though the walls grew higher. They began to lean and bulge, and the narrow strip of sky above resembled a flowing blue river. Huge caverns had been hollowed out by water or wind. And when the brook ran close under one of these overhanging places the running water made a singular indescribable sound. A crack from a hoof on a stone rang like a hollow bell and echoed from wall to wall. And the croak of a frog — the only living creature I noted in the canyon — was a weird and melancholy thing.

“We’re sure gettin’ deep down,” said Joe Lee.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Here are the pink and yellow sego lilies. Only the white ones are found above.”

I dismounted to gather some of these lilies. They were larger than the white ones of higher altitudes, of a most exquisite beauty and fragility, and of such rare pink and yellow hues as I had never seen.

“They bloom only where it’s always summer,” explained Joe.

That expressed their nature. They were the orchids of the summer canyons. They stood up everywhere star-like out of the green. It was impossible to prevent the mustangs treading them under foot. And as the canyon deepened, and many little springs added their tiny volume to the brook, every grassy bench was dotted with lilies, like a green sky star-spangled. And this increasing luxuriance manifested itself in the banks of purple moss and clumps of lavender daisies and great mounds of yellow violets. The brook was lined by blossoming buck-brush; the rocky corners showed the crimson and magenta of cactus; and there were ledges of green with shining moss that sparkled with little white flowers. The hum of bees filled the fragrant, dreamy air.

But by and bye, this green and colorful and verdant beauty, the almost level floor of the canyon, the banks of soft earth, the thickets and clumps of cottonwood, the shelving caverns and bulging walls — these features were gradually lost, and Nonnezoshe began to deepen in bare red and white stone steps. The walls sheered away from one another, breaking into sections and ledges, and rising higher and higher, and there began to be manifested a dark and solemn concordance with the nature that had created this old rent in the earth.

There was a stretch of miles where steep steps in hard red rock alternated with long levels of round boulders. Here, one by one, the mustangs went lame and we had to walk. And we slipped and stumbled along over these loose, treacherous stones. The hours passed; the toil increased; the progress diminished; one of the mustangs failed and was left. And all the while the dimensions of Nonnezoshe Boco magnified and its character changed. It became a thousand-foot walled canyon, leaning, broken, threatening, with great yellow slides blocking passage, with huge sections split off from the main wall, with immense dark and gloomy caverns. Strangely it had no intersecting canyons. It jealously guarded its secret. Its unusual formations of cavern and pillar and half-arch led me to expect any monstrous stone-shape left by avalanche or cataclysm.

Down and down we toiled. And now the stream-bed was bare of boulders and the banks of earth. The floods that had rolled down that canyon had here borne away every loose thing. All the floor, in places, was bare red and white stone, polished, glistening, slippery, affording treacherous foothold. And the time came when Wetherill abandoned the stream-bed to take to the rock-strewn and cactus-covered ledges above.

The canyon widened ahead into a great ragged iron-lined amphitheater, and then apparently turned abruptly at right angles. Sunset rimmed the walls.

I had been tired for a long time and now I began to limp and lag. I wondered what on earth would make Wetherill and the Indians tired. It was with great pleasure that I observed the giant Joe Lee plodding slowly along. And when I glanced behind at my straggling party it was with both admiration for their gameness and glee for their disheveled and weary appearance. Finally I got so that all I could do was to drag myself onward with eyes down on the rough ground. In this way I kept on until I heard Wetherill call me. He had stopped — was waiting for me. The dark and silent Indian stood beside him, looking down the canyon.

I saw past the vast jutting wall that had obstructed my view. A mile beyond, all was bright with the colors of sunset, and spanning the canyon in the graceful shape and beautiful hues of the rainbow was a magnificent natural bridge.

“Nonnezoshe,” said Wetherill, simply.

This rainbow bridge was the one great natural phenomenon, the one grand spectacle which I had ever seen that did not at first give vague disappointment, a confounding of reality, a disenchantment of contrast with what the mind had conceived.

But this thing was glorious. It absolutely silenced me. My body and brain, weary and dull from the toil of travel, received a singular and revivifying freshness. I had a strange, mystic perception that this rosy-hued, tremendous arch of stone was a goal I had failed to reach in some former life, but had now found. Here was a rainbow magnified even beyond dreams, a thing not transparent and ethereal, but solidified, a work of ages, sweeping up majestically from the red walls, its iris-hued arch against the blue sky.

Then we plodded on again. Wetherill worked around to circle the huge amphitheater. The way was a steep slant, rough and loose and dragging. The rocks were as hard and jagged as lava, and cactus hindered progress. Soon the rosy and golden lights had faded. All the walls turned pale and steely and the bridge loomed dark.

We were to camp all night under the bridge. Just before we reached it Nas ta Bega halted with one of his singular motions. He was saying his prayer to this great stone god. Then he began to climb straight up the steep slope. Wetherill told me the Indian would not pass under the arch.

When we got to the bridge and unsaddled and unpacked the lame mustangs twilight had fallen. The horses were turned loose to fare for what scant grass grew on bench and slope. Firewood was even harder to find than grass. When our simple meal had been eaten there was gloom gathering in the canyon and stars had begun to blink in the pale strip of blue above the lofty walls. The place was oppressive and we were mostly silent.

Presently I moved away into the strange dark shadow cast by the bridge. It was a weird black belt, where I imagined I was invisible, but out of which I could see. There was a slab of rock upon which I composed myself, to watch, to feel.

A stiffening of my neck made me aware that I had been continually looking up at the looming arch. I found that it never seemed the same any two moments. Near at hand it was too vast a thing for immediate comprehension. I wanted to ponder on what had formed it — to reflect upon its meaning as to age and force of nature. Yet it seemed that all I could do was to see. White stars hung along the dark curved line. The rim of the arch appeared to shine. The moon was up there somewhere. The far side of the canyon was now a blank black wall. Over its towering rim showed a pale glow. It brightened. The shades in the canyon lightened, then a white disk of moon peeped over the dark line. The bridge turned to silver.

It was then that I became aware of the presence of Nas ta Bega. Dark, silent, statuesque, with inscrutable face uplifted, with all that was spiritual of the Indian suggested by a somber and tranquil knowledge of his place there, he represented to me that which a solitary figure of human life represents in a great painting. Nonnezoshe needed life, wild life, life of its millions of years — and here stood the dark and silent Indian.

Long afterward I walked there alone, to and fro, under the bridge. The moon had long since crossed the streak of star-fired blue above, and the canyon was black in shadow. At times a current of wind, with all the strangeness of that strange country in its moan, rushed through the great stone arch. At other times there was silence such as I imagined might have dwelt deep in the center of the earth. And again an owl hooted, and the sound was nameless. It had a mocking echo. An echo of night, silence, gloom, melancholy, death, age, eternity!

The Indian lay asleep with his dark face upturned, and the other sleepers lay calm and white in the starlight. I seemed to see in them the meaning of life and the past — the illimitable train of faces that had shone under the stars. There was something nameless in that canyon, and whether or not it was what the Indian embodied in the great Nonnezoshe, or the life of the present, or the death of the ages, or the nature so magnificently manifested in those silent, dreaming, waiting walls — the truth was that there was a spirit.

I did sleep a few hours under Nonnezoshe, and when I awoke the tip of the arch was losing its cold darkness and beginning to shine. The sun had just risen high enough over some low break in the wall to reach the bridge. I watched. Slowly, in wondrous transformation, the gold and blue and rose and pink and purple blended their hues, softly, mistily, cloudily, until once more the arch was a rainbow.

I realized that long before life had evolved upon the earth this bridge had spread its grand arch from wall to wall, black and mystic at night, transparent and rosy in the sunrise, at sunset a flaming curve limned against the heavens. When the race of man had passed it would, perhaps, stand there still. It was not for many eyes to see. The tourist, the leisurely traveler, the comfort-loving motorist would never behold it. Only by toil, sweat, endurance and pain could any man ever look at Nonnezoshe. It seemed well to realize that the great things of life had to be earned. Nonnezoshe would always be alone, grand, silent, beautiful, unintelligible; and as such I bade it a mute, reverent farewell.

CHAPTER II

COLORADO TRAILS

RIDING AND TRAMPING trails would lose half their charm if the motive were only to hunt and to fish. It seems fair to warn the reader who longs to embark upon a bloody game hunt or a chronicle of fishing records that this is not that kind of story. But it will be one for those who love horses and dogs, the long winding dim trails, the wild flowers and the dark still woods, the fragrance of spruce and the smell of camp-fire smoke. And as well for those who love to angle in brown lakes or rushing brooks or chase after the baying hounds or stalk the stag on his lonely heights.

We left Denver on August twenty-second over the Moffet road and had a long wonderful ride through the mountains. The Rockies have a sweep, a limitless sweep, majestic and grand. For many miles we crossed no streams, and climbed and wound up barren slopes. Once across the divide, however, we descended into a country of black forests and green valleys. Yampa, a little hamlet with a past prosperity, lay in the wide valley of the Bear River. It was picturesque but idle, and a better name for it would have been Sleepy Hollow. The main and only street was very wide and dusty, bordered by old board walks and vacant stores. It seemed a deserted street of a deserted village. Teague, the guide, lived there. He assured me it was not quite as lively a place as in the early days when it was a stage center for an old and rich mining section. We stayed there at the one hotel for a whole day, most of which I spent sitting on the board walk. Whenever I chanced to look down the wide street it seemed always the same — deserted. But Yampa had the charm of being old and forgotten, and for that reason I would like to live there a while.

On August twenty-third we started in two buckboards for the foothills, some fifteen miles westward, where Teague’s men were to meet us with saddle and pack horses. The ride was not interesting until the Flattop Mountains began to loom, and we saw the dark green slopes of spruce, rising to bare gray cliffs and domes, spotted with white banks of snow. I felt the first cool breath of mountain air, exhilarating and sweet. From that moment I began to live.

We had left at six-thirty. Teague, my guide, had been so rushed with his manifold tasks that I had scarcely seen him, let alone gotten acquainted with him. And on this ride he was far behind with our load of baggage. We arrived at the edge of the foothills about noon. It appeared to be the gateway of a valley, with aspen groves and ragged jack-pines on the slopes, and a stream running down. Our driver called it the Stillwater. That struck me as strange, for the stream was in a great hurry. R.C. spied trout in it, and schools of darkish, mullet-like fish which we were informed were grayling. We wished for our tackle then and for time to fish.

Teague’s man, a young fellow called Virgil, met us here. He did not resemble the ancient Virgil in the least, but he did look as if he had walked right out of one of my romances of wild riders. So I took a liking to him at once.

But the bunch of horses he had corralled there did not excite any delight in me. Horses, of course, were the most important part of our outfit. And that moment of first seeing the horses that were to carry us on such long rides was an anxious and thrilling one. I have felt it many times, and it never grows any weaker from experience. Many a scrubby lot of horses had turned out well upon acquaintance, and some I had found hard to part with at the end of trips. Up to that time, however, I had not seen a bear hunter’s horses; and I was much concerned by the fact that these were a sorry looking outfit, dusty, ragged, maneless, cut and bruised and crippled. Still, I reflected, they were bunched up so closely that I could not tell much about them, and I decided to wait for Teague before I chose a horse for any one.

In an hour Teague trotted up to our resting place. Beside his own mount he had two white saddle horses, and nine pack-animals, heavily laden. Teague was a sturdy rugged man with bronzed face and keen gray-blue eyes, very genial and humorous. Straightway I got the impression that he liked work.

“Let’s organize,” he said, briskly. “Have you picked the horses you’re goin’ to ride?”

Teague led from the midst of that dusty kicking bunch a rangy powerful horse, with four white feet, a white face and a noble head. He had escaped my eye. I felt thrillingly that here at least was one horse.

The rest of the horses were permanently crippled or temporarily lame, and I had no choice, except to take the one it would be kindest to ride.

“He ain’t much like your Silvermane or Black Star,” said Teague, laughing.

“What do you know about them?” I asked, very much pleased at this from him.

“Well, I know all about them,” he replied. “I’ll have you the best horse in this country in a few days. Fact is I’ve bought him, an’ he’ll come with my cowboy, Vern.... Now, we’re organized. Let’s move.”

We rode through a meadow along a spruce slope above which towered the great mountain. It was a zigzag trail, rough, boggy, and steep in places. The Stillwater meandered here, and little breaks on the water gave evidence of feeding trout. We had several miles of meadow, and then sheered off to the left up into the timber. It was a spruce forest, very still and fragrant. We climbed out up on a bench, and across a flat, up another bench, out of the timber into the patches of snow. Here snow could be felt in the air. Water was everywhere. I saw a fox, a badger, and another furry creature, too illusive to name. One more climb brought us to the top of the Flattop Pass, about eleven thousand feet. The view in the direction from which we had come was splendid, and led the eye to the distant sweeping ranges, dark and dim along the horizon. The Flattops were flat enough, but not very wide at this pass, and we were soon going down again into a green gulf of spruce, with ragged peaks lifting beyond. Here again I got the suggestion of limitless space. It took us an hour to ride down to Little Trappers Lake, a small clear green sheet of water. The larger lake was farther down. It was big, irregular, and bordered by spruce forests, and shadowed by the lofty gray peaks.

The Camp was on the far side. The air appeared rather warm, and mosquitoes bothered us. However, they did not stay long. It was after sunset and I was too tired to have many impressions.

Our cook appeared to be a melancholy man. He had a deep quavering voice, a long drooping mustache and sad eyes. He was silent most of the time. The men called him Bill, and yelled when they spoke, for he was somewhat deaf. It did not take me long to discover that he was a good cook.

Our tent was pitched down the slope from the cook tent. We were too tired to sit round a camp-fire and talk. The stars were white and splendid, and they hung over the flat ridges like great beacon lights. The lake appeared to be inclosed on three sides by amphitheatric mountains, black with spruce up to the gray walls of rock. The night grew cold and very still. The bells on the horses tinkled distantly. There was a soft murmur of falling water. A lonesome coyote barked, and that thrilled me. Teague’s dogs answered this prowler, and some of them had voices to make a hunter thrill. One, the bloodhound Cain, had a roar like a lion’s. I had not gotten acquainted with the hounds, and I was thinking about them when I fell asleep.

Next morning I was up at five-thirty. The air was cold and nipping and frost shone on grass and sage. A red glow of sunrise gleamed on the tip of the mountain and slowly grew downward.

The cool handle of an axe felt good. I soon found, however, that I could not wield it long for lack of breath. The elevation was close to ten thousand feet and the air at that height was thin and rare. After each series of lusty strokes I had to rest. R.C., who could handle an axe as he used to swing a baseball bat, made fun of my efforts. Whereupon I relinquished the tool to him, and chuckled at his discomfiture.

After breakfast R.C. and I got out our tackles and rigged up fly rods, and sallied forth to the lake with the same eagerness we had felt when we were boys going after chubs and sunfish. The lake glistened green in the sunlight and it lay like a gem at the foot of the magnificent black slopes.

The water was full of little floating particles that Teague called wild rice. I thought the lake had begun to work, like eastern lakes during dog days. It did not look propitious for fishing, but Teague reassured us. The outlet of this lake was the head of White River. We tried the outlet first, but trout were not rising there. Then we began wading and casting along a shallow bar of the lake. Teague had instructed us to cast, then drag the flies slowly across the surface of the water, in imitation of a swimming fly or bug. I tried this, and several times, when the leader was close to me and my rod far back, I had strikes. With my rod in that position I could not hook the trout. Then I cast my own way, letting the flies sink a little. To my surprise and dismay I had only a few strikes and could not hook the fish.

R.C., however, had better luck, and that too in wading right over the ground I had covered. To beat me at anything always gave him the most unaccountable fiendish pleasure.

“These are educated trout,” he said. “It takes a skillful fisherman to make them rise. Now anybody can catch the big game of the sea, which is your forte. But here you are N.G.... Watch me cast!”

I watched him make a most atrocious cast. But the water boiled, and he hooked two good-sized trout at once. Quite speechless with envy and admiration I watched him play them and eventually beach them. They were cutthroat trout, silvery-sided and marked with the red slash along their gills that gave them their name. I did not catch any while wading, but from the bank I spied one, and dropping a fly in front of his nose, I got him. R.C. caught four more, all about a pound in weight, and then he had a strike that broke his leader. He did not have another leader, so we walked back to camp.

Wild flowers colored the open slopes leading down out of the forest. Golden rod, golden daisies, and bluebells were plentiful and very pretty. Here I found my first columbine, the beautiful flower that is the emblem of Colorado. In vivid contrast to its blue, Indian paint brush thinly dotted the slopes and varied in color from red to pink and from white to yellow.

My favorite of all wild flowers — the purple asters — were there too, on tall nodding stems, with pale faces held up to the light. The reflection of mountain and forest in Trappers Lake was clear and beautiful.

The hounds bayed our approach to camp. We both made a great show about beginning our little camp tasks, but we did not last very long. The sun felt so good and it was so pleasant to lounge under a pine. One of the blessings of outdoor life was that a man could be like an Indian and do nothing. So from rest I passed to dreams and from dreams to sleep.

In the afternoon R.C. and I went out again to try for trout. The lake appeared to be getting thicker with that floating muck and we could not raise a fish. Then we tried the outlet again. Here the current was swift. I found a place between two willow banks where trout were breaking on the surface. It took a long cast for me, but about every tenth attempt I would get a fly over the right place and raise a fish. They were small, but that did not detract from my gratification. The light on the water was just right for me to see the trout rise, and that was a beautiful sight as well as a distinct advantage. I had caught four when a shout from R.C. called me quickly down stream. I found him standing in the middle of a swift chute with his rod bent double and a long line out.

“Got a whale!” he yelled. “See him — down there — in that white water. See him flash red!... Go down there and land him for me. Hurry! He’s got all the line!”

I ran below to an open place in the willows. Here the stream was shallow and very swift. In the white water I caught a flashing gleam of red. Then I saw the shine of the leader. But I could not reach it without wading in. When I did this the trout lunged out. He looked crimson and silver. I could have put my fist in his mouth.

“Grab the leader! Yank him out!” yelled R.C. in desperation. “There! He’s got all the line.”

“But it’d be better to wade down,” I yelled back.

He shouted that the water was too deep and for me to save his fish. This was an awful predicament for me. I knew the instant I grasped the leader that the big trout would break it or pull free. The same situation, with different kinds of fish, had presented itself many times on my numberless fishing jaunts with R.C. and they all crowded to my mind. Nevertheless I had no choice. Plunging in to my knees I frantically reached for the leader. The red trout made a surge. I missed him. R.C. yelled that something would break. That was no news to me. Another plunge brought me in touch with the leader. Then I essayed to lead the huge cutthroat ashore. He was heavy. But he was tired and that gave birth to hopes. Near the shore as I was about to lift him he woke up, swam round me twice, then ran between my legs.

When, a little later, R.C. came panting down stream I was sitting on the bank, all wet, with one knee skinned and I was holding his broken leader in my hands. Strange to say, he went into a rage! Blamed me for the loss of that big trout! Under such circumstances it was always best to maintain silence and I did so as long as I could. After his paroxysm had spent itself and he had become somewhat near a rational being once more he asked me:

“Was he big?”

“Oh — a whale of a trout!” I replied.

“Humph! Well, how big?”

Thereupon I enlarged upon the exceeding size and beauty of that trout. I made him out very much bigger than he actually looked to me and I minutely described his beauty and wonderful gaping mouth. R.C. groaned and that was my revenge.

We returned to camp early, and I took occasion to scrape acquaintance with the dogs. It was a strangely assorted pack — four Airedales, one bloodhound and seven other hounds of mixed breeds. There were also three pup hounds, white and yellow, very pretty dogs, and like all pups, noisy and mischievous. They made friends easily. This applied also to one of the Airedales, a dog recently presented to Teague by some estimable old lady who had called him Kaiser and made a pet of him. As might have been expected of a dog, even an Airedale, with that name, he was no good. But he was very affectionate, and exceedingly funny. When he was approached he had a trick of standing up, holding up his forepaws in an appealing sort of way, with his head twisted in the most absurd manner. This was when he was chained — otherwise he would have been climbing up on anyone who gave him the chance. He was the most jealous dog I ever saw. He could not be kept chained very long because he always freed himself. At meal time he would slip noiselessly behind some one and steal the first morsel he could snatch. Bill was always rapping Kaiser with pans or billets of firewood.

Next morning was clear and cold. We had breakfast, and then saddled up to ride to Big Fish Lake. For an hour we rode up and down ridges of heavy spruce, along a trail. We saw elk and deer sign. Elk tracks appeared almost as large as cow tracks. When we left the trail to climb into heavy timber we began to look for game. The forest was dark, green and brown, silent as a grave. No squirrels or birds or sign of life! We had a hard ride up and down steep slopes. A feature was the open swaths made by avalanches. The ice and snow had cut a path through the timber, and the young shoots of spruce were springing up. I imagined the roar made by that tremendous slide.

We found elk tracks everywhere and some fresh sign, where the grass had been turned recently, and also much old and fresh sign where the elk had skinned the saplings by rubbing their antlers to get rid of the velvet. Some of these rubs looked like blazes made by an axe. The Airedale Fox, a wonderful dog, routed out a she-coyote that evidently had a den somewhere, for she barked angrily at the dog and at us. Fox could not catch her. She led him round in a circle, and we could not see her in the thick brush. It was fine to hear the wild staccato note again.

We crossed many little parks, bright and green, blooming with wild asters and Indian paint brush and golden daisies. The patches of red and purple were exceedingly beautiful. Everywhere we rode we were knee deep in flowers. At length we came out of the heavy timber down upon Big Fish Lake. This lake was about half a mile across, deep blue-green in color, with rocky shores. Upon the opposite side were beaver mounds. We could see big trout swimming round, but they would not rise to a fly. R.C. went out in an old boat and paddled to the head of the lake and fished at the inlet. Here he caught a fine trout. I went around and up the little river that fed the lake. It curved swiftly through a meadow, and had deep, dark eddies under mossy, flowering banks. At other places the stream ran swiftly over clean gravel beds. It was musical and clear as crystal, and to the touch of hand, as cold as ice water. I waded in and began to cast. I saw several big trout, and at last coaxed one to take my fly. But I missed him. Then in a swift current a flash of red caught my eye and I saw a big trout lazily rise to my fly. Saw him take it! And I hooked him. He was not active, but heavy and plunging, and he bored in and out, and made short runs. I had not seen such beautiful red colors in any fish. He made a fine fight, but at last I landed him on the grass, a cutthroat of about one and three-quarter pounds, deep red and silver and green, and spotted all over. That was the extent of my luck.

We went back to the point, and thought we would wait a little while to see if the trout would begin to rise. But they did not. A storm began to mutter and boom along the battlements. Great gray clouds obscured the peaks, and at length the rain came. It was cold and cutting. We sought the shelter of spruces for a while, and waited. After an hour it cleared somewhat, and R.C. caught a fine one-pound cutthroat, all green and silver, with only two slashes of red along under the gills. Then another storm threatened. Before we got ready to leave for camp the rain began again to fall, and we looked for a wetting. It was raining hard when we rode into the woods and very cold. The spruces were dripping. But we soon got warm from hard riding up steep slopes. After an hour the rain ceased, the sun came out, and from the open places high up we could see a great green void of spruce, and beyond, boundless black ranges, running off to dim horizon. We flushed a big blue grouse with a brood of little ones, and at length another big one.

In one of the open parks the Airedale Fox showed signs of scenting game. There was a patch of ground where the grass was pressed down. Teague whispered and pointed. I saw the gray rump of an elk protruding from behind some spruces. I beckoned for R.C. and we both dismounted. Just then the elk rose and stalked out. It was a magnificent bull with crowning lofty antlers. The shoulders and neck appeared black. He raised his head, and turning, trotted away with ease and grace for such a huge beast. That was a wild and beautiful sight I had not seen before. We were entranced, and when he disappeared, we burst out with exclamations.

We rode on toward camp, and out upon a bench that bordered the lofty red wall of rock. From there we went down into heavy forest again, dim and gray, with its dank, penetrating odor, and oppressive stillness. The forest primeval! When we rode out of that into open slopes the afternoon was far advanced, and long shadows lay across the distant ranges. When we reached camp, supper and a fire to warm cold wet feet were exceedingly welcome. I was tired.

Later, R.C. and I rode up a mile or so above camp, and hitched our horses near Teague’s old corral. Our intention was to hunt up along the side of the slope. Teague came along presently. We waited, hoping the big black clouds would break. But they did not. They rolled down with gray, swirling edges, like smoke, and a storm enveloped us. We sought shelter in a thick spruce. It rained and hailed. By and bye the air grew bitterly cold, and Teague suggested we give up, and ride back. So we did. The mountains were dim and obscure through the gray gloom, and the black spear-tipped spruces looked ghostly against the background. The lightning was vivid, and the thunder rolled and crashed in magnificent bombardment across the heavens.

Next morning at six-thirty the sun was shining clear, and only a few clouds sailed in the blue. Wind was in the west and the weather promised fair. But clouds began to creep up behind the mountains, first hazy, then white, then dark. Nevertheless we decided to ride out, and cross the Flattop rim, and go around what they call the Chinese Wall. It rained as we climbed through the spruces above Little Trappers Lake. And as we got near the top it began to hail. Again the air grew cold. Once out on top I found a wide expanse, green and white, level in places, but with huge upheavals of ridge. There were flowers here at eleven thousand feet. The view to the rear was impressive — a wide up-and-down plain studded with out-cropping of rocks, and patches of snow. We were then on top of the Chinese Wall, and the view to the west was grand. At the moment hail was falling thick and white, and to stand above the streaked curtain, as it fell into the abyss was a strange new experience. Below, two thousand feet, lay the spruce forest, and it sloped and dropped into the White River Valley, which in turn rose, a long ragged dark-green slope, up to a bare jagged peak. Beyond this stretched range on range, dark under the lowering pall of clouds. On top we found fresh Rocky Mountain sheep tracks. A little later, going into a draw, we crossed a snow-bank, solid as ice. We worked down into this draw into the timber. It hailed, and rained some more, then cleared. The warm sun felt good. Once down in the parks we began to ride through a flower-garden. Every slope was beautiful in gold, and red, and blue and white. These parks were luxuriant with grass, and everywhere we found elk beds, where the great stags had been lying, to flee at our approach. But we did not see one. The bigness of this slope impressed me. We rode miles and miles, and every park was surrounded by heavy timber. At length we got into a burned district where the tall dead spruces stood sear and ghastly, and the ground was so thickly strewn with fallen trees that we had difficulty in threading a way through them. Patches of aspen grew on the hillside, still fresh and green despite this frosty morning. Here we found a sego lily, one of the most beautiful of flowers. Here also I saw pink Indian paint brush. At the foot of this long burned slope we came to the White River trail, and followed it up and around to camp.

Late in the evening, about sunset, I took my rifle and slipped off into the woods back of camp. I walked a short distance, then paused to listen to the silence of the forest. There was not a sound. It was a place of peace. By and bye I heard snapping of twigs, and presently heard R.C. and Teague approaching me. We penetrated half a mile into the spruce, pausing now and then to listen. At length R.C. heard something. We stopped. After a little I heard the ring of a horn on wood. It was thrilling. Then came the crack of a hoof on stone, then the clatter of a loosened rock. We crept on. But that elk or deer evaded us. We hunted around till dark without farther sign of any game.

R.C. and Teague and I rode out at seven-thirty and went down White River for three miles. In one patch of bare ground we saw tracks of five deer where they had come in for salt. Then we climbed high up a burned ridge, winding through patches of aspen. We climbed ridge after ridge, and at last got out of the burned district into reaches of heavy spruce. Coming to a park full of deer and elk tracks, we dismounted and left our horses. I went to the left, and into some beautiful woods, where I saw beds of deer or elk, and many tracks. Returning to the horses, I led them into a larger park, and climbed high into the open and watched. There I saw some little squirrels about three inches long, and some gray birds, very tame. I waited a long time before there was any sign of R.C. or Teague, and then it was the dog I saw first. I whistled, and they climbed up to me. We mounted and rode on for an hour, then climbed through a magnificent forest of huge trees, windfalls, and a ferny, mossy, soft ground. At length we came out at the head of a steep, bare slope, running down to a verdant park crossed by stretches of timber. On the way back to camp we ran across many elk beds and deer trails, and for a while a small band of elk evidently trotted ahead of us, but out of sight.

Next day we started for a few days’ trip to Big Fish Lake. R.C. and I went along up around the mountain. I found our old trail, and was at a loss only a few times. We saw fresh elk sign, but no live game at all.

In the afternoon we fished. I went up the river half a mile, while R.C. fished the lake. Neither of us had any luck. Later we caught four trout, one of which was fair sized.

Toward sunset the trout began to rise all over the lake, but we could not get them to take a fly.

The following day we went up to Twin Lakes and found them to be beautiful little green gems surrounded by spruce. I saw some big trout in the large lake, but they were wary. We tried every way to get a strike. No use! In the little lake matters were worse. It was full of trout up to two pounds. They would run at the fly, only to refuse it. Exasperating work! We gave up and returned to Big Fish. After supper we went out to try again. The lake was smooth and quiet. All at once, as if by concert, the trout began to rise everywhere. In a little bay we began to get strikes. I could see the fish rise to the fly. The small ones were too swift and the large ones too slow, it seemed. We caught one, and then had bad luck. We snarled our lines, drifted wrong, broke leaders, snapped off flies, hooked too quick and too slow, and did everything that was clumsy. I lost two big fish because they followed the fly as I drew it toward me across the water to imitate a swimming fly. Of course this made a large slack line which I could not get up. Finally I caught one big fish, and altogether we got seven. All in that little bay, where the water was shallow! In other places we could not catch a fish. I had one vicious strike. The fish appeared to be feeding on a tiny black gnat, which we could not imitate. This was the most trying experience of all. We ought to have caught a basketful.

The next day, September first, we rode down along the outlet of Big Fish to White River and down that for miles to fish for grayling. The stream was large and swift and cold. It appeared full of ice water and rocks, but no fish. We met fishermen, an automobile, and a camp outfit. That was enough for me. Where an automobile can run, I do not belong. The fishing was poor. But the beautiful open valley, flowered in gold and purple, was recompense for a good deal of bad luck.

A grayling, or what they called a grayling, was not as beautiful a fish as my fancy had pictured. He resembled a sucker or mullet, had a small mouth, dark color, and was rather a sluggish-looking fish.

We rode back through a thunderstorm, and our yellow slickers afforded much comfort.

Next morning was bright, clear, cold. I saw the moon go down over a mountain rim rose-flushed with the sunrise.

R.C. and I, with Teague, started for the top of the big mountain on the west. I had a new horse, a roan, and he looked a thoroughbred. He appeared tired. But I thought he would be great. We took a trail through the woods, dark green-gray, cool and verdant, odorous and still. We began to climb. Occasionally we crossed parks, and little streams. Up near the long, bare slope the spruce trees grew large and far apart. They were beautiful, gray as if bearded with moss. Beyond this we got into the rocks and climbing became arduous. Long zigzags up the slope brought us to the top of a notch, where at the right lay a patch of snow. The top of the mountain was comparatively flat, but it had timbered ridges and bare plains and little lakes, with dark domes, rising beyond. We rode around to the right, climbing out of the timber to where the dwarf spruces and brush had a hard struggle for life. The great gulf below us was immense, dark, and wild, studded with lakes and parks, and shadowed by moving clouds.

Sheep tracks, old and fresh, afforded us thrills.

Away on the western rim, where we could look down upon a long rugged iron-gray ridge of mountain, our guide using the glass, found two big stags. We all had our fill of looking. I could see them plainly with naked eyes.

We decided to go back to where we could climb down on that side, halter the horses, leave all extra accoutrements, and stalk those stags, and take a picture of them.

I led the way, and descended under the rim. It was up and down over rough shale, and up steps of broken rocks, and down little cliffs. We crossed the ridge twice, many times having to lend a hand to each other.

At length I reached a point where I could see the stags lying down. The place was an open spot on a rocky promonotory with a fringe of low spruces. The stags were magnificent in size, with antlers in the velvet. One had twelve points. They were lying in the sun to harden their horns, according to our guide.

I slipped back to the others, and we all decided to have a look. So we climbed up. All of us saw the stags, twitching ears and tails.

Then we crept back, and once more I took the lead to crawl round under the ledge so we could come up about even with them. Here I found the hardest going yet. I came to a wind-worn crack in the thin ledge, and from this I could just see the tips of the antlers. I beckoned the others. Laboriously they climbed. R.C. went through first. I went over next, and then came Teague.

R.C. and I started to crawl down to a big rock that was our objective point. We went cautiously, with bated breath and pounding hearts. When we got there I peeped over to see the stags still lying down. But they had heads intent and wary. Still I did not think they had scented us. R.C. took a peep, and turning excitedly he whispered:

“See only one. And he’s standing!”

And I answered: “Let’s get down around to the left where we can get a better chance.” It was only a few feet down. We got there.

When he peeped over at this point he exclaimed: “They’re gone!”

It was a keen disappointment. “They winded us,” I decided.

We looked and looked. But we could not see to our left because of the bulge of rock. We climbed back. Then I saw one of the stags loping leisurely off to the left. Teague was calling. He said they had walked off the promontory, looking up, and stopping occasionally.

Then we realized we must climb back along that broken ridge and then up to the summit of the mountain. So we started.

That climb back was proof of the effect of excitement on judgment. We had not calculated at all on the distance or ruggedness, and we had a job before us. We got along well under the western wall, and fairly well straight across through the long slope of timber, where we saw sheep tracks, and expected any moment to sight an old ram. But we did not find one, and when we got out of the timber upon the bare sliding slope we had to halt a hundred times. We could zigzag only a few steps. The altitude was twelve thousand feet, and oxygen seemed scarce. I nearly dropped. All the climbing appeared to come hardest on the middle of my right foot, and it could scarcely have burned hotter if it had been in fire. Despite the strenuous toil there were not many moments that I was not aware of the vastness of the gulf below, or the peaceful lakes, brown as amber, or the golden parks. And nearer at hand I found magenta-colored Indian paint brush, very exquisite and rare.

Coming out on a ledge I spied a little, dark animal with a long tail. He was running along the opposite promontory about three hundred yards distant. When he stopped I took a shot at him and missed by apparently a scant half foot.

After catching our breath we climbed more and more, and still more, at last to drop on the rim, hot, wet and utterly spent.

The air was keen, cold, and invigorating. We were soon rested, and finding our horses we proceeded along the rim westward. Upon rounding an out-cropping of rock we flushed a flock of ptarmigan — soft gray, rock-colored birds about the size of pheasants, and when they flew they showed beautiful white bands on their wings. These are the rare birds that have feathered feet and turn white in winter. They did not fly far, and several were so tame they did not fly at all. We got our little .22 revolvers and began to shoot at the nearest bird. He was some thirty feet distant. But we could not hit him, and at last Fox, getting disgusted, tried to catch the bird and made him fly. I felt relieved, for as we were getting closer and closer with every shot, it seemed possible that if the ptarmigan sat there long enough we might eventually have hit him. The mystery was why we shot so poorly. But this was explained by R.C., who discovered we had been shooting the wrong shells.

It was a long hard ride down the rough winding trail. But riding down was a vastly different thing from going up.

On September third we were up at five-thirty. It was clear and cold and the red of sunrise tinged the peaks. The snow banks looked pink. All the early morning scene was green, fresh, cool, with that mountain rareness of atmosphere.

We packed to break camp, and after breakfast it took hours to get our outfit in shape to start — a long string, resembling a caravan. I knew that events would occur that day. First we lost one of the dogs. Vern went back after him. The dogs were mostly chained in pairs, to prevent their running off. Samson, the giant hound, was chained to a little dog, and the others were paired not according to size by any means. The poor dogs were disgusted with the arrangement. It developed presently that Cain, the bloodhound, a strange and wild hound much like Don of my old lion-hunting days, slipped us, and was not missed for hours. Teague decided to send back for him later.

Next in order of events, as we rode up the winding trail through the spruce forest, we met Teague’s cow and calf, which he had kept all summer in camp. For some reason neither could be left. Teague told us to ride on, and an hour later when we halted to rest on the Flattop Mountain he came along with the rest of the train, and in the fore was the cow alone. It was evident that she was distressed and angry, for it took two men to keep her in the trail. And another thing plain to me was the fact that she was going to demoralize the pack horses. We were not across the wide range of this flat mountain when one of the pack animals, a lean and lanky sorrel, appeared suddenly to go mad, and began to buck off a pack. He succeeded. This inspired a black horse, very appropriately christened Nigger, to try his luck, and he shifted his pack in short order. It took patience, time, and effort to repack. The cow was a disorganizer. She took up as wide a trail as a road. And the pack animals, some with dignity and others with disgust, tried to avoid her vicinity. Going down the steep forest trail on the other side the real trouble began. The pack train split, ran and bolted, crashing through the trees, plunging down steep places, and jumping logs. It was a wild sort of chase. But luckily the packs remained intact until we were once more on open, flat ground. All went well for a while, except for an accident for which I was to blame. I spurred my horse, and he plunged suddenly past R.C.’s mount, colliding with him, tearing off my stirrup, and spraining R.C.’s ankle. This was almost a serious accident, as R.C. has an old baseball ankle that required favoring.

Next in order was the sorrel. As I saw it, he heedlessly went too near the cow, which we now called Bossy, and she acted somewhat like a Spanish Bull, to the effect that the sorrel was scared and angered at once. He began to run and plunge and buck right into the other pack animals, dropping articles from his pack as he dashed along. He stampeded the train, and gave the saddle horses a scare. When order was restored and the whole outfit gathered together again a full hour had been lost. By this time all the horses were tired, and that facilitated progress, because there were no more serious breaks.

Down in the valley it was hot, and the ride grew long and wearisome. Nevertheless, the scenery was beautiful. The valley was green and level, and a meandering stream formed many little lakes. On one side was a steep hill of sage and aspens, and on the other a black, spear-pointed spruce forest, rising sheer to a bold, blunt peak patched with snow-banks, and bronze and gray in the clear light. Huge white clouds sailed aloft, making dark moving shadows along the great slopes.

We reached our turning-off place about five o’clock, and again entered the fragrant, quiet forest — a welcome change. We climbed and climbed, at length coming into an open park of slopes and green borders of forest, with a lake in the center. We pitched camp on the skirt of the western slope, under the spruces, and worked hard to get the tents up and boughs cut for beds. Darkness caught us with our hands still full, and we ate supper in the light of a camp-fire, with the black, deep forest behind, and the pale afterglow across the lake.

I had a bad night, being too tired to sleep well. Many times I saw the moon shadows of spruce branches trembling on the tent walls, and the flickering shadows of the dying camp-fire. I heard the melodious tinkle of the bells on the hobbled horses. Bossy bawled often — a discordant break in the serenity of the night. Occasionally the hounds bayed her.

Toward morning I slept some, and awakened with what seemed a broken back. All, except R.C., were slow in crawling out. The sun rose hot. This lower altitude was appreciated by all. After breakfast we set to work to put the camp in order.

That afternoon we rode off to look over the ground. We crossed the park and worked up a timbered ridge remarkable for mossy, bare ground, and higher up for its almost total absence of grass or flowers. On the other side of this we had a fine view of Mt. Dome, a high peak across a valley. Then we worked down into the valley, which was full of parks and ponds and running streams. We found some fresh sign of deer, and a good deal of old elk and deer sign. But we saw no game of any kind. It was a tedious ride back through thick forest, where I observed many trees that had been barked by porcupines. Some patches were four feet from the ground, indicating that the porcupine had sat on the snow when he gnawed those particular places.

After sunset R.C. and I went off down a trail into the woods, and sitting down under a huge spruce we listened. The forest was solemn and still. Far down somewhere roared a stream, and that was all the sound we heard. The gray shadows darkened and gloom penetrated the aisles of the forest, until all the sheltered places were black as pitch. The spruces looked spectral — and speaking. The silence of the woods was deep, profound, and primeval. It all worked on my imagination until I began to hear faint sounds, and finally grand orchestral crashings of melody.

On our return the strange creeping chill, that must be a descendant of the old elemental fear, caught me at all obscure curves in the trail.

Next day we started off early, and climbed through the woods and into the parks under the Dome. We scared a deer that had evidently been drinking. His fresh tracks led before us, but we could not catch a glimpse of him.

We climbed out of the parks, up onto the rocky ridges where the spruce grew scarce, and then farther to the jumble of stones that had weathered from the great peaks above, and beyond that up the slope where all the vegetation was dwarfed, deformed, and weird, strange manifestation of its struggle for life. Here the air grew keener and cooler, and the light seemed to expand. We rode on to the steep slope that led up to the gap we were to cross between the Dome and its companion.

I saw a red fox running up the slope, and dismounting I took a quick shot at three hundred yards, and scored a hit. It turned out to be a cross fox, and had very pretty fur.

When we reached the level of the deep gap the wind struck us hard and cold. On that side opened an abyss, gray and shelving as it led down to green timber, and then on to the yellow parks and black ridges that gleamed under the opposite range.

We had to work round a wide amphitheater, and up a steep corner to the top. This turned out to be level and smooth for a long way, with a short, velvety yellow grass, like moss, spotted with flowers. Here at thirteen thousand feet, the wind hit us with exceeding force, and soon had us with freezing hands and faces. All about us were bold black and gray peaks, with patches of snow, and above them clouds of white and drab, showing blue sky between. It developed that this grassy summit ascended in a long gradual sweep, from the apex of which stretched a grand expanse, like a plain of gold, down and down, endlessly almost, and then up and up to end under a gray butte, highest of the points around. The ride across here seemed to have no limit, but it was beautiful, though severe on endurance. I saw another fox, and dismounting, fired five shots as he ran, dusting him with three bullets. We rode out to the edge of the mountain and looked off. It was fearful, yet sublime. The world lay beneath us. In many places we rode along the rim, and at last circled the great butte, and worked up behind it on a swell of slope. Here the range ran west and the drop was not sheer, but, gradual with fine benches for sheep. We found many tracks and fresh sign, but did not see one sheep. Meanwhile the hard wind had ceased, and the sun had come out, making the ride comfortable, as far as weather was concerned. We had gotten a long way from camp, and finding no trail to descend in that direction we turned to retrace our steps. That was about one o’clock, and we rode and rode and rode, until I was so tired that I could not appreciate the scenes as I had on the way up. It took six hours to get back to camp!

Next morning we took the hounds and rode off for bear. Eight of the hounds were chained in braces, one big and one little dog together, and they certainly had a hard time of it. Sampson, the giant gray and brown hound, and Jim, the old black leader, were free to run to and fro across the way. We rode down a few miles, and into the forest. There were two long, black ridges, and here we were to hunt for bear. It was the hardest kind of work, turning and twisting between the trees, dodging snags, and brushing aside branches, and guiding a horse among fallen logs. The forest was thick, and the ground was a rich brown and black muck, soft to the horses’ feet. Many times the hounds got caught on snags, and had to be released. Once Sampson picked up a scent of some kind, and went off baying. Old Jim ran across that trail and returned, thus making it clear that there was no bear trail. We penetrated deep between the two ridges, and came to a little lake, about thirty feet wide, surrounded by rushes and grass. Here we rested the horses, and incidentally, ourselves. Fox chased a duck, and it flew into the woods and hid under a log. Fox trailed it, and Teague shot it just as he might have a rabbit. We got two more ducks, fine big mallards, the same way. It was amazing to me, and R.C. remarked that never had he seen such strange and foolish ducks.

This forest had hundreds of trees barked by porcupines, and some clear to the top. But we met only one of the animals, and he left several quills in the nose of one of the pups. I was of the opinion that these porcupines destroy many fine trees, as I saw a number barked all around.

We did not see any bear sign. On the way back to camp we rode out of the forest and down a wide valley, the opposite side of which was open slope with patches of alder. Even at a distance I could discern the color of these open glades and grassy benches. They had a tinge of purple, like purple sage. When I got to them I found a profusion of asters of the most exquisite shades of lavender, pink and purple. That slope was long, and all the way up we rode through these beautiful wild flowers. I shall never forget that sight, nor the many asters that shone like stars out of the green. The pink ones were new to me, and actually did not seem real. I noticed my horse occasionally nipped a bunch and ate them, which seemed to me almost as heartless as to tread them under foot.

When we got up the slope and into the woods again we met a storm, and traveled for an hour in the rain, and under the dripping spruces, feeling the cold wet sting of swaying branches as we rode by. Then the sun came out bright and the forest glittered, all gold and green. The smell of the woods after a rain is indescribable. It combines a rare tang of pine, spruce, earth and air, all refreshed.

The day after, we left at eight o’clock, and rode down to the main trail, and up that for five miles where we cut off to the left and climbed into the timber. The woods were fresh and dewy, dark and cool, and for a long time we climbed bench after bench where the grass and ferns and moss made a thick, deep cover. Farther up we got into fallen timber and made slow progress. At timber line we tied the horses and climbed up to the pass between two great mountain ramparts. Sheep tracks were in evidence, but not very fresh. Teague and I climbed on top and R.C., with Vern, went below just along the timber line. The climb on foot took all my strength, and many times I had to halt for breath. The air was cold. We stole along the rim and peered over. R.C. and Vern looked like very little men far below, and the dogs resembled mice.

Teague climbed higher, and left me on a promontory, watching all around.

The cloud pageant was magnificent, with huge billowy white masses across the valley, and to the west great black thunderheads rolling up. The wind began to blow hard, carrying drops of rain that stung, and the air was nipping cold. I felt aloof from all the crowded world, alone on the windy heights, with clouds and storm all around me.

When the storm threatened I went back to the horses. It broke, but was not severe after all. At length R.C. and the men returned and we mounted to ride back to camp. The storm blew away, leaving the sky clear and blue, and the sun shone warm. We had an hour of winding in and out among windfalls of timber, and jumping logs, and breaking through brush. Then the way sloped down to a beautiful forest, shady and green, full of mossy dells, almost overgrown with ferns and low spreading ground pine or spruce. The aisles of the forest were long and shaded by the stately spruces. Water ran through every ravine, sometimes a brawling brook, sometimes a rivulet hidden under overhanging mossy banks. We scared up two lonely grouse, at long intervals. At length we got into fallen timber, and from that worked into a jumble of rocks, where the going was rough and dangerous.

The afternoon waned as we rode on and on, up and down, in and out, around, and at times the horses stood almost on their heads, sliding down steep places where the earth was soft and black, and gave forth a dank odor. We passed ponds and swamps, and little lakes. We saw where beavers had gnawed down aspens, and we just escaped miring our horses in marshes, where the grass grew, rich and golden, hiding the treacherous mire. The sun set, and still we did not seem to get anywhere. I was afraid darkness would overtake us, and we would get lost in the woods. Presently we struck an old elk trail, and following that for a while, came to a point where R.C. and I recognized a tree and a glade where we had been before — and not far from camp — a welcome discovery.

Next day we broke camp and started across country for new territory near Whitley’s Peak.

We rode east up the mountain. After several miles along an old logging road we reached the timber, and eventually the top of the ridge. We went down, crossing parks and swales. There were cattle pastures, and eaten over and trodden so much they had no beauty left. Teague wanted to camp at a salt lick, but I did not care for the place.

We went on. The dogs crossed a bear trail, and burst out in a clamor. We had a hard time holding them.

The guide and I had a hot argument. I did not want to stay there and chase a bear in a cow pasture.... So we went on, down into ranch country, and this disgusted me further. We crossed a ranch, and rode several miles on a highway, then turned abruptly, and climbed a rough, rocky ridge, covered with brush and aspen. We crossed it, and went down for several miles, and had to camp in an aspen grove, on the slope of a ravine. It was an uninviting place to stay, but as there was no other we had to make the best of it. The afternoon had waned. I took a gun and went off down the ravine, until I came to a deep gorge. Here I heard the sound of a brawling brook. I sat down for an hour, but saw no game.

That night I had a wretched bed, one that I could hardly stay in, and I passed miserable hours. I got up sore, cramped, sleepy and irritable. We had to wait three hours for the horses to be caught and packed. I had predicted straying horses. At last we were off, and rode along the steep slope of a canyon for several miles, and then struck a stream of amber-colored water. As we climbed along this we came into deep spruce forest, where it was pleasure to ride. I saw many dells and nooks, cool and shady, full of mossy rocks and great trees. But flowers were scarce. We were sorry to pass the head-springs of that stream and to go on over the divide and down into the wooded, but dry and stony country. We rode until late, and came at last to a park where sheep had been run. I refused to camp here, and Teague, in high dudgeon, rode on. As it turned out I was both wise and lucky, for we rode into a park with many branches, where there was good water and fair grass and a pretty grove of white pines in which to pitch our tents. I enjoyed this camp, and had a fine rest at night.

The morning broke dark and lowering. We hustled to get started before a storm broke. It began to rain as we mounted our horses, and soon we were in the midst of a cold rain. It blew hard. We put on our slickers. After a short ride down through the forest we entered Buffalo Park. This was a large park, and we lost time trying to find a forester’s trail leading out of it. At last we found one, but it soon petered out, and we were lost in thick timber, in a driving rain, with the cold and wind increasing. But we kept on.

This forest was deep and dark, with tremendous windfalls, and great canyons around which we had to travel. It took us hours to ride out of it. When we began to descend once more we struck an old lumber road. More luck — the storm ceased, and presently we were out on an aspen slope with a great valley beneath, and high, black peaks beyond. Below the aspens were long swelling slopes of sage and grass, gray and golden and green. A ranch lay in the valley, and we crossed it to climb up a winding ravine, once more to the aspens where we camped in the rancher’s pasture. It was a cold, wet camp, but we managed to be fairly comfortable.

The sunset was gorgeous. The mass of clouds broke and rolled. There was exquisite golden light on the peaks, and many rose- and violet-hued banks of cloud.

Morning found us shrouded in fog. We were late starting. About nine the curtain of gray began to lift and break. We climbed pastures and aspen thickets, high up to the spruce, where the grass grew luxuriant, and the red wall of rock overhung the long slopes. The view west was magnificent — a long, bulging range of mountains, vast stretches of green aspen slopes, winding parks of all shapes, gray and gold and green, and jutting peaks, and here and there patches of autumn blaze in grass and thicket.

We spent the afternoon pitching camp on an aspen knoll, with water, grass, and wood near at hand, and the splendid view of mountains and valleys below.

We spent many full days under the shadow of Whitley’s Peak. After the middle of September the aspens colored and blazed to the touch of frost, and the mountain slopes were exceedingly beautiful. Against a background of gray sage the gold and red and purple aspen groves showed too much like exquisite paintings to seem real. In the mornings the frost glistened thick and white on the grass; and after the gorgeous sunsets of gold over the violet-hazed ranges the air grew stingingly cold.

Bear-chasing with a pack of hounds has been severely criticised by many writers and I was among them. I believed it a cowardly business, and that was why, if I chased bears with dogs, I wanted to chase the kind that could not be treed. But like many another I did not know what I was writing about. I did not shoot a bear out of a tree and I would not do so, except in a case of hunger. All the same, leaving the tree out of consideration, bear-chasing with hounds is a tremendously exciting and hazardous game. But my ideas about sport are changing. Hunting, in the sportsman’s sense, is a cruel and degenerate business.

The more I hunt the more I become convinced of something wrong about the game. I am a different man when I get a gun in my hands. All is exciting, hot-pressed, red. Hunting is magnificent up to the moment the shot is fired. After that it is another matter. It is useless for sportsmen to tell me that they, in particular, hunt right, conserve the game, do not go beyond the limit, and all that sort of thing. I do not believe them and I never met the guide who did. A rifle is made for killing. When a man goes out with one he means to kill. He may keep within the law, but that is not the question. It is a question of spirit, and men who love to hunt are yielding to and always developing the old primitive instinct to kill. The meaning of the spirit of life is not clear to them. An argument may be advanced that, according to the laws of self-preservation and the survival of the fittest, if a man stops all strife, all fight, then he will retrograde. And that is to say if a man does not go to the wilds now and then, and work hard and live some semblance of the life of his progenitors, he will weaken. It seems that he will, but I am not prepared now to say whether or not that would be well. The Germans believe they are the race fittest to survive over all others — and that has made me a little sick of this Darwin business.

To return, however, to the fact that to ride after hounds on a wild chase is a dangerous and wonderfully exhilarating experience, I will relate a couple of instances, and I will leave it to my readers to judge whether or not it is a cowardly sport.

One afternoon a rancher visited our camp and informed us that he had surprised a big black bear eating the carcass of a dead cow.

“Good! We’ll have a bear to-morrow night,” declared Teague, in delight. “We’ll get him even if the trail is a day old. But he’ll come back to-night.”

Early next morning the young rancher and three other boys rode into camp, saying they would like to go with us to see the fun. We were glad to have them, and we rode off through the frosted sage that crackled like brittle glass under the hoofs of the horses. Our guide led toward a branch of a park, and when we got within perhaps a quarter of a mile Teague suggested that R.C. and I go ahead on the chance of surprising the bear. It was owing to this suggestion that my brother and I were well ahead of the others. But we did not see any bear near the carcass of the cow. Old Jim and Sampson were close behind us, and when Jim came within forty yards of that carcass he put his nose up with a deep and ringing bay, and he shot by us like a streak. He never went near the dead cow! Sampson bayed like thunder and raced after Jim.

“They’re off!” I yelled to R.C. “It’s a hot scent! Come on!”

We spurred our horses and they broke across the open park to the edge of the woods. Jim and Sampson were running straight with noses high. I heard a string of yelps and bellows from our rear.

“Look back!” shouted R.C.

Teague and the cowboys were unleashing the rest of the pack. It surely was great to see them stretch out, yelping wildly. Like the wind they passed us. Jim and Sampson headed into the woods with deep bays. I was riding Teague’s best horse for this sort of work and he understood the game and plainly enjoyed it. R.C.’s horse ran as fast in the woods as he did in the open. This frightened me, and I yelled to R.C. to be careful. I yelled to deaf ears. That is the first great risk — a rider is not going to be careful! We were right on top of Jim and Sampson with the pack clamoring mad music just behind. The forest rang. Both horses hurdled logs, sometimes two at once. My old lion chases with Buffalo Jones had made me skillful in dodging branches and snags, and sliding knees back to avoid knocking them against trees. For a mile the forest was comparatively open, and here we had a grand and ringing run. I received two hard knocks, was unseated once, but held on, and I got a stinging crack in the face from a branch. R.C. added several more black-and-blue spots to his already spotted anatomy, and he missed, just by an inch, a solid snag that would have broken him in two. The pack stretched out in wild staccato chorus, the little Airedales literally screeching. Jim got out of our sight and then Sampson. Still it was ever more thrilling to follow by sound rather than sight. They led up a thick, steep slope. Here we got into trouble in the windfalls of timber and the pack drew away from us, up over the mountain. We were half way up when we heard them jump the bear. The forest seemed full of strife and bays and yelps. We heard the dogs go down again to our right, and as we turned we saw Teague and the others strung out along the edge of the park. They got far ahead of us. When we reached the bottom of the slope they were out of sight, but we could hear them yell. The hounds were working around on another slope, from which craggy rocks loomed above the timber. R.C.’s horse lunged across the park and appeared to be running off from mine. I was a little to the right, and when my horse got under way, full speed, we had the bad luck to plunge suddenly into soft ground. He went to his knees, and I sailed out of the saddle fully twenty feet, to alight all spread out and to slide like a plow. I did not seem to be hurt. When I got up my horse was coming and he appeared to be patient with me, but he was in a hurry. Before we got across the wet place R.C. was out of sight. I decided that instead of worrying about him I had better think about myself. Once on hard ground my horse fairly charged into the woods and we broke brush and branches as if they had been punk. It was again open forest, then a rocky slope, and then a flat ridge with aisles between the trees. Here I heard the melodious notes of Teague’s hunting horn, and following that, the full chorus of the hounds. They had treed the bear. Coming into still more open forest, with rocks here and there, I caught sight of R.C. far ahead, and soon I had glimpses of the other horses, and lastly, while riding full tilt, I spied a big, black, glistening bear high up in a pine a hundred yards or more distant.

Slowing down I rode up to the circle of frenzied dogs and excited men. The boys were all jabbering at once. Teague was beaming. R.C. sat his horse, and it struck me that he looked sorry for the bear.

“Fifteen minutes!” ejaculated Teague, with a proud glance at Old Jim standing with forepaws up on the pine.

Indeed it had been a short and ringing chase.

All the time while I fooled around trying to photograph the treed bear, R.C. sat there on his horse, looking upward.

“Well, gentlemen, better kill him,” said Teague, cheerfully. “If he gets rested he’ll come down.”

It was then I suggested to R.C. that he do the shooting.

“Not much!” he exclaimed.

The bear looked really pretty perched up there. He was as round as a barrel and black as jet and his fur shone in the gleams of sunlight. His tongue hung out, and his plump sides heaved, showing what a quick, hard run he had made before being driven to the tree. What struck me most forcibly about him was the expression in his eyes as he looked down at those devils of hounds. He was scared. He realized his peril. It was utterly impossible for me to see Teague’s point of view.

“Go ahead — and plug him,” I replied to my brother. “Get it over.”

“You do it,” he said.

“No, I won’t.”

“Why not — I’d like to know?”

“Maybe we won’t have so good a chance again — and I want you to get your bear,” I replied.

“Why it’s like — murder,” he protested.

“Oh, not so bad as that,” I returned, weakly. “We need the meat. We’ve not had any game meat, you know, except ducks and grouse.”

“You won’t do it?” he added, grimly.

“No, I refuse.”

Meanwhile the young ranchers gazed at us with wide eyes and the expression on Teague’s honest, ruddy face would have been funny under other circumstances.

“That bear will come down an’ mebbe kill one of my dogs,” he protested.

“Well, he can come for all I care,” I replied, positively, and I turned away.

I heard R.C. curse low under his breath. Then followed the spang of his .35 Remington. I wheeled in time to see the bear straining upward in terrible convulsion, his head pointed high, with blood spurting from his nose. Slowly he swayed and fell with a heavy crash.

The next bear chase we had was entirely different medicine.

Off in the basin under the White Slides, back of our camp, the hounds struck a fresh track and in an instant were out of sight. With the cowboy Vern setting the pace we plunged after them. It was rough country. Bogs, brooks, swales, rocky little parks, stretches of timber full of windfalls, groves of aspens so thick we could scarcely squeeze through — all these obstacles soon allowed the hounds to get far away. We came out into a large park, right under the mountain slope, and here we sat our horses listening to the chase. That trail led around the basin and back near to us, up the thick green slope, where high up near a ledge we heard the pack jump this bear. It sounded to us as if he had been roused out of a sleep.

“I’ll bet it’s one of the big grizzlies we’ve heard about,” said Teague.

That was something to my taste. I have seen a few grizzlies. Riding to higher ground I kept close watch on the few open patches up on the slope. The chase led toward us for a while. Suddenly I saw a big bear with a frosted coat go lumbering across one of these openings.

“Silvertip! Silvertip!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “I saw him!”

My call thrilled everybody. Vern spurred his horse and took to the right. Teague advised that we climb the slope. So we made for the timber. Once there we had to get off and climb on foot. It was steep, rough, very hard work. I had on chaps and spurs. Soon I was hot, laboring, and my heart began to hurt. We all had to rest. The baying of the hounds inspirited us now and then, but presently we lost it. Teague said they had gone over the ridge and as soon as we got up to the top we would hear them again. We struck an elk trail with fresh elk tracks in it. Teague said they were just ahead of us. I never climbed so hard and fast in my life. We were all tuckered out when we reached the top of the ridge. Then to our great disappointment we did not hear the hounds. Mounting we rode along the crest of this wooded ridge toward the western end, which was considerably higher. Once on a bare patch of ground we saw where the grizzly had passed. The big, round tracks, toeing in a little, made a chill go over me. No doubt of its being a silvertip!

We climbed and rode to the high point, and coming out upon the summit of the mountain we all heard the deep, hoarse baying of the pack. They were in the canyon down a bare grassy slope and over a wooded bench at our feet. Teague yelled as he spurred down. R.C. rode hard in his tracks.

But my horse was new to this bear chasing. He was mettlesome, and he did not want to do what I wanted. When I jabbed the spurs into his flanks he nearly bucked me off. I was looking for a soft place to light when he quit. Long before I got down that open slope Teague and R.C. had disappeared. I had to follow their tracks. This I did at a gallop, but now and then lost the tracks, and had to haul in to find them. If I could have heard the hounds from there I would have gone on anyway. But once down in the jack-pines I could hear neither yell or bay. The pines were small, close together, and tough. I hurt my hands, scratched my face, barked my knees. The horse had a habit of suddenly deciding to go the way he liked instead of the way I guided him, and when he plunged between saplings too close together to permit us both to go through, it was exceedingly hard on me. I was worked into a frenzy. Suppose R.C. should come face to face with that old grizzly and fail to kill him! That was the reason for my desperate hurry. I got a crack on the head that nearly blinded me. My horse grew hot and began to run in every little open space. He could scarcely be held in. And I, with the blood hot in me too, did not hold him hard enough.

It seemed miles across that wooded bench. But at last I reached another slope. Coming out upon a canyon rim I heard R.C. and Teague yelling, and I heard the hounds fighting the grizzly. He was growling and threshing about far below. I had missed the tracks made by Teague and my brother, and it was necessary to find them. That slope looked impassable. I rode back along the rim, then forward. Finally I found where the ground was plowed deep and here I headed my horse. He had been used to smooth roads and he could not take these jumps. I went forward on his neck. But I hung on and spurred him hard. The mad spirit of that chase had gotten into him too. All the time I could hear the fierce baying and yelping of the hounds, and occasionally I heard a savage bawl from the bear. I literally plunged, slid, broke a way down that mountain slope, riding all the time, before I discovered the footprints of Teague and R.C. They had walked, leading their horses. By this time I was so mad I would not get off. I rode all the way down that steep slope of dense saplings, loose rock slides and earth, and jumble of splintered cliff. That he did not break my neck and his own spoke the truth about that roan horse. Despite his inexperience he was great. We fell over one bank, but a thicket of aspens saved us from rolling. The avalanches slid from under us until I imagined that the grizzly would be scared. Once as I stopped to listen I heard bear and pack farther down the canyon — heard them above the roar of a rushing stream. They went on and I lost the sounds of fight. But R.C.’s clear thrilling call floated up to me. Probably he was worried about me.

Then before I realized it I was at the foot of the slope, in a narrow canyon bed, full of rocks and trees, with the din of roaring water in my ears. I could hear nothing else. Tracks were everywhere, and when I came to the first open place I was thrilled. The grizzly had plunged off a sandy bar into the water, and there he had fought the hounds. Signs of that battle were easy to read. I saw where his huge tracks, still wet, led up the opposite sandy bank.

Then, down stream, I did my most reckless riding. On level ground the horse was splendid. Once he leaped clear across the brook. Every plunge, every turn I expected to bring me upon my brother and Teague and that fighting pack. More than once I thought I heard the spang of the .35 and this made me urge the roan faster and faster.

The canyon narrowed, the stream-bed deepened. I had to slow down to get through the trees and rocks. And suddenly I was overjoyed to ride pell-mell upon R.C. and Teague with half the panting hounds. The canyon had grown too rough for the horses to go farther and it would have been useless for us to try on foot. As I dismounted, so sore and bruised I could hardly stand, old Jim came limping in to fall into the brook where he lapped and lapped thirstily. Teague threw up his hands. Old Jim’s return meant an ended chase. The grizzly had eluded the hounds in that jumble of rocks below.

“Say, did you meet the bear?” queried Teague, eyeing me in astonishment and mirth.

Bloody, dirty, ragged and wringing wet with sweat I must have been a sight. R.C. however, did not look so very immaculate, and when I saw he also was lame and scratched and black I felt better.

CHAPTER III

ROPING LIONS IN THE GRAND CANYON

I

The Grand Canyon of Arizona is over two hundred miles long, thirteen wide, and a mile and a half deep; a titanic gorge in which mountains, tablelands, chasms and cliffs lie half veiled in purple haze. It is wild and sublime, a thing of wonder, of mystery; beyond all else a place to grip the heart of a man, to unleash his daring spirit.

On April 20th, 1908, after days on the hot desert, my weary party and pack train reached the summit of Powell’s Plateau, the most isolated, inaccessible and remarkable mesa of any size in all the canyon country. Cut off from the mainland it appeared insurmountable; standing aloof from the towers and escarpments, rugged and bold in outline, its forest covering like a strip of black velvet, its giant granite walls gold in the sun, it seemed apart from the world, haunting with its beauty, isolation and wild promise.

The members of my party harmoniously fitted the scene. Buffalo Jones, burly-shouldered, bronze-faced, and grim, proved in his appearance what a lifetime on the plains could make of a man. Emett was a Mormon, a massively built grey-bearded son of the desert; he had lived his life on it; he had conquered it and in his falcon eyes shone all its fire and freedom. Ranger Jim Owens had the wiry, supple body and careless, tidy garb of the cowboy, and the watchful gaze, quiet face and locked lips of the frontiersman. The fourth member was a Navajo Indian, a copper-skinned, raven-haired, beady-eyed desert savage.

I had told Emett to hire some one who could put the horses on grass in the evening and then find them the next morning. In northern Arizona this required more than genius. Emett secured the best trailer of the desert Navajos. Jones hated an Indian; and Jim, who carried an ounce of lead somewhere in his person, associated this painful addition to his weight with an unfriendly Apache, and swore all Indians should be dead. So between the two, Emett and I had trouble in keeping our Navajo from illustrating the plainsman idea of a really good Indian — a dead one.

While we were pitching camp among magnificent pine trees, and above a hollow where a heavy bank of snow still lay, a sodden pounding in the turf attracted our attention.

“Hold the horses!” yelled Emett.

As we all made a dive among our snorting and plunging horses the sound seemed to be coming right into camp. In a moment I saw a string of wild horses thundering by. A noble black stallion led them, and as he ran with beautiful stride he curved his fine head backward to look at us, and whistled his wild challenge.

Later a herd of large white-tailed deer trooped up the hollow. The Navajo grew much excited and wanted me to shoot, and when Emett told him we had not come out to kill, he looked dumbfounded. Even the Indian felt it a strange departure from the usual mode of hunting to travel and climb hundreds of miles over hot desert and rock-ribbed canyons, to camp at last in a spot so wild that deer were tame as cattle, and then not kill.

Nothing could have pleased me better, incident to the settling into permanent camp. The wild horses and tame deer added the all-satisfying touch to the background of forest, flowers and mighty pines and sunlit patches of grass, the white tents and red blankets, the sleeping hounds and blazing fire-logs all making a picture like that of a hunter’s dream.

“Come, saddle up,” called the never restful Jones. “Leave the Indian in camp with the hounds, and we’ll get the lay of the land.” All afternoon we spent riding the plateau. What a wonderful place! We were completely bewildered with its physical properties, and surprised at the abundance of wild horses and mustangs, deer, coyotes, foxes, grouse and other birds, and overjoyed to find innumerable lion trails. When we returned to camp I drew a rough map, which Jones laid flat on the ground as he called us around him.

“Now, boys, let’s get our heads together.”

In shape the plateau resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side wings were high and well wooded with heavy pines; the middle wing was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar. Numerous ridges and canyons cut up this central wing. Middle Canyon, the longest and deepest, bisected the plateau, headed near camp, and ran parallel with two smaller ones, which we named Right and Left Canyons. These three were lion runways and hundreds of deer carcasses lined the thickets. North Hollow was the only depression, as well as runway, on the northwest rim. West Point formed the extreme western cape of the plateau. To the left of West Point was a deep cut-in of the rim wall, called the Bay. The three important canyons opened into it. From the Bay, the south rim was regular and impassable all the way round to the narrow Saddle, which connected it to the mainland.

“Now then,” said Jones, when we assured him that we were pretty well informed as to the important features, “you can readily see our advantage. The plateau is about nine or ten miles long, and six wide at its widest. We can’t get lost, at least for long. We know where lions can go over the rim and we’ll head them off, make short cut chases, something new in lion hunting. We are positive the lions can not get over the second wall, except where we came up, at the Saddle. In regard to lion signs, I’m doubtful of the evidence of my own eyes. This is virgin ground. No white man or Indian has ever hunted lions here. We have stumbled on a lion home, the breeding place of hundreds of lions that infest the north rim of the canyon.”

The old plainsman struck a big fist into the palm of his hand, a rare action with him. Jim lifted his broad hat and ran his fingers through his white hair. In Emett’s clear desert-eagle eyes shown a furtive, anxious look, which yet could not overshadow the smouldering fire.

“If only we don’t kill the horses!” he said.

More than anything else that remark from such a man thrilled me with its subtle suggestion. He loved those beautiful horses. What wild rides he saw in his mind’s eye! In cold calculation we perceived the wonderful possibilities never before experienced by hunters, and as the wild spell clutched us my last bar of restraint let down.

During supper we talked incessantly, and afterward around the camp-fire. Twilight fell with the dark shadows sweeping under the silent pines; the night wind rose and began its moan.

“Shore there’s some scent on the wind,” said Jim, lighting his pipe with a red ember. “See how uneasy Don is.”

The hound raised his fine, dark head and repeatedly sniffed the air, then walked to and fro as if on guard for his pack. Moze ground his teeth on a bone and growled at one of the pups. Sounder was sleepy, but he watched Don with suspicious eyes. The other hounds, mature and somber, lay stretched before the fire.

“Tie them up, Jim,” said Jones, “and let’s turn in.”

II

When I awakened next morning the sound of Emett’s axe rang out sharply. Little streaks of light from the camp-fire played between the flaps of the tent. I saw old Moze get up and stretch himself. A jangle of cow-bells from the forest told me we would not have to wait for the horses that morning.

“The Injun’s all right,” Jones remarked to Emett.

“All rustle for breakfast,” called Jim.

We ate in the semi-darkness with the gray shadow ever brightening. Dawn broke as we saddled our horses. The pups were limber, and ran to and fro on their chains, scenting the air; the older hounds stood quietly waiting.

“Come Navvy — come chase cougie,” said Emett.

“Dam! No!” replied the Indian.

“Let him keep camp,” suggested Jim.

“All right; but he’ll eat us out,” Emett declared.

“Climb up you fellows,” said Jones, impatiently. “Have I got everything — rope, chains, collars, wire, nippers? Yes, all right. Hyar, you lazy dogs — out of this!”

We rode abreast down the ridge. The demeanor of the hounds contrasted sharply with what it had been at the start of the hunt the year before. Then they had been eager, uncertain, violent; they did not know what was in the air; now they filed after Don in an orderly trot.

We struck out of the pines at half past five. Floating mist hid the lower end of the plateau. The morning had a cool touch but there was no frost. Crossing Middle Canyon about half way down we jogged on. Cedar trees began to show bright green against the soft gray sage. We were nearing the dark line of the cedar forest when Jim, who led, held up his hand in a warning check. We closed in around him.

“Watch Don,” he said.

The hound stood stiff, head well up, nose working, and the hair on his back bristling. All the other hounds whined and kept close to him.

“Don scents a lion,” whispered Jim. “I’ve never known him to do that unless there was the scent of a lion on the wind.”

“Hunt ’em up Don, old boy,” called Jones.

The pack commenced to work back and forth along the ridge. We neared a hollow when Don barked eagerly. Sounder answered and likewise Jude. Moze’s short angry “bow-wow” showed the old gladiator to be in line.

“Ranger’s gone,” cried Jim. “He was farthest ahead. I’ll bet he’s struck it. We’ll know in a minute, for we’re close.”

The hounds were tearing through the sage, working harder and harder, calling and answering one another, all the time getting down into the hollow.

Don suddenly let out a string of yelps. I saw him, running head up, pass into the cedars like a yellow dart. Sounder howled his deep, full bay, and led the rest of the pack up the slope in angry clamor.

“They’re off!” yelled Jim, and so were we.

In less than a minute we had lost one another. Crashings among the dry cedars, thud of hoofs and yells kept me going in one direction. The fiery burst of the hounds had surprised me. I remembered that Jim had said Emett and his charger might keep the pack in sight, but that none of the rest of us could.

It did not take me long to realize what my mustang was made of. His name was Foxie, which suited him well. He carried me at a fast pace on the trail of some one; and he seemed to know that by keeping in this trail part of the work of breaking through the brush was already done for him. Nevertheless, the sharp dead branches, more numerous in a cedar forest than elsewhere, struck and stung us as we passed. We climbed a ridge, and found the cedars thinning out into open patches. Then we faced a bare slope of sage and I saw Emett below on his big horse.

Foxie bolted down this slope, hurdling the bunches of sage, and showing the speed of which Emett had boasted. The open ground, with its brush, rock and gullies, was easy going for the little mustang. I heard nothing save the wind singing in my ears. Emett’s trail, plain in the yellow ground showed me the way. On entering the cedars again I pulled Foxie in and stopped twice to yell “waa-hoo!” I heard the baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal. Then I attended to the stern business of catching up. For what seemed a long time, I threaded the maze of cedar, galloped the open sage flats, always on Emett’s track.

A signal cry, sharp to the right, turned me. I answered, and with the exchange of signal cries found my way into an open glade where Jones and Jim awaited me.

“Here’s one,” said Jim. “Emett must be with the hounds. Listen.”

With the labored breathing of the horses filling our ears we could hear no other sound. Dismounting, I went aside and turned my ear to the breeze.

“I hear Don,” I cried instantly.

“Which way?” both men asked.

“West.”

“Strange,” said Jones. “The hound wouldn’t split, would he, Jim?”

“Don leave that hot trail? Shore he wouldn’t,” replied Jim. “But his runnin’ do seem queer this morning.”

“The breeze is freshening,” I said. “There! Now listen! Don, and Sounder, too.”

The baying came closer and closer. Our horses threw up long ears. It was hard to sit still and wait. At a quick cry from Jim we saw Don cross the lower end of the flat.

No need to spur our mounts! The lifting of bridles served, and away we raced. Foxie passed the others in short order. Don had long disappeared, but with blended bays, Jude, Moze, and Sounder broke out of the cedars hot on the trail. They, too, were out of sight in a moment.

The crash of breaking brush and thunder of hoofs from where the hounds had come out of the forest, attracted and even frightened me. I saw the green of a low cedar tree shake, and split, to let out a huge, gaunt horse with a big man doubled over his saddle. The onslaught of Emett and his desert charger stirred a fear in me that checked admiration.

“Hounds running wild,” he yelled, and the dark shadows of the cedars claimed him again.

A hundred yards within the forest we came again upon Emett, dismounted, searching the ground. Moze and Sounder were with him, apparently at fault. Suddenly Moze left the little glade and venting his sullen, quick bark, disappeared under the trees. Sounder sat on his haunches and yelped.

“Now what the hell is wrong?” growled Jones tumbling off his saddle.

“Shore something is,” said Jim, also dismounting.

“Here’s a lion track,” interposed Emett.

“Ha! and here’s another,” cried Jones, in great satisfaction. “That’s the trail we were on, and here’s another crossing it at right angles. Both are fresh: one isn’t fifteen minutes old. Don and Jude have split one way and Moze another. By George! that’s great of Sounder to hang fire!”

“Put him on the fresh trail,” said Jim, vaulting into his saddle.

Jones complied, with the result that we saw Sounder start off on the trail Moze had taken. All of us got in some pretty hard riding, and managed to stay within earshot of Sounder. We crossed a canyon, and presently reached another which, from its depth, must have been Middle Canyon. Sounder did not climb the opposite slope, so we followed the rim. From a bare ridge we distinguished the line of pines above us, and decided that our location was in about the center of the plateau.

Very little time elapsed before we heard Moze. Sounder had caught up with him. We came to a halt where the canyon widened and was not so deep, with cliffs and cedars opposite us, and an easy slope leading down. Sounder bayed incessantly; Moze emitted harsh, eager howls, and both hounds, in plain sight, began working in circles.

“The lion has gone up somewhere,” cried Jim. “Look sharp!”

Repeatedly Moze worked to the edge of a low wall of stone and looked over; then he barked and ran back to the slope, only to return. When I saw him slide down a steep place, make for the bottom of the stone wall, and jump into the low branches of a cedar I knew where to look. Then I descried the lion a round yellow ball, cunningly curled up in a mass of dark branches. He had leaped into the tree from the wall.

“There he is! Treed! Treed!” I yelled. “Moze has found him.”

“Down boys, down into the canyon,” shouted Jones, in sharp voice. “Make a racket, we don’t want him to jump.”

How he and Jim and Emett rolled and cracked the stone! For a moment I could not get off my horse; I was chained to my saddle by a strange vacillation that could have been no other thing than fear.

“Are you afraid?” called Jones from below.

“Yes, but I am coming,” I replied, and dismounted to plunge down the hill. It may have been shame or anger that dominated me then; whatever it was I made directly for the cedar, and did not halt until I was under the snarling lion.

“Not too close!” warned Jones. “He might jump. It’s a Tom, a two-year-old, and full of fight.”

It did not matter to me then whether he jumped or not. I knew I had to be cured of my dread, and the sooner it was done the better.

Old Moze had already climbed a third of the distance up to the lion.

“Hyar Moze! Out of there, you rascal coon chaser!” Jones yelled as he threw stones and sticks at the hound. Moze, however, replied with his snarly bark and climbed on steadily.

“I’ve got to pull him out. Watch close boys and tell me if the lion starts down.”

When Jones climbed the first few branches of the tree, Tom let out an ominous growl.

“Make ready to jump. Shore he’s comin’,” called Jim.

The lion, snarling viciously, started to descend. It was a ticklish moment for all of us, particularly Jones. Warily he backed down.

“Boys, maybe he’s bluffing,” said Jones, “Try him out. Grab sticks and run at the tree and yell, as if you were going to kill him.”

Not improbably the demonstration we executed under the tree would have frightened even an African lion. Tom hesitated, showed his white fangs, returned to his first perch, and from there climbed as far as he could. The forked branch on which he stood swayed alarmingly.

“Here, punch Moze out,” said Jim handing up a long pole.

The old hound hung like a leech to the tree, making it difficult to dislodge him. At length he fell heavily, and venting his thick battle cry, attempted to climb again.

Jim seized him, made him fast to the rope with which Sounder had already been tied.

“Say Emett, I’ve no chance here,” called Jones. “You try to throw at him from the rock.”

Emett ran up the rock, coiled his lasso and cast the noose. It sailed perfectly in between the branches and circled Tom’s head. Before it could be slipped tight he had thrown it off. Then he hid behind the branches.

“I’m going farther up,” said Jones.

“Be quick,” yelled Jim.

Jones evidently had that in mind. When he reached the middle fork of the cedar, he stood erect and extended the noose of his lasso on the point of his pole. Tom, with a hiss and snap, struck at it savagely. The second trial tempted the lion to saw the rope with his teeth. In a flash Jones withdrew the pole, and lifted a loop of the slack rope over the lion’s ears.

“Pull!” he yelled.

Emett, at the other end of the lasso, threw his great strength into action, pulling the lion out with a crash, and giving the cedar such a tremendous shaking that Jones lost his footing and fell heavily.

Thrilling as the moment was, I had to laugh, for Jones came up out of a cloud of dust, as angry as a wet hornet, and made prodigious leaps to get out of the reach of the whirling lion.

“Look out!” he bawled.

Tom, certainly none the worse for his tumble, made three leaps, two at Jones, one at Jim, which was checked by the short length of the rope in Emett’s hands. Then for a moment, a thick cloud of dust enveloped the wrestling lion, during which the quick-witted Jones tied the free end of the lasso to a sapling.

“Dod gast the luck!” yelled Jones reaching for another lasso. “I didn’t mean for you to pull him out of the tree. Now he’ll get loose or kill himself.”

When the dust cleared away, we discovered our prize stretched out at full length and frothing at the mouth. As Jones approached, the lion began a series of evolutions so rapid as to be almost indiscernible to the eye. I saw a wheel of dust and yellow fur. Then came a thud and the lion lay inert.

Jones pounced upon him and loosed the lasso around his neck.

“I think he’s done for, but maybe not. He’s breathing yet. Here, help me tie his paws together. Look out! He’s coming to!”

The lion stirred and raised his head. Jones ran the loop of the second lasso around the two hind paws and stretched the lion out. While in this helpless position and with no strength and hardly any breath left in him the lion was easy to handle. With Emett’s help Jones quickly clipped the sharp claws, tied the four paws together, took off the neck lasso and substituted a collar and chain.

“There, that’s one. He’ll come to all right,” said Jones. “But we are lucky. Emett, never pull another lion clear out of a tree. Pull him over a limb and hang him there while some one below ropes his hind paws. That’s the only way, and if we don’t stick to it, somebody is going to get done for. Come, now, we’ll leave this fellow here and hunt up Don and Jude. They’ve treed another lion by this time.”

Remarkable to me was to see how, as soon as the lion lay helpless, Sounder lost his interest. Moze growled, yet readily left the spot. Before we reached the level, both hounds had disappeared.

“Hear that?” yelled Jones, digging spurs into his horse. “Hi! Hi! Hi!”

From the cedars rang the thrilling, blending chorus of bays that told of a treed lion. The forest was almost impenetrable. We had to pick our way. Emett forged ahead; we heard him smashing the deadwood; and soon a yell proclaimed the truth of Jones’ assertion.

First I saw the men looking upward; then Moze climbing the cedar, and the other hounds with noses skyward; and last, in the dead top of the tree, a dark blot against the blue, a big tawny lion.

“Whoop!” The yell leaped past my lips. Quiet Jim was yelling; and Emett, silent man of the desert, let from his wide cavernous chest a booming roar that drowned ours.

Jones’ next decisive action turned us from exultation to the grim business of the thing. He pulled Moze out of the cedar, and while he climbed up, Emett ran his rope under the collars of all of the hounds. Quick as the idea flashed over me I leaped into the cedar adjoining the one Jones was in, and went up hand over hand. A few pulls brought me to the top, and then my blood ran hot and quick, for I was level with the lion, too close for comfort, but in excellent position for taking pictures.

The lion, not heeding me, peered down at Jones, between widespread paws. I could hear nothing except the hounds. Jones’ gray hat came pushing up between the dead snags; then his burly shoulders. The quivering muscles of the lion gathered tense, and his lithe body crouched low on the branches. He was about to jump. His open dripping jaws, his wild eyes, roving in terror for some means of escape, his tufted tail, swinging against the twigs and breaking them, manifested his extremity. The eager hounds waited below, howling, leaping.

It bothered me considerably to keep my balance, regulate my camera and watch the proceedings. Jones climbed on with his rope between his teeth, and a long stick. The very next instant it seemed to me, I heard the cracking of branches and saw the lion biting hard at the noose which circled his neck.

Here I swung down, branch to branch, and dropped to the ground, for I wanted to see what went on below. Above the howls and yelps, I distinguished Jones’ yell. Emett ran directly under the lion with a spread noose in his hands. Jones pulled and pulled, but the lion held on firmly. Throwing the end of the lasso down to Jim, Jones yelled again, and then they both pulled. The lion was too strong. Suddenly, however, the branch broke, letting the lion fall, kicking frantically with all four paws. Emett grasped one of the four whipping paws, and even as the powerful animal sent him staggering he dexterously left the noose fast on the paw. Jim and Jones in unison let go of their lasso, which streaked up through the branches as the lion fell, and then it dropped to the ground, where Jim made a flying grab for it. Jones plunging out of the tree fell upon the rope at the same instant.

If the action up to then had been fast, it was slow to what followed. It seemed impossible for two strong men with one lasso, and a giant with another, to straighten out that lion. He was all over the little space under the trees at once. The dust flew, the sticks snapped, the gravel pattered like shot against the cedars. Jones ploughed the ground flat on his stomach, holding on with one hand, with the other trying to fasten the rope to something; Jim went to his knees; and on the other side of the lion, Emett’s huge bulk tipped a sharp angle, and then fell.

I shouted and ran forward, having no idea what to do, but Emett rolled backward, at the same instant the other men got a strong haul on the lion. Short as that moment was in which the lasso slackened, it sufficed for Jones to make the rope fast to a tree. Whereupon with the three men pulling on the other side of the leaping lion, somehow I had flashed into my mind the game that children play, called skipping the rope, for the lion and lasso shot up and down.

This lasted for only a few seconds. They stretched the beast from tree to tree, and Jones running with the third lasso, made fast the front paws.

“It’s a female,” said Jones, as the lion lay helpless, her sides swelling; “a good-sized female. She’s nearly eight feet from tip to tip, but not very heavy. Hand me another rope.”

When all four lassos had been stretched, the lioness could not move. Jones strapped a collar around her neck and clipped the sharp yellow claws.

“Now to muzzle her,” he continued.

Jones’ method of performing this most hazardous part of the work was characteristic of him. He thrust a stick between her open jaws, and when she crushed it to splinters he tried another, and yet another, until he found one that she could not break. Then while she bit on it, he placed a wire loop over her nose, slowly tightening it, leaving the stick back of her big canines.

The hounds ceased their yelping and when untied, Sounder wagged his tail as if to say, “Well done,” and then lay down; Don walked within three feet of the lion, as if she were now beneath his dignity; Jude began to nurse and lick her sore paw; only Moze the incorrigible retained antipathy for the captive, and he growled, as always, low and deep. And on the moment, Ranger, dusty and lame from travel, trotted wearily into the glade and, looking at the lioness, gave one disgusted bark and flopped down.

III

Transporting our captives to camp bade fair to make us work. When Jones, who had gone after the pack horses, hove in sight on the sage flat, it was plain to us that we were in for trouble. The bay stallion was on the rampage.

“Why didn’t you fetch the Indian?” growled Emett, who lost his temper when matters concerning his horses went wrong. “Spread out, boys, and head him off.”

We contrived to surround the stallion, and Emett succeeded in getting a halter on him.

“I didn’t want the bay,” explained Jones, “but I couldn’t drive the others without him. When I told that redskin that we had two lions, he ran off into the woods, so I had to come alone.”

“I’m going to scalp the Navajo,” said Jim, complacently.

These remarks were exchanged on the open ridge at the entrance to the thick cedar forest. The two lions lay just within its shady precincts. Emett and I, using a long pole in lieu of a horse, had carried Tom up from the Canyon to where we had captured the lioness.

Jones had brought a packsaddle and two panniers.

When Emett essayed to lead the horse which carried these, the animal stood straight up and began to show some of his primal desert instincts. It certainly was good luck that we unbuckled the packsaddle straps before he left the vicinity. In about three jumps he had separated himself from the panniers, which were then placed upon the back of another horse. This one, a fine looking beast, and amiable under surroundings where his life and health were considered even a little, immediately disclaimed any intention of entering the forest.

“They scent the lions,” said Jones. “I was afraid of it; never had but one nag that would pack lions.”

“Maybe we can’t pack them at all,” replied Emett dubiously. “It’s certainly new to me.”

“We’ve got to,” Jones asserted; “try the sorrel.”

For the first time in a serviceable and honorable life, according to Emett, the sorrel broke his halter and kicked like a plantation mule.

“It’s a matter of fright. Try the stallion. He doesn’t look afraid,” said Jones, who never knew when he was beaten.

Emett gazed at Jones as if he had not heard right.

“Go ahead, try the stallion. I like the way he looks.”

No wonder! The big stallion looked a king of horses — just what he would have been if Emett had not taken him, when a colt, from his wild desert brothers. He scented the lions, and he held his proud head up, his ears erect, and his large, dark eyes shone fiery and expressive.

“I’ll try to lead him in and let him see the lions. We can’t fool him,” said Emett.

Marc showed no hesitation, nor anything we expected. He stood stiff-legged, and looked as if he wanted to fight.

“He’s all right; he’ll pack them,” declared Jones.

The packsaddle being strapped on and the panniers hooked to the horns, Jones and Jim lifted Tom and shoved him down into the left pannier while Emett held the horse. A madder lion than Tom never lived. It was cruel enough to be lassoed and disgrace enough to be “hog-tied,” as Jim called it, but to be thrust down into a bag and packed on a horse was adding insult to injury. Tom frothed at the mouth and seemed like a fizzing torpedo about to explode. The lioness being considerably longer and larger, was with difficulty gotten into the other pannier, and her head and paws hung out. Both lions kept growling and snarling.

“I look to see Marc bolt over the rim,” said Emett, resignedly, as Jones took up the end of the rope halter.

“No siree!” sang out that worthy. “He’s helping us out; he’s proud to show up the other nags.”

Jones was always asserting strange traits in animals, and giving them intelligence and reason. As to that, many incidents coming under my observation while with him, and seen with his eyes, made me incline to his claims, the fruit of a lifetime with animals.

Marc packed the lions to camp in short order, and, quoting Jones, “without turning a hair.” We saw the Navajo’s head protruding from a tree. Emett yelled for him, and Jones and Jim “hahaed” derisively; whereupon the black head vanished and did not reappear. Then they unhooked one of the panniers and dumped out the lioness. Jones fastened her chain to a small pine tree, and as she lay powerless he pulled out the stick back of her canines. This allowed the wire muzzle to fall off. She signalled this freedom with a roar that showed her health to be still unimpaired. The last action in releasing her from her painful bonds Jones performed with sleight-of-hand dexterity. He slipped the loop fastening one paw, which loosened the rope, and in a twinkling let her work all of her other paws free. Up she sprang, ears flat, eyes ablaze, mouth wide, once more capable of defense, true to her instinct and her name.

Before the men lowered Tom from Marc’s back I stepped closer and put my face within six inches of the lion’s. He promptly spat on me. I had to steel my nerve to keep so close. But I wanted to see a wild lion’s eyes at close range. They were exquisitely beautiful, their physical properties as wonderful as their expression. Great half globes of tawny amber, streaked with delicate wavy lines of black, surrounding pupils of intense purple fire. Pictures shone and faded in the amber light — the shaggy tipped plateau, the dark pines and smoky canyons, the great dotted downward slopes, the yellow cliffs and crags. Deep in those live pupils, changing, quickening with a thousand vibrations, quivered the soul of this savage beast, the wildest of all wild Nature, unquenchable love of life and freedom, flame of defiance and hate.

Jones disposed of Tom in the same manner as he had the lioness, chaining him to an adjoining small pine, where he leaped and wrestled.

Presently I saw Emett coming through the woods leading and dragging the Indian. I felt sorry for the Navvy, for I felt that his fear was not so much physical as spiritual. And it seemed no wonder to me that the Navvy should hang back from this sacrilegious treatment of his god. A natural wisdom, which I had in common with all human beings who consider self preservation the first law of life, deterred me from acquainting my august companions with my belief. At least I did not want to break up the camp.

In the remorseless grasp of Emett, forced along, the Navajo dragged his feet and held his face sidewise, though his dark eyes gleamed at the lions. Terror predominated among the expressions of his countenance. Emett drew him within fifteen feet and held him there, and with voice, and gesticulating of his free hand, tried to show the poor fellow that the lions would not hurt him.

Navvy stared and muttered to himself. Here Jim had some deviltry in mind, for he edged up closer; but what it was never transpired, for Emett suddenly pointed to the horses and said to the Indian:

“Chineago (feed).”

It appeared when Navvy swung himself over Marc’s broad back, that our great stallion had laid aside his transiently noble disposition and was himself again. Marc proceeded to show us how truly Jim had spoken: “Shore he ain’t no use for the redskin.” Before the Indian had fairly gotten astride, Marc dropped his head, humped his shoulders, brought his feet together and began to buck. Now the Navajo was a famous breaker of wild mustangs, but Marc was a tougher proposition than the wildest mustang that ever romped the desert. Not only was he unusually vigorous; he was robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active. I had seen him roll over in the dust three times each way, and do it easily — a feat Emett declared he had never seen performed by another horse.

Navvy began to bounce. He showed his teeth and twisted his sinewy hands in the horse’s mane. Marc began to act like a demon; he plowed the ground; apparently he bucked five feet straight up. As the Indian had bounced he now began to shoot into the air. He rose the last time with his heels over his head, to the full extent of his arms; and on plunging down his hold broke. He spun around the horse, then went hurtling to the ground some twenty feet away. He sat up, and seeing Emett and Jones laughing, and Jim prostrated with joy, he showed his white teeth in a smile and said:

“No bueno dam.”

I think all of us respected Navvy for his good humor, and especially when he walked up to Marc, and with no show of the mean Indian, patted the glossy neck and then nimbly remounted. Marc, not being so difficult to please as Jim in the way of discomfiting the Navajo, appeared satisfied for the present, and trotted off down the hollow, with the string of horses ahead, their bells jingling.

Camp-fire tasks were a necessary wage in order to earn the full enjoyment and benefit of the hunting trip; and looking for some task with which to turn my hand, I helped Jim feed the hounds. To feed ordinary dogs is a matter of throwing them a bone; however, our dogs were not ordinary. It took time to feed them, and a prodigious amount of meat. We had packed between three and four hundred pounds of wild-horse meat, which had been cut into small pieces and strung on the branches of a scrub oak near camp.

Don, as befitted a gentleman and the leader of the greatest pack in the West, had to be fed by hand. I believe he would rather had starved than have demeaned himself by fighting. Starved he certainly would have, if Jim had thrown meat indiscriminately to the ground. Sounder asserted his rights and preferred large portions at a time. Jude begged with great solemn eyes but was no slouch at eating for all her gentleness. Ranger, because of imperfectly developed teeth rendering mastication difficult, had to have his share cut into very small pieces. As for Moze — well, great dogs have their faults as do great men — he never got enough meat; he would fight even poor crippled Jude, and steal even from the pups; when he had gotten all Jim would give him, and all he could snatch, he would growl away with bulging sides.

“How about feeding the lions?” asked Emett.

“They’ll drink to-night,” replied Jones, “but won’t eat for days; then we’ll tempt them with fresh rabbits.”

We made a hearty meal, succeeding which Jones and I walked through the woods toward the rim. A yellow promontory, huge and glistening, invited us westward, and after a detour of half a mile we reached it. The points of the rim, striking out into the immense void, always drew me irresistibly. We found the view from this rock one of startling splendor. The corrugated rim-wall of the middle wing extended to the west, at this moment apparently running into the setting sun. The gold glare touching up the millions of facets of chiseled stone, created color and brilliance too glorious and intense for the gaze of men. And looking downward was like looking into the placid, blue, bottomless depths of the Pacific.

“Here, help me push off this stone,” I said to Jones. We heaved a huge round stone, and were encouraged to feel it move. Fortunately we had a little slope; the boulder groaned, rocked and began to slide. Just as it toppled over I glanced at the second hand of my watch. Then with eyes over the rim we waited. The silence was the silence of the canyon, dead and vast, intensified by our breathless earstrain. Ten long palpitating seconds and no sound! I gave up. The distance was too great for sound to reach us. Fifteen seconds — seventeen — eighteen —

With that a puff of air seemed to rise, and on it the most awful bellow of thunderous roar. It rolled up and widened, deadened to burst out and roll louder, then slowly, like mountains on wheels, rumbled under the rim-walls, passing on and on, to roar back in echo from the cliffs of the mesas. Roar and rumble — roar and rumble! for two long moments the dull and hollow echoes rolled at us, to die away slowly in the far-distant canyons.

“That’s a darned deep hole,” commented Jones.

Twilight stole down on us idling there, silent, content to watch the red glow pass away from the buttes and peaks, the color deepening downward to meet the ebon shades of night creeping up like a dark tide.

On turning toward the camp we essayed a short cut, which brought us to a deep hollow with stony walls, which seemed better to go around. The hollow, however, was quite long and we decided presently to cross it. We descended a little way when Jones suddenly barred my progress with his big arm.

“Listen,” he whispered.

It was quiet in the woods; only a faint breeze stirred the pine needles; and the weird, gray darkness seemed to be approaching under the trees.

I heard the patter of light, hard hoofs on the scaly sides of the hollow.

“Deer?” I asked my companion in a low voice.

“Yes; see,” he replied, pointing ahead, “just right under that broken wall of rock; right there on this side; they’re going down.”

I descried gray objects the color of the rocks, moving down like shadows.

“Have they scented us?”

“Hardly; the breeze is against us. Maybe they heard us break a twig. They’ve stopped, but they are not looking our way. Now I wonder—”

Rattling of stones set into movement by some quick, sharp action, an indistinct crash, but sudden, as of the impact of soft, heavy bodies, a strange wild sound preceded in rapid succession violent brushings and thumpings in the scrub of the hollow.

“Lion jumped a deer,” yelled Jones. “Right under our eyes! Come on! Hi! Hi! Hi!”

He ran down the incline yelling all of the way, and I kept close to him, adding my yells to his, and gripping my revolver. Toward the bottom the thicket barred our progress so that we had to smash through and I came out a little ahead of Jones. And farther up the hollow I saw a gray swiftly bounding object too long and too low for a deer, and I hurriedly shot six times at it.

“By George! Come here,” called my companion. “How’s this for quick work? It’s a yearling doe.”

In another moment I leaned over a gray mass huddled at Jones feet. It was a deer gasping and choking. I plainly heard the wheeze of blood in its throat, and the sound, like a death-rattle, affected me powerfully. Bending closer, I saw where one side of the neck, low down, had been terribly lacerated.

“Waa-hoo!” pealed down the slope.

“That’s Emett,” cried Jones, answering the signal. “If you have another shot put this doe out of agony.”

But I had not a shot left, nor did either of us have a clasp knife. We stood there while the doe gasped and quivered. The peculiar sound, probably made by the intake of air through the laceration of the throat, on the spur of the moment seemed pitifully human.

I felt that the struggle for life and death in any living thing was a horrible spectacle. With great interest I had studied natural selection, the variability of animals under different conditions of struggling existence, the law whereby one animal struck down and devoured another. But I had never seen and heard that law enacted on such a scale; and suddenly I abhorred it.

Emett strode to us through the gathering darkness.

“What’s up?” he asked quickly.

He carried my Remington in one hand and his Winchester in the other; and he moved so assuredly and loomed up so big in the dusk that I experienced a sudden little rush of feeling as to what his advent might mean at a time of real peril.

“Emett, I’ve lived to see many things,” replied Jones, “but this is the first time I ever saw a lion jump a deer right under my nose!”

As Emett bent over to seize the long ears of the deer, I noticed the gasping had ceased.

“Neck broken,” he said, lifting the head. “Well, I’m danged. Must have been an all-fired strong lion. He’ll come back, you may be sure of that. Let’s skin out the quarters and hang the carcass up in a tree!”

We returned to camp in a half an hour, the richer for our walk by a quantity of fresh venison. Upon being acquainted with our adventure, Jim expressed himself rather more fairly than was his customary way.

“Shore that beats hell! I knowed there was a lion somewheres, because Don wouldn’t lie down. I’d like to get a pop at the brute.”

I believed Jim’s wish found an echo in all our hearts. At any rate to hear Emett and Jones express regret over the death of the doe justified in some degree my own feelings, and I thought it was not so much the death, but the lingering and terrible manner of it, and especially how vividly it connoted the wild-life drama of the plateau. The tragedy we had all but interrupted occurred every night, perhaps often in the day and likely at different points at the same time. Emett told how he had found fourteen piles of bleached bones and dried hair in the thickets of less than a mile of the hollow on which we were encamped.

“We’ll rope the danged cats, boys, or we’ll kill them.”

“It’s blowing cold. Hey, Navvy, coco! coco!” called Emett.

The Indian, carefully laying aside his cigarette, kicked up the fire and threw on more wood.

“Discass! (cold),” he said to me. “Coco, bueno (fire good).”

I replied, “Me savvy — yes.”

“Sleep-ie?” he asked.

“Mucha,” I returned.

While we carried on a sort of novel conversation full of Navajo, English, and gestures, darkness settled down black. I saw the stars disappear; the wind changing to the north grew colder and carried a breath of snow. I like north wind best — from under the warm blankets — because of the roar and lull and lull and roar in the pines. Crawling into the bed presently, I lay there and listened to the rising storm-wind for a long time. Sometimes it swelled and crashed like the sound of a breaker on the beach, but mostly, from a low incessant moan, it rose and filled to a mighty rush, then suddenly lulled. This lull, despite a wakeful, thronging mind, was conducive to sleep.

IV

To be awaked from pleasant dreams is the lot of man. The Navajo aroused me with his singing, and when I peeped languidly from under the flap of my sleeping bag, I felt a cold air and saw fleecy flakes of white drifting through the small window of my tent.

“Snow; by all that’s lucky!” I exclaimed, remembering Jones’ hopes. Straightway my langour vanished and getting into my boots and coat I went outside. Navvy’s bed lay in six inches of snow. The forest was beautifully white. A fine dazzling snow was falling. I walked to the roaring camp-fire. Jim’s biscuits, well-browned and of generous size, had just been dumped into the middle of our breakfast cloth, a tarpaulin spread on the ground; the coffee pot steamed fragrantly, and a Dutch oven sizzled with a great number of slices of venison. “Did you hear the Indian chanting?” asked Jones, who sat with his horny hands to the blaze.

“I heard his singing.”

“No, it wasn’t a song; the Navajo never sings in the morning. What you heard was his morning prayer, a chant, a religious and solemn ritual to the break of day. Emett says it is a custom of the desert tribe. You remember how we saw the Mokis sitting on the roofs of their little adobe huts in the gray of the morning. They always greet the sun in that way. The Navajos chant.”

It certainly was worth remembering, I thought, and mentally observed that I would wake up thereafter and listen to the Indian.

“Good luck and bad!” went on Jones. “Snow is what we want, but now we can’t find the scent of our lion of last night.”

Low growls and snarls attracted me. Both our captives presented sorry spectacles; they were wet, dirty, bedraggled. Emett had chopped down a small pine, the branches of which he was using to make shelter for the lions. While I looked on Tom tore his to pieces several times, but the lioness crawled under hers and began licking her chops. At length Tom, seeing that Emett meant no underhand trick, backed out of the drizzling snow and lay down.

Emett had already constructed a shack for the hounds. It was a way of his to think of everything. He had the most extraordinary ability. A stroke of his axe, a twist of his great hands, a turn of this or that made camp a more comfortable place. And if something, no matter what, got out of order or broken, there was Emett to show what it was to be a man of the desert. It had been my good fortune to see many able men on the trail and round the camp-fire, but not one of them even approached Emett’s class. When I said a word to him about his knack with things, his reply was illuminating: “I’m fifty-eight, and four out of every five nights of my life I have slept away from home on the ground.”

“Chineago!” called Jim, who had begun with all of us to assimilate a little of the Navajo’s language.

Whereupon we fell to eating with appetite unknown to any save hunters. Somehow the Indian had gravitated to me at meal times, and now he sat cross-legged beside me, holding out his plate and looking as hungry as Moze. At first he had always asked for the same kind of food that I happened to have on my own plate. When I had finished and had no desire to eat more, he gave up his faculty of imitation and asked for anything he could get. The Navajo had a marvelous appetite. He liked sweet things, sugar best of all. It was a fatal error to let him get his hands on a can of fruit. Although he inspired Jones with disgust and Jim with worse, he was a source of unfailing pleasure to me. He called me “Mista Gay” and he pronounced the words haltingly in low voice and with unmistakable respect.

“What’s on for today?” queried Emett.

“I guess we may as well hang around camp and rest the hounds,” replied Jones. “I did intend to go after the lion that killed the deer, but this snow has taken away the scent.”

“Shore it’ll stop snowin’ soon,” said Jim.

The falling snow had thinned out and looked like flying powder; the leaden clouds, rolling close to the tree-tops, grew brighter and brighter; bits of azure sky shone through rifts.

Navvy had tramped off to find the horses, and not long after his departure he sent out a prolonged yell that echoed through the forest.

“Something’s up,” said Emett instantly. “An Indian never yells like that at a horse.”

We waited quietly for a moment, expecting to hear the yell repeated. It was not, though we soon heard the jangle of bells, which told us he had the horses coming. He appeared off to the right, riding Foxie and racing the others toward camp.

“Cougie — mucha big — dam!” he said leaping off the mustang to confront us.

“Emett, does he mean he saw a cougar or a track?” questioned Jones.

“Me savvy,” replied the Indian. “Butteen, butteen!”

“He says, trail — trail,” put in Emett. “I guess I’d better go and see.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Jones. “Jim, keep the hounds tight and hurry with the horses’ oats.”

We followed the tracks of the horses which lead southwest toward the rim, and a quarter of a mile from camp we crossed a lion trail running at right angles with our direction.

“Old Sultan!” I cried, breathlessly, recognizing that the tracks had been made by a giant lion we had named Sultan. They were huge, round, and deep, and with my spread hand I could not reach across one of them.

Without a word, Jones strode off on the trail. It headed east and after a short distance turned toward camp. I suppose Jones knew what the lion had been about, but to Emett and me it was mystifying. Two hundred yards from camp we came to a fallen pine, the body of which was easily six feet high. On the side of this log, almost on top, were two enormous lion tracks, imprinted in the mantle of snow. From here the trail led off northeast.

“Darn me!” ejaculated Jones. “The big critter came right into camp; he scented our lions, and raised up on this log to look over.”

Wheeling, he started for camp on the trot. Emett and I kept even with him. Words were superfluous. We knew what was coming. A made — to — order lion trail could not have equalled the one right in the back yard of our camp.

“Saddle up!” said Jones, with the sharp inflection of words that had come to thrill me. “Jim, Old Sultan has taken a look at us since break of day.”

I got into my chaps, rammed my little automatic into its saddle holster and mounted. Foxie seemed to want to go. The hounds came out of their sheds and yawned, looking at us knowingly. Emett spoke a word to the Navajo, and then we were trotting down through the forest. The sun had broken out warm, causing water to drip off the snow laden pines. The three of us rode close behind Jones, who spoke low and sternly to the hounds.

What an opportunity to watch Don! I wondered how soon he would catch the scent of the trail. He led the pack as usual and kept to a leisurely dog — trot. When within twenty yards of the fallen log, he stopped for an instant and held up his head, though without exhibiting any suspicion or uneasiness.

The wind blew strong at our backs, a circumstance that probably kept Don so long in ignorance of the trail. A few yards further on, however, he stopped and raised his fine head. He lowered it and trotted on only to stop again. His easy air of satisfaction with the morning suddenly vanished. His savage hunting instinct awakened through some channel to raise the short yellow hair on his neck and shoulders and make it stand stiff. He stood undecided with warily shifting nose, then jumped forward with a yelp. Another jump brought another sharp cry from him. Sounder, close behind, echoed the yelp. Jude began to whine. Then Don, with a wild howl, leaped ten feet to alight on the lion trail and to break into wonderfully rapid flight. The seven other hounds, bunched in a black and yellow group, tore after him filling the forest with their wild uproar.

Emett’s horse bounded as I have seen a great racer leave the post, and his desert brothers, loving wild bursts of speed, needing no spur, kept their noses even with his flanks. The soft snow, not too deep, rather facilitated than impeded this wild movement, and the open forest was like a highway.

So we rode, bending low in the saddle, keen eyes alert for branches, vaulting the white — blanketed logs, and swerving as we split to pass the pines. The mist from the melting snow moistened our faces, and the rushing air cooled them with fresh, soft sensation. There were moments when we rode abreast and others when we sailed single file, with white ground receding, vanishing behind us.

My feeling was one of glorious excitation in the swift, smooth flight and a grim assurance of soon seeing the old lion. But I hoped we would not rout him too soon from under a windfall, or a thicket where he had dragged a deer, because the race was too splendid a thing to cut short. Through my mind whirled with inconceivable rapidity the great lion chases on which we had ridden the year before. And this was another chase, only more stirring, more beautiful, because it was the nature of the thing to grow always with experience.

Don slipped out of sight among the pines. The others strung along the trail, glinted across the sunlit patches. The black pup was neck and neck with Ranger. Sounder ran at their heels, leading the other pups. Moze dashed on doggedly ahead of Jude.

But for us to keep to the open forest, close to the hounds, was not in the nature of a lion chase. Old Sultan’s trail turned due west when he began to go down the little hollows and their intervening ridges. We lost ground. The pack left us behind. The slope of the plateau became decided. We rode out of the pines to find the snow failing in the open. Water ran in little gullies and glistened on the sagebrush. A half mile further down the snow had gone. We came upon the hounds running at fault, except Sounder, and he had given up.

“All over,” sang out Jones, turning his horse. “The lion’s track and his scent have gone with the snow. I reckon we’ll do as well to wait until to-morrow. He’s down in the middle wing somewhere and it is my idea we might catch his trail as he comes back.”

The sudden dashing aside of our hopes was exasperating. There seemed no help for it; abrupt ending to exciting chases were but features of the lion hunt. The warm sun had been hours on the lower end of the plateau, where the snow never lay long; and even if we found a fresh morning trail in the sand, the heat would have burned out the scent.

So rapidly did the snow thaw that by the time we reached camp only the shady patches were left.

It was almost eleven o’clock when I lay down on my bed to rest awhile and fell asleep. The tramp of a horse awakened me. I heard Jim calling Jones. Thinking it was time to eat I went out. The snow had all disappeared and the forest was brown as ever. Jim sat on his horse and Navvy appeared riding up to the hollow, leading the saddle horses.

“Jones, get out,” called Jim.

“Can’t you let a fellow sleep? I’m not hungry,” replied Jones testily.

“Get out and saddle up,” continued Jim.

Jones burst out of his tent, with rumpled hair and sleepy eyes.

“I went over to see the carcass of the deer an’ found a lion sittin’ up in the tree, feedin’ for all he was worth. Pie jumped out an’ ran up the hollow an’ over the rim. So I rustled back for you fellows. Lively now, we’ll get this one sure.”

“Was it the big fellow?” I asked

“No, but he ain’t no kitten; an’ he’s a fine color, sort of reddish. I never seen one just as bright. Where’s Emett?”

“I don’t know. He was here a little while ago. Shall I signal for him?”

“Don’t yell,” cried Jones holding up his fingers. “Be quiet now.”

Without another word we finished saddling, mounted and, close together, with the hounds in front, rode through the forest toward the rim.

V

We rode in different directions toward the hollow, the better to chance meeting with Emett, but none of us caught a glimpse of him.

It happened that when we headed into the hollow it was at a point just above where the deer carcass hung in the scrub oak. Don in spite of Jones’ stern yells, let out his eager hunting yelp and darted down the slope. The pack bolted after him and in less than ten seconds were racing up the hollow, their thrilling, blending bays a welcome spur to action. Though I spoke not a word to my mustang nor had time to raise the bridle, he wheeled to one side and began to run. The other horses also kept to the ridge, as I could tell by the pounding of hoofs on the soft turf. The hounds in full cry right under us urged our good steeds to a terrific pace. It was well that the ridge afforded clear going.

The speed at which we traveled, however, fast as it was, availed not to keep up with the pack. In a short half mile, just as the hollow sloped and merged into level ground, they left us behind and disappeared so quickly as almost to frighten me. My mustang plunged out of the forest to the rim and dashed along, apparently unmindful of the chasm. The red and yellow surface blurred in a blinding glare. I heard the chorus of hounds, but as its direction baffled me I trusted to my horse and I did well, for soon he came to a dead halt on the rim.

Then I heard the hounds below me. I had but time to see the character of the place — long, yellow promontories running out and slopes of weathered stone reaching up between to a level with the rim — when in a dwarf pine growing just over the edge I caught sight of a long, red, pantherish body.

I whooped to my followers now close upon me and leaping off hauled out my Remington and ran to the cliff. The lion’s long, slender body, of a rare golden-red color, bright, clean, black-tipped and white-bellied, proclaimed it a female of exceeding beauty. I could have touched her with a fishing rod and saw how easily she could be roped from where I stood. The tree in which she had taken refuge grew from the head of a weathered slope and rose close to the wall. At that point it was merely a parapet of crumbling yellow rock. No doubt she had lain concealed under the shelving wall and had not had time to get away before the hounds were right upon her.

“She’s going to jump,” yelled Jones, in my rear, as he dismounted.

I saw a golden-red streak flash downward, heard a mad medley from the hounds, a cloud of dust rose, then something bright shone for a second to the right along the wall. I ran with all my might to a headland of rock upon which I scrambled and saw with joy that I could command the situation.

The lioness was not in sight, nor were the hounds. The latter, however, were hot on the trail. I knew the lioness had taken to another tree or a hole under the wall, and would soon be routed out. This time I felt sure she would run down and I took a rapid glance below. The slope inclined at a steep angle and was one long slide of bits of yellow stone with many bunches of scrub oak and manzanita. Those latter I saw with satisfaction, because in case I had to go down they would stop the little avalanches. The slope reached down perhaps five hundred yards and ended in a thicket and jumble of rocks from which rose on the right a bare yellow slide. This ran up to a low cliff. I hoped the lion would not go that way, for it led to great broken battlements of rim. Left of the slide was a patch of cedars.

Jim’s yell pealed out, followed by the familiar penetrating howl of the pack when it sighted game. With that I saw the lioness leaping down the slope and close behind her a yellow hound.

“Go it, Don, old boy!” I yelled, wild with delight.

A crushing step on the stones told me Jones had arrived.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” roared he.

I thought then that if the lioness did not cover thirty feet at every jump I was not in a condition to judge distance. She ran away from Don as if he had been tied and reached the thicket below a hundred yards ahead of him. And when Don leaving his brave pack far up the slide entered the thicket the lioness came out on the other side and bounded up the bare slope of yellow shale.

“Shoot ahead of her! Head her off! Turn her back!” cried Jones.

With the word I threw forward the Remington and let drive. Following the bellow of the rifle, so loud in that thin air, a sharp, harsh report cracked up from below. A puff of yellow dust rose in front of the lioness. I was in line, but too far ahead. I fired again. The steel jacketed bullet hit a stone and spitefully whined away into the canyon. I tried once more. This time I struck close to the lioness. Disconcerted by a cloud of dust rising before her very eyes she wheeled and ran back.

We had forgotten Don and suddenly he darted out of the thicket, straight up the slide. Always, in every chase, we were afraid the great hound would run to meet his death. We knew it was coming sometime. When the lioness saw him and stopped, both Jones and I felt that this was to be the end of Don.

“Shoot her! Shoot her!” cried Jones. “She’ll kill him! She’ll kill him!”

As I knelt on the rock I had a hard contraction of my throat, and then all my muscles set tight and rigid. I pulled the trigger of my automatic once, twice. It was wonderful how closely the two bullets followed each other, as we could tell by the almost simultaneous puffs of dust rising from under the beast’s nose. She must have been showered and stung with gravel, for she bounded off to the left and disappeared in the cedars. I had missed, but the shots had served to a better end than if I had killed her.

As Don raced up the ground where a moment before a battle and probably death had awaited him, the other hounds burst from the thicket. With that, a golden form seemed to stand out from the green of the cedar, to move and to rise.

“She’s treed! She’s treed!” shouted Jones. “Go down and keep her there while I follow.”

From the back of the promontory where I met the main wall, I let myself down a niche, foot here and there, a hand hard on the soft stone, braced knee and back until I jumped to the edge of the slope. The scrub oak and manzanita saved me many a fall. I set some stones rolling and I beat them to the bottom. Having passed the thicket, I bent my efforts to the yellow slide and when I had surmounted it my breath came in labored pants. The howling of the hounds guided me through the cedars.

First I saw Moze in the branches of cedar and above him the lioness. I ran out into a little open patch of stony ground at the end of which the tree stood leaning over a precipice. In truth the lioness was swaying over a chasm.

Those details I grasped in a glance, then suddenly awoke to the fact that the lioness was savagely snarling at Moze.

“Moze! Moze! Get down!” I yelled.

He climbed on serenely. He was a most exasperating dog. I screamed at him and hit him with a rock big enough to break his bones. He kept on climbing. Here was a predicament. Moze would surely get to the lioness if I did not stop him, and this seemed impossible. It was out of the question for me to climb after him. And if the lioness jumped she would have to pass me or come straight at me. So I slipped down the safety catch on my automatic and stood ready to save Moze or myself.

The lioness with a show of fury that startled me, descended her branch a few steps, and reaching below gave Moze a sounding smack with her big paw. The hound dropped as if he had been shot and hit the ground with a thud. Whereupon she returned to her perch.

This reassured me and I ran among the dogs and caught Moze already starting for the tree again and tied him, with a strap I always carried, to a small bush nearby. I heard the yells of my companions and looking back over the tops of the cedars I saw Jim riding down and higher to the left Jones sliding, falling, running at a great rate. I encouraged them to keep up the good work, and then gave my attention to the lioness.

She regarded me with a cold, savage stare and showed her teeth. I repaid this incivility on her part by promptly photographing her from different points.

Jones and Jim were on the spot before I expected them and both were dusty and dripping with sweat. I found to my surprise that my face was wet as was also my shirt. Jones carried two lassos, and my canteen, which I had left on the promontory.

“Ain’t she a beauty?” he panted, wiping his face. “Wait — till I get my breath.”

When finally he walked toward the cedar the lioness stood up and growled as if she realized the entrance of the chief actor upon the scene. Jones cast his lasso apparently to try her out, and the noose spread out and fell over her head. As he tightened the rope the lioness backed down behind a branch.

“Tie the dogs!” yelled Jones.

“Quick!” added Jim. “She’s goin’ to jump.”

Jim had only time to aid me in running my lasso under the collar of Don, Sounder, Jude and one of the pups. I made them fast to a cedar. I got my hands on Ranger just as Moze broke his strap. I grabbed his collar and held on.

Right there was where trouble commenced for me. Ranger tussled valiantly and Moze pulled me all over the place. Behind me I heard Jones’ roar and Jim’s yell; the breaking of branches, the howling of the other dogs. Ranger broke away from me and so enabled me to get my other hand on the neck of crazy Moze. On more than one occasion I had tried to hold him and had failed; this time I swore I would do it if he rolled me over the precipice. As to that, only a bush saved me.

More and louder roars and yells, hoarser howls and sharper wrestling, snapping sounds told me what was going on while I tried to subdue Moze. I had a grim thought that I would just as lief have had hold of the lioness. The hound presently stopped his plunging which gave me an opportunity to look about. The little space was smoky with a smoke of dust. I saw the lioness stretched out with one lasso around a bush and another around a cedar with the end in the hands of Jim. He looked as if he had dug up the ground. While he tied this lasso securely Jones proceeded to rope the dangerous front paws.

The hounds quieted down and I took advantage of this absence of tumult to get rid of Moze.

“Pretty lively,” said Jones, spitting gravel as I walked up. Sand and dust lay thick in his beard and blackened his face. “I tell you she made us root.”

Either the lioness had been much weakened or choked, or Jones had unusual luck, for we muzzled her and tied up her paws in short order.

“Where’s Ranger?” I asked suddenly, missing him from the panting hounds.

“I grabbed him by the heels when he tackled the lion, and I gave him a sling somewheres,” replied Jim.

Ranger put in an appearance then under the cedars limping painfully.

“Jim, darn me, if I don’t believe you pitched him over the precipice!” said Jones.

Examination proved this surmise to be correct. We saw where Ranger had slipped over a twenty-foot wall. If he had gone over just under the cedar where the depth was much greater he would never have come back.

“The hounds are choking with dust and heat,” I said. When I poured just a little water from my canteen into the crown of my hat, the hounds began fighting around and over me and spilled the water.

“Behave, you coyotes!” I yelled. Either they were insulted or fully realized the exigency of the situation, for each one came up and gratefully lapped every drop of his portion.

“Shore, now comes the hell of it,” said Jim appearing with a long pole. “Packin’ the critter out.”

An argument arose in regard to the best way up the slope, and by virtue of a majority we decided to try the direction Jim and I thought best. My companions led the way, carrying the lioness suspended on the pole. I brought up the rear, packing my rifle, camera, lasso, canteen and a chain.

It was killing work. We had to rest every few steps. Often we would fall. Jim laughed, Jones swore, and I groaned. Sometimes I had to drop my things to help my companions. So we toiled wearily up the loose, steep way.

“What’s she shakin’ like that for?” asked Jim suddenly.

Jones let down his end of the pole and turned quickly. Little tremors quivered over the lissome body of the lioness.

“She’s dying,” cried Jim, jerking out the stick between her teeth and slipping off the wire muzzle.

Her mouth opened and her frothy tongue lolled out. Jones pointed to her quivering sides and then raised her eyelids. We saw the eyes already glazing, solemnly fixed.

“She’s gone,” he said.

Very soon she lay inert and lifeless. Then we sat beside her without a word, and we could hardly for the moment have been more stunned and heartbroken if it had been the tragic death of one of our kind. In that wild environment, obsessed by the desire to capture those beautiful cats alive, the fateful ending of the successful chase was felt out of all proportion.

“Shore she’s dead,” said Jim. “And wasn’t she a beauty? What was wrong?”

“The heat and lack of water,” replied Jones. “She choked. What idiots we were! Why didn’t we think to give her a drink.”

So we passionately protested against our want of fore-thought, and looked again and again with the hope that she might come to. But death had stilled the wild heart. We gave up presently, still did not move on. We were exhausted, and all the while the hounds lay panting on the rocks, the bees hummed, the flies buzzed. The red colors of the upper walls and the purple shades of the lower darkened silently.

VI

“Shore we can’t set here all night,” said Jim. “Let’s skin the lion an’ feed the hounds.”

The most astonishing thing in our eventful day was the amount of meat stowed away by the dogs. Lion flesh appealed to their appetites. If hungry Moze had an ounce of meat, he had ten pounds. It seemed a good opportunity to see how much the old gladiator could eat; and Jim and I cut chunks of meat as fast as possible. Moze gulped them with absolute unconcern of such a thing as mastication. At length he reached his limit, possibly for the first time in his life, and looking longingly at a juicy red strip Jim held out, he refused it with manifest shame. Then he wobbled and fell down.

We called to him as we started to climb the slope, but he did not come. Then the business of conquering that ascent of sliding stone absorbed all our faculties and strength. Little headway could we have made had it not been for the brush. We toiled up a few feet only to slide back and so it went on until we were weary of life.

When one by one we at last gained the rim and sat there to recover breath, the sun was a half globe of fire burning over the western ramparts. A red sunset bathed the canyon in crimson, painting the walls, tinting the shadows to resemble dropping mists of blood. It was beautiful and enthralling to my eyes, but I turned away because it wore the mantle of tragedy.

Dispirited and worn out, we trooped into camp to find Emett and a steaming supper. Between bites the three of us related the story of the red lioness. Emett whistled long and low and then expressed his regret in no light terms.

“Roping wild steers and mustangs is play to this work,” he said in conclusion.

I was too tired to tease our captive lions that evening; even the glowing camp-fire tempted me in vain, and I crawled into my bed with eyes already glued shut.

A heavy weight on my feet stirred me from oblivion. At first, when only half awake, I could not realize what had fallen on my bed, then hearing a deep groan I knew Moze had come back. I was dropping off again when a strange, low sound caused my eyes to open wide. The black night had faded to the gray of dawn. The sound I recognized at once to be the Navajo’s morning chant. I lay there and listened. Soft and monotonous, wild and swelling, but always low and strange, the savage song to the break of day was exquisitely beautiful and harmonious. I wondered what the literal meaning of his words could have been. The significance needed no translation. To the black shadows fading away, to the brightening of the gray light, to the glow of the east, to the morning sun, to the Giver of Life — to these the Indian chanted his prayer.

Could there have been a better prayer? Pagan or not, the Navajo with his forefathers felt the spiritual power of the trees, the rocks, the light and sun, and he prayed to that which was divinely helpful to him in all the mystery of his unintelligible life.

We did not crawl out that morning as early as usual, for it was to be a day of rest. When we did, a mooted question arose — whether we or the hounds were the more crippled. Ranger did not show himself; Don could just walk and that was all; Moze was either too full or too tired to move; Sounder nursed a foot and Jude favored her lame leg.

After lunch we brightened up somewhat and set ourselves different tasks. Jones had misplaced or lost his wire and began to turn the camp topsy-turvy in his impatient efforts to locate it. The wire, however, was not to be found. This was a calamity, for, as we asked each other, how could we muzzle lions without wire? Moreover, a half dozen heavy leather straps which I had bought in Kanab for use as lion collars had disappeared. We had only one collar left, the one that Jones had put on the red lioness.

Whereupon we began to blame each other, to argue, to grow heated and naturally from that to become angry. It seems a fatality of campers along a wild trail, like explorers in an unknown land, to be prone to fight. If there is an explanation of this singular fact, it must be that men at such time lose their poise and veneer of civilization; in brief, they go back. At all events we had it hot and heavy, with the center of attack gradually focusing on Jones, and as he was always losing something, naturally we united in force against him.

Fortunately, we were interrupted by yells from the Navajo off in the woods. The brushing of branches and pounding of hoofs preceded his appearance. In some remarkable manner he had gotten a bridle on Marc, and from the way the big stallion hurled his huge bulk over logs and through thickets, it appeared evident he meant to usurp Jim’s ambition and kill the Navajo. Hearing Emett yell, the Indian turned Marc toward camp. The horse slowed down when he neared the glade and tried to buck. But Navvy kept his head up. With that Marc seemed to give way to ungovernable rage and plunged right through camp; he knocked over the dogs’ shelter and thundered down the ridge.

Now the Navajo, with the bridle in his hand was thoroughly at home. He was getting his revenge on Marc, and he would have kept his seat on a wild mustang, but Marc swerved suddenly under a low branch of a pine, sweeping the Indian off.

When Navvy did not rise we began to fear he had been seriously hurt, perhaps killed, and we ran to where he lay.

Face downward, hands outstretched, with no movement of body or muscle, he certainly appeared dead.

“Badly hurt,” said Emett, “probably back broken. I have seen it before from just such accidents.”

“Oh no!” cried Jones, and I felt so deeply I could not speak. Jim, who always wanted Navvy to be a dead Indian, looked profoundly sorry.

“He’s a dead Indian, all right,” replied Emett.

We rose from our stooping postures and stood around, uncertain and deeply grieved, until a mournful groan from Navvy afforded us much relief.

“That’s your dead Indian,” exclaimed Jones.

Emett stooped again and felt the Indian’s back and got in reward another mournful groan.

“It’s his back,” said Emett, and true to his ruling passion, forever to minister to the needs of horses, men, and things, he began to rub the Indian and call for the liniment.

Jim went to fetch it, while I, still believing the Navvy to be dangerously hurt, knelt by him and pulled up his shirt, exposing the hollow of his brown back.

“Here we are,” said Jim, returning on the run with the bottle.

“Pour some on,” replied Emett.

Jim removed the cork and soused the liniment all over the Indian’s back.

“Don’t waste it,” remonstrated Emett, starting to rub Navvy’s back.

Then occurred a most extraordinary thing. A convulsion seemed to quiver through the Indian’s body; he rose at a single leap, and uttering a wild, piercing yell broke into a run. I never saw an Indian or anybody else run so fleetly. Yell after yell pealed back to us.

Absolutely dumfounded we all gazed at each other.

“That’s your dead Indian!” ejaculated Jim.

“What the hell!” exclaimed Emett, who seldom used such language.

“Look here!” cried Jones, grabbing the bottle. “See! Don’t you see it?”

Jim fell face downward and began to shake.

“What?” shouted Emett and I together.

“Turpentine, you idiots! Turpentine! Jim brought the wrong bottle!”

In another second three more forms lay stretched out on the sward, and the forest rang with sounds of mirth.

VII

That night the wind switched and blew cold from the north, and so strong that the camp-fire roared like a furnace. “More snow” was the verdict of all of us, and in view of this, I invited the Navajo to share my tent.

“Sleepie-me,” I said to him.

“Me savvy,” he replied and forthwith proceeded to make his bed with me.

Much to my surprise all my comrades raised protestations, which struck me as being singularly selfish considering they would not be inconvenienced in any way.

“Why not?” I asked. “It’s a cold night. There’ll be frost if not snow.”

“Shore you’ll get ‘em,” said Jim.

“There never was an Indian that didn’t have ‘em,” added Jones.

“What?” I questioned.

They made mysterious signs that rather augmented my ignorance as to what I might get from the Indian, but in no wise changed my mind. When I went to bed I had to crawl over Navvy. Moze lay at my feet as usual and he growled so deep that I could not but think he, too, resented the addition to my small tent.

“Mista Gay!” came in the Indian’s low voice.

“Well Navvy?” I asked.

“Sleepie — sleepie?”

“Yes, Navvy, sleepy and tired. Are you?”

“Me savvy — mucha sleepie — mucha — no bueno.”

I did not wonder at his feeling sleepy, tired and bad. He did not awaken me in the morning, for when my eyes unclosed the tent was light and he had gone. I found my companions up and doing.

We had breakfast and got into our saddles by the time the sun, a red ball low down among the pines, began to brighten and turn to gold. No snow had fallen but a thick frost encrusted the ground. The hounds, wearing cloth moccasins, which plainly they detested, trotted in front. Don showed no effects of his great run down the sliding slope after the red lioness; it was one of his remarkable qualities that he recuperated so quickly. Ranger was a little stiff, and Sounder favored his injured foot. The others were as usual.

Jones led down the big hollow to which he kept after we had passed the edge of the pines; then marking a herd of deer ahead, he turned his horse up the bank.

We breasted the ridge and jogged toward the cedar forest, which we entered without having seen the hounds show interest in anything. Under the cedars in the soft yellow dust we crossed lion tracks, many of them, but too old to carry a scent. Even North Hollow with its regular beaten runway failed to win a murmur from the pack.

“Spread out,” said Jones, “and look for tracks. I’ll keep the center and hold in the hounds.”

Signalling occasionally to one another we crossed almost the breadth of the cedar forest to its western end, where the open sage flats inclined to the rim. In one of those flats I came upon a broken sage bush, the grass being thick thereabout. I discovered no track but dismounted and scrutinized the surroundings carefully. A heavy body had been dragged across the sage, crushing it. The ends of broken bushes were green, the leaves showed bruises.

I began to feel like Don when he scented game. Leading my mustang I slowly proceeded across the open, guided by an occasional down-trodden bush or tuft of grass. As I neared the cedars again Foxie snorted. Under the first tree I found a ghastly bunch of red bones, a spread of grayish hairs and a split skull. The bones, were yet wet; two long doe ears were still warm. Then I saw big lion tracks in the dust and even a well pressed imprint of a lion’s body where he had rolled or lain.

The two yells I sent ringing into the forest were productive of interesting results. Answers came from near and far. Then, what with my calling and the replies, the forest rang so steadily with shrill cries that the echoes had no chance to follow.

An elephant in the jungle could not have caused more crashing and breaking of brush than did Emett as he made his way to me. He arrived from the forest just as Jim galloped across the flat. Mutely I held up the two long ears.

“Get on your horse!” cried Jim after one quick glance at the spread of bones and hair.

It was well he said that, for I might have been left behind. I ran to Foxie and vaulted upon him. A flash of yellow appeared among the sage and a string of yelps split the air.

“It’s Don!” yelled Jim.

Well we knew that. What a sight to see him running straight for us! He passed, a savage yellow wolf in his ferocity, and disappeared like a gleam under the gloomy cedars.

We spurred after him. The other hounds sped by. Jones closed in on us from the left, and in a few minutes we were strung out behind Emett, fighting the branches, dodging and swerving, hugging the saddle, and always sending out our sharp yells.

The race was furious but short. The three of us coming up together found Emett dismounted on the extreme end of West Point.

“The hounds have gone down,” he said, pointing to the runway.

We all listened to the meaning bays.

“Shore they’ve got him up!” asserted Jim. “Like as not they found him under the rim here, sleeping off his gorge. Now fellows, I’ll go down. It might be a good idea for you to spread along the rim.”

With that we turned our horses eastward and rode as close to the rim as possible. Clumps of cedars and deep fissures often forced us to circle them. The hounds, traveling under the walls below, kept pace with us and then forged ahead, which fact caused Jones to dispatch Emett on the gallop for the next runway at North Hollow.

Soon Jones bade me dismount and make my way out upon one of the promontories, while he rode a little farther on. As I tied my mustang I heard the hounds, faint and far beneath. I waded through the sage and cedar to the rim.

Cape after cape jutted out over the abyss. Some were very sharp and bare, others covered with cedar; some tottering crags with a crumbling bridge leading to their rims; and some ran down like giant steps. From one of these I watched below. The slope here under the wall was like the side of a rugged mountain. Somewhere down among the dark patches of cedar and the great blocks of stone the hounds were hunting the lion, but I could not see one of them.

The promontory I had chosen had a split, and choked as this was with brush, rock, and shale, it seemed a place where I might climb down. Once started, I could not turn back, and sliding, clinging to what afforded, I worked down the crack. A wall of stone hid the sky from me part of the way. I came out a hundred feet below upon a second promontory of huge slabs of yellow stone. Over these I clambered, to sit with my feet swinging over the last one.

Straight before my gaze yawned the awful expanse of the canyon. In the soft morning light the red mesas, the yellow walls, the black domes were less harsh than in the full noonday sun, purer than in the tender shadow of twilight. Below me were slopes and slides divided by ravines full of stones as large as houses, with here and there a lonesome leaning crag, giving irresistible proof of the downward trend, of the rolling, weathering ruins of the rim. Above the wall bulged out full of fissures, ragged and rotten shelves, toppling columns of yellow limestone, beaded with quartz and colored by wild flowers wonderfully growing in crannies.

Wild and rare as was this environment, I gave it but a glance and a thought. The bay of the hounds caused me to bend sharp and eager eyes to the open spaces of stone and slide below. Luck was mine as usual; the hounds were working up toward me. How I strained my sight! Hearing a single cry I looked eastward to see Jones silhouetted against the blue on a black promontory. He seemed a giant primeval man overlooking the ruin of a former world. I signalled him to make for my point.

Black Ranger hove in sight at the top of a yellow slide. He was at fault but hunting hard. Jude and Sounder bayed off to his left. I heard Don’s clear voice, permeating the thin, cool air, seemingly to leave a quality of wildness upon it; yet I could not locate him. Ranger disappeared. Then for a time I only heard Jim. Moze was next to appear and he, too, was upward bound. A jumble of stone hid him, and then Ranger again showed. Evidently he wanted to get around the bottom of a low crag, for he jumped and jumped only to fall back.

Quite naturally my eyes searched that crag. Stretched out upon the top of it was the long, slender body of a lion.

“Hi! hi! hi! hi! hi!” I yelled till my lungs failed me.

“Where are you?” came from above.

“Here! Here!” I cried seeing Jones on the rim. “Come down. Climb down the crack. The lion is here; on top of that round crag. He’s fooled the hounds and they can’t find him.”

“I see him! I see him!” yelled Jones. Then he roared out a single call for Emett that pealed like a clear clarion along the curved broken rim wall, opening up echoes which clapped like thunder.

While Jones clattered down I turned again to the lion. He lay with head hidden under a little shelf and he moved not a muscle. What a place for him to choose! But for my accidental venturing down the broken fragments and steps of the rim he could have remained safe from pursuit.

Suddenly, right under my feet, Don opened his string of yelps. I could not see him but decided he must be above the lion on the crag. I leaned over as far as I dared. At that moment among the varied and thrilling sounds about me I became vaguely aware of hard, panting breaths, like coughs somewhere in my vicinity. As Jones had set in motion bushels of stone and had already scraped his feet over the rocks behind me I thought the forced respiration came from him. When I turned he was yet far off — too far for me to hear him breathe. I thought this circumstance strange but straightway forgot it.

On the moment from my right somewhere Don pealed out his bugle blast, and immediately after Sounder and Jude joining him, sent up the thrice welcome news of a treed lion.

“There ‘re two! There ‘re two!” I yelled to Jones, now working down to my right.

“He’s treed down here. I’ve got him spotted!” replied Jones. “You stay there and watch your lion. Yell for Emett.”

Signal after signal for Emett earned no response, though Jim far below to the left sent me an answer.

The next few minutes, or more likely half an hour, passed with Jones and me separated from each other by a wall of broken stone, waiting impatiently for Jim and Emett, while the hounds bayed one lion and I watched the other.

Calmness was impossible under such circumstances. No man could have gazed into that marvel of color and distance, with wild life about him, with wild sounds ringing in his ears, without yielding to the throb and race of his wild blood.

Emett did not come. Jim had not answered a yell for minutes. No doubt he needed his breath. He came into sight just to the left of our position, and he ran down one side of the ravine to toil up the other. I hailed him, Jones hailed him and the hounds hailed him.

“Steer to your left Jim!” I called.. “There’s a lion on that crag above you. He might jump. Round the cliff to the left — Jones is there!”

The most painful task it was for me to sit there and listen to the sound rising from below without being able to see what happened. My lion had peeped up once, and, seeing me, had crouched closer to his crag, evidently believing he was unseen, which obviously made it imperative for me to keep my seat and hold him there as long as possible.

But to hear the various exclamations thrilled me enough.

“Hyar Moze — get out of that. Catch him — hold him! Damn these rotten limbs. Hand me a pole — Jones, back down — back down! he’s comin’ — Hi! Hi! Whoop! Boo — o! There — now you’ve got him! No, no; it slipped! Now! Look out, Jim, from under — he’s going to jump!”

A smashing and rattling of loose stones and a fiery burst of yelps with trumpet-like yells followed close upon Jones’ last words. Then two yellow streaks leaped down the ravine. The first was the lion, the second was Don. The rest of the pack came tumbling helter-skelter in their wake. Following them raced Jim in long kangaroo leaps, with Jones in the rear, running for all he was worth. The animated and musical procession passed up out of the ravine and gradually lengthened as the lion gained and Jones lost, till it passed altogether from my jealous sight.

On the other side of the ridge of cedars the hounds treed their quarry again, as was easy to tell by their change from sharp intermittent yelping to an unbroken, full, deep chorus. Then presently all quieted down, and for long moments at a time the still silence enfolded the slope. Shouts now and then floated up on the wind and an occasional bark.

I sat there for an hour by my watch, though it seemed only a few minutes, and all that time my lion lay crouched on his crag and never moved.

I looked across the curve of the canyon to the purple breaks of the Siwash and the shaggy side of Buckskin Mountain and far beyond to where Kanab Canyon opened its dark mouth, and farther still to the Pink Cliffs of Utah, weird and dim in the distance.

Something swelled within my breast at the thought that for the time I was part of that wild scene. The eye of an eagle soaring above would have placed me as well as my lion among the few living things in the range of his all-compassing vision. Therefore, all was mine, not merely the lion — for he was only the means to an end — but the stupendous, unnameable thing beneath me, this chasm that hid mountains in the shades of its cliffs, and the granite tombs, some gleaming pale, passionless, others red and warm, painted by a master hand; and the wind-caves, dark-portaled under their mist curtains, and all that was deep and far off, unapproachable, unattainable, of beauty exceeding, dressed in ever-changing hues, was mine by right of presence, by right of the eye to see and the mind to keep.

“Waa-hoo!”

The cry lifted itself out of the depths. I saw Jones on the ridge of cedars.

“All right here — have you kept your line there?” he yelled.

“All’s well — come along, come along,” I replied.

I watched them coming, and all the while my lion never moved. The hounds reached the base of the cliff under me, but they could not find the lion, though they scented him, for they kept up a continual baying. Jim got up to the shelf under me and said they had tied up the lion and left him below. Jones toiled slowly up the slope.

“Some one ought to stay down there; he might jump,” I called in warning.

“That crag is forty feet high on this side,” he replied.

I clambered back over the uneven mass, let myself down between the boulders and crawled under a dark ridge, and finally with Jim catching my rifle and camera and then lending his shoulders, I reached the bench below. Jones came puffing around a corner of the cliff, and soon all three of us with the hounds stood out on the rocky shelf with only a narrow space between us and the crouching lion.

Before we had a moment to speak, much less form a plan of attack, the lion rose, spat at us defiantly, and deliberately jumped off the crag. We heard him strike with a frightful thud.

Surprise held us dumb. To take the leap to the slope below seemed beyond any beast not endowed with wings. We saw the lion bounding down the identical trail which the other lion had taken. Jones came out of his momentary indecision.

“Hold the dogs! Call them back!” he yelled hoarsely. “They’ll kill the lion we tied! They’ll kill him!”

The hounds had scattered off the bench here and there, everywhere, to come together on the trail below. Already they were in full cry with the matchless Don at the fore. Manifestly to call them back was an injustice, as well as impossible. In ten seconds they were out of sight.

In silence we waited, each listening, each feeling the tragedy of the situation, each praying that they would pass by the poor, helpless, bound lion. Suddenly the regular baying swelled to a burst of savage, snarling fury, such as the pack made in a vicious fight. This ceased — short silence ensued; Don’s sharp voice woke the echoes, then the regular baying continued.

As with one thought, we all sat down. Painful as the certainty was it was not so painful as that listening, hoping suspense.

“Shore they can’t be blamed,” said Jim finally. “Bumping their nose into a tied lion that way — how’d they know?”

“Who could guess the second lion would jump off that quick and run back to our captive?” burst out Jones.

“Shore we might have knowed it,” replied Jim. “Well, I’m goin’ after the pack.”

He gathered up his lasso and strode off the bench. Jones said he would climb back to the rim, and I followed Jim.

Why the lions ran in that particular direction was clear to me when I saw the trail. It was a runway, smooth and hard packed. I trudged along it with rather less enjoyment than on any trail I had ever followed to the canyon. Jim waited for me over the cedar ridge and showed me where the captive lion lay dead. The hounds had not torn him. They had killed him and passed on after the other.

“He was a fine fellow, all of seven feet, we’ll skin him on our way back.”

Only dogged determination coupled with a sense of duty to the hounds kept us on that trail. For the time being enthusiasm had been submerged. But we had to follow the pack.

Jim, less weighted down and perhaps less discouraged, forged ahead up and down. The sun had burned all the morning coolness out of the air. I perspired and panted and began to grow weary. Jim’s signal called me to hurry. I took to a trot and came upon him and the hounds under a small cedar. The lion stood among the dead branches. His sides where shaking convulsively, and his short breaths could be plainly heard. He had the most blazing eyes and most untamed expression of any wild creature I have ever seen; and this amazed me considering I had kept him on a crag for over an hour, and had come to look upon him as my own.

“What’ll we do, Jim, now that we have him treed?”

“Shore, we’ll tie him up,” declared Jim.

The lion stayed in the cedar long enough for me to photograph him twice, then he leaped down again and took to his back trail. We followed as fast as we could, soon to find that the hounds had put him up another cedar. From this he jumped down among the dogs, scattered them as if they had been so many leaves, and bounded up the slope out of sight.

I laid aside my rifle and camera and tried to keep up with Jim. The lion ran straight up the slope and treed again under the wall. Before we covered half the distance he was on the go once more, flying down in clouds of dust.

“Don is makin’ him hump,” said Jim.

And that alone was enough to spur us on. We would reward the noble hound if we had the staying power. Don and his pack ran westward this time, and along a mile of the beaten trail put him up two more trees. But these we could not see and judged only by the sound.

“Look there!” cried Jim. “Darn me if he ain’t comin’ right at us.”

It was true. Ahead of us the lion appeared, loping wearily. We stopped in our tracks undecided. Jim drew his revolver. Once or twice the lion disappeared behind stones and cedars. When he sighted us he stopped, looked back, then again turning toward us, he left the trail to plunge down. He had barely got out of sight when old Don came pattering along the trail; then Ranger leading the others. Don did not even put his nose to the ground where the lion had switched, but leaped aside and went down. Here the long section of slope between the lion’s runway and the second wall had been weathered and worn, racked and convulsed into deep ravines, with ridges between. We climbed and fell and toiled on, always with the bay of the hounds in our ears. We leaped fissures, we loosened avalanches, rolling them to crash and roar below, and send long, rumbling echoes out into the canyon.

A gorge in the yellow rock opened suddenly before us. We stood at the constricted neck of one of the great splits in the second wall. The side opposite was almost perpendicular, and formed of mass on mass of broken stones. This was a weathered slope on a gigantic scale. Points of cliffs jutted out; caves and cracks lined the wall.

“This is a rough place,” said Jim; “but a lion could get over the second wall here, an’ I believe a man could too. The hounds seemed to be back further toward where the split narrows.”

Through densely massed cedars and thickets of prickly thorns we wormed our way to come out at the neck of the gorge.

“There ye are!” sang out Jim. The hounds were all on a flat shelf some few feet below us, and on a sharp point of rock close by, but too far for the dogs to reach, crouched the lion. He was gasping and frothing at the mouth.

“Shore if he’d only stay there—” said Jim.

He loosened his lasso, and stationing himself just above the tired beast he prepared to cast down the loop. The first throw failed of its purpose, but the rope hit the lion. He got up painfully it seemed, and faced the dogs. That way barred he turned to the cliff. Almost opposite him a shelf leaned out. He looked at it, then paced to and fro like a beast in a cage.

He looked again at the hounds, then up at us, all around, and finally concentrated his attention on the shelf; his long length sagged in the middle, he stretched low, his muscles gathered and strung, and he sprang like a tawny streak.

His aim was true, the whole forepart of his body landed on the shelf and he hung there. Then he slipped. We distinctly heard his claws scrape the hard, smooth rock. He fell, turning a somersault, struck twenty feet below on the rough slant, bounded from that to fall down, striking suddenly and then to roll, a yellow wheel that lodged behind a rock and stretched out to move no more.

The hounds were silent; Jim and I were silent; a few little stones rattled, then were still. The dead silence of the canyon seemed to pay tribute to the lion’s unquenchable spirit and to the freedom he had earned to the last.

VIII

How long Jim and I sat there we never knew. The second tragedy, not so pitiful but as heart sickening as the first, crushed our spirits.

“Shore he was a game lion,” said Jim. “An’ I’ll have to get his skin.”

“I’m all in, Jim. I couldn’t climb out of that hole.” I said.

“You needn’t. Rest a little, take a good drink an’ leave your canteen here for me; then get your things back there on the trail an’ climb out. We’re not far from West Point. I’ll go back after the first lion’s skin an’ then climb straight up. You lead my horse to the point where you came off the rim.”

He clattered along the gorge knocking the stones and started down. I watched him letting himself over the end of the huge slabs until he passed out of my sight. A good, long drink revived me and I began the ascent.

From that moment on time did not matter to me. I forgot all about it. I felt only my leaden feet and my laboring chest and dripping skin. I did not even notice the additional weight of my rifle and camera though they must have overburdened me. I kept my eyes on the lion runway and plunged away with short steps. To look at these towering walls would have been to surrender.

At last, stumbling, bursting, sick, I gained the rim and had to rest before I could mount. When I did get into the saddle I almost fell from it.

Jones and Emett were waiting for me at the promontory where I had tied my horse, and were soon acquainted with the particulars of my adventure, and that Jim would probably not get out for hours. We made tracks for camp, and never did a place rouse in me such a sense of gratefulness. Emett got dinner and left on the fire a kettle of potato stew for Jim. It was almost dark when that worthy came riding into camp. We never said a word as he threw the two lion skins on the ground.

“Fellows, you shore have missed the wind-up!” he exclaimed.

We all looked at him and he looked at us.

“Was there any more?” I asked weakly.

“Shore! An’ it beats hell! When I got the skin of the lion the dogs killed I started to work up to the place I knowed you’d leave my horse. It’s bad climbing where you came down. I got on the side of that cliff an’ saw where I could work out, if I could climb a smooth place. So I tried. There was little cracks an’ ridges for my feet and hands. All to once, just above where I helped you down, I heard a growl. Looking up I saw a big lion, bigger’n any we chased except Sultan, an’ he was pokin’ his head out of a hole, an’ shore telling me to come no further. I couldn’t let go with either hand to reach my gun, because I’d have fallen, so I yelled at him with all my might. He spit at me an’ then walked out of the hole over the bench as proud as a lord an’ jumped down where I couldn’t see him any more. I climbed out all right but he’d gone. An’ I’ll tell you for a minute, he shore made me sweat.”

“By George!” I yelled, greatly excited. “I heard that lion breathing. Don chased him up there. I heard hard, wheezing breaths somewhere behind me, but in the excitement I didn’t pay any attention to them. I thought it was Jones panting, but now I know what it meant.”

“Shore. He was there all the time, lookin’ at you an’ maybe he could have reached you.”

We were all too exhausted for more discussion and putting that off until the next day we sought our beds. It was hardly any wonder that I felt myself jumping even in my sleep, and started up wildly more than once in the dead of night.

Morning found us all rather subdued, yet more inclined to a philosophical resignation as regarded the difficulties of our special kind of hunting. Capturing the lions on the level of the plateau was easy compared to following them down into canyons and bringing them up alone. We all agreed that that was next to impossible. Another feature, which before we had not considered, added to our perplexity and it was a dawning consciousness that we would be perhaps less cruel if we killed the lions outright. Jones and Emett arrayed themselves on the side that life even in captivity was preferable; while Jim and I, no doubt still under the poignant influence of the last lion’s heroic race and end, inclined to freedom or death. We compromised on the reasonable fact that as yet we had shown only a jackass kind of intelligence.

About eleven o’clock while the others had deserted camp temporarily for some reason or other, I was lounging upon an odorous bed of pine needles. The sun shone warmly, the sky gleamed bright azure through the openings of the great trees, a dry west breeze murmured through the forest. I was lying on my bed musing idly and watching a yellow woodpecker when suddenly I felt a severe bite on my shoulder. I imagined an ant had bitten me through my shirt. In a moment or so afterward I received, this time on my breast, another bite that left no room for imagination. There was some kind of an animal inside my shirt, and one that made a mosquito, black-fly, or flea seem tame.

Suddenly a thought swept on the heels of my indolent and rather annoying realization. Could I have gotten from the Navajo what Jim and Jones so characteristically called “‘em”? I turned cold all over. And on the very instant I received another bite that burned like fire.

The return of my companions prevented any open demonstration of my fears and condition of mind, but I certainly swore inwardly. During the dinner hour I felt all the time as if I had on a horsehair shirt with the ends protruding toward my skin, and, in the exaggerated sensitiveness of the moment, made sure “‘em” were chasing up and down my back.

After dinner I sneaked off into the woods. I remembered that Emett had said there was only one way to get rid of “‘em,” and that was to disrobe and make a microscopical search of garments and person. With serious mind and murderous intent I undressed. In the middle of the back of my jersey I discovered several long, uncanny, gray things.

“I guess I got ‘em,” I said gravely.

Then I sat on a pine log in a state of unadorned nature, oblivious to all around, intent only on the massacre of the things that had violated me. How much time flew I could not guess. Great loud “Haw-haws!” roused me to consternation. There behind me stood Jones and Emett shaking as if with the ague.

“It’s not funny!” I shouted in a rage. I had the unreasonable suspicion that they had followed me to see my humiliation. Jones, who cracked a smile about as often as the equinoxes came, and Emett the sober Mormon, laughed until they cried.

“I was — just wondering — what your folks would — think — if they — saw you — now,” gurgled Jones.

That brought to me the humor of the thing, and I joined in their mirth.

“All I hope is that you fellows will get ‘em’ too,” I said.

“The Good Lord preserve me from that particular breed of Navvy’s,” cried Emett.

Jones wriggled all over at the mere suggestion. Now so much from the old plainsman, who had confessed to intimate relations with every creeping, crawling thing in the West, attested powerfully to the unforgettable singularity of what I got from Navvy.

I returned to camp determined to make the best of the situation, which owing to my failure to catch all of the gray devils, remained practically unchanged. Jim had been acquainted with my dilemma, as was manifest in his wet eyes and broad grin with which he greeted me.

“I think I’d scalp the Navvy,” he said.

“You make the Indian sleep outside after this, snow or no snow,” was Jones’ suggestion.

“No I won’t; I won’t show a yellow streak like that. Besides, I want to give ’em to you fellows.”

A blank silence followed my statement, to which Jim replied:

“Shore that’ll be easy; Jones’ll have ‘em, so’ll Emett, an’ by thunder I’m scratchin’ now.”

“Navvy, look here,” I said severely, “mucha no bueno! heap bad! You — me!” here I scratched myself and made signs that a wooden Indian would have understood.

“Me savvy,” he replied, sullenly, then flared up. “Heap big lie.”

He turned on his heel, erect, dignified, and walked away amid the roars of my gleeful comrades.

IX

One by one my companions sought their blankets, leaving the shadows, the dying embers, the slow-rising moan of the night wind to me. Old Moze got up from among the other hounds and limped into my tent, where I heard him groan as he lay down. Don, Sounder, and Ranger were fast asleep in well-earned rest. Shep, one of the pups, whined and impatiently tossed his short chain. Remembering that he had not been loose all day, I unbuckled his collar and let him go.

He licked my hand, stretched and shook himself, lifted his shapely, sleek head and sniffed the wind. He trotted around the circle cast by the fire and looked out into the darkening shadows. It was plain that Shep’s instincts were developing fast; he was ambitious to hunt. But sure in my belief that he was afraid of the black night and would stay in camp, I went to bed.

The Navajo who slept with me snored serenely and Moze growled in his dreams; the wind swept through the pines with an intermittent rush. Some time in the after part of the night I heard a distant sound. Remote, mournful, wild, it sent a chill creeping over me. Borne faintly to my ears, it was a fit accompaniment to the moan of the wind in the pines. It was not the cry of a trailing wolf, nor the lonesome howl of a prowling coyote, nor the strange, low sound, like a cough, of a hunting cougar, though it had a semblance of all three. It was the bay of a hound, thinned out by distance, and it served to keep me wide awake. But for a while, what with the roar and swell of the wind and Navvy’s snores, I could hear it only at long intervals.

Still, in the course of an hour, I followed the sound, or imagined so, from a point straight in line with my feet to one at right angles with my head. Finally deciding it came from Shep, and fancying he was trailing a deer or coyote, I tried to go to sleep again.

In this I would have succeeded had not, all at once, our captive lions begun to growl. That ominous, low murmuring awoke me with a vengeance, for it was unusual for them to growl in the middle of the night. I wondered if they, as well as the pup, had gotten the scent of a prowling lion.

I reached down to my feet and groped in the dark for Moze. Finding him, I gave him a shake. The old gladiator groaned, stirred, and came out of what must have been dreams of hunting meat. He slapped his tail against my bed. As luck would have it, just then the wind abated to a soft moan, and clear and sharp came the bay of a hound. Moze heard it, for he stopped wagging his tail, his body grew tense under my hand, and he vented his low, deep grumble.

I lay there undecided. To wake my companions was hardly to be considered, and to venture off into the forest alone, where old Sultan might be scouting, was not exactly to my taste. And trying to think what to do, and listening for the bay of the pup, and hearing mostly the lions growling and the wind roaring, I fell asleep.

“Hey! are you ever going to get up?” some one yelled into my drowsy brain. I roused and opened my eyes. The yellow, flickering shadows on the wall of my tent told me that the sun had long risen. I found my companions finishing breakfast. The first thing I did was to look over the dogs. Shep, the black-and-white pup, was missing.

“Where’s Shep?” I asked.

“Shore, I ain’t seen him this mornin’,” replied Jim.

Thereupon I told what I had heard during the night.

“Everybody listen,” said Jones.

We quieted down and sat like statues. A gentle, cool breeze, barely moving the pine tips, had succeeded the night wind. The sound of horses munching their oats, and an occasional clink, rattle, and growl from the lions did not drown the faint but unmistakable yelps of a pup.

“South, toward the canyon,” said Jim, as Jones got up.

“Now, it’d be funny if that little Shep, just to get even with me for tying him up so often, has treed a lion all by himself,” commented Jones. “And I’ll bet that’s just what he’s done.”

He called the hounds about him and hurried westward through the forest.

“Shore, it might be.” Jim shook his head knowingly. “I reckon it’s only a rabbit, but anythin’ might happen in this place.”

I finished breakfast and went into my tent for something — I forget what, for wild yells from Emett and Jim brought me flying out again.

“Listen to that!” cried Jim, pointing west.

The hounds had opened up; their full, wild chorus floated clearly on the breeze, and above it Jones’ stentorian yell signaled us.

“Shore, the old man can yell,” continued Jim. “Grab your lassos an’ hump yourselves. I’ve got the collar an’ chain.”

“Come on, Navvy,” shouted Emett. He grasped the Indian’s wrist and started to run, jerking Navvy into the air at every jump. I caught up my camera and followed. We crossed two shallow hollows, and then saw the hounds and Jones among the pines not far ahead.

In my excitement I outran my companions and dashed into an open glade. First I saw Jones waving his long arms; next the dogs, noses upward, and Don actually standing on his hind legs; then a dead pine with a well-known tawny shape outlined against the blue sky.

“Hurrah for Shep!” I yelled, and right vigorously did my comrades join in.

“It’s another female,” said Jones, when we calmed down, “and fair sized. That’s the best tree for our purpose that I ever saw a lion in. So spread out, boys; surround her and keep noisy.”

Navvy broke from Emett at this juncture and ran away. But evidently overcome by curiosity, he stopped to hide behind a bush, from which I saw his black head protruding.

When Jones swung himself on the first stubby branch of the pine, the lioness, some fifteen feet above, leaped to another limb, and the one she had left cracked, swayed and broke. It fell directly upon Jones, the blunt end striking his head and knocking him out of the tree. Fortunately, he landed on his feet; otherwise there would surely have been bones broken. He appeared stunned, and reeled so that Emett caught him. The blood poured from a wound in his head.

This sudden shock sobered us instantly. On examination we found a long, jagged cut in Jones’ scalp. We bathed it with water from my canteen and with snow Jim procured from a nearby hollow, eventually stopping the bleeding. I insisted on Jones coming to camp to have the wound properly dressed, and he insisted on having it bound with a bandana; after which he informed us that he was going to climb the tree again.

We objected to this. Each of us declared his willingness to go up and rope the lion; but Jones would not hear of it.

“I’m not doubting your courage,” he said. “It’s only that you cannot tell what move the lion would make next, and that’s the danger.”

We could not gainsay this, and as not one of us wanted to kill the animal or let her go, Jones had his way. So he went up the tree, passed the first branch and then another. The lioness changed her position, growled, spat, clawed the twigs, tried to keep the tree trunk between her and Jones, and at length got out on a branch in a most favorable position for roping.

The first cast of the lasso did the business, and Jim and Emett with nimble fingers tied up the hounds.

“Coming,” shouted Jones. He slid down, hand over hand, on the rope, the lioness holding his weight with apparent ease.

“Make your noose ready,” he yelled to Emett.

I had to drop my camera to help Jones and Jim pull the animal from her perch. The branches broke in a shower; then the lioness, hissing, snarling, whirling, plunged down. She nearly jerked the rope out of our hands, but we lowered her to Emett, who noosed her hind paws in a flash.

“Make fast your rope,” shouted Jones. “There, that’s good! Now let her down — easy.”

As soon as the lioness touched ground we let go the lasso, which whipped up and over the branch. She became a round, yellow, rapidly moving ball. Emett was the first to catch the loose lasso, and he checked the rolling cougar. Jones leaped to assist him and the two of them straightened out the struggling animal, while Jim swung another noose at her. On the second throw he caught a front paw.

“Pull hard! Stretch her out!” yelled Jones. He grasped a stout piece of wood and pushed it at the lioness. She caught it in her mouth, making the splinters fly. Jones shoved her head back on the ground and pressed his brawny knee on the bar of wood.

“The collar! The collar! Quick!” he called.

I threw chain and collar to him, which in a moment he had buckled round her neck.

“There, we’ve got her!” he said. “It’s only a short way over to camp, so we’ll drag her without muzzling.”

As he rose the lioness lurched, and reaching him, fastened her fangs in his leg. Jones roared. Emett and Jim yelled. And I, though frightened, was so obsessed with the idea of getting a picture that I began to fumble with the shutter of my camera.

“Grab the chain! Pull her off!” bawled Jones.

I ran in, took up the chain with both hands, and tugged with all my might. Emett, too, had all his weight on the lasso round her neck. Between the two of us we choked her hold loose, but she brought Jones’ leather leggin in her teeth. Then I dropped the chain and jumped.

“* * — * * — !” exploded Jones to me. “Do you think more of a picture than of saving my life?” Having expressed this not unreasonable protest, he untied the lasso that Emett had made fast to a small sapling.

Then the three men, forming points of a triangle around an animated center, began a march through the forest that for variety of action and splendid vociferation beat any show I ever beheld.

So rare was it that the Navajo came out of his retreat and, straightway forgetting his reverence and fear, began to execute a ghost-dance, or war-dance, or at any rate some kind of an Indian dance, along the side lines.

There were moments when the lioness had Jim and Jones on the ground and Emett wobbling; others when she ran on her bound legs and chased the two in front and dragged the one behind; others when she came within an ace of getting her teeth in somebody.

They had caught a Tartar. They dared not let her go, and though Jones evidently ordered it, no one made fast his rope to a tree. There was no opportunity. She was in the air three parts of the time and the fourth she was invisible for dust. The lassos were each thirty feet long, but even with that the men could just barely keep out of her reach.

Then came the climax, as it always comes in a lion hunt, unerringly, unexpectedly, and with lightning swiftness. The three men were nearing the bottom of the second hollow, well spread out, lassos taut, facing one another. Jones stumbled and the lioness leaped his way. The weight of both brought Jim over, sliding and slipping, with his rope slackening. The leap of the lioness carried her within reach of Jones; and as he raised himself, back toward her, she reached a big paw for him just as Emett threw all his bull strength and bulk on his lasso.

The seat of Jones’ trousers came away with the lioness’ claws. Then she fell backward, overcome by Emett’s desperate lunge. Jones sprang up with the velocity of an Arab tumbler, and his scarlet face, working spasmodically, and his moving lips, showed how utterly unable he was to give expression to his rage. I had a stitch in my side that nearly killed me, but laugh I had to though I should die for it.

No laughing matter was it for them. They volleyed and thundered back and forth meaningless words of which “hell” was the only one distinguishable, and probably the word that best described their situation.

All the while, however, they had been running from the lioness, which brought them before they realized it right into camp. Our captive lions cut up fearfully at the hubbub, and the horses stampeded in terror.

“Whoa!” yelled Jones, whether to his companions or to the struggling cougar, no one knew. But Navvy thought Jones addressed the cougar.

“Whoa!” repeated Navvy. “No savvy whoa! No savvy whoa!” which proved conclusively that the Navajo had understanding as well as wit.

Soon we had another captive safely chained and growling away in tune with the others. I went back to untie the hounds, to find them sulky and out of sorts from being so unceremoniously treated. They noisily trailed the lioness into camp, where, finding her chained, they formed a ring around her.

Thereafter the day passed in round-the-camp-fire chat and task. For once Jim looked at Navvy with toleration. We dressed the wound in Jones’ head and laughed at the condition of his trousers and at his awkward attempts to piece them.

“Mucha dam cougie,” remarked Navvy. “No savvy whoa!”

The lions growled all day. And Jones kept repeating: “To think how Shep fooled me!”

X

Next morning Jones was out bright and early, yelling at Navvy to hurry with the horses, calling to the hounds and lions, just as usual.

Navvy had finally come to his full share of praise from all of us. Even Jim acknowledged that the Indian was invaluable to a hunting party in a country where grass and water were hard to find and wild horses haunted the trails.

“Tohodena! Tohodena! (hurry! hurry!)” said Navvy, mimicking Jones that morning.

As we sat down to breakfast he loped off into the forest and before we got up the bells of the horses were jingling in the hollow.

“I believe it’s going to be cloudy,” said Jones, “and if so we can hunt all day.”

We rode down the ridge to the left of Middle Canyon, and had trouble with the hounds all the way. First they ran foul of a coyote, which was the one and only beast they could not resist. Spreading out to head them off, we separated. I cut into a hollow and rode to its head, where I went up. I heard the hounds and presently saw a big, white coyote making fast time through the forest glades. It looked as if he would cross close in front of me, so I pulled Foxie to a standstill, jumped off and knelt with my rifle ready. But the sharp-eyed coyote saw my horse and shied off. I had not much hope to hit him so far away, and the five bullets I sent after him, singing and zipping, served only to make him run faster. I mounted Foxie and intercepted the hounds coming up sharply on the trail, and turned them toward my companions, now hallooing from the ridge below.

Then the pack lost a good hour on several lion tracks that were a day old, and for such trails we had no time. We reached the cedars however at seven o’clock, and as the sky was overcast with low dun-colored clouds and the air cool, we were sure it was not too late.

One of the capes of the plateau between Middle and Left Canyon was a narrow strip of rock, covered with a dense cedar growth and cut up into smaller canyons, all running down inevitably toward the great canyon. With but a single bark to warn us, Don got out of our sight and hearing; and while we split to look and call for him the remainder of the pack found the lion trail that he had gone on, and they left us trying to find a way out as well as to find each other. I kept the hounds in hearing for some time and meanwhile I signalled to Emett who was on my right flank. Jones and Jim might as well have vanished off the globe for all I could see or hear of them. A deep, narrow gully into which I had to lead Foxie and carefully coax him out took so much time that when I once more reached a level I could not hear the hounds or get an answer to my signal cry.

“Waa-hoo!” I called again.

Away on the dry rarified air pealed the cry, piercing the cedar forest, splitting sharp in the vaulted canyons, rolling loud and long, to lose power, to die away in muffling echo. But the silence returned no answer.

I rode on under the cedars, through a dark, gloomy forest, silent, almost spectral, which brought irresistibly to my mind the words “I found me in a gloomy wood astray.” I was lost though I knew the direction of the camp. This section of cedar forest was all but impenetrable. Dead cedars were massed in gray tangles, live cedars, branches touching the ground, grew close together. In this labyrinth I lost my bearings. I turned and turned, crossed my own back trail, which in desperation I followed, coming out of the cedars at the deep and narrow canyon.

Here I fired my revolver. The echo boomed out like the report of heavy artillery, but no answering shot rewarded me. There was no alternative save to wander along the canyon and through the cedars until I found my companions. This I began to do, disgusted with my awkwardness in losing them. Turning Foxie westward I had scarcely gotten under way when Don came trotting toward me.

“Hello, old boy!” I called. Don appeared as happy to see me as I was to see him. He flopped down on the ground; his dripping tongue rolled as he panted; covered with dust and flecked with light froth he surely looked to be a tired hound.

“All in, eh Don!” I said dismounting. “Well, we’ll rest awhile.” Then I discovered blood on his nose, which I found to have come from a deep scratch. “A — ah! been pushing a lion too hard this morning? Got your nose scratched, didn’t you? You great, crazy hound, don’t you know some day you’ll chase your last lion?”

Don wagged his tail as if to say he knew it all very well. I wet my handkerchief from my canteen and started to wash the blood and dust from his nose, when he whined and licked my fingers.

“Thirsty?” I asked, sitting down beside him. Denting the top of my hat I poured in as much water as it would hold and gave him to drink. Four times he emptied my improvised cup before he was satisfied. Then with a sigh of relief he lay down again.

The three of us rested there for perhaps half an hour, Don and I sitting quietly on the wall of the canyon, while Foxie browsed on occasional tufts of grass. During that time the hound never raised his sleek, dark head, which showed conclusively the nature of the silence. And now that I had company — as good company as any hunter ever had — I was once more contented.

Don got up, at length of his own volition and with a wag of his tail set off westward along the rim. Remounting my mustang I kept as close to Don’s heels as the rough going permitted. The hound, however, showed no disposition to hurry, and I let him have his way without a word.

We came out in the notch of the great amphitheater or curve we had named the Bay, and I saw again the downward slope, the bold steps, the color and depth below.

I was just about to yell a signal cry when I saw Don, with hair rising stiff, run forward. He took a dozen jumps, then yelping broke down the steep, yellow and green gorge. He disappeared before I knew what had happened.

Shortly I found a lion track, freshly made, leading down. I believed I could follow wherever Don led, so I decided to go after him. I tied Foxie securely, removed my coat, kicked off spurs and chaps, and remembering past unnecessary toil, fastened a red bandana to the top of a dead snag to show me where to come up on my way out. Then I carefully strapped my canteen and camera on my back, made doubly secure my revolver, put on my heavy gloves, and started down. And I realized at once that only so lightly encumbered should I have ever ventured down the slope.

Little benches of rock, grassy on top, with here and there cedar trees, led steeply down for perhaps five hundred feet. A precipice stopped me. From it I heard Don baying below, and almost instantly saw the yellow gleam of a lion in a tree-top.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” I yelled in wild encouragement.

I felt it would be wise to look before I leaped. The Bay lay under me, a mile wide where it opened into the great slumbering smoky canyon. All below was chaos of splintered stone and slope, green jumble of cedar, ruined, detached, sliding, standing cliff walls, leaning yellow crags — an awful hole. But I could get down, and that was all I cared for. I ran along to the left, jumping cracks, bounding over the uneven stones with sure, swift feet, and came to where the cliff ended in weathered slope and scaly bench.

It was like a game, going down that canyon. My heavy nailed boots struck fire from the rocks. My heavy gloves protected my hands as I slid and hung on and let go. I outfooted the avalanches and wherever I came to a scaly slope or bank or decayed rock, I leaped down in sheer delight.

But all too soon my progress was barred; once under the cliff I found only a gradual slope and many obstacles to go round or surmount. Luck favored me, for I ran across a runway and keeping to it made better time. I heard Don long before I tried to see him, and yelled at intervals to let him know I was coming. A white bank of weathered stones led down to a clump of cedars from where Don’s bay came spurring me to greater efforts. I flew down this bank, and through an opening saw the hound standing with fore feet against a cedar. The branches over him swayed, and I saw an indistinct, tawny form move downward in the air. Then succeeded the crash and rattle of stones. Don left the tree and disappeared.

I dashed down, dodged under the cedars, threaded a maze of rocks, to find myself in a ravine with a bare, water-worn floor. In patches of sand showed the fresh tracks of Don and the lion. Running down this dry, clean bed was the easiest going I ever found in the canyon. Every rod the course jumped in a fall from four to ten feet, often more, and these I slid down. How I ever kept Don in hearing was a marvel, but still I did.

The lion evidently had no further intention of taking to a tree. From the size of his track I concluded he was old and I feared every moment to hear the sounds of a fight. Jones had said that nearly always in the case of one hound chasing an old lion, the lion would lie in wait for him and kill him. And I was afraid for Don.

Down, down, down, we went, till the yellow rim above seemed a thin band of gold. I saw that we were almost to the canyon proper, and I wondered what would happen when we reached it. The dark shaded watercourse suddenly shot out into bright light and ended in a deep cove, with perpendicular walls fifty feet high. I could see where a few rods farther on this cove opened into a huge, airy, colored canyon.

I called the hound, wondering if he had gone to the right or left of the cove. His bay answered me coming from the cedars far to the right. I turned with all the speed left in me, for I felt the chase nearing an end. Tracks of hound and lion once more showed in the dust. The slope was steep and stones I sent rolling cracked down below. Soon I had a cliff above me and had to go slow and cautiously. A misstep or slide would have precipitated me into the cove.

Almost before I knew what I was about, I stood gasping on the gigantic second wall of the canyon, with nothing but thin air under me, except, far below, faint and indistinct purple clefts, red ridges, dotted slopes, running down to merge in a dark, winding strip of water, that was the Rio Colorado. A sullen murmur soared out of the abyss.

The coloring of my mood changed. Never had the canyon struck me so terribly with its illimitable space, its dread depth, its unscalable cliffs, and particularly with the desolate, forbidding quality of its silence.

I heard Don bark. Turning the corner of the cliff wall I saw him on a narrow shelf. He was coming toward me and when he reached me he faced again to the wall and barked fiercely. The hair on his neck bristled. I knew he did not fancy that narrow strip of rock, nor did I. But a sudden, grim, cold something had taken possession of me, and I stepped forward.

“Come on, Don, old fellow, we’ve got him corralled.”

That was the first instance I ever knew of Don’s hesitation in the chase of a lion. I had to coax him to me. But once started he took the lead and I closely followed.

The shelf was twenty feet wide and upon it close to the wall, in the dust, were the deep imprints of the lion. A jutting corner of cliff wall hid my view. I peeped around it. The shelf narrowed on the other side to a yard in width, and climbed gradually by broken steps. Don passed the corner, looked back to see if I was coming and went on. He did this four times, once even stopping to wait for me.

“I’m with you Don!” I grimly muttered. “We’ll see this trail out to a finish.”

I had now no eyes for the wonders of the place, though I could not but see as I bent a piercing gaze ahead the ponderous overhanging wall above, and sense the bottomless depth below. I felt rather than saw the canyon swallows, sweeping by in darting flight, with soft rustle of wings, and I heard the shrill chirp of some strange cliff inhabitant.

Don ceased barking. How strange that seemed to me! We were no longer man and hound, but companions, brothers, each one relying on the other. A protruding corner shut us from sight of what was beyond. Don slipped around. I had to go sidewise and shuddered as my fingers bit into the wall.

To my surprise I soon found myself on the floor of a shallow wind cave. The lion trail led straight across it and on. Shelves of rock stuck out above under which I hurriedly walked. I came upon a shrub cedar growing in a niche and marveled to see it there. Don went slower and slower.

We suddenly rounded a point, to see the lion lying in a box-like space in the wall. The shelf ended there. I had once before been confronted with a like situation, and had expected to find it here, so was not frightened. The lion looked up from his task of licking a bloody paw, and uttered a fierce growl. His tail began to lash to and fro; it knocked the little stones off the shelf. I heard them click on the wall. Again and again he spat, showing great, white fangs. He was a Tom, heavy and large.

It had been my purpose, of course, to photograph this lion, and now that we had cornered him I proposed to do it. What would follow had only hazily formed in my mind, but the nucleus of it was that he should go free. I got my camera, opened it, and focused from between twenty and twenty-five feet.

Then a growl from Don and roar from the lion bade me come to my senses. I did so and my first movement after seeing the lion had risen threateningly was to whip out my revolver.

The lion’s cruel yellow eyes darkened and darkened. In an instant I saw my error. Jones had always said in case any one of us had to face a lion, never for a single instant to shift his glance. I had forgotten that, and in that short interval when I focused my camera the lion had seen I meant him no harm, or feared him, and he had risen. Even then in desperate lessening ambition for a great picture I attempted to take one, still keeping my glance on him.

It was then that the appalling nature of my predicament made itself plain to me. The lion leaped ten feet and stood snarling horribly right in my face.

Brave, noble Don, with infinitely more sense and courage than I possessed, faced the lion and bayed him in his teeth. I raised the revolver and aimed twice, each time lowering it because I feared to shoot in such a precarious position. To wound the lion would be the worst thing I could do, and I knew that only a shot through the brain would kill him in his tracks.

“Hold him, Don, hold him!” I yelled, and I took a backward step. The lion put forward one big paw, his eyes now all purple blaze. I backed again and he came forward. Don gave ground slowly. Once the lion flashed a yellow paw at him. It was frightful to see the wide-spread claws.

In the consternation of the moment I allowed the lion to back me across the front of the wind cave, where I saw, the moment it was too late, I should have taken advantage of more space to shoot him.

Fright succeeded consternation, and I began to tremble. The lion was master of the situation. What would happen when I came to the narrow point on the shelf where it would be impossible for me to back around? I almost fainted. The thought of heroic Don saved me, and the weak moment passed.

“By God, Don, you’ve got the nerve, and I must have it too!”

I stopped in my tracks. The lion, appearing huge now, took slow catlike steps toward me, backing Don almost against my knees. He was so close I smelt him. His wonderful eyes, clear blue fire circled by yellow flame, fascinated me. Hugging the wall with my body I brought the revolver up, short armed, and with clinched teeth, and nerve strained to the breaking point, I aimed between the eyes and pulled the trigger.

The left eye seemed to go out blankly, then followed the bellow of the revolver and the smell of powder. The lion uttered a sound that was a mingling of snarls, howls and roars and he rose straight up, towering high over my head, beating the wall heavily with his paws.

In helpless terror I stood there forgetting weapon, fearing only the beast would fall over on me.

But in death agony he bounded out from the wall to fall into space.

I sank down on the shelf, legs powerless, body in cold sweat. As I waited, slowly my mind freed itself from a tight iron band and a sickening relief filled my soul. Tensely I waited and listened. Don whined once.

Would the lion never strike? What seemed a long period of time ended in a low, distant roar of sliding rock, quickly dying into the solemn stillness of the canyon.

XI

I lay there for some moments slowly recovering, eyes on the far distant escarpments, now darkly red and repellent to me. When I got up my legs were still shaky and I had the strange, weak sensation of a long bed-ridden invalid. Three attempts were necessary before I could trust myself on the narrow strip of shelf. But once around it with the peril passed, I braced up and soon reached the turn in the wall.

After that the ascent out of the Bay was only a matter of work, which I gave with a will. Don did not evince any desire for more hunting that day. We reached the rim together, and after a short rest, I mounted my horse, and we turned for camp.

The sun had long slanted toward the western horizon when I saw the blue smoke of our camp-fire among the pines. The hounds rose up and barked as Don trotted in to the blaze, and my companions just sitting to a dinner, gave me a noisy greeting.

“Shore, we’d began to get worried,” said Jim. “We all had it comin’ to us to-day, and don’t you forget that.”

Dinner lasted for a long hour. Besides being half famished we all took time between bites to talk. I told my story first, expecting my friends to be overwhelmed, but they were not.

“It’s been the greatest day of lion hunting that I ever experienced,” declared Jones. “We ran bang into a nest of lions and they split. We all split and the hounds split. That tells the tale. We have nothing to show for our day’s toil. Six lions chased, rounded up, treed, holed, and one lion killed, and we haven’t even his skin to show. I did not go down but I helped Ranger and two of the pups chase a lion all over the lower end of the plateau. We treed him twice and I yelled for you fellows till my voice was gone.”

“Well,” said Emett, “I fell in with Sounder and Jude. They were hot on a trail which in a mile or two turned up this way. I came on them just at the edge of the pines where they had treed their game. I sat under that pine tree for five hours, fired all my shots to make you fellows come, yelled myself hoarse and then tried to tie up the lion alone. He jumped out and ran over the rim, where neither I nor the dogs could follow.”

“Shore, I win, three of a kind,” drawled Jim, as he got his pipe and carefully dusted the bowl. “When the stampede came, I got my hands on Moze and held him. I held Moze because just as the other hounds broke loose over to my right, I saw down into a little pocket where a fresh-killed deer lay half eaten. So I went down. I found two other carcasses layin’ there, fresh killed last night, flesh all gone, hide gone, bones crushed, skull split open. An’ damn me fellows, if that little pocket wasn’t all torn to pieces. The sage was crushed flat. The ground dug up, dead snags broken, and blood and hair everywhere. Lion tracks like leaves, and old Sultan’s was there. I let Moze loose and he humped the trail of several lions south over the rim. Major got down first an’ came back with his tail between his legs. Moze went down and I kept close to him. It wasn’t far down, but steep and rocky, full of holes. Moze took the trail to a dark cave. I saw the tracks of three lions goin’ in. Then I collared Moze an’ waited for you fellows. I waited there all day, an’ nobody came to my call. Then I made for camp.”

“How do you account for the torn-up appearance of the place where you found the carcasses?” I asked.

“Lion fight sure,” replied Jones. “Maybe old Sultan ran across the three lions feeding, and pitched into them. Such fights were common among the lions in Yellowstone Park when I was there.”

“What chance have we to find those three lions in a cave where Jim chased them?”

“We stand a good chance,” said Jones. “Especially if it storms to-night.”

“Shore the snow storm is comin’,” returned Jim.

Darkness clapped down on us suddenly, and the wind roared in the pines like a mighty river tearing its way down a rocky pass. As we could not control the camp-fire, sparks of which blew fiercely, we extinguished it and went to bed. I had just settled myself comfortably to be sung to sleep by the concert in the pines, when Jones hailed me.

“Say, what do you think?” he yelled, when I had answered him. “Emett is mad. He’s scratching to beat the band. He’s got ‘em.”

I signalled his information with a loud whoop of victory.

“You next, Jones! They’re coming to you!”

I heard him grumble over my happy anticipation. Jim laughed and so did the Navajo, which made me suspect that he could understand more English than he wanted us to suppose.

Next morning a merry yell disturbed my slumbers. “Snowed in — snowed in!”

“Mucha snow — discass — no cougie — dam no bueno!” exclaimed Navvy.

When I peeped out to see the forest in the throes of a blinding blizzard, the great pines only pale, grotesque shadows, everything white mantled in a foot of snow, I emphasized the Indian words in straight English.

“Much snow — cold — no cougar — bad!”

“Stay in bed,” yelled Jones.

“All right,” I replied. “Say Jones, have you got ’em yet?”

He vouchsafed me no answer. I went to sleep then and dozed off and on till noon, when the storm abated. We had dinner, or rather breakfast, round a blazing bonfire.

“It’s going to clear up,” said Jim.

The forest around us was a somber and gloomy place. The cloud that had enveloped the plateau lifted and began to move. It hit the tree tops, sometimes rolling almost to the ground, then rising above the trees. At first it moved slowly, rolling, forming, expanding, blooming like a column of whirling gray smoke; then it gathered headway and rolled onward through the forest. A gray, gloomy curtain, moving and rippling, split by the trees, seemed to be passing over us. It rose higher and higher, to split up in great globes, to roll apart, showing glimpses of blue sky.

Shafts of golden sunshine shot down from these rifts, dispelling the shadows and gloom, moving in paths of gold through the forest glade, gleaming with brilliantly colored fire from the snow-wreathed pines.

The cloud rolled away and the sun shone hot. The trees began to drip. A mist of diamonds filled the air, rainbows curved through every glade and feathered patches of snow floated down.

A great bank of snow, sliding from the pine overhead almost buried the Navajo, to our infinite delight. We all sought the shelter of the tents, and sleep again claimed us.

I awoke about five o’clock. The sun was low, making crimson paths in the white aisles of the forest. A cold wind promised a frosty morning.

“To-morrow will be the day for lions,” exclaimed Jones.

While we hugged the fire, Navvy brought up the horses and gave them their oats. The hounds sought their shelter and the lions lay hidden in their beds of pine. The round red sun dropped out of sight beyond the trees, a pink glow suffused all the ridges; blue shadows gathered in the hollow, shaded purple and stole upward. A brief twilight succeeded to a dark, coldly starlit night.

Once again, when I had crawled into the warm hole of my sleeping bag, was I hailed from the other tent.

Emett called me twice, and as I answered, I heard Jones remonstrating in a low voice.

“Shore, Jones has got ‘em!” yelled Jim. “He can’t keep it a secret no longer.”

“Hey, Jones,” I cried, “do you remember laughing at me?”

“No, I don’t,” growled Jones.

“Listen to this: Haw-haw! haw! haw! ho-ho! ho-ho! bueno! bueno!” and I wound up with a string of “hi! hi! hi! hi! hi!”

The hounds rose up in a body and began to yelp.

“Lie down, pups,” I called to them. “Nothing doing for you. It’s only Jones has got ‘em.”

XII

When we trooped out of the pines next morning, the sun, rising gloriously bright, had already taken off the keen edge of the frosty air, presaging a warm day. The white ridges glistened; the bunches of sage scintillated, and the cedars, tipped in snow, resembled trees with brilliant blossoms.

We lost no time riding for the mouth of Left Canyon, into which Jim had trailed the three lions. On the way the snow, as we had expected, began to thin out, and it failed altogether under the cedars, though there was enough on the branches to give us a drenching.

Jim reined in on the verge of a narrow gorge, and informed us the cave was below. Jones looked the ground over and said Jim had better take the hounds down while the rest of us remained above to await developments.

Jim went down on foot, calling the hounds and holding them close. We listened eagerly for him to yell or the pack to open up, but we were disappointed. In less than half an hour Jim came climbing out, with the information that the lions had left the cave, probably the evening after he had chased them there.

“Well, then,” said Jones, “let’s split the pack, and hunt round the rims of these canyons. We can signal to each other if necessary.”

So we arranged for Jim to take Ranger and the pups across Left Canyon; Emett to try Middle Canyon, with Don and Moze, and we were to perform a like office in Right Canyon with Sounder and Jude. Emett rode back with us, leaving us where we crossed Middle Canyon.

Jones and I rimmed a mile of our canyon and worked out almost to the west end of the Bay, without finding so much as a single track, so we started to retrace our way. The sun was now hot; the snow all gone; the ground dry as if it had never been damp; and Jones grumbled that no success would attend our efforts this morning.

We reached the ragged mouth of Right Canyon, where it opened into the deep, wide Bay, and because we hoped to hear our companions across the canyon, we rode close to the rim. Sounder and Jude both began to bark on a cliff; however, as we could find no tracks in the dust we called them off. Sounder obeyed reluctantly, but Jude wanted to get down over the wall.

“They scent a lion,” averred Jones. “Let’s put them over the wall.”

Once permitted to go, the hounds needed no assistance. They ran up and down the rim till they found a crack. Hardly had they gone out of sight when we heard them yelping. We rushed to the rim and looked over. The first step was short, a crumbled section of wall, and from it led down a long slope, dotted here and there with cedars. Both hounds were baying furiously.

I spied Jude with her paws up on a cedar, and above her hung a lion, so close that she could nearly reach him. Sounder was not yet in sight.

“There! There!” I cried, directing Jones’ glance. “Are we not lucky?”

“I see. By George! Come, we’ll go down. Leave everything that you don’t absolutely need.”

Spurs, chaps, gun, coat, hat, I left on the rim, taking only my camera and lasso. I had forgotten to bring my canteen. We descended a ladder of shaly cliff, the steps of which broke under our feet. The slope below us was easy, and soon we stood on a level with the lion. The cedar was small, and afforded no good place for him. Evidently he jumped from the slope to the tree, and had hung where he first alighted.

“Where’s Sounder? Look for him. I hear him below. This lion won’t stay treed long.”

I, too, heard Sounder. The cedar tree obstructed my view, and I moved aside. A hundred feet farther down the hound bayed under a tall piñon. High in the branches I saw a great mass of yellow, and at first glance thought Sounder had treed old Sultan. How I yelled! Then a second glance showed two lions close together.

“Two more! two more! look! look!” I yelled to Jones.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” he joined his robust yell to mine, and for a moment we made the canyon bellow. When we stopped for breath the echoes bayed at us from the opposite walls.

“Waa-hoo!” Emett’s signal, faint, far away, soaring but unmistakable, floated down to us. Across the jutting capes separating the mouths of these canyons, high above them on the rim wall of the opposite side of the Bay, stood a giant white horse silhouetted against the white sky. They made a brave picture, one most welcome to us. We yelled in chorus: “Three lions treed! Three lions treed! come down — hurry!”

A crash of rolling stones made us wheel. Jude’s lion had jumped. He ran straight down, drawing Sounder from his guard. Jude went tearing after them.

“I’ll follow; you stay here. Keep them up there, if you can!” yelled Jones. Then in long strides he passed down out of sight among the trees and crags.

It had all happened so quickly that I could scarcely realize it. The yelping of the hounds, the clattering of stones, grew fainter, telling me Jude and Sounder, with Jones, were going to the bottom of the Bay.

Both lions snarling at me brought me to a keen appreciation of the facts in the case. Two full-grown lions to be kept treed without hounds, without a companion, without a gun.

“This is fine! This is funny!” I cried, and for a moment I wanted to run. But the same grim, deadly feeling that had taken me with Don around the narrow shelf now rose in me stronger and fiercer. I pronounced one savage malediction upon myself for leaving my gun. I could not go for it; I would have to make the best of my error, and in the wildness born of the moment I swore if the lions would stay treed for the hounds they would stay treed for me.

First I photographed them from different positions; then I took up my stand about on a level with them in an open place on the slope where they had me in plain sight. I might have been fifty feet from them. They showed no inclination to come down.

About this moment I heard hounds below, coming down from the left. I called and called, but they passed on down the canyon bottom in the direction Jones had taken.

Presently a chorus of bays, emphasized by Jones’ yell, told me his lion had treed again.

“Waa-hoo!” rolled down from above.

I saw Emett farther to the left from the point where he had just appeared.

“Where — can — I — get — down?”

I surveyed the walls of the Bay. Cliff on cliff, slide on slide, jumble, crag, and ruin, baffled my gaze. But I finally picked out a path.

“Farther to the left,” I yelled, and waited. He passed on, Don at his heels.

“There,” I yelled again, “stop there; let Don go down with your lasso, and come yourself.”

I watched him swing the hound down a wall, and pull the slip noose free. Don slid to the edge of a slope, trotted to the right and left of crags, threaded the narrow places, and turned in the direction of the baying hounds. He passed on the verge of precipices that made me tremble for him; but sure-footed as a goat, he went on safely down, to disappear far to my right.

Then I saw Emett sliding, leg wrapped around his lasso, down the first step of the rim. His lasso, doubled so as to reach round a cedar above, was too short to extend to the landing below. He dropped, raising a cloud of dust, and starting the stones. Pulling one end of his lasso up around the cedar he gathered it in a coil on his arm and faced forward, following Don’s trail.

What strides he took! In the clear light, with that wild red and yellow background, with the stones and gravel roaring down, streaming over the walls like waterfalls, he seemed a giant pursuing a foe. From time to time he sent up a yell of encouragement that wound down the canyon, to be answered by Jones and the baying hounds and then the strange echoes. At last he passed out of sight behind the crests of the trees; I heard him going down, down till the sounds came up faint and hollow.

I was left absolutely alone with my two lions and never did a hunter so delight in a situation. I sat there in the sun watching them. For a long time they were quiet, listening. But as the bays and yells below diminished in volume and occurrence and then ceased altogether, they became restless. It was then that I, remembering the lion I had held on top of the crag, began to bark like a hound. The lions became quiet once more.

I bayed them for an hour. My voice grew from hoarse to hoarser, and finally failed in my throat. The lions immediately grew restless again. The lower one hissed, spat and growled at me, and made many attempts to start down, each one of which I frustrated by throwing stones under the tree. At length he made one more determined effort, turned head downward, and stepped from branch to branch.

I dashed down the incline with a stone in one hand and a long club in the other. Instinctively I knew I must hurt him — make him fear me. If he got far enough down to jump, he would either escape or have me helpless. I aimed deliberately at him, and hit him square in the ribs. He exploded in a spit-roar that raised my hair. Directly under him I wielded my club, pounded on the tree, thrashed at the branches and, like the crazy fool that I was, yelled at him:

“Go back! Go back! Don’t you dare come down! I’d break your old head for you!”

Foolish or not, this means effectually stopped the descent. He climbed to his first perch. It was then, realizing what I had done, that I would certainly have made tracks from under the piñon, if I had not heard the faint yelp of a hound.

I listened. It came again, faint but clearer. I looked up at my lions. They too heard, for they were very still. I saw how strained they held their heads. I backed a little way up the slope. Then the faint yelp floated up again in the silence. Such dead, strange silence, that seemed never to have been broken! I saw the lions quiver, and if I ever heard anything in my life I heard their hearts thump. The yelp wafted up again, closer this time. I recognized it; it belonged to Don. The great hound on the back trail of the other lion was coming to my rescue.

“It’s Don! It’s Don! It’s Don!” I cried, shaking my club at the lions. “It’s all up with you now!” What feelings stirred me then! Pity for those lions dominated me. Big, tawny, cruel fellows as they were, they shivered with fright. Their sides trembled. But pity did not hold me long; Don’s yelp, now getting clear and sharp, brought back the rush of savage, grim sensations.

A full-toned bay attracted my attention from the lions to the downward slope. I saw a yellow form moving under the trees and climbing fast. It was Don.

“Hi! Hi! old boy!” I yelled.

Then it seemed he moved up like a shot and stood all his long length, forepaws against the piñon, his deep bay ringing defiance to the lions.

It was a great relief, not to say a probable necessity, for me to sit down just then.

“Now come down,” I said to my lions; “you can’t catch that hound, and you can’t get away from him.”

Moments passed. I was just on the point of deciding to go down to hurry up my comrades, when I heard the other hounds coming. Yelp on yelp, bay on bay, made welcome music to my ears. Then a black and yellow, swiftly flying string of hounds bore into sight down the slope, streaked up and circled the piñon.

Jones, who at last showed his tall stooping form on the steep ascent, seemed as long in coming as the hounds had been swift.

“Did you get the lion? Where’s Emett?” I asked in breathless eagerness.

“Lion tied — all fast,” replied the panting Jones. “Left Emett — to guard — him.”

“What are we to do now?”

“Wait — till I get my breath. Think out — a plan. We can’t get both lions — out of one tree.”

“All right,” I replied, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll tie Sounder and Moze. You go up the tree. That first lion will jump, sure; he’s almost ready now. Don and the other hounds will tree him again pretty soon. If he runs up the canyon, well and good. Then, if you can get the lasso on the other, I’ll yell for Emett to come up to help you, and I’ll follow Don.”

Jones began the ascent of the piñon. The branches were not too close, affording him easy climbing. Before we looked for even a move on the part of the lions, the lower one began stepping down. I yelled a warning, but Jones did not have time to take advantage of it. He had half turned, meaning to swing out and drop, when the lion planted both forepaws upon his back. Jones went sprawling down with the lion almost on him.

Don had his teeth in the lion before he touched the ground, and when he did strike the rest of the hounds were on him. A cloud of dust rolled down the slope. The lion broke loose and with great, springy bounds ran up the canyon, Don and his followers hot-footing it after him.

Moze and Sounder broke the dead sapling to which I had tied them, and dragging it behind them, endeavored in frenzied action to join the chase. I drew them back, loosening the rope, so in case the other lion jumped I could free them quickly.

Jones calmly gathered himself up, rearranged his lasso, took his long stick, and proceeded to mount the piñon again. I waited till I saw him slip the noose over the lion’s head, then I ran down the slope to yell for Emett. He answered at once. I told him to hurry to Jones’ assistance. With that I headed up the canyon.

I hung close to the broad trail left by the lion and his pursuers. I passed perilously near the brink of precipices, but fear of them was not in me that day. I passed out of the Bay into the mouth of Left Canyon, and began to climb. The baying of the hounds directed me. In the box of yellow walls the chorus seemed to come from a hundred dogs.

When I found them, close to a low cliff, baying the lion in a thick, dark piñon, Ranger leaped into my arms and next Don stood up against me with his paws on my shoulders. These were strange actions, and though I marked it at the moment, I had ceased to wonder at our hounds. I took one picture as the lion sat in the dark shade, and then climbed to the low cliff and sat down. I called Don to me and held him. In case our quarry leaped upon the cliff I wanted a hound to put quickly on his trail.

Another hour passed. It must have been a dark hour for the lion — he looked as if it were — and one of impatience for the baying hounds, but for me it was a full hour. Alone with the hounds and a lion, far from the walks of men, walled in by the wild-colored cliffs, with the dry, sweet smell of cedar and piñon, I asked no more.

Sounder and Moze, vociferously venting their arrival, were forerunners to Jones. I saw his gray locks waving in the breeze, and yelled for him to take his time. As he reached me the lion jumped and ran up the canyon. This suited me, for I knew he would take to a tree soon and the farther up he went the less distance we would have to pack him. From the cliff I saw him run up a slope, pass a big cedar, cunningly turn on his trail, and then climb into the tree and hide in its thickest part. Don passed him, got off the trail, and ran at fault. The others, so used to his leadership, were also baffled. But Jude, crippled and slow, brought up the rear, and she did not go a yard beyond where the lion turned. She opened up her deep call under the cedar, and in a moment the howling pack were around her.

Jones and I toiled laboriously upward. He had brought my lasso, and he handed it to me with the significant remark that I would soon have need of it.

The cedar was bushy and overhung a yellow, bare slope that made Jones shake his head. He climbed the tree, lassoed the spitting lion and then leaped down to my side. By united and determined efforts we pulled the lion off the limb and let him down. The hounds began to leap at him. We both roared in a rage at them but to no use.

“Hold him there!” shouted Jones, leaving me with the lasso while he sprang forward.

The weight of the animal dragged me forward and, had I not taken a half hitch round a dead snag, would have lifted me off my feet or pulled the lasso from my hands. As it was, the choking lion, now within reach of the furious, leaping hounds, swung to and fro before my face. He could not see me, but his frantic lunges narrowly missed me.

If never before, Jones then showed his genius. Don had hold of the lion’s flank, and Jones, grabbing the hound by the hind legs, threw him down the slope. Don fell and rolled a hundred feet before he caught himself. Then Jones threw old Moze rolling, and Ranger, and all except faithful Jude. Before they could get back he roped the lion again and made fast to a tree. Then he yelled for me to let go. The lion fell. Jones grabbed the lasso, at the same time calling for me to stop the hounds. As they came bounding up the steep slope, I had to club the noble fellows into submission.

Before the lion recovered wholly from his severe choking, we had his paws bound fast. Then he could only heave his tawny sides, glare and spit at us.

“Now what?” asked Jones. “Emett is watching the second lion, which we fastened by chain and lasso to a swinging branch. I’m all in. My heart won’t stand any more climb.”

“You go to camp for the pack horses,” I said briefly. “Bring them all, and all the packs, and Navvy, too. I’ll help Emett tie up the second lion, and then we’ll pack them both up here to this one. You take the hounds with you.”

“Can you tie up that lion?” asked Jones. “Mind you, he’s loose except for a collar and chain. His claws haven’t been clipped. Besides, it’ll be an awful job to pack those two lions up here.”

“We can try,” I said. “You hustle to camp. Your horse is right up back of here, across the point, if I don’t mistake my bearings.”

Jones, admonishing me again, called the hounds and wearily climbed the slope. I waited until he was out of hearing; then began to retrace my trail down into the canyon. I made the descent in quick time, to find Emett standing guard over the lion. The beast had been tied to an overhanging branch that swung violently with every move he made.

“When I got here,” said Emett, “he was hanging over the side of that rock, almost choked to death. I drove him into this corner between the rocks and the tree, where he has been comparatively quiet. Now, what’s up? Where is Jones? Did you get the third lion?”

I related what had occurred, and then said we were to tie this lion and pack him with the other one up the canyon, to meet Jones and the horses.

“All right,” replied Emett, with a grim laugh. “We’d better get at it. Now I’m some worried about the lion we left below. He ought to be brought up, but we both can’t go. This lion here will kill himself.”

“What will the other one weigh?”

“All of one hundred and fifty pounds.”

“You can’t pack him alone.”

“I’ll try, and I reckon that’s the best plan. Watch this fellow and keep him in the corner.”

Emett left me then, and I began a third long vigil beside a lion. The rest was more than welcome. An hour and a half passed before I heard the sliding of stones below, which told me that Emett was coming. He appeared on the slope almost bent double, carrying the lion, head downward, before him. He could climb only a few steps without lowering his burden and resting.

I ran down to meet him. We secured a stout pole, and slipping this between the lion’s paws, below where they were tied, we managed to carry him fairly well, and after several rests, got him up alongside the other.

“Now to tie that rascal!” exclaimed Emett. “Jones said he was the meanest one he’d tackled, and I believe it. We’ll cut a piece off of each lasso, and unravel them so as to get strings. I wish Jones hadn’t tied the lasso to that swinging branch.”

“I’ll go and untie it.” Acting on this suggestion I climbed the tree and started out on the branch. The lion growled fiercely.

“I’m afraid you’d better stop,” warned Emett. “That branch is bending, and the lion can reach you.”

But despite this I slipped out a couple of yards farther, and had almost gotten to the knotted lasso, when the branch swayed and bent alarmingly. The lion sprang from his corner and crouched under me snarling and spitting, with every indication of leaping.

“Jump! Jump! Jump!” shouted Emett hoarsely.

I dared not, for I could not jump far enough to get out of the lion’s reach. I raised my legs and began to slide myself back up the branch. The lion leaped, missing me, but scattering the dead twigs. Then the beast, beside himself with fury, half leaped, half stood up, and reached for me. I looked down into his blazing eyes, and open mouth and saw his white fangs.

Everything grew blurred before my eyes. I desperately fought for control over mind and muscle. I heard hoarse roars from Emett. Then I felt a hot, burning pain in my wrist, which stung all my faculties into keen life again.

I saw the lion’s beaked claws fastened in my leather wrist-band. At the same instant Emett dashed under the branch, and grasped the lion’s tail. One powerful lunge of his broad shoulders tore the lion loose and flung him down the slope to the full extent of his lasso. Quick as thought I jumped down, and just in time to prevent Emett from attacking the lion with the heavy pole we had used.

“I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” roared Emett.

“No you won’t,” I replied, quietly, for my pain had served to soothe my excitement as well as to make me more determined. “We’ll tie up the darned tiger, if he cuts us all to pieces. You know how Jones will give us the laugh if we fail. Here, bind up my wrist.”

Mention of Jones’ probable ridicule and sight of my injury cooled Emett.

“It’s a nasty scratch,” he said, binding my handkerchief round it. “The leather saved your hand from being torn off. He’s an ugly brute, but you’re right, we’ll tie him. Now, let’s each take a lasso and worry him till we get hold of a paw. Then we can stretch him out.”

Jones did a fiendish thing when he tied that lion to the swinging branch. It was almost worse than having him entirely free. He had a circle almost twenty feet in diameter in which he could run and leap at will. It seemed he was in the air all the time. First at Emett, than at me he sprang, mouth agape, eyes wild, claws spread. We whipped him with our nooses, but not one would hold. He always tore it off before we could draw it tight. I secured a precarious hold on one hind paw and straightened my lasso.

“That’s far enough,” cried Emett. “Now hold him tight; don’t lift him off the ground.”

I had backed up the slope. Emett faced the lion, noose ready, waiting for a favorable chance to rope a front paw. The lion crouched low and tense, only his long tail lashing back and forth across my lasso. Emett threw the loop in front of the spread paws, now half sunk into the dust.

“Ease up; ease up,” said he. “I’ll tease him to jump into the noose.”

I let my rope sag. Emett poked a stick into the lion’s face. All at once I saw the slack in the lasso which was tied to the lion’s chain. Before I could yell to warn my comrade the beast leaped. My rope burned as it tore through my hands. The lion sailed into the air, his paws wide-spread like wings, and one of them struck Emett on the head and rolled him on the slope. I jerked back on my rope only to find it had slipped its hold.

“He slugged me one,” remarked Emett, calmly rising and picking up his hat. “Did he break the skin?”

“No, but he tore your hat band off,” I replied. “Let’s keep at him.”

For a few moments or an hour — no one will ever know how long — we ran round him, raising the dust, scattering the stones, breaking the branches, dodging his onslaughts. He leaped at us to the full length of his tether, sailing right into our faces, a fierce, uncowed, tigerish beast. If it had not been for the collar and swivel he would have choked himself a hundred times. Quick as a cat, supple, powerful, tireless, he kept on the go, whirling, bounding, leaping, rolling, till it seemed we would never catch him.

“If anything breaks, he’ll get one of us,” cried Emett. “I felt his breath that time.”

“Lord! How I wish we had some of those fellows here who say lions are rank cowards!” I exclaimed.

In one of his sweeping side swings the lion struck the rock and hung there on its flat surface with his tail hanging over.

“Attract his attention,” shouted Emett, “but don’t get too close. Don’t make him jump.”

While I slowly manoeuvered in front of the lion, Emett slipped behind the rock, lunged for the long tail and got a good hold of it. Then with a whoop he ran around the rock, carrying the kicking, squalling lion clear of the ground.

“Now’s your chance,” he yelled. “Rope a hind foot! I can hold him.”

In a second I had a noose fast on both hind paws, and then passed my rope to Emett. While he held the lion I again climbed the tree, untied the knot that had caused so much trouble, and very shortly we had our obstinate captive stretched out between two trees. After that we took a much needed breathing spell.

“Not very scientific,” growled Emett, by way of apologizing for our crude work, “but we had to get him some way.”

“Emett, do you know I believe Jones put up a job on us?” I said.

“Well, maybe he did. We had the job all right. But we’ll make short work of him now.”

He certainly went at it in a way that alarmed me and would have electrified Jones. While I held the chain Emett muzzled the lion with a stick and a strand of lasso. His big blacksmith’s hands held, twisted and tied with remorseless strength.

“Now for the hardest part of it,” said he, “packing him up.”

We toiled and drudged upward, resting every few yards, wet with sweat, boiling with heat, parching for water. We slipped and fell, got up to slip and fall again. The dust choked us. We senselessly risked our lives on the brinks of precipices. We had no thought save to get the lion up. One hour of unremitting labor saw our task finished, so far. Then we wearily went down for the other.

“This one is the heaviest,” gloomily said Emett.

We had to climb partly sidewise with the pole in the hollow of our elbows. The lion dragged head downward, catching in the brush and on the stones. Our rests became more frequent. Emett, who had the downward end of the pole, and therefore thrice the weight, whistled when he drew breath. Half the time I saw red mist before my eyes. How I hated the sliding stones!

“Wait,” panted Emett once. “You’re — younger — than me — wait!”

For that Mormon giant — used all his days to strenuous toil, peril and privation — to ask me to wait for him, was a compliment which I valued more than any I had ever received.

At last we dropped our burden in the shade of a cedar where the other lions lay, and we stretched ourselves. A long, sweet rest came abruptly to end with Emett’s next words.

“The lions are choking! They’re dying of thirst! We must have water!”

One glance at the poor, gasping, frothing beasts, proved to me the nature of our extremity.

“Water in this desert! Where will we find it? Oh! why, did I forget my canteen!”

After all our hopes, our efforts, our tragedies, and finally our wonderful good fortune, to lose these beautiful lions for lack of a little water was sickening, maddening.

“Think quick!” cried Emett. “I’m no good; I’m all in. But you must find water. It snowed yesterday. There’s water somewhere.”

Into my mind flashed a picture of the many little pockets beaten by rains into the shelves and promontories of the canyon rim. With the thought I was on the jump. I ran; I climbed; I seemed to have wings; I reached the rim, and hurried along it with eager gaze. I swung down on a cedar branch to a projecting point of rock. Small depressions were everywhere still damp, but the water had evaporated. But I would not give up. I jumped from rock to rock, and climbed over scaly ledges, and set tons of yellow shale into motion. And I found on a ragged promontory many little, round holes, some a foot deep, all full of clear water. Using my handkerchief as a sponge I filled my cap.

Then began my journey down. I carried the cap with both hands and balanced myself like a tight-rope performer. I zigzagged the slopes; slipped over stones; leaped fissures and traversed yellow slides. I safely descended places that in an ordinary moment would have presented insurmountable obstacles, and burst down upon Emett with an Indian yell of triumph.

“Good!” ejaculated he. If I had not known it already, the way his face changed would have told me of his love for animals. He grasped a lion by the ears and held his head up. I saturated my handkerchief and squeezed the water into his mouth. He wheezed, coughed, choked, but to our joy he swallowed. He had to swallow. One after the other we served them so, seeing with unmistakable relief the sure signs of recovery. Their eyes cleared and brightened; the dry coughing that distressed us so ceased; the froth came no more. The savage fellow that had fought us to a standstill, and for which we had named him Spitfire, raised his head, the gold in his beautiful eyes darkened to fire and he growled his return to life and defiance.

Emett and I sank back in unutterable relief.

“Waa-hoo!” Jones’ yell came, breaking the warm quiet of the slope. Our comrade appeared riding down. The voice of the Indian, calling to Marc, mingled with the ringing of iron-shod hoofs on the stones.

Jones surveyed the small level spot in the shade of the cedars. He gazed from the lions to us, his stern face relaxed, and his dry laugh cracked.

“Doggone me, if you didn’t do it!”

XIII

A strange procession soon emerged from Left Canyon and stranger to us than the lion heads bobbing out of the alfagoes was the sight of Navvy riding in front of the lions. I kept well in the rear, for if anything happened, which I calculated was more than likely, I wanted to see it. Before we had reached the outskirts of pines, I observed that the piece of lasso around Spitfire’s nose had worked loose.

Just as I was about to make this known to Jones, the lion opened a corner of his mouth and fastened his teeth in the Navajo’s overalls. He did not catch the flesh, for when Navvy turned around he wore only an expression of curiosity. But when he saw Spitfire chewing him he uttered a shrill scream and fell sidewise off his horse.

Then two difficulties presented themselves to us, to catch the frightened horse and persuade the Indian he had not been bitten. We failed in the latter. Navvy gave us and the lions a wide berth, and walked to camp.

Jim was waiting for us, and said he had chased a lion south along the rim till the hounds got away from him.

Spitfire, having already been chained, was the first lion we endeavored to introduce to our family of captives. He raised such a fearful row that we had to remove him some distance from the others.

“We have two dog chains,” said Jones, “but not a collar or a swivel in camp. We can’t chain the lions without swivels. They’d choke themselves in two minutes.”

Once more, for the hundredth time, Emett came to our rescue with his inventive and mechanical skill. He took the largest pair of hobbles we had, and with an axe, a knife and Jones’ wire nippers, fashioned two collars with swivels that for strength and serviceableness improved somewhat on those we had bought.

Darkness was enveloping the forest when we finished supper. I fell into my bed and, despite the throbbing and burning of my wrist, soon lapsed into slumber. And I crawled out next morning late for breakfast, stiff, worn out, crippled, but happy. Six lions roaring a concert for me was quite conducive to contentment.

Emett interestingly engaged himself on a new pair of trousers, which he had contrived to produce from two of our empty meal-bags. The lower half of his overalls had gone to decorate the cedar spikes and brush, and these new bag-leg trousers, while somewhat remarkable for design, answered the purpose well enough. Jones’ coat was somewhere along the canyon rim, his shoes were full of holes, his shirt in strips, and his trousers in rags. Jim looked like a scarecrow. My clothes, being of heavy waterproofed duck, had stood the hard usage in a manner to bring forth the unanimous admiration of my companions.

“Well, fellows,” said Jones, “there’s six lions, and that’s more than we can pack out of here. Have you had enough hunting? I have.”

“And I,” rejoined Emett.

“Shore you can bet I have,” drawled Jim.

“One more day, boys, and then I’ve done,” said I. “Only one more day!”

Signs of relief on the faces of my good comrades showed how they took this evidence of my satisfied ambition.

I spent all the afternoon with the lions, photographing them, listening to them spit and growl, watching them fight their chains, and roll up like balls of fire. From different parts of the forest I tried to creep unsuspected upon them; but always when I peeped out from behind a tree or log, every pair of ears would be erect, every pair of eyes gleaming and suspicious.

Spitfire afforded more amusement than all the others. He had indeed the temper of a king; he had been born for sovereignty, not slavery. To intimidate me he tried every manner of expression and utterance, and failing, he always ended with a spring in the air to the length of his chain. This means was always effective. I simply could not stand still when he leaped; and in turn I tried every artifice I could think of to make him back away from me, to take refuge behind his tree. I ran at him with a club as if I were going to kill him. He waited, crouching. Finally, in dire extremity, I bethought me of a red flannel hood that Emett had given me, saying I might use it on cold nights. This was indeed a weird, flaming headgear, falling like a cloak down over the shoulders. I put it on, and, camera in hand, started to crawl on all fours toward Spitfire.

I needed no one to tell me that this proceeding was entirely beyond his comprehension. In his astonishment he forgot to spit and growl, and he backed behind the little pine, from which he regarded me with growing perplexity. Then, having revenged myself on him, and getting a picture, I left him in peace.

XIV

I awoke before dawn, and lay watching the dark shadows change into gray, and gray into light. The Navajo chanted solemnly and low his morning song. I got up with the keen eagerness of the hunter who faces the last day of his hunt.

I warmed my frozen fingers at the fire. A hot breakfast smoked on the red coals. We ate while Navvy fed and saddled the horses.

“Shore, they’ll be somethin’ doin’ to-day,” said Jim, fatalistically.

“We haven’t crippled a horse yet,” put in Emett hopefully. Don led the pack and us down the ridge, out of the pines into the sage. The sun, a red ball, glared out of the eastern mist, shedding a dull glow on the ramparts of the far canyon walls. A herd of white-tailed deer scattered before the hounds. Blue grouse whirred from under our horses’ feet.

“Spread out,” ordered Jones, and though he meant the hounds, we all followed his suggestion, as the wisest course.

Ranger began to work up the sage ridge to the right. Jones, Emett and I followed, while Jim rode away to the left. Gradually the space widened, and as we neared the cedars, a sharply defined, deep canyon separated us.

We heard Don open up, then Sounder. Ranger left the trail he was trying to work out in the thick sage, and bounded in the direction of the rest of the pack. We reined in to listen.

First Don, then Sounder, then Jude, then one of the pups bayed eagerly, telling us they were hunting hard. Suddenly the bays blended in one savage sound.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” cracked the cool, thin air. We saw Jim wave his hand from the far side of the canyon, spur his horse into action, and disappear into the cedars.

“Stick close together,” yelled Jones, as we launched forward. We made the mistake of not going back to cross the canyon, for the hounds soon went up the opposite side. As we rode on and on, the sounds of the chase lessened, and finally ceased. To our great chagrin we found it necessary to retrace our steps, and when we did get over the deep gully, so much time had elapsed that we despaired of coming up with Jim. Emett led, keeping close on Jim’s trail, which showed plain in the dust, and we followed.

Up and down ravines, over ridges, through sage flats and cedar forests, to and fro, around and around, we trailed Jim and the hounds. From time to time one of us let out a long yell.

“I see a big lion track,” called Jones once, and that stirred us on faster. Fully an hour passed before Jones halted us, saying we had best try a signal. I dismounted, while Emett rolled his great voice through the cedars.

A long silence ensued. From the depths of the forest Jim’s answer struck faintly on my ear. With a word to my companions I leaped on my mustang and led the way. I rode as far as I could mark a straight line with my eye, then stopped to wait for another cry. In this way, slowly but surely we closed in on Jim.

We found him on the verge of the Bay, in the small glade where I had left my horse the day I followed Don alone down the canyon. Jim was engaged in binding up the leg of his horse. The baying of the hounds floated up over the rim.

“What’s up?” queried Jones.

“Old Sultan. That’s what,” replied Jim. “We run plumb into him. We’ve had him in five trees. It ain’t been long since he was in that cedar there. When he jumped the yellow pup was in the way an’ got killed. My horse just managed to jump clear of the big lion, an’ as it was, nearly broke his leg.”

Emett examined the leg and pronounced it badly strained, and advised Jim to lead the horse back to camp. Jones and I stood a moment over the remains of the yellow pup, and presently Emett joined us.

“He was the most playful one of the pack,” said Emett, and then he placed the limp, bloody body in a crack, and laid several slabs of stone over it.

“Hurry after the other hounds,” said Jim. “That lion will kill them one by one. An’ look out for him!”

If we needed an incentive, the danger threatening the hounds furnished one; but I calculated the death of the pup was enough. Emett had a flare in his eye, Jones looked darker and more grim than ever, and I had sensations that boded ill to old Sultan.

“Fellows,” I said, “I’ve been down this place, and I know where the old brute has gone; so come on.”

I laid aside my coat, chaps and rifle, feeling that the business ahead was stern and difficult. Then I faced the canyon. Down slopes, among rocks, under piñons, around yellow walls, along slides, the two big men followed me with heavy steps. We reached the white stream-bed, and sliding, slipping, jumping, always down and down, we came at last within sound of the hounds. We found them baying wildly under a piñon on the brink of the deep cove.

Then, at once, we all saw old Sultan close at hand. He was of immense size; his color was almost gray; his head huge, his paws heavy and round. He did not spit, nor snarl, nor growl; he did not look at the hounds, but kept his half-shut eyes upon us.

We had no time to make a move before he left his perch and hit the ground with a thud. He walked by the baying hounds, looked over the brink of the cove, and without an instant of hesitation, leaped down. The rattling crash of sliding stones came up with a cloud of dust. Then we saw him leisurely picking his way among the rough stones.

Exclamations from the three of us attested to what we thought of that leap.

“Look the place over,” called Jones. “I think we’ve got him.”

The cove was a hole hollowed out by running water. At its head, where the perpendicular wall curved, the height was not less than forty feet. The walls became higher as the cove deepened toward the canyon. It had a length of perhaps a hundred yards, and a width of perhaps half as many. The floor was mass on mass of splintered rock.

“Let the hounds down on a lasso,” said Jones.

Easier said than done! Sounder, Ranger, Jude refused. Old Moze grumbled and broke away. But Don, stern and savage, allowed Jones to tie him in a slip noose.

“It’s a shame to send that grand hound to his death,” protested Emett.

“We’ll all go down,” declared Jones.

“We can’t. One will have to stay up here to help the other two out,” replied Emett.

“You’re the strongest; you stay up,” said Jones. “Better work along the wall and see if you can locate the lion.”

We let Don down into the hole. He kicked himself loose before reaching the bottom and then, yelping, he went out of sight among the boulders. Moze, as if ashamed, came whining to us. We slipped a noose around him and lowered him, kicking and barking, to the rocky floor. Jones made the lasso fast to a cedar root, and I slid down, like a flash, burning my hands. Jones swung himself over, wrapped his leg around the rope, and came down, to hit the ground with a thump. Then, lassos in hands, we began clambering over the broken fragments.

For a few moments we were lost to sights and sounds away from our immediate vicinity. The bottom of the cove afforded hard going. Dead piñons and cedars blocked our way; the great, jagged stones offered no passage. We crawled, climbed, and jumped from piece to piece.

A yell from Emett halted us. We saw him above, on the extreme point of wall. Waving his arms, he yelled unintelligible commands to us. The fierce baying of Don and Moze added to our desperate energy.

The last jumble of splintered rock cleared, we faced a terrible and wonderful scene.

“Look! Look!” I gasped to Jones.

A wide, bare strip of stone lay a few yards beneath us; and in the center of this last step sat the great lion on his haunches with his long tail lashing out over the precipice. Back to the canyon, he confronted the furious hounds; his demeanor had changed to one of savage apprehension.

When Jones and I appeared, old Sultan abruptly turned his back to the hounds and looked down into the canyon. He walked the whole length of the bare rock with his head stretched over. He was looking for a niche or a step whereby he might again elude his foes.

Faster lashed his tail; farther and farther stretched his neck. He stopped, and with head bent so far over the abyss that it seemed he must fall, he looked and looked.

How grandly he fitted the savage sublimity of that place! The tremendous purple canyon depths lay beneath him. He stood on the last step of his mighty throne. The great downward slopes had failed him. Majestically and slowly he turned from the deep that offered no hope.

As he turned, Jones cast the noose of his lasso perfectly round the burly neck. Sultan roared and worked his jaws, but he did not leap. Jones must have expected such a move, for he fastened his rope to a spur of rock. Standing there, revolver gripped, hearing the baying hounds, the roaring lion, and Jones’ yells mingled with Emett’s, I had no idea what to do. I was in a trance of sensations.

Old Sultan ran rather than leaped at us. Jones evaded the rush by falling behind a stone, but still did not get out of danger. Don flew at the lion’s neck and Moze buried his teeth in a flank. Then the three rolled on the rock dangerously near the verge.

Bellowing, Jones grasped the lasso and pulled. Still holding my revolver, I leaped to his assistance, and together we pulled and jerked. Don got away from the lion with remarkable quickness. But Moze, slow and dogged, could not elude the outstretched paws, which fastened in his side and leg. We pulled so hard we slowly raised the lion. Moze, never whimpering, clawed and scratched at the rock in his efforts to escape. The lion’s red tongue protruded from his dripping jaws. We heard the rend of hide as our efforts, combined with those of Moze, loosed him from the great yellow claws.

The lion, whirling and wrestling, rolled over the precipice. When the rope straightened with a twang, had it not been fastened to the rock, Jones and I would have jerked over the wall. The shock threw us to our knees.

For a moment we did not realize the situation. Emett’s yells awakened us.

“Pull! Pull! Pull!” roared he.

Then, knowing that old Sultan would hang himself in a few moments, we attempted to lift him. Jones pulled till his back cracked; I pulled till I saw red before my eyes. Again and again we tried. We could lift him only a few feet. Soon exhausted, we had to desist altogether. How Emett roared and raged from his vantage-point above! He could see the lion in death throes.

Suddenly he quieted down with the words: “All over; all over!” Then he sat still, looking into space. Jones sat mopping his brow. And I, all my hot resentment vanished, lay on the rock, with eyes on the distant mesas.

Presently Jones leaned over the verge with my lasso.

“There,” he said, “I’ve roped one of his hind legs. Now we’ll pull him up a little, then we’ll fasten this rope, and pull on the other.”

So, foot by foot, we worked the heavy lion up over the wall. He must have been dead, though his sides heaved. Don sniffed at him in disdain. Moze, dusty and bloody, with a large strip of hide hanging from his flank, came up growling low and deep, and gave the lion a last vengeful bite.

“We’ve been fools,” observed Jones, meditatively. “The excitement of the game made us lose our wits. I’ll never rope another lion.”

I said nothing. While Moze licked his bloody leg and Don lay with his fine head on my knees, Jones began to skin old Sultan. Once more the strange, infinite silence enfolded the canyon. The far-off golden walls glistened in the sun; farther down, the purple clefts smoked. The many-hued peaks and mesas, aloof from each other, rose out of the depths. It was a grand and gloomy scene of ruin where every glistening descent of rock was but a page of earth’s history.

It brought to my mind a faint appreciation of what time really meant; it spoke of an age of former men; it showed me the lonesome crags of eagles, and the cliff lairs of lions; and it taught mutely, eloquently, a lesson of life — that men are still savage, still driven by a spirit to roam, to hunt, and to slay.

CHAPTER IV

TONTO BASIN

THE START OF a camping trip, the getting a big outfit together and packed, and on the move, is always a difficult and laborsome job. Nevertheless, for me the preparation and the actual getting under way have always been matters of thrilling interest. This start of my hunt in Arizona, September 24, 1918, was particularly momentous because I had brought my boy Romer with me for his first trip into the wilds.

It may be that the boy was too young for such an undertaking. His mother feared he would be injured; his teachers presaged his utter ruin; his old nurse, with whom he waged war until he was free of her, averred that the best it could do for him would be to show what kind of stuff he was made of. His uncle R.C. was stoutly in favor of taking him. I believe the balance fell in Romer’s favor when I remembered my own boyhood. As a youngster of three I had babbled of “bars an’ buffers,” and woven fantastic and marvelous tales of fiction about my imagined adventures — a habit, alas! I have never yet outgrown.

Anyway we only made six miles’ travel on this September twenty-fourth, and Romer was with us.

Indeed he was omnipresent. His keen, eager joy communicated itself to me. Once he rode up alongside me and said: “Dad, this’s great, but I’d rather do like Buck Duane.” The boy had read all of my books, in spite of parents and teachers, and he knew them by heart, and invariably liked the outlaws and gunmen best of all.

We made camp at sunset, with a flare of gold along the west, and the Peaks rising rosy and clear to the north. We camped in a cut-over pine forest, where stumps and lopped tops and burned deadfalls made an aspect of blackened desolation. From a distance, however, the scene was superb. At sunset there was a faint wind which soon died away.

My old guide on so many trips across the Painted Desert was in charge of the outfit. He was a wiry, gray, old pioneer, over seventy years, hollow-cheeked and bronzed, with blue-gray eyes still keen with fire. He was no longer robust, but he was tireless and willing. When he told a story he always began: “In the early days—” His son Lee had charge of the horses of which we had fourteen, two teams and ten saddle horses. Lee was a typical westerner of many occupations — cowboy, rider, rancher, cattleman. He was small, thin, supple, quick, tough and strong. He had a bronzed face, always chapped, a hooked nose, gray-blue eyes like his father’s, sharp and keen.

Lee had engaged the only man he could find for a cook — Joe Isbel, a tall, lithe cowboy, straight as an Indian, with powerful shoulders, round limbs, and slender waist, and Isbel was what the westerners called a broncho-buster. He was a prize-winning rider at all the rodeos. Indeed, his seat in the saddle was individual and incomparable. He had a rough red-blue face, hard and rugged, like the rocks he rode over so fearlessly, and his eyes were bright hazel, steady and hard. Isbel’s vernacular was significant. Speaking of one of our horses he said: “Like a mule he’ll be your friend for twenty years to git a chance to kick you.” Speaking of another that had to be shod he said: “Shore, he’ll step high to-morrow.” Isbel appeared to be remarkably efficient as camp-rustler and cook, but he did not inspire me with confidence. In speaking of this to the Doyles I found them non-committal on the subject. Westerners have sensitive feelings. I could not tell whether they were offended or not, and I half regretted mentioning my lack of confidence in Isbel. As it turned out, however, I was amply justified.

Sievert Nielsen, whom I have mentioned elsewhere, was the fourth of my men.

Darkness had enveloped us at supper time. I was tired out, but the red-embered camp-fire, the cool air, the smell of wood-smoke, and the white stars kept me awake awhile. Romer had to be put to bed. He was wild with excitement. We had had a sleeping-bag made for him so that once snugly in it, with the flaps buckled he could not kick off the blankets. When we got him into it he quieted down and took exceeding interest in his first bed in the open. He did not, however, go quickly to sleep. Presently he called R.C. over and whispered: “Say, Uncle Rome, I coiled a lasso an’ put it under Nielsen’s bed. When he’s asleep you go pull it. He’s tenderfoot like Dad was. He’ll think it’s a rattlesnake.” This trick Romer must have remembered from reading “The Last of the Plainsmen,” where I related what Buffalo Jones’ cowboys did to me. Once Romer got that secret off his mind he fell asleep.

The hour we spent sitting around the camp-fire was the most pleasant of that night, though I did not know it then. The smell of wood-smoke and the glow of live coals stirred memories of other camp-fires. I was once more enveloped by the sweetness and peace of the open, listening to the sigh of the wind, and the faint tinkle of bells on the hobbled horses.

An uncomfortable night indeed it turned out to be. Our covers were scanty and did not number among them any blankets. The bed was hard as a rock, and lumpy. No sleep! As the night wore on the air grew colder, and I could not keep warm. At four a.m. I heard the howling of coyotes — a thrilling and well remembered wild chorus. After that perfect stillness reigned. Presently I saw the morning star — big, blue-white, beautiful. Uncomfortable hours seemed well spent if the reward was sight of the morning star. How few people ever see it! How very few ever get a glimpse of it on a desert dawn!

Just then, about five-thirty, Romer woke up and yelled lustily: “Dad! My nose’s froze.” This was a signal for me to laugh, and also to rise heroically. Not difficult because I wanted to stay in bed, but because I could hardly crawl out! Soon we had a fire roaring. At six the dawn was still gray. Cold and nipping air, frost on everything, pale stars, a gold-red light in the east were proofs that I was again in the open. Soon a rose-colored flush beautified the Peaks.

After breakfast we had trouble with the horses. This always happened. But it was made worse this morning because a young cowboy who happened along took upon himself the task of helping Lee. I suspected he wanted to show off a little. In throwing his lasso to rope one, the noose went over the heads of two. Then he tried to hold both animals. They dragged him, pulled the lasso out of his hands, and stampeded the other horses. These two roped together thundered off with the noose widening. I was afraid they would split round a tree or stump, but fortunately the noose fell off one. As all the horses pounded off I heard Romer remark to Isbel: “Say, Joe, I don’t see any medals on that cowboy.” Isbel roared, and said: “Wal, Romer, you shore hit the nail, on the haid!”

Owing to that stampede we did not get saddled and started till eleven o’clock. At first I was so sore and stiff from the hard bed that I rode a while on the wagon with Doyle. Many a mile I had ridden with him, and many a story he had related. This time he told about sitting on a jury at Prescott where they brought in as evidence bloody shirts, overalls, guns, knives, until there was such a pile that the table would not hold them. Doyle was a mine of memories of the early days.

Romer’s mount was a little black, white-spotted horse named Rye. Lee Doyle had scoured the ranches to get this pony for the youngster. Rye was small for a horse, about the size of an Indian mustang, and he was gentle, as well as strong and fast. Romer had been given riding lessons all that summer in the east, and upon his arrival at Flagstaff he informed me that he could ride. I predicted he would be in the wagon before noon of the second day out. He offered to bet on it. I told him I disapproved of betting. He seemed to me to be daring, adaptable, self-willed; and I was divided between pride and anxiety as to the outcome of this trip for him.

In the afternoon we reached Lake Mary, a long, ugly, muddy pond in a valley between pine-slopes. Dead and ghastly trees stood in the water, and the shores were cattle-tracked. Probably to the ranchers this mud-hole was a pleasing picture, but to me, who loved the beauty of the desert before its productiveness, it was hideous. When we passed Lake Mary, and farther on the last of the cut-over timber-land, we began to get into wonderful country. We traveled about sixteen miles, rather a small day’s ride. Romer stayed on his horse all through that ride, and when we selected a camp site for the night he said to me: “Well, you’re lucky you wouldn’t bet.”

Camp that evening was in a valley with stately pines straggling down to the level. On the other slope the pines came down in groups. The rim of this opposite slope was high, rugged, iron-colored, with cracks and holes. Before supper I walked up the slope back of our camp, to come upon level, rocky ground for a mile, then pines again leading to a low, green mountain with lighter patches of aspen. The level, open strip was gray in color. Arizona color and Arizona country! Gray of sage, rocks, pines, cedars, piñons, heights and depths and plains, wild and open and lonely — that was Arizona.

That night I obtained some rest and sleep, lying awake only a few hours, during which time I turned from side to side to find a soft place in the hard bed. Under such circumstances I always thought of the hard beds of the Greeks and the Spartans. Next day we rode twenty-three miles. On horseback trips like this it was every one for himself. Sometimes we would be spread out, all separated; at others we would be bunched; and again we would ride in couples. The morning was an ordeal for me, as at first I could scarcely sit my saddle; in the afternoon, however, riding grew to be less severe. The road led through a winding, shallow valley, with clumps of pine here and there, and cedars on the slopes. Romer rode all the way, half the time with his feet out of the stirrups, like a western boy born to the saddle, and he wanted to go fast all the time. Camp was made at a place called Fulton Spring. It might have been a spring once, but now it was a mud-hole with a dead cow lying in it. Clear, cold water is necessary to my pleasure, if not to my health. I have lived on sheep water — the water holes being tainted by sheep — and alkali water and soapy water of the desert, but never happily. How I hailed the clear, cold, swiftly-flowing springs!

This third camp lay in a woods where the pines were beautiful and the silence noticeable. Upon asking Romer to enumerate the things I had called to his attention, the few times I could catch up with him on the day’s journey, he promptly replied — two big spiders — tarantulas, a hawk, and Mormon Lake. This lake was another snow-melted mud-hole, said to contain fish. I doubted that. Perhaps the little bull-head catfish might survive in such muddy water, but I did not believe bass or perch could.

One familiar feature of Arizona travel manifested itself to me that day — the dry air. My nails became brittle and my lips began to crack. I have had my lips cracked so severely that when I tried to bite bread they would split and bleed and hurt so that I could not eat. This matter of sore lips was for long a painful matter. I tried many remedies, and finally found one, camphor ice, that would prevent the drying and cracking.

Next day at dawn the forest was full of the soughing of wind in the pines — a wind that presaged storm. No stars showed. Romer-boy piled out at six o’clock. I had to follow him. The sky was dark and cloudy. Only a faint light showed in the east and it was just light enough to see when we ate breakfast. Owing to strayed horses we did not get started till after nine o’clock.

Five miles through the woods, gradually descending, led us into an open plain where there was a grass-bordered pond full of ducks. Here appeared an opportunity to get some meat. R.C. tried with shotgun and I with rifle, all to no avail. These ducks were shy. Romer seemed to evince some disdain at our failure, but he did not voice his feelings. We found some wild-turkey tracks, and a few feathers, which put our hopes high.

Crossing the open ground we again entered the forest, which gradually grew thicker as we got down to a lower altitude. Oak trees began to show in swales. And then we soon began to see squirrels, big, plump, gray fellows, with bushy tails almost silver. They appeared wilder than we would have suspected, at that distance from the settlements. Romer was eager to hunt them, and with his usual persistence, succeeded at length in persuading his uncle to do so.

To that end we rode out far ahead of the wagon and horses. Lee had a yellow dog he called Pups, a close-haired, keen-faced, muscular canine to which I had taken a dislike. To be fair to Pups, I had no reason except that he barked all the time. Pups and his barking were destined to make me hail them both with admiration and respect, but I had no idea of that then. Now this dog of Lee’s would run ahead of us, trail squirrels, chase them, and tree them, whereupon he would bark vociferously. Sometimes up in the bushy top we would fail to spy the squirrel, but we had no doubt one was there. Romer wasted many and many a cartridge of the .22 Winchester trying to hit a squirrel. He had practiced a good deal, and was a fairly good shot for a youngster, but hitting a little gray ball of fur high on a tree, or waving at the tip of a branch, was no easy matter.

“Son,” I said, “you don’t take after your Dad.”

And his uncle tried the lad’s temper by teasing him about Wetzel. Now Wetzel, the great Indian killer of frontier days, was Romer’s favorite hero.

“Gimme the .20 gauge,” finally cried Romer, in desperation, with his eyes flashing.

Whereupon his uncle handed him the shotgun, with a word of caution as to the trigger. This particular squirrel was pretty high up, presenting no easy target. Romer stood almost directly under it, raised the gun nearly straight up, waved and wobbled and hesitated, and finally fired. Down sailed the squirrel to hit with a plump. That was Romer’s first successful hunting experience. How proud he was of that gray squirrel! I suffered a pang to see the boy so radiant, so full of fire at the killing of a beautiful creature of the woods. Then again I remembered my own first sensations. Boys are blood-thirsty little savages. In their hunting, playing, even their reading, some element of the wild brute instinct dominates them. They are worthy descendants of progenitors who had to fight and kill to live. This incident furnished me much food for reflection. I foresaw that before this trip was ended I must face some knotty problems. I hated to shoot a squirrel even when I was hungry. Probably that was because I was not hungry enough. A starving man suffers no compunctions at the spilling of blood. On the contrary he revels in it with a fierce, primitive joy.

“Some shot, I’ll say!” declared Romer to his uncle, loftily. And he said to me half a dozen times: “Say, Dad, wasn’t it a grand peg?”

But toward the end of that afternoon his enthusiasm waned for shooting, for anything, especially riding. He kept asking when the wagon was going to stop. Once he yelled out: “Here’s a peach of a place to camp.” Then I asked him: “Romer, are you tired?” “Naw! But what’s the use ridin’ till dark?” At length he had to give up and be put on the wagon. The moment was tragic for him. Soon, however, he brightened at something Doyle told him, and began to ply the old pioneer with rapid-fire questions.

We pitched camp in an open flat, gray and red with short grass, and sheltered by towering pines on one side. Under these we set up our tents. The mat of pine needles was half a foot thick, soft and springy and fragrant. The woods appeared full of slanting rays of golden sunlight.

This day we had supper over before sunset. Romer showed no effects from his long, hard ride. First he wanted to cook, then he fooled around the fire, bothering Isbel. I had a hard time to manage him. He wanted to be eternally active. He teased and begged to go hunting — then he compromised on target practice. R.C. and I, however, were too tired, and we preferred to rest beside the camp-fire.

“Look here, kid,” said R.C., “save something for to-morrow.”

In disgust Romer replied: “Well, I suppose if a flock of antelope came along here you wouldn’t move.... You an’ Dad are great hunters, I don’t think!”

After the lad had gone over to the other men R.C. turned to me and said reflectively: “Does he remind you of us when we were little?”

To which I replied with emotion: “In him I live over again!”

That is one of the beautiful things about children, so full of pathos and some strange, stinging joy — they bring back the days that are no more.

This evening, despite my fatigue, I was the last one to stay up. My seat was most comfortable, consisting of thick folds of blankets against a log. How the wind mourned in the trees! How the camp-fire sparkled, glowed red and white! Sometimes it seemed full of blazing opals. Always it held faces. And stories — more stories than I can ever tell! Once I was stirred and inspired by the beautiful effect of the pine trees in outline against the starry sky when the camp-fire blazed up. The color of the foliage seemed indescribably blue-green, something never seen by day. Every line shone bright, graceful, curved, rounded, and all thrown with sharp relief against the sky. How magical, exquisitely delicate and fanciful! The great trunks were soft serrated brown, and the gnarled branches stood out in perfect proportions. All works of art must be copied of nature.

Next morning early, while Romer slept, and the men had just begun to stir, I went apart from the camp out into the woods. All seemed solemn and still and cool, with the aisles of the forest brown and green and gold. I heard an owl, perhaps belated in his nocturnal habit. Then to my surprise I heard wild canaries. They were flying high, and to the south, going to their winter quarters. I wandered around among big, gray rocks and windfalls and clumps of young oak and majestic pines. More than one saucy red squirrel chattered at me.

When I returned to camp my comrades were at breakfast. Romer appeared vastly relieved to see that I had not taken a gun with me.

This morning we got an early start. We rode for hours through a beautiful shady forest, where a fragrant breeze in our faces made riding pleasant. Large oaks and patches of sumach appeared on the rocky slopes. We descended a good deal in this morning’s travel, and the air grew appreciably warmer. The smell of pine was thick and fragrant; the sound of wind was sweet and soughing. Everywhere pine needles dropped, shining in the sunlight like thin slants of rain.

Only once or twice did I see Romer in all these morning hours; then he was out in front with the cowboy Isbel, riding his black pony over all the logs and washes he could find. I could see his feet sticking straight out almost even with his saddle. He did not appear to need stirrups. My fears gradually lessened.

During the afternoon the ride grew hot, and very dusty. We came to a long, open valley where the dust lay several inches deep. It had been an unusually dry summer and fall — a fact that presaged poor luck for our hunting — and the washes and stream-beds were bleached white. We came to two water-holes, tanks the Arizonians called them, and they were vile mud-holes with green scum on the water. The horses drank, but I would have had to be far gone from thirst before I would have slaked mine there. We faced west with the hot sun beating on us and the dust rising in clouds. No wonder that ride was interminably long.

At last we descended a canyon, and decided to camp in a level spot where several ravines met, in one of which a tiny stream of dear water oozed out of the gravel. The inclosure was rocky-sloped, full of caves and covered with pines; and the best I could say for it was that in case of storm the camp would be well protected. We shoveled out a deep hole in the gravel, so that it would fill up with water. Romer had evidently enjoyed himself this day. When I asked Isbel about him the cowboy’s hard face gleamed with a smile: “Shore thet kid’s all right. He’ll make a cowpuncher!” His remark pleased me. In view of Romer’s determination to emulate the worst bandit I ever wrote about I was tremendously glad to think of him as a cowboy. But as for myself I was tired, and the ride had been rather unprofitable, and this camp-site, to say the least, did not inspire me. It was neither wild nor beautiful nor comfortable. I went early to bed and slept like a log.

The following morning some of our horses were lost. The men hunted from daylight till ten o’clock. Then it was that I learned more about Lee’s dog Pups. At ten-thirty Lee came in with the lost horses. They had hidden in a clump of cedars and remained perfectly quiet, as cute as deer. Lee put Pups on their trail. Pups was a horse-trailing dog and he soon found them. I had a change of feeling for Pups, then and there.

The sun was high and hot when we rode off. The pleasant and dusty stretches alternated. About one o’clock we halted on the edge of a deep wooded ravine to take our usual noonday rest. I scouted along the edge in the hope of seeing game of some kind. Presently I heard the cluck-cluck of turkeys. Slipping along to an open place I peered down to be thrilled by sight of four good-sized turkeys. They were walking along the open strip of dry stream-bed at the bottom of the ravine. One was chasing grasshoppers. They were fairly close. I took aim at one, and thought I could have hit him, but suddenly I remembered Romer and R.C. So I slipped back and called them.

Hurriedly and stealthily we returned to the point where I had seen the turkeys. Romer had a pale face and wonderfully bright eyes; his actions resembled those of a stalking Indian. The turkeys were farther down, but still in plain sight. I told R.C. to take the boy and slip down, and run and hide and run till they got close enough for a shot. I would keep to the edge of the ravine.

Some moments later I saw R.C. and the boy running and stooping and creeping along the bottom of the ravine. Then I ran myself to reach a point opposite the turkeys, so in case they flew uphill I might get a shot. But I did not see them, and nothing happened. I lost sight of the turkeys. Hurrying back to where I had tied my horse I mounted him and loped ahead and came out upon the ravine some distance above. Here I hunted around for a little while. Once I heard the report of the .20 gauge, and then several rifle shots. Upon returning I found that Lee and Nielsen had wasted some shells. R.C. and Romer came wagging up the hill, both red and wet and tired. R.C. carried a small turkey, about the size of a chicken. He told me, between pants, that they chased the four large turkeys, and were just about to get a shot when up jumped a hen-turkey with a flock of young ones. They ran every way. He got one. Then he told me, between more pants and some laughs, that Romer had chased the little turkeys all over the ravine, almost catching several. Romer said for himself: “I just almost pulled feathers out of their tails. Gee! if I’d had a gun!”

We resumed our journey. About the middle of the afternoon Doyle called my attention to an opening in the forest through which I could see the yellow-walled rim of the mesa, and the great blue void below. Arizona! That explained the black forests, the red and yellow cliffs of rock, the gray cedars, the heights and depths.

Lop? ride indeed was it down off the mesa. The road was winding, rough full of loose rocks and dusty. We were all tired out trying to keep up with the wagon. Romer, however, averred time and again that he was not tired. Still I saw him often shift his seat from one side of the saddle to the other.

At last we descended to a comparative level and came to a little hamlet. Like all Mormon villages it had quaint log cabins, low stone houses, an irrigation ditch running at the side of the road, orchards, and many rosy-cheeked children. We lingered there long enough to rest a little and drink our fill of the cold granite water. I would travel out of my way to get a drink of water that came from granite rock.

About five o’clock we left for the Natural Bridge. Romer invited or rather taunted me to a race. When it ended in his victory I found that I had jolted my rifle out of its saddle sheath. I went back some distance to look for it, but did so in vain. Isbel said he would ride back in the morning and find it.

The country here appeared to be on a vast scale. But that was only because we had gotten out where we could see all around. Arizona is all on a grand, vast scale. Mountain ranges stood up to the south and east. North loomed up the lofty, steep rim of the Mogollon Mesa, with its cliffs of yellow and red, and its black line of timber. Westward lay fold on fold of low cedar-covered hills. The valley appeared a kind of magnificent bowl, rough and wild, with the distance lost in blue haze. The vegetation was dense and rather low. I saw both prickly-pear and mescal cactus, cedars, manzanita brush, scrub oak, and juniper trees. These last named were very beautiful, especially the smaller ones, with their gray-green foliage, and purple berries, and black and white checkered bark. There were no pine trees. Since we had left the rim above the character of plant life had changed.

We crossed the plateau leading to the valley where the Natural Bridge was located. A winding road descended the east side of this valley. A rancher lived down there. Green of alfalfa and orchard and walnut trees contrasted vividly with a bare, gray slope on one side, and a red, rugged mountain on the other. A deep gorge showed dark and wild. At length, just after sunset, we reached the ranch, and rode through orchards of peach and pear and apple trees, all colored with fruit, and down through grassy meadows to a walnut grove where we pitched camp. By the time we had supper it was dark. Wonderful stars, thick, dreamy hum of insects, murmur of swift water, a rosy and golden afterglow on the notch of the mountain range to the west — these were inducements to stay up, but I was so tired I had to go to bed, where my eyelids fell tight, as if pleasantly weighted.

After the long, hard rides and the barren camp-sites what delight to awaken in this beautiful valley with the morning cool and breezy and bright, with smell of new-mown hay from the green and purple alfalfa fields, and the sunlight gilding the jagged crags above! Romer made a bee-line for the peach trees. He beat his daddy only a few yards. The kind rancher had visited us the night before and he had told us to help ourselves to fruit, melons, alfalfa. Needless to state that I made my breakfast on peaches!

I trailed the swift, murmuring stream to its source on the dark green slope where there opened up a big hole bordered by water-cress, long grass, and fragrant mint. This spring was one of perfectly clear water, six feet deep, boiling up to bulge on the surface. A grass of dark color and bunches of light green plant grew under the surface. Bees and blue dragon-flies hummed around and frogs as green as the grass blinked with jewelled eyes from the wet margins. The spring had a large volume that spilled over its borders with low, hollow gurgle, with fresh, cool splash. The water was soft, tasting of limestone. Here was the secret of the verdure and fragrance and color and beauty and life of the oasis.

It was also the secret of the formation of the wonderful Natural Bridge. Part of the rancher’s cultivated land, to the extent of several acres, was the level top of this strange bridge. A meadow of alfalfa and a fine vineyard, in the air, like the hanging gardens of Babylon! The natural bridge spanned a deep gorge, at the bottom of which flowed a swift stream of water. Geologically this tremendous arch of limestone cannot be so very old. In comparatively recent times an earthquake or some seismic disturbance or some other natural force caused a spring of water to burst from the slope above the gorge. It ran down, of course, over the rim. The lime salt in the water was deposited, and year by year and age by age advanced toward the opposite side until a bridge crossed the gorge. The swift stream at the bottom kept the opening clear under the bridge.

A winding trail led deep down on the lower side of this wonderful natural span. It showed the cliffs of limestone, porous, craggy, broken, chalky. At the bottom the gorge was full of tremendous boulders, water-worn ledges, sycamore and juniper trees, red and yellow flowers, and dark, beautiful green pools. I espied tiny gray frogs, reminding me of those I found in the gulches of the Grand Canyon. Many huge black beetles, some alive, but most of them dead, lined the wet borders of the pools. A species of fish that resembled mullet lay in the shadow of the rocks.

From underneath the Natural Bridge showed to advantage, and if not magnificent like the grand Nonnezoshe of Utah, it was at least striking and beautiful. It had a rounded ceiling colored gray, yellow, green, bronze, purple, white, making a crude and scalloped mosaic. Water dripped from it like a rain of heavy scattered drops. The left side was dryest and large, dark caves opened up, one above the other, the upper being so high that it was dangerous to attempt reaching it. The right side was slippery and wet. All rocks were thickly encrusted with lime salt. Doyle told us that any object left under the ceaseless drip, drip of the lime water would soon become encrusted, and heavy as stone. The upper opening of the arch was much higher and smaller than the lower. Any noise gave forth strange and sepulchral echoes. Romer certainly made the welkin ring. A streak of sunlight shone through a small hole in the thinnest part of the roof. Doyle pointed out the high cave where Indians had once lived, showing the markings of their fire. Also he told a story of Apaches being driven into the highest cave from which they had never escaped. This tale was manifestly to Romer’s liking and I had to use force to keep him from risking his neck. A very strong breeze blew under the arch. When we rolled a boulder into the large, dark pool it gave forth a hollow boom, boom, boom, growing hollower the deeper it went. I tried to interest Romer in some bat nests in crevices high up, but the boy wanted to roll stones and fish for the mullet. When we climbed out and were once more on a level I asked him what he thought of the place. “Some hole — I’ll say!” he panted, breathlessly.

The rancher told me that the summer rains began there about July, and the snows about the first of the year. Snow never lay long on the lower slopes. Apaches had lived there forty years ago and had cultivated the soil. There was gold in the mountains of the Four Peaks Range. In this sheltered nook the weather was never severely cold or hot; and I judged from the quaint talk of the rancher’s wife that life there was always afternoon.

Next day we rode from Natural Bridge to Payson in four and a half hours. Payson appeared to be an old hamlet, retaining many frontier characteristics such as old board and stone houses with high fronts, hitching posts and pumps on sidewalks, and one street so wide that it resembled a Mexican plaza. Payson contained two stores, where I hoped to buy a rifle, and hoped in vain. I had not recovered my lost gun, and when night came my prospects of anything to hunt with appeared extremely slim. But we had visitors, and one of them was a stalwart, dark-skinned rider named Copple, who introduced himself by saying he would have come a good way to meet the writer of certain books he had profited by. When he learned of the loss of my rifle and that I could not purchase one anywhere he pressed upon me his own. I refused with thanks, but he would not take no. The upshot of it was that he lent me his .30 Government Winchester, and gave me several boxes of ammunition. Also he presented me with a cowhide lasso. Whereupon Romer-boy took a shine to Copple at once. “Say, you look like an Indian,” he declared. With a laugh Copple replied: “I am part Indian, sonny.” Manifestly that settled his status with Romer, for he piped up: “So’s Dad part Indian. You’d better come huntin’ with us.”

We had for next day to look forward to the longest and hardest ride of the journey in, and in order to make it and reach a good camping site I got up at three o’clock in the morning to rout everybody out. It was pitch dark until we kindled fires. Then everybody rustled to such purpose that we were ready to start before dawn, and had to wait a little for light enough to see where we were going. This procedure tickled Romer immensely. I believed he imagined he was in a pioneer caravan. The gray breaking of dawn, the coming of brighter light, the rose and silver of the rising sun, and the riding in its face, with the air so tangy and nipping, were circumstances that inspired me as the adventurous start pleased Romer. The brush and cactus-lined road was rough, up hill and down, with ever increasing indications that it was seldom used. From the tops of high points I could see black foothills, round, cone-shaped, flat-topped, all leading the gaze toward the great yellow and red wall of the mesa, with its fringed borderline, wild and beckoning.

We walked our horses, trotted, loped, and repeated the order, over and over, hour by hour, mile after mile, under a sun that burned our faces and through choking dust. The washes and stream-beds were bleached and dry; the brush was sear and yellow and dust laden; the mescal stalks seemed withered by hot blasts. Only the manzanita looked fresh. That smooth red-branched and glistening green-leafed plant of the desert apparently flourished without rain. On all sides the evidences of extreme drought proved the year to be the dreaded anno seco of the Mexicans.

For ten hours we rode without a halt before there was any prominent change in the weary up- and down-hill going, in the heat and dust and brush-walled road. But about the middle of the afternoon we reached the summit of the longest hill, from which we saw ahead of us a cut up country, wild and rugged and beautiful, with pine-sloped canyon at our feet. We heard the faint murmur of running water. Hot, dusty, wet with sweat, and thirsty as sheep, we piled down that steep slope as fast as we dared. Our horses did not need urging. At the bottom we plunged into a swift stream of clear, cold water — granite water — to drink of which, and to bathe hot heads and burning feet, was a joy only known to the weary traveler of the desert. Romer yelled that the water was like that at our home in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and he drank till I thought he would burst, and then I had to hold him to keep him from wallowing in it.

Here we entered a pine forest. Heat and dust stayed with us, and the aches and pains likewise, but the worst of them lay behind. Every mile grew shadier, clearer, cooler.

Nielsen happened to fall in and ride beside me for several miles, as was often his wont. The drink of water stirred him to an Homeric recital of one of his desert trips in Sonora, at the end of which, almost dead of thirst, he had suddenly come upon such a stream as the one we had just passed. Then he told me about his trips down the west coast of Sonora, along the Gulf, where he traveled at night, at low tide, so that by daytime his footprints would be washed out. This was the land of the Seri Indians. Undoubtedly these Indians were cannibals. I had read considerable about them, much of which ridiculed the rumors of their cannibalistic traits. This of course had been of exceeding interest to me, because some day I meant to go to the land of the Seris. But not until 1918 did I get really authentic data concerning them. Professor Bailey of the University of California told me he had years before made two trips to the Gulf, and found the Seris to be the lowest order of savages he knew of. He was positive that under favorable circumstances they would practice cannibalism. Nielsen made four trips down there. He claimed the Seris were an ugly tribe. In winter they lived on Tiburon Island, off which boats anchored on occasions, and crews and fishermen and adventurers went ashore to barter with the Indians. These travelers did not see the worst of the Seris. In summer they range up the mainland, and they go naked. They do not want gold discovered down there. They will fight prospectors. They use arrows and attack at dawn. Also they poison the water-holes.

Nielsen told of some men who were massacred by Seris on the mainland opposite Tiburon Island. One man, who had gone away from camp, returned to hear the attack upon his companions. He escaped and made his way to Gyamus. Procuring assistance this man returned to the scene of the massacre, only to find stakes in the sand, with deep trails tramped around them, and blackened remains of fires, and bones everywhere. Nielsen went on to say that once from a hiding place he had watched Seris tear up and devour a dead turtle that he afterward ascertained was putrid. He said these Seris were the greatest runners of all desert savages. The best of them could outrun a horse. One Seri, a giant seven feet tall, could outrun a deer and break its neck with his hands.

These statements of Nielsen’s were remarkable, and personally I believed them. Men of his stamp were honest and they had opportunities to learn strange and terrible facts in nature. The great naturalist Darwin made rather stronger claims for the barbarism of the savages of Terra del Fuego. Nielsen, pursuing his theme, told me how he had seen, with his own eyes — and they were certainly sharp and intelligent — Yaqui Indians leap on the bare backs of wild horses and locking their legs, stick there in spite of the mad plunges and pitches. The Gauchos of the Patagonian Pampas were famous for that feat of horsemanship. I asked Joe Isbel what he thought of such riding. And he said: “Wal, I can ride a wild steer bare-back, but excoose me from tacklin’ a buckin’ bronch without saddle an’ stirrups.” This coming from the acknowledged champion horseman of the southwest was assuredly significant.

At five o’clock we came to the end of the road. It led to a forest glade, overlooking the stream we had followed, and that was as far as our wagon could go. The glade shone red with sumach, and surrounded by tall pines, with a rocky and shady glen below, it appeared a delightful place to camp. As I was about to unsaddle my horses I heard the cluck-cluck of turkeys. Pulling out my borrowed rifle, and calling Romer, I ran to the edge of the glade. The shady, swift stream ran fifty feet or so below me. Across it I saw into the woods where shade and gray rocks and colored brush mingled. Again I heard the turkeys cluck. “Look hard, son,” I whispered. “They’re close.” R.C. came slipping along below us, with his rifle ready. Suddenly Romer stiffened, then pointed. “There! Dad! — There!” I saw two gobblers wade into the brook not more than a hundred and fifty feet away. Drawing down with fine aim I fired. The bullet splashed water all over the turkeys. One with loud whirr of wings flew away. The other leaped across the brook and ran — swift as a deer — right up the slope. As I tried to get the sight on him I heard other turkeys fly, and the crack-crack of R.C.’s gun. I shot twice at my running turkey, and all I did was to scatter the dirt over him, and make him run faster. R.C. had not done any better shooting. Romer, wonderful to relate, was so excited that he forgot to make fun of our marksmanship. We scouted around some, but the turkeys had gone. By promising to take Romer hunting after supper I contrived to get him back to the glade, where we made camp.

II

After we had unpacked and while the men were pitching the tents and getting supper I took Romer on a hunt up the creek. I was considerably pleased to see good-sized trout in the deeper pools. A little way above camp the creek forked. As the right-hand branch appeared to be larger and more attractive we followed its course. Soon the bustle of camp life and the sound of the horses were left far behind. Romer slipped along beside me stealthily as an Indian, all eyes and ears.

We had not traveled thus for a quarter of a mile when my quick ear caught the cluck-cluck of turkeys. “Listen,” I whispered, halting. Romer became like a statue, his dark eyes dilating, his nostrils quivering, his whole body strung. He was a Zane all right. A turkey called again; then another answered. Romer started, and nodded his head vehemently.

“Come on now, right behind me,” I whispered. “Step where I step and do what I do. Don’t break any twigs.”

Cautiously we glided up the creek, listening now and then to get the direction, until we came to an open place where we could see some distance up a ridge. The turkey clucks came from across the creek somewhere up this open aisle of the forest. I crawled ahead several rods to a more advantageous point, much pleased to note that Romer kept noiselessly at my heels. Then from behind a stone we peeped out. Almost at once a turkey flew down from a tree into the open lane. “Look Dad!” whispered Romer, wildly. I had to hold him down. “That’s a hen turkey,” I said. “See, it’s small and dull-colored. The gobblers are big, shiny, and they have red on their heads.”

Another hen turkey flew down from a rather low height. Then I made out grapevines, and I saw several animated dark patches among them. As I looked three turkeys flopped down to the ground. One was a gobbler of considerable size, with beautiful white and bronze feathers. Rather suspiciously he looked down our way. The distance was not more than a hundred yards. I aimed at him, feeling as I did so how Romer quivered beside me, but I had no confidence in Copple’s rifle. The sights were wrong for me. The stock did not fit me. So, hoping for a closer and better shot, I let this opportunity pass. Of course I should have taken it. The gobbler clucked and began to trot up the ridge, with the others after him. They were not frightened, but they appeared rather suspicious. When they disappeared in the woods Romer and I got up, and hurried in pursuit. “Gee! why didn’t you peg that gobbler?” broke out Romer, breathlessly. “Wasn’t he a peach?”

When we reached the top of the ridge we advanced very cautiously again. Another open place led to a steep, rocky hillside with cedars and pines growing somewhat separated. I was disappointed in not seeing the turkeys. Then in our anxiety and eagerness we hurried on, not noiselessly by any means. All of a sudden there was a rustle, and then a great whirr of wings. Three turkeys flew like grouse away into the woods. Next I saw the white gobbler running up the rocky hillside. At first he was in the open. Aiming as best I could I waited for him to stop or hesitate. But he did neither. “Peg him, Dad!” yelled Romer. The lad was right. My best chance I had again forfeited. To hit a running wild turkey with a rifle bullet was a feat I had not done so often as to inspire conceit. The gobbler was wise, too. For that matter all grown gobblers are as wise as old bucks, except in the spring mating season, when it is a crime to hunt them. This one, just as I got a bead on him, always ran behind a rock or tree or shrub. Finally in desperation I took a snap shot at him, hitting under him, making him jump. Then in rapid succession I fired four more times. I had the satisfaction of seeing where my bullets struck up the dust, even though they did go wide of the mark. After my last shot the gobbler disappeared.

“Well, Dad, you sure throwed the dirt over him!” declared Romer.

“Son, I don’t believe I could hit a flock of barns with this gun,” I replied, gazing doubtfully at the old, shiny, wire-wrapped, worn-out Winchester Copple had lent me. I had been told that he was a fine marksman and could drive a nail with it. Upon my return to camp I tried out the rifle, carefully, with a rest, to find that it was not accurate. Moreover it did not throw the bullets consistently. It shot high, wide, low; and right there I abandoned any further use for it. R.C. tried to make me take his rifle to use on the hunting trip; Nielsen and Lee wanted me to take theirs, but I was disgusted with myself and refused. “Thanks, boys,” I said. “Maybe this will be a lesson to me.”

We had been up since three o’clock that morning, and the day’s travel had been exhausting. I had just enough energy left to scrape up a huge, soft pile of pine needles upon which to make our bed. After that all was oblivion until I was awakened by the ringing strokes of Nielsen’s axe.

The morning, after the sun got up, was exceedingly delightful. And this camp was such a contrast to the others, so pleasant and attractive, that even if we had not arranged to meet Lee Haught and his sons here I would have stayed a while anyway. Haught was a famed bear hunter who lived in a log-cabin somewhere up under the rim of the mesa. While Lee and Nielsen rode off up the trail to find Haught I gave Romer his first try at rainbow trout. The water of the creek was low and clear, so that we could see plenty of good-sized trout. But they were shy. They would not rise readily to any of our flies, though I got several strikes. We searched under the stones for worms and secured a few. Whereupon Romer threw a baited hook to a trout we plainly saw. The trout gobbled it. Romer had been instructed in the fine art of angling, but whenever he got a bite he always forgot science. He yanked this ten-inch rainbow right out. Then in another pool he hooked a big fellow that had ideas of his own as well as weight and strength. Romer applied the same strenuous tactics. But this trout nearly pulled Romer off the rock before the line broke. I took occasion then to deliver to the lad a lecture. In reply he said tearfully: “I didn’t know he was so — so big.”

When we returned to camp, Haught and his sons were there. Even at a distance their horses, weapons, and persons satisfied my critical eye. Lee Haught was a tall, spare, superbly built man, with square shoulders. He had a brown face with deep lines and sunken cheeks, keen hazel eyes, heavy dark mustache, and hair streaked a little with gray. The only striking features of his apparel were his black sombrero and long spurs.

His sons, Edd and George, were young, lean, sallow, still-faced, lanky-legged horsemen with clear gray eyes. They did not appear to be given, to much speech. Both were then waiting for the call of the army draft. Looking at them then, feeling the tranquil reserve and latent force of these Arizonians, I reflected that the Germans had failed in their psychology of American character. A few hundred thousand Americans like the Haught boys would have whipped the German army.

We held a council. Haught said he would send his son Edd with Doyle, and by a long roundabout forest road get the wagon up on the mesa. With his burros and some of our horses packed we could take part of the outfit up the creek trail, past his cabin, and climb out on the rim, where we would find grass, water, wood, and plenty of game.

The idea of permanent camp before sunset that very day inspired us to united and vigorous effort. By noon we had the pack train ready. Edd and Doyle climbed on the wagon to start the other way. Romer waved his hand: “Good-bye, Mr. Doyle, don’t break down and lose the apples!”

Then we were off, up the narrow trail along the creek. Haught led the way. Romer attached himself to the bear-hunter, and wherever the trail was wide enough rode beside him. R.C. and I followed. The other men fell in behind the pack train.

The ride was hot, and for the most part all up hill. That basin could be likened to the ribs of a washboard: it was all hills, gorges, ridges and ravines. The hollows of this exceedingly rough country were thick with pine and oak, the ridges covered with cedar, juniper, and manzanita. The ground, where it was not rocky, was a dry, red clay. We passed Haught’s log cabin and clearing of a few acres, where I saw fat hogs and cattle. Beyond this point the trail grew more zigzag, and steeper, and shadier. As we got higher up the air grew cooler. I noted a change in the timber. The trees grew larger, and other varieties appeared. We crossed a roaring brook lined by thick, green brush, very pleasant to the eye, and bronze-gold ferns that were beautiful. We passed oaks all green and yellow, and maple trees, wonderfully colored red and cerise. Then still higher up I espied some silver spruces, most exquisite trees of the mountain forests.

During the latter half of the climb up to the rim I had to attend to the business of riding and walking. The trail was rough, steep, and long. Once Haught called my attention to a flat stone with a plain trail made by a turtle in ages past when that sandstone was wet, sedimentary deposit. By and bye we reached the last slopes up to the mesa, green, with yellow crags and cliffs, and here and there blazing maples to remind me again that autumn was at hand.

At last we surmounted the rim, from which I saw a scene that defied words. It was different from any I had seen before. Black timber as far as eye could see! Then I saw a vast bowl inclosed by dim mountain ranges, with a rolling floor of forested ridges, and dark lines I knew to be canyons. For wild, rugged beauty I had not seen its equal.

When the pack train reached the rim we rode on, and now through a magnificent forest at eight thousand feet altitude. Big white and black clouds obscured the sun. A thunder shower caught us. There was hail, and the dry smell of dust, and a little cold rain. Romer would not put on his slicker. Haught said the drought had been the worst he had seen in twenty years there. Up in this odorous forestland I could not see where there had been lack of rain. The forest appeared thick, grassy, gold and yellow and green and brown. Thickets and swales of oaks and aspens were gorgeous in their autumn hues. The silver spruces sent down long, graceful branches that had to be brushed aside or stooped under as we rode along. Big gray squirrels with white tails and tufted ears ran up trees to perch on limbs and watch us go by; and other squirrels, much smaller and darker gray, frisked and chattered and scolded at a great rate.

We passed little depressions that ran down into ravines, and these, Haught informed me, were the heads of canyons that sloped away from the rim, deepening and widening for miles. The rim of the mesa was its highest point, except here and there a few elevations like Black Butte. Geologically this mesa was an enormous fault, like the north rim of the Grand Canyon. During the formation of the earth, or the hardening of the crust, there had been a crack or slip, so that one edge of the crust stood up sheer above the other. We passed the heads of Leonard Canyon, Gentry, and Turkey Canyons, and at last, near time of sunset, headed down into beautifully colored, pine-sloped, aspen-thicketed Beaver Dam Canyon.

A mile from the rim we were deep in the canyon, walled in by rock-strewn and pine-timbered slopes too steep for a horse to climb. There was a little gully on the black soil where there were no evidences of recent water. Haught said he had never seen Beaver Dam Creek dry until this season. We traveled on until we came to a wide, open space, where three forks of this canyon met, and where in the middle of this glade there rose a lengthy wooded bench, shaded and beautified by stately pines and silver spruce. At this point water appeared in the creek bed, flowing in tiny stream that soon gathered volume. Cold and clear and pure it was all that was needed to make this spot an ideal camp site. Haught said half a mile below there was a grassy park where the horses would graze with elk.

We pitched our tents on this bench, and I chose for my location a space between two great monarchs of the forests, that had surely shaded many an Indian encampment. At the upper end of the bench rose a knoll, golden and green with scrub oaks, and russet-colored with its lichened rocks. About all we could manage that evening was to eat and go to bed.

Morning broke cool and bright, with heavy dew. I got my boots as wet as if I had waded in water. This surprised me, occurring on October sixth, and at eight thousand feet altitude, as I had expected frost. Most of this day was spent in making camp, unpacking, and attending to the many necessary little details that make for comfort in the open. To be sure Romer worked very spasmodically. He spent most of his time on the back of one of Haught’s burros, chasing and roping another. I had not remembered seeing the lad so happily occupied.

Late in the afternoon I slipped off down the canyon alone, taking Haught’s rifle for safety rather than a desire to kill anything. By no means was it impossible to meet a bad bear in that forest. Some distance below camp I entered a ravine and climbed up to the level, and soon found myself deep in the fragrant, colorful, wild forest. Like coming home again was it to enter that forest of silver-tipped, level-spreading spruce, and great, gnarled, massive pines, and oak-patches of green and gold, and maple thickets, with shining aspens standing white against the blaze of red and purple. High, wavy, bleached grass, brown mats of pine needles, gray-green moss waving from the spruces, long strands of sunlight — all these seemed to welcome me.

At a distance there was a roar of wind through the forest; close at hand only a soft breeze. Rustling of twigs caused me to compose myself to listen and watch. Soon small gray squirrels came into view all around me, bright-eyed and saucy, very curious about this intruder. They began to chatter. Other squirrels were working in the tops of trees, for I heard the fall of pine cones. Then came the screech of blue jays. Soon they too discovered me. The male birds were superb, dignified, beautiful. The color was light blue all over with dark blue head and tufted crest. By and bye they ceased to scold me, and I was left to listen to the wind, and to the tiny patter of dropping seeds and needles from the spruces. What cool, sweet, fresh smell this woody, leafy, earthy, dry, grassy, odorous fragrance, dominated by scent of pine! How lonesome and restful! I felt a sense of deep peace and rest. This golden-green forest, barred with sunlight, canopied by the blue sky, and melodious with its soughing moan of wind, absolutely filled me with content and happiness. If a stag or a bear had trotted out into my sight, and had showed me no animosity, not improbably I would have forgotten my gun. More and more as I lived in the open I grew reluctant to kill.

Presently a porcupine waddled along some rods away, and unaware of my presence it passed by and climbed a spruce. I saw it climb high and finally lost sight of it. In searching up and down this spruce I grew alive to what a splendid and beautiful tree it was. Where so many trees grew it always seemed difficult to single out one and study it. This silver spruce was five feet through at the base, rugged, gray-seamed, thick all the way to its lofty height. Its branches were small, with a singular feature that they were uniform in shape, length, and droop. Most all spruce branches drooped toward the ground. That explained why they made such excellent shelters from rain. After a hard storm I had seen the ground dry under a thick-foliaged spruce. Many a time had I made a bed under one. Elk and deer stand under a spruce during a rain, unless there is thunder and lightning. In forests of high altitude, where lightning strikes many trees, I have never found or heard of elk and deer being killed. This particular spruce was a natural tent in the forest. The thick-spreading graceful silver plumes extended clear to the top, where they were bushiest, and rounded out, with all the largest branches there. Each dark gray branch was fringed and festooned with pale green moss, like the cypresses of the South.

Suddenly I heard a sharp snapping of twigs and then stealthy, light steps. An animal of some species was moving in the thicket nearby. Naturally I sustained a thrill, and bethought me of the rifle. Then I peered keenly into the red rose shadows of the thicket. The sun was setting now, and though there appeared a clear golden light high in the forest, along the ground there were shadows. I heard leaves falling, rustling. Tall white aspens stood out of the thicket, and two of the large ones bore the old black scars of bear claws. I was sure, however, that no bear hid in the thicket at this moment. Presently whatever the animal was it pattered lightly away on the far side. After that I watched the quiver of the aspen leaves. Some were green, some yellow, some gold, but they all had the same wonderful tremor, the silent fluttering that gave them the most exquisite action in nature. The sun set, the forest darkened, reminding me of supper time. So I returned to camp. As I entered the open canyon Romer-boy espied me — manifestly he had been watching — and he yelled: “Here comes my Daddy now!... Say, Dad, did you get any pegs?”

Next morning Haught asked me if I would like to ride around through the woods and probably get a shot at a deer. Romer coaxed so to go that I finally consented.

We rode down the canyon, and presently came to a wide grassy park inclosed by high green-clad slopes, the features of which appeared to be that the timber on the west slope was mostly pine, and on the east slope it was mostly spruce. I could arrive at no certain reason for this, but I thought it must be owing to the snow lying somewhat longer on the east slope. The stream here was running with quite a little volume of water. Our horses were grazing in this park. I saw fresh elk tracks made the day before. Elk were quite abundant through this forest, Haught informed me, and were protected by law.

A couple of miles down this trail the canyon narrowed, losing its park-like dimensions. The farther we traveled the more water there was in the stream, and more elk, deer, and turkey tracks in the sand. Every half mile or so we would come to the mouth of a small intersecting canyon, and at length we rode up one of these, presently to climb out on top. At this distance from the rim the forest was more open than in the vicinity of our camp, affording better riding and hunting. Still the thickets of aspen and young pine were so frequent that seldom could I see ahead more than several hundred yards.

Haught led the way, I rode next and Romer kept beside me where it was possible to do so. There was, however, no trail. How difficult to keep the lad quiet! I expected of course that Haught would dismount, and take me to hunt on foot. After a while I gathered he did not hunt deer except on horseback. He explained that cowboys rounded up cattle in this forest in the spring and fall, and deer were not frightened at sound or sight of a horse. Some of the thrill and interest in the forest subsided for me. I did not like to hunt in a country where cattle ranged, no matter how wild they were. Then when we came to a forested ridge bare of grass and smelling of sheep, that robbed the forest of a little more glamour. Mexican sheep-herders drove their flocks up this far sometimes. Haught said bear, lion, lynx, and coyote, sometimes the big gray wolves, followed the sheep. Deer, however, hated a sheep-run range.

Riding was exceedingly pleasant. The forest was shady, cool, full of sunlight and beauty. Nothing but fire or the lumbermen could ever rob it of its beauty, silence, fragrance, and of its temple-like majesty. So provided we did not meet any cattle or sheep I did not care whether or not we sighted any game. In fact I would have forgotten we were hunting had not Romer been along. With him continually seeing things it was difficult to keep from imagining that we were hunting Indians. The Apaches had once lived in this country Haught informed us; and it was a habit of theirs to burn the grass and fallen leaves over every fall, thus keeping down the underbrush. In this the Indians showed how near-sighted they were; the future growth of a forest did not concern them. Usually Indians were better conservationists than white men.

We rode across a grove of widely separated, stately pines, at the far end of which stood a thicket of young pines and other brush. As we neared this Haught suddenly reined in, and in quick and noiseless action he dismounted. Then he jerked his rifle from his saddle-sheath, took a couple of forward steps, and leveled it. I was so struck with the rugged and significant picture he made that I did not dismount, and did not see any game until after he fired. Then as I tumbled off and got out my rifle I heard Romer gasping and crying out. A gray streak with a bobbing white end flashed away out of sight to the left. Next I saw a deer bounding through the thicket. Haught fired again. The deer ran so fast that I could not get my sights anywhere near him. Haught thudded through an opening, and an instant later, when both he and the deer had disappeared, he shot the third time. Presently he returned.

“Never could shoot with them open sights nohow,” he said. “Shore I missed thet yearlin’ buck when he was standin’. Why didn’t you smoke him up?”

“Dad, why didn’t you peg him?” asked Romer, with intense regret. “Why, I could have knocked him.”

Then it was incumbent upon me to confess that the action had appeared to be a little swift. “Wal,” said Haught, “when you see one you want to pile off quick.”

As we rode on Romer naively asked me if ever in my life I had seen anything run so fast as that deer. We entered another big grove with thin patches of thicket here and there. Haught said these were good places for deer to lie down, relying on their noses to scent danger from windward, and on their eyes in the other direction. We circled to go round thickets, descending somewhat into a swale. Here Haught got off a little to the right. Romer and I rode up a gentle slope toward a thin line of little pines, through which I could see into the pines beyond. Suddenly up jumped three big gray bucks. Literally I fell off my horse, bounced up, and pulled out my rifle. One buck was loping in a thicket. I could see his broad, gray body behind the slender trees. I aimed — followed him — got a bead on him — and was just about to pull trigger when he vanished. Plunging forward I yelled to Haught. Then Romer cried in his shrill treble: “Dad, here’s a big buck — hurry!” Turning I ran back. In wild excitement Romer was pointing. I was just in time to see a gray rump disappear in the green. Just then Haught shot, and after that he halloed. Romer and I went through the thicket, working to our left, and presently came out into the open forest. Haught was leading his horse. To Romer’s eager query he replied: “Shore, I piled him up. Two-year-old black-tail buck.”

Sure enough he had shot straight this time. The buck lay motionless under a pine, with one point of his antlers imbedded deep in the ground. A sleek, gray, graceful deer he was just beginning to get his winter coat. His color was indeed a bluish gray. Haught hung him up to a branch, spread his hind legs, and cut him down the middle. The hunter’s dexterity with a knife made me wonder how many deer he had dressed in his life in the open. We lifted the deer upon the saddle of Haught’s horse and securely tied it there with a lasso; then with the hunter on foot, leading the way, we rode through the forest up the main ridge between Beaver and Turkey Canyons. Toward the rim I found the pines and spruces larger, and the thickets of aspen denser. We passed the heads of many ravines running down to the canyons on either side, and these were blazing gold and red in color, and so thick I could not see a rod into them. About the middle of the afternoon we reached camp. With venison hanging up to cool we felt somewhat like real hunters. R.C. had gone off to look for turkeys, which enterprise had been unsuccessful.

Upon the following day, which was October tenth, we started our bear hunting. Haught’s method appeared to me to lack something. He sent the hounds down below the rim with George; and taking R.C. and me, and Lee and Nielsen, he led us over to what he called Horton Thicket. Never would I forget my first sight of that immense forest-choked canyon. It was a great cove running up from the basin into the rim. Craggy ledges, broken, ruined, tottering and gray, slanted down into this abyss. The place was so vast that these ledges appeared far apart, yet they were many. An empire of splintered cliff!

High up these cracked and stained walls were covered with lichens, with little spruces growing in niches, and tiny yellow bushes. Points of crumbling rock were stained gold and russet and bronze. Below the huge gorge was full of aspens, maples, spruces — a green, crimson, yellow density of timber, apparently impenetrable. We were accorded different stations on the ledges all around the cove, and instructed to stay there until called by four blasts from a hunting horn. My point was so far from R.C.’s, across the canyon, that I had to use my field-glass to see him. When I did look he seemed contented. Lee and Nielsen and Haught I could not see at all. Finding a comfortable seat, if hard rock could ever be that, I proceeded to accept my wait for developments. One thing was sure — even though it were a futile way to hunt it seemed rich in other recompense for me. My stand towered above a vast colorful slope down which the wind roared as in a gale. How could I ever hear the hounds? I watched the storm-clouds scudding across the sky. Once I saw a rare bird, a black eagle in magnificent flight; and so whatever happened I had my reward in that sight.

Nothing happened. For hours and hours I sat there, with frequent intermissions away from my hard, rocky seat. Toward the close of afternoon, when the wind began to get cold, I saw that R.C. had left his stand. He had undoubtedly gone back to camp, which was some miles nearer his stand than mine. At last I gave up any hope of hearing either the hounds or the horn, as the roar of wind had increased. Once I thought I heard a distant rifle shot. So I got on my horse and set out to find camp. I was on a promontory, the sides of which were indented by long ravines that were impassable except near their heads. In fact I had been told there was only one narrow space where it was possible to get off this promontory. Lucky indeed that I remembered Haught telling of this! Anyway I soon found myself lost in a maze of forested heads of ravines. Finally I went back to the rim on the west side, and then working along I found our horse-tracks. These I followed, with difficulty, and after an hour’s travel I crossed the narrow neck of the promontory, and back-tracked myself to camp, arriving there at sunset.

The Haughts had put up two bear. One bear had worked around under one of the great promontories. The hounds had gotten on his back-trail, staying on it until it grew cold, then had left it. Their baying had roused the bear out of his bed, and he had showed himself once or twice on the open rock-slides. Haught saw the other bear from the rim. This was a big, red, cinnamon bear asleep under a pine tree on an open slope. Haught said when the hounds gave tongue on the other trail this red bear awakened, sat up, and wagged his head slowly. He had never been chased by hounds. He lay down in his piny bed again. The distance was too great for an accurate shot, but Haught tried anyway, with the result that he at least scared the cinnamon off.

These bear were both thin. As they were not the sheep-killing and cow-killing kind their food consisted mainly of mast (acorns) and berries. But this season there were no berries at all, and very few acorns. So the bears were not fat. When a bear was thin he could always outrun the hounds; if he was fat he would get hot and tired enough to climb a tree or mad enough to stop and fight the dogs.

Haught told me there were a good many mountain lions and lynx under the rim. They lived on elk, deer, and turkey. The lynx were the tuft-eared, short-tailed species. They would attack and kill a cow-elk. In winter on the rim the snow sometimes fell fifteen feet deep, so that the game wintered underneath. Snow did not lay long on the sunny, open ridges of the basin.

That night a storm-wind roared mightily in the pines. How wonderful to lie snug in bed, down in the protected canyon, and hear the marching and retreating gale above in the forest! Next day we expected rain or snow. But there was only wind, and that quieted by afternoon. So I took Romer off into the woods. He carried his rifle and he wore his chaps. I could not persuade him to part with these. They rustled on the brush and impeded his movements, and particularly tired him, and made him look like a diminutive cowboy. How eager, keen, boyishly vain, imaginative! He was crazy to see game, to shoot anything, particularly bears. But it contented him to hunt turkeys. Many a stump and bit of color he mistook for game of some kind. Nevertheless, I had to take credence in what he thought he saw, for his eyesight was unusually quick and keen.

That afternoon Edd and Doyle arrived, reporting an extremely rough, roundabout climb up to the rim, where they had left the wagon. As it was impossible to haul the supplies down into the canyon they were packed down to camp on burros. Isbel had disapproved of this procedure, a circumstance that struck me with peculiar significance, which Lee explained by telling me Isbel was one of the peculiar breed of cowboys, who no sooner were they out on the range than they wanted to go back to town again. The truth was I had not met any of that breed, though I had heard of them. This peculiarity of Isbel’s began to be related in my mind to his wastefulness as a cook. He cooked and threw away as much as we ate. I asked him to be careful and to go easy with our supplies, but I could not see that my request made any difference.

After supper this evening R.C. heard a turkey call up on the hill east of camp. Then I heard it, and Romer also. We ran out a ways into the open to listen the better. R.C.’s ears were exceptionally keen. He could hear a squirrel jump a long distance in the forest. In this case he distinctly heard three turkeys fly up into trees. I heard one. Romer declared he heard a flock. Then R.C. located a big bronze and white gobbler on a lower limb of a huge pine. Presently I too espied it. Whereupon we took shot-gun and rifle, and sallied forth sure of fetching back to camp some wild turkey meat. Romer tagged at our heels.

Hurrying to the slope we climbed up at least three-quarters of the way, as swiftly as possible. And that was work enough to make me wet and hot. The sun had set and twilight was upon us, so that we needs must hurry if we were to be successful. Locating the big gobbler turned out to be a task. We had to climb over brush and around rocks, up a steep slope, rather open; and we had to do it without being seen or making noise. Romer, despite his eagerness, did very well indeed. At last I espied our quarry, and indeed the sight was thrilling. Wild turkey gobblers to me, who had hunted them enough to learn how sagacious and cunning and difficult to stalk they were, always seemed as provocative of excitement as larger game. This big fellow hopped up from limb to limb of the huge dead pine, and he bobbed around as if undecided, and tried each limb for a place to roost. Then he hopped farther up until we lost sight of him in the gnarled net-work of branches.

R.C. wanted me to slip on alone, but I preferred to have him and Romer go too. So we slipped stealthily upward until we reached the level. Then progress was easier. I went to the left with the rifle, and R.C. with the .20-gauge, and Romer, went around to the right. How rapidly it was growing dark! Low down in the forest I could not distinguish objects. We circled that big pine tree, and I made rather a wide detour, perhaps eighty yards from it. At last I got the upper part of the dead pine silhouetted against the western sky. Moving to and fro I finally made out a large black lump way out upon a spreading branch. Could that be the gobbler? I studied that dark enlarged part of the limb with great intentness, and I had about decided that it was only a knot when I saw a long neck shoot out. That lump was the wise old turkey all right. He was almost in the top of the tree and far out from the trunk. No wild cat or lynx could ever surprise him there! I reflected upon the instinct that governed him to protect his life so cunningly. Safe he was from all but man and gun!

When I came to aim at him with the rifle I found that I could see only a blur of sights. Other branches and the tip of a very high pine adjoining made a dark background. I changed my position, working around to where the background was all open sky. It proved to be better. By putting the sights against this open sky I could faintly see the front sight through the blurred ring. It was a good long shot even for daylight, and I had a rifle I knew nothing about. But all the difficulty only made a keener zest. Just then I heard Romer cry out excitedly, and then R.C. spoke distinctly. Far more careless than that they began to break twigs under their feet. The gobbler grew uneasy. How he stretched out his long neck! He heard them below. I called out low and sharp: “Stand still! Be quiet!” Then I looked again through the blurred peep-sight until I caught the front sight against the open sky. This done I moved the rifle over until I had the sight aligned against the dark shape. Straining my eyes I held hard — then fired. The big dark lump on the branch changed shape, and fell, to alight with a sounding thump. I heard Romer running, but could not see him. Then his high voice pealed out: “I got him, Dad. You made a grand peg!”

Not only had Romer gotten him, but he insisted on packing him back to camp. The gobbler was the largest I ever killed, not indeed one of the huge thirty-five pounders, but a fat, heavy turkey, and quite a load for a boy. Romer packed him down that steep slope in the dark without a slip, for which performance I allowed him to stay up a while around the camp-fire.

The Haughts came over from their camp that night and visited us. Much as I loved to sit alone beside a red-embered fire at night in the forest, or on the desert, I also liked upon occasions to have company. We talked and talked. Old-timer Doyle told more than one of his “in the early days” stories. Then Haught told us some bear stories. The first was about an old black bear charging and sliding down at him. He said no hunter should ever shoot at a bear above him, because it could come down at him as swiftly as a rolling rock. This time he worked the lever of his rifle at lightning speed, and at the last shot he “shore saw bear hair right before his eyes.” His second story was about a boy who killed a bear, and was skinning it when five more bears came along, in single file, and made it very necessary that he climb a tree until they had gone. His third story was about an old she-bear that had two cubs. Haught happened to ride within sight of her when evidently she thought it time to put her cubs in a safe place. So she tried to get them to climb a spruce tree, and finally had to cuff and spank them to make them go up. In connection with this story he told us he had often seen she-bears spank their cubs. More thrilling was his fourth story about a huge grizzly, a sheep and cattle killer that passed through the country, leaving death behind him on the range.

Romer’s enjoyment of this story-telling hour around the glowing camp-fire was equalled by his reluctance to go to bed. “Aw, Dad, please let me hear one more,” he pleaded. His shining eyes would have weakened a sterner discipline than mine. And Haught seemed inspired by them.

“Wal now, listen to this hyar,” he began again, with a twinkle in his eye. “Thar was an old fellar had a ranch in Chevelon Canyon, an’ he was always bein’ pestered by mountain lions. His name was Bill Tinker. Now Bill was no sort of a hunter, fact was he was afeerd of lions an’ bears, but he shore did git riled when any critters rustled around his cabin. One day in the fall he comes home an’ seen a big she-lion sneakin’ around. He grabbed a club, an’ throwed it, and yelled to scare the critter away. Wal, he had an old water barrel layin’ around, an’ darned if the lion didn’t run in thet barrel an’ hide. Bill run quick an’ flopped the barrel end up, so he had the lion trapped. He had to set on the barrel to hold it down. Shore that lion raised old Jasper under the barrel. Bill was plumb scared. Then he seen the lion’s tail stick out through the bung-hole. Bill bent over an’ shore quick tied a knot in thet long tail. Then he run fer his cabin. When he got to the door he looked back to see the lion tearin’ down the hill fer the woods with the barrel bumpin’ behind her. Bill said he never seen her again till next spring, an’ she had the barrel still on her tail. But what was stranger’n thet Bill swore she had four cubs with her an’ each of them had a keg on its tail.”

We all roared with laughter except Romer. His interest had been so all-absorbing, his excitement so great, and his faith in the story-teller so reverential that at first he could not grasp the trick at the end of the story. His face was radiant, his eyes were dark and dilated. When the truth dawned upon him, amaze and disappointment changed his mobile face, and then came mirth. He shouted as if to the tree-tops on high. Long after he was in bed I heard him laughing to himself.

I was awakened a little after daylight by the lad trying to get into his boots. His boots were rather tight, and somehow, even in a dry forest, he always contrived to get them wet, so that in the morning it was a herculean task for him to pull them on. This occasion appeared more strenuous than usual. “Son, what’s the idea?” I inquired. “It’s just daylight — not time to get up.” He desisted from his labors long enough to pant: “Uncle Rome’s — gone after turkeys. Edd’s going to — call them with — a caller — made out of a turkey’s wing-bone.” And I said: “But they’ve gone now.” Whereupon he subsided: “Darned old boots! I heard Edd and Uncle Rome. I’d been ready if I could have got into my darned old boots.... See here, Dad, I’m gonna wear moccasins.”

III

As we were sitting round the camp-fire, eating breakfast, R.C. and Edd returned; and R.C. carried a turkey gobbler the very size and color of the one I had shot the night before. R.C.’s face wore the keen, pleased expression characteristic of it when he had just had some unusual and satisfying experience.

“Sure was great,” he said, warming his hands at the fire. “We went up on the hill where you killed your gobbler last night. Got there just in the gray light of dawn. We were careful not to make any noise. Edd said if there were any more turkeys they would come down at daylight. So we waited until it was light enough to see. Then Edd got out his turkey bone and began to call. Turkeys answered from the trees all around. By George, it was immense! Edd had picked out a thicket of little pines for us to hide in, and in front of us was a glade with a big fallen tree lying across it. Edd waited a few moments. The woods was all gray and quiet. I don’t know when I’ve felt so good. Then he called again. At once turkeys answered from all around in the trees. Next I heard a swish of wings, then a thump. Then more swishes. The turkeys were flying down from their roosts. It seemed to me in my excitement that there were a hundred of them. We could hear them pattering over the dry ground. Edd whispered: ‘They’re down. Now we got to do some real callin’.’ I felt how tense, how cautious he was. When he called again there was some little difference, I don’t know what, unless it was his call sounded more like a real turkey. They answered. They were gathering in front of us, and I made sure were coming into the glade. Edd stopped calling. Then he whispered: ‘Ready now. Look out!’... Sure I was looking all right. This was my first experience calling turkeys and I simply shook all over. Suddenly I saw a turkey head stick up over the log. Then! — up hopped a beautiful gobbler. He walked along the log, looked and peered, and stretched his neck. Sure he was suspicious. Edd gave me a hunch, which I took to be a warning to shoot quick. That was a hard place for me. I wanted to watch the gobbler. I wanted to see the others. We could hear them all over the glade. But this was my chance. Quickly I rose and took a peg at him. A cloud of feathers puffed off him. He gave a great bounce, flapping his wings. I heard a roaring whirr of other turkeys. With my eye on my gobbler I seemed to see the air full of big, black, flying things. My gobbler came down, bounced up again, got going — when with the second barrel I knocked him cold. Then I stood there watching the flock whirring every way into the forest. Must have been thirty-five or forty of them, all gobblers. It was a great sight. And right here I declared myself — wild turkey is the game for me.”

Romer manifestly listened to this narrative with mingled feelings of delight and despair. “Uncle Rome, wild turkey’s the game for me, too ... and by Gosh! I’ll fix those boots of mine!”

That morning we were scheduled for another bear hunt, on which I had decided to go down under the rim with Edd and George. Lee had his doubts about my horse, and desired me to take his, or at least one of the others. Now his horse was too spirited for me to ride after hounds, and I did not want to take one of the others, so I was compelled to ride my own. At the last moment Lee had been disappointed in getting a mustang he particularly wanted for me, and so it had fallen about that my horse was the poorest in the outfit, which to put it mildly was pretty poor. I had made the best of the matter so far, and hoped to continue doing so.

We rode up the east slope of Beaver Dam Canyon, through the forest, and out along the rim for five or six miles, way on the other side of the promontory where I had gotten lost. Here Haught left us, taking with him R.C. and Lee and Nielsen, all of whom were to have stands along the rim. We hoped to start a bear and chase him round under the high points toward Horton Thicket.

The magnificent view from the head of a trail where Edd started down impressed me so powerfully that I lagged behind. Below me heaved a split, tossed, dimpled, waving, rolling world of black-green forestland. Far across it stood up a rugged, blue, waved range of mountains — the Sierra Anchas.

The trail was rough, even for Arizonians, which made it for me little short of impassable. I got off to lead my horse. He had to be pulled most of the time, wherefore I lost patience with him. I loved horses, but not stubborn ones. All the way down the rocky trail the bunch grass and wild oak and manzanita were so thick that I had to crush my way through. At length I had descended the steep part to find Edd and George waiting for me below on the juniper benches. These were slopes of red earth or clay, bare of grass, but thick with junipers, cactus, and manzanita. This face of the great rim was a southern exposure, hot and dusty. The junipers were thick. The green of their foliage somewhat resembled cedars, but their berries were gray-blue, almost lavender in color. I tasted several from different trees, until I found one with sweet, somewhat acrid taste. Significant it was that this juniper had broken branches where bears had climbed to eat the fruit, and all around on the ground beneath was bear sign. Edd said the tracks were cold, but all the same he had to be harsh with the hounds to hold them in. I counted twenty piles of bear manure under one juniper, and many places where bears had scraped in the soft earth and needles.

We went on down this slope, getting into thicker brush and rougher ground. All at once the hounds opened up in thrilling chorus of bays and barks. I saw Edd jump off his horse to stoop and examine the ground, where evidently he had seen a bear track. “Fresh — made last night!” he yelled, mounting hurriedly. “Hi! Hi! Hi!” His horse leaped through the brush, and George followed. In an instant they were out of sight. Right there my trouble began. I spurred my horse after them, and it developed that he differed from me in regard to direction and going. He hated the brush. But I made him take to it and made him run. Dodging branches was an old story for me, and if I had been on a good fast horse I might have kept Edd and George in sight. As it was, however, I had to follow them by the sound of hoofs and breaking brush. From the way the hounds bayed I knew they had struck a hot scent. They worked down the slope, and assuredly gave me a wild ride to keep within hearing of them. My horse grew excited, which fact increased his pace, his obstinacy, and likewise my danger. Twice he unseated me. I tore my coat, lost my hat, scratched my face, skinned my knees, but somehow I managed to keep within hearing.

I came to a deep brush-choked gorge, impassable at that point. Luckily the hounds turned here and started back my way. By riding along the edge of this gorge I kept up with them. They climbed out an intersecting ravine and up on the opposite side. I forced my horse to go down this rather steep soft slope. At the bottom I saw a little spring of water with fresh bear tracks around it, and one place where the bear had caved in a soft bank. Here my horse suddenly plunged and went to his knees in the yielding red clay. He snorted in fright. The bank slid with him and I tumbled off. But nothing serious happened. I ran down, caught him, mounted, and spurred him up the other side. Once up he began to run. I heard the boys yelling not far away and the hounds were baying up above me. They were climbing fast, working to the left, toward an oak thicket. It took effort to slow down my steed. He acted crazy and I began to suspect that he had caught a whiff of the bear. Most horses are afraid of bears and lions. Sight of Edd and George, who appeared in an open spot, somewhat quieted my mount.

“Trail’s gettin’ hot up there,” declared Edd. “That bear’s bedded somewhere an’ I’ll bet the hounds jumped him. Listen to Old Tom!”

How the deep sonorous bay of Old Tom awoke the echoes under the cliffs! And Old Dan’s voice was a hoarse bellow. The other hounds yelped.

Edd blew a mellow blast from his hunting-horn, and that awoke other and more melodious echoes. “There’s father up on the rim,” he said. I looked, and finally saw Haught perched like a black eagle on a crag. His gun flashed in the strong sunlight.

Somewhere up there the hounds jumped the bear. Anybody could have told that. What a wild chorus! Edd and George answered to it with whoops as wild, and they galloped their horses over ground and through brush where they should have been walked. I followed, or tried to follow; and here my steed showed his bull-headed, obstinate nature. If he had been afraid but still game I would have respected him, but he was a coward and mean. He wanted to have his way, which was to go the other direction, and to rid himself of me. So we had it hot and heavy along that rough slope, with honors about even. As for bruises and scratches, however, I sustained the most. In the excitement of the chase and anger at the horse I forgot all about any risks. This always is the way in adventure. Hot racing blood governed me entirely. Whenever I got out in an open place, where I could ride fast and hear and see, then it was all intensely thrilling. Both hounds and comrades were above me, but apparently working down.

Thus for me the necessity of hurry somewhat lessened. I slowed to a trot, peering everywhere, listening with all my ears. I had stopped yelling, because my horse had misunderstood that. We got into a region of oak thickets, small saplings, scrubby, close together, but beautiful with their autumn-tinted leaves. Next I rode through a maple dell, shady, cool, where the leafy floor was all rose-pink-red. My horse sent the colored leaves flying.

Soon, however, we got into the thickets again, low live-oak and manzanita, which kind of brush my horse detested. I did not blame him for that. As the hounds began to work down my keen excitement increased. If they had jumped the bear and were chasing him down I might run upon him any moment. This both appealed to me and caused me apprehension. Suppose he were a bad cinnamon or a grizzly? What would become of me on that horse? I decided that I had better carry my rifle in my hand, so in case of a sudden appearance of the bear and I was thrown or had a fall off, then I would be prepared. So forthwith I drew the rifle out of the scabbard, remembering as I did so that Haught had cautioned me, in case of close quarters with a bear and the need of quick shooting, to jerk the lever down hard. If my horse had cut up abominably before he now began to cover himself with a glory of abominableness. I had to jam him through the thickets. He was an uncomfortable horse to ride under the best circumstances; here he was as bad as riding a picket-fence. When he got his head, which was often, he carried me into thickets of manzanita that we could not penetrate, and had to turn back. I found that I was working high up the slope, and bad luck as I was having with my horse, I still appeared to keep fairly close to the hounds.

When we topped a ridge of this slope the wind struck us strong in the face. The baying of the hounds rang clear and full and fierce. My horse stood straight up. Then he plunged back and bolted down the slope. His mouth was like iron. I could neither hold nor turn him. However perilous this ride I had to admit that at last my horse was running beautifully. In fact he was running away! He had gotten a hot scent of that bear. He hurdled rocks, leaped washes, slid down banks, plunged over places that made my hair stand up stiff, and worst of all he did not try to avoid brush or trees or cactus. Manzanita he tore right through, leaving my coat in strips decorating our wake. I had to hold on, to lie flat, to dodge and twist, and all the time watch for a place where I might fall off in safety. But I did not get a chance to fall off. A loud clamoring burst from the hounds apparently close behind drove my horse frantic. Before he had only run — now he flew! He left me hanging in the thick branches of a juniper, from which I dropped blind and breathless and stunned. Disengaging myself from the broken and hanging branches I staggered aside, rifle in hand, trying to recover breath and wits.

Then, in that nerveless and shaken condition, I heard the breaking of twigs and thud of soft steps right above me. Peering up with my half-blinded eyes I saw a huge red furry animal coming, half obscured by brush. It waved aside from his broad back. A shock ran over me — a bursting gush of hot blood that turned to ice as it rushed. “Big cinnamon bear!” I whispered, hoarsely.

Instinctively I cocked and leveled the rifle, and though I could not clearly see the red animal bearing down the slope, such was my state that I fired. Then followed a roaring crash — a terrible breaking onslaught upon the brush — and the huge red mass seemed to flash down toward me. I worked the lever of the rifle. But I had forgotten Haught’s caution. I did not work the lever far enough down, so that the next cartridge jammed in the receiver. With a second shock, different this time, I tried again. In vain! The terrible crashing of brush appeared right upon me. For an instant that seemed an age I stood riveted to the spot, my blood congealing, my heart choking me, my tongue pasted to the roof of my mouth. Then I dropped the rifle and whirled to plunge away. Like a deer I bounded. I took prodigious bounds. To escape — to find a tree to leap into — that was my only thought. A few rods down the slope — it seemed a mile — I reached a pine with low branches. Like a squirrel I ran up this — straddled a limb high up — and gazed back.

My sensations then were dominated by the relief of salvation. I became conscious of them. Racing blood, bursting heart, labored pang of chest, prickling, burning skin, a queer involuntary flutter of muscles, like a palsy — these attested to the instinctive primitive nature of my state. I heard the crashing of brush, the pound of soft jumps over to my left. With eyes that seemed magnifying I gazed to see a big red woolly steer plunge wildly down the slope and disappear. A third shock possessed me — amaze. I had mistaken a wild, frightened steer for a red cinnamon bear!

I sat there some moments straddling that branch. Then I descended, and went back to the place I had dropped my rifle, and securing that I stood a moment listening. The hounds had taken the chase around below me into the gorge and were drawing away. It was useless to try to follow them. I sat down again and gave myself up to meditation.

I tried to treat the situation as a huge joke, but that would not go. No joke indeed! My horse had made me risk too much, my excitement had been too intense, my fright had been too terrible. Reality for me could not have been any more grave. I had risked my neck on a stubborn coward of a horse, I had mistaken a steer for a bear, I had forgotten how to manipulate the borrowed rifle. These were the careless elements of tragedy. The thought sobered me. I took the lesson to heart. And I reflected on the possible point of view of the bear. He had probably gone to sleep on a full stomach of juniper berries and a big drink of spring water. Rudely he had been routed out by a pack of yelping, fiendish hounds. He had to run for his life. What had he done to deserve such treatment? Possibly he might have killed some of Haught’s pigs, but most assuredly he had never harmed me. In my sober frame of mind then I rather disapproved of my wholly unjustifiable murderous intent. I would have deserved it if the steer had really been the bear. Certainly I hoped the bear would outrun the hounds and escape. I weighed the wonderful thrill of the chase, the melody of hounds, the zest of spirited action, the peril to limb and life against the thing that they were done for, with the result that I found them sadly lacking. Peril to limb and life was good for man. If this had not been a fact my performance would have been as cowardly as that of my horse. Again I had rise up before my mind the spectacle of opposing forces — the elemental in man restrained by the spiritual. Then the old haunting thought returned to vex me — man in his development needed the exercise of brawn, muscle, bone red-blood, violence, labor and pain and agony. Nature recognized only the survival of the fittest of any species. If a man allowed a spiritual development, intellect, gentleness, to keep him from all hard, violent action, from tremendous exertion, from fierce fight with elements and beasts, and his own kind — would he not soon degenerate as a natural physical man? Evolution was a stern inevitable seeking of nature for perfection, for the unattainable. This perfection was something that lived and improved on strife. Barbarians, Indians, savages were the most perfect specimens of nature’s handiwork; and in proportion to their development toward so-called civilized life their physical prowess and perfectness — that was to say, their strength to resist and live and reproduce their kind — absolutely and inevitably deteriorated.

My reflection did not carry me at that time to any positive convictions of what was truest and best. The only conclusions I eventually arrived at were that I was sore and bruised and dirty and torn — that I would be happy if the bear got away — that I had lost my mean horse and was glad therefore — that I would have half a dozen horses and rifles upon my next hunt — and lastly that I would not be in any hurry to tell about mistaking a steer for a bear, and climbing a tree. Indeed these last facts have been religiously kept secret until chronicled here.

Shortly afterward, as I was making a lame and slow headway toward Horton Thicket, where I hoped to find a trail out, I heard Edd yelling, and I answered. Presently we met. He was leading my horse, and some of the hounds, notably Old Tom and Dan, were with him.

“Where’s the bear?” I asked.

“He got away down in the breaks,” replied Edd. “George is tryin’ to call the hounds back. What happened to you? I heard you shoot.”

“My horse didn’t care much for me or the brush,” I replied. “He left me — rather suddenly. And — I took a shot at what I thought was a bear.”

“I seen him once,” said Edd, with eyes flashing. “Was just goin’ to smoke him up when he jumped out of sight.”

My mortification and apprehension were somewhat mitigated when I observed that Edd was dirty, ragged, and almost as much disheveled as I was. I had feared he would see in my appearance certain unmistakable evidences that I had made a tenderfoot blunder and then run for my life. But Edd took my loss of hat, and torn coat, and general bedraggled state as a matter of course. Indeed I somehow felt a little pride at his acceptance of me there in the flesh.

We rode around the end of this slope, gradually working down into Horton Thicket, where a wild confusion of dense timber engaged my sight. Presently George trotted up behind us with the other dogs. “We lost him down on the hot dry ridges. Hounds couldn’t track him,” was all George said. Thereupon Edd blew four blasts upon his hunting-horn, which were signals to those on the stands above that the hunt was over for the day.

Even in the jungle tropics I had never seen such dense shade as this down in Horton Thicket. The timber grew close and large, and the foliage was matted, letting little sunlight through. Dark, green and brown, fragrant, cool thicket indeed it was. We came to a huge spruce tree, the largest I ever saw — Edd said eight feet through at the base, but he was conservative. It was a gnarled, bearded, gray, old monarch of the forest, with bleached, dead top. For many years it had been the home of swarms of wild honey bees. Edd said more than one bee-hunter had undertaken to cut down this spruce. This explained a number of deeply cut notches in the huge trunk. “I’ll bet Nielsen could chop it down,” declared Edd. I admitted the compliment to our brawny Norwegian axe-wielder, but added that I certainly would not let him do it, whether we were to get any honey or not.

By and bye we reached the bottom of the thicket where we crossed a swift clear cold brook. Here the smells seemed cool, sweet, wild with spruce and pine. This stream of granite water burst from a spring under a cliff. What a roar it made! I drank until I could drink no more. Huge boulders and windfalls, moved by water at flood season, obstructed the narrow stream-bed. We crossed to start climbing the north slope, and soon worked up out of the thicket upon a steep, rocky slope, with isolated pines. We struck a deer-trail hard to follow. Above me loomed the pine-tipped rim, with its crags, cliffs, pinnacles, and walls, all gray, seamed and stained, and in some clefts blazes of deep red and yellow foliage.

When we surmounted the slope, and eventually reached camp, I found Isbel entertaining strangers, men of rough garb, evidently riders of the range. That was all right, but I did not like his prodigality with our swiftly diminishing store of eatables.

To conclude about Isbel — matters pertaining to our commissary department, during the next few days, went from bad to worse. Doyle advised me not to take Isbel to task, and was rather evasive of reasons for so advising me. Of course I listened and attended to my old guide’s advice, but I fretted under the restraint. We had a spell of bad weather, wind and rain, and hail off and on, and at length, the third day, a cold drizzling snow. During this spell we did but little hunting. The weather changed, and the day afterward I rode my mean horse twenty miles on a deer hunt. We saw one buck. Upon our arrival at camp, about four o’clock, which hour was too early for dinner, I was surprised and angered to find Isbel eating an elaborate meal with three more strange, rough-appearing men. Doyle looked serious. Nielsen had a sharp glint in his gray eye. As for myself, this procedure of our cook’s was more than I could stand.

“Isbel, you’re discharged,” I said, shortly. “Take your outfit and get out. Lee will lend you a pack horse.”

“Wal, I ain’t fired,” drawled Isbel. “I quit before you rode in. Beat you to it!”

“Then if you quit it seems to me you are taking liberties with supplies you have no right to,” I replied.

“Nope. Cook of any outfit has a right to all the chuck he wants. That’s western way.”

“Isbel, listen to this and then get out,” I went on. “You’ve wasted our supplies just to get us to hurry and break camp. As for western ways I know something of them. It’s a western way for a man to be square and honest in his dealings with an outsider. In all my years and in all my trips over the southwest you are the first westerner to give me the double-cross. You have that distinction.”

Then I turned my back upon him and walked to my tent. His acquaintances left at once, and he quickly packed and followed. Faithful old Doyle took up the duties of cook and we gained, rather than missed by the change. Our supplies, however, had been so depleted that we could not stay much longer on the hunt.

By dint of much determination as to the manner and method of my next hunt I managed to persuade myself that I could make the best of this unlucky sojourn in the woods. No rifle, no horse worth riding, no food to stay out our time — it was indeed bad luck for me. After supper the tension relaxed. Then I realized all the men were relieved. Only Romer regretted loss of Isbel. When the Doyles and Haughts saw how I took my hard luck they seemed all the keener to make my stay pleasant and profitable. Little they knew that their regard was more to me than material benefits and comforts of the trip. To travelers of the desert and hunters and riders of the open there are always hard and uncomfortable and painful situations to be met with. And in meeting these, if it can be done with fortitude and spirit that win the respect of westerners, it is indeed a reward.

Next day, in defiance of a thing which never should be considered — luck — I took Haught’s rifle again, and my lazy, sullen, intractable horse, and rode with Edd and George down into Horton Thicket. At least I could not be cheated out of fresh air and beautiful scenery.

We dismounted and tied our horses at the brook, and while Edd took the hounds up into the dense thicket where the bears made their beds, George and I followed a trail up the brook. In exactly ten minutes the hounds gave tongue. They ran up the thicket, which was favorable for us, and from their baying I judged the bear trail to be warm. In the dense forest we could not see five rods ahead. George averred that he did not care to have a big cinnamon or a grizzly come running down that black thicket. And as for myself I did not want one so very exceedingly much. I tried to keep from letting the hounds excite me, which effort utterly failed. We kept even with the hounds until their baying fell off, and finally grew desultory, and then ceased. “Guess they had the wrong end of his trail,” said George. With this exasperating feature of bear and lion chases I was familiar. Most hounds, when they struck a trail, could not tell in which direction the bear was traveling. A really fine hound, however, like Buffalo Jones’ famous Don, or Scott Teague’s Sampson or Haught’s Old Dan, would grow suspicious of a scent that gradually cooled, and would eventually give it up. Young hounds would back-track game as far as possible.

After waiting a while we returned to our horses, and presently Edd came back with the pack. “Big bear, but cold trail. Called them off,” was all he said. We mounted and rode across the mouth of Horton Thicket round to the juniper slopes, which I had occasion to remember. I even saw the pine tree which I had so ignominiously climbed. How we ridicule and scorn some of our perfectly natural actions — afterwards! Edd had brought three of the pups that day, two-year-olds as full of mischief as pups could be. They jumped a bunch of deer and chased them out on the hard red cedar covered ridges. We had a merry chase to head them off. Edd gave them a tongue-lashing and thrashing at one and the same time. I felt sorry for the pups. They had been so full of frolic and fight. How crestfallen they appeared after Edd got through! “Whaddaye mean,” yelled Edd, in conclusion. “Chasin’ deer!... Do you think you’re a lot of rabbit dogs?” From the way the pups eyed Edd so sheepishly and adoringly, I made certain they understood him perfectly, and humbly confessed their error.

Old Tom and Old Dan had not come down off the slopes with us after the pups. And upon our return both the old hounds began to bay deep and fast. With shrill ki-yi the pups bounded off, apparently frantic to make up for misbehavior. Soon the whole pack was in full chorus. Edd and George spurred into the brush, yelling encouragement to the hounds. This day I managed to make my horse do a little of what I wanted. To keep in sight of the Haught boys was indeed beyond me; but I did not lose sound of them. This chase led us up slope and down slope, through the brush and pine thickets, over bare ridges and into gullies; and eventually out into the basin, where the hounds got beyond hearing.

“One of them long, lean, hungry bears,” remarked Edd. “He’d outrun any dogs.”

Leisurely then we turned to the three-hour ride back to camp. Hot sun in the open, cool wind in the shade, dry smells of the forest, green and red and orange and purple of the foliage — these rendered the hours pleasant for me. When I reached camp I found Romer in trouble. He had cut his hand with a forbidden hunting knife. As he told me about it his face was a study and his explanation was astounding. When he finished I said: “You mean then that my hunting knife walked out of its sheath on my belt and followed you around and cut you of its own accord?”

“Aw, I — I — it—” he floundered.

Whereupon I lectured him about forbidden things and untruthfulness. His reply was: “But, Dad, it hurts like sixty. Won’t you put somethin’ on it?”

I dressed and bandaged the trifling cut for him, telling him the while how little Indian boys, when cut or kicked or bruised, never showed that they were hurt. “Huh!” he grunted. “Guess there’s no Indian in me.... I must take after mother!”

That afternoon and night the hounds straggled in, Old Tom and Dan first, and then the others, one by one, fagged-out and foot-sore. Next morning, however, they appeared none the worse for their long chase. We went again to Horton Thicket to rout out a bear.

This time I remained on top of the rim with R.C. and Nielsen; and we took up a stand across the canyon, near where my first stand had been. Here we idled the hours away waiting for the hounds to start something. While walking along the rim I happened to look across the big cove that cut into the promontory, and way on the other slope what did I espy but a black bear. He appeared to be very small, or merely a cub. Running back to R.C. and Nielsen I told them, and we all took up our rifles. It occurred to me that the distance across this cove was too far for accurate shooting, but it never occurred to me to jump on my horse and ride around the head of the cove.

“He’s not scared. Let’s watch him,” suggested R.C.

We saw this bear walk along, poke around, dig into the ground, go behind trees, come out again, and finally stand up on his hind feet and apparently reach for berries or something on a bush. R.C. bethought himself of his field-glass. After one look he exclaimed: “Say, fellows, he’s a whopper of a bear! He’ll weigh five hundred pounds. Just take a look at him!”

My turn with the glasses revealed to me that what I had imagined to be a cub was indeed a big bear. After Nielsen looked he said: “Never saw one so big in Norway.”

“Well, look at that black scoundrel!” exclaimed R.C. “Standing up! Looking around! Wagging his head!... Say, you saw him first. Suppose you take some pegs at him.”

“Wish Romer were here. I’d let him shoot at that bear,” I replied. Then I got down on my knee, and aiming as closely as possible I fired. The report rang out in the stillness, making hollow echoes. We heard the bullet pat somewhere. So did the bear hear it. Curiously he looked around, as if something had struck near him. But scared he certainly was not. Then I shot four times in quick succession.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” ejaculated R.C. “He heard the bullets hit and wonders what the dickens.... Say, now he hears the reports! Look at him stand!”

“Boys, smoke him up,” I said, after the manner of Haught’s vernacular. So while I reloaded R.C. and Nielsen began to shoot. We had more fun out of it than the bear. Evidently he located us. Then he began to run, choosing the open slope by which he had come. I got five more shots at him as he crossed this space, and the last bullet puffed up dust under him, making him take a header down the slope into the thicket. Whereupon we all had a good laugh. Nielsen appeared particularly pleased over his first shots at a real live bear.

“Say, why didn’t you think to ride round there?” queried R.C. thoughtfully. “He didn’t see us. He wasn’t scared. In a few minutes you could have been on the rim of that slope right over him. Got him sure!”

“R.C. why didn’t you think to tell me to do that?” I retorted. “Why don’t we ever think the right thing before it is too late?”

“That’s our last chance this year — I feel it in my bones,” declared R.C. mournfully.

His premonition turned out to be correct. Upon our arrival at camp we heard some very disquieting news. A neighbor of Haught’s had taken the trouble to ride up to inform us about the epidemic of influenza. The strange disease was all over the country, in the cities, the villages, the cow-camps, the mines — everywhere. At first I thought Haught’s informant was exaggerating a mere rumor. But when he told of the Indians dying on the reservations, and that in Flagstaff eighty people had succumbed in a few weeks — then I was thoroughly alarmed. Imperative was it indeed for me to make a decision at once. I made it instantly. We would break camp. So I told the men. Doyle was relieved and glad. He wanted to get home to his family. The Haughts, naturally, were sorry. My decision once arrived at, the next thing was to consider which way to travel. The long ten-day trip down into the basin, round by Payson, and up on the rim again, and so on to Flagstaff was not to be considered at all. The roads by way of Winslow and Holbrook were long and bad. Doyle wanted to attempt the old army road along the rim made by General Crook when he moved the captured Apaches to the reservation assigned to them. No travel over this road for many years! Haught looked dubious, but finally said we could chop our way through thickets, and haul the wagon empty up bad hills. The matter of decision was left to me. Decisions of such nature were not easy to make. The responsibility was great, but as the hunt had been for me it seemed incumbent upon me to accept responsibility. What made me hesitate at all was the fact that I had ridden five miles or more along the old Crook road. I remembered. I told Lee and I told Nielsen that we would find it tough going. Lee laughed like a cowboy: “We’ll go a-hummin’,” he said. Nielsen shrugged his brawny shoulders. What were obstacles to this man of the desert? I realized that his look had decided me.

“All right, men, we’ll try the old Crook road,” I said. “Pack what you can up to the wagon to-day, and to-morrow early we’ll break camp.”

I walked with the Haughts from our camp across the brook to theirs, where we sat down in the warm sunshine. I made light of this hunting trip in which it had turned out I had no gun, no horse, no blankets, no rain-proof tent, no adequate amount of food supplies, and no good luck, except the wonderful good luck of being well, of seeing a magnificent country, of meeting some more fine westerners. But the Haughts appeared a little slow to grasp, or at least to credit my philosophy. We were just beginning to get acquainted. Their regret was that they had been unable to see me get a bear, a deer, a lion, and some turkeys. Their conviction, perhaps formed from association with many sportsman hunters, was that owing to my bad luck I could not and would not want to come again.

“See here, Haught,” I said. “I’ve had a fine time. Now forget about this hunt. It’s past. We’ll plan another. Will you save next fall for me?”

“I shore will,” he replied.

“Very well, then, it’s settled. Say by August you and the boys cut a trail or two in and out of Horton Thicket. I’ll send you money in advance to pay for this work, and get new hounds and outfit. I’ll leave Flagstaff on September fifteenth. Meet you here September twenty-first, along about noon.”

We shook hands upon the deal. It pleased me that the Haughts laughed at me yet appeared both surprised and happy. As I left I heard Edd remark: “Not a kick!... Meet him next year at noon! What do you know about thet?” This remark proved that he had paid me a compliment in eastern slang most likely assimilated from R.C. and Romer.

The rest of the afternoon our camp resembled a beehive, and next morning it was more like a bedlam. The horses were fresh, spirited, and they had tender backs; the burros stampeded because of some surreptitious trick of Romer’s. But by noon we had all the outfit packed in the wagon. Considering the amount of stuff, and the long, rough climb up to the wagon, this was a most auspicious start. I hoped that it augured well for us, but while I hoped I had a gloomy foreboding. We bade good-bye to Haught and his son George. Edd offered to go with us as far as he knew the country, which distance was not many miles. So we set out upon our doubtful journey, our saddle-horses in front of the lumbering wagon.

We had five miles of fairly level road through open forest along the rim, and then we struck such a rocky jumble of downhill grade that the bundles fell off the wagon. They had to be tied on. When we came to a long slow slant uphill, a road of loose rocks, we made about one mile an hour. This slow travel worked havoc upon my mind. I wanted to hurry. I wanted to get out of the wilds. That awful rumor about influenza occupied my mind and struck cold fear into my heart. What of my family? No making the best of this! Slowly we toiled on. Sunset overtook us at a rocky ledge which had to be surmounted. With lassos on saddle horses in front of the two teams, all pulling hard, we overcame that obstacle. But at the next little hill, which we encountered about twilight, one of the team horses balked. Urging him, whipping him, served no purpose; and it had bad effect upon the other horses. Darkness was upon us with the camp-site Edd knew of still miles to the fore. No grass, no water for the horses! But we had to camp there. All hands set to work. It really was fun — it should have been fine for me — but my gloomy obsession to hurry obscured my mind. I marveled at old Doyle, over seventy, after that long, hard day, quickly and efficiently cooking a good hot supper. Romer had enjoyed the day. He said he was tired, but would like to stay up beside the mighty camp-fire Nielsen built. I had neither energy or spirit to oppose him. The night was dark and cold and windy; the fire felt so good that I almost went asleep beside it. We had no time to put up tents. I made our bed, crawled into it, stretched out with infinite relief; and the last thing I was aware of was Romer snuggling in beside me.

Morning brought an early bestirring of every one. We had to stir to get warm. The air nipped like cold pincers. All the horses were gone; we could not hear a bell. But Lee did not appear worried. I groaned in spirit. More delay! Gloom assailed me. Lee sallied out with his yellow dog Pups. I had forgotten the good quality of Pups, but not my dislike for him. He barked vociferously, and that annoyed me. R.C. and I helped Edd and Nielsen pack the wagon. We worked quick and hard. Then Doyle called us to breakfast. We had scarcely started to eat when we heard a jangle of bells and the pound of hoofs. I could not believe my ears. Our horses were lost. Nevertheless suddenly they appeared, driven by Lee riding bareback, and Pups barking his head off. We all jumped up with ropes and nose-bags to head off the horses, and soon had them secured. Not one missing! I asked Lee how in the world he had found that wild bunch in less than an hour. Lee laughed. “Pups. He rounded them up in no time.”

Then I wanted to go away and hide behind a thicket and kick myself, but what I actually did was to give Pups part of my meat. I reproached myself for my injustice to him. How often had I been deceived in the surface appearance of people and things and dogs! Most of our judgments are wrong. We do not see clearly.

By nine o’clock we were meeting our first obstacle — the little hill at which the sorrel horse had balked. Lo! rested and full of grain, he balked again! He ruined our start. He spoiled the teams. Lee had more patience than I would have had. He unhitched the lead team and in place of the sorrel put a saddle horse called Pacer. Then Doyle tried again and surmounted the hill. Our saddle horses slowly worked ahead over as rocky and rough a road as I ever traveled. Most of the time we could see over the rim down into the basin. Along here the rim appeared to wave in gentle swells, heavily timbered and thickly rock-strewn, with heads of canyons opening down to our right. I saw deer tracks and turkey tracks, neither of which occasioned me any thrills now. About the middle of the afternoon Edd bade us farewell and turned back. We were sorry to see him go, but as all the country ahead of us was as unfamiliar to him as to us there seemed to be no urgent need of him.

We encountered a long, steep hill up which the teams, and our saddle horses combined, could not pull the wagon. We unpacked it, and each of us, Romer included, loaded a bundle or box in front of his saddle, and took it up the hill. Then the teams managed the wagon. This incident happened four times in less than as many miles. The team horses, having had a rest from hard labor, had softened, and this sudden return to strenuous pulling had made their shoulders sore. They either could not or would not pull. We covered less than ten miles that day, a very discouraging circumstance. We camped in a pine grove close to the rim, a splendid site that under favorable circumstances would have been enjoyable. At sunset R.C. and Nielsen and Romer saw a black bear down under the rim. The incident was so wonderful for Romer that it brightened my spirits. “A bear! A big bear, Dad!... I saw him! He was alive! He stood up — like this — wagging his head. Oh! I saw him!”

Our next day’s progress was no less than a nightmare. Crawling along, unpacking and carrying, and packing again, we toiled up and down the interminable length of three almost impassable miles. When night overtook us it was in a bad place to camp. No grass, no water! A cold gale blew out of the west. It roared through the forest. It blew everything loose away in the darkness. It almost blew us away in our beds. The stars appeared radiantly coldly white up in the vast blue windy vault of the sky. A full moon soared majestically. Shadows crossed the weird moon-blanched forest glades.

At daylight we were all up, cramped, stiff, half frozen, mostly silent. The water left in the buckets was solid ice. Suddenly some one discovered that Nielsen was missing. The fact filled me with consternation and alarm. He might have walked in his sleep and fallen over the rim. What had become of him? All his outfit lay scattered round in his bed. In my bewilderment I imagined many things, even to the extreme that he might have left us in the lurch. But when I got to that sad pass of mind I suddenly awakened as if out of an evil dream. My worry, my hurry had obsessed me. High time indeed was it for me to meet this situation as I had met other difficult ones. To this end I went out away from camp, and forgot myself, my imagined possibilities, and thought of my present responsibility, and the issue at hand. That instant I realized my injustice toward Nielsen, and reproached myself.

Upon my return to camp Nielsen was there, warming one hand over the camp-fire and holding a cup of coffee in the other.

“Nielsen, you gave us a scare. Please explain,” I said.

“Yes, sir. Last night I was worried. I couldn’t sleep. I got to thinking we were practically lost. Some one ought to find out what was ahead of us. So I got up and followed the road. Bright moonlight. I walked all the rest of the night. And that’s all, sir.”

I liked Nielsen’s looks then. He reminded me of Jim Emett, the Mormon giant to whom difficulties and obstacles were but spurs to achievement. Such men could not be defeated.

“Well, what did you find out?” I inquired.

“Change of conditions, sir,” he replied, as a mate to his captain. “Only one more steep hill so far as I went. But we’ll have to cut through thickets and logs. From here on the road is all grown over. About ten miles west we turn off the rim down a ridge.”

That about the turning-off place was indeed good news. I thanked Nielsen. And Doyle appeared immensely relieved. The packing and carrying had begun to tell on us. Pups ingratiated himself into my affections. He found out that he could coax meat and biscuit from me. We had three axes and a hatchet; and these we did not pack in the wagon. When Doyle finally got the teams started Lee and Nielsen and R.C. and I went ahead to clear the road. Soon we were halted by thickets of pines, some of which were six inches in diameter at the base. The road had ceased to be rocky, and that, no doubt, was the reason pine thickets had grown up on it, The wagon kept right at our heels, and many times had to wait. We cut a way through thickets, tore rotten logs to pieces, threw stumps aside, and moved windfalls. Brawny Nielsen seemed ten men in one! What a swath he hacked with his big axe! When I rested, which circumstance grew oftener and oftener, I had to watch Nielsen with his magnificent swing of the axe, or with his mighty heave on a log. Time and again he lifted tree trunks out of the road. He sweat till he was wringing wet. Neither that day nor the next would we have ever gotten far along that stretch of thicketed and obstructed road had it not been for Nielsen.

At sunset we found ourselves at the summit of a long slowly ascending hill, deeply forested. It took all the horses together to pull the wagon to the top. Thus when we started down a steep curve, horses and men both were tired. I was ahead riding beside Romer. Nielsen and R.C. were next, and Lee had fallen in behind the wagon. As I turned the sharp curve I saw not fifty feet below me a huge log obstructing the road.

“Look out! Stop!” I yelled, looking back.

But I was too late. The horses could not hold back the heavily laden wagon, and they broke into a gallop. I saw Doyle’s face turn white — heard him yell. Then I spurred my horse to the side. Romer was slow or frightened. I screamed at him to get off the road. My heart sank sick within me! Surely he would be run down. As his pony Rye jumped out of the way the shoulder of the black horse, on the off side, struck him a glancing blow. Then the big team hurdled the log, the tongue struck with a crash, the wagon stopped with a lurch, and Doyle was thrown from his seat.

Quick as a flash Nielsen was on the spot beside the team. The bay horse was down. The black horse was trying to break away. Nielsen cut and pulled the bay free of the harness, and Lee came tearing down to grasp and hold the black.

Like a fool I ran around trying to help somehow, but I did not know what to do. I smelled and then saw blood, which fact convinced me of disaster. Only the black horse that had hurdled the log made any effort to tear away. The other lay quiet. When finally it was extricated we found that the horse had a bad cut in the breast made by a snag on the log. We could find no damage done to the wagon. The harness Nielsen had cut could be mended quickly. What a fortunate outcome to what had seemed a very grave accident! I was thankful indeed. But not soon would I forget sight of Romer in front of that plunging wagon.

With the horses and a rope we hauled the log to one side of the road, and hitching up again we proceeded on our way. Once I dropped back and asked Doyle if he was all right. “Fine as a fiddle,” he shouted. “This’s play to what we teamsters had in the early days.” And verily somehow I could see the truth of that. A mile farther on we made camp; and all of us were hungry, weary, and quiet.

Doyle proved a remarkable example to us younger men. Next morning he crawled out before any one else, and his call was cheery. I was scarcely able to get out of my bed, but I was ashamed to lie there an instant after I heard Doyle. Possibly my eyesight was dulled by exhaustion when it caused me to see myself as a worn, unshaven, wrinkled wretch. Romer-boy did not hop out with his usual alacrity. R.C. had to roll over in his bed and get up on all fours.

We had scant rations for three more days. It behooved us to work and waste not an hour. All morning, at the pace of a snail it seemed, we chopped and lifted and hauled our way along that old Crook road. Not since my trip down the Santa Rosa river in Mexico had I labored so strenuously.

At noon we came to the turning-off junction, an old blazed road Doyle had some vague knowledge of. “It must lead to Jones’ ranch,” Doyle kept saying. “Anyway, we’ve got to take it.” North was our direction. And to our surprise, and exceeding gladness, the road down this ridge proved to be a highway compared to what we had passed. In the open forest we had to follow it altogether by the blazes on the trees. But with all our eyes alert that was easy. The grade was down hill, so that we traveled fast, covering four miles an hour. Occasionally a log or thicket halted rapid progress. Toward the end of the afternoon sheep and cattle trails joined the now well-defined road, and we knew we were approaching a ranch. I walked, or rather limped the last mile, for the very good reason that I could not longer bear the trot of my horse. The forest grew more open, with smaller pines, and fewer thickets. At sunset I came out upon the brow of a deep barren-looking canyon, in the middle of which squatted some old ruined log-cabins. Deserted! Alas for my visions of a cup of cold milk. For hours they had haunted me. When Doyle saw the broken-down cabins and corrals he yelled: “Boys, it’s Jones’ Ranch. I’ve been here. We’re only three miles from Long Valley and the main road!”

Elated we certainly were. And we rushed down the steep hill to look for water. All our drinking water was gone, and the horses had not slaked their thirst for two days. Separating we rode up and down the canyon. R.C. and Romer found running water. Thereupon with immense relief and joy we pitched camp near the cabins, forgetting our aches and pains in the certainty of deliverance.

What a cold, dismal, bleak, stony, and lonesome place! We unpacked only bedding, and our little store of food. And huddled around the camp-fire we waited upon Doyle’s cooking. The old pioneer talked while he worked.

“Jones’ ranch! — I knew Jones in the early days. And I’ve heard of him lately. Thirty years ago he rode a prairie schooner down into this canyon. He had his wife, a fine, strong girl, and he had a gun, an axe, some chuck, a few horses and cattle, and not much else. He built him that cabin there and began the real old pioneering of the early days. He raised cattle. He freighted to the settlements twice a year. In twenty-five years he had three strapping boys and a girl just as strapping. And he had a fortune in cattle. Then he sold his stock and left this ranch. He wanted to give his faithful wife and his children some of the comforts and luxuries and advantages of civilization. The war came. His sons did not wait for the draft. They entered the army. I heard a story about Abe Jones, the old man’s first boy. Abe was a quiet sort of chap. When he got to the army training camp a sergeant asked Abe if he could shoot. Abe said: ‘Nope, not much.’ So they gave him a rifle and told him to shoot at the near target. Abe looked at it sort of funny like and he picked out the farthest target at one thousand yards. And he hit the bull’s eye ten times straight running. ‘Hey!’ gasped the sergeant, ‘you long, lanky galoot! You said you couldn’t shoot.’ Abe sort of laughed. ‘Reckon I was thinkin’ about what Dad called shootin’.’... Well, Abe and his brothers got to France to the front. Abe was a sharpshooter. He was killed at Argonne. Both his brothers were wounded. They’re over there yet.... I met a man not long ago who’d seen Jones recently. And the old pioneer said he and his wife would like to be back home. And home to them means right here — Jones’ Ranch!”

Doyle’s story affected me profoundly. What a theme for a novel! I walked away from the camp-fire into the dark, lonely, melancholy Arizona night. The ruined cabins, the broken-down corrals, the stone fence, the wash where water ran at wet season — all had subtly changed for me. Leaning in the doorway of the one-room cabin that had been home for these Joneses I was stirred to my depths. Their spirits abided in that lonely hut. At least I felt something there — something strange, great, simple, inevitable, tragic as life itself. Yet what could have been more beautiful, more splendid than the life of Jones, and his wife, and daughter, and sons, especially Abe? Abe Jones! The name haunted me. In one clear divining flash I saw the life of the lad. I yearned with tremendous passion for the power to tell the simplicity, the ruggedness, the pathos and the glory of his story. The moan of wind in the pines seemed a requiem for the boy who had prattled and romped and played under them, who had chopped and shot and rode under them. Into his manhood had gone something of their strength and nature.

We sought our beds early. The night down in that deep, open canyon was the coldest we had experienced. I slept but little. At dawn all was hoar-white with frost. It crackled under foot. The air had a stinging bite. Yet how sweet, pure, cold to breathe!

Doyle’s cheery: “Come and get it,” was welcome call to breakfast. Lee and Pups drove the horses into one of the old corrals. In an hour, while the frost was yet hard and white, we were ready to start. Then Doyle somewhat chilled our hopes: “Twenty years ago there was a bad road out of here. Maybe one’s been made since.”

But one had not been made. And the old road had not been used for years. Right at the outset we struck a long, steep, winding, rocky road. We got stalled at the very foot of it. More toil! Unloading the wagon we packed on our saddles the whole load more than a mile up this last and crowning obstacle. Then it took all the horses together to pull the empty wagon up to a level. By that time sunset had overtaken us. Where had the hours gone? Nine hours to go one mile! But there had to be an end to our agonies. By twilight we trotted down into Long Valley, and crossed the main road to camp in a grove we remembered well. We partook of a meagre supper, but we were happy. And bed that night on a thick layer of soft pine needles, in a spot protected from the cold wind, was immensely comfortable.

Lee woke the crowd next morning. “All rustle,” he yelled. “Thirty-five miles to Mormon Lake. Good road. We’ll camp there to-night.”

How strange that the eagerness to get home now could only be compared to the wild desire for the woods a few weeks back! We made an early start. The team horses knew that road. They knew they were now on the way home. What difference that made! Jaded as they were they trotted along with a briskness never seen before on that trip. It began to be a job for us to keep up with Lee, who was on the wagon. Unless a rider is accustomed to horseback almost all of the time a continuous trot on a hard road will soon stove him up. My horse had an atrocious trot. Time and again I had to fall behind to a walk and then lope ahead to catch up. I welcomed the hills that necessitated Lee walking the teams.

At noon we halted in a grassy grove for an hour’s rest. That seemed a precious hour, but to start again was painful. I noticed that Romer-boy no longer rode out far in front, nor did he chase squirrels with Pups. He sagged, twisted and turned, and lolled in his saddle. Thereafter I tried to keep close to him. But that was not easy, for he suspected me of seeing how tired he was, and kept away from me. Thereafter I took to spying upon him from some distance behind. We trotted and walked, trotted and walked the long miles. Arizona miles were twice as long as ordinary properly measured miles. An event of the afternoon was to meet some Mexican sheepherders, driving a flock south. Nielsen got some fresh mutton from them. Toward sunset I caught Romer hanging over his saddle. Then I rode up to him. “Son, are you tired?” I asked. “Oh, Dad, I sure am, but I’m going to ride Rye to Mormon Lake.” I believed he would accomplish it. His saddle slipped, letting him down. I saw him fall. When he made no effort to get up I was frightened. Rye stood perfectly still over him. I leaped off and ran to the lad. He had hit his head on a stone, drawing the blood, and appeared to be stunned. I lifted him, holding him up, while somebody got some water. We bathed his face and washed off the blood. Presently he revived, and smiled at me, and staggered out of my hold.

“Helluva note that saddle slipped!” he complained. Manifestly he had acquired some of Joe Isbel’s strong language. Possibly he might have acquired some other of the cowboy’s traits, for he asked to have his saddle straightened and to be put on his horse. I had misgivings, but I could not resist him then. I lifted him upon Rye. Once more our cavalcade got under way.

Sunset, twilight, night came as we trotted on and on. We faced a cold wind. The forest was black, gloomy, full of shadows. Lee gave us all we could do to keep up with him. At eight o’clock, two hours after dark, we reached the southern end of Mormon Lake. A gale, cold as ice, blew off the water from the north. Half a dozen huge pine trees stood on the only level ground near at hand. “Nielsen, fire — pronto!” I yelled. “Aye, sir,” he shouted, in his deep voice. Then what with hurry and bustle to get my bedding and packs, and to thresh my tingling fingers, and press my frozen ears, I was selfishly busy a few minutes before I thought of Romer.

Nielsen had started a fire, that blazed and roared with burning pine needles. The blaze blew low, almost on a level with the ground, and a stream of red sparks flew off into the woods. I was afraid of forest fire. But what a welcome sight that golden flame! It lighted up a wide space, showing the huge pines, gloom-encircled, and a pale glimmer of the lake beyond. The fragrance of burning pine greeted my nostrils.

Dragging my bags I hurried toward the fire. Nielsen was building a barricade of rocks to block the flying sparks. Suddenly I espied Romer. He sat on a log close to the blaze. His position struck me as singular, so I dropped my burdens and went to him. He had on a heavy coat over sweater and under coat, which made him resemble a little old man. His sombrero was slouched down sidewise, his gloved hands were folded across his knees, his body sagged a little to one side, his head drooped. He was asleep. I got around so I could see his face in the firelight. Pale, weary, a little sad, very youthful and yet determined! A bloody bruise showed over his temple. He had said he would ride all the way to Mormon Lake and he had done it. Never, never will that picture fade from my memory! Dear, brave, wild, little lad! He had made for me a magnificent success of this fruitless hunting trip. I hoped and prayed then that when he grew to man’s estate, and faced the long rides down the hard roads of life, he would meet them and achieve them as he had the weary thirty-five Arizona miles from Long Valley to Mormon Lake.

Mutton tasted good that night around our camp-fire; and Romer ate a generous portion. A ranger from the station near there visited us, and two young ranchers, who told us that the influenza epidemic was waning. This was news to be thankful for. Moreover, I hired the two ranchers to hurry us by auto to Flagstaff on the morrow. So right there at Mormon Lake ended our privations.

Under one of the huge pines I scraped up a pile of needles, made Romer’s bed in it, heated a blanket and wrapped him in it. Almost he was asleep when he said: “Some ride, Dad — Good-night.”

Later, beside him, I lay awake a while, watching the sparks fly, and the shadows flit, feeling the cold wind on my face, listening to the crackle of the fire and the roar of the gale.

IV

Eventually R.C. and Romer and I arrived in Los Angeles to find all well with our people, which fact was indeed something to rejoice over. Hardly had this 1918 trip ended before I began to plan for that of 1919. But I did not realize how much in earnest I was until I received word that both Lee Doyle in Flagstaff and Nielsen in San Pedro were very ill with influenza. Lee all but died, and Nielsen, afterward, told me he would rather die than have the “flu” again. To my great relief, however, they recovered.

From that time then it pleased me to begin to plan for my 1919 hunting trip. I can never do anything reasonably. I always overdo everything. But what happiness I derive from anticipation! When I am not working I live in dreams, partly of the past, but mostly of the future. A man should live only in the present.

I gave Lee instructions to go about in his own way buying teams, saddle horses, and wagons. For Christmas I sent him a .35 Remington rifle. Mr. Haught got instructions to add some new dogs to his pack. I sent Edd also a .35 Remington, and made Nielsen presents of two guns. In January Nielsen and I went to Picacho, on the lower Colorado river, and then north to Death Valley. So that I kept in touch with these men and did not allow their enthusiasm to wane. For myself and R.C. I had the fun of ordering tents and woolen blankets, and everything that we did not have on our 1918 trip. But owing to the war it was difficult to obtain goods of any description. To make sure of getting a .30 Gov’t Winchester I ordered from four different firms, including the Winchester Co. None of them had such a rifle in stock, but all would try to find one. The upshot of this deal was that, when after months I despaired of getting any, they all sent me a rifle at the same time. So I found myself with four, all the same caliber of course, but of different style and finish. When I saw them and thought of the Haughts I had to laugh. One was beautifully engraved, and inlaid with gold — the most elaborate .30 Gov’t the Winchester people had ever built. Another was a walnut-stocked, shot-gun butted, fancy checkered take-down. This one I presented to R.C. The third was a plain ordinary rifle with solid frame. And the last was a carbine model, which I gave to Nielsen.

During the summer at Avalon I used to take the solid frame rifle, and climb the hills to practice on targets. At Clemente Island I used to shoot at the ravens. I had a grudge against ravens there for picking the eyes out of newly born lambs. At five hundred yards a raven was in danger from me. I could make one jump at even a thousand yards. These .30 Gov’t 1906 rifles with 150-grain bullet are the most wonderful shooting arms I ever tried. I became expert at inanimate targets.

From time to time I heard encouraging news from Lee about horses. Edd wrote me about lion tracks in the snow, and lynx up cedar trees, and gobblers four feet high, and that there was sure to be a good crop of acorns, and therefore some bears. He told me about a big grizzly cow-killer being chased and shot in Chevelon Canyon. News about hounds, however, was slow in coming. Dogs were difficult to find. At length Haught wrote me that he had secured two; and in this same letter he said the boys were cutting trails down under the rim.

Everything pertaining to my cherished plans appeared to be turning out well. But during this time I spent five months at hard work and intense emotional strain, writing the longest novel I ever attempted; and I over-taxed my endurance. By the middle of June, when I finished, I was tired out. That would not have mattered if I had not hurt my back in an eleven-hour fight with a giant broadbill swordfish. This strain kept me from getting in my usual physical trim. I could not climb the hills, or exert myself. Swimming hurt me more than anything. So I had to be careful and wait until my back slowly got better. By September it had improved, but not enough to make me feel any thrills over horseback riding. It seemed to me that I would be compelled to go ahead and actually work the pain out of my back, an ordeal through which I had passed before, and surely dreaded.

During the summer I had purchased a famous chestnut sorrel horse named Don Carlos. He was much in demand among the motion-picture companies doing western plays; and was really too fine and splendid a horse to be put to the risks common to the movies. I saw him first at Palm Springs, down in southern California, where my book Desert Gold was being made into a motion-picture. Don would not have failed to strike any one as being a wonderful horse. He was tremendously high and rangy and powerful in build, yet graceful withal, a sleek, shiny chestnut red in color, with fine legs, broad chest, and a magnificent head. I rode him only once before I bought him, and that was before I hurt my back. His stride was what one would expect from sight of him; his trot seemed to tear me to pieces; his spirit was such that he wanted to prance all the time. But in spite of his spirit he was a pet. And how he could run! Nielsen took Don to Flagstaff by express. And when Nielsen wrote me he said all of Flagstaff came down to the station to see the famous Don Carlos. The car in which he had traveled was backed alongside a platform. Don refused to step on the boards they placed from platform to car. He did not trust them. Don’s intelligence had been sharpened by his experience with the movies. Nielsen tried to lead, to coax, and to drive Don to step on the board walk. Don would not go. But suddenly he snorted, and jumped the space clear, to plunge and pound down upon the platform, scattering the crowd like quail.

The day before my departure from Los Angeles was almost as terrible an ordeal as I anticipated would be my first day’s ride on Don Carlos. And this ordeal consisted of listening to Romer’s passionate appeals and importunities to let him go on the hunt. My only defence was that he must not be taken from school. School forsooth! He was way ahead of his class. If he got behind he could make it up. I talked and argued. Once he lost his temper, a rare thing with him, and said he would run away from school, ride on a freight train to Flagstaff, steal a horse and track me to my camp. I could not say very much in reply to this threat, because I remembered that I had made worse to my father, and carried it out. I had to talk sense to Romer. Often we had spoken of a wonderful hunt in Africa some day, when he was old enough; and I happened upon a good argument. I said: “You’ll miss a year out of school then. It won’t be so very long. Don’t you think you ought to stay in school faithfully now?” So in the end I got away from him, victorious, though not wholly happy. The truth was I wanted him to go.

My Jap cook Takahashi met me in Flagstaff. He was a very short, very broad, very muscular little fellow with a brown, strong face, more pleasant than usually seen in Orientals. Secretly I had made sure that in Takahashi I had discovered a treasure, but I was careful to conceal this conviction from R.C., the Doyles, and Nielsen. They were glad to see him with us, but they manifestly did not expect wonders.

How brief the span of a year! Here I was in Flagstaff again outfitting for another hunt. It seemed incredible. It revived that old haunting thought about the shortness of life. But in spite of that or perhaps more because of it the pleasure was all the keener. In truth the only drawback to this start was the absence of Romer, and my poor physical condition. R.C. appeared to be in fine fettle.

But I was not well. In the mornings I could scarcely arise, and when I did so I could hardly straighten myself. More than once I grew doubtful of my strength to undertake such a hard trip. This doubt I fought fiercely, for I knew that the right thing for me to do was to go — to stand the pain and hardship — to toil along until my old strength and elasticity returned. What an opportunity to try out my favorite theory! For I believed that labor and pain were good for mankind — that strenuous life in the open would cure any bodily ill.

On September fourteenth Edd and George drifted into Flagstaff to join us, and their report of game and water and grass and acorns was so favorable that I would have gone if I had been unable to ride on anything but a wagon.

We got away on September fifteenth at two-thirty o’clock with such an outfit as I had never had in all my many trips put together. We had a string of saddle horses besides those the men rode. They were surely a spirited bunch; and that first day it was indeed a job to keep them with us. Out of sheer defiance with myself I started on Don Carlos. He was no trouble, except that it took all my strength to hold him in. He tossed his head, champed his bit, and pranced sideways along the streets of Flagstaff, manifestly to show off his brand new black Mexican saddle, with silver trappings and tapaderos. I was sure that he did not do that to show me off. But Don liked to dance and prance along before a crowd, a habit that he had acquired with the motion pictures.

Lee and Nielsen and George had their difficulties driving the free horses. Takahashi rode a little buckskin Navajo mustang. An evidence of how extremely short the Jap’s legs were made itself plain in the fact that stirrups could not be fixed so he could reach them with his feet. When he used any support at all he stuck his feet through the straps above the stirrups. How funny his squat, broad figure looked in a saddle! Evidently he was not accustomed to horses. When I saw the mustang roll the white of his eyes and glance back at Takahashi then I knew something would happen sooner or later.

Nineteen miles on Don Carlos reduced me to a miserable aching specimen of manhood. But what made me endure and go on and finish to camp was the strange fact that the longer I rode the less my back pained. Other parts of my anatomy, however, grew sorer as we progressed. Don Carlos pleased me immensely, only I feared he was too much horse for me. A Mormon friend of mine, an Indian trader, looked Don over in Flagstaff, and pronounced him: “Shore one grand hoss!” This man had broken many wild horses, and his compliment pleased me. All the same the nineteen miles on Don hurt my vanity almost as much as my body.

We camped in a cedar pasture off the main road. This road was a new one for us to take to our hunting grounds. I was too bunged up to help Nielsen pitch our tent. In fact when I sat down I was anchored. Still I could use my eyes, and that made life worth living. Sunset was a gorgeous spectacle. The San Francisco Peaks were shrouded in purple storm-clouds, and the west was all gold and silver, with low clouds rimmed in red. This sunset ended in a great flare of dull magenta with a background of purple.

That evening was the try-out of our new chuck-box and chef. I had supplied the men with their own outfit and supplies, to do with as they liked, an arrangement I found to be most satisfactory. Takahashi was to take care of R.C. and me. In less than half an hour from the time the Jap lighted a fire he served the best supper I ever had in camp anywhere. R.C. lauded him to the skies. And I began to think I could unburden myself of my conviction.

I did not awaken to the old zest and thrill of the open. Something was wrong with me. The sunset, the camp-fire, the dark clear night with its trains of stars, the distant yelp of coyotes — these seemed less to me than what I had hoped for. My feelings were locked round my discomfort and pain.

About noon next day we rode out of the cedars into the open desert — a rolling, level land covered with fine grass, and yellow daisies, Indian paint brush, and a golden flowering weed. This luxuriance attested to the copious and recent rains. They had been a boon to dry Arizona. No sage showed or greasewood, and very few rocks. The sun burned hot. I gazed out at the desert, and the cloud pageant in the sky, trying hard to forget myself, and to see what I knew was there for me. Rolling columnar white and cream clouds, majestic and beautiful, formed storms off on the horizon. Sunset on the open desert that afternoon was singularly characteristic of Arizona — purple and gold and red, with long lanes of blue between the colored cloud banks.

We made camp at Meteor Crater, one of the many wonders of this wonderland. It was a huge hole in the earth over five hundred feet deep, said to have been made by a meteor burying itself there. Seen from the outside the slope was gradual up to the edges, which were scalloped and irregular; on the inside the walls were precipitous. Our camp was on the windy desert, a long sweeping range of grass, sloping down, dotted with cattle, with buttes and mountains in the distance. Most of my sensations of the day partook of the nature of woe.

September seventeenth bade fair to be my worst day — at least I did not see how any other could ever be so bad. Glaring hot sun — reflected heat from I the bare road — dust and sand and wind! Particularly hard on me were what the Arizonians called dust-devils, whirlwinds of sand. On and off I walked a good many miles, the latter of which I hobbled. Don Carlos did not know what to make of this. He eyed me, and nosed me, and tossed his head as if to say I was a strange rider for him. Like my mustang, Night, he would not stand to be mounted. When I touched the stirrup that was a signal to go. He had been trained to it. As he was nearly seventeen hands high, and as I could not get my foot in the stirrup from level ground, to mount him in my condition seemed little less than terrible. I always held back out of sight when I attempted this. Many times I failed. Once I fell flat and lay a moment in the dust. Don Carlos looked down upon me in a way I imagined was sympathetic. At least he bent his noble head and smelled at me. I scrambled to my feet, led him round into a low place, and drawing a deep breath, and nerving myself to endure the pain like a stab, I got into the saddle again.

Two things sustained me in this ordeal, which was the crudest horseback ride I ever had — first, the conviction that I could cure my ills by enduring the agony of violent action, of hot sun, of hard bed; and secondly, the knowledge that after it was all over the remembrance of hardship and achievement would be singularly sweet. So it had been in the case of the five days on the old Crook road in 1918, when extreme worry and tremendous exertion had made the hours hideous. So it had been with other arduous and poignant experiences. A poet said that the crown of sorrow was in remembering happier times: I believed that there was a great deal of happiness in remembering times of stress, of despair, of extreme and hazardous effort. Anyway, without these two feelings in my mind I would have given up riding Don Carlos that day, and have abandoned the trip.

We covered twenty-two miles by sundown, a rather poor day’s showing; and camped on the bare flat desert, using water and wood we had packed with us. The last thing I remembered, as my eyes closed heavily, was what a blessing it was to rest and to sleep.

Next day we sheered off to the southward, heading toward Chevelon Butte, a black cedared mountain, rising lone out of the desert, thirty miles away. We crossed two streams bank full of water, a circumstance I never before saw in Arizona. Everywhere too the grass was high. We climbed gradually all day, everybody sunburned and weary, the horses settling down to save themselves; and we camped high up on the desert plateau, six thousand feet above sea level, where it was windy, cool, and fragrant with sage and cedar. Except the first few, the hours of this day each marked a little less torture for me; but at that I fell off Don Carlos when we halted. And I was not able to do my share of the camp work. R.C. was not as spry and chipper as I had seen him, a fact from which I gathered infinite consolation. Misery loves company.

A storm threatened. All the west was purple under on-coming purple clouds. At sight of this something strange and subtle, yet familiar, revived in me. It made me feel a little more like the self I thought I knew. So I watched the lightning flare and string along the horizon. Some time in the night thunder awakened me. The imminence of a severe storm forced us to roll out and look after the tent. What a pitch black night! Down through the murky, weird blackness shot a wonderful zigzag rope of lightning, blue-white, dazzling; and it disintegrated, leaving segments of fire in the air. All this showed in a swift flash — then we were absolutely blind. I could not see for several moments. It rained a little. Only the edge of the storm touched us. Thunder rolled and boomed along the battlements, deep and rumbling and detonating.

No dust or heat next morning! The desert floor appeared clean and damp, with fresh gray sage and shining bunches of cedar. We climbed into the high cedars, and then to the piñons, and then to the junipers and pines. Climbing so out of desert to forestland was a gradual and accumulating joy to me. What contrast in vegetation, in air, in color! Still the forest consisted of small trees. Not until next day did we climb farther to the deepening, darkening forest, and at last to the silver spruce. That camp, the fifth night out, was beside a lake of surface water, where we had our first big camp-fire.

September twenty-first and ten miles from Beaver Dam Canyon, where a year before I had planned to meet Haught this day and date at noon! I could make that appointment, saddle-sore and weary as I was, but I doubted we could get the wagons there. The forest ground was soft. All the little swales were full of water. How pleasant, how welcome, how beautiful and lonely the wild forestland! We made advance slowly. It was afternoon by the time we reached the rim road, and four o’clock when we halted at the exact spot where we had left our wagon the year before.

Lee determined to drive the wagons down over the rocky benches into Beaver Dam Canyon; and to that end he and the men began to cut pines, drag logs, and roll stones.

R.C. and I rode down through the forest, crossing half a dozen swift little streams of amber water, where a year before all had been dry as tinder. We found Haught’s camp in a grove of yellowing aspens. Haught was there to meet us. He had not changed any more than the rugged pine tree under which a year past we had made our agreement. He wore the same blue shirt and the old black sombrero.

“Hello Haught,” was my greeting, as I dismounted and pulled out my watch. “I’m four hours and a quarter late. Sorry. I could have made it, but didn’t want to leave the wagons.”

“Wal, wal, I shore am glad to see you,” he replied, with a keen flash in his hazel eyes and a smile on his craggy face. “I reckoned you’d make it. How are you? Look sort of fagged.”

“Just about all in, Haught,” I replied, as we shook hands.

Then Copple appeared, swaggering out of the aspens. He was the man I met in Payson and who so kindly had made me take his rifle. I had engaged him also for this hunt. A brawny man he was, with powerful shoulders, swarthy-skinned, and dark-eyed, looking indeed the Indian blood he claimed.

“Wouldn’t have recognized you anywhere’s else,” he said.

These keen-eyed outdoor men at a glance saw the havoc work and pain had played with me. They were solicitous, and when I explained my condition they made light of that, and showed relief that I was not ill. “Saw wood an’ rustle around,” said Haught. And Copple said: “He needs venison an’ bear meat.”

They rode back with us up to the wagons. Copple had been a freighter. He picked out a way to drive down into the canyon. So rough and steep it was that I did not believe driving down would be possible. But with axes and pick and shovel, and a heaving of rocks, they worked a road that Lee drove down. Some places were almost straight down. But the ground was soft, hoofs and wheels sank deeply, and though one wagon lurched almost over, and the heavily laden chuck-wagon almost hurdled the team, Lee made the bad places without accident. Two hours after our arrival, such was the labor of many strong hands, we reached our old camp ground. One thing was certain, however, and that was we would never get back up the way we came down.

Except for a luxuriance of grass and ferns, and two babbling streams of water, our old camp ground had not changed. I sat down with mingled emotions. How familiarly beautiful and lonely this canyon glade! The great pines and spruces looked down upon me with a benediction. How serene, passionless, strong they seemed! It was only men who changed in brief time. The long year of worry and dread and toil and pain had passed. It was nothing. On the soft, fragrant, pine-scented breeze came a whispering of welcome from the forestland: “You are here again. Live now — in the present.”

Takahashi beamed upon me: “More better place to camp,” he said, grinning. Already the Jap had won my admiration and liking. His ability excited my interest, and I wanted to know more about him. As to this camp-site being a joy compared to the ones stretched back along the road he was assuredly right. That night we did no more than eat and unroll our beds. But next day there set in the pleasant tasks of unpacking, putting up tents and flies, cutting spruce for thick, soft beds, and a hundred odd jobs dear to every camper. Takahashi would not have any one help him. He dug a wide space for fires, erected a stone windbreak, and made two ovens out of baked mud, the like of which, and the cleverness of which I had never seen. He was a whirlwind for work.

The matter of firewood always concerned Nielsen and me more than any one. Nielsen was a Norwegian, raised as a boy to use a crosscut saw; and as for me I was a connoisseur in camp-fires and a lover of them. Hence we had brought a crosscut saw — a long one with two handles. I remembered from the former year a huge dead pine that had towered bleached and white at the edge of the glade. It stood there still. The storms and blasts of another winter had not changed it in the least. It was five feet thick at the base and solid. Nielsen chopped a notch in it on the lower side, and then he and Edd began to saw into it on the other. I saw the first tremor of the lofty top. Then soon it shivered all the way down, gave forth a loud crack, swayed slowly, and fell majestically, to strike with a thundering crash. Only the top of this pine broke in the fall, but there were splinters and knots and branches enough to fill a wagon. These we carried up to our camp-fire.

Then the boys sawed off half a dozen four-foot sections, which served as fine, solid, flat tables for comfort around camp. The method of using a crosscut saw was for two men to take a stand opposite one another, with the log between. The handles of the saw stood upright. Each man should pull easily and steadily toward himself, but should not push back nor bear down. It looked a rhythmic, manly exercise, and not arduous. But what an illusion! Nielsen and Copple were the only ones that day who could saw wholly through the thick log without resting. Later Takahashi turned out to be as good, if not better, than either of them, but we had that, as well as many other wonderful facts, to learn about the Jap.

“Come on,” said R.C. to me, invitingly. “You’ve been talking about this crosscut saw game. I’ll bet you find it harder than pulling on a swordfish.”

Pride goes before a fall! I knew that in my condition I could do little with the saw, but I had to try. R.C. was still fresh when I had to rest. Perhaps no one except myself realized the weakness of my back, but the truth was a couple of dozen pulls on that saw almost made me collapse. Wherefore I grew furious with myself and swore I would do it or die. I sawed till I fell over — then I rested and went back at it. Half an hour of this kind of exercise gave me a stab in my left side infinitely sharper than the pain in my back. Also it made me wringing wet, hot as fire, and as breathless as if I had run a mile up hill. That experience determined me to stick to crosscut sawing every day. Next morning I approached it with enthusiasm, yet with misgivings. I could not keep my breath. Pain I could and did bear without letting on. But to have to stop was humiliating. If I tried to keep up with the sturdy Haught boys, or with the brawny Copple or the giant Nielsen, soon I would be compelled to keel over. In the sawing through a four-foot section of log I had to rest eight times. They all had a great deal of fun out of it, and I pretended to be good natured, but to me who had always been so vigorous and active and enduring it was not fun. It was tragic. But all was not gloom for me. This very afternoon Nielsen, the giant, showed that a stiff climb out of the canyon, at that eight thousand feet altitude, completely floored him. Yet I accomplished that with comparative ease. I could climb, which seemed proof that I was gaining. A man becomes used to certain labors and exercises. I thought the crosscut saw a wonderful tool to train a man, but it must require time. It harked back to pioneer days when men were men. Nielsen said he had lived among Mexican boys who sawed logs for nineteen cents apiece and earned seven dollars a day. Copple said three minutes was good time to saw a four-foot log in two pieces. So much for physical condition! As for firewood, for which our crosscut saw was intended, pitch pine and yellow pine and spruce were all odorous and inflammable woods, but they did not make good firewood. Dead aspen was good; dead oak the best. It burned to red hot coals with little smoke. As for camp-fires, any kind of dry wood pleased, smoke or no smoke. In fact I loved the smell and color of wood-smoke, in spite of the fact that it made my eyes smart.

By October first, which was the opening day of the hunting season, I had labored at various exercises until I felt fit to pack a rifle through the woods. R.C. and I went out alone on foot. Not by any means was the day auspicious. The sun tried to show through a steely haze, making only a pale shift of sunshine. And the air was rather chilly. Enthusiasm, however, knew no deterrents. We walked a mile down Beaver Dam Canyon, then climbed the western slope. As long as the sun shone I knew the country fairly well, or rather my direction. We slipped along through the silent woods, satisfied with everything. Presently the sun broke through the clouds, and shone fitfully, making intervals of shadow, and others of golden-green verdure.

Along an edge of one of the grassy parks we came across fresh deer tracks. Several deer had run out of the woods just ahead of us, evidently having winded us. One track was that of a big buck. We trailed these tracks across the park, then made a detour in hopes of heading the deer off, but failed. A huge, dark cloud scudded out of the west and let down a shower of fine rain. We kept dry under a spreading spruce. The forest then was gloomy and cool with only a faint moan of wind and pattering of raindrops to break the silence. The cloud passed by, the sun shone again, the forest glittered in its dress of diamonds. There had been but little frost, so that aspen and maple thickets had not yet taken on their cloth of gold and blaze of red. Most of the leaves were still on the trees, making these thickets impossible to see into. We hunted along the edges of these, and across the wide, open ridge from canyon to canyon, and saw nothing but old tracks. Black and white clouds rolled up and brought a squall. We took to another spruce tent for shelter. After this squall the sky became obscured by a field of gray cloud through which the sun shone dimly. This matter worried me. I was aware of my direction then, but if I lost the sun I would soon be in difficulties.

Gradually we worked back along the ridge toward camp, and headed several ravines that ran and widened down into the big canyon. All at once R.C. held up a warning finger. “Listen!” With abatement of breath I listened, but heard nothing except the mournful sough of the pines. “Thought I heard a whistle,” he said. We went on, all eyes and ears.

R.C. and I flattered ourselves that together we made rather a good hunting team. We were fairly well versed in woodcraft and could slip along stealthily. I possessed an Indian sense of direction that had never yet failed me. To be sure we had much to learn about deer stalking. But I had never hunted with any man whose ears were as quick as R.C.’s. A naturally keen hearing, and many years of still hunting, accounted for this faculty. As for myself, the one gift of which I was especially proud was my eyesight. Almost invariably I could see game in the woods before any one who was with me. This had applied to all my guides except Indians. And I believed that five summers on the Pacific, searching the wide expanse of ocean for swordfish fins, had made my eyes all the keener for the woods. R.C. and I played at a game in which he tried to hear the movement of some forest denizen before I saw it. This fun for us dated back to boyhood days.

Suddenly R.C. stopped short, with his head turning to one side, and his body stiffening. “I heard that whistle again,” he said. We stood perfectly motionless for a long moment. Then from far off in the forest I heard a high, clear, melodious, bugling note. How thrilling, how lonely a sound!

“It’s a bull-elk,” I replied. Then we sat down upon a log and listened. R.C. had heard that whistle in Colorado, but had not recognized it. Just as the mournful howl of a wolf is the wildest, most haunting sound of the wilderness, so is the bugle of the elk the noblest, most melodious and thrilling. With tingling nerves and strained ears we listened. We heard elk bugling in different directions, hard to locate. One bull appeared to be low down, another high up, another working away. R.C. and I decided to stalk them. The law prohibited the killing of elk, but that was no reason why we might not trail them, and have the sport of seeing them in their native haunts. So we stole softly through the woods, halting now and then to listen, pleased to note that every whistle we heard appeared to be closer.

At last, apparently only a deep thicketed ravine separated us from the ridge upon which the elk were bugling. Here our stalk began to become really exciting. We did not make any noise threading that wet thicket, and we ascended the opposite slope very cautiously. What little wind there was blew from the elk toward us, so they could not scent us. Once up on the edge of the ridge we halted to listen. After a long time we heard a far-away bugle, then another at least half a mile distant. Had we miscalculated? R.C. was for working down the ridge and I was for waiting there a few moments. So we sat down again. The forest was almost silent now. Somewhere a squirrel was barking. The sun peeped out of the pale clouds, lighted the glades, rimmed the pines in brightness. I opened my lips to speak to R.C. when I was rendered mute by a piercing whistle, high-pitched and sweet and melodiously prolonged. It made my ears tingle and my blood dance. “Right close,” whispered R.C. “Come on.” We began to steal through the forest, keeping behind trees and thickets, peeping out, and making no more sound than shadows. The ground was damp, facilitating our noiseless stalk. In this way we became separated by about thirty steps, but we walked on and halted in unison. Passing through a thicket of little pines we came into an open forest full of glades. Keenly I peered everywhere, as I slipped from tree to tree. Finally we stooped along for a space, and then, at a bugle blast so close that it made me jump, I began to crawl. My objective point was a fallen pine the trunk of which appeared high enough to conceal me. R.C. kept working a little farther to the right. Once he beckoned me, but I kept on. Still I saw him drop down to crawl. Our stalk was getting toward its climax. My state was one of quivering intensity of thrill, of excitement, of pleasure. Reaching my log I peeped over it. I saw a cow-elk and a yearling calf trotting across a glade about a hundred yards distant. Wanting R.C. to see them I looked his way, and pointed. But he was pointing also and vehemently beckoning for me to join him. I ran on all fours over to where he knelt. He whispered pantingly: “Grandest sight — ever saw!” I peeped out.

In a glade not seventy-five yards away stood a magnificent bull elk, looking back over his shoulder. His tawny hind-quarters, then his dark brown, almost black shaggy shoulders and head, then his enormous spread of antlers, like the top of a dead cedar — these in turn fascinated my gaze. How graceful, stately, lordly!

R.C. stepped out from behind the pine in full view. I crawled out, took a kneeling position, and drew a bead on the elk. I had the fun of imagining I could have hit him anywhere. I did not really want to kill him, yet what was the meaning of the sharp, hot gush of my blood, the fiery thrill along my nerves, the feeling of unsatisfied wildness? The bull eyed us for a second, then laid his forest of antlers back over his shoulders, and with singularly swift, level stride, sped like a tawny flash into the green forest.

R.C. and I began to chatter like boys, and to walk toward the glade, without any particular object in mind, when my roving eye caught sight of a moving brown and checkered patch low down on the ground, vanishing behind a thicket. I called R.C. and ran. I got to where I could see beyond the thicket. An immense flock of turkeys! I yelled. As I tried to get a bead on a running turkey R.C. joined me. “Chase ‘em!” he yelled. So we dashed through the forest with the turkeys running ahead of us. Never did they come out clear in the open. I halted to shoot, but just as I was about to press the trigger, my moving target vanished. This happened again. No use to shoot at random! I had a third fleeting chance, but absolutely could not grasp it. Then the big flock of turkeys eluded us in an impenetrable, brushy ravine.

“By George!” exclaimed R.C. “Can you beat that? They run like streaks. I couldn’t aim. These wild turkeys are great.”

I echoed his sentiments. We prowled around for an hour trying to locate this flock again, but all in vain. “Well,” said R.C. finally, as he wiped his perspiring face, “it’s good to see some game anyhow.... Where are we?”

It developed that our whereabouts was a mystery to me. The sun had become completely obliterated, a fine rain was falling, the forest had grown wet and dismal. We had gotten turned around. The matter did not look serious, however, until we had wandered around for another hour without finding anything familiar. Then we realized we were lost. This sort of experience had happened to R.C. and me often; nevertheless we did not relish it, especially the first day out. As usual on such occasions R.C. argued with me about direction, and then left the responsibility with me. I found an open spot, somewhat sheltered on one side from the misty rain, and there I stationed myself to study trees and sky and clouds for some clue to help me decide what was north or west. After a while I had the good fortune to see a momentary brightening through the clouds. I located the sun, and was pleased to discover that the instinct of direction I had been subtly prompted to take, would have helped me as much as the sun.

We faced east and walked fast, and I took note of trees ahead so that we should not get off a straight line. At last we came to a deep canyon. In the gray misty rain I could not be sure I recognized it. “Well, R.C.,” I said, “this may be our canyon, and it may not. But to make sure we’ll follow it up to the rim. Then we can locate camp.” R.C. replied with weary disdain. “All right, my redskin brother, lead me to camp. As Loren says, I’m starved to death.” Loren is my three-year-old boy, who bids fair to be like his brother Romer. He has an enormous appetite and before meal times he complains bitterly: “I’m starv-ved to death!” How strange to remember him while I was lost in the forest!

When we had descended into the canyon rain was falling more heavily. We were in for it. But I determined we would not be kept out all night. So I struck forward with long stride.

In half an hour we came to where the canyon forked. I deliberated a moment. Not one familiar landmark could I descry, from which fact I decided we had better take to the left-hand fork. Grass and leaves appeared almost as wet as running water. Soon we were soaked to the skin. After two miles the canyon narrowed and thickened, so that traveling grew more and more laborsome. It must have been four miles from its mouth to where it headed up near the rim. Once out of it we found ourselves on familiar ground, about five miles from camp. Exhausted and wet and nearly frozen we reached camp just before dark. If I had taken the right-hand fork of the canyon, which was really Beaver Dam Canyon, we would have gotten back to camp in short order. R.C. said to the boys: “Well, Doc dragged me nine miles out of our way.” Everybody but the Jap enjoyed my discomfiture. Takahashi said in his imperfect English: “Go get on more better dry clothes. Soon hot supper. Maybe good yes!”

V

It rained the following day, making a good excuse to stay in camp and rest beside the little tent-stove. And the next morning I started out on foot with Copple. We went down Beaver Dam Canyon intending to go up on the ridge where R.C. and I had seen the flock of turkeys.

I considered Copple an addition to my long list of outdoor acquaintances in the west, and believed him a worthy partner for Nielsen. Copple was born near Oak Creek, some twenty miles south of Flagstaff, and was one-fourth Indian. He had a good education. His whole life had been in the open, which fact I did not need to be told. A cowboy when only a boy he had also been sheepherder, miner, freighter, and everything Arizonian. Eighteen years he had hunted game and prospected for gold in Mexico. He had been a sailor and fireman on the Pacific, he had served in the army in the Philippines. Altogether his had been an adventurous life; and as Doyle had been a mine of memories for me so would Copple be a mine of information. Such men have taught me the wonder, the violence, the truth of the west.

Copple was inclined to be loquacious — a trait that ordinarily was rather distasteful to me, but in his case would be an advantage. On our way down the canyon not only did he give me an outline of the history of his life, but he talked about how he had foretold the storm just ended. The fresh diggings of gophers — little mounds of dirt thrown up — had indicated the approach of the storm; so had the hooting of owls; likewise the twittering of snowbirds at that season; also the feeding of blackbirds near horses. Particularly a wind from the south meant storm. From that he passed to a discussion of deer. During the light of the moon deer feed at night; and in the day time they will lie in a thicket. If a hunter came near the deer would lower their horns flat and remain motionless, unless almost ridden over. In the dark of the moon deer feed at early morning, lie down during the day, and feed again toward sunset, always alert, trusting to nose more than eyes and ears.

Copple was so interesting that I must have passed the place where R.C. and I had come down into the canyon; at any rate I missed it, and we went on farther. Copple showed me old bear sign, an old wolf track, and then fresh turkey tracks. The latter reminded me that we were out hunting. I could carry a deadly rifle in my hands, yet dream dreams of flower-decked Elysian fields. We climbed a wooded bench or low step of the canyon slope, and though Copple and I were side by side I saw two turkeys before he did. They were running swiftly up hill. I took a snap shot at the lower one, but missed. My bullet struck low, upsetting him. Both of them disappeared.

Then we climbed to the top of the ridge, and in scouting around along the heavily timbered edges we came to a ravine deep enough to be classed as a canyon. Here the forest was dark and still, with sunlight showing down in rays and gleams. While hunting I always liked to sit down here and there to listen and watch. Copple liked this too. So we sat down. Opposite us the rocky edge of the other slope was about two hundred yards. We listened to jays and squirrels. I made note of the significant fact that as soon as we began to hunt Copple became silent.

Presently my roving eye caught sight of a moving object. It is movement that always attracts my eye in the woods. I saw a plump, woolly beast walk out upon the edge of the opposite slope and stand in the shade.

“Copple, is that a sheep?” I whispered, pointing. “Lion — no, big lynx,” he replied. I aimed and shot just a little too swiftly. Judging by the puff of dust my bullet barely missed the big cat. He leaped fully fifteen feet. Copple fired, hitting right under his nose as he alighted. That whirled him back. He bounced like a rubber ball. My second shot went over him, and Copple’s hit between his legs. Then with another prodigious bound he disappeared in a thicket. “By golly! we missed him,” declared Copple. “But you must have shaved him that first time. Biggest lynx I ever saw.”

We crossed the canyon and hunted for him, but without success. Then we climbed an open grassy forest slope, up to a level ridge, and crossed that to see down into a beautiful valley, with stately isolated pines, and patches of aspens, and floor of luxuriant grass. A ravine led down into this long park and the mouth of it held a thicket of small pines. Just as we got half way out I saw bobbing black objects above the high grass. I peered sharply. These objects were turkey heads. I got a shot before Copple saw them. There was a bouncing, a whirring, a thumping — and then turkeys appeared to be running every way.

Copple fired. “Turkey number one!” he called out. I missed a big gobbler on the run. Copple shot again. “Turkey number two!” he called out. I could not see what he had done, but of course I knew he had done execution. It roused my ire as well as a desperate ambition. Turkeys were running up hill everywhere. I aimed at this one, then at that. Again I fired. Another miss! How that gobbler ran! He might just as well have flown. Every turkey contrived to get a tree or bush between him and me, just at the critical instant. In despair I tried to hold on the last one, got a bead on it through my peep sight, moved it with him as we moved, and holding tight, I fired. With a great flop and scattering of bronze feathers he went down. I ran up the slope and secured him, a fine gobbler of about fifteen pounds weight.

Upon my return to Copple I found he had collected his two turkeys, both shot in the neck in the same place. He said: “If you hit them in the body you spoil them for cooking. I used to hit all mine in the head. Let me give you a hunch. Always pick out a turkey running straight away from you or straight toward you. Never crossways. You can’t hit them running to the side.”

Then he bluntly complimented me upon my eyesight. That at least was consolation for my poor shooting. We rested there, and after a while heard a turkey cluck. Copple had no turkey-caller, but he clucked anyhow. We heard answers. The flock evidently was trying to get together again, and some of them were approaching us. Copple continued to call. Then I appreciated how fascinating R.C. had found this calling game. Copple got answers from all around, growing closer. But presently the answers ceased. “They’re on to me,” he whispered and did not call again. At that moment a young gobbler ran swiftly down the slope and stopped to peer around, his long neck stretching. It was not a very long shot, and I, scorning to do less than Copple, tried to emulate him, and aimed at the neck of the gobbler. All I got, however, was a few feathers. Like a grouse he flew across the opening and was gone. We lingered there a while, hoping to see or hear more of the flock, but did neither. Copple tried to teach me how to tell the age of turkeys from their feet, a lesson I did not think I would assimilate in one hunting season. He tied their legs together and hung them over his shoulder, a net weight of about fifty pounds.

All the way up that valley we saw elk tracks, and once from over the ridge I heard a bugle. On our return toward camp we followed a rather meandering course, over ridge and down dale, and through grassy parks and stately forests, and along the slowly coloring maple-aspen thickets. Copple claimed to hear deer running, but I did not. Many tired footsteps I dragged along before we finally reached Beaver Dam Canyon. How welcome the sight of camp! R.C. had ridden miles with Edd, and had seen one deer that they said was still enjoying his freedom in the woods. Takahashi hailed sight of the turkeys with: “That fine! That fine! Nice fat ones!”

But tired as I was that night I still had enthusiasm enough to visit Haught’s camp, and renew acquaintance with the hounds. Haught had not been able to secure more than two new hounds, and these named Rock and Buck were still unknown quantities.

Old Dan remembered me, and my heart warmed to the old gladiator. He was a very big, large-boned hound, gray with age and wrinkled and lame, and bleary-eyed. Dan was too old to be put on trails, or at least to be made chase bear. He loved a camp-fire, and would almost sit in the flames. This fact, and the way he would beg for a morsel to eat, had endeared him to me.

Old Tom was somewhat smaller and leaner than Dan, yet resembled him enough to deceive us at times. Tom was gray, too, and had crinkly ears, and many other honorable battle-scars. Tom was not quite so friendly as Dan; in fact he had more dignity. Still neither hound was ever demonstrative except upon sight of his master. Haught told me that if Dan and Tom saw him shoot at a deer they would chase it till they dropped; accordingly he never shot at anything except bear and lion when he had these hounds with him.

Sue was the best hound in the pack, as she still had, in spite of years of service, a good deal of speed and fight left in her. She was a slim, dark brown hound with fine and very long ears. Rock, one of the new hounds from Kentucky, was white and black, and had remarkably large, clear and beautiful eyes, almost human in expression. I could not account for the fact that I suspected Rock was a deer chaser. Buck, the other hound from Kentucky, was no longer young; he had a stump tail; his color was a little yellow with dark spots, and he had a hang-dog head and distrustful eye. I made certain that Buck had never had any friends, for he did not understand kindness. Nor had he ever had enough to eat. He stayed away from the rest of the pack and growled fiercely when a pup came near him. I tried to make friends with him, but found that I would not have an easy task.

Kaiser Bill was one of the pups, black in color, a long, lean, hungry-looking dog, and crazy. He had not grown any in a year, either in body or intelligence. I remembered how he would yelp just to hear himself and run any kind of a trail — how he would be the first to quit and come back. And if any one fired a gun near him he would run like a scared deer.

To be fair to Kaiser Bill the other pups were not much better. Trailer and Big Foot were young still, and about all they could do was to run and howl.

If, however, they got off right on a bear trail, and no other trail crossed it they would stick, and in fact lead the pack till’ the bear got away. Once Big Foot came whimpering into camp with porcupine quills in his nose. Of all the whipped and funny pups!

Bobby was the dog I liked best. He was a curly black half-shepherd, small in size; and he had a sharp, intelligent face, with the brightest hazel eyes. His manner of wagging his tail seemed most comical yet convincing. Bobby wagged only the nether end and that most emphatically. He would stand up to me, holding out his forepaws, and beg. What an appealing beggar he was! Bobby’s value to Haught was not inconsiderable. He was the only dog Haught ever had that would herd the pigs. On a bear hunt Bobby lost his shepherd ways and his kindly disposition, and yelped fiercely, and hung on a trail as long as any of the pack. He had no fear of a bear, for which reason Haught did not like to run him.

All told then we had a rather nondescript and poor pack of hounds; and the fact discouraged me. I wanted to hunt the bad cinnamons and the grizzly sheep-killers, with which this rim-rock country was infested. I had nothing against the acorn-eating brown or black bears. And with this pack of hounds I doubted that we could hold one of the vicious fighting species. But there was now nothing to do but try. No one could tell. We might kill a big grizzly. And the fact that the chances were against us perhaps made for more determined effort. I regretted, however, that I had not secured a pack of trained hounds somewhere.

Frost was late this fall. The acorns had hardly ripened, the leaves had scarcely colored; and really good bear hunting seemed weeks off. A storm and then a cold snap would help matters wonderfully, and for these we hoped. Indeed the weather had not settled; hardly a day had been free of clouds. But despite conditions we decided to start in bear hunting every other day, feeling that at least we could train the pack, and get them and ourselves in better shape for a favorable time when it arrived.

Accordingly next day we sallied forth for Horton Thicket, and I went down with Edd and George. It was a fine day, sunny and windy at intervals. The new trail the boys had made was boggy. From above Horton Thicket looked dark, green, verdant, with scarcely any touch of autumn colors; from below, once in it, all seemed a darker green, cool and damp. Water lay in all low places. The creek roared bankfull of clear water.

The new trail led up and down over dark red rich earth, through thickets of jack-pine and maple, and then across long slopes of manzanita and juniper, mescal and oak. Junipers were not fruitful this year as they were last, only a few having clusters of lavender-colored berries. The manzanita brush appeared exceptionally beautiful with its vivid contrasts of crimson and green leaves, orange-colored berries, and smooth, shiny bark of a chocolate red. The mescal consisted of round patches of cactus with spear-shaped leaves, low on the ground, with a long dead stalk standing or broken down. This stalk grows fresh every spring, when it is laden with beautiful yellow blossoms. The honey from the flowers of mescal and mesquite is the best to be obtained in this country of innumerable bees.

Presently the hounds opened up on some kind of a trail and they worked on it around under the ledges toward the next canyon, called See Canyon. After a while the country grew so rough that fast riding was impossible; the thickets tore and clutched at us until they finally stopped the horses. We got off. Edd climbed to a ridge-top. “Pack gone way round,” he called. “I’ll walk. Take my horse back.” I decided to let George take my horse also, and I hurried to catch up with Edd.

Following that long-legged Arizonian on foot was almost as strenuous as keeping him in sight on horseback. I managed it. We climbed steep slopes and the farther we climbed the thicker grew the brush. Often we would halt to listen for hounds, at which welcome intervals I endeavored to catch my breath. We kept the hounds in hearing, which fact incited us to renewed endeavors. At length we got into a belt of live-oak and scrub-pine brush, almost as difficult to penetrate as manzanita, and here we had to bend and crawl. Bear and deer tracks led everywhere. Small stones and large stones had been lifted and displaced by bears searching for grubs. These slopes were dry; we found no water at the heads of ravines, yet the red earth was rich in bearded, tufted grass, yellow daisies and purple asters, and a wan blue flower. We climbed and climbed, until my back began to give me trouble. “Reckon we — bit off — a big hunk,” remarked Edd once, and I thought he referred to the endless steep and brushy slopes. By and bye the hounds came back to us one by one, all footsore and weary. Manifestly the bear had outrun them. Our best prospect then was to climb on to the rim and strike across the forest to camp.

I noticed that tired as I was I had less trouble to keep up with Edd. His boots wore very slippery on grass and pine-needles, so that he might have been trying to climb on ice. I had nails in my boots and they caught hold. Hotter and wetter I grew until I had a burning sensation all over. My legs and arms ached; the rifle weighed a ton; my feet seemed to take hold of the ground and stick. We could not go straight up owing to the nature of that jumble of broken cliffs and matted scrub forests. For hours we toiled onward, upward, downward, and then upward. Only through such experience could I have gained an adequate knowledge of the roughness and vastness of this rim-rock country.

At last we arrived at the base of the gray leaning crags, and there, on a long slide of weathered rock the hounds jumped a bear. I saw the dust he raised, as he piled into the thicket below the slide. What a wild clamor from the hounds! We got out on the rocky slope where we could see and kept sharp eyes roving, but the bear went straight down hill. Amazing indeed was it the way the hounds drew away from us. In a few moments they were at the foot of the slopes, tearing back over the course we had been so many hours in coming. Then we set out to get on the rim, so as to follow along it, and keep track of the chase. Edd distanced me on the rocks. I had to stop often. My breast labored and I could scarcely breathe. I sweat so freely that my rifle stock was wet. My hardest battle was in fighting a tendency to utter weariness and disgust. My old poignant feelings about my physical condition returned to vex me. As a matter of fact I had already that very day accomplished a climb not at all easy for the Arizonian, and I should have been happy. But I had not been used to a lame back. When I reached the rim I fell there, and lay there a few moments, until I could get up. Then I followed along after Edd whose yells to the hounds I heard, and overtook him upon the point of a promontory. Far below the hounds were baying. “They’re chasin’ him all right,” declared Edd, grimly. “He’s headin’ for low country. I think Sue stopped him once. But the rest of the pack are behind.”

I had never been on the point of this promontory. Grand indeed was the panorama. Under me yawned a dark-green, smoky-canyoned, rippling basin of timber and red rocks leading away to the mountain ranges of the Four Peaks and Mazatzals. Westward, toward the yellowing sunset stood out long escarpments for miles, and long sloping lines of black ridges, leading down to the basin where there seemed to be a ripple of the earth, a vast upset region of canyon and ridge, wild and lonely and dark.

I did not get to see the sunset from that wonderful point, a matter I regretted. We were far from camp, and Edd was not sure of a bee-line during daylight, let alone after dark. Deep in the forest the sunset gold and red burned on grass and leaf. The aspens took most of the color. Swift-flying wisps of cloud turned pink, and low along the western horizon of the forest the light seemed golden and blue.

I was almost exhausted, and by the time we reached camp, just at dark, I was wholly exhausted. My voice had sunk to a whisper, a fact that occasioned R.C. some concern until I could explain. Undoubtedly this was the hardest day’s work I had done since my lion hunting with Buffalo Jones. It did not surprise me that next day I had to forget my crosscut saw exercise.

Late that afternoon the hounds came straggling into camp, lame and starved. Sue was the last one in, arriving at supper-time.

Another day found me still sore, but able to ride, and R.C. and I went off into the woods in search of any kind of adventure. This day was cloudy and threatening, with spells of sunshine. We saw two bull elk, a cow and a calf. The bulls appeared remarkably agile for so heavy an animal. Neither of these, however, were of such magnificent proportions as the one R.C. and I had stalked the first day out. A few minutes later we scared out three more cows and three yearlings. I dismounted just for fun, and sighted my rifle at four of them. Next we came to a canyon where beaver had cut aspen trees. These animals must have chisel-like teeth. They left chippings somewhat similar to those cut by an axe. Aspen bark was their winter food. In this particular spot we could not find a dam or slide. When we rode down into Turkey Canyon, however, we found a place where beavers had dammed the brook. Many aspens were fresh cut, one at least two feet thick, and all the small branches had been cut off and dragged to the water, where I could find no further trace of them. The grass was matted down, and on the bare bits of ground showed beaver tracks.

Game appeared to be scarce. Haught had told us that deer, turkey and bear had all gone to feed on the mast (fallen acorns); and if we could locate the mast we would find the game. He said he had once seen a herd of several hundred deer migrating from one section of country to another. Apparently this was to find new feeding grounds.

While we were resting under a spruce I espied a white-breasted, blue-headed, gray-backed little bird at work on a pine tree. He walked head first down the bark, pecking here and there. I saw a moth or a winged insect fly off the tree, and then another. Then I saw several more fly away. The bird was feeding on winged insects that lived in the bark. Some of them saw or heard him coming and escaped, but many of them he caught. He went about this death-dealing business with a brisk and cheerful manner. No doubt nature had developed him to help protect the trees from bugs and worms and beetles.

Later that day, in an open grassy canyon, we came upon quite a large bird, near the size of a pigeon, which I thought appeared to be a species of jay or magpie. This bird had gray and black colors, a round head, and a stout bill. At first I thought it was crippled, as it hopped and fluttered about in the grass. I got down to catch it. Then I discovered it was only tame. I could approach to within a foot of reaching it. Once it perched upon a low snag, and peeped at me with little bright dark eyes, very friendly, as if he liked my company. I sat there within a few feet of him for quite a while. We resumed our ride. Crossing a fresh buck track caused us to dismount, and tie our horses. But that buck was too wary for us. We returned to camp as usual, empty handed as far as game was concerned.

I forgot to say anything to Haught or Doyle about the black and gray bird that had so interested me. Quite a coincidence was it then to see another such bird and that one right in camp. He appeared to be as tame as the other. He flew and hopped around camp in such a friendly manner that I placed a piece of meat in a conspicuous place for him. Not long was he in finding it. He alighted on it, and pecked and pulled at a great rate. Doyle claimed it was a Clark crow, named after one of the Lewis and Clark expedition. “It’s a rare bird,” said Doyle. “First one I’ve seen in thirty years.” As Doyle spent most of his time in the open this statement seemed rather remarkable.

We had frost on two mornings, temperature as low as twenty-six degrees, and then another change indicative of unsettled weather. It rained, and sleeted, and then snowed, but the ground was too wet to hold the snow.

The wilderness began all at once, as if by magic, to take on autumn colors. Then the forest became an enchanted region of white aspens, golden-green aspens, purple spruces, dark green pines, maples a blaze of vermilion, cerise, scarlet, magenta, rose — and slopes of dull red sumac. These were the beginning of Indian summer days, the melancholy days, with their color and silence and beauty and fragrance and mystery.

Hunting then became quite a dream for me, as if it called back to me dim mystic days in the woods of some past weird world. One afternoon Copple, R.C., and I went as far as the east side of Gentry Canyon and worked down. Copple found fresh deer and turkey sign. We tied our horses, and slipped back against the wind. R.C. took one side of a ridge, with Copple and me on the other, and we worked down toward where we had seen the sign. After half an hour of slow, stealthy glide through the forest we sat down at the edge of a park, expecting R.C. to come along soon. The white aspens were all bare, and oak leaves were rustling down. The wind lulled a while, then softly roared in the pines. All at once both of us heard a stick crack, and light steps of a walking deer on leaves. Copple whispered: “Get ready to shoot.” We waited, keen and tight, expecting to see a deer walk out into the open. But none came. Leaving our stand we slipped into the woods, careful not to make the slightest sound. Such careful, slow steps were certainly not accountable for the rapid beat of my heart. Something gray moved among the green and yellow leaves. I halted, and held Copple back. Then not twenty paces away I descried what I thought was a fawn. It glided toward us without the slightest sound. Suddenly, half emerging from some maple saplings, it saw us and seemed stricken to stone. Not ten steps from me! Soft gray hue, slender graceful neck and body, sleek small head with long ears, and great dark distended eyes, wilder than any wild eyes I had ever beheld. I saw it quiver all over. I was quivering too, but with emotion. Copple whispered: “Yearlin’ buck. Shoot!”

His whisper, low as it was, made the deer leap like a gray flash. Also it broke the spell for me. “Year old buck!” I exclaimed, quite loud. “Thought he was a fawn. But I couldn’t have shot — —”

A crash of brush interrupted me. Thump of hoofs, crack of branches — then a big buck deer bounded onward into the thicket. I got one snap shot at his fleeting blurred image and missed him. We ran ahead, but to no avail.

“Four-point buck,” said Copple. “He must have been standin’ behind that brush.”

“Did you see his horns?” I gasped, incredulously.

“Sure. But he was runnin’ some. Let’s go down this slope where he jumped.... Now will you look at that! Here’s where he started after you shot.”

A gentle slope, rather open, led down to the thicket where the buck had vanished. We measured the first of his downhill jumps, and it amounted to eighteen of my rather short steps. What a magnificent leap! It reminded me of the story of Hart-leap Well.

As we retraced our steps R.C. met us, reporting that he had heard the buck running, but could not see him. We scouted around together for an hour, then R.C. and Copple started off on a wide detour, leaving me at a stand in the hope they might drive some turkeys my way. I sat on a log until almost sunset. All the pine tips turned gold and patches of gold brightened the ground. Jays were squalling, gray squirrels were barking, red squirrels were chattering, snowbirds were twittering, pine cones were dropping, leaves were rustling. But there were no turkeys, and I did not miss them. R.C. and Copple returned to tell me there were signs of turkeys and deer all over the ridge. “We’ll ride over here early to-morrow,” said Copple, “an’ I’ll bet my gun we pack some meat to camp.”

But the unsettled weather claimed the next day and the next, giving us spells of rain and sleet, and periods of sunshine deceptive in their promise. Camp, however, with our big camp-fire, and little tent-stoves, and Takahashi, would have been delightful in almost any weather. Takahashi was insulted, the boys told me, because I said he was born to be a cook. It seemed the Jap looked down upon this culinary job. “Cook — that woman joob!” he said, contemptuously.

As I became better acquainted with Takahashi I learned to think more of the Japanese. I studied Takahashi very earnestly and I grew to like him. The Orientals are mystics and hard to understand. But any one could see that here was a Japanese who was a real man. I never saw him idle. He resented being told what to do, and after my first offense in this regard I never gave him another order. He was a wonderful cook. It pleased his vanity to see how good an appetite I always had. When I would hail him: “George, what you got to eat?” he would grin and reply: “Aw, turkee!” Then I would let out a yell, for I never in my life tasted anything so good as the roast wild turkey Takahashi served us. Or he would say: “Pan-cakes — apple dumplings — rice puddings.” No one but the Japs know how to cook rice. I asked him how he cooked rice over an open fire and he said: “I know how hot — when done.” Takahashi must have possessed an uncanny knowledge of the effects of heat. How swift, clean, efficient and saving he was! He never wasted anything. In these days of American prodigality a frugal cook like Takahashi was a revelation. Seldom are the real producers of food ever wasters. Takahashi’s ambition was to be a rancher in California. I learned many things about him. In summer he went to the Imperial Valley where he picked and packed cantaloupes. He could stand the intense heat. He was an expert. He commanded the highest wage. Then he was a raisin-picker, which for him was another art. He had accumulated a little fortune and knew how to save his money. He would have been a millionaire in Japan, but he intended to live in the United States.

Takahashi had that best of traits — generosity. Whenever he made pie or cake or doughnuts he always saved his share for me to have for my lunch next day. No use to try to break him of this kindly habit! He was keen too, and held in particular disfavor any one who picked out the best portions of turkey or meat. “No like that,” he would say; and I heartily agreed with him. Life in the open brought out the little miserable traits of human nature, of which no one was absolutely free.

I admired Takahashi’s cooking, I admired the enormous pile of firewood he always had chopped, I admired his generosity; but most of all I liked his cheerfulness and good humor. He grew to be a joy to me. We had some pop corn which we sometimes popped over the camp-fire. He was fond of it and he said: “You eat all time — much pop corn — just so long you keep mouth going all same like horse — you happy.” We were troubled a good deal by skunks. Now some skunks were not bad neighbors, but others were disgusting and dangerous. The hog-nosed skunk, according to westerners, very often had hydrophobia and would bite a sleeper. I knew of several men dying of rabies from this bite. Copple said he had been awakened twice at night by skunks biting the noses of his companions in camp. Copple had to choke the skunks off. One of these men died. We were really afraid of them. Doyle said one had visited him in his tent and he had been forced to cover his head until he nearly smothered. Now Takahashi slept in the tent with the store of supplies. One night a skunk awakened him. In reporting this to me the Jap said: “See skunk all black and white at tent door. I flash light. Skunk no ‘fraid. He no run. He act funny — then just walk off.”

After that experience Takahashi set a box-trap for skunks. One morning he said with a huge grin: “I catch skunk. Want you take picture for me send my wife Sadayo.”

So I got my camera, and being careful to take a safe position, as did all the boys, I told Takahashi I was ready to photograph him and his skunk. He got a pole that was too short to suit me, and he lifted up the box-trap. A furry white and black cat appeared, with remarkably bushy tail. What a beautiful little animal to bear such opprobrium! “All same like cat,” said Takahashi. “Kittee — kittee.” It appeared that kitty was not in the least afraid. On the contrary she surveyed the formidable Jap with his pole, and her other enemies in a calm, dignified manner. Then she turned away. Here I tried to photograph her and Takahashi together. When she started off the Jap followed and poked her with the pole. “Take ‘nother picture.” But kitty suddenly whirled, with fur and tail erect, a most surprising and brave and assured front, then ran at Takahashi. I yelled: “Run George!” Pell-mell everybody fled from that beautiful little beast. We were arrant cowards. But Takahashi grasped up another and longer pole, and charged back at kitty. This time he chased her out of camp. When he returned his face was a study: “Nashty thing! She make awful stink! She no ‘fraid a tall. Next time I kill her sure!”

The head of Gentry Canyon was about five miles from camp, and we reached it the following morning while the frost was still white and sparkling. We tied our horses. Copple said: “This is a deer day. I’ll show you a buck sure. Let’s stick together an’ walk easy.”

So we made sure to work against the wind, which, however, was so light as almost to be imperceptible, and stole along the dark ravine, taking half a dozen steps or so at a time. How still the forest! When it was like this I always felt as if I had discovered something new. The big trees loomed stately and calm, stretching a rugged network of branches over us. Fortunately no saucy squirrels or squalling jays appeared to be abroad to warn game of our approach. Not only a tang, but a thrill, seemed to come pervasively on the cool air. All the colors of autumn were at their height, and gorgeous plots of maple thicket and sumac burned against the brown and green. We slipped along, each of us strung to be the first to hear or see some living creature of the wild. R.C., as might have been expected, halted us with a softly whispered: “Listen.” But neither Copple nor I heard what R.C. heard, and presently we moved on as before. Presently again R.C. made us pause, with a like result. Somehow the forest seemed unusually wild. It provoked a tingling expectation. The pine-covered slope ahead of us, the thicketed ridge to our left, the dark, widening ravine to our right, all seemed to harbor listening, watching, soft-footed denizens of the wild. At length we reached a level bench, beautifully forested, where the ridge ran down in points to where the junction of several ravines formed the head of Gentry Canyon.

How stealthily we stole on! Here Copple said was a place for deer to graze. But the grass plots, golden with sunlight and white with frost and black-barred by shadows of pines, showed no game.

Copple sat down on a log, and I took a seat beside him to the left. R.C. stood just to my left. As I laid my rifle over my knees and opened my lips to whisper I was suddenly struck mute. I saw R.C. stiffen, then crouch a little. He leaned forward — his eyes had the look of a falcon. Then I distinctly heard the soft crack of hoofs on stone and breaking of tiny twigs. Quick as I whirled my head I still caught out of the tail of my eye the jerk of R.C. as he threw up his rifle. I looked — I strained my eyes — I flashed them along the rim of the ravine where R.C. had been gazing. A gray form seemed to move into the field of my vision. That instant it leaped, and R.C.’s rifle shocked me with its bursting crack. I seemed stunned, so near was the report. But I saw the gray form pitch headlong and I heard a solid thump.

“Buck, an’ he’s your meat!” called Copple, low and sharp. “Look for another one.”

No other deer appeared. R.C. ran toward the spot where the gray form had plunged in a heap, and Copple and I followed. It was far enough to make me pant for breath. We found R.C. beside a fine three-point buck that had been shot square in the back of the head between and below the roots of its antlers.

“Never knew what struck him!” exclaimed Copple, and he laid hold of the deer and hauled it out of the edge of the thicket. “Fine an’ fat. Venison for camp, boys. One of you go after the horses an’ the other help me hang him up.”

VI

I had been riding eastward of Beaver Dam Canyon with Haught, and we had parted up on the ridge, he to go down a ravine leading to his camp, and I to linger a while longer up there in the Indian-summer woods, so full of gold and silence and fragrance on that October afternoon.

The trail gradually drew me onward and downward, and at length I came out into a narrow open park lined by spruce trees. Suddenly Don Carlos shot up his ears. I had not ridden him for days and he appeared more than usually spirited. He saw or heard something. I held him in, and after a moment I dismounted and drew my rifle. A crashing in brush somewhere near at hand excited me. Peering all around I tried to locate cause for the sound. Again my ear caught a violent swishing of brush accompanied by a snapping of twigs. This time I cocked my rifle. Don Carlos snorted. After another circling swift gaze it dawned upon me that the sound came from overhead.

I looked into this tree and that, suddenly to have my gaze arrested by a threshing commotion in the very top of a lofty spruce. I saw a dark form moving against a background of blue sky. Instantly I thought it must be a lynx and was about to raise my rifle when a voice as from the very clouds utterly astounded me. I gasped in my astonishment. Was I dreaming? But violent threshings and whacks from the tree-top absolutely assured me that I was neither dreaming nor out of my head. “I get you — whee!” shouted the voice. There was a man up in the swaying top of that spruce and he was no other than Takahashi. For a moment I could not find my voice. Then I shouted:

“Hey up there, George! What in the world are you doing? I came near shooting you.”

“Aw hullo! — I come down now,” replied Takahashi.

I had seen both lynx and lion climb down out of a tree, but nothing except a squirrel could ever have beaten Takahashi. The spruce was fully one hundred and fifty feet high; and unless I made a great mistake the Jap descended in two minutes. He grinned from ear to ear.

“I no see you — no hear,” he said. “You take me for big cat?”

“Yes, George, and I might have shot you. What were you doing up there?”

Takahashi brushed the needles and bark from his clothes. “I go out with little gun you give me. I hunt, no see squirrel. Go out no gun — see squirrel. I chase him up tree — I climb high — awful high. No good. Squirrel he too quick. He run right over me — get away.”

Takahashi laughed with me. I believed he was laughing at what he considered the surprising agility of the squirrel, while I was laughing at him. Here was another manifestation of the Jap’s simplicity and capacity. If all Japanese were like Takahashi they were a wonderful people. Men are men because they do things. The Persians were trained to sweat freely at least once every day of their lives. It seemed to me that if a man did not sweat every day, which was to say — labor hard — he very surely was degenerating physically. I could learn a great deal from George Takahashi. Right there I told him that my father had been a famous squirrel hunter in his day. He had such remarkable eyesight that he could espy the ear of a squirrel projecting above the highest limb of a tall white oak. And he was such a splendid shot that he had often “barked” squirrels, as was a noted practice of the old pioneer. I had to explain to Takahashi that this practice consisted of shooting a bullet to hit the bark right under the squirrel, and the concussion would so stun it that it would fall as if dead.

“Aw my goodnish — your daddy more better shot than you!” ejaculated Takahashi.

“Yes indeed he was,” I replied, reflectively, as in a flash the long-past boyhood days recurred in memory. Hunting days — playing days of boyhood were the best of life. It seemed to me that one of the few reasons I still had for clinging to hunting was this keen, thrilling hark back to early days. Books first — then guns — then fishing poles — so ran the list of material possessions dear to my heart as a lad.

That night was moonlight, cold, starry, with a silver sheen on the spectral spruces. During the night there came a change; it rained — first a drizzle, then a heavy downpour, and at five-thirty a roar of hail on the tent. This music did not last long. At seven o’clock the thermometer registered thirty-four degrees, but there was no frost. The morning was somewhat cloudy or foggy, with promise of clearing.

We took the hounds over to See Canyon, and while Edd and Nielsen went down with them, the rest of us waited above for developments. Scarcely had they more than time enough to reach the gorge below when the pack burst into full chorus. Haught led the way then around the rough rim for better vantage points. I was mounted on one of the horses Lee had gotten for me — a fine, spirited animal named Stockings. Probably he had been a cavalry horse. He was a bay with white feet, well built and powerful, though not over medium size. One splendid feature about him was that a saddle appeared to fit him so snugly it never slipped. And another feature, infinitely the most attractive to me, was his easy gait. His trot and lope were so comfortable and swinging, like the motion of a rocking-chair, that I could ride him all day with pleasure. But when it came to chasing after hounds and bears along the rim Stockings gave me trouble. Too eager, too spirited, he would not give me time to choose the direction. He jumped ditches and gullies, plunged into bad jumbles or rock, tried to hurdle logs too high for him, carried me under low branches and through dense thickets, and in general showed he was exceedingly willing to chase after the pack, but ignorant of rough forest travel. Owing to this I fell behind, and got out of hearing of both hounds and men, and eventually found myself lost somewhere on the west side of See Canyon. To get out I had to turn my back to the sun, travel west till I came to the rim above Horton Thicket, and from there return to camp, arriving rather late in the afternoon.

All the men had returned, and all the hounds except Buck. I was rather surprised and disturbed to find the Haughts in a high state of dudgeon. Edd looked pale and angry. Upon questioning Nielsen I learned that the hounds had at once struck a fresh bear track in See Canyon. Nielsen and Edd had not followed far before they heard a hound yelping in pain. They found Buck caught in a bear trap. The rest of the hounds came upon a little bear cub, caught in another trap, and killed it. Nielsen said it had evidently been a prisoner for some days, being very poor and emaciated. Fresh tracks of the mother bear were proof that she had been around trying to save it or minister to it. There were trappers in See Canyon; and between bear hunters and trappers manifestly there was no love lost. Edd said they had as much right to trap as we had to hunt, but that was not the question. There had been opportunity to tell the Haughts about the big number four bear traps set in See Canyon. But they did not tell it. Edd had brought the dead cub back to our camp. It was a pretty little bear cub, about six months old, with a soft silky brown coat. No one had to look at it twice to see how it had suffered.

This matter of trapping wild animals is singularly hateful to me. Bad enough is it to stalk deer to shoot them for their meat, but at least this is a game where the deer have all the advantage. Bad indeed it may be to chase bear with hounds, but that is a hard, dangerous method of hunting which gives it some semblance of fairness. Most of my bear hunts proved to me that I ran more risks than the bears. To set traps, however, to hide big iron-springed, spike-toothed traps to catch and clutch wild animals alive, and hold them till they died or starved or gnawed off their feet, or until the trapper chose to come with his gun or club to end the miserable business — what indeed shall I call that? Cruel — base — cowardly!

It cannot be defended on moral grounds. But vast moneyed interests are at stake. One of the greatest of American fortunes was built upon the brutal, merciless trapping of wild animals for their furs. And in this fall of 1919 the prices of fox, marten, beaver, raccoon, skunk, lynx, muskrat, mink, otter, were higher by double than they had ever been. Trappers were going to reap a rich harvest. Well, everybody must make a living; but is this trapping business honest, is it manly? To my knowledge trappers are hardened. Market fishermen are hardened, too, but the public eat fish. They do not eat furs. Now in cold climates and seasons furs are valuable to protect people who must battle with winter winds and sleet and ice; and against their use by such I daresay there is no justification for censure. But the vast number of furs go to deck the persons of vain women. I appreciate the beautiful contrast of fair skin against a background of sable fur, or silver fox, or rich, black, velvety seal. But beautiful women would be just as beautiful, just as warmly clothed in wool instead of fur. And infinitely better women! Not long ago I met a young woman in one of New York’s fashionable hotels, and I remarked about the exquisite evening coat of fur she wore. She said she loved furs. She certainly was handsome, and she appeared to be refined, cultured, a girl of high class. And I said it was a pity women did not know or care where furs came from. She seemed surprised. Then I told her about the iron-jawed, spike-toothed traps hidden by the springs or on the runways of game — about the fox or beaver or marten seeking its food, training its young to fare for themselves — about the sudden terrible clutch of the trap, and then the frantic fear, the instinctive fury, the violent struggle — about the foot gnawed off by the beast that was too fierce to die a captive — about the hours of agony, the horrible thirst — the horrible days till death. And I concluded: “All because women are luxurious and vain!” She shuddered underneath the beautiful coat of furs, and seemed insulted.

Upon inquiry I learned from Nielsen that Buck was coming somewhere back along the trail hopping along on three legs. I rode on down to my camp, and procuring a bottle of iodine I walked back in the hope of doing Buck a good turn. During my absence he had reached camp, and was lying under an aspen, apart from the other hounds. Buck looked meaner and uglier and more distrustful than ever. Evidently this injury to his leg was a trick played upon him by his arch enemy man. I stood beside him, as he licked the swollen, bloody leg, and talked to him, as kindly as I knew how. And finally I sat down beside him. The trap-teeth had caught his right front leg just above the first joint, and from the position of the teeth marks and the way he moved his leg I had hopes that the bone was not broken. Apparently the big teeth had gone through on each side of the bone. When I tried gently to touch the swollen leg Buck growled ominously. He would have bitten me. I patted his head with one hand, and watching my chance, at length with the other I poured iodine over the open cuts. Then I kept patting him and holding his head until the iodine had become absorbed. Perhaps it was only my fancy, but it seemed that the ugly gleam in his distrustful eyes had become sheepish, as if he was ashamed of something he did not understand. That look more than ever determined me to try to find some way to his affections.

A camp-fire council that night resulted in plans to take a pack outfit, and ride west along the rim to a place Haught called Dude Creek. “Reckon we’ll shore smoke up some bars along Dude,” said Haught. “Never was in there but I jumped bars. Good deer an’ turkey country, too.”

Next day we rested the hounds, and got things into packing shape with the intention of starting early the following morning. But it rained on and off; and the day after that we could not find Haught’s burros, and not until the fourth morning could we start. It turned out that Buck did not have a broken leg and had recovered surprisingly from the injury he had received. Aloof as he held himself it appeared certain he did not want to be left behind.

We rode all day along the old Crook road where the year before we had encountered so many obstacles. I remembered most of the road, but how strange it seemed to me, and what a proof of my mental condition on that memorable trip, that I did not remember all. Usually forest or desert ground I have traveled over I never forget. This ride, in the middle of October, when all the colors of autumn vied with the sunlight to make the forest a region of golden enchantment, was one of particular delight to me. I had begun to work and wear out the pain in my back. Every night I had suffered a little less and slept a little better, and every morning I had less and less of a struggle to get up and straighten out. Many a groan had I smothered. But now, when I got warmed up from riding or walking or sawing wood, the pain left me altogether and I forgot it. I had given myself heroic treatment, but my reward was in sight. My theory that the outdoor life would cure almost any ill of body or mind seemed to have earned another proof added to the long list.

At sunset we had covered about sixteen miles of rough road, and had arrived at a point where we were to turn away from the rim, down into a canyon named Barber Shop Canyon, where we were to camp.

Before turning aside I rode out to the rim for a look down at the section of country we were to hunt. What a pleasure to recognize the point from which Romer-boy had seen his first wild bear! It was a wonderful section of rim-rock country. I appeared to be at the extreme point of a vast ten-league promontory, rising high over the basin, where the rim was cut into canyons as thick as teeth of a saw. They were notched and v-shaped. Craggy russet-lichened cliffs, yellow and gold-stained rocks, old crumbling ruins of pinnacles crowned by pine thickets, ravines and gullies and canyons, choked with trees and brush all green-gold, purple-red, scarlet-fire — these indeed were the heights and depths, the wild, lonely ruggedness, the color and beauty of Arizona land. There were long, steep slopes of oak thickets, where the bears lived, long gray slides of weathered rocks, long slanting ridges of pine, descending for miles out and down into the green basin, yet always seeming to stand high above that rolling wilderness. The sun stood crossed by thin clouds — a golden blaze in a golden sky — sinking to meet a ragged horizon line of purple.

Here again was I confronted with the majesty and beauty of the earth, and with another and more striking effect of this vast tilted rim of mesa. I could see many miles to west and east. This rim was a huge wall of splintered rock, a colossal cliff, towering so high above the black basin below that ravines and canyons resembled ripples or dimples, darker lines of shade. And on the other side from its very edge, where the pine fringe began, it sloped gradually to the north, with heads of canyons opening almost at the crest. I saw one ravine begin its start not fifty feet from the rim.

Barber Shop Canyon had five heads, all running down like the fingers of a hand, to form the main canyon, which was deep, narrow, forested by giant pines. A round, level dell, watered by a murmuring brook, deep down among the many slopes, was our camp ground, and never had I seen one more desirable. The wind soughed in the lofty pine tops, but not a breeze reached down to this sheltered nook. With sunset gold on the high slopes our camp was shrouded in twilight shadows. R.C. and I stretched a canvas fly over a rope from tree to tree, staked down the ends, and left the sides open. Under this we unrolled our beds.

Night fell quickly down in that sequestered pit, and indeed it was black night. A blazing camp-fire enhanced the circling gloom, and invested the great brown pines with some weird aspect. The boys put up an old tent for the hounds. Poor Buck was driven out of this shelter by his canine rivals. I took pity upon him, and tied him at the foot of my bed. When R.C. and I crawled into our blankets we discovered Buck snugly settled between our beds, and wonderful to hear, he whined. “Well, Buck, old dog, you keep the skunks away,” said R.C. And Buck emitted some kind of a queer sound, apparently meant to assure us that he would keep even a lion away. From my bed I could see the tips of the black pines close to the white stars. Before I dropped to sleep the night grew silent, except for the faint moan of wind and low murmur of brook.

We crawled out early, keen to run from the cold wash in the brook to the hot camp-fire. George and Edd had gone down the canyon after the horses, which had been hobbled and turned loose. Lee had remained with his father at Beaver Dam camp. For breakfast Takahashi had venison, biscuits, griddle cakes with maple syrup, and hot cocoa. I certainly did not begin on an empty stomach what augured to be a hard day. Buck hung around me this morning, and I subdued my generous impulses long enough to be convinced that he had undergone a subtle change. Then I fed him. Old Dan and Old Tom were witnesses of this procedure, which they regarded with extreme disfavor. And the pups tried to pick a fight with Buck.

By eight o’clock we were riding up the colored slopes, through the still forest, with the sweet, fragrant, frosty air nipping at our noses. A mile from camp we reached a notch in the rim that led down to Dude Creek, and here Edd and Nielsen descended with the hounds. The rest of us rode out to a point there to await developments. The sun had already flooded the basin with golden light; the east slopes of canyon and rim were dark in shade. I sat on a mat of pine needles near the rim, and looked, and cared not for passage of time.

But I was not permitted to be left to sensorial dreams. Right under us the hounds opened up, filling the canyon full of bellowing echoes. They worked down. Slopes below us narrowed to promontories and along these we kept our gaze. Suddenly Haught gave a jump, and rose, thumping to his horse. “Saw a bar,” he yelled. “Just got a glimpse of him crossin’ an open ridge. Come on.” We mounted and chased Haught over the roughest kind of rocky ground, to overtake him at the next point on the rim. “Ride along, you fellars,” he said, “an’ each pick out a stand. Keep ahead of the dogs an’ look sharp.”

Then it was in short order that I found myself alone, Copple, R.C. and George Haught having got ahead of me. I kept to the rim. The hounds could be heard plainly and also the encouraging yells of Nielsen and Edd. Apparently the chase was working along under me, in the direction I was going. The baying of the pack, the scent of pine, the ring of iron-shod hoofs on stone, the sense of wild, broken, vast country, the golden void beneath and the purple-ranged horizon — all these brought vividly and thrillingly to mind my hunting days with Buffalo Jones along the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I felt a pang, both for the past, and for my friend and teacher, this last of the old plainsmen who had died recently. In his last letter to me, written with a death-stricken hand, he had talked of another hunt, of more adventure, of his cherished hope to possess an island in the north Pacific, there to propagate wild animals — he had dreamed again the dream that could never come true. I was riding with my face to the keen, sweet winds of the wild, and he was gone. No joy in life is ever perfect. I wondered if any grief was ever wholly hopeless.

I came at length to a section of rim where huge timbered steps reached out and down. Dismounting I tied Stockings, and descended to the craggy points below, where I clambered here and there, looking, listening. No longer could I locate the hounds; now the baying sounded clear and sharp, close at hand, and then hollow and faint, and far away. I crawled under gnarled cedars, over jumbles of rock, around leaning crags, until I got out to a point where I had such command of slopes and capes, where the scene was so grand that I was both thrilled and awed. Somewhere below me to my left were the hounds still baying. The lower reaches of the rim consisted of ridges and gorges, benches and ravines, canyons and promontories — a country so wild and broken that it seemed impossible for hounds to travel it, let alone men. Above me, to my right, stuck out a yellow point of rim, and beyond that I knew there jutted out another point, and more and more points on toward the west. George was yelling from one of them, and I thought I heard a faint reply from R.C. or Copple. I believed for the present they were too far westward along the rim, and so I devoted my attention to the slopes under me toward my left. But once my gaze wandered around, and suddenly I espied a shiny black object moving along a bare slope, far below. A bear! So thrilled and excited was I that I did not wonder why this bear walked along so leisurely and calmly. Assuredly he had not even heard the hounds. I began to shoot, and in five rapid shots I spattered dust all over him. Not until I had two more shots, one of which struck close, did he begin to run. Then he got out of my sight. I yelled and yelled to those ahead of me along the rim. Somebody answered, and next somebody began to shoot. How I climbed and crawled and scuffled to get back to my horse! Stockings answered to the spirit of the occasion. Like a deer he ran around the rough rim, and I had to perform with the agility of a contortionist to avoid dead snags of trees and green branches. When I got to the point from which I had calculated George had done his shooting I found no one. My yells brought no answers. But I heard a horse cracking the rocks behind me. Then up from far below rang the sharp spangs of rifles in quick action. Nielsen and Edd were shooting. I counted seven shots. How the echoes rang from wall to wall, to die hollow and faint in the deep canyons!

I galloped ahead to the next point, finding only the tracks of R.C.’s boots. Everywhere I peered for the bear I had sighted, and at intervals I yelled. For all the answer I got I might as well have been alone on the windy rim of the world. My voice seemed lost in immensity. Then I rode westward, then back eastward, and to and fro until both Stockings and I were weary. At last I gave up, and took a good, long rest under a pine on the rim. Not a shot, not a yell, not a sound but wind and the squall of a jay disrupted the peace of that hour. I profited by this lull in the excitement by more means than one, particularly in sight of a flock of wild pigeons. They alighted in the tops of pines below me, so that I could study them through my field glass. They were considerably larger than doves, dull purple color on the back, light on the breast, with ringed or barred neck. Haught had assured me that birds of this description were indeed the famous wild pigeons, now almost extinct in the United States. I remembered my father telling me he had seen flocks that darkened the skies. These pigeons appeared to have swift flight.

Another feature of this rest along the rim was a sight just as beautiful as that of the pigeons, though not so rare; and it was the flying of clouds of colored autumn leaves on the wind.

The westering of the sun advised me that the hours had fled, and it was high time for me to bestir myself toward camp. On my way back I found Haught, his son George, Copple and R.C. waiting for Edd and Nielsen to come up over the rim, and for me to return. They asked for my story. Then I learned theirs. Haught had kept even with the hounds, but had seen only the brown bear that had crossed the ridge early in the day. Copple had worked far westward, to no avail. R.C. had been close to George and me, had heard our bullets pat, yet had been unable to locate any bear. To my surprise it turned out that George had shot at a brown bear when I had supposed it was my black one. Whereupon Haught said: “Reckon Edd an’ Nielsen smoked up some other bear.”

One by one the hounds climbed over the rim and wearily lay down beside us. Down the long, grassy, cedared aisle I saw Edd and Nielsen plodding up. At length they reached us wet and dusty and thirsty. When Edd got his breath he said: “Right off we struck a hot trail. Bear with eleven-inch track. He’d come down to drink last night. Hounds worked up thet yeller oak thicket, an’ somewhere Sue an’ Rock jumped him out of his bed. He run down, an’ he made some racket. Took to the low slopes an’ hit up lively all the way down Dude, then crossed, climbed around under thet bare point of rock. Here some of the hounds caught up with him. We heard a pup yelp, an’ after a while Kaiser Bill come sneakin’ back. It was awful thick down in the canyon so we climbed the east side high enough to see. An’ we were workin’ down when the pack bayed the bear round thet bare point. It was up an’ across from us. Nielsen an’ I climbed on a rock. There was an open rock-slide where we thought the bear would show. It was five hundred yards. We ought to have gone across an’ got a stand higher up. Well, pretty soon we saw him come paddlin’ out of the brush — a big grizzly, almost black, with a frosty back. He was a silvertip all right. Niels an’ I began to shoot. An’ thet bear began to hump himself. He was mad, too. His fur stood up like a ruffle on his neck. Niels got four shots an’ I got three. Reckon one of us stung him a little. Lordy, how he run! An’ his last jump off the slide was a header into the brush. He crossed the canyon, an’ climbed thet high east slope of Dude, goin’ over the pass where father killed the big cinnamon three years ago. The hounds stuck to his trail. It took us an hour or more to climb up to thet pass. Broad bear trail goes over. We heard the hounds ‘way down in the canyon on the other side. Niels an’ I worked along the ridge, down an’ around, an’ back to Dude Creek. I kept callin’ the hounds till they all came back. They couldn’t catch him. He sure was a jack-rabbit for runnin’. Reckon thet’s all.... Now who was smokin’ shells up on the rim?”

When all was told and talked over Haught said: “Wal, you can just bet we put up two brown bears an’ one black bear, an’ thet old Jasper of a silvertip.”

How hungry and thirsty and tired I was when we got back to camp! The day had been singularly rich in exciting thrills and sensorial perceptions. I called to the Jap: “I’m starv-ved to death!” And Takahashi, who had many times heard my little boy Loren yell that, grinned all over his dusky face. “Aw, lots good things pretty soon!”

After supper we lounged around a cheerful, crackling camp-fire. The blaze roared in the breeze, the red embers glowed white and opal, the smoke swooped down and curled away into the night shadows. Old Dan, as usual, tried to sit in the fire, and had to be rescued. Buck came to me where I sat with my back to a pine, my feet to the warmth. He was lame to-night, having run all day on that injured leg. The other dogs lay scattered around in range of the heat. Natural indeed was it then, in such an environment, after talking over the auspicious start of our hunt at Dude Creek, that we should drift to the telling of stories.

Sensing this drift I opened the hour of reminiscence and told some of my experiences in the jungle of southern Mexico. Copple immediately topped my stories by more wonderful and hair-raising ones about his own adventures in northern Mexico. These stirred Nielsen to talk about the Seri Indians, and their cannibalistic traits; and from these he drifted to the Yuma Indians. Speaking of their remarkable stature and strength he finally got to the subject of giants of brawn and bone in Norway.

One young Norwegian was eight feet tall and broad in proportion. His employer was a captain of a fishing boat. One time, on the way to their home port, a quarrel arose about money due the young giant, and in his anger he heaved the anchor overboard. That of course halted the boat, and it stayed halted, because the captain and crew could not heave the heavy anchor without the help of their brawny comrade. Finally the money matter was adjusted, and the young giant heaved the anchor without assistance. Nielsen went on to tell that this fisherman of such mighty frame had a beautiful young wife whom he adored. She was not by any means a small or frail girl — rather the contrary — but she appeared diminutive beside her giant husband. One day he returned from a long absence on the sea. When his wife, in her joy, ran into his arms, he gave her such a tremendous hug that he crushed her chest, and she died. In his grief the young husband went insane and did not survive her long.

Next Nielsen told a story about Norwegians sailing to the Arctic on a scientific expedition. Just before the long polar night of darkness set in there arose a necessity for the ship and crew to return to Norway. Two men must be left in the Arctic to care for the supplies until the ship came back. The captain called for volunteers. There were two young men in the crew, and from childhood they had been playmates, schoolmates, closer than brothers, and inseparable even in manhood. One of these young men said to his friend: “I’ll stay if you will.” And the other quickly agreed. After the ship sailed, and the land of the midnight sun had become icy and black, one of these comrades fell ill, and soon died. The living one placed the body in the room with the ship supplies, where it froze stiff; and during all the long polar night of solitude and ghastly gloom he lived next to this sepulchre that contained his dead friend. When the ship returned the crew found the living comrade an old man with hair as white as snow, and never in his life afterward was he seen to smile.

These stories stirred my emotions like Doyle’s tale about Jones’ Ranch. How wonderful, beautiful, terrible and tragical is human life! Again I heard the still, sad music of humanity, the eternal beat and moan of the waves upon a lonely shingle shore. Who would not be a teller of tales?

Copple followed Nielsen with a story about a prodigious feat of his own — a story of incredible strength and endurance, which at first I took to be a satire on Nielsen’s remarkable narrative. But Copple seemed deadly serious, and I began to see that he possessed a strange simplicity of exaggeration. The boys thought Copple stretched the truth a little, but I thought that he believed what he told.

Haught was a great teller of tales, and his first story of the evening happened to be about his brother Bill. They had a long chase after a bear and became separated. Bill was new at the game, and he was a peculiar fellow anyhow. Much given to talking to himself! Haught finally rode to the edge of a ridge and espied Bill under a pine in which the hounds had treed a bear. Bill did not hear Haught’s approach, and on the moment he was stalking round the pine, swearing at the bear, which clung to a branch about half way up. Then Haught discovered two more full-grown bears up in the top of the pine, the presence of which Bill had not the remotest suspicion. “Ahuh! you ole black Jasper!” Bill was yelling. “I treed you an’ in a minnit I’m agoin’ to assassinate you. Chased me about a hundred miles — ! An’ thought you’d fool me, didn’t you? Why, I’ve treed more bears than you ever saw — ! You needn’t look at me like thet, ‘cause I’m mad as a hornet. I’m agoin’ to assassinate you in a minnit an’ skin your black har off, I am—”

“Bill,” interrupted Haught, “what are you goin’ to do about the other two bears up in the top of the tree?”

Bill was amazed to hear and see his brother, and greatly astounded and tremendously elated to discover the other two bears. He yelled and acted as one demented. “Three black Jaspers! I’ve treed you all. An’ I’m agoin’ to assassinate you all!”

“See here, Bill,” said Haught, “before you begin that assassinatin’ make up your mind not to cripple any of them. You’ve got to shoot straight, so they’ll be dead when they fall. If they’re only crippled, they’ll kill the hounds.”

Bill was insulted at any suggestions as to his possible poor marksmanship. But this happened to be his first experience with bears in trees. He began to shoot and it took nine shots for him to dislodge the bears. Worse than that they all tumbled out of the tree — apparently unhurt. The hounds, of course, attacked them, and there arose a terrible uproar. Haught had to run down to save his dogs. Bill was going to shoot right into the melee, but Haught knocked the rifle up, and forbid him to use it. Then Bill ran into the thick of the fray to beat off the hounds. Haught became exceedingly busy himself, and finally disposed of two of the bears. Then hearing angry bawls and terrific yells he turned to see Bill climbing a tree with a big black bear tearing the seat out of his pants. Haught disposed of this bear also. Then he said: “Bill, I thought you was goin’ to assassinate them.” Bill slid down out of the tree, very pale and disheveled. “By Golly, I’ll skin ’em anyhow!”

Haught had another brother named Henry, who had come to Arizona from Texas, and had brought a half-hound with him. Henry offered to wager this dog was the best bear chaser in the country. The general impression Henry’s hound gave was that he would not chase a rabbit. Finally Haught took his brother Henry and some other men on a bear hunt. There were wagers made as to the quality of Henry’s half-hound. When at last Haught’s pack struck a hot scent, and were off with the men riding fast behind, Henry’s half-breed loped alongside his master, paying no attention to the wild baying of the pack. He would look up at Henry as if to say: “No hurry, boss. Wait a little. Then I’ll show them!” He loped along, wagging his tail, evidently enjoying this race with his master. After a while the chase grew hotter. Then Henry’s half-hound ran ahead a little way, and came back to look up wisely, as if to say: “Not time yet!” After a while, when the chase grew very hot indeed, Henry’s wonderful canine let out a wild yelp, darted ahead, overtook the pack and took the lead in the chase, literally chewing the heels of the bear till he treed. Haught and his friends lost all the wagers.

The most remarkable bears in this part of Arizona were what Haught called blue bears, possibly some kind of a cross between brown and black. This species was a long, slim, blue-furred bear with unusually large teeth and very long claws. So different from ordinary bears that it appeared another species. The blue bear could run like a greyhound, and keep it up all day and all night. Its power of endurance was incredible. In Haught’s twenty years of hunting there he had seen a number of blue bears and had killed two. Haught chased one all day with young and fast hounds. He went to camp, but the hounds stuck to the chase. Next day Haught followed the hounds and bear from Dude Creek over into Verde Canyon, back to Dude Creek, and then back to Verde again. Here Haught gave out, and was on his way home when he met the blue bear padding along as lively as ever.

I never tired of listening to Haught. He had killed over a hundred bears, many of them vicious grizzlies, and he had often escaped by a breadth of a hair, but the killing stories were not the most interesting to me. Haught had lived a singularly elemental life. He never knew what to tell me, because I did not know what to ask for, so I just waited for stories, experiences, woodcraft, natural history and the like, to come when they would. Once he had owned an old bay horse named Moze. Under any conditions of weather or country Moze could find his way back to camp. Haught would let go the bridle, and Moze would stick up his ears, look about him, and circle home. No matter if camp had been just where Haught had last thrown a packsaddle!

When Haught first came to Arizona and began his hunting up over the rim he used to get down in the cedar country, close to the desert. Here he heard of a pure black antelope that was the leader of a herd of ordinary color, which was a grayish white. The day came when Haught saw this black antelope. It was a very large, beautiful stag, the most noble and wild and sagacious animal Haught had ever seen. For years he tried to stalk it and kill it, and so did other hunters. But no hunter ever got even a shot at it. Finally this black antelope disappeared and was never heard of again.

By this time Copple had been permitted a long breathing spell, and now began a tale calculated to outdo the Arabian Nights. I envied his most remarkable imagination. His story had to do with hunting meat for a mining camp in Mexico. He got so expert with a rifle that he never aimed at deer. Just threw his gun, as was a habit of gun-fighters! Once the camp was out of meat, and also he was out of ammunition. Only one shell left! He came upon a herd of deer licking salt at a deer lick. They were small deer and he wanted several or all of them. So he manoeuvred around and waited until five of the deer had lined up close together. Then, to make sure, he aimed so as to send his one bullet through their necks. Killed the whole five in one shot!

We were all reduced to a state of mute helplessness and completely at Copple’s mercy. Next he gave us one of his animal tales. He was hunting along the gulf shore on the coast of Sonora, where big turtles come out to bask in the sun and big jaguars come down to prowl for meat. One morning he saw a jaguar jump on the back of a huge turtle, and begin to paw at its neck. Promptly the turtle drew in head and flippers, and was safe under its shell. The jaguar scratched and clawed at a great rate, but to no avail. Then the big cat turned round and seized the tail of the turtle and began to chew it. Whereupon the turtle stuck out its head, opened its huge mouth and grasped the tail of the jaguar. First to give in was the cat. He let go and let out a squall. But the turtle started to crawl off, got going strong, and dragged the jaguar into the sea and drowned him. With naive earnestness Copple assured his mute listeners that he could show them the exact spot in Sonora where this happened.

Retribution inevitably overtakes transgressors. Copple in his immense loquaciousness was not transgressing much, for he really was no greater dreamer than I, but the way he put things made us want to see the mighty hunter have a fall.

We rested the hounds next day, and I was glad to rest myself. About sunset Copple rode up to the rim to look for his mules. We all heard him shoot eight times with his rifle and two with his revolver. Everybody said: “Turkeys! Ten turkeys — maybe a dozen, if Copple got two in line!” And we were all glad to think so. We watched eagerly for him, but he did not return till dark. He seemed vastly sore at himself. What a remarkable hard luck story he told! He had come upon a flock of turkeys, and they were rather difficult to see. All of them were close, and running fast. He shot eight times at eight turkeys and missed them all. Too dark — brush — trees — running like deer. Copple had a dozen excuses. Then he saw a turkey on a log ten feet away. He shot twice. The turkey was a knot, and he had missed even that.

Thereupon I seized my opportunity and reminded all present how Copple had called out: “Turkey number one! Turkey number two!” the day I had missed so many. Then I said:

“Ben, you must have yelled out to-night like this.” And I raised my voice high.

“Turkey number one — Nix!... Turkey number two — missed, by Gosh!... Turkey number three — never touched him!... Turkey number four — No!... Turkey number five — Aw, I’m shootin’ blank shells!... Turkey number six on the log — BY THUNDER, I CAN’T SEE STRAIGHT!”

We all had our fun at Copple’s expense. The old bear hunter, Haught, rolled on the ground, over and over, and roared in his mirth.

VII

Early next morning before the sun had tipped the pines with gold I went down Barber Shop Canyon with Copple to look for our horses. During the night our stock had been chased by a lion. We had all been awakened by their snorting and stampeding. We found our horses scattered, the burros gone, and Copple’s mules still squared on guard, ready to fight. Copple assured me that this formation of his mules on guard was an infallible sign of lions prowling around. One of these mules he had owned for ten years and it was indeed the most intelligent beast I ever saw in the woods.

We found three beaver dams across the brook, one about fifty feet long, and another fully two hundred. Fresh turkey tracks showed in places, and on the top of the longer dam, fresh made in the mud, were lion tracks as large as the crown of my hat. How sight of them made me tingle all over! Here was absolute proof of the prowling of one of the great cats.

Beaver tracks were everywhere. They were rather singular looking tracks, the front feet being five-toed, and the back three-toed, and webbed. Near the slides on the bank the water was muddy, showing that the beaver had been at work early. These animals worked mostly at night, but sometimes at sunset and sunrise. They were indeed very cautious and wary. These dams had just been completed and no aspens had yet been cut for food. Beaver usually have two holes to their home, one under the water, and the other out on the bank. We found one of these outside burrows and it was nearly a foot wide.

Upon our return to camp with the horses Haught said he could put up that lion for us, and from the size of its track he judged it to be a big one. I did not want to hunt lions and R.C. preferred to keep after bears. “Wal,” said Haught, “I’ll take an off day an’ chase thet lion. Had a burro killed here a couple of years ago.”

So we rode out with the hounds on another bear hunt. Pyle’s Canyon lay to the east of Dude Creek, and we decided to run it that day. Edd and Nielsen started down with the hounds. Copple and I followed shortly afterward with the intention of descending mid-way, and then working along the ridge crests and promontories. The other boys remained on the rim to take up various stands as occasion called for.

I had never been on as steep slopes as these under the rim. They were grassy, brushy, rocky, but it was their steepness that made them so hard to travel. Right off, half way down, we started a herd of bucks. The noise they made sounded like cattle. We found tracks of half a dozen. “Lots of deer under the rim,” declared Copple, his eyes gleaming. “They’re feedin’ on acorns. Here’s where you’ll get your big buck.” After that I kept a sharp lookout, arguing with myself that a buck close at hand was worth a lot of bears down in the brush.

Presently we changed a direct descent to work gradually along the slopes toward a great level bench covered with pines. We had to cross gravel patches and pits where avalanches had slid, and at last, gaining the bench we went through the pine grove, out to a manzanita thicket, to a rocky point where the ledges were toppling and dangerous. The stand here afforded a magnificent view. We were now down in the thick of this sloped and canyoned and timbered wildness; no longer above it, and aloof from it. The dry smell of pine filled the air. When we finally halted to listen we at once heard the baying of the hounds in the black notch below us. We watched and listened. And presently across open patches we saw the flash of deer, and then Rock and Buck following them. Thus were my suspicions of Rock fully confirmed. Copple yelled down to Edd that some of the hounds were running deer, but apparently Edd was too far away to hear.

Still, after a while we heard the mellow tones of Edd’s horn, calling in the hounds. And then he blew the signal to acquaint all of us above that he was going down around the point to drive the next canyon. Copple and I had to choose between climbing back to the rim or trying to cross the slopes and head the gorges, and ascend the huge ridge that separated Pyle’s Canyon from the next canyon. I left the question to Copple, with the result that we stayed below.

We were still high up, though when we gazed aloft at the rim we felt so far down, and the slopes were steep, stony, soft in places and slippery in others, with deep cuts and patches of manzanita. No stranger was I to this beautiful treacherous Spanish brush! I shared with Copple a dislike of it almost equal to that inspired by cactus. We soon were hot, dusty, dry, and had begun to sweat. The immense distances of the place were what continually struck me. Distances that were deceptive — that looked short and were interminable! That was Arizona. We covered miles in our detours and we had to travel fast because we knew Edd could round the base of the lower points in quick time.

Above the head of the third gorge Copple and I ran across an enormous bear track, fresh in the dust, leading along an old bear trail. This track measured twelve inches. “He’s an old Jasper, as Haught says,” declared Copple. “Grizzly. An’ you can bet he heard the dogs an’ got movin’ away from here. But he ain’t scared. He was walkin’.”

I forgot the arduous toil. How tight and cool and prickling the feel of my skin! The fresh track of a big grizzly would rouse the hunter in any man. We made sure how fresh this track was by observing twigs and sprigs of manzanita just broken. The wood was green, and wet with sap. Old Bruin had not escaped our eyes any too soon. We followed this bear trail, evidently one used for years. It made climbing easy for us. Trust a big, heavy, old grizzly to pick out the best traveling over rough country! This fellow, I concluded, had the eye of a surveyor. His trail led gradually toward a wonderful crag-crowned ridge that rolled and heaved down from the rim. It had a dip or saddle in the middle, and rose from that to the lofty mesa, and then on the lower side, rose to a bare, round point of gray rock, a landmark, a dome-shaped tower where the gods of that wild region might have kept their vigil.

Long indeed did it take us to climb up the bear trail to where it crossed the saddle and went down on the other side into a canyon so deep and wild that it was purple. This saddle was really a remarkable place — a natural trail and outlet and escape for bears traveling from one canyon to another. Our bear tracks showed fresh, and we saw where they led down a steep, long, dark aisle between pines and spruces to a dense black thicket below. The saddle was about twenty feet wide, and on each side of it rose steep rocks, affording most effective stands for a hunter to wait and watch.

We rested then, and listened. There was only a little wind, and often it fooled us. It sounded like the baying of hounds, and now like the hallooing of men, and then like the distant peal of a horn. By and bye Copple said he heard the hounds. I could not be sure. Soon we indeed heard the deep-sounding, wild bay of Old Dan, the course, sharp, ringing bay of Old Tom, and then, less clear, the chorus from the other hounds. Edd had started them on a trail up this magnificent canyon at our feet. After a while we heard Edd’s yell, far away, but clear: “Hi! Hi!” We could see a part of the thicket, shaggy and red and gold; and a mile or more of the opposite wall of the canyon. No rougher, wilder place could have been imagined than this steep slope of bluffs, ledges, benches, all matted with brush, and spotted with pines. Holes and caves and cracks showed, and yellow blank walls, and bronze points, and green slopes, and weathered slides.

Soon the baying of the hounds appeared to pass below and beyond us, up the canyon to our right, a circumstance that worried Copple. “Let’s go farther up,” he kept saying. But I was loath to leave that splendid stand. The baying of the hounds appeared to swing round closer under us; to ring, to swell, to thicken until it was a continuous and melodious, wild, echoing roar. The narrowing walls of the canyon threw the echoes back and forth.

Presently I espied moving dots, one blue, one brown, on the opposite slope. They were Haught and his son Edd slowly and laboriously climbing up the steep bluff. How like snails they climbed! Theirs was indeed a task. A yell pealed out now and then, and though it seemed to come from an entirely different direction it surely must have come from the Haughts. Presently some one high on the rim answered with like yells. The chase was growing hotter.

“They’ve got a bear up somewhere,” cried Copple, excitedly. And I agreed with him.

Then we were startled by the sharp crack of a rifle from the rim.

“The ball’s open! Get your pardners, boys,” exclaimed Copple, with animation.

“Ben, wasn’t that a.30 Gov’t?” I asked.

“Sure was,” he replied. “Must have been R.C. openin’ up. Now look sharp!”

I gazed everywhere, growing more excited and thrilled. Another shot from above, farther off and from a different rifle, augmented our stirring expectation.

Copple left our stand and ran up over the ridge, and then down under and along the base of a rock wall. I had all I could do to keep up with him. We got perhaps a hundred yards when we heard the spang of Haught’s.30 Gov’t. Following this his big, hoarse voice bawled out: “He’s goin’ to the left — to the left!” That sent us right about face, to climbing, scrambling, running and plunging back to our first stand at the saddle, where we arrived breathless and eager.

Edd was climbing higher up, evidently to reach the level top of the bluff above, and Haught was working farther up the canyon, climbing a little. Copple yelled with all his might: “Where’s the bear?”

“Bar everywhar!” pealed back Haught’s stentorian voice. How the echoes clapped!

Just then Copple electrified me with a wild shout. “Wehow! I see him.... What a whopper!” He threw up his rifle: spang — spang — spang — spang — spang.

His aim was across the canyon. I heard his bullets strike. I strained my eyes in flashing gaze everywhere. “Where? Where?” I cried, wildly.

“There!” shouted Copple, keenly, and he pointed across the canyon. “He’s goin’ over the bench — above Edd.... Now he’s out of sight. Watch just over Edd. He’ll cross that bench, go round the head of the little canyon, an’ come out on the other side, under the bare bluff.... Watch sharp-right by that big spruce with the dead top.... He’s a grizzly an’ as big as a horse”.

I looked until my eyes hurt. All I said was: “Ben, you saw game first to-day”. Suddenly a large, dark brown object, furry and grizzled, huge and round, moved out of the shadow under the spruce and turned to go along the edge in the open sunlight.

“Oh! look at him!” I yelled. A strong, hot gust of blood ran all over me and I thrilled till I shook. When I aimed at the bear I could see him through the circle of my peep sight, but when I moved the bead of the front sight upon him it almost covered him up. The distance was far — more than a thousand yards — over half a mile — we calculated afterward. But I tried to draw a bead on the big, wagging brown shape and fired till my rifle was empty.

Meanwhile Copple had reloaded. “You watch while I shoot,” he said. “Tell me where I’m hittin’.”

Wonderful was it to see how swiftly he could aim and shoot. I saw a puff of dust. “Low, Ben!” Spang rang his rifle. “High!” Again he shot, wide this time. He emptied his magazine. “Smoke him now!” he shouted, gleefully. “I’ll watch while you shoot.”

“It’s too far, Ben,” I replied, as I jammed the last shell in the receiver.

“No — no. It’s only we don’t hold right. Aim a little coarse,” said Copple. “Gee, ain’t he some bear! ‘No scared tall’ as the Jap says.... He’s one of the old sheep-killers. He’ll weigh half a ton. Smoke him now!”

My excitement was intense. It seemed, however, I was most consumed with admiration for that grizzly. Not in the least was he afraid. He walked along the rough places, trotted along the ledges, and here and there he halted to gaze below him. I waited for one of these halts, aimed a trifle high, and fired. The grizzly made a quick, angry movement and then jumped up on a ledge. He jumped like a rabbit.

“You hit close that time,” yelled Ben. “Hold the same way — a little coarser.”

My next bullet struck a puff from rock above the bear, and my third, hitting just in front of him, as he was on a yellow ledge, covered him with dust. He reared, and wheeling, sheered back and down the step he had mounted, and disappeared in a clump of brush. I shot into that. We heard my bullet crack the twigs. But it routed him out, and then my last shot hit far under him.

Copple circled his mouth with his hands and bellowed to the Haughts: “Climb! Climb! Hurry! Hurry! He’s just above you — under that bluff.”

The Haughts heard, and evidently tried to do all in their power, but they moved like snails. Then Copple fired five more shots, quick, yet deliberate, and he got through before I had reloaded; and as I began my third magazine Copple was so swift in reloading that his first shot mingled with my second. How we made the welkin ring! Wild yells pealed down from the rim. Somewhere from the purple depths below Nielsen’s giant’s voice rolled up. The Haughts opposite answered with their deep, hoarse yells. Old Dan and Old Tom bayed like distant thunder. The young hounds let out a string of sharp, keen yelps. Copple added his Indian cry, high-pitched and wild, to the pandemonium. But I could not shoot and screech at one and the same time.

“Hurry, Ben,” I said, as I finished my third set of five shots, the last shot of which was my best and knocked dirt in the face of the grizzly.

Again he reared. This time he appeared to locate our direction. Above the bedlam of yells and bays and yelps and echoes I imagined I heard the grizzly roar. He was now getting farther along the base of the bluff, and I saw that he would escape us. My rifle barrel was hot as fire. My fingers were all thumbs. I jammed a shell into the receiver. My last chance had fled! But Copple’s big, brown, swift hands fed shells to his magazine as ears of corn go to a grinder. He had a way of poking the base of a shell straight down into the receiver and making it snap forward and down. Then he fired five more shots as swiftly as he had reloaded. Some of these hit close to our quarry. The old grizzly slowed up, and looked across, and wagged his huge head.

“My gun’s on fire all right,” said Copple, grimly, as he loaded still more rapidly. Carefully he aimed and pulled trigger. The grizzly gave a spasmodic jerk as if stung and suddenly he made a prodigious leap off a ledge, down into a patch of brush, where he threshed like a lassoed elephant.

“Ben, you hit him!” I yelled, excitedly.

“Only made him mad. He’s not hurt.... See, he’s up again.... Will you look at that!”

The grizzly appeared to roll out of the brush, and like a huge furry ball of brown, he bounced down the thicketed slope to an open slide where he unrolled, and stretched into a run. Copple got two more shots before he was out of sight.

“Gone!” ejaculated Copple. “An’ we never fetched him!... He ain’t hurt. Did you see him pile down an’ roll off that slope?... Let’s see. I got twenty-three shots at him. How many had you?”

“I had fifteen.”

“Say, it was some fun, wasn’t it — smokin’ him along there? But we ought to have fetched the old sheep-killer.... Wonder what’s happened to the other fellows.”

We looked about us. Not improbably the exciting moments had been few in number, yet they seemed long indeed. The Haughts had gotten to the top of the bluff, and were tearing through the brush toward the point Copple had designated. They reached it too late.

“Where is he?” yelled Edd.

“Gone!” boomed Copple. “Runnin’ down the canyon. Call the dogs an’ go down after him.”

When the Haughts came out into the open upon that bench one of the pups and the spotted hound, Rock, were with them. Old Dan and old Tom were baying up at the head of the canyon, and Sue could be heard yelping somewhere else. Bear trails seemingly were abundant near our whereabouts. Presently the Haughts disappeared at the back of the bench where the old grizzly had gone down, and evidently they put the two hounds on his trail.

“That grizzly will climb over round the lower end of this ridge,” declared Copple. “We want to be there.”

So we hurriedly left our stand, and taking to the South side of the ridge, we ran and walked and climbed and plunged down along the slope. Keeping up with Copple on foot was harder than riding after Edd and George. When soon we reached a manzanita thicket I could no longer keep Copple in sight. He was so powerful that he just crashed through, but I had to worm my way, and walk over the tops of the bushes, like a tight-rope performer. Of all strong, thick, spiky brush manzanita was the worst.

In half an hour I joined Copple at the point under the dome-topped end of the ridge, only to hear the hounds apparently working back up the canyon. There was nothing for us to do but return to our stand at the saddle. Copple hurried faster than ever. But I had begun to tire and I could not keep up with him. But as I had no wild cravings to meet that old grizzly face to face all by myself in a manzanita thicket I did manage by desperate efforts to keep the Indian in sight. When I reached our stand I was wet and exhausted. After the hot, stifling, dusty glare of the yellow slope and the burning of the manzanita brush, the cool shade was a welcome change.

Somewhere all the hounds were baying. Not for some time could we locate the Haughts. Finally with the aid of my glass we discovered them perched high upon the bluff above where our grizzly had gone round. It appeared that Edd was pointing across the canyon and his father was manifesting a keen interest. We did not need the glass then to tell that they saw a bear. Both leveled their rifles and fired, apparently across the canyon. Then they stood like statues.

“I’ll go down into the thicket,” said Copple. “Maybe I can get a shot. An’ anyway I want to see our grizzly’s tracks.” With that he started down, and once on the steep bear trail he slid rather than walked, and soon was out of my sight. After that I heard him crashing through thicket and brush. Soon this sound ceased. The hounds, too, had quit baying and the wind had lulled. Not a rustle of a leaf! All the hunters were likewise silent. I enjoyed a lonely hour there watching and listening, not however without apprehensions of a bear coming along. Certain I was that this canyon, which I christened Bear Canyon, had been full of bears.

At length I espied Copple down on the edge of the opposite slope. The way he toiled along proved how rough was the going. I watched him through my glasses, and was again impressed with the strange difference between the semblance of distance and the reality. Every few steps Copple would halt to rest. He had to hold on to the brush and in the bare places where he could not reach a bush he had to dig his heels into the earth to keep from sliding down. In time he ascended to the place where our grizzly had rolled down, and from there he yelled up to the Haughts, high above him. They answered, and soon disappeared on the far side of the bluff. Copple also disappeared going round under the wall of yellow rock. Perhaps in fifteen minutes I heard them yell, and then a wild clamor of the hounds. Some of the pack had been put on the trail of our grizzly; but gradually the sound grew farther away.

This was too much for me. I decided to go down into the canyon. Forthwith I started. It was easy to go down! As a matter of fact it was hard not to slide down like a streak. That long, dark, narrow aisle between the spruces had no charm for me anyway. Suppose I should meet a bear coming up as I was sliding down! I sheered off and left the trail, and also Copple’s tracks. This was a blunder. I came out into more open slope, but steeper, and harder to cling on. Ledges cropped out, cliffs and ravines obstructed my passage and trees were not close enough to help me much. Some long slopes of dark, mossy, bare earth I actually ran down, trusting to light swift steps rather than slow careful ones. It was exhilarating, that descent under the shady spruces. The lower down I got the smaller and more numerous the trees. I could see where they left off to the dense thicket that choked the lower part of the v-shaped canyon. And I was amazed at the size and density of that jungle of scrub oaks, maples and aspens. From above the color was a blaze of scarlet and gold and green, with bronze tinge.

Presently I crossed a fresh bear track, so fresh that I could see the dampness of the dark earth, the rolling of little particles, the springing erect of bent grasses. In some places big sections of earth, a yard wide had slipped under the feet of this particular bear. He appeared to be working down. Right then I wanted to go up! But I could not climb out there. I had to go down. Soon I was under low-spreading, dense spruces, and I had to hold on desperately to keep from sliding. All the time naturally I kept a keen lookout for a bear. Every stone and tree trunk resembled a bear. I decided if I met a grizzly that I would not annoy him on that slope. I would say: “Nice bear, I won’t hurt you!” Still the situation had some kind of charm. But to claim I was not frightened would not be strictly truthful. I slid over the trail of that bear into the trail of another one, and under the last big spruce on that part of the slope I found a hollow nest of pine needles and leaves, and if that bed was not still warm then my imagination lent considerable to the moment.

Beyond this began the edge of the thicket. It was small pine at first, so close together that I had to squeeze through, and as dark as twilight. The ground was a slant of brown pine needles, so slippery, that if I could not have held on to trees and branches I never would have kept my feet. In this dark strip I had more than apprehensions. What a comfortable place to encounter an outraged or wounded grizzly bear! The manzanita thicket was preferable. But as Providence would have it I did not encounter one.

Soon I worked or wormed out of the pines into the thicket of scrub oaks, maples and aspens. The change was welcome. Not only did the slope lengthen out, but the light changed from gloom to gold. There was half a foot of scarlet, gold, bronze, red and purple leaves on the ground, and every step I made I kicked acorns about to rustle and roll. Bear sign was everywhere, tracks and trails and beds and scratches. I kept going down, and the farther down I got the lighter it grew, and more approaching a level. One glade was strangely luminous and beautiful with a blending of gold and purple light made by the sun shining through the leaves overhead down upon the carpet of leaves on the ground. Then I came into a glade that reminded me of Kipling’s moonlight dance of the wild elephants. Here the leaves and fern were rolled and matted flat, smooth as if done by a huge roller. Bears and bears had lolled and slept and played there. A little below this glade was a place, shady and cool, where a seep of water came from under a bank. It looked like a herd of cattle had stamped the earth, only the tracks were bear tracks. Little ones no longer than a child’s hand, and larger, up to huge tracks a foot long and almost as wide. Many were old, but some were fresh. This little spot smelled of bear so strongly that it reminded me of the bear pen in the Bronx Park Zoological Garden. I had been keen for sight of bear trails and scent of bear fur, but this was a little too much. I thought it was too much because the place was lonely and dark and absolutely silent. I went on down to the gully that ran down the middle of the canyon. It was more open here. The sun got through, and there were some big pines.

I could see the bluff that the Haughts had climbed so laboriously, and now I understood why they had been so slow. It was straight up, brush and jumbled rock, and two hundred feet over my head. Somewhere above that bluff was the bluff where our bear had run along.

I rested and listened for the dogs. There was no wind to deceive me, but I imagined I heard dogs everywhere. It seemed unwise for me to go on down the canyon, for if I did not meet the men I would find myself lost. As it was I would have my troubles climbing out.

I chose a part of the thicket some distance above where I had come down, hoping to find it more open, if not less steep, and not so vastly inhabited with bears. Lo and behold it was worse! It was thicker, darker, wilder, steeper and there was, if possible, actually more bear sign. I had to pull myself up by holding to the trees and branches. I had to rest every few steps. I had to watch and listen all the time. Half-way up the trunks of the aspens and oaks and maples were all bent down-hill. They curved out and down before the rest of the tree stood upright. And all the brush was flat, bending down hill, and absolutely almost impassable. This feature of tree and brush was of course caused by the weight of snow in winter. It would have been more interesting if I had not been so anxious to get up. I grew hotter and wetter than I had been in the manzanitas. Moreover, what with the labor and worry and exhaustion, my apprehensions had increased. They increased until I had to confess that I was scared. Once I heard a rustle and pad on the leaves somewhere below. That made matters worse. Surely I would meet a bear. I would meet him coming down-hill! And I must never shoot a bear coming down-hill! Buffalo Jones had cautioned me on that score, so had Scott Teague, the bear hunter of Colorado, and so had Haught. “Don’t never shoot no ole bar comin’ down hill, ‘cause if you do he’ll just roll up an’ pile down on you!”

I climbed until my tongue hung out and my heart was likely to burst. Then when I had to straddle a tree to keep from sliding down I got desperate and mad and hoped an old grizzly would happen along to make an end to my misery.

It took me an hour to climb up that part of the slope which constituted the thicket of oak, maple and aspen. It was half-past three when finally I reached the saddle where we had shot at the grizzly. I rested as long as I dared. I had still a long way to go up that ridge to the rim, and how did I know whether or not I could surmount it.

However, a good rest helped to revive strength and spirit. Then I started. Once above the saddle I was out clear in the open, high above the canyons, and the vast basin still farther below, yet far indeed under the pine-fringed rim above. This climb was all over stone. The ridge was narrow-crested, yellow, splintered rock, with a few dwarf pines and spruces and an occasional bunch of manzanita. I did not hear a sound that I did not make myself. Whatever had become of the hounds, and the other hunters? The higher I climbed the more I liked it. After an hour I was sure that I could reach the rim by this route, and of course that stimulated me. To make sure, and allay doubt, I sat down on a high backbone of bare rock and studied the heave and bulge of ridge above me. Using my glasses I made sure that I could climb out. It would be a task equal to those of lion-hunting days with Jones, and it made me happy to realize that despite the intervening ten years I was still equal to the task.

Once assured of this I grew acute to the sensations of the hour. This was one of my especial joys of the open — to be alone high on some promontory, above wild and beautiful scenery. The sun was still an hour from setting, and it had begun to soften, to grow intense, and more golden. There were clouds and lights that promised a magnificent sunset.

So I climbed on. When I stopped to rest I would shove a stone loose and watch it heave and slide, and leap out and hurtle down, to make the dust fly, and crash into the thickets, and eventually start an avalanche that would roar down into the canyon.

The Tonto Basin seemed a vast bowl of rolling, rough, black ridges and canyons, green and dark and yellow, with the great mountain ranges enclosing it to south and west. The black-fringed promontories of the rim, bold and rugged, leagues apart, stood out over the void. The colors of autumn gleamed under the cliffs, everywhere patches of gold and long slants of green and spots of scarlet and clefts of purple.

The last benches of that ridge taxed my waning strength. I had to step up, climb up, pull myself up, by hand and knee and body. My rifle grew to weigh a ton. My cartridge belt was a burden of lead around my waist. If I had been hot and wet below in the thicket I wondered what I grew on the last steps of this ridge. Yet even the toil and the pain held a keen pleasure. I did not analyze my feelings then, but it was good to be there.

The rim-rock came out to a point above me, seeming unscalable, all grown over with brush and lichen, and stunted spruce. But by hauling myself up, and crawling here, and winding under bridges of rock there, and holding to the brush, at last, panting and spent, I reached the top.

I was ready to drop on the mats of pine needles and lie there, unutterably grateful for rest, when I heard Old Tom baying, deep and ringing and close. He seemed right under the rim on the side of the ridge opposite to where I had climbed. I looked around. There was George’s horse tied to a pine, and farther on my own horse Stockings.

Then I walked to the rim and looked down into the gold and scarlet thicket. Actually it seemed to me then, and always will seem, that the first object I clearly distinguished was a big black bear standing in an open aisle at the upper reach of the thicket close to the cliff. He shone black as shiny coal. He was looking down into the thicket, as if listening to the baying hound.

I could not repress an exclamation of surprise and thrilling excitement, and I uttered it as I raised my rifle. Just the instant I saw his shining fur through the circle of my rear sight he heard me and jumped, and my bullet missed him. Like a black flash he was gone around a corner of gray ledge.

“Well!” I ejaculated, suddenly weak. “After all this long day — to get a chance like that — and miss!”

All that seemed left of that long day was the sunset, out of which I could not be cheated by blunders or bad luck. Westward a glorious golden ball blazed over the rim. Above that shone an intense belt of color — Coleridge’s yellow lightning — and it extended to a bank of cloud that seemed transparent purple, and above all this flowed a sea of purest blue sky with fleecy sails of pink and white and rose, exquisitely flecked with gold.

Lost indeed was I to weariness and time until the gorgeous transformation at last ended in dull gray. I walked along the rim, back to where I had tied my horse. He saw me and whinnied before I located the spot. I just about had strength enough left to straddle him. And presently through the twilight shadows I caught a bright glimmer of our camp-fire. Supper was ready; Takahashi grinned his concern away; all the men were waiting for me; and like the Ancient Mariner I told my tale. As I sat to a bountiful repast regaling myself, the talk of my companions seemed absolutely satisfying.

George Haught, on a stand at the apex of the canyon, had heard and seen a big brown bear climbing up through the thicket, and he had overshot and missed. R.C. had espied a big black bear walking a slide some four hundred yards down the canyon slope, and forgetting that he had a heavy close-range shell in his rifle instead of one of high trajectory, he had aimed accordingly, to undershoot half a foot and thus lose his opportunity. Nielsen had been lost most of the day. It seemed everywhere he heard yells and bays down in the canyon, and once he had heard a loud rattling crash of a heavy bear tearing through the thicket. Edd told of the fearful climb he and his father had made, how they had shot at the grizzly a long way off, how funny another bear had rolled around in his bed across the canyon. But the hounds got too tired to hold the trails late in the day. And lastly Edd said: “When you an’ Ben were smokin’ the grizzly I could hear the bullets hit close above us, an’ I was sure scared stiff for fear you’d roll him down on us. But father wasn’t scared. He said, ‘let the old Jasper roll down! We’ll assassinate him!’”

When the old bear hunter began to tell his part in the day’s adventures my pleasure was tinglingly keen and nothing was wanting on the moment except that my boy Romer was not there to hear.

“Wal, shore it was an old bar day,” said Haught, with quaint satisfaction. His blue shirt, ragged and torn and black from brush, surely attested to the truth of his words. “All told we seen five bars. Two blacks, two browns an’ the old Jasper. Some of them big fellars, too. But we missed seein’ the boss bar of this canyon. When Old Dan opened up first off I wanted Edd to climb thet bluff. But Edd kept goin’ an’ we lost our chance. Fer pretty soon we heard a bustin’ of the brush. My, but thet bar was rockin’ her off. He knocked the brush like a wild steer, an’ he ran past us close — not a hundred yards. I never heard a heavier bar. But we couldn’t see him. Then Edd started up, an’ thet bluff was a wolf of a place. We was half up when I seen the grizzly thet you an’ Ben smoked afterward. He was far off, but Edd an’ I lammed a couple after him jest for luck. One of the pups was nippin’ his heels. Think it was Big Foot.... Wal, thet was all of thet. We plumb busted ourselves gettin’ on top of the bench to head off your bar. Only we hadn’t time. Then we worried along around to the top of thet higher bluff an’ there I was so played-out I thought my day had come. We kept our eyes peeled, an’ pretty soon I spied a big brown bar actin’ queer in an open spot across the canyon. Edd seen him too, an’ we argued about what thet bar was doin’. He lay in a small open place at the foot of a spruce. He wagged his head slow an’ he made as if to roll over, an’ he stretched his paws, an’ acted shore queer. Edd said: ‘Thet bar’s crippled. He’s been shot by one of the boys, an’ he’s tryin’ to get up.’ But I shore didn’t exactly agree with Edd. So I was for watchin’ him some more. He looked like a sick bar — raisin’ his head so slow an’ droppin’ it so slow an’ sort of twistin’ his body. He looked like his back had been broke an’ he was tryin’ to get up, but somehow I couldn’t believe thet. Then he lay still an’ Edd swore he was dead. Shore I got almost to believin’ thet myself, when he waked up. An’ then the old scoundrel slid around lazy like a torn cat by the fire, and sort of rolled on his back an’ stretched. Next he slapped at himself with his paws. If he wasn’t sick he was shore actin’ queer with thet canyon full of crackin’ guns an’ bayin’ hounds an’ yellin’ men. I begun to get suspicious. Shore he must be a dyin’ bear. So I said to Edd: ‘Let’s bast him a couple just fer luck.’ Wal, when we shot up jumped thet sick bar quicker’n you could wink. An’ he piled into the thicket while I was goin’ down after another shell.... It shore was funny. Thet old Jasper never heard the racket, an’ if he heard it he didn’t care. He had a bed in thet sunny spot an’ he was foolin’ around, playin’ with himself like a kitten. Playin’! An’ Edd reckoned he was dyin’ an’ I come shore near bein’ fooled. The old Jasper! We’ll assassinate him fer thet!”

VIII

Five more long arduous days we put in chasing bears under the rim from Pyle’s Canyon to Verde Canyon. In all we started over a dozen bears. But I was inclined to think that we chased the same bears over and over from one canyon to another. The boys got a good many long-range shots, which, however, apparently did no damage. But as for me, the harder and farther I tramped and the longer I watched and waited the less opportunity had I to shoot a bear.

This circumstance weighed heavily upon the spirits of my comrades. They wore their boots out, as well as the feet of the hounds, trying to chase a bear somewhere near me. And wherever I stayed or went there was the place the bears avoided. Edd and Neilsen lost flesh in this daily toil. Haught had gloomy moments. But as for me the daily ten-or fifteen-mile grind up and down the steep craggy slopes had at last trained me back to my former vigorous condition, and I was happy. No one knew it, not even R.C., but the fact was I really did not care in the least whether I shot a bear or not. Bears were incidental to my hunting trip. I had not a little secret glee over the praise accorded me by Copple and Haught and Nielsen, who all thought that the way I persevered was remarkable. They would have broken their necks to get me a bear. At times R.C. when he was tired fell victim to discouragement and he would make some caustic remark: “I don’t know about you. I’ve a hunch you like to pack a rifle because it’s heavy. And you go dreaming along! Sometime a bear will rise up and swipe you one!”

Takahashi passed from concern to grief over what he considered my bad luck: “My goodnish! No see bear to-day?... Maybe more better luck to-morrow.” If I could have had some of Takahashi’s luck I would scarcely have needed to leave camp. He borrowed Nielsen’s 30-40 rifle and went hunting without ever having shot it. He rode the little buckskin mustang, that, remarkable to state, had not yet thrown him or kicked him. And on that occasion he led the mustang back to camp with a fine two-point buck on the saddle. “Camp need fresh meat,” said the Jap, with his broad smile. “I go hunt. Ride along old road. Soon nice fat deer walk out from bush. Twenty steps away — maybe. I get off. I no want kill deer so close, so I walk on him. Deer he no scared. He jump off few steps — stick up his ears — look at horse all same like he thought him deer too. I no aim gun from shoulder. I just shoot. No good. Deer he run. I aim then — way front of him — shoot — deer he drop right down dead.... Aw, easy to get deer!”

I would have given a great deal to have been able to describe Haught’s face when the Jap finished his story of killing that deer. But such feat was beyond human ingenuity. “Wal,” ejaculated the hunter, “in all my days raslin’ round with fools packin’ guns I never seen the likes of thet. No wonder the Japs licked the Russians!” This achievement of Takahashi’s led me to suggest his hunting bear with us. “Aw sure — I kill bear too,” he said. Takahashi outwalked and outclimbed us all. He never made detours. He climbed straight up or descended straight down. Copple and Edd were compelled to see him take the lead and keep it. What a wonderful climber! What a picture the sturdy little brown man made, carrying a rifle longer than himself, agile and sure-footed as a goat, perfectly at home in the depths or on the heights! I took occasion to ask Takahashi if he had been used to mountain climbing in Japan. “Aw sure. I have father own whole mountain more bigger here. I climb high — saw wood. Leetle boy so big.” And he held his hand about a foot from the ground. Thus for me every day brought out some further interesting or humorous or remarkable feature pertaining to Takahashi.

The next day added to the discouragement of my party. We drove Verde Canyon and ran the dogs into a nest of steel-traps. Big Foot was caught in one, and only the remarkable size and strength of his leg saved it from being broken. Nielsen found a poor, miserable, little fox in a trap, where it had been for days, and was nearly dead. Edd found a dead skunk in another. He had to call the hounds in. We returned to camp. That night was really the only cheerless one the men spent around the fire. They did not know what to do. Manifestly with trappers in a locality there could be no more bear chasing. Disappointment perched upon the countenances of the Haughts and Copple and Nielsen. I let them all have their say. Finally Haught spoke up: “Wal, fellars, I’m figgerin’ hard an’ I reckon here’s my stand. We jest naturally have to get Doc an’ his brother a bear apiece. Shore I expected we’d get ’em a couple. Now, them traps we seen are all small. We didn’t run across no bear traps. An’ I reckon we can risk the dogs. We’ll shore go back an’ drive Verde Canyon. We can’t do no worse than break a leg for a dog. I’d hate to see thet happen to Old Dan or Tom. But we’ll take a chance.”

After that there fell a moment’s silence. I could see from Edd’s face what a serious predicament this was. Nothing was plainer than his fondness for the hounds. Finally he said: “Sure. We’ll take a chance.” Their devotion to my interest, their simple earnestness, warmed me to them. But not for all the bears under the rim would I have been wittingly to blame for Old Dan or Old Tom breaking a leg.

“Men, I’ve got a better plan,” I said. “We’ll let the bears here rest for a spell. Supplies are about gone. Let’s go back to Beaver Dam camp for a week or so. Rest up the hounds. Maybe we’ll have a storm and a cold snap that will improve conditions. Then we’ll come back here. I’ll send Haught down to buy off the trappers. I’ll pay them to spring their traps and let us have our hunt without risk of the hounds.”

Instantly the men brightened. The insurmountable obstacles seemed to melt away. Only Haught demurred a little at additional and unreasonable expense for me. But I cheered him over this hindrance, and the last part of that evening round the camp-fire was very pleasant.

The following morning we broke camp, and all rode off, except Haught and his son George, who remained to hunt a strayed burro. “Reckon thet lion eat him. My best burro. He was the one your boy was always playin’ with. I’m goin’ to assassinate thet lion.”

On the way back to Beaver Dam camp I happened to be near Takahashi when he dismounted to shoot at a squirrel. Returning to get back in the saddle the Jap forgot to approach the mustang from the proper side. There was a scuffle between Takahashi and the mustang as to which of them should possess the bridle. The Jap lost this argument. Edd had to repair the broken bridle. I watched Takahashi and could see that he did not like the mustang any better than the mustang liked him. Soon the struggle for supremacy would take place between this ill assorted rider and horse. I rather felt inclined to favor the latter; nevertheless it was only fair to Takahashi to admit that his buckskin-colored mustang had some mean traits.

In due time I arrived at our permanent camp, to be the last to get in. Lee and his father welcomed us as familiar faces in a strange land. As I dismounted I heard heavy thuds and cracks accompanied by fierce utterances in a foreign tongue. These sounds issued from the corral.

“I’ll bet the Jap got what was coming to him,” declared Lee.

We all ran toward the corral. A bunch of horses obstructed our view, and we could not see Takahashi until we ran round to the other side. The Jap had the buckskin mustang up in a corner and was vigorously whacking him with a huge pole. Not by any means was the mustang docile. Like a mule, he kicked. “Hey George,” yelled Lee, “don’t kill him! What’s the matter?”

Takahashi slammed the mustang one parting blow, which broke the club, and then he turned to us. We could see from dust and dirt on his person that he had lately been in close relation to the earth. Takahashi’s face was pale except for a great red lump on his jaw. The Jap was terribly angry. He seemed hurt, too. With a shaking hand he pointed to the bruise on his jaw.

“Look what he do!” exclaimed Takahashi. “He throw me off!... He kick me awful hard! I kill him sure next time.”

Lee and I managed to conceal our mirth until our irate cook had gotten out of hearing. “Look — what — he — do!” choked Lee, imitating Takahashi. Then Lee broke out and roared. I had to join him. I laughed till I cried. My family and friends severely criticise this primitive trait of mine, but I can not help it. Later I went to Takahashi and asked to examine his jaw, fearing it might have been broken. This fear of mine, however, was unfounded. Moreover the Jap had recovered from his pain and anger. “More better now,” he said, with a grin. “Maybe my fault anyhow.”

Next day we rested, and the following morning was so fine and clear and frosty that we decided to go hunting. We rode east on the way to See Lake through beautiful deep forest.

I saw a deer trotting away into the woods. I jumped off, jerked out my gun, and ran hard, hoping to see him in an opening. Lo! I jumped a herd of six more deer, some of them bucks. They plunged everywhere. I tried frantically to get my sights on one. All I could aim at was bobbing ears. I shot twice, and of course missed. R.C. shot four times, once at a running buck, and three at a small deer that he said was flying!

Here Copple and Haught caught up with us. We went on, and turned off the road on the blazed trail to See Lake. It was pretty open forest, oaks and scattered pines, and a few spruce. The first park we came to was a flat grassy open, with places where deer licked the bare earth. Copple left several pounds of salt in these spots. R.C. and I went up to the upper end where he had seen deer before. No deer this day! But saw three turkeys, one an old gobbler. We lost sight of them.

Then Copple and R.C. went one way and Haught and I another. We went clear to the rim, and then circled around, and eventually met R.C. and Copple. Together we started to return. Going down a little draw we found water, and R.C. saw where a rock had been splashed with water and was still wet. Then I saw a turkey track upon this rock. We slipped up the slope, with me in the lead. As I came out on top, I saw five big gobblers feeding. Strange how these game birds thrilled me! One saw me and started to run. Like a streak! Another edged away into pines. Then I espied one with his head and neck behind a tree and he was scratching away in the pine needles. I could not see much of him, but that little was not running, so I drew down upon him, tried to aim fine, and fired. He leaped up with a roar of wings, sending the dust and needles flying. Then he dropped back, and like a flash darted into a thicket.

Another flew straight out of the glade. Another ran like an ostrich in the same direction. I tried to get the sights on him. In vain!

R.C. and Copple chased these two speeding turkeys, and Haught and I went the other way. We could find no trace of ours. And we returned to our horses.

Presently we heard shots. One — two — three — pause — then several more. And finally more, to a total number of fifteen. I could not stand that and I had to hurry back into the woods. I saw one old gobbler running wildly around as if lost, but I did not shoot at him because he seemed to be in line with the direction which R.C. and Copple had taken. I should have run after him until he went some other way.

I could not find the hunters, and returned to our resting place, which they had reached ahead of me. They had a turkey each, gobblers about two years old Copple said.

R.C. told an interesting story of how he had run in the direction the two turkeys had taken, and suddenly flushed thirty or forty more, some big old gobblers, but mostly young. They scattered and ran. He followed as fast as he could, shooting a few times. Copple could not keep up with him, but evidently had a few shots himself. R.C. chased most of the flock across several small canyons, till he came to a deep canyon. Here he hoped to make a killing when the turkeys ran up the far slope. But they flew across! And he heard them clucking over there. He crossed, and went on cautiously. Once he saw three turkey heads sticking above a log. Wise old gobblers! They protected their bodies while they watched for him. He tried to get sidewise to them but they ran off. Then he followed until once more he heard clucking.

Here he sat down, just beyond the edge of a canyon, and began to call with his turkey wing. It thrilled him to hear his calls answered on all sides. Here was a wonderful opportunity. He realized that the turkeys were mostly young and scattered, and frightened, and wanted to come together. He kept calling, and as they neared him on all sides he felt something more than the zest of hunting. Suddenly Copple began to shoot. Spang! Spang! Spang! R.C. saw the dust fly under one turkey. He heard the bullet glance. The next shot killed a turkey. Then R.C. yelled that he was no turkey! Then of that scattering flock he managed to knock over one for himself.

Copple had been deceived by the call of an amateur. That flattered R.C., but he was keenly disappointed that Copple had spoiled the situation.

During the day the blue sky was covered by thin flying clouds that gradually thickened and darkened. The wind grew keener and colder, and veered to the southwest. We all said storm. There was no sunset Darker clouds rolled up, obliterating the few stars.

We went to bed. Long after that I heard the swell and roar and crash and lull of the wind in the pines, a sound I had learned to love in Buckskin Forest with Buffalo Jones. At last I fell asleep.

Sometime in the night I awoke. A fine rain was pattering on the tent. It grew stronger. After a while I went to sleep again. Upon awakening I found that the storm had struck with a vengeance. It was dull gray daylight, foggy, cold, windy, with rain and snow.

I got up, built a fire, puttered around the tents to loosen the ground ropes, and found that it was nipping cold. My fingers ached. The storm increased, and then we fully appreciated the tent with stove. The rain roared on the tent roof, and all morning the wind increased, and the air grew colder. I hoped it would turn to snow.

Soon indeed we were storm bound. On the third day the wind reached a very high velocity. The roar in the pines was stupendous. Many times I heard the dull crash of a falling tree. With the ground saturated by the copious rain, and the fury of the storm blast, a great many trees were felled. That night it rained all night, not so hard, but steadily, now low, now vigorously. After morning snow began to fall. But it did not lay long. After a while it changed to sleet. At times the dark, lowering, scurrying clouds broke to emit a flare of sunshine and to show a patch of blue. These last however were soon obscured by the scudding gray pall. Every now and then a little shower of rain or sleet pattered on the tents. We looked for a clearing up.

That night about eight o’clock the clouds vanished and stars shone. In the night the wind rose and roared. In the morning all was dark, cloudy, raw, cold. But the wind had died out, and there were spots of blue showing. These spots enlarged as the morning advanced, and about nine the sun, golden and dazzling, beautified the forest. “Bright sunny days will soon come again!”

It was good to have hope and belief in that.

All the horses but Don Carlos weathered the storm in good shape. Don lost considerable weight. He had never before been left with hobbled feet to shift for himself in a prolonged storm of rain, sleet and snow. He had cut himself upon brush, and altogether had fared poorly. He showed plainly that he had been neglected. Don was the only horse I had ever known of that did not welcome the wilderness and companionship with his kind.

We rested the following day, and on the next we packed and started back to Dude Creek. It was a cold, raw, bitter day, with a gale from the north, such a day as I could never have endured had I not become hardened. As it was I almost enjoyed wind and cold. What a transformation in the woods! The little lakes were all frozen over; pines, moss, grass were white with frost. The sear days had come. Not a leaf showed in the aspen and maple thickets. The scrub oaks were shaggy and ragged, gray as the rocks. From the rim the slopes looked steely and dark, thinned out, showing the rocks and slides.

When we reached our old camp in Barber Shop Canyon we were all glad to see Haught’s lost burro waiting for us there. Not a scratch showed on the shaggy lop-eared little beast. Haught for once unhobbled a burro and set it free without a parting kick. Nielsen too had observed this omission on Haught’s part. Nielsen was a desert man and he knew burros. He said prospectors were inclined to show affection for burros by sundry cuffs and kicks. And Nielsen told me a story about Haught. It seemed the bear hunter was noted for that habit of kicking burros. Sometimes he was in fun and sometimes, when burros were obstinate, he was in earnest. Upon one occasion a big burro stayed away from camp quite a long time — long enough to incur Haught’s displeasure. He needed the burro and could not find it, and all he could do was to hunt for it. Upon returning to camp there stood the big gray burro, lazy and fat, just as if he had been perfectly well behaved. Haught put a halter on the burro, using strong language the while, and then he proceeded to exercise his habit of kicking burros. He kicked this one until its fat belly gave forth sounds exceedingly like a bass drum. When Haught had ended his exercise he tied up the burro. Presently a man came running into Haught’s camp. He appeared alarmed. He was wet and panting. Haught recognized him as a miner from a mine nearby. “Hey Haught,” panted the miner, “hev you seen — your gray burro — thet big one — with white face?”

“Shore, there he is,” replied Haught. “Son of a gun jest rustled home.”

The miner appeared immensely relieved. He looked and looked at the gray burro as if to make sure it was there, in the solid flesh, a really tangible object. Then he said: “We was all afeared you’d kick the stuffin’s out of him!... Not an hour ago he was over at the mine, an’ he ate five sticks of dynamite! Five sticks! For Lord’s sake handle him gently!”

Haught turned pale and suddenly sat down. “Ahuh!” was all he said. But he had a strange hunted look. And not for a long time did he ever again kick a burro!

Hunting conditions at Dude Creek had changed greatly to our benefit. The trappers had pulled up stakes and gone to some other section of the country. There was not a hunting party within fifteen miles of our camp. Leaves and acorns were all down; trails were soft and easy to travel; no dust rose on the southern slopes; the days were cold and bright; in every pocket and ravine there was water for the dogs; from any stand we could see into the shaggy thickets where before all we could see was a blaze of color.

In three days we drove Pyle’s Canyon, Dude Creek, and the small adjoining canyons, chasing in all nine bears, none of which ran anywhere near R.C. or me. Old Dan gave out and had to rest every other day. So the gloom again began to settle thick over the hopes of my faithful friends. Long since, as in 1918, I had given up expectations of bagging a bear or a buck. For R.C., however, my hopes still held good. At least I did not give up for him. But he shared somewhat the feelings of the men. Still he worked harder than ever, abandoning the idea of waiting on one of the high stands, and took to the slopes under the rim where he toiled down and up all day long. It pleased me to learn, presently, that this activity, strenuous as it was, became a source of delight to him. How different such toil was from waiting and watching on the rim!

On November first, a bitter cold morning, with ice in the bright air, we went back to Pyle’s Canyon, and four of us went down with Edd and the hounds. We had several chases, and about the middle of the forenoon I found myself alone, making tracks for the saddle over-looking Bear Canyon. Along the south side of the slope, in the still air the sun was warm, but when I got up onto the saddle, in an exposed place, the wind soon chilled me through. I would keep my stand until I nearly froze, then I had to go around to the sunny sheltered side and warm up. The hounds finally got within hearing again, and eventually appeared to be in Bear Canyon, toward the mouth. I decided I ought to go round the ridge on the east side and see if I could hear better. Accordingly I set off, and the hard going over the sunny slope was just what I needed. When I reached the end of the ridge, under the great dome, I heard the hounds below me, somewhat to my left. Running and plowing down through the brush I gained the edge of the bluff, just in time to see some of the hounds passing on. They had run a bear through that thicket, and if I had been there sooner I would have been fortunate. But too late! I worked around the head of this canyon and across a wide promontory. Again I heard the hounds right under me. They came nearer, and soon I heard rolling rocks and cracking brush, which sounds I believed were made by a bear. After a while I espied Old Tom and Rock working up the canyon on a trail. Then I was sure I would get a shot. Presently, however, Old Tom left the trail and started back. Rock came on, climbed the ridge, and hearing me call he came to me. I went over to the place where he had climbed out and found an enormous bear track pointing in the direction the hounds had come. They had back-trailed him. Rock went back to join Old Tom. Some of the pack were baying at a great rate in the mouth of the next canyon. But an impassable cliff prevented me from working around to that point. So I had to address myself to the long steep climb upward. I had not gone far when I crossed the huge bear track that Rock and Old Tom had given up. This track was six inches wide and ten inches long. The bear that had made it had come down this very morning from over the ridge east of Bear Canyon. I trailed him up this ridge, over the steepest and roughest and wildest part of it, marveling at the enormous steps and jumps he made, and at the sagacity which caused him to choose this route instead of the saddle trail where I had waited so long. His track led up nearly to the rim and proved how he had climbed over the most rugged break in the ridge. Indeed he was one of the wise old scoundrels. When I reached camp I learned that Sue and several more of the hounds had held a bear for some time in the box of the canyon just beyond where I had to give up. Edd and Nielsen were across this canyon, unable to go farther, and then yelled themselves hoarse, trying to call some of us. I asked Edd if he saw the bear. “Sure did,” replied Edd. “One of them long, lean, hungry cinnamons.” I had to laugh, and told how near I had come to meeting a bear that was short, fat, and heavy: “One of the old Jasper scoundrels!”

That night at dark the wind still blew a gale, and seemed more bitterly cold. We hugged the camp-fire. My eyes smarted from the smoke and my face grew black. Before I went to bed I toasted myself so thoroughly that my clothes actually burned me as I lay down. But they heated the blankets and that made my bed snug and soon I was in the land of dreams. During the night I awoke. The wind had lulled. The canopy above was clear, cold, starry, beautiful. When we rolled out the mercury showed ten above zero. Perhaps looking at the thermometer made us feel colder, but in any event we would have had to move about to keep warm. I built a fire and my hands were blocks of ice when I got the blaze stirring.

That day, so keen and bright, so wonderful with its clarity of atmosphere and the breath of winter through the pines, promised to be as exciting as it was beautiful. Maybe this day R.C. would bag a bear!

When we reached the rim the sunrise was just flushing the purple basin, flooding with exquisite gold and rose light the slumberous shadows. What a glorious wilderness to greet the eye at sunrise! I suffered a pang to realize what men missed — what I had to miss so many wonderful mornings.

We had made our plan. The hounds had left a bear in the second canyon east of Dude. Edd started down. Copple and Takahashi followed to hug the lower slopes. Nielsen and Haught and George held to the rim to ride east in case the hounds chased a bear that way. And R.C. and I were to try to climb out and down a thin rock-crested ridge which, so far as Haught knew, no one had ever been on.

Looked at from above this ridge was indeed a beautiful and rugged backbone of rock, sloping from the rim, extending far out and down — a very narrow knife-edge extended promontory, green with cedar and pine, yellow and gray with its crags and rocks. A craggy point comparable to some of those in the Grand Canyon! We had to study a way to get across the first deep fissures, and eventually descended far under the crest and climbed back. It was desperately hard work, for we had so little time. R.C. was to be at the middle of that ridge and I at the end in an hour. Like Trojans we worked. Some slippery pine-needle slopes we had to run across, for light quick steps were the only means of safe travel. And that was not safe! When we surmounted to the crest we found a jumble of weathered rocks ready to slide down on either side. Slabs, pyramids, columns, shale, rocks of all shapes except round, lay toppling along the heaved ridge. It seemed the whole ridge was ready to thunder down into the abyss. Half a mile down and out from the rim we felt lost, marooned. But there was something splendidly thrilling in our conquest of that narrow upflung edge of mountain. Twice R.C. thought we would have to abandon further progress, but I found ways to go on. How lonely and wild out there! No foot save an Indian’s had ever trod those gray rocks or brown mats of pine needles.

Before we reached the dip or saddle where R.C. was to make his stand the hounds opened up far below. The morning was perfectly still, an unusual occurrence there along the rim. What wild music! Then Edd’s horn pealed out, ringing melody, a long blast keen and clear, telling us above that he had started a bear. That made us hurry. We arrived at the head of an incline leading down to R.C.’s stand. As luck would have it the place was ideal for a bear, but risky for a hunter. A bear could come four ways without being seen until he was close enough to kill a man. We hurried on. At the saddle there was a broad bear trail with several other trails leading into it. Suddenly R.C. halted me with a warning finger. “Listen!”

I heard a faint clear rifle shot. Then another, and a fainter yell. We stood there and counted eleven more shots. Then the bay of the hounds seemed to grow closer. We had little time to pick and choose stands. I had yet to reach the end of the ridge — a task requiring seven-league boots. But I took time to choose the best possible stand for R.C. and that was one where a bear approaching from only the east along under the ridge could surprise him. In bad places like this we always tried to have our minds made up what to do and where to get in case of being charged by a wounded grizzly. In this instance there was not a rock or a tree near at hand. “R.C. you’ll have to stand your ground and kill him, that’s all,” I declared, grimly. “But it’s quiet. You can hear a bear coming. If you do hear one — wait — and make sure your first shot lets him down.”

“Don’t worry. I could hear a squirrel coming over this ground,” replied R.C.

Then I went on, not exactly at ease in mind, but stirred and thrilled to the keen charged atmosphere. I had to go around under the base of a rocky ledge, over rough ground. Presently I dropped into a bear trail, well trodden. I followed it to a corner of cliff where it went down. Then I kept on over loose rock and bare earth washed deep in ruts. I had to leap these. Perhaps in ten minutes I had traveled a quarter of a mile or less. Then spang! R.C.’s rifle-shot halted me. So clear and sharp, so close, so startling! I was thrilled, delighted — he had gotten a shot. I wanted to yell my pleasure. My blood warmed and my nerves tingled. Swiftly my thoughts ran — bad luck was nothing — a man had only to stick at a thing — what a fine, sharp, wonderful day for adventure! How the hounds bayed! Had R.C. sighted a bear somewhere below? Suddenly the still air split — spang! R.C.’s second shot gave me a shock. My breast contracted. I started back. “Suppose it was a grizzly — on that bad side!” I muttered. Spang!... I began to run. A great sweeping wave of emotion charged over me, swelling all my veins to the bursting point. Spang! My heart came to my throat. Leaping the ruts, bounding like a sheep from rock to rock, I covered my back tracks. All inside me seemed to flutter, yet I felt cold and hard — a sickening sense of reproach that I had left my brother in a bad position. Spang! His fifth and last shot followed swiftly after the fourth — too swift to be accurate. So hurriedly a man would act in close quarters. R.C. now had an empty rifle!... Like a flash I crossed that slope leading to the rocks, and tore around the cliff at such speed that it was a wonder I did not pitch down and break my neck. How long — how terribly long I seemed in reaching the corner of cliff! Then I plunged to a halt with eyes darting everywhere.

R.C. was not in sight. The steep curved neck of slope seemed all rocks, all trees, all brush. Then I heard a wild hoarse bawl and a loud crashing of brush. My gaze swerved to an open spot. A patch of manzanita seemed to blur round a big bear, standing up, fighting the branches, threshing and growling. But where was R.C.? Fearfully my gaze peered near and all around this wounded bear. “Hey there!” I yelled with all my might.

R.C.’s answer was another spang. I heard the bullet hit the bear. It must have gone clear through him for I saw bits of fur and manzanita fly. The bear plunged out of the bushes — out of my sight. How he crashed the brush — rolled the rocks! I listened. Down and down he crashed. Then the sound changed somewhat. He was rolling. At last that thumping sound ceased, and after it the roll of rocks.

“Are you — all right?” I shouted.

Then, after a moment that made me breathless, I heard R.C. laugh, a little shakily. “Sure am.... Did you see him?”

“Yes. I think he’s your bear.”

“I’m afraid he’s got away. The hounds took another bear down the canyon. What’ll we do?”

“Come on down,” I said.

Fifty yards or more down the slope we met. I showed him a great splotch of blood on a flat stone. “We’ll find him not far down,” I said. So we slid and crawled, and held to brush and rocks, following that bloody trail until we came to a ledge. From there I espied the bear lodged against a manzanita bush. He lay on his back, all four paws extended, and he was motionless. R.C. and I sat down right there on the ledge.

“Looks pretty big — black and brown — mostly brown,” I said. “I’m glad, old man, you stuck it out.”

“Big!...” exclaimed R.C. with that same peculiar little laugh. “He doesn’t look big now. But up there he looked like a hill.... What do you think? He came up that very way you told me to look out for. And if I hadn’t had ears he’d got right on me. As it was, when I heard little rolling stones, and then saw him, he was almost on a level with me. My nerve was all right. I knew I had him. And I made sure of my first shot. I knocked him flat. But he got up — let out an awful snarl — and plunged my way. I can’t say I know he charged me. Only it was just the same as if he had!... I knocked him down again and this time he began to kick and jump down the slope. That was my best shot. Think I missed him the next three. You see I had time to get shaky. If he had kept coming at me — good night!... I had trouble loading. But when I got ready again I ran down and saw him in that bush. Wasn’t far from him then. When he let out that bawl he saw me. I don’t know much about bears, but I know he wanted to get at me. And I’m sure of what he’d have done.... I didn’t miss my last shot.”

We sat there a while longer, slowly calming down. Wonderful indeed had been some of the moments of thrill, but there had been others not conducive to happiness. Why do men yearn for adventure in wild moments and regret the risks and spilled blood afterward?

IX

The hounds enjoyed a well-earned rest the next day. R.C. and I, behind Haught’s back, fed them all they could eat. The old hunter had a fixed idea that dogs should be kept lean and hungry so they would run bears the better. Perhaps he was right. Only I could not withstand Old Dan and Old Tom as they limped to me, begging and whining. Yet not even sore feet and hunger could rob these grand old hounds of their dignity. For an hour that morning I sat beside them in a sunny spot.

In the afternoon Copple took me on a last deer hunt for that trip. We rode down the canyon a mile, and climbed out on the west slope. Haught had described this country as a “wolf” to travel. He used that word to designate anything particularly tough. We found the ridge covered with a dense forest, in places a matted jungle of pine saplings. These thickets were impenetrable. Heavy snows had bent the pines so that they grew at an angle. We found it necessary to skirt these thickets, and at that, sometimes had to cut our way through with our little axes. Hunting was scarcely possible under such conditions. Still we did not see any deer tracks.

Eventually we crossed this ridge, or at least the jungle part of it, and got lower down into hollows and swales full of aspens. Copple recognized country he had hunted before. We made our way up a long shallow hollow that ended in an open where lay the remains of an old log cabin, and corrals. From under a bluff bubbled a clear beautiful spring. Copple looked all around slowly, with strange expression, and at last, dismounting he knelt to drink of the spring.

“Ah-h-good!” he exclaimed, after a deep draught. “Get down an’ drink. Snow water an’ it never goes dry.”

Indeed it was so cold it made my teeth ache, and so pure and sweet that I drank until I could hold no more. Deer and cat and bear tracks showed along the margin of clean sand. Lower down were fresh turkey tracks. A lonely spring in the woods visited by wild game! This place was singularly picturesque and beautiful. The purest drinking water is found in wild forest or on mountains. Men, cities, civilization contaminate waters that are not isolated.

Copple told me a man named Mitchell had lived in that lonely place thirty years ago. Copple, as a boy, had worked for him — had ridden wild bronchos and roped wild steers in that open, many and many a day. Something of unconscious pathos showed in Copple’s eyes as he gazed around, and in his voice. We all hear the echoing footsteps of the past years! In those days Copple said the ranch was overrun by wild game, and wild horses too.

We rode on westward, to come out at length on the rim of a magnificent canyon. It was the widest and deepest and wildest gorge I had come across in this country. So deep that only a faint roar of running water reached our ears! The slopes were too steep for man, let alone a horse; and the huge cliffs and giant spruces gave it a singularly rugged appearance. We saw deer on the opposite slope. Copple led along the edge, searching for traces of an old trail where Mitchell used to drive cattle across. We did not find a trail, but we found a place where Copple said one used to be. I could see no signs of it. Here leading his horse with one hand and wielding his little axe with the other Copple started down. For my part I found going down remarkably easy. The only trouble I had was to hold on, so I would not go down like a flash. Stockings, my horse, had in a few weeks become a splendid traveler in the forest. He had learned to restrain his spirit and use his intelligence. Wherever I led he would go and that without any fear. There is something fine in constant association with an intelligent horse under such circumstances. In bad places Stockings braced his forefeet, sat on his haunches, and slid, sometimes making me jump to get out of his way. We found the canyon bed a narrow notch, darkly rich and green, full of the melody of wild birds and murmuring brook, with huge rocks all stained gold and russet, and grass as high as our knees. Frost still lingered in the dark, cool, shady retreat; and where the sun struck a narrow strip of the gorge there was warm, sweet, dry breath of the forest. But for the most part, down here all was damp, dank, cool shadow where sunshine never reached, and where the smells were of dead leaves and wet moss and ferns and black rich earth.

Impossible we found it to ascend the other slope where we had seen the deer, so we had to ride up the canyon, a matter greatly to my liking. Copple thought I was hunting with him, but really, except to follow him, I did not think of the meaning of his slow wary advance. Only a few more days had I to roam the pine-scented forest. That ride up this deep gorge was rich in sensation. Sun and sky and breeze and forest encompassed me. The wilderness was all about me; and I regretted when the canyon lost its splendid ruggedness, and became like the others I had traversed, and at last grew to be a shallow grassy ravine, with patches of gray aspens along the tiny brook.

As we climbed out once more, this time into an open, beautiful pine forest, with little patches of green thicket, I seemed to have been drugged by the fragrance and the color and the beauty of the wild. For when Copple called low and sharp: “Hist!” I stared uncomprehendingly at him.

“Deer!” he whispered, pointing. “Get off an’ smoke ’em up!”

Something shot through me — a different kind of thrill. Ahead in the open I saw gray, graceful, wild forms trotting away. Like a flash I slid off my horse and jerked out my rifle. I ran forward a few steps. The deer had halted — were gazing at us with heads up and ears high. What a wild beautiful picture! As I raised my rifle they seemed to move and vanish in the green. The hunter in me, roused at last, anathematized my miserable luck. I ran ahead another few steps, to be halted by Copple. “Buck!” he called, sharply. “Hurry!” Then, farther on in the open, out in the sunlight, I saw a noble stag, moving, trotting toward us. Keen, hard, fierce in my intensity, I aligned the sights upon his breast and fired. Straight forward and high he bounded, to fall with a heavy thud.

Copple’s horse, startled by my shot, began to snort and plunge. “Good shot,” yelled Copple. “He’s our meat.”

What possessed me I knew not, but I ran ahead of Copple. My eyes searched avidly the bush-dotted ground for my quarry. The rifle felt hot in my tight grip. All inside me was a tumult — eager, keen, wild excitement. The great pines, the green aisles leading away into the woods, the shadows under the thickets, the pine-pitch tang of the air, the loneliness of that lonely forest — all these seemed familiar, sweet, beautiful, things mine alone, things seen and smelled and felt before, things ... Then suddenly I ran right upon my deer, lying motionless, dead I thought. He appeared fairly large, with three-point antlers. I heard Copple’s horse thudding the soft earth behind me, and I yelled: “I got him, Ben.” That was a moment of exultation.

It ended suddenly. Something halted me. My buck, now scarcely fifteen feet from me, began to shake and struggle. He raised his head, uttering a choking gasp. I heard the flutter of blood in his throat. He raised himself on his front feet and lifted his head high, higher, until his nose pointed skyward and his antlers lay back upon his shoulders. Then a strong convulsion shook him. I heard the shuddering wrestle of his whole body. I heard the gurgle and flow of blood. Saw the smoke of fresh blood and smelled it! I saw a small red spot in his gray breast where my bullet had struck. I saw a great bloody gaping hole on his rump where the.30 Gov’t expanding bullet had come out. From end to end that bullet had torn! Yet he was not dead. Straining to rise again!

I saw, felt all this in one flashing instant. And as swiftly my spirit changed. What I might have done I never knew, but most likely I would have shot him through the brain. Only a sudden action of the stag paralyzed all my force. He lowered his head. He saw me. And dying, with lungs and heart and bowels shot to shreds, he edged his stiff front feet toward me, he dragged his afterquarters, he slid, he flopped, he skittered convulsively at me. No fear in the black, distended, wild eyes!

Only hate, only terrible, wild, unquenchable spirit to live long enough to kill me! I saw it, He meant to kill me. How magnificent, how horrible this wild courage! My eyes seemed riveted upon him, as he came closer, closer. He gasped. Blood sputtered from his throat. But more terrible than agony, than imminent death was the spirit of this wild beast to slay its enemy. Inch by inch he skidded closer to me, with a convulsive quivering awful to see. No veil of the past, no scale of civilization between beast and man then! Enemies as old as the earth! I had shot him to eat, and he would kill me before he died. For me the moment was monstrous. No hunter was I then, but a man stricken by the spirit and mystery of life, by the agony and terror of death, by the awful strange sense that this stag would kill me.

But Copple galloped up, and drawing his revolver, he shot the deer through the head. It fell in a heap.

“Don’t ever go close to a crippled deer,” admonished my comrade, as he leaped off his horse. “I saw a fellow once that was near killed by a buck he’d taken for dead.... Strange the way this buck half stood up. Reckon he meant bad, but he was all in. You hit him plumb center.”

“Yes, Ben, it was — strange,” I replied, soberly. I caught Copple’s keen dark glance studying me. “When you open him up — see what my bullet did, will you?”

“All right. Help me hang him to a snag here,” returned Copple, as he untied his lasso.

When we got the deer strung up I went off into the woods, and sat on a log, and contended with a queer sort of sickness until it passed away. But it left a state of mind that I knew would require me to probe into myself, and try to understand once and for all time this bloodthirsy tendency of man to kill. It would force me to try to analyze the psychology of hunting. Upon my return to Copple I found he had the buck ready to load upon his horse. His hands were bright red. He was wiping his hunting-knife on a bunch of green pine needles.

“That 150-grain soft-nose bullet is some executioner,” he declared, forcefully. “Your bullet mushroomed just after it went into his breast. It tore his lung to pieces, cut open his heart, made a mess of kidneys an’ paunch, an’ broke his spine.... An’ look at this hole where it came out!”

I helped Copple heave the load on his saddle and tie it securely, and I got my hands red at the job, but I did not really look at the buck again. And upon our way back to camp I rode in the lead all the way. We reached camp before sunset, where I had to endure the felicitations of R.C. and my comrades, all of whom were delighted that at last I had gotten a buck. Takahashi smiled all over his broad brown face. “My goodnish! I awful glad! Nice fat deer!”

That night I lay awake a long time, and though aware of the moan of the wind in the pines and the tinkle of the brook, and the melancholy hoot of an owl, and later the still, sad, black silence of the midnight hours, I really had no pleasure in them. My mind was active.

Boys are inherently cruel. The games they play, at least those they invent, instinctively partake of some element of brute nature. They chase, they capture, they imprison, they torture, and they kill. No secret rendezvous of a boy’s pirate gang ever failed to be soaked with imaginary blood! And what group of boys have not played at being pirates? The Indian games are worse — scalping, with red-hot cinders thrown upon the bleeding head, and the terrible running of the gauntlet, and burning at the stake.

What youngster has not made wooden knives to spill the blood of his pretended enemies? Little girls play with dolls, and with toy houses, and all the implements of making a home; but sweet and dear as the little angels are they love a boy’s game, and if they can through some lucky accident participate in one it is to scream and shudder and fight, indeed like the females of the species. No break here between these little mothers of doll-babies and the bloody mothers of the French Revolution, or of dusky, naked, barbarian children of a primitive day!

Boys love the chase. And that chase depends upon environment. For want of wild game they will harry a poor miserable tom-cat with sticks and stones. I belonged once to a gang of young ruffians who chased the neighbor’s chickens, killed them with clubs, and cooked them in tin cans, over a hidden fire. Boys love nothing so much as to chase a squirrel or a frightened little chipmunk back and forth along a rail fence. They brandish their sticks, run and yell, dart to and fro, like young Indians. They rob bird’s nests, steal the eggs, pierce them and blow them. They capture the young birds, and are not above killing the parents that fly frantically to the rescue. I knew of boys who ground captured birds to death on a grindstone. Who has not seen a boy fling stones at a helpless hop-toad?

As boys grow older to the age of reading they select, or at least love best, those stories of bloodshed and violence. Stevenson wrote that boys read for some element of the brute instinct in them. His two wonderful books Treasure Island and Kidnapped are full of fight and the killing of men. Robinson Crusoe is the only great boy’s book I ever read that did not owe its charm to fighting. But still did not old Crusoe fight to live on his lonely island? And this wonderful tale is full of hunting, and has at the end the battle with cannibals.

When lads grow up they become hunters, almost without exception, at least in spirit if not in deed. Early days and environment decide whether or not a man becomes a hunter. In all my life I have met only two grown men who did not care to go prowling and hunting in the woods with a gun. An exception proves a great deal, but all the same most men, whether they have a chance or not, love to hunt. Hunters, therefore, there are of many degrees. Hunters of the lowly cotton-tail and the woodland squirrel; hunters of quail, woodcock, and grouse; hunters of wild ducks and geese; hunters of foxes — the red-coated English and the homespun clad American; hunters — which is a kinder name for trappers — of beaver, marten, otter, mink, all the furred animals; hunters of deer, cat, wolf, bear, antelope, elk, moose, caribou; hunters of the barren lands where the ice is king and where there are polar bears, white foxes, musk-ox, walrus. Hunters of different animals of different countries. African hunters for lion, rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo, eland, hartebeest, giraffe, and a hundred species made known to all the world by such classical sportsmen as Selous, Roosevelt, Stewart Edward White.

But they are all hunters and their game is the deadly chase in the open or the wild. There are hunters who hate action, who hate to walk and climb and toil and wear themselves out to get a shot. Such men are hunters still, but still not men! There are hunters who have game driven up to them. I heard a story told by an officer whom I believe. In the early days of the war he found himself somewhere on the border between Austria and Germany. He was invited to a hunt by personages of high degree. They motored to a sequestered palace in the forest, and next day motored to a shooting-lodge. At daylight he was called, and taken to the edge of a forest and stationed in an open glade. His stand was an upholstered divan placed high in the forks of a tree. His guide told him that pretty soon a doe would come out of the forest. But he was not to shoot it. In fifteen minutes a lame buck would come out. But he was not to shoot that one either. In ten more minutes another buck would come out, and this third deer he was to kill. My informant told me this was all very seriously meant. The gun given him was large enough in calibre to kill an elephant. He walked up the steps to the comfortable divan and settled himself to await events. The doe trotted out exactly on schedule time. So did the lame buck. They came from the woods and were not frightened. The third deer, a large buck, was a few moments late — three minutes to be exact. According to instructions the American killed this buck — a matter that took some nerve he said, for the buck walked out like a cow. That night a big supper was given in the guest’s honor. He had to eat certain parts of the buck he had killed, and drink flagons of wine. This kind of hunting must be peculiarly German or Austrian, and illustrates the peculiar hunting ways of men.

A celebrated bear hunter and guide of the northwest told me that for twenty years he had been taking eastern ministers — preachers of the gospel — on hunting trips into the wild. He assured me that of all the bloody murderers — waders in gore, as he expressed it — these teachers of the gospel were the worst. The moment they got out into the wild they wanted to kill, kill, kill. He averred their natures seemed utterly to change.

In reading the books of hunters and in listening to their talks at Camp-fire Club dinners I have always been struck with the expression of what these hunters felt, what they thought they got out of hunting. The change from city to the open wilderness; the difference between noise, tumult, dirt, foul air, and the silence, the quiet, the cleanness and purity; the sweet breath of God’s country as so many called it; the beauty of forest and mountain; the wildness of ridge and valley; the wonder of wild animals in their native haunts; and the zest, the joy, the excitement, the magnificent thrill of the stalk and the chase. No one of them ever dwelt upon the kill! It was mentioned, as a result, an end, a consummation. How strange that hunters believed these were the attractions of the chase! They felt them, to be sure, in some degree, or they would not remember them. But they never realized that these sensations were only incidental to hunting.

Men take long rides, hundreds and thousands of miles, to hunt. They endure hardships, live in camps with absolute joy. They stalk through the forest, climb the craggy peaks, labor as giants in the building of the pyramids, all with a tight clutch on a deadly rifle. They are keen, intent, strained, quiveringly eager all with a tight clutch on a deadly rifle. If hunters think while on a stalk — which matter I doubt considerably — they think about the lay of the land, or the aspect of it, of the habits and possibilities of their quarry, of their labor and chances, and particularly of the vague unrealized sense of comfort, pleasure, satisfaction in the moment. Tight muscles, alert eyes, stealthy steps, stalk and run and crawl and climb, breathlessness, a hot close-pressed chest, thrill on thrill, and sheer bursting riot of nerve and vein — these are the ordinary sensations and actions of a hunter. No ascent too lofty — no descent too perilous for him then, if he is a man as well as a hunter!

Take the Brazilian hunter of the jungle. He is solitary. He is sufficient to himself. He is a survival of the fittest. The number of his tribe are few. Nature sees to that. But he must eat, and therefore he hunts. He spears fish and he kills birds and beasts with a blow-gun. He hunts to live. But the manner of his action, though more skilful, is the same as any hunter’s. Likewise his sensations, perhaps more vivid because hunting for him is a matter of life or death. Take the Gaucho of Patagonia — the silent lonely Indian hunter of the Pampas. He hunts with a bola, a thin thong or string at each end of which is a heavy leather-covered ball of stone or iron. This the Gaucho hurls through the air at the neck or legs of his quarry. The balls fly round — the thong binds tight — it is a deadly weapon. The user of it rides and stalks and sees and throws and feels the same as any other hunter. Time and place, weapon and game have little to do with any differences in hunters.

Up to this 1919 hunting trip in the wilds I had always marveled at the fact that naturalists and biologists hate sportsmen. Not hunters like the Yellow Knife Indians, or the snake-eating Bushmen of Australia, or the Terra-del-Fuegians, or even the native country rabbit-hunters — but the so-called sportsmen. Naturalists and biologists have simply learned the truth why men hunt, and that when it is done in the name of sport, or for sensation, it is a degenerate business. Stevenson wrote beautiful words about “the hunter home from the hill,” but so far as I can find out he never killed anything himself. He was concerned with the romance of the thought, with alliteration, and the singular charm of the truth — sunset and the end of the day, the hunter’s plod down the hill to the cottage, to the home where wife and children awaited him. Indeed it is a beautiful truth, and not altogether in the past, for there are still farmers and pioneers.

Hunting is a savage primordial instinct inherited from our ancestors. It goes back through all the ages of man, and farther still — to the age when man was not man, but hairy ape, or some other beast from which we are descended. To kill is in the very marrow of our bones. If man after he developed into human state had taken to vegetable diet — which he never did take — he yet would have inherited the flesh-eating instincts of his animal forebears. And no instinct is ever wholly eradicated. But man was a meat eater. By brute strength, by sagacity, by endurance he killed in order to get the means of subsistence. If he did not kill he starved. And it is a matter of record, even down to modern times, that man has existed by cannibalism.

The cave-man stalked from his hole under a cliff, boldly forth with his huge club or stone mace. Perhaps he stole his neighbor’s woman, but if so he had more reason to hunt than before — he had to feed her as well as himself. This cave-man, savagely descended, savagely surrounded, must have had to hunt all the daylight hours and surely had to fight to kill his food, or to keep it after he killed it. Long, long ages was the being called cave-man in developing; more long ages he lived on the earth, in that dim dark mystic past; and just as long were his descendants growing into another and higher type of barbarian. But they and their children and grandchildren, and all their successive, innumerable, and varying descendants had to hunt meat and eat meat to live.

The brain of barbarian man was small, as shown by the size and shape of his skull, but there is no reason to believe its construction and use were any different from the use of other organs — the eye to see with — the ear to hear with — the palate to taste with. Whatever the brain of primitive man was it held at birth unlimited and innumerable instincts like those of its progenitors; and round and smooth in babyhood, as it was, it surely gathered its sensations, one after another in separate and habitual channels, until when manhood arrived it had its convolutions, its folds and wrinkles. And if instinct and tendency were born in the brain how truly must they be a part of bone, tissue, blood.

We cannot escape our inheritance. Civilization is merely a veneer, a thin-skinned polish over the savage and crude nature. Fear, anger, lust, the three great primal instincts are restrained, but they live powerfully in the breast of man. Self preservation is the first law of human life, and is included in fear. Fear of death is the first instinct. Then if for thousands, perhaps millions of years, man had to hunt because of his fear of death, had to kill meat to survive — consider the ineradicable and permanent nature of the instinct.

The secret now of the instinctive joy and thrill and wildness of the chase lies clear.

Stealing through the forest or along the mountain slope, eyes roving, ears sensitive to all vibrations of the air, nose as keen as that of a hound, hands tight on a deadly rifle, we unconsciously go back. We go back to the primitive, to the savage state of man. Therein lies the joy. How sweet, vague, unreal those sensations of strange familiarity with wild places we know we never saw before! But a million years before that hour a hairy ancestor of ours felt the same way in the same kind of a place, and in us that instinct survives. That is the secret of the wonderful strange charm of wild places, of the barren rocks of the desert wilderness, of the great-walled lonely canyons. Something now in our blood, in our bones once danced in men who lived then in similar places. And lived by hunting!

The child is father to the man. In the light of this instinct how easy to understand his boyish cruelty. He is true to nature. Unlimited and infinite in his imagination when he hunts — whether with his toys or with real weapons. If he flings a stone and kills a toad he is instinctively killing meat for his home in the cave. How little difference between the lad and the man! For a man the most poignantly exciting, the most thrillingly wild is the chase when he is weaponless, when he runs and kills his quarry with a club. Here we have the essence of the matter. The hunter is proudest of his achievement in which he has not had the help of deadly weapons. Unconsciously he will brag and glow over that conquest wherein lay greatest peril to him — when he had nothing but his naked hands. What a hot gush of blood bursts over him! He goes back to his barbarian state when a man only felt. The savage lived in his sensations. He saw, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, but seldom thought. The earthy, the elemental of eye and ear and skin surrounded him. When the man goes into the wilderness to change into a hunter that surviving kinship with the savage revives in his being, and all unconsciously dominates him with driving passion. Passion it is because for long he has been restrained in the public haunts of men. His real nature has been hidden. The hunting of game inhibits his thoughts. He feels only. He forgets himself. He sees the track, he hears the stealthy step, he smells the wild scent; and his blood dances with the dance of the ages. Then he is a killer. Then the ages roll back. Then he is brother to the savage. Then all unconsciously he lives the chase, the fight, the death-dealing moment as they were lived by all his ancestors down through the misty past.

What then should be the attitude of a thoughtful man toward this liberation of an instinct — that is to say, toward the game or sport or habit of hunting to kill? Not easily could I decide this for myself. After all life is a battle. Eternally we are compelled to fight. If we do not fight, if we do not keep our bodies strong, supple, healthy, soon we succumb to some germ or other that gets a hold in our blood or lungs and fights for its life, its species, until it kills us. Fight therefore is absolutely necessary to long life, and Alas! eventually that fight must be lost. The savages, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks all worshipped physical prowess in man. Manhood, strength — the symbols of fight! To be physically strong and well a man must work hard, with frequent intervals of change of exercise, and he must eat meat. I am not a great meat eater, but I doubt if I could do much physical labor or any brain work on a vegetable diet. Therefore I hold it fair and manly to go once a year to the wilderness to hunt. Let that hunt be clean hard toil, as hard as I can stand! Perhaps nature created the lower animals for the use of man. If I had been the creator I think I would have made it possible for the so-called higher animal man to live on air.

Somewhere I read a strange remarkable story about monkeys and priests in the jungle of India. An old order of priests had from time out of mind sent two of their comrades into the jungle to live with the monkeys, to tame them, feed them, study them, love them. And these priests told an incredible story, yet one that haunted with its possibilities of truth. After a long term of years in which one certain priest had lived with the monkeys and they had learned truly he meant them no harm and only loved them, at rare moments an old monkey would come to him and weep and weep in the most terrible and tragic manner. This monkey wanted to tell something, but could not speak. But the priest knew that the monkey was trying to tell him how once the monkey people had been human like him. Only they had retrograded in the strange scale of evolution. And the terrible weeping was for loss — loss of physical stature, of speech, perhaps of soul.

What a profound and stunning idea! Does evolution work backward? Could nature in its relentless inscrutable design for the unattainable perfection have developed man only to start him backward toward the dim ages whence he sprang? Who knows! But every man can love wild animals. Every man can study and try to understand the intelligence of his horse, the loyalty of his dog. And every hunter can hunt less with his instinct, and more with an understanding of his needs, and a consideration for the beasts only the creator knows.

X

The last day of everything always comes. Time, like the tide, waits for no man. Anticipation is beautiful, but it is best and happiest to enjoy the present. Live while we may!

On this last day of my hunt we were up almost before it was light enough to see. The morning star shone radiant in the dark gray sky. All the other stars seemed dimmed by its glory. Silent as a grave was the forest. I started a fire, chopped wood so vigorously that I awakened Nielsen who came forth like a burly cave-man; and I washed hands and face in the icy cold brook. By the time breakfast was over the gold of the rising sun was tipping the highest pines on the ridges.

We started on foot, leaving the horses hobbled near camp. All the hounds appeared fit. Even Old Dan trotted along friskily. Pyle, a neighbor of Haught’s, had come to take a hunt with us, bringing two dogs with him. For this last day I had formulated a plan. Edd and one of the boys were to take the hounds down on the east side of the great ridge that made the eastern wall of Dude Canyon. R.C. was to climb out on this ridge, and take his position at the most advantageous point. We had already chased half a dozen bears over this saddle, one of which was the big frosty-coated grizzly that Edd and Nielsen had shot at. The rest of us hurried to the head of Dude Canyon. Copple and I were to go down to the first promontories under the rim. The others were to await developments and go where Haught thought best to send them.

Copple and I started down over and around the crags, going carefully until we reached the open slope under the rim-rock. It seemed this morning that I was fresh, eager, agile like a goat on my feet. In my consciousness of this I boasted to Copple that I would dislodge fewer stones and so make less noise than he. The canyon sloped at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and we slid, stepped, jumped and ran down without starting an avalanche.

When we descended to the first bare cape of projecting rock the hour was the earliest in which I had been down under the rim. All the canyon and the great green gulf below were unusually fresh and beautiful. I heard the lonely call of strange birds and the low murmur of running water. An eagle soared in the sunlight. High above us to the east rose the magnificent slope of Dude Canyon. I gazed up to the black and green and silver ascent, up to the gold-tipped craggy crest where R.C. had his stand. I knew he could see me, but I could not see him. Afterward he told me that my red cap shone clearly out of green and gray, so he had no difficulty in keeping track of my whereabouts. The thickets of aspens and oaks seemed now to stand on end. How dark in the shade and steely and cold they looked! That giant ridge still obstructed the sun, and all on this side of it, under its frowning crest and slope was dark and fresh and cool in shadow. The ravines were choked black with spruce trees. Here along this gray shady slant of wall, in niches and cracks, and under ledges, and on benches, were the beds of the bears. Even as I gazed momentarily I expected to see a bear. It looked two hundred yards across the canyon from where we stood, but Copple declared it was a thousand. On our other side capes and benches and groves were bright in sunshine, clear across the rough breaks to the west wall of Dude Canyon. I saw a flock of wild pigeons below. Way out and beyond rolled the floor of the basin, green and vast, like a ridged sea of pines, to the bold black Mazatzals so hauntingly beckoning from the distance. Copple spoke now and then, but I wanted to be silent. How wild and wonderful this place in the early morning!

But I had not long to meditate and revel in beauty and wildness. Far down across the mouth of the canyon, at the extreme southern end of that vast oak thicket, the hounds gave tongue. Old Dan first! In the still cool air how his great wolf-bay rang out the wildness of the time and place! Already Edd and Pyle had rounded the end of the east ridge and were coming up along the slope of Dude Canyon.

“Hounds workin’ round,” declared Copple. “Now I’ll tell you what. Last night a bear was feedin’ along that end of the thicket. The hounds are millin’ round tryin’ to straighten out his trail.... It’s a dead cinch they’ll jump a bear an’ we’ll see him.”

“Look everywhere!” I cautioned Copple, and my eyes roved and strained over all that vast slope. Suddenly I espied the flash of something black, far down the thicket, and tried to show it to my comrade.

“Let’s go around an’ down to that lower point of rock. It’s a better stand than this. Closer to the thicket an’ commands those.... By Golly, I see what you see! That’s a bear, slippin’ down. Stay with me now!”

Staying with Copple was a matter of utter disregard of clothes, limbs, life. He plunged off that bare ledge, slid flat on his back, and wormed feet first under manzanita, and gaining open slope got up to run and jump into another thicket. By staying with him I saw that I would have a way opened through the brush, and something to fall upon if I fell. He rimmed the edge of a deep gorge that made me dizzy. He leaped cracks. He let himself down over a ledge by holding to bushes. He found steps to descend little bluffs, and he flew across the open slides of weathered rock. I was afraid this short cut to the lower projecting cape of rock would end suddenly on some impassable break or cliff, but though the travel grew rough we still kept on. I wore only boots, trousers, and shirt, and cap, with cartridge belt strapped tight around me. It was a wonder I was not stripped. Some of my rags went to decorate the wake we left down that succession of ledges. But we made it, with me at least, bruised and ragged, dusty and choked, and absolutely breathless. My body burned as with fire. Hot sweat ran in streams down my chest. At last we reached the bare flat projecting cape of rock, and indeed it afforded an exceedingly favorable outlook. I had to sink down on the rock; I could not talk until I got my breath; but I used my eyes to every advantage. Neither Copple nor I could locate the black moving object we had seen from above. We were much closer to the hounds, though they still were baying a tangled cross trail. Fortunate it was for me that I was given these few moments to rest from my tremendous exertions.

My eyes searched the leaf-covered slope so brown and sear, and the shaggy thickets, and tried to pierce the black tangle of spruce patches. All at once, magically it seemed, my gaze held to a dark shadow, a bit of dense shade, under a large spruce tree. Something moved. Then a big bear rose right out of his bed of leaves, majestically as if disturbed, and turned his head back toward the direction of the baying hounds. Next he walked out. He stopped. I was quivering with eagerness to tell Copple, but I waited. Then the bear walked behind a tree and peeped out, only his head showing. After a moment again he walked out.

“Ben, aren’t you ever going to see him?” I cried at last.

“What?” ejaculated Copple, in surprise.

“Bear!” and I pointed. “This side of dead spruce.”

“No!... Reckon you see a stump.... By Golly! I see him. He’s a dandy. Reddish color.... Doc, he’s one of them mean old cinnamons.”

“Watch! What will he do? — Ben, he hears the hounds.”

How singularly thrilling to see him, how slowly he walked, how devoid of fear, how stately!

“Sure he hears them. See him look back. The son-of-a-gun! I’ll bet he’s given us the bear-laugh more than once.”

“Ben, how far away is he?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s eight hundred yards,” declared Copple. “A long shot. Let’s wait. He may work down closer. But most likely he’ll run up-hill.”

“If he climbs he’ll go right to R.C.’s stand,” I said, gazing upward.

“Sure will. There’s no other saddle.”

Then I decided that I would not shoot at him unless he started down. My excitement was difficult to control. I found it impossible to attend to my sensations, to think about what I was feeling. But the moment was full of suspense. The bear went into a small clump of spruces and stayed there a little while. Tantalizing moments! The hounds were hot upon his trail, still working to and fro in the oak thicket. I judged scarcely a mile separated them from the bear. Again he disappeared behind a little bush. Remembering that five pairs of sharp eyes could see me from the points above I stood up and waved my red cap. I waved it wildly as a man waves a red flag in moments of danger. Afterward R.C. said he saw me plainly and understood my action. Again the bear had showed, this time on an open slide, where he had halted. He was looking across the canyon while I waved my cap.

“Ben, could he see us so far?” I asked.

“By Golly, I’ll bet he does see us. You get to smokin’ him up. An’ if you hit him don’t be nervous if he starts for us. Cinnamons are bad customers. Lay out five extra shells an’ make up your mind to kill him.”

I dropped upon one knee. The bear started down, coming towards us over an open slide. “Aim a little coarse an’ follow him,” said Copple. I did so, and tightening all my muscles into a ball, holding my breath, I fired. The bear gave a savage kick backwards. He jerked back to bite at his haunch. A growl, low, angry, vicious followed the echoes of my rifle. Then it seemed he pointed his head toward us and began to run down the slope, looking our way all the time.

“By Golly!” yelled Copple. “You stung him one an’ he’s comin’!... Now you’ve got to shoot some. He can roll down-hill an’ run up-hill like a jack rabbit. Take your time — wait for open shots — an’ make sure!”

Copple’s advice brought home to me what could happen even with the advantage on my side. Also it brought the cold tight prickle to my skin, the shudder that was not a thrill, the pressure of blood running too swiftly, I did not feel myself shake, but the rifle was unsteady. I rested an elbow on my knee, yet still I had difficulty in keeping the sight on him. I could get it on him, but could not keep it there. Again he came out into the open, at the head of a yellow slide, that reached to a thicket below. I must not hurry, yet I had to hurry. After all he had not so far to come and most of the distance was under cover. Through my mind flashed Haught’s story of a cinnamon that kept coming with ten bullets in him.

“Doc, he’s paddin’ along!” warned Copple. “Smoke some of them shells!”

Straining every nerve I aimed as before, only a little in advance, held tight and pulled at the same instant. The bear doubled up in a ball and began to roll down the slide. He scattered the leaves. Then into the thicket he crashed, knocking the oaks, and cracking the brush.

“Some shot!” yelled Copple. “He’s your bear!”

But my bear continued to crash through the brush. I shot again and yet again, missing both times. Apparently he was coming, faster now — and then he showed dark almost at the foot of our slope. Trees were thick there. I could not see there, and I could not look for bear and reload at the same moment. My fingers were not very nimble.

“Don’t shoot,” shouted Copple. “He’s your bear. I never make any mistakes when I see game hit.”

“But I see him coming!”

“Where?... By Golly! that’s another bear. He’s black. Yours is red.... Look sharp. Next time he shows smoke him!”

I saw a flash of black across an open space — I heard a scattering of gravel. But I had no chance to shoot. Then both of us heard a bear running in thick leaves.

“He’s gone down the canyon,” said Copple. “Now look for your bear.”

“Listen Ben. The hounds are coming fast. There’s Rock. — There’s Sue.”

“I see them. Old Dan — what do you think of that old dog?... There! — your red bear’s still comin’ ... He’s bad hurt.”

Though Copple tried hard to show me where, and I strained my eyes, I could not see the bear. I could not locate the threshing of brush. I knew it seemed close enough for me to be glad I was not down in that thicket. How the hounds made the welkin ring! Rock was in the lead. Sue was next. And Old Dan must have found the speed of his best days. Strange he did not bay all down that slope! When Rock and Sue headed the bear then I saw him. He sat up on his haunches ready to fight, but they did not attack him. Instead they began to yelp wildly. I dared not shoot again for fear of hitting one of them. Old Dan just beat the rest of the pack to the bear. Up pealed a yelping chorus. I had never heard Old Dan bay a bear at close range. With deep, hoarse, quick, wild roars he dominated that medley. A box canyon took up the bays, cracking them back in echo from wall to wall.

From the saddle of the great ridge above pealed down R.C.’s: “Waahoo!”

I saw him silhouetted dark against the sky line. He waved and I answered. Then he disappeared.

Nielsen bellowed from the craggy cape above and behind us. From down the canyon Edd sent up his piercing: “Ki Yi!” Then Takahashi appeared opposite to us, like a goat on a promontory. How his: “Banzai!” rang above the baying of the hounds!

“We’d better hurry down an’ across,” said Copple. “Reckon the hounds will jump that bear or some one else will get there first. We got to skedaddle!”

As before we fell into a manzanita thicket and had to crawl. Then we came out upon the rim of a box canyon where the echoes made such a din. It was too steep to descend. We had to head it, and Copple took chances. Loose boulders tripped me and stout bushes saved me. We knocked streams of rock and gravel down into this gorge, sending up a roar as of falling water. But we got around. A steep slope lay below, all pine needles and leaves. From this point I saw Edd on the opposite slope.

“I stopped one bear,” I yelled. “Hurry. Look out for the dogs!”

Then, imitating Copple, I sat down and slid as on a toboggan for some thirty thrilling yards. Some of my anatomy and more of my rags I left behind me. But it was too exciting then to think of hurts. I managed to protect at least my rifle. Copple was charging into the thicket below. I followed him into the dark gorge, where huge boulders lay, and a swift brook ran, and leaves two feet deep carpeted the shady canyon bed. It was gloomy down into the lower part. I saw where bear had turned over the leaves making a dark track.

“The hounds have quit,” called Copple suddenly. “I told you he was your bear.”

We yelled. Somebody above us answered. Then we climbed up the opposite slope, through a dense thicket, crossing a fresh bear track, a running track, and soon came into an open rocky slide where my bear lay surrounded by the hounds, with Old Dan on guard. The bear was red in color, with silky fur, a long keen head, and fine limbs, and of goodly size.

“Cinnamon,” declared Copple, and turning him over he pointed to a white spot on his breast. “Fine bear. About four hundred pounds. Maybe not so heavy. But he’ll take some packin’ up to the rim!”

Then I became aware of the other men. Takahashi had arrived on the scene first, finding the bear dead. Edd came next, and after him Pyle.

I sat down for a much needed rest. Copple interested himself in examining the bear, finding that my first shot had hit him in the flank, and my second had gone through the middle of his body. Next Copple amused himself by taking pictures of bear and hounds. Old Dan came to me and lay beside me, and looked as if to say: “Well, we got him!”

Yells from both sides of the canyon were answered by Edd. R.C. was rolling the rocks on his side at a great rate. But Nielsen on the other side beat him to us. The Norwegian crashed the brush, sent the avalanches roaring, and eventually reached us, all dirty, ragged, bloody, with fire in his eye. He had come all the way from the rim in short order. What a performance that must have been! He said he thought he might be needed. R.C. guided by Edd’s yells, came cracking the brush down to us. Pale he was and wet with sweat, and there were black brush marks across his face. His eyes were keen and sharp. He had started down for the same reason as Nielsen’s. But he had to descend a slope so steep that he had to hold on to keep from sliding down. And he had jumped a big bear out of a bed of leaves. The bed was still warm. R.C. said he had smelled bear, and that his toboggan slide down that slope, with bears all around for all he knew, had started the cold sweat on him.

Presently George Haught joined us, having come down the bed of the canyon.

“We knew you’d got a bear,” said George. “Father heard the first two bullets hit meat. An’ I heard him rollin’ down the slope.”

“Well!” exclaimed R.C. “That’s what made those first two shots sound so strange to me. Different from the last two. Sounded like soft dead pats! And it was lead hitting flesh. I heard it half a mile away!”

This matter of the sound of bullets hitting flesh and being heard at a great distance seemed to me the most remarkable feature of our hunt. Later I asked Haught. He said he heard my first two bullets strike and believed from the peculiar sound that I had my bear. And his stand was fully a mile away. But the morning was unusually still and sound carried far.

The men hung my bear from the forks of a maple. Then they decided to give us time to climb up to our stands before putting the hounds on the other fresh trail.

Nielsen, R.C., and I started to climb back up to the points. Only plenty of time made it possible to scale those rugged bluffs. Nielsen distanced us, and eventually we became separated. The sun grew warm. The bees hummed. After a while we heard the baying of the hounds. They were working westward under the bases of the bluffs. We rimmed the heads of several gorges, climbed and crossed the west ridge of Dude Canyon, and lost the hounds somewhere as we traveled.

R.C. did not seem to mind this misfortune any more than I. We were content. Resting a while we chose the most accessible ridge and started the long climb to the rim. Westward under us opened a great noble canyon full of forests, thicketed slopes, cliffs and caves and crags. Next time we rested we again heard the hounds, far away at first, but gradually drawing closer. In half an hour they appeared right under us again. Their baying, however, grew desultory, and lacked the stirring note. Finally we heard Edd calling and whistling to them. After that for a while all was still. Then pealed up the clear tuneful melody of Edd’s horn, calling off the chase for that day and season.

“All over,” said R.C. “Are you glad?”

“For Old Dan’s sake and Tom’s and the bears — yes,” I replied.

“Me, too! But I’d never get enough of this country.”

We proceeded on our ascent over and up the broken masses of rock, climbing slowly and easily, making frequent and long rests. We liked to linger in the sun on the warm piny mossy benches. Every shady cedar or juniper wooed us to tarry a moment. Old bear tracks and fresh deer tracks held the same interest, though our hunt was over. Above us the gray broken mass of rim towered and loomed, more formidable as we neared it. Sometimes we talked a little, but mostly we were silent.

Like an Indian, at every pause, I gazed out into the void. How sweeping and grand the long sloping lines of ridges from the rim down! Away in the east ragged spurs of peaks showed hazily, like uncertain mountains on the desert. South ranged the upheaved and wild Mazatzals. Everywhere beneath me, for leagues and leagues extended the timbered hills of green, the gray outcroppings of rocks, the red bluffs, the golden patches of grassy valleys, lost in the canyons. All these swept away in a vast billowy ocean of wilderness to become dim in the purple of distance. And the sun was setting in a blaze of gold. From the rim I took a last lingering look and did not marvel that I loved this wonderland of Arizona.

CHAPTER V

DEATH VALLEY

OF THE FIVE hundred and fifty-seven thousand square miles of desert-land in the southwest Death Valley is the lowest below sea level, the most arid and desolate. It derives its felicitous name from the earliest days of the gold strike in California, when a caravan of Mormons, numbering about seventy, struck out from Salt Lake, to cross the Mojave Desert and make a short cut to the gold fields. All but two of these prospectors perished in the deep, iron-walled, ghastly sink-holes, which from that time became known as Death Valley.

The survivors of this fatal expedition brought news to the world that the sombre valley of death was a treasure mine of minerals; and since then hundreds of prospectors and wanderers have lost their lives there. To seek gold and to live in the lonely waste places of the earth have been and ever will be driving passions of men.

My companion on this trip was a Norwegian named Nielsen. On most of my trips to lonely and wild places I have been fortunate as to comrades or guides. The circumstances of my meeting Nielsen were so singular that I think they will serve as an interesting introduction. Some years ago I received a letter, brief, clear and well-written, in which the writer stated that he had been a wanderer over the world, a sailor before the mast, and was now a prospector for gold. He had taken four trips alone down into the desert of Sonora, and in many other places of the southwest, and knew the prospecting game. Somewhere he had run across my story Desert Gold in which I told about a lost gold mine. And the point of his letter was that if I could give him some idea as to where the lost gold mine was located he would go find it and give me half. His name was Sievert Nielsen. I wrote him that to my regret the lost gold mine existed only in my imagination, but if he would come to Avalon to see me perhaps we might both profit by such a meeting. To my surprise he came. He was a man of about thirty-five, of magnificent physique, weighing about one hundred and ninety, and he was so enormously broad across the shoulders that he did not look his five feet ten. He had a wonderful head, huge, round, solid, like a cannon-ball. And his bronzed face, his regular features, square firm jaw, and clear gray eyes, fearless and direct, were singularly attractive to me. Well educated, with a strange calm poise, and a cool courtesy, not common in Americans, he evidently was a man of good family, by his own choice a rolling stone and adventurer.

Nielsen accompanied me on two trips into the wilderness of Arizona, on one of which he saved my life, and on the other he rescued all our party from a most uncomfortable and possibly hazardous situation — but these are tales I may tell elsewhere. In January 1919 Nielsen and I traveled around the desert of southern California from Palm Springs to Picacho, and in March we went to Death Valley.

Nowadays a little railroad, the Tonapah and Tidewater Railroad, runs northward from the Santa Fe over the barren Mojave, and it passes within fifty miles of Death Valley.

It was sunset when we arrived at Death Valley Junction — a weird, strange sunset in drooping curtains of transparent cloud, lighting up dark mountain ranges, some peaks of which were clear-cut and black against the sky, and others veiled in trailing storms, and still others white with snow. That night in the dingy little store I heard prospectors talk about float, which meant gold on the surface, and about high grade ores, zinc, copper, silver, lead, manganese, and about how borax was mined thirty years ago, and hauled out of Death Valley by teams of twenty mules. Next morning, while Nielsen packed the outfit, I visited the borax mill. It was the property of an English firm, and the work of hauling, grinding, roasting borax ore went on day and night. Inside it was as dusty and full of a powdery atmosphere as an old-fashioned flour mill. The ore was hauled by train from some twenty miles over toward the valley, and was dumped from a high trestle into shutes that fed the grinders. For an hour I watched this constant stream of borax as it slid down into the hungry crushers, and I listened to the chalk-faced operator who yelled in my ear. Once he picked a piece of gypsum out of the borax. He said the mill was getting out twenty-five hundred sacks a day. The most significant thing he said was that men did not last long at such labor, and in the mines six months appeared to be the limit of human endurance. How soon I had enough of that choking air in the room where the borax was ground! And the place where the borax was roasted in huge round revolving furnaces — I found that intolerable. When I got out into the cool clean desert air I felt an immeasurable relief. And that relief made me thoughtful of the lives of men who labored, who were chained by necessity, by duty or habit, or by love, to the hard tasks of the world. It did not seem fair. These laborers of the borax mines and mills, like the stokers of ships, and coal-diggers, and blast-furnace hands — like thousands and millions of men, killed themselves outright or impaired their strength, and when they were gone or rendered useless others were found to take their places. Whenever I come in contact with some phase of this problem of life I take the meaning or the lesson of it to myself. And as the years go by my respect and reverence and wonder increase for these men of elemental lives, these horny-handed toilers with physical things, these uncomplaining users of brawn and bone, these giants who breast the elements, who till the earth and handle iron, who fight the natural forces with their bodies.

That day about noon I looked back down the long gravel and greasewood slope which we had ascended and I saw the borax-mill now only a smoky blot on the desert floor. When we reached the pass between the Black Mountains and the Funeral Mountains we left the road, and were soon lost to the works of man. How strange a gladness, a relief! Something dropped away from me. I felt the same subtle change in Nielsen. For one thing he stopped talking, except an occasional word to the mules.

The blunt end of the Funeral Range was as remarkable as its name. It sheered up very high, a saw-toothed range with colored strata tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. Zigzag veins of black and red and yellow, rather dull, ran through the great drab-gray mass. This end of the range, an iron mountain, frowned down upon us with hard and formidable aspect. The peak was draped in streaky veils of rain from low-dropping clouds that appeared to have lodged there. All below lay clear and cold in the sunlight.

Our direction lay to the westward, and at that altitude, about three thousand feet, how pleasant to face the sun! For the wind was cold. The narrow shallow wash leading down from the pass deepened, widened, almost imperceptibly at first, and then gradually until its proportions were striking. It was a gully where the gravel washed down during rains, and where a scant vegetation, greasewood, and few low cacti and scrubby sage struggled for existence. Not a bird or lizard or living creature in sight! The trail was getting lonely. From time to time I looked back, because as we could not see far ahead all the superb scene spread and towered behind us. By and bye our wash grew to be a wide canyon, winding away from under the massive, impondering wall of the Funeral Range. The high side of this magnificent and impressive line of mountains faced west — a succession of unscalable slopes of bare ragged rock, jagged and jutted, dark drab, rusty iron, with gray and oblique strata running through them far as eye could see. Clouds soared around the peaks. Shadows sailed along the slopes.

Walking in loose gravel was as hard as trudging along in sand. After about fifteen miles I began to have leaden feet. I did not mind hard work, but I wanted to avoid over-exertion. When I am extremely wearied my feelings are liable to be colored somewhat by depression or melancholy. Then it always bothered me to get tired while Nielsen kept on with his wonderful stride.

“Say, Nielsen, do you take me for a Yaqui?” I complained. “Slow up a little.”

Then he obliged me, and to cheer me up he told me about a little tramping experience he had in Baja California. Somewhere on the east slope of the Sierra Madre his burros strayed or were killed by mountain-lions, and he found it imperative to strike at once for the nearest ranch below the border, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. He could carry only so much of his outfit, and as some of it was valuable to him he discarded all his food except a few biscuits, and a canteen of water. Resting only a few hours, without sleep at all, he walked the hundred and fifty miles in three days and nights. I believed that Nielsen, by telling me such incidents of his own wild experience, inspired me to more endurance than I knew I possessed.

As we traveled on down the canyon its dimensions continued to grow. It finally turned to the left, and opened out wide into a valley running west. A low range of hills faced us, rising in a long sweeping slant of earth, like the incline of a glacier, to rounded spurs. Half way up this slope, where the brown earth lightened there showed an outcropping of clay-amber and cream and cinnamon and green, all exquisitely vivid and clear. This bright spot appeared to be isolated. Far above it rose other clay slopes of variegated hues, red and russet and mauve and gray, and colors indescribably merged, all running in veins through this range of hills. We faced the west again, and descending this valley were soon greeted by a region of clay hills, bare, cone-shaped, fantastic in shade, slope, and ridge, with a high sharp peak dominating all. The colors were mauve, taupe, pearl-gray, all stained by a descending band of crimson, as if a higher slope had been stabbed to let its life blood flow down. The softness, the richness and beauty of this texture of earth amazed and delighted my eyes.

Quite unprepared, at time approaching sunset, we reached and rounded a sharp curve, to see down and far away, and to be held mute in our tracks. Between a white-mantled mountain range on the left and the dark-striped lofty range on the right I could see far down into a gulf, a hazy void, a vast stark valley that seemed streaked and ridged and canyoned, an abyss into which veils of rain were dropping and over which broken clouds hung, pierced by red and gold rays.

Death Valley! Far down and far away still, yet confounding at first sight! I gazed spellbound. It oppressed my heart. Nielsen stood like a statue, silent, absorbed for a moment, then he strode on. I followed, and every second saw more and different aspects, that could not, however, change the first stunning impression. Immense, unreal, weird! I went on down the widening canyon, looking into that changing void. How full of color! It smoked. The traceries of streams or shining white washes brightened the floor of the long dark pit. Patches and plains of white, borax flats or alkali, showed up like snow. A red haze, sinister and sombre, hung over the eastern ramparts of this valley, and over the western drooped gray veils of rain, like thinnest lacy clouds, through which gleams of the sun shone.

Nielsen plodded on, mindful of our mules. But I lingered, and at last checked my reluctant steps at an open high point with commanding and magnificent view. As I did not attempt the impossible — to write down thoughts and sensations — afterward I could remember only a few. How desolate and grand! The far-away, lonely and terrible places of the earth were the most beautiful and elevating. Life’s little day seemed so easy to understand, so pitiful. As the sun began to set and the storm-clouds moved across it this wondrous scene darkened, changed every moment, brightened, grew full of luminous red light and then streaked by golden gleams. The tips of the Panamint Mountains came out silver above the purple clouds. At sunset the moment was glorious — dark, forbidding, dim, weird, dismal, yet still tinged with gold. Not like any other scene! Dante’s Inferno! Valley of Shadows! Canyon of Purple Veils!

When the sun had set and all that upheaved and furrowed world of rock had received a mantle of gray, and a slumberous sulphurous ruddy haze slowly darkened to purple and black, then I realized more fully that I was looking down into Death Valley.

Twilight was stealing down when I caught up with Nielsen. He had selected for our camp a protected nook near where the canyon floor bore some patches of sage, the stalks and roots of which would serve for firewood. We unpacked, fed the mules some grain, pitched our little tent and made our bed all in short order. But it was dark long before we had supper. During the meal we talked a little, but afterward, when the chores were done, and the mules had become quiet, and the strange thick silence had settled down upon us, we did not talk at all.

The night was black, with sky mostly obscured by clouds. A pale haze marked the west where the after glow had faded; in the south one radiant star crowned a mountain peak. I strolled away in the darkness and sat down upon a stone. How intense the silence! Dead, vast, sepulchre-like, dreaming, waiting, a silence of ages, burdened with the history of the past, awful! I strained my ears for sound of insect or rustle of sage or drop of weathered rock. The soft cool desert wind was soundless. This silence had something terrifying in it, making me a man alone on the earth. The great spaces, the wild places as they had been millions of years before! I seemed to divine how through them man might develop from savage to a god, and how alas! he might go back again.

When I returned to camp Nielsen had gone to bed and the fire had burned low. I threw on some branches of sage. The fire blazed up. But it seemed different from other camp-fires. No cheer, no glow, no sparkle! Perhaps it was owing to scant and poor wood. Still I thought it was owing as much to the place. The sadness, the loneliness, the desolateness of this place weighed upon the camp-fire the same as it did upon my heart.

We got up at five-thirty. At dawn the sky was a cold leaden gray, with a dull gold and rose in the east. A hard wind, eager and nipping, blew up the canyon. At six o’clock the sky brightened somewhat and the day did not promise so threatening.

An hour later we broke camp. Traveling in the early morning was pleasant and we made good time down the winding canyon, arriving at Furnace Creek about noon, where we halted to rest. This stream of warm water flowed down from a gully that headed up in the Funeral Mountains. It had a disagreeable taste, somewhat acrid and soapy. A green thicket of brush was indeed welcome to the eye. It consisted of a rank coarse kind of grass, and arrowweed, mesquite, and tamarack. The last named bore a pink fuzzy blossom, not unlike pussy-willow, which was quite fragrant. Here the deadness of the region seemed further enlivened by several small birds, speckled and gray, two ravens, and a hawk. They all appeared to be hunting food. On a ridge above Furnace Creek we came upon a spring of poison water. It was clear, sparkling, with a greenish cast, and it deposited a white crust on the margins. Nielsen, kicking around in the sand, unearthed a skull, bleached and yellow, yet evidently not so very old. Some thirsty wanderer had taken his last drink at that deceiving spring. The gruesome and the beautiful, the tragic and the sublime, go hand in hand down the naked shingle of this desolate desert.

While tramping around in the neighborhood of Furnace Creek I happened upon an old almost obliterated trail. It led toward the ridges of clay, and when I had climbed it a little ways I began to get an impression that the slopes on the other side must run down into a basin or canyon. So I climbed to the top.

The magnificent scenes of desert and mountain, like the splendid things of life, must be climbed for. In this instance I was suddenly and stunningly confronted by a yellow gulf of cone-shaped and fan-shaped ridges, all bare crinkly clay, of gold, of amber, of pink, of bronze, of cream, all tapering down to round-knobbed lower ridges, bleak and barren, yet wonderfully beautiful in their stark purity of denudation; until at last far down between two widely separated hills shone, dim and blue and ghastly, with shining white streaks like silver streams — the Valley of Death. Then beyond it climbed the league-long red slope, merging into the iron-buttressed base of the Panamint Range, and here line on line, and bulge on bulge rose the bold benches, and on up the unscalable outcroppings of rock, like colossal ribs of the earth, on and up the steep slopes to where their density of blue black color began to thin out with streaks of white, and thence upward to the last noble height, where the cold pure snow gleamed against the sky.

I descended into this yellow maze, this world of gullies and ridges where I found it difficult to keep from getting lost. I did lose my bearings, but as my boots made deep imprints in the soft clay I knew it would be easy to back-track my trail. After a while this labyrinthine series of channels and dunes opened into a wide space enclosed on three sides by denuded slopes, mostly yellow. These slopes were smooth, graceful, symmetrical, with tiny tracery of erosion, and each appeared to retain its own color, yellow or cinnamon or mauve. But they were always dominated by a higher one of a different color. And this mystic region sloped and slanted to a great amphitheater that was walled on the opposite side by a mountain of bare earth, of every hue, and of a thousand ribbed and scalloped surfaces. At its base the golds and russets and yellows were strongest, but ascending its slopes were changing colors — a dark beautiful mouse color on one side and a strange pearly cream on the other. Between these great corners of the curve climbed ridges of gray and heliotrope and amber, to meet wonderful veins of green — green as the sea in sunlight — and tracery of white — and on the bold face of this amphitheater, high up, stood out a zigzag belt of dull red, the stain of which had run down to tinge the other hues. Above all this wondrous coloration upheaved the bare breast of the mountain, growing darker with earthy browns, up to the gray old rock ramparts.

This place affected me so strangely, so irresistibly that I remained there a long time. Something terrible had happened there to men. I felt that. Something tragic was going on right then — the wearing down, the devastation of the old earth. How plainly that could be seen! Geologically it was more remarkable to me than the Grand Canyon. But it was the appalling meaning, the absolutely indescribable beauty that overcame me. I thought of those who had been inspiration to me in my work, and I suffered a pang that they could not be there to see and feel with me.

On my way out of this amphitheater a hard wind swooped down over the slopes, tearing up the colored dust in sheets and clouds. It seemed to me each gully had its mystic pall of color. I lost no time climbing out. What a hot choking ordeal! But I never would have missed it even had I known I would get lost. Looking down again the scene was vastly changed. A smoky weird murky hell with the dull sun gleaming magenta-hued through the shifting pall of dust!

In the afternoon we proceeded leisurely, through an atmosphere growing warmer and denser, down to the valley, reaching it at dusk. We followed the course of Furnace Creek and made camp under some cottonwood trees, on the west slope of the valley.

The wind blew a warm gale all night. I lay awake a while and slept with very little covering. Toward dawn the gale died away. I was up at five-thirty. The morning broke fine, clear, balmy. A flare of pale gleaming light over the Funeral Range heralded the sunrise. The tips of the higher snow-capped Panamints were rose colored, and below them the slopes were red. The bulk of the range showed dark. All these features gradually brightened until the sun came up. How blazing and intense! The wind began to blow again. Under the cottonwoods with their rustling leaves, and green so soothing to the eye, it was very pleasant.

Beyond our camp stood green and pink thickets of tamarack, and some dark velvety green alfalfa fields, made possible by the spreading of Furnace Creek over the valley slope. A man lived there, and raised this alfalfa for the mules of the borax miners. He lived there alone and his was indeed a lonely, wonderful, and terrible life. At this season a few Shoshone Indians were camped near, helping him in his labors. This lone rancher’s name was Denton, and he turned out to be a brother of a Denton, hunter and guide, whom I had met in Lower California.

Like all desert men, used to silence, Denton talked with difficulty, but the content of his speech made up for its brevity. He told us about the wanderers and prospectors he had rescued from death by starvation and thirst; he told us about the terrific noonday heat of summer; and about the incredible and horrible midnight furnace gales that swept down the valley. With the mercury at one hundred and twenty-five degrees at midnight, below the level of the sea, when these furnace blasts bore down upon him, it was just all he could do to live. No man could spend many summers there. As for white women — Death Valley was fatal to them. The Indians spent the summers up on the mountains. Denton said heat affected men differently. Those who were meat eaters or alcohol drinkers, could not survive. Perfect heart and lungs were necessary to stand the heat and density of atmosphere below sea level. He told of a man who had visited his cabin, and had left early in the day, vigorous and strong. A few hours later he was found near the oasis unable to walk, crawling on his hands and knees, dragging a full canteen of water. He never knew what ailed him. It might have been heat, for the thermometer registered one hundred and thirty-five, and it might have been poison gas. Another man, young, of heavy and powerful build, lost seventy pounds weight in less than two days, and was nearly dead when found. The heat of Death Valley quickly dried up blood, tissue, bone. Denton told of a prospector who started out at dawn strong and rational, to return at sunset so crazy that he had to be tied to keep him out of the water. To have drunk his fill then would have killed him! He had to be fed water by spoonful. Another wanderer came staggering into the oasis, blind, with horrible face, and black swollen tongue protruding. He could not make a sound. He also had to be roped, as if he were a mad steer.

I met only one prospector during my stay in Death Valley. He camped with us. A rather undersized man he was, yet muscular, with brown wrinkled face and narrow dim eyes. He seemed to be smiling to himself most of the time. He liked to talk to his burros. He was exceedingly interesting. Once he nearly died of thirst, having gone from noon one day till next morning without water. He said he fell down often during this ordeal, but did not lose his senses. Finally the burros saved his life. This old fellow had been across Death Valley every month in the year. July was the worst. In that month crossing should not be attempted during the middle of the day.

I made the acquaintance of the Shoshone Indians, or rather through Nielsen I met them. Nielsen had a kindly, friendly way with Indians. There were half a dozen families, living in squalid tents. The braves worked in the fields for Denton and the squaws kept to the shade with their numerous children. They appeared to be poor. Certainly they were a ragged unpicturesque group. Nielsen and I visited them, taking an armload of canned fruit, and boxes of sweet crackers, which they received with evident joy. Through this overture I got a peep into one of the tents. The simplicity and frugality of the desert Piute or Navajo were here wanting. These children of the open wore white men’s apparel and ate white men’s food; and they even had a cook stove and a sewing machine in their tent. With all that they were trying to live like Indians. For me the spectacle was melancholy. Another manifestation added to my long list of degeneration of the Indians by the whites! The tent was a buzzing beehive of flies. I never before saw so many. In a corner I saw a naked Indian baby asleep on a goat skin, all his brown warm-tinted skin spotted black with flies.

Later in the day one of the Indian men called upon us at our camp. I was surprised to hear him use good English. He said he had been educated in a government school in California. From him I learned considerable about Death Valley. As he was about to depart, on the way to his labor in the fields, he put his hand in his ragged pocket and drew forth an old beaded hat band, and with calm dignity, worthy of any gift, he made me a present of it. Then he went on his way. The incident touched me. I had been kind. The Indian was not to be outdone. How that reminded me of the many instances of pride in Indians! Who yet has ever told the story of the Indian — the truth, the spirit, the soul of his tragedy?

Nielsen and I climbed high up the west slope to the top of a gravel ridge swept clean and packed hard by the winds. Here I sat down while my companion tramped curiously around. At my feet I found a tiny flower, so tiny as to almost defy detection. The color resembled sage-gray and it had the fragrance of sage. Hard to find and wonderful to see — was its tiny blossom! The small leaves were perfectly formed, very soft, veined and scalloped, with a fine fuzz and a glistening sparkle. That desert flower of a day, in its isolation and fragility, yet its unquenchable spirit to live, was as great to me as the tremendous reddening bulk of the Funeral Mountains looming so sinisterly over me.

Then I saw some large bats with white heads flitting around in zigzag flights — assuredly new and strange creatures to me.

I had come up there to this high ridge to take advantage of the bleak lonely spot commanding a view of valley and mountains. Before I could compose myself to watch the valley I made the discovery that near me were six low gravelly mounds. Graves! One had two stones at head and foot. Another had no mark at all. The one nearest me had for the head a flat piece of board, with lettering so effaced by weather that I could not decipher the inscription. The bones of a horse lay littered about between the graves. What a lonely place for graves! Death Valley seemed to be one vast sepulchre. What had been the lives and deaths of these people buried here? Lonely, melancholy, nameless graves upon the windy desert slope!

By this time the long shadows had begun to fall. Sunset over Death Valley! A golden flare burned over the Panamints — long tapering notched mountains with all their rugged conformation showing. Above floated gold and gray and silver-edged clouds — below shone a whorl of dusky, ruddy bronze haze, gradually thickening. Dim veils of heat still rose from the pale desert valley. As I watched all before me seemed to change and be shrouded in purple. How bold and desolate a scene! What vast scale and tremendous dimension! The clouds paled, turned rosy for a moment with the afterglow, then deepened into purple gloom. A sombre smoky sunset, as if this Death Valley was the gateway of hell, and its sinister shades were upflung from fire.

The desert day was done and now the desert twilight descended. Twilight of hazy purple fell over the valley of shadows. The black bold lines of mountains ran across the sky and down into the valley and up on the other side. A buzzard sailed low in the foreground — fitting emblem of life in all that wilderness of suggested death. This fleeting hour was tranquil and sad. What little had it to do with the destiny of man! Death Valley was only a ragged rent of the old earth, from which men in their folly and passion, had sought to dig forth golden treasure. The air held a solemn stillness. Peace! How it rested my troubled soul! I felt that I was myself here, far different from my habitual self. Why had I longed to see Death Valley? What did I want of the desert that was naked, red, sinister, sombre, forbidding, ghastly, stark, dim and dark and dismal, the abode of silence and loneliness, the proof of death, decay, devastation and destruction, the majestic sublimity of desolation? The answer was that I sought the awful, the appalling and terrible because they harked me back to a primitive day where my blood and bones were bequeathed their heritage of the elements. That was the secret of the eternal fascination the desert exerted upon all men. It carried them back. It inhibited thought. It brought up the age-old sensations, so that I could feel, though I did not know it then, once again the all-satisfying state of the savage in nature.

When I returned to camp night had fallen. The evening star stood high in the pale sky, all alone and difficult to see, yet the more beautiful for that. The night appeared to be warmer or perhaps it was because no wind blew. Nielsen got supper, and ate most of it, for I was not hungry. As I sat by the camp-fire a flock of little bats, the smallest I had ever seen, darted from the wood-pile nearby and flew right in my face. They had no fear of man or fire. Their wings made a soft swishing sound. Later I heard the trill of frogs, which was the last sound I might have expected to hear in Death Valley. A sweet high-pitched melodious trill it reminded me of the music made by frogs in the Tamaulipas Jungle of Mexico. Every time I awakened that night, and it was often, I heard this trill. Once, too, sometime late, my listening ear caught faint mournful notes of a killdeer. How strange, and still sweeter than the trill! What a touch to the infinite silence and loneliness! A killdeer — bird of the swamps and marshes — what could he be doing in arid and barren Death Valley? Nature is mysterious and inscrutable.

Next morning the marvel of nature was exemplified even more strikingly. Out on the hard gravel-strewn slope I found some more tiny flowers of a day. One was a white daisy, very frail and delicate on long thin stem with scarcely any leaves. Another was a yellow flower, with four petals, a pale miniature California poppy. Still another was a purple-red flower, almost as large as a buttercup, with dark green leaves. Last and tiniest of all were infinitely fragile pink and white blossoms, on very flat plants, smiling wanly up from the desolate earth.

Nielsen and I made known to Denton our purpose to walk across the valley. He advised against it. Not that the heat was intense at this season, he explained, but there were other dangers, particularly the brittle salty crust of the sink-hole. Nevertheless we were not deterred from our purpose.

So with plenty of water in canteens and a few biscuits in our pockets we set out. I saw the heat veils rising from the valley floor, at that point one hundred and seventy-eight feet below sea level. The heat lifted in veils, like thin smoke. Denton had told us that in summer the heat came in currents, in waves. It blasted leaves, burned trees to death as well as men. Prospectors watched for the leaden haze that thickened over the mountains, knowing then no man could dare the terrible sun. That day would be a hazed and glaring hell, leaden, copper, with sun blazing a sky of molten iron.

A long sandy slope of mesquite extended down to the bare crinkly floor of the valley, and here the descent to a lower level was scarcely perceptible. The walking was bad. Little mounds in the salty crust made it hard to place a foot on the level. This crust appeared fairly strong. But when it rang hollow under our boots, then I stepped very cautiously. The color was a dirty gray and yellow. Far ahead I could see a dazzling white plain that looked like frost or a frozen river. The atmosphere was deceptive, making this plain seem far away and then close at hand.

The excessively difficult walking and the thickness of the air tired me, so I plumped myself down to rest, and used my note-book as a means to conceal from the tireless Nielsen that I was fatigued. Always I found this a very efficient excuse, and for that matter it was profitable for me. I have forgotten more than I have ever written.

Rather overpowering, indeed, was it to sit on the floor of Death Valley, miles from the slopes that appeared so far away. It was flat, salty, alkali or borax ground, crusted and cracked. The glare hurt my eyes. I felt moist, hot, oppressed, in spite of a rather stiff wind. A dry odor pervaded the air, slightly like salty dust. Thin dust devils whirled on the bare flats. A valley-wide mirage shone clear as a mirror along the desert floor to the west, strange, deceiving, a thing both unreal and beautiful. The Panamints towered a wrinkled red grisly mass, broken by rough canyons, with long declines of talus like brown glaciers. Seamed and scarred! Indestructible by past ages, yet surely wearing to ruin! From this point I could not see the snow on the peaks. The whole mountain range seemed an immense red barrier of beetling rock. The Funeral Range was farther away and therefore more impressive. Its effect was stupendous. Leagues of brown chocolate slopes, scarred by slashes of yellow and cream, and shadowed black by sailing clouds, led up to the magnificently peaked and jutted summits.

Splendid as this was and reluctant as I felt to leave I soon joined Nielsen, and we proceeded onward. At last we reached the white winding plain, that had resembled a frozen river, and which from afar had looked so ghastly and stark. We found it to be a perfectly smooth stratum of salt glistening as if powdered. It was not solid, not stable. At pressure of a boot it shook like jelly. Under the white crust lay a yellow substance that was wet. Here appeared an obstacle we had not calculated upon. Nielsen ventured out on it and his feet sank in several inches. I did not like the wave of the crust. It resembled thin ice under a weight. Presently I ventured to take a few steps, and did not sink in so deeply or make such depression in the crust as Nielsen. We returned to the solid edge and deliberated. Nielsen said that by stepping quickly we could cross without any great risk, though it appeared reasonable that by standing still a person would sink into the substance.

“Well, Nielsen, you go ahead,” I said, with an attempt at lightness. “You weigh one hundred and ninety. If you go through I’ll turn back!”

Nielsen started with a laugh. The man courted peril. The bright face of danger must have been beautiful and alluring to him. I started after him — caught up with him — and stayed beside him. I could not have walked behind him over that strip of treacherous sink-hole. If I could have done so the whole adventure would have been meaningless to me. Nevertheless I was frightened. I felt the prickle of my skin, the stiffening of my hair, as well as the cold tingling thrills along my veins.

This place was the lowest point of the valley, in that particular location, and must have been upwards of two hundred feet below sea level. The lowest spot, called the Sink Hole, lay some miles distant, and was the terminus of this river of salty white.

We crossed it in safety. On the other side extended a long flat of upheaved crusts of salt and mud, full of holes and pitfalls, an exceedingly toilsome and painful place to travel, and for all we could tell, dangerous too. I had all I could do to watch my feet and find surfaces to hold my steps. Eventually we crossed this broken field, reaching the edge of the gravel slope, where we were very glad indeed to rest.

Denton had informed us that the distance was seven miles across the valley at the mouth of Furnace Creek. I had thought it seemed much less than that. But after I had toiled across it I was convinced that it was much more. It had taken us hours. How the time had sped! For this reason we did not tarry long on that side.

Facing the sun we found the return trip more formidable. Hot indeed it was — hot enough for me to imagine how terrible Death Valley would be in July or August. On all sides the mountains stood up dim and obscure and distant in haze. The heat veils lifted in ripples, and any object not near at hand seemed illusive. Nielsen set a pace for me on this return trip. I was quicker and surer of foot than he, but he had more endurance. I lost strength while he kept his unimpaired. So often he had to wait for me. Once when I broke through the crust he happened to be close at hand and quickly hauled me out. I got one foot wet with some acid fluid. We peered down into the murky hole. Nielsen quoted a prospector’s saying: “Forty feet from hell!” That broken sharp crust of salt afforded the meanest traveling I had ever experienced. Slopes of weathered rock that slip and slide are bad; cacti, and especially choya cacti, are worse: the jagged and corrugated surfaces of lava are still more hazardous and painful. But this cracked floor of Death Valley, with its salt crusts standing on end, like pickets of a fence, beat any place for hard going that either Nielsen or I ever had encountered. I ruined my boots, skinned my shins, cut my hands. How those salt cuts stung! We crossed the upheaved plain, then the strip of white, and reached the crinkly floor of yellow salt. The last hour taxed my endurance almost to the limit. When we reached the edge of the sand and the beginning of the slope I was hotter and thirstier than I had ever been in my life. It pleased me to see Nielsen wringing wet and panting. He drank a quart of water apparently in one gulp. And it was significant that I took the longest and deepest drink of water that I had ever had.

We reached camp at the end of this still hot summer day. Never had a camp seemed so welcome! What a wonderful thing it was to earn and appreciate and realize rest! The cottonwood leaves were rustling; bees were humming in the tamarack blossoms. I lay in the shade, resting my burning feet and achiag bones, and I watched Nielsen as he whistled over the camp chores. Then I heard the sweet song of a meadow lark, and after that the melodious deep note of a swamp blackbird. These birds evidently were traveling north and had tarried at the oasis.

Lying there I realized that I had come to love the silence, the loneliness, the serenity, even the tragedy of this valley of shadows. Death Valley was one place that could never be popular with men. It had been set apart for the hardy diggers for earthen treasure, and for the wanderers of the wastelands — men who go forth to seek and to find and to face their souls. Perhaps most of them found death. But there was a death in life. Desert travelers learned the secret that men lived too much in the world — that in silence and loneliness and desolation there was something infinite, something hidden from the crowd.

THE END

Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER I

THE GRAND CANYON of Arizona is over two hundred miles long, thirteen wide, and a mile and a half deep; a titanic gorge in which mountains, tablelands, chasms and cliffs lie half veiled in purple haze. It is wild and sublime, a thing of wonder, of mystery; beyond all else a place to grip the heart of a man, to unleash his daring spirit.

On April 20th, 1908, after days on the hot desert, my weary party and pack train reached the summit of Powell’s Plateau, the most isolated, inaccessible and remarkable mesa of any size in all the canyon country. Cut off from the mainland it appeared insurmountable; standing aloof from the towers and escarpments, rugged and bold in outline, its forest covering like a strip of black velvet, its giant granite walls gold in the sun, it seemed apart from the world, haunting with its beauty, isolation and wild promise.

The members of my party harmoniously fitted the scene. Buffalo Jones, burly-shouldered, bronze-faced, and grim, proved in his appearance what a lifetime on the plains could make of a man. Emett was a Mormon, a massively built grey-bearded son of the desert; he had lived his life on it; he had conquered it and in his falcon eyes shone all its fire and freedom. Ranger Jim Owens had the wiry, supple body and careless, tidy garb of the cowboy, and the watchful gaze, quiet face and locked lips of the frontiersman. The fourth member was a Navajo Indian, a copper-skinned, raven-haired, beady-eyed desert savage.

I had told Emett to hire some one who could put the horses on grass in the evening and then find them the next morning. In northern Arizona this required more than genius. Emett secured the best trailer of the desert Navajos. Jones hated an Indian; and Jim, who carried an ounce of lead somewhere in his person, associated this painful addition to his weight with an unfriendly Apache, and swore all Indians should be dead. So between the two, Emett and I had trouble in keeping our Navajo from illustrating the plainsman idea of a really good Indian — a dead one.

While we were pitching camp among magnificent pine trees, and above a hollow where a heavy bank of snow still lay, a sodden pounding in the turf attracted our attention.

“Hold the horses!” yelled Emett.

As we all made a dive among our snorting and plunging horses the sound seemed to be coming right into camp. In a moment I saw a string of wild horses thundering by. A noble black stallion led them, and as he ran with beautiful stride he curved his fine head backward to look at us, and whistled his wild challenge.

Later a herd of large white-tailed deer trooped up the hollow. The Navajo grew much excited and wanted me to shoot, and when Emett told him we had not come out to kill, he looked dumbfounded. Even the Indian felt it a strange departure from the usual mode of hunting to travel and climb hundreds of miles over hot desert and rock-ribbed canyons, to camp at last in a spot so wild that deer were tame as cattle, and then not kill.

Nothing could have pleased me better, incident to the settling into permanent camp. The wild horses and tame deer added the all-satisfying touch to the background of forest, flowers and mighty pines and sunlit patches of grass, the white tents and red blankets, the sleeping hounds and blazing fire-logs all making a picture like that of a hunter’s dream.

“Come, saddle up,” called the never restful Jones. “Leave the Indian in camp with the hounds, and we’ll get the lay of the land.” All afternoon we spent riding the plateau. What a wonderful place! We were completely bewildered with its physical properties, and surprised at the abundance of wild horses and mustangs, deer, coyotes, foxes, grouse and other birds, and overjoyed to find innumerable lion trails. When we returned to camp I drew a rough map, which Jones laid flat on the ground as he called us around him.

“Now, boys, let’s get our heads together.”

In shape the plateau resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side wings were high and well wooded with heavy pines; the middle wing was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar. Numerous ridges and canyons cut up this central wing. Middle Canyon, the longest and deepest, bisected the plateau, headed near camp, and ran parallel with two smaller ones, which we named Right and Left Canyons. These three were lion runways and hundreds of deer carcasses lined the thickets. North Hollow was the only depression, as well as runway, on the northwest rim. West Point formed the extreme western cape of the plateau. To the left of West Point was a deep cut-in of the rim wall, called the Bay. The three important canyons opened into it. From the Bay, the south rim was regular and impassable all the way round to the narrow Saddle, which connected it to the mainland.

“Now then,” said Jones, when we assured him that we were pretty well informed as to the important features, “you can readily see our advantage. The plateau is about nine or ten miles long, and six wide at its widest. We can’t get lost, at least for long. We know where lions can go over the rim and we’ll head them off, make short cut chases, something new in lion hunting. We are positive the lions can not get over the second wall, except where we came up, at the Saddle. In regard to lion signs, I’m doubtful of the evidence of my own eyes. This is virgin ground. No white man or Indian has ever hunted lions here. We have stumbled on a lion home, the breeding place of hundreds of lions that infest the north rim of the canyon.”

The old plainsman struck a big fist into the palm of his hand, a rare action with him. Jim lifted his broad hat and ran his fingers through his white hair. In Emett’s clear desert-eagle eyes shown a furtive, anxious look, which yet could not overshadow the smouldering fire.

“If only we don’t kill the horses!” he said.

More than anything else that remark from such a man thrilled me with its subtle suggestion. He loved those beautiful horses. What wild rides he saw in his mind’s eye! In cold calculation we perceived the wonderful possibilities never before experienced by hunters, and as the wild spell clutched us my last bar of restraint let down.

During supper we talked incessantly, and afterward around the camp-fire. Twilight fell with the dark shadows sweeping under the silent pines; the night wind rose and began its moan.

“Shore there’s some scent on the wind,” said Jim, lighting his pipe with a red ember. “See how uneasy Don is.”

The hound raised his fine, dark head and repeatedly sniffed the air, then walked to and fro as if on guard for his pack. Moze ground his teeth on a bone and growled at one of the pups. Sounder was sleepy, but he watched Don with suspicious eyes. The other hounds, mature and somber, lay stretched before the fire.

“Tie them up, Jim,” said Jones, “and let’s turn in.”

CHAPTER II

WHEN I AWAKENED next morning the sound of Emett’s axe rang out sharply. Little streaks of light from the camp-fire played between the flaps of the tent. I saw old Moze get up and stretch himself. A jangle of cow-bells from the forest told me we would not have to wait for the horses that morning.

“The Injun’s all right,” Jones remarked to Emett.

“All rustle for breakfast,” called Jim.

We ate in the semi-darkness with the gray shadow ever brightening. Dawn broke as we saddled our horses. The pups were limber, and ran to and fro on their chains, scenting the air; the older hounds stood quietly waiting.

“Come Navvy — come chase cougie,” said Emett.

“Dam! No!” replied the Indian.

“Let him keep camp,” suggested Jim.

“All right; but he’ll eat us out,” Emett declared.

“Climb up you fellows,” said Jones, impatiently. “Have I got everything — rope, chains, collars, wire, nippers? Yes, all right. Hyar, you lazy dogs — out of this!”

We rode abreast down the ridge. The demeanor of the hounds contrasted sharply with what it had been at the start of the hunt the year before. Then they had been eager, uncertain, violent; they did not know what was in the air; now they filed after Don in an orderly trot.

We struck out of the pines at half past five. Floating mist hid the lower end of the plateau. The morning had a cool touch but there was no frost. Crossing Middle Canyon about half way down we jogged on. Cedar trees began to show bright green against the soft gray sage. We were nearing the dark line of the cedar forest when Jim, who led, held up his hand in a warning check. We closed in around him.

“Watch Don,” he said.

The hound stood stiff, head well up, nose working, and the hair on his back bristling. All the other hounds whined and kept close to him.

“Don scents a lion,” whispered Jim. “I’ve never known him to do that unless there was the scent of a lion on the wind.”

“Hunt ’em up Don, old boy,” called Jones.

The pack commenced to work back and forth along the ridge. We neared a hollow when Don barked eagerly. Sounder answered and likewise Jude. Moze’s short angry “bow-wow” showed the old gladiator to be in line.

“Ranger’s gone,” cried Jim. “He was farthest ahead. I’ll bet he’s struck it. We’ll know in a minute, for we’re close.”

The hounds were tearing through the sage, working harder and harder, calling and answering one another, all the time getting down into the hollow.

Don suddenly let out a string of yelps. I saw him, running head up, pass into the cedars like a yellow dart. Sounder howled his deep, full bay, and led the rest of the pack up the slope in angry clamor.

“They’re off!” yelled Jim, and so were we.

In less than a minute we had lost one another. Crashings among the dry cedars, thud of hoofs and yells kept me going in one direction. The fiery burst of the hounds had surprised me. I remembered that Jim had said Emett and his charger might keep the pack in sight, but that none of the rest of us could.

It did not take me long to realize what my mustang was made of. His name was Foxie, which suited him well. He carried me at a fast pace on the trail of some one; and he seemed to know that by keeping in this trail part of the work of breaking through the brush was already done for him. Nevertheless, the sharp dead branches, more numerous in a cedar forest than elsewhere, struck and stung us as we passed. We climbed a ridge, and found the cedars thinning out into open patches. Then we faced a bare slope of sage and I saw Emett below on his big horse.

Foxie bolted down this slope, hurdling the bunches of sage, and showing the speed of which Emett had boasted. The open ground, with its brush, rock and gullies, was easy going for the little mustang. I heard nothing save the wind singing in my ears. Emett’s trail, plain in the yellow ground showed me the way. On entering the cedars again I pulled Foxie in and stopped twice to yell “waa-hoo!” I heard the baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal. Then I attended to the stern business of catching up. For what seemed a long time, I threaded the maze of cedar, galloped the open sage flats, always on Emett’s track.

A signal cry, sharp to the right, turned me. I answered, and with the exchange of signal cries found my way into an open glade where Jones and Jim awaited me.

“Here’s one,” said Jim. “Emett must be with the hounds. Listen.”

With the labored breathing of the horses filling our ears we could hear no other sound. Dismounting, I went aside and turned my ear to the breeze.

“I hear Don,” I cried instantly.

“Which way?” both men asked.

“West.”

“Strange,” said Jones. “The hound wouldn’t split, would he, Jim?”

“Don leave that hot trail? Shore he wouldn’t,” replied Jim. “But his runnin’ do seem queer this morning.”

“The breeze is freshening,” I said. “There! Now listen! Don, and Sounder, too.”

The baying came closer and closer. Our horses threw up long ears. It was hard to sit still and wait. At a quick cry from Jim we saw Don cross the lower end of the flat.

No need to spur our mounts! The lifting of bridles served, and away we raced. Foxie passed the others in short order. Don had long disappeared, but with blended bays, Jude, Moze, and Sounder broke out of the cedars hot on the trail. They, too, were out of sight in a moment.

The crash of breaking brush and thunder of hoofs from where the hounds had come out of the forest, attracted and even frightened me. I saw the green of a low cedar tree shake, and split, to let out a huge, gaunt horse with a big man doubled over his saddle. The onslaught of Emett and his desert charger stirred a fear in me that checked admiration.

“Hounds running wild,” he yelled, and the dark shadows of the cedars claimed him again.

A hundred yards within the forest we came again upon Emett, dismounted, searching the ground. Moze and Sounder were with him, apparently at fault. Suddenly Moze left the little glade and venting his sullen, quick bark, disappeared under the trees. Sounder sat on his haunches and yelped.

“Now what the hell is wrong?” growled Jones tumbling off his saddle.

“Shore something is,” said Jim, also dismounting.

“Here’s a lion track,” interposed Emett.

“Ha! and here’s another,” cried Jones, in great satisfaction. “That’s the trail we were on, and here’s another crossing it at right angles. Both are fresh: one isn’t fifteen minutes old. Don and Jude have split one way and Moze another. By George! that’s great of Sounder to hang fire!”

“Put him on the fresh trail,” said Jim, vaulting into his saddle.

Jones complied, with the result that we saw Sounder start off on the trail Moze had taken. All of us got in some pretty hard riding, and managed to stay within earshot of Sounder. We crossed a canyon, and presently reached another which, from its depth, must have been Middle Canyon. Sounder did not climb the opposite slope, so we followed the rim. From a bare ridge we distinguished the line of pines above us, and decided that our location was in about the center of the plateau.

Very little time elapsed before we heard Moze. Sounder had caught up with him. We came to a halt where the canyon widened and was not so deep, with cliffs and cedars opposite us, and an easy slope leading down. Sounder bayed incessantly; Moze emitted harsh, eager howls, and both hounds, in plain sight, began working in circles.

“The lion has gone up somewhere,” cried Jim. “Look sharp!”

Repeatedly Moze worked to the edge of a low wall of stone and looked over; then he barked and ran back to the slope, only to return. When I saw him slide down a steep place, make for the bottom of the stone wall, and jump into the low branches of a cedar I knew where to look. Then I descried the lion a round yellow ball, cunningly curled up in a mass of dark branches. He had leaped into the tree from the wall.

“There he is! Treed! Treed!” I yelled. “Moze has found him.”

“Down boys, down into the canyon,” shouted Jones, in sharp voice. “Make a racket, we don’t want him to jump.”

How he and Jim and Emett rolled and cracked the stone! For a moment I could not get off my horse; I was chained to my saddle by a strange vacillation that could have been no other thing than fear.

“Are you afraid?” called Jones from below.

“Yes, but I am coming,” I replied, and dismounted to plunge down the hill. It may have been shame or anger that dominated me then; whatever it was I made directly for the cedar, and did not halt until I was under the snarling lion.

“Not too close!” warned Jones. “He might jump. It’s a Tom, a two-year-old, and full of fight.”

It did not matter to me then whether he jumped or not. I knew I had to be cured of my dread, and the sooner it was done the better.

Old Moze had already climbed a third of the distance up to the lion.

“Hyar Moze! Out of there, you rascal coon chaser!” Jones yelled as he threw stones and sticks at the hound. Moze, however, replied with his snarly bark and climbed on steadily.

“I’ve got to pull him out. Watch close boys and tell me if the lion starts down.”

When Jones climbed the first few branches of the tree, Tom let out an ominous growl.

“Make ready to jump. Shore he’s comin’,” called Jim.

The lion, snarling viciously, started to descend. It was a ticklish moment for all of us, particularly Jones. Warily he backed down.

“Boys, maybe he’s bluffing,” said Jones, “Try him out. Grab sticks and run at the tree and yell, as if you were going to kill him.”

Not improbably the demonstration we executed under the tree would have frightened even an African lion. Tom hesitated, showed his white fangs, returned to his first perch, and from there climbed as far as he could. The forked branch on which he stood swayed alarmingly.

“Here, punch Moze out,” said Jim handing up a long pole.

The old hound hung like a leech to the tree, making it difficult to dislodge him. At length he fell heavily, and venting his thick battle cry, attempted to climb again.

Jim seized him, made him fast to the rope with which Sounder had already been tied.

“Say Emett, I’ve no chance here,” called Jones. “You try to throw at him from the rock.”

Emett ran up the rock, coiled his lasso and cast the noose. It sailed perfectly in between the branches and circled Tom’s head. Before it could be slipped tight he had thrown it off. Then he hid behind the branches.

“I’m going farther up,” said Jones.

“Be quick,” yelled Jim.

Jones evidently had that in mind. When he reached the middle fork of the cedar, he stood erect and extended the noose of his lasso on the point of his pole. Tom, with a hiss and snap, struck at it savagely. The second trial tempted the lion to saw the rope with his teeth. In a flash Jones withdrew the pole, and lifted a loop of the slack rope over the lion’s ears.

“Pull!” he yelled.

Emett, at the other end of the lasso, threw his great strength into action, pulling the lion out with a crash, and giving the cedar such a tremendous shaking that Jones lost his footing and fell heavily.

Thrilling as the moment was, I had to laugh, for Jones came up out of a cloud of dust, as angry as a wet hornet, and made prodigious leaps to get out of the reach of the whirling lion.

“Look out!” he bawled.

Tom, certainly none the worse for his tumble, made three leaps, two at Jones, one at Jim, which was checked by the short length of the rope in Emett’s hands. Then for a moment, a thick cloud of dust enveloped the wrestling lion, during which the quick-witted Jones tied the free end of the lasso to a sapling.

“Dod gast the luck!” yelled Jones reaching for another lasso. “I didn’t mean for you to pull him out of the tree. Now he’ll get loose or kill himself.”

When the dust cleared away, we discovered our prize stretched out at full length and frothing at the mouth. As Jones approached, the lion began a series of evolutions so rapid as to be almost indiscernible to the eye. I saw a wheel of dust and yellow fur. Then came a thud and the lion lay inert.

Jones pounced upon him and loosed the lasso around his neck.

“I think he’s done for, but maybe not. He’s breathing yet. Here, help me tie his paws together. Look out! He’s coming to!”

The lion stirred and raised his head. Jones ran the loop of the second lasso around the two hind paws and stretched the lion out. While in this helpless position and with no strength and hardly any breath left in him the lion was easy to handle. With Emett’s help Jones quickly clipped the sharp claws, tied the four paws together, took off the neck lasso and substituted a collar and chain.

“There, that’s one. He’ll come to all right,” said Jones. “But we are lucky. Emett, never pull another lion clear out of a tree. Pull him over a limb and hang him there while some one below ropes his hind paws. That’s the only way, and if we don’t stick to it, somebody is going to get done for. Come, now, we’ll leave this fellow here and hunt up Don and Jude. They’ve treed another lion by this time.”

Remarkable to me was to see how, as soon as the lion lay helpless, Sounder lost his interest. Moze growled, yet readily left the spot. Before we reached the level, both hounds had disappeared.

Down the Shinumo Trail of The North River

Camp at the Saddle

“Hear that?” yelled Jones, digging spurs into his horse. “Hi! Hi! Hi!”

From the cedars rang the thrilling, blending chorus of bays that told of a treed lion. The forest was almost impenetrable. We had to pick our way. Emett forged ahead; we heard him smashing the deadwood; and soon a yell proclaimed the truth of Jones’ assertion.

First I saw the men looking upward; then Moze climbing the cedar, and the other hounds with noses skyward; and last, in the dead top of the tree, a dark blot against the blue, a big tawny lion.

“Whoop!” The yell leaped past my lips. Quiet Jim was yelling; and Emett, silent man of the desert, let from his wide cavernous chest a booming roar that drowned ours.

Jones’ next decisive action turned us from exultation to the grim business of the thing. He pulled Moze out of the cedar, and while he climbed up, Emett ran his rope under the collars of all of the hounds. Quick as the idea flashed over me I leaped into the cedar adjoining the one Jones was in, and went up hand over hand. A few pulls brought me to the top, and then my blood ran hot and quick, for I was level with the lion, too close for comfort, but in excellent position for taking pictures.

The lion, not heeding me, peered down at Jones, between widespread paws. I could hear nothing except the hounds. Jones’ gray hat came pushing up between the dead snags; then his burly shoulders. The quivering muscles of the lion gathered tense, and his lithe body crouched low on the branches. He was about to jump. His open dripping jaws, his wild eyes, roving in terror for some means of escape, his tufted tail, swinging against the twigs and breaking them, manifested his extremity. The eager hounds waited below, howling, leaping.

It bothered me considerably to keep my balance, regulate my camera and watch the proceedings. Jones climbed on with his rope between his teeth, and a long stick. The very next instant it seemed to me, I heard the cracking of branches and saw the lion biting hard at the noose which circled his neck.

Here I swung down, branch to branch, and dropped to the ground, for I wanted to see what went on below. Above the howls and yelps, I distinguished Jones’ yell. Emett ran directly under the lion with a spread noose in his hands. Jones pulled and pulled, but the lion held on firmly. Throwing the end of the lasso down to Jim, Jones yelled again, and then they both pulled. The lion was too strong. Suddenly, however, the branch broke, letting the lion fall, kicking frantically with all four paws. Emett grasped one of the four whipping paws, and even as the powerful animal sent him staggering he dexterously left the noose fast on the paw. Jim and Jones in unison let go of their lasso, which streaked up through the branches as the lion fell, and then it dropped to the ground, where Jim made a flying grab for it. Jones plunging out of the tree fell upon the rope at the same instant.

If the action up to then had been fast, it was slow to what followed. It seemed impossible for two strong men with one lasso, and a giant with another, to straighten out that lion. He was all over the little space under the trees at once. The dust flew, the sticks snapped, the gravel pattered like shot against the cedars. Jones ploughed the ground flat on his stomach, holding on with one hand, with the other trying to fasten the rope to something; Jim went to his knees; and on the other side of the lion, Emett’s huge bulk tipped a sharp angle, and then fell.

I shouted and ran forward, having no idea what to do, but Emett rolled backward, at the same instant the other men got a strong haul on the lion. Short as that moment was in which the lasso slackened, it sufficed for Jones to make the rope fast to a tree. Whereupon with the three men pulling on the other side of the leaping lion, somehow I had flashed into my mind the game that children play, called skipping the rope, for the lion and lasso shot up and down.

This lasted for only a few seconds. They stretched the beast from tree to tree, and Jones running with the third lasso, made fast the front paws.

“It’s a female,” said Jones, as the lion lay helpless, her sides swelling; “a good-sized female. She’s nearly eight feet from tip to tip, but not very heavy. Hand me another rope.”

When all four lassos had been stretched, the lioness could not move. Jones strapped a collar around her neck and clipped the sharp yellow claws.

“Now to muzzle her,” he continued.

Jones’ method of performing this most hazardous part of the work was characteristic of him. He thrust a stick between her open jaws, and when she crushed it to splinters he tried another, and yet another, until he found one that she could not break. Then while she bit on it, he placed a wire loop over her nose, slowly tightening it, leaving the stick back of her big canines.

The hounds ceased their yelping and when untied, Sounder wagged his tail as if to say, “Well done,” and then lay down; Don walked within three feet of the lion, as if she were now beneath his dignity; Jude began to nurse and lick her sore paw; only Moze the incorrigible retained antipathy for the captive, and he growled, as always, low and deep. And on the moment, Ranger, dusty and lame from travel, trotted wearily into the glade and, looking at the lioness, gave one disgusted bark and flopped down.

CHAPTER III

TRANSPORTING OUR CAPTIVES to camp bade fair to make us work. When Jones, who had gone after the pack horses, hove in sight on the sage flat, it was plain to us that we were in for trouble. The bay stallion was on the rampage.

“Why didn’t you fetch the Indian?” growled Emett, who lost his temper when matters concerning his horses went wrong. “Spread out, boys, and head him off.”

We contrived to surround the stallion, and Emett succeeded in getting a halter on him.

“I didn’t want the bay,” explained Jones, “but I couldn’t drive the others without him. When I told that redskin that we had two lions, he ran off into the woods, so I had to come alone.”

“I’m going to scalp the Navajo,” said Jim, complacently.

These remarks were exchanged on the open ridge at the entrance to the thick cedar forest. The two lions lay just within its shady precincts. Emett and I, using a long pole in lieu of a horse, had carried Tom up from the Canyon to where we had captured the lioness.

Jones had brought a packsaddle and two panniers.

Buckskin Forest

Buffalo Jones With Sounder and Ranger

When Emett essayed to lead the horse which carried these, the animal stood straight up and began to show some of his primal desert instincts. It certainly was good luck that we unbuckled the packsaddle straps before he left the vicinity. In about three jumps he had separated himself from the panniers, which were then placed upon the back of another horse. This one, a fine looking beast, and amiable under surroundings where his life and health were considered even a little, immediately disclaimed any intention of entering the forest.

“They scent the lions,” said Jones. “I was afraid of it; never had but one nag that would pack lions.”

“Maybe we can’t pack them at all,” replied Emett dubiously. “It’s certainly new to me.”

“We’ve got to,” Jones asserted; “try the sorrel.”

For the first time in a serviceable and honorable life, according to Emett, the sorrel broke his halter and kicked like a plantation mule.

“It’s a matter of fright. Try the stallion. He doesn’t look afraid,” said Jones, who never knew when he was beaten.

Emett gazed at Jones as if he had not heard right.

“Go ahead, try the stallion. I like the way he looks.”

No wonder! The big stallion looked a king of horses — just what he would have been if Emett had not taken him, when a colt, from his wild desert brothers. He scented the lions, and he held his proud head up, his ears erect, and his large, dark eyes shone fiery and expressive.

“I’ll try to lead him in and let him see the lions. We can’t fool him,” said Emett.

Marc showed no hesitation, nor anything we expected. He stood stiff-legged, and looked as if he wanted to fight.

“He’s all right; he’ll pack them,” declared Jones.

The packsaddle being strapped on and the panniers hooked to the horns, Jones and Jim lifted Tom and shoved him down into the left pannier while Emett held the horse. A madder lion than Tom never lived. It was cruel enough to be lassoed and disgrace enough to be “hog-tied,” as Jim called it, but to be thrust down into a bag and packed on a horse was adding insult to injury. Tom frothed at the mouth and seemed like a fizzing torpedo about to explode. The lioness being considerably longer and larger, was with difficulty gotten into the other pannier, and her head and paws hung out. Both lions kept growling and snarling.

“I look to see Marc bolt over the rim,” said Emett, resignedly, as Jones took up the end of the rope halter.

“No siree!” sang out that worthy. “He’s helping us out; he’s proud to show up the other nags.”

Jones was always asserting strange traits in animals, and giving them intelligence and reason. As to that, many incidents coming under my observation while with him, and seen with his eyes, made me incline to his claims, the fruit of a lifetime with animals.

Marc packed the lions to camp in short order, and, quoting Jones, “without turning a hair.” We saw the Navajo’s head protruding from a tree. Emett yelled for him, and Jones and Jim “hahaed” derisively; whereupon the black head vanished and did not reappear. Then they unhooked one of the panniers and dumped out the lioness. Jones fastened her chain to a small pine tree, and as she lay powerless he pulled out the stick back of her canines. This allowed the wire muzzle to fall off. She signalled this freedom with a roar that showed her health to be still unimpaired. The last action in releasing her from her painful bonds Jones performed with sleight-of-hand dexterity. He slipped the loop fastening one paw, which loosened the rope, and in a twinkling let her work all of her other paws free. Up she sprang, ears flat, eyes ablaze, mouth wide, once more capable of defense, true to her instinct and her name.

Before the men lowered Tom from Marc’s back I stepped closer and put my face within six inches of the lion’s. He promptly spat on me. I had to steel my nerve to keep so close. But I wanted to see a wild lion’s eyes at close range. They were exquisitely beautiful, their physical properties as wonderful as their expression. Great half globes of tawny amber, streaked with delicate wavy lines of black, surrounding pupils of intense purple fire. Pictures shone and faded in the amber light — the shaggy tipped plateau, the dark pines and smoky canyons, the great dotted downward slopes, the yellow cliffs and crags. Deep in those live pupils, changing, quickening with a thousand vibrations, quivered the soul of this savage beast, the wildest of all wild Nature, unquenchable love of life and freedom, flame of defiance and hate.

Jones disposed of Tom in the same manner as he had the lioness, chaining him to an adjoining small pine, where he leaped and wrestled.

Presently I saw Emett coming through the woods leading and dragging the Indian. I felt sorry for the Navvy, for I felt that his fear was not so much physical as spiritual. And it seemed no wonder to me that the Navvy should hang back from this sacrilegious treatment of his god. A natural wisdom, which I had in common with all human beings who consider self preservation the first law of life, deterred me from acquainting my august companions with my belief. At least I did not want to break up the camp.

In the remorseless grasp of Emett, forced along, the Navajo dragged his feet and held his face sidewise, though his dark eyes gleamed at the lions. Terror predominated among the expressions of his countenance. Emett drew him within fifteen feet and held him there, and with voice, and gesticulating of his free hand, tried to show the poor fellow that the lions would not hurt him.

Navvy stared and muttered to himself. Here Jim had some deviltry in mind, for he edged up closer; but what it was never transpired, for Emett suddenly pointed to the horses and said to the Indian:

“Chineago (feed).”

It appeared when Navvy swung himself over Marc’s broad back, that our great stallion had laid aside his transiently noble disposition and was himself again. Marc proceeded to show us how truly Jim had spoken: “Shore he ain’t no use for the redskin.” Before the Indian had fairly gotten astride, Marc dropped his head, humped his shoulders, brought his feet together and began to buck. Now the Navajo was a famous breaker of wild mustangs, but Marc was a tougher proposition than the wildest mustang that ever romped the desert. Not only was he unusually vigorous; he was robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active. I had seen him roll over in the dust three times each way, and do it easily — a feat Emett declared he had never seen performed by another horse.

Navvy began to bounce. He showed his teeth and twisted his sinewy hands in the horse’s mane. Marc began to act like a demon; he plowed the ground; apparently he bucked five feet straight up. As the Indian had bounced he now began to shoot into the air. He rose the last time with his heels over his head, to the full extent of his arms; and on plunging down his hold broke. He spun around the horse, then went hurtling to the ground some twenty feet away. He sat up, and seeing Emett and Jones laughing, and Jim prostrated with joy, he showed his white teeth in a smile and said:

“No bueno dam.”

I think all of us respected Navvy for his good humor, and especially when he walked up to Marc, and with no show of the mean Indian, patted the glossy neck and then nimbly remounted. Marc, not being so difficult to please as Jim in the way of discomfiting the Navajo, appeared satisfied for the present, and trotted off down the hollow, with the string of horses ahead, their bells jingling.

Camp-fire tasks were a necessary wage in order to earn the full enjoyment and benefit of the hunting trip; and looking for some task with which to turn my hand, I helped Jim feed the hounds. To feed ordinary dogs is a matter of throwing them a bone; however, our dogs were not ordinary. It took time to feed them, and a prodigious amount of meat. We had packed between three and four hundred pounds of wild-horse meat, which had been cut into small pieces and strung on the branches of a scrub oak near camp.

Don, as befitted a gentleman and the leader of the greatest pack in the West, had to be fed by hand. I believe he would rather had starved than have demeaned himself by fighting. Starved he certainly would have, if Jim had thrown meat indiscriminately to the ground. Sounder asserted his rights and preferred large portions at a time. Jude begged with great solemn eyes but was no slouch at eating for all her gentleness. Ranger, because of imperfectly developed teeth rendering mastication difficult, had to have his share cut into very small pieces. As for Moze — well, great dogs have their faults as do great men — he never got enough meat; he would fight even poor crippled Jude, and steal even from the pups; when he had gotten all Jim would give him, and all he could snatch, he would growl away with bulging sides.

“How about feeding the lions?” asked Emett.

“They’ll drink to-night,” replied Jones, “but won’t eat for days; then we’ll tempt them with fresh rabbits.”

We made a hearty meal, succeeding which Jones and I walked through the woods toward the rim. A yellow promontory, huge and glistening, invited us westward, and after a detour of half a mile we reached it. The points of the rim, striking out into the immense void, always drew me irresistibly. We found the view from this rock one of startling splendor. The corrugated rim-wall of the middle wing extended to the west, at this moment apparently running into the setting sun. The gold glare touching up the millions of facets of chiseled stone, created color and brilliance too glorious and intense for the gaze of men. And looking downward was like looking into the placid, blue, bottomless depths of the Pacific.

“Here, help me push off this stone,” I said to Jones. We heaved a huge round stone, and were encouraged to feel it move. Fortunately we had a little slope; the boulder groaned, rocked and began to slide. Just as it toppled over I glanced at the second hand of my watch. Then with eyes over the rim we waited. The silence was the silence of the canyon, dead and vast, intensified by our breathless earstrain. Ten long palpitating seconds and no sound! I gave up. The distance was too great for sound to reach us. Fifteen seconds — seventeen — eighteen —

With that a puff of air seemed to rise, and on it the most awful bellow of thunderous roar. It rolled up and widened, deadened to burst out and roll louder, then slowly, like mountains on wheels, rumbled under the rim-walls, passing on and on, to roar back in echo from the cliffs of the mesas. Roar and rumble — roar and rumble! for two long moments the dull and hollow echoes rolled at us, to die away slowly in the far-distant canyons.

“That’s a darned deep hole,” commented Jones.

Twilight stole down on us idling there, silent, content to watch the red glow pass away from the buttes and peaks, the color deepening downward to meet the ebon shades of night creeping up like a dark tide.

On turning toward the camp we essayed a short cut, which brought us to a deep hollow with stony walls, which seemed better to go around. The hollow, however, was quite long and we decided presently to cross it. We descended a little way when Jones suddenly barred my progress with his big arm.

“Listen,” he whispered.

It was quiet in the woods; only a faint breeze stirred the pine needles; and the weird, gray darkness seemed to be approaching under the trees.

I heard the patter of light, hard hoofs on the scaly sides of the hollow.

“Deer?” I asked my companion in a low voice.

“Yes; see,” he replied, pointing ahead, “just right under that broken wall of rock; right there on this side; they’re going down.”

I descried gray objects the color of the rocks, moving down like shadows.

“Have they scented us?”

“Hardly; the breeze is against us. Maybe they heard us break a twig. They’ve stopped, but they are not looking our way. Now I wonder—”

Rattling of stones set into movement by some quick, sharp action, an indistinct crash, but sudden, as of the impact of soft, heavy bodies, a strange wild sound preceded in rapid succession violent brushings and thumpings in the scrub of the hollow.

“Lion jumped a deer,” yelled Jones. “Right under our eyes! Come on! Hi! Hi! Hi!”

He ran down the incline yelling all of the way, and I kept close to him, adding my yells to his, and gripping my revolver. Toward the bottom the thicket barred our progress so that we had to smash through and I came out a little ahead of Jones. And farther up the hollow I saw a gray swiftly bounding object too long and too low for a deer, and I hurriedly shot six times at it.

“By George! Come here,” called my companion. “How’s this for quick work? It’s a yearling doe.”

In another moment I leaned over a gray mass huddled at Jones feet. It was a deer gasping and choking. I plainly heard the wheeze of blood in its throat, and the sound, like a death-rattle, affected me powerfully. Bending closer, I saw where one side of the neck, low down, had been terribly lacerated.

“Waa-hoo!” pealed down the slope.

“That’s Emett,” cried Jones, answering the signal. “If you have another shot put this doe out of agony.”

But I had not a shot left, nor did either of us have a clasp knife. We stood there while the doe gasped and quivered. The peculiar sound, probably made by the intake of air through the laceration of the throat, on the spur of the moment seemed pitifully human.

I felt that the struggle for life and death in any living thing was a horrible spectacle. With great interest I had studied natural selection, the variability of animals under different conditions of struggling existence, the law whereby one animal struck down and devoured another. But I had never seen and heard that law enacted on such a scale; and suddenly I abhorred it.

Emett strode to us through the gathering darkness.

“What’s up?” he asked quickly.

He carried my Remington in one hand and his Winchester in the other; and he moved so assuredly and loomed up so big in the dusk that I experienced a sudden little rush of feeling as to what his advent might mean at a time of real peril.

Jones About to Lasso a Mountain Lion

Remains of a Deer Killed by Lions

“Emett, I’ve lived to see many things,” replied Jones, “but this is the first time I ever saw a lion jump a deer right under my nose!”

As Emett bent over to seize the long ears of the deer, I noticed the gasping had ceased.

“Neck broken,” he said, lifting the head. “Well, I’m danged. Must have been an all-fired strong lion. He’ll come back, you may be sure of that. Let’s skin out the quarters and hang the carcass up in a tree!”

We returned to camp in a half an hour, the richer for our walk by a quantity of fresh venison. Upon being acquainted with our adventure, Jim expressed himself rather more fairly than was his customary way.

“Shore that beats hell! I knowed there was a lion somewheres, because Don wouldn’t lie down. I’d like to get a pop at the brute.”

I believed Jim’s wish found an echo in all our hearts. At any rate to hear Emett and Jones express regret over the death of the doe justified in some degree my own feelings, and I thought it was not so much the death, but the lingering and terrible manner of it, and especially how vividly it connoted the wild-life drama of the plateau. The tragedy we had all but interrupted occurred every night, perhaps often in the day and likely at different points at the same time. Emett told how he had found fourteen piles of bleached bones and dried hair in the thickets of less than a mile of the hollow on which we were encamped.

“We’ll rope the danged cats, boys, or we’ll kill them.”

“It’s blowing cold. Hey, Navvy, coco! coco!” called Emett.

The Indian, carefully laying aside his cigarette, kicked up the fire and threw on more wood.

“Discass! (cold),” he said to me. “Coco, bueno (fire good).”

I replied, “Me savvy — yes.”

“Sleep-ie?” he asked.

“Mucha,” I returned.

While we carried on a sort of novel conversation full of Navajo, English, and gestures, darkness settled down black. I saw the stars disappear; the wind changing to the north grew colder and carried a breath of snow. I like north wind best — from under the warm blankets — because of the roar and lull and lull and roar in the pines. Crawling into the bed presently, I lay there and listened to the rising storm-wind for a long time. Sometimes it swelled and crashed like the sound of a breaker on the beach, but mostly, from a low incessant moan, it rose and filled to a mighty rush, then suddenly lulled. This lull, despite a wakeful, thronging mind, was conducive to sleep.

CHAPTER IV

TO BE AWAKED from pleasant dreams is the lot of man. The Navajo aroused me with his singing, and when I peeped languidly from under the flap of my sleeping bag, I felt a cold air and saw fleecy flakes of white drifting through the small window of my tent.

“Snow; by all that’s lucky!” I exclaimed, remembering Jones’ hopes. Straightway my langour vanished and getting into my boots and coat I went outside. Navvy’s bed lay in six inches of snow. The forest was beautifully white. A fine dazzling snow was falling. I walked to the roaring camp-fire. Jim’s biscuits, well-browned and of generous size, had just been dumped into the middle of our breakfast cloth, a tarpaulin spread on the ground; the coffee pot steamed fragrantly, and a Dutch oven sizzled with a great number of slices of venison. “Did you hear the Indian chanting?” asked Jones, who sat with his horny hands to the blaze.

“I heard his singing.”

“No, it wasn’t a song; the Navajo never sings in the morning. What you heard was his morning prayer, a chant, a religious and solemn ritual to the break of day. Emett says it is a custom of the desert tribe. You remember how we saw the Mokis sitting on the roofs of their little adobe huts in the gray of the morning. They always greet the sun in that way. The Navajos chant.”

It certainly was worth remembering, I thought, and mentally observed that I would wake up thereafter and listen to the Indian.

“Good luck and bad!” went on Jones. “Snow is what we want, but now we can’t find the scent of our lion of last night.”

Low growls and snarls attracted me. Both our captives presented sorry spectacles; they were wet, dirty, bedraggled. Emett had chopped down a small pine, the branches of which he was using to make shelter for the lions. While I looked on Tom tore his to pieces several times, but the lioness crawled under hers and began licking her chops. At length Tom, seeing that Emett meant no underhand trick, backed out of the drizzling snow and lay down.

Emett had already constructed a shack for the hounds. It was a way of his to think of everything. He had the most extraordinary ability. A stroke of his axe, a twist of his great hands, a turn of this or that made camp a more comfortable place. And if something, no matter what, got out of order or broken, there was Emett to show what it was to be a man of the desert. It had been my good fortune to see many able men on the trail and round the camp-fire, but not one of them even approached Emett’s class. When I said a word to him about his knack with things, his reply was illuminating: “I’m fifty-eight, and four out of every five nights of my life I have slept away from home on the ground.”

“Chineago!” called Jim, who had begun with all of us to assimilate a little of the Navajo’s language.

Whereupon we fell to eating with appetite unknown to any save hunters. Somehow the Indian had gravitated to me at meal times, and now he sat cross-legged beside me, holding out his plate and looking as hungry as Moze. At first he had always asked for the same kind of food that I happened to have on my own plate. When I had finished and had no desire to eat more, he gave up his faculty of imitation and asked for anything he could get. The Navajo had a marvelous appetite. He liked sweet things, sugar best of all. It was a fatal error to let him get his hands on a can of fruit. Although he inspired Jones with disgust and Jim with worse, he was a source of unfailing pleasure to me. He called me “Mista Gay” and he pronounced the words haltingly in low voice and with unmistakable respect.

“What’s on for today?” queried Emett.

“I guess we may as well hang around camp and rest the hounds,” replied Jones. “I did intend to go after the lion that killed the deer, but this snow has taken away the scent.”

“Shore it’ll stop snowin’ soon,” said Jim.

The falling snow had thinned out and looked like flying powder; the leaden clouds, rolling close to the tree-tops, grew brighter and brighter; bits of azure sky shone through rifts.

Navvy had tramped off to find the horses, and not long after his departure he sent out a prolonged yell that echoed through the forest.

“Something’s up,” said Emett instantly. “An Indian never yells like that at a horse.”

A Lion Tied

Fighting Weetahs (buffalo Bulls) on Buffalo Jones’s Desert Ranch

We waited quietly for a moment, expecting to hear the yell repeated. It was not, though we soon heard the jangle of bells, which told us he had the horses coming. He appeared off to the right, riding Foxie and racing the others toward camp.

“Cougie — mucha big — dam!” he said leaping off the mustang to confront us.

“Emett, does he mean he saw a cougar or a track?” questioned Jones.

“Me savvy,” replied the Indian. “Butteen, butteen!”

“He says, trail — trail,” put in Emett. “I guess I’d better go and see.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Jones. “Jim, keep the hounds tight and hurry with the horses’ oats.”

We followed the tracks of the horses which lead southwest toward the rim, and a quarter of a mile from camp we crossed a lion trail running at right angles with our direction.

“Old Sultan!” I cried, breathlessly, recognizing that the tracks had been made by a giant lion we had named Sultan. They were huge, round, and deep, and with my spread hand I could not reach across one of them.

Without a word, Jones strode off on the trail. It headed east and after a short distance turned toward camp. I suppose Jones knew what the lion had been about, but to Emett and me it was mystifying. Two hundred yards from camp we came to a fallen pine, the body of which was easily six feet high. On the side of this log, almost on top, were two enormous lion tracks, imprinted in the mantle of snow. From here the trail led off northeast.

“Darn me!” ejaculated Jones. “The big critter came right into camp; he scented our lions, and raised up on this log to look over.”

Wheeling, he started for camp on the trot. Emett and I kept even with him. Words were superfluous. We knew what was coming. A made — to — order lion trail could not have equalled the one right in the back yard of our camp.

“Saddle up!” said Jones, with the sharp inflection of words that had come to thrill me. “Jim, Old Sultan has taken a look at us since break of day.”

I got into my chaps, rammed my little automatic into its saddle holster and mounted. Foxie seemed to want to go. The hounds came out of their sheds and yawned, looking at us knowingly. Emett spoke a word to the Navajo, and then we were trotting down through the forest. The sun had broken out warm, causing water to drip off the snow laden pines. The three of us rode close behind Jones, who spoke low and sternly to the hounds.

What an opportunity to watch Don! I wondered how soon he would catch the scent of the trail. He led the pack as usual and kept to a leisurely dog — trot. When within twenty yards of the fallen log, he stopped for an instant and held up his head, though without exhibiting any suspicion or uneasiness.

The wind blew strong at our backs, a circumstance that probably kept Don so long in ignorance of the trail. A few yards further on, however, he stopped and raised his fine head. He lowered it and trotted on only to stop again. His easy air of satisfaction with the morning suddenly vanished. His savage hunting instinct awakened through some channel to raise the short yellow hair on his neck and shoulders and make it stand stiff. He stood undecided with warily shifting nose, then jumped forward with a yelp. Another jump brought another sharp cry from him. Sounder, close behind, echoed the yelp. Jude began to whine. Then Don, with a wild howl, leaped ten feet to alight on the lion trail and to break into wonderfully rapid flight. The seven other hounds, bunched in a black and yellow group, tore after him filling the forest with their wild uproar.

Emett’s horse bounded as I have seen a great racer leave the post, and his desert brothers, loving wild bursts of speed, needing no spur, kept their noses even with his flanks. The soft snow, not too deep, rather facilitated than impeded this wild movement, and the open forest was like a highway.

So we rode, bending low in the saddle, keen eyes alert for branches, vaulting the white — blanketed logs, and swerving as we split to pass the pines. The mist from the melting snow moistened our faces, and the rushing air cooled them with fresh, soft sensation. There were moments when we rode abreast and others when we sailed single file, with white ground receding, vanishing behind us.

My feeling was one of glorious excitation in the swift, smooth flight and a grim assurance of soon seeing the old lion. But I hoped we would not rout him too soon from under a windfall, or a thicket where he had dragged a deer, because the race was too splendid a thing to cut short. Through my mind whirled with inconceivable rapidity the great lion chases on which we had ridden the year before. And this was another chase, only more stirring, more beautiful, because it was the nature of the thing to grow always with experience.

Don slipped out of sight among the pines. The others strung along the trail, glinted across the sunlit patches. The black pup was neck and neck with Ranger. Sounder ran at their heels, leading the other pups. Moze dashed on doggedly ahead of Jude.

But for us to keep to the open forest, close to the hounds, was not in the nature of a lion chase. Old Sultan’s trail turned due west when he began to go down the little hollows and their intervening ridges. We lost ground. The pack left us behind. The slope of the plateau became decided. We rode out of the pines to find the snow failing in the open. Water ran in little gullies and glistened on the sagebrush. A half mile further down the snow had gone. We came upon the hounds running at fault, except Sounder, and he had given up.

“All over,” sang out Jones, turning his horse. “The lion’s track and his scent have gone with the snow. I reckon we’ll do as well to wait until to-morrow. He’s down in the middle wing somewhere and it is my idea we might catch his trail as he comes back.”

The sudden dashing aside of our hopes was exasperating. There seemed no help for it; abrupt ending to exciting chases were but features of the lion hunt. The warm sun had been hours on the lower end of the plateau, where the snow never lay long; and even if we found a fresh morning trail in the sand, the heat would have burned out the scent.

So rapidly did the snow thaw that by the time we reached camp only the shady patches were left.

It was almost eleven o’clock when I lay down on my bed to rest awhile and fell asleep. The tramp of a horse awakened me. I heard Jim calling Jones. Thinking it was time to eat I went out. The snow had all disappeared and the forest was brown as ever. Jim sat on his horse and Navvy appeared riding up to the hollow, leading the saddle horses.

“Jones, get out,” called Jim.

“Can’t you let a fellow sleep? I’m not hungry,” replied Jones testily.

“Get out and saddle up,” continued Jim.

Jones burst out of his tent, with rumpled hair and sleepy eyes.

“I went over to see the carcass of the deer an’ found a lion sittin’ up in the tree, feedin’ for all he was worth. Pie jumped out an’ ran up the hollow an’ over the rim. So I rustled back for you fellows. Lively now, we’ll get this one sure.”

“Was it the big fellow?” I asked

“No, but he ain’t no kitten; an’ he’s a fine color, sort of reddish. I never seen one just as bright. Where’s Emett?”

“I don’t know. He was here a little while ago. Shall I signal for him?”

“Don’t yell,” cried Jones holding up his fingers. “Be quiet now.”

Without another word we finished saddling, mounted and, close together, with the hounds in front, rode through the forest toward the rim.

CHAPTER V

WE RODE IN different directions toward the hollow, the better to chance meeting with Emett, but none of us caught a glimpse of him.

It happened that when we headed into the hollow it was at a point just above where the deer carcass hung in the scrub oak. Don in spite of Jones’ stern yells, let out his eager hunting yelp and darted down the slope. The pack bolted after him and in less than ten seconds were racing up the hollow, their thrilling, blending bays a welcome spur to action. Though I spoke not a word to my mustang nor had time to raise the bridle, he wheeled to one side and began to run. The other horses also kept to the ridge, as I could tell by the pounding of hoofs on the soft turf. The hounds in full cry right under us urged our good steeds to a terrific pace. It was well that the ridge afforded clear going.

The speed at which we traveled, however, fast as it was, availed not to keep up with the pack. In a short half mile, just as the hollow sloped and merged into level ground, they left us behind and disappeared so quickly as almost to frighten me. My mustang plunged out of the forest to the rim and dashed along, apparently unmindful of the chasm. The red and yellow surface blurred in a blinding glare. I heard the chorus of hounds, but as its direction baffled me I trusted to my horse and I did well, for soon he came to a dead halt on the rim.

Then I heard the hounds below me. I had but time to see the character of the place — long, yellow promontories running out and slopes of weathered stone reaching up between to a level with the rim — when in a dwarf pine growing just over the edge I caught sight of a long, red, pantherish body.

I whooped to my followers now close upon me and leaping off hauled out my Remington and ran to the cliff. The lion’s long, slender body, of a rare golden-red color, bright, clean, black-tipped and white-bellied, proclaimed it a female of exceeding beauty. I could have touched her with a fishing rod and saw how easily she could be roped from where I stood. The tree in which she had taken refuge grew from the head of a weathered slope and rose close to the wall. At that point it was merely a parapet of crumbling yellow rock. No doubt she had lain concealed under the shelving wall and had not had time to get away before the hounds were right upon her.

“She’s going to jump,” yelled Jones, in my rear, as he dismounted.

I saw a golden-red streak flash downward, heard a mad medley from the hounds, a cloud of dust rose, then something bright shone for a second to the right along the wall. I ran with all my might to a headland of rock upon which I scrambled and saw with joy that I could command the situation.

The lioness was not in sight, nor were the hounds. The latter, however, were hot on the trail. I knew the lioness had taken to another tree or a hole under the wall, and would soon be routed out. This time I felt sure she would run down and I took a rapid glance below. The slope inclined at a steep angle and was one long slide of bits of yellow stone with many bunches of scrub oak and manzanita. Those latter I saw with satisfaction, because in case I had to go down they would stop the little avalanches. The slope reached down perhaps five hundred yards and ended in a thicket and jumble of rocks from which rose on the right a bare yellow slide. This ran up to a low cliff. I hoped the lion would not go that way, for it led to great broken battlements of rim. Left of the slide was a patch of cedars.

Jim’s yell pealed out, followed by the familiar penetrating howl of the pack when it sighted game. With that I saw the lioness leaping down the slope and close behind her a yellow hound.

“Go it, Don, old boy!” I yelled, wild with delight.

A crushing step on the stones told me Jones had arrived.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” roared he.

I thought then that if the lioness did not cover thirty feet at every jump I was not in a condition to judge distance. She ran away from Don as if he had been tied and reached the thicket below a hundred yards ahead of him. And when Don leaving his brave pack far up the slide entered the thicket the lioness came out on the other side and bounded up the bare slope of yellow shale.

“Shoot ahead of her! Head her off! Turn her back!” cried Jones.

With the word I threw forward the Remington and let drive. Following the bellow of the rifle, so loud in that thin air, a sharp, harsh report cracked up from below. A puff of yellow dust rose in front of the lioness. I was in line, but too far ahead. I fired again. The steel jacketed bullet hit a stone and spitefully whined away into the canyon. I tried once more. This time I struck close to the lioness. Disconcerted by a cloud of dust rising before her very eyes she wheeled and ran back.

We had forgotten Don and suddenly he darted out of the thicket, straight up the slide. Always, in every chase, we were afraid the great hound would run to meet his death. We knew it was coming sometime. When the lioness saw him and stopped, both Jones and I felt that this was to be the end of Don.

“Shoot her! Shoot her!” cried Jones. “She’ll kill him! She’ll kill him!”

As I knelt on the rock I had a hard contraction of my throat, and then all my muscles set tight and rigid. I pulled the trigger of my automatic once, twice. It was wonderful how closely the two bullets followed each other, as we could tell by the almost simultaneous puffs of dust rising from under the beast’s nose. She must have been showered and stung with gravel, for she bounded off to the left and disappeared in the cedars. I had missed, but the shots had served to a better end than if I had killed her.

As Don raced up the ground where a moment before a battle and probably death had awaited him, the other hounds burst from the thicket. With that, a golden form seemed to stand out from the green of the cedar, to move and to rise.

“She’s treed! She’s treed!” shouted Jones. “Go down and keep her there while I follow.”

From the back of the promontory where I met the main wall, I let myself down a niche, foot here and there, a hand hard on the soft stone, braced knee and back until I jumped to the edge of the slope. The scrub oak and manzanita saved me many a fall. I set some stones rolling and I beat them to the bottom. Having passed the thicket, I bent my efforts to the yellow slide and when I had surmounted it my breath came in labored pants. The howling of the hounds guided me through the cedars.

First I saw Moze in the branches of cedar and above him the lioness. I ran out into a little open patch of stony ground at the end of which the tree stood leaning over a precipice. In truth the lioness was swaying over a chasm.

Those details I grasped in a glance, then suddenly awoke to the fact that the lioness was savagely snarling at Moze.

“Moze! Moze! Get down!” I yelled.

He climbed on serenely. He was a most exasperating dog. I screamed at him and hit him with a rock big enough to break his bones. He kept on climbing. Here was a predicament. Moze would surely get to the lioness if I did not stop him, and this seemed impossible. It was out of the question for me to climb after him. And if the lioness jumped she would have to pass me or come straight at me. So I slipped down the safety catch on my automatic and stood ready to save Moze or myself.

The lioness with a show of fury that startled me, descended her branch a few steps, and reaching below gave Moze a sounding smack with her big paw. The hound dropped as if he had been shot and hit the ground with a thud. Whereupon she returned to her perch.

This reassured me and I ran among the dogs and caught Moze already starting for the tree again and tied him, with a strap I always carried, to a small bush nearby. I heard the yells of my companions and looking back over the tops of the cedars I saw Jim riding down and higher to the left Jones sliding, falling, running at a great rate. I encouraged them to keep up the good work, and then gave my attention to the lioness.

She regarded me with a cold, savage stare and showed her teeth. I repaid this incivility on her part by promptly photographing her from different points.

Jones and Jim were on the spot before I expected them and both were dusty and dripping with sweat. I found to my surprise that my face was wet as was also my shirt. Jones carried two lassos, and my canteen, which I had left on the promontory.

“Ain’t she a beauty?” he panted, wiping his face. “Wait — till I get my breath.”

When finally he walked toward the cedar the lioness stood up and growled as if she realized the entrance of the chief actor upon the scene. Jones cast his lasso apparently to try her out, and the noose spread out and fell over her head. As he tightened the rope the lioness backed down behind a branch.

“Tie the dogs!” yelled Jones.

“Quick!” added Jim. “She’s goin’ to jump.”

Jim had only time to aid me in running my lasso under the collar of Don, Sounder, Jude and one of the pups. I made them fast to a cedar. I got my hands on Ranger just as Moze broke his strap. I grabbed his collar and held on.

Right there was where trouble commenced for me. Ranger tussled valiantly and Moze pulled me all over the place. Behind me I heard Jones’ roar and Jim’s yell; the breaking of branches, the howling of the other dogs. Ranger broke away from me and so enabled me to get my other hand on the neck of crazy Moze. On more than one occasion I had tried to hold him and had failed; this time I swore I would do it if he rolled me over the precipice. As to that, only a bush saved me.

More and louder roars and yells, hoarser howls and sharper wrestling, snapping sounds told me what was going on while I tried to subdue Moze. I had a grim thought that I would just as lief have had hold of the lioness. The hound presently stopped his plunging which gave me an opportunity to look about. The little space was smoky with a smoke of dust. I saw the lioness stretched out with one lasso around a bush and another around a cedar with the end in the hands of Jim. He looked as if he had dug up the ground. While he tied this lasso securely Jones proceeded to rope the dangerous front paws.

The hounds quieted down and I took advantage of this absence of tumult to get rid of Moze.

“Pretty lively,” said Jones, spitting gravel as I walked up. Sand and dust lay thick in his beard and blackened his face. “I tell you she made us root.”

Either the lioness had been much weakened or choked, or Jones had unusual luck, for we muzzled her and tied up her paws in short order.

“Where’s Ranger?” I asked suddenly, missing him from the panting hounds.

“I grabbed him by the heels when he tackled the lion, and I gave him a sling somewheres,” replied Jim.

Ranger put in an appearance then under the cedars limping painfully.

“Jim, darn me, if I don’t believe you pitched him over the precipice!” said Jones.

Examination proved this surmise to be correct. We saw where Ranger had slipped over a twenty-foot wall. If he had gone over just under the cedar where the depth was much greater he would never have come back.

“The hounds are choking with dust and heat,” I said. When I poured just a little water from my canteen into the crown of my hat, the hounds began fighting around and over me and spilled the water.

“Behave, you coyotes!” I yelled. Either they were insulted or fully realized the exigency of the situation, for each one came up and gratefully lapped every drop of his portion.

“Shore, now comes the hell of it,” said Jim appearing with a long pole. “Packin’ the critter out.”

An argument arose in regard to the best way up the slope, and by virtue of a majority we decided to try the direction Jim and I thought best. My companions led the way, carrying the lioness suspended on the pole. I brought up the rear, packing my rifle, camera, lasso, canteen and a chain.

It was killing work. We had to rest every few steps. Often we would fall. Jim laughed, Jones swore, and I groaned. Sometimes I had to drop my things to help my companions. So we toiled wearily up the loose, steep way.

“What’s she shakin’ like that for?” asked Jim suddenly.

Jones let down his end of the pole and turned quickly. Little tremors quivered over the lissome body of the lioness.

“She’s dying,” cried Jim, jerking out the stick between her teeth and slipping off the wire muzzle.

Her mouth opened and her frothy tongue lolled out. Jones pointed to her quivering sides and then raised her eyelids. We saw the eyes already glazing, solemnly fixed.

“She’s gone,” he said.

Very soon she lay inert and lifeless. Then we sat beside her without a word, and we could hardly for the moment have been more stunned and heartbroken if it had been the tragic death of one of our kind. In that wild environment, obsessed by the desire to capture those beautiful cats alive, the fateful ending of the successful chase was felt out of all proportion.

“Shore she’s dead,” said Jim. “And wasn’t she a beauty? What was wrong?”

“The heat and lack of water,” replied Jones. “She choked. What idiots we were! Why didn’t we think to give her a drink.”

So we passionately protested against our want of fore-thought, and looked again and again with the hope that she might come to. But death had stilled the wild heart. We gave up presently, still did not move on. We were exhausted, and all the while the hounds lay panting on the rocks, the bees hummed, the flies buzzed. The red colors of the upper walls and the purple shades of the lower darkened silently.

CHAPTER VI

“SHORE WE CAN’T set here all night,” said Jim. “Let’s skin the lion an’ feed the hounds.”

The most astonishing thing in our eventful day was the amount of meat stowed away by the dogs. Lion flesh appealed to their appetites. If hungry Moze had an ounce of meat, he had ten pounds. It seemed a good opportunity to see how much the old gladiator could eat; and Jim and I cut chunks of meat as fast as possible. Moze gulped them with absolute unconcern of such a thing as mastication. At length he reached his limit, possibly for the first time in his life, and looking longingly at a juicy red strip Jim held out, he refused it with manifest shame. Then he wobbled and fell down.

We called to him as we started to climb the slope, but he did not come. Then the business of conquering that ascent of sliding stone absorbed all our faculties and strength. Little headway could we have made had it not been for the brush. We toiled up a few feet only to slide back and so it went on until we were weary of life.

When one by one we at last gained the rim and sat there to recover breath, the sun was a half globe of fire burning over the western ramparts. A red sunset bathed the canyon in crimson, painting the walls, tinting the shadows to resemble dropping mists of blood. It was beautiful and enthralling to my eyes, but I turned away because it wore the mantle of tragedy.

Dispirited and worn out, we trooped into camp to find Emett and a steaming supper. Between bites the three of us related the story of the red lioness. Emett whistled long and low and then expressed his regret in no light terms.

“Roping wild steers and mustangs is play to this work,” he said in conclusion.

I was too tired to tease our captive lions that evening; even the glowing camp-fire tempted me in vain, and I crawled into my bed with eyes already glued shut.

A heavy weight on my feet stirred me from oblivion. At first, when only half awake, I could not realize what had fallen on my bed, then hearing a deep groan I knew Moze had come back. I was dropping off again when a strange, low sound caused my eyes to open wide. The black night had faded to the gray of dawn. The sound I recognized at once to be the Navajo’s morning chant. I lay there and listened. Soft and monotonous, wild and swelling, but always low and strange, the savage song to the break of day was exquisitely beautiful and harmonious. I wondered what the literal meaning of his words could have been. The significance needed no translation. To the black shadows fading away, to the brightening of the gray light, to the glow of the east, to the morning sun, to the Giver of Life — to these the Indian chanted his prayer.

Could there have been a better prayer? Pagan or not, the Navajo with his forefathers felt the spiritual power of the trees, the rocks, the light and sun, and he prayed to that which was divinely helpful to him in all the mystery of his unintelligible life.

We did not crawl out that morning as early as usual, for it was to be a day of rest. When we did, a mooted question arose — whether we or the hounds were the more crippled. Ranger did not show himself; Don could just walk and that was all; Moze was either too full or too tired to move; Sounder nursed a foot and Jude favored her lame leg.

After lunch we brightened up somewhat and set ourselves different tasks. Jones had misplaced or lost his wire and began to turn the camp topsy-turvy in his impatient efforts to locate it. The wire, however, was not to be found. This was a calamity, for, as we asked each other, how could we muzzle lions without wire? Moreover, a half dozen heavy leather straps which I had bought in Kanab for use as lion collars had disappeared. We had only one collar left, the one that Jones had put on the red lioness.

Whereupon we began to blame each other, to argue, to grow heated and naturally from that to become angry. It seems a fatality of campers along a wild trail, like explorers in an unknown land, to be prone to fight. If there is an explanation of this singular fact, it must be that men at such time lose their poise and veneer of civilization; in brief, they go back. At all events we had it hot and heavy, with the center of attack gradually focusing on Jones, and as he was always losing something, naturally we united in force against him.

Fortunately, we were interrupted by yells from the Navajo off in the woods. The brushing of branches and pounding of hoofs preceded his appearance. In some remarkable manner he had gotten a bridle on Marc, and from the way the big stallion hurled his huge bulk over logs and through thickets, it appeared evident he meant to usurp Jim’s ambition and kill the Navajo. Hearing Emett yell, the Indian turned Marc toward camp. The horse slowed down when he neared the glade and tried to buck. But Navvy kept his head up. With that Marc seemed to give way to ungovernable rage and plunged right through camp; he knocked over the dogs’ shelter and thundered down the ridge.

Now the Navajo, with the bridle in his hand was thoroughly at home. He was getting his revenge on Marc, and he would have kept his seat on a wild mustang, but Marc swerved suddenly under a low branch of a pine, sweeping the Indian off.

When Navvy did not rise we began to fear he had been seriously hurt, perhaps killed, and we ran to where he lay.

Face downward, hands outstretched, with no movement of body or muscle, he certainly appeared dead.

“Badly hurt,” said Emett, “probably back broken. I have seen it before from just such accidents.”

“Oh no!” cried Jones, and I felt so deeply I could not speak. Jim, who always wanted Navvy to be a dead Indian, looked profoundly sorry.

“He’s a dead Indian, all right,” replied Emett.

We rose from our stooping postures and stood around, uncertain and deeply grieved, until a mournful groan from Navvy afforded us much relief.

“That’s your dead Indian,” exclaimed Jones.

Emett stooped again and felt the Indian’s back and got in reward another mournful groan.

“It’s his back,” said Emett, and true to his ruling passion, forever to minister to the needs of horses, men, and things, he began to rub the Indian and call for the liniment.

Treed Lion

Treed Lion

Jim went to fetch it, while I, still believing the Navvy to be dangerously hurt, knelt by him and pulled up his shirt, exposing the hollow of his brown back.

“Here we are,” said Jim, returning on the run with the bottle.

“Pour some on,” replied Emett.

Jim removed the cork and soused the liniment all over the Indian’s back.

“Don’t waste it,” remonstrated Emett, starting to rub Navvy’s back.

Then occurred a most extraordinary thing. A convulsion seemed to quiver through the Indian’s body; he rose at a single leap, and uttering a wild, piercing yell broke into a run. I never saw an Indian or anybody else run so fleetly. Yell after yell pealed back to us.

Absolutely dumfounded we all gazed at each other.

“That’s your dead Indian!” ejaculated Jim.

“What the hell!” exclaimed Emett, who seldom used such language.

“Look here!” cried Jones, grabbing the bottle. “See! Don’t you see it?”

Jim fell face downward and began to shake.

“What?” shouted Emett and I together.

“Turpentine, you idiots! Turpentine! Jim brought the wrong bottle!”

In another second three more forms lay stretched out on the sward, and the forest rang with sounds of mirth.

CHAPTER VII

THAT NIGHT THE wind switched and blew cold from the north, and so strong that the camp-fire roared like a furnace. “More snow” was the verdict of all of us, and in view of this, I invited the Navajo to share my tent.

“Sleepie-me,” I said to him.

“Me savvy,” he replied and forthwith proceeded to make his bed with me.

Much to my surprise all my comrades raised protestations, which struck me as being singularly selfish considering they would not be inconvenienced in any way.

“Why not?” I asked. “It’s a cold night. There’ll be frost if not snow.”

“Shore you’ll get ‘em,” said Jim.

“There never was an Indian that didn’t have ‘em,” added Jones.

“What?” I questioned.

They made mysterious signs that rather augmented my ignorance as to what I might get from the Indian, but in no wise changed my mind. When I went to bed I had to crawl over Navvy. Moze lay at my feet as usual and he growled so deep that I could not but think he, too, resented the addition to my small tent.

“Mista Gay!” came in the Indian’s low voice.

“Well Navvy?” I asked.

“Sleepie — sleepie?”

“Yes, Navvy, sleepy and tired. Are you?”

“Me savvy — mucha sleepie — mucha — no bueno.”

I did not wonder at his feeling sleepy, tired and bad. He did not awaken me in the morning, for when my eyes unclosed the tent was light and he had gone. I found my companions up and doing.

We had breakfast and got into our saddles by the time the sun, a red ball low down among the pines, began to brighten and turn to gold. No snow had fallen but a thick frost encrusted the ground. The hounds, wearing cloth moccasins, which plainly they detested, trotted in front. Don showed no effects of his great run down the sliding slope after the red lioness; it was one of his remarkable qualities that he recuperated so quickly. Ranger was a little stiff, and Sounder favored his injured foot. The others were as usual.

Jones led down the big hollow to which he kept after we had passed the edge of the pines; then marking a herd of deer ahead, he turned his horse up the bank.

We breasted the ridge and jogged toward the cedar forest, which we entered without having seen the hounds show interest in anything. Under the cedars in the soft yellow dust we crossed lion tracks, many of them, but too old to carry a scent. Even North Hollow with its regular beaten runway failed to win a murmur from the pack.

“Spread out,” said Jones, “and look for tracks. I’ll keep the center and hold in the hounds.”

Signalling occasionally to one another we crossed almost the breadth of the cedar forest to its western end, where the open sage flats inclined to the rim. In one of those flats I came upon a broken sage bush, the grass being thick thereabout. I discovered no track but dismounted and scrutinized the surroundings carefully. A heavy body had been dragged across the sage, crushing it. The ends of broken bushes were green, the leaves showed bruises.

I began to feel like Don when he scented game. Leading my mustang I slowly proceeded across the open, guided by an occasional down-trodden bush or tuft of grass. As I neared the cedars again Foxie snorted. Under the first tree I found a ghastly bunch of red bones, a spread of grayish hairs and a split skull. The bones, were yet wet; two long doe ears were still warm. Then I saw big lion tracks in the dust and even a well pressed imprint of a lion’s body where he had rolled or lain.

The two yells I sent ringing into the forest were productive of interesting results. Answers came from near and far. Then, what with my calling and the replies, the forest rang so steadily with shrill cries that the echoes had no chance to follow.

An elephant in the jungle could not have caused more crashing and breaking of brush than did Emett as he made his way to me. He arrived from the forest just as Jim galloped across the flat. Mutely I held up the two long ears.

“Get on your horse!” cried Jim after one quick glance at the spread of bones and hair.

It was well he said that, for I might have been left behind. I ran to Foxie and vaulted upon him. A flash of yellow appeared among the sage and a string of yelps split the air.

“It’s Don!” yelled Jim.

Well we knew that. What a sight to see him running straight for us! He passed, a savage yellow wolf in his ferocity, and disappeared like a gleam under the gloomy cedars.

We spurred after him. The other hounds sped by. Jones closed in on us from the left, and in a few minutes we were strung out behind Emett, fighting the branches, dodging and swerving, hugging the saddle, and always sending out our sharp yells.

The race was furious but short. The three of us coming up together found Emett dismounted on the extreme end of West Point.

“The hounds have gone down,” he said, pointing to the runway.

We all listened to the meaning bays.

“Shore they’ve got him up!” asserted Jim. “Like as not they found him under the rim here, sleeping off his gorge. Now fellows, I’ll go down. It might be a good idea for you to spread along the rim.”

Treed Lion

Hiding

With that we turned our horses eastward and rode as close to the rim as possible. Clumps of cedars and deep fissures often forced us to circle them. The hounds, traveling under the walls below, kept pace with us and then forged ahead, which fact caused Jones to dispatch Emett on the gallop for the next runway at North Hollow.

Soon Jones bade me dismount and make my way out upon one of the promontories, while he rode a little farther on. As I tied my mustang I heard the hounds, faint and far beneath. I waded through the sage and cedar to the rim.

Cape after cape jutted out over the abyss. Some were very sharp and bare, others covered with cedar; some tottering crags with a crumbling bridge leading to their rims; and some ran down like giant steps. From one of these I watched below. The slope here under the wall was like the side of a rugged mountain. Somewhere down among the dark patches of cedar and the great blocks of stone the hounds were hunting the lion, but I could not see one of them.

The promontory I had chosen had a split, and choked as this was with brush, rock, and shale, it seemed a place where I might climb down. Once started, I could not turn back, and sliding, clinging to what afforded, I worked down the crack. A wall of stone hid the sky from me part of the way. I came out a hundred feet below upon a second promontory of huge slabs of yellow stone. Over these I clambered, to sit with my feet swinging over the last one.

Straight before my gaze yawned the awful expanse of the canyon. In the soft morning light the red mesas, the yellow walls, the black domes were less harsh than in the full noonday sun, purer than in the tender shadow of twilight. Below me were slopes and slides divided by ravines full of stones as large as houses, with here and there a lonesome leaning crag, giving irresistible proof of the downward trend, of the rolling, weathering ruins of the rim. Above the wall bulged out full of fissures, ragged and rotten shelves, toppling columns of yellow limestone, beaded with quartz and colored by wild flowers wonderfully growing in crannies.

Wild and rare as was this environment, I gave it but a glance and a thought. The bay of the hounds caused me to bend sharp and eager eyes to the open spaces of stone and slide below. Luck was mine as usual; the hounds were working up toward me. How I strained my sight! Hearing a single cry I looked eastward to see Jones silhouetted against the blue on a black promontory. He seemed a giant primeval man overlooking the ruin of a former world. I signalled him to make for my point.

Black Ranger hove in sight at the top of a yellow slide. He was at fault but hunting hard. Jude and Sounder bayed off to his left. I heard Don’s clear voice, permeating the thin, cool air, seemingly to leave a quality of wildness upon it; yet I could not locate him. Ranger disappeared. Then for a time I only heard Jim. Moze was next to appear and he, too, was upward bound. A jumble of stone hid him, and then Ranger again showed. Evidently he wanted to get around the bottom of a low crag, for he jumped and jumped only to fall back.

Quite naturally my eyes searched that crag. Stretched out upon the top of it was the long, slender body of a lion.

“Hi! hi! hi! hi! hi!” I yelled till my lungs failed me.

“Where are you?” came from above.

“Here! Here!” I cried seeing Jones on the rim. “Come down. Climb down the crack. The lion is here; on top of that round crag. He’s fooled the hounds and they can’t find him.”

“I see him! I see him!” yelled Jones. Then he roared out a single call for Emett that pealed like a clear clarion along the curved broken rim wall, opening up echoes which clapped like thunder.

While Jones clattered down I turned again to the lion. He lay with head hidden under a little shelf and he moved not a muscle. What a place for him to choose! But for my accidental venturing down the broken fragments and steps of the rim he could have remained safe from pursuit.

Suddenly, right under my feet, Don opened his string of yelps. I could not see him but decided he must be above the lion on the crag. I leaned over as far as I dared. At that moment among the varied and thrilling sounds about me I became vaguely aware of hard, panting breaths, like coughs somewhere in my vicinity. As Jones had set in motion bushels of stone and had already scraped his feet over the rocks behind me I thought the forced respiration came from him. When I turned he was yet far off — too far for me to hear him breathe. I thought this circumstance strange but straightway forgot it.

On the moment from my right somewhere Don pealed out his bugle blast, and immediately after Sounder and Jude joining him, sent up the thrice welcome news of a treed lion.

“There ‘re two! There ‘re two!” I yelled to Jones, now working down to my right.

“He’s treed down here. I’ve got him spotted!” replied Jones. “You stay there and watch your lion. Yell for Emett.”

Signal after signal for Emett earned no response, though Jim far below to the left sent me an answer.

The next few minutes, or more likely half an hour, passed with Jones and me separated from each other by a wall of broken stone, waiting impatiently for Jim and Emett, while the hounds bayed one lion and I watched the other.

Calmness was impossible under such circumstances. No man could have gazed into that marvel of color and distance, with wild life about him, with wild sounds ringing in his ears, without yielding to the throb and race of his wild blood.

Emett did not come. Jim had not answered a yell for minutes. No doubt he needed his breath. He came into sight just to the left of our position, and he ran down one side of the ravine to toil up the other. I hailed him, Jones hailed him and the hounds hailed him.

“Steer to your left Jim!” I called.. “There’s a lion on that crag above you. He might jump. Round the cliff to the left — Jones is there!”

The most painful task it was for me to sit there and listen to the sound rising from below without being able to see what happened. My lion had peeped up once, and, seeing me, had crouched closer to his crag, evidently believing he was unseen, which obviously made it imperative for me to keep my seat and hold him there as long as possible.

But to hear the various exclamations thrilled me enough.

“Hyar Moze — get out of that. Catch him — hold him! Damn these rotten limbs. Hand me a pole — Jones, back down — back down! he’s comin’ — Hi! Hi! Whoop! Boo — o! There — now you’ve got him! No, no; it slipped! Now! Look out, Jim, from under — he’s going to jump!”

A smashing and rattling of loose stones and a fiery burst of yelps with trumpet-like yells followed close upon Jones’ last words. Then two yellow streaks leaped down the ravine. The first was the lion, the second was Don. The rest of the pack came tumbling helter-skelter in their wake. Following them raced Jim in long kangaroo leaps, with Jones in the rear, running for all he was worth. The animated and musical procession passed up out of the ravine and gradually lengthened as the lion gained and Jones lost, till it passed altogether from my jealous sight.

On the other side of the ridge of cedars the hounds treed their quarry again, as was easy to tell by their change from sharp intermittent yelping to an unbroken, full, deep chorus. Then presently all quieted down, and for long moments at a time the still silence enfolded the slope. Shouts now and then floated up on the wind and an occasional bark.

I sat there for an hour by my watch, though it seemed only a few minutes, and all that time my lion lay crouched on his crag and never moved.

I looked across the curve of the canyon to the purple breaks of the Siwash and the shaggy side of Buckskin Mountain and far beyond to where Kanab Canyon opened its dark mouth, and farther still to the Pink Cliffs of Utah, weird and dim in the distance.

Something swelled within my breast at the thought that for the time I was part of that wild scene. The eye of an eagle soaring above would have placed me as well as my lion among the few living things in the range of his all-compassing vision. Therefore, all was mine, not merely the lion — for he was only the means to an end — but the stupendous, unnameable thing beneath me, this chasm that hid mountains in the shades of its cliffs, and the granite tombs, some gleaming pale, passionless, others red and warm, painted by a master hand; and the wind-caves, dark-portaled under their mist curtains, and all that was deep and far off, unapproachable, unattainable, of beauty exceeding, dressed in ever-changing hues, was mine by right of presence, by right of the eye to see and the mind to keep.

“Waa-hoo!”

The cry lifted itself out of the depths. I saw Jones on the ridge of cedars.

“All right here — have you kept your line there?” he yelled.

“All’s well — come along, come along,” I replied.

I watched them coming, and all the while my lion never moved. The hounds reached the base of the cliff under me, but they could not find the lion, though they scented him, for they kept up a continual baying. Jim got up to the shelf under me and said they had tied up the lion and left him below. Jones toiled slowly up the slope.

“Some one ought to stay down there; he might jump,” I called in warning.

“That crag is forty feet high on this side,” he replied.

I clambered back over the uneven mass, let myself down between the boulders and crawled under a dark ridge, and finally with Jim catching my rifle and camera and then lending his shoulders, I reached the bench below. Jones came puffing around a corner of the cliff, and soon all three of us with the hounds stood out on the rocky shelf with only a narrow space between us and the crouching lion.

Before we had a moment to speak, much less form a plan of attack, the lion rose, spat at us defiantly, and deliberately jumped off the crag. We heard him strike with a frightful thud.

Surprise held us dumb. To take the leap to the slope below seemed beyond any beast not endowed with wings. We saw the lion bounding down the identical trail which the other lion had taken. Jones came out of his momentary indecision.

“Hold the dogs! Call them back!” he yelled hoarsely. “They’ll kill the lion we tied! They’ll kill him!”

The hounds had scattered off the bench here and there, everywhere, to come together on the trail below. Already they were in full cry with the matchless Don at the fore. Manifestly to call them back was an injustice, as well as impossible. In ten seconds they were out of sight.

In silence we waited, each listening, each feeling the tragedy of the situation, each praying that they would pass by the poor, helpless, bound lion. Suddenly the regular baying swelled to a burst of savage, snarling fury, such as the pack made in a vicious fight. This ceased — short silence ensued; Don’s sharp voice woke the echoes, then the regular baying continued.

As with one thought, we all sat down. Painful as the certainty was it was not so painful as that listening, hoping suspense.

“Shore they can’t be blamed,” said Jim finally. “Bumping their nose into a tied lion that way — how’d they know?”

“Who could guess the second lion would jump off that quick and run back to our captive?” burst out Jones.

“Shore we might have knowed it,” replied Jim. “Well, I’m goin’ after the pack.”

He gathered up his lasso and strode off the bench. Jones said he would climb back to the rim, and I followed Jim.

Why the lions ran in that particular direction was clear to me when I saw the trail. It was a runway, smooth and hard packed. I trudged along it with rather less enjoyment than on any trail I had ever followed to the canyon. Jim waited for me over the cedar ridge and showed me where the captive lion lay dead. The hounds had not torn him. They had killed him and passed on after the other.

“He was a fine fellow, all of seven feet, we’ll skin him on our way back.”

Only dogged determination coupled with a sense of duty to the hounds kept us on that trail. For the time being enthusiasm had been submerged. But we had to follow the pack.

Jim, less weighted down and perhaps less discouraged, forged ahead up and down. The sun had burned all the morning coolness out of the air. I perspired and panted and began to grow weary. Jim’s signal called me to hurry. I took to a trot and came upon him and the hounds under a small cedar. The lion stood among the dead branches. His sides where shaking convulsively, and his short breaths could be plainly heard. He had the most blazing eyes and most untamed expression of any wild creature I have ever seen; and this amazed me considering I had kept him on a crag for over an hour, and had come to look upon him as my own.

“What’ll we do, Jim, now that we have him treed?”

“Shore, we’ll tie him up,” declared Jim.

The lion stayed in the cedar long enough for me to photograph him twice, then he leaped down again and took to his back trail. We followed as fast as we could, soon to find that the hounds had put him up another cedar. From this he jumped down among the dogs, scattered them as if they had been so many leaves, and bounded up the slope out of sight.

I laid aside my rifle and camera and tried to keep up with Jim. The lion ran straight up the slope and treed again under the wall. Before we covered half the distance he was on the go once more, flying down in clouds of dust.

“Don is makin’ him hump,” said Jim.

And that alone was enough to spur us on. We would reward the noble hound if we had the staying power. Don and his pack ran westward this time, and along a mile of the beaten trail put him up two more trees. But these we could not see and judged only by the sound.

A Drink of Cold Granite Water Under the Rim

Which is the Piute?

“Look there!” cried Jim. “Darn me if he ain’t comin’ right at us.”

It was true. Ahead of us the lion appeared, loping wearily. We stopped in our tracks undecided. Jim drew his revolver. Once or twice the lion disappeared behind stones and cedars. When he sighted us he stopped, looked back, then again turning toward us, he left the trail to plunge down. He had barely got out of sight when old Don came pattering along the trail; then Ranger leading the others. Don did not even put his nose to the ground where the lion had switched, but leaped aside and went down. Here the long section of slope between the lion’s runway and the second wall had been weathered and worn, racked and convulsed into deep ravines, with ridges between. We climbed and fell and toiled on, always with the bay of the hounds in our ears. We leaped fissures, we loosened avalanches, rolling them to crash and roar below, and send long, rumbling echoes out into the canyon.

A gorge in the yellow rock opened suddenly before us. We stood at the constricted neck of one of the great splits in the second wall. The side opposite was almost perpendicular, and formed of mass on mass of broken stones. This was a weathered slope on a gigantic scale. Points of cliffs jutted out; caves and cracks lined the wall.

“This is a rough place,” said Jim; “but a lion could get over the second wall here, an’ I believe a man could too. The hounds seemed to be back further toward where the split narrows.”

Through densely massed cedars and thickets of prickly thorns we wormed our way to come out at the neck of the gorge.

“There ye are!” sang out Jim. The hounds were all on a flat shelf some few feet below us, and on a sharp point of rock close by, but too far for the dogs to reach, crouched the lion. He was gasping and frothing at the mouth.

“Shore if he’d only stay there—” said Jim.

He loosened his lasso, and stationing himself just above the tired beast he prepared to cast down the loop. The first throw failed of its purpose, but the rope hit the lion. He got up painfully it seemed, and faced the dogs. That way barred he turned to the cliff. Almost opposite him a shelf leaned out. He looked at it, then paced to and fro like a beast in a cage.

He looked again at the hounds, then up at us, all around, and finally concentrated his attention on the shelf; his long length sagged in the middle, he stretched low, his muscles gathered and strung, and he sprang like a tawny streak.

His aim was true, the whole forepart of his body landed on the shelf and he hung there. Then he slipped. We distinctly heard his claws scrape the hard, smooth rock. He fell, turning a somersault, struck twenty feet below on the rough slant, bounded from that to fall down, striking suddenly and then to roll, a yellow wheel that lodged behind a rock and stretched out to move no more.

The hounds were silent; Jim and I were silent; a few little stones rattled, then were still. The dead silence of the canyon seemed to pay tribute to the lion’s unquenchable spirit and to the freedom he had earned to the last.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW LONG JIM and I sat there we never knew. The second tragedy, not so pitiful but as heart sickening as the first, crushed our spirits.

“Shore he was a game lion,” said Jim. “An’ I’ll have to get his skin.”

“I’m all in, Jim. I couldn’t climb out of that hole.” I said.

“You needn’t. Rest a little, take a good drink an’ leave your canteen here for me; then get your things back there on the trail an’ climb out. We’re not far from West Point. I’ll go back after the first lion’s skin an’ then climb straight up. You lead my horse to the point where you came off the rim.”

He clattered along the gorge knocking the stones and started down. I watched him letting himself over the end of the huge slabs until he passed out of my sight. A good, long drink revived me and I began the ascent.

From that moment on time did not matter to me. I forgot all about it. I felt only my leaden feet and my laboring chest and dripping skin. I did not even notice the additional weight of my rifle and camera though they must have overburdened me. I kept my eyes on the lion runway and plunged away with short steps. To look at these towering walls would have been to surrender.

At last, stumbling, bursting, sick, I gained the rim and had to rest before I could mount. When I did get into the saddle I almost fell from it.

Jones and Emett were waiting for me at the promontory where I had tied my horse, and were soon acquainted with the particulars of my adventure, and that Jim would probably not get out for hours. We made tracks for camp, and never did a place rouse in me such a sense of gratefulness. Emett got dinner and left on the fire a kettle of potato stew for Jim. It was almost dark when that worthy came riding into camp. We never said a word as he threw the two lion skins on the ground.

“Fellows, you shore have missed the wind-up!” he exclaimed.

We all looked at him and he looked at us.

“Was there any more?” I asked weakly.

“Shore! An’ it beats hell! When I got the skin of the lion the dogs killed I started to work up to the place I knowed you’d leave my horse. It’s bad climbing where you came down. I got on the side of that cliff an’ saw where I could work out, if I could climb a smooth place. So I tried. There was little cracks an’ ridges for my feet and hands. All to once, just above where I helped you down, I heard a growl. Looking up I saw a big lion, bigger’n any we chased except Sultan, an’ he was pokin’ his head out of a hole, an’ shore telling me to come no further. I couldn’t let go with either hand to reach my gun, because I’d have fallen, so I yelled at him with all my might. He spit at me an’ then walked out of the hole over the bench as proud as a lord an’ jumped down where I couldn’t see him any more. I climbed out all right but he’d gone. An’ I’ll tell you for a minute, he shore made me sweat.”

“By George!” I yelled, greatly excited. “I heard that lion breathing. Don chased him up there. I heard hard, wheezing breaths somewhere behind me, but in the excitement I didn’t pay any attention to them. I thought it was Jones panting, but now I know what it meant.”

“Shore. He was there all the time, lookin’ at you an’ maybe he could have reached you.”

We were all too exhausted for more discussion and putting that off until the next day we sought our beds. It was hardly any wonder that I felt myself jumping even in my sleep, and started up wildly more than once in the dead of night.

Wild Horses Drinking on a Promontory in the Grand Canyon

Morning found us all rather subdued, yet more inclined to a philosophical resignation as regarded the difficulties of our special kind of hunting. Capturing the lions on the level of the plateau was easy compared to following them down into canyons and bringing them up alone. We all agreed that that was next to impossible. Another feature, which before we had not considered, added to our perplexity and it was a dawning consciousness that we would be perhaps less cruel if we killed the lions outright. Jones and Emett arrayed themselves on the side that life even in captivity was preferable; while Jim and I, no doubt still under the poignant influence of the last lion’s heroic race and end, inclined to freedom or death. We compromised on the reasonable fact that as yet we had shown only a jackass kind of intelligence.

Jones and Emett Packing Lion on Horse

Jones Climbing up to Lasso Lion

About eleven o’clock while the others had deserted camp temporarily for some reason or other, I was lounging upon an odorous bed of pine needles. The sun shone warmly, the sky gleamed bright azure through the openings of the great trees, a dry west breeze murmured through the forest. I was lying on my bed musing idly and watching a yellow woodpecker when suddenly I felt a severe bite on my shoulder. I imagined an ant had bitten me through my shirt. In a moment or so afterward I received, this time on my breast, another bite that left no room for imagination. There was some kind of an animal inside my shirt, and one that made a mosquito, black-fly, or flea seem tame.

Suddenly a thought swept on the heels of my indolent and rather annoying realization. Could I have gotten from the Navajo what Jim and Jones so characteristically called “‘em”? I turned cold all over. And on the very instant I received another bite that burned like fire.

The return of my companions prevented any open demonstration of my fears and condition of mind, but I certainly swore inwardly. During the dinner hour I felt all the time as if I had on a horsehair shirt with the ends protruding toward my skin, and, in the exaggerated sensitiveness of the moment, made sure “‘em” were chasing up and down my back.

After dinner I sneaked off into the woods. I remembered that Emett had said there was only one way to get rid of “‘em,” and that was to disrobe and make a microscopical search of garments and person. With serious mind and murderous intent I undressed. In the middle of the back of my jersey I discovered several long, uncanny, gray things.

“I guess I got ‘em,” I said gravely.

Then I sat on a pine log in a state of unadorned nature, oblivious to all around, intent only on the massacre of the things that had violated me. How much time flew I could not guess. Great loud “Haw-haws!” roused me to consternation. There behind me stood Jones and Emett shaking as if with the ague.

“It’s not funny!” I shouted in a rage. I had the unreasonable suspicion that they had followed me to see my humiliation. Jones, who cracked a smile about as often as the equinoxes came, and Emett the sober Mormon, laughed until they cried.

“I was — just wondering — what your folks would — think — if they — saw you — now,” gurgled Jones.

That brought to me the humor of the thing, and I joined in their mirth.

“All I hope is that you fellows will get ‘em’ too,” I said.

“The Good Lord preserve me from that particular breed of Navvy’s,” cried Emett.

Jones wriggled all over at the mere suggestion. Now so much from the old plainsman, who had confessed to intimate relations with every creeping, crawling thing in the West, attested powerfully to the unforgettable singularity of what I got from Navvy.

I returned to camp determined to make the best of the situation, which owing to my failure to catch all of the gray devils, remained practically unchanged. Jim had been acquainted with my dilemma, as was manifest in his wet eyes and broad grin with which he greeted me.

“I think I’d scalp the Navvy,” he said.

“You make the Indian sleep outside after this, snow or no snow,” was Jones’ suggestion.

“No I won’t; I won’t show a yellow streak like that. Besides, I want to give ’em to you fellows.”

A blank silence followed my statement, to which Jim replied:

“Shore that’ll be easy; Jones’ll have ‘em, so’ll Emett, an’ by thunder I’m scratchin’ now.”

“Navvy, look here,” I said severely, “mucha no bueno! heap bad! You — me!” here I scratched myself and made signs that a wooden Indian would have understood.

“Me savvy,” he replied, sullenly, then flared up. “Heap big lie.”

He turned on his heel, erect, dignified, and walked away amid the roars of my gleeful comrades.

CHAPTER IX

ONE BY ONE my companions sought their blankets, leaving the shadows, the dying embers, the slow-rising moan of the night wind to me. Old Moze got up from among the other hounds and limped into my tent, where I heard him groan as he lay down. Don, Sounder, and Ranger were fast asleep in well-earned rest. Shep, one of the pups, whined and impatiently tossed his short chain. Remembering that he had not been loose all day, I unbuckled his collar and let him go.

He licked my hand, stretched and shook himself, lifted his shapely, sleek head and sniffed the wind. He trotted around the circle cast by the fire and looked out into the darkening shadows. It was plain that Shep’s instincts were developing fast; he was ambitious to hunt. But sure in my belief that he was afraid of the black night and would stay in camp, I went to bed.

The Navajo who slept with me snored serenely and Moze growled in his dreams; the wind swept through the pines with an intermittent rush. Some time in the after part of the night I heard a distant sound. Remote, mournful, wild, it sent a chill creeping over me. Borne faintly to my ears, it was a fit accompaniment to the moan of the wind in the pines. It was not the cry of a trailing wolf, nor the lonesome howl of a prowling coyote, nor the strange, low sound, like a cough, of a hunting cougar, though it had a semblance of all three. It was the bay of a hound, thinned out by distance, and it served to keep me wide awake. But for a while, what with the roar and swell of the wind and Navvy’s snores, I could hear it only at long intervals.

Still, in the course of an hour, I followed the sound, or imagined so, from a point straight in line with my feet to one at right angles with my head. Finally deciding it came from Shep, and fancying he was trailing a deer or coyote, I tried to go to sleep again.

In this I would have succeeded had not, all at once, our captive lions begun to growl. That ominous, low murmuring awoke me with a vengeance, for it was unusual for them to growl in the middle of the night. I wondered if they, as well as the pup, had gotten the scent of a prowling lion.

I reached down to my feet and groped in the dark for Moze. Finding him, I gave him a shake. The old gladiator groaned, stirred, and came out of what must have been dreams of hunting meat. He slapped his tail against my bed. As luck would have it, just then the wind abated to a soft moan, and clear and sharp came the bay of a hound. Moze heard it, for he stopped wagging his tail, his body grew tense under my hand, and he vented his low, deep grumble.

I lay there undecided. To wake my companions was hardly to be considered, and to venture off into the forest alone, where old Sultan might be scouting, was not exactly to my taste. And trying to think what to do, and listening for the bay of the pup, and hearing mostly the lions growling and the wind roaring, I fell asleep.

“Hey! are you ever going to get up?” some one yelled into my drowsy brain. I roused and opened my eyes. The yellow, flickering shadows on the wall of my tent told me that the sun had long risen. I found my companions finishing breakfast. The first thing I did was to look over the dogs. Shep, the black-and-white pup, was missing.

“Where’s Shep?” I asked.

“Shore, I ain’t seen him this mornin’,” replied Jim.

Thereupon I told what I had heard during the night.

“Everybody listen,” said Jones.

We quieted down and sat like statues. A gentle, cool breeze, barely moving the pine tips, had succeeded the night wind. The sound of horses munching their oats, and an occasional clink, rattle, and growl from the lions did not drown the faint but unmistakable yelps of a pup.

“South, toward the canyon,” said Jim, as Jones got up.

“Now, it’d be funny if that little Shep, just to get even with me for tying him up so often, has treed a lion all by himself,” commented Jones. “And I’ll bet that’s just what he’s done.”

He called the hounds about him and hurried westward through the forest.

“Shore, it might be.” Jim shook his head knowingly. “I reckon it’s only a rabbit, but anythin’ might happen in this place.”

I finished breakfast and went into my tent for something — I forget what, for wild yells from Emett and Jim brought me flying out again.

“Listen to that!” cried Jim, pointing west.

The hounds had opened up; their full, wild chorus floated clearly on the breeze, and above it Jones’ stentorian yell signaled us.

“Shore, the old man can yell,” continued Jim. “Grab your lassos an’ hump yourselves. I’ve got the collar an’ chain.”

“Come on, Navvy,” shouted Emett. He grasped the Indian’s wrist and started to run, jerking Navvy into the air at every jump. I caught up my camera and followed. We crossed two shallow hollows, and then saw the hounds and Jones among the pines not far ahead.

In my excitement I outran my companions and dashed into an open glade. First I saw Jones waving his long arms; next the dogs, noses upward, and Don actually standing on his hind legs; then a dead pine with a well-known tawny shape outlined against the blue sky.

“Hurrah for Shep!” I yelled, and right vigorously did my comrades join in.

“It’s another female,” said Jones, when we calmed down, “and fair sized. That’s the best tree for our purpose that I ever saw a lion in. So spread out, boys; surround her and keep noisy.”

Navvy broke from Emett at this juncture and ran away. But evidently overcome by curiosity, he stopped to hide behind a bush, from which I saw his black head protruding.

When Jones swung himself on the first stubby branch of the pine, the lioness, some fifteen feet above, leaped to another limb, and the one she had left cracked, swayed and broke. It fell directly upon Jones, the blunt end striking his head and knocking him out of the tree. Fortunately, he landed on his feet; otherwise there would surely have been bones broken. He appeared stunned, and reeled so that Emett caught him. The blood poured from a wound in his head.

This sudden shock sobered us instantly. On examination we found a long, jagged cut in Jones’ scalp. We bathed it with water from my canteen and with snow Jim procured from a nearby hollow, eventually stopping the bleeding. I insisted on Jones coming to camp to have the wound properly dressed, and he insisted on having it bound with a bandana; after which he informed us that he was going to climb the tree again.

We objected to this. Each of us declared his willingness to go up and rope the lion; but Jones would not hear of it.

“I’m not doubting your courage,” he said. “It’s only that you cannot tell what move the lion would make next, and that’s the danger.”

We could not gainsay this, and as not one of us wanted to kill the animal or let her go, Jones had his way. So he went up the tree, passed the first branch and then another. The lioness changed her position, growled, spat, clawed the twigs, tried to keep the tree trunk between her and Jones, and at length got out on a branch in a most favorable position for roping.

The first cast of the lasso did the business, and Jim and Emett with nimble fingers tied up the hounds.

“Coming,” shouted Jones. He slid down, hand over hand, on the rope, the lioness holding his weight with apparent ease.

“Make your noose ready,” he yelled to Emett.

I had to drop my camera to help Jones and Jim pull the animal from her perch. The branches broke in a shower; then the lioness, hissing, snarling, whirling, plunged down. She nearly jerked the rope out of our hands, but we lowered her to Emett, who noosed her hind paws in a flash.

“Make fast your rope,” shouted Jones. “There, that’s good! Now let her down — easy.”

As soon as the lioness touched ground we let go the lasso, which whipped up and over the branch. She became a round, yellow, rapidly moving ball. Emett was the first to catch the loose lasso, and he checked the rolling cougar. Jones leaped to assist him and the two of them straightened out the struggling animal, while Jim swung another noose at her. On the second throw he caught a front paw.

“Pull hard! Stretch her out!” yelled Jones. He grasped a stout piece of wood and pushed it at the lioness. She caught it in her mouth, making the splinters fly. Jones shoved her head back on the ground and pressed his brawny knee on the bar of wood.

“The collar! The collar! Quick!” he called.

I threw chain and collar to him, which in a moment he had buckled round her neck.

“There, we’ve got her!” he said. “It’s only a short way over to camp, so we’ll drag her without muzzling.”

As he rose the lioness lurched, and reaching him, fastened her fangs in his leg. Jones roared. Emett and Jim yelled. And I, though frightened, was so obsessed with the idea of getting a picture that I began to fumble with the shutter of my camera.

“Grab the chain! Pull her off!” bawled Jones.

I ran in, took up the chain with both hands, and tugged with all my might. Emett, too, had all his weight on the lasso round her neck. Between the two of us we choked her hold loose, but she brought Jones’ leather leggin in her teeth. Then I dropped the chain and jumped.

“* * — * * — !” exploded Jones to me. “Do you think more of a picture than of saving my life?” Having expressed this not unreasonable protest, he untied the lasso that Emett had made fast to a small sapling.

Then the three men, forming points of a triangle around an animated center, began a march through the forest that for variety of action and splendid vociferation beat any show I ever beheld.

So rare was it that the Navajo came out of his retreat and, straightway forgetting his reverence and fear, began to execute a ghost-dance, or war-dance, or at any rate some kind of an Indian dance, along the side lines.

There were moments when the lioness had Jim and Jones on the ground and Emett wobbling; others when she ran on her bound legs and chased the two in front and dragged the one behind; others when she came within an ace of getting her teeth in somebody.

They had caught a Tartar. They dared not let her go, and though Jones evidently ordered it, no one made fast his rope to a tree. There was no opportunity. She was in the air three parts of the time and the fourth she was invisible for dust. The lassos were each thirty feet long, but even with that the men could just barely keep out of her reach.

Then came the climax, as it always comes in a lion hunt, unerringly, unexpectedly, and with lightning swiftness. The three men were nearing the bottom of the second hollow, well spread out, lassos taut, facing one another. Jones stumbled and the lioness leaped his way. The weight of both brought Jim over, sliding and slipping, with his rope slackening. The leap of the lioness carried her within reach of Jones; and as he raised himself, back toward her, she reached a big paw for him just as Emett threw all his bull strength and bulk on his lasso.

The seat of Jones’ trousers came away with the lioness’ claws. Then she fell backward, overcome by Emett’s desperate lunge. Jones sprang up with the velocity of an Arab tumbler, and his scarlet face, working spasmodically, and his moving lips, showed how utterly unable he was to give expression to his rage. I had a stitch in my side that nearly killed me, but laugh I had to though I should die for it.

No laughing matter was it for them. They volleyed and thundered back and forth meaningless words of which “hell” was the only one distinguishable, and probably the word that best described their situation.

All the while, however, they had been running from the lioness, which brought them before they realized it right into camp. Our captive lions cut up fearfully at the hubbub, and the horses stampeded in terror.

“Whoa!” yelled Jones, whether to his companions or to the struggling cougar, no one knew. But Navvy thought Jones addressed the cougar.

“Whoa!” repeated Navvy. “No savvy whoa! No savvy whoa!” which proved conclusively that the Navajo had understanding as well as wit.

Soon we had another captive safely chained and growling away in tune with the others. I went back to untie the hounds, to find them sulky and out of sorts from being so unceremoniously treated. They noisily trailed the lioness into camp, where, finding her chained, they formed a ring around her.

Thereafter the day passed in round-the-camp-fire chat and task. For once Jim looked at Navvy with toleration. We dressed the wound in Jones’ head and laughed at the condition of his trousers and at his awkward attempts to piece them.

“Mucha dam cougie,” remarked Navvy. “No savvy whoa!”

The lions growled all day. And Jones kept repeating: “To think how Shep fooled me!”

CHAPTER X

NEXT MORNING JONES was out bright and early, yelling at Navvy to hurry with the horses, calling to the hounds and lions, just as usual.

Navvy had finally come to his full share of praise from all of us. Even Jim acknowledged that the Indian was invaluable to a hunting party in a country where grass and water were hard to find and wild horses haunted the trails.

“Tohodena! Tohodena! (hurry! hurry!)” said Navvy, mimicking Jones that morning.

As we sat down to breakfast he loped off into the forest and before we got up the bells of the horses were jingling in the hollow.

“I believe it’s going to be cloudy,” said Jones, “and if so we can hunt all day.”

We rode down the ridge to the left of Middle Canyon, and had trouble with the hounds all the way. First they ran foul of a coyote, which was the one and only beast they could not resist. Spreading out to head them off, we separated. I cut into a hollow and rode to its head, where I went up. I heard the hounds and presently saw a big, white coyote making fast time through the forest glades. It looked as if he would cross close in front of me, so I pulled Foxie to a standstill, jumped off and knelt with my rifle ready. But the sharp-eyed coyote saw my horse and shied off. I had not much hope to hit him so far away, and the five bullets I sent after him, singing and zipping, served only to make him run faster. I mounted Foxie and intercepted the hounds coming up sharply on the trail, and turned them toward my companions, now hallooing from the ridge below.

Then the pack lost a good hour on several lion tracks that were a day old, and for such trails we had no time. We reached the cedars however at seven o’clock, and as the sky was overcast with low dun-colored clouds and the air cool, we were sure it was not too late.

One of the capes of the plateau between Middle and Left Canyon was a narrow strip of rock, covered with a dense cedar growth and cut up into smaller canyons, all running down inevitably toward the great canyon. With but a single bark to warn us, Don got out of our sight and hearing; and while we split to look and call for him the remainder of the pack found the lion trail that he had gone on, and they left us trying to find a way out as well as to find each other. I kept the hounds in hearing for some time and meanwhile I signalled to Emett who was on my right flank. Jones and Jim might as well have vanished off the globe for all I could see or hear of them. A deep, narrow gully into which I had to lead Foxie and carefully coax him out took so much time that when I once more reached a level I could not hear the hounds or get an answer to my signal cry.

“Waa-hoo!” I called again.

Away on the dry rarified air pealed the cry, piercing the cedar forest, splitting sharp in the vaulted canyons, rolling loud and long, to lose power, to die away in muffling echo. But the silence returned no answer.

I rode on under the cedars, through a dark, gloomy forest, silent, almost spectral, which brought irresistibly to my mind the words “I found me in a gloomy wood astray.” I was lost though I knew the direction of the camp. This section of cedar forest was all but impenetrable. Dead cedars were massed in gray tangles, live cedars, branches touching the ground, grew close together. In this labyrinth I lost my bearings. I turned and turned, crossed my own back trail, which in desperation I followed, coming out of the cedars at the deep and narrow canyon.

Here I fired my revolver. The echo boomed out like the report of heavy artillery, but no answering shot rewarded me. There was no alternative save to wander along the canyon and through the cedars until I found my companions. This I began to do, disgusted with my awkwardness in losing them. Turning Foxie westward I had scarcely gotten under way when Don came trotting toward me.

“Hello, old boy!” I called. Don appeared as happy to see me as I was to see him. He flopped down on the ground; his dripping tongue rolled as he panted; covered with dust and flecked with light froth he surely looked to be a tired hound.

“All in, eh Don!” I said dismounting. “Well, we’ll rest awhile.” Then I discovered blood on his nose, which I found to have come from a deep scratch. “A — ah! been pushing a lion too hard this morning? Got your nose scratched, didn’t you? You great, crazy hound, don’t you know some day you’ll chase your last lion?”

Don wagged his tail as if to say he knew it all very well. I wet my handkerchief from my canteen and started to wash the blood and dust from his nose, when he whined and licked my fingers.

“Thirsty?” I asked, sitting down beside him. Denting the top of my hat I poured in as much water as it would hold and gave him to drink. Four times he emptied my improvised cup before he was satisfied. Then with a sigh of relief he lay down again.

The three of us rested there for perhaps half an hour, Don and I sitting quietly on the wall of the canyon, while Foxie browsed on occasional tufts of grass. During that time the hound never raised his sleek, dark head, which showed conclusively the nature of the silence. And now that I had company — as good company as any hunter ever had — I was once more contented.

Don got up, at length of his own volition and with a wag of his tail set off westward along the rim. Remounting my mustang I kept as close to Don’s heels as the rough going permitted. The hound, however, showed no disposition to hurry, and I let him have his way without a word.

We came out in the notch of the great amphitheater or curve we had named the Bay, and I saw again the downward slope, the bold steps, the color and depth below.

I was just about to yell a signal cry when I saw Don, with hair rising stiff, run forward. He took a dozen jumps, then yelping broke down the steep, yellow and green gorge. He disappeared before I knew what had happened.

Shortly I found a lion track, freshly made, leading down. I believed I could follow wherever Don led, so I decided to go after him. I tied Foxie securely, removed my coat, kicked off spurs and chaps, and remembering past unnecessary toil, fastened a red bandana to the top of a dead snag to show me where to come up on my way out. Then I carefully strapped my canteen and camera on my back, made doubly secure my revolver, put on my heavy gloves, and started down. And I realized at once that only so lightly encumbered should I have ever ventured down the slope.

Little benches of rock, grassy on top, with here and there cedar trees, led steeply down for perhaps five hundred feet. A precipice stopped me. From it I heard Don baying below, and almost instantly saw the yellow gleam of a lion in a tree-top.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” I yelled in wild encouragement.

I felt it would be wise to look before I leaped. The Bay lay under me, a mile wide where it opened into the great slumbering smoky canyon. All below was chaos of splintered stone and slope, green jumble of cedar, ruined, detached, sliding, standing cliff walls, leaning yellow crags — an awful hole. But I could get down, and that was all I cared for. I ran along to the left, jumping cracks, bounding over the uneven stones with sure, swift feet, and came to where the cliff ended in weathered slope and scaly bench.

It was like a game, going down that canyon. My heavy nailed boots struck fire from the rocks. My heavy gloves protected my hands as I slid and hung on and let go. I outfooted the avalanches and wherever I came to a scaly slope or bank or decayed rock, I leaped down in sheer delight.

But all too soon my progress was barred; once under the cliff I found only a gradual slope and many obstacles to go round or surmount. Luck favored me, for I ran across a runway and keeping to it made better time. I heard Don long before I tried to see him, and yelled at intervals to let him know I was coming. A white bank of weathered stones led down to a clump of cedars from where Don’s bay came spurring me to greater efforts. I flew down this bank, and through an opening saw the hound standing with fore feet against a cedar. The branches over him swayed, and I saw an indistinct, tawny form move downward in the air. Then succeeded the crash and rattle of stones. Don left the tree and disappeared.

I dashed down, dodged under the cedars, threaded a maze of rocks, to find myself in a ravine with a bare, water-worn floor. In patches of sand showed the fresh tracks of Don and the lion. Running down this dry, clean bed was the easiest going I ever found in the canyon. Every rod the course jumped in a fall from four to ten feet, often more, and these I slid down. How I ever kept Don in hearing was a marvel, but still I did.

The lion evidently had no further intention of taking to a tree. From the size of his track I concluded he was old and I feared every moment to hear the sounds of a fight. Jones had said that nearly always in the case of one hound chasing an old lion, the lion would lie in wait for him and kill him. And I was afraid for Don.

Down, down, down, we went, till the yellow rim above seemed a thin band of gold. I saw that we were almost to the canyon proper, and I wondered what would happen when we reached it. The dark shaded watercourse suddenly shot out into bright light and ended in a deep cove, with perpendicular walls fifty feet high. I could see where a few rods farther on this cove opened into a huge, airy, colored canyon.

I called the hound, wondering if he had gone to the right or left of the cove. His bay answered me coming from the cedars far to the right. I turned with all the speed left in me, for I felt the chase nearing an end. Tracks of hound and lion once more showed in the dust. The slope was steep and stones I sent rolling cracked down below. Soon I had a cliff above me and had to go slow and cautiously. A misstep or slide would have precipitated me into the cove.

Almost before I knew what I was about, I stood gasping on the gigantic second wall of the canyon, with nothing but thin air under me, except, far below, faint and indistinct purple clefts, red ridges, dotted slopes, running down to merge in a dark, winding strip of water, that was the Rio Colorado. A sullen murmur soared out of the abyss.

Two Lions in One Tree

Jones, Emett, and the Navajo With The Lions

The coloring of my mood changed. Never had the canyon struck me so terribly with its illimitable space, its dread depth, its unscalable cliffs, and particularly with the desolate, forbidding quality of its silence.

I heard Don bark. Turning the corner of the cliff wall I saw him on a narrow shelf. He was coming toward me and when he reached me he faced again to the wall and barked fiercely. The hair on his neck bristled. I knew he did not fancy that narrow strip of rock, nor did I. But a sudden, grim, cold something had taken possession of me, and I stepped forward.

“Come on, Don, old fellow, we’ve got him corralled.”

That was the first instance I ever knew of Don’s hesitation in the chase of a lion. I had to coax him to me. But once started he took the lead and I closely followed.

The shelf was twenty feet wide and upon it close to the wall, in the dust, were the deep imprints of the lion. A jutting corner of cliff wall hid my view. I peeped around it. The shelf narrowed on the other side to a yard in width, and climbed gradually by broken steps. Don passed the corner, looked back to see if I was coming and went on. He did this four times, once even stopping to wait for me.

“I’m with you Don!” I grimly muttered. “We’ll see this trail out to a finish.”

I had now no eyes for the wonders of the place, though I could not but see as I bent a piercing gaze ahead the ponderous overhanging wall above, and sense the bottomless depth below. I felt rather than saw the canyon swallows, sweeping by in darting flight, with soft rustle of wings, and I heard the shrill chirp of some strange cliff inhabitant.

Don ceased barking. How strange that seemed to me! We were no longer man and hound, but companions, brothers, each one relying on the other. A protruding corner shut us from sight of what was beyond. Don slipped around. I had to go sidewise and shuddered as my fingers bit into the wall.

To my surprise I soon found myself on the floor of a shallow wind cave. The lion trail led straight across it and on. Shelves of rock stuck out above under which I hurriedly walked. I came upon a shrub cedar growing in a niche and marveled to see it there. Don went slower and slower.

We suddenly rounded a point, to see the lion lying in a box-like space in the wall. The shelf ended there. I had once before been confronted with a like situation, and had expected to find it here, so was not frightened. The lion looked up from his task of licking a bloody paw, and uttered a fierce growl. His tail began to lash to and fro; it knocked the little stones off the shelf. I heard them click on the wall. Again and again he spat, showing great, white fangs. He was a Tom, heavy and large.

It had been my purpose, of course, to photograph this lion, and now that we had cornered him I proposed to do it. What would follow had only hazily formed in my mind, but the nucleus of it was that he should go free. I got my camera, opened it, and focused from between twenty and twenty-five feet.

Then a growl from Don and roar from the lion bade me come to my senses. I did so and my first movement after seeing the lion had risen threateningly was to whip out my revolver.

The lion’s cruel yellow eyes darkened and darkened. In an instant I saw my error. Jones had always said in case any one of us had to face a lion, never for a single instant to shift his glance. I had forgotten that, and in that short interval when I focused my camera the lion had seen I meant him no harm, or feared him, and he had risen. Even then in desperate lessening ambition for a great picture I attempted to take one, still keeping my glance on him.

It was then that the appalling nature of my predicament made itself plain to me. The lion leaped ten feet and stood snarling horribly right in my face.

Brave, noble Don, with infinitely more sense and courage than I possessed, faced the lion and bayed him in his teeth. I raised the revolver and aimed twice, each time lowering it because I feared to shoot in such a precarious position. To wound the lion would be the worst thing I could do, and I knew that only a shot through the brain would kill him in his tracks.

“Hold him, Don, hold him!” I yelled, and I took a backward step. The lion put forward one big paw, his eyes now all purple blaze. I backed again and he came forward. Don gave ground slowly. Once the lion flashed a yellow paw at him. It was frightful to see the wide-spread claws.

In the consternation of the moment I allowed the lion to back me across the front of the wind cave, where I saw, the moment it was too late, I should have taken advantage of more space to shoot him.

Fright succeeded consternation, and I began to tremble. The lion was master of the situation. What would happen when I came to the narrow point on the shelf where it would be impossible for me to back around? I almost fainted. The thought of heroic Don saved me, and the weak moment passed.

“By God, Don, you’ve got the nerve, and I must have it too!”

I stopped in my tracks. The lion, appearing huge now, took slow catlike steps toward me, backing Don almost against my knees. He was so close I smelt him. His wonderful eyes, clear blue fire circled by yellow flame, fascinated me. Hugging the wall with my body I brought the revolver up, short armed, and with clinched teeth, and nerve strained to the breaking point, I aimed between the eyes and pulled the trigger.

The left eye seemed to go out blankly, then followed the bellow of the revolver and the smell of powder. The lion uttered a sound that was a mingling of snarls, howls and roars and he rose straight up, towering high over my head, beating the wall heavily with his paws.

In helpless terror I stood there forgetting weapon, fearing only the beast would fall over on me.

But in death agony he bounded out from the wall to fall into space.

I sank down on the shelf, legs powerless, body in cold sweat. As I waited, slowly my mind freed itself from a tight iron band and a sickening relief filled my soul. Tensely I waited and listened. Don whined once.

Would the lion never strike? What seemed a long period of time ended in a low, distant roar of sliding rock, quickly dying into the solemn stillness of the canyon.

CHAPTER XI

I LAY THERE for some moments slowly recovering, eyes on the far distant escarpments, now darkly red and repellent to me. When I got up my legs were still shaky and I had the strange, weak sensation of a long bed-ridden invalid. Three attempts were necessary before I could trust myself on the narrow strip of shelf. But once around it with the peril passed, I braced up and soon reached the turn in the wall.

After that the ascent out of the Bay was only a matter of work, which I gave with a will. Don did not evince any desire for more hunting that day. We reached the rim together, and after a short rest, I mounted my horse, and we turned for camp.

The sun had long slanted toward the western horizon when I saw the blue smoke of our camp-fire among the pines. The hounds rose up and barked as Don trotted in to the blaze, and my companions just sitting to a dinner, gave me a noisy greeting.

“Shore, we’d began to get worried,” said Jim. “We all had it comin’ to us to-day, and don’t you forget that.”

Dinner lasted for a long hour. Besides being half famished we all took time between bites to talk. I told my story first, expecting my friends to be overwhelmed, but they were not.

“It’s been the greatest day of lion hunting that I ever experienced,” declared Jones. “We ran bang into a nest of lions and they split. We all split and the hounds split. That tells the tale. We have nothing to show for our day’s toil. Six lions chased, rounded up, treed, holed, and one lion killed, and we haven’t even his skin to show. I did not go down but I helped Ranger and two of the pups chase a lion all over the lower end of the plateau. We treed him twice and I yelled for you fellows till my voice was gone.”

“Well,” said Emett, “I fell in with Sounder and Jude. They were hot on a trail which in a mile or two turned up this way. I came on them just at the edge of the pines where they had treed their game. I sat under that pine tree for five hours, fired all my shots to make you fellows come, yelled myself hoarse and then tried to tie up the lion alone. He jumped out and ran over the rim, where neither I nor the dogs could follow.”

“Shore, I win, three of a kind,” drawled Jim, as he got his pipe and carefully dusted the bowl. “When the stampede came, I got my hands on Moze and held him. I held Moze because just as the other hounds broke loose over to my right, I saw down into a little pocket where a fresh-killed deer lay half eaten. So I went down. I found two other carcasses layin’ there, fresh killed last night, flesh all gone, hide gone, bones crushed, skull split open. An’ damn me fellows, if that little pocket wasn’t all torn to pieces. The sage was crushed flat. The ground dug up, dead snags broken, and blood and hair everywhere. Lion tracks like leaves, and old Sultan’s was there. I let Moze loose and he humped the trail of several lions south over the rim. Major got down first an’ came back with his tail between his legs. Moze went down and I kept close to him. It wasn’t far down, but steep and rocky, full of holes. Moze took the trail to a dark cave. I saw the tracks of three lions goin’ in. Then I collared Moze an’ waited for you fellows. I waited there all day, an’ nobody came to my call. Then I made for camp.”

“How do you account for the torn-up appearance of the place where you found the carcasses?” I asked.

“Lion fight sure,” replied Jones. “Maybe old Sultan ran across the three lions feeding, and pitched into them. Such fights were common among the lions in Yellowstone Park when I was there.”

“What chance have we to find those three lions in a cave where Jim chased them?”

“We stand a good chance,” said Jones. “Especially if it storms to-night.”

“Shore the snow storm is comin’,” returned Jim.

Darkness clapped down on us suddenly, and the wind roared in the pines like a mighty river tearing its way down a rocky pass. As we could not control the camp-fire, sparks of which blew fiercely, we extinguished it and went to bed. I had just settled myself comfortably to be sung to sleep by the concert in the pines, when Jones hailed me.

“Say, what do you think?” he yelled, when I had answered him. “Emett is mad. He’s scratching to beat the band. He’s got ‘em.”

I signalled his information with a loud whoop of victory.

“You next, Jones! They’re coming to you!”

I heard him grumble over my happy anticipation. Jim laughed and so did the Navajo, which made me suspect that he could understand more English than he wanted us to suppose.

Next morning a merry yell disturbed my slumbers. “Snowed in — snowed in!”

“Mucha snow — discass — no cougie — dam no bueno!” exclaimed Navvy.

When I peeped out to see the forest in the throes of a blinding blizzard, the great pines only pale, grotesque shadows, everything white mantled in a foot of snow, I emphasized the Indian words in straight English.

“Much snow — cold — no cougar — bad!”

“Stay in bed,” yelled Jones.

“All right,” I replied. “Say Jones, have you got ’em yet?”

He vouchsafed me no answer. I went to sleep then and dozed off and on till noon, when the storm abated. We had dinner, or rather breakfast, round a blazing bonfire.

“It’s going to clear up,” said Jim.

The forest around us was a somber and gloomy place. The cloud that had enveloped the plateau lifted and began to move. It hit the tree tops, sometimes rolling almost to the ground, then rising above the trees. At first it moved slowly, rolling, forming, expanding, blooming like a column of whirling gray smoke; then it gathered headway and rolled onward through the forest. A gray, gloomy curtain, moving and rippling, split by the trees, seemed to be passing over us. It rose higher and higher, to split up in great globes, to roll apart, showing glimpses of blue sky.

Shafts of golden sunshine shot down from these rifts, dispelling the shadows and gloom, moving in paths of gold through the forest glade, gleaming with brilliantly colored fire from the snow-wreathed pines.

The cloud rolled away and the sun shone hot. The trees began to drip. A mist of diamonds filled the air, rainbows curved through every glade and feathered patches of snow floated down.

A great bank of snow, sliding from the pine overhead almost buried the Navajo, to our infinite delight. We all sought the shelter of the tents, and sleep again claimed us.

I awoke about five o’clock. The sun was low, making crimson paths in the white aisles of the forest. A cold wind promised a frosty morning.

“To-morrow will be the day for lions,” exclaimed Jones.

While we hugged the fire, Navvy brought up the horses and gave them their oats. The hounds sought their shelter and the lions lay hidden in their beds of pine. The round red sun dropped out of sight beyond the trees, a pink glow suffused all the ridges; blue shadows gathered in the hollow, shaded purple and stole upward. A brief twilight succeeded to a dark, coldly starlit night.

Once again, when I had crawled into the warm hole of my sleeping bag, was I hailed from the other tent.

Emett called me twice, and as I answered, I heard Jones remonstrating in a low voice.

“Shore, Jones has got ‘em!” yelled Jim. “He can’t keep it a secret no longer.”

“Hey, Jones,” I cried, “do you remember laughing at me?”

“No, I don’t,” growled Jones.

“Listen to this: Haw-haw! haw! haw! ho-ho! ho-ho! bueno! bueno!” and I wound up with a string of “hi! hi! hi! hi! hi!”

The hounds rose up in a body and began to yelp.

“Lie down, pups,” I called to them. “Nothing doing for you. It’s only Jones has got ‘em.”

CHAPTER XII

WHEN WE TROOPED out of the pines next morning, the sun, rising gloriously bright, had already taken off the keen edge of the frosty air, presaging a warm day. The white ridges glistened; the bunches of sage scintillated, and the cedars, tipped in snow, resembled trees with brilliant blossoms.

We lost no time riding for the mouth of Left Canyon, into which Jim had trailed the three lions. On the way the snow, as we had expected, began to thin out, and it failed altogether under the cedars, though there was enough on the branches to give us a drenching.

Jim reined in on the verge of a narrow gorge, and informed us the cave was below. Jones looked the ground over and said Jim had better take the hounds down while the rest of us remained above to await developments.

Jim went down on foot, calling the hounds and holding them close. We listened eagerly for him to yell or the pack to open up, but we were disappointed. In less than half an hour Jim came climbing out, with the information that the lions had left the cave, probably the evening after he had chased them there.

“Well, then,” said Jones, “let’s split the pack, and hunt round the rims of these canyons. We can signal to each other if necessary.”

So we arranged for Jim to take Ranger and the pups across Left Canyon; Emett to try Middle Canyon, with Don and Moze, and we were to perform a like office in Right Canyon with Sounder and Jude. Emett rode back with us, leaving us where we crossed Middle Canyon.

Jones and I rimmed a mile of our canyon and worked out almost to the west end of the Bay, without finding so much as a single track, so we started to retrace our way. The sun was now hot; the snow all gone; the ground dry as if it had never been damp; and Jones grumbled that no success would attend our efforts this morning.

We reached the ragged mouth of Right Canyon, where it opened into the deep, wide Bay, and because we hoped to hear our companions across the canyon, we rode close to the rim. Sounder and Jude both began to bark on a cliff; however, as we could find no tracks in the dust we called them off. Sounder obeyed reluctantly, but Jude wanted to get down over the wall.

“They scent a lion,” averred Jones. “Let’s put them over the wall.”

Once permitted to go, the hounds needed no assistance. They ran up and down the rim till they found a crack. Hardly had they gone out of sight when we heard them yelping. We rushed to the rim and looked over. The first step was short, a crumbled section of wall, and from it led down a long slope, dotted here and there with cedars. Both hounds were baying furiously.

I spied Jude with her paws up on a cedar, and above her hung a lion, so close that she could nearly reach him. Sounder was not yet in sight.

“There! There!” I cried, directing Jones’ glance. “Are we not lucky?”

“I see. By George! Come, we’ll go down. Leave everything that you don’t absolutely need.”

Spurs, chaps, gun, coat, hat, I left on the rim, taking only my camera and lasso. I had forgotten to bring my canteen. We descended a ladder of shaly cliff, the steps of which broke under our feet. The slope below us was easy, and soon we stood on a level with the lion. The cedar was small, and afforded no good place for him. Evidently he jumped from the slope to the tree, and had hung where he first alighted.

“Where’s Sounder? Look for him. I hear him below. This lion won’t stay treed long.”

I, too, heard Sounder. The cedar tree obstructed my view, and I moved aside. A hundred feet farther down the hound bayed under a tall piñon. High in the branches I saw a great mass of yellow, and at first glance thought Sounder had treed old Sultan. How I yelled! Then a second glance showed two lions close together.

“Two more! two more! look! look!” I yelled to Jones.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” he joined his robust yell to mine, and for a moment we made the canyon bellow. When we stopped for breath the echoes bayed at us from the opposite walls.

“Waa-hoo!” Emett’s signal, faint, far away, soaring but unmistakable, floated down to us. Across the jutting capes separating the mouths of these canyons, high above them on the rim wall of the opposite side of the Bay, stood a giant white horse silhouetted against the white sky. They made a brave picture, one most welcome to us. We yelled in chorus: “Three lions treed! Three lions treed! come down — hurry!”

A crash of rolling stones made us wheel. Jude’s lion had jumped. He ran straight down, drawing Sounder from his guard. Jude went tearing after them.

“I’ll follow; you stay here. Keep them up there, if you can!” yelled Jones. Then in long strides he passed down out of sight among the trees and crags.

It had all happened so quickly that I could scarcely realize it. The yelping of the hounds, the clattering of stones, grew fainter, telling me Jude and Sounder, with Jones, were going to the bottom of the Bay.

Both lions snarling at me brought me to a keen appreciation of the facts in the case. Two full-grown lions to be kept treed without hounds, without a companion, without a gun.

“This is fine! This is funny!” I cried, and for a moment I wanted to run. But the same grim, deadly feeling that had taken me with Don around the narrow shelf now rose in me stronger and fiercer. I pronounced one savage malediction upon myself for leaving my gun. I could not go for it; I would have to make the best of my error, and in the wildness born of the moment I swore if the lions would stay treed for the hounds they would stay treed for me.

First I photographed them from different positions; then I took up my stand about on a level with them in an open place on the slope where they had me in plain sight. I might have been fifty feet from them. They showed no inclination to come down.

About this moment I heard hounds below, coming down from the left. I called and called, but they passed on down the canyon bottom in the direction Jones had taken.

Presently a chorus of bays, emphasized by Jones’ yell, told me his lion had treed again.

“Waa-hoo!” rolled down from above.

I saw Emett farther to the left from the point where he had just appeared.

“Where — can — I — get — down?”

I surveyed the walls of the Bay. Cliff on cliff, slide on slide, jumble, crag, and ruin, baffled my gaze. But I finally picked out a path.

“Farther to the left,” I yelled, and waited. He passed on, Don at his heels.

“There,” I yelled again, “stop there; let Don go down with your lasso, and come yourself.”

I watched him swing the hound down a wall, and pull the slip noose free. Don slid to the edge of a slope, trotted to the right and left of crags, threaded the narrow places, and turned in the direction of the baying hounds. He passed on the verge of precipices that made me tremble for him; but sure-footed as a goat, he went on safely down, to disappear far to my right.

Then I saw Emett sliding, leg wrapped around his lasso, down the first step of the rim. His lasso, doubled so as to reach round a cedar above, was too short to extend to the landing below. He dropped, raising a cloud of dust, and starting the stones. Pulling one end of his lasso up around the cedar he gathered it in a coil on his arm and faced forward, following Don’s trail.

What strides he took! In the clear light, with that wild red and yellow background, with the stones and gravel roaring down, streaming over the walls like waterfalls, he seemed a giant pursuing a foe. From time to time he sent up a yell of encouragement that wound down the canyon, to be answered by Jones and the baying hounds and then the strange echoes. At last he passed out of sight behind the crests of the trees; I heard him going down, down till the sounds came up faint and hollow.

I was left absolutely alone with my two lions and never did a hunter so delight in a situation. I sat there in the sun watching them. For a long time they were quiet, listening. But as the bays and yells below diminished in volume and occurrence and then ceased altogether, they became restless. It was then that I, remembering the lion I had held on top of the crag, began to bark like a hound. The lions became quiet once more.

I bayed them for an hour. My voice grew from hoarse to hoarser, and finally failed in my throat. The lions immediately grew restless again. The lower one hissed, spat and growled at me, and made many attempts to start down, each one of which I frustrated by throwing stones under the tree. At length he made one more determined effort, turned head downward, and stepped from branch to branch.

I dashed down the incline with a stone in one hand and a long club in the other. Instinctively I knew I must hurt him — make him fear me. If he got far enough down to jump, he would either escape or have me helpless. I aimed deliberately at him, and hit him square in the ribs. He exploded in a spit-roar that raised my hair. Directly under him I wielded my club, pounded on the tree, thrashed at the branches and, like the crazy fool that I was, yelled at him:

“Go back! Go back! Don’t you dare come down! I’d break your old head for you!”

Foolish or not, this means effectually stopped the descent. He climbed to his first perch. It was then, realizing what I had done, that I would certainly have made tracks from under the piñon, if I had not heard the faint yelp of a hound.

I listened. It came again, faint but clearer. I looked up at my lions. They too heard, for they were very still. I saw how strained they held their heads. I backed a little way up the slope. Then the faint yelp floated up again in the silence. Such dead, strange silence, that seemed never to have been broken! I saw the lions quiver, and if I ever heard anything in my life I heard their hearts thump. The yelp wafted up again, closer this time. I recognized it; it belonged to Don. The great hound on the back trail of the other lion was coming to my rescue.

“It’s Don! It’s Don! It’s Don!” I cried, shaking my club at the lions. “It’s all up with you now!” What feelings stirred me then! Pity for those lions dominated me. Big, tawny, cruel fellows as they were, they shivered with fright. Their sides trembled. But pity did not hold me long; Don’s yelp, now getting clear and sharp, brought back the rush of savage, grim sensations.

A full-toned bay attracted my attention from the lions to the downward slope. I saw a yellow form moving under the trees and climbing fast. It was Don.

“Hi! Hi! old boy!” I yelled.

Then it seemed he moved up like a shot and stood all his long length, forepaws against the piñon, his deep bay ringing defiance to the lions.

It was a great relief, not to say a probable necessity, for me to sit down just then.

“Now come down,” I said to my lions; “you can’t catch that hound, and you can’t get away from him.”

Moments passed. I was just on the point of deciding to go down to hurry up my comrades, when I heard the other hounds coming. Yelp on yelp, bay on bay, made welcome music to my ears. Then a black and yellow, swiftly flying string of hounds bore into sight down the slope, streaked up and circled the piñon.

Jones, who at last showed his tall stooping form on the steep ascent, seemed as long in coming as the hounds had been swift.

“Did you get the lion? Where’s Emett?” I asked in breathless eagerness.

“Lion tied — all fast,” replied the panting Jones. “Left Emett — to guard — him.”

“What are we to do now?”

“Wait — till I get my breath. Think out — a plan. We can’t get both lions — out of one tree.”

“All right,” I replied, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll tie Sounder and Moze. You go up the tree. That first lion will jump, sure; he’s almost ready now. Don and the other hounds will tree him again pretty soon. If he runs up the canyon, well and good. Then, if you can get the lasso on the other, I’ll yell for Emett to come up to help you, and I’ll follow Don.”

Jones began the ascent of the piñon. The branches were not too close, affording him easy climbing. Before we looked for even a move on the part of the lions, the lower one began stepping down. I yelled a warning, but Jones did not have time to take advantage of it. He had half turned, meaning to swing out and drop, when the lion planted both forepaws upon his back. Jones went sprawling down with the lion almost on him.

Don had his teeth in the lion before he touched the ground, and when he did strike the rest of the hounds were on him. A cloud of dust rolled down the slope. The lion broke loose and with great, springy bounds ran up the canyon, Don and his followers hot-footing it after him.

Moze and Sounder broke the dead sapling to which I had tied them, and dragging it behind them, endeavored in frenzied action to join the chase. I drew them back, loosening the rope, so in case the other lion jumped I could free them quickly.

Jones calmly gathered himself up, rearranged his lasso, took his long stick, and proceeded to mount the piñon again. I waited till I saw him slip the noose over the lion’s head, then I ran down the slope to yell for Emett. He answered at once. I told him to hurry to Jones’ assistance. With that I headed up the canyon.

I hung close to the broad trail left by the lion and his pursuers. I passed perilously near the brink of precipices, but fear of them was not in me that day. I passed out of the Bay into the mouth of Left Canyon, and began to climb. The baying of the hounds directed me. In the box of yellow walls the chorus seemed to come from a hundred dogs.

When I found them, close to a low cliff, baying the lion in a thick, dark piñon, Ranger leaped into my arms and next Don stood up against me with his paws on my shoulders. These were strange actions, and though I marked it at the moment, I had ceased to wonder at our hounds. I took one picture as the lion sat in the dark shade, and then climbed to the low cliff and sat down. I called Don to me and held him. In case our quarry leaped upon the cliff I wanted a hound to put quickly on his trail.

Another hour passed. It must have been a dark hour for the lion — he looked as if it were — and one of impatience for the baying hounds, but for me it was a full hour. Alone with the hounds and a lion, far from the walks of men, walled in by the wild-colored cliffs, with the dry, sweet smell of cedar and piñon, I asked no more.

Sounder and Moze, vociferously venting their arrival, were forerunners to Jones. I saw his gray locks waving in the breeze, and yelled for him to take his time. As he reached me the lion jumped and ran up the canyon. This suited me, for I knew he would take to a tree soon and the farther up he went the less distance we would have to pack him. From the cliff I saw him run up a slope, pass a big cedar, cunningly turn on his trail, and then climb into the tree and hide in its thickest part. Don passed him, got off the trail, and ran at fault. The others, so used to his leadership, were also baffled. But Jude, crippled and slow, brought up the rear, and she did not go a yard beyond where the lion turned. She opened up her deep call under the cedar, and in a moment the howling pack were around her.

Jones and I toiled laboriously upward. He had brought my lasso, and he handed it to me with the significant remark that I would soon have need of it.

The cedar was bushy and overhung a yellow, bare slope that made Jones shake his head. He climbed the tree, lassoed the spitting lion and then leaped down to my side. By united and determined efforts we pulled the lion off the limb and let him down. The hounds began to leap at him. We both roared in a rage at them but to no use.

“Hold him there!” shouted Jones, leaving me with the lasso while he sprang forward.

The weight of the animal dragged me forward and, had I not taken a half hitch round a dead snag, would have lifted me off my feet or pulled the lasso from my hands. As it was, the choking lion, now within reach of the furious, leaping hounds, swung to and fro before my face. He could not see me, but his frantic lunges narrowly missed me.

If never before, Jones then showed his genius. Don had hold of the lion’s flank, and Jones, grabbing the hound by the hind legs, threw him down the slope. Don fell and rolled a hundred feet before he caught himself. Then Jones threw old Moze rolling, and Ranger, and all except faithful Jude. Before they could get back he roped the lion again and made fast to a tree. Then he yelled for me to let go. The lion fell. Jones grabbed the lasso, at the same time calling for me to stop the hounds. As they came bounding up the steep slope, I had to club the noble fellows into submission.

Before the lion recovered wholly from his severe choking, we had his paws bound fast. Then he could only heave his tawny sides, glare and spit at us.

“Now what?” asked Jones. “Emett is watching the second lion, which we fastened by chain and lasso to a swinging branch. I’m all in. My heart won’t stand any more climb.”

“You go to camp for the pack horses,” I said briefly. “Bring them all, and all the packs, and Navvy, too. I’ll help Emett tie up the second lion, and then we’ll pack them both up here to this one. You take the hounds with you.”

“Can you tie up that lion?” asked Jones. “Mind you, he’s loose except for a collar and chain. His claws haven’t been clipped. Besides, it’ll be an awful job to pack those two lions up here.”

“We can try,” I said. “You hustle to camp. Your horse is right up back of here, across the point, if I don’t mistake my bearings.”

Jones, admonishing me again, called the hounds and wearily climbed the slope. I waited until he was out of hearing; then began to retrace my trail down into the canyon. I made the descent in quick time, to find Emett standing guard over the lion. The beast had been tied to an overhanging branch that swung violently with every move he made.

“When I got here,” said Emett, “he was hanging over the side of that rock, almost choked to death. I drove him into this corner between the rocks and the tree, where he has been comparatively quiet. Now, what’s up? Where is Jones? Did you get the third lion?”

I related what had occurred, and then said we were to tie this lion and pack him with the other one up the canyon, to meet Jones and the horses.

“All right,” replied Emett, with a grim laugh. “We’d better get at it. Now I’m some worried about the lion we left below. He ought to be brought up, but we both can’t go. This lion here will kill himself.”

“What will the other one weigh?”

“All of one hundred and fifty pounds.”

“You can’t pack him alone.”

“I’ll try, and I reckon that’s the best plan. Watch this fellow and keep him in the corner.”

Emett left me then, and I began a third long vigil beside a lion. The rest was more than welcome. An hour and a half passed before I heard the sliding of stones below, which told me that Emett was coming. He appeared on the slope almost bent double, carrying the lion, head downward, before him. He could climb only a few steps without lowering his burden and resting.

I ran down to meet him. We secured a stout pole, and slipping this between the lion’s paws, below where they were tied, we managed to carry him fairly well, and after several rests, got him up alongside the other.

“Now to tie that rascal!” exclaimed Emett. “Jones said he was the meanest one he’d tackled, and I believe it. We’ll cut a piece off of each lasso, and unravel them so as to get strings. I wish Jones hadn’t tied the lasso to that swinging branch.”

“I’ll go and untie it.” Acting on this suggestion I climbed the tree and started out on the branch. The lion growled fiercely.

“I’m afraid you’d better stop,” warned Emett. “That branch is bending, and the lion can reach you.”

But despite this I slipped out a couple of yards farther, and had almost gotten to the knotted lasso, when the branch swayed and bent alarmingly. The lion sprang from his corner and crouched under me snarling and spitting, with every indication of leaping.

“Jump! Jump! Jump!” shouted Emett hoarsely.

Billy in Camp

Lion Licking Snowball

I dared not, for I could not jump far enough to get out of the lion’s reach. I raised my legs and began to slide myself back up the branch. The lion leaped, missing me, but scattering the dead twigs. Then the beast, beside himself with fury, half leaped, half stood up, and reached for me. I looked down into his blazing eyes, and open mouth and saw his white fangs.

Everything grew blurred before my eyes. I desperately fought for control over mind and muscle. I heard hoarse roars from Emett. Then I felt a hot, burning pain in my wrist, which stung all my faculties into keen life again.

I saw the lion’s beaked claws fastened in my leather wrist-band. At the same instant Emett dashed under the branch, and grasped the lion’s tail. One powerful lunge of his broad shoulders tore the lion loose and flung him down the slope to the full extent of his lasso. Quick as thought I jumped down, and just in time to prevent Emett from attacking the lion with the heavy pole we had used.

“I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” roared Emett.

“No you won’t,” I replied, quietly, for my pain had served to soothe my excitement as well as to make me more determined. “We’ll tie up the darned tiger, if he cuts us all to pieces. You know how Jones will give us the laugh if we fail. Here, bind up my wrist.”

Mention of Jones’ probable ridicule and sight of my injury cooled Emett.

“It’s a nasty scratch,” he said, binding my handkerchief round it. “The leather saved your hand from being torn off. He’s an ugly brute, but you’re right, we’ll tie him. Now, let’s each take a lasso and worry him till we get hold of a paw. Then we can stretch him out.”

Jones did a fiendish thing when he tied that lion to the swinging branch. It was almost worse than having him entirely free. He had a circle almost twenty feet in diameter in which he could run and leap at will. It seemed he was in the air all the time. First at Emett, than at me he sprang, mouth agape, eyes wild, claws spread. We whipped him with our nooses, but not one would hold. He always tore it off before we could draw it tight. I secured a precarious hold on one hind paw and straightened my lasso.

“That’s far enough,” cried Emett. “Now hold him tight; don’t lift him off the ground.”

I had backed up the slope. Emett faced the lion, noose ready, waiting for a favorable chance to rope a front paw. The lion crouched low and tense, only his long tail lashing back and forth across my lasso. Emett threw the loop in front of the spread paws, now half sunk into the dust.

“Ease up; ease up,” said he. “I’ll tease him to jump into the noose.”

I let my rope sag. Emett poked a stick into the lion’s face. All at once I saw the slack in the lasso which was tied to the lion’s chain. Before I could yell to warn my comrade the beast leaped. My rope burned as it tore through my hands. The lion sailed into the air, his paws wide-spread like wings, and one of them struck Emett on the head and rolled him on the slope. I jerked back on my rope only to find it had slipped its hold.

“He slugged me one,” remarked Emett, calmly rising and picking up his hat. “Did he break the skin?”

“No, but he tore your hat band off,” I replied. “Let’s keep at him.”

For a few moments or an hour — no one will ever know how long — we ran round him, raising the dust, scattering the stones, breaking the branches, dodging his onslaughts. He leaped at us to the full length of his tether, sailing right into our faces, a fierce, uncowed, tigerish beast. If it had not been for the collar and swivel he would have choked himself a hundred times. Quick as a cat, supple, powerful, tireless, he kept on the go, whirling, bounding, leaping, rolling, till it seemed we would never catch him.

“If anything breaks, he’ll get one of us,” cried Emett. “I felt his breath that time.”

“Lord! How I wish we had some of those fellows here who say lions are rank cowards!” I exclaimed.

In one of his sweeping side swings the lion struck the rock and hung there on its flat surface with his tail hanging over.

“Attract his attention,” shouted Emett, “but don’t get too close. Don’t make him jump.”

While I slowly manoeuvered in front of the lion, Emett slipped behind the rock, lunged for the long tail and got a good hold of it. Then with a whoop he ran around the rock, carrying the kicking, squalling lion clear of the ground.

“Now’s your chance,” he yelled. “Rope a hind foot! I can hold him.”

In a second I had a noose fast on both hind paws, and then passed my rope to Emett. While he held the lion I again climbed the tree, untied the knot that had caused so much trouble, and very shortly we had our obstinate captive stretched out between two trees. After that we took a much needed breathing spell.

“Not